As communications manager for a decade-old chain of boutique hotels, Phuong Hong has a close look at the latest business trend in booming Vietnam: the coming of Chinese money. Although her company saw some benefit from the nearly 5 million Chinese visitors to Vietnam in 2018, she also viewed the influx with skepticism. She complained about the prices and quality of service she recently experienced at a Chinese medical clinic. Doing business with Chinese people is OK, but Vietnamese people are so open, so friendly, the 38-year-old said recently at one of her companys hotels. The flow of Chinese money into Vietnam largely to escape the trade war with the United States has drawn a cautious welcome from Vietnamese, who worry about the prospect of a longtime foe increasing its economic control in their country. Advertisement Chinese money permeates Vietnam these days: Besides China being the top source of tourists in 2018, Chinese investors are snapping up properties in Ho Chi Minh Citys buzzing real estate market while Chinese companies are building infrastructure and eyeing land in special economic zones Vietnam is opening to lure foreign investment. While the Vietnamese government has aggressively pursued investment from the European Union, Japan and South Korea, it has been less openly welcoming of China, in part due to public opposition to a heavy Chinese economic presence. But the countrys manufacturing sector depends on raw materials from China, and analysts said officials in Vietnam have tried to work with Beijing on economic issues while not appearing pro-Chinese in the eyes of the Vietnamese people. Maxfield Brown, senior associate with the business consultancy Dezan Shira & Associates in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnams largest city, said that when the U.S. and China began a tit-for-tat trade war by escalating tariffs on the others goods, many multinational clients with factories in China approached the firm, asking whether they could avoid duties by transshipping their U.S.-bound goods through Vietnam. Chinese interest in Vietnam is likely to go far beyond that, Brown said. I think youll probably see in the short term money flowing into manufacturing operations, and on the people-to-people level youre going to see a lot of tourism coming to Vietnam, he said. Real estate is an interesting area at the moment, as well. Tourists, most of whom are from China, visit the Truong Son Mountains in Nha Trang, Khanh Hoa province, Vietnam, in August 2018. (Zhang jiancheng / Imaginechina via Associated Press) These inflows would accelerate Vietnams economic growth already averaging a fast 6%-7% per year since 2012 by adding jobs, raising wages and helping to expand the middle class. The Boston Consulting Group forecasts that nearly one-third of Vietnams 93 million people will attain middle-class status or higher by 2020, an about-face from the rampant post-Vietnam War poverty of the late 1970s. There are so many companies coming to look at Vietnam now that there are people talking about labor shortages, especially around Ho Chi Minh City, said Frederick Burke, partner with the law firm Baker McKenzie in Ho Chi Minh City. Malls and luxury apartments have sprung up on land once earmarked for factories, too, he said. Advertisement Chinese firms and multinationals with factories in China hope to avoid U.S. tariffs that took effect in 2018, particularly a round in September that hit $200 billion in exports from China. Some have already announced plans to move; others are making frantic inquiries to business consultants in Ho Chi Minh City about how to ship made-in-China goods through Vietnam without paying U.S. tariffs. Foxconn Technology, the worlds largest contract assembler of consumer electronics, has spoken to officials in Hanoi, the capital, about setting up an iPhone plant, the Vietnam Investment Review reported. Foxconn, whose Chinese factories employ hundreds of thousands, declined to comment but said it had invested in Vietnam since 2007 and hired 23,000 people there. Chinese bike parts maker HL Corp. told investors in August that tariffs had influenced its decision to move production to Vietnam. Vietnam has other advantages for investors, too. It enjoys most-favored-nation trading status with the U.S., ensuring that it faces the fewest trade barriers and lowest tariffs. Its manufacturing workers earn 30% of what counterparts get in China, Dezan Shira & Associates says, and the government is close to finalizing free trade deals with the European Union and with 11 Pacific Rim countries. Advertisement In the Ho Chi Minh City property market, where demand leads supply, Chinese bought 31% of higher-end homes sold in the first nine months of 2018, up from 2% in 2016, real estate services firm CBRE calculated based on transactions in which it took part. The company attributed the influx to Vietnams decision to relax foreign ownership rules to attract more international investors. China is pushing Vietnam to accept more infrastructure aid as part of its $1-trillion Belt and Road initiative thats designed to expand trade routes and project Chinese influence across dozens of countries. A $670-million Chinese loan paid for a commuter rail system that opened last year in Hanoi. Companies from China are also eyeing 99-year leases in three special economic zones that Vietnams National Assembly is expected to open this year for foreign investment. Chinese direct investment comes to about 7.7% of Vietnams total now $11.2 billion invested in 1,616 active projects. At a seaport near Hanoi, Chinese investors are lining up to invest in a special economic zone with low land prices and tax incentives, said Zhao Xijun, associate dean of the School of Finance at the Peoples University of China in Beijing. Advertisement All the investment comes despite long-standing resentment of Chinese behavior toward Vietnam. After fighting off U.S. forces in the Vietnam War, Vietnam pushed back an incursion by Chinese troops during a brief border war in 1979. Many Vietnamese resent Beijings expansion in parts of the South China Sea also claimed by Vietnam. Too much inflow from China could set off another backlash, some experts fear. Anti-China riots in 2014 damaged Chinese-owned factories after Beijing authorized placement of an oil rig in the disputed sea, and thousands protested in June 2018 as legislators debated letting foreigners, including Chinese, lease land in the special economic zones. The protests prompted Vietnamese legislators to twice delay the leasing of tracts to foreign investors. Advertisement Zhao, who visited the Hanoi port zone in November, said Vietnam will ultimately accept Chinese investment because the two countries ruling Communist parties get along. Chinese investors got [to the port zone] faster than other countries and their corporate effectiveness is a bit higher, Zhao said. The Chinese and Vietnamese Communist parties have a bond and lots of understandings. Although we had a war in the 1970s, Vietnam has fought a lot of countries, so you cant call this a historic problem. Other analysts and observers warn of the potential for greater backlash. Further Chinese influence in the Ho Chi Minh City housing market could frustrate local buyers who already face supply shortages, Brown and others said. Chinese firms also have the scale to hurt local companies by flooding Vietnam with cheap goods, said Trung Nguyen, international relations dean at the Ho Chi Minh University of Social Sciences and Humanities. Advertisement I dont think small local businesses will welcome Chinas money, Nguyen said. Maybe they can dominate the market. They will flood the market with Chinese goods in the future. Many Vietnamese show a wary openness toward China. Ha Tran, a 25-year-old employee of a design company in Ho Chi Minh City, said she buys Chinese-made flip-flops because theyre so cheap it doesnt matter how often they break. She avoids other Chinese goods. Weve tried [various goods] many times in the past, but it turns out that they get broken very easily, she said. Advertisement Phuong, the hotel company employee, advocates more government oversight of Chinese investment in industry and healthcare to protect consumers. I think the government should know how to control the quality, she said. If people are well educated, they can make a decision. Jennings is a special correspondent. North Koreas top diplomat in Italy and his wife have gone into hiding, according to a South Korean lawmaker, raising the possibility of a rare defection of a senior North Korean official. The news came from South Koreas spy agency, which briefed lawmakers in Seoul on Thursday on the status of North Koreas acting ambassador to Italy, Jo Song Gil. It said he went into hiding with his wife in November before his posting to Italy ended late that month. A high-profile defection by one of North Koreas elite would be a huge embarrassment for leader Kim Jong Un as he pursues diplomacy with Seoul and Washington and seeks to portray himself as a player in international geopolitics. South Korean lawmaker Kim Min-ki said an official from Seouls National Intelligence Service shared the information during a closed-door briefing. Kim did not say whether the spy agency revealed any information about Jos current whereabouts or whether the diplomat had plans to defect to South Korea. Advertisement According to Kim, the NIS said it has not been contacted by Jo. North Koreas acting ambassador to Italy, Jo Song Gil, in March 2018 (Farra di Soligo) Kim said the NIS official reported that Jo and his wife had left the official residence in early November, weeks before his term was to end later that month. Kim said he couldnt confirm if the NIS official revealed whether Jo and his wife were accompanied by any children. The NIS earlier said it couldnt confirm a South Korean media report that Jo was under the protection of the Italian government as he seeks asylum in a Western nation. North Korea has not yet commented on Jos status. An official with the Italian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that Jo hadnt requested asylum from Italy. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with standard practice, also noted that Jo no longer held diplomatic status in Italy, presumably because his diplomatic assignment had ended. North Korea, which touts itself in its propaganda as a socialist paradise, is extremely sensitive about defections, especially among its elite diplomatic corps, and has previously insisted that they are South Korean or U.S. plots to undermine its government. About 30,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, according to South Korean government figures. Many defectors have said they wanted to leave North Koreas harsh political system and widespread poverty. North Korea often accuses the South of deceiving or paying people to defect, or claims that they have been kidnapped. Advertisement North Korea may publicly ignore Jos possible defection or hold back harsh criticism to avoid highlighting the vulnerability of its government as it tries to engage Washington and Seoul in negotiations, said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seouls Dongguk University. Jo had been North Koreas acting ambassador to Rome after Italy expelled then-Ambassador Mun Jong Nam in October 2017 to protest a North Korean nuclear test and long-range missile launch. The last senior North Korean diplomat known to have defected is Thae Yong Ho, a former minister at the North Korean Embassy in London, who fled to South Korea in 2016. In an interview on South Korean television, Thae said he worked with Jo for more than a decade in the North Korean Foreign Ministrys Europe bureau and that Jo had a child when Thae last saw him in 2013. Advertisement Thae said Jo comes from a family of diplomats, with his father and father-in-law both serving as ambassadors. Thae said the Italian Embassy is crucial for North Korea because it handles annual negotiations with the Rome-based World Food Program over food aid to North Korea. Thae also said Italy has been a hub for smuggling luxury items to the North Korean elite and that Jo would have been involved in those activities. Thae said Jo would have been North Koreas main diplomat for the Vatican and would have also handled discussions involving a possible visit to the North by Pope Francis if such talks had taken place. South Korea said in October that North Korean leader Kim mentioned during a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in that he would welcome a papal visit. Thae said he believes that Jo was to be replaced by incoming ambassador Kim Chon in late November, but did not reveal how he obtained such information. Advertisement While not identifying him by name, North Koreas state media described Thae as human scum after his defection to the South and claimed that he was trying to escape punishment for serious crimes. Thae, who has been an outspoken critic of Kim Jong Un while living in South Korea, denied the accusation and said he defected because he didnt want his children to live miserable lives in the North. Its possible that Jo is trying to defect because of similar reasons, said Koh, who is a policy advisor for South Koreas president. It could be difficult for some diplomats to accept being called back to the North after enjoying years living in the free West. They could want their children to live in a different system and receive better education, he told the AP. Advertisement The highest-level North Korean to seek asylum in South Korea is Hwang Jang-yop, a senior ruling Workers Party official who once tutored Kim Jong Uns late father, dictator Kim Jong Il. Hwangs 1997 defection was hailed by many South Koreans as an intelligence bonanza. Hwang died in 2010. Also in 1997, the North Korean ambassador to Egypt fled and resettled in the United States. Pope Francis admonished Roman Catholic Church leaders for covering up sex abuse scandals and indulging in gossip and slander to duck the blame, according to a letter to U.S. bishops released Thursday by the Vatican. The Churchs credibility has been seriously undercut and diminished by these sins and crimes, but even more by the efforts made to deny or conceal them, Francis wrote in an eight-page letter dated Jan. 1. The letter was dispatched as U.S. bishops met this week at Mundelein Seminary in Illinois for a prayer retreat, which Francis suggested they organize to reflect on the sex abuse scandal plaguing the Roman Catholic Church. About 250 bishops are at the retreat, which is being held ahead of a major bishops conference on abuse at the Vatican next month. After emerging in Boston in 2002, revelations of priests abusing young worshipers have erupted around the world. A grand jury inquiry into abuse in Pennsylvania last year reported hundreds more cases, prompting the resignation of one of the most senior prelates in the U.S., Cardinal Donald Wuerl. Advertisement In his Christmas address at the Vatican, Francis demanded that priests who had abused children hand themselves over to authorities. In the letter released Thursday, he claimed a new approach to spirituality was needed to regain credibility, since it cannot be regained by issuing stern decrees or by simply creating new committees or improving flow charts, as if we were in charge of a department of human resources. This approach demands of us the decision to abandon a modus operandi of disparaging, discrediting, playing the victim or the scold in our relationships, and instead to make room for the gentle breeze that the Gospel alone can offer, he wrote. The letter does not discuss punishment for abusive clergy. Some conservative Catholics have balked at accusations from Rome over the abuse scandal, claiming the Vatican and Francis also bear responsibility for perpetuating abuse. Francis came under attack last year when a former papal nuncio to the United States, Cardinal Carlo Maria Vigano, accused him of ignoring abuse allegedly committed by Theodore McCarrick, the retired archbishop of Washington. McCarrick resigned from the College of Cardinals last year after he was accused of molesting a minor in the 1970s. Since then, former seminarians have claimed McCarrick tried to share a bed with them. The row has fueled attacks on Francis and encouraged divisions in the U.S. between moderate Catholics and more conservative Catholics who resent the popes mercy-before-dogma style. Advertisement In his letter, Francis appeared to address the rancor. Let us try to break the vicious circle of recrimination, undercutting and discrediting, by avoiding gossip and slander in the pursuit of a path of prayerful and contrite acceptance of our limitations and sins, and the promotion of dialogue, discussion and discernment, he wrote. It was painful, he wrote, to watch an episcopate lacking in unity and concentrated more on pointing fingers than on seeking paths of reconciliation. Kington is a special correspondent. A former U.S. Marine being held in Moscow has been formally charged with espionage, Russian news agencies reported Thursday, a move likely to deepen diplomatic tensions between Moscow and Washington. A Russian court charged Paul Whelan, 48, on Monday, according to Interfax, a Russian news agency. The charges came after the FSB, the Russian security agency, arrested Whelan on Dec. 28 at the famed Metropol Hotel in central Moscow, just steps from the Kremlin. At the time, the FSB said Whelan had been detained during an act of espionage but did not provide any details. Whelans family insists he is innocent and was in Moscow to attend a friends wedding. We are deeply concerned for his safety and well-being, his twin brother David said in a statement. Advertisement A Russian defense lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, has requested that Whelan be released on bail, Interfax reported. If convicted, Whelan could face up to 20 years in prison. According to multiple media reports, Whelan is the director of global security and investigations for BorgWarner, an automotive components manufacturer in Michigan. His brother said in media interviews that Whelan had an avid interest in Russia and had visited the country several times, but that he was not a spy. U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman visited Whelan on Wednesday at the Lefortovo Detention Center in Moscow, where Whelan is being held in isolation, and assured him the government was doing all it could to make sure he is treated well. Huntsman later called Whelans family and offered the U.S. Embassys help, while Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo said Washington was continuing to seek information about the case against Whelan and would demand his release if the detention is not appropriate. I dont have much to update, but the American people should know that the safety and security of Americans traveling abroad is of the utmost importance to us here at the State Department and throughout the United States government, Pompeo told the news website Newsmax. Were doing everything we can to make sure that hes treated appropriately and that we get the information we need. Zherebenkov told Interfax that the Russian courts have provided Whelan with a translator and that he was being treated professionally in the detention center and was not depressed. Whelans arrest raised speculation that the Kremlin was seeking a Cold War-style reciprocal response to the U.S. prosecution of Maria Butina, a Russian citizen who was charged with operating as an unregistered foreign agent on behalf of the Russian government. Butina is accused of trying to infiltrate right-leaning groups such as the National Rifle Assn. during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The Kremlin has denied Butina is a Russian agent and accused the U.S. of conducting a Russophobic campaign meant to weaken Moscows position on the world political stage. Russian media speculation about Whalen has raised tensions in Moscow at a time when relations between the U.S. and Moscow are strained. Advertisement RosBalt, a Russian news agency, on Thursday quoted an unnamed source within the investigation as saying that Whelan was caught red-handed in Moscow after receiving a flash drive containing Russian state secrets. RosBalt reported that the source told it that the information contained the names of Russian security officers, information that Whelan had reportedly obtained through social media. RosBalt said that investigators believed Whelan was trying to friend Russians online and embed himself in their private lives to obtain state secrets. The report suggested that Whelan went as far as going to family celebrations, such as the wedding Whelan was allegedly in Moscow to attend. Zherebenkov told Russian news agencies that the courts could hold Whelan until at least Feb. 28, unless bail is set. Russian government agencies are on holiday until after the Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7, making it unclear when Whelans case might be heard. Ayres reported from London. Advertisement Staff writer Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this report from Washington. Abdul Hameed walks along the edge of the Chiltan dams dry reservoir to a hut, where he spends his days watching for passing animals that could be threatened by hunters. Lately, the provincial wildlife ranger says, the beasts have been scarce. There used to be ibex, markhor goats, other wildlife, said Hameed, 49. But they are migrating from the Chiltan because most of the ponds have gone dry. It is a common lament here in Baluchistan, Pakistans most expansive but poorest province, which is suffering from a prolonged drought so dire it has triggered a health crisis. Since the 1960s, residents have had one main demand from every provincial government: Give us water. In 2013, the government optimistically built the Chiltan dam outside Quetta, the provincial capital, to provide water for villages like Qilli Haji Ishaq Khan, where Hameed lives. But with little rain since then, the dam has been of scant value. Advertisement (Lorena Elebee / Los Angeles Times) Hameeds family is so tied to his village in the mountains outside Quetta that it is named for his elder brother, Haji Ishaq Khan Sumalani. They and other Sumalani tribespeople have lived in this dry area for 150 years, once bringing in water on camelback and building a pond in the early 2000s to collect rainwater. Now that pond is dry. Out of the 50 families that once lived in the village, 20 have left because of the water crisis and settled in other villages, Hameed said. Humans dont have water to drink here, Hameed said. I doubt if we can stop the migration of wildlife, because as human beings, we are thinking of leaving to live in a place where we have water. Baluchistan, which covers 40% of Pakistans land area, has long suffered from poverty, official neglect and separatist violence. Despite large stores of natural gas and mineral resources in the province, United Nations figures say that 71% of its 12 million people live in poverty. Five years ago, officials announced plans to build 100 small dams to divert water to towns and villages, but few have been completed. Amid years of scarce rainfall blamed in part on climate change, wells are running dry and most residents must purchase water to drink and bathe. According to the provincial government, 62% of Baluchistan lacks safe drinking water and more than 60% of its land is not cultivable. As the water crisis has worsened, so has the hunger rate in Baluchistan, with provincial health ministers declaring a malnutrition emergency in late November. Advertisement Officials estimate that 16% of the children here suffer from acute malnutrition and that 40% under the age of 5 are underweight. More than half suffer from stunted growth and face vitamin deficiencies. Provincial health minister Naseebullah Marri said Baluchistan officials have pressed the federal government in Islamabad for urgent help to battle the drought and nutrition crisis. But provincial Assembly member Sanaullah Baloch said that nothing has been done. The government thinks that they can end drought by distributing some food, Baloch said. The government needs proper planning, policies and execution of those policies in which the Baluchistan government lags behind. Advertisement Haibat Khan Marri, a 40-year-old security guard in Quetta who is not related to the health minister, said five of his eight children were deemed to be malnourished during a recent health screening. He lives in a neighborhood called New Kahan Marri, where 60% of the children are listed as being malnourished the highest rate in the province. On his $170 monthly salary, Marri said, he cant afford to buy meat or other protein for his family. His wife, who is pregnant, has not been able to breastfeed their youngest children, so he has to buy infant formula, which they mix with packaged water. For malnourished children, the government has provided emergency food supplements. But some experts say the government needs to do more. It is a multi-sector issue which only can be tackled when the government resolves poverty, the water crisis and drought-related issues together, said Faisal Muhammad, a nutrition expert at UNICEF. Advertisement Many in New Kahan Marri opposed the Pakistani government in the 1970s and left for Afghanistan, returning after a military coup and the execution of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Asked why the current government hadnt done more for New Kahan Marri, the health minister dismissed the residents as migrants and terrorists. In September, newly elected Prime Minister Imran Khan, who ran on a populist platform, said at a meeting of provincial leaders that he would resolve the water crisis in Baluchistan and neighboring Sindh province. But so far there is little to show for Khans pledge. Many experts believe that funds intended for health emergencies have been squandered to corruption. While officials have banned residents from drilling their own wells in Quetta to prevent a worsening of the water shortage some people have drilled unlicensed wells while authorities look the other way, said Imran Alyani, chief engineer with the provincial public health department. Hameed, who has eight children, now buys water to survive. Of his $200 monthly salary, he estimates he spends more than one-third on water. Advertisement We have submitted a letter to every government for providing us water, Hameed said. We demand a well that can meet our water needs, but the government never listens to weak voices. Baloch is a special correspondent. In a rare public break with the White House, top Afghan government officials on Thursday criticized President Trumps praise of the 1979 Soviet invasion of their country and defended the sacrifice of millions of Afghans in the conflict. During Trumps rambling, 90-minute riff before reporters as members of his Cabinet looked on, the president on Wednesday said Moscows invasion which the U.S. opposed as a violation of Afghan sovereignty and an attempt to spread communism was justified because of the threat of terrorism from Afghanistan. The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia, Trump said. They were right to be there. The problem is it was a tough fight. Trumps comments not only broke with the policies of the U.S. government, which under the Carter and Reagan administrations secretly funneled arms and support to Afghanistans anti-Soviet forces, they also spread anger through top levels of a country where the United States still has 14,000 service members stationed. Advertisement Afghan President Ashraf Ghani issued a statement saying that dozens of countries had denounced the invasion and that Afghans fought to liberate their holy land. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, shown in July, said after Trumps comments that he had urged clarification through diplomatic sources. (Rahmat Gul / Associated Press) Adding that all U.S. presidents since had supported the Afghan resistance that drove out Soviet forces, Ghani said his government had urged clarification through diplomatic sources from our ally the United States. Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani tweeted that the Soviet occupation was a grave violation of Afghanistans territorial integrity and that any other claim defies historical facts. He cited the heroic resistance & sacrifice of millions of Afghans in a conflict that was widely seen as modern Afghanistans proudest achievement. The Afghan resistance covertly backed by the CIA sapped Moscows finances and morale and is seen as one of the factors that hastened the downfall of the Soviet Union. Trump used the historical example to argue that countries should police their own regions but erroneously said that the Afghan invasion bankrupted Moscow. It was the latest in a series of puzzling moves by Trump regarding Afghanistan, site of Americas longest war. In two years in office, Trump has described the war as a waste of U.S. resources, then deployed several thousand more troops there, and has now authorized a desperate bid to make peace with Taliban insurgents who appear to have the upper hand against an Afghan army and police force the U.S. has spent billions to support. Advertisement Trump has also said he wants to withdraw half of U.S. troops soon, seemingly weakening the U.S. negotiating position even before talks begin. Why are we there? he asked Wednesday. Were 6,000 miles away. In the same monologue, Trump also maligned another friendly country, India, with wrong information about New Delhis development assistance in Afghanistan. He said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan. OK, a library. He continued, Thats like, you know what that is, thats like five hours of what we spend. And were supposed to say, Oh thank you for the library. I dont know whos using it, in Afghanistan. India has spent $3 billion in development assistance in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion making it the countrys fifth-largest donor to build roads, schools and a new parliament building. Advertisement A library is not among the biggest projects, but India did finance a small library in Sar-e-Pol province, according to an 11-page booklet called India-Afghanistan: A Historic and Time-Tested Friendship that Indias foreign ministry republished on its website Thursday. It was the Indian governments only official response to Trumps comments. Special correspondent Faizy reported from Kabul and Times staff writer Bengali from Singapore. Afghan fighters listen to a radio and rest in the Kunar province, near the Pakistani border, in February 1980. (Associated Press) Advertisement Special correspondent Faizy reported from Kabul and Times staff writer Bengali from Singapore. shashank.bengali@latimes.com Shashank Bengali is Southeast Asia correspondent for The Times. Follow him on Twitter at @SBengali A few days before the calendar flipped to the new year, reporter Christopher Reynolds and I were talking about the list of places we recommend to our readers not the one that ran in print and online Dec. 30, but the one were planning for the end of 2019. It is never too early to start, because we know from having wrestled with this task for some years that it looks easy and never is. Its always a little bit scary, writing about where to go in the year ahead, Reynolds said in an email, because instead of writing about somewhere Ive just been (my usual m.o.), I often wind up including a few places Ive never seen but have been hearing about and would love to see. It takes dozens of interviews and phone calls to find the details that give it flavor. For her list, Mary Forgione grapples with trying to assess how milestone events can motivate us to travel to a place. I look for things we shouldnt forget, she said in an email, explaining her inclusion of anniversaries involving Jackie Robinson and Sir Edmund Hillary, among others. Advertisement For me, the task is equally reporting-intensive and anxiety-inducing. This year, a little year-end economic and governmental drama shaped, then reshaped, my choices. Mexico was on Reynolds early list for 2019, but not in the final article. It wasnt histrionics that changed his collection. He explained the absence this way: Mexicos Nayarit coast, north of Puerto Vallarta, has been booming. But when I found that several soon-to-open resorts wont actually start up until 2020 or later, I decided to wait. San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, continues to be a magnet for Americans who like colonial buildings and upscale restaurants in a city thats not too big but it made the list last year, so I threw it out this time. Forgione also looks for an event thats unknown and if not pivotal in history, astounding that it has been lost to the mists of time. And I try to read the tea leaves to tell you about what hasnt happened yet but may. My name is Catharine Hamm, and besides writing about consumer travel issues, Im the Travel editor for the Los Angeles Times and your newsletter host. Im looking forward to the start of 2019, not just because we get to shake the dust and the disillusionment of the last year from our shoes, but also because it means we have 360 days from this day until our next look-ahead issue. Whew. Time is another perk of a new year. Besides that issue, the holidays, usually quiet, werent this season. Weve seen the opening of a giant Italian market in our favorite playground, and a partial government shutdown that has changed the way we interact with some of our favorite destinations. If you didnt have a chance to get away, weve compiled a list of our favorite quick escapes. Theres much, much more, and I hope youll choose from this buffet and think about your travel choices ahead. Advertisement A new year is like an empty travel journal just waiting to be inscribed. Get out your pens and pencils, travelers. Times a-wasting. Getting lost in a daydream: Our Top 10 Think of this Top 10 list as a chat with your best friend who loves to travel. Christopher Reynolds has assembled a list thats hard to turn away from. I hear my minds ear saying, Oooh, I want to do that! Once you tear your gaze away from one item, youll also hear yourself saying, That one too! and Oh, yeah, that one! Something to ponder as you begin whittling down your choices and what delicious agony doing so. Coastline at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the island of Hawaii. (Paul Zizka / Hawaii Tourism Authority) Whats going on here? Plenty. The new year promises some amazing anniversary celebrations (the Grand Canyon marks 100 years as a national park, although the canyon itself is 60,000 times older, and Pebble Beach Resorts is celebrating its centennial too), including honors for the Reno Rodeo and Jackie Robinson. The milestones also reveal some history, some of it known (a refresher is in order, perhaps, for World War I history) and some of it long forgotten (a disaster in Boston). Its a fun read by Mary Forgione and reminds us that its never a bad time to pause, pay homage and remember. Advertisement The sun begins to rise at Mather Point on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, marking an important anniversary in 2019. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) Well, what do you know? Youre savvy travelers, so the answer is: Plenty. And theres plenty more to know as the year begins, including some of the new ways you might be booking a trip (think dulcet tones) and how quickly the luxury market is growing, which means a flood of new, swank hotels. And about those airfares will they go up or down? (Answer: Anybodys guess, including mine.) There is so much more to tell but for now, here are 10 things to keep tucked away. Travel bookings increasingly may be done with such devices as Amazons Alexa. (Catharine Hamm / Los Angeles Times) Time for a quick getaway Maybe you didnt leave town during the holidays (too much to do, too much hassle to get away with the masses), but now you feel as though you want at least a weekend away. Our editors chose some of our favorite Weekend Escapes in California and the West, and were pretty sure theres one that will strike your fancy. Advertisement Near Morro Rock, Cayucos, Calif., is an unfussy and relaxing destination. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) The heat is on Theres a chill in the air of late, so these will warm you up: a fire pit, whether its on the beach or on the roof, gives you a place to snuggle down. Mary Forgione writes about six great places to that will warm your toes and your soul. The fire art installation at Esperanza resort in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. (Esperanza, Auberge Resorts Collection) Resolve to be better with money The smarter you are with a dollar, the better or longer or both your travels can be, writes Terry Gardner in a Money Matters column. It explains how a direct flight (stop, no change of planes) or a connecting flight (change of planes) could end up costing you in the long run and why a bus ride just might be the answer to your transportation needs. Advertisement FlixBus, a European-based service, offers service from L.A. to Vegas and other places. Thrifty and comfortable, too. (Julie Bergonz Photography / FlixMobility) Benvenuto, Eataly Its not as though we dont have our own Eataly in the Southland (10250 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A.). But lets say youre in Vegas and you have an emergency need for Batticuori cookies or eucalyptus honey (or wine, cheese, pizza and so on). Now theres an Eataly in Las Vegas, ready to indulge your every taste or whim. The newest outpost for this wildly popular megamarket/restaurant/food hall is in the Park MGM. Its said to be open 24 hours a day, although for now, service is limited. Guests at the Park MGM entering from Las Vegas Boulevard step directly into Eataly, which was designed to have the feel of a bustling railway station. (Franciso Lupini / Eataly USA) Goodbye to another bookstore Distant Lands wasnt just another bookstore. The Pasadena shop has the most obscure (but also popular) travel books and also hosted many a speaker. Now it has closed. Read about whats next. Advertisement Distant Lands, a Pasadena bookstore that specialized in all things travel, has closed. (Distant Lands) What the shutdown means to you On Thursday, Congress returns to try to resolve the issue of the partial government shutdown. Meanwhile, weve covered the travel-related aspects, which will continue unless the matter is resolved. Mary Forgione writes that Recreation.gov, which handles reservations for campgrounds, is suggesting you not make any reservations while the government is closed. Christopher Reynolds, meanwhile, writes about the closure of the Smithsonian museums and galleries and the National Zoo. (Animals will be fed.) And Mary Forgione and Javier Panzer write about the public health hazard thats been created by leaving at least two national parks open but without restroom facilities. Advertisement A line of cars streams into Joshua Tree National Park on Saturday despite the federal governments partial shutdown. That has come to an end because of health concerns. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) What were reading Antarctica doesnt generate a lot of news, but two pieces caught our eye: A Portland, Ore., man hiked 930 miles across the continent by himself in 54 days. We also have to wonder whether he heard any of the weird sounds Quartz reported as coming from there. Gizmodo writes on the acoustic oddities collected on the frozen continent. Atlas Obscuras 10 Unique Animal places to visit in 2018 by Nikki Vargas includes places that are memorable and ethical, the way all animal tourism should be. Vargas writes about the wild horses of the Salt River, near Mesa, Ariz., that live in the Tonto National Forest; the RAPS (Regional Animal Protection Services Cat Sanctuary) in Richmond, Canada, which the writer calls a Club Med for felines; the Nairobi Animal Orphanage in Nairobi National park in Kenya that takes care of critters that have been injured or abandoned; the Technicolor squirrels of Bhimashankar, India; and much more. In other animal news, pointy-eared dogs are out of favor; floppy-eared dogs are in for Transportation Security Administration work. TSA thinks the pointies are intimidating, The L.A. Times Hugo Martin writes based on a Washington Examiner report. Apparently perceived as threatening: the German shepherd and the Belgian Malinois. Currently used by TSA: sporting breeds including Labrador retrievers, German short-haired pointers, wirehaired pointers, Vizslas and golden retrievers. Advertisement A German shorthaired pointer like Angus is less threatening to passengers, the Transportation Security Administration says. (Carl Juste / TNS) End paper This newsletter and others covering a plethora of topics are free and can be delivered to your inbox. To subscribe to this newsletter, which comes out weekly, or its monthly Vegas cousin or dozens of other packaged-just-for-you mini-tomes, go to the Los Angeles Times Newsletter page . And remember, the Escapes newsletter is not created by artificial intelligence; if it were, it would be a lot smarter. But for most humans, life is a learning lab. Take this little vignette from my older sister. Something so lucky happened to me yesterday morning, she told me on New Years Day. My car battery died in a parking lot. Advertisement Um, yeah, that sounds lucky, I said. It was, she said. She and her daughter had driven the nearly 1,000 miles from Florida to Maryland for Christmas in the rain and the nearly 1,000 miles home in rain and fog. It could have happened then at night, in an unfamiliar place, she said. How lucky are we? Although my idea of a Christmas gift to myself isnt a new car battery, I had to admit she had a point. So it is with travel. The flight was late, the room was rotten, the food was uninspired. In Sister World, you got there, you had shelter, and you didnt go hungry. Is that a low bar or is that the kind of perspective that gets you through the rough times? Advertisement Its both, and I think the idea is that the bar can be and should be adjusted depending on the situation. As my Aunt Gertrude used to say, Sometimes you count the good days by what doesnt happen. Whatever happens to you this year, remember to travel safely and well and change your perspective if need be. Well be here to welcome you home. BEIJING, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping's speech Wednesday is of great significance and charts the course for cross-Strait relations in the new era, overseas Chinese said. Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addressed a gathering marking the 40th anniversary of the Chinese mainland's Message to Compatriots in Taiwan. The speech was lauded by overseas Chinese of all circles, who expressed confidence in a peaceful national reunification. Zhu Jianrong, a professor at Toyo Gakuen University in Tokyo, said Xi provided a strategic guidance for the development of cross-Strait relations by proposing that the mainland and Taiwan conduct democratic consultation on cross-Strait relations and the future of the nation, and establish institutional arrangement for peaceful development of cross-Strait relations. Li Zhuohui, editor-in-chief of Harian Xin Bao Indonesia, said Xi's speech carries a message of sincerity and kindness, and provides a most feasible solution that promotes harmony across the Taiwan Strait. Xi's speech was informative, powerful and passionate, with far-reaching influence on the prospects of the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations, said Zhu Liangwei, secretary-general of the UK Chinese Association for the Promotion of National Reunification. Fan Xuan, editor-in-chief of Europe Times based in Hamburg, said Xi's statement that "China must be, will be reunified" was powerful. This is the common desire of all the people of China, including the patriotic compatriots in Taiwan. Chen Shanzhuang, president of the American Chinese Commerce Association (Hong Kong), said he cannot agree more with Xi's speech, adding that the Taiwan question is China's internal affair and allows no external interference. Li Hongwei, honorary chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification (CCPPNR) in Chicago, said Xi called for joint efforts to advance the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations and the peaceful national reunification, which greatly inspired overseas Chinese to keep working unswervingly toward the achievement of a peaceful cross-Strait reunification. Feng Zhenyu, chairman of the CCPPNR in Tanzania, said the major policies Xi mentioned in his speech embody the national fundamental interests and the national core interests, grasp the trend of the times, comply with the historical trend, and will further promote the process of the peaceful reunification of the motherland. Chen Jiannan, chairman of the CCPPNR in Egypt, said overseas Chinese will firmly uphold the great cause of peaceful reunification of the motherland and make contributions to this end. DeAndre Hopkins will be putting his playoff paycheck to excellent use. The Houston Texans Pro Bowl receiver has announced that the money he makes from playing against the Indianapolis Colts this weekend will go toward covering the costs of Jazmine Barnes funeral and helping to track down the person who shot and killed the 7-year-old girl Sunday morning on the eastern outskirts of Houston. When I see Jazmine Barnes face, I see my own daughter, Hopkins tweeted Thursday. When I see Jazmine Barnes' face, I see my own daughter. I'm pledging my playoff check this week to help her family with funeral costs and to support @shaunking @SherriffED_HCSO @SylvesterTurner in bringing this man to justice. On Saturday, I will be playing in your honor, Jazmine pic.twitter.com/oCRYSgfGO9 Deandre Hopkins (@DeAndreHopkins) January 3, 2019 Advertisement Investigators are searching for the man responsible for the second-graders death. He was driving a pickup truck when he pulled alongside the car she and other family members were riding in and and started shooting. Jazmine was killed and her mother, LaPorsha Washington, was wounded. Three of Barnes sisters were also in the car and one was hurt by shattered glass. Sheriff Ed Gonzalez described the attack as totally unprovoked. As determined by the NFLs collective bargaining agreement, Texans players will make $29,000 each for playing in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. On Saturday, Hopkins tweeted, I will be playing in your honor, Jazmine. Hopkins addressed his decision with reporters later on Thursday. I felt in my heart its only right that I give back to those who are down. he said. What I can do, thats nothing. That wont bring back a person. Im not trying to make it all about me or anything like that, but its the least I could do to help out. charles.schilken@latimes.com Twitter: @chewkiii Transitioning from Flintridge Preparatory School in La Canada to the hallowed halls of MIT was a big leap for Vick Liu and brought lessons the youth would later reflect upon in a series of journal entries. I started to keep this journal just to document happy memories, sad memories, anything I thought was a notable point in my life, the 21-year-old recalled in an interview. When his younger brother, Ben, began contemplating college last year, hed occasionally call Liu for advice. Wanting to help, Liu turned some of his journals more poignant reflections into a Google doc hed update and share with Ben. Fraternity brothers who knew about Lius Google doc encouraged him to make it available as a PDF to incoming freshman members of Phi Beta Epsilon. Some suggested he turn it into a book. But before he entertained that notion, he knew hed need more input. [Mine] was just one perspective that may not cater to different types of people in college, said Liu, at home in Arcadia during his schools winter break. He found three fellow MIT students he thought would have perspectives different from his own and talked them into collaborating with him on a book. The 185-page result, Points of You: Four Friends from MIT on Growing Up, was published through Amazon Nov. 21 and has since sold more than 2,500 copies. The idea is to give young people advice from people who not too long ago went through the exact same issues, Liu said. With author introductions followed by 15 sections on different aspects of growing up today from character and emotions to relationships and effective leadership the book provides bite-sized insights gleaned from the collective experiences of Liu and fellow authors Julia Rue, Mina Fahmi and Drew Bent. We thought a lot about whats the best way to get a high schooler to read this, said Liu, who himself doesnt have much bandwidth for personal reading. If they dont have a lot of time available, its easy to pick up and read for a couple minutes. Each passage bears the initials of its author, allowing each to speak from his or her unique viewpoints. Liu weighs in on setting and achieving personal goals. Last September he and other MIT friends launched the business TravlerPack, designing lightweight blankets for refugees and displaced people, and have distributed some 1,000 units so far. While still at Prep, a teenage Liu developed a portable blood analyzer that could identify and count blood cells for a science project. He later created a 3-D printed cellphone microscope capable of transmitting images of blood samples taken in the field. Rue, who graduated and now works in product design, offers wisdom on art, family and overcoming insecurity. Bent, now studying education reform at Stanford, tends more toward philosophical pondering and reflects on famous quotes, while Fahmi weighs in on mental health issues. Fahmi, an MIT senior studying mechanical engineering, said he became interested in the project after experiencing a period of depression in which he needed to step back and evaluate his life. Now, he wants younger people to know its OK to take time to find ones place in the world. Upperclassmen, and adults for that matter, you think they have everything together, he said. It helps to be reminded everyones still trying to figure things out. sara.cardine@latimes.com Twitter: @SaraCardine Get out those blue-and-red glasses, space lovers. NASAs New Horizons mission just revealed a new image of Ultima Thule in 3-D. The stereo image shows the three-dimensional shape of Ultima Thule, a peanut shaped world about 20 miles long, and the most distant object ever visited by humankind. The New Horizons spacecraft sped past the Kuiper Belt object on New Years Eve, filling its servers with data on Ultima Thules size and shape, the number of craters it has, whether it has moons or an atmosphere, and what ices appear on its frozen surface. Advertisement Three days after the historic flyby, less than 1% of the data from those observations has been sent back to Earth, and no more is expected for several days. Beginning Friday, New Horizons will fly almost directly behind the sun in relation to the Earth, said Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute and the principal investigator of the mission. Radio interference from the suns outer atmosphere will prevent any data transmissions from the spacecraft until Jan. 10, Stern said. In the meantime, scientists will continue to puzzle over the images and measurements they do have of this distant and mysterious world, 4 billion miles from Earth. As the stereo image shows, Ultima Thule is comprised of two spherical objects. Scientists believe the two objects came together in a slow-motion impact early in the solar systems history. Neither of the spheres is perfectly round. They both appear to have a significant number of lumps. It is too soon to tell whether these lumps are caused by craters that excavated parts of its surface, or ridges that rise above it, said Paul Schenk, a New Horizons co-investigator from the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. Advertisement We need to be careful when interpreting images like this, Schenk said. We think what we are seeing could be interpreted as ridge structures, but well have to get back to you on that. More detailed images that are expected to arrive on Earth later this month and in February should help clarify the small worlds topography, he said. So far, the team has found no evidence of an atmosphere around Ultima Thule, which is to be expected. It is a small world, roughly the size of the city of Washington, D.C., and unlikely to have even a thin atmosphere like the one on Pluto. But scientists said they will continue to evaluate New Horizons data for any evidence of unexpected gases in Ultima Thules vicinity. There has also been no evidence yet of any moons or satellites orbiting Ultima Thule, which is a bit more frustrating. The discovery of any moon on any orbit in the vicinity of the bi-lobed object would allow scientists to determine its mass and density, said Mark Showalter, a New Horizons co-investigator from the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. That information would in turn offer clues to the composition of its interior, he said. Advertisement This image of Ultima Thule was taken by NASAs New Horizons spacecraft Jan. 1, 30 minutes before its closest approach. (NASA) The discovery of a moon or moons would also help scientists understand Ultima Thules spin rate. Ultima Thule currently takes about 15 hours to complete one full rotation on its axis, but computer models suggest that it was spinning much faster when the two objects first came together, Showalter said. It is likely that gravity from a nearby object or several objects caused it to slow down. Something had to put the brakes on it, he said. Advertisement He is hopeful that images of Ultima Thule in its immediate environment will hold some answers. As soon as they hit the ground we will look to see if we can find a moon or two in that data set, he said. Future information will also reveal more details about the color differences on Ultima Thules surface and allow scientists to create maps of its surface composition, researchers said. It is clear that the surface of Ultima Thule is a deep red color, but scientists cannot say definitively why. They should know soon. Advertisement For now, the science team will analyze and try to draw additional conclusions from the data it does have. deborah.netburn@latimes.com Do you love science? I do! Follow me @DeborahNetburn and like Los Angeles Times Science & Health on Facebook. MORE IN SCIENCE When the famed explorer John Wesley Powell bumped, splashed and thrashed his way down the Colorado River in 1869, he discovered one of the most striking geologic features on Earth. Not the Grand Canyon although that too is a marvel but a conspicuous boundary between the sunset-colored sediments of the upper walls and the dark, jagged rocks below them. Powell had learned to read the layers of desert rocks like pages in a book, and he recognized that the boundary represented a missing chapter in Earths geological history. Later, researchers realized it was more like an entire lost volume, spanning roughly one-fifth of Earths existence, and that a similar gap existed in many places around the world. There must have been some sort of special event in Earths history that led to widespread erosion, said Steve Marshak, a geologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who studies what has come to be known as the Great Unconformity. New research suggests it was something special indeed. Scientists propose that several freak episodes of global glaciation scoured away miles of continental crust, obliterating a billion years of geologic history in the process. Advertisement The idea was first proposed back in 1973 by a geologist named William White, but no one took him seriously, said C. Brenhin Keller of the Berkeley Geochronology Center, who led the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Its an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence, Keller said. Today, however, researchers have come to accept the outlandish notion that, a few times in its 4.6-billion-year history, the planet froze over and became a Snowball Earth. Now Keller and his colleagues hope to convince their peers that the glaciers that crawled across the continents between 720 million and 580 million years ago were responsible for the Great Unconformity. Since there are so few rocks from that period, the researchers had to look for other kinds of clues to figure out what happened. They reasoned that the missing layers probably went through the full geologic spin cycle: They would have been broken down into sediment and washed out to sea, then deposited on the ocean floor and recycled into the mantle during subduction before finally melting into the magma that feeds volcanoes. If so, a record of this activity should hide in tiny time capsules called zircons. These indestructible crystals grow in magma, and they contain the elements oxygen and hafnium. Oceanic and continental crust have distinct signatures of these elements. Therefore, a huge spike in the amount of recycled continental material should have left a clear chemical signal in zircons that formed at that time and it did. Kellers team found stark variations in the oxygen and hafnium in zircons, consistent with the continents losing an average of 2 to 3 vertical miles of rock. We are talking about an absolutely huge amount of crust being eroded, he said. In which case, we should have noticed it missing and we have. Nine science stories to watch in 2019 Advertisement The zircons also show that the amount of rock getting recycled ramped up just as Snowball Earth set in, suggesting the two events were connected. If so, this explanation solves the long-standing riddle of why erosion increased so dramatically in so many places at the same time. Usually, rocks start to break down in a particular region when a mountain range gets muscled into existence by plate tectonics. But its hard to imagine that happening simultaneously on all the continents, Keller said. Glaciation during Snowball Earth, at least would apply everywhere. The researchers offer other data to support their hypothesis. They point to the dearth of meteor craters dating back before 700 million years, suggesting these dents got Brillo-ed out in the making of the Great Unconformity. The researchers also highlight the close agreement between their results and records of ancient sea levels, which would have changed as the continents lost rock and bobbed higher in the mantle, the way an unloaded ship rides higher in the water. Its a really cool and provocative idea, said Galen Halverson, a geologist at McGill University in Montreal, who was not involved in the work. Advertisement Halverson said the researchers had clearly uncovered evidence that something wacky happened at that time in Earths history. He said other scientists, however, may quibble over whether it really corresponds to the Great Unconformity and whether global glaciation was to blame. For instance, its not clear that the ice sheets of Snowball Earth could have eaten away so much crust. If we look at the actual geological record that we have of these glaciations, he said, the sedimentation rates appear to be very, very slow. Marshak agrees that there could be a connection between Snowball Earth and the Great Unconformity but says questions remain about the order of events. He and several colleagues published a study last year suggesting that widespread erosion caused by the breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia triggered chemical reactions that drew down atmospheric carbon dioxide, cooling the planet and plunging it into a Snowball Earth state. Researchers will have to nail down the timing of erosion and glaciation to see which came first, Marshak said. And, he added, its possible that both ideas are correct and multiple forces conspired to create this strange moment in Earth history. Advertisement It doesnt mean that it has to be one or the other, he said. Whats clear is that two unusual events occurred around the same time, and a third soon followed: the evolution of complex life, which exploded roughly 540 million years ago. Around the world, scientists have noticed that the rocks above the Great Unconformity contain obvious fossils, like trilobites and brachiopods, while those below do not. Many early researchers figured those older fossils had just disappeared with the lost rocks, but now scientists know that no such creatures existed back then. That may be more than a coincidence. The Great Unconformity may have set the stage for this transition by providing vast shallow seas where marine life could flourish. And Snowball Earth appears to have bulldozed loads of critical nutrients into the ocean that nourished the diversification of life. Advertisement Its just really mixing up the pot in terms of what is possible and what is available, Keller said. It also goes to show that the planet doesnt always change slowly and gradually, Marshak said: There are punctuation points in Earths history where things change in new directions. And from that capriciousness came the world and perhaps life as we know it. In the ledger of evils perpetrated by humans, Operation Reinhard holds a distinct place. Over 21 months starting in March 1942, Nazi forces and their collaborators rounded up 1.7 million Jews from 393 Polish towns and ghettos and dispatched them in tightly packed rail cars to three camps in German-occupied Poland Sobibor, Treblinka and Belzec. At these three killing centers, members of Polands once-thriving Jewish community were murdered with such efficiency and ruthlessness that, of roughly 1.5 million Jews who passed through their gates, a mere 102 would survive to bear witness. By November 1943, when Operation Reinhard ended, essentially no Polish Jews were left for the Germans to kill. In a bid to capture the scope and intensity of genocides, a Tel Aviv University researcher has dissected Operation Reinhard and found its dark heart. Biomathematician Lewi Stone drew upon a painstaking accounting of Nazi train schedules to analyze the kill rate of Jews between February 1942 and December 1944. Within Operation Reinhards 21-month campaign of murder, he discovered a 92-day period that stands out for its ferocity. Advertisement In August, September and October of 1942, he calculated, German forces and their allies in Poland killed at least 1.32 million Jews. That averages out to 14,348 per day, every day. Virtually all victims were from Poland and its immediate neighbors. This concentration of murders in a three-month period likely created substantial confusion among its victims, and its speed would have made the possibility of organized resistance difficult to coordinate in time, Stone wrote in a study published this week in the journal Science Advances. The massacre was effectively over before there was time for an organized response. Stone, also a mathematics professor at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, uses authoritative estimates of the Holocausts toll on Jews which range from 5.1 million to 6.2 million to reckon that as many as a quarter of the Nazis Jewish victims were murdered during these three months of Operation Reinhard. It appears to have taken place at roughly the same time that German forces, having invaded the Soviet Union and been thrown back from the outskirts of Moscow, were advancing instead on Stalingrad. Historians have noted that around this time, Adolf Hitler ordered his plan for the final solution of the Jewish question to be accelerated. Documents recently unearthed from United Nations archives also reveal that as early as December 1942, the governments of the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union were aware that at least 2 million Jews had been murdered and an additional 5 million were at risk of being killed. Though they were preparing war crimes charges against Hitler and his generals on the basis of survivors reports, the Allied powers did little to protect or provide sanctuary to Europes Jews. Operation Reinhard was launched with the March 1942 opening of the Belzec death camp near Polands border with modern-day Ukraine. Starting in late July 1942, Treblinkas gas chambers would begin to kill Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. The expanded death camp of Sobibor reopened soon after, fulfilling Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmlers July 19, 1942, order that, with few exceptions, all Jews within German-occupied Poland should be killed by the end of the year. An estimated 292,000 of the 1.32 million who died during this spasm of violence were killed with bullets by shooting squads called the Einsatzgruppen. The remainder were slain by poison gas within hours of their arrival at the death camps, Stone discerned. This video plots the number of victims deported to three Nazi death camps each month, starting from Jan. 1, 1942. Almost all deportees were murdered. To clarify the rate at which Jews were murdered in the course of Operation Reinhard, Stone turned to detailed railway schedules compiled by Israeli historian Yitzakh Arad. These schedules included data on 480 train deportations to Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka carried out by the German National Railway during this period. Advertisement In an effort to glean the full extent of the Nazis genocidal machine, Stone then incorporated the well-documented death tolls from Auschwitz-Birkenau in western Poland and from the Einsatzgruppen, which were active across the countries that German troops had entered, including the Soviet Union. By December 1942, long before Operation Reinhard formally ended, the rate of train deportations and of murders at the three camps slowed markedly, Stone found. It wasnt that the Nazis had a change of heart. Rather, Stone wrote, the plunging death rate simply reflects that there were very few Jews left to murder in occupied Poland. The final remnants of the Jewish community in Bialystock were rounded up in November and December of 1942 and sent to Treblinka. By mid-July of 1942, the Nazis began deporting Dutch Jews to concentration camps and killing centers in Germany and Poland. The Jews of Norway followed by late October of 1942. The remaining Jewish populations of Europe were dispatched to Auschwitz-Birkenau, which saw what Stone called exceptionally high kill rates in 1944, when Hungarian Jews were sent there in large numbers. Advertisement Some historians have suggested that the 1994 Rwanda genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 members of the Tutsi tribe were murdered by Hutus in a span of about 100 days, might have exceeded the Holocaust in the pace of its genocidal mayhem. According to Stones calculations, it did not. During the three most murderous months of Operation Reinhard, the intensity with which the Nazis sought to kill Jews was 83% higher than that seen in Rwandas genocide, Stone found. In both its extent of killing and in the expanse of space over which it unfolded, the Holocaust represents a more extreme manifestation of organized violence against a single group, he wrote. Historians, social scientists, policymakers and journalists have consistently relied on inaccurate assessments that greatly underestimated the Holocaust kill rate during Operation Reinhard, Stone concluded. These underestimates have been repeated for over two decades without substantial criticism, a pattern that has effectively rewritten the history of the Holocaust in a way that diminishes its historical standing and the scale of human life it encompasses. The new study is part of an effort to push scholarship on the Holocaust and on the phenomenon of genocide generally beyond aggregated numbers of the dead, and to reveal their inner dynamics. Understanding the patterns of violence that lie between a genocidal events beginning and end points might uncover what factors touch them off, sustain or accelerate them, or bring them to a close, Stone suggested. Advertisement Focusing on pivotal phases of the Holocaust may also offer new perspective on death tolls that either become the subject of dry academic debate or defy easy comprehension by the public. A recent scholarly estimate that between 5.4 million and 5.8 million Jews were murdered over the Holocausts four years has limited explanatory power because in the end we are left with a single aggregate number that is bewilderingly large and difficult for the human mind to relate to, Stone wrote. With all this complexity, here we ask, Are there any simple definitive killing patterns that can be distilled from this period that can shed better light on the large-scale dynamics of the large-scale Nazi operation? melissa.healy@latimes.com Twitter: @LATMelissaHealy Advertisement MORE IN SCIENCE President Trump, as he often does, had a few things to say. After admitting that he had been lonely over the holidays, Trump took advantage of his first public appearance of the new year Wednesday to air lingering grievances, make multiple false claims and reinforce recent decisions that have rattled financial markets and his partys leaders. As he held forth for more than 90 minutes before a small pool of reporters and photographers, members of his Cabinet, ostensibly called to the White House for a meeting, sat quietly around a long conference table. Trump defended his decision last month to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and sharply cut the deployment to Afghanistan, moves that disturbed Republican allies in Congress and prompted the resignation of Defense Secretary James N. Mattis. In doing so, he contradicted his own recent claim that the U.S. had achieved its objectives of total victory over Islamic State militants in Syria. Advertisement Syria was lost long ago, he said. Look, we dont want Syria, he continued. Were talking about sand and death. Thats what were talking about. Were not talking about vast wealth. Were talking about sand and death, he said, seemingly contrasting the war-wracked country with Iraq and its vast oil reserves. Iran can do what they want there, frankly, he added, a comment likely to unnerve officials in Israel, who have worried that a U.S. withdrawal from its positions in eastern Syria would allow Iran to expand its influence there. Its not my fault, he said. I didnt put us there. Trump offered little further clarity on the U.S. withdrawal from Syria, which he initially said would take place in 30 days, saying now that the pullout will take place over a period of time. Later, in a long riff about Afghanistan, Trump seemed to endorse Moscows 1979 invasion of the country an act that the U.S. viewed as an attempt to spread communism and waged a long, covert operation to combat during the Carter and Reagan administrations. The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia, Trump said, making a case to leave the policing of hot spots in the Mideast and Central Asia to countries in the region. They were right to be there. The problem is it was a tough fight. The Soviet Union eventually was bankrupted by its Afghan war, Trump added. Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia, because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan. Advertisement Historians generally agree that the Russian invasion and subsequent occupation of much of Afghanistan was one of several factors that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, although the country never went bankrupt. For years, Republicans have credited President Reagan with bringing an end to the Soviet Union by his aggressive increase in U.S. military spending. Trumps comments stood in stark contrast to the view Mattis espoused in the resignation letter he presented last month after failing to convince the president to hold off on withdrawing from Syria. We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity and values, and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our alliances, Mattis wrote. Advertisement Mattis comments clearly stung Trump, who responded last month with criticism of his former Pentagon chief. On Wednesday, he stepped that up, claiming that he fired Mattis. Whats he done for me? How had he done in Afghanistan? Not too good, Trump said. As you know, President Obama fired him, and essentially so did I. Obama did not fire Mattis, although the general did retire several months early in 2013 from his position as the head of the militarys Central Command after dissenting from Obama administration policy decisions. Tuesday was Mattis final day at the Pentagon. Trump, in a fit of pique after the resignation letter became public, had moved up Mattis termination date Advertisement In addition to his foreign policy comments, Trump also downplayed Decembers stock market losses, which erased all positive gains for the year, as a little glitch and asserted wrongly that there are probably 30-35 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally. The nonpartisan Pew Research Center estimates that as of 2016, there were 10.7 million unauthorized immigrants living in the country, a number that has declined in recent years. Trump repeated his call for Democrats to agree to $5.6 billion in funding for a border wall, and expressed surprise not to have received overtures from them over the holidays to negotiate an end to the government shutdown. I was in the White House all by myself for six or seven days, he said. It was very lonely. My family was down in Florida. I said, Stay there and enjoy yourself. I felt I should be here just in case people wanted to come and negotiate the border security. Trump, who met later in the day with congressional leaders away from TV cameras, has already dismissed a funding proposal from House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi that includes $1.3 billion in border security funding. Advertisement While leaving the door open to a compromise, Trump continued to argue for the importance of a wall, pointing to other examples of barriers. He incorrectly asserted that Obamas Washington residence is surrounded by a 10-foot wall and cited the Vatican, which he said has the biggest wall of them all. When they say the wall is immoral, then you better do something about the Vatican, he said. Walls work. As Trump spoke, a Game of Thrones-style movie poster teasing Iran sanctions SANCTIONS ARE COMING, it read lay unfurled across the table directly in front of him. But he made no remarks on the subject. He did, however, comment on Sen.-elect Mitt Romney of Utah, who wrote in the Washington Post on Tuesday that he was troubled by Trumps deep descent in December and that his deficit in presidential leadership in qualities of character has been most glaring. Advertisement I wish Mitt could be more of a team player, Trump said. And if hes not, thats OK too. Seeming to warn Romney about the fate that lies ahead for Republican lawmakers who vocally criticize him and his presidency, Trump boasted that he got rid of former Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee, both of whom opted not to seek new terms last year. Accusing both men of seeking publicity in taking stands against him, Trump suggested that Flake would be seeking a job as a paid cable news contributor or perhaps in another profession that Trump himself once plied. Jeff Flake is now selling real estate or whatever hes doing, he said dismissively. Advertisement The latest from Washington eli.stokols@latimes.com @EliStokols The shuttered parts of the federal government were no closer to being reopened Wednesday after President Trump and congressional leaders met for the first time since the shutdown began nearly two weeks ago. I dont think any particular progress was made today, but we talked, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters. Were hopeful that somehow in the coming days and weeks well be able to reach an agreement. The White House described Wednesdays meeting, held in the Situation Room, as a border security briefing. Trump has rejected Democrats efforts to separate the border security funding fight from unrelated government agencies that have also been closed. Trump told reporters Wednesday that the shutdown will last as long as it takes. Advertisement I mean, look, Im prepared. I think the people of the country think Im right, Trump told reporters at a Cabinet meeting. This is already the fourth-longest government shutdown since the mid-1970s, and the third shutdown of Trumps presidency. Democrats have scheduled votes on two bills to reopen the closed parts of government to take place when they take control of the House on Thursday. Republican leaders say the Senate will not consider either unless Trump endorses them. One bill would fund all the closed agencies except for the Department of Homeland Security through September when the fiscal year ends. (Senate appropriators previously approved spending levels for these agencies.) The other bill would fund Homeland Security through Feb. 8, allowing the department to use $1.3 billion provided by Congress last year for border security. But it would not permit the money to be used for a wall. This is identical to legislation the Senate unanimously approved in December in an attempt to avoid the shutdown. We have given the Republicans a chance to take yes for an answer, Pelosi said after the White House meeting. We are asking the president to open up government. We are giving him a Republican path to do that. Why would he not do it? McConnell reiterated Wednesday that he will not bring a bill to reopen the government up for a vote unless the president backs it. The Senate will be glad to vote on a measure that the House passes and ... the president will sign, but were not going to vote on anything else, McConnell said. Advertisement White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday called Democrats plan a non-starter because it doesnt include the $5 billion Trump wants for a wall at the southern border, a down payment on the wall he says is necessary for national security. Trump previously promised Mexico would pay for the wall. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said after the meeting that he had asked Trump why Republicans couldnt back the bill to reopen the unrelated government agencies, such as Interior and State, and debate border security with the government fully functioning. He could not give a good answer, Schumer said. They couldnt give us one answer why they wouldnt support the first bill that will open up the government. Incoming House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) said it was disappointing that Democratic leaders wanted to talk about their bills rather than hearing the briefing from Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. He said that Trump invited the leaders to come back to the White House on Friday. Advertisement In the Cabinet meeting, Trump also indicated that he might be willing to accept a little bit less than $5 billion, though he did not provide an amount. He closed the door on the compromise plan of $2.5 billion for border security that Vice President Mike Pence had proposed to Schumer the day the shutdown began. Schumer has already said Senate Democrats would not back that amount. The effects of the shutdown have become more noticeable as the holidays have passed and federal agencies have drained their reserves. National Parks have closed campsites that are overflowing with feces and trash as visitors stream into protected sites despite the park closures. Some new home loans and small business loans have been slowed; new farm loans are on hold. The IRS is short staffed, delaying tax refunds. In Washington, D.C., new marriage licenses arent being issued because the office wasnt considered essential. More than 800,000 federal employees arent getting paid during the shutdown, though more than half of them are deemed essential to public safety and are still at work while the rest are furloughed. Federal employees will probably receive back pay once the government reopens, but thousands of people paid through government contracts, such as the cleaning crews that maintain the departments, arent likely to recover the money they arent paid during the shutdown. Advertisement The latest from Washington More stories from Sarah D. Wire sarah.wire@latimes.com Follow @sarahdwire on Twitter Rep. Brad Sherman plans to introduce articles of impeachment against President Trump on Thursday, the first day of Democratic control of the House. Sherman (D-Northridge) is reintroducing a measure that he first rolled out in 2017. But this year it carries more political significance: The decision of whether to act on it rests with Democrats not Trumps Republican allies. Shermans articles of impeachment accuse Trump of obstructing justice by firing former FBI Director James B. Comey, among other wrongdoing. Op-Ed: 2019 will be the worst year of Donald Trumps life Advertisement There is no reason it shouldnt be before the Congress, Sherman said. Every day, Donald Trump shows that leaving the White House would be good for our country. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has ruled out pursuing impeachment for now, saying she will wait for the outcome of the special counsel investigation. Any impeachment would have to be bipartisan and the evidence would have to be so conclusive, she said on PBS NewsHour on the eve of the midterm election. Pelosi has tried to tamp down impeachment talk because moderate Democrats have expressed concern that pursuing it would divide the party. Even if the House were to pursue impeachment, Republicans would all but certainly block it in the Senate. But impeachment talk is likely to hang in the backdrop for the next two years in Washington, with some liberal Democrats calling to remove the president from office. The latest from Washington Sherman says hes not worried that introducing the resolution the first of what could be several articles filed would box his colleagues into answering a difficult political question. Every member of the House will have to address [the issue] whether there are formal articles of impeachment pending, he said. jennifer.haberkorn@latimes.com Advertisement @jenhab California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Thursday that she supports former Vice President Joe Biden in what is likely to be a crowded 2020 Democratic presidential field. That might make things awkward with Feinsteins fellow Californian, Sen. Kamala Harris, who is also considering a run. He has the experience, the drive, he was chairman of [the Senate Judiciary Committee] when I came to the Senate, Feinstein said Thursday. I worked with him closely on a number of different things. I have a great respect for his integrity as well as his ability. And I think experience is really important at this particular point, where our world is today. Feinsteins support for Biden was first reported by Politico on Thursday morning. When asked by the Los Angeles Times about the comments, Feinstein suggested that her long personal history with Biden plays a role in how she feels. Advertisement I was asked who I favor, and right now its Joe Biden, she said. Fellow Democrat Harris is also expected to jump into the presidential contest. When asked whether she would support Harris, Feinstein said: Im a big fan of Sen. Harris, and I work with her. But shes brand-new here, so it takes a little bit of time to get to know somebody. Harris was elected to the Senate in 2016. Her office declined to comment Thursday. The latest from Washington jennifer.haberkorn@latimes.com @jenhab Visit Essential Washington for coverage of the White House and goings on in the nations capital. Welcome to Essential Politics, our in-the-moment look at California political and government news. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Newsoms budget proposes $3 million for Alzheimers research, brain task force By Melody Gutierrez Amyloid plaques, shown here in human brains, are a hallmark of Alzheimers disease. (UCLA School of Medicine) Gov. Gavin Newsom will call for the creation of a brain health task force and dedicate $3 million annually from the states general fund to Alzheimers disease research in the budget proposal he will release Thursday, a source close to the administration said. The money for Alzheimers research would target the new grants at understanding why the disease is more prevalent in women and people of color. Former California first lady and Alzheimers activist Maria Shriver pushed for the funding to be included in the state budget. Shriver said in a statement Wednesday that the funding would make California the first state to make understanding our brains a priority. The states former first lady, whose late father Sargent Shriver was diagnosed with Alzheimers, founded the Womens Alzheimers Movement, an advocacy group raising awareness about womens increased risk for developing the disease. In 2011, she wrote a comprehensive assessment on the disease, to which Newsom then mayor of San Francisco contributed a portion called What one city is doing. This is personal to me, just like it is to millions of California families, Shriver said. Alzheimers is one of the largest medical, social and economic crises in our state, and of our time. I am so proud that, once again, California is leading the way. Wiping out Alzheimers is going to require bold thinking, and there is no doubt in my mind that California is home to bold thinkers who can make this happen. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Gov. Gavin Newsom orders reinvention of troubled California DMV By Patrick McGreevy A line of people stretches around the South L.A. location of a California Department of Motor Vehicles Office on Aug. 7. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday ordered an overhaul of the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which has been plagued by hours-long wait times at field offices, computer crashes and voter registration errors involving tens of thousands of customers. Just a few days after taking office, Newsom appointed a top advisor to a new DMV Reinvention Strike Team to revamp the beleaguered agency over the next six months. By any metric, California DMV has been chronically mismanaged and failed in its fundamental mission to the state customers it serves and the state workers it employs, Newsom said in a statement, adding Its time for a reinvention. The governor appointed state Government Operations Agency Secretary Marybel Batjer to lead the strike team with a goal of modernizing the agency and enacting changes that improve customer satisfaction, employee performance and transparency. Newsom also ordered an accelerated review of initial findings of an ongoing audit ordered last year by Gov. Jerry Brown. The action was welcomed by lawmakers who have been critical of the DMV, including Assemblyman Vince Fong (R-Bakersfield). The egregious management failures of the DMV have been self-evident, which is why I have been calling for new leadership and a comprehensive independent audit of this troubled state agency over and over again as the problems grew significantly worse, Fong said. Last summer, Californians seeking new driver licenses complained of wait times of four to six hours at DMV offices, which the agency blamed partly on snafus caused by a rush of people trying to get Real IDs, a new identification card design required for airline passengers starting in late 2020. Delays were also blamed on computer crashes at DMV offices as the agency struggled to update its aging automation systems. The DMV also admitted that there were an estimated 23,000 errors as people either were unknowingly registered to vote or mistakes were made in their registration status as part of the states new motor voter program. The agency registered to vote as many as 1,500 people with legal U.S. residency but no citizenship. Last month, DMV Director Jean Shiomoto retired from the agency. Legislators were angered earlier this week when the DMV said it needed an additional $40 million to prevent the return of long lines at its field offices. In addition, the agency has been under fire for issuing driver licenses in the last year that do not comply with the federal Real ID standards requiring two forms of identification by applicants. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California police unions are preparing to battle new transparency law in the courtroom By Maya Lau Just as a landmark police transparency law is going into effect, some California police agencies are shredding internal affairs documents and law enforcement unions are rushing to block the information from being released. The new law, which begins to unwind Californias strictest-in-the-nation protections over the secrecy of law enforcement records, opens to the public internal investigations of officer shootings and other major uses of force, along with confirmed cases of sexual assault and lying while on duty. But the lawsuits and records destruction, which began even before the law took effect Jan. 1, could tie up the release of information for months or years, and in some instances, prevent it from ever being disclosed. The fact that police unions are challenging this law is on some level not surprising, said Peter Bibring, director of police practices at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, one of the principal supporters of the new law. They have a long history of fighting tooth and nail against transparency. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Secretary of State Alex Padilla begins second term with challenge to ensure every Californian is counted By Jazmine Ulloa Secretary of State Alex Padilla takes the oath of office as his family stands by his side on Monday in Sacramento. (Jazmine Ulloa / Los Angeles Times) Secretary of State Alex Padilla was sworn in for a second term on Monday, saying he would continue the battle to protect the right to vote at a time when voter suppression efforts, online disinformation campaigns and interference from foreign adversaries have polarized the public and threatened to undermine trust in U.S. elections. I am doubling down on our fight here in Sacramento and in Washington, D.C., to defend our democracy, he said. Working on the front lines with so many of you, I know that our collective resolve has never been stronger. But the loudest applause came when Padilla promised to fight back against the Trump administrations changes to the U.S. census, saying he will ensure every Californian gets counted. Padilla, a former state senator and Los Angeles City Council member from the San Fernando Valley, led the cause for a new motor voter registration law in 2015, and a new system for online business registrations. But the programs have had experienced problems: More than 23,000 Californians were registered to vote incorrectly by the state DMV, the agency reported last year. On Monday, Padilla said he would continue to push back against false claims of voter fraud in California and pointed to the states voter turnout as proof that his office was involving more people in the democratic process, a promise he made when he was first sworn in four years ago. More than 12.7 million voters cast ballots in the Nov. 6 midterm election, representing roughly 65% of the states registered voters, the highest number of any midterm election since 1982, according to state certified results. I made that promise based on a shared belief that we are a stronger democracy and a better California when we hear all voices from all corners of California, and when those voices are not just heard but counted, Padilla said. Advertisement Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Ricardo Lara, Californias first statewide officeholder to come out as gay, sworn in as insurance commissioner Ricardo Lara on the floor of the state Senate in 2016. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) Ricardo Lara took the oath of office as California insurance commissioner on Monday, pledging action to boost healthcare coverage and combat climate change. Lara, a Democrat from Bell Gardens, is the first elected statewide officeholder in California who has come out as gay. He began his speech in downtown Sacramento by thanking LGBTQ leaders who came before him and celebrated the occasion. Today, because of you, weve shattered the pink ceiling, Lara said. In his inaugural speech, Lara announced the creation of an executive position in his office to address climate change. There is no other industry that has the necessary expertise to ensure that California is prepared to mitigate and reduce risk to our communities and our environment, Lara said. Our planet cant wait. Im ready, and I hope you are too. Lara served as a state legislator and in 2017 introduced a bill to create a single-payer healthcare system in the state. He promised to work with new Gov. Gavin Newsom to expand coverage across California. Lara was sworn in by retired U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, who declared unconstitutional Californias Proposition 8 gay marriage ban. State Sen. President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) was on hand for the ceremony along with multiple other state lawmakers. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print New California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis says she will help expand access to universities in the state New Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, center, is shown in June talking with attendees at the Power to the Polls rally in Sacramento. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) More Californians should be given access to public universities, Eleni Kounalakis said as she took the oath of office Monday to become the states first woman elected lieutenant governor. Kounalakis was given the oath of office by Gov. Gavin Newsom, her predecessor in the job, who pledged they would work together. As lieutenant governor, Kounalakis serves on the University of California Board of Regents and the California State University Board of Trustees, she noted in a speech at her swearing-in ceremony at the main Sacramento Library. In that role, she said, she will be committed to expanding access to affordable public higher education here in our state. Its wise, its smart and it is the best way to address our rapidly changing digital economy. Kounalakis is former president of a development company founded by her father, Angelo Tsakopoulos, and served during the Obama administration as the U.S. ambassador to Hungary. In November, she won her first run for statewide office. Also attending the ceremony were House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California meets Dutch Newsom, who steals the show at his fathers inauguration By Taryn Luna Gov. Gavin Newsom gives his inaugural address while holding his youngest son, Dutch. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) In the California political world, all eyes were on Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday until his 2-year-old son stole the show. Dutch, the youngest of four children in the Newsom brood, climbed onstage in the middle of his fathers inaugural address in a tent outside the Capitol on Monday. The unplanned moment saw the 51-year-old governors big day interrupted by the toddler, bringing levity to the ceremony. Newsom was recounting Gov. Jerry Browns last inaugural speech and reference to the Sermon on the Mount, a biblical story about two men who built separate homes on sand and rock, when Dutch approached his father, a pacifier in his mouth and blanket in hand. Now more than ever we Californians know how much a house matters and children matter, Newsom said, improvising as he scooped the boy into his arms. The governor kissed Dutch on the cheek and held him for several minutes as he continued with the speech. This is exactly how it was scripted, Newsom joked. Newsom eventually put his child down and Dutch walked to the edge of the stage before retreating behind the podium to hide from his mother, First Lady Jennifer Siebel Newsom. The crowd roared. Siebel Newsom was able to briefly divert her son only for him to return to the stage minutes later. She grabbed him again and this time, the crying toddler did not reemerge. When fires strikes, when kids cry and the earth shakes, well be there for each other, Newsom said. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who said the moment humanized Newsom, threw cold water on any theories that Dutchs cameo was planned. No, I know it was not, Garcetti said with a laugh after Newsoms speech concluded. I could see that look of absolute abject terror [on Newsoms face]. Weve all been there. Kids always think its about themselves and theyve proved it. California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) agreed. I worked in early childhood education for 20 years and theres no way you can ever get a child to do anything when you want them to do it, Rendon said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Fiona Ma takes oath as Californias new treasurer By Liam Dillon State Treasurer Fiona Ma. Fiona Ma took the oath of office in Sacramento on Monday as the states 34th treasurer, promising to boost Californias economy. Ma previously served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, in the state Assembly and on the California Board of Equalization. I want to thank everyone for entrusting me with this important job. I understand my role here as your state treasurer is to build that financial wall around California so that we will remain the fifth-largest economy, Ma said in brief remarks. That is my promise to you. California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye administered the oath to Ma. Following the ceremony, Ma held an ice cream social for guests. On Wednesday, she will host a public event in San Francisco to celebrate her swearing-in. State Treasurer Fiona Ma takes the oath of office. (Liam Dillon / Los Angeles Times) Advertisement Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Expectations are high for newly sworn-in state schools chief Tony Thurmond Tony Thurmond shakes hands with retired Alameda County Superior Court Judge Gordon Baranco after taking the oath of office. (Melody Gutierrez / Los Angeles Times) Tony Thurmond took the oath of office as Californias state superintendent of public schools on Monday, promising a labor-friendly agenda before the teachers, students and Democratic officials who filled an auditorium at McClatchy High School in Sacramento to watch him being sworn in. We cant close the achievement gap without a great teacher at the head of every class, Thurmond said Monday to applause. We have to make sure we provide quality compensation and support to our teachers and our classified staff and all the educators who support our kids. Thurmond, a Bay Area Democrat who served in the state Assembly, won a hotly contested and expensive race with the help of labor leaders against charter school executive Marshall Tuck. The race took several days to sort out after Tuck held an initial lead in early returns on election night before falling behind thereafter. Thurmond was sworn in Monday by retired Alameda County Superior Court Judge Gordon Baranco. He was joined on stage by labor rights leader Dolores Huerta and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount). Thurmonds former colleagues in the state Assembly took turns praising him and promising to be an ally in improving schools. Many said they expected Thurmond would be a strong leader focused on improving student outcomes. We know we are going to work hard to give you the money you need and the budget you need to fully fund education and our schools so we can put our money where our mouth is and make sure our children have everything they need, Assemblywoman Connie Leyva (D-Chino Hills) said. As state superintendent, Thurmond will oversee the education of 6.2 million students at 10,000 schools. Thurmond was a member of the West Contra Costa County School Board and a Richmond city councilman before he was elected to the state Assembly. Tony is the right man at the right time to fight the federal, Donald Trump, Betsy DeVos anti-child, anti-education, anti-civil and -human rights agenda, U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said. Tony is going to do that for us. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print State Controller Betty Yee takes oath of office with call for more affordable housing and healthcare State Controller Betty Yee California Controller Betty Yee took the oath of office Monday for a second term, saying she still has work to do addressing problems that include a lack of affordability in housing, healthcare and higher education. A San Francisco native, Yee is the chief financial officer of California the fifth-largest economy in the world having first won election to the post in 2014 before winning reelection in November. No region is spared from the widening inequality and increased poverty that plague our state, fueled by the lack of affordable, stable housing, the cost of healthcare and transportation, limited educational opportunities, student loan debt, displacement caused by disasters and more, she said. Yee was administered the oath of office by California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento before an overflow crowd that included state Senate leader Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra and San Francisco Mayor London Breed. As a public official it is about governance that delivers results and stays accountable while upholding the underlying value of dignity for all, Yee said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra begins new term promising to fight Trump policies California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra ( (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)) California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra on Monday took the oath of office for a new term, saying he would continue his role as a leading challenger to Trump administration actions that he believes are counter to the states interests. Becerra, a former 12-term congressman, has become a national opposition figure to Trump, having sued the federal government 45 times since he was appointed as the states first Latino attorney general in 2017. Weve been a little busy stopping the dysfunction and insanity in Washington, D.C., from infecting California, Becerra told an audience during a swearing-in ceremony at the California Museum in Sacramento. Whether its the criminals on our streets or the conman in the boardrooms or highest office of the land, Becerra said, the California Department of Justice, well, weve got your back. Becerra won his first statewide election as the states top cop in November, two years after he filled the post vacated when predecessor Kamala Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate. He has peppered the Trump administration with lawsuits challenging federal policies on healthcare, the U.S. census, the environment and immigration. Our state builds dreams, not walls, he said in a direct criticism of Trumps proposal to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. Just last week, Becerra led a coalition of 17 Democratic attorneys general in announcing an appeal of a federal judge in Texas that ruled the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. The ACA has been the law for nearly a decade and is the backbone of our healthcare system, Becerra said last week. This case impacts nearly every American workers covered by employers, families, women, children, young adults and seniors so we will lead the ACAs defense as long and far as it takes. Advertisement Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California Democratic Party Vice Chairman Daraka Larimore-Hall announces bid to lead group By Christine Mai-Duc Daraka Larimore-Hall. (Dominic Parisi / Courtesy of Daraka Larimore-Hall) Daraka Larimore-Hall, a top official at the California Democratic Party, said Monday hes running to replace former chairman Eric Bauman, who resigned abruptly in November after being confronted with allegations of sexual misconduct. Larimore-Hall, a longtime state party activist and former chairman of the Democratic Party of Santa Barbara County, was one of the party leaders who urged Bauman to resign following the allegations. In an email to supporters announcing his bid, he urged both structural and cultural change at every level of our Party. He also repeated his call for a top-to-bottom investigation of the allegations, the party and its culture. In a Times investigation, 10 party activists and staff members said Bauman made crude sexual comments and engaged in unwanted touching and physical intimidation in professional settings. In order to be where we need to be for 2020, we have to confront the culture of abuse and fear that allowed someone to behave in such a vile way for so long, Larimore-Hall said in an interview. We cant brush it aside or think that our activists or our candidates or our donors are going to forget about this overnight. Larimore-Hall said his first priority would be to fully investigate the allegations and restore rank-and-file confidence in the partys leadership. The second would be to refocus the party on political priorities as the 2020 presidential election nears. The Bauman episode, Larimore-Hall said, threatens to derail the Democrats plans to help defeat President Trump and keep the seven congressional seats gained in the midterm elections. Its definitely a crisis, Larimore-Hall said. But the component parts the energy, the enthusiasm, the volunteers, the infrastructure its still there. We just need to direct it toward something. Larimore-Hall was elected vice chairman of the state party in February following Baumans razor-thin victory over Bay Area activist Kimberly Ellis. Ellis has announced another bid for the chairmanship and former state Senate leader Kevin de Leon is also mulling a run. The vote will take place at the partys May convention in San Francisco. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Newsom will vow to seize this moment, and swipe at Trump in Monday inaugural address By Melanie Mason Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom and his family attend an Inauguration Family Event at the California Railroad Museum in Sacramento on Jan. 6. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) Building on the theme of California exceptionalism that defined his campaign, Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom will depict the state as a guardian of progressive values and a counterweight to President Trump in his inaugural address Monday, according to excerpts of his prepared remarks. What we do today is even more consequential, because of whats happening in our country, read the excerpts obtained by The Times. Peoples lives, freedom, security, the water we drink, the air we breathe they all hang in the balance. The country is watching us. The world is waiting on us. The future depends on us. And we will seize this moment. The speech casts Californias political stakes in a decidedly national scope, promising an agenda that will unify and be an example to the rest of the country. It contrasts the governing goals of Newsom, a Democrat, with that of Trump, the incoming governors perennial foil. We will offer an alternative to the corruption and incompetence in the White House, the excerpts say. Our government will be progressive, principled, and always on the side of the people. Newsom campaigned on an ambitious and wide-ranging platform, promising sweeping solutions on housing, healthcare, education and other issues that rank among Californians top concerns. In the weeks after his election, he struck a more muted tone, taking pains to emphasize his fiscal caution and need for patience in achieving those goals. The inaugural excerpts indicate a return to lofty pledges. While Newsom will vow to prepare for uncertain times ahead by building budgetary reserves and paying down debt, the prepared remarks quickly turn to a vow to be bold. Newsom has already floated several proposals for his first budget that carry significant price tags, including a nearly $2-billion plan to boost early childhood development for low-income families and a dramatic expansion of paid family leave from six weeks to six months. When asked for a preview of his inauguration speech during a news conference Sunday evening, Newsom predicted pundits would criticize his address as short on specifics. Well, of course, Im at an inaugural, Newsom said. But Ill be very detailed in the budget, a few days later. And then we will architect, in much more nuance and detail, in state of the state. I really see this as three opportunities to communicate over the next few weeks our agenda, our vision for the state. Times staff writer Taryn Luna contributed to this report. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Newsom-hosted benefit concert raises nearly $5 million for wildfire victims By Taryn Luna Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom speaks at a concert to benefit wildfire victims at the Golden 1 Arena in Sacramento on Jan. 6. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) On the eve of the gubernatorial inauguration, Californias political class rubbed elbows in Sacramento for a benefit concert hosted by Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom and headlined by the rapper Pitbull. Newsom told the crowd gathered at the Golden 1 Center on Sunday evening that the fundraiser brought in nearly $5 million for the California Wildfire Foundation, a 501(c)(3) that supports the families of fallen firefighters and communities affected by wildfires. You know, a lot of folks feel anxious about not just politics, but government, Newsom said on stage before introducing the rapper and activist Common. But those firefighters, they are the antidote to the fear and cynicism; they are the manifestation of why government matters and why you should care. Top sponsors, including Salesforce, Kaiser Permanente and other interest groups, paid up to $1 million each to support the cause and curry favor with the new administration. Nathan Click, a spokesman for Newsom, said organizers sold more than 7,000 tickets. Several state lawmakers attended the concert alongside Capitol staff, lobbyists and business types, who mingled on the floor of the arena and offstage in private VIP areas. The rock band X Ambassadors and a duo called the Cold Weather Sons from the town of Paradise, which was destroyed by fire in November, were among several performers who entertained the crowd during the four-hour event. The California Rises concert is the final in a series of festivities held Sunday to celebrate the inauguration of Californias 40th governor. Earlier in the day, Newsom attended a private brunch at Sacramentos Crocker Art Museum and his inaugural committee hosted a free party for families at the California State Railroad Museum at the Old Sacramento Waterfront. Newsoms inauguration is set to begin at 11 a.m. Monday on the steps of the Capitol. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Inauguration fever hits Sacramento as Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom prepares to take office By Phil Willon Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom holds his son, Dutch, as he and his family attend an inaugural event at the at the state Railroad Museum Sunday. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) Incoming Gov. Gavin Newsom doesnt officially take the oath of office until Monday, but the parties celebrating his inauguration were in full swing all day Sunday. Newsom and his family were mobbed by well-wishers at the California State Railroad Museum at the Old Sacramento Waterfront in the afternoon, where his inaugural committee hosted a free party for families. He just has charisma. Hes able to really connect with people, said Rosielyn Pulmano, an attorney from Elk Grove who came to see Newsom with her husband, two sons and her niece. I think he cares about working Californians and a lot of their issues. Newsom arrived with his wife, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and their four young children, and the governor-elect spent a good deal of his time wading through crowds, taking selfies with supporters and signing autographs as music boomed in the background. As the family toured the inside of the museums locomotives and the bevy of exhibits, Newsoms two-year-old son, Dutch, was wide-eyed, impressed by all the train cars and seemingly a little overwhelmed by the crowd. Newsom said that for his son, all that was missing from the museum was Thomas the Train, popular fictional locomotive in childrens books and cartoons . If theres one thing I can contribute to Sacramento maybe its getting a Thomas the Train exhibit for the two years olds, Newsom joked when talking with reporters afterward. Newsom said he wanted to include such an event in his inaugural festivities to highlight families and children, whose wellbeing will be among the top priorities of his administration. Youll see that not only as a preamble to the inaugural and the budget that well be submitting next week, but I think itll be a big part of the administration, Newsom said. The museum event followed a private, high-dollar brunch at Sacramentos Crocker Art Museum. A steady rain failed to dissuade as many as 200 guests who sipped wine and dined on chicken and salmon while waiting for a photo with Californias new first couple. Seen at the event were representatives of some of the states most powerful political interests, among them organized labor, healthcare companies and tribal gaming interests. A few other high-profile guests attended, too, including Larry Baer, CEO of the San Francisco Giants, and Erika Jayne, a singer and cast member of the reality TV show The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Im excited to see someone like Gavin young, vibrant taking over the state and leading us into the future, Jayne said after attending the brunch with her husband, attorney Tom Girardi. Hes got a lot of great plans. Attendees said the event, which was closed to reporters and held under a tent in the museums outdoor atrium, did not include prepared remarks by Newsom. Among those seen leaving the event were representatives of AT&T, the California Medical Assn., Uber, Kaiser Permanente and the State Building and Construction Trades Council. A fundraising invitation obtained by The Times offered bundled tickets to all of the inauguration events, including those on Sunday and the Monday ceremony, ranging in price from $25,000 to $200,000. The money will be collected by a committee specifically organized to pay for Newsoms inaugural weekend. Sundays festivities are scheduled to end with a benefit concert headlined by Pitbull at the Golden 1 Center, home of the NBAs Sacramento Kings, to raise money for the victims of Californias recent deadly wildfires. Among the attendees at @GavinNewsoms pre-inaugural leadership brunch: Real Housewife of Bev Hills @erikajayne. Im excited to see someone like Gavinyoung, vibranttaking over the state and leading us into the future. Hes got a lot of great plans. pic.twitter.com/561NHiy2XQ Melanie Mason (@melmason) January 6, 2019 Advertisement Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print As Newsom inaugural events begin, he unveils more state budget promises on education and paid family leave Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, seen here last April, will propose new state budget efforts on paid family leave and education subsidies. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) Californias incoming governor, who must send his first state budget plan to the Legislature this week, has already signaled a significant new focus on programs to help families and children from infancy to college. Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom campaigned on a platform that included a number of child-focused efforts specifically aimed at helping lower-income families. The price tag for the initial efforts is expected to approach $2 billion a cost paid out of an unrestricted tax revenue windfall that could be one of the largest in state history. Newsom may also seek help for families through new subsidies paid by California employers. The governor-elect is expected to propose a dramatic expansion of paid parental leave from six weeks to six months according to an internal document provided by a source close to the Newsom transition team, first reported on Sunday by the New York Times. The document doesnt offer a full explanation for how the program will be funded, saying instead that the budget will set a goal of ensuring that all newborns and newly adopted babies can be cared for by a parent or a close family member for the first six months. Employers across the state are currently assessed a payroll tax that helps offer a subsidy to parents who temporarily leave their job to care for a newborn. Newsoms plan, according to the document, would pay for some of the new costs by shrinking the mandated cash reserve of the state fund that administers the program, allowing more of the money to be paid in benefits. The increase in paid leave would not all happen at once but instead be phased in over a multi-year period. A task force to help implement the expanded care plan is also envisioned, according to the document. It would determine whether two parents could split the six months of paid leave and whether an extended family member could be enlisted to help care for the child of a single parent over the six-month period. The incoming administrations focus on young children will also include $1.8 billion in new spending on early childhood education programs, with a particular focus on training childcare workers and pushing for more California schools to offer full-day kindergarten. Those costs, according to an overview memo obtained by the Los Angeles Times, are considered to be a one-time expense while leaving the long-term costs of the effort to be determined later. More community college students would get free tuition under a third initiative expected in the new governors budget plan. Newsom will propose spending $40 million to offer a second year of tuition-free college to California students, according to an outline provided by a transition official, first reported by Politico. Students are already eligible for a single year of paid tuition under a plan agreed to by Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers in 2017. The incoming governor embraced the idea of free community college during the 2018 campaign as part of a broader focus on additional investments in higher education. Education is an economic development strategy, Newsom said at a higher education forum last spring. We need to significantly increase the investment from the general fund of this state on higher education. Theres no greater higher return on investment. Whether the proposal would be targeted to students based on a familys financial need is unclear. Many low-income students are already eligible for fee waivers at community colleges. The new governor must submit his full state budget plan to lawmakers no later than Thursday. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Gavin Newsom and his family decide Sacramento is the place to be The Old Governors Mansion State Historic Park in Sacramento. Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom will move his family into the mansion. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom and his family will give up the Marin County life and move to the Victorian-style governors mansion in Sacramento after he takes the oath of office Monday. Newsom and his wife, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom, had debated whether or when to relocate to the state capital since his election in November. The couple have four young children and expressed reservations about moving in the middle of a school year. To best serve the people of California while also maximizing family time together, the Newsoms have therefore decided to move to Sacramento, said Newsoms spokesman, Nathan Click. On Monday, they will move into the Governors Mansion along with their four children, their two family dogs, and their family bunny rabbit and reside there for the immediate future. The Newsoms currently live in Marin County. Gov. Jerry Brown and his wife, Ann Gust Brown, moved into the grand house in 2015 after it underwent $4.1 million in renovations to update electrical and plumbing systems, as well as to remove lead-based paint and install a fire sprinkler system and other security features. The mansion was built in 1877 and has been home to 14 governors, but before Brown it had not housed a California governor for nearly half a century. The state bought the mansion from a wealthy Sacramento hardware merchant, Albert Gallatin, in 1903 for $32,500. It was one of the few California homes at that time to have indoor plumbing. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Newsom announces top labor, business liaisons as he prepares to take office Julie Su will be secretary of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency for Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom. (Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times) Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom on Friday named two advisors on issues related to the California economy, each recognized for their expertise on business and labor. The incoming governor will appoint Julie Su as secretary of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency and Lenny Mendonca as chief economic and business advisor and director of the Governors Office of Business and Economic Development. Su, 49, has served as state labor commissioner under Gov. Jerry Brown since 2011 and has led an office tasked with the enforcement of Californias labor laws. She won a MacArthur Foundation genius grant in 2001 and previously worked as a civil rights attorney representing low-wage workers. In her new position, Su will be tasked with coordinating the work of several workforce departments in state government, including those that administer unemployment benefits and oversee the relationship between agriculture workers and employers. Mendonca, 57, has been a longtime advocate for rethinking government operations as co-chairman of the nonprofit organization California Forward. Previously, he was partner at McKinsey & Co., a global management consulting firm. While he will be a key advisor to Newsom on the states economy, Mendonca will also lead the office often referred to as Go-Biz, designated as a high-level way to encourage job growth and economic development. In his new role, Mendonca will help ensure that California is rolling out the welcome mat to current and future California businesses and growing a sustainable economy for every Californian, said a statement from the Newsom transition team. Newsom will take the oath of office as governor Monday. He has previously selected key advisors on the state budget, legislative affairs and the executive branchs wide array of agencies and departments. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Joshua Groban, aide to Gov. Jerry Brown, sworn in to California Supreme Court By Taryn Luna California Supreme Court Justice Joshua Groban gives remarks after he is sworn into the court by Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday. (Taryn Luna) California Supreme Court Justice Joshua Groban, a lawyer and longtime aide to Gov. Jerry Brown, was sworn into the states highest court Thursday in Sacramento. The ceremony marked Browns fourth appointment to the state Supreme Court and gave the seven-member bench a Democratic majority. We live in a highly chaotic, ever-changing and ever-confusing world, Groban said in prepared remarks at the Stanley Mosk Library and Courts Building. But Im happy to report that Im joining an institution whose fundamental purpose, at core, is to provide stability and consistency amidst this chaotic place we live. I look forward to doing that with a sense of reflection, respect, fidelity to the law and compassion. None of Browns appointees, Groban included, have judicial experience. Groban served as legal counsel to Browns 2010 gubernatorial campaign and joined the administration as a senior advisor to the governor, overseeing the appointments of some 600 judges over the last eight years. Prior to working with Brown, Groban, 45, practiced law for more than a decade. In perhaps his final public appearance before his successor, Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, takes office next week, Brown pushed back on notions that he stacked the court. I dont want this to be known as a Brown court, the governor said before administering the judicial oath of office. First of all, the so-called Brown appointments do not agree with themselves and nor should they. They are individuals. They will differ. Its not anybodys court. The governor called the court a high calling and said Groban possesses the values for the job. Probably, next to my wife, Ive talked to no person as much as Ive talked to Josh Groban, Brown said. I think youve talked to him more, Californias First Lady Anne Gust Brown interjected. I cant tell you what the hell hes going to do, Brown later quipped. I warned him, dont screw up, at least not at first. Advertisement Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California campaign watchdog agency seeks law barring use of campaign funds to fight harassment claims Former state Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia). ( (Steve Yeater / Associated Press)) Elected officials accused of harassment or discrimination would be barred from using political contributions to cover their legal defense costs under legislation proposed by Californias campaign watchdog agency. The state Fair Political Practices Commission has agreed to pursue a law change to clear up confusion after an attorney for one former state lawmaker argued political funds could be used in such legal defenses. Commission Chairwoman Alice Germond said putting a prohibition into the law would provide some much needed clarity. As chair, I would like to show the public their lawmakers are held to a standard that is above reproach, Germond said in a statement. People dont give money to campaigns for lawmakers to use it to defend their own bad behavior, so lawmakers shouldnt be able to use it in that manner. The issue came up a year ago when an attorney for former Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) sought a formal opinion from the FPPC after the Senate launched an investigation that later concluded Mendoza likely engaged in a pattern of harassment against female aides. Mendoza resigned in February under threat of expulsion by the Senate. In a Jan. 10, 2018, letter, Cassandra Ferrannini, an attorney for Mendoza, wrote to the FPPC that she believed Mendoza should be allowed to establish a legal defense fund able to defray his legal expenses in defending himself against the allegations. The use of campaign funds for attorneys fees under these circumstances would fall squarely within the scope of legislative matters, since it involves the alleged conduct of a legislator with regard to legislative staff that he supervised, Ferrannini wrote. The commission staff originally issued an advice letter that said Mendoza may use campaign and legal defense funds to defend himself from claims of sexual harassment that arose directly out of his activities or status as a candidate or elected officer. But the panel later rescinded the letter after some members questioned using campaign funds to fight sexual harassment claims. That left uncertainty about what was allowed, which Germond said could be cleared up by a new law. The FPPC is still looking for a legislator to carry the bill, a spokesman said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Californias landmark police transparency law takes effect after court denies police union effort to block it California Supreme Court building (Eric Risberg / Associated Press) A new state law allowing the public disclosure of internal police shooting investigations has gone into effect after the California Supreme Court on Wednesday denied a bid by a police union to block it. The law opens to the public for the first time internal investigations of officer shootings and other major uses of force, along with confirmed cases of sexual assault and lying while on duty. The San Bernardino County Sheriffs Employees Benefit Assn. challenged the law last month, asking state Supreme Court justices to decide that the law only apply to incidents that occur in 2019 or later. The court rejected that request Wednesday, allowing members of the public to seek all applicable records held by police departments. Union president Grant Ward said in a statement that his organization was disappointed with the decision and is now seeking other legal options. We feel this is a statewide issue and should be considered accordingly, Ward said. Last month, the city of Inglewood authorized the destruction of more than 100 police shooting investigations and other records in advance of Jan. 1, when the disclosure law was scheduled to take effect. California law requires police departments to keep such records for five years, and Inglewood City Council voted to destroy records older than that. Mayor James T. Butts has said the decision had nothing to do with the new law. In Los Angeles, Police Chief Michel Moore has said that complying with the new disclosure rules could take hundreds of thousands of hours of work. State Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), the author of the transparency law, has said she has no immediate plans to propose changes to it. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Few complaints of racial profiling are sustained by police agencies in California, state panel finds CHP Officer J. Nelson stands outside the office of Gov. Jerry Brown as activists in 2015 support requiring the tracking of police stops. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Law enforcement agencies in California sustain few citizen complaints of racial or identity profiling, according to a report Wednesday by a state panel set up to help reduce bias in policing. The states Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board recommended in its annual report that law enforcement agencies improve training and adopt clear guidelines for tracking and reporting data on who is stopped by officers. The panel said that 453 law enforcement agencies in the state received 9,459 civilian complaints in 2017, including 865 complaints alleging racial or identity profiling. Of the racial and identity complaints that reached a disposition that year, 1.5% were sustained, 14.6% resulted in officers being exonerated and 83.9% of complaints were not sustained or were determined to be unfounded, the report said. A clearer picture of the issue is expected from a 2015 law that requires police agencies to report demographic data on all detentions and searches. The first reports by the eight largest agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department, are due to be submitted in April. California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, whose office oversees the board, said tracking of all detentions and searches will be helpful to understand the scope of the issue. The Boards recommendations will help make our law enforcement agencies more transparent and promote critical steps to enhance, and in some cases, repair the public trust, Becerra said in a statement Wednesday. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California housing crisis podcast: What Minneapolis decision to end single-family zoning might mean for California A view of downtown Minneapolis in 2014 (Stephen Maturen / Getty Images) Theres a national movement brewing to roll back zoning rules in cities that only allow one house on a plot of land. The epicenter of that movement is Minneapolis, which passed a plan last month to eliminate single-family zoning citywide and let landowners build duplexes and triplexes on residential property. On this episode of Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast, we talk about the reasons why Minneapolis leaders took this action, including their desire to combat a history of racial exclusion and spur more housing density to fight climate change. We also debate how Minneapolis decision might affect housing politics in California. Our guest is Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender, who helped shepherd the new zoning rules to passage and a former San Francisco city planner. The episode also crowns 2018s Avocado of the Year the most ridiculous story exemplifying Californias housing woes and includes our predictions for the most under-the-radar important themes in housing politics in 2019. Gimme Shelter, a biweekly podcast that looks at why its so expensive to live in California and what the state can do about it, features Liam Dillon, who covers housing affordability issues for the Los Angeles Times Sacramento bureau, and Matt Levin, data and housing reporter for CALmatters. You can subscribe to Gimme Shelter on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, Google Play and Overcast. Advertisement Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print How young immigrant Dreamers made flipping control of the House a personal quest By Jazmine Ulloa Gabriela Cruz, who was brought to the U.S. illegally when she was 1, couldnt vote, but in the final hours before the Nov. 6 election, she was making one last run to get people to the polls. The sun was setting in Modesto when she found Ronald Silva, 41, smoking a cigarette on a tattered old couch behind a group home. He politely tried to wave her off until she reminded him he had a right that she as an immigrant without citizenship didnt have. It could really make a change for us, said Cruz, 29. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom will propose almost $2 billion for early childhood programs (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) Seeking to frame his new administration as one with a firm focus on closing the gap between children from affluent and poor families, Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom will propose spending some $1.8 billion on an array of programs designed to boost Californias enrollment in early education and child-care programs. Newsoms plan, which he hinted at in a Fresno event last month, will be a key element in the state budget proposal he will submit to the Legislature shortly after taking office Monday, a source close to the governor-elects transition team said. The spending would boost programs designed to ensure children enter kindergarten prepared to learn, closing what some researchers have called the readiness gap that exists based on a familys income. It would also phase in an expansion of prekindergarten and offer money to help school districts that dont have facilities for full-day kindergarten. The fact that hes making significant investments with his opening budget is really exciting, Ted Lempert, president of the Bay Area-based nonprofit Children Now, said Tuesday. Whats exciting is the comprehensiveness of it, because its saying were going to focus on prenatal through age 5. A broad overview document reviewed by The Times on Tuesday shows that most of the outlay under the plan $1.5 billion would be a one-time expense in the budget year that begins July 1. Those dollars would be a single infusion of cash, an approach favored by Gov. Jerry Brown in recent years. Most of the money would be spent on efforts to expand child-care services and kindergarten classes. By law, a governor must submit a full budget to the Legislature no later than Jan. 10. Lawmakers will spend the winter and spring reviewing the proposal and must send a final budget plan to Newsom by June 15. Though legislative Democrats have pushed for additional early childhood funding in recent years a key demand of the Legislative Womens Caucus those actions have typically come late in the budget-writing season in Sacramento. Quite frankly, to start out with a January proposal that includes that investment in Californias children reflects a new day, state Sen. Holly J. Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) said. The governor-elect will propose a $750-million boost to kindergarten funding, aimed at expanding facilities to allow full-day programs. A number of school districts offer only partial-day programs, leaving many low-income families to skip enrolling their children because kindergarten classes end in the middle of the workday. Because the money would not count toward meeting Californias three-decades-old education spending guarantee under Proposition 98, which sets a minimum annual funding level for K-12 schools and community colleges, it will not reduce planned spending on other education services. Close behind in total cost is a budget proposal by Newsom to help train child-care workers and expand local facilities already subsidized by the state, as well as those serving parents who attend state colleges and universities. Together, those efforts could cost $747 million, according to the budget overview document. An expansion of prekindergarten programs would be phased in over three years at a cost of $125 million in the first year. The multiyear rollout would, according to the budget overview, ensure the system can plan for the increase in capacity. Lempert said the Newsom proposal is notable for trying to avoid the kinds of battles that in recent years pitted prekindergarten and expanded child care against each other for additional taxpayer dollars. The reality is we need to expand both simultaneously, he said. Another $200 million of the proposal would be earmarked for programs that provide home visits to expectant parents from limited-income families and programs that provide healthcare screenings for young children. Some of the money would come from the states Medi-Cal program, and other money from federal matching dollars. Funding for the home visits program was provided in the budget Brown signed last summer; the Newsom effort would build on that. Emphasizing a policy area with broad appeal in his first state budget could reflect Newsoms political sensibility about the challenges ahead. Democratic lawmakers and interest groups will be especially eager to see how Newsom addresses the demand for an overhaul of healthcare coverage in California especially after a 2017 effort to create a single-payer, universal system fizzled. The path forward on healthcare is complex and costly, making early childhood education a more achievable goal in the governor-elects early tenure. Newsom is likely to face considerable demands for other additional spending. In November, the Legislatures independent analysts projected that continued strength in tax revenues could produce a cash reserve of some $29 billion over the next 18 months. Almost $15 billion of that could be in unrestricted reserves, the kind that can be spent on any number of government programs. Kim Belshe, executive director of the child advocacy organization First 5 LA and a former state health and human services secretary, said the initial Newsom budget proposal suggests the next governor will focus on a comprehensive approach to improving outcomes for children from low-income families. School-ready kids deserve quality early learning, strong and well-supported families, and access to early screening services, Belshe said. Newsom understands the whole child, multifaceted needs of our kids and is clearly ready to lead. Mitchell, the chair of the Senate budget committee, said shes eager to see the details of the governor-elects proposal to determine whether it might signal the beginning of an even broader expansion of early education efforts. Similar efforts have been hindered by a lack of money and ongoing debate over which services to help children 5 and younger need state funding the most. Universal preschool, in particular, has been debated for more than a decade. California voters rejected a ballot measure to fund a full prekindergarten system in 2006. Its clear theres a new movement afoot trying to engage on investment for universal preschool, Mitchell said. How we invest, and how we prioritize that investment, is going to be a great conversation for the coming months. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California Politics Podcast: A final conversation with Gov. Jerry Brown No Californian has served longer as governor, signed more laws, granted clemency to more felons or waged more high-profile campaigns than Gov. Jerry Brown. Brown will leave behind a unique legacy when he packs his last belongings for the trip from the governors mansion in Sacramento to his Northern California ranch. His final two terms in office could be his most consequential. The governor reviewed some of the more notable moments from the past eight years in a far-reaching interview with The Times on Dec. 22. This weeks podcast episode includes extended portions of that conversation. Advertisement Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print A sagging economy could doom a 2020 ballot measure to raise commercial property taxes, Gov. Jerry Brown says Gov. Jerry Brown, at his Colusa County home on Saturday, said a ballot measure to raise commercial property taxes could struggle in 2020. (Randall Benton/For The Times) An effort to remove commercial property in California from the tax limits imposed by the landmark Proposition 13 could be felled by an economic slowdown, Gov. Jerry Brown said. In a Saturday interview with The Times at his Northern California ranch, Brown said liberal activist groups that have successfully placed the proposal on the November 2020 statewide ballot shouldnt read too much into early poll numbers showing support for the plan. That isnt as easy as you think, Brown said. Because youre going to be in a downturn of the business cycle. And youre talking many kinds of business. And the cost of doing business in California is already high. The ballot measure would allow counties to more frequently assess the market value of commercial property in California than allowed under Proposition 13, a 1978 ballot initiative that amended the state constitution to place strict limits on assessing property values and taxation for both homeowners and businesses. An analysis of the new measure, which qualified in October for the 2020 ballot, estimates it could bring in some $10.5 billion a year in new tax revenue. The business community will fight it, Brown said. And the minimum wage, the family leave, the environmental rules business[es] have left California, thats going to be the big argument. And I think thats something you really have to think a lot about. The governor, who leaves office early next month due to term limits, declined to either endorse or oppose the ballot measure. He said Californias economic health in two years time could be a key factor in how voters weigh the proposal. Well be in a recession by then, Brown said. So its anybodys guess. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Inglewood to destroy more than 100 police shooting records that could otherwise become public under new California law By Jack Dolan Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts (Maria Alejandra Cardona / Los Angeles Times) The city of Inglewood has authorized the shredding of more than 100 police shooting and other internal investigation records weeks before a new state law could allow the public to access them for the first time. The decision, made at a City Council meeting earlier this month, has troubled civil liberties advocates who were behind the state legislation, Senate Bill 1421, which takes effect Jan. 1. The law opens to the public internal investigations of officer shootings and other major uses of force, along with confirmed cases of sexual assault and lying while on duty. The legislature passed SB 1421 because communities demanded an end to the secrecy cloaking police misconduct and use of force, Marcus Benigno, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said in a statement. Inglewood PDs decision to purge records undermines police accountability and transparency against the will of Californians. California law says police departments must retain records of officer shootings and internal misconduct investigations for five years. The city of Inglewood, however, had kept records longer than that, including case files of police shootings dating to 1991. State Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), the author of SB 1421, intended for her bill to allow public access to all qualifying records held by a department, no matter the date of the incident. Inglewood City Council approved the destruction of records that have been in the police departments possession more than 100 cases longer than required by law. The city staff report and council resolution describing the action makes no mention of the new police transparency law. Instead it says the affected records are obsolete, occupy valuable space, and are of no further use to the police department. It added the traditional method of destroying such records is to shred them. It is unclear whether the records have since been destroyed. A spokesman for the Inglewood Police Department along with Inglewoods city manager, attorney, clerk, four council members and Mayor James T. Butts, a former Santa Monica police chief, did not respond to requests for comment. Inglewoods City Hall is closed the last two weeks of December. The Inglewood Police Department has a reputation for secrecy and using excessive force. In 2008, the departments officers fatally shot four men in as many months, three of whom turned out to be unarmed. The U.S. Department of Justice launched a civil rights probe and found significant flaws in the way the department oversaw use-of-force cases and investigated complaints against officers. Civil rights advocates still question why Inglewood police opened fire on a couple found sleeping in a car in 2016, killing them both. California police have a long history of shredding records to avoid scrutiny of their actions. In the 1970s, the LAPD famously destroyed more than four tons of personnel records after defense attorneys began requesting them as part of criminal cases against their clients. The move resulted in the dismissal of more than a hundred criminal complaints. In response, the Legislature demanded that records be preserved but then took other measures, supported by police unions, to ensure the public had very little access to them, making California the most secretive state in the nation when it comes to police misconduct. Skinners legislation begins to unwind those laws, which have been on the books since 1978. No video or audio of the Dec. 11 council action is available on the citys website and neither are meeting minutes or any record of the decision. A city spokeswoman, Courtney Torres, confirmed that the council had voted in favor of the police records purge, and said all the relevant reasons for the decision were included in the city staff report. The Jan. 1 implementation for SB 1421 has prompted other police officials to act. A police union in San Bernardino is asking the state Supreme Court to determine that Skinners bill only applies to incidents that occur in 2019 or later. Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore sent a letter to Skinner earlier this month warning that complying with the law in regard to older records in the departments possession could take hundreds of thousands of work hours. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Federal officials question California DMVs process for issuing Real IDs (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has notified the California Department of Motor Vehicles that its process for providing residents with federally recognized identification cards is not adequate. DMV spokesman Armando Botello said Friday that 2.3 million residents who received Real IDs under the current process will have to submit additional documentation when their cards are renewed in five years but will be able to use them in the meantime. The DMV is developing a way for residents to submit more documentation online or via email to comply with the stricter federal requirement, he said. But some state legislators are upset about delays in notifying them of the problem and say Homeland Security could eventually require additional documentation provided by current holders. The DMV has known for a month that millions of Real IDs theyve been dolling out are potentially invalid, Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R-Fresno) said. The DMVs only hope is that the Department of Homeland Security takes pity on California and gives the DMV more time to fix this mess. Real IDs are a new kind of driver license and identification card that federal law will require legal residents to present when boarding domestic flights or visiting military bases and other federal facilities starting Oct. 1, 2020. The DMV has only been requiring one form of documentation, including a current lease or utility bill, to verify the residence of a card applicant. But the federal government said in a Nov. 21 letter to the agency that two such documents are needed. On Friday, DMV Director Jean Shiomoto released a letter defending the current process but said her agency will start requiring a second document to prove residency in April. In order to minimize confusion among our customers, the CADMV will work to inform individuals who have been issued a Real ID under the current process that their card will be accepted for official federal purposes, even if their renewal occurs after the October 1, 2020, final enforcement date for Real ID, Shiomoto wrote to the federal agency. Legislative officials worry there is still a possibility that those issued Real IDs in the past might be required to present a second document to have their cards designated as compliant. The more complex process for obtaining Real IDs has led to hours-long waits for customers at DMV field offices this year, although wait times have been reduced recently by an increase in staffing. Shiomoto last month announced that she is retiring amid problems with the motor voter registration system and after the governor ordered an audit of her agency in response to the long wait times. On Friday, Assembly Republican Leader Marie Waldron of Escondido blasted the DMV for waiting a month to tell legislators of the problem. This is unacceptable and flies in the face of security for our citizens, which is what Real ID was created for in the first place, she said in a statement. Advertisement Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom taps Keely Bosler to be his finance director Keely Bosler, the director of the California Department of Finance, will continue in that role under Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom. (California Department of Finance) Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom on Friday appointed Keely Martin Bosler as director of the California Department of Finance, continuing the role she has served under Gov. Jerry Brown since August. Bosler will become Newsoms chief fiscal advisor, and will play a pivotal role in shaping Newsoms spending plan for the state that will lay the foundation for his top policy priorities. Newsom must roll out his first budget plan within days of taking office on Jan. 7. Californias brighter future depends on a strong, stable fiscal foundation, Newsom said in a statement released Friday afternoon. Keely is an accomplished public servant of sound fiscal judgment. She understands that state budgets are more than numbers on a page they are value statements affecting the fate and future of millions of families reaching for the California Dream. We are fortunate to have her on our team. Prior to being appointed finance director, Bosler served as Browns cabinet secretary for two years and, before that, as the chief deputy director for budget in the Finance Department for three years. Earlier this year, Brown picked Bosler to lead an audit of the Department of Motor Vehicles, which had come under fire for long wait times at DMV field offices and numerous computer problems, including errors in the new motor voter program that registered Californians to vote. As we have discussed, long wait times at the Department of Motor Vehicles do not reflect the high standards of service that Californians expect from their state government, Bosler wrote in a letter in September to DMV Director Jean Shiomoto. The audit is still ongoing, but Shiomoto has since announced she will retire at the end of the year. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Californias legislative analyst, after decades of nonpartisan research for lawmakers, calls it a career Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor, who has led the state research unit since 2008, will retire on Dec. 31. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Only five people have led the independent research office of the California Legislature since its creation in 1941. And each of them has had a pretty simple mantra to live by in reviewing public policy proposals and government programs: Call it like you see it. The job of any analyst, to me, is you maintain that nonpartisanship, Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor said. Taylor, 65, will retire from the post at the end of December after a four-decade career with the research team that began, as he likes to tell it, just after the passage of the landmark property tax rollback, Proposition 13, in 1978. He became the leader of the office, with the title of legislative analyst, in October 2008. Two months later, state government found itself in arguably the worst fiscal crisis in its history a projected shortfall that ultimately grew to $42 billion by the following winter. There were forces beyond our control, Taylor said of that time. But dont underestimate the policy changes that were made afterward. Those changes, most notably a boost in taxes paid by high-income earners and a robust state budget cash reserve fund, have helped lead to successive years of fully funded government services. The state is projected to have some $24 billion in reserves by the end of the current fiscal year. Taylor announced his intention earlier to step down this year. Leaders from both houses of the Legislature select the analyst, who leads a staff of almost five dozen researchers. The office provides in-depth reports on pending legislation, as well as on broader policy topics like education and healthcare, and produces an independent analysis for every proposed ballot measure. A succession of lawmakers and governors alike have praised or panned the work of the Legislative Analysts Office based on their own political worldview. Taylor said his staff is mindful that they work for legislators, but try to ignore the rhetoric that follows the release of a major report. People are going to do what theyre going to do with our information, he said. They dont always like it, but they appreciate that we give them our best advice. Taylor oversaw a transformation in the way the Legislative Analysts Office distributes its information, embracing the release of research reports through social media instead of relying on traditional printed copies and journalist roundtable events. But he said the work of the researchers has remained largely unchanged through the decades. Having an independent take on things, I think, is good for the Legislature, he said. No replacement for Taylor has been announced, which means a short transition for his eventual successor before Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom sends his first budget proposal to lawmakers in early January. Taylor, who lives in the Sacramento suburbs, said he will honor the tradition of his predecessors in stepping away from public policy debates in order to give the new analyst space to lead the team as he or she sees fit. He said he hopes to travel in the coming years and spend time with his children who have moved to the East Coast. Forty years in state government, Taylor said in why he was stepping aside now. Isnt that enough? Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Gov. Jerry Brown sues to save California sentencing laws By Don Thompson, Associated Press (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown sued Thursday to protect one of his signature actions in office, a voter-approved measure that allows most prison inmates to seek earlier release and participate in rehabilitation programs. His administration filed a lawsuit challenging a pending 2020 initiative that seeks to toughen criminal penalties as part of an effort to roll back reforms adopted by voters within the last decade. Browns lawsuit in Sacramento County Superior Court contends the measure lacked enough valid signatures to overturn a previously approved constitutional amendment. County officials and California Secretary of State Alex Padilla certified the signatures in July but said they were submitted too late to qualify for last months election. The lawsuit names Padilla and the ballot measures official proponent, Nina Salarno Besselman, president of the advocacy group Crime Victims United. Padilla said the measure exceeded the required roughly 366,000 valid signatures, equal to 5% of votes cast for governor in 2014. Browns lawsuit says he used the wrong threshold. It says changing the state Constitution requires 8%, or more than 585,400 signatures. That makes the pending initiative more than 150,000 signatures short, the lawsuit says. Hes wrong, said Jeff Flint, a spokesman for the campaign backing the measure. He predicted a judge will be reluctant to reject a measure that already has qualified for the ballot. The secretary of state told us how many signatures are required, and thats how many we collected, Flint said. Padillas office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The measure would reverse reforms adopted by voters through Proposition 47 in 2014 and Proposition 57 in 2016. Proposition 57 allows most inmates to seek earlier paroles, and Proposition 47 reduced some drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. The combination has helped keep Californias inmate population below a population cap set by federal judges. Corrections department spokeswoman Vicky Waters said the measure gives corrections and parole officials broad discretion to protect our communities and fashion a rational system of rehabilitation and punishment. This new initiative unlawfully seeks to supplant the departments constitutional authority to implement these critical reforms to our criminal justice system. The pending initiative would shorten the list of crimes that qualify for earlier parole and change some theft crimes from misdemeanors back to felonies. It would also increase the number of crimes for which DNA is collected, a list that was limited when some crimes went from felonies to misdemeanors. Those supporting the tougher penalties say easing criminal penalties has increased the number of dangerous criminals on the streets, but those backing the changes say they have helped reduce mass incarceration and rehabilitate convicted criminals. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California Supreme Court orders records unsealed in pardon of ex-state Sen. Roderick Wright Former state Sen. Roderick Wright (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times) The California Supreme Court has granted a request to unseal court records involving Gov. Jerry Browns decision last month to pardon former state Sen. Roderick Wright for felony convictions involving lying about living in his legislative district, officials said Thursday. The court order was in response to a request by the nonpartisan First Amendment Coalition, which argued that the public has a right to know what information went into the governors decision to grant clemency to Wright. This is an important victory for public access to court files involving the exercise of executive clemency, said coalition spokesman Glen A. Smith. We are gratified the court has recognized that these decisions should be subject to the same public access rules that apply to other judicial records under California law. The court gave Browns office until Jan. 2 to redact confidential material before giving the court documents that can be released to the public. The court files submitted by the governors office include letters of support for a pardon and an internal review of Wrights case. The court denied a motion to unseal the records of all clemency cases but left open consideration of requests on other individual cases. Browns office is currently evaluating the courts decision, said spokesman Brian Ferguson. The governor argued against unsealing records in a recent court filing that said confidentiality is consistent with historical practice and is supported by state law. In pardoning Wright on Nov. 22, the governor wrote: He has shown that since his release from custody, he has lived an honest and upright life, exhibited good moral character, and conducted himself as a law abiding citizen. Advertisement Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California political watchdog agency fines BART, urges prosecution over using public funds for campaign A Bay Area Rapid Transit train leaves the station in Oakland in this 2013 file photo. (Ben Margot / AP) Californias state political watchdog agency on Thursday imposed a $7,500 fine against the Bay Area Rapid Transit District and called for a possible criminal or civil prosecution over allegations the district used public resources to campaign for a 2016 bond measure. The state Fair Political Practices Commission levied an administrative fine against BART for its failure to disclose spending on YouTube videos, social media posts and text messages to promote Measure RR, which authorized $3.5 billion in general obligation bonds. Though the panel lacks authority to seek criminal charges over the misuse of public funds, it also urged county district attorneys in the BART service area and the state attorney general to pursue possible criminal or civil charges over the spending of taxpayer dollars for campaign purposes, Commission Chairwoman Alice Germond said. It is the concept of misusing public funds that I think we all here are very disturbed about, and we want to send a warning and not create a precedent that is a minor, little slap on the wrist, Germond said, adding that the referral to criminal prosecutors would further send a message that this is wrong. Commissioner Brian Hatch also called for the state Legislature to consider granting the FPPC power to go after public agencies that spend taxpayer money on campaigns. Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Orinda) called on the agency to increase the fine to the maximum level of $33,375. The proposed $7,500 fine represents a slap on the wrist for a very serious violation of the law and the publics trust, Glazer said in a letter to the panel. In supporting the fine recommended by the staff, Germond said BART has agreed to pay the penalty. Somebody did something wrong and they have admitted it, she said. A staff report said there were factors in favor of a fine below the maximum. Although the Commission considers BARTs violations to be serious, the absence of any evidence of an intention to conceal, deceive, or mislead; the voluntary filing of the delinquent campaign statement; and the absence of a prior record are mitigating, the report said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California police union seeks state Supreme Court review of new law disclosing internal investigation records Los Angeles Police Department officers. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) A police union is asking the California Supreme Court to block the release of internal officer investigations before a new state law takes effect next year. The San Bernardino County Sheriffs Employees Benefit Assn. filed a petition Tuesday asking justices to rule that only investigations of incidents that occur after Jan. 1 would be available under the law and not those the department has on file from years prior. The litigation comes after this years passage of Senate Bill 1421, which opens to the public for the first time internal investigations of officer shootings and other major uses of force, along with confirmed cases of sexual assault and lying while on duty. The law goes into effect Jan. 1, and the San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department has told the union it intends to make available in response to public records requests all the information it has. The union is very concerned about any plans to retroactively apply Senate Bill 1421, Grant Ward, the unions president, said in a statement. We believe retroactive application violates our members rights and we hope the California Supreme Court will consider the serious issues raised by our legal challenge. The bills author, Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), does not agree with the unions interpretation. She has said her legislation should apply to all the records in a police departments possession because the law simply declared that affected records were no longer confidential. If the record exists, its disclosable, Skinner said. A decision on what records will be available under the law is key to how far-reaching it will be. If the court restricts access to incidents that occurred prior to 2019, those cases will not be subject to public scrutiny. The police union in San Bernardino County is not the only one raising concerns about the law. Earlier this month, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore sent a letter to Skinner expressing concern that his agency would be overwhelmed if the law required the department to disclose older incidents. Even if the law only applied to the previous five years, Moore wrote, it could take nearly 300,000 hours of work to comply with its provisions. The LAPD operates with a guiding principle of Reverence for the Law; as such, we will diligently comply with SB 1421, Moore wrote. We maintain, however, that a retroactive implementation of SB 1421 will be exceptionally burdensome and would require significant reallocation of front-line investigative personnel. Skinner said if complying with the law becomes untenable for law enforcement agencies that maintain records for a long time, she would consider modifications. But she said agencies did not raise this concern during discussion over the bill. SB 1421 went through multiple committee hearings, multiple floor debates, extensive opportunity for all parties to weigh in on concerns with its structure, she said. That was not an issue that was raised by law enforcement at the time. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Gov. Brown warns of backlash for Republicans in 2020 if Obamacare repeal is upheld Gov. Jerry Brown at the National Press Club in April. (Alex Wong / Getty Images) Gov. Jerry Brown warned Republicans on Tuesday that repeal of the Affordable Care Act would devastate the partys political chances in the 2020 election. Brown, speaking at a Sacramento Press Club event moderated by Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton and Brown family historian Miriam Pawel, said a federal judges ruling last week to strike down the 2010 law if upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court will build such a backlash that the Democrats will not only take over the Senate, theyll win the presidency and will win with the kind of momentum, particularly on the issue of healthcare, that [the law] will be replaced probably with something even better. The governor, who leaves office in less than three weeks, said he did not believe the ruling by a Texas judge would ultimately prevail. I think the decision will probably be overturned, Brown said. Few states have embraced the law championed by former President Obama more than California, both through its healthcare exchange, Covered California, and by expanding access to government-funded services under Medi-Cal. Some 12 million Californians now receive healthcare through Medi-Cal, and Brown said a final ruling affecting the federal dollars that subsidize that care would be a serious blow. California would not be able to afford it without the subsidy, the governor said. Advertisement Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Bars in Los Angeles, San Francisco could stay open until 4 a.m. under new bill A bar in Sherman Oaks (acuna-hansen) For the third year in a row, a California lawmaker is trying to keep bars open until 4 a.m. State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) is reintroducing legislation that would allow Los Angeles, San Francisco and seven other cities to extend the sales of alcohol in bars, clubs and restaurants by an additional two hours. Nightlife brings people together, fosters creativity and innovation, supports small businesses, and creates middle-class jobs, Wiener said in a statement. Its time to embrace our nighttime economy and give our cities the tools they need to foster the best nightlife possible. Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar bill by Wiener, writing: I believe we have enough mischief from midnight to 2 without adding two more hours of mayhem. Should this years measure, Senate Bill 58, advance through the Legislature, Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom would decide whether to sign it into law. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has endorsed SB 58, saying the city should have more flexibility than it does now. Every community has its own needs, and cities should be able to make informed decisions about what nightlife hours make sense for residents, visitors, and neighborhoods, Garcetti said in a statement. The bill would create a five-year pilot program where Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, West Hollywood, Long Beach, Coachella, Cathedral City and Palm Springs could decide to allow restaurants and bars within their cities to serve alcohol until 4 a.m. with the approval of the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Bars in Los Angeles and San Francisco could stay open until 4 a.m. under new bill A bar in Sherman Oaks. (Acuna-Hansen) For the third year in a row, a California lawmaker is trying to keep bars open until 4 a.m. State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) is reintroducing legislation that would allow Los Angeles, San Francisco and seven other cities to extend the sales of alcohol in bars, clubs and restaurants by an additional two hours. Nightlife brings people together, fosters creativity and innovation, supports small businesses and creates middle-class jobs, Wiener said in a statement. Its time to embrace our nighttime economy and give our cities the tools they need to foster the best nightlife possible. Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar bill by Wiener, writing: I believe we have enough mischief from midnight to 2 without adding two more hours of mayhem. Should this years measure, Senate Bill 58, advance through the Legislature, Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom would decide whether to sign it into law. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has endorsed SB 58, saying the city should have more flexibility than it does now. Every community has its own needs, and cities should be able to make informed decisions about what nightlife hours make sense for residents, visitors and neighborhoods, Garcetti said in a statement. The bill would create a five-year pilot program where Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, West Hollywood, Long Beach, Coachella, Cathedral City and Palm Springs could decide to allow restaurants and bars within their cities to serve alcohol until 4 a.m. with the approval of the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Californias DMV director announces retirement amid problems with motor voter program (Kent Nishamura/Los Angeles Times) The director of the California Department of Motor Vehicles will retire at years end with a number of questions unanswered about the implementation of a major voter registration system and long wait times experienced by customers for much of the past summer. Jean Shiomoto will not continue in her current role as Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom takes office, and announced to staff several weeks ago her intent to retire at the end of the year after 38 years in state service, spokesman Armando Botello said in an email to The Times on Friday. Newsoms transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on who might lead the department in 2019. Shiomoto was appointed DMV director by Gov. Jerry Brown in the fall of 2013, having served in prior leadership roles with the department. DMV officials have been sharply criticized by lawmakers in recent months for delays in serving customers at its field offices across the state. Last week, DMV officials revealed errors in registering California voters for the November election mistakes that followed a series of problems in the rollout of the states new motor voter registration system. Secretary of State Alex Padilla last week said he had lost confidence in Shiomotos leadership as a result of the voting registration problems. Advertisement Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print New law could break the stalemate over housing on the site of a near-vacant Cupertino mall By Liam Dillon For more than a decade, developers have tried to build new housing on the site of an all-but-empty mall in Cupertino, a city in the heart of Silicon Valley and home to Apple headquarters. A well-organized group of neighbors, upset about traffic, building heights and the potential loss of the communitys suburban lifestyle, turned away every plan. Now, for the first time, the stalemate might be broken thanks to a decision made in the state Capitol. In an effort to address Californias housing affordability problem, legislators passed a law last year that requires cities and counties to approve housing projects if they comply with local zoning rules and other standards, forcing some resistant communities to agree to new homebuilding. In September, the city of Cupertino, citing the state law, approved developer Sand Hill Property Co.s proposal to build an office park and more than 2,400 homes where the Vallco Shopping Mall sits. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Local government was a last bastion for struggling California Republicans. Not anymore By Mark Z. Barabak Theres no shortage of watery metaphors to describe the disaster that befell California Republicans this midterm election. A blue wave. A Democratic tsunami. But the most apt may be a flood, with the casualties steadily rising as the vote count climbed in the days and weeks following Nov. 6. Eventually half the GOP congressional delegation was washed away, along with the entire slate of statewide Republican candidates. In Sacramento, Democrats claimed 29 of 40 state Senate seats and seized three-quarters of the 80-member Assembly the largest number since 1883, when Chester A. Arthur was serving in the White House. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print For the Republicans left in Californias Legislature, fewer lawmakers will have to do more work By John Myers From January to late summer every year, the California Legislature is a perpetual motion machine. And in the new year, the people most likely to struggle in keeping up will be Republicans, vastly outnumbered but still responsible for representing millions of the states residents. There are 22 standing committees in the state Senate, plus at least a dozen more subcommittees or special committees. And after Novembers election, only 11 Republican senators will be left to divvy up the work. To the victors go the spoils. To the vanquished go the extra assignments. Read More Advertisement Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Californias DMV failed to finish registering 329 new voters before November election (Los Angeles Times) Officials at the California Department of Motor Vehicles said Friday that the agency failed to send information for 329 new voters to state elections officers in time for the November election, the latest revelation in a string of mishaps regarding voter registration. Secretary of State Alex Padilla responded with a blistering letter, calling on Gov. Jerry Brown or Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom to replace Jean Shiomoto, the DMV director. The Director of DMV has lost my confidence and trust, Padilla wrote. In all, the agency revealed that 589 mailed voter registration records that should have been processed under election deadlines werent sent to Californias secretary of state until late November, including forms from 260 drivers who had intended to update their address on existing voter registration records. The DMV had been instructed to not send registration forms that came in after Oct. 22, but the voters in question had forms that were postmarked before the deadline. In some cases, when the postmark wasnt legible, the agency said, documents inside indicated the voter had intended to finish their registration in time for the Nov. 6 election. The DMV recognizes the pause in transmittals was an error and affected the timing of the registration of the 589 individuals referenced above relative to the November election, Shiomoto wrote in a letter to Padilla on Friday. The pause was due to a misunderstanding on the part of the department, for which we take responsibility. Those who were trying to update their address for voter registration would not have been blocked from casting ballots. But officials said its unclear whether any of the 329 new voters were able to participate in the election. Shiomoto said in her letter that DMV will work with elections officials. The errors were not related to previous DMV mistakes about registering voters, problems associated with the rollout of the states new motor voter law. In those cases, multiple registration forms were sent to local elections offices for some voters, some people were assigned the wrong political party preference and others who are noncitizens were incorrectly placed on the list of registered voters. DMV officials have yet to respond to questions posed by The Times over the last several weeks about who knew of those mistakes and when. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Newsom appoints a labor advocate and a former staffer as his chief deputy Cabinet secretaries By Taryn Luna A labor advocate and a San Francisco political operative have accepted positions in Gov.-elect Gavin Newsoms new administration. Angie Wei, a Capitol insider with deep ties to organized labor in California, will serve as a chief deputy Cabinet secretary with a focus on policy development. As a legislative director and chief of staff at the California Labor Federation, Wei has represented more than 1,200 unions and 2.1 million workers in Capitol fights over a host of policy issues, including drug-pricing transparen Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, delivers a speech at a gathering to commemorate the 40th anniversary of issuing Message to Compatriots in Taiwan, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 2, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Tao) BEIJING, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping on Wednesday said China must be and will be reunified, as he addressed a gathering in Beijing to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Chinese mainland's Message to Compatriots in Taiwan. "It is a historical conclusion drawn over the 70 years of the development of cross-Strait relations, and a must for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation in the new era," said Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission. Speaking at the Great Hall of the People, Xi called for joint efforts across the Taiwan Strait to advance peaceful national reunification. The long-standing political differences can not be dragged on generation after generation, Xi said. The Taiwan question originated from national weakness and disorder and has lasted for 70 years. Xi said since 1949 the CPC, the Chinese government and the Chinese people have always unwaveringly taken resolving the Taiwan question to realize China's complete reunification as a historic task. He expressed confidence that the Taiwan question will definitely end with national rejuvenation. BEST APPROACH On Jan. 1, 1979, the National People's Congress Standing Committee issued the Message to Compatriots in Taiwan. It was considered a declaration of the mainland's policy for peaceful reunification. Halt to military confrontations was proposed. Visits, cross-Strait transportation, postal services and economic and cultural exchanges were promoted. A page on cross-Strait relations has been turned. On Wednesday, Xi raised a five-point proposal for peaceful reunification. He said the principles of "peaceful reunification" and "one country, two systems" are the best approach to realizing national reunification. He proposed that the mainland and Taiwan conduct democratic consultation on cross-Strait relations and the future of the nation, and establish institutional arrangement for peaceful development of cross-Strait relations. He said on the basis of ensuring China's sovereignty, security and interests of development, the social system and way of life in Taiwan will be fully respected, and the private property, religious beliefs and legitimate rights and interests of Taiwan compatriots will be fully protected after peaceful reunification is realized. The president pledged "utmost sincerity and greatest efforts" for the prospect of peaceful reunification and said Taiwan will be guaranteed lasting peace after reunification. "We are all of the same family," Xi said. While stressing that the "Chinese don't fight Chinese," Xi said, "We make no promise to renounce the use of force and reserve the option of taking all necessary means." This targets only the interference of external forces and the very small number of "Taiwan independence" separatists and their activities, he added. IRRESISTIBLE TREND "'Taiwan independence' goes against the trend of history and will lead to a dead end," Xi said. The president said achieving the country's greatness, national rejuvenation and cross-Strait reunification is the trend of history, which can never be blocked by anyone or any force. The peaceful and stable development of cross-Strait situations and the progress of cross-Strait relations are the tide of the time that can never be stopped by anyone or any force, he said. Liu Jieyi, head of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, noted the strengthened political, economic, cultural, personnel exchanges over the decades. Between 1988 and 2018, 134 million cross-Strait visits were logged; two-way trade reached 2.6 trillion U.S. dollars; and the mainland has been Taiwan's largest market and top investment destination outside the island, Liu said. In his speech, Xi said the future of Taiwan lies in national reunification. "We sincerely hope all the compatriots in Taiwan treasure peace as much as they treasure their own eyes, and pursue national reunification as much as they pursue happiness." NO INTERFERENCE FROM OUTSIDE Xi said the Taiwan question is China's internal affair and allows no external interference. The Chinese people's affairs should be decided by the Chinese people, Xi said, stressing that the Taiwan question concerns China's core interests and the national bond of the Chinese people. China's reunification does not harm any country's legitimate interests, including their economic interests in Taiwan, Xi said, adding that it will only bring more development opportunities to other countries. Over the 70 years, more and more countries and peoples have understood and supported China's cause of reunification, the president noted. Wednesday's gathering was attended by Li Zhanshu, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee. Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, presided over the event. Wang said Xi's speech demonstrated the historical trend of cross-Strait relations and called for joint efforts to forge ahead for the peaceful national reunification. Chen Ching-lung, a 54-year-old hotel operator in Xiamen, Fujian Province, followed Xi's speech, which was broadcast live by China Media Group and on Xinhua News Agency's website (xinhuanet.com). A veteran who was once stationed in Kinmen, Chen joined the influx of Taiwan compatriots who found bristle business chances on the mainland. "The direction of peaceful development is totally correct," he said. "What the two sides should do is to mitigate differences and enhance their communications." A gathering to commemorate the 40th anniversary of issuing Message to Compatriots in Taiwan is held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 2, 2019. (Xinhua/Shen Hong) To the editor: Why is the government shutdown portrayed as a battle between congressional Democrats and the president, each hoping to score political points by blaming the other? Even Republicans concede that President Trumps demand for $5 billion in border wall funding cannot pass out of Congress. Instead, members of Congress should work together to pass a government funding bill, table any decision regarding a wall, override any presidential veto, and get our agencies functioning again. Both parties need to get serious about creating a comprehensive immigration and border security policy and not pretend that Trumps tantrums, designed to whip up his base, are any substitute for serious leadership. Our focus should not be on the president, but on those Republicans who know better but are too afraid to stand up to Trump and do the right thing. Bill Carlson, Pacific Palisades Advertisement .. To the editor: The president is negotiating as if he were of regal heritage from a bygone era. When he proposed a secure, physical barrier between the U.S. and Mexico, and to have a foreign government pay for it, his supporters accepted his nonsense. In the words of Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), a wall is a 14th-century solution to a 21st-century problem. The president argues that walls work, but he offers no evidence. He says it will keep out drugs and terrorists, also with no evidence. Since Mexico bluntly refused to pay for the wall, he is asking taxpayers to fund it. He now wants the leaders of Congress to negotiate with him, but there will not be any such negotiation. Thats because Trump will rely on his lifetime business experience, which doesnt include any real negotiation. James Severtson, Reseda .. To the editor: The question of whether we should build a wall on our southern border is a no brainer. I cant imagine why anyone would oppose it. Many Democrats want U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement abolished, oppose the deportation of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, welcome the establishment of so-called sanctuary cities, support a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and oppose construction of a wall. Why cant they just admit that they want open borders? Advertisement We already have millions of undocumented immigrants in this country. Building a wall should not have even been the subject of a debate, let alone one that shuts down parts of the federal government. Ed Trillo, South Gate .. To the editor: Trump is merely the temporary president of the United States, but he acts as if his word is the law. Advertisement The division of power between the legislative and executive branches of government require both sides to modify their positions and enact appropriate legislation. The president cannot use his demand of $5 billion for a wall to partially shut down the government. Trump must compromise, and the Democrats are willing to compromise. Jason G. Brent, Las Vegas Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook Some presidents have really bad years. For Nixon, it was 1974 the Watergate year, which ended with his resignation. For Clinton, it was 1998 the Monica year, which culminated with an impeachment trial in the Senate in 1999. He won that vote easily and came out more popular than before. Its a good guess that Donald Trumps really bad year will be 2019. And its not yet clear whether hell survive, like Clinton, or be forced out of office, like Nixon. Nixons worst year resulted from crimes in his 1972 reelection effort, when burglars working for the campaign got caught breaking into the Democratic headquarters, and then Nixon and others conspired to stop the break-in investigation and cover up what had happened. Advertisement The events that brought Clinton to an impeachment trial in the Senate had nothing to do with his political campaigns. His misdeeds were strictly personal: He had sex with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, and then denied it under oath. The storm clouds gathering around Trump involve both the personal and the political. More than a dozen federal and state investigations are underway focused on Trump and those who worked on his election effort. He will also soon be facing aggressive congressional investigations by the House Democrats. Its easy to get lost in the details of Russiagate and the guilty pleas of Trump associates involved in a range of crimes, but what is developing is not that complicated: Its a political corruption scandal with the potential to be larger than anything weve seen before in American history. The infamous Trump Tower meeting, where Don Jr., Jared Kushner and campaign chief Paul Manafort met with a Russian operative offering help in the election, could turn out to be far worse than anything that happened in Watergate. And Trumps sexual troubles would be worse than Clintons, too, if he is found to have violated campaign funding laws in trying to buy the silence of women he slept with. Still, there are many similarities between Trumps troubles and earlier presidential scandals along with some differences. Both Nixon and Clinton faced allegations of obstruction of justice. They were tripped up not so much by the acts themselves, but rather by attempts to cover them up. Obstruction is also a focus of the investigations facing Trump. For Trump, the possible obstruction involves his efforts to stop the Russiagate investigation and his firing of FBI Director James Comey. Trump is also facing potential charges that neither Nixon nor Clinton had to deal with. The biggest question is whether Russiagate was a quid pro quo in which Russia offered to help Trump win the election in exchange for Trump easing Russia sanctions. We will probably learn more this year about what Russia did, exactly, during the election, both with information influence spread through social media and cyberattacks on the Dems. But the big question will remain what the Trump campaign knew about those efforts, and who exactly was in the loop. Advertisement Im betting that, in the end, Trump resigns and gets an advance pardon for himself and his children. Trump also faces campaign finance issues that neither Nixon nor Clinton had to deal with. If, as Trumps former lawyer Michael Cohen has said, Trump directed that payments be made to two women to keep them silent during the election campaign, then the payments could be construed as illegal campaign contributions. Trump also faces allegations that he violated the emoluments provision of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits federal officeholders from receiving payments from foreign or state governments while in office. The attorneys general of the District of Columbia and Maryland argue that Trump violated the emoluments clause by receiving money from foreign governments while holding office, through hotels owned by his family. And if that werent enough, Trump also faces investigations into alleged illegalities at the Trump Foundation and in the fundraising and spending by his inauguration committee. Advertisement Nixons troubles hold another possible caution for Trump in a year when committees in the House will almost certainly be subpoenaing the presidents tax returns. For Nixon, news that he had violated tax laws by taking an illegal write-off did a lot to turn the public against him. Nixon had backdated the deed of gift of his papers to the National Archives in order to take his write-off in a more advantageous year. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion People who shrugged off Watergate on the grounds that everybody does it were outraged that the president had claimed an illegal deduction of $576,000 the equivalent today of more than $3 million. We dont know whether Trumps tax returns contain dubious write-offs, but it seems likely well find that out this year and also, perhaps, whether the public is more forgiving of him than of Nixon for tax shenanigans. Advertisement Both Clinton and Nixon faced impeachment proceedings. The House Judiciary Committee voted articles of impeachment in 1974 against Nixon, but the full House never voted on them, and the Senate never held an impeachment trial. He resigned before that and was promptly pardoned by his successor, his former vice president, Gerald Ford, for any crimes he may have committed. Clinton was impeached by the House and went on to face a Senate trial, which fell far short of the required two-thirds vote for conviction. Im betting that, in the end, Trump resigns and gets an advance pardon for himself and his children. That may not happen until 2020, but in the meantime, 2019 will be the worst year of his life. Jon Wiener is a historian and a contributing editor to the Nation. He is the author of How We Forgot the Cold War: A Historical Journey Across America. Much of Americas foreign policy establishment, on both the right and the left, has been in an uproar over President Trumps decision to withdraw 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria. If Trumps critics are to be believed, it amounts to one of the worst foreign policy blunders in American history, a catastrophe for the nations interests and influence in the Middle East. Although the presidents failure to consult and coordinate with Congress and allies in making the decision was a head-spinning case of diplomatic and political malpractice, on balance, critics fears about the withdrawal are overblown. Here are five reasons why. The Islamic State caliphate isnt going to return. Islamic State now controls 1% of the territory it once held in Syria and Iraq. It has lost thousands of fighters and recruitment is down. Syria is not Iraq in 2011, where Islamic State militants advanced when there were no countervailing forces. The groups fighters still confront thousands of determined Kurdish forces, and Syria, Iran, Israel, Turkey and Russia share a common interest in preventing an Islamic State resurgence. Jihadist attacks in northeast Syria will continue and could certainly contribute to keeping Syria unstable. But a continued U.S. military presence wont change that, or eliminate the risk of a terrorist attack on the United States. Wiping out Islamic State was never realistic the political, economic and sectarian grievances that inspire its fighters cannot be eliminated by military means alone, and the Trump administration refuses to invest in the kind of stabilization efforts that might address those issues. Israel and the Kurds can survive without U.S. troops in Syria. Its true that the foothold that Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, have established in Syria threatens Israeli security. But Israel is capable of defending itself and is doing so by attacking Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria. Our enemies understand our intelligence and air superiority, said the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff after Trumps announcement. Advertisement Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion As for the Kurds, U.S. officials always made it clear that Washington viewed its partnership with these fighters as transactional, temporary and tactical. It simply isnt in U.S. interests to help carve out the autonomous enclave the Kurds seek in northeast Syria. That fight could lead to a direct military confrontation with Syrian President Bashar Assads forces or with our NATO ally Turkey, which sees the Syrian Kurds, allied as they are with the militant Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, as a mortal enemy. The major actors, including Turkey, have an interest in avoiding an all-out battle with the Kurds, who, in the wake of Trumps decision, have begun to seek reconciliation with the Assad regime. Vital U.S. interests wont be sacrificed when the troops are withdrawn. The United States doesnt have vital interests in Syria. This was true under President Obama just as it is under Trump. Yes, the Syrian war is a proxy conflict between the U.S. and Iran and Russia, and yes the war has had a horrific toll hundreds of thousands of civilians killed, a massive refugee crisis, whole cities destroyed, terrorists sent around the world but neither the White House, Congress nor the American public, after protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, support a huge military and economic investment in Syria. Syria is not a major source of oil. It does not pose an existential threat to Israel. The terrorist threat it poses to the United States has been inflated and is better handled by means other than military action. The country is so broken and dysfunctional that neither Russia nor Iran will be able to use its influence there as a springboard to establish hegemony in the Middle East. As U.S. troops depart, Russia and Iran arent left with a win. Iran and Russia will dominate Syria as they have done for years. Both countries have always had a greater strategic stake in Syria than the U.S. and thus were more willing to accept a high price to protect their interests there. Now both will struggle with the difficulties of pacifying and reconstructing a war-torn state. With American forces in place, Putin and the Iranians could leave some of the dirty work of confronting the remnants of Islamic State to Washington; no longer. And with the U.S., a common adversary, gone, tensions between Iran and Russia could rise. The more Syria becomes a burden for Russia and Iran, the better for the United States. American credibility hasnt been destroyed. Any damage to the U.S. stems from our own reckless rhetoric and confused policy in Syria we never committed to ousting Assad, pushing out Iran or helping the Syrian Kurds realize their political goals. Other U.S. allies and partners will judge Americas support based on how the U.S. responds to them individually, not on how Washington has behaved in a country where it has no vital interests. Two U.S. presidents have failed to come up with an effective policy toward Syria and the Syrian civil war. Withdrawing 2,000 U.S. forces from a battlefield in which other powers have the will and resources to prevail may make Syria even messier than it is now. But keeping U.S. military forces in place with no serious, long-term strategy or attainable objectives to guide them would not make the situation significantly better. Syria was never Americas to win or lose, and getting out now is not a catastrophe. Aaron David Miller, a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson Center, has been a State Department advisor in Republican and Democratic administrations. Richard Sokolsky, a non-resident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, worked in the secretary of States Office of Policy Planning from 2005 -2015. Advertisement Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook Newly installed President Jair Bolsonaro targeted Brazils indigenous groups, descendants of slaves and the LGBTQ community with executive orders in the first hours of his administration, moving quickly after a campaign in which the far-right leader said he would radically overhaul many aspects of life in Latin Americas largest nation. Sao Paulos stock market, meanwhile, jumped 3.56% to a record closing of 91,012 points as new Cabinet ministers reinforced the intent to privatize state-owned companies and a Brazilian arms maker benefited from Bolsonaros plans to loosen gun controls. Similar surges in stock prices occurred during last years presidential campaign. One of the orders issued late Tuesday, hours after Bolsonaros inauguration, probably will make it all but impossible for new lands to be identified and demarcated for indigenous communities. Quilombos, remote areas inhabited by descendants of former slaves, are also affected by the decision. Another order removed the concerns of the LGBTQ community from consideration by the new human rights ministry. In doing so, Bolsonaro did not name any agency to consider LGBTQ issues. He has strongly criticized what he calls gender-based ideology, saying it is a threat to Brazils Christian values. Advertisement In a move favorable to his allies in agribusiness, who have criticized giving large swaths of land to the indigenous, Bolsonaro transferred the responsibilities for delineating indigenous territories from the Justice Ministry to the Agriculture Ministry. The new agriculture minister, Tereza Cristina, is part of the agribusiness caucus in Brazils lower house and has opposed requests from native communities. Bolsonaro, a former army captain and longtime congressman, said during his presidential campaign that he would stop making what he calls concessions to native Brazilians and quilombolas, as residents of quilombos are known. Less than one million people live in those places isolated from the real Brazil, he tweeted Wednesday. They are explored and manipulated by nonprofits. Together we will integrate those citizens and give value to all Brazilians. The Justice Ministry previously handled demarcation of indigenous lands through the National Indian Foundation, known as FUNAI, which also oversees other initiatives for indigenous groups such as healthcare, housing and language preservation. Bolsonaros order is raising uncertainties about the agency by shifting it to a new ministry for family, women and human rights that is headed by an ultraconservative evangelical pastor. Observatorio do Clima, a network of 45 Brazilian civil society groups, criticized the executive orders, calling them only the first step on meeting Bolsonaros campaign promises of dismantling environmental governance, stripping indigenous peoples of their rights and opening up indigenous lands for business. The attack on FUNAI goes beyond the wildest dreams of the rural caucus, who had tried for years to pass a constitutional amendment transferring the demarcation of indigenous lands from the president to Congress, the nonprofit said. Bolsonaro solved the problem by transferring them directly to farmers. The far-right leader said last year that he also wants to annul land demarcation decisions made by previous administrations, but legal experts say recent Brazilian Supreme Court rulings could block such a move. New Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta also suggested on Wednesday that there will be spending cuts in healthcare for the indigenous. Advertisement We have figures for the general public that are much below what is spent on healthcare for the indigenous, he said, without providing details. Girls will be princesses and boys will be princes. There will be no more ideological indoctrination of children and teenagers in Brazil. Damares Alves, Brazils new human rights minister In removing LGBTQ concerns from the responsibilities of the human rights ministry, Bolsonaro did not name any agency to consider such issues. He has strongly criticized what he calls gender-based ideology, saying it is a threat to Brazils Christian values. Damares Alves, the new human rights minister, did not discuss the LGBTQ order in her first address on the job, but the evangelical pastor has insisted over the years that the Brazilian family is being threatened by diversity policies. Advertisement On Wednesday, she said: The state is lay, but this minister is terribly Christian. Under the new administration, Alves added, Girls will be princesses and boys will be princes. There will be no more ideological indoctrination of children and teenagers in Brazil. LGBTQ activist Symmy Larrat said she doesnt expect reasonable treatment from the Bolsonaro administration. The human rights ministry discussed our concerns at a body called secretariat of promotion and defense of human rights. That body just disappeared, just like that. We dont see any signs there will be any other government infrastructure to handle LGBT issues, she said. Advertisement The newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported that Bolsonaro will later announce the closing of an agency within the Education Ministry that has been aimed at promoting diversity in public schools and universities. New Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo indirectly criticized the LGBTQ community as being those that say they are not men and women. Also on Wednesday, the Brazilian Press Assn. criticized restrictions on journalists at Bolsonaros inauguration. Reporters had to arrive seven hours before the events began and were forbidden to move freely in Congress and the presidential palace. Food was seized and access to bathrooms and water was limited. What was seen in different scenarios of Brasilia is incompatible with a democratic regime, the association said in a statement. Respect to the press is one of the main indicators of nations that consider themselves civilized. Advertisement Bolsonaros first day in office sparked a wave of optimism in Brazils financial market. Stocks of Brazils electric-company Eletrobras soared more than 20%. Arms maker Taurus, one of the main allies of the new president, jumped more than 47%. Bolsonaro, an admirer of President Trump, met with U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo on Wednesday to discuss joint efforts regarding the leftist administrations in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Pompeo told him that Trump is very pleased with the relationship that our two countries are on the precipice of beginning to develop. Hes also confident that [the relationship between the U.S. and Brazil] will benefit the world and the set of shared values that we believe we can together advance, Pompeo said before leaving Brasilia for Colombia. Advertisement On Tuesday, minutes after Bolsonaros inauguration, Trump tweeted praise: Congratulations to President @JairBolsonaro who just made a great inauguration speech the U.S.A. is with you! An event organized to bring women together is proving to be much more divisive than intended. The annual womens march in Eureka has been canceled after organizers decided the planning committee was too white. The move has prompted newfound criticism of the global gatherings that were launched two years ago in protest of the inauguration of President Trump. Many have said the marches are not diverse enough and have accused the organization of being anti-Semitic and homophobic. The Eureka group, which is not an official Womens March chapter, said that instead of the planned Jan. 19 march, it will focus on organizing an event for March 9, in conjunction with International Womens Day. The move will allow more time to reach out to women of color and those who identify as gender nonconforming, organizers said in a Facebook post last week. Advertisement The local organizers are continuing to meet and discuss how to broaden representation in the organizing committee to create an event that represents and supports peoples who live here in Humboldt, an organizer said in the post. Up to this point, the participants have been overwhelmingly white, lacking representation from several perspectives in our community. The decision made by a handful of women in the small town of Eureka which Census data show is 71% non-Hispanic white drew mixed reactions, both locally and across the country. Supporters were thrilled the group was taking steps toward increasing its diversity and inclusion. Others, however, said the move was a criticism of people of color for not joining in and that by postponing the march, organizers were placing the burden on participants to make the local womens march appear less white. (Los Angeles Times) I have deep concerns that people of color are being used as a crutch for the organizing committee failing to do the work it takes to encourage diversity, Caterina Kein wrote on Facebook. Please do not blame us for your failures. The backlash prompted Womens March Eureka to release a second statement on Monday noting the decision to cancel the event was based on the lack of diversity among the groups leadership, not among the marchs attendees. We also think its important that in this conversation about Humboldts overwhelmingly white demographics and the leadership of the womens march to acknowledge how those demographics came to be: genocide of indigenous peoples, said Kelsey Reedy, a Womens March Eureka organizer. In an interview with KHSU-FM radio, Reedy said the original organizers were all white women and that only two recent additions have increased the diversity of the small group. It wasnt just we felt there wasnt enough representation. There literally was no representation, she said. Advertisement The organizers acknowledged that past attempts at being inclusive have been shallow. We could have done a lot more, Reedy said. We did not push ourselves to really create a space that was welcoming for everyone to be involved. We did reach out to several groups led by people of color, but only having a few people in the group that even had those connections means it was pretty limited. The larger Womens March organization has faced other problems, including accusations of being anti-Semitic. Leaders of the national group came under fire last year after co-chair Tamika Mallory attended a February event with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, in which he said, The powerful Jews are my enemy. Between March and November, the larger group issued three statements in response to criticism that Womens March leaders are anti-Semitic and homophobic, but it has repeatedly expressed support for its leaders, including Mallory. Advertisement Its become clear, amidst this media storm, that our values and our message have too often been lost, the national group said. That loss caused a lot of harm, and a lot of pain. We should have been faster and clearer in helping people understand our values and our commitment to fighting anti-Semitism. We regret that. Marchers gather in Pershing Square on Jan. 20, 2018, for the second annual Womens March in Los Angeles (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) In Eureka, 38-year-old Robyn Moreno said she has boycotted the last two marches because organizers have done little to help people of color in Humboldt County. The county has grappled with racial tensions after a 19-year-old Humboldt State University student, Josiah Lawson, was fatally stabbed outside an Arcata house party in April 2017. Lawsons family members and supporters have fiercely criticized local law enforcement, saying authorities have stalled the investigation and failed to do enough to capture Lawsons killer. Advertisement In a county thats 74% non-Hispanic white, the investigation into Lawsons slaying is just one event that has roiled the towns of Eureka and Arcata. The community also successfully rallied to remove a statue of President William McKinley, who oversaw federal policies that undercut Native American tribal authority and reduced reservation lands. I am angered when I see thousands coming together to protect their rights but dont make any effort to listen to people of color when they are telling them that the march is exclusive and not representative of people of color or the LGBTQ community, said Moreno, who has been an active supporter of the Justice for Josiah movement and efforts to remove the McKinley statue. Nor do they show up any other day of the year to fight for the rampant racism within our community. Given the countys past, Moreno said shes proud of the local womens march organizers for canceling the upcoming event and working toward being more inclusive. But many members of the Eureka group are unhappy with the change of plans, and some have even said theyd organize their own march. Advertisement This group has excellent intentions and I sincerely hope that they can accomplish the goals they have set, the issues they are passionate about absolutely need to be addressed, they are meaningful and significant, Terri Selfridge wrote on Facebook. But they do NOT have the right to speak for the 1,000s that have marched and would march again in support of the WOMENS MARCH. The small Northern California group is not one of the states several chapters in the National Womens March organization that act as year-round nonprofits but is a loose coalition of women who organize a yearly event in coordination with official chapters, said Emiliana Guereca, executive director of the Womens March Los Angeles chapter. Its unfortunate they canceled, and the reason they canceled is even more egregious, she said. Our leadership should look like what our community looks like. alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com Advertisement Twitter: @r_valejandra Shortly before Christmas break, Ojai parents received a troubling letter from junior high administrators sharing that nine students had apparently lain down on a field together in the shape of a swastika. The letter, which a parent shared with The Times, has prompted concerns over the response from Matilija Junior High School as well as the safety of students. In the Dec. 14 letter, administrators shared that 12 students were part of a group chat that included racist, sexually inappropriate and threatening commentary, including a comment about bringing knives to school. It brings us great pain to share with you, reprehensible student actions that have taken place over the course of the last few weeks, the letter, from the principal and vice principal, said. Advertisement School administrators told parents they immediately partnered with police given the severity of the threats. The police found no active threat toward students on campus, according to the letter. Its crazy that nine kids could lay on a playground with 400 kids and teachers everywhere and no one see it, said one parent, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation. The parent said there is a lot of subtle racism in the city, which is 82% white, 12% Latino and 0.5% black, according to census data. Her children, who are black, have been the victims of racial slurs in the city, she said. She is concerned by the letter because some of her other children will be entering Matilija Junior High soon. I just cant believe theres no parent meeting, nothing, she said. My hope is that theres exposure, because I think that the school needs to know how seriously they should be taking this. This is way more serious than sending out a small letter. The principal of the school was contacted by a parent whose child was part of the group sharing photos, according to an Ojai Police Department incident report. The principal then contacted police. Long story short, the posts were of a juvenile with a sword and some off-color comments, but ultimately there were no weapons brought on campus, there was no discrimination at the school, said Sgt. Shane Matthews of the Ventura County Sheriffs Office. It was not determined to be a crime. The student with the sword denied any affiliation with Nazis or white supremacists, Matthews said, and did not appear to be associated with the photo of the swastika. Deputies interviewed multiple students, along with their parents. Advertisement At the end, there was some school discipline given, but there was no criminal violations, Matthews said. Administrators are reviewing various options at the school and district levels for educational experiences to help bring more sensitivity and understanding to these topics, said Ojai Unified School District Supt. Andy Cantwell, who thanked the parent who reported the messages. It does not represent the character of our school. It also doesnt represent the character of these students, Cantwell said. They made very poor choices, not understanding the gravity of these symbols. Matilija students have been on winter break since Dec. 24 and will return to school next week. Advertisement A parent reported the incident to Documenting Hate, a project that tracks bias incidents and hate crimes around the country. The Southern Poverty Law Center has collected disturbing anecdotes nationwide: white students in Arizona raising a Confederate flag during the Pledge of Allegiance at an assembly; a Georgia high school teacher reporting students who repeated an offensive phrase about women and joked about Latino students going back to Mexico. In an analysis of 472 hate and bias incidents in K-12 schools over the last three years, Education Week and ProPublica found that most incidents that took place in schools between January 2015 and December 2017 targeted black and Latino students, as well as those who are Jewish or Muslim. The Matilija students group chat, which began mid-November and continued through the first week of December, was reported by a parent. In photos shared in the chat, there was evidence of students forming the shape of a swastika during lunch. Advertisement The Matilija administration and staff are beyond saddened that this occurred, the letter stated. Administrators also added that they were confident this incident has been a profound learning experience for each student involved. There were appropriate consequences to those involved, the letter said, although it is unclear what those were. In the letter, parents were told to expect to hear about follow-up activities and a student assembly to address topics including the gravity of using racial slurs, the severity of making threats to students, the inappropriate use of social media, and the role of bystanders who observe such serious offenses. We want you to know that in no way do we think these interactions characterize our school as a whole, the letter read. However, these interactions greatly impact all of us. Advertisement Times staff writer Howard Blume contributed to this report. brittny.mejia@latimes.com Twitter: @Brittny_Mejia A San Diego-based Navy SEAL accused of committing war crimes during a 2017 deployment to Iraq is headed for court-martial, the Navy said Wednesday. Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward R. Gallagher is scheduled to be arraigned in a San Diego military courtroom Friday, said Brian ORourke, a spokesman for Navy Region Southwest, the court-martials convening authority. Gallagher, who is a medic, is accused of killing a wounded ISIS combatant under his care and then reenlisting while standing next to the corpse, a charge sheet provided to the Union-Tribune says. He is also charged with, on another occasion, shooting two civilians a man and a woman. The Navy is also charging Gallagher with shooting at non-combatants civilians several times throughout his deployment to Mosul, Iraq, and with trying to obstruct the investigation after the unit returned to San Diego. Advertisement Charges that Gallagher used and possessed controlled substances were dropped. Gallagher killed civilians indiscriminately, a military prosecutor said as evidence was presented at a preliminary hearing in November, and the chain of command did nothing about it. Gallaghers platoon commander, Navy Lt. Jacob Xavier Portier, is accused of having knowledge of Gallaghers actions and failing to follow through with a timely investigation, but the Navy has not yet said whether he will face court-martial. Gallaghers San Diego-based attorney Phillip Stackhouse did not immediately return a call for comment Thursday morning. Dyer writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune. andrew.dyer@sduniontribune.com Celebrations took place in Santiago de Cuba, about 900 km east of Havana. The city is considered the cradle of the revolution as it is the place where Fidel Castro began his struggle in 1953. Miguel Diaz-Canel, who was elected president in April 2018, has vowed to continue the revolution carried out by Fidel and Raul while implementing socio-economic reforms. "The Cuban Revolution is invincible, develops and will endure. 2018 has been of hard work for our people who, with courage and nobility, have continued to lead our process," said Diaz-Canel recently in a message posted on Twitter. On this day in 1959 and after three years of guerrilla war, the army led by Fidel Castro took over the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba after it took control of many important provinces in the country, causing dictator Fulgencio Batista to flee. Along with other revolutionaries, Fidel Castro immediately began to change the Cuban society as his socialist movement enjoyed widespread popularity. The government introduced a wide range of progressive social reforms to provide equality for black Cubans and greater rights for women, and to improve communication infrastructure, medical facilities, health, housing, and education. Sixty years later, Cubans are pride of their country's universal healthcare, free education, basic food items and security for all citizens. "Thanks to the revolution, we live in peace," said Luis Palmar, a 48-year-old state worker, adding that Cubans now have free health care and education, and their basic needs are met despite the US economic blockade. The island has been able to partially rebound from the economic crisis in the 1990s. It is opening up to foreign investment, tourism, the private sector and has approved some market-oriented reforms. Over the past two decades Havana has continued to diversify its political and economic relations with the continent and the world, becoming a key diplomatic player in the region. "As any other country, we have good things and bad. But Cuba has shown the world for six decades that it's possible to build a socialist nation with sovereignty and independence," said Mireya Chacon, a 56-year-old state worker. A teachers strike next week seems all but inevitable, but two developments on Thursday could change the course of events. First, leaders of the union representing Los Angeles teachers tentatively agreed to meet Monday with school district officials for talks following 12 weeks without serious face-to-face negotiations. Then, separately, attorneys for Los Angeles Unified took legal action to try to force teachers to continue to provide services to students with disabilities during a strike. It is not immediately clear if the court order they are asking for would halt or delay a strike or simply limit its scope. The new legal move did not affect the unions willingness to resume negotiations. Advertisement Both sides said Thursday that they want to reach an agreement; each side still questions the others good faith. The contract talks would be the first since mediation efforts broke down in early October. We want serious talks. Thats what we expect Monday, said Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of United Teachers Los Angeles. Were going to meet with them on Monday, no matter what, in hopes its going to be productive. We understand, he said later, that any negotiation is going to be a compromise. Caputo-Pearl spoke before the district announced at 3 p.m. that it would be taking legal action to force at least some striking teachers to continue working. He said of that news Thursday night: If Beutner really cared about special education students, he would have responded to our proposals on special education class-size caps, which would relieve the burden of our overcrowded classrooms and overwhelming caseloads. It is disingenuous to recognize the value of our teachers only in the role they play during a strike. The districts legal filing was made in connection with a long-running settlement called the Chanda Smith Modified Consent Decree. Chanda Smith was a student who received a deficient education because she was deprived of services that could have helped her and that were legally required under federal law. Attorneys representing her filed suit in 1993 as a way to help all students with disabilities. District officials ultimately agreed to sweeping and costly measures, all under the supervision of a court-appointed monitor. That agreement holds to this day. For years, L.A. Unified has tried to get out from under the settlement, arguing that it has fixed its problems. Some parents and advocates have argued otherwise. On Thursday, district officials found a novel way to take advantage of the unwanted, ongoing supervision. Advertisement District attorneys said they cannot satisfy the terms of the settlement if employees who work with disabled students go on strike. They are therefore seeking a court order to keep those workers on the job. Such an order could affect teachers as well as nurses, counselors and psychiatric social workers, who also are part of the union. At the very least, a court order, if granted, would seem to apply to students in classes set up exclusively for the disabled. But increasingly large numbers of disabled students receive some or all of their education in regular classes, with support as needed, in a process called mainstreaming. The original Chanda Smith suit was filed under federal law, which requires school systems to provide a free and appropriate education to the disabled. The districts filing this week was based on the same federal protections for these students. L.A. Unified has about 60,000 disabled students, more than 12% of overall enrollment, district officials said. Advertisement Regardless of the legal filing, district leaders quickly responded to the unions offer to resume talks. They have called repeatedly for negotiations to continue. We welcome UTLAs willingness to return to contract negotiations to avoid a strike that would do nothing to increase funding for public education or would only hurt the students, families and communities most in need, said district spokeswoman Shannon Haber. Los Angeles Unified remains committed to doing everything possible to avoid a strike and provide Los Angeles students with the best education possible. Many observers still expect a strike to begin next Thursday. The district has offered a 6% raise spread over the first two years of a three-year contract. The union wants a 6.5% raise that would take effect all at once and a year sooner. Advertisement But the issues that the union is pressing for go well beyond wages. UTLA also is demanding a significant reduction in class sizes and the hiring of enough nurses, librarians and counselors to fully staff campuses across the nations second-largest school system. Union leaders have framed their activism as a fight for the future of public education. L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner has said the union proposals, if accepted, would immediately push the school district into insolvency. The challenge is what do we do with the resources we have today and how do we work together at the state level to get more resources, Beutner said in a Wednesday interview on KPCC. We have to step away from the rhetoric and start dealing with facts. Beutner has pointed out that the unions last written counteroffer was on July 24. The district has made proposals since then, including some written concessions. Advertisement The superintendent wants as narrow a focus as possible. Unlike the teachers, he doesnt want to talk in contract negotiations about whether there is too much standardized testing or too little control over privately run charter schools that operate on district-owned campuses. Caputo-Pearl said there would be no preconditions for a meeting on Monday, but also did not back down from demands that Beutner has characterized as impossible to satisfy. Beutner or his team, Caputo-Pearl said, would have to arrive Monday with a clear written proposal, a commitment to spend substantially from the districts reserve and to engage all of our proposals. The onus is on the district to make an offer that isnt just crumbs, he said. Advertisement howard.blume@latimes.com Twitter: @howardblume Nazanin Boniadi has what may be the juiciest role make that roles of her career in Counterpart, a science-fiction-infused espionage thriller now in its second season on Starz. The drama, costarring Oscar-winner J.K. Simmons, relies on a bold premise: an alternate version of the world was created in the waning days of the Cold War. Now covert operatives travel between Prime and Alpha worlds through a portal in where else? Berlin. (Think of it as The Spy Who Came in From the Cold meets Sliding Doors.) Boniadi plays Clare, a particularly zealous agent who sneaks across the border and spoiler alert assumes her doppelgangers identity. Advertisement Despite its outre concept, the series, created by Justin Marks, is rich with metaphors and allegories of whats going on today, says Boniadi, who is excited by its sociopolitical themes. Born in Iran after the revolution but raised in London, the UC Irvine graduate is also an activist whos fought to bring attention to human rights abuses in her native country through work with the Center for Human Rights in Iran, Amnesty International USA and the Council on Foreign Relations. I always say as an actor you get to portray the human condition, she says, but as an activist you get to change the human condition. Homeland, in which she played a hijab-wearing CIA analyst who challenges the agencys latent Islamaphobia, was the first time I got to talk about current affairs and foreign policy in connection to my work. Her upcoming projects are just as culturally relevant: In addition to Counterpart, shell soon be seen with Dev Patel and Armie Hammer in Hotel Mumbai, a gripping account of the 2008 terror attack on the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, and in Jay Roachs untitled film about Roger Ailes, playing former Fox News correspondent Rudi Bakhtiar. Clare is such an intriguing, layered character. Whats it like to play her? Im Middle Eastern; the last thing I want to do is play a villain. Its such a cliche. When I got the role, my hesitation was always that, essentially, shes a terrorist. Shes been brainwashed and indoctrinated to go out and kill people who she thinks are the other. I auditioned for this role and it was open to all ethnicities. My initial conversation with Justin was, Please dont change the name. I dont want her to all of a sudden be named Fatima. And he said, I have no intention of doing that. There are people who look like you whose names are Clare. She is a multifaceted woman indoctrinated to do bad things. And I love the idea that if you can learn to hate, surely you can also learn to love. So thats really her journey in Season 2: Can she shed herself of this brainwashing and indoctrination? Can she find out who she really is? Essentially shes leaving a cult. Nazanin Boniadi in a scene from the second season of the Starz series Counterpart. (Julia Terjung / Starz) So is the colorblind nature of the part a departure for you? I found myself being at the top of producers and studios list for Middle Eastern roles, which is a beautiful position to be in, but it does cage you in as an actor. Most Caucasian actors, they dont lead with their ethnicity, theyre just playing a human being. So with minority actors, it is a struggle. I find [Counterpart] refreshing after the last few projects, consecutively playing Adnan Salif on Scandal, Fara Sherazi on Homeland and even Esther in Ben-Hur all Middle Eastern. Advertisement How does Hotel Mumbai fit into that? For me, its an interesting commentary on socioeconomic divides, because youre throwing people in like my character [a wealthy, Muslim British-Iranian woman], who was raised with a golden spoon in her mouth and has never had to fight for anything in her life, with people who live in the slums. And when youre in that situation, money, religion, race, ethnicity, language dont separate us. Bullets dont discriminate. Were all in it together. The fate of the Hotel Mumbai film was uncertain for a time following the collapse of the Weinstein Co. That must have been frustrating for you. People dont realize, when someone does something truly horrible, there are direct victims but there are also peripheral victims who suffered in the sense that they lost their careers, they had their films tank because of this. Its really livelihoods at stake collateral damage. Were lucky we found [distributor] Bleecker Street and have a second chance, but I imagine that didnt happen for a lot of films. How do you strike the balance between paying your bills and bearing the burden of representation? I had the blessing and privilege of being on Homeland. The show gets criticized for various things, but I found how they treated my character to be very delicate. I wanted to make sure that after that I went into something that was equally layered. I was offered a lot of roles that were very one-dimensional, and I said no. As an actor you want to make money and you want to have momentum, but Ive always been an advocate for thinking long term as opposed to the instant gratification of Im working! How about just finding the right project that resonates with your heart and your creativity? I had to audition for Counterpart while on location in Australia shooting Hotel Mumbai. I had my reservations culturally about what was involved with the role. There was a nudity clause, there was kissing a woman for the first time. And immediately the first thing my mind went to was, What will the Persian community think? But then I realized, this is what I do for a living. Now I look back and I think I cant imagine having turned this job down. I would have kicked myself every day. It really is the most therapeutic role. Advertisement How so? I think its very self-explanatory. Hopefully, people will just understand sometimes there are personal traumas that you dont ever talk about publicly but you pour it into your work. There are things that have happened in my personal life that I dont feel comfortable publicly discussing, but I found a way to through this show and this role its catharsis. Theres a trajectory for this character that mirrors mine. Ive never been an assassin or a terrorist, but this idea of shedding indoctrination and finding out who you are for me is a strong one. It has been extremely therapeutic for me to be able to put it out into the world through my art as opposed to openly discussing it. Are you referring to your past experience with Scientology? [Boniadi reportedly left the organization.] Id rather not say. Some things we just talk about through art. I understand. Lets talk about your familys decision to leave Iran. How did that inform your work as an advocate? I was born in the direct aftermath of the revolution in Iran. I was 20 days old when my parents fled. They didnt want to raise their daughter in a social, legal and political climate that was growing increasingly oppressive toward women. Women were protesting against compulsory hijab at the time in the hundreds of thousands. They were being imprisoned and lashed and beaten and forced into submission. My parents fled to London and became political refugees. They led a very comfortable life [in Iran] and they were forced to accept menial jobs. When I see people suffering or disenfranchised or having their rights taken away from them, I feel compelled to want to speak on their behalf. These women are the Rosa Parkses of Iran ... protesting against compulsory hijab at great personal costs. We owe it to them to include them in our movement. Nazanin Boniadi Advertisement Have you ever visited Iran? Nazanin Boniadi at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival for Hotel Mumbai. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) I went to Iran when I was 13 for two months. I was walking down the street with my uncle my mothers brother. My mom was walking behind us and we were stopped by a member of the plainclothes militia. He said, Can you show me your marriage certificate? I was 13, my uncle was 45. He thought [my uncle] was walking with his wife. It was just heartbreaking. It was so foreign to me. And now Im persona non grata, so I definitely cant go back. I know what they do. My friend, whos a brilliant human rights lawyer, and I wrote a Washington Post op-ed because we wanted to shine a light on whats happening in Iran. [Twelve] months of protests [against economic, social, political and environmental corruption] and really its getting no news coverage. These women are the Rosa Parkses of Iran; theyre protesting against compulsory hijab at great personal costs. I feel like whats happening with the #MeToo movement, Times Up and the Womens March in the U.S. and the anti-compulsory hijab is not a coincidence. They may not be organized under the same banner, but it really is a global awakening of womens rights. And so we owe it to them to include them in our movement. Advertisement What was it like to grow up in exile? My father has never been back to Iran in 39 years. My mother was just back once with me; now she cant go back to because of me. Her brother, my uncle, has Stage 4 lung cancer. Because of the travel ban, its very hard for him to come here. People talk about the Muslim-majority travel ban, but to put it in perspective, thats been a short-lived policy. Exiles have been living in exile from their homeland for decades. The Iranian government kills dissidents; they imprison and torture people who are outspoken against them. So its a really hard thing for me to think about the hundreds of thousands of Iranians, if not millions, who have relatives inside Iran. Theyll die without seeing them, and thats what breaks my heart. That should be a basic human right, to travel, to be with your loved ones. I think any system, regime, politician that deprives you of family is corrupt. As someone who has championed womens rights, are you optimistic about change in the industry after #MeToo and Times Up? Theres more of an awareness of how men treat women and what they demand of women and whats OK and whats not OK. Its still not where it needs to be, but I do feel a shift. Some men come up to me and they say, well, Im scared and Im, like, well, I understand, but weve been scared for a very long time. I think its a matter of opening your heart to why are you scared and maybe ask questions of your your fellow men. There might be one or two incidents where people get wrongfully accused or something gets sensationalized. But having been through a horrific ordeal myself, I can tell you that listening to women matters. MORE ON COUNTERPART Oscar winner J.K. Simmons on his long career and pulling double duty in the new Starz thriller Counterpart Advertisement Review: Starz thriller Counterpart gives J.K. Simmons two worlds in which to blow our minds It gets complicated on Counterpart but worth the effort, says J.K. Simmons Robert Lloyds best TV of 2018: Lodge 49, Random Acts of Flyness, Counterpart and Beyonces Coachella stream See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour Advertisement meredith.blake@latimes.com Twitter: @MeredithBlake When Tom Holkenborg arrived in New Zealand to work on the score for one of his recent films, he set up in a warehouse next door to the set and filled it with garbage. Well, not trash exactly, but a hangar full of leftover pipes and cables and scraps of metal and anything from the set that might make an interesting noise. To capture the sound of the film, in this case the dystopian action movie Mortal Engines, Holkenborg went straight to the source: the materials used to craft the picture. They walked in and saw me making all that noise and were like Youre crazy, Holkenborg said. I said No, its going to be great. He pulled up an iPhone video of him thwacking an oil drum to build to an ominous crescendo. I just started banging on it and throwing stuff around. It starts super quiet but then it gets super loud. Indeed it did. Holkenborgs career as a composer is built on those moments. Hes used such unusual compositional techniques to become not only an in-demand film composer he conceived the percussive pyrotechnics of Mad Max: Fury Road but one thats reshaping the art form. Hes on a path to become as influential as Hans Zimmer, his onetime mentor and collaborator. Advertisement Directors used to turn to full orchestras or more traditional means of creating big sweeps of drama. But Holkenborg embodies a new era of composers, equally fluent in traditional arrangements, electronics and modern sound design, and capable of delivering a world-crushing backdrop in a matter of weeks. After writing the thunderous music for Mad Max: Fury Road and the winking 80s synth-pop in Deadpool, hes taking another stab at cerebral action with the forthcoming Alita: Battle Angel, directed by Robert Rodriguez (and a longtime passion project of producer/writer James Cameron, of Titanic and Avatar). Its a significant second act for the Dutch-born producer who, as the DJ Junkie XL, was a fixture in the electronica scene of the 90s and 2000s. But now, even more are watching and listening. Alita is an extremely stylized manga adaptation with a relentless, eerie futurism (the title characters eyes are exaggerated to the point of the uncanny). Yet director Robert Rodriguez knew it a needed a heart to balance out that side. Holkenborg gave him both. Theres nothing more exciting than hearing new sounds and textures from Junkies self-built arsenal, Rodriguez said. His production gives even his orchestral work a fresh spin, so it does appeal to those who want something bold and exciting, and hes got the experience and chops to masterfully weave between them all. Holkenborgs studio, in the deep San Fernando Valley, looks more like a NASA mission control center than a recording space. The walls are lined floor-to-ceiling with flickering modular synthesizers, filters and effects racks that can mangle any signal beyond recognition (or just spice it up). His desk is surrounded by rare vintage synths that could make a producer bite a hole through a Moog with envy. Sometimes I sit in the backyard with a cup of coffee, and its like, man, your life is like so incredibly blessed, Holkenborg said. But whats very important that I understand from these directors is that they feel like they really want to push the envelope. Whats possible with filmmaking? Holkenborgs studio isnt exactly a one-man shop (he has assistants and collaborators), but it is remarkably self-contained for a composer responsible for some of the biggest sounds in contemporary film. Think of the humid South Seas dread of Tomb Raider or the doom-stricken taiko drums that signal impending carnage in Fury Road (not to mention that flame-throwing guitarist). All this noise from this one room in a leafy suburban neighborhood. Advertisement Inside the artists studio in Tarzana. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) Ive been privileged to work with some wonderful composers, and Ive learned so much from them. With Tom it was a master class, said George Miller, the Fury Road director. He has a scholars mind. He studied law, taught music and sound design, and has a fierce, wide-ranging intellect. I guess hes a kind of musical omnivore. But none of this gets in the way of an agile and powerful artistic intuition. Much of this was honed in his life as Junkie XL, where he first developed his omnivorous approach to synths and samples, combining elements of rock, breakbeats, techno and synth-pop into a crowd-pleasing sound that took him all over the European rave circuit (he even notched a chart-topping pop single, with a remix of Elvis Presleys A Little Less Conversation). He dabbled in film work, with tracks appearing in The Beach and Blade, but the roles began shifting after he moved to L.A. in 2003. Slowly, film composing proved both more interesting and more lucrative, and he all but retired Junkie XL after 2012s LP Synthesized. Advertisement For him, leaving behind the life at the front of the stage for the studio wasnt a sacrifice at all. Now in retrospect, I can see I was never supposed to just be an engineer or a producer. I was never supposed to be an artist just on my own. I can only say this now looking back that I felt shackles, Holkenborg said. There was always this internal fight whether I could deliver what I wanted but then also satisfy fans. It wasnt until I started doing films that I really felt like a fish in the water. While it took him a decade and a half to settle into this new role, Holkenborgs DJ career gave him an edge in composing. Having honed his skills in treating and re-shaping samples in his DJ career, his sounds have the gravity of peers like Zimmer but with a malleability that can enhance all sorts of moods and settings. Hes become known for big-budget action franchises and indeed has a preternatural talent for creating tension in that setting. The best thing about working with Tom -- aside from his immense talent is the pure enthusiasm he brings to the work, said Deadpool director Tim Miller. And Im talking about the pure, childlike glee that he has when digging into the work. Hes just so excited and its mostly about the opportunity to do something new and different. His first suggestions are usually way, way out there, but in the best possible way. Advertisement From the witty Miami Vice-style throb of his Deadpool score to the quiet menace of Black Mass and the ruminative Brimstone, his range is much deeper than his biggest credits might suggest. Studios and directors have dabbled in letting electronic acts take the reins of big projects see Daft Punks score for Tron or M83s work for the Tom Cruise sci-fi epic Oblivion. But some of those results have ended up as a diluted version of the artists aesthetic, shoehorned into a big-budget film. Holkenborg feels that now, by embracing his role as an artisan in service of a directors vision, his work feels more authentic than it did when he was a solo producer. And hes not afraid to let viewers in on his process. One of his favorite pet projects is his YouTube series Studio Time, where he walks viewers through some basics of composing and sound design from the captains chair in his studio. Advertisement The sessions are approachable and even funny, and any aspiring producer will glean something useful from them. Rather than take away from the drama of a huge action flick, the series shows how one of film musics most formidable minds makes all those new sounds and twists them to his necessary ends. I love to make music, which is my heart, my soul, my everything, he said. But for me, [education] is such a beautiful thing and for me thats even more rewarding than actually making music on my own. As Holkenborg unscrewed an old drum machine, his eyes lit up as he told the story of how he tracked down long-discontinued chips to breathe new life into it for Deadpool. He fired up the score on his computer and true enough, the weird little machine gave the music a vintage edge that cut through the bombast. He made something the size of a dinner plate feel like an orchestra, all from the couch in his living room. Just figure it out on your own, he said, turning the machine over in his hands. You want to leave that magic intact. The amped-up psychological thriller Escape Room pretty much accomplishes what it sets out to do and does it fairly well. If that sounds like faint praise its not exactly. Its just that for all its nervy creativity and fast-paced tension, this deadly twist on the escape room phenomenon an immersive game in which players must solve riddles and clues to escape a locked room cant help but feel a bit empty and contrived, especially when its all explained away in the end. Still, its a mostly fun, logic-be-damned ride if you just stay in the moment and dont think too deeply as the going gets tough which is soon enough. The inventive script by Bragi Schut (Season of the Witch) and Maria Melnik (story by Schut) brings together six strangers who were mysteriously invited, via a small puzzle box, to experience a Chicago escape room. The winner which, it will turn out, means the survivor receives $10,000. Advertisement These participants think an older, less engaging Breakfast Club of types include Jason (Jay Ellis), a slick, hard-charging finance exec; Amanda (Deborah Ann Woll), a prickly Army vet with PTSD; Mike (Tyler Labine), a genial, West Virginia trucker; Danny (Nik Dodani from TVs Murphy Brown reboot), a bespectacled geek and escape room expert; Ben (Logan Miller), an attitudinal slacker; and Zoey (Taylor Russell), perhaps the contestant we most care about, a painfully shy college brainiac with hidden mettle. Minds-eye flashes hint at each of their traumatic pasts that will become more integral parts of the films puzzle and these desperate folks crucibles as we go. They will all bring their strengths, such as they are, to unlock the answers needed to flee a series of booby-trapped rooms, each elaborately constructed with their own thematic brand of life-and-death trickery: a generic reception area that turns into a massive oven, a freezing faux forest with a treacherous ice floor, an upside-down pool hall with a hellish elevator shaft (see Mary Poppins Returns for a more enjoyable topsy-turvy sequence), a spooky triage unit that holds more than a few plot-unraveling secrets, and a Victorian library that collapses in on itself and its unfortunate visitor. These outrageous sets benign one moment, terrifying the next are definitely the pictures calling card (Edward Thomas production design and the art direction by Mark Walker are highly impressive) and become their own memorable characters, especially given the ample time we spend in most of these spots. However, the rooms wildly self-destructive natures make you wonder why the hosting Maze Corporation goes to so much effort and expense only to seemingly have to start from scratch after each trial. But thats just one of several big questions that hang there until theyre answered or not later on. (Lets start with the companys insurance policies!) The film, handily directed by Adam Robitel (Insidious: The Last Key), contains its share of cliff-hanging, race-the-clock action bits that test the players wits, guts, integrity and loyalty as the story evokes elements of the Saw and Final Destination franchises as well as a high-tech version of Agatha Christies Ten Little Indians (minus four, that is) and the old board game-turned-comedy film, Clue. Unfortunately, the narrative gets increasingly muddled and far-fetched (though, in truth, not much more than in most gimmicky thrillers) as we discover what brought our ill-fated characters together and why. Although a method to all the madness is needed, the sequel-friendly rationale concocted here and the evil Games Master (Yorick van Wageningen) at its core gives way to a less inspired culmination and coda than the often clever, propulsive activity that precedes it. Theres also something inherently anti-climactic about leaving the gripping confines of the hermetical maze of game rooms and returning to the real world (or this fantasy films version of it) to tie things up. Advertisement Thankfully, the film doesnt overdo the snarky humor and forced hipness, much less the kind of clunky exposition weve come to expect from the genre. In addition, the scripts stabs at social commentary and survival-of-the-fittest themes work well enough within the nightmarish mayhem. When it comes to movies, you could do worse to escape your post-holiday blues than this one. ------------- Escape Room Rated: PG-13, for terror/perilous action, violence, some suggestive material and language Advertisement Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes Playing: Starts Jan. 4 in general release See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour Movie Trailers Advertisement calendar@latimes.com @LATimesMovies Communion is a heartbreaking example of a classic documentary genre the immersive, observational film that takes a bold leap and embeds itself with a small group of people. Once there, this type of film goes deeper than deep into both the daily minutia and the broader emotional underpinnings of the lives it observes. The risk is that the people chosen will not do or say anything worth the time invested in them, but with Communion that has not proved to be the case. Directed by debuting Polish filmmaker Anna Zamecka, Communion has won a slew of awards, including best documentary in the European Film Awards, and it was recently named to the short list for this years best documentary Oscar. Advertisement All this for a film that spends most of its time in a tiny apartment in a town outside Warsaw where three people try to make the best of their lives. Met first is 13-year-old Nikodem, a lively autistic boy struggling to put his pants on and get his belt to work right. Wrong, wrong, wrong, he exclaims as the belt seems to display a mind of its own, a trio of words that seem to describe aspects of his family life as well. Met next is older sister Ola, age 14, whom we see methodically going through Nikodems school bag and throwing all the books he doesnt need for this particular day on the floor. Ola is short on patience because, as we soon observe, young as she is, she runs the family as the only person in it with any kind of initiative and/or drive. The siblings mother, for reasons that gradually become clear, has vacated the premises, and their father, though still living in the apartment, has given himself over to drink to the point where even the simplest tasks are beyond him. Filmmaker Zamecka met this family by happenstance and ended up spending a year on the project. Though she shot for 35 days, the time she put in enabled her and cinematographer Malgorzata Szylak to disappear enough for the family to play out its dynamics as if no one else was there. As the title indicates, the central event this lean 72-minute film focuses on is a projected first Communion for Nikodem, whose success with this rite of passage is by no means assured. Advertisement In charge of preparing him is Ola, who relentlessly goes over the correct responses with him and even shows him how to physically receive the Communion wafer. Not only does Nikodem have trouble remembering what he is supposed to say, his natural anarchic streak adds difficulties of its own. For one thing, Nikodem has a habit of pretending to be various animals, including lions and bears. For another, he gets it into his head that gluttony is a cardinal virtue, insisting that even if it isnt it should be. Ola, as it turns out, has a bit of an ulterior motive for her interest in her brothers Communion. She is hoping that the seriousness of the event will entice their mother to reconnect with the family, and she spends a good part of her time on the phone with her mom in an attempt to make that happen. Advertisement As filmmaker Zamecka says in a directors statement, her film is not just about the ritual Catholic Communion but also an existential tale about the impossible communion, namely a loving family united. Communion involves other individuals in the familys life, including a visiting welfare officer and a teacher at the siblings Catholic school who talks about getting two for the price of one: You forgive others, and God forgives you. The films willingness to let small moments play out pulls us into this story with relentless grace, and we cant help root for Ola and her adolescent scheme, cant help hoping that her attempts at managing her parents have even a prayer of success. ------------- Advertisement Communion In Polish with English subtitles Not rated Running time: 1 hour, 12 minutes Playing: Starts Friday, Laemmle Glendale; Saturday, 11 a.m, Laemmle Playhouse 7, Pasadena, and Laemmle Monica Film Center, Santa Monica Advertisement kenneth.turan@latimes.com @KennethTuran When the Cine Metropolitan opened on Avenida Independencia in Mexico City in 1943, it was one of those spare-no-expense architectural extravaganzas that reveal why movie theaters were once referred to as palaces. The broad Art Deco facade featured an illuminated marquee topped by a city skyline. The interiors channeled 18th century France, with a marble-lined foyer and grand staircase inspired, in part, by the chapel at Versailles. It was a building that was all crisp Modernism on the outside, buttery ancien regime within. By the time Alfonso Cuaron started seeing movies there in the 1970s, the Metropolitan had lost some of its luster. Like many movie palaces of the early 20th century, it had evolved into a working-class movie house where you could go see a slightly out-of-date thriller for cheap. The Cine Metropolitan has since become the Teatro Metropolitan, a live music venue. But it is nonetheless a place that the Mexican film director has returned to over the course of his career. It was at this theater that he held the Mexican premiere of his 2001 film Y Tu Mama Tambien, the coming-of-age road picture that put him on the international cinematic map. Fifteen years later, he returned to shoot key scenes for Roma, the family drama inspired by his own upbringing that has earned him several Golden Globe nominations and a heap of Oscars buzz. And on this cool December morning, Cuaron stands once more before the Metropolitan, hair tousled, clutching a warm cup of tea. He recalls a trip to the theater as a youth to see The Poseidon Explosion, a 1973 film whose principal claim to fame was a title that was easily confused with The Poseidon Adventure, the hit U.S. disaster flick from the previous year. Advertisement It ended up being a Romanian film about a boat called Poseidon, he says with a shrug. I remember I got bored. Cuaron steps briskly into the auditorium. Come inside, he says. Inside is where we shot some scenes. The stage is framed by a set of Neoclassical columns whose capitals were once daubed with 23-karat gold. Cinemas were like this, he says reverently. When I was a kid I would love to arrive 10 to 15 minutes before the beginning of the movie to see the curtain opening slowly and the expectation of what you are going to see next. Cuaron visits the lobby at Teatro Metropolitan, where shot some scenes. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) The Metropolitan has played a significant role not only in Cuarons life, but in the life of his lead character in Roma. It is at this theater that Cleo, a young indigenous woman working for a family in Mexico City, experiences a sequence of fateful moments. It is a place of intimacy where she and her lover steal kisses in the back row as a group of fugitive comedians evade clumsy Nazis on screen. It is also a place of uncertainty, where, sitting by herself, she watches the credits roll as she hopes that her lover will return in the wake of difficult news. Cuaron points at rows of seats and the proscenium in the distance. We were here and we shot here, he says, depositing himself into a seat. But we had to change to 1970s seats these are modern seats. Advertisement If Roma is a story of family in all of its complicated manifestations, it is also the story of Mexico City in the 1970s specifically, Colonia Roma, the neighborhood that Cuaron inhabited as a youth, a world away from todays Roma, subject of breathless food stories and Mexico-is-the-new-Berlin articles about the art scene. The 70s were a different time and a different place. Roma was one of those early 20th century neighborhoods that aspired to the European in the words of historian Enrique De Anda, an attempt to make of Mexico, the Vienna or Paris of the Americas. The northern half was grander, in a late 19th century, Beaux Arts way. The southern half, Roma Sur, where Cuarons family lived, was more Modern and residential. By the 70s, the neighborhood was fraying in parts, referred to in jest as Colonia Rona, remembers the director. Its like a scab. Advertisement Roma was comfortably middle class but a world away from the wealthy residential power centers of Polanco and El Pedregal to the east. For Mexico, it was a difficult era generally, a time when the system of one-party rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (known as the PRI) was at its repressive peak. Following the government massacre of an untold number of student protesters at Tlatelolco in 1968 the time frame of Roma, which takes place in 1970 and 71 was a forbidding political period. It was very claustrophobic, says Cuaron of the era. Even as a child and I had an idyllic childhood, I was living in a middle-class bubble it was a feeling of fear. In one scene in Roma, the boys in the family casually discuss an incident in which a soldier casually shot a boy who threw a water balloon at a military jeep. Later in the movie, Cuaron weaves in the story of El Halconazo, a massacre of student protesters by paramilitaries during the feast of Corpus Christi in 1971. Advertisement It was a time when even culture was suspect especially rock music. Avandaro, a Woodstock-style concert held at a racetrack on the outskirts of Mexico City in September of 1971 was described as sexual degeneracy, filth, hair and blood in one media dispatch. It was debauchery! Debauchery going on! says Cuaron, mocking the hysterical tone of the news coverage. They felt that all of these young people together was dangerous. Alfonso Cuaron in Mexico City in advance of the Mexican premiere of Roma. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) The marching orders at the beginning was that everything was going to be shot in the place where the actions took place. Then reality hit. Alfonso Cuaron Advertisement For the director, film provided a vital escape. When he was a teenager, Cuaron made it a mission to a watch a movie in every Mexico City movie theater. There was Cine Estadio, at the corner of Avenida Yucatan and Calle Coahuila, with its buoyant Modernist sign and a going rate of 4 pesos for a double feature. A few blocks away, on Campeche, beckoned the old Cine Gloria, with its bright sign and its threadbare seats. Farther north was El Cine Mexico on Avenida Cuauhtemoc, where in the mid-1970s he and a friend turned up for a screening of Mas Negro que la Noche (Blacker Than Night), a low-budget Mexican horror movie involving several doomed hotties and a possessed black cat. Cuaron never got to see the end of the picture. About two-thirds of the way through, the friend produced an actual black cat from his backpack and released it from his balcony seat into the theater below. It was amazing the amount of shouting going on, Cuaron recalls with a laugh. I didnt go to the movies with that guy again! Advertisement Cuaron cant be entirely sure if he made it to every last theater in the Mexican capital I think I achieved it, he says confidently. If not, his obsessive devotion to the movies brought him awfully close. Film also serves as an escape hatch from realities both political and domestic in Roma. In one scene, the family heads to the cinema to watch John Sturges 1969 space thriller Marooned. In another, Cleo nestles in with her love interest before La Grande Vardouille, French director Gerard Ourys 1966 comedic escape caper a film about escape for characters seeking their own. Advertisement Making Roma required Cuaron not only to reconstruct the physical Mexico of the 70s, but it compelled him to reconstruct social and political circumstances that, as a white, middle-class man, hed been privileged to ignore: the physical isolation of serving as live-in help, the round-the-clock schedule, the classism and racism, the grief a woman quietly holds in a world where los patrones always come first. If Mexico was a place plagued by a sense of isolation and repression in the 1970s, the conditions for a character like Cleo were magnified. (The character, played by Yalitza Aparicio, is based on the directors real-life nanny, Liboria Rodriguez, an indigenous woman of Mixtec origin who lived with the family from the time Cuaron was an infant.) Cleos world, to a large degree, is confined to the four walls of the house she inhabits and maintains but of which she is not fully a part. The house is pretty much a character, Cuaron says. Its a house that is pretty big, but still a bit claustrophobic. You have the parakeets that are in a cage, you have a dog that longs to get out. The house is always containing everything. The house is based on Cuarons own home as a boy: a Modern 1930s structure that bears elements of Art Deco but also of Latin American colonial design: namely, an impassive, almost unwelcome facade that conceals a pleasant dwelling and interior courtyard within. Advertisement Its a design that functions as a microcosm of Mexican society: You have the spaces that are defined by hierarchy, class, Cuaron says. In Roma, the roof where Cleo (played by Yalitza Aparicio, left) does the laundry is an architectural world away from tasteful family quarters of the home below. (Carlos Somonte / Netflix) An interior view of the family home in Roma, which conveys middle-class aspiration. (Carlos Somonte / Netflix) You have the parakeets that are in a cage, you have a dog that longs to get out. The house is always containing everything. Alfonso Cuaron Advertisement The familys dwelling is roomy and dappled with light; the narrow spots allotted to the housekeepers are not. The familys living room is graced by a wide, curving staircase; the steps that Cleo takes to the roof do the laundry (by hand) are rickety metal. The children inhabit their own spacious bedrooms; Cleo and her fellow housekeeper, Adela, share a tiny cell off the patio, which also harbors ironing and laundry. If the familys spaces channel a certain middle-class, intellectual aspiration toward modernity, the staffs quarters evoke the feudal. Moreover, the homes principal spaces are ones that Cleo occupies only furtively. Shes always silent except in the kitchen or in her room, Cuaron says. She is silent except for si, no, yes. Then she goes into the kitchen and she talks and shes a person. The one space that housekeeper and family do share is the internal patio. In Roma, that space is also the place to which the family relegates the dog and into which their absentee dad wedges his oversize Ford Galaxy. Advertisement Its our social spaces, says Cuaron. Our social spaces, theyre supposed to be common ground, but who really takes care of them? Cuaron was determined to shoot Roma not on sets but in real-deal architecture from the era so that the feel of Mexico City of Colonia Roma could imbue every frame. The marching orders at the beginning was that everything was going to be shot in the place where the actions took place, he explains enthusiastically. Then reality hit. He sighs. Advertisement The interiors of the house he grew up in had been remodeled beyond recognition, so he settled for a similar home in a nearby colonia. The exteriors, however, he shot on the same block his family inhabited in the 1970s: Calle Tepeji has changed little in the intervening decades. It is still solidly middle class. And it is still lined with the Midcentury Modern and Art Deco homes that were popular in Mexico in the post-Revolution era designs that served as symbols of progress and enlightenment. On a late morning, after my interview with Cuaron, I pay a visit to the street. The windows at No. 21, where the director lived as a boy, are open. A housekeeper is mopping the floors. A scene from Roma shows the exterior of the familys middle-class home in Colonia Roma. (Carlos Somonte / Netflix) A view of the Calle Tepeji home that Alfonso Cuaron used as an exterior in Roma. It is across the street from the directors own childhood home. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Advertisement Throughout Roma, Cuaron employs architecture in symbolic ways. There is a pan of the gritty rooftop where Cleo spends hours doing laundry, a world away from the familys comfortable quarters just below. On a visit to a hacienda owned by friends of the family she works for, Cleo descends a staircase in a scene worthy of famed Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa that leads from the world of los patrones (the owners) to a hidden party for the workers below. When Senora Sofia (played by Marina de Tavira) drives Cleo to a doctors appointment at the medical center in Mexico City, the camera comes to rest on a broad bas relief created by esteemed Mexican artist Jose Chavez Morado in 1958. The piece (which still stands) is a study of Mexican medicine through the ages, with a pair of panels, at left, that celebrate indigenous medicine. The venerative treatment outside could not be more at odds with the reality inside: a hospital where working-class (and, therefore, largely indigenous) women endure the pains of labor in chilly, cavernous rooms. It is architecture that speaks to what Cuaron sees as the hypocrisies of the countrys political leaders. Advertisement There was a constant bombardment of ideology, the nacionalismo revolucionario [revolutionary nationalism] of the PRI with these ideas about what mexicanismo was, he recalls. Its a pride about our indigenous roots, but the indigenous community is completely ignored and marginalized. We step out of the Metropolitan into the hazy Mexico City daylight. Cuaron is, these days, highly recognizable in Mexico City his face materializing on television talk shows and on magazine covers on newsstands. An elderly gentleman approaches with hand extended. Un orgullo para Mexico, he says. The pride of Mexico. As we walk down Avenida Independencia to his waiting car, Cuaron makes it clear that Roma, ultimately, isnt just about symbols. It is profoundly personal. Im talking, he says, about one of the humans or one of the people that I love the most. Advertisement He refers to Libo, the nickname he employs for Rodriguez, the woman who raised him, whose life served as the basis for Cleos story, and to whom he dedicates his film. It was a whole reconsideration, Cuaron says. Not only seeing all of these layers of her, but, inevitably, the immense pain that it gave me that I had never stopped to consider those things and in someone that I love. Years of endless conversations with Rodriguez led to Roma, says Cuaron, conversations in which they covered subjects both life-changing and mundane like what she did with her Sundays off, the one day a week that belonged entirely to her. On most weekends, that day would consist of a sandwich with friends, a visit to the park and a jaunt to the Metropolitan for a movie. Advertisement I would ask her, Which kind of movies? recalls Cuaron. And she would say, Whatever was playing. In the darkened hall of the Cine Metropolitan, as the curtain came up over the screen, she too found her escape. Alfonso Cuaron on the steps of the Teatro Metropolitan in Mexico City. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Sign up for our weekly Essential Arts & Culture newsletter Advertisement ALSO: Alfonso Cuaron delves into his childhood for Roma and already talk turns to Oscars The film Roma stirs audience in directors hometown, Mexico City Advertisement Let Roma start a conversation about the household workers we employ Mexico Citys art scene is booming, but even with deep roots, political uncertainty keeps it fragile Why so many Mexicans revile the Colonial Californiano architectural hybrid that spread from SoCal carolina.miranda@latimes.com | Twitter: @cmonstah Despite the towering success of Black Panther and The Walking Dead, Danai Gurira, the actress, is steadfastly holding onto her alternate identity: Danai Gurira, the writer. Gurira, whose plays grapple with cultural identity and her heritage as a Zimbabwean and an American, recently opened her 2012 The Convert at Londons Young Vic, with Black Panther costar Letitia Wright in the lead role. The play, which Gurira calls something I deeply needed, is set in colonial Zimbabwe in 1896 and reflects on the period solely from the African perspective, with no white characters on the stage. In this version, directed by Ola Ince, the story unfolds in the round with sparse, stylized sets that bring even greater drama to the narrative. Thats just one of several Gurira plays onstage around the world. Her 2015 Familiar is playing at Chicagos Steppenwolf, and another production of Familiar will open at San Diegos Old Globe on Jan. 26. Advertisement Gurira remains busy in Hollywood too. Her Black Panther character, Okoye, is likely to return in next years Avengers: Endgame, and she is adapting Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies Americanah into a miniseries starring Lupita Nyongo. The playwright, actress and now Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women took a few days to fly in for the opening of The Convert in London, where she sat down to discuss the production, her career and why onscreen representation is essential for people of color. Have your plays been performed in London? This play has been done at the Gate, which also did Eclipsed which Letitia was in as the lead role. I didnt work with her too much with Eclipsed. I came in for a few days for that one, but I couldnt get back to watch a performance. So I got to know her a little bit then, but not as much as I did during Black Panther. At this point, we have a shorthand with each other for many things. Did you have say in her casting in this production? Yes, in the sense that it was very much something [Young Vic Artistic Director] Kwame [Kwei-Armah] thought of immediately. I was completely in love with the idea. What was driving you when you wrote The Convert? Where is the history of my people told from our perspective on the screen or on the stage? Where is our experience of the colonial impact and assault? And who would I have been if Id been born 150 years ago and what journey would I have trekked? A lot of those questions were at the fore. I grew up in a British colony, in Zimbabwe, when it was a young ex-colony. It was very much a British schooling system, and I was taught very little about the land I was living on. I left Zimbabwe and came to the United States for university, and in liberal arts colleges, youre allowed to start thinking about, Who are my people? Who am I? Whats our history? And start to really explore that in a way thats necessary for your own journey. And I think its even necessary for the Brits, quite honestly. Their history doesnt seem to involve those who were colonized, in how its assessed. So it is exciting for me to see this play performed in front of a British audience. Danai Gurira is an accomplished playwright, a TV star and a movie star. (Christopher L. Proctor / For The Times) People say, Oh, its political. But its not political. Its my people. Danai Gurira Advertisement Do you write plays to offer new perspectives? I guess they are new, but for me, theyre just me. Theyre perspectives from my people, who are often the ones marginalized and underrepresented or misrepresented. So it really is about, Can I explore another angle of humanity that hasnt been represented? Its the other-ized perspective. Thats what I do. People say, Oh, its political. But its not political. Its my people. It gets other-ized, and thats the thing Im aiming to obliterate. Or, at least, to provoke another understanding. Are you writing new plays? Right now, Ive been focused on writing for the screen. Ive been very involved in the plays I already have created. Ive been involved in their various productions. Im constantly connected to productions, but in terms of writing, my writing right now is for the screen. But that doesnt mean its not going to be for the stage as well. Its just not what Im doing right now, which is an important step for me because Ive had a burden on my heart for a long time to put these types of characters on the screen. How are you feeling about the appreciation for Black Panther and how those characters that were brought to the screen? Its been deeply nourishing. And more so than we could have been anticipated or expected. We definitely put all our heart and soul into it. We were seeking the most authentic, the most truthful, the most alive, the most connected version of the story we could all tell. And the beauty was that was a collective perspective. It was deeply rooted in Ryan [Coogler], but it wasnt just Ryan. It was all of us. He put around him an amazing team that enhanced that core that he brought. We were able to work as a great unit. And Marvel was great in embracing that we were coming in with this whole other perspective and deep desire to say many things in an African language. They allowed us to feel like collaborators, as, of course, did Ryan. So as a result, we all feel a collective ownership, which is really special. Does that make the SAG nomination for outstanding performance by a cast even more validating? Yeah. Its beautiful. Its really cool. I just saw that list of all of us and I was like, Thats really beautiful. Advertisement Before Black Panther, do you think there had been a depiction of Africa in a film thats as positive and progressive? I dont think so. I really dont think so. Thats what drove me to start writing. Like, This cannot be the way my people are portrayed in a cinematic form. For me, it was theater at the time thats my medium. It was really that dearth. Every time I saw a film and not all there were many interpretations of the continent I found really disturbing and limited and from a perspective that wasnt ours. To all the ways in which Black Panther counters that just by telling an excellent story excellently was deeply heartening. And I think it was a first. Danai Gurira, far left, with the warriors of Black Panther. (Marvel Studios) RELATED: Black Panther redefined superhero movies. Can it do the same thing for the Oscars? Can that help change representation in Hollywood? Let me take out my crystal ball! But one can hope this is about climate and not weather. Thats what I keep saying. Its about a shift thats happening because thats how it should be. There has been an openness that has prevailed around these types of stories being told, absolutely. Weve seen some higher ups in this industry speak really powerfully around how you do what makes sense, and that means you tell a variety of stories from a variety of perspectives and you tell them with authenticity. Advertisement Do you remember feeling reflected in movies, TV and theater as a kid? No, I did not feel like I was being reflected. As a kid, thats when you figure out how you envision yourself. You see yourself as Other as a child because you dont have the vocabulary nor the worldview or the understanding of global history and all the dynamics of racial oppression to understand that its not as it should be. So as a child, youre really being indoctrinated with the idea that youre not it. Youre not of the right thing, and these are the people who are. And thats whats really scary about not giving children representation. They absorb those images. But its so unnecessary. We dont actually have to put children through that. Its really easy to give them representations of self, whatever color they are. Do you ever imagine adapting The Convert for the screen and bringing those characters to a broader audience? I do have an idea for how The Convert could transform into something more long-form. What was happening during the whole scramble-for-Africa time period has never been truly and fully explored from the African perspective. And certainly not from the African female perspective. So the idea of seeing that coming to pass and using The Convert as the base is something Ive had an interest in for a while. Its in the file of things planned. Do you have a lot of things planned? Yeah, I do. I have lots of ideas. Its so funny when people approach me with ideas Im like, OK, let me get through a couple of the ones I have first. I have a lot of things I want to get to. Its about whats sitting most prominently on my heart at that time. Its about how my life is shaping up in that moment. Its about the partners and collaborators who have been themselves available at that moment. That fuels what direction I take next. MORE ARTS: Advertisement How Bryan Cranston packs fresh potency into a 1976 tale of media mind control The Wisdome popup in DTLA: Some art, a lot of hot air Confetti: Its an art thing on Instagram See all of our latest arts news and reviews at latimes.com/arts. Glen Ballard, a Grammy Award-winning songwriter and producer, is ready to sell his slice of Malibu. His oceanfront cottage is on the market for $7.995 million. Built in 1940, the 1,100-square-foot home holds a pair of bedrooms and bathrooms in one story. A dolphin-themed weather vane sits atop a rounded sun room toward the back, making the property a unique entry to the Malibu coastline. Inside, living spaces include a kitchen with a breakfast bar and a living room with a white-painted brick fireplace. Hardwood lines the floors. 1 / 17 Glen Ballards Malibu cottage (Douglas Elliman ) 2 / 17 Glen Ballards Malibu cottage (Douglas Elliman ) 3 / 17 Glen Ballards Malibu cottage (Douglas Elliman ) 4 / 17 Glen Ballards Malibu cottage (Douglas Elliman ) 5 / 17 Glen Ballards Malibu cottage (Douglas Elliman ) 6 / 17 Glen Ballards Malibu cottage (Douglas Elliman ) 7 / 17 Glen Ballards Malibu cottage (Douglas Elliman ) 8 / 17 Glen Ballards Malibu cottage (Douglas Elliman ) 9 / 17 Glen Ballards Malibu cottage (Douglas Elliman ) 10 / 17 Glen Ballards Malibu cottage (Douglas Elliman ) 11 / 17 Glen Ballards Malibu cottage (Douglas Elliman ) 12 / 17 Glen Ballards Malibu cottage (Douglas Elliman ) 13 / 17 Glen Ballards Malibu cottage (Douglas Elliman ) 14 / 17 Glen Ballards Malibu cottage (Douglas Elliman ) 15 / 17 Songwriter-producer Glen Ballard has put his coastal cottage on the market in Malibu for $7.995 million. (Douglas Elliman ) 16 / 17 Glen Ballards Malibu cottage (Douglas Elliman ) 17 / 17 Glen Ballards Malibu cottage (Douglas Elliman ) Advertisement Out back, a wraparound deck with daybeds descends to 40 feet of water frontage. A brick patio and two-car garage are found at the front of the property. Scott Moore of Douglas Elliman holds the listing. Songwriting and production credits of note for Ballard, 65, include Alanis Morissettes Jagged Little Pill, Michael Jacksons Thriller, Aerosmiths Nine Lives and Katy Perrys One of the Boys. In 2006, he won the Grammy for song written for visual media with Believe, which appeared in The Polar Express. He previously purchased a Spanish-style home in Beverly Hills for $2.795 million, but records show it was deeded to his ex-wife in 2009 following the couples divorce. It listed last year for $12.9 million jack.flemming@latimes.com | Twitter: @jflem94 Nearly 7 million California households will begin switching to new electricity rates this year that change based on the time of day, bringing lower energy bills for some. But critics say time-varying rates could hurt more homes than they help and a new study finds people tend to overestimate the benefits. State officials have ordered Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric to enroll most customers in so-called time-of-use rate plans. Under time-varying rates, electricity will cost more in the evening and over the summer, and less during the afternoon and in the winter. SDG&E plans to begin shifting residential customers to time-of-use rates in March, with Edison and PG&E following in October 2020. Business and agricultural customers already pay time-varying rates. Advertisement The idea is to better align rates with the costs of producing electricity, with a goal of reducing overall energy costs and cutting planet-warming emissions. The new rates are being designed so the investor-owned utilities take in roughly the same amount of money overall as they do under current rates. But a study published last month by Ohio State University researchers sheds new light on the potential shortfalls of time-varying rates, three years after the California Public Utilities Commission ordered the three big utilities to prepare to make the switch. (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers arent affected.) The researchers found that Edison customers enrolled in a 2016 pilot program largely based their opinion of the new time-of-use rates on how much money they thought they were saving. The problem: They werent very good at estimating how much they were saving. I would be concerned about people going into the program thinking, This is a good thing for me, and then being surprised later when it turned out thats not the case, said Nicole Sintov, a professor of behavior, decision-making and sustainability at Ohio State and one of the studys coauthors. When actual savings fall short, customers might be more likely to drop out of the program or stop shifting the times they use electricity, Sintov said. Investigation: Californians are paying billions for power they dont need The utilities and several major environmental groups see time-of-use rates as a valuable tool to help clean up the states power supply. California has a growing abundance of cheap solar power during the middle of the day, so much that utilities sometimes have been forced to pay other states to take it. But the sun goes down every evening just as people get home from work, forcing utilities to fire up expensive, polluting gas plants. Time-varying rates are meant to encourage homes and businesses to shift their power use away from high-demand periods, when energy is dirtier and more expensive, and toward low-demand periods when energy is cleaner and less expensive. Under Edisons latest proposal to the Public Utilities Commission, residential customers would be able to choose between two rate options: one with an on-peak period of 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., when energy would cost 60% more during summer weekdays, and another with an on-peak period of 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., when energy costs would double during summer weekdays. Advertisement A solar farm in Kern County. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) The difference in on-peak and off-peak rates wouldnt be as high during non-summer months or weekends. There would also be super off-peak periods with especially cheap electricity during winter daytime hours, which could be especially valuable for homes with electric vehicles that need charging. Edison officials say theyre planning extensive outreach programs to help customers understand the new rates. Theyre also developing an online tool to allow people to explore how their bills would change if they shifted their electricity use habits for instance, by no longer running their dishwasher in the evening. Weve got over 4 million residential customers and we need to educate all of them, said Andre Ramirez, a senior advisor for pricing design and research at Edison. Were trying to make this info as easy to digest as possible. Advertisement Whatever the final rate structure looks like, residential customers at all three utilities will be able to switch back to their current plan, although research shows that most people stick with their default electricity rate no matter what. And low-income residents in hot climate zones who are enrolled in discount programs wont be automatically switched to time-of-use rates, although they can make the switch if they want to. Edisons rate proposal has been endorsed by the states Public Advocates Office and two major environmental groups, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Other supporters include trade groups for the solar and energy storage industries. In theory, time-varying rates would incentivize homes with solar panels to install batteries because they could charge the batteries during off-peak periods and then use the stored energy to power their homes when electricity from the grid is more expensive. California to rely on 100% clean electricity by 2045 under bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown Advertisement One prominent critic of time-varying rates is the Utility Reform Network, or TURN, a ratepayer advocacy group based in San Francisco. TURN prefers the tiered rates that Edison, PG&E and SDG&E customers currently pay by default, in which higher-usage customers pay more. Marcel Hawiger, a staff attorney at TURN, said hes worried the switch to time-of-use rates will benefit those high-usage customers. The 10% of top users will benefit. And the 90% of bottom users will do worse, Hawiger said. During pilot programs conducted by the investor-owned utilities in 2016, customers reduced their electricity use during peak periods by 3% to 5% and reduced their bills by 0% to 2%. But those numbers were averages, with some groups of customers more likely to save money and others more likely to lose money. TURN pointed to data suggesting that if people dont change their electricity-use habits in response to the new rates, more people will see their bills go up than down. Advertisement For instance, a consultant hired by Edison found that under one of the rate designs the utility tested, 10% of customers would see their bills go down and 25% would see their bills go up in the absence of behavior changes, with the remaining 65% seeing their bills stay roughly the same. Evening usage of electricity could cost more in the summer under a proposal floated by Southern California Edison. The utility is set to offer a new pricing structure in October 2020. (David Butow / For The Times) The big question is how much people will change their behavior in response to the new rates. The recent study from Ohio State shows how important it is for utilities to provide clear information to their customers about what they can do to save under time-of-use rates, said Sintov, the study coauthor. Most people arent going to be like, My hair dryer uses 1,600 watts, and Ive been using it for 10 minutes, so heres how much that costs. People arent going to be doing that calculation in their heads, Sintov said. Advertisement Terrie Prosper, a spokeswoman for the California Public Utilities Commission, said the state is taking steps to make sure households understand how the new rates may affect them. She said residential customers will receive shadow bills showing what they would have paid under their previous rate plan, and that during the first year after the switch, anyone who would have paid less under the old rates will be refunded the difference. The Utility Reform Network has also questioned the environmental benefits of time-of-use rates. Edison, for instance, estimated last year that its rate proposal would decrease planet-warming emissions from residential electricity use by just 0.7%. There seems little reason to increase customer bills for most people for very, very small greenhouse gas reduction benefits, Hawiger said. Russell Garwacki, Edisons director of pricing design and research, said he doesnt expect a tremendous amount of climate benefits as a direct result of time-varying rates. But he thinks there will be further reductions in planet-warming emissions as the new rates incentivize people to buy electric cars or batteries. Advertisement sammy.roth@latimes.com Twitter: @Sammy_Roth * Raul Castro, leader of Cuba's ruling Communist Party (PCC), said on January 1 that the transition of generation in Cuba goes very well and the continuity of the country's socialist revolution is guaranteed. * Chinese President Xi Jinping on January 2 said China must be and will be reunified, as he addressed a gathering in Beijing to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Chinese mainland's Message to Compatriots in Taiwan. * US President Donald Trump has invited congressional leaders to discuss the ongoing partial government shutdown and border funding at the White House, US media reported on January 1. * China and the United States should continue to serve the fundamental and common interests of the two peoples as the two sides develop future-oriented China-US relations, said Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai on January 1. * Top nuclear envoys of the Republic of Korea and the United States on January 2 held phone talks over the New Year's speech by Kim Jong-un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Seoul's foreign ministry said. * In an interview with Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet, released by the Ministry of Popular Power for Communication and Information on January 1, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that the international sanctions against Venezuela cost the South American country US$20 billion in 2018. * Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen has paid particular tribute to the European Union (EU) during his New Year's speech to the nation on January 1, calling the bloc the "best idea we have ever had." * The Republic of Korea (RoK) President Moon Jae-in vowed on January 2 to continue his government's economic reform drive in 2019 to create jobs and fair economy through innovation and improved industrial structure. * Army captain-turned-politician Jair Bolsonaro was sworn in as Brazil's president on January 1 amid heightened security. * Russia's value-added tax (VAT) rate was officially increased to 20 percent from 18 on January 1, according to a law signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. * A total of 14 bodies were recovered so far after a gas explosion in a residential building in the city of Magnitogorsk, local branch of the Russian emergency ministry said in a statement on January 2. * The Australian government has announced the closure of two onshore immigration detention facilities (Maribyrnong in Melbourne and Villawood in Sydney). * US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents shoot tear gas on January 1 to deter about 150 migrants attempting to breach the US-Mexico border fence into California. * A convoy of Myanmar's Rakhine State Chief Minister U Nyi Pu has been attacked with remotely controlled mines on Yangon-Sittway road but with no casualties, Myanmar News Agency reported on January 2. * At least five Afghan soldiers were killed and six others wounded after Taliban militants attacked an army camp in Maywand district of southern Kandahar province on January 1 night, a local official said on January 2. * Indonesian disaster authorities have raised the death toll from landslides hitting Indonesia's West Java province on December 31 to 15, with 20 other people still missing, a government official said. * High winds caused damage and hampered transit in Finland on January 1 evening, with conditions predicted to worsen overnight and on January 2. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. agreed to acquire Celgene Corp. in a record $74-billion deal that would unite two drugmakers battling for advantage in a crowded market for innovative cancer treatments. Both companies have faced investor wariness about their prospects in recent months. New York-based Bristol makes an immunotherapy drug called Opdivo that accounts for roughly a quarter of its sales but that has trailed a rival medication from Merck & Co. Summit, N.J.-based Celgene, meanwhile, has been looking for a follow-up for its blockbuster blood-cancer therapy Revlimid. The proposed union of the two companies, announced Thursday, represents a big bet that combined mass will help overcome the obstacles confronting their respective cornerstone products. It will also fan the flames of deal speculation in an industry thats coping with political pressure to rein in drug prices, the looming threat of expiring patents and disappointing clinical trials for some cancer treatments. If approved by shareholders and regulators, the cash-and-stock deal would rank as the largest pharmaceutical-company acquisition ever. Including net debt, the transaction values Celgene at $88.8 billion, surpassing Pfizer Inc.s deal for Warner-Lambert. Advertisement Under the proposed terms, Celgene shareholders would receive one Bristol-Myers Squibb share and $50 in cash for each Celgene share. That would value Celgene at $102.43 a share, a 54% premium to the stocks Wednesday closing price. Investors reactions suggested wariness. Celgene shares leaped 20.7% to $80.43 well below the proposed deal price. Bristol shares slid 13.3% to $45.12. Shares of both companies had been beaten down last year. Bristol-Myers shares declined more than 15% in 2018, while Celgene shares sank 39%. The deal is Bristols largest under Chief Executive Giovanni Caforio, and comes after the drugmaker has suffered high-profile setbacks in immuno-oncology, its biggest line of business. Given Opdivos large and growing share of its revenue, Bristol has been under pressure to diversify its portfolio. In a recent earnings call, Caforio said that the company would look to deals to diversify its pipeline. At various points in recent years as Bristol has stumbled with trial failures, its name has come up as a takeout target itself. In buying Celgene, Bristol would get control of one of the most successful cancer drugs of recent years: top-selling blood-cancer therapy Revlimid, which costs more than $100,000 a year. It would also gain a promising experimental CAR-T therapy being developed by Juno Therapeutics, which Celgene acquired in a $9-billion takeover deal last year. Bristol has had talks with Celgene over the past two years, people familiar with the situation said. Caforio initiated more formal talks in September, the people said, and negotiations accelerated over the past few weeks. Recent declines in biotechnology stocks helped spur the deal on, the people said. Caforio said on a call with analysts on Thursday that the deal is not about Revlimid and that the two companies had been discussing a potential tie-up for some time. He said that the combined companies anticipate six product launches over the next 12 to 24 months. Advertisement There are concrete, short-term growth opportunities that this will deliver to Bristol-Myers, Caforio said. Despite Revlimids success, Celgene shares have been hammered over the past 1 years amid investor fear that the company lacks a potent successor to its biggest blockbuster. Revlimid is expected to face increased generic competition in coming years. Celgene suffered a series of high-profile setbacks including the failure of a once promising therapy in a late-stage clinical trial. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also refused to review an experimental medicine that was expected to be a future growth driver. The deal generates tremendous immediate-term value that we believe would have taken years for Celgene to achieve, analysts at Leerink Partners said in a note to investors. Advertisement Celgenes problems arent unique. Several larger biotechnology companies that have become reliant on huge-selling but older drugs saw their shares suffer in 2018, and some rose on speculation that they could be takeover targets or could find something to buy. Shares of Gilead Sciences Inc., which has seen sales of its blockbuster antiviral medications flag over the past year, rose 2.9% on Thursday. News of the deal came ahead of next weeks JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, an annual industry confab in San Francisco that is frequently a catalyst for mergers and other transactions. Heading into that event, some analysts had grown concerned that a volatile U.S. stock market and a slowdown in activity last year could have a chilling effect on dealmaking. Tuesday didnt just mark the start of the new year; it was also the first so-called Public Domain Day in more than two decades, meaning that several works of literature from 1923 are now free from copyright for anyone who wants to use them. More than 50,000 books, films and musical compositions are now officially in the public domain and can be published or adapted without permission from the copyright holder, according to the U.S. Copyright Office. The copyrights on the works were originally slated to expire in 1999, but the U.S. Congress thwarted that with the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, passed in 1998. Named after the late entertainer and congressman, the act, which was lobbied for heavily by the Walt Disney Co., added 20 years to the copyrights of works published before 1978. Duke Law Schools Center for the Study of the Public Domain has a partial list of works that are now copyright-free. It includes some big names: Agatha Christies The Murder on the Links, P.G. Wodehouses The Inimitable Jeeves and Virginia Woolfs Jacobs Room are now officially in the public domain. Advertisement Also included is Robert Frosts New Hampshire, a poetry collection that includes one of his most famous poems, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Other authors with works now in the public domain are Edgar Rice Burroughs, Aldous Huxley, Winston Churchill and Edith Wharton. Films and works of music are also affected by the copyright expiration, most notably Cecil B. DeMilles movie The Ten Commandments and Frank Silver and Irving Cohns song Yes! We Have No Bananas. Jennifer Jenkins of Dukes Center for the Study of the Public Domain told NPR that many of the works that have theoretically entered the public domain this year literally didnt make it. Films, for example, newsreels, documentaries have literally rotted in their cans, she said. Theyve disintegrated because preservationists have been waiting for their copyrights to expire before they can legally digitize them. So weve actually lost a huge swath of culture from the 20s, from the 30s because of the Copyright Term Extension [Act]. For literary fans interested in getting their hands on some new public-domain works, Motherboard has a list of websites where the books can be downloaded, including the Literature Network and Authorama. A La Jolla man has drafted and submitted conceptual plans to the City of San Diego and the La Jolla Parks & Beaches (LJP&B) advisory group to create a Marine Memorial Mall at the foot of Marine Street in the Barber Tract neighborhood. Plans include drawings for memorial benches, nautical-themed sculptures, light fixtures, water features, restrooms, ground vegetation and a new station for area lifeguards. Marine Street currently ends at its namesake beach at a seawall, with a small staircase leading to the beach below. The curb is painted red on both sides, yet the area is used as a drop-off for people and beach equipment. I have been going there since 1945, when I came to this country (from Sweden), and have always thought it is a wasted piece of land, it could have better use, plan creator and architect Erik Holtsmark told La Jolla Light. He said he envisions a plaza on the street with statues of Neptune (the god of the sea in Roman faith), mermaids and sea creatures; memorial benches in the shape of seashells; small linear ponds with waterfalls; murals and an outdoor elevator- or escalator-type mechanism to transport people to and from the beach. He also said he would like to add a post for lifeguards, who currently use an elevated chair on the beach; and a restroom facility that could be locked at night or left open. Components that could be dedicated to loved ones, such as benches or sculptures, would be privately funded. Holtsmark said he estimates construction costs at $4.5 million, and has come up with a list of people willing to donate up to $5 million, assuming the City would donate the land, he said. The end of Marine Street in its current state Ashley Mackin-Solomon The City would have to take over maintenance (once constructed), just like any other park. But there are also options to form a foundation to assist with maintenance costs, he said. Holtsmark, who lives in the Country Club area of La Jolla, said he has not met with those that live in the direct vicinity, but said based on his architectural renderings, there would not be any impacts to views. The idea for this project came after Holtsmark wanted to pay for a memorial bench to honor a friends deceased husband in mid-2018. However, the City discontinued its memorial bench program, so Holtsmark was denied. From there, coupled with his longtime use of the area, he came up with the Memorial Mall concept. In view of the need of (1) parks, (2) opportunities for people to donate funds to commemorate friends, relatives or events, and (3) better lifeguards and emergency rescue facilities and restrooms, I have designed the Marine Memorial Mall to fill these needs as well as establish a tribute to the evolution of terrestrial life emanating from the seas as well as the early explorers of our land, he explained. The reason I call it the Marine Memorial Mall is the fact that all living things on land came from the sea and that evolution is seldom part of any museum and the motto I have chosen to accompany this project is E Mari Sunt Omnia which (roughly) means we all come from the sea in Latin. Using Google for searches just gives the company more information about you and allows it to better track your movements around the web. In the past few years, Microsofts Bing, Yahoo, and even underdog DuckDuckGo have improved their search algorithms; all three are virtually indistinguishable from Googles. I recommend DuckDuckGo, since its business model doesnt rely on collecting data about you. To enable it, go to Settings>Safari>Search Engine and tap DuckDuckGo. The contents of your iPhone contain personal and private details about every aspect of your life. If the worst happens and someone steals it, its good to know the thief wont have endless opportunities to guess your passcode. Once they get it wrong for the tenth time, all the data on your iPhone will automatically be deleted and cant be recovered. To enable it, go to Settings>Face ID & Passcode (Touch ID & Passcode on an older iPhone), and at the bottom of the screen, toggle the Erase Data switch to on. Need to translate a word from Swahili to English? Simply tell Siri to translate text, followed by the phrase you want translated, and tap the language. A tip on saving your iPhone battery from the experts: to keep your battery running at full strength, try charging it off and on throughout the day and keeping energy levels above 60-70 percent. If it feels like your phone takes forever to charge, theres an easy way to fix that. Simply enable Airplane Mode on your iPhone or Android, and youll be amazed at how much faster your battery powers up. Not sure whats going wrong with your car, but arent in the mood to pay a mechanic hundreds of bucks to tell you its nothing? Theres an app for that. Download the Automatic Pro app for your iPhone or Android device and youll get an adaptor that allows you to plug it into your cars ODB-II port, usually located near the base of the steering column. Once its plugged in, the app can remind you where you parked, diagnose engine trouble and even alert your loved ones in the event of an accident. While you once had to have a specialized QR code reader app on your phone, now you can simply point your iPhone camera at a QR code and have it scan automatically. All you have to do is open your camera app, focus your camera on the QR code and then tap the resulting notification that takes you to the product page or website. Want to quickly and easily undo a mistake? Simply shake your iPhone, and an option to undo what youve just written will pop up. Luckily, for those using Androids, theres a Shake to Undo module that you can download to enjoy the same effect. Are you scared walking down Front Street after dark? The bSafe app, available for both iPhone and Android, allows you to send invitations to selected contacts to track your location and set a timer that will trigger a distress call to your contacts if you havent made it home within a specified time frame. With Viper SmartStart, you can lock, unlock and even remotely start your car with the touch of an app. Better yet, depending on the system you use, you can easily diagnose problems with your car using the app as well. Wondering what that plane is doing flying so low over your neighborhood? Theres an easy way to find out. Simply ask Siri what planes are overhead, and you can immediately see which airlines are flying near you, and at what angle and altitude. Send your computer-related questions to mauimist8669@yahoo.com. LAHAINA The long-awaited Investigative Report on the Kauaula Valley Brush Fire was issued mid-December by the County of Maui Department of Fire & Public Safetys Fire Prevention Bureau. Lead Investigator Parrish Purdy authored the seven-page analysis of what happened during the early morning hours on Aug. 24, when a fire fueled by the strong winds of Hurricane Lane swept through the foothills above Lahaina destroying 21 resident structures and approximately 27 vehicles, a total loss of approximately $4,300,000. Maui Police Department officer A. Sellers first witnessed the orange glow coming from Kauaula Valley at 12:45 a.m. Officer J. Joaquin, traveling north on Honoapiilani Highway, observed the orange glow and responded. Approaching the area, Joaquin experienced the intensity of the fire located north of 640 Punakea Loop near the reservoir and pump station. The fire was about one-to-two acres in size. There was another fire 100 yards west of the fire at the reservoir, he said, and cited, strong winds were blowing through Kauaula Valley, and the fire spread quickly to neighboring fields and homes. At 0740 hours, Purdy arrived to assess the situation, noting its path: The fire quickly spread from Kauaula Valley to neighboring communities due to high winds. The fire spread from the valley down to the Lahaina Bypass where it jumped the road continued down to Honoapiilani Highway. The fire burned to Dickenson Street and Lahainaluna Road. Later in the day, the fire started to burn back up the valley, Purdy cited. Purdy explained that the investigation utilized the scientific method of inquiry as a systematic approach to gather information and to document the fire scene from the area of least fire damage to the area of most fire damage with the purpose of determining an area of origin, identifying an ignition source and first-materials ignited and describing the act or action that brought these factors together. Six witness statements, including Joaquins, were taken: Kimo Hodgens, Pioneer Coffee Mill; Charley Palakiko, Kuleana land resident; Keeaumoku Kapu, Kuleana land resident; Heidi Bigelow, West Maui Land Company; and Chris Reynolds, Maui Electric Company (MECO). The investigation commenced at Makila Hydro Plant on Aug. 29. Fire burned up to the plant but did not impact the building, Purdy wrote. The hydro plant did not appear to be operating on that day. Kapu was an eyewitness; he contends, the hydro plant was operating. Plant had light and the turbine was running. West Maui Land Companys statement was contrary to Kapus. The hydro plant was not working on the night of the fire, Bigelow claimed. Purdy also examined a possible cooking area that was within the burn area just above the Daizon camp. There were two holes in the ground about the size of a soup can with some burnt debris inside. The holes appeared to be made by a small tree that was burnt all the way down to its roots. The debris inside the hole looked to be pieces of the roots. No ignition sources could be found in this area. David Dizon had questions about this conclusion. First of all, they misspelled our name in the report. Why would they mention that the two perfectly dug up holes that were 100 feet away from our land was a cooking area and then say those two perfectly dug up holes were from the roots of a tree? Why even mention it was a cooking area if their findings told them it was a tree that burned? Kaleo, Dizons cousin, wondered why the county would reason that the family living in homes, not camps would have a cooking area 100 feet behind their property. Purdy also inspected other potential ignition sources. Power lines were found in the area of the reservoir. The lines are serviced by Makila Hydro (West Maui Land Company) and Maui Electric Company. There are also high voltage energy lines a few hundred yards east of the reservoir. Southwest of the hydro plant was also under investigation. Purdy followed electric poles and lines looking for any downed power lines. All poles and lines were still standing that ran to the pump house down by the reservoir. Continued walking west a few hundred yards from the white water filtration filters looking for any other ignition sources. No ignition sources could be found in the area, he wrote. Purdy further inspected points east of the reservoir for any points of origin. None could be found, he advised. In his summary, Purdy observed, The general area of origin was identified as a portion of land above Kauaula Reservoir and also wrapping around the northwest portion of the reservoir. With regard to ignition sources, Purdys findings were inconclusive: Makila Hydro (West Maui Land Company) power lines in the vicinity of the pump house and reservoir. These lines are north of 640 Punakea Loop. There lines run from the pump house to a hydro plant in the Kauaula Valley. These lines run west for about a quarter of a mile before turning and heading north to the hydro plant. At this time, I am unable to rule out the power lines as a possible ignition source. Maui Electric Company also have power lines in the area of the pump house and reservoir. These lines can provide power to the pump house or receive power from the hydro plant. Maui Electric Company also has high voltage lines to the northeast of the reservoir that provide service to Lahaina. At this time, I am unable to rule out the power lines as a possible ignition source. I am unable to rule out that this fire was intentionally set, he wrote. Purdy, however, was able to rule out lightning strikes as a cause. There were no reports of lightning in the Lahaina area on that night. The materials first ignited could not be identified, Purdy observed. Yolanda Dizon was not pleased. I did not receive any closure. All they did was throw the questions back to us. The questions we had asked the fire department investigator, it was thrown back to us. There was no answer, she said. In fact, I was insulted insulted that they claimed that we lived in camps, like it was back in the plantation days. We do not live in camps; we live on Kuleana lands. They made me feel that we did not exist. They placed us in camps; they misspelled our name; they made me feel that we were not important enough to even be considered. It is not just about me or my family. Its about the whole community. We all need answers. How can we prevent this from happening again? Second fire in seven years and still undetermined, Kapu said matter-of-fact. U.S. President Donald Trump, left, listens next to Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan during a Cabinet meeting on day 12 of the partial U.S. government shutdown at the White House in Washington, U.S., Jan. 2. Reuters On his first working day as acting defense secretary, Pat Shanahan made clear that his focus is on China. The former Boeing executive, who moved up from the No. 2 job after Pentagon chief Jim Mattis left Monday, gathered civilian leaders of the military services and other top civilian officials at the Defense Department on Wednesday before going to the White House for a Cabinet meeting. A defense official said Shanahan told the Pentagon gathering that he is focused on the strategy as developed and put in place under Mattis. It emphasizes the importance of great power competition with Russia and China, after America's many years of fighting insurgent wars in the Middle East. In that context, Shanahan said the Pentagon leaders should remember, ''China, China, China,'' according to the official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss internal defense meetings and spoke on condition of anonymity. The Trump administration has had a rocky relationship with China. Like the Obama administration, President Donald Trump's government is concerned by what it calls China's militarization of disputed areas in the South China Sea and by its advances in certain high-tech weaponry. With Shanahan moving up from deputy secretary to acting secretary, at least temporarily, the Pentagon's budget chief, David Norquist, has been chosen to fill in as the deputy, according to Pentagon spokesman Tom Crosson. As acting secretary, Shanahan has all the authorities of a permanent secretary. It's unclear whether Trump will nominate Shanahan as Mattis' successor or will chose someone else. Shanahan had been the deputy secretary since July 2017. He spent his entire career with the Boeing Co. and has no prior government experience. Mattis, a retired Marine general, submitted his resignation on Dec. 20 after a series of policy disagreements with Trump, including the president's decision to withdraw troops from Syria. Mattis said he would stay until the end of February, but on Dec. 23 Trump announced that Shanahan would take over Jan. 1, speeding up Mattis' departure. Shanahan, a native of Washington state, had worked for Boeing since 1986. His views on strategic issues such as U.S. alliances and the wars in Afghanistan and Syria are largely unknown to the public. During his Senate confirmation hearing in June 2017, Shanahan drew the ire of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for equivocating on whether he favored providing defensive weaponry to Ukraine in response to Russian military intervention. Shanahan holds a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Washington and two advanced degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is rare for the Pentagon to be run by an acting secretary. The last was William H. Taft, who served in that capacity for about 60 days in 1989 after President George H.W. Bush's initial choice to be defense secretary, John Tower, became mired in controversy and ultimately failed to be confirmed by the Senate. Dick Cheney, the future vice president under President George W. Bush, then was nominated and confirmed. (AP) By Nam Hyun-woo Philip Morris Korea director Kim Byung-chul joined the Community Chest of Korea's (CCK) Honor Society, an exclusive club for individuals who have donated more than a total of 100 million won, the company said Thursday. During a visit to CCK headquarters, Kim contributed 100 million won worth of donations to CCK Secretary General Kim Yeon-soon and became the 2,027th member of the Honor Society. Kim's donation will be used to help medically vulnerable social groups, prevent the spread of poverty and reinforce environmental protection projects, the company said. "I am very happy to finally achieve one of my bucket list wishes 30 years after I started my career," Kim said. "I chose the Honor Society as a way to repay the help I received from society and my neighbors." Kim worked at Philip Morris International in the early 2000s and was in charge of global social contributions. At its Korean unit, he led the company's social contribution activities for more than a decade. He obtained a doctoral degree in corporate social responsibilities in 2010 and has been working as an advisory committee member of CCK since then. In September 1978, just three years into the country reconstruction after the Vietnam War ended, the Southeast Asian nation signed the Alma Ata Declaration in the capital of Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic, to demonstrate commitments to ensuring citizens health. The declaration is "a major milestone of the twentieth century in the field of public health, and it identified primary health care as the key to the attainment of the goal of Health for All," said the World Health Organization. Along with a robust economic growth, one of Asia's fastest in the past decade, the Vietnamese government has been able to find funding and technical assistance at home and from abroad so as to locate more resources to the health sector, which has now been facing a rise in general public demand as it strives to ensure access to health care for each of its 95 million citizens. Having developed not only a supportive legal corridor, the country has now built a medical station in each of its 11,100 communes nationwide. "The network of medical facilities has been developed widely," the Communist Party of Vietnam stated in a resolution on strengthening people's health protection. It noted a better quality and a higher quantity of doctors and medical workers, which has helped improve all the indicators of health and average life expectancy. "Without a commune-based medical system, it is tough for people to access medical facilities at a higher level due to the distance they have to travel. Many simply lack means of transport to go," said doctor Luan Van Tuan, deputy head of the medical centre in Thach An district of the northern mountainous province of Cao Bang. Residents in the most remote area of Thach An would have to travel up to 80 km for a medical checkup at the district's hospital, while commune-based clinics were now able to perform early checkups, helping people save the cost for treatment, he said. TINY COMMUNE CLINICS HELP REALISE MAJOR NATIONAL TARGETS A commune-based medical station, or clinic, is designed to have at least five workers, including a physician who also its head, an assistant physician, a nurse, a midwife and an assistant pharmacist. Since not all of the communes nationwide have their station chief, the Health Ministry now plans doctor rotation to address the lack of highly-qualified medical staff in clinics. But the dispatch of doctors to communes has brought more than just a realisation of a policy. "After a while working in the district's medical centre, where I only worked with superiors, I started feeling so close to the people, to my patients as soon as I moved here," doctor Nong Be Giang said in her Kim Dong commune's clinic, where she has worked since 2016 and now heads the facility. As Giang spoke, several local adults and a little boy emerged for a late-November checkup from the busy road that runs past the clinic and links Cao Bang with Lang Son province, home to one of Vietnam's main border gates with China. Among them was Nong Thi La, 56, of Nung ethnic minority group who came for a routine checkup on her diabetes. "The staff of the clinic are very good. Sometimes we have to call them at night for an emergency and they come right away," said a 60-year-old resident of Kim Dong. The clinic, now with four staff including Giang as they are short of a pharmacist, serves a community of around 3,200 people, most of them from Tay and Nung ethnic minority groups. "The network of commune-based medical stations has been very effective in ensuring success for the government's (national) target programmes," said doctor Tuan from Thach An medical centre. He was referring to major health-focused campaigns designed to help fight various diseases within certain periods, under which the government would focus resources to improve the medical sector's capacity in improving people's health. Such programmes include vitamin administration for children, vaccination against several diseases, care of reproductive health, measures to fight infectious and noncommunicable diseases, population control and food safety. TRAINING FOR IMPROVEMENTS Built on previous success in providing PHC to people, the Health Ministry has set out specific measures on improving the capacity for medical workers, providing clinics with modern equipment, working out better financing and insurance mechanism. Medical workers, like Giang and her staff in Cao Bang province, have attended training earlier this year to improve knowledge under HPET project, fully known as the Health Professionals Education and Training for Health System Reforms project. HPET, approved by the government in late 2013 for implementation by the Health Ministry between 2014 and 2020 and with funding mainly sourced from the World Bank and the European Union, aims to improve the quality of education and training for the health workforce and strengthen the capacity for PHC in Vietnam's 15 poorest provinces, thus to partly reduce pressure at overloaded hospitals at higher levels. The funding would also go to refurbishing 26 model clinics under a Health Ministry initiative, where the Family Medicine principle is applied. The ministry plans to expand the model nationwide by 2023. PHOTO CONTEST - A UNIQUE INITIATIVE In order to mark Vietnam's 40th anniversary in its participation in the Alma Ata Declaration on PHC, a photo contest has been held, following an initiative by the World Bank in Vietnam and support from the EU and which is aimed at raising the awareness of PHC teams at local levels and acknowledging their contributions. The contest with the theme "Primary Health Care for Vietnamese People" has made Vietnam the only country among more than 100 signatory states of the pact to have organized such an event with the participation of the World Bank, said a World Bank representative attending the contest's award ceremony in Hanoi's downtown. Nurse Nong Thi Viet from the Kim Dong commune's medical station (Cao Bang province) talks to Nong Thi La, a member of Nung ethnic minority group during a routine visit. Hosting the contest, the national radio Voice of Vietnam has received more than 1,200 photos within a two-month period ending October from 350 professional and amateur photographers, many of them work in PHC teams in the grassroots level, the organizing committee said. We recognized that health care teams working at the grassroots level are key to ensure immediate primary level treatment, particularly in remote and underserved areas, Koen Duchateau, Head of Development and Cooperation at the EU Delegation, told participants before handing out prizes to the award winning photographers. The EU has been the biggest donor in Vietnams health sector. Interestingly, the contestant who won the first prize of the contest is a doctor who has been in his job for 37 years. Pham Quoc Hung, now head of a commune-based medical station in the southern province of Dong Nai, bagged the prize of VND50 million (US$2,100) for capturing a moment when a boy administered Vitamin A. Photographers have tried and reflected PHC-related activities in all of Vietnam's three regions and the best 51 photos have been framed for public display in Hanoi's downtown on Dec 7-9. "They bring to me and many others here the most authentic, vivid images of these very meaningful works all over the country," said Duchateau from the EU delegation. A Homeplus store in Gangseo-gu, Seoul / Courtesy of Homeplus By Nam Hyun-woo It will be difficult to see flying balloons and ads for massive promotion events in front of new discount stores in Korea this year, as E-mart, Home plus and Lotte Mart refrain from opening new locations amid an unfavorable business environment. By Nam Hyun-woo Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association (KAMA) has appointed former industry vice minister as its new president, the group of domestic automakers said Thursday. According to the association, Jeong Man-ki was appointed as the 17th president, filling a five-month vacancy at the chief post of the association. Jeong served as the vice minister from August 2016 to June 2017, after aiding former President Park Geun-hye as trade, industry and energy aide in 2014. He spent most of his career as a civil officer for the industry ministry. "I will do my best to address the difficulties of the automobile industry by playing a bridging role for the industry, the government, the National Assembly and other related entities," Jeong said. After former KAMA President Kim Yong-geun left the association to serve as the vice chairman of the Korea Employers Federation in July, the automobile association failed to fill the vacancy despite its importance as the representative of five domestic carmakers Hyundai Motor, Kia Motors, GM Korea, SsangYong Motor and Renault Samsung. During the headless five months, KAMA was criticized for not strongly voicing issues which domestic carmakers were faced with, namely the statutory working hour cap and labor-management conflicts. After the industry tapped Jeong as the new head of KAMA in November, the association began to raise its voice over pending issues. Last week, KAMA issued a statement claiming a government-led ordinance including the weekend as working hours when calculating the statutory minimum wage will incur up to 700 billion won ($626.23 million) of additional labor costs for its members Upon his appointment, Jeong told reporters that the automobile industry will likely suffer production downturn due to uncertainties in trade environments and rising production costs. He also said Korea's chronic low productivity is dragging down the automobile industry, adding cooperative relations between labor and management is required. "The domestic automobile industry is faced with various difficulties in and outside of the country," a KAMA official said. "And high hope is on Jeong to exploit his experience at the industry ministry." Jeong earned his Ph.D in economics at Paris Nanterre University. Apple CEO Tim Cook / Reuters By Jung Min-ho Apple CEO Tim Cook said Wednesday that the company has cut its sales forecast for its first-quarter performance in 2019. He warned that investors should expect lower sales amid uncertainty around U.S.-China trade relations. By Park Moo-jong How is it going? Are you doing well? How about your New Year's resolutions, if you have any? Four days have passed since the start of the "Year of the Pig" (that actually begins just a month later on Feb. 5 in the lunar calendar). People around me, also around you maybe, are used to asking these questions. I have only one resolution: "fighting" my smartphone, a computer in my hand, in order to not know too much. Most people must know that the Earth revolves around the sun. This is common knowledge. But what do we profit from this knowledge? There would be little inconvenience for us to live without knowing it. It is impossible for us to completely ignore any information we do not necessarily need to live, in this era of IT (information technology). All the information of today led to the smartphone. The late Steve Jobs (1955-2011) introduced it 12 years ago under the brand name of iPhone to help change the daily lives of mankind from then on. The convenience of having a computer in our hand has radically changed the way we interact with the world. Yet, the problem is that we know "too much" about what's going on across the planet. Like the saying goes: "Where ignorance is bliss, it is folly to be wise." Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), a British philosopher and Nobel laureate, shared a lesson in his 1949 book "Authority and the Individual" by saying, "We know too much and feel too little. At least, we feel too little of those creative emotions from which a good life springs." What about the situation in the year of 2019, 70 years after he said so? We spend too much time with our fingers on the screen to know too much, even if our brain has a limited memory. In other words, learning something from the gadget, necessary or not, costs too much time. There are too many "Mr. Know-it-alls" around us these days thanks to Jobs' incredible job. To make a silly quip, one dares to say, "I know everything except for what I don't know." From political issues to gossip involving celebrities, namely from A to Z, people of today boast of their knowledge in the flood of news and information, either real or fake. Most people pass the buck to their smartphone, though they admit without a pause to their addiction to the tool they bring to the bathroom every morning instead of broadsheet newspapers. From bed to bed every day, the device of science is always with us, most of whom, otherwise, fall victim to nomophobia (no mobile phone phobia) that describes the sense of fear or worry that arises when someone is without their mobile phone or unable to use it. What a coincidence! Cambridge Dictionary has declared nomophobia the "Word of the Year for 2018," explaining that "it can strike when the battery dies while you're out and about and unable to recharge it ... It could also be felt when you can't find your handset, if it's slipped between couch cushions or fallen under your bed, or worse, if you've left it in the back of a taxi." Oxford Dictionary chose "toxic" as the word of 2018. I'd like to interpret that the addiction to smartphones is toxic ... poisonous. Fortunately, we're getting wise to the harmful effects of the gadget of late. But what's the solution? How do we distance ourselves from them or refrain from overuse? A subway ride shows almost everything of the ill effects of the computer in our hand, defined as a "dependence syndrome" as the World Health Organization termed it. Here, there and everywhere on the train, we can see young people using their phones with earphones with their heads down, in order to know too much about what's going on in this world, especially in this part of the globe. I used to joke that less than 20 years from now, spinal surgeons and ENT doctors will be meeting their best days, while hearing aid makers will be enjoying flourishing business. Knowing too much unnecessary information, we are increasingly losing our memories because the mobile phone does the function for us. We are losing chances to talk with our children at home after work. We are missing conversation as even at the dining table, every family member is so busy fingering his or her phone. There must be a long way to go in fighting the overuse of smartphones. On my own part, I will not place my cell phone on the dining table and I will use an alarm clock instead of it, without taking it to the bed. People's efforts to surf the internet and use social media less cannot be overemphasized for the crusade to free ourselves of the digital device. Yet, the government should also roll up its sleeves to work out measures to help fight phone overuse effectively. No smoking zones are ever-expanding against the deadly habit of lighting up. Now is the very time for the government to designate more no mobile phone zones at public locations, not to mention subway trains, buses, elevators, concert halls and movie houses. As I insist, one good way to free ourselves from the machine may be to encourage restaurants to offer discounts to customers who leave their phones with the receptionist like their coats in the cloak room. We may also make it a rule that anyone who uses his or her cell phone while dining with friends or other people shall take the bill. Some may want to know why knowing too much is not good. What's crystal clear is the fact that we waste too much time learning what we need not know. Park Moo-jong (emjei29@gmail.com) is a standing adviser of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's first English daily newspaper from 2004 to 2014 after working as a reporter since 1974. Assault on medical staff at hospitals on the rise A shocking incident occurred at a general hospital in Seoul on Dec. 31. A psychiatrist was stabbed to death by a patient during a consultation. The man suspected of murder has admitted to the killing during police investigation but did not provide a clear motive. The suspect reportedly threatened the doctor, identified by his surname Lim, with a knife at the clinic and stabbed him several times when he escaped to the hallway. The suspect is known to be suffering from bipolar disorder. The incident has shaken the entire medical community and has renewed public attention to the dangers doctors face on the job from unruly patients. The doctor is known to be respected in his field and has previously been acknowledged with an award from the Korea Association for Suicide Prevention for his work in helping patients struggling with depression and suicide prevention. The case has attracted a lot of public attention because violence by patients at hospitals arising from various disputes and grievances has been on the rise as shown in the latest reports. According to a recent survey by the Korean Society of Emergency Medicine, more than 60 percent of emergency medical staff, including doctors and nurses, have experienced assault on the job. A day before the this incident, another doctor working at a university hospital in Incheon was also in the news for being beaten by his patient who was upset that he had to wait too long to receive treatment. Just last year, there were almost 900 assault cases at hospitals. It is hard to believe a patient was able to enter the hospital carrying a dangerous weapon without anyone noticing. Violence at hospitals affects not only the staff, but can also cause grave inconveniences for other patients and their families. Therefore, effective countermeasures need to be implemented to maintain the quality of treatment. In this case, the killing could have been prevented if there had been a better security system at the hospital to ban entrance of those carrying dangerous weapons. Hospitals should improve their security checks and beef up security personnel to create a safer environment for treatment . Those working at emergency rooms in particular are exposed to the possibility of verbal and physical violence. Against this backdrop, the National Assembly passed a bill for stronger punishment for injuring medical staff at emergency rooms and is expected to take effect this month. However, the recent incident shows that such strict measures against assault and battery are necessary not only at emergency rooms but also in general clinics. The Assembly should consider a revision to the relevant law to strengthen punishment for assault on any medical personnel to better ensure the safety of all. One of the most consequential events of the past 40 years escaped attention when it happened on Dec. 22, 1978. Only years later would it become evident that China's decision at a Communist Party meeting to allow farmers to sell excess grain at market prices would reverberate would, in fact, change the world. On that day, other things were happening: President Jimmy Carter's administration reported progress on a nuclear arms treaty with the Soviet Union. Chicagoans learned that John Wayne Gacy had confessed to killing dozens of young men. Meanwhile in Beijing, party officials committed to a new policy of "reform and opening up," focused on agriculture. What did China's experiment with private enterprise mean? Certainly not the rise of a competing superpower. That would have seemed unimaginable. Maybe it signaled the emergence of, oh, another Yugoslavia, a middling state adding some capitalist spice to communism. And yet ... Ernest Hemingway, in "The Sun Also Rises," wrote that a change in fortune can happen two ways "gradually and then suddenly." So it was for the Chinese economic miracle. In 1972, President Richard Nixon's visit to China started the conversation, but the leadership of Mao Zedong wasn't ready to move forward. In 1976, China emerged from a disastrous decade-long interruption, the Cultural Revolution. Two years later, Deng Xiaoping endorsed modest reforms to spark economic activity in an overpopulated country that couldn't feed all its people. Two years after that, the government permitted the creation of privately owned factories in some villages near Hong Kong as part of a special economic zone. All interesting, not earth-shattering. Today those villages are as good a symbol as any of what China has achieved. Where 30,000 people once lived, the city of Shenzhen has a population of 12.5 million. The region, known as the Pearl River Delta, is China's original industrial hub. If you own an iPhone, maybe it came from there. Huawei, the tech giant, is based in Shenzhen. But that doesn't scratch the surface of China's might. Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing each is a global business and manufacturing center with a metro population exceeding 20 million people. Then there are Chengdu, Xi'an and Tianjian, each larger than New York. China's economy is second in size only to that of the United States. President Xi Jinping rules as Communist Party chief, but the country operates in hybrid fashion: It's an authoritarian state that embraces free market principles. China has both billionaires and political prisoners. It is a crucial trade and investment partner of the United States. It also is a growing military power in the Pacific, bumping up against the U.S. mission to keep the peace. That means China is both a customer of the United States and a competitor. Friend but possibly foe. The relationship is complex and unresolved. The lesson of China's rise is that closed-off countries doom themselves to outsider status and privation. Think: North Korea. Countries that liberalize their economies and engage the world by opening up to competition, investment and trade will become more stable and raise their living standards. Yet that doesn't necessarily translate into a more democratic state. There was a theory of the immediate post-Cold War era that when a country liberalizes the economy, that leads next to liberalizing its political system. In other words, once people gain the freedom to choose which television or smartphone to buy, next they'd get to choose their leader. This pattern played out across Asia in South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and elsewhere. Why not China too? Because China's leaders refused. They maintained fierce control of power, believing that providing jobs, wealth and a certain zone of personal freedom would be enough to keep citizens satisfied, and in check. China has the internet, a digital economy and more car buyers than any other country. The lifestyle of many Chinese people, especially in urban areas, looks Western, without democratic rights. In China, the Communist Party retains unchallenged authority. The government also controls religious practice and censors the web. Dissent is not tolerated. Will China ever hold free national elections to choose a leader? It's a question that gets asked from time to time. In 2001, the year Beijing was picked to host a Summer Olympics, the prospect of democracy seemed 20 or 30 years into the future. Today, with Xi holding a tighter grip on power than any Chinese leader since Deng, democracy remains a distant idea. Elections are still 30 years away, or longer. The rise of China does not present an existential threat to the United States. The two countries are entwined economically, dependent on each other to maintain living standards and therefore motivated to get along. This has always been the promise of globalization: Trade brings countries, even distant countries with conflicting political systems, closer together. The current tariff squabble between the two countries looks menacing but at some point will subside. The biggest risk factors are China's lack of democracy and loner status as world power. With its increased wealth and influence, China inevitably will assert itself internationally and seek to protect its position militarily. China's leadership operates unchecked by independent legislative and judicial branches of the government. What will stop those leaders from overreaching? What prevents a cataclysmic Chinese miscalculation when tensions inevitably arise over Taiwan or navigation rights in the South China Sea? Today China may still be no match for U.S. overall strength, but it has achieved a significant milestone in the Pacific: "China is no longer a rising power but an arrived great power and peer competitor to the United States in the region," Adm. Philip Davidson, commander of the United States Indo-Pacific Command, told Congress this year. Depending on the scenario, Davidson warned, "there is no guarantee that the United States would win a future conflict with China." It may be China's destiny to match the United States in wealth and firepower. Those are not reasons to fear China. They are reasons to engage the country today as a partner and challenge Chinese intentions when they appear threatening. Understanding that China is an old country but still an emerging global player is critical to both aims. The above editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune. It was distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. By Steven L. Shields Such a strange comment from a pastor, you'll surely agree. But, I am not ashamed of Christ. Indeed, Jesus Christ preached peace, love and acceptance. His hallmark teaching to his disciples, both 2,000 years ago and now, is found in Matthew (New Testament), chapter 25, beginning at verse 31. He tells his disciples a story. The story talks about judging the world, and who might be worthy to sit at God's right hand. Those who would inherit God's kingdom are those who fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, gave clothing to the naked, took care of the sick and visited those in prison. Anyone who claims Christ must do this for those who are most humble in our society. Do I need to interpret who these people are? I recently read a story of a church group in the U.S. who were proud of their project to weave plastic shopping bags into mats for the homeless to sleep on. Excuse me? What about inviting them to sleep in the church building during the cold weather, give them a way to take a bath, and food and kitchen to cook their meals? How about helping them find jobs, medical care, or, and this might be too novel an idea, building them housing? Refugees are a hot topic in political discussions. The United States was founded mainly by refugees from England and many other parts of Europe. There were economic refugees, seeking to make a better life for themselves and their families. There were religious refugees, fleeing persecution from the governments in power. Now the government in power in the U.S. has criminalized refugees through forced repatriation and by trying to change the law on how one becomes either a U.S. citizen or can claim asylum. Many Korean adoptees to the United States had had horrible experiences in recent years when it was discovered their documentation was not fully in order. Such policies and behaviors do not make America great. Sadly, much of Christianity today has become aligned with conservative politics. They support policies and politicians who declare the stranger is not welcome, those in prison deserve to rot, and if you're sick, we'll make it harder for you to pay medical costs. Those who are hungry or need clothing, well, they're told they should just "get a job." Conservative Christians in the U.S. are fully aligned with the current government in power and revel in the political clout they have gained. Evangelical Christians in Korea have a disproportionate amount of political power, compared with their percentage of the overall population. I read not long ago that pastors don't have to pay income tax on their salaries (when I was working here, I paid income tax on my church salary). And the government won't challenge them on this? Church real estate has a nontaxable status since churches are supposed to be working for the welfare and education of society. (And I don't mean "educating" people about believing in Jesus). Maybe it's high time to look at this nontaxable status again. Many of these same Christians were vocal in their condemnation of U.S. President Bill Clinton when his affair with a White House staffer became public. The Republican Party in Congress impeached him. They turn a blind eye to the current U.S. president, who is a confessed adulterer, and who has stated it's okay to grab women by their genitalia without consent. Can anyone say "double standard"? I'm appalled that many of these so-called Christians produced a movie and promoted the idea that God chose Trump to be president of the United States. God? Really? This same God, in the conservative Christians' much-touted "10 Commandments" and other teachings in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), plainly condemn adultery. This same God proclaimed death by stoning for adulterers. Now, you tell me 10 Ten Commandments don't apply to Trump? Are you telling me Jesus' clear teaching about the poor, the stranger, the hungry and the sick, don't apply universally to all? Yes, I'm ashamed of Christianity because for too many people in the U.S. and perhaps in Korea, too, "Christendom" is not the Christianity of Christ. Steven L. Shields (slshields@gmail.com) has lived in Korea for many years, beginning in the 1970s, again in the 1990s and into the 2000s. He served as copy editor of The Korea Times in 1977. He is a retired clergyman and a council member of the Royal Asiatic Society-Korea Branch. By Lee Min-hyung U.S. President Donald Trump has received what he calls a "great letter" from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and said the second Washington-Pyongyang summit will take place shortly. "I just got a great letter from Kim Jong-un," Trump said in a Cabinet meeting, Wednesday (local time). "They have never written letters like that. This letter is a great letter." Trump did not specify the contents of the letter. The remark came a day after the U.S. leader expressed his strong willingness for the second summit with Kim sometime in the near future. "I look forward to our meeting with Kim Jong-un, and we will set that up," Trump said. "We will be setting that up in not too distant future." Hopes for the much-anticipated summit have been renewed this year after Kim said he is willing to meet with Trump again "at any time" in his New Year address on Tuesday. At the possible second summit, both leaders are expected to discuss the ongoing deadlock in talks for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and seek a breakthrough on the agenda. Starting last year, the young leader of the world's most reclusive regime has made rare gestures for peace on the peninsula. In June last year, Trump met with Kim in Singapore for the first historic meeting between the two countries. For this reason, all eyes have been on the timeline for the possible second summit. But Trump underlined that he would not be in a rush to set up the ongoing denuclearization talks with the North. "A lot of good things are happening. I never said speed," Trump said. "We had our meetings six months ago in Singapore. We will probably now have another meeting. We have established a very good relationship." The Pentagon also welcomed Kim's ongoing efforts to ease military tension and seek to achieve complete denuclearization on the peninsula. "The U.S. Department of Defense is supportive of efforts to reduce military tensions and remains in full support of our diplomats as they work to achieve the verified denuclearization of North Korea as agreed to by Kim Jong-un," RFA quoted Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Logan as saying Wednesday. The Pentagon went on to say the United States Forces Korea (USFK) will continue maintaining its strong alliance with South Korea. "The USFK will continue to support its commitment to the U.S.-South Korea alliance in the defense of the South and its people," Logan said. Despite no details unveiled over specific contents of the letter sent to Trump, Kim is expected to have reiterated his determination to hold the second summit as early as possible to fine-tune their differences on the denuclearization timelines. This is not the first time Kim Jong-un has engaged in letter diplomacy. Late last month, Kim delivered his strong willingness to visit Seoul in a letter to South Korean President Moon Jae-in. At that time, Cheong Wa Dae said Kim said it was unfortunate he could not visit Seoul last year as agreed upon during the inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang in September. On Thursday, Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said Kim Jong-un's letter to Trump will bring a positive effect in achieving lasting peace and complete denuclearization on the peninsula. President Moon Jae-in, center, is briefed over the specifics of an industrial event, aimed at promoting innovative business ideas and local startups, at Seoul Square building in downtown Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap By Kim Yoo-chul President Moon Jae-in will invite some 200 business leaders and small business owners to a meeting at Cheong Wa Dae on Jan. 7 in an effort to expand communication with the business community, presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said Thursday. In late December, presidential chief of policy Kim Soo-hyun met with executives at top-tier conglomerates to address difficulties they are facing in doing business here, Kim said. "Cheong Wa Dae has been operating various channels for needs-based open communication with company executives from time-to-time," the spokesman said in a text message to reporters. Samsung Vice Chairman Yoon Boo-keun, LG Vice Chairman Kwon Young-soo and SK President Kim Joon attended the breakfast meeting with the presidential policy chief at the Seoul Plaza Hotel, downtown Seoul. The LG vice chairman Kwon told The Korea Times that the meeting was "very informal" and the participants exchanged goodwill gestures with each other. Separately, Cheong Wa Dae plans to hold a casual meeting with a new format with senior executives at leading conglomerates. The upcoming meeting planned for mid-January will be directly chaired by Moon. Moon appears to be rethinking his relationship with top-tier conglomerates, here, which he characterized as the "deep-rooted evils" of the country, as his administration is exploring ways to improve the local economy. Since he took the presidential office, the President blamed conglomerates for fostering a culture of corruption and influence-peddling that built up over decades as a result of "hidden ties" between politicians and businesses. Moon's approval ratings hit 47.1 percent in mid-December, last year, the lowest since he took office in May 2017. The results were mainly due to tepid economic growth and the little impact of the minimum wage increase. In order to maintain political support, Cheong Wa Dae officials said President Moon's economic team will hold more casual meetings with top decision-makers at Samsung, LG, SK and Hyundai _ Korea's top-four chaebols. South Korea is an export-driven economy. Its economy, Asia's fourth-largest, is heavily dependent upon investment and hiring plans by leading conglomerates. Growing concerns about the state of the economy are at the top of the priority list for almost all South Koreans, particularly those looking for employment. Despite the minimum wage increase and a decision to cap the number of hours employees can work each week, which follow Moon's "income-led" growth policy, youth unemployment and underemployement rates remain high as business owners were reluctant to hire more, fearing the rising fixed costs. Hyundai Research Institute expects South Korea's economy will only grow about 2.5 percent this year and is headed for a low point in the second half of this year or early next year. 1. The eighth session of the 12th Party Central Committee (PCC) issued Resolution No. 36-NQ/TW dated October 22, 2018, on the Vietnam marine economic development strategy by 2030, with a vision to 2045. This is an important and urgent resolution of the Party, as the domestic and international situations concerning the sea and islands are proceeding in a complicated manner, requiring the building of Vietnam into a powerful marine nation with sustainable, prosperous, secure and safe development; proactive and responsible engagement in resolving regional and international issues concerning the sea and ocean; and the sea-based economy contributing significantly to the national economy. Sustainably developing the marine economy on the foundation of green growth is the spirit throughout the resolution. The resolution sets out five major guidelines on marine and coastal economic development, three breakthrough stages, and seven priority groups of measures. 2. The 14th National Assembly (NA) passed the Law on Measurement and Maps. This is the first time that the specialised activities in Vietnams measurement and map area has been standardised into a law, which holds an extremely significant meaning in the period of Industry 4.0. The law will function as the base to develop national geospatial data infrastructure and research Earth science; provide basic survey data in service of socio-economic development, national defence and security; serve planning, territorial management, and the supervision of natural resources and the environment; serve disaster prevention and control; and contribute to safeguarding and affirming national sovereignty and improving the peoples intellectual levels. 3. Many guidelines of the Party on land resource management, environmental protection and climate change response were summarised and reviewed comprehensively, typically the preliminary review of the 11th PCCs Resolution No. 19-NQ/TW dated October 31, 2012, on continuing to renovate the policies and laws on land in the period of comprehensively accelerating the renewal process; and the Resolution No. 24-NQ/TW on proactively responding to climate change and strengthening natural resource management and environmental protection. Thereby, the obtained results as well as the shortcomings were pointed out, requiring more drastic directions in perfecting the policies and laws and organising enforcement in order to promote natural resources, protect the environment, and respond to climate change in service of the sustainable development of the country in the coming period. 4. The Prime Minister issued Directive No. 27/CT-TTg on September 17, 2018, concerning several urgent measures to strengthen management over the imports and use of imported scrap as materials for production. The directive requested the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) to comprehensively inspect the granting of certificates in importing scrap, not to grant new or renew the scrap import authorisation certificates, and only grant new or re-issue certificates of environmental protection eligibility when businesses can prove their demand and capabilities to use scrap as production materials export. The ministry was also urged to design measures to handle the scrap batches in stock at seaports in line with the law on environmental protection. Also in 2018, the MONRE promulgated circulars on national technical standards concerning the environment for six types of imported scrap which are currently in great demand, including iron and steel; plastics; paper; glass; non-ferrous metal; and blast furnace slag. 5. Vietnam hosted the sixth Global Environment Fund (GEF) Assembly, which discussed the worlds environmental issues with the participation of nearly 1,500 delegates, including heads of state, government leaders, ministers, and environmental officials from 183 nations, alongside the United Nations bodies, non-governmental organisations on the environment, international financial institutions, representatives from various development partners in Vietnam, and environmental experts. At the opening session, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc delivered a message calling for joint efforts to realise the hopes of a highly resilient, sustainable and vital planet. In addition, Vietnam successfully organised many important international conferences on the environment in the last year, thereby affirming the countrys role, position and contributions to dealing with global issues and challenges on resource management, environmental protection, climate change response, and sustainable development. 6. An initiative to establish a global cooperation mechanism for reducing plastic garbage towards clean and green oceans free of plastic waste was proposed by the Vietnamese Prime Minister at the G7 Outreach Summit in Canada and the sixth Global Environment Fund (GEF) Assembly, winning high appreciation from the international community. In order to implement the initiative, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment launched a movement of combating plastic waste and gradually reducing the use of single-use plastic products in 2018, which has been actively responded to by many agencies, organisations and communities. The ministry has also developed a national action plan to manage plastic waste in the oceans. 7. The Non Nuoc Cao Bang Geopark in the northern border province of Cao Bang was recognised as a global geopark during the 204th session of the UNESCO Executive Board in Paris, France, on April 12, 2018. This is Vietnams second UNESCO-recognised global geopark, after the Dong Van Stone Plateau in the northern province of Ha Giang, the countrys 38th UNESCO title, and the eighth global geopark in Southeast Asia. Non Nuoc Cao Bang covers nearly 3,300 square kilometres in nine districts. It is home to fossils, ocean sediment, volcanic rocks, minerals, and especially karst landscapes, which can give researchers an insight into an over-500-million-year history of the Earth. The geopark is also well known for rich biodiversity and many indigenous fauna and flora species. Ban Gioc waterfalls in Trung Khanh commune, Cao Bang province is one of the most beautiful waterfalls in Vietnam. The waterfalls are located within the Non Nuoc Cao Bang Geopark, which has been recognised as a global geopark by the UNESCO. (Photo: VNA) 8. Hanoi became the first city of Vietnam to have a synchronous and modern air monitoring system according to the national environment monitoring system. Accordingly, the monitoring data on air quality is updated relentlessly round the clock and widely publicised on different means of media so that the people can access and be aware of the air environment quality in their living areas. 9. Efforts were strengthened in accelerating the implementation of the e-Government, the application of information technology, administrative reforms, and the reduction of business conditions and the list of goods subject to specialised inspection in the natural resource and environment areas. In 2018, an interconnected system between the MONRE and 63 provincial Departments of Natural Resources and Environment, provincial-level Peoples Committee and government agencies, was successfully applied, allowing the direct delivery and reception of documents. The environmental area saw the reduction of 102 of 163 business conditions and 38 of 74 goods subject to specialised inspection. 10. Two wells of fresh, natural groundwater were found on Bach Long Vy Island, an offshore district of Hai Phong city, at a depth of 80 metres, having a combined capacity of 75 cubic metres per day. This discovery has contributed significantly to opening a direction of dealing with the shortage of fresh water in mountainous, border and island areas across the country, as well as improving the quality of life and boosting socio-economic development. Footage from a video released by Japan's defense ministry over the radar row / Yonhap By Kim Bo-eun South Korea's defense ministry demanded an apology from Japan, Thursday, over the latter's disputed claims that a Korean Navy ship aimed its fire control radar at a Japanese patrol plane in international waters. The ministry said it will release its own video as evidence the Japanese claims are wrong. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earlier blamed the use of fire control radar at Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force P-1 patrol aircraft, in an interview with Asahi TV on Tuesday. The defense ministry has repeatedly stated its Gwanggaeto the Great naval destroyer did not target the Japanese warplane on Dec. 20, as Japan claims in a video, which was reported to have been released on order from Abe. The ministry expressed "deep regrets" over Japan's behavior. In addition, it stressed Japan's warplane flying low over the South Korean naval destroyer had obstructed a humanitarian mission to rescue a North Korean ship that was drifting into international waters in the East Sea. It is the first time the ministry has called for an apology from Japan on the matter. It expressed regrets when Japan's defense ministry released a video last week taken from the warplane as evidence to back its claim. It has been the ministry's stance that the video cannot serve as evidence, as it is merely a recording of remarks by the warplane's operator. It has asked Japan to provide radar frequency data for effective evidence, but Japan has been refusing, citing security reasons. The ministry is set to release its own footage refuting Japan's claim soon. Its spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo said Thursday the video is almost ready. Japan's insistence is seen as a political move, as Abe was reported to have ordered Japan's defense ministry to release the footage. His public claim in an interview this week is seen as a means to consolidate conservatives in the country to boost his approval ratings, which have been faltering. Busan Mayor Oh Keo-don gives a congratulatory message at Gimhae International Airport, Dec. 27, as the airport marked 10 million passengers on international routes. / Yonhap By Kim Hyun-bin A capsule hotel at Incheon International Airport / Courtesy of Walkerhill Hotels and Resorts Kim and Gen, a young Canadian couple, flew a total of 17 hours from Canada's capital of Ottawa to Vancouver and then to Incheon, South Korea, on their winter vacation this week to visit Kim's Korean grandparents in Jeonju, well over 200 kilometers from Incheon International Airport. Instead of heading straight to Jeonju after landing in Incheon Monday evening, they decided to check in at Incheon International Airport's capsule hotel for a 12-hour overnight stay before resuming their journey to the old Korean heritage city the next morning in a fresh condition. "We just came from a flight, so we wanna rest before we go somewhere else tomorrow," the 27-year-old woman said after their check-in. "We didn't wanna do Ottawa to Vancouver, Vancouver to Incheon and Incheon to Jeonju in one day," said the 26-year-old Kim, who first heard of the airport hotel from his parents. "They said it was the closest one once we got out of the airport." "We didn't need a fancy hotel. We just wanted something easy and close," the couple said, citing convenience as the top reason they chose to stay at the capsule hotel Darakhyu. The pair is one of more than 200,000 passengers who travel through the mega airport every day, which has grown into one of the world's busiest transportation hubs since its opening in 2001. Under the concept of a capsule hotel, the first airport hotel Darakhyu was launched by the Korean luxury hotel operator Walkerhill in early 2017 in a quiet corner of Incheon International Airport's Transportation Center, which links the subway and train stations to the first passenger terminal. Economical and only a crosswalk away from the main terminal, the airport accommodation has fast become a convenient option for passengers landing late at night or departing early in the morning, as well as for those who transfer through Incheon. The hotel opened as part of the airport operator's efforts to reduce the pains of long passenger standby times as the airport increased nighttime and early morning flight schedules. An overnight stay at the capsule hotel is a very quiet and clean experience, albeit a very cramped one. A brief check-in procedure at the simple two-person reception desk produces a card key to one of the hotel's 60 shipping container-like cells measuring 4.3 square meters at a minimum. The standard 4.3-square-meter single room comes with a small single bed a little less than 1 meter in width and a spare space smaller than the bed, where a valise could barely fit in. The cost starts at 23,100 won, or around US$20, for a minimum three-hour stay in the single room, and the price for a 12-hour overnight stay reaches 56,000 won. Payment of an additional 7,000 won gives you a slightly bigger room with a mini shower booth and a washstand, which doesn't have a free toothbrush or razor. Those can be picked up at the reception desk for a fee. With the highest price tag of 77,000 won, a double room with a shower allows a 12-hour stay in a 7.3-square-meter room with a double bed measuring 2 m by 1.5 m. For all room types, toilets are not included. Public toilets and shower rooms are equipped only with very basic amenities but are cleaned and managed in five-star hotel condition, and they mostly remain quiet and empty even during the hotel's busiest hours. The services and amenities of the hotel are stripped down to a very minimal level to match the hotel's sole purpose of providing a few hours' rest or an overnight sleep, but the core task is served with maximum care. The rooms' small beds come from American mattress maker Simmons' high-end "Beautyrest" line and are topped with clean, comfy bedding that has the crisp feeling of luxury hotel sheets. Each room is soundproofed and air-conditioned individually. They are also fitted with a small Bluetooth Harman Kardon speaker and a reading light, breathing a little life into the narrow box. The hotel's heritage-inspired design is also a breath of fresh air in the dry airport corridor. The traditional Korean house hanok's tranquil design of wooden window frames paned with white mulberry paper inspired the overall hotel exterior, while hanok's signature rafters that line the ceilings of each room set the tone. The hotel's lobby is an open lounge separated from the public airport space by panels of wood bars. Two TV screens provide the latest updates on flight information, and three PCs and a printer serve as a 24-hour business center. Money exchange and baggage keeping are also services available for hotel users. Reservations and payments can be made on the hotel's website as well as on-site at the reception desk, but the rooms are mostly sold out around three weeks in advance. Reservations are 100 percent refundable if they are canceled at least a day before check-in. As popularity increased, Darakhyu opened its second 60-room capsule hotel at Incheon International Airport's Terminal 2, which opened a year earlier to accommodate growing passenger traffic. With an identical price table, the second Darakhyu hotel provides slightly more floor space for each room type and added a new feature using a mobile robot to guide the way to the hotel. "It's a pretty big room for a capsule hotel," Kim said as he sized up the hotel at Terminal 1. "(Regardless of the price,) it's more for the convenience. As long as it wasn't too expensive, we were gonna stay here." (Yonhap) Kim Tae-woo, a former special inspector at Cheong Wa Dae, answers the press's questions upon his arrival at the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office in Seoul, Thursday, to undergo questioning as a witness about the presidential office's alleged surveillance on citizens. / Korea Times photo by Koh Young-kwon By Kim Jae-heun Kim Tae-woo, a former Cheong Wa Dae special inspector from the prosecution, was summoned, Thursday, to be questioned as a witness of the presidential office's alleged civilian surveillance. It is the first time for Kim to appear at the prosecution, following the main opposition Liberty Korea Party's (LKP) complaint against top Cheong Wa Dae officials for alleged abuse of power and dereliction of duty. "For the past 16 years, I have dedicated myself to the government service and thought it was a virtue to work hard on orders given from the top. I did the same while I was working at Cheong Wa Dae as a special inspector," Kim told the press upon his arrival at the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office in eastern Seoul. "However, I came to think it was wrong for Cheong Wa Dae to forcibly seize and inspect public officials' mobile phones and even infringe on their privacy when it did not find what it wanted. However, it overlooked the irregularities of aides close to the administration, which I reported," he said. While Cheong Wa Dae accused Kim of leaking confidential information, Kim pointed out that Park Hyeong-chul, the presidential anti-corruption secretary and his former boss, is the one who leaked classified information, not him. "When I reported the alleged corruption of a prosecutor, Park found out it was his high school alumnus and called him to let him know about my inspection. This is an act of leaking classified information. I don't understand how I am being accused of such a charge," Kim said. "I expect the whole truth about the presidential office's criminal acts to be revealed today." When Kim appeared at the prosecutors' office, some members of a conservative civic group held a rally to support him, holding signs that read "Justice wins." Kim was dispatched to Cheong Wa Dae in July 2017 and investigated public servants for corruption and reported them to his direct boss Park until last November. They worked under the supervision of senior presidential secretary for civil affairs Cho Kuk. Upon his return to the prosecution from the presidential office, Kim claimed in an interview with local press that he reported the alleged graft of Woo Yoon-keun, the Korean ambassador to Russia, a close aide to President Moon Jae-in, and that was why he was removed from Cheong Wa Dae. He also alleged that Cheong Wa Dae spied on citizens including son of former Prime Minister Goh Kun and a president of a commercial bank. Kim claimed that he wrote the report himself about the surveillance. Cheong Wa Dae denied all the allegations and filed a complaint with the prosecution against Kim on Dec. 19 for disclosing classified information. The next day, the LKP filed a complaint against presidential chief of staff Im Jong-seok, Cho, Park and another boss of Kim, for abuse of power. Im and Cho attended at the National Assembly's steering committee session on Monday and disputed the claims of alleged surveillance of citizens. By Kang Seung-woo Song Myeong-bin, the CEO of Marker Group who is suspected of abusing an employee for years, was questioned over the allegation, Thursday. Song Myung-bin The North Korean embassy in Rome. / Captured from Google Maps By Kim Bo-eun North Korea's acting ambassador to Italy disappeared in early November, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) confirmed, Thursday. The NIS reported to the National Assembly's intelligence committee about a media report that North Korean diplomat Jo Song-gil, who was based in Rome, made a request to the Italian government for protection to defect to "a Western country." "The couple left their official residence and went into hiding early last November," Rep. Kim Min-ki of the committee told reporters after the meeting with NIS officials. According to the NIS, Jo's term was supposed to end at the end of November 2018, but he left his official residence early November. It said Jo began his diplomatic mission at the North Korean embassy in Rome in May 2015. The agency also confirmed that four people including Jo worked at the embassy. Jo Song-gil, the charge d'affaires of North Korea's Embassy in Rome, is believed to have applied for personal security protection from the Italian government. Yonhap A senior North Korean diplomat in Italy is reportedly seeking asylum in a third country. Jo Song-gil, the charge d'affaires of the North's Embassy in Rome, is believed to have applied for personal security protection from the Italian government in early December -- a diplomatic procedure aimed at making sure he won't be repatriated while seeking asylum in a third country. Italian authorities are reportedly protecting the 48-year-old Jo and his family at a safe place. It was not immediately clear if Jo had expressed a desire to go to South Korea. A South Korean intelligence source declined to confirm the asylum bid. "We cannot confirm (the report). We do not confirm intelligence matters," the source said. South Korea's presidential office said it has no information. "There's nothing Cheong Wa Dae knows" about the report, presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said in a text message to reporters. Jo, who was dispatched to Italy in May 2015, has run the North's mission there since Italy expelled Ambassador Mun Jong-nam in October 2017 following the North's sixth nuclear test in September that year. Jo appears to have decided to seek asylum after he was ordered to return to Pyongyang. The education of his children could be a reason, as in the case of Thae Yong-ho, a former minister at the North's embassy in London, who defected to the South in 2016. Jo has reportedly been out of sight for a while. A diplomatic source in Rome said that Jo has rarely engaged in outside activity as he had limits on carrying out his ambassadorial duties as an acting chief of mission. The North's embassy consisted of four diplomats -- Jo and another official from the North's foreign ministry, as well as two others in charge of affairs related to the Food and Agriculture Organization headquartered in Rome. South Korean diplomats in Rome have had few exchanges with their North Korean counterparts in recent years, sources said. South Korea's Ambassador to Italy Choi Jong-hyun declined to comment on Jo's asylum bid. "I cannot confirm anything for now. There is nothing that I can say," he said. (Yonhap) U.S. President Donald Trump chairs a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, on Jan. 2. AFP U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he has received a letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and will be setting up a meeting with Kim ''in the not-too-distant future'' to restart talks about the North's nuclear programs. ''He'd like to meet. I'd like to meet,'' Trump said as he held up the letter during a Cabinet meeting. Earlier in the day, Trump tweeted: ''Kim Jong Un says North Korea will not make or test nuclear weapons, or give them to others _ & he is ready to meet President Trump anytime.'' Kim has met several times with the leader of South Korea and attended a summit in Singapore with Trump in June. Kim has signed vague statements pledging a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, but has not described how and when that might occur. In a New Year's message, Kim hinted at a possible cap on nuclear weapons production if the U.S. took equivalent steps. He did not elaborate. He also stood by his commitment on denuclearization, which does not mean the unilateral ridding of the North's arsenal. Both areas need to be further clarified in negotiations. Getty Images Bank Isolationist regime moving toward market economy By Lee Kyung-min North Korea has set up insurance and reinsurance firms, in a gradual yet firm move toward an open market economy, according to experts. According to Naenara, North Korea's state-run web portal, it set up Future Re Company in October 2017 targeting "both domestic and international markets," the first-ever reinsurance firm there. Also known as insurance for insurers or stop-loss insurance, reinsurance refers to a practice of insurers transferring portions of risk portfolios to other insurers to reduce the likelihood of paying a large obligation resulting from an insurance claim. This is considered a more sophisticated, advanced form of business risk management. The firm was established only about a year after the North had set up two non-life insurance companies. It set up Polestar Insurance Company, specializing in services against fire damage, technology, agriculture and trust in August 2016, and Samhae Insurance Company that covers marine and aviation insurance two months later in October. The recent launch of the firms is an apparent move to lay the groundwork toward opening its economy, according to An Chan-il, president of the World Institute for North Korea Studies and chair professor emeritus of Open Cyber University of Korea. "North Korea has seen an increasing number of new private companies there over the past few years and they need help of insurance against unforeseeable yet possible losses to ensure stable business operation," he said. "The insurance is needed especially for plans involving setting up state-private joint business entities, a vital part of moving towards an open market economy. The move is also an indication the North is fully aware that foreign business and investment opportunities may very well go wasted given numerous precedents in the 1980s, past failures that hurt the country's reputation and prospect of economic growth. It would not want to repeat that." North Korea opened the firms due in substantial part to the now-defunct inter-Korean economic cooperation, according to Yang Moo-jin, professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. "Over the course of the Gaeseong Industrial Complex and Mount Geumgang tourism program, the North must have learned that measures are needed to protect against business risks followed by undesirable outcomes mostly suspension of business leading to economic losses. It is also aware that foreign businesses will remain reluctant to seek business opportunities there unless they can be guaranteed assurance of some form." The establishment of firms is part of a broader effort to improve its "reformative" state policy to salvage what largely remains a "moribund" economy, according to an official from the Korea Institute of Finance who declined to be named. "North Korea had only one state-run insurance firm that covered damages for businesses. But that no longer is possible given what many outsiders consider a deplorable financial status quo. So the authorities there are allowing private entities to come up with measures of their own to survive," he said. The three firms came nearly 60 years after the Korea National Insurance Corp. had been established in 1947 which had long remained the sole insurance service provider in the country. Students experience grinding Chinese herbal medicine at Neiqiu hospital of traditional Chinese medicine in Neiqiu County, north China's Hebei Province, Oct. 21, 2018. China's primary and middle schools have been urged to improve education for all-around student development, according to a directive issued by authorities. Jointly issued by the Ministry of Education and other eight agencies, the circular asked schools to offer courses that are in accord with the national syllabus in terms of their quantity and quality. The enhancement of courses' difficulty levels and speed at random and in disregard of the curriculum is prohibited, according to the circular. Primary and junior middle schools are not allowed to set up any "key class" or classes that consist mainly of students selected for their high academic scores or excellent performance, which usually receive better faculty, equipment or more funds than other classes, it added. Primary schools are also warned not to organize any examinations where the students' results would largely decide what middle schools they can be admitted to. The circular also said first and second graders in primary schools should not be given any written homework, and regarding the daily homework load for third to sixth graders, it should not take more than 60 minutes to finish, and for junior middle school students, not more than 90 minutes.(Xinhua/Mu Yu) BEIJING, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- China's primary and middle schools have been urged to improve education for all-around student development, according to a directive issued by authorities. Jointly issued by the Ministry of Education and other eight agencies, the circular asked schools to offer courses that are in accord with the national syllabus in terms of their quantity and quality. The enhancement of courses' difficulty levels and speed at random and in disregard of the curriculum is prohibited, according to the circular. Primary and junior middle schools are not allowed to set up any "key class" or classes that consist mainly of students selected for their high academic scores or excellent performance, which usually receive better faculty, equipment or more funds than other classes, it added. Primary schools are also warned not to organize any examinations where the students' results would largely decide what middle schools they can be admitted to. The circular also said first and second graders in primary schools should not be given any written homework, and regarding the daily homework load for third to sixth graders, it should not take more than 60 minutes to finish, and for junior middle school students, not more than 90 minutes. 8 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] After years of wearing nothing but white hats, Big Tech added gray and even a bit of black to its wardrobe in 2018. Leaders of social media giants found themselves apologizing to Congress over the infiltration of their platforms by foreign hackers bent on spreading fake news. The markets fell amid fears the party was over for major tech stocks after years of run-up. Cyber-security threats grew in number and sophistication. As 2019 opens, those trends and more will continue to garner headlines nationally as the technology sector goes through a natural maturation process. From its market lows of 2009 through much of 2018, tech was a rambunctious youngster that romped through one success story after another. The swift sell-off of late 2018 turned tech especially Big Tech into more of a moody adolescent, but one eager to learn from its mistakes. Many analysts predict the general decline in the value of tech stocks will correct itself in 2019 as buyers turned back to companies such as Amazon, Apple, Alibaba, Adobe, Salesforce, Twitter and even Facebook. Meanwhile, a host of younger companies are poised to crack into the club as the pace of innovation quickens outside the traditional strongholds of Boston, New York and Californias Silicon Valley. Photo taken on Jan. 2, 2019 shows the scene of a train collision accident over a bridge near Nyborg, Denmark. Six people were killed and 16 others injured in a train accident over a bridge linking two of Denmark's main islands on Wednesday morning, according to reports by the Swedish Television. A tarpaulin on a freight train was blown off by strong wind and hit a high-speed passenger train going in the opposite direction on the Great Belt Bridge, prompting it to brake suddenly. All the victims were passengers on the commuter train going from the city of Odense, on the central Danish island of Fyn, to the capital city of Copenhagen when the accident took place about 7:30 a.m. local time (0630 GMT). (Xinhua/Qu Ran) STOCKHOLM, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Six people were killed and 16 others injured in a train accident over a bridge linking two of Denmark's main islands on Wednesday morning, according to reports by the Swedish Television. A tarpaulin on a freight train was blown off by strong wind and hit a high-speed passenger train going in the opposite direction on the Great Belt Bridge, prompting it to brake suddenly. All the victims were passengers on the commuter train going from the city of Odense, on the central Danish island of Fyn, to the capital city of Copenhagen when the accident took place about 7:30 a.m. local time (0630 GMT). Images from inside the train showed broken glass and damages. The local hospital in Odense has launched a crisis response and an evacuation center has been set up at the west end of the bridge, reports said. Police said it was difficult for emergency vehicles to arrive at the scene and asked the public to make room for emergency services on their way to the road-and-rail bridge. 3 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] Less: Just look at London, Ont. Same: We hear more bad news. More: Canada is on the right path. Vote View Results Despite Apple reducing its Q1 2019 forecast by $9 billion, Tim Cook says iPhone activations in the US and Canada set new record this Christmas. But due to the weak iPhone sales in China, Apple could not set a new iPhone sales record in Q1. Tim Cook revealed this in an internal memo to Apple employees. He says in the memo that he is disappointed the company will be falling short of its revenue goal, though Apples wearable, Services, and Mac business set new revenue records. Cool also notes in the memo that Apple is expected to set an all-time revenue record in the US, Canada, Mexico, Italy, Germany, and more. Cook will be holding an all-hands meeting with Apple employees on Thursday where he will be answering more of their questions about the revenue shortfall and the decline in iPhone sales. You can find the full memo from Tim Cool to Apple employees below. Whats next after the touchscreen? Some might say voice commands, but others, like Google, may be heading in another direction. To be fair, Google is giving a lot of attention to voice commands, especially with Google Assistant. But this is a company that is always looking ahead. Reuters is reporting this week that Google has landed approval in the United States for its Project Soli. Specifically, the FCC has green-lit Googles ability to use more powerful sensors than whats currently allowed, and Project Soli can also be used on aircraft as well. Per the FCC: We find that the Soli sensors, when operating under the waiver conditions specified herein, pose minimal potential of causing harmful interference to other spectrum users and uses of the 57-64 GHz frequency band, including for the earth exploration satellite service (EESS) and the radio astronomy service (RAS), the FCC wrote in its order. We further find that grant of the waiver will serve the public interest by providing for innovative device control features using touchless hand gesture technology. Googles project, which is a radar-based motion sensing technology, was first introduced back in 2015 and is part of Googles Advanced Technologies and Projects (ATAP) group. Its a system that works in conjunction with electromagnetic and miniature radar waves to track a gesture. This means you can use a specific hand movement to control software on a device without actually touching it. This is an important next step for Google and its Project Soli. Its been several years in the making, but if Google has managed to get these restrictions lifted then maybe the company is a bit closer to showing all of us something thats ready for the real world. [via Reuters Black-necked cranes fly over the Caohai National Nature Reserve in Weining, southwest China's Guizhou Province, Jan. 2, 2019. More than 1,500 black-necked cranes have arrived here to live through winter. (Xinhua/Han Xianpu) 4 1 [ Editor: zyq ] Apple ended up having a bit of a rough end to its 2018. Unfortunately for the company, the start of 2019 hasnt been all rainbows and butterflies, either. Yesterday saw some pretty explosive news. The company made a public statement warning investors, analysts, and rubberneckers that the first fiscal quarter was going to be much, much weaker than previously expected due to simply not selling enough iPhones. Apple had a variety of reasons why people werent upgrading, including a rough upgrade market in greater China, weak sales in developing markets, and even its $29 battery replacement program. So Apple is doomed! Doomed! Well, unless you look at all the other things that Apple is still doing very well. For instance, Apple said that iPhone activations in the United States and Canada set a record this holiday season. And now, just today, Apple confirmed that the App Store had a record-breaking holiday (again), and saw the single highest sales in a single day ($322 million on New Yers day!) to date. Basically, things arent all gloom and doom just yet, but that doesnt mean we cant start poking around at the tea leaves and have some fun dreaming about what might change in the future. Apples CEO, Tim Cook, says change is on the horizon, too, so it looks like the company executives are doing something similar. Granted, the stakes are much more serious for them than us, so thats nice. But is Apple actually doomed? Probably not! Should Apple make some changes? Probably! The low-hanging fruit here is to just drop the price of the iPhone, right? The iPhone XS and XS Max are expensive devices, and while Apple may have introduced and tried to normalize the $1,000 smartphone to the mass market, it might not have gone over too well. Yes, other companies followed suit, but that doesnt matter. This is Apple were talking about. Other smartphone manufacturers jumped all over the terrible notch design just because Apple did it, so copying Apple is just the thing to do. But, the iPhone XR may show Apple that going that route may be the right thing to do. At least a little. Apple doesnt just need to sell one smartphone, and the fact that there are options is a good thing. However, Apples aggressive trade-in deals leading into the holiday season, all meant to significantly drop the prices for the new iPhone XS models and the iPhone XR does seem pretty blatant. People are going to buy iPhones, because people have their reasons for buying into Apples ecosystem. But when the new devices get so expensive that the question of whether or not a company is pricing its customer base right out of the ballpark is popping up, those customers are going to hold onto their existing devices a bit longer. I know someone who has just flat-out refused to upgrade in 2017 or 2018 because the iPhone X and XS were too expensive. But, the silver lining in that story is that Apple hasnt lost that customer completely. Hes going to upgrade this year. He just had to wait a bit longer to do it. Maybe Apple will start working with wireless carriers to offer up more deals for the new iPhone models from this point on. The networks typically have plenty of deals in place for new iPhone buyers already, though. But considering most smartphone buyers pick up their devices from their wireless carrier of choice, this would be a pretty easy way to handle it. Lowering iPhone prices probably would be a quick fix. But would it be one that actually sticks? I dont know about you, but these devices are so good at this point that holding onto one for two, maybe three years doesnt feel so crazy. More than that, though, the smartphone market has plateaued from the major players. Samsung has to shake things up so much that its going to launch its first (ridiculously high priced) foldable smartphone in 2019. Apple isnt going to do that. Apple isnt even going to launch a 5G smartphone until 2020. (This isnt a bad thing, mind you. Just another example of the company taking its time.) I dont know that Apple has an easy fix. Especially not when it comes to the stock market, which hasnt been fond of Apple as of late. Of course, if Apple just goes back to selling millions and millions of iPhones, which has been the benchmark for Apples business for so long, the stock market will rebound. But, what do you think Apple should do to boost iPhone sales? Let me know in the comments below. The Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore Fulani Socio-Cultural Association has said a shadowy character like Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) should be rejected. This according to the National President of the Association, Bello Bodejo, is because Atiku never misses the chance to make inciting statements that could bring about anarchy in the country. In a news conference in Abuja on Thursday, Bodejo alleged that Atiku was using the latest Amnesty International (AI)s report on the farmer/herders conflicts in some parts of the North to incite the country to instability. According to the recent AIs report released in December and entitled, Harvest of Deaths: Three Years of Bloody Clashes Between Farmers and Herders, 3,641 lives were reportedly lost in the past three years. The killings were blamed on the failure of authorities to investigate communal clashes and bring perpetrators to justice, an allegation that the Federal Government has since debunked. Atiku weighed in on the report to attack the President Muhammadu Buhari administration for failing in its duty to protect the lives of its people who have witnessed many preventable deaths. Reacting to the report, Miyetti Allah said We totally condemn the desperate vituperation of Atiku for lashing on the false Amnesty International report with the hope of garnering political capital from the farmers/herders conflict. We call on our members and peace-loving Nigerians not only to condemn him for the naked dance in the market place but to totally reject him as a presidential candidate. This is because his intentions are inimical to progress, development and peaceful coexistence of the country. His statement as a presidential candidate is capable of destabilising the country, especially considering that he is currently surrounded by anarchists and hate speech merchants feeding on the lucrative industry of fake news and ethnic irrenditicism. Vice-presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi has said that two of his graduate children, do not have a car yet, because they cant afford it. The former Anambra state governor, made this known in Agulu, Anaocha Local Government Area of Anambra State during a lecture organised in his honour by Agulu Peoples Assembly on Thursday. I have two graduates who are working, a boy and a girl, and the two of them dont own any car because they havent made enough money to buy a car, he said. They were here for the Christmas, and I was talking to some people about them and the person said he saw my son and that he always jumps on buses and tricycles. Some people dont like it that way. They believe I am rich and that my children should not be trekking, and that they should be provided cars. But I believe they do not have the money, so they have to trek. Who will give them cars is it me? My money is my own, so they should work for theirs. Obi hailed himself as a honest man, who has never stolen a dime from government. I have been five years out of government, and no one has come to say any one naira was missing in government under my watch. EFCC can come and probe me if they like, I am not afraid. I am not here to campaign to my people because I come from here and you know what I did in Anambra. Just give me the opportunity and we will change Nigeria, and the country will start working again. A request by Senator Dino Melaye for police to leave his residence has been turned down by a federal high court in Abuja. Melaye, senator representing Kogi West has been accused by police of attempted murder on police sergeant, Danjuma Saliu in Kogi state. A siege was laid by the police at the Abuja residence of Melaye, which they say will continue until the senator surrenders, arrested and investigated. Melaye had asked the court via an application seeking the enforcement of his fundamental human rights. In the ex-parte motion filed through his lawyer on Thursday, Melaye said that the siege on his residence is a threat to his life and asked the court to order the policemen out of his residence. The presiding judge, N. Maha ruled that the human rights enforcement suit should be given accelerated hearing,while refusing the motion that the siege on his residence should be stopped. How to Repair the US-China Relationship - and Prevent a Modern Cold War By Jimmy Carter January 02, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - Forty years ago, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and I normalized diplomatic relations between the Peoples Republic of China and the United States, putting an end to three decades of hostility. This led to an era distinguished by peace in East Asia and the Pacific region. Chinas spectacular economic growth , in conjunction with its continuing integration with the much larger U.S. economy, has enabled the two countries to become engines of global prosperity. Scientific and cultural exchanges have blossomed, and the United States has since become the top foreign destination for Chinese scholars and tourists. The 40th anniversary of this relationship is a testament to the ability of countries with different histories, cultures and political systems to work together for the greater good. Yet, today, this critical relationship is in jeopardy. I hear Chinese elites claiming that Americans are conducting an evil conspiracy to destabilize China. I hear prominent Americans, disappointed that China has not become a democracy, claiming that China poses a threat to the American way of life. U.S. government reports declare that China is dedicated to challenging U.S. supremacy, and that it is planning to drive the United States out of Asia and reduce its influence in other countries around the world. If top government officials embrace these dangerous notions, a modern Cold War between our two nations is not inconceivable. At this sensitive moment, misperceptions, miscalculations and failure to follow carefully defined rules of engagement in areas such as the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea could escalate into military conflict, creating a worldwide catastrophe. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter The U.S. imposition of tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, and Chinas retaliatory tariffs, contribute to the deteriorating relationship, hurting both countries. The 90-day pause in further escalation of tariffs , agreed to at the Group of 20 summit in Argentina, offers the possibility of reaching a permanent agreement on U.S.-China trade. What can we do to build on this progress, and to repair the U.S.-China relationship? First, the United States long-standing complaints about trade imbalances, intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers, and unfair barriers to U.S. investments and business operations in China must be addressed quickly and effectively. Neither country should use national security as an excuse to obstruct the others legitimate commercial activities. China needs competition for its economy to innovate and grow; pursuing a fair and reciprocal relationship is the only way for both countries to remain economically strong. Second, Americans must acknowledge that, just as China has no right to interfere in U.S. affairs, we have no inherent right to dictate to China how to govern its people or choose its leaders. Though even countries with the closest of relationships may critique each other at times, such engagements should never become directives or edicts; they should rather serve as a two-way street of open dialogue. Chinas achievements in sustaining economic growth, alleviating abject poverty and providing developmental assistance to other countries need to be celebrated. At the same time, we cannot ignore its deficiencies in Internet censorship, policies toward minorities and religious restrictions which should be recorded and criticized. This balanced approach is key to ensuring that the United States and China continue to work together toward solving some of the most intractable global problems. Despite current tensions on other issues, Chinese support has been essential in our ongoing efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. Beijing also could offer crucial help in post-conflict reconstruction in the Middle East and Africa, countering terrorism and extremism, and mediating other international disputes. The United States should return to the Paris climate accord and work with China on environmental and climate-change issues, as the epic struggle against global warming requires active participation from both nations. But I believe the easiest route to bilateral cooperation lies in Africa. Both countries are already heavily involved there in fighting disease, building infrastructure and keeping peace sometimes cooperatively. Yet each nation has accused the other of economic exploitation or political manipulation. Africans like billions of other people around the world do not want to be forced to choose a side. Instead, they welcome the synergy that comes from pooling resources, sharing expertise and designing complementary aid programs. By working together with Africans, the United States and China would also be helping themselves overcome distrust and rebuild this vital relationship. In 1979, Deng Xiaoping and I knew we were advancing the cause of peace. While todays leaders face a different world, the cause of peace remains just as important. Leaders must bring new vision, courage and ingenuity to new challenges and opportunities, but I believe they also must accept our conviction that the United States and China need to build their futures together, for themselves and for humanity at large. This article was originally published by " Washington Post " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. The Witch Hunt: From Pontius Pilate to the Labour Party By Gilad Atzmon January 02, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - A witch hunt is a dangerous game. It entails a merciless campaign directed against people who hold unorthodox or unpopular views. But, as Jewish history tells us, a witch hunt can backfire and turn the pursuer into the hunted. The Jewish past is littered with witch hunts that boomeranged. In fact, the birth of Christianity contains a classic example of this. Jesus persecution began with a hate campaign against a whistle blower who held some radical views, such as love your neighbor or turn the other cheek. Historically, it was the Sanhedrin war against Jesus that made him into Christ the message as well as the messenger. Jesus wasnt the only casualty of such a campaign. The history of Jewish herem (Hebrew for excommunication), tells us that Spinoza was subjected to the apparatus of a similar highly orchestrated witch hunt. In the Jewish world, Herem is the highest rabbinical censure, such a verdict commands that the person suffer total exclusion from the Jewish community and beyond. As with Christ, it was Spinozas humanism and universalism, and not the dictates of the inquisitor rabbis, that planted the seeds of enlightenment and progress. While Spinozas Jewish contemporaries didnt approve of the Dutch Jewish philosopher, the Goyim couldnt have enough of his Wisdom. The Hasbara Handbook indicates that Israel is very concerned that it will be subjected to name calling. Through the careful choice of words, the name calling technique links a person or an idea to a negative symbol. Creating negative connotations by name calling is done to try and get the audience to reject a person or idea on the basis of negative association, without allowing a real examination of that person or idea.( Hasbara Handbook p 22) It is interestingly that the Hasbara Manual complains that Israels enemies employ name calling. The truth is the opposite. Name calling is actually a state policy of Israel. It is certainly Israel firsters most popular device. Far more concerning to me is that Jewish so called anti Zionists use exactly the same tactics. Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Jewish BDS have been smearing those whom they want to cleanse out of their solidarity movement. We have seen JVP and Mondoweiss witch hunting, name calling and issuing their Herem against Alison Weir , Ken Okeefe, Greta Berlin , yours truly and many others. What do these vile campaigns have in common? I will let you guess. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Name-calling, witch hunts and herem are designed to stop any lone voice from spreading beyond the walls of the ghetto. At his trial, Jesus was presented by the Sanhedrin as an enemy of the Roman Empire. The Rabbinical body intended Spinozas excommunication to impact the church. When Alison Weir is attacked, she is often criticized for her alleged connection with white nationalists in an attempt to make the attack resonate with the wider community. I have been slandered as a racist although I have never presented a single critical reference to race or biology. What is fascinating about the herem ritual is both its complete lack of mercy and the role it allocates to the Goy. An examination of how the British Labour Party became an inquisitor provides us with a window into the metaphysics of the witch hunt mechanism. Since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as the partys leader, British Labour has been openly operating as a thought policing apparatus. The party has been played as an instrument of the Zionist global witch hunt. It has been purging, evicting, suspending and expelling some of its best and most ethical members. Ken Livingstone, probably the last true socialist in the Kingdom was suspended numerous times for telling the truth about Hitler, Zionism and Palestine. Hundreds if not thousands of other members have been suspended and/or expelled for supporting human rights in Palestine. The British public has witnessed all of this with dismay. Labour Party members watched their party with disbelief. But none of that matured into any significant protest. This has now changed. Hell broke loose when the Islington Council (Labour) decided to stop me from playing my Saxophone with the Blockheads in one of its venues. Thousands signed a petition expressing disgust with the Labour Council, Hundreds filled complains with the Council. Many others expressed their total dismay with how the Labour Party has managed to fall into every possible trap in this affair. As is consistent with the Jewish past, the witch hunt has boomeranged. This last slander campaign against me revealed an astonishing continuum between Likud and British Labour . When the story made it to the national press, the Labour Party panicked. Like Pilate, it made the wrong decision which has backfired colossally. Instead of the people judging me, it is the Labour Party that is under scrutiny. Although many of us are sympathetic to Corbyn, the actual workings of the Labour Party have been devastating and perhaps tragic. The Labour Party is running a Stasi like operation, operating as a hateful opponent of elementary freedoms. If the Labour Party in its current form manages to win an election, it may mark the end to Britain as a free country (assuming that it still is). This might sound like a radical prediction but it isnt original. Orwell saw it coming in 1936 while in Spain. He was slightly wrong about the date (1984). I predicted this fatal transition in my recent book Being in Time. By no means do I compare myself to Jesus Christ or Spinoza. Instead, I am trying to point out that what is at play here is the classic ritual of a witch-hunt. This time it is the Likud UK instead of the Sanhedrins that has instigated a non ethical anti humane campaign through a proxy operator that happens to be the Labour Party. In this saga, a Labour Council was happy to play the role of Pilate. The Labour Party has been exploring this treacherous role for at least three years. Yet no one seemed to care when hundreds of Labour members were unfairly punished by their party. People have watched the absurd impunity with which Jewish pressure groups have been terrorizing the British media and political universes. But the public reacted differently in my case. First because the idea that the director of Likud UK, a body that in the eyes of many is associated with crypto fascist ideology, can interfere with British culture and politics is sickening. But there is another reason. On Trumps Syrian Pullout By Richard Falk Daniel Falcone January 02, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - Daniel Falcone: As an expert on American foreign policy what is the true meaning and significance of Trump pulling ground troops out of Syria? Is it this simple and straightforward? What are the implications of Mattis stepping down in your view? Richard Falk: Of course, with Trump we never know either the real motivation for an abrupt decision of this sort or whether in the next day or so it might be reversed in an equally abrupt manner. It all depends on how the winds of his imperial ego are blowing. And this is not a reassuring awareness in the nuclear age . We do know that such an inflammatory decision shifts attention away, at least briefly, from the Mueller developments that seem more threatening to Trumps comfort zone day by day. Beyond these explanations, Trump can accurately claim that he is fulfilling one of his most emphatic pledges of his 2016 presidential campaign, namely, offering scathing criticism of costly interventions in the Middle East as the basis for his commitment to bring American troops home very soon. Such a pledge made a great deal of sense as the American experience with military interventions was a record of unacknowledged failure with a learning curve that hovered around zero. The unprovoked attack on Iraq in 2003 followed by a prolonged occupation was a flagrant violation of the prohibition on aggressive war, the core principle of the UN Charter and modern international law. It was also the cause of massive suffering and devastation, resulting in internal strife and constant chaos. The mindless occupation policy imposed by the United States deliberately inflamed sectarian tensions in Iraq, which in turn spread Sunni/Shiia turmoil throughout the region. Geopolitically, as well, the Iraq War illustrated the dysfunctional nature of such uses of international force even when the superior military capabilities of the United States are brought to bear. A central strategic goal of the intervention was to weaken the regional footprint of Iran by placing a Western-oriented government on the Iranian border of a country ready and willing to have American military bases on its territory. The main effect of the American intervention and extended presence was the reverse of what was intended. Iranian regional influence in part because the American occupation approach sought to disempower the Sunni dominance that had been associated with Saddam Husseins regime and put in its place an Iran-oriented Shiite leadership. A further result of the purge of Sunni elements in the upper echelons of the Iraqi armed forces was the formation of ISIS as a terrorist organization committed to the expulsion of the occupying forces from the Middle East and spreading governance under the auspices of radical Islamic leadership. In retrospect the real irony is that Saddam Husseins regime, although repressive and repulsive, was far preferable for the Iraqi people and even for American strategic goals in the Middle East than was the unlawful intervention and bungled occupation. Our war planners never were willing to come to terms with this systemic series of miscalculations, and more or less arrayed themselves beneath the notorious banner, mission accomplished unfurled to honor the presence of George W. Bush on an American aircraft carrier. Trump claims that his policies for the past two years have defeated ISIS, making prudent and appropriate from a national security perspective to withdraw American ground forces at this time. The claim as to ISIS is disputed by the entire defense establishment in the U.S., and seems to have contributed to the Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis, decision to submit a thinly veiled criticism of Trumps withdrawal approach on strategic grounds, stressing especially the importance of acting in concert with allies. The decision has also been criticized as abandoning Syrian Kurds to the tender mercies of Assads regime and Erdogans Turkey . For the governments in Damascus and Ankara, the Kurds , while allied with the U.S. in its anti-ISIS campaign, pose threats to the territorial integrity and political stability of both Syria and Turkey. Daniel Falcone: How do you assess the mainstream agenda setting medias response to Trumps latest foreign policy decision regarding Syria? They look pro-intervention and occupation on this matter? For example, I havent heard much genuine concern for the Kurds or any other altruistic reasons for staying on their part in the interests of the Syrian people. Richard Falk: My impression is that the media response has so far been dominated by the sort of bipartisan approach that earlier underpinned American foreign policy during the Cold War and produced the Washington Consensus that provided ideological coherence for the neoliberal version of economic globalization. During the Cold War this militarization of foreign policy led to a series of interventions on the geopolitical periphery, culminating in the Vietnam War. With respect to the world economy, a capital-driven approach to economic policy that was largely indifferent to the human consequences of market forces resulted in gross inequities with respect to the distribution of the benefits of economic growth. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter The experience of widening disparities of wealth and income became a structural feature of the world economy, and seems closely connected to the rage expressed by those multitudes who quite reasonably feel victimized by the policies accepted by the entire policy establishment, whether they identify as Democrats or Republicans. This rage has been translated into various forms of political frustration, including giving rise to an electoral tidal wave in the leading constitutional democracies around the entire world that brought to power demagogic figures whose defining message was to pose as enemies of the established order. In Trumps case, he sloganized this hostility by a campaign promise to drain the swamp. This political spectacle is enacted in various ways reflecting the distinctiveness of the autocrat and the particularities of each set of national circumstances. The Syrian withdrawal decision is perceived as one more unacceptable consensus-disruptive move by Trump that includes a repudiation of one the pillars of the Cold War Era, namely, tight alliances epitomized by NATO. Such a unilateral move by Trump without any reliance on prior consultations with leading allies is seen as a further blow to American leadership of the Western democracies. The fact that the Trump decision was endorsed by Putin at a time when Western elites are urging a more confrontational approach to Russia is taken by the media a further sign that the U.S. is in a go it alone foreign policy . The Mattis resignation letter very effectively encourages the media to react in this manner. It challenges Trump in all but name, complaining both about alliance disruption and the failure to heed the views of those who opposed the Syrian pullout. He is obviously upset that the advice of those (including his own) was ignored. He reminds readers of his extensive professional experience and knowledge that is relevant to understanding both the Syrian reality and the implausibility of claiming that ISIS is defeated. In essence, he deplores the military withdrawal from Syria, insisting that it will be of help to Americas principal rivals in the world, Russia and China, whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours. The following sentence in the Mattis letter could have been written in the midst of the Cold War: It is clear that China and Russia.want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian modelgaining veto authority over other nations economic, diplomatic, and security decisionsto promote their own interests at the expense of their neighbors, America and our allies. It is not only that most influential media outlets side with the critics of this Trump initiative, but their failure to convey the rationale justifying his decision beyond saying that he is fulfilling a campaign pledge or shifting the national conversation away from the Special Counsel . If Trump follows up the withdrawal with a termination of air strikes in Syria, and makes a significant use of the funds saved by foregoing military operations to hasten a Syrian recovery from seven years of devastation, massive human displacement, and incredible civilian suffering, the policy should then receive some applause as constructive steps in a demilitarizing direction. I would predict that the national security establishment will condemn even this evidence of a serious shift toward disengagement from Middle East turmoil as an unwelcome retreat from American leadership, and a form of encouragement to its adversaries and rivals to take more risks to expand their zones of influence. If this is so, the mainstream media is sure to follow along, nightly parading a series of retired generals who bemoaning this renunciation of the U.S. global security role of the past half century of forever war. It is common for media pundits to question policy choices so long as they do not touch the fundamental guidelines of structure and geopolitical priorities that have shaped the American global role ever since 1945. These fundamentals include the Atlantic Alliance as embodied in NATO, market-oriented constitutionalism as embedded in the neoliberal credo, and the globe-girdling military presence as typified by more than 800 overseas military bases, a sizable naval operation patrolling in every ocean, and a capability to wage hyper war from any point in space. The media will not challenge those that defend this security structure, and even Fox News and the Murdoch media outlets can be expected to be neutral, departing from their habitual acceptance of whatever Trump does. It is not surprising that CNN news anchors such as Don Lemon or Chris Cuomo almost salivated in response to the Mattis letter, reading it aloud as if it was an instant classic to be compared with the Gettysburg Address. Their anti-Trump animus was so intense that they did not even express some skepticism about Mattis geopolitical hubris that seemed both dated and overly belligerent. His words: the US remains the indispensable nation in the free world. Really. This opinion is not shared by almost all peoples in the world, most of whom worry more about what the United States does than they do about China and Russia. In my view the anti-Trump media frenzy does reflect well-grounded worries about Trumps style and substance, yet it is failing to expose the citizenry to pluralist views, especially in foreign policy by shutting down almost completely progressive voices. The media is not guilty of fake news, but it is guilty of partisanship, and unfriendly to critics on the left. Daniel Falcone: Are there any important implications for the Syrian pull out that coincide with the harsh treatment of Iran? Could this possibly negate any positive steps with Middle East diplomacy? Is Iran pertinent here? Richard Falk: At this point it is difficult to tell whether the Syrian withdrawal will intensify Trumps anti-Iran policy or lead to its weakening, and even abandonment. It seems as though neither Israel nor Saudi Arabia are comfortable with Trumps latest move, partly because they were evidently not consulted, or even briefed, and partly because it could be interpreted as the beginning of an American disengagement from the Middle East and a phasing out of George W. Bushs war on terror launched after 9/11, continuing year after year without an endgame, although Obama at one point openly regretted this, and promised to devise one, but it never happened. I am hard put to find any positive initiatives in recent Middle East diplomacy emanating from Washington. Trump/Kushner have carried the partisan pro-Israeli policies of earlier presidencies to absurdly one-sided extremes by way of the embassy move to Jerusalem, silence about the weekly atrocities at the Gaza fence, cruel cuts the UNRWA funding, closing the PLO office in Washington, questioning Palestinian refugee status, and seeming to be comfortable with Israels recent moves in its Knesset toward a one-state apartheid solution. Perhaps, American pressures are moving Saudi Arabia and its allies to end their intervention in Yemen, previously backed by the United States, and pushing the civilian population to the very brink of starvation, and what is already being called the worst famine in the past hundred years. If this desirable result materializes, it can be seen as an unintended consequence of the grotesque Khashoggi murder , creating strong incentives in Washington to rethink its embrace of Mohammed Bin Salmon as ally and partner. Or put more crudely, the arms sales bonanza with Riyadh could be in trouble unless the Yemen War is brought to an end without a humanitarian catastrophe. Daniel Falcone: Trumps doctrine has been called Me First. Does this title apply in the case? Richard Falk: I have no reason to doubt that Trumps actions with regard to Syria are basically reflections of his narcissistic political style as expressed at a particular moment. Yet, as earlier suggested, because Trump did it on the basis of selfish motives, does mean that we should not evaluate the policy on its merits rather than through the eyes of the dominant political class in Washington that has brought grief to tens of millions for decades. (These experts have over time built up an intellectual and career dependence on global militarism and permanent warfare) It means, among other things a stubborn refusal to take note of a string of failures where battlefield dominance has not translated into control of political outcomes, but instead ended in stinging political defeats. At bottom, there persisted a stunning refusal to heed this central lesson of the Vietnam War , a refusal repeated in Afghanistan, Iraq, and with respect to most of the colonial wars. In each instance the side that won on the battlefield lost the war in the end, yet only after inflicting terrible damage and enduring heavy human, economic, and reputational costs. Nothing helpful was learned, and energies were devoted to how to reinvent counterinsurgency and counterterrorist doctrine so as to win such struggles for the political control of distant countries. If Trump stumbles onto a security path that ends such interventions in the global south we should celebrate the result, even if we withhold praise from Trump himself. Beyond this, we should not be too quick to condemn his openness to a cooperative relationship with Russia if it helps the world avoid a second, more dangerous cold war that it can ill afford at this time of climate change. Trump might not know exactly what he is doing but bypassing Europe for a geopolitical bargain with Moscow might make realist sense under the historical circumstances, and realists themselves need to wake up to this benign possibility. Of course, my wish for an end to militarism, nuclearism, and foreign interventions may be coloring my views, and is blindfolding me with respect to the dangers and risks that some associate with Trumps march to the apocalypse. I acknowledge this, but I am also convinced that the conventional candidates of either political party would never in a thousand years pull the rug out from under this globalized militarism that could never tolerate a peaceful future for humanity. We are trapped in a cage sometimes called the war system, which has the semblance of a permanent lockup. Daniel Falcone: Will liberal hawks react the same way to Syria as they typically do with Russia? This seems to be a failing strategy to reclaim the presidency in 2020. Do you agree? Richard Falk: I fear that the centrist pragmatism of all liberals, and not only the hawks. They have supported war after war as well as forged a strong new consensus that the time has come to challenge Russia and China once again. If Putin is pleased, then Trump is wrong. Such reasoning seems to be dominant among the policy planners in Washington and the opinion and editorial commentary of CNN and the NY Times. Such issues are not even treated as fit subjects for debate and discussion. Instead, there are two or more guests with military or CIA backgrounds that take turns lambasting Trumps Syria moves, especially as it has been coupled with a White House decision to halve the American troop contingent in Afghanistan by withdrawing 7,000 soldiers , hardly a rash decision considering that the American military presence in Afghanistan is about to enter its 17th year, and stability for the country is further away than it was in 2002 when the occupation began. As far as the 2020 election is concerned, it will be a great lost opportunity if the Democrats nominate a centrist liberal, who might be far more humane than Trump at home, but would likely recommit to the war of terror and a revival of American readiness to avoid political setbacks in various parts of the world, never having learned this supreme lesson that military intervention does not work in the post-colonial world. Of course, these days we cannot be sure of anything, including being confident that such a return to the old ways of doing foreign policy by a Democratic candidate would be an electoral disaster. Trump remains unpopular outside his base. This means that if the stock market stays down, trade wars reduce living standards in the country, the undocumented are cruelly deported or asylum seeking women and children are shot at the border, a smooth talking Democrat with the politically correct national security views would win, maybe even scoring a landslide. But would this outcome be a victory for the peoples of the world? If Trump were to stay the Syrian withdrawal course, not a likely prospect, it might not be so easy to vote him out of office with a clear conscience. This suggestion is meant as a provocation to liberals and establishmentarians, but it does call attention to the likely frightful foreclosure of peaceful options for American voters and the likely choices in 2020 . The liberal line in 2016 was that compared to Sanders, Hillary Clinton was electable and would get things done, and look where that landed us! Richard Anderson Falk is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University. Aerial photo taken on Jan. 2, 2019 shows people viewing snowman sculptures on the riverbank of Songhua River in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. Altogether 2,019 cute snowmen were displayed here to greet the year 2019. (Xinhua/Wang Jianwei) 15 1 [ Editor: zyq ] Home Search ICH Resistance Is the Supreme Act of Faith By Chris Hedges Becket: It is not for me to win you round. I have only to say no to you. King: But you must be logical, Becket! Becket: No. That isnt necessary, my liege. We must only doabsurdlywhat we have been given to dofight to the end. From the play Becket, by Jean Anouilh January 02, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - The struggle against the monstrous radical evil that dominates our livesan evil that is swiftly despoiling the earth and driving the human species toward extinction, stripping us of our most basic civil liberties and freedoms, waging endless war and solidifying the obscene wealth of an oligarchic elite at our expensewill be fought only with the belief that resistance, however futile, insignificant and even self-defeating it may appear, can set in motion moral and spiritual forces that radiate outward to inspire others, including those who come after us. It is, in essence, an act of faith. Nothing less than this faith will sustain us. We resist not because we will succeed, but because it is right. Resistance is the supreme act of faith. During the Vietnam War, on the afternoon of May 17, 1968, nine Catholics, including two brothers, the radical priests Phil and Dan Berrigan, entered the draft board in Catonsville, Md., and seized Selective Service records. They carted them outside to the parking lot in metal trash cans and set them on fire with homemade napalmthe recipe was from the Special Forces Handbook of the U.S. Army. The men and women, many of whom were or had been members of Catholic religious orders, stood and prayed around the bonfire until they were arrested. They were protesting not only the war but, as Dan Berrigan wrote, every major presumption underlying American life. They acted, and eventually went to prison, Berrigan went on, to set in motion spiritual rhythms whose outward influences are, in the nature of things, simply immeasurable. The groups statement read: Our apologies good friends for the fracture of good order the burning of paper instead of children the angering of the orderlies in the front parlor of the charnel house We could not so help us God do otherwise For we are sick at heart Our hearts give us no rest for thinking of the Land of Burning Children. We say: Killing is disorder life and gentleness and community and unselfishness is the only order we recognize. How long must the worlds resources be raped in the service of legalized murder? When at what point will you say no to this war? We have chosen to say with the gift of our liberty if necessary our lives: the violence stops here the death stops here the suppression of the truth stops here this war stops here. The Catonsville protest sparked a wave of break-ins at draft boards in which files were burned, mutilated, stolen or destroyed. The Selective Service, in the first eight months of 1970 alone, recorded 271 antidraft occurrences at draft boards across the country. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter The nature, power and cost of civil disobedience, along with the understanding that confronting evil is the highest form of spirituality, is the subject of the play The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, written by Dan Berrigan. Transport Group will present a production of the play at the Abrons Arts Center in New York City from Jan. 16 to Feb. 23. It will be performed with three actors, one of whom is my wife, Eunice Wong. Our daughter was baptized by Dan Berrigan (1921-2016). The men and women who became known as the Catonsville Nine pleaded guilty to the charges leveled against themtheft and destruction of property of the U.S. government and disrupting the official activities of the Selective Service. The Catonsville Nine used the court to indict the now-omnipotent war machine, which as Berrigan wrote has come to include the court process that serves it. The courts, the presidency and the Congress, he noted, have calcified and turned to stone. The separation of powers is proving a fiction; ball and joint, the functions of power are fusing, like the bones of an aged body, he wrote. For you cannot set up a court in the Kingdom of the Blind, to condemn those who see; a court presided over by those who would pluck out the eyes of men and call it rehabilitation, Berrigan continued. The defendants in the Catonsville Nine trial declined to question or challenge any potential jurors during the selection process. Later they would use their testimony not to attempt to prove their innocencethey freely admitted they were guilty of the prosecutions narrow chargesbut to put the nation on trial. They argued that to abide by a higher law they must confront the law. Breaking the law was a function of conscience. The law, as presently revered and taught and enforced, is becoming an enticement to lawlessness, Dan Berrigan wrote in his book of essays, No Bars to Manhood. Lawyers and laws and courts and penal systems are nearly immobile before a shaken society, which is making civil disobedience a civil (I dare say a religious) duty. The law is aligning itself more and more with forms of power whose existence is placed more and more in question. So if they would obey the law, [people] are being forced, in the present crucial instance, either to disobey God or to disobey the law of humanity. The courts, up to the U.S. Supreme Court itself, are unwilling, especially in wartime, to consider seriously the moral and legal questions of war itself, Berrigan wrote. So we felt that civilized [people] must seek to use the courtroom in order to achieve some public audibility about who we were and what we were about. The issues raised by the warissues of constitutionality and morality of the war, of free speech and freedom of protestmight thereby be separated from our personal or corporate fates. The law, Berrigan saw, is used to strengthen a corporate system bent in the direction of more and more American hegemony abroad, more and more firmly imbedded poverty and racism at home. This capitalist machine, he said, had to be taken apart, built over again. The Nine understood that it was spiritually absurd and suicidal to be pretending to help the poor at home while we bombed the poor abroad. Mass incarceration and widespread poverty were the inevitable results of endless war and unchecked militarism. If this militarism was not curbedand it has not been curbedthe Nine predicted it would exacerbate racism among dispossessed whites, expand lethal, militarized police forces and transform the Congress, the judiciary, the presidency and the press into handmaidens of the corporate state. The trajectory, Dan Berrigan wrote, would lead to an interlocking dance of death, a celebration of horror. The Catonsville Nine were indifferent to their fate. We were obliged in fact to attain some kind of personal liberation before acting at all, Berrigan wrote, a certain spiritual detachment from the fact of prison. They did not expect miracles. They were not deceived by the roller coaster of emotional highs and lows that characterize a consumer culture. Patience, as the Vietnamese in Hanoi told Dan Berrigan, is a revolutionary virtue. It was the truth that was on trial. The point of civil disobedience, Berrigan said, is not that people will agree or even follow. It is that such actions foster among the wider population a deepened consciousness. Still, Berrigan wrote in his autobiography, this or that court, no matter what its crimes against justice, its stacked cards, its vindictive blindness, would never succeed in closing the dossier on conscience. And this was exactly our hope. Time would work in its imperceptible way, mysterious, invisible; other lives would be touched as the stories of the courageous and nonviolent were heard, often by word of mouth only. Time taking its own sweet time, so to speak, the motion and motive of a larger soul. The Berrigans, who identified as religious radicals, had little use for liberals. Liberals, they said, addressed only small, moral fragments and used their pet causes, in most cases, not to bring about systemic change, but for self-adulation. Liberals often saw wars or social injustices as isolated evils whose end would restore harmony. But the consciousness of the radical man is integrated, Dan Berrigan wrote in No Bars to Manhood. He knows that everything leads to everything else. So while he works for the end of the war, for the end of poverty, or for the end of American racism, he knows that every war is symptomatic of every other war. Vietnam to Laos and on to Thailand, and across the world to Guatemala, and across all wars to his own heart. Our act was aimed, as our statement tried to make clear, at every major presumption underlying American life today, he wrote. Our act was in the strictest sense a conspiracy; that is to say, we had agreed together to attack the working assumptions of American life. Our act was a denial that American institutions were presently functioning in a way that good men [and women] could approve or sanction. We were denying that the law, medicine, education, and systems of social welfare (and, above all, the military-paramilitary styles and objectives that rule and overrule and control these others) were serving the people, were including the needy, or might be expected to change in accord with changing needs, that these could enlist or embody the sources of good men [and women]imagination, moral suppleness, pragmatism, or compassion. Phil Berrigan (1923-2002), a highly decorated infantry officer who fought in Europe in World War II, was the driving force behind the Catonsville Nine. He had already broken into a draft board office in the Baltimore Customs House in October 1967 with three other protestersthey would become known as the Baltimore Fourand poured blood over draft files. The event was well publicized. He and the artist Thomas P. Lewis, one of the Baltimore Four, were awaiting sentencing for their Baltimore action when they participated in the act at Catonsville. Phil Berrigan and Lewis knew that their participation in Catonsville meant their sentences for the Baltimore protest would be harsher. But they understood that resistance cannot be reactive. It must be proactive. Phil Berrigan convinced his brother Dan to join the protest at Catonsville at a time when Dan believed that his work was standing by the students [protesters] in their travail; nothing more. In comparison with him, Dan wrote of Phil, I was a coddled egg indeed. But Dan Berrigan knew that if I delayed too long, I would never find the courage to say no to the war. It was clear, Dan Berrigan wrote, that the government would allow men like myself to do what we were doing almost indefinitely; to sign statements, to picket, to support resisters in court. Even if they did pick us up, it was the government who were choosing the victim and the time and place of prosecution. The initiative was entirely in their hands. But in the plan under discussion, the situation was entirely reversed. A few men [and women] were declaring that the initiative of actions and passion belonged to the peaceable and the resisting. The Berrigans excoriated the church hierarchy for sacralizing the nation, the government, capitalism, the military and the war. They argued that the fusion of secular and religious authority would kill the church as a religious institution. The archbishop of New York at the time, Cardinal Francis J. Spellman, in one example, sprinkled holy water on B-52 bombers and blessed the warplanes before their missions in Vietnam. He described the conflict as a war for civilization and Christs war against the Vietcong and the people of North Vietnam. Phil Berrigan, the first priest to go to jail for protesting the war, celebrated Mass for his fellow prisoners. The services were, for the first time, well attended. The cardinal of Baltimore, in response, stripped Phil Berrigan of his priestly functions. The Masses celebrated later by an assigned outsider were boycotted by the prisoners. There seemed to be some connection, too subtle for those in power to grasp, quite lucid to the imprisoned, between the Eucharist and a priest who was a fellow prisoner, Dan Berrigan wrote. In sum, in a time of crisis, the Church had waited on the culture, Dan Berrigan wrote in No Bars to Manhood. When the war-making society had completed its case against a nonviolent, protesting priest, the Church moved against him too, sacred overkill added to secular. Indeed, Christ made common cause with Caesar; religion preached a new crusade, a dubious and savage war. The Church all but disappeared into the legions. Those of faith, Berrigan wrote, should be content to live and die outside the walls; they are men [and women] without a country and a church. They can flee the nation or languish in jail; the curse of the inquisitor will penetrate the jails to strike them there. It has been 50 years since Catonsville. And yet, often unheard and unheralded, the steadfast drumbeat of nonviolent religious protest against the war machine continues. Elizabeth McAlister, of Jonah House in Baltimore and the widow of Phil Berrigan, along with the Jesuit priest Steve Kelly and Catholic Worker Movement members Carmen Trotta, Clare Grady, Martha Hennessy (the granddaughter of Catholic Worker Movement co-founder Dorothy Day), Mark Colville and Patrick ONeill, will be put on trial next spring for trespassing onto the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in St. Marys, Ga., to protest our nuclear weapons arsenal. The activists entered the base on April 4, 2018, the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who thundered against the triple evils of militarism, racism and materialism. They carried hammers and baby bottles of their own blood to defile the nuclear weapons storage bunkers. The Kings Bay naval facility is the largest nuclear submarine base in the world. Four of the group were released on bond and are forced to wear ankle monitors. Kelly, Colville and McAlister, who turned 79 in jail last month, remain incarcerated in the Glynn County Detention Center. Dan Berrigan reflected on the burning of the Catonsville draft records in To Dwell in Peace: An Autobiography: The act was pitiful, a tiny flare amid the consuming fires of war. But Catonsville was like a firebreak, a small fire lit, to contain and conquer a greater. For the remainder of our lives, the fires would burn and burn, in hearts and minds, in draft boards, in prisons and courts. A new fire, new as a Pentecost, flared up in eyes deadened and hopeless. Nothing can be done! How often we had heard that gasp: the last of the human, of soul, of freedom. Indeed, something could be done; and was. And would be. We had removed an abomination from the Earth. It was as though, across the land, a series of signal fires had been lighted. The first was no larger than a gleam of an eye. But hill to hill, slowly at first, then like a wildfire, leaping interstices and valleys, the fires flared. In the following years, some seventy draft boards were entered across the land. Their contents variously shredded, sacked, hidden out of sight, burned, scattered to the winds. In one case, the files were mailed back to their owners, with a note urging that the inductee refuse to serve. That morning! We stood in the breach of birth. We could know nothing. Would something follow, would our act speak to others, awaken their resolve? We knew only the bare bones of consequence. The act was done. We sat in custody in the back room of the Catonsville Post Office, weak with relief, grinning like virtuous gargoyles. Three or four FBI honchos entered portentously. Their leader, a jut-jawed paradigm, surveyed us from the doorway. His eagle eye lit on Philip. He roared out: Him again! Good God, Im changing my religion! I could think of no greater tribute to my brother. Chris Hedges, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years. https://www.truthdig.com/author/chris_hedges/ Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. 'Netanyahu Got Almost Everything He Wanted From Trump Administration' Senior Israeli official claims Pompeo agreed to '7 out of 8' requests from PM in Brasilia meeting, with Israeli leader feeling Jewish state can sway American policy in certain areas By Itamar Eichner January 02, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - Israel got almost everything it asked for when U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo granted seven out of eight requests made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during their meeting in Brasilia on Tuesday, according to a senior source in Jerusalem. The prime minister told the press ahead of the meeting held in Brazils capital after the inauguration of the countrys new president, Jair Bolsonarothe main topics of discussion was to be with the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria and Iranian attempts to establish a military presence in the war-torn country. The source added that Netanyahu came out of the meeting with Pompeo feeling that Israel has the ability to influence certain aspects of U.S. policy, and the two countries are now working on plans to make the American troop pull-out as non-disruptive for Israeli security as possible. The only issue which the secretary of state did not sign off on is the sale of Israels F-16 fighter jets to Croatia, which is said to have irritated the Trump administration due to Israels decision to add its own native technology to the aging aircrafts. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Netanyahu also met with Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez in Brazilt, who according to the source promised to follow in Donald Trumps footsteps and relocate the countrys Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in the coming months. The Central American state is reportedly looking for ways to better its relations with the Trump administration, and sees improving diplomatic ties with Israel as a step to achieve that goal. "Israel wants to help South American countries to solve some of their financial and security problems," the source said. In addition, the prime minister also held a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who informed Netanyahu that Hungary is currently promoting a new program regarding the country's Holocaust Museum. This article was originally published by " Ynet " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== 312 Palestinians killed by Israel in 2018: NGO: Apartheid Israeli occupation forces raid Palestinian school in Bethlehem : Israeli soldiers fired rubber bullets, teargas and stun grenades during the raid on the school in the town of Tuqu in eastern Bethlehem, the residents said. Only way for Palestinians to gain own rights is resistance: Rouhani Report: Lieberman revealed details of US "peace plan" to Palestinians : Trump's yet-unveiled 'deal of the century' includes Palestinian state in Gaza, self-rule in areas of West Bank, but no loss of land for Israel; former defese minister's office denies claim Honduras to talk with Israel, U.S. on Jerusalem embassy Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. McCarthyite Censorship Is Seeping Into Our Schools By Marjorie Cohn January 02, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - In a return to the bad old days of McCarthyism, Bahia Amawi, a US citizen of Palestinian descent, lost her Texas elementary school job after refusing to pledge in writing that she would not participate in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Earlier this month, Amawi sued the school district that fired her. The BDS movement against Israel has become a hot-button issue in the closing month of 2018. A bipartisan group of senators tried to attach the Israel Anti-Boycott Act to the unanimous spending bill that Trump almost signed to avoid the current government shutdown. Meanwhile, Donorbox, a US software company, blocked the BDS fundraising account at the behest of a pro-Israel group. The language of the affirmation Amawi was told she must sign reads like Orwellian or McCarthyite self-parody, the classic political loyalty oath that every American should instinctively shudder upon reading, Glenn Greenwald wrote at The Intercept. On December 12, the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a lawsuit on Amawis behalf in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas against Pflugerville Independent School District, alleging that Texas law requiring the oath violates the First Amendment. Amawis complaint says the law constitutes an impermissible attempt to impose an ideological litmus test or compel speech related to government contractors political beliefs, associations, and expressions. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Amawi had contracted with the school district for nine years to work with students with autism and developmental disabilities in Austin. This fall, for the first time, Amawi was required to sign an oath that she would not boycott Israel. When she refused to sign it, she was fired. The point of boycotting any product that supports Israel is to put pressure on the Israeli government to change its treatment, the inhumane treatment, of the Palestinian people, Amawi explained . Having grown up as a Palestinian, I know firsthand the oppression and the struggle that Palestinians face on a daily basis. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement The BDS movement was launched by representatives of Palestinian civil society in 2005, calling upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era [including] embargoes and sanctions against Israel. This call specified that these non-violent punitive measures should last until Israel fully complies with international law by (1) ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the barrier wall; (2) recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and (3) respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their land as stipulated in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194. Even though it is a nonviolent movement, Israel sees BDS as a threat to its hegemony over the Palestinians. Israel illegally occupies Palestinian territories, maintaining effective control over Gazas land, airspace, seaport, electricity, water, telecommunications and population registry. Israel deprives Gazans of food, medicine, fuel and basic services, and continues to build illegal Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank. There will not be progress toward a just peace without pressure on Israel to respect Palestinian rights, said Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace. Bringing about that pressure, through a global grassroots mobilization, is exactly what BDS is about. After Amawis firing, The New York Times editorial board wrote , Its not just Israels adversaries who find the [BDS] movement appealing. Many devoted supporters of Israel, including many American Jews, oppose the occupation of the West Bank and refuse to buy products of the settlements in occupied territories. Their right to protest in this way must be vigorously defended. Omar Barghouti, co-founder of BDS, said in an email to The New York Times, Having lost many battles for hearts and minds at the grass-roots level, Israel has adopted since 2014 a new strategy to criminalize support for BDS from the top in order to shield Israel from accountability. Barghouti called Shurat HaDin, the group behind the Donorbox action blocking the BDS account, a repressive organization with clear connections to the far-right Israeli government that is engaging in McCarthyite tactics in a desperate attempt to undermine our ability to challenge Israels regime of apartheid and oppression. Twenty-six US states have anti-BDS laws and 13 others are pending . The Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which would have to be reintroduced when the new Congress convenes in January, was supported by Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Dianne Feinstein (D-California) opposed the bill. Boycotts Are Protected by the First Amendment The law that triggered Amawis firing prohibits the State of Texas from entering into government contracts with companies, including sole proprietorships, that boycott Israel. It defines boycott Israel to include refusing to deal with, terminating business activities with, or otherwise taking any action that is intended to penalize, inflict harm on, or limit commercial relations specifically with Israel, or with a person or entity doing business in Israel or in an Israeli-controlled territory. Boycotts are a constitutionally protected form of speech, assembly and association. They have long been used to oppose injustice and urge political change. The Supreme Court has held that speech on public issues occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values, and is entitled to special protection. The high court ruled that advocating and supporting boycotts to bring about political, social, and economic change like boycotts of Israel are indisputably protected by the First Amendment. The National Lawyers Guild, Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights wrote in a legal memorandum challenging anti-BDS legislation in New York that such laws harken back to the McCarthy era when the state sought to deny the right to earn a livelihood to those who express controversial political views. The memo says, The courts long ago found such McCarthy-era legislation to be at war with the First Amendment, as they unconstitutionally target core political speech activities and infringe on the freedom to express political beliefs. Even staff members at the right-wing Anti-Defamation League (ADL)opposed anti-BDS laws and admitted they are unconstitutional. Although the leadership officially favors outlawing BDS, ADL staff wrote in an internal 2016 memo that anti-BDS laws divert community resources to an ineffective, unworkable, and unconstitutional endeavor. Greenwald cited the grave danger anti-BDS laws pose to freedom of speech, tweeting , The proliferation of these laws where US citizens are barred from work or contracts unless they vow not to boycott Israel is the single greatest free speech threat in the US. Demonstrating the incongruity of allowing Amawi to boycott any entity but Israel, Greenwald noted , In order to continue to work, Amawi would be perfectly free to engage in any political activism against her own country, participate in an economic boycott of any state or city within the US, or work against the policies of any other government in the world except Israel. The US government remains Israels lap dog on the world stage. On December 5 the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for an end to Israels occupation of Palestinian territories. The United States opposed the resolution. Meanwhile, the BDS movement continues to achieve victories . After more than 24,000 people complained to HSBC, the banking giant pulled out its investments in Israeli arms company Elbit Systems. Elbit sells military equipment, including drones, aircraft, artillery and weapon control systems to the Israeli army, US Air Force and British Royal Air Force. It also provides surveillance equipment to the US Customs and Border Protection agency. On the legal front, the ACLU has mounted successful court challenges to anti-BDS laws in Kansas and Arizona and has filed litigation in Arkansas and Texas. Gaza : Looking Into The Eyes Of Barbarism Watch Short documentary, shows the human rights violations suffered by the people of the Gaza Strip. - Warning - Video depicts the reality and horror of life as endured by the people of Palestine. Posted January 02, 2018 Directed by Carles Bover and Julio Perez. Produced by El Retorno Producciones Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Jon Snow visits Gaza Jon Snow has been speaking to youngsters in Gaza City about their lives and how they're coping with living in a warzone. And he also talks to Dr Mads Gilbert - a Norwegian doctor working at al Shifa hospital - who is treating some of the children. Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== 312 Palestinians killed by Israel in 2018: NGO: Apartheid Israeli occupation forces raid Palestinian school in Bethlehem : Israeli soldiers fired rubber bullets, teargas and stun grenades during the raid on the school in the town of Tuqu in eastern Bethlehem, the residents said. Only way for Palestinians to gain own rights is resistance: Rouhani Report: Lieberman revealed details of US "peace plan" to Palestinians : Trump's yet-unveiled 'deal of the century' includes Palestinian state in Gaza, self-rule in areas of West Bank, but no loss of land for Israel; former defese minister's office denies claim Honduras to talk with Israel, U.S. on Jerusalem embassy Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Indianapolis doesnt get a bad reputation nationally since its smaller than other cities such as Baltimore and Chicago, but crime and violence have been on the forefront of issues facing the community for years. In response, Mayor Joe Hogsett appointed Shonna Majors in June 2018 as the citys first director of community violence reduction. Criminal homicides have been on the rise every year since 2012. Last year, Indianapolis saw an uptick in murders and aggravated assaults, according to FBI data, although all other crime categories went down from the previous year. Indianapolis had 23.3 homicides per 100,000 people in 2017. For comparison, Las Vegas had 22.3, Philadelphia had 20.2, and Detroit had 39.7. Who better to head up the citys efforts to curb violence than someone who has seen it firsthand? Majors was a victim of gun violence at the age of 16. At the news conference announcing her appointment, Majors said she was hanging out with the wrong people and still has the bullet in her back next to her spine. Now she works with police and community groups to intervene where violence can happen. She is also responsible for awarding about $300,000 in grant funding each year. Along with Majors position, Hogsett also created roles for four peacemakers, who are tasked with improving relations between police and neighborhoods. There is no one better suited for this position, Hogsett said at the news conference in June 2018. Violence has seated its way through neighborhoods, taking too many lives and shattering families in its wake. Through this, we will continue our march toward eradicating violence that threatens our communitys peace. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Chief Bryan Roach has tried to improve ties between police and the community since he took over in January 2017 by practicing better transparency and hiring more officers so the department isnt stretched so thin. That sends a message that we care, Roach said at the news conference. And I wish that we had the ability and the connections so that people like Shonna wouldnt be needed. But she is needed. Before taking on this new role, Majors worked for the Indiana Department of Corrections. She also worked for the U.S. Department of Labor and Public Advocates of Community Re-Entry and CoreCivic, among other employers. In all, Majors has about two decades of similar work. She graduated in 1998 from Indiana State University with a criminology degree. In her column following Majors appointment, Shannon Williams, former Recorder president and general manager, said Majors was a good fit for the position. Majors experiences unequivocally make her the ideal person to lead this new initiative, Williams wrote. I appreciate her grassroots credibility and professional acumen, as those two aspects are what it takes to make transformational changes. Majors hasnt had much time on the job, and Indianapolis 2018 crime statistics appear to be indistinguishable from years past. Hogsett acknowledged after appointing Majors that change wouldnt happen overnight. The city recently tied its 2017 murder total, and 17 criminal homicides made September one of the deadliest months of the year. Crime and violence will continue to dominate the public conversation as Hogsett seeks re-election in 2019. Thats where detractors have hit him hardest. But his expressed confidence in Majors as a force of positive change in the community could pay off as she becomes more embedded in the issues plaguing Indianapolis. Contact staff writer Tyler Fenwick at 317-762-7853. Follow him on Twitter @Ty_Fenwick. Shonna Majors Indianapolis marked the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther Kings assassination with a variety of events to remind the city of its unique history with Kings death. While on the campaign trail on April 4, 1968 in Indianapolis, Robert Kennedy received news of Kings assassination before taking the stage to speak. Instead of giving his planned campaign speech, Kennedy shared the news with the crowd. In his speech, Kennedy called for ending racial division and continuing to fight for Kings ideals. Many said Kennedys speech is a large reason why Indianapolis stayed calm after hearing news of the assassination while other cities erupted into violence. To commemorate that significant speech, hundreds of people gathered at the Landmark for Peace Memorial in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park and listened to Kennedys original speech during Still We Reach: Community Reflection and Conversation on April 4, 2018. The event featured Kerry Kennedy, Robert Kennedys daughter, and Congressman John Lewis. The day before, President Donald Trump signed a bipartisan bill, introduced by Rep. Andre Carson, declaring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park as the Kennedy King National Commemorative Site. With todays bill signing, we are bringing much needed recognition to a site that epitomizes the ideals of Sen. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Carson said at the time. As new generations carry on the march toward civil rights, I hope that this site will serve as a reminder of the need for non-violence and tolerance in our community and world. Playwright, poet and English professor Angela Jackson-Brown also wrote a musical to commemorate Kennedys speech. The musical, Dear Bobby: The Musical, performed at the IndyFringe Basile Theatre, told the story of two 12-year-old girls, one Black and one Jewish, who hope to see Kennedys campaign speech. Just as in real life, Kennedy breaks the news of Kings death, and characters find harmony in the midst of a tragic event. The Indianapolis International Airport also unveiled an exhibit, which shared stories from those who attended Kennedys speech, and the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center featured a screening of Ripple of Hope, a 2008 documentary featuring people who saw Kennedys speech, and held a discussion afterward. Contact staff writer Ben Lashar at 317-762-7848. Follow him on twitter @BenjaminLashar. King At Speech Indiana found itself in the midst of the #MeToo movement when sexual misconduct allegations against Attorney General Curtis Hill arose. As both the first Black Attorney General of Indiana and the vice chairman of the National Republican Attorneys General Association, the accusations surrounding Hill carried significant political weight. Four women accused Hill of groping them during the early morning while attending a party at AJs Lounge on March 15, 2018. Many witnesses claimed Hill was intoxicated during the party. Hill denied the sexual assault allegations, and many different Indiana politicians, including Gov. Eric Holcomb, called for Hill to resign. Hill refused and called for an investigation into the alleged incidents. I am not resigning, Hill said via press release. The allegations against me are vicious and false. At no time did I ever grab or touch anyone inappropriately. The lack of fairness and the failure to recognize my constitutional rights are a complete travesty. Controversy continued when documents from Hills office showed a plan to pay for his legal defense with $100,000 of taxpayer dollars. After public backlash, Hill announced he would not use public money for his defense. While alternate proposals for legal payment were made, the law firm of Betz and Blevins decided to represent Hill for free. Detailed investigations followed. Special prosecutor Daniel Sigler entertained pursing misdemeanor battery charges against Hill but ultimately concluded there was too little evidence to prosecute. In addition, Inspector General Lori Torres conducted an investigation at the request of Holcomb and other pollical leaders. The investigations report concluded, that while Hill engaged in behavior that was creepy, he did not commit any legal, ethical or otherwise actionable offenses. The investigation cost taxpayers at least $26,300. More specifically, Siglers fee, most of which was hourly wages, cost $5,217. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department spent around $3,226 on sex crime detective work, and the Inspector Generals office spent $17,861 in its investigation. Currently, Hill is still in office. The four women who accused Hill of sexual assault are preparing to file a civil lawsuit. Contact staff writer Ben Lashar at 317-762-7848. Follow him on twitter @BenjaminLashar. Curtis Hill Indiana Christian Leadership Conference (ICLC) is getting ready for its 50th year of commemorating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. with a choir concert Jan. 13 and a celebration service Jan. 21 at St. Johns Missionary Baptist Church. Established as an affiliate of the Southern Christian Leadership Council, ICLC began celebrating King in January 1969, nine months after the civil rights leader was assassinated. The choir concert will feature choirs from around Indiana, including local choirs from St. Johns Missionary Baptist Church and Light of the World Missionary Baptist Church, according to ICLC Executive Director Marilyn Gill. Anne Byfield, presiding prelate of the 16th Episcopal District in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, will be the speaker at the Jan. 21 service. ICLC will also give Dennis Bland, president of the Center for Leadership Development, the Drum Major for Justice Award. (In a 1968 sermon in Atlanta, King said, Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice.) Remembering King and his impact on the world tugs at the hearts of many, including those who werent alive during the Civil Rights Movement and have no formal connections to it. But its more personal for Tom Brown, president of ICLC. Browns father, Andrew Brown, founded ICLC and was heavily involved with King. He was with King at a civil rights march in Selma, Alabama, and hosted King at his house in Indianapolis since it was difficult to find a safe place for Black people to stay in the city. Brown also helped found Indiana Black Expo. He passed away in 1996. Now Brown, who was 14 years old when King stayed at his house, believes there needs to be a revitalization of the movement his father and King worked so hard to cultivate, and that includes better education about what they were fighting for. We were not looking for civil rights, Brown said. We were looking for freedom and liberation from oppression. Brown said the movement got its civil rights branding from politicians and media who wanted to make it more palatable for other people. He added the push for freedom and liberation is something that continues to this day. Brown said he hopes those who attend see the event as not just a celebration of King, but an educational experience that prepares them for challenges the Black community still faces. I hope they get an inspiration and maybe an awareness that would inspire them to keep up the good fight, he said. Im speaking of the good fight of being nonviolent, not so violent like we are today. Whether there are enough events like this celebration is beside the point. With each passing year, fewer people who worked directly with King or in the Civil Rights Movement more generally will be around to tell their tales. ICLC is believed to be the only organization in Indiana that celebrated Kings legacy on Jan. 15, 1969, on what would have been his 40th birthday, and the significance of the event has not waned over the years. Weve got to get more tellers of the history, Brown said. Contact staff writer Tyler Fenwick at 317-762-7853. Follow him on Twitter @Ty_Fenwick. Anne Byfield A water bird flies above the Yellow River in Lanzhou, capital of northwest China's Gansu Province, Jan. 2, 2019. With the improvement of environment on the upper reaches of the Yellow River, more water birds come to winter here in Lanzhou. (Xinhua/Fan Peishen) 8 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] Since 1963, The Independent has helped create a great community! Since our founding in September of 1963, The Independent has been dedicated to giving Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin, and Sunol readers the news they need to be in-the-know about what's going on in the Tri-Valley region. By Helene Van Steenberge, Olivier Van Den Broeke and Martin S Navias, Baker McKenzie 1 minute read In May 2018 the European Parliament and the Council adopted the fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive. It provides a series of changes to the fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive and the EU's legislative framework in relation to both anti-money laundering and terrorist financing. In Belgium changes are expected in relation to the AML Act (and its implementing royal decrees, circulars and regulations, where relevant). The Belgian legislator has already implemented most of the new requirements in relation to the register with information on beneficial ownership with the result that only limited further changes are expected in this regard. Belgium has until January 10 2020 to get in line with the new requirements. On May 30 2018, the European Parliament and the Council adopted the so-called fifth Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Directive. The fifth AML Directive entered into force on July 9 2018 and must be transposed into the laws and regulations of the member states by January 10 2020. It introduces a series of changes with respect to the fourth AML Directive and the European Union's legislative framework in relation to AML and terrorist financing in general. The reform was deemed necessary by the European legislator in light of recent terrorist attacks and the financial dealings uncovered by the Panama Papers, which brought to light emerging new trends, in particular regarding the way terrorist groups finance and conduct their operations. Key changes of the fifth AML Directive Broader scope of application The scope of application of the EU's AML regime has been broadened to include custodian wallet providers and providers engaged in exchange services between virtual currencies and fiat currencies (which are coins and banknotes that are designated as legal tender and electronic money of a country and accepted as a medium of exchange in the issuing country). Such platforms provide for a certain degree of anonymity and can be used to conceal transfers. These service providers will now be subject to the EU's AML framework and will have to report suspicious activity and conduct customer due diligence. The scope of the EU's AML regime is also extended to cover art dealers where the value of the transaction or a series of linked transactions amounts to 10,000 ($11,400 approximately) or more. The fifth AML Directive also provides for certain further specifications as to the scope of application in relation to tax advisors and estate agents (which were already included in the scope): As far as tax advisors are concerned, the fifth AML Directive specifies that this includes auditors, external accountants and tax advisors, and any other person that undertakes to provide, directly or by means of other persons to which that other person is related, material aid, assistance or advice on tax matters as principal business or professional activity. As far as estate agents are concerned, the fifth AML Directive specifies that this also includes estate agents that are acting as intermediaries in the letting of immovable property, but only in relation to transactions for which the monthly rent amounts to 10,000 or more. The fourth AML Directive has been implemented in Belgium through the Act of September 18 2017 on the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing and the restriction on the use of cash (the AML Act), its implementing royal decrees, circulars and regulations. The Belgian legislator will have to amend the scope of application of the AML Act, bringing the above mentioned service providers in scope of Belgium's AML and terrorist financing regime. Enhanced customer due diligence when dealing with high-risk third countries "The scope of application of the EUs AML regime has been broadened to include custodian wallet providers and providers engaged in exchange services between virtual currencies and fiat currencies" The European Commission keeps a list of all jurisdictions which are considered as high-risk third countries. This list includes, among others, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The fifth AML Directive requires enhanced customer due diligence with respect to business relationships or transactions involving high-risk third countries. Obliged entities will have to apply the following enhanced customer due diligence measures: Additional information will need to be obtained on the customer, the beneficial owner(s), the intended nature of the business relationship, the source of funds and source of wealth of the customer and of the beneficial owner(s), the reasons for the intended or performed transactions. Approval of senior management for establishing or continuing the business relationship will need to be obtained as well and enhanced monitoring of the business relationship will have to be conducted by increasing the number and timing of controls applied, and selecting patterns of transactions that need further examination. Additional elements of enhanced customer due diligence measures will need to be applied. Enhanced reporting mechanisms or systematic reporting of financial transactions will need to be introduced, and business relationships or transactions with natural persons or legal entities from high-risk third countries will need to be limited. The AML Act currently only foresees that increased vigilance must be applied in respect of relationships with customers established in high-risk third countries, without further specification. It is therefore expected that the Belgian legislator will make the necessary amendments to the AML Act in order to reflect these new enhanced customer due diligence requirements. Threshold for customer due diligence in respect of prepaid cards lowered to 150 The fifth AML Directive lowers the threshold for customer due diligence in respect of prepaid cards from 250 to 150, mainly to deny terrorists this means of financing their operations. The derogation to this identification requirement does not apply in the case of redemption in cash or cash withdrawal of the monetary value of the electronic money where the amount redeemed exceeds 50, or in the case of remote payment transactions where the amount paid exceeds 50. The AML Act currently provides for thresholds of 250 and 100 respectively and will need to be amended accordingly by the legislator in order to reflect these new thresholds. Beneficial ownership information made publicly accessible The fourth AML Directive provides for the obligation to register beneficial ownership information about corporate and other legal entities on the one hand and about trusts and similar legal arrangements on the other hand, but only where such trusts and similar legal arrangements would generate tax consequences. The fifth AML Directive maintains such a distinction, but further specifies that beneficial ownership information should now also be registered for all types of trusts and similar legal arrangements, and not only for those that generate tax consequences. Additionally, the fifth AML Directive requires the register with information on beneficial ownership (UBO register) to become publicly accessible. The requirement under the fourth AML Directive to show a legitimate interest for persons that wanted to access the UBO register has been abandoned for corporate and other legal entities. For trusts and similar legal arrangements, a legitimate interest (to be defined by the member states) needs to be demonstrated to access the UBO register. The data to be registered in the UBO register must be limited to certain essential data. Also, in exceptional circumstances, where access to the UBO register would expose the beneficial owner to a disproportionate risk, risk of fraud, kidnapping, blackmail, extortion, harassment, violence or intimidation, or where the beneficial owner is a minor or otherwise legally incapable, member states may provide for an exemption from such access to all or part of the information on the beneficial ownership on a case-by-case basis. Also, member states may choose to make the information held in the UBO register available on the condition of online registration and the payment of a fee, which may not exceed the administrative cost of making the information available, including costs of maintenance and developments of the register. Member states must also ensure that the UBO registers are interconnected via the so-called European central platform, in order to promote international cooperation in this respect. The rules in relation to the UBO register of the fourth AML Directive have been implemented in Belgium in articles 73 to 75 of the AML Act and in a separate royal decree of July 30 2018 determining the operating procedures of the UBO register (UBO decree). The UBO decree entered into force on October 31 2018 and determines the operating procedures of the UBO register by, among others, detailing which information is to be transmitted to the UBO register, who must register this information on behalf of the obliged entities concerned, who will have access to the information, which exemptions are available to restrict the disclosure of the registered information etc. Although the UBO decree already entered into force, obliged entities have until March 31 2019 to prepare their first filings. The UBO decree already implements the new provisions of the fifth AML Directive in relation to the UBO register. This means that the Belgian legislator is well ahead of timing as far as the implementation deadline of January 10 2020 is concerned (at least for the parts in relation to the UBO register). The UBO decree, inter alia, already provides that all types of trusts must report beneficial ownership information to the relevant authorities (where the fourth AML Directive was limited to trusts that generate tax consequences), that no legitimate interest needs to be demonstrated for public access of the UBO register in relation to corporate and other legal entities (where this was required under the fourth AML Directive), albeit that a legitimate interest is still required in relation to trusts and similar legal arrangements. However, certain specific (and technical) modalities of the fifth AML Directive in relation to the UBO register are yet to be implemented in Belgium. For example, the modalities in relation to the payment of a fee to access the UBO register are not yet provided and need further implementation by the competent minister. "The fifth AML Directive lowers the threshold for customer due diligence in respect of prepaid cards from 250 to 150, mainly to deny terrorists this means of financing their operations" It was also left to the member states to define the concept of legitimate interest, both as a general concept and as a criterion for accessing beneficial ownership information in their national law. The Belgian legislator did not define the concept of legitimate interest as such, but rather clarified that the concept mustto the fight against money laundering, the financing of terrorism and the related underlying criminal activities. For natural persons, the legitimate interest can be demonstrated by evidencing that activities are being conducted that relate to the fight against money laundering, the financing of terrorism and the related underlying criminal activities. For legal entities, the legitimate interest can be demonstrated on the basis of its corporate purpose or any activity that relates to the fight against money laundering, the financing of terrorism and related underlying criminal activities. It is not clear whether further guidance of the legislator or the regulator on this concept can be expected. The Belgian legislator also opted to provide for an exemption to the public access to the UBO register where access would expose the ultimate beneficial owner to a disproportionate risk, risk of fraud, kidnapping etc. This exemption has been implemented in article 16 of the UBO Decree. Belgium also opted to set the information retention period of the UBO register to 10 years, starting from the moment when the obliged entity has lost legal personality or has definitely ceased its activities. The fifth AML Directive only provided for a minimum retention period of five years. Conclusion The fifth AML Directive makes some important changes to the European Union's framework in relation to anti-money laundering and terrorist financing: Custodian wallet providers and providers engaged in exchange services between virtual currencies and fiat currencies are now in-scope and will have to comply with customer due diligence measures and will have to report suspicious activity. The threshold for customer due diligence in respect of prepaid cards has been lowered from 250 to 150. Enhanced customer due diligence measures will have to be taken with respect to business relationships or transactions involving high-risk third countries. The UBO register becomes publicly accessible. In Belgium, changes are expected with respect to the AML Act (and its implementing royal decrees, circulars and regulations, where relevant) to properly reflect the new requirements of the fifth AML Directive. The Belgian legislator already proactively implemented most of the new requirements in relation to the UBO register, meaning that only limited further changes are expected in this regard. Belgium has until January 10 2020 to get in line with the new requirements. Helene Van Steenberge Lawyer Baker McKenzie (Brussels) Olivier Van Den Broeke Lawyer Baker McKenzie (Antwerp) Martin S Navias Baker & McKenzie (London) 2021 Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC. For help please see our FAQs. Share this article Dexter Van Zile of CAMERA has spent years calling attention to and speaking out against the anti-Israel movement in mainline Christian churches. Today, he takes a look at the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) efforts in the United Church of Christ, and calls them out for what they truly are: It just goes to confirm what most people have concluded all along: anti-Israel divestment resolutions are just a charade, a put-on used to generate hostility toward the Jewish state and its supporters in the US. The whole point of the divestment resolutions was not to get church institutions to sell stock, but to use divestment motions to turn the floor of church-wide assemblies into venues for anti-Israel witch trials. January 3, 2019 | By The Fellowship | Israel in the News During his recent visit to Brazil, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was awarded the National Order of the Southern Cross the most prestigious medal Brazil bestows upon foreign dignitaries. Netanyahu said that there was great admiration for Israel in Brazil. While in Brazil, Netanyahu also met with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who assured the prime minister that the U.S. will continue to work with Israel in the Middle East despite the recent decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. Israel and Honduras have agreed to move forward with plans to open embassies in Jerusalem and Tegucigalpa, the capital city of Honduras. Both Israel and the U.S. have officially withdrawn from UNESCO, the U.N.s educational, scientific, and cultural agency, amid concerns that the organization fosters anti-Israel bias. Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, slammed UNESCO on Twitter, calling it among the most corrupt and politically biased U.N. agencies. The Israeli military has formed a new reserves battalion that will act as the first line of defense against the Iranian-backed terror group, Hezbollah, on Israels northern border. This weeks Israel in the News Perspective features The Fellowships Global Executive Vice President Yael Eckstein on hopes for 2019. Hinds Sets Community Outreach Events for March PITTSFIELD, Mass. The staff of state Sen. Adam G. Hinds, D-Pittsfield, will host two community outreach events during March. The senator's staff will be available to meet with constituents in the communities of Huntington and North Adams on Wednesday, March 18, for this month's staff office hours from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. North Adams City Hall, 10 Main St. Stanton Hall, 24 Russell Road, Huntington Appointments are not necessary but can be booked in advance by calling the Pittsfield office at 413-344-4561 or the Williamsburg office at 413-768-2373. These office hours provide an opportunity for those seeking assistance with state agencies or programs to speak with Hinds' constituency services staff in person. All residents of the senator's Berkshire, Hampshire, Franklin & Hampden Senate District are invited to participate in these sessions if they have an idea, question or comment about state government they wish to share, or if they require assistance from the senator's constituent services team. Everyone is welcome. Appointments are not necessary but can be booked in advance by calling the Pittsfield office at (413) 344-4561 or the Williamsburg office at (413) 768-2373. These office hours provide an opportunity for constituents seeking assistance with state agencies or programs to speak with the senator's staff in person. Since early 2017, Hinds' district team, A.J. Enchill and Jon Gould, have held monthly roving office hours outside of their primary work locations in an effort to increase office accessibility for every constituent no matter where they reside. Enchill is based in the senator's Pittsfield office and Gould splits his time between Pittsfield and Williamsburg. Last year, the senator's district staff traveled to 19 towns and met with hundreds of local officials and residents in Adams, Alford, Blandford, Charlemont, Chester, Cummington, Heath, Lanesborough, Lee, Lenox, Middlefield, Monroe, New Marlborough, Peru, Plainfield, Rowe, Washington and Windsor, Westhampton, West Stockbridge while Senator Hinds participated in public forums throughout the Senate District. Staff members serve tax payers at the Fengze Street taxation hall of the Quanzhou tax bureau in Quanzhou City, southeast China's Fujian Province, Sept. 13, 2018. The 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held the third plenary session in November, 2013. In the five years since then, China's reform momentum had been particularly strong as the CPC decided to advance reform in all aspects during the meeting. Since the third plenary session, Chinese President Xi Jinping has presided over at least 45 high-profile meetings on advancing reforms, during which 400 documents and 1,932 reform plans have been launched. As a result, China's reform has been expanded from the economic field to a broad sphere including administrative management, culture, society, ecological conservation, Party building, and the military. (Xinhua/Song Weiwei) 13 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] Los casos de VRS, un virus respiratorio, disminuyeron el ano pasado en medio de las paradas de la pandemia. Ahora esta resurgiendo en el Sur, y los ninos pueden ser mas vulnerables. More than a decade ago, Lynn Evans and Karen Beauprie began searching for the remains of their uncle, the first Flying Tiger to die in World War II. Lieutenant John Dean Armstrong left the U.S. Navy to join the American Volunteer Group, better known as the Flying Tigers, to help China fend off Japanese invaders before Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war. He died on September 8, 1941, when his Curtiss P-40 fighter collided with another aircraft. Armstrong had been buried at a church in Taungoo, Burma (now Myanmar), so Evans and Beauprie enlisted a local tour guide and a Canadian graduate student to scour the area for his grave. Turns out, they were 6,700 miles off. Thanks to help from Kenneth Tilley, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and MIA sleuth, they learned the truth. In December 1947 authorities moved Armstrongs remains, deemed unidentified, from Burma to a base in India before interring them in Honolulus National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. The military assigns an X-number to unknown remains and keeps a file on each of them. Tilleys detective work narrowed the search for Armstrong to one of three X-files: X633, X634 and X635. We guessed he was X-file 633, and it turns out that we were right, Beauprie told the Wichita Eagle newspaper. Authorities disinterred Armstrongs remains in April 2016, did DNA testing, and positively identified them in January 2017. His burial took place on June 17 in his hometown of Hutchinson, Kansas; a navy honor guard gave him a 21-gun salute. The 23rd Fighter Group, an A-10 Thunderbolt unit based at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, traces its lineage to the Flying Tigers and performed a missing man formation flyover in his honor. Afterward, Beauprie said: I thought of Dean flying the plane into the sunset. A passenger goes through the procedure of 144-hour visa-free transit at an airport in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, Jan. 1, 2019. China began to implement its 144-hour visa-free transit policy in five more cities on Tuesday for travelers from 53 countries. The cities are Qingdao, a major port city in Shandong; Xiamen, a coastal city in southeast China's Fujian Province; Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province; Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province; and Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province. The visa-free transit policy approved by the State Council, applies to people from 53 countries including Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Russia and the United States. (Xinhua/Xie Hao) JINAN, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- China began to implement its 144-hour visa-free transit policy in five more cities on Tuesday for travelers from 53 countries. These cities are Qingdao, a major port city in Shandong Province; Xiamen, a coastal city in Fujian Province; Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province; Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province; and Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province. The visa-free transit policy approved by the State Council, applies to people from 53 countries including Austria, Belgium, Czech, Denmark, France, Germany, Russia and the United States. Passengers are required to carry effective international travel certificates and have definite onward travel within 144 hours, when entering those five cities. Previously, a 72-hour visa-free transit policy was adopted in the cities. In the new move, passengers can enter and exit Qingdao and Xiamen through their air and sea ports. Those who transit through Qingdao are allowed to stay elsewhere in Shandong during the 144-hour period, according to Li Zhuqun, deputy head of the Shandong Provincial Public Security Department. Since 2013, the State Council has approved the 72-hour visa-free transit for eligible international travelers across 18 cities and later extended the period to 144 hours in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Shanghai and the neighboring provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, as well as the cities of Shenyang and Dalian in Liaoning Province, according to the National Immigration Administration. China hosts the arrival of about 43 million foreigners annually. 2 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] The curfew has been described by members of the local government as unofficial and informal, meaning that although a curfew for young people will be in place, it is not legally enforceable. This is because it was determined that a curfew enforced by law and police action would lack legal grounds and possibly be in violation of human rights law. THE TOWN OF LAITILA IN SOUTHWEST FINLAND has announced that a curfew for school-age minors will be introduced in full, following months of consultation and media attention over the controversial policy. The small town released its guidelines in full today, which stipulate that all children from grades 1-6, or aged 7 to 13, should not be outdoors after 19:30, while older teenagers should be home before 21:00. The curfew was the result of months of consultation with parents and educational charities and organisations. The move follows similar successful attempts at enforcing youth curfews in Iceland, which has contributed to a dramatic decline in alcohol and drug abuse among young people. Other areas in Finland have since attempted to replicate the so-called Icelandic model of child policing, although Laitila is the only town so far to secure approval for the scheme. How the young people affected by the curfew will respond remains to be seen. Adam Oliver Smith HT Image: Lehtikuva Finlands Minister for Economic Affairs, Mika Lintila , confirmed to Yle today that the government was seriously considering amendments to the Mining Act that would seek to minimize the damage caused by mining companies whilst also extracting greater revenues from them. CHANGES TO FINLANDS MINING ACT that would increase levies and tax premiums paid by foreign and domestic mining companies are being considered by the government, following renewed debate over the activities and impact of said companies. The Mining Act has long attracted plenty of criticism for its supposed deficiencies when it comes to taking a hardline stance against environmentally destructive mining. As things currently stand, mining companies in Finland enjoy very little regulation from the state in comparison with European counterparts. Revenues from mining are also taxed relatively lightly, while the state does not automatically claim ownership over mineral resources in Finnish territory, allowing foreign companies to stake their own claim. Such a friendly regulatory environment has led to Finland becoming one of the top mining destinations on the planet, particularly for gold mining, with several such sites currently in operation. Controversy over the role of foreign mining companies has flared up again in recent weeks, following reports from Iltalehti that one of the biggest companies working in Finland, Dragon Mining, had assured the HK Stock Exchange that any legal complaints made against them would have little effect, as the gold mines they operate would be cleared long before the state could properly respond to the complaints. Although reports from the Ministry of Economic Affairs confirm that Dragon Mining has not received any legal complaints since receiving their environmental permit in 2011, activists and politicians have suggested that the companys attitude clearly shows that legal changes are necessary and that mining companies be held accountable. Changes to the taxation of mining companies and bankruptcy laws concerning such companies will be discussed in Parliament in the coming months. Adam Oliver Smith HT Image: Lehtikuva In a bulletin released by the Institute this morning, they reveal that overall, 2018 was a full 2 degrees warmer than usual as an average. Meanwhile, the peak temperature of the year, which was recorded as 33.7 degrees Celsius in Vaasa on 18 June, was one of the highest ever reached. THE FINNISH METEOROLOGICAL INSTITUTE HAS CONFIRMED that 2018 was the hottest year in Finland since records began over 150 years ago, fuelling further concerns over the pace of climate change. Perhaps even more alarmingly, the Institute has also confirmed that about half of the warmest years on record were all in the previous decade, with 2011, 2013, 2014, and 2015 all shattering heat records. The summer of 2018 in Finland was unique in that not only did the heatwave last for an extended unbroken period, but there was also exceptionally little rain. The effect of this was that permanent snow in the far north of the country melted completely and average daily temperatures remained five degrees above normal readings throughout summer. While the Institute has said that years as hot as 2018 should repeat themselves only once a decade, according to patterns observed over the previous century, consistently rising temperatures since 2011 suggest that this will not be the case. Adam Oliver Smith HT Source: Uusi Suomi Image: Lehtikuva Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, delivers a speech at a gathering to commemorate the 40th anniversary of issuing Message to Compatriots in Taiwan, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 2, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Tao) BEIJING, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping on Wednesday said China must be and will be reunified, as he addressed a gathering in Beijing to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Chinese mainland's Message to Compatriots in Taiwan. "It is a historical conclusion drawn over the 70 years of the development of cross-Strait relations, and a must for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation in the new era," said Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission. Speaking at the Great Hall of the People, Xi called for joint efforts across the Taiwan Strait to advance peaceful national reunification. The long-standing political differences can not be dragged on generation after generation, Xi said. The Taiwan question originated from national weakness and disorder and has lasted for 70 years. Xi said since 1949 the CPC, the Chinese government and the Chinese people have always unwaveringly taken resolving the Taiwan question to realize China's complete reunification as a historic task. He expressed confidence that the Taiwan question will definitely end with national rejuvenation. BEST APPROACH On Jan. 1, 1979, the National People's Congress Standing Committee issued the Message to Compatriots in Taiwan. It was considered a declaration of the mainland's policy for peaceful reunification. Halt to military confrontations was proposed. Visits, cross-Strait transportation, postal services and economic and cultural exchanges were promoted. A page on cross-Strait relations has been turned. On Wednesday, Xi raised a five-point proposal for peaceful reunification. He said the principles of "peaceful reunification" and "one country, two systems" are the best approach to realizing national reunification. He proposed that the mainland and Taiwan conduct democratic consultation on cross-Strait relations and the future of the nation, and establish institutional arrangement for peaceful development of cross-Strait relations. He said on the basis of ensuring China's sovereignty, security and interests of development, the social system and way of life in Taiwan will be fully respected, and the private property, religious beliefs and legitimate rights and interests of Taiwan compatriots will be fully protected after peaceful reunification is realized. The president pledged "utmost sincerity and greatest efforts" for the prospect of peaceful reunification and said Taiwan will be guaranteed lasting peace after reunification. "We are all of the same family," Xi said. While stressing that the "Chinese don't fight Chinese," Xi said, "We make no promise to renounce the use of force and reserve the option of taking all necessary means." This targets only the interference of external forces and the very small number of "Taiwan independence" separatists and their activities, he added. IRRESISTIBLE TREND "'Taiwan independence' goes against the trend of history and will lead to a dead end," Xi said. The president said achieving the country's greatness, national rejuvenation and cross-Strait reunification is the trend of history, which can never be blocked by anyone or any force. The peaceful and stable development of cross-Strait situations and the progress of cross-Strait relations are the tide of the time that can never be stopped by anyone or any force, he said. Liu Jieyi, head of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, noted the strengthened political, economic, cultural, personnel exchanges over the decades. Between 1988 and 2018, 134 million cross-Strait visits were logged; two-way trade reached 2.6 trillion U.S. dollars; and the mainland has been Taiwan's largest market and top investment destination outside the island, Liu said. In his speech, Xi said the future of Taiwan lies in national reunification. "We sincerely hope all the compatriots in Taiwan treasure peace as much as they treasure their own eyes, and pursue national reunification as much as they pursue happiness." NO INTERFERENCE FROM OUTSIDE Xi said the Taiwan question is China's internal affair and allows no external interference. The Chinese people's affairs should be decided by the Chinese people, Xi said, stressing that the Taiwan question concerns China's core interests and the national bond of the Chinese people. China's reunification does not harm any country's legitimate interests, including their economic interests in Taiwan, Xi said, adding that it will only bring more development opportunities to other countries. Over the 70 years, more and more countries and peoples have understood and supported China's cause of reunification, the president noted. Wednesday's gathering was attended by Li Zhanshu, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee. Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, presided over the event. Wang said Xi's speech demonstrated the historical trend of cross-Strait relations and called for joint efforts to forge ahead for the peaceful national reunification. Chen Ching-lung, a 54-year-old hotel operator in Xiamen, Fujian Province, followed Xi's speech, which was broadcast live by China Media Group and on Xinhua News Agency's website (xinhuanet.com). A veteran who was once stationed in Kinmen, Chen joined the influx of Taiwan compatriots who found bristle business chances on the mainland. "The direction of peaceful development is totally correct," he said. "What the two sides should do is to mitigate differences and enhance their communications." Hsueh Ching-te, another Taiwan compatriot who runs a business in Fujian, said he looks forward to complete reunification so that "all Chinese people will live in peace, prosperity and with dignity." 4 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] Romney, WV (26757) Today Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 84F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Partly cloudy skies after midnight. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. Low 57F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%. Baao town in Camarines Sur province of the Philippines has been inundated by storm Usman. (Source: Getty Images) In their letters, the Vietnamese leaders expressed their belief that Philippine people will swiftly overcome the disaster consequences and soon stabilise their lives. The same day, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh also sent his sympathies to Philippine Foreign Minister Teodoro Lopez Locsin. The death toll from landslides and devastating floods in the central Philippines triggered by storm Usman climbed to 85, and 20 people were missing as rescuers slowly reached cut-off communities, officials said on January 2nd. The casualties, including young children, were mostly killed when their homes collapsed in landslides after days of heavy rain in several provinces in the central Philippines, said Ricardo Jalad, executive director of the national disaster agency. If the rescue forces do not recover the missing or find them dead, the number of deaths will be 105, Jalad said. Usman swept through the central Philippine islands on December 29th, bringing heavy rains that triggered landslides and flooding in the Bicol and eastern Visayas regions. Bicol, with a population of 5.8 million, was the hardest hit, with 68 killed in intense rains and land-slides. Damage to agriculture in Bicol, which produces rice and corn, was estimated at USD6.5 million. Philippine officials put three provinces under a state of calamity to give them access to emergency funds./. Our directory features more than 18 million business listings from across the entire US. However, if we're missing your business, add your business by clicking on Add Your Business. Venice, FL (34285) Today Variably cloudy with scattered thunderstorms. Low around 80F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 50%.. Tonight Variably cloudy with scattered thunderstorms. Low around 80F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 50%. IRONWOOD A sexual assault victim services federal grant has been awarded to DOVE, Inc., by the Victims of Crime Act to be used for services to sexual assault victims in Gogebic County. According to Jeanine Winkowski, executive director of DOVE, With this grant DOVE will be able to enhance the victim services in Gogebic County by hiring a full-time sexual assault victim advocate and a full-time sexual assault response team coordinator. She said $67,000 has been received in the grant for nine months. She said the grant will increase in October, but shes not sure by how much. ... YORK The number of felony cases filed in York County District Court escalated in 2018, according to York County Attorney Christopher Johnson. He made a report to the York County Commissioners this week, saying a total of 141 felony criminal cases were filed last year (of those, 17 were search warrants that receive case numbers as well, Johnson explained, so the total number of felony cases came to 124). It should be noted that these are the number of cases the number of felonies that made it to District Court was much higher because often there are several felonies in each case. 2018 was Johnsons first full year as county attorney here. In past years, the number of felony cases filed in a 12-month calendar timeframe in York County had been averaging around 90. In 2017, Johnson said, there were 97 (139 cases minus 42 case assignments for search warrants). And the number of felony cases filed in York County in 2018, compared to Seward County as a comparable example, was much higher, Johsnon said. In Seward County, 92 felony cases were filed. So, compared to 124 filed here (again, 141 minus the 17 case numbers assigned for search warrants), York County was much more active in arrests and prosecution than our neighbor which is the closest comparison. Students are welcome to enter as many categories as they wish, but they should look for the categories that best fit their work. A specific work sample by any one student may not be entered in more than one category that uses the same general judging criteria. A feature story, for example, may not be entered in another writing category. But, if the author of the feature story created a layout that contained the story, an entry by that student, or by any other student, in single-page layout or double-truck layout would be legitimate, they state in their instructions. There are journalists today being killed while attempting to cover events in the world. There are other communications professionals attempting to build bridges between opposing sides. here are countless teachers in the journalistic and communications realms who simply want to inspire another generation to do their best work and make a positive contribution on the world. In the words of Nellie Bly, a trailblazer who paved the way for investigative journalists everywhere, I have never written a word that did not come from my heart. I never shall. U.S. administration is considering Jim Webb, a former Democratic senator who also served as Navy secretary under Republican President Ronald Reagan, to be the next defense secretary, the New York Times reported on Thursday. Citing an unnamed official, the Times said Vice President Mike Pence and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney had reached out to Webb. It said what it described as a senior Defense Department official confirmed Webb's name had been circulating at the White House. Jim Mattis stepped down from his job as secretary of defense on Tuesday and U.S. President Donald Trump said a day later he had essentially fired Mattis, a retired Marine general whose letter of resignation was seen as a sharp rebuke to the Republican president. Mattis resigned after Trump's surprise decisions to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria and half of the 14,000-strong contingent in Afghanistan. Trump has named Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing Co executive who was Mattis's deputy, as acting defense secretary. The Times said Webb could potentially allow Trump to bypass "more hawkish Republicans whose names have been floated to replace Jim Mattis." It said Republican senators Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham and former Republican Senator Jim Talent had also been mentioned as possible replacements for Mattis. The U.S. State Department on Thursday renewed its warning for U.S. citizens traveling in China to exercise increased caution due to "arbitrary enforcement of local laws" amid heightened diplomatic tensions over the arrest in Canada of a Chinese technology company executive. The updated travel advisory maintains the warning at "Level 2" but also warns about extra security checks and increased police presence in the Xinjiang Uighur and Tibet Autonomous Regions. The advisory follows the detentions by Chinese authorities in December of Canadians Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat and an adviser with the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank, and businessman Michael Spavor. China says both men were suspected of endangering state security. Tensions with China increased after Canadian police arrested Huawei Technologies Co Ltd's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, on Dec. 1 in Vancouver at the request of the United States. U.S. prosecutors have accused her of misleading banks about transactions linked to Iran, putting the banks at risk of violating U.S. sanctions. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif rejected a U.S. warning against carrying out space vehicle launches and missile tests, saying on Thursday they did not violate a U.N. resolution. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a pre-emptive warning to Iran earlier on Thursday against pursuing three planned space rocket launches that it said would violate a U.N. Security Council resolution because they use ballistic missile technology. "Iran's launch of space vehicles - & missile tests - are NOT in violation of (Resolution) 2231. The US is in material breach of same, & as such it is in no position to lecture anyone on it," Zarif wrote in English on Twitter. Parents of the teens who were killed after flash floods drenched southern Israel in April, demonstrated in front of Bnei Zion pre-military academy school on Thursday. For the fast four weeks, the parents have been protesting the decision to reopen the school. In addition, the parents demand an independent inquiry commission that will investigate the decision making process that led to the disaster. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the United States is working against Iran in the financial sphere while Israel is acting with regards to military affairs. DUBAI - Iran's health minister has resigned over proposed budget cuts, the official news agency IRNA reported, amid an economic crisis wrought by the reimposition of U.S. sanctions on Tehran. IRNA said on Thursday President Hassan Rouhani accepted the resignation of Hassan Ghazizadeh Hashemi, widely seen as the key official behind the 2014 launch of an ambitious plan for universal medical insurance sometimes dubbed "Rouhanicare". Hashemi had repeatedly complained about delays in payments of budgeted funds in the past and about cuts in his ministry's budget under the new state spending plans, IRNA said. The director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence is urging Germany to return a Dutch masterpiece stolen by Nazi troops during World War II, dramatizing its absence by hanging a black and white photo of the work with the label Stolen in three languages. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Eike Schmidt said in a New Years appeal Tuesday that the still-life Vase of Flowers by Dutch artist Jan van Huysum is in the hands of a German family who hasnt returned it despite numerous appeals. Instead, intermediaries for the family have demanded payment for its return to Italy. The director of the Uffizi Gallery Eike Schmidt holds onto a copy of still-life Vase of Flowers by Dutch artist Jan van Huysum The painting is already the inalienable property of the Italian State, and thus cannot be bought, Schmidt said. The oil painting had been hanging as part of the Pitti Palace collection in Florence from 1824 until the outbreak of World War II. It was moved for safety during the war but was stolen by retreating German troops. It didnt surface again until Germanys reunification in 1991, when the offers to sell it back to Italy began. This story is preventing the wounds inflicted by World War II and the horrors of Nazism from healing, said Schmidt, who himself is German. Germany should not apply the statute of limitations to works of art stolen during the war, and it should take measures to ensure that those works are restored to their legitimate owners. He called it Germanys moral duty to return to the artwork, adding, I trust that the German government will do so at the earliest opportunity, naturally along with every other work of art stolen by the Nazi Wehrmacht. Schmidt told The Associated Press in an email that German courts have so far refused to take up the case, citing statute of limitations. Several international treaties could be applied, including under UNESCO and the European Union, but technically there is the difficulty that there is no compulsion to apply them retroactively, he said. Germany has returned 16,000 objects to Holocaust survivors and their families under a 20-year-old international agreement on returning art looted by the Nazis. But Schmidt said the so-called Washington Principles apply only to public collections, not private ones. Croatia has urged Israel to say whether it can carry out a deal to deliver 12 used F-16 fighter jets or the purchase will be annulled. Croatia's Defense Ministry said Thursday it needs an answer by January 11. The tentative $500 million deal to buy the upgraded F-16 Barak fighter jets from Israel was made in March last year pending U.S. approval allowing Israel to sell the American-made jets to a third party. The deal ran into trouble after the U.S. Congress hinted that Israel needs to strip off the upgrades that were added after Israel bought the planes from the U.S. some 30 years ago. (TNS) Its one thing for a community to embrace tech-oriented companies paying high wages, its another to grab their attention.The 16th Annual Southern Oregon Business Conference, focusing on innovation and building high impact communities, will consider what it takes to attract such companies on Jan. 31 in Medford.What often happens right now is a city and jurisdiction say they want to attract companies or high-wage professionals, and then thinks they will just come, said Colleen Padilla, Southern Oregon Regional Economic Development Inc.s executive director.The reality, however, is it doesnt happen quite that way. Traded-sector companies, whose goods and services are traded globally, are a key driver in developing local economies.First, you have to build amenities that will make it attractive, Padilla said. I think we have it backward. You cant wait for them to come, you actually have to do some things in a community downtown housing, the coffee shops, breweries, and broadband so that we have really good wireless capacity.Another element the region can develop to attract companies is well-planned business developments.We dont have a lot of business parks, Padilla said. Our industrial and business space is kind of scattered; businesses want to be close to other like-minded businesses. Its learning what we need to build into our communities.The speakers lined up for the conference will address those issues.Mary Hebert, a North America senior vice president with foreign investment and consulting firm WAVTEQ, will tell the conference ways to attract high-tech firms along with a high-value workforce. Hebert will examine Southern Oregon from the perspective of a site selector and discuss trends in rapidly growing technology companies and what international technology businesses take into consideration when evaluating U.S. locations.John Darrow joined Amazon 21 years ago when it was still a fledgling Internet bookstore. Today, the Mount Shasta, California, native is a senior principal engineer, leading engineering efforts that guide inventory, warehousing and logistics for the global giant. His role encompasses resource optimization, planning and execution involving people and machines. He will share the challenges of working with a younger, diverse workforce, utilizing new technologies and distribution channels.Tim Duy, senior director of the Oregon Economic Forum and author of the University of Oregon Statewide Economic Indicators, will provide an economic forecast for 2019.Rob O Neill, a partner at Moss Adams, will discuss high relevance tax law changes. Turkey and Iraq will deepen their cooperation in the fight against terrorism, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday. Erdogan was speaking at a news conference with his Iraqi counterpart Barham Salih. Turkey has said it would take over the fight against Islamic State following the U.S. decision to pull out of Syria. Ankara also carries out regular air strikes on Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) bases in northern Iraq. The Foreign Ministry issued a travel warning to Israelis who are in Thailand or who plan on visiting the country as the first tropical storm in nearly 30 years menaced its southern shores on Thursday. President Reuven Rivlin condemned on Thursday offensive comments made by MK Oren Hazan toward MK Pnina Tamano-Shata, who is of Ethiopian descent. Hazan called Tamano-Shata a "pet immigrant." "Pnina is an excellent member of Knesset," Rivlin said. "I'm warning against verbal, behavioral and sectoral violence." "I simply want to apologize on behalf of all of us. I regret that there are citizens in the State of Israel who could do something like this to us," the president said. Niger's defense ministry says several days of raids have killed more than 280 Boko Haram extremists near the border with Nigeria. The statement says the land and air raids began on Dec. 28, with more than 200 extremists killed in airstrikes. Nigeria in November held an urgent meeting with neighbors about what it called an extremist resurgence fueled by the new use of drones. A local woman taking a winter walk near the city of Beit She'an made a startling discovery last month when she spotted two funerary statues sticking up out of the ground, apparently exposed by the rain. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The woman called the Israel Antiquities Authority, which sent a team to dig up the two statues in a joint effort with the woman and her husband. The statues have been dated to between the 3rd and 4th centuries CE, which in this area of the Levant is known as the Late Roman Period. The unique finds have been taken to an Israel Antiquities Authority facility for further study and preservation efforts. Dr. Itay Klein of the Antiquities Authority's unit for the prevention of the theft of antiquities said the statues are made of local limestone and closely describe facial and dress featuresone of the two clearly representing a bearded man. The two funerary statues revealed by Beit She'an (Photo: Itay Klein, IAA) Funerary statues were often located in or around burial chambers, and appear to generally describe the deceased. Similar statues have been found near Beit She'an and in northern Jordan, but no two are alike hence the importance of this find, Klein said. These two statues were made in an oriental style, testifying to the waning of the classical styles and adoption of local styles in this region during the Late Roman Period, said Klein. Nir Distfeld, an Antiquities Authority inspector in northern Israel said that the heavy rains the area were probably what exposed the statues. These are very important finds that teach us a lot about the residents of ancient Beit Shean. We thank the resident who found them for showing good citizenship, and have awarded her with a certificate of honor. I dont want to think what would have happened if these statues had made it into the wrong hands. Its important to stress that the rains could cause other archeological finds to surface, and we ask the public to report such cases, Distfeld added These statues add another piece to the puzzle and allow us to better understand the culture and life of the historical residents of this area. They belong to all residents of Israel and now we can all enjoy them and learn of their historical relevance," he said. The Late Roman Period began in the Middle East with the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple (70 CE), or as some claim, with the Bar Kokhba revolt (135 CE). As well as marking the end of Jewish aspirations to self-governance in the Palestine region, this period symbolizes the beginning of the slow decline of Pagan religions and the gradual strengthening of Christianity. It also led to the Roman Emperor Constantines legalization of Christianity and the rise of the Byzantine Period, which was a time of cultural and agricultural flourish. U.S. President Donald Trumps decision to allow Iran to do what they want in Syria following the imminent withdrawal of American troops , was made contrary to the advice of the intelligence services and shows he does not understand the situation on the ground, a senior Israeli source said Thursday. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The statement came in response to Trumps remarks a day earlier indicating the American leader appeared to change course on Syria. They can do what they want there, frankly, Trump said of Irans presence in the war-battered country. "Iran wants to survive now ... they were going to take over the whole Middle East, but Iran is a much different country right now." "Its unfortunate that he isnt paying attention to the evidence provided by the intelligence services," said the source. President Donald Trump (Photo: Getty Images) "We are in a state of shock. Trump simply doesnt understand the extent of the Iranian military's presence in the region, the source said. What is comforting is that at least Trump isnt opposed to Israels operations in Syria The president's statement will not change the situation as far as we are concerned, we will continue to act resolutely against the Iranian entrenchment. Two weeks ago, the Trump administration announced it was to withdraw all of the approximately 2,000 American troops in Syriaagainst the advice of top national security aides and without consulting lawmakers or U.S. allies participating in anti-Islamic State operationsas the White House declared victory over IS militants. Trump did not provide a timetable for the planned military exit from Syria, but said it would happen over a period of time, and vowed to protect the U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in the country even though he finds its irritable that the Kurds are selling oil to Iran. President Trump during Wednesday's press conference X I didnt like the fact that theyre selling the small (amount of) oil that they have to Iran, and we asked them not to sell it to Iran... Were not thrilled about that. OK? Im not happy about it at all, he said. We want to protect the Kurds, nevertheless. We want to protect the Kurds, but I dont want to be in Syria forever. Its sand. And its death. Trumps contentious remarks come a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Brasilia to discuss Syria and Iran. Following the meeting, a senior source in Jerusalem said that Israel got almost everything it asked for when Pompeo granted seven out of eight requests Netanyahu made during their talk. Twenty-three police officers and three civilians were wounded Thursday morning as Israeli forces evacuated some 300 settlers who have recently returned to the illegal outpost of Amona. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The settlers barricaded themselves in two mobile structures at the former outpost, which was evacuated less than two years ago under a court order. They returned to the outpost last month in protest of a recent outburst of Palestinian terror attacks, which claimed the lives of two soldiers and prematurely born baby. Police and Border Police were faced with violent rioting by the settlers, who hurled rocks, stones and metal objects at the forces, as well as burned tires and poured oil on access roads to the outpost. Seven settlers were arrested. Violence during Amona evacuation (: ) X The 23 police officers were lightly hurt, mostly from stone-throwing, with one officer stabbed with a sharp object. At least five Border Policemen and one civilian were taken to the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem's Mount Scopus to receive treatment. After the settlers were evacuated, Israel's Civil Administration began work on evacuating the caravans they brought with them. Israeli forces evacuate settlers from Amona (Photo: TPS) Israeli forces evacuate settlers from Amona (Photo: Mateh Binyamin ) The settlers returned for ceremonial event at the Amona outpost in the Mateh Binyamin region, which was February 2017 following a court ruling that it was built on private Palestinian land. Israeli forces evacuate settlers from Amona (Photo: TPS) Israeli forces evacuate settlers from Amona (Photo: TPS) During the event, they placed two units on plots of land they said former Amona residents purchased from Palestinians, with the assistance of private investors and donors. The event was attended by members of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, Shomron Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, MK Bezalel Smotrich of the right-wing Bayit Yehudi party, and Avichai Buaron, a representative of the residents of the outpost. Israeli forces evacuate settlers from Amona (Photo: Amona Youth) Israeli forces evacuate settlers from Amona (Photo: Mateh Binyamin ) "After two years of this place being uninhabited, we are fortunate to resume Israeli life here," said Yisrael Gantz, head of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council. "The plots upon which we erected the structures were legally purchased. Yesterday, I promised to establish a new settlement in Binyamin in response to the deadly attacks and today we are carrying it out." Israeli forces evacuate settlers from Amona (Photo: TPS) Avichai Buaron, who led the Amona residents in recent years, said: "The night we were expelled from our homes we swore to do everything to bring back Jewish life here, to raise the Israeli flag high up so that all our enemies will knowwe will be victorious! This land is our home and we will fight for our home to the end." Evacuated Amona structure (Photo: Yishai Porat) The settlers then petitioned the High Court of Justice seeking a temporary order to allow them to stay at the outpost but were rejected out of hand, with the state informing them on Monday that they had to evacuate within 48 hours, which expired on Wednesday night. Border police forces removed Thursday settlers who returned to the recently evacuated Amona outpost.The entrenched teens on the site attacked police forces, wounding six of them lightly. Three settlers were also lightly wounded in the confrontations. U.S. ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman met in Moscow on Wednesday with a Michigan man who has been detained on espionage charges as the American government seeks answers about his arrest. Huntsman said he offered support and assistance to Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive and former Marine, and later spoke to the man's family by phone, but he would not discuss the case in detail. The ambassador said the U.S. complained to the Russian government about the length of time it took them to grant consular access to Whelan, who was arrested Friday. Crime is down; tech spending is up Records Management: Old Tech Gets a Makeover They are neither trendy nor cutting edge. But they could be called the workhorse of law enforcement. Records management systems have been in the back rooms of law enforcement agencies for many years, but Dave McClure, research associate for the Urban Institute, argues they can have a major impact on police operations that will grow as better standards make the information they contain more useful in reducing crime. The original purpose of records management systems was to pull up notes about individual cases, said McClure. But interest grew to make comparisons across cases. Unfortunately, many of the original systems werent designed to do that. However, police agencies now see the value in sharing information between agencies, because crime doesnt stop at a citys border. Data sharing between agencies RMSs will turn police data into a commodity, he said. Instead of being agency specific, police data can now be mapped across systems and shared. That will open up unbelievable possibilities. Progress around data standards is advancing, according to McClure, but more needs to be done. Data sharing between agencies will be a heavy lift, however. Thats because individual cases have unique characteristics that may be hard to standardize. But the payoff could be huge: lower RMS costs overall, because theres less likelihood of vendor lock-in for agencies, and less likelihood of criminals and their crimes slipping through the cracks. Todays PD: A big data organization Police technology isnt cheap In 2017, the Chicago Police Department created six high-tech police hubs located throughout the citys more crime-ridden neighborhoods. Dubbed Strategic Decision Support Centers, the hubs are a blend of human expertise and high-end technology, including surveillance cameras, gunshot detection platforms, predictive mapping and data analytics.Since the centers went live, crime in adjacent neighborhoods has gone down. In two of the districts that have had some of the citys highest crime rates, the decline in crime rates has been so significant, the numbers are helping to drive down the citys overall crime numbers. Before this project started, I would have said theres no way technology can have this kind of impact, said Jonathan Lewin, chief of CPDs Bureau of Technical Services. But it does.Chicagos experience highlights the advances that law enforcement has made not just in adopting new, high-tech crime-fighting tools, but also with integrating the various tools, systems and platforms and then turning massive amounts of data into intelligence that can make cities safer. Some of Chicagos technology has been around for a while. Some of it is new. Whats different is how CPD has optimized and integrated it with human experts, according to Lewin. Theres a daily intelligence cycle we didnt have before that leverages all of this information, he said.But, as experts will tell you, its too simplistic to suggest that technology is solving the countrys crime problem. Technology is a piece of a larger puzzle, and so you can have the greatest piece of technology, but if you dont implement it well, its not going to have its intended effect, said Dave McClure, a research associate at the Urban Institute. The good news is that the police are getting better at turning data into useful information.For anyone who remembers the surge in crime, especially murders, during the 1970s and 80s, the precipitous drop in the crime rate over the past 25 years is nothing short of remarkable. The national crime rate peaked in 1991 at 5,856 crimes per 100,000 people, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. By 2016, the overall crime rate had declined to 2,857 offenses per 100,000, less than half of what it was in 1991. While some cities have seen increases in violent crime and murder in recent years, there is no evidence that the public safety gains of the past 25 years are being reversed, according to the center.During this period of declining crime rates, city budgets for policing have steadily grown. In 1977, state and local governments spent $58 billion on police and corrections, according to the Urban Institute. Today, the U.S. spends $100 billion on policing and another $80 billion on corrections, according to a 2017 report from Statista, an online statistics and market research firm.What individual cities spend on policing varies significantly. Oakland, Calif., spends 41 percent of its general fund on policing, while New York City spends a modest 8.2 percent on law enforcement, according to Statista. Whatever the policing expenditure, city and county law enforcement agencies have increased their investments in technology. Globally, law enforcement agencies are expected to spend $11.6 billion on software tools and systems, according to MarketsandMarkets, an online B2B market research firm. Spending is expected to grow at an annual rate of 9.3 percent, reaching $18.1 billion by 2023.While figures on what U.S. local and state governments spend on policing technology are hard to come by, the global growth in law enforcement tech spending has been driven by evolving policies that focus on community policing and by advances in software for mapping, various types of surveillance and analytics. For cities that can afford the new policing technology, its the dawning of a new era.When Maggie Goodrich was CIO for Public Safety with the city of Los Angeles, the joke was that the Los Angeles Police Department was a big data company disguised as a law enforcement agency. We are inundated with data, she said. Goodrich, who is now chair of the Public Safety Technology Alliance, pointed out that the key to making sense of the burgeoning data is distilling it down and deciding whats important in the moment. Doing that wont be easy, however. Policing data continues to pile up, thanks to technology thats better and faster than ever.Take a look at the new technologies and its easy to understand why police departments are flooded with both structured and unstructured data. Brian Jackson, senior physical scientist with RAND Corp., called the growth in data, databases and information sharing one of the most significant trends in policing technology. Look at the growing number of alert systems, video feeds, especially body cameras, to understand the proliferation of police data and the need to manage that flood of data, he said. There are other reasons why police data is exploding. One arrest of a person whose computer is a piece of evidence might result in terabytes of data for just that one case, Jackson explained.If there was just one piece of technology that represents todays new, data-driven police force, it would be the body camera. The miniaturized, mobile video tech tool has taken off ever since the riots in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014 led President Obama to push through $263 million in funding for police body cams as a way to bring transparency to police interactions with people. Today, most major police departments use the devices to record these interactions. The market is dominated by Axon, formerly Taser International, and now the largest producer of police cameras, especially since it acquired rival Vievu in 2018. Body cams also represent a technology that has changed the relationships between officers and the public, with a growing body of evidence showing respect by officers towards those with whom they interacted a key purpose of the technology.Gunshot detection systems represent a different technology trend that has benefited the police. By combining sensors an array of microphones with spatial mapping, police have a new way of responding rapidly to violent incidents. With the rise of gun violence and an increase in illegal guns, city police have often been one step behind when a spate of gunshots rings out in a neighborhood. Gunshot detection technology, the most notable offering from ShotSpotter, offers a faster and more accurate response than to 911 calls, say experts. As of September 2018, 95 cities in the U.S. and South Africa were using ShotSpotters technology, according to the company.Sensors that can pinpoint gunfire are just one kind of surveillance the police can now use. Video surveillance has been around for a while, but advances in technology have magnified its capabilities. Chicago has built the largest municipal camera integration platform in the country, according to CPD tech chief Lewin, with more than 35,000 government and private-sector video cameras on tap to watch and record what is happening on the streets of the Windy City. Another technology license plate readers uses character recognition to read the numbers and letters on license plates and quickly compare the plate information with hotlists of stolen cars, or drivers whose licenses have been suspended or revoked.While LPR technology is relatively mature, police have continued to evolve how they use it in a way that is effective yet doesnt interfere with privacy concerns. In Denver, for example, police can only view a live feed of LPR data no past records are kept. City police are also careful not to target specific neighborhoods, but to deploy the technology throughout the city on cruisers or in stationary locations.Less mature, but certainly more transformative, is the growing field of crime analytics, including predictive policing and artificial intelligence. As the amount of data available to law enforcement increases, the need to turn it into information and ultimately intelligence has opened the door to analytics tools, including some AI techniques, that can automate certain human tasks.AI is the next logical evolution in policing, said CPDs Jonathan Lewin. We have all this data, a lot of sensors, and incoming information from other open sources, including crime tips from citizens. So, plugging all of this into some kind of engine to gain insights and make connections that wouldnt be obvious to a human is the next logical step.Chicago is working with technology from Microsoft and Genetec, a Canadian firm, and has built a high-end, integrated decision support system that is giving CPDs support centers the insight needed to reduce crime. New York City has constructed a similar platform, known as the Domain Awareness System, which turns big data from sensors, cameras, license plate readers and other devices into actionable information for the cops.Less comprehensive, but just as leading edge, is the use of chatbots to automate some of the work done by police dispatchers. The San Diego County Sheriffs Department has launched a bot that helps deputies receive information while in their cruiser. Normally, deputies call their dispatchers to check on license plate numbers or run a profile check on a suspect. The department has been working with Microsoft to allow deputies to access the same information via a voice-activated assistant, which can pull the information from back-end databases and tell the officers what they need to know in real time.While these trends represent some astonishing leaps in the use of technology to fight crime, it might sound somewhat hyperbolic to say an even bigger trend is about to sweep through public safety. Yet FirstNet, the high-speed, wireless, interoperable network for first responders, could be just that. First envisioned in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 2001, FirstNet went live in 2018, and promises to deliver big data at high speeds while providing the police with priority and data pre-emption along with heightened security.It is hard to underestimate the importance of having such a powerful network that can allow so much more data to be exchanged so quickly, said McClure. FirstNet is going to really dramatically change the way the police can act as information collectors and transmitters.FirstNet could be the tipping point as far as policing and mobile technology is concerned. From devices used by officers in the field to wireless cameras anywhere and everywhere, including on drones, the police will no longer be tethered to physical stations. We are talking about the officer becoming the hub for everything that goes on, rather than it being a station or vehicle, said Goodrich.Public safety communications has been hit by network throttling, a problem that FirstNet is designed to overcome. The increased use of mobile technologies and the growing reliance on sending and receiving data in real time during emergency situations makes the buildout of FirstNet and its 5G networking capabilities important for both tactical and strategic purposes.FirstNet has been funded by Congress with nearly $7 billion in seed money, while AT&T, the networks provider, has said it would spend roughly $40 billion during the 25-year contract with FirstNet to construct, run and maintain the network. Its a clear example of backing a new public safety technology with adequate money. But thats not the case for the nations nearly 18,000 local law enforcement agencies where funding and the high cost of new technology remains a stubborn hurdle.Cost is always an issue, said Lewin. Everybody has limited budgets. ShotSpotter has a real impact, but its also not cheap. Surveillance cameras have a huge impact, but they arent cheap either. Its one thing to make the initial investment, but sustaining the investment is critically important.Law enforcement agencies often rely on grants to set up programs that take advantage of new technology. But once that grant money runs out, the program, along with the tech tools it uses, can be difficult to maintain financially. ShotSpotter charges between $65,000 and $90,000 per square mile, per year, according to Forbes.com. Licenses to use LPR technology can cost tens of thousands of dollars annually. Another ballooning cost is data storage, especially for body cameras. Depending on the citys retention policies, those costs, which were zero a few years ago, are now a major factor.While tech firms will point to the cloud as an affordable storage option, RANDs Brian Jackson pointed out that cloud-based storage raises questions and concerns over the control of the data. Another pressure point is tech lock-in, he said. When a law enforcement agency stores data in the cloud, do they have the ability to change who stores the data and where they store the data?The Public Safety Technology Alliance, which Maggie Goodrich chairs, has made the establishment of open standards along with interoperability its core mission. For years, law enforcement has struggled with a lack of open standards that has led to a growing number of technology islands. But FirstNet, which was established in part because of the lack of interoperability for first responder communications during the World Trade Center attacks, has begun to shift the conversation, according to Goodrich.If vendors are going to deliver data across FirstNet and to police departments, its got to be done with open standards, so that law enforcement can exchange information, whether its in the form of voice, data or video, she said.T.J. Kennedy, CEO of the Alliance and former president of FirstNet, echoed the remarks by Goodrich and pointed out the advantages for law enforcement down the road. If we have open standards in law enforcement, its going to drive the economies of scale and its going to drive innovation by industry, which knows what the open standards are that we need to follow, he said. That innovation and economies of scale means we will have better technology thats going to be cost-competitive going forward. That is something weve not had in the past.No matter which policing tech trend seems the most innovative or cost-effective, the ultimate measure of its success will be in outcomes that impact crime while not impacting privacy or civil liberties. The challenge, as far as using technology to drive down crime, is always in the application, said Jackson. If not done right, the technology will have less of an effect. It always comes down to implementation.CPDs Lewin likes the outcomes he has seen when various technologies, tools and platforms are integrated together and deliver intelligence. Whats tough to say is what part of the technology process is having the biggest impact, he said. But some combination of everything seems to be the answer. 7 day print subscribers enjoy unlimited access to yakimaherald.com Enter the LAST NAME and the 7 DIGIT phone number on your print subscription account to connect your print subscription to your yakimaherald.com account. MUKALLA, Yemen (Reuters) - Five Yemeni hip-hop dancers thought their problems had ended when the Islamist militants who had banned them from performing were defeated in the port city of Mukalla nearly three years ago by forces backed by the United Arab Emirates. But last month Yemeni security forces briefly detained the five members of the WaxOn band, broke their equipment and only released the dancers after they had signed a document saying they would stop dancing hip-hop in public. "The police said it was a religious sin," band member Salman Basuad said. Another band member, Mohammed Al Ameeri, said: "The officers were very violent.. They treated us as if we were terrorists." Local security forces did not respond immediately to Reuters' request for comment. WaxOn band leader Mohammed Basaud said the ban reminded him of the "al Qaeda era" when the dancers were also barred from performing in public. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) ran a mini-state in the southern port city of Mukalla in 2015-16 before being defeated by forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition, which intervened in Yemen's civil war to restore its ousted president, Abd-Rabu Mansour Hadi. Since AQAP was driven out, Mukalla has been largely peaceful compared to the rest of Yemen, which has been devastated by nearly four years of fighting between the Saudi-led coalition and the Iran-aligned Houthis. WaxOn, formed in 2014, resumed their public performances in 2016, dancing at graduation and birthday parties among other events. Yemenis like coming to the main square of Mukalla to watch the street performers for free. Basaud, said Mukalla's residents accepted WaxOn and would offer them money to perform, allowing them sometimes to make as much as 40,000 Yemen rials ($160) for a 10-minute performance. He said the security forces had not moved against other bands performing traditional Yemeni dances on the square. "We just want the security forces to accept our position.. Our equipment and other things were damaged and lost. If they will not compensate us, at least they should cancel those unnecessary pledges they took from us (not to dance)," he said. ($1 = 249.9500 Yemen rials) (Reporting by Reuters staff in Yemen; Writing by Tuqa Khalid in Dubai; Editing by Aziz El Yaakoubi and Gareth Jones) U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks to U.S. troops in an unannounced visit to Al Asad Air Base, Iraq December 26, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst Ted Galen Carpenter Politics, Americas Donald Trump has time and again allowed his advisers to talk him out of his realist foreign-policy positions. Why Trump's Advisors Keep Quashing His Realist Whims Over a period of mere days in late December, the Trump administration made two troop withdrawal decisions that startled Washington. The first was announced in a tweet by Trump stating that the United States had accomplished its mission in Syria of defeating ISIS and that he was ordering the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from that country. Just days later, leaks from both the White House and the Pentagon indicated that a substantial draw-down of forces from Afghanistan was imminent. Some reports suggested that 7,000roughly half of the current deployed U.S. forcewould be removed. The reactions were predictable. Advocates of a more realistic and restrained American foreign policy praised the moves as a key step in jettisoning two frustrating and counterproductive missions. A larger faction, consisting of neoconservative hawks along with liberal proponents of humanitarian military crusades, condemned Trumps actions. They often did so in emotional and vitriolic terms about undermining crucial American interests in both countries. A frequent assertion was that the presidents Syria withdrawal would hand over that country and much of the Middle East to Vladimir Putin. Matt Purple, managing editor at the American Conservative, observed correctly that the Washington foreign policy establishment was in full meltdown over the troop withdrawal. Indeed, Secretary of Defense James Mattis mentioned the presidents decisions as one reason for his abrupt resignation. The latest lurch in Trumps foreign policy views and actions reflects an all-too-familiar inconsistency and volatility. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he condemned the missions in both Syria and Afghanistan (as well as those in Iraq and Libya) as impractical ventures that had wasted American treasure and lives. But once in office, Trumps actual policies regarding those countries did not change in any significant way. In August 2017, he explicitly embraced and even escalated the Afghan mission. He not only kept U.S. troops in Syria, but he twice launched missile strikes against Bashar al-Assads regime for its alleged use of chemical weapons. Just a few months ago, he warned Assad against attacking the last major rebel stronghold in Idlib province or risk U.S. military retaliation. Story continues Similar erratic moves took place with regard to other foreign policy arenas. Trump began his administration with an uncompromising, highly confrontational policy toward North Korea. He then reversed course and held a cordial summit meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. During the election campaign, Trump repeatedly described the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as obsolete and sharply condemned the lack of burden-sharing on the part of the European allies. Within weeks after taking office, he walked back many of those criticisms and asserted that the Alliance still played an extremely important role. He also sent Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of Defense Mattis to the annual security conference in Munich to reassure the allies in rather effusive terms. A similar reversal has taken place with regard to policy toward Russia. Trump initially stated that he wanted friendly relations with Moscow and implied that the Obama administration had needlessly damaged bilateral relations. Indeed, his accommodating attitude fueled ugly allegations that he was Vladimir Putins puppet. Yet the notion that the Trump administration has pursued an appeasement policy toward Russia is a bizarre myth. Trumps actions have been noticeably more hardline than Obamas. Not only has the current administration expelled more Russian diplomats and imposed harsher economic sanctions, but other moves have been extremely provocative. U.S. troops have participated in NATO military exercises at an increased pace, and in one case did so within a few hundred yards of Russias western border. In addition, the U.S. security relationship with Ukraine has escalated sharplya very sensitive development from Moscows standpoint. Washington is training Ukrainian military personnel, conducted joint exercises with Kievs forces, and approved two major arms sales. The multitude of policy zigs and zags seems to constitute a case of a president suffering from foreign policy bipolar disorder. Yet a pattern may exist amidst all of the turmoil. Trumps foreign policy instincts often appear to be a sound and refreshing contrast to the stale conventional wisdom that has led the United States to careen from one interventionist debacle to another over the past quarter-century. (His early hostile stance toward North Korea and his policy toward Iran at all times are the major exceptions to sound instincts.) But time and again Trump has allowed his advisers to talk him out of his initial (usually correct) positions. Thats not surprising. The president is not an avid reader about foreign policy (or apparently anything else), and his knowledge base is alarmingly shallow. That deficiency gives policy advisers an exceptional degree of influence. If Trump sought out qualified advocates of a foreign policy based on realism and restraint, the consequences flowing from his own intellectual limitations would not necessarily be all that negative. But he has been surrounded by utterly conventional thinkers (Mattis, McMaster, Pence) or ultra-hawks (Bolton, Haley, Pompeo). In such an environment, his worthwhile instincts often wither and his worst inclinations become more pronounced. The abrupt Syria and Afghanistan troop withdrawal decisions may be simply another volatile episode. Ideally, they are manifestations of badly needed, overdue policy changes. However, given the undesirable reversals that have occurred on other foreign policy issues during Trumps presidency, we should not bank on the United States extricating itself from those two quagmires until the last troops arrive back on American soil. Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in security studies at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor at the National Interest, is the author of 12 books and more than 750 articles on international affairs. His latest book is Gullible Superpower: U.S. Support for Bogus Foreign Democratic Movements (forthcoming, February 2019). Image: Reuters Read full article (TNS) This year will bring improved weather forecasting through the use of satellites and GPS in space, according to Harvard astrophysicist Dr. Jonathan McDowell.McDowell said we will start to see a lot of real applications of space as it is becoming more and more part of everyday life.McDowell said that satellites in orbit looking toward the horizon interact with GPS setting behind the earth. The distortion of the signal can let you measure temperature and pressure in the atmosphere.That level of analysis can lead to better weather forecasts, McDowell said.The technology can also be profitable for companies looking to sell the weather data to the government.People are starting to be imaginative about how you use these capabilities in space to make money, said McDowell. United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The UN envoy for Yemen will hold a new round of talks with Huthi rebels and the Saudi-backed government in the coming days as the United Nations said Thursday that a ceasefire in the key port city of Hodeida was holding. Martin Griffiths will travel to the rebel-held capital of Sanaa on Saturday for talks with Huthi leaders and with the head of a truce monitoring committee, Dutch general Patrick Cammaert, said UN spokesman Farhan Haq. He will then head to Riyadh to meet with Yemen's President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi and other officials. The United Nations is hoping to bring the sides together later this month, possibly in Kuwait, to follow up on the progress made in talks in Stockholm in December, diplomats said. Under the agreement reached in Sweden, the rebels agreed to redeploy from Hodeida, the Red Sea port that is the entry point for food aid to millions of Yemenis on the brink of famine. "The cessation of hostilities in Hodeida continues to hold," said Haq. Yemen's government has written to the Security Council to accuse rebels of failing to comply with the ceasefire while the rebels have accused the Saudi-led coalition of carrying out low-altitude flights over the city. The council is expected to hear a report from Griffiths next week, but no firm date has been decided for that meeting. The war between the Huthis and troops loyal to Hadi escalated in March 2015, when Hadi fled into Saudi exile and the Saudi-led coalition intervened. The conflict has unleashed in Yemen what the United Nations has described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump met top Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday, but they failed to hammer out an agreement that would end a partial government shutdown over his demand for billions of dollars to build a border wall with Mexico. One day before Democrats take over the House of Representatives, Trump showed no signs of backing away from his insistence that Congress cough up $5.6 billion for his "beautiful" southern wall. Trump met behind closed doors at the White House with Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat who will take over as speaker of the House on Thursday, and Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, but there were no indications any progress had been made in resolving the impasse. "We asked the president to support the bills that we support that will open up government," Schumer said. "I asked him directly, I said 'Mr. President give me one good reason why you should continue your shutdown.' "He could not give a good answer," Schumer said. Republican Kevin McCarthy, who will be minority leader in the next House, said Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress would return to the White House on Friday for more talks. "This doesn't need to go on very much longer," McCarthy said. But Trump said he was prepared to hold out "as long as it takes" to secure the money he is seeking for the border wall. "This is national security we're talking about," he said at a cabinet meeting ahead of the meeting with Pelosi, Schumer and top Republicans. "It's too important a subject to walk away from. "I think the people of this country think I am right," Trump said, adding that it "could be a long time" before the government reopens. Trump's meeting with Pelosi and Schumer was his first since an acrimonious Oval Office meeting with the pair on December 11. Democrats say the border wall, one of Trump's key campaign promises, is a distraction from more complicated immigration problems and a tool for Trump to whip up support among his conservative base. Story continues The standoff resulted in hundreds of thousands of federal employees being furloughed over the Christmas and New Year holidays -- and for the foreseeable future until a deal is reached. - Romney hits out at Trump - Amid the stalemate over the wall, Trump shelved his annual Christmas vacation in Florida, choosing to remain in Washington and fire off a stream of angry -- and often misleading -- tweets. "Much of the Wall has already been renovated or built," he asserted, along with the dubious claim that Mexico would pay for the wall through the new trade deal between the two countries. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders accused Democrats of refusing to compromise. "President Trump made a serious, good faith offer to Democrats to open the government, address the crisis at our border and protect all Americans," Sanders said. Pelosi is proposing a plan that would fund most government agencies through September 30 with the exception of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees border security and would only receive funding through February 8. Sanders described that approach as a "non-starter because it does not fund our homeland security or keep American families safe from human trafficking, drugs and crime." Republicans lost 40 seats and their majority in the House in the November midterm elections but they retained control of the Senate by a slim margin. Sixty votes, however, are needed to advance legislation in the Senate, requiring Democratic support. Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware welcomed the face-to-face meeting between Trump and Democratic leaders and told CNN he hoped it would lead to a end to what he called a "senseless" shutdown. Republican Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, has said he will only schedule a vote on a deal that has the support of both the House and Trump. Adding to the uncertainty in Washington, an incoming senator, former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, lashed out at Trump on Tuesday in an opinion piece in The Washington Post. "Trump's words and actions have caused dismay around the world," wrote Romney, who was elected to the Senate in November from his home state of Utah. "I do not intend to comment on every tweet or fault," Romney said. "But I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions." Trump expressed surprise over the comments said he hoped the Republican senator would prove to be a "team player." In an interview with CNN, Romney said he would vote to provide funding for a border wall. The Trump administration has rolled back Obama-era pollution and fuel efficiency rules for cars and light trucks, saying they were too stringent Canadians cant seem to get enough of sport utility vehicles and trucks. More than 70 per cent of all vehicles sold in Canada in 2018 were light trucks, according to statistics released by DesRosiers Automotive Consultants on Thursday. It is the first time the light truck market which includes trucks, SUVs and vans cracked the 70 per cent threshold in Canada. At the same time, just 29.1 per cent of the new vehicles bought last year were cars, a market that has been steadily shrinking for years. And dont expect Canadians interest in SUVs particularly the ever-popular compact models to go away anytime soon. Consumer interest in light trucks saw a surge following the last economic downturn in 2008-2009, and hasnt looked back since, DesRosiers president Dennis DesRosiers wrote in a report released Thursday. The last time the market was this dominated by a vehicle type was in 1990, where passenger cars held close to a 70 per cent market share. Overall vehicle sales in Canada fell 2.6 per cent from 2.039 million in 2017 to 1.985 million last year. According to DesRosiers, the momentum from a record-breaking sales year in 2017 carried over to January and February, but slowed in the second half of the year, where there was a year-over-year decline for the first time since 2009. While regional sales data has yet to be released, DesRosiers said he expects weakness in the Prairie provinces, largely due to struggles in the oil patch. Ford Motor Co. ended the year selling the most vehicles in Canada, representing 15 per cent of the market with nearly 300,000 vehicles sold, down 3.4 per cent from a year earlier. General Motors saw its sales dip nearly 5 per cent to 288,310 vehicles sold, while Fiat Chrysler saw a decline of 15.8 per cent to 224,889. Going into 2019, DesRosiers expects more of the same. We expect the market to be down another two to four per cent, but it will continue to be single-digit declines, he said. There is nothing out there that says the market will collapse, but at the same time its hard to find anything that would spur it to grow. Story continues While sales may have been relatively strong in 2018, it was still a turbulent year for the Canadian auto industry. In late November, the industry was stunned when GM announced a major restructuring plan that will see up to 14,000 workers in North America lose their jobs, nearly 3,000 of which are in the Oshawa assembly plant. The plan, which will save the company $6 billion annually, was in part a response to changing consumer demand towards trucks and SUVs. Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android. Madrid (AFP) - The prior of the mausoleum where Spain's late fascist dictator Francisco Franco is buried has rejected any exhumation of his remains, the government said Thursday, in the latest stumbling block to a divisive project. The grandiose monument carved into a hillside near Madrid is managed by Benedictine monks and the government is pressing the Church to lean on the prior to change his mind. It said in a statement it had anticipated the rejection from a man who was once "a candidate for the 1993 general elections and the 1994 European polls for the (far-right) Falange Espanola Independiente party." "The obstructionist position of prior Santiago Cantera won't stop the process from going ahead," it added. The abbey that manages the basilica where Franco -- whose Nationalist forces defeated the Republicans in the 1936-9 civil war -- is entombed with tens of thousands who died in the conflict, was not immediately available for comment. Many in Spain are repulsed by the existence of the so-called Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen), where fresh flowers are frequently laid on Franco's tomb, saying it is the equivalent of a monument glorifying Hitler. Others insist the site, which Franco's regime built in part with the forced labour of political prisoners in an attempt at reconciliation from the war, is just a piece of history. Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who came to power in June after toppling his conservative predecessor, has made removing Franco's remains from the site one of his priorities. "Something that is unimaginable in Germany or Italy, countries that also suffered fascist dictatorships, should also not be imaginable in our country," he said in June. Spanish lawmakers in September approved the exhumation but the family of the man who ruled Spain until his death in 1975 opposes it. They have however said they could be amenable to Franco's remains being transferred to a family crypt at Madrid's central Almudena Cathedral. Story continues But the government wants them to be relocated to a more discreet spot. The prior's rejection of the exhumation further complicates the government's plans. In its statement, it said it planned to go directly to the prior's superiors with its exhumation request. ROME (AP) North Korea's top diplomat in Italy has gone into hiding along with his wife, according to a South Korean lawmaker, raising the possibility of a defection of a senior North Korean official. The news came from South Korea's spy agency, which briefed lawmakers in Seoul on Thursday on the status of North Korea's acting ambassador to Italy, Jo Song Gil. It said he went into hiding with his wife in November before his posting to Italy ended late that month. A high-profile defection by one of North Korea's elite would be a huge embarrassment for leader Kim Jong Un as he pursues diplomacy with Seoul and Washington and seeks to portray himself as a geopolitical player. South Korean lawmaker Kim Min-ki said an official from Seoul's National Intelligence Service shared the information during a closed-door briefing. Kim did not say whether the spy agency revealed anything about Jo's current whereabouts or whether he had plans to defect to South Korea. Kim said the NIS said it has not been contacted by Jo. According to Kim, the NIS official said Jo and his wife left the official residence in early November, weeks before his term was to end. Kim said he couldn't confirm if the NIS official revealed whether Jo and his wife were accompanied by any children. The NIS earlier said it couldn't confirm a South Korean media report that Jo was under Italian government protection as he seeks asylum in a Western nation. North Korea has not yet commented on Jo's status. An official with the Italian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that Jo hadn't requested asylum from Italy. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with standard practice, also said Jo no longer held diplomatic status in Italy, presumably since his assignment had ended. Without citing any sources, Italian daily La Repubblica raised the possibility that while the Foreign Ministry was saying Jo hadn't sought asylum from Italy, that didn't rule out that the North Korean might have turned to other offices, such as Italian intelligence agencies for "assistance from Italy in order not to return to his country." Story continues North Korea, which touts itself as a socialist paradise, is extremely sensitive about defections, especially among its elite diplomatic corps, and has previously insisted that they are South Korean or U.S. plots to undermine its government. About 30,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, according to South Korean government figures. Many defectors have said they wanted to leave North Korea's harsh political system and widespread poverty. North Korea often accuses the South of deceiving or paying people to defect, or claims that they have been kidnapped. North Korea may publicly ignore Jo's possible defection or hold back harsh criticism to avoid highlighting the vulnerability of its government as it tries to engage Washington and Seoul in negotiations, said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University. Jo had been North Korea's acting ambassador to Rome after Italy expelled then-Ambassador Mun Jong Nam in October 2017 to protest a North Korean nuclear test and long-range missile launch. Jo seemed comfortable moving around Italy. In March 2018, accompanied by another embassy official, Pak Myong Gil, he visited two factories in Italy's northeastern Veneto region with an eye on eventual trade, according to La Tribuna di Treviso, a local daily. One factory produced bathroom furnishings and another made accessories from marble. The newspaper quoted the local businessmen as assuming at first the delegation consisted of South Koreans, not North Koreans, given the economic sanctions against North Korea. Among the Italians accompanying the North Koreans was a former Italian senator for what is now the League party, which in general opposes economic embargoes as bad for business. The politician, Valentino Perin, told AP he had spoken with Jo many times, including about preparations for the visit to the Veneto region. Perin said he last met with Jo on Sept. 5, at an official reception organized by the North Korean embassy in Rome. Showing Jo's business card, Perin said the North Korean was "very proud of his people and of his country. The last senior North Korean diplomat known to have defected is Thae Yong Ho, a former minister at the North Korean Embassy in London, who fled to South Korea in 2016. In an interview on South Korean television, Thae said he worked with Jo for more than a decade in the North Korean Foreign Ministry's Europe bureau and that Jo had a child when Thae last saw him in 2013. Thae said Jo comes from a family of diplomats, with his father and father-in-law both serving as ambassadors. The embassy in Italy is critical for North Korea because it handles annual negotiations with the Rome-based World Food Program over aid to North Korea, Thae said. He also said Italy has been a hub for smuggling luxury items to the North Korean elite, and Jo would have been involved in those activities. Thae said Jo would have been North Korea's main diplomat for the Vatican and would have also handled discussions involving a possible visit to the North by Pope Francis if such talks had taken place. South Korea said in October that North Korean leader Kim mentioned during a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in that he would welcome a papal visit. Thae said he believes Jo was to be replaced by incoming ambassador Kim Chon in November but did not reveal how he obtained such information. While not identifying him by name, North Korea's state media described Thae as "human scum" after his defection in London, and claimed he was trying to escape punishment for serious crimes. Thae, who has been an outspoken critic of Kim while living in South Korea, denied the accusation and said he defected because he didn't want his children to live "miserable" lives in the North. It's possible that Jo is trying to defect because of similar reasons, said Koh, a policy adviser for South Korea's president. "It could be difficult for some diplomats to accept being called back to the North after enjoying years living in the free West. They could want their children to live in a different system and receive better education," he told The Associated Press. The highest-level North Korean to seek asylum in South Korea is Hwang Jang-yop, a senior ruling Workers' Party official who once tutored Kim Jong Un's late father, dictator Kim Jong Il. Hwang's 1997 defection was hailed by many South Koreans as an intelligence bonanza. Hwang died in 2010. Also in 1997, the North Korean ambassador to Egypt fled and resettled in the United States. ___ Kim Tong-Hyung reported from Seoul. North Korea's top diplomat in Italy has sought asylum and gone into hiding, Seoul lawmakers told reporters after a closed-door meeting with South Korean intelligence officials on Thursday. It would mark the latest high-profile defection by a senior North Korean envoy since the deputy ambassador in London abandoned his post in 2016. "Acting ambassador Jo Song Gil's term was ending in late November last year and he escaped the diplomatic compound in early November" with his wife, lawmaker Kim Min-ki told reporters. Jo, 48, has been acting ambassador in Rome since October 2017 after Italy expelled the then ambassador Mun Jong Nam in protest at a North Korean nuclear test a month earlier in violation of UN resolutions. Italy is an important diplomatic mission for Pyongyang, as it handles relations with the Rome-headquartered UN Food and Agriculture Organization and North Korea suffers from chronic food shortages. Another member of the South Korean parliament, Lee Eun-jae, told reporters that the National Intelligence Service (NIS) had confirmed the envoy had sought asylum, but did not appear to know his whereabouts. A source close to the Italian foreign ministry told AFP on Thursday the country had "no knowledge" of any asylum request from Jo. The source said the ministry had simply received a request for the "replacement" of the diplomat, but did not know Jo's whereabouts, adding that the replacement had arrived in Rome. The NIS briefing to lawmakers came after South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo daily reported that Jo had sought asylum in an unidentified Western country with his family. "He sought asylum early last month," the JoongAng quoted a diplomatic source in Seoul as saying. Italian authorities were "agonising" over what to do, the official was cited as saying, but added that they were "protecting him in a safe place". - 'Privileged family' - Jo is "known to be a son or son-in-law of one of the highest-level officials in the North's regime", the JoongAng cited an unnamed North Korea expert as saying. Story continues Most North Korean diplomats serving overseas are normally required to leave several family members -- typically children -- behind in Pyongyang to prevent their defection while working abroad. Jo however came to Rome in May 2015 with his wife and children, suggesting he may be from a privileged family, the JoongAng said, adding the reason for his defection bid was still unclear. Relations between the nuclear-armed North and South Korea improved markedly last year after the tensions of 2017, with the two countries' leaders meeting three times. Jo's defection, if confirmed, would not impact inter-Korean ties, said Koh Yu-hwan, professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul, "unless Pyongyang thinks the escape was arranged by South Korean authorities". The former deputy ambassador to London who defected in 2016, Thae Yong Ho, said at the time that he had switched sides partly to give his three children a better future after being ordered to return to the North. Pyongyang denounced him in vitriolic terms, calling him "human scum", but did not demand his repatriation. The Kim dynasty has ruled the impoverished North for three generations with little tolerance for dissent, and the regime stands accused of widespread human rights abuses. By Nigel Hunt OXFORD, England (Reuters) - Britain's farmers face rising costs if the country leaves the EU without a deal as export tariffs kick in and border inspections slow traffic through ports, Farming and Environment Minister Michael Gove said on Thursday. Gove, who was in the 'leavers' camp in the 2016 referendum campaign on European Union membership, said Brexit could bring real gains. But they "risk being undermined if we leave the EU without a deal," he told the annual Oxford Farming Conference. Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29, and the departure agreement that Prime Minister Theresa May has negotiated with Brussels hangs in the balance ahead of a parliamentary vote this month. "The turbulence which would be generated by our departure without a deal would be considerable. Particularly for our smaller farmers and food businesses," Gove said. Many British exports reach European markets through the narrow strait between Dover and Calais. "At the moment there are no border inspection posts at Calais. While we hope the French take steps to build capacity there, it is unlikely by the end of March to be generous," Gove said. There would also be higher haulage costs and significant tariffs on exports such as beef and sheep meat and, while the government was seeking to mitigate these costs, "nobody can be blithe or blase about the real impact on food production of leaving without a deal". The minister said the deal agreed by Prime Minister Theresa May would provide a 21-month transition period in which current access to EU markets would be maintained. "It (May's deal) isn't perfect but let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good," he said. (Reporting by Nigel Hunt; editing by John Stonestreet) Niamey (AFP) - Niger's army killed more than 280 Boko Haram militants near the southeast border with Nigeria in days of land and air raids, the defence ministry said Wednesday. More than 200 jihadists were killed in air strikes and a further 87 by ground troops since the offensive began on December 28, the ministry said in a statement read on state television. It comes after Western African leaders held talks in November on the escalating attacks by the Nigerian Islamist group in the Lake Chad area, a strategic region where the borders of Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger converge. The operations were carried out on the islands of Lake Chad and along the Komadougou Yobe river which serves as a natural border between Niger and Nigeria, which has suffered a string of recent attacks on its military bases. The Niger army said it had lost no troops or equipment in its offensive and had seized eight canoes and two rocket launchers as well as assault weapons, ammunition and vehicles. In December, Niger's defence minister said he feared Boko Haram would launch renewed attacks on its positions from January, when the Komadougou Yobe river's waters which usually prevent incursions begin to recede. Niamey was particularly concerned by the situation in Nigeria where "military bases have been defeated," Defence Minister Kalla Moutari said in parliament. "Boko Haram fighters were able to get supplies, they were able to reinvigorate themselves," said Moutari. Boko Haram's bloody insurgency began in northeastern Nigeria in 2009 but has since spread into neighbouring countries, prompting a regional military response. Some 27,000 people have been killed and two million others displaced, sparking a dire humanitarian crisis in the region. Militants have targeted both soldiers and civilians and have been blamed for abductions of children and employees of foreign companies. In November, around a dozen girls were taken in raids on several border villages in southeastern Niger. In the same month, seven local employees of a French drilling firm and a government official were killed after suspected Boko Haram gunmen stormed their compound. That attack shattered months of relative calm in the Diffa region near the Lake Chad basin. Investigators have yet to discuss a possible motive behind the shooting deaths of a Missouri woman, her two small children, and her 61-year-old mother but they have arrested a suspect on numerous criminal charges. On Saturday evening, Richard Darren Emery, 46, allegedly killed Kate Katsen, the 39-year-old woman he had been dating for a little over a year, along with her two kids, Zoe Kasten, 8, and Jonathan Kasten, 10, according to police. Officers rushed to the horrific scene in St. Charles, Missouri, after receiving a 911 call concerning an active shooter that had been made from within the house. Once inside the home, authorities found the three bodies along with the body of Kates mother, Jane Moeckel. Before discovering the bodies, police say, they saw Emery enter his truck and drive off. They later caught up to him, and ordered him out of the vehicle. Instead, they allege he fired eight times upon police before fleeing into nearby woods. Hours later, he was found covered in blood inside a convenience store. He allegedly resisted officers efforts and was shot twice before being placed in handcuffs. At a Sunday press conference, police did not identify the caller but said that screams and multiple shots could be heard in audio of the 911 call, which was described as chilling. Emery said nothing at his arraignment on Monday. He faces 15 counts, including murder in the first degree, armed criminal action, assault in the first degree and attempted robbery in the first degree. Moeckel was staying with her daughter, according to police, and recovering from a recent hip operation. Emery has not entered pleas to the charges he faces and does not have an attorney of record. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. He remains in custody without bail. Story continues Richard Darren Emery While being interviewed at the hospital, Emery apparently inquired about the officers he shot at. He did not ask about his four alleged victims, police said. A GoFundMe account has been established to cover funeral costs for Kate Kasten, her children, and her mother. The New York Times To a wide circle of friends and family, Jesse Ruby was the go-to guy. The father who would drop everything and drive across town if his sons needed a ride. The cousin who spent weekends helping relatives move. The partner who worked odd jobs on weekends with his girlfriend, Virginia Herrera, to help make ends meet for an extended household in San Jose, California. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times If he was your friend, or he considered you a friend or family, all you h Fulton County, Ga., the most populous county in the state, has named Nicole Keaton Hart its next CIO, according to the county website Hart is a natural pick, having previously served in the same office as deputy chief information officer, whereas the county website points outshe provided leadership focusing on information security strategy and program development, both of which seem likely to remain major priorities. Fulton County is home to much of the Atlanta metro area, which gives it a population of more than 1 million residents. Hart was named to the CIO post in December.Hart is an IT veteran with a career that spans two-and-a-half decades and includes time in the private sector. Before coming to work for Fulton County, Hart was a senior vice president for technology risk and compliance at SunTrust Bank. Currently, Hart is responsible for coordinating Fulton County's preparations related to security in advance of Super Bowl LIII, which will be held in Atlanta next month.Harts predecessor in the role, Sallie Wright, departed in August following nearly three years in the position. Chief Financial Officer Sharon Whitmore was tapped to oversee tech work there while the county conducted a search that ultimately ended with elevating Hart from within. Mexico City (AFP) - Mexico called on the United States Thursday to investigate the use of force by border patrol agents against members of a Central American migrant caravan who tried to rush the US-Mexican border on New Year's. "The foreign ministry sent a diplomatic cable today to the United States embassy about the incident that occurred on January 1 in the border zone... In it, the ministry requested an exhaustive investigation of events that day," it said in a statement. Mexico also repeated its call for an investigation into a similar incident on November 25, when some 1,000 migrants from the caravan tried to force their way into the United States and were pushed back by border patrol agents. In both incidents, US Border Patrol fired tear gas to stop the migrants from crossing the border fence between the Mexican city of Tijuana and San Diego, California. They also fired rubber bullets during the November incident. Around 100 migrants were involved in the New Year's border crossing attempt. Most were forced to turn back by the tear gas. Twenty-five were arrested, US Border Patrol said. Mexico "regrets any act of violence along the border" and "reiterates its commitment to safeguarding the human rights and safety of all migrants," it said. The migrants are part of a caravan of several thousand people that left Honduras in October and spent more than a month trekking across Mexico to reach the US border. The caravan has triggered frequent tirades from US President Donald Trump, who says it includes dangerous criminals and regularly cites it as evidence of the need for his planned border wall. It once comprised some 7,000 people, but it has gradually dispersed as migrants cross the border, move elsewhere in Mexico or return home. Around 1,500 migrants are currently staying at the shelter set up for the caravan in Tijuana. The government of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office on December 1, has so far sought to avoid confrontation with the Trump administration over the issue. Instead, it is lobbying for a US-Mexican plan to promote economic development across the region as a means to slow migration. K&L Gates and Withers have each merged with Singapore law firms, granting both further reach into Asia. K&L Gates has combined with Singapore law firm Straits Law Practice, after receiving regulatory approval for the merger last year. The outfits have formed K&L Gates Straits Law, with the merger completing on Jan. 1. Straits consists of 17 legal directors, with the new entity giving K&L Gates 90 lawyers in the region. Meanwhile, Withers has combined with Singapore's KhattarWong following a three-year formal law alliance (FLA) with the local firm, creating a new entity called Withers KhattarWong. The pair allied in 2015, with Withers absorbing all of KhattarWong's partners at the time. The newly combined outfit now has 90 lawyers in the city-state. Withers' chief executive, Margaret Robertson, said the merger underscores Withers' commitment to Singapore, and its belief in the immense opportunities arising from the growing wealth and business environment in the Asia-Pacific region. Withers KhattarWong will focus on private client, tax, restructuring and insolvency, dispute resolution, investment funds, real estate, and hotels and hospitality work. Under the FLA regime, which has been in place since 2000, foreign firms are allowed to enter a best-friend relationship with a Singaporean law firm while both sides remain legally distinct. Only the Singaporean firm is allowed to advise on a range of restricted practice ares such as litigation and conveyancing. The FLA structure has been favored by many foreign firms, as it grants access to Singaporean law practice, especially court proceedings, without a full financial merger. Other firms that operate in Singapore under an FLA licence include Clifford Chance, Herbert Smith Freehills, Ashurst, CMS, Reed Smith, Watson Farley & Williams, Stephenson Harwood and Holman Fenwick Willan. Dublin (AFP) - Ireland will seek hundreds of millions of euros in aid from Brussels if Britain crashes out of the EU without a deal, the agriculture minister was quoted Thursday as saying. "You're looking at hundreds of millions here," Michael Creed told the Irish Independent. "Between the beef industry and the fishing industry we're talking mega-money." With the UK parliament locked in stalemate over the painstakingly-brokered draft Brexit deal, the possibility of Britain leaving the trading bloc in March without an agreement now looms ever larger. The emergency aid for Ireland would aim to buttress sectors such as beef, dairy and fishing -- those most exposed to customs and regulatory changes likely to arise if Britain severs all ties. Nearly 80 percent of Irish exporters deliver products to Britain, according to 2016 government figures. The country is also considered a vital "land bridge" to the European continent. "There is a high level of awareness of Ireland's unique exposure to the UK food market," Creed said. "I think nobody wants to talk about it right now because there is still a hope and expectation that a level of sanity will prevail." But, he added: "In racing parlance the odds are slashed on a hard Brexit." If Britain crashes out of the European Union on March 29, Creed said he hoped an EU grant would be approved at a Luxembourg summit of EU farming ministers in April. On Thursday, the Irish cabinet met to discuss no deal contingency plans aired publicly for the first time before the Christmas break. They include schemes for port overhauls, a fund for Brexit-specific tax staff and talks to preserve the island's integrated electricity network. Up to 45 pieces of emergency legislation would also be required. Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said these would be consolidated and delayed until March to prevent a pariamentary log jam. "We're now going to have two weekly reports at cabinet around planning for a no deal," Varadkar said, outlining further Brexit preparations after Thursday's cabinet meeting. "The real focus today was on legislation, on medicines and also on transport -- making sure that we have the protections and stockpiles and everything we need in place." A U.S. Marine from 2nd platoon, F company, 5th batalion, 10th Marines, meets an Afghan villager during a patrol in southern Afghanistan June 28, 2009. After five years coping with the most dangerous province in Iraq, the U.S. Marines have been given their Tanya Goudsouzian Security, Middle East They are two different battlefields with very different variables. The Iraq Exit Strategy Will Not Work in Afghanistan Last week, President Trump announced the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, fulfilling his oft-repeated promise to get America out of dumb wars in the Middle East. Along with that announcement was a message to start planning a withdrawal from Afghanistan. Early indications are that more than 7,000 American troopsout of 14,000will return home soon. And probably sooner than the Pentagon would want. While the move no doubt undercuts the Afghan governments position in the ongoing peace talks with the Taliban, President Ashraf Ghani claimed it would not impact security in the country. Afghan military generals did not agree with this assessment, saying the move would be seen as a defeat. Indeed, the Taliban reportedly reacted with cries of victory. In any case, Trumps decision to pull out of Afghanistan demands a transition strategy which is more than President Obamas 2011 promise for a responsible withdrawal from Iraq or President Trumps December 2018 withdrawal announcement. The strategy must ensure that security conditions in the country will not unravel dramatically soon after the American departure and that the sacrifices of the last seventeen years are not for naught. Some analysts, looking for a quick fix solution, have already suggested a the post-2011 Iraq strategy. But its not the right strategy. Iraq since 2011 American military sources will readily concede that the Iraqi strategy from 2003-2011 did not work. The Surge, while tactically successful in breaking the back of the insurgency, was not followed by equal success in building an Iraqi security establishment which could survive the departure of U.S. forces. Corruption, a lack of training, poor leader selection and a sectarian-based assignment of units to cities such as Mosul significantly degraded its capability. This was put on full display in 2014 when the Iraqi Army and Interior forces abandoned the battlefield to an ideologically-driven but militarily slapdash invasion by Daesh (ISIS). Yet, by 2017, the country declared victory against the terrorists which today remain no more than a localized terrorist organizationhardly the significant, almost existential threat it posed to Baghdad in 2014. Story continues While many factors came into play, three stand out as most consequential to the Iraqi success. First, when the military failed to stop Daesh from moving virtually uncontested towards Baghdad and the politicians had no answers, the clerics stepped in. Iraqs religious Marjiyah establishment issued fatwas for young men to rise and join the militias, and they did. Iran, too, was ready to help, preferring support to militias as a means to prevent instability on its borders. When the military abandoned the battlefield, the militias (and the Kurds) stood firm. Along with the militias, Iraqs capable (but small) Counter Terrorism Forces (CTS), was put at the vanguard of offensive operations. Its record of battlefield success has no parallel. They liberated town after town in the multiyear campaign and took staggering casualty rates in the process. Second, the Iraqi military was purged of its corrupt, politically connected leaders who had been installed by former Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. One of the most significant factors in Daeshs initial success came about from a supportive Iraqi population who had been brutalized by the Iraqi military and police since the departure of the U.S. forces. Once those Iraqi forces were swept from the battlefield, numerous leaders were fired, replaced and, in some cases jailed. Third, Daesh overplayed its hands and lost the support of the citizens of their self-proclaimed caliphate. While the Iraqi military and police had antagonized the locals, the well-documented cruelty and brutality of Daesh quickly turned the population against them. Before too long, the locals became informants, intelligence sources and military spotters for both the Iraqi military and coalition aircraft. Victory in Iraq does not mean victory in Afghanistan None of the conditions essential to success in Iraq travel well to Afghanistan and cannot be incorporated into a new Afghanistan strategy post-U.S. withdrawal. First, there is no existential crisis which would cause either a unified Afghan campaign or inspire a call to arms among the people. In Afghanistan today, military service is on volunteer and salaried basis and with such high rates of illiteracy (31 percent), unemployment (40 percent) and poverty (55 percent), only the poorest from remote regions sign up. Their performance in battle has been lackluster and their willingness to fight is driven (for the most part) by a paycheck, not an ideology or threat. There is no organizing principle, no call to the barricades, no need for a levee en masse to turn back an invading force as was the case in Iraq. Nor have the Taliban committed the atrocities of Daesh. While it may be unfair to oversimplify the terror landscape in Afghanistan as several newcomer groups are there, it is not entirely inaccurate to say that there remains a degree of sympathy for the Taliban in the hinterlands. Daesh may have been initially embraced by the locals but went too far. The Taliban are not seen as an existential threat to the country and retains some support among the people. Many Afghans, mainly in the south and the east of the country, do not reject the Taliban and dont have a problem making peace with them. In fact, the Taliban often win the battle for the populations hearts and minds because the United States and its allies have always opted to empower the worst of the local strongmen who, like the pre-Daesh military and police in Iraq, have exploited and oppressed local populations. And, up to this point, the Afghan government seems unwilling to purge the ranks of leaders who either fail in combat against the Taliban or fail in winning over the local population. Attempting to take a cookie cutter approach from Iraq to Afghanistan is fraught with danger and likely unsuccessful. The British military uses a term Appreciation of the Battlefield to force a rigorous understanding of the situation before developing a strategy. In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, any first-year cadet at Sandhurst would see the difference of the situation and the danger of strategic duplication. Going forward The greatest danger to Afghanistan is that an orderly withdrawal is followed by a disorderly rout. After the U.S. departure from Iraq in 2011, the country was ignored by the United States and by 2014 the military was in shambles. A rag-tag collection of ideological fighters on the back of pickup trucks was able to rout one of the best-equipped militaries in the Middle East. Despite a vast technological superiority including hundreds of M1 tanks, dozens of F16 fighters and hundreds of thousands of troops in uniform, the Iraqis were swept off the battlefield in weeks. The United States will need to remain committed to Afghanistan. It cannot walk away. It must retain some influence if it wants Afghanistan to stay in the hands of an elected government. And U.S. Department of States Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzads position has now been severely undermined. Why should the Taliban bother negotiating with the U.S. envoy when the U.S. president has essentially handed them what theyve been fighting for since they resurfacedthe removal of U.S. presence? Time has always been on the side of the Taliban; they always knew they could wait out the Americans and they may be proven right if America gets it wrong. Leaving Afghanistan in 2019 as the United States did in Iraq in 2011 is wrong. And the post-2014 Iraq model is wrong. The imperative for Afghanistan is the same one Professor Eliot Cohen wrote in 2003 regarding Iraq in his seminal article If We Cut and Run. His conclusion, still haunting fifteen years later, declared: Cut-and-run cannot be disguised, and the price to be paid for it would be appalling. No one else would take on the burdens of Iraq; talk of handing it over to the United Nations or NATO is wishfulness, not strategy. Whatever ones view of the wars rationale, conception, planning or conduct, our war it remains, and we had best figure out how to win it. American and NATO planners need to get working and get this right. There are plenty of right options, but mirroring the post-2014 Iraq strategy is, simply, wrong. Tanya Goudsouzian is a Canadian journalist who has covered Iraq and Afghanistan for over 15 years. She is former Opinion editor of Al Jazeera English Online. Follow her on Twitter: @tgoudsouzian. Image: Reuter Read full article Paul Whelan, a U.S. citizen detained in Russia for suspected spying, in a photo provided by the Whelan family on Jan. 1, 2019. (Photo: Courtesy of Whelan family via Reuters) WASHINGTON Sometime between Christmas and New Years Eve, Russian domestic security officials arrested Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who works in corporate security, accusing the American of embarking on a spy mission. Its a charge that several former intelligence officers who spoke with Yahoo News found highly unlikely. I think its quite clear this is not an American intelligence operation but rather further evidence of a Russian influence campaign directed against the West, said Steven Hall, a former senior CIA official who managed intelligence operations in Eurasia and is an expert in Russia. Whelans family, including his twin brother, have vehemently denied the Russian accusations in the media, explaining that Whelan was in town for a friends wedding. A State Department spokesperson said U.S. Ambassador John Huntsman visited Whelan on Wednesday in detention and expressed his support for Mr. Whelan and offered the Embassys assistance. Due to privacy considerations for Mr. Whelan and his family, we have nothing further at this time, the spokesperson added. Little is known about the case or why Russian authorities were interested in Whelan, who is employed as the corporate security director for automotive company BorgWarner in Michigan. He is also the owner of a Michigan-based firearms distributor, Kingsmead Arsenal, according to public records. Whelan posted a photo of himself at a conference hosted by the State Departments Overseas Security Advisory Council in August 2018 on his Russian social media page, as well as other photos of his travels around the world, his political opinions and frequent celebrations of holidays in the United States; Canada, where he was born; and Russia. His Twitter and Instagram pages, both of which feature the Canadian flag, are set to private. However, Whelan, who was a frequent presence on Russian social media site Vkontakte for the last decade, is almost certainly not affiliated with U.S. intelligence services, current and former intelligence officials told Yahoo News. Story continues Among other parts of his history that make him an unlikely spy, Whelan received a bad conduct discharge from the Marines after being convicted by a military court of larceny, dereliction of duty, making a false official statement, and using someone elses social security number, according to documents from the special court-martial proceeding in 2008. If Whelan was an intelligence officer, he likely would have been operating undercover, rather than in an official capacity, suggested former and current intelligence officials who spoke with Yahoo News. Intelligence officers abroad operate under one type of cover or another. The two most common types of cover are official cover and nonofficial cover, or NOC, explained one current private security expert with experience in Russian affairs. Intelligence officials who do not work out of the embassy or have diplomatic immunity and titles are often called NOCs (pronounced knocks). NOCs cannot rely on the same protections that official cover officers are entitled to, such as diplomatic immunity, the expert continued. One famous example of a former U.S. NOC was Valerie Plame, whose identity was leaked by members of the George W. Bush administration. One current Western intelligence official focused on Russia said that although the source had no information on Whelan or his background prior to the arrest, it was unlikely that the United States would send someone, particularly with Whelans background, to operate in Russia without diplomatic immunity. His very public affection for Russian culture and his travels to Russia would likely make him a subject of interest to Russian intelligence services for many years, making him a poor candidate for an under-the-radar covert operation. According to John Sipher, a former CIA Clandestine Services officer and Russia expert, the CIA very rarely uses people with no official cover identities in Russia because it is difficult to protect and manage them there. We know how good [the Russians] are and how easy it is to run double agents, he told Yahoo News. We only run a few premier cases with the best tradecraft we can muster this is not something we would do, he continued. Instead, experts say, the arrest is likely a Kremlin ploy to force the United States to the negotiating table, particularly as Russian national Maria Butina, who recently pleaded guilty to being a foreign agent, awaits sentencing. U.S. officials at the highest level have discussed a spy swap for Butina in the past, according to one former intelligence official familiar with the matter. However, those discussions didnt extend to a formal process, and they were aimed at securing Russian sources recruited by the United States who may have been arrested in Moscow But in this case, neither Butina nor Whelan appears to fit the bill for the typical spy exchanges that have happened in the past. (In 2010, the United States traded Russian sleeper agents arrested in the U.S. in exchange for multiple alleged double agents for the West, including Sergei Skripal, the former Russian official who was poisoned by a nerve agent in England over the summer.) One source familiar with Butinas case told Yahoo that everyone seems to think that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to trade Whelan for Butina, but I havent heard that anyone that matters thinks that. If it happens, its not a spy swap, because [Whelan] didnt do anything, said Dan Hoffman, a former CIA officer with expertise in Russia. Putin would like to call it that, but its twisted KBG reciprocity. Regardless, even if a swap doesnt happen, the arrest has propaganda value for Putin. The Russian media have been openly suggesting arresting Americans in a tit for tat for Butina for some time so even if they dont achieve a swap they probably figure they win propaganda points, said Bill Harlow, a former CIA spokesman. Putin appears to be sending a clear message on this front to the U.S. that he can also detain U.S. citizens for meddling, said Rob Dannenberg, the onetime head of global security for Goldman Sachs and a former senior CIA officer. Hall, the former CIA senior officer, says Russias targeting of Whelan, who works in security and has a military background, may be more about internal propaganda aimed at Russians. In Russia, he says average Russians read security in someones professional background as intelligence and for Russia, anytime any military career pops up, they think of him as a spy, he said. But even Whelans friends and acquaintances in Russia, many of whom he has spoken to online over the years and has met in person occasionally, dont think hes a spy. Paul has a strong sense of friendship toward everything linked to Russia. He is a Russophile I dont know what to think, but I dont believe he is a spy, one contact told Yahoo News, requesting anonymity to discuss the ongoing, sensitive case from Russia. Another contact, who hadnt seen Whelan in person for many years, said Paul was friendly, polite, educated and easygoing and only found out Whelan was in Moscow when the two exchanged Christmas greetings. I believe he was fascinated with Russia and its culture, the contact told Yahoo News. I find it hard to believe he is a spy. Read more from Yahoo News: See our 2018 year-end features >>> The way Britain watches porn is about to change (Getty) The way we use the internet could be about to change radically, with governments cracking down on porn and privacy and the misuse of copyrighted material. From April, porn users in Britain will be asked to prove they are 18 and this winter, the government is set to outline new safety laws for social media. An EU crackdown on the use of copyrighted material could also have a large impact on sites such as YouTube. Social media regulation Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg (getty) The Government is set to publish a white paper in the winter that will outline new online safety laws. A deadline to speed up the removal of harmful content on social media is among the legislative measures being considered by the Government in a bid to protect young people, minister for Digital Margot James told the Science and Technology Committee in November. The idea came from Germanys approach, which compels social networking sites to remove illegal content within 24 hours of it being reported, or face fines. Age restrictions for porn Access to pornography is another area the Government hopes to protect children from in 2019, with new age restrictions on porn websites set to arrive by Easter. Tighter controls have been pushed back multiple times since the introduction of the 2017 Digital Economy Act. One of the options being considered is issuing young people with a unique online ID, likened to a digital passport. MORE: Police investigate after frenzied hounds kill fox in front garden during hunt MORE: Sajid Javid accused of acting like Donald Trump by whipping up Channel migrant crisis Digital copyright The way music, memes and news articles are shared online could be affected by a new digital copyright law proposal from the EU. YouTube has warned that viewers across the EU could be cut off from videos as a result of the controversial Article 13 copyright directive, which would force big tech firms to take responsibility for the copyright status of material posted by users. Members of the European Parliament backed an overhaul to the current law in September, leaving each EU member state to make the final decision in a vote scheduled for January 2019. Story continues Right to be forgotten The so-called right to be forgotten could be rolled out further in 2019, with the European Court of Justice set to make a decision early in the year. The right to be forgotten came about in 2014, after Spaniard Mario Costeja complained that out-of-date information about his financial circumstances should be taken down from Googles search engine. The ruling only applied to the companys local sites in the EU, meaning other versions such as its American site Google.com, could still show the links. Europes top court will now decide whether Google and others like it, such as Bing and Yahoo, should apply the right to be forgotten on all versions of its sites. Tokyo (AFP) - The US military will this year conduct its first ever missile drill around the Japanese island of Okinawa, according to a report Thursday, as Washington seeks to counter an increasingly assertive China. The US military has told its Japanese counterpart it plans to deploy surface-to-ship missiles in the strategically important Okinawa this year for the first such drill by Japan's key ally, the Sankei Shimbun reported, without citing sources. The drill would involve a mobile rocket launcher seen as a counter-measure to potential attacks from Chinese surface-to-sea ballistic missiles, the paper said. In recent years, Chinese warships have frequently sailed through waters near Okinawa, where the majority of US troops in Japan are based. Experts say China's increasingly active maritime activities are part of a plan to establish control of waters within the so-called "first island chain" that links Okinawa, Taiwan and the Philippines. Some analysts believe Beijing seeks to end US military dominance in the western Pacific by exerting control of the second island chain that links Japan's southern Ogasawara island chain, the US territory of Guam, and Indonesia. China's rapid military build-up has unnerved Asian neighbours, with Japan's defence chief last year saying China had been "unilaterally escalating" its military activities in the previous year. Beijing insists the activities are for self defence. Despite increasing military rivalry, the US and China are each other's largest trading partners and China is one of largest holders of US national debt. A massive bilateral trade imbalance has however caused frictions between the world's top two economies, with Washington and Beijing imposing tit-for-tat tariffs on more than $300 billion worth of goods in total two-way trade last year. Photo credit: CHRIS STOWERS - Getty Images From Popular Mechanics Taiwan thinks it needs new long-range weapons to keep China at bay, and now it has an innovative (if weird) solution. The nation is reportedly pulling engines out of old fighter jets to figure out how to make one for a cruise missile. The J85 turbojet engines in question come from Northrop F-5E/F jets, called the Tiger II. Produced in the 1970s, the Tiger II was a low-cost multi-role jet in the same vein as todays F-16. The F-5E/F had one engine, a General Electric J85-GE-21, a design that is still around: A variant of the J-85 powers the U.S. Air Forces T-38 trainer, and another version will power Booms upcoming 50-passenger supersonic jet. Photo credit: MANDY CHENG - Getty Images Over the years, Taiwan bought or produced 308 Tiger IIs, including 242 single seat -E versions and 66 two seat -F versions. Now a report in the Taiwanese press states that Taiwans Chinese Academy of Sciences, in conjunction with the Republic of China Air Force, is pulling engines from decommissioned Tiger IIs with the hopes of producing a simplified, improved turbojet engine expected to go into a new missile to threaten China. The J-85 engine is small, just over 17 inches wide and 45 inches long, and produces 3,000 pounds of thrust. The size makes it a good fit for a cruise missile. Indeed, during the Cold War the J-85 powered the ADM-20 Quail , a drone designed to mimic (and draw fire away from) B-52 bombers. The J-85-21 variant of the engine had the highest thrust-to-weight ratio of its time, 7.3 to 1, providing the F-5E/F with the power to reach speeds of up to Mach 1.6. Photo credit: ROBYN BECK - Getty Images Why is Taiwan going to all this reverse-engineering trouble? The island split from China in 1949, the result of a bloody civil war, and the old Republic of China government fled to the island after communist forces won victory on the mainland. Over the decades, Beijing has repeatedly threatened to invade and complete its victory, a idea that becomes more plausible with each passing year as Chinas military strength grows. Story continues One way for Taiwan to prevent invasion is to hold targets on the mainland at risk. The Formosa Strait separating the two countries is only 110 miles long, so a cruise missile with a 300-mile range could strike targets more than 150 miles inside mainland China, threatening airfields, ports, command centers, and anything else that would support an invasion. A preemptive strike against such targets could disrupt, delay, or even cancel a cross-strait attack before it begins. It would happen something like this: Taiwanese intelligence would suddenly be overwhelmed by reports of Chinese fighter jets massing at airfields, tactical ballistic missile convoys headed for the coast, and army and marine convoys streaming towards ports of embarkation. These would be corroborated by social media. An invasion force would be so large it would be impossible even for Chinas censors to keep images posted by curious Chinese citizens off the internet. Photo credit: VCG - Getty Images With evidence of a massing invasion force overwhelming, Taiwan would launch a barrage of cruise missiles against preset targets. Any fighter jets Taiwan destroys on the ground in China are jets it doesnt have to face in the air. Y-20 transports blown up on the tarmac deprive Chinese paratroopers a means of crossing the strait. While ships move, port facilities do not, and blowing up fuel storage depots can ensure Chinas invasion force wont have the fuel to complete a strait crossing. Taiwans cruise missile force will ideally introduce just enough uncertainty into the minds of Chinese military planners that they decide an invasion is too risky to pull off. The report outlining this new engine project is badly sourced, but the basic idea fits in with Taiwans other unusual attempts to study old military technology to develop new equipment. China is using its new economic and political clout to dissuade foreign countries from transferring military tech to what it considers a rogue province, choking off the flow of arms to Taiwan. Unable to source diesel electric submarines, Taiwan finally decided to design its own submarine, and was prepared to cut one of its World War II-era subs in half to study the design. When a country is prepared to cut an entire submarine in half lengthways, studying old fighter jet engines doesnt sound so farfetched. ('You Might Also Like',) BEIJING (Reuters) - China's top prosecutor said on Thursday that two Canadians detained after Canada arrested a Chinese technology company executive had "without a doubt" violated the law. Authorities in Beijing had previously said the two men, Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat and an adviser with the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank, and businessman Michael Spavor, were suspected of endangering state security. "Without a doubt, these two Canadian citizens in China violated our country's laws and regulations, and are currently undergoing investigation according to procedure," Zhang Jun, China's prosecutor general, said. Zhang said the investigation process had been handled "strictly" according to law when asked by Reuters at a briefing when the two men might be charged. He did not elaborate. The two were detained after Canadian police arrested Huawei Technologies Co Ltd's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou on Dec. 1 in Vancouver, at the request of the United States. U.S. prosecutors have accused her of misleading banks about transactions linked to Iran, putting the banks at risk of violating sanctions. The Chinese government has only given vague details about the detention of the two Canadians, and it has not drawn a direct link to Meng's arrest. It has demanded that Canada free her and threatened unspecified consequences if it does not. Canada has said several times it saw no explicit link between the arrest of Meng, the daughter of Huawei's founder, and the detentions of Kovrig and Spavor. But Beijing-based Western diplomats and former Canadian diplomats have said they have no doubt the cases are linked. Canada has said the detentions are unacceptable and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said China should free the men. Under Chinese criminal procedure law, special forms of detention and interrogation can be used for state security suspects. China touts the rule of law, but its judicial system is tightly controlled by the ruling Communist Party. Rights groups say conditions in Chinese detention facilities are often basic and can be harsh, with lack of legal representation and due process compounding worries about treatment. (Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Robert Birsel) La Paz (AFP) - Public sector doctors in Bolivia announced a 48-hour strike on Wednesday in response to a government move to make healthcare free for all. "Our goal is to register 5.8 million people in Bolivia," said Adolfo Zarate, the program's spokesman, in a statement sent to AFP. Doctors working in public hospitals responded by announcing they would down tools on Thursday and Friday. According to the health ministry, some 5.8 million of Bolivia's 11 million population do not have health insurance but will be given access to free services once the registration period is completed in the next three months. Diseases and illnesses covered by the universal healthcare system will include Parkinson's, child cancer, diabetes, pneumonia, flu and dental problems. The health ministry said the program will have a budget of around 1.6 million bolivianos (about $230 million) but Erwin Viruez, president of Bolivia's professional medical college, said that won't be enough. "We're going to need one billion dollars, at least, but this won't be enough to guarantee universal health care," he said. "We don't have any supplies, there aren't enough beds." President Evo Morales has called on striking doctors to engage in dialogue. See this news item,To put this in the vernacular of our president would be to say, "You are not worthy of a raise you suck!" Since it is a word he used in a speech on his trip to Iraq . It was his way of being "presidential ." Today, I guess it is the American people who are no longer "suckers" for giving pay raises to government workers.I have been a government worker for most of my adult professional work life, 39 years out of 47 work years. I appreciated those raises that I had. They made a difference in the life of my family. Certainly it sends a message to federal workers about how they are valued, or not valued. It is but another play by Trump to his base who hates all forms of government, and its workers who they consider to be on the dole.What irritates me most about the action above is the false statement about the federal budget. "We must maintain efforts to put our Nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and Federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases," the president wrote. This is after the 2017 tax cuts given to the rich, which will give us an additional trillion dollars of debt for the past fiscal year, and succeeding years. Some would argue that the middle class also got tax cuts but, did you know those expire in another seven years and the tax cuts for corporations and the rich have no expiration date?Back to federal workers, I just want you to know that I value your service. I've worked with many a dedicated federal employee over the years. Are there duds in the federal workforce yes, just as there are duds working in the Army, or for the Boeing Company and other large corporations.I know it means little to many but, thank you DHS staff currently working without pay! Thank you to all federal workers who are doing their part to serve our government. You will always be essential in my mind.Remember, "the worm will turn" eventually. Geneva (AFP) - The UN refugee agency Thursday voiced "concern" for the safety of 100 Arab citizens who went missing after seeking shelter in Algeria and others stranded at the border with Niger. "Some 120 Syrian, Palestinian and Yemeni individuals were detained at the Tamanrasset Centre in southern Algeria before being taken to an area near the Guezzam border post (at the southern border with Niger) on 26 December," the UNHCR said in a statement. Some members of the group were "known to UNHCR as registered refugees who have fled conflict and persecution or claim to have attempted to seek international protection in Algeria", it added. The UN agency said 20 members of the group "remain stranded in the desert", several kilometres from the Guezzam border post. "The other 100 individuals who were taken to the border are unaccounted for," it added. Hacen Kacimi, an Algeria interior ministry official, told AFP on Thursday that a group of about 100 people, mostly Syrians from Aleppo, had been "expelled" on suspicion of links to jihadist groups. Kacimi, who heads the ministry's migration department, said they had entered Algeria illegally and were put on trial in September and that the court ordered their expulsion. His comments came after the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights on Monday denounced the deportation to Niger of 50 mostly Syrian migrants, including women and children, who were smuggled into the country in September. Rights groups regularly criticise Algeria for its treatment of sub-Saharan migrants, many of whom are hoping to reach Europe. An October report from the UN urged Algeria to stop collective expulsions of African migrants across its border with Niger, after rights groups accused Algiers or rounding up thousands of people and expelling them into the desert. Algeria, which does not have asylum legislation, has faced an influx of sub-Saharan migrants in recent years, with rights groups estimating some 100,000 have entered the country in recent years. Paris (AFP) - The number of migrants who died or went missing attempting to cross the Mediterranean fell by more than a quarter in 2018 over the previous year, to 2,262, the UN refugee agency said Thursday. The number of migrants who arrived in Europe after surviving the sea crossing also dropped by roughly the same proportion last year to 113,482 after 172,301 in 2017, according to the UNHCR's full-year figures. A total of 3,139 were reported dead or missing in 2017. "The Mediterranean has been for years the most deadly sea crossing in the world for refugees and migrants," UNHCR spokeswoman Celine Schmitt told AFP in Paris. The data also confirmed that Spain had become the main gateway into Europe for migrants and refugees who travel from north Africa, with 55,756 people registered as arriving there by sea in 2018. Italy, under its hardline anti-immigration government, cut the number of arrivals dramatically last year to 23,371 -- around a fifth of the number who arrived in 2017 when 119,369 crossed from Libya. All of the figures are far down from their peak in 2015 when an estimated one million people crossed the Mediterranean to Europe, mostly from Turkey into Greece. The effects of that influx continue to reverberate around the continent, sparking debate about immigration policies and fuelling far-right parties in countries that have welcomed large numbers of refugees, such as Italy, Germany and Sweden. Rescue boats carrying migrants also sparked repeated flareups among European countries in 2018 after Italy's populist government closed its ports to charity-run ships which pick up stranded migrants. The European Union has been working with north African countries, particularly conflict-wracked Libya, by offering aid money and help with border patrols in a bid to stem the flow of people. The EU has also financed border protection and development projects in other impoverished African states that are a source of migrants or serve as transit routes. The largest group of migrants who arrived in Europe in 2018 came from the west African state of Guinea (13,068) followed by Morocco (12,745) and Mali (10,327). Syrians were the fourth biggest group (9,839), followed by Afghans (7,621) and Iraqis (7,333). Rabat (AFP) - A Morocco prosecutor on Thursday brought seven new suspects including a Spanish-Swiss man before a Rabat anti-terror judge in connection with the murder of two Scandinavian women in the Atlas Mountains. The prosecution asked that the suspects be investigated for "forming a gang to prepare and carry out terrorist acts, premeditated assistance to perpetrators of terrorist acts and training people to join a terrorist organisation", Rabat's attorney general said. The prosecutor called on the judge to place the suspects in pre-trial detention. Danish student Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, and 28-year-old Norwegian Maren Ueland were found dead at an isolated hiking spot south of Marrakesh on December 17. The two women were beheaded, authorities have said. Fifteen people, including the four main suspects, were brought before the judge on Sunday over their alleged links to the double homicide, labelled a "terrorist" act by Rabat. The Spanish-Swiss man in Thursday's group had been living in Morocco and was detained in Marrakesh over alleged links to some of the suspects. He subscribed to "extremist ideology", according to Morocco's central office for judicial investigations. The four main suspects were also arrested in Marrakesh and belonged to a cell inspired by Islamic State group ideology, Morocco's counter-terror chief Abdelhak Khiam told AFP. None of the four had contact with IS members in Syria or Iraq, he said. The head of the suspected cell is 25-year-old street vendor Abdessamad Ejjoud, according to investigators. He was identified in a video filmed a week before the double-murder, in which the four main suspects pledged allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, according to authorities. The killings have shaken Norway, Denmark and Morocco. Another video circulated on social networks allegedly showed the murder of one of the tourists. Morocco, which relies heavily on tourism income, suffered a jihadist attack in 2011, when a bomb blast at a cafe in Marrakesh's famed Jamaa El Fna Square killed 17 people, mostly European tourists. An attack in the North African state's financial capital Casablanca killed 33 people in 2003. LANSING, Mich. (AP) Two Michigan environmental regulators implicated in the Flint water scandal pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor Wednesday in exchange for more serious charges being dropped, bringing to six the number of officials who have agreed to such deals. Stephen Busch pleaded no contest to disturbing a public meeting, and Michael Prysby pleaded no contest to a count of violating Michigan's Safe Drinking Water Act. They had been charged with felonies, but those charges and others were dismissed under the terms of their deals that also require them to testify against others, if needed. A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt but is treated as such for sentencing purposes. Their sentencings are scheduled for Jan. 23. The plea from Busch, a water supervisor in the state Department of Environmental Quality, relates to his failing to address concerns during an unruly January 2015 meeting in which Flint residents complained about the city's discolored and smelly water after the April 2014 switch from a Detroit-area system to using the Flint River. Busch, who had faced involuntary manslaughter and other felony charges, said in a Flint courtroom Wednesday that he had conversations with state Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon about legionella bacteria before March 2015 many months before Lyon and Gov. Rick Snyder publicly announced a deadly Legionnaires' disease outbreak in the Flint area. Some experts have blamed the outbreak on the use of the river. Lyon, a member of Snyder's Cabinet, is the highest-ranking of the 15 state or local officials to be charged in relation to the water crisis . The plea from Prysby, a DEQ water engineer, relates to the improper permitting of Flint's water treatment plant during the switch. Todd Flood, a special prosecutor hired by Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, put on the record parts of Prysby's cooperation to date. They include statements that the river water was not tested before being distributed to residents, that an environmental order was improperly used to facilitate the financing of a planned move to a new regional water pipeline, and that two state-appointed emergency managers were ultimately the ones who decided to put the city's water treatment plant back into full service before it was ready. Story continues Both Prysby and Busch have been on paid leave. They were among the first officials to be charged in connection to the water crisis, along with a Flint water official who went on to take a deal. Prysby's misdemeanor carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison. The punishment for Busch's charge is up to 93 days in jail. His lawyer, Mark Kriger, declined to comment late Wednesday. The amended charges for both men will likely be dismissed in a year if they continue to cooperate and complete probation. None of the other officials to plead no contest including Flint's former utilities director, the state's disease control director and another DEQ employee have served time. Flint ran into extraordinary trouble when the emergency managers appointed by Snyder put the city on water from the river while a pipeline was being built to Lake Huron. The corrosive water was not properly treated due to an incorrect reading of federal rules by state regulators, and lead leached from old pipes into homes and led to elevated levels of the toxin in children. ___ Follow David Eggert on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00 . His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/David%20Eggert . Yahoo Life Jazz Jennings, 20, became famous in 2007 when she appeared on '20/20' with Barbara Walters. Now, the transgender activist joined Yahoo! for Pride Evolution, a one-hour discussion on the celebration of Pride, to discuss her journey. The Hungarian folk music revival of the 60s and 70s was embodied by the dance-house movement. This exemplary tradition lives on and flourishes to this day. How would it look if this phenomenon wasn't part of A Celebration of Folk Music?! Of course, that is out of the question. On this day, there will be two dance houses: one from 6 to 7 pm and another between 10 and 11 pm. The Magos band takes us on a musical journey of dance around the Carpathian basin from Szatmar to Szekelyfold. Admission to the event is free of charge. Date and time: 23 February, 6 pm, 10 pm Venue: Mupa 1095 Budapest, Komor Marcell u. 1. Strange Brigade Thrice Damned Part 3 DLC is Out Now A garbage truck unloads refuse as a mechanical arm prepares to push it into a semi-truck trailer at the city of Cheyenne's Solid Waste Transfer Station off College Drive in this 2015 file image. The Cheyenne City Council is considering a change to the citys trash fee schedule that would result in 8 percent annual fee hikes over the next five years for most residential and commercial customers. Wyoming Tribune Eagle/file Before releasing the name of the suspect in the death of Newman Police Officer Ronil Singh, authorities released his legal status.Standing before a battery of reporters and television cameras, Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson declared: "Unlike Ron, who immigrated to this country lawfully and legally to pursue his lifelong career of public safety, public service and being a police officer, this suspect is in our country illegally. He doesn't belong here. He's a criminal."The suspect Singh's death, eventually identified as Gustavo Arriaga, had known gang ties and two prior arrests on suspicion of driving under the influence -- and had been living in the country illegally for years.It was the second time in a month that a sheriff in the rural, conservative Central Valley had angrily criticized California's so-called sanctuary law after an immigrant in the country illegally was accused of killing someone. But the sheriffs of Stanislaus and Tulare counties, communities with large immigrant populations, struck different tones in the wake of the kind of crimes that the Trump administration often uses as ammunition against illegal immigration.After a deadly rampage in mid-December, Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux voiced frustration over the sanctuary law. But he also expressed broader support for the county's large immigrant population and acknowledged that crimes by immigrants are relatively low."We have a large agricultural community, we have a large population of undocumented persons that every day don't violate the law," Boudreaux said. "That's not my opposition. My opposition is that person who is a known criminal element."After Singh's death on Dec. 26, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a statement expressing concern "that California's sanctuary laws continue to undermine public safety and cause preventable crimes by restricting law enforcement cooperation and allowing public safety threats back into the community to reoffend."ICE had had no prior encounters with Arriaga.In the last few weeks, Christianson and Boudreaux have criticized Senate Bill 54, which provides expanded protection for immigrants who have entered the country illegally. The law, which took effect in January 2018, prohibits state and local police agencies from notifying federal officials in many cases when immigrants potentially subject to deportation are about to be released from custody.The law was drastically scaled back in the final days of the negotiations because of opposition from sheriff's groups.Last week, the president tweeted about the Stanislaus County case: "Time to get tough on Border Security. Build the Wall!""I'm not here to talk about the president about the United States, but I will repeat what I said before," Christianson said. "Border security goes hand in hand with national security, goes hand in hand with public safety, goes hand in hand with the safety of our community."Last month, ICE lodged an immigration detainer on 36-year-old Gustavo Garcia, after he was arrested on a misdemeanor for being under the influence of a controlled substance, the agency said in a statement. Garcia had twice been deported.Because of S B54, Boudreaux said, authorities would have needed a federal arrest warrant to hold Garcia for immigration officials. As a result, Garcia was released from custody.A couple of days later, on Dec. 16, authorities allege, Garcia shot a farmworker as he picked fruit in Exeter. The victim survived. Three minutes later, Garcia, authorities say, robbed a minimart at gunpoint. Following the robbery, police believe, he may have been involved in a fatal shooting in Lindsay. That night, he tried to shoot and kill a woman at a Motel 6 in Tulare, authorities said.Other allegations against Garcia crimes include an assault with a deadly weapon, a fatal shooting at a gas station and firing into homes. His apparent rampage ended only after he was killed after he drove the wrong way down a highway and was thrown from his vehicle."Our county was shot up by a violent criminal that could have easily been prevented had we had the opportunity to reach out to our fellow counterparts," Boudreaux said.But Boudreaux added that he believes in the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has protected nearly 800,000 young immigrants in the country illegally after they were brought to the U.S. when they were children. He said he employs two deputy sheriffs who are so-called Dreamers."I'm not against any of our documented or undocumented community, or those who are wanting to make a better life ... that's not the point here," Boudreaux said. "I hope the narrative is clear that the state law is missing a component and that component is us working together with ... Immigration and Customs Enforcement."A little over a week later, and less than 200 miles away in Stanislaus County, Singh was tipped off about an intoxicated man in a silver pickup, authorities said. The officer radioed that he was pulling over a vehicle at an intersection.Singh probably didn't know that the driver, Arriaga, had two warrants out for his arrest. Minutes after the traffic stop, the officer called out "shots fired" over his radio, authorities said.The officers who responded found Singh, 33, had been shot and the motorist he stopped had fled. Singh was taken to a hospital, where he died.Days later, Arriaga was arrested as he tried to flee to his native Mexico, authorities said.Arriaga, who is from the Mexican state of Colima, was arrested by the California Highway Patrol in 2011 on suspicion of a felony DUI, after apparently causing bodily injury to someone other than himself. He was arrested again in June 2014 on charges of exhibition of speed, DUI over .08 and driving unlicensed, Chowchilla Police Chief Dave Riviere said.In both cases, he failed to appear in court.Arraiga, who is known to ICE as Pablo Virgen Mendoza, has not had prior encounters with the agency, according to officials. It is unclear when he entered the country."He might have got a DUI arrest and we might not have been notified because he could have just been cited and released," an ICE official said.In emotional news conferences after Arriaga's arrest, Christianson touted Singh as someone who had legally immigrated to the U.S. and devoted his life to public service."The last thing in the world I want to do is politicize the death of Officer Singh," Christianson said. "But we need to have a conversation about restrictive legislation that puts our communities at risk."The suspect's 25-year-old brother, Adrian Virgen Mendoza, and a co-worker, 27-year-old Erik Razo Quiroz, both of whom are also in the country illegally, were arrested on felony charges that they interfered with the investigation, authorities said.Adrian Virgen Mendoza has a prior misdemeanor conviction and no known immigration encounters, according to ICE. Razo Quiroz has a prior felony conviction and two prior returns to Mexico, the most recent removal in March 2012.Police also arrested Arriaga's girlfriend, Ana Leyde Cervantes, and another brother, Conrado Virgen Mendoza, who are in the country illegally, on suspicion of aiding Arriaga in evading authorities. Three Bakersfield residents were arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting, authorities said.ICE has lodged detainers on at least seven people arrested in connection with Singh's death. Photo for illustration (Source: toquoc.vn) The activities will draw the participation of nearly 100 people from 14 ethnic minority groups, including Mong from Ha Giang, Kho Mu from Dien Bien, Thai from Son La, Tay from Thai Nguyen, Muong from Hoa Binh, Dao from Hanoi, Ta Oi and Co Tu from Thua Thien-Hue, Xo Dong from Kon Tum, Raglai from Ninh Thuan, E De from Dak Lak, Ba Na from Gia Lai, Khmer from Soc Trang and artists from Vietnam Tuong Theatre and Vietnam Cheo Theatre. Especially, from January 10th, the village will welcome Nung ethnic group from the northern mountainous province of Lang Son to introduce their culture. Rituals, customs and activities to welcome spring and lunar New Year will be introduced, contributing to popularizing values and identities of ethnic traditional culture and promoting exchanges among ethnic groups. On this occasion, visitors also experience traditional foods of ethnic groups, tea picking, weaving, creation of musical instruments, traditional handicraft making, folk forms of arts such as dances, folk singing and gong performance. There are folk games such as walking on stilts and swing./. Clarksburg, WV (26301) Today Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 57F. NW winds at 10 to 15 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 57F. NW winds at 10 to 15 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph. Charleston, WV (25311) Today Partly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 59F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 59F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Morgantown, WV (26505) Today Thunderstorms, some heavy this evening, then skies turning partly cloudy after midnight. Potential for severe thunderstorms. Low 57F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Thunderstorms, some heavy this evening, then skies turning partly cloudy after midnight. Potential for severe thunderstorms. Low 57F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. On his second day in office, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell fired the veteran assistant prosecutor Kathi Alizadeh, who was primarily responsible for presenting evidence to the grand jury that declined to indict a Ferguson police officer in the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown.Bell also issued new policies, such as no longer prosecuting marijuana possession and failure to pay child support cases.Alizadeh, as she loaded her office supplies into her SUV on Wednesday morning, said Bell gave her a two-page letter describing grounds for termination. She would not elaborate and said she would be speaking to her lawyer. She had worked for the office since May 1988 and earned $135,000.Bell was sworn in Tuesday after defeating longtime St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch last year in the Democratic primary.He held a 15-minute meeting with staff in the county's council chambers Wednesday morning. He said he made three changes that he declined to describe, adding that "we wish the three individuals well."Bell declined to give specifics on the personnel changes after the meeting.Ed McSweeney, a 34-year veteran of the office who earned $119,974 yearly, said Wednesday that he was suspended pending a termination hearing. McSweeney said the action came because of an August Facebook post criticizing Bell. The Riverfront Times reported that McSweeney said, "County voters will soon regret what they did."Sources told the Post-Dispatch that the third person suspended, pending a termination hearing, was Jennifer Coffin, who earned $75,171 yearly. She declined to comment.The St. Louis Police Officers Association, which represents two of the three prosecutors affected, said it was "dismayed" by the action."Despite Mr. Bell's rhetoric about building bridges with career prosecutors, he has apparently decided to suddenly discharge three dedicated public servants in his first hours in office," union president Ed Clark said in a news release. The union called for their reinstatement.The policy changes issued Wednesday included:--No longer prosecuting marijuana possession cases of fewer than 100 grams. Prosecution of more than 100 grams will be pursued only if evidence suggests the sale or distribution of marijuana. (St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner announced in June that possession of fewer than 100 grams would not be prosecuted unless there are aggravating circumstances.)--Not prosecuting people who fail to pay child support. Current cases will not be dropped, however; they will be on hold. Not seeking to revoke probation solely on the basis of failure to pay child support.--Not seeking charges against those who fail to pay restitution without a court order establishing someone's "willful nonpayment" of child support.--Not requesting cash bail on misdemeanor cases; issuing summonses instead of warrants on class D and E felony cases.--Not seeking to "overcharge" defendants "to pressure the accused to admit guilt." Prosecutors are barred from adding more counts to increase the range of punishment or threatening to route cases back to a grand jury if a defendant has exercised his or her pretrial constitutional rights.--Evaluating a defendant's "prior conditions of release when there has been a failure to appear on an open case" and not asking for cash bail if there is no evidence someone has tried to elude police or used an alias "in a police encounter."--Requiring prosecutors to share "the entire contents" of a criminal case file to the defense except for work product to fulfill Supreme Court rules for disclosing evidence.--Barring prosecutors from threatening witnesses "in an effort to force them to participate in prosecutions."Bell told the staff "the door is open" to his office for questions and reminded them that "nobody should be talking to the media." Bell announced that former St. Louis city prosecutor Sam Alton would be his chief of staff, that former North County Police Cooperative Chief Tim Swope would be the director of operations and that longtime prosecutor Doug Sidel would join the executive staff. Bell also said Assistant Prosecutor Teresa Bomkamp would head the sex crimes unit.Bell told staff that he lamented being unable to meet with them before his swearing-in and said he was "not here to take shots at the prior administration."The prosecutors voted last month to join the St. Louis Police Officers Association but have yet to publicly state their reasons. Prosecutors and investigators in the office have said privately that they voted to organize not out of fear of Bell but to preserve anticipated pay raises brought by the passage of Proposition P, the measure that set up a sales tax for public safety.Bell, a former Ferguson councilman, won last year's election on a platform to "fundamentally change the culture" of the prosecutor's office. He told staff he would be meeting with them individually this week.Alton, the chief of staff, told the staff that the new administration was "fired up" and that the primary goals initially were "keeping the county safe" and alleviating the caseloads of assistant prosecutors. He also asked the staff to eliminate "sniping," "pure speculation" and "gossip" about the new administration.Alton said "it appears to us the old regime kind of thrived on some intimidation, some schoolyard activities, bullying, whatever you want to call it.""We see things real differently," Alton said. "We're all on the same team. ... You're here for the county. We're really all here for the county. We're all here to succeed." Charleston, WV (25301) Today Isolated thunderstorms early, becoming clear after midnight. Low around 60F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight Isolated thunderstorms early, becoming clear after midnight. Low around 60F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%. When Californians voted in 2016 to allow the sale of recreational marijuana, advocates of the move envisioned thousands of pot shops and cannabis farms obtaining state licenses, making the drug easily available to all adults within a short drive.But as the first year of licensed sales comes to a close, California's legal market hasn't performed as state officials and the cannabis industry had hoped. Retailers and growers say they've been stunted by complex regulations, high taxes and decisions by most cities to ban cannabis shops. At the same time, many residents are going to city halls and courts to fight pot businesses they see as nuisances, and police chiefs are raising concerns about crime triggered by the marijuana trade.Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, who played a large role in the legalization of cannabis, will inherit the numerous challenges when he takes office in January as legislators hope to send him a raft of bills next year to provide banking for the pot industry, ease the tax burden on retailers and crack down on sales to minors."The cannabis industry is being choked by California's penchant for over-regulation," said Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML, a pro-legalization group. "It's impossible to solve all of the problems without a drastic rewrite of the law, which is not in the cards for the foreseeable future."After voters legalized marijuana two years ago under Proposition 64, state officials estimated in there would be as many as 6,000 cannabis shops licensed in the first few years. But the state Bureau of Cannabis Control has issued just 547 temporary and annual licenses to marijuana retail stores and dispensaries. Some 1,790 stores and dispensaries were paying taxes on medicinal pot sales before licenses were required starting Jan. 1.State officials also predicted that legal cannabis would eventually bring in up to $1 billion in revenue a year. But with many cities banning pot sales, tax revenue is falling far short of estimates. Based on taxes collected since Jan. 1, the state is expected to bring in $471 million in revenue this fiscal year -- much less than the $630 million projected in Gov. Jerry Brown's budget."I think we all wish we could license more businesses, but our system is based on dual licensing and local control," said Alex Traverso, a spokesman for the state Bureau of Cannabis Control, referring to the requirement that cannabis businesses get permission from the state and the city in which they want to operate.Less than 20% of cities in California -- 89 of 482 -- allow retail shops to sell cannabis for recreational use, according to the California Cannabis Industry Assn. Cities that allow cannabis sales include Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco and San Diego.Eighty-two of Los Angeles County's 88 cities prohibit retail sales of recreational marijuana, according to Alexa Halloran, an attorney specializing in cannabis law for the firm Solomon, Saltsman & Jamieson. Pot shops are not allowed in cities including Burbank, Manhattan Beach, Alhambra, Beverly Hills, Inglewood, Compton, Redondo Beach, El Monte, Rancho Palos Verdes and Calabasas."While some cities have jumped in headfirst, we've taken a deliberate approach," said Manhattan Beach Mayor Steve Napolitano, "to see how things shake out elsewhere before further consideration. I think that's proven to be the smart approach."Voters have also been reluctant to allow cannabis stores in their communities.Of the 64 California cities and counties that voted on cannabis ballot measures in the November midterm election, eight banned the sale of cannabis or turned down taxation measures, seven allowed sales and 49 approved taxes on pot businesses, said Hilary Bricken, an attorney who represents the industry. Among them, voters in Malibu approved pot shops while Simi Valley residents voted for an advisory measure against allowing retail sales.Javier Montes, owner of Wilmington pot store Delta-9 THC, says he is struggling to compete with a large illicit market unburdened by the taxes he pays as a licensed business."Because we are up against high taxes and the proliferation of illegal shops, it is difficult right now," Montes said. "We expected lines out of our doors, but unfortunately the underground market was already conducting commercial cannabis activity and are continuing to do so."Montes, who received his city and state licenses in January, says his business faces a 15% state excise tax, a 10% recreational marijuana tax by the city of Los Angeles and 9.5% in sales tax by the county and state -- a markup of more than 34%.He says there isn't enough enforcement against illegal operators, and the hard times have caused him to cut the number of employees at his shop in half this year from 24 to 12."It's very hard whenever I have to lay people off, because they are like a family to me," said Montes, who is vice president of the United Cannabis Business Assn., which represents firms including the about 170 cannabis retailers licensed by the city of Los Angeles.Sky Siegel, who operates a cannabis business in Studio City, said he recently gave up trying to open another store in Santa Monica because of its restrictions on such businesses."It turns into this 'Hunger Games' to try to get a license," said Siegel, who is general manager of Perennial Holistic Wellness Center, which has a dozen employees in Studio City and also operates a delivery service.He says his firm is up against thousands of unlicensed delivery services going into cities where storefronts are banned."To me, it doesn't make sense" that many cities have prohibited shops, he said. "Banning does nothing. It's already there. Why not turn this into a legitimized business, which is what the people want."California has also issued fewer cultivation licenses than expected in the first year of legalization, with about 2,160 growers registered with the state; an estimated 50,000 commercial cannabis cultivation operations existed before Proposition 64, according to the California Growers Assn. Some have given up growing pot, but many others are continuing to operate illegally.The trade group hoped to see at least 5,000 commercial growers licensed in the first year, said Hezekiah Allen, the group's former executive director who is now chairman of Emerald Grown, a cooperative of 130 licensed cultivators."We are lagging far behind," Allen said. "It's woefully inadequate. Most of the people in California who are buying cannabis are still buying it from the unregulated market. There just isn't a reason for most growers to make the transition."Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg), who has crafted cannabis regulations, said the licensing system had not yet lived up to its promise."The state licensing process this past year has been a painful one," said Wood, adding that the complex rules are particularly difficult for small businesses. "I recognize that this has been a significant undertaking for the state, and you combine that with the cannabis industry learning how to navigate the process -- it's been difficult for them both."The legalization of recreational pot has also created tension in areas of the state where cannabis growers are operating close to residents.Jesse Jones said he moved his family to Petaluma from Marin County six months ago so his three children could enjoy more open space, but he is now fighting a proposal for a cannabis farm to operate a few hundred feet from his home, in part because of safety issues."You are going to have what is still a [Schedule 1] narcotic being produced in line of sight of my kids' trampoline, on a shared road that was never intended for this type of commercial operation," said Jones, an energy industry executive.Sanjay Bagai, a former investment banker who lives with his family next door to a new cannabis farm in Sonoma County, is a leader of a residents group called Save Our Sonoma Neighborhoods, which has obtained a preliminary court ruling against one cannabis-growing operation.Bagai said his group was "not anti-cannabis" but added that pot cultivation "is not something that fits into our neighborhood here.""The smell is horrific," he said of the marijuana plants. "It's like rotting flesh. And the traffic is insane."Quality-of-life complaints have also surfaced in neighborhoods where cannabis sellers have set up shop.Van Nuys Neighborhood Council President George Thomas said he had received about a dozen complaints in the last year from residents living near pot stores who were concerned about loitering, the smell of marijuana smoke and other issues. Thomas, who is the publisher of the Van Nuys News Press and is an LAPD volunteer, passes complaints on to police officers."If they are not in compliance," Thomas said, "if they are within a thousand feet of a school or church, we are totally against them and we are happy to work with the neighborhood prosecutor in the city attorney's office to shut them down."At the same time, he said, the neighborhood council has worked with licensed cannabis stores to get them involved in improving the community and has asked the Los Angeles City Council to devote some of the tax revenue from Van Nuys shops to solving local problems, including homelessness and crime.Meanwhile, despite concerns from law enforcement, the state is finalizing a proposal to allow deliveries throughout California -- including in cities that ban retail stores. The new rule by Lori Ajax, chief of the state Bureau of Cannabis Control, is expected to be implemented in January.Ajax says she believes that as the system is refined and is shown to operate successfully in some cities, other local governments will allow retail pot sales. But opponents of pot legalization, including Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, are happy that most cities are saying "no" to selling the drug."The residents of Compton and these other cities have seen the ills that come with allowing marijuana in the door," Sabet said, "including skyrocketing drugged driving; the promise, then failure of social justice; and the targeting of children through the use of colorful and deceptive candies, gummies and sodas."Even in cities that allow cannabis sales, businesses face big hurdles.The various taxes and fees could drive up the cost of legal cannabis in parts of California by 45%, according to the global credit ratings firm Fitch Ratings.There is less of a tax burden in Oregon, where voters legalized recreational pot in 2014, and state and local taxes are capped at 20%. With nearly a tenth of the population of California, that state has more licensed cannabis shops -- 601. On a per capita basis, Alaska has also approved more pot shop licenses than California, -- 94 so far. The state imposes a tax on cultivation, but there is no retail excise tax on pot.Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Alameda) tried and failed this year to push for a temporary reduction in California's pot taxes to help the industry get on its feet."It's a work in progress," Bonta said of the current regulatory system. "We knew we weren't going to get it exactly right on Day 1, and so we're always looking for ways to achieve the original intentions and goal."Bonta said he may revisit the taxation issue in 2019 and is exploring the idea of having the state do more to get cities to approve businesses, possibly by providing advisory guidelines for local legalization that address cities' concerns.California cannabis businesses, like their counterparts in Colorado and Oregon, also face costs to test marijuana for harmful chemicals."The testing costs are excessive -- $500 to $1,000 per batch, and most crops involve multiple batches," said Gieringer, the director of California NORML. "No other agricultural product is required to undergo such costly or sensitive tests."Another problem hampering the legal market is a lack of banking for cannabis businesses. Federally regulated banks are reluctant to handle cash from pot, which remains an illegal drug under federal law."Banking continues to be an issue in terms of creating a real public safety problem with significant amounts of cash being moved for transactions," said Bonta, who co-wrote a bill this year that would have created a state-sanctioned bank to handle money from pot sellers. It failed to pass after legislative analysts said the proposal faced "significant obstacles," including no protection from federal law enforcement.Industry leaders and activists said they knew it would be a slow process to establish a strong legal market, noting other states with legal pot, including Colorado, Washington and Oregon, also faced growing pains and problems along the way.But Ajax, the state pot czar, says her agency has had a productive first year, issuing initial licenses, refining the rules and stepping up action against unlicensed operations, including partnering with the Los Angeles Police Department to seize $2 million worth of marijuana products from an unlicensed shop in Sylmar in October."I am optimistic about the coming year, where our focus will be primarily on getting more businesses licensed and increasing enforcement efforts on the illegal market," Ajax said. COLUMBUS, Miss. (WTVA) - Lowndes County investigators are charging the man captured earlier this week in west Alabama with 11 felonies. Jacob Ray Conn, 25, of Steens, was captured Monday, Dec. 31, in Lamar County, Alabama, after leading law enforcement on a chase through several counties. RELATED: Jacob Ray Conn captured in Lamar County Since his capture, Lowndes County investigators have been trying to see if Conn had anything to do with several fires and burglaries in the county last month. He now faces the following charges in Lowndes County: - Arson of a commercial building at P&R Scrap on Dec. 30, 2018 - Arson of a commercial building at P&R Scrap on Dec. 31, 2018 - Arson of a commercial building at P&R Scrap on Dec. 31, 2018 - Arson of a vehicle stolen from P&R Scrap on Dec. 31, 2018 - Felony taking of a motor vehicle for stealing a service truck from P&R Scrap that was later burned on Dec. 31, 2018 - Felony taking of a motor vehicle for attempting to steal another vehicle belonging to P&R Scrap on Dec. 31, 2018 - Burglary of a commercial building at P&R Scrap on Dec. 30, 2018 - Burglary of a commercial building at P&R Scrap on Dec. 31, 2018 - Burglary of a vehicle located on P&R Scrap property on Dec. 31, 2018 - Fleeing and eluding law enforcement by failing to yield to blue lights and sirens in Lowndes County on Dec. 31, 2018 - Felony taking of a motor vehicle for stealing a 2007 Dodge Ram from Burns Dirt Construction on Dec. 22, 2018 Conn also faces charges in Monroe County, Mississippi, for fleeing as well. Monroe County deputies were involved in the chase, which started in Hamilton, Mississippi. RELATED: Jacob Ray Conn faces charges in Monroe County HOLLY SPRINGS, Miss. (WTVA) - After a Christmas Day shooting in Holly Springs, one man has been arrested and charged. Holly Springs police say 40-year-old Carl Anthony Nunnally was taken into custody in connection to an investigation of a shooting that occurred at the intersection of Memphis Street and Van Dorn Avenue. Carl Anthony Nunnally | Photo: Holly Springs Police Department Carl Anthony Nunnally | Photo: Holly Springs Police Department "Its coming down from Memphis," said resident Frederick Prowell. "The drugs, the robberies, the shootings. I guess we may as well get used to it and get ready for it. This is only the second reported shooting in 2018, according to Police Chief Dwight Harris. Harris tells WTVA the suspect was at a red light next to the victim's car when multiple shots were fired. No one was reported injured. According to authorities the suspect and victim know each other, but a motive has not been determined. Nunnally is charged with attempted murder and his bond was set at $100,000. He is set to have an arraignment Thursday morning. Update 01/09/19 2:31 p.m. Corinth Police Chief Ralph Dance says this shooting remains under investigation, as of Jan. 9. See the original post below. CORINTH, Miss. (WTVA) - Corinth police confirm three people were wounded in two shootings this morning. One shooting happened on 6th Street at 2:24 a.m. The other shooting happened on Graham Street at 2:40 a.m. All three victims are expected to recover. Police Chief Ralph Dance says these two shooting incidents appear to be related. Police are still looking for those responsible. Det. Dell Green says two brothers are considered suspects. Police have not released any names at this time. On New Years Eve, yellow vest protesters across France demonstrated against President Emmanuel Macron to show their determination to continue their protests. World Socialist Web Sitereporters spoke to yellow vests protesting on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, surrounded by heavy police deployments. The interviews highlighted political issues upon which protesters in struggle against Macron are reflecting with increasing seriousness. The yellow vests expressed their growing consciousness of the international and working class character of their demands, and their opposition to social inequality, war and the current political system. The WSWS spoke to Pascal, who said: We have been protesting peacefully for seven weeks Today, for Frenchmen who work, it is impossible to make ends meet. He said he supported an international struggle: Im a worker on the job, a manual worker, so that is absolutely what we need The Belgians were already blockading refineries before our protest on November 17. We must support each other. Why should France be more important than other countries? There are 27 countries in the European Union. All the countries have to struggle together or it will do no good. He said the union bureaucracies and allied political parties would not organize such a struggle: Frankly, we have been mobilized since the first protest on November 17, and we didnt see a single union The unions are alone on their side. They never allied with the yellow vests. He added, They are not playing the same game we are We should all be on the same side, so to speak. We should all be in struggle togethertruck drivers, fishermen, everyone. The WSWS also interviewed four yellow vests who spoke out against conditions facing young workers in France. Andre said, Even when were working, we cant make it to the end of the month. Financially, it doesnt work. We get our salary, lots of costs are taken off the top and we have nothing left to live on. We are the working poor. You know, I work hard and Im forced to go to the food pantries. I dont think that is acceptable. Alexandre added, Then people work 40 to 45 hours per week on unregistered jobs because they have no choice. Youre paid nothing and treated like dirt, like little underlings. Virginie said, Im the mother of a little four-year-old boy. I work two jobs, 40 hours a week, and Im paid 200 euros. And by the 15th of the month, nothing is left. About 1,000 euros are withheld for rent, utilities, child care because my work schedule is impossible and so I need someone to watch my child. And there you go. All the basics are paid for at the beginning of the month, and by the 15th I have nothing, I survive with some social help for families. She added that the yellow vests would not be satisfied with Macrons promise of a small increase in the minimum wage: What hes promising is just crumbs As to the so-called minimum wage increase, hes not raising the minimum wage, but increasing a bonus. Then the agency paying the bonus said no, no, we cant do that immediately. You will have to wait until June. They stressed their solidarity with strikes and protests around the world that are echoing the yellow vest movement. Virginie said, We must have solidarity because looking at the big picture, it is todays society that makes us nothings, as Mr. Macron called us, so that we are the ones who struggle to get by. And in every country, it is the same. The poor vastly outnumber the rich. Wealth is too centralized in the hands of a tiny number of people. Andre added, I would like to thank other countries that are continuing the struggle, at least this means that things can change. Christian stressed his opposition to imperialist war and called for a profound change in political life. He said, Why should there be wars in the world caused by financial interests? I know some soldiers. One told me: We are going over there to kill people for some reason. I dont even know why Im killing these people, but ultimately Im being told to do it. I find it appalling that this person has to go kill others for financial interests. We want a world in peace where everyone can get out of poverty and oppression. Like virtually all yellow vests, he also stressed his disillusionment with the union bureaucracies as organizations that claim to defend workers interests. He said, We want to forge politics anew and totally rework the trade unions, so they will become what they were 100 years ago, or anyway sometime before I was born. They supported and went with the people. They didnt oppose the people on the basis of their selfish interests. We saw the example of the truckers union. They called a strike with us on Monday, then on Friday they had a response from the president. Subsidies were paid directly to the union, then afterwards the truckers did not go on strike. The WSWS also interviewed Magalie, a woman from Corsica who had managed a maintenance and transport business before going on disability. She said, This is my fifth protest. Like everyone else, I have had enough. I am on disability. I have a disability pension of 780 euros and 400 euros in welfare payments. Before I went on disability, I was very well paid, but now I have nothing. She explained, I had a big spinal problem. I was declared disabled. It started with that, then health problems came one after the other, and the health administration does not give a damn. They are fixated on my first disability, and nothing else. I have X-rays, my right hip has fissures everywhere. I scheduled a meeting with the health administration so that I would get more reimbursements, but they ask me to work one third of the time, which is not easy when youre 30 km from the nearest city. So there, they want me to die this way. While she stressed that she was very proud of the performance of her company, she added, There is no help for small businesses. New start-ups mostly close after a year because there is no other way. Asked about the role of the unions, she said: You must be joking. The trade unions are a big joke The unions did some good before World War II, or after. It was certainly thanks to them in large part that we got paid vacations, various things. But that was in what year? Today, the unions have vast buildings, you have to see them. But what do they do in them? I dont need them. They have not gotten me anything and they will get me nothing today. Latin America Argentine teachers protest and strike over night school closures Teachers and supporters in Buenos Aires held a march from the Legislature to the Ministry of Education on December 26. The mobilization, called by the Education Workers Union (UTE) and the Ademys Educators Association, was convoked to demand the repeal of Resolution 4055, which was published in the Ministrys official bulletin December 14 and orders the closure of 14 night schools. The schools offer classes for young studentsthe majority under 18 years oldwho work during the day to help support themselves and their families. On December 27, the teachers held a 24-hour strike and again marched to the Ministry building, where they held a vigil. Teachers denounced efforts by the government to replace classroom instruction with online courses, because they dont have and they need study habits, an embrace, support and an attentive ear, one protesting teacher told reporters. At a press conference, UTE officials denounced the resolution and threatened that if the resolution was not reversed, teachers will not begin the 2019 academic cycle. Taxi drivers in Buenos Aires protest changes to work requirements Taxi drivers blocked selected streets in Buenos Aires December 27 to protest changes that the city government claims will modernize the service. The main changesthe result of legislation passed December 6are the requirement to replace meters with tablets and the installation of apps. The cabbies assert that the measures will add to their expenses, the tablets costing around 1,800 pesos (US$48) extra per month. Argentine aviation workers protest attacks on security, conditions Members of the AAA aviation workers union held a protest in front of Argentinas Transport Ministry December 27. The action was held in the context of the governments imposition of obligatory conciliation talks following a recent one-day strike. The aim of the demonstration was to denounce the policies of the right-wing Cambiemos coalition headed by President Mauricio Macri. These include undercutting of job security, attacks on wages, encouragement of low-cost (and lower-paying) airlines to the detriment of flagship airline Aerolineas Argentinas, and toleration of firings and anti-union actions by airline management. Unions in other sectors joined the AAA, including maritime, toll booth, port, transportation and road construction. Bolivian doctors to hold two-day strike against government health care system At a December 27 meeting in the city of Santa Cruz, members of the Medical College of Bolivia resolved to go on nationwide strike for two days, January 3 and 4, to protest the application of the Unique Health System (SUS), which was ratified that day by the legislature and is scheduled to go into effect this month. The SUS has been promoted as a universal health insurance plan, but the doctors unions claim that conditions do not exist for applying it. They point to the lack of equipment, infrastructure, and supplies as among the reasons that the SUS will not be viable. A member of the Simes doctors union claimed that the governments prioritization of the construction of palaces, ministries, museums or the purchase of airplanes in the last 13 years has drained resources. A meeting that was supposed to take place between the Medical College and government representatives failed to materialize, leading to the strike vote. Emergency and other critical services will remain in force in the public health system during the strike. Antiguan broadcast workers strike over multiple issues Staff at Antigua and Barbudas ABS TV/Radio went on strike December 21 over a number of outstanding issues. Their colleagues in the informational technology department joined them later. As of December 27, they were still out. The list of their complaints includes: low morale; poor communication from management; inconsistencies in scheduling, operational procedures and standards; need for infrastructure improvements, e.g., lighting, bathroom and air conditioning; low salaries; and unpaid overtime. The general manager of the station has requested the intervention of the Labour Commission, and has asked the workers to return, but they have remained out. Their union, the Antigua Trades and Labour Union began talks with management December 28. The United States National Grid lockout continues into New Year Some 1,250 gas workers at National Grid in Massachusetts remain on the picket line after being locked out by their employer. The United Steelworkers (USW) had issued a statement declaring its intention to reach a contract settlement by December 28, but the deadline passed without an agreement. National Grid has used strikebreakers to maintain its operation since the beginning of the lockout six months ago. The company has cancelled the workers health insurance, forcing them to seek their own coverage. A central issue in dispute is the retention of pensions for new hires as well as an inadequate pay offer. The USW has centered its efforts on lobbying the states Democratic and Republican politicians rather than mobilizing the working class. In a gesture to the union bureaucracy, Massachusetts Republican Governor Charlie Baker signed legislation this week extending unemployment benefits for the locked-out workers for another 26 weeks. Operator of car washes in New Jersey and New York compelled to pay back wages Some 100 workers at four car washes in New Jersey and New York received back wages December 20 totaling $5 million after a court fight that began years ago at the Elizabeth, New Jersey, car wash leased by Jose Vazquez, where workers were paid under the minimum wage for decades. The workers were both documented and undocumented and came from Mexico, Central America and the Dominican Republic. The 18 New Jersey workers were paid an average of $3.50 to $4.00 an hour working 12-hour shifts. If business lagged, they might only make $5 or $10 for the day. Vazquez attempted what many employers of car washes, restaurants and other small businesses that super-exploit immigrant workers do by executing a bankruptcy in order to transfer assets and avoid the wage settlement. But investigators found Vazquez was hiding $1.2 million in a safe in his house and held another $20 million in real estate. He also owned outright another three car washes in New York with another 88 workers similarly exploited who were joined to the suit. Back in November, two car washes in Los Angeles, where workers were paid an average $4.50 an hour, settled a case for $1 million. Earlier in July, another owner of several car washes was fined $4.2 million after cheating hundreds of workers. In most cases, though, workers who fight for years in the courts find that owners sell off their businesses, sometimes to relatives, and then declare bankruptcy in order to escape wage settlements. A 2015 report calculated that from 2003 to 2013, New York States Department of Labor failed to collect some $101 million in wages owed to workers. In the spring of 2017, West Virginia state legislators passed a law that removed a wage bond requirement for the construction and mining industries that would open the way for these companies to escape back-wage settlements. Canada Strike vote by Montreal longshore workers Longshoremen at Canadas second largest port returned an overwhelming 99.5 percent strike authorization vote, according to the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). The contract for some 1,100 workers in the port of Montreal expired in December. CUPE is in talks with the Maritime Employers Association (MEA) with little progress reported. No strike deadline has been set, however. Workers are angry over oppressive conditions. Since 2013, some 30 workers have been fired and 1,000 suspension days have been levied. Under current rules, longshoremen are required to work 19 days in every 21-day period. Wages are also in dispute. The previous contract expired in 2012. A new agreement was ratified over significant opposition, with only 56 percent of workers voting in favor of a six-year deal providing for an overall 12 percent pay increase. Louise Helton built her rooftop solar-power business in southern Nevada from the ground up. Over the years, her team of a dozen installers has helped hundreds of households and businesses directly benefit from clean energy, and today the state's 6,500 solar jobs are a bright spot in Nevada's economy.Helton's success is driven, in part, by the strong demand and overwhelming popularity of her product. Nine out of 10 Americans support renewable energy, according to a Pew Research Center survey , and poll after poll shows that solar and wind, and the policies that support them, have deep support across the political spectrum. Research even shows that a strong majority of voters, including majorities of Republicans and independents, would vote against politicians who oppose solar The clarion call to governors and legislators is clear. They were elected and entrusted to represent American values and to foster prosperity and growth. While that mandate may prove challenging in today's deeply partisan landscape, energy derived from the sun and wind offer a well-trodden path to common ground. Lawmakers and constituents of all political stripes recognize that renewables represent values that Americans hold dear -- economic freedom, resilience and an investment in a healthy environment -- along with the promise of economic progress.There has never been a more opportune time to champion clean, renewable energy. Thanks to plummeting costs over the last decade, it has experienced a boom that has broken records everywhere, regardless of which political party holds power. The cost of solar has dropped by more than 70 percent since 2010, and a new report from the financial firm Lazard found that solar is now cheaper in many parts of the U.S. than fossil options like coal and gas.That's a reality that's not lost on some of the country's largest utilities. Xcel Energy, with three and a half million customers in Colorado, the Dakotas, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Texas and Wisconsin, recently announced plans to go 100 percent carbon-free by 2050. Xcel's CEO said that the company is "encouraged by advances in technology" and "motivated by customers who are asking for it."And in November, Northern Indiana Public Service Co. said it will completely phase out coal over the next decade. The utility's president called the plan "consistent with our goal to transition to the best cost, cleanest electric supply mix available while maintaining reliability, diversity and flexibility for technology and market changes."That momentum, driven by the competitive economics of renewables, is taking shape faster and in more places than most people realize. While Democratic strongholds like California and New York make headlines with laudable clean energy goals, some Republican-controlled states are also among the nation's leaders when it comes to wind and solar development.Falling costs and transpartisan support by voters and lawmakers alike are propelling one of the most promising sectors of the nation's economy. Renewables are among the U.S.'s fastest-growing industries, and today Louise Helton is one of more than 350,000 workers who clock in to solar and wind jobs. Last spring, the Bureau of Labor Statistics forecast that the ranks of solar installers and wind turbine technicians -- local jobs that can't be exported -- will grow "much faster than the average for all occupations" in the coming years.Clean energy has made enormous progress since its early days as the "alternative" to conventional fuels -- and we haven't even scratched the surface. The power sector remains one of the oldest and most entrenched industries in desperate need of modernization, and forward-looking state lawmakers have a unique opportunity to remove barriers and encourage a level playing field for modern technology.Building a thriving clean-energy economy hinges on a willingness to work across the aisle toward common goals: good-paying local jobs, revitalized economies and healthy communities. The American people elected governors and lawmakers to do just that. A 90-minute meeting at the White House between President Donald Trump and congressional leaders of both the Democratic and Republican parties saw no movement towards a resolution of the budget deadlock that has forced a partial shutdown of the federal government, with 800,000 workers either furloughed or compelled to work without pay. Trump appeared to escalate his demands for a border wall, demanding the $5.6 billion figure passed by the lame-duck session of the House of Representatives last week, while it was still under Republican control, repudiating the compromise proposal by Vice President Mike Pence, who suggested a deal with Democrats at $2.5 billion, including about $1 billion for the wall. The two top Democrats, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, reiterated their support for $1.3 billion in spending on border securitylimited to technology like drones and sensors, and more personnel, and an additional $300 million for repairs to existing barriers, but no money for building any new structures along the US-Mexico border. The newly elected House of Representatives, with a Democratic majority, takes office Thursday. Pelosi indicated that the first action after she takes office as speaker will be passage of two separate bills: one to provide full funding for six of the seven federal departments affected by the shutdown, at levels already approved by the Republican-controlled Senate; the other to provide short-term funding for the Department of Homeland Security through February 8, while talks continue on border security and the wall. According to press reports of the White House meeting, Trump said that he would not sign either bill into law, because to do so would make him look foolish, in other words, it would anger his fascistic base. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would not bring up either bill for a vote in the Senate without Trumps support. Trump said that the shutdown would continue for as long as it takes. Trump called for the meeting to resume on Friday, after Pelosis election as speaker, suggesting that her position on the wall would change once she no longer had to be concerned about support within her caucus. But Democrats disputed that claim, and McConnell said that he expected the shutdown to continue for weeks. For the 800,000 federal workers, the shutdown seems almost certain to surpass the previous record of 16 days, in 2013, and is now likely to mean a payless payday on Friday, January 11. Reporters for the World Socialist Web Site spoke to workers and visitors to Washington at several locations in the District of Columbia Wednesday. Ty, a worker in southeast Washington, told WSWS reporters that something needed to be done to end the government shutdown. You can't take money from peoples' families, he said, adding, in reference to the fight over the border wall to block migrants seeking entry to the US, I have a Latino girlfriend. The immigration issue is stupid. Let them in. Lakisha, a school worker, said she had friends who worked for the government. It's frustrating. It's irritating, not knowing if you can make a payment, she said. Reacting to the Office of Personnel Management's recent letter calling for furloughed workers to do unpaid labor for their landlords to keep their homes, Lakisha said it was a smack in the face. She said she felt terrible about the children who recently died in the custody of Customs and Border Patrol, calling it absolutely tragic. James, a construction worker and native of southeast D.C., said, I think the shutdown is just crazy. When you dont have a job, you have bills and bills dont stop. The Smithsonian Institution, the huge federal museum complex on the Mall, was closed Wednesday after having been kept open to the public using reserve funds since the shutdown began December 22. A tour of the Smithsonian is frequently the high point of a visit to the nations capital, and several people spoke with the WSWS about their disappointment. John, who works in real estate in Los Angeles and brought his large family to Washington, D.C. for the New Year, expressed disgust at the government shutdown. We were looking forward to this trip all year, he said. Now, once we're here, there is nothing to do. John called the idea that $5 billion could even be considered to fund a border wall disgusting. Nicole and Vince, who came to the United States from Australia, also were perturbed by the shutdown. We spoke to some custodians at the Museum of Natural History, they said they assumed they were getting paid but were not sure. That isn't right. Workers don't deserve to suffer for the government's decisions. Another woman, Nicole, who came to the Smithsonian with her daughter, noted that she had taken the day off only to find out the museums were closed: On the train [here], I heard the museums had been shut down and checked the Smithsonian web page, which said nothing about it. Nicole said she had been forced to spend money so that she and her daughter could visit a private museum that was unaffected by the government shutdown. This is very frustrating, she said, adding if you're going to spend $5 billion, there's literally 1,001 better ways to spend it than building a wall to keep immigrants out. Nicole called the government shutdown a dream outcome for the extreme right, with national parks filled with trash due to lack of maintenance, and the government services closed on which people depend for survival. It seems that when you're not a corporation donating millions to politicians, it is hard to be taken seriously by the establishment. Recent media reports indicate that Sri Lankan plantation unions are preparing to drop workers demands for a 100 percent daily wage increase and impose a new collective agreement as part of a backroom deal with companies. Citing a senior Employers Federation of Ceylon (EFC) official, the Daily FT reported on December 31 that the plantation unions have shown their willingness for some flexibility to consider three offers made by plantation companies. The official added: This is a very positive reaction from them after four months of discussions. The EFC official did not provide any details on the three offers or reveal how the unions had shown flexibility. However, he told the newspaper that the EFC had categorically stated that it was not feasible for the plantation companies to commit to a 1,000-rupee basic wage. Tens of thousands of plantation workers, who held protests and demonstrations when the last two-year agreement expired in October, began an indefinite national strike on December 4 to demand that their current 500-rupee ($US2.80) daily wage be doubled to 1,000 rupees. The Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), which called the walkout in an attempt to dissipate workers determination to fight, ended all industrial action within a week, claiming that President Maithripala Sirisena had promised to discuss the wage demands with the companies. Thousands of workers remained on strike for another two days in defiance of the unions shutdown (see: Sri Lankan plantation workers end strike action under protest). The CWC leadership, along with the Lanka Jathika Estate Workers Union (LJEWU) and the Joint Plantation Trade Union Centre (JPTUC), are currently in discussions with the EFC. From the outset, the plantation companies insisted that they would increase the basic daily wage by just 20 percent, with improvements in various allowances, which they claim would enable workers to earn 940 rupees per day. The allowances include, attendance and productivity incentives and a price share supplement. However, the majority of plantation workers would not meet the targets and thus would not receive the allowances. The unnamed senior official also told the Daily FT that the EFCs top priority was to conclude the collective agreement negotiations. In fact, the top priority of the companies is not to resolve the wage issue but to ensure the unions commit to imposing the revenue share scheme. This would abolish the current outdated wage system, transform workers into sharecroppers and scrap existing meager benefits such as the Employees Provident Fund. While the plantation unions agreed to support the scheme in the last collective agreement, the companies now want the unions fully involved as an industrial police force to ruthlessly impose this exploitative system. At last months annual general meeting of the Ceylon Planters Association (CPA), chairman Roshan Rajadurai declared: The current model of employment is over 150 years old The planters association is advocating a model of revenue sharing where the employees are encouraged and motivated to work hard and earn more than the amount they desire now. Under the scheme, tea bushes are allocated to a workers family to maintain and harvest. They receive a portion of the income after the companys costs and profits have been deducted. Plantation workers have rejected this system in estates where it has been implemented in recent years. At the Abbotsleigh estate, workers are employed directly by the company until 2 p.m. each day and then forced to tend the tea bushes assigned to them. This means that whole families have had to work to maintain their tea bushes, without any real increase in their income. With the backing of the government and police, the plantation companies are trying to crush all working-class opposition. Two weeks ago, Suppaiah Balasubramaniyam, a local CWC branch leader of the St Leys division of Dickoyas Annfield estate, was accused by estate management of unruly behaviour and, along with three other workers, summoned to the Dickoya police station. The so-called unruly behaviour consisted of organising protests during the national strike. Plantation Industries Minister Navin Dissanayake has pledged to support an equitable solution to workers wage demands. But his equitable solution is to implement all the proposals being demanded by the companies. P. Sundaralingam, leader of the Abbotsleigh Estate Workers Action Committee, told the WSWS yesterday that the abandonment of the 1,000-rupee wage demand was a great betrayal of the workers struggle. He also condemned the witch hunt of workers at Annfield estate and warned that the unions perfidy created the conditions for the workers to be victimised. The Abbotsleigh Estate Workers Action committee was formed under the guidance of Socialist Equality Party during the recent strike. Abbotsleigh workers, who have suffered many bitter experiences as a result of union betrayals, have begun to understand the necessity of an independent political movement of workers based on socialist policies. We urge all plantation workers to reject any union-company deal, study the analysis developed by the Socialist Equality Party and politically prepare to resume the fight to win their wage demands and defend their rights. The trade unions do not represent workers interests but defend the capitalist system. Since the collective agreement system was introduced in 1992, the unions have systematically collaborated with employers in imposing deals that defend the profit interests of the plantation companies. Nor are CWCs rivals, such as the National Union of Workers (NUW), the Democratic Peoples Front (DPF) and the Up-country Peoples Front (UPF), any different. These organisations routinely endorse the collective agreement deals signed by the CWC, the LJEWU and the JPTUC. Workers must break from all these formations and organise their own action committees to fight for their rights. The outright rejection of estate workers legitimate demands and the back-room moves to impose the so-called revenue share system are part of a broader attack on the living conditions of the entire working class. Workers can only defend their rights through the fight for socialist internationalism and for a workers and peasants government to implement socialist policies. The author also recommends: The international significance of the Sri Lankan plantation workers strike [17 December 2018] Sri Lanka: Abbotsleigh tea plantation workers speak out against harsh living and working conditions [21 December 2018] As this statement was being completed, the International Committee of the Fourth International learned of the untimely death due to cancer, on December 31, 2018 at the age of 57, of its comrade Halil Celik, the founder and leader of its sympathizing group in Turkey, Sosyalist Esitlik. This statement is dedicated to the memory of this intransigent revolutionary and fighter for Trotskyism. 1. At the start of last year, the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) stated: This new year of 2018the bicentenary of Marxs birthwill be characterized, above all, by an immense intensification of social tensions and an escalation of class conflict around the world. 2. Events have substantiated this prediction. After decades of its suppressionespecially in the aftermath of the 1989 breakdown of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe, the Chinese regimes massacre of workers and students in Tiananmen Square, and, above all, the dissolution of the Soviet Union by the Kremlin bureaucracy in December 1991the class struggle has reemerged throughout the world. A wave of strikes and demonstrations, most of which occurred in opposition to and outside the control of the official pro-capitalist parties and trade unions, swept across the entire globe, including in the United States. The year ended with the mass Yellow Vest protests that have shaken the regime of Emmanuel Macron, the president of the rich in France, and upheaval in Tunisia. The great issue of world politics is the striving of the international working class for social equality. As far back as 1995, the ICFI embodied this conception in the very founding of its national sections as the Socialist Equality Parties. 3. In 1938, in the founding document of the Fourth International, Leon Trotsky defined the epoch that had opened with the catastrophic outbreak of World War I as the Death Agony of Capitalism. Summing up the state of the world, Trotsky wrote: Mankinds productive forces stagnate. Already new inventions and improvements fail to raise the level of material wealth. Conjunctural crises under the conditions of the social crisis of the whole capitalist system inflict ever heavier deprivations and sufferings upon the masses. Growing unemployment, in its turn, deepens the financial crisis of the state and undermines the unstable monetary systems. Democratic regimes, as well as fascist, stagger on from one bankruptcy to another. [The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International, 1938] 4. All the immense problems that faced the international working class when Trotsky wrote those wordsglobal economic instability, the subjugation of entire countries by the imperialist powers, the breakdown of parliamentary democracy, the malignant rise of fascist-type movements, ferocious inter-state conflicts, and the imminent danger of world warare present today. As in the 1930s, the capitalist elite of all countries is feverishly building up its military and police state apparatus, while stoking extreme nationalism and anti-immigrant xenophobia to divert social tensions and protect its rule. So far, fascistic movements lack a genuine mass base, relying on the sponsorship of sections of the existing capitalist parties and promotion by the mass media. The danger is nevertheless clear. 5. But another social force has now entered the political arena. Repressed and dismissed for so long, the working class is beginning to assert its own independent interests. The outbreak of mass social struggles in France, in the US and internationally signals the beginning of a new revolutionary period. The disorientation and confusion that followed the defeats of the major struggles of the 1980s and the dissolution of the Soviet Union have finally given way to a mood of renewed militancy and willingness to fight back. 6. All the anti-Marxist nostrums of the intellectual and political representatives of the affluent middle class, no less than the bourgeois establishment itself, have been discreditednot only in theory, but now in mass social practice. It is not only Francis Fukuyamas proclamation that the dissolution of the Soviet Union represented the End of History and the triumph of the capitalist market that has been consigned to the dustbin of radically false political prophecies. British Stalinist historian Eric Hobsbawms claim that 1991 marked the end of the Short Twentieth Century and any possibility of socialist revolution by the working class has also proven to be myopic. 7. Moreover, the demoralized denial of the revolutionary role of the working class by the petty-bourgeois theoreticians of the Frankfurt School, the cynical postmodernist denial of objectively verifiable historical events and irrationalist incredulity toward the Marxist grand narrative of the historic centrality of the revolutionary struggle of the working class against capitalism, and the banal and scientifically worthless pontifications of self-absorbed professors on the primacy of gender, race or sexual identity, all stand exposed as ideological justifications for the domination of bourgeois rule. 8. The analysis and perspective of the ICFI has been confirmed. The contemporary world is still grappling with the essential historical challenge of the Unfinished Twentieth Centurythe conquest of political power by the working class and the transition to a socialist society. The global breakdown of capitalist rule 9. The year 2019 begins amidst the explosive interaction of geopolitical, economic and social crises. Nothing remains of the giddy optimism that prevailed within ruling circles following the demise of the Soviet Union. In fact, the mood within the international capitalist class is one of immense anxiety. The extreme turbulence that wracked the international stock exchanges as 2018 came to an end is seen as a sign that the desperate measures to revive the markets following the 2008 crash have exhausted themselves. The prevailing pessimism is summed up in the banner headline of the year-end edition of the Neue Zurcher Zeitung, the voice of Swiss bankers and the most astute of all bourgeois newspapers, which proclaimed, Conditions must first get worse. The message of the front-page statement was clear: the international ruling class will answer the worsening economic crisis with draconian measures directed against the working class. 10. The crisis facing international capitalism is of a historic and systemic character. Amid all the triumphalism that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the profusion of the ruling elites self-justifying propaganda, it has been largely forgotten that the events of 1989-91 took place under conditions where world capitalism was wracked by extreme economic, social and political instability. During the mid-1980s, as Reagan in the United States and Gorbachev in the Soviet Union wrestled with the escalating crises of their respective regimes, it was legitimate to ask (as the ICFI did) which system would collapse first. The erosion of US imperialisms dominant post-World War II global position was already far advanced. Moreover, the extraordinary technological developments associated with computerization were driving the processes of economic globalization, which were steadily undermining the entire foundation of the US-dominated imperialist system, rooted in the political unit of the national state. 11. Despite the political advantages provided to US imperialism by its Cold War victory and the betrayal of the working class by its old leaderships, the underlying crisis of world capitalism persisted. As only the ICFI recognized at the time, the restoration of capitalism by the Stalinist bureaucracies in China, Eastern Europe and the USSRwhich had all pursued hopelessly anachronistic autarchic and anti-Marxist policieswas the sharpest manifestation of the collapse of all the post-World War II programs of national economic and social regulation. 12. The principal means employed by the US ruling elite during the past three decades to sustain its global dominance has been the reckless use of military power. This has resulted in failures that have served only to exacerbate the crisis of the global system. The War on Terror, which was used to justify the illegal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and a frontal assault on democratic rights, has not only exposed the limitations of American military power. The endless neo-colonial operations have also generated mass discontent in the US and sowed deep divisions among the major imperialist powers and within the American ruling elite itself. 13. International alliances between the major capitalist powers that served as the foundation of world geopolitics after the Second World War are dissolving. Longtime allies are turning into enemies and building up their military forces. More than ten years after the financial collapse of 2008, the global economy is riven by growing national tensions and trade war. Notwithstanding the recovery of the stock market over the past decadewhich is itself now being reversedthe policies pursued by the ruling elites in response to the crash have resolved none of the underlying contradictions. The methods employed by the financial oligarchy to contain the crisis and enrich itself have only delayed the day of reckoning. 14. At the center of the global breakdown is the United States, which is in the midst of its greatest political crisis since the end of the Civil War in 1865. Trump is not a demon from hell, but rather the politically malignant manifestation of the putrefaction of American democracy. As the Socialist Equality Party (US) has repeatedly insisted, the conflict between Trump and his political opponents is between various reactionary factions of the ruling elite, centered on differences over the best means to secure US global dominance. There are no democratic or progressive sides in this conflict. The paroxysms of rage from both Democrats and Republicans over Trumps proposed (but, as yet, unimplemented) withdrawal of troops from Syria and Afghanistan expose the character of the conflict in Washington. 15. The Democratic Party represents an alliance of finance and major corporate interests, the military and intelligence agencies, and dominant sections of the foreign policy establishment, which are convinced that the inevitable conflict with China must be prepared first through the removal of Russia as an obstacle to US control of Europe, Eurasia and the Middle East. For the past two years, the Democrats have focused their opposition to Trump on a hysterical neo-McCarthyite campaign alleging Russian meddling in US politics to sow discord. The purpose has been not only to demand more aggressive action against the Putin government in Russia, but also to establish the framework for criminalizing opposition within the United States. The methods of Trumps ruling class critics, who are terrified of and opposed to anything that could mobilize mass opposition to the Trump administration, are those of palace coup intrigue. 16. For its part, the Trump administration is pursuing its own America First imperialist strategy, centered on provoking a confrontation with China. Citing Trumps former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, the New York Times explained that Trump wanted to end these military campaigns [in Syria and Afghanistan] so he could focus on the economic and geopolitical contest with China, which he views as Americas biggest foreign threat. This is not about a return to isolationism, Mr. Bannon said. Its the pivot away from the humanitarian expeditionary mentality of the internationalists. 17. All major political factions of the American ruling class are committed to a policy of world domination, using military force to offset the long-term decline of American capitalism. A quarter-century of unending regional conflicts and interventions, centered on the Middle East and Central Asia, is being superseded by great power rivalries, not only between the US and China and Russia, but also between the US and Europe. In the process, all the previous justifications for warincluding human rights and the War on Terrorare being abandoned in favor of the naked assertion of imperialist ambitions. 18. The European imperialist powers attempt at times to portray themselves as bastions of global stability against the unilateralism and destabilizing actions of American imperialism. But they are no less ruthless and no less willing to use all means, including war, in pursuit of their predatory economic and geopolitical ambitions. The German ruling class is remilitarizing. Chancellor Angela Merkel declared in an end-of-the-year speech that Germany would assume a more active (i.e., militarily aggressive) role in pursuit of its global interests. In France, Macrons efforts to rehabilitate Marshal Petain, who led the fascist Vichy regime that was allied with Nazi Germany during World War II, is linked inextricably to his promotion of French imperialism and domestic authoritarianism. 19. In Germany, the neo-Nazis in the Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) have emerged as a significant political force, with high-level support from within the state and academia. The past year has seen fascist demonstrations in Chemnitz, Germany and in Warsaw, Poland. In Italy, the neo-fascistic Lega party is part of a coalition government. In Brazil, the fascistic Jair Bolsonaro heads the most right-wing government since the end of the military dictatorship. The ultra-rightwing government of Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel is establishing the closest relations with extreme rightwing regimes and parties throughout the world. These alliances reflect the growing strength of fascist forces within Israel itself. In a column published in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on December 31, columnist Michael Sfard warned: We have to face reality. We are witnessing the flourishing of a Jewish Ku Klux Klan movement. Like its American counterpart, the Jewish version also drinks from the polluted springs of religious fanaticism and separatism, only replacing the Christian iconography with its Jewish equivalent. Like white racisms modus operandi, this Jewish racism is also based on fear mongering and violence against its equivalent of Blacksthe Palestinians. 20. The growth of far-right and fascistic movements, including the revival of anti-Semitism, poses immense danger to the working class. Under conditions of deepening capitalist crisis, unprecedented levels of social inequality and preparations for world war, the ruling elites are resurrecting all the political filth responsible for the worst crimes of the 20th century. The fact that fascism is growing rapidly within Israelwhich has the highest proportion of poor of any country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)is demonstrative proof that this political disease develops within a climate of extreme inequality, and especially in the absence of a political movement fighting for a socialist alternative to capitalism. 21. Fascism is not yet, as it was in the 1930s, a mass movement. But to ignore the growing danger would be politically irresponsible. With the support of sections of the ruling class and the state, right-wing movements have been able to exploit demagogically the frustration and anger felt by the broad mass of the population. In this situation, the fight against the resurgence of extreme right-wing and fascistic movements is an urgent political task. The fight against fascism and the lessons of history 22. All historical experienceand, in particular, the events of the 1930sdemonstrates that the fight against fascism can be developed only on the basis of the independent mobilization of the working class against capitalism. The coming to power of Hitlers Nazis in 1933 was possible only because of the betrayals of the two mass parties of the German working class, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Communist Party (KPD). 23. Hitlers victory produced shock within the European working class and an immense growth of anti-capitalist and anti-fascist militancy. But the initial advances of the working class in France and Spain ended in demoralization and defeat. The political instrument of these defeats was the Popular Frontthat is, the alliance of the Stalinist and social democratic parties and trade unions with the capitalists. The explicit basis of this alliance was the defense of capitalist interests against the revolutionary aspirations of the working class, on the false pretense of defending democracy against fascism. 24. Today, a new version of Popular Front politics is being revived under the banner of left populism. A leading theoretician of this left populism is Chantal Mouffethe mentor of Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain and Jean-Luc Melenchon in France. What is urgently needed is a left populist strategy aimed at the construction of a people, combining the variety of democratic resistances against post-democracy in order to establish a more democratic hegemonic formation, Mouffe writes in For a Left Populism. I contend that it does not require a revolutionary break with the liberal democratic regime. 25. In 1936, Trotsky explained the significance of the subordination of the working class to the capitalist class and its state machine: The political alliance of the working class leaders with the bourgeoisie is disguised as the defense of the republic. The experiences of Spain show what this defense is in actuality. The word republican, like the word democrat, is a deliberate charlatanism that serves to cover up class contradictions. The bourgeoisie is republican so long as the republic defends private property. [Lessons of Spain, 1936] 26. Left populism is not merely a repetition of the Popular Front politics of the 1930s. While bearing certain similarities to the politics of popular frontismparticularly in its subservience to the capitalistsit has no historical, let alone political, connection to the working class. It specifically opposes, in the words of Mouffe, those who keep reducing politics to the contradiction of capital/labor and attribute an ontological privilege to the working class, presented as the vehicle for socialist revolution. That is, it repudiates the entire foundation of Marxist politics. 27. In opposition to Marxism and socialism, the politics of Mouffe and the pseudo-left advocates the formation of an amorphous, programmatically undefined, supra-class and nationalist movement. As Mouffe explicitly states, the left-populist movement neither identifies itself as socialist nor calls for a struggle against the capitalist state. It envisions the possibility of finding points of agreement and collaboration with the extreme right, as Syriza has done in Greece and Podemos in Spain. Opposing the fight to win the working class to a socialist program, the left populism of the pseudo-left advocates the utilization of myths and other forms of irrationalist politics. 28. Left populism is one expression of the politics of the pseudo-left, which has its theoretical origins in the demoralized denial of the revolutionary role of the working class by the theoreticians of the Frankfurt School and the postmodernist denial of objective truth and the Marxist and Trotskyist grand narrative of the revolutionary class struggle. Pseudo-left politics, based on the elevation of race, gender, sexual identity and the people, is the politics of a privileged layer of the middle class, the top 10 percent of the population, which is covered over with left phraseology and slogans like the Party of the 99 Percent. 29. Connected to the soaring stock market and the staggering concentration of wealth in the richest 10 percent, the interests of this layer and its mode of life are entirely divorced from the concerns of the great mass of working people. Substantial sections of academia, in a manner reminiscent of the period preceding World War I, have moved sharply to the right, throwing their support behind imperialism and censorship. This finds specific expression in the support of the pseudo-left organizations for imperialist militarism (i.e., the interventions in Syria and Libya, support for human rights interventions, anti-Russia hysteria, etc.). 30. The politics of racial, gender and sexual identity promoted by the organizations of the pseudo-left is bound up with conflicts within the top 10 percent over the distribution of wealth and access to positions within corporations, universities, the trade unions and the state apparatus. The weaponization of identity politicswhich has found particularly vicious expression in the reactionary and anti-democratic #MeToo movement and, for example, support for the persecution of Julian Assangeis not only a means of securing wealth and status. It is a specific component of bourgeois-imperialist politics, reflecting the alignment of a substantial stratum of the very affluent middle class (the top 90 to 99 percent) with the ruling elite. Of course, exceptions to this rule are always to be found. In periods of intensifying social conflict, there will be individuals who will break away from their class milieu and give their support, and with considerable personal commitment and courage, to the revolutionary socialist cause. But political strategy cannot be based on the activities of exceptional individuals, i.e., the traitors to their class. Thus, when the pseudo-left calls for a Party of the 99 Percent, asserting an identity of class and economic interests between the wealthy denizens of the 90 to 99 percent income bracket with the lower 90 percent, it is perpetrating a political fraud. A Party of the 99 Percent could be nothing other than a political organization in which the interests of the overwhelming mass of the working class population are subordinated to the economic and social interests of the capitalist elite. 31. While more affluent sections of the middle class are moving to the right, lower strata are moving to the left. The Yellow Vest movement in France attracted forces not only from the working class, but also from small businessmen and farmers. Predictably, the trade union bureaucracy and representatives of the affluent pseudo-left in France (i.e., Alain Krivine of the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA), Jean-Luc Melenchon of Unsubmissive France) seized upon the presence of segments of the middle class in the Yellow Vest protests in order to slander it as fascist. But the fact that sections of the middle class have been drawn to the working class and are protesting over issues of social inequality is a positive development of immense significance. It indicates that at this stage of the developing social movement, important elements of the middle class are prepared to align themselves with the working class against capitalism. 32. Thus, the urgent task for the working class is to demonstrate its ability to provide leadership in this fight. In a complex and socially heterogeneous society, in which the working population is composed of diverse strata encompassing a wide range of income groups, the necessity of unifying this vast social force is an immense political task. This task can be successfully accomplished only to the extent that the working class is armed with a clear and uncompromising anti-capitalist program. On this basis, it can win over to its side not only the more affluent strata of professionals that comprise an important segment of the working class population in all advanced capitalist societies, but also layers of the middle class that are oppressed by oligarchic capitalism. Trotskys analysis of the social psychology of the middle class, written 80 years ago when this stratum constituted a more distinct non-working class element in society than it does today, retains immense relevance: Political developments in the coming period will move at a febrile rhythm. The petty bourgeoisie will reject the demagogy of Fascism only if it puts its faith in the reality of another road. That other road is the road of proletarian revolution To bring the petty bourgeoisie to its side, the proletariat must win its confidence. And for that it must have confidence in its own strength. It must have a clear program of action and must be ready to struggle for power by all possible means. [Whither France?, 1934] The ICFI and the strategy of world socialist revolution 33. The alternatives that confront the working class are not Reform or Revolution, but rather Revolution or Counterrevolution. How the death agony of the capitalist system is resolvedwhether by the capitalist methods of dictatorship, fascism, imperialist war and a collapse into barbarism, or through the revolutionary conquest of power by the international working class and the transition to a socialist societywill be determined by the outcome of the class struggle on a world scale. The historical perspective first elaborated by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto has acquired an acute actuality. The escalating conflict between the capitalist elite and the working class will end either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. 34. The past 40 years have been marked by a constant attack on the social and democratic rights of the working class. This assault has been aided and abetted by the very organizationsespecially the trade unionsto which workers once gave support. 35. The decades-long period of social counterrevolution, however, is now encountering mass opposition. The struggles that developed in the past year were objective indications of a significant change in the social and political orientation of the working class. While still in its initial stages, a mood of militancy, conducive to intransigent struggle, is spreading rapidly. Of course, there remain many ideological and political problems that need to be overcome in order for this mood to assume the form of an open struggle against capitalism and for socialism. But broad sections of the working class are coming to understand that direct struggle is unavoidable. Moreover, the fact that the struggles in 2018 occurred outside the control of the official state-sponsored unions demonstrates a critical loss of confidence among workers in these reactionary organizations. As the ICFI anticipated, the fight for social equality and world socialism will take the initial form of a global rebellion against these discredited, pro-capitalist apparatuses. 36. It is impossible to predict the exact tempo of events, which are influenced by a vast and interacting complex of national and, above all, global factors. However, what can be predicted with certainty is that the upswing in militant struggles of the working class will continue in 2019. But the transformation of this intensifying social militancy into a conscious movement of the international working class for socialism depends upon the building of Marxist-Trotskyist parties in the working classthat is, national sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International. 37. In 2018, the ICFI celebrated the 80th anniversary of Leon Trotskys founding of the Fourth International to continue the fight for Marxism against the Stalinist betrayal of the Russian Revolution and socialist internationalism. At lectures and meetings held in Sri Lanka, across the United States, in Europe and in Australia and New Zealand, the question was answered: What accounts for the historical persistence of the Fourth International? Above all, it is the correspondence of the internationalist perspective of the Fourth International with the objective character of the epoch. 38. All the nationalist organizations and parties that exercised political influence in the post-World War II periodfrom Stalinism and its Maoist variant, to social democratic and trade union reformism, to petty-bourgeois movements such as Castroismhave collapsed or been transformed into principal instruments of capitalist rule. In the case of the Chinese regime, despite the immense economic development in China over the past four decades, it has failed to resolve the historic problems of countries with a belated development. The Chinese working class and rural masses are still confronted with the reality of imperialist encirclement and face the threat of a devastating attack by the US and its allies. The Maoist Communist Party apparatus is a principal bulwark of world capitalism and incapable of making any credible appeal to the working class internationally to oppose the war agenda of the imperialist powers. 39. During the past year the Chinese working class has resorted to strikes to register its protest against the consequences of capitalist restoration. These struggles have won the support of sections of student youth. It is unquestionable that the expansion of social struggles in Chinaand, for that matter, throughout all countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, which have seen a massive growth of the working class during the past four decadeswill lead to a resurgence of interest in and support for Trotskyism. Conditions that exist in the contemporary world, no less than the historical experiences of the last century, confirm the essential tenets of the theory of permanent revolution elaborated by Leon Trotsky: The completion of the socialist revolution within national limits is unthinkable. One of the basic reasons for the crisis in bourgeois society is the fact that the productive forces created by it can no longer be reconciled with the framework of the national state. From this follows, on the one hand, imperialist wars, on the other, the utopia of a bourgeois United States of Europe. The socialist revolution begins on the national arena, it unfolds on the international arena, and is completed on the world arena. Thus, the socialist revolution becomes a permanent revolution in a newer and broader sense of the word; it attains completion only in the final victory of the new society on our entire planet. [What is the Permanent Revolution? 1931] 40. It was to defend this perspective that the International Committee was established in 1953, following the Open Letter issued by Socialist Workers Party leader James P. Cannon in opposition to the Pabloite revisionist tendency, which sought to destroy the Trotskyist movement and liquidate the Fourth International into Stalinism and bourgeois nationalism. The defense of Trotskys political heritage has been fought out over a vast terrain, encompassing the defense of dialectical and historical materialist theory against pragmatism and its various subjective idealist and irrationalist offshoots (i.e., the Frankfurt School and Postmodernism), and intransigent opposition to Stalinism, Pabloite revisionism (and its Morenoite variant), and all forms of bourgeois nationalism. The critical milestone in the history of the ICFI was its struggle between 1982 and 1986 against the national opportunism of the British Workers Revolutionary Party, which secured the unification of sections of the IC on the basis of Trotskyism. 41. The struggle of the ICFI did not unfold only in the realm of theory and program. The investigation conducted between 1975 and 1983, known as Security and the Fourth International, into the deployment of agents by imperialism and the Soviet Stalinist bureaucracy demonstrated in practice the revolutionary intransigence of the International Committee. This investigation was conducted in the face of the bitter opposition of the Pabloite organizations, which openly defended the agents, including those who played critical roles in preparing the assassination of Trotsky, such as Mark Zborowski, Sylvia Caldwell and Joseph Hansen. Even to this day, the Pabloites and their pseudo-left allies continue to defend these agents and denounce the findings of Security and the Fourth International in the most vehement terms. But they are incapable of refuting a single fact established in the course of the investigation. During the past five years, documents have emerged that further substantiate the findings of Security and the Fourth International. The International Committee has incorporated this new information into its earlier findings. Under conditions of mounting state attacks on the working class and its democratic rights, the findings of Security and the Fourth International acquire renewed historical and contemporary political significance. 42. Events are now demonstrating the historical and political significance of the struggle waged by the ICFI in defense of Trotskyism. Theoretically and in practice, the ICFI has established that it is the sole revolutionary political party of the international working class and the sole representative of genuine Marxism. There is not a political tendency in the world outside of the ICFI that can plausibly claim to represent the continuity of the international party founded by Trotsky in 1938. 43. The ICFI has waged a continuous campaign against all attempts to falsify the history of the Russian Revolution and to defend the intellectual and political legacy of Leon Trotsky against numerous slanders and attacks. In 2017, to mark the centenary of the Russian Revolution, the ICFI carried out a thorough study of its immense strategic lessons. These lessons are being brought into the political situation today. 44. The ICFI is leading the fight for the political independence of the working class, establishing that the logic of workers struggles is a rebellion against the pro-capitalist bureaucratic apparatuses and the necessity to form new, democratically controlled rank-and-file factory and shop floor organizations that assume responsibility, independently of the pro-corporate unions, for the defense of workers interests. In the final weeks of 2018, auto workers in the United States and tea plantation workers in Sri Lanka, under the influence of the ICFI, took pioneering steps, forming rank-and-file committees to plan out action in defense of jobs, wages and conditions. This work will continue and expand in the course of 2019. The independent and uncompromising struggles of the working class will win the confidence and support of ruined sections of the middle classes, which might otherwise be drawn behind the demagogy of the extreme right. As the impact of the economic and political crises drives ever broader sections of the working class into struggle, the task of Socialist Equality Parties in the United States, Sri Lanka and in all the countries in which they are active is to provide organization and political direction to the mass movement. The objective impulse toward a general political strike, drawing together all sections of the working class in a fight for power, must be consciously identified and explained by the International Committee and its sections. 45. At its December 9 conference of rank-and-file workers in Detroit, representatives of the Socialist Equality Party were asked two critical questions: 1) Will the World Socialist Web Site serve as an instrument for facilitating contact among all sections of workers engaged in struggle; and 2) Will the WSWS assist workers in the international coordination of their struggles? The answer given to both questions was, unequivocally, Yes. The World Socialist Web Site, the Internet publication of the ICFI, will provide the increasingly insurgent and militant movement of the international working class with historical education, political analysis and a voice and forum for discussion. The WSWS will continue to be at the forefront of the fight against Internet censorship and for the defense of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and all persecuted journalists, whistleblowers, artists and principled critics of the ruling class. 46. The most crucial task in 2019 is to work systematically for a significant expansion of the International Committee. Ever more directly, the theoretical and political work of the International Committee is intersecting with the objective movement of the working class. Its critical-practical revolutionary activity is becoming an essential factor in the development and outcome of the revolutionary class struggle. The theoretically and historically informed analysis of the ICFI is acquiring immense political and practical significance. The International Committee of the Fourth International must meet the challenge of this new situation. In its analysis of world developments and through the political work of its adherents active in the Socialist Equality Parties and their affiliated youth movements, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), the ICFI must impart to the struggles of the international working class the necessary consciousness of its goals and assist in the development of the practical initiatives required to advance the fight for socialism. 47. As the working class breaks with the outmoded and reactionary nationalist organizations and trade unions, and their pseudo-left accomplices, the potential exists for the rapid development of internationalist revolutionary Marxist consciousness and practice. The ICFI enters 2019 with the greatest optimism, based on a scientific confidence in the heritage and program of Trotskyism, the Marxism of the 21st century, and the revolutionary capacities of the international working class. On December 24, the Mexican Chamber of Deputies approved the first budget of the new leftist president of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO). The funding package is characterized by a massive increase in military spending, negligible funds for social programs, and the creation of a new free economic zone at the US-Mexico border to further exploit Mexican, US and Central American workers. AMLO proposed the budget under conditions in which his party, the Movement for National Regeneration (Morena), holds large majorities in both houses of Congress. Millions of people voted for AMLO and Morena with the expectation that, holding every lever of power, they would be able to carry out what AMLO has called a historic fourth transformation of Mexican society. The new administrations financial plan strips away his populist pretensions and exposes precisely what is meant by change under the capitalist government of AMLO. The new governments leftist credentials consist of paltry programs that will leave social conditions intact, while blaming government employees and corruptionnot the capitalist systemfor the top 10 percent of Mexicans controlling 70 percent of the countrys wealth. Markets and international commentators have celebrated the budget for its fiscal responsibility, with the value of the peso increasing by 0.7 percent after its release. The new administration is keen to show more conservative fiscal management from the get-go, wrote BNP Paribas bank. Finance capital has commended the budget precisely because it protects the interests of the ruling elite. Meanwhile, massive sums have been granted for repressive measures that will be used against any independent movement of the working class as it becomes disillusioned with Morena and turns to a fight for genuine social equality. AMLO and Morena awarded the Mexican military its largest funding package in history, with an 11 percent increase from the Pena Nieto administrations 2018 budget. Although he campaigned under the promise of removing the Armed Forces from domestic security operations, AMLO has backtracked by announcing the creation of a new National Guard that will be composed of between 120,000 and 150,000 members by 2021. The National Guard amounts to a new wing of the military and will be controlled by military brass. This massive military increase must be seen in the context of a growing crisis at the US-Mexico border. On December 20, the Trump administration announced that it would immediately deport new Central American asylum seekers to Mexico pending the resolution of their asylum claims, which the AMLO administration agreed to enforce. This sets the stage for an explosion of anger by tens of thousands of immigrants who did not escape extreme poverty and gang violence to be condemned to a life of shantytowns at the border. As workers and peasants become more desperate, the Mexican military and National Guard will be deployed to carry out the dirty work of US imperialism. A policy of repression is being combined with a slashing of social assistance for refugees. Despite the fact that refugee applications skyrocketed by more than 1,140 percent in the past four years, the new budget reduced refugee funding by 20 percent. As for the profound and radical change promised by AMLO, this amounts to a sum of about $48.5 million (922.7 billion pesos), or less than $2.50 for every person in Mexico for the entire year. One of AMLOs flagship programs, Youth Building the Future, will provide 300,000 high school students with $117 (2,400 pesos) each month. Another 2.3 million youth will be given $191 a month to work as interns for one year. The cosmetic nature of the program becomes transparent when compared to the objective needs of the working class, including trillions of dollars for universal, high-quality education. Only 17 percent of youth between 25 and 64 have a college degree, and the average educational attainment for Mexicans is middle school. Only 21 percent of those who enroll in college graduate, half of which drop out due to insufficient financial resources to continue their education. Another one of AMLOs supposed progressive programs is the doubling of pensions for retirees and the disabled to $74 (1,500 pesos) per month. Individuals must be 68 years old to receive the funds, while indigenous populations must be 65 years of age. The sum is less than half of the minimum monthly wage and will keep millions of workers from retiring who cannot afford basic necessities like rent or health care. About 34 percent of adults over 60 and 14 percent of adults over 75 were active in the labor force in 2017. A pittance for the poor is being combined with a bonanza for corporations. On Monday, AMLO has announced a new free economic zone at the US-Mexico border that will slash the value-added tax in half, from 16 to 8 percent. The top income tax at the border will also decrease from 30 to 20 percent. The new free economic zone will reportedly be the largest in the world and will stretch from Baja California on the Pacific coast to Tamaulipas on the Gulf of Mexico. AMLO has sought to sell what amounts to a new state-sponsored center of exploitation by raising the minimum daily wage in the new economic zone to $9or a little more than one dollar per hour in an eight hour day. Despite being slightly higher minimum wages than the rest of Mexico, these remain poverty wages that will be clawed back through more exploitative working conditions and fewer benefits for Mexican, Central American and US workers. The tax cuts are also estimated to leave a budget shortfall of $610 billion (120 billion pesos), which will be paid for through cuts in social services for these same workers and youth. The first month of AMLOs administration has already confirmed the assessment made by the World Socialist Web Site on the eve of last years elections in Mexico that Sooner rather than later, a Morena-led administration will betray the mass aspirations for an end to the social hardship and suffering that Lopez Obrador has cynically exploited. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents began the new year early Tuesday with a barrage of tear gas, smoke bombs, pepper spray and plastic pellets fired at a group of migrants, including children, trying to cross from Mexico to apply for asylum in the United States at the border between Tijuana and San Ysidro. Shortly after, the nearby border crossing at Otay Mesa was closed in a show of force by a phalanx of border agents dressed in full riot gear and armed with shields. Hundreds of immigrants are waiting at the crossing to file their asylum claims. According to the Associated Press (AP), border agents fired three volleys of gas at the group of approximately 150 people in Mexico as they sought to cross a border fence near the Playas neighborhood in northwest Tijuana. Women, children and journalists were all hit by the gas, resulting in severe eye pain and choking. Children were reportedly being passed through concertina wire in a desperate effort to reach the US. The CBP reported that it detained 25 people during the assault, while others were able to escape back into Mexico through a hole in the fence. Photos and video of the assault evoke scenes from the Gaza Strip, where Israeli soldiers routinely fire tear gas and live rounds at Palestinians who approach Israels border fence. The CBP released a statement shortly after the incident insisting that tear gas was fired only after migrants threw rocks at heavily armored border agents and that no immigrants waiting at the border were impacted: No agents witnessed any of the migrants at the fence line, including children, experiencing effects of the chemical agents, which were targeted at the rock throwers further away. However, this was exposed as a lie by an Associated Press (AP) photographer at the scene who reported that rocks were thrown by migrants only after they were provoked by the volley of tear gas. Video from the scene shows one person throwing a tear gas canister back in the direction of the border agents. The New Years Day assault follows a similar attack in late November, in which a joint patrol of US military and border patrol agents fired tear gas and pointed their assault rifles at a group of immigrants seeking to cross from Tijuana into the US. It also comes after the deaths last month of two Guatemalan children, 8-year-old Felipe Alonzo-Gomez and 7-year-old Jakelin Caal, in CBP custody. Several of the migrants involved in Tuesdays incident told the AP they had arrived in Tijuana in December as part of a caravan of workers and peasants fleeing unemployment and gang violence in Honduras. The Trump administration has implemented new policies that have slowed the processing of asylum claims at official ports of entry to a crawl, effectively denying the right to asylum for all Central Americans crossing the border. Trump seized on news of the caravan during the midterm elections in November to stoke anti-immigrant xenophobia among his far-right base and to deploy nearly 6,000 active duty soldiers to the border in violation of the law. Nearly 3,000 soldiers are still actively involved in assisting CBP patrols and erecting barriers along the border, though it is not clear as of this writing if any soldiers participated in Tuesdays attack. Central American workers seeking a better life in the US are now faced with the options of living in makeshift slums and tent encampments along the border, returning home to face death at the hands of gangs or abusive partners, or making a daring attempt to cross an increasingly restricted and militarized border. After fleeing conditions created by American invasions, IMF-dictated austerity programs and US-backed coups and dictatorships, these workers and their children confront tear gas, barbed wire and desert detention camps. Trump has forced a partial shutdown of the federal government, now heading toward its third week, over his demand that Democrats support his request for $5 billion in funding for a southern border wall, leaving 800,000 federal employees furloughed or forced to work without a paycheck. While the media has presented this as a fierce showdown between Trump and the Republicans on one side pushing for a wall and the Democrats on the other opposing the wall, both sides agree on carrying out anti-immigrant measures, including increasing border security. As Trump himself has repeatedly pointed out, the Democrats in Congress have routinely voted for increased militarization of the US-Mexico border, including hundreds of miles of fencing to make border crossings much more difficult. Incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer made clear at a meeting with Trump in the White House last month that they were eager to strike a deal that would dispense with a wall in name only. We have a disagreement about the wall. Whether its effective or not. Not on border security, but on the wall, Schumer told Trump. The Washington Post, politically allied with the Democratic Party, denounced Trump and the government shutdown in an editorial Tuesday afternoon for allowing several hundred undocumented immigrants to dodge deportation orders each day the shutdown continues. This is the outcome of the furloughing of most federal immigration judges and the closure of immigration courts during the shutdown. The Post s editorial board declared the indefinite deferment of deportation of hundreds of immigrant workers not currently in federal detention, who will have a ruling on their cases postponed for another few years, to be among the more perverse effects of the shutdown. Thousands of people are living on the streets in every UK town and city and a record number of roofless people are dying. One encounters homeless people on every major high streetsitting, sleeping, begging, wrapped in a sleeping bag or blankets in an attempt to keep out the winter cold. Homelessness shot to national prominence again over the holiday period when a man died just feet from Parliament on December 20. Hungarian national Gyula Remes had been homeless for the last three months. According to friends, he had just found a job as a chefs assistant and was hoping to be off the streets soon. His death came as the Office for National Statistics revealed figures showing that almost 600 people died in 2017 while sleeping rough on the streets. The grim tally of 597 dead marks a 24 percent increase over the last five years, with the highest numbers in London and the north west of England. Over the last five years, an estimated 2,627 homeless people have perished on the streets. There were 50 deaths on the streets of Greater Manchester last year, with homeless people dying at a higher rate, relative to population, than London, where 136 homeless people died. In the regions main city, Manchester, on December 26, Tony Lawless, who had been a rough sleeper on and off since the death of his father, was found dead in Rochdale canal. The former market worker had just been released from North Manchester General after collapsing on Christmas Day and was 51 years old. Homeless people often resort to sleeping in refuse bins, which has led to several deaths. Last January, Russell Lane, 51, died from his injuries after being tipped into the back of a refuse lorry in Rochester, Kent. He had wrapped himself in a disused roll of carpet in the bin. The number of rough sleepers in England doubled in 2017 to 4,571, from 1,768 in 2010, according to the House of Commons Library, which also reported average life expectancy for a rough sleeper at just 47 for a male and 43 for a woman. The first published deaths of the homeless on the street coincide with the latest figures released by the Crisis charity, revealing a record 170,000 families and individuals without homes. The number is expected to rise. Research carried out at Heriot-Watt University on behalf of Crisis found a year-on-year increase in homelessness between 2012 and 2017. Approximately 38,000 under-25s and 4,200 over-65s are homeless. There are 170,800 homeless households in comparison to 151,600 in 2012. Included in this figure are those who are rough sleeping, sofa-surfing, or staying in hostels. Crisis lays the blame at the doors of government, including policies which have created an acute shortage of genuinely affordable social housing, reduced Housing Benefit which no longer covers rent and is not available to under 25s, and youth thrust out of the care system aged 18 without provision. John Sparkes, chief executive, said, This new research echoes what we see every day in our front-line workthat there is no such thing as a typical homeless person this crisis is affecting people who range from young care-leavers to pensioners. This is a wake-up call to see homelessness as a national emergency. These figures are corroborated by housing charity Shelter, which revealed at the end of November that there are 320,000 homeless people living in Britain, an increase of 25,000 since last year. This figure, which includes people in working families, is likely an underestimate. Official figures only include those in contact with local authorities and not the hidden homeless residing with family or friends. Shelter Chief executive Polly Neate said, Due to the perfect storm of spiralling rents, welfare cuts and a total lack of social housing, record numbers of people are sleeping out on the streets or stuck in the cramped confines of a hostel room. The charity cited one of the causes of rising homelessness as the low level of housing benefita means-tested welfare benefit to help meet costs for rented accommodationwhich does not cover average rent. The local housing allowance in Manchester, for example, is set at 532 a month for a family needing a three-bedroom house. However, private landlords, apart from student lets, ask for rents of 800 per month and upwards. The homeless crisis has become so visible and public anger so widespread that Theresa Mays Conservative government has been forced to retract its previous denial of responsibility. Just prior to Christmas, Housing Minister James Brokenshire said the Conservatives need to ask ourselves some very hard questions regarding the increase in rough sleepers since the government came to office, and that what was necessary were changes to policy. This was just PR, with the government doing virtually nothing to ameliorate an appalling crisis. After announcing the end of austerity in September, May allocated a measly 100 milliona repackaging of money already announcedas part of the governments Rough Sleepers Strategy that is supposedly to eradicate rough sleeping by 2027! Leading politicians of all parties, whose austerity policies over decades are responsible for the crisis, interrupted their Christmas celebrations for a show of sympathy for the homeless and destitute. In recent weeks, the public have been forced to endure the obscene spectacle of Conservative MPs visiting food banks and supermarket food bank drop-off points for photo-ops. Among these were Dominic Raab, who infamously said in 2017 that those using foodbanks were people who had a cashflow problem episodically. The reality is that huge swathes of the population are going hungry and being forced onto the streets due to more than a decade of brutal anti-social policies, such as the bedroom tax and universal credit. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn visited a homeless hostel run by Crisis in his Islington constituency on Christmas Eve. In his Christmas message he invoked the spirit of the Good Samaritan, while his government-in-waiting has bent over backwards to reassure the rich it will not encroach on their ill-gotten gains to provide essential services. Labours promise of initial funding of 100 million for one year into a rough sleepers cold weather fund is derisory and would not end rough sleeping. Corbyn acknowledged as much when he suggested Labour in office would repeal the 1824 Vagrancy Act, under which there have been 2,365 prosecutions in 2015-2016. This would make it legal to sleep and beg on the streets but would not eradicate the causes of destitution. The homeless crisis is an indictment of a failed system, capitalism. Beginning in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher, and pursued enthusiastically by subsequent Labour governments, over 1.5 million council houses were sold off as the building of new stock ground to a halt. Last year only 6,463 homes were built in England for social rent, while 1.25 million families are on the waiting list. Labour councils throughout the UK have implemented every cut imposed by central government and implemented privatisation of services with zeal. In London, residents have organised in opposition to the regeneration plans of Labours mayor Sadiq Khan, which involve the demolition of 8,000 council estate homes so property developers can get their hands on prime real estate to make a killing. Greater Manchesters social housing stock has declined by 5 percent in the six years since 2012 and 85,639 households languish on Labour council-run housing waiting lists. This led to 2,000 children spending their Christmas in emergency accommodation. Gentrification and social cleansing are happening everywhere, with city skylines crowded with cranes and newly built luxury high-rise blocks that are unaffordable to everyone but the richest. The resources can and must be found to provide safe, decent homes for all. The wealth of the billionaires and super-rich, acquired by exploiting the working class, must be expropriated to meet urgent, life or death, social needs. On New Years Eve, the US Strategic Command, which oversees the United States nuclear arsenal, posted a tweet declaring its readiness to drop something much, much bigger than the big ball at Times Square in New York. The implication of the tweet is that the United States military is not only quite ready to kill people with nuclear weapons for a third time, but quite eager. Within hours of being posted, the tweet was deleted, and replaced by a follow-up message: Our previous NYE tweet was in poor taste & does not reflect our values. We apologize. We are dedicated to the security of America & allies. The original post read, #TimesSquare tradition rings in the #NewYear by dropping the big ball if ever needed, we are #ready to drop something much, much bigger. The tweet threatening to kill millions of people was, oddly enough, dismissed as a joke about dropping bombs, by the Washington Post. Of course, nothing about the tweet is a joke. It is in fact consistent with US military doctrine, and the constant and repeated emphasis by commanders that the military be ready to fight tonight. Unlike other nuclear powers, including China and India, the United States reserves the right to the first use of nuclear weapons. This means that, effectively, there are no internal constraints if the notoriously impetuous American president Donald Trump were to decide to drop something. And not just the president. In his recently published book, former US military researcher and nuclear planner Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971, made clear that for decades the ability to launch nuclear attacks was delegated to an unknown number of military commanders far beyond the American president. Ellsberg makes a compelling argument that this delegation continues to this day. In the book, Ellsberg argues that Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubricks 1964 film about a mad airbase commander ordering a bomber strike that triggers the destruction of the world, is a documentary about the massive dangers of nuclear war, both intentional and accidental, which stand to trigger the destruction of humanity. Besides brief write-ups in the New York Times, Washington Post and other publications, the media has ignored the incident. There has been no reporting beyond the briefest accounts of the tweet, its retraction, and the Pentagons good-natured declarations that a video accompanying the tweet shows a bomber dropping a nonnuclear munition. There has been no commentary. And the issue has not come up in any reported press briefings, in the White House or otherwise. Some questions about the incident that would be asked by a serious reporter at a Pentagon press briefing might include: Has the author of the tweet been formally disciplined? Did the author of the tweet violate orders or protocol? Was any insubordination involved? If so, could this point to a broader breakdown of discipline within the US military command in charge of nuclear forces? But of course, such questions are simply not asked, and the emphasis of the media is to sweep the whole thing under the rug as quickly as possible. In this, the media is taking the same approach it took last January when some 1.5 million people in Hawaii received, without explanation, an emergency phone alert reading BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. In that case, too, the media simply moved on, with no opinion pieces or follow-up investigations of the event. The threat from the US Strategic Command comes as the United States is in the midst of a massive $1.3 trillion program to refurbish and expand its nuclear weapons, with an emphasis on building smaller weapons that are more likely to be used in combat. Earlier this month, the White House released a Nuclear Posture Review further expanding the circumstances in which the United States could use nuclear weapons and upholding its right to their first use. The Nuclear Posture Review is itself part of the framework of great power conflict spelled out in last years National Security Strategy, which specifically presents conflict with nuclear-armed Russia and China, and not the war on terror, as being the preeminent focus of the US military. Multimedia Producer Kara is an Emmy Award-winning digital producer. She is a Cincinnati native and an alumna of the University of South Carolina. She previously worked at WRDW-TV in Augusta, Ga., before moving to Nashville five years ago to work at WSMV-TV. Cambodia is an Asian nation, spanning roughly 69,898 square miles. The nation is considered one of the most rapidly growing economies on the continent. At the moment, international financial organizations consider Cambodia to be one of the lower middle-income nations. In 2017, the Cambodian gross domestic product was ranked as the 105th highest in the world, according to World Bank data, while its per capita gross domestic product was ranked as the 141st highest in the world, according to the International Monetary Fund. The Cambodian economy is reliant on several natural resources with the most important ones being the arable land, water, and minerals. Natural Resources of Cambodia Minerals Cambodia has been blessed with a variety of mineral resources that have the potential to contribute significantly to the economy. Some of the most critical minerals in Cambodia include iron ore, copper, and gold. Most of Cambodia's mineral resources are yet to be adequately exploited due to several factors. As a result of the low rate of mineral exploitation in Cambodia, the mining sector only contributes dismally to the country's gross domestic product. In 2005, the Cambodian government estimated that the mining sector contributed roughly 0.4% of the country's gross domestic product. At the time, the Cambodian labor department estimated that it accounted for approximately 0.2% of the Cambodian gross domestic product. The Cambodian government passed laws to increase the significance of the country's mineral sector and trying to attract foreign investors. Gold From 1994 to 2006, the Cambodian government issued two licenses for gold exploration in the country. The gold exploration in Cambodia was successful, and several gold reserves were discovered in the nation in areas such as Andoung Meas and Ban Lung. At the moment, an Australian company, Great Australian Resources Limited, has the right to mine for gold in Cambodia after it acquired Liberty Mining International. In 2006, Great Australian Resources Limited conducted further exploration into the gold reserves of Cambodia. Oil Cambodia has vast deposits of oil which is part of the most important natural resources. Despite the vast amounts of oil within Cambodia's borders, the nation has not begun to exploit it commercially. Since Cambodia has not begun using its oil reserves, the country is forced to import petroleum products from other countries such as Thailand and Vietnam. Data from the Cambodian government indicated that the nation had six offshore regions where oil was explored as well as 19 onshore regions. Experts believe that Cambodia's offshore blocks, particularly Block A, are more likely to produce oil first before the onshore blocks. One of the blocks is considered to have close to 30 million barrels of oil. The Cambodian government agreed with a company based in Singapore to share any revenue from the Block A offshore field. The major challenge facing the Cambodian oil industry is the fluctuation of global oil prices which discouraged companies such as Chevron from investing in the Cambodian oil sector. Natural Gas Cambodia also has significant deposits of natural gas located both onshore and offshore. Like Cambodia's oil reserves, the country's reserves of natural gas are yet to be exploited. Because Cambodia is believed to have vast deposits of natural gas, companies from all over the world have expressed interest in exploring for gas in the country. One of the first companies that began exploring for natural gas in Cambodia was the Japanese firm Japan Oil Gas Metals Corporation. According to some experts, Cambodia is expected to be one of the leading producers of natural gas in the future. Arable Land In Cambodia, according to statistics from the World Bank, roughly 22% of the country's land was considered arable. The amount of arable land in Cambodia has been increasing steadily since the early 1990s due to government policies that encouraged agriculture. Agriculture is one of Cambodia's most important economic sectors since in 2012 it contributed roughly 35% of the country's gross domestic product. Agriculture's contribution to the Cambodian gross domestic product has decreased significantly and in 1985 it contributed close to 90% of the country's gross domestic product. The Cambodian labor department estimated that in 2010 close to 60% of the Cambodian labor force was employed in the agrarian sector. Some of Cambodia's most essential crops include rice, cassava, and soybeans. Due to the importance of agriculture to the Cambodian economy, the government has put in place several measures to grow the agricultural sector. The agricultural sector has been identified as having the potential to reduce poverty in Cambodia. Rice Rice is the most valuable crop to the Cambodian people, and it is grown in some areas. The most valuable rice growing areas in Cambodia is located in several provinces such as Prey Veng, Kampong Thum, and Kandal. The amount of rice grown in other areas is significantly lower than the quantities of rice in these regions. Despite the importance of rice to the Cambodian people, the nation has one of the lowest rice produced per hectare on the Asian continent. The Cambodian government has introduced new breeds of rice to increase the country's rice yields. Livestock Cambodian farmers keep a variety of livestock such as buffaloes, goats, and cattle. The most crucial livestock in Cambodia are the oxen and buffaloes since they are used to prepare rice fields before cultivation. During the 1960s and the 1970s, the number of livestock in Cambodia has been declining which hampered the expansion of the country's agricultural sector. Forests Cambodia has been blessed with a diverse array of forests that range from mangrove forests. The World Bank estimated that in 2015, forests covered roughly 53.6% of the nation's territory. Cambodia's forest cover has been declining steadily since 2004 due to extensive exploitation. Cambodian forests are mainly used to produce firewood and timber. The major challenge facing the Cambodian forestry industry is the fact that it relies on child labor. The Cambodian government is actively working to eradicate child labor in the forestry sector. The Cambodian Economy For close to two decades, the Cambodian economy has developed at a rapid rate. Data indicated that from 1995 to 2017, the Cambodian economy was the sixth most rapidly developing in the world. Financial experts believe that the Cambodian economy will continue to grow in the coming years. Canada accounts for about 10% of the world's forest fires. In particular, the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan experience more wildfires than other parts of the country. In 2018 alone, fires ravaged 1,298,454 hectares of forest in British Columbia, which can be compared with the 766,439 hectares destroyed by fire in the US state of California. Wildfires in Canada rarely encroach on human settlements, and therefore have resulted in limited loss of life and destruction of property, unlike California, where significant loss of life and property destruction have been reported in recent years. City and residential fires occur throughout the country, but well-developed fire suppression infrastructure help ensure that such fires are contained before they cause significant loss of life. The deadliest fires in Canadian history are discussed below. The Three Deadliest Fires in Canadian History Matheson Fire The Matheson Fire was a forest fire that ravaged Iroquois Falls and Black River-Matheson in Ontario on July 29, 1916. It was common practice for farmers and settlers to clear land by burning bushes, but that particular summer was hot and dry with little rainfall, and the shrubs burned easily. Several fires that had been intentionally lit merged into a single firestorm and quickly overwhelmed firefighters. The length of the fire spanned for 40 miles and in a single day it had consumed the towns of Iroquois Falls, Porquis Junction, Ramore, Nushka, Matheson, and Kelse. A separate fire began in Cochrane, and within hours hundreds were trapped in between. Although most managed to escape, the fire caused 223 deaths. 1825 Miramichi Fire The Great Miramichi Fire of October 1825 was a forest fire that ravaged across forests and communities in northern New Brunswick. The fire also destroyed one-third of residential houses in the city of Fredericton. The summer was exceptionally hot, and small wildfires were frequent. On October 7, 1825, a firestorm swept across Newcastle and reduced the town to ashes within three hours. Adjacent towns were similarly destroyed. Official estimates report the number of casualties at between 160 and 300, including inmates in the Newcastle jail. Great Porcupine Fire The Great Porcupine Fire was a forest fire that ravaged the Ontario Northlands in 1911. The firestorm was sparked by a series of small fires following an abnormally hot and dry summer. The fire assumed a horseshoe-shape and extended for 22 miles, destroying over 200,000 hectares. Preliminary reports indicated that over 1,000 people had died, but local officials later placed the estimate at between 73 and 200. Most deaths were caused by drowning, while seeking refuge at Porcupine Lake, or by suffocation in mines. The Largest Fires In Canadian History The largest fire in Canadian history in terms of area was the 2014 Northwest Territories fires. The firestorms swept across 3,400,000 hectares (ha) of forest, but fortunately did not result in any deaths. The Chinchaga fire of 1950 swept across 1,700,000 hectares of forest in Northern British Columbia and Alberta, and remains the largest single fire in North America to date. The 2018 British Columbia wildfires burned 1,298,454 hectares of forest in British Columbia, surpassing the province's previous record, which was held by the 2017 British Columbia wildfires. Buffalo second graders with their teacher and DAR members. Front row from left are Kaisyn Bailey, Addie Rice, Jill Pruyser, Paisley Clark, Gideon Alley, Edwin Estrada, Ivan Zollinger, and Taden Hart. In back from left are Woodward DAR Roberta Chance, Raelynn Berends, Lizzie Dies, Vanessa Lizardo, Blake Drew, Jacob London, Kaleb Gonser, Leslie Montelongo, John Burke, Kale Collis, teacher Kori Howard, and Woodward DAR Pauletta Roberts. (Photo provided) Cole Zielinskis death, the man who went missing in the Saginaw Bay and his body was later discovered by a fisherman, has been ruled a drowning following an autopsy, according to Bay County Sheriff Troy Cunningham. For early January Thursday to Sunday is a nice stretch of weather! It will feel like early March when the first inklings of spring appear! The flow will be highly split with the unusually cold air in the southwestern half of the U.S. moderating. However, some of that chill will be caught up in a storm system that will bring chilly rainfall across the South & even ice & snow to Texas & Oklahoma. Polar jet will be way north, bottling up bitterly cold air, while subtropical jet way south with the that cold riding the underbelly of our milder weather. There will be considerable sinking & warming air off the Northern Rockies this upper jet way to the north, so it may actually be warmer in Montana & Alberta than Texas & Oklahoma. We will be bathed in dry, Pacific air, so it is not record warm, but temperatures will run 13-19 degrees above normal for daytime highs. It is only weak El Nino Modoki, but this screams traditional, more potent El Nino (though the sea surface temperatures in the Pacific do not show this). All of this deep moisture coming into Texas & the Southeast is more of a product of the very persistent, very active MJO with lots & lots of convection & now this convection is moving eastward. That means we will begin to break away from the warmer MJO phase & head into a colder one past mid-January. Regardless, to get four overall mostly sunny days in a row in January is a feat, unless you have Arctic cold, frigid airmass that is extremely dry with very high surface air pressure. However, we will be in the 40s & 50s! Usually such warm-ups are gray, damp & cloudy & often foggy in our area in January. It will be a stair-step downward to colder weather (especially after mid-month to February) after rain Monday to Tuesday morning. Rainfall amounts of 0.40-0.60"are expected. Even the usually insanely warm CFS shows some brutal cold coming, especially late January & into February with low temperatures well below zero for multiple days. It shows temperatures up to 40 degrees below normal here, which seems more plausible than 40 degrees above. 40 degree below normal would equate to lows of near -22. MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Ind. (WLFI) -- Indiana State Police have identified the trooper involved in the fatal shooting of Glenn Rightsell as Daniel Organ of the Lafayette post. ISP says Organ has no disciplinary record and is on administrative leave during the investigation. Rightsell was shot and killed on December 28th while working on his daughter's disabled vehicle on the side of U.S. 231. Organ told investigators Rightsell was carrying a firearm and grabbed at his weapon when Organ fired. The case will be passed on to the Montgomery County prosecutor's office once the investigation is concluded. Video filmed by a neighbor captured the minutes after Rightsell was shot. He was taken to a Montgomery county hospital where he died. This story will be updated. A lawyer for Paul Whelan, a US citizen charged in Russia with espionage, said Thursday he has filed an appeal in court against Whelan's detention without bail, which he called unwarranted and excessive. Whelan, 48, a Michigan resident and corporate security director, was arrested December 28 in Moscow on suspicion of carrying out an act of espionage, Russia has said. His family rejects the accusation, asserting that he was in Russia only for a vacation. Arrests BorgWarner Companies Continents and regions Crime, law enforcement and corrections Criminal law Eastern Europe Embassies and consulates Europe Families and children Government and public administration Government bodies and offices Government departments and authorities International relations International relations and national security Internet and WWW Jon Huntsman Law and legal system Law enforcement Maria Butina Misc people Moscow National security North America Paul Whelan Political Figures - US Russia Social media Society State departments and diplomatic services Technology The Americas United States Weddings and engagements Espionage Intelligence services 2018 Russian spy poisoning Diseases and disorders England Health and medical Northern Europe Poisonings United Kingdom The Russian government announced the arrest Monday but has not officially released further details about the specific allegations against Whelan. Whelan's lawyer in Russia, Vladimir Zherebenkov, said Whelan has been charged and detained in Moscow's Lefortovo prison since the day of his arrest. "I filed a complaint with the Lefortovo court, because I believe that the detention (without bail) is excessive and unwarranted," Zherebenkov said on Thursday. "We are asking for bail." US source: No apparent ties to intel operations Paul Whelan does not appear to have any connection to any national intelligence operation, a diplomatic source familiar with the case told CNN on Friday. Whelan entered Russia on his US passport and it remains unclear what exactly he might have been trying to do on his own in Russia, the source said. When asked whether Whelan had any ties to US intelligence, the CIA and office of the Director of National Intelligence referred the inquiries to the State Department. Whelan's twin brother, David Whelan, wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post that his brother is not a spy. "He is many things to many people, but he is not a spy." Russian report: He had classified information An unidentified source told Russian news site Rosbalt that Whelan was arrested in his hotel room with a flash drive containing classified information. Rosbalt said its report was based on a source in the Russian special services. CNN has not independently verified that these are the official Russian allegations against Whelan. Rosbalt reported that on the day of his arrest, Whelan met a Russian citizen, a person he had known for a long time and whom he had repeatedly tried to recruit as an agent to obtain information about the staff of Russian intelligence agencies, according to its source. Whelan received an electronic device with a list of employees of a classified department, and then Federal Security Service officers broke into his room at the Metropol Hotel five minutes later and detained him, Rosbalt reported. Whelan grew up in the United States after being born in Canada to parents from the United Kingdom -- and appears to have citizenship in all three countries. After serving 14 years in the US Marine Corps Reserve, Whelan is now the director of global security for Michigan-based automotive components supplier BorgWarner. If found guilty of espionage, he faces 10 to 20 years in prison, Russia's state-run news agency TASS reported. Whelan is upbeat, attorney says Whelan feels well and is in a good mood, and the prison has treated him well, Zherebenkov said. He didn't discuss the details of the charges but said he had appealed Whelan's detention and applied for bail. It could be half a year before the case goes to trial, the lawyer said. Whelan's family dismisses notions that he was a spy, saying the discharged US Marines reservist was in Russia to attend a wedding for a fellow former US service member and a Russian woman. The United States has told Russia it expects more information about the charge, and it will demand Whelan's release "if the detention is not appropriate," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday. He told Newsmax on Thursday the "most senior levels" of government are involved and "we're doing everything we can to make sure that he's treated appropriately and that we get the information we need." US Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman visited Whelan in prison on Wednesday and spoke with his family by telephone after the visit, a US State Department spokesman said. "We are relieved and very pleased to know that staff of the US Embassy in Moscow have been given consular access to Paul and confirmed that he is safe," Paul's twin brother, David Whalen, said Friday in a statement released on behalf of the family. "We deeply appreciate Ambassador Huntsman's commitment to stay in regular contact with Paul during his detention and his assurances that Paul's rights will be respected." The UK Foreign Office said Friday its staff also has asked Russia to let its consular officials visit Whelan after receiving a request for assistance from him. Canada's global affairs department told CNN, in response to a question about Whelan, that it is "aware that a Canadian citizen has been arrested in Russia." Citing privacy laws, it declined to comment further. Whelan's arrest came 15 days after alleged Russian spy Maria Butina pleaded guilty in US federal court to trying to infiltrate political circles and influence US relations with Russia. Former US national security officials have speculated to CNN that the arrest of Whelan, spy or not, could be Russian government retaliation for Butina's prosecution. Family says he was with wedding party shortly before arrest Whelan's online footprint and information from his family paint a picture of a former military man and corporate security expert who had some familiarity with Russia, traveling and collecting friends there, and having an account on a Russian social media platform similar to Facebook. Whelan was in Russia to attend a retired fellow Marine's wedding and serve as a guide to wedding guests who had not visited Russia previously, according to David Whelan. Paul Whelan flew to Moscow on December 22. By Friday, he was with the wedding party at the Kremlin, acting as a tour guide, his brother said. When Paul didn't arrive at the wedding later Friday, the newlyweds filed a missing-person report with Russian authorities, the brother said. Before his arrest, Paul had plans to check into a St. Petersburg hotel on Wednesday and fly home Sunday, David said. Who is Paul Whelan? Whelan lives in Novi, Michigan. As a Marine reservist, he served two tours in Iraq, in 2004 and 2006. The onetime staff sergeant's service with the Reserve ended in 2008 with a bad-conduct discharge for wrongfully using another person's Social Security number and writing bad checks, according to military court documents. A military judge found him guilty of attempted larceny and three specifications of dereliction of duty. He's had a career in corporate security, his brother said, including at BorgWarner since 2017. Whelan's job entails making sure BorgWarner facilities are physically secure -- that they can't be stolen from or broken into -- his brother says. The company confirmed his employment, but noted BorgWarner has no facilities in Russia. Friends and trips in Russia Few details about Whelan's previous travels to Russia were immediately available. But he's no stranger to the country, having been there several times for work and personal business, his brother said. During his 2006 Iraq tour with the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, he used his two weeks' leave to visit Russia. A 2007 online Marine Corps article says he spent the leave "experiencing the post-Soviet era of Moscow and St. Petersburg." An attached photo shows him standing across the Moscow River from the Kremlin. It also appears that Whelan had been using a Russian social media platform for the past 13 years. Photos showing Whelan have been uploaded to the VKontakte, or VK, social network from around the world for years, in a profile under his name. The last status update on the page reads "next stop, Moscow..." When asked about the VKontakte page, Whelan's brother said he couldn't confirm the account, but accepts that his brother likely had one, because he made friends in the country. "I knew over the years he had met Russians," David Whelan said on Wednesday. "I don't know whether it was through work or through his Marine activity. But he'd met people while he'd been traveling around, and he connected with them on social media. And he would tell us that when he was traveling he would go visit those people." Yet the brother said he didn't know "that Russia was specifically a place he'd like to go." "He liked to travel wherever he could. He has been to India and Iceland, all over the place. He has friends in Russia, so that would be an extra draw, people he's met on social media, but I don't know that Russia was a particular place of return for him," David Whelan said. Correction: This story has been updated to clarify that Whelan's lawyer is appealing his detention without bail, not his arrest. It also updates the attorney's quote regarding this. A new crop of House members are descending on Washington ahead of Thursday's swearing-in ceremony. We caught up with incoming Rep. Deb Haaland in the first installment of The Point's new feature: Meet Your New Members of Congress! Continents and regions Deb Haaland Demographic groups Females (demographic group) New Mexico North America Political Figures - US Population and demographics Society Southwestern United States The Americas United States Government and public administration Government organizations - US Politics US Congress US House of Representatives The Democrat from New Mexico is looking to prioritize the conversation around missing and murdered Native women in her first term -- and happens to be a huge fan of classic rock. Lauren Dezenski: What's your top priority in your first term? Deb Haaland: As an organizer for more than 20 years, I'll bring those skills to Congress to organize my colleagues on issues that matter to New Mexico and Indian Country. Many of my colleagues are ready to fight climate change, as am I. We also want health care for all, strong public schools, universal early childhood education and a Green New Deal that brings long-lasting jobs to our communities. LD: How can more Native Americans be elected across New Mexico -- and across the country? DH: I intend to leave the ladder down for women, women of color and Native Americans -- who are the least represented in any elected positions. I'm proud to have encouraged and contributed to several Native women this past cycle who won their state house seats. I'll continue to support political leadership training organizations like Emerge -- where in New Mexico, Emerge NM recruits Native American women to the apply to the program and to run. I believe that Native women are seeing positive role models in the wins that happened this year. I will keep supporting them. LD: If 2018 is the year of the woman, what does that make 2019? DH: 2019 is the year of the bold agenda. When the true diversity of our nation is represented, we see a shift in our communities actually getting what they need: clean air and water, protected lands, affordable health care and quality education are just a few. LD: Did you have a New Year's resolution in 2018 -- and did you achieve it? What about 2019? DH: For 2018, I resolved to work as hard as I could to win my race for New Mexicans. Next year, I will make missing and murdered Native women part of the national conversation so that we can all work to end this crisis. LD: What's your favorite pump-up music to get yourself motivated? DH: I am a classic rock fanatic! LD: What is your favorite thing to eat in your district? DH: Absolutely no question: Red chile enchiladas, red chile stew, red chile and frijoles and fried potatoes with a homemade hot tortilla. Haaland and the rest of the incoming House class will be sworn in at noon on Thursday. Odd Investment Nearly Doubles The Market? (Ad) I just dont believe it Thats what most people would say about a 114.5% total return from less than 9 minutes of work. But investing icon Jim Fink has defied Wall Street time and time again thanks to the incredible precision and power of his odd system Click here to discover more about these types of odd investments. The following companies are subsidiares of General Motors: 2140879 Ontario Inc., ACAR Leasing, ACAR Leasing Ltd., ACF Investment, ACF Investment Corp., AFS SenSub, APGO Trust, Adam Opel, Adam Opel GmbH, Aftermarket (UK), AmeriCredit, AmeriCredit Consumer Loan, AmeriCredit Consumer Loan Company Inc., AmeriCredit Financial Services, AmeriCredit Financial Services Inc., AmeriCredit Funding, AmeriCredit Syndicated Warehouse Trust, Annunciata Corporation, Argonaut Holdings, Argonaut Holdings LLC, BOCO (Proprietary), BOCO (Proprietary) Limited, Banco GMAC, Banco GMAC S.A., Baylis (Gloucester), Boco Trust, Boden Brussels, CHEVYPLAN, CHEVYPLAN S.A. Sociedad Administradora de Planes de Autofinanciamiento Comercial, Cadillac, Cadillac Europe, Cadillac Europe GmbH, Carve-Out Ownership, Carve-Out Ownership Cooperative LLC, Chevrolet Deutschland GmbH, Chevrolet Sales (Thailand), Chevrolet Sales (Thailand) Limited, Chevrolet Sales India, Chevrolet Sales India Private Ltd., Chevrolet Sociedad Anonima de Ahorro para Fines Determinados, Controladora General Motors, Controladora General Motors S.A. de C.V., Cruise, DCJ1, DCJ1 LLC, DMAX, DMAX Ltd., Dealership Liquidations, Dealership Liquidations Inc., Delphi Energy and Engine Management Systems UK, Delphi Energy and Engine Management Systems UK Overseas Corporation, EDS (Electronic Data Systems), FAW-GM, Fundacion Chevrolet, G.M.A.C., GCAR Titling Ltd., GM (UK) Pension, GM (UK) Pension Trustees Limited, GM APO Holdings, GM Administradora de Bens, GM Administradora de Bens Ltda., GM Asia Pacific Regional Headquarters Ltd., GM Auslandsprojekte, GM Automotive, GM Automotive Services Belgium, GM CME, GM Canada Holdings, GM Canada Limited, GM Components Holdings, GM Components Holdings LLC, GM Cruise, GM Cruise Holdings LLC, GM Cruise LLC, GM Defense LLC, GM Eurometals, GM Eurometals Inc., GM Europe Treasury, GM Finance, GM Finance Co. Holdings LLC, GM Financial, GM Financial AB, GM Financial Canada, GM Financial Canada Leasing, GM Financial Canada Leasing Ltd., GM Financial Colombia Holdings LLC, GM Financial Colombia S.A. Compania de Financiamiento, GM Financial Consumer, GM Financial Consumer Discount, GM Financial Consumer Discount Company, GM Financial Del Peru, GM Financial GmbH, GM Financial Holdings LLC, GM Financial Insurance Services, GM Financial Mexico Holdings, GM Financial Mexico Holdings LLC, GM Financial Real Estate, GM Financial de Mexico, GM Financial de Mexico S.A. de C.V. SOFOM E.R., GM Financial del Peru S.A.C, GM Global Business Services, GM Global Propulsion Systems -Torino S.r.l., GM Global Purchasing and Supply Chain, GM Global Technology Operations, GM Global Technology Operations LLC, GM Global Tooling, GM Global Tooling Company LLC, GM Global Treasury Centre Limited, GM Holden, GM Holden Pty Ltd., GM Holdings U.K. No.1 Limited, GM Inversiones Santiago Limitada, GM Investment Trustees Limited, GM Korea, GM Korea Company, GM LAAM Holdings, GM LAAM Holdings LLC, GM Mexico Holdings, GM Mobility Europe GmbH, GM PSA Purchasing Services, GM Personnel Services, GM Personnel Services Inc., GM Philippines Inc., GM Plats (Proprietary), GM Regional Holdings, GM Regional Holdings LLC, GM Retirees Pension Trustees, GM Retirees Pension Trustees Limited, GM Subsystems Manufacturing, GM Subsystems Manufacturing LLC, GM Technical Center Korea Ltd., GM Viet Nam Motor Company, GM-DI Leasing, GM-DI Leasing LLC, GMAC - Instituicao Financeira de Credito, GMAC Administradora de Consorcios, GMAC Administradora de Consorcios Ltda., GMAC Banque, GMAC Continental, GMAC Espana de Financiacion, GMAC Holdings (U.K.), GMAC Lease B.V. (aka Masterlease Europe), GMAC Nederland N.V., GMAC Prestadora de Servicios de Mao de Obra Ltda., GMAC Servicios, GMAC UK, GMAC de Venezuela, GMAC-Prestadora de Servios de Mo-de-Obra, GMACI Corretora de Seguros, GMACI Corretora de Seguros Ltda, GMAM Real Estate I, GMCH&SP Private Equity II, GMCH&SP Private Equity II L.P., GMF Australia Pty Ltd, GMF Europe, GMF Europe Holdco, GMF Europe LLP, GMF Floorplan Owner Revolving Trust, GMF Funding, GMF Germany Holdings, GMF Global Assignment, GMF Global Assignment LLC, GMF International, GMF International LLC, GMF Leasing LLC, GMF Leasing Warehousing Trust, GMF Wholesale Receivables, GMGP Holdings, General Motors (China) Investment Company, General Motors (China) Investment Company Limited, General Motors (Thailand), General Motors (Thailand) Limited, General Motors - Colmotores, General Motors - Colmotores S.A., General Motors Advisory Services LLC, General Motors Africa and Middle East, General Motors Africa and Middle East FZE, General Motors Asia, General Motors Asia LLC, General Motors Asia Pacific Holdings, General Motors Asia Pacific Holdings LLC, General Motors Asset Management, General Motors Asset Management Corporation, General Motors Australia, General Motors Australia Pty Ltd., General Motors Austria, General Motors Austria, General Motors Auto, General Motors Auto LLC, General Motors Automobiles Philippines, General Motors Automobiles Philippines Inc., General Motors Automotive Holdings, General Motors Automotive Holdings S.L., General Motors Belgique Automobile NV, General Motors Belgium, General Motors Chile, General Motors Chile Industria Automotriz Limitada, General Motors China LLC, General Motors Daewoo Auto and Technology, General Motors Daewoo Auto and Technology CIS LLC, General Motors East Africa, General Motors Egypt, General Motors Egypt S.A.E., General Motors Espana, General Motors Europe Holdings, General Motors Europe Limited, General Motors Financial Chile, General Motors Financial Chile Limitada, General Motors Financial Chile S.A., General Motors Financial Company, General Motors Financial Company Inc., General Motors Financial International, General Motors Financial Italia, General Motors Financial Suisse, General Motors Financial UK, General Motors Financial of Canada, General Motors Financial of Canada Ltd., General Motors Finland, General Motors France, General Motors GBS Hungary, General Motors Global Service Operations, General Motors Global Service Operations Inc., General Motors Hellas, General Motors Holden Australia, General Motors Holden Australia NSC, General Motors Holden Australia NSC Pty Ltd., General Motors Holden Australia Pty Ltd., General Motors Holdings LLC, General Motors IT Services (Ireland) Limited, General Motors India Private, General Motors India Private Limited, General Motors International Holdings, General Motors International Holdings LLC, General Motors International Operations, General Motors International Operations Pte. Ltd., General Motors International Services Company, General Motors International Services Company SAS, General Motors International Services LLC, General Motors Investment Limited, General Motors Investment Management, General Motors Investment Management Corporation, General Motors Investment Participacoes, General Motors Investment Participacoes Ltda., General Motors Investments, General Motors Investments Pty. Ltd., General Motors Ireland, General Motors Israel, General Motors Israel Ltd., General Motors Italia, General Motors Japan, General Motors Japan Limited, General Motors LLC, General Motors Limited, General Motors Manufacturing Poland, General Motors Nederland, General Motors New Zealand Pensions, General Motors New Zealand Pensions Limited, General Motors Overseas, General Motors Overseas Commercial Vehicle, General Motors Overseas Commercial Vehicle Corporation, General Motors Overseas Corporation, General Motors Overseas Distribution, General Motors Overseas Distribution LLC, General Motors Peru, General Motors Peru S.A., General Motors Poland Spolka, General Motors Portugal, General Motors Powertrain (Thailand), General Motors Powertrain (Thailand) Limited, General Motors Research Corporation, General Motors South Africa, General Motors South Africa (Pty) Limited, General Motors Suisse, General Motors Taiwan, General Motors Taiwan Ltd., General Motors Technical Centre India, General Motors Technical Centre India Private Limited, General Motors Treasury Center, General Motors Treasury Center LLC, General Motors Turkiye, General Motors UK, General Motors Uruguay, General Motors Uruguay S.A., General Motors Venezolana, General Motors Ventures, General Motors Ventures LLC, General Motors Warehousing and Trading (Shanghai), General Motors Warehousing and Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., General Motors de Argentina, General Motors de Argentina S.r.l., General Motors de Mexico, General Motors de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., General Motors del Ecuador, General Motors del Ecuador S.A., General Motors do Brasil, General Motors do Brasil Ltda., General Motors of Canada, General Motors of Canada Company, General Motors-Holden's Sales, General Motors-Holden's Sales Pty. Limited, GigaPower LLC, Global Services Detroit, Global Services Detroit LLC, Global Tooling Service Company Europe, Global Tooling Service Company Europe Limited, Go Motor Retailing, Go Trade Parts, Grand Pointe Holdings, Grand Pointe Holdings Inc., Grand Pointe Park Condominium, Grand Pointe Park Condominium Association, H.S.H., Haines & Strange, Holden New Zealand, Holden New Zealand Limited, IBC Pension Trustees, IBC Pension Trustees Limited, IBC Vehicles, Lease Ownership Cooperative, Lease Ownership Cooperative LLC, Lidlington Engineering Company, Lidlington Engineering Company Ltd., Limited Liability Company "General Motors CIS", Master Lease Germany, Maven Drive, Maven Drive LLC, Millbrook Pension Management, Millbrook Pension Management Limited, Monetization of Carve-Out, Monetization of Carve-Out LLC, Motor Repris Automocio, Motors Holding, Motors Holding LLC, Motors Properties, Motors Properties (Trading), Multi-Use Lease Entity Trust, North American New Cars, North American New Cars LLC, Omnibus BB Transportes, Omnibus BB Transportes S. A., OnStar Connected Services Srl, OnStar Egypt Limited LLC, OnStar Europe, OnStar Europe Ltd., OnStar Global Services, OnStar Global Services Corporation, OnStar LLC, OnStar de Mexico, OnStar de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Opel Bank, Opel Danmark, Opel Group, Opel Group Warehousing, Opel Leasing, Opel Norge, Opel Sonderdienste, Opel Southeast Europe, Opel Sverige, Opel Szentgotthard Automotive Manufacturing, Opel Wien, P.T. G M AutoWorld Indonesia, P.T. General Motors Indonesia, PIMS, PIMS Co., PT. General Motors Indonesia Manufacturing, Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center, Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center Company Ltd., Prestadora de Servicios GMF Colombia S.A.S., Rapid Motor Vehicle Company, Reliance Motor Car Company, Riverfront Holdings III Inc., Riverfront Holdings Inc., Riverfront Holdings Phase II Inc., SAIC GM (Shenyang) Norsom Motors Co. Ltd., SAIC GM Dong Yue Motors Company Limited, SAIC GM Dong Yue Powertrain Company Limited, SAIC GM Wuling Automobile Company Limited, SAIC General Motors Corporation Limited, SAIC General Motors Investment Limited, SAIC General Motors Sales Company Limited, SAIC-GMAC Automotive Finance Company Limited, SAIC-GMF Leasing Co. Ltd., Servicios GMAC S.A. de C.V., Shanghai Chengxin Used Car Operation and Management Company Limited, Shanghai OnStar Telematics Co. Ltd., Sherwoods (Darlington) Limited, Sidecar Technologies, Skurrays Limited, Stam-Terberg Autobedrijven B. V., Strobe Inc., VHC Sub-Holdings (UK), Vauxhall Defined Contribution Pension Plan Trustees Limited, Vehicle Asset Universal Leasing Trust, Vickers (Lakeside) Limited, Vision Motors Limited, WRE, WRE Inc., and Zona Franca Industrial Colmotores SAS. The following companies are subsidiares of PerkinElmer: Analytica of Branford, Applied Biosystems, Arnel Inc., ArtusLabs, Beijing Huaan Magnech Bio-Tech Co. Ltd., Beijing Longrun Bio-Tech Co. Ltd., Beijing Meizheng Bio-Tech Co. Ltd., Beijing Meizheng Testing Lab Co. Ltd., Beijing OUMENG Biotechnology Co. Ltd., Bio Evolution SAS, Bioo Scientific Corporation, Biosense Picolabs Inc., Biosense Technologies Pvt Ltd., Caliper Life Sciences, Caliper Life Sciences Inc., Cambridge Research & Instrumentation Inc., CambridgeSoft, Ceiba Solutions, Chengdu PerkinElmer Medical Laboratory Co. Ltd., Chromo G.A. SAS, CisBio US Inc., Cisbio Asia Pacific Ltd, Cisbio Bioassays SAS, Cisbio China Ltd., Cisbio Group SAS, Cisbio KK, Cisbio.com, DNA Laboratories Sdn. Bhd., Dani Analitica S.r.l., Dexela, EUROIMMUN (Hangzhou) Medical Laboratory Diagnostics Co. Ltd., EUROIMMUN (South East Asia) Pte Ltd., EUROIMMUN (Tianjin) Medical Diagnostic Technology Co. Ltd., EUROIMMUN AG, EUROIMMUN Brasil Medicina Diagnostica Ltda., EUROIMMUN Diagnostics Espana S.L.U., EUROIMMUN France SAS, EUROIMMUN Italia Diagnostica Medica S.r.l., EUROIMMUN Japan Co. Ltd., EUROIMMUN Medical Diagnostics (China) Co. Ltd., EUROIMMUN Medical Diagnostics Canada Inc., EUROIMMUN Medical Laboratory Diagnostics South Africa (Pty) Ltd., EUROIMMUN Medizinische Labordiagnostika AG, EUROIMMUN Polska Spolka z o.o., EUROIMMUN Portugal Unipessoal Lda., EUROIMMUN Schweiz AG, EUROIMMUN Turkey Tibbi Laboratuar Teshisleri A.S., EUROIMMUN UK Ltd., EUROIMMUN US Inc., EUROIMMUN US Real Estate LLC, Geospiza, Guangzhou EUROIMMUN Medical Diagnostic Products Co. Ltd., Hangzhou EUROIMMUN Medical Diagnostic Products Co. Ltd., Horizon Discovery, Integromics S.L., Jiangsu Meizheng Bio-Tech Co. Ltd., LabMetrix Technologies, Labtronics, ManCell SAS, NovaScreen Biosciences Corporation, Opto Technology, Orchid Biomedical Systems Pvt Ltd., Oxford Immunotec, Pediatrix Medical Group - Newborn Metabolic Screening Business, Perkin Elmer Chile Ltda., Perkin Elmer Italia SpA, Perkin Elmer Sdn. Bhd., Perkin Elmer Yuhan Hoesa, Perkin Elmer de Mexico S.A., Perkin-Elmer Argentina S.R.L., Perkin-Elmer Instruments (Philippines) Corporation, PerkinElmer (Hong Kong) Ltd., PerkinElmer (India) Pvt Ltd., PerkinElmer (Ireland) Ltd., PerkinElmer (Schweiz) AG, PerkinElmer (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund L.P., PerkinElmer (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Co. Ltd., PerkinElmer (UK) Holdings Ltd., PerkinElmer Analytical Solutions B.V., PerkinElmer Automotive Research Inc., PerkinElmer BVBA, PerkinElmer CV Holdings LLC, PerkinElmer Cellular Technologies Germany GmbH, PerkinElmer Danmark A/S, PerkinElmer Diagnostics Global Holdings S.a r.l., PerkinElmer Diagnostics Holdings Inc., PerkinElmer Espana S.L., PerkinElmer Finance Luxembourg S.a r.l., PerkinElmer Finland Oy, PerkinElmer Genetics Inc., PerkinElmer Germany Diagnostics GmbH, PerkinElmer Global Diagnostics S.a r.l., PerkinElmer Global Financing S.a r.l., PerkinElmer Global Holdings S.a r.l., PerkinElmer Health Sciences (Australia) Pty. Ltd., PerkinElmer Health Sciences B.V., PerkinElmer Health Sciences Canada Inc., PerkinElmer Health Sciences FZ-LLC, PerkinElmer Health Sciences Inc., PerkinElmer Health Sciences Pvt Ltd., PerkinElmer Healthcare Diagnostics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., PerkinElmer Holding Luxembourg S.a r.l., PerkinElmer Holdings Inc., PerkinElmer Holdings Pty. Ltd., PerkinElmer IVD Pte Ltd., PerkinElmer Inc., PerkinElmer Informatics Inc., PerkinElmer Instruments (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., PerkinElmer International C.V., PerkinElmer Investments Ky, PerkinElmer Israel Ltd., PerkinElmer Japan Co. Ltd., PerkinElmer LAS (Germany) GmbH, PerkinElmer LAS (UK) Ltd., PerkinElmer Life Sciences International Holdings, PerkinElmer Limited, PerkinElmer Ltd., PerkinElmer Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., PerkinElmer Nederland B.V., PerkinElmer Norge AS, PerkinElmer Oy, PerkinElmer Polska Sp z o.o., PerkinElmer Pty. Ltd., PerkinElmer SAS, PerkinElmer Saglk ve Cevre Bilimleri Ltd., PerkinElmer Shared Services Sp z o.o., PerkinElmer Singapore Pte Ltd., PerkinElmer South Africa (Pty) Ltd., PerkinElmer Sverige AB, PerkinElmer Sweden Health Sciences Holdings AB, PerkinElmer Taiwan Corporation, PerkinElmer VertriebsgmbH, PerkinElmer chemagen Technologie GmbH, PerkinElmer do Brasil Ltda., Perten Instruments, Perten Instruments (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Perten Instruments AB, Perten Instruments France SASU, Perten Instruments GmbH, Perten Instruments Italia S.r.l., Perten Instruments of Australia Pty Ltd., RHS Ltd, RayAl Ltd., Shandong Meizheng Bio-Tech Co. Ltd., Shanghai Haoyuan Biotech Co. Ltd., Shanghai Spectrum Instruments Co. Ltd., Shanghai Spectrum Instruments Co. Ltd., Signature Genomic Laboratories, Solus Scientific Solutions Inc., Solus Scientific Solutions Ltd., Surendra Genetic Labs, Suzhou PerkinElmer Medical Laboratory Co. Ltd., Suzhou Sym-Bio LifeScience, Suzhou Sym-Bio Lifescience Co. Ltd., Tulip Diagnostics, Tulip Diagnostics Pvt Ltd., Vanadis Diagnostics, Vanadis Diagnostics AB, ViaCell, ViaCord LLC, VisEn Medical, VisEn Medical Inc., Wallac Oy, Wellesley B.V., Xenogen Corporation, ZeLab SAS, and chemagen Biopolymer-Technologie AG. Consolidated Edison, Inc., through its subsidiaries, engages in the regulated electric, gas, and steam delivery businesses in the United States. The company offers electric services to approximately 3.5 million customers in New York City and Westchester County; gas to approximately 1.1 million customers in Manhattan, the Bronx, parts of Queens, and Westchester County; and steam to approximately 1,576 customers in parts of Manhattan. It also supplies electricity to approximately 0.3 million customers in southeastern New York and northern New Jersey; and gas to approximately 0.1 million customers in southeastern New York. The company operates 533 circuit miles of transmission lines; 15 transmission substations; 64 distribution substations; 89,673 in-service line transformers; 3,729 pole miles of overhead distribution lines; and 2,210 miles of underground distribution lines, as well as 4,341 miles of mains and 377,490 service lines for natural gas distribution. In addition, it owns, operates, and develops renewable and energy infrastructure projects; and provides energy-related products and services to wholesale and retail customers, as well as invests in electric and gas transmission projects. The company primarily sells electricity to industrial, commercial, residential, and government customers. Consolidated Edison, Inc. was founded in 1823 and is based in New York, New York. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Prudential Financial: 210-220 E. 22nd Street SSGA Owner LLC, 49-51 avenue George V Holdings SAS, 49-51 avenue George V SCI, AIG Edison, AIG Star, AREF Cayman Co Ltd., AREF GP Ltd., ASPF II - Feeder Fund GmbH, ASPF II - Verwaltungs - GmbH & Co. KG, ASPF II Management GmbH, ASPF III (Scots) L.P., ASSURANCE, AST Investment Services Inc., Adlerwerke CB Investment LLC, Administradora de Fondos de Pensiones Habitat S.A., Administradora de Inversiones Previsionales SpA, Aoba Life Insurance Company, Asia Property Fund III GP S.a.r.l., BSC CP LP, Braeloch Holdings Inc., Braeloch Successor Corporation, Broad Street Global Advisors LLC, Broome Street Holdings LLC, CB German Retail LLC, CLIS Co. Ltd., COLICO INC., Campus Drive LLC, Capital Agricultural Property Services Inc., Chadwick Boulevard Investment Holdings Co. LLC, Cibecue LLC, Coconino LLC, Colico II Inc., Columbus Drive Partners L.P., Commerce Street Holdings LLC, Commerce Street Investments LLC, Coolidge LLC, Coral Reef GP, Coral Reef L.P., Coral Reef Unit Trust, Cottage Street Investments LLC, Cottage Street Orbit Acquisition LLC, DHFL PRAMERICA LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED, DHFL Pramerica Asset Managers Private Limited, DHFL Pramerica Trustees Private Limited, Don Cesar Investor LLC, Dryden Arizona Reinsurance Term Company, Dryden Finance II LLC, EUROCORE MARTY PROPCO SCI, EVP II GP S.a r.l., Edison Place Senior Note LLC, Essex LLC, EuroCore GP S.a r.l., EuroPRISA Management Company S.A., European Value Partners GP S.a.r.l., Everbright Pramerica Fund Management Co. Ltd., Flagstaff LLC, GA 1600 Commons LLC, GA 333 Hennepin Investor LLC, GA Bay Area GP LLC, GA Bay Area Investor LLC, GA Belden LLC, GA CLARENDON LLC, GA Cal Crossings LLC, GA Collins LLC, GA E. 22nd Street Apartments Holdings LLC, GA East 86 Street LLC, GA JHCII LLC, GA MENLO PARK INVESTOR LLC, GA Manor at Harbour Island LLC, GA Metro LLC, GA Mission LLC, GA TRITON INVESTOR LLC, GA W Paces LLC, GA/MDI 333 Hennepin Associates LLC, GIBRALTAR BSN HOLDINGS SDN BHD, GIBRALTAR INDIA SOLUTIONS LLP, Gateway CDE LLC, Gateway Holdings II LLC, Gateway Holdings LLC, German Retail Income CP LP, Gibraltar BSN Life Berhad, Gibraltar International Service LLC, Gibraltar Reinsurance Company Ltd., Gibraltar Universal Life Reinsurance Company, Glenealy International Limited, Global Portfolio Strategies Inc., Graham Resources Inc., Graham Royalty Ltd., Green Tree GP, Green Tree L.P., Greenlee LLC, Halsey Street Investments LLC, Hirakata LLC, IVP Fund GP LLC, Impact Investments Bridges UK S.a.r.l, Inversiones Previsionales Chile SpA, Inversiones Previsionales Dos SpA, Ironbound Fund LLC, Jennison Associates LLC, Kyarra S.a r.l., Kyoei Annuity Home Co. Ltd. (Kabushiki Kaisha Kyouei Nenkin Home), Kyoei do Brasil Companhia de Seguros, LINEUP LLC, Lake Street Partners IV L.P., MC GA COLLINS HOLDINGS LLC, MC GA COLLINS REALTY LLC, MC Insurance Agency Services LLC, Manor at Harbour Island LLC, Maricopa LLC, Market Street Holdings IV LLC, Mulberry Street Holdings LLC, Mulberry Street Investment L.P., Mulberry Street Partners LLC, Mullin TBG Insurance Agency Services LLC, MullinTBG Insurance Agency Services, New Savanna, Orchard Street Acres Inc., PAI Bayrock Groves LLC, PAI Delano 1500 Ranches LLC, PAI Good Hope Farm LLC, PAI Holly Hill Groves LLC, PAI Hunt Farm LLC, PAI Lake Placid Groves LLC, PCP V Cayman AIV GP L.P., PEREF II Co-Invest 1 GP S.a r.l., PEREF II GP S.a r.l., PEREF II PV S.r.l, PFI IBH (UK) Holdings Limited, PG Business Service Co. Ltd, PG Collection Service Co. Ltd., PG Insurance Service Co. Ltd. (PG Insurance Service Kabushiki Kaisha), PGA Asian Retail Limited, PGA European Limited, PGIM (Australia) Pty Ltd, PGIM (Hong Kong) Ltd., PGIM (Scots) Limited, PGIM (Shanghai) Company Ltd., PGIM (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., PGIM AVP IV GP S.a r.l., PGIM Agricultural Investments GP LLC, PGIM Agricultural Investors LP, PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Fund L.P., PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Partners LLC, PGIM European Financing Limited, PGIM European Services Limited, PGIM Financial Limited, PGIM Foreign Investments Inc., PGIM Fund Management Limited, PGIM Holding Company LLC, PGIM ITH (UK) Holdings Limited, PGIM Inc., PGIM International Financing Inc., PGIM Investments LLC, PGIM Japan Co. Ltd., PGIM Korea Inc., PGIM LTIF GP S.a.r.l., PGIM Limited, PGIM M Campus GP S.a r.l., PGIM Management Partner Limited, PGIM MetaProp Investor LP LLC, PGIM Netherlands B.V., PGIM Overseas Investment Fund Management (Shanghai) Company Ltd, PGIM REF Europe GP LLP, PGIM REF Europe L.P., PGIM REF Europe Member LLC, PGIM REF Intermediary Services Inc., PGIM Real Estate (Japan) Ltd., PGIM Real Estate Asia Value Partners IV SCSp, PGIM Real Estate Brazil Investimentos Imobiliarios Ltda., PGIM Real Estate CD S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest L.P., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest SCSp, PGIM Real Estate Co-Invest Holdings LLC, PGIM Real Estate European Core Diversified Property Fund, PGIM Real Estate Finance Holding Company, PGIM Real Estate Finance LLC, PGIM Real Estate France SAS, PGIM Real Estate Germany AG, PGIM Real Estate Global Debt GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Inmuebles S. de R.L. de C.V, PGIM Real Estate Luxembourg S.A., PGIM Real Estate MVP Administradora IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Inmuebles IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate Management Luxembourg S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Mexico S.C., PGIM Real Estate S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate U.S. Debt Fund GP LLC, PGIM Strategic Financing LLC, PGIM Strategic Investments Inc., PGIM USPF VI Manager LLC, PGIM Warehouse Inc., PGLH of Delaware Inc., PIFM Holdco LLC, PIM KF Blocker Holdings LLC, PIM KF Blocker V Holdings LLC, PIM USPF V Manager LLC, PLA Administradora Industrial SRL, PLA Administradora LLC, PLA Administradora S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional II S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional S.de R.L. de C.V., PLA Co-Investor LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager I LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager II LLC, PLA Mexico Residential Manager I LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Limited Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund IV Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund IV Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund I Blue LP, PLA Retail Fund I LP, PLA Retail Fund I Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund I Red LP, PLA Retail Fund II Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LP, PLA Retail Fund II Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II U.S. Carry/Co-Invest LP, PLA Services Manager Mexico LLC, PMCF Holdings LLC, PMCF Properties LLC, PPPF General Partner LLP, PR GA SCP Apartments LLC, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP (SCOTS FEEDER) LLP, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP LLP, PRECO ACCOUNT III LLC, PRECO ACCOUNT PARTNERSHIP III LP, PRECO Account IV LLC, PRECO Account Partnership IV LP, PRECO III GP LLP, PREFG Hanwha Manager LLC, PREI Acquisition I Inc., PREI Acquisition II Inc., PREI Acquisition LLC, PREI HYDG LLC, PREI International Inc., PRIAC Property Acquisitions LLC, PRICOA Management Partner Limited, PRISA Fund Manager LLC, PRISA II Fund Manager LLC, PRISA III Fund GP LLC, PRISA III Fund PIM LLC, PRREF II Fund Manager LLC, PRU 3XSquare LLC, PRUCO LLC, PRUDENTIAL CAPITAL ENERGY PARTNERS MANAGEMENT (FEEDER) LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP MEMBER LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP REIT LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE 2 LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE LLC, PT Asuransi Jiwa Mega Indonesia, Passaic Fund LLC, Pine Tree GP, Pine Tree L.P., Pramerica (Hong Kong) Holdings Limited, Pramerica (Luxembourg) CP GP S.a.r.l., Pramerica (Scots) CP GP LLP, Pramerica Business Consulting (Shanghai) Company Limited, Pramerica EVP CP LP, Pramerica Europrisa Feeder GP LLP, Pramerica Financial Asia Headquarters Pte. Ltd., Pramerica Financial Asia Limited, Pramerica Fixed Income Funds Management Limited, Pramerica Fosun Life Insurance Co. Ltd., Pramerica General Partner LLP, Pramerica Holdings Ltd, Pramerica Life S.p.A., Pramerica Marketing S.r.l., Pramerica PRECAP I GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP II GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP III GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP IV GP LLP, Pramerica Pan European Real Estate (Scots) LP, Pramerica Property Partners Fund (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I GP (Scots Feeder) LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital II (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital III (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP (Scots Feeder) LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP Limited, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V (Netherlands) GP LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital VI (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica SGR S.p.A, Pramerica Systems Ireland Limited, Pramerica of Bermuda Life Assurance Company Ltd., Preco III (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Preco IV (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pricoa Capital Group (Ireland) Limited, Pricoa Capital Group Limited, Pru 101 Wood LLC, Pru Alpha Partners I LLC, Pru Fixed Income Emerging Markets Partners I LLC, Pruco Assignment Corporation, Pruco Life Insurance Company, Pruco Life Insurance Company of New Jersey, Pruco Securities LLC, Prudential 900 Aviation Boulevard LLC, Prudential Affordable Mortgage Company LLC, Prudential Agricultural Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Annuities Distributors Inc., Prudential Annuities Holding Company Inc., Prudential Annuities Inc., Prudential Annuities Information Services & Technology Corporation, Prudential Annuities Life Assurance Corporation, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Captive Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Term Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Universal Company, Prudential Asset Resources Inc., Prudential Bank & Trust FSB, Prudential Brasil Servicos de Consultoria em Gestao Empresarial Ltda., Prudential Capital Energy Opportunity Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners Management Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Group L.P., Prudential Capital Partners Management Fund IV L.P., Prudential Capital and Investment Services LLC, Prudential Chile II SpA, Prudential Chile SpA, Prudential Commercial Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Customer Solutions LLC, Prudential Equity Group LLC, Prudential Financial Securities Investment Trust Enterprise, Prudential Fixed Income Global Liquidity Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Fixed Income U.S. Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Funding LLC, Prudential General Services of Japan Y.K., Prudential Gibraltar Agency Co. Ltd. (Prudential Gibraltar Agency Kabushiki Kaisha), Prudential Global Funding LLC, Prudential HYDF Carry/Co-Invest L.P., Prudential Holdings of Japan Inc., Prudential Home Building Investment Advisers L.P., Prudential Home Building Investors Inc., Prudential Huntoon Paige Associates LLC, Prudential IBH Holdco Inc., Prudential Impact Investments Mortgage Loans LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Debt LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Equity LLC, Prudential Industrial Properties LLC, Prudential Insurance Agency LLC, Prudential International Insurance Holdings Ltd., Prudential International Insurance Service Company L.L.C., Prudential International Investments Advisers LLC, Prudential International Investments Cayman, Prudential International Investments Company LLC, Prudential International Investments LLC, Prudential Investment Management Services LLC, Prudential Japan Holdings LLC, Prudential Latin American Investments Ltd., Prudential Legacy Insurance Company of New Jersey, Prudential Life Insurance Company of Taiwan Inc., Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 1 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 2 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Capital Asset Holding Company LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Funding LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Holdings LLC, Prudential Multifamily Mortgage LLC, Prudential Mutual Fund Services LLC, Prudential Newark Realty LLC, Prudential Private Placement Investors Inc., Prudential Private Placement Investors L.P., Prudential QOZ Investment Fund 1 LLC, Prudential Real Estate Management Co. Ltd. (Prudential Real Estate Management Yugen Kaisha), Prudential Realty Securities Inc., Prudential Retirement Financial Services Holding LLC, Prudential Retirement Holdings LLC, Prudential Retirement Insurance and Annuity Company, Prudential Securities Secured Financing Corporation, Prudential Securities Structured Assets Inc., Prudential Seguros Mexico S.A. de C.V., Prudential Seguros S.A., Prudential Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Prudential Structured Settlement Company, Prudential Systems Japan Limited, Prudential Term Reinsurance Company, Prudential Trust Co. Ltd., Prudential Trust Company, Prudential U.S. Real Estate Debt Fund GP LLC, Prudential Universal Reinsurance Company, Prudential Workplace Solutions Group Services LLC, Prudential do Brasil Seguros de Vida S.A., Prudential do Brasil Vida em Grupo S.A., Prudential/TMW Real Estate Group LLC, Pruservicos Participacoes Ltda., Quantitative Management Associates LLC, Quartzsite LLC, Residential Services Corporation of America LLC, Rio CP LP, Rock City MC LLC, Rock European Real Estate Holdings S.ar.l., Rock George V S.a. r.l., Rock Global Real Estate LLC, Rock Hamburg North S.a r.l., Rock Kensington Limited, Rock Marty GP S.a r.l., Rock Marty Holding S.a r.l., Rock Marty PropCo A S.a r.l., Rock Marty PropCo B S.a r.l., Rock Marty SCSp, Rock Meguro LLC, Rock Oxford S.a r.l., Rock Rhine S.a r.l., Rock Rossmarkt S.ar.l., Rock UK Real Estate Holdings S.ar.l., Rock UK Real Estate II S.a.r.l., Rockstone Co. Ltd., Rosado Grande LLC, Ross Avenue Energy Fund Holdings LLC, Ross Avenue Minerals 2012 LLC, SCP Apartments LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERS VI GP LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERSHIP FUND VI GP LLC, SHP IV Carried Interest LP, SHP V Carried Interest L.P., SMP Holdings Inc., SVIIT Holdings Inc., Sanei Collection Service Co. Ltd. (Kabushiki Kaisha Sanei Shuuno Service), Senior Housing Partners IV L.L.C., Senior Housing Partners V LLC, Senior Housing Partnership Fund IV L.L.C., Senior Housing Partnership Fund V LLC, Sterling Private Placement Management LLP, Stetson Street Partners L.P., Strand Investments Limited, TBG Insurance Services Corporation, TENSATOR HOLDINGS LTD, TMW ASPF I Verwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, TMW ASPF Management GmbH, TMW Management LLC, TMW Real Estate Group LLC, TMW Realty Advisors LLC, TMW USPF Verwaltungs GmbH, TRGOAG Company Inc., The Gibraltar Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Prudential Assigned Settlement Services Corp., The Prudential Brazilian Capital Fund LP, The Prudential Gibraltar Financial Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Prudential Home Mortgage Company Inc., The Prudential Insurance Company of America, The Prudential Life Insurance Company Ltd., The Prudential Life Insurance Company of Korea Ltd., The Prudential Real Estate Financial Services of America Inc., The WMF Group, Thurloe Commercial Guernsey Limited, Times Square Center Associates, USPF V - Verwaltungs - GmbH & Co. KG, USPF V Carry LLC, USPF V Co-Invest LLC, USPF V Investment LP, United States Property Fund VI GP S.a r.l., Vailsburg Fund LLC, Vantage Casualty Insurance Company, Wabash Avenue Holdings V LLC, Wabash Avenue Partners V L.P., Yamato Life, and Yavapai LLC. 25-Year-Old Whiz Kid #1 Stock Picker in U.S. (Ad) A lot of people claim to be the #1 Stock Picker in America. But few can back it up like Luke Lango. Hes #1 according to TipRanks. Hes revealing his next big tech stock recommendation for FREE. Click here to see what it is. The following companies are subsidiares of Illinois Tool Works: A V Co 1 Limited, A V Co 2 Limited, A V Co 3 Limited, ACCU-LUBE Manufacturing GmbH - Schmiermittel und -gerate -, AIP/BI Holdings Inc., Accessories Marketing Holding Corp., Advanced Molding Company Inc., Allen Coding GmbH, Allen France SAS, Alpine Automation Limited, Alpine Engineered Products, Alpine Holdings Inc., Alpine Systems Corporation, Anaerobicos S.r.l., AppliChem GmbH, AppliChem Inc., Arylux Hungary Elektromechanikus Alkatreszgyarto Kft, Avery Berkel France, Avery India Limited, Avery Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avery Weigh Tronix, Avery Weigh-Tronix (Suzhou) Weighing Technology Co. Ltd., Avery Weigh-Tronix Finance Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Holdings Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix International Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix LLC, Avery Weigh-Tronix Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Properties Limited, Azon Limited, B.C. Immo, Beijing Miller Electric Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Berkel (Ireland) Limited, Berrington UK, Brapenta Eletronica Ltda., Brooks Instrument, Brooks Instrument (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Brooks Instrument B.V., Brooks Instrument GmbH, Brooks Instrument KFT, Brooks Instrument Korea Ltd., Buell Industries Inc., CAPMAX Logistica S.A. de C.V., CCI Realty Company, CFC Europe GmbH, CS (Australia) Pty Limited, CS (Finance) Europe S.a.r.l., CS Mexico Holding Company S DE RL DE CV, CSMTS LLC, Calvia Spolka z Ograniczona Odpowiedzialnosci, Capital Ventures (Australasia) S.a r.l, Capmax Logistica S.A. de C.V., Celeste Industries Corporation, Cetram Pty Limited, Coeur, Coeur (Shanghai) Medical Appliance Trading Co. Ltd, Coeur Asia Limited, Coeur Holding Company, Coeur Inc., Compagnie Hobart, Compagnie de Materiel et d'Equipements Techniques-Comet, Constructions Isothermiques Bontami C.I.B., Crane Carrier Company, Densit Asia Pacific Sdn Bhd, Despatch Industries, Diagraph Corporation Sdn. Bhd, Diagraph ITW Mexico S. de R.L. De C.V., Diagraph Mexico S.A. DE C.V., Dongguan Ark-Les Electric Components Co. Ltd., Dongguan CK Branding Co. Ltd., Dorbyl U.K. (Holdings) Limited, Duo Fast de Espana S.A.U., Duo-Fast Korea Co. Ltd., Duo-Fast LLC, E.C.S. d.o.o., ECS Cable Protection Sp. Zoo, ELRO (Holding) AG, ELRO Grosskuchen GmbH, ELRO-WERKE AG, Elga Skandinavian AS, Elro Group, Eltex-Elektrostatik-Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Envases Multipac S.A. de C.V., Eurotec Srl, FEG Investments L.L.C., Fasver, Filtertek, Filtertek De Mexico Holding Inc., Filtertek De Mexico S.A. de C.V., GC Financement SA, Gamko B.V., Gun Hwa Platech (Taicang) Co. Ltd., HOBART Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Hartness International, Hobart (Japan) K.K., Hobart Andina S.A.S., Hobart Brothers International Chile Limitada, Hobart Brothers LLC, Hobart Dayton Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Hobart Food Equipment Co. Ltd., Hobart Foster Belgium, Hobart International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Hobart Korea LLC, Hobart LLC, Hobart Nederland B.V., Hobart Sales & Service Inc., Hobart Scandinavia ApS, Hobart Techniek B.V., Horis, ILC Investments Holdings Inc., ITW (China) Investment Company Limited, ITW (Deutschland) GmbH, ITW (EU) Holdings Ltd., ITW (European) Finance Co. Ltd., ITW (European) Finance II Co. Ltd., ITW (Ningbo) Components & Fastenings Systems Co. Ltd., ITW AEP LLC, ITW AOC LLC, ITW Aircraft Investments Inc., ITW Airport Ground Equipment (Beijing) Co. Ltd., ITW Alpha Sarl, ITW Ampang Industries Philippines Inc., ITW Appliance Components EOOD, ITW Appliance Components LLC, ITW Appliance Components S.A. de C.V., ITW Appliance Components S.r.l.a, ITW Appliance Components d.o.o., ITW Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, ITW Australia Property Holdings Pty Ltd., ITW Australia Pty Ltd, ITW Automotive Components (Chongqing) Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Components (Langfang) Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Japan K.K., ITW Automotive Korea LLC, ITW Automotive Parts (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, ITW Automotive Products GmbH, ITW Automotive Products Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Bailly Comte, ITW Befestigungssysteme GmbH, ITW Belgium, ITW Brazilian Nominee L.L.C., ITW Building Components Group Inc., ITW CER, ITW CP Distribution Center Holland BV, ITW CS (UK) Ltd., ITW Canada Inc., ITW Celeste Inc., ITW Chemical Products Ltda, ITW Chemical Products Scandinavia ApS, ITW Colombia S.A.S., ITW Construction Products (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Construction Products (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., ITW Construction Products AB, ITW Construction Products AS, ITW Construction Products ApS, ITW Construction Products CZ s.r.o., ITW Construction Products Italy Srl, ITW Construction Products OU, ITW Construction Products OY, ITW Contamination Control (Wujiang) Co. Ltd., ITW Contamination Control B.V., ITW Covid Security Group Inc., ITW DS Investments Inc., ITW DelFast do Brasil Ltda., ITW Delta Sarl, ITW Denmark ApS, ITW Dynatec, ITW Dynatec Adhesive Equipment (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Dynatec GmbH, ITW Dynatec Kabushiki Kaisha, ITW EF&C France SAS, ITW EF&C Selb GmbH, ITW Electronic Business Asia Co. Limited, ITW Electronic Components/Products (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Electronics (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Epsilon Sarl, ITW Espana S.A., ITW FEG Hong Kong Limited, ITW FEG do Brasil Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW Fastener Products GmbH, ITW Finance Designated Activity Company, ITW Finance Europe S.A., ITW Fluids and Hygiene Solutions Ltda., ITW Food Equipment Group LLC, ITW GH LLC, ITW GSE ApS, ITW GSE Inc., ITW Gamma Sarl, ITW German Management LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings Y Compania Sociedad en Comandita por Acciones, ITW Global Investments II Inc., ITW Global Investments LLC, ITW Global Tire Repair Europe GmbH, ITW Global Tire Repair Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Japan K.K., ITW Graphics (Thailand) Ltd., ITW Graphics Asia Limited, ITW Graphics Italy S.R.L. in liquidazione, ITW Great Britain Investment & Licensing Holding Company, ITW Group France (Luxembourg) S.ar.l., ITW HLP Thailand Co. Ltd., ITW Holding Quimica B.C. S.L. Sole Shareholder Company, ITW Holdings Australia L.P., ITW Holdings I Limited, ITW Holdings II Limited, ITW Holdings III Limited, ITW Holdings IV Limited, ITW Holdings IX Limited, ITW Holdings Inc., ITW Holdings LP, ITW Holdings UK, ITW Holdings V Limited, ITW Holdings VI Limited, ITW Holdings VII Limited, ITW Holdings VIII Limited, ITW Hungary Finance Beta Kft, ITW ILC Holdings I Inc., ITW IPG Investments LLC, ITW Imaden Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW India Private Limited, ITW International Holdings LLC, ITW International Intellectual Property LLC, ITW Invest Holding GmbH, ITW Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company, ITW Ireland Unlimited Company, ITW Italy Finance Srl, ITW Italy Holding Srl, ITW Japan Ltd., ITW Korea LLC, ITW LLC & Co. KG, ITW Limited, ITW Lombard Holdings Inc., ITW Lys Fusion S.r.l., ITW M FILMS II LLC, ITW MH LLC, ITW Marking & Coding (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Medical Group de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Meritex Sdn. Bhd., ITW Metal Fasteners S.L., ITW Mexico Holding Company S. De R.L. de C.V., ITW Mexico Holdings LLC, ITW Morlock GmbH, ITW Mortgage Investments II Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments III Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments IV Inc., ITW Netherlands Beta B.V., ITW Netherlands Finance Alpha BV, ITW New Universal LLC, ITW New Zealand, ITW Novadan Sp. Z.o.o., ITW PPF Brasil Adesivos Ltda., ITW Participations S.a r.l., ITW Pension Funds Trustee Company, ITW Performance Plastic (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Japan Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Korea Limited, ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids OOO, ITW Performance Polymers (Wujiang) Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers ApS, ITW Performance Polymers and Fluids Group FZE, ITW Peru S.A.C., ITW Philippines Holdings LLC, ITW Poly Mex S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Polymers Sealants North America Inc., ITW Pronovia s.r.o., ITW Pte. Ltd., ITW Qufu Automotive Cooling Systems Co. Ltd., ITW Real Estate Germany GmbH, ITW Residuals III L.L.C., ITW Residuals IV L.L.C., ITW Rivex, ITW SMPI, ITW SPG Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Simco-Ion (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., ITW Slovakia s.r.o., ITW Spain Holdings S.L., ITW Specialty Film LLC, ITW Specialty Films France, ITW Specialty Materials (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Spraytec, ITW Sverige AB, ITW Sweden Holding AB, ITW Test & Measurement Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, ITW Test & Measurement GmbH, ITW Test and Measurement Italia Srl, ITW Test and Measurement Services Industry and Trade Ltd., ITW Texwipe Philippines Inc., ITW Thermal Films (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW UK, ITW UK Finance Beta Limited, ITW UK Finance Delta Limited, ITW UK Finance Gamma Limited, ITW UK Finance Limited, ITW UK II Limited, ITW Universal II LLC, ITW Welding, ITW Welding AB, ITW Welding GmbH, ITW Welding Products B.V., ITW Welding Products Group FZE, ITW Welding Products Group S. DE R.L. De C.V., ITW Welding Products Italy Srl, ITW Welding Products Limited Liability Company, ITW Welding Produtos Para Solgdagem Ltda., ITW Welding Servicios Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Welding Singapore Pte. Ltd., ITW de France, ITW do Brasil Industrial e Comercial Ltda., ITW haubold Paslode GmbH, Ideal Molding Technologies LLC, Illinois Tool Works (Chile) Limitada, Illinois Tool Works (ITW) Nederland B.V., Illinois Tool Works Norway AS, Impar Comercio E Representacoes Ltda., Industrie Plastic Elsasser GmbH, Inmobiliaria Cit. S.A. de C.F., Innova Temperlite Servicios S.A. de C.V., Innovacion y Transformacion Automotriz S.A. de C.V., Instron (Shanghai) Ltd., Instron (Thailand) Limited, Instron Brasil Equipamentos Cientificos Ltda., Instron Foreign Sales Corp. Limited, Instron France S.A.S., Instron GmbH, Instron Holdings Limited, Instron International Limited, Instron Japan Company Ltd., Instron Korea LLC, International Leasing Company LLC, International Truss Systems Proprietary Limited, Isolenge - ITW Sistemas de Isolamento Termico Ltda., KCPL Mauritius Holdings, Kester, Kester Components (M) Sdn. Bhd., Kleinmann GmbH, Krafft Argentina S.A., Krafft S.L., Lock Inspection Systemes France Sarl, Loma Systems (Canada) Inc., Loma Systems BV, Loma Systems sro, Lombard Pressings Limited, Lumex Inc., Luvex - Industria De Equipamentos De Protecao Ltda., Lys Fusion Poland Sp. z.o.o., M&C Specialties (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., M&C Specialties Co., MAGNAFLUX GmbH, MEHB Holdings Limited, MGHG Property LLC, Magna Industrial Co. Limited, Manufacturing Avancee S.A., Meritex Technology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Meurer Verpackungssysteme GmbH, Miller Electric Mfg. LLC, Miller Insurance Ltd., NDT Holding LLC, NOVADAN APS, Norden Olje AB, North Star Imaging Europe, North Star Imaging Inc., Nova Chimica S.r.l., Odesign Inc., Orbitalum Tools GmbH, PENTA-91 OOO, PR. A. I. Srl, PT ITW Construction Products Indonesia, Pacific Concept Industries Limited (Enping), Panreac Quimica S.L., Paslode Fasteners (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Peerless Machinery Corp., Penta Dnepr LLC, Penta Sever OOO, Penta Volga OOO, Polyrey, Premark FEG L.L.C., Premark HII Holdings LLC, Premark International, Premark International LLC, Prolex Sociedad Anonima, QSA Global Inc., Quimica Industrial Mediterranea S.L., Ramset Fasteners (Hong Kong) Ltd., Rapid Cook LLC, Refrigeration France, S.E.E. Sistemas Industria E Comercio Ltda., ST Mexico Holdings LLC, Salter India Limited, Sealant Systems International Inc., Sentinel Asia Yuhan Hoesa, Shanghai ITW Plastic & Metal Co. Ltd, Simco (Nederland) B.V., Simco Japan Inc., Societe de Prospection et dInventions Techniques SPIT, Speedline Holdings I Inc., Speedline Holdings I LLC, Speedline Technologies GmbH, Speedline Technologies Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Speedline Technologies Mexico Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Stokvis Celix Portugal Unipessoal LDA, Stokvis Danmark ApS, Stokvis Holdings S.A.R.L., Stokvis Promi s.r.o, Stokvis Prostick Tapes Private Limited, Stokvis Tape Group B.V., Stokvis Tapes (Hong Kong) Co. Limited, Stokvis Tapes (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Taiwan) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes BVBA, Stokvis Tapes Benelux B.V., Stokvis Tapes Deutschland GmbH, Stokvis Tapes France, Stokvis Tapes Italia s.r.l., Stokvis Tapes Limited, Stokvis Tapes Limited Liability Company, Stokvis Tapes Norge AS, Stokvis Tapes Oy, Stokvis Tapes Polska Sp Z.O.O., Stokvis Tapes Sverige AB, Stolvis Holdings II S.A.R.L., Tarutin Kester Co. Ltd., Technopack Industria Comercio Consultoria e Representacoes Ltda., Teknek (China) Limited, Teknek (Japan) Limited, Teksaleco Ltd., The Miller Group Ltd, Thirode Grandes Cuisines Poligny, Tien Tai Electrode (Kunshan) Co. Ltd., Tien Tai Electrode (Qingdao) Co. Ltd., Tien Tai Electrode Co. Ltd., Tregaskiss Welding Products, US Finance Gamma LLC, Unichemicals Industria e Comercio Ltda., VR-Leasing Sarita GmbH & Co. Immobilien KG, VS European Holdco BV, Valeron Strength Films B.V.B.A., Veneta Decalcogomme S.r.l., Versachem Chile S.A., Vesta, Vesta (Guangzhou) Catering Equipment Co. Ltd, Vesta Global Limited, Viltronics Soltec, Vitronics Soltec B.V., W Packaging Technology (China) Co. Ltd., Wachs Canada Ltd., Wachs Subsea LLC, Weigh-Tronix Canada ULC, Weigh-Tronix UK Limited, Wilsonart International Holdings LLC, Wujiang Advanced Cleaning Co. Ltd., Wynn Oil (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd., Wynn's Automotive France, Wynn's Belgium BVBA, Wynn's Italia Srl, Wynn's Mekuba India Pvt Ltd, ZF TRW (Engineered Fasteners and Components), and Zip-Pak International B.V.. Zayo Group Holdings, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides bandwidth infrastructure solutions for the communications industry in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The company operates in six segments: Fiber Solutions, Transport, Enterprise Networks, Zayo Colocation (zColo), Allstream, and Other. The Fiber Solutions segment provides dark fiber, and fiber-to-the-tower and small cell mobile infrastructure services for carriers and other communication service providers, Internet service providers, wireless service providers, media and content companies, large enterprises, and other companies. The Transport segment offers lit bandwidth infrastructure solutions comprising wavelength, Ethernet, wholesale IP services, and SONET services through its metro, regional, and long-haul fiber networks for carriers, content providers, financial services companies, healthcare, government entities, education institutions, and other medium and large enterprises. The Enterprise Networks segment provides connectivity and telecommunications solutions comprising Internet, wide area networking products, managed products, and cloud based computing and storage offerings to medium and large enterprises. The Zayo Colocation (zColo) segment offers data center infrastructure solutions consisting of colocation space, and power and interconnection services to a range of enterprise, carrier, cloud, and content customers. The Allstream segment provides cloud VoIP and data solutions, such as voice offerings; and unified communications, as well as telecommunications services, including Ethernet, and IP/MPLS VPN solutions. The Other segment provides network and technical resources to customers in designing, acquiring, and maintaining their networks. Zayo Group Holdings, Inc. was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado. Read More Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI Hong Kong ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI Hong Kong ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys. View MarketBeat's top stock picks here. Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. develops, manufactures, and markets life science research and clinical diagnostic products in the United States, Europe, Asia, Canada, and Latin America. The company offers products and systems to separate complex chemical and biological materials, as well as to identify, analyze, and purify components. It operates in two segments, Life Science and Clinical Diagnostics. The Life Science segment develops, manufactures, and markets a range of reagents, apparatus, and laboratory instruments that are used in research techniques, biopharmaceutical production processes, and food testing regimes. It focuses on selected segments of the life sciences market in proteomics, genomics, biopharmaceutical production, cell biology, and food safety. This segment serves universities and medical schools, industrial research organizations, government agencies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, biotechnology researchers, food producers, and food testing laboratories. The Clinical Diagnostics segment designs, manufactures, sells, and supports test systems, informatics systems, test kits, and specialized quality controls for clinical laboratories in the diagnostics market. This segment offers reagents, instruments, and software, which address specific niches within the in vitro diagnostics test market. It sells its products to reference laboratories, hospital laboratories, state newborn screening facilities, physicians' office laboratories, transfusion laboratories, and insurance and forensic testing laboratories. The company offers its products through its direct sales force, as well as through distributors, agents, brokers, and resellers. Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. was founded in 1952 and is headquartered in Hercules, California. Read More Grupo TMM, S.A.B., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a logistics and transportation company in Mexico. It operates through four segments: Specialized Maritime Transportation, Logistics, Ports and Terminals, and Warehousing. The company offers maritime transportation services, including offshore vessels, which provide transportation and other services to the Mexican offshore oil industry; tankers that transport petroleum products in Mexican and international waters; parcel tankers, which transport liquid chemical and vegetable oil cargos from and to the United States and Mexico; and dry bulk carriers that transport unpackaged commodities, such as steel between South America, the Caribbean, and Mexico. As of March 31, 2021, it operated through a fleet of 29 vessels, which included product and chemical tankers and various offshore supply vessels. The company also provides ship repair services through two floating drydocks with a capacity of 3,000 metric tons each; port agent services to vessel owners and operators in the Mexican ports; and warehousing and bonded warehousing facility management services, as well as operates the Tuxpan, Tampico, and Acapulco port facilities that engages in loading and unloading, storage, and shipping agency operations. In addition, it offers logistics services, including consulting, analytical, and logistics outsourcing; logistics network analysis; logistics information process design; intermodal transport; supply chain and logistics management; product handling and repackaging; local pre-assembly; container maintenance and repair; and inbound and outbound distribution using various transportation modes to automobile manufacturers and retailers. The company was founded in 1955 and is headquartered in Mexico City, Mexico. Read More General Electric Company operates as a high-tech industrial company worldwide. The company's Power segment offers heavy-duty and aeroderivative gas turbines for utilities, independent power producers, and industrial applications; maintenance, service, and upgrade solutions to plant assets and their operational lifecycle; steam power technology for fossil and nuclear applications, including boilers, generators, steam turbines, and air quality control systems; and advanced reactor technologies solutions comprising reactors, fuels, and support services for boiling water reactors. This segment also applies the science and systems of power conversion to provide motors, generators, automation, and control equipment; and drives for energy intensive industries, such as marine, oil and gas, mining, rail, metals, test systems, and water. Its Renewable Energy segment provides various solutions for its customers through combining onshore and offshore wind, blades, hydro, storage, solar, and grid solutions, as well as hybrid renewables and digital services offerings. The company's Aviation segment designs and produces commercial and military aircraft engines, integrated engine components, electric power, and mechanical aircraft systems; and provides aftermarket services. Its Healthcare segment develops, manufactures, markets, and services magnetic resonance, computed tomography, molecular imaging, x-ray and high-frequency soundwave systems, clinical monitoring and acute care systems, enterprise digital, artificial intelligence applications, consulting and command center, and complementary software and services; and researches, manufactures, and markets imaging agents. The company's Capital segment offers aviation leasing and financing, and working capital services; financial solutions and underwriting capabilities; and insurance and reinsurance for life and health risks, as well as annuity products. The company was founded in 1878 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Read More Sempra Energy operates as an energy-services holding company in the United States and internationally. The company's San Diego Gas & Electric Company segment generates, transmits, and distributes electricity; and supplies natural gas. It offers electric services to approximately 3.7 million population and natural gas services to approximately 3.4 million population that covers 4,100 square miles. Its Southern California Gas Company segment owns and operates a natural gas distribution, transmission, and storage system that supplies natural gas to a population of approximately 22 million covering an area of 24,000 square miles. The company's Sempra Texas Utilities segment is involved in the regulated transmission and distribution of electricity serving 3.7 million homes and businesses, and operation of 139,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines. Its transmission system includes 18,127 circuit miles of transmission lines, 336 transmission stations, and 806 distribution substations; distribution system comprises 121,129 miles of overhead and underground lines; and 63 miles of electric transmission lines. Its Sempra Mexico segment develops, owns, operates, or holds interests in natural gas, electric, liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquid petroleum gas (LPG), ethane, and liquid fuels infrastructure; and purchases LNG, and purchases and sells natural gas. This segment operates natural-gas-fired, and wind and solar power generation facilities. Its assets/facilities consist of 1,850 miles of natural gas transmission pipelines, 15 compressor stations, and 139 miles of ethane pipelines; and 2,729 miles of natural gas distribution pipelines. The company's Sempra LNG segment develops and builds natural gas liquefaction export facilities; holds an interest in a facility for the export of LNG; owns and operates natural gas pipelines; and buys, sells, and transports natural gas. The company was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in San Diego, California. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of CVS Health: @Credentials Inc., ACS ACQCO CORP., ADMINCO Inc., AE Fourteen Incorporated, AHP Holdings Inc., AMC - Tennessee LLC, APS Acquisition LLC, ASCO HealthCare LLC, ASI Wings LLC, AUSHC Holdings Inc., Accendo Insurance Company, Accordant Health Services L.L.C., Active Health Management Inc., Administrative Enterprises Inc., AdvancePCS SpecialtyRx LLC, AdvanceRx.com L.L.C., Advanced Care Scripts Inc., Aetna, Aetna (Beijing) Enterprise Management Services Co. Ltd., Aetna (Shanghai) Enterprise Services Co. Ltd., Aetna ACO Holdings Inc., Aetna Asset Advisors LLC, Aetna Behavioral Health LLC, Aetna Better Health Inc., Aetna Better Health Inc., Aetna Better Health of California Inc., Aetna Better Health of Florida Inc., Aetna Better Health of Kansas Inc., Aetna Better Health of Michigan Inc., Aetna Better Health of Missouri LLC, Aetna Better Health of Nevada Inc., Aetna Better Health of North Carolina Inc., Aetna Better Health of Oklahoma Inc., Aetna Better Health of Texas Inc., Aetna Better Health of Washington Inc., Aetna Capital Management LLC, Aetna Card Solutions LLC, Aetna Corporate Services LLC, Aetna Dental Inc., Aetna Dental of California Inc., Aetna Financial Holdings LLC, Aetna Florida Inc., Aetna Global Benefits (Asia Pacific) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Bahamas) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Bermuda) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Europe) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Middle East) LLC, Aetna Global Benefits (Singapore) PTE. LTD., Aetna Global Benefits (UK) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits Limited (DIFC UAE), Aetna Global Holdings Limited, Aetna Health Holdings LLC, Aetna Health Inc., Aetna Health Insurance (Thailand) Public Company Limited, Aetna Health Insurance Company, Aetna Health Insurance Company of Europe DAC, Aetna Health Management LLC, Aetna Health and Life Insurance Company, Aetna Health of California Inc., Aetna Health of Iowa Inc., Aetna Health of Michigan Inc., Aetna Health of Ohio Inc., Aetna Health of Utah Inc., Aetna HealthAssurance Pennsylvania Inc., Aetna Holdco (UK) Limited, Aetna Holdings (Thailand) Limited, Aetna Inc., Aetna Insurance (Hong Kong) Limite, Aetna Insurance (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Aetna Insurance Company Limited, Aetna Integrated Informatics Inc., Aetna International Inc., Aetna Ireland Inc., Aetna Korea Ltd., Aetna Life & Casualty (Bermuda) Ltd., Aetna Life Assignment Company, Aetna Life Insurance Company, Aetna Medicaid Administrators LLC, Aetna Multi-Strategy 1099 Fund LLC, Aetna Network Services LLC, Aetna Partners Diversified Fund LLC, Aetna Pharmacy Management Services LLC, Aetna Resources LLC, Aetna Risk Assurance Company of Connecticut Inc., Aetna Rx Home Delivery LLC, Aetna Services (Thailand) Limited, Aetna Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Aetna Student Health Agency Inc., Aetna Ventures LLC, Aetna Workers Comp Access LLC, Alabama CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Alaska CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Allina Health and Aetna Insurance Company, Allina Health and Aetna Insurance Holding Company LLC, American Continental Insurance Company, American Drug Stores Delaware L.L.C., American Health Holding Inc., Arbor Drugs, Arizona CVS Stores L.L.C., Arkansas CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Badger Acquisition LLC, Badger Acquisition of Kentucky LLC, Badger Acquisition of Minnesota LLC, Badger Acquisition of Ohio LLC, Banner Health and Aetna Health Insurance Company, Banner Health and Aetna Health Insurance Holding Company LLC, Banner Health and Aetna Health Plan Inc., Beauty Holdings L.L.C., Best Care LTC Acquisition Company LLC, Busse CVS L.L.C., CCI Foreign S.a R.L. (R.C.S. Luxembourg), CCRx Holdings LLC, CCRx of North Carolina LLC, CHP Acquisition LLC, CP Acquisition LLC, CVS 2948 Henderson L.L.C., CVS 3268 Gilbert L.L.C., CVS 3745 Peoria L.L.C., CVS AL Distribution L.L.C., CVS AOC Corporation, CVS AOC Services L.L.C., CVS Albany L.L.C., CVS Bellmore Avenue L.L.C., CVS Care Concierge LLC, CVS Caremark Advanced Technology Pharmacy L.L.C., CVS Caremark Indemnity Ltd., CVS Caremark Part D Services L.L.C., CVS Caremark TN SUTA LLC, CVS Foreign Inc., CVS Gilbert 3272 L.L.C., CVS Health Solutions LLC, CVS Indiana L.L.C., CVS International L.L.C., CVS Kidney Care Advanced Technologies LLC, CVS Kidney Care Health Services LLC, CVS Kidney Care Home Dialysis LLC, CVS Kidney Care LLC, CVS Manchester NH L.L.C., CVS Media Exchange LLC, CVS Michigan L.L.C., CVS Orlando FL Distribution L.L.C., CVS PA Distribution L.L.C., CVS PR Center Inc., CVS Pharmacy Inc., CVS RS Arizona L.L.C., CVS Rx Services Inc., CVS SC Distribution L.L.C., CVS State Capital L.L.C., CVS TN Distribution L.L.C., CVS Transportation L.L.C., CVS Vero FL Distribution L.L.C., Campos Medical Pharmacy LLC, Canal Place LLC, Care Pharmaceutical Services LP, CareCenter Pharmacy L.L.C., Carefree Insurance Services Inc., Caremark Arizona Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Arizona Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark California Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Florida Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Florida Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Hawaii Mail Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Hawaii Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark IPA L.L.C., Caremark Illinois Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Illinois Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Irving Resource Center LLC, Caremark Kansas Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark L.L.C., Caremark Logistics LLC, Caremark Louisiana Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Maryland Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Massachusetts Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Michigan Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Minnesota Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark New Jersey Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark North Carolina Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Ohio Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Pennsylvania Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark PhC L.L.C., Caremark Puerto Rico L.L.C., Caremark Puerto Rico Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Redlands Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Repack LLC, Caremark Rx L.L.C., Caremark Tennessee Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Texas Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Texas Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Ulysses Holding Corp., Caremark Washington Specialty Pharmacy LLC, CaremarkPCS Alabama Mail Pharmacy LLC, CaremarkPCS Health L.L.C., CaremarkPCS L.L.C., Central Rx Services LLC, Claims Administration Corp., Cofinity Inc., Compscript LLC, Connecticut CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Continental Life Insurance Company of Brentwood Tennessee, Continuing Care Rx LLC, Coram Alternate Site Services Inc., Coram Clinical Trials Inc., Coram Healthcare Corporation of Alabama, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Florida, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Greater D.C., Coram Healthcare Corporation of Greater New York, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Indiana, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Massachusetts, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Mississippi, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Nevada, Coram Healthcare Corporation of North Texas, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Northern California, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Southern California, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Southern Florida, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Utah, Coram LLC, Coram Rx LLC, Coram Specialty Infusion, Coram Specialty Infusion Services L.L.C., Coventry Consumer Advantage Inc., Coventry Health Care National Accounts Inc., Coventry Health Care National Network Inc., Coventry Health Care Workers Compensation Inc., Coventry Health Care of Illinois Inc., Coventry Health Care of Kansas Inc., Coventry Health Care of Missouri Inc., Coventry Health Care of Nebraska Inc., Coventry Health Care of Virginia Inc., Coventry Health Care of West Virginia Inc., Coventry Health Plan of Florida Inc., Coventry Health and Life Insurance Company, Coventry HealthCare Management Corporation, Coventry Prescription Management Services Inc., Coventry Rehabilitation Services Inc., Coventry Transplant Network Inc., D & R Pharmaceutical Services LLC, D.A.W. LLC, Delaware CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Delaware Physicians Care Incorporated, Digital eHealth LLC, District of Columbia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., E.T.B. INC., Echo Merger Sub Inc., Eckerd Corporation of Florida Inc., Employee Assistance Services LLC, Enloe Drugs LLC, Enterprise Patient Safety Organization LLC, EntrustRX, Evergreen Pharmaceutical LLC, Evergreen Pharmaceutical of California Inc., Express Pharmacy Services of PA L.L.C., FOCUS HealthCare Management Inc., First Health Group Corp., First Health Life & Health Insurance Company, First Script Network Services Inc., Florida Health Plan Administrators LLC, Garfield Beach CVS L.L.C., Generation Health L.L.C., Geneva Woods Health Services LLC, Geneva Woods LTC Pharmacy LLC, Geneva Woods Management LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Alaska LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Washington LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Wyoming LLC, Geneva Woods Retail Pharmacy LLC, Georgia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., German Dobson CVS L.L.C., Goodhealth Worldwide (Asia) Limited, Goodhealth Worldwide (Global) Limited, Goodyear CVS L.L.C., Grand St. Paul CVS L.L.C., Grandview Pharmacy LLC, Group Dental Service Inc., Group Dental Service of Maryland Inc., Health Care Management Co. Ltd., Health Data & Management Solutions Inc., Health Re Inc., Health and Human Resource Center Inc., HealthAssuance Pennsylvania Inc., Healthagen LLC, Highland Park CVS L.L.C., Holiday CVS L.L.C., Home Care Pharmacy LLC, Home Pharmacy Services LLC, Hook-SupeRx L.L.C., Horizon Behavioral Services LLC, Idaho CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., IlliniCare Health, Indian Health Organisation Private Limited, Innovation Health Holdings LLC, Innovation Health Insurance Company, Innovation Health Plan Inc., Interlock Pharmacy Systems LLC, Iowa CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., JHC Acquisition LLC, Kansas CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Kentucky CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., LCPS Acquisition LLC, Langsam Health Services LLC, Lo-Med Prescription Services LLC, Lobos Acquisition LLC, Longs Drug Stores, Longs Drug Stores California L.L.C., Louisiana CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., MHHP Acquisition Company LLC, MHNet Life and Health Insurance Company, MHNet Specialty Services LLC, MHNet of Florida Inc., Managed Care Coordinators Inc., Managed Healthcare LLC, Martin Health Services LLC, Maryland CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Med World Acquisition Corp., Medical Arts Health Care LLC, Medical Examinations of New York P.C., Melville Realty Company Inc., MemberHealth LLC, Mental Health Associates Inc., Mental Health Network of New York IPA Inc., Meritain Health Inc., Merwin Long Term Care LLC, MetraComp Inc., Minor Health Enterprise Co Ltd., MinuteClinic, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Alabama L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Arizona LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Florida LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Georgia LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Hawaii L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Illinois LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Kentucky L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Louisiana L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Maine L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Maryland LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Massachusetts LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Nebraska L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of New Hampshire L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of New Mexico L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Ohio LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Oklahoma LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Oregon LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Pennsylvania LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Rhode Island LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of South Carolina L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Texas LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Utah L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Virginia LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Washington LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Wisconsin L.L.C., MinuteClinic L.L.C., MinuteClinic Online Diagnostic Services LLC, MinuteClinic Physician Practice of Texas, MinuteClinic Telehealth Services LLC, Mississippi CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Missouri CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Montana CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., NCS Healthcare LLC, NCS Healthcare of Illinois LLC, NCS Healthcare of Iowa LLC, NCS Healthcare of Kansas LLC, NCS Healthcare of Kentucky Inc. (Oh, NCS Healthcare of Montana LLC, NCS Healthcare of New Mexico LLC, NCS Healthcare of Ohio LLC, NCS Healthcare of South Carolina LLC, NCS Healthcare of Tennessee LLC, NCS Healthcare of Wisconsin LLC, NIV Acquisition LLC, Navarro Discount Pharmacy, Nebraska CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., NeighborCare Holdings Inc., NeighborCare Inc., NeighborCare Pharmacy Services Inc., NeighborCare Services Corporation, NeighborCare of Indiana LLC, NeighborCare of Virginia LLC, New Jersey CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Niagara Re Inc., North Carolina CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., North Shore Pharmacy Services LLC, NovoLogix LLC, OCR Services LLC, Ocean Acquisition Sub L.L.C., Ohio CVS Stores L.L.C., Oklahoma CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Omnicare, Omnicare Holding Company, Omnicare Inc., Omnicare Indiana Partnership Holding Company LLC, Omnicare Pharmacies of Pennsylvania East LLC, Omnicare Pharmacies of Pennsylvania West LLC, Omnicare Pharmacies of the Great Plains Holding LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy and Supply Services LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy of Tennessee LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy of the Midwest LLC, Omnicare Property Management LLC, Omnicare of Nebraska LLC, Omnicare of Nevada LLC, Omnicare of New York LLC, Oregon CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., PE Holdings LLC, PHPSNE Parent Corporation, PP Acquisition Company LLC, PRN Pharmaceutical Services LP, PT Aetna Management Consulting, Pamplona Saude e Beleza LTDA, Part D Holding Company L.L.C., PayFlex Holdings Inc., PayFlex Systems USA Inc., Pennsylvania CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Performax Inc., Pharmacy Associates of Glenn Falls LLC, Pharmacy Consultants LLC, Phoenix Data Solutions LLC, Precision Benefit Services Inc., Prime Net Inc., ProCare Pharmacy Direct L.L.C., ProCare Pharmacy L.L.C., Prodigy Health Group Inc., Professional Risk Management Inc., Pt. Aetna Global Benefits Indonesia, Puerto Rico CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Red Oak Sourcing LLC, Resources for Living LLC, Rhode Island CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Roeschens Healthcare LLC, RxAmerica, Schaller Anderson Medical Administrators Incorporated, Scrip World LLC, Sheffield Avenue CVS L.L.C., Shore Pharmaceutical Providers LLC, Silverscript Insurance Company, Soma Intimates, South Carolina CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., South Wabash CVS L.L.C., Specialized Pharmacy Services LLC, Spinnaker Bidco Limited, Spinnaker Topco Limited, Stadtlander Drug Company, Stadtlander Pharmacy, Sterling Healthcare Services LLC, Superior Care Pharmacy LLC, Sutter Health and Aetna Administrative Services LLC, Sutter Health and Aetna Insurance Company, Sutter Health and Aetna Insurance Holding Company LLC, T2 Medical Inc., TCPI Acquisition LLC, TargetPharmacy, Tennessee CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Texas Health + Aetna Health Insurance Company, Texas Health + Aetna Health Insurance Holding Company LLC, Texas Health + Aetna Health Plan Inc., The Vasquez Group Inc., Thomas Phoenix CVS L.L.C., Three Forks Apothecary LLC, U.S Healthcare Holdings LLC, U.S. Healthcare Properties Inc., UAC Holding Inc., UC Acquisition LLC, UNI-Care Health Services of Maine LLC, Universal American - Medicare Part D Business, Utah CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., VAPS Acquisition Company LLC, Value Health Care Services LLC, Vermont CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Virginia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Virtual Home Healthcare L.L.C., Warm Springs Road CVS L.L.C., Washington CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Washington Lamb CVS L.L.C., Weber Medical Systems LLC, Wellpartner LLC, West Virginia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Westhaven Services Co LLC, Williamson Drug Company LLC, Wisconsin CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Woodward Detroit CVS L.L.C., Work and Family Benefits Inc., ZS Acquisition Company LLC, Zinc Health Services LLC, Zinc Health Ventures LLC, bSwift LLC, and iTriage LLC. Since 2016, Teeka Tiwari has trumped the stock market. His investment recommendations have each averaged 281%. Thats 17 times the S&P. And 112 times the average investor, according to JPMorgan! However, one investment Teeka just uncovered could top them all It involves former President Biden, billions of dollars, several large banks, and a super-rich family. As well as a MAJOR potential upgrade to our credit cards. Teeka, who ended up correctly picking the last investment of the decade, is declaring this his top pick for the 2020s. Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is a publicly owned asset management holding company. The firm specializes in early stage, acquisition, distressed investments, short-term financing to mid-market companies, corporate carve-outs, recapitalizations, convertible, senior and mezzanine financings, operational and capital structure restructuring, strategic re-direction, turnaround, and under-performing midmarket companies. The firm invest in attractive businesses through the public debt and equity markets or by providing financing. The firm invest in Business services, Industrials and Residential sectors. Through its subsidiaries, the firm invests in the property, power, and infrastructure sectors. Its property business includes owning and managing office properties, developing master planned residential communities, and offering clients bridge and mezzanine lending, alternative assets funds, and financial and advisory services. Through its subsidiaries, the firm operates hydroelectric power facilities, interconnections and transmission facilities in Northeast North America, and development of wind power in Canada. Through its subsidiaries, it invests in specialty funds including private equity and makes direct investments in real estate, energy, and resource assets. The firm launches and manages equity and fixed income mutual funds. It also manages real estate and hedge funds. The firm invests in equity and fixed income markets across the globe. It also invest in British Columbia, United States, Brazil, Australia, Chile, Uruguay, New Zealand. It prefers to invest between $2 million and $500 million in its portfolio companies. The firm also prefers to take both minority and majority stakes in its companies. It was formerly known as Brascan Corp. Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is based in Toronto, Canada with additional offices in Bogota, Colombia, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Calgary, Canada, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Gatineau, Canada, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, London, United Kingdom, Melbourne, Australia, Montreal, Canada, Mumbai, India, New York City, Perth, Australia, Shanghai, China, and Sydney, Australia. Read More Ad Resource Stock Digest New this week - 1,632 interested Could This Be the Biggest US Gold Discovery in Years? See how this tiny, unknown gold company secured a prime land package right next door to the worlds two largest gold producers in Nevadas famed Carlin Trend where 84 Million gold ounces have already been extracted. Best of all, investors can still get in well below US$0.50 per share. Thinking of buying options? DONT- Read this first (Ad) Options traders place high-risk trades, hoping for a big payout. But they lose... a LOT! That's why Jim Fink flips options trading on its head, making money over 85% of the time. His personal strategy guide could help you unlock as much as $67,548 in extra income. Click here for the dirty details Wall Street analysts have given iShares China Large-Cap ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares China Large-Cap ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys. View MarketBeat's top stock picks here. When he learns that the Holy Family is no longer in Egypt, Artaban sets out on another journey of faith. Rumor or an angel has it that Jesus and his parents have been repatriated to Israel, in the region of Galilee specifically the town of Nazareth. So the faithful wise man continues his pilgrimage to wherever the Spirit leads. As Van Dykes story unfolds, chapter after chapter, city after city, year after year, Artaban spends the rest of his life and his money trying to find the Christ Child. Artaban finally finds Jesus during that last chaotic week in Jerusalem, on Palm Sunday. In my version of this story he is in the crowd, cheering, waving palm branches for what he thought would be a triumphal entry of the Messiah. In 33 years, he still hasnt managed to meet Him face-to-face, but now hes close. Having spent all his gifts on others instead of the Christ, our intrepid pilgrim feels down and out, but then hears Jesus say, Whatever you did for the least of these, youve done for Me (Matthew 25:40). With Artaban, as with us, every kindness to another, every gemstone sold to alleviate someones need or misery, every delay or detour that helps the poor and vulnerablein all such times had the effect of presenting the Christ Child with his gift. For those who follow behind the Three Wise Men in search of the King, fear not, our treasures are accepted. In the poor and needy we find the Christ in disguise. Rev. Dietrich Gruen, from Madison, is Bridge Pastor at First Presbyterian of Columbus. He loves delving into the story behind some current topic or religious tradition. JUNEAU A 37-year-old Beaver Dam man will serve two years of probation for abusing his girlfriend. Hubert Bowie pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of battery and disorderly conduct and was sentenced Wednesday by Dodge County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Sciascia. Two felony charges of strangulation and false imprisonment were dismissed, but read into the record. As conditions of Bowies probation, he must undergo an alcohol and drug assessment and comply with all treatment and counseling as recommended. He may have no contact with the victim without approval of his agent. In addition, he must pay court costs. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} According to the criminal complaint, a woman entered Chill Zone Liquor Store, 801 Park Ave., on Oct. 17. The employee noticed that she seemed upset and asked her what was wrong. She told the employee that she was being abused. The employee saw bruises on the womans arms and was able to help police identify the woman and her boyfriend. Police found the woman at Quality Inn, 815 Park Ave., hiding from her boyfriend. According to the criminal complaint, the woman said that she had been in a relationship with the man for five months and they had been living in different hotels. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Linda Klinger, the hospitals director of rehab services, said they are looking for bigger trends with the software. Klinger was active in bringing Blue Zones to Dodge County. Klinger said another the hospital has implemented is SBIRT screening, brief intervention and referral for treatment. Patients complete a questionnaire about their alcohol use, which can then be utilized by care providers to engage in conversations with the patients about things like the appropriate size of a drink and what safe drinking looks like, Klinger said. If someone needs to be referred for treatment, the patient is told about their options. We will start in our clinics and then hopefully bring it to other clinics in the area who are interested in implementing it, Klinger said. The goal is to start addressing alcohol-related issues, but she admits addressing the drinking culture will take longer. We realize the work is not going to be easy, Klinger said. It shouldnt be. It will take some time before we see the benefit of the work. Hospital officials said they believe their efforts could produce a 10-20 percent reduction in alcohol-related incidents in Dodge County. Overall, we are looking at improving the quality of life for those living in Dodge County, Miller said. Follow Terri Pederson on Twitter @tlp53916 or contact her at 920-356-6760. JUNEAU A 28-year-old Appleton man pleaded not guilty to a fifth charge of operating while intoxicated Wednesday in Dodge County Circuit Court. Bryar Martin, currently being held in the Dodge County Jail, could face up to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine if convicted. According to the criminal complaint, a Dodge County Sheriffs Office deputy pulled Martin over on Church Street in Lomira at 3 a.m. Dec. 7 for excessively loud exhaust and a burned-out left brake lamp. Martin told the deputy that he had a prescription for Adderall and was taking his prescription. He also said he had smoked marijuana about an hour before, but he had not been drinking. The deputy could smell alcohol and the passenger stated they had been drinking. Bryar submitted to a preliminary breath test, which registered a .097 blood-alcohol level, above the legal limit of .08, though Bryars legal limit is .02 due to his prior drunk driving convictions. He then told the officer he had one drink about an hour before. Martin had previously been convicted of intoxicated driving in 2010, 2011 and twice in 2016. A telephone scheduling conference is Feb. 4. Follow Terri Pederson on Twitter @tlp53916 or contact her at 920-356-6760. In November, Wisconsin voters assembled and made a few changes at the top of state government with the election of Democrat Tony Evers as governor and Josh Kaul as attorney general. Republicans maintained control of both of the legislative chambers. Aside from the state superintendent of schools, formerly Evers, Republicans have had control for the past eight years. Both Evers and Kaul were elected by very small margins, hardly indicating a true mandate for change, but nonetheless, change is upon us for the coming year under the dome in Madison. Regardless of whos in charge of the Legislature, or whos living in the governors mansion, there needs to be a common goal of working hard for the people of Wisconsin. Often, the goals we set as individuals or as citizens with differing viewpoints regarding what needs to be accomplished in Madison is where we can diverge completely. Understanding and quantifying how those on the right side of the political spectrum differ from those on the left isnt easy to nail down. In addition, folks can be economically conservative and socially liberal, or they can be the opposite. We therefore often will differ on what we see as the goals of a legislative session. WASHINGTON - Cheering Democrats returned Nancy Pelosi to the House speaker's post Thursday as the 116th Congress ushered in a historically diverse freshman class eager to confront President Donald Trump in a new era of divided government. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/1/2019 (893 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The chamber of the House of Representatives is seen before convening for the first day of the 116th Congress with Democrats holding the majority, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) WASHINGTON - Cheering Democrats returned Nancy Pelosi to the House speaker's post Thursday as the 116th Congress ushered in a historically diverse freshman class eager to confront President Donald Trump in a new era of divided government. Pelosi, elected speaker 220-192, took the gavel saying U.S. voters "demanded a new dawn" in the November election that swept the Democrats to a House majority and are looking to "the beauty of our Constitution" to provide checks and balances on power. She faced 15 dissenting votes from fellow Democrats. For a few hours, the promise of a new era was the order of the day. The new speaker invited scores of lawmakers' kids to join her on the dais as she was sworn in, calling the House to order "on behalf of all of America's children." Even Trump congratulated her during a rare appearance at the White House briefing room, saying her election by House colleagues was "a tremendous, tremendous achievement." The president has tangled often with Pelosi and is sure to do so again with Democrats controlling the House, but he said, "I think it'll be a little bit different than a lot of people are thinking." Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a freshman Democrat representing New York's 14th Congressional District, takes a selfie with Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, D-NH, and Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., on the first day of the 116th Congress with Democrats holding the majority, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) As night fell, the House quickly got to work on the partial government shutdown, which was winding up Day 13 with Trump demanding billions in Mexican border wall funding to bring it to an end. Democrats approved legislation to re-open the government but without the $5.6 billion in wall money, which means it has no chance in the Republican Senate. The new Congress is like none other. There are more women than ever before, and a new generation of Muslims, Latinos, Native Americans and African-Americans is creating a House more aligned with the population of the United States. However, the Republican side in the House is still made up mostly of white men, and in the Senate Republicans bolstered their ranks in the majority. In a nod to the moment, Pelosi, the first female speaker who reclaimed the post she lost to the GOP in 2011, broadly pledged to make Congress work for all Americans addressing kitchen table issues at a time of deep economic churn even as her party readies to challenge Trump with investigations and subpoena powers that threaten the White House agenda. Pelosi promised to "restore integrity to government" and outlined an agenda "to lower health costs and prescription drug prices and protect people with pre-existing medical conditions; to increase paychecks by rebuilding America with green and modern infrastructure from sea to shining sea." The day unfolded as one of both celebration and impatience. Newly elected lawmakers arrived, often with friends and families in tow, to take the oath of office and pose for ceremonial photos. Then they swiftly turned to the shutdown. Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of N.Y. arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019, as the 116th Congress begins. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Vice-President Mike Pence swore in newly elected senators, but Senate Republicans under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had no plans to consider the House bills unless Trump agreed to sign them into law. That ensured the shutdown would continue, clouding the first days of the new session. McConnell said that Republicans have shown the Senate is "fertile soil for big, bipartisan accomplishments," but that the question is whether House Democrats will engage in "good governance or political performance art." It's a time of stark national political division that some analysts say is on par with the Civil War era. Battle lines are drawn not just between Democrats and Republicans but within the parties themselves, splintered by their left and right flanks. Pelosi defied history in returning to the speaker's office after eight years in the minority, overcoming internal opposition from Democrats demanding a new generation of leaders. She will be the first to regain the gavel since Sam Rayburn of Texas in 1955. Putting Pelosi's name forward for nomination, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the incoming Democratic caucus chair, recounted her previous accomplishments passing the Affordable Care Act, helping the country out of the Great Recession as preludes to her next ones. He called her leadership "unparalleled in modern American history." Nancy Pelosi of California react to being elected House Speaker at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) One Democrat, Rep. Brenda Lawrence of Michigan, cast her vote for Pelosi "on the shoulders of women who marched 100 years ago" for women's suffrage. Newly elected Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia, an anti-gun violence advocate, dedicated hers to her slain teenage son, Jordan Davis. As speaker, Pelosi will face challenges from the party's robust wing of liberal newcomers, including 29-year-old New Yorker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has risen to such prominence she is already known around the Capitol and on her prolific social media accounts by the nickname "AOC." California Rep. Brad Sherman introduced articles of impeachment against Trump, though for now the measures are largely symbolic. Republicans face their own internal battles as they decide how closely to tie their political fortunes to Trump. House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy's name was put into nomination for speaker by his party's caucus chair, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the daughter of the former vice-president. He faced six "no" votes from his now-shrunken GOP minority. As McCarthy passed the gavel to Pelosi he said voters wonder if Congress is "still capable" of solving problems, and said this period of divided government is "no excuse for gridlock." One office remains disputed as the House refused to seat Republican Mark Harris of North Carolina amid an investigation by state election officials of irregularities in absentee ballots from the November election. Many GOP senators are up for re-election in 2020 in states where voters have mixed views of Trump's performance in the White House. Trump, whose own bid for 2020 already is underway, faces potential challenges from the ranks of Senate Democrats under Chuck Schumer. The halls of the Capitol were bustling with arrivals, children in the arms of many new lawmakers. Visitor galleries included crooner Tony Bennett and rock legend Mickey Hart, both guests of Pelosi. Incoming White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman, sat with Republican leaders. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., opened the House prayer asking at "a time fraught with tribalism at home and turbulence abroad" that lawmakers "become the architects of a kindlier nation." Overnight, Democratic Rep-elect Ilhan Omar of Minnesota tweeted a picture with her family at the airport. The House rules were being changed to allow Omar, who is Muslim, to wear a head scarf on the chamber floor. She wrote, "23 years ago, from a refugee camp in Kenya, my father and I arrived at an airport in Washington DC. Today, we return to that same airport on the eve of my swearing in as the first Somali-American in Congress." Associated Press writers Jill Colvin, Matthew Daly, Alan Fram, Kevin Freking, Mary Clare Jalonick, Laurie Kellman and Zeke J. Miller contributed to this report. Ask a random Canadian if our health system looks more like that of the United States or the United Kingdom. Chances are, most will respond that our system is nothing like the U.S. which is largely paid for privately and every bit like the U.K., which has publicly funded health care. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/1/2019 (893 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion Ask a random Canadian if our health system looks more like that of the United States or the United Kingdom. Chances are, most will respond that our system is nothing like the U.S. which is largely paid for privately and every bit like the U.K., which has publicly funded health care. The reality is more of a cold shower. When we look at data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which compares the rich countries of the world, we see Canada is ahead of most peer countries in terms of private financing, with a whopping 30 per cent of our health spending paid for through private insurance or out-of-pocket spending. This is 50 per cent more than the U.K., where private health spending is at 20 per cent, and three times as much as in France, where its only 10 per cent. Now, a court case in British Columbia, known widely as the Cambie case, has some worried that we might see an even greater development of the private-pay health-care market across Canada. But will we? The Quebec experience suggests a lot hinges on how forcefully and decisively the B.C. government responds to the court challenge. And, on this count, B.C. has a head start where Quebec faltered. The court decisions matter, of course, but at the end of the day, it will be provincial governments actions (or lack thereof) that open or shut the door to a two-tier health system. For those with good memories, the Cambie case may be oddly reminiscent of the Chaoulli case that unfolded more than 13 years ago in Quebec. To understand both, its worthwhile to remind readers of the legal provisions that constrain the private purchase of health care in Canadian provinces. Basically, doctors in Canada are prohibited from extra billing or double-dipping charging patients for services already covered under our publicly funded medicare. Doctors are also prohibited from working in both the public-pay and the private-pay health system at the same time, when providing medicare beneficiaries with publicly insured services. The concern is that such a dual practice could result in a conflict of interest, creating wait times in the public system to funnel patients to the more lucrative private practice. Physicians must choose: either be all in the public system or all out. The Cambie court challenge seeks to break down the all-in or all-out dilemma for physicians, striking at the heart of B.C.s Medicare Protection Act by targeting all constraints on extra billing and opted-out practice, dual practice and private insurance that duplicates B.C.s public plan. The Chaoulli court challenge was far less ambitious, targeting only Quebecs legal prohibition on the purchase of private insurance for services delivered by opted-out physicians. Yet, at the time, this was still perceived as significant risk for the development of a two-tier system. Many were concerned when Jacques Chaoulli won his challenge, and Quebec responded with Bill 33, which opened the door to duplicative private insurance for a select number of otherwise publicly insured health services. While Bill 33 turned out to be fairly innocuous (largely because private insurers didnt deem this a profitable venture and that it only applied to Quebec), it nevertheless responded to the spirit of the court challenge, sending a powerful message that Quebecs elected officials were at least, in principle, supportive of more private health provision and insurance. The Chaoulli case should really be seen as a symptom rather than a cause of the fact that Quebec is home to what is arguably one of the largest private health markets in the country. In fact, the cause stems more from neglect by legislators whether benign or strategic, and for decades preceding Chaoulli allowing several hot spots of privatization to flourish. This includes private diagnostic services, which are reimbursable by private insurance in Quebec but not elsewhere in Canada; physicians opting out of the public system in ever increasing numbers, year after year; and extra billing, which was only been officially banned by the province in 2017 (only after threats of clawbacks of the federal health transfer). While B.C. shares similar historical trends with Quebec, we see no such benign neglect by B.C. legislators. Instead, the B.C. government appears to be fighting tooth and nail in the face of Cambie, pulling out all the stops to buttress the Medicare Protection Act. It even resurrected 14-year-old Bill 92, the Medicare Protection Amendment Act, in a deft counterpunch to give the province more powers to crack down on extra billing. With both sides firmly entrenched in their positions, its unlikely we will see a swift resolution to the Cambie conflict. Whichever side loses the court case is likely to take it to the B.C. Court of Appeal and, from there, to the Supreme Court of Canada, as happened with Chaoulli. In other words, theres still a long battle ahead. Amelie Quesnel-Vallee is the Canada Research Chair in Policies and Health Inequalities and the director of the McGill Observatory on Health and Social Services Reforms at McGill University. Shes also a contributor with EvidenceNetwork.ca, which is based at the University of Winnipeg. Rachel McKay is a post-doctoral fellow with the McGill Observatory on Health and Social Services Reforms at McGill University. Troy Media The recent United Nations-brokered ceasefire in Yemen is a bit of good news for that conflict-ridden country. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/1/2019 (893 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion The recent United Nations-brokered ceasefire in Yemen is a bit of good news for that conflict-ridden country. If the two sides continue to observe the truce, much-needed food, medicine and other aid can be provided for an estimated 14 million people who need humanitarian assistance due to the war. The truce is also good news for Canadian aid groups, which have been hoping for months to get access to the country. This includes Canadian Foodgrains Bank, which is headquartered in Winnipeg. The agency plans to provide food for 1,100 families in the Harib Alqaramish district of Yemen, an area that has experienced intense conflict. But while most of the focus of late has been on Yemen, its just one of 10 countries facing severe crises as 2019 begins. The International Rescue Committee says other countries that face a humanitarian catastrophe are the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Central African Republic, Syria, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Somalia. Causes of the crises include conflict, economic collapse and climate-related events such as droughts and floods. Altogether, the UN estimates about 132 million people in 42 countries will need humanitarian assistance this year. For aid groups, providing help to people in these countries is extremely challenging. In the case of Yemen, the fighting was so intense that NGOs had to watch helplessly from the sidelines as people suffered and needs grew: it was too dangerous to try to help. Not every country poses as big a challenge as Yemen, but there are still risks. NGOs constantly evaluate the pros and cons of trying to respond to humanitarian needs. One group that is actively engaged in trying to figure that out is World Vision Canada. Through its Raw Hope program, the organization is seeking to provide support to people who live in some of the worlds most fragile and dangerous countries. "We are going to some dark places," says Michael Messenger, World Vision Canadas president and CEO. "And we are actively looking for more donors to help us go to more dark places." Providing aid in those countries "requires new ways of working," he says. It also requires a new kind of donor. Most donors want to know their contribution is immediate and effective, he says. But working in at-risk and fragile countries "is not a linear process of improvement," he says. Sometimes the process is "two steps forward and three back." Messenger says World Vision Canada is committed to trying because lives depend on it. He thinks there are many Canadians who feel the same way. These are people "who recognize that not everything will be immediately effective, that we need to walk with communities over the longer term," he says. Through Raw Hope, the organization begins with "just keeping people alive," Messenger says. When that has been done, they look for ways to help people thrive through community projects, rebuilding schools, developing infrastructure such as wells and roads, or helping people get back on the land to farm. After that, they work with locals to try to address the root causes of the problems. "As time allows, we try to understand and address the reasons why people are in crisis," Messenger says, adding this involves peace-building, ethnic and religious reconciliation, and helping former child soldiers go to school or learn a trade. "Its not an easy process," he says. "There are many challenging conversations. The injustices are deep." He compares the process to a dial, not an on-off switch: "Its about dialing up or dialing down. Situations can change quickly." This is a challenge if donors expect quick results. But Messenger says he is seeing more people who "are willing to do things differently. These are people who are prepared to walk with us on this journey, even though it isnt easy." "The number of crises is growing. The problem is not going away soon." John Longhurst is a consultant specializing in non-profit communications and marketing, and a regular contributor to the Faith page of the Winnipeg Free Press. The end of victim surcharges across Canada wont affect programs that support victims of crime in Manitoba, the provincial government says. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/1/2019 (893 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The end of victim surcharges across Canada wont affect programs that support victims of crime in Manitoba, the provincial government says. In a statement, a spokeswoman for Manitoba Justice said neither provincial funding nor services will be reduced in the wake of a mid-December Supreme Court decision that struck down the mandatory, court-imposed fees as unconstitutional. The surcharges were imposed on convicted criminals and were meant to go to victim-support funds in each province and territory. Manitoba collected about $713,000 annually from the federal victim surcharge, according to data from the past three years, the spokeswoman said, and it accounted for about nine per cent of total federal and provincial victim-support funds. On Dec. 14, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the mandatory surcharge, calling it cruel and unusual punishment for offenders who couldnt afford to pay. Convicted criminals who didnt have the financial means to pay the fees which could add up to hundreds or thousands of dollars, depending on the number of offences committed would be subjected to debt-collection processes and threatened with jail if they didnt pay. The Supreme Court ruled those circumstances were unconstitutional because they created an indefinite extension of sentences even after offenders had served their time or fulfilled other court-imposed penalties. "No reduction in services or funding is expected as a result of the decision, and Manitoba is committed to supporting victims and their families," Manitoba Justices statement reads in part. The victim surcharges had been mandatory for the past five years, introduced by former prime minister Stephen Harpers government, and a bill is before the Senate that looks to restore judges discretion to impose the fees in certain cases. In Manitoba, judges commonly found ways around imposing the surcharges on offenders they knew couldnt afford to pay. Either they gave offenders lots of time to pay the fees or gave them no time to pay, immediately finding them in default and sentencing them to one day in jail, which was typically fulfilled by their appearance in court that day. The Criminal Defence Lawyers Association of Manitoba supported the Supreme Courts decision to strike down the surcharges. "It means that judges can be assured theyre back to just applying the law as it is and not having to feel as though theyre finding a way to skirt it," spokesman Chris Gamby said in a previous interview. katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @thatkatiemay OTTAWA Two CN Rail trains derailed Thursday morning near Portage la Prairie, leaking fuel near the Assiniboine River. Both locomotives fell off the tracks in opposite directions, but no one was reported injured. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/1/2019 (892 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. OTTAWA Two CN Rail trains derailed Thursday morning near Portage la Prairie, leaking fuel near the Assiniboine River. Both locomotives fell off the tracks in opposite directions, but no one was reported injured. Local resident Tim Arendse heard the derailment around 9:15 a.m., at his farm office in Curtis, part of the Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie. "I was having coffee at the office and heard an unusual kind of bang, like a metal rail-scraping sound," Arendse said. He figured the noise was caused by construction nearby, where CN recent built a structure for trains to pass through, likely to scan them. "We just didnt think much. But then the Winnipeg Free Press called and said a train had derailed, so we then went started looking around and noticed the train had been sitting on the rail road bridge for a couple of hours," said Arendse. He went towards the Assiniboine River, and saw cars sitting in a ditch across the river, on the west side. Portage fire officials confirmed they received a call about a derailment at 9:32 a.m. Photos from the scene show two trains that appear to have been travelling toward each other before splitting off the track, with each locomotive sitting in a ditch on an angle. It is unclear whether the two trains made contact. CN said it couldn't yet say whether the trains collided. WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Area resident, Tim Arendse, has a family farm near the area where a CN train derailed around 9:15 a.m. Arendse described the sound of the accident as a "big bang" and said the noise scared his wife and kids. "Fuel from the locomotive fuel tanks has been contained after initially leaking," wrote CN spokesman Jonathan Abecassis. "CN is investigating the cause of the incident." A source with knowledge of rail operations said the bridge over the Assiniboine only allows one line of tracks, forcing the two parallel tracks on either side of the bridge to merge. CN would not confirm these details; Arendse said he's only ever seen a single train cross the bridge at any given point. Manitoba Sustainable Development said the leak occurred "at least 200 metres from the river." CN is now in charge of both clean up and an investigation into the cause. "The derailed/damaged cars are empty, but one of the locomotives has leaked some diesel fuel. This fuel is contained on frozen ground in the ditch by the rail line," wrote a provincial spokesman who would not be named. Portage la Prairie RCMP officers blocked off traffic and made sure crew members were accounted for, and not injured. WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Workers with CN look over the damage after train cars that derailed west of the Assiniboine River in the vicinity of Portage la Prairie Thursday. "There were no injuries. CN police have assumed responsibility for the investigation," according to RCMP spokeswoman Tara Seel. "The RCMP will continue to assist as required." CN said the trains were carrying mixed freight, but would not say whether they were carrying oil or other dangerous materials. Two locomotives and eight cars derailed. It appears almost as many cars remained on the line. The Transportation Safety Board said Thursday it had deployed staff to the scene. According to social media reports, Via Rail passengers en route to Winnipeg were being transported the last leg by bus to bypass the derailment. dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca A state-of-the-art, underwater remotely operated vehicle was used this week in the recovery of two bodies, believed to be snowmobile riders missing since November, from the Winnipeg River near Sagkeeng First Nation. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/1/2019 (893 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A state-of-the-art, underwater remotely operated vehicle was used this week in the recovery of two bodies, believed to be snowmobile riders missing since November, from the Winnipeg River near Sagkeeng First Nation. The VideoRay Pro 4 was used as part of a search of the area by the Hutterian Emergency Aquatic Response Team (HEART) a volunteer group of certified divers from the Oak Bluff Hutterite Colony along with the ROVs owner, Tom Crossmon of Duluth, Minn. The group discovered one body around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday their fourth day of searching for a man and a woman missing since Nov. 20. It is believed they had attempted to cross the partially frozen river on a snowmobile that night and went into the water. Late Thursday afternoon, as the final day of the search was wrapping up, a second body was located not far from where the first was recovered, HEART member Paul Maendel confirmed. Earlier in the day, RCMP said there was yet no official identification on the first body. On Tuesday, the searchers located the snowmobile the two people were believed to have been operating. "Since then, weve been searching from the sled to where the potential victims might be, and we recovered one with the ROV yesterday, so its, I believe, a first in Manitoba: recovering solely with an ROV," Maendel said Thursday morning. Maendel said his group was in contact with the community 145 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg soon after the two people went missing, but it was too dangerous to go into the water. Manuel Maendel of HEART deploys the VideoRay Pro 4. (Supplied photo) "Its still not safe for divers because there is ice overhead. We were fortunate to have Tom come out and he does remotely what we usually do with diving," he said. "Thats what gives us the opportunity to be out here at this point, is we dont have to put divers down. "The task would be insurmountable to do this search with divers. The area that weve covered would take months to search with divers." Four HEART members, volunteering during the Christmas break from their jobs, arrived in Sagkeeng on Sunday to resume the search, which had been called off shortly after the two people disappeared because of dangerous conditions. Even now, Maendel said the water is around 2 C and about 15 to 18 metres deep with a powerful current. "It is a daunting task, and the odds are against us finding anyone here because of the conditions." Maendel said the VideoRay Pro 4 an ROV equipped with lights, camera, sonar and positioning systems is worth around $100,000, which is why police services in Manitoba do not have one. Crossmon the head of Crossmon Consulting, which was formed to assist in drowning-victim recovery cases was headed to Alaska Thursday night to assist in another recovery. Thursday was also the last day HEART members would be on-site, as they were to travel to Montana to assist in a body recovery. (HEART is funded only through donations.) "We realize were limited in scope and what we can do," Maendel said. "I believe were giving it our best effort that we have, using the technology that we have and the skill set... That is ultimately our goal: to return missing persons to their families so they can get closure." ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca The Public Utilities Board has rejected a bid by Manitoba Hydro to raise electricity rates twice in less than a year without a full-scale hearing. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/1/2019 (893 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The Public Utilities Board has rejected a bid by Manitoba Hydro to raise electricity rates twice in less than a year without a full-scale hearing. In late November, Hydro filed an expedited application for a 3.5 per cent rate increase that would take effect April 1. The rate hike application followed a June 2018 decision by the PUB to allow Hydro to raise its rates by 3.6 per cent. Hydro argued it needed the additional revenue to help it manage high capital and debt costs related to the Bipole III transmission line and Keeyask generating station construction. To meet the April 1 deadline, Hydro asked the PUB to limit the involvement of intervenors and significantly shorten public hearings. However, in an order released Thursday, the PUB told Hydro it was not willing to expedite the application process. Instead, the board said it was approving both the involvement of three intervenors and limited public hearings. "The board finds that fairness requires that interveners have the right to participate in the testing of Manitoba Hydro's evidence and in presenting evidence on the issues within the scope of this (general rate application)," the PUB said in its order. According to an application process schedule released by the PUB, a final decision on Hydro's current rate application will be pushed back until late May or early June. A Hydro spokesman said Thursday the Crown corporation is weighing the news: "While were still assessing the impact of the PUBs order, Manitoba Hydro, as always, will abide by its terms and timelines." Lawyer Byron Williams, who represents a coalition involving the Manitoba branch of the Consumers Association of Canada and Winnipeg Harvest, said the PUB made the right decision in rebuffing Hydro's request for an expedited process. "When Manitoba Hydro is seeking a $59-million rate increase, it should not expect a free ride from the public or the Public Utilities Board," Williams said. "The PUB procedural order recognizes that ratepayers and Hydro itself are best served by a rigorous review process." CALGARY - Crude oil prices in Western Canada remained elevated on Wednesday, the day after provincially mandated oil production curtailments came into force, but a government spokesman says it's too early to say how long the program will remain in place. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 2/1/2019 (893 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A flare stack lights the sky along refinery row in Edmonton Alta, on Friday December 28, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson CALGARY - Crude oil prices in Western Canada remained elevated on Wednesday, the day after provincially mandated oil production curtailments came into force, but a government spokesman says it's too early to say how long the program will remain in place. The difference between Western Canadian Select bitumen-blend heavy oil and New York-traded West Texas Intermediate oil prices was about US$12.50 per barrel on Wednesday afternoon, according to Calgary oil brokerage Net Energy, an improvement over the US$17.52 per barrel average for spot contracts for January delivery signed last month. The WCS-WTI discount peaked at more than US$52 a barrel in October, a level at which the province estimated it was costing the Canadian economy more than $80 million per day. But it recovered to traditional norms in the mid-teens or better after Alberta Premier Rachel Notley announced Dec. 2 that the province would impose curtailments of 325,000 barrels per day as of Jan. 1 to relieve a glut of oil in Western Canada and free up export pipeline space. The program, designed to remove about 8.7 per cent of total Alberta production from the market, was to remain in place for about three months and then be lowered to about 95,000 bpd through the rest of 2019. A total of 25 companies that each produce more than 10,000 barrels of oil per day in Alberta have been asked to cut production, confirmed government spokesman Matt Dykstra in an email on Wednesday. "Government will be watching the way the industry responds, including the amount of storage being drawn down and the amount of oil nominated and apportioned on Enbridge (export pipelines) to help understand when and if the curtailment levels should be adjusted," Dykstra said. The province said last month it would make "temporary adjustments" to January curtailment orders following criticism from some companies including major producers Suncor Energy Inc. and Husky Energy Inc. that said their levels had been set unfairly high or that they had concerns about employee safety and the long-term stability of their resources due to curtailing. Dykstra said those reductions have not significantly impacted the overall reduction target. Oilsands producer Pengrowth Energy Corp. used unspecified "options" provided by the government to reduce the cuts it was ordered to make, said spokesman Tom McMillan on Wednesday. "We feel the ministry has been fairly responsive in addressing some of those unintended consequences," he said. "This all happened very quickly and so we're still in the process of working through what it means for the industry. There are still a lot of unanswered questions." He says better prices are helping Pengrowth's bottom line but he still hopes the cutbacks end as soon as possible. PrairieSky Royalty Ltd. is also benefiting from higher prices, said CEO Andrew Phillips, noting it hasn't had to make curtailments because it produces less than 10,000 bpd of oil. "Four Fridays ago, at the bottom, we had bitumen effectively trading at US$6 a barrel we had WCS in the low teens," he said. "And WCS two Fridays later, after the announcement of the curtailments, was at US$40." The company holds petroleum mineral rights on millions of hectares in the four western provinces and earns a percentage of production from any wells drilled on those lands. Follow @HealingSlowly on Twitter Companies in this article include: (TSX:SU, TSX:HSE, TSX:PSK, TSX:PGF) BEIJING - Apple's $1,000 iPhone is a tough sell to consumers in China unnerved by an economic slump and the trade war with the U.S. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/1/2019 (893 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. In this Dec. 6, 2018, photo, a woman runs past a Apple logo colored red in Beijing, China. Apple Inc.Aos $1,000 iPhone is a tough sell to Chinese consumers who are jittery over an economic slump and a trade war with Washington. The tech giant became the latest global company to collide with Chinese consumer anxiety when CEO Tim Cook said iPhone demand is waning, due mostly to China. Weak consumer demand in the worldAos second-largest economy is a blow to industries from autos to designer clothing that are counting on China to drive revenue growth. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) BEIJING - Apple's $1,000 iPhone is a tough sell to consumers in China unnerved by an economic slump and the trade war with the U.S. CEO Tim Cook said in a letter to shareholders Wednesday that demand for iPhones is waning and revenue for the last quarter of 2018 will fall well below projections, a decrease he traced mainly to China. The iPhone is Apple's biggest product, accounting for about 60 per cent of its revenue in the July-September quarter, the latest reported. Its stock fell 10 per cent Thursday, the worst drop in five years, wiping out about $75 billion in market value. Apple is the latest company grappling with increasing Chinese consumer anxiety. Other brand names such as Ford Motor Co. and jeweler Tiffany & Co. already have reported abrupt declines in sales to Chinese buyers. China still is one of the fastest-growing economies, with 2018's expansion forecast at about 6.5 per cent. But China's tariff fight with the U.S. and an avalanche of bad news about tumbling auto and real estate sales are undermining consumer confidence after two decades of almost unbroken rapid growth. "It's definitely worrying," said China specialist David Dollar, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "Overall, consumption growth is slowing down in China." The Apple news shows how vulnerable many big U.S. companies are to a slowdown in China, especially as the world's two biggest economies seek to settle a contentious trade dispute. "It's not going to be just Apple," Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White Council of Economic Advisers, told CNN Thursday. A woman browses her iPhone as she walks by a mural depicting an iPhone and Chinese people buy smartphone to communicate with family members, at a subway station in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019. Apple Inc.Aos $1,000 iPhone is a tough sell to Chinese consumers who are jittery over an economic slump and a trade war with Washington. The tech giant became the latest global company to collide with Chinese consumer anxiety when CEO Tim Cook said iPhone demand is waning, due mostly to China. Weak consumer demand in the worldAos second-largest economy is a blow to industries from autos to designer clothing that are counting on China to drive revenue growth. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) He said many companies have a lot of sales in China and will "be watching their earnings downgraded next year until we get a deal with China. And I think that puts a lot of pressure on China to make a deal." Emily Li, a 37-year-old advertising designer in Beijing, said she is putting off replacing her car or making other major purchases. "People are worried about losing jobs," she said. Weakness in Chinese demand is especially painful for Apple and other smartphone makers. China accounts for one-third of the industry's global handset shipments. Shipments in China fell 10 per cent from a year earlier to 103 million handsets in the quarter ending in September, according to research firm IDC. It expects last year's total Chinese purchases to shrink by 8 per cent to 9 per cent compared with 2016. The belt-tightening in the world's second-largest economy is bedeviling global industries, including autos and designer clothing, that count on China to drive sales growth. The trade war with Washington has shaken a "sense of China's invincibility," said Mark Natkin, managing director of Marbridge Consulting, a research firm in Beijing. Chinese are waking up to the fact that their economy is vulnerable to the uncertainties of the global economy, he said. The slump is a setback for the ruling Communist Party's efforts to nurture self-sustaining, consumer-driven economic growth and wean China from its reliance on exports and investment. China's third-quarter economic growth of 6.5 per cent was stronger than most other major economies, but the country's lowest since the 2008 global crisis. The deceleration partly reflects a deliberate government campaign to rein in China's high debt levels. At the same time, Beijing has sought to relieve the economic pain with higher government spending. "They're trying to aim at a very fine target," said Dollar, a former World Bank and U.S. Treasury Department official. "They want to see the economy slow down, but they don't want to see it slow down too much." China reported this week that factory activity shrank in December for the first time in more than two years. And auto sales in the biggest global market are on track for their first annual decline in three decades after plunging 16 per cent in November. Soft real estate sales have forced developers to cut prices. Overall, export growth decelerated to 5.4 per cent over a year earlier, less than half October's 12.6 per cent rate. Sales to the U.S. market have held up despite President Donald Trump's punitive tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods, rising 12.9 per cent in November over a year earlier. But that was thanks partly to exporters rushing to beat further American duty increases a trend that is starting to fade. Apple's setback also highlights another challenge: increasingly capable Chinese competitors whose products cost less. In smartphones, that includes Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi. Some are priced as low as 500 yuan ($70). Others have beaten the American giant to market with features Chinese users want, such as phones that can use separate carriers for voice and data. That has eroded the iPhone's cachet and customers' willingness to pay premium prices. "I think 10,000 yuan ($1,400) for an iPhone is too much," said Vivian Yang, a manager at a Beijing technology company. "Nobody needs such a phone." Yuan Yuan, a 26-year-old employee of a social media company in Beijing, reflects the pressures on urban professionals squeezed by rising living costs and job uncertainty. Yuan said his monthly income fluctuates between 3,000 and 10,000 yuan ($425 and $1,400) and only covers living expenses. As a university student, Yuan had an iPhone paid for by his parents. But once he had to buy his own, he switched to a lower-priced Xiaomi. "I have no plans to buy an apartment, a car or any other major items," Yuan said. AP researcher Yu Bing in Beijing, AP Markets Writer Marley Jay in New York and AP Economics Writers Paul Wiseman and Josh Boak in Washington contributed. Some of the most active companies traded Wednesday on the Toronto Stock Exchange: Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 2/1/2019 (893 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Some of the most active companies traded Wednesday on the Toronto Stock Exchange: Toronto Stock Exchange (13,347.16 , up 24.30 points). Barrick Gold Corp. (TSX:ABX). Gold. Down 62 cents, or 3.36 per cent, to $17.81 on 46.9 million shares. Aurora Cannabis Inc. (TSX:ACB). Health care. Up 31 cents, or 4.57 per cent, to $7.09 on 9.8 million shares. Bombardier Inc. (TSX:BBD.B). Industrials. Up 10 cents, or 4.93 per cent to $2.13 on 8.9 million shares. Aphria Inc. (TSX:APHA). Health care. Up 30 cents, or 3.82 per cent, to $8.15 on 8.2 million shares. Prometic Life Sciences Inc. (TSX:PLI). Health care. Up 9.5 cents, or 37.25 per cent, to 35 cents on 6.8 million shares. Baytex Energy Corp. (TSX:BTE). Energy. Up four cents, or 1.66 per cent, to $2.45 on 5.6 million shares. Companies reporting major news: Stingray Group Inc. (TSX:RAY.A). Down 21 cents, or 3.11 per cent to $6.54. Stingray Group has dropped its takeover attempt of Music Choice. The Montreal-based company, which provides music and in-store media, had made the unsolicited bid for the U.S. company in August last year. The offer was worth US$120 million. Music Choice produces music programming and music-related content for digital cable television, mobile phone and cable modem users. Stingray announced Monday a distribution agreement with Altice USA, which will bring 50 Stingray music audio channels and hundreds of music videos from its on-demand catalogue to Altice USA's subscribers. LANSING, Mich. - Michigan's new governor and attorney general moved quickly Wednesday to review the legality of a contentious state deal to run an oil pipeline beneath a crucial section of the Great Lakes. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 2/1/2019 (893 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. LANSING, Mich. - Michigan's new governor and attorney general moved quickly Wednesday to review the legality of a contentious state deal to run an oil pipeline beneath a crucial section of the Great Lakes. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced her request for a legal opinion from Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat who welcomed the opportunity and expressed concern with a law that facilitated the agreement between the state and Canadian pipeline company Enbridge. Such opinions, while not the same as legal rulings, are considered to bind state agencies unless reversed by a court. Both Whitmer and Nessel had questioned the deal before taking office Tuesday. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel speaks Monday, Jan. 1, 2019, after being sworn-in on inauguration day at the State Capitol in Lansing, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019. (Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal via AP) The Republican-led Legislature and GOP former Gov. Rick Snyder rushed to enact the law after Whitmer was elected in November. The new Mackinac Straits Corridor Authority then swiftly approved the proposal to drill a tunnel through bedrock up to 100 feet (30.4 metres) below the more than 4-mile-wide (6.4 kilometre) channel that links Lakes Huron and Michigan. A new segment of pipeline will extend through the tunnel, replacing twin pipes that have lain along the lake bed since 1953. They are part of Enbridge's Line 5, which carries crude oil and natural gas liquids used in propane from Superior, Wisconsin, through northern Michigan to refineries in Sarnia, Ontario. "There are serious and significant concerns regarding (Public Act) 359, which the previous governor and legislature initiated and passed without the care and caution one would expect for an issue that will have a monumental impact on our state," Nessel said in a statement. Whitmer said resolving any legal uncertainty over the law, the Mackinac Straits Corridor Authority and the panel's speedy approval of the agreement "is necessary to assure that we can take all action necessary to protect the Great Lakes, protect our drinking water and protect Michigan jobs." Line 5 has drawn fierce criticism in recent years from environmental groups, native tribes and tourism-related businesses fearful of a rupture that, according to worst-case scenarios outlined by university researchers, could pollute hundreds of miles of Great Lakes shoreline. Enbridge has steadfastly defended the pipelines, contending they are in sound condition and could last indefinitely. But with public pressure mounting amid reports of gaps in protective coating and dents from a ship anchor strike in April, the company embraced the tunnel option. Opponents complain that the existing Line 5 pipes, which carry about 23 million gallons (87 million litres) of petroleum liquids daily, will remain operational until the new segment is running. The pact sets no deadline for switching the oil flow to the new pipe. The target date for finishing the tunnel is 2024. Whitmer asked Nessel six legal questions, including whether a requirement that authority members serve six years or more violates a constitutional four-year limit for newly created commissions. She also wants to know whether the new law improperly made changes to a 1952 law. Nessel said there is no specific timetable for issuing her opinion but called it a top priority. She also warned: "In no way should any entity rely on this Act to move forward unless and until these matters have been resolved." Enbridge spokesman Ryan Duffy said the company wants to work with Whitmer and Nessel to ensure that Line 5 keeps safely and reliably meeting Michigan residents' energy needs. "We believe there is an opportunity to work on these important issues together," he said, adding that the tunnel project will "make a safe pipeline even safer." Incoming House Speaker Lee Chatfield, a Republican whose district includes the pipelines, responded to Whitmer's move by reiterating his support for the new tunnel and saying it will help people heat their homes. "Let's keep our Peninsulas connected and uphold our constitutional legislation," he tweeted. Follow David Eggert on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00 . His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/David%20Eggert In the first half of 2019, one billion Asians will elect the next leaders of the regions two largest democracies. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/1/2019 (893 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. In the first half of 2019, one billion Asians will elect the next leaders of the regions two largest democracies. Half 400 million in India, and 79 million in Indonesia are from the millennial generation, born roughly between 1982 and 2001. Many will cast ballots for the first time. Although the threat of sectarian hatred looms large over both the Indian and Indonesian elections, economics will still take centre stage. The issue that will resonate most with younger voters is jobs. Indonesias president, Joko Widodo, will seek a second term on April 17, promising to "re-industrialize" the economy. The commodity boom that helped ameliorate high unemployment after the 1998 Asian crisis has faded. Without pushing into large-scale manufacturing and adding more value to the countrys raw materials exports, its hard to see how municipalities with joblessness at nine per cent or higher in West Java can close the gap with the national average of around five per cent. Jokowi, as the president is known, wants to keep spending on infrastructure, even though foreign direct investment is set for its first annual decline since he came to power in 2014. But his opponent, the former general Prabowo Subianto, is striking a more nationalistic pose by vowing to review Chinese belt-and-road investments, including a signature high-speed rail project, if he comes to power. Prabowos solution for attracting more private investment is to slash taxes and government spending. Widespread agrarian distress and a lack of jobs are also the main campaign issues for Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi. Hes looking to unseat Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his disastrous currency ban and a botched goods and services tax moves that have hurt small firms and their workers disproportionately. Since its politically suicidal to cut fuel subsidies in an election year, both Modi and Jokowi will hope global oil prices stay low. Indonesias cash handouts to the poor will double in 2019. But with revenue growing strongly, the budget deficit is still expected to come in below two per cent of GDP. The same isnt true for India. Encouraged by his partys wins in recent state polls, Gandhi is pressuring Modi to waive farmers loans. Meanwhile, the prime minister is wooing the middle class by pruning the list of items taxed at 28 per cent, the highest of the five GST rates. Even without the additional burden, the budget deficit for the fiscal year ending in March would struggle to meet the goal of 3.3 per cent of GDP. Elections will be held by May. For both countries, the biggest "known unknown" of 2019 is the U.S. Federal Reserves policy. If the Fed takes a pause only after three interest-rate increases in 2019, the Indian rupee and the Indonesian rupiah, Asias two worst-performing currencies this year, could remain under pressure. If the Fed sets the backdrop for the 2019 Asian polls, Facebook could determine their tone, or even their outcomes. The social media platform has been under scrutiny ever since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, when it emerged that the personal data of 87 million Facebook users was obtained by the consulting firm that had, among other things, helped get U.S. President Donald Trump elected. Analysts are dreading a repeat of the role social media played in securing a victory for far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. WhatsApp, the messaging service owned by Facebook, has 250 million users in India, which has seen murders and lynchings triggered by fake news. Indonesian Communications and Information Technology Minister Rudiantara told me last year of his frustration over social media firms slow action on offensive content. A third of his countrymen use Facebook. How a billion Asian voters navigate around misinformation, fake news and a hardening of majority sentiment against minorities (Indonesias ethnic Chinese and Indias Muslims) on their way to the polling booths will be worth watching. There will be a third important Asian election next year. Thailands military junta, in power since May 2014, has decided to hand over power in polls scheduled for Feb. 24. Considering that elected leaders keep getting unseated by the courts or the army, a durable democracy in Thailand would be a huge positive for investors. At this juncture, though, that may be too much to expect from 2019. Bloomberg WASHINGTON - On their first day in the majority, House Democrats on Thursday night passed a plan to re-open the government without funding President Donald Trump's promised border wall. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/1/2019 (893 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A closed sign is displayed on a door at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019, as a partial government shutdown stretches into its third week. A high-stakes move to reopen the government will be the first big battle between Nancy Pelosi and President Donald Trump as Democrats come into control of the House. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) WASHINGTON - On their first day in the majority, House Democrats on Thursday night passed a plan to re-open the government without funding President Donald Trump's promised border wall. The largely party-line votes came after Trump made a surprise appearance at the White House briefing room pledging to keep up the fight for his signature campaign promise. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Trump and Senate Republicans should "take yes for an answer" and approve the border bill, which was virtually identical to a plan the Senate adopted on a voice vote last month. "We're not doing a wall. Does anyone have any doubt that we're not doing a wall?" Pelosi told reporters at a news conference Thursday night. Pelosi, who was elected speaker earlier Thursday, also took a shot a Trump, calling his proposal "a wall between reality and his constituents." President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Trump strode into the White House briefing room Thursday the 13th day of the partial government shutdown and declared that "without a wall you cannot have border security." He then left without taking questions from reporters. The appearance came hours after the new Congress convened, with Democrats taking majority control of the House and returning Pelosi to the speakership after eight years of GOP control. The Democratic legislation to re-open the government without funding the wall is going nowhere in the Senate, where Republicans want Trump's endorsement before voting on a funding package. Trump is demanding billions of dollars to build his wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, which the Democrats have refused. House Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., walk to speak with reporters after a meeting with President Donald Trump on border security at the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Asked if she would give Trump $1 for a wall to reopen the government, Pelosi said: "One dollar? Yeah, one dollar. The fact is a wall is an immorality. It's not who we are as a nation." Congressional leaders from both parties met with Trump at the White House Wednesday, but failed to make progress during their first sit-down in weeks. The White House has invited the leaders back Friday for another round of talks that officials have suggested might be more successful now that Pelosi has been sworn in. Reporters were told Thursday that White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders would be holding a hastily called late afternoon briefing. Instead, out walked Trump, flanked by members of the unions that represent border patrol and immigration enforcement agents. It was his first time delivering remarks at the briefing room podium. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., left, and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., speak to the media after a meeting with President Donald Trump on border security Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) "You can call it a barrier, you can call it whatever you want," Trump said. "But essentially we need protection in our country. We're going to make it good. The people of our country want it." Trump said his meeting with the union officials had long been planned and just happened to come at "a very opportune time." He also claimed his refusal to budge was winning praise, telling reporters, "I have never had so much support as I have in the last week over my stance for border security." Polls show a majority of Americans oppose the border wall, although Republicans strongly support it. Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker listens to President Donald Trump speak during a cabinet meeting at the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) White House and Department of Homeland Security officials have spent recent days trying to make a public and private case that the situation at the border has reached a "crisis" situation that demands more money than Democrats have offered. Trump tweeted an ominous video Thursday with images of what appeared to be migrants trying to rush the border and clashing with law enforcement, beneath the words "crisis at the border," ''drugs" and "crime." The video concludes with footage of Trump at the border along with audio from one of his rallies in which he vows to build his promised border wall and the crowd chants "Build the wall!" The Democratic package to end the shutdown includes a bill to temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security at current levels with $1.3 billion for border security, far less than Trump has said he wants through Feb. 8 as bipartisan talks would continue. It was approved, 239-192. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., center, talks with reporters as he walks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019, after returning from a meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) Democrats also approved a separate measure to fund the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Housing and Urban Development and others closed by the partial shutdown, at levels Senate Republicans had largely agreed to last year. The bill, which would provide money through the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30, was approved, 241-190, with several House Republicans joining Democrats. The White House has rejected the Democratic package. "Why not fully fund the Department of Homeland Security? Why doesn't the Pelosi bill do that?" said White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., center, joined at right by Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., pushes back on President Donald Trump's demand to fund a wall on the US-Mexico border with the partial government shutdown in its second week, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer urged Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to put the House Democratic package on the Senate floor and send it to the president, saying it would show Trump "the sweet light of reason." McConnell has dismissed the idea as a "total nonstarter" and a waste of time. But some Republican senators appeared open to at least part of the Democrats' proposal. "I'm not saying their whole plan is a valid plan, but I see no reason why the bills that are ready to go and on which we've achieved an agreement should be held hostage to this debate over border security," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. "Congress needs to take further action on border security, but that work should be done when the government is fully open," added Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo. Vice-President Mike Pence, who was on the Hill Thursday to swear in new senators, took a hard line, telling Fox News Channel's Tucker Carlson, "Bottom line, if there's no wall, there's no deal." Trump has said the partial shutdown, which began Dec. 22, will last "as long as it takes" to get the funding he wants. The White House said Trump made calls Thursday to the family of Cpl. Ronil Singh, the Newman, California, police officer shot to death during a Dec. 26 traffic stop. The suspected shooter is a Mexican man accused of living in the U.S. illegally. Republicans have seized on the case to call for tougher border security. Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Laurie Kellman, Kevin Freking, Alan Fram and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report. Viewed of Take Five - This is your final free article during this 30 day period.Stay in touch with all of the news from Winchester, Frederick and Clarke. Sign up today for complete digital access to The Winchester Star. Editorial: Its time for Congress, not the White House, to step up and protect Arizonas economy Gettysburg, PA (17325) Today Sunshine and a few clouds. A stray severe thunderstorm is possible. High 84F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm this evening, then some lingering showers still possible overnight. Potential for severe thunderstorms. Low 61F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 90%. Connecticuts next Department of Transportation commissioner will make $240,000 $50,000 more than the current agency head and possibly more than any commissioner has ever made. Under Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, no commissioner made over $200,000. The new transportation leader, Joseph Giulietti, is the sole nominee offered more than $200,000 by Gov.-elect Ned Lamont, Colleen Flanagan Johnson, Lamonts senior adviser, said Thursday. Lamonts staff finalized salaries for his nominees Wednesday, Johnson said. Only about half of the new state commissioners have been publicly announced, but so far three of the five commissioners will make more than their predecessors. The best investment any organization can make is in its people, said Maribel La Luz, communications director for Lamont. We have great hard-working state employees and we will continue to make sure they are matched with great leadership. While Giuliettis salary might seem high, he is taking a major paycut from his previous job as president of Metro-North. He previously made over $330,000 a year, La Luz said. Giulietti brings significant rail and infrastructure experience, in addition to relationships and expertise as the former president of Metro-North, and the people of our state deserve and should expect that kind of expertise, she wrote in an email. How will Giulietti, or other commissioners who received pay bumps, justify their salaries when tasked with finding savings in their departments to close the states over $1 billion budget deficit, asked J.R. Romano, chairman of the Connecticut Republican Party. I think this goes to show just how out of touch Ned Lamont is, Romano said. We have massive issues with our state budget, and his first act is not to take seriously the tax payers interests, or the hardworking people of the state, but to pad the pockets of the people working for him. Lamonts top office staff will have similar salaries to Malloys staff. One exception is Lamonts new nominee for Office of Policy and Management secretary, Melissa McCaw, who will earn $198,000 yearly about $10,000 less than the current secretary. OPM Secretary Ben Barnes makes $209,439 a year, the states OpenPayroll online system shows. Lamonts new Department of Energy and Environmental Protection commissioner will make $35,000 more annually than the current commissioner. Katie Dykes will earn $175,000. Outgoing commisssioner Rob Klees annual salary is $139,050, OpenPayroll shows. The salary of new head of the Office of Early Childhood, state Sen. Beth Bye, of West Hartford, will exceed that of the current office holder. Byes salary will be $155,000. David Wilkinson, the current commissioner, has a salary of $142,040. The pay of Rollin Clark, the new commissioner of the Department of Correction, and James Rovella, incoming commissioner of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, will be the same as the current commissioners of those agencies. Clark will make $167,500 and Rovella will make $183,340, Johnson said. Pay for commissioners did increase under Malloy. Four years ago, the heads of these departments received raises between 3 and 12 percent, along with 30 other agency heads and deputies. In the governors office, the salary of Lamonts chief of staff will be slightly less than Malloys. Ryan Drajewicz, who was part of the core management team at Bridgewater Associates, the worlds largest hedge fund, will make $155,000, compared to Brian Durands salary is $160,000. Bob Clark, Lamonts general counsel, who is now a Bridgeport judge, will make $165,000, slightly less than Malloys longtime legal adviser, Karen Buffkin, who was paid $172,000 a year before she left last summer for a new opportunity. The positions of other Lamont appointees do not align exactly with those of Malloy staff, some of whom are now filling multiple roles. Johnson will make $150,000 as Lamonts senior advisor. Paul Mounds, who will hold the newly created position of chief operating officer, will make $120,000. La Luz, Lamonts communications director, will make $120,000. Chris Soto, Lamonts legislative director, and Marc Bradley, his director of constituent and external affairs, will each get paid $100,000. The governors salary is dictated by state statute and is set at $150,000 a year. Lamont said on the campaign trail that he would not take a salary. emunson@hearstmediact.com; Twitter: @emiliemunson WESTPORT An Arlington, Va., woman was charged with a DUI and evading responsibility in Westport. On Dec. 27 around 8:30 p.m., officers were dispatched on report of a hit-and-run accident in the parking lot of a local restaurant. A witness provided police with a description of the suspect car, and police received multiple calls of erratic driving by the same car as in the description, according to a police report. One person who complained about the erratic driver followed the car into Norwalk, and Norwalk police located the car in a ditch on Cottonwood Chase Road. Police arrived on the scene and spoke to the driver, identified as 30-year-old Mary Baker. While speaking with Barker, officers detected a strong odor of alcoholic beverage on her breath and asked Baker to perform sobriety tests, which she failed, police said. Baker was arrested, transported to police headquarters, and released after posting $500 bond. She is scheduled to appear at state Superior Court of Norwalk on Jan. 3. svaughan@hearstmediact.com; 203-842-2638; @SophieCVaughan1 Now that the New Year has finally arrived, it is safe to say that this is the calm before the storm. The new biennium Session is scheduled to begin on Jan. 9, so the political fireworks are about to begin. There will be several hotly contested bills that the State Legislature will have to grapple with this year, including such things as legalizing medical marijuana, so this week I would like to point out what some of the more important issues will be so that you will know what to watch for in the days ahead. The first item to be settled will be the rules. This is easier said than done. The Legislature will most likely adopt the rules from the previous session in order to conduct business until a new set of rules can be approved. During the last biennium session, the Legislature argued over the rules for the first month, essentially shortening the longer 90 session into a 60 session, making it very difficult to pass non-priority bills and to pass a budget. This year we hope to have a much shorter debate over the rules, so that we can have more time to conduct the business of the State and to get more things done. Running immediately out of the chute will be those seeking to chair the various committees of the Legislature. This year I will serve again on the Committee on Committees. The Committee on Committees decides who serves on each committee. Chairmanships, however, are determined differently. Any Senator can apply to become the chair of a committee, but they must first garner a majority vote of their peers in the Legislature. The vote is taken by way of a secret ballot on the chamber floor, so nobody knows how each Senator voted. The secret ballot is one of those rules I would like to change. I believe the public has a right to know how their Senator voted on these various chairmanships. Nevertheless, I will seek to maintain my current position as chair of the Building Maintenance Committee, which is categorized as a Special Committee of the Legislature. This year we will have 90 days to conduct the states business and to pass a budget. However, because the voters approved Medicaid Expansion last November, the Legislature will have to figure out a way to pay for the added expenses. Because the states cash reserves have been dangerously depleted, the Legislature will be forced to either raise taxes or to cut spending (or do both). A fight will necessarily ensue over raising taxes, which the governor has vowed to veto, and also over which programs or departments to cut. I believe the only sensible way to balance the budget is to make appropriate cuts. Raising taxes only gives legislators more of other peoples hard-earned money to spend Willy Nilly. Added to the stress of having to work out a budget will be the publics need for property tax relief, which I have vowed to set as my number one priority again this year. I will introduce a Constitutional Amendment to give every property owner a 35 percent credit or refund of their property tax bill on their state income tax return. Needless to say, this will surely liven the debate over how the state spends your hard-earned tax dollars. If legislators dont want to listen to me, then they will be forced to hear from the voters in 2020. If all things go according to our plan, a similar citizen-led initiative will appear on the 2020 ballot, allowing the people to override the lack of support or indecisiveness of the Legislature. Moreover, if Gov. Ricketts really wants property tax relief, as he says, then let him begin by supporting our constitutional amendment for property tax relief. Finally, farmers and ranchers desperately need a new way of valuing their agricultural land for tax purposes. Therefore, I will introduce new legislation this year to change the way we value agricultural land from the current market based system to a productivity based system. This will be my best attempt yet at making this transition. This year I hope to have the governors support in making this change. With Gods help, I believe we can make this change become a reality this year! Brandon Mossberg has a new job to go with being a rancher: Kimball County commissioner. The newest member of the Kimball County Board of Commissioners is ready to take his first steps in office and express his thoughts and opinions relating to the county. Today Thursday, Jan. 3 -- Brandon Mossberg will begin his journey as a commissioner. Mossberg, raised in Kimball, grew up on a family farming and ranching operation. He understands many of the important and sometimes difficult tasks to be associated with agriculture and the Western way of life. After graduating from Kimball High School, Mossberg attended the University of Northern Colorado. He then went to work for the Laramie County Road Department in Cheyenne, Wyo. After a few years, Mossberg made the move to Wellington, Colo., and worked for the City of Fort Collins Water Department for four years. While in Wellington, Mossberg met his wife, Chelsea. In 2007, the couple decided to move back to Kimball. "Chelsea and I have a cow/calf operation and love our country way of life," said Mossberg. The couple has four young boys who keep them busy year round, but Mossberg is ready to see what the new year has in store for himself and his family. "Being on the Board of Commissioners means a great deal to me, just to know that the residents of the community have the faith that I am going to serve them well," he said. "I decided to run for county commissioner because I think Kimball County is in need of some change and a different outlook," he said. "With an open mindset, I am going to try to serve the community to the best of my abilities. "The most important thing to me for Kimball County is our youth," he added. "We need to make sure that our youth have opportunities to continue down a chosen path in our community and prosper." Reporter I cover a range of stories for WDRB, but really enjoy tracking what's going on at our State Capitol. I grew up on military bases all over the world, but am a Kentuckian at heart. I'm an EKU alum, and have lived in Louisville for 30 years. Heres a handful of things to do virtually and in-person around the South Bay and Long Beach this week to celebrate Juneteenth. Five deaths at music festivals in less than five months. And, if I listen to some critics, the one thing stopping pill testing is that it is seen as people like me giving the green light to drug use. I need to get my head around this. Me a 33-year police practitioner and former federal police commissioner giving the green light to drug use? Pill testing could stop deaths at music festivals. Credit:Wolter Peeters The reality could not be further divorced from this view. When it comes to drugs Im about the straightest guy in town. Ive never taken any illicit drugs and would love to live in a drug-free world. Of course that has never been the case and never will be. I would also love to support a Just Say No campaign, if it had any chance of success. The reality is, of course, that it never has and never will. On Friday morning last week I put on the TV in Queensland to catch the final stages of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race on commercial television, claimed to be live, revealing Wild Oats XI still well short of the finishing line. At the same time I switched on my laptop only to read that Wild Oats had won nearly an hour earlier skipper Mark Richards had already claimed redemption in the media, drank a shoey, and been thrown in the Derwent. It's an anachronism that Queensland has so much control over a national asset like the Great Barrier Reef. Credit:Gary Cranitch Not only does this make a mockery of the so-called live coverage of breaking news but, yet again, emphasises the continuing stupidity of so many aspects of our Federation in this case with Queensland having decided against daylight saving, unlike the other East Coast States - NSW, Victoria, and Tasmania. It boggles my mind that we happily persist with a multiplicity of time zones, while China, with a bigger land mass than Australia, has just one time zone. Sure, this is, in itself, of minor significance. But, at a time in our history where it is perhaps more important than it has ever been to be able to take a national view, and to formulate policy and govern in the national interest, the anachronistic structure and operation of our Federation is a very significant disadvantage and restraint. Our Federation is broken, still dominated (even as adjusted) by the structures set in place against the background of the issues and choices of the 1890s it is unfair, offers little incentive/reward for efficiency and improved performance, let alone matching the needs, hopes, and aspirations of todays, and future, Australians. The WA lithium jobs boom looks set to continue into 2019 with industry enthusiasm manifesting into huge investment. US lithium giant Albemarle on Thursday celebrated the first earthworks on its $1 billion 60,000 tonnes per annum lithium hydroxide processing plant in Kemerton, in WA's South West. The new Kemerton plant will be fed lithium from the nearby Greenbushes mine. Credit:Talison Lithium About 800 jobs will be created during its construction with commissioning expected to begin by 2021. Albemarle will have the option to expand the plant to 100,000 tonnes per annum. The plant will be fed by Talison Lithium's nearby Greenbushes mine, which is one of the world's largest known deposits of lithium ore, known as spodumene. Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. made a mistake selling first- and business-class tickets at a steep discount. Now, the lucky few who made the bookings will travel in style after all. The tickets normally sell for around $US16,000. Credit:Bloomberg The Hong Kong-based airline said on its Twitter and Facebook pages Wednesday that it would still welcome passengers that bought the business-class tickets from Vietnam to Canada and the US at economy prices earlier this week. The online ticketing foul-up meant return fares of as low as $US675 ($964) from Da Nang in Vietnam to New York at the front end of the plane, or a small fraction of its original price. "We do not want to go back on our promise to our customers," Cathay said on its Twitter account. "We made a mistake but we look forward to welcoming you on board with your ticket issued." While the passengers were kept happy, the mistake adds to the embarrassments for the carrier that's struggling to turn its fortunes around while competition intensifies from Chinese and budget airlines. The pricing gaffe comes on the heels of a sophisticated hack on Cathay's computer systems last year that exposed private information of 9.4 million passengers in the world's biggest airline data breach. Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group dedicated to open government. Wisconsin state Senator Chris Larson represents Wisconsins 7th Senate District and is the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Committee on Education. Up for debate: Live legislation tracker Check out the latest developments on bills pending before state lawmakers in four key topics. Trusted local news has never been more important, but providing the information you need, information that can change sometimes minute-by-minute, requires a partnership with you, our readers. Please consider making a contribution today to support this vital resource that you and countless others depend on. Brian Gregory Robling of Washington, 23, passed away Monday, June 7, 2021. Brian was born July 11, 1997, in Washington, to Amber (Robling) Whiteman and Michael Bernard. He graduated from Washington High School in 2016. Brian is survived by his parents; his son, Zyler Mehrer of Washington; da [This unedited press release is made available courtesy of Gamasutra and its partnership with notable game PR-related resource Games Press.] Oxford, UK - 3 January 2019 - Independent UK developer and publisher Rebellion today announced the acquisition of Yorkshire-based studio TickTock Games for an undisclosed sum. TickTock Games, founded by industry veterans Arden Aspinall, Jonathan Wright and Paul Kelly, have worked with many major partners across their 12-year history, including, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Nvidia and BBC Worldwide. TickTock have recently lent their creative and industry expertise to Rebellion projects, working on Rogue Trooper Redux and the Nintendo Switch version of Battlezone Gold Edition. TickTock Games will become Rebellion North, the fourth games studio falling under Rebellion's umbrella, joining Rebellion Liverpool and Rebellion Warwick as sister studios to the company's headquarters in Oxford. Rebellion North has already begun work on upcoming Rebellion games, as the company readies itself for another big year, with multiple unannounced titles set to launch in 2019. "Bringing more great people to the company is a great way to start 2019," said Rebellion CEO and co-founder Jason Kingsley OBE. "The company continues to grow and it's important we bring in the right people as part of that process. We've worked with the team at TickTock Games for a while now, and we know they'll continue to prosper as Rebellion North." The news comes after another landmark year for Rebellion, which not only saw the release of new IP Strange Brigade, but saw the company acquire a $100m facility to convert into a film studio, and become the custodian of the world's largest catalogue of English language comic book IP, thanks to the acquisition of the comics and fiction assets formerly belonging to IPC. The year closed out with more good news, as Rebellion Co-Founder and CTO Chris Kingsley was awarded an OBE for services to the Economy in the New Year Honours List in recognition of his services to independent UK games development and the UK games industry as a whole, having led Rebellion with his brother for more than 25 years. Gabby Cello has split her time between Galt and Italy all her life, and now helps to run an Italian restaurant in Galt. This blog covers software patent news and issues with a particular focus on wireless, mobile devices (smartphones, tablet computers, connected cars) as well as select antitrust matters surrounding those devices. Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue. The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website: We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service. President Mattarella dismisses idea of army fixing Rome's potholes. A plan to draft in the army to fix Rome's potholed roads has been scrapped following the intervention of Italy's president, Sergio Mattarella. In his new year speech the president said the function of the armed forces "can not be distorted by assigning them to tasks not compatible with their high specialisation", effectively closing down the contentious idea of soldiers filling the capital's potholes. That proposal, announced with much fanfare by the city's mayor Virginia Raggi last month, was subsequently rejected by the senate and criticised by Italy's defence minister Elisbetta Trenta. However Rome has another plan to fix its streets: specially-trained prisoners from the city's Rebibbia jail. The prisoners, all selected on the grounds of being at low risk and serving short-term jail sentences, will begin repairing Rome's roads from 15 January, according to daily newspaper La Repubblica. Photo Il Sole 24 ore WAHOO People purchasing taxable goods in Wahoo may have noticed a little more tax tacked on this week. The .5 percent local sales tax increase approved by voters in May went into effect Jan. 1. Wahoo has had a 1.5 percent local sales and use tax. So, the new rate is 2 percent. The new half cent local tax will be used to help pay for the Chestnut Street Improvement Project. Wahoo City Administrator Melissa Harrell said the collection of this tax will work the same as all other local sales taxes. It is the merchants responsibility to adjust their local sales tax collection and submit to the Nebraska Department of Revenue. The state then directs payments to the City of Wahoo. Harrell said it is expected the city will receive its first payment with dollars earmarked for the street project in March. Harrell sent a letter to businesses in early December reminding them about the sales tax change. She said specific questions about taxable sales and collections should be directed to the Department of Revenue. That state departments phone number is 402-471-5729. The Hewitt Four Its unfortunate a majority of the Hewitt City Council voted to accept the new city managers contract without a reasonable time for anyone to review the contract. This is the most important, highest-paid job in the city. One would think the contract would be given more than a cursory review by the council. These same four council members (a.k.a the Hewitt Four) chose to interview only one candidate and that candidate did not provide a resume at his interview. Switch off Fox William Bregan obviously gets his real news from Fox and other conservative outlets. [Letters, Dec. 20] Little wonder he thinks things are better for blacks and women. Things may be better than the 1800s, but we still have a long way to go. African Americans are left behind in inner cities where schools are terrible due to the lack of revenue. The tax base is gone. Many end up with few skills and cannot make a living. Many resort to drugs and become victims of a societal system that loves to incarcerate many in the black community. All this does not even touch upon the fear of so many African Americans living in inner-city areas. Who knows when another loved one will fall victim to crime? Shorty was born on August 15, 1923 in Oglesby, Texas to Luther and Tisha Sullins. He attended school in Oglesby and was a lifelong resident of the community he loved. He graduated from high school in 1941, and worked various jobs before his enlistment in the United States Army on February 28, 1943. During World War II, he served in the United States Infantry in France, Germany, and Austria. He was honorably discharged from the military service on November 19, 1945 having served in Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion 180th Infantry Division. Upon discharge, he returned home to join his father and brother in Sullins Grocery. On June 4, 1949, he was united in marriage to Doris Everett. They remained in Oglesby, where Shorty worked in the family grocery store and served as a rural mail carrier. In 1958, he was appointed as Postmaster, and served in that role until his retirement in 1992.Doris and Shorty were life-long members of the First United Methodist Church of Oglesby. He has been a member of the Oglesby Lions Club for 65 years. He and Doris were active members of the Ex Students Association. He was a fixture at school events, and attended every event he could supporting his grandchildren. Regardless of how early you had to leave to get there or how late you might get home, Shorty had no time constraint on showing his support. A Mexia Junior High School teacher was arrested Wednesday, accused of trying to arrange for men in Morocco to have sex with an underage family member, local officials said. Amber Michelle Parker, 37, of Fairfield, was arrested after a joint investigation by the Freestone County Sheriff's Office and the McLennan County Sheriff's Office that started when family members concerned about Parker's intentions with the girl contacted police, according to a statement from Freestone County Sheriff Jeremy Shipley. Freestone deputies reached out for assistance from McLennan County investigators who specialize in human trafficking investigations, according to the statement. "After a joint investigation between Freestone County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Investigator Preston Cordova and McLennan County Sheriff's Office Detective Joseph Scaramucci, a female suspect was placed under arrest for the offense of Trafficking of Persons after conspiring to traffic a minor child to multiple male subjects online in Morocco," Shipley wrote. Family members believe Parker tried to make arrangements last month to take the girl to Morocco and meet with men to allow them to have sex with the girl, McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said. Baylor Law Professor Jim Wren, Johnsons brother-in-law who practiced law with him in Waco before Johnson moved to Dallas, introduced Johnson at the 90-minute ceremony, which also was attended by law enforcement officers from a number of agencies. Wren said Johnson is the real deal in terms of integrity, his ability as a trial lawyer and being a real person. With Barry, there are no airs, no false pretenses, Wren said. He knows where he comes from and he knows who he serves. So I absolutely believe we are getting the real deal as a person of integrity, a trial lawyer and a real person who takes his job seriously. Barry is committed to doing this job right. Johnson and Reyna met last month, and Johnson said he appreciates Reynas cooperation for helping make the transition in administrations a smooth one. Johnson outlined his goals for his office, saying the mission is to seek justice. Fort Hood, TX (76544) Today Sunny early then increasing clouds with some scattered thunderstorms this afternoon. Hot. High 93F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.. Tonight Some clouds. Low 73F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph. This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going. Investigators charged Samuel Demario Williams with shooting a vehicle after outside Club 3208. Police say he got in a fight on December 31st, went to his car, pulled out an AK-47 and headed back for the club. That's when police say an armed security guard took him down. People who live and work near this club told WAAY31 Wednesday that they're uneasy. "I actually used to live in this neighborhood I used to live across the street," said Dennis Ford, who lives close-by. Ford said his main concern is the weapon Williams reportedly used outside the club early Monday morning. "Anytime you've got people shooting guns like that in your community whether it be in the club or not that's very dangerous," said Ford. Police say the security guard who took Williams down, shot him in the leg. He'd been at the hospital until his release Tuesday afternoon. Court records show he'd bonded out of jail by late Tuesday night. His record indicates he's a violent felon who was in possession of a gun. We asked police why he was able to bond out of jail so quickly, and are waiting to hear back. Ford says he's worried about where the area is headed "Think about what you're doing before you do it because in the end everybody is going to lose," said Ford. A Limestone County man, Rodney Jackson, turned himself in December 31 at the Limestone County Jail after being indicted by a grand jury on three counts of first-degree financial exploitation of the elderly. Jackson was released on a $15,000 bond. According to the Alabama Securities Commission, he used "deception, intimidation, undue influence, force, or threat of force to obtain or exert unauthorized control over the property of 4 individuals, who were all aged 60 or older." He is accused of taking more than $2,500 from victims. The charge of first-degree financial exploitation of the elderly is a felony and carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and up to a $30,000 fine per count. Jackson's trial date has not been set yet. The ASC urges the public to be wary of potential investment opportunities. Anyone with concerns can contact the commission at 334-242-2984 or 1-800-222-1253 with inquiries. WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican congressional leaders say the president has asked them and top Democrats to return to the White House on Friday for a second briefing on border security as the partial government shutdown continues. Incoming House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California tells reporters that Homeland Security officials didn't finish the briefing that the group attended on Wednesday afternoon at the White House. McCarthy says Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer interrupted multiple times and that the president now wants them to return on Friday, after the congressional leadership races. The partial government shutdown began on Dec. 22 after Trump refused to sign a budget deal that didn't include billions of dollars for his long-promised and long-stalled southern border wall. He'd described the briefing as an opportunity for border officials to make their case to Democrats on the need for a wall. "I am pretty shocked," said Parsons. Olivia Parsons says she had no idea she would be receiving an award from the army, because she says she was just doing her job. "This is just amazing and truly an honor," said Parsons. Parsons was on call last weekend when she got a call from Major General L. Neil Thurgood asking for her help to get a soldier home to see his mother who was dying. "The Major General was very concerned that it would not be done in time for the patient to get out on Monday," said Parsons. She worked with the red cross and made it happen. "She doesn't just do this once when she gets a phone call in the middle of the night she does it every single day," said one of her patients, Michele Parker. When Major General Thurgood paid her a visit Wednesday, Parsons said she was happy to be apart of the reunion. "We got to help and it was just a beautiful thing to be apart of," said Parsons. As of Wednesday morning, the soldier was at his mother's bedside. Huntsville City School Board member, Michelle Watkins, appeared in court Wednesday morning after being arrested on December 31 on a harassment charge. She entered her plea of not guilty, and her court date is scheduled for February 11 at 1 p.m. Watkins currently serves District One and is the vice president of the school board. Huntsville police told WAAY 31 they normally don't obtain arrest warrants for misdemeanors and that this case was closed due to a lack of evidence. After talking with an assistant district attorney we learned just a sworn testimony could be enough for a citizen to get an arrest warrant, but that still leaves a lot of unanswered questions for Watkins' constituents. "We really would like to know is it new evidence? Is something else going on that the citizens we're not aware of?" Yolanda Sales, who lives in Watkins' district, said. For Yolanda Sales there are more questions than answers surrounding the arrest of her Huntsville City School board representative Michelle Watkins. "The question really is now to district one what we would like to be answered is why now?" Sales said. No one at the city magistrate's office could give us any answers on the Watkins' case specifically, but Assistant District Attorney Tim Gann did provide insight on how this, and any other citizen, could get an arrest warrant. "For someone to be arrested on a warrant, the level of proof is the lowest in the judicial system which is just probable cause," Gann said. He explained probable cause has the lowest burden, or requires the least amount of, proof. "They do have to bring evidence, but testimony is evidence," Gann said. When they go before the magistrate, Gann said the citizen is placed under oath. "They swear to the facts of what they allege happen that in itself is usually enough for a probably cause warrant," Gann said. We asked Sales and she said she doesn't have a problem with the way the system's set up. "If it's factual. If it actually happened, or if you feel like you're being abused or if you feel like you need to bring the authorities in this then absolutely," Sales said. She said it only becomes a problem when the citizen getting the warrant isn't telling the truth, but Gann said the system takes that into account. "If you are thinking about having someone arrested and you don't tell the truth well there's penalties for that," Gann said. Watkins' court hearing is scheduled for February 11th, and Sales is hoping to get the real story. "The truth will come out. The truth will come out," Sales said. Police can't say who Watkins' accuser is, but the alleged harassment did happen at a safety forum at Mae Jemison High School in October. The government shutdown is in its' 12th day and it is impacting small businesses in The Tennessee Valley. The owners of RICK-N-BALL, (a restoration business) Kevin Ball and Andrew Rickabaugh told WAAY 31 that three months ago they begin applying for a loan through The Small Business Administration. They were pre-approved and figured everything would be just fine. "We got into the closing stages, turned in all of our paper work for that, then we reached the funding stages, so we were pretty excited about that," said Kevin Ball. That excitement turned into disappointment for Rickabaugh and Ball because the last thing they expected was a government shutdown. "It's been a pretty deep impact for us. Going over our resources together, putting our money together and doing what we can to survive," Ball said Both Rickabaugh and Ball had quit their jobs, which included benefits, so they could start their business together. They relied on The Small Business Administration to help cover the cost of their expensive equipment. But the SBA is one of 25% of federal agencies currently shut down. Until Rickabaugh and Ball get their loan, they'll be taking on small jobs. "We've met several home owners looking to service our customers and our community and I'm just taking it one step at a time," Ball said. Rickabaugh and Ball are both veterans who've faced several battles in life, so until the government shutdown ends, they say they're staying head strong. "We're going to push forward, adapt and overcome," Ball said. The owners also said they're not sure what will happen when the shutdown ends. They'll still qualify for their loan, but there's no telling how long it will take the SBA to get through the backlog. On Thursday, Governor Ivey said she is cautiously optimistic about the revised corrective action plan submitted by the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles on December 28. The board submitted a plan at the end of November that was rejected by Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall. They were given 30 days to come up with a better plan that would meet Ivey's and Marshall's specifications. The new plan is 16 pages plus supporting documents. It says there should be no change in the board's executive leadership, stating that it has made positive contributions. The plan says additional training is needed for staffers and more managers are recommended. I am cautiously optimistic about the revised report, which seems to more objective and addresses some of the major issues that many have had with the Board of Pardons and Paroles," Ivey said. "One highlight is that there has been a major improvement in the early parole process. There has been good progress overall, but we are still reviewing the entire report. Soon I will meet with Attorney General Marshall to discuss the report and what steps should be taken moving forward. --- The board's revised corrective action plan is below: A handful of Boaz City Schools students got a bumpy start to their first day back at school when their bus was involved in a head-on collision Thursday morning. Superintendent Dr. Shannon Stanley said around 6:40 a.m., the driver of another car ran a stop sign on Bruce Road and crossed Highway 168 to hit the front of the school bus, which was heading to Boaz Middle School. There were 5-6 students on the bus at the time, but Dr. Stanley said none of them were hurt in the crash. She said the bus sustained minor damage. One of the headlights and the arm that extends from the bumper to alert drivers to stop were both damaged. Boaz Police took a report at the scene of the wreck. WAAY 31 reached out to the police department to determine what penalty that driver may be facing in connection to the collision. New aerospace manufacturing is coming to Alabama and ground will start to move on the project later this month. That announcement came from German airplane manufacturer Airbus. The company announced on Thursday that a new U.S. assembly facility will be built in Mobile, Alabama and will be adjacent to the existing Airbus A320 facility. The new plant will produce A220-300 series for Airbus. As part of their statement on Thursday, Airbus also announced that both Jetblue Airways and new airline Moxy finalized the purchase of 60 A220-300 plane during the last week of December. Moxy is a new, low-cost airline that was unveiled at the Farborough International Airshow in July." The airline is a venture spearheaded by JetBlue founder, David Neeleman. He "also founded Azul Brazilian Airlines and is the controlling investor in the revitalization of TAP Air Portugal," according to Airbus. The announcement comes ahead of Jetblues 20th anniversary, which was lauded by Airbus in a statement. Their endorsement of the A220 proves this aircraft meets those two criteria better than any alternative in its segment. Thank you JetBlue and congratulations on this big milestone in your growth, said Christian Scherer, Airbus Chief Commercial Officer. Airbus said to date, they have booked orders for more than 500 A220 aircraft. The company said construction on the new assembly facility in Mobile will begin later this month. AC/DC. Photo: Clayton Call/Redferns Recently, while in the pharmacy line at my local CVS, Huey Lewis and the News The Heart of Rock & Roll made its presence known on the overhead speakers. It immediately stirred up feelings of ambivalence. The reason: Messrs. Lewis and News 1984 hit perfectly exemplifies one of popular musics more frustrating subgenres: the rock n roll song about rock n roll. Were all familiar with rock n roll songs about rock n roll (or RnRSaRnR, for brevitys sake). Chuck Berrys Rock and Roll Music. Oasis Rock n Roll Star. Kiss Rock and Roll All Nite. Billy Joels Its Still Rock and Roll to Me. The list is as long as it is relentless. And for those of us who possess a well-calibrated inner Seinfeld, one nagging question bubbles to the surface: Whats the deal with these songs? And what makes them so irksome? Put another way: I like rock n roll, but I dont like Its Only Rock N Roll (But I Like It). Prior to deep-diving into this decades-old trend, lets establish parameters. First up, the RnRSaRnR subgenre is exclusive to rock songs about rock music, as opposed to songs simply containing the word rock in their title. As such, lets immediately discard everything from the Rolling Stones Rock and a Hard Place (probably about poverty) to the Scorpions Rock You Like a Hurricane (probably about fucking) to the B-52s Rock Lobster (probably about crustaceans). Secondly, there are numerous accepted ways of spelling rock and roll, with most variations buzzing like flies around the conjunction and. We have the fully spelled-out rock and roll, the ampersand-reliant rock & roll, rock n roll (apostrophe to the right), rock n roll (apostrophe to the left), rock n roll (no apostrophe), rock n roll (double apostrophe), and the seldom recommended rock/roll. For the sake of continuity and sanity, Ill commit to using rock n roll throughout this piece, except where an alternate spelling appears in a song title. (This most certainly will happen.) Also note: The word rock neednt be listed in the title for a song to be considered a bona fide RnRSaRnR. Perhaps the highest-profile example of this is Starships We Built This City, a tune often denounced in music-critic circles as the worst thing ever written. Its crimes and they are myriad include being (a) a shallow, commercial rock(ish) song that has the cojones to denounce the shallow commercialization of rock songs, (b) the least-enjoyable brain-hijacking earworm since 1982s Snoopy Brusha Brusha Toothbrush jingle (do not click that link), and (c) just an all-out dreadful achievement from the folks who sort of used to be the Jefferson Airplane. While Starship earns the distinction of crafting the worst rock n roll song about rock n roll, we need look no further than AC/DC for sheer RnRSaRnR quantity. Over their decades-spanning career, the Aussie bad boys produced no fewer than 22 songs with rock in the title, from the widely known For Those About to Rock (We Salute You) and Rock and Roll Aint Noise Pollution to deep cuts like Cant Stop Rock n Roll, Rock n Roll Train, She Likes Rock n Roll, and Got Some Rock & Roll Thunder. (As you can see, even AC/DC cant commit to which letter/word/symbol should be sandwiched between rock and roll.) Having now confirmed the identity of historys most egregious and most prolific RnRSaRnRers, lets examine the multiple failings that plague the rock n roll song about rock n roll. First up is the patronizing disrespect it thrusts upon its audience. If it pleases the court, allow us to return to my neighborhood CVS, where The Heart of Rock & Roll was holding its drug-seeking listeners captive. Like many rock n roll songs about rock n roll, The Heart of Rock & Roll does a good deal of pandering, with Huey Lewis dutifully tallying the number of American cities still capable of rocking. The lyrical list includes D.C., San Antone and the Liberty Town, Boston and Baton Rouge, Tulsa, Austin, Oklahoma City, Seattle, San Francisco, too. Do you live in one of these towns? Guess what: Now youre better than people who dont live in one of these towns. The band gains extra pandering points for the Canadian release of the Heart of Rock & Roll single, which strategically crams in a shout-out to Toronto and Montreal prior to the obligatory 1980s saxophone solo. Lewis may not have been the first to navigate the treacherous terrain that is the rock n roll song about rock n roll, but as it relates to pandering, he was certainly one of the best known. (Point of interest: This draws a parallel to namesake Meriwether Lewis of and Clark fame whose 19th-century explorations took him through D.C., Seamans Creek and the Liberty Town, Bozeman and Bitterroot, Three Forks, Atchison, Ol Dakota City, St. Helens, Sacagawea too.) So as weve gleaned from Lewiss antics, a prevalent feature of rock n roll songs about rock n roll is the explicit need to stroke listeners egos, figuratively high-fiving them for doing little more than listening to the music theyre currently listening to. This strategy goes beyond preaching to the choir; its akin to taking the stage at a June Cleaver convention and yelling, Who here loves baking cookies and doling out life lessons to tweens?! Next up is the self-aggrandizement that imbues a good number of RnRSaRnR. On the surface, theres nothing wrong with rock n roll taking pride in the musical niche its carved into our collective unconscious. Yet once this self-regard is downloaded into song form, were left with a product that reeks of neediness and insecurity. Whether youre a genre of music or a time-released, clinical-strength antacid, when youre truly great, people know it. Which makes shouting your virtues from the rooftop wholly unnecessary. And a little awkward. Theres also an inherent bias to this form of musical self-evaluation. As the rock n roll artist, youre simply too close to the subject matter to provide an honest assessment of its merits. Rock n roll has not only paid your bills, its made you famous. If an old college buddy secured these things for you, your gratitude would consciously or not find you glossing over his less desirable traits, from that questionable facial-hair configuration to the fact he pronounces milk as melk. Another fatal RnRSaRnR flaw is is the faux nostalgia in which it often peddles. A significant percentage of rock n roll songs about rock n roll yearn for rocks gauzy yesteryears, attempting to celebrate or even recapture what was, whether it truly was or not. Its a specious form of sentimentality, and it does more disservice than good to rocks storied and ongoing history. Elton John begins Crocodile Rock with the wistful proclamation, I remember when rock was young. A mere two verses later he flips the script, blindsiding us with, But the years went by and the rock just died. Ouch. Quality rock music was in no short supply circa 1971, when Led Zeppelin IV hit record stores. Yet 23-year-old Robert Plant longs for its so-called heyday on the albums second track: Its been a long time since I rock n rolled / Its been a long time since I did the stroll /Let me get it back, let me get it back, let me get it back / baby, where I come from. Joan Jetts I Love Rock n Roll flaunts a marked preference for that bygone-era sound, between her desire to be singin that same old song and her dubious ability to find a jukebox in 1982 that only charges ten cents a play. An ironic side effect of RnRSaRnRs nostalgia is that these songs all modern at the time of their release negate their own relevance by design. In Old Time Rock n Roll, Bob Seger posits that OG rock is the only music appealing enough to get him out on the dance floor. Which suggests that upon its 1978 release, even Old Time Rock n Roll would end up on Segers dont dance to this! list, having been penned 20 years after rocks halcyon days. In fact, Old Time Rock n Roll systematically shits on the entire Seger catalogue, given that none of its songs predate 1969. To use the Grammy winners own words against him, Todays music [including Segers own] aint got the same soul. Built around a precarious and ramshackle foundation, the RnRSaRnR cant help but collapse under its own weight. With even the most casual scrutiny applied, the subgenre swiftly veers into the existential: Is a rock n roll song about rock n roll even a rock n roll song at all? Or is it little more than self-reflexive homage one that seeks relevance by spotlighting (and at its worst, siphoning) the rock n roll accomplishments that came before it. All artists are shaped by their influences, so standing on the shoulders of giants is par for the course in the music world. As the old screenwriting adage goes, Show, dont tell. Rock n roll excites and inspires us when it walks the walk, not when it talks the talk. To paraphrase AC/DC, Its a long way to the top if you wanna rock n roll and then watch others get rich by writing superfluous tributes to how great you rocked n rolled. Photo: Brilliant Idea Group History favors a clean, simple narrative, which can sometimes mean shuffling contemporaries to the back in order to bring a Great Man to the fore. Posterity remembers Ingmar Bergman as the director who brought Swedish cinema to the American mainstream, while his countryman Vilgot Sjoman remains little-known outside cinephile circles; entry-level classes teach Akira Kurosawa as the standard-bearer for Japans mid-century output, and save Yasujiro Ozu for advanced courses. Too frequently has heroic bloodshed cinema, the action boom that doused Hong Kong in fake blood during the 80s and 90s, been (hard-)boiled down to John Woo, leaving the rest of the movement to the hard-core VHS-trawlers. But last week, the great Chinese filmmaker Lam Ling-tung better known by his chosen name, Ringo died at age 63, giving sad occasion to revisit the work of a true genius never granted the crossover popularity of his peers. He, too, told stories of cops and criminals with a stylized, hyperviolent aesthetic that made him an idol to Quentin Tarantino and the generation of genre obsessives that followed in his wake. His work is singly his own, however, generally eschewing the dove-flutters and flying-pistol-kicks of the gun fu school pioneered by Woo. Lam situated himself one small notch closer to reality, couching a cynical perspective on inner-city society and law enforcement within an often outrageous style informed by his background in comedy and early training as an actor. For those neophytes looking to learn more about Lam and his filmography, Vulture has put together a cursory primer on five of his finest efforts. These films track the development of a career that was not without its snags, but could always be relied on to deliver at least a few flashes of the originality, exuberance, and innovative firearm usage that couldnt have come from anyone else. City on Fire (1987) Lam landed his first feature gig when director Leong Po-chih stormed off the set of Esprit dAmour and the studio needed someone on the double to complete the remaining two-thirds of the film. He continued his inauspicious beginnings with a few for-hire jobs that kept food on the table, until he took the reins of the Aces Go Places franchise in its fourth installment and scored an unexpected blockbuster. His producer Karl Maka was so pleased that he gave Lam free rein to cook up whatever he wanted to do next from scratch, and Lam returned the favor by delivering a fuming exemplar of the Hong Kong shoot-em-up. Tarantino got the idea for Reservoir Dogs from Lams knotty double-agent thriller, except that Lam starts and ends with our man on the inside instead of keeping the mystery up in the air. That would be Ko Chow, portrayed by Chow Yun-fat, coming in hot off his star-making Woo collaboration A Better Tomorrow and ready to cement his reputation as the coolest guy on the silver screen. His slick shades, immaculate kicks, and unflappable demeanor made him a larger-than-life figure in a film that keeps its vantage point street-level, though so much of Lams M.O. has permeated the pop-culture atmosphere that just about everything feels classic. The climactic Mexican standoff hits like the chorus to a song you never realized youve only heard covered. Undeclared War (1990) City on Fire brought Lam success with critics and audiences alike, an instant calling-card movie that he promptly expanded into franchise-hood with Prison on Fire. With the exception of the more recent 2016 feature Sky on Fire, these spinoffs (they share no characters, just a jaded streak) were cranked out hastily and on the cheap, and they all served mostly to remind audiences of Lams superior original. His next big swing came when he tested the international waters, tapping a handful of English-speakers for the cast of his foray into espionage Undeclared War. Casting global favorite Olivia Hussey and 80s mainstay Vernon Wells was supposed to send a message that Lam was prepared to spread his influence across the Pacific, and while he would indeed make it to America, the path wouldnt be so smooth. Lam frames the film as a relatively by-the-book buddy-cop case file, mismatching a CIA flack (Peter Liapis, credited here as Peter Lapis) with a Hong Kong inspector (Lams frequent muse Danny Lee). Theyve got to resolve their cultural differences in time to root out the terrorists hiding among a group of revolutionaries; if there was any justice in this world, Lam wouldve gotten a slice of the Rush Hour royalties. He was able to hold fast to his guiding beliefs about corruption and moral compromise in our most trusted institutions, and mounted some more technically audacious set pieces than in his more modestly budgeted earlier work. But the English-language bits felt stilted and unnatural, and his once-healthy box-office returns had started to slip. The film did not quite make the splash its director had hoped for, and still he forged onward, churning out new features at a two-per-year clip. The prevailing feeling of Undeclared War, then, is one of restlessness of a director eager to get his hands on the money to do more, more, more. Twin Dragons (1992) John Woos total-eclipse shadow also cast itself over the great Tsui Hark, another madman of the Hong Kong school who lit up the 90s with semi-automatic gunfire. Big-league Asian studio Golden Harvest took a shine to Lam after he shepherded their Touch and Go through production in 1991, and called him back for what was to be a summit of internationally renowned talents: a film co-directed by Lam and Hark, and starring none other than Jackie Chan, the biggest man in Chinese film. The division of labor fell along straight tonal lines, with Lam handling the martial arts sequences while neo-Chaplin Hark worked the zanier story interludes of the film. They must have found some chemistry as like-minded artists because a risky project that had every excuse to feel segmented or disjointed miraculously does not. (Note the fractured Triangle from 2007 for comparison, in which Lam and co-directors Tsui Hark and Johnnie To didnt even share their scripts with one another.) Chan, riding high on the ubiquity of his Police Story series, pulled double duty as a pair of twins separated at birth. (Its your standard Property Brothers dichotomy, one brother an urbane, refined classical musician, and the other a down-and-dirty street racer with a sensitive side.) Lam gave his serious-face a rest, returning to the seat-of-your-pants kinetic levity of his earlier work in a series of experiments with a prime specimen. Theres a sense that he wanted to see how far he could push Chan, returning the star to a traditional kung fu less reliant on clowning and placing greater emphasis on sheer agility, speed, and strength. Lams always at his best when meeting a challenge posed for him, and he took Chans presence on set like a dare to pull off more. Maximum Risk (1996) Lam soldiered onward in China (a hit, a flop, then another hit) until he was able to realize his ambitions to break into Tinseltown. Jean-Claude Van Damme provided the unlikely conduit between Hong Kong and Hollywood, a Belgian ass-kicker who embodied a perfect synthesis of Eastern grace and Western brawn. Van Damme had introduced Woo to the United States a few years earlier on their Hard Target, and Lam wanted a piece of both the brutality and the ballet that he saw onscreen. He got his wish via this testosterone-fueled cat-and-mouse game nodding to Lams previous films by returning to the unknown-twin plot device, with Van Damme playing a French cop and the Russian mobster everyone keeps mistaking him for. For better and occasionally for worse, it is a pure, unadulterated JCVD performance. Again, Lam was at his best when testing the limits of the professionals placed in his charge. The script never achieved the blood-boil lunacy of some comparable Chinese-American crossovers, but Lam put Van Damme through his paces. In one standout showdown, Van Damme dispatches an assassin in a claustrophobic elevator, teeth gritted and muscles oily. Other scenes would demand more of the actor in terms of movement, but not dramatic commitment; Van Damme looks like hes about to rip his attackers head clean off, veins popping out of his biceps and forehead in a flourish that cannot be faked. For a while, it sometimes seemed like Lam made his films as good as they needed to be, and no more. Bring him in for a fly-by-night franchise assignment, and thats what youll get. Give him a bit of A-list firepower and allow him the room to explore its potential, though, and the man will come through. Full Alert (1997) Some Lam critics believe Lam undermined the first half of his career with the second. A few more undistinguished jobs back in Hong Kong, a trek through the forbidding direct-to-DVD wilds with Jean-Claude Van Damme, and a bungled comeback (2016s Sky on Fire was far from the return to form wed been praying for) left Lam in tarnished esteem, though loyalists preferred to remember him as he was. The last time he really excelled as the auteur viewers knew he could be equal parts inventor, orchestrator, and maverick was an elite battle of wits and wills on par with Michael Manns best. The Hong Kong school had entered a feedback loop of influence with Mann, each liberally drawing from and building on the other, and here, Lam translates the I hate you, but dammit, I respect you macho-ism from Heat into Cantonese. Though theres also a wisp of Shakespeare in Lams screenplay, co-penned with Lau Wing-kin, imbuing everyones actions with thundering cry-to-the-heavens momentousness. A bombing expert (Francis Ng) and an area cop (Lau Ching-wan) lock horns, but the crooks girlfriend (a capable Amanda Lee) getting caught in the middle raises the conflict to a fever pitch. Like any good Bard play, the curtain closes on a stage full of corpses, and more to the point, Lam ensures that his life-or-death stakes have the palpable urgency of life and death. Full Alert played to Lams strongest suit not by freeing him from realism but by pushing him ever-so-slightly closer to it. The director would rather accentuate the emotions of his films than tinker with their laws of physics, saving the extreme highs for the performances while keeping his own formal nose to the grindstone. He knew how to measure restraint and control against his more flamboyant visual tendencies, a self-awareness that kept him on the festival circuit for life while so many others petered out into obscurity. With each new film, he calibrated a bit more finely, learning and adjusting from the last. Some saw this as a mans attempt to rebottle the lightning of his early triumph, but take a few steps back and it more closely resembles maturation. Lam spent much of his career ostensibly doing the same thing over and over again, but he did it differently each time. Lam was always learning, moving onward, asking more of himself and of us. Photo: Scott Dudelson/Getty Images Young Scooter, The Recipe The magnetic and prolific Young Scooter comes from Atlantas Zone 6. If you knew nothing else about him, hed be remarkable just for his close associations: He grew up with Future Scooter was the only feature on last years Beastmode 2 and five years ago, he shared a prison cell with Gucci Mane. But at the beginning of December, a song by Scooter called Sushi caused a firestorm on rap blogs and on Instagram for addressing the lack of new collaborations between him and Gucci. It wasnt the simple fact of the opening line (Ill probably never do another song with Gucci, then a pivot into Scooters new appearance fees); it was that, three lines later, Scooter raps about people who be snitchin they got Ralo in the feds, a reference to the fellow Atlantan who is out on bail after pleading not guilty to federal drug charges. (Ralo has been denied bond twice and is awaiting his trial at a facility in Georgia.) Scooter explained more than once that the Ralo line was not meant to implicate his former mentor, but that did little to paper over the perceived rift. The irony, of course, is that despite Guccis broad and deep influence over rap this decade, Scooter is his most direct stylistic descendent. Sushi itself is a good case study, from the way he draws out the vowels in words to the tight, innocent word games that crop up to illustrate things that are much more sinister. Scooters not rehashing Guccis catalogue those faithful component parts add up to an on-record identity thats a little less mythic and a little more workmanlike but hes carrying it into new, exciting territory. The first two-thirds of The Recipe, which was technically Scooters second mixtape of 2018, is the strongest batch of work hes ever released. Beyond Sushi there are razor-sharp duets with Kodak Black (No Features), G Herbo (No Flaws), and Youngboy Never Broke Again (Never Broke Again really), and a soaring intro where he turns the post-Zaytoven piano into a villains theme. The tape falters slightly toward its end, but makes a serious argument for Scooter as a sort of no-frills album artist who can stitch together bits of 2010s rap ephemera in a confident, crushing way. 21 Savage, i am > i was As bizarre as it is to see, 21 Savage seems to have elbowed his way onto the conveyor belt that turns popular rappers into genuine stars. This is strange because just a couple of years ago or today, really, if you hear any one song in isolation the thin Atlantans voice cast him as a sort of specialist with a style specific enough that it could have been alienating. But with Post Malone and a gang of memes in tow, 21 has quietly put together an excellent catalogue (including 2017s underrated Issa Album) that shows a wide range of abilities and a personality with depth, humor, and self-assuredness. i am > i was finds 21 perfectly in balance: Hes a gifted technician who doesnt let songs disappear down the rabbit hole; he sounds current without sounding like anyone else. The dynamic range hes able to squeeze out of what is essentially a whisper continues to be remarkable. a&t, which features Yung Miami of City Girls, will be a durable strip-club anthem into the spring. On the albums bonus track, Travis Scott spins his Giant Wheel of Theft and lands on Valee. Shoreline Mafia, OTXmas Like JPEGMAFIA or the Grand Canyon, you need to witness it in person: Shoreline Mafia concerts are almost unbelievably raucous, effective for all ages but especially potent with rap fans who cant yet rent cars. Theyve been mostly a singles outfit so far; their breakthrough mixtape, ShorelineDoThatShit, had their biggest hits tacked unceremoniously onto its back end, and Bands, which became a phenomenon out West last year, is taken from what is essentially a sampler project from one of the group members. OTXmas is not the groups highly anticipated debut album, which is due out some time next year on Atlantic, but is an effective stopgap that hones on the groups strengths, from Master Katos controlled chaos to Ohgeesys raw charm. Cormega, Mega One strange thing about music-streaming platforms is the way they appear to flatten things; a new EP from Cormega, with lush production and a feature from Mobb Deeps Havoc, doesnt feel as if it should be popping up in your New Releases feed, packaged and boxed off next to tapes by rappers half his age and worlds apart, literally and stylistically. But here we are: Mega exists and is full of raps occasionally labored, occasionally thrilling that are put together with Megas characteristic verbosity and quasi-crypticism. Some of those take a slightly different shape, for 2018 and for middle age: My darkest thoughts conform to my enlightened conscience / Align my chakra with the higher power I acknowledge (On Everything). Depp and Heard. Photo: John Shearer/WireImage Amber Heards testimony from a 471-page deposition transcript from August 2016 reveals more details of the abuse she alleges Johnny Depp put her through during their 23-month marriage. Documents obtained by The Hollywood Reporter show Heard describing a fight between the couple in a penthouse in Los Angeles on May 21, 2016, when Heards friends called the police on Depp. Johnny and I refer to his other personality, the part of him that is present when he beats me up we call that the monster and have called [that] the monster for many years, Heard recounted during a deposition. I was petrified of the monster. Heard alleges that Depp threw her phone at her as hard as he could, grabbed her by her hair, and broke a lot of glass things that left glass on the floor. LAPD officers arrived on the scene but didnt make an arrest; Heard says Depps security convinced him to leave. The officers testified that they did not see any marks or bruises on Heards face, and that they had no probable cause. Heards testimony and abuse allegations are the subject of renewed interest as Depp sues the U.K. tabloid The Sun, alleging that a story calling him a wife-beater was defamatory. (How can JK Rowling be genuinely happy casting Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film after assault claim? an April 2018 headline reads.) Though both Heard and Depp agreed to not discuss their separation as part of their divorce, Depp repeatedly denied the assault allegations as he promoted Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, suggesting to British GQ that Heard lied about the abuse: To harm someone you love? he said. As a kind of bully? No, it didnt, it couldnt even sound like me. A hearing for Depps lawsuit against The Sun is scheduled for February. Seven Chinese men, who were arrested last week after they were allegedly found in possession of rhino horns almost worth one million dollars, have appeared before a provincial magistrate in Zimbabwes resort town of Victoria Falls. They are facing charges of violating some provisions of the Parks and Wildlife Act. The seven, represented by Givemore Mvhiringi, were not formally charged of contravening Section 45(1) (b) of the Parks and Wildlife Act Chapter 20:14 when they appeared before Rangarirai Gakanje, who remanded them in custody. Zeng Dengui (35), Peicon Jang (35), Liu Cheng (23), Yu Xian (25), Yong Zhu (25), Chen Zhiangfu (30) and Qui Jinchang (29) are expected to appear again in court next Wednesday. Prosecutor Bhekimpilo Tshabalala told the court that the trial should begin in earnest as the accused have been in police custody for a long time without a proper court date. Tshabalala indicated that they will face additional charges of money laundering and theft of a motor vehicle. Under Zimbabwes wildlife laws, it is a criminal offence to keep, possess, sell or dispose of any protected animals products or trophies. The offence attracts a custodial sentence. The seven were arrested following a tip off from a local maid. Police found the rhino horns, weighing 20,98kg and worth $938,700 hidden in plastic bags, boxes and mattress. A digital scale was also found in Lius room. Rhino horns are highly prized in some Asian nations like China and Vietnam where they are used for medicinal purposes. Wildlife authorities in Zimbabwe are dehorning the countrys 700 adult rhinos to curb rampant poaching. The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. Seven Chinese nationals are facing charges of poaching and possibly money laundering, after being found in possession of money and rhino horns. The trial, taking place in Victoria Falls, was deferred to next Wednesday. PARIS - One of the leaders of the "yellow vest" anti-government demonstrations, Eric Drouet, was detained by French police and placed in custody on Wednesday for organizing a central Paris protest without declaring it, according to a source at the prosecutors office. Drouet who already faces a trial for carrying a weapon was held while heading for the Champs-Elysees, according to a police source. A few dozen demonstrators had gathered outside a McDonalds near France's famous Arc de Triomphe war monument and had been waiting for Drouet to arrive early Wednesday evening. "Yellow vest" demonstrations so-called after the high-visibility jackets they wear began in rural France in November over fuel taxes and ballooned into a wider revolt against President Emmanuel Macron's pro-business policies, which they view as skewed towards the rich. The protesters have repeatedly clashed with police in Paris and other big French cities, plunging Macron's presidency into crisis. A demonstrator wearing her yellow vest holds a pla A demonstrator wearing her yellow vest holds a placard during a visit by French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in Biarritz, southwestern France, Dec. 18, 2018. A demonstrator wearing her yellow vest holds a placard during a visit by French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in Biarritz, southwestern France, Dec. 18, 2018. Drouet was first arrested last month. He face trial on June 5 for "carrying a prohibited category D weapon", a judicial source told AFP. Radical leftist leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, a fierce critic of Macron, tweeted: "Again Eric Drouet arrested, why? Abuse of power. A politicized police targeting and harassing the leaders of the yellow vest movement." After weeks of violence, Macron eventually scrapped the unpopular fuel tax rise in response to the protests and promised extra cash for minimum wage earners and tax cuts for pensioners. Although the number of protesters taking part in the demonstrations has since dwindled, they have continued. The new Democrat-led U.S. House of Representatives is expected to approve bills Thursday to end a partial government shutdown. The Republican leader of the Senate says he will not bring the measures to a vote. President Donald Trump expressed his willingness to keep the shutdown going as long as it takes to get border wall financing Democrats do not support. That is the state of the shutdown after Trump invited congressional leaders to the White House Wednesday and the two sides came no closer to agreeing on a resolution. They plan to try again with another meeting Friday. Tops on House Democrats' To-Do List: Try to End Shutdown House Democrats are sweeping into power this week on a campaign promise of improving government for ordinary Americans. But first, they'll have to get government reopened from the partial shutdown.As the Congress gavels in for the 116th session the early votes will be the usual ones establishing the House rules and electing the House speaker, presumably California Democrat Nancy Pelosi. House Democrats are sweeping into power this week on a campaign promise of improving government for ordinary Americans. But first, they'll have to get government reopened from the partial shutdown.As the Congress gavels in for the 116th session the early votes will be the usual ones establishing the House rules and electing the House speaker, presumably California Democrat Nancy Pelosi. The House bills expected to pass Thursday would split the debate over Trumps desired wall at the U.S.-Mexico border from the issue of having one quarter of the government closed with some 800,000 workers either sitting at home or staying on the job with no paycheck. One bill would fund the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 8, allowing the opposing sides to figure out how to bridge the gap between Trumps demand for $5 billion for the wall and Democratic proposals for $1.3 billion in other border security spending. The second bill would provide funding through the end of September for the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Housing and Urban Development and others that are currently closed. WATCH: No Deal to End Shutdown From Trump and Lawmakers Trump insists on wall Trump insists the wall is needed to address what he called a sievelike border, while opponents say the wall would be ineffective and expensive. Were talking about national security. This isnt just a border, this is national security, Trump said. This is health and wellness. This is everything. The president used Twitter late Wednesday to once again say he is willing to work with Democrats on a bill that would secure U.S. borders. Hours later he followed with another post declaring, Sadly, there can be no REAL Border Security without the Wall! Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said after Wednesdays meeting that he had asked Trump to provide one good reason why the shutdown should continue, and that Trump could not give a good answer. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters he thinks it is possible lawmakers and the president can agree on a resolution rather quickly. We know we have a challenge along the border. We want to solve that issue, McCarthy said. We want to make sure we open this government up. And I think at the end of the day, the president, listening to him, he wants to solve this, as well. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., sp House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaks to reporters as he returns to the Capitol from a meeting with President Donald Trump about border security and ending the partial government shutdown, in Washington, Jan. 2, 2019. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaks to reporters as he returns to the Capitol from a meeting with President Donald Trump about border security and ending the partial government shutdown, in Washington, Jan. 2, 2019. Nancy Pelosi, who is expected to be elected House speaker, accused Trump of holding the federal government hostage over his campaign promise to build the wall that Mexico would pay for. That is so ridiculous. A, Mexicos not paying for it. And B, we have better use of funds to protect our border. The president knows that, Pelosi said. Congress Opens Thursday; Meet the New Senators STATE DEPARTMENT - The U.S. State Department has updated its travel advisory on China, calling on Americans to exercise "increased caution" in the country due to "arbitrary enforcement of local laws as well as special restrictions on dual U.S.-Chinese nationals." The advisory says Chinese authorities have asserted broad authority to prohibit U.S. citizens from leaving China by implementing "exit bans," sometimes keeping U.S. citizens in China for years. The warning says China uses exit bans "coercively" to compel U.S. citizens to participate in Chinese government investigations, to lure individuals back to China from abroad, and to aid authorities in resolving civil disputes in favor of Chinese parties. Level 2 warning The Level 2 warning says in most cases, U.S. citizens only become aware of the exit ban when they attempt to depart China. It adds U.S. citizens under exit bans have been harassed and threatened. China does not recognize dual nationality and the State Department warns U.S.-Chinese citizens and U.S. citizens of Chinese heritage may be subject to additional scrutiny and harassment, and China may prevent the U.S. embassy from providing consular services. The travel advisory says extra measures, such as security checks and increased levels of police presence, are common in the Xinjiang Uighur and Tibet Autonomous Regions, where authorities may impose curfews and travel restrictions on short notice. Advisory issued for Myanmar The update calling for increased caution comes after China detained two Canadian citizens last month on suspicion of endangering state security. Those arrests followed Canada's arrest of high-ranking Chinese executive Meng Wanzhou on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States. China has demanded Canada free Meng, who is fighting extradition to the United States. Last week, the State Department also issued a Level 2 advisory for Myanmar, calling on travelers to exercise increased caution "due to areas of civil unrest and armed conflict." Level 1 travel advisories call on American travelers to "exercise normal precautions." Level 3 travel warnings call on Americans to reconsider travel, and Level 4 warnings strongly advise: "Do not travel." U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman on Wednesday visited the retired U.S. Marine who has been detained on espionage charges in Russia. He also spoke on the phone with the family of Paul Whelan, 48, according to a State Department statement that did not release any details of the call "due to privacy considerations for Mr. Whelan and his family.'' It did say, "Ambassador Huntsman expressed his support for Mr. Whelan and offered the embassy's assistance.'' Access was granted just hours after U.S. Secretary Mike Pompeo said he expected an explanation of why the American was arrested and demanded his release if the detention was not appropriate. On Monday, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officials said Whelan had been detained Dec. 28 "while carrying out an act of espionage" and that a criminal probe had been ordered. The FSB provided no further details, but Russia's state-run TASS news agency said Whelan faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Paul Whelan, a U.S. citizen detained in Russia for Paul Whelan, a U.S. citizen detained in Russia for suspected spying, appears in a photo provided by the Whelan family on Jan. 1, 2019. Paul Whelan, a U.S. citizen detained in Russia for suspected spying, appears in a photo provided by the Whelan family on Jan. 1, 2019. Whelan is employed as director of global security at BorgWarner, an American automotive parts supplier. Whelan's family learned of his arrest only after it was reported by Russian state news outlets, prompting the family to contact congressional representatives and U.S. diplomats. "We are deeply concerned for his safety and well-being," the family said. "His innocence is undoubted and we trust that his rights will be respected." Scandals Whelan's arrest coincided with several spy scandals that have exacerbated tensions between Russia and the West, including the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain. News of Whelan's detention came less than 24 hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a New Year's greeting to U.S. President Donald Trump in which he said Moscow was amenable to a continuing dialogue with Washington on a range of topics. In 2016, Izvestia, a Kremlin-aligned news outlet, reported there were 13 U.S. citizens in Russian jails at the time. The Kremlin has not since published any details on other Americans currently in Russian detention. VOA's Peter Cobus in Moscow contributed to this report. ISTANBUL - Tensions between the U.S. and Turkey are threatening to resurface following President Donald Trump's apparent walking back of his commitment to immediately withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and end support for a Syrian Kurdish militia. Washington's backing of the YPG Kurdish militia in its war against the Islamic State group pushed U.S.-Turkish relations to a breaking point. Ankara links the militia to the Kurdish rebel group PKK, which has been fighting a decades-long insurgency inside Turkey. Trump's declaration of victory over IS and vow to quickly withdraw about 2,000 American forces based mainly with the YPG ushered in hopes of a breakthrough in strained ties with Ankara. Trump on Wednesday, though, said, "I never said fast or slow. Somebody said four months, but I did not say that either." Adding to Ankara's nervousness, Trump said, "We want to protect the Kurds [in Syria]." The U.S. president is facing growing national and international pressure over the decision to leave Syria and abandon the YPG. Turkish military forces continue to mass ahead of an expected strike against the YPG. "In Ankara, the strategic thinking is a threat to Turkish national security emanating from Syria," said former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen. "It's an extension of PKK controlling the Syrian border, and Ankara has repeatedly said this will not be allowed." FILE - Turkish and U.S. troops conduct joint patro FILE - Turkish and U.S. troops conduct joint patrols around the Syrian town of Manbij, as part of an agreement that aimed to ease tensions between the two NATO allies, Nov. 1, 2018. FILE - Turkish and U.S. troops conduct joint patrols around the Syrian town of Manbij, as part of an agreement that aimed to ease tensions between the two NATO allies, Nov. 1, 2018. ?Green light Trump's initial statements of an unconditional quick pullout from Syria were widely interpreted in Turkey as a green light for a Turkish military operation against the YPG. However, Trump's latest comments of a more gradual withdrawal and protection of the Kurds are seen as putting Ankara's plans in question. "There was euphoria by the [Turkish] government. It was a historic decision for Ankara by Trump to leave Syria immediately," said international relations professor Huseyin Bagci, of Ankara's Middle East Technical University. "But now Trump is also classically acting again, trying not to leave without giving protection to Kurds. And Turkey in this respect cannot do anything about this; Turkey will have to accept Kurds are under American protection," Bagci added. Fighters of People's Protection Units, or YPG, gat FILE - Fighters of People's Protection Units, or YPG, gather at their outpost west of the city of Kobani, northern Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2018. FILE - Fighters of People's Protection Units, or YPG, gather at their outpost west of the city of Kobani, northern Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2018. Analysts suggest Ankara also is likely to be alarmed by growing calls for the creation of a buffer zone between Turkish and YPG forces along the Syrian border. South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, speaking to reporters after meeting with Trump, said the president was considering such a move. Roderich Kiesewetter, chair of the German parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, is backing a similar initiative. "We need a sanctuary, and the United Nations could do that for the Kurds of northern Syria, under U.N. influence," Kiesewetter said Wednesday to German radio. "The creation of buffer zone is to protect the Kurds. In this respect, it's not good for Turkey. Turkey will lose the opportunity to fight the YPG troops there," said Bagci. "Turkey will oppose, but at the end of the day they will have to accept." Pre-emptive strike Analysts suggest Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may be tempted to thwart any buffer zone by launching a pre-emptive military operation in Syria, east of the Euphrates River, where most of the YPG forces are based. Key March local elections could also enter into Erdogan's calculations, given growing voter dissatisfaction over a slowing economy. "The timing of an operation east of the Euphrates may be an attempt to solidify the voter base," said analyst Atilla Yesilada of GlobalSource Partners, an investment analysis service. "But these attempts are futile at the end. People care whether they can bring bread home, and if they can't, a very clear victory in some remote location doesn't mean much to them." This photo made from the footage taken from the Ru FILE - This photo made from footage taken from the Russian Defense Ministry official website on Nov. 27, 2015, shows Russian S-400 missiles being deployed at the Hemeimeem air base in Syria. FILE - This photo made from footage taken from the Russian Defense Ministry official website on Nov. 27, 2015, shows Russian S-400 missiles being deployed at the Hemeimeem air base in Syria. Whether Ankara launches a Syrian operation is likely to depend on Moscow's cooperation. Russian missiles control much of Syrian airspace. Turkey's last cross-border operation against the YPG in Syria's Afrin province relied on the use of air support. The Turkish defense and foreign ministers, along with the intelligence chief, reportedly failed recently to secure permission to use Syrian airspace during a visit to Moscow. Analysts suggest Moscow is balancing conflicting interests of seeking to court Ankara in a bid to draw it away from its NATO partners, while knowing Damascus will be opposed to Turkish seizure of more Syrian territory. Ankara also has conflicting interests. A U.S. delegation of judiciary and security officials Thursday began a two-day visit to Ankara to discuss Turkey's bid to extradite U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen for his alleged role in masterminding the 2016 failed coup. Ankara in the past has accused Washington of foot-dragging over its extradition calls. Holding Gulen to account and reining in his network of followers remains a strategic priority of Ankara's. Analysts suggest concessions by Washington to Ankara over Gulen's extradition could well help to assuage Turkish concerns over Syria. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can download this video to view it offline. WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday mocked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan, suggesting it was of no use. Trump brought up India's aid during a rambling press appearance at a Cabinet meeting as he defended his push for the United States to invest less overseas. While stating that he got along with Modi, Trump said the Indian leader was "constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan." "You know what that is? That's like five hours of what we spend," Trump said. "And we're supposed to say, 'Oh, thank you for the library.' I don't know who's using it in Afghanistan," Trump said. It was unclear to which project Trump was referring, but India has committed $3 billion in assistance to Afghanistan since U.S.-led forces toppled the extremist Taliban regime after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Projects have included the reconstruction of an elite high school in Kabul and scholarships to India for 1,000 Afghan students each year. Empowering youth Inaugurating the Afghan parliament building in 2015 after reconstruction financed by India, Modi promised to promote programs "empowering Afghan youth with modern education and professional skills." India has been one of the most enthusiastic countries over the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, where the former Taliban regime sheltered fiercely anti-Indian militants. But India's role has alarmed its archrival Pakistan, whose intelligence service's continued ties to extremists in Afghanistan has been seen by analysts in part as a way to counter New Delhi. Trump last month moved to pull all 2,000 U.S. troops out of Syria and cut by half the 14,000-strong force in Afghanistan, calling for less spending overseas. Alluding in Wednesday's remarks to the 1979-89 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Trump said: "Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan." WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump dismissed Syria as nothing but sand and death, defending his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from the country and deriding what he called Americas endless wars. The presidents comments Wednesday, before his first Cabinet meeting of the year, came during a lengthy and wide-ranging session with the media, as Pat Shanahan, the nations new, acting defense secretary, sat to his left. They also revealed what would appear to be a growing schism between Trump and other, key U.S. military commanders on U.S. strategy in the Middle East and South Asia. Criticism of military Trump praised Shanahan, calling it such a pleasure to work with him, before eventually launching into criticism of defense and military officials for multiple failures. Im the only person in the history of our country that could really decimate ISIS, Trump told reporters, using an acronym for the terror group. So we do that, and we say were going to bring the troops back home where they belong. FILE - Defense Secretary Jim Mattis waits for Chin FILE - Defense Secretary Jim Mattis waits for Chinese Minister of Defense General Wei Fenghe to begin an arrival ceremony at the Pentagon, Nov. 9, 2018. FILE - Defense Secretary Jim Mattis waits for Chinese Minister of Defense General Wei Fenghe to begin an arrival ceremony at the Pentagon, Nov. 9, 2018. Shanahan took over at the Pentagon Tuesday, following the resignation of former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Once touted by Trump as one of my generals, Mattis submitted his resignation last month after the president abruptly announced IS had been defeated and that about 2,000 U.S. troops fighting the Islamic State terror group in Syria would be coming home. But Trump Wednesday again rejected assertions by Mattis and others that keeping U.S. forces in Syria was necessary to deal the terror group an enduring defeat. Everyone says, Oh, then theyll come to our country. Well, thats possibly true, a very small percentage, he said. But you know where else theyre going? To Iran, who hates ISIS more than we do. Theyre going to Russia. WATCH: Trump Scolds US Generals on Afghanistan Trump also dismissed any notion that a U.S. military presence in Syria could serve any other purpose in a country wracked by eight years of civil war and ruled by a government propped up by Russia and Iran. Syria was lost long ago, he said. Were not talking about vast wealth. Were talking about sand and death. Still, the president seemed to backtrack on his pledge last month that U.S. troops in Syria would be coming back now. After historic victories against ISIS, its time to bring our great young people home! pic.twitter.com/xoNjFzQFTp Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2018 I never said fast or slow, Trump said, dismissing media reports that U.S. troops would withdraw from Syria over the course of the next four months. But were getting out very powerfully. FILE - Taliban fighters and their supporters carry FILE - Taliban fighters and their supporters carry a representation of the Afghan national flag and a Taliban flag while riding in a motorized vehicle, in Kabul, Afghanistan, June 17, 2018. FILE - Taliban fighters and their supporters carry a representation of the Afghan national flag and a Taliban flag while riding in a motorized vehicle, in Kabul, Afghanistan, June 17, 2018. ?Didnt do such a great job Trump also expressed displeasure with his former defense secretary and other top military officials for what he described as the endless war in Afghanistan and fights against both the Taliban and Islamic State-Khorasan Province. I gave our generals all the money they wanted, the president said. They didnt do such a great job. He was especially critical of what he said was a desire by military commanders to take on both the Taliban and IS-Khorasan at the same time, even as the two groups were fighting each other. Its the craziest thing Ive ever seen, Trump recalled. Why are we getting in the middle of it? I said let em fight. Theyre both our enemies. While refusing to divulge any specifics, the president said his administration would do something thats right in Afghanistan, saying the U.S. is talking to the Taliban and other countries. Indias there. Russias there, he said. Outgoing Pentagon Chief Tells Troops to 'Hold Fast' Outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is giving some final advice to troops and the Defense Department's civilian employees maintain your faith in America and continue to stand by the country's allies."Our Department's leadership, civilian and military, remains in the best possible hands," Mattis wrote in his official farewell message Monday, his last day on the job."I am confident that each of you remains undistracted from our sworn mission to support and defend the Constitution while Outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is giving some final advice to troops and the Defense Department's civilian employees maintain your faith in America and continue to stand by the country's allies."Our Department's leadership, civilian and military, remains in the best possible hands," Mattis wrote in his official farewell message Monday, his last day on the job."I am confident that each of you remains undistracted from our sworn mission to support and defend the Constitution while In his final message to the troops on Monday, Mattis urged them to hold fast, alongside our allies, aligned against our foes, picking up on a theme he expressed in his letter of resignation. Our strength as a nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnership, he wrote last month. But Wednesday, Trump criticized U.S. allies and partners, alike, for using the U.S. in places like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan to add to their coffers. What other countries have done for the last long period of time is give us some soldiers and then talk about it like its the end of the world, Trump told reporters. Were subsidizing their militaries by billions and billions and billions of dollars, many, many times what those soldiers cost. Our country has to be respected, he said. WASHINGTON - U.S. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy says President Donald Trump invited congressional leaders back to the White House Friday for more talks on how to end the government shutdown. Trump is demanding $5 billion for a wall along the U.S. southern border. Democrats have refused to allocate that amount. Tops on House Democrats' To-Do List: Try to End Shutdown House Democrats are sweeping into power this week on a campaign promise of improving government for ordinary Americans. But first, they'll have to get government reopened from the partial shutdown.As the Congress gavels in for the 116th session the early votes will be the usual ones establishing the House rules and electing the House speaker, presumably California Democrat Nancy Pelosi. House Democrats are sweeping into power this week on a campaign promise of improving government for ordinary Americans. But first, they'll have to get government reopened from the partial shutdown.As the Congress gavels in for the 116th session the early votes will be the usual ones establishing the House rules and electing the House speaker, presumably California Democrat Nancy Pelosi. Wednesday's meeting between Trump and top Democrats and Republicans ended with no sign of progress, beyond the president's willingness to continue talks. "We know we have a challenge along the border. We want to solve that issue," McCarthy told reporters. "We want to make sure we open this government up. And I think at the end of the day, the president, listening to him, he wants to solve this, as well." House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., sp House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaks to reporters as he returns to the Capitol from a meeting with President Donald Trump about border security and ending the partial government shutdown, in Washington, Jan. 2, 2019. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaks to reporters as he returns to the Capitol from a meeting with President Donald Trump about border security and ending the partial government shutdown, in Washington, Jan. 2, 2019. As long as it takes Before sitting down with members of Congress, Trump said the government shutdown would last "as long as it takes." "It could be a long time, or it could be quickly," he told his Cabinet. He also insisted that "walls work," and called the border with Mexico a "sieve." Trump said there are as many as 35 million illegal immigrants in the United States, contradicting experts who say the number is far lower. WATCH: No Deal to End Shutdown From Trump and Lawmakers Incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi plans to introduce a bill to reopen the government when the Democrats take control of Congress Thursday The legislation would fund all agencies through September and the Department of Homeland Security through February. It would not include money for a border wall. But by temporarily funding Homeland Security, it would spin off the issue from the rest of the funding dispute for separate negotiations. The White House has called the bill a "nonstarter" and blamed Democrats for the shutdown. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, left, walks with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., as Democratic leaders including Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., at right, arrive to speak to the media after meeting with President Donald Trump, Jan. 2, 2018, at the White House. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, left, walks with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., as Democratic leaders including Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., at right, arrive to speak to the media after meeting with President Donald Trump, Jan. 2, 2018, at the White House. McConnell wont consider Democrat plan Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday the Senate would not consider bills Democrats plan to vote on in the House on Thursday that don't include $5 billion for Trump's border wall. "We can go back and forth," Pelosi told NBC News. "How many more times can we say no? Nothing for the wall." Pelosi accused Trump of holding the federal government hostage over his campaign promise to build the wall that Mexico would pay for. "That is so ridiculous. A, Mexico's not paying for it. And B, we have better use of funds to protect our border. The president knows that," Pelosi said. Trump has said without secure borders, you don't have a country and that $5 billion is very little to pay for national security. He has also said he welcomes immigrants to the United States but said they must enter legally. The gate of the closed Smithsonian's National Zoo The gate of the closed Smithsonian's National Zoo is seen, Jan. 2, 2019, in Washington. The gate of the closed Smithsonian's National Zoo is seen, Jan. 2, 2019, in Washington. Major D.C. attractions closed Meanwhile, Washington was full of tourists Wednesday frustrated that major attractions were closed because of the shutdown. The Smithsonian Institution, which includes the popular Air and Space Museum and the National Zoo, are closed. The National Gallery of Art is out of money and will close Thursday. Trash in federal parks is not being collected, and more than 800,000 federal workers are either furloughed or working for no pay. Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware called the shutdown "senseless" and "without a purpose." Congress Opens Thursday; Meet the New Senators SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un highlighted peace and prosperity in his annual New Years address, and while he did not make the much-anticipated trip to Seoul in 2018, some local residents are hopeful the visit could still come soon and promote greater ties between the two nations. Kim Soo-keun, a member of the Welcoming Committee of the Great Man group, told VOA that members of the government and South Korean citizens should work together to promote better ties and unification. We have witnessed the warmest welcome in Pyongyang and we should do the same to the visitors from the north, Kim Soo-geun said. Speaking during his New Years Day address, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said, North and South should not pass up the favorable atmosphere of today when all the nationals interest in and aspiration for reunification are growing unprecedentedly, but actively try to find a peaceful reunification plan based on nationwide agreement and direct sincere efforts to this end. In a letter to South Korean President Moon Jae-in before 2018s end, Kim expressed a strong determination to visit Seoul, Moons spokesman, Kim Eui-kyeom, told reporters. Kim also conveyed to Moon an intention to meet with Moon frequently in 2019 to pursue peace and solve the issue of denuclearizing the peninsula together, spokesman Kim said. South Korean Christians pray for reunification du South Korean Christians pray for reunification in Seoul, South Korea, Jan. 1, 2019. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Tuesday he hopes to extend his nuclear summitry with President Donald Trump into 2019, but also warned Washington not to test North Koreans' patience with sanctions and pressure. South Korean Christians pray for reunification in Seoul, South Korea, Jan. 1, 2019. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Tuesday he hopes to extend his nuclear summitry with President Donald Trump into 2019, but also warned Washington not to test North Koreans' patience with sanctions and pressure. ?Multiple groups seek to welcome Kim In addition to the Welcoming Committee of the Great Man group, two other organizations have been active in the Seoul area, promoting a warm reception for the North Korean leader. While the Seoul Citizen Welcome Committee and Baekdu Guard initially held a number of events and rallies throughout the city, both have scaled back their activities. On its Facebook and web page, the Seoul Citizen Welcome Committee encourages residents to fill out postcards to Kim Jong Un. According to a counter on its homepage, theyve collected just more than 6,000 in a city of millions. As the likelihood of Kims visit to Seoul abated in late 2018, the Baekdu Guard group closed its website, although the organization continues to maintain its Facebook page. Both the Seoul Citizen Welcome Committee and Baekdu Guard groups declined to speak with VOA about their activities and goals; however, Welcoming Committee of the Great Man said they formed in November to counter groups that are against the unification, such as far-right conservatives. Welcoming Committee of the Great Mans group Kim Soo-keun tells VOA his organization has six core members that aim to provide Kim Jong Un a welcome in Seoul reciprocal to the one Pyongyang gave Moon in September. A recent Realmeter poll found 61.3 percent of those surveyed would welcome Kim if he comes to the South, noting it would likely contribute to peace on the Korean Peninsula. The survey results indicated 31.3 percent of those questioned opposed the visit. A visitor takes a photograph of images, from left, A visitor takes images, from left, of U.S. President Donald Trump, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during an exhibition at an annex of the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, Jan. 3, 2019. A visitor takes images, from left, of U.S. President Donald Trump, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during an exhibition at an annex of the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, Jan. 3, 2019. ?National Security Law controversy Since 1948, South Koreas National Security Law has been in place to suppress anti-State acts that endanger national security and to ensure the nations security, peoples life and freedom. In practice, the act made communism illegal and recognized North Korea as a political entity. Organizations advocating the overthrow of the government also run afoul of the statute. Amnesty International has described the National Security Law as a tool to harass and arbitrarily prosecute individuals and civil society organizations who are peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, opinion and association and to remove people who are perceived to threaten established political views, to prevent people from taking part in discussions surrounding relations with North Korea. Recently, several anti-North Korean groups filed complaints against pro-North Korea activists, including Kim Soo-keun, of breaching the National Security Law. Speaking to the Korea Times, Park Sang-hak, the founder of the Fighters for a Free North Korea, said, I respect the pro-North organizations thoughts, but it should be expressed within the limits of the constitution. Kim Soo-keun counters by saying, Despite the opposition, if Kim [Jong Un] makes his visit, it means that the old ideologies such as anti-communism, or the National Security Law are not valid in [South] Korea. If Kim Jong Un visits Seoul, Kim Soo-keun believes it can resolve misunderstandings and prejudices surrounding the Korean leader and people will think it is not necessary to be hostile to the North, and we can step forward to peace and prosperity. Lee Ju-hyun contributed to this report. UNITED NATIONS - Somalia's U.N. envoy Thursday urged the United Nations not to interfere in his country's internal affairs, two days after the federal government expelled the U.N.'s top official there. "Our appeal to the Security Council, that the U.N. and its representatives have a duty even an obligation to respect their mandate and not interfere in our internal affairs and let the Somalis control their own destiny," Ambassador Abukar Dahir Osman told a meeting of the council. The Somali federal government declared U.N. envoy Nicholas Haysom "persona non grata" on Jan. 1, ordering him to leave the country just four months after he took up his post as the U.N. secretary-general's special representative. Council diplomats said U.N. chief Antonio Guterres was working behind the scenes to try to return Haysom to his post. The government is upset over Haysom's raising of the case of Mukhtar Robow, a former leader of militant group al-Shabab who sought to run for the presidency of South West State. In this Oct. 10, 2018 photo, Mukhtar Robow, who wa In this Oct. 10, 2018, photo, Mukhtar Robow, who was once deputy leader of Africa's deadliest Islamic extremist group, al-Shabab, speaks at a press conference about his candidacy for a regional presidency, in Baidoa, Somalia. In this Oct. 10, 2018, photo, Mukhtar Robow, who was once deputy leader of Africa's deadliest Islamic extremist group, al-Shabab, speaks at a press conference about his candidacy for a regional presidency, in Baidoa, Somalia. The national electoral commission banned Robow from running, while the South West State electoral body said he could be a candidate. Robow was arrested last month and violent protests ensued both for and against the decision. Haysom raised Robow's detention with the Mogadishu authorities. "The member states here will agree, the proscribed individuals from Shabab or other terrorist organizations sanctioned by this very institution cannot assume leadership positions without going through a stringent, established rehabilitation program," Osman said. Osman rejected what he said was an attempt to "rebrand" a terrorist as an "ice cream salesperson." Haysom attends meeting U.N. envoy Haysom was present at the meeting in New York. Haysom did not mention his expulsion during his remarks to the council, but he did allude to the Robow case, albeit without referencing him by name. "Allegations of interference by the federal government and the violence which erupted following the arrest of one of the candidates, a former al-Shabab deputy leader, marred the process and does not bode well for upcoming electoral processes in other regions or for the 2020 national elections," Haysom said. He expressed concern that this could deter other potential al-Shabab defectors from moving away from violence and toward politics to resolve their grievances. Waiting for explanation The U.N. secretary-general's spokesperson said U.N. officials had not received any formal notification from the Somali federal government regarding Haysom's expulsion. "At this stage, we continue to seek further clarification," Farhan Haq told reporters. Haq said Haysom continued to have the full support and confidence of Guterres and "we imagine he will continue to go about his work." Haysom, a South African lawyer, is an experienced U.N. diplomat. He was previously the special envoy for Sudan and South Sudan and was head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, in addition to other high-level posts in the organization. CAPITOL HILL - Ilhan Omar is changing the look of Capitol Hill. Omar one of two lawmakers who will become the first Muslim women ever to serve in the U.S. Congress wears a headscarf. But her choice of religious head covering is technically banned under the rules of the U.S. House of Representatives. The 116th Congress will be among the most diverse ever. When House Democrats take control of the legislative body this week, they will be changing the rules to reflect that reality. Ilhan Omar, one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, arriving on Capitol Hill ahead of the swearing-in of the new 116th Congress. She is also the first former refugee & the first woman from Africa to join the House of Representatives. https://t.co/NrOJ4T5E6V pic.twitter.com/lux1WQMCLo The Voice of America (@VOANews) January 3, 2019 The rule that would have prevented Omar from wearing her headscarf, or hijab, was created 181 years ago, when Congress was a very different place. Women and minorities did not have the opportunity to serve as representatives. When lawmakers decided every member shall remain uncovered during the sessions of the House, they were referring to men's common 19th century practice of wearing a hat. The rule was not expressly created to discriminate against religious minorities. But even back then, the rule caused controversy. Some members argued that wearing hats recalled an important custom in the British Parliament symbolizing independence from the monarch. Others argued from a more practical viewpoint, asking where they would be able to leave their hats. But the rule and its emphasis on proper decorum prevailed ever since. Hats are just one of many items banned from the House floor. Cigarettes, food, drink and cellphones are all not allowed under House rules. Members of the House do have one advantage over their Senate colleagues they have always been allowed to bring their children onto the House floor. This is not the first time a member has tried to end the head-covering ban. In 2010, an incoming Democratic House member, Rep. Frederica Wilson of Florida, unsuccessfully lobbied House Speaker John Boehner for an end to the rule. Wilson who is known for her colorful, often-sequined hats told the Miami Herald the rule was sexist. It dates back to when men wore hats, and we know that men don't wear hats indoors. But women wear hats indoors, she said. Members of the freshman class of Congress pose for Members of the freshman class of Congress pose for a photo opportunity on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 14, 2018. Members of the freshman class of Congress pose for a photo opportunity on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 14, 2018. Head coverings have also been used as a form of protest on the House floor. In 2012, Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois was escorted off the floor for wearing a hooded sweatshirt. The so-called hoodie was meant to protest the death of Trayvon Martin, a teenager who was shot and killed in Florida by George Zimmerman, a self-appointed neighborhood watch guard. In a tweet, the Somali-born Omar announced she would be seek an end to the ban. No one puts a scarf on my head but me, she wrote. No one puts a scarf on my head but me. Its my choiceone protected by the first amendment.And this is not the last ban Im going to work to lift. https://t.co/7U3ZLTaWur Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) November 17, 2018 Along with Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, Omar is co-authoring a proposal that would allow an exception to the rule for religious or medical headwear. This protection of religious expression would also apply to any members of a range of religious faiths, including Jews who wish to wear yarmulkes or Sikhs who want to wear turbans. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) applauded the change last November, saying the rule was a violation of the freedoms protected under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. We support the effort to update this anachronistic policy and to bring the House of Representatives into conformity with the Constitution and its existing protection of religious freedom, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement. The rule would not cover members like Rep. Wilson who choose to wear hats for fashion. WASHINGTON - Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan's first full day at the Pentagon's helm was overshadowed Wednesday when President Donald Trump attacked his predecessor Jim Mattis. Shanahan, who took the Pentagon's top spot January 1 after serving as deputy defense secretary, was thrust onto the world stage when Mattis quit last month amid long-running disagreements with President Donald Trump. During televised remarks ahead of his first cabinet meeting of 2019, Trump claimed he had "essentially fired" Mattis, even though the former Pentagon chief had pointedly quit his post over multiple disagreements. "I'm not happy with what [Mattis has] done in Afghanistan and I shouldn't be happy," Trump said, as Shanahan sat by his side. "I wish him well. I hope he does well. But as you know, President [Barack] Obama fired him and essentially so did I. I want results." Mattis, a former Marine general, was head of U.S. Central Command when Obama fired him in 2013 over his hawkish views on Iran. While it is common for Trump to turn on former staffers and make demeaning remarks after they've left their post, the Mattis criticism is notable as Trump had often touted his admiration for the man he called "Mad Dog Mattis." The drama came after Shanahan sought to lay out his priorities for America's massive defense department and how he intends to deal with an urgent list of geopolitical to-dos, including the U.S. withdrawal from Syria. FILE - A U.S. soldier sits atop an armored vehicle FILE - A U.S. soldier sits atop an armored vehicle, in Manbij, Syria, April 4, 2018. FILE - A U.S. soldier sits atop an armored vehicle, in Manbij, Syria, April 4, 2018. Soon after arriving at the Pentagon, Shanahan told colleagues to focus on the National Defense Strategy, a Mattis-era review that highlights "Great Power competition" with Russia and China. "In 2019, the National Defense Strategy remains our guide. America's military strength remains our focus," Shanahan said in a New Year's message on Twitter. China as focus A defense official added that Shanahan had told colleagues a major concern would be China. "While we are focused on ongoing operations, Acting Secretary Shanahan told the team to remember: China, China, China," the official said. The U.S. accuses Beijing of an ongoing pattern of military and economic espionage, and has criticized China's ambitious "Belt and Road" trade and infrastructure initiative as being a form of economic coercion. Shanahan must oversee the pace at which the U.S. pulls some 2,200 troops out of Syria, following the president's decision to exit the war-torn country. U.S. President Donald Trump (L) and Acting U.S. De U.S. President Donald Trump (L) and Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan are seen during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, Jan. 2, 2019. U.S. President Donald Trump (L) and Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan are seen during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, Jan. 2, 2019. Last month, Trump declared victory over the Islamic State group in Syria and claimed the jihadists had been beaten "badly," even though they still number in the thousands. He has since backpedaled and suggested more of a phased timeline for the withdrawal. "We're withdrawing," Trump said, adding it would happen "over a period of time." At another point, Trump told Shanahan he wanted him to classify various reports, presumably including those detailing the security crisis in Afghanistan. "For these reports to be given out and essentially given out to the enemy, that's insane," Trump told Shanahan. "I don't want it to happen anymore. Mr. Secretary, you understand that." According to U.S. officials, Trump is also mulling a 50 percent drawdown in Afghanistan -- another momentous move that has left lawmakers and international allies fearing for what comes next. FILE - A U.S. Marine shakes hands with Afghan Nati FILE - A U.S. Marine shakes hands with Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers during a training exercise in Helmand province, Afghanistan, July 5, 2017. FILE - A U.S. Marine shakes hands with Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers during a training exercise in Helmand province, Afghanistan, July 5, 2017. Largely unknown Little known outside business and Washington circles, Shanahan takes the world stage at a time of tumultuous changes and unpredictable foreign policy moves under Trump. Shanahan, 56, did not serve in the military and before serving as deputy defense secretary he spent more than 30 years at Boeing. While Shanahan has not always had day-to-day involvement in thorny geopolitical issues like Syria, officials say he is ready to tackle them and previously filled in for Mattis when he was traveling. Despite a lack of foreign policy or military experience, Shanahan's executive and technical knowledge made him well suited for the Pentagon's number two position, which focuses more on the Defense Department's business side. But some critics have questioned whether a man with deep industry ties should be running the Pentagon. At his confirmation hearing to be deputy, the late senator John McCain said a lack of detail in some of Shanahan's foreign policy answers was "almost insulting," and he expressed concerns that putting a former defense executive in the Pentagon could be akin to putting a fox "back in to the henhouse." Lieutenant Colonel Joe Buccino, Shanahan's spokesman, said he had recused himself from any matters involving Boeing. Also Wednesday, Shanahan announced that the Pentagon's comptroller, David Norquist, will perform the duties of deputy secretary of defense. BAMAKO, MALI - Seven people were arrested in central Mali Wednesday, the day after 37 civilians were killed when armed men attacked a village in the region in the latest clash between warring communities, the government said. Following the New Years Day massacre in the village of Koulogon, in the central Mopti region, Mali army forces were rushed to the scene, the civil protection ministry said in a statement, adding they arrested seven suspects without giving details on those detained. Tuesdays attackers were believed to be traditional Dogon hunters who targeted the village of Fulani herders. The same Mali army mission also went into Bobosso village, near the Burkina Faso border, following arson attacks, killing one suspect and detaining 24 others, the ministry said. France helped Malian forces stave off a jihadist insurgency that took control of large parts of the troubled north in 2012, but since the death in November of Fulani jihadist figure Amadou Koufa, inter-group conflict has increased. The violence is fueled by accusations of Fulani grazing cattle on Dogon land and disputes over access to land and water. The U.N. recorded more than 500 civilian deaths in the area in 2018. Large-scale operations are in preparation with the ministry of defense to deal with the intercommunal violence, the civil defense ministry said in its statement. Saudi Arabia says it held an initial court appearance Thursday for 11 people charged in connection with the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Washington Post columnist and critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was killed October 2 while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. The official Saudi Press Agency said prosecutors demanded "proper punishments" for the accused, including the death penalty for five of the defendants. Prosecutors first announced in November they intended to seek the death penalty for those "charged with ordering and committing the crime." The names of the defendants have not been made public. The prosecutor's office says it is continuing to investigate the case and has requested that authorities in Turkey provide any evidence they have. But so far, Saudi Arabia says, Turkey has not responded to that request. Turkey earlier said those responsible should be turned over for prosecution there because that is where the killing took place, and has similarly accused Saudi Arabia of not cooperating with its investigation. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the order to kill Khashoggi came from the highest levels of the Saudi government. Saudi officials initially said Khashoggi had left the consulate safely on his own, but later admitted he was killed there. But they said it was the result of a rogue operation and not ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. British Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt said Friday he was "extremely worried" about former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, a dual U.S.-British citizen who has been detained in Russia on espionage charges. In an interview with Sky News, Hunt warned Russia that "individuals should not be used as pawns of diplomatic leverage" and that Britain is "giving him every support that we can." The U.S. embassy disclosed Whelan's British citizenship to U.K. officials Thursday, according to Britain's Press Association. The disclosure came one day after U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman Jr. met with Whelan in a Moscow prison. On Monday, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officials said the 48-year-old Whelan had been detained on Dec. 28 "while carrying out an act of espionage," and a criminal probe has been ordered. Michigan Man Visited Russia Frequently, Now Accused of Spying As a staff sergeant with the Marines in Iraq, Paul Whelan enjoyed fine cigars and showed an affinity for Russia, even spending two weeks of military leave in Moscow and St. Petersburg instead of at home in the U.S. with family and friends.The 48-year-old Detroit-area man had an account on a Russian social media site, where he posted festive notes on the countrys national holidays.Now, hes under arrest there on espionage allegations.Whelan has visited Russia since at least 2007 and was there again As a staff sergeant with the Marines in Iraq, Paul Whelan enjoyed fine cigars and showed an affinity for Russia, even spending two weeks of military leave in Moscow and St. Petersburg instead of at home in the U.S. with family and friends.The 48-year-old Detroit-area man had an account on a Russian social media site, where he posted festive notes on the countrys national holidays.Now, hes under arrest there on espionage allegations.Whelan has visited Russia since at least 2007 and was there again The FSB provided no further details, but Russia's state-run TASS news agency said Whelan faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Earlier this week, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. had asked Russia to explain why Whelan was arrested and would demand his detention if deemed inappropriate. Whelan is employed as director of global security at BorgWarner, an American automotive parts supplier. Whelan's family learned of his arrest only after it was reported by Russian state news outlets, prompting the family to contact congressional representatives and U.S. diplomats. "We are deeply concerned for his safety and well-being," the family said. "His innocence is undoubted, and we trust that his rights will be respected." US Ambassador Meets With American Held in Russia U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman on Wednesday visited the retired U.S. Marine who has been detained on espionage charges in Russia.He also spoke on the phone with the family of Paul Whelan, 48, according to a State Department statement that did not release any details of the call "due to privacy considerations for Mr. Whelan and his family.'' It did say, "Ambassador Huntsman expressed his support for Mr. Whelan and offered the embassy's assistance.'' Access was granted just hours after U U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman on Wednesday visited the retired U.S. Marine who has been detained on espionage charges in Russia.He also spoke on the phone with the family of Paul Whelan, 48, according to a State Department statement that did not release any details of the call "due to privacy considerations for Mr. Whelan and his family.'' It did say, "Ambassador Huntsman expressed his support for Mr. Whelan and offered the embassy's assistance.'' Access was granted just hours after U Whelan's arrest coincides with several spy scandals that have exacerbated tensions between Russia and the West, including the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain. News of Whelan's detention came less than 24 hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a New Year's greeting to U.S. President Donald Trump in which he said Moscow is amenable to a continuing dialogue with Washington on a range of topics. Russian Spys Guilty Plea Illustrates Danger Facing US Former top U.S. intelligence officials are warning the guilty plea by a former Russian graduate student and self-proclaimed gun-rights advocate should serve as a wake-up call about the Kremlins brazen desire and ability to interfere with the American political system.Maria Butina, a 30-year-old native of Siberia, entered the plea Thursday in Washington, admitting she worked with a top Russian official, and two other Americans, to infiltrate U.S. conservative groups and the Republican Party for Russia Former top U.S. intelligence officials are warning the guilty plea by a former Russian graduate student and self-proclaimed gun-rights advocate should serve as a wake-up call about the Kremlins brazen desire and ability to interfere with the American political system.Maria Butina, a 30-year-old native of Siberia, entered the plea Thursday in Washington, admitting she worked with a top Russian official, and two other Americans, to infiltrate U.S. conservative groups and the Republican Party for Russia In 2016, Izvestia, a Kremlin-aligned news outlet, reported there were 13 U.S. citizens in Russian jails at the time. The Kremlin has not since published any details on other Americans currently in Russian detention.? WASHINGTON - The Trump administration is considering Jim Webb, a former Democratic senator from Virginia who also served as Navy secretary under Republican President Ronald Reagan, to be the next defense secretary, The New York Times reported Thursday. Citing an unnamed official, the Times said Vice President Mike Pence and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney had reached out to Webb. It said what it described as a senior Defense Department official confirmed Webb's name had been circulating at the White House. Jim Mattis stepped down as secretary of defense Tuesday, and President Donald Trump said a day later he had essentially fired Mattis, a retired Marine general whose letter of resignation was seen as a sharp rebuke to the Republican president. Mattis resigned after Trump's surprise decisions to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria and half of the 14,000-strong contingent in Afghanistan. Trump has named Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing Co. executive who was Mattis' deputy, as acting defense secretary. The Times said Webb could potentially allow Trump to bypass "more hawkish Republicans whose names have been floated to replace Jim Mattis." It said Republican Sens. Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham and former Republican Sen. Jim Talent had also been mentioned as possible replacements for Mattis. The White House declined to comment on the Times report. The Times said Webb did not respond to a request for comment. Webb, 72, is a decorated war veteran who served in the Vietnam War, the author of 10 books and an Emmy Award-winning journalist and filmmaker. A former U.S. senator from Virginia, Webb ran a long-shot campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. "Americans don't like the extremes to which both parties have moved in recent years and, quite frankly, neither do I," he said in October 2015 when announcing he was dropping his bid. A record number of migrants from Africa arrived in Spain via the Mediterranean Sea in 2018. According to the International Organization for Migration (OIM), Spain took in 57,250 people from the start of the year until Dec. 26, or an average of 160 per day. The number of deaths at sea also reached a record high during the same period, 769, more than three times the figure for 2017. Migrants gather on the deck of the Spanish NGO Pro Migrants gather on the deck of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms rescue vessel after being rescued in the central Mediterranean sea Dec. 21, 2018, before disembarking in the port of Crinavis in Spain, Dec. 28, 2018. Migrants gather on the deck of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms rescue vessel after being rescued in the central Mediterranean sea Dec. 21, 2018, before disembarking in the port of Crinavis in Spain, Dec. 28, 2018. The increase in arrivals of migrants in Spain comes with port closures by Malta and Italy, coupled with an agreement between the European Union and Turkey to intercept migrant boats. Amparo Gonzalez of the state-funded scientific research agency CSIC told Spain's El Pais that many of the 57,000-plus migrants will not settle in Spain. "Between a third and half of them either go elsewhere, or get deported to their home countries," she said. The partial U.S. government shutdown is in its 13th day, with no end in sight after President Donald Trump and congressional leaders failed to reach agreement on how to reopen shuttered agencies. "The Shutdown is only because of the 2020 Presidential Election," Trump claimed Thursday in a Twitter comment. "The Democrats know they can't win based on all of the achievements of 'Trump,' so they are going all out on the desperately needed Wall and Border Security - and Presidential Harassment. For them, strictly politics!" The Shutdown is only because of the 2020 Presidential Election. The Democrats know they cant win based on all of the achievements of Trump, so they are going all out on the desperately needed Wall and Border Security - and Presidential Harassment. For them, strictly politics! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2019 About a quarter of U.S. government agencies remained closed, with uncollected trash piling up at some national parks and 800,000 federal workers either furloughed or working without pay until the standoff is resolved. Trump is demanding more than $5 billion to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border as part of the deal to reopen the government, telling opposition Democratic leaders on Wednesday he "would look foolish" to cave in on his signature 2016 campaign pledge to erect the barrier to thwart illegal immigration. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., spea House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., speaks during Congressional Black Caucus members swearing-in ceremony of the 116th Congress at The Warner Theatre in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., speaks during Congressional Black Caucus members swearing-in ceremony of the 116th Congress at The Warner Theatre in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019. But Nancy Pelosi, set to take over as House speaker when Democrats assume control of the House of Representatives on Thursday, said Democrats would give "nothing for the wall," aside from their offer for $1.3 billion for improved border security. House Democrats plan to quickly approve legislation to fund the closed agencies through September, while approving a budget through Feb. 8 for the Department of Homeland Security, which controls border operations, but it would not provide funds for a border wall. New US Congress Grapples with Government Shutdown A new, politically divided U.S. Congress is being sworn in and confronts an immediate task: ending a partial government shutdown that is nearing the two-week mark.A day of pageantry on Capitol Hill as Democrats take control of the House of Representatives and Republicans see their Senate majority bolstered. House Democrats have pledged to pass a spending bill that includes border security funding, but omits money for wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border, as demanded by President Donald A new, politically divided U.S. Congress is being sworn in and confronts an immediate task: ending a partial government shutdown that is nearing the two-week mark.A day of pageantry on Capitol Hill as Democrats take control of the House of Representatives and Republicans see their Senate majority bolstered. House Democrats have pledged to pass a spending bill that includes border security funding, but omits money for wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border, as demanded by President Donald But Trump told congressional leaders at the White House meeting that he would not sign the legislation. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate would not take up any House-approved measures unless Trump has agreed to eventually sign them to end the shutdown. Trump invited the lawmakers back to the White House for more talks Friday. White House Talks: No Progress on Government Shutdown The new Democrat-led U.S. House of Representatives is expected to approve bills Thursday to end a partial government shutdown. The Republican leader of the Senate says he will not bring the measures to a vote. President Donald Trump expressed his willingness to keep the shutdown going as long as it takes to get border wall financing Democrats do not support.That is the state of the shutdown after Trump invited congressional leaders to the White House Wednesday and the two sides came no closer to The new Democrat-led U.S. House of Representatives is expected to approve bills Thursday to end a partial government shutdown. The Republican leader of the Senate says he will not bring the measures to a vote. President Donald Trump expressed his willingness to keep the shutdown going as long as it takes to get border wall financing Democrats do not support.That is the state of the shutdown after Trump invited congressional leaders to the White House Wednesday and the two sides came no closer to The shutdown is already one of the longer such closures in U.S. history. There was no clear path to its end. "Could be a long time, or it could be quickly," Trump said. But he said the border wall is "too important a subject to walk away from." He said he would keep the shutdown going "as long as it takes" to secure funding for the barrier. One of his staunchest congressional allies, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, said it would be "the end of his presidency" if Trump were to give up on construction of the wall. At a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, Trump contended that "walls work," and called the border with Mexico a "sieve." Trump said there are as many as 35 million illegal immigrants in the United States, contradicting experts who say the number is far lower. "We're talking about national security. This isn't just a border, this is national security," Trump said. "This is health and wellness. This is everything." The president used Twitter late Wednesday to again say he is willing to work with Democrats on a bill that would secure U.S. borders. Hours later he followed with another post, declaring, "Sadly, there can be no REAL Border Security without the Wall!" Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said after Wednesday's meeting he had asked Trump to provide "one good reason" why the shutdown should continue, and that Trump "could not give a good answer." House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters he thinks it is possible lawmakers and the president can agree on a resolution "rather quickly." "We know we have a challenge along the border. We want to solve that issue," McCarthy said. "We want to make sure we open this government up. And I think at the end of the day, the president, listening to him, he wants to solve this, as well." Pelosi accused Trump of holding the federal government hostage over his campaign promise to build the wall that Mexico would pay for. "That is so ridiculous. A, Mexico's not paying for it. And B, we have better use of funds to protect our border. The president knows that," Pelosi said. ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has responded positively to remarks by U.S. President Donald Trump that he intends to resume the leadership-level contacts between the two countries, partners in the war against terrorism. President Trumps remarks are indeed a departure from his tweet of January 1, 2018. We look forward to positive engagement with the United States at the leadership level," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Faisal told reporters in Islamabad. Sustained U.S. criticism of Pakistans alleged lack of cooperation in fighting regional terrorists kept the traditionally tumultuous mutual relationship under pressure in 2018. An angry New Year tweet from Trump accusing Islamabad of lies and deceit fueled the tensions, plunging the ties to the lowest ebb. In a wide-ranging session with the media before his first Cabinet meeting of the year on Wednesday, Trump once again justified his decision to end all hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance to Pakistan, saying the South Asian ally has not been fair to the United States. The president, however, went on to hint at resetting the troubled ties. We do want to have a great relationship with Pakistan but they house the enemy they take care of the enemy we just cant do that. So, I look forward to meeting with the folks from and the new leadership in Pakistan. We will be doing that in the not too distant future, said President Trump. He did not elaborate further. Pakistan denies U.S. allegations it harbors Afghan Taliban leaders and fighters who are waging a deadly insurgency against the U.S.-backed government and international forces in neighboring Afghanistan. Despite tensions in mutual ties with Islamabad, the United States and its NATO allies continue to heavily rely on Pakistani ground and air lines of communications to transport vital supplies to coalition forces in landlocked Afghanistan. In a television interview and subsequent tweets last November, Trump repeated the allegations, prompting the countrys newly elected Prime Minister Imran Khan to hit back at the U.S. president via Twitter. FILE - Paramilitary soldiers escort blindfolded me FILE - Paramilitary soldiers escort blindfolded men, detained during a raid, to be delivered to an anti-terrorism court in Karachi, Pakistan, March 12, 2015. FILE - Paramilitary soldiers escort blindfolded men, detained during a raid, to be delivered to an anti-terrorism court in Karachi, Pakistan, March 12, 2015. Khan noted his county had suffered 75,000 casualties since joining the U.S.-war on terrorism 17 years ago and over $123 billion was lost to economy. He told Trump Pakistan was no more ready to take further U.S. criticism and pressure to do more. But to the surprise of many, Trump wrote to Khan in early December and sought his help in facilitating U.S efforts to start peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government for ending the17-year-old Afghan war. Khan responded positively. Two weeks ago, Pakistan arranged substantial direct peace talks between U.S. and Taliban officials in the United Arab Emirates. The two sides are expected to meet again later this month. President Trump has since reportedly hinted at pulling out a significant number of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Taliban insurgents insist presence of foreign forces in the country is a major hurdle in the way of peace and demand complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Foreign Ministry spokesman Faisal cautioned Thursday an abrupt draw-down of foreign troops could fuel insecurity in the war-shattered country, posing security challenges to immediate neighbors, including Pakistan. Currently, efforts are underway towards a political settlement in Afghanistan. Hence, the withdrawal of U.S. troops should be part of a peace process with a view to ensure that there is no power vacuum in Afghanistan, Faisal said. Islamabad believes, he added, a peaceful and stable Afghanistan would encourage nearly three million Afghan refugees in Pakistan to return to their native country. ISLAMABAD - Immigration authorities in Pakistan have stopped issuance of visas at airports and border crossings to citizens of neighboring Afghanistan, citing security concerns. The abrupt cancellation of a longstanding "on arrival" visa facility for Afghan nationals comes amid an increase in terrorist attacks in Pakistan. Officials blamed fugitive militants hiding in and operating out of Afghan border areas for orchestrating the violence. Until now, Afghans were being issued 30-day visas at entry points in Pakistan, but they will now be required to apply for a visa at Pakistani diplomatic missions in Afghanistan before traveling to the country. Ismatullah Junejo, the director of the Immigration Wing at the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) told reporters Thursday that under the revised policy, certain restrictions have also been placed on movement of Afghans visiting the country. Afghan nationals carry their passports as they wai FILE - Afghan nationals carry their passports as they wait to extend their visas outside the Pakistani immigration office in Peshawar, March 13, 2017. FILE - Afghan nationals carry their passports as they wait to extend their visas outside the Pakistani immigration office in Peshawar, March 13, 2017. After entering the country, Afghan visitors would be required to fill out special registration forms to provide details of the duration and place of their stay in Pakistan, Junejo explained. The details, he said, would then be shared with relevant police stations for further verification. Junejo added that the verification process would allow immigration authorities to issue a residence permit to the Afghan visa-holder and the visitor will be required to return the permit before leaving Pakistan. Pakistan also hosts around 3 million Afghan refugees who are allowed to stay in the country on special permits validating their refugee status. Islamabad has long urged Afghanistan and international donors to arrange for the reparation of the displaced families as soon as possible. Pakistani authorities say suspected militants, including those linked to the Taliban fighting Afghan and international forces on the other side of the border, use refugee communities as hiding places. The nearly 2,600-kilometer, largely porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan has traditionally been an open frontier with many regular crossings and hundreds of illegal entry points exploited by militants to stage attacks in both countries. FILE - Pakistani soldiers stand guard at newly ere FILE - Pakistani soldiers stand guard at newly erected fence between Pakistan and Afghanistan at Angore Adda, Pakistan, Oct. 18, 2017. FILE - Pakistani soldiers stand guard at newly erected fence between Pakistan and Afghanistan at Angore Adda, Pakistan, Oct. 18, 2017. The Pakistani military launched a massive project of constructing a robust fence, new forts and outposts on the frontier in 2017 and it is expected to be completed by the end of this year. The security plan, officials maintain, would help address mutual concerns of cross-border terrorism and facilitate travelers moving in both directions on valid visas. Afghan position There was no immediate reaction available from the Afghan government to the new visa restrictions announced by Pakistan. Afghan leaders have been critical of Pakistan's tightening of border controls and visa restrictions. They have also opposed the construction of the border fence, saying it would add to problems of divided families. Afghanistan traditionally disputes the boundary line drawn during the former British colonial era. But Pakistan rejects those objections and says regularizing the movement of people in both directions would contribute to regional security. BERLIN - Britains impending departure from the European Union poses a big risk, but domestic demand is still fueling growth in the German economy, Europes largest, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said in an interview published Thursday. Altmaier said Brexit, global trade conflicts and changes in automotive industry approvals had slowed economic growth in the second half of 2018, but Germanys gross domestic product looked set to enter its 10th year of expansion in 2019. The order books of industry and the trades are full, Altmaier told the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper. The chances are good that economic growth will continue for a 10th consecutive year, the longest period of continuous growth since the 1960s. The German government last month cut its economic growth forecast for 2018 to around 1.5 to 1.6 percent from 1.8 percent. The German economy has shifted into a lower gear as Brexit and trade conflicts sparked by U.S. President Donald Trumps America First policies cause business uncertainty. German exporters are also struggling with a more general slowdown of foreign demand as the global economy cools. Machines dig for brown coal in front of a smoking FILE - Machines dig for coal in front of a smoking power plant near the city of Grevenbroich in Germany. Germany's economy minister says one challenge of the future is sustainable energy. FILE - Machines dig for coal in front of a smoking power plant near the city of Grevenbroich in Germany. Germany's economy minister says one challenge of the future is sustainable energy. Altmaier cautioned that the prospects for continued economic expansion hinged on the ability of German industry to adapt to promising new areas such as electric mobility, sustainable energy production and artificial intelligence. He said Brexit and a shortage of skilled labor posed risks to the economy, and many companies had not invested enough in expanding production. He called for quick parliamentary approval of a new immigration law aimed at filling those gaps. Making it easier to attract skilled workers to Germany could boost economic growth by several tenths of a percentage point, he said, noting that Germany had some 57,000 unfilled trainee positions. The growth effects are difficult to quantify, but I expect that a functioning influx of migrants to the labor market could add multiple tenths of a percentage point of additional growth in Germany, Altmaier told the paper. CAPITOL HILL - A new, politically divided U.S. Congress is being sworn in and confronts an immediate task: ending a partial government shutdown that is nearing the two-week mark. A day of pageantry on Capitol Hill as Democrats take control of the House of Representatives and Republicans see their Senate majority bolstered. House Democrats have pledged to pass a spending bill that includes border security funding, but omits money for wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border, as demanded by President Donald Trump. That makes the bill a non-starter for Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Senate will not waste its time considering a Democratic bill which cannot pass this chamber and which the president will not sign, he said. Amid the funding standoff, House Democrats are eager to use their majority to launch multiple investigations of the Trump White House and his administration as a whole. NEW ORLEANS - Few experiences capture old New Orleans and the Mississippi River quite like a paddlewheel riverboat coming around a muddy bend with its tooting whistle, towering smoke stacks and water-churning propeller. This month, a new riverboat is set to launch in this Louisiana port city. A plunge in tourism after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 forced the New Orleans Steamboat Co. to sell off one of its two boats, but the arrival of the City of New Orleans is a sign of the steadily rising tide of tourists each year to this Southern city of Mardi Gras fame. "People come from all over the world. It is astonishing. They really want to see the river,'' said Adrienne Thomas, marketing director for the company, which also owns another riverboat, the Natchez. Once numerous A century ago, countless paddlewheel riverboats plied the Mississippi and its tributaries. Today, New Orleans has two: the Natchez and the Creole Queen, which is operated by New Orleans Paddlewheels. Now the City of New Orleans is coming full circle, back to the state where it was built in 1991. For years it operated as a casino boat in Rock Island, Ill., until the mid-1990s. But after that state legalized onshore casinos, the boat became obsolete, said Matthew Dow, project manager heading the vessel's renovation. The then-named Casino Rock Island sat unused for years until the New Orleans Steamboat Co. bought it in 2016. "We instantly fell in love with the boat,'' Dow said. "We saw the potential in her and knew that we could do her justice and bring her back not only to her former glory but well beyond that.'' Dow said the vessel already looked the part of a New Orleans riverboat, with its curved decks, plentiful windows, decorative fleurs de lis and giant paddlewheel. In this Nov. 29, 2018, photo, employees work next In this Nov. 29, 2018, photo, employees work next to the paddlewheel during the restoration of the City of New Orleans riverboat in New Orleans. In this Nov. 29, 2018, photo, employees work next to the paddlewheel during the restoration of the City of New Orleans riverboat in New Orleans. Initially, it was brought to a dry dock for hull repairs, then towed to New Orleans for a makeover. "We had to rip all of the walls out, all the ceilings, a lot of the insulation,'' Dow said. "Basically, we had to strip this boat down to the superstructure, to bare bones, and everything had to go back new.'' There were additions, too. A dumbwaiter was added to connect the galley to all three decks for food transport, along with passenger elevators and handicapped-accessible restrooms. Dow says the company is aiming to have the boat ready for tours by Jan. 21, when the Natchez goes into its annual service and maintenance layup. After that, both boats will operate simultaneously. More spacious The two riverboats look similar, both painted red and white with giant red paddlewheels and exterior deck space for close-up views by passengers of the giant propeller. But the new boat has more indoor space. The Natchez was built in the 1970s for sightseeing with a lot of open deck space, and its main deck is occupied mostly by the boat's vintage 1925 steam engines, an attraction for passengers. The Natchez is one of only six commercially operated steamboats left in the U.S. In this Nov. 29, 2018, photo, Matt Dow, project ma In this Nov. 29, 2018, photo, Matt Dow, project manager for the restoration of the City of New Orleans riverboat, plays the calliope on the vessel in New Orleans. In this Nov. 29, 2018, photo, Matt Dow, project manager for the restoration of the City of New Orleans riverboat, plays the calliope on the vessel in New Orleans. The new boat is run with a modern diesel-electric system. It takes up less room, allowing for more indoor space for dinner seating, jazz brunches and special events. "Even though we don't have the steam engines, we do have the working paddlewheel, and we want to show that off,'' Dow said. As with the Natchez, cruises on the City of New Orleans will include narration about the city and shoreline sights such as the port, historic Jackson Square, the Chalmette Battlefield, which marks the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, and the Chalmette National Cemetery. And there will be plenty of live music. Cyndi Gruenberg of Houston, Texas, rode the Natchez with her husband and two daughters recently and said they learned much about the city. "It was a great trip, a little bit of history along the river and just a fun ride,'' said Gruenberg. "It's pretty cool.'' 'Back in every way' Tourism officials say they don't expect a shortage of passengers, as the number of visitors to New Orleans has surpassed pre-Katrina levels in recent years. Stephen Perry, head of New Orleans & Co., which promotes tourism, says the city is "back in every way'' with increased hotel and restaurant bookings. Riding a paddlewheel is part of the New Orleans experience, he noted. "This is one of the most eclectic, authentic places left in America,'' Perry said. "People don't come here only for food and music. What they like is other experiences. "A paddlewheeler is just one of the great added attractions of imagining yourself in a time gone by.'' Nancy Pelosi is once again Washington's most powerful woman, poised to reclaim the U.S. House of Representatives speaker's gavel Thursday as opponent-in-chief to an impulsive and unpredictable president. Keeping Donald Trump in check will be among the California Democrat's top challenges as she presides over the House of Representatives through the 2020 elections, when her party aims to dethrone the Republican commander in chief. Pelosi is almost certain to win Thursday's House vote for speaker, a position she held for four years from 2007, when she made history as the first woman ever to rise to that post. When outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan yields to the 78-year-old, she will again become the nation's third most senior official and seal her reputation as one of the great survivors in American politics. In her first stint, Pelosi was a strong opposing force to Republican George W. Bush in the final two years of his presidency. Her role as a restraint on Trump would be similar. But she will also need to keep the reins tight on her own caucus, some of whose newly empowered progressives are seeking swift punitive measures against Trump in the coming months. She and the Democratic leadership would have the power to block Republican legislation, hamstringing large parts of Trump's agenda ranging from proposed new tax cuts to building a wall on the border with Mexico. And Pelosi could make life for Trump much harder if she uses subpoena power to compel administration officials to testify before Congress or turn over key documents, or if she launches impeachment proceedings. So far, she has spoken out against using such a powerful political cudgel against him, arguing that the explosive step would likely mobilize Republican voters eager to protect the president. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., righ House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., right, accompanied by Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of N.Y., left, speaks to members of the media outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, Dec. 11, 2018, following a meeting with President Donald Trump. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., right, accompanied by Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of N.Y., left, speaks to members of the media outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, Dec. 11, 2018, following a meeting with President Donald Trump. In her reprised role, she will have to thread a political needle, standing up to Trump when needed but also showing that her party is capable of working with the president to pass legislation. Her immediate task: finding a way to help end a standoff over Trump's border wall demand that has led to a partial government shutdown now stretching to 13 days. Pelosi and other congressional leaders met with Trump Wednesday but failed to secure a deal to end the impasse. Three weeks earlier, at a remarkable Oval Office confrontation with cameras rolling, Pelosi showed she was not afraid to go toe to toe with Trump in a public forum when he appeared to belittle her effort to secure support for her speakership. "Please don't characterize the strength that I bring to this meeting as the leader of the House Democrats, who just won a big victory," a defiant Pelosi said. 'Respected,' not hated Pelosi is unquestionably among the savviest political leaders of her generation. She shepherded then president Barack Obama's health law through the House to its contentious, historic passage in 2010. Perhaps for that reason she is still seen by some as a liability eight years later, with Republicans presenting her as the ultimate liberal bogeywoman. "Can you imagine Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House?" Trump asked a crowd at a Minnesota rally in October. "Don't do that to me!" Pelosi's big comeback was no foregone conclusion. But she shrewdly navigated a simmering party power struggle that saw dozens of House Democrats and candidates signaling their desire for change at the top. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., spea FILE - House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 15, 2018. FILE - House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 15, 2018. The internal resistance largely stems from Pelosi's broad unpopularity among voters. But in an interview published Wednesday, she pushed back at the notion that she is reviled. "I don't necessarily feel hated. I feel respected," she told Elle magazine. "They wouldn't come after me if I were not effective." First elected in 1987 At least in part, Pelosi's reputation is shaped by years of rightwing attacks. Conservatives depict her, the wife of an investment millionaire from California, as the embodiment of a leftist elite. She is accused of everything from wanting to raise taxes for middle-class families to supporting a massive influx of illegal immigrants. For three decades, Pelosi has represented California's 12th congressional district, which includes San Francisco, a stronghold of left-wing politics, counter-culture and gay rights regarded by many heartland conservatives as a true Gomorrah. Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro was born in Baltimore to a political family with Italian roots. Both her father and brother were mayors of the East Coast port city. After studying political science in Washington, she moved with her husband to San Francisco, where they raised five children. First elected to the House in 1987, Pelosi rose through the ranks to lead the chamber's Democrats beginning in 2002. Steeled by countless political struggles, Pelosi has largely managed to hold her diverse caucus together. U.S. politics requires donning "a suit of armor" and the ability "to take a punch," she has said. SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - North Koreas acting ambassador to Italy, Jo Song Gil, went into hiding with his wife in November, South Koreas spy agency told lawmakers in Seoul Thursday. A high-profile defection by one of North Koreas elite would be a huge embarrassment for leader Kim Jong Un as he pursues diplomacy with Seoul and Washington and seeks to portray himself as a player in international geopolitics. South Korean lawmaker Kim Min-ki said an official from Seouls National Intelligence Service (NIS) shared the information during a closed-door briefing. Kim did not say whether the spy agency revealed any information about Jos current whereabouts or whether the diplomat had plans to defect to South Korea. Kim said the NIS said it has not been contacted by Jo. Hiding since early November The NIS earlier said it couldnt confirm a South Korean media report that Jo was under the protection of the Italian government as he seeks asylum in a Western nation. Early Thursday, the Italian Foreign Ministry said the envoy has not asked Italian authorities for asylum. Kim said the NIS official said Jo and his wife left the official residence in early November, weeks before his term was to end in late November. Jo had been North Koreas acting ambassador to Rome after Italy expelled then-Ambassador Mun Jong Nam in September 2017 to protest a North Korean nuclear test. North Korea has not commented on Jos status. Defections sensitive North Korea, which touts itself in its propaganda as a socialist paradise, is extremely sensitive about defections, especially among its elite diplomatic corps, and has previously insisted that they are South Korean or U.S. plots to undermine its government. The last senior North Korean diplomat known to have defected is Thae Yong Ho, a former minister at the North Korean Embassy in London, who defected to South Korea in 2016. North Korea described Thae as human scum and claimed he was trying to escape punishment for serious crimes. BLANTYRE - The brutal killing of an albino man in Malawi on New Year's Eve has renewed concerns of attacks on people with the rare genetic disorder, which causes the skin, hair, or eyes to have little or no color. Albinos have been killed in Malawi and some other parts of Africa over the false belief that their body parts can bring good luck and wealth. Albino rights campaigners are demanding authorities do more to end the attacks. Malawi police say they are looking for two suspects who broke into 54-year-old Yassin Phiri's house in northern Malawi on New Year's Eve and stabbed the albino man to death. Malawi Police Inspector General Rodney Jose on Wednesday told reporters the attackers killed Phiri in front of his nine-year-old son. "They dragged him outside the house probably to a distance of about 20 meters," Jose said. "Then they chopped off both his hands, they left him battling for his life until he bled to death". UN: Attacks Against Albinos for Body Parts, Profit Must Stop "When I was sleeping in my house, four people came and started attacking me with machetes," said Mariama Staford, an albino in Tanzania. "One of those four people was a neighbor, and he is the one who took the machete and was cutting my arms."Staford was 25 years old when she was attacked in 2008. She told VOA that her neighbor first cut off her right arm and threw it to his accomplices. "When I was sleeping in my house, four people came and started attacking me with machetes," said Mariama Staford, an albino in Tanzania. "One of those four people was a neighbor, and he is the one who took the machete and was cutting my arms."Staford was 25 years old when she was attacked in 2008. She told VOA that her neighbor first cut off her right arm and threw it to his accomplices. Phiri was not killed over of any personal dispute or to steal his wealth - he was murdered for his body parts. Albinism is a rare, genetic condition that causes the skin, eyes, and hair to have little or no color. In Malawi and other parts of Africa, some people believe that body parts from albinos, if used in so-called magic potions, can bring good luck and wealth. Since 2013, 26 Malawian albinos have been killed and 130 injured. Habiba Osman runs a United Nations-sponsored program in Malawi trying to dispel the false belief and end attacks on albinos. She tells VOA this latest murder is a blow to their efforts. "It's really very discouraging, disheartening and horrifying for those especially us who have been in the forefront conducting various activities advocacy activities but also just bringing to the attention of stakeholders on the need to take [care] of these people," Osman said. Osman says a big problem is bringing to justice suspects who attack albinos or steal body parts from their graves. "For example, the Daily Times [local daily newspaper] has recorded that there are 152 cases pending in court," said Osman. "Things like that send out wrong messages to the general public like ah okay, so these people can just complaint about this.' Not many people are being taken to task." UN Resettles Albino Refugees Due to Threats in Malawi Since June of last year, the U.N. Since June of last year, the U.N. The belief in albino body parts having magic is not limited to remote areas or people will low education. Malawian police officers, a medical officer and a Roman Catholic priest were charged last year over the murder of a 22-year-old albino man. The United Nations warned in 2016 that Malawi's estimated 10,000 albinos face "extinction" if they continue to be murdered for their body parts. Overstone Kondowe is the president of Malawi's Association of People Living with Albinism. He blames authorities for not doing enough to end the attacks and the belief in magic. "We are saying like that because the same challenges were also felt with our brothers and sisters in Tanzania and Kenya," said Kondowe. "But due to political will which was also accompanied by actions, these cases are no more." Group Seeks New Approach to End Attacks on Albinos in Malawi Attacks on people with albinism are resurging in Malawi after a six-month lull last year, when the government and a local rights group campaigned to end the violence. Albinos are targeted because of the false belief that their body parts have powers to increase wealthNow an Albino welfare body is asking the government to institute a commission of inquiry to find where the body parts are sold.Recent attacksMalawians had a rude wakening in January when a 17-year-old albino boy was brutally killed in Attacks on people with albinism are resurging in Malawi after a six-month lull last year, when the government and a local rights group campaigned to end the violence. Albinos are targeted because of the false belief that their body parts have powers to increase wealthNow an Albino welfare body is asking the government to institute a commission of inquiry to find where the body parts are sold.Recent attacksMalawians had a rude wakening in January when a 17-year-old albino boy was brutally killed in Hetherwick Ntaba is chairperson of Malawi's presidential committee tasked to protect albinos. He tells VOA the government's efforts have paid off - citing only two attacks on albinos in 2018. FILE - Petitioners march to Malawi parliament to p FILE - Petitioners march to Malawi parliament to protest attacks on Albinos in the country. (Photo: L. Masina/VOA) FILE - Petitioners march to Malawi parliament to protest attacks on Albinos in the country. (Photo: L. Masina/VOA) "You can never wipe out all evil people from a population of 17 million. We are doing everything we can, but there are still some who persist in doing all these evil things," said Ntaba. "It doesn't mean the government is failing, it doesn't mean that the government is not doing anything." Ntaba says members of his committee recently went to Tanzania to learn from their efforts to protect albinos by banning witch doctors. He notes Malawi is considering stronger actions to discourage attacks on albinos, including adding the death penalty for those found guilty. Lawyers for South Koreans forced into wartime labor have taken legal steps to seize the South Korean assets of a Japanese company they are trying to pressure into obeying a court ruling to provide them compensation. Lawyer Lim Jae-sung said Thursday the court in the city of Pohang could decide in two or three weeks whether to accept the request to seize the 2.34 million shares Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. holds in its joint venture with South Korean steelmaker POSCO, which are estimated to be worth around $9.7 million. Lim said Nippon Steel has been refusing to discuss compensation despite a ruling by South Koreas Supreme Court in October that the company should pay 100 million won ($88,000) each to four plaintiffs who worked at its steel mills during Japans colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. The court made a similar ruling on Japans Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in November, triggering a diplomatic spats between the countries. Victims of Japan's forced labor and their family m Victims of Japan's forced labor and their family members arrive at the Supreme Court in Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 29, 2018. The sign reads " Mitsubishi Heavy Industries apologize and compensate victims." Victims of Japan's forced labor and their family members arrive at the Supreme Court in Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 29, 2018. The sign reads " Mitsubishi Heavy Industries apologize and compensate victims." Its unlikely the Japanese companies will follow the South Korean rulings. The Japanese government has expressed strong regret over the rulings and considers all wartime compensation issues settled by a treaty both countries signed in 1965. Lawyers for forced laborers for Nippon Steel had set a Dec. 24 deadline for the company to respond to their request to begin compensation discussions, but the steelmaker did not respond. Lim said the lawyers decided not to file for a court order that would force Nippon Steel to sell its shares in the South Korean joint venture because they still hope to amicably settle the matter through negotiations. Among the four plaintiffs in the Nippon Steel case, only 94-year-old Lee Chun-sik has survived the legal battle, which extended nearly 14 years. South Korea says Japan used about 220,000 wartime Korean forced laborers before the end of World War II. Israeli paramilitary police dragged dozens of Jewish settlers out of an illegal outpost in the occupied West Bank on Thursday and said more than 20 officers were hurt during violent resistance to the evacuation. Settlers had set up two caravans at the Amona outpost last month, in what they described as a protest against a recent surge in Palestinian attacks in the West Bank. Two years ago, Amonas 300 settlers were removed by police after the Supreme Court ruled it had been built illegally and without Israeli government authorization on privately owned Palestinian land in 1995. Police said that in Thursdays operation, which lasted several hours, at least 23 officers were injured by stones thrown by the settlers, many of them teenagers, or in scuffles, and were taken to hospital for treatment. Israeli media reports said at least three settlers were also hurt. At least seven people were arrested for attacking officers, police said. The evacuation was carried out after the Jerusalem District Court on Wednesday denied the settlers petition against eviction. Most countries consider all Israeli settlements on land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war to be illegal. Israel disputes this, and last week Israeli authorities issued approvals for more than 2,000 settler homes in the West Bank. A pre-fabricated home is lowered onto a tow truck A pre-fabricated home is lowered onto a tow truck as it is removed during an evacuation by Israeli paramilitary police of Jewish settlers from Amona, an illegal outpost in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Jan. 3, 2019. A pre-fabricated home is lowered onto a tow truck as it is removed during an evacuation by Israeli paramilitary police of Jewish settlers from Amona, an illegal outpost in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Jan. 3, 2019. About 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which was also captured by Israel in the 1967 conflict. The two areas are home to more than 2.6 million Palestinians. While Israels settlement projects have regularly drawn condemnation from the Palestinians and in Europe, the U.S. administration under President Donald Trump has taken a largely uncritical public stand. NEW DELHI - India is defending its development assistance to Afghanistan after comments by U.S. President Donald Trump in which he mocked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in the war torn country suggesting it is of no use. Trump Mocks Indian PM for Library in Afghanistan U.S. U.S. Indian officials said New Delhi has been implementing a range of mega infrastructure projects that would go a long way in stabilizing the country and believes in the critical role that such assistance can play in transforming human lives. India's comments were attributed to official sources and widely circulated to domestic media. They came a day after a news appearance by Trump at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, in which he said he got along with Modi, but he was "constantly telling me that he built a library in Afghanistan." Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hugs President FILE - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hugs President Donald Trump as Modi departs the White House, June 26, 2017. FILE - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hugs President Donald Trump as Modi departs the White House, June 26, 2017. "You know what that is? That's like five hours of what we spend," Trump said. "And we're supposed to say, Oh, thank you for the library.' I don't know who's using it in Afghanistan," Trump said. Indian officials said while small libraries may have been built as part of community development projects undertaken in areas such as education and health, most of its investments in Afghanistan were on big infrastructure projects such as a more than 200 kilometer road, a dam for irrigation, and training programs for hundreds of Afghans in India. India has provided $3 billion in assistance to Afghanistan and is the largest donor in the region to the war-torn country. In a tweet, the general secretary of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, Ram Madhav, also reacted to Trump's comment saying India is building lives. "Trump should know that while he is decrying every other help in (Afghanistan), India has been building not only libraries, but roads, dams, schools and even Parliament building," he said. May be Trump should know that while he is decrying every other help in Af, India has been building not only libraries, but roads, dams, schools n even parliament building. We are building lives, for which d Afghan people thank us, no matter what others do or dont. https://t.co/VUOIm1nuQd Ram Madhav (@rammadhavbjp) January 3, 2019 In an apparent response to Trump calling on India, Russia, Pakistan and other neighboring countries to take responsibility for Afghanistan's security, Indian officials said their country does not send its armed forces abroad, except under the specific mandate of U.N. Peacekeeping Operations. Although India provides economic aid to Kabul, it has been more measured in giving military assistance, wary that Pakistan has resisted a greater role for India in Afghanistan. India deported a second small group of Rohingya Muslims to Myanmar Thursday as part of what it said was an ongoing crackdown on illegal immigrants. A police official in India's northeastern Assam state, Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, said a family of five Rohingya was handed over to Myanmar authorities at a border crossing in Manipur state. A group of seven Rohingya was the first to be deported in October. India's Hindu nationalist government considers some Rohingya a security risk and has ordered tens of thousands of those who live in small settlements to be repatriated. A brutal Myanmar military campaign has forced some 700,000 Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh since August 2017. About 40,000 other Rohingya have taken refuge in India. A United Nations report published in August accused the Myanmar military of committing mass killings and rapes with "genocidal intent" in 2017. Myanmar has denied the accusations, maintaining the military responded to Muslim militant attacks on security positions. PENTAGON - Gen. Mark Milley, the Army chief of staff and incoming top U.S. general, has met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the presidential palace, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump criticized U.S. efforts in the war-torn country. U.S. and Afghan officials confirmed to VOA that Milley and Ghani discussed the "positive effects" of the U.S. strategy for Afghanistan and the region Thursday. "General Milley said that the U.S. will continue to support an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process," tweeted Samim Arif, the deputy spokesman to the Afghan president. President @ashrafghani met General Mark A. Milley, Chief of Staff for the U.S. Army at Arg today. General Milley said that the U.S. will continue to support an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process. https://t.co/mYfjGTMe14 Samim Arif (@SamimArif) January 3, 2019 Another spokesperson for the president confirmed the two also discussed the "long-term process of Afghan self-sufficiency" to enable the government of Afghanistan "to stay on its own feet." Gen. Austin "Scott" Miller, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, also was present at Thursday's meeting. Trump's criticism The news came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump criticized U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan, slamming military leadership. "I gave our generals all the money they wanted. They didn't do such a great job in Afghanistan," Trump said Wednesday. FILE - President Trump gets a briefing from his se FILE - President Trump gets a briefing from his senior military leaders, including Defense Secretary James Mattis, left, in the Cabinet Room at the White House, Oct. 23, 2018. FILE - President Trump gets a briefing from his senior military leaders, including Defense Secretary James Mattis, left, in the Cabinet Room at the White House, Oct. 23, 2018. Taking a swipe at former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Trump told reporters Mattis' performance in Afghanistan was "not too good." "I'm not happy about what he's done in Afghanistan, and I shouldn't be happy," Trump said. Mattis resigned from his office Dec. 20, handing a resignation letter to the president that said Trump had the "right to have a secretary of defense whose views are better aligned" with his. The letter pointed out Mattis' differences with Trump on the value of alliances and partnerships Mattis said the United States could not protect its interests without "maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies" and their contrasting approaches to "authoritarian" nations like China and Russia. Mattis agreed to stay at his post through February to "allow sufficient time for a successor to be nominated and confirmed," but Trump decided to replace him earlier, tapping Deputy Secretary of Defense Pat Shanahan to take the post as of Jan. 1. "As you know, President [Barack] Obama fired him [Mattis], and essentially so did I," Trump said Wednesday. The word "fired" sharply contrasted with the words Trump used to announced Mattis' resignation on Dec. 20, when Trump said Mattis was "retiring, with distinction" after making "tremendous progress." General Jim Mattis will be retiring, with distinction, at the end of February, after having served my Administration as Secretary of Defense for the past two years. During Jims tenure, tremendous progress has been made, especially with respect to the purchase of new fighting.... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 20, 2018 Officials have said Trump's view of Mattis changed after watching media coverage of the defense leader's resignation. 'Bizarre' Soviet history? Trump also provided some unsubstantiated, off-the-cuff remarks Wednesday on Afghanistan's historical connection to the Soviet Union. Afghan officials have sought clarification about the remarks. Trump claimed "the reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia." The Washington Post and BBC have deemed the comments "bizarre" and "bad history." The Soviet Union's push into Afghanistan has been historically viewed as an attempt to impose communism abroad, not a response to terrorists striking Soviet territory. Afganistan SavaAA En Aok Sivilleri Etkiledi FILE - Afghan boys play with a ball on top of the remains of a Russian armored vehicle in Kabul, Afghanistan, Oct. 6, 2011. FILE - Afghan boys play with a ball on top of the remains of a Russian armored vehicle in Kabul, Afghanistan, Oct. 6, 2011. "No, there weren't terrorists coming into the Soviet Union during the Afghanistan war that I recall," Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow in defense foreign policy for the Brookings Institution, told VOA. Trump also sharply veered from the American stance on the Afghan war, saying Wednesday that the Soviets were "right" to be in Afghanistan. The United States supported the Afghan mujahedeen in this war, believing the Soviets had invaded their southern neighbor. Kabul, upset over the comments, issued a statement reminding the international community that "the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the aggression by the former Soviet Union" during the invasion of Afghanistan decades ago. The Afghan presidential palace also sought an explanation concerning differences between Washington's "official statements and official policy." "Our relations with the world are outlined on the basis of common interest, and the international forces in Afghanistan are present in Afghanistan, not only for Afghanistan, but for the sake of security of the world and friendly countries, too," the Afghan government said. Trump also said the Soviet Union's war with Afghanistan "bankrupted" the country. Experts agree the Soviets' war in Afghanistan was one of many contributors to the USSR's demise, but they stress that the major economic factors that hurt the Soviet Union were falling oil prices and the aftermath of Moscow's economic restructuring. Divided government returned to the United States Thursday with the swearing-in of a new Congress. After two years in which Republicans controlled the White House, Senate and the House of Representatives, Democrats hold the majority in the House. That is the result of the November midterm elections in which Democrats made big gains to end up with 235 seats in the 435-seat House when the new members take office. Republicans picked up two seats in the Senate, and now hold a 53-47 majority. Rep. Nancy Pelosi from California was voted House speaker, returning her to the post she held from 2007 to 2011. She is the only woman to ever be House speaker, and is the first person in more than 60 years to reclaim the job after her party lost and later regained its House majority. Some Democrats expressed a desire for new leaders to emerge in the party, and Pelosi agreed to serve no more than four years as speaker in return for enough support. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, who will become speaker of the House Thursday, walks to her new office at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 2, 2019. The Republicans will relinquish the majority to House Democrats under the leadership of Pelosi. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, who will become speaker of the House Thursday, walks to her new office at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 2, 2019. The Republicans will relinquish the majority to House Democrats under the leadership of Pelosi. The new Congress is the most diverse in history. It includes New Yorks Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. There is also Michigans Rashida Tlaib and Minnesotas Ilhan Omar, the first two Muslim women to be elected. And with New Mexicos Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids from Kansas, for the first time there are two Native American women in Congress. There are also 10 lawmakers who openly identify as LGBTQ. Overall, women hold 102 seats in the House and 25 seats in the Senate. The new Congress faces the immediate challenge of handling a partial government shutdown. So far there is little sign of the Democratic leaders in the House and the Republican leaders in the Senate agreeing on a spending plan that would reopen the one-quarter of government operations that are currently closed. Beyond that issue, House Democrats are set to use their new status in control of the chambers committees to launch a number of investigations into the actions of the Trump administration, including the presidents income taxes, his decision to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and new inquiries into ties between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. New Congress Sworn-in Thursday; Meet the New Senators CAPITOL HILL - Nancy Pelosi swore the oath securing her status as the most powerful woman in U.S. political history Thursday, beginning a new era of divided government in the United States and setting up a formidable political rivalry with President Donald Trump. Pelosi's historic second turn leading a Democratic majority as the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives marks only the second time in the last half century a speaker has returned to serve in that position. Pelosi's continued ability to navigate the challenges of being a woman in politics and still the only female House speaker will inform her approach as she turns to the immediate crisis of ending a partial government shutdown. House Democrats passed a package of six spending bills that would end the partial government shutdown by fully funding most of the impacted government agencies through Sept. 30. A separate bill funding the Department of Homeland Security the agency that would oversee money for a U.S.-Mexico border wall would be funded through Feb. 8. IN PHOTOS: Democrats Take Control of House ?But the U.S. Senate is unlikely to pass the House proposal, placing Pelosi in a difficult position early in her speakership. She has been adamant she will not provide Trump's requested $5.6 billion in funding for a wall the president insists is necessary to secure the southern border and prevent the flow of undocumented immigrants into the United States. "The President is using the government shutdown to try to force an expensive and ineffective wall upon the American people," she said in a statement earlier this week. But the president said Democrats are playing politics with the battle over border security. Trump tweeted Thursday about Democrats and the shutdown: The Shutdown is only because of the 2020 Presidential Election. The Democrats know they cant win based on all of the achievements of Trump, so they are going all out on the desperately needed Wall and Border Security - and Presidential Harassment. For them, strictly politics! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2019 The government shutdown debate marks the first time Trump has faced an opposition party in power, following two years of complete Republican control of government. Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics, said the televised Oval Office meeting between Trump, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer last month debating border security funding provided a preview of how the new House speaker will interact with the president. Trump Border Wall FILE - House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Vice President Mike Pence, President Donald Trump, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., argue during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House, Dec. 11, 2018. FILE - House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Vice President Mike Pence, President Donald Trump, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., argue during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House, Dec. 11, 2018. Trump said Pelosi was not in a position to negotiate on border security because of her need to secure the upcoming vote for House speaker. She replied, "Mr. President, please don't characterize the strength that I bring to this meeting as the leader of the House Democrats, who just won a big victory." Walsh said Pelosi's approach "openly challenged" the president but did so in such a way that was "strong, clear and civil." Pelosi secured the votes needed to win the speakership shortly afterward, but she continues to face a challenge from some members of her party who want to see Democrats take a more progressive approach. WATCH: Pelosi Calls for Mutual Respect, Support for Middle Class Impeachment question The new House speaker has also been careful to tamp down discussions of impeaching Trump while supporting House committee investigations that plan to oversee the president's business activities and contacts with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. But in an interview with NBC Thursday, Pelosi said, "We shouldn't be impeaching for a political reason, and we shouldn't avoid impeachment for a political reason." Pelosi faces a delicate balancing act in the coming months, a challenge Walsh says she is well-prepared to face because of her previous turn as House speaker. "She comes to the table with tremendous experience," Walsh said. "I think in many ways, she has been acknowledged as one of the greats, one of the most successful speakers we have seen." Past successes Walsh cites Pelosi's work uniting her caucus in 2010 to pass the Affordable Care Act, one of President Barack Obama's signature legislative achievements. Pelosi has also faced numerous political challenges from the Republican Party, which often singles her out as the extreme liberal face of the Democratic Party. Pelosi is familiar with the challenges of political life. Her father was a Democratic congressman and a mayor of Baltimore, but Pelosi didn't go into politics until later in life, after having children. "I am particularly proud to be the woman speaker of the House of this Congress, which marks 100 years of women having the right to vote," Pelosi said in remarks upon assuming the position of speaker of the House. Newly elected Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, h FILE - Newly elected Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, holds up the gavel surrounded by children and grandchildren of members of Congress in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 4, 2007. FILE - Newly elected Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, holds up the gavel surrounded by children and grandchildren of members of Congress in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 4, 2007. Pelosi will lead a Congress with a record number of female representatives, while facing a president who has been criticized for his treatment of women. The accusations of sexual assault levied against Trump, his administration's policies on reproductive rights and his appointment of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was also accused of sexual assault, has sparked protests across the country. Pelosi's appointment as speaker places her in the high-profile position of being the most powerful woman in the country to oppose him. The new House speaker has never shied away from highlighting women's issues. She marked her first time in the speaker's chair in 2007, surrounded by her grandchildren and the children of members of Congress. "She does talk about gender. She doesn't say it's been very hard for me because I'm a woman, but she talks about the difference women make when they're in office, why it's important to have them there. And she has a tremendous gender consciousness around policy issues," Walsh said. But this time, her assumption of the speaker's chair will be different. As part of the deal to secure the votes for her nomination as speaker, the 78-year-old Pelosi agreed to a term limits deal that would cap her time in the nation's third-ranking political position at four years. "Nancy Pelosi is one tough cookie wrapped in a package that looks like a nice lady," Walsh said. "Very poised, very gracious, with a spine of steel. And if you underestimate her you do so at your own peril." WASHINGTON - Qatars official withdrawal from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) this week has renewed debate over the rift with its neighbor Saudi Arabia, with some observers saying the move could further complicate the relationship between the two Gulf countries. The departure, which was announced earlier in December, took effect Tuesday, ending the peninsular Arab countrys 58 years of membership in the international union. The move is seen by many analysts to be shadowed by the political atmosphere in the Gulf region following a Saudi-led blockade on Qatar since mid-2017. There is a geopolitical angle, it is about reinforcing the message that Qatar is acting in what it considers to be its own national interest given the blockade imposed on Qatar since 2017 by fellow OPEC members Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Gulf expert at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, told VOA. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain imposed an abrupt trade-and-travel blockade on their fellow Gulf Cooperation Council member, Qatar, in June 2017. The countries accused Qatar of fueling terrorism by supporting Egypts Muslim Brotherhood group in Egypt and maintaining relations with Iran. The relations have since remained in a standoff. Other GCC members Ulrichsen said Qatars decision is being closely watched by other fellow members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) who have also voiced concerns about the direction Saudi Arabia is moving in terms of its foreign policy decisions under Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Qatar's officials in the past have denied their decision to quit OPEC was influenced by the divide with Saudi Arabia, saying the move was to turn the focus from oil to other energy resources. As a minor OPEC supplier of oil, Qatar had 600,000 barrels a day of crude oil production, constituting less than 2 percent of the groups total output. It ranks, however, as the world's No. 3 producer of natural gas and the largest exporter of liquefied natural gas. The withdrawal decision reflects Qatar's desire to focus its efforts on plans to develop and increase its natural gas production, the countrys Minister of Energy, Saad al-Kaabi, said in a tweet early last month. Al-Kaabi then said the decision was not going to affect the global oil process given his countrys low oil output. Experts warn the decision could potentially also affect the status of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which is at an all-time low in its ability to preserve unity since its establishment in 1981. Ali Fathollah-Nejad, a Doha-based scholar with the Brookings Institution, charged that GCC has, since the 2017 Gulf crisis, ceased to function effectively because of its inability to find a solution to several political and economic issues among its members. Fathollah-Nejad said Qatars growing role in the Council had irritated Saudi Arabia, the biggest and richest member. Qatar has started in the 2000s to engage in an independent foreign policy and become ambitious to a point that was unacceptable to Riyadh, as the latter has the goal of being the uncontested power in the Arabian Peninsula and within the GCC, he told VOA. The GCC concluded its most recent summit in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Dec. 10, without reaching any decisions regarding the crisis with Qatar. Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani received an official invitation from Saudi King Salamn bin Abdulaziz, but only a delegation headed by Qatar Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi attended the meeting. NEW YORK - Donald Trump declared himself "the most popular president in the history of the Republican Party'' on Wednesday. Yet his allies fear a primary challenge from a high-profile Republican could doom his re-election. The concern was outlined in a private email shared among Republican National Committee members hours after the GOP's last failed presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, lashed out at Trump's character and global leadership in an opinion article published in The Washington Post. Romney is set to be sworn in as Utah's junior senator on Thursday. His scathing message was widely interpreted as a sign of encouragement for Republicans including outgoing Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retiring Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake to take on Trump. While a successful primary challenge is highly unlikely given Trump's grip on the GOP base, some fear it would consume energy and resources badly needed by Trump, who is facing record-low approval ratings and signs of revolt among suburban voters. Win or lose, any primary challenge would almost certainly hurt Trump's re-election, warned RNC member Jevon Williams of the Virgin Islands. "Messrs. Romney, Flake, and Kasich will continue chasing their fantasy of being president, even if that means destroying our party and denying President Trump re-election,'' Williams wrote to fellow RNC members in a message obtained by The Associated Press. "Look, the political history is clear. No Republican president opposed for re-nomination has ever won re-election.'' Kasich was clearly encouraged by Romney's criticism of the president. "Welcome to the fray, (at)MittRomney,'' Kasich wrote in a Twitter post Wednesday sharing Romney's article. Kasich adviser John Weaver said it's been "awful lonely'' for Kasich in recent years as one of the GOP's most vocal Trump critics. "It's not so lonely now,'' Weaver said. Kasich, who leaves office later this month, is taking steps to strengthen his organization ahead of a possible run by adding paid staff and volunteers to his political and finance teams. His advisers say he has yet to decide whether to challenge Trump either as a Republican or as an independent although Kasich was quick to visit New Hampshire, the base of his last presidential run, after the November midterms. The debate among Republicans is how and whether to protect Trump. Williams called on his RNC colleagues to change party rules to make it harder for a viable primary challenge to take shape. President Donald Trump looks to the cheering crowd President Donald Trump looks to the cheering crowd as he arrives to speak at a rally at Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, Nov. 5, 2018, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. President Donald Trump looks to the cheering crowd as he arrives to speak at a rally at Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, Nov. 5, 2018, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. ?Currently, any candidate who wins a plurality of delegates from five states can be nominated from the national convention floor. That number, which was higher in past years, was lowered at the 2016 convention in response to concerns from grassroots activists. Now some of those activists, loyal to Trump, fear the potential consequences. Incumbents in either party bring universal name recognition and massive institutional support to their re-election campaigns, and an insurgent effort to deny Trump the nomination would almost certainly fail. But there is still ample room for a potential spoiler to enter the race to try to deny Trump the support needed to win the general election. Primary challengers in 1980 and 1992 helped weaken then-Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, who were ultimately defeated in November. Still, little has come of recent discussions in South Carolina and New Hampshire, where local officials hoped to take steps to block potential Trump challengers. RNC officials now say the national GOP's rules cannot be changed before the 2020 national convention. Former RNC member Saul Anuzis of Michigan said Trump's team missed an opportunity. "Nobody wants a primary. It's not healthy for us,'' Anuzis said. "You'll have the Democrats attacking Trump and some Republicans attacking Trump. How does that help us?'' Trump, whose party suffered deep losses in the November midterm elections, shrugged off the prospect of a serious primary challenge. "They say I am the most popular president in the history of the Republican Party,'' he told reporters. Gallup found late last month that just 39 percent of Americans approved of Trump's job performance, a mark lower than any president in either party at this point in his presidency since at least 1954. That said, 89 percent of Republicans approved of Trump's job performance. Trump's behavior could shift sharply in the second half of his first term as he prepares for the 2020 contest. FILE - President Donald Trump greets his daughter President Donald Trump greets his daughter Ivanka Trump as she arrives to speak during a rally in Cleveland, Nov. 5, 2018. President Donald Trump greets his daughter Ivanka Trump as she arrives to speak during a rally in Cleveland, Nov. 5, 2018. The president is facing pressure from the special counsel in the Russia probe and an impending onslaught of Democratic investigations. That could push Trump to cater exclusively to the base of voters he is concerned about losing, according to a Republican close to the White House who has consulted on the early re-election efforts. That instinct would echo the president's double-down, scorched-earth response to the crises that hit his 2016 campaign, including the "Access Hollywood'' tape about forcing himself on women, and could make it harder to woo the independent voters or disaffected Democrats he may well need. The president is eager to unleash his re-election machinery and has pushed to collect pledges of loyalty from across the GOP to quell any hint of an insurrection, according to a campaign official and a Republican familiar with the inner workings of the campaign. Neither was authorized to speak publicly and both requested anonymity. The Trump team has discussed the possibility of a challenge from someone such as Kasich or Flake and now, one adviser said, Romney would enter the conversation. Most in Trump's orbit were not worried about Romney, but others worried that the new article, which was published to great buzz, was merely the opening salvo in coordinated effort by some Republicans to deny the president the party's nomination. Publicly, RNC officials were united behind the president. "There is no concern or expectation at the RNC of a primary challenge for President Trump at all,'' said RNC member Bill Palatucci of New Jersey, a state where Republicans suffered painful losses in November. "There may be disagreements, but you express those disagreements in private. As difficult as a midterm cycle that we had, everybody still wants a Republican president and not Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders.'' Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney introduces Republican U.S. Rep. Mia Love, of Utah, during a campaign rally, Aug. 24, 2018, in Lehi, Utah. Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney introduces Republican U.S. Rep. Mia Love, of Utah, during a campaign rally, Aug. 24, 2018, in Lehi, Utah. Romney himself insisted that his article was not intended to signal any interest in a third Republican presidential bid, but he declined to endorse Trump's re-election. "I haven't decided who I'm going to endorse in 2020,'' Romney said on CNN. He continued: "I'm not running again. We'll see if someone else does in a Republican primary or not. Time will tell.'' Political pressure is growing on the European Union from some member states to rethink freedom of movement rules and to start introducing restrictions to stem what they see as disruptive migration. The latest challenge doesnt lie with the refugee crisis and the irritation with non-EU migrants easily moving across the continent and cherry-picking which European state to try to settle in, but the concern that migration between EU countries is further depopulating economically depressed regions and towns, condemning them to a gloomy future of being "left behind" permanently. Last month, the pro-EU former British prime minister, Tony Blair, added his voice to the idea that free movement should be re-thought. Blair, who is campaigning for Britain to hold a second referendum on whether to leave the EU, said a rethink could help Britain remain in the Brussels bloc under new membership terms. Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair makes a Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair makes a speech on Brexit at the British Academy in London, Dec. 14, 2018. Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair makes a speech on Brexit at the British Academy in London, Dec. 14, 2018. If you take freedom of movement and the question of immigration, this is an issue all over European politics today, he told the BBC. Many Britons who voted for Brexit cited free movement as their main reason for wanting to quit the EU. 'Sacred pillar' Freedom of movement is one of the 'sacred' pillars of the EUs single market and seen by Brussels as crucial for European integration. Many younger Europeans see it as a birthright, allowing them to travel, work and study in any EU member states they want. And millions have embraced the opportunity to relocate. But central and southern European member states have seen a hollowing out of their populations, thanks to youth emigration, which in turn is putting a brake on their economic growth and leaving behind ghost towns inhabited by pensioners and the less-skilled and resourceful. Left with aging populations, countries that have seen high levels of migration are finding there are fewer young working taxpayers to fund increased health care and pension needs. In the past 20 years, more than 3.6 million mostly young Romanians have left their native country. And a recent survey suggests that half of all young people still living in Romania have concrete plans to leave. Since Poland joined the EU in 2004, more than 2 million Poles have left. And Latvia has been especially impacted by migration. Since its accession to the EU, nearly a fifth of the nation has left to work in other more affluent states, mainly Britain, Ireland and Germany. The exodus has prompted fears of Latvia becoming a disappearing nation. Biruta Kadakovska (R) reacts as she talks with mig FILE - Biruta Kadakovska (R) talks with migration researcher and social anthropologist Dace Dzenovska during an interview in Malnava, Latvia, Feb. 29, 2012. Latvia's census data of year 2011 shows that in the eastern regions of country, population decreased up to 30 percent. FILE - Biruta Kadakovska (R) talks with migration researcher and social anthropologist Dace Dzenovska during an interview in Malnava, Latvia, Feb. 29, 2012. Latvia's census data of year 2011 shows that in the eastern regions of country, population decreased up to 30 percent. Last year, the Latvian government appointed an ambassador with the main task of wooing Latvians back home. Next door, Lithuania has also experienced an exodus, seeing its population shrink by 17.5 percent. Time to rethink? Blair isnt alone among prominent European politicians to question whether it is time for a rethink. In November, Romania's finance minister, Eugen Teodorovici, warned that migration of many young skilled Romanians is having deleterious effects on the country by causing a "brain drain" from some industries. If someone goes to Germany and keeps getting the right to work, then he will never return to Croatia or Romania, where he left, he said. We need to learn at the European level that as one area becomes poorer, another becomes richer, he added. Teodorovici argues young Europeans who have migrated should be issued with five-year work permits, after which they would have to leave and possibly return home. His remarks prompted uproar both in Romania and Brussels. But some other Central European governments are exploring ways to entice back workers, including considering offering financial incentives to encourage youngsters to return. Advocates of free movement say migration fears are being overblown, arguing money workers send back to their families is crucial for depressed regions. They point out depopulation is being caused as much by low birth rates. Many youngsters eventually return, they say, often coming back more skilled, affluent and entrepreneurial, which adds to development potential in their home towns. According to the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, the number of emigres returning home in 2016 was about 40 percent of those who left. Efforts to limit freedom of movement are likely to fail, with young Europeans especially critical of the idea that there should be within Europe free circulation of money, goods and services but not of labor. Atis Sjanits, the Latvian diplomat charged with enticing young Latvians back home, has argued that changing the rules now isnt possible. He says the focus should be on making it more attractive for emigres to return. Conservative Hindu groups staged a second day of protests in the southern Indian state of Kerala over two women who entered a Hindu temple in defiance of an ancient ban on women of menstruating age. Hundreds of members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party took to the streets Thursday in the state capital, heeding a call by Hindu groups for a statewide strike. Protests erupted Wednesday after two women, accompanied by local police, entered the Sabarimala temple, defying a centuries-old ban on women of menstruating age from entering the holy shrine. Hindu devotees are angered by a September ruling from India's Supreme Court that lifted the temple's ban on women between the ages of 10 and 50 from entering Sabarimala. Hinduism regards women of childbearing age as unclean, and does not allow them to take part in religious rituals. The Supreme Court will hear challenges to its ruling later this month. LONDON - China is meeting a growing demand for armed drones in the Middle East, adding new military capabilities to an already tense security situation, according to a new report from the London-based Royal United Services Institute. Report author Justin Bronk says Beijing asks few questions when selling the technology overseas. Because the United States in particular has refused apart from the cases of the U.K. and France to export armed models of its iconic Predator and Reaper series of armed drones, China has sort of stepped in to fill that gap. And while its offerings such as the Wing Loong series or CH-4 are less technologically capable than their American counterparts, theyre available pretty much to any state that wants to buy, Bronk told VOA. The report says the Chinese-made drones are far less advanced than U.S.-built UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), which have been used in several arenas across the Middle East region. However, the Chinese drones are far cheaper and easier to access. Meanwhile, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are developing their own armed drone programs, while Iran is among the regional powers using the new technology to undertake missions that would otherwise be too risky using conventional manned jets, Bronk said. In the case of Iran, the development of armed drones, mostly copied from old Israeli patterns, has allowed them to operate airstrike capabilities in Iraq and in Syria, despite the fact that its conventional air force is far too obsolescent and far too limited and too precious to be risked in skies controlled largely by potentially hostile powers like the United States and Israel. U.S. President Donald Trump has pledged to relax export bans on American armed drone systems, but it is not clear when that might happen. The reports authors say such a policy would likely have a big impact on the use of the technology across the Middle East region. KUMBO, CAMEROON - Towns and villages in Cameroon's restive Anglophone regions are being deserted as battles rage between separatists and the countrys military. The fighting intensified after President Paul Biya's New Year's message in which he insisted that his military would neutralize separatists who refuse to lay down their arms. A senior Cameroon military official, who did not wish to be named, warns in a report that visiting the mostly deserted northwestern town of Kumbo he will need military protection. He says separatist fighters have been launching heavy attacks in the area and may be among the few people left on the streets. On a ride through the streets of Kumbo, under military protection, its clear that most houses, markets and public places are abandoned while some homes and schools have been torched. But Kumbo resident Mbiybe Tatah says that many locals are fleeing because they are afraid - not of separatists but of the military. They accuse Cameroon troops of burning their houses and shops in retaliation for failing to inform on separatist fighters hiding in their villages, he says. An abandoned street is seen in Kumbo, Cameroon, Ja An empty street is seen in Kumbo, Cameroon, Jan. 3, 2019. An empty street is seen in Kumbo, Cameroon, Jan. 3, 2019. "These armed military men just shoot at random and they term (call) people in Kumbo terrorists," he says. Tatah says people began fleeing after President Paul Biyas New Years speech. Many observers had expected Biya to announce the release of some separatist leaders in a bid for peace. But, he instead repeated a vow to eliminate all those who refuse to stop fighting and lay down their weapons. The governor of the English-speaking northwest region, Deben Tchoffo, refutes claims that the military retaliates against civilians. But he says they cannot allow separatists to terrorize people and destroy what Cameroon has built since independence. "The head of state is still asking those that were misdirected to lay down their weapons. If not, they will be neutralized. I am therefore launching an appeal to those of the northwest region to heed to the call of the head of state. If not, they will be neutralized." Tchoffo says there have been many casualties since fighting intensified after Biyas speech but he did not give figures. Abdoul Jinguil Mussa, a crisis management expert with the Lake Chad Basin Commission, says Cameroon needs an independent body to lead peace negotiations with the separatists. People are seen on a street of abandoned houses an People are seen on a street of abandoned houses and stores, in Kumbo, Cameroon, Jan. 3, 2019. People are seen on a street of abandoned houses and stores, in Kumbo, Cameroon, Jan. 3, 2019. "People have died on both sides of the conflict. A lot of families have been displaced, property has been destroyed. That is why we say the best solution is when both parties have agreed that they are both losing. We need both parties to sit together in good faith, let the mediator be someone neutral, someone who is going to be there for peace to reign," Mussa said. Cameroons unrest began in November 2016 when English-speaking teachers and lawyers demonstrated against the growing dominance of French in the officially bilingual country. Separatists took over the movement and started demanding independence for the English-speaking North West and South West regions. In October 2017, Cameroons separatists declared what they called the English-speaking Republic of Ambazonia and vowed no cooperation with the government in Yaounde. Cameroon says over 1,000 people have been killed in fighting since, including 200 policemen and troops, while hundreds of thousands have fled to French-speaking regions. A group of British lawmakers and international advocates are seeking access to female activists jailed in Saudi Arabia to investigate allegations of torture and sexual assault in prison. Saudi Arabia imprisoned more than a dozen women last year, most of whom had campaigned for the right to drive and an end to the kingdom's male guardianship system. Some have since been freed. Though the ban on driving has been lifted, eight remain in custody. Human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accused Saudi Arabia of subjecting some of the activists to torture and sexual harassment. Saudi officials have denied the charges. The lawmakers and advocates, who convened a detention review panel, sent a letter to Prince Mohammed bin Nawwaf bin Abdulaziz, Saudi ambassador to Britain, asking him to arrange a visit to Dhahban prison near Jeddah. "There are credible concerns that the conditions in which the Saudi women activists are being detained may have fallen significantly short of both international and Saudi Arabia's own standards," conservative lawmaker Crispin Blunt, who chairs the panel, said in the letter. "We make this request to the Saudi authorities so that we can assess for ourselves the conditions in which the Saudi women activists have been and are being detained today." HRW report All eight women have been subjected to abuse, including threats of rape, electric shocks and beatings, according to a Human Rights Watch report released in November. At the time, the Saudi Ministry of Media said the government "categorically and strongly denies the allegations made by them. The wild claims made, quoting anonymous 'testimonies' or 'informed sources,' are simply wrong." The allegations come at a time when Saudi Arabia is facing an international outcry over the killing of exiled Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. RIO DE JANEIRO/BRASILIA - New Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro issued an executive order Wednesday making the Agriculture Ministry responsible for decisions concerning lands claimed by indigenous peoples, in a victory for agribusiness that will likely enrage environmentalists. The temporary decree, which will expire unless it is ratified within 120 days by Congress, strips power over land claim decisions from indigenous affairs agency FUNAI. It says the Agriculture Ministry will now be responsible for identification, delimitation, demarcation and registration of lands traditionally occupied by indigenous people. The move stoked concern among environmentalists and rights groups that the far-right president, who took office Tuesday, will open up the vast Amazon rainforest and other ecologically sensitive areas of Brazil to greater commercial exploitation. FILE - Indigenous people from various tribes dance FILE - Indigenous people from various tribes dance as they wait to deliver a letter to Brazil's President-elect Jair Bolsonaro at a transitional government building in Brasilia, Brazil, Dec. 6, 2018. FILE - Indigenous people from various tribes dance as they wait to deliver a letter to Brazil's President-elect Jair Bolsonaro at a transitional government building in Brasilia, Brazil, Dec. 6, 2018. The executive order also moves the Brazilian Forestry Service, which promotes the sustainable use of forests and is linked to the Environment Ministry, under Agriculture Ministry control. Additionally, the decree states that the Agriculture Ministry will be in charge of the management of public forests. NGOs criticized Bolsonaro, who enjoys strong support from Brazils powerful agribusiness sector, said during his campaign he was considering such a move, arguing that protected lands should be opened to commercial activities. Brazils 900,000 indigenous people make up less than 1 percent of the population, but live on lands that stretch for 106.7 million hectares (264 million acres), or 12.5 percent of the national territory. Less than a million people live in these isolated places in Brazil, where they are exploited and manipulated by NGOs, Bolsonaro tweeted, referring to non-profit groups. Let us together integrate these citizens and value all Brazilians. Critics say Bolsonaros plan to open indigenous reservations to commercial activity will destroy native cultures and languages by integrating the tribes into Brazilian society. Environmentalists say the native peoples are the last custodians of the Amazon, which is the worlds largest rainforest and is vital for climate stability. Adding to the gloom for NGOs, Bolsonaro also signed an executive order to give his government potentially far-reaching and restrictive powers over non-governmental organizations working in Brazil. The temporary decree mandates that the office of the Government Secretary, Carlos Alberto Dos Santos Cruz, supervise, coordinate, monitor and accompany the activities and actions of international organizations and non-governmental organizations in the national territory. Good news for farm lobby After she was sworn in on Wednesday, new Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina Dias defended the farm sector from accusations it has grown at the expense of the environment, adding that the strength of Brazils farmers had generated unfounded accusations from unnamed international groups. Dias used to be the head of the farm caucus in Brazils Congress, which has long pushed for an end to land measures that it argues hold back the agricultural sector. Brazil is a country with extremely advanced environmental legislation and is more than able to preserve its native forests, Dias said. Our country is a model to be followed, never a transgressor to be punished. In comments to reporters after her speech, she said that decisions over land rights disputes were a new responsibility for the Agriculture Ministry. However, she indicated that in practice, the demarcation of land limits would fall to a council of ministries, without giving further details. Bartolomeu Braz, the president of the national chapter of Aprosoja, a major grain growers association, cheered Wednesdays move to transfer indigenous land demarcation to the Agriculture Ministry. The new rules will be interesting to the farmers and the Indians, some of whom are already producing soybeans. The Indians want to be productive too, he added. Environmental fears Indigenous leader Kreta Kaingang stands in front o Indigenous leader Kreta Kaingang stands in front of a sign that reads in Portuguese "For the Amazon. Urgent!" during a protest against right-wing presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, in front of the Ministry of Environment in Brasilia, Brazil, Oct. 19 Indigenous leader Kreta Kaingang stands in front of a sign that reads in Portuguese "For the Amazon. Urgent!" during a protest against right-wing presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, in front of the Ministry of Environment in Brasilia, Brazil, Oct. 19 Three-time presidential candidate and former Environment Minister Marina Silva, who was beaten by Bolsonaro in Octobers election, reacted with horror to the move. Bolsonaro has begun his government in the worst possible way, she wrote on Twitter. Dinama Tuxa, a member of Brazils Association of Indigenous Peoples, said many isolated communities viewed Bolsonaros administration with fear. We are very afraid because Bolsonaro is attacking indigenous policies, rolling back environmental protections, authorizing the invasion of indigenous territories and endorsing violence against indigenous peoples, said Tuxa. Under the new plan, the indigenous affairs agency FUNAI will be moved into a new ministry for family, women and human rights. A former army captain and longtime member of Congress, Bolsonaro said at his inauguration on Tuesday that he had freed the country from socialism and political correctness. An admirer of Donald Trump, Bolsonaro has suggested he will follow the U.S. presidents lead and pull out of the Paris climate change accord. In addition to the indigenous lands decree, the new administration issued decrees affecting the economy and society on Wednesday, while forging closer ties with the United States. KANO, NIGERIA - Boko Haram jihadists have raided at least three military posts and overpowered troops in the latest attacks in northeast Nigeria, sources said Wednesday. Fighters from the IS-affiliated Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) overran the posts in Borno state on Tuesday, military and militia sources told AFP. The Boko Haram faction has in recent months intensified attacks on military targets in Borno and Yobe states, raiding bases and killing dozens of troops. "They first dislodged soldiers at a checkpoint in Kimba in Biu ... and then took over another post at Sabon Gari, five kilometers [three miles] away," one military officer said of the latest attacks. The jihadists launched another attack on a base in nearby Wajirko, according to a militiaman in the area. On Monday, the jihadists had overwhelmed troops in Buni Gari village in neighboring Yobe state, leading to "some losses," an army officer said. "Troops were outgunned and forced to retreat after heavy fighting with the terrorists," the military source said. Reprisals ISWAP gunmen apparently attacked the village in reprisals over the killing of fellow jihadists in the village last month. Residents alerted soldiers in a nearby military base as they arrived in trucks. During an attempt by jihadist fighters to seize another base on Wednesday in Damasak, the army said it lost a helicopter. Details were scant, but if the aircraft was shot down by the insurgents, it would suggest that they now possess more sophisticated weapons than they have used in the last four years of fighting. ISWAP has claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying it killed 14 soldiers and took another hostage, according to SITE intelligence, which monitors jihadist activities. Last week, the group took control of the strategic town of Baga, on the shores of Lake Chad. Borno and Yobe, along with nearby Adamawa state, have borne the brunt of nine years of jihadist violence that has claimed 27,000 lives and forced 1.8 million people to flee their homes. MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE - Some black farmers from Mississippi and Tennessee are returning to federal court for a hearing on their lawsuit claiming a seed company sold them faulty soybean seeds because of their race. Stine Seed Co. has denied accusations that a salesman sold thousands of dollars worth of defective seeds to the farmers because they are black. The farmers allege the seeds were much less productive than expected and the salesman misled them with claims of good yields from soybean plants grown in fertile Mississippi Delta fields. U.S. District Judge John Fowlkes could rule Thursday on lawsuits to dismiss filed by Stine and salesman Kevin Cooper. Theyve called the allegations irresponsible. The suit claims the good seeds the farmers thought they had bought from Stine were replaced by inferior seeds before delivery. PHILADELPHIA, PA - Over the past four months, Roman Catholic dioceses across the U.S. have released the names of more than 1,000 priests and others accused of sexually abusing children in an unprecedented public reckoning spurred at least in part by a shocking grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania, an Associated Press review has found. Nearly 50 dioceses and religious orders have publicly identified child-molesting priests in the wake of the Pennsylvania report issued in mid-August, and 55 more have announced plans to do the same over the next few months, the AP found. Together they account for more than half of the nation's 187 dioceses. The review also found that nearly 20 local, state or federal investigations, either criminal or civil, have been launched since the release of the grand jury findings. Those investigations could lead to more names and more damning accusations, as well as fines against dioceses and court-ordered safety measures. Bishop Ronald Gainer, of the Harrisburg Diocese, a FILE - Bishop Ronald Gainer, of the Harrisburg Diocese, who's named in a grand jury report on rampant sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy is celebrating a Mass of forgiveness at the Cathedral Church of Saint Patrick in Harrisburg, Aug. 17, 2018. FILE - Bishop Ronald Gainer, of the Harrisburg Diocese, who's named in a grand jury report on rampant sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy is celebrating a Mass of forgiveness at the Cathedral Church of Saint Patrick in Harrisburg, Aug. 17, 2018. People saw what happened in these parishes in Pennsylvania and said, 'That happened in my parish too.' They could see the immediate connection, and they are demanding the same accounting, said Tim Lennon, national president of the board of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. The recently disclosed accusations date back six or seven decades in some cases, with the oldest from the 1910s in Louisiana. Most of the priests were long ago removed from ministry. An AP examination found that more than 60 percent are dead. In most cases, the statute of limitations for bringing criminal charges or suing has run out. Nevertheless, advocates say exposing molesters nearly two decades after the scandal first erupted in Boston in 2002 is an encouraging step, in part because it gives some victims a sense of vindication after decades of official silence or denials. Also, it could increase pressure on dioceses to set up victims' compensation funds, as the church has done in Pennsylvania already. And it could result in the removal of molesters from positions outside the church that give them access to children. Victims of clergy sexual abuse, or their family me FILE - Victims of clergy sexual abuse, or their family members react as Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaks during a news conference at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg, Aug. 14, 2018. FILE - Victims of clergy sexual abuse, or their family members react as Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaks during a news conference at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg, Aug. 14, 2018. This is a milestone. We are getting closer and closer to what this ought to be, the true coming to terms that would have to be at a national level, said Joe McLean, who filed a lawsuit with other victims seeking to compel the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to release files on alleged abusers nationwide. The Pennsylvania investigation, led by state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, identified nearly 300 predator priests dating back seven decades and accused church leaders of covering up for the abuses, in some cases by returning priests to duty after short stays in treatment centers or reassigning them. Advocates said the report had big impact because it was the largest to date in scope, encompassing most of the state. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaks FILE - Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaks about a grand jury's report on clergy abuse in the Roman Catholic Church during a news conference at the Capitol in Harrisburg, Aug. 14, 2018. FILE - Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaks about a grand jury's report on clergy abuse in the Roman Catholic Church during a news conference at the Capitol in Harrisburg, Aug. 14, 2018. Victims' advocates and others, including some church officials, said the report was largely responsible for the urgency now being shown by the church. Many bishops cited those findings and other scandals - including the resignation over the summer of Washington Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, accused of groping an altar boy in the 1970s - in their letters to their congregations. The biggest list of names has come from the Jesuits West Province, a religious order that encompasses nine Western states. It identified 111 priests. The New Orleans Archdiocese and the Diocese of Syracuse, New York, named 61 and 57 respectively. The Great Falls-Billings, Montana, Diocese disclosed 47 names, including those of a few nuns, while the Los Angeles Archdiocese reported more than 50 from the past decade or so. Some dioceses, like Peoria, Illinois, released only names with no information on the allegations or the church's response. Others detailed such things as parish assignments, numbers and dates of allegations - including an Omaha priest with 20 to 35 accusations against him - and attempts at treatment, restriction and punishment. And more names could be coming in places where attorneys general have launched statewide investigations such as New Jersey, New York, Nebraska, Florida and Delaware, or in cities like Houston or Cheyenne, Wyoming, where local prosecutors are looking into individual priests. In his Christmas address last month, Pope Francis made an unprecedented call for priests who had abused children to turn themselves in and vowed the church will never again hide their crimes. The world's bishops will hold a summit at the Vatican next month to forge a comprehensive response to the crisis. Pope Francis delivers the Urbi et Orbi blessing fr Pope Francis delivers the Urbi et Orbi blessing from the main balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Dec. 25, 2018. Pope Francis delivers the Urbi et Orbi blessing from the main balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Dec. 25, 2018. The U.S. bishops adopted new reporting procedures and other reforms after the furor in Boston but held off on any further measures recently at the direction of the Vatican. The bishops are holding a retreat outside Chicago starting Wednesday for prayer and reflection upon the scandal. Messages left by the AP seeking comment from conference officials were not returned. In the 16 years between the Boston scandal and the Pennsylvania investigation, only about 30 dioceses around the country had released lists of priests they deemed credibly accused of abuse. Most of those dioceses came clean because they were forced to do so by lawsuits or bankruptcy filings. Some dioceses declined to name any deceased priests, since they could not defend themselves, and some would not identify any clergy members at all. Now, 13 dioceses have hired outside consultants including FBI agents and former judges to review their files, and dioceses that had previously been secretive are coordinating to release statewide lists in such places as Texas and New Jersey. Bishop Anthony B. Taylor of the Little Rock Diocese in Arkansas disclosed the names of 12 priests in September and announced the hiring of a consultant to review diocesan files. The Pennsylvania grand jury report kind of helped us firm up our decision to move forward with what we were doing. It affected the timing rather than the decision, Taylor said. In October, the pope accepted the resignation of Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, D.C., after he was accused in the report of mishandling some allegations of abuse against priests and others while bishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006. Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, c FILE - Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, conducts Mass at St. Mathews Cathedral in Washington, Aug. 15, 2018. FILE - Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, conducts Mass at St. Mathews Cathedral in Washington, Aug. 15, 2018. The report is also credited with spurring an uptick in victims contacting support networks or law enforcement. Pennsylvania's clergy abuse hotline has received more than 1,400 new allegations since August, and Lennon said there has been a dramatic increase in victims reaching out to SNAP. While praising the release of names, many experts said the lists are often incomplete. Terence McKiernan, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, which has tracked abuse for more than a decade, said many dioceses have left off names of known abusers his group has published in its online database. It's not enough, Pennsylvania's Shapiro agreed. I do not believe that the church is capable of policing itself though. They need outside forces, ideally law enforcement, to hold them accountable. Shapiro said he has spoken to 45 other attorneys general since his report, and 14 have publicly acknowledged some form of investigation. Other investigations have become public because of dioceses acknowledging subpoenas, reporters documenting raids or state agencies advertising victim hotlines. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan printed a copy of the Pennsylvania report the day it came out. In mid-December, she issued a blistering preliminary report saying a review of church files showed dioceses in Illinois had withheld the names of at least 500 clergy accused of sexually abusing children. It was obvious that this type of concealment, this type of unresolved action in Pennsylvania, that we were going to find the same thing in Illinois, Madigan said. Chinese President Xi Jinping told Taiwan Wednesday it's time for the two sides to unify and didn't rule out using force to make that happen. A day earlier, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen told China to respect her government's existence and the democratic resolve of her self-ruled island's people. Tsai rejects Beijing's claim that both sides fall under one flag. No media source currently available The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. A quarter-of-a-century ago Croat paramilitaries on orders from their wartime leader, Franjo Tudjman, slaughtered more than a hundred Bosnian Muslims in the village of Ahmici. VOA Khmer's Ten Soksreinieth narrates. Click here to log in and see all of our other subscription options for the Mesabi Tribune, including online only & auto-renewal subscriptions. Flare Capital Partners, a Boston, MA-based healthcare technology venture capital firm, promoted Dan Gebremedhin to Partner. Dr. Gebremedhin joined Flare Capital in 2015 prior to the final closing of the firms first $200M venture fund. His new role leverages a more than ten years of healthcare industry experience as a clinician, operator, and entrepreneur. Dr. Gebremedhin most recently led the firms investment in Somatus and serves on the Board. Dr. Gebremedhin is a faculty physician in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School and serves on the Massachusetts Governor Bakers Board of Nursing Home Administrators. Prior to Flare, he served as a Medical Director at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Plan, and spent time as an entrepreneur in the Health IT Industry. Dr. Gebremedhin completed his MBA at the Harvard Business School, his Medical Degree at the Morehouse School of Medicine, and his bachelors from the University of California San Diego. Dr. Gebremedhins other interests include Healthcare Policy and Global Health. He has served as a Senior Health Policy Advisor for the Campaigns of Governor Charlie Baker and Congressman Joseph Kennedy III. Dr. Gebremedhin has worked to expand healthcare infrastructure in the developing world, serving as a consultant for the Clinton Foundation Health Access Initiative (CHAI) in Ethiopia. Led by Michael Greeley and Bill Geary, co-founders and general partners, Flare Capital raised one of the industrys largest dedicated venture capital funds focused exclusively on early stage opportunities in healthcare technology innovation. Investments include Aetion, Aspen Health, Bright Health, Circulation (acquired by LogistiCare), ClearDATA, Curisium, HealthReveal, HealthVerity, higi, Iora Health, Somatus, Valence Health (acquired by Evolent Health), VisitPay and Welltok. FinSMEs 03/01/2019 Lindsey Ice, senior economist from Spanish-based FocusEconomics, which provides in-depth global economic analysis Since the doi moi policy started in 1986 and more recently through its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2007, Vietnam has become a success story of robust economic growth driven by trade liberalisation and global integration. Indeed, Vietnams opening to international commerce and FDI has undoubtedly played a pivotal role in the stellar growth it has experienced over the last three decades, which transformed it from one of the poorest nations in the world to a middle-income market economy. Its economic narrative has been one of rapid transition from an agriculture-based economy to one where manufacturing and services play a much larger role. One key way of boosting trade and economic development is through participation in free trade agreements (FTAs). Two such pacts that are slated to come into effect in 2019 and could have a profound impact on the economy are the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA). The CPTPP is a multilateral trade agreement composed of 11 Pacific Rim nations, encompassing more than 13 per cent of the global GDP and a shared market of around 500 million people. According to the European Commission, the EVFTA is the most ambitious free trade framework it has ever pursued with a developing country. Both deals will substantially hack away at tariff and non-tariff barriers. The principles of both frameworks are to boost growth prospects through greater economic co-operation and stronger trade ties. Vietnam stands to gain from both of them through increased FDI, further integration in regional and global supply chains, and a growing export market share. Both deals are seen as boosting Vietnams trade opportunities for many of its sectors, including textiles, leather and footwear, e-commerce and services, and helping fortify the countrys status as a low-tech manufacturing hub. However, more important for Vietnams economic development will be the continued shift away from exporting low-tech manufacturing products and primary goods to more complex high-tech goods like electronics, machinery, vehicles, and medical devices. This will be made possible first through more diversified input sources from larger trade networks and cheaper imports of intermediate goods from partner countries, which should boost the competitiveness of Vietnams exports. Second, through partnership with foreign businesses that can transfer the know-how and technology needed to make the leap into higher valued-added production, more sophisticated business practices and technology will help boost Vietnams labour productivity and expand the countrys export capacity. As most of Vietnams current FDI largely originates from Asian countries, the presence of investors from Europe and advanced countries like Australia and Canada has room to grow and these trade pacts will provide fresh impetus. Moreover, while recent FDI has been primarily channeled into manufacturing or real estate, other emerging sectors represent untapped opportunities for foreign companies to reap profitable returns on investment. Indeed, one sector that has already begun to allure funding is clean energy, particularly natural gas and wind development. European investors entry into Vietnamese service markets, including banking and insurance, maritime transport, and environmental services, should help modernise these markets and improve service quality. A recent survey by the European Chamber of Commerce revealed that the majority of participants believe the EVFTA will make Vietnam more competitive and turn it into a hub for European business in the region. Mergers and acquisitions will likely become more prevalent and will be pivotal in boosting total factor productivity. Further global integration resulting from the trade deals, combined with the prolonged trade dispute between the US and China could see an influx of multinationals establishing bases in Vietnam to divert their supply chains away from China. Apart from the direct benefits of trade and FDI, the deals should be catalysts of other important changes. One such advantage will be greater alignment with international standards from workers rights to environmental protection. Both FTAs require compliance with the International Labour Organizations (ILO) standards, including the freedom of association and the elimination of forced labour. Commenting on potential labour market reform, Chang-Hee Lee from ILO Vietnam noted, This is really an opportunity for Vietnam to modernise its labour laws and industrial relations system, and the need for such reforms firstly comes from the countrys internal context. Meanwhile, the articles of the treaties will require Vietnam to abide international standards more closely for products like pharmaceuticals and motor vehicles. FTAs will help align Vietnam with global standards Challenges While the FTAs will likely be beneficial to Vietnams overall economy, there are still downsides. For one, these agreements will unleash fierce competition from foreign rivals on local businesses, with agriculture in particular set to be exposed to greater foreign competition, particularly from meat and dairy products from the EU, Australia, and Canada. If businesses are not poised to adapt and make use of new market opportunities and the potential for partnership with foreign investors they could struggle to compete. Moreover, the benefits of FDI and trade are not inherent to the agreements themselves, but are rather largely dependent on the frameworks put in place to ensure sustainable growth and the contribution of foreign businesses to local markets. In order to maximise the potential these agreements offer, the Vietnamese government needs to continue making progress on important reforms, especially with regard to strengthening the banking sector, refining legal and tax structures, and improving trade facilitation. Emphasis should be put on foreign-invested projects that transfer technology or expertise to domestic businesses. Vietnams 30 years of remarkable growth and advancement on the global stage make it a posterchild for the benefits of trade liberalisation. With a low-cost base, demographic dividend, and strong government commitment to reform, Vietnam stands poised to benefit significantly from its involvement in the CPTPP and the EVFTA. According to the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment, the CPTPP could raise Vietnams GDP by 1.3 percentage points and exports by 4.0 percentage points by 2035, while the EU considers that the EVFTA could lift Vietnams GDP by 15 per cent. These two deals, along with other FTAs which will likely come in the future, should help ensure that the next 30 years are just as positive. Haysom, a South African lawyer and experienced diplomat, was appointed to the post in Somalia September 2018. (Photo: AFP/Shah Marai) The order comes days after the official, Nicholas Haysom, raised concerns at the action of Somalia's UN-backed security services in recent violence that left several people dead. "The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Somalia, Nicholas Haysom, is no longer welcome in Somalia and cannot operate in the country," the foreign ministry said in a statement late Tuesday. There was no immediate reaction from the UN mission in Somalia. Somalia's security forces used force to put down three days of demonstrations in the southwestern town of Baidoa on Dec 13-15, with at least 15 people killed and 300 people arrested, according to the UN. Protesters were angry at the arrest of Muktar Robow, a former Islamist leader who was vying for the post of regional presidency of South West State. Robow, who defected from the militant Al-Shabaab movement in 2017, was detained by the government accused of seeking to "undermine stability", and flown to the capital Mogadishu. Robow's run for office exposed the tensions between Somalia's federal states, which want greater autonomy from a national administration keen to safeguard its central powers. AID SUSPENDED The UN mission in Somalia is tasked with supporting peace efforts and the strengthening of government institutions in the Horn of Africa nation, which was left ruined by decades of civil war. As part of that, the UN supports police officers and soldiers, including with stipend salary payments, logistics, uniforms and training. Haysom wrote to the Somali government on Dec 30, requesting details of the legal basis of the arrest of Robow, as well as calling for investigations into the deaths in the protests following his detention. The envoy's letter said UN support to security fores must comply with the strict rules of its human rights police, and urged the government to ensure "appropriate action is taken to hold any perpetrators, including commanding officers, accountable." The UN had reviewed a recent video recording of the police commissioner in South West State, in which the commander warned of shooting in the bottom anyone who protested without permission, Haysom said. Haysom's letter also attached an annexed note from the European Union, Britain and Germany in which they announced the suspension of their aid to South West State. The trio called for a meeting with security officials to discuss, among other issues, "how to improve police conduct and respect for human rights." The UN mission in Somalia faces frequent attacks. On Tuesday, three people were wounded including two UN staff members when gunmen fired a barrage of mortars into the main UN base in Mogadishu. The Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda affiliate fighting to overthrow the internationally backed government, claimed responsibility for the attack. Haysom, a South African lawyer and experienced diplomat who was previously the UN special envoy to Sudan and South Sudan, was appointed to the post in Somalia in September 2018. US President Donald Trump described the situation in Syria in one phrase: "sand and death". (AFP/NICHOLAS KAMM) Shanahan, who took the Pentagon's top spot Jan 1 after serving as deputy defence secretary, was thrust onto the world stage when Mattis quit last month amid long-running disagreements with President Donald Trump. During televised remarks ahead of his first cabinet meeting of 2019, Trump claimed he had "essentially fired" Mattis, even though the former Pentagon chief had pointedly quit his post over multiple disagreements. "I'm not happy with what (Mattis has) done in Afghanistan and I shouldn't be happy," Trump said, as Shanahan sat by his side. "I wish him well. I hope he does well. But as you know, President Obama fired him and essentially so did I. I want results." Mattis, a former Marine general, was head of US Central Command when Obama fired him in 2013 over his hawkish views on Iran. While it is common for Trump to turn on former staffers and make demeaning remarks after they've left their post, the Mattis criticism is notable as Trump had often touted his admiration for the man he called "Mad Dog Mattis." The drama came after Shanahan sought to lay out his priorities for America's massive defense department and how he intends to deal with an urgent list of geopolitical to-dos, including the US withdrawal from Syria. CHINA, CHINA, CHINA Soon after arriving at the Pentagon, Shanahan told colleagues to focus on the National Defence Strategy, a Mattis-era review that highlights "Great Power competition" with Russia and China. "In 2019, the National Defence Strategy remains our guide. America's military strength remains our focus," Shanahan said in a New Year's message on Twitter. A defence official added that Shanahan had told colleagues a major concern would be China. "While we are focused on ongoing operations, Acting Secretary Shanahan told the team to remember: China, China, China," the official said. The US accuses Beijing of an ongoing pattern of military and economic espionage, and has criticized China's ambitious "Belt and Road" trade and infrastructure initiative as being a form of economic coercion. Shanahan must oversee the pace at which the US pulls some 2,200 troops out of Syria, following the president's decision to exit the war-torn country. Last month, Trump declared victory over the Islamic State group in Syria and claimed the militants had been beaten "badly," even though they still number in the thousands. He has since backpedaled and suggested more of a phased timeline for the withdrawal. "We're withdrawing," Trump said, adding it would happen "over a period of time." At another point, Trump told Shanahan he wanted him to classify various reports, presumably including those detailing the security crisis in Afghanistan. "For these reports to be given out and essentially given out to the enemy, that's insane," Trump told Shanahan. "I don't want it to happen anymore Mr Secretary, you understand that." According to US officials, Trump is also mulling a 50 per cent drawdown in Afghanistan - another momentous move that has left lawmakers and international allies fearing for what comes next. RECUSED FROM BOEING MATTERS Little known outside business and Washington circles, Shanahan takes the world stage at a time of tumultuous changes and unpredictable foreign policy moves under Trump. Shanahan, 56, did not serve in the military and before but serving as deputy defense secretary he spent more than 30 years at Boeing. While Shanahan has not always had day-to-day involvement in thorny geopolitical issues like Syria, officials say he is ready to tackle them and previously filled in for Mattis when he was traveling. Despite a lack of foreign policy or military experience, Shanahan's executive and technical knowledge made him well suited for the Pentagon's number two position, which focuses more on the Defence Department's business side. But some critics have questioned whether a man with deep industry ties should be running the Pentagon. At his confirmation hearing to be deputy, the late senator John McCain said a lack of detail in some of Shanahan's foreign policy answers was "almost insulting," and he expressed concerns that putting a former defence executive in the Pentagon could be akin to putting a fox "back in to the henhouse." Lieutenant Colonel Joe Buccino, Shanahan's spokesman, said he had recused himself from any matters involving Boeing. Also on Wednesday, Shanahan announced that the Pentagon's comptroller, David Norquist, will perform the duties of deputy secretary of defence. Raymond Mallon, senior economic advisor for the Australia-Vietnam Economic Reform Programme There are several reasons for Vietnam to focus on achieving national targets on equitising state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and attracting private investment. An important reason to focus on the above targets is to boost productivity growth, thus boosting incomes and living standards. International experience suggests that the competitive and market-based allocation of resources helps boost innovation and productivity growth. At times, it is in the nations interest for the government to intervene to correct market failures. Effective state intervention to correct market failure is best achieved via regulations focused on maximising national benefits that are developed by independent regulators in consultation with key stakeholders. Problems of inefficiency and inequity often arise if the state is both the owner and the regulator. As has been seen in Vietnam and globally, such conflicts of interest lead to pressures for state ownership agencies to regulate in a manner that is not in the national interest. For example, by imposing business conditions or other restrictions on new businesses, a state agency can reduce the competition faced by its SOEs. This can make an individual SOE more profitable, but the resulting lack of competition stifles innovation and productivity growth. This hurts consumers because of higher costs and slower innovation, and workers because reduced productivity growth means reduced growth in wages. Regulations that constrain competition are clearly not in the national interest. A second key reason for action on these targets is to reduce the opportunities for the misuse of state resources. It requires substantial capacity for any state, no matter how developed the country, to effectively exercise state ownership rights in a large number of SOEs. It is important that limited state capacity focus on effectively governing institutions that provide essential public services such as health, education, water supply and sanitation, environmental protection, energy, and roads. These are enormous tasks: the state should not waste its limited capacity by trying to manage large numbers of commercial businesses. Also, many international economic co-operation agreements include commitments to competitive neutrality. That is, all enterprises should be able to compete equally, regardless of whether they are state-owned, domestic private businesses or foreign enterprises. These provisions, to which Vietnam has committed, are included in agreements to maximise potential for both national and regional productivity growth. In addition to the above targets, complementary reforms are needed to ensure the more efficient delivery of public investments in supporting infrastructure and services that are needed to attract increased private investment. This implies a need for the government to also focus on strengthening public sector governance as an integral part of efforts to attract increased private investment. Competitive neutrality ensures firms are treated equally, whether state-owned, domestic or foreign entities Opportunities ahead Vietnams ongoing reform process has increased the opportunities for the successful realisation of both targets. Reforms to the regulatory framework for business and investment have done much to level the playing field for all businesses. The key institutions needed for a competitive market economy are being strengthened. Capital and financial markets are developing and playing a more important role in business financing. Legal, accounting and auditing professions and nationally accepted norms of business behaviour are beginning to be better established. The quality of business and economic media and other reporting is improving. These institutional developments provide a stronger institutional basis for the transparent and competitive sale of equity in state enterprises, and helping to increase investor confidence in investing in equitised entities. Recent progress in reducing the preferential treatment previously provided to some favoured SOEs is also helping reduce potential resistance of SOE managers to reform. Increasing numbers of SOE managers see that it is in their interest and in the interest of their business and workers to be equitised, as this can increase the flexibility of managers to mobilise additional resources from Vietnams developing capital markets and to respond to emerging economic opportunities and challenges. The recent focus of government reforms on reducing and simplifying business conditions has already had a positive impact on reducing the barriers to the entry of new businesses. It has helped accelerate the transformation and growth of informal household enterprises into formal business entities with the potential to access the formal financial sector and a broader range of market opportunities. Reductions in fixed costs of entry have also made it easier for smaller foreign investors to access the Vietnamese market. The results of these reforms are now being reflected in national economic indicators. For example, the share of domestic private investment in total investment is growing at a faster rate than both state or foreign investment, and growth in exports by domestic private businesses have exceeded growth in exports by foreign investors and SOEs over the last two years. The challenge now is to sustain the reform process to continue reducing barriers to the growth and diversification of private business activity. The eventual aim should be to develop a dynamic and innovative private domestic corporate sector that is actively engaged in regional production networks and international markets. Potential obstacles The most immediate challenge for Vietnam is to sustain the reform process despite resistance from those groups benefitting from uncompetitive regulatory and institutional structures. Reforms are needed both to facilitate the transparent and competitive sale of state assets to non-state actors and to provide incentives to attract increased private investment. In order to address this resistance, it is important to develop the capacity of government and non-government agencies to undertake evidence-based policy analysis of the impacts of existing and planned policy initiatives. The government could also consider building more effective quality control mechanisms to ensure that existing and new government policy initiatives are designed to maximise national interests and do not just benefit limited private interests. International experience suggests that effective quality control requires mechanisms to undertake independent reviews of existing and planned policy initiatives in consultation with key stakeholders. This already happens on an ad hoc basis in Vietnam, but there is a strong case for institutionalising more formal mechanisms for the ongoing review of the policy, regulatory, and institutional impediments to private sector development. The other key medium-term challenge to attracting increased investment is to build the inclusive market institutions needed to promote the development of a truly competitive market economy. There is a pressing need to develop more competitive and transparent factor markets. The current regulatory framework for trading agriculture land use rights is discouraging farmers from seizing more productive agriculture and non-agriculture opportunities, and is providing incentives for corruption. Gender gaps in productivity and incomes in the labour market are also stifling productivity growth. In terms of meeting the equitisation targets, a pressing challenge is identifying suitably qualified and motivated experts to support the work of the new Commission for the Management of State Capital at Enterprises, and to serve on the boards of SOEs, newly-equitised SOEs and joint stock companies. More broadly, there is a pressing need to ramp up efforts to train corporate governance experts and to build a corporate governance profession in Vietnam. Additionally, the planned establishment of a national institute for company directors is necessary to improve corporate governance standards and to provide corporate governance training. Experience with Resolution 19 has shown the practical value of establishing clear targets and defining accountability for implementing specific reforms, and also for effective systems for periodically monitoring, evaluating, and reporting on progress towards achieving these result targets. Resolution 19 experience should be reflected in planning future economic reforms. Most importantly, sustained high-level support will be needed to empower those implementing the equitisation processes. This is especially important given that the implementation of equitisation will continue to face some resistance to change from vested interests that benefit from the status quo. Workers help to dock a cargo ship at a port in Qingdao, Shandong province. (File photo: Reuters/China Daily) The cargo ship had 15 people on board when it sank at around 4.30am, 90 nautical miles (167km) east of Taizhou City in Zhejiang province, Xinhua said, citing local maritime authorities. The 80m-long freighter departed the Taiwanese port of Kaohsiung with 14 crew members from Myanmar and one Taiwanese national. Four people have been rescued so far, Xinhua said. Taiwan's national rescue centre said in a statement that the authorities had dispatched coastguard vessels and aircraft to help with search and recovery operations for the Palau-registered ship. An investigation is under way to determine the causes of the accident, Xinhua said. Professor Nguyen Mai, chairman of the Vietnam Association for Foreign-invested Enterprises Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have become an important method for attracting foreign direct investment (FDI). A new project often takes time for surveying, selecting sectors and professions, making pre-feasibility studies, and conducting many types of procedures before being officially implemented. Conversely, an M&A-based project often takes less time and costs, because the foreign partner only needs to collect sufficient information about the domestic partner, then meet and negotiate via consultants and brokers before reaching final decisions. After that the foreign partner can officially purchase the stake in the business and if the stake is large enough, they can partake in managing the firm. From 1988 to 2010, M&A was conducted among Vietnamese companies, because the scale of their business was not big enough for international investors, who were mostly transnational corporations (TNCs), to engage in. Since then, M&A has become a popular channel to woo investment, and it has held a big part in Vietnams total registered and disbursed FDI. During 2011-2013, Japanese companies spent about $2.5 billion investing into Vietnams M&A market in the sectors of consumer goods, and finance and banking. Vietcombank has a 15 per cent stake held by Mizuho, while Bao Viet and VietinBank have stakes owned by Sumitomo Life and UFJ Mishubishi Bank, respectively. Vietnam witnessed 313 M&A deals worth $4.2 billion in 2014, 341 deals for $5.2 billion in 2015, and 611 deals valued at $5.8 billion in 2016. There have been major transactions, including TCC Holdings purchasing Metro Vietnam at $879 million, and Central Group buying Big C Vietnam for $1.14 billion and using its subsidiary Power Buy to acquire a 49 per cent stake from NKT, which owned the Nguyen Kim chain. Many other deals can also be mentioned, such as Asset and AEON and BGN buying Keangnam Landmark at $723.82 million; Mapletree Investments acquiring the Kumho Asiana Plaza project from the joint venture Kumho Industrial and Asiana Airlines at a price of $215 million; and New Life RE spending $49.2 million purchasing Duxton Hotel from Low Keng Huat. From January to November 20, 2018, there were 582 foreign-related M&A deals valued at $7.6 billion, up 44.4 per cent on-year, accounting for 24.7 per cent of the total newly-registered foreign investment and 46 per cent of total disbursement. It is clear that M&A activities have been increasingly developing in Vietnam thanks to the government boosting equitisation of state-owned enterprises, and many domestic private companies becoming increasingly attractive to foreign investors. This trend is expected to make Vietnam a big M&A market in the region. Cross-border investment without capital contribution Cross-border investment without capital contribution has become a new FDI attraction method in Vietnam. TNCs trade and investment strategies are implemented under various forms directly or via their subsidiaries in some nations in order to deploy new projects, or via M&A to hold stakes to a level that they can participate in governing the business under one of the three investment methods: through a joint venture, 100 per cent of foreign-investment, and a business co-operation agreement. Industry 4.0 is significantly changing global supply chains, with robots replacing part of human labour. IT and Big Data have created a revolution in corporate governance. Thus traditional investment methods tend to decrease, while a number of new investment methods have sprung up and become all the more popular. Contract-based production, outsourcing, franchising, licensing, and management have become new investment modes. In the digital age, via FDI, TNCs are focused on contribution margins by seeking potential markets without making any capital contribution, usually known by the New Economics Model (NEM). NEM has been implemented in many nations when it shifts from the supply chains of low-added-value products to those of high ones. This is because NEM allows TNCs to regulate activities of all supply chains, creating opportunities to producers and domestic suppliers in joining global chains. Funds from foreign investors often include the provision of brand names, intellectual property rights, and business know-how. For example, the World Bank cited US giant Apple having Taiwans Inventec produce a number of spare parts via outsourcing contracts; Hyatt managing hotels owned by a Nepalese firm; and the American group Intel employing Indias Wipro to develop its software. Because NEM has been implemented in only some countries, global statistics are currently unavailable, but it is estimated by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to be higher than $2 trillion annually. Thus there are two types of FDI: capital contribution and no capital contribution, with the former and NEM complementing each other. Some overseas investors still continue implementing traditional investment methods when they deploy their projects in other nations, while an increasing number of TNCs have shifted to NEM. After some time, if they see the enterprise operate well and need to expand business, TNCs will continue contributing capital by purchasing stakes or increasing investment. NEM-based funds tend to increase because it can significantly benefit FDI recipients. For example, in the automobile industry, about 30 per cent of spare parts and components are made under import contracts, generating about 25 per cent employment in the industry. Pairing up in the new model Vietnams new-generation FDI attraction strategy, compiled jointly by the World Bank, the International Financial Corporation, and the Ministry of Planning and Investment, has underlined the need for Vietnam to pay attention to NEM. The strategy states, The importance of this investment model is increasingly and popularly recognised. When Vietnam moves itself towards an increase in added-value and integration in the global value chains, NEM plays a pivotal role by allowing TNCs to coordinate activities in the global value chains, while supporting domestic suppliers, accordingly helping to increase the link between Vietnams suppliers and these value chains. In fact, over the past few years, some Vietnamese groups have taken the initiative in approaching and implementing NEM, with VinFast and VinSmart under Vingroup being a typical example for NEM. Established in 2017 and headquartered in Hanoi, VinFast has its $3.5 billion automobile manufacturing complex in the northern port city of Haiphong, covering 335 hectares. VinFast has signed technological co-operation contracts with some major European automobile groups, such as Germanys BMW, Siemens AG and Robert Bosch GmbH, Austrias Magna Steyr, Italys Pininfarina, and Thailands Aapico Hitech. The complex is set to produce 500,000 automobiles by 2025. In early October 2018, VinFast made a debut of two models Lux A2.0 and Lux SA2.0 in Paris, and then three auto samples in Hanoi, including the VinFast Lux SA 2.0 (SUV), VinFast Lux A 2.0 (Sedan) and VinFast Fadil. There have been tens of thousands of orders already, and it is expected the first will be sold in September 2019, just two years after the complexs construction began. Besides, in December 2018 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vingroup made a debut of four lines of Vsmart-branded smartphones. The products were produced less than six months after the VinSmart facility was established in Haiphong. It is hoped that the facility will annually produce five million smartphones in its first phase. Almost all stages, from design, research, and development to production, are conducted by Spanish technological firm BQ, whose 51 per cent stake is held by VinSmart. VinFast and VinSmart are typical of Vietnamese enterprises co-operating with foreign partners to create and consolidate their own strength via technological transfer, without any capital contribution from overseas partners. It is expected that many Vietnamese economic groups will do the same as Vingroup, so that they can shorten the time needed for their development, contributing to national socioeconomic development. When a new investment method increases and becomes more important in Vietnam, the government needs to revise and enhance policies and laws, so that the country can attract new-generation FDI sources effectively. By Kevin Hawkins Co-executive partner, ZICO Law Vietnam It has been more than three years since the implementation of the Law on Housing No.65/2014/QH13 and the Law on Real Estate Business No.66/2014/QH13 (LREB) in July 2015 which partially lifted the barriers for foreigners investing in the Vietnamese real estate market and thus opened the floodgate for foreign investment in the sector. With the rapid growth in the economy, development in capital markets, and increase in capital inflow in Vietnam over recent years, it is no surprise that the new laws contributed significantly to the interest and activities of foreign investors in the Vietnamese real estate sector. Current legal landscape The new laws have not only simplified the legislation but also expanded the rights and protections afforded to overseas backers while maintaining certain restrictions to keep them from overrunning investment in Vietnams real estate opportunities. Among the notable changes under the new laws, foreign investors are now permitted to acquire 30 per cent of apartment units within one apartment building or 250 individual residential houses comprising villas and terraced houses in one ward. This change is encouraging as overseas individuals were only allowed to own one apartment unit in an apartment building prior to the implementation of the new laws. The laws also loosened restrictions and conditions imposed on foreign financiers whereby individuals are allowed to own residential property without residency status or have any investment in Vietnam as long as the individual enters the country with a valid passport. This makes it more accessible for outsiders to fund without the need to go through stringent conditions which may not be proportionate to the investment return and thereby deter foreign investment in the country. Further, foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) can now lease real estate for sub-lease and this was not available to them prior to the implementation of these laws. All these changes contributed to the significant increase in real estate activities as shown in the data from the Ministry of Construction where it reported that Hanoi had about 8,650 successful deals in the first two quarters of 2018, while Ho Chi Minh City had about 9,550 deals. Both major cities in Vietnam recorded an increase of more than 20 per cent on-year. While the new laws have brought about changes welcomed by foreign investors and thus encouraged more investment, it is realistic to expect that there is still room for improvement, particularly in relation to the different treatment between local and overseas investors, and the implementation of a level playing field between foreign and local backers so as to increase competitiveness in the sector. Hopeful improvements Despite the reforms intended to encourage investment from outside the country, there remains a difference in the treatment between local and foreign investors in the real estate sector. Under Article 11 of LREB, foreign financiers are not permitted to transfer land use rights in the form of division of land into plots for sale, contrary to such right being available to local investors. The same article in LREB also expressly permits local developers to purchase houses and buildings for sale, lease-out or offer for lease-purchase while foreign investors are only permitted to sub-lease houses and buildings. Article 57 of LREB also permits local developers to collect up to 70 per cent of the value of the contract for sale and purchase or hire-purchase of real estate property to be formed in the future, while foreign developers are permitted to collect only up to 50 per cent. The difference in treatment is not necessary and should be removed as it impairs competitiveness in the market. The implementation of the relevant provisions in practice also renders the investment market less efficient than it should be, given that there are general rules applicable to both local and foreign investors, which may not be consistent with the restrictions on overseas funders. There should also be clarity and guidance on the definition of an FIE. The Land Law 2013 defines them as joint ventures and enterprises wholly or partly owned by a foreign company but with no indication on the foreign ownership percentage which would render the enterprise an overseas entity. The Law on Investment 2014, on the other hand, provides that an economic organisation with foreign ownership of 51 per cent or more shall be subject to regulations applicable to foreign investors. As there is no certainty in the interpretation of the definition of overseas ownership or FIEs under the Land Law and LREB, confusion arises as to what restrictions are applicable and the compliance expected from these investors pouring money into various forms of establishment. Guidelines should therefore be issued to make clear of the definition so that they can choose to fund, collaborate or set up a joint venture with local financiers and enjoy synergies derived from having local expertise to jointly develop the Vietnamese real estate market. Setting new conditions There is also a popularly discussed inadequacy in the current laws and the lack of specific legal frameworks to regulate the construction, ownership and management of condotels. Condotels are a relatively new real estate product in Vietnam, the demand for which has risen significantly since 2014. Owing to the unclear classification of condotels, investors who put money into condotels are not issued with red books to document ownership. This uncertainty affects the value of the property and the drop in sales and demand is imminent. In terms of the land use right certificate issued to foreign individuals for residential houses in a residential project, investors from outside the country will only be granted a term of 50 years while local investors are entitled to an indefinite term. Although an extension of 50 years is available, the right to extend the term is not tested and the conditions for extension are not provided in the legislation. The purpose intended to have different term of the right to use the land is not known and it discourages foreign backing as the remainder terms affect the liquidity of the sale to foreign buyers. The sale of the property is also inhibited as the pool of buyers is limited to local buyers who will enjoy indefinite term of use upon purchase of the property from foreigners. Similarly, as the percentage of foreign ownership in a single apartment building is limited to 30 per cent, any sale of apartment units may face the same limitation. The pool of buyers will inevitably limit the price that the owners can obtain if the quota for foreign ownership in that particular apartment has reached the allowed percentage, sale to potential overseas buyers will not be permitted. With the governments commitment to ensure growth of foreign investment, and the optimism in the market as demonstrated by investors, it is hoped that their rights in the real estate sector will further improve to allow them the same rights as local ones in all areas of real estate, and clear and consistent guidelines will be provided to increase competitiveness in the sector. Hunt said his country would remain an influential global player independent of the EU. (Photo: AFP/ROSLAN RAHMAN) Although Britain is neither a superpower nor in possession of an empire, the country still has the military might, economic muscle and diplomatic connections to play a major role in world affairs, Hunt said in Singapore. Britons in a 2016 referendum voted to leave the EU, a political and economic partnership that currently has 28 members, triggering months of tortuous negotiations that have left the country bitterly divided. Parliament is due to debate Britain's withdrawal from the EU - called Brexit - next week ahead of a key vote the following week, as the country prepares to leave the bloc on March 29. Amid doubts over whether the deal will have enough backing, Prime Minister Theresa May used her New Year's message to rally support. In a speech outlining Britain's global role after Brexit, Hunt said his country would remain an influential global player independent of the EU, even as he warned that failure to reach a deal would "cause disruption that could last some time". While Britain should not overestimate its strength, it should not underestimate it either, he said at a diplomatic forum organised by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). "We are not a superpower and we do not have an empire," he said. "But we do have the fifth biggest economy in the world, the second biggest military budget in NATO, the third biggest overseas aid budget, one of the two largest financial centres, highly effective intelligence services and a world class diplomatic network, including permanent membership of the UN Security Council." Hunt said post-Brexit Britain could learn from Singapore's economic model, especially the tiny city-state's long-term investment in education, infrastructure and the push to forge trade ties spanning the world. He added that Britain was open to talks on a free trade agreement with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and would establish a mission at the ASEAN headquarters in Jakarta later this year "to enable those discussions to happen on a more coordinated basis". He said Britain was also keen to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an 11-nation free trade pact that US President Donald Trump pulled out of, but which includes such countries as Australia, Japan, Canada and Mexico. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said Britain would be welcome to join the accord with "open arms" after leaving the EU. "We absolutely are open to both of those ... which I think would be a very big opportunity," said Hunt, who will visit Malaysia after leaving Singapore. Tim Huxley, executive director for Asia at IISS, said the immediate challenge facing post-Brexit Britain concerned its ability to create a network of trade and economic links with other nations "as rapidly as possible". "If any country can exit the EU and not only survive but also prosper and prosper in security, I think the UK can," Huxley told AFP. South Korea's spy agency says the North Korean ambassador to Italy has disappeared. The announcement follows reports that Pyongyang's top diplomat in Italy had sought asylum from an unnamed Western country. By Stefan J. Bos The disappeared North Korean official has been identified as Jo Song-gil. He is the acting North Korean ambassador to Rome and the son and son-in-law of high-ranking North Korean officials. South Koreas spy agency told lawmakers in Seoul on Thursday that Jo went into hiding with his wife in November before his term in Italy ended. His whereabouts are not publicly known now. It is believed he has sought asylum in an unnamed Western nation. The Italian Foreign Ministry said in a statement however that the envoy has not yet asked Italian authorities for asylum. Earlier defection The last senior diplomat to defect was the deputy ambassador in London. Thae Yong-ho abandoned his post in 2016, along with his wife and children. He defected to South Korea. Thae said in an interview with South Korean television on Thursday that the Italian embassy was critical for North Korea because it handled negotiations with the World Food Programme over food aid to the North and was a hub for smuggling luxury items to the North Korean elite. He earlier spoke in separate remarks about the difficulties he faced. "The reason for my defection is a very complex one," he said. "Because I thought and planned this defection for quite a long time. We just disappeared, and they could not find us. I believe that my defection in the long term will encourage further defections." As one of the highest-ranking officials to ever defect from the North, Thae's move was seen as a blow to Kim Jong-un's regime. He would go on to urge the world to spread information in North Korea to undermine Kim's status among his people amid concerns about massive human rights abuses and detention camps where Christians and others face immense hardships. The latest defection by another high ranking diplomat was expected to raise at least some anxiety among Kim Jong-un allies. The UN's international year will be officially launched at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris on January 28. By Robin Gomes The year 2019 has been declared by the United Nations as the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IY2019). The year will be officially launched at a special event on January 28 at the headquarters of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the lead organization coordinating the yearlong celebration. An International Year is an important cooperation mechanism dedicated to raising awareness on a particular topic or theme of global interest or concern and mobilizing different players for coordinated action around the world. The United Nations General Assembly in 2016 adopted a resolution proclaiming 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages. The UNESCO launched a website in August 2018, to help raise the awareness on the IY2019 and on the urgent need to preserve, revitalize and promote indigenous languages around the world. Endangered languages According to UNs cultural agency, there are some 6,000-7,000 languages in the world today. About 97% of the worlds population speaks only 4 % of these languages, while only 3 % of the world speak 96% of all remaining languages. A great majority of these languages, spoken mainly by indigenous peoples, will continue to disappear at an alarming rate. Without appropriate measure to address this issue, the further loss of languages and their associated history, traditions and memory would considerably reduce the rich tapestry of linguistic diversity worldwide. Marginalization In addition, indigenous peoples are often isolated both politically and socially in the countries they live in, by the geographical location of their communities, their separate histories, cultures, languages and traditions. And yet, they are not only leaders in protecting the environment, but their languages represent complex systems of knowledge and communication and should be recognized as a strategic national resource for development, peacebuilding and reconciliation. They also foster and promote unique local cultures, customs and values which have endured for thousands of years. Indigenous languages add to the rich tapestry of global cultural diversity. Without them, the world would be a poorer place. Celebrating IYIL2019 will help promote and protect indigenous languages and improve the lives of those who speak them. It will contribute to achieving the objectives set out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. The celebration is also expected to strengthen and reinforce the many standard-setting tools adopted by the international community which include specific provisions to promote and protect languages. Indigenous figures in brief: - 7 thousand: languages spoken worldwide - 370 million: indigenous people in the world - 90 countries: with indigenous communities - 5 thousand: different indigenous cultures - 2680 languages: in danger The former Colombian National Director of Anti-Corruption was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison after a DEA sting in Miami caught him soliciting a $132,000 bribe to undermine an investigation into a local politician. Luis Gustavo Moreno Rivera, 37, pleaded guilty in August to charges that he conspired to launder money in order to promote foreign bribery. Moreno faced up to nine years in prison under the federal sentencing guidelines. But U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro said she considered that Moreno had already been sentenced to five years in Colombia for extortion. I made a bad decision in my life, and I am very repentant. There is no worse punishment than the embarrassment I feel in the bottom of my heart, Moreno told the court earlier. Leonardo Pinilla Gomez, 31, a Colombian lawyer, also pleaded guilty last year. Moreno and Pinilla were arrested in Colombia in 2017 on an Interpol Red Notice and extradited to the United States in May 2018. The DOJ said Moreno and Pinilla solicited a bribe from former Colombian governor Alejandro Lyons Muskus of Cordoba, a cooperating witness for the DEA. U.S. prosecutors said Moreno agreed in June 2017 to take $132,000 in cash from Lyons. In return, Moreno promised to discredit a witness in a case against Lyons before the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. The DOJ said $100 bills from some of the money Lyons paid to Moreno and Pinilla at a Miami-Dade shopping mall were found on Moreno and his family when they boarded a flight from Miami back to Bogota. Lyons wore a wire when he met with Moreno in Miami. Recorded conversations revealed that Moreno planned to inundate his prosecutors with work so they couldnt focus on the Lyons investigation, the DOJ said. ____ Harry Cassin is the managing editor of the FCPA Blog. The Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) is holding its 31st plenary assembly in Mahabalipuram, Tamil Nadu, January 8 to 14 on the theme, The Joy of the Gospel. By Robin Gomes Indias Latin-rite bishops are holding their plenary assembly next week in the seaside town of Mahabalipuram in southern Indias Tamil Nadu state. The Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) of the Latin-rite bishops, is holding its 31st plenary assembly at the Joe Animation Centre from January 8 to 14 on the theme, Evangelii Gaudium, or The Joy of the Gospel, the Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis that deals with the Churchs primary mission of evangelizations in the modern world. The bishops will chalk out detailed programmes and action plans to revitalize the ministry of love and compassion of the Church at the diocesan and parish levels, wrote CCBI Secretary-General Father Stephen Alathara in a statement on January 2. The assembly will be inaugurated January 8 with a solemn Eucharistic celebration presided over by the Apostolic Nuncio to India and Nepal, Archbishop Giambattista Diquattro. CCBI president, Cardinal Oswald Gracias, the Archbishop of Bombay will preside over the inaugural meeting. Programme Several speakers, including a nun and a lay man are scheduled to address the bishops on various aspects and ways to promote the Joy of the Gospel in the Church in India by upholding the ministry of love and compassion. The CCBI plenary meeting will also look into the present situation of the Church in India. The secretaries of the fourteen commissions and the three departments of the CCBI will present the biennial reports of the activities for the year 2017 and 2018. The Bishops will evaluate the programmes and plan out future activities of the commissions and other bodies that come under the jurisdiction of the CCBI. The assembly members will elect new office bearers and commission chairmen. CCBI president, Card. Gracias is also the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), the apex body of the Catholic Church in India that includes bishops of Indias 3 ritual Churches the Latin and the two eastern rites, the Syro-Malabar and the Syro-Malankara. The cardinal also served as the president of the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences (FABC), ending his 2 terms on December 31. The weeklong plenary assembly includes a day of recollection guided by the well-known theologian and preacher, Fr. Anil Dev of the Indian Missionary Society of Varanasi. Also on the agenda is a pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Thomas, the Apostle of India and to the Marian shrines during which the Church and the dioceses in India will be entrusted to the patronage of St. Thomas and the Blessed Virgin Mary. The host Diocese of Chingleput headed by its Bishop Anthonysamy Neethinathan will accord the CCBI participants a solemn public reception on January 13. It will include a Holy Mass presided over by Card. Gracias at the Bishops House ground. The CCBI plenary assembly will conclude with a Holy Mass on January 14 presided over by the newly elected CCBI president. According to Fr. Alathara, the CCBI, with 132 dioceses and 189 bishops, is the largest bishops conference in Asia and the fourth largest in the world. UW-Stevens Point Seeks Public Comment The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point is seeking comments from the public about the university in preparation for its periodic evaluation by its regional accrediting agency. The college will host a visit on March 4-5, 2019 from a team of peer reviewers representing the Higher Learning Commission. The team will review the institutions ongoing ability to meet HLCs Criteria for Accreditation. UW-Stevens Point has been continuously accredited by HLC since 1951. Comments must be in writing and must address substantive matters related to the quality of the institution or its academic programs. Submit comments to HLC at hlcommission.org/comment or mail them to the address below. All comments must be received by February 4, 2019. Public Comment on University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Higher Learning Commission 230 South LaSalle Street, Suite 7-500 Chicago, IL 60604-1411 (@FahadShabbir) President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov expressed on Tuesday condolences to families and friends of victims of a gas explosion that hit a residential house in Russia's Magnitogorsk. ASHGABAT (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 01st January, 2019) President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov expressed on Tuesday condolences to families and friends of victims of a gas explosion that hit a residential house in Russia 's Magnitogorsk "In such a difficult moment, on the behalf of the government of Turkmenistan, of people of the country and of myself, I express the words of condolences and support to friends and families of the victims as well as wish recovery to the injured people," Berdimuhamedov said, as quoted by Turkmenistan's state television. A natural gas blast hit on Monday one of the blocks of a 10-storey building in Magnitogorsk, the Chelyabinsk Region, leaving at least nine people dead, while six people remain in hospitals. Dozens of people are still missing. The leaders of Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Qatar have already expressed their condolences over the tragedy. (@rukhshanmir) RIGA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 03rd January, 2019) Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics extended his condolences to the families of the victims of a residential building collapse in Russia's city of Magnitogorsk, located in the Ural Federal District. "My deep condolences to the families of victims of gas explosion in the apartment building in #Magnitogorsk #Russia, I wish speedy recovery to all the injured in this terrible tragedy," Rinkevics wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. One of the blocks of the 10-storey residential building in Magnitogorsk collapsed on Monday, destroying and damaging dozens of apartments. Preliminary data have shown that the collapse might have been caused by a natural gas leak. The authorities said at least 33 people had been killed in the incident. Meanwhile, the search and rescue operation for dozens of other people, who have been buried under the rubble, is underway. Sterling, VA (20165) Today Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. High 84F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Thunderstorms this evening followed by occasional showers overnight. Potential for severe thunderstorms. Low 61F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. The government has secured the release of 12 Pakistani prisoners who were imprisoned in Bahrain due to their involvement in petty crimes. ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Jan, 2019 ) :The government has secured the release of 12 Pakistani prisoners who were imprisoned in Bahrain due to their involvement in petty crimes. The pardon to those prisoners was granted by King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa on account of Bahrain's National Day. The achievement was the reflection of the untiring resolve shown by the Government of Pakistan to facilitate deserving overseas prisoners waiting to be repatriated to their homeland, said a press release. Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, Sayed Zulfiqar Abbas Bukhari eulogized the gesture of King Hamad of Bahrain, on behalf of the people of Pakistan and lauded the community welfare attach for his efforts for the prisoners' release. He said Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf led government was committed to extending such efforts across the globe by helping the Pakistani diaspora. Bukhari revealed that he would also have a few foreign visits to ensure specific arrangements forextradition of the over seas Pakistanis languishing in the foreign jails for petty crimes. (@ChaudhryMAli88) LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Jan, 2019 ) :Inspector General Police (IGP) Punjab Amjad Javed Saleemi has said that seven new safe city projects are being established in Kasur, Multan, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Sargodha, Bahawalpur and Gujranwala respectively on fast track. He said this while presiding over annual performance 2018 review meeting held at Punjab Safe Cities authority office at Qurban Line, here on Wednesday. Managing Director Malik Ali Amir and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Akbar Nasir Khan briefed the IG about the annual performance of the project while Chief Administration Officer Muhammad Kamran Khan, Chief Financial Officer Nisar Ahmed Cheema were also present at the occasion. Briefing the IGP, the COO told that the Authority's Operations Monitoring Center secured more than 100,000 observations that warranted, as proactive measures, interception of more than 2,106 suspicious persons by PRU and Dolphin Squad and a thorough probing of 24,523 suspicious vehicles. A total of 9,460 vehicles and motor bikes were spotted and intercepted for having no or non-standard number plates and action was taken duly by the ground units thereof. The 15 Emergency Helpline received 4,012,900 calls, out of which, 75 percent calls were considered hoaxes and on approximately 490,594 calls, with genuine concerns, the Dispatch Control Center (DCC) provided police and medical response to citizens and motorists. The number of calls received on Police & Emergency Helpline this year remained roughly 4 million against 3.5 million of the last year. PPIC3 center served Electronic Data Evidence Acquisition requests initiated by Punjab Police and other LEAs by releasing data pertaining to more than 1,745 heinous crime cases in addition to showing playback footage to Investigation Officers in 4,487 instances. The PSCA extended its services in 15,071 cases pertaining to Rescue and 1,473 cases pertaining to fire emergencies. The PSCA Lost & Found Center also set its mark high this year thereby contributing to the recovery of 67 missing persons, 24 cars, 1,293 motor bikes and 37 auto-rickshaws through its Lost & Found center. Dr. Yousef bin Ahmed Al-Othaimeen, Secretary-General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, OIC, has strongly condemned the attack that resulted in the death of at least 37 people, following violent inter-communal clashes in Central Mali on Tuesday. JEDDAH, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 03rd Jan, 2019) Dr. Yousef bin Ahmed Al-Othaimeen, Secretary-General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, OIC, has strongly condemned the attack that resulted in the death of at least 37 people, following violent inter-communal clashes in Central Mali on Tuesday. The Secretary-General expressed his deepest sympathy to the Government and people of Mali and conveyed his condolences to the bereaved families. Dr. Al-Othaimeen reiterated the OICs full solidarity with the Malian authorities in their ongoing struggle against armed groups. He called upon Malian stakeholders and the international partners to intensify their support for the implementation of the Peace and Reconciliation Agreement in Mali, notably the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration process, in order to achieve reconciliation between the different communities of Mali. (@rukhshanmir) ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 03rd Jan, 2019) Research into the conservation status of an iconic plant species found in the ecosystems of Namibias Namib Desert and studies of a critically-endangered tree species and a recently-rediscovered flowering plant from Brazil are to receive support from the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, according to a list of newly-agreed grants on the Funds website. The Welwitschia (Welwitschia mirabilis) is believed to play a crucial ecological role in the Namib Desert but its conservation status is largely unknown. Available data indicates highly variable population densities across the species range, with uncommon to rare individuals in the Kunene subrange, while threats include climate change, ecotourism, domestic livestock and mining. The main aim of the project, being undertaken by the Institute of Research on Territorial Ecosystems, CNR-IRET, of the National Research Council of Italy, is to lay the basis for the development of a long-term management plan for this species, by collecting relevant information in the Kunene subrange of Welwitschia. This will help to define the area of occupancy of the species in this remote region, allowing identification of priority areas for conservation and planning management activities. In Brazil, the Parana Pine (Araucaria angustifolia) is a species of conifer tree whose seeds have traditionally been exploited as a source of food and income in local rural societies. During the last century, Araucaria populations were decimated by intense logging activities and the tree is now classified as being critically endangered with extinction, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, IUCN. Currently, logging of native populations of Araucaria, found mainly in the highlands of southern Brazil, is prohibited. Local communities use cattle and fire for land management in nearby high-altitude grasslands and the project, being undertaken by Brazils Federal University of Santa Catarina, will examine how past and present land use and management affect the population dynamics of the species. Also in Brazil, another project being supported by the Fund is research into Mollimedia stenophylla, a recently rediscovered and critically endangered species of flowering plant known only from a narrow area of rainforest in Rio de Janeiro state. This project involves fieldwork to search for new subpopulations of the species in the wild and of other related species in the same area. Work will be undertaken on the genetic diversity of Mollinedia stenophylla while an assessment will be done of the risk of extinction for this and three other related species. An action plan for the conservation of endemic plant species in Rio de Janeiro state will also be updated. The research will be undertaken by the University of Sao Paulo. Other projects involving plants in the latest round of grants being awarded by the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund are being supported in Cameroon, Kenya, Ghana, Cuba and India. Established in 2008, the Fund has so far given a total of just over US$18 million to 1,924 conservation projects, covering over 1,200 species and sub-species of plants and animals. (@ChaudhryMAli88) The Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) rehabilitated six parks in the city and established a new park in Muzaffarabad during the year 2018. MULTAN, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 3rd Jan, 2019 ) :The Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) rehabilitated six parks in the city and established a new park in Muzaffarabad during the year 2018 The Authority had been given Rs 700 million funds during the fiscal year 2017-18 for rehabilitation of two historical parks of the city including Aam Khas Bagh and Bagh Langay Khan. The PHA also rehabilitated four other parks including Water Works Road Park, Bagheechi Park, Toya Kani Wala Park and C-Block Shah Rukan-e-Alam Park with department's own resources. A spokesman for PHA Jalaluddin told APP here Thursday that Rs 50 million funds had been spent on these parks from department's own resources. He told this news agency that PHA had also established a new Linear Park at Muzaffarabad area and the district administration had provided funds of Rs 14 million for the project, while remaining amount had been spent from department's own resources. The PHA had given contract to a private party for recovery of publicity fee of Rs 165 million in the fiscal year 2017-18 while the contract of publicity fee was given to private party for recovery of publicity fee of Rs 195 million in fiscal year 2018-19, which has been cancelled due to some reasons, Jalaluddin added. Milledgeville, GA (31061) Today Isolated thunderstorms this evening, then skies turning partly cloudy after midnight. Low near 70F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight Isolated thunderstorms this evening, then skies turning partly cloudy after midnight. Low near 70F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%. Fire trucks from Gruver, Estherville and Milford were among the procession for the funeral of Randy Cody Wednesday morning. The fire trucks lined 140th Street near Grandview Baptist Church where the funeral was held. Cody has been a firefighter since 1974, serving as Estherville Fire Chief from 2002-2005. The past few years, Cody served with the Gruver Fire Department. Cody was honored with one final page by the Emmet County dispatcher at the conclusion of the funeral with a last call for firefighter Randy Cody followed by a 10-42 code (which stands for ending tour of duty) marked for the date of his death on Dec. 26, 2018. Photo by David Swartz The Emmet County board of supervisors met Wednesday morning, the first business day of 2019 for its first session of the year. The supervisors elected John Pluth as chair and Jeff Quastad as vice-chair of the board. There are currently four supervisors as Bev Juhl retired Dec. 31. A committee led by Emmet County auditor Amy Sathoff will decide whether to appoint a new supervisor or hold a special election to fill the vacancy. The supervisors themselves have no say in appointing their new member. The county has 40 days to seat a new supervisor. Forty days out from Dec. 31 would be Feb. 9. As that is a Saturday, Feb. 11 is the deadline. Emmet County citizens interested in an appointment or getting a possible special election ballot should contact the auditors office very soon. The supervisors also made appointments to boards and committees and allocated the second half of the fiscal year 2019 budget, which runs through June 30. The supervisors also made plans to solicit competitive bids for an accounting firm to perform the county audit for the next three years. The supervisors went into closed session for an employment matter at the end of its meeting. The next meeting of the Emmet County board of supervisors will be Tuesday, Jan. 8 at 9 a.m. in the board room of the Emmet County courthouse. For full access, please log in, register your subscription or subscribe. Try for 99 a month for two months, cancel or pause anytime. During the meeting Trump asked Department of Homeland Security officials to "make a plea" for his wall. Donald Trump and top congressional leaders failed to resolve a partial government shutdown that has stretched well into a second week as the president refused to back off from his demands for billions of dollars for a long-promised wall along the southern U.S. border with Mexico. Democratic and Republican leaders from both chambers were invited to the the White House's Situation Room, the inner sanctum for classified meetings, on Wednesday for a "border security briefing," The Guardian reported. During the meeting Trump asked Department of Homeland Security officials to "make a plea" for his wall. Read alsoWhether Russia invades Ukraine could depend on Trump - media At a cabinet meeting prior to the briefing, Trump warned that parts of the government would could remain closed for a "a long time" without a deal. "We're asking the president to open up government," Nancy Pelosi, who is expected to assume the speakership of the House of Representatives on Thursday, said after the briefing with Trump. "We are giving him a Republican path to do that. Why would he not do it?" The shutdown was triggered by Trump's demand that Congress allocate more than $5 billion in taxpayer money to build a wall along the 2,000-mile border between the U.S. and Mexico a concession Democrats refuse to make. The shutdown, which entered its 12th day on Wednesday, has affected nearly 800,000 federal workers. The incoming House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, said Trump invited leaders back to the White House on Friday. Pelosi said the Democrats will still vote on Thursday, as Congress starts its new session with the Democratic party in the majority in the House after victories in the midterm elections last November. Democrats intend to introduce a pair of funding bills that would end the shutdown, but without money for a border wall. The proposal includes $1.3 billion for border security measures that can be used to repair and replace fencing and existing portions of the wall. The Russian-led forces did not use proscribed weapons. Russian-led military forces mounted five attacks on Ukrainian positions in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, in the past day; no Ukrainian army casualties were reported. "There were no Joint Forces casualties in the past day," Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) press service said in its morning update on Facebook on January 3. Read alsoUkrainian military serviceman gone missing in Donbas warzone The enemy shelled Ukrainian positions near the village of Khutir Vilny close to the village of Stanytsia Luhanska in the Luhansk sector, using grenade launchers of various systems, large-caliber machine guns and small arms. Attacks were also reported near the village of Opytne in the Donetsk sector and the village of Vodiane in the Mariupol sector. Pisky in the Donetsk sector was under enemy sniper fire. The Russian-led forces did not use proscribed weapons. According to intelligence reports, one enemy troop was killed and three were injured on January 2 over careless handling of weapons. Since Thursday midnight, Russian-led forces have not opened fire. Ukrainians can travel to more than 100 countries without visas. Visa-free travel to the European Union has already been used by two million Ukrainians since it was launched in June 2017. "Two million Ukrainians have already made use of the visa-free regime with the EU! The visa-free [mode] works!" Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wrote on Facebook on January 3. Now Ukrainian citizens can travel to more than 100 countries without visas. Read alsoCitizens of 52 countries to be able to apply for Ukraine's e-visa from January 1 "And we continue opening the world to the Ukrainians, and Ukraine to the world!" he added. Visa-free travel to the countries of the European Union with the United Kingdom and Ireland being an exception became available to citizens of Ukraine with biometric passports on June 11, 2017. They can also travel without visas to such non-EU members as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland, which are part of the Schengen zone. The minister also suggested the U.S. and EU be included in the Normandy format of talks. Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz has offered setting up a position of Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Ukraine. "I propose a Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Ukraine," the minister told Germany's Handelsblatt. "And I think the U.S. and the EU should be introduced in the so-called Normandy format of Germany, France, Ukraine, and Russia. Read alsoNord Stream 2 kills Ukraine Poland's Foreign Minister He has noted that France and Germany do not represent all Europe. "We can only be represented by European institutions, in this case the High Representative, not other States," said Czaputowicz. Asked if Poland and Germany share the same policy towards Russia and Ukraine, the foreign minister said: "Generally, we do. We have a common European position: that Russia is in this case the aggressor state, that we do not accept the annexation of Crimea and Russia's interference in Donbas, and that the Russian crackdown on Ukrainian ships in the Sea of Azov was an act of aggression." "To a certain extent, we also agree on the EU's reaction toward Russian aggression, sending a signal to Russia through sanctions," the minister added. "But we want clearer measures, since we are closer to the U.S. than many European partners." The top diplomat says the move aims to ensure safety of Ukrainian nationals who may become victims of FSB persecution. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has explained the reason behind Ukraine's recent decision to close down five of the country's foreign polling stations earlier set up at diplomatic institutions in the Russian territory. The main motive explaining the closure of polling stations in Russia is, of course, security," the minister wrote in an oped for the Ukrayinska Pravda e-zine. "And its not even about such things as possible infiltration of election commissions by FSB agents, their influence on them, and much more. Above all, we are concerned about the safety of Ukrainian citizens who, despite administrative and propaganda pressure, still decide to become members of election commissions or simply report to the polls," wrote Klimkin. In his opinion, "there is no doubt that all those who will take part in the voting will surely end up under the FSB scrutiny, risking to shortly become victims of repression." Read alsoRussia preparing for different scenarios on Ukraine: Military expert Klimkin recalled that dozens of Ukrainian political prisoners and prisoners of war had already been thrown behind bars across Russia on trumped-up charges. The foreign minister has also noted that there are more than 2.5 million Ukrainian citizens staying in Russia at the moment. "Whatever the motives of their stay in the territory of the aggressor state, we are concerned about them," said Klimkin. Read alsoPresidential campaign kicks off in Ukraine In addition, he cited data on the turnout in the previous presidential elections, where the number of Ukrainians who participated in the voting there was small. "Please note that in the extraordinary presidential elections of 2014, a total of 49,418 people had been put on voter lists, with only 1,134 of them actually voting," Klimkin said. The Foreign Minister added that Ukrainians, who are staying in Russia temporarily, will be able to vote in Ukraine at their place of permanent residence. They only need to make sure that they are included in the voter lists. "Those who live in Russia permanently will have the opportunity to vote in the embassies of Ukraine in Georgia, Finland, and Kazakhstan. Detailed instructions regarding the protocol can be found on the websites of our diplomatic missions," Klimkin said. Read alsoRussian media aim to destabilize Ukraine ahead of elections"We believe that holding free and fair elections on the territory of the aggressor state is impossible and devoid of political and legal sense, while for those who decide to take part, it is simply dangerous," the minister stressed. As reported earlier, on December 27, 2018, the Central Election Commission liquidated five foreign polling stations established at Ukrainian diplomatic missions in the Russian Federation. At the same time, the CEC expanded the coverage of polling stations set up at the embassies of Ukraine in Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Finland, to allow Ukrainian citizens registered with the liquidated stations to cast their ballot. The 88th General Assembly of the Iowa state legislature begins Jan. 14. Feb. 15 is the final day for individual Senator and Representative requests for bill and joint resolution drafts to the Legislative Services Agency. This means citizens who wish for their representative to forward a bill or resolution this session should do so well before that final day. Emmet Countys state legislators, Rep. Tedd Gassman and Sen. Dennis Guth, shared their forecasts and hopes for the coming legislative session. Schools Tedd Gassman serves the seventh House district of Iowa. Gassman said, One of the first things to tackle will be supplemental state aid for our K-12 schools. I will strive to have that done by the middle of February. State coffers look a bit better than the past few years. We are also being asked by many different entities for more funds. We must balance the budget in the end being as fair as possible to all those entities. On the Senate side, Dennis Guth, senator for Iowas fourth Senate district, said, One tax we will discuss is the extension of the S.A.V.E sales tax used for school infrastructure. It is set to sunset in 2029. Since schools use this tax to secure bonding for new projects, they would like to see it extended, perhaps indefinitely. If S.A.V.E is extended this year, I believe it will include a requirement for a public hearing before it can be used, or reduction in other taxes to make the net effect revenue neutral. Gassman said the issue of school transportation for K-12 has a good start. Some of the smallest communities are looking for help with changes to our EMC program, Gassman said. Health care Gassman and Guth agreed health care and managed care organizations (MCOs) had issues, and the outcome for Iowans may not be resolved quickly. Guth said, The problems [with MCOs] seem to have been getting worked out, but it certainly isnt perfect yet. There will be discussion about several possibilities, but the outcome is unpredictable at this point. Gassman said the fee for service system is not likely to be effective for everyone in need of state-subsidized health care. I think the MCO system is a good idea. There are possibilities to help those on Medicaid to live a healthier lifestyle, thus helping them and the state. Gassman added, There are a number of people that an MCO probably cant help. Those that have more severe mental and physical health problems need the states help as opposed to managing their care. They need help getting ready for the day, during the day, and at the end of the day with the actions of everyday living. I will look into putting those people back on a fee for service option. Personal values in law Guth said, The restoration of religious freedom is close to my heart, and I will again be introducing legislation to restore our First Amendment freedoms. The Supreme Court of the U.S. weakened those freedoms in the 1990s when they ruled that the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act only applies to federal law. The passage of this Act would require state and local governments not restrict the free exercise of religion unless there is a compelling government interest to do so, such as safety. Gassman expressed his continuing concern over the high divorce rate, and said he would seek changes to Iowas divorce and child custody laws. We have a multitude of children living in homes where only one of the natural parents is present. This can be due to divorce or single parenthood. This is not working. I think a lot of our current problems with mental health and suicide with our children can be brought back to a divorce. Gassman said he would change the no fault divorce law to mutual consent divorce. Both members of that marriage will have to come to a consensus before the divorce would be granted. Child custody would be a part of this process. Both members of the marriage would have to agree to a settlement before a divorce is granted if minor children are involved. Gassman said there are further aspects to his proposal he intends to discuss with constituents or in a future press release. Other issues Guth said, With the low unemployment in Iowa, this would be a good time to attempt to put more people to work by limiting welfare. There seems to be support for the idea of making welfare programs less of a comfortable deal for the long term. Guth also said privatizing the transportation of alcohol in the state will provide better service for smaller retailers and save the state money. Guth said this would be one way to combine services and reduce the number of state employees. The session continues for 110 calendar days and is scheduled to end May 3. The process of Ukraine's own church becoming independent from Moscow is irreversible the fact Russia is just unable to grasp. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine is in the final stretch of receiving from Constantinople a long-sought tomos of autocephaly, leaving the ROC and its satellites furious with these developments. The Russian Orthodox Church and its Ukrainian subsidiary formerly known as the Moscow Patriarchate have been insistently claiming that Ukrainian authorities are forcing their clerics and laity to switch to the new church. Moreover, they voice sinister warnings that physical violence and an actual war could flare up in the process of creating and forming the newly established Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the Information Resistance OSINT group reports. It should be noted that such statements have nothing to do with reality, since there are numerous facts indicating the opposite, i.e. MP exerting pressure on its priests and parishioners to prevent their transition into the newly established OCU. Besides, the rhetoric of top Russian officials regarding the tomos for Ukraine shows their extremely aggressiveness and belligerence. Speaker of the Federation Council, Valentina Matvienko, went as far as branding the creation of a unified local church in Ukraine a crime, repeating the thesis that this "could lead to war." Calling white what's black and vice versa is a long-time favorite practice of Russian leaders, which not only borders with frank cynicism and hypocrisy but also goes in conflict with common sense. Read alsoU.S. Secretary Pompeo underscores U.S. support for religious freedom in Ukraine In this regard, it's important to recall that the process of transition of parishes to the OCU remains voluntary and that it will be held in accordance with long-established church canons and norms. Every day, more and more parishes turn under the jurisdiction of the newly established Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and this process is already irreversible. Russian leaders, and now the ROC, too, have been stepping on the same rakes of failing to realize such irreversibility, as well as the reasons that led to this. Moreover, they keep trying to somehow hinder the process. Patriarch Kirill has been complaining to various international institutions, as well as heads of churches and leaders of individual states, sending letters and urging them to boycott and prevent the handing of the tomos to Ukraine, which only confirms the idea. Just a few days before the tomos will be granted to Ukraine, Patriarch Kirill wrote to Bartholomew, once again urging him to reverse his intentions on Ukraine, and also threatened His Holiness he would lose primacy in the Orthodox world. This is nothing but the ROC exceeding its authority, disrespecting the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and being unwilling to stop the escalation of tensions in Ukrainian and global Orthodoxy. As regards setting up provocations and sparking violence, Russia and its security agencies have developed a whole mechanism, including the methods of their promotion in media. Therefore, no one will have any doubts about the artificial nature of possible provocations and clashes, as well as Russia directly profiting from such incidents. Read alsoMetropolitan Epifaniy: No seizure of ex-UOC-MP's temples by force (Video) The current complicated state of the divided Ukrainian Orthodoxy is a result of the ROC ignoring the appeal of the UOC Bishops Council of 1991 about autocephaly. Had the autocephaly been proclaimed for the Ukrainian Church immediately after the country regained independence in 1991, the split that began in 1989 could have been avoided. The ROC has accused Constantinople of the Heresy of Papism, while the concept of Third Rome remains very popular with the Moscow Patriarchate, according to which the ROC itself must lead the Diptych, which is a flagrant violation of ecclesiastical rules of the Ecumenical and Local Councils. "The granting of tomos to Ukraine and the formation of its own autocephalous church is a matter of time, being the logical and natural course of things. Also, it is the triumph of historical justice. But apparently, Russia just doesn't learn anything from history," the experts conclude. Taras Chornovil Slovakia is starting its 12-month chairmanship in OSCE with Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak at its lead. Back in December, Lajcak announced that he would make his first Donbas visit as a chair. Ukraine has high hopes for the new head of the OSCE and counts on "effective cooperation and a more proactive and ambitious role of the OSCE SMM in relation to Donbas and Crimea, as well as the waters of the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait." In particular, this is what Poroshenko and Klimkin said, congratulating Slovakia and Mr Lajcak on the matter. Russia in the OSCE very often exploits the right to veto However, usually, no fundamental changes occur in the OSCE work after the change of presidency in the organization. Since the OSCE is a collective body, the decisions are made there in a very well-known method, traditional for the UN Security Council. Namely, decisions are made by a cardinal majority, with an advantage in arguments, but most importantly, there is a veto power. Russia in the OSCE very often exploits the right to veto. Moreover, this right can be used not only for decision-making, but also for expressing the official position of OSCE leaders, official statements by OSCE mission chiefs, etc. Ukraine was often outraged by certain OSCE statements related to the events in Donbas, amazed by their blindness to the obvious things. But in reality, members of the mission do see everything, while also understanding two things. The first one is that Russia is one of the OSCE sponsors. Accordingly, if it ceases to sponsor the organization, the OSCE office will have to significantly reduce its salaries and expenses. For Ukraine, Slovakia's chairmanship in the OSCE will perhaps be beneficial due to the fact that it will be easier for the Ukrainian authorities to get in touch with Slovak leaders and to pitch Ukraine's position The second thing is that Russia, as well as any other country (but others have never abused this right), can very easily force the speakers and the missions to refrain from tough statements. However, the latter does not apply to the formal OSCE leaders such as the leaders of Slovakia will now be. However, one should admit that the influence of the OSCE chair is rather small. Therefore, For Ukraine, Slovakia's chairmanship in the OSCE will perhaps be beneficial due to the fact that it will be easier for the Ukrainian authorities to get in touch with Slovak leaders and to pitch Ukraine's position. After all, Slovakia is a rather small country, which tends to be closer to Ukraine in many respects due to economic relations and certain interests of its own. Plus, Slovakia has good relations and contacts with Poland, the country that protects the interests of Ukraine in international organizations. Therefore, Ukraine can more easily convey its position to the leaders of Slovakia and expect them to be more proactive in lobbying for its positions than, say, representatives of larger states, where such procedure is too complicated. But, be aware, this will not have a direct impact on the OSCE decision-making, because the OSCE is a collective body. With regard to the internal position of Slovakia itself, on the one hand, rather warm personal relations have formed between Poroshenko and the president of Slovakia. But, on the other hand, there is a big problem, that is, the presence in Slovakia of pro-Russian politicians and large groups supporting such political forces. Thus, thanks to this, a pro-Russian Andrej Danko managed to become speaker of the Slovak Parliament. And he's not some marginal politician in Slovakia. Pro-Russian parties in Slovakia enjoy a significant influence there. But we need to pay our dues to the Slovak parliament that does not pass decisions that are disadvantageous to Ukraine. Its head though does make some unpleasant statements. Therefore, it will be a little easier for Ukraine in a purely technical way, in terms of reaching understanding between OSCE and Ukrainian leaders So, during OSCE's interparliamentary contacts (there is a format for parliamentary delegations there), Ukraine should be prepared for the fact that Slovakia's voice will not always be too pleasing, to put it mildly. But the voice of formal OSCE leaders, the leaders of the Slovak state, will be acceptable for Ukraine today. But once again, I emphasize that this can only be a statement of Ukraine's position in the general forums and a more proactive policy to advance Ukraine's requirements and ideas. Perhaps, it will channel Ukraine's ideas quicker. That's because Ukraine's relations with Slovakia are simpler and less formal. That is, Poroshenko or Klimkin could simply phone their Slovak counterparts at any time and ask for a certain initiative at the OSCE and there will be no need to go through a chain of previous agreements through the embassies and ministries of foreign affairs. Therefore, the contacts between the Ukrainian and Slovak leadership will be easier, the pace of initiatives will grow, while consequences will depend on the general position of the OSCE and Russia's veto. But should Ukraine hope that the OSCE observers monitoring the situation in Donbas "see things clearer"? OSCE observers are part of a completely different structure that is controlled by the OSCE Office, which is formed for a long period of time. When OSCE observers are brought to Donbas, they suddenly begin "seeing things better" and making certain statements that are promising for Ukraine. But this is just because they feel like heroes because they "went to war," some 500 meters from the line of demarcation. Remember, when Austria chaired the OSCE, Sebastian Kurtz tried to somehow influence the formation of the OSCE mission, its composition, and position, but this never yielded any result. So, it will be a little easier for Ukraine in a purely technical way, in terms of reaching understanding between OSCE and Ukrainian leaders. But in terms of effectiveness, Ukraine should not expect radical changes in the OSCE work in its favor. Taras Chornovil is a Ukrainian political analyst, expert on international politics, and a former MP UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is concerned about the safety of vulnerable individuals from Syria, Yemen and Palestine who are reportedly stranded at Algerias southern border with Niger. UNHCR received information that the group, comprising some 120 Syrian, Palestinian and Yemeni individuals, were detained at the Tamanrasset Centre in southern Algeria before being taken to an area near the Guezzam border post on 26 December. Some of the individuals in this group are known to UNHCR as registered refugees who have fled conflict and persecution or claim to have attempted to seek international protection in Algeria. According to information made available to UNHCR, 20 individuals from this group currently remain stranded in the desert, three kilometres from the Guezzam border post where they are exposed to the elements. The other 100 individuals who were taken to the border are unaccounted for. UNHCR is in contact with the Algerian authorities regarding this incident and advocating for access to assess their protection needs. However, in light of media reports in Algeria suggesting that these people were moved to the border with the agreement of UNHCR we wish to clarify that UNHCR has had no such involvement. Given the urgent humanitarian imperative in providing assistance to those stranded, UNHCR is appealing to the Algerian authorities for access to those individuals, to address humanitarian needs and to identify those in need of international protection and to ensure their safety. Recognising the challenges faced by Algeria in responding to mixed movements, UNHCR maintains regular communication with the authorities to address the situation of refugees and asylum seekers, who can be subject to arrest and removal. Algeria has opened its doors to some 50,000 Syrian refugees who have sought safety in the country and we appeal to the authorities to extend this hospitality to those who need it. While border management remains a sovereign prerogative of all governments, UNHCR reiterates that border security and international protection are not mutually exclusive. UNHCR underscores that any person whose life is at risk in their country of origin must be able to access territory and seek asylum in a safe country and each asylum request should be considered individually. Media contact: Ukrainian citizens most often travel to the countries of the European Union without visas through border checkpoints with Poland, Ukraine's State Border Guard Service has said. "The most active movement of Ukrainians under visa-free travel is recorded at border crossing points with Poland (694,000 crossings), as well as by air (674,000 crossings)," the statement reads. According to border guards, the Hungarian (248,000 crossings), Romanian (236,000) and Slovak (142,000) sections of the border remain active. The agency said that Ukrainian citizens enjoy the benefits of visa-free travel "more boldly," especially from the point of view of the expiration of the validity of visas issued earlier. In particular, 36,000 trips of Ukrainians without a visa were recorded in December 2017, and their number rose to 152,000 in December 2018, the report said. "The first million Ukrainians crossed the border with the EU countries without visas within almost 13 months, while the second million of our compatriots made their trips within five months," the State Border Guard Service added. President Petro Poroshenko said on Thursday, January 3, that two million Ukrainians had already enjoyed the benefits of visa-free travel with the EU since its introduction on June 11, 2017. Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers has approved a draft intergovernmental memorandum on the financing of the prosecution of those guilty of the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which took place in Donetsk region on July 17, 2014. A respective resolution, No. 1083-r of December 27, 2018, has been published on the government website. "By adopting the resolution, the government reaffirms its commitment to supporting the investigation with respect to persons suspected of shooting down flight MH17, in view of the international nature of the tragedy and in order to determine the damage done to all victims of the tragedy and to make the trial as accessible as possible to all close relatives of the victims," the explanatory note to the resolution says. It notes that a financial supervision committee will be set up and will be composed of representatives of the governments of Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine and the governments of those states whose citizens were affected by the disaster and who made a financial contribution to the trial. Ukraine's Ambassador to the Netherlands Vsevolod Chentsov was authorized to sign the memorandum from the Ukrainian side. It was reported earlier that the Netherlands was considering appealing to an international court on MH17 after negotiations with the Kremlin had stalled. Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over Donbas in July 2014. There were 283 passengers and 15 crewmembers on board the plane. All of them died. In September 2016, the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) said it had been established on the basis of irrefutable evidence that the plane had been shot down by a 9M38 Buk missile launched from the territory controlled by pro-Russian militants in the eastern part of Ukraine. In addition, the JIT said on May 24 that the Buk missile system from which the aircraft was downed belongs to the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces stationed in Kursk. By Janice Phelan, January 3, 2019 In January 2015, Randi Perrys college experience was unexpectedly cut short when she was seriously injured in an automobile accident while commuting from Independence to the University of Central Missouri (UCM) Warrensburg campus. After a short period as a homebound student, the busy mother of two children found herself unable to return to college due to her injuries. Fortunately, Perry learned about the KC Scholars and KC Degrees programs through a KC Degrees navigator, Carrie Barnes, and is working toward degree completion. She attends classes at UCMs Missouri Innovation Campus, located in Lees Summit. I returned in August 2018 as a KC Scholar ready to conquer this dream of mine and move on with my life, Perry said. Truly these programs have changed my life. Thanks to financial resources provided through KC Scholars, a total of seven adult learners are working toward higher-education certificates or degree completion at the University of Central Missouris Lees Summit and Warrensburg campuses. KC Scholars and KC Degrees work together in providing scholarship funding and helping students navigate within the higher-education system. The programs are designed to increase access for low- and modest-income students and adults. KC Degrees and KC Scholars are important to degree completion for students who would not have returned to college without this financial boost, said Brenda Fuhr, lead coordinator of student transition and engagement at UCM Lees Summit. In my experience one of the main reasons people stop pursuing higher education is money, and these programs reduce that barrier for students who want to reconnect to college. For Perry, an elementary education major planning to graduate in May 2020, the scholarship programs are making a tremendous difference. Returning to school being able to finish my degree with no accruing debt is huge for my family, she said. I have a husband who is pursuing his masters degree at this time, and we have two children who are 11 and 12. My returning to school has been quite the burden on my family, and this scholarship took away so much of the worry and stress. Perry also praised the UCM staff as well as the convenience of the Missouri Innovation Campus. Brenda Fuhr (Perrys advisor) has been essential in making sure I am on the right track and following the correct path, she said. The professors I have encountered just recently here at UCM have been amazing. Its been such a wonderful experience. KC Scholars began approximately two years ago with the first adult learners returning to college in fall 2017. In addition to financial support for reconnecting adult learners (age 24 or older), KC Scholars offers traditional scholarships (high-school juniors) and a college savings account/match (high-school freshmen). Adults returning to college can receive up to $5,000 per semester to cover educational expenses for up to five years. Students using the scholarship full-time for five years are eligible to receive financial assistance totaling $50,000. The third application cycle for adult learners to apply for financial assistance begins Jan. 1. Learn more about eligibility and the application process on the KC Scholars website. Writer and performer Kyle Hernandez of Trinidad is receiving death threats, following a performance he did on local television station WESN, where he seemed to insult not only Tobagonians but the national bird of the island. Legislators on both sides of the aisle say improving access to health care for Oklahomans will be a priority in 2019. Every voter in Oklahoma should hold them to that promise. House Democrats have called for reconsideration of Medicaid expansion using money available from the Affordable Care Act. If Republican leaders wont allow the measure to be considered, the Democrats are threatening to mount an initiative petition campaign, as has been successful in GOP-controlled Idaho, Nebraska and Utah. Heres the fiscal reality of Medicaid expansion: Oklahomans have been paying the taxes to support it for years now, they just havent been getting anything in return, because the Legislature has stubbornly refused money offered at 9-to-1 match. The idea that the money would go away once Barack Obama left the White House is now proven wrong. Even Gov. Mary Fallin came around on the issue, eventually advocating during her second term for bringing the money into the state through the popular and successful Insure Oklahoma program. It was a good plan, and it still is. The refugee influx started the day after Sundays vote and since then dozens of people have been arriving at a time, said Irene Nakasiita, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Uganda. Some Congolese trying to cross the border were forced back after resisting the efforts of Ugandan health officials screening people for Ebola, she said. Trump says hes ready to meet again with Kim WASHINGTON President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he has received a letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and will be setting up a meeting with Kim in the not-too-distant future to restart talks about the Norths nuclear programs. Hed like to meet. Id like to meet, Trump said as he held up the letter during a Cabinet meeting. Earlier in the day, Trump tweeted: Kim Jong Un says North Korea will not make or test nuclear weapons, or give them to others & he is ready to meet President Trump anytime. Kim has met several times with the leader of South Korea and attended a summit in Singapore with Trump in June. Kim has signed vague statements pledging a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, but has not described how and when that might occur. A Coffeyville, Kansas, woman was killed in a head-on crash on U.S. 169 near the Rogers-Nowata county line Wednesday afternoon. Karon Allison, 60, was pronounced dead at the scene by Oologah-Talala EMS shortly after the crash about 1:30 p.m. Allison reportedly was driving north in a 2011 Ford Expedition when it crossed the center line and hit a southbound Kenworth tractor-trailer. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said in a news release that the crash was not weather-related. The highway was closed in both directions for about five hours, the OHP said. The traffic stop eventually led to the discovery of three large, vacuum-sealed bags containing a green leafy substance, as well as digital scales and baggies, the affidavit states. Nelsons attorney, Brecken Wagner, told the Tulsa World in February that the troopers version of Nelsons traffic violation was that she did not use a turn signal at least 100 feet before entering the ramp, an offense he said he had never seen in his career as a defense attorney. I think this is a perfect example of how quite commonly citizens rights are abused on our highways on a daily basis, Wagner said. Every time we allow the government to override someones constitutional rights, were getting further and further away from personal freedom. Nelson, who is board president of eCS Therapy Center, which provides medical cannabis education and research, said Wednesday that shes ready to move on from the incident but will continue to advocate against targeted traffic stops. For now, though, she said shes glad prosecutors understood the nature of the situation. I think the state in considering the evidence and the motions we were about to file realized we were traveling as patients and not as criminals, Nelson said. I think thats a huge recognition by the state of Oklahoma and the district attorney. Stetson Payne 918-732-8135 stetson.payne@tulsaworld.com Twitter: @stetson__payne That can only be answered after all the evidence has been developed and considered. We expect when that is done it will give rise to a number of factual and legal issues that we intend to pursue to the fullest extent of the law. An arrest affidavit alleges that Tan took restricted files containing battery-related technology that has earned Phillips 66 an estimated $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion in sales for an undisclosed product. The company planned to market the product in China and in cellphone and lithium-based battery systems, according to the affidavit. The company is one of two refineries in the world that manufacture the product, according to the affidavit. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel-Lyn McCormick said Tan went to a lot of effort to cover up the fact that he was going to leave the U.S. to work for a competitor in China. Tan allegedly told co-workers he was quitting Phillips so he could return to China to care for his elderly parents and that he didnt have a job lined up yet. An FBI agent has testified that Tans mother was staying with her son when they raided his Bartlesville apartment. Evidence presented during the preliminary hearing and in the arrest affidavit outlined how federal agents found a document on Tans laptop computer, via a search warrant, that purported to be a job offer from a Phillips 66 competitor at a state-owned company in Xiamen, China. Curtis Killman 918-581-8471 curtis.killman@tulsaworld.com Twitter: @loucardfan61 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Historically, the Farmers Union has represented smaller operators, and that may have been reflected in Detricks comments. Livestock need to be cared for and the feed bills need to be paid, he said. Expenses keep piling up. Producers operating with FSA Farm Credit loans cannot get their money in time to pay bills and are being hurt the most from this shutdown. Moesel, though, said he has heard few complaints. He said some farmers and ranchers have been unable to deposit government checks because they require the endorsement of an FSA official, but otherwise the impact has been minimal. Moesel allowed, though, that the situation could become more serious if the interruption in services continues. Particularly concerned are farmers eligible for payments to offset losses caused by the Trump administrations trade policy. Several Oklahomans familiar with the situation said most of those farmers primarily soybean growers were paid just ahead of the shutdown. But those who, for tax reasons, delayed filing until after the first of the year now face a Jan. 15 deadline. Halsey, asked why he agreed to take part in a comic convention, said, I like to do things, No. 1, that you have never done before. For instance: Halsey manages the Oak Ridge Boys. He said the groups newest album was introduced on every available platform, including Thomas Edisons phonograph cylinder. Halsey said the record company predicted the cylinders would not sell, but he said a limited number of cylinders were created and they sold out. Said Halsey: There are enough aficionados around and collectors that it was a great collectors item and there hadnt been music on a Thomas Edison cylinder since, I think, 1936, and that was Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. Getting back to the subject of his comic convention debut, Halsey is intrigued by the comic con phenomenon. I have paid attention to that over the years, and it has always been interesting to me because so many people attend, he said. Its like a fan club of people. It is all walks of life. Everybody is interested in it. Cloud County Community College has announced scholarship awards to students for the spring 2019 semester. Megan Olson of Owasso was among several students to receive a scholarship, provided through the colleges CCCC Foundation. Olson was presented with a Cooperative Service Association Scholarship to the two-year community and technical school, based out of Concordia, Kansas. The CCCC Foundation has been providing 30 years of financial support for the students of Cloud County. Likewise, the Foundation has allotted approximately $520,000 in scholarships over the last three years. Fall semester honor rolls at Northwestern Oklahoma State University have been announced by the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs. Shelby Gibbs and Heidi Hoffman-Fuh of Owasso made the Presidents Honor Roll; Choua Moua of Owasso made the Vice Presidents Honor Roll; and Landon Harvey of Collinsville made the Vice Presidents Honorable Mention Honor Roll. Those on the Presidents Honor Roll earned all As, or a 4.0 GPA, in a minimum of 12 undergraduate or nine graduate hours. Those on the Vice Presidents list had GPAs of 3.5 or better in a minimum of 12 undergraduate or nine graduate hours. Undergraduate students on the honorable mention lists had 4.0 or 3.5 GPAs, respectively, in a minimum of three to a maximum of 11 semester hours. Graduate students on those rolls were enrolled in a minimum of three to a maximum of eight semester hours. To be listed on any of the rolls, students could not have any incomplete work. - John Ngigi has been asked to take leave for 30 days with immediate effect - He is the county committee member in charge of Agriculture - The county official was also ordered to surrender all any county property Kiambu Governor Ferdinand Waititu has sent brother to Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria on a one-month compusory leave with immediate effect. John Ngigi Kuria who is the county committee member in charge of Agriculture was also ordered to surrender all any county property to chief officer in the Livestock, Fisheries and Veterinary services department. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens. READ ALSO: Huyu ndiye kijana aliyefuzu na shahada ya 'Masters' akiwa na umri mdogo zaidi Kenya? Moses Kuria addressing Thika residents during new year celebration. Photo: Moses Kuria/Facebook. Source: Facebook READ ALSO: Busia Governor Sospeter Ojaamong' calls on Teso community to work with Ruto ahead of 2022 Though the letter gives little hint on what could have led to the surprise decision, Waititu noted the county official has not taken leave for long due to busy nature of the office. "It has been noted that you have not taken you annual leave for sometimes due to the busy nature of your office. You are therefore advised to proceed for your annual 30 days leave with effect from Thursday, January 3. You will be required to resume duty on Tuesday, February 14th February," read the letter. This comes after the Gatundu South lawmaker ridiculed some of the governor's policies especially the war on illicit brew. During the new year celebration at Thika Stadium, Kuria also expressed concerns about President Uhuru Kenyatta's failure to reward Mt Kenya despite voting for him almost to the last man. Kazi yetu ni kupiga kura na baada ya kupiga kura maendeleo tunapeana kwingine. ujinga tuache. Kufungua maji kwingine, kufungua barabara kwingine, kufungua stima kwingine, said a furious Kuria. This loosely translates to: We cannot be voting politicians into power and they take development projects elsewhere. We should stop that nonsense. Water, roads and electricity projects are opened in other areas. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news Christmas Celebrations In Kenya 2018 - TUKO TV Source: Tuko A Tanzanian church is still reeling in shock after learning the death of a man who was minutes away from tying the knot. Evelin Makupa passed away in bizarre circumstances on Saturday, December 29, as he was eagerly preparing for his wedding. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens According to the Church priest, it was a shocking death in many ways especially since the deceased was not suffering from any diseases on the short term. As a matter of fact, it is reported that the late Makupa only started feeling unwell once he was in church for the wedding. READ ALSO: Demonstrations planned against Nyakach Girls High School over lesbianism, poor performance The couple had already followed the due steps to get married including several marriage counselling sessions. On the wedding day, everything was going as planned and the groom was in church waiting for his bride to arrive when he fell ill, he explained. READ ALSO: DPP Noordin Haji blames courts yet again for frustrating criminal cases after barring Ojienda corruption case He goes on to divulge that the groom, after waiting for his bride who was running late, developed some breathing difficulties and this prompted some staunch members of the church to engage in brief prayers for him. While it was initially thought the groom was simply anxious because of his big day, they eventually decided to rush him to hospital, since the bride was yet to arrive. It remains unclear what caused his death but doctors at the hospital he was rushed into said he could have been suffering from high blood pressure. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news Christmas Celebrations In Kenya 2018| Tuko TV: Source: Tuko.co.ke I am repeatedly asked by various stakeholders whether Covid-19 vaccination could be made mandatory, so today I offer some initial thoughts. This is not a clear-cut legal question and there are good arguments on both sides. There is no law, precedent or policy which governs the matter at present. Labour law, public health and human rights issues intermingle and ultimately, what is reasonable and in the majority interest would likely prevail. Your Holiday Shopping Magazine to Emporia and area businesses. Also visit ShopEmporiaKansas.com to shop Emporia businesses who are online. Start your online shopping here. VIEW NOW National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds says theres no secrecy surrounding a small gift of Pfizer vaccines given to the National Security Ministry by the United States government. In a telephone interview with the Express yesterday, the minister said the small vaccine gift of 80 vials of Pfizer amounted to about 400 doses of the vaccine. However, the arrival of these vaccines generated curiosity in the country as to exactly how the batch came to Trinidad and the handover process as well as who exactly will benefit from the shots. THIRD Horizon Film Festival in Miami celebrates an exciting new wave of cinema and creativity emerging from the Caribbean and its Diaspora. Deemed one of the 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World by MovieMaker magazine in 2019, the Third Horizon Film Festival returns for its fifth edition. This year the festival will be hosted hybrid style with a thoughtfully curated mix of in-person and virtual screenings beginning June 24, 2021, through July 1, 2021, in Miami, Florida, USA. amansharma@tribunemail.com Riyadh, January 3 Saudi Arabia's attorney general sought the death penalty for five of 11 defendants charged with the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi as their high-profile trial opened in Riyadh on Thursday. All 11 accused were present with their lawyers at the opening hearing in the capital, according to a statement by the attorney general carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. The attorney general said Saudi Arabia had twice submitted formal requests for evidence from Turkey -- where Khashoggi was murdered inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate -- but had received no response. The names of the defendants have not been officially released. Five top officials in Saudi Arabia, including royal court insider Saud al-Qahtani, were sacked over the Khashoggi murder, but there is no proof that they are among those charged. Khashoggi, a contributor to the Washington Post, was murdered on October 2 in what Riyadh called a "rogue" operation. The 59-year-old Saudi insider-turned-critic was strangled and his body cut into pieces by a team of 15 Saudis sent to Istanbul for the killing, according to Turkish officials. There have been reports that his remains, which have never been found, were dissolved in acid. The defence team on Thursday requested a copy of the indictment sheet and a timeframe within which to review the charges. The prosecutor agreed to both requests, SPA said. No date has been set for the next hearing. The Khashoggi murder shocked the world at a time when Saudi Arabia and its de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, were pushing an aggressive public relations campaign to rebrand the ultraconservative monarchy as a modern state. Among Prince Mohammed's strongest allies is US President Donald Trump, who now faces increased pressure to approve measures against Saudi Arabia. The US has sanctioned 17 Saudi citizens in connection with the Khashoggi murder. France and Canada have also sanctioned Saudi Arabian nationals. The US Central Intelligence Agency has reportedly concluded that Prince Mohammed very likely ordered Khashoggi's murder. A bipartisan resolution approved by the US Senate last month also holds the crown prince responsible for the killing. But in November the Saudi attorney general ruled out any involvement by the young crown prince, whose reformist credentials abroad have been seriously tarnished by the murder. The Khashoggi affair has also given Turkey-allied with Saudi rivals Qatar and Iran-unusual leverage in regional power plays. Ankara has sought the extradition of the suspects in Saudi custody to stand trial in Turkey but its requests have been repeatedly rebuffed by Riyadh. Rights groups and the United Nations have called for an independent investigation into Khashoggi's death, with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres last month calling for a "credible" probe. "Given the possible involvement of Saudi authorities in Khashoggi's murder and the lack of independence of Saudi Arabia's criminal justice system, the impartiality of any investigation and trial would be in question," Samah Hadid, a Middle East director at Amnesty International, told AFP on Thursday. "This is why a UN-led and independent investigation is needed into the murder of Khashoggi." - AFP shalender@tribune.com Riyadh, January 3 Saudi Arabias attorney general sought the death penalty for five of 11 defendants charged with the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi as their high-profile trial opened in Riyadh on Thursday. All 11 accused were present with their lawyers at the opening hearing in the capital, according to a statement by the attorney general carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. The attorney general said Saudi Arabia had twice submitted formal requests for evidence from Turkey-where Khashoggi was murdered inside the kingdoms Istanbul consulate-but had received no response. The names of the defendants have not been officially released. Five top officials in Saudi Arabia-including royal court insider Saud al-Qahtani-were sacked over the Khashoggi murder, but there is no proof that they are among those charged. Khashoggi, a contributor to the Washington Post, was murdered on October 2 in what Riyadh called a rogue operation. The 59-year-old Saudi insider-turned-critic was strangled and his body cut into pieces by a team of 15 Saudis sent to Istanbul for the killing, according to Turkish officials. There have been reports that his remains, which have never been found, were dissolved in acid. AFP shalender@tribune.com Washington, January 3 Democrats wasted no time flexing their new power in the US House of Representatives on Thursday as they maneuvered to pass legislation that would end a 13-day partial government shutdown while ignoring President Donald Trump's demand for $5 billion for a border wall. Thursday marks the first day of divided government in Washington since Trump took office in January 2017, as Democrats took control in the House from his fellow Republicans, who remain in charge of the Senate. The 2019-2020 Congress convened with roughly a quarter of the federal government closed, affecting 800,000 employees, in a shutdown triggered by Trump's demand last month for the money for a US-Mexican border wall opposed by Democrats as part of any legislation funding government agencies. Congressional leaders from both parties held unproductive talks with Trump at the White House on Wednesday and are to return for another round on Friday, a sign the shutdown is likely to continue for the rest of the week. The House formally picked veteran Democratic lawmaker Nancy Pelosi as its speaker, elevating the liberal from San Francisco for her second stint in one of Washington's most powerful jobs. The chamber then was expected to turn quickly to votes on the Democratic government funding legislation. The two-part Democratic package includes a Bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security at current levels through February 8, providing $1.3 billion for border fencing and $300 million for other border security items including technology and cameras. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled that the Democratic legislation has no future in the Senate, calling it political theater, not productive lawmaking. Let's not waste the time, he said on the Senate floor. After the November congressional elections, Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the Senate and Democrats have a 235-199 margin in the House with one seat undecided. Reuters No agreement yet to end logjam No agreement came out of a meeting between US congressional leaders and President Donald Trump to end a partial government shutdown now in its 12th day as the President stuck to his demand for $5 billion in border wall funding fiercely opposed by Democrats Congressional leaders are expected to return to the White House on Friday to resume talks, signaling the shutdown will likely stretch into the weekend The White House convened the meeting to try to convince Democrats that funding a wall on the southern border with Mexico was a pressing security need Pelosi elected Speaker for second time sanjiv@tribunemail.com IN our leading article we have drawn attention to that part of the Presidential address of the Hon. Mr. Fazl-ul-Haq at the annual meeting of the Muslim League at Delhi in which he deals with the Hindu-Muslim question in the spirit of true statesmanship, of absolute freedom from prejudice and racial feeling. There are other fine things in the address, such as his strong and energetic protest against restrictive measures like the Arms Act, the Press Act and the Defence of India Act, and his manly plea for the introduction of complete responsible government in India as early as may be found practicable. Unfortunately there are a few stray passages in the address which do not seem to us to be altogether compatible with other parts of the address, and with which we cannot certainly agree. amansharma@tribunemail.com New Delhi, January 3 Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader HS Phoolka, who has fought the legal battle for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots victims, resigned from the party on Thursday. The move comes amid speculation over possibility of an alliance between the Congress and the AAP for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. In a tweet, Phoolka said he will explain reason behind the move in a press briefing in Delhi on Friday. "I have resigned from AAP & handed over resignation to Kejriwal ji today. Though he asked me not to resign but I insisted. Will be briefing media tomorrow at 4pm at Press Club, Raisina Rd, New Delhi to explain the Reason of leaving AAP & my further plans," he wrote on Twitter. I have resigned from AAP & handed over resignation to Kejriwal ji today. Though he asked me not to resign but I insisted. Will be briefing media tomorrow at 4pm at Press Club, Raisina Rd, New Delhi to explain the Reason of leaving AAP & my further plans. H S Phoolka (@hsphoolka) January 3, 2019 The AAP has not denied alliance prospects with the Congress, saying its political affairs committee will take a call after considering opinion of its leaders and workers from Delhi, Punjab and Haryana. Former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar was recently convicted in an anti-Sikh riots case by the Delhi High Court, where Phoolka represented the victims. - PTI editorial@tribune.com Anirudh Gupta Ferozepur, January 2 The Rs 200-crore PGI satellite centre announced in 2013 is yet to see the light of day. Much to the dismay of people who have been clamouring for specialised healthcare facilities in the region, the project has seemingly become victim of political slugfest. Thousands of patients have to traverse long distances every day for specialised treatment, said JS Sodhi, president, Live Savers Club. Mandeep Kumar, president, Press Club, said the proposed centre would give a major fillip to the specialist healthcare needs for the people of the border region of the state, besides Rajasthan and parts of Haryana. It was high time that both the state and Centre should expedite the project without any further delay, he added. Of the two satellite centres announced for Sangrur and Ferozepur, OPD services have been started in Sangrur and its foundation stone laid, while the project in Ferozepur remains mired into procedural wrangles till date. Even the work on the construction of AIIMS in Bathinda that was sanctioned much later has started. Though after much dilly-dallying, the state government had approved the transfer of 25 acres belonging to the Horticulture Department at Malwal Qadim village to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for setting up this 100-bedded centre linked to the PGI, Chandigarh, its status remains uncertain. This matter was also placed before the PGIs governing body during its meeting in July this year during which it was decided to prepare detailed project report on the same, but till date nothing has been done. Congress MLA Parminder Singh Pinki said he would ensure that the foundation stone of this project was laid soon. He accused the previous SAD-BJP regime for delaying the project. He said a medical and nursing college would also be set up here soon. On two previous occasions, a high-level team of PGI officials visited the town to finalise the site, but without any tangible result. On the delay in approval of the project, a PGI official said: There was delay caused due to the issue in the transfer of land and some litigation issues also cropped up. However, the present proposed site belongs to the government and we see no hold ups in future. Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal, DC, said the administration would try that OPD services were started soon on the civil hospital premises till the building of the centre gets completed. Row over land Lydia Kautz/GazetteDr. Jennifer Esau (center), who served as NHR Chief of Medical Staff in 2018, received a token of appreciation from the hospital during a joint meeting with the Lyon County Commission Wednesday at the hospital. Pictured from left to right are Nancy Wells, Rob Gilligan, Esau, Scott Briggs, and Rollie Martin. editorial@tribune.com Aparna Banerji Tribune News Service Jalandhar, January 2 With the Prime Minster, two Cabinet ministers, the Governor and three Nobel laureates all set to congregate at the Jalandhar-based Lovely Professional University on the first day of the 106th Indian Science Congress starting tomorrow, over 3,500 police personnel will be deputed on the campus. While the university has been turned into a fortress, all vends and kiosks on the Jalandhar-Phagwara highway were removed for the PMs visit. A team of the Special Protection Force also conducted meetings with senior police functionaries. Traffic remained held up on the highway for long today as cops rehearsed for the PMs visit. All vehicles were diverted via alternative routes. Punjab DGP Suresh Arora addressed a meeting of all key police functionaries at LPU today. Forces from Hoshiarpur will also be deployed for the PMs visit. Sources said Punjab Police teams from Ludhiana and Amritsar would also come. As delegations of scientists started arriving today, cops dotted every area and checked every vehicle entering the campus. More than 30,000 people from all across India and abroad would gather on the LPU campus for the meet. A special optional helipad has been created on the university campus for the PMs departure to the Gurdaspur rally in the afternoon. Around 2 lakh students from across the country are expected to visit the university during the Science Congress. The venue from where Modi will address the gathering has a seating capacity of 25,000. Over 150 labs from key scientific and research institutions will set up exhibits at Pride of India expo. Nobel Laureates at meet amansharma@tribunemail.com Ravi Dhaliwal Tribune News Service Gurdaspur, January 3 Prime Minister Narendra Modi, addressing a rally here today, launched a blistering attack on the Congress on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and the farm loan waiver issue. He accused Congress governments in various states of making false promises to farmers on loan waivers. Amarinder Singh formed government in Punjab by pulling the wool over the farmers eyes and selling white lies, he claimed. On the other hand, his government, he said, had sanctioned grants for realignment of the Sirhind feeder canal. Once this is done, vast tracts of agriculture land in southern Punjab will get better irrigation facilities and Muktsar, Faridkot and Ferozepur districts will benefit in a big way. The PM attacked the Gandhi family for alleged patronage to perpetrators of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, including Sajjan Kumar. By appointing a tainted person as Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, the Gandhi family has proved it is rewarding those involved in the riots," he claimed, while pointing out that the accused were brought to book only after his government set up a special investigation team (SIT). Taking potshots at the Punjab Chief Minister, the PM wondered why the Congress government in Punjab was so keen to take credit for the opening of the Kartarpur Sahib corridor when the ground work was actually done by the NDA government. The PM did not announce any project for the backward border area even as he praised the late BJP Member of Parliament, Vinod Khanna, for several initiatives in the constituency. There was a buzz that the PM would announce an AIIMS, a railway wheel factory (RWF) and cane and wheat research centres. Starting his speech in Punjabi, the Prime Minister described Vinod Khanna and Dev Anand as two prodigal sons of Gurdaspur who catapulted the town to international fame. I am proud of a visionary leader like Vinod Khanna whose developmental works, including bridges to link Gurdaspur to mainland India, are noteworthy, he said. The rally was sponsored by Mumbai businessman Swaran Salaria, the BJP candidate for Gurdaspur during the 2017 bypoll. The 15,000-capacity pandal was jam-packed by the time the PM reached at 2 pm, an hour behind the scheduled time. As Modi ended his 30-minute speech without announcing any project, the crowd left the venue looking rather disappointed. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Moga, January 2 The Punjab Council of Engineers (PCE) has condemned the Punjab government for bringing in one-time policy to regularise illegal colonies and buildings. President of the PCE Kapil Arora claimed that any policy to regularise the colonies would be against the prevailing rule of law that was Punjab Municipal Corporation Act, 1976, and Punjab Town Improvement Act, 1922, under which all the building bylaws were notified by the state government from time to time. Claiming that laws and Acts were passed by the legislators to streamline the system, he said any policy in favour of violators and offenders was against Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India. This policy will have a negative effect on law abiding citizens and will demoralise them and motivate them to commit violations and also give boost to violators to continue breaking rules in future too, he said. We have requested the authorities that the violations done by offenders must be removed as per the existing laws. In case, such policy is still introduced, we will have no other option but to file a suitable remedy in the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, the PCE office-bearers warned the state government. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 2 The Punjab Cabinet today decided to constitute a sub-committee to study ways and means to regulate the use of water in the state through conservation and management of critical water resources. The sub-committee, comprising ministers Navjot Sidhu, Tripat Bajwa, Sukh Sarkaria and Razia Sultana, will visit Israel to study the water conservation model and examine the feasibility of its adoption in Punjab. The move comes days after the government withdrew the Punjab Water Resources (Management and Regulation) Bill, 2018, during the winter session of the Vidhan Sabha. As the issue came up at todays meeting, ministers representing urban areas termed it (proposed regulatory authority) an unpopular move, arguing it would lead to water tariff being raised every year. The Cabinet asked the sub-committee to examine the objections raised by some ministers on the scope and functioning of the proposed Punjab Water Regulation and Development Authority (PWRDA). In his presentation on groundwater crisis, Principal Secretary Water Resources Sarvjit Singh said of the 138 blocks, 109 were over-exploited and that groundwater extraction without prior approval had been prohibited in 45 blocks by the Central Groundwater Authority. He said the total available groundwater was 324 billion cubic metres (BCM) and every year 35.77 BCM was being extracted which was 11.88 BCM in excess of the annual recharge of 23.89 BCM. At this rate, the water level in the state would fall below a depth of 300 metres in 28 years. Pointing out that the water table was declining at the rate of 0.4 metre annually, he said as many as 16 districts of the total 22 fell in the category of those over-exploiting groundwater. Sangrur, Jalandhar and Moga topped the list followed by Kapurthala, Barnala, Fatehgarh Sahib, Patiala, Ludhiana, Faridkot, Ferozpur, Mansa, TaranTarn, Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Ropar and Nawanshahr. Online services To ensure greater transparency and accountability in public services, a new set of draft rules under Section 20 of the Punjab Transparency and Accountability in Delivery of Public Service Act, 2018, have been framed by the Department of Governance Reforms and Public Grievances. It would ensure back-end computerisation of all public services within three years. Economic offenders Tightening the noose around absconding economic offenders, the Cabinet approved the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018, which entails attaching and confiscating their properties and assets. rajivbhatia82@gmail.com New Delhi, January 3 A section of AAP leaders and workers from Punjab raised concern over the possibility of an alliance with Congress for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls at a meeting with party's national convener Arvind Kejriwal Thursday. In the four-hour meeting of the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) held at Kejriwal's residence here, the party's Punjab unit expressed reservations about joining hands with the Rahul Gandhi-led party. AAP is the main opposition in Punjab where the government is headed by the Congress. Senior AAP leader Gopal Rai told reporters that the PAC will consider the opinion of party leaders and workers from Punjab, Haryana and Delhi in a meeting after January 15, and take a decision on alliances as per the existing situation. AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said, "As of now, we have no alliance with any party. We are not saying anything on the future plans of the party". The National Council of AAP had in its meeting last week decided to contest all 33 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Goa and Chandigarh. The party, however, is still undecided over any pre-poll alliance with the Congress or the 'Mahagathbandhan' of various non-BJP parties. "In the meeting with Kejriwal, some persons pointed out AAP was the main opposition in Punjab where Congress is the ruling party, which has failed to fulfil its promises, so it will be difficult to contest the elections (with Congress)," Rai said. The meeting was attended by around 800 AAP office-bearers, party MLAs and MPs from Punjab. The Haryana party unit will meet Kejriwal on Friday followed by the party's Delhi representatives. Such meetings will continue till January 15. Rai said Punjab AAP unit's core committee has been asked to shortlist the names of candidates on all the seats and send the same to the PAC for a final decision. The party has already announced its candidates on five seats in the state. The booth-level organisation in Punjab will be strengthened under the stewardship of block in-charges till January 30. Afterwards, a door-to-door campaign will be launched to reach out to the voters, the AAP leader said. An agitation against high power tariff in the northern state has also been planned by the AAP, Rai added.- PTI editorial@tribune.com Ravi Dhaliwal Tribune News Service Gurdaspur, January 2 Security agencies, including the Punjab Police, will be deploying nearly 8,000 personnel at the PUDA ground on the Gurdaspur-Batala road, where Prime Minister Narendra Modis will address a rally on Thursday. The state police have drawn personnel from the police districts of Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Batala, Pathankot and Hoshiarpur. The final rehearsal was held today with senior police officers, including ADGP (law and order) Ishwar Singh and IG (Border) Surinder Pal Singh Parmar and Gurdaspur SSP Swarandeep Singh, coordinating the proceedings. Nearly 200 CCTVs and 60 metal detectors have been installed at strategic locations in and around the venue. CCTVS have also been installed on the Batala-Gurdaspur and Gurdaspur-Pathankot national highways. Special Protection Group (SPG) commandoes too have arrived. Many of them have been stationed at Pathankot from where Modi will be boarding a special IAF plane to New Delhi after addressing the rally here. The PM will be flying to the PUDA ground in a helicopter from Jalandhar, where he will attend the Indian Science Congress. Later, he is scheduled to fly in the same helicopter to Pathankot. The helipad, which is heavily guarded, has been established adjacent to the rally site. Pathankot SSP Vivek Sheel Soni said security near Bamial village, located near the IB from where terrorists in Dinanagar and Pathankot attack were believed to have sneaked in from Pakistan, had been tightened. SSP Swarandeep Singh said, Data pertaining to residents of 20 villages located within the 2-km radius of the venue has been collected. This may help us in the event of any untoward incident. This being a border district, we have developed a zero-risk security mechanism, he said. Meanwhile, state BJP president Shwait Malik said more than 1,000 buses would ply to transport supporters from different parts of the state to the venue. SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal has nominated Daljit Singh Cheema as the party coordinator. editorial@tribune.com Vishav Bharti Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 2 Why Darshan Baghi has gone into oblivion? The three generations of Left student activists have asked this question in the state. Baghi has finally broken his silence after 50 years. In his memoirs that came out recently, he has blamed the sectarian politics of radical Left for abandoning the Punjab Student Union during its peak. His book History of Punjab Student Union (PSU) reveals that originally the idea of having Left student organisation was conceived by CPI leader Avtar Singh Malhotra in March 1963. The educated youths were not getting associated with the countrys Left movement. Malhotra conveyed this at the first meeting held in Jalandhar. The book reflects how after subsequent splits in the Communist party, PSUs entire leadership went with the Naxalites. However, Baghi, who was the founder general secretary of the union, entered Punjabs student movement like a summer storm. He remained active just for four years and then silently left for Canada (where he identified himself as Darshan Khaira). Those four years were full of action the PSU had swayed educational institutions in the state, clashes took place between the police and students and the government accepted demand to hold student council elections. At peak of the PSU, Baghi was arrested under the Preventive Detention Act in September 1968. A year later, when he came out of jail, nobody contacted him for 10 days. He became restless and went to meet a group of students, including Gobinder Singh (presently known as Ajmer Singh, a Khalistani ideologue) at Guru Nanak Engineering College, Ludhiana, but their rooms were locked. That was what I had feared. The organisation had taken Left sectarian turn. Later, he found that most of his fellow travellers had gone underground with Naxalites and the PSU was deserted by the leadership. If a group of Left sectarian leaders refused to listen to his moderate views, another group led by Harbhajan Sohi, which he felt was taking correct line, didnt feel the need to meet him despite his repeated attempts. Baghis heart started sinking when he saw PSU, which was built after great sacrifices, was becoming non-existent, he notes in the book written as the third person. Darshan left for Canada under mysterious circumstances where he not only avoided the Left circles but also shed surname Baghi and identified himself as Darshan Khaira. shalender@tribune.com Aditi Tandon Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 2 Prime Minister Narendra Modi today met three Punjab-based survivors of the 1984 Sikh carnage whose testimonies led to the life sentence of former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar, and hailed their bravery and struggle over 34 years. In a half-an-hour meeting at Parliament House annexe this afternoon, the PM promised enhanced security to Amritsar-based Jagdish Kaur, her cousin Jagsher Singh and to Mohali-based Nirpreet Kaur, all witnesses and survivors of the Delhi Cantonment killing of Sikhs on November 1 and 2, 1984. All currently have two security officers each, but want more to protect their wards. Sajjan Kumar, former local MP of that area, was recently held guilty of abetting the murder of five members of Jagdish Kaur and Jagsher Singhs family in the aftermath of former PM Indira Gandhis assassination on October 31, 1984. He surrendered on December 31 last year. The three survivors flagged the concerns of their safety to the PM, saying Sajjan Kumar and his accomplices were likely to seek revenge now. The survivors also demanded daily trial in all the remaining cases of riots, besides the reopening of the case against Congress veteran Kamal Nath, now the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. We told the PM that our actual struggle has begun only now. Our lives are at greater risk today than ever before because Sajjan Kumar is in jail and should anything happen to us, he can always say he is in jail and doesnt know anything. We sought enhanced security and the PM promised to look into that, Nirpreet Kaur told The Tribune. The survivors further said that like their case against Sajjan Kumar was tried on a daily basis from the sessions court right up to the Delhi HC, all other Sikh carnage cases should be decided on a day-to-day basis to instill confidence in the community. The key question is of our lives and the safety of our children. Witnesses have been killed in the past and we fear for the lives of our kin. We told the PM our concern and also sought rehabilitation of other survivors, Jagdish Kaur said. The survivors also spoke of the need to fast-track the pending case in a local Delhi court against another former Congress MP, Jagdish Tytler. We have also demanded that the Special Investigation Team of the Centre should reinvestigate the case against Kamal Nath. This is a long pending demand, Nirpreet Kaur said. The case is due for hearing in Delhis Karkardooma court on January 31. The meeting was facilitated by Union Minister Harsimrat Badal. It was attended by 1984 survivors, who were accompanied by SAD chief Sukhbir Badal, all SAD MPs, Delhi Akali Dal leaders Manjit Singh GK and Manjinder Singh Sirsa and SGPC chief Gobind Singh Longowal. shriaya.dutta@tribuneindia.com Kathmandu, January 3 Two Indian nationals were arrested by the Nepal police on Thursday for allegedly trying to smuggle 235 kgs of cannabis from the Himalayan country to India, according to a media report. The duo, hailing from Uttar Pradesh were arrested while they were transporting the drugs in a container, the Himalayan Times reported, quoting police as saying. "The duo have been arrested and the truck in which they were transporting the drugs has been impounded," the police said. PTI amansharma@tribunemail.com New Delhi, January 3 The Congress on Thursday termed as "completely unacceptable" US President Donald Trump's 'library' jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and asked the government to remind America of India's assistance to Afghanistan. Trump took a jibe at Modi for funding a "library" in Afghanistan, saying it is of no use in the war-torn country. He also criticised India and others for not doing enough for the land-locked nation's security. Reacting to Trump's jibe, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel said: "Tenor and tone of the US president describing the Prime Minister of India is not in good taste and is completely unacceptable." "Hope our government responds firmly and reminds America that since 2004, India has built extensive roads, dams in Afghanistan and pledged over USD 3 billion in assistance," he tweeted. Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said India does not need sermons from the US on Afghanistan. "Dear Mr. Trump, Stop mocking India's PM. India doesn't need sermons from the US on Afghanistan," he tweeted. "Under Dr Manmohan Singh, India helped build Afghan National Assembly. Humanitarian needs to strategic economic partnership, we are one with our Afghani brothers & sisters," he said. Though the US has been pressing India to send troops to Afghanistan, a demand repeatedly rejected by India, this is the first time the US administration has publicly mocked India's developmental works in the strife-torn country. In his first Cabinet meeting of the year on Wednesday, President Trump asked India, Russia, Pakistan and other neighbouring countries to take responsibility for the security of Afghanistan, where he has ordered a troop reduction on an unspecified timetable. Trump in his comments to his Cabinet colleagues referred to Prime Minister Modi as an example of how world leaders are talking about their contributions that were nowhere near the "billions of dollars" the US was spending. In his remarks, Trump said: "I could give you an example where I get along very well with India and Prime Minister Modi. But he is constantly telling me, he built a library in Afghanistan. Library! That's like five hours of what we spend (in Afghanistan)." "And he (Modi) tells me. He is very smart. We are supposed to say, oh thank you for the library. Don't know who's using it (the library) in Afghanistan. But it's one of those things. I don't like being taken advantage of," he said. "I say this, India. (I have) great relationship with Prime Minister Modi. He is a great gentleman and a great man and he's done a fantastic job. He has brought the country together," Trump said. - PTI Kipp Fehr from West Bend earned second place in the Iowa Farm Bureau Federations (IFBF) 2018 Young Farmer Achievement Award contest at the organizations 100th annual meeting Dec. 3-5 in Des Moines. See The Democrat/The Reporter for the full story. rchopra@tribunemail.com Kolkata, January 3 A 17-year-old girl died after falling from the roof of a three-storey school building in the northern part of the city, police said. The girl, a Class 11 student of Arya Kanya Mahavidyalaya in Bidhan Sarani, suffered serious injuries after she fell from the roof around 3 pm on Wednesday, they said. She later died at the state-run Medical College around 9 pm, an officer of Amherst street police station said. Police have lodged a case of unnatural death, and are talking to the school authorities and the girls guardians for further investigation, the officer said. Officials of the Hindi-medium higher secondary school for girls refused to comment on the incident, but maintained that it adhered to all safety aspects of students in the institution. PTI pardeepdhull@gmail.com Thiruvananthapuram, January 3 Kerala was in ferment on Thursday, a day after two women of menstruating age entered the Sabarimala temple, infuriating saffron outfits, with protesters blocking roads by placing burning tyres and granite blocks, and clashes leaving three BJP workers injured in a knife attack, officials said. The dawn to dusk shutdown called by Sabarimala Karma Samithi, an umbrella organisation of various pro-Hindutva groups, and the Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP), plunged the state into turmoil, as hundreds of Hindu right-wing activists disrupted vehicular movement, and vandalised shops and offices of the ruling CPI(M). The state was under siege as strike supporters clashed with police and the ruling CPI(M) activists at several places. In Thrissur, three BJP activists were stabbed during a clash with workers of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), the political wing of Popular Front of India, a militant Islamic outfit, police said. Most state-run buses kept off the roads after several of them were damaged in Wednesdays violence, while only a few autorickshaws plied in cities and towns. A 55-year-old man, who was seriously injured when CPI (M) workers hurled stones at protesters from atop their party office at Pandalam in Pathanamthitta district, died late Wednesday night. However, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told media that the man, Chandran Unnithan, died due to cardiac arrest. Unnithan was part of the protest march taken out by Sabarimala Karma Samiti on Wednesday evening which came under attack by CPI(M) workers. Nine people accused of involvement in the attack have been identified and two of them arrested, police said. As tempers ran high in Kerala, the Supreme Court on Thursday refused to urgently hear a contempt petition moved by a lawyers group against Sabarimala temple authorities for closing the shrine for purification after two women entered it. A Bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul said that the contempt petition will be heard along with the pending review petitions against the apex court verdict which allowed women of all age groups to enter the Sabarimala temple. Vijayan, who blamed the BJP-RSS combine for the violence, warned of stern action against the perpetrators. He told reporters here that the government was not against the belief of the believers, but owed allegiance to the Constitution. There was a clear planning to the violence unleashed by the hartal supporters. Since yesterday, there has been so much violence. Media personnel, including women, and police were among those attacked, Vijayan said. Seventy-nine state transport corporation buses were vandalised and 31 police personnel injured in violence, he said. Most of those attacked were women. Many shops have been damaged by Sangh Parivar. Offices of CPI(M), CPI have been vandalised and attacked in the state, Vijayan said. Protest demonstrations by the BJP and Sabarimala Karma Samithi turned violent at several places in Kozhikode, Kannur Malappuram, Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram. Police used batons and water cannons to break up protests. The office of the CPI at Palakkad was attacked by the protesters and the vehicles parked in front of it, including state transport corporation buses, auto-rickshaws and police vehicles were pelted with stones. Agitators hurled a crude bomb at a local beedi manufacturing unit managed by the CPI(M) in Thalassery in Kannur district, but it did not explode, police said, adding 10 right-wing activists were arrested. Another crude bomb was thrown at Nedumangadu police station about 17 km from here, officials said. It was not immediately known whether it went off and caused any damage. Journalists staged a protest march in the state capital after they were allegedly assaulted by protesters. The states police chief Lok Nath Behera said a special team will probe the assault on media. Normal life was thrown haywire because of the shutdown, as shops and hotels remained shuttered in the state capital. However, defying the hartal call, some shopkeepers opened their establishments on SM Street, a major trade hub in Kozhikode, besides a few places in Kochi and Kollam under police security. CPI(M) offices were pelted with stones in Ernakulam and Mallapuram districts, while a library managed by the party in Palakkad was also vandalised. Some Youth Congress workers were injured when they were hit by the pilot vehicle of the chief ministers convoy while they attempted to show black flags to Vijayan. The Congress is observing a black day against the entry of women into the Sabarimala shrine, the abode of its perenially celibate deity Lord Ayyappa. Bindu and Kanakadurga, two women in their 40s, had defied dire threats from saffron organisations and offered prayers at the temple that was out of bounds for girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age, breaking the centuries- old tradition and infuriating the Hindu right. Scores of protesters were arrested from different parts of the state for breaking peace. The states universities postponed the examinations scheduled for Thursday. PTI editorial@tribune.com New Delhi, December 20 Apex drug regulator today barred Johnson & Johnson from using raw material from its Himachal and Mumbai facilities for production of baby talc till further orders. The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation said during raids at the firms Baddi and Mulund plants, it was found that while Baddi had stored 82,000 kg of raw material for baby powder production, the Mulund plant had 200 metric tonne. The company has been ordered not to use this material for further production till all its samples are analysed for safety issues and declared quality compliant, an official said. Central drug licensing inspectors had yesterday raided the J&J facilities to draw raw material and finished product samples, besides collecting over 100 samples from distributors and retailers. J&J is under national investigation for presence of cancer-causing asbestos in its products after a US jury in Missouri recently held it liable as 22 women pressed charges that they had contracted ovarian cancer after using the baby powder. TNS rchopra@tribunemail.com Rae Bareli, January 3 A 64-year-old priest was killed allegedly by four people and his body was found hanging from a pole near the temple, police said on Thursday. Swami Premdas, priest of Ram Janki temple in Baba ka Purva, was killed on Tuesday night, they said. Based on a complaint by Mahant Mauni Baba, an FIR was registered against four people, including Bajinath Maurya who was involved in a dispute over possession of a land belonging to the temple. Maurya, who is a member of the land mafia, was also allegedly involved in the murder of the earlier priest of the temple, Swami Satyanarain Das, the complainant said. Mauni Baba alleged that he had encroached upon a piece of land of the temple and construction was going on there. SP Sunil Singh said stern action would be taken against all the accused. PTI gspannu7@gmail.com Shiv Kumar Tribune News Service Mumbai, January 3 Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had a narrow escape after a technical fault was discovered in a helicopter shortly before he was to board it on Thursday. Fadnavis was to board the chopper at Satara to attend a function in Khandala taluka, state government sources said. However, a routine inspection of the helicopter shortly before the CM was due to fly revealed a technical fault. After the flight programme was called off, Fadnavis along with other Cabinet ministers, Ram Shinde, Vijay Shivtare and Sadabhau Khot, left for the government guest house, sources said. The chief minister has been through at least six mishaps involving helicopters since he assumed office. Nearly two years ago, the state government chopper in which Fadnavis was flying crashed while taking off at Latur after its rotor got entangled with power cables. In another incident, Fadnavis narrowly escaped being hit by tail rotor after the pilot accidentally started the aircraft while he was about to board it. pardeepdhull@gmail.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 3 Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday took strong objection to some MPs blaming him for not doing enough to bring the House to order for conduct of proceedings, and said he had on several occasions spoken to members to break the deadlock. Rajya Sabha hasnt transacted much business in the winter session of Parliament as proceedings on most days have been adjourned because of disruptions, particularly by AIADMK members who are protesting against a proposed dam on the Cauvery river. When the House met for the day, Naidu appealed to all sections to allow the House to function as only three working days were left and important Bills, statutory resolution and ordinances are pending approval. I would like everyone to understand that we are not sending a positive message, he said, noting that the House has not been able to conduct much work. As many as 14 days have been lost to disruptions, he said. I appeal to everyone of you to cooperate. Without naming anyone, he held out a copy of an interview given by a member where it was said that the chair wasnt doing enough as only handful of members rush to the Well and hold the House to ransom. He said he feels sad about the Wednesday order when AIADMK members were suspended for the day but they continued their protest in the Well, forcing adjournment of proceedings for the day. Members, he said, have to follow instructions of the chair. Naidu said one section is saying that the Chairman hasnt done enough to smoothly conduct proceedings in the House. I have spoken to those members who have been agitating (in the Well of the House) more than 10 times, he said, adding he had also taken up the matter with several leaders of the House and some members individually. Naidu said it is being said that there is a plan in these disruptions and the subsequent adjournment of proceedings to stall discussion on issues. Plan by whom, he asked. The Congress, he said, has stated that the party is blamed but it wants the House to function. I was keen to take action yesterday (January 2) against the unruly AIADMK members, he said. But Leader of the Opposition as well as other senior members urged him that they would like to make one more attempt to get the disrupting members around, Naidu said. Naidu said he has tried hard to ensure that the House functions and yet he is blamed for not doing enough. He again appealed to members to allow the House to function and follow rules and procedures to raise discussions and debates on issues. The Chair, he said, is willing to allow discussions. Naidu said he had received notices under Rule 267 seeking suspension of rules to allow discussion on issues such as womens reservation in legislatures and the Sabarimala temple issue, but has disallowed them. The same, however, can be taken up for discussions under other rules, he said. With PTI shalender@tribune.com Aditi Tandon Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 2 Notwithstanding the governments defence of the Rafale deal in the Lok Sabha today, Congress president Rahul Gandhi appeared in no mood to relent and dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a 20-minute debate on the issue. Moments after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley accused Gandhi of lying on Rafale, Gandhi repeated his watchman-is-a-thief charge on the PM challenging the latter to a debate, asking why a Rs 526 crore aircrafts was inflated to Rs 1,600 crore aircraft; why HAL was shunted out of the Indo-French Government to Government deal and why private industrialist Anil Ambani, with zero experience of aircraft manufacturing, was patronized? Gandhi, flanked by Congress media chief Randeep Surjewala at AICC headquarters here, cited a taped conversation of a Goa minister today to say, Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar told his Cabinet he has Rafale papers in his bedroom. The Goa CM is blackmailing the PM with this information and is saying no one can touch him. What information does he have on Rafale? And who knows there could be more tapes, Gandhi said, indicating he was privy to more incriminating tapes on the deals details. The claim followed Jaitleys accusation in the Lok Sabha today that the Congress is manufacturing tapes in their desperation to paint a clean government black. Asked why he didnt play the tape in the Lok Sabha today, Gandhi said because the Speaker Sabha didnt give permission. With Jaitley attacking Gandhi and his family personally, the Congress chief repeated all his old charges steering clear of the Governments defence that the Apex Court had dismissed all anti-Rafale petitions after satisfying its conscience on pricing. The SC has said it cant get into pricing. We are asking why the PM is hiding behind the FM and why is the Defence Minister not answering the debate on Rafale. The PM does not have the courage to face the House. But the truth will reveal itself, Gandhi said making light of Jaitleys serial jibes on him in LS today including Mr Gandhis lessons must begin from A, B,C; Mr Gandhi doesnt even know kindergarten arithmetic and some people have a natural dislike for truth. Rahul's reply to Jaitley was this: He said the Rafale deal is worth Rs 59000 crore. Divide Rs 59000 crore with 36. What price do you get? Their defence is hollow. Tweets open book exam Tomorrow, the PM faces an Open Book #RafaleDeal Exam in Parliament. Here are the exam questions in advance: Q1. Why 36 aircraft, instead of the 126 the IAF needed? Q2. Why 1,600 Cr instead of 560 Cr per aircraft. Q3. Why AA instead of HAL? Will he show up? Or send a proxy? Rahul Gandhi, Congress Chief Congress MPs fly paper jets in Lok Sabha monicakchauhan@gmail.com New Delhi, January 3 A woman, who was injured in celebratory firing during a New Years Eve party at former Bihar MLA Raju Singhs farm house here, succumbed to injuries, even as the legislator and his driver were arrested on Thursday, the police said. A hospital source said Archana Gupta succumbed to injuries on Thursday. The police have now added IPC Section 302, which pertains to punishment for murder, and punishable with a maximum term of life imprisonment or death sentence, to the FIR, the police said. A pistol and a rifle were seized from the car in which Raju Singh fled from the spot after the incident, Special Commissioner of Police, Law and Order (South), R P Upadhyay said. We have arrested Raju Singh and Hari Singh in connection with the incident. They will be produced in a city court later in the day. The police will seek their remand for seven days, he said. Upadhyay said the woman who was injured during the incident succumbed to injuries. The former MLAs wife is also being questioned in connection with the case. Raju Singh and Hari Singh were taken to the AIIMS for medical examination before their production in the court, Vijay Kumar, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South), said. Forensic test was also done on the accused to ascertain who fired the shots, the police said. The mortuary is also situated in the same building. The accused were taken to the hospital with adequate police staff. Reports claimed that the accused met the victims family members. The police, however, said they were not allowed to meet the victims family at the hospital. The womans post-mortem is currently under way at the AIIMS, hospital sources said. On Wednesday, the accused were detained in Uttar Pradeshs Gorakhpur city. The police had earlier seized two rifles and 800 bullets from Raju Singhs farm house in south Delhis Vasant Kunj area. In his complaint to police, Archana Guptas husband had said that they were at the farm house on Monday night to celebrate the New Year along with friends and around midnight, two-three rounds were fired by Raju Singh. Immediately, he noticed that his wife had fallen down and was bleeding. The Delhi Police was informed and a medico-legal case was registered, a hospital spokesperson said. Raju Singh was booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act, the police said, adding that he has five other cases registered against him. His wife is a former member of the Bihar legislative council, they said. Raju Singh contested the 2015 Assembly election in Bihar on a BJP ticket. The farm house is owned by Raju Singhs mother where he lives with his family. Singhs two brothers also live with their families in the farm house, the police added. PTI editorial@tribune.com Smita Sharma Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 3 Hours after US President Donald Trump mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi through words and gestures on the issue of aid to Afghanistan and building a library there, government sources have strongly defended the Indian approach to rebuilding the war-ravaged nation. Sources argued that it is based on the needs of the Afghanistan government and people. Indias partnership with Afghanistan is built on specific needs and requirements worked out with the government of Afghanistan and is aimed at the welfare of the Afghanistan people and for a tangible improvement in the lives of its people, said a government official. This even as Afghan National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib reached Delhi today on an official visit and will hold talks with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval on Friday on wide-ranging issues. Indian officials have, meanwhile, categorically stated that India does not send its armed forces abroad except under the specific mandate of UN peacekeeping operations. Trump, in his latest press conference, rambled about US footing in more bill in the region than other stakeholder countries, days after his announcement of US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Trump said the Indian leader was constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan. You know what that is? Thats like five hours of what we spend. And were supposed to say, Oh, thank you for the library. I dont know whos using it in Afghanistan, Trump said in remarks where he seemed to be confusing the Afghan parliament building to a library, which is not among the Indian government infrastructure projects there. India, which has so far committed over $3 billion of aid and assistance as the largest donor in the region, has built the parliament building, which was inaugurated by PM Modi on December 25, 2015. Zaranj-Delaram road, an elite high school in Kabul, Salma dam and a 220KV DC transmission line are among several other Indian projects in Afghanistan. It has also invested in bilateral and trilateral capacity building programs with training of more than 3,500 diplomats and security personnel and scholarships to 1,000 Afghan students each year. Had Mimicked modi over harley bikes too Trump has mocked Modi at least on three occasions. He mimicked the PM once on the issue of Indian import duty on Harley Davidson bikes. Since their first meeting in 2017 when Modi travelled to DC, the duo have only had one phone conversation and met for a trilateral meet with Japan PM Shinzo Abe along the sidelines of G20 summit in Argentina in November 2018. shalender@tribune.com Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 2 The Congress and the BJP traded accusations, questioned each other on wisdom, intent and integrity while history of defence deals, including Bofors, got cited in the Lok Sabha today. Discussing issues relating to the Rafale deal, Congress president Rahul Gandhi raised questions over the process, pricing and patronage as regards the deal. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley countered saying word spoken on Rafale in the past six months, including in this House, is false. It is unprecedented the way he (Rahul Gandhi) takes liberty with the truth. It is a tragedy that the Congress, which has been headed by legends, is now headed by a person who does not understand what a combat plane is. Jaitley rejected the demand for a JPC saying when the Supreme Court had adjudicated the matter, there was no need for the JPC. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not present in the House. Gandhi said: The IAF (Indian Air Force) wanted 126 planes, why 36 were decided. Who changed the requirement? Did the IAF request it? Yesterday, in his televised interview, the PM said no one was questioning him on Rafale. The entire country is raising fingers and accusing you Modi ji. The price of the plane was Rs 520 crore when it was negotiated by the UPA, however, the BJP craved out a deal for Rs 1,600 a plane, he said. Was the price of Rs 1,600 crore not objected to by the MoD (Ministry of Defence ) officials, he said. Why did you give this contract to your dear friend Anil Ambani, he said. He asked for the Speakers permission to play a tape that he claimed was a discussion between Goa CM (former Defence Minister) Manohar Parrikar and his Cabinet colleagues. He said Parrikar claimed to have a file on Rafale with him. Jaitley reminded the Speaker that Rahul Gandhi would have to authenticate the tape and face privilege proceedings in case it turned out to be fake. Gandhi then backed down and agreed to the Speakers suggestion, who advised against playing the tape. Jaitley said the French government had denied the conversation Rahul had quoted in an earlier discussion on the matter. Today, he tried to produce a tape knowing well that his own party manufactured the tape (Parrikar today tweeted that no such discussion ever took place). In a sharp retort to Gandhi, Jaitley said: There are some people who understand money, but dont understand issues connected with national security. In a reply to Anil Ambani connection, Jaitley asked Gandhi was he playing in the lap of one Mr Q (reference was to Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi named in the Bofors scandal). The Reliance, he said, was just an offset partner, meaning that it would be among the Indian firms that would work to provide local systems to Dassault, Rafale makers. Raking up the National Herald issue, Jaitley said a trust property had been converted into family property. Why is the man now in Indian custody (Christen Michel), in 2007 sent emails mentioning the name of Mrs Gandhi, or R or son of Italian lady, he said. Those facing corruption in defence deals today have the audacity to raise allegations against others, he said. On Rafale, he blamed the UPA and former Defence Minister AK Antony saying he wrote on file in 2012 that he approved Rafale, but wanted to revisit the process by which Dassault was selected as the lowest bidder. He countered the issue of pricing saying the Congress was quoting the price of a bare plane and not that of the fully weaponised and equipped version. The cost negotiated by the BJP includes the weapons package. The cost negotiated by the Modi government was 9 per cent less (as compared with that finalised by the UPA) in case of a bare plane and 20 per cent less in case of its fully weaponised version, he said. Sparks fly over audio tape pardeepdhull@gmail.com New Delhi, January 3 The Brexit task is not yet completed and there wont be any problem to Indians till the process gets over, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday. The British Parliament will start the discussion on this issue from January 7 and there will be more clarity on the relationship between the UK and the European Union in the second fortnight of this month, she added. It wont be definite to say anything at this point of time. The whole process will take two years and till then there will not be any problem, Swaraj said. Any uncertainty will be known after the process is completed, she said. In a written reply, the Minister said after the Brexit day March 29, 2019 when the UK leaves the EU, there will be a transition period till December 31, 2020. During this transition period, the UK will continue to be governed by the EU rules in its commitments thereof. However, during the transition period, the UK will be able to negotiate, sign and ratify new agreements with other countries, but they will not come into force until the end of the transition period of December 31, 2020, she said. In the India-UK joint statement of April 2018, it was agreed that both sides will ensure continued application of EU-India agreements to the UK during the transition period and put in place arrangements to replicate relevant EU-India agreements beyond this period, she added. As regards the impact of Brexit on the Indian-origin people, who have migrated to the UK on Portuguese passports, Swaraj said that the Withdrawal Agreement signed between the UK and the EU, which is yet to be voted upon in the British Parliament protects all EU citizens residing in the UK in accordance with the conditions prescribed in the EU Free Movement Law. The EU citizens can continue to stay in the UK at the end of transition period December 31, 2020, if they meet any one of the four conditions such as if they are workers or self- employed in the UK and have sufficient resources and sickness insurance, she added. The Minister said the Brexit is essentially an issue that concerns the UK government and the EU. However, government of India is closely following the Brexit process. Swaraj was responding to a query from Congress leader Kumar Ketkar who wanted to know the governments approach to protect migrant Indians in Britain after Brexit. PTI MR Anand MR Anand Recently there was a hue and cry against the decision of the IIT-Madras management to have a separate kitchen, utensils and dining area for vegetarian students. Non-vegetarians were up in arms, calling the decision an insult inflicted on them by upper-caste people. How did caste consideration come into the picture? There are vegetarians among lower castes and non-vegetarians among upper castes. Separate places for vegetarians and non-vegetarians is not segregation carried out on caste basis. It is not that separate classroom or desks are allotted to vegetarians, all of whom supposedly belong to the upper caste. The line that divides people into vegetarians and non-vegetarians cuts through castes, religions and even countries. Vegetarians, in general, are so sensitive that the mere sight of non-vegetarian stuff causes in them a loss of appetite. Their sentiments get hurt as they cannot help thinking about what the animals, whose flesh and bones lie in plates in front of them, must have undergone. It looks and smells different. To compel vegetarians to share the table with people eating non-vegetarian food is cruel. How can tigers and goats dine together! Staunch vegetarians are anxious to know that what they are supplied is 100 per cent vegetarian. When both kinds of food items are cooked in a common kitchen, using same utensils, there is a possibility of mix-up. There is no pure non-vegetarian, but there are pure vegetarians. Non-vegetarians will not mind if they find a vegetable piece in their dish. But if the converse happened with vegetarians, it would cause great stress and fill their hearts with guilt. As for seating arrangement, vegetarians are not pushing non-vegetarians away. They just withdraw themselves to a corner to have their food peacefully, leaving their non-vegetarian brethren to have theirs passionately. Moreover, it often happens with common dining halls in colleges that vegetarians are laughed at and joked about. Students also indulge in pranks, like throwing pieces of non-vegetarian dishes on plates. I came across a campus incident in which senior boys tried to force a chicken piece into the mouth of a junior vegetarian student. As if all North Indians are herbivorous and all South Indians carnivorous, a crooked angle of the North vs South is being attributed to the issue, also since a majority of students who stood for the bifurcation of the mess happened to be from the North. Previously, Brahmins were accused of oppressing lower castes and were hated. Now, this community in the South stands shrunken and withdrawn to a corner, with its back to the wall. Yet, it gets dragged into all kinds of class clashes and is flogged. It is not enough not to stand against the so-called oppressed caste people. You should not also stand apart and alone. rchopra@tribunemail.com Mumbai, January 3 Ranveer Singh had a great 2018 both personally and professionally but the actor says he navigates through all the blessings by staying away from his own hype. The actors flamboyant persona, his marriage with fellow actor Deepika Padukone and back-to-back hits in Padmaavat and Simmba kept him in the headlines throughout last year and Ranveer is aware how it can affect a persons outlook. When this happens around you, there are two possibilities--you either believe it or you are simply aware of it. While I am aware of it, I dont start believing in my own hype. My experiences have shaped me to be the kind of person I am, he says. The actor says he keeps himself grounded by constantly reminding himself of his struggle period. I had a proper struggle period of three and a half years, so today when opportunities come my way, I value them tremendously. I never lose sight because I have a vivid memory of the times when I had none of this, he told PTI. Film industry is one of most volatile places and an actors sense of security is challenged every Friday, something that Ranveer says he has learnt to deal with. I try and adopt the middle pathdont get too carried away with the success and dont get bogged down by failures. I feel happy when I succeed, you must do that. But then quickly immerse yourself in the current moment again. Filmmaking is a collaborative effort, so if it failed, its not entirely your doing. I find this middle approach very healthy, he says. The 33-year-old actor says the child in him still considers his journey to success in Bollywood as a fairy tale. This one kid, out of nowhere, had a dream and hes now living it. Everyday my heart is filled with gratitude. I pray before I go to work and always say thank you because I value it. It is surreal what is happening with me, or around me. This love keeps me grounded and humbled. When fans ask me to get clicked with them, what I am actually thinking is What? Me? Do they really want to be clicked with me! The actor will next be seen in Zoya Akhtars Gully Boy with Alia Bhatt. The poster of the film released on Wednesday. PTI editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Jammu, January 2 In a major decision regarding devolution of financial powers to the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC), the state on Wednesday sanctioned the release of funds for Leh and Kargil districts through the Ladakh affairs department only. The move comes as a follow-up to the State Administrative Council (SAC) decision that had approved a Bill to fully empower the LAHDC Kargil and Leh with greater administrative and financial powers on September 26 last year. As per an order issued by Principal Secretary, Finance, Navin K Choudhary, the government notified a revised scheme for Ladakh wherein all the funds related to Leh and Kargil would, henceforth, be released through the Ladakh affairs department only. This shall cover all the releases under capex, revenue as well as Centrally-sponsored schemes, the order said. Earlier, the different government departments used to fund both the districts separately and at their whims and fancies. The funds released by the administrative departments, including finance and planning, for both Leh and Kargil districts shall be deemed to have been transferred to the major head (MH) 8448 (deposits of local funds in the LAHDC) in each case and not transferred through the treasury on the basis of bills and vouchers, it said. The order said the funds allocated to the DCs of Leh and Kargil, who happen to be the Chief Executive Officers of the LAHDC, under MH-8448 would be further allocated to the treasuries and Drawing and Disbursing Officers via the states BEAMS application only. The DCs shall ensure to remit back all the unspent balances of revenue expenditure into the treasury on the closure of the financial year and retain the unutilised capex funds of Leh and Kargil districts, it said, adding that the monthly accounts of respective Lehand Kargil Council funds would be submitted to the finance department. This shall not be applicable to the funds authorised through the home and law departments for the police and judiciary of the Ladakh region, respectively, the order said, adding that no treasury in Leh or Kargil district should entertain any bill under any other major head unless specifically provided otherwise. Hailing the decision, former minister and senior Congress leader from Ladakh Nawang Rigzin Jora said the Ladakh affairs department, which remained virtually defunct over the years, would get importance only if every government department earmarks at least 10% of funds from their state plan for Ladakh on the pattern of the northeast region to bring a visible change on ground. editorial@tribune.com Arteev Sharma Tribune News Service Jammu/Leh, January 3 In a major development, five elected councillors of the BJP in the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC), Leh, on Thursday resigned from the party, making it lose even simple majority in the 30-member council. The five councillors attributed intentional marginalisation of their supreme leader Thupstan Chhewang, who had resigned from the party and Lok Sabha on November 14 last year, by the state leadership as their reason for quitting the party. They also condemned the party leaderships undisciplined and undemocratic style of functioning in Ladakh. The five councillors who left the BJP are Dorjey Motup, former Chief Executive Councillor, Tsering Wangdus from Saspol constituency, Tsering Morup from Temisgam, Tashi Namgial from Tangtse, and Konchak Stanzin from Chushul. In October 2015, the BJP had won 18 of the 26 seats, thereby gaining a majority in the 30-member House for the first time. There are four nominated members to the council who, as per the recent amendments to the LAHDC Act, dont have voting rights. On January 29 last year, the partys former CEC, Sonam Dawa Lonpo, died of cardiac arrest. The Congress won the seat in the re-election in Lonpos constituency, taking the number of BJPs elected councillors to 17. The BJPs number is now reduced to 12 in council, which requires at least 14 members for a simple majority. In their resignation letter, the councilors said they had resigned from the party over the recent unfortunate political developments in the party, including the resignation of BJP MP and partys face in Ladakh Thupstan Chhewang and the unceremonious removal of Dorjey Motup from the post of CEC. Setback ahead of poll editorial@tribune.com Sumit Hakhoo Tribune News Service Jammu, January 3 The decision of the previous PDP-BJP government to abolish toll tax on the vegetables coming from other states may have stabilised prices and benefited consumers but small farmers in the state are facing a financial ruin. The toll was revoked in February 2018 and since then, cultivators in the state are facing tough competition from Punjab and other northern states which are dumping tonnes of additional vegetables in the mandis of J&K at lower rates. Many farmers are abandoning vegetable cultivation due to diminishing returns and selling land for housing colonies or commercial complexes to ensure their survival. Earlier, Re 1 was levied as tax on one kg of vegetables coming from other states. This was abolished and now, big landlords and middlemen are flooding markets in J&K. Many small farmers are facing a threat to their existence, said Tejinder Singh, a progressive farmer and activist from RS Pura. He said farmers were not against produce coming from outside the state as J&K was not able to meet its demands locally but there should be enough safeguards for local producers. After the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Act in J&K, the government abolished toll on several items to unify the markets. Consumers are getting benefits of lower prices but farmers having small land holdings are getting into debt. The government talks of doubling the income of farmers but this is just plain rhetoric, said Sudesh Kumar Sharma, a cultivator from the Marh block, who is planning to sell his land and start a business. Similar is the story of Baldev Singh from RS Pura, who has stopped vegetable cultivation. Senior officials in the agriculture department said cultivators had repeatedly raised the issue with the authorities and wanted that certain levy should be imposed on the import of vegetables so that small farmers are protected. Director, Agriculture, HL Razdan said the department had received representations from farm unions raising their concern about large-scale dumping of vegetables. The cultivators are demanding reintroduction of some tax. Its up to the government to take a decision, Razdan said. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Srinagar, January 2 J&K Police chief Dilbag Singh on Wednesday said the killing of local militants cannot be made a parameter for success and described the continued violence in the state as a cause for concern. Director General of Police (DGP) Dilbag Singh said there were more incidents of violence in the Kashmir valley in 2018 than the previous year and infiltration attempts from across the border also continued. In 2018, the law and order situation remained good but there were some sad incidents, he said while addressing the year-end press conference here. He said the killing of local militants, security personnel and civilians was a matter of sadness. Despite efforts, some youths came under the influence of militancy; some local youths lost their lives which is sad. It is not a matter of happiness for us... It is not a parameter for success, the police chief said. He said the killing of more than 250 militants last year could be described as a statistical victory but it is worrisome that levels of violence are such. The police chief said 91 security personnel were killed in the Valley last year, including 45 policemen and militants also killed 44 civilians. Dilbag Singh said the efforts to push more militants from across the border continued last year as a large number of infiltration attempts were made and a large number of infiltration attempts were foiled. He said 97 counter-insurgency operations took place last year. There was no collateral damage in 83 operations and 252 militants were killed in 2018. The DGP said very serious activity on part of anti-national and anti-social elements was under way to radicalise a section of the youth. With reference to the recent waving of Islamist black flags at Srinagars Jamia Masjid, he said the aim was to show there is a very large presence of such elements. The ISIS is not that big but the fact that people are being radicalised on those lines cannot be denied, he said. editorial@tribune.com Our Correspondent Anantnag, January 3 Three militants, two affiliated to the Hizbul Mujahideen and one to the Jaish-e-Mohammad, were killed on Thursday in a fierce gunfight in the Tral area of Pulwama district, some 50 km south of Srinagar city. Three Army men were also injured, one of them critically. The slain militants have been identified as Zubair Ahmad Bhat and Tawseef Ahmad Thoker of Awantipora and Adfar Fayaz Parray of Tral. The encounter took place in Gulshanpora village of Tral, where militants had made a hideout, which was tracked down by the security forces. We had prior inputs about the hideout, acting on which we laid a cordon and search operation in the area about 8:30 in the morning, said a senior police officer from Awantipora police district. He said the militants hiding in the area sensed trouble and opened indiscriminate fire in a bid to escape the spot. Three Army men were injured in the initial fire from militants. One critically wounded soldier was airlifted to Udhampur for treatment at an Army hospital, the officer said. The fire from militants was duly retaliated and by 9:30 am, the encounter had turned into a full-blown gunfight, which continued for several hours and ended with the killing of all three militants. The bodies and weapons have been retrieved, the police officer said. Meanwhile, hundreds of locals poured on to the streets and clashed with the security forces near the site of the gunfight and at some adjoining villages. The security forces used tear-smoke shells and aerial firing to disperse the protesters. Some people were injured in the clashes and treated locally. Later in the day, the bodies of the slain militants were handed over to their families. Thousands of people, despite restrictions and an internet clampdown in the area, reached the villages of the militants to offer funeral prayers. Clashes at gun battle site Hundreds of locals poured on to the streets and clashed with the security forces near the site of the Tral gunfight and at some adjoining villages. The security forces used tearsmoke shells and aerial firing to disperse the protesters. Some people were injured in the clashes and treated locally. Later in the day, the bodies of the slain militants were handed over to their families. editorial@tribune.com Rajiv Mahajan Nurpur, January 3 There has been a decline in the number of exotic migratory birds at the Pong Wetland. The authorities have blamed climate change behind the dip. According to the estimation count undertaken by the wildlife wing of the state Forest Department in the last week of December, the wetland recorded the arrival of 56,360 exotic migratory birds of 49 species as on December 28. Last year, the number had touched 62,000 mark during this period. Most bird species were recorded from the Dhameta range, followed by the Nagrota Surian range. The departments wildlife wing has been conducting the exercise for the past several years to track the arrival of migratory bird species and to study the trend so that the data could be used in research, conservation and the management of the sanctuary. The estimation count begins in October-mid, when the birds start arriving, and continues till January-end every year. Week-wise counting is undertaken on 7,14,21 and 28 of every month. Migratory birds from China, Mongolia, Pakistan, Tibet, Siberia and Iraq start thronging the wetland in October-mid. The winged visitors return to their native countries in March with the onset of the spring season. The Pong Wetland attracts a large number of migratory birds owing to warm weather. It is one of the major wetlands in the country which potentially offers a transitory resting site to migratory birds coming from the Trans-Himalayan zone in the winter season, when wetlands in Europe and North and Central Asia become frozen due to a sharp dip in the temperatures. Divisional Forest Officer, Hamirpur, Krishan Kumar, said the species spotted at the wetland included bar-headed goose (23,819), northern pintail (8,074) and common coot (8,457). The species that had been sighted for the first time included greater flamingo, pied avocet, white-tailed lapwing and Temmincks stint. editorial@tribune.com Our Correspondent Kaithal, January 3 Himachal Pradesh Governor Acharya Devvrat on Thursday exhorted farmers to adopt zero budget farming as it would reduce input cost and increase production. He was addressing farmers at a function organised by the District Sarpanches Association and Siwan panchayat in Siwan village, near here. He said that due to non-judicious use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, soil fertility had come down. He said their use caused serious diseases like cancer and birds were vanishing fast. He gave tips on zero budget farming. He said one cow could help farmers grow their crop on 30 acres without any expenditure. He said at Gurukul Kurukshetra, there was a crop-friendly mixture called Jivaamrit which mixed cow dung and cow urine. He said after its use, there was no need to use chemical fertilisers and pesticides. He said farmers would be able to double their income by adopting this method. He said that Subhash Palekar of Maharashtra had invented the revolutionary method and provided knowledge to farmers. He gave away laptops to Surinder Kumar and Sunita, students of the Government Boys Senior Secondary School at Siwan, for meritorious positions in the Class XII examination last session. Punjabi teacher Kulwinder Kaur and Sanskrit teacher Jyoti Lata were given a cash award of Rs 11,000 each for achieving 100 per cent result. rchopra@tribunemail.com Tribune News Service Panchkula, January 3 A CBI court here on Thursday granted bail to former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and senior Congress leader Moti Lal Vora in a case pertaining to the alleged illegal re-allotment of land to Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) in Panchkula in 2005. Hooda and Vora were granted bail by CBI judge Jagdeep Singh on furnishing a bail bond of Rs 5 lakh each, their counsel Abhishek Rana said. The Congress leaders were handed over the copies of chargesheet filed against them by the CBI. The next date for hearing in the case has been fixed for February 6, he said. On December 1 last year, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had filed the chargesheet against Hooda, Vora and Associated Journals Ltd (AJL), publisher of the National Herald newspaper, in special CBI court in Panchkula, for the alleged illegal re-allotment of land. Flavia Agnes Flavia Agnes Womens rights lawyer PASSED by the Lok Sabha last month, the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill once it becomes an Act after the Rajya Sabhas nod will bring to a grinding halt a flourishing trade in commercial surrogacy and rob India of the title of being the international hub of surrogacy. Since commercial surrogacy is allowed only in Russia, Ukraine and the US state of California, where the costs are prohibitive, couples keen to have a child through this procedure used to flock to Indian shores and approach surrogacy centres in major cities of India. Rough estimates state that it is a $2.3-billion industry which allowed medical practioners to reap a rich harvest for well over two decades, without any rules and regulations governing their practice. However, it put the lives of poor women, who rented out their wombs to a surrogate couple to earn a living, at great risk due to repeated pregnancies. Their dire poverty was exploited by medical professionals who trampled upon the surrogate mothers fundamental rights. While the women earned a pittance, the professionals thrived on huge profits through this scientific innovation in the field of reproductive rights. While the surrogate parent could lay down conditions, the woman volunteering to be a surrogate had no rights to proceed against the doctor or the couple opting for surrogacy. She had no recourse if the conditions of the contract were violated by the medical professional or the couple concerned. These women were confined to hostels; they could not meet their family during pregnancy; there was no insurance against pregnancy-related or post-partum complications. While the women could not refuse to give up the child, the surrogate parents had the option of refusing the child in case of physical or mental abnormalities. There was indeed an urgent need for a statute to regulate this practice, wherein women gave birth in almost factory-like conditions, and secure their rights. Ironically, what we have got instead is a virtual ban on commercial surrogacy, dealing a body blow to these womens earning capacity. The Bill bars commercial surrogacy and allows the process only in the case of close relatives for altruistic reasons. While Health Minister JP Nadda termed it a historic legislation, there were protests by Congress and AIADMK members during the hour-long debate in the Lok Sabha. Even those who supported the Bill expressed apprehension that it was too narrow in its scope. As per the Bill, surrogacy can only be undertaken by a close relative as a labour of love for her childless kin. While the agency can charge for its services, the woman volunteering to be a surrogate cannot be paid, as that will amount to commercial surrogacy, which has been declared a crime punishable with a maximum of five years imprisonment and a fine up to Rs 10 lakh. There are several other restrictions and prohibitions. This close family relative must be in the age group of 25-35 years; she should have had a child of her own; she should not have been a surrogate mother earlier. She is also prohibited from donating her own gametes (egg) for surrogacy. There are also severe curbs on the couple opting for surrogacy. The mother and the father should be in the age group of 23-50 and 26-55, respectively. They should have been in a stable marriage for at least five years. They should not have an earlier child of their own and must be declared medically unfit to bear their own children. The most disturbing part of the Bill is its conservative undertones, described by the Health Minister in Parliament recently as Indian ethos. As per these, single women or men cannot opt for surrogacy, those who are in stable live-in relationships, lesbians and gay couples are excluded, transgenders are out and anyone who has a child cannot opt for surrogacy, unless the child suffers from a life-threatening disease. Going by these restrictions, a Karan Johar or a Shah Rukh Khan no longer have this option. After the historic verdict that decriminalised homosexuality and the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) judgment which awarded citizenship rights to transgenders, the Bill amounts to discrimination and may attract constitutional challenge. The Bill also closes all avenues of providing opportunities for international surrogacy. Only Indians can opt for this procedure; foreigners and non-resident Indians (NRIs) are excluded. A couple cannot choose the sex of the unborn child. An insurance cover is provided for the surrogate mother for 16 months to cover post-partum complications. In order to avail the same, she will have to provide a certification of essentiality that is conditional to insurance coverage. The Standing Committee had recommended that the word altruistic should be replaced with compensation. Altruistic surrogacy, it observed, was tantamount to exploitation. Permitting women to provide reproductive labour for free to another person but preventing them from being paid for it is grossly unfair and arbitrary, the report stated. It further commented that altruistic surrogacy entailed high expectations from a woman willing to become a surrogate without any compensation or reward but on the basis of noble intentions and kindness. The government also ignored the recommendations of the Standing Committee, which had pointed out that since the Supreme Court recognised live-in relationships, the eligibility criterion for persons who can avail surrogacy services be expanded to include live-in couples, divorced women and widows. The Bill now almost seems as though we are moving backward rather than forward, taking in our stride not scientific advancements and securing the rights and dignity of poor, vulnerable rural women, but the patriarchal notion of a womans body and womb being the property of the great Indian family. The Supreme Court has clearly declared that what India needs to abide by is constitutional morality, not outdated modes of social morality in the name of protecting the Indian ethos. Devinder Sharma Devinder Sharma Food & Agriculture Specialist For four years in a row, Pradeep Sharma, a potato grower from Agra district in UP, has been suffering losses. Cultivating potatoes in 10 acres this year, he brought 19,000 kg to the mandi, only to get a profit of Rs 490 after selling his entire produce. In anger, he sent his paltry earnings to the Prime Minister, thinking perhaps he will come to understand my problems. A few days earlier, an MP farmer, Bherulal Malviya, had died of shock after selling his 27,000 kg of onions for just Rs 10,000 in Mandsaur market. Such distressing media reports depicting the misery of the farming community have hogged headlines for some time now. With losses mounting over the years, farmers have been literally surviving on loans, taking credit from both formal and informal sources. As of September 2016, Rs 12.60 lakh crore was the outstanding agricultural loan. Compare this with the average income of Rs 20,000 per year in 17 states, roughly half the country, the desolation is clear. Picture the agrarian distress that prevails in the ongoing debate over whether farm loan waiver is the right answer to address farmers woes, and secondly, how will the state governments bear the fiscal burden? The speed at which the newly elected Chief Ministers of MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh have announced waivers soon after assuming office, questions are being asked about the economic viability of an otherwise politically sound measure. The bigger question being tossed around is: Where will the money come from? It doesnt end here. After Telangana launched the trend-setting Rythu Bandhu programme providing a fixed amount of Rs 8,000 per acre (now raised to Rs 10,000) per year as direct income support to farmers, it has triggered a chain reaction among states to announce similar or improved versions of financial aid. First, the erstwhile Congress government in Karnataka came up with similar package to provide Rs 5,000 per hectare to dryland farmers. After the recent electoral debacle in the Hindi heartland, and fearing the Congress and BJPs promise to waive farm loans if voted to power, and obviously in an effort to woo farmers ahead of the forthcoming Assembly elections, Odisha declared an economic package. Instead of a waiver, it announced a Rs 10,180-crore package for three years under the Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) programme for land-owning farmers, tenant farmers as well as landless labourers and sharecroppers. This will benefit 57 lakh households. Jharkhand was quick to follow it up with Rs 2,250-crore schemes to help 22.76 lakh small and marginal farmers with Rs 5,000 per acre, per year, with an upper limit of 5 acres. And while Haryana is contemplating a pension scheme for farmers, West Bengal has come up with the Krishak Bandhu Scheme, under which a farmer will get support of Rs 10,000 per acre, per year. It will provide a life insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh per farmer, irrespective of the cause, for farmers between the age of 18 and 60. The premium will be paid by the state government. After Chhattisgarh announced the waiver, Rs 1,248 crore has already been transferred to accounts of 3.5 lakh farmers in the first phase, waiving a maximum of Rs 2 lakh each. In Punjab, despite the slow progress, 4.14 lakh small and marginal farmers, who had defaulted on cooperative and commercial banks, have got a waiver of about Rs 3,500 crore. For the country as a whole, a total of Rs 2.3 lakh crore of farm loans announced by Karnataka, MP, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu will benefit an estimated 3.4 crore farm families. Compare this with corporate loan write-offs. According to the RBI, in the four-year period between April 2014 and April 2018, Rs 3.16 lakh crore has been written off, while only Rs 32,693 crore of the outstanding amount has been recovered. As on September 30, 2018, besides the PSUs, there were only 528 borrowers who had NPAs of Rs 6.28 lakh crore, while only 95 of them had defaults exceeding Rs 1,000 crore. While no questions are being asked about the economic viability of the write-offs of a handful of corporate waivers, a lot of heat is being generated over farm loans. Meanwhile, gross NPAs have increased by a whopping 11.2 per cent, reaching Rs 10.39 lakh crore in 2017-18, and only Rs 40,400 crore have been recovered through the much-touted Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and Sarfaesi Act. The surge in NPAs is happening despite providing an economic stimulus of Rs 18.60 lakh crore to the industry in the past decade. It was in 2008-09 that the government started a stimulus package of Rs 1.86 lakh crore to the industry at the time of global economic meltdown in 2008-09, a package that still continues. In simple terms, the industry is getting a direct income support every year. Considered to be less distorting than farm loan waivers, reports indicate that the Centre is looking at the possibility of providing a direct income support of Rs 4,000 to farmers. Estimates point that it will cost the exchequer Rs 2 lakh crore. While this may appear big, the fact is that Rs 4,000 a year is less than Rs 340 a month, almost equal to the price of two cups of coffee/tea at a trendy shop. If Rs 340 per month is considered to be an appropriate financial sop for the beleaguered farming community, it only shows the extent of deprivation and income inequality that prevails. While loan waivers are an economic necessity and governments will have to find adequate resources, direct income support is not a permanent solution. Agriculture needs robust reforms in addition to the immediate sops. If the government can provide 7,000 steps, both small and big, for ease of doing business, there is no reason why a similar amount of initiatives cannot be considered for ease of doing agriculture. After all, it involves 52 per cent of the population. There lies the perfect economic prescription for Sabka saath, sabka vikas. editorial@tribune.com Saurabh Malik Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 2 Less than two months after the Punjab and Haryana High Court took a serious view of the wait in the implementation of the self-financing housing scheme for UT employees, the Union Cabinet has approved the proposal to allot land to the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB), paving the way for the construction of apartments for 3,930 allottees. The approval came over a decade after the scheme was launched for UT employees. The Centre had earlier submitted that the final note on the proposal to allot 61.5 acres of government land to the CHB had been sent to the Cabinet Secretariat for placing it before the Cabinet at an early date for its decision. Assistant Solicitor-General of India Chetan Mittal had submitted that the final note for the Cabinet was duly approved by the competent authority. A letter dated December 6, 2018, whereby the Cabinet note was forwarded to the Cabinet Secretariat was also placed before the Bench of Justice Mahesh Grover and Justice Lalit Batra on the previous date of hearing. Available information suggests that Chandigarh MP Kiron Khers initiative played a role in getting the approval. The Bench had earlier asked the Union of India to make clear its stand on the proposal sent by the Administration for allocation of land to the housing board. The development had taken place on a petition filed by Phool Kumar Saini and other petitioners against the CHB and another respondent. The petitioners were seeking directions to the CHB and another respondent to implement the Self-Financing Housing Scheme-2008 on a leasehold basis for 99 years for UT employees. The court was told that the housing scheme for the employees was launched in February 2008 by the UT. The draw of lots was held on November 4, 2010, and nearly 3,930 employees were successful. However, nothing was apparently done by the CHB. Even acceptance-cum-demand letters were not issued to the successful applicants and bureaucrats at high level were sleeping over the matter. The petitioners had added that the CHB was apparently more interested in providing houses to encroachers. They were getting houses and tenements free of cost as in all this the CHB gets an opportunity to do bungling. On the other hand, the successful applicants like the petitioners having a legitimate right to get a house by making payment as prescribed in the brochure were left in the doldrums. The petitioners claimed they were also being prejudiced against severely. editorial@tribune.com Our Correspondent Zirakpur, January 2 Two brothers were crushed to death, while one of their relatives sustained injuries after they were allegedly hit by a speeding Himachal Roadways bus near the Zirakpur flyover on the Ambala-Chandigarh highway here late last night. The deceased have been identified as Sandeep (29) and his brother Kuldeep (24), while the injured is Arvind Singh (21), all residents of Jarnail Enclave, Zirakpur. Arvind was admitted to the GMCH, Sector 32, Chandigarh, where he is under treatment, said the police. The police said the deceaseds father, Satiya Singh, who retired from the Haryana Fisheries Department, in his complaint to the police, said he had four children, including three sons. He said two of his sons, Sandeep and Kuldeep, and his brother-in-law son Arvind had gone to their workplace on January 1. The complainant said the trio returned from their workplace around 1.45 am and wanted him to get them picked up from near the bus stop. The complainant said he, along with his third son, Pardeep, on separate vehicles, had gone to pick up Sandeep, Kuldeep and Arvind Singh from Zirakpur. He said when the trio was waiting near the highway, a speeding bus, bearing an HP number, came from the Dera Bassi side and reportedly hit them and then hit their bike. The police said passersby rushed the injured to the GMCH, Sector 32, where doctors declared Sandeep and Kuldeep dead. Arvind sustained injuries and was admitted to the hospital. The driver of the bus, Rakesh Kumar, fled from the spot. The police have registered a case against the bus driver at the Zirakpur police station. Couldnt get through to police: Eyewitness An eyewitness said when he called up the Police Control Room at 100, the number was reportedly not reachable. He said he tried nearly 10 times, but each time he could not get through. He lamented that in case of an emergency on the Chandigarh-Ambala highway, where fatal accidents take place almost everyday, those in distress often found it difficult to get through to the police. A person had the telephone number of an ASI posted at Zirakpur and it was by calling him up that help arrived, said another eyewitness. ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Vijay C Roy Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 2 Notwithstanding the resource constraint, small and marginal kinnow farmers of Punjab are accessing southern and eastern markets of the country and getting premium for their produce, compared to the local market. Coming to the aid of the farmers, Punjab Agro has tied up with NeML (NCDEX e-Markets Limited), an NCDEX group company. NeML and Punjab Agro have identified buyers and wholesalers in all major destination markets through whom the kinnow shall be sold. Punjab Agro facilitates the farmers by providing sorting, grading, waxing and transportation of the fruit to the destined station, while NeML is offering software solution and other marketing facilities, including fair price discovery and trade to the farmers. Already the state farmers have sent around 1,000 tonnes of the fruit to different destination such as Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Siliguri and Guwahati. The export to other cities started in mid-December. Farmers are getting a premium of Rs 4-6 per kg compared to the local market. According to horticulturists, kinnow farmers of Punjab mostly sell their produce to pre-harvest contractors or in local mandis through various intermediaries, and rarely receive the fair price. They are forced to sell locally because they dont have access to various markets. Besides that, the biggest risk for them is not getting payment back if they try to sell the produce to distant markets. There is also lack of transparency in sales. The core idea of the kinnow e-market is to make the small and marginal kinnow farmers lives easier and to enable them to market their own produce to distant markets. The farmer doesnt have to worry about where to pack or which party to select for selling kinnow. They simply have to get themselves registered with the kinnow e-market and Punjab Agro with NeML s team shall take care of processing, shipping and sales and receiving back the payment on behalf of farmer. Punjab Agri Export Corporation Ltd (PAGREXO) Assistant General Manager Ranbir Singh said. All costs incurred for marketing are deducted and net payment is transferred directly to farmers account. Officials added that kinnow farmers can get themselves registered on FFresh e-market through Punjab Agro. All farmers will get a mobile application on which they will get access to market information of various destination markets on kinnow prices. Farmers will take a call through the application whether they want to sell produce on a fixed price or on consignment sales. Once the seller and buyer accept the lot, rate and other terms and conditions, the trade will get matched. It shall also get recorded into the system and transportation will be arranged by the Punjab Agro and NeML representative locally through identified transporters in association with the farmer. E- market advantages Better realisation No investment in marketing infrastructure Less worried about the payments Complete transparency in the trade . Stay up to date on COVID-19 Get Breaking News Sign up now to get our FREE breaking news coverage delivered right to your inbox. Sponsored By: Dorsett Automotive Johnstown, PA (15901) Today Thunderstorms during the evening will give way to partly cloudy skies after midnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 57F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.. Tonight Thunderstorms during the evening will give way to partly cloudy skies after midnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 57F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. featured Youth Education success requires a guardian who comprehends value of learning Resolutions Check of smoke detectors should be part of every routine @IsaacAvilucea on Twitter Isaac Avilucea is The Trentonians main municipal scribe. A two-time prior restraint winner and testicular cancer survivor, he relishes his reputation as the "Mean Girls" reporter that followed his 18-day stay at the now-defunct North Adams Transcript. We can't. We have to paint a bigger picture. And we can learn from what the Well people are doing. The Passivhaus Institut promotes "a building standard that is truly energy efficient, comfortable and affordable at the same time." It has been around since 1996. Regular readers will know that I am a big fan of it, but have often complained that energy efficiency isn't enough. There are now over 3,000 Passivhaus certified designers and consultants, and there are 4547 buildings in the Passivhaus Institute Database. The Well Building Standard covers a bigger field of interest. It is "focused exclusively on the ways that buildings, and everything in them, can improve our comfort, drive better choices, and generally enhance, not compromise, our health and wellness." Well Standard The Well Building Standard started in 2014 and now has 6416 certified professionals and registrants. There are 220 million square feet in 1094 projects. It started with commercial space and is moving into residential real estate around the world. It does not even mention energy efficiency in the entire standard; it's all about health and wellness. Why is it growing like mad, when other building standards, like the Passivhaus, grow so much more slowly? Why, in a time when we have 12 years to cut our carbon footprints in half, do people care so much more about circadian lighting and healthy food? credit: Shelton Group Shelton Group We have noted many times before that it is hard to get people to deal with the serious issues of climate. I recently wrote that people don't want to talk about it, don't want to read about it, aren't going to vote to do anything about it. Paraphrasing Upton Sinclair, their lifestyle depends on them not understanding climate change. As the Shelton Group found in their survey, the biggest motivator for energy conservation was to save money, and the last was to preserve the quality of life for future generations. Given that energy prices are low, there is not a whole lot of incentive for people to spend serious money to burn less. Dan Gartner, writing in the Globe and Mail, points out that "climate change doesnt dominate elections. It doesnt dominate headlines, airtime, and social media. It doesnt dominate consumer choices." It is because of the way our minds work: Scientists have informed me that when I drive my gasoline-powered car, the car emits carbon dioxide into the air, which makes the atmosphere an ever-so-slightly more efficient heat-trapping blanket. If I multiply my cars emissions by one billion cars and thousands more greenhouse-gas sources and seven billion people and 150 years of industrialization, the total is big trouble. I know this. We all do. But the last time I got in my car, drove and got out, there was no perceptible change. I suffered no harm. No one did. The same is true of the time before that. And the time before that. He calls it the problem of psychological distance. Vox on Goop/Screen capture But there is nothing distant about our own health and wellness, and the people who are seriously selling health and wellness do very well indeed. Goop is worth a quarter of a billion dollars, all while being what Julia Belluz calls "a reliably laughable source of pseudoscience". Wellness Real Estate/Screen capture In its early days, the Well Standard had a few touches of pseudoscience, including vitamin-infused water and aromatherapy shower heads. They are gone now, but there are still many aspects of Well that are out there on the edge and are described as a bit flaky. They may be backed by real science but they are not exactly life and death issues. Or as Deepak Chopra says about Wellness Real Estate (separate from the Well Standard but based on the same principles): So why do we separate the human organism from where we live? Pure air, pure water, acoustics, and Circadian lighting are the first steps. For years green building has focused on environmental impact. Not on the human biological impact. That is what we are doing here. But those of us who actually care about environmental impact can learn from all this. In a presentation to Passivhaus Portugal recently, I looked at what features of the Well standard are already covered by Passivhaus and what features could be co-opted. Air Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Passivhaus has this one nailed, with its requirement for Heat Recovery Ventilation and filtering. Air quality is becoming a serious health crisis in cities and people are finally getting seriously concerned; in London, people are apparently moving out of town. Passivhaus could own this. Chie Kawahara described living through the recent California fires in her Passivhaus Midori Haus: The tightly sealed enclosure, about 10 times tighter than conventionally built houses, keeps random air from coming in from random places. The heat recovery ventilator provides us with continuous filtered fresh air. Only during these extended bad air quality days do we need to pay special attention to our ventilation system to keep our indoor air clean. Comfort Elrond Burrell/ photo by Lloyd Alter/CC BY 2.0 Comfort is complicated, but is a prime feature of Passivhaus, with its thick blanket of insulation and high-quality windows; when walls are as warm as the air then you do not feel cold. Elrond Burrell has been pitching this for years, writing in Passivhaus; Comfort, Comfort, Comfort, Energy Efficiency that the standard for airtightness (0.6 air changes per hour) makes the house completely draft-free. Since the windows are so good, designed to have interior surfaces that are within 5F of interior temperature, there are no drafts off the glass like there are in most conventional houses. Noise Jane Sanders/ Living and dining Again, those walls and windows significantly reduce exterior noise; Passivhaus designs are extremely quiet. As I noted after touring Jane Sanders' Passivhaus townhouse in Brooklyn, For someone living in New York City, perhaps the biggest benefit of building to Passive House standards is that it is incredibly quiet inside. Bergen is a busy street, with buses and trucks going by at all hours. However the high-quality triple glazed windows plus the thick blanket of insulation really cut the noise; you could see buses go by and really could not hear a thing. Light . Passivhaus can have it all, including big windows that open/ Juraj Mikurcik Juraj Mikurcik Windows are a source of both heat loss and heat gain that have to be taken into account, so they are very carefully designed and placed in Passivhaus buildings. The important thing about Passivhaus quality windows is that you or your dog can sit right beside them and not feel cold. Juraj Mikurcik describes "the luxury of being able to sit next to the large glazed window without feeling uncomfortable." But wait, there's more! These are four very important issues that Passivhaus designers can pitch to clients, as well as energy savings. But Well looks at other categories that Passivhaus designers have to think about too. Water is obviously important. Fitness, Nutrition and even Mind, which covers things like beauty and biophilia. The real lesson from Well is that people care more, as Chopra notes, about their own biological human impact than they do about environmental impact. Otherwise Well wouldn't be growing like mad and Gwyneth Paltrow wouldn't be a multimillionaire. The Passivhaus Institute may base all their decisions on rigorous science, but people want more than just energy efficiency, and they don't actually understand comfort, and Passivhaus designers don't do a great job of explaining it. So while Passivhaus addresses serious issues, they are psychologically distant. Health and wellness, on the other hand, are very close. Le Corbusier in Wikipedia/CC BY 2.0 Le Corbusier famously said that good architects borrow, and great architects steal. (He stole the phrase from Picasso). I believe that we have to do some serious stealing learning from the Well people, who recognize that people care a lot more about what is going on inside their homes and their bodies than they do about what is going outside. I used to say it was because we are selfish and self-centred, but Dan Gartner says otherwise; So why is our concern about climate change so small relative to the threat? The problem is not that we are ignorant or selfish. The problem is how we think. Gartner says that "learning to accept that may help save us." Perhaps it is time for those who care about climate and energy to recognize this, learn from it, and deliver more. To paint a bigger picture. There is a lot to learn from what the Well people are doing, they know their audience. I have been trying to get a handle on this since I started on TreeHugger and focused on promoting green building, but I am not sure we know ours. And whatever you do, don't read the comments. There is a hilarious twitter feed I follow,@nytonit, short for The Times is on it! "Because sometimes stories in newspapers are just that obvious." The recent article by C. J. Hughes in the New York Times real estate section, Log Cabins? No, These Wooden Buildings Are High-Rises is a great candidate for it, from its first line on: "Developers have not used wood for much other than houses since the horse-and-buggy days. But the knotty building material is making a comeback," followed up with "For those who expect wooden buildings to resemble log cabins, the current crop may come as a surprise." Ema Peter via V2comNothing is important until it comes to New York, and mass timber is just arriving there, so this is a good introduction to the subject. However, it does note that wood buildings are very popular with tenants in flyover country that got it earlier. Hughes describes T3 in Minneapolis, designed by Michael Green and built out of Nail Laminated Timber (NLT); Nail-laminated timber fortifies T3, a three-year-old, seven-story office building in Minneapoliss North Loop neighborhood. Eighty-two percent of the steel-clad building, whose name is shorthand for timber, technology and transit, is leased to tenants like Amazon, which occupies three floors. There is also co-working company Industrious, which had an easier time renting space here than in its other more conventional buildings. A founder noted: Its almost like walking into a Swedish sauna, he said. Its incredibly beautiful. The article concludes with words from developer Jeff Spiritos, who says, I feel so strongly about the environmental imperative of changing the way we build for the health of the planet. Don't read the comments! But hilarity ensues when you read the comments. Two years ago, when the Guardian covered mass timber construction, I wrote a whole article covering the comments section, addressing issues of deforestation, fire, CO2 storage, glues, and more. The New York Times comments address all the same questions and raises some new ones, so I will address a few of them. One of these stick built firetraps burned down in Tucson while it was under construction. It melted the construction crane, melted cars parked across the street and damaged another apartment building. There's a youtube video of one burning down in Texas. That's all they are, tinder boxes. Stick built construction is not heavy timber or mass timber. There have been many construction fires of lightweight stick frame buildings and a few significant fires in completed buildings, which depend entirely on drywall and sprinklers for protection. Mass timber is different because of that word Mass. It is designed with an extra char layer. They are two completely different forms of construction. Even a fire Lieutenant couldn't figure this out and wrote "these 'pre-engineered' materials perform miserably when exposed to direct flame contact under fire conditions." Again, This is not lightweight stick-framing! No old trees are available any more except those from tropical forests which are the lungs of the planet. So these wood buildings may be cutting down on the amount of oxygen available in the atmosphere. The opposite is true. The wood is local, and is replanted, and increased the amount of oxygen and the new trees grow. Construction industry leaders such as AISC and ACI (which are the steel and concrete construction chambers, respectively) have long advocated against the use of mass timber for high rises for the obvious reasons. Well, they would, wouldn't they? Kind of seems like they have a vested interest. Like so many current trends affecting consumer products, wooden buildings are great for everyone but the end user - the horrific sound transmission alone makes them uninhabitable (there is a reason violins and piano sounding boards are wooden). CLT wall/CC BY 2.0 Mass timber buildings usually have concrete poured on top and have better sound ratings than steel or some concrete buildings. This is all new to people, and there are many misconceptions. It is also new to architects and builders, and there is a learning curve to everything. Perhaps in a few years, when a few more buildings are built in New York, we won't get the "log cabin" titles and the inane comments. Search News Archive : Fast Travel News Promotion Via Search, Social Media + Email Follow Us On : SEABOOKINGS - THE SEA EXPERIENCES PLATFORM - HAS A NEW BRAND IDENTITY Industry: Travel PR SeaBookings, the Portuguese startup dedicated to boost maritime tourism, has launched a new innovative booking portal to bring its users even closer to the more than 500 sea experiences provided. In addition, a new brand identity was launched. (TRAVPR.COM) FARO - January 2nd, 2019 - SeaBookings, the Portuguese startup dedicated to boost maritime tourism, has launched a new innovative booking portal to bring its users even closer to the more than 500 sea experiences provided. In addition, a new brand identity was launched. SeaBookings was born by the passion for the sea by the Dutch sisters Bo and Femke Irik in 2014. SeaBookings is an online platform where searching, comparing and booking sea related activities is made easy. Having started in Portugal, the platform now also covers Spain and is ready to conquer the Mediterranean. This international expansion and demanding market made SeaBookings team decide it was time for a totally new platform and image. The goal is to strengthen SeaBookings brand in the global competitive travel industry and, most of all, to bring travelers even closer to the most authentic sea experiences by improving the user experience of the platform. Francisco Lobato de Melo, Creative and Product Designer, was given the challenge to design the new brand identity of SeaBookings. Through a collaborative process with the SeaBookings team, the new brand reflects the companys passion for unique sea experiences. The platform was built together with the tech team who is now proud to present this innovative online marketplace. Bo Irik, co-founder of SeaBookings explains: We have been bootstrapping since day one. We started with a simple WordPress template, studied market-fit, and with the development of the technologies, we are now ready to launch our new brand identity and custom-made booking portal and back-office. SeaBookings deserved it! The co-founders of SeaBookings were already long visioning a better and easier to use website. With the impressive growth in terms of destinations and sales, Fabio Neves, co-founder and the techie of SeaBookings, referred: Due to the many destinations we want to expand to, we had to find ways technology could ease our work. Expansion will soon be very fast and easy. Our expansion model is, like our team, designed to be remote. For now, the business compass is pointed to the Mediterranean Sea as Spain has already proved that the potential is enormous. According to Femke, the youngest sister: Were now leaders in Portugal and the world is the limit. SeaBookings team is very proud of their successful bootstrapping strategy but is open to an eventual partnership if they find the right person to help them conquer the seas even quicker. Please visit www.seabookings.com to explore the new website and learn more about the 500 sea experiences offered in 35 different destinations. Contact: Bo Irik | +351 916066429 | bo@seabookings.com | ### Please contact the person or company listed above for information regarding the content of this press release. TravPR.com are not the issuers of this press release and are not responsible for the accuracy of the content. Share Release : CONTACT INFORMATION Name: Bo Irik Company: SeaBookings.com Phone: +351 916066429 Email: bo@seabookings.com Web: PRESS RELEASE TAGS Italy is a country thats as varied as the palettes of its great artists, awash with color and culture. 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About the company: Italy Luxury Tours is a full-service touring company that offers private tours to all areas of Italy. Their experienced staff provides excellent service and special touring plans, many of which are custom designed for each traveler or group. All tours are private, making them the ideal way to tour Italy. Company: Italy Luxury Tours Telephone: 1-888-959-7108 Email address: tours@italyluxurytours.com ### From a distance and at an angle where you cant see the grille, the Beijing Auto BJ80 looks exactly like a Mercedes G-Class. It is a blatant automotive design ripoff if weve ever seen one - the manufacturer even made a 6x6 version exactly like the one Mercedes also made and sold briefly. Now it seems that recently the military variant BJ80 (known as the BJ80VJ) has come out way ahead of the model that inspired it... in a reliability test run by the people who built it. They even have the numbers to back it up, apparently, having measured the the vehicles MDBF (mean distance between failures). It was recorded that the BJ80 had an MDBF of 4,682 miles / 7,536 km, considerably better than its rival as it only managed 746 miles / 1,201 km. The latter, according to this report from The South China Morning Post which quotes a 2004 study, is not a bad result when compared to the US military average, which is just 280 miles / 450 km. The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army commissioned the military version of the off-roader, since there was a need for a light and capable scouting and command vehicle - and they were most likely also part of the development process. Delivery of the first batch of military BJ80s reportedly took place in 2016. For civilian duty, the BJ80 is powered by either a 2.8-liter Cummins turbo diesel or a 2.3-liter turbo gasoline burner. It looks capable enough in the videos that pop up online when you do a quick search on it, but to go so far as to say it is the most reliable vehicle in the world and also up to its rivals standards in other areas, based on one possibly biased study that nobody else verified, the story stretches a bit thin. Besides, Chinas army already uses Mercedes G-Class for various duties, so when the country put all its forces into the creation of an all-new vehicle of the same sort, why did it have to be an exact visual copy of the model they were already using? Cost is obviously an important factor here, as the BAIC 4x4 is much cheaper than the one from Mercedes, and on the battlefield it may be mistaken for a G-Class from a distance - but what tactical advantage does it have to literally copy another vehicle panel for panel? Not saying the BJ80 is a bad vehicle, but since they put absolutely no effort into coming up with an original design for it, what are the chances that any other part of it is exceptional? Had the test been conducted in the presence of additional observes, it would have been more credible, but as things stand, the BJ80 is probably not the worlds most reliable vehicle. Source: SCMP KANSAS CITY IS FORCED TO CONFRONT AN EXPLOSION IN THE NUMBER OF LOCAL HOBOS & CONSEQUENCES OF THIS NEW DEMOGRAPHIC!!! DOES THIS COWTOWN HATE THE HOMELESS??? KCMO Wellness Postscript Care Beyond the Boulevard checks on homeless man that was doused with fire house KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV)-- Advocates want answers Wednesday night after they say a homeless man was soaked during below freezing temps by a firefighter who put out the man's campfire. The Kansas City Missouri Fire Department is investigating after a concerned citizen filed a complaint about how the illegal burn was extinguished. Burning Issue Homeless man's fire ignites controversy KANSAS CITY, Mo. - An investigation is underway after a homeless Kansas City man claims firefighters doused him with water from their hose. Phil Bucalo said he had started a small campfire near 20th and Oak Streets in order to stay warm. Around 2 a.m. Hobos Destroying KCMO?!?! Kessler park trashed out KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) -- Cliff Drive in the northeast is one of the most well-known areas of Kansas City, but there's a trash problem at Kessler park. It's not a new one and a group says it is certainly not just the fault of the homeless who seek shelter there. Once again the question of rising homelessness in Kansas City andcruelty from a municipal institution divides this town.Instead of, activists are claiming an outright brutal assault via fire hose.The underlying drama . . .Let's not forget that our blog communityand already it has come to pass.Check the latest follow-up links to a story that sparked outrage last night . . .You decide . . . KCMO man charged with stabbing woman at Walmart KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A Kansas City, Missouri man is facing charges after he allegedly used a knife he found in Walmart to stab a woman inside the store on New Year's Eve. Brian Lenoble Jr., 22, is charged with second-degree domestic assault and armed criminal action. Box store confrontation charges have been filed against this local dude as the holiday season in the service industry is tougher than most people realize. Read more: In High-Tech Cities, No More Potholes, but What About Privacy? Tweet on Twitter Share on Facebook Google+ Pinterest An algorithm predicts where potholes will emerge so road crews can resurface streets before cracks appear. Dog houses outfitted with cameras and temperature controls provide people a place to leave pets while they're on a date or at yoga. The downside of this recent bit of tech propaganda is that KC is giving up a great deal of privacy but doesn't get better streets or sidewalks in return. Instead, locals are merely overwhelmed with digital media assault whilst the streets continue to crumble . . . Checkit: More Deets On 1st KCMO 2019 Murder Domestic violence suspected in KC's first 2019 homicide KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Tony Carmons has been identified as the first homicide victim in Kansas City, Missouri, for 2019. Carmons, 60, died around 10 p.m. on Wednesday from injuries suffered in a stabbing. "There is a domestic violence connection and a person of interest has been identified," KCPD Sgt. Golden Ghetto Party Lady Charges Woman arrested for allegedly giving alcohol to minors JOHNSON COUNTY, KS (KCTV) -- The police in Johnson County arrested a woman on Thursday for allegedly giving alcohol to minors. The 44-year-old was arrested around 10:30 a.m. while officers were serving a warrant. She was booked for "hosting a juvenile alcohol party" and is being held on a $1,500 bond. Spy Cam & Allegations Lenexa police hope to ID 3 men in credit card theft case Police in Lenexa, Kansas, are asking for help in identifying three men in a credit card theft case. Investigators said the men tried to use an older person's credit card to buy gifts cards at a Lenexa store. Anyone with information is asked to call 913-825-8022. Suspected Creeper Takeoff Man busted for camera in library bathroom flees to Iceland KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A mid-Missouri man is on the run after detectives traced a hidden camera in a public library bathroom back to him, according to court documents. Federal prosecutors Thursday requested a federal arrest warrant for Jay Paul Robinson. KCK Home Invasion Person injured during aggravated burglary in KCK KANSAS CITY, KS (KCTV) -- A person was injured during an aggravated burglary that happened in KCK. The police chief tweeted about the incident at about 9:30 a.m. on Thursday. He said it happened in the area of 49th and Dixie. Several men entered the residence and were armed with guns. Big Pharma: NextGen Killer Medical journal study shows dramatic increase in opioid deaths in young people A recently released study shows troubling numbers concerning young people and opioids. Child and teen opioid deaths have nearly tripled over the past 20 years. The staff at Recover Health Services in Kansas City has noticed a sharp uptick in younger people using opioids, said Shawn Holland, team leader. During Early Investigation Some Denizens Suspect Hobo/Crook Arson KC firefighters search for cause of warehouse fire Kansas City firefighters are looking into what sparked a fire at a warehouse early Thursday in the 6700 block of Wilson Avenue. Quick peek at crime links for right now a glimpse that this year is gonna be VERY interesting when it comes to the alleged misdeeds of the local working class. Checkit:Developing . . . [January 03, 2019] nVent Introduces SCHROFF RackPower Intelligent PDU Platform for Networking and Data Centers nVent Electric plc (NYSE:NVT) ("nVent"), a global leader in electrical connection and protection solutions, provides robust, scalable data center solutions for a changing world. With its premier brands - CADDY, HOFFMAN, SCHROFF and RAYCHEM - nVent develops standards-based, modified and custom-built solutions to protect mission-critical networks and data centers. Investment in mission critical networking and data center infrastructure is growing exponentially and reliable rack power management and distribution is a critical component for maximizing power efficiency, minimizing downtime and reducing operating costs. nVent has introduced its SCHROFF RackPower Intelligent Power Distribution Unit (PDU) platform, which combines modularity, flexibility and innovation to a deliver high-performance rack level power distribution and management solution for networking and data center infrastructure. The RackPower platform is designed for broad customization to address unique customer requirements and may be easily configured, ordered and delivered with no minimum quantity restrictions. An intuitive online configurator is available to guide PDU specifiers through the configuration process. Users can easily select form factor dimensions, power input, connectors, functional elements and a wide range of country specific outlets. Customers may also choose from a vast range of unique feature sets, such as flexible bottom or top power feed entry, single or three phase with outlet to circuit level switching, metering or combined switching and metering configurations. RackPower's RMS current meter includes a 2.8-inch color touch display that provides ultimate metering accuracy of +/- 1 percent and is field replaceable without service interruption. RackPower's modularity enables up to three different outlet types on a single PDU. Optional color-codng of outlets and chassis provides visual separation of power chains to simplify installation. An optional dual power feed version combines two PDUs in one mechanical housing. To protect mission critical equipment from unplanned downtime, socket switching is controlled by latching relays to ensure 'always on' operational performance while supporting sequential start and remote power reboot. Leading IP connectivity hardware enables remote access and management of the RackPower PDUs. Up to 16 PDUs can be cascaded and shared over a single IP address to reduce the number of required data ports and network IP addresses. Users have the option to create energy reports with data provided by the free of charge RackPower Management Software, or through integration with a third party DCIM software. Maximize efficiency, minimize downtime and reduce operating costs. Trust nVent to connect and protect mission-critical infrastructure. Whether regional or global support, nVent can support you with reliable connection and protection solutions--assembled exactly to unique specifications. More information available online at schroff.nvent.com. About Enclosures nVent offers a wide range of enclosures to accommodate key systems. Our enclosures are marketed under the nVent HOFFMAN and nVent SCHROFF brands and offer double protection. The SCHROFF brand offers an extensive portfolio of accessories for protecting printed circuit boards, such as card retainers, conduction-cooled board supports, front panels and handles, subracks, cases, backplanes, power supplies, cabinets and pre-assembled chassis for embedded computing systems as well as hardware management systems. For further information, please visit schroff.nvent.com. About nVent nVent is a leading global provider of electrical connection and protection solutions. We believe our inventive electrical solutions enable safer systems and ensure a more secure world. We design, manufacture, market, install and service high performance products and solutions that connect and protect some of the world's most sensitive equipment, buildings and critical processes. We offer a comprehensive range of enclosures, electrical connections and fastening and thermal management solutions across industry-leading brands that are recognized globally for quality, reliability and innovation. Our principal office is in London, United Kingdom and our management office in the United States is in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Our robust portfolio of leading electrical product brands dates back more than 100 years and includes nVent CADDY, ERICO (News - Alert) , HOFFMAN, RAYCHEM, SCHROFF and TRACER. nVent, CADDY, ERICO, HOFFMAN, RAYCHEM, SCHROFF and TRACER are trademarks owned or licensed by nVent Services GmbH or its affiliates. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005116/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Despegar.com Announces Participation at Investor Conferences Despegar.com, Corp. (NYSE: DESP), ("Despegar" or the "Company") a leading online travel company in Latin America, today announced management's participation at investor conferences during January 2019. Alberto Lopez Gaffney, CFO and Javier Kelly, IRO will be participating at these conferences. A copy of the Company's latest investor presentation which provides an overview of the business will be available on the Company's website: www.despegar.com in the Investor Relations section on the day that management will be meeting with investors. January 14 - 15 2019 Morgan Stanley - 11th Annual Latin America Executive Conference Miami, FL January 16 - 18, 2019 23rd Santander Annual Latin America CEO Conference, Cancun, Mexico About Despegar.com Despegar is the leading online travel company in Latin America. Operating across 20 countries, Despegar provides a broad suite of travel products, including airline tickets, travel packages, hotel bookings and other travel products to over 17 million customers. With a mission "to make travel possible", the Company's one-stop marketplace enables millions of users to find, compare, plan and easily purchase travel services and products. Through Despegar's websites and leading mobile apps, it offers products from over 300 airlines, more than 520,000 accommodation options, as well as approximately 1,100 car rental agencies and approximately 240 destination services suppliers with more than 8,700 activities throughout Latin America. The Company owns and operates two well-recognized brands, Despegar, its global brand, and Decolar, its Brazilian brand. Despegar is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:DESP). For more information, please visit www.despegar.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005641/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Leidos Health Life Sciences Receives Patent for Novel Peptide-Class of Checkpoint Inhibitors RESTON, Va., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Leidos (NYSE: LDOS), a FORTUNE 500 science and technology leader, has announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued Leidos Health Life Sciences a U.S. Patent covering methods for novel peptide-based PD-1 checkpoint inhibitors. The patent was fast-tracked under the United States Patent and Trademark Office's Patents 4 Patients program. This program provides an expedited review process of cancer immunotherapy-related patent applications. The Leidos Health Life Sciences team set out to identify and develop alternatives to the prevailing monoclonal antibody molecule class of therapeutics in order to potentially improve the safety and cost profile of antagonists to the checkpoint receptors. Leidos focused on peptides as a therapeutic platform, which they mine from diverse sources including the microbiome, as they can be easily genetically engineered into vaccines (DNA and RNA), oncolytic viruses and cellular therapies for more targeted delivery. The inventors on the patent include Leidos employees Gabriel M. Gutierrez, Vinayaka Kotraiah, James Pannucci, and Ramses Ayala, who continue to identify novel, therapeutically active peptides to other targets for a wide range of disease indications including cancer, infectious diseases, and CNS. "Through years of vaccine development experience, our team has seen firsthand how infectious pathogens hide in plain sight of our immune system, not unlike tumors," said Dr. Gutierrez, lead researcher. "Therefore, we wanted to translate the tools used to fight cancer, to fight infectious diseases such as malaria and HIV, which requires us to improve cost, safety and delivery. Peptides represented an ideal tool to achieve our goal and this patent represents an important milestone for us." The Leidos Life Science team, led by Harold Modrow, maintains a portfolio of vaccine and bio-therapeutic programs in the public health space. Funding for the work supporting this patent was provided by Leidos' Internal R&D program and inspired by 18 years of managing large medical product development contracts from federal government agencies like the NIH, DoD and DHS. https://www.leidos.com/markets/science/life-sciences. About Leidos Leidos is a Fortune 500 information technology, engineering, and science solutions and services leader working to solve the world's toughest challenges in the defense, intelligence, homeland security, civil, and health markets. The company's 32,000 employees support vital missions for government and commercial customers. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $10.17 billion for the fiscal year ended December 29, 2017. For more information, visit www.Leidos.com. Statements in this announcement, other than historical data and information, constitute forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause our actual results, performance, achievements, or industry results to be very different from the results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Some of these factors include, but are not limited to, the risk factors set forth in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the period ended December 29, 2017, and other such filings that Leidos makes with the SEC from time to time. Due to such uncertainties and risks, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Contact: Melissa Koskovich Erin Tindell (571) 526-6850 (571) 526-6996 Koskovichm@Leidos.com Tindelle@leidos.com View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/leidos-health-life-sciences-receives-patent-for-novel-peptide-class-of-checkpoint-inhibitors-300772558.html SOURCE Leidos [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Southwest Georgia Financial Corporation Announces John J. Cole Jr.'s Retirement Southwest Georgia Financial Corporation (NYSE American: SGB) ("the Corporation"), the parent company of Southwest Georgia Bank ("the Bank"), announced the retirement of John J. Cole Jr., Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Southwest Georgia Financial Corporation and its subsidiary, Southwest Georgia Bank, effective December 31, 2018. Mr. Cole will continue to serve on the Boards of Directors of the Corporation and the Bank. DeWitt Drew, President and CEO, commented, "When John joined Southwest Georgia Bank in 1976, he dedicated his career to advancing our company. His experience across all areas of operations and technology paired with his dedication to the company and its employees contributed to our success over the years. I am grateful for his many yeas of service, and while we will continue to benefit from his experience as a member of our Boards, we wish him well in his retirement." The Corporation also announced that Leslie Green was promoted to Senior Vice President and Head of Operations in December 2018. Additionally, Donna Lott, Executive Vice President, was named Cashier of Southwest Georgia Bank in May 2016, and was appointed Chief Administrative Officer in May 2018. About Southwest Georgia Financial Corporation Southwest Georgia Financial Corporation is a state-chartered bank holding company with approximately $515 million in assets headquartered in Moultrie, Georgia. Its primary subsidiary, Southwest Georgia Bank, offers comprehensive financial services to consumer, business, and government customers. The current banking facilities include the main office located in Colquitt County, and branch offices located in Baker County, Worth County, Lowndes County, and Tift County. In addition to conventional banking services, the Company provides investment planning and management, trust management, and commercial and individual insurance products. Insurance products and advice are provided by Southwest Georgia Insurance Services, which is located in Colquitt County. The Company routinely posts news and other important information on its website. More information on Southwest Georgia Financial Corporation and Southwest Georgia Bank can be found at: www.sgb.bank. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005463/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] ResMed to Report Second Quarter Fiscal 2019 Earnings on January 24, 2019 ResMed (NYSE: RMD, ASX: RMD) today announced it plans to release financial and operational results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2019 on Thursday, January 24, 2019, after the New York Stock Exchange closes. Following the release, ResMed management will host a webcast to discuss these results. Other forward-looking and material information may also be discussed during this call. Earnings webcast details: Location: http://investor.resmed.com Date: Thursday, January 24, 2019 Time: 1:30 p.m. PT / 4:30 p.m. ET International: London, Thursday, January 24, 9:30 p.m. Sydney, Friday, January 25, 8:30 a.m. Please note that ResMed does not use outside phone lines to access the earnings call. A replay of the earnings webcast will be accessible on our website and available approximately two hours after the webcast. In addition, a phone replay will be available approximately two hours after the webcast and will be accessible from January 24 until February 7 at: U.S.: +1 800.585.8367 International: +1 416.621.4642 Passcode: 6179558 About ResMed ResMed (NYSE: RMD, ASX: RMD), a world-leading connected health company with more than 6 million cloud-connected devices for daily remote patient monitoring, changes lives with every breath. Its award-winning devices and software solutions help treat and manage sleep apnea, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other respiratory conditions. Its 6,000-member team strives to improve patients' quality of life, reduce the impact of chronic disease and save healthcare costs in more than 120 countries. ResMed.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005163/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Genex Services Acquires Excel Managed Care, Expands Clinical Services Genex Services, a leader in medical cost containment and disability management services, has announced its acquisition of Excel Managed Care & Disability Services, an established provider of occupational and non-occupational medical case management, utilization review and return-to-work services for the workers' compensation and disability markets. Financial terms were not disclosed. With this acquisition, Genex - already the largest case management company in the U.S. - increases its number of employee case managers to more than 1,600. It also extends and enhances Genex's national market position in the states where Excel does business, particularly along the West Coast, enabling more workers' compensation payers and risk managers to access its specialized managed care services that transform bottom lines. "The acquisition of Excel Managed Care & Disability Services allows both companies to expand the breadth and depth of our services," said Peter Madeja, CEO and President of Genex Services. "Both Genex and Excel employees are committed to facilitating the recovery of injured and disabled workers and delivering exceptional claim outcomes by controlling medical costs and disability duratios. Excel will continue to be led by Brenda Smith, President, and Steve Smetana, Vice President, and operate under their brand." Based in Sacramento, CA (News - Alert) , Excel has been offering medical case management and disability management services since 1992. Excel's customers include employers, insurers and claims administrators with employees covered by workers' compensation, group health and long-term disability insurance. The company has approximately 125 employees and professionals serving their customers. "Both Genex and Excel have a proud tradition of efficiently and effectively managing the medical recovery and return-to-work process of injured workers," said Brenda Smith, RN, BSN, CCM (News - Alert) , President of Excel. "We're excited about the acquisition. The combination of our excellent professionals and services will make a substantial impact on our mutual goal of achieving the expeditious restoration of health and productivity to those who have lost these by illness or injury." StoneRidge Advisors LLC served as the exclusive strategic and financial advisor to Excel on the transaction. About Genex Services, LLC Genex Services (www.genexservices.com) provides best-in-class clinical solutions that enable customers to transform their bottom lines while enhancing the lives of injured and disabled workers. Genex, a clinical management leader throughout North America, serves the top underwriters of workers' compensation, automobile, disability insurance, third-party administrators and a significant number of Fortune 500 employers. In addition, Genex clinical services are enhanced by intelligent systems and 360-degree data analysis. Its clinical expertise consistently drives superior results related to medical, wage loss, and productivity costs associated with claims in the workers' compensation, disability, automobile, and health care systems. Genex Services and Mitchell International merged recently to create the broadest continuum of technology and products servicing the auto, workers' compensation, and disability markets. About Excel Managed Care & Disability Services Excel Managed Care & Disability Services (www.excelmanagedcare.com) provides occupational & non-occupational medical case management, utilization review and return-to-work services to employers, insurers, and claims administrators with employees covered by workers' compensation, group health, and long-term disability. Its multi-state presence provides clients with a proactive partner to manage all aspects of their disability programs. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005162/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Phillips 66 Company collaborates with Honda Developer Studio to offer in-vehicle fuel payment HOUSTON, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX) is collaborating with Honda Developer Studio to develop in-vehicle fuel payment integration that allows Honda vehicle owners to reserve a pump and pay for fuel at Phillips 66, 76 and Conoco branded locations through their in-dash infotainment system. This new in-vehicle feature will allow drivers to find the nearest Phillips 66, 76 or Conoco station and pay at the pump from the comfort of their driver seat. Phillips 66 launched mobile pay in early 2018 and is rolling it out at all branded stations into 2019. To download the My Phillips 66 app with Mobile Pay for Apple devices click here, or for Googledevices click here. "We understand consumers want to fuel up, pay and quickly be on their way," said John Barbour, Manager of Payments and Card Services at Phillips 66. "Now consumers can use the Phillips 66 apps in Honda cars to pay for gas at the pump in a fast, friendly and seamless way." "We know that Honda drivers value convenience, safety and security," said John Moon, Managing Director Strategic Partnerships, Honda Innovations. "We are excited about this solution as it will provide a fueling experience that meets these expectations head-on." About U.S. Marketing at Phillips 66, 76, and Conoco Phillips 66 is a diversified energy manufacturing and logistics company. With a portfolio of Midstream, Chemicals, Refining, and Marketing and Specialties businesses, the company processes, transports, stores and markets fuels and products globally. Headquartered in Houston, the company has 14,200 employees committed to safety and operating excellence. Using a network of branded marketers and dealers operating approximately 7,500 outlets, its U.S. Marketing business supplies TOP TIER Detergent Gasolines under the Phillips 66, 76 and Conoco brands. For more information on Phillips 66, visit Phillips66.com or follow us on Twitter @Phillips66Co. Media Contact: Shannon Vogt of Phillips 66 Shannon.H.Vogt@p66.com 832.765.1718 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/phillips-66-company-collaborates-with-honda-developer-studio-to-offer-in-vehicle-fuel-payment-300772626.html SOURCE Phillips 66 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Cashplus Announces Degradable PVC 'Bank Card of the Future' LONDON, January 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- No signature strip and it will degrade in waste. Innovative new card from leading digital bank challenger coming early this year Cashplus, the leading digital banking services provider, is announcing the launch of the UK's first payment card made from a new type of degradable PVC, offering its customers a more sustainable alternative to traditional plastic PVC debit and credit cards. The new card uses eco-friendly Degradable PVC, developed by Cashplus' card provider Tagnitecrest. This new material contains an additive that causes it to quickly degrade when left in compost, landfill or other microbe-rich environments, but otherwise has the same look, feel and durability of standard PV. According to trade journal The Nilson Report, around 6bn plastic payment cards are produced worldwide every year, that's roughly 30,000 tons of PVC, the equivalent weight of 3bn 500ml plastic water bottles. Cashplus CEO Rich Wagner said: "We're proud to be leading the way with the release of the UK's first degradable PVC debit and credit cards. Our business is based on the idea that banking services should improve our customers' lives, and this is a natural extension of that. We know people are increasingly conscious of plastic waste and other environmental issues, so want to offer customers, including the thousands of UK small businesses who use our services, a more sustainable choice." The final design of the new Cashplus card was voted for by Cashplus customers and the resulting product is aimed squarely at meeting the needs of today's businesses and consumers. For example, the new range will have no signature strip on the rear of the card, an option being authorised by Mastercard from April. Rich Wagner added: "This is a card for the digital age, doing away with the signature strip may seem like a small step but, for our customers, it's an important sign that we understand how they want to use our banking services. Signature verification has been effectively obsolete for years and research has shown that banking customers place more confidence in modern technology-based security measures." [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] FOX Business Network Signs CNBC's Susan Li as Business Correspondent FOX Business Network (FBN) has signed journalist Susan Li as a business correspondent, announced Brian Jones, president of the network. Li will be based out of FBN's New York headquarters covering financial breaking news. Joining the network in April 2018, Li has interviewed some of the most prominent names in business and economic policy, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Previously, Li served as co-anchor of CNBC's Asia Squawk Box (News - Alert) and Worldwide Exchange where she covered global economic and political issues. Li also hosted CNBC International's First Class, a luxury travel and lifestyle program. Prior to CNBC, Li was a Hon Kong-based anchor with Bloomberg (News - Alert) Television where she hosted First Up with Susan Li, which won "Best News Program" at the 2012 Asian Television Awards. Additionally, she was the network's lead anchor in Asia, hosting her talk show Asia Stars, Bloomberg Edge and Morning Call. A graduate of the University of Toronto with a degree in economics, Li got her start reporting at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation where she covered various political and consumer topics. FOX Business Network (FBN) is a financial news channel delivering real-time information across all platforms that impact both Main Street and Wall Street. Headquartered in New York-the business capital of the world-FBN launched in October 2007 and is the leading business network on television, topping CNBC in Business Day viewers for the second consecutive year. The network is available in more than 80 million homes in all markets across the United States. Owned by FOX, FBN has bureaus in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and London. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005578/en/ [January 03, 2019] SolomonEdwards D.C. Practice Expands With New Experts SolomonEdwards, a national professional services firm, has added Kimberly Rodichok to its consulting team as a Director in their Technical Accounting and Regulatory Advisory Services Practice. As Director, Kimberly joins Brian McAuliffe, both of whom will support Greater Washington D.C. metro businesses in the areas of business transformation and project management. Kimberly, a seasoned management consultant with an accomplished history of providing counsel to federal clients, has a proven track record of effectively overseeing teams and elaborate projects. With a complementary blend of delivery skills in the areas of finance, budget, technology, strategy and project management, Kim is an asset to any client looking to navigate complex situations and drive revenue, while simultaneously growing their business. With cross-discipline CxO experience, Kim's strength lies in advising clients in accelerating excellence through the execution of large-scale business transformation initiatives and measured operational improvements. She currently holds an active security clearance and consistently maintains top-level performance ratings within intensely competitive environments. Kim obtained her B.S. in Finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an MBA from George Washington University and attended the Yale School of Management. Brian has over 25 years of experience in strategy, organizational design, business process re-engineering, change management, and systems implementation work supporting the banking, non-profit, and government industries. He has conducted the full spectrum of transformation work from business case and strategy formation to design, testing, and implementation. He has advised domestic and international C-suite clients on a broad range of functional areas from strategic planning to enterprise resource planning systems implementation. He received a BBA in finance from Marymount University and an MBA from the University of Rochester. He will be responsible for the business transformation consulting practice to commercial and government clients. He focuses on delivering program and project management, business process improvement, change management, organizational design, and strategy integration. According to Mid-Atlantic Region Managing Partner John Moerman, "We are pleased to welcome Kimberly to our practice's team that already includes Brian. Their addition enables SolomonEdwards to invest in its continued growth and support of businesses in the Greater Washington D.C. area." About SolomonEdwards SolomonEdwards is a national professional services firm focused on strategy execution. By providing exceptional people for complex situations, we deliver subject matter expertise, apply proven project delivery models, and design custom solutions for your business. Our DC Practice, open since 2004, has provided exceptional people for over 1,400 projects and 500 businesses in dozens of industries across the metro region. We focus on the areas of Accounting & Finance, Business Transformation, Governance & Regulatory Compliance, and Transaction & Regulatory Advisory Services. For more information, please visit www.SolomonEdwards.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005572/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] OSE Immunotherapeutics to present at Biotech Showcase 2019 Conference During JP Morgan Healthcare Conference San Francisco, January 7-9, 2019 NANTES, France, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OSE Immunotherapeutics (ISIN: FR0012127173; Mnemo: OSE), today announced that Alexis Peyroles, CEO, will present an overview of the Companys business and will be available to participate in one-on-one meetings with investors at the Biotech Showcase to be held Jan. 7-9, 2019, in San Francisco. The details of OSE Immunotherapeutics presentation are as follows: Event: Biotech Showcase 2019 Conference Date: Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019 Time: 11:00 a.m. PST Location: Yosemite C (Ballroom level), Hilton San Francisco Union Square 333 OFarrell Street The presentation will be webcast live and is accessible for 3 months: https://event.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1226626&tp_key=ac6dc1c6be ABOUT OSE Immunotherapeutics OSE Immunotherapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing and partnering therapies to control the immune system for immuno-oncology and autoimmmune diseases. The company has a diversified first-in-class clinical portfolio consisting of several scientific and technological platforms including neoepitopes and agonist or antagonist monoclonal antibodies, all ideally positioned to fight cancer and autoimmune diseases. The most advanced therapeutic-candidate, Tedopi, is a proprietary combination of 10 neo-epitopes aimed at stimulating T-lymphocytes and is currently in Phase 3 development in on-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after checkpoint inhibitor failure (anti PD-1 and anti PD-L1) and in Phase 2 testing in pancreatic cancer in combination with checkpoint inhibitor Opdivo. FR104 (an anti-CD28 mAb) has successfully completed Phase 1 testing and has potential to treat autoimmune diseases. In April 2018, Boehringer Ingelheim and OSE signed a global license and collaboration agreement to develop preclinical checkpoint inhibitor OSE-172 (anti-SIRPa monoclonal antibody) in multiple cancer indications. OSE-127 (monoclonal antibody targeting the CD127 receptor, the alpha chain of the interleukin-7 receptor) is partnered with Servier under an option agreement up to the completion of a Phase 2 clinical trial planned in autoimmune bowel diseases; in parallel, Servier plans a development in the Sjogren syndrome. OSE-127 is currently under Phase 1 clinical trial. Click and follow us on Twitter and Linkedln https://twitter.com/OSEIMMUNO https://www.linkedin.com/company/10929673 Contacts OSE Immunotherapeutics Sylvie Detry Sylvie.detry@ose-immuno.com +33 143 297 857 French Media: FP2COM Florence Portejoie fportejoie@fp2com.fr +33 607 768 283 U.S. Media: LifeSci Public Relations Darren Opland, Ph.D. Darren@lifescipublicrelations.com +1 646 627-8387 U.S. and European Investors Chris Maggos chris@lifesciadvisors.com +41 79 367 6254 Forward-looking statements This press release contains express or implied information and statements that might be deemed forward-looking information and statements in respect of OSE Immunotherapeutics. They do not constitute historical facts. These information and statements include financial projections that are based upon certain assumptions and assessments made by OSE Immunotherapeutics management in light of its experience and its perception of historical trends, current economic and industry conditions, expected future developments and other factors they believe to be appropriate. These forward-looking statements include statements typically using conditional and containing verbs such as expect, anticipate, believe, target, plan, or estimate, their declensions and conjugations and words of similar import. Although the OSE Immunotherapeutics management believes that the forward-looking statements and information are reasonable, the OSE Immunotherapeutics shareholders and other investors are cautioned that the completion of such expectations is by nature subject to various risks, known or not, and uncertainties which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of OSE Immunotherapeutics. These risks could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed in or implied or projected by the forward-looking statements. These risks include those discussed or identified in the public filings made by OSE Immunotherapeutics with the AMF. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. This press release includes only summary information and should be read with the OSE Immunotherapeutics Reference Document filed with the AMF on 26 April 2018, including the annual financial report for the fiscal year 2017, available on the OSE Immunotherapeutics website. Other than as required by applicable law, OSE Immunotherapeutics issues this press release at the date hereof and does not undertake any obligation to update or revise the forward-looking information or statements. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR) Triples Sales for the Second Year in a Row, Meeting Forecast Mobile Industrial Robots, the first mover and market leader in autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), today announced a second year of 300 percent revenue growth in 2018, a target the company established after accomplishing the same growth rate in 2017. The company's success results, in large part, from MIR's multinational customers, including Toyota Motor Corporation that is investing in fleets of mobile robots to optimize internal logistics and to gain competitive advantages in the production and supply chain. Thirty percent of MiR's 2018 sales come from the Americas (27 percent in the United States and 3 percent in Latin America). "Large multinational organizations, who are happy with the benefits they've received after trying one of our robots, are now investing in fleets spread across more of their plants, with some purchasing as many as 15 to 25 MiR robots at a time," said Thomas Visti, CEO of MiR. "Our robots make it easy for these companies to follow the increasing shift to a mass-customization model, where they manufacture a higher number of customized products in smaller batches, requiring an agile production facility with flexible and easily adaptable logistics. Our user-friendly technology fits this model well." Growth from new products and new "robots as a service" offering to help more companies benefit In addition to increased sales of multiple robots to companies like Toyota, which already uses MiR robots to optimize logistics in plants in the U.S. and Asia, the company's growth in 2018 also came from the launch of the MiR500. Forty percent of sales of the MiR500, which can pick-up, transport, and deliver pallets, have come from U.S. companies. The continuous growth worldwide means that MiR expects 2019 will bring evenmore new products, along with 100 new employees and new offices in the U.S., China, and Japan. According to Visti, the company also expects to increase revenue as much, if not more, over the next year, while expanding the types of companies that can benefit from autonomous mobile robots. "In 2019, we'll continue to focus on delivering solutions that companies are requesting," he said. "That means we'll also support companies that are used to leasing equipment such as electric forklifts and AGVs by starting a new 'mobile robots as a service program' via our external partners. Now we can lower the initial investment required to make it easier and more attractive for these companies to get started with our collaborative autonomous mobile robots." About Mobile Industrial Robots: Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR) develops and markets the industry's most advanced line of collaborative and safe autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) that quickly, easily and cost-effectively manage internal logistics, freeing employees for higher-value activities. Hundreds of mid-sized through large multinational manufacturers and logistics centers, along with several hospitals around the world, have already installed MiR's innovative robots. MiR has quickly established a global distribution network in more than 40 countries, with regional offices in New York, San Diego, Singapore, Frankfurt, Barcelona and Shanghai. MiR has grown quickly since its founding in 2013, with sales rising by 500% from 2015 to 2016, and 300% from 2016 to 2017 and 2017 to 2018. Founded and run by experienced Danish robotics industry professionals, MiR is headquartered in Odense, Denmark, and was recently acquired by American company Teradyne (News - Alert) , the leading supplier of automated test equipment. In 2015, Teradyne also acquired the Danish company Universal Robots. Due to its growth results the last years, Mobile Industrial Robots was awarded EY Entrepreneur of The Year in Denmark in 2018. For more information, visit www.mobile-industrial-robots.com. Available images: MiR500 photos can be found at http://www.mobile-industrial-robots.com/en/products/mir500/ Infographic on the market development of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and automated guided vehicles (AGVs): https://www.dropbox.com/s/dkqu7yxdtxajf43/Infographic_marketdevelopment.pdf?dl=0 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005499/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Dorsey Adds Bank Regulatory Veteran Tom Scanlon in Washington, D.C. International law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP announced today that Thomas E. Scanlon has joined the Firm's Finance & Restructuring Group as Of Counsel in Dorsey's Washington, D.C., office. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005500/en/ Thomas E. Scanlon has joined Dorsey's Finance & Restructuring Group as Of Counsel in the Washington, D.C., office. (Photo: Dorsey & Whitney LLP) Mr. Scanlon's practice focuses on advising financial institutions, technology companies, merchants and investors on matters relating to financial products or services. He has significant experience advising on transactions, counseling clients on adapting financial products or services in light of the regulatory landscape and helping financial institutions prepare for examinations - as well as guard against enforcement actions - by the federal bank regulatory agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Drawing from extensive experience - in both private practice and public sevice - Mr. Scanlon works with clients on bank regulatory matters and across a range of issues relating to payments systems. He has extensive experience with regulatory issues, including those arising under the Bank Holding Company Act, the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, the Electronic Fund Transfer Act and the Bureau's Regulation E, the privacy rule (Regulation P) and data security program requirements under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Mr. Scanlon joins Dorsey from the Washington, D.C. office of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP. Before joining Davis Wright in 2015, he served as Senior Counsel in the Office of the General Counsel (Banking & Finance) at the Department of the Treasury, where among other things he worked as the principal Treasury attorney who drafted the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 (Title X of the Dodd-Frank Act). Before joining the Department of the Treasury in 2009, Mr. Scanlon was in private practice and served for five years (from 1999 to 2004) as Counsel for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C. Mr. Scanlon has B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of California, San Diego, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He has a J.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. After law school, Mr. Scanlon clerked for the Honorable W. Louis Sands, U.S. District Court, Middle District of Georgia. "Banking and financial institutions have been a principal industry focus for Dorsey since the Firm was founded over 100 years ago," noted Bill Stoeri, Managing Partner of Dorsey & Whitney. "Tom Scanlon will be a terrific addition to our already deep expertise and experience in bank regulatory matters and will complement our strong Firm-wide Finance & Restructuring Group." "I am very pleased to be joining Dorsey and its great Firm-wide team of banking lawyers," noted Mr. Scanlon. "I look forward to serving Dorsey's exceptional client base across the country and around the world." About Dorsey & Whitney LLP Clients have relied on Dorsey since 1912 as a valued business partner. With locations across the United States and in Canada, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, Dorsey provides an integrated, proactive approach to its clients' legal and business needs. Dorsey represents a number of the world's most successful companies from a wide range of industries, including leaders in banking & financial institutions, development & infrastructure, energy & natural resources, food, beverage & agribusiness, healthcare and technology, as well as major non-profit and government entities. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005500/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Whirlpool Brand Revolutionizes Laundry Routines with the Latest in Connected Technology LAS VEGAS, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Sort, pretreat, pour, wash, transfer, dry, fold, put away. With all of the steps involved in the average family's laundry routine, taking out even a few small steps can allow caregivers saved time and energy to focus elsewhere. That's why Whirlpool is bringing an innovative approach to laundry routines in 2019, to help families keep moving without being tethered to their appliances. Through upcoming integrations with Wear OS by Google, to new personalized control from anywhere capabilities through the Google Assistant, Alexa-enabled devices, and the Whirlpool app, Whirlpool Smart Laundry appliances will preview new and unexpected features at CES 2019 that simplify this seemingly endless task. "At Whirlpool, we know laundry never stops. That's why we're dedicated to infuse our smart laundry appliances with leading-edge integrations and innovations that remove friction and get the job done smarter during every step of the laundry process," said Nelly Martinez Garza, laundry brand manager, Whirlpool brand. "We pride ourselves on staying ahead of smart home trends and are thrilled to share our latest technological laundry advancements at CES this year." At CES 2019, Whirlpool brand will showcase more intuitive and personalized laundry features than ever before across its smart washers and dryers, with leading-edge innovations including:* Enhanced Whirlpool Laundry App : Whirlpool touts the latest in personalized laundry prep and control from anywhere through the new and improved Whirlpool laundry app, launching in 2019 and providing seamless help on the go: : Whirlpool touts the latest in personalized laundry prep and control from anywhere through the new and improved Whirlpool laundry app, launching in 2019 and providing seamless help on the go: Whirlpool's Stain Guide will let families quickly identify how to treat select stains on common fabric types, including spaghetti sauce or grass, providing a one-stop shop for laundry prep. Once the user inputs the stain and fabric type into the app, the stain guide will automatically send recommendations and suggested settings to the Whirlpool Smart Laundry appliance to eliminate guesswork and get the desired outcome every time. will let families quickly identify how to treat select stains on common fabric types, including spaghetti sauce or grass, providing a one-stop shop for laundry prep. Once the user inputs the stain and fabric type into the app, the stain guide will automatically send recommendations and suggested settings to the Whirlpool Smart Laundry appliance to eliminate guesswork and get the desired outcome every time. Task Manager will modernize chore assignments by allowing families to manage laundry from anywhere, even when on-the-go . Through the Whirlpool app, family members can asign cleaning tasks such as starting the washer or transferring clothes, which will be prompted on their smart mobile devices to keep laundry moving. will modernize chore assignments by allowing families to manage laundry from anywhere, even when on-the-go Through the Whirlpool app, family members can asign cleaning tasks such as starting the washer or transferring clothes, which will be prompted on their smart mobile devices to keep laundry moving. With Download & Go Cycles , families can create and save up to 30 customized cycles, called "My Cycles," within the Whirlpool app so they are pre-programmed for every load and any fabric type, including delicates, baby clothing and more. , families can create and save up to 30 customized cycles, called "My Cycles," within the Whirlpool app so they are pre-programmed for every load and any fabric type, including delicates, baby clothing and more. Simplified Voice Commands : Also debuting in 2019, Whirlpool will integrate the latest in simplified voice command capabilities with the Google Assistant and Alexa-enabled devices on select Whirlpool smart laundry appliances.** As part of the software enhancements, users will no longer need to state the specific brand when requesting to complete an action through a compatible voice-enabled device, such as pausing or starting appliances, checking how much time remains on a cycle or even assigning washing settings such as delicates or brights. : Also debuting in 2019, Whirlpool will integrate the latest in simplified voice command capabilities with the and on select Whirlpool smart laundry appliances.** As part of the software enhancements, users will no longer need to state the specific brand when requesting to complete an action through a compatible voice-enabled device, such as pausing or starting appliances, checking how much time remains on a cycle or even assigning washing settings such as delicates or brights. Expansion to Wear OS by Google: CES will also mark Whirlpool brand's expansion in mobile watch connectivity. Beyond the upcoming Apple Watch integrations, 2019 will also see Whirlpool smart laundry appliances become compatible with Wear OS by Google, allowing Wear OS users the ease and convenience of remotely communicating with their laundry appliances while away from home. Alert Notifications, eliminating the need to check in on laundry frequently. Whirlpool's Cycle Ratings feature also allows families to enter feedback at the end of each cycle. Whirlpool also continues its integration with Amazon Dash Replenishment, which can automatically reorder laundry supplies such as detergent when they are running low, so families can seamlessly replenish supplies before they ever run out. Beyond the Whirlpool app, select Whirlpool Smart Laundry appliances also provide intuitive shortcuts on the device itself, such as the practical yet innovative Load & Go capability which allows select smart washers to hold up to 40 loads of detergent within the appliance. This ingenious feature allows washers to automatically dispense the right amount of detergent based on the size of each load to give clothing precise fabric care with every wash. From January 8-11, CES attendees can get up close to all Whirlpool Corporate innovations at booth #41925 in the Smart Home section, located at the Sands Expo Center. For more information on the brand's care-centric product innovations and to join the conversation, follow #ConnectToMore #CES2019. * WiFi & App required for connected features. Compatible connected appliance required. Features subject to change. Details and privacy info at whirlpool.com/connect. Appliance must be set to Remote Enable for remote control capabilities ** Voice control availability may vary by region. Model WFW9620H. Based on an 8-lb load Google and Android Wear are trademarks of Google LLC. Amazon, Alexa and all related logos are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Apple is a registered trademark of Apple Inc. CES is a registered trademark of Consumer Technology Association (CTA). About Whirlpool Brand For more than one hundred years, Whirlpool brand has been inspired by how people care for their families. Whirlpool brand is designing home appliances that are focused on improving how families give and get the care they need with the latest technologies and innovations whether that means flexible refrigerator storage for all types of family needs, induction technology for efficient cooking and easier cleaning, or laundry pairs that sense and adapt to clothes. Whirlpool brand is part of Whirlpool Corporation, the world's leading manufacturer of major home appliances. Whirlpool Corporation is also one of Habitat for Humanity's largest corporate partners for over 15 dedicated years, donating a refrigerator and range to every new Habitat for Humanity home built in North America. For more information on Whirlpool, please visit whirlpool.com/everydaycare or find us on Facebook at facebook.com/whirlpoolusa or Twitter at @WhirlpoolUSA. Additional information about the company can be found at whirlpoolcorp.com. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/whirlpool-brand-revolutionizes-laundry-routines-with-the-latest-in-connected-technology-300772122.html SOURCE Whirlpool Corporation [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Community College of Denver Becomes First ATP of HEIDENHAIN Controls in North America HEIDENHAIN is proud to announce Community College of Denver's (CCD) Advanced Manufacturing Center (AMC) as the first HEIDENHAIN authorized training partner ( ATP (News - Alert) ) focusing on its CNC controls in North America. Here, both students and industry stakeholders alike can now access and train on the latest in state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005066/en/ HEIDENHAIN announces that Community College of Denver (CCD) is their first Authorized Training Partner for HEIDENHAIN TNC controls in North America. Pictured here (from left to right) are: HEIDENHAIN's Julian Renz, CCD's Eric Miller (News - Alert) , HEIDENHAIN's Joe Pizzoferrato and CCD's Matthew Sweeney. (Photo: Business Wire) To become a HEIDENHAIN ATP, CCD staff completed several rounds of advanced training on the 5- Axis (News - Alert) HEIDENHAIN TNC machine controls and successfully passed an extensive exam. "We are thrilled to be able to contribute to domestic manufacturing with these advanced capabilities," said Matthew Sweeney, AMC Director. "It's exciting to see what can now be done just by knowing what buttons to push on these conversational and effective HEIDENHAIN controls. And we are just scratching the surface of what these HEIDENHAIN controllers can do. Even the most experienced machinist can benefit from these advanced capabilities." HEIDENHAIN's TNC Business Development Manager Gisbert Ledvon explained that "HEIDENHAIN has been in a relationship with CCD and their Advanced Manufacturing Center in Colorado since 2015, including paricipating in multiple joint workshops held at CCD for 5-axis machining covering theoretical and practical parts." There are multiple HEIDENHAIN TNC controls in operation at the AMC, and student classes are currently being offered there from basic to advanced control programming and training. More information on HEIDENHAIN control training opportunities at CCD can be obtained from CCD Machining Instructor Eric Miller at 303.352.3060 or online at CCD.edu/Machining. CCD is now listed online as one of the global ATPs of DR. JOHANNES HEIDENHAIN GmbH, and other North American institutions are now invited to apply to the ATP program as well. More information about ATP program partnership is available from HEIDENHAIN. This expanded HEIDENHAIN ATP program is part of a larger North American TNC support initiative. This new support includes increased control training at HEIDENHAIN offices in the Schaumburg, IL, an establishment of a controls application group with dedicated contact information (TNCApplications@heidenhain.com), as well as a hotline for on-the-go technical support (847-490-0351, Ext. 2). About HEIDENHAIN DR. JOHANNES HEIDENHAIN GmbH, headquartered in Traunreut, Germany, develops and supports motion control feedback solutions for the machine tool, semiconductor, electronics assembly and test, metrology, automation, medical, energy, biotechnology and other global markets. HEIDENHAIN employs approximately 6,000 people worldwide in its core business activities. The North American subsidiary is HEIDENHAIN CORPORATION, headquartered in Schaumburg, IL, and San Jose, CA (News - Alert) , and has been serving the U.S. industry for over 50 years. www.heidenhain.us About CCD With nearly 8,000 students, Community College of Denver is located on the vibrant Auraria Campus in downtown Denver. As a leading point of entry to higher education for the city and county of Denver, CCD offers small class sizes and flexible schedules, career and academic programs, award-winning professors, extensive advisory and support services, world-class facilities, easy access via RTD light rail, and affordable tuition. CCD is a federally designated Hispanic Serving Institution and is one of 13 community colleges in the Colorado Community College System (CCCS). Learn more at CCD.edu. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005066/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Ainstein to Demo New Building Automation Capabilities During CES 2019; to Automate Meeting Room Utilization for Texas Instruments Ainstein, a leader in intelligent mmWave radar systems, will demo new building automation capabilities at CES (News - Alert) 2019 (January 8-11) that will include automating meeting room utilization for Texas Instruments (TI) during the show. Last month, Ainstein announced a new antenna and board design included in TI's new 60-GHz mmWave radar over-the-door sensors (ODS). A new generation of smart sensors will dramatically improve utilization and functionality of commercial buildings as well as reduce operating costs with energy efficient solutions such as occupancy adjusted lighting and temperature controls. In the average commercial building, for example, HVAC consumes 39 percent of the energy budget. Smart sensors can reduce that spend by 18 percent, according to a recent report by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE).1 Smart radar sensors in TI's CES meeting rooms are integrated with Amazon's Alexa to inform TI meeting staff whether a room is occupied, how many people are in a room, and where in the room they are located. When deployed in any building, an organization's staff can better manage work space and meeting room utilization from a reception desk, central command station, or via employee calendars and communication networks. Because the sensors do not include cameras, there are no identification or privacy issues. In yet another building automation use case, these sensors will count the number of people in a room and adjust lighting, HVAC and other systems accordingly to optimize comfort and functionality, while minimizing energy use and costs. Ainstein will demo its solution at TI meeting rooms in the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) North Hall N117 during CES, January 8-11, 2019. Schedule a meeting or demo at CES here. In addition to CES, the solution is currently being piloted with the Bioscience & Technology Business Center (BTBC) at the University of Kansas. "Ainstein has helped us dramatically improe the efficiency of our conference room management," said E. LaVerne Epp, Executive Chairman of BTBC. "As a shared working space, we have a lot of resident companies using our conference rooms without a shared calendar. It is always a challenge to know what room is booked or occupied. But now, we are aware of the occupancy status at all times remotely, which means no time and energy wasted walking up and down the stairs to find an open room. It is a perfect solution for shared workspaces like ours." "In addition to improved management of meeting space, these high-performance sensors create new opportunities to improve efficiency, as well as reduce costs and environmental impact," said Andrew Boushie, Vice President of Strategy and Partnerships at Ainstein. "The 60-GHz frequency band provides the bandwidth needed for a higher level of precision and accuracy than was previously available." The 60-GHz frequency band enables sensors to accurately determine the range, velocity and angle of objects in an area. Because it is not widely used in other building applications, there is little chance of signal interference. For more information on the benefits of 60-GHz radar systems for building automation, and to get started building applications with the ODS evaluation module visit and contact us at https://ainstein.ai/60ghzods/ To download the Ainstein white paper: Improved People Counting for Building Automation - Better Management of Company, People and Assets with Radar Systems The full media kit can be found at: ainstein.ai/ces2019media Ainstein to Launch New Product and Exhibit at NAIAS AutoMobili-D Event, VP of Strategy and Partnerships Andrew Boushie to Present Ainstein will launch a new product and exhibit at the upcoming North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) AutoMobili-D event, January 14-17, in the Connected Car section (CC004). Andrew Boushie, Vice President of Strategy and Partnerships at Ainstein, will serve on a panel at AutoMobili-D titled, "Trends That Will Continue to Reshape the Auto Industry," to be held Wednesday, January 17, at 2:30 ET at the PlanetM Stage. In an autonomous vehicle use case, Ainstein sensors provide LIDAR-like image quality and highly reliable radar performance optimized for low light and extremely dusty conditions. To schedule a briefing at AutoMobili-D, please visit here. About Ainstein: Founded in 2015, Ainstein enables safer driving, flying, working and living through radar-based technology. Leveraging our radar technology and know-how, we love imagining, developing, and building things that haven't been built before. We make radar more affordable and easier to deploy, offering complete customized solutions for autonomous drones, advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), autonomous vehicles, and industrial sensing - incorporating a combination of mmWave radar, sensor fusion and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Located in Lawrence, Kansas, Ainstein is in the business of improving safety and protecting valuable assets through innovations in radar technology. Learn more: www.ainstein.ai 1 https://www.buildings.com/news/industry-news/articleid/21514/title/smart-sensor-reducing-hvac-energy-use View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005259/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Nintex Named a Leader in The Aragon Research Globe for Digital Transaction Management, 2019 BELLEVUE, Wash., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Nintex, the global standard for process management and automation, today announced the company has been named a Leader in the Aragon Research Globe for Digital Transaction Management, 2019 based on a review of 20 major providers in the market. To download the report, visit: https://www.nintex.com/resources/aragon-digital-transaction-management/. Within the report, Nintex is recognized for its leadership in digital transaction management (DTM) because of the company's powerful and easy-to-use process management and automation platform that more than 8,000 customers worldwide turn to every day to manage, automate and optimize business processes. Aragon finds that there is high demand amongst business decision makers and operations professionals to automate paper-based business processes to improve their customer and employee experiences and business outcomes. The report also states that enterprise organizations who start their digital transformation by leveraging DTM technologies and automate their document journeys report immediate benefits like: Enhance and simplify the customer experience and employee experience Improve profitability Shorten time to revenue "We're moving fast into a new 'Content in Motion' era to streamline and improve every document-based customer and employee journey," stated Aragon Research CEO Jim Lundy. "This is an important shift s we're moving beyond simply storing and managing documents and a key reason why Advanced DTM, what we also call workflow and content automation, must be a strategic part of every digital journey going forward." Within Aragon's recent assessment of the DTM landscape, Nintex is the only Advanced DTM vendor to offer integrated process mapping known as Nintex Promapp, advanced workflow automation, DocGen, mobile apps, modern forms, and process intelligence capabilities in a cloud solution that requires no coding. With Nintex's real-time content analytics, enterprises also can quickly understand what is happening within automated processes and replicate ones performing well and make real-time enhancements to processes needing improvement. To experience the Nintex Platform, sign up for a free trial at www.nintex.com/trial. Media Contact Kristin Treat kristin.treat@nintex.com cell: (215) 317-9091 About Nintex Nintex is the global standard for process management and automation. Today more than 8,000 public and private sector clients across 90 countries turn to the Nintex Platform to accelerate progress on their digital transformation journeys by quickly and easily managing, automating and optimizing business processes. Learn more by visiting www.nintex.com and experience how Nintex and its global partner network are shaping the future of Intelligent Process Automation (IPA). Product or service names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Aragon Disclaimer Aragon Research does not endorse vendors, or their products or services that are referenced in its research publications, and does not advise users to select those vendors that are rated the highest. Aragon Research publications consist of the opinions of Aragon Research and Advisory Services organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Aragon Research provides its research publications and the information contained in them "AS IS," without warranty of any kind. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nintex-named-a-leader-in-the-aragon-research-globe-for-digital-transaction-management-2019-300772291.html SOURCE Nintex [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Knowles to Present Advanced Audio and Voice-Enabled Solutions at CES 2019 Knowles Corporation (NYSE: KN), a market leader and global provider of advanced micro-acoustic, audio processing, and precision device solutions, will demonstrate its latest high-performance audio solutions at CES (News - Alert) 2019, January 8-11, in Las Vegas, NV. Knowles technology enables OEMs to deliver superior audio experiences and natural voice interactions with connected devices like smart speakers, TVs, connected home devices, wearables, headsets, smartphones, and hearables. Knowles will showcase its latest mobile, ear, and IoT audio solutions, including the company's SiSonic and smart microphones, balanced armature receivers and high-performance audio processors. Demonstrations include: Knowles' SmartMic (IA61x) featuring always-on voice wake with an integrated audio processor and Knowles' high performance SiSonic MEMS technology in a single miniature microhone package. Knowles' Machine-Learning Audio processor (IA8508) enabling context-aware applications and far-field voice interaction. A diverse partner ecosystem with proven solutions ported to Knowles' Open DSP platform, providing OEMs access to advanced functionality from leading algorithm developers, for the fastest time to market. Edge processing for increased performance and enhanced privacy, with a distributed array of smart microphones providing voice command coverage and sensing throughout the modern smart home. Superior far-field audio capture and processing amidst distractors, enabling reliable human-to-human communication and human-to-machine commands in noisy environments. High-performance sound capture, preserving high-quality audio signals in smart speaker, smart TVs, and security camera applications. When: January 8-11, 2019 Where: The Venetian, Las Vegas, NV, Level 3, Meeting Rooms Toscana 3804 & 3806 Who: Attendance at the demonstration is by invitation only. To schedule a private meeting, contact your local sales representative or email CES@knowles.com. About Knowles Corporation Knowles Corporation (NYSE: KN) is a market leader and global provider of advanced micro-acoustic, audio processing, and precision device solutions, serving the mobile consumer electronics, communications, medical, military, aerospace, and industrial markets. Knowles uses its leading position in MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) microphones and strong capabilities in audio processing technologies to optimize audio systems and improve the user experience in mobile, ear, and IoT applications. Knowles is also the leader in acoustic components used in hearing aids and has a strong position in high-end capacitors. Knowles' focus on the customer, combined with unique technology, proprietary manufacturing techniques, rigorous testing and global scale, enables it to deliver innovative solutions that optimize the user experience. Founded in 1946 and headquartered in Itasca, Illinois, Knowles has employees in 11 countries around the world. For more information, visit knowles.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005213/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Hartfiel Automation Acquires Fiero Fluid Power EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Hartfiel Automation is pleased to announce the acquisition of Fiero Fluid Power. Fiero Fluid Power has served their customers in the Rocky Mountain area with excellent pneumatic, automation, motion control, robotics, and instrumentation products since its founding in 1984. Fiero Fluid Power has two (2) full service, stocking locations: Denver, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah. From those offices, Fiero serves Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and eastern Nevada. Michael T. Brooks, President and CEO of Fiero Fluid Power, said: "I want to thank my loyal, hardworking team of 53 for helping grow the business from a fledgling organization of 4 people in 1984 to the first class operation it is today. I also want to assure our customers and vendors that they will be in good hands with Hartfiel Automation, who has been in business for 60 years. This has been a long, challenging but enjoyable journey, driving the business growth and expanding into new markets with new exciting customers along the way. Our dedicated team will be here to serve our customers and vendors under the leadership of the Hartfiel team going forward. Happy New Year!" Myron Moser, CEO of Hartfiel Automation, added: "I've known Mike Brooks and his company since 1990. He has been a friend and a fellow colleague in the MDN for many years. Mike Brooks and his Leadership Team have built a strong company of talented people. We are excited to have them join us, and together write the next chapter in Fiero's successful story!" Patrick L. Schusted, President of Hartfiel Automation, observed: "Building off of a strong customer centric culture, the new Fiero Automation will be in a great position to service and grow in the Rocky Mountain Region. Hartfiel Automation, combined with Fiero Automation, will continue to provide Innovative Automation Solutions to customers in 19 States though our 9 Sales locations." The new entity will be doing business as Fiero Automation. For over 60 years, Hartfiel Automation has been a specialized, high-tech provider of pneumatics, motion and mobile control solutions. Hartfiel Automation has continued to diversify its service by adding product offerings in hydraulics, aluminum extrusions, robotics and automation solutions. To find out more about Hartfiel Automation, please visit us online at www.hartfiel.com If you would like more information about this topic, please contact Marah Ruud at marah.ruud@hartfiel.com. Contact: Marah Ruud, Hartfiel Automation Phone: 952-974-2500 Email: 207029@email4pr.com View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hartfiel-automation-acquires-fiero-fluid-power-300772283.html SOURCE Hartfiel Automation [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] CAKE by Accelerize Joins Performance Marketing Industry Leaders at Affiliate Summit West 2019 Sold-Out Event in Las Vegas Brings Together Digital Marketers from More than 80 Countries NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Accelerize (OTCQB: ACLZ) (OTCBB: ACLZ) and its digital marketing software division CAKE today announced it will attend Affiliate Summit West 2019 that takes place January 6-8 at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel. To schedule a meeting with a CAKE representative and learn more about its digital marketing SaaS solutions, click here or visit the Meet Market, table J20 on January 6th from 12 pm to 6 pm PST. In 2003, Affiliate Summit was founded with the purpose of providing educational sessions on the latest performance marketing issues and fostering a productive networking environment for affiliate marketers. Since then, Affiliate Marketing West has grown into the industrys premier global event, attracting thousands of digital marketers from around the globe, interested in making new connections, plus looking for innovative visions, cutting-edge technologies and best practices for improving their return on adspend (ROAS). The attendees are key decision makers that include online publishers, influencers, media owners, traffic sources, advertisers, global brands, networks, technology firms, agencies and other solution providers. The affiliate marketing industry is estimated to grow at an annual rate of over 10 percent and forecasted to reach $6.82 billion by 2020, according to Forrester Research. Among Forresters research results, nearly 90 percent of advertisers said that affiliate programs were important or very important to their overall marketing strategy, and the majority of publishers revealed that affiliate partnerships drove more than 20 percent of annual revenue. The performance marketing space continues to thrive and innovate, said Santi Pierini, CAKE President and Chief Operating Officer. Affiliate marketing has proven to be a powerful channel marketers leverage at all stages of the customer journey. And as the customer journey becomes more complex with multiple digital marketing channels and devices, there is a tremendous opportunity for innovation in the space to keep pace with evolving habits and behaviors. CAKE is excited to be at the forefront of this evolution, empowering the growing industry with technology solutions that lead to consumer discovery, brand engagement and customer acquisition with maximum ROAS. About CAKE by Accelerize CAKE, a division of Accelerize Inc., provides proprietary cloud-based solutions to collect, attribute and optimize the performance of digital marketing return on investment, in real-time. Bringing clarity to cross-channel marketing campaigns, we empower advertisers, agencies, publishers and networks from more than 50 countries worldwide with the insight to make intelligent marketing decisions. CAKE by Accelerize is headquartered in Newport Beach, Calif. with operations in London and New Delhi. For more information, visit www.getCAKE.com. About Accelerize Accelerize Inc. (OTCQB: ACLZ) (OTCBB: ACLZ) offers marketing technology solutions that revolutionize the way advertisers leverage their digital advertising data. For more information, visit www.accelerize.com. Use of Forward-looking Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements from Accelerize Inc. within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and federal securities laws. For example, when Accelerize describes the growth of the affiliate marketing industry and uses other statements containing the words "believes," "anticipates," "plans," "expects," "will" and similar expressions, Accelerize is using forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on the current expectations of the management of Accelerize only, and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements: changes in technology and market requirements; our technology may not be validated as we progress further; we may be unable to retain or attract key employees whose knowledge is essential to the development of our products and services; unforeseen market and technological difficulties may develop with our products and services; inability to timely develop and introduce new technologies, products and applications; or, loss of market share and pressure on pricing resulting from competition, which could cause the actual results or performance of Accelerize to differ materially from those contemplated in such forward-looking statements. Except as otherwise required by law, Accelerize undertakes no obligation to publicly release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. For a more detailed description of the risk and uncertainties affecting Accelerize, reference is made to Accelerize's reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Media Contact Brittany Christopher PR@getCAKE.com (949) 887-0437 Investor Contact Ascendant Partners, LLC Richard Galterio Rich@ascendantpartnersllc.com (732) 410-9810 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Medsphere Acquires HealthLine Solutions, Expands CareVue Platform Medsphere Systems Corporation, the leading provider of affordable and interoperable healthcare information technology (IT) solutions and services, today announced the acquisition of HealthLine Solutions. Based in Plano, Texas, HealthLine has more than 20 years of experience in creating applications that enable hospitals to more effectively manage supply chain inventory. HealthLine's core assets include robust and adaptable applications that use bar coding and RFID technology, intuitive user interfaces and systems integration to ease the complex process of healthcare supply chain management. Integration and automated tracking enables HealthLine to provide additional supply chain reporting support for specialized clinical functions such as interventional medicine and surgery. HealthLine applications now specifically enhance the RCM Cloud revenue cycle management component of the complete CareVue EHR solution. "HealthLine applications empower hospitals to increase revenue and lower labor costs while having complete confidence in inventory data, which is why we're excited about this strategic acquisition," said Medsphere President and CEO Irv Lichtenwald. "With the addition of supply chain management functionality, the CareVue solution overall, and the RCM component specifically, offer a unique combination of comprehensive and affordable functionality that no other healthcare IT provider has chosen to match." While purchasing, receiving and inventory supply functions are similar across many industries, healthcare presents unique challenges in that inventories are maintained in disparate locations such as nursing stations, operating rooms and specialty departments. HealthLine's proven ability to navigate the healthcare environment makes it a valuable addition to the CareVue EHR platform. About HealthLine Solutions For over 20 years, HealthLine has been the inventory supply chain management specialist, providing a variety of systems that effectively address daily inventory and supply chain challenges. The company combines deep expertise, thoughtfully designed technology, and a collaborative, customer-first spirit, yielding a simple, elegant cart management solution that plugs into the way hospitals work, not the other way around. Working closely with customers to create partnerships that drive shared success, HealthLine empowers customers to manage their supply chain requirements, driving continuous product improvements going forward. About Medsphere Founded in 2002 and based in Carlsbad, Calif., Medsphere Systems Corporation is an organization of committed clinical and technology professionals working to positively impact patient care by delivering award-winning healthcare IT solutions for providers of every size and budget. Medsphere's inpatient portfolio includes CareVue, an integrated EHR system that incorporates clinical, financial and patient accounting solutions, and RCM Cloud, a complete end-to-end revenue cycle management solution. Using a vendor-independent approach to helping hospitals solve critical challenges, the Phoenix Health Systems division provides a host of healthcare IT services, including systems implementation, project management, remote service desk, end-user device management, application management and IT leadership. And Medsphere's ChartLogic division offers a complete ambulatory suite, including EHR, Practice Management, Revenue Cycle Management and Patient Portal. Learn more about Medsphere at www.medsphere.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005154/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] ICR Acquires Westwicke Partners, North America's Leading Healthcare-Focused IPO Advisor & Investor Relations Firm ICR, a leading strategic communications and advisory firm, announced today that it has acquired Westwicke Partners, the leading healthcare-focused investor relations firm in North America. Westwicke, and all of its team members, will combine with ICR's existing healthcare investor and public relations practice, forming a new entity branded as Westwicke, An ICR Company. The new practice group will be co-led by Westwicke Founders Bob East and Mark Klausner. The transaction advances ICR's strategy to be the leading strategic communications firm serving companies with sector-focused expertise. ICR pioneered the model of having former sell-side analysts and other Wall Street professionals with dedicated sector expertise serve as IPO advisors, investor relations and capital markets advisors to clients. Adding Westwicke, which applies that same model to the healthcare sector, creates the leading communications practice serving this rapidly growing category. Westwicke will remain a leading IPO advisor and investor relations firm servicing growing healthcare companies and, by combining with ICR, will expand its capabilities to now include ICR's established practice areas of public relations, digital branding, crisis & special situations and governance advisory services. ICR's PR team consists of more than 75 team members, including a dedicated team serving the healthcare industry. Both firms have capital markets advisory businesses which will be unified to support the needs of clients considering IPOs and other capital raising events including block sales and debt advisory. Tom Ryan, CEO of ICR, stated, "We have always had the utmost respect for Westwicke and viewed them as the 'ICR of Healthcare'. The Westwicke team has built an incredible business that mirrors our culture and commitment to excellence in client service and sector-focused stratgic counsel. We couldn't be more excited and look forward to their leadership in growing an integrated healthcare practice and contributing to the broader success of ICR." Mr. East and Mr. Klausner stated, "Joining forces with ICR represents a natural next step for our business and provides significant benefits for our clients and team members. We will continue to offer the same dedicated healthcare expertise while now being able to integrate a broader suite of services that our clients are increasingly asking for. We have known and admired the ICR team since we founded Westwicke and we are enthusiastic about building the next chapter of our business as part of ICR." Founded by Mr. East and Mr. Klausner in 2006, Westwicke provides IPO advisory, investor relations and capital markets advisory services to clients in the life sciences, medical technology and healthcare services sectors through a network of offices in Baltimore, Boston, New York, San Diego and San Francisco. With 29 team members and more than 100 clients, Westwicke is recognized as the leading investor relations and capital markets consulting firm serving the healthcare industry. Michael Fox, Chief Client Officer for ICR, stated, "The convergence of communications continues to accelerate across all industries. We look forward to providing Westwicke's clients, and all healthcare companies, a fully-integrated communications solution that combines the preeminent healthcare IR team with sector experts in public relations, crisis management, special situations and digital branding." About ICR Established in 1998, ICR partners with companies to execute strategic communications and advisory programs that achieve business goals, build awareness and credibility, and enhance long-term enterprise value. The firm's highly differentiated service model, which pairs capital markets veterans with senior communications professionals, brings deep sector knowledge and relationships to more than 550 clients in approximately 20 industries. Today, ICR is one of the largest and most experienced independent communications and advisory firms in North America maintaining offices in New York, Norwalk, Boston, San Francisco and Beijing. ICR also advises on capital markets transactions through its ICR Capital subsidiary. Learn more at www.icrinc.com. Follow us on Twitter (News - Alert) at @ICRPR. About Westwicke Partners Westwicke Partners provides customized strategic investor relations programs and independent capital markets advice to public and private healthcare companies. Westwicke focuses on the healthcare sector exclusively, and is headquartered in Baltimore with regional offices in Boston, New York, San Diego, San Francisco and London. For more information, please visit www.westwicke.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005217/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] New Market Research on the World Market for Military Infrared Imaging Detectors and Systems (Vol. IRW-M) by Maxtech International, Inc. SARASOTA, Fla., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Maxtech International, Inc. is releasing the 2019 edition of its market research report on military infrared detectors and systems markets (Vol. IRW-M). Global military infrared imaging systems had a good year in 2018, with growth of 9%, mainly driven by growth in the U.S., where there was an increase in the defense budget along with pent-up demand for upgrading existing infrared systems. This, along with the development of advanced new infrared detector technologies is expected to drive the military infrared imaging market to $14 billion by 2023. Some of the important trends that are shaping advanced military infrared systems include: The increasing level of maturity of Type II Superlattice (T2SL) detectors which have the potential to replace incumbent MCT and InSb technologies. The first major military T2SL infrared program was awarded in the U.S. in 2018. Uncooled systems for Manportable use with increasing performance based on large-format, small pixel Wafer-Level-Packaged (WLP) Focal Plane Arrays (FPAs) many of which are fabricated at commercial fabs that also fab low-end commercial FPAs. The development of head-mounted augmented vision systems with uncooled FPAs, digital low-light-level sensors and SWIR sensors. 3 rd Gen dual-band cooled systems a long delayed technology which started its programmatic development in 2016 in the U.S. and will also be incorporated in armored vehicle systems in France , followed by other countries. The technology will provide armored vehicles with unprecedented capabilities for precision strike. Gen dual-band cooled systems a long delayed technology which started its programmatic development in 2016 in the U.S. and will also be incorporated in armored vehicle systems in , followed by other countries. The technology will provide armored vehicles with unprecedented capabilities for precision strike. High Operating Temperature (HOT) cooled detectors and systems made with T2SL technology, bulk nBn/XBn technology or MCT. which are expected to be incorporated into major new Programs of Record over the next five years. SWIR detector (mainly InGaAs) growth in the double digits Digital-pixel readouts (DROICs) that will bring a new level of performance to all types of infrared detectors. Geographically, the U.S. continues to be the dominant supplier of military infrared systems. However, Europe, Israel and China also have a sizable presence. Countries in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere are increasing their purchases of these systems. What's new in this report? (1) Market size and company market shares for Type II Superlattice (T2SL) FPAs (2) Updates on the five-year market forecasts for the most dynamic high-performance technologies in emerging military systems: HOT (High Operating Temperature) nBn/XBn/T2SL Focal Plane Arrays HOT MCT (Mercury Cadmium Telluride) FPAs 3 rd Gen Dual-Band megapixel FPAs Gen Dual-Band megapixel FPAs InGaAs FPAs and systems - a breakdown by military application and company market shares. (3) An update on spending Projections for military infrared systems for the top 25 countries worldwide: NORTH AMERICA : U.S. and Canada : U.S. and EUROPE : UK, France , Germany , Italy , Spain , Netherlands , Poland , Greece , Norway : UK, , , , , , , , MIDDLE EAST : Israel , Saudi Arabia , Turkey , United Arab Emirates (UAE) : , , , (UAE) ASIA : China , Russia , India : , , PACIFIC RIM : Japan , South Korea , Australia , Taiwan , Singapore : , , , , SOUTH AMERICA : Brazil , Colombia (4) Changes in U.S. Infrared Market Strategies (5) Market shares for suppliers of gimbaled airborne infrared systems (6) Market shares for suppliers of Stirling cryocoolers (7) Upcoming upgrades to military infrared systems expected using T2SL/nBn technology Maxtech International's up-to-date research on World Military Infrared Imaging Markets separately covers the infrared detectors (FPAs) and the military infrared systems in which they are used. The following military infrared systems are covered in detail: Ground-based Systems , including Night Sights, Fire Control Systems, Driver's Vision Enhancers, Thermal Weapon Sights, Fused IR/I2 Systems, Unattended Ground Sensors, Soldier Systems, Hostile Fire Indicators (HFI); Active Protection Systems (APS). Airborne Systems , including Targeting/Navigation Pods, Targeting/Piloting Systems, Reconnaissance Systems, Infrared Countermeasures, Infrared Search and Track (IRST) Systems and Persistent Surveillance Systems (aerostats and air vehicles: fixed wing, rotary wing and UAVs), Degraded Visual Enhancement (DVE) systems; Naval Systems including optronic masts, thermal night sights, targeting systems and shipboard IRST; Tactical Missile Seekers , including air-to-air, surface-air, air-surface, ground-ground; and smart munitions; Strategic Surveillance and Missile Defense including infrared satellite early warning systems and ballistic missile defense systems. The World Market for Military Infrared Imaging Detectors and Systems is the only such report on world military infrared markets and follows Maxtech International's highly acclaimed report on world commercial infrared markets. The report contains over 400 pages of up-to-date market information and forecasts and is priced at $5350. It is only available directly from Maxtech (no third parties are authorized for its distribution.) Maxtech International's analysis of World Military Infrared Imaging Markets provides the following valuable market information: The current size of world military infrared detector and systems markets (base year: 2018). Five-year projections of world military infrared detector and systems markets (2019 - 2023) Geographic segmentation of the overall market into the following regions: North America , Europe , Pacific Rim , Asia , Latin America , Africa and Middle East An analysis of military infrared capabilities for 26 countries Five-year Projections for Military Infrared Spending for the Top 25 Countries Worldwide The expected market growth rate for various types of infrared FPAs Technology trends and the status of next-generation FPAs and systems Competitive analyses and market shares Profiles of 46 suppliers of Military Infrared Imaging Detectors and Systems Worldwide Including their market strategies Updated new sections include: Five year market forecasts for: HOT (High Operating Temperature) nBn/XBn, MWIR T2SL Focal Plane Arrays nBn/XBn bulk FPAs HOT MCT (Mercury Cadmium Telluride) FPAs 3 rd Gen Dual-Band megapixel FPAs Gen Dual-Band megapixel FPAs T2SL FPAs InGaAs FPAs and systems Market shares for suppliers of: Military infrared systems (Missiles. Ground, Naval, Strategic) Airborne Gimbaled Systems MCT FPAs InSb FPAs T2SL FPAs Uncooled FPAs InGaAs FPAs Stirling Cryocoolers The structure of the report: Executive Summary A concise summary of the important results in the report. Introduction A review of definitions, the scope of topics covered, the methodology used and the sources of information. Types of Infrared Detectors and Systems - An Analysis Cooled Focal Plane Arrays, Cameras and Systems Mercury Cadmium Telluride (HgCdTe) FPAs and systems Indium Antimonide (InSb) FPAs and systems T2SL (Type II Superlattice) FPAs and systems nBn/XBn FPAs and systems QWIP (Quantum Well Infrared Photodetectors) FPAs and systems Lead Sulfide and Lead Selenide (PbS and PbSe) FPAs and systems Extrinsic Silicon (Si:X) FPAs and systems Other cooled FPAs and systems HOT (High Operating Temperature) FPAs New developments in detector cooling technologies: Thermoelectric, Stirling and Joule-Thomson. New developments in infrared optics, including molded optics and wafer-level optics. Uncooled Focal Plane Arrays (FPAs), Cameras and Systems Vanadium Oxide (VOx) Microbolometers and Systems Amorphous Silicon (a-Si) Microbolometers and Systems Other Microbolometers SOI FPAs Ferroelectric (Pyroelectric) Arrays and Systems Thermopile Arrays and Systems Vacuum Packaging of Uncooled FPAs Indium Gallium Arsenide (InGaAs) FPAs and Systems Novel Uncooled Technologies Uncooled FPA development and production plans in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan, and the Rest of the World. The effect of commercial smartphone thermal imagers on the military infrared market. Trends in Military Infrared Imaging Systems: 1 st Gen Gen 2 nd Gen Gen 3 rd Gen (MWIR/LWIR HD) Gen (MWIR/LWIR HD) HD (High Definition) Infrared Systems T2SL/nBn/XBn technology starting to replace MCT/InSb HOT ("High" Operating Temperature) FPAs and Systems Technology Trends Leading research and technology developments are discussed. High Operating Temperature ("HOT") sensors (including nBn FPAs), new developments in Type II Superlattice (T2SL) FPAs (VISTA), 3-D Imaging Sensors, Digital-pixel ROICs (DROICs), Ultra-small pixel Uncooled FPAs and Novel Uncooled FPA development. The latest and upcoming DARPA programs. Military Infrared Programs More than 200 major military infrared programs worldwide are described including the detector type, prime contractors, status of program and status of funding. Market Segmentation and Forecasts World market sizes and forecasts from 2018 to 2023 are provided separately for Infrared Detectors and Systems. The overall market (consumption) is segmented geographically into the following regions: North America, Europe, Pacific Rim, Asia, Latin America, Africa and Middle East. A five-year forecast (by number of units) is made separately for the following FPAs: mercury cadmium telluride, indium antimonide, nBn/XBn Bulk FPAs, T2SL, QWIPs, Uncooled Microbolometers, Indium Gallium Arsenide and Other Uncooled. Separate forecasts are given comparing HOT MCT FPAs and HOT nBn/XBn FPAs and a 10 year forecast for 3rd Gen FPAs A separate, more detailed forecast is given for U.S. military infrared systems in the following segments: Tactical Missiles, Strategic Missiles and Defense, Airborne, Naval and Ground Based systems. Five-year Projections for Military Infrared Spending for the Top 25 Countries Worldwide Suppliers of Military Infrared Detectors and Systems The structure of the military infrared industry is analyzed. Market shares and market strategies for suppliers of infrared detectors (overall) and of various types of infrared FPAs are given separately. Market shares and market strategies for suppliers of infrared systems are given. Market shares for EO/IR gimbals are provided. Market shares for suppliers of Stirling cryocoolers are given. A total of 46 company profiles are provided, including: AIM Infrarot-Module (AIM) BAE Systems Boeing Clear Align Diehl Defence Leonardo DRS Elbit Systems Elbit Systems of America FLIR Systems Fujitsu Harris Hensoldt Optronics Honeywell International i3system IAI Tamam IRnova L3 Technologies L3 Space & Sensors-Cinc. L3 Sensor Technologies L3 Insight L3 KEO L3 Wescam Leonardo Co./Leonardo MW Lockheed Martin MBDA Mitsubishi Electric N2 Imaging Systems/UTC NEC NORINCO-Kunming North / North GuangWei IC (GWIC) Northrop Grumman Opgal Orion R&P Qioptiq QmagiQ Rafael Raytheon Raytheon Vision Systems Rheinmetall Electronic Solutions SCD Semi-Conductor Dev. Safran Electronics & Defense Sofradir Sumitomo Electric Teledyne Thales ULIS UTC Aerospace Systems TABLES AND CHARTS IN THE REPORT TABLES Table 1.1 FIVE YEAR MARKET FORECAST FOR WORLD MILITARY INFRARED DETECTORS AND SYSTEMS Table 1.2 FORECASTS FOR INFRARED FOCAL PLANE ARRAYS BY INFRARED DETECTOR MATERIAL (Units) Table 1.3 MILITARY INFRARED DETECTOR AND INFRARED SYSTEM USE BY GEOGRAPHIC REGION Table 1.4 FIVE YEAR MARKET FORECAST FOR U.S. MILITARY IR IMAGING SYSTEMS Table 1.5 FIVE YEAR MARKET FORECAST FOR INFRARED SPENDING BY THE TOP 25 COUNTRIES WORLDWIDE Table 3.1 PROPERTIES OF INFRARED DETECTOR MATERIALS Table 3.2 Representative HOT FPA PROGRAMS AND PRODUCTS Table 3.3 MEMS StructureS used in uncooled FPAs Table 3.4 Types of Standard Advanced Dewar Assemblies Table 4.2 HOT SWaP Cores Table 4.3 MAJOR UNCOOLED INFRARED PROGRAMS IN THE U.S. MILITARY Table 4.4 Major Weapon Systems and their IR Subsystems Table 4.5 Major Weapon Systems and Their IR Subsystems (Continued) Table 4.6 FUTURE SOLDIER SYSTEMS programs WORLDWIDE Table 5.1 UPCOMING UPGRADES TO u.s. MILITARY INFRARED SYSTEMS Table 10.1 FIVE YEAR MARKET FORECAST FOR WORLD MILITARY INFRARED DETECTORS AND SYSTEMS Table 10.2 MILITARY INFRARED DETECTOR AND INFRARED SYSTEM USE BY GEOGRAPHIC REGION Table 10.3 THE WORLD INFRARED MILITARY MARKET BY TYPE OF INFRARED DETECTOR (Units) Table 10.4 FORECASTS FOR INFRARED FOCAL PLANE ARRAYS BY INFRARED DETECTOR MATERIAL (Units) Table 10.5 FIVE YEAR MARKET FORECAST FOR INFRARED SPENDING BY THE TOP 25 COUNTRIES WORLDWIDE Table 10.6 FIVE YEAR MARKET FORECAST FOR U.S. MILITARY IR IMAGING SYSTEMS Table 11.1 RECENT COMPANY CHANGES (ACQUISITIONS, NEW COMPANIES, POLICY CHANGES) Table 11.2 RECENT COMPANY CHANGES (ACQUISITIONS, NEW COMPANIES, POLICY CHANGES) (Continued) CHARTS Chart 1.1 Market Shares for Suppliers of Infrared Detectors and Detector Modules (All Detector Types) Ranked by Dollar Shipments Chart 1.2 Market Shares for Suppliers of Infrared Detectors and Detector Modules (Cooled Scanning and Staring FPAs) Ranked by Unit Shipments Chart 1.3 Market Shares for Suppliers of Infrared Detectors and Detector Modules (Scanning and Staring MCT FPAs) Ranked by Unit Shipments Chart 1.4 Market Shares for Suppliers of Infrared Detectors and Detector Modules (InSb Staring FPAs) Ranked by Unit Shipments Chart 1.5 Market Shares for Suppliers of T2SL FPAs Ranked by Unit Shipments Chart 1.6 Market Shares for Suppliers of Infrared Detectors and Detector Modules (Uncooled FPAs) Ranked by Unit Shipments Chart 1.7 Market Shares for Suppliers of Infrared Detectors and Detector Modules (InGaAs FPAs) Ranked by Unit Shipments Chart 1.8 Market Shares for Suppliers of Infrared Systems Ranked by Dollar Shipments Chart 3.1 Military Applications of InGaAs FPAs Chart 10.1 Market Growth for HOT nBn/XBn/T2SL and HOT MCT (units) Chart 10.2 Market Growth for 3rd Gen Focal Plane Arrays (units) Chart 11.1 Market Shares for Suppliers of Infrared Detectors and Detector Modules (All Detector Types) Ranked by Dollar Shipments Chart 11.2 Market Shares for Suppliers of Infrared Detectors and Detector Modules (Cooled Scanning and Staring FPAs) Ranked by Unit Shipments Chart 11.3 Market Shares for Suppliers of Infrared Detectors and Detector Modules (Scanning and Staring MCT FPAs) Ranked by Unit Shipments Chart 11.4 Market Shares for Suppliers of Infrared Detectors and Detector Modules (InSb Staring FPAs) Ranked by Unit Shipments Chart 11.5 Market Shares for Suppliers of T2SL FPAs Ranked by Unit Shipments Chart 11.6 Market Shares for Suppliers of Infrared Detectors and Detector Modules (Uncooled FPAs) Ranked by Unit Shipments Chart 11.7 Market Shares for Suppliers of Infrared Detectors and Detector Modules (InGaAs FPAs) Ranked by Unit Shipments Chart 11.8 Market Shares for Suppliers of Infrared Systems Ranked by Dollar Shipments Chart 11.9 Market Shares for Suppliers of Airborne EO/IR Gimbals Ranked by Dollar Shipments Chart 11.10 Market Shares for Suppliers of Stirling Cryocoolers For additional information, please visit: https://maxtech-intl.com/Info/Volume-IRW-M.aspx View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-market-research-on-the-world-market-for-military-infrared-imaging-detectors-and-systems-vol-irw-m-by-maxtech-international-inc-300772112.html SOURCE Maxtech International, Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Item 9 Labs Corp. CEO Sara Gullickson Recognized as Influential Cannabis Leader Named Among Women to Watch in 2019 SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sara Gullickson, CEO of Item 9 Labs Corp. (OTC: INLB), recently was selected by Marijuana Business Magazine for its Women to Watch in 2019 list. Covering the international cannabis market, the 22 featured women were recognized as preeminent leaders who merit attention in the New Year. Gullickson was highlighted as an intrepid entrepreneur who established her own cannabis consulting firm Dispensary Permits at age 26. She now serves as CEO of publicly traded company Item 9 Labs, a leading developer and manufacturer of innovative cannabis products. In her Women to Watch interview, Gullickson provided advice for those interested in entering the market, Slow and steady wins the race. I see so many people trying to get rich quick. If you work hard, remain dedicated to your core values and make savvy business decisions, profits will follow. Item 9 Labs operates an indoor cultivation facility zoned on 50 acres in Arizona. Under Gullicksons leadership, Item 9 Labs will serve as a parent company for multiple brands, including Dispensary Permits and Dispensary Templates, as well as the management of Strive Wellness of Nevada, a cultivation, processing, and distribution facility in Nevada. This week, Item 9 Labs was featured in an Arizona Republic article showcasing the top companies in the states booming medical marijuana program. Item 9 Labs is currently in the final stages of completing a 10,000 square-foot expansion that will double the size of its Arizona facility. We are one of the fastest growing cities in the country. Our patient base is very healthy and the licenses from the business model standpoint are very high-valued. Arizona is attractive to out-of-state groups because you get full vertical integration, Gullickson stated in her interview with the Republic. As CEO of the rapidly growing venture, Gullicksons goal for 2019 is to acquire additional marijuana icenses in up to ten markets, including: Arizona, California, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington state. For information visit Item9LabsCorp.com. About Item 9 Labs Corp.: Item 9 Labs Corp. (OTC: INLB) creates comfortable cannabis health solutions for the modern consumer by developing innovative products and proprietary delivery platforms. The Company is focused on the development of technology and products that administer high-quality medical marijuana through a novel intra-nasal delivery system to deliver significant health benefits. The Company is headquartered in Southern Arizona where it owns and operates 50 acres, one of the largest properties in the U.S. zoned to grow and cultivate the medical marijuana flower. Item 9 has a proven track record of providing consumers with high-quality medical marijuana flower and products focused on organic, cost-effective solutions for whole body health. By combining high-quality, medical-grade product with the Companys proprietary nasal mucus-membrane delivery system, Item 9 plans to produce the industrys first market medicated nasal delivery device that administers specific cannabinoid dosing to meet the growing demand of todays modern cannabis consumer. For more information, visit us online at www.Item9labscorp.com and www.Item9labs.com . Forward-Looking Statement: This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, risks and effects of legal and administrative proceedings and governmental regulation, especially in a foreign country, future financial and operational results, competition, general economic conditions, proposed transactions that are not legally binding obligations of the company and the ability to manage and continue growth. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual outcomes may vary materially from those indicated. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements we make in this news release include the introduction of new technology, market conditions and those set forth in reports or documents we file from time to time with the SEC. We undertake no obligation to revise or update such statements to reflect current events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Media Contact: Neko Catanzaro Proven Media Neko@provenmediaservices.com (401)-484-4980 Investor Contact: Jeffrey Rassas [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 02, 2019] Raytheon UK to secure hundreds of aerospace jobs in support of Royal Air Force Shadow aircraft fleet LONDON, Jan. 2, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon UK (NYSE: RTN) today signed a 250 million contract with the Ministry of Defence to provide 11 years of support and sustainment services to the Royal Air Force's Shadow aircraft fleet. The contract supports Shadow aircraft maintenance, airworthiness management, design organisation and supply chain support. When work begins in April 2019, 200 full-time jobs will be secured at Raytheon's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance hub in North Wales, with an additional 250 sustained within the UK supply chain. "We are safeguarding and creating skilled aerospace jobs in the UK and strengthening the local economy," said Richard Daniel, chief executive and managing director of Raytheon UK. "Our work in advanced defence and security systems, cyber protection and skilled training ensures our armed forces have the technology they need to keep the UK safe and secure." Raytheon UK will also support aircraft modification design and integration under the contract, which serves as an enabling agreement to upgrade the aircraft to the Mk2 version. "We are creating the world's leading hub for advanced ISR platforms in Broughton," said Roland Howell, managing director of airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance at Raytheon UK. "We will work with Team Shadow to make sure we deliver the tactical ISR capability needed for UK defence." By transitioning integrated support services to Raytheon UK's acilities, availability-focused services will be embedded at RAF Waddington. Capability and upgrade services will be included at Broughton, North Wales. Raytheon UK will collaborate with the MOD Defence Equipment and Support Fixed Wing Manned Airborne Surveillance delivery team on availability support, modifications and capability upgrades to the fleet. Defence Minister Stuart Andrew said "this 250 million investment will ensure the UK retains its position as a global leader in battlefield intelligence gathering for UK troops and our NATO allies. It is also great news for the economy through the safeguarding of 450 skilled jobs across the country, including 200 in North Wales, confirming the region as a UK centre of excellence for air support." About Raytheon UK With facilities in Broughton, Waddington, Glenrothes, Harlow, Gloucester and Manchester, Raytheon UK is invested in the British workforce and the development of UK technology. Across the country the company employs 1,700 people and supports 8,000 jobs. As a prime contractor and major supplier to the U.K. Ministry of Defence, Raytheon continues to invest in research & development, supporting innovation and technological advances across the country. In 2017, Raytheon UK generated more than 700m for UK GDP and 461 million in sales. About Raytheon Raytheon Company, with 2017 sales of $25 billion and 64,000 employees, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, civil government and cybersecurity solutions. With a history of innovation spanning 96 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration, C5I products and services, sensing, effects, and mission support for customers in more than 80 countries. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Follow us on Twitter. www.raytheon.com Media Contact Sen Sami +44 (0)1279 407600 sen.sami@raytheon.co.uk View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/raytheon-uk-to-secure-hundreds-of-aerospace-jobs-in-support-of-royal-air-force-shadow-aircraft-fleet-300771999.html SOURCE Raytheon Company [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 02, 2019] EQUITY ALERT: Rosen Law Firm Announces Filing of Securities Class Action Lawsuit Against The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - GS Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, announces the filing of a class action lawsuit on behalf of purchasers of the securities of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) from February 28, 2014 through December 17, 2018, inclusive (the "Class Period"). The lawsuit seeks to recover damages for Goldman Sachs investors under the federal securities laws. To join the Goldman Sachs class action, go to https://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-1474.html or call Phillip Kim, Esq. or Zachary Halper, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email pkim@rosenlegal.com or zhalper@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action. NO CLASS HAS YET BEEN CERTIFIED IN THE ABOVE ACTION. UNTIL A CLASS IS CERTIFIED, YOU ARE NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL UNLESS YOU RETAIN ONE. YOU MAY RETAIN COUNSEL OF YOUR CHOICE. YOU MAY ALSO REMAIN AN ABSENT CLASS MEMBER AND DO NOTHING AT THIS POINT. AN INVESTOR'S ABILITY TO SHARE IN ANY POTENTIAL FUTURE RECOVERY IS NOT DEPENDENT UPON SERVING AS LEAD PLAINTIFF. According to the lawsuit, defendants throughout the Class Period made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) Goldman Sachs participated in a fraudand money-laundering scheme in collusion with 1Malaysia Development Bhd., a Malaysian state-owned investment fund; (2) the foregoing conduct, when revealed, would foreseeably subject Goldman Sachs to heightened regulatory investigations and enforcement; and (3) as a result, Goldman Sachs's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than February 19, 2019. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. If you wish to join the litigation, go to https://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-1474.html or to discuss your rights or interests regarding this class action, please contact Phillip Kim, Esq. or Zachary Halper, Esq. of Rosen Law Firm toll free at 866-767-3653 or via e-mail at pkim@rosenlegal.com or zhalper@rosenlegal.com. Follow us for updates on LinkedIn (News - Alert) : https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter (News - Alert) : https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook (News - Alert) : https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/. Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 3 each year since 2013. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190102005656/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Shandong in China: Doorstep jobs provide convenience for the poor BEIJING, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A video story presented by China.org.cn on specialties like handicrafts made by poor households being sold throughTaobao, an e-commerce platform to help the villagers out of poverty: Gao Xiuying, a 66-year-old widow in Juancheng county, Shandong province, finally affords to buy meat for her disabled son. But three years ago, without poverty-alleviation workshops, even proper food and basic medical treatment were beyond her reach. In Juancheng, an underdeveloped county lying on the floodplain of the Yellow River, a group of aged dwellers lived below the poverty line. "My husband passed away around 18 years ago, and my son couldn't take care of himself. Life was extremely difficult. We couldn't even afford proper food and didn't have enough money for medical treatment, let alone spare money to buy meat," said Gao Xiuying. But her life changed after the county government set up a poverty alleviation workshop in her village. "I decided to move my workshop from Qingdao to Juancheng. In this county, I can save at least 60 percent of labour cost. What is more important is that I can help bring my fellow villagers out of poverty because people working here are mostly from poor households," said Guo Ruixia, manager of Xinguan Hts Co., Ltd. "At the beginning I could only do odd jobs, then I started to learn skills and could earn up to 800 yuan per month. The work here is not tiring, it's much easier than farming and I can take care of my family," said Gao Xiuying. Specialties like handicrafts made by poor households can be sold through Village Taobao, an e-commerce platform through which Alibaba cooperates with the local government to help the villagers out of poverty. "We are living a better life, and my son and I can have meat now, which was hard to imagine. I feel confident about the future," said Gao Xiuying. Shandong in China: Doorstep jobs provide convenience for the poor http://p.china.org.cn/2018-12/25/content_74311351.htm About China.org.cn Founded in 2000, China Internet Information Center (China.org.cn/China.com.cn) is a key state news website under the auspices of the State Council Information Office, and is managed by China International Publishing Group. We provide round-the-clock news service in ten languages. With users from more than 200 countries and regions, we have become China's leading multi-lingual news outlet introducing the country to the outside world. We are one of the country's authoritative outlets for government press releases and are authorized to cover various major events. "Live Webcast" is our online webcasting service to present State Council Information Office press conferences in both Chinese and English languages. We are reputed for timely and accurate delivery of news and information, and wide interactions with audiences. In addition, we are authorized to publish and live broadcast major events and press conferences of ministries, local government agencies and institutions as well as enterprises. In the era of mobile internet, we endeavor to create an array of products for mobile devices headed by the multilingual WAP platform and the mobile APP. We also use Chinese and international social media to publish information for different user groups. In the future, CIIC will continue to offer authoritative information about China, tell China's stories, voice China's opinions, and introduce a vivid, panoramic and multicultural China to the world through multi-language, multi-media and multi-platforms. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/shandong-in-china-doorstep-jobs-provide-convenience-for-the-poor-300771684.html SOURCE China.org.cn [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 03, 2019] Rogers Bridges the Digital Divide for Even More Canadians 300 Housing Partners Now Participating in Connected for Success TORONTO, Jan. 3, 2019 /CNW/ - Today, Rogers announced a new milestone for its pioneering Connected for Success program with its 300th housing partner. Launched in 2013 and the first program of its kind in Canada, Connected for Success offers low-cost, high-speed internet to subsidized tenants and members of housing partners across the Rogers cable footprint in Ontario, New Brunswick and Newfoundland. With 300 housing partners, over 200,000 households are eligible. "Internet access has become essential for Canadians it's a lifeline for staying in touch with friends and family and a critical tool for school and work," said Peter King, Senior Director, Corporate Social Responsibility, Rogers Communications. "These new partnerships will help us deliver high-speed internet to even more people so they can take advantage of all the opportunities in today's digital economy." The newest Connected for Success partners include: Ahneen Cooperative Homes Inc., Mississauga Cardinus Housing Co-op, Ottawa CMHA Simcoe County Branch, Barrie Desloges Co-op, Ottawa Family Action Network Housing Corporation, Toronto Gateway Co -operative Homes Apartments, Barrie -operative Homes Apartments, Harmony Co-operative Homes, Toronto John Noble Apartments/ 97B Mount Pleasant , Brantford , St. James Court Non-Profit Housing Corporation, Orillia Court Non-Profit Housing Corporation, Tannenhof Co-operative Homes Inc., Ottawa "Digital skills and access to the internet are essential for school, work and social connections. We are delighted to be partnering with Rogers Communications through the Connected for Success program to give families a chance to be more fully included in the social and economic life of our community," said Aaron Wallace, Director of Strategic Planning, City of Brantford. Eligible families can enjoy 10 Mbps download speed, 100 GB of data, free installation, and modem rental for only $9.99 per month + taxes. No contract or credit check is required upon sign up. Rogers is also participating in the Government of Canada's Connecting Families initiative, which launched last month and offers the same service to eligible families who currently receive the maximum Canada Child Benefit. Connecting Families participants are randomly selected by the Government of Canada to participate in the program and receive a letter from the government with an access code needed to sign up for the program. About Rogers Rogers is a leading diversified Canadian communications and media company. We are Canada's largest provider of wireless communications services and one of Canada's leading providers of cable television, high-speed Internet, information technology, and telephony services to consumers and businesses. Through Rogers Media, we are engaged in radio and television broadcasting, sports, televised and online shopping, magazines, and digital media. Our shares are publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: RCI.A and RCI.B) and on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: RCI). SOURCE Rogers Communications Canada Inc. - English [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Farmington, WV (26555) Today Isolated thunderstorms this evening. Skies will become partly cloudy after midnight. Potential for severe thunderstorms. Low 56F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%.. Tonight Isolated thunderstorms this evening. Skies will become partly cloudy after midnight. Potential for severe thunderstorms. Low 56F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%. Dec. 31, 1909: Spencer Trask financier, philanthropist and onetime chairman of The New York Times was killed when the train he was on from his estate in Saratoga Springs, Yaddo, back to New York City was struck from behind by a freight train near Croton. Trask had been occupying the drawing room at the rear end of the last car on the Montreal Express when it was hit with such force that the front car was telescoped by the sleeper cars behind it. Just months before, Trask was in another accident when the automobile he was riding in collided with a trolley car in Boston; the 65-year-old's face came in contact with the windshield and his eyeglasses were smashed. It resulted in the removal of his left eye two months later with the surgery taking place at his summer home in Lake George. These two incidents were the final ones in a life marred by tragedy. Trask and his writer wife, Katrina, suffered the losses of all four of their children at early ages, and the grief led Katrina to a lifetime full of depression and illness. Their deaths, though, also inspired the Trasks to turn their Saratoga Springs estate into an artists' colony. To date, Yaddo has been a temporary home to writers and artists who have won 66 Pulitzer Prizes, 61 National Book Awards, 27 MacArthur Fellowships and one Nobel Prize for Literature, among other honors. The couple also donated the land and were intimately involved in the creation of the Wiawaka Center for Women in Lake George. Dec. 29, 1968: Albany's Union Station, once a symbol of progress that counted among its admirers a former Chinese ambassador to the United States, writer Mark Twain and President and Mrs. Grover Cleveland, closed its doors at 11 p.m. after 68 years of service. Progress continued its forward locomotion, however; at 11:10 p.m., the very first train arrived across the river at the new Penn-Central Railroad facility in Rensselaer. The building is now known as Kiernan Plaza and houses the offices of the State Employees Federal Credit Union, or SEFCU. ALBANY Two weeks into the federal shutdown, college and university officials are waiting to see how the spending freeze impacts the numerous research projects that are funded through the government. But they stress its too early to say if particular initiatives are in danger of outright derailment. The impact to SUNY, like any higher education institution receiving federal grants for research, depends on the length of the shutdown, State University of New York spokeswoman Holly Liapis said in a statement. She said continued uncertainty about the duration of the shutdown could impact federal agencies this month, "which would then affect research institutions and their faculty members from submitting new proposals, attending pre-scheduled review panels, and receiving payments and awards on time. "This would have a detrimental impact and prevent our faculty, students, and staff from conducting leading-edge research on campuses," Liapis said. Approximately 800,000 federal employees have been furloughed or are working without pay during the shutdown, prompted by an impasse over funding for President Donald J. Trump's proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Among those workers are employees of federal agencies that review, approve and help fund basic scientific and technological research at universities across the nation, said Christopher Nomura, vice president for research at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse. At this point, its too early to tell but if this becomes prolonged it will have an impact, Nomura said. One of the projects he oversees explores how bacteria react to the surrounding environment. Researchers are focusing on a particular strain that can be lethal to people with cystic fibrosis. Getting a university research project started and keeping it operating entails a number of steps and moving parts, Nomura explained. A researcher with an idea for an experiment or inquiry will offer an initial proposal to a federal agency such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institutes of Health or National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Once the initial approval is secured, the plan is then peer-reviewed to determine whether it is worth funding. After that hurdle is cleared, money for equipment and to pay research assistants often doctoral candidates is disbursed. Because the process can take months, it takes a while to feel the impact of a shutdown. Additionally, colleges and universities have been on Christmas-New Years break as the shutdown was unfolding. If this extended into May, or even through February, it could cause issues, said Nomura. rkarlin@timesunion.com 518 454 5758 @RickKarlinTU Milton's building maintenance supervisor doesn't live in town but that will not keep him off two key government committees. Jason Miller, who lives in Ballston, has been appointed to sit on the town's budget committee and to chair the town's complex feasibility committee, a group that will discuss the multi-million dollar fate of town hall. Miller, for whom the town's employee residency laws was changed last year after it was discovered he lived out of town, was appointed to the new posts after a 3-to-1 vote Wednesday night. Councilwoman Barbara Kerr, the only elected official to vote against Miller, said members of the committees should live in town. "He shouldn't be deciding how our tax dollars are spent," Kerr said. "I would have liked to see a resident on the budget committee." Miller's selection was backed by Town Supervisor Scott Ostrander. "Barbara's entitled to her opinion," Ostrander said. "They are my appointments. I'm not going to argue because it doesn't make the town look good." Kerr also bristled that Miller, a political ally of Ostrander, will chair the town complex committee, which will explore either renovating or replacing town hall. Kerr said the project could cost several million dollars. "This is the biggest project we have been facing in many years," Kerr said. "I think an elected official should be chair of it." In addition to his appointments, Miller was granted use of three town credit cards and can take home a town truck. Other employees who can take home town trucks are Building, Zoning and Fire Inspector Wayne Howe and Highway Superintendent David Forbes. In addition to Miller, the budget committee will include Ostrander, Councilman John Frolish and town's Comptroller Darlene Allen, who lives in Malta and also benefited from the town's change in its residency laws last spring. The town complex feasibility committee will also include Ostrander, Frolish and Howe. Miller's 2017 W2 form and Ballston tax rolls show he lives on 483 Finely Road in that town. In 2017, at his hourly rate of $21.21, he earned a gross of $69,571. In 2018, the Empire Center's seethroughny.org website showed the Miller earned $70,607. His hourly wage, town board minutes shows, was just above $22 an hour with a $3,500 stipend as deputy highway superintendent. Like Ostrander, Miller dismissed Kerr's concerns. "It's Barbara's opinion," he said after the meeting. Kerr also told the town board that she would not sit on the three-person employee handbook committee, as Ostrander suggested, because it includes only employees. The two-member committee, which will rewrite the employee handbook, now consists of Assessment Clerk Brenda Howe as chair, and Ostrander's confidential secretary Shannon Doherty. Howe's wife Brenda Howe would have chaired the panel regardless of Kerr's decision. "It's a conflict of interest," Kerr said. "It makes the committee bias. Employees don't write their own manuals. I'm elected to represent the best interest of the residents and I don't think the committee is set up to do so." The state is not letting Dannemora escapee David Sweat get familiar with his prison surroundings. Sweat, the surviving prisoner whose brazen breakout in 2015 inspired the Showtime series "Escape at Dannemora," has been moved for the fourth time since his recapture in 2015. The 38-year-old killer was recently moved to Auburn Correctional Facility from Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, according to state records. It is at least the fourth time Sweat has been moved since he was captured after three weeks on the run in the forests around Clinton Correctional Facility. State corrections officials have declined to offer specific reasons for the moves other than to note that generally such decisions are based on the past behavior of prisoners. Each month, the state transfers roughly 5,000 of the 51,000 inmates in its prisons. In June 2015, Sweat and fellow prisoner Richard Matt cut their way out of the state prison in Clinton County, leading hundreds of police officers on a hunt through the northern Adirondack Mountains. Matt was killed during the manhunt and Sweat was captured after a state trooper shot him near the Canadian border. Their story of escape and the assistance that prison employee Joyce Mitchell gave them were the inspiration for the seven-part Showtime miniseries "Escape at Dannemora." Related: Joyce Mitchell rejects 'Escape at Dannemora' script, despite IG report Sweat was already serving life in prison for the 2002 murder of a Broome County Sheriffs deputy. After being captured, Sweat was sent to Five Points Correctional Facility in Romulus, which is in the Finger Lakes region. In November 2017, he was transferred to Attica Correctional Facility after telling prison officials he had formulated an escape plan from Five Points. Just six months later, he was moved to Wende. Buffalo television station WIVB reported that Sweat was transferred the week of Dec. 3. ALBANY - Legislation allowing New Yorkers to take up to 12 weeks of paid leave after the death of a family member was vetoed last week by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. Bereavement leave was not included in the paid family leave program the state adopted in 2016, which covers paid-time off to care for sick relatives or bonding with a new child. An expansion of paid family leave could be revisited this year, as the governor has announced his intention to "resolve" outstanding issues with the legislation. In his veto message, Cuomo cited the cost of the expansion and ambiguous timelines for utilizing the leave as the rationale for his opposition. The legislation, which was opposed by business interests, would have allowed bereavement leave for the death of a spouse, domestic partner, child, stepchild, parent, parent-in-law, step-parent, grandparent or grandchild. It would not apply to a sibling. Sen. Rich Funke, a Rochester-area Republican who sponsored the proposal, said he was disappointed by the governor's veto. Funke, whose son died in 2001 at the age of 30, said that there had been "serious negotiations" about reforming the legislation prior to the November election, which could have resulted in technical amendments in 2019. "Those talks were led by the governor's office, and the Senate and Assembly both participated," Funke said in a statement. "Inexplicably, the governor's office didn't pursue that course further once the election was over." "In the coming session, I look forward to having productive discussions with all parties so we can provide grieving families the extra time they need to deal with the loss of a child while still being sensitive to the needs of employers," he added. Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi said the governor's office presented multiple potential chapter amendments that were rejected by both houses of the state Legislature, and dismissed the claim that they were disengaged after Election Day. The Business Council of New York, which had urged Cuomo to veto the bill, maintained that the proposal was flawed, citing language that allowed bereavement leave to be taken anytime after the death of a family member, as opposed to in the immediate aftermath. That concern was noted in the governor's veto message. The group also said that employers wouldn't be able to plan ahead for the absence of an employee and believed it would be an "immense" challenge for small businesses. Beginning this month, New Yorkers are eligible for up to 10 weeks of paid leave, with 12 weeks available in 2021. In February, the program will expand to include time for organ and tissue donations. David.Lombardo@timesunion.com - 518.454.5427 - @poozer87 EAST GREENBUSH - A 20-year-old man was arrested after stealing a 55-inch television from a Walmart early Wednesday morning, town police said. Juan Baez, of Albany, was arrested for larceny, criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a defaced firearm, East Greenbush police said. Walmart employees called police on Wednesday, around 1 a.m., after Baez walked out of the store, pushing a Philips 55-inch Ultra HD television that he had not paid for. The television was worth $700, police said. Shortly after, East Greenbush police pulled over Baez, who was driving on I-90. Inside the car they found the stolen television as well as a loaded .380 caliber pistol. He was arraigned and jailed. Albany So do we think Andrew Cuomo will run for president? Those inclined to believe he won't can point to the governor's interview Wednesday morning on WAMC, when he said a qualified Joe Biden "has the best case" to make in the crowded field of likely candidates. Talking up a competitor is an unusual strategy for a wannabe president, unless Cuomo believes Biden won't run. Those inclined to believe Cuomo will run for president can point to his fiery inauguration speech Tuesday night, which clearly had a national perspective. The Democrat said "America" or "Americans" 15 times during the 30-minute speech, but never once mentioned Buffalo, Syracuse or Rochester. Given the appalling mess in Washington, focusing on Donald Trump and national problems is sound strategy. Cuomo wasn't wrong when he said there's growing anger and a "great social depression," and that both are dangerous. I don't know how anybody could claim the mental health of the country is strong, although I know quite a few people who don't think Cuomo has made it better. Focusing on the national issues is also sound strategy given the mess in much of New York, particularly north of Westchester County. Last week, the census reported that New York led the country in population loss during a recent 12-month stretch, with an exodus from upstate a primary cause. That's an ongoing trend, and it's perhaps the biggest stain on Cuomo's eight years in office. If so many New Yorkers can't or won't stay put, things aren't going well. How do you argue otherwise? Well, the governor has blamed the trend on the weather, but that's goofy. Nearly all of the other states with tough winters gained population, the census says, and among the nine states that lost residents are several where you can comfortably wear shorts on Christmas, including Louisiana, Mississippi and, believe it or not, Hawaii. The real reason for New York's outflow, of course, is economics. Without satisfying work, the ambitious leave. In rural parts of New York, population drops are consistent with trends happening in rural places all around the country. Small-town America is dying a slow death caused by consolidation and globalization. We can't blame Cuomo for global trends although, given that the best hope for rural areas is a rediscovery of the small and the local, giving $3 billion in tax breaks to a mega-company like Amazon certainly won't help. But the decline of the countryside is only part of the problem. Away from the Capital Region, which is doing fairly well, many of upstate's urban areas are also losing residents at a time when many cities elsewhere, even in the Rust Belt, are experiencing a rebirth. It is no coincidence that nearly all of upstate's cities have had slower-than-the-national-average job growth since the 2008 recession. Of the 100 largest metro areas, Syracuse ranked 98th in job growth in the five years before 2017, according to the Brookings Institution. Despite the Buffalo Billion, that city was 93rd. It is fair to hold Cuomo accountable for that. He hasn't done enough to address the two big hindrances that keep small businesses and farms from thriving and hiring sky-high taxes and regulation choosing instead to fuel growth through handouts to politically connected companies that are already big. (See: Amazon.) The strategy isn't working. Surprise, surprise. It was doomed to fail. Cuomo aides point to the state's 3.9 percent unemployment rate, the lowest in decades. But that's a bit deceiving. The unemployment rate drops if people who can't find work leave the state or give up looking. It also says nothing about the quality of jobs; soul-crushing work at McTaco King counts the same as a satisfying job that supports a family. If you were hoping that Cuomo would address upstate's economic doldrums during his Ellis Island speech, you were out of luck. When he delved into policy, the governor's laundry list consisted of items that will please downstate progressives. They include legalizing recreational pot, rent control, protection of abortion rights and enacting tougher gun laws. Cuomo also talked about reforms that will make it easier for New Yorker to vote, including making Election Day a holiday. There are good things on Cuomo's agenda. Election reform is desperately needed in a state with dreadful voter turnout. Marijuana use should have been allowed long ago. But legal pot isn't going to keep families from leaving, and one more holiday means nothing if you can't find a job. Upstate's decline continues. More Information Contact columnist Chris Churchill at 518-454-5442 or email cchurchill@timesunion.com See More Collapse cchurchill@timesunion.com 518-454-5442 @chris_churchill James Baldwin's novels are almost never adapted for film, so let's hope "If Beale Street Could Talk" is the beginning of something. The great American author left behind some brilliant books that have been waiting decades for the big screen treatment "Another Country," in particular, is a masterpiece. So, we can feel grateful to Barry Jenkins for committing "If Beale Street Could Talk" to film, even if the results are partly disappointing. What's disappointing is that Baldwin wrote a tight, lively, passionate, witty book, and Jenkins has delivered a sprawling, slow-moving, passionate, somber movie. The passion is there, but here it has a complete other frame. And perhaps because Jenkins can't translate to the screen the incisiveness and music of Baldwin's prose, he brings on real music from other sources. Over and over, and increasingly as the movie wears on, Jenkins drowns his film in mirthless jazz and pop interludes to the point that the action feels stuck in cement. Worst of all, Jenkins seems to be pushing for Baldwin's results, rather than trusting Baldwin's means of achieving those results. He goes for the emotional impact of Baldwin, while ignoring that Baldwin built his effects methodically, through meticulously observed moments and penetrating descriptions of characters' internal lives. Unlike Baldwin, who would never do such a thing, Jenkins practically begs us to love his two young protagonists. We'd like them better if Jenkins didn't insist so much or treat them so reverently. Early in the film, there's a sex scene that might be the slowest, most mournful and least erotic love scene on record. A baby is possibly being conceived in these moments, and perhaps that's Jenkins' excuse for the almost holy atmosphere, but from an audience's viewpoint, it looks like an awful way to come into the world. Notwithstanding the fact that no one wants to think about their own conception it's borderline repulsive to imagine it something like this would make most of us resist getting born. On the other hand, "If Beale Street Could Talk" contains at least two great scenes and at least as many good ones, so the experience of this film is beyond mixed, practically schizophrenic long stretches of portentous, syrupy emptiness, followed by scenes that rank with Jenkins' best work in "Moonlight" and "Medicine for Melancholy." Using flashbacks to the recent past, the story is told from the standpoint of Tish (KiKi Layne), a 19-year-old whose boyfriend, Fonny (Stephan James), is in prison awaiting trial for rape. The setting is Harlem in the early 1970s, and Fonny is 100-percent innocent, the victim of a malicious cop and a witness who was manipulated to pick him out of a lineup. As the action starts, Tish and Fonny are still at the stage where they can barely believe this horror is real, and so they're optimistic that soon things will be set right. In the meantime, they're happy at the news that Tish is pregnant. The first great scene in "Beale Street" involves Tish and her mother (Regina King, who's terrific in this) telling her father about the pregnancy. The mother orchestrates the moment so that the nonplussed father (Colman Domingo) can't be anything less than pleased. And then this semi-comic interlude is followed by a tense confrontation, in which Tish's family informs Fonny's parents about the blessed event, and the mother flies into a cold, molten rage. The mother is played by Aunjanue Ellis, and her performance shows why the Motion Picture Academy, or at the very least critics' groups, need to honor feature performances. Ellis is in only one scene, but if you ask people who've seen this film what most impressed them, they all will mention the freakout of Fonny's mother as one of the best things in the movie. Indeed, this is a case where the protagonists are fairly saccharine, but the people around them are interesting. Regina King, for example, is the focus of the other supercharged scene: Tish's mother flies to Puerto Rico in order to meet the rape victim and convince her that Fonny didn't do it. It leads to one of the most searing moments of 2108. And Colman Domingo with seeming ease, as if it were the simplest thing in the world brings a whole history and view of life to his scenes as the father. You just watch him and understand who he is, what he thinks, and how he sees his place in the world and within his family. Jenkins had the actors. He had the story, too. He didn't have to be fancy. He didn't need mood sequences. He could have just left it to the actors and to Baldwin, and they would have brought it home. Instead, either from hubris or insecurity or some mistaken idea that he was helping things along, he made it his show and got between his actors and his audience. The result is that much of "Beale Street" is like a movie under glass. Next time, Jenkins needn't work so hard. When veteran restaurant and bar entrepreneurs leave their Brooklyn home to take on a historic 1860s guesthouse in Philmont, Columbia County, it's clear the plot will have twists. Take the sweet and smoky wings that come to the table stacked like a log pile over crispy fried leeks and trapped beneath a domed glass cloche swirling with smoke. Poof it's lifted, and we are wreathed in a bonfire thrill, sticky wings studded with chives and smashed peanuts for a theatrical fancy that's on my mind for days. It's the kind of show we've come to enjoy in urban dens of mixology, where bartenders fat-washing bourbon and smoking Negronis are serious about their house syrups and infusions, choosing small-batch spirits with politics and a social conscience. So it's no surprise at Vanderbilt Lakeside Barroom & Guesthouse to find the Dead Ringer, a signature cocktail, crafted with sustainably-made, unaged Ilegal mezcal and capped off with Campari-soaked pineapple like some conversation-stopping last word. I went home and made more knowing life would never be the same. Half Moon Orchard gin, crafted in Tuthilltown from New York wheat, apples and botanicals, is woven to gold in the Amber Stardust with prosecco and house-made green tea syrup; hot toddies and mulled wines peddle comfort and joy; a brief wine list plugs the organic and natural, and six taps show off the abundant New York brewers. It's about accessibility, not exclusivity. While local lads in jeans and hoodies watch TV at the bar with pints and Fitzgerald's Locust Hill Farm burgers topped, on the chef's whim, with mac-n-cheese or duck chili, the wiry Hudson crowd in the dining room samples modern American comfort food, cooing at the result. Vanderbilt Lakeside, an 1860s historic house, sits on a small-town Main Street, opposite the former village train depot. Built by Vanderbilts to accommodate railroad employees, it has operated almost continuously since as a boardinghouse, hotel and restaurant through last year, when its predecessor, the Vanderbilt House Hotel, closed on New Year's Day. Henrietta Paris, known for her Brooklyn cocktail bars The Dove Parlour and Night of Joy, picked up the thread in February with husband Matt Bray, a veteran of New York City restaurateur Danny Abrams' restaurants The Mermaid Inn and J.G. Melon, having relocated their young family upstate to re-jig the space. They've retooled the bar-hotel for conscientious upstaters the locally rooted and roving kind with vintage-chic eclecticism and upstate creature comforts suiting an all-season country retreat. Mood walls, tin ceilings and Hudson River School murals meet antique candlelight sconces, animal rugs and mounted deer heads. Guests escaping Brooklyn can flop in a library-styled guest lounge or on the two-tier back deck overlooking Summit Lake. Regulars may still see the bar as an extension of what has always been, but in the kitchen all is not as it seems. That's because Paris and Bray have teamed up with chef Ferdinand Ramilo, a globe-trotting, Culinary Institute of America-trained chef who worked at Daniel in New York City, opened Pangea on the CIA campus and studied Sichuan cuisine in China. Given his formal training, you might not expect Frito pie, a dive-bar riff on nachos smothered in duck chili, cheddar and sour cream, served in an open Frito bag speared with tri-colored peppers and house-candied bacon for a vampish showstopper. But there among the dining room's objet trouves, even casual dishes earn refined flourishes: A server pours smooth, mild apple-parsnip soup around a collage of creme fraiche, chopped eggs, bacon and fried sage; creamy smoked-trout salad bopping with capers and pickles is spooned onto cucumber boats balanced on grilled toasts (the carb-averse can shed that lower layer), with dill and thin beetroot like a pimp's feathered hat. An unstuffy, single-page menu name-drops farms, and pickled and whittled local ingredients power grown-up bistro fare. The three-hour-port-braised beef is so masterfully relaxed it falls apart; the richly reduced skillet sauce hides roast beets, honey-thyme carrots and potatoes carved into cheffy little cylinders with sliced portobellos on top. Lean, yogurt-marinated chicken rings vaguely Indian with mint-yogurt sauce, herbed couscous and coiled squash ribbons. In spite of a miso, peanut and panko crust, the Faroe Island salmon is a touch overdone. If I have any criticism, it's that cleverness occasionally gets in the way of greatness, so that squash ribbons and parceled green beans with chicken are pleasing but perfectly plain, and roasted radishes and yuzu cream are two tasty elements that don't tell a convincing story on the plate. Now knowing more, I suspect not ordering a tofu dish named after Ramilo's Chinese father was a mistake. As the only ones in the dining room going old school with a three-course meal, I enjoy firm panna cotta with its seasonal pumpkin spice flavor restricted to a top inch so I can scrape the cup clean. Ramilo's molten chocolate cake listed with berry coulis and chili-cinnamon salt but hiding a stashed matcha cache under its muffin top is a happy ending nonetheless. I'd planned to reserve Vanderbilt Lakeside for warm weather, when people are game for a summery drive, dining al fresco and cocktails by any body of water, particularly a lake. But spurred on by the cold, the Vanderbilt's social media feed was soon awash in holiday trimmings and hot cocktails by candlelight, and its cozy appeal was too much to resist. So let's check your baggage at the door: The 18-minute drive from Warren Street in Hudson means the restaurant has been welcomed into the area dining scene, albeit in a countrified off-Warren setting. But, from downtown Albany the Palace Theatre, for argument's sake it's a 38-minute drive, the equal of any mid-Broadway destination in Saratoga Springs. I hope you get my point. Dinner for two, including two small plates, suppers and cocktails, costs around $95 with tax, before tip. A burger with fries and a pint falls just under $20, before tip. Susie Davidson Powell is a British freelance food writer in upstate New York. Follow her on Twitter, @SusieDP. To comment on this review, visit the Table Hopping blog, blog.timesunion.com/tablehopping. Bethlehem Monolith Solar cannot say if it will be able to restart construction of its Slingerlands headquarters anytime soon. "We have to make sure the financing is there, and that's the big part," co-founder Steve Erby told the Bethlehem Industrial Development Agency board on Dec. 21. Monolith abruptly stopped construction of the $4.9 million headquarters building at the Vista Technology Campus back in September around the same time it furloughed more than 50 workers. Erby said that Monolith has about 30 people still working for the company, which he expects to bring in between $60 million and $70 million next year in revenue. Monolith installs solar panels and operates solar farms. But between that revenue and a new investor that is expected to give Monolith a new source of cash, Erby isn't sure if the company will have enough money to keep building its Slingerlands headquarters. Town officials are worried because as of the Dec. 21 meeting, the site hadn't been completely secured with a new fence. "As of yet, we're still on standby mode," Erby said. "This industry took quite a hit in 2018." Erby said Monolith is working with "turnaround consultants" from KeyBank to help the company move forward. IDA board members pressed Erby on why Monolith couldn't just tap into the construction loan Monolith has with Pioneer Bank. But Erby said Monolith can no longer draw on the loan. Erby said he was having conversations with Pioneer bank executives and the developer, Joe Nicolla of Columbia Development, on how to move forward. "We really have to see what their ideas and thoughts are," Erby said. WASHINGTON Nobody blinked during President Donald Trumps late-afternoon meeting Wednesday with leading Congressional Democrats including Sen. Charles E. Schumer, leaving little hope the partial government shutdown over Trumps wished-for border wall will end anytime soon as it enters its 12th day. Trump should not use the American people and the 800,000 affected federal workers as hostages to have a temper tantrum, pound the table and say its our way or we hurt all these people, Schumer said after the Situation Room meeting with House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi, as well as Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. Earlier in the day, Trump told reporters the U.S.-Mexico border is like a sieve that lets in criminals and aids drug- and human-trafficking. We are in a shutdown because Democrats refuse to fund border security, he said, accusing Democrats of a stall because they have their eyes on 2020. The battle now shifts back to Capitol Hill where Democrats gain control of the House on Thursday. Under Pelosis lead, Democrats will push through a series of resolutions to reopen most of the closed agencies through Sept. 30 and fund the Department of Homeland Security which controls border enforcement and physical protection through Feb. 8. The measures are sure to pass the House but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said he will not bring them to the Senate floor unless Trump agrees to sign them. The Senate last month approved by voice vote a measure to keep the government open through Feb. 8, but it lacked the $5 billion Trump demanded for the border wall. The Republican-led House then passed a funding bill that did include the $5 billion, setting up the current stalemate. Schumer and Pelosi both played on McConnells refusal to bring up a measure he had previously supported. It is time for the Republican-controlled Senate to take yes for an answer, Pelosi said. Schumer appeared to be confident that Democrats ultimately have the upper hand, reminding reporters that in a White House meeting with him and Pelosi on Dec. 11, Trump said he would take full responsibility for shutting down the government. They are now feeling the heat, he said. It is not helping the president, it is not helping the Republicans to be the owners of this shutdown. Schumer also said he asked the president to give one good reason why the eight government departments now closed should not be reopened while negotiations continued on border security. He could not give a good answer, Schumer said. Later, the New York Times and other outlets reported that Trumps answer was that he would look foolish if he accepted the Democrats offer. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who loses his post as House majority leader on Wednesday, also attended the meeting. He said Schumer interrupted Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen as she made a presentation on the need for a border wall. They didnt want to hear it, he said. Democrats have offered $1.3 billion for border security, which would add more motion detectors, drones, electronic sensors and fencing, but no wall. Both parties appear stuck on exactly what a wall might entail, with Trump embracing a traditional fixed structure along the nearly 2,000 miles of border instead of a combination of steel slats and fencing that he has at various points appeared to endorse. The United States needs a physical barrier, Trump told reporters. Amid criticism by Schumer and others that a wall is ineffective and historically outmoded, Trump added: The wheel, the wall, some things never get old. Trump also rejected a proposal of $2.5 billion put forward to congressional Democrats by Vice President Mike Pence. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, voted on Dec. 21 for the House resolution to keep the government running that included Trumps $5 billion. I oppose government shutdowns and in Congress have consistently voted to keep the government open, she tweeted, omitting any reference to the $5 billion in wall funding that is a poison pill for Schumer and the Democrats. Thats why I voted to fund the government this week with additional funding for border security and disaster aid. Stefaniks office did not respond to a request for comment late Wednesday. Dorothy Eleanor Mercer passed away on June 9, 2021 at Archbold Memorial Hospital. She was born on December 18, 1932, in Pavo to the late Early Byrd Wood and to the late Nellie Deen Wood. She was married to Eugene Mercer who precedes her in death. 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On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Local State Street community forum set Jpkuckens / Josh Kuckens / Staff Photo The Thrush Tavern building, now visible after the removal of the old Gulf Station, is seen on State Street in Montpelier on Tuesday. MONTPELIER A community forum on the preservation of historic State Street in the Capital City will be held Tuesday at Christ Church. The 7 p.m. meeting will include representatives from the church, the state Curators Office, the Montpelier Historic Preservation Commission and Montpelier architect Sandra Vitzthum. Thom Lauzon, who owns the former Gulf gas station site on State Street, and John Russell, who owns the former Thrush Tavern behind the Gulf station, are expected to attend. According to officials involved, the discussion will focus on ideas and proposals to enhance and celebrate the historic downtown to make it more attractive for residents, workers and visitors. It is also considered an opportunity to try and mitigate the impact of two proposed major developments on land behind the Capitol Plaza Hotel on State Street an 81-room Hampton Inn & Suites and an adjoining 348-space public parking garage. State Curator David Schutz noted that the impetus for the forum began with Christ Churchs 150th anniversary capital campaign to raise $700,000 for structural repairs. Church Priest in Partnership Paul Habersang said we feel good about the success of the Hearts on Fire campaign, allowing church leadership to focus other aspects of the churchs community outreach. David Schutz has been instrumental in coordinating efforts to include Christ Church into the preserving State Streets historic architecture project, Habersang said. At a recent meeting, David pointed out to the team that the original architect who designed Christ Church also designed (the annex) of the current State House. Habersang noted the church had been part of the community since 1840, in a wooden church opposite the State House that burned in a fire. The current church was consecrated in June 1868. Habersang said it is hoped the church will continue to act as a center of activity in the community. We want to keep our doors open for concerts, performances, civic conversations, not to mention spiritual nurturing, Habersang said. Christ Church is more than a church; we are a neighborhood gathering place of welcome. Schutz spoke enthusiastically about the possibility of a land swap between Lauzon and Russell that could allow for the former Thrush Tavern, now occupied by the Pho Capital restaurant, to move back to its original position on the State Street frontage. It would be fantastic, I think, to restore that building to that site, Schutz said. There have only been tentative conversations with Thom Lauzon about the possibility, but knowing of his terrific record in Barre with historic preservation our hope is that this conversation might generate community-wide support for something as major as trying to allow for that to happen before Thom actually builds his proposed structure, and possibly on a better site for him as well as the community they would swap parcels and try to move this historic building back to its original location. Building owner Russell said he and his former partner, Margot George who started the Montpelier Heritage Group that celebrated the citys architectural history often discussed moving the building to the street frontage. George died in 2008. We talked about that and she knew that it had once been on State Street ... and she thought that was where it belonged, Russell said. Russell said when the Gulf station came up for sale last year, he considered buying it but was concerned about the cost of oil and gas contamination remediation on the site. Russell said he would still be interested in a discussion about moving his building to the street frontage. Lauzon is planning to build a three-story commercial building on the Gulf station lot but said he had not received a serious offer that would persuade him to alter his plans. What John (Russell) proposed was, We can do a land swap and you can pay to move my building, and I said, John, why would I pay to move your building? I have a lot with State Street frontage on the corner and you have a lot in the Pit (parking lot). I told John I would be interested in the conversation but under very different terms and conditions, Lauzon added. Vitzthum noted that State Street is the historic entrance into the city that had suffered the loss of significant buildings over the years. For over 40 years, residents and planners have discussed how to make this part of the city more lively, more enticing, Vitzthum said. A number of owners have already done so much. For instance, the Bashara family keeps their storefronts beautiful and Christ Church encourages vendors and music in their well-used park. But there is so much more that can be done. In thinking of historic preservation, its important to look beyond buildings to an entire streetscape, she added. For more information and to sign up for the forum discussion, contact Jack Zeilenga at 828-0749 or email jack.zeilenga@vermont.gov. stephen.mills @timesargus.com We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Submit Here Instant unlimited access to all of our content on tillamookheadlightherald.com. The Headlight Herald E-Edition Newsletter emailed to you each week, the night before the paper hits the street! This subscription is for NEW or RENEWING online subscribers. (The charge will appear as "Country Media Inc." on your credit card statement) Tifton, GA (31794) Today Isolated thunderstorms this evening. Skies will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 73F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight Isolated thunderstorms this evening. Skies will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 73F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%. Ad Resource Stock Digest New this week - 1,614 interested Could This Be the Biggest US Gold Discovery in Years? See how this tiny, unknown gold company secured a prime land package right next door to the worlds two largest gold producers in Nevadas famed Carlin Trend where 84 Million gold ounces have already been extracted. Best of all, investors can still get in well below US$0.50 per share. Advertisement It's the Grand Designs folly that was transformed from a 250-year old ruin into a modern designer home. And now the unique property in the rolling landscapes of the Vale of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire is for sale. After costing 300,000 to rebuild - in addition to the 100,000 to buy the land - the renovated two-bedroom house is currently for sale for 850,000 via estate agents Hamptons International. The couple behind the rebuild, who have had their second child since starting the project, put the home up for sale nine months after moving in because it is now too small for them. Pictured: Grand Designs' Kevin McCloud with Jimmy Fernandez and his wife Mimi, the couple who revived the Grade-II listed property The renovation of Dinton Castle - which is also known as Dinton Folly - featured in an episode of Grand Designs on Channel 4 earlier this year. In the programme, its presenter Kevin McCloud stands outside of the ruin at the start of the project, saying: 'It may have the shape of a mini Tudor tower, but this mini-castle wasn't built for defence. It was, in fact, built 250 years ago to house a gentleman's fossil collection. 'Of course, now it has become something of a relic itself. 'It's a building that doesn't want to stand up anymore. It just wants to fall over in two big halves. Well, it's going to as its owners are going to try and repair it.' The renovation of Dinton Castle - which is also known as Dinton Folly - featured in an episode of Grand Designs on Channel 4 earlier this year Original features: The renovated living room saw much of the original brick left exposed Slide me Pictured: Dinton Folly before and after the extensive renovation project The couple who revived the Grade-II listed property were architect Jimmy Fernandez and his wife Mimi. Jimmy exclusively told MailOnline Property: 'The project was more transformative than we had originally anticipated as we had our second child during the house build. We are now a happy and growing family of four in a two-bedroom house, so it is time for us to move on to the next stage in our lives. 'This is a beautiful and award-winning house, ideal for a couple looking to live in a unique place that is truly inspiring.' What a Grand Design! The Grade-II listed property is for sale for 850k via estate agents Hamptons International History in the making: The folly was originally built 250 years ago to house a gentleman's fossil collection There is a kitchen on the lower floor, with a staircase to the first and second floors The property's owner - and architect - Jimmy Fernandez had the staircase build to exact specifications Today, there are two bedrooms of equal size on the second floor of the folly in Buckinghamshire In the Grand Designs episode on Channel 4, Jimmy explained: 'I've always wanted to live in a castle and now I've got my chance.' They bought the land for 100,000 without any planning permission - and only obtained it on the basis that they would not extend the building. The work began with digging the trenches for utilities services - power, water and sewerage - before starting on the crumbling stone walls and inside. The lower floor has a compact kitchen, with an octagonal living room with a fireplace on the first floor and two bedrooms, each with a compact staircase, on the second floor. There is a terrace roof with a seating area and a grand outdoor staircase leading up to the main entrance. The octagonal living room on the first floor comes with a fireplace and beams on the ceiling Child's play: The second bedroom is currently being used for the couple's two children The couple started out with a 200,000 budget for the building work, but this proved to be too ambitious THE ORIGINS OF DINTON FOLLY Pirctured: Sir John Vanhatten Dinton Castle - also known as Dinton Folly - was built by Sir John Vanhatten as part of a larger estate that includes Dinton Hall. Historical documents written by Sir John about the folly were found on the estate - during the separate renovation of Dinton Hall. In 1769, he writes: 'Laid the foundation stone of Dinton Castle.' Three years later, in 1772, he says: 'Found entrenching the ground about the castle, a glass cup and skeleton, and many human bones, broken spears and bits of swords and many other weapons.' Kevin McCloud explains in the episode of Grand Designs: 'Obviously what he found was the Saxon grave underneath the site, which he dutifully put back into place and buried - only for Jimmy to dig up all again.' Kevin goes on warn: 'Nobody took much notice of Saxon bones in the 18th century. But today, buried bodies on a building site can bring a project to a dead halt.' Indeed, bones were found on the site, which delayed the project. Thankfully, they were limited. However, the ground work still took longer than expected and cost 30,000, double what Jimmy was expecting. Advertisement The couple started out with a 200,000 budget to do the building works, which proved to be too ambitious. 'Working on older buildings can be a slow and expensive business,' explained Kevin during the programme. As well as expecting their second child during the project, they were evicted from their rental property just before Christmas last year and had to borrow 50,000 from Jimmy's parents along the way. Former teacher Mimi, who had met Jamie in Spain several years ago, was hopeful that the build would take just six months, meaning they could move in by June 2017 just before the birth. However, after missing several moving deadlines, the Fernandez family finally moved into the property in March 2018. Each of the bedrooms have an en suite, with views of the surrounding countryside The property is set back from the main road within a three-quarters of an acre plot of land The house has views of the rolling landscapes of the Vale of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire Annabel Dixon, of property website Zoopla, said: 'This is a beautifully-renovated property. It has been transformative for the young couple, who stand to double the value of the 250-year-old building in just a couple of years. 'Their blossoming family have now outgrown the folly, but it will make a wonderful new home for someone else who wants to be Lord or Lady of the Manor.' The project has received a design award for renovation from Aylesbury Vale District Council. Set back within a three-quarters of an acre plot, the property is accessed via an electric gate and circular gravel drive. It is next to the A418, on the outskirts of Dinton, a village on the Buckingham and Oxfordshire borders. The average price of a property in Dinton is 450,000, compared to an average of 309,922 for the whole of Britain, according to property website Zoopla. There is a village pub, church and combined Church of England village primary school with neighbouring Cuddington taking children from the age of four to 11 years old. Go Compare bosses fear a sliding share price has left it vulnerable to a hostile takeover Price comparison website Go Compare is in talks with investors as it fends off predators. Bosses fear a sliding share price has left it vulnerable to a hostile takeover. They have held talks with shareholders and potential investors to convince them of its long-term prospects. Go Compare has already batted off approaches from private equity firms but its shares are down around 31 per cent since a bid by online estate agent Zoopla in 2017. Now the company has a market value of just 292million and the management team is worried that a hungry competitor could make another attempt to snap up the firm. Among the firms holding talks with GoCompare is activist investor Crystal Amber, sources told The Mail. Led by Richard Bernstein, the firm is most well-known for encouraging the takeover of Thorntons by Ferrero and of Aer Lingus by British Airways owner IAG. Twitter contract: London Mayor Sadiq Khan Mercenary public relations outfit Freud Communications has been handed a nice little earner from publicity-prone London Mayor Sadiq Khan. It is being paid to promote his 'London is Open' campaign by getting high-profile figures to promote it on Twitter, a task the mayor's expansive staff is surely quite capable of doing. Cost to the taxpayer for retaining Freud's services? A trifling 30,000. Hasn't wee Sadiq more pressing matters to be seeing to? Crossrail's delay, not to mention rising knife crime, spring to mind. President Trump's erstwhile economic adviser, ex-Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn, is rumoured to have accepted a teaching role at Harvard, his first job since leaving the White House last March. Not that he's been cutting out discount coupons since. Upon joining the government in 2017, bull-necked Cohn had to dump his considerable stock of Goldman shares, then thought to be worth 200million. Their value has since tanked after the bank's involvement in the 1MDB Malaysian corruption scandal. West Ham vice-chairman Lady Brady asks Twitter: 'What are you planning on working towards in 2019?' One user responds: 'Getting you out of West Ham United so we can move on.' Predictable, but intelligent Lady K should know better than to reach out to these morons. Former Sainsbury's boss Justin King popped up on Radio 4 yesterday to offer his two ha'p'orth on the struggling retail sector. After a quiet few years as the vice-chairman of Terra Firma, this was King's second appearance on the airwaves in a matter of weeks since he was appointed to the Marks & Spencer board last month. I'm sure the M&S boss Steve Rowe is totally relaxed about this. Increasingly frothy-mouthed ex-Transport Minister Lord Adonis tweets: '4G coverage is much better in the Austrian Alps than the Lake District. This useless Government can't even organise a proper mobile phone signal.' Tory councillor in Hampstead, London, Oliver Cooper tweeted in response: 'Wait until he finds out that he was the chair of the National Infrastructure Commission and responsible for advising the Government on the roll-out of 4G until a year ago.' MARISSA BERGEL, Wheeler softball, senior: Bergel hit a two-out, two-run single in the seventh inning to lift Wheeler past Holy Cross, 9-7, in the Class S state tournament. The hit was part of a five-run rally in the inning. JOEY GUARNIERI, Westerly track & field, senior: Guarnieri placed first in two sprints at the Southern Division championships. He won the 100 (11.19) and the 200 (22.73). JOSH MOONEY, Stonington track & field, sophomore: Mooney placed first in the 110 hurdles at the Class M state meet in 14.65. He also finished second in the 300 hurdles (39.87) and second in the javelin (160-0). MARGARET WEEDEN, Chariho track & field, junior: Weeden finished first in the high jump at the Southern Division championships. Weeden cleared 5-1 and also placed sixth in the triple jump at 31-5. Vote View Results Noida (UP), Jan 3 (PTI) Two suspected drug peddlers were arrested Thursday while selling cannabis near a college in Greater Noida, police said. Nearly two kg of cannabis was seized from their possession by officials from the Knowledge Park police station, they said. "Vijay Singh, who hails from Etawah and Jitendra Singh, a local, were arrested near the college and 1.65 kg of cannabis was seized from their possession," the police said. Both of them have been charged under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 and remanded in custody, they added. PTI KIS SRY Noida (UP), Jan 3 (PTI) Three members of a criminal gang, who were active in Delhi-National Capital Region, were arrested by the Noida Police Thursday after a gunfight here, officials said. Billal Khan, Deepu alias Deepak, and Abhay Kumar were active members of the Furqaan gang which was involved in several cases of robbery and loot, the police said. "The trio was active in Delhi-NCR and Bulandshahr also. On a specific input about their movement on a motorcycle, they were intercepted by the police near the Garhi Chowk on the Behlolpur road. "A gunfight broke out between the two sides, after which the three men were overpowered and arrested," Station House Officer, Phase III, Akhilesh Tripathi said. Two country-made firearms and a knife were seized from their possession and their motorcycle also impounded, he said. Tripathi said Khan has nearly a dozen cases registered against him at various police stations including those in Delhi as well as in Gautam Buddh Nagar. He has been previously booked for attempt to murder, dacoity, wrongful confinement, and under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, the SHO said. "The three have been charged for attempted murder, robbery and under the Arms Act and a case has been registered against them at Phase III police station," he said. PTI KIS TIR TIR New Delhi, Jan 3 (PTI) A 15-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by her classmate, who also got two of his friends to record the alleged act, police said Thursday. The incident took place inside the washroom of a government school in Chanakyapuri in the last week of December, they said. The victim's classmate allegedly kissed her inside the washroom of the school and asked two of his friends to record the act, a senior police officer said. After the photos and video of the alleged incident went viral, the victim narrated the ordeal to her parents who then approached the police, he said. A case was registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and investigation was underway, he added. The three minor accused, all in the age group of 15 years, were apprehend in connection with the incident, he said. PTI AMP AMP TIR TIR Jammu, Jan 3 (PTI) An alleged drug peddler was arrested with intoxicant capsules in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district Thursday, police said. Bahadur Singh of Pathankot, Punjab was held near Lakhanpur and a total of 905 intoxicant capsules were recovered from him, they said. A case has been registered and further investigation is on, they added. PTI AB RHL Karna Deputy CM defends move to revive steel bridge Bengaluru, Jan 3 (PTI) Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara Thursday defended the state government's decision to revive the multi-billion steel bridge project here which was shelved earlier following massic public protests. Speaking to reporters, he said there was a need for the infrastructure project to tackle the growing traffic problem in the city. Citing a projection that the city population may swell to two crores in 10 years, he said planning must be made keeping in mind the requirements for next 20 years. Presently, around 75 lakh to 80 lakh vehicles plied on the city roads. The government was only trying to find alternatives such as suburban rail, Metro Rail second and third phase and elevated roads, Parameshwara said adding the steel grade separator would definitely be useful. Parameshwara had on January 1 announced the decision to revive the project. The previous Siddaramaiah government had cleared the steel bridge from Chalukya Circle to Esteem Mall at an estimated cost of Rs 2,200 crore, but abandoned it after a public outcry over allegations of lack of transparency. Calling it a 'steel monstrosity', critics of the project have said that the government would end up spending more on painting the structure to avoid it getting rusted. They also said the flyover would take away the aesthetics of Bengaluru. State BJP President B S Yeddyurappa had opposed the 'arbitrary' decision of the government to go ahead with the project, when environmentalists, urban experts and even H D Kumaraswamy, as state JD(S) president, had objected to it. PTI GMS VS VS Jan 3 (PTI) Bindu and Kanakadurga, the two women in their 40s, who created history by defying threats from saffron organisations and offered prayers at Sabarimala temple, Thursday said they were not tools of anyone and dismissed as "baseless" the allegations that they were playing into the hands of police and the government. They also said their aim was Sabarimala darshan and they achieved it without facing any trouble from the devotees. "All the pilgrims going to Sabarimala were very cooperative. We never had any problem from other devotees. We trekked down safely from the shrine," Kanakadurga said. The shrine, which was out of bounds for girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age, on Wednesday saw the breaking of centuries-old tradition and infuriating the Hindu right outfits, when the 42-year-old Bindu and 44-year-old Kanakadurga visited it under police protection. In an exclusive interview given to Manorama channel, Kanakadurga said, "Going to Sabarimala was my own decision." Dismissing the conspiracy angle being alleged by the Sangh Parivar outfits and the Opposition Congress that the two women were playing into the hands of police and the government, the women said they "used" the police machinery to enter Sabarimala on the basis of the September 28 Supreme Court verdict allowing women of all age groups to offer prayers at the hill shrine. "We do not know whether chief minister had any role in our reaching the shrine," they said. "We are a group of like-minded people. That's why we have come together to trek the temple. Police or political party agenda, as was being alleged by the BJP and others, is baseless," she said. When asked whether they were devotees or activists, Kanakadurga said there an activist can also be a devotee. "Activists are also devotees. If some activist wants to visit a temple, they can.The September 28 verdict of the Supreme Court allows all women to go, whether they are activists or devotees," she said. Bindu told the channel that they were adamant and wanted to visit the shrine after failing in their first attempt on December 24 when they were forced to return due to violent protests. "If we had gone back to our respective homes, we were sure that we may never visit Sabarimala. So we sought help from the police and SPs from two districts," she said. She also said they did not disclose where they stayed after the December 24 fiasco as they feared the safety of their friends. "We sought security from Pamba, (Sabarimala foothills), and the trip was not in any ambulance as claimed by political parties. We trekked all the way to the shrine," Bindu told the channel. Dismissing the allegations that they have political affiliations, Bindu said those who oppose the entry of women into Sabarimala have always labelled as "Maoists" the women who attempted to trek the hills. "I am not affiliated with any political party or organisation now. I have left all those years back. I was part of the CPI(ML)'s Central Committee and later resigned owing to differences. I am not part of any organisation now," she said, adding that she was a key speaker at a BJP event on Human Rights Day years ago. "That doesn't mean that I am with BJP. Just because I entered Sabarimala will never make me a communist," she said. When asked about her family's support, Bindu said she has the backing of her husband Hariharan on every issue, including Sabarimala, and he had even accompanied the duo till Sannidhanam (temple complex). When asked about her mother's criticism for undertaking the trip to Sabarimala, Bindu said her mother has got all rights to express her views. "My mother and brother have all the rights to say that women should not enter Sabarimala. This is a democratic country. They can express their views and rights. They are entitled to their views," she said. Kanakadurga said she was staying with her husband and kids but may have some ideological differences. She also said that her husband tried to dissuade her considering her safety. Bindu said the petitions on Sabarimala issue were coming up before the Supreme Court on January 22, and "these riot-mongers" had an agenda to not allow the women to enter the shrine before that. "This was a clear cut political agenda played by the Sangh Parivar organisations to uproot the left ideology from Kerala and come to power," she said. "It has been exposed that there were no objections from the devotees but the protests were from these riot-mongers. The Kerala society has understood the same. They have been exposed," Bindu said. Meanwhile, a top police official confirmed to PTI that at least 20-30 anti-Maoist commandos escorted the women to the shrine. However, It was not clear from where the police escorted them. Kerala was in ferment on Thursday, a day after the two women entered the Sabarimala temple, infuriating saffron outfits, with protesters blocking roads by placing burning tyres and granite blocks, and clashes leaving 31 police personnel and many others injured. The dawn to dusk shutdown called by the Sabarimala Karma Samithi, an umbrella organisation of various pro-Hindutva groups, and the Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP), plunged the state into turmoil, as hundreds of Hindu right-wing activists disrupted vehicular movement and vandalised shops and offices of the ruling CPI(M). PTI RRT UD AQS AQS Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 3 (PTI) A dawn-to-dusk 12-hour hartal called by Hindu outfits began Thursday morning in protest against the entry of two women of menstruating age into the Sabarimala temple of Lord Ayyappa . As per initial reports, auto-rickshaws and two-wheelers were plying at the railway station in the state capital and various other places. But in Kozhikode, protesters blocked vehicles and burnt tyres in the morning. The hartal, which began at 6 am, has been called by Sabarimala Karma Samithi, an umbrella organisation of various pro-Hindutva groups, spearheading protests against the Supreme Court's September 28 verdict, and Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP). The BJP is supporting the shutdown while the Congress-led UDF is observing a "black day" on Thursday. Two women, Kanakadurga (44) and Bindu (42), created history be stepping into the hallowed precincts guarded by police three months after the Supreme Court's historic judgement lifting the ban on entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its "eternally celibate" deity. As the news spread like wildfire from the hill shrine, protests erupted at several places, with Hindu right-wing activists blocking highways and forcing closure of shops and markets. BJP and CPI(M) workers clashed in front of the Secretariat for over five hours Wednesday as police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse them. A 55-year-old man, who was seriously injured in stone throwing at Pandalam, died late Wednesday night. Merchants' organisations have said they would not cooperate with the hartal and keep shops and business establishments open. Meanwhile, state DGP Loknath Behara has warned of strict action against those indulging in violence during the hartal. Various universities, including Kerala, Mahatma Gandhi, Calicut and Kannur have postponed their examinations scheduled for Thursday. PTI UD CK New Delhi, Jan 3 (PTI) BJP MP from Northwest Delhi constituency Udit Raj Thursday accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of "hindering" development of Delhi by imposing conditions in Metro Phase IV project. Raj also alleged that the AAP-led Delhi government was not providing land for construction of road over bridges in his constituency. "Due to the imposition of new conditions in Delhi Metro Phase-IV, this project is going to be further delayed," he told reporters. The ruling AAP has in return alleged that the BJP at the Centre was "conspiring" to stop the project. PTI VIT SMN Jaipur, Jan 3 (PTI) Congress president Rahul Gandhi will address farmers at a rally here on January 9, Rajasthan's Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot said Thursday. It will be his first rally in the state after the Congress wrested power from the BJP. "Congress president will address a rally in Jaipur on January 9 in which thousands of farmers will take part. The scheme of rally was discussed today with a group of ministers and a target was set," Pilot told reporters. He said that the rally would be an occasion to thank the Congress president who took up the issues faced by farmers with assertiveness and announced to waive-off farm loans in three states where Congress formed governments. PTI AG SOM SOM SOM New Delhi, Jan 3 (PTI) The External Affairs Ministry has addressed 4,189 complaints in the last three years of distressed Indian women deserted by their NRI husbands, the Rajya Sabha was told Thursday. In 2016, a total of 1,510 such complaints were addressed, while in 2017 as many as 1,498 complaints were addressed and last year, till November 30, 1,181 complaints were addressed, Minister of State for the External Affairs Ministry V K Singh said in reply to a question. Singh said the government has adopted a "multi-pronged approach to give respite to the wives deserted by their NRI husbands". "The Ministry of External Affairs provides counselling, guidance and information about legal procedures, mechanisms for serving judicial summons on the overseas Indian husband; filing a judicial case in India, issuing Look out circulars; impounding and revocation of Indian passport of husband to such aggrieved women," he said. The Indian Community Welfare Fund (ICWF) Guidelines were revised in September, 2017 with an aim to provide financial and legal assistance to distressed women married to NRI spouses by all Indian Missions and Posts abroad, he added. The amount of legal and financial assistance to distressed Indian women has also been increased to USD 4,000 per case, he said in a written response. "The assistance is released to the empanelled legal counsel of the applicant or Indian Community Association or Women's Organisation or an NGO concerned to enable them to take necessary and appropriate steps to assist the woman in documentation and preparatory work for filing the case," he said. PTI UZM KJ New Delhi, Jan 3 (PTI) The Centre is examining the proposal for Phase-IV of Delhi Metro after it was forwarded by the city government in the last week of December, Parliament was informed Thursday. In reply to a written question in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri said the proposal was received by the Centre on December 28. "The proposal of Delhi Metro Phase-IV has been received from the government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi through Delhi Metro Rail Corporation on 28.12.2018 and is under examination," Puri said. In reply to another question, he said that no fund has been approved for the project so far. Among the projects chosen under the Phase IV are: Rithala-Bawana-Narela (21.73 km, elevated), Janakpuri West-RK Ashram (28.92 km, 21.18-km elevated ), Mukundpur-Maujpur (12.54 km, elevated), Inderlok-Indraprastha (12.58 km, underground), Aero City-Tughlakabad (20.2 km, 5.58-km elevated), Lajpat Nagar-Saket G Block (7.96 km, 5.89-km elevated). The project is estimated to cost around Rs 45,000 crore. PTI KND SOM SOM (Eds: Adds quotes, details; fresh intro) Gurdaspur, Jan 3: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Thursday accused the Congress of protecting those involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, saying such leaders were even rewarded with the chief ministers post. The jibe, apparently directed at Kamal Nath, the new Madhya Pradesh chief minister, came during a rally where he also charged the opposition party of deceiving farmers with loan waiver promises. Kamal Nath has in the past denied such allegations over the riots, saying he had nothing to do with them. The planned corridor between a gurdwara here and a Sikh shrine in Kartarpur, just a few kilometres across the border with Pakistan, also figured in the address. Modi said the entire country had waited for justice for the past 35 years and wanted Congress leaders to be punished for it. Even today, this demand is there, he said. He alleged that files on such culprits were kept under wraps on the suggestion of one family, an apparent reference to the Gandhis. In an indirect reference to the recent conviction of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in one riot-related case, Modi added, The NDA government pulled out such files, set up the SIT (special investigation team) and now the results are before you. Modi also attacked the Congress for charging him with corruption in the Rafale deal with France for 36 military aircraft, saying the party was spreading lies to weaken the defence forces. He said the country needed to be wary of the Congress, claiming its history had been the glorification of one family. He said it was made up of people, who even today oppose the raising of Vande Mataram and Bharat Mata ki Jai slogans, whose history is of the massacre of thousands of Sikhs in cold blood, and those who even today reward the riot accused with the chair of the chief minister. Modi accused the national leaders at the time of Partition of failing to ensure that Kartarpur, where the founder of Sikhism spent his final years, did not go to Pakistan. For seven decades, devotees could get a glimpse of the historic gurdwara only through binoculars, he said. He said the NDA government took the historic decision to build the Kartarpur corridor, which will link Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur to Kartarpur Sahib. Without taking names, Modi took a dig at Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, who went against Chief Minister Amarinder Singhs advice and travelled to Pakistan for the groundbreaking ceremony of the planned corridor. He said the Congress leaders gave an opportunity to Pakistan through that trip. He hit out at the Congress for playing politics of lies and deceit on farm loan waivers. The Congress fooled the people for decades with the slogan of Garibi Hatao (remove poverty) and now it is deceiving the country in the name of loan waivers, he said. The prime minister claimed this happened in Punjab as well, saying the Congress government in the state had waived only a small portion of the loans. Modi made similar claims about the Congress promises before the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and the recent assembly elections in Karnataka. Arrest warrants are being issued against farmers for not paying back loans in Karnataka, he claimed. He said while the Congress governments had delayed the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission report, the BJP government at the Centre had implemented its recommendations on minimum support prices (MSP). Those who failed to find a solution to the farmers woes for decades and kept delaying the decision on MSP, are now again throwing dust in the eyes of farmers with their false promises, he said. Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal and Union minister Harsimrat Kaur attended the rally, held by the BJP and the SAD to thank the prime minister for the development of the region. PTI CHS SUN VSD ASH ASH New Delhi, Jan 3 (PTI) Expressing concern over the "gradual decline" in the nature of political discourse, three media bodies on Thursday urged political leadership across party lines to be temperate in their criticism towards each other and the media. While neutrality is expected of journalists, they too expect restraint from political class at large while commenting on them especially when the political atmosphere is getting charged with general elections approaching, a joint statement issued by the Press Club of India, Indian Women's Press Corps, and Press Association said. "Terms like 'presstitute' used by a former Union minister and more recently 'pliable' by the president of a political party for the media are inappropriate and lower the dignity of discourse in general," they said. The three media bodies expressed concern over the "gradual decline in nature of political discourse, more so in a highly polarised political environment". "We urge all sections of civil society including sections of political leadership cutting across all political parties to be temperate in their criticism towards each other as well as towards the Indian media," the statement said. They also noted with "deep concern" the continued incarceration of Manipur journalist Kishorechand Wangkhem under the National Security Act for his social media post criticising members of the ruling party at the state and Centre. "We reiterate our demand that the charges against Mr Wangkhem be dropped, more so after he was exonerated earlier by a court that did not find anything seditious in his remarks," they said. PTI ASK ASK TIR TIR Srinagar, Jan 3 (PTI) Three militants were killed in an encounter with the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district on Thursday, the Army said. The security forces launched an anti-insurgency operation in the higher reaches of Tral area in the morning following information about the presence of at least two militants in the forests, an Army official said. The search operation turned into an encounter when the militants, who were hiding, opened fire, the officer said. "Three militants have been killed, while one soldier was injured in the operation," the officer said. Further details, including the identity and affiliation of the slain militants, are awaited, he added. PTI MIJ HMB New Delhi, Jan 3 (PTI) Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg will pay a three-day visit to India next week during which she will hold talks with her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on a host of issues with an aim expand the multi-faceted bilateral partnership. Solberg, who will arrive in India on January 7, will deliver the inaugural address at the Raisina Dialogue and address India-Norway Business Summit during her visit, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement. She will also call on President Ram Nath Kovind and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, besides holding talks with Prime Minister Modi. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will also call on Solberg during her India visit. The upcoming visit of Prime Minister Solberg will provide an opportunity to the two sides to review the progress in bilateral cooperation and discuss ways to further expand the multi-faceted partnership in areas of common interest, the MEA said in a statement. "India and Norway enjoy close and multi-faceted ties. Economic and technical cooperation are important facets of our bilateral relation. More than 100 Norwegian companies have invested in India in areas such as ship-building, petroleum related services, hydropower, clean energy and IT services," it said. Several major Indian companies are also present in Norway. India and Norway have shared interest in sustainable use of ocean resources for growth of the two countries' economies, the statement said. PTI ASK ASK ANB ANB New Delhi, Jan 3 (PTI) Following are the highlights at 1500 hours: TOP NEWS: LGD16 COURT-AJL-HOODA Hooda, Vora gets bail in AJL case Panchkula: Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and senior Congress leader Motilal Vora were Thursday granted bail by a CBI court here in a case pertaining to alleged illegal re-allotment of land to Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) in Panchkula in 2005. DEL6 UP-BULANDSHAHR-LD ARREST Bulandshahr violence: Key accused Yogesh Raj arrested, say police Meerut (UP): Yogesh Raj, a key accused in the mob violence in Bulandshahr in which a police inspector and a civilian were killed, has been arrested, police said Thursday. LGD19 SC-LD SABARIMALA Women entering Sabarimala: SC declines urgent hearing on contempt plea against temple authorities New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday refused to accord urgent hearing to a contempt petition moved by a lawyers' group against Sabarimala temple authorities for closing the shrine after two women entered it. MDS1 KL-SABARIMALA-HARTAL Hartal over Sabarimala issue begins in Kerala Thiruvananthapuram: A dawn-to-dusk 12-hour hartal called by Hindu outfits began Thursday morning in protest against the entry of two women of menstruating age into the Sabarimala temple of Lord Ayyappa . MDS5 KL-SABARIMALA-VIJAYAN Kerala CM lashes out at BJP, RSS for violence during hartal Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan Thursday lashed out at the BJP and the RSS over protests against the entry of two women into the Sabarimala temple, saying the violence unleashed by them will be dealt with strongly. PAR8 LS-LD SUSPENSION 19 MPs of AIADMK, TDP suspended from Lok Sabha for 4 days New Delhi: As many as 19 members of the AIADMK and TDP were suspended on Thursday for four days by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan for repeatedly disrupting proceedings of the House. DEL7 RAHUL-PM-EXAM PM has 'fled' his 'open book Rafale exam' in Parliament: Rahul New Delhi: Escalating his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the the Rafale deal issue, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi Thursday said it seems the PM has "fled" his "open book Rafale exam" in Parliament and is instead lecturing students in Punjab. NATION: DES5 UP-CM-CATTLE Ensure stray animals, including cattle, sent to 'Gau Sanrakshan Kendras' by Jan 10: Yogi to DMs Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has directed all the district magistrates to ensure that stray animals, including cattle, are transported to 'Gau Sanrakshan Kendras' by January 10, an official said Thursday. LEGAL: LGD18 SC-LD RATH YATRA Rath Yatra in West Bengal: SC agrees to hear BJP's plea on Jan 7 New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday agreed to hear on January 7 the West Bengal BJP's plea against a Calcutta High Court order not allowing its Rath Yatra in the state. LGD17 SC-LD MEGHALAYA MINERS Meghalaya miners: Prompt, immediate and effective operation required, says SC New Delhi: The Supreme Court said Thursday that "prompt, immediate and effective" operation was required for rescuing 15 people who are trapped inside an illegal coal mine in Meghalaya since December 13. BUSINESS: DEL9 BIZ-JAITLEY-IBC NCLT helped creditors recover Rs 80k cr, Rs 70k cr more to be realised by March-end: Jaitley New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Thursday said Rs 80,000 crore has been recovered by creditors in 66 cases resolved by NCLT and around Rs 70,000 crore more is likely to be realised by March-end. FOREIGN: FGN11 US-TRUMP-IMMIGRATION Trump wants talented people to come to US, calls for border wall to stop illegal immigration Washington: President Donald Trump has said he wants talented people who can help American companies to grow to enter the US, asserting that a wall along the Mexico border is the only way to check illegal immigration. PTI TVS TVS Facing financial woes, Mumbai builder kills self (Eds: Adds reaction from the realty sector) Mumbai, Jan 3 (PTI) Stress due to financial crunch is suspected to have led city builder Sanjay Agarwal to allegedly commit suicide by shooting himself in suburban Chembur Thursday, police said. Agarwal (57) was facing difficulties with regard to a project in the upmarket Chembur area and this may have led him to take the extreme step, police officials said. A realty sector body cited project delays and tighter regulations as the prime reason for developers facing financial problems and sought government help to overcome them. Agarwal's suicide, which comes after at least two similar incidents in the recent years in the megapolis, resulted in the realty sector flagging concerns on project delays and tighter norms. "He was facing financial difficulties as a project was stuck and the family says he was under stress because of the same," senior police inspector J M Bhosale told PTI. Agarwal allegedly shot himself with his licenced revolver in his office cabin in Chembur's Sindhi Colony at around 11.25 am, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (zone-VI) Shahaji Umap. He was rushed to a nearby hospital where doctors declared him dead, Umap said. It was a single gunshot that pierced the builder's temple, he said, adding a case of accidental death has been filed and further investigation was underway. Agarwal's son, his brother-in-law and some office employees were present in the premises when the incident took place, the police said. The accidental death report was registered by the Chembur police and the body sent to Rajawadi Hospital in Ghatkopar for postmortem, they said. Agarwal had formed Sanjona Builders in 1999 after a stint with chemicals supplier Nukem Industries, where he held a senior position for 20 years. Industry body Credai MCHI's president Nayan Shah said many developers in Mumbai are under tremendous stress to give timely possession of projects while they are fully at the mercy of approvals from authorities and government agencies. "Developers do not have any fall back mechanism where they can file complaints because as soon as they do so, various officials come together to ensure his voice is muzzled and business interests compromised," he claimed. Shah cited a provision in the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (Rera) and said a developer can approach authorities if a project is not getting timely attention and alleged that the same is not being implemented. "A lot more needs to be done in this direction. We urge the government to ensure a balance of responsibilities among all stake-holders in the housing industry," Shah added. In 2015, Thane builder Suraj Parmar killed himself and left behind a note in which he alleged harassment by civic officials and local politicians. The death of Mohan Group's Amar Bhatia in Kalyan in 2016, too, led to speculation about financial problems being faced by his company. PTI DC PSK GK RSY RSY Saibaba temple gets Rs 14.54 cr donation in 11 days Shirdi (Maha), Jan 3 (PTI) The famous Saibaba temple at Shirdi in Maharashtra received donations worth Rs 14.54 crore over the 11-day period starting before Christmas and ending on the New Year day, an official said. The devotees, from the country as well as abroad, donated Rs 8.05 crore in donation boxes kept in the temple premises between December 22, 2018 and January 1, 2019, Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust's vice chairman Chandrashekhar Kadam told reporters here Wednesday. The temple trust also received Rs 6 crore through online donations, debit/credit cards, cheques, demand drafts and at its donation counters, he said. Gold and silver items worth Rs 19 lakh were also donated, he said. In addition to this, devotees from 19 countries, including USA, the UK, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and China, donated foreign currencies worth Rs 30.63 lakh. Apart from these donations, the temple trust earned Rs 3.62 crore through paid passes issued to visitors and the online darshan facility provided by the temple management, Kadam said. Nearly 9.5 devotees from different parts of the country and abroad visited the Saibaba temple, located at Shirdi town in Ahmednagar district, during the 11-day period, he added. PTI CORR GK GK Islamabad, Jan 3 (PTI) Pakistan's incarcerated former premier Nawaz Sharif will maintain his jail room on his own as the Punjab province government on Wednesday refused to provide him a prisoner who could serve as his orderly, according to a media report. Sharif has been serving a seven-year jail term in Lahores Kot Lakhpat jail in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills graft case and being a former prime minister he is entitled to better facilities including an orderly who is from prisoners. Punjabs Inspector General of Prisons Shahid Saleem Beg said on Wednesday that Punjab government decided that it could not provide a prisoner to Sharif who could serve as his orderly and that he would have to maintain his room on his own, the Dawn reported. The prisons chief said Nawaz Sharif has been asked to maintain his room" to serve out the seven-year "rigorous" imprisonment handed down to him in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills/Hill Metal Establishment reference. Speaking to media personnel in the presence of Punjab Governor Chaudhry Sarwar at the Governor House, the prisons chief said Sharifs case was highly sensitive and he could not be allowed to go outside his barracks in the prison. He said Sharifs rigour had been kept within his barracks. According to the jail manual, he said, the former premier had been asked to maintain his room himself. However, he later clarified to the daily that Sharif had not been put to any rigour, adding that the manual allowed elderly inmates certain concessions on that count. Any issue related to Nawaz Sharif in jail could bring a bad name to Pakistan, Beg said. An anti-corruption court in Pakistan on December 24 sentenced the ousted premier to seven years in jail in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills graft case but acquitted him in the Flagship Investments case, concluding a series of three court cases against the Sharif family in the high-profile Panama Papers case. The Al-Azizi Steel Mill case was about setting up steel mills in Saudi Arabia allegedly with corruption money. Three cases - Avenfield properties case, Flagship investment case and Al-Azizia steel mills case - were launched against the Sharif family by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on September 8, 2017 following a judgment by the Supreme Court that disqualified Sharif in the Panama Papers case in July last year. PTI SH PMS PMS Washington, Jan 3 (AFP) Democrats take over the US House of Representatives on Thursday, ushering in a new era of divided government in Washington with the goal of checking Donald Trump's turbulent presidency. Battle-tested Nancy Pelosi was poised to take over as speaker of the House for the second time in her career, as a partial federal government shutdown over Trump's insistence that lawmakers fund a US-Mexico border wall neared the two-week mark. The end of Trump's one-party rule in Washington invigorated Democrats still dejected over the bombastic Republican's 2016 presidential win. In excerpts of the speech she was to deliver to the House later Thursday, Pelosi vowed the new Congress would be "bipartisan and unifying" and "will debate and advance good ideas no matter where they come from." "In that spirit, Democrats will be offering the Senate Republican appropriations legislation to re-open government later today -- to meet the needs of the American people, and to protect our borders," she said. But such cooperation across the political aisle appeared unlikely as Trump continued to dig in over his demand that Congress approve a USD 5 billion plan to construct a border wall aimed at thwarting illegal immigration -- with Democrats appearing unlikely to appease him. After saying he remained "ready and willing to work with Democrats" late Wednesday, Trump lashed out Thursday. "The Shutdown is only because of the 2020 Presidential Election," he tweeted. "The Democrats know they can't win based on all of the achievements of 'Trump,' so they are going all out on the desperately needed Wall and Border Security - and Presidential Harassment. For them, strictly politics!". Indeed, progressives will be eager to push back with greater effect against an administration they believe has overstepped its authority and abused power in the nearly two years since Trump's inauguration. They will have that opportunity, as congressional panels will be led by chairmen who have pledged to probe topics such as Trump's income taxes, his firing of attorney general Jeff Sessions, and the president's ties to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Incoming chairpersons have signaled that Trump will face a barrage of investigations that could bog down a White House already besieged by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia collusion probe, draining energy from the administration's agenda and foiling Trump's message. But while the "blue wave" swept dozens of House Republicans out of Congress last November, Trump's party managed to modestly expand its majority in the Senate to 53-47, meaning Washington gridlock is almost certain to deepen. Among the first tasks of the 116th Congress will be ending the shutdown, which has left one quarter of federal agencies shuttered due to lapsed funding. Trump has said he would not sign a spending bill that does not include USD 5.6 billion for wall construction. Pelosi has introduced new measures that would fund the agencies, but she noted that they "contain no new wall funding," a move the White House -- and Republican Senate leaders -- dismissed as a non-starter. "Democrats will have to get serious about border security so that a government funding agreement may be reached that can pass the House, earn 60 votes here in the Senate, and receive a presidential signature," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement. "All three of these things are needed. One partisan vote in the House tomorrow won't solve anything." The House and Senate convene Thursday at noon (1700 GMT), with the new Congress sworn in shortly thereafter. Pelosi is expected to win her speaker election in the early afternoon. She will preside over the most diverse Congress in history. One hundred House freshmen will take the oath of office, including trailblazers like New York's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who at 29 is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. The first two Native American women and first two Muslim women were also elected. "It's a new day in America," tweeted Ilhan Omar, a Muslim Somali refugee elected from Minnesota, along with a picture of her standing on Capitol Hill. The House and Senate will each have a record number of female members. Democrats will move early to protect coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, and form a special committee on climate change. Hovering in the background in Washington will be the threat of impeachment, and it is almost certain that some Democrats will introduce proceedings to remove Trump from office. Even if Democrats believe some of Trump's actions clear the threshold of "high crimes and misdemeanors," Pelosi has downplayed the prospects of impeachment. "It would be very divisive," she told Elle magazine. "It's not something that I'm stirring the pot on." (AFP) KUN KUN New Delhi, Jan 3 (PTI) Following are the top foreign stories at 1700 hours: FGN12 US-INDIA-LD AFGHAN Trump takes dig at PM Modi for funding 'library' in strife-torn Afghanistan Washington: US President Donald Trump took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a "library" in Afghanistan, saying it is of no use in the war-torn country as he criticised India and others for not doing enough for the nation's security. By Lalit K Jha. BANGLA-MPS-LD OATH Bangladesh's MPs-elect sworn in, BNP-led opposition boycotts oath ceremony Dhaka: Bangladesh's newly-elected parliament members took oath of office on Thursday, even as jailed ex-premier Khaleda Zia's BNP and its allies boycotted the ceremony to protest what they called "farcical and rigged" elections. By Anisur Rahman. FGN6 US-TRUMP-KIM Donald Trump says received "great letter " from Kim Jong-un, looks forward to second meeting Washington: US President Donald Trump has said that he has received a "great letter" from Kim Jong-un and is looking forward to meet the North Korean leader for a second time in the "not-too-distant future" to restart talks about the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. By Lalit K Jha. FGN18 CHINA-MOON-2NDLD ROVER China's Chang'e-4 lunar rover lands on moon's far side, sends back images Beijing: China's Chang'e-4 lunar rover scripted history on Thursday when it made the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon and sent back close-up images of the previously unexplored region, a giant leap for cosmic exploration and a major boost to the Communist nation's quest to become a space superpower. FGN11 US-TRUMP-IMMIGRATION Trump wants talented people to come to US, calls for border wall to stop illegal immigration Washington: President Donald Trump has said he wants talented people who can help American companies to grow to enter the US, asserting that a wall along the Mexico border is the only way to check illegal immigration. By Lalit K Jha. FGN9 SHARIF-JAIL Sharif denied helper in jail, told to maintain room on his own Islamabad: Pakistan's incarcerated former premier Nawaz Sharif will maintain his jail room on his own as the Punjab province government on Wednesday refused to provide him a prisoner who could serve as his orderly, according to a media report. FGN7 US-2NDLD-PAK Pakistan houses enemies: US prez Trump Washington: The US wants a "great relationship" with Pakistan but cannot do so as the country "houses enemies", President Donald Trump has said in his first comments in 2019 on America's strained ties with Islamabad, months after he stopped USD 1.3 billion in military aid to its former ally. By Lalit K Jha. FGN5 TRUMP-LD SYRIA Slowly bringing US troops back from Syria: Prez Trump Washington: The US would pull out its troops from Syria slowly over a period of time and will protect its Kurdish allies, President Donald Trump has said, summing up the situation in the war-torn country as "sand and death". By Lalit K Jha. FGN20 RUSSIA-COLLAPSE-LD TOLL Death toll jumps to 37 in Russian gas blast Moscow: The number of confirmed dead from a New Year's Eve gas explosion in a Russian apartment block jumped to 37 on Thursday as rescuers recovered more bodies from the rubble of the partially collapsed building. (AFP) SAUDI-KHASHOGGI-TRIAL Saudi prosecutor seeks death sentences as Khashoggi murder trial opens Riyadh: Saudi Arabia's attorney general sought the death penalty for five of 11 defendants charged with the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi as their high-profile trial opened in Riyadh on Thursday.(AFP) RUP RUP Seoul, Jan 3 (AFP) North Korea's top diplomat in Italy has gone into hiding, a Seoul lawmaker told reporters after a closed-door meeting with South Korean intelligence officials on Thursday. "Acting ambassador Jo Song Gil's term was ending in late November last year and he escaped the diplomatic compound in early November" with his wife, Kim Min-ki told reporters. The spy agency briefing to lawmakers came after South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo daily reported that Jo had sought asylum in an unidentified Western country with his family. "He sought asylum early last month," the JoongAng quoted a diplomatic source in Seoul as saying. Italian authorities were "agonising" over what to do, the official was cited as saying, but added that they were "protecting him in a safe place". The last senior North Korean diplomat to defect was Thae Yong Ho, who abandoned his post as deputy ambassador in London in 2016. Jo, 48, has been acting ambassador in Rome since October 2017 after Italy expelled the then ambassador Mun Jong Nam in protest at a nuclear test by the North a month earlier in violation of UN resolutions. Italy is an important diplomatic mission for Pyongyang, as it handles relations with the Rome-headquartered UN Food and Agriculture Organization and North Korea suffers from chronic food shortages. Jo is "known to be a son or son-in-law of one of the highest-level officials in the North's regime", the JoongAng cited an unnamed North Korea expert as saying. Most North Korean diplomats serving overseas are normally required to leave several family members -- typically children -- behind in Pyongyang to prevent their defection while working abroad. Jo however came to Rome in May 2015 with his wife and children, suggesting he may be from a privileged family, the JoongAng said, adding the reason for his defection bid was still unclear. At the time of his own defection Thae, the former deputy ambassador to London, said he had switched sides partly to give his three children a better future after being ordered to return to the North. The Kim dynasty has ruled the impoverished but nuclear-armed state for three generations with little tolerance for dissent, and the regime stands accused of widespread human rights abuses. (AFP) ZH ZH Seoul, Jan 3 (AFP) North Korea's top diplomat in Italy has gone into hiding, a Seoul lawmaker told reporters after a closed-door meeting with intelligence officials on Thursday. "Acting ambassador Jo Song Gil's term was ending in late November last year and he escaped the diplomatic compound in early November" with his wife, Kim Min-ki told reporters. (AFP) ZH ZH Islamabad, Jan 3 (PTI) Incarcerated former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday filed a plea before the Islamabad High Court to grant him bail and suspend his seven year jail sentence in the Al-Azizia corruption case till the high court decides on his appeal against the verdict. On December 24, the Accountability Court 2 of Islamabad handed a seven-year rigorous imprisonment to Sharif along with a fine of USD 25 million in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills/Hill Metal Establishment corruption case. The court, however, acquitted him in the Flagship Investment case. The accountability court, as part of the Al-Azizia Steel Mills judgement, also barred Sharif, 69, from holding public office for 10 years after completing his sentence. It also ordered the confiscation of Hill Metal Establishment and issued perpetual warrants for the arrest of Sharif's sons, Hussain and Hassan, who were declared proclaimed offenders. According to the application, Sharif, the top leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has already challenged the sentence in the high court. The petition claimed that the accountability court had convicted the petitioner on the basis of unacceptable evidence while the court also avoided to respond to the objections being raised by the defendant in the case. The application claimed that putting Sharif in jail on the basis of the December 24 verdict would be a violation of basic rights of the petitioner. The Islamabad High Court was urged to grant bail to Sharif until a decision on the appeal against the verdict is not decided. The Al-Azizia Steel Mill case was about setting up steel mills in Saudi Arabia allegedly with corruption money. Three cases - Avenfield properties case, Flagship Investment case and Al-Azizia steel mills case - were launched by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on September 8, 2017 following a judgment by the apex court that disqualified Sharif in the Panama Papers case in July, 2017. In July, 2018 Sharif, his daughter Maryam and his son-in-law Captain (retd) M Safdar were sentenced to 11 years, eight years and one year respectively in prison in the Avenfield properties case related to their purchase of four luxury flats in London through corrupt practices. However, the three were bailed out by the Islamabad High Court in September. The Supreme Court set the deadline for December 24 to the NAB to wrap up the remaining two corruption cases against the three-time former prime minister. PTI AKJ AKJ Islamabad, Jan 3 (PTI) Pakistan on Thursday abolished the long-standing facility of on-arrival visas for Afghan nationals, authorities said, citing security risks amid a spike in terror attacks. Earlier, Afghan nationals were being granted a 30-day visa on arrival at the entry points but now they will be required to apply for a visa from Pakistani missions in Afghanistan, Federal Investigation Agency's Director Immigration Ismatullah Junejo was quoted as saying by the Express Tribune. The Immigration Wing of the FIA cited increased security risks from the western border as a reason for the move. Furthermore, the government also restricted the movement of Afghan nationals in Pakistan and stopped issuance of visas at airports and border crossing points. Once issued a visa, the Afghan nationals will be allowed entry into Pakistan. Upon entry, they will be asked to fill out details including the time period and place of stay. The details will be forwarded to security agencies for verification, the report said. Once the details are verified, the Afghan nationals will be issued residence and travel permits, the report added. Pakistan has the largest refugee population in the world, according to the United Nations. Most of these refugees 2.7 million to be precise are Afghan nationals who fled their country due to war, violence and ensuing economic turmoil. The UN surveys estimate that 60 per cent of the Afghan refugee population is Pakistan-born. Citizens from 24 countries are now issued on-arrival visas in Pakistan. They include citizens from Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Belgium, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Norway, New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Thailand, Spain, and Singapore, immigration officials said. Last month, the Pakistan Army said that the fencing of a substantial portion of the over 2,600-km-long Afghan border has been completed and the rest will be finished by the end of the 2019. Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan have long been saying that militants in both countries cross the porous border for terror attacks. PTI AMS AKJ AMS AMS New Delhi, Jan 3 (PTI) The recommendations of the Shyam Benegal-headed panel on the functioning of the censor board require amendment in the Cinematograph Act and consensus on them could not be reached after two rounds of consultative meetings on the issue in 2017, the government said Thursday. Information and Broadcasting Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore, in a written response to a question in Lok Sabha on the recommendations of the Committee of Experts chaired by Benegal, said the panel submitted first part of its report in April 2016, and the final part in June 2016. The recommendations contained in the report require amendment in the Cinematograph Act and Rules and it was felt that their implementation, especially those requiring important amendments in the Act, be done after further consultations, he said. "A consultation meeting between the then Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Minister of Law and Justice, Minister of Finance and Minister of Human Resource Development was held on March 16, 2017, to deliberate on the issue of repeal or amendment of the Cinematograph Act," Rathore said. "Another round of consultation in this regard by the then Minister with Chief Minister of Maharashtra and the representatives of Film Industries was held on June 6, 2017, at Mumbai. However, consensus could not be arrived at in respect of many of the recommendations made by the Committee," the minister said. To a question on whether the government proposes to introduce legislation to remove the powers of pre-censorship of the Central Board of Film Certification, Rathore said there is no such proposal under consideration by the government. PTI ASK ASK AQS AQS Jammu, Jan 3 (PTI) Leh and Kargil districts of the Ladakh region will soon have solar power projects under the state-run Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), officials said Thursday. As a part of its ambitious plan to build 23 GW solar power projects in Ladakh, SECI Wednesday issued tenders for construction of 7.5 GW solar power projects in the first phase, they added. As per the tender document, two solar power projects will be built in Phase-1 -- a 2.5 GW capacity project in the Zangla region of Kargil and a 5 GW project in the Pang region of Leh. The drawl point for the 2.5GW project is tentatively planned to be New Wanpoh, while for the 5GW project, it will be Hisar in Punjab. SECI will sign a 35-year power purchase agreement with the project developers, who will get a maximum of 54 months to get the projects running, they added. India will soon call bids to set up 23,000 mega watt (MW) solar power projects in Ladakh. The high-altitude Himalayan region has huge potential for solar power generation. The transmission network would be extended till Punjab, a distance of about 850 km, they added. In 2014, the UPA-led government had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Jammu and Kashmir government to harness close to 7.5GW of solar power generation capacity -- 5GW in Ladakh and the rest in Kargil. However, inter-departmental tussles and lack of clarity on other issues scuttled the project, industry sources said. PTI AB MAZ ABM ABM New Delhi, Jan 3(PTI) The BSES power discoms will purchase 200 MW of wind power at economical rates that will help them support the peak demand in Delhi at night, said a spokesperson of the company. Under a 25-year agreement, the BSES Yamuna Power Limited(BYPL) and the BSES Rajdhani Power Limited(BRPL) will buy wind power at the rate of Rs 2.84 per unit, he said. The discoms have inked power sale agreements with SECI (Solar Energy Corporation of India) to buy 200 MW (100-MW each) of wind-power. "The power is expected to be available to the discoms from 2020-21 for a period of 25 years," he said. With this, the two discoms will be getting a total of 600 MW of wind power. Earlier, BRPL and BYPL had signed agreements to procure 250 MW and 150 MW of wind-power, respectively. 50 MW of this wind power has already started flowing from October 2018 and another 50 MW is expected to be available over the next couple of months and the remaining portion will be available gradually from November 2019, he said. PTI VIT VIT SOM SOM At a time when Kerala is witnessing widespread agitations and violent protests led by the Bharatiya Janata Party and other right-wing organisations over the entry of two women of menstruating age to Sabarimala temple, a BJP MP lauded the women saying redundant traditions must go. In a short chat with THE WEEK's Deputy Chief of Bureau Vijaya Pushkarna, North-West Delhi MP and dalit leader Udit Raj wondered how an Ayyappa temple can be above the Constitution. He trashed the argument about Lord Ayyappa's celibacy, and that women's entry into the Sabarimal temple will 'destroy' it. Women are not going to Sabarimala to make love with Lord Ayyappa, he said. "If Ayyappa is God, he is everywhere. Women, too, are everywhere around," Raj argued. "There were several traditions like Sati and untouchability. But all these traditions have gone; redundant traditions must go, said the MP. Raj said that his opinions are in his capacity as the national chairman of the All India Confederation of SC/ST Organizations, and not as a politician. He, however, dodged the question over his party's role in the Sabarimala issue. The Supreme Court had, on September 28, struck down the custom of banning women aged between 10 and 50 from entering the hill shrine, sparking off protests in the state. The Supreme Court on Thursday told the Meghalaya government that it was not satisfied with the steps taken so far for the rescue of 15 people who are trapped in an illegal coal mine in the state since December 13. A bench comprising Justices A.K. Sikri and S. Abdul Nazeer asked the Meghalaya government as to why it was not successful in rescuing these people. The counsel, appearing for the state, told the court that they have taken adequate steps in the rescue operation and the Centre was also lending support to them. "We are not satisfied. It is a question of life and death," the bench said. The bench asked petitioner Aditya N. Prasad, who had sought urgent steps for rescue of these people, to call a law officer of the Centre so that appropriate order could be passed immediately. The bench will continue with the hearing during the day. The rat-hole mine, located on top of a hillock fully covered with trees in East Jaintia Hills district, had got flooded when water from the nearby Lytein river gushed into it, trapping the miners. As another dawn-to-dusk hartal hits Kerala on Thursday, local traders are adamant that they would not support the frequent shutdowns in the state. Soon after the Sabarimala Karma Samithi called for a state-wide hartal against the entry of women in Sabarimala on Wednesday, All-Kerala Vyapari Vyavasayi Ekopana Samiti, an influential merchants' body, had declared that they would not shut their shops on Thursday. However, contrary to their declaration, Thursday morning saw most of the shops with their shutters downed. Traders and shopkeepers complained that though they were willing to open the shops, they were forced to not open these fearing backlash from hartal sympathisers. An All-Kerala Vyapari Vyavasayi Ekopana Samiti spokesperson even blamed the Kerala government for not providing enough security to the shopkeeepers. READ: Sabarimala: Bindu, Kanakadurga entered temple, confirms Kerala CM Vijayan Soon, the situation changed as police began acting against forced shutting of shops. The Kerala police cane-charged protesters who were forcing shutting of shops at Ponnani area in Malappuram. In Ernakulam, Collector K. Mohammed Y. Safirulla, visited Broadwaya key commercial hub in Kochiand extended necessary support to all traders and shopkeepers willing to open shops and function normally. Shopkeepers in Kozhikode's Sweet Street also opened their shops, in retaliation to frequent hartals in Kerala. It is to be noted that the All-Kerala Vyapari Vyavasayi Ekopana Samiti had earlier declared 2019 as an anti-hartal year. This is the first general strike being announced after a collective of 64 outfits decided not to heed calls for hartals anymore. The merchants' body has kept its word and swung into action in the first hartal of this year. This is the seventh state-wide shutdown since October, 2018 that has hit Kerala in the wake of the Sabarimala agitation. The Supreme Court on Thursday asked veteran Congress leader Ahmed Patel to face trial in connection with his election to the Rajya Sabha in 2017, which has been challenged by his rival BJP candidate Balwantsinh Rajput. The apex court declined to interfere with the October 26, 2018 order of the Gujarat High Court which had said that Rajput's allegations required a trial. "Let the trial go on," said a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S.K. Kaul. Patel had challenged the high court order which had dismissed his plea questioning the maintainability of Rajput's election petition. Rajput in his election petition had challenged the Election Commission's decision to invalidate the votes of the two rebel MLAs. Had these votes been counted, he would have defeated Patel, the BJP leader had contended. The apex court said it will hear Patel's plea next month. It allowed the parties to file additional documents in the matter. In its order, the bench also said that "as contesting parties have appeared, no notice need be formally issued. List the matters for final disposal in the month of February 2019. In the meantime, the High Court shall proceed with the trial of the election petition". Patel was declared the winner after the Election Commission invalidated the votes of rebel Congress MLAs Bholabhai Gohel and Raghavjee Patel, bringing down the number of votes needed for victory to 44 from 45. In the election petition before the high court, Rajput also alleged that Patel had taken Congress MLAs to a resort in Bengaluru before the election which amounted to "bribing the voters". In October 2018, the high court for the second time declined to give relief to Patel. Earlier, April 20, it had rejected Patel's plea. Patel moved the Supreme Court against the April 20, 2018 order, contending that the decision of the poll panel cannot be challenged by an election petition. The apex court on September 26 asked the Gujarat High Court to decide afresh a plea of Patel challenging the maintainability of a petition filed by Rajput. The High Court in October dismissed Patel's plea. On Thursday, senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi along with advocate Devadutt Kamat appeared for Patel in the apex court. Senior advocates Maninder Singh and Satya Pal Jain represented Rajput and other respondents in the matter. BJP president Amit Shah has reportedly asked the party's Maharashtra MPs to be prepared to contest the ensuing elections alone in the state. Shah gave this message at a meeting with Maharashtra BJP MPs in Delhi Wednesday, said an MP who was present. "Shah asked us to prepare for the possibility of contesting elections alone in the state if needed," the MP said. "The BJP president told us that efforts are on to have an alliance with the Sena but if that did not materialise, we should be prepared to fight the polls alone," he said. BJP is in alliance with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and at the Centre. The Sena has been critical of BJP and its leaders have spoken of contesting the Lok Sabha elections alone. Targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Shiv Sena on Thursday wondered when would the Ram temple be constructed in Ayodhya if not during the tenure of the BJP-led government. Shiv Sena has also backed the opposition's demand for a JPC probe in the Rafale fighter aircraft purchase deal. "Shah said that if need be, we should be prepared to contest all 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra," the MP said. A senior Maharashtra BJP leader told PTI that Shah was "very clear" in telling the party MPs from the state to "be prepared for going it alone" in case no tie-up happens with the Shiv Sena. He will next be seen in The Big Bull The Tutor- Motor Vehicle Mechanicswillsupport the provision of Vocational Training to the People of Concern in thedesignated location in the particular field of Motor Vehicle Mechanics. TheTutor for Motor Vehicle Mechanics will conduct daily trainings and classes inthe Motor Vehicle Mechanics Course for the Vocational Students. The Tutor willalso support the daily running of the M.V Mechanics Department and workshopunder the direct supervision of the Principal. The Communications & Marketing Associatewill be based in Kampala, Uganda and will have the opportunity to coordinatewith LifeNet International (LN)s Development Officer in the U.S. towards thedevelopment of fundraising, marketing and publicity tools and content forsocial media. Additionally, the position will include a local focus workingwith the Uganda Country Director in generating content for national andinternational stakeholders. This is a vital expansion of LNs capacity tocommunicate internationally as well as nationally with stakeholders across avariety of platforms. Timothy Seth Bryant Pennington was born on January 30, 1988 in Corbin, Ky. He departed this life on June 3, 2021 to be with his Lord and Savior, whom he accepted as a young boy at his church, West Corbin Baptist. Seth was assured of his salvation and knew where he would spend his eternity. S In the still of the last night of 2018, the silence of California Dems chilled the air and airwaves. Border wall opponent Sen. Kamala Harris tweeted three times between Christmas and New Years Eve bemoaning the plight of illegal immigrants and their children. But not a peep was heard from Harris about the brutal shooting death of Newman, California, Police Department Cpl. Ronil Singh at the hands of a Mexican gang member illegally in the country and protected by the very sanctuary policies Harris champions. Border wall opponent Rep. Nancy Pelosi decried the deaths of two illegal immigrant children on the same day Singh was murdered, bashed the government shutdown and, on New Years Eve, promoted her upcoming MSNBC special. But not a peep was heard from Pelosi about Singh, the suspected illegal immigrant murderer, or the arrests of a total of seven alleged accomplices all reported to be illegally in this country as well. Border wall opponent Sen. Dianne Feinstein released a public letter to the Customs and Border Patrol agency on the day of Singhs murder to voice her strong concern about the recent deaths and illnesses of children detained in Border Patrol custody, and to request a full accounting and a revised protocol to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future. But not a peep was heard from Feinstein about Singh, no call for investigation of how the suspected murderer and his alleged accomplices arrived in the U.S., were able to evade arrest and detection, and who employed them, and aided, abetted, and sheltered them. Neighbors, friends and co-workers turned out in full force for a candlelight vigil memorializing the dedicated, patriotic, compassionate, hard-working husband and father of a 5-month-old baby. But rabble-rousing liberal politicians, so quick to rush down to the border to exploit the migrant caravan crisis and sabotage President Donald Trumps efforts to keep America safe, were nowhere to be found. How could any decent citizen not be moved by Reggie Singh, who broke down in tears while expressing thanks to local, state and federal officers upon the arrest of his hero brothers suspected murderer after an intense multiagency manhunt? How could any public servant not be outraged by the revelations of Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson, who reported that Ronil Singhs suspected murderer from Mexico had worked illegally as a laborer, had known gang affiliations, and had two prior drunken driving arrests before the fatal traffic stop and attempted escape back to Mexico. Californias sanctuary laws, supported by every California Democrat and signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, barred local authorities from reporting the alleged cop-killer for his prior criminal arrests to ICE. The priorities couldnt be starker: Open borders Democratic hearts bleed for those bent on undermining our sovereignty, while they turn blind eyes to legal immigrants like Indo-American Singh, originally from Fiji, who honored our institutions and enforced our laws. Newman Police Chief Randy Richardson paid tribute to his friend and employee: This is a man that loved his country. This is a man that worked hard for what he believed in. He believed in this community. Singh was the true story of the American dream, brought down by the ongoing open borders nightmare. He cherished his family roots and heritage, but embraced the privileges and responsibilities of legally obtained citizenship as a fully assimilated American. And this is precisely why California Democrats wont say his name, acknowledge his sacrifice or investigate the policy failures that led to his death. The silent Dems have spent 30 years obliterating the difference between legal and illegal immigration. Theyve spent every waking moment since President Trump took office denying the chaotic consequences of sanctuary policies. Theyve spent the past year demonizing law enforcement officers at both borders and across the interior, stoking fear and hatred of those who put their lives on the line 24/7/365. To speak Cpl. Ronil Singhs name is to admit the blood on their own hands. Michelle Malkin is host of Michelle Malkin Investigates on CRTV.com. Her email address is writemalkin@gmail.com. ALTON A female driver and male passenger led multiple local police departments on a high-speed pursuit from Alton to the western border of Jersey County more than 40 miles away after allegedly trying to pass a bad check. Alton police received a call from an employee with TheBANK of Edwardsville, 4415 Martin Luther King Blvd., Alton, around 9:30 a.m. for a forgery attempt in the drive-through. An Alton police sergeant arrived on scene and approached the vehicle, a silver Chevrolet Equinox, on foot, and the vehicle sped away, according to Alton Police Information Officer Pfc. Emily Hejna. Sangamon County States Attorney John Milhiser have been tapped to serve as the U.S. attorney of the Central District of Illinois. Milhiser has served as states attorney since 2010. He started his legal career in the states attorneys office in 1997 and spent time in the juvenile, civil and felony divisions before entering private practice in 2003. He returned to the states attorneys office in 2008 as the first assistant and was nominated to serve as U.S. attorney in August. Several west-central Illinois school districts will share more than $1.3 million in grants designed to improve school library media programs. Secretary of State and State Librarian Jesse White said Wednesday that School District Library Grant Program awards will go to 694 public school districts statewide. More than 1.6 million Illinois students served by school library media programs have benefited from the grants. As a former public school teacher and administrator, I know our school libraries are very important in helping students learn and prepare themselves for the future, White said. Illinois was the first state to implement a school district grant program, and Im pleased that we can continue to provide school libraries with some of the financial resources they need to produce well-educated students. Appropriations were approved by the General Assembly and the governor and awarded based on a formula of 75 cents a student, with a minimum grant award of $750. The School District Library Grant Program is used to acquire fiction or non-fiction books, educational CDs and DVDs, and library subscriptions to electronic resources, and to improve technology by purchasing new computers or improving Wi-Fi connectivity. Jacksonville School District 117 will receive the most in the region $2,354 followed by Jerseyville ($1,776) and Beardstown ($1,070). Other schools receiving grants, and the amount of the award, are: AC Central, $750; Western School District 12, $750; Southwestern, $1,002; Bunker Hill, $750; Carlinville, $1,045; Carrollton, $750; Triopia, $750; Gillespie, $920; North Mac, $750; Greenfield, $750; GriggsvillePerry, $750; Illinois School for the Visually Impaired, $750; Illinois School for the Deaf, $750; Brown County District 1, $750; New Berlin, $750; Northwestern, $750; Pikeland District 10, $887; Virginia District 64, $750; Waverly, $750; and Scott County District 1, $750. ALBANY New York paid the fees for 768 immigrants applying for citizenship in 2018, the third year of the NaturalizeNY program. In 2018, 6,100 New Yorkers applied for a lottery to get a voucher to cover the $725 naturalization application fee, according to a press release from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's office Wednesday. The state paid fees for more than half of the 1,400 eligible lottery applicants adding up to more than $550,000 and pointed 4,700 more to the federal fee waiver program. "In New York, we welcome immigrants with open arms to join our communities, help grow our economy and enrich the cultural life of our state," Cuomo said in a release. "The record-breaking number of New Yorkers participating in the NaturalizeNY program (in 2018) sends a clear message to the federal government that while they try to build walls, we will always break down barriers to inclusion and help those who come here looking to achieve the American dream." Cuomo has become more vocal in his pro-immigration stance and his opposition to President Donald J. Trump's policies. On Monday, Cuomo pardoned 22 immigrants facing deportation or barred from citizenship because of criminal convictions. In his inaugural speech Tuesday held on Ellis Island Cuomo reminded the audience that Trump's grandfather was an immigrant. Nearly one in four New Yorkers are foreign-born, according to 2016 data from the Migration Policy Institute. Applicants for NaturalizeNY came from more than 100 countries, with the most from the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Colombia. Since the NaturalizeNY program started in 2016, the state has covered naturalization costs for 1,684 low-income immigrants at a total cost of $1.2 million. The program also provides free naturalization eligibility screenings, application assistance, exam preparation, and federal fee waiver application assistance. The governor's press release pitched NaturalizeNY as a boost to the state's economy: Immigrants who become citizens see an almost 9 percent increase in earnings, according to a 2015 Urban Institute study, which leads to higher tax revenue and lower reliance on public benefits. A Jacksonville native with experience in the fields of communications and development has joined the Jacksonville Regional Economic Development Corp. Kristin Van Aken Jamison joined as the groups vice president of marketing and communications at the beginning of the year. She will work with Vice President of Operations Bonni Waters. Directors of the JREDC board are familiar with Kristins work at Illinois College, The Source newspaper and nonprofits throughout the Jacksonville community, Chairman Dusty Douglas said. Kristins work ethic and commitment to this region of Illinois will complement Bonnis years of economic development to form a powerful team for JREDC. Jamison graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Illinois College with a degree in communications and theater before earning a masters degree in communication from the University of Illinois at Springfield. As a graduate student, she participated in a public service internship working for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. She also worked for then-state legislator Dan Rutherford as legislative aide in his state Capitol and Pontiac offices. For more than a dozen years, Jamison worked on the development team at her alma mater, honing skills related to communication, marketing and fundraising while overseeing the Illinois College development offices communication with alumni, parents and friends. She and her husband, Adam, opened Jamisons Future Swings on June 1. Active in the community, Jamison is secretary of the Jacksonville Convention & Visitors Bureau, serves on Jacksonville Main Streets promotion committee and co-chaired the Passavant Bazaars Friday Night Fling in November. She is a member of The Art Association of Jacksonville, having co-chaired the 2017 Beaux Arts Ball. The Jacksonville Kiwanis Club recognized Kristin with the A. Wadsworth Applebee Community Service Award, she was named to the Journal-Couriers inaugural class of 20 Under 40 and the Illinois College Alumni Association recognized her with the Young Alumna Award. JREDC works to expand, retain, create and recruit job opportunities for Morgan and Scott counties. GODFREY A new pumper for the Godfrey Fire Protection District will be rebid after the board balked at the cost of financing the truck picked by firefighters during a sometimes contentious meeting Wednesday afternoon. About 30 people, including numerous firefighters, attended the meeting, held Wednesday afternoon at Fire Station No. 1. The board voted 2-1 to reject extending the payment period for a new pumper by one year with the expectation that the sale of one or two used pumpers and reduced maintenance cost would pay the difference. Instead the pumper will be rebid, with the notation that the actual price cannot exceed $421,000. The GFPD has $500,000 from the sale of land to the village of Godfrey to pay for a new pumper, which is needed because of the age and increased maintenance cost of several of its vehicles. It could also access about $30,000 in special equipment funds, including $10,000 that was recently donated to the department. The low bid for a new pumper that met the Fire Departments specifications came in at a total of $494,721, including new equipment. However, it would take an additional $60,000 to pay for the financing over 10 years. That bid, from KME Fire Apparatus, was the lowest bid meeting all the departments specifications. Fire District attorney James Sinclair said that to keep within the $500,000 the actual cost would have to be approximately $421,000 to $428,000. Some of the bids were slightly less than $400,000, but did not meet all those specs. Firefighters suggested that a decrease in the cost of maintenance to vehicles and the sale of at least one of the districts old pumpers could pay the difference. Trustee Maurice Hand then motioned to go that route, leading to almost two hours of discussion before the motion died for a lack of a second. While Hand said that he believed the district should stay within the $500,000, he could accept adding an additional year to the payment schedule. In 11 years we should be in better financial shape than we are today, he said. The wide-ranging discussion went from the general financial shape of the Districts general fund to comparisons of engine and transmission combinations on various truck bids. A larger engine was one of the requirements of the bid. Representatives of two of the fire truck companies were there and said they could upgrade the engine in some of their secondary bids. Firefighters urged the board to find a way to finance the truck. Trustee Terry Ford, who had raised a number of questions, said the district could not afford to finance the necessary funds based on the hope that the sale of equipment and reduced maintenance costs would cover the difference. He noted that one of the reasons for the Fire Districts financial position was that in the past the board would always spend a few thousand more in purchases hoping that the financial situation would improve, and that has not occurred. The Fire District has an operating budget of about $1.6 million, with another $500,000 for pensions and related costs, according to Fire Chief Erik Kambarian. Sinclair said that between 2013-2018, the Districts general fund year-end balance has dropped to $138,000 from $593,000. Ford said there were a lot of things he would like to do, including buy a more expensive pumper and hire more firefighters. The reality is we cant do that, we dont have the money, he said. Board President Steven Rynders also said he opposed spending more than $500,000 total. With that, the motion died for lack of a second. A motion to rebid with a ceiling of $421,000 was approved 2-1, with Hand voting no. That also brought up specific discussion about staffing levels. It was noted by Sinclair that salaries and related benefits were one of the only variables that the board could really control. Ford motioned to do nothing on staffing levels at this time. Im willing to let it slide, he said. When we have to make a choice we have to make a choice. I think its the wrong thing to do, I think its going to have a devastating effect on the district. Hand said that anticipated attrition because of retirements will have the district in the black within a few years. Reach reporter Scott Cousins at 618-208-6447. GLEN CARBON Mongolia: Big Changes from Communism to a Democratic Society will take place at the Glen Carbon Library on Feb. 21 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Luke Snell is the speaker. Snell is a senior materials engineer at Western Technologies in Phoenix, Arizona. He and his wife made their first trip to Mongolia in 2002 to set up a local chapter of the American Concrete Institute (ACI) in Ulaanbataar, Mongolias capital. EDWARDSVILLE Edwardsville Community Unit School District 7 is currently in the process of implementing an 18-month plan to improve parent communications. The plan includes a complete redesign of the District 7 website which includes all school websites, the rollout of a parent communication app coming later this month, as well as a bus transportation app launching in February. Its been 12 years since the district launched its original website and this shift marks its first major website revision. The redesigned District 7 website, which went live on Dec. 19, has been streamlined from 24,000 pages to 200 pages with improved navigation to provide a more efficient experience for users. The new website meets ADA Compliance requirements based on the Office of Civil Rights guidance on website accessibility in 2016 and is now compatible with mobile devices. Edwardsville District 7 Superintendent Lynda Andre explained that a second piece of the communication initiative includes mobile device compatibility with the districts School Messenger communication tool. School Messenger now has a free parent portal that will basically collect and group any and all school notifications into one place for easy access by parents, she said. Its also user-friendly for tablets as well as various types of phones and devices. The School Messenger piece will be released to parents in late January, and parents will receive direct communication from the district when it is ready to be released. As with any website redesign, there is the potential for minor glitches that need to be worked out. We have 13 school websites plus the districts website. We expect that we are going to have a transition period and that there will be instances where people find and say, It didnt work or, I dont see that link. Thats exactly why we did not do this last summer or the start of school because we didnt want to be in a construction phase during registration, Andre emphasized. Anytime you do a major redesign, youre going to experience this, and we expect that transition. Thats why we are we are going to need everybodys help to find out whether its working efficiently and that they are finding the information that they are looking to access. We ask that people please let us know if youre experiencing any difficulties so that we can address those. She said that any District 7 website ecusd7.org issues be directed to District 7 Technology Director Bill Miener at Bmiener@ecusd7.org or by phone at 618-655-6018. More Information District 7 communication plan includes: Revamped district-wide website (13 schools and district) School Messanger - a free, parent communication app First View - a free, bus transportation app See More Collapse The district is also working on a bus transportation app, FirstView, which will provide real-time bus stop times for parents of students who travel to school via District 7 buses. Andre pointed out that this app will be a valuable tool for both parents and the district because it will display where the bus is and when to expect it at a particular location. I think its going to be wonderful for all the people who pick up their children at the stop, as well as to know of minor time changes due to the weather or something unanticipated. I personally have used it with my grandchildren where they live, and Im very excited about it because I think it will really improve overall communication, she added. I also think for parents of younger kids when they start school in the fall, its going to be very reassuring that they know exactly when they or a babysitter will need to be at that stop. The district is currently piloting FirstView in a couple of areas in the district to ensure that the GPS and app are communicating accurately. We will continue testing it in January, and then use the rest of this year to have parents sign up for it. But, its free. They just will need to actively opt in for it. Well practice using it for the second semester with full expectations of making it apart of registration this summer, Andre said. We think thats a real benefit that parents will appreciate. NEW ORLEANS (AP) Few experiences capture old New Orleans and the Mississippi River quite like a paddlewheel riverboat coming round the muddy bend with its tooting whistle horn, towering smoke stacks and water-churning propeller. This month the first new riverboat in more than a decade is set to launch in this Louisiana port city. A plunge in tourism after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 forced the New Orleans Steamboat Company to sell off one of its two boats, but the arrival of the City of New Orleans is a sign of the steadily rising tide of tourists each year to this Southern city of Mardi Gras fame. People come from all over the world. It is astonishing. They really want to see the river, said Adrienne Thomas, marketing director for the company, which also owns another riverboat, the Natchez. A century ago, countless paddlewheel riverboats plied the Mississippi and its tributaries. Today, New Orleans has two: the Natchez and the Creole Queen, which is operated by New Orleans Paddlewheels. Now the City of New Orleans is coming full circle, back to the state where it was built in 1991. For years it operated as a casino boat in Rock Island, Illinois, until the mid-1990s. But after that state legalized onshore casinos, the boat became obsolete, said Matthew Dow, project manager heading the vessels renovation. The then-named Casino Rock Island sat unused for years until it was purchased by the New Orleans Steamboat Company in 2016. We instantly fell in love with the boat, Dow said. We saw the potential in her and knew that we could do her justice and bring her back not only to her former glory but well beyond that. Dow said the vessel already looked the part of a New Orleans riverboat, with its curved decks, plentiful windows, decorative fleurs de lis and giant paddlewheel. Initially it was brought to a dry dock for hull repairs, then towed to New Orleans for a makeover. We had to rip all of the walls out, all the ceilings, a lot of the insulation, Dow said. Basically, we had to strip this boat down to the superstructure, to bare bones, and everything had to go back new. There were additions, too. A dumb waiter was added to connect the galley to all three decks for food transport, along with passenger elevators and handicapped-accessible restrooms. The Associated Press was given the first look at the new riverboat recently. Dow says the company is aiming to have the boat ready for tours by Jan. 21, when the Natchez goes into its annual service and maintenance layup. After that, both boats will operate simultaneously. The two riverboats look similar, both painted red and white with giant red paddlewheels and exterior deck space for close-up views by passengers of the giant propeller. But the new boat has more indoor space. The Natchez was built in the 1970s for sightseeing with a lot of open deck space, and its main deck is occupied mostly by the boats vintage 1925 steam engines, an attraction for passengers. The Natchez is one of only six commercially-operated steamboats left in the U.S. The new boat is run with a modern diesel-electric system. It takes up less room, allowing for more indoor space for dinner seating, jazz brunches and special events. Even though we dont have the steam engines, we do have the working paddlewheel, and we want to show that off, Dow said. As with the Natchez, cruises on the City of New Orleans will include narration about the city and shoreline sights such as the port, historic Jackson Square and the Chalmette battlefield, a significant Civil War landmark downriver. And there will be plenty of live band music as the boat plies the Mississippi. Cyndi Gruenberg of Houston, Texas, rode the Natchez with her husband and two daughters recently and said they learned much about the city. It was a great trip, a little bit of history along the river and just a fun ride, said Gruenberg. Its pretty cool. It brings nostalgia back. Tourism officials say they dont expect a shortage of passengers, as the number of visitors to New Orleans has surpassed pre-Katrina levels in recent years. Stephen Perry, head of New Orleans & Co., which promotes tourism, says the city is back in every way with increased hotel and restaurant bookings. Riding a paddlewheel is part of the New Orleans experience, he noted. This is one of the most eclectic, authentic places left in America, Perry said. People dont come here only for food and music. What they like is other experiences. A paddlewheeler is just one of the great added attractions of imagining yourself in a time gone by. Welfare By Steve Anwyll Tyrant. 256 pp. $15.95 --- Tyrant Books, an indie publisher of exacting left-of-center fiction, has recently stepped to the forefront of progressive literature. In August, Nico Walker's autobiographical novel "Cherry," a Tyrant project sold to Knopf, met rapturous acclaim for its account of a decorated Iraq War medic's metamorphosis into a heroin-shooting bank robber. A month later, Megan Boyle's long-simmering autofiction experiment "Liveblog" left readers captivated and cowering with its lengthy portrayal of the author's everyday exploits. Now there's "Welfare," a debut novel by Canadian writer Steve Anwyll that similarly eschews the bravado of literary fiction from major publishing houses, chronicling a teenage protagonist's descent into state-sponsored decrepitude. In conjuring an adolescent burnout, Anwyll might have taken cues from the slacker canon of westward-slouching beatniks and Kevin Smith antiheroes. Instead, his Stan Acker assumes the lineage of J.P. Donleavy's Sebastian Dangerfield and John Kennedy Toole's Ignatius Reilly - although the comedy of "Welfare" is, by necessity, comparatively muted. A values-neutral indigent, Acker is a reflecting pool of human nature and dysfunctional institutions, casting their vagaries in grisly magnification. Where a more romantic ne'er-do-well might be afforded a comeuppance or redemption, Stan's coming-of-age is precluded by the immediate needs of survival. "Welfare" evokes poverty as a trial of rote drudgeries. Stan, a runaway, spends his days filling out forms and waiting to meet with apathetic caseworkers to secure his meager subsistence. He hitchhikes to distant factories, drops off job applications and is summarily jeered at for his shabby clothes and poor hygiene. He undertakes anxious attempts at tidying his noxious apartments, hoping that a government agent will deem him worthy of assistance rather than a degenerate lost cause. Anwyll's rhythmic prose is constructed of staccato, bullet-point sentences. Each four-line paragraph performs an equal narrative thrust, whether advancing the external plot or demonstrating Stan's deepening malaise during his slide from loafing to begging and stealing. Stan is obsessed by the subtle degrees and manifestations of poverty, outlining an imperative hierarchy among delivery pizza, takeout trays, boxed mac and cheese and plain white rice. His roommate, supported by a Catholic charity rather than state welfare, might as well be a member of the leisure class. While the most self-pitying of Stan's monologues approach melodramatic balladry, his penetrating observations of forlorn peers yield acute insights. Watching a friend roll a joint with expert precision, Stan reflects, "His older brothers taught him when he was a kid. The kind of thing that defines the rest of a life." Through its supporting cast, "Welfare" considers the pressures on those pushed against society's margins. Bouncing between a succession of substandard living conditions, Stan encounters a rogues' gallery of half-feral scammers, religious zealots and predatory landlords. Poor of money and spirit, the men and women cordoned into this social outskirt grow violent and defensive, resulting in gripping episodes of unforced irony. In an unforgettable scene, Stan is beaten senseless by his next-door neighbor, a self-identified Satanist, for entertaining a Mormon missionary who comes calling. Comrades pursue chaos for its own sake, drinking themselves into stupors and smoking cigarette after cigarette while staring at the ground beneath their feet. Still, Stan is eager for role models and seeks them in the most hopeless of environs. "I wonder what advice I've been missing out on," he muses of his perpetual unemployment. If Anwyll's novel is an argument against welfare, there are no commonalities with Ronald Reagan's infamous "welfare queen" stump speech. The scant assistance provided Stan's cohort is the equivalent of papering over a massive wreck - a tacit acknowledgment that capitalism creates burdens that society can't bear. Assuming that their tax dollars support Stan's lifestyle, passing strangers hurl verbal abuse. Authorities range from compassionate to brutal disciplinarians, and while Stan doesn't lack agency, he receives few favors. In one disquieting sequence, he briefly enters "to not starve" and "pay the rent" under "Goals" on a digital resume. Even in his direst hour, he is governed by a deliberate cost-benefit analysis. "It'd be a lot easier to just keep doing what I'm doing," he reasons. "Which is nothing at all. My father's advice of the least amount of work possible guiding my decisions." Exasperated by cycles of conspicuous consumption, he is incredulous that reliance upon a corporate employer would offer him greater freedom. Stan's desperation turns quotidian acts such as eating a sandwich and cashing a check into propulsive high-stakes drama, rendering the prospect of a Caulfield-esque breakdown literally unaffordable. Like Walker's "Cherry," "Welfare" is a relentless Sinclairian censure, exposing a society so fundamentally broken that full-scale upheaval seems the only solution. Yet neither the politics nor characters of these books are radical in any real sense: Their resonance lies in that these fates might befall any of your neighbors or relatives. --- Tosiello is a writer and critic based in New York. 10 ways to make Toronto better in 2019, Hume, Dec 27 Fiona Bramzells letter to the editor regarding Christopher Humes low expectations for Toronto in 2019 sent a mild tremor down my spine. She writes, Toronto is on the whole, a great, livable and vibrant place. And as it currently stands, Bramzell is correct. But what if next week, or the week after, all that changes? What if Doug Ford has us downtowners loaded on barges and set adrift on Lake Ontario? His calm enabler, John Tory, acting as the mooring lines severer. While Bramzell gives a glowing appraisal of our wonderful Toronto, the pessimistic Hume is far more the realist, I fear. What our Toronto needs, sooner than later, is more Christopher Humes. Jack Drury, Toronto Read more about: A conflict, and a life, laid bare by a single bullet I was aware of Rouzan al-Najjars murder at the hands of the Israel Defence Forces. Sadly, few seem to care what Israel does to others, including Canadas leaders. As to Israel protecting its land, a great deal of land has been usurped, stolen from Palestinian owners. Settlements continue to grow. These settlements possess many amenities while Palestinians suffer. Kathleen Bridel, Toronto Read more about: In 2016, when Ontarios former Liberal government released new regulations governing carding the practice where police stop individuals, collect information and enter it into a database they came under attack by civil liberties groups and police representatives alike. Now an independent review of the regulations has found both sides had cause for concern. Indeed, this weeks report from Justice Michael Tulloch finds that complex wording in the regulations coupled with insufficient police training on interpreting them has allowed two troubling scenarios to occur: On one hand, some police forces have continued conducting random street checks that unfairly infringe on individuals rights. On the other, some forces have been so confused or afraid of misapplying the rules that theyve backed away from talking to potential witnesses, to the detriment of legitimate investigations. Happily, Tullochs 310-page report provides detailed recommendations on how to get a better balance between rights and effective policing. Unhappily, though, his report itself is so complex that it may leave the Ford government, never mind the public and police, wondering what exactly officers should be permitted to do when they interact with the public. One thing, though, is clear. Tulloch found there is little to no evidence that a random, unfocused collection of identifying information has benefits that outweigh the social cost of the practice. Read more: Police carding should be banned in Ontario, independent review says Opinion | Rosie DiManno: Torontos rising violence cant be blamed on the decline of carding Toronto activist Desmond Cole says he was carded while visiting Vancouver The social cost he refers to is how this type of random carding disproportionately affects racialized people to the point where Blacks could be stopped simply for walking in predominantly white neighbourhoods. Nor should carding be used simply to build a database for general intelligence purposes. In fact, Tulloch recommends that carding information be destroyed five years after it is collected, unless it is being used for a specific purpose, such as a court case. What isnt so clear is what should be allowed. Tulloch makes literally dozens of recommendations for changes in Regulation 58/16, the changes to carding regulations introduced by the Liberal government in 2016. He recommends the rules be clarified to state expressly that curbs on carding should not prevent police from community building or investigating an offence. At the same time, he recommends that regulations be changed to make clear the circumstances in which police may legitimately interact with people, how they should treat them, and what type of information they should provide in return. The idea is to avoid random stops that may be infected with bias, but to allow legitimate questioning. Its a valiant attempt, but the issue has become so fraught that the wording of his report may well be fought over by police and civil liberties groups as much as the Liberals earlier carding regulations were. After all, they were explicitly aimed at barring police from initiating a contact with individuals based solely on race, while allowing police to conduct justified investigations. Now that Tullochs review is in, the Ford government has a tough task ahead. So far the signals from Sylvia Jones, the minister of community safety and correctional services, seem positive. While saying public safety is a top priority for the government, she added: Our new police legislation will reflect a simple principle: racism and discrimination have no place in policing. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... That sounds good on the face of it. But there is reason for concern. Last July the PC government demonstrated it was only too happy to ignore Tullochs advice when it postponed implementation of the Ontario Special Investigations Unit Act, which was based on a sweeping police oversight review that he had also conducted. This time the government must take Tullochs recommendations into account. It wont be easy to find the right balance but at the end of the day one thing must be clear: random carding must be out for good. Read more about: Facebook Incs development of its own cryptocurrency, reported by Bloomberg in December, has the potential to jump-start adoption of digital tokens, such as Bitcoin, but it also hints at a dark, dystopian future. Whispers of Facebooks foray into this new world have circulated for more than a year in cryptocurrency circles. But few had any idea what the company was up to. There are, after all, many applications for cryptocurrency and its related blockchain technology. Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg reported that Facebook is developing a so-called stablecoin, a type of cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar, for use in its WhatsApp messaging platform. Facebooks project seems to resemble the payment system in the popular WeChat, by Chinas Tencent Holdings Ltd. While not using cryptocurrency, that payment method has been so prevalent in China that anyone still using cash is instantly marked as a tourist. Facebooks cryptocurrency has the potential to do that for the rest of the world. If it is even half as successful as WeChat Pay, it will likely become widely used, ingrained in peoples lives the same way the social network was. Cryptocurrencies of which Bitcoin, which marks its 10-year anniversary on Thursday, was the first operate without a central authority, letting users make peer-to-peer payments. With wide adoption, it can get rid of the transaction fees of debit and credit cards that merchants incur and bake into prices. Facebook is perhaps the biggest mainstream player to embrace cryptocurrency on this level, and its move reaches the most people. It would bring the new technology to the attention of billions more, potentially sparking the great change in payment systems for which cryptocurrency enthusiasts had hoped. But a Facebook cryptocurrency comes with a dark side. The technology giant would be able to glean much more than just the transactions people make; it would be able to combine and parse that information with personal details pulled from their social network profiles. That is powerful, priceless information that few have on a large scale. While not legal tender in most countries, cryptocurrency, especially one with a stable price, functions just like money. By issuing it, Facebook also becomes a quasi-bank, with the great power that comes with it. Consider the case of Tether Ltd, the company behind arguably the most famous stablecoin, which has been under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. While the department has said little, academics and traders have claimed Tethers similarly named coin was used to strategically buy Bitcoin, propping up its value to heights of $25,000 in 2017. The company has denied wrongdoing. Control of a widely used stablecoin grants potential influence over prices, and the power that comes with that goes beyond cryptocurrency. With hedge funds that invest in cryptocurrency or related companies, and financial intuitions creation of Bitcoin-backed investment instruments, the field of finance is increasingly intertwined with the new technology. All that is not to say that Facebook has any malevolent intent. Its cryptocurrency is still far from done, Bloomberg reported, and its details are few. We do not yet know how the company intends to use the transactional data from its cryptocurrency, nor how it wants to wield its influence in the cryptocurrency sphere, if it wants to at all. But we do know that Facebook has severely abused the great power it already has. In December, the New York Times reported that the technology giant let other companies see users private messages, among other intrusions. That was on top of the privacy scandals throughout the year. In the Times report, Facebooks own director of privacy and public policy said, We know weve got work to do to regain peoples trust. Facebook has not shown that it is responsible enough to handle our personal information, much less become our bank. Yet the technology giants foray into cryptocurrency represents perhaps the greatest union between the worlds of finance and technology. The old world merges with the new, coming under the same king. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... The technology giant has long been trying to move people to its services for as many aspects of their lives as possible its own ecosystem, a Facebook world in which users do not have to step out for that is where it gets is power. Pundits and politicians alike have called for considering antitrust laws to break up the company. In developing a cryptocurrency, Facebook makes a great step toward becoming a sort of borderless corporation-government, with immense power that it has not yet proven it should have. Ethan Lou is an early Bitcoin investor and senior partner at the cryptocurrency firm Ocuis in Calgary. Read more about: ROMENorth Koreas top diplomat in Italy has gone into hiding along with his wife, according to a South Korean lawmaker, raising the possibility of a defection of a senior North Korean official. The news came from South Koreas spy agency, which briefed lawmakers in Seoul on Thursday on the status of North Koreas acting ambassador to Italy, Jo Song Gil. It said he went into hiding with his wife in November before his posting to Italy ended late that month. A high-profile defection by one of North Koreas elite would be a huge embarrassment for leader Kim Jong Un as he pursues diplomacy with Seoul and Washington and seeks to portray himself as a geopolitical player. South Korean lawmaker Kim Min-ki said an official from Seouls National Intelligence Service shared the information during a closed-door briefing. Kim did not say whether the spy agency revealed anything about Jos current whereabouts or whether he had plans to defect to South Korea. Kim said the NIS said it has not been contacted by Jo. According to Kim, the NIS official said Jo and his wife left the official residence in early November, weeks before his term was to end. Kim said he couldnt confirm if the NIS official revealed whether Jo and his wife were accompanied by any children. The NIS earlier said it couldnt confirm a South Korean media report that Jo was under Italian government protection as he seeks asylum in a Western nation. Read more: North Korean leader says hes ready for more talks with Trump Worlds tallest empty hotel lit up with North Korean propaganda China says no doubt two detained Canadians broke law North Korea has not yet commented on Jos status. An official with the Italian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that Jo hadnt requested asylum from Italy. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with standard practice, also said Jo no longer held diplomatic status in Italy, presumably since his assignment had ended. Without citing any sources, Italian daily La Repubblica raised the possibility that while the Foreign Ministry was saying Jo hadnt sought asylum from Italy, that didnt rule out that the North Korean might have turned to other offices, such as Italian intelligence agencies for assistance from Italy in order not to return to his country. North Korea, which touts itself as a socialist paradise, is extremely sensitive about defections, especially among its elite diplomatic corps, and has previously insisted that they are South Korean or U.S. plots to undermine its government. About 30,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, according to South Korean government figures. Many defectors have said they wanted to leave North Koreas harsh political system and widespread poverty. North Korea often accuses the South of deceiving or paying people to defect, or claims that they have been kidnapped. North Korea may publicly ignore Jos possible defection or hold back harsh criticism to avoid highlighting the vulnerability of its government as it tries to engage Washington and Seoul in negotiations, said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seouls Dongguk University. Jo had been North Koreas acting ambassador to Rome after Italy expelled then-Ambassador Mun Jong Nam in October 2017 to protest a North Korean nuclear test and long-range missile launch. Jo seemed comfortable moving around Italy. In March 2018, accompanied by another embassy official, Pak Myong Gil, he visited two factories in Italys northeastern Veneto region with an eye on eventual trade, according to La Tribuna di Treviso, a local daily. One factory produced bathroom furnishings and another made accessories from marble. The newspaper quoted the local businessmen as assuming at first the delegation consisted of South Koreans, not North Koreans, given the economic sanctions against North Korea. Among the Italians accompanying the North Koreans was a former Italian senator for what is now the League party, which in general opposes economic embargoes as bad for business. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... The politician, Valentino Perin, told AP he had spoken with Jo many times, including about preparations for the visit to the Veneto region. Perin said he last met with Jo on Sept. 5, at an official reception organized by the North Korean embassy in Rome. Showing Jos business card, Perin said the North Korean was very proud of his people and of his country. The last senior North Korean diplomat known to have defected is Thae Yong Ho, a former minister at the North Korean Embassy in London, who fled to South Korea in 2016. In an interview on South Korean television, Thae said he worked with Jo for more than a decade in the North Korean Foreign Ministrys Europe bureau and that Jo had a child when Thae last saw him in 2013. Thae said Jo comes from a family of diplomats, with his father and father-in-law both serving as ambassadors. The embassy in Italy is critical for North Korea because it handles annual negotiations with the Rome-based World Food Program over aid to North Korea, Thae said. He also said Italy has been a hub for smuggling luxury items to the North Korean elite, and Jo would have been involved in those activities. Thae said Jo would have been North Koreas main diplomat for the Vatican and would have also handled discussions involving a possible visit to the North by Pope Francis if such talks had taken place. South Korea said in October that North Korean leader Kim mentioned during a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in that he would welcome a papal visit. Thae said he believes Jo was to be replaced by incoming ambassador Kim Chon in November but did not reveal how he obtained such information. While not identifying him by name, North Koreas state media described Thae as human scum after his defection in London, and claimed he was trying to escape punishment for serious crimes. Thae, who has been an outspoken critic of Kim while living in South Korea, denied the accusation and said he defected because he didnt want his children to live miserable lives in the North. Its possible that Jo is trying to defect because of similar reasons, said Koh, a policy adviser for South Koreas president. It could be difficult for some diplomats to accept being called back to the North after enjoying years living in the free West. They could want their children to live in a different system and receive better education, he told The Associated Press. The highest-level North Korean to seek asylum in South Korea is Hwang Jang-yop, a senior ruling Workers Party official who once tutored Kim Jong Uns late father, dictator Kim Jong Il. Hwangs 1997 defection was hailed by many South Koreans as an intelligence bonanza. Hwang died in 2010. Also in 1997, the North Korean ambassador to Egypt fled and resettled in the United States. Read more about: FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA.The Florida state commission investigating the Parkland school shooting unanimously approved a tough final report Wednesday that puts the responsibility for reform on school districts, law enforcement agencies, Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis and state legislative leaders. The 458-page report by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission addresses the cascade of errors revealed in the wake of the shooting, including fumbled tips, lax school security policies and unaggressive Broward County sheriffs deputies who hung back as shots were fired. The report now goes to Gov. Rick Scott, DeSantis, Senate President Bill Galvano and House Speaker Jose Oliva. The report contains dozens of recommendations. Some would require action by the governor and Legislature, such as the proposals to allow some teachers to carry guns and increase spending on school security. It also calls for laws to be changed to allow school districts to raise taxes for security improvements and to require rather than simply permit mental health providers to notify law enforcement if a patient threatens anyone with harm. Many of the proposals were inspired by errors and weak spots that came to light after the Feb. 14 massacre of 17 people. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, chairman of the commission, said many recommendations could have been implemented a long time ago had school safety been treated with the importance it deserved, particularly by school districts. There needs to be a sense of urgency, he said. And people need to understand that theres an expectation and a rightful expectation on the part of parents: When you send your kids to school in the morning, theres an expectation theyre going to come home alive in the afternoon and there are very basic things. Theres a money issue, I grant you that. And theres challenges with money, but theres a whole bunch of things that dont cost anything and the Legislature, if these districts wont do it, should mandate that they implement these things and that they implement them immediately. Galvano said the recommendations will be taken up Tuesday at a meeting of the Senate Education Committee. He said he would consider supporting many of the proposals, including the one to allow teachers to carry guns, which would be accomplished through expanding the school Guardian program. I am committed to making sure our re-examination of school safety policies does not end with the legislation we passed last year, he said in a statement. Gualtieri spoke forcefully in favour of the commissions proposal to arm teachers, noting that the shooter had paused five times to reload providing opportunities to stop him. So what are we saying to people were not going to allow you to defend yourself, were not going to allow you to defend the kids why? Because of some ideology that we dont like guns? Anyone who thinks theyre going to get rid of guns is crazy, he said. It isnt going to happen. Weve got to do something differently and people should be able to protect themselves. Broward School Board member Robin Bartleman said she doubts the board will support allowing teachers to carry guns but thought the board should revisit the issue. I am very concerned about arming teachers, Bartleman said. I think its a discussion we need to have with the community. I have not found many people in favour of this. The overwhelming response I get is people dont want teachers with guns. Under current law, most teachers arent allowed to be armed, but ROTC instructors, current military members and those with law enforcement experience are. Non-classroom personnel, such as administrators, guidance counsellors and librarians, also can be armed. However, Broward decided against arming current employees and instead to use police officers and guardians, which serve in schools that dont have a sworn officer. Neither Superintendent Robert Runcie nor a district spokesperson could be reached Wednesday, despite attempts by phone and email. The school districts calendar listed administrative offices as being open Wednesday, but an out of office message from the Public Information Office said they were closed for winter break until Monday. Here are the highlights of the commissions recommendations: Schools Recommendation: Classrooms should have established safety measures, such as hard corners marked areas not visible from doorways or other safe areas for students to hide, and teachers should be able to cover door windows quickly. Status: Varies statewide, like many school security measures. The commission has accused school districts of moving too slowly on safety improvements after the shooting. The Broward school district hasnt addressed this yet, but Superintendent Runcie said it will begin implementing changes after winter break for classrooms that havent already created marked areas. Recommendation: Every school should have a clear policy for declaring a Code Red, an emergency lockdown. All personnel should be empowered to call for a Code Red. Status: Broward still has no policy, but the school board is considering one that would allow anyone to call a Code Red if student safety is at risk. Recommendation: All campus gates must remain locked, unless staffed to prevent unauthorized access. Status: Broward policy calls for perimeter gates to be locked when class is in session. It calls for one gate thats left open for parent or visitor access to be monitored at all times to the extent possible. Recommendation: Schools must accurately report crime and safety incidents. A South Florida Sun Sentinel investigation found that Stoneman Douglas failed to alert the state to numerous incidents and that districts throughout the state had not reported incidents such as rape, kidnapping, arson and murder. Status: Browards superintendent pledged to conduct audits of the districts reporting practices and discipline administrators who under-report incidents. It would be up to the state Legislature to authorize sanctions on school districts that dont accurately report campus crime. School district Recommendation: Student mental health and counselling records should be part of each students school records and follow them from school to school. Status: Requires legislative action or rule-making by Florida Department of Health. Recommendation: School-based arrest diversion programs, such as Browards Promise program, should limit the number of referrals a student can receive, report all information to the Department of Juvenile Justice and provide law enforcement with the discretion to make an arrest. Status: The district has made changes to keep students from going back to the program, due to a state law passed last year that requires law enforcement to be involved once a student commits a second offence. Recommendation: All Florida public schools should immediately provide law enforcement with live and real-time access to all school camera systems. The school districts should provide law enforcement with adequate training to access and operate the cameras. Status: Broward has not provided outside law enforcement agencies with access to its systems, but its school cameras do operate in real time. The tape delay that confused law-enforcement officers during the Parkland shooting was caused by human error; the system could have been switched to real time, but the operator didnt realize it wasnt. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Recommendation: The district should investigate how Stoneman Douglas Assistant Principal Jeff Morford acted on information provided to him about the future shooter to see if any district policies were violated. If Morfords actions did not violate policies, then those policies should be changed. Status: Morford has been transferred from Stoneman Douglas, while an investigation proceeds. Runcie said last month the district hired a consultant to review how it has conducted threat assessments. Recommendation: The district should investigate whether Principal Ty Thompsons disengagement from the threat-assessment process and failure to become informed about threats on campus violated district policy. The commission said the principal should be aware of all threat reports and how they are handled. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Status: The district has not responded to questions about whether Thompson is being investigated. School deputies Recommendation: School resource officers, law enforcement officers provided by the sheriffs office or city police departments, should be more closely supervised. Their primary responsibility should be safety and security, not teaching or counselling. Status: The Broward Sheriffs Office has transferred its school deputies from Community Services to Special Operations to place more emphasis on school security and tactical responses. Recommendation: All school resource officers should be issued rifles and bulletproof vests, with these items readily available on campus. Status: Varies statewide. The Broward Sheriffs Office says it has equipped all deputies with carbines, a type of small rifle. All uniformed officers are now required to wear bulletproof vests. Recommendation: School deputies should have frequent, thorough and realistic training to handle high-risk, high-stress situations, especially single-officer response training. Status: The Broward Sheriffs Office said all school deputies have attended a week of training for active-shooter and other tactical situations since the shooting, as well as the use of their new carbines. Recommendation: The state Legislature should increase funding for school resource officers and guardians, give school districts more flexibility in spending money for security and allow districts to raise taxes by up to 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed value without a referendum to pay for law enforcement officers, guardians or other security expenses. Status: Would require action by the state Legislature Broward Sheriffs Office Recommendation: The Broward Sheriffs Office should conduct an internal review of seven deputies who arrived during the shooting but appeared to fail to even attempt to take effective action. Status: Internal investigations have been opened into two deputies, and the sheriffs office has said it would consider further reviews based on the report. Recommendation: BSO should revise its active-shooter policy to make clear that deputies are expected to immediately seek out the shooter. Status: BSO has changed its policy to require that deputies confront the shooter, rather than leaving it to their discretion. Work continues The report is not the commissions final act. It is empaneled until 2023. It will identify areas requiring further investigation and make additional recommendations. Despite the traumatic impact of the massacre, the report says many entities, such as school districts, have been slow to make changes. Even after the shooting and the implementation of new Florida law requiring certain safety measures, there remains non-compliance and a lack of urgency to enact basic safety principles in Floridas K-12 schools, the report says. All stakeholders school districts, law enforcement, mental health providers, city and county governments, funding entities, etc. should embrace the opportunity to change and make Florida schools the safest in the nation. There must be a sense of urgency and there is not, across-the-board in enhancing school safety. The commission consists of law enforcement officers, public officials and parents of the slain students. The commission met over eight months, examining what went wrong, taking testimony from witnesses and going over the results of the work of its own investigators. Max Schachter, a member of the commission whose 14-year-old son Alex was killed in the attack, thanked his fellow commissioners and the commissioners investigators for a tremendous job in a short period of time. The 17 families wanted to get to the bottom of what happen on Feb. 14, he said. And I think that weve done that. Am I the only one who has fix-it projects fail but only if I button everything up prior to testing? As an example, when I was a computer technician I would frequently open up computers to replace parts for newer parts or sometimes to replace a broken part. MANAGUA, NICARAGUAReporters for an online news site are writing their stories in secret locations. Editors of the countrys only 24-hour news network have been jailed. And employees of a major human rights organization have escaped into the mountains. Except one. I am 80 years old, and I am in no condition to go up into the mountains, not even to save my life, said Vilma Nunez, a well-known lawyer who founded the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights. In the past few weeks, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortegas forces have launched a wave of repression against civil society groups and journalism outlets that is choking off what little remains of democracy in this Central American country. The government recently stripped nine civil society groups of their legal standing and seized their assets. News organizations critical of the Ortega administration have been closed, and some editors have been charged with crimes including conspiracy to commit terrorist acts. The government is trying to shut down all political dissidence and impose a reign of fear and terror, targeting its opponents, said Paulo Abrao, director of the human rights commission of the Organization of American States (OAS). The crackdown marks a new stage in the governments efforts to destroy a protest movement that emerged in April and swelled into giant demonstrations demanding Ortegas resignation. Police and paramilitary forces responded by opening fire on protesters. According to the OAS commission, 324 people have been killed in the uprising. The government puts the death toll at 198, including 21 police. In December, a panel of independent investigators named by the OAS concluded that the actions by Nicaraguas security forces could be considered crimes against humanity. They called for an investigation of Ortega, noting that the co-ordinated, sustained campaign by the national police could only be explained by a decision taken by the maximum authorities of the country. They also urged an investigation of the police leadership and judiciary. Authorities kicked the investigators out of the country shortly before the report was issued. The government responded to its conclusions by accusing the investigators of ignoring deadly violence by protesters. It also alleged that they were echoing the policies of the government of the United States of America against Nicaragua. For months, the government has pursued those directly involved in the demonstrations, arresting more than 400 and prompting thousands to flee the country. Now it is intensifying its campaign against news organizations and non-profit groups it views as sympathetic to the protests. Jaime Chamorro, publisher of the countrys most influential daily, La Prensa, said the attacks on the media were worse than the censorship that occurred in the 1980s, when the leftist Sandinista government was fighting the U.S.-backed contra rebels. Then, he noted, a war was underway. But how do you justify the shutdown of media today, when we are living in peace? Chamorro asked. Ortega, 73, was a top figure in the Sandinista rebel movement that overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979. The one-time Marxist fighter went on to lead the government until 1990, when he lost the presidential election. Over the next several years, as international donors sought to strengthen Nicaraguas democracy, more than 4,000 civic groups were established, according to Felix Madariaga, the Harvard-trained director of a think tank in Managua, the Institute for Strategic Studies on Public Policy. Ortega was re-elected in 2006 and began to consolidate power. Today, along with his wife, Vice-President Rosario Murillo, he virtually controls many state institutions including the courts, the national assembly, the police and the electoral council. In the absence of strong opposition parties, civic groups and the media have effectively become a major political force, said Madariaga. Thats why it is so significant that Ortegas government is cracking down on those groups, he told a recent panel organized by the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. When the protests erupted in April, the civil society had awakened. The press was really playing a fundamental role in energizing the population in its search for freedom, Madariaga said. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... The governments foreign media spokesperson and other Nicaraguan officials didnt respond to requests for comment. But the government has said the protests amounted to a soft coup supported by its opponents, including those in civil society and the media. Among those it is seeking to arrest is Madariaga, charging that he financed and trained the protesters. He denies the allegations. The most recent government actions target some of the countrys most prominent civic and media institutions, many of whose leaders have historic ties to the Sandinista movement. For example, Confidencial, an independent news site, is run by Carlos Fernando Chamorro, a scion of one of Nicaraguas most famous political families and the one-time editor of the Sandinista newspaper Barricada. It was shut down Dec. 14. A week later, the cable TV station 100 Per Cent Noticias was forced off the air, and two of its editors were jailed. La Prensa continues to operate, but its publisher, Chamorro the uncle of the Confidencial director said it is being strangled financially by the government. On top of everything, they have blocked our imports of paper and ink. We only have enough to operate for two months, he said. Eight months after they started, the anti-government protests have largely been extinguished. But it is unclear whether the governments increasingly repressive measures will keep Ortega in power until the next election in 2021. The economy, which had been growing steadily in recent years, shrunk by about four per cent in 2018 as the political turmoil hit tourism and other businesses. And international pressure is growing. On Dec. 20, U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law a measure aimed at blocking new loans to Nicaragua by international financial institutions. His administration had already announced sanctions against senior Nicaraguan officials including Murillo, the vice-president. Meanwhile, the OAS is considering penalizing Nicaragua for violating democratic norms, a process that could lead to sanctions or to the country being suspended from the organization. Today, almost no one envisions the rise of a foreign-backed rebel movement of the kind that fought governments in the region in the 1980s. But in Nicaragua, there is a tradition on all sides of improvised weaponry, said Geoff Thale, a specialist on Central America at the Washington Office on Latin America, a research and advocacy group. You dont get civil war out of that, but you could get violent resistance. That is a concern, especially in the countryside. For now, beleaguered journalists are trying to find a way to keep putting out the news. The offices of Confidencial have been occupied by police, but reporters continue to update the website, working from undisclosed locations. We have improvised an alternative newsroom, said reporter Wilfredo Miranda. We are working by remote control. SEOUL, KOREA, REPUBLIC OFLawyers for South Koreans forced into wartime labour have taken legal steps to seize the South Korean assets of a Japanese company they are trying to pressure into following a court ruling to provide them compensation. Lawyer Lim Jae-sung said Thursday the court in the city of Pohang could decide in two or three weeks whether to accept the request to seize the 2.34 million shares Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. holds in its joint venture with South Korean steelmaker POSCO, which are estimated to be worth around $9.7 million. Lim said Nippon Steel has been refusing to discuss compensation despite a ruling by South Koreas Supreme Court in October that the company should pay 100 million won ($88,000) each to four plaintiffs who worked at its steel mills during Japans colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. The court made a similar ruling on Japans Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in November, triggering a diplomatic spats between the countries. Its unlikely the Japanese companies will follow the South Korean rulings. The Japanese government has expressed strong regret over the rulings and considers all wartime compensation issues settled by a treaty both countries signed in 1965. Lawyers for forced labourers for Nippon Steel had set a Dec. 24 deadline for the company to respond to their request to begin compensation discussions, but the steelmaker did not respond. Lim said the lawyers decided not to file for a court order that would force Nippon Steel to sell its shares in the South Korean joint venture because they still hope to amicably settle the matter through negotiations. Among the four plaintiffs in the Nippon Steel case, only 94-year-old Lee Chun-sik has survived the legal battle, which extended nearly 14 years. South Korea says Japan used about 220,000 wartime Korean forced labourers before the end of World War II. Read more about: In an occasional series, the Star delves into 311 data to see what our concerns say about the city. In this third instalment, we look at an issue thats top of mind as the temperature drops: snow clearing. In the heart of winter, Gina Stonehams sidewalk does not get plowed by the city. Less than a five-minute walk away, Abigail Manzanos does. Both women live on Pritchard Ave., a quiet, mostly residential stretch of west Torontos Rockcliffe-Smythe neighbourhood, bisected by Jane St. But when it comes to snow and ice, theirs is a tale of two sidewalks. Only the eastern stretch of Pritchard, where Manzano lives, makes the cut for city sidewalk snow clearing. Manzano says the city usually shows up to clear the sidewalk in front of her home within 24 hours. Meanwhile, Stoneham finds, the western part often turns into a treacherous icy pass. I am so paranoid that my husband bought me a pair of boots last year for Christmas that, with a special key, flip out these spikes, says the 64-year-old. Those things saved my life a few times. The neighbourhoods winter partition hints at a deeper divide in the city. Across Toronto, the city plows the majority of sidewalks, especially major routes. But in a vast and complicated Toronto no plow zone which includes stretches of sidewalks in the old cities of Toronto, York and East York residents are responsible for clearing the sidewalk in front of their own properties. The city says its because those sidewalks dont meet criteria for clearing that theyre too narrow, or there are other obstacles such as utility poles. Critics says its the legacy of a pre-amalgamation inequity thats been carried on. The no-plow areas are an issue pedestrian and seniors advocates say puts people of all ages at risk. A Star analysis of 2018 snow- and ice-related calls to 311, the citys non-emergency hotline, broken down by the first three postal code digits, found the most calls (165) came from the west Toronto area that includes Rockcliffe-Smythe. Those statistics cover complaints in 19 categories, including general snow removal, icy sidewalks, road plowing and sidewalk snow clearing. Nestled between Weston Rd. and Lambton Woods, just north of the Junction and south of Mount Dennis, Rockcliffe-Smythe is part of a zone where some, but not all, sidewalks are plowed in between the downtown core (where most sidewalks cant be plowed) and suburban Etobicoke, Scarborough and North York (where most sidewalks can be plowed), according to the city. Dylan Reid, spokesperson for pedestrian advocacy group Walk Toronto, calls this approach perverse. The places where we have the most people using sidewalks, and where we have the greatest density of people, are the places where we dont actually clear snow and ice from the sidewalk. The snow divide, Reid says, is a legacy from before amalgamation. The old city of Toronto didnt plow its sidewalks and the suburbs did, and when they amalgamated they didnt want to spend the extra money to actually expand sidewalk clearing through the old city of Toronto, he says. The citys 311 complaints show fewer calls about snow removal in the downtown core closer to the waterfront. Theres a concentration of snow complaints in the west-end neighbourhoods around Rockcliffe-Smythe that would fall into the some sidewalks cleared, some not area, as well as in the east Beaches/western edge of Scarborough. Per capita, the western chunk of the old ward of Scarborough Southwest which also had the most overall noise complaints topped the list for snow- and ice-related grumbles. Out of the roughly 7,000 kilometres of sidewalk in Toronto, about 5,900 are plowed mechanically by the city, according to city spokesperson Eric Holmes. There are some sidewalks that, unfortunately, equipment cannot safely clear using mechanical means due to encroachments and existing structures (e.g. retaining walls, utility poles, on-street parking, narrow sidewalk etc.), wrote Holmes in an email. The city offers free sidewalk clearance for seniors and people with disabilities who live in these areas. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... The western side of Prichard Ave. does not meet the criteria for sidewalk snow removal, he said, but he could not point to which, specifically. The eastern side of Prichard Ave. is cleared because its considered a school route, he added. So far in this relatively mild winter, the city has issued just four notices of inspection in response to complaints across Toronto and they were resolved without fines to homeowners, according to Holmes. Last winter, the city issued eight fines. This logic of plowing some areas but not others leaves a critical piece of snow clearance missing, says Nancy Smith Lea, director of the Toronto Centre for Active Transportation (TCAT), who calls on the city to clear all sidewalks, as Ottawa does. Residents dont always shovel promptly, even though they can be fined for not clearing their stretches of sidewalk within 12 hours of snowfall. Even one icy patch can be dangerous. For many people this is the way that they move around the city, she said, calling it an equity issue. The people who are held prisoner in their homes tend to be the elderly or people with disabilities, people who dont have cars. A 2016 Toronto Public Health report found there were almost 30,000 emergency department visits and 2,800 hospitalizations among Toronto residents due to falls on snow or ice from 2006 to 2015. This cost the provincial health-care system almost $4 million per year and the city $6.7 million a year in insurance liability claims. Have your say And most falls happen in the areas that the city does not clear, according to the report. Back in Rockcliffe-Smythe, its something Stoneham worries about. I cant afford to fall down and break my hip because I work for myself, she said, adding its unfair theres sidewalk clearing in some areas and not others. Aside from sidewalks, she thinks the whole neighbourhood is neglected, and often seems to be last on the list when it comes to road plowing. Rockcliffe-Smythe Community Association co-chair Miriam Hawkins notes it has wide streets and sidewalks, sitting up against the western edge of Etobicoke. So thered be no issue with them being too narrow to plow if thats why the city isnt doing it. It almost sounds like theyre not committed anywhere in Toronto but if youre lucky they might do it, she says. But as the dual global mega-trends of an aging population and climate change intersect, cities need to start paying more attention to snow clearing, said Laura Tamblyn Watts, chief public policy officer at CARP, formerly known as the Canadian Association of Retired Persons. Its not going to go away. Its going to get much more complicated, she said, with more older adults and more extreme storms. The human cost is real. The Stars 311 Toronto series Part 1: Toronto is known for dead raccoons and potholes. The citys 311 nerve centre knows this reputation is well-earned Part 2: Is this the noisiest neighbourhood in Toronto? The American arrested in Russia on allegations of espionage has a twin in Newmarket hoping to get his brother home safely. David Whelan said his brother, Paul, 48, an American from Novi, Mich., stopped communicating with his family after Dec. 28, when he was in Moscow for a friends wedding. A Russian news agency reported Thursday that Whelan has been formally charged with espionage, moving the case into Russias justice system and possibly deepening the diplomatic tensions with the United States. The Interfax news agency report on Whelans status could not be independently verified. Read more: U.S. ambassador meets with American held for spying in Russia American arrested in Russia as spy was there for a wedding, says brother Whelan charged with espionage in Russia, says news agency Russian lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov, who was appointed to represent Whelan, was quoted as saying the American will remain in custody in Moscow until at least Feb. 28. It was unclear whether court proceeding could begin before that date, or where Whelan could be held after February. His well-being is good. Hes making jokes, state-run media quoted Zherebenkov as saying. Whelan will stay quarantined at Moscows Lefortovo detention facility before being transferred to a general cell after Russia marks Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7, according to Zherebenkov. The Whelans learned through the internet that the former Marine, who has completed several tours in Iraq, had been arrested. A Russian news agency said Paul could face up to 20 years in prison. David Whelan appeared on CBC and CNN earlier this week to discuss the arrest and speak about the kind of person his brother is, suggesting Paul was concerned about mundane details such as his parents slipping on the ice or his dogs trip to the veterinarian, rather than international politics, prior to his trip East. Pauls a kind soul, hes very generous, hes notorious among my kids for his huge belly laugh, he told CNNs Inside Politics. He added that Paul, who currently works in corporate security, had gone to Russia to help other Americans at the wedding navigate Moscow and its extensive metro system. Pauls a very capable person ... hes not the type of person who would stumble into a strange environment or make poor choices that cause him risk, David added. In a Twitter post by David, the Whelan family released a statement saying how they are deeply concerned for Pauls safety and well-being. His innocence is undoubted and we trust that his rights will be respected, it continues. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Neither David nor Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State, would speculate about whether the arrest might be retaliation for the American prosecution of accused Russian spy Maria Butina, who recently pleaded guilty of conspiring to act as a clandestine foreign agent. Butina is the first Russian national to be convicted of seeking to influence U.S. policy in the 2016 election campaign. With files from Star wire services Read more about: Miaba Bernil bought a Presto on Wednesday and is happy that if lost, it can be replaced. Dean Melamed has being using Presto for 10 months and likes that, when the tap machines arent working, drivers sometimes allow a free ride. Rachel Henderson, who switched to Presto in November, says its annoying that she now has to buy cards for her two kids under 12. With the end of the Metropass at the turn of the new year, Toronto is now officially living in a Presto world with thousands of former Metropass users joining other TTC patrons who tap, not swipe, to get across the city. The TTC phased out the Metropass at the end of December in favour of the Presto fare-card system. Between Dec. 15 and Wednesday, the TTC said it had sold about 120,000 Presto cards to former users of the Metropass. Acting manager of communications Heather Brown said those numbers are much lower than the average sales of between 250,000 and 300,000 Metropasses. Read more: TTC union warns Presto too unreliable for agency to end Metropass program next month Heres what went wrong when a boy was left stranded because of a Presto-card glitch TTC executives say they may have been overestimating for years how many rides Metropass users were taking There are a number of factors here, including that this is a holiday period, she said, noting they expect the numbers to continue to go up when people return to work and to school. Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins said the influx of late shoppers caused heavy traffic on the groups website on Tuesday. People had to wait a little bit before (their transactions) went through, and if you were impatient after 30 seconds people assumed it had crashed. It never crashed, she said. On Wednesday, Metrolinx set up a table at Union Station to help deal with any glitches commuters might encounter as they switched to the new system. The TTC initially decided to adopt Presto back in 2011, and by end of 2016 Presto card reading machines were installed on all buses, streetcars and at least one entrance at every subway station. But the process of phasing out older forms of payment has been marred by mechanical and software difficulties. Have your say: Now that the Metropass has been retired, the TTC says the next move in the conversion process will be phasing out tickets and tokens by end of 2019. While some Presto users old and new to the system may still encounter glitches at the paying machines, Aikins said its nothing out of the ordinary and she hopes the system will eventually work out well for everyone. Anything electronic can go down sometimes, she said, noting the system is effective about 98 per cent of the time. We already have millions of taps everyday that are successful. But if the machine doesnt work for some reason, I know its frustrating when it happens and thats the one you remember. Heres what different commuters are saying about the phase out of Metropass and the move to Presto: Emily MacGowan, Presto user for two years It can be frustrating when you tap on and find that you dont have money on the card. I dont want to set up automatic loading because I dont trust it, and if I lose it I dont want to lose all the money. Joshua Shaw, user for one year Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Earlier it was frustrating when some places didnt have Presto machines to pay. Miaba Bernil, Presto user since Jan. 2 I just bought the card right now. I have always used a Metropass on TTC and it was good because once you bought it, that was it for the month. I think Presto card is nice, because if I lose it I can call and get it back. Maria Carlucci, user for nearly a year Metropass was good for me when I was a student. I like Presto card now for its convenience on the GO trains, and I like the two-hour transfer window when I can take another ride for free on TTC. Dean Melamed, user for 10 months I didnt use the TTC often enough to really need a Metropass. It was expensive for an irregular commuter. Presto is good because if I lose it, I can replace it as it is registered online. Also when the tap machine is not working the driver sometimes lets you through, which is good. Rachel Henderson, switched in November Its a little annoying actually because I have two kids that are under 12 and they used to ride the TTC for free but now I have to buy them Presto cards as well. For me, I prefer Presto because its protected, because its registered to you. Jen Lu, user for about two years If you lose the card and you need a refund, it takes forever. I am on my third card now and its just annoying. In Hong Kong where I come from the transit system is advanced and these kinds of issues dont happen. June Morrow, user for last six months I bought Presto, then got back to TTC Metropass, and now Im back to Presto. I feel like I spend more money on Presto than on (a) TTC card. Rowen Lubguban, GTA pass user Ive heard that with Presto cards it can be difficult to put money on and that tap machines dont work sometimes. I hope they dont change the GTA weekly passes too because that would be awful. Heather Lynks, user for past four years I live in (the) west end near Mimico GO station, and its pretty easy to come to town with GO train. Now with the two-hour transfer on TTC its good. Metropass had become more expensive for someone who does not commute on a regular basis. Kofi Hope was sitting in a car outside a Mississauga nightclub with a few friends trying to decide if they should brave the cold and get in line, when he says several cops suddenly surrounded them with flashlights, demanding they get out of the vehicle. They kept saying to us, we know one of you has the record. Who has the record? Who has the record? Hope, now 35, says of the incident about 15 years ago. No one did. After looking at all of their IDs, searching them and the car, he says police let the young men go. Hope is not sure what the officers did with his information from that night. But he says he does know hes been stopped multiple times and hes not the only one. I think most young people of colour in the GTA have had those experiences, says Hope, a senior policy adviser at non-profit think tank the Wellesley Institute and a Rhodes Scholar. Its disempowering, its insulting, you feel unsafe. A 300-plus page independent review of street checks known as carding that dropped on New Years Eve has advocates calling for urgent changes, saying arbitrary and discriminatory street checks like what Hope describes cannot be stopped without measures to address racial bias in policing. Read more: Opinion | Rosie DiManno: Torontos rising violence cant be blamed on the decline of carding Police carding should be banned in Ontario, independent review says Editorial | Ontario must finally get the balance right on carding The report from Court of Appeal Justice Michael Tulloch includes a review of the provinces 2017 regulation on carding and concluded that random street checks should be banned as they have little impact on reducing crime and have caused significant damage to racialized communities, especially among youth. It includes recommendations to clarify when police can stop to collect identifying information outside of an active investigation including that there should be some suspicion based on objective and credible grounds justifying an inquiry. Its not news to anyone whos been doing this work, or advocating around carding, Hope says of the reports conclusions. The issue is not about carding, the issue is about racial bias in policing he adds. Carding is just one manifestation. There has to be better training, oversight and accountability, Hope says, because the consequence of having even a few officers with those views is hugely detrimental. Staff Sgt. Valerie Graham of the Peel Regional Police told the Star in an email she cannot comment about Hopes encounter because the access to that information is restricted under the regulation. She said the service follows the provincial legislation on street checks. Peel Regional Police has never supported random arbitrary race-based stops of any kind, and if an officer was found to participate in such a stop, they would be disciplined, she added. Toronto police Const. Rob Reid told the Star on Monday he and his colleagues take the report very seriously. In the report, Tulloch recommended further training for both front-line and supervising police officers on why the carding regulation was instituted, how it applies and what the legal basis for police stops are. The training should also include bias awareness, he wrote. Asante Haughton, a 33-year-old peer support leader who says hes been stopped by police so many times hes lost count, agrees training is key. Just because a bias or a prejudice is there currently doesnt mean that its going to sustain itself if we work intensely against it, he said, adding carding breeds distrust, which can get in the way of solving actual crimes. During his teen years living near Regent Park, he says he was stopped going to school, coming home from school, even in front of his own door. He says hes been stopped at least 25 times, even though hes never been arrested or involved with gangs. Haughton knows his rights but says he still gives his info to police every time hes asked. In the moment theres just this feeling of danger and this feeling of powerlessness, and being hyper vigilant about what I say, what I do. Whats my body language? Whats my posture? Am I behaving in a way that could be perceived in a way thats resisting or combative in some way? he says. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Because ultimately Im trying to avoid the escalation of a police encounter. The report also outlines how officers should conduct and record such interactions, including that, as the regulation requires, the individual must be informed that providing identifying information is voluntary and that the officer must offer to provide a receipt for the interaction. Tulloch said the person should also be told the specific reason the information is being requested, that the information may be recorded and stored in a police database and that some of the information, such as the persons religion, is being requested to help eliminate systemic racism. The 2017 regulation bans collecting identifying information if the stop is arbitrary or based on the person being part of a racialized group. Tulloch recommended this be expanded to include socio-economic status and other prohibited grounds of discrimination under the Ontario Human Rights Code. Tulloch also recommends the data should be destroyed after five years at the most. Thats something Black Lives Matter Toronto co-founder Sandy Hudson was glad to see, but thinks it should go further. Five years is a long time to wait if its something thats preventing you from getting a job, she says. Especially the retroactive stuff, can we just get rid of it? We know its been collected incorrectly. Hudson, like Hope, was happy to see Tullochs conclusion that random carding doesnt serve an investigative purpose, but says its not news to communities whove been working on the issue. We so know this, she says. Right now whats necessary is political will to actually address the racism that our communities are experiencing from the police. Sylvia Jones, Ontario minister of community safety and correctional services, has said in a statement the Progressive Conservative government will review Tullochs recommendations. Repeated analyses by the Star of Toronto Police Service carding data have found Black people were more likely than white people to be stopped, questioned and documented in each of the citys more than 70 patrol zones, and that the likelihood increased in areas that are predominantly white. A report released mid-December by the Ontario Human Rights Commission into racial profiling and discrimination by Toronto police noted several instances where the Special Investigations Unit found no legal basis for the police to stop or detain Black civilians and heard from Black Torontonians about instances where they were arbitrarily stopped by police while walking or driving. Toronto police suspended carding in 2015 and now, like all Ontario police forces, are governed by the provincial carding regulation. Lawyer and community organizer Knia Singh, who has previously shared his experiences with carding with the Star, says he supports enhanced anti-bias training for police officers that involves members of the community who have experienced racial profiling and discrimination. He also wants to see increased oversight and stiffer penalties for police misconduct, saying there should be repercussions when an officer engages in discriminatory behaviour. He said it is unfortunate that in 2019 resources are still having to be invested in researching these issues and undoing the damage done to communities and trust in police, rather than into crime prevention measures and positive community supports. The last line of defence is police officers themselves. Officers have to hold other officers to account, Singh said. All as we can do as a community is hope for the officers to make the right decision not to engage in practices of targeting and discrimination and report officers who do ... we rely on them to keep us safe and that includes from people in the organization who pose a threat. Clarification Jan. 3, 2019: This article has been updated to clarify that Peel police Staff Sgt. Valerie Graham cannot comment on Kofi Hopes encounter with police because access to that information is restricted. It has been more than seven years since Sonia Varaschin was murdered, and forensics expert Rockne Harmon believes familial DNA searches could hold the key to cracking the case. But, the process is not permitted in Canada. A traditional search requires DNA collected at a crime scene to be a perfect match with a profile that already exists in the Criminal Offenders Database. Familial DNA searching, on the other hand, is designed to identify close relatives from the collected DNA. The process uses a male hereditary test, so it will not identify aunts, second cousins or half-brothers. But it will confirm or refute whether or not the person who left the DNA at the crime scene is a father, son, or full sibling of someone who is already in the database. In countries where the process is permitted (the U.K., Netherlands, New Zealand and several American states), it is generally only used when all other avenues have been exhausted, and a match has not been found through a traditional search. It is an intelligence tool to be used in an investigation not proof. Read more: How an unlikely family history website transformed cold case investigations New details emerge as Sonia Varaschin murder probe set to enter new phase Cops suspect Varaschin met her murderer on dating website PlentyOfFish.com Harmon, a prosecutor in the highly publicized O.J. Simpson case, worked as a senior deputy district attorney in California for 33 years. Now retired, Harmon works as a forensic cold case consultant, and spends much of his time advocating for the use of DNA typing in criminal cases around the world. The longtime district attorney was the driving force behind the California attorney generals decision to implement familial DNA searching in the state, which led to the arrest of the Grim Sleeper serial killer in 2010. When I go somewhere to talk about familial searching, something that people are unfamiliar with, it is important to make it very concrete rather than abstract, he said. There is nothing more concrete than a dead woman. A petite woman in her early 40s, Varaschin was reported missing after her blood-spattered vehicle was found abandoned behind a store in Orangeville, on Aug. 30, 2010. A massive search was launched, with police reporting neighbours hearing screams coming from her apartment the night before she was reported missing. Her body was discovered a week later, on Sept. 5, 2010, in a wooded area along Beech Grove Sideroad in Caledon, by a resident walking their dog. Police received hundreds of tips from the public over the years, however the case remains unsolved today. At a news conference in 2011, the OPP announced that some 600 DNA samples had been collected from men over 18 in the surrounding area but again the efforts did not see successful results. These sweeps, or drags for DNA, are very rarely successful, said Harmon. Not only is the process of collecting hundreds of samples like that far more expensive than familial searching, those kinds of interactions between police and law-abiding citizens create a certain kind of tension. So, what then is the issue with familial searching? According to Cecilia Hagemen, a Canadian criminal lawyer and forensic scientist who has served as an expert witness on more than 130 criminal cases in Ontario, she says that it is not a question of science, but rather politics, which has yet to be answered concretely in Canada. The science of it is not at all controversial, she said. Its introductory genetics. The political question is whether or not the offenders database should be used for a purpose different than what it was originally established for, Hageman says. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... If you are an offender, you are forced to give your sample to the national DNA data bank, he says. But does that offender not have some privacy interest in his or her own DNA? And if I am related to someone on the national DNA data bank, do I not have some privacy interest in that relationship? According to the office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada yes, you do. While DNA profiles can help solve cold cases as you suggest, and bring emotional closure to victims and families, their collection and retention must respect the highest possible standards of fair balance between security and privacy, said senior communications adviser Tobi Cohen. Familial searching, according to the privacy commissioner, would implicate not only suspects, but innocent family members, ushering in a host of new privacy, ethical and societal issues that would need to be carefully thought through. And the proper protections would need to be in place, before it could be allowed. In the eyes of the commissioner, the process would turn family members into genetic informants and turn people into suspects, not because of what they have done, but simply because of to whom they are related. But, according to Harmon, privacy arguments are often made based on a general lack of understanding of the process. The Canadian legal system has a little bit more decorum and dignity than in the U.S., but the concepts are the same. And I can tell you for certain that there is no privacy issue, he said. If you look at the results being produced around the U.S., the test is designed to either produce a true relative or nobody. Familial testing involves a two-step process. The first step is ordering matches from the most likely to least likely. And the second step is a male hereditary test, which confirms or refutes whether or not anyone on that list is a close relative (father, son, full sibling). At the end of this process, in the majority of cases, no one on that list is a match and thats the end of it, said Harmon. In some states, investigators are permitted to run the test a second time six months to a year later, in the case that anyone new who has been added to the list turns up as a match. In the case of the Grim Sleeper in Los Angeles, Harmon explained the test did not have any positive results the first time around. But, the second time someone new popped up on the list and showed investigators that the DNA they were looking into, and the DNA that matched on the offender list were a father and son combination. Since we were looking at very old cases, we knew that it couldnt be the son, because he would have been too young at the time to have committed those crimes, Harmon said. Investigators then used this information lawfully obtained in a sample from a cup the father had used to get a DNA match and proved the case. He was charged on 10 counts of murder. Once a match has been found, police have to work around it in terms of surveillance and lawfully collecting another DNA sample, just like they do in every other case, Harmon said. Politicians like to use buzz words and red flags to alert and polarize people. But when you get down to it, they dont usually actually apply. But while bureaucrats come up with reasons to not use it, families of people like Sonia Varaschin sit and wait and hope for answers, when there is a technology available right this moment that could possibly help solve the case. Supporters of Via Rails bid to revive passenger service in communities like Peterborough, Ont., which saw its last Via train in the early 1990s, await its potentially transformative impact, but experts say advocates shouldnt hold their breath on the chances of a dedicated high-frequency rail corridor becoming reality anytime soon. Vias past failed attempts to expand service in order to boost revenue dont bode well for the rail operators existing pitch, said Matti Siemiatycki, University of Toronto associate professor of geography and planning. Siemiatycki said there have been many proposals over the years for high-speed rail that have fallen through, because it would require construction of a whole new rail line. Via trains can travel at speeds north of 160 km/h, but theyre restricted to about 102 km/h, because freight trains often take priority on stretches of the existing Quebec City-Windsor corridor. Siemiatycki said since Via is unable to increase speeds on the current network of tracks, increasing the frequency of trains may be a viable solution. By going a slightly different route, they can use that to provide greater frequency, he said. Via realizes that if theyre going to compete, theyre going to have to provide a high level of frequency and flexibility until they can address the speed issue. Vias pitch foresees adding trains on the existing Quebec City-Toronto corridor on top of expanding its service to a newly-proposed dedicated passenger route, which would see trains utilizing a network of underused freight tracks stretching from Ottawa to Toronto making stops in communities like Smiths Falls and Peterborough along the way. Read more: Via Rail cancels some Ontario services after union gives notice of impending strike Via Rail places $989-million train order with Siemens for key rail corridor VIA Rail looks at private funds to build own tracks Theyve been trying to figure out what to do with rail in this corridor for decades, he said. The economics of it has always been the main hurdle, in terms of the huge capital cost. No government has been willing to take on the full financial cost of what it would take to get this built. In this case, Via forecasts the project costing about $4 billion. Via Rail touts the proposal as a means to triple the number of trips per day between Montreal and Toronto, and meet an emissions target akin to cutting the equivalent of at least 2.3 million cars from the road for a year, by 2050. Transport Canada is expected to file its response this year to the business case submitted by the Crown corporation in 2016. What do you think? The existing Quebec City-Toronto route suffers from numerous bottlenecks because Via competes with freight for scheduling, with freight companies often winning priority due their ownership of certain stretches, Siemiatycki said. Via officials said there are numerous railway rights-of-way sitting idle that can be repurposed and the high-frequency rail plan is aimed at upgrading those lightly used or abandoned rights-of-way. Theyve been struggling to provide a fast service, Siemiatycki said. This is in the context of increasing competition from air travel. The proposal is about making rail more competitive with air travel and the automobile as well. He said commuter rail has fallen short of making a viable business case, up until now. The 1980s were particularly tumultuous for the Via route through places like Havelock, Ont. and Peterborough. The service was cut by the Liberal government as cost-saving measure in 1982, but was brought back by the Conservatives in 1985, which instructed Via to run the service for a two-year trial with the help of $5.8 million in grants, according to Star stories at the time. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Advocates, like Stuart Harrison, president and CEO of the Greater Peterborough Chamber of Commerce, is banking on Via getting another government lifeline. This would be transformative for our community, Harrison said. Harrison was part of a not-for-profit group, dubbed Shining Waters Rail, which spent several years commissioning experts to explore options. The groups operations culminated with a study that caught Vias attention. We did attract enough money from the provincial and federal governments to study the business case for it and do some pre-engineering and thats the report that ended up on the desk of (Vias CEO), Harrison said. The work we had done literally changed their thinking about how they could get this done. Shining Waters Rail championed the reinstatement of passenger rail in Peterborough. Peterborough has the benefit of being on the Via (high-frequency rail) line as its proposed, he said. Via has given it life. The federal governments 2018 budget included $8 million to study the plan. A Via spokesperson said a government decision is expected in 2019. A snapshot of the proposal posted to the Via website, calls for the option of a new fleet of diesel trains, with the prospect of utilizing hybrid electric down the road. Via recently announced a $989-million contract won by Germanys Siemens AG to modernize its existing fleet of 73 locomotives, with 32 new trains. Vias president and CEO Yves Desjardins-Siciliano, noted during that announcement, Siemens could receive up to about $500 million more from the state-owned railway if it exercises options for another 16 trains on top of the 32 awarded. The increased order could take place if the federal government approves Via Rails plan to add more departures between Quebec City and Toronto, in conjunction with the high-frequency rail project that includes a rail network dedicated to passenger traffic, Desjardins-Siciliano said. Federal Status of Women Minister Maryam Monsef, who happens to be the Peterborough-Kawartha MP, convened a round-table in her community in April to test community appetite for the project which included elected officials and First Nations representatives. Community buy-in is critical, especially for a project of this size, Monsef said. We see the value of going ahead with it, but we also want to make sure that we provide the due diligence. She credited the Shining Waters Railway group for championing the revival of passenger rail in Peterborough. Jason Miller is a breaking news reporter based in Toronto. Toronto police are asking for the publics help identifying two men wanted in a serious assault near Bathurst St. and Queen St. W. in the early hours of 2019. A 36-year-old man was walking along Queen just after 12:30 a.m. Tuesday when he became involved in a fight with two other men, police said in a news release. He was punched and knocked unconscious by one man, police said. A second man then punched him while the victim was on the ground. He was rushed to hospital by paramedics with serious injuries. His injuries worsened Tuesday morning and he was in critical condition, police said. As of Thursday his injuries are still considered life-threatening, Const. Jenifferjit Sidhu told the Star. Police released images of the two suspects Thursday. The two men were seen fleeing south on Bathurst in a blue, newer model Dodge Charger, police said. They describe the first suspect as 25 to 35 years old, six-feet tall with a slim build, corn rows and a beard. He was last seen wearing a black-hooded sweatshirt, black pants and black running shoes. Police describe the second suspect as 25 to 35 years old, five-foot-nine with short black hair. He was last seen wearing glasses, a black-hooded jacket, ripped faded blue jeans with blue and white running shoes. Police said the investigation is ongoing and could not comment whether the suspects and victim knew one another. Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-1400 or call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477). Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... CALGARYThe arrival of a family of giant pandas to the Calgary Zoo last spring created a stampede of visitors once the guests on loan from China were introduced to an eager public. The zoo surpassed previous records for both attendance and memberships. We got 1.48 million visitors thats a lot of people. If you look at the size of our community with just over 1.1 million citizens in Calgary, the penetration is immense, Calgary Zoo CEO Clement Lanthier said Thursday. The zoo sold 100,000 annual memberships and saw an average of 4,065 visitors every day. Lanthier said the attendance actually came in slightly lower than the 1.5 million visitors the zoo expected. We were severely hit in August when the wildfires in B.C. moved a lot of smoke within Calgary for almost 10 days, so that impacted dramatically our attendance, he said. Everything in Calgary went into a stall because the smoke was so intense. Even with the lower-than-expected attendance, he said, the zoo is in good financial shape with people shelling out cash for panda stuffies, panda T-shirts and food. On the revenue side, we are ahead of what we had budgeted. The previous record year at the zoo was 2012 when 1.45 million visitors came to see the penguin exhibit, suggesting black-and-white attractions are the quickest way to stay in the black. We also had the ring-tailed lemur, which was also black and white, and the snow leopard arguably theyre black and white so maybe thats the way to go forward, Lanthier said with a laugh. He isnt expecting another attendance record in 2019. Typically, with the second year of any attraction, panda or anything else, you have a little decline of the attendance. The adult pandas, Da Mao and Er Shun, along with their cubs, Jia Panpan and Jia Yueyue are housed in a 2,000-square-metre, indoor-outdoor habitat. The furry foursome was shipped to Calgary from Toronto in April and spent about a month in quarantine. The two adults are on loan to Canadian zoos from China as part of a 10-year deal signed in 2012. The cubs were born in Toronto in 2015. It cost around $30 million to house the pandas in Calgary, including $14.4 million for the exhibit itself. Expanded parking lots, washrooms and restaurants were also required to accommodate more visitors. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... The adult pandas are to remain in Calgary for the next five years, while the cubs are expected to return to China before their parents. Follow @BillGraveland on Twitter Read more about: OTTAWAA group of Canadian lawmakers travelling to China this weekend will use the trip to push for the release of two Canadians detained there since last month, says a Conservative MP in the delegation. That is something all Canadian travellers to China ought to be doing, says the boss of one of the imprisoned Canadians. Michael Kovrig, a diplomat on a leave from Global Affairs Canada and employed in Beijing by the International Crisis Group, and the entrepreneur Michael Spavor were arrested last month in China. The arrests are widely viewed as Chinese retaliation for Canadas arrest of high-tech executive Meng Wanzhou, Huaweis chief financial officer, by the RCMP in Vancouver at the request of the United States. People who do go to China, Im hoping they will raise this with their interlocutors to make clear that it is hurting Chinas image in the world, and its going to make it harder for some people who want to travel to China, Robert Malley, the Crisis Groups president and a former member of the U.S. National Security Council under president Barack Obama, said in an interview Thursday. Thats exactly what the members of the Canada-China Legislative Association say they will do when they arrive in China on Saturday, said Conservative MP Michael Cooper. I and the other members of the delegation will engage with Chinese officials in as constructive way as possible, with the obvious objective of seeing these two Canadians returned safely and as soon as possible, Cooper said. Read more: Thirteen Canadians detained in China since arrest of Huawei exec in Vancouver, officials reveal Global anxiety reflected in Australian outcry over Canadians detained in China Chinas detention of Canadians part of bid to challenge Western democratic norms, experts say The Edmonton-area MP is joining three Liberal MPs, a Liberal senator and Conservative senator on the previously scheduled trip that is being funded by Canadian taxpayers. Cooper acknowledged there was discussion about whether the trip would go ahead given the current tensions, until the leader of the delegation, Liberal Sen. Joseph Day, was briefed by the Canadian foreign ministry. The message from Global Affairs Canada ... was that it would be better for us to go rather than to cancel, said Cooper. Quite frankly, if there were safety issues or if it was deemed to not be beneficial, then we wouldnt be going. The U.S. State Department updated its travel advisory on China on Thursday, urging Americans travellers to exercise increased caution because of arbitrary enforcement of local laws as well as special restrictions on dual U.S.-Chinese nationals. Adam Austen, a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, said parliamentary delegations are independent and can make their own travel decisions, adding the department provided a pretrip briefing to the participants. He reiterated Canadas call for the release of the two men. We are deeply concerned by the arbitrary detention by Chinese authorities of two Canadians last month and call for their immediate release, said Austen. Kovrig and Spavor are among 13 Canadians who have been detained in China since Mengs arrest on Dec. 1, eight of whom have since been released. They are among the 200 Canadians detained in China for a variety of alleged infractions and who still face legal proceedings, said a Canadian government official speaking on background. That number has been stable in recent year and compares to the 900 Canadians detained in the United States for similar reasons, the official said. Earlier Thursday, a Chinese government spokesman said it was not convenient to discuss the allegations against Kovrig and Spavor despite an assertion by the countrys top prosecutor that they broke the law. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... We have said here that these two Canadian citizens are under investigation in accordance with law for engaging in activities that undermine Chinas national security, said foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang. It is not convenient to disclose more information now. Lus briefing, posted in English translation to the ministrys website, was one of two cryptic Chinese government media events that deepened the mystery surrounding the arrests of Kovrig and Spavor. Chinas chief prosecutor, Zhang Jun, told a separate briefing Thursday that without a doubt Kovrig and Spavor broke the countrys laws and are being investigated. This doesnt shed much light, said Malley. He is living in a very uncertain world not clear what the charges are, not clear if they are formal charges, not clear what the process will be and thats sort of what Michael has lived through now for the past three weeks. The U.S. wants Meng to face fraud charges. She has been released on bail and is living in an upscale Vancouver home in advance of her extradition hearing. Little is known about Kovrigs or Spavors circumstances because theyve each had only a single consular visit by Canadas ambassador to China, John McCallum, last month. To have no news, no contact, no sense of how long this is going to last, no interaction with Chinese authorities, thats really living in the dark in a way I wouldnt wish on anyone, said Malley. Malley said he wont speculate on why Kovrig was detained, only to say it has nothing to do with his work as an analyst for the Crisis Group. Canada has sought the support of key allies in pressuring China to release Kovrig and Spavor. The U.S State Department has called for the release of the two Canadians, while Germany, France, the European Union and Australia have also issued supportive statements. The united message, being delivered publicly and privately to China, is that the continued detentions are harmful to China because they will discourage businesspeople, academics and others from travelling to the country, said Malley. Its not advancing any purpose other than the purpose of further raising doubts about Chinas reliability as a country thats going to follow the rule of law. Read more about: SINGAPORESingapores main island is sometimes described as diamond-shaped fitting, perhaps, since the sparkling city, which has a starring role in the movie Crazy Rich Asians, is known for its materialistic pursuits. But look past the shiny veneer and you will find a compression of Chinese, Indian, Malay and other heritages reaching back far beyond Singapores half-century history of independence. And thanks to the superb street food and efficient public transit, you do not have to be crazy rich to enjoy this cinematic city, which is now more accessible than ever with Singapore Airlines new non-stop service from Newark, N.J. Friday5 p.m. In good faith Begin your visit with a snapshot of Singapores past and present on Telok Ayer Street, where Chinese immigrants once arrived on boats. Though land reclamation projects have since filled in the waterfront, and gleaming skyscrapers have sprouted around this narrow street, shrines and temples of many creeds have persevered in this faithfully preserved neighbourhood. Linger for a few quiet minutes inside Thian Hock Keng, a carefully restored 19th-century temple built by Hokkien immigrants to give thanks for a safe passage across the sea. Past the minarets and arches of the nearby Nagore Dargah Indian Muslim Heritage Center, walk deeper into Chinatown, where Sri Mariamman, the nations oldest Hindu temple, invites visitors to admire the ornate gopuram (gatehouse tower) and colourful shrines. 7 p.m. The Pan-Asian palate Hawker centres, or food courts, are a quick introduction to Singapores Pan-Asian palate, allowing diners to sample dishes like crab fried in chili sauce, chicken poached with ginger, and roti served with a fiery curry sauce. Locals debate which hawker centre serves the best rendition of a particular dish. Lau Pa Sat distinguishes itself with its soaring cast-iron frame and national monument designation. At night, vendors grilling meat on skewers take over the adjacent Boon Tat Street, erasing the boundary between this lively hawker centre and the rest of the city. If you want a more down-home atmosphere, Amoy Street Food Centre (7 Maxwell Road) is popular among locals and Michelin Bib Gourmand critics alike. Expect to pay 3 to 6 Singapore dollars, or about $2.25 to $4.50 (U.S.), for a filling entree. 9 p.m. Beyond the Singapore sling The candy-coloured shophouses on Amoy Street now house CrossFit gyms, hipster barbershops, Korean barbecue joints and other businesses reflecting Singapores trends. Native, less than two years old, dazzles with cocktails made with local ingredients that range from fresh mangoes and salt-baked tapioca to jasmine blossoms and even ants. The hyperlocal approach informs every detail, from the soundtrack of the bands to the compostable coasters of dried lotus leaves and banana stalks (cocktails around 20 Singapore dollars). Saturday11 a.m. East Coast style Avocado toast and single-origin coffee may rule brunches in gentrified Tiong Bahru and up-and-coming Jalan Besar. But when you begin your morning in the laid-back Katong district, full of Easter egg-coloured 19th-century villas, opt for the traditional bite of kaya toast, buns or white bread slathered with coconut jam and slabs of butter, served with soft-boiled eggs. Hungry diners (and Instagrammers) line up at the nearly century-old Chin Mee Chin Confectionery, a local institution where charcoal-grilled buns (1 Singapore dollar each) and heaping servings of nostalgia make up for the brusque service. For a heartier meal, sample the districts interpretation of laksa, a spice-packed coconut curry noodle soup, at various spots such as 328 Katong Laksa (from 5.35 Singapore dollars) and Marine Parade Laksa (50 East Coast Road, No. 01-64; from 4.50 Singapore dollars). 12:30 p.m. Glam life Serving as the cultural heart of Singapores Muslim community, the palm-lined neighbourhood of Kampong Glam remains popular with travellers and shoppers alike. Orient yourself around the landmark Sultan Mosque, 90 years old yet looking fresher than ever thanks to the 2016 facelift that put an extra shine on its golden domes while preserving the original timber door. To go deeper than browsing the near-identical accessory stores, rug shops and hip cafes with vaguely European names on Arab Street and Haji Lane, download the Singapore Heritage Trails app, a free platform with crowdsourced itineraries that uncover stories behind the colourful facades all around Singapore. 2 p.m. Look and touch Rest your legs at Looksee Looksee, a 25-seat reading room stocked with an eclectic collection of books on design, art and food. Interior designer John Lim and architect Yong Sy Lyng created this space using whimsical furniture, tropical prints and quirky fabrics. The pay-what-you-want beverage service features brews by the local tea company A.muse Projects. If this puts you in the mood for souvenir shopping, Supermama next door has porcelain sets featuring the citys unmistakable skyline, designed in Singapore and made in Kyushu, Japan. 3:30 p.m. Artful living The former city hall and Supreme Court buildings were reborn as the ambitious, light-filled National Gallery Singapore in 2015, reflecting the countrys growing interest and pride in homegrown art. Here, you will find paintings and sculptures from around Southeast Asia that connect the diverse regional styles that transcend national boundaries. Works by local artists like Georgette Chen and Chua Mia Tee offer intimate glimpses of Singapores past and present. (Tickets are 20 Singapore dollars for non-residents.) 5:30 p.m. Culture club Jutting out of the waterfront like two durians (a beloved local fruit so pungent that it is banned on public transit), the performing arts venue the Esplanade hosts more than 3,000 events that range from world-class concerts to unpretentious community programs. On any given evening you might happen upon a production of electronica music and video installation, or a concert of art songs by Enrique Granados and Benjamin Britten. Even if you are not catching a performance, set aside a few minutes for the well-manicured roof terrace garden, which offers sweeping views of the city and Marina Bay. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... 8 p.m. Cure for hunger No longer a notorious red light district, Keong Saik Road on the edge of Chinatown has seen globally oriented restaurants and bars taking up its Art Deco edifices and narrow shophouse. Among the cevicherias and Australian steak houses, three-year-old Cure stands out with its smart prix fixe menus (five courses on weekends, 120 Singapore dollars; three courses on weekdays, 95 Singapore dollars). Irish-born chef-owner Andrew Walsh serves no-holds-barred dishes like a custard of dashi in an onion broth, Wagyu paired with piquant harissa, and snapper steamed tender with fennel. A popular option among locals is Kok Sen Restaurant (30 Keong Saik Road), with diners lining up on the sidewalk for its tze char, or home-cooked Hokkien Chinese cuisine, with dishes like spicy jumbo prawn soup (16 Singapore dollars). 11:30 p.m. Gardens of good Few things would encapsulate Singapore better than Gardens by the Bay, a nature park that is at once lush and futuristic. The 250-acre grounds encompass themed conservatories, winding trails and Supertrees, or vertical gardens rising up to 16 storeys and threaded together by suspended walkways. While air-conditioned indoor parks and the 22-metre-tall Skyway close at 9 p.m., the free outdoor gardens remain open until 2 a.m., giving you ample time to admire the wildly lit grounds with thinner crowds and naturally cooler temperatures. Sunday9 a.m. Not that Coney Island Those who cant commit a whole day to the time capsule of Pulau Ubin, a rustic island of tin-roof shacks and mangrove-lined lakes, can indulge in an easier getaway with a trip to Coney Island Park. Over 80 bird species, including collared kingfisher and spotted wood owls, call this 50-hectare nature reserve home. Rent a bike from one of several vendors at the nearby Punggol Point Park and breeze through the coastal forestry, or join a guided nature walk (free; registration required at nparks.gov.sg) to discover diminutive beaches. 2 p.m. Its a small island after all Steps from Pulau Ubin dock, the lively 270-seat Little Island Brewing Co. serves up SPA (a Singaporean take on India pale ale) and other unpasteurized and unfiltered beers. Grab tamarind-marinated wings (8 Singaporean dollars) and kick back to live music. Jumbo jets taking off from the adjacent Changi Airport are bound for faraway places. But you will want to stretch your weekend in Singapore as long as you can. Lodging The art-filled Vagabond Club, with its own whiskey library, offers 41 intimate rooms in the heart of Little India and Kampong Glam; from 275 Singapore dollars. A former spice shop and distillery is now The Warehouse, a 37-room boutique hotel. You do not need to jump in the adjacent river to cool down, either: The rooftop has an aquarium-like pool. (From 240 Singapore dollars.) Centrally located, Chinatown makes a convenient home base with one-bedroom Airbnb rentals starting from 100 Singapore dollars. Jalan Besar, with its coffee shops and rentals averaging between $110 and $150, provides a more laid-back alternative to trendy Tiong Bahru. Keep in mind, however, that short-term rentals under three months remain illegal in Singapore. CALGARYWhen 22-year-old Nadia El-Dib was killed by ex-boyfriend Adam Bettahar last March, her family wanted everyone to know her story. People see domestic violence as certain categories, certain criteria, certain demographics, Nadias sister Racha said. A lot of women would send me a message and say, I see myself in Nadia. That could have been me. Racha and her family specifically asked Calgary police to release difficult details about Nadias murder, and Racha has become an advocate for preventing domestic violence. She started recording her own podcast, and last summer, she worked with the charity Gems for Gems to establish a scholarship in Nadias name for survivors of domestic abuse who are living in shelters. We want to be transparent to the public and tell them that, yes, this could happen. This is happening with your neighbours and your own families ... This is more of a community problem and an advocacy we should all fight for, Racha said. We didnt know how much of a taboo topic this was until this happened to Nadia. Getting that conversation out there will hopefully break that stigma. Nadia is among 10 female homicide victims in Albertas two largest cities in 2018 all of whom were killed in a confirmed or suspected case of domestic violence. Read more: What we know about Calgarys 17 homicides of 2018 Scholarship launched in memory of domestic homicide victim Nadia El-Dib Court records show Ashton Lafleche has a history of violence against women. He now stands accused of stabbing two children to death Most female homicide victims are killed by current or former intimate partners, experts say. And a preliminary analysis by the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability indicates that Alberta saw the second-highest number of women and girls killed in the country last year. (That includes all cases not just those where domestic violence may be a factor.) Of Calgarys 17 homicides last year, four of the people killed were women. Police either confirmed or said they suspected each case to be related to domestic violence. In Edmonton, which recorded 28 homicides in 2018, six females were killed including a 3-year-old girl and a 6-month-old baby. Between the two cities, nearly a quarter of the homicides last year are believed to be a result of domestic violence. In some cases, no charges or court proceedings will take place because the person responsible for the killing is also dead. But every case involves a suspect who knew the victim most with intimate relationship or family ties to the woman who was killed. Those who have been charged have yet to have the allegations against them proven in court. Calgary police couldnt confirm complete statistics on 2018 domestic violence calls Wednesday, but domestic conflict unit Staff Sgt. Paul Wozney said that the unit deals with about 25,000 domestic violence calls a year. As of late December, the Calgary Police Service was on track to see these calls at 42 per cent above the forces previous five-year average. Those are what I would describe as significant numbers, and I would actually describe them as being in the realm of an epidemic of domestic violence in this city, he said. Those calls have ripple effects across communities and neighbourhoods, he added, and many cases that dont result in homicide are still incredibly serious. My unit deals with the worst of the worst domestic files ... were talking about forcible confinements and intimate partner kidnapping and serious aggravated assaults and serious, serious criminal harassment charges. These people are living in fear all the time. All the time, he said. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Andrea Silverstone, the executive director of domestic-violence prevention organization Sagesse, said that anecdotally, her agency has also seen a year-over-year uptick in the number of clients seeking support. She agrees that Calgary, and Canada more widely, is experiencing a domestic violence crisis but she also wonders about the cases that dont make the news, and that the public never hears about. Most people who are experiencing and living in situations of domestic violence dont ever report to the police and are not homicide victims, she said. That means that thats just the tip of the iceberg, and theres so many people who are experiencing domestic violence in Calgary. Wozney said there are many reasons why police are handling more cases: part of it may be a better public understanding of what abuse looks like, and more access to resources for people to leave a potentially dangerous situation. Experts have also pointed to possible links between Albertas economic downturn and higher rates of domestic conflict, but the problem goes beyond that as well, with a combination of factors related to gender inequality. Domestic violence is whats called a wicked problem, which means that we have a bunch of known issues, but we dont really have a known solution, Silverstone said. The only way to address it is ... everyone has got to be in it together. University of Calgary social work associate professor Lana Wells said she sees a big part of the solution in making sure people have the necessary tools for healthy relationships and stopping violence before it starts. She helps lead projects to address the topic in schools, as well as a program aimed at helping men foster healthy relationship skills and support gender equity. Canadian Femicide Observatory director Myrna Dawson said those efforts to look at the big picture are part of the solution and its important to hear stories like Nadia El-Dibs to understand the impact of domestic violence and how it can be prevented. Some of my research has shown that these types of cases are actually more often premeditated than other types of homicides, but we continue to see them as crimes of passion, she said. Its not about passion its about control, (and) we need to start saying that, reporting on the histories of violence in the relationships. Anyone who is experiencing or has questions about domestic violence in Calgary can contact Connect at 403-234-7233. With files from Omar Mosleh Read more about: Chinas top prosecutor said he was certain two Canadian citizens detained in the country violated local laws and regulations and that both men remain under investigation. There is no doubt that the two Canadian citizens have violated Chinas laws and regulations, Zhang Jun, head of the Supreme Peoples Procuratorate, said Thursday during a briefing in Beijing. The investigation is in line with the due process of law, and we believe it will proceed accordingly. China has said that Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor are being held on grounds of threatening national security. The Canadians have been detained for more than three weeks without a hearing. Chinas foreign ministry said last month that Kovrig and Spavor were suspected of engaging in activities endangering national security, without elaborating. Kovrig, who is based in Hong Kong while on leave to work with the International Crisis Group, and Spavor, an entrepreneur who helped organize tourist trips to North Korea, were seized separately last month by Chinas spy agency. The cases came nine days after Canada arrested Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou Dec. 1 at the U.S.s request. Neither China nor Canada have directly linked the two mens cases, but they led to speculation of retaliation for Mengs arrest. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month called the detentions not acceptable and said they were an example of worrying fallout from the unprecedented trade war between the U.S. and China Read more: China is blowing a golden opportunity from the Huawei arrest Huawei and 5G experts clash on the risk to Canadas national security Global anxiety reflected in Australian outcry over Canadians detained in China International Crisis Group Chief Executive Officer Robert Malley told Bloomberg News last month that Kovrig wasnt a spy. Its pretty clear that what he was doing was neither secretive, nor in anyway endangering Chinese national security, Malley said. Little has been heard of the two men since they were taken. Kovrig has been held at a secret detention facility, questioned three times a day and unable to turn off the light, Bloomberg News reported. He was allowed a brief visit by Canadian Ambassador John McCallum in Beijing. McCallum has also met at least once with Spavor. On Dec. 24, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying dismissed criticism from the U.S. and Canada on its treatment of the two men, saying that China has abided by the law, protected Kovrigs interests and fulfilled its consular obligations. She repeated that Canada should withdraw its arrest warrant on Meng. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Read more about: This week sees the launch of free trade between Canada and its 10 partners in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Trade barriers started coming down last Sunday between Canada and the five other CPTPP countries that have been the first to ratify the milestone trade pact, including Japan, the worlds third-largest economy, and the major economies of Australia and Mexico. Further tariff cuts among those countries are taking place this week. With ratification by all 11 CPTPP partners, Canadian business will have unprecedented access to the large Vietnamese, Chilean and Malaysian markets as well. In just one mandate, the Trudeau government has concluded three landmark trade deals: the CPTPP; the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with the European Union, worlds largest economy; and the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). And the Trudeau government is intent on forging a free-trade agreement with China, the worlds second-largest economy. Canada depends on exports for about one-quarter of its economy. Among its fellow trade-reliant major economies, including Japan, Germany and Australia, Canada is unrivalled in its network of trade alliances, with the U.S. and the European Union, and in the Pacific Rim, Latin America and Australasia. Read more: Opinion | Why 2018 was a year of wake-up calls Opinion | David Olive: U.S.-China trade war remains top of mind for Bank of Canada exec What were watching in agriculture and trade in 2019 In a recent report, the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) cited expected strong Canadian GDP growth of 2.0 per cent in 2019 and continued robust business investment as a great opportunity for Canadian businesses to sell more abroad (and) diversify their markets. And yet, a complacent Corporate Canada still does more business with the likes of Illinois and Ohio than it does with the rest of the world. Heading into an election season, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would do well to wage a campaign exhorting Corporate Canada to exploit the enormous job-creating trade opportunities that Ottawa has provided Canadian business. The early going with CETA is proof of Canadian exporter lassitude. Canadian exports of goods to the EU have increased just 2.1 per cent over the past year, roughly the time CETA has been in effect. During that same period, EU exports to Canada have jumped almost 14 per cent. Canadian exporters fixated on the U.S. market invoke the EUs many languages (at least 47) and transportation issues as reasons for not vigorously tapping EU markets. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... And yet those same language barriers have not dissuaded Italian biscuit and French cheese exporters from ramping up their sales to Canada. And transportation challenges in an EU with an integrated rail and trucking network are actually less formidable than bottlenecks at, for instance, the Windsor-Detroit crossing. Admittedly, Canada still faces political obstacles on the trade front. The U.S. has not ratified the USMCA. The Democrats who take control of Congress this week are seeking changes to the deal. And U.S. President Donald Trumps punitive tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel [https://www.thestar.com/business/2018/12/18/steel-aluminum-tariffs-impacting-one-third-of-canadian-exporters-poll-says.html], a violation of international trade law, remain in place. Ottawa is bracing for Brexit, the scheduled March departure of Britain from the EU. The U.K. is the largest of Canadas European trading partners. Canada hopes to strike a CETA-like agreement with a U.K. outside the EU. And China is the biggest challenge, in the wake of the diplomatic furor after Canadas Dec. 1 detention of a prominent Chinese business executive on a U.S. arrest warrant. The warrant is believed to allege that Meng Wanzhou and her employer, Chinese telecom-equipment giant Huawei Technologies Co., violated U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. China is Canadas fastest-growing export market. And it is emerging as one of Canadas biggest trading partners, accounting last year for 7 per cent of total Canadian exports, up from 1 per cent two decades ago. To be sure, Canada is gradually reducing its export reliance on the U.S. America now accounts for about 70 per cent of Canadian exports, compared with a peak of about 80 per cent in the late 1990s. But the diversification of export markets the BDC calls for has been very slow. Over that same two decades, for instance, Europes share of Canadas total exports has grown by just two per cent, to a current 9 per cent. Jim Carr, the federal trade minister, told Bloomberg last week that Corporate Canada will hasten its progress in diversifying its export markets now that practically the whole world is open to it. And also because a protectionist Trump has proved the dangers of tying our export fortunes largely to one customer. Trading with the United States for a very long time has been comfortable and has been easy, Carr said. Now they (Canadian businesses) see that its going to be in their interests to experience a little bit of discomfort. Carr has logic on his side, but not generations of Canadian business practice, which shows every sign of continuing to follow the line of least resistance. Which leads to Chicago, not Frankfurt, Santiago and Hanoi. Jack Dura Bismarck Tribune BISMARCK, N.D. As North Dakota lawmakers convene Thursday, Dec. 3, for session, the traditionally held tribal and judicial addresses also will return after their cancellation in 2017. Lawmakers of Legislative Management voted to cancel the addresses two years ago, citing security concerns from the ongoing Dakota Access Pipeline protests in southern Morton County. North Dakota Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerald VandeWalle said he understood the concerns at the time and appreciates the opportunity to share updates and issues from the judiciary. Not all states afford their chief justice the time and space for a judicial address, he added. His address may be the first time new legislators see the court, VandeWalle said plus its a time to share our whines and our wishes, among other items. This is just sort of an alert, a heads up, we may doing this, we be may doing that, said VandeWalle, adding that hearings in judiciary and appropriations committees are where the judicial branch gets down to the nitty gritty in session. Scott Davis, executive director of the North Dakota Indian Affairs Commission, said he was frustrated and disappointed when the tribal address was canceled in 2017. Tribal leaders worked hard to implement the address years ago, he said. Every branch of government is important, including the tribes, said Davis, noting that he hopes the state doesnt see another period like the protests in 2016 and 2017, which included demonstrations at the state Capitol in Bismarck. Tribal and legislative leaders were able to meet last session despite the canceled address. We did our best to make a positive out of somewhat of a negative, but thats the role of our office, he said. We work very hard at managing relations and making sure that communication is key. Spirit Lake Nation Tribal Chair Myra Pearson is to give the tribal address to lawmakers on Thursday. Shes been very stable with the tribe and very strong, Davis said. Former Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chair Dave Archambault addressed lawmakers in 2015. Thursday will mark the sessions first legislative day, which is mostly ceremonial. Day two takes place Tuesday, as the state House and Senate wont hold floor sessions but will be in committee meetings on Friday and Monday. Taking those two days off gives them the opportunity to prepare, hopefully get some bills out of committee and have some action to be taken on the floor, Legislative Council Director John Bjornson said. Bjornson also said the break between legislative days was done in 2017 and on occasion in the past to save legislative days. About 240 House and Senate bills have been pre-filed. The tribal address begins at 10 a.m. Thursday, followed by the judicial address at 11 a.m., both in the state House chamber. Gov. Doug Burgum will give his State of the State address around 1:30 p.m. Thursday to the joint session. The address will be his third State of the State after 2018s address at Minot State University, the first such address in an off year of the Legislature since 2002. Lawmakers are limited to 80 days in session. The 2017 session lasted 77 days. Phuket Airport prepares for tropical storm Pabuk PHUKET: All travellers planning to use Phuket International Airport in the coming days are urged to check with their airlines the flight status of the planes they are intending to board as the island braces for heavy rains brought on by tropical storm Pabuk, which is expected to make landfall in Chumphon and Surat Thani, on the Gulf of Thailand, today (Jan 3). Thursday 3 January 2019, 01:09PM An empty concourse at Phuket International Airport this morning (Jan 3). Photo: Airport Operating staff at the airport have checked that emergency backup power supply is ready if needed, Thanee Chuangchoo, Genernal Manager of Phuket International Airport, told The Phuket News this morning. Airport technicians have also stepped up their inspections of critical systems such as runway lights, he added. Currently, Phuket International Airport is preparing to deal with the tropical storm Pabuk, Mr Thanee explained. The Thai Meteorological Department has warned that the storm will bring strong winds and increased rainfall across the South, which may affect flights at Phuket International Airport, he added. In order to prepare for the situation, staff have been ordered to increase their inspections of systems operating all lights at the airport, and especially on the runway. We are also inspecting the drainage channels more frequently to ensure against flooding, Mr Thanee said. All vehicles and equipment used in the parking bays will be kept in safe areas to ensure no damage occurs to any aircraft, Mr Thanee added. Air traffic controllers, working under the Aeronautical Radio of Thailand, will be monitoring all flights and weather conditions, Mr Thanee noted, adding, Passengers will receive updates in the terminals. Meanwhile, officers at the Tourist Assistance Centre (TAC), Sakoo Police, Immigration Police and Tourist Police all located on the third floor of the International Terminal, above the Departures Area are ready to assist passengers in need, Mr Thanee noted. However, he added, Please plan your travel and check your flight status, and allow for extra time for your journey to the airport due to traffic delays that may occur. Meanwhile, Bangkok Airways last night issued a notice for all passengers to check the status of their flights due to possible delays brought on by tropical storm Pabuk. Passengers travelling on Bangkok Airways flights departing to and from Southern Thailand between 3-5 January 2019 are advised to contact the airlines 24-hour Call Center at 1771 to check flight status before travelling or re-book their flight if needed, said the announcement. Phi Phi tourists stranded until blanket safety ban on boats leaving port during Pabuk weather is lifted PHUKET: Tourists who did not manage to board a ferry departing Phi Phi Island earlier today (Jan 3) will have to remain on the island until a ban on all boats leaving port is lifted. tourismtransportweather By Tanyaluk Sakoot Thursday 3 January 2019, 06:18PM Krabi Tourist Police explain to tourists that all boats to the islands, including Phi Phi Island, are banned from leaving port due to safety concerns amid fears of wild weather from tropical storm Pabuk. Photo: Krabi Tourist Police Krabi Tourist Police explain to tourists that all boats to the islands, including Phi Phi Island, are banned from leaving port due to safety concerns amid fears of wild weather from tropical storm Pabuk. Photo: Krabi Tourist Police Krabi Tourist Police explain to tourists that all boats to the islands, including Phi Phi Island, are banned from leaving port due to safety concerns amid fears of wild weather from tropical storm Pabuk. Photo: Krabi Tourist Police The ban on all small boats leaving port in Phuket for safety reasons amid concerns of wild weather from tropical storm Pabuk was instituted by Phuket Governor Phakaphong Tavipatana yesterday. However, the order was ramped up to now include a ban on all boats leaving port by order of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha this afternoon. Staff at major local ferry company Seatran Travel, which operates out of the key Phuket terminal Rassada Pier, confirmed to The Phuket News, The ban now applies to all boats. None of our boats, or anyone elses, is allowed to leave port. No boats will put to sea until the ban is lifted. Krabi Marine Chief Chaisiri Khundam yesterday (Jan 2) issued an order banning all boats from leaving port for three days from today (Jan 3) through Saturday (Jan 5). That order was also issued due to concerns for safety as strong winds and high waves are forecast from tropical storm Pabuk, which is expected to make landfall in Champhun and Surat Thani today. "All kinds of boats must not put to sea. This includes small boats, speedboats, ferries and others. They are banned from leaving port, Chief Chaisiri noted in the order. Krabi Tourist Police this morning urged tourists and other passengers to board boats to leave Phi Phi before the ban came into full force. Phuket Tourist Police Col Eakkachai Siri this afternoon told The Phuket News, We informed hotels so they could tell their guests about this, and explain that the reason was for safety following the Thai Meteorological Department warning about the storm Pabuk. Meanwhile, Haad Nopparat Tara-Mu Koh Phi Phi National Park was also closed today. There were a few tourists still stuck on Phi Phi Island this morning, so I urged officials and relevant business operators on Phi Phi to get the tourists off the island and back to the mainland as quickly as possible, Park Chief Worapoj Lomlin told The Phuket News. I have also banned all kinds of boats from entering the park until the weather improves, he said. We plan to re-open the park on Sunday (Jan 6), but that of course depends on the weather, he said. Similan National Park will also be closed to visitors tomorrow and Saturday (Jan 4-5), Similan National Park Chief Ms Pon-Uma Kongsiri confirmed earlier today. Koh Samui on alert as storm Pabuk nears SURAT THANI: Local residents, tourists and tour operators have been advised to exercise extreme caution as Koh Samui braces for possibly severe weather conditions caused by tropical storm Pabuk. weathertourismdisastersSafety By Bangkok Post Thursday 3 January 2019, 09:50AM Thai Meteorological Department (TMD) Director-General Phuwieng Prakhammintara points to the epicentre of tropical storm Pabuk. The storm is expected to make landfall today (Jan 3) at Chumphon and Surat Thani provinces. Photo: Bangkok Post / Somchai Poomlard Surat Thani Governor Witchawut Jinto yesterday (Jan 2) ordered officials from the provincial marine office to strictly monitor all ships, including speedboats and ferries, in the province from today through Saturday. The storm is expected to hit all districts, including Koh Samui and Koh Pha-ngan. All national parks and tourist spots must be ready to close immediately if the situation demands it, he added. Flash floods are possible in some areas in the province. A command centre has been set up on Koh Samui by the district office, and District Chief Kittiphob Roddon yesterday advised tourist boats to cancel services. Ang Thong Marine National Park will close from today through Saturday for the safety of tourists. Seatran Ferry announced that this afternoon boat service between Don Sak district and Samui island will be cancelled. The last ferries today will leave both the mainland and Samui at 1pm. The firm will not accept advance reservations for ferries tomorrow and Saturday and the schedule could be adjusted if necessary, it added. Raja Ferry, another ferry operator, could not be reached when contacted by the Bangkok Post. Pabuk has gathered strength, turning from a tropical depression into a storm on Tuesday, and could bring torrential rain and high seas to the Gulf of Thailand over the next three days. The weather update of the Meteorological Department at 5pm said the storm could move through Chumphon and Surat Thani tomorrow night (Jan 4). Most parts of Koh Samui will see heavy rain until Saturday and rough seas are also predicted, it added. The storm will also hit all provinces in the southern region, including provinces on the Andaman coast. Coastal fishermen are towing their boats from the sea in the Gulf of Thailand to prevent storm damage. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha told the Cabinet to advise all trawlers and tourist boats operating on the Gulf and Andaman sea to take exercise caution or temporarily cancel their operations as the storm approaches. Royal Thai Navy Commander Adm Leuchai Ruddit ordered HTMS Angthong, a landing platform dock frigate, to remain on standby at the Sattahip naval base to help in case people affected by the storm. The frigate can operate at sea for 45 days at a time. Officials and fishermen in the southern provinces are also bracing for heavy rain, flash floods and mudslides. Surat Thani Governor Witchawut Chinto has ordered pumps, boats and trucks to be ready. In Yala and Phatthalung, officials are keeping close tabs on water levels in reservoirs and rivers. Phatthalung Governor Kukiat Wongkraphan has ordered reservoirs to release more water to make way for extra rainfall. The worst natural disaster caused by a tropical storm was in 1962 when Harriet hit southern parts of the country. Read original story here. Governor warns Phuket to brace for Pabuk fallout PHUKET: Governor Phakaphong Tavipatana has ordered senior Phuket officials to prepare for heavy rains from tropical storm Pabuk, which is forecast to make landfall at Chumphon and Surat Thani provinces today (Jan 3). tourismweatherSafety By The Phuket News Thursday 3 January 2019, 11:45AM Also in attendance via video conference was Minister of Interior Gen Anupong Paochinda. Photo: PR Dept Phuket Governor Phakaphong Tavipatana (right) handed down the order at a meeting at Phuket Provincial Hall yesterday (Jan 2). Photo: PR Dept The order was handed down at a meeting at Phuket Provincial Hall yesterday (Jan 2). Also in attendance via video conference was Minister of Interior Gen Anupong Paochinda. Gen Anupong ordered Phuket officials to inform the public of the impending potential fallout via reports and weather forecasts issued by the Phuket Provincial office of the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM-Phuket). Gov Phakaphong said that all areas must be prepared for the possibility of a crisis occurring. People should be prepared to follow response and evacuation plans in order to get to safe points or designated shelters. We have requested that the Marine Police closely monitor the sea and to stop boats from leaving shore. If a boat is found violating the order, we will have them immediately return to shore. A surveillance centre has been set up with personnel and equipment to prepare for assistance in designated areas, he added. I have assigned the DDPM-Phuket to issue weather updates in both Thai and English to hotel operators to warn tourists about the storm, Gov Phakaphong noted. The Phuket Marine Office has issued an official warning in both Thai and English to every port in Phuket to inform boat operators and tourists of the strict orders, Gov Phakaphong said. (See the warning issued yesterday, click here.) The Phuket Provincial Public Relations Office will closely monitor the situation through Government agencies and will provide up-to-date information through the local media network, Gov Phakaphong said. Bangkok Airways cancels all flights to and from Samui PHUKET: Bangkok Airways, which owns and operates Samui International Airport, has cancelled all flights to and from Samui tomorrow (Jan 4) for safety reasons as tropical storm Pabuk makes landfall in Chumphon and Surat Thani on the Gulf of Thailand today. tourismtransportweather By The Phuket News Thursday 3 January 2019, 05:01PM Bangkok Airways announced the mass cancellations on its website at 3:30pm today (Jan 3). Image: Facebook / screengrab Bangkok Airways announced the mass cancellations on its website at 3:30pm today. Bangkok Airways is on high alert and closely monitoring the weather situation following the weather warning announcement by Thai Meteorological Department on tropical storm Pabuk moving towards southern region of Thailand during 4-5 January 2019 which causes widespread rainfalls and torrential downpours, said the announcement. After assessing the current weather condition at potentially affected areas, Bangkok Airways announces cancellation of all flights to and from Samui Airport, Surathani on 4th January 2019 for safety reasons, it added. Passengers who have been affected by the flight cancellations on 4th January 2019 may rebook their flights without fees and charges. Passengers are advised to contact the airline's Call Center at 1771 or Assistance Center number at 02-270-6698 (24 hours) for reservation assistance and flight status updates, the statement advised. Meanwhile, Thai Lion Air has instead added more flights between Don Mueang International Airport in Bangkok and Surat Thani due to tropical storm Pabuk. Following the weather warning announcement by Thai Meteorological Department on tropical storm Pabuk. Thai Lion Air adds more flight from Don Mueang Surat Thani Flight SL 7746 Time 19.15 -20.25 and Surat Thani - Don Mueang Flight SL 7747 Time 21.10-22.20 on January 3, 2019, Thai Lion Air announced on its Facebook page today. (See post here.) Moreover, Thai Lion Air has no changes or cancel flight in any destination. We are closely monitoring the weather situation. Please update the situation via Facebook: Thai Lion Air or more information please contact our Call Center at +66 2 529 9999, the post read. Thai Airways International (THAI) has yet to announce any changes to its flight schedule to or from Samui or Surat Thani. However, the Thai national carrier posted on its Facebook page in Thai language this afternoon, THAI Airways passengers should check flight status of Bangkok-Krabi and Bangkok-Phuket flights following the weather warning of Pabuk storm during Jan 3-5. Thai airways will announce as soon as possible if there is any impact on any flights, THAI Airways assured. For those passengers who have booked to travel on those flights between 3-5 January 2019, before travelling please check the flight schedule on the website. www.thaiairways.com and THAI Contact Center Tel. 02-356-1111 (24 hrs.), the post advised. (See post here.) Of note, Koh Samui, already one of Thailands most popular resort islands, for two decades was served exclusively by Bangkok Airways, a private airline that owns the islands only airport. Thai Airways International (THAI) launched twice-daily flights between Bangkok and Samui, targeting European tourists making stopovers in the capital, in February, 2008. However, THAI must pay Bangkok Airways for the use of its airport and ground services in order to gain access to the island. This undated photo provided by the Whelan family shows Novi resident Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine arrested in Russia on espionage charges, was visiting Moscow over the holidays to attend a wedding when he suddenly disappeared, his brother said Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019. Congresswoman-elect Haley Stevens, D-Rochester Hills, is just under a month away from being sworn in as the U.S. representative for Michigan's The new year could be a more prosperous one for one lottery player, but only a few days remain before luck runs out for that person who stands to win $25,000 a year for life from the Michigan Lottery. In what was, so far, the best baseball game of the week, the Jaguars pulled their 33rd win out of the fire and salvaged a gem of a start from their star pitcher. Pontiac appears to be in the midst of the basketball resurgence the former hoop haven of a community has been so thirsting for. WASHINGTON>> House Democrats are sweeping into power this week on a campaign promise of improving government for ordinary Americans. But featured Convicted sex offender who killed himself in prison IDd as former Wolverine Lake man Instant unlimited access to all of our content on thenewsguard.com. The News Guard E-Edition Newsletter emailed to you each week, the night before the paper hits the street! This subscription is for NEW or RENEWING online subscribers. (The charge will appear as "Country Media Inc." on your credit card statement) Rachel Wilson had tears in her eyes as she embraced a woman in the second row shortly after Isabella County Chief Judge Eric Janes ordered Ian Taylor Crowley, an CMU environmental studies major from Grosse Pointe spent a month and a half in the Central American nation of Belize helping orphaned Belizean girls build a better life by constructing a greenhouse to grow food. Kyle Simmons, from left, Dan Smith, Chris Wood and Will Farquarson of Bastille performs at the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square on Monday, Dec. 31, 2018, in New York. (Photo by Joe Russo/Invision/AP) Bank of Hawaii Corporation operates as the bank holding company for Bank of Hawaii that provides various financial products and services in Hawaii, Guam, and other Pacific Islands. It operates in three segments: Consumer Banking, Commercial Banking, and Treasury and Other. The Consumer Banking segment offers checking, savings, and time deposit accounts; residential mortgage loans, home equity lines of credit, automobile loans and leases, personal lines of credit, installment loans, small business loans and leases, and credit cards; private and international client banking, and trust services to individuals and families, and high-net-worth individuals; investment management and institutional investment advisory services to corporations, government entities, and foundations; and brokerage offering equities, mutual funds, life insurance, and annuity products. This segment operates 65 branch locations and 357 ATMs throughout Hawaii and the Pacific Islands, as well as through a customer service center, and online and mobile banking. The Commercial Banking segment provides corporate banking, commercial real estate loans, commercial lease financing, auto dealer financing, and deposit products. It offers commercial lending and deposit products to middle-market and large companies, and government entities; commercial real estate mortgages to investors, developers, and builders; and international banking and merchant services. The Treasury and Other segment offers corporate asset and liability management services, including interest rate risk management and foreign exchange services. Bank of Hawaii Corporation was founded in 1897 and is headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii. Read More Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI Malaysia ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI Malaysia ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys. View MarketBeat's top stock picks here. Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI Australia ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI Australia ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys. View MarketBeat's top stock picks here. Embraer S.A. designs, develops, manufactures, and sells aircrafts and systems in Brazil, North America, Latin America, the Asia Pacific, Brazil, Europe, and internationally. It operates through Defense and Security; Executive Jets; Service & Support; and Other segments. The Defense and Security segment engages in the research, development, production, modification, and support for military defense and security aircraft, as well as offers a range of products and integrated solutions that include radars, special space systems (satellites), and information and communications systems, such as command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems. The Executive Jets segment develops, produces, and sells executive jets. It also leases Legacy 600 and Legacy 650 executive jets in the super midsize and large categories; Legacy 450 and Legacy 500 executive jets in the midlight and midsize categories; Phenom family executive jets in the entry jet and light jet categories; Lineage 1000, an ultra-large executive jet; and Praetor 500 and Praetor 600, disruptive executive jets in the midsize and super midsize categories. The Service & Support segment offers after-service solutions, support, and maintenance, repair, and overhaul services for commercial, executive, and defense aircraft; provides aircraft components and engines; and supplies steel and composite aviation structures to various aircraft manufacturers. The Other segment is involved in the supply of fuel systems, structural parts, and mechanical and hydraulic systems; and production of agricultural crop-spraying aircraft. The company was formerly known as Embraer-Empresa Brasileira de AeronAutica S.A. and changed its name to Embraer S.A. in November 2010. Embraer S.A. was founded in 1969 and is headquartered in SAo Paulo, Brazil. Read More Legend Who Bought Amazon In 1998 Says: Now Is The Time (Ad) Wall street legend Chris Rowe says theres a huge stock market event looming - and hes revealing his #1 pick for free. Click here to find out more. China Pharma Holdings, Inc. develops, manufactures, and markets generic and branded pharmaceutical, and biochemical products primarily to hospitals and private retailers in the People's Republic of China. The company offers products in the form of dry powder injectables, liquid injectables, tablets, capsules, and cephalosporin oral solutions. Its products include Cerebroprotein Hydroloysate injection to treat memory decline and attention deficit; Gastrodin injection for tiredness, loss of concentration, poor sleep, and traumatic syndromes of the brain; Propylgallate and Ozagrel Sodium to treat cerebral thrombosis, coronary heart disease, and after surgery complications; Alginic Sodium Diester injection for ischemic heart, cerebrovascular, and high lipoprotein blood diseases; Bumetanide to treat edema diseases; and Candesartan for hypertension. It also provides Roxithromycin dispersible tablets for pharyngitis and tonsillitis; Cefaclor dispersible tablets for tympanitis, lower respiratory tract infection, urinary tract infections, and skin/skin tissue infection; Cefalexin capsules for acute tonsillitis; Andrographolide for sore throat caused by upper respiratory tract infection; Clarithromycin granules and capsules; and Naproxen Sodium and PseudophedrineHydrochlorida sustained release tablets. In addition, the company offers Hepatocyte growth-promoting factor, Tiopronin, Compound Ammonium Glycyrrhetate S, and Omeparzole for the treatment of digestive diseases. Further, it provides Vitamin B6 injection; Granisetron Hydrochloride injection to treat nausea and vomiting caused by radiotherapy and chemotherapy during the treatment of malignant tumors; Noni Enzyme, a food supplement; sanitizers; and masks. The company offers its products through distributors, as well as through its network of 16 sales offices and approximately 1,000 sales representatives. China Pharma Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1993 and is based in Haikou, the People's Republic of China. Read More Andeavor Logistics LP operates as a diversified midstream company in the United States. The company's Terminalling and Transportation segment comprises the Northwest pipeline system, including a regulated common carrier products pipeline running from Salt Lake City, Utah to Spokane, Washington and a jet fuel pipeline to the Salt Lake City International Airport; a regulated common carrier refined products pipeline system connecting its refinery to its terminals in Anchorage, Alaska; tankage and related equipment at the refinery; and crude oil and refined products terminals and storage facilities in the western, and southwest and midwestern U.S. This segment also consists of marine terminals in California and Washington; a rail-car unloading and petroleum coke handling facilities; marine terminals; a manifest rail facility; an asphalt trucking operation; a petroleum coke handling and storage facility; asphalt terminalling and processing services; and other pipelines, which transport products and crude oil from its refineries to nearby facilities in Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. Its Gathering and Processing segment includes crude oil and natural gas, NGLs, and produced water gathering systems in the Bakken Shale/Williston Basin area of the Bakken Region, the Green River Basin, the Rockies Region, the Permian Basin System, and the Four Corners System, as well as crude trucking operations, and gas processing and fractionation complexes. The company's Wholesale segment consists of bulk petroleum distribution facilities and a fleet of refined product delivery trucks. Tesoro Logistics GP, LLC operates as the general partner of the company. The company was formerly known as Tesoro Logistics LP and changed its name to Andeavor Logistics LP in August 2017. Andeavor Logistics LP was founded in 2010 and is based in Findlay, Ohio. Read More 9 hours ago | June 14th | 2021 7:00 AM Why Your Retirement Calculator Might Not Tell the Whole Story I got to thinking about the retirement calculators that automatically pop up when I check my retirement account balances. In my case, I always get a message that says, "You are XX% on track toward your retirement goals." When you check out an online calculator, you can use them, but remember that a retirement calculator could miss the boat Tens of thousands of tourists have fled the Thai resort islands of Koh Phangan and Koh Tao in a mass exodus ahead of Tropical Storm Pabuk which is set to bring heavy rains, wind and seven-meter waves, officials said Thursday. The islands, hugely popular with holiday-makers especially during the peak Christmas and New Year season, have emptied out since Wednesday as tourists packed onto ferries bound for the southern Thai mainland, with swimming banned and boats set to suspend services. Pabuk, Thailand's first tropical storm in the area outside of the monsoon season for around 30 years, is poised to batter Koh Phangan and Koh Tao as well as Koh Samui on Friday night, before cutting into the mainland. No official evacuation order has been given but tourists are leaving in droves. "I think the islands are almost empty... between 30,000 to 50,000 have left since the New Year's Eve countdown parties," Krikkrai Songthanee, Koh Phangnan district chief, told AFP. The acting mayor of Koh Tao, one of Southeast Asia's finest diving spots, said boats to Chumphon on the mainland were crammed with tourists, but several thousand guests were still on the island likely to brave the storm. Pabuk was packing winds of 104 kilometers per hour (65 mph) but was unlikely to intensify into a full blown typhoon, according to forecasters. "But we expect waves as high as five or seven meters near the eye of the storm. Normally in the Gulf of Thailand there are only two metre high waves," Phuwieng Prakammaintara, director general at the Thai Meteorological Department, told reporters. Read also: Tourism and marine parks threaten Thailand's 'people of the sea' "It's difficult to predict the severity of the storm so people should comply with authorities' recommendations." On Koh Samui, the closest of the trio of islands, a Russian man drowned on Wednesday after his family ignored warnings not to go into the sea. "A family of three went swimming but the strong current caught a 56-year-old man who drowned," Police Captain Boonnam Srinarat of Samui Police told AFP. "Island officials announced the warning and put up the red 'danger' flags... but maybe the family did not think the situation was that serious." Authorities on the island said they were preparing shelters for any tourists who decide to wait out the storm. Pabuk, which means a giant catfish in Lao, is also expected to dump heavy rain across the south, including tourist hotspots in the Andaman Sea such as Krabi and the southernmost provinces bordering Malaysia of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala. State-owned railway operator PT KAI has launched a new route connecting Jakarta with Banjar in West Java via Bandung. The route will be served with the Pangandaran train, with operations kicked off by KAI director Edi Sukmoro at Banjar Station on Wednesday. Previously, KAI launched the Galunggung train plying the Bandung-Tasikmalaya route in the southern part of West Java. Edi said the Pangandaran service was aimed at supporting the national tourism program Wonderful Indonesia by improving the accessibility of Priangan, a cultural and mountainous region in West Java and Pangandaran, a seaside town and district of Pangandaran regency on the southern coast of Java. [Hopefully] it will improve growth of West Javas tourism, culture and economy, said Edi. The new route will facilitate travelers who wish to visit natural attractions on the southern coast of West Java, such as Pangandaran Beach, Batu Hiu Beach, Cukang Taneuh (also known as Green Canyon) and Batu Karas Beach. After getting off at Banjar Station, passengers can reach Pangandaran Beach in less than two hours of driving. Each Pangandaran train comprises four executive-class cars and four premium-economy cars with a total capacity of 520 seats. The travel time for the 329-kilometer stretch from Jakarta to Banjar is around eight hours. Meanwhile, it takes around four and a half hours to travel from Bandung to Banjar, a distance of 156 km. To attract passengers, KAI offers discounted fares from a symbolic Rp 1 (less than 1 US cent) to Rp 110,000. The public relations manager for KAI operational region 2 Bandung, Joni Martinus, said the special offer would be available for departures in January. Joni went on to say that the Rp 1 fare applied to executive and premium economy Bandung-Banjar (return) trips. The purchase must be made through the counter, KAI Access or the KAI website and not through a ticket vending machine. Meanwhile, purchases from external channels are subject to a booking fee, Joni was quoted as saying. The special offer for the executive Jakarta-Banjar trip is Rp 160,000, while the economy-premium class ride costs Rp 110,000. After the promotional period, KAI will charge Rp 150,000 Rp 520,000 for executive-class trips and Rp 100,000 Rp 300,000 for premium-economy tickets. Read also: Priority class train available daily between Jakarta and Semarang The Pangandaran train departs from Jakartas Gambir Station at 7:50 a.m. and arrives at Bandung at 11:07 a.m., to depart again at 11:40 a.m. and arrive in Banjar at 3:56 p.m. The return trip departs from Banjar at 1:55 p.m. to arrive in Bandung at 7:05 p.m. and in Gambir at 10:34 p.m. Meanwhile, the Banjar-Bandung service departs at 4:02 p.m. to arrive in Bandung at 8:34 p.m., and the return trip departs from Bandung at 9:10 a.m. for arrival at 01:03 p.m. in Banjar. KAI also offers free connecting services for Pangandaran train passengers who book Gambir-Garut connecting tickets during the promotion period. With the single-ticketing service, passengers only need to book once and can then board the Pangandaran train and the connecting service run by PT Kereta Api Pariwisata, a subsidiary of the state-owned railway operator, said Joni. (mut) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Taiwan Fri, January 4 2019 Temporary residence: Residents take shelter in Jami Al-Mumin Mosque in Labuan district, Pandeglang, Banten, on Dec. 22, following a tsunami that hit western coastal areas of Java. (Antara/Muhammad Bagus Khoirunas) Taiwans Ministry of Foreign Affairs has recently announced that the Taiwanese government will donate US$500,000 to support relief efforts in Indonesia. As a result of a volcanic eruption and a deadly tsunami that occurred on the evening of Dec. 22 on the beaches of Lampung and Banten, more than 400 people were killed and hundreds others were injured . The tsunami was triggered Saturday night by underwater landslides caused by the eruption of the Anak Krakatau volcano in the Sunda Strait, which lies between the islands of Java and Sumatra, according to various sources. The National Disaster Mitigation Agency was quoted b... Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 3, 2019 10:52 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e529c73 4 Business World-Bank,clarafication,infrastructure,Indonesia Free Following the current public discussion of one of its reports about Indonesia's infrastructure plan, the World Bank (WB) has made a clarification saying that the report was outdated and should not be referred to regarding the current infrastructure development. The bank says the circulated report was finalized in 2014 before President Joko Jokowi Widodo took office and was directed to outline the circumstances of infrastructure planning and budgeting processes in the country during that period. [The report was] intended for internal World Bank use only and uploaded by clerical mistake in one of our websites in June 2018, the WB says in a statement published on its official website. The report has been unused because it does not include the substantial reforms and some new policies that President Jokowi's administration has carried out since the report's completion, according to the bank. The WB suggested that the public should refer to the latest analysis and facts when discussing the current state of Indonesias infrastructure development, which is a crucial element for the country's progress. [The infrastructure development] deserves to be at the center of public policy dialogue in the country. It is essential, therefore, that the conversation on the subject is based on current analysis and evidence, the statement said. Under Jokowi's administration, infrastructure projects have not been focused only on the most populous island of Java, but spread out from Sumatra to Papua as the government aims to ensure that everyone across the archipelago benefits. Jokowi, who is seeking a second term in April's presidential election, will once again fight former contender Prabowo Subianto. (das/bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Auckland, New Zealand Thu, January 3, 2019 20:08 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e545d94 2 Sports #sports,#tennis,Canadian,Bianca-Andreescu,Knock-Out,denmark,Caroline-Wozniacki Free Top seed Caroline Wozniacki was bundled out of the WTA Auckland Classic in the second round Thursday, beaten in straight sets by 18-year-old Canadian Bianca Andreescu. It was a blow for Wozniacki who was looking for as much court time as she could get in Auckland on her way to defending her Australian Open crown. She was beaten 6-4, 6-4 by the Canadian teenager who is ranked 152nd in the world and had to play her way through the qualifying tournament to make the main draw. "Honestly, I can't believe it," said Andreescu who was near speechless at having beaten Wozniacki to set up a quarter-final against Venus Williams who progressed to the final eight with a 6-4, 6-3 win over fellow American Lauren Davis. "First I have to swallow this one and then I'll think about tomorrow. But I'm honestly really excited just being here. "I've dreamt of playing on this stage against hard players and now I'm here I played against one of the best and I won so really, I don't know what to say. "I managed to pull through. I've no idea how. I just fought to the end." Andreescu played herself to a standstill, keeping rallies alive with a mix of well-angled strokes from the baseline and delicate drop shots until Wozniacki made mistakes. Wozniacki did produce glimpses of her best and determinedly levelled at 4-4 in the first set when she took Andreescu's serve in a 12-minute, seven-deuce game. But the Canadian teen immediately broke again and held serve for the set before breaking Wozniacki twice in the second set. The result would have surprised Williams who had earlier spoken of how she expected to meet Wozniacki in the quarter-finals. "That'll be a great match up. Finals worthy but it's the quarter-finals and we'll battle it out," Williams had said as she looked ahead after beating Davis. Williams, seeded six in Auckland, broke Davis for the first time in the sixth game of the first set and took control from there. On a day dominated by teenagers, 17-year-old American Amanda Anisimova stunned fifth seed Barbora Strycova 6-3, 6-3. Anisimova, ranked 96th in the world and the youngest player in the top 100, never dropped a game against the Czech veteran and cashed in on all three break points that went her way. Anisimova will play big-serving Viktoria Kuzmova from Slovakia in the quarter-finals after Kuzmova fired down 20 aces when dispatching American Sofia Kenin 7-5, 5-7, 6-3. In the other quarter-finals, second seed Julia Goerges plays Eugenie Bouchard and third seed Hsieh Su-wei is up against Sara Sorribes Tormo. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Washington, United States Thu, January 3, 2019 08:08 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e51f022 2 World #USA,#India,DonaldTrump,mocks,Narendra-Modi,building,library Free US President Donald Trump on Wednesday mocked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan, suggesting it was of no use. Trump brought up India's aid during a rambling press appearance at a cabinet meeting as he defended his push for the United States to invest less overseas. While stating that he got along with Modi, Trump said the Indian leader was "constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan." "You know what that is? That's like five hours of what we spend," Trump said. "And we're supposed to say, 'Oh, thank you for the library.' I don't know who's using it in Afghanistan," Trump said. It was unclear to which project Trump was referring, but India has committed $3 billion in assistance to Afghanistan since US-led forces toppled the extremist Taliban regime after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Projects have included the reconstruction of an elite high school in Kabul and scholarships to India for 1,000 Afghan students each year. Inaugurating the Afghan parliament building in 2015 after reconstruction financed by India, Modi promised to promote programs "empowering Afghan youth with modern education and professional skills." India has been one of the most enthusiastic countries over the US mission in Afghanistan, where the former Taliban regime sheltered fiercely anti-Indian militants. But India's role has alarmed its arch-rival Pakistan, whose intelligence service's continued ties to extremists in Afghanistan has been seen by analysts in part as a way to counter New Delhi. Trump last month moved to pull all 2,000 US troops out of Syria and cut by half the 14,000-strong force in Afghanistan, calling for less spending overseas. Alluding in Wednesday's remarks to the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Trump said: "Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Thomas Watkins (Agence France-Presse) Washington, United States Thu, January 3, 2019 09:09 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e523c34 2 World #USA,#politics,defense-secretary,Patrick-Shanahan,Donald-Trump,attack,Jim-Mattis Free Acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan's first full day at the Pentagon's helm was overshadowed Wednesday when President Donald Trump attacked his predecessor Jim Mattis. Shanahan, who took the Pentagon's top spot January 1 after serving as deputy defense secretary, was thrust onto the world stage when Mattis quit last month amid long-running disagreements with President Donald Trump. During televised remarks ahead of his first cabinet meeting of 2019, Trump claimed he had "essentially fired" Mattis, even though the former Pentagon chief had pointedly quit his post over multiple disagreements. "I'm not happy with what (Mattis has) done in Afghanistan and I shouldn't be happy," Trump said, as Shanahan sat by his side. "I wish him well. I hope he does well. But as you know, President Obama fired him and essentially so did I. I want results." Mattis, a former Marine general, was head of US Central Command when Obama fired him in 2013 over his hawkish views on Iran. While it is common for Trump to turn on former staffers and make demeaning remarks after they've left their post, the Mattis criticism is notable as Trump had often touted his admiration for the man he called "Mad Dog Mattis." The drama came after Shanahan sought to lay out his priorities for America's massive defense department and how he intends to deal with an urgent list of geopolitical to-dos, including the US withdrawal from Syria. - China, China, China - Soon after arriving at the Pentagon, Shanahan told colleagues to focus on the National Defense Strategy, a Mattis-era review that highlights "Great Power competition" with Russia and China. "In 2019, the National Defense Strategy remains our guide. America's military strength remains our focus," Shanahan said in a New Year's message on Twitter. A defense official added that Shanahan had told colleagues a major concern would be China. "While we are focused on ongoing operations, Acting Secretary Shanahan told the team to remember: China, China, China," the official said. The US accuses Beijing of an ongoing pattern of military and economic espionage, and has criticized China's ambitious "Belt and Road" trade and infrastructure initiative as being a form of economic coercion. Shanahan must oversee the pace at which the US pulls some 2,200 troops out of Syria, following the president's decision to exit the war-torn country. Last month, Trump declared victory over the Islamic State group in Syria and claimed the jihadists had been beaten "badly," even though they still number in the thousands. He has since backpedaled and suggested more of a phased timeline for the withdrawal. "We're withdrawing," Trump said, adding it would happen "over a period of time." At another point, Trump told Shanahan he wanted him to classify various reports, presumably including those detailing the security crisis in Afghanistan. "For these reports to be given out and essentially given out to the enemy, that's insane," Trump told Shanahan. "I don't want it to happen anymore Mr Secretary, you understand that." According to US officials, Trump is also mulling a 50 percent drawdown in Afghanistan -- another momentous move that has left lawmakers and international allies fearing for what comes next. Recused from Boeing matters Little known outside business and Washington circles, Shanahan takes the world stage at a time of tumultuous changes and unpredictable foreign policy moves under Trump. Shanahan, 56, did not serve in the military and before but serving as deputy defense secretary he spent more than 30 years at Boeing. While Shanahan has not always had day-to-day involvement in thorny geopolitical issues like Syria, officials say he is ready to tackle them and previously filled in for Mattis when he was traveling. Despite a lack of foreign policy or military experience, Shanahan's executive and technical knowledge made him well suited for the Pentagon's number two position, which focuses more on the Defense Department's business side. But some critics have questioned whether a man with deep industry ties should be running the Pentagon. At his confirmation hearing to be deputy, the late senator John McCain said a lack of detail in some of Shanahan's foreign policy answers was "almost insulting," and he expressed concerns that putting a former defense executive in the Pentagon could be akin to putting a fox "back in to the henhouse." Lieutenant Colonel Joe Buccino, Shanahan's spokesman, said he had recused himself from any matters involving Boeing. Also Wednesday, Shanahan announced that the Pentagon's comptroller, David Norquist, will perform the duties of deputy secretary of defense. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Fachrul Sidiq (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 3 2019 PT Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Jakarta, which will operate the first rapid transit system in Indonesia, is upbeat on commencing the development of the second phase of the MRT mid-January, despite challenges to find a location for the trains depot. The company pushed back the groundbreaking ceremony to January from the initial plan of holding the ceremony in December. The [groundbreaking] will be in January. Although the Jakarta administration has yet to decide on the location of the trains depot, work can still go ahead, MRT Jakarta president director William Sabandar said on Tuesday. He expected the service connecting Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Central Jakarta to Kota station in West Jakarta to be completed in 2024 before the service is fully operational in the first quarter of 2025. Work will begin by constructing a receiving substation (... Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Fachrul Sidiq (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 3, 2019 09:43 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e525d9b 1 City MRT-Jakarta,MRT,infrastructure-development,urban-development,public-transportation,jakarta Free PT Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Jakarta, which will operate the first rapid transit system in Indonesia, is upbeat on commencing the development of the second phase of the MRT mid-January, despite challenges to find a location for the trains depot. The company pushed back the groundbreaking ceremony to January from the initial plan of holding the ceremony in December. The [groundbreaking] will be in January. Although the Jakarta administration has yet to decide on the location of the trains depot, work can still go ahead, MRT Jakarta president director William Sabandar said on Tuesday. He expected the service connecting Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Central Jakarta to Kota station in West Jakarta to be completed in 2024 before the service is fully operational in the first quarter of 2025. Work will begin by constructing a receiving substation (RSs) at the National Monument (Monas) compound in Central Jakarta, which will be constructed by construction firm PT Trocon Indah Perkasa at a cost of Rp 21.7 billion (US$1.87 million). The RSs will be developed 20 meters underground to power the service. Initially, the plan was to connect the 8.3 kilometer Hotel Indonesia traffic circle to Kampung Bandan in North Jakarta route. However, land acquisition problems hindered the process, prompting the administration to find an alternative location, which will also be designed as the trains depot. William said the city administration had decided to make Kota the final station for the second stage of the massive project. The administration also announced that the possible station to replace Kampung Bandan will be near the BMW multipurpose stadium, which is under construction. When operational, MRT Jakarta has promised that it will take passengers no longer than 15 minutes to travel from Hotel Indonesia traffic circle to its final destination, running through seven stations, namely Sarinah, Monas, Harmoni, Sawah Besar, Mangga Besar, Glodok and Kota. The work to build the RSs should have begun in December last year, but the company failed to find a qualified firm during the tender process. Of the five applicants, none met all the requirements, particularly on the provision of equipment. This particular project, dubbed construction package (CP) 200, is specifically allocated for an Indonesian firm as part of a loan agreement between the administration and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to transfer technology and knowledge to an Indonesian company. There are seven CPs for the MRTs second phase and MRT Jakarta expects the tender process to be completed by 2020. MRT Jakarta construction director Silvia Halim said the construction of the second phase would be more challenging compared to the first phase that spans 16 kilometer linking Lebak Bulus in South Jakarta to Hotel Indonesia traffic circle. The budget for the project that stood at Rp 22.5 trillion, loaned from JICA, is also bigger than the first phase even though the distance is shorter. She cited softer soil conditions in the northern part of Jakarta and that phase two is fully underground as the reason for the cost. It will be developed near crucial areas, namely the Bank Indonesia building and Presidential Palace complex, so it requires extra caution, she said. Along the line, there are also some historic buildings. William said his office was also working on developing a basic engineering design for the West-East line, which will connect Balaraja in Tangerang, Banten, to Cikarang in Bekasi, West Java. The MRT is expected to encourage motorists to use public transportation as the administration has set an ambitious target to make 60 percent of travel in the capital by public transportation from the current 24 percent. This article was originally published in The Jakarta Post's print edition on Jan. 3, 2019, with the title "Second MRT construction phase expected to begin this month". Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Washington, United States Thu, January 3, 2019 12:12 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e52e01e 2 World #USA,#politics,Mitt-Romney,criticism,Donald-Trump,character Free Incoming Senator Mitt Romney said Wednesday he was unsure who to endorse for the White House in 2020, saying he would consider "the alternatives" to Donald Trump, whose presidency he said is falling short. The comments on CNN came hours after the 2012 Republican presidential candidate published a scathing op-ed targeting Trump, saying he "has not risen to the mantle of the office" and his actions have alienated America's allies. Concerning the endorsement, Romney said "I think it's early to make that decision and I want to see what the alternatives are." As a senator, he vowed to "vote with my conscience," even if it meant going against Trump and his party. But Romney -- who is preparing to take up his seat in the new Congress -- shut down any notion that he was considering another presidential bid, saying "I've had that experience." "And, by the way, I acknowledge the president was successful. And I was not." Romney's earlier comments seemed to suggest he is positioning himself to take over the role of Jeff Flake, a departing senator who was a vocal critic of Trump. "With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable," Romney wrote in his op-ed piece in The Washington Post on Tuesday. "And it is in this province where the incumbent's shortfall has been most glaring." He added that Trump's actions had caused "dismay around the world" and alienated traditional allies in Europe. The US leader responded the next morning in a relatively restrained tweet. "Here we go with Mitt Romney, but so fast! Question will be, is he a Flake? I hope not," he wrote. "Would much prefer that Mitt focus on Border Security and so many other things where he can be helpful. I won big, and he didn't. He should be happy for all Republicans. Be a TEAM player & WIN." White House in 'deep descent' It is the latest twist in a relationship that has run hot and cold for years. Romney called presidential candidate Trump a fraud and a phony in 2016 -- but last year, he thanked Trump for his endorsement as Romney ran for a senate seat from Utah. In the op-ed piece, Romney noted he had not supported Trump as the Republican Party's nominee in 2016. Romney said he had hoped the Trump campaign would refrain from name-calling and had not. He welcomed Trump's initial inclusion of steady-hand figures in his cabinet like James Mattis as defense secretary and John Kelly as chief of staff. "But, on balance, his conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions this month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office," Romney wrote. The incoming senator said that last month -- when Trump abruptly announced he was pulling US troops out of Syria, and Mattis resigned in protest -- was particularly disturbing. "The Trump presidency made a deep descent in December," Romney wrote. Romney said he will treat Trump as he would any president, either in or outside his party. "I do not intend to comment on every tweet or fault," he wrote. "But I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 3, 2019 19:20 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e544143 1 Politics 2019-elections,2019-presidential-election,Joko-Widodo-Maruf-Amin,Prabowo-Subianto-Sandiaga-Uno,quran Free A group of Muslim clerics in Aceh has challenged Indonesian presidential candidates to undergo a Quran reading test as a way to determine the best figure to lead the country with the largest Muslim population. The campaign teams of the incumbent, Joko Jokowi Widodo, and his challenger, Prabowo Subianto, have responded differently to the idea from Indonesias conservative westernmost province, which implements the sharia. The team of President Jokowi said the incumbent was ready for the test. Alo Raban, a campaign official with the Jokowi campaign in Aceh, said the President was willing to go to the province for the test. I have contacted the national team, which said he and [running mate cleric Maruf Amin] will take up the invitation for the test, Ali said, as quoted by kompas.com. The teams deputy chairman, Abdul Kadir Karding, said Jokowi did not mind taking the test should the public demand it. The Quranic reading test has been initiated by ulemas and Acehnese people for the presidential candidates. The idea comes from the people, Karding said Thursday. Aceh, the only Indonesian province to impose the sharia, as mandated by a 1999 law on Aceh's status as a special region, is one of 10 provinces of the country's 34 where Jokowi failed to get a majority in the 2014 presidential election, which saw him run against Prabowo. Jokowi visited the province in December and met the ulemas, promising them to move ahead with the deliberation of a pesantren (Islamic boarding school) and religious education bill that would allow the government to allocate more funds to pesantren and Quran teachers. On the other hand, Prabowos campaign team, which is backed by two Islam-based parties the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the National Mandate Party (PAN) said such a test was not needed, or if it did happen, the organizers should show evidence that they were experts in reading the Quran. [The organizers] should prove that theyre really qualified. They must have certifications showing that they are capable of reading the Quran, team official Hidayat Nur Wahid, also a PKS senior executive, said. Gerindra Party executive Andre Rosiade claimed that Prabowo, the partys chairman, was not refusing to take the test but was not the type to show off his religious life. The group of Muslim clerics, the Aceh Clerics Council, challenged both tickets to read the Quran in a test set to be held at Baiturrahman Grand Mosque in Banda Aceh on Jan. 15. The group said it had sent invitations for the event to both campaign teams. Separately, the Indonesia Ulema Council (MUI) warned that such a test should be based on agreement between the two camps. If both camps agree to the test, well support it, but if one of them doesnt, then we should not force it to be held, MUI secretary-general Anwar Abbas said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 3, 2019 15:28 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e53cae3 4 Business pertamina,oil-companies,contract,crude-oil,supply Free State-owned oil and gas holding company Pertaminas wish to reduce crude imports is likely to be granted after it signed crude oil supply contracts with 11 oil and gas contractors operating in Indonesia (KKKS). The contract agreements were based on Energy and Mineral Resources Ministerial Regulation No. 42/2018 on domestic utilization priority of crude oil produced in the country. Pertamina media communications manager Arya Dwi Paramita said the company, which was appointed by the government to buy crude oil produced in Indonesia, was ready to absorb the crude oil sold by the oil companies. It is important to reduce imports and meet domestic demand, Arya said in Jakarta on Wednesday as quoted by kontan.co.id. He, however, did not explain the details of the contracts, including the schemes value. Arya said the volume of the contracts were different for each oil company, depending on the bilateral agreement. He stressed that Pertamina respected the business aspect of each company, adding that it wanted to buy as much crude oil as possible from them. The ministrys oil and gas director general, Djoko Siswanto, also declined to elaborate, but he stressed that the volume of contracts was high enough, adding that Pertamina would, for example, buy 90,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) from PT Chevron Pacific Indonesia. If all the companies sold their crude oil to Pertamina, the company could reduce imports by 225,000 bopd, Djoko said. The 11 companies are, RH Petrogas Limited, PT SPR Langgak, PetroChina International Jabung Ltd., Bumi Siak Pusako, PT Chevron Pacific Indonesia, SAKA Pangkah Indonesia Ltd, PT Energi Mega Persada Tonga, Petronas Carigali Ketapang I Ltd, Husky CNOOC Madura Ltd, PT Energi Mega Persada Tbk and PetroChina International (Bermuda) Ltd. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 3, 2019 13:51 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e533535 4 Business Palapa-Ring,broadband,project,Rudiantara,speedtest Free Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara held on Wednesday a speed test on the central package of the Palapa Ring broadband project, the construction of which was completed on Dec. 21. During the speed test, Rudiantara made a video call from Muhajirin Baru village, Morotai regency in North Maluku with Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Minister Eko Putro Sandjojo, who was in Jakarta. Imagine that in the near future, the village minister can communicate directly with three village heads simply through cellular phone. It is the rapid development of technology that we could utilize, said Rudiantara in a statement. Rudiantara also made another video call with Raden Dradjad Air Force base commander Air Force Col. Prasetiya Halim, who was in Ranai, Natuna, Riau Islands. Prasetiya made the call through the west package of the Palapa Ring broadband project. Rudiantara said the development of the communication infrastructure by the ministrys Telecommunications and Information Accessibility Agency (Bakti) would complement infrastructure owned by operators. Operators usually focus on the areas that are feasible from a business point of view, while Bakti focuses on the areas that are not feasible, Rudi added. Bakti infrastructure director Bambang Noegroho said the broadband project was aimed at expanding peoples access to the internet and other communication technology. He said the capacity of the central ring reached 100 gigabytes per second, while the capacity of the Morotai Terminal Station reached up to 40 megabytes per second (Mbps) and the capacity in areas close to the Morotai City Park reached up to 30 Mbps from the initial speed of only 2 Mbps. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Agnes Anya and Dian Septiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 3 2019 Indonesias forays into public diplomacy last year were met with mixed results, as the Foreign Ministry sought to level up the countrys reputation on the global stage while at the same time reach out to grassroots groups to provide a better understanding of its foreign policy. The government pledged last year that, as a rising middle power and member of the G20, Indonesia would embrace its new role as a donor country of foreign aid through the forthcoming Indonesian Aid agency, which is expected to oversee an endowment fund of up to Rp 1 trillion (US$68.4 million). But Jakarta missed its self-imposed target to conclude all the legal scrubbing required to establish the agency and its aid disbursement scheme, having met challenges in bureaucracy and an overlap in existing regulations on grants. Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi announced the Indonesian Aid agen... Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 3, 2019 15:11 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e53cabd 4 Politics KPU,#2019GeneralElections,#2019PresidentialElection,hoax,lies,police,cyber-crime Free The General Elections Commission (KPU) has reported fake news propagators to the police after misinformation about seven containers of cast ballots from China for presidential candidate pair Joko Widodo-Ma'ruf Amin caused uproar over the internet. It was reported to the Cyber Crime Police and we were about to report it to the National Police, KPU commisioner Ilham Saputra said on Thursday as quoted by Antara. He said that on Wednesday evening until early Thursday, the KPU and the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) went to Tanjung Priok Port in North Jakarta in response to a rumor that the ballot containers were located there. After checking, we confirmed that the information was incorrect. There were no containers of cast ballots, he said. KPU chairman Arief Budiman also asked the police to track and arrest people who had spread the false information. People who disturbed our elections must be arrested, we will fight for it, Arief said. Ilham said the KPU had not started printing ballots yet. The commission will start printing ballots in mid-January. Indonesia will have 192.84 million people on the electoral roll for the 2019 simultaneous legislative and presidential elections, according to the final voter list. The 192.84 million consists of 190.8 million domestic voters and 2 million overseas voters, an increase of about 2 million from the final voter list in the 2014 general election. The number of men and women voters is roughly equal, at around 95 million each. The commission noted that they had distributed 4,060,079 ballot boxes and 2,115,899 voting booths across the country as of December. (ggq/evi) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 3, 2019 14:22 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e536377 1 World #UnitedNations,#Indonesia,Indonesia,begins,role,UNSC-non-permanent-seat Free Indonesian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dian Triansyah Djani raised the Indonesian flag on Wednesday New York time at the UN headquarters in New York, officially marking the commencement of Indonesia's non-permanent membership at the UN Security Council (UNSC). The membership, which lasts from Jan. 1, 2019 to Dec. 31, 2020, is the fourth time for Indonesia, which was on the council from 1973 to 1974, 1995 to 1996 and 2007 to 2008. In June last year, Indonesia was elected a UNSC non-permanent member after it gained support from 144 of 193 UN member states. "The magnitude of support is an indication of the trust the international community places in Indonesias diplomacy and foreign policy, which are independent and actively play a role in maintaining world peace, Dian said in a statement on Thursday. As a member of the Security Council, this year Indonesia along with 14 other countries will take part in the formulation of policies to maintain international peace and security according to its mandate in the UN Charter. The other countries are the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, Kuwait, South Africa, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Peru and the Dominican Republic. Dian was appointed on Jan. 1 the chairperson of the UNSC committee on resolution 1580 on weapons of mass destruction, as well as of the sanctions committee related to terrorism, namely UNSC 1267 resolution sanctions committee. He also chairs the sanctions committee for UNSC 1988. (agn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Dian Septiari and Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 3, 2019 09:58 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e526c46 1 World scholarship-program,study-abroad,Taiwan,Tsai-Ing-wen,Foreign-Affairs-Ministry,forced-labors,university,students Free The government has asked Taiwanese authorities to explain allegations of forced labor involving Indonesian students enrolled in its New Southbound Policy (NSP) scholarship program. The NSP is an initiative of the Taiwanese administration under leader Tsai Ing-wen. It aims to enhance cooperation and exchanges with 18 countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Australasia. According to Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, the Foreign Ministrys director for the protection of Indonesian citizens and legal entities abroad, his office had asked the Indonesian Economic and Trade Office (IETO) in Taiwan to follow up on complaints by students regarding the circumstances of their college internships that started in 2017, alleging they were placed in forced labor schemes. The government, through the Trade Ministry, has asked the IETO to further investigate the wellbeing of the students enrolled in the college internship scheme and make sure that local authorities take the necessary concrete steps to protect their interests and safety, Iqbal said in a statement on Wednesday. Last week, Taiwanese media reported lawmaker Ko Chih-en from the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) as saying that at least six universities were found to have assigned students under the NSP program to manual labor positions in Taiwanese factories. In one case, 300 students under the age of 20 who were enrolled at Hsing Wu Technology University in New Taipei Citys Linkou district were only allowed to go to class two days a week and have one day of rest, while working the remaining four days at a factory, where they packaged 30,000 contact lenses for 10 hours per shift, Ko was quoted as saying. Iqbal said the Foreign Ministry had asked the IETO to coordinate with local authorities to temporarily halt the recruitment and sending of students under the scheme until they are guaranteed better conditions. According to the investigation results by the IETO, it was revealed that the situation faced by participating students [...] varied among the eight universities that host them, he said. The report said the students had come to attend special international classes at Taiwans Department of Information Management in October last year, and that the Ministry of Education (MOE) had prohibited internships for first-year college students. However, universities reportedly arranged for the students to work in a group despite the ban. Separately, Hsing Wu University issued its own protest calling all parties involved to create a good environment for international students so they could feel warmth of friendship between Taiwan and Indonesia through the NSP scheme. Through a Mandarin press release translated into Bahasa Indonesia, the university denied ever forcing the Indonesian students to work in factories, saying the program syllabus had been reviewed by its partner school in Indonesia, as well as the Bangka administration from which the students originated. It further claimed that students were allowed to work no more than 20 hours per week in groups, in accordance with labor and health procedures. The students have never been exploited, and it does not make sense for them to put out 30 thousand labels 10 hours per day, it said in the statement, a copy of which The Jakarta Post obtained. All [work] is recorded in an attendance report and backed by salary slips received during work. The university also said that recent coverage of the issue had damaged the reputation of the companies involved, even as they had to agree to take in the students for free. Taiwanese officials have yet to comment directly on the issue. The Foreign Ministry estimated that 6,000 Indonesians study in Taiwan, and as many as 1,000 are enrolled in the college-internship scheme at eight universities for the 2017-2018 period. It is estimated that the number of Indonesian students in Taiwan will continue to increase along with the New Southbound Policy, which provides more scholarships through various schemes to students from 18 Asian countries, including Indonesia, Iqbal said. This article was originally published in The Jakarta Post's print edition on Jan. 3, 2019, with the title "RI seeks answers to forced labor allegations". Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 3 2019 Five pleasure craft went missing from the eastern beach of Untung Jawa Island in South Thousand Islands on Monday an occurrence police say is common on the island. The three banana boats and two donut boats, belonged to residents running tourism businesses. South Thousand Islands Police chief Adj. Comr. Budi Hastono said such occurrences were common in the area. We are still looking for the perpetrators. We think the perpetrators are working in a group, as boat theft is common in Thousand Islands, Budi said on Tuesday, as quoted by kompas.com. Agung, who was in charge of managing banana boats on the beach, reported the theft of two banana boats and one donut boat to police when he found they were not in their storage room. Another victim, Yusran, found his banana boat and donut boat had been deflated in their storage room. As a res... Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 3, 2019 12:02 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e52d01a 4 Business franchise,limitation,removal,Trade-Ministry Free The government plans to revoke the limitation on the number of franchise outlets of convenience stores as well as food and beverage outlets to accelerate investment in retail business. But the Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) warns that such a policy could affect local retail business, including small shops. In the revision, there will no longer be a limitation. It is to accelerate investment, said Trade Ministry business and distributors supervision director I Gusti Ketut Astawa on Wednesday as quoted by kontan.co.id. Under Trade Ministerial Regulation No. 68/2012 on franchise for convenience stores, outlets are limited to only 150. If a company wants to open more outlets, they should be managed through a franchise scheme, with the maximum number of franchise outlets at 40 percent. Meanwhile, food and beverage outlets were ruled under Trade Ministerial Regulation No. 7/2013 on partnership development. Each company can have a maximum of 250 outlets, while the maximum number of franchise outlets is 40 percent for a maximum investment of Rp 10 billion (US$690,585) and 30 percent for investment of more than Rp 10 billion. Indonesian Retailers Association (Aprindo) secretary general Solihin supported the government policy. He even pushed the government to remove all limitations for outlet establishments. However, Apindo deputy chairman Shinta Widjaja Kamdani warned the government that such a policy could kill local retail outlets. The elimination of such a limitation should be implemented carefully so that it does not kill local retail outlets, because they will face more tough competition, Shinta said as quoted by kontan.co.id. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 3, 2019 09:19 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e5241b0 1 City Google,Google-Maps,motorcycle,safety,Transportation,urban,urban-kampung Free These days, it is almost unthinkable to leave home without Google Maps. Jakartas traffic-weary motorists rely on the application to find the best routes possible while drivers of ride-hailing services use it for the quickest way to get from point A to B. In March 2018, Google Maps launched a new feature designed to help motorcyclists find the least-clogged shortcuts, which most of the time, cut through some of the most crowded neighborhoods and slums of Jakarta. The new feature, called #RuteKhususMotor (Special Motorbike Route) may have been a godsend for motorbike drivers, but it has added to the headache of those who actually live in the neighborhoods that have seen a spike in traffic. In one of these neighborhoods, locals got fed up by the worsening traffic and decided to take action. In Kota Bambu Selatan, West Jakarta, motorcycles have invaded the narrow Jl. Ori which has a width of an adults outstretched arms to avoid traffic congestion and take a shortcut to Slipi, Kemanggisan and Tomang. Nanik Setyawati, 47, who has been living in the neighborhood for 21 years, said the alleyway was a favorite alternative route for motorcyclists, especially on Saturday nights. Conditions have deteriorated so drastically in recent months that locals are now worried. Motorbikes come from every direction, just to get to the main roads. This is the most crowded alley [in the area]. Now, housewives of the neighborhood would stand guard and remind motorcyclists to slow down because we have many children playing around here, Nanik said. Motorcyclist Putrika Santika, who relocated to Jakarta from Surabaya, East Java, in September last year, said Google Maps mostly recommended narrow alleyways for her to get to her office in Mega Kuningan from her boarding house in Radio Dalam, South Jakarta. When using a ride-hailing app, Putrika found that drivers always picked shortcuts recommended by Google Maps, which involved traveling though narrow alleyways and back roads. She also found that motorcyclists in Jakarta tended to ignore the safety of those living in these neighborhoods. There is a stark difference between Jakarta and Surabaya. In Surabaya, there are many kampungs that put up signs ordering motorcyclists to get off their bikes and walk in the alley. I always did that in Surabaya, but I have never seen such a thing in Jakarta, Putrika said. App-based driver Tato Suprapto, 33, said it was usual for drivers such as himself to go through alleyways, even though they were fully aware of the dangers involved. I usually take kampung roads in Tanah Abang [Central Jakarta], where traffic is severe. Of course its dangerous, especially with children who have nowhere to play but in these alleys. Motorcyclists have to be aware of this when taking alternative routes, he said. Indonesias country director for the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, Yoga Adiwinarto, said residents of such cramped neighborhoods, who play no role in causing traffic congestion, had been turned into victims. To ease congestion in crowded neighborhoods, Yoga urged Google Indonesia to stop recommending small alleyways through Google Maps. The function of these kampung roads is different from that of main roads. The former are meant to accommodate pedestrians and provide residents with public space, he said. Google Indonesia communications manager Feliciana Wienathan said all the traffic data provided by Google Maps was accumulated through third-party providers, public sources and even the users themselves. She said the users themselves could fix any problems they come across on the application. We realize that there might be inaccuracies in the data provided by these sources, so we ask our users to help us continuously update the data with the provided Report a Problem link on the bottom-right corner of the map, Feliciana told The Jakarta Post. She said the feature would allow users to suggest an edit and add missing places on the map. (ars) This article was originally published in The Jakarta Post's print edition on Jan. 3, 2019, with the title "Google Maps blamed for clogged alleyways". Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ni Komang Erviani (The Jakarta Post) Denpasar, Bali Thu, January 3, 2019 16:20 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e53e5b6 1 National #Bali,#Crime,Bulgarians,arrested,ATM,Scam Free Police have apprehended four Bulgarians for their alleged involvement in skimming bank card data at several ATMs in Denpasar, Bali. Bali Police spokesperson Hengky Widjaja said the suspects, identified only as KDY, VRG, VKN and VVC, were arrested after an intensive coordination between the police and banks in Denpasar, after an increasing number of ATM skimming cases. Hengky said the investigation started when they found a suspicious tool at an ATM of state-owned bank BNI in The Shining Jewel restaurant on Jl. Danau Tamblingan, Sanur, Denpasar. He said police then found a camera attached inside the cover of the keypad, and the CCTV camera in the ATM booth had been destroyed. On Dec 21, police officers nabbed KDY and VRG, who came to the scene to change the keypad cover. The police then arrested the other suspects in their rented house in Sanur, seizing a laptop, which had data related to the crime. Hengky said the suspects allegedly stole money from ATMs by recording people entering their PIN numbers by planting cameras in the keypad covers. He did not mention the amount of stolen money. "The suspects will be charged under the Electronic Information and Transactions Law," Hengky said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 3, 2019 12:58 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e531756 1 City jakarta,Fire-and-Rescue-Agency,fire-engine,fire-incidents Free A fire destroyed nine homes, eight of which were tenements, in Tugu Utara subdistrict, Koja district, North Jakarta, on Wednesday evening. No casualties were reported in the incident, while material losses have yet to be determined. The fire was reportedly triggered by a short circuit in a house that was vacant at the time of the incident," Koja Police criminal unit head Adj. Comr. Andry Suharto said as reported by kompas.com. Twelve fire trucks were deployed to extinguish the fire. (ars) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) The Hague, Netherlands Thu, January 3, 2019 08:48 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e5219a1 2 World #Netherlands,#migrants,Netherlands,accepts,Immigrants,ship Free The Netherlands announced Wednesday it was prepared to welcome some of the 32 migrants waiting to disembark from a Dutch-flagged vessel in the Mediterranean, if other countries did the same. "The Netherlands has indicated a readiness to possibly take in a proportional number of migrants who are on board Sea-Watch 3, on condition that other European countries do the same," said security and justice ministry spokesman Lennart Wegewijs. And late Wednesday, Malta's navy announced that authorities would allow two German NGO ships -- the Sea-Watch 3 and Sea-Eye -- carrying migrants to "take shelter" in Maltese waters due to the deteriorating conditions on board. The Dutch had at first joined Italy, Malta and Spain in refusing to accept the migrants who were rescued on December 22 by Sea-Watch 3, which is operated by a German charity. The 32 migrants on the Sea-Watch 3 who were plucked from a makeshift boat in international waters, include three young children, three unaccompanied adolescents and four women from Nigeria, Libya and Ivory Coast. The Sea-Eye has been stranded in the Mediterranean with 17 migrants on board. In Berlin, a government spokesman said Saturday that Germany would only accept some of the migrants if other European countries also agreed to do so. Meanwhile Spanish coastguards reported Wednesday they had rescued 401 migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean over the first two days of the new year. The news comes just days after a charity rescue vessel carrying 311 mainly African migrants plucked off the coast of Libya docked in Spain, ending a traumatic journey which saw them spend Christmas at sea. With Italian ports closed to migrants by the Rome government since June, Spain has become a leading destination. A spokeswoman for Spain's coastguards told AFP they had rescued 111 migrants on Tuesday. She added 290 more were saved on Wednesday, and coastguards were searching for another boat in distress. More than 1,300 migrants died trying to reach Italy or Malta via the central Mediterranean last year, according to the International Organization for Migration. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Heba Kanso (Thomson Reuters Foundation) Beirut, Lebanon Thu, January 3, 2019 11:11 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e52bf68 2 World #SaudiArabia,#HumanRightsAbuse,UK,parliament,members,lawyers,visit,detained,Women,activists Free A group of British parliamentarians and lawyers urgently want to investigate allegations of torture, sexual harassment and threats of rape of detained female human rights defenders in Saudi Arabia, they said in a letter to the kingdom on Wednesday. Over a dozen women's rights activists have been arrested since May, most of whom had campaigned for the right to drive and an end to the kingdom's male guardianship system, though some have since been freed. The ban on women driving has since been removed, but the women arrested have remained in detention. In November Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accused Saudi Arabia of subjecting some of the female activists to torture and sexual harassment - allegations denied by a Saudi official to Reuters. British parliamentarians and lawyers formed the group Detention Review Panel and submitted a letter to the Saudi ambassador to Britain requesting to investigate the allegations, and review the women's health conditions and rights. "We hope to speak with the detainees and ascertain from them directly the manner in which they have been treated - that includes the physical and psychological treatment, and access to fair trial rights," said human rights lawyer Tayab Ali. "Ultimately, we hope the detainees are released as soon as possible," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from London. A group of United Nations experts in October called for the immediate release of six female human rights defenders it said were still being held incommunicado in the kingdom. In December sources told Reuters that one of the detained activists was subjected to kissing, groping and electrocution, and was threatened with rape. The allegations come at a time when Saudi is facing an international outcry over the killing in October of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. "After Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia's reputation adhering to human rights and international standards of accountability are at an all time low," said Ali. "This panel presents Saudi with the unique opportunity to regain some credibility with their intention in regards to their aim of reform, and their adherence to human rights." Last June the Saudi government ended the decades-old ban on women driving cars as part of a bid to open up Saudis' cloistered lifestyles - and also lure investment from the outside world. But while many hailed the end of the ban on women driving as proof of a new progressive trend, it has been accompanied by a crackdown on dissent. The Detention Review Panel requested an "urgent response" from the Saudi ambassador by January 9. Saudi officials could not immediately be reached for comment. Netflix drew fire from human rights activists Wednesday after agreeing to block an episode of a satirical comedy show from its service in Saudi Arabia over comments critical of the kingdom and its crown prince. In the episode of "Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj," the American-born Muslim lashed out at the kingdom over the October killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Minhaj specifically criticized Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been blamed for the killing, and was also critical of the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen. The move by Netflix to block the show was widely denounced by rights groups including Amnesty International, which warned it risks further eroding freedom of expression in Saudi Arabia. Minhaj himself weighed in on Twitter with a jab at Netflix -- and an appeal for humanitarian relief in Yemen, where Saudi bombings have taken a toll in the ongoing civil war. "Clearly, the best way to stop people from watching something is to ban it, make it trend online, and then leave it up on YouTube," the comedian said. "Let's not forget that the world's largest humanitarian crisis is happening in Yemen right now. Please donate." The streaming giant said it was required to take down the episode after Saudi authorities said it violated the country's cybercrime statute. The episode can still be seen in other parts of the world -- and in Saudi Arabia on YouTube. No free expression Netflix said the Saudi request was made under Article 6 of the law, which states that "production, preparation, transmission, or storage of material impinging on public order, religious values, public morals, and privacy, through the information network or computers" is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine up to $800,000. "We strongly support artistic freedom worldwide and removed this episode only in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal request -- and to comply with local law," a Netflix spokeswoman said in a statement Tuesday. But Samah Hadid, Amnesty's Middle East campaigns director, was scathing. Read also: Netflix drops satire episode critical of Saudi Arabia "Saudi Arabia's censorship of Netflix... is further proof of a relentless crackdown on freedom of expression in the kingdom," Hadid said. "By bowing to the Saudi Arabian authorities' demands, Netflix is in danger of facilitating the kingdom's zero-tolerance policy on freedom of expression and assisting the authorities in denying people's right to freely access information." Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch likewise warned that "Netflix's claim to support artistic freedom means nothing if it bows to demands of government officials who believe in no freedom for their citizens - not artistic, not political, not comedic." 'Quite outrageous' In December, the US Senate approved two symbolic resolutions blaming Prince Mohammed for the killing of Khashoggi, after intelligence reports pointed in that direction, and urging an end to US participation in the Yemen war. In October, the press freedom watchdog group Reporters Without Borders ranked Saudi Arabia as 169th out of 180 countries for press freedom, adding that "it will very probably fall even lower in the 2019 index because of the gravity of the violence and abuses of all kinds against journalists." After releasing its annual study of global internet freedom, another watchdog, Freedom House, said in November that Saudi Arabia was among those employing "troll armies" to manipulate social media and, in many cases, drown out the voices of dissidents. Minhaj, 33, has seen his profile rise steadily in recent years. His routines combine personal history and pointed political commentary wrapped in edgy topical humor. In 2014, he became senior correspondent on Comedy Central's popular "The Daily Show," and in 2017 was the featured speaker at the White House Correspondents' dinner. "Patriot Act" debuted in October 2018. Interpol, the worlds largest international police organization, has carried out a global investigation into marine pollution crime, and identified more than 500 offenses. Interpols operation, code-named 30 Days at Sea, was initiated in response to a call to increase international enforcement against environmental crime. More than 5,200 inspections were carried out, identifying waste crimes and administrative violations in 84 countries and territories around the world. More than 500 offenses were identified, including discharges of oil, shipbreaking, pollution of rivers, land-based run off to the ocean and more. At least 185 investigations have arisen from the campaign; which are expected to result in arrests and prosecutions. Criminals believe marine pollution is a low-risk crime with no real victims. This is a mistake and one which Interpol and our partners are addressing as demonstrated by this operation, said Interpol secretary-general Jurgen Stock. The extensive operation involved 276 law enforcement and environmental agencies across 58 countries and included a global network of 122 national coordinators; from border agencies to police forces, customs authorities and more. Marine pollution creates health hazards worldwide, which undermine sustainable development and requires a multi-agency, multi-sector cooperative response within a solid global security architecture, said the Interpol chief. Innovative technologies were used to detect offenses, including employing satellite images (in Argentina and Sweden), aerial surveillance (Canada and Italy) and night vision cameras. Drones were also used, including in Indonesia. Notable offenses included the dumping of animal farm waste in Philippine coastal waters where local communities harvest shellfish and children play. A vessel in Germany was identified as discharging 600 liters of palm oil into the sea. Illicit waste sites and waste trade routes were identified around the world, and Europe was involved in the majority of cases of waste trafficking, confirming the key role of this region in the illicit waste business. Indonesia was reported as having committed administrative violations as an importer of waste but was not reported as committing other violations. Plastic waste was one of the waste types found in illicit waste sites and trade routes, including hazardous plastic scraps, reminding people of the need to reduce plastic use and ensure its correct disposal. This comes at a time when Indonesian cities are focused on banning single-use plastic bags. It is imperative that waste crimes affecting the ocean are tackled to protect assets such as coral reefs from degradation. Coral reef tourism is a billion dollar industry and 30 percent of the worlds reefs are valuable for tourism activities such as scuba diving. Indonesia is home to a number of world-class scuba diving destinations that need to be protected for generations to come and to ensure the continuation of this valuable industry. While the results of the operation paint a harsh picture of marine pollution, the former UN Environment executive director Erik Solheim has said the issue of illegal marine pollution is one that global communities may be able to solve in the next decade. But we need the help of our law enforcement partners to make sure that there is no impunity for the perpetrators of marine pollution crime, added Solheim. "This is why law enforcement must team up on a global scale to build strong international links with specialized experts, so we can tackle this devastating crime while ensuring a healthier, safer planet for all," responded Europol Pperations Directorate deputy executive director Wil van Gemert. The investigation has been followed by an awareness campaign with UN Environment to illustrate the impact marine pollution has on economic development, plus human and environmental security. Look for the hashtags #PollutionCrime, #30DaysatSeaand #CleanSeasto find out more. (kes) *** The author is a diver and writer for LiveAboard.com Korean-American actor Daniel Henney has donated a total of 200 million won ($178,000) to the Community Chest of Korea. His donation exceeds the 100 million won needed to qualify to become a member of the Honor Society of the charity organization. The Community Chest said Henneys contributions will be delivered to the Purme Foundation, Seungil Hope Foundation, Pearl S. Buck Foundation and Plan Korea to help people in need. Read also: Movie star Chow Yun-fat to give entire fortune to charity I hope my donation will help formulate a philanthropic culture. I will do my best to be an exemplary actor in the scene, he said. Henney debuted as an actor in 2005 on the TV series My Lovely Sam Soon. He donated to fire victims, disabled children rehabilitation facilities and multiple nongovernmental organizations last year. She is turning 60 this year and still doesn't have a single wrinkle. Blonde or brunette, slender or curvy, black or white, princess or president, Barbie is a forever favorite for young girls, even if she has caused controversy over the years. The iconic doll has evolved to keep up with the times -- check out her Twitter feed. And despite fierce competition in the toy industry, 58 million Barbies are sold each year in more than 150 countries. "In an industry where success today is three to five years, 60 years is a huge deal!" said Nathan Baynard, director of global brand marketing for Barbie. Around the world, Barbie is as universally known as Coca-Cola or McDonald's, Baynard said during a recent visit to Mattel's design studio in El Segundo, a suburb of Los Angeles. In all, more than one billion Barbie dolls have been sold since she made her debut at the American Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959. She was invented by Ruth Handler, the co-founder of Mattel, who was inspired by her own children to create the doll. "Her daughter Barbara was limited in the choices of her toys -- the only ones were baby dolls," Baynard recounted. "The only role she could imagine through that play was caregiver, mother," whereas Handler's son "could imagine being an astronaut, cowboy, pilot, surgeon." Barbie is, of course, a shortened version of Barbara. Read also: Mattel Indonesia launches Barbie Batik Kirana for younger generation The doll was supposed to teach girls "that they had choices, that they could be anything. In 1959, it was a radical idea!" Baynard said. Barbie was an instant success. In the first year, 300,000 dolls were sold, he added. Unattainable ideal? Stylist Carlyle Nuera works on fashion for Barbie doll prototypes at a workshop in the Mattel design center as the iconic doll turns 60, in El Segundo, on December 7, 2018. (AFP/Mark Ralston) From the start, Barbie's pinup measurements didn't immediately seem all that feminist, and would spark criticism for decades to come. "In 1959, her body structure was exaggerated to match the aesthetics of the time and the fabric available," said Barbie designer Carlyle Nuera. Since the blonde beauty first hit stores, and after a torrent of complaints over what was seen as unrealistic proportions, Mattel has made many changes -- introducing multiple body types and dozens of skin tones. MG Lord, author of "Forever Barbie," also argued that the original criticisms were unwarranted. "She is what the child wants her to be. How a child sees the Barbie doll is often framed by how the mother of that child feels about the idea of femininity," Lord told AFP. "The problem here is not an 11.5-inch plastic object. The problem is the larger culture and the idea of femininity." In 1965, four years before Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon, Barbie became an astronaut. In 1968, the first black Barbie doll, a friend named Christie, hit store shelves. Lisa McKnight, senior vice president and global general manager for the Barbie brand, said that today, 55 percent of the dolls sold around the world have neither blonde hair nor blue eyes. Mattel has more than 100 people working in the El Segundo design studio, a massive hangar-like building wedged between Los Angeles International Airport and a freeway. Designers begin with a simple sketch. From there on, every bit of a prototype is made by an army of experts -- from sculpting the doll using state-of-the-art software and 3D printing to painting the face, styling the hair, choosing fabrics and crafting the clothing patterns. The entire design process for a new Barbie can last 12 to 18 months. Then, the prototype is sent from the California workshop to factories in China and Indonesia for mass production. "Sometimes, you see her on a shelf and then it gets back to you: oh yes, I designed this one!" Nuera said with a smile. Instagram photo shoots A designer works on a Barbie doll prototype at a workshop in the Mattel design center as the iconic doll turns 60, in El Segundo, on December 7, 2018. (AFP/Mark Ralston) Barbie is not only a toy store success -- she has a massive social media presence, and is something of an "influencer," with millions of followers. She has an actual identity: Barbie Millicent Roberts, who hails from the made-up town of Willows in the Midwest. Read also: Barbie dolls will now look like the sheroes we look up to And now, she speaks directly to girls about her life, and important current topics. In 2018, the brand launched a sweeping campaign to help young girls close the so-called "Dream Gap" -- using Barbie to teach them to believe in themselves, and not to buy into sexist gender stereotypes. Barbie has a hair stylist, makeup artist and photographer who travel with her "for real" in the United States and abroad for Instagram photo sessions (check out @barbiestyle). The account has nearly two million followers. So, does Barbie have it all as she hits 60, but remains forever young, still single and without kids (so far)? "The narrative of the Barbie brand is that she's a young woman and she's independent and pursuing careers," McKnight said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Dirga Ardiansa (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 3, 2019 13:04 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e5322e5 3 Opinion politics,data-analytics,database,government,election Free Statistical data began to be used in political science as a basis for decision making in the late 1940s and early 1950s in North America, along with the emergence of behavioral approaches that relied on statistics and quantitative methods to analyze patterns of human behavior. This was triggered by the failure of political science to contribute in anticipating the emergence of fascism that led to world war. Post-world war, donor agencies such as Carnegie, Rockefeller and Ford provided much support for various studies of peoples behavior in various political situations. The hope was that political science could contribute to public policy by relying on data based on reality, as scholars Albert Somit and Joseph Tanenhaus wrote in 1967. This support raises a lot of policy institute conducted research about policy based on empirical data. Previously, political science was considered to be too focused on political institutions to produce only regulations on authority and duties, but missed understanding what was happening in society and what policies were right to be issued to respond to it. Much research has been done and data collected to study peoples preferences to formulate a strategy for winning elections. The political behavior approach that relies on data is eventually narrowing because the data collected is used only for the benefit of the political elite. Before an election, a survey is conducted to win public office and after the election, a survey is conducted to measure the legitimacy and level of public trust. In the 1960s, the emergence of movements that demanded equality (left, feminist and pluralism movements) voiced the issue of inequality and socio-economic inequality and voicing related to class issues, as a response to the implications of various policies by established institutions. The American Political Science Association has responded to the crisis of scientific relevance; political science has often stuttered in the face of cultural resistance, economic inequality and issues of social upheaval related to racial discrimination and equality between men and women. The demands of transparency and accountability for the government encourage discourse on open data and open government. In the United States this has been encouraged since the Freedom of Information Act was implemented in 1966, according to Harlan Yu and David Robinson. Indonesia is in the process of going through the same stages as North America. In the 20 years since the Reform Era, political science in Indonesia still has difficulty contributing to solving political problems and policy making. The biggest contribution of political scientists in Indonesia is still electoral issues and voting behavior. Society is often the subject of measurement and contributes to data collection, without understanding what is really happening. Political data collected from the community will lead to two uses: formulating a winning strategy in elections or forming public opinion to gain legitimacy. From these two things, Indonesians experience a form of data exploitation. Data is collected from them without being able to participate, using it to voice interests or criticize policies. Policymakers still rely on intuitions and are often bias in adopting a policy. Political science lags far behind economic science in the use of data for public policy. Data always depends on who uses it and for what purpose. To bring control, access to data and political participation must be opened. The scholar Tiago Peixoto in 2013 raised two preconditions for how data can encourage accountability and political participation to influence political policy. First, publicity and accessibility of data to the public. As a consequence of collecting data from society, society should be able to utilize the data collected to voice its interests. Second, the need for encouragement and collaboration from third parties, namely political agents (civil society, political activists, technology-based application developers and various media platforms) to present various rival data from public participation to influence political policy. At present, data is everywhere and can be collected by anyone. Data is a matter of interpreting meaning, so it requires a widespread public participation process, so that there is no single meaning and dominates the truth. Yu and Robinson in 2012 wrote on the ambiguity of new government, saying that the challenge in the era of data utilization technology, the government must not only be transparent about data but also encourage open data so that it can become a force for public control. Open data makes existing data and information easy to be processed, analyzed, and criticized by the public. It also helps facilitate the government in creating good public services. Data transparency by open government is assumed to have an impact on at least two things. First, encouraging better public services. Second, encouraging community participation to use data to criticize and control the government. However, according to Peixoto, since the initial discourse on open data and government, at the end of the 1960s until 50 years later with such sophisticated technological developments, societies have only been able to achieve data and information openness (transparency) and have not been able to encourage the use of data for political participation and public control over the policy making process (accountability). Criticism of open data and governance in political systems with behavioral approaches is that the political elite and policy makers use data to justify and legitimize their policies without encouraging discourse in society. Without political participation there is no control over the policy even though it is claimed to be based on empirical data and evidence. *** The writer is a statistician at Cakra Wikara Indonesia, an NGO on social and political studies, and a political scientist at the University of Indonesia (UI). Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Oryza Astari (The Jakarta Post) Washington, D.C. Thu, January 3, 2019 15:04 893 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e53bab3 3 Opinion Istiqlal-Mosque,pluralism,Sukarno,religious-tolerance,Pancasila,#2019PresidentialElection,2019-presidential-election Free Growing up in Indonesia, I attended one of the most prestigious Islamic schools in Greater Jakarta. In kindergarten, I won a contest in reciting a verse from the Quran. I was also the student who got into trouble for having parents who brought doughnuts decorated with candles for her birthday celebration at school. Candles, my teacher said, were a Christian custom. It was the early 2000s. Despite my Islam-leaning education, I grew up in a multi-faith community. My closest friends in the neighborhood were of diverse Christian faiths and my American uncle is an Irish Catholic. I did not know what all the fuss was about. I simply wanted to celebrate my birthday with friends. As far as I was concerned, candles were a universally-accepted way of celebrating another year of life. Later I realized that what I had experienced while I was only five years old was among the early signs of the decline in our state ideology Pancasila, from which we have learnt respect for diversity. Such signs peaked into events leading to the imprisonment of former Jakarta governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama for blasphemy following his loss in last years Jakartas gubernatorial race, widely recognized by the international community as a major setback to Indonesias democracy. As Indonesia prepares for the upcoming 2019 presidential and legislative elections, lets all remember one of Indonesias most important monuments: the Istiqlal Mosque in the heart of the capital, a symbol of first president Sukarnos wish for a burgeoning democracy back in the 1950s. Despite Indonesias historical ties with Islam, it did not declare itself as an Islamic state upon independence from Dutch colonial rule in 1945 Sukarno chose Pancasila as the new nations ideological and philosophical foundation. The mosque was named Istiqlal, an Arabic word meaning independence, not only as a place of worship but more importantly to commemorate the nations freedom. To reflect his vision of a multi-faith nation based on the archipelagos diversity, Sukarno deliberately chose to build the mosque near the Jakarta Cathedral to symbolize religious harmony. Both national houses of worship are located in the Merdeka Square area, which symbolizes freedom or independence. In addition, the mosque was designed by Frederich Silaban, a Christian architect of Batak ethnic group in North Sumatra. To mainstream Muslims, the mosque stands as a symbol of their faith and of Pancasila. The mosque has seven entrances, seven being a divine number in the Abrahamic religions: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. While it is first and foremost a house of worship for Muslims, its location across the Cathedral symbolizes religious harmony. During Christmas mass, the mosques parking lot is used by the Cathedrals congregation, and vice-versa during Idul Fitri prayers. In Pancasila, all five pillars conform to the fundamental teachings of Islam: faith in God, humanity, unity, democracy and social justice. Further, Pancasila embraces diversity and plurality of ethnicity, culture, and faith. Evidently the mosque was built not just for Muslims, but for all Indonesians. That the mosque was commissioned by a president who desired to blend the faiths and philosophies of the nation as a new republic was a commitment worthy of note. While the Istiqlal stands as a symbol of religious plurality and Pancasila, Indonesia still needs much practice as a nation to live up to the message behind the mosque. Clearly candidates for the April elections have not ignored the events of 2017. President Joko Jokowi Widodo chose as his running mate Maruf Amin, then leader of the largest Islamic organization Nahdlatul Ulama and leader of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) who signed the fatwa on Ahoks blasphemy of a Quranic verse. Despite NUs generally moderate outlook, Maruf was infamous for his relatively hardline and controversial views against religious and gender minorities including gays. By picking Maruf, Jokowi is setting the stage for potentially more inflammatory sentiments against minorities, weakening his commitment to religious plurality and thus Pancasila. Meanwhile his rival Prabowo Subianto and his allies have reportedly linked up with Islamist groups who earlier mobilized against Ahok. His conservative Muslim base gets his message that he will protect their interests; his vice-presidential pick in Sandiaga Uno is also detrimental to Indonesias democratic development. Sandi, as he is called, is well known as one of Indonesias richest politicians with little political experience, despite being former Jakarta deputy governor. How would the duo protect the rights of religious minorities? At its current state, Indonesias 2019 presidential race already shows a significant rollback of democratic values. However, there is still hope. Two weeks before I flew to Jakarta from Washington for my first winter holiday in Indonesia, I saw a former classmate who now wears a hijab, singing in a Christmas concert as part of a multi-faith university choir. I saw multiple friends in Jakarta in ugly Christmas sweater parties. When I arrived in Jakarta, Its Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas was playing on the radio, as we drove away from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport to streets lined with Christmas lights and decorations. This was not the Jakarta I knew in the early 2000s. This is the Jakarta that president Sukarno had envisioned through Pancasila. We ought to remember his wishes as symbolized in the Istiqlal Mosque built across the Cathedral those of us who are part of the Muslim majority standing in front of and alongside our brothers and sisters in the margins who express their faiths differently. As the elections loom closer, as moderate Muslims in a secular nation it is our duty to protect the rights of the religious minorities and ensure a democratic Indonesia. *** The writer is an Indonesian-American masters in international affairs scholar at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. She studies United States foreign policy and international law, focusing on Southeast Asia. She works at the US House of Representatives and is a fellow at Mothership Strategies, a progressive digital agency in DC. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. EDWARDSVILLE On the first Segue episode of 2019, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Chancellor Randy Pembrook, Ph.D., welcomes SIU System Interim President J. Kevin Dorsey, MD, Ph.D. Prior to becoming interim president in July 2018, Dorsey served as the provost and dean of the SIU School of Medicine in Springfield for 14 years beginning in 2001. This weeks episode will air at 9 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 6, on WSIE 88.7 FM The Sound and siue.edu/wsie. Dorseys career in medicine began when he earned a bachelors in chemistry and a doctorate in physiological chemistry. He was a postdoctoral fellow in biology at The John Hopkins University and went on to complete an internal medicine residency at the SIU School of Medicine, followed by a two-year rheumatology fellowship at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Dorsey then returned to Carbondale, where he practiced rheumatology and taught medical students. I want to take this opportunity to thank you for stepping in as interim president of the SIU System, Pembrook says. I appreciate what you are doing for SIUE, SIU Carbondale and the School of Medicine. It is great to have you at the helm of our system. People often describe you as having a calming disposition, which has served you well as a doctor and educator, but is a much-needed quality to have in a system leader. To have suddenly jumped into the role as interim president, what have been your priorities in the early months? Pembrook inquires. I knew I needed to calm the waters and get the SIU System back together, stop the fighting, and get everyone to see the advantages of each other, Dorsey says. From my point of view, we are stronger together. As a former dean, provost, faculty member, researcher and clinician, the transition to interim president was certainly challenging for Dorsey. Particularly, his commute from his home in Springfield to the Carbondale campus three to four times a week is the most taxing. Carbondale needs a lot of attention right now, Dorsey says. Edwardsville has things tucked in very well, so Im not around to visit nearly as often. One of the challenges of administration that I have faced is that we are called upon to be the voice of positive encouragement, but also share the difficulties of reality, Pembrook mentions. I tend to prefer the honest, open and realistic view of how things are, but you dont want to leave people hanging. You need to share the plan, where we go from here, because everyone will understandably think the worst, Dorsey says. Though his administrative duties take up a large part of his time, Pembrook mentions that he always makes time to play the piano. He earned both bachelors and masters degrees in music education/piano performance from SIUE in 78 and 80, respectively. When I was living in Carbondale, I had a well-established practice and spent about 60 percent of my time there, and also taught at the University, Dorsey recalls. When I became the dean and moved to Springfield, I wound up not practicing, and the deans job stretched out 14 years. Dorsey still finds joy in teaching rheumatology, but he does not practice medicine any longer. When people enter medical school, they start the process wanting to become doctors and exit medical schools as specialists in very specific fields. At what point in the process do they decide what type of specialist to become, and do we have too many students in one area and not enough students in another? Pembrook inquires. Medical school is four years long, and students decide what to specialize in and complete a residency, which can take three to seven years, Dorsey explains. Then, there is a match process. Students pick out schools and what specialization they would like to pursue. The schools interview the student, and a computer matches them with that school. The issue is that there are more people applying for residencies than there are positions available. Was there a particular professor or patient that influenced your decision to pursue rheumatology as your specialization? Pembrook asks. I felt that I had to be an expert at something, and rheumatology is a subspecialty of internal medicine, which covers all adult illnesses, Dorsey says. That was broad for me, so I wanted to pick something that fascinated me. The diseases in rheumatology were so complex, and I enjoyed that. To hear Pembrook and Dorseys entire conversation, listen to Segue at 9 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 6, on WSIE 88.7 FM The Sound or siue.edu/wsie. SPRINGFIELD Gov. Bruce Rauner has proclaimed January Radon Awareness Month in Illinois to increase awareness about the presence of radon. Radon gas is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that is recognized as the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the United States. Its estimated nearly 1,200 people in Illinois develop radon-related lung cancer each year. Radon related health risks are preventable, said Rauner. Radon can be detected with a simple test and fixed through well-established techniques. With greater awareness we can save lives. The Illinois Emergency Management Agency (IEMA) and the American Lung Association in Illinois (ALAIL) are joining forces in January to increase public awareness of radon risks and ways to reduce radon exposure. IEMA and ALAIL announced today the continuation of a statewide contest that encourages students to use their creative talents to promote radon awareness. Starting today, the American Lung Association will begin accepting submissions for the annual radon poster and video contests. The Illinois Radon Poster Contest is open to students ages 9-14. Entries are due by March 1. Prizes include $200 for first place, $150 for second place and $100 for third place. For more information about the poster contest, visit https://www.lung.org/local-content/illinois/documents/2019-illinois-radon-poster.pdf. High school students can also compete for prizes by participating in the Illinois Radon Video Contest. This contest requires for students to produce a creative 30-second YouTube video about radon. The video submission deadline is March 8. Videos can be created by an individual student, group of students or classroom. Student prizes include $1,000 for first place, $750 for second place, $500 for third place and $250 for seven honorable mention videos. New this year, the winning video may appear on the big screen in local movie theaters across the state. The top 10 videos will also be entered into a most views contest to develop students marketing and outreach skills. Winners will be provided a link to share with their friends. The video with the most views will receive an additional $300. Additionally, the schools of the top three winners will receive $300, $200 and $100 for first, second and third places, respectively. All videos, entry forms and release forms must be submitted by March 8. Details about the video contest are available on the American Lung Association in Illinois (ALAIL) website at https://www.lung.org/local-content/illinois/documents/2019-illinois-radon-video-official-rules.pdf. All contest prizes are funded by a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Both contests are sponsored by IEMA, ALAIL and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5. The top posters and videos from the 2018 contests can be viewed on IEMAs radon website at www.radon.illinois.gov. The website also includes information about radon and lists of licensed measurement and mitigation professionals. Information is also available through IEMAs Radon Hotline at 800-325-1245. GLEN CARBON The Glen Carbon Police Department conducted additional traffic enforcement over the holidays from Dec. 17 to Jan. 2., reminding motorists to drive sober and buckle up as part of the Illinois Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over enforcement effort. The Glen Carbon Police Department joined the Illinois State Police and local law enforcement agencies across Illinois to reduce motor vehicle crashes, injuries, and deaths by arresting impaired drivers and issuing seat belt and other vehicle code violations. EDWARDSVILLE Variety is the theme of $2 Tuesday movies for January at the Wildey Theatre. A Star Wars movie, a classic western, and a classic musical are among the five selections for the month. All of the movies start at 7 p.m. and cost $2. The schedule kicks off with Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Jan. 1. Also known as Stars Wars: Episode V11, the epic space opera is co-produced and directed by J.J. Abrams. The Force Awakens is the first installment of the Star Wars sequel trilogy and the seventh installment of the main Star Wars film franchise. The film stars Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyongo, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Max von Sydow. The Force Awakens is the first Star Wars film not to involve franchise creator George Lucas. Set 30 years after Return of the Jedi, the film follows Rey. Finn and Poe Damerons search for Luke Skywalker and their fight alongside the Resistance, led by General Leia Organa and veterans of the Rebel Alliance, against Kylo Ren and the First Order, a successor to the Galactic Empire. Ill be real honest Im not the most knowledgeable person about Star Wars, but a lot of people love it, and not all of the movies are available to show all the time, Wildey manager Al Canal said. Im kind of excited about it. It will give people a chance to see it again on the big screen. The second Tuesday movie of the month, on Jan. 8, is All That Jazz, the 1979 American musical drama directed by Bob Fosse. The screenplay, by Robert Alan Aurthur and Fosse, is a semi-autobiographical fantasy based on aspects of Fosses life and career as a dancer, choreographer, and director. The film was inspired by Fosses effort to edit his film Lenny while simultaneously staging the 1975 Broadway musical Chicago. In response to requests for showing more musicals, the Wildey will present one of the classics of the genre, My Fair Lady, on Jan. 15. My Fair Lady is a 1964 American musical drama adapted from the Lerner and Loewe stage musical based on the 1913 stage play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. The film depicts a poor, Cockney flower seller named Eliza Doolittle, who overhears an arrogant phonetics professor, Henry Higgins, as he wagers he could teach her to speak proper English and make her presentable in the high society of Edwardian London. The film stars Audrey Hepburn as Doolittle and Rex Harrison as Higgins. It won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director. On Jan. 22, the variety continues with the John Wayne western Rio Bravo. Rio Bravo is a 1959 film produced and directed by Howard Hawks. It stars John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson, Walter Brennan, and Ward Bond. The film is about the sheriff of the town of Rio Bravo, Texas, who arrests the brother of a powerful local rancher to help his drunken deputy/friend. With the help of a physically challenged character and a young gunfighter, they hold off the ranchers gang. Weve also been getting requests for more westerns and Rio Bravo is one of the classic John Wayne westerns, Canal said. One of the interesting things about that movie is that a lot of the big names arent people who are normally associated with westerns. The Wildeys fifth and final Tuesday movie of the month is Office Space on Jan. 29. Office Space is a 1999 American comedy written and directed by Mike Judge. It satirizes the everyday work life of a typical mid-to-late 1990s software company, focusing on a handful of individuals fed up with their jobs. It stars Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, Gary Cole, Stephen Root, David Herman, Ajay Naidu, and Diedrich Bader. I think weve got a little something for everybody for January, Canal said. We were looking for something quirky with a bit of comedy, and Office Space definitely fits the bill. For more information on any event at the Wildey Theatre, 252 N. Main St., call 618-307-1750 or go to wildeytheatre.com. EDWARDSVILLE Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Friends of Theater and Dance (FOTAD) will host a trivia night to increase support for theater and dance student travel. The trivia night will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 2 at The American Legion, 190 S. Main St. in Glen Carbon. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. On Monday, CNN's anchors and correspondents engaged in what has become an annual tradition for the network on New Year's Eve: drinking on air. CNN's Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon, Brooke Baldwin and Randi Kaye spent the night drinking shots, champagne and vodka-sodas and encouraging viewers at home to join them, highlights of which you can see in the video above. Adding a multi-lane roundabout at Five Points intersection and improvements to Old Potash Highway were a couple projects presented Wednesday to the Regional Planning Commission as part of the Grand Island one- and six-year street plan. After a public hearing, the Planning Commission recommended approving the plan that contains 12 projects in 2019, including $900,000 in annual asphalt resurfacing The projects planned for this year total approximately $4 million and were presented by Grand Island Public Works Director John Collins. The improvements at Five Points intersection is under design, with 80 percent of the projects cost to be federally funded through the Nebraska Department of Transportation. The cost to the city is $170,000 in 2019 and $538,000 in 2020. A multi-lane roundabout will be added at the intersection. The project will also include right-sizing the lane configuration to optimize safety and efficiency and meet Federal Highway Administration safety program requirements. My wife and I have a lot of conversations about work-life balance, or as I call it, making sure I don't use up too many "spouse points." Many early stage companies don't have these issues top of mind because so many founders enter the business world pre-children. One of the best ways to recruit great people is to keep your doors open to candidates whom other employers are excluding for reasons other than merit. That includes working parents. Related: 4 Ways Working Moms Can Fight the '3 p.m. Disadvantage' at Work As a manager, I've always tried to maintain a culture of understanding people's personal needs, like childcare obligations. Researchers from Stanford, the University of Munich and the London School of Economics found that well-managed companies adopt family-friendly work policies more often than less well-managed companies. I think creating a family-friendly culture is important for men just as much as women, but in practice, mothers tend to bear a disproportionate burden of childcare responsibilities, thus they pay more attention to these issues. A recruiter friend of mine says when he reviews men's resumes, he sees that they move around in various roles every few years -- some horizontal, some diagonal. Woman, on the other hand, often stay in the same role much longer and their career development is more linear. My wife, who works for a large investment bank, immediately agreed with this observation. I have three reasons why this may be true. 1. Working parents value flexibility. Those with children need flexible work arrangements more than the kidless, which makes them conservative with regard to job changes. The typical process is to earn the trust of managers, then figure out a work setup that meshes with a working parent's personal schedule. Once set up, they don't want to risk moving to a new situation which may be less accommodating. The downside of a move is very clear, and the upside uncertain. This makes some working parents less likely to raise their hand for a horizontal or a diagonal move. 2. Parents focus on their current job, not their next job. Most people focus on doing a good job in their existing role. Working parents have less time than those without family obligations to research and look for other opportunities. Every career advice book recommends you network with recruiters, attend industry events, etc. But, when do you do that? Perhaps in between parent-teacher conferences? Related: What to Do When Ambition and Motherhood Feel Like a Zero-Sum Game 3. Women like offers, not self-promotion. A lot of research has found that women, unlike men, typically wait to be offered opportunities rather than promote themselves to get the opportunities. So, what can we do? Here are some ideas on what a growth firm can do to help develop working parents. I listed these in suggested order of execution. Most cost an employer zero or near zero dollars. Publicize the option of flexible/reduced hours. Many employees believe their employer is just paying flex-time a lip-service. My mom friend Nancy received an offer to move to a competitive employer for a dramatic compensation increase. The offer was welcome because Nancy was very unhappy with her long hours. A mutual friend spoke with Nancy's manager and pointed out if Nancy had a flexible schedule that would allow her to leave the office early, she would likely stay where she was. The manager was happy to step in and try to keep Nancy. Nancy and her manager agreed on a schedule that worked for them both, and she stayed. On paper, Nancy's compensation has increased, but it's prorated down to a lower level because she's working reduced hours. Result: Nancy's cash compensation is unchanged, but she's much happier and more loyal. I suggest all managers be educated that some people at the firm are working modified schedules while getting promoted at or near the regular pace. Openness about these arrangements will reduce the stigma associated with them. People work out reduced/flex schedules with their managers and don't talk about them with the CEO. They don't want to send a message that they prioritize their career below their family. No wonder working parents feel stuck once they work out an arrangement that works for them. Flextime workers should be out of the closet. I use the "closet" metaphor deliberately; openness increases acceptance. Specify if a job can be executed with flexible/reduced hours. Not all jobs can be done with non-standard hours. The operating assumption right now is that the majority of jobs cannot. I expect that in reality, only the minority cannot. For some working parents, inflexible office hours is a deal-breaker. This is the first question some working parents want to ask when discussing a new opportunity, but that sends a bad message to a potential hiring manager. The additional benefit here is that, if the statement is openly made about non-traditional work arrangements, more people (including men) are likely to request them, and the stigma around them will fade. Offer training on how to manage people with non-standard schedules. I think it's similar, but far easier, than managing people offshore. It requires clarity in communicating priorities, time-requirements, deliverable formats and a necessary level of detail. Related: The First Step to Achieving Work-Life Balance? Stop Calling It That. Employees with flex schedules should be treated the same. The firm should make it easier for people with non-standard schedules to get diverse experience by allowing them to transfer these arrangements to other internal opportunities where possible and helping them make these arrangements work. It goes without saying that the promotions should also be blind to hours worked, and instead based exclusively on how much value the employee is adding. Consistently working long hours should be considered a sign of inefficiency, poor time management and propensity to burnout -- not a necessary credential to promotion. Promote a fitness office. A challenge for both women and men is maintaining some reasonable degree of fitness while balancing work and family demands. You'll make it easier for people to work a full day by designing the office to promote fitness while working, rather than slotting in fitness as a 20-minute activity before work. For more on this, see my post on the fitness office. Both parents should have the option of parental leave. The typical parental leave policy says that the "primary caregiver" can have four months leave. In the vast majority of cases, that's a woman. If dads were encouraged to take longer parenting leaves, it would help with work/life balance for both men and women. If senior men were to take a leave of one to four months, a standard set of fair practices would evolve for dealing with such situation and everyone would benefit. Historically, I have learned the most when my bosses go on vacation, and I had to fill in on the projects. Related: Capitalize on the Rise of the Contingent Workforce to Push Strategic Projects Over the Finish Line A Family-Friendly Work Environment Is a Powerful Recruiting and Retention Tool 3 Steps Toward Seeing Your Career Blow Up -- in a Good Way Copyright 2019 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved Woman Slain With 2 Children, Mother Was Recently Widowed ST. CHARLESThe man accused of killing a suburban St. Louis woman, her children, and her mother began dating the woman as she rebuilt her life following her husbands death from cancer. Several hundred people gathered on Dec. 31, at a candlelight vigil to remember 39-year-old Kate Kasten, who nursed her late husband, Kory Kasten, for six years before he died in April 2017. Relatives and friends said she moved to St. Charles that December and was in a new relationship with Richard Darren Emery, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Emery is now facing 15 charges, including first-degree murder. Investigators said Kastens mother, 61-year-old Jane Moeckel, called 911 about 11:55 p.m. Dec. 28, to report she was trying to protect her grandchildren8-year-old Zoe Kasten and 10-year-old Jonathan Kastenby locking them in a room. The three were later found dead in a bedroom. Kate Kasten was found with gunshot wounds in the master bedroom. She later died at a hospital. Its beyond belief, said Frederick Moeckel, Kate Kastens father. The kids were very close. Only two years apart. They lost their father less than two years ago. He was an incredible man, and Katie was an incredible daughter. Jane was a wonderful person also. Authorities said Emery was wounded when he was arrested several hours later in a convenience store after exchanging gunfire with officers. He is also accused of unsuccessfully trying to steal a womans car while on the runand stabbing her at least seven times. The woman survived. Prosecutors said Emery could face the death penalty once the investigation is complete. It looks and smells like a death penalty case, St. Charles Prosecuting Attorney Tim Lohmar said. Frederick Moeckel was close to his daughter, grandchildren, and his ex-wife, whod been staying with her daughter while recovering from hip surgery. He said he saw the family at least once a week, and the relationship between his daughter and Emery showed no visible signs of problems. The family shared dinner together on Dec. 23 at his daughters home, Moeckel said. He said the couple often hugged and his grandchildren adored Emery, who would often help them with homework. There was never an indication that something like this could happen, Moeckel said. The kids loved him. The big question is what the heck happened? Police are investigating possible motives. Investigators said Emery was matter-of-fact after his arrest Saturday morning and refused to make a statement about the killings. Emery doesnt appear to have a criminal record. Court records show he is twice divorced, drove a truck for a tire wholesaler, and lived with Kasten and her children at the home she owned. What Comes Next for Carlos Ghosn, Who Remains in a Tokyo Jail Almost two months after his shock arrest in Tokyo, Carlos Ghosn remains at the mercy of the Japanese legal system, as prosecutors continue to build their case against the car industry titan. A Tokyo court extended the detention of the former Nissan Motor Co. chairman for another 10 days on New Years Eve after he was re-arrested on fresh charges Dec. 21. Meanwhile, Ghosns former aide Greg Kelly, who was detained with the executive back in November on allegations of helping him under-report his compensation, was released on bail Dec. 25. So, whats next for Ghosn? His current detention period will end Jan. 11. By then, prosecutors will need to announce whether they intend to indict him officially on the charges of breach of trust, which they likely will do. If he is indicted, Ghosn will be legally allowed to apply for baila decision which will be made by the court and can be appealed by prosecutors. There is also the possibility that Ghosn may be rearrested on new charges, which will start the detention period anew and allow prosecutors to hold him for up to another 20 days. Ghosn has already been rearrested twice since he was originally taken into custody Nov. 19. How long is this going to go on? Theres no clear answer to this. In Japan, the powers given to police and prosecutors to incarcerate suspects during an investigation without charging them are unique in the developed world. While in the U.K., suspects can be held for up to 96 hours for serious crimes such as murder, and up to 14 days under the Terrorism Act, Ghosn has already spent more than 40 days in the Tokyo jail. Bail isnt possible until being indicted, but theres no limit to the number of times prosecutors can rearrest him on new charges. Legal experts say this is all a strategy to secure a confession and make a trial easier. Japanese prosecutors rarely risk a not-guilty verdict. Fewer than 1 percent of cases in Japans district and county courts in 2017 resulted in a not-guilty verdict or the defendant being released, according to prosecution data. What are the allegations Ghosn is facing? Hes been accused of understating his pay, which would be a violation of Japans Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. Prosecutors also say the executive acted in a way that constituted breach of trust, an allegation that would be in violation of Japans Companies Act and carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail and a 10 million yen ($92,000) fine. Ghosn has denied wrongdoing through his lawyers. Nissan has separately alleged that Ghosn misused company funds, including purchases of homes from Brazil to Lebanon and hiring his sister on an advisory contract. Wheres Kelly, Ghosns former aide? After posting bail, Kelly departed the detention center in a cab late Dec. 25. He was taken to a hospital in Ibaraki Prefecture, about 65 miles north of Tokyo, for treatment of his spine. He had no plan to meet the press immediately, his lawyer said. The court has set conditions for the bail, including a ban on leaving Japan. He isnt allowed to get in touch with people involved in the allegations, and needs to live at an address approved by the court. How are things at Nissan? The arrest of Ghosn has rocked the worlds biggest auto alliance, raising questions over how the two-decade partnership between Nissan and Renault SA will change. While both have reaffirmed their faith in the tie-up, Renaults 43 percent stake in Nissan with voting rights and the French states holdings in Renault have been a source of tensions. Renault has repeatedly asked the Japanese firm to hold an extraordinary general meeting of its shareholders to address corporate governance issues. Nissan has also been indicted for breach of Japans financial laws. In an internal memo last month, Chief Executive Officer Hiroto Saikawa sought to reassure staff that the carmaker is addressing shortcomings in corporate governance. We continue to conduct an internal investigation to uncover all of the facts, and we we will take firm action going forward, he wrote in the memo. By Lisa Du From Bloomberg The long-range Iranian missile, Khoramshahr, is displayed during an annual military parade marking the anniversary of the outbreak of the devastating 1980-88 war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, in the capital Tehran, on Sept. 22, 2018. (STR/AFP/Getty Images) US Warns Iran Over Planned Space-Vehicle Launches Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a warning to the Iranian regime after Irans Ministry of Defense announced plans to launch three space vehicles, which feature technology thats nearly identical to intercontinental ballistic missiles. The United States will not stand by and watch the Iranian regimes destructive policies place international stability and security at risk, Pompeo said in a statement Dec. 3. We advise the regime to reconsider these provocative launches and cease all activities related to ballistic missiles in order to avoid deeper economic and diplomatic isolation. The planned launches will violate a United Nations Security Council resolution that calls on Iran to cease all activity related to nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, according to Pompeo. The Iranian regime test-fired a mid-range ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple warheads on Dec. 1. Iranian Deputy Defense Minister General Qassem Taqizadeh previously confirmed that Iran was planning to launch three satellites into space soon. The satellites have been made by domestic experts and will be put on various orbits, Taqizadeh told Iranian media in late November 2018. Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force said late last year that the regime conducts 40 to 50 ballistic missile tests every year, prompting France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and other nations to express concern. If launched from Iran, an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 6,200 miles could reach U.S. soil. The United States has continuously cautioned that ballistic missile and SLV launches by the Iranian regime have a destabilizing effect on the region and beyond, Pompeo said. The Iranian regime is the worlds foremost state sponsor of terror and has proliferated missiles and related technology to its proxies around the Middle East. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal last year. The White House cited concerns over the deals inability to curtail Irans ballistic missile ambitions. Israeli intelligence released in the lead-up to the exit from the deal revealed Irans secret efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Washington reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran after exiting the deal. The measures focus on the regimes energy, oil, shipping, and financial industries, among other targets. The president believes the sanctions are working and have turned Iran into a different country. Iran is in trouble, Trump told reporters Jan. 2. In July 2017, Iran launched a rocket it said could deliver a satellite into space, an act the U.S. State Department called provocative. Earlier that month, the United States slapped new economic sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile program. Iran says its space program is peaceful, but Western experts suspect it may be a cover for developing military missile technologies. The Trump administration considers Iran an outlaw regime and the worlds foremost supporter of radical Islamic terrorism. In a report (pdf) on the regimes destructive activities, the United States accuses Tehran of human rights abuses, cybercrime, and environmental exploitation. The regime is also claimed to threaten maritime security in the region and continue facilitating illegal financial activity. Reuters contributed to this report. The U.S. flag flies at a welcoming ceremony between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump in Beijing on Nov. 9, 2017. Trump was on a 10-day trip to Asia. (Thomas Peter/Pool/Getty Images) US Issues China Travel Advisory Amid Increased Tensions WASHINGTON The U.S. State Department on Jan. 3 renewed its warning for U.S. citizens traveling in China to exercise increased caution due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws amid heightened diplomatic tensions over the arrest in Canada of a Chinese technology company executive. The updated travel advisory maintains the warning at Level 2 but also warns about extra security checks and increased police presence in the Xinjiang Uyghur and Tibet Autonomous Regions. The advisory follows the detentions by Chinese authorities in December of Canadians Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat and an adviser with the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank, and businessman Michael Spavor. China says both men were suspected of endangering state security. Tensions with China increased after Canadian police arrested Huawei Technologies Co Ltds chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, on Dec. 1 in Vancouver at the request of the United States. U.S. prosecutors have accused her of misleading banks about transactions linked to Iran, putting the banks at risk of violating U.S. sanctions. Earlier on Thursday, Chinas top prosecutor said the two Canadians had without a doubt violated the law. In its previous travel advisory for China issued on Jan. 22 last year, the State Department urged Americans to exercise increased caution in the country because of the arbitrary enforcement of local laws and special restrictions on dual U.S.-Chinese nationals. The latest advisory repeats that warning but adds: Extra security measures, such as security checks and increased levels of police presence, are common in the Xinjiang Uyghur and Tibet Autonomous Regions. Authorities may impose curfews and travel restrictions on short notice. The advisory also warns about Chinas use of exit bans that would prohibit U.S. citizens from leaving the country, sometimes keeping them in China for years. By Lesley Wroughton President Donald Trump (L) talks to journalists during a meeting with members of his Cabinet, including acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, at the White House in Washington, on Jan. 02, 2019. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Trump Says Hes Unhappy With Job That US Generals Did in Afghanistan President "essentially" fired Defense Secretary Jim Mattis In his first cabinet meeting of 2019, President Donald Trump expressed his dissatisfaction with the performance of U.S. military generals in Afghanistan, revealing he essentially fired Defense Secretary Jim Mattisjust days after the four-star general left his Pentagon post. Speaking to reporters for almost two hours on Jan. 2, Trump lamented the situation in the Middle East and the conduct of his top military aides. I gave our generals all the money they wanted, they didnt do such a great job in Afghanistan. Theyve been fighting in Afghanistan for 19 years, Trump said. The president described one case where he was frustrated about a generals decision to keep U.S. troops fighting in the middle of two enemy forces. So the Taliban is our enemy, ISIS is our enemy. We have an area that I brought up with our generals four or five weeks ago where Taliban is here, ISIS is here, and they are fighting each other. I said Why dont you let them fight? Why are we getting in the middle of it? I said let them fight, they are both our enemies, Trump said. They go in and they end up fighting both of them. Its the craziest thing Ive ever seen. I think I would have been a good general, but who knows, he continued. Not Happy With Mad Dog Trump also deplored the performance of Mattis in the wide-ranging cabinet meeting and disparaged the generals two-year role in leading the Defense Department. Whats he done for me? How has he done in Afghanistan? Not too good, not too good, Trump said. Im not happy with what hes done in Afghanistan and I shouldnt be happy. Former President Barack Obama fired Mattis, often referred to as Mad Dog, in 2013 from the head of Central Command. He later joined the Trump administration in 2017. The cabinet meeting was also the first one with Patrick Shanahan the Acting Secretary of Defense. Trump named Shanahan as Mattis replacement on Dec. 23, which resulted in Mattis leaving his post two months earlier than the previously planned February 2019 date. Despite Trumps criticisms of the military he praised Shanahan, who sat directly next to him, adding you have done really [well], in particular, you have done a fantastic job after Shanahan spoke about U.S. border security efforts. Trump described how Mattis was thankful to him when he passed $700 billion in government funding for the 2018 defense budget and an additional $716 billion in this years budget. However, Trump said Mattis gave him nothing in return. As you know, President Obama fired him, and essentially so did I, Trump said. I want results. In a Dec. 20 letter announcing his intention to resign, Mattis was highly critical of Trump and highlighted policy differences he had with the president. The generals letter came on the heels of Trumps decision to withdraw 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria, a move Trump said was necessary after declaring victory against the ISIS terrorist group. In the letter, Mattis said the president deserved a secretary of defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects. No Withdrawal in Afghanistan Wide-ranging media reports over the past few weeks suggest Trump ordered the Pentagon to withdraw about 7,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan but a White House official said there has been no such order. The president has not made a determination to draw down [the] U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and he has not directed the Department of Defense to begin the process of withdrawing U.S. personnel from Afghanistan, Garrett Marquis, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said in a statement on Dec. 29. The 18-year war in Afghanistan is the longest American war effort ever and cost the lives of more than 2,400 Americans. The United States has spent $6 trillion on post-9/11 wars in the Middle East, according to the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs. Americas presence in Afghanistan this year was a hefty $45 billion. Trump, in the past, had wanted to pull out of Afghanistan completely. However, in a 2017 speech he said he was committed to winning the war in Afghanistan and preventing a repeat of past mistakes when U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq. In that speech at Fort Myer in Virginia, Trump shared the American peoples frustration about the long war. He said he changed his mind after ordering a comprehensive review of all options in Afghanistan and studying the situation in great detail. Troop levels reached their peak at around 100,000 troops in 2010 under the Obama administration, President Barack Obama sharply reduced troop levels to less than 10,000 in 2016. Rapid withdrawal from Americas remaining troops in Afghanistan could create a vacuum that terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda could rapidly fill, similar to what happened in Iraq. We cannot repeat in Afghanistan the mistakes our leaders made in Iraq, Trump said. Toddlers Found Inside Extremely Dirty and Cold Indiana Home, Say Police Two people in Washington, Indiana, were arrested after two toddlers were discovered inside an extremely dirty and cold home, according to local reports. A Department of Child Services (DCS) worker was contacted on Dec. 7 about two toddlers who were inside a house that was described as being unsuitable for children. The worker went to the house in the southern Indiana town, but she said the occupants would not allow her inside the premises, Fox59 reported. Police officers were then contacted by DCS, who responded to the scene and knocked on the door. Toddlers found inside Indiana home "soaked in urine" with "purple feet" because they were so cold, court docs say https://t.co/lDRZierq7z pic.twitter.com/GB8muDFSku FOX59 News (@FOX59) January 3, 2019 Travis Criswell, 27, opened the door, and officers noticed a strong burnt marijuana smell emitting from the home. Officers asked Criswell about children in the home, and he confirmed there were children inside. A 2-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl were spotted with their mother, Brittnie Morford, 27, according to the Fox affiliate report. The two toddlers were described as being very dirty and seemed to be very cold, according to court documents obtained by the news outlet. They were also apparently soaked from head to toe in urine, officials said. WTHI-TV reported that the childrens feet appeared purple due to the houses temperature. There were also multiple injuries on each child before they were taken to Daviess Community Hospital for an examination. A doctor said the 2-year-old had second-degree burns, but the report didnt elaborate on how. Morford and Criswell were arrested and charged with two counts of neglect of a dependent resulting in serious bodily injury. They were also charged with neglect of a dependent. The two were both being held in the Daviess County Security Center on $25,000 bond, WBIW reported. One of The Nations Most Serious Concerns According to a report published by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (pdf), around 3.5 million children in 2016 were the subjects of at least one maltreatment report to authorities. Child abuse is one of the nations most serious concerns, the authors of the report wrote. About 17 percent of those reports were substantiated, and the department said that there were an estimated 676,000 victims of child abuse and neglect. That amounts to 9.1 victims per 1,000 children. Children in their first year of life had the highest rate of victimization at 24.8 per 1,000 children, the report said. About three-fourths of the cases were neglect, and about 18 percent were physical abuse. Some children suffered from multiple forms of maltreatment, the HHS said. Four-fifths of the child abusers were between the ages of 18 and 44 and more than half were women, the report stated. Soviet-era Dissident Vladimir Bukovsky speaks at an opposition meeting in Moscow, 17 December 2007. Bukovsky is a potential united oppostion candidate for president in Russia's March 2008 presidential elections. AFP PHOTO / ALEXEY SAZONOV (Photo credit should read Alexey SAZONOV/AFP/Getty Images) The Threat of Communism: Then and Now Commentary One of the most famous enemies of Soviet communism is Vladimir Bukovsky. He was tortured by Soviet authorities and spent many years in Soviet prisons. He was even declared insane and sent to a psychiatric prison. When Bukovsky was exiled to the West, people paid lip service to his courage; but few heeded his warnings about Gorbachevs Perestroika. Bukovsky reminded everyone that all Soviet leaders were liars. Gorbachev, he said, was no exceptionand was certainly no democrat. Like Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev, Gorbachev was a liar and a hangman. But hardly anyone listened. Everyone wanted to believe the Cold War was over. But how could we have won the Cold War? This was the inconvenient question Bukovsky asked. Random House senior editor Jason Epstein rejected Bukovskys question altogether. And so, Bukovskys book on the equivocal fall of communism was not published in Englishuntil now. The books title is Judgment in Moscow. It was published in French and German editions two decades ago, and it has stood the test of time. I interviewed Bukovsky on Dec. 22, 2018, by telephone, asking how the French and German editions of the book were received all those years ago. Communism Everywhere Vladimir Bukovsky: There were some complimentary reviews in France, but few really paid it much attention. In Germany the reception was even more subdued. J.R. Nyquist: And how will Bukovskys tale of Western complicity in communist crimes, and Western obliviousnessand the bungled end of the Cold Warbe received in the English-speaking world? Mr. Bukovsky: It is a lonely struggle I have conducted since the age of 16. And the struggle will continue to be lonely. The real problem is the elite in the West, the forces of peace and progress. The Western elite is socialist. They were never serious about fighting Soviet power. Mr. Nyquist: And what about the conservatives? Werent they serious about opposing communism? Mr. Bukovsky: They wouldnt realize the truth. There was a mistaken idea behind them. Most of the conservatives believed it was not so bad in the West. The first to notice was Solzhenitsyn. He said communism is in front of everyone, yet no one understands what it is. Mr. Nyquist: If they did not understand communism, couldnt you have explained it to them? Mr. Bukovsky: Unfortunately there is no short way of doing it and, because the subject is complicated, people quickly lose interest. It bores them. They are lazy and prefer superficial answers. Mr. Nyquist: So the West never understood communism. Or perhaps they came to think that anti-communism was crazy. Mr. Bukovsky: No, its a question of losing the audience. People are lazy. They prefer superficial assessments. It is impossible for them to go deep. When you talk about communism, their eyes glaze over. They become bored. Mr. Nyquist: Could that be true? Mr. Bukovsky: Yes, I have delivered many lectures on the subject. People get up in the middle and leave. The concepts are too difficult for them. They want it to be easy. Mr. Nyquist: What is the hope for the future? Mr. Bukovsky: There will be more suffering, more ruined lives. Mr. Nyquist: Are the communists in Russia putting the Soviet Union back together? Mr. Bukovsky: Yes, they are naive enough to think they can do this. But they will never succeed. Hope in Ukraine? Mr. Nyquist: What about the orange revolution in Ukraine? Surely there is hope in Ukraine. Mr. Bukovsky: Ukraine is on a razors edge. The whole thing hangs in the balance. It could go either way. Mr. Nyquist: What about Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko? Mr. Bukovsky: Poroshenko is just another apparatchik. He is typical. The problem in Ukraine, like in Russiawe dont have any leaders. It is the same old story, same old biographies. Their thinking is not that different from the Soviet past. Mr. Nyquist: We have a similar problem in the West. Mr. Bukovsky: At the moment, youre right. The absence of leadership is frightening. Our so-called elites became rotten. In the past, in history, the elites would be periodically wiped out in revolutions. In our time, it does not happen. We are too civilized. Mr. Nyquist: Yet, could the ideal of freedom spread from Ukraine into Russia? Mr. Bukovsky: Yes, but not yet. Ukrainian nationalism arose from serious Russian mistakes. Moscow made tremendous blunders in Ukraine. Mr. Nyquist: Could these blunders be corrected after Putin leaves office? Mr. Bukovsky: No, they cannot fix it. The Kremlin insulted the Ukrainians as junior brothers. You are too little to decide for yourself, they said. Moscow has to decide for you. This was the reason for the rise of Ukrainian nationalism. Mr. Nyquist: So the Kremlin made a big mistake? Mr. Bukovsky: Yes, they have a real problem. But so does the West. Rotten Elites The problem, then, is not East versus West. The problem is that the elites in nearly every country have become rotten and socialist. As Bukovsky wrote in his book, Even the ageless James Bond does not fight the KGB, but is most frequently in an alliance with the KGB, against some mythical super-corporation headed, as a rule, by a lunatic capitalist. Bukovskys book, Judgment in Moscow, will be released in English in May. What does he say happened toward the supposed end of the Cold War? Bukovsky wrote, This was a full debacle, a total surrender of its positions by the West at the most critical moment of our history. The West rushed in to support the hangman, Gorbachev. And despite all that help, when the Soviet Union fell, the hangmen in their thousands were not made accountable. There was no trial of communism as a system, no judgment in Moscow as there had been a judgment in Nuremberg. Instead, a KGB general like Oleg Kalugin, who bragged about his murders, retired to live in the West. If there is no statute of limitations on murder, how can this happen? Bukovsky wrote that Glasnost and Perestroika were diabolical inventions that ratified what followed in its wake. Out of hundreds of thousands of politicians, journalists and academics, only a tiny handful retained sufficient sobriety not to yield to temptation, and it was an even tinier one that had the courage to voice their doubts out loud. Later in the book, Bukovsky characterized the American elite as raised on lies and betrayal, damning them as the natural ally of the USSR. And so it remains true as ever today. Look at the resulting shift in the global balance of power decades later: Putins regime links arms with the communist regime in China, with the communist regime in Cuba, with Nicaragua and South Africa, Vietnam and North Korea, Bukovskys words come home. The communist bloc rises from the ashes, with new weapons, new technologies, and new economic clout. We believed the communist lies and invested our peace dividend. Now we are threatened from within and from without. The whole thing hangs in the balance, said Bukovsky. J.R. Nyquist is a columnist and the author of the books Origins of the Fourth World War and The Fool and His Enemy, as well as co-author of The New Tactics of Global War. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Teen Charged After Fatal Stabbing at Scientology Church in Sydney A 16-year-old boy allegedly stabbed a 24-year-old Taiwanese national to death on the grounds of the Church of Scientologys Australasian headquarters in Sydney on Jan. 3. He underwent mental health assessment on Jan. 4 following the incident. Update: The teen was charged on Jan. 5 local time with the murder of the Taiwanese national. The teen had allegedly stabbed the Taiwanese national and another man, both of whom were injured and taken to Royal North Shore Hospital. Chatswood: A man has died and another is in a stable condition after they were stabbed at the Church of @Scientology Australasian headquarters on Greville Street. Emergency services were called to the centre just after 12.30pm after reports of a stabbing in the driveway. #7News pic.twitter.com/ehAJG7Ow91 7 News Sydney (@7NewsSydney) January 3, 2019 Ambulance Inspector Carolyn Marsh said that the man who died was bleeding profusely from a wound to the neck, according to 9News. The other man, aged 30, is in a stable condition with a wound to his hand. I suspect hell be fine, Marsh said, according to 9News. Police carry out an evidence bag after two men were stabbed at the Church of Scientology Sydney headquarters in Chatswood @9NewsSyd pic.twitter.com/zFghWrHlkC Elizabeth Bryan (@LizzyBryan1) January 3, 2019 The teen was arrested by police at the scene by North Shore Police Area Command, and has been brought to Chatswood Police Station for questioning. The stabbing took place around midday in the driveway of the religious centre, located in Chatswood on Greville Street. Emergency services were called to the incident after 12:30 p.m. Both of the men who were stabbed were Scientology employees. Unrelated Dispute Police say the teen was being taken outside the premises by the two men after a domestic dispute a day earlier that was unrelated to the church. When the teen, said to be of Asian descent, was being escorted down the driveway, he took out a 25-centimetre long kitchen knife, according to AAP. Police said that when they arrived, they produced their tasers and told the teen to drop the knife, according to news.com.au. The teen complied. Police said they are now trying to understand why the teen was told to leave. He had a lawful reason to be here originally and theyve asked him to leave for various reasons, which we still need to get to the bottom of and speak to staff here on premises, they said, according to news.com.au. Our first responding police on scene hereand obviously there were staff from the premises here who saw the incident happeningpolice had to draw their taser. At this stage, unfortunately, the 24-year-old male has passed away and inquiries are being made to contact family, said the officer in charge at the scene, news.com.au reported. It would appear the altercation, or the reason the young person has been removed from the premises, was only and solely in relation to a domestic incident that occurred yesterday, he added. A young Scientologist, who did not want to be identified, told AAP that his mother was inside the facility and he was prevented from entering to see her. I came down when the first [media] camera crew showed up but I was told it wasnt a huge deal, he told AAP. He was not initially aware two people had been stabbed. Its a huge building, a lot of people come from around Asia to study here, he said. It offers a lot of services other [Scientology properties] dont. The church on its website says the Ideal Advanced Organisation in Sydney provides advanced religious services to Scientologists from across Australia, New Zealand, and the Asia Pacific region. One dead in stabbing at Scientologys Australian Advanced Org, 16-year-old taken into custody https://t.co/XCKFPQbkK3 #Scientology pic.twitter.com/X62mzCecaV Tony Ortega (@TonyOrtega94) January 3, 2019 The $57 million dollar Scientology headquarters officially opened in 2016 and is the largest of its kind outside the United States, occupying 13,500 square meters. From NTD.com Watch Next: Why Banks Love War & the War Economy The global banking system has historically played both sides of major conflicts through war financing, and drawing out the battles by providing funds beyond what each country could have otherwise spent. Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen speaks during a press conference where she responded to a speech by China's leader Xi Jinping on Taiwan relations, at the Presidential Palace in Taipei on January 2, 2019. (SAM YEH/AFP/Getty Images) Taiwan President Rebuts Chinese Leaders Speech Claiming Sovereignty Over Island After a year of aggression by the Chinese regimeconducting military drills in the Taiwan Strait, threatening invasion, and urging countries to sever ties with TaiwanChinese leader Xi Jinping reiterated in a speech on Jan. 2 the Communist Partys longstanding claims of sovereignty over Taiwan. The islands president, Tsai Ing-wen, responded with a strongly worded rebuttal to Beijings desire for unification. The issue of Taiwans sovereignty is among Chinas most sensitive issues. While Taiwan has its own constitution, democratically elected government, currency, and militarymaking it, effectively, an independent nationBeijing views the island as a region that must be united with the mainland, by force if necessary. Xi reiterated the Chinese regimes stance in a speech, given to senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials and Taiwanese business executives, to mark the 40th anniversary of a Party policy statement on cross-strait relations. We do not promise to renounce military force and reserve the option to use all necessary measures to achieve unification and prevent Taiwans independence, Xi said. Some Taiwanese, including some within the Democratic Progressive Party of which Tsai is a member, support Taiwans declaration of formal independence from China. Beijing has stepped up aggressive threats toward Taiwan since Tsai came to office in 2016. Xi insisted on Taiwan recognizing the one China principlethat China, under the CCP, has legitimate rule over Taiwanand that the one country, two systems model could be adopted for the island. Upon Britains handover of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 after more than 100 years of colonial rule, the Chinese regime promised political and economic autonomy to the city under the one country, two systems model. Hong Kong is considered a special administrative region of China. In his speech, Xi also made the case for Taiwanese citizens to accept the benefits of unification, promising to protect Taiwans economic interests and offer more development opportunities. The differences in systems is not an obstacle to unification, nor is it an excuse for division [between the straits]. Taiwan compatriots private property, religious faiths, and legal rights will be adequately safeguarded under the CCPs rule, he said. Xi also made reference to foreign entities that he claimed were fomenting calls for independencelikely a veiled reference to the United States, as state-run media have used such language to attack the United States close diplomatic relations and military support for Taiwan. Tsais Reaction Several hours later in Taipei, Tsai gave a statement in response to Xis speech, denying that Taiwan ever accepted the one China principle, as Xi claimed by citing the 1992 Consensus. That year, a meeting between Taiwan and CCP officials occurred, at which they concluded that both sides recognize only one China, but the definitions of China were up to each party. I am reiterating here, Taiwan absolutely does not accept one country, two systems. The vast majority of Taiwan citizens also absolutely oppose one country, two systems. That is the Taiwan consensus, she said. Tsai noted that she is open to holding talks with China but wouldnt accept the Chinese regime deciding the fate of Taiwanese people. No person or organization has the right to represent the Taiwanese people in carrying out political negotiations, Tsai said. She also called out Beijing for using suppression and threats to coerce Taiwanese people into accepting Beijings sovereignty. She especially mentioned Chinas concerted efforts to obtain key technologies by luring Taiwanese talent into working in mainland China. Beijing considers it a priority to use economic incentivessuch as business investmentsto influence Taiwanese into accepting a legitimate reason for unification. Responding directly to Xis claims that the hearts and souls of compatriots on both sides of the straits are in sync, Tsai lambasted Chinas recent pressure against Taiwan, such as forcing airlines and other firms to remove references to Taiwan and providing generous aid and loans to countries so they will drop ties with the island. These will not bring about hearts and souls being in sync, Tsai said, using Xis words. She ended her statement by urging China to take steps toward democracyfor only by doing so can it truly understand the Taiwanese peoples thinking and persistence. Democracy is considered a taboo subject in China, as praise for Western democratic values or suggesting that they be adopted in China is often punished. Report: Russian Tower Block Collapse Could Be Terror-Related As people in the city of Magnitogorsk recover from a New Year Eve disaster, three people were killed after a minibus exploded in the Urals area. Although the two incidents appear to be unrelated, a report said the people in the minibus were terrorists who planned a tower block collapse. On Karl Marx Avenue in Magnitogorsk, a minibus exploded around 1 a.m. local time on Jan. 1, less than two days after a tower block collapse and no more than two miles away from the ruins of the collapsed apartments. According to the Chelyabinsk region authority, the explosion was due to a malfunction of gas equipment and two gas canisters were found inside the vehicle, reported Interfax. In a video posted by RT, footage shows the Gazel car is engulfed in fire. While bangs coming from the direction of the burning vehicle could be explained as a result of firecrackers in the minibus, the noise also resembled gunfire. According to a report published on Znak.com, a Urals news website, the tower block collapse was suspected to be a terrorist attack. Citing an unnamed source, the article said that three terrorists were killed at night on Jan. 1 in a Gazel vehicle. They tried to shoot back. One of them ran away, police are searching for him. The source also claimed that traces of explosives were found in the ruins of the collapsed building. The explosives were allegedly stored in an apartment rented by terrorists who planned to attack a local shopping center. Immediately after publishing the report, the website was blocked for several hours, according to the Daily Mail. Officials have refrained from commenting on the claims. According to an article from the Investigation Committee of the Russian Federation (IC), the agency is still investigating the cause of the tower block collapse and no traces of explosives have been found. Tower Block Collapse On Dec. 31, a section of a 10-story tower block collapsed in the early morning during the public holiday. Many residents were sleeping at the time of the incident. The incident claimed the lives of 21 people, including two children. 14 of those killed had been identified and over 20 people are still unaccounted for, reported TASS, a Russian News Agency. The partially collapsed building is also situated on Karl Marx Avenue in Magnitogorsk. Similar to the Gazel car incident, the IC said the main cause of the tower block collapse was a gas leak. However, the agency launched a criminal investigation soon after the incident occurred, which it says will consider all possible versions of what happened. The IC has sent around 100 detectives to the city. On Jan. 1, an 11-month-old baby was found alive in the rubble after spending 35 hours in the freezing cold, including a night of temperatures reaching -17 degrees Fahrenheit. Sustaining head injury, leg fractures, and frostbite, the baby was barely hanging on to life when it was removed from the debris by rescuers, according to the Epoch Times. A special plane from Russias Federal Medical and Biological Agency was used to transport the baby to Moscow, where the baby, named Ivan Fokin, will receive treatment, according to TASS. From NTD News Incoming Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) leaves a meeting after Republican members of the Senate met to elect their leadership on Capitol Hill in Washington on Nov. 14, 2018. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images) Republicans Slam Mitt Romney for Anti-Trump Op-Ed Some Republicans and GOP strategists have slammed Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) for his anti-President Donald Trump op-ed published in the left-leaning publication The Washington Post. In the op-ed, Romney argued that Trumps character was not up to presidential par. The stance came just months after Romney, who is set to be sworn in on Jan. 3, accepted Trumps endorsement during the midterm campaigning. A number of Republican leaders questioned why Romney wrote the op-ed. Well, how does it work to the advantage of the people of Utah? Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Fox News on Jan. 2. He decided to go back into public service; Im glad he did, Graham added. Now, what drove him back into public service? Was it to be a foe of President Trump? I hope not because I dont think the people of Utah voted for him to do that. Graham sent a message to Romney that Trump is very easy to get a hold of so the best way to influence the president would be to speak directly to him. He really cares about what you think and what more can you ask if youre a member of the United States Senate than have a chance to talk with the president and share your views. That will not happen if he believes you are out to get him, Graham added. So Im hoping that Mitt will sit down with the president privately, share his concerns with the president about whatever drives his thinking but also commit to the president that I want you to be successful and Im here to help you. If he will do that he can be a very effective senator. If hes going to be the critic from Utah, its going to hurt him and Utah. Three Republican insiders added to the Washington Examiner that even if what Romney said in the op-ed was correct, it was an odd time to write it. Im not sure what he thought he was accomplishing, aside from annoying the president and lots of fellow senators, a Republican senator said. Also, why do it in abstract? Why not just wait till he has a concrete disagreement? Others noted that nothing in the op-ed was new, but repeated attacks Romney had launched at Trump prior to accepting his endorsement. Parts of it could have been lifted from his 2008 and 2012 stump speeches, and certainly the character references come straight from his 2016 speech where he previously denounced Trump, said Kevin Madden, a veteran Republican operative who advised Romney in 2012. GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Romneys niece, also slammed the incoming senator. POTUS is attacked and obstructed by the [mainstream] media and Democrats 24/7. For an incoming Republican freshman senator to attack President Trump as their first act feeds into what the Democrats and media want and is disappointing and unproductive, she wrote. Romney claimed during an appearance on CNN on Wednesday that while he accepted Trumps endorsement, he never gave Trump one. In 2012, while running for president, Romney also accepted Trumps endorsement. He also met with Trump in November 2016 in the hopes of being appointed to the presidents cabinet. Romney said he wrote the op-ed after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis retired following the presidents decision to pull American troops out of Syria. He said he does support Trump on some issues, such as border security. Trump at the White House responded to the op-ed, saying: I wish Mitt could be more of a team player. I am surprised he did it this quickly. If he fought really hard against President Obama like he does against me, he wouldve won the election. On Twitter, the president added: Here we go with Mitt Romney, but so fast! Question will be, is he a Flake? I hope not. Would much prefer that Mitt focus on Border Security and so many other things where he can be helpful. I won big, and he didnt. He should be happy for all Republicans. Be a TEAM player & WIN! From NTD News Xinjiang Authorities Anticipate International Inspection, Recent Activities Suggest Sources say an inspection is expected within weeks Xinjiang officials are drastically ramping up efforts to conceal evidence of the scale and true nature of vocational re-education centers where at least 1 million predominantly Muslim Uyghurs are believed to be held, ahead of an expected international inspection, according to sources in the region. A confidentiality agreement for prisoners detained at a facility located in Awat County, Xinjiang, was obtained by The Epoch Times. The agreement, written in the Uyghur Arabic alphabet, says that prisoners must not reveal the study, life, number of people, and internal workings of the training centers through social media, SMS messaging, or media interviews, or they will be held accountable according to the relevant laws and regulations of our country. Evidence of the mass-detention facilities, such as barbed wire fencing, is being removed and a source in Xinjiang confirmed with the Chinese-language Epoch Times in September 2018 that local police officers have signed confidentiality agreements to not reveal that they are transporting Uyghurs elsewhere. According to the source, about 1,500 Uyghurs in the area where he resides were being sent to other locations. Read More Rail Cancellations in Xinjiang Province Boost Concerns About Fate of Imprisoned Uyghurs Sources told Radio Free Asia (RFA) in October they believed as many as 300,000 Uyghurs have been secretly transferred to prisons in Heilongjiang province and other parts of China from Xinjiang since relocations began at the beginning of 2018. Local residents are also being intimidated as local officials make efforts to clamp down on ways that information can leak to the outside world about the camps, an anonymous source told RFA. In the hope that they will be silent, residents have been forced to sign confidentiality agreements that threaten imprisonment for negative comments or blacklisting for three generations of the family if complaints are made about life in the region when inspectors arrive, RFA reported in December 2018. A copy of a CCP notice, obtained by online magazine Bitter Winter, demanded that residents not spread rumors, or disclose information through the Internet or various places that contradicts the policies of the Party and the government. It also mentions the detainees will undergo concentrated closed door training for at least one year, mainly to learn the national language, laws and regulations and technical skills. Xinjiang residents must say only good things about the government, and praise the [Communist] Partys policies, a businessman from Ghulja city in Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture who is currently trading in neighboring Kazakhstan, told RFA. People are taught what to say, and they were warned not to mention the difficulties they are facing, he said. An international visit to Chinas northwestern region is expected within weeks, according to the RFA report. Several U.N. member states called on China to allow observers into the region during the U.N. Human Rights Councils universal periodic review on Nov. 6 last year. Thats occurred amid growing international awareness and mounting evidence of rapidly built mass-detention facilities in Xinjiang facilities through satellite imagery compiled by online researchers. Over 700,000m2 of construction since June. The size of Xinjiang's re-education camp network has more than doubled in the last year. Read our latest findings analysing 28 separate detention camps at https://t.co/541qluIjUR Impossible without @DaniellesCave, @fryan & @ASPI_ICPC pic.twitter.com/y3XF7AkfTm Nathan Ruser (@Nrg8000) October 31, 2018 Numerous testimonies from former Uyghur detainees have also revealed the widespread human-rights abuses suffered by those both inside and outside the camps, including what the Uyghur diaspora is calling a genocide of its culture by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Uyghurs, along with other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet, as well as religious believers who remain outside state control, have long been targeted by the ruling CCP for thought transformation through re-educationwhat outsider observers call brainwashing. In October, Xinjiang authorities moved to legalize the detention facilities, saying they were to educate and transform those whom the CCP deems at risk of the three evil forces of extremism, separatism, and terrorism. The facilities were renamed as vocational training centers and now, mounting evidence suggests that detainees are being exploited in forced labor facilities within the camps-turned-training centers. Game of Deception Uyghur businessman Abdurahman Hasan, who fled Xinjiang in January 2017 after he was blacklisted by the CCP, believes Beijing is making efforts to relocate prisoners to deceive international inspection teams. Now, they are moving a lot of people to inner China. I think China is trying to cheat international organizations, Hasan told The Epoch Times in a phone interview from Istanbul. Chinese provinces including Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, and Gansu have each been set a quota of prisoners to take in, CCP sources told Bitter Winter. Shaanxi Province has reportedly been assigned a quota of 25,000. Thousands of Uyghurs were transferred from Kashi prefecture in September 2018, and the CCP is being meticulous in concealing the detainees movements, insiders with knowledge of the transfers told the magazine. During the relocation, buses are covered with misleading labels, windows are blacked out, and Uyghurs are transferred at night with their heads covered in black sacks, according to insiders. In addition, officers communicate using hand gestures, uniforms are stripped of badges and ID numbers, and license plates are concealed. The Ghulja businessman told RFA that when he was in Xinjiang, he regularly saw police vehicles near his home that he believes were transferring prisoners through area roads in the region. Destruction of Evidence Nathan Ruser, a researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), told The Epoch Times that he believes the CCP would work ahead of any expected inspection to remove evidence that could indicate the facilities are punitive in nature, as well as improve the appearance of existing aspects of the camps to fit their narrative of them being teaching facilities for vocational skills. They could take a few fences down so the detainees have more movement inside the facility, Ruser said. We might see a stronger focus on factories especially and I think well see a sanitationtheyll make the factories a lot nicer quality. I think theyll try to highlight the classroom buildings and the administration buildings, rather than the dormitories. A police station officer from the Tazghun township told RFA that authorities already have removed barbed wire from camp walls, metal bars from cell doors and windows, and taken down CCTV cameras. In recent weeks, PRC flags have been removed from Xinjiangs streets and replaced with decorative reproductions of Uyghur musical instruments, the businessman from Ghulja told RFA. He added that residents are being trained to sing and dance, and are told to smile joyfully while looking happy, enthusiastic and content with life. No one may look sad, otherwise there will be consequences, he said. Xinjiang officials may attempt to underplay the numbers of detainees, while focusing on the vocational-training aspect, Ruser added. It sounds like theyre going to try to seize the narrative away from the facilities as being constrictive for the lives of the detainees and instead present it as an opportunity. Watch Next: Anastasia LinThe Chinese Communist Party Does Not Represent The Chinese People A tow truck holds a car that was pulled from on an off-ramp that collapsed during a morning earthquake in Anchorage, Alaska, on Nov. 30, 2018. (Mike Dinneen/AP) Powerful Aftershocks Arrive in Alaska for Beginning of the New Year A magnitude 5.0 aftershock struck the Anchorage capitol area on the morning of New Years Eveand ushered in two days filled with many more tremors. That 5.0 was the strongest aftershock since the Nov. 30 quake. Alaska has endured thousands of aftershocks since the 7.0 magnitude quake powerfully shook Anchorage and its environs on Nov. 30. This was the second-largest earthquake ever recorded in Alaska, and the most powerful since the record-breaking 1964 quake. Reviewed magnitude is 5.0. Location is down on the south end of the rupture patch. It's closer to Anchorage than most, which could explain why it felt stronger to many. This now replaces Friday's M4.9 as the strongest aftershock since the night of Nov. 30. AK Earthquake Center (@AKearthquake) January 1, 2019 The 1964 quake measured 9.2 and the strongest to hit the United States in recorded history and the second strongest ever recorded on earth. The November temblor was not as severe but still tore up roads all around Anchorageand spawned aftershocks for days. As of this morning, there have been just over 6,100 aftershocks from the November 30 magnitude 7.0, including about 40 at or above magnitude 4. As of this tweet, our statewide total for 2018 is at 51,612. AK Earthquake Center (@AKearthquake) December 27, 2018 In just the first week after the November quake, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) counted nearly 3,000 serious tremors. Another few thousand more in the next three weeks raised the total to more than 6,100. Five aftershocks measured 5.0 or greater on the Richter scale, 23 were 4.0, and 185 measured more than 3.0, according to the USGS. Did you feel this morning's rumble? KTVA 11 Weather 201912 Those tremors had ebbed, and for the next three weeks, things were relatively more peaceful. Probably a lot of South-Central Alaskans had let the November earthquake fade into memoryuntil another magnitude-5 quake shook the region at 6 a.m. on Dec. 30. Since the main tremor, the Alaska Earthquake Center detected more than 100 further aftershocks in the first two days of 2019. A 4.2-magnitude aftershock hit just five miles outside of Anchorage just after 6 a.m. on Jan. 2. A 4.9 magnitude temblor hit 10 miles northwest of Anchorage on Dec. 27 but was 22 miles below the surface and did not create much of a stir in the city. Did it wake you up?Magnitude 4.9 earthquake 8 miles NW of Anchorage at 5:21am.The largest aftershock since December 1st. KTVA 11 Weather 20181227 What Makes it an Aftershock? The USGS defines aftershocks as earthquakes that follow the largest shock of an earthquake sequence. They are smaller than the mainshock and within one to two rupture lengths distance from the mainshock. Aftershocks can continue over a period of weeks, months, or years. In general, the larger the mainshock, the larger and more numerous the aftershocks, and the longer they will continue, USGS said on its website. As KTVA reported, aftershocks can themselves trigger aftershocksall of which are considered to have been caused by the major quake (the Nov. 30 event.) A 5.0 earthquake is still arguably severe regardless of whether scientists blame it on an earlier quake. Besides the aftershocks Alaska has its fair share of quakes. The Alaska Earthquake Center recorded 51,612 shocks in 2018 but many of them are simply overlooked. For instance, a magnitude 6.1 quake hit about 61 miles off the coast of King Cove and 600 miles southwest of Anchorage. It was far out to sea and thus not near any major population centers, so little attention was given. From NTD.com Watch Next: Why Is Falun Gong Persecuted? Although its freely practiced in over 70 countries, doing this in China can lead to unlawful arrest, imprisonment, torture, or even death. Peru's President Martin Vizcarra speaks to media at the government palace in Lima, Peru, on Oct. 29, 2018. (Reuters/Mariana Bazo) Peru President to Ask Congress to Declare Emergency in Corruption Probe LIMAPeruvian President Martin Vizcarra said he would ask Congress to declare the public prosecutors office in a state of emergency after the agencys top official removed two investigators at the heart of the probe into a massive graft scandal triggered by Brazilian builder Odebrecht. Vizcarra, who had been attending the inauguration of President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, cut short his trip to deal with the surprise twist in the Odebrecht case, saying he would return home to fight against corruption and impunity. Vizcarra said he would personally present a bill to Perus Congress at 1 p.m. local time on Jan. 2 seeking the state of emergency, and asked for legislative support to usher it through quickly and without conflict. We will use all the tools our Constitution contemplates to overturn this decision, and we ask that all branches of government do the same, Vizcarra told reporters after meeting with his cabinet and advisers in Lima. A state of emergency would allow Vizcarra to quickly and efficiently make changes to personnel he deems necessary to advance the investigation. His move came just hours after Perus top prosecutor, Pedro Chavarry, removed prosecutors Jose Perez and Rafael Vela, saying the duo had failed to respect authority at Perus public prosecutors office, which has overseen the investigation. Chavarrys move prompted a public outcry in Peru, where there is strong support for Vizcarras anti-corruption crusade. The two deposed investigators earlier this month announced they would seek fines of about $180 million from local companies, politicians, and businessmen for taking part in kickback schemes involving Odebrecht construction projects in Peru. In 2016, Odebrecht admitted in a plea deal with U.S., Brazilian, and Swiss authorities that it had bribed officials in a dozen countries, including Peru. The team Perez and Vela helped lead has targeted people at the highest levels of power in the Andean nation. Four former Peruvian presidents, the current opposition leader, and several local construction companies are all under investigation in connection with Odebrecht. All have denied wrongdoing. Chavarrys decision to remove Perez and Vela was announced days after Perez accused Chavarry of allegedly obstructing justice in a separate case involving several judges accused of corruption. Perez and Vela had also targeted former Peruvian presidents Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, Ollanta Humala, and Alejandro Toledo, all of whom are under investigation in connection with the Odebrecht scandal. Vizcarra said on Dec. 31 that Odebrecht should not be able to continue working in Peru because the Brazilian construction company had contaminated private activity and admitted bribing public officials. There are many respectable companies here but now there is distrust of all companies because of Odebrecht, Vizcarra said. The Peruvian president took office at the end of March after the resignation of Kuczynski, the former president. Kuczynski denies any links to Odebrecht. Reporting by Ursula Scollo Over 50 Maternity Unit Staff Sickened by Mold and Operating Room Gases Mold sickened over 50 employees in the maternity unit of a New York City hospital. Maternity unit workers at Staten Island University Hospital experienced headaches, dizziness, and swollen throats. Monitoring equipment discovered mold and trace amounts of anesthetic gases. Every time I go in, and I have been there six times since this started, I get sick, nurse Robyn Jacobs told the Daily News. I get these headaches, my glands swell, sore throat, scratchy throat, and I lose my voice. And then I get a tightness in my chest like an allergic reaction. Maternity unit workers reported a strange chemical odor coming from the nursery in September. About eight of us that first day wound up having really bad headaches and getting dizzy, light-headed, Jacobs told the Daily News. Workers found mold behind a sink wall and decontaminated the area. But staff said the odor will come and go every so often, and that people are still experiencing symptoms. Staff want the entire unit relocated. The hospital doesnt think it is necessary to move the unit. After the air levels came back normal, the hospital began to rebuild the nursery. Hospital staff also worry that they could be inhaling operating room gases. The hospital has also been monitoring those and said that anesthetic gases were detected, but are at safe levels. Hospital administration has been directly communicating with staff multiple times a week, met with union representatives six times and notified the appropriate regulatory agencies to proactively address this matter, said the hospital in statement, obtained by the Daily News. But hospital staff are not only worried about their own health, but that of the babies they care for. Hospital executives said no patients have been affected. Ethically, as a nurse, Im supposed to advocate for a patient, nurse Dawn Cardello said, via the Daily News. If I know my newborn is exposed to something that could potentially be harmful, its my role as a professional to speak up. Is There Really a Problem? Hospital executive director Dr. Brahim Ardolic doesnt believe the staffs view reflects reality. I understand where the fear and concern comes from, I totally get it, and were not trying to minimize anyones concerns, Ardolic said. We cant move patients and a floor and take those types of risks without having some justification for doing that. But Ardolic is ambiguous about the persistent symptoms in the unit. I cant definitively tell you exactly why people continue to have symptoms, he said. The only thing that we have found that definitively needed to be addressed was the mold. But Jacobs view of the situation is much more dire. On 9/11, they said the levels are safe and look at what happened, Jacobs said. I wont go to work anymore until this is cleared upbecause I dont want to keep getting myself sick. Still, that doesnt work for Ardolic. I understand where the fear and concern comes from, I totally get it, and were not trying to minimize anyones concerns, Ardolic said. We cant move patients and a floor and take those types of risks without having some justification for doing that. From NTD News North Korean Ambassador to Italy Jo Song Gil In Hiding, South Korea Says SEOULA North Korean diplomat who was, until recently, acting ambassador to Italy has gone missing, a South Korean member of parliament said Jan. 3, after a South Korean newspaper reported he was seeking asylum in the West. The diplomat, Jo Song Gil, disappeared with his wife after leaving the embassy without notice in early November, according to Kim Min-ki, a South Korean lawmaker who was briefed by the National Intelligence Service. Earlier on Jan. 3, the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, citing an unidentified diplomatic source, said Jo, 48, had applied for asylum to an unspecified Western country and was in a safe place with his family under the protection of the Italian government. A senior diplomatic source in Rome said Italys foreign ministry knew nothing about the reports. A second diplomatic source said the ministry had no record of Jo seeking asylum in Italy. The source added that North Korea had announced in late 2018 that it was sending a new envoy to Rome. It was a perfectly normal procedure, the source said. Kim told reporters he had some information about the case but could not discuss it. They left the diplomatic mission and vanished, Kim said, referring to Jo and his family. Defections If confirmed, Jo would join a slowly growing list of senior diplomats who have sought to flee the impoverished, oppressive North under the rule of Kim Jong Un. Thae Yong Ho, the Norths then-deputy ambassador to Britain, defected with his family to South Korea in August 2016, becoming the highest-ranking diplomat to do so. Jo took up the acting envoy post in October 2017 after Italy expelled then-ambassador Mun Jong Nam in protest over North Koreas nuclear and long-range missile tests in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions. Jos stint began in May 2015 and was due at the end of November, lawmaker Kim said. A source familiar with the matter, who asked to remain unnamed in order to speak about a sensitive political issue, told Reuters that Jo was officially replaced as acting ambassador by Kim Chon in late November. The source could not confirm the JoongAng Ilbo report or whether Jo was still based in Italy. South Koreas presidential Blue House said earlier on Jan. 3 it had no knowledge of the matter. Italy said in a report it submitted to a U.N. panel monitoring the enforcement of sanctions in November 2017 that four diplomats were stationed at the North Korean embassy there, listing the acting envoy as first secretary. The JoongAng Ilbo said Jo was with his wife and children. Citing an unidentified expert, it said he was known to be the son or son-in-law of a top-ranking North Korean official. North Korea forced diplomats stationed overseas to leave children at home after Kim took power in late 2011. Thae, the former deputy ambassador to Britain, said in his 2018 memoir that was the main reason behind his defection, calling it a hostage scheme. However, Thae also wrote there were some exceptions for those from the top echelons and who were seen as the most loyal to Kim. By Hyonhee Shin and Joyce Lee Auschwitz survivor Miroslaw Celka walks out of the death camp gate with the sign above it saying "Work makes you free, on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi extermination facility in southern Poland, on Jan. 27, 2015. (Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images) Nazi Holocaust Murder Rate Far Higher Than Thought and Only Fell When There Was No One Left to Kill WARSAWThe number of Jews murdered by Nazis at the peak of the Holocaust was far higher than previously thought, a new study has revealed, and the only reason it tapered off was because there was no one left to kill. Professor Lewi Stone, a mathematical biologist at Israels University of Tel Aviv and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University in Australia, found that in the Nazi death camps of German-occupied Poland, about 15,000 Jews were killed each day at the height of the slaughter. The maximum Holocaust death rate was previously believed to be 6,000 killings daily at the Auschwitz death camp. Stone examined data anew as Nazi-era cover-ups of Operation Reinhard made exact kill rates notoriously difficult to pinpoint. Known in German as Aktion Reinhard, this was the secretive Nazi plan to exterminate Jews in occupied Poland during World War II on a genocidal scale. 3-Month Pulse of Death Stone used data from Holocaust historian Yitzhak Arad of dedicated trains running from towns and ghettos in Nazi-controlled Poland to three notorious death campsBelzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. The trains were part of a deadly transport network designed to kill millions of victims with maximum efficiency. The professor crunched Arads numbers, which covered 480 train deportations from 393 locations, revealing what he called a three-month phase of hyperintense killing. Stone calculated that at least 15,000 people were being murdered every day during a three-month period in August, September, and October of 1942. An unexpected outcome of the present time series reconstruction was the uncovering of the huge burst of activity in mass killing, Stone said in the research article, published in Science Advances. He added that while Operation Reinhard lasted 21 months, these data show that the great bulk of the killing occurred in a huge pulse over the 3 months. Stone also believes the slaughter would have continued at a similar pace were it not for the fact that the enormous pulse of death during the period of highest intensity had consumed the large majority of possible Jewish victims. The Nazis extremely efficient extermination machine presumably could have continued to run smoothly for many more months at the kill rates identified here had there been a continuous supply of victims, Stone said. He said his research highlights the singularly violent character of this genocidal event. Genocide Like No Other Stone believes the data show that 1.47 million people were murdered in the gas chambers in the course of the three-month pulse of death. If his calculations are correct, it would mean more people died in less time during that period than during any other 20th-century genocide. Operation Reinhard ran at a substantially higher kill rate for sustained time lengths, as compared to the Rwanda genocide, he said. Stones calculations reveal that the murder rate during Operation Reinhard was approximately 83 percent higher than the commonly suggested figure for the kill rate in Rwanda. Stone said his study highlights the Holocausts singularly violent charactereven compared to other more recent genocides. The Holocaust kill rate is some 10 times higher than estimates suggested by authorities on comparative genocide, said Stone. Kill Rates Likely Greater Stone said despite the evident horror of the upwardly revised kill figures that his calculations reveal, he believes the actual murder rates are still higher. He said his calculations were conservative estimates, and that it should be emphasized that the numbers plotted represent a realistic minimum lower bound and that the reality was likely greater than indicated. The true number of victims per day is quite likely to be greater, Stone added, noting that his calculations didnt take into account murders of Roma, also known as Gypsies, or other minority groups. His figures also didnt capture the 3 million non-Jewish Poles who were slaughtered during the war. This image made available by NASA on Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019 shows images with separate color and detail information, and a composited image of both, showing Ultima Thule, about 1 billion miles beyond Pluto. The New Horizons spacecraft encountered it on Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019. (NASA via AP) NASA: Icy Object Past Pluto Looks Like Reddish Snowman A NASA spacecraft 4 billion miles from Earth yielded its first close-up pictures Jan. 2 of the most distant celestial object ever explored, depicting what looks like a reddish snowman. Ultima Thule, as the small, icy object has been dubbed, was found to consist of two fused-together spheres, one of them three times bigger than the other, extending about 21 miles (33 kilometers) in length. NASAs New Horizons, the spacecraft that sent back pictures of Pluto 3 years ago, swept past the ancient, mysterious object early on New Years Day. It is 1 billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto. On Tuesday, based on early, fuzzy images taken the day before, scientists said Ultima Thule resembled a bowling pin. But when better, closer pictures arrived, a new consensus emerged Jan. 2. The bowling pin is gone. Its a snowman! lead scientist Alan Stern informed the world from Johns Hopkins Universitys Applied Physics Laboratory , home to Mission Control in Laurel. The bowling pin image is so 2018, joked Stern, who is with the Southwest Research Institute. The celestial body was nicknamed Ultima Thule meaning beyond the known world before scientists could say for sure whether it was one object or two. With the arrival of the photos, they are now calling the bigger sphere Ultima and the smaller one Thule. Thule is estimated to be 9 miles (14 kilometers) across, while Ultima is thought to be 12 miles (19 kilometers). Scientist Jeff Moore of NASAs Ames Research Center said the two spheres formed when icy, pebble-size pieces coalesced in space billions of years ago. Then the spheres spiraled closer to each other until they gently touched as slowly as parking a car here on Earth at just a mile or two per hour and stuck together. Despite the slender connection point, the two lobes are soundly bound together, according to Moore. Scientists have ascertained that the object takes about 15 hours to make a full rotation. If it were spinning fast say, one rotation every three or four hours the two spheres would rip apart. Stern noted that the team has received less than 1 percent of all the data stored aboard New Horizons. It will take nearly two years to get it all. The two-lobed object is what is known as a contact binary. It is the first contact binary NASA has ever explored. Having formed 4.5 billion years ago, when the solar system taking shape, it is also the most primitive object seen up close like this. About the size of a city, Ultima Thule has a mottled appearance and is the color of dull brick, probably because of the effects of radiation bombarding the icy surface, with brighter and darker regions. Both spheres are similar in color, while the barely perceptible neck connecting the two lobes is noticeably less red, probably because of particles falling down the steep slopes into that area. So far, no moons or rings have been detected, and there were no obvious impact craters in the latest photos, though there were a few apparent divots and suggestions of hills and ridges, scientists said. Better images should yield definitive answers in the days and weeks ahead. Clues about the surface composition of Ultima Thule should start rolling in by Jan. 3. Scientists believe the icy exterior is probably a mix of water, methane and nitrogen, among other things. The snowman picture was taken a half-hour before the spacecrafts closest approach early Jan. 1, from a distance of about 18,000 miles (28,000 kilometers). Scientists consider Ultima Thule an exquisite time machine that should provide clues to the origins of our solar system. Its neither a comet nor an asteroid, according to Stern, but rather a primordial planetesimal. Unlike comets and other objects that have been altered by the sun over time, Ultima Thule is in its pure, original state: Its been in the deep-freeze Kuiper Belt on the fringes of our solar system from the beginning. This thing was born somewhere between 99 percent and 99.9 percent of the way back to T-zero (liftoff) in our solar system, really amazing, Stern said. He added: Weve never seen anything like this before. Its not fish or fowl. Its something thats completely different. Still, he said, when all the data comes in, there are going to be mysteries of Ultima Thule that we cant figure out. Students exit a school bus in front of their school in the Bronx, New York City, on Jan. 9, 2013. (Benjamin Chasteen/The Epoch Times) Mother Says 5-Year-Old Daughter Was Attacked on Georgia School Bus by 12-Year-Old A Georgia mother of a 5-year-old girl said her daughter was attacked on the bus by a 12-year-old last month, according to local reports. Aubrey Corley said her daughters face was covered in bruises and scratches, WMAZ-TV reported. The girl, who was not named in the report, told her mother that she was attacked. Namely, the 12-year-old student, whose name also wasnt disclosed, grabbed her throat and told her to stop breathing, grabbed her hair and slammed her head against the bus wall, Corley told the station. The girl says the 12-year-old student "grabbed her throat and told her to stop breathing, grabbed her hair and slammed her head against the bus wall." NBC Charlotte 201913 The girl was also hit with a book bag and was poked, Corley said, without elaborating. The Monroe County Sheriffs Office filed charges against the 12-year-old. Its not clear if the 12-year-old is a boy or a girl. Monroe County Assistant Superintendent Jackson Daniel also said the child has since been disciplined for the incident. Officials are also interviewing the bus driver, and sheriffs office and school district authorities have reviewed surveillance footage captured on the bus camera, according to WMAZ-TV. Corley said she spoke with law enforcement officials about the bus video. They told her that it appeared the 12-year-old tortured her daughter, the report said. Corley said that an investigator told me that when she got on the bus, the whole 45-minute bus ride was complete terror and torture, WCNC reported. The District Attorneys Office said it will determine whether formal charges will be filed against the preteen. But Corley said she wants to know why her daughter was targeted in the attack. She is the most loving, outgoing child. She can get along with anybody, Corley was quoted as saying by the station. Corley did not provide additional details about the attack. The incident occurred in Forsyth, Georgia, which is located about 50 miles south-southeast of Atlanta. How to Report Suspected Child Maltreatment If you suspect a child is being abused or neglected, contact your local child protective services office or law enforcement agency so officials can investigate and assess the situation. Most states have a number to call to report abuse or neglect. To find out where to call, consult the State Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Numbers website. The Childhelp organization also can provide crisis assistance and other counseling and referral services. Contact them at 1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453). Every year more than 3.6 million referrals are made to child protection agencies involving more than 6.6 million children (a referral can include multiple children), according to Childhelp. According to Stop Bullying, a government group, 28 percent of students in the United States have experienced bullying while 70 percent of youth have seen bullying at school. Revellers gather near the illuminated Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Elysees for New Year's celebrations in the French capital Paris on Dec. 31, 2018. (Zakaria Abdelkafi/AFP/Getty Images) Mom, 22, Who Was Born on New Years Day, Gives Birth to Baby Girl on New Years Day A 22-year-old woman who was born on New Years Day gave birth to a baby girl on New Years Day. The pregnancy was smooth. It was a really smooth, awesome pregnancy compared to my first one, Gabrielle Freeman, the mother, of Hoosick Falls, New York, told WCAX on Jan. 3, 2019, two days after her Jan. 1 delivery. She said her daughter, Taylor, was due Jan. 6, but the baby girl came about a week early. Talk about coincidence! There was a special delivery on New Year's Day at the Southwestern Vermont Medical Center. A WCAX-TV 201913 The child was born at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington on New Years Day, the report stated. WCAX noted Freeman and Taylor were born in the same room at the hospital. The odds of that happening are quite slim, noted one hospital official. First of all, its cool to be a New Years Baby. But to be a New Years Baby to a New Years mom in the same room, its just unheard of. Its unreal, said Jacklynn Kimball, a registered nurse at the hospital. At first it didnt click to me what day she was born, Freeman added. I was just happy she was born and that it was over with. And then I realized, its my birthday. Freeman said shes looking forward to birthdays. I cant wait, Freeman said. Well be doing all sorts of new things when shes older. Its will be fun. It was probably the best birthday present Ive ever gotten, she explained. The county's first baby of 2019 Bennington Banner 201912 Her labor started at 11:30 p.m. on Dec. 29, and 40 hours later, the child was finally born, weighing 5 pounds, 15 ounces while measuring 16.75 inches, according to the Bennington Banner newspaper. She was sent home twice due to inactive labor. It was really quiet, she said of her labor. I was the only one on in labor. First American Baby in 2019 Meanwhile, the first baby born in the United States was born in Guam on New Years Day. The child, named Malakai, was born 19 minutes past midnight on New Years Day, reported the Guam Daily Post. The baby weighed in at 6.6 pounds and is 17.9 inches, the report said. Dr. Tom Shieh told the publication he delivered the baby at Guam Memorial Hospital. Malakai is the third child of Desirae and Kyle Mafnas and was described as a healthy baby who had been eating all morning, said his mother, reported the Pacific Daily News. The parents told the Guam Post that Malakai is a blessing after Desirae had a miscarriage sometime before he was conceived. We had a miscarriage right before Malakai was conceived. His name stands for godsend, Kyle said. I came in at 11 a.m. and then didnt give birth until 12:19 a.m. It was the whole day, Desirae added. Jordyn Walker, a 15-year-old Missouri girl, has gone permanently blind due to a mystery illness. (Jordyn Walker Has Gone Blind/GoFundMe) Missouri Teenager Permanently Blinded by Mystery Illness A Missouri teenager has gone permanently blind due to a mystery illness that caused severe swelling in her face. Jordyn Walker, 15, was rushed to the emergency room at Kansas University Medical Center on Dec. 12 after 10 days of severe stomach pain, vomiting, and bloody diarrhea, a friend wrote on a GoFundMe fundraising page for the teen. While she was waiting to be seen, Walker began to swell and suddenly lost her vision. The pressure behind Jordyns eyes was an average of 85 mm Hg the normal eye pressure is around 12-22 mm Hg. Ophthalmologists cut slits by her eyes to detach her eyelids and to try and open the eye socket in order to reduce swelling. Jordyn was still conscious but received lidocaine for numbing, Shannon Loerzel Sr. wrote. This was only briefly effective, and they later performed an emergency operation around 1:30 am to remove part of her orbital bones on each side of her face to reduce the swelling. The swelling began to subside after removal of the orbital bones and receiving upwards of 1000 mg of steroids. Doctors hoped that Walkers eyesight would return but three days later, they determined her blindness was permanent. Doctors believe that the blood flow to the optic nerve was compromised, severely damaging one nerve and completely destroying the other. Her right eye experienced what in the brain would be similar to a stroke, obliterating her optic nerve and causing severe damage to the retina. The substantial pressure in both eyes stretched the optic nerve, completely separating it from her right eye and compromising it beyond repair in the left, Loerzel Sr. wrote. Family members and friends have been left stunned by the mystery illness, which doctors have struggled to diagnose. Loerzel noted that the same mysterious illness cost the teen her sense of smell and taste in July 2017 after another spell of severe swelling. Walker told WDAFthat the illness seemed to start after she went with her family on a cruise. It just went haywire from there. Everything started swelling, Walker said. Here is the official GoFundMe for Jordyn's case. There is a full description of the situation! Please share to reach as Jordyn's Cause Funding Research and Recovery 20181231 After the first spell of swelling, the family was told it was extremely unlikely that it would happen again. Then, the swelling suddenly started again just two weeks before Christmas. My whole face just turned purple and bruised and giant with blood, Walker said. Her mother, Kendyll Walker, added: It was terrifying to watch it happen all over again and knowing we couldnt do anything about it. The fundraiser is in part for research into the illness in the hopes that it doesnt affect anyone in the future. The family plans to travel to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota within the next several weeks for testing. And the teen says she refuses to let her loss of multiple senses keep her from living life. Im not going to let this stop me, she said. Jordyn is happy to be home but will have many changes in her future. She has decided to remain positive about her life changes but has good times and bad times, added Loerzel Sr. on the GoFundMe in a Dec. 29 update. Jordyn has resilience and will get through this but will need as much support as possible. Friend visits and company are appreciated with notice. From NTD News (L): American teenager Abby Sunderland (L) who was rescued by fishermen from her stricken yacht in the Indian Ocean, and her brother Zac (R) leave Saint-Denis de la Reunion's harbour following Abby's arrival on the French island of Reunion on June 26, 2010. (Richard Bouhet/AFP/Getty Images) (R): "Wild Eyes" sailing boat abandoned almost a decade ago found near the Kangaroo Islands (South Australia Police) Missing Boat Resurfaces 9 Years After Girl Abandoned It Trying to Set Sailing Record A sailing boat destined for greatness that was abandoned nine years ago has just been found. Back in 2010, 16-year-old Abby Sunderland set out on her quest to be the youngest person to sail around the world. However, the quest and the boat were both abandoned when Sunderland became caught in high winds. The boat, known as Wild Eyes, had been drifting around the Indian Ocean for the past nine years since June 2010. The Attempt At just 16-years-old, Abby Sunderland embarked on her quest to become the youngest person to sail around the world. The journey of a lifetime ended on June 10 when the American teen was sailing in high winds and suffered multiple knockdowns in a remote area of the Indian Ocean. She was northeast of the Kerguelen Islands, almost 2,000 miles west of Australia, reported 9 News. The teen had made several broken calls to her family in Thousand Oaks, California, and reported that 30-foot waves were tossing her yacht around, according to Oakland Press. Support team member, Jeff Casher, said Abby had to make repeated calls with her cellphone because of sketchy connections. She hung up to go check some things and she never did call back, he said. An hour later the family was notified that her emergency beacons had been activated, and there was no further communication. Despite the distress signals, Abbys family and support team were confident she was alive as the beacons had been deliberately turned on rather than set off automatically. Shes got all the skills she needs to take care of what she has to take care of, she has all the equipment as well, her brother Zac said, himself a veteran of a solo sail around the world at age 17. The Rescue After a tense 20 hours of silence, a Qantas Airbus A330 search plane launched from Australias west coast made radio contact with Abby Sunderland. Search coordinator Mick Kinley, acting chief of the Australia Maritime Safety Authority, said the yachts mast was brokenruining satellite phone receptionand was dragging with the sail in the ocean. However, Abby told searchers she was doing fine with a space heater and at least two weeks worth of food, according to family spokesman William Bennett. The aircraft [crew] spoke to her, Kinley told reporters in Canberra. They told her help was on the way and she sounds like shes in good health. Shes going to hang in there until a vessel can get to her in about 24 hours, he said. The 11 observers on the plane spoke with her by close-range VHP marine radio, western Australia state police spokesman Senior Sgt. Graham Clifford said. The plane faced a 4,700 mile round trip from Perth to Sunderlands boat, which is near the limit of its range, he said. Qantas spokesman, Tom Woodward, said the airline flew five hours out to sea to reach the area where the beacons were transmitting and then maneuvered for another hour before spotting the 40-foot yacht. Abbys rescue by French and Australian authorities cost an estimated $300,000, sparking controversy that taxpayers had to pay for it, reported Adelaide Now. Abby had to abandon her expedition as well as her boat. Wild Eyes was dismasted, stripped of its equipment and left capsized to drift about the sea, until now. The Resurfacing Almost a decade later, the sailing boat Wild Eyes at last found dry land. The 40-foot yacht was spotted in waters off Kangaroo Island on the afternoon of New Years Eve. The ghost boat had managed to stay afloat all these years, now covered in sea barnacles. It is not clear yet what will become of the vessel, which was once destined for greatness. Prosecutors announced on Jan. 2, 2019, that Jared Chance, 29, was charged with open murder and tampering with evidence in addition to previous charges in the case of Ashley Young, 31, who was found dead in Chance's Grand Rapids, Mich. apartment on Dec. 2, 2018. (Grand Rapids Police Department) Michigan Man Accused of Dismembering Ashley Young Charged With Murder A Michigan man accused of dismembering a woman in his apartment has been charged with murder. Ashley Young, 31, went missing in late November and her remains were found in the apartment of Jared Chance, 29. Chance was arrested on Dec. 2 after a tenant investigating a strange smell led Grand Rapids police officers to Youngs body, which was mutilated and stuffed inside of a bag. Chance was charged with mutilation and concealing the death of an individual. The remains were identified as Young on Dec. 7 through DNA testing. Prosecutors announced an open murder charge on Jan. 2 along with three counts of tampering with evidence, reported the Holland Sentinel. He was scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday, Jan. 3, and appear for a preliminary examination on Friday. According to charging documents obtained by MLive, Chance bragged to multiple people in the days before Youngs body was found that he knew how to kill and get away with it. Police officers also wrote that they found a slew of evidence in his apartment, including blood and tissue in his bathroom and kitchen in addition to a saw they found under a couch in his parents house in Holland. Chances parents were later charged with accessory after the fact and lying to police. The investigation included interviewing over 100 witnesses, including Jared Chances brother Konrad Chance, who said he last saw his brother and Young on Nov. 25, four days before she went missing. At that time Konrad Chance witnessed Jared Chance pull out a .22 revolver, empty it of ammunition, then Jared Chance pointed the gun at Konrad and pulled the trigger multiple times, Grand Rapids police Detective Erika Fannon wrote in the affidavit. In addition, in the days leading up to Ms. Youngs murder, (a man who lived below Jared Chances rental unit) had a conversation with Jared Chance in Jareds kitchen. At that time, Jared Chance had a .22 revolver and was constantly picking it up and moving it around the table in such a manner that (the neighbor) felt unsafe to be in Jared Chances presence, Fannon added. During this conversation, Jared Chance described to (the neighbor) about how he knew how to murder someone and get away with it. Youngs family said that she was last spotted in the Eastown neighborhood in Grand Rapids with Chance. The family wrote on a Facebook page that was dedicated to finding her during the search that she was last seen at Mulligans Pub with Chance, who was friends with her on Facebook, in the early hours of Nov. 29, reported WOOD-TV. Police said that Chance the next day dismembered Young. Criminal Record Chance, who is now facing life in prison, had an extensive criminal record prior to being arrested for the alleged murder and mutilation of Young. His series of offenses started when he was 15 years old and as a teen, he was charged with shoplifting and possession of alcohol, reported the Detroit Free Press. He has several driving offenses, including an arrest for allegedly driving under the influence. In 2009, he was arrested for unlawful use of auto for leaving a friends car he was driving in the middle of the road. In 2016 Chance was convicted of possession of methadone and Oxycodone. He was placed on probation but that was terminated when he committed three new violations in October 2016, including marijuana use. At the time of his arrest, he was unemployed and had issues with anxiety, according to court records. A longtime friend of the Chance family, Jessica Thielbar, said that Jared Chance was a really wild person. Sometimes angry and violent, like hes had fights with other students sometimes and he was a bully to the other people, like would pick on kids and stuff, she told Fox 17. Sometimes hed be a decent person and then theres days whered he just didnt seem like he had that great of an attitude I guess, so he wasnt very nice. From NTD News Mexican Mayor Shot to Death Just Hours After Taking Office The new mayor of a Mexican town in the state of Oaxaca was gunned down just hours after taking office, according to media reports. Alejandro Aparicio Santiago was heading to his very first meeting in Tlaxiaco city hall when he was attacked by a group of gunmen, according to The Associated Press. The mayor later died in a hospital. Four others were also injured. Me encuentro presente en sesion correspondiente al tercer periodo extraordinario de sesiones del segundo ano de ejercicio legal en el Honorable Congreso del Estado. Alejandro Aparicio Santiago 20181031 The governor of Oaxaca strongly condemned the attack in a statement on Twitter on Jan. 1 and said an arrest had already been made. Gov. Alejandro Murat also said he requested a thorough investigation. Aparicio was a part of MORENA (National Regeneration Movement), the same leftist party as Mexicos President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, according to NPR. MORENA members in Oaxaca mourned the death of the politician in a Twitter post and demanded that authorities bring those responsible to justice. Lamentamos profundamente el fallecimiento de nuestro companero y amigo Alejandro Aparicio Santiago, Presidente Municipal de la Heroica Ciudad de Tlaxiaco. Exigimos a las autoridades que actuen y castiguen a los responsables. Nuestras condolencias a sus familiares y amigos. pic.twitter.com/mo1b9HbJV4 Morena_Oaxaca (@CEEMorenaOaxaca) January 1, 2019 Political candidates and politicians in Mexico have often faced potential violence. Another recent victim was MORENA member Maria Ascencion Torres Cruz, the Morelos state government announced on Twitter on Dec. 30. A study by the risk analysis firm Etellekt found that 175 politicians were assassinated between September 2017 and August 2018. More than 300 politicians faced intimidation and threats, while others were injured or kidnapped. Mexicos general election was held on July 1. Another notable mayoral assassination included Gisela Mota, mayor of Temixco in the state of Morelos, in 2016, according to the New York Times. The state security commissioner Jesus Alberto Capella blamed the killing on organized crime. Also in 2016, the Mexican Association of Mayors requested urgent help from the president to stop a wave of mayor assassinations. About 56 had been killed over the course of 10 years, said news reports, according to the Miami Herald. A study that was published that year by the Center for Impunity and Justice Studies (CESIJ) at the University of the Americas in Puebla found that only 7 percent of crimes in Mexico are reported to authorities, and less than 1 percent of all criminals go to jail, reported the Herald. On Dec. 2, Obrador announced plans to combat lawlessness in the country with a new national guard, reported Reuters. We must adjust to a new era, he said during a speech at a military base in the capital. He promised that the security strategy would respect human rights and would be put to a public vote in 2019. The people of Mexico need their armed forces to address this grave problem of insecurity and violence right now, he said. Weve opted for this plan because we trust the armed forces. According to a 2018 Congressional Research Service report, former Mexican President Felipe Calderon began a vigorous campaign against Mexican drug traffickers in 2006, and the drug trafficking organizations violently resisted. In 2017, Mexico reached its highest number of total intentional homicides in a year, exceeding, by some counts, 29,000 murders, stated the report. Of total intentional homicides since 2006, many sources indicate that roughly 150,000 of total homicides were organized crime-related killings. Mexican Man Charged With Killing Cop Gets Mental Health Exam MODESTOA Mexican national accused of living in the United States illegally was charged with murder on Jan. 2, in the shooting death of a California police officer who pulled him over to check if he was driving drunk. Gustavo Perez Arriaga made his first court appearance in the central California city of Modesto but did not enter a plea in last weeks killing of Cpl. Ronil Singh of the tiny Newman Police Department. Corporal Ronil Singh Newman Police Department, CA EOW: December 26, 2018 pic.twitter.com/ShgW37cMrx Stanislaus Sheriff (@StanSheriff) December 26, 2018 Perez Arriagas attorney, Stephen Foley, questioned his clients mental competency, leading the court to delay the case until the suspect gets a mental health evaluation, The Modesto Bee newspaper reported. Perez Arriaga told the judge that his real name is Paulo Virgen Mendoza, but authorities were still referring to him as Perez Arriaga. A complaint lists three aliases for him, including Paulo Virgen Mendoza. Singhs family and several of the Police Departments 12 officers attended the hearing. Dozens of people stood outside the courthouse holding signs that read, Justice for Cpl. Ronil Singh and Back the Blue. Perez Arriaga is set to return to court Feb. 7, when a court-appointed doctor will provide a report on his mental health, said John Goold, a spokesman for the Stanislaus County District Attorneys Office. Perez Arriaga was arrested Friday, Dec. 28, after a dayslong manhunt as he prepared to flee to Mexico, officials said. He has two previous drunken driving arrests, authorities say. Update: Suspect Gustavo Perez Arriaga has arrived at the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department to be interviewed by Detectives. pic.twitter.com/38yvR43XmV Stanislaus Sheriff (@StanSheriff) December 28, 2018 The case has rekindled a debate over Californias sanctuary law that limits cooperation with federal immigration authorities. President Donald Trump seized on the case to call for tougher border security amid a fight with congressional Democrats over funding for a border wall, which has forced a partial government shutdown. Singh was also an immigrant, coming to the United States legally from his native Fiji to pursue his dream of serving in law enforcement, authorities said. He joined the Newman police force in 2011. The 33-year-old was married and had a 5-month-old son. Two of Perez Arriagas brothers, his girlfriend, and four others were arrested on suspicion of helping him evade authorities. Mattis: His Big Mistake Commentary After President Donald Trumps decision to withdraw all U.S. military presence from the Syrian theater of operations, Secretary of Defense Gen. Jim Mattis decided to resign his post. In a one-page letter of resignation, Mattis made his reasons quite clear. He stated: We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity, and values, and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our alliances. Because you have the right to a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position. While the media likes to report that Mattis was the adult in the room at the Oval Office, that was inaccurate from the beginning. Mattis does indeed have decades of experience in the military as a retired Marine four-star general. But there is a universal truth that isnt often mentioned publicly: All generals who get their third or fourth star are political. They learn to be adept politically or they dont achieve the rank. Relationship With Trump One of the talents that is a must-have along the way is how to manage upwards effectively. This was one of Gen. Mattiss talents when interacting with the president, not the anti-Trump fantasy world of the mainstream media that consistently implied Mattis would magically manipulate Trump during their interactions, stopping him from spilling evil onto the world. The fact is, Mattis did what any military professional would: He gave the best information he had, he expressed his opinion and recommendations, and waited for the decision from the president, which he accepted as the lawful orders of a superior. This is a method that is very easy for Trump to process, and the two got along well. Mattis, being personally quite liberal, did create a number of areas of contention within the administration, particularly with regard to personnel. He had a number of pitched battles over bringing in liberal friends to positions of importance in the administration. As with all such political battles, you win some and you lose some, and so it went for Mattis. All that aside, Mattis resigned over the issue of Trumps decision to pull out of Syria. From his letter of resignation, its clear that the reason was linked to the relationships we had built in the region, particularly with the Kurds. Mistake Mattis is correct that, without help, the Kurds are going to be ruthlessly tracked down by the Turks and killed. He believes that the moral dilemma created by abandoning the Kurds to destruction at the hands of the Turks is something he wasnt willing to accept, which is understandable. However, this is a classic blunder on Mattiss part. Hes linking the Syrian pullout and support to the Kurds as a single issue, when, in fact, they are two separate issues. The president is making the correct decision to pull out of Syria. The original objectives of creating a significant Syrian fighting force to combat terrorists and pressure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to leave, as well as limiting Russian influence, have all failed utterly and completely. Some good was done against ISIS, but outside of that, nothing permanent or even of long-term value was accomplished. The Syrian countryside controlled gives us no advantage in negotiations, and the Assad regime, with Russian backing, has further consolidated its influence and control. Staying permanently in Syria for such slim gains makes no sense. With his resignation, Mattis has abandoned the Kurds for a second time by leaving, when he could stay and argue to support them. Trump made a good decision to pull out. Lets hope he makes another good decision and supports the Kurds, although hell have to do it without Mattis acting like the adult in the room. Brad Johnson is a retired CIA senior operations officer and a former chief of station. He is president of Americans for Intelligence Reform. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Man Arrested at White House Said He Wanted President Trumps Help in Finding Wife A Canadian man who was arrested at the White House on Jan. 2 claimed he wanted President Donald Trumps assistance in finding a wife. The man, Yianny Georgopoulos, gained access to gained access to a restricted area near Pennsylvania Avenue and East Executive Avenue shortly after midnight Wednesday by moving a bicycle rack marked No trespassing authorized personnel only and Restricted area do not enter, according to court documents. When confronted, Georgopoulos told a Secret Service officer that he was there to take President Trump two bottles of Crown Royal, a Canadian whiskey. President Trump does not drink alcohol, stating that the motivation included his older brother Freddie Trumps death stemming from alcoholism at the age of 42. If you dont start youre never going have a problem. If you do start you might have a problem. And its a tough problem to stop, Trump said previously. The officer ordered Georgopoulos to leave the restricted area and he was soon arrested and charged with unlawful entry. After his arrest, the Canadian claimed he wanted the presidents help in finding a wife. He also said he wasnt sure when he would return to Canada, claiming he cant go home. He did not elaborate. He said that he had been arrested recently for threatening family members and admitted to having stalked his cousin. Court documents state that Georgopoulos acknowledged seeing the signs on the rack. Georgopoulos was set to appear in court on Jan. 4 at 9:30 a.m., according to NBC 4. The man, identified in court documents as 30-year-old Brain Whitehurst, pulled up to the resort on Dec. 30, 2018, and told Secret Service Agent Tim Donohue he needed to talk to the president about the trillions of dollars, reported The Associated Press. He said he was there to talk to Trump about his $6.3 trillion. He didnt elaborate on what he was talking about. Donohue and a security official at the resort asked Whitehurst to leave but he refused. Palm Beach police officers arrested Whitehurst on a misdemeanor trespassing charge and released him. Man Charged After Toxic Letters Sent to Trump In October 2018, a Utah man was charged with threatening to use a biological toxin as a weapon by sending letters to President Donald Trump and other leaders containing ground castor beans, the substance from which the poison ricin is derived. William Clyde Allen III, 39, told investigators he wanted the letters to send a message, though he did not elaborate on what he meant. The letters were intercepted by mail screeners. Along with Trump, letters were found addressed to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, and the Navys top officer, Adm. John Richardson. All of the letters tested positive for ricin but were later found to only have contained castor beans, which can be deadly if swallowed. The case is expected to go before a grand jury. From NTD News Lion That Killed Woman in North Carolina Was Shot Eight Times Before It Went Down The lion that killed a woman in North Carolina after it escaped from its enclosure was shot eight times by sheriff deputies before it went down. Three tranquilizer darts were also shot at the animal, according to an incident report from the Caswell County Sheriffs Office. Sgt. Michael Griggs detailed the confrontation with the lion after it attacked 22-year-old Alexandra Black, a recent college graduate who was working as a husbandry intern at the Conservators Center. The center said that the lion escaped while the husbandry team was cleaning its enclosure and it attacked Black in a nearby area. Griggs said that he arrived at the center and was informed that the lion was running around and that the fire department had water lines set up to spray the lion if it got close to Black again. The centers animal manager was waiting on a tranquilizer gun to try to put down the animal. The manager, Douglas Evans, had to rush to his house to get a blowgun after the tranquilizer gun finally arrived but got jammed. He used the blowgun to hit the lion with two tranquilizer darts, hoping to put the lion to sleep, but the lion showed no signs of becoming sleepy and was walking around in circles and growling, reported the Associated Press, which obtained a copy of the report. After a third dart failed to put the lion down, officials decided to use deadly force. Griggs and another officer shot the lion eight times in total to ensure that it died, with the final one being detailed by Griggs, who aimed for the heart per instructions from Evans. I was able to take a safe and clear shot into the lions left body area where Mr. Evans stated the shot should be placed, Griggs wrote, reported Fox 8, which obtained a copy of the report. Evans then approached the animal and confirmed that it was dead, and paramedics rushed into Black but found that she was dead. Griggs used a 12-gauge shotgun. The gun used by other officers was not detailed. Conservators Centers Lions The center was founded in 1999 by longtime wildlife organization volunteers and employees Evans and Mindy Stinner as an educational nonprofit dedicated to providing a home for select carnivore species. In 2004, the center accepted 14 lions and tigers that were part of a larger confiscation of animals living in unacceptable conditions, according to the centers about page. The lion that killed a person before being put down, Matthai, was a 14-year-old male born to one of those lions. The Centers population of large cats expanded from three big cats to over 30 individuals in a matter of a few months. Because of the decision to maintain these animals on site, the business plan of the organization was shifted to include opening the park to the public to provide enough funding to support the expanded population. With that shift, the Center opened its doors to the public in 2007 with its first guided, walking tours, the center stated. The center now houses over 80 animals across more than 21 species and welcomes over 16,000 visitors a year. A government inspector counted 16 lions among 85 total animals in 2018. The centers website lists 15 lions as of Jan. 3; Matthai is not among them. The center has closed indefinitely after the attack. People who live near the center said they typically enjoy having the animals nearby. Shirley Brown, who can see the Conservators Center from her backyard, told WFMY: We love it. We hear the animals when we go out in the morning, you hear lions roaring and the wolves howling. Its unique, and its a nice thing to have, she added. She called the lion attack a very sad mistake on someones part. Caused a lot of hurt, she said. An animal is dead, a person is dead, and evidently this young girl was finally doing what she always wanted to do, and very sad it ended this way. From NTD News Idaho Woman Being Investigated for Possibly Throwing Away Kelsey Berreths Cellphone A woman in Idaho is a being investigated as a possible accomplice to Patrick Frazee, who has been charged with murder in the disappearance of his fiance Kelsey Berreth. Prosecutors alleged that Frazee plotted the murder for months before Berreth vanished on Thanksgiving. Her cell phone pinged several days later in Idaho, nearly 700 miles away from her Woodland Park, Colorado home. The Idaho woman, who has not been named publicly, is 32 years old, lives in Twin Falls, and works as a nurse, multiple sources told ABC. The outlet said that the sources were two of the womans family members and a law enforcement official. The revelation comes after a number of developments in the case. Just before Christmas, police officials in Idaho said they had been working with authorities in Colorado on the case. Detectives from the Twin Falls County Sheriffs Office and Twin Falls Police Department worked with the Colorado Bureau of Investigations (CBI) and the FBI to prepare and serve several search warrants as well as processing some items of evidence with the assistance of Twin Falls County and Twin Falls City Evidence Technicians, according to a statement from the Twin Falls Police Department. Frazee was arrested and booked into jail on Dec. 21, Woodland Park Police Chief Miles De Young said. Although Berreths body has not been found as of yet, De Young said that investigators believe she is dead. Sadly, we do not believe Kelsey is alive, he told reporters at a press conference. Despite the body not being found, some legal experts said that prosecutors can still pursue the case. You dont actually need a body to try or convict somebody of murder, one expert, Christopher Decker, told KDVR. One of the things they have to do is [prove] that she is dead and that he knowingly and intentionally caused that death. The 1-year-old daughter that Frazee and Berreth shared was handed over to Berreths family, De Young said. Frazee had been taking care of the girl prior to his arrest. Prosecutors revealed on Dec. 31 when Frazee was formally charged with two counts of first-degree murder that he allegedly solicited at least one person to kill his fiance. The three counts of solicitation state that between and including Sept. 1 and Nov. 1, Frazee unlawfully and feloniously commanded, induced, entered, or otherwise attempted to persuade another person to commit the felony of murder in the first degree, with intent to promote or facilitate the commission of that crime and under circumstances strongly corroborative of that intent. The charges also state that Frazee, possibly with at least one other person, tried to rob Berreth and that she was killed afterward. Fourth Judicial District Attorney Dan May said during the appearance that the two murder charges were filed under separate theories. Obviously, theres only one murder in this case, May said, reported ABC 7. Under Colorado law, we file separate counts under different theories of first-degree murder. We filed under two theories: One is deliberation for murder. And the other is felony murder. From NTD News Hospital Resident Who Posted Anti-Semitic Missives Graduated From Jewish Medical College The Ohio hospital resident who was disassociated by the clinic at which she worked after her numerous anti-semitic missives were highlighted by a watchdog group, graduated from a Jewish medical college. The Cleveland Clinic confirmed recently that Lara Kollab was not working at the hospital any longer as a resident following the circulation of her anti-Jewish postings on Twitter. May Allah take back (end the lives) of the Jews so we stop being forced to go to those unclean ones, she wrote in one of the tweets. In another, she said: Ill purposely give all the [Jews] the wrong meds. In 2012, the same year that she posted many of the missives, she graduated from the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine, a Jewish college in New York City, with a Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine degree. The college was established in 1970 to focus on higher education for the Jewish community. Touro does not simply accommodate Jewish traditions, it supports and sustains them. The College is one of few in this country that builds in time for students to worship and to study, to celebrate and to honor their cultures and beliefs, the university stated on its website. The college quickly responded after Kollabs anti-Jewish missives were highlighted, saying in a statement on Dec. 31, 2018: We are shocked that one of our graduates would voice statements that are antithetical to Touro and to the physicians Hippocratic Oath. We have received word from the Cleveland Clinic where Dr. Kollab was last affiliated and learned that she is no longer employed there. The college added, Touro College is appalled by the anti-Semitic comments reportedly made by Lara Kollab, a graduate of the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine. The mission of Touro College is to educate, perpetuate, and enrich the historic Jewish tradition of tolerance and dignity. According to the Cleveland Clinic website, Kollab was working there as of December 2018, but the clinic said in a statement that she was only employed through September 2018. Dr Lara Kollab, 27, a former resident at The Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, wrote in now-deleted posts that she hoped 'Allah will kill the Jews' and referred to Jewish people as 'dogs'. https://t.co/zyzc3gGR6U Steven R. Green (@athens_lawyer) January 3, 2019 Kollabs Statements Attention was drawn to Kollabs anti-Israel and anti-Jew statements by the Canary Mission. In her missives, she called for violence against Jews, supported terrorists, and compared Israel to Nazi Germany. In January 2012, she wrote the tweet that stated she would give Jews the wrong medications. In September 2012, she wrote, loll my friends husband works in an arabic restaurant a yahoodi [Jew] came in asking for israeli hummus he kicked him out of the restaurant. In October 2012, replying to a comment on a post she made, she said, I think [the Holocaust] did happen, its just exaggerated and the victimization of the jews (ignoring the others killed) is overdone. In January 2014, she posted three missives that defended Hamas, a recognized terrorist group. Over the years, shes tweeted in support of terrorists multiple times. Kollab also regularly compared Israel to Nazi Germany. In one post, she wrote, Typical nazi mentality. zionists are the spawn of hitler. After the mission drew attention to Kollabs tweets, she deleted her account. She also deleted her Facebook account, her LinkedIn account, and one of her Instagram accounts. Kollab has not spoken publicly since the statements were revealed. From NTD News Taiwanese sailors salute the island's flag on the deck of the Panshih supply ship, at the Tsoying naval base in the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung, on Jan. 31, 2018. (Mandy Cheng/AFP/Getty Images) Taiwan Traces Cyberattack on Taipei Department of Health to Chinese IP Address TAIPEI, TaiwanAfter months of investigation, Taipei authorities traced a cyberattack that resulted in the theft of 2.98 million Taipei residents personal data to an IP address in Shanghai. The Taipei branch of the Investigation Bureau, an agency within the islands Ministry of Justice, announced the findings Jan. 2, according to Taiwanese media. Hackers breached more than 70 computer systems operated by the Department of Health within the Taipei government. While the hackers tried to sell the personal data, according to the Investigation Bureau, it isnt known if the hackers successfully sold the information. The Investigation Bureau was alerted about the possible hacking in August 2018, when the Taipei governments Department of Information Technology detected that computers used to host an internal public health information management system were infected with a Trojan horse. The investigation revealed that hackers planted the Trojan horse on computers belonging to Taipeis Department of Health, on two different occasions, once in 2014 and again in 2017. The hackers successfully stole personal data that included information on residents personal health records, vaccination records, and childbearing allowance. The latter is a maternity benefit to encourage women to have more children and varies in amount, depending on the regional authorities. According to the Investigation Bureau, before infecting the computers, hackers had breached unidentified corporate websites with weak computer security systems in place. After getting control of these corporate websites, hackers created fake administrative accounts, then used these sites as a springboard to infect computers owned by the Department of Health. The Investigation Bureau concluded that more than 40 entities, including public hospitals, publicly listed companies, and other regional government departments in Taiwan were also hacked by the same attackers. The Investigation Bureau didnt elaborate on the extent of the breach, or the kind of information stolen at those other entities. Taiwan wasnt the only country hit. The same attackers hacked 1,509 websites in 38 countries, including government agencies in the United States and Europe. They got their hands on more than 9 billion pieces of personal information, according to the Investigation Bureau. According to Taiwanese media, the Bureau has informed the FBI in the United States and police organizations in Europe about its findings. The Investigation Bureau said though the IP address originated from Shanghai, there is a possibility that the hackers were located outside China and used the Shanghai IP address to disguise their true location. While it remains to be seen whether China-based hackers were responsible for the latest attack, Taiwanese websites, especially those run by the military, have often been targeted by Chinese hackers. In May 2018, Taiwanese newspaper The Liberty Times reported that Chinese hackers attacked Taiwanese websites about 200 million times in 2017, with the websites of Taiwans Ministry of National Defense, National Defense University, Political Warfare Bureau, and a number of military hospitals bearing the majority of these attacks (1.62 million times). The Chinese regime considers Taiwan part of its territory and has never renounced the use of military force to unite Taiwan with the mainland, despite the fact that Taiwan is a de facto independent country, with its own constitution, democratically elected government, currency, and military. Danielle Fishel (L) and executive producer Jensen Karp at TBS' Drop the Mic and The Joker's Wild Premiere Party at Dream Hotel in Hollywood, Calif., on Oct. 11, 2017. (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for TBS) Girl Meets World Star Danielle Fishel Expecting a Baby in July Actress Danielle Fishel has shared that she and her husband, producer Jensen Karp, are pregnant with their first child. Fishel, 37, posted a photo of baby shoes on Instagram, saying she was on an emotional roller coaster preparing for the baby. Im eating for two. Im napping with wild abandon. Baby shoes. Baby clothes. (Im shopping). Im nesting. Im reading books. Im madly in love with my husband. I cry at commercials. Im a walking cliche. Ive got baby apps. Im confident. I feel inadequate. Im showing one day and the next Im not. Im nervous. Im excited. Hes due in July. We cant wait. #BabyKarp2019, Fishel wrote. Karp, 39, also wrote his own post announcing the news, adding a hilarious photo of what their future son might look like, created with the baby photo-generating website MakeMeBabies. GUYS. Were having a baby boy. Couldnt be more excited to raise a sweet little dumpling with @daniellefishel, wrote Karp. Even though we used one of those websites and found out it will look like the monster in the next photo... Karp also replied to Fishels Instagram post, saying, This post is better than mine. Love you. Lets name him Jordan, according to E! News. Fishel and Karp received hundreds of messages expressing joy and congratulations from friends, family, and fans after the baby announcement. Your TV son is so happy you are getting a real-life son. You are going to be the greatest mom EVER, and I should know! said actor August Maturo, who played Fishels son on Girl Meets World, according to E! News. I couldnt be more excited. I love you both very much. Ill help as much as you need but you can juggle 744,886 things at once so maybe you wont need help, said actress Angela Trimbur. The couple has been married since Nov. 4, reported E! News, after becoming engaged in March. Fishel told Us Weekly in September about her wedding, I am going to say that its not traditional. Its a little bit quirky, just like we are. She added, I am on cloud nine. He is the most amazing partner anybody could ever hope for. And Im just thrilled. Im really looking forward to building a life with him. As an actress starring in both the famous television series Boy Meets World from 1993 to 2000, and its sequel Girl Meets World from 2014 to 2017, Fishel invited several notable co-stars to her wedding. Ben Savage, who played Cory Matthews on Boy Meets World, and Will Friedle, who played Eric Matthews, were two guests at the ceremony. Fishel played the character Topanga Lawrence on the show. Sabrina Carpenter, who played Maya Hart on Girl Meets World, was a bridesmaid, and musician John Mayer also performed for the wedding, reported E! News. Fishel has acted in various other roles throughout her career, such as the voice of Pyronica in the television series Gravity Falls, along with films Boiling Pot, Dorm Daze, and Longshot. Karp is executive producer on the television series Drop the Mic, and also produced Baby Talk, Scheer-RL, and The ArScheerio Paul Show. This is Fishels second marriage after she divorced business manager Tim Belusko in 2016. They were married for two years. Melissa Meeks Rhodes and Steven Rhodes, who went missing on Dec. 31, 2018, were found dead on Jan. 1, 2019, Georgia officials said. (Greene County Georgia Sheriff's Office) Georgia Couple Missing Since New Years Eve Found in Burned Out Truck The bodies of a man and woman missing in Georgia since New Years Eve were found inside of a burned out truck in what authorities are describing as a murder-suicide. Steven Rhodes and his wife Melissa Meeks Rhodes were reported missing on Dec. 31, 2018. They were last seen around 11 p.m. that day driving in Rhodess black Ford pickup truck. Melissa Rhodes daughter alerted authorities because she was worried about her mother after attempts to reach her were unsuccessful. When she arrived home she observed some things that raised her suspicions about something being not quite right, Greene County Sheriff Donnie Harrison told WSB-TV. We do know something took place that rose some red flags for the family and for us. Some things in the yard of her mothers home on Bethany Church Road prompted her to alert the authorities. She observed some things that disturbed her in the yard, Harrison told the Athens Banner-Herald. She couldnt locate her mother or her stepdad. A deputy responded to the scene and determined that the evidence indicated some kind of domestic situation, triggering a search for the couple. Sheriff deputies and volunteers searched for the couple but struggled to find clues due to storms on New Years Day and the fact that Steven Rhodes reportedly preferred to drive on back roads. Steven Rhodes liked to ride the dirt roads and that part of the county is pretty rural, Harrison said. We were told Rhodes had a tendency to take back roads, Harrison added to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. With all the rain weve had, it didnt make it easy for patrol cars. Finally, late Tuesday deputies got a call about a truck that matched the description of the Ford. It was spotted by officers in Georgia State Patrols helicopter, reported WDRW. The officers called in about 15 to 20 minutes after taking off, and directed investigators to the where they spotted the vehicle. The helicopter spotted the vehicle, then we followed in and on foot, Taliaferro Sheriff Marc Richards said. Richards told WSB-TV that the truck was found on Carters Ford Road in Taliaferro County burned out, with a shotgun and spent shells at the scene. The location was described by one reporter as deep back in some woods. Richards said the truck was on private property. The bodies of Steven and Melissa Rhodes were found inside, the sheriff said. Richards said it appeared to be a murder-suicide. It appears to me that he killed her, got outside the truck, lit the fire, got back in and killed himself, Richards said. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a press release that the truck was found on a logging road in Crawfordville and did have two bodies inside. The vehicle was burned and due to the condition of the two occupants, a positive identification could not be made, the agency stated. The bodies were going to be taken to the bureaus Medical Examiners Office in Decatur where autopsies would be performed. Richards acknowledged that authorities arent completely sure the bodies are that of the Rhodeses. We believe its them, but were still waiting on the positive identification, the sheriff told the Athens Banner-Herald. The couple had no children together but Melissa Rhodes leaves behind three daughters from a previous marriage while Steven Rhodes leaves behind a son and a daughter. According to Melissa Meeks Rhodes Facebook account, the couple was married since Dec. 4, 2015 and lived in White Plains. She worked in flooring sales at Lowes. Steven Rhodes Facebook did not list a workplace. The investigation is ongoing and anyone with information was asked to call the bureau at 706-595-2575 or the Taliaferro County Sheriffs Office at 706-456-2345. Republican House member-elect Dan Crenshaw is seen after posing for the 116th Congress members-elect group photo on the East Front Plaza of the US Capitol in Washington on Nov. 14, 2018. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images) Former Navy SEAL Explains Why Walls Matter: A Wall is Effective A former Navy SEAL said that walls do make a difference in terms of security as he said Democrats dont seem to value the sanctity of our borders. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), a first-time lawmaker, said that in his experience as a Navy SEAL, walls have an impact. A wall is effective. Its a crucial part of any kind of border security. Ive spent a whole career infiltrating places and, you know, when we come up upon a wall, it matters, he said during an appearance on Fox News. We have to plan around it. Its a mitigating factor if youre trying to enter or cross from point A to point B. Crenshaw noted that Democrats are outright opposed to the wall, or even another barrier such as a fence, even though many of the current leaders voted for a border barrier in 2006 and 2013. They hate the word wall, they just hate it, right? Crenshaw said. And for some reason, they dont value this idea of border security. They dont value the sanctity of our borders and thats really problematic, especially for a border state like Texas. Were on the front lines down there. He also asserted that the $5 billion President Donald Trump wants in the funding package for the wall is very little. Its not too expensive. Its 0.1 percent of our entire federal budget0.1 percent is what were talking about. Thats what $5 billion dollars ends up being. So its really not about the money, Crenshaw said. I think what they really want to do is score points against the president. He made a campaign promise and they want to score points against him by destroying that campaign promise. But its at the expense of our security, he added. The comments came as top Democrats continued to refuse to negotiate with Trump, who said he was open to reaching a compromise on the amount of money for the wall but that he wouldnt agree to a deal with no wall funding in it. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the House GOP leader, told reporters on Jan. 2 that top Democrats attending a security briefing at the White House on Wednesday didnt want to listen to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Once the secretary started, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) interrupted her, McCarthy said. They really didnt want to hear it, and they challenged some the points the secretary made, he said. Before the briefing, Trump told reporters that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and border patrol officials would make a plea for a border wall at the meeting, a part of his efforts to convince Democrats to give him funding for the long-promised project. Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have vowed not to give Trump any border wall funding, calling the wall ineffective without providing evidence of the claim. Instead, they argued, the president and Republicans should sign funding legislation that doesnt include wall funding but would fund the government, which is partially shut down. From NTD News (L) An aggressive McDonalds customer is engaged in a violent altercation with a female employee in St. Petersburg, Fla. on Dec. 31, 2018. (R) Police booking photo of Daniel Taylor, who faces two counts of battery in connection with the incident. (Brenda Biandudi via Storyful; Pinellas County Sheriffs Office) Female McDonalds Worker and Former Boxer Punches Violent Attacker A female McDonalds employee who threw a volley of punches at a violent homeless man who lunged at her and yanked her shirt has been identified as a former boxer. Yasmine James was captured on video on New Years Eve at the St. Petersburg, Florida, McDonalds as she fought off a man who grabbed her clothing and nearly pulled her over the counter. The perpetrator has been identified in local media reports as 40-year-old Daniel Taylor, a homeless man. Witness Kinie Biandudi filmed the altercation and shared the shocking footage on social media. The young girl was heard saying she used to box. After this fight he came back and went behind the counter & tried to fight the manager, Biandudi wrote on Facebook. In the viral video, which at the time of reporting has garnered over 3 million views, Taylor grabs James by her shirt collar and nearly drags her across the counter. She resists, and the attacker continues to clutch her shirt, she throws a torrent of punches at his face and head. People in the background are heard asking for the police as the woman pummels her assailant and demands that he stops playing with her. Youre Going to Jail Let her go, a voice can be heard, as one coworker holds onto James, and another walks over to Taylor and breaks up the confrontation. Another employee escorts the visibly upset James out back, while the manager comes over to ask the customer about his order, before peering at the receipt. The woman returns to the counter and as she looks on the ground for her phone, a battered Taylor screams, I want her [expletive] fired. But the woman yelled back a reply: No, youre going to jail! Taylor then hurls another insult at the woman, and the clip comes to an end. Taylor was arrested and charged with two counts of simple battery. McDonalds has since released a statement, saying that their first priority is the employees and customers safety. Biandudi posted an update to her original post, clarifying that James was not fired. The employee was not fired! This really did happen last night for all those asking me it all started because he wanted a straw!!! The perpetrator, however, was arrested and booked into Pinellas County Jail. He also allegedly kicked another employee in the stomach as he was escorted out, ABC30 reported, and now faces two counts of simple battery. Taylor is being held on a $1,000 bond and was also found to have owed an $11 commissary charge, jail records indicate, according to the Daily Mail. Taylor was reportedly also ordered to stay away from the victim and the McDonalds restaurant. Our highest priority is always the safety and well-being of our employees and customers at our restaurants. said a McDonalds representative, as cited by WPLG. We have been in contact with the police department and are fully cooperating with their investigation. Beaten and Robbed On Facebook, a woman believed to be Taylors mother posted on Tuesday that her son had been homeless for some time and hasnt been able to find a job. My problem is he called me last night about 6:30 pm, wrote Doraetta Hesse. He had been beaten and robbed. He told me he was going to call 911. The woman said she tried to call and text, but her son did not answer. I havent heard from him since. I have called 3 area hospitals with no luck, she said. They said if they find his body they will let me know. A man believed to be the perpetrators brother, James Taylor, added a photograph of Daniel Taylor on Hesses Facebook post, prompting Donna West to post a screengrab of a news article with the headline, Aggressive McDonalds customer has the tables turned on him when he violently grabs a female workerprompting her to retaliate and overpower him. Yes, he is safe in jail, West added. Sorry, your mom was put through unnecessary stress and worry. Shes doing better now that she knows hes still alive, replied the man believed to be the detainees brother. All Over a Straw Biandudi told Fox2News that the altercation started over a straw. He was yelling and walking toward the counter and the young lady behind the counter told him that its the law now that were not allowed to have straws in the lobby, she told the news outlet. They started exchanging words laced with profanity and he said theres no such law that exists and she was saying yes it is a law, said Biandudi. The new law went into effect on Jan. 1 in St. Petersburg and says restaurants cant put straws out for customers to take at will. People must instead request straws. Plastic straws will, by 2020, be completely phased out. A person holds pharmaceutical tablets and capsules in this picture illustration taken in Ljubljana Sept. 18, 2013. (REUTERS/Srdjan Zivulovic Drug Companies Greet 2019 With US Price Hikes NEW YORKDrugmakers kicked off 2019 with price increases in the United States on more than 250 prescription drugs, including the worlds top-selling medicine, Humira, although the pace of price hikes was slower than last year. The industry has been under pressure by the U.S. President Donald Trump to hold their prices level as his administration works on plans aimed at lowering the costs of medications for consumers in the worlds most expensive pharmaceutical market. During a White House meeting with members of his Cabinet, U.S. President Donald Trump on Jan. 2 said he expected to see a tremendous decrease in drug prices. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar was at the meeting. The overall number of price increases was down by around a third from last year, when drugmakers raised prices on more than 400 medicines, according to data provided by Rx Savings Solutions, which helps health plans and employers seek lower cost prescription medicines. Allergan Plc was particularly aggressive. It raised list prices on more than 50 drugs, and more than half of those by 9.5 percent, according to the Rx Savings data AbbVie Inc increased by 6.2 percent the list price of its blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis treatment Humira, which is on pace to record about $20 billion in sales in 2018. Allergan said in a statement that its average list price increase across its portfolio is around 3.8 percent this year. It said it does not expect to realize any net benefit from the increases this year because of higher rebates and discounts it expects to make to payers. AbbVie did not immediately respond to request for comment. More price increases are expected this month. Reuters reported late last year that nearly 30 drugmakers had notified California agencies they plan to raise list prices of their drugs. Not all of those increases have been announced yet. The United States, which leaves drug pricing to market competition, has higher prices than in other countries where governments directly or indirectly control the costs, making it the worlds most lucrative market for manufacturers. HHS has proposed policy changes aimed at lowering drug prices and passing more of the discounts negotiated by health insurers on to patients. Those measures are not expected to provide relief to consumers in the short-term, however, and fall short of giving government health agencies direct authority to negotiate or regulate drug prices. Its business as usual for drugmakers, said Rx Savings Solutions Chief Executive Michael Rea, who said he believes there has to be meaningful changes to the marketplace, rather than new regulations in order for drug prices to drop. By Michael Erman Democrats Didnt Want to Hear Border Security Briefing, Says Rep. McCarthy President Donald Trump met with top lawmakers at the White House for a security briefing on Jan. 2, where security officials were to explain their need for further border barriers. But the Democrat attendees didnt want to listen and never actually got through the full briefing by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, said Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), House GOP leader, during a press gaggle after the briefing. Once the secretary started, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) interrupted her, McCarthy said. They really didnt want to hear it, and they challenged some the points the secretary made. Schumers office didnt respond to a request for comment. Before the briefing, Trump told reporters that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and border patrol officials would make a plea for a border wall at the meeting, a part of his efforts to convince Democrats to give him funding for the long-promised project. Shutdown Trump has been saying since at least July hed shut down the government if Congress wouldnt deliver the wall funding. Lawmakers managed to pass funding bills for about three-quarters of the government, but when it came to the last one, which included the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) along with border security, Democrats blocked the wall funding in the Senate, where Republicans lacked a sufficient majority. GOP Senators eventually kicked the can down the road, passing a Democrat-backed bill to fund the DHS until Feb. 8 without the wall money. But this option failed in the House, where Republicans passed a bill with some $5 billion for the wall instead, which in turn was refused by Senate Democrats. As a result, on Dec. 22, about one-quarter of the government ran out of money. Trump said hes willing to continue the shutdown until the wall money materializes, calling it too important a subject to walk from. Democrats, who gain control of the House on Jan. 3, plan to pass a bill that would fund everything except for the DHS and another bill that would fund the DHS through Feb. 8 without wall construction funds. The option was called a non-starter by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in a statement late on Jan. 1. McCarthy said Trump asked the lawmakers to return for further talks on Jan. 4, after the new Congress leadership is voted in. Then, the lawmakers may be more willing to come to the agreement, he said. Democrat leaders have called the wall project ineffective and expensive. But in the past, they supported multiple bills that proposed border barriers similar to what Trump has described as acceptable. The steady influx of people trying to cross the southern border illegally recently intensified. Border Patrol apprehensions were up more than 30 percent in October and November combined, compared to the previous two months combined. Reuters contributed to this report. Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the increase in southern border apprehensions in October and November combined compared to August and September combined. The increase was over 30 percent. The Epoch Times regrets the mistake. Czech Republic Lawmakers, Experts Push for New Law Preventing Transplant Tourism to China Several Czech politicians and experts support a draft amendment to the transplant law that would prohibit Czech citizens from visiting China for organ transplantsa phenomenon called transplant tourism. This bold move exposes the unethical practices in the industry, particularly the involuntary organ harvesting of Chinese prisoners of conscience. In China, since 2006, a number of experts have mapped a sharp increase in transplants and trafficking in organs from the prison system, which according to experts, continue to this day. The findings of the research have not yet been validated by court. According to a number of experts, witnesses and medical staff, however, some religious and ethnic groups are persecuted and imprisoned in China and their vital organs are harvested in modern transplant centers. And the Chinese regime is behind the abuses. The European Parliament resolution of 2013 and the laws adopted in several countries around the world on transplant tourism could encourage the Czech Republic to adopt such a law. Senator Marek Hilser, member of the Senate Health Committe, believes that the Czech Republic should adopt a law limiting transplant tourism to China similar to those already adopted by Spain (2013), Taiwan (2015), Italy (2016), Israel (2006) and others. Recently, Canada has been debating similar legislation and Australia is considering the introduction of a new law. We should definitely not be indifferent to this and I will try to propose the amendment and see how it proceeds, said Hilser, in an interview with Czech Radio on Dec. 8, 2018. The transplant bill is supported by former Minister of Culture Daniel Herman, and bioethicist Jan Payne from Charles University in Prague. The amendment to the law is also supported by members of the Pirate Party, the Czech Helsinki Committee (CHC) and former Human Rights Commissioner Monika Simunkova. In the Czech Republic, this is the first attempt to establish this new ethical standard in relation to foreign transplantation surgery and the punishment of crimes related to the abuse of organ harvesting. Hilser also announced on Nov. 19, 2018 at a public hearing in the Senate that he would try to discuss the possibility of amending the transplant law. I dont know what our legislation is, but I want to analyze it. And if this ban is not adopted in the law, which other countries such as Canada or Israel have adopted, I will strive to ensure that we deal with it, he said. According to The Epoch Times, the Senate has already commissioned an analysis of legislative treatment in other countries with the Parliament Institute. Herman encountered the issue of the persecution of religious believers and ethnic minorities in China during his tenure as director of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes in Prague. He has also personally met with the authors of the investigative reports about Chinas transplantation industry several times. I fully support the Senates initiative to create a resolution against organ tourism. I am convinced that the example of Israel, our close ally, is very inspiring and that we could follow their lead. And simply the adoption of the relevant legislation. I myself want to take advantage of my possibilities of access to some members of parliament and the current government. I mean, in particular, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or possibly the Ministry of Health, and to take these initiatives there, said Herman at a public hearing in the Senate on Nov. 19, 2018. Payne has looked into the unethical practices in Chinas transplantation industry. He supports the adoption of the law on transplant tourism and in raising awareness of the issueso he believes it is necessary to hold a public discussion on the topic. I have my own experience, because I have dealt with these issues before, so I again mention the problem that many people in Czech Republic simply dont believe in it. Then there is the group that doesnt want to believe it. And then there is a group that cannot believe it. So we wont change the other two groups, and we wont change Chinese politics, but it would be good to talk about it a lot, there are politicians here, there are journalists here, to get the issue to the public, so that those who dont believe it now, but could believe it, come to believe that the reality truly is so ghastly, said Payne in relation to a statement about cases of using transplantation surgery to liquidate dissidents in China. Payne, together with former Minister for Human Rights, Michael Kocab, became the patron of the Czech translation of Ethan Gutmanns The Slaughtera book which exposes the Chinese regimes abuse of prisoners as involuntary donors for commercial transplants in Chinas organ transplant centers. Preventing Transplant Tourism Because fighting unethical practices directly on Chinas territory is not feasible for Western countries, their efforts are focused on minimizing the participation in organ transplantation from involuntary donors. In Italy, we have no power to stop this crime, but we have a duty to make every effort not to become its co-participants, Senator Maurizio Romani said during a debate in the Italian Senate on March 2015. The amendment of the Italian law was also praised by the Czech transplant expert MUDr. Stefan Vitko, Csc., a member of the Czech Transplantation Society. Remarkable in the Italian law is that sufferers who have the transplantation of a commercial organ done will also be affected, I think it is very effective. The sanction of medical personnel is also noticeable, wrote Vitko to The Epoch Times in response to the above-mentioned reports in 2016. The Italian amendment assesses high financial penalties to medical staff for mediating such transplantation, while punishing doctors, nurses or staff with a life ban on health care practices. The Czech Helsinki Committee (CHC) has also responded to the charge that the Chinese regime is liquidating dissidents through their abusive use of transplantation surgery as involuntary organ donors: CHC expresses its deep concern at the constantly repeated and credible reports of a systematic, state-approved involuntary organ harvesting of Chinese prisoners of conscience, including many Falun Gong adherents for their religious convictions, as well as members of other religious and ethnic minority groups. Referring to the European Parliaments resolution of No. 2013/2981 (RSP) on involuntary organ harvesting in China, the CHC calls on the Czech government and the President of the Czech Republic to draw attention to the issue of involuntary organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China and to publicly condemn abusive practices related to organ transplants in this country, including raising the awareness of Czech citizens traveling to China about this problem, and taking all measures to prevent any transplantation tourism between the Czech Republic and China. In July 2007, the Czech Transplant Society received a letter from Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvestingan organization which mainly deals with organ procurement practices in China. The Czech Transplantation Society unambiguously condemns such practices and completely distances itself from them, the association said on its website. Forced Organ Harvesting in China Exposed On June 28, 2017, the third secretary to the Chinese Embassy in Prague, Qi Dazhuang, sent a statement to Czech Radio, in which he denied all allegations of abusive practices related to organ transplants. However, evidence that the Chinese regime harvests organs from prisoners of conscience was brought to the public through the work of two Canadians, human rights lawyer David Matas and former Canadian secretary of state for Asia-Pacific, David Kilgour. Their research indicates that most of the prisoners, who are killed in the process, are adherents of the Falun Gong spiritual practice, a meditation-based discipline that has been severely suppressed by the Chinese regime since 1999. Since March 2006, there has been an increasing number of investigations and reports alleging that the CCP uses its military and security forces to murder Falun Gong practitioners and other still-living prisoners of conscience for their organs. Insider testimonies have suggested that the authorities use the prison system as a living pool of organ donors to be killed on demand. Kilgour and Matas released the results of their preliminary investigation in a 2006 report, titled Report Into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China. Worldwide, patients in desperate need of an organ transplant have over the last nearly two decades traveled to China for surgery, where they report being able to procure a matching organ within weeks or monthsfar shorter than the waiting period in their home countries based on organ donations. But these medical tourists have unwittingly contributed to Chinas dark organ harvesting trade, where the quick turnaround in scheduling transplantation operations is due to the states killing on demand, Matas and Kilgour concluded in several studies they co-authored on Chinas forced organ harvesting. The two were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 for their work. They estimated that transplant volume in China may have reached tens of thousands annually since the year 2000. Epoch Times staff members Annie Wu & Nicole Hao contributed to this report. Heith Gleason, who is facing a murder charge in the killing of Colorado resident Amy Garcia, reportedly said following her death that his son 'just earned his man card.' (Santa Fe County Sheriffs Office) Colorado Father Said Son Earned His Man Card After Shooting Woman, Report Says A Colorado father charged in the death of a mother in December reportedly told his son he earned his man card after the womans death. Heith Gleason and his 12-year-old son Gage were both charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Amy Garcia in Walsenburg, on Dec. 20 The alleged remark from Gleason to his son surfaced in a police report obtained by KOAA on Jan. 2. Garcias body was found in a burned-out vehicle that appeared to have been shot up. A witness who spoke to Gleason in his home prior to the alleged murder told police that he and Garcia, a 41-year-old mother of four, were arguing over alcohol, the report said. Gleason and Garcia drove to her home to get more alcohol before they went back to Gleasons home. The witness then said Gleason picked up a gun and stated, Ill kill her, referring to Garcia, before going outside. A gunshot was heard before the suspect came inside. He then told the witness he didnt kill the victim. A short while later, his 12-year-old son, Gage, went outside with a .22-caliber gun and more gunshots were heard by the witness. Gleason went outside and came back in, telling the witness that his son just earned his man card, the arrest affidavit stated, citing the witness. The father and son were tracked down to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and were detained near a McDonalds, KKTV reported. Officers also took three bulldogs and Great Dane from Gleasons Dodge Ram truck, according to a report from the Albuquerque Journal. While police were searching for the pair, Gleason allegedly told the Journal last month that they were heading to North Carolina for Christmas, according to the Journal. It was a bad crime, Capt. Milan Rapo with the Huerfano County Sheriffs Office told KOAA. I dont think anyone in this community has had to deal with anything like that. In a small community like this, especially with someone like Amy, a lot of people knew who she was. "Really difficult thing for anybody to have to go through.": 41-year-old Amy Garcia spent her whole life in Walsenburg, and now the town is coping with her death. KOAA 5 201912 Relatives Speak Out Relatives of Garcia have spoken out following the womans death. Ive known her since we were seven years old, we went to school together, middle school high school, said Lucas A. Valdez, who was engaged to the woman at one point, KOAA reported. [She was] super amazing with all of her kids, every single one of them, she was very supportive, Valdez added. Really difficult thing for anybody to have to go through and honestly, I hope he pays for what he does, he said of the suspect. Other details about the case are not clear. Walsenburg is located in southern Colorado about 50 miles from the New Mexico border. Santa Fe is located approximately 150 miles away. Chinas Supreme Peoples Court, the countrys highest court, has confirmed that it lost a set of important files in 2016 related to a complex civil lawsuit, but failed to report the loss to police. (MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images) Chinese Supreme Court Loses Important Files in Prominent Case After a social-media expose, Chinas Supreme Peoples Court, the countrys highest court, has confirmed that in 2016, it lost a set of important files related to a complex civil lawsuit, but failed to report the loss to police. Cui Yongyuan, a well-known TV talk-show host in China, said in a Dec. 29 post on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like social-media platform, that a judge in the civil division of the Supreme Peoples Court discovered that files related to a mining companys contract dispute in Shaanxi Province were stolen from his office. Cui didnt indicate how he came to know the information. After Cuis post began circulating, the court issued a statement on Weibo denying Cuis claims. But by that evening, the court acknowledged the disappearance and said it would investigate the incident. On Dec. 30, the state-run China Times newspaper published a video, in which the civil division judge, Wang Linqing, explained how he lost the files. I want to protect myself from being mistreated, so I am using this video as evidence, Wang said in the video. Wang confirmed that the files related to the Shaanxi mining case, which dates back to 2003 and was closed in 2018. When I opened my cabinet and wanted to take out the first and second set of trial files for drafting the verdict, I suddenly discovered that the first set was there, but the second one disappeared. Wang said that it was possible that he would be fired due to the loss, but he couldnt locate the files in his office. Then, he asked Cheng Xinwen, the chief judge at the civil division, for help. Our court installed many surveillance cameras in each floor of the office building. Theres one just outside my office, and another one at in the end of the hallway. There are two cameras that can monitor [the entrance of my office], Wang said. However, Cheng told him that the day that the files went missing, the surveillance cameras had malfunctioned and didnt record anything, despite having been recently installed. Wang suspects that the cameras had been tampered with. In a Dec. 30 Weibo post, Cui wrote: The supreme court didnt report the incident to the police after the trial documents were lost in its office, and the surveillance cameras didnt record anything. How could the litigants interests be protected? Cui also said that the court passed a verdict after rewriting the case files. BBC Chinese reported that in 2009, the Shaanxi provincial government wrote a formal letter to the supreme court, asking that it overturn the previous verdictwhich had ruled in favor of a private company over a state-run one. A Complicated Case The Shaanxi case is famous in China, not only because the case involved 380 billion yuan ($55.24 billion) in sought damages, but also because of the political interests involved. In 2003, the state-run Xian City Geological and Mineral Exploration and Development Institute (XGMEDI) signed an agreement with Kechley Energy Investment Company (Kechley), which is based in Yulin, Shaanxi Province, to explore and develop a local coal mine named Boluo-Hongshiqiao. In 2005, with funding from Kechley, XGMEDI discovered the coal reserves of the mine were 1.9 billion metric tons, with a value of about 380 billion yuan. But the provincial branch of the National Development and Reform Commission didnt approve the project due to Kechleys lack of a factory to process the coal. XGMEDI informed Kechley that it couldnt carry out its previous agreement, and signed a new agreement with Hong Kong-based Yik-Yip, to develop the mine in 2006. In May 2006, Kechley filed a lawsuit against XGMEDI alleging breach of contract. Five months later, the Shaanxi High Peoples Court ruled in favor of Kechley, saying the agreement between Kechley and XGMEDI was still in effect. XGMEDI was ordered to pay Kechley 276 million yuan, and transfer ownership of the mine to Kechley. The Shaanxi provincial government opposed the verdict and declared that the mine belonged to the state, not a private company. The provincial authorities mobilized the local Communist Party discipline inspection commission to launch a bribery investigation, arresting 10 government and judicial officials. XGMEDI appealed the verdict to the supreme court at the end of 2006, and a ruling was made in November 2009, in which the supreme court asked the Shaanxi high court to re-try the case. In 2010, the Shaanxi high court re-opened the case and arrived at a different conclusion, ruling that the previous agreement was invalid: XGMEDI wouldnt have to pay compensation to Kechley, and the mines ownership would revert to XGMEDI. Kechley re-appealed the case. On Dec. 21, 2017, citing the loss of case documents, the supreme court made its final verdict, saying that the agreement between XGMEDI and Kechley was still in effect. A year later, Kechley has continued to allege miscarriage of justice, as XGMEDI hasnt moved forward with the mine project. China Says Detained Canadians Violated the Law; Kovrigs Employer Says Hes Innocent The Chinese regimes top prosecutor said Jan. 3 that two Canadians detained after Canada arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou had without a doubt violated the law. The president of a think tank that employs one of the men says hes innocent. Authorities in Beijing previously said the two menMichael Kovrig, a former diplomat and an adviser with the think tank International Crisis Group, and businessman Michael Spavorare suspected of endangering state security. Without a doubt, these two Canadian citizens in China violated our countrys laws and regulations, and are currently undergoing investigation according to procedure, the regimes prosecutor general, Zhang Jun, said. Zhang said, without elaborating, the investigation process had been handled strictly according to law, when asked by Reuters at a briefing when the two men might be charged. Robert Malley, president and CEO of International Crisis Group, said Kovrig wasnt endangering national security as Beijing has alleged, and that detaining him may deter the international investment community from doing business in China. Im focused on getting him out and one thing I can say for sure, the one thing he wasnt doing is endangering Chinas national security, Malley told CBC News. Chinas economy is facing some headwinds and so is going to want to attract businesspeople, is going to want to show its open for normal business, he said. Now is not the time to have a little asterisk near that Open for business [sign] saying, Open for business, but you cant be sure whats going to happen to those of you who come here.' Michael [Kovrig] was not doing anything that other people would not have been doing, he added. Kovrig and Spavor were detained shortly after Canadian police arrested Meng, Huaweis chief financial officer, on Dec. 1 in Vancouver at the request of the United States. U.S. prosecutors have accused Meng of misleading banks about transactions linked to Iran, putting the banks at risk of violating sanctions. There are growing security concerns from many countries and those in the cyber-intelligence community regarding the use of Chinese telecom companies, which include Huawei and ZTE, because of possible ties to the Chinese communist regime. The United States, Australia, and New Zealand have banned the use of Huawei equipment in their upcoming 5G networks. Canada is currently conducting a cybersecurity review of Huawei and 5G technology, but hasnt made a decision on whether to ban the company from its 5G networks. Under the Chinese regimes 2017 National Intelligence Law, companies are required to aid Beijing in national intelligence work. Huawei was founded by Mengs father, Ren Zhengfei, who is a former Peoples Liberation Army officer. Meng is the oldest daughter of Ren and is reportedly next in line to take over the company, the worlds largest telecom equipment maker and second-largest maker of smartphones. Beijing has only given vague details about the detention of the two Canadians, and hasnt drawn a direct link to Mengs arrest. The regime has demanded that Canada free her and threatened unspecified consequences if that doesnt happen. Canada has called the detentions deeply concerning and arbitrary, and demanded the immediate release of the two men. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also called for their release, and the UK, EU, Australia, France, and Germany have all issued statements voicing concern over the detentions. While Beijing touts the rule of law, its judicial system is tightly controlled by the ruling Communist Party. Under Chinese criminal procedure law, special forms of detention and interrogation can be used for state security suspects. Rights groups say conditions in Chinese detention facilities are often primitive and can be harsh, with a lack of legal representation and due process compounding worries about treatment. While Meng has had full access to lawyers and is able to see her family, Kovrig is being denied legal representation, isnt allowed to see family, and is limited to one consular visit a month, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters. Hes not allowed to apply for bail and not allowed to see a lawyer, one source told Reuters, adding Kovrig was being held at an undisclosed location, questioned every morning, afternoon, and evening and not allowed to turn the lights off at night. No details have been revealed about Spavors detention. Canadian diplomats have seen both men at least once since they were detained. A third Canadian, Sarah McIver, had been detained in China for illegal employment but was released Dec. 28, 2018. With files from Reuters Darrell Rhyme, 23, was caught shortly after midnight on New Year's Eve with a stolen gun, the Chicago Police Department said. (Chicago Police Department) Chicago Police Officers Make First Gun-Related Arrest Two Minutes Into 2019 Chicago police officers made the first gun-related arrest in the city just two minutes after the new year started. Darrell Rhyme, 23, was found to be in possession of a stolen gun and was arrested after a brief chase. Police officers pulled over a vehicle that Rhyme was riding in at 12:01 a.m. in the West Woodlawn neighborhood on the South Side and told him to stay in the car but he fled. He was caught after a short chase, reported the Chicago Sun-Times. Anthony Guglielmi, a Chicago Police Department spokesman, said on Twitter: 2 minutes into 2019, Chicago Police recovered the 1st illegal gun of the year & arrested a repeat gun offender for gun possession. He said that Rhyme had been charged in June 2018 for having a gun and being an armed habitual criminal. Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson held a press conference shortly after Rhyme was arrested. He told reporters that the police are working on strengthening their tactics to arrest criminals. These officers are doing exactly what we ask them to do, two minutes after the near year comes in and there you go, the first illegal weapon, he said, reported WGN-TV. Last year, we recovered over 9600 illegal weapons off the streets of Chicago. The most dangerous thing these officers can do is take an illegal weapon off our streets. If the gun wasnt recovered from Rhyme it could have been used to commit crimes, officials added. Rhyme now faces one felony count of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon and one felony count of possessing a stolen firearm. He was released on bond. First Shooting Victim of 2019 a 12-Year-Old Boy Around the time the arrest was made the first shooting of the year in the crime-ridden city took place. Javonta Schafer was hit by a bullet while he was looking out of a window at his house in the 6500 block of South Union Street. He came running down screaming, Grandma, Im shot, and I didnt know where he was shot at, grandmother Monica Schaefer told WLS. The boy was hit in the hand and was taken to a hospital; he was expected to recover. It was crazy, Schaefer said. It was crazy because he was hysterical and I was too. Police officials said they had not found the shooter. Data from the Chicago Police Department released near the end of the year indicated that the murder rate was down for the second straight year, but the nations murder capital was still the site of more murders than the combined killings in New York City and Los Angeles, the No. 1 and No. 2 largest U.S. cities, respectively, reported The Epoch Times. In addition to the decrease in murders, other crimes such as burglaries and motor vehicle thefts and carjackings all decreased in 2018 from 2017. From NTD News Captain Daryl Dragon of Captain & Tennille Dies at 76: Reports Daryl Dragon, the Captain of The Captain and Tennille singing group, died at age 76, according to reports. He died of renal failure at a hospice in Prescott, Arizona, his publicist confirmed on Jan. 2, according to NBC Los Angeles. His former wife, Toni Tennille, was by his side when he died, the report stated. The couple had hits like Do That To Me One More Time and Love Will Keep Us Together, and officially broke up 2014. Other songs included Muskrat Love and Shop Around. He was a brilliant musician with many friends who loved him greatly. I was at my most creative in my life when I was with him, Toni Tennille said of her ex-husbands passing. After Dragon and Tennille divorced several years ago, they remained close and Tennille moved to Arizona to help care for him, according to The Associated Press. Dragon and Tennille met in the 1970s and began performing. Tennille sang and Dragon played the keyboard. Celebrities Who Died in 2018 Penny Marshall Penny Marshall, the actress and director famed for her role in Laverne & Shirley, died at age 75. Marshall died in her home in Hollywood Hills on Dec. 17, after suffering from complications from diabetes, TMZ reported on Dec. 18. George HW Bush Former President George H.W. Bush died on Nov. 30, 2018, a family spokesman confirmed. He was 94. His son, President George W. Bush, released a statement on Twitter, saying, Jeb, Neil, Marvin, Doro, and I are saddened to announce that after 94 remarkable years, our dear dad has died. George H.W. Bush was a man of the highest character and the best dad a son or daughter could ask for. Stephen Hillenburg Stephen Hillenburg, the creator of the Nickelodeon cartoon series SpongeBob SquarePants, died on Nov. 26. He was 57. Hillenburgs cause of death was amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrigs disease, according to reports. In March 2017, he announced his diagnosis. Stephen Hawking Stephen Hawking, who sought to explain some of the most complicated questions of life while himself worked under the shadow of a likely premature death, died at 76. He died peacefully at his home in the British university city of Cambridge in the early hours earlier this year. Anthony Bourdain U.S. celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, host of CNNs food-and-travel-focused Parts Unknown television series, died at the age of 61, the network said on June 8. The cause of death was suicide, the network said in a statement. He was found dead in a hotel room in France where he had been working on an upcoming episode of his program, the network said. Avicii Avicii, born Tim Bergling in Sweden, was found dead in Oman. Police said there was no evidence of foul play but the official cause of death was not revealed by officials. His family indicated that he killed himself. People cast their ballots in voting booths at the Second Street Elementary School in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, California on Nov. 6, 2018, as Americans across the country cast their votes for the midterm elections. (Frederic Brown/AFP/Getty Images) California to Remove Up to 1.5 Million Inactive Voters From Registration Rolls to Settle Lawsuit The State of California and Los Angeles County agreed to remove up to 1.5 million inactive voters from voter rolls Dec. 3 in order to settle a federal lawsuit brought by a watchdog group. The settlement agreement (pdf), filed Dec. 3 with U.S. District Court Judge Manuel Real, requires the state and the county to notify all of the 1.5 million potentially ineligible voters and remove them from voter rolls if there is no response. The National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) requires states to remove inactive registrations from voter rolls after two general federal elections. Most inactive registrations belong to voters who have moved to another county or state or have passed away, according to Judicial Watch. As part of the settlement, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla agreed to update the states NVRA manuals and to notify election officials in each county that they are obligated to regularly clean up voter rolls. The lawsuit revealed that Los Angeles has the highest number of inactive registrations of any county in the nation, with one in every five registrations being inactive. This settlement vindicates Judicial Watchs groundbreaking lawsuits to clean up state voter rolls to help ensure cleaner elections, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. Judicial Watch and its clients are thrilled with this historic settlement that will clean up election rolls in Los Angeles County and Californiaand set a nationwide precedent to ensure that states take reasonable steps to ensure that dead and other ineligible voters are removed from the rolls. Judicial Watch settled similar statewide challenges in Ohio and Kentucky in 2014 and 2018 respectively. The watchdog also forced the state of Indiana to voluntarily clean up voter rolls and is engaged in an ongoing lawsuit with the state of Maryland. Judicial Watch alleged in a 2017 lawsuit that Los Angeles County has a registration rate of 112 percent of its age-eligible citizens. The watchdog group alleged, using data published by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, that 11 of Californias 58 counties had registration rates exceeding 100 percent of age-eligible citizens. California, the most populous state in the union, has a registration rate of approximately 101 percent of age-eligible citizens, the lawsuit alleged. The California lawsuit revealed that Los Angeles County has not cleaned up its voter rolls for the past 20 years, despite a Supreme Court ruling (pdf) last year making such purges mandatory. With 10 million residents, Los Angeles County has a bigger population than 41 of 50 U.S. states. Brooklyn Homicide Rate Hits Record Low in 2018 Brooklyns homicide rate in 2018 ended in a record low with under 100 homicides. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and District Attorney Eric Gonzalez started off the New Year by highlighting the dwindling homicide numbers on Jan. 2. The Clergy Councils GodSquada liaison partnered with the NYPDand other community organizations stood side by side with Adams and Gonzalez to discuss the successful year of crime reduction. With crimes at its lowest in decades, @BPEricAdams @BrooklynDA give well deserved credit to many volunteer organizations that work tirelessly with local @NYPDnews, in keeping neighborhood safe. @BPShomrim https://t.co/VwWrPlxTaL Rabbi Abe Friedman (@RabbiAFriedman) January 2, 2019 The record-low number of homicides was first announced on Dec. 27, with 97 murders recorded in 2018almost 12 percent down from last years Brooklyn homicide count of 110. Following the declining number of homicides, is the 43 percent drop of misdemeanor defendants held on bail in Rikers Islandthe main jail complex in New York Cityamong other drops in crime rates, according to the press release. Funding the Primary Force Adams and Gonzalez attributed much of the drop in criminal activity to community groups such as The GodSquad and other liaison community organizations, which Adams called the backbone in the boroughs ability to lower the crime rate. Police can only remain on the surface, it is the everyday men and women who are part of the violence interrupters, the precinct council leaders, the clergy leaders, said Adams. #Brooklyn set a record-low in homicides last year. We can do even better, by better supporting our violence interrupters, clergy councils, and community patrols. Their success is too-often untold. I'm calling for a 20% increase in @NYCMayorsOffice to Combat #GunViolence funding. pic.twitter.com/JJ4VpEnKhm Eric Adams (@BPEricAdams) January 2, 2019 With billions of dollars going into the New York City Police Department (NYPD), Adams said that a part of that should be going to these organizations, as theyve proved that they can assist and do the job well. Gonzalez echoed the Borough President: In order to move forward, we have to make sure that our partners here in the community have the resources to continue to do the work that they do. Crime Rate Stats Coney Island was highlighted with no homicidesa 100 percent drop compared to the eight homicides last year. East Flatbush went from 17 homicides last year, six this yeara 65 percent drop, in the press release. And lastly, East New York, with six homicides this year, compared to 11 last yeara 45 percent drop. The report also indicates an almost 15 percent drop in total arrests. Accompanying this were drops in most of the seven major crime rates categoriesmurder, robbery, felony assault, and different property crimesexcept for one: reported rape cases saw an increase in of almost 16 percent in 2018. The drops in crime are not restricted to Brooklyn alone. Nearing the end of 2018, there was a 7-day stretch of no murders in New York City, a streak that ended on Dec. 28, according to ABC7. Nonetheless, New York City has seen a decline in homicides as a whole. In this years NYPD Commissioners report, Mayor de Blasio said that as recently as the early 1990s, New York City saw more than 2,000 murders and more than 5,000 shootings a year. By contrast, 2017 was the safest year in modern recorded history, with fewer than 300 murders and fewer than 800 shootings in a city of 8.5 million. The presidential convoy, led by Brazil's President-elect Jair Bolsonaro (L) and his wife Michelle Bolsonaro in a Rolls Royce, heads to the National Congress for his swearing-in ceremony, in Brasilia on Jan.1, 2019. (Carl De Souza/AFP/Getty Images) Bolsonaro Vows to Tackle the Marxist Garbage in Brazils Schools In a pair of his first policy-oriented messages as the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro said his administration will target the Marxist garbage within his countrys education system. Bolsonaro issued the messages one day after declaring in his inaugural speech that his election victory liberated Brazil from socialism and political correctness. One of our strategies to get Brazil to climb from the lowest spots of the educational rankings is to tackle the Marxist garbage in our schools head-on, Bolsonaro wrote on Twitter. We shall succeed in forming citizens and not political militants. In a follow-up message, he wrote that his administration will focus on the opposite of the previous government, which purposely invested in the formation of slave minds of the ideas of socialist domination. Brazils education system is extensively permeated with Marxist influence. Textbooks feature attacks on capitalism and praise of socialism. Bolsonaros decision to tackle the system likely isnt accidental. The international communist movement selected Brazils education system as the primary target for infiltrating the nation, according to Jeff Nyquist, an author who has interviewed experts on the issue in Brazil and the United States. Its even deeper than in the United States and thats saying a lot, Nyquist said, referring to the socialist penetration of Brazils education system. Some of the same programs that the far-left has introduced into the U.S. education system, theyve introduced in Brazil. They went for education first there. In November, Bolsonaro appointed Ricardo Velez-Rodriguez, a self-described anti-communist, to lead Brazils education ministry. Weeks before being appointed, Velez-Rodriguez wrote in a blog that Brazilians have become hostages of an education system that indoctrinates students into scientism and Marxism. Velez-Rodriguez views Brazils conservative Schools Without Political Parties movement as part of the solution. A bill with a similar title has been in Brazils Congress since 2014. The law would forbid certain topicsincluding politics, sexuality, and gender theoryfrom classroom discussion. Velez-Rodriguez was endorsed by Olavo de Carvalho, a U.S.-based Brazilian conservative, whose work was among the four books on Bolsonaros desk during his election victory speech, according to The Nation. In an interview with The Epoch Times, de Carvalho said that Brazils ruling Workers Party is the Communist Party. The communists control in Brazil extends well beyond the school system, de Carvalho noted. They control all the media, with one or two small exceptions. They control all the universities. They control all the cultural institutions. They control practically everything, de Carvalho said of the communists in Brazil. According to Nyquist, loosening communisms grip on Brazils education system will be easier to carry out than in the United States. In Brazil, the government is much more centralized, which will allow Bolsonaro to swiftly affect significant change. In the United States, the public school system is controlled largely at the state and local level, with the federal Department of Education having little overall influence, Nyquist added. President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter on Jan. 1 that Bolsonaros inauguration speech was great, adding that the U.S.A. is with you! Microsoft founder Bill Gates attends a forum of the first China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai on Nov. 5, 2018. (Matthew Knight/Pool via Reuters) Bill Gates Nuclear Venture Hits Snag Amid US Restrictions on China Deals NEW YORKTerraPower LLC, a nuclear energy venture chaired by Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates, is seeking a new partner for early-stage trials of its technology after new U.S. rules forced it to abandon an agreement with China, company officials told the Wall Street Journal. TerraPower reached an agreement with state-owned China National Nuclear Corp in 2017 to build an experimental nuclear reactor south of Beijing. But Gates wrote in an essay published late last week that TerraPower is unlikely to follow through on its plans in the face of new U.S. restrictions on technology deals with China. The Bellevue, Washington-based company is now unsure which country it will work with to conduct trials of its technology, which is designed to use depleted uranium as fuel for nuclear reactors in a bid to improve safety and costs, company officials told the Journal. Were regrouping, Chief Executive Chris Levesque told the Journal in an interview. Maybe we can find another partner. The U.S. Department of Energy in October announced new restrictions on nuclear deals with China, in keeping with a broader plan by the Trump administration to limit Chinas ability to access U.S-made technologies it considers to be of strategic importance. Gates, who co-founded TerraPower, said in his essay that regulations in the United States are currently too restrictive to allow the reactor prototype to be built domestically. By Carl ODonnell Students eat grape gummies while celebrating the traditional year-end party held in the main square of Salamanca, Spain on Dec. 15, 2016. (Cesar Manso/AFP/Getty Images) Spanish 3-Year-Old Chokes to Death During New Year Midnight Tradition A 3-year-old boy has died during a Spanish traditional New Year celebration, after choking on a grape at the stroke of midnight. Thiago Guamans family was seeing in the New Year according to a 100-year-old traditioneating one grape per toll of the midnight bell. But as the 12th bell rang, when his mother turned to the boy, who had been given only four seedless grapes, she saw him choking, unable to breathe. Family and emergency services were unable to dislodge the grape in his throat in time, and he was declared dead an hour later at the hospital, according to local reports. The child was celebrating with his mother, older brother, uncle, and grandmother, at their home in the city of Gijon on Spains north Atlantic coast. He was declared dead at the local hospital, according to Europa Press. I do not understand how a grape has been able to end my sons life, his mother Viviana Bustos told La Nueva Espania. This is a nightmare, I cannot assimilate it, she said. The Spanish tradition of eating 12 grapesone every four seconds, starting 36 seconds before midnightto see in the New Year goes back over a hundred years. With grapes being the third-most-common cause of choking in children under 5, some experts recommend giving small children a head start on the grape-eating celebrations, to give them more time to chew the grapes fully, or reducing the number of grapes. He Had Already Eaten Grapes on Other Occasions Knowing this, Thiagos family had put aside just four seedless grapes for Thiago for the traditional celebration. But it wasnt enough to avert the tragedy. At the last bell, we saw that he had choked and could not breathe, Bustos said. I do not know what could happen. I do not see an explanation because he had already eaten grapes on other occasions and nothing had ever happened. His family put their fingers down the childs throat, and his uncle hit him in the chest trying to knock out the grape. "Mi pequeno habia comido uvas otras veces, no se como ha podido morirse", dice la madre del nino fallecido en Gijon La Nueva Espana Digital LNE.es 201911 Despite their harmless appearance, grapes are a very similar size to a childs glottisthe narrowing of the throat at the vocal cordsmaking them potentially lethal. They are oval fruits, relatively moldable and with a soft and slippery skin, so it can slip into the childs mouth involuntarily, without being chewed, and act as a plug in the airways, preventing breathing, ear, nose, and throat surgeon Raimundo Fonseca told El Espanol. Choking occurs most often in children under the age of 2, according to Fonseca. It is in this age range, when the teeth are not yet developed, the childs swallowing system is immature, and the possibility that a part of a food or foreign body enters the respiratory tract is higher, he said. A study published in the BMJ highlighted three cases of children choking on grapes. Two died, and a third suffered two seizures and had to undergo emergency treatment for swelling of the brain. The study authors advise that grapes and cherry tomatoes should be chopped in half and ideally quartered before being given to young children (5 and under), and emphasize the importance of adult supervision of small children while they are eating. A red dear stag waits to be fed by tourists in Glen Coe, Scotland on Dec. 1, 2017. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images) 13-Year-Old Boy Kills Massive 27-point Buck in Tennessee A 13-year-old boy shot and killed a 27-point buck in Benton County, Tennessee, according to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA). Bo Ezell, the boy, shot and killed the buck on Dec. 28, after he wanted to go squirrel hunting but couldnt find his dog. 13-year-old kills 27-point buck in Benton CountyAll great deer have an equally unlikely hunting story to go with it. Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency 20181229 All great deer have an equally unlikely hunting story to go with it. Bo Ezells story is just as entertaining as his big deer, said the TWRA in a Facebook post on Dec. 29. He then hung out at home until his friend called and asked if he wanted to come shoot a buck that she just saw behind her house, the state wildlife agency stated. Bo took his time getting dressed and getting to the friends house not expecting to see the buck. Upon his arrival, she told him the deer went down to the creek. Bo and the friend walked down to the creek when she pointed out the deer, according to the post. She then asked him: Dont you see [the buck]? Bo then said it looked like it had a big bush on his head, the post read. Bo ending up shooting at it multiple times, hitting the buck three times. According to Bo, the incident was just a crazy hunt. He went from thinking he was going hunting for a small buck which was actually a monster buck that unfolded in a whirlwind of multiple strange events, the agency said. The agency said the buck has 27 scorable points and has been green rough gross scored of 213 7/8 and 6.5 years old. Last year, in nearby Kentucky, a hunter shot and killed a deer with an additional head attached to it, according to a Facebook post from a local government agency. Bob Long said he saw large antlers before he took aim at the animal in Ballard County. However, what he found upon recovery was astounding, said the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. Its unclear exactly what circumstances led up to this bucks carrying around another set of antlers and part of a decomposing carcass. Regardless, it was truly a rare harvest, the agency said on Facebook. Truth is stranger than fiction. The two bucks for one hunter trophy. The killer Bob Long said "I feel very humbled and blessed to be the hunter that shot the deer. I wonder if this man is a Gemini https://t.co/QO9jajMfhA Tara Greene (@6thsensemoment) November 20, 2018 Photos uploaded to the website showed the hunter holding up both heads at the same time. The bucks antlers may have got stuck together after a fight. During the mating season, which typically lasts about three weeks, bucks are busy sparring with each other, rubbing trees, and creating scrapes, says the Pennsylvania Game Commission. In some cases, the fights can be to the death. A mule deer killed another buck during a rut in Arizona, which was captured in a graphic viral video and shows how brutal life can be in the wild. Some fights can result in both bucks dying. Many families have been disappointed during the shutdown As my wife and I biked past the George Bush Library and Museum the day before Christmas, we saw a family of five standing dejectedly outside the locked doors. The sign announcing the museum's closing delicately stated "a lapse in funding" as the cause. That the Bush Museum opened its rotunda, gift store, and bathrooms is a demonstration of local people trying to minimize the wide-ranging consequences of a foolish decision. When Donald Trump shut down the unfunded parts of the federal government over $5 billion to fund an ineffective border wall that he proclaimed Mexico would pay for, he hopefully was not thinking of that family of five. Nor, presumably, was the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, including our local representative, Bill Flores, when it rejected the bipartisan Senate bill funding the federal government. Paul Ryan's last act as Speaker of the House was to allow a shuttered government. How many other families had their Christmas holidays upset or spoiled by Trump's action? How many other Americans will suffer (including unpaid federal workers) by the continuing refusal to accept the Senate bill? Thanks to a host of volunteers and its famous Red Kettle Campaign, the Salvation Army of Bryan/College Station exceeded its holiday-season fundraising goal of $200,000, according to its commanding officer. "We are happy to report that through the generosity of our community, our total for 2018 Red Kettle Campaign is $208,447.27," Capt. Paul Ryerson said in a release Wednesday. Ryerson said volunteers and volunteer groups spent 1,660 hours during the bell-ringing season outside numerous establishments in Brazos County. The Salvation Army received an average of 3.76 hours of work per volunteer between Nov. 10 and Dec. 24. "Volunteers are essential to our Christmas efforts," he said. "It doesn't matter if it was at one of our Red Kettles or Angel Tree Program. When the call for help was made, the community answered it." The Salvation Army's Angel Tree Christmas Assistance Program provided gifts and toys for 2,096 children in families experiencing economic hardship. The number was up from 2,033 in the 2017 holiday season. Gifts were delivered to children and families Dec. 20. Click the image to the left and log in to get your exclusive reader perks. Oneonta, NY (13820) Today Thunderstorms during the evening will give way to partly cloudy skies after midnight. Low 53F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Thunderstorms during the evening will give way to partly cloudy skies after midnight. Low 53F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%. Towanda, PA (18848) Today Thunderstorms during the evening will give way to partly cloudy skies after midnight. Low 57F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%.. Tonight Thunderstorms during the evening will give way to partly cloudy skies after midnight. Low 57F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Instant unlimited access to all of our E-Editions and content on thechronicleonline.com. The Chronicle E-Edition Newsletter emailed to you each week, the night before the paper hits the street! This subscription is for NEW or RENEWING online subscribers. (The charge will appear as "Country Media Inc." on your credit card statement) The United Nations Security Council has five new members, and one of them the Dominican Republic is starting out as the group's president. Belgium, Germany, Indonesia and South Africa also are starting two-year terms. All five new members were recognised with a ceremony on Wednesday, New York time, marking the installation of their flags outside the council chamber. The United Nations Security Council meets at UN Headquarters in March 2018. Credit:AP Bolivia, Ethiopia, the Netherlands, Kazakhstan and Sweden finished their terms as 2018 closed. The 15-member council is the UN's most powerful body. China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States are permanent members, with veto power. The tonnes of extra cannabis continue to leach out across the country into other states. "The bottom line is that there's always been a robust illicit market in California and it's still there," said Tom Adams of BDS Analytics, which tracks the cannabis market. "Regulators ignored that and thought they could go straight into an incredibly strict and high-tax environment." There are definitely days that I think that legalisation has been a failure. Lynda Hopkins, on the board of supervisors in Sonoma County The most recent official estimates of California's cannabis production, a report published a year ago by the California Department of Food and Agriculture, showed the state producing as much as seven million kilograms of cannabis and consuming just 1.1 million kilograms. California's surplus equal to 13 times Colorado's total annual production is smuggled eastward, especially across the Rockies and Mississippi, where the wholesale price is as much as three times higher. Supporters of legalisation long ago acknowledged the problems of California's surplus and said it would take years to address. In 2016, Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, who takes office as governor next week, estimated that up to 90 per cent of the cannabis that California produced was exported. Steve Fagan, grower and collective owner of SLOgrown Genetics, attends to his organically cultivated cannabis. Credit:AP "It's a very serious issue, and it's going to create a dynamic where the black market will likely persist in a very stubborn way." The distinction between legal cannabis businesses and those that flout the law is about to become much sharper. The loosely regulated system of medical cannabis co-operatives that has existed for two decades will be illegal after January 9. This gives law enforcement more clarity. Jonathan Rubin, the head of Cannabis Benchmarks, says market forces low prices and extreme competition will also force many smaller California marijuana companies out of business. This is straining another promise made by proponents of legalisation: that small producers would be protected. Judd Weiss, CEO and founder of cannabis company Lit.Club, believes the industry needs to do still more. He suggests marketing products in a way that makes them look more than just respectable, but as the herbal equivalent of a fine bourbon or scotch. Credit:AP The popular image of California's marijuana growers may still be hippies hiding out in the forests of Humboldt County but increasingly the reality is more like the operations of NorCal Cannabis Co. in Santa Rosa, north of San Francisco. The company has converted what was a semiconductor factory into a cannabis production facility where employees walking down antiseptic hallways wear latex gloves and supervise an Israeli-style irrigation system and a $US1 million air filtration system. Next door is a company that makes coatings for aircraft cockpit gauges. Legalisation has been liberating for big players like NorCal Cannabis. "This is our coming-out party," said Jigar Patel, the president of the company, who toured the facility in a white lab coat. "It's waking up and doing what you love without wondering if the man is behind you." We have to get more consumers buying from the licensed market ... As a state, we have to get more aggressive. Lori Ajax, the head of California's Bureau of Cannabis Control But for hundreds of other smaller producers, the paperwork alone has been enough to put them out of business. A cannabis producer must submit applications to as many as five state agencies, including obtaining a certificate to ensure they are able to use a scale. Lori Ajax, the head of California's Bureau of Cannabis Control who is sometimes called the state's cannabis czar, described 2018 as "rough" both for the regulators and the industry. Her office is planning a public information campaign to try to persuade consumers to stop buying illegal pot. "We have to get more consumers buying from the licensed market," she said. Legalisation was promoted as helping to end the war on drugs. But Ajax says California has no choice but to "step up" enforcement. "As a state, we have to get more aggressive," she said. With fewer than two dozen enforcement officers, she will need help from other government agencies. Ajax said she was encouraged by the "surge" of applications by cannabis businesses at the end of 2018. The Bureau of Cannabis Control has issued 2500 temporary licenses. Yet this is still a fraction of the tens of thousands of cannabis businesses in the state. Adams of BDS Analytics says 2018 was a year of "constantly diminishing forecasts" of cannabis sales. But he and others believe the legal market can only grow, especially after the disputed decision by Ajax's office to allow cannabis delivery services to operate across the state even in areas where local municipalities have chosen to ban pot businesses. Increased sales could push tax revenue closer to the forecasts on the 2016 ballot, which predicted revenue would reach the "high hundreds of millions of dollars to over $US1 billion annually". Until September, Sacramento has collected only $US234 million in cannabis taxes. Colorado, with a population half the size of Los Angeles County, collected around the same amount last year. Governor Jerry Brown, who leaves office Monday, described cannabis revenue as unreliable. Dubai: Saudi Arabian prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for five of the 11 suspects detained over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the state news agency SPA said on Thursday, as a Saudi court held a first hearing on the case. Saudi Arabia said it also sent new letters to the Turkish public prosecutor asking for "any evidence connected to this case", which has rattled the Saudi royal court and damaged the reputation of 33-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Khashoggi was close to the royal circles before becoming a critic of Prince Mohammed, writing for the Washington Post and speaking to international media about Saudi politics when he moved to the United States last year. Saudi officials have rejected accusations that the Crown Prince ordered his murder in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, in which Khashoggis body was dismembered, removed from the building and handed over to an unidentified "local cooperator". Brasilia: The United States wants an explanation for why Russia detained a former US Marine on spying charges in Moscow, and will demand his immediate return if it determines his detention is inappropriate, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday. US Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman visited the detained man, Paul Whelan, at a detention facility in Moscow and spoke by phone with his family, the State Department said. The United States had expressed concern through diplomatic channels over delayed access to Whelan, who was detained on Friday. Paul Whelan. Credit:AP "We've made clear to the Russians our expectation that we will learn more about the charges, come to understand what it is he's been accused of and if the detention is not appropriate, we will demand his immediate return," Pompeo said in Brasilia, where he attended the inauguration of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday. Russia's FSB state security service opened a criminal case against Whelan but it gave no details of his suspected espionage activities. Under Russian law, espionage can carry a prison sentence of between 10 and 20 years. Copenhagen: Two more bodies have been found in the wreckage of a crashed train on a Danish bridge, raising the death toll to eight in Denmark's deadliest train accident in 30 years, police said Thursday. Police say five women and three men were killed in the Wednesday morning accident, and four of them have been identified. Sixteen others were injured. Rescue workers at the site of a train accident on Great Belt Bridge in Nyborg, in Denmark. Credit:AP All of the dead and injured were on a high-speed passenger train traveling on the Storebaelt system of bridges and a tunnel that link the central Danish islands of Zealand and Funen. Authorities are investigating if cargo fell off a freight train and smashed into the passenger train as the two travelled in opposition directions on the bridge. The Danish Accident Investigation Board has also said that strong gusts Wednesday could be a factor. At the time of the accident, the 18-kilometre Storebaelt link was closed to road traffic because of high winds but trains could still drive across. Police said in a statement Thursday that the latest bodies were only found after the wreckage was pulled away from the crash site to a remote area near the town of Nyborg on Funen island. They said the damage to the passenger train "was so extensive it has hard to properly get into the most damaged area" while it was still on the bridge but added they are certain no more bodies are inside. Divers also searched the seabed under the bridge overnight, looking for train wreckage and for more clues to explain the deadly accident. Aerial TV footage and photos showed the front side of the passenger train ripped open. One container seemed to be missing from a flat wagon on the cargo train and a freight tarpaulin was torn into pieces. Lars Braemhoej, a senior police official, has said investigators believe one possible cause of the "considerable damage" on the passenger train was getting hit by cargo that detached from the freight train. Still he said authorities "do not know precisely what caused the accident." Two bodies with concrete in their stomachs have washed up on the Thai-Laos border, as fears grow they belong to missing critics of the military regime in Bangkok. Missing Thai activist Surachai Danwattananusorn. A prominent anti-junta campaigner disappeared last month in Laos, where he had been living in exile, but Thailand's Deputy Police chief Srivara Ransibrahmanakul has denied any connection to the bodies found this week. The victims are unidentified and DNA testing is expected to take several weeks. The bodies were on the banks of the Mekong River on Monday, with their hands cuffed and feet tied. They had been gutted and their stomachs stuffed with chunks of concrete. It comes as Thailand prepares for elections next month, the first since the 2014 poll which was annulled shortly before Prayuth Chan-o-cha seized power in a coup. It is also a sensitive time for discussions of the monarchy, as King Maha Vajiralongkorn has set May 4-6 as the date for elaborate coronation ceremonies. Warding off hackers with an extra layer of security, the new range of YubiKey 5 Series USB keys aim to lock away your secrets safe and sound. These days most people have heard of two-factor authentication (2FA), which relies on proving your identity with both "something you know" and "something you have". While it can be a hassle to set up, 2FA is simple to use and makes it much harder for people to break into your online accounts. The YubiKey is a more secure way to log into your online accounts, or even your PC. For example, one of the most basic forms of 2FA involves configuring your Google account so that after you enter your login and password (the something you know) it asks for a one-time code sent by SMS to your phone (the something you have). Knowing just the password or just the one-time code isn't enough, you need both pieces of the puzzle. In theory this should thwart attackers who've managed to steal your login and password. Police confirmed a 54-year-old West Footscray man had been bailed to appear at Melbourne Magistrates' Court on January 9, after an incident at a private residence. The Victorian boss of the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy union is due to face court next week, after police were called to an incident at his home on Boxing Day. Industrial Relations Minister Kelly O'Dwyer has called for Labor to cut ties with embattled union boss John Setka, but Labor is refusing to move against the controversial union leader, who will be back before court next week. In a statement posted to Twitter, Mr Setka said he and his family had been placed under "enormous strain" in recent years. "For well over thirty years now I have dedicated my life to the health and well-being of construction workers and their families, and on more occasions than I care to remember, my passion and bluntness has landed me in the headlines and not always for the right reasons," Mr Setka wrote. "Over the last three years my wife Emma and my children David, Kate and Johnny have suffered immensely from the ongoing political and ideological attacks on myself as a union leader, with the possibility of losing their husband and father to a prison sentence. This has been an extremely enormous strain on our family unit and it has taken its toll on each of us as individuals. "I ask that while family members are seeking to recover from this tumultuous period in their personal lives that they are given the privacy to do so." In May 2018, prosecutors dropped blackmail charges against Mr Setka and his deputy, Shaun Reardon, which Mr Setka described as a politically motivated witch-hunt intended to criminalise trade union activity. In the early `70s, the case of four Swedish bank employees whod been taken hostage and tortured over six days captured our collective imagination. As Manfred Kets de Vries, a professor of organisational leadership at graduate business school INSEAD, says in his new book on leadership, As a way of surviving the ordeal, the captives established a misplaced form of emotional attachment with their captors. A poster issued by the Symbionese Liberation Army shows Patricia "Patty" Hearst, who they kidnapped in 1974. Credit:AP He reminds us of another case, media heir Patty Hearst, who was abused and raped by her kidnappers, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army. After her abduction and abuse, Hearst ended up joining the group and took part in one of their robberies. Both of these are examples of Stockholm syndrome, what Kets de Vries describes as an extreme example of identification with the aggressor. And thats what I think has happened to these two women in Reynoldss opinion piece in The Australian, she writes: The party has adopted targets and all state and territory divisions are taking action to encourage more women into the party, to mentor them into leadership positions and eventually into preselection and parliament: the longer path but the right one. Its almost as if she believes the endless droning of her male colleagues who talk about how great women are, how they are being promoted within the party, how numbers are increasing. Late last year, deputy Liberal leader Josh Frydenberg claimed the Morrison governments inner ministry had additional representation of women. Liberal MP Sarah Henderson. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen That turned out not to be true, according to an ABC RMIT Fact Check, which found: Mr Frydenberg's claim ignores the fact that female representation in the current cabinet is not higher than earlier periods in Mr Turnbull's time in office. Mr Morrison currently has six women in cabinet, which is as many as there were in Mr Turnbull's cabinet for almost a year at the beginning of his tenure. I mean, not like its big numbers, 27.3 per cent at the beginning of former prime minister Turnbulls tenure compared to 26.1 per cent now. But you can see how Reynolds has internalised this messaging. She and Henderson are just identifying with their captors. Of course, theres another reason Henderson and Reynolds have made these comments theyve made them in order to attack Bill Shorten. Reynolds claims Shorten has shamelessly politically weaponised this issue. Shes dead wrong on that one. She can blame just one person, Leonie Morgan, who drew the attention of women in the Labor Party to the US initiative of Emilys List . She then worked with others, such as the sainted Joan Kirner, to make equality in the Labor Party a reality. A three-year battle over a petrol station planned for one of the main streets through Dunsboroughs town centre has drawn to a close with the developers and Puma walking away from the project. The Dunsborough community had been up in arms and fighting tooth-and-nail to halt the petrol station, slated for a vacant block on Dunn Bay road which already housed petrol stations at either end. During the fight, developers recast the station as a 'convenience store' that sold petrol in a bid to appease local planning laws and push the proposal through. Dunsborough locals have protested a planned Puma station on one of the main streets in town for the past three years. Over the course of more than three years the station was in and out of developer panels and the courts after first being rejected in 2015 by the Southern Joint Development Assessment Panel, which took umbrage with the convenience store classification. Victorian students enrolled in the International Baccalaureate have received their results, and if the overjoyed reactions of 60 students at Methodist Ladies College on Thursday afternoon were anything to go by, they were pleased the wait was finally over. Students enrolled in the diploma, an alternative to the Victorian Certificate of Education which is offered at 17 schools throughout the state, find out their results almost three weeks after their VCE counterparts. Nieve Powell cheered and embraced fellow student Kate Morrison when she opened her results envelope. Im elated, its great, its the best feeling, she said. I didnt get too much sleep last night. Methodist Ladies' College students Nieve Powell and Kate Morrison react after opening the envelopes containing their International Baccalaureate results. Credit:Darrian Traynor The International Baccalaureate is a globally-recognised program that makes it easier for graduates to apply at overseas universities such as Oxford and Harvard. IB graduates receive a score out of 45 on results day, with 29 being the average result and a perfect score of 45 translating to the highest possible attainable ATAR of 99.95. Loading Every corner of the state is facing very high to severe conditions. The wind, Mr Warrington said, will have a significant impact on our ability to fight fires should one ignite. The heat and wind are a "a recipe for us to go weve got to be on our game, he said. The whole of the emergency services sector is prepped and ready to go. We have 50-odd aircraft ready to fly at any moment." Mr Warrington said campers or anyone preparing to travel on Friday should re-think or cancel their plans and urged people to stay safe and have fire plans ready. CFA deputy chief officer Gary Cook said the most extreme forecasts were for the Mallee and Wimmera districts in the states north west. Its in the nasty day category, theres no questions about that, he said. Acting chief health officer Brett Sutton said heat is "absolutely a killer. "In 2009 there were an estimated 374 excess deaths from heatwave. We haven't got those same heatwave conditions but there are still extreme heat health alerts for much of the state." If the forecast maximum is reached it will be the hottest day in Melbourne since January 13, 2016. It won't break any record though as Black Saturday in February 7, 2009 recorded 46.4 degrees in the city. Northerly winds coming from inland Australia ahead of a cold front are responsible for the sudden blast of heat, the Bureau of Meteorologys Dean Stewart said. The good news at least is that the heat will be short-lived, with a cool change sweeping across the state by the afternoon. Melbourne's temperature is expected to drop rapidly from 42 to about 25 degrees within an hour once the cool change comes through at 4pm. Gusts will average 70 km/h with peaks of up to 100 km/h with the windy change expected to last for at least two hours. The gusty change could spell disaster for any emergency workers dealing with fires. If theres a fire burning ahead of that wind change it will make for very difficult conditions so hopefully there wont be any burning, Mr Stewart said. The greatest risk is between 4pm and 8pm in the northern country, along the Murray, down through central Victoria near Seymour, into the Dandenong ranges and South Gippsland, senior meteorologist Kevin Parkyn said. Stay indoors All Victorians are being urged to stay somewhere cool, not leave children or pets in cars and check on vulnerable members of their community including people over 65, infants and toddlers and pregnant or breastfeeding women. Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said now was the time to make or review fire plans. "This is a timely reminder that if you have not done your preparation, your plan in relation to fire, you'd better get on to it," he said. "We've got an extreme fire risk danger day [on Friday] across the state of Victoria." Despite the thunderstorm and dry lightning warning, Mr Sutton said there was no risk of a thunderstorm asthma event, as the at-risk period of November and December had passed. Tourists shield themselves from the sun as they wait for a tram on La Trobe Street. Credit:Vince Caligiuri Commuters are being warned to brace for changes to services to keep the public transport network moving during the hottest parts of the day, with heat expected to expand rail and tram tracks. Public Transport Victoria chief executive Jeroen Weimar said there would be a reduction in services, reduced speeds and bottles of water handed out at stations such as Flinders Street. Mr Sutton said hospitals and Ambulance Victoria staff were primed for extra heat-related admissions. Holidaymakers camping in state parks and near beaches are being urged to take safety precautions. A convicted Victorian rapist on the run with $10,000 cash, his passport and "significant" bush survival skills was sighted on the NSW south coast last month, police say. He is the second Victorian sex offender police are hunting, with former show ride assistant Maurice Collie, 26, who has breached his sex offenders register conditions five times, failing to report to police again. Collie, 26, has been convicted of sexual offences against a 15-year-old girl and an 11-year-old girl, police say. He was last seen at the Salvation Army offices in Bourke Street, Melbourne, on December 22 before he failed to report to police. Investigators have uncovered another illicit toxic dump in Melbournes north, the eighth property involved in what authorities have called "highly co-ordinated ... highly organised illegal activity in the hazardous waste industry. Sources say inspectors from the Environment Protection Agency and WorkSafe discovered the apparently derelict property in Campbellfield on Wednesday. Graham White at the site of one of the illicit chemical dumps in Epping on Wednesday Credit:Darrian Traynor It is now under 24-hour guard amid concerns the potentially highly-flammable contents make it a potential target for arson or at risk of catching fire in the summer heat. The Age has confirmed this latest dump site is also linked to Graham Leslie White, the Wallan-based businessman connected to the stockpiles in Epping and Campbellfield and the heavily contaminated factory in West Footscray that burned down last year. A man was accidentally shot in the head with a speargun after trying to stop an argument early on New Years Day in far north Queensland. The 30-year-old was trying to take the loaded gun from a 26-year-old man, who was in a dispute with another man, when it accidentally fired. The spear initially hit the ground before ricocheting into his head at a home in Hopevale, north of Cooktown about 3.30am, police say. The one-metre barbed spear entered his right temple and exited the back of his skull, a spokesman said on Thursday. The man was conscious as he was taken to Cooktown hospital. He was later flown to Cairns hospital, where he remains in a stable condition. Australian scientists have found a genetic marker that could identify which men are likely to develop deadly metastatic prostate cancer and may pave the way for effective treatments. The federal government is investing almost $800,000 into researching how prostate cancers spread and become impervious to conventional treatment. Dr Philip Gregory and his team have identified a novel molecular pathway that is switched on in metastatic prostate cancer. Credit:Centre for Cancer Biology Roughly 3500 men died of prostate cancer in Australia in 2018, according to national data. While localised prostate cancer has very good outcomes - the overall five-year prostate cancer survival rate is 95 per cent - patients with metastatic disease do very poorly. The New Year ushered in a new reform for Australian seniors the independent Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. The commission is separate from the Royal Commission and aims to be a one-stop quality and safety body" for questions, complaints and compliance for 1.3 million seniors. The government has announced the new independent Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. In WA, news of the commission was welcomed, but industry figures believed much was still to be seen on its effectiveness. Council of Ageing WA chief executive Mark Teale said the body was keen on the commission, but had not yet had any contact or consultation. Business leaders are holding onto hope that the coming federal election can break the "political paralysis" that endured in 2018 following the Coalition's leadership turmoil and the polarisation around important public policies. Relations have been strained between the business community and the government, especially in recent months, with a lack of effective energy and climate policy major areas of concern, and political instability hampering the certainty that business leaders say they need in order to make long-term investment decisions. KPMG chairman Alison Kitchen (left) with Mutual Trust board member Catherine Leahy and Westpac Lindsay Maxsted. Credit:Markus Weber "The most problematic fundamental area is that you've got a government dealing with a small majority and requiring crossbench support," said KPMG's Australia chairman, Alison Kitchen, speaking at the KPMG Couta Boat Class Race event in the Victorian seaside town of Sorrento on Thursday. "I think business, at the moment, is going to assume the government won't do much and can't get much done." One of Australia's largest owners of GP clinics and pathology centres, Healius, has received a highly conditional $2 billion takeover bid from China's Jangho Group - a building supplies giant that is making major inroads in Australia's healthcare market. The Chinese company still has to secure funding to pay for the takeover and clear a raft of regulatory hurdles, and some market watchers are concerned the offer could frighten off doctors from signing up with Healius. Market watchers are concerned the offer could frighten off doctors from signing up with Healius. Credit:Michel O'Sullivan Jangho owns nearly 16 per cent of the company, known until recently as Primary Health Care, and has made a non-binding, indicative offer to buy the rest of the company at $3.25 per share, Healius said on Thursday. The takeover bid sent the company's share price up 7.8 per cent to $2.63 on Thursday. Former Abita Springs Mayor Greg Lemons said he feels like the weight of the world is off his shoulders now that his six years in office are over, "but I do have a black eye." That injury was the result of a man punching him in the face in what Lemons thinks was a mistaken case of road rage. Lemons, whose last day in office was Monday, said he was about 75 feet away from his house the night of Dec. 21, returning from a Christmas party at the Lakehouse in Mandeville, when a late-model white Chevy Tahoe forced him off the road. He said a man he'd never seen before approached his vehicle, and when Lemons rolled down his window, the enraged stranger began punching him in the face. "I've never seen anything like it," Lemons said of the sudden, violent encounter. His assailant told him he was going to die in the ditch. Lemons, who was in his wife's car, was able to get the vehicle out of the ditch without a problem and pulled forward a few feet. "I'm 71 years old, plus I'm disabled," said Lemons. "I don't have any business fighting anyone." But the Vietnam War veteran got out of the car, preparing to defend himself. When he did so, he said, the man got into his SUV and drove away. It wasn't until hours later that Lemons decided he needed to file a police report. "I was still bleeding," he said. "My nose was bleeding pretty bad. I take blood thinners." He knew where a St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office patrol car would be located and drove to the intersection of La. 59 and Second Street, where he flagged down Deputy Scott Daussin. The two went to Town Hall, where Lemons made his report. Daussin's report notes that Lemons' left eye was swollen shut, his upper lip was swollen and he had dried blood by both of his eyes. According to the report, Lemons said that he had two drinks at the party. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Lemons described his assailant to the deputy as a stocky man in his 30s who was either bald or had very short hair. He said Wednesday that he would recognize the man if he saw him again, but he didn't get the SUV's license plate number. Lemons, who in 2017 was attacked by a man who spat in his face after being asked to leave Town Hall, doesn't think this incident had anything to do with his being mayor. Instead, he thinks he was attacked randomly. "This time of year, people get kind of crazy, with depression, drugs and alcohol," Lemons said. Dan Curtis, who defeated Lemons on Dec. 8, said he was shocked to see his predecessor's appearance when they met Friday to go over matters before the changing of the guard. "I feel sorry for him," Curtis said, adding that Lemons suffers from knee problems that were aggravated as he tried to twist away from the man attacking him. Daussin reported that he went the following day to the spot where Lemons said the incident occurred and visited Lemons' home to inspect the vehicle. There was no damage, the report said, although the deputy did find dried blood on the driver's seat. Daussin also learned that an apparently irate driver had honked at Lemons and flashed his bright lights at him as Lemons slowed down through an area at Sharp Road and La. 59 where construction is underway. But that vehicle passed Lemons, and the former mayor said Wednesday that he doesn't believe it was the same person. Curtis said a deputy came by his office Wednesday to tell him that the matter remains under investigation. "I would like to think this is pretty strange for Abita Springs," Curtis said. Leave it where it is and renovate the building Move into the Municipal Auditorium in Treme Listen to Treme residents and find another location Put it in Plaza Tower, if financing becomes available Vote View Results The holidays have come and gone, landing us here in January, a month typically marked by somber self-appraisal and pledges to do better. That kind of moral clarity is needed more than ever at the start of 2019, as the government of the most powerful country on earth enters the second week of a partial shutdown in its operations. This isnt American greatness, and its no way for a model democracy to start a new year. We urge members of Louisianas congressional delegation to do what they can to break the impasse, which involves President Donald Trumps insistence that Congress fund a huge border wall between the United States and Mexico. Security is important, but key parts of the border already have a wall. In any event, candidate Trump said Mexico would pay for the wall. And even if that is a fantasy, the wall is hardly an issue worth shutting down the government. Legislating on deadline has become a fact of life on Capitol Hill. The more shutdowns and crises, the less the people trust their government. Ending the shutdown should be the first order of business as members of Congress return from the holidays, which were supposed to be a time of shared goodwill and pause from political strife. Its a sad mark of our times that not even Christmas and New Years were immune from the nations toxic political environment. The days passed with business-as-usual posturing from the White House and Capitol Hill. FEMA backtracks, says agency will allow renewals, new flood insurance policies amid shutdown The Trump administration reversed course Friday and said it will restart the sale and renewal of federal flood insurance policies amid an ongo Meanwhile, in Louisiana, heavy rains after Christmas reminded us why we need a stable federal flood insurance program and a strong, engaged federal partner for important jobs like flood control. Although last months rains didnt create a major flood event, they underscored the urgency to make Louisiana resilient against Mother Nature. Members of the Louisiana delegation helped resolve a bureaucratic tangle from the shutdown that was preventing new flood insurance policies from being written. But such a workaround and the anxiety it created among homebuyers wouldnt have been needed if the government had stayed open in the first place. The workaround came too late for some, and real estate closings were postponed because of the needless shutdown. Members of Congress blamed FEMA instead of themselves. The president, who rose to fame as a star of reality television, seems to enjoy dramatizing conflict. In Louisiana, though, that show-biz act is old hat. Last year, state lawmakers engaged in endless brinksmanship with the governor before reaching an inevitable deal to fund needed services. In Baton Rouge, we learned the hard way what the rest of the country is discovering about the federal government shutdown: Budget theater just wastes a lot of time while the peoples business goes undone. Its past time to end this charade, and fully open the U.S. government for business. Prairieville Primary School students Olivia Jarreau, left, and Riley Menard hold a hand-drawn poster made for the school 4-H Clubs fundraiser for CARAs House. Students raised $958 for the open-intake shelter, which accepts stray, owner-surrendered, unwanted, abused and abandoned dogs and cats. Your true pilot cares nothing about anything on earth but the river, and his pride in his occupation surpasses the pride of kings. Whether or not Mark Twain's observation holds good today, it is certainly true that pilots on the Mississippi in Louisiana are paid enough to live like kings. Well, the state-licensed ones are, anyway. They make around half a million a year on average, while the top earner among them brings in more than $700,000. The pilots who guide U.S.-flagged and Navy vessels along the lower Mississippi make about a quarter of what their state brethren command. James Gill: Solving Louisiana's wetlands loss for a fraction of the cost Oil and gas companies concede that their canals, most of them long since abandoned, played a major role in shrinking the Louisiana wetlands. Maybe that means federal pilots are underpaid. Certainly taking command of a huge vessel while it negotiates the tricky waters from the mouth of the river to Baton Rouge is an onerous responsibility. And a man who has to start his shift by climbing a 30-foot rope ladder to board a moving vessel, maybe in freezing conditions at the dead of night, is not in a cushy job. Still, if the river were the only thing on earth that river pilots cared about these days, they wouldn't have fought so hard for the hefty raises they have won in recent years. Fair enough. Moolah, as Dr. Johnson said of Greek, is like lace; every man will get as much of it as he can. Pilots were doing very well for themselves back when Twain was on the river. Even in those days of trivial wages, he wrote later, they had a princely salary, from a hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars a month. Whether state-licensed pilots are fairly compensated for their skill and labor, who knows? Compared with, say, what teachers make, their emoluments look excessive. But pilots make much less than hedge fund managers and are arguably of much greater value to society. The question of whether the state commission that sets pilot fees does so in a demonstrably fair manner is much easier to answer. It is an important one, given the role of shipping in the state economy, and it sure would be great to astonish the nation by announcing that the fix ain't in. Maybe next time. The pilot fee set-up is fishy in the extreme. It was designed to be fair. The commission that sets the fees includes four pilots and four representatives of the industries that pay them, who will naturally tend to take a different view of proposed increases. Filling out the commission, and effectively calling the shots, are three members affiliated with neither side. But the commission appointed by Gov. John Bel Edwards in 2016 by no means displayed the required balance; the three supposedly neutral members had been recommended by Stephen Hathorn, president of the New Orleans-Baton Rouge Steamship Pilots Association. Edwards, who did not hesitate to oblige the pilots, never tires of boasting that he lives by the West Point honor code. Maybe he should try elementary governmental ethics instead. When one of the three supposedly non-aligned members, Leonara Cousin, almost immediately quit, Edwards appointed Noel Cassanova in her place, but he is regarded as the pilots' ally too. The Louisiana Chemical Association and other industry groups have tried to get the trio recused from commission votes, or removed altogether by Edwards, but have gotten nowhere. Now the Chemical Association has challenged the appointments in a lawsuit, although only one of Edwards' original three purported independents, Bruce Mohon, remains on the commission. Daniel Kingston just quit, spurring Hathorn to put on a show of righteous indignation. Poor Kingston, according to Hathorn, had been traduced by the Chemical Association. How are you going to get people to serve on boards when you treat people like this?, he lamented before aiming a grievous insult at the Chemical Association's president, Greg Bowser. Hathorn went so far as to suggest that Bowser shared his ethical standards and was mad only because he had not lobbied Edwards to put his own stooges on the commission. So Bowser does not game the system and the only explanation Hathorn can think of is that he wasn't paying attention. If this is what we think of each other in Louisiana, there isn't much hope for our reputation nationwide. Email James Gill at Gill1407@bellsouth.net. Former New Orleans Saints star and ALS activist Steve Gleason will officially be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal after President Donald Trump signed the legislation into law Thursday. The measure introduced by U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, was approved Dec. 20 after passing the House 390-2. Cassidy celebrated Trump's signing of the legislation on Twitter and said work will start soon between Gleason and the U.S. Mint to design his medal. Saints legend Steve Gleason will be awarded highest Congressional honor: the Gold Medal Former New Orleans Saints star Steve Gleason will be awarded the coveted Congressional Gold Medal under legislation that won final approval Thursday. The ceremony for Gleason will be scheduled for later this year. Can't see tweet below? Click here. President Trump just signed into law my legislation to award Steve Gleason with the #CongressionalGoldMedal. Now we will work with @TeamGleason & @usmint to design the medal and schedule the ceremony to #HonorGleason for later this year. Can't wait! https://t.co/y9K8QzkOP2 #ALS U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (@SenBillCassidy) January 3, 2019 "Through his work to help others who are disabled, Steve Gleason has changed so many lives for the better," Cassidy said in a statement after the measure passed the House. "Steve is a hero to many and I'm proud we got this done to honor a great American." Gleason, 41, has amyotropic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. He was diagnosed in 2011. The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian award given by Congress to those who make a lasting contribution to the nation. Previous winners include Mother Teresa, civil rights icon Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King. "I am honored and accept the Congressional Gold Medal for all the families who have been diagnosed with ALS, as well as anyone struggling to overcome life's inevitable adversities," Gleason wrote on Twitter in response to being awarded the medal in December. The scoop on state politics in your inbox Get the Louisiana politics insider details once a week from us. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Gleason is being honored for his work through the Gleason Initiative Foundation to provide those with neuromuscular diseases or injuries the assistance they need to thrive. He is also being recognized for his advocacy of federal legislation ensuring that those with diseases like ALS have access to speech-generating devices like the one he uses. Can't see video below? Click here. Gleason played for the Saints from 2000 to 2008. He is best known for his blocked punt against the Atlanta Falcons in the team's first game back in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome after Hurricane Katrina. "Steve is leaving a truly indelible mark in American history, and we are honored to call him a true New Orleans Saint," Saints owner Gayle Benson said in December. Advocate staff writer Will Sentell contributed to this report. +5 The birth of Gleason On the day director Clay Tweel screened his first cut of Gleason for its two central figures, former New Orleans Saints safety Steve Gleason a Attorney General Jeff Landry couldn't be clearer: He's running for re-election to head the state Department of Justice and won't be jumping into the race for Louisiana governor, he confirmed during a radio appearance Thursday I like the job Im doing," Landry, a Republican, said during an interview on Acadiana-based KPEL talk radio. "We have a great staff." Republicans see the race against incumbent Gov. John Bel Edwards, the lone Democratic governor in the Deep South, as a priority heading into the 2019 cycle. While the ballot lineup may still see some shifting, but Landry stressed he is not in the mix -- confirming yet again that he's not interested in leaving the AG's office after his first term after first announcing his re-election campaign in November. Two Republicans, U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham of Alto and Baton Rouge businessman Eddie Rispone, have already announced their plans to run against Edwards. Landry in recent weeks has spent most of his time touting his priorities as attorney general and had made his decision to seek re-election before U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican who Landry had leaned on to make a decision, announced he wouldn't run. But that hadn't stopped some from continuing to float his name as a potential challenger to Edwards in the governor's race. The scoop on state politics in your inbox Get the Louisiana politics insider details once a week from us. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Just this week a Washington-based U.S. political website, without identifying sources, reported that "some speculate that (Landry) may reconsider, especially with Kennedy out." The Hill included the race for Louisiana governor among its top 5 elections to watch in 2019. +10 Louisiana governor election: Here's who's in, who's out of 2019 race With less than a year left before the next Louisiana governor's election, a number of candidates have announced their candidacy while far more Landry had spent weeks rallying for a big-name GOP contender that the party could unite behind to defeat Edwards, often noting that supporters had encouraged him to get into the race. He repeatedly called on Kennedy to make an announcement so that the field could begin forming, but ultimately announced his own decision not to enter the race before Kennedy made his final call known. In an interview with The Advocate at the time, Landry said he was "comfortable" with his decision and was confident that good GOP candidates would enter the race. Landry, in his Thursday radio appearance, described more deeply his thoughts behind running for attorney general, instead of mounting a challenge to incumbent Edwards. Landry, who has been a vocal critic of the Edwards' administration and frequent challenger to the governor's policies, said he thinks of things from a "worst-case scenario" view. "There has to be a check on the governor, and we believe right now thats the best (role)," he said. Landry, who took office in January 2016, is the president of the National Association of Attorneys General and on the executive committee of the Republican Attorneys General Association. Louisiana corrections officials hope to build on their success from the last decade when former inmates returned to prison at decreasing rates with a renewed federal grant focusing on recidivism of high-need prisoners and using state savings from its criminal justice reforms. +8 How can Baton Rouge employers help cut incarceration rate? Hire former inmates, officials say When Arthur Parker left prison this summer after serving more than 20 years for a burglary conviction, what he wanted most was a job to suppor This year, the bayou state will bring back its most-successful initiative, focusing on inmates with both mental illness and substance abuse disorders as they complete their sentences. The new Second Chance Act funding will work with these prisoners returning to the Baton Rouge and St. Tammany areas before and after their release. From 2004 to 2014, the rate in Louisiana of ex-convicts who returned to prison within three years of their release decreased by 12 percent, according to a national justice organization's November report on prisoners affected by Second Chance Act programs. The report shows that almost 39 of every 100 such former inmates in Louisiana returned to prison within a three year window in 2004, but in 2014, 34 per 100 did. The numbers are not reflective of the entire state's prison population, but only the a portion involved in two programs that focused on high-need and high-risk offenders, according to corrections spokesman Ken Pastorick. The report analyzed recidivism rates for 11 states that utilized federal funds from the Second Chance Act to implement innovative programs to support vulnerable prison populations returning to society; Louisiana had used three such grants since 2011. "We started actively cooperating in the community post-release to get them engaged; that had a significant effect," Department of Corrections Assistant Secretary Rhett Covington said in an interview Wednesday. "We went from a zero percent post-release treatment engagement to an 83 percent post-release treatment engagement. In 2011 and 2014, Louisiana's corrections department was awarded two $600,000 grants to work with inmates with co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse disorders, increasing peer mentorship, their access to local service providers and support from probation and parole officers. Working with 400 inmates over about four years, the New Beginnings program was featured as one of the productive reentry initiatives that helped reduce recidivism in the November report from The Council of State Governments Justice Center. The report notes about 11 percent of prison populations have co-occurring mental illnesses and substance addictions, a group that Covington said returns to prison after release almost automatically without intervention. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up But after an about two-years hiatus of the New Beginnings program without federal funding, Covington said the Justice Department chose this fall to fund the initiative once again with an almost $750,000 grant. This two-year grant will focus on the same work, intervening with this population before their release and interacting after for about eight months, in Baton Rouge and St. Tammany, partnering with the Capital Area Human Services and Florida Parishes Human Services nonprofits. State Corrections Secretary James LeBlanc said this is just one of the many initiatives ongoing to help reduce recidivism in the state. He said after this federal grant expires, he hopes to sustain the work through their own funding, which could come from the continued savings from the state's criminal justice reforms, which passed in 2017 to decrease the state's then-highest incarceration rate in the nation. This year, after implementing the changes to the sentencing and release stipulations, the state earmarked $8.54 million to certain prison efforts, like recidivism. "If its working, we need to find a way to fund it on a permanent basis. What better way than justice reinvestment? LeBlanc said of rerouting savings from the state's criminal justice reform to support prisoners. The third grant, which ran for one year in 2012 and was just short of $1 million, focused on high-risk offenders younger, often gang-involved who were released to Baton Rouge and New Orleans. While some of the practices from that grant are still in use, like having parole officers focus on being supporters not enforcers, it has not been renewed and Covington said they don't have plans to fund it themselves. While LeBlanc said renewed grants and positive reports from the Second Chance Act are important, they are just a portion of their work to revamp the state's incarceration system. "This is important, but (other) big things to come," LeBlanc said. "We need help from our communities, our business communities, our faith-based communities, our nonprofit organizations, everybody has to participate. A testy dispute between former state Sen. Larry Bankston and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry over who should represent the state's contractor licensing board doesn't belong in the courts, a state appeals court ruled Thursday. Bankston, who served 41 months in federal prison for a 1997 conviction in a video poker-related bribery scheme, sued Landry's office last year after the attorney general refused to extend Bankston's contract as legal counsel for the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors. Landry later appointed one of his office's lawyers to represent the board. +2 AG Jeff Landry criticizes hiring of felon for board attorney In an escalating feud, state Attorney General Jeff Landry asked Gov. John Bel Edwards' administration to justify why a felon should serve as Attorney general appoints new board lawyer in contract fight State Attorney General Jeff Landry is appointing one of his office's lawyers to represent Louisiana's contractor licensing board, rather than State District Judge Wilson Fields, of Baton Rouge, last summer rejected the state's argument that Fields lacked jurisdiction to hear the dispute. The Baton Rouge-based 1st Circuit Court of Appeal on Thursday reversed Fields in a one-paragraph ruling that delighted Landry. "The Attorney General is the chief legal officer of our State, and the courts have repeatedly affirmed my authority as Attorney General," he said in an email response to the ruling. Bankston's attorney, Mary Olive Pierson, said she will appeal the 1st Circuit decision to the Louisiana Supreme Court. Pierson said Bankston should be allowed to test in court the reasons that Landry gave for refusing to approve Bankstons contract extension. Landry, a Republican, initially questioned whether Bankston, a convicted felon who was temporarily disbarred, should be allowed to work for the state. Bankston, a Democrat, is an ally of Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Landry's office later raised conflict-of-interest concerns after Bankston issued a legal opinion that wound up initially disqualifying the top two bidders for a huge contract to manage Louisiana's $1.6 billion flood-recovery program. In a court filing, Pierson called the attorney generals claim of an undisclosed conflict of interest fake news. +3 Larry Bankston's attorney calls Jeff Landry's conflict-of-interest claim 'fake news' The war of words between Louisiana's attorney general and a former state senator over who should represent Louisiana's contractor licensing bo Bankston told the contractor licensing board that companies competing for the contract needed to have a residential contractors license, something three of the five bidders lacked at the time. The board agreed with him. Pierson has said that legal opinion was not Bankstons alone but was rendered in concert with and based upon the research and opinion of the senior staff of the board. She also said the opinion was given in response to a complaint or challenge from one bidder, PDRM, against another bidder, IEM. Bankston, however, did not disclose to the board that his son works for an affiliate of the bidder ranked No. 3, SLSCO. When the top two bidders, IEM and PDRM, were thrown out, SLSCO suddenly was poised to land the more than $300 million worth of work. The Advocate first reported Ben Bankstons relationship to the third-place applicant. Bankston has said he was unaware that his son's firm, which was not named in the bid package, had a relationship with any of the bidding companies when he wrote his opinion. He said he learned about the potential conflict only after issuing the opinion. Bankston also said his son told him he wasn't even aware of the bid by the affiliated company. IEM, which was initially awarded the contract, was again awarded the lucrative disaster management contract after it was rebid. IEMs second bid was $6 million less than its first bid. Members of the River Road African American Museum recently gathered to celebrate the holiday season and reminisce on the successes of 2018. The RRAAM board members were pleased with the 2018 partnership with Shell Oil Company that resulted in the River Road Slave Burial Grounds Coalition, a project that marked graves located on the Shell Oil property. +2 As Shell preserves Louisiana slave burial ground, question persists: Where are the rest? CONVENT, La. (AP) A major oil company is taking steps to honor once-forgotten slaves buried on its land west of New Orleans in an area where Board members said 2019 will mark the nonprofit's 25th year, which will bring forth increased opportunities for education, history and arts programs, starting with a showcase of the film the board created as an offshoot of the River Road Slave Burial Grounds Coalition, and also host a number of events that spotlight our 25th anniversary, from a commemorative book project to a gala celebration. "We're focused on continuing to serve Louisiana, the United States and the world," according to a news release. "Be sure to stay in touch with the RRAAM throughout 2019 via various social media platforms, beginning with you getting to know the members of the RRAAM board of directors." +2 This historic school building could play big role in River Road museum's 25th anniversary DONALDSONVILLE The people who run the River Road African American Museum here have given themselves a homework assignment of sorts as they p The museum has set a goal to raise $250,000 in 2019. The museum is in Donaldsonville at 406 Charles St. CLINTON The Clinton mayor is again under investigation by the East Feliciana Sheriff's Office and Louisiana State Police for her response, or possible lack thereof, to the state Department of Health's finding that the town's water system is in violation of state law. Mayor Lori Ann Bell, who was arrested twice last year on other allegations related to her official duties, now is facing scrutiny over her response, if any, to a letter from the Department of Health in September citing numerous violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act, Sheriff Jeff Travis said Wednesday. "We're looking into how she responded to that, how she responded to that critical information," Travis said. Sheriff's Chief Deputy Greg Phares said the condition of the town's water system has been "a matter of talk here, about how dysfunctional it is, for months and months." Clinton mayor says leaking pipe fixed, but bottled water needed until boil order is lifted The National Guard is sending 16 pallets 32,256 bottles to East Feliciana Parish after officials there declared a state of emergency when The water is discolored, pressure has often been low and there have been boil advisories, he said. In July, the Louisiana National Guard sent more than 32,000 bottles of water to the parish after officials declared a state of emergency when a water line broke in Clinton. The line was repaired. If investigators determine that Bell took no action on the Health Department notification of water system violations, that raises the "possibility of malfeasance," Phares said. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Neither Bell nor her attorney could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday evening. The Sheriff's Office and the State Police have been jointly investigating a number of issues allegedly involving Bell and former police chief Fred Dunn, who resigned in October. Bell and Dunn were arrested in October, accused of illegally entering into a contract to lease four Tahoe police vehicles in 2016, leaving the town with more than $200,000 in debt, according to court filings. The arrest warrants allege that the two officials should have pursued a resolution from the Clinton Board of Alderman or correspondence between the town and the state bond commission authorizing the lease, before signing the lease. Clinton officials chide mayor over 'a struggle to get information' about town's money crunch CLINTON Clinton Mayor Lori Bell's arrest Nov. 15 on counts of theft and malfeasance in office adds to a long list of issues facing the small town. In November, Bell was arrested on counts of theft and malfeasance in office, accused of spending the town's police funds on a tent and banner that she had illegally embossed with her name. Dunn was also arrested a second time, in November, accused of writing and signing checks from the Clinton Police Department's narcotics fund, but using the money, more than $8,000, for personal purposes. The arrest report says Dunn used the money for programs at his church, his child's private school tuition and work done on Dunn's school bus. GONZALES Six-term Sheriff Jeff Wiley stepped down Thursday as chief law enforcement officer of Ascension Parish and his chief deputy, Bobby Webre, was sworn in as his replacement. Webre, who has been with the Sheriff's Office for 34 years and was the longtime jail warden until 2011, took the oath of office privately before Clerk of Court Bridget Hanna, a Sheriff's Office spokeswoman said. The change of leadership happened by 9:30 a.m. Thursday after Wiley had submitted papers to the Louisiana Secretary of State, just hours ahead of his daughter, Erin Wiley Lanoux, being sworn in as parish court judge. Ascension Parish sheriff honored upon retirement Ascension Parish President Kenny Matassa has proclaimed Dec. 31 as Jeffrey F. Wiley Day, in recognition of Wiley's retirement as Ascension Par In an interview, Sheriff Wiley called the series of events Thursday, the end of his law enforcement career and the rise of his daughter and his top deputy hard to top. "It's sweet sweet, not bittersweet," he said. Wiley's resignation, which he has termed his retirement, also fulfilled a commitment he had made after Lanoux announced she would be running to replace outgoing Parish Court Judge Marilyn Lambert. Wiley promised he would not remain in the sheriff's office at the same time his daughter was holding public office should she win the judge's race. Lanoux, who defeated Gonzales-based lawyer Kim Landry on Nov. 6, was sworn in 3 p.m. Thursday during a ceremony at the Parish Courthouse Annex in Gonzales. The small claims, juvenile, traffic and misdemeanor court was created in 1976, and Lanoux is now the fifth person to serve as its judge. In her remarks to an audience that included several area sheriffs and much of parish's political and law enforcement leadership, legal bar and judiciary, Lanoux noted the changing offices, both of parish judge and sheriff, and the uncertainty those changes might bring. But she said was encouraged by a sign, a song by rock band REM that she heard on the radio Thursday morning, "It's the End of the World." Despite the song's ominous name and chorus, the songs ends with the repeated refrain, "I feel fine," she noted. Lanoux said she was humbled by the trust voters have placed in her. "And I am ready to serve," Lanoux said. Webre, who opened and closed the swearing-in ceremony for Lanoux, is planning his own inauguration ceremony Jan. 10, taking the oath a second time. Webre said he is honored to serve with the officers of the department and does not expect to implement any major changes in the coming weeks to months, having already worked several years with the department's existing leadership team. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Wiley's departure Thursday means the election to fill the remainder of his current term and the next full term will be held in the fall of 2019. Elections for Parish Council, parish president and other top parish officials will also be on the ballot this fall. Due to the mandated overlap in the terms of office for sheriffs, Wiley's current term doesn't end until June 30, 2020. Webre has already said he plans to run to replace Wiley, who has been sheriff since July 1, 1996. Wiley's departure shakes up the political scene in Ascension Parish, where he was a major player for more than two decades and was credited with modernizing the rural sheriff's office during a time of significant population growth in the parish. Many political observers have said the passage of a half-cent rural law enforcement sales tax in July 1998, which Wiley promoted, was a key step in the department's current path. None of the parish's three municipalities pay the sales tax, which supplements the traditional property tax, fee and grant revenue sources the Sheriff's Office receives. The sales tax, which went toward raising deputy salaries and hiring new deputies, now makes up nearly one-third of the agency's revenue. At the time the tax passed, Gonzales police officers were paid more than Ascension Parish's sheriff's deputies. The sheriff's office now has more than 350 employees. The now well-funded agency has continued to expand, engaging in a building program that has added a new full-service substation outside Gonzales and a training center complex in recent years. With Wiley's urging, parish government also financed a major expansion of the parish jail in Donaldsonville about a decade ago. Wiley said that in addition to those "measurables," his department has worked to build community trust. "And, I think we have done a good job at doing that," Wiley said. Wiley, a hard-charging official not shy about making his views known, has also drawn fire from some critics about his public statements after major high-profile crimes. Nonetheless, the outgoing sheriff has remained a popular figure in Ascension. When asked, Wiley, who turned 68 on Jan. 1, said it was time "chronologically" for him to step down and said he has no immediate plans for any other public office, though he added he wasn't eliminating anything either. "I dont have any immediate plans to do anything except relax a little while and learn how to be retired," Wiley said. Purchases made via links on our site may earn us an affiliate commission Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email please call (208) 542-6777 for help. Participating in a public health campaign called "Dry January" can help those who want to cut back on their drinking in 2019, a new paper suggests. How Dry January Changes People's Drinking Habits Researchers at the University of Sussex conducted a study on people who abstained from alcohol for the whole month of January in 2018 as part of the campaign created by the Alcohol Concern UK. They found that those who participated were able to regain their control of drinking up to eight months later, resulting in better skin, weight loss, and overall better health. "The simple act of taking a month off alcohol helps people drink less in the long term: by August people are reporting one extra dry day per week," said Richard de Visser, a psychologist who led the research. "There are also considerable immediate benefits: nine in ten people save money, seven in ten sleep better and three in five lose weight." The researchers collected data from over 800 people. They were made to answer a survey to assess how their drinking habits have changed after the campaign. The participants reported that the days when they drank fell from 4.3 days to only 3.3 days per week by August. Their average alcohol consumption also fell significantly, from 8.6 to 7.1 unit or about 10 milliliters per day. The people who also abstained in January last year said that they became drunk less frequently, averaging to only 2.1 days per month compared to 3.4 days before the campaign. Health Benefits Of Abstaining From Alcohol Perhaps the most encouraging findings from the research are the immediate positive impacts of drinking less to the participants. Of over 800 people who went dry in January 2018, 93 percent reported feeling a sense of achievement for surviving the campaign, 88 percent saved money, and 82 percent got to reevaluate their relationship with alcohol. Majority of the participants or around 80 percent say that they are now better in control of their drinking. Around 76 percent of them did self-reflection and realized why they drink while 71 percent of them now believe that they do not need to be inebriated to have fun. Other benefits of Dry January include better sleep, more energy, weight loss, better concentration, and better skin. The Dry January 2019 campaign is now open for registration at alcoholchange.org.uk. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. In context: About a year and a half ago we reported on a man in Oregon who was fined for describing himself as an engineer in an opinion submitted to the Oregon State Board of Engineers regarding the timing of traffic signals in Beaverton. In 2017, Mats Jarlstrom was fined $500 by the Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying for using the word engineer to describe himself. The board also forbade him from publicly talking about engineering subject matter. Jarlstrom filed a civil rights lawsuit claiming the board was infringing on his First Amendment right to free speech. Jarlstrom, who has a background in engineering but was not licensed or practicing the profession, had submitted a detailed opinion including maths about why the timing of traffic lights in Beaverton was a safety hazard and needed to be updated. Many were interested in his study including licensed public safety engineers. After being slapped with a bureaucratic gag order and fine, Jarlstrom took the board to court. The US District Court for Oregon sided with the retired engineer and entered a permanent injunction allowing Jarlstrom to speak about his engineering theories freely and to call himself an engineer. Magistrate Judge Stacie F. Beckerman stated in her December 28, 2018, ruling that the board has a history of overzealous enforcement actions and called its restrictions on the use of the word engineer substantially overbroad in violation of the First Amendment. Last weeks ruling announces important protections, not just for Matss First Amendment rights, but for the First Amendment rights of thousands of engineers in Oregon, said Jarlstroms attorney Sam Gedge with the Institute for Justice (IJ). Not only is Mats free to continue to share his theories, but thousands of Oregon engineers are now free to describe themselvestruthfullyas engineers, without fear of government punishment. For years, Oregons engineering board has operated as if the First Amendment didnt apply to it. As the courts ruling confirms, that could not be more wrong. The judgment invalidates an Oregon statute that claimed only Oregon-licensed engineers could describe themselves as such. The IJ told TechSpot in an email that the Oregon Board of Engineers almost religiously enforced the law. The board was known to target anyone who used the word publicly regardless of context. In candid moments, the board even asserted that they could punish the hundreds of Intel employees who call themselves 'engineers' without having a board-issued license, said a spokesperson for IJ. Regarding the decision, Jarlstrom said that the win was not just about him. "Oregonians need to be free to share ideas and free to say who they are," he said. "Being an engineer is a big part of my identity, as it is for many people. Thousands of Oregonians are 'engineers'even though we have no reason to be licensed as 'professional engineers'and we are now free to use the word 'engineer' to describe ourselves." A Brand's Guide to Digital Shelf Analytics | eBook What can you do to improve your digital commerce game? The first rule of the digital shelf is to make sure your products can be found. Some might say its mission impossible. Unless, of course, you use digital shelf analytics (DSA). Get the eBook Today! Facebook at one time considered charging companies for access to its user data, according to a Wall Street Journal report based on three pages of unredacted material from an 18-page document showing portions of some internal Facebook emails, mainly from about 2012 to 2014. The documents are linked to a lawsuit, Six4Three LLC v. Facebook Inc., filed in California Superior Court, San Mateo County (Redwood City). Six4Three, the developer of Pikini, a now-defunct app for locating photos of users' friends in swimsuits, filed a complaint in 2015 alleging that Facebook's data policies were anticompetitive and favored certain companies over others. The app failed because Facebook restricted developers' access to friends' data in 2015, a move that doomed Six4Three's business plan, according to the complaint. Facebook has denied the allegations and accused Six4Three of making sensational claims and mischaracterizing its internal records to get attention from the media. "When the app came out, the press [reports] noted it was quite creepy," Facebook spokesperson Katy Dormer pointed out. "The whole objective of this lawsuit is to get Facebook to reverse platform changes we made in 2014 and 2015 giving access to all developers to information about friends and friends of friends information," Dormer told TechNewsWorld. [Six4Three] want us to enable those same sharing abilities that Cambridge Analytica exploited, and that's not something we're going to do." The Documents' Circuitous Path The sensitive documents were supposed to remain sealed in the California court case. However, Ted Kramer, one of Six4Three's principals, apparently handed them over to Damian Collins, head of the UK Parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee when Kramer made a business trip to London. Kramer reportedly had refused to provide the documents at first, but acceded after Collins suggested he could go to prison for defying an order from the UK parliament. Kramer then found some files in his laptop that he claimed not to have read, and copied them onto a flash drive for Collins. Collins said over the weekend that he was free under UK law to disclose the Facebook documents. What the Emails Reveal The emails Collins released show that Facebook discussed ways to monetize its user data the way some other tech firms have done. One Facebook employee suggested shutting down data access across the board to all apps that did not spend at least US$250,000 a year to maintain access to that data. In one email exchange, Facebook employees reportedly offered to extend the Tinder dating app's access to user data at no charge, in return for the use of Tinder's "Moments" trademark. The trademark dispute with Facebook over "Moments" was resolved years ago, Tinder said, adding that it did not receive special treatment, data or access related to the dispute or its resolution. Another set of emails dealt with Facebook negotiating a special agreement with Amazon in 2013. One Facebook employee said it would result in Amazon getting less access to data, and another responded that Facebook either would have "a disappointing conversation with Amazon or a strategic conversation in the context of the broader deal discussions," the Journal reported. Another set of emails dealt with the Royal Bank of Canada's access to Facebook user data. One Facebook employee asked whether the bank had an agreement requiring it to spend a certain amount on advertising each year. Another responded that the bank would run one of the biggest mobile app-install ad campaigns ever run in Canada. The bank maintained that it never had a minimum marketing spend or target agreement with Facebook. Taking Care of Business The documents at the center of the WSJ story "reflect internal conversations where we were trying to build a sustainable business with the developers of apps," Facebook's Dormer pointed out. "Like any organization, we were discussing what we should do and, instead of charging developers, we ultimately decided to give them APIs for free." Facebook had just emerged from its IPO in May 2012 -- then the largest technology IPO in United States history. The company offered more than 421 million shares at $38 each and raised more than $16 billion. The company's performance immediately following the IPO was disappointing, however. Facebook had not yet developed a strategy to generate revenue from its mobile product, and it was struggling with a data sharing policy that gave tens of thousands of outside app developers access to private information about its users through its developer platform, while the company got nothing back in return. The emails Wall Street Journal reporters saw lacked context and in some cases were truncated, the paper reported. Facebook had said in other court filings that the excerpts subsequently were redacted because they contained sensitive discussions of its internal strategic analysis of third-party applications, releasing information that could damage Facebook's relationships with developers. Further, the documents "are only part of the story, and the way they were presented was misleading," Facebook's Dormer maintained. San Mateo County Superior Judge V. Raymond Swope, who is hearing the Six4Three suit, apparently thinks so as well. He has written that the company has not convinced him that the documents in question are relevant to the case. He reportedly said that Six4Three's lawyers were engaging in "brute litigation overkill." Groping for an Identity Facebook "has been conflicted since its founding," noted Michael Jude, program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan. "Is it a common carrier, or is it a service provider that delivers a service in exchange for access to subscriber data?" he asked. If it's a common carrier, "it has to abide by common carriage rules with equal access, and must provide protections for subscriber personal data," Jude told TechNewsWorld. If, on the other hand, Facebook is a service provider, then "it can do anything it wants as long as it has the explicit agreement from its subscribers that it can," he said. Six4Three's Chances Facebook "wants the best of both worlds, so it has to monetize access somehow, and this involves selling access to subscriber data for fun and profit," Jude noted. This "generates dissonance in what it does over time," he said. Currently the argument is "between the privacy hawks and Facebook's business customers. I suspect they'll weigh the penalties of offending each and pick the least painful financially." Given that, said Jude, "I think Six4Three is out of luck." Richard Adhikari has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2008. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, mobile technologies, CRM, databases, software development, mainframe and mid-range computing, and application development. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including Information Week and Computerworld. He is the author of two books on client/server technology. Email Richard. Tarpon Springs High School student Christosomos Christian Chrysakis, 18, is carried up the steps from Spring Bayou after capturing the golden cross in Spring Bayou during the 2018 Feast Day of the Epiphany celebration in Tarpon Springs. Cleveland A doctor in Ohio was fired after being accused of making anti-Semitic remarks on social media, including a threat that she would intentionally give Jewish people the wrong medications. Lara Kollab was a resident at the Cleveland Clinic when old tweets linked to a Twitter account belonging to her surfaced. The tweets included a number of disparaging comments about Jewish people, according to The Times of Israel. Kollab referred to Jewish people as dogs and said the Holocaust was exaggerated, the Times said. In 2012, she said she would purposely give all Jews "the wrong meds," according to the Times. She also repeatedly expressed hope that "Allah will kill the Jews" and likened Israel to the Nazi regime, the Times said. Kollab began working at the Cleveland Clinic in July. The posts have since been deleted, according to CNN. The tweets were discovered by Canary Mission, a group that says it publicizes comments that promote hatred of the U.S., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses. The group published a compilation of Kollab's tweets dating from 2011 to 2017 in November, the Times said. Kollab did not return calls seeking comment from NBC News. The Cleveland Clinic told the network Kollab was fired in September over the posts. In no way do these beliefs reflect those of our organization, the clinic said in a statement, according to NBC. We fully embrace diversity, inclusion and a culture of safety and respect across our entire health system. There were no reports of any harm to patients related to Kollab's work, the clinic said. Kollab graduated from the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in New York City in July 2018. Touro has Jewish roots and the school said in a statement it was appalled by Kollab's actions, according to CNN. The mission of Touro College is to educate, perpetuate and enrich the historic Jewish tradition of tolerance and dignity, the school said, according to CNN. Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598 NEW YORK (AP) New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says hes calling off a planned 15-month shutdown of a critical subway link between Manhattan and Brooklyn. The surprise announcement Thursday came after years of planning for the upheaval expected to be caused by the temporary closure of the L-train tunnel across the East River. The shutdown was supposed to start in April. People had dubbed it the "L-mageddon" for its expected impact on a quarter million riders a day. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority had said a full shutdown was the best way to repair flood damage caused by 2012's Superstorm Sandy. But Cuomo unveiled a new plan that won't require a complete closure, with the needed work being done on nights and weekends. Even during those periods, trains would keep running WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. Anthony Brindisi defied Democratic Party leaders with his first vote in Congress today when he refused to vote for Nancy Pelosi to serve as House speaker. Brindisi, D-Utica, voted for former Vice President Joe Biden in a protest of the status quo among House Democrats. He was among 15 Democrats who voted for a speaker other than Pelosi or voted "present." When Brindisi's name was announced in an alphabetical roll-call vote, he stood up and said, "Joe Biden," prompting a roar of surprise from House members on both sides of the aisle. He was the first Democrat to break from Pelosi in the vote. Brindisi said before the speaker's election Thursday that he would not break his campaign promise -- to seek a new Democratic leader -- with his first vote in Congress. Pelosi, after weeks of pressuring reluctant Democrats like Brindisi, managed to secure the speaker's gavel with 220 out of 430 votes. Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California finished second.with 192 votes. Brindisi took the oath of office after the vote. His children Anthony, 11, and Lily, 8, joined Pelosi and other children of House members at the podium as she administered the oath. Earlier, Brindisi and his children sat in prime seats at the end of an aisle on the House floor, one row behind Pelosi and her grandchildren. Brindisi became the first Democrat in at least 60 years to unseat a Republican for the Utica-based congressional seat when he defeated Rep. Claudia Tenney in November in the 22nd Congressional District. He joined 63 incoming freshmen members of the 116th Congress on Thursday. Brindisi said he had not been pressured directly by Pelosi in the past month, but other senior Democrats had asked him to support the 78-year-old in her bid to become speaker for a second time. In their lone meeting in November, Brindisi said he told Pelosi that he couldn't support her. "I reiterated what I said on the campaign trail: I think it's time for change and new leadership," Brindisi said. In November, Brindisi was among 32 members of the House Democratic Caucus who voted against Pelosi's nomination for the speaker's post. She won the party's nomination by a vote of 203-32. Pelosi needed at least 216 votes Thursday when 430 members of the House voted. Five members did not vote. After an intense lobbying campaign following the November caucus vote, Pelosi managed to convince enough of the holdout Democrats to vote for her Thursday. Brindisi said he was not directly pressured by Pelosi to support her in the weeks since her nomination. He said no one in the party has threatened retaliation, such as an assignment to a lower-level House committee. Freshman Rep. Connor Lamb, D-Pa., was among others Democrats who declined to vote for Pelosi. Lamb voted for Rep. Joe Kennedy III, a Democrat from Massachusetts. One other Democratic newcomer from New York, Rep. Max Rose, D-Staten Island, broke with the party and voted for U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois. House rules do not require members to vote for a sitting House member for speaker. Contact Mark Weiner: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751 A Tioga County man is due in court Jan 8 to face a felony manslaughter charge for the death of his neighbor in a deer hunting-related shooting that took place on the last day of the Southern Zone firearms season. An investigation by State Environmental Conservation officers determined that on Dec. 9 Dean Brockoff, 53, of Lockwood, fired a shot from his Winchester bolt-action . 30.06 rifle that stuck and killed David Barton, 73, according to New York Outdoors News. The shooting took place at approximately 7 a.m. as the two were hunting together on private property in a wooded area off of Miller Hollow Road in the town of Barton in Tioga County. According to state deer hunting regulations, hunters are not allowed to shoot before sunrise. Sunrise that day in Tioga County was 7:21 a.m. The Lockwood Volunteer Fire Department responded to the scene, and Barton was transferred by ambulance to Gutherie Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, Pa., where he later died. No further details were released, such as whether Barton was wearing hunter orange, according to New York Outdoors News. At the direction of the Tioga County District Attorney, Brockoff was arrested by DEC investigators and charged with manslaughter in the second degree, a class C felony. He was processed at New York State Police barracks in Owego and arraigned before Town of Owego Justice Pat Hogan. He was initially taken to Tioga County Jail following his arraignment, with bail set at $20,000 cash/$40,000 bail. He pleaded not guilty to the charge in court on Dec. 11 and was placed on a supervised release, New York Outdoors News reported. Under the terms of his release, Brockoff was ordered not to contact Bardens family and all firearms were removed from his home. Syracuse, N.Y. -- The Syracuse womens lacrosse team is slotted at No. 11 in the Nike/US Lacrosse preseason poll released on Wednesday. The Orange is one of six ACC teams ranked in the preseason top 20. Syracuse will take on the top four teams in the preseason poll: No. 1 Boston College, No. 2 Maryland, No. 3 North Carolina and No. 4 Florida. The Eagles will visit the Carrier Dome on Feb. 16, as will No. 8 Northwestern (Feb. 24) and No. 17 Virginia (Mar. 2). Syracuse will also host No. 19 Notre Dame on Mar. 23 and No. 13 Virginia Tech on Apr. 3. Syracuse returns its top two scorers from a year ago in junior Emily Hawryschuk and senior Nicole Levy. Hawryschuk had a breakout season in 2018, posting career highs in goals (53) and points (61). Levy was second in points (51) and goals (41) despite missing five games with a lower body injury. Senior Alexa Radziewicz and junior Kerry Defliese anchor the SU defense. Radziewicz is a four-year starter who posted a career-high 15 caused turnovers last season. She also had career highs in ground balls (18) and draw controls (11). Defliese earned all-Northeast Region first team honors and was voted to the all-ACC second team in 2018. She tied for second on the team in caused turnovers (15) and ranked third on the squad in ground balls (2) and draw controls (42). In addition, junior Asa Goldstock returns in goal for the Orange. The two-year starter posted a .434 save percentage last season. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat and native of Syracuse, is former governor of Virginia. By Terry McAuliffe | The Washington Post As I traveled around the country campaigning for Democrats this past year, one of my takeaways was that there is an overwhelming desire among voters for a return to reality. After two years of President Donald Trumps grandiose bluster, bluffing and buffoonery, Americans elected candidates who ran as optimistic, progressive problem-solvers focused on results central to families: health care, work, education and taxes. We need to be big, bold and optimistic, but that cant come at the expense of being honest with the American people. We are now less than two years away from an election that could restore a seriousness to the White House, and the future of the American Dream depends on it. I believe the only way that Trump will win re-election is if Democrats give up their credibility as serious and focused on results that impact peoples lives. Ideological populism or relentless negativity are playing on Trumps turf. The reality-show star will always win that race to the bottom. While then-candidate Trump lied about individual facts throughout the campaign, many voters have come to realize that his 2016 campaign was premised on a larger, fundamental dishonesty. Trump's populism was built around the idea that you can have everything: lower taxes, protecting entitlement spending, infrastructure investment and a balanced budget; a border wall paid for by Mexico; a quick and easy trade war. That message worked in the primary and general election because his opponents were not perceived as providing a better vision for improving people's lives. But Trumps eventual downfall -- as with most entertainer politicians -- is that his fantastical promises of 2016 will not come to pass. We have amassed a massive budget deficit thanks in large part to tax cuts for the rich. There is no infrastructure package. Medicare and Social Security are at risk because of reckless Republican budgets. Mexico is never paying for the wall. And Trumps impulsive trade fights have hurt American farmers and consumers and thrown global financial markets into turmoil. Voters are now looking for a more realistic alternative. Leading up to 2020, Democrats must maintain our credibility with a pledge of results that are honest and achievable. We can expand the Affordable Care Act and take on pharmaceutical companies' cartel pricing, pass comprehensive climate change legislation and substantially raise incomes through minimum-wage increases and tax fairness. And that's just the start. These changes would be revolutionary for average families. Americans are asking us to focus on improving their lives, not to make unrealistic ideological promises. For example, some senators have started to discuss a federal jobs guarantee -- a promise that, in certain formulations, means that anyone who wants could have a government job paying $15 an hour with great benefits. Sound too good to be true? It is. Proponents of a jobs guarantee are smart people with good motives, but they surely recognize that it is not a realistic policy. Similarly, a promise of universal free college has an appealing ring, but it's not a progressive prioritization of the educational needs of struggling families. We need to provide access to higher education, job training and student debt relief to families who need it. Spending limited taxpayer money on a free college education for the children of rich parents badly misses the mark for most families. When the stakes are another four years of Trump degrading our country, do we really want to use the 2020 campaign as a first-time experiment on idealistic but unrealistic policies? As we approach 2020, we should look at the candidates who won in swing districts in 2018. They are an energetic, diverse group who ran on realistic goals of lowering the cost of health care, improving education and raising wages. These are credible promises that Democrats have a proven record of addressing. We are the party that created the Affordable Care Act, raised the minimum wage, invested in education and even balanced the budget. This year, we elected Democratic governors in states that Trump won, such as Wisconsin and Kansas, by campaigning on expanding Medicaid and increasing investment in education. In Michigan, Democrat Gretchen Whitmer won by almost 10 percentage points on a relentlessly pragmatic campaign to fix the damn roads and protect the progress made through Medicaid expansion. And improving roads and expanding Medicaid were my blueprint for winning in Virginia during a historically difficult year for Democrats. This follows the presidential legacies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama -- leaders who were successful electorally because they focused on concrete, progressive accomplishments to improve average Americans' lives. Resisting dishonest populism is not just a policy imperative for serious Democrats but also a political imperative for 2020. Across the country, voters just sent a powerful message that they are tired of the broken promises of this administration, especially on health care and taxes. While I havent decided whether to be a candidate myself, I will be closely watching our side and working to ensure that the Democratic message is realistic, optimistic and focused on helping all Americans. The stakes are simply too high to lose a race to the bottom. CAMILLUS, NY - The West Genesee school district is investigating allegations made on social media that the districts superintendent was in a relationship with an employee he supervises. School Board President Roberta Herron said in an e-mail to Syracuse.com | The Post Standard today that the board has been made aware of recent comments on social media about West Genesee Superintendent Chris Brown. This is the full statement made by Herron: "The West Genesee School board has been made aware of recent comments on social media about Dr. Brown. At this time, we do not have enough factual information to make a proper comment on this. The school district is conducting an investigation into this matter. When we have accurate information, we will send out a formal communication to the West Genesee community. Dr. Brown currently remains as superintendent." The board is holding a special executive session at 7:30 p.m. today at the West Genesee School District offices at 300 Sanderson Drive in Camillus. On Wednesday, Browns wife, Rachel Gough Brown, posted on social media that her husband and a district employee sat at my kitchen table tonight and let me know that they are in love with each other and he is leaving me. The social media posts have become the talk of the West Genesee school community with people commenting on the posts and sharing them. Chris Brown is one of the highest paid and most prominent educators in Central New York. He once spent a day at the White House for a summit on education and has taught college classes for future school administrators. He also is active online, sharing news and photos about the school district, its staff and students. Chris Brown, contacted by Syracuse.com following the posts Wednesday, denied having a romantic or sexual relationship with the district employee. He said he and the employee are very close friends whom he confided in during a difficult period in his life. He said he would have a conversation with the school board about the matter. He declined to comment on what exactly happened in his kitchen that his wife discussed on social media. Im not going into detail about what took place in my kitchen, he said. Unfortunately my private life made it into the public, but I need some privacy. Chris Brown did confirm he had asked his wife for a divorce and said he didnt believe it was a surprise to her. His wife locked her Twitter account Wednesday night. When contacted, she said she had no further comment at this time. Chris Brown sent a letter to district staff today also denying the romantic relationship. "There was/is a lot out there and what I want to be very clear about is that I do NOT and did NOT have a romantic relationship with any other employee,'' he said in the letter. "Splitting up is not easy, and causes a wide range of emotions and actions,'' he said in the letter. Brown, 47, has been superintendent at West Genesee since 2008. He was superintendent in the Hammondsport school district prior to that. He and his wife have two sons. Superintendent Chris Browns letter to staff I hope that all of you have been enjoying this break, and I look forward to seeing you soon. My break was less than enjoyable, unfortunately, and I feel that I need to fill you in on some details and how I and we will be moving forward. My public life has always been very public, and up until now, my private life has been pretty private. That changed on New Years Day. My wife and I are becoming separated and are divorcing. That will come as a complete shock to some of you, and not a shock at all to others. It is what it is, and that is between my wife and I to work through in the months ahead. Unfortunately, news of this made it to social media in a variety of formats, and now our very private personal life is now very public. I begrudge no one. Splitting up is not easy, and causes a wide range of emotions and actions. There was/is a lot out there and what I want to be very clear about is that I do NOT and did NOT have a romantic relationship with ANY other employee. I treat all employees equally and always have. That will continue. For better or worse, I am a high profile person, and unfortunately, my private life has created a perception issue for the District. I have two jobs as we head into the near year. The first is to take care of my private life and support my children, who have also been deeply impacted through this. My second job is to put my nose to the grindstone and continue to work in the best interests of the students, you, and the community. I hold myself accountable for that and I have to be held to a higher standard, which I always have been. It is my hope that people can reflect on all we have accomplished and I look forward to continuing on that path. Some of you may want to express yourselves to me. I get that, and when I visit, if you have something to say, please say it. I will take off my boss hat for that conversation, and we will be two people talking. I owe that to you. I am now going to become fiercely protective of my personal life, my children, and my job while I work to repair things with you, the students, and the community. Thank you for hopefully understanding and I will see you soon. SYRACUSE, N.Y. Syracuse City Court is opening a new drug court today designed to get opioid addicts facing criminal charges into treatment as soon as possible. The program is modeled after Buffalos 2-year-old opioid intervention court, the first of its kind in the nation. Syracuse City Court Judge Rory McMahon, who is presiding over the new court, said the programs goal is to save lives. Getting them to see one more sunset will be my goal every day, said McMahon, who lost a cousin to a drug overdose two years ago. The court will put treatment ahead of prosecution. Everyone arrested in the city will be screened for opioid use and referred to the court program if they are appropriate candidates who have been charged with misdemeanors or non-violent felonies. Criminal cases will be put on hold while defendants are in addiction treatment. Opioids are a highly addictive class of drugs that include prescription painkillers like Oxycodone and illegal street drugs such as heroin and fentanyl. Syracuse and the rest of the nation have been in the grips of an opioid epidemic for several years. Fatal opioid overdoses in Onondaga County have fallen over the past two years. Opioid overdose deaths peaked at 142 in 2016 then dropped to 91 in 2017, a 36 percent decline. There were another 43 overdose deaths in the first six months of 2018, according to the latest figures from the county health department. Court officials said even though opioid overdose deaths have declined opioid drug use is still widespread. This is really out of control, said Fifth Judicial District Chief Administrative Judge James Tormey. Syracuse already has a drug court, but its not set up to get defendants into treatment rapidly. Court officials likened the existing drug court to a hospital and the new program to an emergency room. The new program will not replace Syracuses established drug court known as Syracuse Community Treatment Court. After they are stabilized, some opioid addicts may be referred to the Syracuse Community Treatment Court. Other opioid courts are expected to open soon in Oswego, Watertown and Utica. Syracuse is the sixth city in New York to open an opioid court. The others are in Buffalo, Rochester, Niagara County, Suffolk County and the Bronx. During the Buffalo opioid courts first 18 months, 432 people went through the program and two died of overdoses during that period, according to the Buffalo News. The cost of Syracuses new opioid court program will initially be paid for out of the judiciary systems budget, Tormey said. Hopefully we will get grants and other money from the state as this unfolds, he said. While defendants are in opioid addiction treatment they will be required to go to court every day and meet with McMahon. He and a therapist will assess how the defendants are doing in treatment. People who successfully complete the program may get their sentences reduced. McMahon asked to oversee the new program. He said his cousin who died of an overdose two years ago was a talented athlete who couldnt kick the habit no matter what he did. Seeing the pain on his parents faces is something I will never forget, McMahon said. Thats why I am so energetic about this. Notorious prisoner David Sweats new home is in Central New York. WIVB reports the convicted cop killer was transferred out of Wende Correctional Facility in Alden last month and moved to Auburn Correctional Facility, 30 miles west of Syracuse. Its the fourth prison for Sweat since he escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y., with fellow inmate Richard Matt in June 2015. A weeks-long manhunt ended with Matt shot and killed, Sweat shot and captured near the Canadian border, and prison worker Joyce Tillie Mitchell arrested for helping them. After being recaptured, Sweat was locked up at Five Points Correctional Facility in Romulus and continued to cause trouble behind bars. He was transferred to Attica Correctional Facility in November 2017 after telling corrections officers how he had an escape plan at Five Points, then transferred to Wende after being caught in a sex act when his girlfriend visited him at Attica. According to WIVB, New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision officials wont say why Sweat was transferred to Auburn. The DOCCS said 5,000 prisoners are transferred every month due to reviews of inmate behavior, potential disruptions or over-familiarity with a maximum-security facility. Auburn Correctional Facility faced its own escape plan in 2015 when two inmates practiced dry runs in a homemade coffin hidden under a ton of sawdust. The prison was locked down more than any other state prison between 2015 and 2017 and had another lockdown last year when a 20-inmate melee led to a stabbing and more fights. Sweat is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the 2002 murder of Broome County sheriffs deputy Kevin Tarsia. He pleaded guilty in 2015 to three felony charges in connection with the prison escape, and was ordered to pay $79,841 for the damage he and Matt did to the Dannemora prison in their escape, including sawing through a steam pipe. The escape inspired a Lifetime TV movie and a Showtime series starring Benicio del Toro as Matt, Paul Dano as Sweat, and Patricia Arquette as Mitchell. Arquette has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award and the Ben Stiller-directed series, Escape at Dannemora, is up for Best Television Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television. SYRACUSE,N .Y. -- Sylvia Jenkins was the type of person who always tried to help others, her family said Thursday morning outside an Onondaga County courtroom. But in the moment that she needed help, she was left to die, John Coleman said after a North Syracuse woman was sentenced to prison for the fatal hit-and-run crash that took his sisters life. Heather James, 35, of North Syracuse, was sentenced to 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 years in state prison for felony leaving the scene of a fatal crash in the Jan. 9, 2018 incident that left 56-year-old Sylvia Jenkins dead. Jenkins was struck and killed by a car driven by James while walking in the northbound lane of North Franklin Street under Interstate 690. When police arrived, she was unconscious and unresponsive. After the 12:44 a.m. crash, James drove home and slept the night before turning herself in the next day, prosecutor Chris Bednarski said. Coleman said he could forgive James for the accident, but the part that is hard for him to forgive is the fact that James never stopped or called for help for his sister. She could have been saved," Coleman said. We might not even be here if she stopped. James, who had faced a maximum of 2 1/3 to 7 years in prison, said she was sorry for her actions as she delivered a tearful statement in court. Im beyond remorseful for the pain that I have caused, she said. James, who has remained remain free on bail until her sentencing, said she will devote herself to promoting driver safety and education on sharing the road with pedestrians and others. I strive to educate those around me regarding the importance of being ... aware while executing the privilege to drive, she said. Bednarski called the crash and Jenkins' death an awful, awful tragedy. She didnt deserve to die this way, Bednarski said. The Spoonful brings you a roundup of the biggest news in the southwest metro region each week. Do you already have a paid subscription to any of the SWNewsMedia newspapers? If so, you can Activate your Premium online account by clicking here. Activation will allow you to view unlimited online articles each month. To activate your Premium online account, the email address and phone number provided with your paid newspaper subscription needs to match the information you use in setting up your online user account. If you are having trouble or want to confirm what email address and phone number is listed on your subscription account, please call 952-345-6682 or email circulation@swpub.com and we'll be happy to assist. Click the image above to watch the video In todays weather forecast we are expecting a fine day apart from evening cloud. Also light winds. Its a one-clothing layer day today with a high of 27 and an overnight low of 16 degrees. Humidity is 68 per cent. Low tide is at 12.30pm and high tide at 6.30pm (Tay St). Theres a sea swell of 0.6m and sea temperature is 21 degrees. Sunset tonight is at 8.36pm. If youre going fishing the next best fish bite time is between 10.30am and 12.30pm. On this day in NZ history in 1869 Te Kooti was defeated at Ngatapa. Pursued by Maori and colonial troops to Ngatapa, an old hilltop pa inland from Poverty Bay, Te Kooti narrowly avoided capture after a three-day siege. Many of those with him were captured and executed the following day. In 1958 Sir Edmund Hillarys New Zealand team became the first to reach the South Pole overland since Robert Falcon Scott in 1912, and the first to do so in motor vehicles. On this day in world history in 1847 Samuel Colt sold his first revolver pistol to the U.S. government. His U.S. revolver patent gave him a monopoly on the manufacturing of revolvers until 1857, and during the Civil War his factory in Hartford, Connecticut, supplied firearms to both the North and the South. In 1902 France offered to sell their Nicaraguan Canal rights to the United States. In 1904 the U.S. Supreme Court decided in the Gonzales v. Williams case that Puerto Ricans were not aliens and can enter the United States freely, yet stopped short of awarding citizenship. In 1936 Billboard magazine published its first music Hit Parade. In 1970 a 7.7 earthquake killed more than 15,000 people in Tonghai County, China. In 1974 President Richard Nixon refused to hand over tape recordings and documents that had been subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee. In 1990 over 300 people died and more than 700 were injured in Pakistans deadliest train accident, when an overloaded passenger train collided with an empty freight train. In 1999 the euro, the new currency of 11 nations, went into effect on the continent of Europe. In 2004 NASAs Mars rover Spirit successfully landed on Mars. In 2007 Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, became the first female speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Today is the birthday of Sir Isaac Newton, scientist who developed the laws of gravity and planetary relations. He was born in 1643. It is also the birthday of Jacob Ludwig Grimm, German philosopher who wrote fairy tales with his brother and was born in 1785. And its the birthday of Louis Braille, developer of a reading system for the blind. Born in 1809, he once said Access to communication in the widest sense is access to knowledge''. To get involved in activities around the Bay of Plenty, please check out our Whats on page. Have a great day! Bay of Plenty You will be driving the Roller and also required to help out the team hands on. You will be working around Tauranga, for... View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nz Bay of Plenty We are looking for a storeman with an OSH forklift license. You will need to be physically for as the job is about 70% forklift... View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nz In December, for the first time since February 2016, Chinese factory activity declined. That alone was enough to cause stock markets worldwide to continue their sharp declines because the factory slowdown was more evidence that the entire Chinese economy was hitting a rough patch. It was also confirmed that Chinese GDP growth in 2018 was 6.5 percent and many economic indicators continue declining while those in the United States are growing. This is a reminder that the current trade war with the United States favors the Americans for many reasons that Chinese leaders cannot ignore. China has hit economic slumps since the 1990s, usually the result of economic problems in the West. But now the cause is China because of a lot of bad decisions that are now catching up with the Chinese leadership that made all the mistakes in the first place. Years of tolerating corruption and ignoring the growth of bad loans (that were at the basis of much corruption) means that just borrowing more money to give the economy a boost will not work. A sharper decline in Chinese economic activity would have a worldwide impact because China is a major trading nation and a major customer for raw materials, semi-finished goods and some high tech items. Fewer orders from Chinese firms have a major impact on national economies worldwide. Thats why global financial markets have been in decline for months and prospects of a turnaround are not good right now. While 2018 was a bad year for the economy, 2019 does not appear to be much of an improvement. China hopes to maintain GDP growth of at least six percent while at the same time continuing to safely reduce (deleverage) the huge number of bad debts local governments and corrupt banks have taken on over the last decade. The economic decline in 2018 could be measured in many aspects of economic activity (production, orders for raw materials, finished goods or construction and so on) and sentiments (of people running the economy and consumers). Chinese stock markets were down over 30 percent and for the first time in three years, profits of industrial firms took a dive. At the same time, there were similar shocks to the American economy, but much more limited. In early December Chinese and American leaders agreed to a 90-day truce in their trade war. The Americans are doing it to test the sincerity of new Chinese trade measures that are supposed to make it easier for some American products to be sold in China. China is also supposed to halt the theft of American IP (Intellectual property) and commercial espionage in general. Until now the Chinese would often flagrantly cheat and then deny that they had done any such thing. This has been going on for decades and the recent American trade war is meant to deal with this long festering issue. China is seen as vulnerable because its economy is overheated, unbalanced and at risk of partial collapse. Chinese leaders need some time to consider their options and cope with some very immediate problems (a growing labor shortage and more business being shifted to other Asian nations). The Americans openly reminded the Chinese that there would be prompt retaliation if China reneged on any of these agreements and that is good news for Chinese competitors, especially neighboring nations. Trying To Hide The Pain China is continuing its mid-2018 policy of monitoring Chinese media for any errors or exaggerations when reporting economic data. Punishment is prompt and harsh for any editors who screw up, accidentally or on purpose. In other words, the economy is not doing well and the government wants to prevent financial panic, especially in light of the trade war with the United States and the sanctions on Iran (a major source of oil). This media manipulation can moderate the widespread unease about the economy in China but not eliminate it. The government still lacks total control over the Internet and cell phone users. Bad news still gets around and when it has to do that despite government censorship the news has more impact. While some of this bad news comes from outside China most of it is generated internally. Chinese have learned not to trust government supplied economic data. Chinese can see for themselves indicators of economic slowdown and a rapidly mutating slang is used on the Internet to get the news past the censors. The government knows it can slow the spread of bad news, not stop it and tries to come up with new distractions to divert public attention. The mess in North Korea helps, especially since South China Sea headlines dont distract as well as they used to. Threatening Taiwan or the U.S. Navy is always good for a few days of distraction. Some things are more difficult to hide. For example, Chinese, especially the growing number who travel abroad for business or pleasure, note that China is not well liked by its neighbors. China is seen as a bully and a threat economically and militarily. This can be seen by the eagerness of Chinese neighbors to side with the United States in its trade war with China. Many of these nations have similar disputes with China see the American efforts as beneficial for everyone but China. Attack while the enemy is weak is a classic strategy and one especially favored by those who study Chinese history, as most Chinese leaders do. When playing defense against this ancient Chinese wisdom advices use of deceptions and delay until the situation changes. In this conflict, the American and Chinese leaders seem to be using the same moves but from different playbooks. The Chinese were surprised at the American trade war as they believed the West, especially the Americans, would not risk such a move. Unfortunately, the current American leader is a career businessman and expert at the use of mass media and negotiating solutions where no one else could. Most Chinese noted this change and became even more disillusioned at their own government which is still seen as corrupt and self-serving by most Chinese. The newly acquired Chinese prosperity rather fragile compared to the Western models. The Chinese government prefers to play down this but at the moment most Chinese are well aware of the fragility and terrified at where it may lead. The Second-Rate Superpower Russia likes to be seen as an ally of China but the reality (which more Russians are accepting and confronting) is that Russia is no longer a superpower and provides a military threat only because it has spent a lot of its shrinking defense budget on maintaining its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that deliver them. Actually, Russia still maintains a larger force of nuclear-armed missiles than China but that is largely irrelevant. Economic growth and GDP determine who has the most power. The Russian GDP ($1.3 trillion) is stagnant and the population continues to shrink because more people are leaving and not enough children are being born. Few want to move to Russia, at least not for economic opportunities. Russia projects a more powerful image than it can sustain. Russia needs a win but so far can only manage some feeble threats. Similarly, Chinese ally North Korea has a miniscule GDP ($30 billion) which is pathetic compared to South Korea ($1.3 trillion), Japan ($5 trillion) and China ($11 trillion, second only to nearly $20 trillion for the United States.) Another Chinese ally, Pakistan, has a GDP of $300 billion which is relevant when you consider neighbor (and sworn enemy) India has one of $2.6 trillion. That also explains why India is so concerned with Chinese aggression and seeking military relationships with the U.S., Japan, South Korea and tiny Israel (GDP $350 billion) because that nation is a military and industrial powerhouse in the region. South China Sea In the aftermath of the American November FONOP (freedom of navigation operation) in the South China Sea, the fifth one for 2018, China has moved more radars and EW (Electronic Warfare) equipment and guided missiles to the Paracel islands. China also declared once more that the Paracels were part of China and China would control its territorial waters (any seas within 22 kilometers of Chinese land). That last 2018 FONOP was near several of the Chinese occupied islands in the Paracels. These islands had long belonged to (and been occupied) by Vietnamese. China took the Paracels by force in the 1970s. In 2012 one of the Paracel islands (Woody Island) was declared the center of Sansha, a new Chinese municipality (city). Sansha is actually Woody Island and dozens of smaller bits of land (some of them shoals that are underwater all the time) in the Paracels and the Spratly Islands to the south. In fact, the new "city" lays claim to two million square kilometers of open sea (57 percent of the South China Sea). China did not interfere with the November FONOP although it did send a warship to follow the American cruiser. Two days later another two U.S. Navy ships (a destroyer and a replenishment ship) passed through the Taiwan Strait (the waters between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland) as a form of FONOP. This was the second Taiwan Strait FONOP since October where the passage was publicized. Until the October FONOP such trips through the Taiwan Strait (which American warships do regularly) were not publicized, something the U.S. had been doing since 2007. The renewal of publicizing these movements annoys China which responded by having their own warships following American warships passing through the Taiwan Strait and increasing Chinese naval ship patrols around Taiwan. There are two ways China can enforce its sovereignty exert control over its territorial waters. The traditional response is to attack intruders with gunfire or missiles. Then there is the preferred Chinese method of swarming around the intruder with commercial, coast guard and even navy warships and combat aircraft. This has included causing collisions (often just bumping). China does not want a war with the United States, mainly because of the economic risks which could lead to more unrest inside China. Interference with seaborne trade and trading relationships, in general, would disrupt the Chinese economy and threaten the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) control. What China has demonstrated is a willingness to do everything short of war, especially if they can remain able to claim victim status. Money Talks In Different Dialects For much of 2018, Western nations were increasingly critical of how China was treating its Moslem minority. In the northwest (Xinjiang province) it has been no secret that the extreme security measures have been mainly directed at Uighur, Kazakh and Kyrgyz Moslems. Nearly a million of these Moslems have been sent to reeducation camps and that has become an international issue, but not with Moslem nations who are usually quick to complain about any real or imagined slight by Western nations. The silence of Moslem critics was not because China has restricted journalist (Chinese and foreign) access to Xinjiang because that has not completely kept news of what is going on there from getting out. Thus when it became known that at least 50,000 Kyrgyz Chinese Moslems were also in the re-education camps there was outrage in some Central Asian nations that had people they could identify with those in the camps. But even these Central Asian nations were not officially critical of the Chinese. The lack of criticism from Moslem nations is mainly about money and the realization that China is able and willing to maintain or withdraw investments depending on how recipient countries behave towards China. Since the 1990s China has been more of a presence in Kyrgyzstan and the other former Soviet stans of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) because these nations wanted someone to help with the economy and discourage the Russians from trying to dominate the region as they have done since the 19th century. The stans were very receptive to Chinese diplomatic and economic cooperation. But now many people in the stans are reconsidering their relationships with China in light of the anti-Moslem crackdown in Xinjiang. This is a problem for China which has a growing number of economic investments in the stans, including the massive OBOR (trans Eurasia roads, rail and pipelines) effort. To make matters worse the U.S. is threatening to impose sanctions over the Xinjiang detention camps and there is growing agitation in the UN for sanctions, or at least censure. That is unlikely to happen because China has long used bribes and threats to gain control over UN votes and the willingness of some foreign countries to openly criticize China. Moslem nations are notoriously corrupt and Chinese bribes are more effective there than they are in many Western nations. The re-education camps of Xinjiang are now estimated to hold ten percent of the adult Moslems in the province. The re-education often consists of confinement and lectures about what the government considers bad behavior (doing anything the government does not like). Inmates are given a choice; do what the government wants or undergo an escalating series of punishments. Xinjiang has been the test site for how extensive networks of vidcams and other forms of population monitoring can lead to more control over large populations. Already the government boasts that nationwide fifteen million people have been banned from flying or riding the high-speed trains because of their low SCR (Social Credit Rating). Low SCR makes it more difficult to get a good job, a bank loan or a passport. SCR scores depend on what the government sees, hears or reads via that growing network of sensors and informants. The government expects to have the Big Brother monitoring and SCR systems operating nationwide by 2020. Already local officials are finding SCR a useful tool in many different ways. Xinjiang is apparently the laboratory in which it is discovered what works and what does not. For example, Xinjiang factory workers who refuse to accept harsh working conditions and no pay increases can be assigned a low SCR and then told they must either improve their attitude towards bad working conditions or go to a re-education camp for a while, perhaps a long while if they refuse to behave as ordered. Many Chinese have no problem with SCR and see it as an opportunity. One reason for that, which the government does not like to talk about, or even acknowledge, is that SCR has already been corrupted. Local officials and police have a lot of discretion in deciding which behavior is likely to lower an SCR. In other words, some well-placed or well-timed bribes can keep your SCR healthy. The government is aware of this but knows that despite the vulnerability to bribery the SCR is still a powerful tool for controlling the population. For example, one way of boosting your SCR, and making some legal money (although usually less than $50 a month) is to agree to work for the secret police as a local informer. In some parts of the country, like the capital, there are a lot of these paid informants. In central Beijing, where nearly four million people live and even more work or pass through, about three percent of the population are paid informants. That is in addition to the extensive network of security cameras and extensive surveillance carried out in the Internet. Exactly how the population will react to extensive and sustained use of SCR is an unknown. But at this point, we are beginning to find out, especially in Xinjiang province and some of the major cities. The cost of building and operating the SCR system is one reason why China spends more on internal security (secret police, riot police, coast guard and so on) than they do on the defense budget. North Korea China continues to tolerate a certain amount of North Korean smuggling and financial misbehavior. But North Korea must be discreet because China is officially backing (if not actually enforcing) most of the economic sanctions on North Korea. Since a crackdown on Chinese banks a few years ago North Korea has moved most of its illegal finance operations out of China. North Korea has established a network of companies and banks that will act (for a fee) as middlemen in turning North Korean profits from foreign operations into products that can be shipped to North Korea without any real proof North Korea paid for it. Of course, it is obvious that these imports are not free foreign aid but the source of payment is difficult to trace, often more trouble than it is worth. But when the effort is made a new North Korea financial network is detected. January 2, 2019: China began the New Year by threatening Taiwan with invasion if it did not accept Chinese rule. China offers a deal similar to what Hong Kong got when it rejoined China when the British lease expired in 1997. That did not go as planned, as far as the people of Hong Kong were concerned. But while few Chinese in British Hong Kong ever considered Hong Kong an independent country, 70 percent of the people in Taiwan do. The Chinese do not want violence, not when threats and economic warfare have worked pretty well so far. The costs of a war with Taiwan would be substantial, even if it did not trigger a wider war with the United States. The risk of a real conflict is an interruption in economic activity in China. It is a particularly bad time for that sort of thing right now. In response, Taiwan suggested that China try democracy as a solution for the growing political and economic problems the mainland Chinese are facing. That sounds attractive to many Chinese who note that it has worked in Singapore, as well as Taiwan. South Korea and Japan are also good examples because those two nations have cultures largely derived from Chinese practices. But the Chinese leadership is not interested. December 27, 2018: Chinese media confirmed earlier Western reports that China had successfully tested a new JL-3 SLBM (sub launched ballistic missile) that apparently worked and demonstrated it had a range of 9,000 kilometers (5,600 miles). That is nearly 30 percent farther than the earlier, and less reliable JL-2. The JL-3 may be the first Chinese SLBM reliable enough to use regularly in Chinese SSBNs (ballistic missile carrying nuclear subs) and allow them to operate at sea regularly and reliably. That has not been possible until now, mainly because earlier Chinese SLBM designs were not reliable. About the same time, the JL-3 took place commercial satellite photos available in the West confirmed that two new Chinese 094 class SSBNs were recently (late October) launched and are now docked for months of additional work before they are completed and ready for sea trials. Currently, only four 094s are available for duty and those are still crippled by older SLBMs that do not work. In addition, there are still problems with the basic 094 design, which is considered too noisy to stay hidden from American efforts to locate and follow. Two more 094s are under construction with a number of improvements. The second four are being called the 094A class and the existing 094s are apparently being upgraded. For the moment, though, China still does not have an operational SSBN force and after decades of trying, wont have one until the 2020s. For China, this is how it works. That was also why China, for a long time, played down its efforts to build and operate nuclear-powered subs. Back in 2013, China featured its nuclear subs in the Chinese media for the first time. The theme for this media promotion was that in 42 years of operation no Chinese nuclear sub has ever suffered a nuclear reactor accident. This was an indirect dig at the Russians, who are the only nation with nuclear subs to have suffered nuclear accidents. Moreover, since the 1950s several hundred billion dollars has been spent on developing and building nuclear-powered submarines. Some 300 have been built so far, most of them Russian. Nuclear subs have been used in combat only once (in 1982, when a British SSN sank an Argentinean cruiser.) When the Cold War ended, Russia began scrapping its large nuclear sub fleet, which included dozens of older boats that were more trouble than they were worth to maintain. Now China has joined this club and retired its first nuke. With the demise of the Russian sub fleet, the U.S. Navy submarine force, which peaked at 100 boats at the end of the Cold War, shrank to about 60 today. China currently has about a dozen nuclear subs in operation (8 SSNs and four SSBNs) and their track record in the last half century has been dismal. The Chinese SSNs are noisy (easy for Western sensors to detect) and unreliable. Chinese SSNs rarely go to sea, which is one reason they have had no nuclear accidents. Chinese SSBNs are basically enlarged SSNs and have never been on a combat patrol, just brief training missions. China has kept at it and over the last few years, Chinese Internet hacking efforts were often discovered directed at American SSBN and SLBM technology. Today Ma Jian, a former senior official in the secret police, was convicted of corruption and sentenced to life in prison. This was considered a big deal because a Chinese senior secret police commander is rarely treated like this. Most of those prosecuted for corruption are lower-ranking officials. Then again it has been noted that nearly all of the senior officials prosecuted were considered hostile to Chinese leader-for-life Xi Jingping. December 26, 2018: In Thailand, there was another sign that the pro-China attitudes are weakening as a Thai court acquitted a Chinese couple of visa violations and allowed them to stay in Thailand. China had requested that the couple be sent back to China to be punished for their pro-reform activities. In the past, the military government had promptly carried out Chinese requests for the return of dissidents but most Thais, even in the military, were never very enthusiastic about becoming too dependent on Chinese goodwill. December 20, 2018: The United States indicted two Chinese hackers working for the Chinese government to carry out an ongoing campaign to get into American military and defense industry networks and steal data. The two inducted men were key operatives in a hacking group known as APT10 that has been active since 2006. The indictments mean the U.S. has enough evidence against the two men to get them arrested if they ever enter a part of the world where an American arrest warrant will be honored. With these indictments, the Americans are formally accusing China of Internet-based espionage against the United States. December 19, 2018: The United States enacted a law that identifies and bans Chinese officials from entering the United States if those officials are the ones who prevent Americans from entering Tibet. This is a largely a symbolic act (diplomatic reciprocity) that has been around for a while but China didnt always apply it to Tibet because China said it didnt. December 18, 2018: Japan has ordered another 99 American F-35 stealth fighters and as many as 40 of these are the F-35B vertical takeoff model which Japan wants to test operating from its two helicopter carriers. Japan has committed itself to spend record amounts on defense over the next five years and doing it all to defend itself from North Korean or Chinese attack or threats. In southern China, the Chinese air force resumed its combat patrols of bombers and fighters that basically circumnavigate Taiwan, mainly to show off. China has not done this sort of thing since mid-2018. As part of the circumnavigation operation, two Chinese warships moved to the within range of Taiwanese radars. December 13, 2018: China engineers and technicians in Venezuela to its assist PDVSA (the state-owned oil company) operations may eventually give China control of the main revenue producer in Venezuela. So far the Chinese controlled PDVSA operations account for about ten percent of Venezuelan production (which continues to shrink this year). But the Chinese have doubled production this year in the areas they control and are hoping to expand that. The Venezuelan government may not be able to allow that because PDVSA has become a refuge for government supporters who are more interested in stealing oil than improving production. The Chinese have no police powers in Venezuela but have a lot of financial clout which they believe will prevail in the long term. China feels that a more effective government will eventually emerge and allow businesses to operate efficiently (and profitably) once more. China is positioning itself as a friend of Venezuela, not the deranged socialists currently in charge. China is still working on many development projects in Venezuela and has plenty of experience doing so in lawless regions (especially Africa and northern Burma) it currently operates in. The situation in Venezuela is familiar to the Chinese and they expect to come out of this with strong economic ties to the post-chaos Venezuela. December 11, 2018: A Canadian court granted bail to Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested on the 1st at the request of the United States. Meng Wanzhou is 46 years old, the daughter of a senior Chinese CCP official and a senior executive of the Chinese electronics firm Huawei. Meng was arrested while she was at a Canadian airport transferring from an arriving flight to a connecting one. The Americans have been investigating Huawei for illegally exporting smartphones to Iran and engaging in bank fraud to enable Iran to facilitate foreign trade despite American sanctions against it. The arrested Huawei CFO (Chief Financial Officer) will be extradited to the U.S. for prosecution if Meng is unable to get a Canadian court to rule against the extradition request. Canadian leaders insist that the law will be strictly observed and justice is done. This comes at a time where more and more instances of Chinese bad behavior in or against Canada are being publicized. As if on cue China arrested two Canadian citizens yesterday but that did not become known until today and the 12th. These arrests also took place after Canadian diplomats in China confirmed that the Canadian government was not going to give in to Chinese pressure. At that point, there was more pressure on China to resolve this matter in a manner that was not too embarrassing. China did not believe the Americans would pursue the Huawei smuggling charge this seriously. China may retaliate by arresting senior American executives who are in China but that has not happened and may not because major American firms have warned American citizens in China or planning to visit China of the threat. It would not be the first time China has arrested American, or Canadian, citizens on flimsy charges, but these victims were usually Han Chinese who were American or Canadian citizens (naturalized or by birth). China considers Han Chinese, no matter where they were born or currently live to still be subject to Chinese law despite their current citizenship. Most other nations do not agree with this although some do because they employ similar logic. At the same time it is easy for foreigners to run afoul of Chinese laws and get arrested and before Meng was arrested there were about 200 Canadians arrested or free on bail in China. That number has remained fairly stable over the last few years but the two arrests made on the 10th were directed at men who had long worked in China, knew the rules, and had a history of staying out of trouble. Canadians see these two arrests as retaliation. Huawei has close ties with the Chinese military and government intel agencies and many Western nations are refusing to use any Huawei equipment in their networks because of the potential for hidden features in Huawei gear that facilitates Chinese espionage or military operations in general. In southern Afghanistan (Kandahar province), the Pakistani (Baluchi separatist) man responsible for the attack on the Chinese consulate in Pakistan last month was killed in an explosion. Kandahar province is on the border with the Pakistan province of Baluchistan where most of the Chinese economic activity in Pakistan is taking place. December 10, 2018: South Korea announced another record increase (8.3 percent) in its defense budget. In 2019 South Korea will spend $43 billion on its military. Thats nearly as much as Japan (with a much larger economy) spends. The 2018 budget had the largest increase (6.9 percent) in the defense budget since 2009. Although North Korea openly complains about how unfair and unfriendly these increases are they are a direct result of the increasing threat from North Korea. The annual South Korean defense budget is more than a third larger than the annual GDP of North Korea (which spends about a third of GDP on defense compared to less than three percent in South Korea). December 8, 2018: In the southwest (Sichuan province), a Tibetan man burned himself to death to protest the Chinese occupation of Tibet. This makes 155 such protest deaths since 2009 after China had suppressed widespread unrest in Tibet. There have only been three of these fiery deaths in 2018. All of this stems from a major Tibetan uprising in 2008 which was quickly and brutally put down. Areas, where Tibetan resistance is most active, have since been flooded with additional police and the Chinese troops stand ready to crush any more insurrections. The decades old Chinese plan for cultural assimilation of the Tibetans proceeds. This is how the Chinese empire has expanded for thousands of years, and all around the periphery of China, there are unassimilated groups, most of them too small to bother with. The Tibetans are numerous enough to target for cultural assimilation. The manufacturer of Russian smart bombs (KCRV) admitted, in a late 2018 media interview, that Russia found that its laser-guided missiles and fire control systems for dumb bombs were not prepared for the desert dust and heat conditions encountered in Syria. The problems were fixed but not before a lot of pilots (and Russian air controllers on the ground) complained that accuracy was often way off. Further investigation found that Russian laser designators were not equipped to handle the misleading heat and light conditions sometimes encounters on the ground. The latest fire control systems for unguided bombs, which worked quite well under most conditions, especially in European conditions, were often way off in Syria. KCRV urged the air force to use more GPS guided bombs in the meantime but the air force could not afford it. So accuracy suffered until the fire control systems and laser designators were modified. Making these admissions was a wise move because now that Russian missile and smart bombs are combat tested Russia enhances its reputation by demonstrating that their weapon designs are not perfect and they are willing to fix problems quickly and effectively. Even American equipment, which has long experience with these problems, still encounters climate conditions that were not anticipated. For example in 2009 F-22 fighters, stationed in Guam, developed electrical problems because of the very wet (100 inches, or 2.5 meters of rain a year) conditions in that part of the world. The high humidity meant that air intakes on the fighter, which help cool off electronic components, let in so much moisture that some electronics got wet and shorted out. Adjustments had to be made and were. Such problems are common when a new aircraft operates in a new environment. This experience goes back to World War II. A more recent example was when joint exercises were first held in Egypt during the 1980s. There, U.S. aircraft and armored vehicles got their first workout in the Egyptian desert. Turned out the sand there was different than what was found in American deserts, and the standard air filters were more quickly overwhelmed. A similar problem occurred when large U.S. air and ground forces went to Saudi Arabia in 1990. The sand problem and its impact on engines were known from World War II, and the engineers thought they had it taken care of it in the decades after 1945. But it just goes to show you that you can't test enough for these things. This, despite the fact that new aircraft and ground vehicles go through extensive testing in deserts, rain forests and very cold environments. Moreover, you might not see problems develop until many vehicles have operated in new conditions for weeks or months. These problems can be fixed rather quickly, although often with higher costs and more work on the part of the crews and maintenance personnel. In the case of the F-22 problem, temporary fixes were made, and some components are being redesigned so that they handle the high humidity better. In Ukraine, the electoral campaign preceding the presidential elections scheduled for March 31, 2019, officially kicked off on December 31, 2018. Meanwhile, the martial law imposed on 10 of the countrys regions (with more than half of Ukraines population living in them) was lifted days before the campaign started on December 26. The martial law, which continued for one month, granted Ukraines unpopular president Petro Poroshenko dictatorial powers. He could shut down any media outlets, cancel and postpone any elections, arrest any people suspected of collaboration with Russia for an indefinite period of time. Protest rallies and political activities, such as party conventions and parliamentary investigations, were also put on hold. The question is: can the elections, due to be held 3 months after the ending of the martial law, be considered free and fair? And can president Poroshenko be tempted to impose the martial law again before the elections? In any democratic country, Poroshenko would have rather slim chances with his low voter approval rating at 11.6 percent (the data from the latest poll conducted by the Kiev-based International Sociology Institute). The strongest candidate, the former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko is 10 points ahead of him with 21.6 percent. Poroshenko imposed the martial law on November 26 because of the arrest of three Ukrainian military vessels near the Kerch straits in the Black Sea, where both Ukraine and Russia have big ports and military bases. The Russian side claimed that the Ukrainian vessels illegally entered the Russian territorial waters before trying (unsuccessfully) to enter the Kerch Strait a narrow water pass connecting the Black Sea with the Azov Sea. That sea is a shallow water reservoir, most of it unfit even for medium-sized military ships. Just a few years ago no one could imagine the Azov Sea being unimportant strategically, since Russia controlled Azov since the 17th century and almost all the population living on its shores was Russian-speaking. The biggest Ukrainian port on the Azov Sea, Mariupol, with its Russian population, was part of the anti-Maidan rebellion in the Russian-speaking east of Ukraine in 2014. The city also took part in the unrecognized referendum on federalization of Ukraine that same year, but in a few weeks, in May 2014, Mariupol was seized by the Ukrainian army, which was already advancing against the rebellion on Donetsk and Lugansk, using tanks, aviation and artillery. Now the Azov Sea suddenly became hugely important in the eyes of both the EU and the US. After the two Ukrainian small navy ships and a tug boat (with 24 people on board) were arrested by Russians for entering the waters which even before Crimeas reunification with Russia were considered Russian waters, both the US and the EU suddenly started taking the problems of the Kerch Strait close to heart. President Trump cancelled his scheduled meeting with president Putin in Argentina in the end of 2018, saying the two leaders would meet when the Ukrainian seamen and ships are returned to Ukraine. Frances and Germanys leaders Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel on the eve of the New Year suddenly developed a strong desire to see the Ukrainian seamen celebrating the holidays with their families, making a special strong-worded statement against Russia on the subject. It is interesting to note that, when the Ukrainian border guards in March 2018 arrested 10 seamen aboard a fishing vessel Nord in March 2018 inside the Azov Sea, Merkel and Macron did not make any protesting statements, comments Bogdan Bezpalko, the head of the Center for Ukrainian and Belarusian Studies at the Moscow State University. That fishing boat was operating from Crimea, the seamen were the residents of a fishing village there. So, formally, they were Ukrainian citizens for the Ukrainian authorities. (Ukraine still considers Crimea its territory, despite the regions voting for reunification with Russia in 2014 D.B.). But the fishermen were still arrested for pursuing economic activity from Crimea, which is an occupied territory in the eyes of Kiev. The sailors spent several months in Ukraine against their will, and the captain is still detained there. And these people were not military, they did not try to pass under the strategically important Crimean Bridge with arms and without permissions. Similar situations happened to other Russian vessels, but the EU did not react. Now it does. The hypocrisy of the American and European leaders with their numerous concerns about the state of democracy became especially evident, when no one in the US and the EU protested against Poroshenkos decision to impose the martial law after the incident near Kerch Strait, which was no match to the tragic peak of the civil war in 2014-2015. According to Ukrainian opinion polls, no less than 60 percent of Ukrainians did not approve of Poroshenkos decision, seeing in it only an attempt to stay in power, having nothing to do with defense of the country. If Poroshenko needed additional powers to use arms against a possible Russian aggression, he did not have to impose a martial law, said Mikhail Pogrebinsky, head of the Kiev-based Center for Conflict Studies. In 2014 Poroshenko used aviation, artillery and tanks against the rebellion in Donbass, without any martial laws. He just called it an anti-terrorist operation and used the most destructive weapons, without any consequences from the West. So, people in Ukraine dont trust the president now, they see in the martial law just another trick aimed at cancelling elections or winning them dishonestly. Macrons and Merkels demand to Russia to provide a secure, speedy and unhampered passage of all international vessels through the Kerch Strait (something Russia has never refused to do) also smacks of hypocrisy. The Russian foreign ministry pointed to the fact that Ukraines military vessels passed through the Kerch Strait weeks before the incident of November 25. Nevertheless, American state departments chief negotiator on the issues of Russo-Ukrainian conflict, Kurt Volker, threatened Russia with additional sanctions from both the US and Europe for hampering international navigation. We are used to sanctions and do not expect justice from the West, explained Vladimir Zharikhin, the head of the Ukrainian department at the Moscow-based Institute for CIS Studies. What is sad, it is the consequences of the confrontation for the Ukrainian election. A chance to change Ukraines disastrous policy line is being missed. On December 28 Poroshenko convened a special closed meeting of the countrys top generals and security officials to discuss the outcome of the martial law. Poroshenko said he actually would have preferred to keep the martial law, but the requirement to have a three months long electoral campaign made this variant impossible. However, Poroshenkos chances of winning increased even without an increase in his ratings, he saw his enemies demoralized. Despite the fact that Yulia Tymoshenko warned about Poroshenkos plans to cancel the elections by an imposition of the martial law as early as in July this year, her faction did not put up much of a resistance to Poroshenkos idea (the vote in the Rada was 270 against 60 in favor of the martial law). Tymoshenkos faction avoided a fight. And a fighter which does not fight this fighter has lost already. Local observers note that Poroshenko looks set to receive the support of the West, and that increases his chances of winning the election, even if some tampering with the vote takes place. As for a new series of martial law, there are lots of enthusiasts for this kind of solution in Ukraine. For example, a Rada deputy named Vitaly Kupryi registered in the Ukrainian parliament a draft law, which requires the president to declare Ukraine in the state of war with Russian Federation, cutting all transit of Russian oil and gas through Ukraine (an idea not likely to receive support from the EU). So, the likeliest outcome will be a state of tension, neither peace nor war, which would allow people not to see a dramatic worsening of their situation while allowing Poroshenko to stay in power. As has become the normal practice, Christmas Day's air raid by Israel directed against targets near Damascus was largely ignored by the US media. Given the fact that Israel has bombed Syria more than two hundred times, the attack itself, which wounded three soldiers at a warehouse, was not particularly notable. But what was significant was the fact that it was the second time that Israel has used other planes to mask the approach of its own warplanes to the target. On this occasion, the masks consisted of two civilian airliners making their approaches to the airports in Beirut and Damascus. Fortunately, the Syrian Arab Air Defense Forces made the decision to delay the deployment of surface-to-air missiles and electronic jamming to prevent a tragedy and air traffic control was able to divert one of the passenger jets landing at Damascus to the reserve military airport in Khmeimim in southern Latakia. Syrian anti-aircraft crews did manage to intercept and shoot down fourteen of the sixteen incoming missiles that were launched by six Israeli F-16 warplanes using US-made GPS-guided GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs (SDBs). If the Syrian air defenses had been more reckless and gone after the F-16s themselves, they might have hit an airliner by mistake and hundreds of lives could have been lost. The Russian Ministry of Defense, which was able to reconstruct the attack from radar imaging, condemned the incident, stating that Provocative acts by the Israeli Air Force endangered two passenger jets when six of their F-16s carried out airstrikes on Syria from Lebanese airspace. The terse Russian announcement reveals that beyond endangering hundreds of civilians, Israel had committed several war crimes in its action, which the Israeli government claimed was intended to destroy a shipment of Iranian-made Fajir-5 rockets, which was allegedly on its way to Hezbollah. As Israel is not at war with Iran or Syria or Lebanon and it persists in attacking targets in Syria based on its own perception of threats, it meets the United Nations definition of an aggressor. And its violation of Lebanese air space to stage the attack on Syria was also an act of aggression. Both would normally be condemned in the UN Security Council but for the American veto protecting Israel. Analysts have confirmed that the Israelis carried out the strikes in Syria by deliberately using scheduled airline departures and arrivals as cover to foil the improved and upgraded Syrian air defenses. Security sources in the region now believe that any civilian flights entering or leaving Damascus or Beirut are potentially in danger due to the Israeli tactics, which clearly accept endangering civilians to mask the movements of the warplanes. The Israelis also used a Russian intelligence plane as a mask off the coast of Syria back in September, with fatal results for the crew after Syrian air defenses responded to the attack. Israel, of course, claimed innocence, insisting that it was the Syrians who shot down the Russian aircraft while the Israeli jets were legitimately targeting a Syrian army facility from which weapons-manufacturing systems were supposed to be transferred to Iran and Hezbollah. The Russian aircraft was returning to base after a mission over the Mediterranean off the Syrian coast monitoring the activities of a French warship and at least one British RAF plane. As a large and relatively slow propeller driven aircraft on a routine intelligence gathering mission, the Ilyushin-20 had no reason to conceal its presence. It was apparently preparing to land at its airbase at Khmeimim when the incident took place. Syrian air defenses were on high alert because Israel had attacked targets near Damascus on the previous day, including a Boeing 747 on the ground that Israel claimed to be transporting weapons. The Israelis used four F-16 fighter bombers to stage the surprise night attack targeting sites near Latakia, close to the airbase being used by the Russians. They came in from the Mediterranean Sea using the Russian plane to mask their approach as the Ilyushin 20 would have presented a much larger radar profile for the air defenses. The Israelis might have been expecting that the Syrians would not fire at all at the incoming planes knowing that one of them at least was being flown by their Russian allies. If that was the expectation, it proved wrong and it was indeed a Syrian S-200 ground to air missile directed by its guidance system to the larger target that brought down the plane and killed its fourteen crew members. There was also a back story. The Israelis and Russian military had established a hotline precisely intended to avoid accidents. Israel reportedly used the line but only one minute before the incident took place, leaving no time for the Russian plane to take evasive action. The Russian Ministry of Defense was irate. It saw the exploitation of the intelligence plane by the Israelis as a deliberate high-risk initiative. It warned We consider these provocative actions by Israel as hostile. Fifteen Russian military service members have died because of the irresponsible actions of the Israeli military. This is absolutely contrary to the spirit of the Russian-Israeli partnership. We reserve the right for an adequate response. Its the same old story. Israel does risky things like attacking its neighbors because it knows it will pay no price due to Washingtons support. The downing of the Russian plane and the current endangering civil aviation has created a situation that could easily escalate. What Israel is really thinking when it seeks to create anarchy all around its borders is anyones guess, but it is, to be sure, in no ones interest to allow the process to continue. During his fleeting visit to a US military base in Iraq on December 26 President Trump declared The United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the world. It's not fair when the burden is all on us, the United States We're no longer the suckers, folks. Were respected again as a nation. The world then fell about laughing at the irony of this bizarre declaration, made in a country that had been invaded and reduced to chaos by the burden-laden international policeman. The President of the United States was visiting a war-torn foreign country in which there are some 5,000 US troops stationed by mutual agreement, and the New York Times reported that about 100 American servicemen and women, some of whom were wearing red Make America Great Again caps, greeted Mr Trump with a standing ovation in Al Asad Air Bases dining facility, which had been decorated for Christmas. He and Mrs Trump spent about 15 minutes there talking with the troops. He had spent eleven hours flying 6,000 miles (10,000 kilometres) to Baghdad and after that lengthy journey he delivered an inappropriately political harangue and then devoted fifteen minutes to talking with the troops of whom he is commander-in-chief. And he didnt meet one single Iraqi, which is an even more serious matter. Trump has no idea about how to behave in a situation demanding decorous behaviour or plain ordinary good manners. He cannot comprehend that diplomacy requires expertise and civility and is unable to understand that the conduct of international negotiations rests largely upon basic courtesies. It is essential that any head of state visiting another country should pay respect to that nation by calling on its head of state. (There are some carefully contrived exceptions : between the US and Germany, for example, this is not necessary, which accounts for the fact that Trump could stopover at the US base at Ramstein for refuelling and more photo-ops without any inconvenient Germans poking their noses into his territory. (Was the German government even informed that Trump was passing through?) But during Trumps three hour stay in Iraq he didnt meet President Barham Ahmed Salih. Nor did he see the most important political figure in Iraq, Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, who had expected to meet the President of the United States when he lobbed into his country for a hurried public relations fandango with US military personnel. But he didnt. It wasnt convenient for Trump to meet citizens of the country in which he spent so little of his valuable time. According to CNN, the Iraqi Prime Ministers office stated There was supposed to be a formal reception and a meeting between Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi and the US President, but a variation of views to organize the meeting led it to be replaced by a telephone conversation. What actually happened was that the President of the United States did not meet the Prime Minister of Iraq because the prime minister refused to obey the summons to go to the US air base to call on Trump, and it was too dangerous for the president to travel to the prime ministers office. It could not be guaranteed that President Donald Trump, the commander-in-chief of the largest and most potent military forces in the world, to cost 716 billion dollars in 2019, would be safe if he travelled a few miles from an American military base to the centre of Baghdad. The insult to the Iraqi nation and the astonishing indicator of military impotence were little mentioned in the western mainstream media, which focused on Trumps speech to the soldiery. In this he delivered a crassly inappropriate denunciation of his political opponents and told a downright lie in claiming he had arranged a pay rise for members of the armed services. He told the troops You havent gotten one in more than 10 years more than 10 years, and we got you a big one. I got you a big one. I got you a big one. They said: You know, we could make it smaller. We could make it 3 percent. We could make it 2 percent. We could make it 4 percent. I said: No. Make it 10 percent. Make it more than 10 percent. As reported by the Washington Post, the truth is that the pay raise Trump authorized this year amounted to 2.6 percent, not 10 percent. And the troops have received a pay raise every year for decades. The man appears to be a pathological liar, and it is interesting to reflect on an expert's observation that a 2016 study of what happens in the brain when you lie found that the more untruths a person tells, the easier and more frequent lying becomes. Trumps Iraq jaunt was a sad embarrassment. Sad, because the United States does not deserve no countrys citizens deserve a head of state whose behaviour is erratic to the point of being clinically disquieting and whose blatant lies seem to be unchallenged by even his closest staff and advisers. On December 21 the Washington Post noted that Trump had made 7,546 false or misleading claims which is undoubtedly an all-time world record, but one that must cause anxiety and grave disquiet rather than derision (which is probably the first reaction of most people), and give rise to speculation about what might come next. The Posts Glenn Kessler opined that The president keeps going long after the facts are clear, in what appears to be a deliberate effort to replace the truth with his own, far more favourable, version of it. He is not merely making gaffes or misstating things, he is purposely injecting false information into the national conversation. But it isnt only national because the international community is worried about Trumps erratic pronouncements and impulsive behaviour. Trump has insulted many countries and their leaders, notably Germany in the context of defence spending, and after a series of malicious remarks about NATO and Europe in mid-2018 the European Council President Donald Tusk was moved to advise Trump to calm down. He appealed semi-jovially for America to appreciate your allies. After all you dont have that many, and more seriously pointed out to Dear President Trump on July 10 that America does not have and will not have a better ally than Europe. Today Europeans spend on defence many times more than Russia and as much as China, which of course is not the answer wanted by Trump or the Washington Establishment which is intent on confrontation with both Russia and China. When Trump unilaterally voided the international agreement with Iran that successfully prevented it from developing a nuclear weapons programme, he attracted a joint statement by French President Macron, Chancellor Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister May of Britain which noted that the UN Security Council resolution endorsing the accord is the binding international legal framework for the resolution of the dispute. But this means nothing to Trump, who pays no heed to what is felt and said by his allies in response to his pronouncements and actions. France and Britain have troops in Syria (which is illegal and most ill-advised) but Trump did not consult or even inform these countries leaders before issuing a statement indicating that the US would withdraw its contingent of over 2,000. President Macrons reaction was to say bluntly that being allies means fighting shoulder to shoulder, and so an ally must be reliable and coordinate with other allies, but such expressions of disapproval mean nothing to Trump whose tweeted policy is that its time to focus on our country and bring our youth back home where they belong! Quite so. And for a change hes right. But national leaders should not take such fundamentally important action without discussing its implications with allies who have taken considerable risks of all sorts and by far the most important of these being hazarding the lives of their soldiers in supporting Washingtons wars. Trump is careering from crisis to crisis, and the next drama will be Afghanistan from which chaotic country that was invaded by the United States in 2001 he has apparently decided to withdraw some of the 15,000 troops deployed. He did not consult any of the 38 other countries that (mistakenly) also have military contingents there, and nobody knows what comes next least of all the Afghan government itself. While it is a good thing that the US is getting its military out of countries where they had no business to be in the first place, it is a recipe for disaster to keep allies in the dark about Washingtons strategic intentions. The picture for the world is grim. An arrogant individual with a proven compulsion to tell monstrous lies is arguably the most powerful person on the planet. Happy New Year. Photo: Flickr Stowe, VT (05672) Today Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm this evening, then some lingering showers still possible overnight. Low 58F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%.. Tonight Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm this evening, then some lingering showers still possible overnight. Low 58F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Morristown, VT (05661) Today Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm this evening, then some lingering showers still possible overnight. Low 56F. SSE winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph. Chance of rain 100%.. Tonight Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm this evening, then some lingering showers still possible overnight. Low 56F. SSE winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Hes right. As with other types of governmental services in the countys highly fragmented collection of communities, having dozens of tiny departmental fiefdoms invites provincialism and makes professional standards more difficult to attain because there are fewer resources. Unsurprisingly, the consolidation bill has raised the ire of officials of small departments, like Normandy Police Chief Frank Mininni, who called it a slap in the face. Thats an understandable reaction, and one that Hill will have to address if his legislation is to have a chance at passage. The answer is to remind officials in those communities that their first obligation is to the safety of their residents safety that is more assuredly provided by departments that have the kind of resources and training that too often has eluded tiny police forces. Right. And if we judge success by things that didnt happen, we should also credit Kelly for avoiding a zombie apocalypse. Kelly served his country honorably for decades. But theres nothing courageous in announcing, on the way out the door, that he didnt agree with many awful things Trump did on his watch. There was, once, a good argument that qualified people, by taking administration jobs, could temper Trumps worst instincts. But it turned out Trump was not to be tempered. Those who disagreed with the madness had an obligation to resign, or at least to speak out not to wash their hands of responsibility after the fact. Dont blame Rex Tillerson. The ousted secretary of state recently told Bob Schieffer of CBS News he reined in Trump by saying you cant do it that way. It violates the law. It violates a treaty. Dont blame Jim Mattis. The former defense secretary waited until resigning to publicly state his disagreements with Trump over NATO, malign actors such as Russia and treating allies with respect. Dont blame Reince Priebus. Trumps first chief of staff spoke up about Trumps chaos after he was ousted, telling author Chris Whipple: Take everything youve heard and multiply it by 50. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said authorities are working through a steady stream of tips as they seek to track down the person who shot and killed 7-year-old Jazmine Barnes. Grappling with the trauma of seeing their sister get killed, the siblings of 7-year-old Jazmine Barnes may be key to finding the elusive killer. Texas police are hoping the girls' descriptions of the suspect will produce a sketch of the man who opened fire on the family's car, killing Jazmine for no apparent reason. A sketch could be released Thursday, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. In the meantime, the public has just vague descriptions of what to look for: a white, bearded man in his 40s who was driving a red, extended-cab pickup truck. "We want to make sure that we get the right person as quickly as possible," Gonzalez said. No one except the gunman knows why he shot into the car driven by Jazmine's mother around 7 a.m. Sunday in eastern Harris County. But out of this tragedy came solidarity in grief. A $100,000 reward is now available for information leading to the arrest of the killer, social-justice activist Shaun King announced. A 2007 online Marine Corps article says he spent the leave "experiencing the post-Soviet era of Moscow and St. Petersburg." A photo shows him standing across the Moscow River from the Kremlin. He likes to travel around the world and has also visited countries such as India and Iceland, his brother said. "He has friends in Russia, so that would be an extra draw, people he's met on social media, but I don't know that Russia was a particular place of return for him," David Whelan said. He was attending a wedding, his family says Whelan flew to Moscow on December 22 to attend the wedding of a fellow former US service member and a Russian woman, his family said. He was acting as a tour guide for other wedding guests who had not visited Russia previously, his brother said. Before his arrest, he had been staying at Moscow's Metropol Hotel and spent time with the wedding party at the Kremlin. When Paul didn't arrive at the wedding on Friday, the newlyweds filed a missing-person report with Russian authorities, his brother said. He used Russian social media for years "As we all know, in the United States political system of the early 2000s, what goes around comes around," Kavanaugh said. Some complainants saw that line as a warning of revenge and questioned his judicial temperament and possible political bias. Complainants said they believed he lied not only about the events raised by Ford but in other statements during Senate testimony last September and earlier testimony in 2004 and 2006 when he was up for his appeals court seat on the District of Columbia Circuit. Kavanaugh declined to comment on Tuesday after the judicial order. Little accounting of harassment claims The nearly 900 federal judges who sit on trial and appellate courts are appointed for life. While judges are sometimes formally admonished or sanctioned, they can be removed from office only through impeachment (by the House) and conviction (by the Senate). Rarely is the process invoked, and only three times in the past three decades have federal judges been removed through impeachment and conviction, for offenses related to bribery and perjury. Your neighborhood determines the quality of your children's schools and your access to jobs, transportation, even fresh food. But a new study found that in nearly all 50 of America's biggest metropolitan areas, low-income families using federal housing vouchers remain overly concentrated in impoverished, racially segregated neighborhoods with little opportunity even with plenty of affordable apartments available in higher income neighborhoods. The difference between where families with vouchers could be living and where they actually live has long-term consequences, said researchers with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Poverty & Race Research Action Council. "It's going to be a wake-up call for a lot of housing authorities that their programs are quite concentrated and don't necessarily reflect where families want to live," said Philip Tegeler, president and executive director of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council. "There are plenty of rental opportunities out there. It's the job of housing authorities to help remove the barriers that are keeping families from accessing these neighborhoods and communities." The quarantine was temporarily lifted Nov. 18 but reinstated when the flu roared back in December. By Dec. 10 the flu peaked in the city with 60 deaths in one day. After illnesses declined sharply, the quarantine was lifted just after Christmas. Flu and flu-related pneumonia killed almost 3,000 St. Louisans in the last three months of 1918. Thanks to the quarantine, St. Louis death rate was lowest among the 10 biggest cities at the time. In Philadelphia, where bodies piled up on sidewalks when the morgues overflowed, the death rate was nearly twice as high. Rural areas in Missouri were not immune to the outbreak. Dr. J. Lee Harwell was one of a dozen doctors in Poplar Bluff at the time, said his grandson, Dr. Larry Harwell, 80, of University City. My grandfathers stories of the epidemic were frightening, Harwell said. People would die in a waiting room. J. Lee Harwell and other doctors made house calls to the farms, collecting livestock as their payment. Many patients died in the buggies on the way back to town. Harwell said his grandfathers diary entries for 1918 stopped at Nov. 15. The only way to make sure that a new drug will be effective for our diverse population is to have diverse participants in clinical trials, Hall said. Different outcomes African-Americans are twice as likely to develop Alzheimers disease, and have a 20 percent higher death rate from cancer compared to whites. Scientists say the discrepancies can be attributed in part to a lack of participation in clinical trials, which can cheat African-Americans out of treatments that are most appropriate and effective for them. While African-Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population, they represent 5 percent to 8 percent of clinical trial participants nationwide. For example, annual mammograms are recommended starting at age 50 for all women, yet black women who develop breast cancer are generally younger than white women. Black men have a higher risk of developing prostate cancer, but current screening guidelines are based on a study that was almost exclusively made up of white men. If anyone should be overrepresented in a clinical trial, it should be a population thats most burdened by the disease, Hall said. Before heading to the Capitol, Hawley tweeted a picture of himself with his son, Elijah. Hawley was sworn in on a Bible once owned by his late great-grandmother on his mothers side. His wife, Erin Morrow Hawley, and his children, Elijah and Blaise, were with him. So were his parents, Ron and Ginny, his grandmother Norva Hawley, and a sister, Lt. Cmdr. Lesley Hawley of the Navy. After the official act on the Senate floor, a second ceremonial swearing-in with Vice President Mike Pence took place in the Old Senate Chamber, a historic room that housed the Senate from 1819-1859, and the Supreme Court from 1860-1935. A portrait of George Washington is one of the rooms most distinctive features; the old chamber is just a few feet from the one currently used. Family and friends of senators, including Hawley, mingled in a reunion-type atmosphere, a temporary respite from the rancor and bitterness of the moment. But now pomp gives way to reality. Hawley arrives at a time when about a fourth of the government is shut down and the Congress is divided. Senate Chaplain Barry Black recognized the moment in his prayer to open the Senate for its 116th Congress. The job of attorney general of the great state of Missouri is a serious responsibility, and as the states chief legal officer, I take that responsibility seriously, he said in a short address after being sworn in by Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Zel Fischer. Since being named to the post in mid-November, Schmitt said hes been on the hunt for attorneys for the office.All Im doing is recruiting, he said. Schmitt offered few specifics on how hed run the office differently than Hawley but said he wants to focus on addressing opioid abuse and supporting county prosecutors. People deserve to feel safe, Schmitt said. Schmitt also is considering adding the ZIP code of drivers to a report his office produces that tracks racial profiling by police in vehicle stops. That could help determine if a disproportionate number of black motorists are being pulled over in predominantly white municipalities. With President Donald Trump in the White House and Republicans still controlling the Senate, Pelosi's return to the speaker's office to lead a Democratic majority with its biggest freshmen class since Watergate shakes up the dynamic in Washington even beyond the new era of divided government. FRANKLIN COUNTY Three men being pursued in a stolen GMC Sierra truck by Franklin County Sheriff's deputies abandoned the truck when they got stuck in a pond early Tuesday. Police have apprehended two of the men but are still searching for the third. Police responded to a call for a burglary at Triple H Self Storage on State Highway 30 in Lonedell at 4:10 a.m., the sheriff's office said. Officers blocked the driveway exit and determined that the three men at the facility were in a truck reported stolen from Washington County. The truck with the three suspects inside fled the scene, ramming the deputy's patrol car on its way out, police said. Police followed the truck east on State Highway 30 to South Hendricks Road, which comes to a dead end. The driver lost control there and struck a tree, but then continued traveling into a field until finally driving into a pond and sinking. The deputy arrested the driver after the suspect swam out of the pond, but the two other suspects escaped into a nearby wooded area. One of the suspects abandoned some wet clothes while making his escape. A network of Illinois home-schooling support groups called Illinois H.O.U.S.E., or Home Oriented Unique Schooling Experience offers parents guidelines on What do I do if a truancy officer comes to my door. Make your children unavailable to them, is among the groups tips. Cody Maguire, a truancy officer for five years in Muellers region, says its rare for a home-school family to shut him out. The people who are truly home schooling are not afraid when truancy officers show up at their door. Its the parents who pull their kids out of school and are not actively educating them in the home, he said. As soon as they say the words, Were home-schooling, our whole philosophy and reasoning shifts ... within the realm of what I can do with my job, Im very limited. Sometimes relatives of home-schooled children call, concerned that their young loved ones arent being educated, Maguire said. In cases of extreme abuse and neglect, extended family members often say they are cut off from home-schooled children. Relatives of the Quates said they hadnt seen the children for years. His drinking worsened, she said. He and his wife were not living together at the time of the shooting. It wasnt immediately clear when or how they became estranged, but she told investigators of his anger and how anything such as ranch dressing missing from a fast food order would send him into a rage. He had threatened suicide, telling his wife he wanted to do it but could never shoot himself, according to the report. There were other signs of turmoil: claims of medical conditions that turned out to be false, or that Veterans Administration doctors were using experimental drugs on him. Kershaw channeled most of his anger toward his sister. She told police that they frequently fought because she disapproved of how he treated his wife and two children, ages 8 and 6. His sister did not return a phone call seeking comment. She acknowledged to police that she had taken money from him while he was in Iraq, but insisted that she repaid it a claim he never believed, according to the investigative report. On a mission Kershaw called his mother from work about 7:30 on the morning of the shooting and told her he loved her. He said that a weekend with his wife and children had gone well but he was upset they hadnt reconciled. JEFFERSON COUNTY A man was killed and another man injured in a head-on collision here Tuesday morning on Mapaville Hematite Road. Andrew J. Lucas, 27, of Festus was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash about 9:30 a.m. New Year's Day on Mapaville Hematite Road near Highway P, according to a Highway Patrol crash report. Lucas was southbound on Mapaville Hematite Road in a 2002 Honda Accord when his car crossed into the opposite lane and hit the left side of an oncoming car, according to the crash report. The collision sent both cars off the right side of the roadway. The driver of the northbound car, a 48-year-old man from Hillsboro, was taken to a hospital with injuries, according to the crash report. He was wearing a seat belt. Lucas was not wearing a seat belt, according to the crash report. A message from David Nicklaus Want to stay smart about what's happening in St. Louis? Make a modest investment in a Post-Dispatch subscription and I'll tell you how developments around the world affect local businesses big and small. Intro subscription rate: Just $1 for 6 months Shake off your afternoon slump with the oft-shared and offbeat news of the day, hand-brewed by our online news editors. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. It also followed a sentencing by Watkins McLaughlin, in division 21, of former University City day care teacher Carmen Hunter after a jury found her guilty of molesting a 4-year-old boy more than a decade ago. The jury recommended a six-year prison term. The judge sentenced her to a six-year prison term but suspended it and placed Hunter in a 120-day sex offender treatment program. The program gives the judge discretion to keep Hunter in prison for the full six years or release her based on an evaluation from the Missouri Department of Corrections. In another recent case, Watkins McLaughlin gave Jennifer Stege of Pacific a 90-day, in-custody drug treatment program and probation. Stege, a former certified nursing assistant, admitted forcing her way into the South County home of a couple in their late 70s whom she had previously cared for, and taking prescription painkillers that belonged to one of the victims, a paraplegic. On a shelf in Dick and Chris Niehaus living room in St. Peters sits a golden, cross-shaped container holding a tiny sliver of bone from a saint. The container, called a reliquary, and the sliver of bone, called a relic, tell the story of another St. Peter, St. Peter Claver, and the only Vatican-sanctioned miracle to happen in St. Louis. Dick Niehaus, 52, has a direct connection to the miracle. So do lots of aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews and others descended from German immigrant Ignatius Strecker, who came to St. Louis in 1853. The story was always part of the family conscience and lore, ever since I can remember, says Dick Niehaus. He is Streckers great-great-great-grandson. Strecker was a hard-working, devoted family man and worked at a soap factory near the riverfront. In 1861, when he was 40 years old, he was accidentally hit in the chest at the factory with a piece of iron. The injury didnt seem serious at first, and there was no open wound, but over the next few years he was in constant pain. A surgeon opened his chest and found that his breastbone and some ribs were deteriorating. Strecker developed tuberculosis and was given two weeks to live. The family didnt live far from St. Josephs Catholic Church at 1220 North 11th Street, which has since expanded and is now known as the Shrine of St. Joseph. Around the same time, Jesuit priest Francis Xavier Weninger came to the church on a mission to preach about Peter Claver. Claver was a Jesuit priest, and for 40 years in the first half of the 17th century, he served and ministered to slaves shipped to Cartagena, Colombia. Streckers wife heard about the mission and encouraged her husband to go. On March 16, 1864, weakened by his illness, he managed to get to church. As soon as the relics were laid upon him, he said to his wife, Now I can dance, Weninger later wrote. Strecker walked out of the church and went back to work within a few days. Strecker lived another 16 years. His death wasnt even connected to his earlier sickness; he died of typhoid fever. Its unclear how many children he had, but he fathered at least one daughter after his miracle cure. Hes buried in Sts. Peter and Paul Cemetery in south St. Louis. Relics and miracles In order for a person to become a saint, Catholics say that a miracle has to happen through the intercession of that person. Its a lengthy, complicated process, but the miracle of Streckers cure helped Peter Claver become a saint in 1888. Often, churches have objects associated with a saint or a piece of a saint, called relics. Its not unlike keeping a piece of clothing or a lock of hair from a loved one, explains the Rev. Dale Wunderlich, who celebrates Mass at the shrine. Its a tangible way to express faith, like genuflecting, singing and walking in processions, he explains. Its just a way to keep in touch, he says of praying with a relic. Its not magical. Its not an amulet. Its a tangible presence of a person who has been recognized as a saint. How did the Niehaus family get a relic of a 17th century Jesuit priest? Fast-forward to the 1950s. Niehaus great-grandmother, Florence Thomas, had never met her grandfather, Strecker. But she grew up always knowing the story. We were always told as children never to repeat this because people would not believe it, she said during a KMOX interview in 1964. We always prayed all my life in thanksgiving for grandpas cure. In 1954, she read a St. Louis Review story about the miracle and got in touch with the priest at St. Joseph to tell him about the family connection to the story. She then wrote to the Vatican and asked for relics of Peter Claver. She got four for herself and her children. For the next several years, Thomas took one of the relics to more than 350 people around the area who prayed for St. Peter Clavers intercession for a cure. Henrietta Aunt Hank Ilges, 84, of Troy, Mo., drove Thomas, her mother-in-law, around to many of the homes. Ilges has two of the relics, one of them is currently with a terminally ill little boy in Imperial. Niehaus relic has been used by his family over the years, and his wife, Chris, has brought it to show her fourth-grade students at St. Joseph in Cottleville. Theyve let friends borrow it during their illnesses and surgeries. Their family has stayed relatively healthy over the years. Is it the relic? Dick Niehaus cant be sure. Im more kind of using it as maybe an evangelization kind of a purpose as opposed to healing, he says. Ive probably reached more people just by talking about the story. Who has never heard of a saint? You cant even drive down the road without coming across a city named after a saint. The shrine of St. Joseph itself has two more Peter Claver relics. One is inside a reliquary embedded in a statue of the saint at the back of the church, and one inside a cross-shaped reliquary kept at the front of the church. They believe thats the relic that was used in Streckers miracle cure. Wunderlich says some people have come to the shrine with serious illnesses, prayed for the intercession of St. Peter Claver and believe the saint was responsible for their healing. Jim Fesler, 59, of south St. Louis County, a volunteer at the shrine, had stage 4 cancer in 2011 and has been cancer-free since 2014. He believes praying with the relic and the intercession of St. Peter Claver cured him. I put my life in Gods hands, he said. Now, every day when I wake up, I say, thank you, Jesus, for another day. Descendants gather Last week, as they do every year around the anniversary of the miracle, descendants of Ignatius Strecker gathered at the shrine for a special Mass. Fesler was there, and so were people from the neighborhood, and so were families of two babies who were baptized after Mass. All of us are really a part of a much greater miracle. Its called salvation history, said Wunderlich during his homily, explaining how God would send prophets, sages and kings to bring people closer to him. Salvation history is really an ongoing miracle. We are all able to be here by Gods grace. This year, there were about 50 Strecker descendants. They sat in the front of church together, posed for group photos on the altar and crowded afterward into the rectory for brunch. Dick and Chris Niehaus were there with their family, and they brought their relic. Aunt Hank was there, and she brought hers. As their relics sat on the tables brought out for the gathering, they looked at old photos, laughed and talked, studied family trees and counted on their fingers how many great, great, greats separated them from Ignatius Strecker. Were all great, said a laughing Dianne Chitwood, 51, of Wentzville. Her father, Francis Aubuchon, 89, of Troy, Mo., was the oldest Strecker descendant of the group. Hes Streckers great-grandson, and hes the beaming man in the wheelchair at the center of the group photos, holding the shrines cross-shaped reliquary for St. Peter Claver. But before the celebration, and after the Mass, a volunteer in white gloves held up the reliquary in front of the entire congregation. Its something they do after every Mass at the Shrine of St. Joseph. Wunderlich tells them about the miracle. And the people line up to honor St. Peter Claver. One by one, they touch and kiss the relic. They pray for healing, health or a miracle of their own. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. A Daniel Lissing left the series when his contract ended, with Jack killed off on the series. (That may sound familiar to Blue Bloods fans, who were shocked when Linda Reagan died off-camera, between seasons, following Amy Carlsons departure from the series after her contract ended.) Lissing said after the Jacks death episode aired that the decision to leave was for reasons that are very personal to me but did not elaborate, as ETonline.com noted. He remains friendly with the cast, telling ET in November he still talks almost daily with co-star Erin Krakow. But he has been taking on other projects, such as the recent Hallmark movie Christmas in Love, where he co-starred with Brooke DOrsay. Q Is Orange Is the New Black coming back with a new season? There are plenty of loose ends that could be tied up. A The Netflix series will be back in the summer for a seventh season, which will also be its last. The end of the sixth season saw central character Piper Chapman (played by Taylor Schilling) getting early release from prison, and the seventh will include a look at her life on the outside. Executive producer Tara Herrman told the Hollywood Reporter her release will be in contrast to what nonwhite, less privileged inmates on the series will experience. If you simply cant get enough Ruth Bader Ginsburg, these last few years have been glorious a Tumblr account, T-shirts and totes with her face, Saturday Night Live parodies, a workout book and a CNN documentary. This year marking the Notorious RBGs 25th anniversary on the Supreme Court will end with another reason to cheer the feminist icon: the feature film On the Basis of Sex. Felicity Jones steps into the role of Ginsburg, but this adoring biography ends well before she is sworn in as one of the Supreme Court nine. The film is actually the story of Ginsburg as a student and groundbreaking lawyer a sort of origin story for a real-life superhero. By the time the real Ginsburg makes a cameo in the film, youll likely be cheering out loud. On the Basis of Sex is actually split into two parts. The first establishes Ginsburg as a brilliant and indomitable young woman. We see her attend Harvard Law School in the mid-1950s as one of only nine women, all facing a sneering welcome. As if thats not a big enough ask, shes also the mother of an infant. And when her Harvard-attending husband (the wonderful Armie Hammer) battles cancer, she attends all HIS classes as well to take notes for him. Ginsburg still graduates at the top of her class, but no firm will hire her. You know, cause shes a woman. European Commission (EC) President Jean-Claude Juncker "is making games eying the next European elections," says ALDE MEP Renate Weber in a Wednesday's post on Facebook, in reference to last week's statement in which the head of the Community Executive expressed his reservations about Romania's ability to preside over EU countries. Reminding also the message of the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, who expressed his confidence in Romania, Renate Weber wonders: "In which of the two should we have more confidence about their sincere thoughts towards Romania?" In this context, she also recalls the message sent by the Swedish Permanent Representative to the European Union, Lars Danielsson, who suggested that Romania should not be criticized before exercising its mandate, commenting that, "not asked by anybody, the Swedish ambassador felt the need to react to an unfair statement by Juncker.""It is clear to everyone that the President of the EC is making games eying the next European elections. For me it is clear that Donald Tusk is the one I can trust. It is not the first time that he has the courage to express right positions, even if he bothers those who think only from the point of view of personal or party interest," concludes the ALDE MEP. Considering the electoral pool of the Social Democrat Party (PSD, major at rule, ed. n.) a social-democratic candidate in the presidential election will have all the chances not only to get to the second round, but even win, on Wednesday night told the private TV broadcaster Antena3 the Education Minister Ecaterina Andronescu. She added that if understanding existed in the PSD - ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, minor at rule, ed. n.) alliance to produce a common candidate, then the odds will get bigger. On the other hand, Minister Andronescu emphasised that the PSD electorate has proved in the previous presidential elections that it backs its own candidate.She added that so far one can only talk about possible scenarios, ahead of a decision to be made between the PSD and the ALDE regarding the presidential election.The PSD chairman Liviu Dragnea on 27 December was saying that he didn't reject a priori the variant of a candidacy of the ALDE leader Calin Popescu-Tariceanu for the presidential election, adding that it is important for the future president to be a common candidate of the two ruling coalition's parties."I do not reject any variant, nor with me, neither with Mr. Tariceanu (as presidential candidates, ed. n.), nor with anybody else. The one who we'll find out to have the biggest chances, because the reign of Iohannis must cease. Another five years with Iohannis means a disaster for Romania," Dragnea told the same private television Antena 3. A Chinese spacecraft on Thursday made the first-ever landing on the far side of the moon, state media said. The lunar explorer Chang'e 4 touched down at 10:26 a.m. local time, China Central Television said in a brief announcement at the top of its noon news broadcast. The far side of the moon faces away from Earth and is relatively unexplored. It is also known as the dark side of the moon. The pioneering landing demonstrates China's growing ambitions as a space power. In 2013, Chang-e 3 was the first spacecraft to land on the moon since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976. The mission of Chang'e 4, which is carrying a rover, includes carrying out low-frequency radio astronomical observations and probing the structure and mineral composition of the terrain. The Long March 3B rocket carrying Chang-e 4 blasted off on Dec. 8 from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southern China. In May, a relay satellite "Queqiao," or "Magpie Bridge," named after an ancient Chinese folk tale, was launched to provide communications support between Chang-e 4 and Earth. Everything that the mother-daughter duo makes is all natural, and once again, thats thanks to Ella. When I was pregnant with her, I discovered that there were so many ingredients that you werent supposed to use while you were pregnant, she said. I thought, if were not supposed to use them now, maybe we shouldnt be using them at all. Nothing in their line has preservatives, and everything is made from high quality, natural, and organic ingredients, she added. We only test on ourselves, and no matter how much we grow, thats something we will continue to do, said Hemmerle. Well never test on animals. After developing their line for Dragonfly Apothecary and building a fan base in New York, the two decided to follow in the footsteps of Kathleens oldest daughter, who had moved to Mooresville two years ago. We wanted to build a better life here for Ella, Hemmerle explained. We still have a large fan base in New York, though, and we want to keep that. Deaths caused by overdosing on opioids such as heroin, fentanyl and prescription opiates continue to challenge local authorities. Iredell County saw 28 opioid-related overdose deaths in 2017, which is an increase from 25 deaths in 2016. Thats according to new data from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Statewide, unintentional opioid-related deaths in North Carolina rose to 1,884 in 2017, a 34 percent increase from the previous year. Although final numbers have not been fully reported, NCDHHS reported three people died from an unintentional opioid overdose in the first quarter of 2018. According to the N.C. State Center for Health Statistics, drug overdoses intentional or not have been steadily increasing at the state level since 1999. Emergency department visits related to opioids may be down in Iredell County. The NCDHHS reported 64 opioid-related visits in the first three quarters of 2018. There were 142 such emergency visits in 2017. I wanted to write this column about dogs. If you follow me on Twitter or have read my work elsewhere, you probably know that about me: I like my dogs. Though truth be told, I probably like your dogs, too. Because I just like dogs. It's a common sentiment. Dog ownership has been going up markedly for a while now. There are some who worry that dogs -- and even cats -- are replacing human children as the objects of our devotion. There's evidence to support the claim. Many young couples are more eager to have pets than kids. Expenditures on pet insurance have soared. One often sees dogs referred to as "furbabies" on social media. Two decades ago, my wife and I struggled to find hotels on our cross-country drives that would accommodate dogs (at least at a reasonable price). Now, many hotels compete for the attention of dog owners. Some businesses eager to hire skilled young workers have generous bring-your-dog-to-work policies, and some even provide "pawternity" care for new dog owners. A survey by SunTrust Bank found that 33 percent of first-time home-buying millennials said the desire for a better space for their dog was a factor in their decision. Only 25 percent said marriage was an issue, and just 19 percent said children were. Saudi Arabia denied for weeks that Khashoggi had been killed but later changed its story and ultimately acknowledged the brutal slaying. King Salman ordered the restructuring of the country's intelligence service, but has so far shielded Prince Mohammed, his 33-year-old son who is next in line to the throne in the oil giant kingdom. All that has not has not stopped widespread international criticism against the kingdom. Under Prince Mohammed, Saudi Arabia has seen the arrest of business leaders, royals and activists while also recently granting women the right to drive. U.S. senators in December passed the measure that blamed the prince for Khashoggi's killing and called on Riyadh to "ensure appropriate accountability." Senators also passed a separate measure calling for the end of U.S. aid to the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Both measures drew angry responses from the kingdom, but a renewed international effort has begun to end the Yemen war. It is no surprise that the kingdom would seek to execute those accused in Khashoggi's slaying. Saudi Arabia was the world's third top executioner in 2017, behind China and Iran, according to Amnesty International's most recent figures available. Scottsbluff Police Department Dec. 5 9:27 a.m. Police investigated a child abuse and neglect report alleging sexual contact. Investigators determined the cause to be unfounded. 12:49 p.m. In the 900 block of Winter Creek Drive, police investigated a report of counterfeiting/forgery. Further details were not in the report. 1:09 p.m. At Bluffs Middle School (27 E. 23rd St.), police investigated a report of an assault that occurred during lunch. One female juvenile was cited on a charge of third-degree assault. 3:20 p.m., Police investigated a child abuse and neglect report involving a 3-year-old child. Three juveniles were placed into protective custody. 3:43 p.m. At West 16th Street and Avenue A, officers topped a driver who was allegedly speeding in the 1800-1900 blocks of Avenue A. Roy Briones, 41, was arrested on charges of driving under the influence, no operators license and refusal to submit to chemical test. Labor and delivery services will be temporarily suspended at Box Butte General Hospital (BBGH) as of Jan. 1. A press release from BBGH said hospital personnel stress the importance of seeking prenatal care for the safety of both the mother and unborn child. The hospital will work with patients to connect them to obstetrician services to complement their care. BBGH has increased training for staff to handle emergency situations and will continue to provide the exceptional quality of care the community has come to expect. BBGH has collaborated with Regional West Medical Center through the Specialty Clinic to provide prenatal visits; to schedule an appointment call 308-635-3033. The staff at BBGH also has a listing of area facilities that provide obstetric services for those in need. BBGH encourages expectant mothers to discuss options of care with a member of the hospitals care team. We are asking all pregnant patients to speak with their care provider about questions and concerns they may have in regard to their care, BBGH CEO Lori Mazanec said. BBGH will, as always, be available for emergency services. This suspension is temporary, Mazanec said. She said: I want to stress that we are diligently searching for qualified family practice/obstetric physicians and plan to start offering labor and delivery again as soon as we fill the physician openings. Submit Your News We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form SCOTTSBLUFF A girl walks along a mile and a half long stretch of the Platte River south of Kearney in the 1960s. With an impulse to create, Michele Denton picked up her pencil and started to draw. Dentons father was busy on the farm and her mother had died when she was 6, so she had free time to wander the river and practice her craft. Being an artist, you can be anyone, she said. You just have to do it. As she progressed through elementary, middle and high school, art continued to make an impact as students from the university came to the school to instruct an art project. Dentons lifelong passion to show her creativity connected her with the community and world around her. From those experiences, she is now able to inspire others to get involved in the arts as the director of the West Nebraska Arts Center. Denton served as the interim director of WNAC since July but was named the permanent director in November. I think Ive always wanted it, she said. I feel good here. GERING Gering High School students are among the top 50 state finalists in the 2018-19 Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Education contest for a third consecutive year. During the 2016-17 academic year, students in Justin Reinmuths robotics class developed a drone-powered spraying system to precisely remove weeds and eliminate the need to blanket spray an entire field. They finished in the top 10 and were named one of three national winners. Im totally beside myself that four years ago we didnt know about the competition and now Gering is a three-time state champion, said Reinmuth, Gering engineering teacher and former Gering High School Samsung sponsor. Brett Moser, Gering High School physics teacher is sponsoring this years team. Moser said Samsung contacted him on Friday, Dec. 21, to congratulate Gering High School on being the Nebraska winner and among the top 50 schools. Now the students are focused on the next phase of competition. We have to create a video by Feb. 15, said Moser. The promotional video will describe the project to others. Thats the most immediate next phase. GERING On Jan. 3, one of the area's residents will be observing a special milestone as Louise Deines turns 100 years of age. Her friends helped the centenarian with an early birthday celebration Wednesday. I cant really comprehend turning 100, Deines said. I give all the praise and thanks to God for another day Hes given me. Ive been blessed in so many different ways. Originally from Oklahoma, Deines taught Bible College in Gordon, helped with youth camps in Chadron and taught on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, including Church of God missions in Wounded Knee and Allen. It was on the reservation where she came in contact with the Rev. Earl Bailey. He was the first pastor at the Church of God Platte Valley Indian Chapel, now the Intercultural Chapel in east Scottsbluff. Rev. Bailey showed up during school to talk with me about possibly coming to Scottsbluff to help with the childrens ministry at the chapel, Deines said. There was also an opening in the Scottsbluff schools at the time and he told me there was a possibility of teaching there as well. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Ogden jazz icon Joe McQueen may be gone, but his memory and legacy live on. One physical reminder of his life, McQueen's lifelong home at 3158 Grant Ave., has now become available for sale. The house received extensive remodeling, but as investor Richard Casperson has said, "Joe's energy is G ame of Thrones star Emilia Clarke has teased fans with new hints about the shows upcoming final season ahead of its premiere in April. Clarke, who plays Daenerys Targaryen on the hit HBO drama, told TV Insider that the truth about Jon Snow (Kit Harington)s parentage, which was revealed towards the end of the seventh season, will cut deep for her character and will have a major impact on episodes to come. Daenerys lifelong dream has been to avenge her family and claim her rightful seat on the Iron Throne, she said. She truly loves Jon. Were she to find out about his title, it would cut deep. At the end of the shows seventh season, it was finally revealed that Daenerys and Jon are related, while the latter character was also confirmed as the last surviving member of the Targaryen family, making him the true heir to the Iron Throne. Finale: Emilia Clarke shared her thoughts on Game of Thrones' last season / HBO Discussing this major revelation, Harington reiterated his co-stars view, adding: Jon is someone who plays by the book. He cannot lie. Finding out about Dany would be very hard for him. Game of Thrones final season teaser trailer released From a dramatic standpoint, it makes things interesting, DB Weiss, the HBO series showrunner, continued. Because the story is no longer about who Jons parents are. Its about what happens when Jon finds out. The final season of Game of Thrones is set to premiere in April, though an exact release date is yet to be confirmed. It will air on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV in the UK and on HBO in the US. K im Kardashian has shared a string of sweet images of husband Kanye West and their eldest daughter North. The reality star, 38, posted the snaps on Instagram, showing the duo enjoying some quality father-daughter time. North can be seen sitting on Wests shoulders in one shot while another shows the pair dancing at Kris Jenner's annual Christmas Eve party, with five-year-old North proving every bit a star in a fringed black dress and Doc Marten boots. Adorable: Kardashian shared the snaps online / Kim Kardashian Instagram The star pair, who are also parents to three-year-old son Saint and one-year-old daughter Chicago, are supposedly looking to expand their brood very soon, according to US Weekly. A source told the publication that the baby is expected to be a boy and is due to arrive in early May. Family first: West appeared to enjoy spending time with his eldest daughter / Kim Kardashian Instagram The child would be the couples second baby via surrogate after welcoming Chicago in January last year. Standard Online previously contacted representatives of Kardashian for comment. Kim Kardashian's children dressed as Kanye West and Lil Pump She revealed how her doctor had to stick his whole arm in me to remove the organ. After giving birth, your placenta is supposed to come out. But mine was stuck, she told ELLE. "Thats what women usually die from in childbirth you haemorrhage and bleed to death and they cant stop it. "To get it out its so disgusting the doctor had to stick his whole arm in me and scrape it off. It was the most painful. W orld first as probe lands on dark side of the Moon A Chinese probe landed on the far side of the Moon in a world-first for space travel. The lunar explorer Chang'e 4 touched down at 10.26am on Thursday (local time), Chinese state media reported. The far side of the moon, known also as the dark side of the moon, remains relatively unexplored. Previous spacecraft have seen it but none have landed on it. Chang'e 4, which launched last month, will explore both above and below the lunar surface. Train overcrowding set to worsen Overcrowding on UK trains has reached one its highest levels and is set to worsen, Labour has warned. The busiest routes are on average a staggering 187 per cent over capacity, a study by the party suggested. The busiest service carries twice the number of passengers the service was designed to, it claimed. Responding to the claims, the Department for Transports said new rail projects like HS2 will create the space the rail network needs. Anti-drone hardware withdrawn from Gatwick Military hardware deployed to stop drones disrupting flights at Gatwick Airport has been withdrawn. Sightings of the devices sparked chaos for hundreds of thousands of passengers using the transport hub over Christmas. The army was brought in to help bring an end to the travel mayhem, which saw about 1,000 flights affected. PM could again delay vote on Brexit deal Theresa May could delay the meaningful vote on her Brexit deal for a second time if she looks likely to lose it, David Davis has said. The former Brexit Secretarys remarks came as the Prime Minister prepared seek clarifications on the proposals from EU leaders. The vote on Mrs Mays deal was delayed at the last minute in December. It is currently scheduled for the week beginning January 14. Trump hits back in Romney row Donald Trump shrugged off criticism from Mitt Romney who accused him of failing to lead the divided nation. In response to the stinging personal attack from the fellow Republican, the US leader urged him to be a team player. It comes after Mr Romney, in an op-ed for the Washington Post, suggested the president had caused dismay around the world. Dua Lipa best-selling female artist Dua Lipa was the biggest-selling female artist of 2018, but the only woman to be featured in the UK's top 10 artist albums of the year. The pop stars self-title debut album was the ninth top-selling record last year, despite being released in June 2017 George Ezra's Staying At Tamara's was the most successful album to be released in 2018 overall, according to new industry figures. It came in second place on the best-sellers list behind The Greatest Showman official soundtrack. On this day 1777: George Washington defeated the British at the Battle of Princeton. 1870: Work on the Brooklyn Bridge began. 1911: The Siege of Sidney Street took place when anarchists were besieged by police in a house in London's East End. 1924: English explorer Howard Carter discovered the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun in Egypt's Valley of Kings. 1961: The millionth Morris Minor, the highly successful British car designed by Sir Alec Issigonis, came off the assembly line at Oxford. T wo women who defied a centuries-old ban by entering a Hindu temple in southern India are now said to be in hiding as violent protests left one person dead. The women, aged 40 and 42, entered the Sabarimala hill temple in the state of Kerala, defying a local tradition that bars women of menstruating age from entering. This is defined as between the ages of 10 and 50. Police told CNN that the women, who became the first to enter the shrine after Indias Supreme Court overturned the ban, are now in hiding due to a violent backlash. Although the ban on women entering the temple was lifted in September, the temple refused to abide by the ruling and devotees have been blocking their attempts to go inside. Women stand in a line to take part in a "women's wall" protest in Kochi in southern Kerala state / AFP/Getty Images On Wednesday the women were escorted by police into the temple through a side gate, before they offered prayers from the top of a staircase where they could see the deity below. Bindu Ammini, 42, and Kanaka Durga, 44, had approached state police to find a way to enter the temple after a failed attempt on December 24. For more than a week before their visit, the women were under police protection at an undisclosed location, unknown even to their families, to prevent the plan from leaking out. Following their visit, Conservative Hindu groups have paralysed Kerala, protesting on Thursday against the state government for allowing the women to defy the ancient ban. Indian Hindu activists clash with police personnels during a demonstration in Kerala / AFP/Getty Images Many businesses were shut after the groups called for a state-wide stoppage. Most bus services were halted and taxis refused to take passengers as some said they feared they would be attacked. Some protesters burst makeshift bombs outside a police station in the state capital of Thiruvananthapuram, police said. Congress Party supporters taken into custody during a protest march / AFP/Getty Images On Thursday morning, about 400 protesters - including some women - marched towards the main city junction in Kochi, the commercial capital of Kerala, to stage a sit-in, shouting slogans and waving flags, with streets otherwise deserted. They were backed by officials from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of the BJP. The Kerala state government is run by left-wing parties and has sought to allow women into the temple, a position that has drawn criticism from both of India's main political parties. Indian Police patrol during clashes between Communist Party of India and Bhartiya Janta Party / AFP/Getty Images On Wednesday, a woman police constable was molested by five protesters near Kochi, while a protester was pelted with stones and killed in a southern district of the state, police said. Thursdays protests remained largely peaceful, Vijay Sakhare, Inspector General of Police Kochi Range, told Reuters. Since Wednesday, police arrested more than 700 people and taken more than 600 protesters into preventive custody. T ourists are leaving Thai islands ahead of the arrival of Tropical Storm Pabuk. Pabuk, which is set to hit the region on Friday, will bring heavy rains and 22-feet waves. While there has been no evacuation order in place, tourists in Koh Samui, Koh Phangan and Koh Tao have headed for the southern Thai mainland. Phuwieng Prakammaintara, director general at the Thai Meteorological Department, told reporters: We expect waves as high as five or seven metres near the eye of the storm. Normally in the Gulf of Thailand there are only two-metre high waves. A man raises a red flag indicating rough weather conditions in Chaweng beach, Koh Samui / AP In Koh Samui, officials from the provincial marine office have been ordered to monitor all ships. All national parks and tourist spots have been told to prepare to close. While locals have been warned that flash floods are possible, according to the Bangkok Post. People planning to travel through Phuket International Airport have been urged to check with their airlines before flying. Tropical Storm Pabuk: British tourist films rough waters while leaving Thai resort Thanee Chougcho, director of Phuket International Airport said: In order to prepare for the situation, staff have been ordered to increase their inspections of systems operating all lights at the airport, and especially on the runway. We are also inspecting the drainage channels more frequently to ensure against flooding Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha told his cabinet to advise all trawlers and tourist boats operating on the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman sea to exercise caution or cancel their operations. In Songkhla, some villages are already experiencing the effects of the tropical storm. In Hat Kaew village, rainfall and high waves are already battering the region. Noppadon Mongkondee, 27, told the Nation that he has had to move his belongings to higher ground. He said: Every year, my house is attacked by high waves caused by storms. This year, we are warned that Pabuk will be a strong storm, so we moved our things to high places in advance. T hailand is bracing for Tropical Storm Pabuk which is set to hit the region on Friday. The Philippines has already been hit with mass flooding and Pabuk is now heading to surrounding areas of Indochina. Such a powerful storm is particularly unusual for this time of year in the region, according to the Thai Meteorological Department. Tourists have fled the popular resort islands of Koh Phangan and Koh Tao in their thousands amidst warnings of heavy rain, strong winds and 22ft waves. As Storm Pabuk gains momentum, heres everything you need to know about the storm, including the latest travel advice: Where is Storm Pabuk? A satellite image of Tropical Storm Pabuk approaching the Gulf of Thailand. / EPA The storm is expected to move into the Gulf of Thailand on Thursday, significantly increasing the risk of flooding in Cambodia and southern Thailand. On Friday night, it is expected to batter Koh Phangan, Koh Tao and Koh Sumai before making its way into the mainland. Accuweather reported that although Bangkok could be affected by rainfall and rough surf, the worst of the storm is expected to pass the capital city to the south. You can track storm Pabuk on the Thai Meteorological Department's website. Are tropical storms common in Thailand? Fishing boats are seen docked at a port as tropical storm Pabuk approaches the southern province of Pattani, Thailand. (REUTERS) / Reuters Tropical storms which form over the South Pacific and Indian Ocean are generally uncommon in Thailand. According to The Earth Institute at Columbia University, Thailand has been affected by 23 cyclones - particularly powerful tropical storms - between 1901 and 2004. The Thai Meteorological Department records list Tropical Storm Harriet as the most deadly to hit Thailand, killing 935 people in 1962. Is it safe to travel to Thailand? A man raises a red flag indicating rough weather conditions in Chaweng beach, Koh Samui, Thailand. / AP Tourists are being warned to check the status of their flight before they travel. Thanee Chougcho, Director of Phuket International Airport, said: In order to prepare for the situation, staff have been ordered to increase their inspections of systems operating all lights at the airport, and especially on the runway. We are also inspecting the drainage channels more frequently to ensure against flooding. U rgent evacuations are under way as Thailand prepares for Tropical Storm Pabuk to pound its southern beach resorts. Thai authorities have suspended ferry services in the region while evacuation centres have been set up in the areas expected to bear the brunt of the powerful storm. However Dan Lawson, a Londoner on the island of Koh Samui, told the Standard people had been given no information. He added he is now preparing to wait it out. He said: By the time I heard about the storm all ferries and flights were full or cancelled so I went back to basics, making sure we had food, water and first aid supplies so we could sit in our room and wait it out. Ive also had to help out some other tourists who hadnt any idea what to do, there were two guys from London, a newlywed couple from New York and a family from France. People sleep at an evacuation center in the Nakhon Si Thammarat province / Sumeth Panpetch/AP Ive told them to make sure they have water and food as well as minor medical supplies to last three days. Rain was already falling around the Gulf of Thailand on Thursday. Officials warned torrential downpours, strong winds and rough seas were expected in 16 provinces when Tropical Storm Pabuk makes its expected landfall on Friday. Men push a fishing boat off the ocean to a safer location in Songkhla / Sumeth Panpetch/AP There are fears the storm will be the worst in Thailand since 1989, when Typhoon Gay left more than 400 dead. A tropical storm in 1962 killed more than 900 people in the south. The two provinces of Surat Thani and Nakhon Si Thammarat are expected to be hardest hit. Surat Thani is home to the popular tourist islands of Koh Samui, Koh Tao and Koh Phangan. People sleep at an evacuation center in the Nakhon Si Thammarat province / Sumeth Panpetch/AP Army trucks were driving around remote seaside areas in Nakhon Si Thammarat on Thursday, searching for stragglers who had not yet been evacuated. Local official Kriangsak Raksrithong. "We have prepared three shelters and currently have about 1,000 people in them. A police officer warns tourists about a swimming ban at a beach in Koh Samui Island / EPA Fishing is a major industry in the south, with small boat owners were heeding the warning. Many dragged their vessels ashore, attaching ropes to the boats and having friends help tug them on to beaches. But Anne Britt Sodefjed, a tourist from Norway, brushed off the threat of the storm, which could cause waves as high as 5m. "We have bought lights, yes, and some more water. And we know the hotel will look after us. D onald Trumps criticism of the media has been strengthened by a former New York Times editor calling the papers coverage unmistakably negative towards the US President. Jill Abramson, an executive editor for the outlet from 2011 to 2014, makes the claim in her new book which in part critiques the media including her former employer. She stated some of its coverage and that of the Washington Post has been biased, citing financial motivation as one factor to this. The New York Times has not yet responded to her claims. In Merchants of Truth, she wrote: Given its mostly liberal audience, there was an implicit financial reward for the Times in running lots of Trump stories, almost all of them negative: they drove big traffic numbers and, despite the blip of cancellations after the election, inflated subscription orders to levels no one anticipated. Jill Abramson was New York Times executive editor between 2011 and 2014 / Photo by Lisa Lake/Getty Images for Pennsylvania Conference for Women This in turn supports one of President Trumps theories that he is helping to support the New York Times, which he deemed to be failing, financially by boosting its readership with those interested in him. Ms Abramson, 64, comments on the so-called Trump bump, which saw a rise in digital subscriptions during his first six months in office, Fox News reports. Various other academics have also pointed to how the furore around his campaign followed by his presidency assisted the media with people keen to read about him. Offering another theory, she also said she believes some of its young and woke writers set aside objectivity to pull down President Trump. She wrote: The more woke staff thought that urgent times called for urgent measures; the dangers of Trumps presidency obviated the old standards. However, she stated his "fake news" comments were a "cheap way of trying to undermine" the credibility of reporting. President Trump has carried out a long-term attack on the media since he was elected, regularly speaking out against those who write stories which are negative towards him. In October, he described the New York Times as failing and tweeted that 97% of their stories on me are bad. A Chinese spacecraft has made the first-ever landing on the far side of the moon. The lunar explorer Chang'e 4 had touched down at 10.26am on Thursday (local time), Chinese state media reported. The far side of the moon faces away from Earth and is relatively unexplored. It is also known as the dark side of the moon. China's mission signals its growing ambition to become a space power. China Lunar Probe - In Pictures 1 /6 China Lunar Probe - In Pictures A simulated landing process of Chang'e-4 lunar probe is seen through the monitor at Beijing Aerospace Control Centre AP The first image of the moon's far side taken by China's Chang'e-4 probe AP An image taken by China's Chang'e-4 probe during its landing process AP An image taken by China's Chang'e-4 probe during its landing process AP A Long March 3B rocket, transporting the Chang'e-4 lunar rover, lifting off from the Xichang launch centre AFP/Getty Images An artist's impression of the moon lander for China's Chang'e-4 lunar probe on the far side of the moon. The probe is reportedly set to land early on Thursday EPA Previous spacecraft have seen the far side of the moon but none have landed on it. Chang'e 4 will explore both above and below the lunar surface. First picture from the far side of the moon / AP China launched the probe last month. It includes a lander and a rover to explore the surface of the moon. The moon is tidally locked to Earth, rotating at the same rate that it orbits our planet. This means the far side - or "dark side" - is never visible from Earth. An artist's impression of the rover / China National Space Administration/EPA The far side remains comparatively unknown and has a different composition from sites on the near side. One of the first satellite images from the far side of the moon / AP The tasks of Chang'e-4 include astronomical observation, surveying the moon's terrain, landform and mineral composition, and measuring the neutron radiation and neutral atoms to study the environment on the far side of the Moon. Chang'e means the 'goddess of the Moon' in Chinese mythology. A model of the Chang'e-3 lunar probe sits on display during an exhibition / EPA China is trying to catch up with Russia and the United States to become a major space power by 2030. t is also planning to launch construction of its own manned space station next year. However, while China has insisted its ambitions are purely peaceful, the US defence department has accused it of pursuing activities aimed at preventing other nations from using space-based assets during a crisis. China landed its Yutu, or "Jade Rabbit" rover on the moon five years ago and plans to send its Chang'e 5 probe there this year and have it return to Earth with samples - the first time that will have been done since 1976. A crewed lunar mission is also under consideration. The country conducted its first crewed space mission in 2003, making it only the third country after Russia and the US to do so. It has put a pair of space stations into orbit, one of which is still operating as a precursor to a more than 60-ton station that is due to come online in 2022. R yanair has secured a UK licence in preparation for a no-deal Brexit which will allow the low-cost airline to continue to fly within the UK and to non-EU routes. The Civil Aviation Authority said it issued an air operator's certificate (AOC) to the Dublin-based carrier on Thursday. Ryanair has previously expressed concern that flights could be grounded if the UK withdraws from the EU without an agreement. Flights between EU nations and from the UK to many non-EU nations currently operate due to the UK's membership of the bloc. Ryanair has secured a UK operating licence to fly within the UK and UK to non-EU routes / Getty Images Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has insisted the UK and the EU do not want flights to be grounded after Brexit "in any scenario". Ryanair's company secretary Juliusz Komorek said: "We welcome the Civil Aviation Authority's decision to grant our UK based airline, Ryanair UK, with a UK AOC, allowing Ryanair to operate UK domestic routes and UK to non-EU routes in a post-Brexit environment. "The risk of a no-deal Brexit in March is rising, and despite our robust post-Brexit structures, including our post-Brexit plan around European ownership, we continue to call for the UK and EU to agree a transition deal from 31 March 2019, so that any disruption to flights and British consumer summer holidays in 2019 can be avoided." Ryanair has said it may restrict the voting rights of its non-EU shareholders in the event of a no-deal Brexit to help the airline comply with EU laws. B ritish mother jailed in Iran Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has said she will begin a hunger strike this month after being refused access to medical help. The Independent reports that according to a letter published by an Iranian rights charity, Ms Zaghari Ratfcliffe will start the three-day strike on January 14. Writing from Tehrans Evian prison, the 40-year-old British dual national said she will be joined on the strike by fellow inmate and prominent rights activist Narges Mohammadi. The letter, published by Tehran-based Defenders of Human Rights Centre, said both women had been barred access to medication and treatment "despite frequent requests" and appeals to relevant authorities, according to the paper. In protest against this illegal, inhuman and non-religious practice, and due to concerns about our health and our lives, we will go on hunger strike for three days from 24 to 26 Dey 1397 [14 to 16 January 2019] and ask for immediate care," the letter said. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has announced she will being a three day hunger strike on January 14. / PA It closed with: "If the authorities refuse to address [our demands] and in case our health is put further in danger, we will stage our next protests. The officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be responsible for the consequences." Last month, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband Richard, 43, told the Sunday Mirror that she has found lumps in her breast but prison bosses refused to let her see a doctor. Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has a 21-month old daughter, was jailed in April 2016 at Tehran airport while trying to return to London after a holiday visiting family. She was later sentenced to five years in jail on espionage charges, which she denies. L ondoners were split on Greggs' new vegan sausage rolls as some stores in the capital sold out over lunchtime. The new item was rolled out at 950 stores on Thursday as part of Veganuary and prompted a frenzied discussion online. Some have been less than impressed with the snack, with TV presenter Piers Morgan a notable detractor, but they were still swiftly carried out of stores in white and blue paper bags. The branch in Palmer Street, near Londons St James Park station, is one where the items sold out over lunchtime. The item is in 950 Greggs stores (Rui Vieira/PA ) / Rui Vieira/PA A worker in the store said: They were very popular. Theyve been insanely popular. Theyve just gone. We had one tray of 80 and theyve just gone. Piers Morgan expressed his fury on social media after Greggs launched a new vegan addition to its menu / ITV At another nearby branch, in Strutton Ground, 25-year-old Tyler Hanley was left disappointed when he missed out on a roll of his own. I went to get on to try but theyre not selling them at the moment, which is a shame. Id like to try one, said Mr Hanley, who works nearby the store as a political researcher. A worker inside the shop said they were sold out. Elsewhere, people reported a branch in Altrincham was running out of the snack while Londons Strand store and another in Lincoln were also said to have done so. However, despite this clear popularity not everyone was tempted to give them a try. Bobby McDowall, 26, saw the items in the Victoria Station Greggs and said he wondered what they were at first. Whats that pale one in there, I was thinking. Whats that white one? he said. When asked if he would want to eat one, Mr McDowell said: Nah, it didnt look right. Beth Townsend, 18, said she might try one but was not immediately tempted on seeing them in the display cabinet. It looked just very pale, said Ms Townsend, who had purchased a regular sausage roll. I just wanted something I know I like. The Durham University student said that she is flexitarian, spending one week eating meat and one week not, so might try one on a meat-free week. Despite the social media frenzy surrounding their release, some people were utterly unaware of their existence. One Greggs customer said: Im not into vegan. Asked if he had seen them he added: No, no, no. Another suited man initially stopped to speak but then said no and walked away upon hearing vegan sausage rolls and said he was not interested. As the items were tucked into over lunch, many shared images of the snack from their desks, some lauding how they taste exactly the same as the real thing. Sam Twitches shared a video of him eating the item on Twitter and said: They [vegan sausage rolls] are ridiculous. They taste like sausage, you can tell its not because its not the same texture. But man, these are so good. Another person wrote: It is not only delicious but it tastes just like I remember the original. Announcing their release, Greggs chief executive Roger Whiteside said the chain had seen increasing demand for vegetarian and vegan products. G reggs has shrugged off a furious verbal attack by Piers Morgan over the bakery chains launch of a vegan sausage roll. The Good Morning Britain host branded the shops owners PC-ravaged clowns after the new vegan option was unveiled. The TV presenter said nobody was waiting for a vegan bloody sausage in response to the official launch tweet. But Morgan, who has previously spoken out against some aspects of veganism, received a disarming response from the chain. Greggs replied: Oh hello Piers, weve been expecting you. Piers Morgan expressed his fury on social media after Greggs launched a new vegan addition to its menu / ITV The popular bakery was inundated with praise, with many saying they will become regular customers based on its response to Morgan's tweet. One commentator described Greggs tweet as magnificent trolling. Others said they would buy one of items just to spite Morgan. Greggs was praised following the launch of its new vegan sausage roll @GreggsOfficial you have definitely won this battle, one Twitter user wrote. Were going down to Hammersmith Gregs [sic] tomorrow to get one for each member of the household! Another said: I'm going to buy a Vegan sausage roll tomorrow for two reasons. 1. Your marketing team deserve it 2. To annoy Piers Morgan. Hitting out for a second time, Morgan responded by saying: Isnt it time you [Greggs] changed your name to something more gender-fluid & less toxically masculine? He later added: Just ordered a large sausage roll on room service. A meat one. Real meat. The vegan resistance starts here. Available alongside the regular roll, Greggs' bestselling product, the new offering will be free of animal products, replacing the sausage filling with Quorn, and wrapping it in 96 layers of puff pastry. It will be land in 950 selected stores across the country from January 3, and will cost 1. The decision came after a petition by animal welfare organisation PETA was launched last year calling on Greggs to product a vegan version of the product, of which 1.5 million are sold every week. The petition was signed by more than 20,000 people. Like many food retailers we have seen increasing demand for vegetarian and vegan products, said Roger Whiteside, the chief executive of Greggs. A coffee shop chain is to train inmates at Wormwood Scrubs prison as baristas in a bid to help more convicts find jobs after they are released. Redemption Roasters claims to be the worlds only behind-bars speciality coffee company. The company was started by Max Dubiel and Ted Rosner in 2017 and has branches in Bloomsbury, Farringdon and Kings Cross. Every coffee bean sold in the start-ups cafes was roasted by inmates at HM Prison Aylesbury a young offender institution for those serving long sentences. Prisoners who work at the roastery are also given barista training and then helped into work after release. Mr Rosner told the Standard they have been in talks with several UK prisons to provide barista training courses and plan to start teaching older prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs early this year. Were really excited by these training courses, he added. We know from our work in Aylesbury that inmates will work harder than anyone else. They know that when they are released and are applying for jobs they will be up against people who dont have records. Only a fifth of convicts find and keep a job for six months within a year of leaving jail, and almost half are reconvicted in that time, according to the Prison Reform Trust. Redemption Roasters hopes its training plans will help remove the stigma around employing reformed convicts. The company sells its coffee beans across the UK, including to wholesalers, small pub chains and the National Trusts Waddesdon Manor. Last year it crowdfunded more than 20,000 to launch a coffee-pod range. C hannel 4 news presenter Cathy Newman has said a fake pornographic image depicting her was seen by her daughter amid a barrage of online abuse. The 44-year-old journalist made the revelation as she detailed being targeted by internet trolls after a televised debate over the gender pay gap. The vile abuse followed an interview with Jordan Peterson, a controversial Canadian psychologist, in 2018 and prompted Channel 4 to call in security experts to protect Ms Newman. In a piece titled It was dehumanising when my trolls circulated pornographic memes of me, written for The Pool, Ms Newman details how the attacks unfolded and were seen by her 14-year-old daughter. She wrote: One of the 200 or so on-screen interviews I did this year [2018] was with the controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson. I challenged him about the gender pay gap, which he believes is a fiction, and what he calls the murderous equity doctrine embraced by many modern women. Afterwards, his army of online followers, many hailing from the alt-right, went into attack mode, calling me a c*** and a b****, threatening to execute me and circulating pornographic memes of me on Instagram, one of which my 14-year-old daughter saw. In the article, she spoke of how the unregulated nature of sections of the internet allows for misogynistic abuse to be distributed. The journalist, who has worked for Channel 4 since 2006, wrote: The scale of the onslaught was overwhelming. On every platform, a torrent of vile and demeaning messages. It was dehumanising. She also wrote of how she would turn to women of the past who overcame misogyny, such as 19th century physician Sophia Jex-Blake, who was targeted by sexism during her studies. However, she overcame this to complete her degree and set up a practice in Edinburgh, which Ms Newman said will inspire her not to flee Twitter to escape the abusers. Ms Newmans and Mr Petersons interview was put online in full in January 2018. Mr Peterson previously said he asked people to stop abusing Ms Newman. He made this comment in an interview with the Radio Times, in which he said: I tweeted out, Look, lay the hell off. Enough is enough. Or something a little bit more civilised than that. You dont need to beat a dead horse. Im glad I wasnt the one who was being torn to shreds online. A ll children in England are to learn lifesaving skills at school, like CPR and first aid. Under Government plans for health education to be taught in every school, each schoolchild will be shown how to administer CPR, the purpose of defibrillators, and basic treatments for common injuries by the time they leave secondary school. The British Heart Foundation (BHF) described the plans as a "decisive moment" in improving on the fact that fewer than one in 10 people who have a cardiac arrest outside hospital in the UK survive. Teaching basic first aid in schools will be compulsory by 2020, but schools will be supported if they would like to start earlier. In countries that already teach CPR in schools, cardiac arrest survival rates are more than double those of the UK. Education Secretary Damian Hinds said: "On arriving at university I was struck that the American students I met knew how to do CPR - and I didn't have a clue. "As a father I want my children to have the knowledge and skills they need to keep themselves safe and help others, and as Education Secretary I want that for every child. "Learning the basic skills of first aid and techniques like CPR will give young people the confidence to know that they can step in to help someone else in need and in the most extreme cases - it could potentially save a life." The proposals, due to be rolled out in 2020, are part of the Department for Education's plans to strengthen teaching of health, sex and relationships education. Simon Gillespie, chief executive of the BHF, said: "The Department for Education's plans to introduce CPR on to the curriculum is a decisive moment in the battle to improve cardiac arrest survival rates, following years of campaigning by the BHF and others. "There are 30,000 out of hospital cardiac arrests every year, and each day people needlessly die because bystanders don't have the confidence or knowledge to perform CPR and defibrillation. "This is why all schoolchildren should be given the opportunity to learn these skills. "Introducing CPR lessons into health education in all state-funded secondary schools is a significant step that promises to improve the odds of survival for countless people who have a cardiac arrest in the future." P lans for a super-ministry that would replace three Whitehall departments were dismissed as expensive and disruptive today. A Ministry for Infrastructure had been mooted by senior Cabinet figures with the aim of freeing up cash for defence and policing. The idea, headed by Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss, is yet to be approved by the Prime Minister, according to reports. But the Institute for Governments associate director Joe Owen warned: The short-term impact is usually disruption and cost. Moving desks, changing branding, aligning pay differentials are all expensive and have little policy benefit. Theresa May does not want to 'take on the civil service' / Eddie Keogh/Reuters These kinds of changes are often more about Cabinet jostling and political signalling than long-term planning. Under the proposals, three different departments Business and Energy, Culture Media and Sport and Transport would be merged. A second merger would move the Department for International Development back into the Foreign Office. A Cabinet minister told The Sun that they needed to be bold to save the nations long-term productivity problems but that the Prime Minister does not want to take on the civil service. A minister who backs the Whitehall merger said: At present, the system is very fragmented and allows vested interests to stop progress. We need to be prepared to take them on to speed up delivery and cut costs. T heresa May has suffered yet another Brexit blow as the deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) savaged her deal after talks. Nigel Dodds, after a Downing Street lunch with the Prime Minister, said her Withdrawal Agreement flies in the face of the governments commitments to Northern Ireland. Mrs May desperately needs the support of the DUP, which is propping up her minority government, in order to force her much-criticised deal over the line when it goes to a Commons vote later this month. But Mr Dodds comments were a further indication of the trouble the Prime Minister will face in the next couple of weeks. The DUP remains vehemently opposed to her Irish backstop proposal, which is aimed at preventing a hard border. The party says it would leave Northern Ireland tied to EU regulations after Brexit. Nigel Dodds, pictured with DUP leader Arlene Foster, has again attacked Theresa May's Brexit deal / Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters Mr Dodds said: "The Irish Republic's 'no deal' preparations published just before Christmas have laid bare the nonsense propaganda about a hard border. "No-one wants a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Indeed, its becoming clearer by the day that no one is ever going to construct such a border. "With this clarity emerging in London, Dublin and Brussels, there is evidently no need for the aspects of the Withdrawal Agreement, which have been so vigorously opposed by a broad cross-section of the House of Commons. Key Brexit moments of 2018: in pictures 1 /23 Key Brexit moments of 2018: in pictures Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a Cabinet meeting at Chequers in July PA The Cabinet thrashed out a Brexit blue print PA The away day meeting PA Boris Johnson leaves Carlton House Terrace in Westminster after he resigned as Foreign Secretary PA David Davis pictured after quitting the government, resigning his post as Brexit Secretary AFP/Getty Images New role: Jeremy Hunt was appointed as Foreign Secretary in July Getty Images Dominic Raab took over the role of Brexit Secretary in July AP/Matt Dunham Exotic spresm: Liberal Democrats Leader Sir Vince Cable following his speech at the party conference PA More than half a million protesters descended on London for the People's Vote March in October Sky News Demonstrators called for a People's Vote on Brexit during a march in Liverpool earlier this year Getty Images Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, presented the red Budget Box as he revealed the government's financial plans in October Getty Images It was the last Budget before Brexit AFP/Getty Images Mr McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn listen as Chancellor Philip Hammond delivers his Budget statement AFP/Getty Images New Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay after Dominic Raab quit the post in November Getty Images Esther McVey also resigned as Work and Pensions Secretary Sir Keir Starmer opened the debate on a motion to hold the Government in contempt of Parliament on December 4 AFP/Getty Images Sir Graham Brady (centre), chairman of the 1922 Committee, announces that Theresa May has survived a confidence vote on December 12 PA Theresa May in Downing Street after winning the confidence vote Jeremy Selwyn The Prime Minister confronts Jean-Claude Juncker at an EU summit in December 'You called me nebulous' Philip Sime/Twitter Jeremy Corbyn was accused of mouthing the words "stupid woman" during the last PMQs of the year Jeremy Corbyn responds in the Commons amid the row PA Jeremy Corbyn denied reports he muttered the words "stupid woman" AFP/Getty Images "The Withdrawal Agreement, as currently proposed, flies in the face of the government's commitments on Northern Ireland as we leave the EU." Best for Britain, an organisation campaigning to keep the UK open to EU membership, said the DUP had "pulled the rug out" from underneath the Prime Minister. It claimed: "Her Brexit deal is dead in the water. If Theresa May can't convince Nigel Dodds and her own party to back her deal after a one-to-one, why should the country support it? Further Brexit blows: Theresa May / Adrian Dennis Meanwhile, Irelands premier Leo Varadkar has added to the Prime Ministers woes after he ruled out any concessions on her deal. On Wednesday, Mrs May was reportedly readying a charm offensive against EU leaders in order to secure concessions on the backstop issue. But Mr Varadkar, after a 40-minute phone call with German Chancellor Angel Merkel, said both leaders had decided to "stand by" the Withdrawal Agreement in its current form. He said: We're happy to offer reassurances and guarantees to the UK but not reassurances and guarantees that contradict or change what was agreed back in November. T heresa May could delay the meaningful vote on her Brexit deal for a second time if she looks likely to lose it, David Davis has said. The former Brexit Secretarys remarks came as the Prime Minister prepared to meet EU leaders and seek clarifications to help persuade MPs to back her proposals. The vote on Mrs Mays deal, which was delayed at the last minute in December, is currently scheduled for the week beginning January 14. But Mr Davis, in a column for the Daily Telegraph, speculated that it could be put off if Mrs May was likely to lose. David Davis, former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union / REUTERS He said: "The Withdrawal Agreement does not respect the referendum result. That is why the meaningful vote had to be delayed and one wonders if even the January vote will go ahead. "Attempts to frighten MPs into supporting it are unlikely to work, because voting down this substandard deal will not result in no Brexit." TODO: define component type apester Urging Mrs May to take her time to get a better deal, he added: "We know that the EU is worried about the loss of the 39 billion 'divorce' payment if there is no deal... so this is the moment to be hard-nosed about these issues. "The more we prepare to leave the EU without a deal, the more likely a good deal becomes. Theresa May calls on MPs to back Brexit deal in New Year message Mrs May is expected to speak this week to EU leaders including German chancellor Angela Merkel, Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte and European Council president Donald Tusk in an attempt to break the Brexitlogjam, the Financial Times reported. A Downing Street source said talks between Mrs May's negotiators and their counterparts in Brussels have continued over the Christmas period. Mr Davis insisted a deal will be reached "at the eleventh hour" because the EU is worried about losing the 39 billion "divorce payment" that would come with a Brexit deal. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, speaking in Singapore, said cancelling Brexit through a second EU referendum would have "devastating" social consequences, while a no-deal exit would cause economic disruption. He predicted the Government would "find a way" of getting the 585-page withdrawal agreement approved by Parliament. M Ps are threatening to block Cabinet ministers salaries if the Government ignores the Commons and allows a no-deal Brexit, it was revealed today. Writing in tonights Standard, former minister Chris Leslie says Parliament must show its teeth to force ministers to take heed of the majority of MPs opposing a no-deal exit from the EU. The warning came as dredgers began work in Ramsgate under emergency plans to upgrade the Kent harbour into a freight port if the Prime Ministers deal fails to get through. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay this morning talked up the risk of a no-deal departure, saying it will be far more likely if MPs refuse to support Theresa Mays withdrawal agreement, which is due to be voted on in the week beginning January 14. Mr Barclay was due to chair a meeting in Whitehall of junior ministers responsible for emergency planning, and also announced that information packs would start going out shortly to the public on how to cope. Stephen Barclay talked up the risk of a no-deal departure / AFP/Getty Images The Prime Minister was back at No 10 this morning after spending her Christmas break phoning EU leaders in the hope of securing a clarification to the controversial backstop plan that has provoked a major rebellion by Tory MPs and her DUP allies. Mrs May spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Christmas Eve, and again yesterday, but sources played down the chances of a breakthrough in time for next weeks debate. Former attorney general Dominic Grieve warned against any further delay to the vote, saying: Its only when we have resolved the acceptability or otherwise of this deal that we can properly decide on other options. There is no evidence that the deal is any different to what the Government put forward in December. The idea of postponing the vote was pressed by David Davis, the former Brexit Secretary, who argued in The Daily Telegraph that the more we prepare to leave the EU without a deal, the more likely a good deal becomes. H ordes of Londoners are set to strip off and board the London Underground half-naked as part of No Trousers on the Tube Day which is celebrating its tenth anniversary. Sixty-six people have already pledged to attend the annual event on January 13, with almost 200 more interested on Facebook. Hundreds of half-naked travellers joined the stunt last year, with many braving the cold to sport brightly coloured underwear. The event kicks off in front of the National Gallery at 2.30pm, before those take part split into groups and take to the Tube. Londoners travel in underwear on No Trousers on the Tube day Teams will then jump aboard trains and travel around town before returning to The Chandos pub in Trafalgar Square for an after-party. Participants are asked to avoid thongs/budgie-smugglers/anything see-through though, as we aim to amuse, not offend, fellow Underground users. The event is part of the worldwide No Pants Subway Ride, which began in New York in 2002 and has since spread to over 60 cities around the globe including Tokyo, Jerusalem and Moscow. Last year's event attracted hoards of trouserless travellers / AFP/Getty Images Photos from last years event show whole carriages of trouserless Tube riders taking part in the stunt. Organisers The Stiff Upper Lip Society said on Facebook: "This is for the fun of it, and articles of clothing like skirts, shorts, kilts, and dresses dont count, because people are encouraged to revel in the absence of trousers, and not replace trousers with other clothing. The event is celebrating its tenth anniversary / AFP/Getty Images "The point is to relax and enjoy the humour inherent in people not wearing trousers. "Please don't wear anything overly close-fitting (so no thongs, banana hammocks or mankinis), nothing see-through, nor so flimsy one is falling out of it, or kilts without anything underneath. Londoners take part in a 'no trousers' Tube ride / EPA "We don't want people to be disgusted, I personally do not wish to be arrested, and we want to stage this event for decades yet. "The trouserless part of the event is all underground, and it is warm down there. S adiq Khan was today criticised over plans to axe a scheme providing hundreds of police officers working for councils. City Hall and the Met police are reviewing the Patrol Plus scheme in which the Met funds a new police officer for every one paid for by a local authority. Dubbed Buy One Get One Free, it was launched by former mayor Boris Johnson and is currently funding 339 police officers. More than half of London boroughs take part in the scheme, with Kensington and Chelsea council running 34 officers, Hammersmith and Fulham 48, Tower Hamlets 38 and Newham 40. Sadiq Khan speaking with police officers / PA Wire/PA Images They tackle local priority issues such as gangs and anti-social behaviour. However, Mr Khan said the Mayors Office for Policing and Crime was looking at funded officer roles as part of budget cuts. Met Commissioner Cressida Dick said the initiative is skewing the activities of the Met when the force is short of resources. Police are concerned that the scheme is too inflexible and does not allow officers to be transferred to meet alternative demands such as violent crime. But London Assembly Conservative member Tony Devenish said the schemes success was widely acknowledged and that without the incentive to recruit from match-funding, boroughs could simply not invest in frontline officers. He added: This is yet further evidence that Sadiq Khan has completely the wrong priorities. The Mayor is looking to cut frontline policing while millions more has been spent on crime bureaucrats at City Hall. Kensington and Chelsea, which pays for extra officers to tackle gang-related crime, said scrapping the scheme would mean a reduction of extra police officers of around 20 per cent in the next financial year. A spokesman for the council said it could halve the number of officers on some streets in some boroughs pretty much overnight. The local authoritys leader, Elizabeth Campbell, added: Crime is on the rise and council budgets are stretched. The Mayor must make policing and fighting crime on the streets the priority for 2019. Newham council spends 1.4 million a year employing its officers, many of which are placed in Stratford town centre to help deal with anti-social behaviour. Matthew Hooper, its director of enforcement, said: It is something councils are worrying about. We have a couple of years left on our contract, but we are not sure what will happen after that. Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Sophie Linden, said: Government cuts will have forced the Met to make 1bn of savings since 2010 and seen officer numbers fall below 30,000 for the first time in 15 years. In light of this, the Met Patrol Plus scheme is being reviewed but no decisions have been taken. The Mayor is showing leadership by investing in the Mets violent crime taskforce and creating a new Violence Reduction Unit to tackle the root causes of crime. "However, this alone will not fill the huge gap left by government cuts. Assembly members should be working with City Hall to put pressure on Ministers to reverse their cuts to policing so we can put more officers on our streets. The Met said in a statement : The scheme has delivered benefits for both the Met and Local Authorities in terms of police visibility and overall officer numbers. "However as our operational demands have grown and overall officer numbers have fallen, the scheme has become difficult to sustain because it is limited to delivering contracted objectives, and the officers are therefore unavailable to fulfil core roles targeting Met priorities, such as violent crime and safeguarding. M ore than half the councils in London failed to use new powers to fine rogue landlords last year, leading to criticism town halls are not doing enough to protect vulnerable tenants in deathtrap homes. Only nine of the 33 local authorities issued civil penalties in the 2017/18 financial year, according to figures obtained via Freedom of Information. A further four did not provide figures, but 20 admitted that they had not issued a single fine during the 12-month period. These included Housing Secretary James Brokenshires local council Bexley, and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyns home borough of Islington. The civil penalty powers were introduced in April 2017 to give housing officers a quicker and cheaper alternative to full-scale criminal prosecution of landlords breaking the law by failing to fix problems such as damp, mould or unsafe wiring. They allow local authorities to fine landlords up to 30,000 and keep the penalties to fund further enforcement action. However, to date, only a handful in London have made use of the legislation, led by Newham, which issued 95 civil penalties, Waltham Forest, which handed out 56, Camden (43) and Barking & Dagenham (40). The same FoI request also showed that the number of criminal prosecutions of landlords fell to its lowest level in six years. David Smith, policy director for the Residential Landlords Association, which collected the information, said: Either the number of problem landlords is not as high as some suggest, or councils have been unable to enforce the extensive range of powers they already have. "This proves that it is not more regulation that is needed but better enforcement of existing laws. Potentially thousands of tenants are falling victim to rogue landlords. For example a three-bedroom property in Newham, dubbed a house of horrors, was found to have exposed electrical wiring, rotten floorboards and missing ceilings. It was let out to a family with two young children for 700 a month. Darren Rodwell, of London Councils, which represents local government in the capital, said: The 63 per cent funding reduction experienced by London boroughs has had an impact on our ability to respond to residents needs. T he family of a special needs teacher who died after being hit by a van near her north London home today described her as an absolute angel. Tracey Wilson, 55, who worked with children with behavioural issues at the City of London Academy Islington, was knocked down in Hornsey High Street on Thursday while walking to meet her brother. She died in hospital two days later. Her son Courtney, 34, today paid tribute to his selfless and hardworking mother, who had worked with youngsters for more than 20 years. He told the Standard: She was the greatest-ever role model she just oozed self-worth. She had drive and determination. She was an absolute angel. She was so courageous. "Were getting tributes from people who might have met her just once, and still she had a real impact on their lives. Mr Wilson said his mother, who had a two-year-old grandson Cody, became a mentor and a second mother to some of the children she worked with during her career. He added: She worked with some rough kids but she always wanted the best for them. When I was younger she would work two jobs to be able to get me anything I wanted. "She was always welcoming to all of my friends whoever I brought home she would treat with love. Clare Verga, executive principal at City of London Academy Islington, said Ms Wilson was wholly dedicated and worked tirelessly to ensure that every child was supported and cared for. A friend who had known her for more than 40 years said: She has left a massive hole in the community. She was a kind and loving single mother, she never had a bad word to say about anyone. L ondon could get its first 24-hour hospital helipad under plans that could save dozens of lives every year. Kings College Hospital has applied to extend the operating hours of its helipad in Denmark Hill, which is currently open between 7am and 9pm. London is the only major European capital without a 24-hour emergency helipad. About 500 patients have been flown to the helipad since it opened in 2016, with night opening expected to enable Kings to receive a further 75 patients a year. A spokesman said: This would give critically sick patients faster access to specialist treatment at night as well as during the day. The hospitals ability to treat seriously ill patients will increase when its 100 million critical care centre opens. The helipad at Kings is the first in mainland Britain to use an automatic foam and water system that avoids the need for firefighters to be on standby for a crash landing. Seven residents have objected to the plans, saying the noise would disturb their sleep. One said: The impact on residents would be too great if air ambulances were to land here 24 hours a day. A noise report commissioned by the hospital shows that World Health Organisation limits for sleep would be breached for less than a minute at a time during take-off and landing. It said noise levels would fall to acceptable levels if windows were kept closed. The hospital's planning application said it consulted 500 residents and claims to have secured 85 per cent support. It told the council it was acutely aware of concerns and proposed a two-year trial of night flights in view of this sensitivity. Mayor Sadiq Khan said he had no objection to the plans and referred the final decision to Lambeth council. O ne of the founding members of ASAP Mob has admitted he sexually assaulted a woman in a London Hotel. ASAP Bari real name Jabari Shelton pleaded guilty to one count of sexual assault after a video emerged of him attacking a woman at an east London hotel. The 27-year-old, from New York, admitted at the Old Bailey on Thursday to assaulting a woman at The Curtain Hotel. Judge Zoe Smith sentenced Shelton to a 4,000 fine. He will also have to pay his victim 2,500 compensation as well as 2,500 costs to the court. Sentencing him, she said he had shown a "very unpleasant attitude" towards women. ASAP Bari arriving to court / PA She added: "You say that you were angry but there's no need to ever be so abusive and humiliating towards a female." The womans ordeal happened following the Wireless Festival, in 2017, the court heard. Footage played at the Old Bailey showed Shelton pull the covers from the naked woman as she lay in bed, before slapping her bottom as she told him to "stop". He pleaded guilty to one count of sexual assault against the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons. ASAP Bari attending an event in 2017 Shelton was initially arrested last year but bailed in June 2018 after he paid a cash security of 25,000 to allow him to return to the United States, the court heard. Prosecuting, James Lofthouse said Shelton first approached his victim as she waited for a taxi after the event. Mr Lofthouse said: "He [Shelton] walked up to her and propositioned her, if I can put it that way. She said no." The court heard the woman went to The Curtain Hotel in Shoreditch with another man, named in court as AJ. ASAP Bari will be sentenced next week Mr Lofthouse said:"She was then woken at around 4.30 or five in the morning, shortly after, by the defendant entering the bedroom. "He seemed to react to her being present in bed with AJ. "He pulled the duvet off and Your Honour has seen the footage of what occurred and indeed what was said." Shelton can be heard telling the woman: "B**** you f***** my assistant, now suck my d***." He also said: "Shut the f*** up b****", after she told him to stop. Mr Lofthouse said: "She then moved hastily towards the bathroom. He slapped her naked buttocks as she did so and she was saying, 'Honestly, Bari, no stop."' Police were later called to the hotel and the woman initially denied she had been assaulted, but she reported the assault several days later when footage emerged online. The attack took place after Wireless Festival, in 2017 Mr Lofthouse added: "The defendant flew back to America later that same morning. However, about three to four days later she (the victim) became aware through her mother that footage had been circulating on the internet. "It's that footage we have seen in court. Following that she of course got back in touch with the officer." Shelton's barrister, Gideon Cammerman QC, told the court his client had already spent seven days in custody after his initial arrest. Mr Cammerman said: "The publicity this case has attracted has already caused very significant financial loss to him, the loss of very significant contracts and other matters." He added: "In the current climate, publicity of this sort is quite rightly toxic." The fashion designer had arrived at the court wearing a ski mask to shield his face and a designer padded jacket. He stood in the dock wearing a black suit and white shirt without a tie, along with a pair of Nike trainers, and showed little emotion as he admitted the charge. Mr Cammerman said footage of the attack was shared online by "somebody who wanted to do him harm and has". A university psychotherapist bombarded her doctor ex-partner with insulting messages while banned from contacting him, a court has heard. Maria Lindholm-Ventola, a lecturer and course director at London South Bank University, called psychiatrist Emad Farrag a pompous f*** in a series of abusive messages sent via WhatsApp and email. The three-month campaign of abuse began after Dr Farrag took out a court order which prohibited Lindholm-Ventola from contacting him. She was questioned by police after sending a message which read: People die all the time. Lindholm-Ventola, of Plumstead, who is also a registered mental health nurse, pleaded guilty to breaching a non-molestation order between September 18 and December 17, 2017. Prosecutor Jennifer Gatland told Bromley magistrates court that it prohibited Lindholm-Ventola from threatening the victim, abusing him or going within 100 metres of him. It was granted by East London Family Court in June 2017 after Dr Farrag, who trained at Guys & St Thomas, was given full custody of their child. Ms Gatland said: She is clearly in breach of the non-molestation order and the barrage has caused a lot of distress to the complainant. The defendant is angry about not having access to her son, as Dr Farrag has full custody. The messages were over a long, long period of time and there were many of them. Ms Gatland said the insults included telling him to p*** off. She also referred to Dr Farrag and his new girlfriend as a pompous pair of f****. Lindholm-Ventola, who says she has 20 years of experience in the profession, is a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. Her online profile lists obsessions, anger management, stress, abuse, relationships and family therapy among her areas of expertise. She also says her therapy helps patients let go of any past experiences that may hinder your progress and to explore ways in which you can begin to work towards the future you always wanted. Lindholm-Ventola, who has no previous criminal convictions, was given a two-year conditional discharge and put under a restraining order to stop her contacting Dr Farrag. The 45-year-old was told to pay 85 costs and a 20 victim surcharge. A charge of sending indecent and offensive messages between December 18, 2017 and July last year was withdrawn. A man arrested in connection with the murder of a doorman at a New Years Eve party in Park Lane was carrying a gun at the time of the fracas, it was alleged today. Imran Mostafa Kamel, 26, was due to appear in court this morning charged with two counts of possession of a firearm. It is understood the charges relate to the incident at Fountain House when security guard Tudor Simionov, 33, was stabbed to death. The doorman was knifed in the chest as he tried to stop a group of men gatecrashing the 12.5 million townhouse in the early hours of New Years Day. Kamel, of Ealing, was due to appear at Westminster magistrates court charged with possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear or danger and possession of a firearm when prohibited for life. Police officers at a cordon in Park Lane / Nigel Howard The development came as it was reported that Mr Simionov was not supposed to be working that night but had agreed to cover for a colleague. There were also unconfirmed reports that a VIP sex party was being held at the townhouse. Speaking yesterday, Mr Simionovs girlfriend Madalina Anghel told the Standard: He was my future husband and we came to London from Romania for a better life. Two of Mr Simionovs colleagues, aged 29 and 37, and a 29-year-old woman were also stabbed during the fracas. Mr Simionov, who lived in Ilford, was the second person to die in London in 2019 after mother-of-one Charlotte Huggins, 33, was stabbed in Camberwell. A man has been charged with assault after a woman was allegedly attacked outside a south London nightclub on New Years Day. Andrew Akingbaje, 23, from Brixton, has been charged with actual bodily harm following the alleged assault on Clapham High Street, at 4am on Tuesday. He has also been charged with two counts of assault by beating against two other women who were also allegedly attacked during the same incident. Akingbaje, of Poplar Road, is due to appear in custody at Camberwell Green Magistrates Court on Thursday. A video of the alleged violence has been widely shared on social media. It comes as a security guard and young mother were both stabbed to death in the early hours of New Year's Day. A suspect has been arrested in connection with a series of burglaries at the Hollywood homes of celebrities including musicians Usher, Adam Lambert and Jason Derulo. Benjamin Eitan Ackerman is alleged to have turned up at the mansions of the stars pretending to be a potential buyer or real estate agent during open houses. The burglaries, which involved the theft of goods worth several million dollars, took place some time after. Police who raided the Los Angeles home of the suspect seized more than 2,000 items allegedly stolen over the past two years. Benjamin Ackerman, top left, who was said to have posed as an estate agent to visit opulent homes of stars / EPA Reality star Dorit Kemsley from The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills and actress Rebecca Hutton were also among 13 victims identified so far, police said. Detective Jared Timmons of the Los Angeles Police Department said that Ackerman would show up dressed to the nines, and described the criminal operation as sophisticated. Looted: valuables allegedly stolen by Benjamin Ackerman / EPA Stolen items included works of art, high-end jewellery, fine wines, designer purses, clothing and shoes. Ackerman became a suspect after he allegedly signed into several open houses using his middle name and made enquiries about rare art works. Many of the homes Ackerman was said to have visited later had their surveillance cameras tampered with or destroyed as burglaries were carried out, according to police. Sometimes they were just ripped out and other times the cameras would simply go black until several hours after the burglary occurred, Detective Timmons said. Targeted: Jason Derulo / PA Of the suspect, he added: When he showed up he was dressed to the nines. He acted the part. He was very slick. He said nobody challenged him or sought to verify who he was. Detective Timmons said Derulos $3 million (2.4 million) castle-style home in the Tarzana district was ransacked in September 2017, with the burglar getting away with $400,000 in cash and jewellery. In March last year, Usher had $800,000 worth of valuables stolen from his $4.2 million mansion overlooking the Sunset Strip, which was on the market at the time. Six watches, a necklace and $20,000 in cash were also taken. Detectives were still trying to determine how the burglaries were carried out and if more than one person was involved. A serial killer dubbed Chinas Jack the Ripper has been executed after a series of gruesome rapes and murders of women and girls over period of more than a decade. Gao Chengyong followed his victims home before robbing and raping them, slitting their throats and mutilating their bodies. The horrific incidents happened between 1988 and 2002. Many of his victims were wearing red when their mutilated bodies were discovered. In total he murdered 11 women and girls, the youngest of which was eight years old. Gao, 53, a married father-of-two, was sentenced to death last year and news of his execution was detailed on a Baiyin courts blog on Thursday. The method used for the killers execution was not immediately clear, but death sentences in the country are mostly carried out by a firing squad or by lethal injection. It was reported that women in Baiyin, where Gao carried out his attacks, would not walk alone in the streets without being accompanied by male relatives or friends after the killings. Police said in 2004 they were looking for a suspect with a "sexual perversion" who "hates women". "He's reclusive and unsociable, but patient," they added. Gao was arrested at a grocery store he ran with his wife after police offered a 23,000 reward and re-examined DNA using new technology. His arrest came after a DNA test when his uncle was arrested for a minor crime, China Daily reported. The DNA sample showed the alleged killings must have been committed by a relative. The man's first alleged killing took place in May 1988 - the year his first son was born - when a 23-year-old woman was found in the city of Baiyin. She had been stabbed 23 times. A n arson probe has been launched into a blaze at a self-storage warehouse which destroyed the belongings of hundreds of families and obliterated the stock of a string of small businesses. Among those counting the cost are a party business owner who lost her collection of princess costumes, a designer whose artwork was incinerated, and an antiques dealer. Fire crews and police were still at the Shurgard warehouse in Purley Way, Croydon, today more than 72 hours after the fire tore through the building from 7.45pm on New Years Eve. More than 120 firefighters battled to extinguish the blaze which spread to all 1,200 units, destroying property worth millions of pounds. Luxury retail worker Norman Noel, 58, and his family lost thousands of pounds worth of goods including stereo equipment, guitars, a piano, hundreds of vinyl records and priceless mementoes. Mr Noel married Heather 20 years ago and they have two daughters Courtney, 23, and Estelle, 18. For the past year Mr Noel had rented a 40 sq ft space for 87 a month to store items that would not fit in the familys two-bedroom flat in Croydon. Memories: Heather Noels wedding dress and photos were lost in the fire He said: My daughters first hair clipping, her first tooth and my wifes wedding dress. All the wedding memorabilia, videos and CDs. Its a tragedy All those memories have been wiped out. The premises is now just mangled pieces of metal. Shurgard insists all customers insure their items, via their household contents insurance or with a 3-a-week policy through an affiliate company, but claims are expected to be protracted as the arson investigation continues. Abby-Rose Adams, 24, who runs a childrens party business, lost more than 30 costumes including hand-stitched gowns. Narise Joyram, 20, whose parents died five years ago, said: The last five years have been nothing but hardship. I cannot begin to tell you the effect losing my things is having I feel I am back at square one. Nicola Barker, who is temporarily living with her mother, said: My three children have lost everything in the fire. All we have is clothes and a bunk bed. Crispin Lewis, 43, who is in the process of moving house, said: Im still in shock its just me and my suitcase. Im having to start again. Gemma Webb lost her antiques company Emporium 168 in the blaze, and art business Design For Today lost 100,000 worth of books and stock. Shurgard began contacting keyholders last night to update them. A spokesman said the firm was devastated. Assistant Commissioner Graham Ellis of the London Fire Brigade described the blaze as very challenging. A ll hail Next, king of the High Street. That was how the markets treated Britains most respected retailers Christmas sales figures on Thursday. No doubt, as bricks and mortar retailers have been enduring the toughest trading conditions ever, the absence of a major profit warning from Lord Wolfsons crew deserves credit. But if you look beyond the mere 1% cut to its profit forecast for the year, there is much to trouble retail investors. First, the obvious: Nexts overall sales may have held up, but only because of strong online growth. Full price High Street sales fell 9.2% in the past three months, accelerating the decline earlier in the year. Second, a newer factor: even at slick Next, clothing sales slipped in its product mix. Christmas gifts (monogrammed teddy bears and the like) and beauty products rose in the sales blend. Next, like other fashion chains, makes far bigger margins on mass-ordered, Bangladesh-made fashion than make-up, made under contract in Ipswich. Wolfson says this was small beer, but what if other retailers have been tempted to plump up sales with such thin margin gruel? Third, higher online sales mean higher overheads 2.5 million in Nexts case. Even for companies coping well with the move from the High Street to online, the transition is not without its difficulties. Cooks offerings are really just a bit rich Tim Cook blames Donald Trump for Apples disappointing performance in the past few months. The China trade wars were a key reason for his companys shock sales fall because it caused a major slowdown in the worlds most populous country. Hmm. Its true that China is slowing, but Cook hasnt helped himself by charging obscene prices for phones not hugely different from the one you bought two years ago. He tries to blame this on the strong dollar and mobile networks reluctance to subsidise Apple products in their packages, but those are just excuses. It is he who pushes through big price increases with every upgrade. The approach cant work forever, even on Apples lotus-eater fans. The iPhoneXS Max essentially a slightly quicker version of 2017s iPhoneX with a better camera starts at 1099. Yes, you did read that correctly; eleven-hundred quid for a phone. For context, Huaweis arguably better Mate 20 Pro is 200 cheaper. Thats why folks in China arent buying your kit, Tim. Cook has been quietly offering discounts on the new phones, but you get the sense that hell have to take far more radical action after todays shock figures; either chop prices, or scale back production to stoke up demand among the devotees. Grace Kelly had the unique distinction of being both Hollywood and Monegasque royalty. The Rear Window actress who was born in Philadelphia was a silver screen icon by her mid-twenties, known for her elegant, preppy look, and the pristine white gloves she wore to auditions. Grace Kelly's style didn't change much after she found fame - clean lines, elaborate gowns, and old Hollywood glamour looks that are still recreated today. After she gave up her Hollywood career to marry Prince Rainier III of Monaco, Princess Grace remained so effortlessly chic one of the most famous Hermes bags would be named in her honor - the Kelly. We've rounded up her best quotes, looks, and moments, from her early studio days to her life as European royalty. Young Grace Kelly and the Philadelphia years People. Fashion. Power. Delivered weekly. Email Sign up Sign up I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice {{message}} {{permutiveUid}} {{message}} Grace Kelly's style was pretty regal, even before tiaras became a wardrobe staple. Kelly was born in Philadelphia in 1929 but her lifestyle took her far from her Philly roots. Grace Kelly as a child / Sipa/Rex/Shutterstock My father had a very simple view on life: you don't get anything for nothing. Everything has to be earned, through work, persistence and honesty, the Philadelphia-native said about her family. Growing up, Kelly's early ambition was to be a ballerina, but she became too tall to dance professionally. She turned to modelling in print advertisements for soap brands like Cashmere Bouquet, before kicking off a stage career. Kelly is known to have worn white gloves when she auditioned and minimal makeup, showcasing her elegant, conservative style. I favor pearls on screen and in my private life, she has said. Grace Kelly movies - and that accent Before she was cast in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window - the movie that would change her career and define her style - Kelly had only appeared in four movies. Despite her legacy as a screen icon, she only appeared in 11 films in total during her entire career (a relatively small number for a silver screen star). Grace Kelly in Rear Window (Getty) Rear Window premiered in 1954, with Grace Kelly starring as Lisa Carol Fremont in pearls and a now-famous black and white ballgown. Celebrated costume designer Edith Head was responsible for her Rear Window ensembles, and would go on to design many of her most iconic outfits, including the blue chiffon ballgown in To Catch a Thief. Head is also famous for styling Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday and Sabrina - with 35 Oscar nominations, she's still the most honored costume designer in Academy Awards history. "I've dressed thousands of actors, actresses and animals, but whenever I am asked which star is my personal favorite, I answer, 'Grace Kelly.' She is a charming lady, a most gifted actress and, to me, a valued friend," Head said about the superstar. Grace Kelly dancing with Frank Sinatra / Getty Images Grace entered into a seven-year contract with MGM, starring alongside Cary Grant, Bing Crosby, and Frank Sinatra. She worked with Alfred Hitchock on her most notable films, including Dial M For Murder and To Catch A Thief. Mr. Hitchcock taught me everything about cinema" Kelly said about the director, "It was thanks to him that I understood that murder scenes should be shot like love scenes and love scenes should be shot like murder scenes." One of her most iconic turns was as a chic heiress in Alfred Hitchcocks To Catch a Thief. I deliberately photographed Grace Kelly ice-cold and I kept cutting to her profile, looking classical, beautiful, and very distant. And then, when Cary Grant accompanies her to the door of her hotel room, what does she do? She thrusts her lips right up to his mouth, Hitchcock famously said about Kelly and Grant's first kiss in the movie. Grace Kelly with Alfred Hitchcock in Cannes / Corbis via Getty Images Kelly also developed a signature accent, which was far from the "cheese steak, water ice" intonation made famous by Philadelphians. We noticed that her voice was beginning to change. Instead of her old nasal whine, she was speaking in a lower, gentler register. Her sisters would make fun of her, but she would say, 'I must talk this way - for my work.' They saw that she was serious and stopped joking, her mother would later say. Grace Kellys Academy Award In 1955 Kelly won an Academy Award for The Country Girl. The thrill of this moment keeps me from saying what I really feel, she said in her acceptance speech, Next year, it will be somebody else. I'm delighted it's me right now, she said. Grace Kelly after winning an Oscar for The Country Girl / The LIFE Picture Collection/Gett Becoming Princess of Monaco Grace Kelly on set in 1955 / Getty Images Kelly met Prince Rainier III of Monaco in 1955, while she was promoting To Catch A Thief in Cannes. After a year-long correspondence the pair married in 1956 and Kelly became Princess Grace of Monaco - a little like another actress we can name who recently became a royal family member. The Kelly-Rainier wedding was a press event for the ages. Nearly 2,000 journalists and photographers ventured to the cathedral to capture the nuptials, which were also filmed by MGM and broadcast live in Europe. Grace Kelly on her wedding day / AFP/Getty Images The gown Kelly wore for her big day was gifted to her by MGM and was created by costume designer Helen Rose on behalf of the studio. Academy Award-winning Rose had worked with Kelly before, dressing her in four films, including High Society. Kelly's elaborate wedding dress, which has inspired plenty of copycat looks over the years, featured a delicate lace bodice with floral motifs, seed pearls, and ruffled petticoats under the silk skirt. The dress is now housed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, although it's not currently on display. Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier on their wedding day in 1956 / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images When Princess Grace married Prince Rainier, she said I told the Prince that we're not impressed by royalty, referring to her and her fathers way of thinking, we're impressed by the man. Marriage is not a game of musical chairs with us. We play for keeps. Like Meghan Markle's meaningful veil, Princess Grace's veil was designed in a particular way too, with a circular shape intended to keep her face as visible as possible to those watching at the cathedral and at home - once a movie star, always a movie star. Grace Kelly's Hermes handbag Grace Kelly with her Hermes bag / Getty Images When Princess Grace of Monaco became pregnant with her daughter Caroline, she used an Hermes bag as a makeshift shield to hide her stomach. The bag was eventually named the Kelly and its just as covetable today. Princess Graces go-to bags were both made with crocodile skin, one in dark brown and one navy. Grace Kelly death and lasting legacy Princess Grace died suddenly in 1982 while she was driving with her daughter Stephanie in Monte Carlo. A scan later revealed she had suffered two brain haemorrhages. She was just 52 when she died. Graces three children, and now grandchildren, help keep her legacy alive. Her granddaughter Camille Gottlieb also looks quite a lot like her. Kelly's life was also portrayed by Nicole Kidman in the 2014 biopic Grace of Monaco. A long-lost painting will go on show in the capital this month after it was tracked down almost 4,000 miles away thanks to the Evening Standard. Our story about the National Army Museums search for a missing canvas by Sir Alfred Munnings was spotted by a reader in Canada who, from the description, recognised the work as one hanging at his local art gallery. Now a reproduction of the portrait will go on show at the museum, alongside more than 40 other works Sir Alfred painted during his time as a war artist on the Western Front. The exhibition recreated his 1919 Royal Academy exhibition, but curator Emma Mawdsley was left one canvas short. No trace could be found of the painting which vanished after the original show closed a century ago. Experts did not even know what it looked like and only had a very brief description of it in the original catalogue as a portrait of Brigadier-General Patersons Mare Peggy. They appealed for the publics help and hung an empty frame on the gallery wall where the painting would have been. The campaign was spotted by a Canadian art-lover who told them the missing image was in the collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Nicole Fletcher, collections manager at the gallery, said the popular work was given to them by the officers children in 1984. She said: I read through the acquisition correspondence with Patersons children and they were very attached to the work. It seemed like they didnt really want to let the work go but they donated anyway because they wanted more people to be able to enjoy it for its artistic merit and historical value. So Im happy that it is getting a wider audience now. Sir Alfred, whose equestrian paintings sell for millions of pounds, served as an official war artist and most of the RA paintings are in the collection of the Canadian War Museum which lent them to National Army Museum for the UK exhibition. His early years as a struggling artist were portrayed by actor Dominic Cooper in the film Summer In February. The show at the National Army Museum in Chelsea runs until March 3. W hen retailer Next opened a big new shop on Oxford Street recently it promised shoppers that it would be the kind of place youll actually want to hang out. If that sounded a bit desperate, then it was meant to be. The bosses at Next know that the days when people would come to its stores simply to buy clothes are over. It needs to tempt them in with something else. Hows that strategy working? Not so well, as results from the business today confirmed. Sales in its 540 shops dropped 9.2 per cent in the last months of the year compared with the year before, while online turnover was up 15 per cent. Overall, Next is doing fine but its shops are not. Its smart flagship on Oxford Street may have a future but plenty of others in the chain may close soon. Digital sales are taking over. Does it matter? Perhaps not to customers who just want choice and good deals. Nostalgists for the high street forget that it wasnt always much fun trawling around stores in search of necessities and that people are moving online for a reason: its easier. But busy shops provide jobs and tax revenues in a way digital sales often dont, and no one wants to see derelict high streets. So whats the answer? First, shops have to offer something you cant get online, which means individuality and interest. Big shops selling boring things you can order at lower prices on a smartphone dont really deserve a future. Second, planners need to help high streets change. That might mean homes and offices as well as retail. They need to be flexible. Third, shopping streets need to be easy to get to and pleasant to visit. Next opened its new store on Oxford Street last autumn because it expected new Elizabeth line services would bring customers in to central London but now its opening date has been delayed by at least a year. On top of that, Westminster council put a brake on plans to pedestrianise parts of the route. The result is that what is Europes biggest shopping destination is still served by overcrowded Tube trains and narrow pavements, hemmed in by polluting buses and taxis. Air quality there remains terrible. Sorting these things out will make it a better place to visit and bring people back to its shops. Meanwhile, who can blame customers for ordering online instead? MPs must lead on Brexit What is Labours position on Brexit? It doesnt really have one. What will it do if the Prime Ministers withdrawal deal falls apart when it is finally voted on in the Commons this month? No one can say. Jeremy Corbyn gives every sign of wanting Britain to leave the European Union, even as poll after poll shows Labour voters and members want to stay in the EU. One this week found 72 per cent of Labour members back a second referendum. So do lots of trade unions. So will the party leadership crack? People have been predicting it for months but nothing has shifted. And at least until the Commons vote comes, it is the Prime Minister who has been feeling the pressure. That might be about to change but dont bet on the Opposition taking a lead. So if Brexit drift is to be broken, MPs need to take charge. As the Labour MP Chris Leslie writes for the Evening Standard today , if both the Government and Labour front benches refuse to act, can backbench MPs move things forward? Yes, they could. For a start, MPs could end the absurdity of preparing for a no- deal disaster by voting to block one. MPs come back to work on Monday. They need to show their teeth right away. TODO: define component type apester London takes New York Three British shows are storming Broadway: last week Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, The Ferryman and Network contributed to a record-breaking week, with 378,910 tickets sold for all shows. Its a reminder of the strength of Londons theatres and their economic impact, too. Its also good to see the traffic goes both ways: Hamilton hit London from New York. J anuary will be the month when Brexits fate is sealed. Despite Theresa May deferring the vote on her deal in the hope it could be reopened, EU representatives, unsurprisingly, havent rushed to renegotiate over Christmas. So she faces an unavoidable Commons vote in the week beginning January 14, which should finally see Parliament reject her widely unpopular proposal. After defeat, the Prime Minister could plead further with the EU, or she could do the right thing and give the public the final say on Brexit. More likely, she will play for time, refusing to let Parliament go forward. Her intransigence is mirrored by a Labour front bench still trying to avoid taking a position. Its been likely for a while that MPs wont reach a consensus and ministers would have to request an extension of the Article 50 timetable which is, of course, only viable for a democratic exercise like a Peoples Vote. Im convinced that with the PMs proposal no longer on the table, many more Conservative MPs will agree we should again ask the public, and if Labour whips provide support, a Peoples Vote could happen. But heres the problem: if both the Government and Labour front benches refuse to act, can backbench MPs move things forward? Ministers control the allocation of time for almost all Commons business. So even if there is a notional majority of MPs in favour of a Peoples Vote, it can only happen if ministers provide the opportunity for a vote in Parliament. If No 10 chooses to, it can refuse to allocate Opposition Days or Backbench Business Days. It can even hold back legislation, as it is doing with the Trade Bill in the Lords. But MPs could take matters into their own hands. Thanks to a previous backbench rebellion, the law forces ministers to table a motion in the Commons if the PMs deal falls. MPs could insert an amendment instructing the Government to act, or use other opportunities to generate additional motions and amendments, as with my amendment to next Tuesdays Finance Bill. Of course, if the Commons resolves to instruct ministers, they could try to ignore it. If they do, MPs can hold the Government in contempt. This hasnt always worked: Labours front bench contempt motion fell short last month as it lacked any penalty on the Government. Ministers just shrugged it off. That mustnt be allowed to happen again. If the Commons passes a resolution instructing ministerial action, it must be fulfilled or risk real sanctions with bite. For example, MPs should refuse to supply the cash to pay ministerial salaries. And that would be just the start. It is time for Parliament to show its teeth. We cant afford to wait while the PM and Labour leadership prioritise their own political calculations over the countrys future. The country is crying out for real leadership and Parliament must provide it. W eve got to do something, a Square Mile CEO says about preparations for Brexit. Weve had a lot of meetings about contingency planning. But its supposed to be happening this year now in only a few months. And weve still got no idea what the hell to do. The future of Britains relationship with Europe might be the biggest political spectator sport for decades but for bosses of UK PLC, from start-up founders to corporates, the rapidly-shortening odds on No Deal mean contingency planning is getting deadly serious. The big Parliamentary vote on a deal that will most likely be lost comes on January 14. Then what? At first, CEOs were hysterical especially in the City. Banks threatened to move thousands of staff, Vodafone claimed it was looking at moving its headquarters abroad and manufacturers including aviation giant Airbus said they could have to pull out of the UK entirely. But so far, firms have mainly tinkered to allow EU trading to continue, rather than upping sticks. European banks including UBS and Deutsche Bank are moving departments out; US giants like Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Bank of America are relocating hundreds of staff to Paris, Frankfurt and Dublin to continue to serve clients. Insurers including Admiral, AIG and Hiscox are also shifting policies with EU clients to subsidiaries elsewhere in Europe mainly Luxembourg, Dublin and Brussels. Lloyds of London whose departing chief executive Inga Beale dubbed Brexit one of the biggest risks to the global economy picked an extra base in Belgium to ensure business as usual post-Brexit. The initial hysteria has calmed down, says David Buik, the City veteran now at spread better Core Spreads. Most of those transferring out of London are not movers and shakers they are administrative. Why would London surrender chunks of business to Mickey Mouse centres like Frankfurt population: 750,000 or Paris, which ranks about No 22 in the financial league table? But Theresa Mays Brexit impasse in Parliament and Brussels has thrown corporate contingency planners into overdrive. Anna Tobin of business planning group Ready for Brexit says. As the chance of No Deal has escalated, and the Cabinet ramped up No Deal planning, contingency planners budgets have been expanding: more staff, more prominence. As one CEO put it to us, my loyalty is to my company, and I have to make sure it remains successful and profitable after Brexit. The banks are racing ahead with plan Bs (and Cs, and Ds), according to Ian Mason, head of financial services at law firm Gowling WLG. Early talks about how little of their headquarters function they could get away with moving to Luxembourg, Frankfurt or Dublin to qualify for regulation there are developing. The political impasse means many financial services companies are not just preparing for a hard Brexit but are already implementing their plans on this basis. When a multinational wants to move some or all of its UK business to a new country, it sniffs around a lot first. Since the referendum vote, advisory firm Wilbury Stratton has seen a sharp rise in large firms including FTSE 100 clients commissioning location analysis detailed reports based on researchers conversations with potential staff, businesses, recruiters and local politicians. Most of this contingency planning has been from financial services, says managing director Dan Chester. Ready for Brexit reckons most London firms attitudes to contingency planning fall into three categories: Proactives large companies who are used to scenario planning; Watch & Waiters, who wont act until we know what Brexit will mean, and the Fatigued, mostly SMEs, who have disengaged because they are not getting the practical advice they need. At Clerkenwell product design firm Fluxx, boss Paul Dawson puts it more bluntly: Plans suck. None of us know whats going to happen with Brexit yet, so instead were focusing on being ready to adapt quickly when the time comes working more outside of the EU, sponsoring our first non-EU workers on expert visas, monetising our new office in other ways, like as a co-working space for start-ups. But theres also legal gruntwork to do: Ensuring contracts are valid, supply chains robust or staffing secure, identifying which products are big earners, and making sure these (above any others) reach customers, says James Stewart, head of Brexit at KPMG. But he is also warning clients to prepare for a potentially lean period post-Brexit advising them to consider delaying investment, cutting back on discretionary spending and stretching out payment terms to suppliers. Just-in-time manufacturers are under particular pressure as west Londons food businesses fret over delay-struck perishables piling up amid delays at the Channel. In Ladbroke Grove, Innocent Smoothies boss Douglas Lamont buys more than 70 million of fruit, mostly in Rotterdam, each year. If his pineapples and pears go mouldy at the border, his 370 million of annual sales is threatened. Ive got fresh fruit with a 48-hour shelf life moving across the border. Any big delays will not be a good outcome for us, he says. B ank branches are being shut by the hundred across the country but at one of Londons most exclusive addresses One Hyde Park theyre still very much in demand. The Evening Standard understands that a European investor has bought Abu Dhabi Islamic Banks prestigious branch at the 1 billion development created by the property tycoon Candy brothers, for 27.5 million a 10 million rise on when it was last sold six years ago. The undisclosed buyer paid the cash to a private Turkish vendor for the ADIB branch at 100 Knightsbridge, next door to Rolexs store and McLarens supercar showroom. The new owner will get rental income of nearly 900,000 a year from the investment and the deal underlines the huge demand for commercial property in London despite Brexit uncertainties. Jonathan ORegan at selling agent Savills said: The price reflects the premium nature of the asset with One Hyde Park being Londons most recognised luxury address. E veryone in the markets is feeling a little bruised after last years rout. UK investors are on average 12% poorer, US stocks suffered their worst year since the crash. No one escaped punishment, except for one rather special group of investors. Anyone owning a hoard of EUAs thats EU Allowances, for the uninitiated is sitting on quite a windfall. These esoteric instruments tradable permits to emit carbon dioxide have soared by 200% in a year, a gain that is causing hand-wringing, nail-biting and even panic in businesses that consume a lot of energy. Its ringing alarm bells in governments from London to Warsaw and it will cause a huge political row in Westminster, if and when Britain leaves the the EU. The EUAs are traded on the ETS, Europes cap-and-trade carbon Emissions Trading System, created in 2005 as part of the EUs effort to encourage businesses to reduce their CO2 emissions. Businesses purchase a set number of allowances to emit CO2 every year; if they reduce their emissions, they can sell the allowances on the ETS. If they emit more they must buy extra allowances, thus setting the price for emitting a tonne of C02 and establishing a market cost for carbon reduction. It is the biggest such scheme in the world but in early years indulgent governments issued free permits and the EUA price fell to 5 per tonne, a level which made it profitable for power generators to burn coal rather than cleaner natural gas or renewables. After a crackdown on allowance issuance, the carbon price has soared to almost 25 per tonne. From being a bit of a joke, the ETS is now working well, too well for big electricity consumers, such as steel and chemical manufacturers who fret that power prices are soaring and allowances are expensive. Last month, Germany shut its last deep-shaft coal mine, part of Chancellor Angela Merkels commitment to end the countrys huge subsidies to the coal industry, worth 1 billion (900 million) a year, untenable if Germany is to meet its international commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Merkel is anxious about the soaring cost of German electricity, half of which is generated from renewable sources (wind and solar) and even more heavily subsidised. Its a big problem for Germany but the wasps nest of power prices will soon buzz in Britain. The cost of electricity is high in the UK, compared with competitors in Europe. On Tuesday, the Governments cap on domestic electricity prices came into force. But this will only help households on the worst variable rate deals and any saving will almost certainly vanish in a few months when Ofgem increases the cap to take soaring wholesale power prices into account. British steelmakers are up in arms; industry lobbyist UK Steel reckons its members pay power prices up to double those paid by French and German competitors. Last month UK Steel published a series of demands, asking the Government to increase exemptions from the Renewable Levy, a subsidy to pay for greener energy, and most importantly, cut the level of carbon price support. The carbon price support, at present 18 per tonne, is paid by generators and was introduced when the ETS carbon price was 5 per tonne. The view was that if the cap and trade system is to work and push the power industry towards renewables, the carbon price needed a floor. The effect was to raise immediately the cost of electricity to everyone and make it more sensible for generators to buy electricity from more expensive renewable sources, such as wind turbines, rather than cheap coal. Finally the ETS is working its market magic and the carbon price has surged. Yet, we still have the carbon price support and that means power generators are paying a total price of 40 per tonne of carbon emitted. At the end of March, Britain is set to leave the EU. In the absence of a deal, we will fall out of the EUs cap and trade carbon trading system. Hurrah, say libertarians, we can get rid of all these green taxes; electricity prices will plummet, UK steel will undercut France and grannys electricity bill will be pennies. TRUMBULL A sprawling, sparkling expanse of Canoe Brook Lake is visible from nearly every window of 3 Lantern Hill Road. Theres actually a great view from the bathroom, quipped the homes owner, Nicholas Ciccone. Ciccone doesnt like to brag, but he does firmly believe that his house, set back a bit from the lake and elevated off the ground, has a better view of Canoe Brook than homes sitting on the lake. The elevation gives it sort of a fishbowl panoramic view, he said. The lake has a fairly rich history. A man-made body of water, it dates back to the early 1890s, when the Bridgeport Hydraulic Company needed an auxiliary reservoir to supplement what was then Island Brook Reservoir, and what is now Lake Forest. According to the Canoe Brook Lake Association web page, Canoe Brook was operated as an auxiliary reservoir from 1893 to 1920, then became a primary reservoir until 1928 when the Easton Reservoir was completed. In 1956, the area was incorporated as the Canoe Brook Lake Association, which is made up of homeowners whose land was at one time part of the Bridgeport Hydraulic Company tract. Those homes include 3 Lantern Hill Road, which was built in 1958. Ciccone said when he moved in, the house was a standard, 1950s-style ranch, not unlike the one he grew up in, in Bridgeport. He said that when he moved in, the kitchen appliances were even in the same avocado green shade that his mother had in her kitchen during his youth. It was a 1958 home, he said. It was very clean, but very outdated. Every single thing was redone. That included turning the kitchen from a closed off separate room into a more modern, open-concept space that flows into a breakfast nook, with lots of natural light and a great view of the lake. Ciccone said, when he moved in, the space was very dark. The windows were painted shut, he said. Ciccone also recently finished the homes basement, which is actually above ground, making the lake visible from there as well. With his son living in Florida, Ciccone doesnt really need the 2,151square feet of living space, and is selling 3 Lantern Hill Road. The three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom home is listed at $565,000. Though he knows its the right decision, Ciccone said hell miss both the house itself and the lake it overlooks, particularly as hes heading into one of his favorite seasons for lakefront living. He said the lake is ideal for skating or ice fishing when frozen, and, if anything, wintry weather only improves the view. Its beautiful when it snows, he said. Do you know of a house or apartment building with an interesting story? Contact acuda@ctpost.com, and the home could be featured in an upcoming installment of Habitat. This appeared in Thursday's Washington Post. - - - When President Donald Trump's decision to slash U.S. troop levels in Syria and Afghanistan was revealed two weeks ago, it seemed, at least, clear-cut. The 2,000 U.S. personnel in eastern Syria, who with Kurdish and Arab allies have been fighting the Islamic State, would depart within 30 days; meanwhile, the Pentagon would prepare a plan to withdraw about half of the 14,000-plus U.S. troops in Afghanistan. By this week, however, Trump's intentions were anything but transparent. Officials were telling reporters that the Syria withdrawal would be extended over 120 days - and if Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is to be believed, there may be no firm timetable at all. After having lunch with the president on Sunday, Graham tweeted that "the President will make sure any withdrawal from Syria will . . . ensure" that the Islamic State is "permanently destroyed," Iran does not gain an advantage and "our Kurdish allies are protected." That would require far longer than 120 days. On Wednesday, Trump muddied the waters further, falsely claiming he had never said the troop withdrawal would be fast while disowning the 120-day calendar. Of Iran's role in Syria, he said, "They can do whatever they want" - thereby contradicting Graham. Trump's Afghanistan plans are even more opaque. Despite reportedly ordering the troop cut, the president has said virtually nothing about the move in public, and the commanders in Afghanistan say they have received no new orders. When Trump agreed to increase the U.S. force by 4,000 in 2017, the idea was to force the Taliban to accept a negotiated settlement. Talks between a special U.S. envoy and Taliban representatives have since gotten underway, raising hopes for a deal. Yet the president has offered no explanation for why he would order a withdrawal now, before any agreement has been reached and while Afghan government forces are struggling to hold back Taliban advances. Not only the Taliban still poses a threat. As a host of experts have pointed out in the past two weeks, Trump's claim that the Islamic State has been defeated is simply not true. Official U.S. estimates are that some 30,000 of its fighters may still be at large, spread between Iraq and Syria. Among present and former U.S. officials, there is a near-universal consensus that if the pressure on the movement is not maintained, it will quickly revive and pose "a threat to our homeland," as former CIA deputy director Michael Morell and former undersecretary of defense for intelligence Mike Vickers wrote in The Post. If Trump has quietly changed his mind in the face of such assessments, that would be welcome. But that is not clear, either. In public, Trump continues to defend the withdrawals, though without offering substantive arguments. Instead, he says he is fulfilling campaign promises and renouncing a U.S. role as "the policeman of the world." "We're no longer the suckers, folks," he told troops in Iraq - who must have wondered if they were among those "suckers." Trump owes those soldiers, and the country as a whole, a better explanation. If he believes the United States should no longer fight the Islamic State in Syria, or the Taliban and Islamic State in Afghanistan, he should deliver a substantive address to the country laying out why. He should dispatch his aides to Capitol Hill to detail his new strategy and answer questions. There would be many - which is perhaps why the president hides in the cloud of confusion he has created. Kim Caravella says she has a fire in the belly. Im passionate. I want to know everything, do everything, she declares. I want my interior designs to be the best that I can make them. Were in her office nook at the back of her recently opened boutique, Habitat Greenwich, in Cos Cob. She slides her swivel chair back and forth, forwards and backwards as she talks excitedly about her relentless pursuit for perfection. Her hands wave in the air like the wings of a sparrow fluttering at a bird feeder. She wants pieces that are beautiful, functional and so different that everyone would want them in their own home. Caravella goes far beyond choosing between Decorators White and Dove White for the walls in your kitchen. Take the Gabrielle chair in one of the shops windows. When she couldnt find a hostess chair she liked, she designed her own. The chair has delicately splayed back legs on a subtle gray base, blue-on-white fabric from a textile artisan in Brooklyn, and utilitarian upholsterers tacks in lieu of gimp. She fussed over that chair down to an eighth of an inch, like a bride checking her appearance before walking down the aisle. You will need more than a few minutes to appreciate the chair and its unusual companions: a papier mache table, washed blue pottery, luxurious throws, a massive pendant lamp of cloth and bamboo, and a pouf fabricated from jute. A similar dichotomy plays out is a second window display where Tibetan leather market bags strike strong masculine notes against the femininity of a Bird of Paradise plant fabricated completely out of cloth. Caravelle's aesthetic is also evident in the powder room, which she loves to show off to visitors. A double soapstone sink that speaks of a country home comes to life beneath a posh pendant light made from open-weave black wicker that casts spider-web designs on ceiling and walls. Working from the ground up is Caravellas style. She studied and worked with masters in the field. She did curtains and drapes for Window Treatments in Darien, and build/design with Brooks & Orrick and Mitchell Studio in Greenwich, scouring every detail of a project from sketch to inception. Today, she brings all that she learned on the job, and all that she dreams of into her showroom, to big and small projects for her clients. Start with the layout of the floor in her office which she shares with her partner, Nicole Gannon. The end-cut oak tiles are so out-of-the-box beautiful that the design invariably draws exclamations from shoppers of I want that. In fact, those three words seem to be the mantra of this boutique. Theres lots of aged pieces cavorting with the contemporary here: an old three-legged table from Wales, its top sporting a crater in its center probably caused by candles that burned the night away; a white lamp whose base looks like an exaggerated artichoke; a pair of decorative antlers serving no other purpose perhaps other than to jazz up sedentary bookshelves; a long open-front console to show off artwork on top while diverting the eye away the radiator it hovers over; a small bureau in purple for an updated whimsical look; and lots of gray, black-and-white pillows with occasional splashes of blue or green. There are hostess gifts galore, from books, scented soaps and candles to jewelry, framed art work and vases. Each item at its essence speaks to my taste, spirit and vision to impart warmth and beauty through design into the lives of others, says this petite dynamo. She wants her shop to be a fun experience, with music playing and the space scented with subtle fragrance. I dont like to do things thats not to perfection, she states emphatically and then she tells the story of how when she was 5 years old, she was determined to learn to ride a bike. So she climbed up on the seat and pedaled away. No going down like a pin in a bowling alley. Determination and persistence is the story line of her career. It is a trajectory that took her to that window design shop when she was just 19 where she learned about jabots and swags, how deep a hem of a curtain should be, when to use cloth-covered chain at the bottom of sheers. She was still in design school, loading on another job as a waitress. In five short years, she had saved enough money to buy a house in New Canaan. Thats drive. Habitat Greenwich sits snugly in a bank of retail shops sandwiched between the firehouse and Cos Cob School. Within that strip is her husband Randys Wines and Spirits. Just a few steps further and youre into high-end fish, meat and cheese shops, as well as gelato and juice stations. And other interior designers who she views as colleagues. Its like a mini Brooklyn, exclaims a happy Kim Caravella. And then she turns serious. I believe in timeless design, says Caravella. I love really clean lines mixed with organic natural textured shapes, a mix of old world and new world. I love mixing vintage pieces and natural textures with modern pieces and elements. They all come alive and dance splendidly with one another. Habitat is at 234 E. Putnam Ave. in the Cos Cob section of Greenwich. Rosemarie T. Anner is a frequent contributor to Sunday Arts & Style. Madison, SD (57042) Today Plentiful sunshine. High around 85F. Winds ENE at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Clear skies. Low around 55F. Winds NE at 10 to 15 mph. With the exception of a big relocation within Norwalk, southwestern Connecticuts commercial real estate corridors were dominated in 2018 by smaller deals that in the aggregate failed to improve vacancy rates. In a year-end review of the regions real estate markets, Newmark Knight Frank calculated a 29 percent decline in leasing activity last year compared to 2017 for just under 3 million square feet of space, or roughly the amount needed to house more than 12,000 workers by one industry yardstick. The financial market data provider FactSet Research had the largest lease deal of the year, securing nearly 175,000 square feet of space at the former Xerox headquarters at 45 Glover Ave. in Norwalk, with plans to move out of FactSets headquarters in the nearby Merritt 7 Corporate Park while expanding to more than 1,000 employees in Norwalk. Merritt 7 is getting a significant replacement, however, with Newmark Knight Frank confirming a lease for the parent company of Reed Exhibitions, which will relocate into the 201 Merritt 7 building chosen by both Xerox and root-beer maker Reeds, the two companies unrelated. The producer of New York Comic Con and other events, Reed Exhibitions has long had its offices across the Merritt Parkway in the MerrittView office building at 383 Main Ave., where it employed 450 people at last report. No place else to go Employers continue to find ways to utilize less space, whether in office layouts, outsourcing work processes or staggering shifts and other employee arrangements. That has helped cap demand for new space, and by extension has spurred building owners to reduce their asking rents in the aggregate, by 1.7 percent as calculated by Newmark Knight Frank. Also helping is the addition of new space in downtown Stamford spurred by the former UBS building at 677 Washington Boulevard opening up to new tenants after the banks move across the street, with KPMG moving its Stamford offices there. A surge in New York City lease transactions including Amazons planned Long Island City corporate center should spur some Manhattan companies to reconsider Connecticut as a destination for major new offices, according to Jim Fagan, senior managing director in the Stamford office of Cushman & Wakefield. Theres a lot of new tenants who have interest, Fagan told Hearst Connecticut Media. There are probably seven or eight large transactions in the marketplace, over 100,000 square feet. ... I think its almost irrefutable theres no place else for them to go. Big sales in Greenwich, Danbury In dollar terms, the largest building sale of the year was a $130 million transaction for 100 W. Putnam Ave. in Greenwich, topping $820 per square foot as calculated by Newmark Knight Frank, with the $23 million sale of 1 Gorham Island in Westport a distant second at about $570 a square foot. But for sheer size, none topped the October purchase by Summit Development of the 1.2 million-square-foot Matrix Corporate Center in Danbury, which is being renamed The Ridge at Danbury. At $17 million, Fairfield-based Summit negotiated a price of $14 a square foot for The Ridge at Danbury, which it will develop for additional uses. Summit founder Felix Charney has experience with a similarly large project in Chappaqua, N.Y., converting the sprawling former Readers Digest campus into a mix of offices, apartments and retail including a new Whole Foods Market that opened recently. If Summit eliminates half of the office space at The Ridge at Danbury, it would reduce the citys office availability rate to just above 10 percent according to Newmark Knight Frank, from 27 percent today. Includes prior reporting by Paul Schott. Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman Shaheed Alhafeed, December 31, 2018 (SPS) - Saharawi mass media journalists at the Ministry of Information organized Saturday a solidarity sit-in with the intifada of independence in the occupied territories of Western Sahara and Sahrawi political prisoners in Moroccan prisons. The event was attended by members of the National Secretariat of the Polisario Front, the Government and the National Assembly, and Sahrawi journalists. A statement was read out on this occasion, in solidarity with the intifada of independence and Sahrawi political prisoners in Moroccan prisons. The participants shouted slogans in support of in solidarity with the intifada of independence and raised pictures of Saharawi political prisoners who suffer all sorts of humiliation, mistreatment and torture in Moroccan prisons. (SPS) 062/SPS/TRA A close view of an ultra-distant fossil is helping to answer questions about the formation of planets throughout the universe. NASA's New Horizons probe buzzed the outer solar-system object early on New Year's morning, making the first flyby of such a primitive object. Because 2014 MU69 has remained virtually untouched since the birth of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago, it can reveal new details about that era. Already the first puzzling photos are helping to prove models of the early solar system. New Horizons' first target, Pluto, serves as a gatekeeper to the Kuiper Belt, the band of icy rocks that encircles the solar system. MU69 lies within the most densely populated region of the belt, among other cold classical objects that have not been disturbed since their birth billions of years ago. [New Horizons' Flyby of Ultima Thule: Full Coverage] "We picked a cold classical object for a very specific region, because that's where the evidence was heading," Alan Stern, the New Horizons principal investigator and a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Colorado, told Space.com. Stern said that a mission like New Horizons was the most direct way to get information about the dawn of the solar system. New Horizons delivered. The newest images released yesterday ( Jan. 2) reveal a snowman-shaped object with two lobes, one roughly three times the size of the other. During a news conference, mission scientists said that the only way for such an object to form was by coming together at very slow speeds less than 1 mile or kilometer an hour. "If you collided with another car at those speeds, you may not even bother to fill out the insurance forms," Jeff Moore, New Horizons co-investigator from NASA's Ames Research Center in California, told the crowd. These slow formation speeds help to validate a recently proposed model of solar system formation known as pebble accretion. Under that model, the gas and dust left over from the formation of the sun slowly comes together as tiny objects, pulled by gravity. "It's incredibly satisfying to see that confirmed by the data," Stern told Space.com. "Big physics" Trying to understand how planets form is a challenge. We can't rewind the process in our own solar system, so scientists peer at the asteroids and Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) that were left behind after the planets formed. Objects like these probably started out as bits of gas and dust that were pulled together by gravity, in tiny clumps referred to as pebbles. Unlike the pebbles in your driveway, however, the pebbles of the solar system can be as large as giant boulders; the idea is that they are smaller than the planetary embryos known as planetesimals. Peering into other planetary systems can help scientists understand this period in solar system history some, but not a lot. The cloud of gas and dust that births new worlds also hides them, concealing them in a shroud of material. So researchers mostly rely on models, computer programs that work to simulate the process of planet formation. By looking at the results of planetary systems, researchers can get an idea of the limits behind their formation. In 2012, a pair of researchers from Sweden proposed the pebble accretion model, in contrast to contemporary theories suggesting gas and dust gathered together to create kilometer-size objects. The model was imperfect, and in 2015, theorist Harold Levison of SwRI suggested some refinements. The theory described how as the objects grew from centimeter-size pebbles, their gravitational fields would push and pull at one another. The nudges would have knocked some embryos out of the gas and dust, separating them from the material they needed to grow larger, while those that remained in the disk gorged on pebbles to grow into planets. The most recent images of MU69, which the team has nicknamed Ultima Thule, seem to prove the pebble accretion theory, Levison said. The two small objects on the KBO bumped at slow speeds that suggest a relatively calm period of accretion, when pieces of material are piling onto one another, rather than a fast and dangerous birth. Levison, who is not a member of the New Horizons team, is the principal investigator for an upcoming mission to one of the asteroids around Jupiter. "The big news is the accretion story," Cathy Olkin, New Horizons' deputy project scientist at SwRI, told Space.com. That picture of how solar system objects formed is supported by the fact that the object's two distinct lobes are joined by a narrow neck rather than a thick, unwieldy one. Pebble accretion might also help explain why MU69 has no apparent satellites, despite the fact that the team anticipated finding large rocks or moons in orbit in the years and months leading up to the flyby. "It's really astounding that we don't see anything in orbit," Stern said. According to Levison, if MU69's bilobed shape was formed by pebble accretion, the process would have ejected smaller leftovers that didn't accrete onto the KBO fairly quickly, leaving no satellites for New Horizons to spot. Of course, it's still possible that newer, better resolved images that will be sent to Earth in the coming days may reveal such satellites. The preliminary findings, however, seem to make MU69 a smoking gun for pebble accretion, providing an observational match to what was last week only a theory. That find alone has important scientific implications, and the rest of the information New Horizons will unveil over the next two years will surely shed even more light on the process. "This is big physics, [as if it were] a particle detector and we just now found the Standard Model," Stern said with a large grin, referring to the theory of fundamental particles and how they interact. "I think we should be nominated as a mission for a Nobel Prize," he said. Follow Nola Taylor Redd on Twitter @NolaTRedd. Follow us on Twitter@Spacedotcom and on Facebook. Original article on Space.com. HELSINKI, Finland China's Chang'e-4 spacecraft made the first ever soft-landing on the far side of the moon Wednesday (Jan. 2) in a mission investigating the history of the solar system and paving the way for future exploration. The 1,200-kilogram dry mass Chang'e-4 lander touched down at 177.6 degrees east longitude and 45.5 degrees south within Von Karman crater at 9:26 p.m. Eastern, according to an announcement from the China National Space Administration (CNSA). The spacecraft began its descent at 9:15 p.m. from a perilune of 15 kilometers with a burn of its single main variable thruster before entering approach, hazard avoidance and slow descent phases, with a descent camera returning images of the approaching surface. [China's Chang'e 4 Moon Far Side Mission in Pictures] The lander and the companion 140-kilogram rover, which is expected to be deployed within the coming hours, will work toward science goals including analyzing the lunar surface and subsurface composition, assessing the radiation environment and its interaction with the regolith and low frequency radio astronomy, as well as returning high-resolution images from terrain and panoramic cameras. The first image of the moon's far side taken by China's Chang'e 4 probe, which touched down on Jan. 2, 2019 (Jan. 3 Beijing time). (Image credit: CNSA) The 186-kilometer-diameter Von Karman crater containing the landing site is situated within the 2,500-kilometer-wide South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, which is one of the oldest and largest impact craters in the solar system. The basin could contain exposed material from the moon's upper mantle and promises clues to the history and development of the solar system. A sample return from the SPA basin has been noted as a priority in past U.S. Planetary Science Decadal Surveys. The mission launched Dec. 8 and had been in lunar orbit since Dec. 12, where it tested communications and refined its orbit in preparation for a landing timed to follow sunrise over the target site, allowing the mainly solar-powered craft to begin operations immediately. A view of the surface of Von Karman crater from the Chang'e-4 lander descent camera. (Image credit: CNSA/CLEP) Chang'e-4 is the repurposed backup spacecraft to the Chang'e-3 mission, which landed on Mare Imbrium on the near side in December 2013, making China only the third country to soft-land on the moon. While the Chang'e-3 rover, on which the Chang'e-4 is based, traveled just 114 meters before being rendered immobile on Mare Imbrium in early 2014, officials with the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), the spacecraft's manufacturer, have stated that the issue has been identified and addressed and that the new rover has been upgraded for greater reliability and longevity. The landing comes ahead a wave of renewed interest in lunar exploration, with NASA, ESA, Russia, India and private companies working on a range of missions. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) also announced Wednesday that it plans to launch the Chang'e-5 near side sample return mission with the second of two planned Long March 5 heavy-lift rocket launches in 2019. Far side communications and landing challenges A render of the Chang'e-4 rover on the lunar surface, released Aug. 15, 2018. (Image credit: CASC) Targeting the far side of the moon, which due to tidal locking never faces the earth, required the prior launch of a relay satellite to the second Earth-moon Lagrange point some 65,000-85,000 kilometers beyond the moon to facilitate communications. Named Queqiao ('Magpie bridge' from Chinese mythology), the satellite has been in a halo orbit around this gravitationally stable libration point since June, from which has constant line-of-sight with both the terrestrial tracking stationssituated in China, Namibia and Argentinaand the lunar far side. Apollo 17 Crew member and geologist Harrison Schmitt had recommended the final mission of NASA crewed landing program target the Tsiolkovskiy crater on the far side using a relay satellite, but the suggestion was rejected on grounds of risk and cost. The more rugged and variable lunar far side topography and near absence of dark, basaltic plains or maria, demanded upgrades to the Chang'e-4 guidance, navigation and control systems, a much smaller landing footprint and more vertical and accurate powered descent than the predecessor mission. The landing will also assist in the execution of the country's future lunar exploration plans, including sample returns and polar landings in preparation for a potential human outpost. Ian Crawford, professor of planetary science and astrobiology at Birkbeck, University of London, told SpaceNews ahead of the event that a safe landing would be a "fantastic achievement." "This will give valuable information on the composition of the far side crust and, conceivably, the upper mantleThe radio astronomy experiments are also of great interest, which may lay a foundation for the development of lunar far side radio astronomy," Crawford said. Chang'e-4 science goals China's Chang'e series of lunar probes are part of a series leading up to ultimately returning samples of moon rock to the Earth. See how China's lunar exploration program aims for the moon in this Space.com infographic (Image credit: By Karl Tate, Infographics Artist) Robert F. Wimmer-Schweingruber of the University of Kiel, Germany, which led the development of the Lunar Lander Neutrons and Dosimetry (LND) experiment, told SpaceNews that LND can, "help us understand the radiation which lunar soils and rocks are exposed to and to detect sub-surface water." "Its main purpose, however, is to prepare for human exploration of the moon by measuring the radiation to which astronauts will be exposed," says Wimmer-Schweingruber, and specifically the neutron dose rate on the surface of the moon. LND is one of four international payloads involved in the Chang'e-4 mission, along with the Advanced Small Analyzer for Neutrals (ASAN) from Sweden aboard the rover, the Netherlands-China Low-Frequency Explorer (NCLE) on Queqiao and a small camera on the Longjiang-2 microsatellite. James Head, a planetary scientist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, told SpaceNews in December that the Lunar Penetrating Radar (LPR), an instrument also aboard the Chang'e-3 rover, will provide images of the structure of the lunar soil layers and any subsurface lava flow units. The Visible and Near-Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (VNIS), likewise installed on the mobile rover, will allow analysis of the mineralogy of the floor of Von Karman crater and ejecta delivered by later, nearby impacts, according to Head. The Low Frequency Spectrometer (LFS) payload on the Chang'e-4 lander will make astronomical observations in low frequency bands in a unique radio-quiet environment free of interference from the earth. Another payload included in the mission through an outreach initiative is a small biosphere containing Arabidopsis and potato seeds along with silkworm cocoons, designed and developed in collaboration with 28 Chinese universities. The experiment will be a pioneering test of photosynthesis and respiration in the one-sixth Earth gravity lunar environment, with a possible live steam to the 3-kilogram, 0.8-liter capacity cannister. Anna-Lisa Paul, space biologist and research at University of Florida-Gainesville, told SpaceNews that the experiment will be unique, despite awealth of experiments that have grown plants and invertebrates in habitats on the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station, MIR, Skylab and others. "We already know that plants, including Arabidopsis and potato, and silkworms do just fine in the microgravity of the spaceflight environments, so a climate-controlled biosphere on the surface of the moon will probably be reasonably benign, yet it is huge from the perspective that it has not been done." This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry. The surface features of Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule (2014 MU69) are coming into focus in these images taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during its historic flyby on Jan. 1, 2019. These images, released Jan. 2, were taken a day earlier from a distance of 18,000 miles (28,000 kilometers) with a scale of 730 feet (140 meters) per pixels. Names matter, even when they're temporary nicknames for objects 4.1 billion miles (6.6 billion kilometers) away from Earth. Just such a nickname Ultima Thule (pronounced TOOL-ie), for New Horizons' recent flyby target, 2014 MU69 stirred controversy on Twitter late last night and early today (Jan. 1 and 2). NASA's New Horizons mission flew by the object early on Jan. 1, and the maneuver's science data will reach Earth over the course of nearly two months. Those concerns were apparently prompted by an article I wrote for Newsweek in March, immediately after the nickname was announced, after searching for the term in Google Scholar and discovering references to the Nazi party on the first page of results. At the time, and again today, New Horizons personnel defended the choice, citing its original connotations. "I sort of thought we might get that question," mission principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute said after a reporter asked about the name's criticisms during a news conference held today to present the first high-resolution images and preliminary science results from the flyby. [New Horizons' Historic Flyby of Ultima Thule: Full Coverage] "I've said it a number of times, I think New Horizons is an example one of the best examples in our time of raw exploration, and the term Ultima Thule, which is very old, many centuries old, possibly over a thousand years old, is a wonderful meme for exploration," Stern said. "That's why we chose it. I would say that just because some bad guys once liked that term, we're not going to let them hijack it." The statement was greeted by applause from news conference attendees. During his science presentation, Stern also referred to the two lobes of the space rock as "Ultima" (the larger lobe) and "Thule" (the smaller one). In its original use, the term Ultima Thule is ancient, first used during the Roman Empire and also popular during the medieval period, referencing lands that are both very distant and very cold which the Kuiper Belt object of course is. But centuries later, Nazis appropriated the term to apply to a mythological Aryan homeland, incorporating it into their racist and anti-Semitic worldview. In March, NASA and the New Horizons team announced their decision to use Ultima Thule as a nickname for the second stop on their solar system tour, which is officially known as 2014 MU69, a formula that designates when it was discovered. (The nickname was never meant to be permanent nomenclature, which will need to be approved by the International Astronomical Union, the group that governs names in outer space. The New Horizons team wanted to wait until this year, after the flyby, to submit a formal naming petition in part so it could reflect how many objects actually make up 2014 MU69.) "Ultima Thule" was one of 37 contenders that the New Horizons team selected from 34,000 public suggestions and put to the vote. Other options people could vote for included Ano Nuevo, Denali, Lewis & Clark, Peanut/Almond/Cashew and Terra Nova. At the end of that process, it ranked 7th, but the team chose it over the more popular options. "I had never heard the term Ultima Thule before we had our naming campaign," Mark Showalter, a planetary astronomer at the SETI Institute and investigator on the New Horizons mission who led the naming process, told me at Newsweek in March. "'Beyond the limits of the known world' that's such a beautiful metaphor for what we're doing this year." (Stern also responded to my interview request but was preparing to board an airplane.) When asked about the Nazis' use of the term, Showalter confirmed that he was aware of the usage and said that the New Horizons team and NASA, including its legal department, decided that the original meaning was more prominent and outweighed the less savory connotations. (One scholar I spoke with in March who has researched the term Ultima Thule in another context agreed that the Nazi connotation is not as well-known as other uses of the words.) In March, Showalter seemed to emphasize frustration at the object's formal name as much as enthusiasm for the specific nickname the team settled on. "We're very, very tired of talking about 2014 MU69," Showalter said in March. "Any name is better than 2014 MU69." Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us @Spacedotcom and Facebook. Original article on Space.com. If liquid water exists on the surface of Mars, it is most likely in the form of a briny mixture with magnesium chlorate salts, according to new experiments based on discoveries previously made by NASA's Phoenix and Viking landers, as well as the Curiosity rover. Scientists at the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle, studied mixtures of water with salts known to exist on Mars, to figure out which were most likely to be liquid on Mars' surface. The experiments compared the vapor pressure and water-absorbing ability of the salt solutions. The results suggest that water mixed with magnesium chlorate would be less likely to evaporate or freeze on Mars compared with water mixed with sodium or potassium chlorate. The findings were presented in the September 2018 issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters. Gases, liquids and solids The 'triple point' of a substance is the temperature and pressure at which it can co-exist in all three phases: gas, liquid and solid. For water, the triple point is found at 0.01 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) and 6.12 millibar, or 0.6 percent of the atmospheric pressure at the Earth's surface. In other words, one might imagine a bucket of water at the triple point, where the water exists as ice floating on a layer of liquid water, with water vapor just above the ice that has sublimated or evaporated from it. The vapor that is in contact with the ice exerts a pressure on the ice, which we call the vapor pressure. Although in some equatorial regions on Mars optimum conditions can be just below the triple point of water, for the rest of the planet the temperatures are usually well below the triple point. When the atmospheric pressure is lower than a liquid's vapor pressure, the liquid evaporates. Pure water would rapidly evaporate under the thin Martian atmosphere, which is approximately 1 percent that of the Earth. Salt solutions, however, do not evaporate or freeze as easily, and therefore would be more likely to remain liquid on Mars. Understanding which combinations of salt and water are most likely to stay liquid could help tell us where to look for evidence of liquid water, and therefore possibly life, on the red planet. Salt solutions are hygroscopic, which means that they are good at absorbing water. Certain salts may be able to absorb even small amounts of water available on Mars. Many different kinds of salts are found on Mars, such as chlorides, sulfates, chlorates, and perchlorates. These can be found all over the Martian surface, according to data from various lander and rover missions. In 2008, the Phoenix lander's Thermal Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA), which was part of its on-board Wet Chemistry Lab, found perchlorates in soil samples from Mars' north polar region, at concentrations of 0.40.6 percent. This encouraged scientists to re-analyze data from soil samples from the Viking lander missions, which took place in the 1970s. The new analysis suggested that the soil found at Chryse and Utopia Planitiae by the Viking landers contained perchlorates at a concentration less than or equal to 0.1 percent. Then, in 2013, the Curiosity rover's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument found calcium perchlorate in soil samples from Rocknest, which is a spot within Gale Crater. Most recently, the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter detected magnesium perchlorate, magnesium chlorate and sodium perchlorate within recurring slope lineae. These are streaks running downslope during the warmer Martian season and, for a time, it was strongly thought that they were produced by running water. Because of the salts, the thin atmosphere and the frigid temperatures, any such water would likely be briny rather than pure. Although results now suggest that flows of dry material somehow produce the streaks, it remains possible that water could still exist as a liquid somewhere on the surface of Mars. Viking 2 looks out across Utopia Planitia. A recent re-analysis of Viking's data showed that it had detected perchlorates. (Image credit: NASA/JPL) Mixing salts Which of these chlorates and perchlorates would be most likely to be dissolved in water in Martian conditions? The University of Washington's Jonathan Toner and David Catling had previously modeled data from Phoenix's Wet Chemistry Lab, to understand how different salts behave in Mars' freezing temperatures. They found that the soil samples likely contained magnesium sulfate, magnesium perchlorate, sodium perchlorate, potassium perchlorate, sodium chloride and calcium carbonate. In their latest study, Toner and Catling made solutions from these salts. They found that, out of all the salt-water mixtures, the magnesium chlorate solution had the lowest vapor pressure. This means that it is least likely to evaporate or freeze and is the most likely to absorb whatever low levels of moisture are present in the Martian atmosphere. So to find liquid water on Mars, should scientists only look for sites on Mars that are rich in magnesium chlorate? "Any salts present in Mars soils will likely be as a salt mixture, so measuring the properties of these mixtures is important," says Toner. Based on the soil chemistry measured by the Phoenix lander, Toner says that sodium and magnesium chlorate mixtures are most likely, whereas calcium chlorate mixtures are unlikely to be found. "Chlorate salts could be much more abundant than perchlorates on Mars," Toner adds. "Our results indicate that chlorates may have an even greater ability to form water than perchlorates via deliquescence [i.e. absorbing moisture and dissolving in it] and ice melting." Water for life Could there be enough water in these brines to support microbial life? Studies of extremophiles grown in perchlorate and chlorate solutions suggest that microbes could survive in brines that may exist on Mars. A group of scientists led by Mark Schneegurt, a professor of biological sciences at Wichita State University in Kansas, found that several species of halotolerant, i.e. salt-tolerant bacteria, were able to grow in high concentrations of chlorate salts. "So far, we have grown bacteria in chlorates at more than half of their [lowest melting] point concentration, [which is] what we would expect on Mars," says Schneegurt. "While we have not shown that microbes can grow at the highest concentrations needed, when we started it wasn't clear that microbes could even grow in the 0.6 percent found by Phoenix. We are at greater than 25 percent right now and going higher. We have shown microbial growth under these salt conditions and these salts are common on Mars." Toner's and Catling's research was supported through NASA's Habitable Worlds Program. NASA Astrobiology provides resources for Habitable Worlds and other Research and Analysis programs within the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) that solicit proposals relevant to astrobiology research. Schneegurt's research is funded by NASA Planetary Protection Research in collaboration with NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This story was provided by Astrobiology Magazine, a web-based publication sponsored by the NASA astrobiology program. This version of the story published on Space.com. Follow us @Spacedotcom or Facebook. Georgetown, SC (29440) Today Some clouds and possibly an isolated thunderstorm late. Low 69F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight Some clouds and possibly an isolated thunderstorm late. Low 69F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%. South Bend Tribune Report South Bend Tribune SOUTH BEND South Bend police are investigating the shooting of a teen-age boy about 10:20 p.m. Wednesday on the citys south side. Officers were dispatched on a call of shots fired in the area of Michigan Street and Ewing Avenue. As they were on their way, officers received a call reporting a car with bullet holes heading north on Michigan Street from that area, according to police. The vehicle stopped at a gas station near Michigan and Monroe streets, and officers found a 17-year-old boy will a gunshot wound to the upper leg, according to police. The teen was taken to the hospital for treatment of the wound, which is considered non-life threatening, police said. The case remains under investigation. Anyone with information may contact the police department at 574-235-9201 or Crime Stoppers at 574-288-STOP. SPEAK OUT The Tribune invites readers to express their views in the Voice of the People column and in Viewpoint. Letters to the Voice of the People are limited to 200 words. Viewpoint columns should be no more than 700 words. Both Viewpoint and Voice of the People submissions are subject to editing. All submissions must include the writer's full name, which will be printed. Letters, including e-mail, which do not include the writer's street address and telephone number will not be considered for publication. This information is kept confidential but is necessary for verification purposes. Letters may be mailed to the Editorial Department, South Bend Tribune, 635 S. Lafayette Blvd., Suite 138, South Bend IN 46601; emailed to vop@sbtinfo.com, faxed to 574-236-1765, or submitted through our online form here. Due to volume, it is not possible to print all submissions. Except in special circumstances, we do not print poetry or thank-you letters. We do not print letters announcing events to come, extensive quotations from other material, open letters or form letters. Niles, above, will be served by the merger of two Michigan organizations and the creation of the Greater Niles Chamber of Commerce. FILE - In this Aug. 15, 2018 file photo, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, conducts Mass at St. Mathews Cathedral in Washington. Over the past four months, Roman Catholic dioceses across the U.S. have released the names of more than 1,000 priests and others accused of sexually abusing children in an unprecedented public reckoning spurred at least in part by a shocking grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania, an Associated Press review has found. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File) Secure access control is helping to shape the post-pandemic world With the continued rolling back of COVID restrictions in the UK, there is a palpable sense of relief. A mixture of mass vaccinations, widespread testing, and track and tracing of the infection is helping to enable a healthy bounce back for businesses with secure access control taking an important role in facilitating this. However, rather than just being a reaction to the wake of the pandemic, there is every sign that the economy, and consequently the security sector as well, are both rebuilding and reshaping for the long-term new normal. Prioritising Safety Already deemed an essential service even during the first wave of the pandemic, the security industry has of course taken a vital role in protecting people and property throughout the crisis. Now that venues in the UK are starting to reopen again, our services are key to occupancy management and ensuring that disease transmission is limited as far as possible. Access control is also key in reassuring people that their safety is a priority. Making the upgrade Its all been about choosing the most suitable components and technology that already existed with a few tweaks Businesses and organisations have a duty of care to their employees and the safety of visitors so controlling access, employing lateral flow testing, and deploying suitable Track & Trace mechanisms are all key components. I think those outside our industry are surprised to learn that most of the technology being deployed and used hasnt just magically developed since COVID appeared its all been about choosing the most suitable components and technology that already existed albeit with a few development tweaks or adjustments for the situation at hand. This includes using or installing facial recognition readers rather than using fingerprint or contact tokens, it is swapping to automatic request to exit sensors instead of buttons; it is using powered secure doors rather than having people all grab the same handle. Using mobile credentials is also a key technology choice why not use the highly secure, easy to manage, cost-effective, and of course contact-free benefits of this approach? Touchless solutions We have seen a clear shift in organisations looking to protect their staff and visitors. For instance, we have a big utility customer in Southeast Asia that has just replaced close to 200 sites using fingerprint readers with an additional facial recognition capability. We have also seen a big rise in demand for touchless request to exit sensors and Bluetooth Low Energy Readers for use with smartphone authentication. Working together Integration of security systems is of course nothing new, but in the post-pandemic or endemic age, it has perhaps never been more important. Installations need to be simple, straightforward, and rapid to help maintain safe distancing but also to ensure systems can be deployed as soon as they are needed. The world is changing and developing rapidly and there is simply no place for systems that dont work with others or cause the end-user considerable cost and inconvenience to upgrade. This flexible delivery of security solutions perfectly matches the evolving and increasing demands of the market. Its clear that end-users want systems that work well and can easily integrate with their existing systems not only security but all the other business components which work in unison with each other over a shared network. Great opportunities ahead The recent work-from-home trend is also clearly changing the way organisations and businesses interact with the built environment. Lots of companies are downsizing, offices are being split up, there is lots of revitalisation and reuse of existing office space all of which creates considerable opportunities for security providers. UK inflation more than doubled in April 2021 with unemployment figures dropping and the Pound rising in value There are also, in the UK at least, clear signs that the construction industry is rapidly growing again -with a forecast of 8% rebound and growth this year. UK inflation more than doubled in April 2021 with unemployment figures dropping and the Pound rising in value all positive signs for UK-based security providers. Undoubtedly the highly successful UK vaccination rollout has helped considerably, but there are signs that the Eurozone looks set to improve considerably over the next few months as well. Using integrated access control Undoubtedly the pandemic has made security markets around the world more aware of the benefits of integrated access control in managing the needs of the new normal COVID endemic environment. For example, as a business, we have always had keen interest from the UK healthcare sector, but over the last 12 months, we have seen a big growth in previously modest international markets including Morocco, Kuwait, Bahrain, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Thailand all of which are very keen to adopt improved access control solutions. Learning the lessons Nobody would deny the last year or so has been unprecedentedly tough on everyone, as a society we have had to make huge changes and sacrifices. Governments, organisations, and businesses all need to be better prepared in the future, to understand the things that went wrong and those that were successful. However, there is a world beyond the immediate pandemic and its effects. Flexible working practices and the changes these will have to the way we live and work will undoubtedly present great opportunities for the security sector in helping the world evolve. The pandemic has been a wake-up call for many organisations with regards to their duty of care to employees particularly when it comes to mental health and providing a sensible work/life balance. Where we work and the safety of these facilities has received far more scrutiny than before. Flexible security systems Integrated security solutions have a vital role to play in not only protecting the safety of people during the post-lockdown return to work but also in the evolution of the built environment and move towards smart cities - which inevitably will now need to consider greater flexibility in securing home working spaces rather than just traditional places of work. Importantly, powerful access control and integrated security systems need to be flexible to the uncertainties ahead. The COVID pandemic has shown that nothing can be considered certain, except the need for greater flexibility and resilience in the way we operate our professional and personal interactions. PHILIPSBURG:--- Rotary District 7020 Governor Patrick Adizua announced on December 2018 that Louis Wever a member of The Rotary Club of St. Maarten-Mid Isle is now the District Governor Nomine for Rotary District 7020 for the year 2021-2022. The Rotary Club of Sint Maarten-Mid Isle sent the proposal for Louis Wevers nomination for Rotary District Governor of District 7020 for the year 2021-2022 to the nominating committee on October 24th, 2018 with the Clubs signed resolution. Sint Maarten and Saint Martin have previously had three District Governors for District 7020. From Sint Maarten, for the Rotary year 1987-1988 was Aadu Abdel and in 1996-1997 was Reinier Heere and from Saint Martin for 2004-2005 was Dr. Victor Gibbs. The post of District Governor is held by an individual for one Rotary Year. The New Rotary Year starts on the 1st of July every year and ends on the 30th of June of the following year. District Governor Nominee Louis Wever is a member of the Paul Harris Society and is a six time Paul Harris Fellow. Louis has held the position of Club President for Mid Isle for the Rotary years 2006-2007 and 2010-2011. He has also held the post of Assistant District Governor twice, in 2007-2010 and in 2015-2016. The post of Assistant District Governor is held for a period of one to three years. Louis has been a member of Rotary for 16 years. The Rotary District 7020 consists of the following countries: Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Haiti, Jamaica, St Barths, St Maarten / St Martin, The Bahamas, Turks & Caicos and the US Virgin Islands. There are approximately 85 Clubs in District 7020 and 35,000+ clubs worldwide. Rotary is a global network of 1.2 million neighbors, friends, leaders and problem solvers who see a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change across the globe, in our communities and in ourselves. The needs spanning Rotary's six areas of focus are vast, ranging from lack of access to clean water to the need for immunization that prevents deadly diseases. Rotary clubs serve communities around the world, each with unique concerns and needs. Rotarians have continually adapted and improved the way they respond to those needs, taking on a broad range of service projects. The most successful and sustainable Rotary service tends to fall within one of the following six areas: Peace and conflict prevention/resolution, Disease prevention and treatment, Water and sanitation, Maternal and child health, Basic education and literacy and Economic and community development. The Rotary Club of St. Maarten-Mid Isle meets Tuesdays' at 7pm at Pineapple Pete in Simpson Bay. For more information please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit our face book page Rotary Club of St. Maarten-Mid Isle. Verse 1 Compose by Baker Jr . We sick and tired of the SCDF - WE AINT TOLERATING NO MORE They got we calypso culture in distress - WE AINT TOLERATING NO MORE Granger got the foundation in hot water - WE AINT TOLERATING NO MORE Its time to show them calypso power - WE AINT TOLERATING NO MORE Granger think his mouth is hot pepper Working behind the seen undercover While he have a business agenda We carnival run by teenagers Who dont care if calypso prosper Granger you destroying we culture You can call me baker the troublemaker I rather be that than a teen lover Chorus SCDF time to do your duty - Respect We Carnival Culture Stop using the foundation to make money - Respect We Carnival Culture Instead of dictating the kaiso art form - Respect We Carnival Culture Cause of calypso carnival was born - Respect We Carnival Culture You disrespecting we culture for spite Moving just like a thief in the night You lucky that you escape jail life Cause of talent teen you have a wife RESPECT WE CARNIVAL CULTURE Verse 2 Compose by Baker Jr . Radjuky stop being granger puppet - WE AINT TOLERATING NO MORE Playing Texas holdem with the budget - WE AINT TOLERATING NO MORE Running carnival with this business projection- WE AINT TOLERATING NO MORE While the SCDF killing the art form -WE AINT TOLERATING NO MORE Conflict of interest is what Im smelling Especially working in government By the court of the people you failed screening You both remind me of pinky and the brain You have no respect for calypso Your dictatorship is now on death row You kill and you bluntly steal couchi show But I would never let you kill calypso Chorus Radjuky and Granger you both got to go - Respect We Calypso Culture Stop playing politics with we show - Respect We Carnival Culture Since you both like to go Easter hunting - Respect We Carnival Culture Wear Easter bunny costume jouvert morning - Respect We Carnival Culture Its time to respect the calypsonians Or you will get a 50th present Your dirty laundry will be the talk of town So by sun down I need you both gone RESPECT WE CARNIVAL CULTURE Verse 3 Compose by Baker Jr . Alston you a next puppet the string - WE AINT TOLERATING NO MORE Got Granger playing with your intelligence - WE AINT TOLERATING NO MORE Most SCDF members isnt able - WE AINT TOLERATING NO MORE Watching Micky cutting deals under the table -WE AINT TOLERATING NO MORE Jouvert and calypso belongs together But SCDF have an agenda They say they not making money from calypso So they leaving Nagico dictate we show If you got to do all that for a sponsor Give the show to who care for we culture You say seven member out of nine hate calypso Those opportunist board member must go Chorus That unethical move you did to kaiso - Respect We Carnival Culture Sabotaging we calypso show - Respect We Carnival Culture You already destroy the junior calypso - Respect We Carnival Culture You try to take Anna Queen show just like couchy show - Respect We Carnival Culture You sabotage good locals promoters You now even turn on the boot holders Time to expose your hidden agenda Selling carnival to the highest bidder Granger! RESPECT WE CARNIVAL CULTURE Verse 4 Compose by Baker Jr . Granger feel hes indispensible - WE AINT TOLERATING NO MORE With lying Alston his biggest moumou - WE AINT TOLERATING NO MORE But I hope SCDF could handle - WE AINT TOLERATING NO MORE When I reveal all the deals under the table - WE AINT TOLERATING NO MORE You all got too much business going on Micky on a money making spree Disregard and disrespect the down trodden Sell out the village to Abougazy Nothing but alcohol is now gone You getting incentive from business men They should audit you for that hundred thousand The rent money collecting from the boots and them Chorus Abougazy even got club in we village - Respect We Carnival Culture SCDF is on a money rampage - Respect We Carnival Culture We need to sign a petition and send a clear message - Respect We Carnival Culture The SCDF boys club need to be replace - Respect We Carnival Culture Micky got business in every vicinity He making sure set up his family Alston and the SCDF teens and Radjouky We want back we carnival how it used to be. WE WANT TO KNOW Verse 1 His Majesty Baker Jr. THIS ONE GOING GO VIRAL ON FB CAUSE THESE CALYPSO VITAL QUESTIONS ARE TRICKY FOR THE ST MAARTEN CARNIVAL COMMITTEE TO GIVE ACCOUNT FOR ALL THAT SPONSOR MONEY NOW LETS GET TO THE QUESTIONS IMMEDIATELY AND THE FIRST QUESTION IS FOR MICKEY THE 1.2 MILLION YOU GET FROM ILTT WE WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPEN TO ALL THAT MONEY? Chorus- DID YOU PAY OFF THE CARNIVAL DEBT WITH A LUMPSUM? OR DID YOU USED SOME TO GO ON BIG VACATION? DO YOU REMEMBER THE LAST JUNIOR TALENT TEEN PAGEANT? DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT HAPPEN WHEN YOU WAS PRESIDENT DID YOU PLAYED SICK TO ESCAPE INCARCERATION HOW MUCH FUNDS YOU GIVE TO YOUR TALENT TEEN PARENTS THAT IS THE SAME YEAR YOU HAD TO STEP DOWN WHY YOU ARE STILL AROUND AND WHERE ALL THAT MONEY GONE? WE WANT TO KNOW Verse 2 His Majesty Baker Jr. THESE OTHER QUESTIONS IS FOR ALSTON ARE YOU REALLY THE PRESIDENT OR GRANGER AGENT? BUT SINCE YOU FRONTING AND LIKE TO TALK DI THING THEN CAN YOU TELL US WHERE THE 1.2 MILLION WENT? DO YOU KNOW ABOUT TRUJILLO OFF SHORE ACCOUNT BALAGUER HOW MUCH YOU GETTING PAY TO BE IN FRONT? IS YOUR NEW VICE PRESIDENT A KITITIAN? IS SHE CALLING MORE SHOTS THAN YOU ALSTON? Chorus- IS MIKEY REALLY TAKING THE QUEEN PAGEANT TO GIVE TO THE BIG BOTTOM KITTIAN? TELL US WHY MALCOM LEFT THE FOUNDATION? AND IS IT TRUE RADJOUKY ALSO GONE WHY THE SOCALLED APPOINTED DIRECTOR GRANGER THE LONE RANGER CAN BE TREASURER? IS THE MONEY TO SWEET THATS WHY HE CANT LEAVE? AND WHY YOU HAVE A RAT MINDING THE CHEESE? WE WANT TO KNOW Verse 3 His Majesty Baker Jr. ALSTON BALAGUER YOU HAVE LESS BAGGAGE BUT AS MIKE ACCOMPLICE YOU LOSE LEVERAGE WHY YOU THINK YOU ALL SMARTER AND MORE CERFISTICATED? BUT USED THE MOMMY SYMPATHY CARD FOR GOOD IMAGE DONT YOU KNOW CALYPSO WILL DESTROY YOUR FATE WHY MOMMY AINT TEACH ALL YO NOT TO MESS WITH HIGH VOLTAGE? ALL YO TIME EXPIRE TO LEAVE WITH NO REGRETS BUT THERE IS NO EXPERATION DATE ON DISRESPECT Chorus- WHY IS CALYPSO YOU CHOSE TO NEGLECT? FOR THE ART FORM AND CULTURE YOU GOT NO RESPECT WHY SHOWS YOU COULD BENEFIT FROM YOU WANT TO TAKE? WHY YOU ENVY ALL THE PROMOTERS THAT YOU REPLACE YOU TRY THE SAME THING WITH POSH PROMOTIONS BUT YOU FAILED ANNA STOOD UP TO YOU TAKE YOU COURTS AND WIN THE CASE TROJILLO IS IT CAUSE THE SHOWS A BIG SUCCESS? YOU TRY TO GIVE IT TO YOUR MISTRESS WE WANT TO KNOW Verse 4 His Majesty Baker Jr. BEFORE THIS SONG DONE A FEW MORE QUESTIONS HOPE THESE LAST QUESTIONS DONT TRIGGER YOUR EMOTIONS LYRICAL QUESTIONS OF MAS DESTRUCTION AND IF YOU GUILTY YOULL BE STRIP FROM YOUR POSSITION WHY YOU TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE DOWN TRODDEN? IS IT TO EMBEZZLE FUNDS THROUGH THE FOUNDATION? IS THE ENTIRE BOARD GETTING SOME KIND OF PENSSION? OR BALAGUED AND TROJILLO GETTING A LUMPSUM? Chorus- SCDF HERE IS A SIMPLE QUESTION HOW MUCH FUNDS YOU DONATING TO YOUR OFFSHOW ACCOUNT? IS IT THROUGH WIFEY NOW HOSTING COUCHY SHOW ? IS THIS HOW YOU TRANFERING THE FUNDS OFF SHURE AND IS IT TRUE WHAT SCHOOL CHRIDREN SAY MIKEY? ARE YOU THERE WITH THE KITTITIAN VP? IT NOT MY BUSINESS IF YOU HORNING WIFEY MY BUSINESS TO KEEP KAISO ALIVE IN MY COUNTRY As a candidate, Bolsonaro appealed to conservative groups, including the powerful agricultural lobby, the military and Evangelical Churches, by promising to boost economic growth by rolling back regulatory burdens and enforcement of environmental protections. This right-wing coalition helped him crush the once-dominant Workers Party at the polls, giving him a strong mandate to bring about the changes he promised and elevating his small party to the second-largest in Congress. An uncontacted indigenous man in the forest in Rondonia, Brazil, in May, 2018. Credit:AP Bolsonaro defended the new decree in a message on Twitter on Wednesday, arguing that indigenous groups and descendants of formerly enslaved black Brazilians have been given the right to more than 15 percent of the country's land area. "Fewer than a million people live in those isolated areas of Brazil, in reality, and they are exploited and manipulated by non-governmental organisations," he wrote. "Together, we're going to integrate those citizens and take care of all Brazilians." The measure was one of a handful that appeared designed to appease the core groups that propelled the unlikely rise of Bolsonaro to the presidency. On Wednesday, the government also announced it was dismantling a division of the education ministry that promoted human rights and sought to expand access to higher education for historically disadvantaged communities, including black Brazilians. Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro smiles amid members of his cabinet as he presents them during a ceremony at the presidential palace. Credit:AP Bolsonaro has accused his leftist political rivals of using the public school system to indoctrinate children, a charge that several educators and experts have called unfounded. "One of our strategies to get Brazil from the lowest spots of the educational rankings is to tackle the Marxist garbage in our schools heads-on," Bolsonaro wrote in a message on Twitter in English. "We shall succeed in forming citizens and not political militants." Brazil's 1988 Constitution, passed as the country emerged from a 21-year military dictatorship, established strong protections for Brazil's historically marginalised groups, seeking to make amends for decades of institutionalised discrimination and brutality. One of the most concrete measures was a process to recognise the right of indigenous communities to control areas that had been home to their ancestors. Under the era of military rule, the Brazilian government regarded indigenous communities as impediments to the development of areas that were rich in minerals or that could be turned into farmland. Rather than respecting their autonomy, it sought to force their integration into the wider society. Leila Silvia Burger Sotto-Maior, an anthropologist who worked at the National Indian Foundation until recently, called the new decree "a clear affront to the constitution." It felt like a fatal blow for those who have spent their careers trying to deliver on the vision of a constitution that sought reparations for indigenous groups after decades of abuse, she said. "There's fear, there's pain," Burger said, adding that she and several of her former colleagues are distraught. "This feels like defeat, failure." There are 436 territories that have been formally designated as autonomous indigenous lands; in roughly half of those, the government has yet to fully expel non-indigenous people. More than 120 territories that indigenous groups claim as theirs are under study. But Bolsonaro, as a candidate, said he would ensure that indigenous communities don't get "one more centimetre" of protected land. As the government has pared back protections of indigenous territories in recent years, miners, farmers and loggers have established a presence in hundreds of sites, in violation of the law. Indigenous leaders who have resisted their presence are often threatened. Marina Silva, a former presidential candidate and environment minister who was hailed for curbing deforestation in the Amazon during her tenure between 2003 and 2008, called the measure a travesty. "The Bolsonaro government is giving the butcher an opportunity to be even more violent with those who, throughout history, were its main victims," she wrote. Fort Lauderdale: The commission investigating a shooting massacre at a Florida high school has approved a controversial proposal that some teachers be allowed to carry guns. The 15-member Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission's 446-page report says that state law should be changed to allow teachers who pass an intense training program and background check to carry concealed weapons on campus. Students who walked out of school to protest against gun violence participate in a demonstration in front of the White House last March. Credit:AP The February 14 shooting attack left 14 students and three staff members dead and 17 wounded, and prompted the #NeverAgain student-led political movement following survivor Emma Gonzalez's "I call BS" speech against gun culture. The report criticises Broward County sheriff's deputies who failed to confront suspect Nikolas Cruz, and also of Sheriff Scott Israel, whose office did not have a policy at the time requiring them to rush the three-storey building where the shooting happened. The nail salon owner's work was her life, so when a customer tried to flee without paying for her $US35 ($50) manicure, Nhu "Annie" Ngoc Quynh Nguyen tried to fight back. Now, authorities in Las Vegas are investigating Nguyen's death. The woman fled without paying for her $50 manicure. Credit:Greg Totman Nguyen, 51, a Vietnamese refugee who raised her daughters in the United States, was killed on December 29 outside her nail salon near the Las Vegas strip when she tried to stop the fleeing customer, Metropolitan police said. The customer, a woman who has not yet been identified and remains at large, hit Nguyen with a stolen rental car and drove away, authorities said. Nguyen died of blunt force injuries, the Clark County coroner's office told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Her death was ruled a homicide. Seoul: A North Korean diplomat who was until recently acting ambassador to Italy has gone missing, a South Korean member of parliament said on Thursday, after a South Korean newspaper reported he is seeking asylum in the West. The diplomat, Jo Song Gil, disappeared with his wife after leaving the embassy without notice in early November, according to Kim Min-ki, a South Korean legislator who was briefed by the National Intelligence Service. A high-profile defection by one of North Korea's elite would be a huge embarrassment for Kim Jong-un as he pursues diplomacy with Seoul and Washington. Credit:AP Earlier on Thursday, the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, citing an unidentified diplomatic source, said Jo, 48, had applied for asylum to an unspecified Western country and was in a "safe place" with his family under the protection of the Italian government. Kim told reporters he had some information about the case but could not discuss it. Australias peak body for lawyers says the premature announcement that Islamic State member Neil Prakash has been stripped of his citizenship could jeopardise efforts to see him face justice in this country. Law Council of Australia president Arthur Moses, SC, has said that Turkey - where Prakash is currently in jail facing terrorism charges - would take into account whether or not he was an Australian in considering an extradition request. I am troubled that this potentially premature announcement by the Minister could jeopardise future extradition proceedings to bring Prakash back to Australia to face our justice system for his alleged crimes, he said. Melbourne-born Neil Prakash is the son of a Fijian father and Cambodian mother Credit:AAP His assessment came as Fijis Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama deepened doubts about Prakashs citizenship of that country - and therefore the legality of the Morrison governments revocation of Prakashs Australian citizenship - by saying that Prakash could not return to Fiji because he does not qualify. Jeremy Mark Spinak, Jewish communal leader, businessman, politics aficionado, US Presidential history buff, husband, father - Jez to family and friends - passed away aged 36 just five months after diagnosis with pericardial mesothelioma, a phenomenally rare cancer associated with proximity to and inhalation of asbestos. Born on 25 May 1982 to parents Richard and Margaret, whose own parents had escaped the Holocaust through migration from Poland and Germany, Jeremy grew up in the eastern suburbs, attending Woollahra Primary, then the Emanuel School, then the University of NSW where an early interest in politics and history was fine tuned. Precocious, jokey, sporty, Jeremy lived a balanced life - music, cricket, swimming, thinking; there was always something on the go. Jeremy Spinak His love of American political history led to a semester at Georgetown in Washington DC, and a first class honours degree in politics. Study led to curiosity and a keen interest in political involvement including staff roles with NSW Treasurer Michael Costa and a brief stint as an intern at the office of Senator Tom Daschle, the then US Senate Democratic Majority Leader and as a volunteer on US Senator John Kerrys campaign for President in 2004. He moved into business, initially with EG Property, his own business and, from 2015, the Baiada Group - who were so supportive in the last pain-wracked year of his life. Police are searching for three men caught on CCTV breaking into a Perth bar, dousing it in accelerant and setting it alight. The Voyeur Bar in Subiaco was targeted by arsonists twice in one week in early December. CCTV released by WA Police on Thursday showed three men breaking into the Hay Street bar around 4am on December 6 just five days after another blaze at the venue. One of the offenders is seen wiping his fingerprints away with a cloth after jumping a barrier to enter the main bar while holding a pickaxe. Her sons Jake, 23, and Tom, 20, both have autism Tom's is severe, with an intellectual disability. She says Tom feels secure and her mind is at rest because the layout kiosk, beach and playground is familiar to him. Tom happily sits for hours feeding the rosellas or goes on walks with his parents. If Tom, who is non-verbal, starts flapping and clapping, other campers treat him like a regular person, they say hello to him, which is lovely. Ms Nicholls said long-term campers are very angry at the new non-renewal regime. Jim Billings and his close mate Ando have spent nearly 40 years camping at Walkerville. Credit:Simon Schluter They were not consulted. It was just bang, this is whats happening. Jim Billings, who has been coming down to Walkerville for 38 years, said the decision would shatter the community in a place he considers paradise. He said it was unthinkable to lose his ''irreplaceable'' annual destination. He is organising a petition to give to the foreshore committee, the local MP and the council. Each January, Mr Billings, 73, drives here three-and-half hours from Avenel, near Nagambie, to spend time with his children and grandchildren on two sites. The friends hes made include Ando, a close mate of 30 years, with whom he goes fishing, crabbing and snorkelling. Two years ago, Ando scattered his wife's ashes at Walkerville. Later this year Mr Billings will be MC at Andos daughters wedding. Ive watched his kids, and now his grandkids, grow up, Mr Billings said. Its a lovely park. Everybody looks after everybody and were really upset that it might be taken away." Mr Billings said about half the sites every year were occupied by regulars. They should have first choice to get their sites back, and then open it up to everybody else, he said. Its a lovely park. Everybody looks after everybody and were really upset that it might be taken away. Jim Billings, long-term Walkerville camper Merran Wilde, secretary of the Walkerville Reserve Foreshore Committee, said she understood that people would be angry. But the new system was fairer, and in line with the practice of more and more campgrounds on public land, Ms Wilde said. Loading At Wilsons Prom, campers wanting one of Tidal Rivers 484 campsites between Christmas Eve and Australia Day went into a ballot between June 1 and June 30 last year. One site still allowing regulars to renew is foreshore that Mornington Peninsula Shire manages along Rosebud, Rye and Sorrento, where about 800 regulars can apply by January 26 for their old sites for the following year. The remaining 400 or so other sites consist of two to five-week stays, secured through a ballot. Ms Wilde from the Walkerville committee said it was Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning policy to give all members of the public the opportunity to book any site. She said some campers used to book up to 10 sites close to each other, for themselves, relatives and friends, year after year. We have far more interest and requests than we have sites; people who ring and ask can they have a site in summer are told no way, its booked out for years ahead. Walkerville Foreshore Reserve, a one kilometre strip of coast surrounded by tea trees overlooking Wilsons Prom, has 128 powered sites. It has wombats, rosellas and a resident goanna. Walkerville was the inspiration for the perfect beach depicted in Australian author Alison Lesters bestselling childrens book Magic Beach, depicting rock pools, a jetty and gentle waves. The cover of Alison Lester's book Magic Beach, which was inspired by her time spent at Walkerville. Jacinta Mathers, 52, of Mansfield, who has camped with her family all over Victoria, is strongly against people reserving regular spots. She said often at sites such as Rosebud, the renewers take up the prime positions sometimes for 40 years and nobody else will ever get in there. Its really unfair. They should just book it like everybody else has to book it, and not have first dibs on it. A former Walkerville camper, who did not wish to be named, said the old system was unfair and she welcomed changes that allow more people to enjoy the joys of camping. A solvent found among the 1.2 million litres of chemical waste uncovered in Melbourne's north is a vital component in the illicit production of the drug crystal methamphetamine, or "ice". Vast quantities of acetone, most commonly known as the main ingredient in nail-polish remover and paint thinner, were found in industrial-sized bins and drums in four warehouses in Epping. A file picture of drug squad officers removing ice-making equipment and chemicals from an illicit ice-making lab in Melbourne's west. Credit:John Woudstra While police are still investigating, many people are asking what so much acetone could be used for. Acetone is a clear, colourless liquid which is extremely flammable and has a number of everyday uses, including in the manufacturing industry, scientific laboratories and in household products. A new service station proposed by the husband of Yass Valley mayor Rowena Abbey near the town on Yass Valley Way is in limbo, as the mayor and her husband look to extricate their business dealings from an alleged cocaine importer. Mrs Abbey's husband Brendan has succeeded in removing the alleged cocaine importer, Murrumbateman man Rohan Arnold from the company behind the proposed Yass Industrial Park, taking over Mr Arnold's share of the business. But Mr Arnold remains a major shareholder in the companies behind the group's Western Victoria Livestock Exchange in Mortlake, and the South Eastern Livestock Exchange in Yass. Yass mayor Rowena Abbey and her husband are still trying to remove alleged cocaine importer, Rohan Arnold, from their businesses. Credit:Melissa Adams A year after Mrs Abbey pledged to remove Mr Arnold from the companies, she and the other directors are struggling to do so. The job of parenting can seem an insurmountable challenge at times, as we help prepare our children and grandchildren to make important decisions for themselves. We dont always get it right, but we understand theres no bigger and more rewarding task. The controversy over pill testing at music festivals has heated up following the fifth death in five months. Credit:Sydney Morning Herald It starts with that first tantrum (theirs not ours) and progresses to life lessons like crossing the road safely, being kind to others, respecting elders and developing a strong work ethic. But none is more important than our words and actions around drugs and alcohol, and the consequences that follow from the decisions our children will one day have the freedom to make. Dozens of owners and tenants at the Opal Tower have met to explore their legal options, as a real estate expert has warned of a 50 per cent drop in the value of apartments in the western Sydney block. On Thursday, about 100 people attended a meeting with representatives from NSW Fair Trading to discuss their rights, with angry owners and tenants breaking into separate groups to explore collective legal action. Hundreds of residents remain displaced after the building was evacuated for the second time last week, with no update on when they can return. Photos published by the Herald on Thursday also show the extent of remediation work being done. At the meeting, owners were discussing launching a class action against the builder and developer, while tenants discussed their options, including breaking their rental contracts. Larry Geraci of Northford has become something of an expert in hosting his annual Christmas party to benefit the North Haven Animal Haven. Larry adores animals and when his dog Ming passed a half dozen years ago, he decided to help the shelter animals who have not yet found a forever home. That thought has crystalized into a yearly gathering of Hot Rodders designed to benefit the North Haven Animal Haven. Larry said, This is probably the sixth year of this party and it definitely turned into an occasion that we all look forward to every year. Hosting the party is really easy since you just tell the guys when, where and that they need to bring something that can be donated to the Animal Haven. Good conversations, good food, laughter and tall tales go well into the night. Contagion. That was my first thought when two disparate countries witnessed two apparent terrorist attacks in the earliest hours of 2019. In Japan as in Germany, a man drove a car into crowds of pedestrians in what has now become an achingly familiar scene. In both cases, only injuries were inflicted, although one victims injuries in Germany are life-threatening. But beyond these superficial similarities, the cases have just about nothing in common. Illustration: Simon Letch Credit: The Japanese driver was a 21-year-old, who said he would not make any excuses for his self-declared act of terror because it was in retaliation for an execution. Perhaps hes referring to a particular execution, or perhaps this was his protest against capital punishment; at this stage we dont know. Meanwhile, in Germany, police arrested a 50-year-old who officials said had the clear intention to kill foreigners, and had been making anti-foreigner comments during his arrest. He managed to hit some Syrian and Afghan citizens. Were told he may have been treated for mental illness in the past. Theres no common profile here. No similar age, no common ideological orientation. Even the mental illness component hasnt yet been raised in the Japanese case. All thats left is the method. Ramming pedestrians has now become its own thing, a phenomenon in its own right rather than the exclusive tool of anyone or anything. In short, it has become contagious. Ever since Darren Osborne drove a van into the Finsbury Park mosque in London, the catalogue of perpetrators has become strikingly diverse. Credit:AP Given the seminal examples of Nice and Berlin in 2016, we tend to regard this kind of attack as a signature of Islamic State. And its true that until 2017, this was overwhelmingly an Islamist style of attack, stretching from Barcelona to Stockholm, and incorporating a suite of attacks in France. But ever since Darren Osborne drove a van into the Finsbury Park mosque in London, the catalogue of perpetrators has become strikingly diverse. Bob Einstein, a comedian, actor and two-time Emmy winner best known for his work on Curb Your Enthusiasm, has died at 76, his representative confirmed. "Sadly, it is true," Einstein's representative Lee Kernis confirmed in an email, saying that Einstein died on Wednesday at his home in Indian Wells, California. Bob Einstein, pictured here in 2018, has died at age 76. Credit:AP Einstein is probably best known to fans as Marty Funkhouser, creator and star Larry David's friend, on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Einstein is also well known for creating the satirical stuntman character Super Dave Osborne, bringing the character's comedic appeal to various variety shows and late night comedy shows from the 1970s to the present day. Customers could be set for more price pain on pet and animal food in 2019, with suppliers warning drought conditions will continue to have an impact on the cost of goods. Smaller operators in the animal food and fresh produce spaces say they expect price increases for a range of products, including chicken feed and hay, to be the new norm into this year. Elise Moncrieff is spending $5000 a week more to feed chickens for egg business The Local Yolk. Elise Moncrieff is involved with both poultry food and commercial egg operations as business manager of New South Wales egg brand The Local Yolk. She says the business is now spending $5000 a week more to feed its chickens compared with when the business began less than two years ago. The increased food prices began to hit in the second half of 2018. Insurer Suncorp has confirmed it has so far received 24,800 claims in relation to December's wild Sydney storms and says the damage costs are expected to rise as more customers make claims in the new year. Natural hazard costs for the six months to December 31 are expected to hit between $600 and $610 million, which is between $240 million and $250 million more than Suncorp's allocated $360 million "natural hazard allowance" for that six-month period. Many homes and vehicles in Berowra Heights sustained damage when a hail storm impacted the area. Credit:Wolter Peeters The insurer told investors on Thursday afternoon that more claims for the Sydney storms are expected in coming weeks. "Total claim costs are now expected to exceed the maximum first event retention within Suncorp's reinsurance program, which limits the financial impact of this event to $250 million pre-tax," the company said in a statement to the ASX. To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account. We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription. A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much! STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The Mid-Island neighborhood of Willowbrook, like many other neighborhoods on the Island, was once all farmland, with a brook running through the area, hence the name Willowbrook. Today it is a thriving diverse community, suburban and rich with local businesses and a few important educational hubs -- such as the College of Staten Island and the Jewish Foundation School. The area became nationally recognized with the opening of the largest military hospital named Halloran General Hospital during World War II. It was part of a shared arrangement with the state. The VA occupied the hospital from 1947 until 1951 when it was finally turned over completely to the state for its original purpose as Willowbrook State School. This state-run institution for intellectually disabled children became the center of national humiliation in the 1970s. The horrid conditions at the institution were exposed -- children were victims of widespread abuse and negligence. Willowbrook State School was ordered to close by 1987. In 1993, six years later, the College of Staten Island merged the two campuses of Richmond College and Staten Island Community College and opened at the site. Bordered by Willowbrook Park is home to the Carousel for All Children, operated by the nonprofit Greenbelt Conservancy in partnership with NYC Parks. Today much of the community of Willowbrook includes some post-World War II housing, with a good amount of new construction that took place after the development of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in 1964. Many of the homes were created in the style of high-ranch homes and attached houses. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Just hours before a NASA spacecraft reached the most distant object in history, the space agency broke another record on Dec. 31. NASAs OSIRIS-REx spacecraft entered into orbit around the asteroid Bennu, making the asteroid the smallest object ever to be orbited by a spacecraft. The spacecraft, which is 70 million miles away from Earth, carried out a single, eight-second burn of its thrusters at 2:43 p.m. to break the space exploration record, according to NASA. The space agency said there is a small chance the asteroid -- which is the size of the Empire State Building -- could hit Earth in September 2135, destroying living things in the process. OSIRIS-REx -- which stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer -- made a fly by the asteroid in early December to prepare the spacecraft for orbit. The team continued our long string of successes by executing the orbit-insertion maneuver perfectly, said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona, in a news release. With the navigation campaign coming to an end, we are looking forward to the scientific mapping and sample site selection phase of the mission. Inching around the asteroid at a slow space, the spacecraft will circle Bennu about a mile from its center -- closer than any other spacecraft has come to its celestial object of study. This distance is necessary to keep the spacecraft locked to Bennu, which has a gravitational force of only 5-millionths as strong as Earths. It will orbit the asteroid through mid-February at 62 hours per orbit. Now closer to Bennu, the spacecraft will allow scientists to learn physical details about the asteroid. Our orbit design is highly dependent on Bennus physical properties, such as its mass and gravity field, which we didnt know before we arrived, said OSIRIS-RExs flight dynamics system manager Mike Moreau, who is based at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in a news release. In late February, the spacecraft will perform a series of close fly-bys over the course of a few months to take high-resolution images of every square-inch of the asteroid to help select a sampling site. During summer 2020, it will briefly touch the surface of Bennu to retrieve a sample, and will deliver it to Earth in September 2023. FOLLOW ANNALISE KNUDSON ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The MTA has announced that the SIM4x and SIM8x -- which currently provide non-stop service from the Staten Island Mall Park-and-Ride to Downtown and Midtown, respectively -- will soon begin making a second Staten Island stop. The experimental bus routes, rolled out in August as part of the boroughs redesigned express bus network, will begin making an additional stop at Richmond Avenue and Lamberts Lane before proceeding to Manhattan. Lamberts Lane is a very popular stop among our Staten Island express bus customers, and were pleased to add it to the SIM4x and SIM8x routes. This will provide even more service for customers who use this stop and give them more choices and flexibility for their commutes," according to an MTA spokesperson. The new stop will go into effect on Jan. 13, alongside a long list of other changes previously announced by the MTA. Additional changes that will go into effect on Jan. 13 include: SIM11: This new route will run from Mill Road/Tysens Lane to and from Midtown Manhattan using Hylan Boulevard, Madison Avenue and Lexington Avenue. This is similar to the former X2. SIM33c: This new off-peak combination Downtown/Midtown service is similar in span and frequency to the previous X10. This will enable the off-peak SIM4c to serve the Richmond Avenue/Lander Avenue and Richmond Avenue/Morani Street stops as the peak period SIM4 does and the previous X17 did. This will provide new off-peak and weekend service to Mariners Harbor. SIM1 and SIM34: Service will be extended to Houston Street. This is in response to requests for direct service to TriBeCa and SoHo. It also eases terminal capacity issues at Chambers Street. SIM25: Afternoon and evening service window will be extended to run for a longer period of time, to match the SIM26 and the former X22. SIM4c: Off-peak and weekend service will be extended to Huguenot Avenue/Woodrow Road. This will serve more customers. The route will change to mimic the former X17 route on Richmond Avenue north of Victory Boulevard. SIM6: The line's terminal will be relocated from Sixth Avenue and 57th Street to Lexington Avenue and 57th Street. This will improve reliability by eliminating the need to travel cross-town. SIM3c: The weekday morning window of service will be reduced so that it doesn't overlap with the SIM3. This will save resources, and you will be able to shift to the new SIM33c off-peak service. SIM2: The routes off-peak and weekend service will be discontinued due to very low ridership. This will free resources, according to the MTA, so that the agency can reassign to routes with high demand. During the initial rollout in late-August, the MTA also offered experimental single-stop service from the South Beach Park-and-Ride on Father Capodanno via the SIM5x and SIM6x. Plagued by low ridership, the MTA expanded the routes to begin picking up passengers at Hylan Boulevard and Tysens Lane, before stopping at Hylan Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue and ultimately, the South Beach Park-and-Ride. When ridership remained low, the MTA elected to discontinue the SIM5x and SIM6x on Oct. 7 to better allocate the resources to other routes. Lawrence Musanti, the assistant principal at Monsignor Farrell High School who is currently serving as interim principal, is expected to replace Monsignor Edmund J. Whalen as principal, pending approval by the board of trustees. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The principal of Monsignor Farrell High School is leaving his post at the Oakwood school after being appointed to a new position within the New York Archdiocese, according to a Catholic New York report. Monsignor Edmund J. Whalen has been appointed the archdioceses vicar of clergy, the report said. The assignment became effective Tuesday. Monsignor Whalen is one of our best known and admired priests," Cardinal Timothy Dolan said in a statement to Catholic New York. "I need him very much as vicar for clergy, which is a very pivotal role in the governance of the archdiocese. He knows our priests, they know him," the cardinal added. "Hes a very fair, respected, compassionate, kind of streetwise priest. Hes going to be a very good vicar for clergy. Whalen had served as principal of Monsignor Farrell since 2010. He will replace retired Auxiliary Bishop Gerald T. Walsh, who has been named vicar for clergy emeritus, according to the report. Dolan praised Whalens leadership at Monsignor Farrell High School, saying he had done a sterling job. Whalen previously served as a pastor at St. Joseph-St. Thomas R.C. Parish in Pleasant Plains from 2007 to 2010. Whalen was born and raised in Westerleigh and attended Blessed Sacrament School in West Brighton. He graduated from Monsignor Farrell in 1976 and was ordained a priest in 1984 by the late Cardinal John OConnor. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A borough resident has been indicted on murder and other charges stemming from the shooting death of another man in a St. George hotel three weeks ago. Jonathan Julio, 37, slew James Johnson, 38, inside the Hotel Richmond on Central Avenue sometime overnight on Dec. 10 into Dec. 11, said an indictment. Authorities allege Julio gunned down Johnson, a Brooklyn resident, while a co-defendant, Krystal Isolda, 36, was in the room. Hotel workers told the Advance they heard arguing for hours inside the apartment, leading up to the shooting. Police said Johnson was found unconscious and unresponsive with head trauma at around 8:45 a.m. on Dec. 11 inside a hotel room. The medical examiners office determined Johnson was a victim of a gunshot wound to the head. The gunshot caused skull fractures and brain damage. At some point after the defendants fled the building, Isolda allegedly aided in disposing the gun on a public street. The couple had been living in the hotel. The defendants were on the run for a week after the shooting. Members of the Staten Island Homicide Squad and New York-New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force caught up with them about 4:25 p.m. on Dec. 18 in front of a strip mall on the 2200 block of Forest Avenue in Mariners Harbor, according to prosecutors and a Police Department spokesman. Isolda was indicted on charges of criminal weapon possession, criminal firearm possession, tampering with physical evidence and hindering prosecution. Besides second-degree murder, Julio is charged with first-degree manslaughter, criminal weapon possession, criminal firearm possession and tampering with physical evidence. The tampering charges for both defendants allege they concealed a loaded firearm, which was to be produced or used in an official proceeding. The hindering-prosecution charges against Isolda accuse her of rendering criminal assistance to a person she knew or believed had committed a felony such as murder and criminal weapon possession. The defendants are scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in state Supreme Court, St. George. Isolda is being held in lieu of $250,000 bail; Julio is being held without bail After Julios Criminal Court arraignment following his arrest two weeks ago, Gillian Kress, his lawyer, cautioned against a rush to judgment. Theres a lot more to this case than immediately meets the eye, said Kress. We ask everyone keep an open mind until all of the facts come out. It is our job to ensure Mr. Julio gets a fair trial and thats what we intend to do." Matthew Zuntag, Isoldas lawyer, declined comment. Assistant District Attorney Michael Tannousis is prosecuting the case. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Lawrence Musanti, the assistant principal at Monsignor Farrell High School who is currently serving as interim principal, is expected to replace Monsignor Edmund J. Whalen as principal, pending approval by the board of trustees. Whalen told the Advance on Thursday that the board will vote on naming Musanti as the new principal during a meeting on Monday. He added he has no doubt that the board will approve Musanti, and that Musanti is steering the ship until then. If Musanti is approved as the new principal, he will become the first-ever lay principal in the Oakwood schools 58-year history. Musanti has been a leader at the school for decades, and is familiar to thousands of Farrell alumni. Prior to his current role of assistant principal, he served as academic dean, physics teacher and varsity baseball coach. Whalen will begin his new position as the New York Archdioceses vicar of clergy on Tuesday. Its been a blessing just to be able to share in Gods goodness in these young men, said Whalen. I have never seen such remarkable and good young people and dedicated faculty as we have here. Its great to be able to be a little part of that and that it will be able to continue on. Whalen has served as principal of Monsignor Farrell since 2010. In his new role, he will replace retired Auxiliary Bishop Gerald T. Walsh, who has been named vicar for clergy emeritus. Whalen previously served as a pastor at St. Joseph-St. Thomas R.C. Parish in Pleasant Plains from 2007 to 2010. I admire our students, said Whalen. But they werent students or pupils, they were your brothers. Farrell is truly brothers together and to be able to share in that in three generations has been a great blessing. Whalen was born and raised in Westerleigh and attended Blessed Sacrament School in West Brighton. He graduated from Farrell in 1976 and was ordained a priest in 1984 by the late Cardinal John OConnor. PARENTS REACT Parents and students were both surprised and upset when they learned the news that Whalen would be leaving the school. I think its a wonderful opportunity for Msgr. Whalen, but its a loss for the Farrell family and school, said Michelle Yzaguirre, the parent of a sophomore. Hes a wonderful leader. He was so sincere anytime he spoke. I hope whomever replaces him will continue to connect with the boys and instill the same values of being a faithful man. Jackie Vuono, the parent of sophomore Robert Vuono, was devastated and shocked when she learned the news that Whalen is leaving Farrell. He did his job at Farrell, he put the school back on the track to greatness and it shines because of his influence, said Vuono. But he has so many talents and is meant for bigger things. Im devastated that he is leaving but I feel blessed to have made a special friend. Stephanie Keegan, the parent of sophomore James Keegan, said she wishes Whalen luck in his position. While I am saddened by the news of Msgr. Whalen leaving our school, I am confident that he will leave our Farrell family in the best hands possible, said Stephanie Keegan, the parent of a sophomore, James Keegan. We are honored to have monsignor to start our boys off in their journey into manhood. He has instilled in the young men, pride, honor and integrity. Beth Ann Harrington said she was heartbroken when she learned the news from her freshman son Kevin, who was also saddened by the news. He is very upset, Harrington said, referring to her son. Monsignor Whalen is by far his favorite teacher. He admires him and has truly grown as a person having been in his presence. For the first time my husband I are watching Kevin put his best effort in all areas of his life. She continued: He wants to make us and monsignor proud and I think many of the boys wish to honor monsignor by living their lives as true Vir Fidelis [faithful man]. To inspire teenage boys and motivate them in this way is a gift and I do not think anyone will be capable of leading Farrell with the passion and love that Monsignor Whalen has. FOLLOW ANNALISE KNUDSON ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Justice Judith N. McMahon, a former administrative judge for the borough, is coming back to Staten Island after a brief reassignment in Manhattan. Justice McMahon will return to state Supreme Court, St. George, around Feb. 1, said Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the state Office of Court Administration. She will sit in the courts Civil Term. The judge is presently winding down her cases in Manhattan, where she has sat in the Judicial Mediation and Trial Assignment Parts since her transfer in September 2017. She is being transferred back because, although as an elected Supreme Court judge she could sit anywhere in the state, she was elected by the people of Staten Island, said Chalfen in an email. Justice Desmond Green is currently Staten Islands administrative judge. After completing a successful tour of duty in Manhattan during which she resolved over a thousand serious and complex cases and was praised by lawyers and her colleagues, Judge McMahon is delighted to be returning to Staten Island to continue to serve the community by whom she was elected, said John P. Connors Jr., one of her attorneys. She is a dedicated public servant and is honored to serve where she is needed. Justice McMahon had been reassigned to Manhattan state Supreme Court 17 months ago following allegations by Michael Pulizotto, the former chief clerk of state Supreme Court, St. George, that he had been bullied and harassed. Pulizotto is openly gay. Later, in December 2017, Pulizotto filed a $2.9 million lawsuit in Manhattan federal court against Justice McMahon, state court officials and others. The suit alleges Pulizotto was transferred in September of that year in a blatant demotion to a menial post at OCAs Manhattan headquarters. In November 2017, OCAs inspector general investigated the allegations and compiled a report. The findings were not publicly released. Connors has called Pulizotto's suit "frivolous," further saying the judge denies its "baseless allegations." That suit is pending. Previously, in October 2017, Pulizotto had also sued Dennis Quirk, the head of the New York State Court Officers Association, in a separate action in Manhattan state Supreme Court. But he abruptly dropped the $25 million defamation suit early last year to concentrate on the federal suit. Some critics had dismissed the suit as an end-run by Pulizotto and his original lawyer, the controversial Richard Luthmann, to get at Justice McMahon and her husband, District Attorney Michael E. McMahon. Luthmann, however, ultimately had to bail out due to some legal issues of his own. The lawyer, who once challenged a legal adversary to a trial by combat, is facing criminal charges in federal and state court. In the federal case, hes accused of various counts of wire fraud, money laundering, kidnapping and extortion conspiracy in an alleged scrap-metal fraud scheme. That case is pending in Brooklyn federal court. Luthmann has denied the allegations. In November, he was charged under a 17-count indictment of creating fake Facebook pages in candidates names to try to influence political races. Special prosecutor Eric Nelson said Luthmann, 39, set up Facebook pages impersonating former Republican Assembly candidate Janine Materna, Councilwoman Debi Rose (D-North Shore), and John Gulino, the Staten Island Democratic Party chairman. Luthmann was also accused of falsifying emails pertaining to District Attorney McMahons campaign in 2015. Luthmann has denied the allegations, and the case is pending. WASHINGTON The 116th Congress gaveled into session Thursday swathed in history, returning Nancy Pelosi to the House speakers office and ushering in a diverse class of Democratic freshmen ready to confront President Donald Trump in a new era of divided government. Pelosi was elected speaker 220-192, with 15 Democrats rejecting her. She vowed, in prepared remarks, "to restore integrity to government so that people can have confidence that government works for the public interest, not the special interests." Newly-elected Staten Island and Brooklyn Rep. Max Rose (D) voted against Pelosi. Rose stated numerous times he planned to do so. The new Congress is like none other. There are more women than ever before, and a new generation of Muslims, Latinos, Native Americans and African-Americans in the House is creating what academics call a reflective democracy, more aligned with the population of the United States. The Republican side in the House is still made up mostly of white men, and in the Senate Republicans bolstered their ranks in the majority. In a nod to the moment, Pelosi, the first female speaker, was broadly pledging to make Congress work for all Americans addressing kitchen table issues at a time of deep economic churn even as her party is ready to challenge Trump with investigations and subpoena powers that threaten the White House agenda. It's the first new Congress to convene amid a partial government shutdown, now in its 13th day over Trump's demands for money for a wall along the U.S-Mexico border. "This House will be for the people," Pelosi was to say in remarks after winning the gavel, according to excerpts released ahead of time, "to lower health costs and prescription drugs prices, and protect people with pre-existing conditions; to increase paychecks by rebuilding America with green and modern infrastructure -- from sea to shining sea." The day was unfolding as one of both celebration and impatience. Newly elected lawmakers arrived, often with friends and families in tow, to take the oath of office and pose for ceremonial photos. The Democrats planned to quickly pass legislation to re-open the government, but without the funding Trump is demanding for his promised border wall. Vice President Mike Pence swore in newly-elected senators, but Senate Republicans under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had no plans to consider the House bills to fund the government unless Trump agrees to sign them into law. That ensures the shutdown will continue, clouding the first days of the new session. McConnell said that Republicans have shown the Senate is "fertile soil for big bipartisan accomplishments," but that the question is whether House Democrats will engage in "good governance or political performance art." It's a time of stark national political division that some analysts say is on par with the Civil War era. Battle lines are drawn not just between Democrats and Republicans but within the parties themselves, splintered by their left and right flanks. Pelosi defied history in returning to the speaker's office after eight years in the minority, overcoming internal opposition from Democrats demanding a new generation of leaders. She will be the first to regain the gavel since legendary Sam Rayburn of Texas in 1955. Putting Pelosi's name forward for nomination, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the incoming Democratic caucus chair, recounted her previous accomplishments -- passing the Affordable Care Act, helping the country out of the Great Recession -- as preludes to her next ones. He called her leadership "unparalleled in modern American history." One Democrat, Rep. Brenda Lawrence of Michigan, cast her vote for Pelosi "on the shoulders of women who marched 100 years ago" for women's suffrage. Newly elected Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia, an anti-gun violence advocate, dedicated hers to her slain teenage son, Jordan Davis. As speaker, she'll face an early challenge from the party's robust wing of liberal newcomers, including 29-year-old New Yorker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has risen to such prominence she is already known around the Capitol and on her prolific social media accounts by the nickname "AOC." She said she'd cast a no vote on a new package of rules to govern the House. Ocasio-Cortez and other liberals oppose the pay-as-you-go budget provisions in the rules package that would allow restrictive objections to any legislation that would add to federal deficits. They say such restraints would hamstring Democratic efforts to invest in health care, education and develop a Green New Deal of renewable energy infrastructure projects to fight climate change. Republicans face their own internal battles beyond just the conservative House Freedom Caucus, but as they decide how closely to tie their political fortunes to Trump. GOP leader Kevin McCarthy's name was put into nomination by his party's caucus chair, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the daughter of the former vice president. She said McCarthy knows "our rights come from God" and "government is not the source of our liberty." He faced six "no" votes from his now-shrunken GOP minority. One office remains disputed as the House refused to seat Republican Mark Harris of North Carolina amid an investigation by state election officials of irregularities in absentee ballots from the November election. Many GOP senators are up for re-election in 2020 in states, including Colorado and Maine, where voters have mixed views of Trump's performance in the White House. Trump, whose own bid for 2020 already is underway, faces potential challenges from the ranks of Senate Democrats under Chuck Schumer. Trump had little to say early Thursday as the new Congress was convening, but he did tweet an attack on one of his likely presidential challengers, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, mocking her claim to Native American ancestry. The halls of the Capitol were bustling with arrivals, children in the arms of many new lawmakers. Visitor galleries included crooner Tony Bennett and rock legend Mickey Hart, both guests of Pelosi. Incoming White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman, sat with Republican leaders. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., opened the House prayer asking at "a time fraught with tribalism at home and turbulence abroad" that lawmakers "become the architects of a kindlier nation." Overnight, Democratic Rep-elect Ilhan Omar of Minnesota tweeted a picture with her family at the airport. The House rules were being changed to allow her to wear a head scarf on the chamber floor. She wrote, "23 years ago, from a refugee camp in Kenya, my father and I arrived at an airport in Washington DC. Today, we return to that same airport on the eve of my swearing in as the first Somali-American in Congress." ___ Associated Press writers Matthew Daly, Alan Fram, Kevin Freking, Mary Clare Jalonick and Laurie Kellman contributed to this report. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- On New Years Day, Saturday Night Live star Pete Davidson made his first stand-up appearance since posting an alarming Instagram note that led the NYPD to conduct a wellness check. The Great Kills native rang in 2019 on a Massachusetts stage, talking about his breakup with Ariana Grande and what has happened since, according to The New York Times. While he was reportedly greeted by thunderous applause, not all of it was welcomed. When the crowd started to clap in response to talking about his breakup, the comedian said, Ill stop if youre going to be stupid, according to the report. Davidson went on to talk about how students at a school where his mother teaches taunted her by singing thank u, next as she walked through the halls, the report said. As a result, Davidson said the students were summoned to the principals office to sing it in front of four administrators, according to the Times. Davidson also spilled some details on how he really reacted to Grandes song, which singled out all her past relationships, including their short engagement. Heres the thing about the breakup song," Davidson said, according to the report. "Usually [with] breakup songs you know who its about, but you dont really know. That G named all of us. Bam. She named all of us. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- An ex-convict believed to be a person of interest in the disappearance of a Westerleigh man was arraigned Wednesday in connection with a separate alleged domestic violence incident. Angelo Nesimi, 33, was arraigned in Richmond County Criminal Court on charges that include assault, criminal possession of a weapon and harassment in connection with a chaotic scene that drew a large police presence Saturday to a West Brighton apartment. Prosecutors allege Nesimi struck his girlfriend, Zammara Sanchez, multiple times with a metal object, causing injuries to her head and body prior to police responding to the apartment at 86 North Mada Ave. Once police arrived, Nesimi barricaded himself in a bathroom for about four hours until his Sanchez opened the door for authorities, prosecutors added. Police allegedly found Nesimi next to an open vent with a large amount of cash and his cell phone in a toilet. Upon further investigation, police also seized a scale with drug residue, prosecutors said. Nesimis bail was set at $100,000, but defense attorney Mario Gallucci argued it was unreasonable and based solely on the fact that he is considered a person of interest in Michael Stewarts disappearance. Stewart, 40, was last seen Dec. 20 in the Port Richmond area, where he was captured in video surveillance footage talking with Nesimi inside Back 2 Life barbershop on Morningstar Road, sources said. [The bail] has nothing to do with the assault on this young lady, not that Im demeaning the assault on this young lady, said Gallucci. "But bail should be set on the crime thats in front of you. It was during Saturdays standoff that authorities launched an investigation in connection with Stewarts disappearance. 3 Police stationed outside West Brighton home, amid search for missing man According to the New York Daily News, Sanchez told responding EMTs that Nesimi had killed a man. Both Nesimi and Sanchez were taken into custody, but neither has been charged in connection with Stewarts disappearance. Investigators believe the missing persons case is almost certainly a homicide and that Stewarts body was possibly dumped in New Jersey, a law enforcement source told the Advance. There is significant evidence indicating foul play, the source said. Nesimi and Sanchez are considered persons of interest, but investigators believe there may be others who helped dispose of the body and clean up scene, the source added. According to a separate source familiar with the investigation, surveillance video shows the couple tossing Stewarts body and their bloody clothes into a dumpster in Perth Amboy, N.J., before driving away in a Chrysler sedan. K-9 units detected traces of blood in a vehicle outside the West Brighton home, the source added. Authorities descended upon the grounds of Formica Construction in Port Richmond on New Years Day as part of the ongoing investigation, according to the Daily News. The landlord of the West Brighton apartment has family ties to Formica, a source told the Advance. This is a really tough time, Stewarts brother, Richard, recently told the Advance. All of his friends and family just want to know what happened to him. A woman who spoke on behalf of Stewarts family Wednesday said theyre still waiting to bring Mike home." Nesimi has a lengthy rap sheet which includes arrests in New York and New Jersey for charges including domestic violence, weapons possession, burglary, resisting arrest and narcotics, prosecutors said. He has ties out of state," said Assistant District Attorney Jeff Curiale, who initially requested $150,000 bail. My investigation reveals he lived in New Jersey at one point, and has multiple arrests in New Jersey. Judge David Frey also set bail at $5,000 for a separate charge of criminal mischief after police allege Nesimi destroyed an interrogation room during ongoing questioning in connection with Stewarts disappearance. Gallucci told a much different story Wednesday in court, saying his client was beaten, thrown down a flight of stairs and forced to sleep in his own feces over the course of a days-long interrogation by detectives. He said that [detectives] held him down and they beat him, Gallucci said during the arraignment. He took off his shirt, and he is black and blue all over. Nesimi also claimed a man he later learned was a detective disguised himself as a doctor inside Richmond University Medical Center in West Brighton in an effort to get a confession out of him, Gallucci said. Nesimi was transported to the hospital for evaluation after Saturdays standoff. Nesimi is due back in court Jan. 4. Machinery finance is useful for a business looking to buy new machinery or equipment or upgrade it to the latest version. Machinery and equipment are very important for a business as they are the base on which a business produces products and services and operates. In this write-up, we shall discuss facts about machinery finance and how it is helpful and beneficial for a small business. Rahul has over 7 years of experience in digital marketing. Prior to joining ZipLoan.in , Rahul worked at Content Mart and was instrumental in ensuring a 110% year on year growth of the business. Before this, he worked at Jabong as a part of the International Business Expansion team which focused on Overseas Markets. In the initial phase of his career, he worked with autoportal where he achieved a 65% traffic scaling. Rahul holds a Bachelors degree in Technology. What is Machinery Finance? Machinery finance is availed to finance machinery and equipment. A business often requires to replace, purchase, or upgrade equipment to boost production and operation. Equipment and machinery can be anything - medical machinery, cookware, ovens, linens, and tables and chair, phone systems, copiers, vehicles, furniture, etc. All the equipment and machinery is essential for a business to operate at its maximum efficiency and productivity. Well, what do you do when your equipment or machinery is broken or too old or outdated to achieve maximum production at the lowest cost possible? You either choose to buy a new one or lease it. Leasing equipment or machinery might sound better since the businessman is not required to pay the entire cost of the machinery in one go. However, it comes with the lease cost. And in the long run, this makes leased machinery expensive compared to buying it. In these situations, where buying machinery is important for the business but the businessman does not have enough spare cash to buy machinery, machinery finance turns savior. There are many machinery finance companies in India that offer machinery loans to SMEs and MSMEs in India at minimal documentation and basic eligibility. A businessman can look forward to avail a machinery loan from them to upgrade or buy new machinery and equipment. Documents required for Machinery Finance The machinery loan documents differ from one loan lender to another. However, there is not much difference between the documents required for a business loan and machinery loan. The following is a generic list of required documents: PAN Card and adhar card to support income and ITR information and identity respectively. Last 12-months (at least) bank statement of the account linked to the business to check the creditworthiness and financial behavior of the business owner. Last 2 year (or 3 years for some lenders) ITR for income-related information. Business premise and residence address proof, such as lease deed, utility bills, etc. Notably, the required documents depend upon the eligibility criteria for the machinery loan set by the lender. In addition, if a secured machinery loan is availed, the documents of the hypothecated asset is also required. Having said that, if a machinery loan without security is availed, there is no such requirement. Eligibility Criteria for Machinery Finance The eligibility criteria set by an equipment finance company in India are: The machinery loan seeker must be between 25-60 years of age. The business vintage (the business must be in operations) for at least 2 years. The ITR filed in the last one year by the business owner must be 2.5 lakhs. The turnover of the small business in the previous year should be 10 lakhs. As with the documents required, the eligibility criteria for collateral and collateral-free machinery loan is different. In case a machinery loan without security is availed, the house or the business premise must be owned by the businessman. It is worth mentioning if a collateral machinery loan is availed, the sanctioned loan amount by the lender would be less or equivalent to the monetary value of the hypothecated collateral or asset. How to get Machinery Finance? Many people find it difficult to avail a business loan and often search online, how to get a business loan. However, with the advent of technology, availing a loan for a business is not that difficult. To avail a machinery loan, the borrower can simply visit the website of the loan lender. If the lender offers their mobile App, the borrower can also download it to apply for a machinery loan. After filling the loan application, the next step is to upload the required documents. If the application is approved, the loan amount will be credited to the borrowers bank account in a few days. How a Machinery Loan is Beneficial? As discussed above, a machinery loan is availed to buy new or upgraded machinery. So, the upgraded machinery can be beneficial for a business in the following ways: Production With the upgraded and advanced machinery or equipment at disposal, the borrower has access to the latest technology. And with its help, a small business can enjoy the advantages of higher production of goods and services and that too in lesser time. This will lead to greater sales in the long run. Product/Service Quality Availing machinery finance results in having access to improved technology. And with the help of improved technology, enhanced and better quality products and services can be produced. This will help in garnering customers trust. Profits With higher production of products and services, the cost per unit decreases. This ultimately leads to increased profit. Turnaround Time Latest technology leads to greater production. And greater production helps in completing orders before or on time. This results in fast turnaround time and the business would never be in the out-of-stock situation. Defects If improved and latest technology and machinery is employed to produce goods and services, the products manufactured are usually defect-free. This helps in building strong goodwill of the business among the customers and in the market. In addition, it also leads to reduced wastage of money on the defected goods. Setting-up Time The new machinery or equipment takes lesser time in the set-up as compared to the old machinery. This ensures quicker and faster production and lesser wastage of time. The Bottom Line Machinery finance can be used to buy new machinery or equipment or upgrade to the latest version. New and upgraded machinery helps in improved productivity, sales, and increased profits. A machinery loan is offered by many loan lenders in India at minimal documentation and basic eligibility criteria. In addition, it can also be availed online in a hassle-free manner. Read More News: US dollar gains amid global growth fears RBI allows restructure of defaulting MSME loans up to Rs 25 cr About Harborlight Credit Union Serving Our Members & Our Community For Over 60 Years Today, HarborLight Credit Union offers our services to all of the following: Persons who live, work, worship or attend school in Muskegon, Oceana or Newaygo Counties, Michigan or the townships of Chester, Spring Lake, Crockery, Polkton, Wright, Grand Haven, Robinson, Allendale or Tallmadge in Ottawa County, Michigan. Persons within the immediate family of a member (immediate family member means relatives of the member, by blood or marriage; or any individual living under the same roof and in the same household as the member). any individual living under the same roof and in the same household as the member). Organizations, incorporated or otherwise, composed for the most part of the same general group making up the membership outlined above. Any person over the age of 55 who receives a retirement annuity, pension, social security or similar retirement payment from private or government sources, and lives in, or belongs to a retirement organization located in the county, or in a county contiguous to the county where the credit unions main office or a branch is located. When you choose HarborLight Credit Union, you are choosing a partner who believes in providing you with the tools and information you need to succeed. We are committed to our community through our financial education efforts in the schools and our support of local charities and organizations. Our staff volunteers hundreds of hours every year to support local causes! Our lighthouse logo is a fitting symbol of what we stand for a safe place to meet all your financial needs. HarborLight Credit Union exists to improve the financial well-being of our members. We strive to be your trusted advisor, to help you with the tough decisions and ensure your financial success! HarborLight Credit Unions Mission Statement HarborLight Credit Union exists to improve the financial well-being of our members. Jan 24, 1956 - May 12, 2021 Paul Gibson Wirth, of Urbana, Il. died after a brief illness in Charleston, IL. He was born in Atlantic, Iowa on January 24th, 1956, to Mary and Lloyd Wirth, and grew up in Decorah, Iowa and Shelbyville, Illinois. Paul attended both Eastern Illinois University in You are now listening to the sounds of the New Generation. A podcast created for those who desire a new way of gaining information rather than reading a traditional newspaper. In our show we will discuss everything from sports, pop culture, politics, and local news. To stay up to date on our latest episodes every week be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast service. And dont worry, we keep it short. Let's take a walk through the 2019 calendar and I'll show you when and where to find cheap travel dealsand when you should sit back and let everyone else pay those painfully high prices. January-February: When everyone goes home after New Year's, travel demand plummets and we fall into the so-called "dead weeks" the slowest (and cheapest) time of year for bargain hunters. Now through early March is a fine time to find excellent last-minute deals. Or if you were smart enough to book trips back in the fall when airlines posted big winter fare sales- with some doozies like sub $300 roundtrip fares to Hawaii, or Asia roundtrips for less than $500. We've written a lot about Hawaii lately, which has seen a flood of great airfares as airlines jockey for market dominance in the face of the imminent arrival of Southwest Airlines, which is now expected to start flights later this winter or spring. As usual, to snag the cheapest fares to the islands, you must fly mid-week in both directions. (Here's how to fly in first class to Hawaii for less than $1,000) Sunseekers should also keep an eye on flights from the Bay Area to Mexico beaches like Puerto Vallarta and Cabo, which have been cheap for the last few months-- in the $299 round trip range. They could go even lower as Mexico begins to feel competitive pressure from all the cheap fares to Hawaii. Flights from California to Florida have been remarkably cheap lately, too, with the cheapest fares to Orlando and Ft Lauderdale as low as $200 roundtrip. And don't forget about Tahiti-- with both United and French Bee now serving Papeete from SFO, fares have tumbled. Keep an eye out for bargains by signing up for our free bi-weekly travel news emails and also set up fare alerts on sites like Google Flights, SkyScanner and Kayak. Exceptions to cheap travel prices during the winter would be long weekends like Martin Luther King (Jan 18-22) Valentines/Presidents Day (Feb 14-19) both weekends are crowded and expensive at ski resorts as well as beaches. Since Valentines is on a Thursday this year, travel demand will be somewhat spread out, with most lovers opting for the long Presidents day weekend afterward (which means you'll get a better deal if you book the weekend before.) If you are between jobs, retired, or with no kids in school and have the flexibility to travel from January through early March, you'll see jaw dropping low prices....and also lots of good last minute deals on sites like Hotwire.com or or apps like Hotel Tonight. One great example of this: Due to low demand, January 4-14 is "New York Hotel Week" with rates as low as $100 for rooms that normally go for two or three times that much. More details here. There are plenty of other hotel deals to be had beyond this promotion, so shop around. Need some NYC inspiration or suggestions? Read my latest Trip Report and slideshow about a whirlwind trip last month. March-April This is spring break and you need to be on alert for high prices and surprise crowds at airports, especially if you live in or near a college town or if you are headed to a warm weather destination like Florida, Mexico or the Caribbean. Find out when the university nearest you has spring break and stay home that weekend-- or at least get to the airport early! (Here's a helpful guide to spring break dates around the country.) Late March is usually the busiest time of year for collegiate Spring break, and April is more popular with families traveling around Easter, which falls very late this year, on Sunday, April 21. This is good news for bargain hunters because the spring break season will be nice and spread out. When Easter falls earlier in April or in March, families and the collegiate crowd tend to butt heads and force prices up due to a shorter, high-demand spring break season. Listen up! KCBS interview Chris about this post- you can listen in here: April-June The downside of a late Easter is that there will be a much shorter "shoulder season" when demand dips along with prices. Shoulder season this year will run a short 6-7 weeks from late April until mid-June when peak summer pricing and crowds kick in. Shoulder season is not as cheap as the dead weeks, but it's not anywhere near the painful peak of what you'll pay from mid-June until mid-August. Springtime is probably the very best time of year to travel to Europe because the weather is getting warmer and summer crowds have not arrived. With low fare carriers like Norwegian Air, and new entrants like TAP Air Portugal and Air Italy forcing all airlines to lower fares, spring is a nice, cheap time to visit Europe. Flowers are blooming and locals are in a much better mood! Read our posts about TAP Air Portugal here and Air Italy here. The bad news for Bay Area travelers interested in cheap Europe flights is that WOW Air recently announced it will no longer serve California. We'll have to wait and see how that affects fares. Frank Augstein/Associated Press June-August The "peak of the peak" summer season does not start until mid-June, so you'll find significantly lower prices in early June compared to later in the month. (Just beware of price spikes around Memorial Day weekend, May 24-28.) Prices begin to soar in mid-June, especially on and around July the 4th and stay high until mid- to late August. Fridays and Saturdays in late July and early August are typically the busiest days of the year at major hub airports-- even busier than Thanksgiving! The good news for Europe-bound travelers this year is that the US dollar is standing up well to the euro (now around $1.14). In the UK, the pound is running at about $1.24 now, but with Brexit uncertainty, who knows where the rate might be by this summer. Note that with kids going back to school so much earlier these days, you'll start to see airfare deals pop in mid to late August. They'll soar again for Labor Day weekend (Aug 30-Sept 3), and then tumble after that. September-November What's best about shoulder season is that there are TWO of them! The second one starts in September and lasts all the way to Thanksgiving. Fall is a slow (and very cheap) time for cruising because kids are back in school and people are fearful of hurricanes. But the reality is that modern cruise ships are fast enough to navigate around storms, so it's not much of a problem. (Did you hear that Carnival is going to base a ship at the Port of San Francisco in 2020? Read all about that here. Leisure travelers should keep in mind that fall is convention season in many major US cities, so mid-week rates at big city hotels can soar to freakish levels, and then crash on weekends when conventioneers leave town. (This is especially true in San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Seattle.) November-December As we all know, travel prices start to rise again during the week before Thanksgiving, but travel patterns have been changing lately. Traditionally, the one of the busiest days of Thanksgiving holiday is the Wednesday before. But in recent years the FRIDAY before Thanksgiving was busier at most major airportsthis means that more people are taking the whole week off. A late Thanksgiving (Thursday, Nov 28 this year) means that the dead weeks will begin later than usual, leading to a shorter window for December "dead week" deals. But it also means a longer, cheaper early November, one of the cheapest times of year to travel...especially if you are interested in cruise. And with Christmas and New Year's Day falling on Wednesday this year, we will have a nice spread out holiday season (much like this year's) running from about Dec 19 through January 6, 2020. What's best about a spread out season is that there are fewer "peak" days for crowds and high prices. What's the best day you snagged this year? Where do you plan to go in 2019? Please leave your travel plans in the comments. Read all recent TravelSkills posts here Get twice-per-week updates from TravelSkills via email! Sign up here Chris McGinnis is the founder of TravelSkills.com. The author is solely responsible for the content above, and it is used here by permission. You can reach Chris at chris@travelskills.com or on Twitter @cjmcginnis. The following statement was released by Speaker Pelosi on Jan. 3, 2018. Washington, D.C. Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered remarks during the opening session of the 116th Congress immediately following her election as Speaker of the House of Representatives. Below are her remarks as delivered: Thank you very much, Leader McCarthy. I look forward to working with you in a bipartisan way for the good of our country, respecting our constituents, every one of you, I respect you and the constituents who sent each and every one of us here and deserve for us to find our common ground, and we must try to do that: stand our ground when we can't, but always extend a hand of friendship. Thank you, Kevin McCarthy, for your leadership. I look forward to working with you. Congratulations on being the Leader of the party. To each and every one of you, new Members of Congress, newly-elected Members of Congress, thank you for your courage to run for office and to serve in this distinguished body. Every two years, we gather in this Chamber for a sacred ritual. Under the dome of this temple of our democracy, the Capitol of the United States, we renew the great American experiment. I am particularly proud to be the woman Speaker of the House of this Congress, which marks 100 years of women having the right to vote. And that we all have the ability and privilege to serve with more than 100 women in Congress the largest number in history. As Leader McCarthy said, each of us comes to this Chamber strengthened by the trust of our constituents and the love of our families. Let us congratulate and welcome all your families who are with us today. Thank you to our families. Let me take the privilege of thanking dear husband Paul and our five children. Our five children: Nancy Corinne, Christine, Jacqueline, Paul and Alexandra. And our nine grandchildren: Madeleine, Alexander, Liam, Sean, Ryan, Thomas and Paul, Bella and Octavio. We are so proud of all our grandchildren, and we're proud of everyone's grandchildren and children who are here today. We'll see more of them today. I am also proud of my D'Alesandro family that is here from Baltimore too. In that spirit, my mother and father and my brother Tommy, who was also Mayor of Baltimore, taught us through their example that public service is a noble calling, that we should serve with our hearts full of love and that America's heart is full of love. Singing that to us last night, my comrade as an Italian-American, with all that pride, I want to acknowledge Tony Bennett who is here with us today as well. Thank you Tony. He helped free the concentration camps in World War II. He marched with Martin Luther King. He is a true American patriot. Thank you, Tony. And again, I want thank my constituents in San Francisco, who have entrusted me to represent them in Congress in the spirit of Saint Francis, the patron saint of San Francisco and his song of Saint Francis is our anthem: 'Make me a channel of thy peace.' We heard that in church this morning but it is our mission. And let me thank our men and women in uniform, our veterans, and our military families and caregivers, whose service reminds us of our mission: to make the future worthy of their sacrifice. To our men and women in uniform. We enter this new Congress with a sense of great hope and confidence for the future, and deep humility and prayerfulness in the face of the challenges ahead. Our nation is at an historic moment. Two months ago, the American people spoke, and demanded a new dawn. They called upon the beauty of our Constitution: our system of checks and balances that protects our democracy, remembering that the legislative branch is Article I: the first branch of government, co-equal to the presidency and judiciary. They want a Congress that delivers results for the people, opening up opportunity and lifting up their lives. [Sound of child crying] We are hearing the voice of the future there. Beautiful. When our new Members take the oath, our Congress will be refreshed, and our democracy will be strengthened by their optimism, idealism and patriotism of this transformative Freshman class. Congratulations to all of you in the Freshman class. Working together, we will redeem the promise of the American Dream for every family, advancing progress for every community. We must be pioneers of the future. This Congress must accelerate a future that advances America's preeminence in the world, and opens up opportunities for all building an economy that gives all Americans the tools they need to succeed in the 21st Century: public education, workforce development, good-paying jobs and secure pensions. We have heard from too many families who wonder, in this time of innovation and globalization, if they have a place in the economy of the future. We must remove all doubt that they do, and say to them individually: we will have an economy that works for you. Let us declare that we will call upon the bold thinking to address the disparity of income in America which is at the root of the crisis of confidence felt by so many Americans. As Justice Brandeis said, 'We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.' We must end that injustice and restore the public's faith in a better future for themselves and their children. We must be champions of the middle class, and all those who aspire to it because the middle class is the backbone of our democracy. It has been since the birth it has been since the birth of democracy. Aristotle said, 'It is manifest that the best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class...in which the middle class is large and stronger than all of the other classes.' We must fight for the middle class that is fair and fiscally sound protecting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. We must also face the existential threat of our time: the climate crisis a crisis manifested in natural disasters of epic proportions. The American people understand the urgency. The people are ahead of the Congress. The Congress must join them. And that is why we have created the Select Committee on Climate Crisis. The entire Congress must work to put an end to the inaction and denial of science that threaten the planet and the future. This is a public health decision about clean air, clean water for our children's health, it's a decision for America's global preeminence in green technologies, a security decision to keep us safe, and a moral decision to be good stewards of God's creation. We have no illusions that our work will be easy and that all of us in this chamber will always agree. But let each of us pledge that when we disagree, we will respect each other and we will respect the truth. We will debate and advance good ideas no matter where they come from. And in that spirit, Democrats will be offering the Senate Republican appropriations legislation to re-open government later today. We will do so to meet the needs of the American people, to protect our borders and to respect our workers. And I pledge that this Congress will be transparent, bipartisan and unifying; that we will seek to reach across the aisle in this Chamber and across the divisions across our great nation. In the past two years, the American people have spoken. Tens of thousands of public events were held. Hundreds of thousands of people turned out. Millions of calls were made. Countless families even sick little children, our Little Lobbyists, our Little Lobbyists bravely came forward to tell their stories. And they made a big difference. Now, the Floor of this House must be America's Town Hall: where the people will see our debates, and where their voices will be heard and affect our decisions. Transparency will be the order of the day. And as Mr. [Hakeem] Jeffries, our distinguished Chairman, said, we will follow our mandate, For The People! And I thank you for the nomination and I accept those kind remarks on behalf of the entire House Democratic Caucus who made all of those victories possible, some of them in a bipartisan way. Empower our mandate, For The People: To lower health care costs and prescription drug prices, and protect people with pre-existing medical conditions. To increase paychecks by rebuilding America with green and modern infrastructure from sea to shining sea. We look forward to working with the President on that. To pass H.R. 1 to restore integrity to government, so that people can have confidence that government works for the people, not the special interests, H.R. 1. This House will take overdue legislation that has bipartisan support, bipartisan support, in the Congress and across the Country. We will make our communities safer and keep our sacred promise to the victims, survivors and families of gun violence by passing commonsense, bipartisan background check legislation. We will make America fairer by passing the Equality Act to end discrimination against the LGBTQ community. And we will make America more American by passing protecting our patriotic, courageous Dreamers! All three of those legislative initiatives have bipartisan support in this body. And when we are talking about the Dreamers, let us remember what President Reagan said in his last speech as President of the United States. I urge you all to read it. It is a beautiful speech. He said, 'If we ever close the door to new Americans, our leadership role in the world would soon be lost.' Ronald Reagan. You're applauding for Ronald Reagan! Our common cause is to find and forge a way forward for our country. Let us stand for the people to promote liberty and justice for all as we pledge every day. And always, always keep our nation safe from threats old and new, from terrorism and cyberwarfare, overseas and here at home to protect and defend, that is the oath we all take to serve in this body. That is the oath we take: to protect and defend. I close by remembering a cherished former Member of this body, who rose to become a beloved President of the United States, and who, last month, returned to the Capitol once more to lie in state. That week, we honored President George Herbert Walker Bush with eulogies, tributes and tears. Today, I single out one of his great achievements: working with both Democrats and Republicans to write the Americans With Disabilities Act into the laws of our land. Thank you Steny Hoyer for being such a big part of that. In 2010, we marked the 20th anniversary of the Act by making it possible for our colleagues with disabilities to preside over the House by changing the mechanics of this podium. In that same spirit of equality and justice, let me announce that, this afternoon, the first Speaker Pro Tempore, whom I will yield, of the 116th Congress will be: Congressman Jim Langevin of Rhode Island. As we take the oath of office today, we accept responsibility as daunting and demanding as any that previous generations of leadership have faced. Guided by the vision and values of our Founders, the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform and the aspirations that we have for our children, let us meet that responsibility with wisdom, with courage and with grace. Together, we will let it be known: that this House will truly be the People's House! Let us pray that God may bless our work, and crown our good with brotherhood and sisterhood from sea to shining sea. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has revealed which person in the growing field of 2020 contenders she wants to make a run for president. Despite her fellow senator from California Kamala Harris appearing to position herself for a run, Feinstein has another candidate in mind: former Vice President Joe Biden. ALSO: Liberal revolt threatens to derail House Democrats "Joe was chairman of the Judiciary when he came to this place. I've watched him as vice president, I've seen him operate, I've seen him perform," Feinstein told Politico on Thursday morning. "He brings a level of experience and seniority which I think is really important." MORE 2020: Elizabeth Warren stakes ground in 2020 presidential race Biden currently leads the field of possible contenders in early polling, followed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; Commentators have speculated it's partially due to his strong name recognition from his two terms as vice president. Biden has openly mulled a run and declared himself the most experienced candidate in the already-crowded field of possible Trump opponents. OPINION: Biden says he's the 'most qualified' to be president. So what? Feinstein says she hasn't yet talked to Biden about a 2020 run. "That's just my view," she said of her early thumbs-up to a Biden run. Harris, meanwhile, is close to deciding between Baltimore and Atlanta as a campaign headquarters, the New York Times reported last month, has raised millions for her Fearless for the People PAC, and could benefit from her home state of California moving its primary earlier in the year, to March 3rd. Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchronicle.com and follow her on Twitter Litchfield (06759) Today Scattered showers and thunderstorms. High 66F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Thunderstorms this evening followed by occasional showers overnight. Low 58F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%. SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) A 61-year-old woman was fatally stabbed in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood on Wednesday and a 49-year-old man has been arrested in the case, police said Thursday. Police said an "edged weapon" was used in the attack on the woman reported at 11:39 a.m. in the area of Ellis and Leavenworth streets. The names of the victim and suspect were not immediately released and more information about the killing was not yet available. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. OAKLAND (BCN) Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry is hosting a pop up store Thursday and free concert at the Fox Theater on Friday to celebrate 10 years of playing in Oakland. Curry on Wednesday posted on Instagram about "A Concert For The Town" to mark his 10th and final year in Oakland before the Warriors move to a new arena in San Francisco for the 2019-20 season. The concert with special guests at 7 p.m. Friday is being preceded by a pop up store at 472 Ninth St. in Oakland that was scheduled to open at noon Thursday. Curry's Instagram post said 450 tickets are being given away Thursday for the concert, with two each given to people on a first-come, first-served basis. The post prompted a line of people to show up to wait early Thursday morning for the store's opening. Curry said there is no need to purchase anything at the store to receive the tickets, but that a high school or college ID is necessary for a ticket since the event "is geared towards the youth of Oakland." The events are part of the release Friday of Curry's sixth signature shoe with Under Armour, with a "colorway" honoring the Fox Theater's marquee. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. SAN LEANDRO (BCN) New Year's Eve celebratory gunfire injured another victim in the East Bay, according to San Leandro police. A 28-year-old Mexican tourist was struck in the hand just 12 minutes into New Year's Day at a party at a San Leandro home on East 14th Street near the border with Oakland. A 6-year-old girl was struck in the head sometime before 2 a.m. New Year's Day at a celebration in Oakland. The girl was in stable condition Tuesday at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland. Police said the tourist told them that he was in the backyard of the home when he felt something hit his hand. When he looked down a 9 mm bullet was on the ground. Police said the bullet caused an abrasion that required medical care but did not enter his hand. Officers went to the home to investigate and collected the bullet for a future investigation. The victim was taken to a hospital. Police said celebratory gunfire is concerning because falling bullets can be deadly. Police don't know where the bullet came from. According to police, the injury was the only significant event in the city New Year's Eve. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. More than 1,000 people are expected to attend the opening Thursday of the expansion of The Moscone Center in San Francisco, travel officials said. The celebration of the $551 million expansion of the center, which is on Howard Street between Third and Fourth streets, will occur from 10 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. The Moscone Center is a convention center and is named after late San Francisco Mayor George R. Moscone, who was assassinated. Current Mayor London Breed is expected to attend the event. New Year's Eve celebratory gunfire injured another victim in the East Bay, according to San Leandro police. A 28-year-old Mexican tourist was struck in the hand just 12 minutes into New Year's Day at a party at a San Leandro home on East 14th Street near the border with Oakland. A 6-year-old girl was struck in the head sometime before 2 a.m. New Year's Day at a celebration in Oakland. The girl was in stable condition Tuesday at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland. Police said the tourist told them that he was in the backyard of the home when he felt something hit his hand. When he looked down a 9 mm bullet was on the ground. Police said the bullet caused an abrasion that required medical care but did not enter his hand. Family and friends of a 24-year-old woman who was killed by San Jose police on Christmas say she was shot at least ten times before she died. Police said they misidentified Jennifer Vazquez as the suspect in a shooting at 2:09 a.m. in the area of Clemence Avenue and Story Road. Officers responded to gunshots there and found two adults suffering from at least one gunshot wound each, and shell casings from a handgun at the scene. Officers began following Vazquez's car at the direction of a witness, determined her car to be stolen and pursued her on a short chase before she crashed into a chain-link fence at the intersection of Fruitdale and Leigh avenues. Vazquez drove back and forth in an effort to free her vehicle from the fence, police said, and allegedly used the car as a weapon to ram officers. Four police officers then shot Vazquez and injured her passenger, 28-year-old Linda Bueno of San Jose, who was hospitalized and later booked into the Santa Clara County Jail on a misdemeanor bench warrant. Lidia Jimenez, a Midtown Family Services caseworker who described herself as a mentor to Vazquez, said she and the woman's parents, Maria Elena Vazquez and Jose De Jesus Ramos, saw her body on Friday. San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo headed home from the hospital Wednesday evening after being hit by a car while biking near Alum Rock on Tuesday. He suffered fractured vertebrae and a fractured sternum when he was hit at about 12:30 p.m. in the 600 block of Salt Lake Drive. The driver remained at the scene while the mayor was taken to the hospital. Liccardo was discharged at 5:01 p.m. Wednesday and held a brief news conference at San Jose Regional Medical Center. He referred to his back brace as his "little friend" and said he was grateful for medical staff and first responders. "The good news is - as you can tell - I'm walking," he said. "I feel very, very fortunate to be walking because of the incredible care I had here and the incredible attention I had [at the scene]." Liccardo will work from home this weekend and intends to return to City Hall next week. He did not require surgery, but will undergo physical therapy to heal his injuries. An 86-year-old Clayton woman was killed Wednesday afternoon in a collision with a vehicle in Concord, police said. Officers were sent at 3:19 p.m. to the collision just north of the Ayers Road and Valley Crest Drive intersection. Police said a vehicle traveling south on Ayers Road struck and killed the woman who was crossing the southbound lane. Police said she was outside of a crosswalk. The driver of the vehicle stopped and cooperated with police. According to police, neither drugs nor alcohol appear to have played a role in the collision. Ayers Road between Clayton Road and Valley Crest Drive was closed for about three hours while officers investigated. According to police, the victim's name won't be released until her family is told. The investigation is ongoing. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. WINDSOR (BCN) A 17-year-old boy was cited for vandalism after blowing up a mailbox in Windsor with a firework on Wednesday night, Sonoma County sheriff's officials said. Deputies responded around 9 p.m. to a call from the 9800 block of Old Camp Lane about a mailbox explosion. The caller said he heard a loud explosion and ran outside to see a white Dodge pickup truck making U-turns in the area. The caller was able to provide a partial license plate number for the truck and a deputy found it and conducted a traffic stop near Mark West Station and Starr roads, according to the sheriff's office. A 18-year-old man was behind the wheel and a 17-year-old boy was a passenger in the truck. The 17-year-old accepted blame and said he had acquired a firework in Nevada last week and brought it home, sheriff's officials said. While the pair drove around, the 17-year-old asked the driver to pull over, then got out of the truck, lit the firework and threw it in the mailbox. The teen apologized and offered to pay for the mailbox, according to the sheriff's office. Deputies called the teen's father, who took custody of him after he was issued a citation for vandalism. The boy's name is not being released because he is a minor, sheriff's officials said. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. ANTIOCH (BCN) Two people were burned early Wednesday in Antioch when a recreational vehicle caught fire, likely caused by candles burning, a Contra Costa County Fire Protection District spokesman said. The fire was reported just before 3:45 a.m. Wednesday in the 3000 block of East 18th Street, and emergency crews had the fire extinguished by 4:30 a.m., fire district spokesman Steve Hill said. A 44-year-old woman suffered severe burns and had to be transported to a burn center by helicopter. The second victim, identified only as a male, suffered minor burns to his face and hair. He was also transported to a hospital, Hill said. Investigators said this was the second fire likely caused by candles in recent weeks. They're asking area residents to use electronic candles instead of the kind with a live flame. The fire district is also advising residents to use smoke detectors in every room and sleep with every door closed to avoid smoke inhalation if a fire starts in another room and to slow down the fire's spread throughout a residence. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) More than 1,000 people are expected to attend the opening of the expansion of the Moscone Center in San Francisco on Thursday morning, travel officials said. The celebration of the $551 million expansion of the center, which is on Howard Street between Third and Fourth streets, will occur from 10 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. San Francisco Mayor London Breed is expected to attend the event. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. OAKLAND (BCN) A judge on Wednesday granted an Alameda County prosecutor's request to postpone the sentencing of an 84-year-old Berkeley pediatrician for his felony sex conviction so the victim in the case has time to deal with the trauma he's experiencing. At the sentencing hearing for Dr. Bayard Allmond, who pleaded no contest on Nov. 8 to a felony count of sending harmful matter to a minor with sexual intent, prosecutor Matt Golde said he had hoped that the victim would come to court but said he is suffering "a tremendous amount of trauma" and isn't ready to come to court at this time. Golde said the victim, who is now 20 and in college but was 16 and 17 at the time of the offenses, agreed to a plea deal that only called for Bayard, who practiced at his home in Berkeley and in Contra Costa County, to surrender his medical license and not do any jail time because he didn't want his parents and the public to find out about what happened. But Golde said the victim's parents recently found out about the case because the victim and his father share the same name and the father inadvertently opened a letter about the case that probation officials sent to the family's home. "Once this came out, a different family discussion took place and the victim is now free from shame and wants jail time for Dr. Allmond," Golde said. Allmond's lawyer Paul Wolf objected to delaying the sentencing and told Alameda County Superior Court Judge James Cramer that he should stick to the plea agreement that was negotiated in front of another judge, Yolanda Northridge, on Nov. 8. When Cramer said he would postpone the sentencing until Feb. 15 to see if the victim would come to court at that time, Wolf said, "I object on all grounds." In exchange for Allmond's plea to the harmful sexual matter count, the Alameda County District Attorney's Office agreed to dismiss three other counts involving the victim: misdemeanor child molestation, felony sexual battery for false professional purposes and misdemeanor sexual exploitation of a patient. The plea agreement calls for Allmond to be given credit for the one day he spent in jail when he was arrested on Dec. 14, 2017, at the Berkeley home where he also has his medical practice, be placed on three years' probation, surrender his medical license and abandon his practice. Three of the charges against Allmond stem from his actions from January through April of 2016 and one stems from his actions on Dec. 21, 2016. The victim's father told Judge Cramer that his son suffered from panic attacks and East Bay Pediatrics referred him to Dr. Allmond. The victim's mother said, "My son never wanted to go to therapy and I drove him to most of his sessions." She said, "I can't believe how naive I was not to see the warning signs" that her son was being abused. Fighting back tears, the mother said, "I will never forgive myself for being this man's (Allmond's) accomplice" for driving my son to his therapy sessions. The father said, "Our son told us that now that this information is out he wants him (Allmond) punished with jail time" but his son didn't feel up to coming to court on Wednesday because he's had "numerous panic" attacks in recent days. The father said, "We prayed that he would come here (on Wednesday) and we hope we will get him here in the future." The father said, "We will never get over this and our son will never get over this." Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili. Global Tableware Market Research Report is brief overview on Tableware industry having detailed focus on major factors of worldwide market for future prospective which elaborates major factors and overall perspective towards business growth. This Tableware market report offers detailed perceptions on the market dynamic forces to enable informed business decision making and development strategy formulation supported on the opportunities present in the market. The report provides the most up-to-date industry data on the actual and potential market situation, and future outlook. Get Sample Copy at https://www.orianresearch.com/request-sample/715851 Market Overview Firstly, the report provides a basic overview of the industry including its definition, applications and manufacturing technology. Then, the report explores the international major industry players in detail. In this part, the report presents the company profile, product specifications, capacity, production value, and market shares for each company. Through the statistical analysis, the report depicts the global market of Router industry including capacity, production, production value, cost/profit, supply/demand and import/export. Revenue and gross margin by regions (North America, EU, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India) and other regions can be added. Inquire more or share questions if any before the purchase on this report @ https://www.orianresearch.com/enquiry-before-buying/715851 All Key Regions Covered in Report: North America: US, Canada, Mexico Europe: Germany Spain France, Italy, UK, Rest of Europe Asia Pacific: Japan, China, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Rest of Asia Pacific South America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Rest of South America Middle East & Africa: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, South Africa, Rest of Middle East & Africa No. Of Pages: 123 The key Companies Analyzed in this Report are: Meissen Libbey EveryWare Global ARC International Sisecam Bormioli Zwilling WMF Supor ASD Fissler Calphalon Lifetime Axa International Limited Jiangmen East Stainless Steel Product Co. Shree Vallabh Metals Double Happiness Cooker Xinhui Rixing Guanfu Weiye Shanxi Dahua Glassware Limited Shanxi Jiuchao Glass Key Stakeholders Tableware Manufacturers Tableware Distributors/Traders/Wholesalers Tableware Subcomponent Manufacturers Industry Association Downstream Vendors The report focuses on Global Tableware Market major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specification, capacity, production, price, cost, revenue and contact information. Upstream raw materials, equipment and downstream consumers analysis is also carried out. What's more, the Tableware industry development trends and marketing channels are analyzed. Finally, the feasibility of new investment projects is assessed, and overall research conclusions are offered. In a word, the report provides major statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market. On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into Stainless Steel Alloy Glass Wooden Others Market size by End User Household Restaurant Hotel Aviation Ohers Order a copy of Global Tableware Market Report @ https://www.orianresearch.com/checkout/715851 Major Points Covered in Table of Contents: 1 Tableware Market Overview 2 Global Tableware Market Competition by Manufacturers 3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Complementary DNA Microarrays (cDNA 4 Global Tableware Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2013-2018) 5 Global Tableware Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type 6 Global Tableware Market Analysis by Application 7 Global Tableware Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis 8 Tableware Manufacturing Cost Analysis 9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers 10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders 11 Market Effect Factors Analysis 12 Global Tableware Market Forecast (2018-2026) 13 Research Findings and Conclusion 14 Appendix About Us Orian Research is one of the most comprehensive collections of market intelligence reports on the World Wide Web. Our reports repository boasts of over 500000+ industry and country research reports from over 100 top publishers. We continuously update our repository so as to provide our clients easy access to the world's most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, and products. We also specialize in custom research in situations where our syndicate research offerings do not meet the specific requirements of our esteemed clients. Contact Us Ruwin Mendez Vice President Global Sales & Partner Relations Orian Research Consultants US: +1 (832) 380-8827 | UK: +44 0161-818-8027 Email: info@orianresearch.com Website: www.orianresearch.com/ Follow Us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/13281002/ Vanuatu turns the Corner LETS USE THIS AS A SPRINGBOARD FOR THE FUTURE YOSEMITE VALLEY The holiday crowds were gone, but their mark had been made on the banks of rivers, the edges of forests and the sides of mountains. With limited staffing at the nations most popular parks, volunteer Binta Wold, 25, marched through the tall trees of Yosemites Cathedral Picnic Area on Wednesday, scooping up litter left behind by visitors. She and dozens of others were filling in for the parks maintenance crews, who have been sidelined by the governments shutdown. Its mostly toilet paper, diapers, cigarette butts and micro-trash, stuff like wrappers. Its frustrating, said Wold, who normally performs park research for a science nonprofit, not grip a trash bag and a pickup tool. With the partial shutdown almost two weeks old, many parks are nearing a breaking point. A lack of ranger patrols and basic services like restrooms have left sightseers unsupervised and sometimes unhinged. Visitors have made toilets out of roadsides, forest floors have become parking lots, and trash has spilled far beyond the waste bins. As volunteers like Wold tried to keep up with the messes, park administrators across the nation began closing more federal land to the public in a bid to protect the coveted sites. The impasse between President Trump and Congress over funding for a wall on the nations southern border has allowed for only a skeleton staff in each park. In Yosemite National Park, officials on Wednesday shut down the southern entrance on Highway 41 to anyone without a camping or lodging reservation during daytime hours. A park news release said the closure was due to issues with human waste and resource damage. Visitors can still enter Yosemite on Highways 140 and 120, but other parts of the park have been similarly shuttered, including the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, the Hetch Hetchy area and campgrounds at Wawona and Hodgdon Meadow. Yosemite officials declined to comment on the situation. Several advocates for parks, meanwhile, ramped up their call this week for all parkland to be closed entirely during the shutdown. Each day there is going to be increased consequences, said Jon Jarvis, former National Park Service director under President Obama, who helped make the decision to completely close the parks during a 16-day government closure in 2013. We had a lot of discussion about it then. We felt we could not achieve our stewardship responsibility by leaving the parks open. The problems, say Jarvis and others, will soon go beyond a bit of trash and toilet paper. They worry about bears and coyotes getting into the rubbish, poaching of wildlife, raids on artifacts and permanent damage to sensitive park ecosystems. Also, water systems, sewers, electricity, roads and other basic infrastructure are being only minimally maintained and could begin to fail. Managing a park like Yosemite is like managing a city, said Jarvis, who now serves as executive director of UC Berkeleys Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity. The Park Service has all the responsibilities that a city has, and suddenly you have no services but the population is still there. Thats a huge problem. Park Service officials have said the public has a right to enjoy the properties during a shutdown. But critics have called it a political calculation made by the Trump administration to keep the public from souring too quickly on the budget stalemate. Jeremy Barnum, spokesman for the National Park Service, said in an email that the parks would remain as accessible as possible. However, he said the agency would continue to restrict access to areas with safety, health or resource protection issues. To help with park management during the shutdown, the Park Service has entered into more than 40 agreements with states, concessionaires and nonprofit groups to provide maintenance and visitor services. At Yosemite, Aramark, the company that runs the hotels, restaurants and gift stores, is covering the cost of keeping a limited number of park employees on the job to run campgrounds, pick up trash and drive snowplows. The Philadelphia-based company also has brought in at least 13 portable toilets. Many services in Yosemite Valley continue. In the Wawona area of the park, the neighboring county of Mariposa is sending garbage trucks to help out. Still, thats hardly sufficient to serve the nearly 4,000 visitors the park typically sees every day this time of year. Its been a little bit like the Wild West, said Ventura resident Jeannette Ban, 28, who was staying Wednesday in the Upper Pines Campground with her partner Lola West, 31. The couple arrived in Yosemite last weekend after being told they could spend the night at Hogdgon Meadow only to find that the campground was closed. They also noticed that there was little or no enforcement of rules banning off-leash dogs and littering. You can tell the difference, West said. I just saw people leaving a Doritos bag. Other national parks have similarly roped off areas because of problems or for safety purposes. Nearby Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks have all but shut down. The iconic Giant Forest and nearby Lodgepole area as well as the General Grant Tree were closed after car accidents and congestion led to three-hour traffic delays. Point Reyes National Seashore has closed its southern entrance at the Palomarin Trailhead. Pinnacles National Park has closed its eastern entrance. Much of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area remains open because of help from volunteer groups and the Presidio Trust. Some parking lots and restrooms have been locked up, though, and Fort Point is closed. We drove from Sacramento and we were like, Huh? Thats weird, said Jessie Hernandez, 30, who expressed dismay that a gate was blocking access to the parking lot at Muir Beach. That forced him and his girlfriend, Donielle Millard, to park far away on the highway. We wanted to use the bathrooms, too, and they're closed. This really threw us a curveball, Hernandez said. The parking and traffic situation at Muir Beach has been especially perilous since the government shutdown, said Harvey Pearlman, a longtime resident of the beach community a few miles west of Muir Woods. People have been driving in and turning around and parking on the street, and it can sometimes take 30 to 40 minutes for residents to get out of here, said Pearlman, 79, shaking his head as several cars did exactly what he described. Its a problem for residents, and its also a problem for people coming to the beach. At Point Reyes, the biggest problem was overflowing garbage cans and backcountry or vault toilets at trailheads and other places. It's beginning to reach critical mass, said John DellOsso, chief of interpretation for the park. A lot of these vault toilets are filling up and toilet paper is not getting restocked. Human waste has been found on the exterior of the toilets. DellOsso said unsupervised tourists began harassing the elephant seals last weekend, forcing the scaled-back ranger staff to close off part of Drakes Beach, where the giant seals are breeding. We had to put a ranger down there Sunday and Monday because people were harassing them, he said. They were getting close to a 1,600-pound bull. Kurtis Alexander and Peter Fimrite are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander @pfimrite 2019 may have marked a clean slate for many humans, but the Pacific Northwest's resident orca population is still struggling with the same challenges as always -- and at least one official thinks it will probably lead to at least two orca deaths before summer. Ken Balcomb, the founding director of the Center for Whale Research, told The Seattle Times that he believed that two southern resident orcas, J17 and K25, are ailing, telling the paper that he is "confident we are going to lose them sometime before summer." RELATED: Study breaching Snake River dams for orca survival -- Inslee Aerial images of K25 from September 2018 revealed the orca to be noticeably thinner than he had been two year prior, and Balcomb says that the whale has shown no improvement since. Photos taken of J17 on New Year's Eve also showed that the 42-year-old whale has what's known as "peanut head," a depression at the base of her skull that can indicate severe fat loss and malnutrition. That's the same condition that J50, the youngest member of the J-pod, was suffering from last year. After a second dose of medication didn't seem to succeed, researchers were considering more invasive measures. But before that could happen, J50 disappeared, which has lead researchers to presume her as dead -- ultimately one of three dead in four months. It was a tough end to a summer of increased attention around the southern residents, following J35's 1,000-mile, 17-day swim with the body of her calf who died shortly after being born and a census which showed a 30-year low for the orca population, dipping to just 74 by the end of the year. RELATED: Southern resident population has dropped 25 percent in the 21st century More Information Key recovery issues Gov. Jay Inslee has approved include: --Whale watching: The governor's panel proposed a five-year moratorium on southern resident killer whale watching. The proposal has generated strong opposition. --The Columbia-Snake River system: Salmon runs in the Northwest's mightiest river system are a shell of days gone by. A wild chinook run still spawns in the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River. But salmon must circumvent eight dams to reach spawning areas on the Snake and Salmon rivers of Idaho. --The TransMountain Pipeline: The Canadian federal government is pressing for a major pipeline that would carry Alberta crude oil to an oilport just east of Vancouver. The oil would then be exported through the Orca whales habitat in the Salish Sea and Strait of Juan de Fuca. Gov. Inslee has joined B.C. Premier John Horgan in opposing the project. Inslee has worried about acoustic noise that would disturb orcas as they seek food. Completion of the pipeline would mean 34 tankers a month traversing orca habitats. Read more here. See More Collapse Although the year seemed to end on a high note -- Gov. Jay Inslee declaring it the "year of the orca" after taking steps to protect them -- many researchers have noted that it's a bit of a mixed bag. Though two orcas were observed to be pregnant, so far there have been no sign of calves. The southern residents have not had a successful pregnancy in three years; it's what makes J17's decline so concerning, as a female who is still of age to reproduce. The cause of the dwindling supply? More of the same, according to those who study the orca pod. Pollution, both old and new, accumulates in their primary prey, and gets stored in the fat on the orca, surpressing the immune system and making the whales more susceptible to disease. Plus that prey, chinook salmon (also known as king salmon), are not as big or plentiful as they once were. And the coming year will likely not make it any easier for the orcas to acquire chinook salmon, given that this fall 65 percent less chinook made it back below the Bonneville Dam than the 10-year average. "They do not have enough fish to feed them, they are spread out all over, we never seem them like it was 30, 40 years ago, when they would travel and find fish, then be playful, then rest, then travel again, that was the pattern," Balcomb told The Seattle Times. "You don't see them resting any more, they have to work all the time, every day ... We need bold action" That's what's lead some local restaurants to stop serving chinook salmon. But according to Robb Krehbiel, a member of Inslee's 2018 orca task force's working groups who also works with Defenders of Wildlife, Washington's dams as some of the "biggest and most controversial" items brought up in the process. The four Lower Snake River dams, in particular, have been hotly contested as scientists say their removal could allow orcas to access potentially a million chinook salmon in their river system. But being federally controlled, the Lower Snake River dams have a long road to even possible removal, especially given the already strained relationship between Washington conservation groups and the Trump administration. RELATED: Federal Appeals court rejects petition to reopen Tokitae orca case "The issues that are impacting orcas are multi-pronged," Krehbiel said in an interview in 2018. "There's no one single issue that has caused the decline of Southern Residents. So it's important that we address all issues on all fronts. "That being said, no matter how much we quiet the waters, if we're not restoring salmon it doesn't matter how quiet those waters are. Those whales still will not have enough food to eat to make it to the next year." A man captured after a New Years Eve sex assault in San Franciscos Chinatown had attacked a 99-year-old woman in her apartment at the Ping Yuen housing project, officials said Wednesday. The suspect, identified by police as 26-year-old Teandre Howard-Kidd, was charged on Wednesday with sexual assault, residential burglary and elder abuse. He is scheduled for arraignment in San Francisco Superior Court on Thursday. The attack happened around 12:35 p.m. at the storied public housing development on the 800 block of Pacific Avenue known to locals as the Pings, police said. More for you News Oscar Grant vigil at Fruitvale Station marks BART... Staff members quickly provided police with surveillance footage of the suspect from one of the many security cameras in the building. San Francisco police officials on Tuesday circulated pictures of the suspect, who was seen wearing a blue vest with black and white striped pants, and officers out of Tenderloin Station arrested him later that day. Norman Fong, Executive Director of the Chinatown Community Development Center, which oversees the Ping Yuen project said he recently met with the victim and was amazed at her courage and strong spirit following the attack. We are committed to working closely with our San Francisco Police Department and the community to strengthening the security of the neighborhood, Fong said. The victim, a grandmother, told Fong she hopes she never sees her assailant again. Howard-Kidd is being held in San Francisco Jail on $275,000 bail. Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky A suspected member of an Australian graffiti crew is in police custody after being accused of vandalizing a number of BART cars, BART officials said. Matthew Raoul White, 33, is suspected of tagging at least seven BART cars over a number of days in early December. The cars were located at BART facilities across both San Mateo and Contra Costa counties when they were vandalized, and White is even suspected of going after BART's new "Fleet of the Future" cars in one such instance, said BART communications officer Chris Filippi. White is believed to be a part of graffiti crew Get Hectik, and has previously been ordered to pay more than $7,000 in fines for spray painting Transperth trains in Australia in 2011 and 2012, PerthNow reported. White and two others were also apparently arrested in New York in 2016 for allegedly breaking into a Bronx train depot while on a "spraycation" abroad. The graffiti found on BART's trains were apparently recognized by authorities in New York City and Australia as part of the graffiti crew's work and a warrant was issued for White, according to the San Mateo Daily Journal. Damage to BART's cars are believed to be between $7,000 and $10,000. White was arrested Dec. 28 by federal customs officials at San Francisco International Airport as he waited to board a flight to Sydney, and allegedly was found with spray paint on his clothing. Filippi said the investigation is still active and BART police are looking into whether White is involved with other incidents of vandalism. White is currently charged with two counts of felony vandalism and is being held on $400,000 bail in San Mateo County. His next court date is scheduled for Jan. 10. Read Dianne de Guzman's latest stories and send her news tips at ddeguzman@sfchronicle.com. Start receiving breaking news emails on wildfires, civil emergencies, riots, national breaking news, Amber Alerts, weather emergencies, and other critical events with the SFGATE breaking news email. Click here to make sure you get the news. WASHINGTON There will be no grace period for Rep. Nancy Pelosi when she takes the reins of the House on Thursday, as she comes to power amid a standoff with President Trump that has no end in sight. One of the first acts the new House will take after the San Francisco Democrats expected election as speaker will be to approve funding bills to end a partial government shutdown that began Dec. 22. The bills contain no funding for Trumps proposed wall along the Mexican border, however, and because of that they are unlikely even to come to a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate. The president has made clear he wont settle for anything less than $5.6 billion for the barrier. The Democratic bills would fund through September most of the one-quarter of government that is without money. The exception would be the Department of Homeland Security, which the Democrats would fund for a month while negotiators try to hash out a longer-term deal over border security. The bills would draw from a package that the Senate passed last month, before Trump pulled support for it and plunged Washington into limbo. Win McNamee / Getty Images Pelosi and other congressional leaders emerged from a White House meeting with Trump on Wednesday without making any particular progress, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put it. We have given the Republicans a chance to take yes for an answer, Pelosi told reporters. Were asking the president to open up government. We are giving him a Republican path to do that why would he not do it? With talks set to resume Friday, each side is making leverage calculations. Democrats believe that once they control the House, they can focus blame on the GOP and Trump for a shutdown that leaves nearly 1 million federal workers without pay and millions of Americans without services. Trump and other Republicans are portraying Democrats as the entrenched party neglecting security needs. In a meeting earlier Wednesday with his cabinet, the president rejected the idea of accepting less funding for a wall, including Vice President Mike Pences reported offer to Democrats for $2.5 billion. Somebody said $2.5 (billion), Trump told reporters. No. Look, this is national security were talking about. Trump has suggested that Pelosi might be more amenable to wall funding once shes elected speaker, something House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield echoed Wednesday. I think we can come to agreement rather quickly, McCarthy said at the White House. I know thats why the president thought maybe after the leadership races, people would be more willing to come to an agreement. Pelosi, however, gave no indication of that in an interview with NBCs Today Show set to air Thursday. We can go through this whole back and forth No, Pelosi said. How many more times can we say no? Nothing for the wall. Wednesdays meeting played out behind closed doors, unlike the presidents previous session with Pelosi and her Senate counterpart, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, during which Trump said he would be proud to shut down the government in the name of border security. Pelosi later privately compared the session to a tinkle contest with a skunk. Lawmakers described Wednesdays meeting as civil but unproductive. Republicans accused Democrats of interrupting a presentation on the border from Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen that was ostensibly the reason for the meeting. The presentation was preposterous and not credible, said the Senates No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois. Schumer and Pelosi said we should talk about the government shutdown before we go through any briefing, and we spent most of our time on the government shutdown, Durbin said. Trump referred to Pelosis faith during the meeting, according to a source familiar with what was said. The president said the Vatican is surrounded by a wall and that Pelosi, a good Catholic, should support a border barrier. Trump made similar comments about the Vatican in his cabinet meeting, though not specific to Pelosi, in an attempt to refute Democrats assertions that a wall would be immoral. Pelosi is about to navigate a political thicket thats familiar to her, having served as speaker from 2007 until Democrats lost the House in 2010. Reclaiming that spot required her to flex her political muscles, as she put down an insurrection from a small band of Democrats who demanded new faces in the partys leadership. In an interview with The Chronicle last month, Pelosi said the experience of courting members and hearing them out is something I go through all the time, and what you learn is to be current as to what members are thinking from their districts. People are fresh from the trenches, they have ideas about how we should proceed, she continued. Some of it is new, some of it is confirming, all of it is strengthening. Pelosi will be making history again as the only woman to be speaker of the House. She will also be swearing in a record number of women in the chamber, more than 100 of them. Pelosi says shes worked hard to boost that total in her 32 years in the House. When she came to Washington in 1987, she was one of just 12 women in Congress. I see myself as an example, and I see myself as a mentor and I see myself as a person who has a priority to instill confidence in women that there isnt any job they cant do, Pelosi said for them to know their power to not let anybody diminish the role that they have played. Tal Kopan is The San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: tal.kopan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @talkopan J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press Sen. Dianne Feinstein told reporters Thursday that she would back former Vice President Joe Biden for president if he decides to run in 2020. My candidate would be Joe Biden, Feinstein said. Ive seen him operate. Ive seen him perform and I think he brings a level of experience and seniority, which I think is really important. Theyre off. On the final day of 2018, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., fired the first shot in the Democratic race for the 2020 presidential nomination. With her announcement that she would form an exploratory committee the legal precursor to running and a hard-hitting video that focused on a message of economic populism, Warren set the tone for whats sure to be a crowded campaign with many dramatic twists and turns. The biggest story so far? Generational discord. This was a big challenge for the Democrats in 2018, as soon-to-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi learned after the November election. Its only going to get bigger during the 2020 race. Aging bulls like former Vice President Joe Biden have made it clear they dont intend to leave the stage quietly. But the Democratic base is increasingly young, increasingly diverse and increasingly impatient with the tempered messages that well-trodden candidates like Biden tend to espouse. So while the most obvious contenders for 2020 include several of Warrens Senate colleagues like Kamala Harris of California a crucial question for the next several months is whether an exciting, younger newcomer with a national profile will decide to jump in. The possibilities include Andrew Gillum, Stacey Abrams and Beto ORourke. This kind of candidate would thrill the base, but their arrival could also set up a scarring primary fight for all of the contenders. History has shown that tough primary fights leave the eventual winner weakened for the general election. Thats a worrying possibility, considering how wily a competitor President Trump has proven to be. But for now, the Democrats should focus on fielding the best candidates possible and reminding voters about the policies that matter. This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters. 2 1 of 2 Scott Strazzante/The Chronicle Show More Show Less 2 of 2 Noah Berger / Associated Press Show More Show Less Federal prosecutors, Californias attorney general and even Pacific Gas and Electric Co.s own lawyers acknowledged in recent court filings that the utility could face grave legal consequences for its central role in a series of deadly disasters. Their analysis reinforces the case for an overhaul of the wayward monopoly and should diminish Sacramentos appetite for throwing it another legislative lifeline. Responding to a series of pointed questions from San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who is overseeing PG&Es probation as a result of the 2010 San Bruno gas explosion, federal prosecutors wrote that recent wildfires linked to its power lines could put the company in further jeopardy. If reckless operation or maintenance of its power lines started a wildfire, PG&E may have violated a condition of its probation, which requires that the company avoid committing additional crimes, prosecutors wrote. Such a probation violation would give the judge broad discretion to impose a remedy. YOSEMITE VALLEY The holiday crowds were gone, but their mark had been made on the banks of rivers, the edges of forests and the sides of mountains. With limited staffing at the nations most popular parks, volunteer Binta Wold, 25, marched through the tall trees of Yosemites Cathedral Picnic Area on Wednesday, scooping up litter left behind by visitors. She and dozens of others were filling in for the parks maintenance crews, who have been sidelined by the governments shutdown. Its mostly toilet paper, diapers, cigarette butts and micro-trash, stuff like wrappers. Its frustrating, said Wold, who normally performs park research for a science nonprofit, not grip a trash bag and a pickup tool. With the partial shutdown almost two weeks old, many parks are nearing a breaking point. A lack of ranger patrols and basic services like restrooms have left sightseers unsupervised and sometimes unhinged. Visitors have made toilets out of roadsides, forest floors have become parking lots, and trash has spilled far beyond the waste bins. As volunteers like Wold tried to keep up with the messes, park administrators across the nation began closing more federal land to the public in a bid to protect the coveted sites. The impasse between President Trump and Congress over funding for a wall on the nations southern border has allowed for only a skeleton staff in each park. In Yosemite National Park, officials on Wednesday shut down the southern entrance on Highway 41 to anyone without a camping or lodging reservation during daytime hours. A park news release said the closure was due to issues with human waste and resource damage. Now Playing: Pinnacles park rangers now considering more restrictions Video: KSBW Visitors can still enter Yosemite on Highways 140 and 120, but other parts of the park have been similarly shuttered, including the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, the Hetch Hetchy area and campgrounds at Wawona and Hodgdon Meadow. Yosemite officials declined to comment on the situation. Several advocates for parks, meanwhile, ramped up their call this week for all parkland to be closed entirely during the shutdown. Each day there is going to be increased consequences, said Jon Jarvis, former National Park Service director under President Obama, who helped make the decision to completely close the parks during a 16-day government closure in 2013. We had a lot of discussion about it then. We felt we could not achieve our stewardship responsibility by leaving the parks open. The problems, say Jarvis and others, will soon go beyond a bit of trash and toilet paper. They worry about bears and coyotes getting into the rubbish, poaching of wildlife, raids on artifacts and permanent damage to sensitive park ecosystems. Also, water systems, sewers, electricity, roads and other basic infrastructure are being only minimally maintained and could begin to fail. Managing a park like Yosemite is like managing a city, said Jarvis, who now serves as executive director of UC Berkeleys Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity. The Park Service has all the responsibilities that a city has, and suddenly you have no services but the population is still there. Thats a huge problem. Park Service officials have said the public has a right to enjoy the properties during a shutdown. But critics have called it a political calculation made by the Trump administration to keep the public from souring too quickly on the budget stalemate. Jeremy Barnum, spokesman for the National Park Service, said in an email that the parks would remain as accessible as possible. However, he said the agency would continue to restrict access to areas with safety, health or resource protection issues. To help with park management during the shutdown, the Park Service has entered into more than 40 agreements with states, concessionaires and nonprofit groups to provide maintenance and visitor services. At Yosemite, Aramark, the company that runs the hotels, restaurants and gift stores, is covering the cost of keeping a limited number of park employees on the job to run campgrounds, pick up trash and drive snowplows. The Philadelphia-based company also has brought in at least 13 portable toilets. Many services in Yosemite Valley continue. In the Wawona area of the park, the neighboring county of Mariposa is sending garbage trucks to help out. Still, thats hardly sufficient to serve the nearly 4,000 visitors the park typically sees every day this time of year. Its been a little bit like the Wild West, said Ventura resident Jeannette Ban, 28, who was staying Wednesday in the Upper Pines Campground with her partner Lola West, 31. The couple arrived in Yosemite last weekend after being told they could spend the night at Hogdgon Meadow only to find that the campground was closed. They also noticed that there was little or no enforcement of rules banning off-leash dogs and littering. You can tell the difference, West said. I just saw people leaving a Doritos bag. Other national parks have similarly roped off areas because of problems or for safety purposes. Nearby Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks have all but shut down. The iconic Giant Forest and nearby Lodgepole area as well as the General Grant Tree were closed after car accidents and congestion led to three-hour traffic delays. Point Reyes National Seashore has closed its southern entrance at the Palomarin Trailhead. Pinnacles National Park has closed its eastern entrance. Much of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area remains open because of help from volunteer groups and the Presidio Trust. Some parking lots and restrooms have been locked up, though, and Fort Point is closed. We drove from Sacramento and we were like, Huh? Thats weird, said Jessie Hernandez, 30, who expressed dismay that a gate was blocking access to the parking lot at Muir Beach. That forced him and his girlfriend, Donielle Millard, to park far away on the highway. We wanted to use the bathrooms, too, and they're closed. This really threw us a curveball, Hernandez said. The parking and traffic situation at Muir Beach has been especially perilous since the government shutdown, said Harvey Pearlman, a longtime resident of the beach community a few miles west of Muir Woods. People have been driving in and turning around and parking on the street, and it can sometimes take 30 to 40 minutes for residents to get out of here, said Pearlman, 79, shaking his head as several cars did exactly what he described. Its a problem for residents, and its also a problem for people coming to the beach. At Point Reyes, the biggest problem was overflowing garbage cans and backcountry or vault toilets at trailheads and other places. It's beginning to reach critical mass, said John DellOsso, chief of interpretation for the park. A lot of these vault toilets are filling up and toilet paper is not getting restocked. Human waste has been found on the exterior of the toilets. DellOsso said unsupervised tourists began harassing the elephant seals last weekend, forcing the scaled-back ranger staff to close off part of Drakes Beach, where the giant seals are breeding. We had to put a ranger down there Sunday and Monday because people were harassing them, he said. They were getting close to a 1,600-pound bull. Kurtis Alexander and Peter Fimrite are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander @pfimrite Prosecutors in the Oakland Ghost Ship trial fired back after the defense team called for the citizens arrest and prosecution of 14 people not charged in the deadly fire, calling the defenses demands unprecedented. They would place the Court in the role of prosecuting authority, Deputy District Attorney Autrey James argued in a Dec. 26 motion. More to the point, they are wholly unsupported by law. Two people are criminally charged in the 2016 blaze that killed 36 people attending an electronic music show. The Ghost Ship warehouses master tenant, Derick Almena, and creative director Max Harris each face 36 charges of involuntary manslaughter in a trial that is scheduled for April. The pairs defense attorneys have argued that authorities charged the wrong people. Theyve attempted to redirect the blame to the warehouses landlords and Oakland officials, who they said knew about the buildings potential danger but did nothing to prevent the tragedy. Landlord Chor Ng, her family and the city of Oakland have been named as defendants in a civil case filed by the victims families. But the defense team is asking a judge to include them in the criminal case. Almenas attorney, Tony Serra, filed his motion last month, and Harris attorney, Curtis Briggs, joined him in a motion Wednesday. Though the cause of the fire is undetermined, the defense team says evidence points to an electrical malfunction. They argue that the landlords, city officials and an unlicensed contractor hired by the Ng family knew about the electrical issues and failed to fix them. To support its theory, the defense team points to interviews with the Ng family and Oakland officials, mostly conducted by district attorneys lawyers and investigators. They say an interview with an Oakland fire marshal shows that the city prioritized inspections that were paid for by property owners, therefore putting other buildings at higher risk. Briggs motion highlighted an interview with a musician that he claims demonstrates that even some of the prosecutors believe fault should be placed with the landlords. When the musician asked district attorneys investigators why the building owners and landlords werent charged, district attorneys Inspector Paul Balzouman responded it was a good question and said it causes us to scratch our heads, according to a transcript. This prosecution by (Alameda County District Attorney) Nancy OMalleys office is the highest form of institutional corruption; is the highest and most egregious form of scapegoating, Briggs said after the hearing Wednesday. Were asking the court to use its power to bring the proper people to justice. Through their reply motion, prosecutors said that law enforcement has the sole authority to decide whom to arrest and the sole discretion on whom to charge. James said the district attorneys office had dedicated two years and thousands of hours to investigating the fire, and concluded that criminal liability lies with Harris and Almena. There is no basis in (California law) or the state Constitution to supplant the exercise of that discretion with the defendants own views of who should have been arrested or brought to trial, Deputy District Attorney James wrote. This extraordinary request should be denied. In her first meeting with attorneys on both sides of the case, Alameda County Judge Trina Thompson said she will hear arguments for the dueling motions at a hearing Jan. 18. Thompson is the sixth judge to be assigned to the case, and was tapped after another judge threw out a plea bargain in a surprise decision in August. Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy A federal judge asked Pacific Gas and Electric Co. on Thursday for all the information it has about the Atlas Fire in Napa County, which killed six people and destroyed 783 buildings in October 2017 and was started, according to state investigators, when a tree and a limb fell onto a PG&E power line. U.S. District Judge William Alsup is supervising PG&Es probation from its criminal convictions for causing the 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people. Trying to determine whether PG&E had violated its probation by negligent or reckless conduct, he asked the utility in November about operation and maintenance of its power lines before the lethal Northern California wildfires of 2017 and 2018. His further questioning in a written order Thursday indicated that Alsup was not satisfied with the information PG&E provided on Monday. By noon next Thursday, the judge said, PG&E must submit all data, documents and testimony supporting its report on the Atlas Fire, and must also explain what information it is withholding and why. He said he would await PG&Es response before scrutinizing its reply to his earlier inquiry about whether the utility was responsible for the most deadly blaze, known as the Camp Fire, which destroyed the town of Paradise in Butte County and killed at least 86 people in November. PG&E said in its filing Monday that one of its transmission lines malfunctioned on the morning that the Camp Fire started, and numerous employees saw and reported flames around the same time. But the utility did not discuss any possible cause of the fire, whose origins have not yet been determined by state fire officials. Alsup definitely is creating a sense of urgency, welcome for all of us who are concerned about public safety, said Frank Pitre, an attorney for victims of the Atlas Fire. Their suit is scheduled to go to trial in September, the first of a round of potentially huge damage suits against PG&E. In response to the judges order, PG&E issued a statement that, like most of its recent comments on the subject, steered clear of specifics. PG&Es most important responsibility is public and workforce safety, and our focus continues to be on assessing our infrastructure to further enhance safety and help protect all of the customers we serve from the ever-increasing threat of wildfires, the company said. The Atlas Fire started Oct. 8, 2017, and burned 51,624 acres. In a report last June, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire, said its investigators had determined that the fire started in two locations, both involving the same PG&E power line. At one point, a large limb broke from a tree and hit the line, Cal Fire said, and at a different location, a tree fell into the same line. The same report said 11 other wildfires in 2017 had started either with branches and trees hitting PG&E power lines, or with lines and poles toppling into vegetation. Interactive California Fire Tracker This interactive map provides information on wildfires burning across California and lets you explore coverage of past fire seasons. PG&E, in its report to Alsup on Monday on the Atlas Fire, said it had seen only Cal Fires public statements and not the underlying information on which the agency relied. But the utility asserted that the causes of the incidents are still under investigation and it is premature to draw conclusions about whether the fire locations or incident locations addressed by these reports are points of origin. PG&E also acknowledged that, if it was found to have maintained its power lines recklessly and caused any of the fires, it may have violated the terms of its probation from the San Bruno explosion, which prohibited the company from engaging in further criminal conduct. If Alsup finds that the company violated its probation, he could tighten or extend the five-year monitoring period that another federal judge imposed for the San Bruno explosion, said Rory Little, a law professor at UC Hastings in San Francisco. The earlier judge, Thelton Henderson, who has since retired, also required PG&E to run ads on television admitting its criminal conduct. Judicial creativity is boundless, Little said. On the other hand, he said, Alsup probably wouldnt impose severe punishment for probation violations, as Cal Fire has already referred the results of its investigations to district attorneys in Napa and seven other counties for possible criminal prosecution, and juries in the civil suits can impose their own penalties. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko Local news website SFist is set to return under new ownership after its former owner, the billionaire TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, abruptly shut down the site in 2017. Impress3 Media, a San Francisco company that uses software to help writers and editors find story topics before they start trending on social media, bought the site for an undisclosed sum. SFist doesnt have a relaunch date yet, but its home page flickered to life on Wednesday with a post announcing the acquisition its first new post in more than a year. The San Francisco news site read by locals and lurkers countrywide abruptly stopped operations in 2017 shortly after staffers at SFists parent publication Gothamist and DNAinfo voted to unionize. Ricketts, who bought the sites parent company, Gothamist, and combined it with his DNAinfo web publication earlier that year, also shuttered sister sites in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, Shanghai and New York. In February, a trio of public radio stations bought Gothamist and DNAinfo, as well as the archives of the other sites, including SFist, and began seeking buyers for those sites. SFists comeback started with a tweet. When I saw that the larger Gothamist network of sites was shutting down, I was bummed out, Zachary Chen, founder and chief executive of Impress3, said. I thought it was a sad waste of something that people put a lot of time and effort into building. Chen, who grew up in Pacific Heights and now lives in the Inner Richmond, was a regular SFist reader. He tweeted at the Gothamist account in April and said he heard back from a founder of SFist almost immediately. They actually vetted me as a person because they were pretty concerned about the brand, Chen said. Chen said he is in talks with one former editor at SFist to rehire a number of former staff members, though he would not say who or how many employees he plans to add. Impress3 Media has three full-time partners, plus a nationwide network of freelancers. Interactive Vaccine Tracker: Latest developments Detailed information about the coronavirus vaccines as it becomes available. In addition to finding story topics, Impress3 applies artificial intelligence to help editors review articles for spelling, grammar and accuracy, though its algorithm is very much still in training, according to Chen. At SFist, humans will still write copy. The content ... itself is entirely created by people, Chen said. Companies out there that try to produce content in a very automated fashion thats not our goal at all. Melia Russell is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: melia.russell@sfchronicle.com Over the summer, Come Lague received a notice from Pacific Gas and Electric Co. that made him rethink the energy needs at a vineyard and winery he owns in the Sierra Nevada foothills. The letter informed Lague that PG&E could decide to intentionally turn off power lines when extreme weather conditions elevate the risk of utility equipment sparking dangerous wildfires. PG&E had never done a planned power outage but has recently embraced them as a defense measure of last resort, particularly during periods of intense winds and very low humidity levels. But Lague was concerned about the potential impact to his business, La Mesa Vineyards in Amador County. What would he do if a shutoff happened during the fall harvest, when electricity is critical for keeping his business running? The grapes are ready when theyre ready, and then you bring them in, Lague said. If youre in the middle of crushing them, and the power is shut off for days youre not exactly gonna be manually processing all that fruit. Jessica Christian / The Chronicle Lague, a San Francisco resident, already had a solar system on the property and didnt want to rely on a generator. He decided to expand the solar system so it can adequately satisfy his business needs if PG&E does shut off the power to prevent a fire. Its one example of several ways advocates of solar power say the technology can play a bigger role in the states electric grid an opportunity they say has become much more necessary as climate change increases the likelihood of extreme weather with the potential to fuel devastating wildfires. By boosting the usage of solar panels and batteries that store the power they generate, California could theoretically mimic across the state what Lague is doing for his winery, allowing homes and businesses to keep the lights on without turning to a fossil-fuel-powered generator. That would entail an embrace of whats known as distributed energy, where power is generated across decentralized sources as opposed to a traditional power plant, hydroelectric dam or large-scale solar farm. California has taken great strides to expand the use of solar power, with new laws that require panels on most new homes and promote the installation of energy storage systems. But the state could still do much more, according to the California Solar & Storage Association. We have long thought that distributed solar was a critical component to preventing some of the worst impacts of climate change but, obviously, the wildfires and the grids role puts a whole new urgency to the deployment of distributed energy, said Bernadette Del Chiaro, the industry groups executive director. Theres multiple solutions that need to be deployed theres no one single silver bullet. Lawmakers could take steps to speed up and simplify how customers connect new solar projects to the grid, according to Brad Heavner, the associations policy director. They should also consider creating a mechanism to compensate customers for using batteries to share power with the electric grid, and they can take a look at providing some kind of financial support for emergency centers that need help installing solar panel and storage systems, Heavner said. Yet utilities have often been reluctant to embrace distributed energy, Del Chiaro said. Their track record is one of obstructing self-generation by customers of all types, and its been policymakers that have stepped in and said you have to accept this, she said. You dont have to be rocket scientists to understand that the way they are structured, in terms of profit motive, does not leave a lot of room for their customers self-generating. PG&E spokesman James Noonan said in a statement that the utility is committed to solar power and helping the state fulfill its goals of using more clean energy. The company would need to review any new legislative proposals before taking a position on them, he said in an email. We support our customers choice and control when it comes to their energy, Noonan said in the email. A customers private rooftop solar equipment is connected to the PG&E energy grid. For customers with rooftop solar, PG&E provides power when their system isnt generating such as the nighttime. PG&E has connected more than 360,000 solar customers to the energy grid, which Noonan said represents about 25 percent of private rooftop solar in the country. The utility connects about 5,000 new solar customers to the grid each month, and its poised to soon expand its own use of solar power, Noonan said. PG&E has six solar projects scheduled to come online this year: four in Kern County, one in Santa Barbara County and one in Monterey County. They will generate a total of about 325 megawatts of power, according to Noonan. Utility projects such as those are key to helping the state fulfill its climate goals, including regulators target of seeing 9 gigawatts of new solar power projects installed by 2030, according to Sean Gallagher, vice president for state affairs at the Solar Energy Industries Association. Solar at smaller and larger scales offers different kinds of values both offer values to the grid and to the society, Gallagher said. We think that both have roles to play, and the states energy regulators have agreed. But utilities have slowed in their efforts to launch brand-new solar projects amid uncertainty about whether customers in the state would continue shifting toward community choice aggregation, where localities buy energy on behalf of residents and businesses that opt in instead of relying on one investor-owned utility. Gallagher said the states lawmakers should find a way to get the procurement on track for new solar projects. He thinks the state should also develop a more workable community solar program, in which customers who cant have their own solar systems can subscribe to a piece of a developers project and get a credit on their utility bill for the power produced by their portion of it. California has a community solar program, but its been designed in a very complicated way that basically has resulted in no uptake, no developers that are using it, Gallagher said. Interactive Vaccine Tracker: Latest developments Detailed information about the coronavirus vaccines as it becomes available. Sunrun, one of the nations dominant residential solar companies, isnt waiting. The San Francisco company worked with Puerto Rico to help restore power after it was devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017 and has since been working on expanding the territorys use of solar power in other ways, according to Anne Hoskins, the companys chief policy officer. Sunrun sees a similar kind of opening in California because of the wildfires. The company is keeping a close eye on state regulators efforts to craft new rules about planned power outages and plans to be involved in those proceedings going forward, Hoskins said. Sunrun also wants to work with utilities more directly to help craft their wildfire mitigation plans required by the state, she said. We really believe that we have resources and capacity, that we can help them as they make their plans, Hoskins said. Together, we can meet these really critical needs, but weve got to be at the table and weve got to be part of those plans. Lague, the Sierra Nevada winery owner, decided to oversee all aspects of his solar expansion himself. Now he wants to help others follow his footsteps. Lague is a solar aficionado of sorts: He owns one of San Franciscos famous Painted Ladies, where he has installed rooftop solar panels that help offset the electric costs at the home. He has a Tesla Powerwall to store power in the Victorians garage. So he didnt want to rely on fossil fuel-powered generators to sustain his winery in the event of a planned power outage. His vineyard already had an 8-kilowatt solar panel system that generated enough energy to essentially break even on his electricity bill because of the way it shares power with the rest of the grid. But it wouldnt be enough to power his whole property if PG&Es lines were shut off, Lague said. Thats why he decided to expand the system, adding another 39 solar panels and 15 additional kilowatts. The larger solar system will be able to power 75 percent of what the vineyard and winery would use at the worst time for its electricity needs, Lague said. And hes now turned the experience into a new company hes calling Sun Safe Power, through which he plans to help others replicate the model he put in place at his winery. It was not an easy process. These are all different technologies that are difficult to integrate together, and then theres the complexities of how you install it, Lague said. No one vendor could really do it all, so we sort of added to this and figured it out ourselves. J.D. Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thejdmorris Marie Mckinzie and Greg Dunston thought 2018 was the year theyd stop living on the streets for good. Mckinzie was confident shed win her two-decade battle for disability income. A win couldve resulted in several years worth of back pay. She and Dunston wouldnt have to keep sleeping in the doorway of an Alameda County building because theyd have enough money finally! to afford an apartment in Oakland. But in September, her claim was denied. Mckinzie, who has scoliosis and blurry vision, was devastated. Hope of better days ahead is often all homeless people have to hold on to. The hope of sleeping in a bed instead of on piles of blankets and sleeping bags is what kept Mckinzie and Dunston, whove been together for almost a decade, going last year. Paul Kuroda/Special to The Chronicle Now, instead of picking out furniture for their home, theyre still picking the best times to move around Oakland. When youre homeless, youve always got to know when to move from the police, from the looters, from the weather. Dunston, 60, a former security guard who was injured on the job, receives $838 in federal supplemental security income per month. Mckinzie, 53, a former cashier and certified nurse assistant, gets $336 and food stamps from Alameda County every month. The last time they had an apartment was six years ago on Seminary Avenue in East Oakland. Now, all of their possessions fit into two utility carts they push around. One cart is for pillows, sleeping bags and blankets. The other is for backpacks, clothes and toiletries. On most mornings, the couple goes to Open Door Mission, a gospel rescue mission on Seventh Street in Oakland, for coffee and doughnuts. If its warm outside, you can find them sitting on a bench in Jack London Square talking to people. They also hang out at the Amtrak station in Jack London Square to charge their phones. When they have money, they take Amtrak to Reno so they can rent a cheap hotel room for a few days. They go to bed as soon as its dark, bedding down in a doorway at the Alameda County Probation Office on Broadway. Dunston starts packing up at 5 a.m. so they can move before people arrive for work. They take turns sleeping her at night, him during the day because someone always has to watch their belongings. Is theft really that bad on the street? Yes, it is, they said in unison. Paul Kuroda / Special to The Chronicle As we ate egg sandwiches at Yia Yias Sandwiches on Alice Street recently, they often finished each others sentences. Like when they told me about the night people, the prowlers who loot homeless camps while residents sleep. Mckinzies three daughters believe she sleeps in a shelter. One daughter lives in Oakland and the other two, including her youngest, an 18-year-old college freshman, live in Mississippi. What if they read this? Ill work that out, Mckinzie said. They know we travel back and forth to Nevada, Dunston said. They dont know that were actually ... ... sleeping on the streets, Mckinzie said. Sleeping on the streets or in public makes the couple a target. When theyre at Jack London Square, they like to sit and watch the ferries and other boats. Thats where Dunston, who also has three children, gets what little bit of sleep he can. Dunston and Mckinzie said security guards have forced them to move if they sit for too long. But that stopped finally this summer. Sure, 2018 didnt end the way theyd hoped, but at least now they can sit by the water without being harassed. John fixed that for us, Dunston said. He was referring to John Reimann, a retired carpenter who lives in East Oakland. Almost every afternoon Reimann and his wife, Sonja Engelhardt, walk their two dogs from Estuary Park to Jack London Square, about a 20-minute jaunt. Along the way, they stop and talk to the people they see almost every day. The couples met two years ago and became friends. As a Christmas present, Engelhardt and Reimann paid for three nights at Jack London Inn for Mckinzie and Dunston. This summer, Dunston called Reimann when a security guard threatened to call the police if he and Mckinzie didnt move from benches near the water in Jack London Square. Reimann, who has filmed Mckinzie and Dunston being harassed before, was sitting on a bench when the police arrived. He recalled telling the police officer he felt Mckinzie and Dunston were being discriminated against because they were homeless. They had a right to sit on the public bench, he told the police officer. Reimann told me he said the same thing to a representative of Jack London Square. Why does he care to help? Reimann, 72, said hes got something to learn from everybody, and that life is better when we meet people different from us. Including if theyre homeless. I refuse to believe we cant do better, he told me. Like Reimann, I refuse to stop trying. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays and Thursdays. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr It has been nearly 14 years since Stanford graduate student Rahinah Ibrahim was prevented from returning from her native Malaysia to San Francisco because an FBI agent, by checking the wrong box, mistakenly put her on the no-fly list of suspected terrorists. Ibrahim, now 53 and a professor of architecture in Malaysia, won some redemption Wednesday when a federal appeals court, in a stinging rebuke to three successive administrations, said the government must compensate Ibrahims lawyers for millions of dollars they spent on her case. Dr. Ibrahim was the first person ever to force the government to admit a terrorist watchlisting mistake, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in an 8-3 ruling. Her victory affected the way all individuals can contest their placements on these watchlists, Judge Kim Wardlaw said in the majority opinion. Since a federal judge ruled that Ibrahims rights had been violated, Wardlaw noted, the government has allowed individuals to challenge their inclusion on the no-fly list. The court told U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco to reconsider his decision to award only $400,000 in legal fees and costs to Ibrahims attorneys. Alsup had ruled in 2014, after a trial that both Ibrahim and her U.S. citizen daughter were prevented from attending, that the government had wrongly placed her on the no-fly list. But he also found that she had been only partially successful in her legal challenges, and rejected her lawyers request for nearly $4 million in compensation. The appeals court said the lawyers were entitled to the vast majority of those fees, and also told Alsup to decide whether the government had acted in bad faith grounds for increased fees by prolonging the case for years with ethically questionable conduct and baseless arguments, possibly because of Ibrahims Muslim faith. That conduct began under the George W. Bush administration, when the suit was filed, and has continued, Wardlaw said. But while noting that the governments lawyer had admitted in 2013 that Ibrahim was not a threat to the national security of the United States and that she never has been, the court did not end her continued exile. The Justice Department told Alsup after the trial that Ibrahim was being denied a visa because of secret evidence that remains undisclosed. That decision was not challenged in the current case. Its been a nightmare, Kafka-esque, said attorney James McManis of the San Jose firm McManis Faulkner, which represents Ibrahim. We battled the government for 10 years, he said, and won a series of rulings that vindicated an innocent persons right to fly. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment. The ruling was issued exactly 14 years after Ibrahim, while still a Stanford student, was arrested at San Francisco International Airport as she tried to board a plane with her 14-year-old daughter. Ibrahim, then in a wheelchair because of recent surgery, was held for two hours, then released and allowed to fly to a meeting to present her research, and from there to Malaysia. But when she tried to return to the U.S. two months later, she was told that her visa had been revoked under a terrorism law. The case dragged on for years, with shifting government explanations about her exclusion. This is until the trial when an FBI agent testifying in a courtroom that was closed to the public, at the governments insistence admitted he had mistakenly placed Ibrahim on the no-fly list in November 2004 after an investigation had cleared her. Ibrahim settled claims against San Francisco police and others involved in her arrest for $225,000. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko Chances are that in the midst of the winter holidays, few San Francisco high school students are dwelling on summer vacation or the jobs they might take then to earn some money. But 18-year-old Carolina Orozco is already making plans. This month, Orozco and more than a dozen classmates gathered in Hilltop High Schools Room 235 to talk with Mayor London Breed about her initiative to provide paid internships and job-training programs for all San Francisco high school students by summer. Breed announced the project in October, and businesses and city agencies have already pledged to make more than 100 new internships available. Usually, Ive worked with my mom cleaning houses, Orozco said. This is a way for me to have a job and earn money and see something from a different perspective. Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle In a semicircle of classroom chairs, the students listened as Breed made her pitch for the internship program. A few students held babies in their laps or bounced them gently on their knees to keep them content as the mayor spoke. All of Hilltops roughly 50 teenage students are either pregnant or parents. Getting an internship For more information about San Francisco's Opportunities for All program, visit www.opps4allsf.org, email Opps4All@sfgov.org or call 415-252-2509. See More Collapse Breed began by recounting her own experiences growing up in public housing in the Western Addition. She described feeling adrift in an impoverished and frequently violent neighborhood. I didnt necessarily feel like I belonged anywhere and wasnt sure about my career, about what I could do to take care of myself. I was thinking, How do I get out of this situation of poverty? Breed said. I went to more funerals than I can remember because of violence in our community. I have family members and friends behind bars, folks who were struggling with drug addiction and other things. And I want to change that. Breed says the internship she landed at the Family School, a nonprofit that provides services to young families, was a pivotal moment in her life. Even banal tasks like filing paperwork and answering phones became formative experiences. And the pay didnt hurt. Her goal, she said, is to open similar doors for San Franciscos youths providing them with paying jobs, pairing them with mentors and exposing them to career possibilities. This is about trying to help you grow and develop and understand your environment, she said. Hopefully, she has some office jobs I would love to work in an office and answer the phones, like she did, said 18-year-old Danyell Henderson, who said she sees herself becoming a nurse someday. Whatever comes first, I would love to take it. If its (an internship) in the medical field, then hey, its the medical field. Orozcos face brightens when she talks about the business she wants to open one day something with clothing or jewelry, she said. But in the summer, if she can, shed like a job working with teenage mothers like herself. Photos by Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle In addition to asking government departments and businesses to make 20-hour-a-week summer jobs available, city officials are seeking donations from companies that want to help but dont have internships for high school students. The city has also raised $670,000 one-third of the programs $2 million goal to pay interns at nonprofits and in government agencies that lack funding of their own. Alaska Airlines has pledged $150,000 annually for two years, and Google has agreed to put up $100,000. Sheryl Evans Davis, the executive director of San Franciscos Human Rights Commission who is helping to organize Breeds effort, said companies including Airbnb, Dolby, Postmates, Escape From New York Pizza, and Salt and Straw have agreed to hire interns. So has the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. More than 70 city departments have also agreed to bring on at least one intern, including the mayors office and the Department of Public Works, as have the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Breed and her staff didnt come to Hilltop just to talk about the programs potential benefits. They were also there to ask the students about what barriers they would have to grapple with to maintain a summer job. The students rattled off problems such as finding child care and arranging for transportation. Some students asked whether their immigration status would prevent them from landing jobs. City officials have pledged to provide internships to all students regardless of immigration status. Davis is also collecting information about where students are most interested in working and where they have worked so far. Most of the 400 high school students surveyed for the program so far have only had jobs in rec centers, she said. Even though theyre interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) or other things like law enforcement, they havent had the experience or the opportunity to engage in those career industries. Orozco is still dreaming of opening her own shop someday. But until then, shes excited about the array of summer job options Opportunities for All has promised to create. Business, thats what I really want to do. If you keep seeing options, youll find something that you really love, Orozco said. Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa The city of Napa and Napa County will pay $5 million and change how they handle child abuse and neglect cases to settle a lawsuit over the gruesome 2014 torture and murder of a 3-year-old girl that drew national attention. Kayleigh was tortured and murdered in 2014 by her mother and her mothers boyfriend, who stuffed her body in a duffel bag and stuck it in a freezer for three days before placing it in her bed. The settlement of the wrongful-death case, announced Wednesday, calls for the city and county to each pay $2.5 million to Jason Slusher, the father of Kayleigh Slusher, and her grandparents, Robin and Benny Slusher. Sara Lynn Krueger, Kayleighs mother, and her boyfriend, Ryan Scott Warner, were convicted in 2017 of first-degree murder in the torture and killing of the little girl. The cause of death was multiple blunt-force injuries to her head, torso and extremities. Krueger and Warner were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The agencies have also agreed to make changes in their training and policies on how child welfare cases are handled, said Julia Sherwin, the attorney who handled the lawsuit for the childs father and grandparents. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, says Kayleigh died in part because of the failure of police and social service workers to recognize that the girl was suffering abuse, neglect and was in immediate physical danger in her home due to the conduct, crimes and activities of Krueger and Warner. Police had made multiple visits to the house. In separate statements Wednesday, the city and county acknowledged the settlement, which was reached last month but said they had followed state law. Napa Police Chief Robert Plummer said the city and police department deny liability in the case, but have made the payments. Since 2014, he said, theyve also improved their policies for reporting suspected child abuse or endangerment and improved their training of officers and dispatchers. Kayleigh Slushers death was a terrible tragedy, he said in the statement. The City and County of Napa have committed to doing everything in their power to prevent and protect other children from suffering child abuse and neglect. Molly Rattigan, Napa Countys deputy executive officer, said in a statement that the county believes it followed state law in the case but agreed to settle the case to end three years of litigation. She said Child Welfare Services has implemented changes to further review calls to its child-abuse hotline I dont have words to describe the pain and agony I have experienced since Kayleighs death, Jason Slusher said in a statement. It never goes away. But I want to make sure no child ever suffers the way Kayleigh did. Sherwin, the attorney, said the settlement satisfied the familys demand that the city and county work to better protect children against child abuse. They were always insistent Kayleighs death not be in vain and they were successful, she said. Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan Blacks and Latinos were injured or killed by police officers in California in greater percentages than their share of the population, according to a state report released Wednesday on the use of force by police in 2017. A 2015 state law required officials to compile racial and ethnic information annually on police contact with civilians. Next years report will include data on individuals stopped by police in seven cities and counties, including San Francisco, and by the California Highway Patrol. The data in Wednesdays report came from police organizations throughout the state, which were asked to disclose violent encounters with individuals. They cited incidents in 2017 involving 741 civilians, including 172 who were killed. Of the 741, the report said, 43.9 percent were Latino, 30.2 percent were non-Latino whites, 19.3 percent were black and 1.1 percent were of Asian descent. The remainder had other ethnicities or were unknown. Of the 172 fatalities, the report said, 47.1 percent were Latino, 32 percent were white, 15.1 percent were black and 1.7 percent were of Asian descent. Californias population in 2017 was about 39 percent Latino, 38 percent non-Latino white, 14 percent Asian American and just under 6 percent African American. The report also found: Of the people injured or killed by police, 63 percent were between the ages of 21 and 40, while 10 percent were younger than 21. More than 91 percent were male. According to the police reports, more than 69 percent of people injured or killed by police assaulted the officers. Of the injured civilians who survived, 85 percent were taken into custody. The report was released by the states Racial and Identity Profiling Board, whose 19 members include police, community organizations, youth advocates and academics. The board is working on strategies to reduce racial profiling. State Attorney General Xavier Becerra said he was optimistic that those recommendations, once released and implemented, will help make our law enforcement agencies more transparent and promote critical steps to enhance, and in some cases repair, the public trust. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko The Monadnock Regional High School Marching Band arrived home to a warm welcome from the community Wednesday night after winning three trophies at the Outback Bowl Music Festival in Tampa, Florida. (Video by Sierra Hubbard / Sentinel Staff) As featured on Monadnock High's marching band returns victorious SWANZEY CENTER At a brisk 25 degrees, the weather wasnt the most welcoming Wednesday nigh Thank you for reading! You have reached your 30-day limit of free access to SentinelSource.com, The Keene Sentinels website. If you would like to read two more articles for free at this time, please register for an account by clicking the sign up button below. We hope you find The Sentinels coverage of the Monadnock Region valuable. We rely on our subscribers to bring you strong local journalism and hope you will consider supporting our work by taking advantage of this special subscription offer here. Looking for a new sushi bar to check out? Look no further than this new arrival. Located at 516 First Ave. North (between Republican and Mercer streets) in Lower Queen Anne, the newcomer is called Moon Tree Sushi & Tapas. This spot offers a variety of Japanese and Korean specialties on its menu, including small plates of spicy edamame, vegetable tempura and geso karaage (deep friend squid legs with chile, lime and Asian pesto). Sushi options include Kani (snow crab), ankimo (monkfish liver) and sake (salmon), among others. Accustomed to mild El Nino winters with below-normal snow packs, the West Coast is due for a successive pounding of wind, wetness and white stuff at higher elevations, according to University of Washington weather expert Cliff Mass. "Forget El Nino. StormFest about to hit West Coast," University of Washington weather expert Cliff Mass wrote Thursday on his blog. "Things often calm down after January 1 during El Nino years . . . but not this year, with the U.S. West Coast from Central California to Washington about to be pummeled by a series of storms. Rain, snow, wind. Plenty for everyone." The storminess extends to the Great White North. The Trans-Canada Highway through Rogers Pass in the Selkirks, between Revelstoke and Golden, was closed early Thursday for avalanche control and due to a multi-vehicle crash. RELATED: Hold onto your hats. Wind, rain return to Seattle area starting Wednesday night Environment Canada has issued a warning of hazardous conditions on the Sea-to-Sky Highway leading from Squamish to Whistler. An "amazing line of one storm after another stretching way into the Pacific," a "traffic jam of storms," is about to strike parts of the coast, Mass predicted. (He will update his predictions at 9 a.m. Friday on KNKX Radio, 88.5) An "energetic low center" will move into Northern California on Saturday morning. A storm will hit central Oregon on Sunday night with "another system in the winds." "El Nino late winters generally have less action -- not this year," wrote Mass. The wetness will hit during the coming week, although unfortunately not during a "sweeps month" for local television. The rain total through 4 a.m. next Thursday will amount to 5 to 10 inches of "precip" over parts of northern California, the Olympics, and southern British Columbia. "Snow?" asked Mass. "There will be abundant amounts . . . 72 hours ending 4 p.m. (next) Wednesday -- 2-3 feet for the high terrain from Central California north to southern British Columbia." Given ferocious fires in November, and destruction of the town of Paradise, the rains are particularly needed in California. Often, however, big winter rains cause vegetation that burns later in the year. "There is a silver lining of all this action, of course," Mass continued. "It will provide an immense amount of water to fill our reservoirs and enhance our snowpack, a snowpack that is now in pretty decent shape. Water resources should be fine next summer." RELATED: 'A Deadly Wind' -- The Northwest's greatest storm remembered Mass has lately been rained on by elements of the Seattle political left, blasted for refusal to support Initiative 1631, the carbon fee, in last November's election. He used the "traffic jam of storms" to go after a local voice of political correctness that has targeted Mass. All the storms and winds "don't stop Seattle's wacky local media from talking about drought for our region, with the Seattle Stranger being one of the worst," Mass wrote. "Facts should matter, apparently not at The Stranger." Below his blog, Mass reprinted a Stranger header: "Washington could face drought in 2019." Six months after the Singapore Summit, the United States and North Korea have made no progress on denuclearization. Indeed, Pyongyang refuses to meet with U.S. Special Envoy Stephen Biegun. Its not so much that the process has been derailed, it simply never left the station. Despite, or counter-intuitively because of, North Korea not living up to its summit commitments, President Trump believes another summit is likely to be productive. Thats worrisome, because Trump might be willing to offer additional unrequited concessions, just as he did in Singapore. Trumps decision to cancel allied military exercises on the peninsula has been the gift that keeps on giving for North Korea. Washington and Seoul have canceled eight exercises risking degradation of allied defense capabilities while Pyongyang took no reciprocal measures. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has fallen away from its maximum-pressure policy. But the primary fault lies, as always, with North Koreas refusal to comply with UN resolutions requiring it to denuclearize. In 2019, America will continue attempts at engagement, but Biegun warns that the window of opportunity is closing. On its part, Pyongyang has warned of a resumption of exchanges of fire if the process collapses. Washington described the harrowing shooting to KTRK, Houston's ABC affliate. "As I turned around and looked back at the street, I heard shots start firing and they came through my window, broke my glass, and hit me in my arm. They sped off in front of us and the truck slowed down and continued to fire as he was in front of us," she said. "It was not fair. He intentionally killed my child for no reason. He didn't even know her, he didn't know who she was." She said one of her other daughters had been the first to see that Jazmine had been wounded. "She said, 'Momma, Jazmine's not moving. She's not talking.' I turned around and my 7-year-old was shot in the head," Washington said. "My baby comes and asks me, 'Where's my sister? Is she coming back?' She's only 6 years old." Merritt said frustration was building about the case. "We believe [the police] are out there diligently searching for information," Merritt said. "As the days go on, it's becoming more exacerbating. But that's not a direct criticism of law enforcement, it's just where we are in the case. We're not at a happy place in the case." A new poll shows that a wide majority of South Carolinians support legalizing marijuana for medical use. The results from Benchmark Research shows that 72 percent of 400 South Carolinians polled support legalizing medical marijuana, including 84 percent of Democrats, 78 percent of independents and 63 percent of Republicans. Geographically, medical marijuana had the strongest support in the Lowcountry, with 76 percent. The Midlands showed 71 percent support for legalization. And the Upstate and the Pee Dee registered 73 percent and 65 percent respectively. Thats a good, solid number, medical marijuana supporter Bill Nettles, a Democrat who was appointed by then-President Barack Obama to serve as U.S. attorney from 2010 to 2016, said of the 72 percent statewide result. Thats what were seeing, he said. Government officials need to get out of the way of the will of the people. The poll, which has a 4.46 percent margin of error, is the latest boost for legalized medical marijuana, which has been embraced by key committees in both the S.C. House and Senate. FLORENCE, S.C. Florence-Darlington Technical College is offering assistance to former Virginia College students looking to continue their education. After Virginia Colleges closure announcement in December, FDTC offered in a Facebook post to help the displaced students. As a community partner, we want to ensure these students would be able to continue their education with minimal disruption within the accreditation guidelines that governs our institution, said Genell Gause, the interim associate vice president for student enrollment management and services. The Dec. 12 Facebook post said students can earn credit through examination through a college-level examination (CLEP) test, which is administered by the College Board, and the college is using its credit through experiential learning process. Due to Virginia Colleges accreditation, FDTC cannot accept transfer credits, Gause said. However, students can take the CLEP test to gain up to 16 hours of course credit. Students can take CLEP tests for subjects such as psychology, biology, college algebra and English. The CLEP test costs $88 per test with a $25 proctoring fee. The technical college will waive the proctoring fee for Virginia College students. So many people came out and I saw that there was an interest for this style of dance, Ellis-Aroha continued. And so we decided to move here. Also, as a member of the Baha'i Faith, she wanted to be closed to the activities in that community. According to Bahai.com, the Baha'i Faith is a world religion based on the teachings of Bahaullah. He taught there is one God and one human family, and that the great religions of the world represent successive stages in the spiritual evolution of human society. Aroha Arts Collective features instruction in three types of Latin dance, kizomba, bachata, and salsa, as well as instruction in hip-hop, and afro-house. The name Aroha derives from a Maori word that roughly translates to love. It is pronounced like the Hawaiian Aloha but with an r instead of an l. The Maori are the native people of the islands of New Zealand. Ellis-Aroha said she adopted the name for her dance instruction classes while she was teaching in Abu Dhabi and a student of hers suggested the name. A new Tel Aviv University study finds that microplastics -- tiny pieces of plastic ingested by aquatic life -- are present in solitary ascidians all along the Israeli coastline. Ascidians are sac-like marine invertebrate filter feeders. The research also confirmed the presence of plastic additives, i.e. "plasticizers," in ascidians. Plasticizers are substances added to plastics to increase their flexibility, transparency, durability and longevity. The research was led by Prof. Noa Shenkar of the School of Zoology at TAU's Faculty of Life Sciences and The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History and published in the January 2019 issue of Marine Pollution Bulletin. The study was conducted in collaboration with Prof. Dror Avisar, Head of the Water Research Center at TAU's Faculty of Exact Sciences, and Aviv Kaplan, a postgraduate student in Prof. Avisar's TAU laboratory. "This is the first study that examines plastic additive contamination in marine organisms in the Eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea," says Gal Vered, co-author of the study and a PhD student in Prof. Shenkar's laboratory at TAU. "Solitary ascidians are highly efficient filter feeders and are excellent examples of the state of pollution that affects many other marine organisms. Our findings are extremely disturbing. Even in protected beaches, there was evidence of microplastics and plastic additives in ascidians. In fact, at every sampling site, we discovered varying levels of these pollutants." "This is a direct result of human use of plastic," Prof. Shenkar says. "It may seem that plastic bags and bulky plastic products that we notice floating in the sea are the major problem. But a more important cause for concern is the fragmentation of these products into small particles that are then ingested by many organisms and reach even the deepest zones in the ocean." The researchers developed a novel method for testing for additives in marine life. "Our new chemical analysis method can be used on a variety of soft-tissue marine organisms," Prof. Shenkar continues. "We can now extract phthalates, an additive that's used primarily to soften polyvinyl chloride, from organism tissues without contracting any background contamination from the laboratory equipment itself, which also has plastic components. This was a big challenge because the laboratory is actually a highly plastic 'contaminated' environment." Some 350 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide every year, and the number is rising. The research suggests that if plastic is found in ascidians, it is probably present in other sea creatures. The researchers are currently preparing their results for policymakers interested in preventing further damage to Israel's coastline. They are also continuing to investigate the extent and effect of plastic pollution on the coral reef of Eilat. "By communicating our results to the public, we hope to further enhance public awareness of the actions everyone can take to beat plastic pollution," Prof. Shenkar concludes. featured STILLWATER OUT IN THE COLD Shutdown leaves park visitors out in the cold Danvers, MA (01923) Today Showers this evening becoming less numerous overnight. Low 62F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%.. Tonight Showers this evening becoming less numerous overnight. Low 62F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%. Rutland, VT (05701) Today Heavy thunderstorms early, then variable clouds overnight with still a chance of showers. Low 57F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.. Tonight Heavy thunderstorms early, then variable clouds overnight with still a chance of showers. Low 57F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%. Chandigarh, January 3: Considering foggy conditions in the State, The Punjab Education Department has issued an order to change the timings of all the Govt, private, aided and recognised Primary, Middle, High and Senior Secondary Schools in the state. Disclosing this, Punjab Education Minister Mr O.P. Soni Punjab Education Minister Mr O.P. Soni said that to ensure that our children are kept safe from intense fog and harsh weather conditions, we have decided to change the school timings with immediate effect. The new timings would be from 10 am to 4 pm for all the Primary schools and 10 am to 4:15 pm for all the Middle, High and Senior Secondary Schools. The changed timings will be immediately effective till further orders. Chandigarh, January 3: To make agricultural land leasing secure and simple for both the landowner and the tenant, the Punjab Revenue Commission (PRC) has drafted The Punjab Land Leasing and Tenancy Bill, 2019.The six-member Commission, headed by Justice (Retd.) S.S. Saron has uploaded the Bill on Revenue Department and PLRs websites revenue.punjab.gov.in, plrs.org.in and sought the public suggestions on the Bill. Capt Amarinder Singh Notably, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh led Punjab Government had constituted the Revenue Commission to bring efficiency in the working of Revenue department to make it further people friendly. The commission has mandated to make new acts and send its recommendations for amendments in the departments Manuals and Acts. An official spokesperson said that any person/Union can send their suggestions on The Punjab Land Leasing and Tenancy Bill, 2019 till 17 January 2019. He said that the purpose of this Act was to protect the rights of the cultivators and the landowner, besides enhancing cooperation between them. It would also ensure tenant/farmers to have access to institutional credit without affecting the landowner's title rights. One of them was as young as 13.They climbed aboard the 52-meter (171ft) when the installation stopped. The ride suffered a technical problem when the people inside it were high up in the air. The rides operators spent an hour trying to get it to restart before realising they would need help from the emergency services. The rescues operation was not an easy task. The owner of the ride, Alexandre Thiel, said the broken part blocked it and while there was no danger to those on board, the only problem was getting them down. Its a technical incident that has never happened before , he also said. Firefighters made several attempts to rescue the revellers, but their 30-meter ladder was too short. A helicopter was needed. Trapped people were evacuated one by one. People were still stuck in the ride at 1:00 am. At 5:59 am on Tuesday morning, Rennes mayor, Nathalie Appere, tweeted that the rescue operation had finished. In the early hours of the morning a fight broke out between the families involved and fairground workers. I never thought Id get out. It was very traumatic, one of the rescued, 23-year-old Antoine said. It was long, it was cold and it was frightening. TWO men have appeared in court charged with firearms offences after shots were allegedly fired at a car in Rawmarsh on Sunday. Kyle Stephenson (32), of Ash View, Greasbrough, appeared at Sheffield Magistrates' Court yesterday (Wednesday) charged with possession of a pump action shotgun. He has been remanded into custody and will appear before Sheffield Crown Court on Wednesday, January 30. Nathan Smedley (27), of Ingshead Avenue, Rawmarsh, appeared before magistrates today (Thursday) charged with possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence. Smedley has also been remanded into custody and will appear before crown court on January 31. A police spokeswoman said the charges related to reports of shots being fired towards a stationary vehicle in Ash Grove, Rawmarsh, on Sunday, December 30. No-one was injured in the alleged incident. In the Shenandoah Valley, Goodlatte will be remembered for helping save part of the regions economic mainstay the turkey industry. In the early 2000s, Pilgrims Pride bought one of the biggest local poultry companies but only wanted the chicken processing part, not the turkey operations. That left 170 or so turkey farms with no buyer for their birds, which is another way of saying that 170 or so small businesses (with 1,800 employees) were in danger of going out of business. Goodlatte at the time was chairman of the House Agriculture Committee. He used his leverage to secure $28 million in federal financing so the farmers could organize themselves as the Virginia Poultry Growers Cooperative, which bought the facilities Pilgrims Pride didnt want. Today, that cooperative, and the turkey industry there, is thriving. They were such a huge success, they paid it off [the federal loan] ahead of schedule, Goodlatte says. When Goodlatte announced his retirement, his role in setting up the cooperative was one of the first things the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg mentioned about his career. May 13, 1946 January 1, 2019 Gail M. Groff Ungerer, 72, of Moneta, Va. departed her earthly home on Tuesday, January 1, 2019 for her heavenly home. Born May 13, 1946 in South Bend, Ind. she leaves behind her husband of 47 years, Richard A. Ungerer; two daughters, Lori U. Livingston, husband, Patrick Livingston and grandson, Aubrey W. Livingston, Sandra U. Bultema, husband, David Bultema and grandsons, Connor A. Bultema and Tyler D. Bultema. She was preceded in death by her parents, Richard and Margaret Groff; and sister, Nicole Nancy Groff; brother, Richard Groff and wife, Sharon Groff reside in Florida. Gail was a graduate of Greenbrier College with a merchandise degree and worked in merchandising prior to the birth of her daughters. She was a devoted wife who loved to travel with her husband and experience new places and people but was always happy to return to their home at Smith Mountain Lake. A loving mother to her daughters who always was concerned about their lives and families. Her three grandsons who called her GiGi were the joy of her life and she loved to be with them and enjoy their activities. Although her travels took her to China, Russia, Australia, South Pacific and Antarctica her favorite trip was a Disney Cruise with her family and grandsons. She enjoyed her organizations she belonged to and was an active member of PEO and enjoyed the sisters and activities. She enjoyed entertaining at their lake home and also was known for sending many cards for special occasions. In lieu of flowers, those wishing to share her love for life may do so by contributing to Bethlehem United Methodist Church Pre-school P.O. Box 458, Moneta, VA 24121 or Our Daily Bread Ministries P.O. Box 2222 Grand Rapids, MI 49501. Funeral services will be conducted 11 a.m., Saturday, January 5, 2019 at Bethlehem United Methodist Church, 13586 Moneta Rd, Moneta, Va. with the Rev. David Lord officiating. Interment will follow in the church cemetery. The family will receive friends from 5 to 7 p.m. on Friday, January 4, 2019 at Conner-Bowman Funeral Home. Online condolences may be made at www.connerbowman.com Arrangements by Conner-Bowman Funeral Home 62 VA Market Place Drive (Route 220 @ Wirtz Road) Rocky Mount. (540)334-5151 Twenty-seven other conventionally mailed absentee ballots arrived Nov. 14, Cochran noted. The postmarks on those ranged from Oct. 30 (four ballots) to Nov. 6 (one ballot). He said 30 other ballots arrived Nov. 8 two days late. Those also bore postmarks ranging from Oct. 30 to Nov. 6. Ive had numerous conversations with the Roanoke postmaster about this and I think theyre on top of things, Cochran said. The problem is not in Roanoke the problem is in Greensboro, and inconsistent delivery times. Greensboro, North Carolina, is where all of the Roanoke Valleys mail has gone for cancellation since April 2015. That includes mail originating in the valley thats destined for the valley. At the same time it changed processing centers, the postal service changed its on-time delivery standard for local mail from overnight to two to three days. But Cochran said mail returning to Roanoke doesnt always arrive back here within two to three days of being postmarked in Greensboro. His spreadsheet shows 36 of the 84 late ballots were postmarked in Greenboro by Nov. 3 or earlier. None of those arrived at his office by the end of the day Nov. 6. The Montgomery County Sheriffs Office, which had been searching for Drain since Sunday when he was briefly in custody before allegedly driving away in a deputys car put the time of his capture Wednesday at just before 1 p.m. Earlier news releases from the Montgomery County Sheriffs Office and accounts from authorities in Pulaski and Wythe counties outlined a string of drug and vehicle theft charges that stretched back to last spring. Pulaski County Commonwealths Attorney Mike Fleenor wrote in an email that Drain was charged with possessing methamphetamine with intent to distribute it, related to an April 2018 incident. On Aug. 16, Drain was admitted to Pulaski Countys Drug Court, where he could have resolved the charge. However, he started violating the rules in October and then failed to appear in November and has been a fugitive from Pulaski County since then, Fleenor wrote. In Wythe County, officers have been looking for Drain since Dec. 18, when a 2016 Toyota Tacoma pickup was reported stolen, Clines statement said. Fast-forward to the early 1900s, and Sherlock Holmes and his best friend, Dr. Watson, are two of the most famous people in England, thanks to their long battle of wits with criminal genius professor James Moriarty. But then Moriarty escapes justice and threatens to kill the queen, putting the crime fighters reputation at risk. Ralph Fiennes plays Moriarty, in one of the movies many impressively cast supporting turns. Holmes & Watson also has Kelly Macdonald as the landlady/servant Mrs. Hudson, Hugh Laurie as Sherlocks brother, Mycroft, Rob Brydon as Inspector Lestrade, Steve Coogan as a shady one-armed tattoo artist and Rebecca Hall as a visiting American doctor who bewitches Watson. Cohen and company play around with the classic Holmes mythology. One of the more zingy recurring gags has Sherlock and Watson casually offering each other heroin and cocaine, riffing on Holmes frequent drug use in Doyles stories. One of the flatter bits has the hero trying out a bunch of different hats from scene to scene, looking for the one that will become his trademark. Virginia lawmakers have the opportunity to act creatively to make changes that not only save money, but contribute to the well-being of communities across the commonwealth. Virginia is already on a good path. It has the lowest recidivism rate in the nation 22.4 percent. According to Virginia Parole Board Chair Adrianne Bennett, When it comes to recidivism for paroled felons, that number drops to 5 percent in Virginia. And when just looking at discretionary parolees, its only 1 percent. One low-hanging fruit for further criminal justice reform is to parole more elderly inmates. There are currently 125,000 elderly prisoners incarcerated in the United States at a cost of $16 billion per year. Without dramatic changes in sentencing and parole policies, that number could grow to 400,000 by 2030 at a cost of more than $50 billion per year. According to the Center for Justice at Columbia University, the cost of incarcerating someone age 50 or older is two to five times the cost of incarcerating someone 49 or younger. Two women have been arrested in Saturdays fatal shooting of a 21-year-old man in Petersburg. Petersburg police said they arrested Danasia Gray and Sacorra Anthony in the slaying of Demonta Adkins. They were both charged with homicide and conspiracy to commit homicide, police said in a news release. Authorities did not provide the ages or addresses of the two suspects or say whether they knew the victim. Police were called at 1:47 a.m. Saturday to the Petersburg East Apartments in the 100 block of Croatan Drive for a report of a person shot. When officers arrived, they found a man with a gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Less than 12 hours later, detectives identified two suspects and placed them under arrest. On Wednesday, police thanked the public for its help in bringing closure to the case. The killing was Petersburgs 16th of 2018, which tied the citys record set in 2015. The investigation is ongoing. Police urge anyone with information to contact Petersburg/Dinwiddie Crime Solvers at (804) 861-1212. You can also contact Crime Solvers by going to www.pdcrimesolvers.org or using the P3 Tips app for smartphones. A federal judge in Charlottesville ruled Wednesday that the Virginia Department of Corrections failed to live up to eight of 22 standards of health care established in a 2016 settlement agreement for inmates at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women. U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon issued an injunction against top officials of the department requiring that within 45 days the prison have an adequate staff of 78 nurses. And within 14 days, all of the prisons buildings that house inmates must have a backboard or stretcher, an oxygen tank and mask, and a suction machine. Also, within 30 days, the department must develop a protocol ensuring unimpeded access to medical care for inmates, taking into account a three-year delay for a colonoscopy experienced by one prisoner. It was later determined that the inmate had colon cancer. Referring to the deaths of at least four inmates at the prison after the 2016 agreement was reached, Moon wrote Wednesday, In sum, the medical treatment these women received was neither timely nor appropriate, and their deaths illustrate the danger of not having appropriate medical equipment on hand. On the Yale campus, virtually everyone knows Marc and wants to take his classes, said Steven Schragis, founder of the One Day University program. I have never met a professor who loves to teach more than he does. ... Its truly a passion for him. Lapadula has watched each of the films that will be covered countless times. I could spend two hours alone on each film, he said. Hopefully the audience will be inspired to go back and revisit these films in their entirety. Thats the goal, so that when you spend two hours at a movie, you get something quite valuable, he said. Im not saying every film offers this. But the best ones do. Lapadula also has taught screenwriting at Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University. Some of his screenwriting students have gone on to write 500 Days of Summer, Oceans 8 and The Hangover, to name a few. Due to the demands of commerce, not as many great movies are being made as during the golden age of Hollywood, he said. But he did mention movies like The Big Lebowski or more recently Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri that can benefit from a deeper reading. COLUMBUS -- Three area fire departments have been awarded more than $43,000 in grants from the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation. Madison Township Fire Department in Richland County was awarded $14,436.67 to purchase one extractor and 40 hoods; Ruggles Township Fire Department in Ashland County was granted $13,710.90 to purchase one extractor; and Liberty Township Fire Department in Crawford County was awarded $14,876 to purchase one extractor, 30 gloves and 30 hoods. The three local departments are part of 64 Ohio fire departments sharing $693,000 in grants from the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation (BWC) under a program to protect firefighters from carcinogens and other harmful health hazards encountered by firefighters during their daily work activities. The fire departments are receiving the funding under BWCs Firefighter Exposure to Environmental Elements Grant Program, which helps departments purchase safety gear, exhaust systems and specialized washing machines. Because residue collected on firefighters gear during a blaze can cause respiratory disease, cancer and other ailments, it is important not only to wear appropriate protective gear, but also to ensure its cleaned properly. BWC is pleased to be a part of growing efforts to protect firefighters from cancer, said Dr. Abe Al-Tarawneh, superintendent of BWCs division of safety and hygiene. The more awareness thats raised, and the more tools we get into the hands of fire departments, the better protected firefighters will be from these dangers associated with an already very risky job. Chief Ron Luttrell of the Madison Township Fire Department said the department filed for a safety intervention grant for firefighters exposed to environmental elements. He stressed the importance of the new safety equipment. "The extractor is gear we use to wash our clothes. Smoke and carcinogens from the elements we work in get into our clothes," Luttrell said. "We have a smaller (extractor) but now we have a bigger one which will make for a faster return and allow us to clean more at once. "We're excited. It's made us safer," he added. "Several years ago, this wasn't a concern. Now it's on the forefront." The full list of Ohio fire departments receiving funding is as follows: Winchester Community Fire (Adams County) $15,000 to purchase one extractor, 31 gloves and 31 hoods. Ruggles Township (Ashland County) $13,710.90 to purchase one extractor. Sheffield Township (Ashtabula County) $14,895 to purchase one extractor, 60 gloves and 60 hoods. Dover Township (Athens County) $14,035 to purchase one extractor, 30 hoods and 30 gloves. Jacksonville Village (Athens County) $8,670 to purchase one extractor, 30 gloves and 30 hoods. New Bremen Village (Auglaize County) $4,060.78 to purchase one extractor. Belmont Village (Belmont County) $14,950 to purchase one extractor, 50 gloves and 50 hoods. Smith Township Volunteer Fire Co. (Belmont County) $5,400 to purchase one extractor and 20 gloves. Village of Mount Orab (Brown County) $12,499.17 to purchase 99 gloves and 99 hoods. City of Monroe (Butler County) $11,753.33 to purchase one extractor. Seven Mile Village (Butler County) $11,410 to purchase one extractor, 40 gloves and 40 hoods. Central Joint Fire EMS District (Clermont County) $10,607 to purchase 74 hoods and 74 gloves. Franklin Township (Clermont County) $15,000 to purchase one extractor, 45 hoods and 45 gloves. Miami Township (Clermont County) $15,000 to purchase 75 gloves and 180 hoods. Monroe Township (Clermont County) $12,016.67 to purchase one extractor, 30 hoods and 30 gloves. Wayne Township Fire & Rescue (Clermont County) $4,258 to purchase 32 hoods and 32 gloves. Butler Township /Winona FD (Columbiana County) $8,694 to purchase 54 gloves and 54 hoods. Liberty Township (Crawford County) $14,876 to purchase one extractor, 30 gloves and 30 hoods. City of Brook Park (Cuyahoga County) $12,483.33 to purchase one extractor. City of Euclid (Cuyahoga County) $9,262.50 to purchase 95 gloves and 15 hoods. Village of Arcanum (Darke County) $4,544.79 to purchase 25 gloves and 25 hoods. Elm Valley Joint Fire District (Delaware County) $3,953.01 to purchase 23 hoods and 23 gloves. Berlin Township/Erie County (Erie County) $15,000 to purchase one extractor, 41 hoods and 41 pairs of gloves. City of Vermilion (Erie County) $12,516.66 to purchase one extractor and 60 hoods. Mifflin Township (Franklin County) $15,000 to purchase three extractors and bases. Hambden Volunteer Fire Dept Inc. (Geauga County) $8,631 to purchase one extractor. Cedarville Township (Greene County) $5,164.40 to purchase 30 gloves and 30 hoods. Liberty Community Volunteer FD Inc. (Guernsey County) $7,826 to purchase 36 hoods and 36 gloves. Blanchard Township (Hancock County) $7,478 to purchase one extractor, 20 gloves and 20 hoods. Village of Arlington (Hancock County) $12,575 to purchase one extractor, 60 hoods and 60 gloves. Anderson Township (Hamilton County) $15,000 to purchase one extractor, 65 hoods and 39 gloves. City of Harrison (Hamilton County) $10,300 to purchase 80 gloves and 80 hoods. Madeira Indian Hill Joint Fire District (Hamilton County) $5,291.67 to purchase 70 hoods. Flatrock Township (Henry County) $13,636 to purchase one extractor, 23 hoods and 23 gloves. Pleasant Township (Henry County) $5,485 to purchase 35 gloves and 35 hoods. Western Holmes County Fire District (Holmes County) $14,241 to purchase one extractor, 20 gloves and 20 hoods. Short Creek Joint Fire District (Jefferson County) $9,892.50 to purchase one extractor, 35 gloves and 35 hoods. Perry Township (Lawrence County) $10,000 to purchase one extractor. City of Newark (Licking County) $7,409.17 to purchase one extractor. Monroe Fire Department (Licking County) $10,833.33 to purchase one extractor. Carlisle Township (Lorain County) $7,168.33 to purchase 46 hoods and 46 gloves. City of Oberlin (Lorain County) $15,000 to purchase one extractor, 52 hoods and 26 gloves. City of Oregon (Lucas County) $13,725 to purchase one extractor. Central Township Joint Fire District (Madison County) $15,000 to purchase one extractor, 20 gloves and 20 hoods. City of Struthers (Mahoning County) $5,222.50 to purchase 34 hoods and 34 gloves. Brunswick Hills Township (Medina County) $6,100 to purchase 40 hoods and 40 gloves. City of Medina (Medina County) $9,916.67 to purchase one extractor and base. Sharon Township Fire Dept. (Medina County) $2,816.67 to purchase 40 gloves. City of Dayton (Montgomery County) $15,000 to purchase 257 hoods. City of Trotwood (Montgomery County) $15,000 to purchase 72 hoods and one extractor. Harrison Township (Montgomery County) $15,000 to purchase 120 gloves and 120 hoods. Jefferson Township (Montgomery County) $12,465 to purchase one extractor and 17 hoods. Seal Township Trustees (Pike County) $5,695 to purchase 25 hoods and 40 gloves. Charlestown Township (Portage County) $12,369.25 to purchase one extractor, 15 gloves and 15 hoods. Paris Township (Portage County) $12,763.53 to purchase one extractor. Madison Township (Richland County) $14,436.67 to purchase one extractor and 40 hoods. Jefferson Township (Ross County) $13,861 to purchase one extractor, 24 gloves and 24 hoods. Marlboro Township Volunteer FC (Stark County) $6,997.65 to purchase one extractor. City of New Franklin (Summit County) $14,691.67 to purchase one extractor, 16 hoods and 18 gloves. City of Twinsburg (Summit County) $12,118.33 to purchase two extractors. Champion Township (Trumbull County) $14,730.23 to purchase one diesel exhaust system. Kinsman Township (Trumbull County) $7,656 to purchase 44 gloves and 44 hoods. East Union Township (Wayne County) $14,998 to purchase one extractor, 34 hoods and 34 gloves. Lake Township (Wood County) $6,730.83 to purchase 50 gloves and 50 hoods. MANSFIELD -- When David Remy attended Lexington High School, he thought he wanted to be an engineer. "I did all the math and science classes (toward engineering), but I found I was better at doing history and political science. So I went in that direction and became a lawyer," Remy said Wednesday night. As the City of Mansfield's new full-time public works director, Remy will now oversee the engineer's office, along with 200-plus employees in a variety of departments. When Mansfield City Council on Wednesday voted 5-2 to approve a change that allows Remy to assume the new position, it marks the third city hat the Ohio Northern University graduate has worn. Council members Donnie Bryant (at-large) and Jon Van Harlingen (3rd Ward) voted against the change. Both said they believe the city should hire a new human resources leader before moving Remy into the full-time public works director slot. Councilman Jason Lawrence said he voted for the change with the expectation the city administration will quickly fill the HR director position. Remy served as the city's elected law director and then human resources director, a post he will give up to focus solely on public works once a new HR director or manager is hired. The change to the city's codified ordinances takes effect in 30 days. "I still have that hidden, or latent, desire to be involved in that tech stuff. It's interesting ... just a different phase in my life. I never thought I would be an HR director. It will be fulfilling," Remy said. "It'll be a relief because in truth, the ability to do both jobs (which Remy has done for the last six months), the responsibility to do both, doesn't do either one (justice). A city this size needs a public works director," Remy said. Remy said he hoped the city could locate and hire someone to lead the HR department in the next 30 to 60 days. Mayor Tim Theaker said he was pleased the change also gives the city two directors, including Safety-Service Director Lori Cope, who can sign contracts on behalf of the city. The city had a similar arrangement until 2008, when the public works director left and water plant manager Angelo Klousiadis took the role on an interim basis. Theaker said the city will post the human resources leadership position and the quality of candidates and the city's budget would determine if the city hires an HR director or an HR manager. "We will review the candidates and determine the best fit for the job. At that point in time, we will determine if that's a director or manager," Theaker said. In other action Wednesday, council: -- voted unanimously to approve a May ballot issue, asking voters to approve the renewal of a one-half percent income tax to fund operations of the city's police and fire departments. If approved, the tax would continue for four more years, Jan. 1, 2020, through Dec. 31, 2023. -- heard a presentation from Angel Ross-Taylor and Brigitte Coles from We ACT about this year's "Spread the Light" week to support local law enforcement. A full week of events kicks off Sunday at 5 p.m. with a public rally at Graham Auto Mall, 1515 W. 4th St. For a complete list of activities, visit the organization's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/spreadthelight2018. -- approved a police department software maintenance agreement with Superion. -- Approved sewage backup damage claims to residents Patricia King of 697 Burns St. ($600) and Shirley Weddell of 340 Wood St. ($4,100). ASHLAND Kristen Haley Theriot of Baton Rouge, La., flew more than 1,000 miles one-way from Louisiana to Ashland, in order to receive her Associate of Arts degree as part of Ashland Universitys Winter Commencement ceremony on Dec. 15. To say earning a degree through Ashland was a goal, would be cutting the credit in half," Haley said. "Its more than a degree, it surpasses any dream that I had for myself. Earning my G.E.D. was a dream, but to travel more than 1,000 miles and walk across the Ashland stage is like getting married or the birth of a child. Theriot took online classes while she was in prison in Louisiana. Theriot was 26 years old when she began her educational journey. After obtaining her G.E.D at Ascension Parish Prison and a diploma in Upholstery Technology and a National Construction Center Education and Research certification through Baton Rouge Community College, she worked for almost two years to get her Associates Degree in General Studies through Ashland University. My entire five years of imprisonment consisted of education and struggles, she said. This moment for me is more than an opportunity to be recognized for my degree. This is the moment that breaks a cycle for the next generation. Its the day I display strength, perseverance, long-suffering and hope for my five children, my heart, my family, my friends, my supporters, those who encouraged and prayed even those who discouraged and never believed in me. "They now have the chance to see a miracle, change and growth. And they are able to witness me going from cursed to blessed. This is the moment where Christ shows His strength in all my weaknesses. Theriot said that Ashland University has given her an entire life of opportunity, a new perspective and understanding in every aspect of her life. Things such as growth in myself, the ability to communicate effectively, openly and honestly. It has given me strength, courage, long-suffering and it has taught me the value and rewards of commitment, she said. I use the knowledge Ashland gave me in my everyday life, and I share what Ashland gave me hope. Theriot described her favorite aspects of the Ashland educational experience as being the knowledge she received, the online tablets used in the educational process, and the people who genuinely believed in her. Though I was the one taking the courses, I built a family of friends who refused to let me give up. And I experienced the communication and connection with people who are there simply because they care, she said. Now that Theriot has her Associates Degree, she plans to start working toward earning her Bachelors Degree. I live in Baton Rouge, La., and am in a one-year program called Connections for Life designed to help me rebuild my life, she said. The struggles have been many, but my long-suffering and my ability to commit are stronger than ever because of what Ashland has provided me with tools. I am taking this one step at a time. I would like to help other individuals like myself, especially parents that are in and outside of prison fighting for their children and who need someone to believe in them as well as being a voice of reason and hope. BUCYRUS The Bucyrus City School District will begin using the Raptor Visitor Management System in all of its schools to strengthen campus safety programs for students and faculty. The Raptor system will allow the district to know who is in the buildings at all times. The Raptor system will better allow us to screen visitors, contractors, and volunteers in our schools, Bucyrus Superintendent Kevin Kimmel said. It will provide us with a safer environment for our students and staff. Upon entering a district building, visitors will be asked to present identification, such as a Drivers License, which can either be scanned or manually entered into the system. If a parent or guardian for any reason does not have a US government-issued ID, the school staff member can use any form of identification and manually enter the persons name into the Raptor system. Once entry is approved, Raptor will issue a badge that identifies the visitor, the date, and the purpose of his/her visit. A visitors badge will not be necessary for those who visit the schools to drop off an item in the office or pick up paperwork. The safety of our students and staff is our highest priority, Kimmel said. The Raptor visitor management system is another proactive step we are taking to ensure we provide a safe and secure learning environment in all our buildings. BUENA PARK, Calif. Yamaha Corporation of America announced Thursday that Mansfield native Dave Clark has been appointed Great Lakes district manager for the companys Band & Orchestral division, overseeing sales in parts of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Clark reports to David Suter, regional sales manager, Band & Orchestral division at the company. Yamaha is always on a quest to find, recruit and hire the best talent available to best serve the needs of our dealers, said Doug Steinmetz, national sales manager for the division. Dave Clark certainly exemplifies this, as evidenced by his experience, success and solid reputation in the industry. Clark is based in Ohio, and has assumed the territory previously managed by longtime Yamaha district manager Chris Jelenic, who retired last year. I intend to reinforce the core values and integrity that Chris established over a 35-year career with Yamaha in the territory, Clark said. Prior to joining Yamaha, Clark served as district manager for KHS America, providing sales, service and training on all KHS combo division products for nearly six years. Before that, he was an education sales representative for Rettig Music and a Dynasty product manager for DEG Music Products. Clark attended Hondros College in Columbus, Ohio, and has extensive teaching experience in drum & bugle corps activities, including being a battery percussion arranger for various marching bands and indoor lines. WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Donald Trump urged other countries, specifically Russia, Pakistan, and India, to become more involved in the fighting in Afghanistan as he argued against continued long-term presence of U.S. troops in the war-torn country. In televised comments to reporters during a cabinet meeting on January 2, Trump also asserted that Moscows involvement in Afghanistan in the 1980s led to the bankruptcy and breakup of the Soviet Union. Speaking of the fight against Taliban and Islamic State (IS) extremist fighters in Afghanistan, Trump called on other countries that are closer to the region to take up the fight. You take a look at other countriesPakistan is there. They should be fighting, he said. Russia should be fighting, he said. The reason Russia was in Afghanistan [in the 1980s] was because terrorists were going into Russia," Trump said. "They were right to be there. The problem was it was a tough fight," he added. "And they literally went bankrupt. They went to being called Russia again, as opposed to the Soviet Union. Why isnt Russia there [now]? Why isnt India there? Why isnt Pakistan there? Trump continued. Why are we there and were 6,000 miles away? The Soviet Union invaded and occupied Afghanistan from 1979-88 and battled a variety of mujahedin forces battling for control of Kabul in a bloody civil war. Soviet forces withdrew in 1988-89 after years of costly losses, and the U.S.S.R. officially broke up on December 26, 1991. Trump's suggestion that the Soviet Union was "right" to invade Afghanistan and his account of the catalyst for that invasion veered from the widely accepted view -- that Moscow's goal was to prop up a communist client government -- and drew criticism on social media. The office of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on January 3 that Kabul had lodged through official diplomatic channels a request for clarification following Trump's comments. The Afghan government understands that "there is a difference between remarks and the official policy of a country," the statement said. Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani called the Soviet occupation "a grave violation" of Afghanistans territorial integrity and national sovereignty. "Any other claim defies historicl facts," he tweeted. Trump did not talk specifically about reports of a possible drawdown in the estimated 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan currently leading a NATO effort to train and advise local troops. Western forces have been in Afghanistan since 2001, when they drove the Taliban from power. In his comments, Trump also criticized Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the funding of an unidentified library in Afghanistan. Modi has been "constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan," Trump said. "You know what that is? That's like five hours of what we spend," he said. "And we're supposed to say, 'Oh, thank you for the library.' I don't know who's using it in Afghanistan," Trump added. The U.S. president did not specify the library project to which he was referring. Afghanistan and India have traditionally had warm relations. In a speech hosted by Brookings India in 2017, Afghanistans ambassador to India, Shaida Abdali, said India was the largest regional donor to Afghanistan with more than $3 billion in assistance since 2011. Afghanistans relations with Pakistan have been strained. Kabul and Washington have accused Pakistan of providing a safe haven for insurgents conducting operations in Afghanistan. Islamabad denies the charge. U.S. officials have also accused Russia of aiding insurgents in Afghanistan. Moscow also denies the charge. With reporting by AFP, Newsweek, and USA Today U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that the Soviet Union was in the "right" when it occupied Afghanistan for nearly a decade did not go down well with many Afghans, and his take on Moscow's justification for invading the country was also questioned. Trump made the controversial comments during a January 2 cabinet meeting in which he argued against the long-term presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. He said Moscow's involvement in the nine-year Soviet-Afghan war led to the bankruptcy and dissolution of the Soviet Union and called on other countries in the region to join the fight against extremists in Afghanistan. "Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan," Trump said. "The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there." The widely accepted version of events is that the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on Christmas Eve 1979 to prop up the fledgling communist government, and argued that its intervention was in compliance with international law and Soviet-Afghan friendship treaties that pledged, among other things, mutual military aid. The Soviet Union also presented itself as the true defenders of Muslim Afghans, who were under attack by "imperialism," and suggested that the United States was planning to use Afghanistan as a way to subvert the U.S.S.R. By the time Soviet forces pulled out in 1989, some 1 million Afghan civilians were dead and millions of others had been displaced. An estimated 15,000 Soviet soldiers were killed during the protracted and costly conflict, in which the United States backed rebel forces. On January 3, Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani clapped back at Trump's interpretation of history. The Afghan Foreign Ministry on January 3 said in a statement that it had asked Washington for clarification through diplomatic channels regarding recent comments." Following the former Soviet Union invasion, not only all U.S. Presidents condemned it, but they also remained supporters of the Afghans' holy Jihad, the statement read. Omar Samad, a former Afghan diplomat who is now a senior fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council, suggested on Twitter that the U.S. president needed to brush up on his Soviet-Afghan history. Former Afghan intelligence chief Rahmatullah Nabil responded with a string of tweets that addressed the impact the Soviet loss in Afghanistan had on the outcome of the Cold War and lamenting recent reports that the United States was planning a drawdown of its troops in Afghanistan. In his comments, Trump also called on Russia, Pakistan, and India to get involved in the fighting against the Taliban and Islamic State forces in Afghanistan. Trump also chided Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his talk of funding an unidentified library in Afghanistan. Modi has been "constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan," Trump said. "You know what that is? That's like five hours of what we spend," he said. "And we're supposed to say, 'Oh, thank you for the library.' "I don't know who's using it in Afghanistan," Trump added. Afghan journalist Parviz Kawa later suggested that Trump may have confused a "library" with the Afghan parliament, which was constructed by India and inaugurated by Modi in 2015. Patrick Shanahan has taken over the helm of the Pentagon, as U.S. President Donald Trump attacked his Defense Department predecessor, pointing to what he said was a lack of success in Afghanistan. Shanahan, who has been serving as deputy defense secretary, worked his first day in office as acting defense secretary on January 2 as the replacement for Jim Mattis, who resigned as defense chief on December 20, saying his policies were not fully aligned with the president. Trump has not specified a time frame for choosing a permanent defense secretary or said whether Shanahan could potentially assume that role. Mattis initially said he would be leaving the Pentagon at the end of February. But Trump later announced that Mattis, 68, would be leaving earlier after the defense secretary published a letter that directly criticized the president. In televised remarks on January 2, Trump said he essentially fired Mattis. "I'm not happy with what [he has] done in Afghanistan -- and I shouldn't be happy," said Trump, as Shanahan sat by his side. "I wish him well. I hope he does well. But as you know, President [Barack] Obama fired him, and essentially so did I. I want results." A former Marine general, Mattis was fired by Obama in 2013 as head of U.S. Central Command over what the then-president said were too hawkish views toward Iran. Shanahan, 56, meanwhile, said his priorities would include the impending U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria and countering Chinas military might. "While we are focused on ongoing operations, Acting Secretary Shanahan told the team to remember: China, China, China," a Pentagon official said. Based on reporting by AFP, Reuters, and AP Russian authorities have charged a supporter of Russian opposition politician and anticorruption campaigner Aleksei Navalny with hooliganism, said an activist. Sergei Ukhov, a coordinator for Navalny in the city of Perm, said activist Aleksandr Shabarchin was arrested and charged on January 3. Ukhov said Shabarchin was ordered to remain in the city as police investigated his alleged involvement in erecting an effigy of Russian President Vladimir Putin in central Perm in November. Shabarchins arrest came after police searched his apartment and confiscated his computer, said Ukhov. If found guilty, Shabarchin faces up to seven years in prison. Two more activists, whose names have not been disclosed, were also charged in the case. Putin's effigy was placed in Perm's central Lenin Street on November 11. The effigy was draped in a black-and-white prison robe and affixed with signs saying War Criminal and Liar. Based on reporting by Zvezda and Dozhd Russias Emergency Situations Ministry says the search of the rubble from a partially collapsed apartment building in the city of Magnitorgorsk has ended and that the death toll stands at 39. The ministry declared the end of the search operation by hundreds of rescue workers on January 3, more than three days after an explosion on New Years Eve sent a section of the 10-story building in the southern Urals city crashing to the ground. Officials say the predawn blast on December 31 likely was caused by a gas leak. "We are confident that there are no more bodies in the building, Deputy Emergency Minister Aleksandr Chupriyan told reporters on January 3. The Emergency Ministry ends its rescue operation. The bodies of 38 of the 39 dead had been identified, said Chupriyan. Local officials said earlier that six children were among those confirmed dead. Six people -- including an infant whose rescue has been called a miracle -- were pulled alive from the rubble of the building and hospitalized. Safar Safarov, Tajikistan's consul-general in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, told RFE/RL on January 3 that four Tajik citizens were among the dead. Safarov, who is in Magnitogorsk, said they were 24-year-old Rajambo Isoeva and her three young children. Shuhrat Ulfatov, Isoeva's husband, was found alive in the rubble on December 31 and remains in the hospital in a serious condition, Safarov said, adding that the four bodies would be repatriated to Tajikistan in the coming days. The rescue operations had been held in the freezing cold with outside temperatures as low as minus 20 degree Celsius. January 2 was an official day of mourning in Chelyabinsk Oblast, where Magnitogorsk -- an industrial city of some 400,000 people about 1,700 kilometers southeast of Moscow -- is located. Magnitogorsk residents laid flowers and placed candles at the scene of the tragedy, and some Muscovites also laid flowers at the office for the regional government's representative in the capital. According to the regional government, the explosion took place at 6:10 a.m. local time on December 31 in a complex of apartment buildings that was built in 1973 and houses some 1,100 people. The Emergency Situations Ministry said that 26 apartments with 46 residents were destroyed in the collapse. In all, 48 apartments from the third to the 10th floor in the building's central part were damaged by the explosion. Russian authorities have said since shortly after the collapse that a natural-gas explosion was the most likely cause. But in a statement issued on January 1, the federal Investigative Committee said the authorities were looking into "all possible causes" but added that no signs of a bomb blast have been found. Two media outlets had cited unnamed sources as saying that possible traces of explosives were found at the site and that the blast that caused the collapse could have been a terrorist act. The reports, which could not be independently verified, also linked the building collapse with an incident late on January 1 in which a van caught fire some 3 kilometers from the site, killing three people. Officials said the fire may have been caused by a gas-canister explosion. Several deadly apartment-building explosions in Russia in the past 25 years have been blamed on militants from the North Caucasus. Household-gas blasts have also been blamed for many such disasters. With reporting by Current Time TV, AP, Reuters, TASS, Interfax, RIA Novosti, AFP, znak.com, and 74.ru Russia says France has extradited a former regional finance official to face trial on multiple counts of fraud, misuse of funds, and money laundering following a long legal battle. Aleksei Kuznetsov was "extradited to Russia accompanied by staff from the Russian prison service and the Russian bureau of Interpol," the international police agency, the Prosecutor-General's office said on January 3. There were no immediate comments from French authorities. Kuznetsov served as finance minister for the Moscow region between 2000 and 2008. According to investigators, he, along with "accomplices," caused losses of more than 11 billion rubles ($160 million) to the regional government. The money was allegedly used to buy property abroad. Kuznetsov was arrested in southern France in the summer of 2013 and appealed against his extradition in French courts over the following years. In January 2018, a Russian court convicted Kuznetsov's former wife, Janna Bullock, of large-scale fraud and money laundering and sentenced her to 11 years in prison after a trial in absentia. Bullock is an American citizen and the United States refuses to extradite her to Russia. She has said she and her ex-husband were victims of corruption in Russia. Based on reporting by AFP, TASS, and Interfax Afghan officials say at least 11 police officers were killed after Taliban militants attacked two security checkpoints in the country's north. The attacks occurred on the outskirts of Pul-e Khumri, the capital of Baghlan Province, late on January 2. Baghlan Governor Abdulhai Nemati said the two checkpoints were destroyed in the hours-long clashes that lasted until early on January 3. The attack also wounded two other police officers, said Safdar Mooseni, the head of the provincial council. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The Taliban controls or contests nearly half of Afghanistan, where it is waging a deadly insurgency against the Western-backed Kabul government and government security forces. The attacks came amid reports of a possible drawdown in the estimated 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan currently leading a NATO effort to train and advise local troops. Based on reporting by AP, dpa, and Khaama An Afghan court has convicted three men for their alleged involvement in the murder of a BBC journalist last year, officials say. A primary court in the Bagram district of the central Parwan Province, where the accused are imprisoned, sentenced one of the men to death, the Attorney General's Office said on January 3. The two other defendants were handed jail terms of 30 and six years. Afghan journalist Ahmad Shah was shot dead on April 30, 2018, while he was on his way home in Khost Province, south of Kabul. The Taliban at the time denied responsibility for the attack. No details on those convicted or the motive for the crime were immediately available. The case has been now been sent to a higher court to validate the tribunal's ruling, according to the Attorney General's Office. Afghanistan was the worlds deadliest place for journalists in 2018, with 13 reporters and two media workers killed in the country over the year, according to Reporters Without Borders. With reporting by Reuters and dpa The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. A universal temple of all religions is being built in Russia with donations left by visitors. Its spires are crowned with the symbols representing orthodox Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Muslims. Centrul de Instruire Continua in Domeniul Electoral, cu suportul financiar al PNUD Moldova, anunta concurs de granturi mici pentru biblioteci The flag of North Korea waves inside the compound of the North Korean embassy in Rome, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2018. North Korea's acting ambassador to Italy, Jo Song Gil, went into hiding with his wife in November, South Korea's spy agency told lawmakers in Seoul on Thursday. North Koreas acting ambassador to Italy has disappeared, raising suspicions that he may have defected or sought political asylum, South Korean sources said Thursday. Jo Song Gil, who became acting ambassador in October 2017, was set to end his term in late November last year. According to South Koreas spy agency, he escaped the diplomatic compound in early November and they have not heard from him since. South Koreas JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported that a diplomatic source said that Jo is in a safe place and is believed to be with his family. Italys foreign ministry has said they have no record of any asylum requests made by Jo, but if his defection is confirmed, it would be an embarrassing blow to the North Korean government. It would be the highest profile defection since 2016, when Thae Yong Ho, Pyongyangs deputy ambassador to Britain, defected to the South, citing disillusionment with the Kim Jong Un regimes rule and a desire for a better education for his children. North Korean diplomats are usually sent abroad alone. Their families remain in North Korea as insurance against defection. Jo, however reportedly was able to get around this because his father and father-in-law were also diplomats. Still, experts speculate that if a defection is confirmed, the Kim regime will find someone to punish, but overall it would have little effect on Pyongyangs diplomatic overtures. [The regime] will probably deal with it internally the way they always do, said Leon Sigal, director of the Social Science Research Councils Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project in an interview with RFAs Korean Service. I dont think it will affect anything else, but it will affect the people associated with [Jo] in North Korea badly, Sigal said. Richard Bush, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said he believed that a defection might actually hurt the diplomatic ambitions of South Korea, which has made reconciliation with North Korea the centerpiece of its foreign relations since. The more interesting question is what Moon Jae-Ins administration does about this if [Jo] really wants to defect, said Bush, referring to the Souths liberal president. Moon held three summits with Kim Jong Un in 2018 and is scheduled to meet Kim again early this year. Moon would like to have another summit with Kim Jong Un and want him to visit Seoul. And Im sure the Moon administration would be worried that this would complicate the effort to put one together, he said. Whats unique about [North Korean] diplomats is that they have much more opportunity to defect than anybody else living in North Korea, said Bush. If they are being reassigned to Pyongyang and afraid of not getting out of there again, they might take this opportunity, he said. The Department of State was contacted by RFA for this report but did not respond to inquiries on the subject with specific details. Additional reporting by Soyoung Kim for RFAs Korean Service. The wife of detained human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang accused China's highest-level prosecution body on Thursday of trying to shift the blame for a pretrial detention that has lasted three-and-a-half years. Zhang Jun, chief prosecutor at the Supreme People's Procuratorate in Beijing, accused Wang's family of "delaying" his case with frequent changes of defense attorney. "The judiciary is acting in accordance with the procedures prescribed by law, and [Wang's] rights are being well protected," Zhang told journalists when asked to explain the delay. He pointed to official media criticism of Wang's family over their frequent changes in defense attorney, and Wang's firing of his state-appointed lawyer at the start of his Dec. 26 trial for "incitement to subvert state power." But he also claimed that Wang's move wouldn't cause further delays. Wang's wife Li Wenzu said the trial was "never going to be anything other than going through the motions" and that the Tianjin No. 2 Intermediate People's Court had been in breach of legal time limits for pretrial detention since her husband's initial detention in July 2015. Last month, Li was escorted away by unidentified security personnel after she tried to file an official complaint against the Tianjin court at the Supreme People's Court in Beijing. Intimidation, pressure She told RFA in an interview on Thursday that the frequent changes of defense attorney were the result of official intimidation and political pressure on every lawyer she hired, as well as a refusal by the authorities to confirm Wang's whereabouts and to allow his lawyer to meet with him. "Wang was indicted by the court on Feb. 14, 2017, but then the judge kept refusing to allow him to meet with lawyers hired by his family," Li said. "They also refused to allow the lawyer to read the case files." "So this was a case of deliberate delaying tactics, which meant that [Wang] was held far beyond the limit as stated by the rules," she said. "They were the ones who broke the law; and they did it deliberately." "As Wang Quanzhang's wife, my strongest desire and greatest wish is to be reunited with him, and for this whole thing to be over as soon as possible," Li said. "I think [Zhang Jun] is just trying to pre-emptively deflect the blame here, which is ridiculous." Li said she still plans to file an official complaint with the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Friday. "Ever since my husband was detained as part of the July 2015 crackdown [on rights lawyers and activists], danger has been my constant companion," she said. "Of course I worry about what will happen when I go to make my complaint tomorrow, but ... I can't not do it out of fear." "Wang Quanzhang is still not free, and is still being held under illegal detention, so I will continue to do this on every day that he isn't released," Li said, adding that the authorities had put pressure on seven attorneys she hired to represent Wang since July 2015. 'No basis in reality or law' Fellow rights attorney Sui Muqing said Zhang's comments made no sense. "There was no basis in reality, nor any basis in the actual law," Sui said. "In fact, there would be no benefit in delaying the case to Wang Quanzhang, and even if you do keep changing lawyers, they have ways to stop you from doing that." "Defense lawyers are supposed to be hired by the defendant or their family, but now the authorities insist on having that power themselves," he said. "This was one of the factors behind the repeated delays to this case." Former rights attorney Tan Yongpei said the ruling Chinese Communist Party has never paid much attention to its own laws. "The Communist Party doesn't care about the law; they'll hand out a harsh sentence even if you're not guilty," Tan said. "Zhang Jun's comments are an attempt to fool the world, but they never allowed any of Wang Quanzhang's lawyers to visit him." "Cheng Hai and Lin Qilei made around 50 trips to Tianjin in 2017, and weren't allowed to meet with him once," he said. Reported by Wen Yuqing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Gao Feng for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. China's ministry of education has banned the use of apps by students from elementary school to university that don't fit in with government guidelines, or that "violate educational rules," official media reported. Education officials across the country are being ordered to set up "daily supervision" of students, including those in primary and high school education, "to ensure that mobile device apps used by the schools meet the standards set by the ministry," state news agency Xinhua reported. "Some apps contain pornography, violence, online games, commercial advertisement, as well as those that violate education rules," the agency said, citing education officials in Beijing. "Negative content can impact the physical and psychological health and education of students," it said. All content, links, functions, and information security of apps on students' phone should be "strictly reviewed" and the results filed to higher education authorities for approval, the agency said. Apps and their updates that aren't reported to and approved by the education ministry are forbidden to be used by schools, it said. An elementary school teacher in the central Chinese province of Hubei, who gave only a surname Su, said the directive increases the political pressure on teachers. "Of course this is pressure, because we are already pretty busy, and now we have to worry about what we can say and what we can't say," Su said. "This will have a negative impact on our ability to deal with problems of sexuality and violence at source, and it's not right." "Trying to control their understanding of events using directives, orders, and regulations is like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted," Su said. "You can't require tens of millions of teachers to educate according to the exact same model." A parent of a primary school student surnamed He in the southern province of Guangdong said parents and schools are quite capable of guiding children in the use of appropriate apps without ministerial intervention. "The teachers can just tell parents about actual apps that are fairly harmful," He said. "If the authorities try to use a one-size-fits-all rule, then this could cause even more of a backlash." "More rules controlling people's behavior aren't necessarily going to do a better job," he said. "It could actually cause great harm to the kids, to parents, and even to the teachers." Independent voices A Hubei elementary school teacher surnamed Li said smartphones are now so ubiquitous in China that the authorities are beginning to fear their own population's access to information outside the Great Firewall. "Even people in the countryside who don't have much education are able to use smartphones, and a lot of people can get online where they'll be able to get a lot more information than they had before," Li said. Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia, who has a daughter at elementary school, said the children could lose access to the remaining independent voices among Chinese scholars and experts, who make educational and public service films to help young people. "These are independent voices with a different view of history and the world," Hu said. "I think the most likely approach [from the schools] will be, OK, we are now going to censor your smartphone," Hu said. "This puts the power to censor pupils' private communications straight into the hands of schools and teachers, who will then report them to higher levels of government." "Then the internet police will shut down the app they are using." 'All-seeing eye' Last year, authorities in the eastern province of Zhejiang installed an "all-seeing eye" in a high-school classroom to spot students who aren't paying attention or are falling asleep in class, official media reported. The new system at the Hangzhou No. 11 High School links up a surveillance camera to facial recognition software that tracks students' movements and facial expressions, according to the Zhejiang Daily newspaper. The technology is part of a trial of software and surveillance systems that could be rolled out elsewhere as part of the development of "smart campuses," the paper said. Meanwhile, several university lecturers have lost their jobs after students reported them for making ideologically "incorrect" comments in class. Since taking office in 2012, Xi Jinping has tightened ideological controls over all aspects of society, including universities, colleges, and schools. His approach stems from a 2013 article titled "Improving Ideological and Political Work Among Young Teachers in Colleges and Universities," and from Xi's reiteration of the "Seven Taboos": topics that mustn't be discussed in public by servants of the state, including teachers. The seven banned topics are: universal values of human rights and democratic, constitutional government; press freedom; civil society; citizens' rights; the historical mistakes of the Chinese Communist Party; the financial and political elite; and judicial independence. Reported by Gao Feng for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wong Lok-to for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Cambodias rubber stamp parliament on Thursday approved draft laws to increase the number of local level government positions, after Prime Minister Hun Sen suggested such legislation would encourage opposition officials whose party he had dissolved to defect to his ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP). Leng Peng Long, the spokesman for the one-party National Assembly, told RFAs Khmer Service that CPP lawmakers unanimously voted in favor of draft laws amending the administrative management of the capital, provinces, municipalities and districts, and passed them on to the Senate, where they are likely to be approved before being signed into law by King Norodom Sihamoni. Ruling party lawmakers Cheam Yeap and Hun Neang had said in a proposal for the draft laws that current laws were put into place in 2008 and no longer reflect the needs of Cambodias changing electorate. The population has increased, requiring more effective services to address the peoples needs, they wrote ahead of submitting the draft laws for approval. The proposed draft law called for an increase in the number of municipality councilors from 21 to 27, provincial councilors from 15 to 27, capital councilors from 11 to 21, and district councilors from 11 to 21. The CPP effectively ran uncontested in Cambodias July 29 general election and won all 125 seats in parliament after the Supreme Court dissolved the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) in November 2017 and slapped a five-year ban on the political activities of 118 of its senior officials for the partys role in an alleged plot to topple the government. Last week, Hun Sens Constitutional Council unanimously approved an amendment to the draft law on political parties, paving the way for the reinstatement of rights to the 118 CNRP officials banned from politics by the Supreme Courts decision. The legislation does not provide for the reestablishment of the CNRP, and Hun Sen has said the political rights of the officials will only be reinstated if they had shown respect for the Supreme Courts ruling, and provided they each make an individual request. The move is widely seen as part of a bid by Hun Sen to ease international pressure on his government in response to a crackdown on the opposition, NGOs and the independent media in the lead up to Julys election. Critics have called it a trap aimed at fracturing the CNRP. Hun Sen has regularly called on CNRP officials to defect since their party was dissolved and recently suggested that increasing the number of local level government positions in Cambodia would entice formerly elected opposition members to return to politics with the CPP. On Thursday, former CNRP councilor of Kampong Thom Province Thai Tim told RFA there are already too many councilor positions in Cambodia and that additional ones are unnecessary. The CPP is increasing the number of councilors purely as a benefit to party members, he said. San Chey, president of local nongovernmental organization Network for Social Accountability, echoed Thai Tims concerns, adding that instead of adding more councilors, the current ones should be made more effective through better training and increased budgets. We have enough councilors, what we need is to improve their capabilities, he said. San Chey added that younger candidates should also be given a chance to act as councilors to promote new approaches to governance. Opposition targeted While the government has extended an olive branch to CNRP members who are willing to defect to the CPP, it has targeted those who continue to pledge allegiance to the now-dissolved opposition party. At least three former CNRP officials and commune councilors in Banteay Meanchey province were recently forced by police to sign contracts vowing to sever ties with the party, while security forces are seeking to question several people who gathered earlier this week in support of acting CNRP president Sam Rainsy after he pledged to return from self-imposed exile before March to lead them. Khun Chanty, a formerly elected CNRP chief of Banteay Meancheys Poipet city, told RFA that she and two other former CNRP officials were made to sign affidavits that that would keep our political opinions to ourselves and refrain from making public statements about their party. We have been deprived of political rights as guaranteed in the constitution, she told RFA. I dont see the reason for a constitution when the authorities simply turn a blind eye to it. Meanwhile, several others are on the run from the authorities, Khun Chanty said. Another CNRP official in Banteay Meanchey, Cheath Khemara, told RFA that police have cracked down on opposition activities since more than 100 CNRP members gathered in Poipet on Jan. 1 at the home of an activist named Khann Lai in support of Sam Rainsy, who has been living abroad to avoid a string of convictions issued by courts seen as acting at Hun Sens direction. Cheath Khemara said several senior CNRP officials in Banteay Meancheys Au Chrov, Thma Puok and Mongkul Borei districts have been summoned for questioning and intimidated over the assembly. Khann Lai told RFA that he was brought in by police on Wednesday and made to sign a document pledging that he would not host another gathering to honor Sam Rainsy, who assumed leadership of the CNRP while the partys president, Kem Sokha, is held under house arrest awaiting a trial on charges of treason. I was questioned in a way that I made me feel intimidated, but I did nothing wrong, he said. A campaigner with local human rights group Adhoc in Banteay Meanchey named Sum Chankea said he was aware of at least 10 policemen who were recently seen questioning people that allowed CNRP activists to gather at their homes. The authorities cant go around intimidating people like this, he said. They need to understand the law. There is no law that prohibits people from gathering to voice their political views. Thin Sindeth, a police officer in Poipet, hung up the phone when questioned by RFA about official intimidation of CNRP officials and activists, while other police officers have said that the public can support any party, as long as it isnt the CNRP. Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun and Nareth Muong. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email please call (208) 542-6777 for help. We get it. You don't want to see the ads. We'd just ask you to understand that those ads help us pay the bills and our reporters. Please, consider white-listing the Standard Journal in your ad-blocker or, even better, purchase a subscription so that you can help support quality local journalism. Posted Wednesday, January 2, 2019 1:20 pm Authorities responding to a welfare check on a property near Port Angeles have discovered a grisly scene where three people were fatally shot -- two hidden under debris and another inside a shed. Detective Sgt. John Keegan of the Clallam County Sheriff's Office said Tuesday that investigators believe all of the victims had been shot some time last week and that many shots had been fired. Investigators don't believe that any of the deaths were the result of suicide and are now looking to track down people who may know what transpired. Among the dead were 57-year-old Darrell Iverson and his son, 27-year-old Jordan Iverson, Keegan said. Their bodies were found on the driveway covered by tarps and other objects, including a bumper. The body of 26-year-old Tiffany May was found inside a shed on the property, Keegan said. May was Jordan Iverson's girlfriend and had been living at the house. "It's still a very active crime scene," Keegan said. Keegan said authorities do not have any suspects but are looking to track down persons of interest, including others who may have been living at the property. They are also trying to establish a timeline of events but currently believe the killings may have occurred around Dec. 26. Authorities first went to the property Monday evening because a family member had called for a welfare check after not hearing from the residents of the property since Christmas. They found the first two bodies then. Keegan said investigators found the third body on the property Tuesday. Authorities don't believe there are any other bodies on the property. Darrell Iverson's sister, Wendy Peterson, said she and her husband had gone up to the house Monday to check on things. When they arrived, Peterson said, they discovered the front door open and decided to call law enforcement. Peterson said she wasn't emotionally ready to talk in depth about her brother or nephew, but she said Iverson was born in Seattle, raised in Covington and had lived much of his life in the Port Angeles area. She said he was a hard-worker who would spend long hours on his logging truck and then spend time at home working to maintain the vehicle. She said Jordan had a troubled young adulthood but was recently getting his life back on track. Darrell Iverson also had another son who lived out of the state, Peterson said. Peterson said she doesn't understand what happened, why it happened, or who might have been involved in the killings. "We're just kind of watching our backs, to be blunt about it," Peterson said. "We don't know what's going on." Keegan said he does not have any concern over the safety of the rest of the community and believes whatever transpired was isolated to the property, which covers about five acres a few miles southeast of Port Angeles. Investigators have established a tip line and are looking for anyone who might have information. The number is 360-417-2540. ___ We would love for you to join us to share your memories of Daryl with family and friends. Daryls full obituary can be view at http://www.myersmortuary.com/ A celebration of life will be held from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM on 2021-06-27 at Fraternal Order of Eagles , 2140 N Lebanon St, Lebanon, IN 4 Posted Thursday, January 3, 2019 9:58 am Rachel Taylor of Olympia was volunteering in Indonesia when her life changed forever. Taylor, 33, was helping rebuild homes damaged by earthquakes that struck the island of Lombok in August when a wall fell on her, shattering her left leg so badly it had to be amputated. Now back home, the woman who goes by Rocky said she is humbled by the support shes received from all over the world as she recovers and contemplates her future. Taylor told The Olympian last week she should be homeless because of mounting bills. Really was profound to see support coming in from all over. There have been people from South Africa, Germany, Malaysia, Indonesia, Spain, England, Guatemala, Taylor said. Taylor, who grew up in Vancouver, Washington, arrived in Olympia in 2008 to attend The Evergreen State College, where she studied urban planning for three years. She became involved in regional theater, working at Harlequin Productions in Olympia as a stage hand. But over the past decade, Taylor also has spent more than 5,000 hours volunteering in nine countries with the non-governmental organization All Hands and Hearts. Olympia has been her home base since she began traveling and volunteering. It was Sept. 13 when her life was turned upside-down. The initial moments are murky for Taylor, who suffered mild amnesia due to shock. Her boyfriend, Dan Hagelberg, who lived on the island of Java in Indonesia until he was 12, was volunteering in Lombok too, but he wasnt present when Taylor was injured. He said he received a phone call from a fellow volunteer letting him know Taylor was hurt, but the caller offered no details. It wasnt until Hagelberg arrived at the makeshift hospital in the village of Kapu Jenggala on Lombok that he realized the seriousness of the situation. That scene was pretty intense, Hagelberg said. I walked in and Rocky was there, lying down in a lot of shock, and her leg had been crushed, so it was wide open. Hagelberg knew Taylor needed help desperately. I went straight to her side and started counting from 1 to 100, and then wed start over again. And it was all she could do to keep her from screaming, and keep her focused, he said. Immediate surgery was needed, but the hospital in Kapu Jenggala didnt have the proper resources. An hour ride in an ambulance on winding roads in a suspension-less vehicle to Lomboks capital city, Mataram, followed. More counting from 1 to 100. About 11 hours after Taylor was injured, she was finally in surgery in Mataram. More surgeries were required, but the hospital in Mataram was unable to complete them. Taylor was airlifted to a hospital in Singapore on Sept. 15. Multiple surgeries followed, seven in all. Most were debridements, which is the removal of damaged tissue. In the end, her left leg was too badly mangled to save. So doctors removed a portion of her left leg just below the kneecap. Taylor had one more surgery after returning to the United States in mid-October, bringing the total to nine, according to Hagelberg. I think nobody ever expects it to happen to them, Taylor said. And I certainly didnt. Some days I feel almost normal, and some days Im overwhelmed trying to even wrap my mind around what I lost. Ive spent so much of the last decade being so independent and traveling. We dont know what my physical limitations are going to be yet. I have love and support from my community, and that makes some days OK. And some days are still just devastating. Taylor said her family has been extremely supportive during her recovery. Her parents, Melody and Joe, and her sister, Olivia, have been by her side constantly. But navigating the health care system has been an ordeal for Taylor, who is on Medicaid. The first weeks back in the United States were nightmarish trying to get medical care figured out, she said. Taylor now is at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. The next item on Taylors checklist is to be deemed medically fit to wear a prosthetic. The prosthetic comes at a hefty cost anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000 and will have to be replaced over the years due to wear and tear, according to the Hospital for Special Surgery. But a widespread effort, orchestrated by the disaster-relief community in Olympia and local dance group Blues Fusion Dancing, is providing Taylor with support. To assist with her medical bills and future expenses, a GoFundMe has been created. As of Dec. 29, 506 people had raised $50,060 in 18 days. The campaigns goal is $75,000. Were just really humbled by the attention that it got, Taylor said. A salsa school that I went to in Guatemala are all sharing it and supporting me. That has been a really incredible relief to know that I can breathe and process and be sad and figure out my future without also facing the stress of not being able to work or go back to my profession or not knowing how Im going to meet my basic needs. An Australian outback station manager, Sara Henderson, wrote, Dont wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel, stride down thereand light the bloody thing yourself. I am sure there are days when we feel that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Kudos to those who go above and beyond, tackle the issues and forge ahead to make a difference in our business community. In this highly technical, global economy, I still believe vehemently that its really all about the people who create the buzz. Below are some who perhaps at times light the bloody thing themselves through their leadership and involvement. Steve Zarrella, Senior Vice President & Chief Lending Officer for Northwest Community Bank and chairman of the chambers Board of Directors, welcomed the attendees at the chambers Manufacturing Summit last week. He stressed the value of the manufacturing community to our region in creating job opportunities that lead to strong careers. Lance Boynton, President & CEO of Lean Six Sigma Consulting, LLC and chair of the chambers Manufacturing Coalition served as the Master of Ceremonies and referenced the perception that manufacturing today is very different that the days of our grandparents. It is highly technical with opportunities for our students. . Scott Jackson, the Commissioner of Labor for the State of Connecticut, stated that Manufacturing can change the world. His department is trying to accomplish just that through the Apprenticeship Program at the Department of Labor, stated Its time for a conversation change in Connecticut and we must add another M to STEM in order to enhance our workforce. Larry Pomerleau, manufacturing department head at Oliver Wolcott Technical High School, told us his school is a Neighborhood raising a good kid. Its all about collaboration and networking with industry through valuable programs like apprenticeships. Alain Malcolm, Junior Byer at Altek Electronics, and a graduate of the Chambers Young Entrepreneur Academy, attending Tunxis Community College talked about the 3 Ps that are the guiding forces in his young life, Practice, Patience and Principles. Thank you to the wonderful people who are creating the Buzz about Biz and lighting that bloody thing themselves. We are the beneficiaries of their dedication and commitment and make this region a better place in which to live and work. Last updated on: January 03, 2019 21:56 IST Reporter Kavitha Jakkal tried, she failed. Activist Rehana Fatima tried, she failed. Activist Trupti Desai tried, she failed. After several women were prevented from entering the Sabarimala shrine after the Supreme Court verdict upheld their right to do so, Bindu and Kanakadurga managed the seemingly impossible. Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com finds out how they did it. IMAGE: Bindu Ammini, 42, and Kanakadurga, 44, are escorted by the police after they entered the Sabarimala temple on the intervening night of January 1-2, 2019. Photograph: Reuters On January 2, history was made when Bindu, 42, and Kanakadurga, 44, offered prayers at the Sabarimala temple, making them the first women below the age of 50 to enter the shrine. Bindu and Kanakadurga's efforts came after many other women were prevented from entering the shrine after the Supreme Court struck down a rule that disallowed girls and women in the 10 to 50 age group from entering the temple. So, what made Bindu and Kanakadurga's efforts different? How was it that they did what no other woman could do? It all began on November 10 when a bio-medical engineer, identified as Shreyas Kanaran, started a Facebook page called the Navodhana Keralam Sarimalayilekk, to bring about a renaissance in Kerala. Kanaran, a social activist (he insists that he wants to make it clear that he isn't associated with the Communist Party of India-Marxists) sought women's equality and felt that no one had the right to object to the entry of women into the hill shrine after the Supreme Court order. "In the past two months, 40 women have become members of our group," says Kanaran, "They all expressed a desire to enter the Sabarimala temple. It was now just a question as to how they would do so with protesters blocking the women's entry." Filled with determination and a fervent wish to offer prayers to Lord Ayyappa, Bindu and Kanakadurga on December 24 set out on their mission. However, the two women -- who were being escorted by the police -- faced massive protests from devotees at Apachimedu and Marakootam, about one km from the Sannidhanam (temple complex) and were forced to retreat. Their attempt came a day after 11 other women (part of the Navodhana Keralam Sarimalayilekk group) tried to make their way up the hill, but were forced to return. It was then that the women went on hunger strike, demanding that the state government and police adhere to the Supreme Court order. "The police told us they would help enable entry into the temple and so at that point the women gave up their fast," elaborates Kanaran. Countdown to the entry IMAGE: Bindu and Kanakadurga along with psychologist Dr Prasad Amore entered the shrine at 3.30 am on Wednesday. Photograph: PTI Photo It was here that Bindu and Kanakadurga along with psychologist Dr Prasad Amore entered the picture. He agreed to accompany the women as he too was part of this Facebook group and believed in gender equality. He too like Shreyas Kanaran says he has no association with the Communists. Dr Amore didn't know Bindu or Kanakadurga beforehand, but his belief in gender equality pushed him to help the two women implement the Supreme Court order. "We realised that the only way to enter the Sabarimala temple with these women was by using invisible gorilla technique, by creating inattentional blindness (external link). We could not go in broad daylight as many women had tried this before and failed," says Dr Amore. WATCH: Two women script history, enter Sabarimala temple So, while the country was gearing up to ring in the New Year, Dr Amore and the women were practising and figuring out every which way they could access the temple. So meticulous was their planning that they even thought about how they would walk and what they would wear. Since the operation was a secret, only half a dozen or so people knew about the plan, and even the local police were unaware of the two women's entry. D-Day's here On January 2, the police picked up Bindu and Kanakadurga in an ambulance and took them to a hospital, which is close to the shrine, at 1.30 am. "The plan was to reach the gates of Sabarimala at 3.30 am because as it is very early in the morning no protester would be sitting there expecting women to enter. Moreover, the ambulance helped us to reach the spot without anyone noticing us," recalls Dr Amore. "Every detail is very important in such times," says Dr Amore. "I told both the ladies that they should look as busy as everyone else so that no one could doubt them. If they showed even the slightest hesitation, people would have suspected something was fishy." When they finally made their entrance into the complex, a devotee noticed them and tried to create a ruckus. However, the accompanying policemen took him aside and managed to cool him down. "Many devotees saw Bindu and Kanakadurga entering the temple, but none of them objected. This proves the fact that devotees have nothing against women entering the temple. It is the right-wing organisations that have a problem with women entering the temple," Dr Amore points out. IMAGE: Security personnel guard the Ayyappa temple which was shut down for 'purification' after Bindu and Kanakdurga entered the shrine and offered prayers in the wee hours of Wednesday, January 2. Photograph: PTI Photo Prayers and a coffee And what was the first thing Dr Amore did after coming out of the Sabarimala temple? "We had a good cup of coffee. We were relaxed as we entered the shrine peacefully and came back," says Dr Amore. But what if they had got caught and failed? "We had another plan for the next day with another group of women," says Shreyas Kanaran. "Even the Devaswom board has no problem with women's entry. It is only the Sangh Parivar which has a problem with women's entry," says Kanaran. What did they achieve? "There are always protests while trying something the first time around. When we try it for the second time the crowd relaxes and during the third attempt, they were okay with the women." "What we did on January 2 was just one step forward. Initially, people from the lower castes were not allowed (in temples), but later, everyone came around. So will be the case of the Sabarimala temple where all people will be okay with women's entry," asserts Kanaran. "This temple was not a Brahmin temple, but a tribal temple. If you go back in history, this was a Buddhist temple. It was only in the 1990s that this became a Brahmin temple. So this is a big discussion in Kerala -- how can Brahmins prevent the entry of women in a temple?" says Kanaran. "The Kerala high court judgment of 1991 stopped the entry of women which has now been over-ruled by the Supreme Court of India." Source: January 03, 2019 08:22 IST A United States-based freelance journalist left the country on Wednesday, a day after authorities ordered his deportation for working on the Sterlite issue in violation of his tourist visa conditions, an official said. Mark Scialla, who arrived in Tuticorin on December 27, boarded a flight to the US from Hyderabad Wednesday morning, Tuticorin district Superintendent of Police Murali Rambha, who issued the deportation order in his capacity as the district Foreigners Registration Officer, said. The official also said steps had been initiated to blacklist the journalist and a communication was being sent to the Foreigners Regional Registration Office in Chennai in view of violation of the visa conditions by him. After arriving in the country on a tourist visa, Scialla had interviewed several people on December 28 and 29 on alleged health issues faced by them due to the now closed Sterlite copper plant. Rambha said the visa clearly stated that the American national should not embark on any work except tourist activities. Yet he violated it. He did not come here for tourism purposes... I am just sending the recommendation (for blacklisting) to the FRRO, Rambha said. After a thorough enquiry, it was concluded that Scialla had violated the visa norm and he was served a notice on Tuesday to leave the country immediately, the SP said. The officer said questioning of some local activists in connection with the journalists Tamil Nadu visit would be concluded soon. Once blacklisted, a foreigners visa application will not be processed for a stipulated period of time, officials said. The journalist, during his stay had posed questions to local people on the health issues they faced before and after the closure of Sterlites shut copper plant. He had also met an injured person in the May 22-23 police firing after the protests against Sterlite over pollution concerns turned violent here. Thirteen people were killed in the firing. When contacted, a US Consulate spokesperson had said We are aware of media reports concerning the American citizen. However, due to privacy laws, we do not comment on matters involving US citizens. According to Scialla Twitter handle, he is an independent writer and video journalist covering environmental conflict and social issues. After the violent protests, the state government had ordered the permanent closure of the Sterlite plant, part of the mining major Vedanta group. On December 15, the National Green Tribunal set aside the closure order state government, saying it was non sustainable and unjustified. January 03, 2019 10:50 IST United States President Donald Trump has said that he has received a great letter from Kim Jong-un and is looking forward to meet the North Korean leader for a second time in the not-too-distant future to restart talks about the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. IMAGE: US President Donald Trump also said he is looking forward to meeting the North Korean leader for the second time and restart talks on the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters US President Trumps announcement came after the North Korean leader warned that Pyongyang may change its approach to nuclear talks if Washington persists with sanctions. I just got a great letter from Kim Jong-un. Those few people that Ive shown this letter to, theyve never written letters like that. This letter is a great letter. Weve made a lot of progress with North Korea and Kim Jong-un, Trump told his Cabinet colleagues during a meeting on Wednesday. North Korea has tremendous economic potential and so I look forward to our meeting with Chairman Kim. Well set that up. Well be setting it up in the not-too-distant future, he said. Trump said he and Kim had established a very good relationship. A lot of good things are happening. I never said speed. Look, its been this way for 80 plus years, he said. Kim and Trump held a historic meeting in Singapore on June 12 last year. They issued a vague goal for the complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula without describing when and how it would occur. Well probably now have another meeting. Hed like to meet, Id like to meet, but weve established a very good relationship, he said. Trump said his administration was not getting any credit for this peace initiative which has averted the world from a major war. Were given no credit for frankly if this administration didnt take place, if another administration came in instead of this administration, namely (Vice President) Mike (Pence) and myself and the group around this table, youd be at war right now, he said. Youd be having a nice big, fat war in Asia and it wouldnt be pleasant, he added. Trump said he was in no rush for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. Were getting along fine. Im not in any rush. I dont have to rush. All I know is theres no rockets, theres no testing, he said, expressing satisfaction over the progress in talks with the North Koreans. North Korea really want to do something, he said. Now, does that mean its going to be done? Who knows? Who knows? Deals are deals. You never know but I tell you, weve established a very good relationship with North Korea, he said. That was going to be a war, that could have been a World War III to be honest with you because a lot of people wouldve had to get involved in that all over Asia and then it spreads beyond Asia, and instead we have somebody that I really think wants to get onto economic development and making a lot of success and money, frankly, for his country because North Korea has tremendous potential and will help them out, Trump said. Source: Last updated on: January 03, 2019 23:29 IST Hurling crude bombs and stones, Hindu fringe groups on Thursday rampaged through the streets of Kerala, fighting pitched battles with police and political rivals, leaving scores of people injured including three Bharatiya Janata Party workers in a knife attack, officials said. IMAGE: BJP workers burn an effigy of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan during a protest over the Sabarimala issue, in Kanyakumari, on Thursday. Photograph: PTI Photo The dawn-to-dusk 'Hartal' called by Sabarimala Karma Samithi, an umbrella organisation of pro-Hindutva groups, and the Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP), to protest the entry of two women of reproductive age into the Sabarimala temple on Wednesday virtually brought the state down to its knees. Hordes of right-wing activists were on the streets soon after the shutdown began, placing burning tyres and granite blocks on the roads, bringing vehicular traffic to a halt at several places. The state was under siege as they attacked over 20 offices of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist and its other Left allies, and clashed with police, leaving at least 31 personnel injured. In Thrissur, three BJP workers were stabbed during a scuffle with members of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), the political wing of Popular Front of India, a militant Islamic outfit, police said. The incident occurred when saffron party workers attempted to force a restaurant to down the shutters. IMAGE: Kerala state transport corporation buses damaged during the strike in Thiruvananthapuram. Photograph: PTI Photo A 55-year-old man, who was seriously injured when CPI-M workers hurled stones at protesters from atop their party office at Pandalam in Pathanamthitta district, died late on Wednesday night. However, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told media that Chandran Unnithan died due to cardiac arrest. The post-mortem, however, later confirmed he died from serious head injuries. Unnithan was part of the protest march taken out by Sabarimala Karma Samiti on Wednesday evening which came under attack by CPI-M workers. Nine people accused of involvement in the attack have been identified and two of them arrested, police said. As tempers ran high in Kerala, the Supreme Court refused to urgently hear a contempt petition moved by a lawyers' group against the Sabarimala temple authorities for closing the shrine for purification after two women entered it. IMAGE: Members of Ayyappa Dharma Samrakshana Samithi (Delhi and NCR) display placards and raise slogans during a protest at Kerala House, in New Delhi. Photograph: Manvender/PTI Photo A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul said that the contempt petition will be heard along with the pending review petitions against the apex court verdict which allowed women of all age groups to enter the Sabarimala temple. Advocate P V Dinesh appearing for Indian Young Lawyers Association told the bench that the temple authorities closed the shrine on Wednesday for purification after the women's entry which was in violation of the apex court verdict. As the state plunged into chaos, Governor P Sathasivam sought an 'urgent report' from Chief Minister Vijayan on the disturbances. 'Sought from Chief Minister @CMOKerala an urgent Law and Order report on the incidents of violence and destruction of private & public property in Kerala following entry of two young women in #Sabarimala temple,' the governor said in a tweet. IMAGE: Hindu Makkal Katchi activists stop a train during a protest in Coimbatore. Photograph: PTI Photo The BJP actively supported the hartal, while the main opposition Congress separately observed a 'black day' to protest the entry of the women into Sabarimala temple, the abode of Lord Ayyappa, its 'eternally celibate' deity. Nearly 750 troublemakers were arrested across the state for indulging in violence, while 628 others were taken into preventive custody, police said. A staggering 559 cases were registered in connection with violent incidents. Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) chairman and Managing Director Tomin Thachankary told reporters that more that 100 buses were damaged causing a loss of Rs 3.35 crore to the debt-ridden public sector undertaking. The chief minister blamed the BJP-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh combine for the violence and warned of stern action against the perpetrators. He told reporters that the government was not against the belief of the believers, but owed allegiance to the Constitution. IMAGE: Policemen chase away a protester during a protest against the entry of two women to the Sabarimala temple in Thiruvananthapuram. Photograph: PTI Photo "There was a clear planning to the violence unleashed by the hartal supporters. Since yesterday, there has been so much violence. Media personnel, including women, and police were among those attacked," Vijayan said. He also slammed the Sabarimala head priest for conducting purification rituals after the entry of the two women, saying the Tantri should have quit if he was not ready to accept the Supreme Court verdict. The apex court had on September 28 lifted the ban on entry of girls and women in 10 -50 years age group into the shrine. Protest demonstrations by the BJP and Sabarimala Karma Samithi turned violent at several places in Kozhikode, Kannur Malappuram, Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram. IMAGE: Lord Ayyappa devotees stage a protest against the entry of two women of menstruating age into the Sabarimala temple of Lord Ayyappa, in Hubbali. Photograph: PTI Photo Police used batons and water-cannons to break up the protests. The office of the CPI at Palakkad was attacked by protesters and the vehicles parked in front of it, including state transport corporation buses, auto-rickshaws and police vehicles were pelted with stones. Protesters hurled a crude bomb at a local beedi manufacturing unit managed by the CPI-M in Thalassery in Kannur district, but it did not explode, police said, adding 10 right-wing activists were arrested. Another crude bomb was thrown at Nedumangadu police station about 17 km from here but no damage was done, officials said. IMAGE: A policeman guards a deserted road during the strike. Photograph: PTI Photo After at least 10 journalists faced the wrath of violent protesters since Wednesday, the Kerala Union of Working Journalists decided to boycott the press meets called by the saffron party. Journalists also staged a protest march. The state's police chief Lok Nath Behera said a special team will probe the assault on media. Bindu and Kanakadurga, two women in their 40s, had defied dire threats from saffron organisations and offered prayers at the temple, breaking the centuries-old tradition and infuriating the Hindu right. BJP Rajya Sabha MP V Muraleedhaan, meanwhile, sought a probe by the National Investigation Agency into the 'conspiracy' of police escorting the two women with Maoist links to Sabarimala. The CPI-Maoist is an underground naxalite organisation which is banned in several states. WATCH: Hartal in Kerala Source: January 03, 2019 22:57 IST IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during an election campaign rally for the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance ahead of Lok Sabha 2019 elections at the PUDA ground, in Gurdaspur, on Thursday. Photograph: PTI Photo Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday accused the Congress of protecting those involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, saying such leaders were even rewarded with the chief minister's post. The jibe, apparently directed at Kamal Nath, the new Madhya Pradesh chief minister, came during a rally where he also charged the opposition party of 'deceiving' farmers with loan waiver promises. Kamal Nath has in the past denied such allegations over the riots, saying he had nothing to do with them. The planned corridor between a gurdwara here and a Sikh shrine in Kartarpur, just a few kilometres across the border with Pakistan, also figured in the address. Modi said the entire country had waited for justice for the past 35 years and wanted Congress leaders to be punished for it. "Even today, this demand is there," he said. He alleged that 'files' on such culprits were kept under wraps on the suggestion of 'one family', an apparent reference to the Gandhis. In an indirect reference to the recent conviction of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in one riot-related case, Modi added, "The NDA government pulled out such files, set up the SIT (special investigation team) and now the results are before you." Modi also attacked the Congress for charging him with corruption in the Rafale deal with France for 36 military aircraft, saying the party was 'spreading lies' to weaken the defence forces. He said the country needed to be wary of the Congress, claiming its history had been the glorification of 'one family'. He said it was made up of people, 'who even today oppose the raising of Vande Mataram and Bharat Mata ki Jai slogans, whose history is of the massacre of thousands of Sikhs in cold blood, and those who even today reward the riot accused with the chair of the chief minister'. Modi accused the national leaders at the time of Partition of failing to ensure that Kartarpur, where the founder of Sikhism spent his final years, did not go to Pakistan. For seven decades, devotees could get a glimpse of the historic gurdwara only through binoculars, he said. He said the National Democratic Alliance government took the 'historic decision' to build the Kartarpur corridor, which will link Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur to Kartarpur Sahib. Without taking names, Modi took a dig at Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, who went against Chief Minister Amarinder Singh's advice and travelled to Pakistan for the groundbreaking ceremony of the planned corridor. He said the Congress leaders gave an 'opportunity' to Pakistan through that trip. He hit out at the Congress for playing politics of 'lies and deceit' on farm loan waivers. "The Congress fooled the people for decades with the slogan of 'Garibi Hatao' (remove poverty) and now it is deceiving the country in the name of loan waivers," he said. The prime minister claimed this happened in Punjab as well, saying the Congress government in the state had waived only a small portion of the loans. Modi made similar claims about the Congress promises before the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and the recent assembly elections in Karnataka. Arrest warrants are being issued against farmers for not paying back loans in Karnataka, he claimed. He said while the Congress governments had delayed the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission report, the BJP government at the Centre had implemented its recommendations on minimum support prices (MSP). "Those who failed to find a solution to the farmers' woes for decades and kept delaying the decision on MSP, are now again throwing dust in the eyes of farmers with their false promises," he said. Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal and Union minister Harsimrat Kaur attended the rally, held by the BJP and the SAD to thank the prime minister for the development of the region. Posted Thursday, January 3, 2019 10:06 am The Napavine School District intends to place a levy on the ballot this February that will replace the districts current one, set to expire next year. As a result of the McCleary decision, the replacement levy will have more restrictions. What we have to do is figure out how can we spend funds differently, said Napavine School District Superintendent Geoff Parks. The Napavine School District will place a three-year levy for $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value on the ballot for the Feb. 12 special election. We figured out its about 37 percent less than the current levy (we) have right now, Parks said. Its not a new levy its a replacement, or a renewal levy. Parks said that even if voters in the Napavine School District approve the levy, the district projects it will lose roughly $400,000 in annual levy funds. These are all kind of rough projections, Parks said. ... This year we brought in from the levy and the LEA (local effort assistance funding) about $1.6 million, and then we will bring in about $1.2 million moving forward. Parks said that while there has been an increase in state funds teachers, for example, received raises as a result of McCleary it will not cover the total $400,000 loss from the levy funds. Even with the levy passing next year, we are going to need to tighten our belts, Parks said. The Napavine School District will evaluate its financial state over the next three months, Parks said. We are going to try to find a way to make everyone happy, Parks said. What we havent talked about is we have an increase in the categorical funds as well, which help offset costs. Kind of every school district is in the same boat that they have to figure out a new way to fund the programs that theyre doing. The levy on Februarys ballot will help fund smaller class sizes, specialty and elective classes, classified staff, extracurricular activities and facility maintenance, among other supplemental school activities and needs. With the new legislation, you are limited to doing the $1.50 per $1,000 for a levy now, Parks said. ... Before you could say we need this much money to pay for these things. Now you dont do that anymore. The maximum school districts in Washington state can collect from local levies is $2,500 per student at $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value. However, if the $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value does not collect at least $1,500 per student, the state will chip in funds, Parks said. According to RCW 28A.500.010, the legislature intends to provide assistance in funding activities that enrich, but do not fall under, basic education in property-poor districts with local effort assistance funding. The purpose of these funds is to mitigate the effect that above average property tax rates might have on the ability of a school district to raise local revenues to supplement the states basic program of education, the state statute reads in part. These funds serve to equalize the property tax rates that individual taxpayers would pay for such levies and to provide tax relief to taxpayers in high tax rate school districts. However, voters in the Napavine School District must approve the levy in February to access these funds. The current levy for the Napavine School District expires in January 2020, and was originally passed at $2.40 per $1,000 of assessed property value, Parks said. This new levy would be another three-year levy that would begin in January 2020. Residents in the Napavine School District also currently pay a bond that was approved in 2001, according to previous Chronicle reporting. However, Parks said that bond will be paid off this month. People will no longer be paying for the school bond in February, Parks said. Parks said the school district will also communicate the change in funding models with the unions, but does not expect teacher salaries to decrease. Source: January 03, 2019 18:41 IST Tension prevails in Araria district of Bihar in the wake of a 55-year-old man being beaten to death in a remote village by a mob which accused him of cattle theft, police said on Thursday. Mohd Kabul was killed in Simarbani village under Sikti police station area of the district last week and the matter came to light after a video, shot by those watching the brutal assault, was uploaded on the social media three days ago, Sub Divisional Police Officer, Araria, K D Singh said. He said a first information report has been lodged against 'unknown persons' since the identity of the assailants could not be made out from the video footage wherein the middle-aged man can be seen pleading with the attackers that he had no reason to steal a cattle. "There is tension in Simarbani. Kabul's relatives are angry and demanding that a named FIR be registered. We have assured them that the same would be done as soon as we get evidence against any suspect", Singh said. District Magistrate Himanshu Sharma said he was 'not aware of the details of the incident but instructions have been issued for maintaining order in the area and bringing the guilty to book at the earliest'. Mob lynchings have been witnessed in various parts of Bihar over the past few months. On Wednesday, two persons including a boy in his early teens were beaten to death in Nalanda district by a mob which was agitated over the murder of an RJD leader. Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly Tejashwi Yadav has targeted the Nitish Kumar government over such incidents in a tweet wherein he alleged that Bihar has become a 'lynch Vihar'. January 03, 2019 08:31 IST The Centre is likely to cut budgetary support to the railways by around Rs 5,000-10,000 crore for 2018-19, out of the total budgeted GBS of Rs 53,060 crore. Due to this cut in GBS, the railways is likely to depend more on borrowings, asset monetisation, and internal generation to meet the capex target of Rs 1.465 trillion for the current year. The railways is likely to line up its highest-ever capital expenditure of Rs 1.65-1.7 trillion for the upcoming Budget. The national transporter is also knocking on the doors of the finance ministry to increase gross budgetary support (GBS) by 28 per cent from the budgeted Rs 53,060 crore in 2018-19 to around Rs 68,000 crore in 2019-20. Sources, however, indicate that the Centre is likely to cut budgetary support to the railways by around Rs 5,000-10,000 crore for 2018-19, out of the total budgeted GBS of Rs 53,060 crore. Due to this cut in GBS, the railways is likely to depend more on borrowings, asset monetisation, and internal generation to meet the capex target of Rs 1.465 trillion for the current year. In 2017-18 also, the finance ministry had opted for a cut of Rs 15,000 crore on the GBS for railways in the revised estimate. "The advantage this year is that the railways has already used over 80 per cent of the GBS allotted to it," said a government official, who was tight-lipped about the possible cut. Moreover, sources said that Railway Minister Piyush Goyal is of the opinion that there should be no shortage of funds for infrastructure works, whether the GBS is available or not. The rise in the GBS requirement for the next year is mainly due to the increased capex plan. There has been a considerable growth in the capital outlay of the railways over the last few years -- increasing from Rs 93,520 crore in 2015-16 to Rs 1.09 trillion in 2016-17 (17.5 per cent growth over 2015-16) and Rs 1.2 trillion 2017-18 (9.2 per cent growth over 2016-17). Any cut in the GBS means the railways will have to depend more on market borrowings. This comes at a time when the national transporter is struggling to get the promised funds from Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) for infrastructure projects. The plan was an investment of Rs 1.5 trillion in railway infrastructure projects by LIC in a span of five years, starting 2015. However, in the first three years till 2017-18, the national transporter has secured only about Rs 16,200 crore from LIC, which had a huge impact on the national transporter's capex plans. The railways is reportedly trying to get a sovereign guarantee from the government as well as a special status for LIC bonds, based on the directives by insurance regulator Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA). Earlier this year, a parliamentary committee had cited that the railways should give priority to remunerative and commercially viable projects so that it will not be under financial stress. It also asked the management to hike internal resources generation by improving non-fare earnings. In the budget estimates for 2018-19, outlay from extra budgetary resources was kept at Rs 81,940 crore -- out of which Rs 28,500 crore was from market borrowings through bonds, Rs 26,440 billion from institutional financing and Rs 27,000 crore as investment under EBR (partnerships). In terms of key infrastructure areas like track renewal, electrification and doubling, there has been a considerable increase in the last one year. "We are planning to increase this momentum so far as improving the infrastructure is concerned. In the last one year, track renewal, electrification and doubling were at their highest," said another railways official. January 03, 2019 18:49 IST Prices of milk and derivatives such as cheese, butter, curd and skimmed milk powder were subdued for two years, on a supply surplus. Dairy companies are planning to raise milk prices by Rs 2-4 a litre by the end of this month, pointing to a rise in cost of production, rising demand and depleting inventory on reduced supply from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. Prices of milk and derivatives such as cheese, butter, curd and skimmed milk powder (SMP) were subdued for two years, on a supply surplus. August 2018 had seen a fall in their prices. However, the price of SMP, for instance, has risen from Rs 125 a kg in that month to a current Rs 200-210 a kg. Ghee, cheese and butter have moved proportionately up, without a price increase in milk. Milk's real prices had fallen sharply. Farmers were realising less than their cost of production, resulting in a halt of fresh investment in animal husbandry. So, milk production got impacted, resulting in lower supply this season. With onset of the wedding season, demand is bound to increase. "Hence, we will see how demand pans out before any price increase. But, prices would certainly go up this season, said R S Sodhi, managing director (MD) at Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), producer of the Amul brand of dairy products (the country's largest). Both dry and wet fodder prices have risen by up to 20 per cent over the past four months. Ghee's price increase has taken it up to Rs 310-325 a kg and butter to Rs 235 a kg. Buffalo milk prices have risen by up by Rs 7 a litre, to Rs 39 a litre for farmers; cow milk has gone up by Rs 3 to Rs 28 a litre (from Rs 21 a litre last August); the Maharashtra government had since ordered that the minimum sale price be Rs 25 a litre. Animal husbandry in Maharashtra has become difficult due to lower water availability, following drought in nearly half the states villages. "Consequently, milk supply has been impacted. We cannot forecast a date but prices would certainly go up, latest by the first week of February, said Amitabha Ray, the MD at Schreiber Dynamix Dairies. The government of Maharashtra is also offering a Rs 5 a litre incentive to dairy companies until January for producing export-oriented milk derivatives. Apart from that, the Centre has offered a 20 per cent export subsidy for milk derivatives, including SMP. However, global prices of SMP, cheese and butter are subdued. "Milk prices would rise next season, with reduced supply and lower investment in animal husbandry over the past two years, said Devendra Shah, chairman, Parag Milk Foods, producer of the Gowardhan brand of milk and its derivatives. The governments of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are also offering a production subsidy to milk farmers. Traditionally, supply gradually improves with the onset of winter in September and reduces with the onset of warm weather in March. Photograph: Parivartan Sharma/Reuters January 03, 2019 16:16 IST Neither the foreign exchange, nor the gold, and certainly not the revaluation reserve should be available for spending by anyone. he revaluation account is simply not money. It is simply an accounting entry, says Rashmin C Sanghvi. Media claims that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has a reserve of Rs 9.6 trillion. The government wants a portion of this money to be transferred to it for its expenses. Let us examine the accounting and economic details. As per the balance sheet of the RBI, the total share capital and reserves are Rs 6,726 crore. There is no other reserve on the balance sheet. All the amounts actually represent liabilities payable, or provisions made by the RBI. The RBIs contingency fund of Rs 232,108 crore is a provision. There are assets of equivalent value with the RBI. Hence it is called the contingency fund. This fund is invested in government securities. If the government wants the RBI to use this fund and declare dividend, the government has to repay the loans. Out of the loan repayment, the RBI can declare a dividend. Does it make much sense? Now come to the currency and gold revaluation account (Rs 691,641 crore). Separate details for currency revaluation and gold revaluation are not available. To clarify the principles involved, let us assume some simplified figures. Say Mr. ABC has an office that he purchased in the year 2000 at a cost of Rs 1 crore. Today, this office is worth Rs 3 crore. Mr ABC prepares a balance sheet at current market value. So he shows asset at Rs 3 crore and makes a revaluation reserve of Rs 2 crore. In the books, his capital has gone up by Rs 2 crore. Can he spend this money (Rs 2 crore)? Asset revaluation does not generate any money. He cant use the money without selling the office. Similarly, the RBI has foreign exchange reserves of $400 billion. It cannot generate cash in rupee terms to pay dividend to the government unless it sells the foreign exchange reserves. Let us assume the RBIs foreign exchange reserves of $400 billion have been acquired at an average cost of Rs 50 per dollar. The cost of foreign exchange reserves is Rs 200,000 crore (400 X 50). Now the rupee has depreciated to Rs 70 per dollar. This means all imports including crude oil cost us more. Several costs, including transport cost, go up. Hence our exports become less competitive in the international market. The economy suffers. However, the market value of foreign exchange reserve is now Rs 280,000 crore (400 X 70). There will be a currency revaluation account of Rs 80,000 crore. What is the meaning of foreign exchange reserve? It is an illusory term. When we say there is a reserve, people feel that it is generated out of profits made. In reality, RBI has not created this reserve out of profits earned. When an Indian businessman exports goods or services, he earns foreign exchange. Under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), every Indian resident is compelled to sell the foreign exchange earned by him to his bank. The bank surrenders the foreign exchange to the RBI. This, inter alia, is how the RBI creates its foreign exchange reserve. For every dollar of foreign exchange taken by the RBI, an equivalent amount in rupee terms, is paid to the exporter. Every rupee issued by the RBI is a liability. If the RBI has $400 billion on the asset side of its balance sheet, an equivalent amount is its liability as rupee notes issued to exporters. If the government spends this money, it would be, to use a popular phrase, printing notes out of thin air. Now consider the gold revaluation reserve. The RBI has more than 500 tonnes of gold as reserve. Let us assume, it was acquired at an average price of Rs 20,000 per 10 gm. Now because of rupee depreciation, gold price has gone up to Rs 30,000 per 10 gm. On revaluation of the gold at market price, there will be a gold revaluation account of Rs 50,000 crore (Rs 10,000 appreciation per 10 gm X 500 tonnes.) It is not a reserve. The RBI considers it necessary to maintain this gold and foreign exchange reserve. This will be used in case of a future crisis. We should not forget the massive speculative attacks on world currencies - including on the Indian rupee in the years 1992, 1997 and 2013. My submission is that neither the foreign exchange, nor the gold and certainly not the revaluation reserve, should be available for spending by anyone. The revaluation account is simply not money. It is simply an accounting entry. Rashmin C Sanghvi is chartered accountant and partner, Rashmin Sanghvi & Associates Photograph: Shailesh Andrade/Reuters Traverse City, MI (49684) Today Mainly clear. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 54F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Mainly clear. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 54F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Posted Thursday, January 3, 2019 10:01 am CENTRALIA POLICE DEPARTMENT Thefts At 9:55 a.m. Friday, the theft of unknown items was reported from a store in the 600 block of South Tower Avenue. At 3:59 p.m. Saturday, a theft of condoms was reported from a business in the 600 block of South Tower Avenue. At 6:40 p.m. Saturday, a theft of $130 was reported from a business in the 1200 block of Alder Street. At 12:03 p.m. Sunday, a theft of a bicycle was reported in the 700 block of Harrison Avenue. Suspect Booked for Identity Theft At 1 p.m. Friday, police responded to the 400 block of South Oak Street and arrested Nicholas J. Quillan, 37, of Chehalis on suspicion of first-degree criminal impersonation after providing officers with a false identity. He was also booked on an outstanding felony warrant and a misdemeanor warrant. Suspect Cited, Released for Trespassing At 8:02 p.m. Friday, police responded to the 100 block of North Tower Avenue and arrested and released a 50-year-old Centralia resident on suspicion of criminal trespass. Suspect Booked for Violating Protection Order At 8:58 p.m. Friday, police responded to the 1000 block of Scammon Creek Road and arrested Melchor R. Robles Ramirez, 31, of Centralia on suspicion of violating a protection order. Suspect Steals Marijuana, Assaults Victim At 8:29 p.m. Saturday, police responded to the 1300 block of Belmont Avenue where a female suspect stole a small amount of marijuana, three lighters and $15 in cash from a guest in a motel room. The suspect assaulted the victim when confronted. Police Arrest Trespass Suspect At 11:09 p.m. Saturday, police responded to the 100 block of North Tower Avenue and arrested Shannon K. Kilgore, 50, of Centralia on suspicion of criminal trespass. Assault Suspect Arrested At 6:53 p.m. Sunday, police responded to the 700 block of South Pearl Street and arrested Darlene C. Hughes, 60, of Centralia on suspicion of fourth-degree assault domestic violence and third-degree malicious mischief domestic violence after allegedly getting in a physical altercation and damaging property. Suspects Arrested, Released for Driving on Suspended License At 9:36 p.m. Sunday, police responded to the 1200 block of West First Street and cited a 26-year-old Olympia resident on suspicion of third-degree driving with a suspended license. At 8:04 p.m. Monday, police responded to the 300 block of North Tower Avenue and cited a 45-year-old Centralia resident on suspicion of third-degree driving with a suspended license. At 5:12 a.m. Tuesday, police responded to the 1500 block of Harrison Avenue and cited a 36-year-old Rochester resident on suspicion of third-degree driving with a suspended license. Suspect Booked for Meth Possession At 9:59 p.m. Sunday, police responded to the 1400 block of Johnson Road and arrested Ashley R.M. Mathus, 28, of Centralia on suspicion of possession of meth and on several outstanding warrants. Hit and Run At 2:16 p.m. Monday, a hit and run was reported in the 100 block of South Tower Avenue. Theft Suspect Arrested, Released At 9:47 p.m. Monday, police responded to the 500 block of South Tower Avenue and arrested and released a 26-year-old Centralia resident on suspicion of third-degree theft. Caller Reports Being Assaulted by Multiple Suspects At 11:44 p.m. Monday, a person in the 100 block of Alder Street reported being assaulted by two or three unknown male suspects. Assault Suspect Booked At 5:27 a.m. Tuesday, police responded to the 900 block of E Street and arrested Linda F. Adams, 60, of Centralia on suspicion of fourth-degree assault domestic violence, after allegedly getting into a physical altercation. CHEHALIS POLICE DEPARTMENT Collision Causes Injury At 11:43 a.m. Friday, a two-vehicle collision was reported in the 1700 block of North National Avenue, with at least one person reporting injuries. Thefts At 3:46 p.m. Friday, a theft of a cellphone was reported in the 100 block of Southwest Interstate Avenue. At 6:30 p.m. Sunday, a theft of alcohol and razors was reported at a business in the 500 block of South Market Boulevard. Caller Reports Individuals Smoking Pot Publicly At 6:42 p.m. Friday, a caller in the 500 block of North Market Boulevard reported several individuals smoking marijuana in public. Car Egged At 8:31 a.m. Saturday, a caller in the 1500 block of Southwest Johnson Avenue reported someone egged their car. Subjects Seen Drinking at Bus Stop At 1:02 p.m. Saturday, a caller in the 500 block of Northwest Front Street reported individuals drinking and being belligerent in the bus shelter. They swore at the caller and began to leave when they found out police had been alerted. Theft Suspect Booked At 11:23 p.m. Saturday, police responded to the 1600 block of Northwest Louisiana Avenue and arrested Bowen J. Bottorff, 26, of Rochester on suspicion of third-degree theft. Police Arrest Assault, Mischief Suspect At 2:13 p.m. Sunday, police responded to the 600 block of Southwest 20th Street and arrested Delfino Medina, 32, of Chehalis on suspicion of fourth-degree assault domestic violence and third-degree malicious mischief. Juvenile Arrested for Assault At 7:55 p.m. Sunday, police responded to the 1600 block of Northwest Louisiana Avenue and arrested a 17-year-old Winlock teen on suspicion of fourth-degree assault domestic violence. Police Requested to Remove Individual At 8:51 a.m. Monday, police were requested in the 600 block of West Main Street to remove an individual from the area. Caller Advises Police of Man Striking Woman At 11:47 p.m. Monday, a caller in the 900 block of Harrison Avenue reported a male and female subject were sitting in a car when the man hit the woman. Vehicle Prowl At 11:27 a.m. Tuesday, a vehicle prowl was reported in the 500 block of Southwest Cascade Avenue. Officers Arrest Assault Suspect At 11:27 a.m. Tuesday, police responded to the 1600 block of Northwest Louisiana Avenue and arrested Sreekanth Dobbala, 31, of San Ramon, California on suspicion of fourth-degree assault domestic violence. Trespass Suspect Booked At 3:11 p.m. Tuesday, police responded to the 300 block of North Market Boulevard and arrested Megan H. Jones, 34, a transient, on suspicion of criminal trespass. LEWIS COUNTY JAIL STATISTICS As of Wednesday morning, the Lewis County Jail had a total system population of 228 inmates, with 191 in general population, 35 in the work ethic and restitution center and two on work release. Of general population inmates, 153 were male and 38 were female and of WERC inmates, 29 were male and six were female. A total of 30 inmates were booked through contracts outside Lewis County. By The Chronicle Staff Please call news reporter Cody Neuenschwander with news tips. He can be reached at 807-8208 or cneuenschwander@chronline.com Every now and then there is a seemingly mundane gun listed on Gunbroker that catches your attention after closer inspection. The 921 Glock 17 that Texas Machine Gun has listed is one of those guns. If you aren't familiar with the 921 cartridge, it was developed by Israel Military Industries for parts of the world that ban civilian possession of military cartridges. The 921 will launch a 115-grain bullet a touch faster than 919 at 1,300 fps and has a bit larger of a case capacity. While the case is a bit longer, the bullet is set further in the case keeping the overall length of the cartridge the same as a 919. The same overall cartridge length results in a rarely seen in the US Glock that looks like every other Glock 17 on the planet. Texas-based importer Texas Machine Gun & Ordnance imported the 921 Glock from Italy after a long 2-year wait. You will notice a few proof markings that you normally wouldn't see on a US market pistol. The CIP N mark indicates that the pistol was a compulsory proof performed by a C.I.P. approved proof house. We can tell you that the proof was performed in Austria from the eagle proof mark, but can't make out the number in the center that indicates Ferlach or Vienna. Given the Austria Glock factory's location, I would bet on it being a Ferlach proofed gun. Try as I might, I couldn't identify the ZWY stamp on the frame of the pistol. If anyone has any information, drop it in the comments, please. The magazines are also rather unique in that they appear to be Italian market only. Unfortunately, I couldn't locate why the 15-round mag was required for Italy since it appears that magazine capacity for pistols is capped at 20 rounds. Again, if someone knows please post in the comments. If you are as interested as I was about the construction of the 15-round Glock 17 magazine, I did stumble across this video showing one being disassembled. The 921 Glock 17 hasn't been fired according to the Gunbroker listing and comes with all the factory accessories and paperwork, likely important to a collector. The 921 Glock 17 had a starting bid of a penny on Gunbroker, no telling what it will sell for. Check out the listing HERE. From a post on the Texas Machine Gun & Ordnance Facebook: Our 9x21mm Glock 17 that took us almost 2 years to import from Italy is live on Gunbroker and ready for bidding. There are bound to be other 9x21mm Glocks in the US, but this is the first time we have seen one. Given how long it took us to get this, it could be a while longer before any more show up. We have had quite a few people contact us with generous offers for this, but we honestly have no idea what it is worth. To someone who just likes to shoot guns, it's probably worth less than a regular 9x19mm Glock, since it's in an oddball caliber. However for a serious Glock collector, having a factory Glock 17 that hardly anybody else on this side of the Atlantic has, brings a whole different value. So we are letting the free-market do its thing, and whomever gets it, will get it at whatever price they have chosen to get it at. Happy bidding. All Federal and State laws apply, and firearm will only be transferred in accordance with all ATF regulations. More from the Texas Machine Gun listing on Gunbroker: , We're sorry, this article is not currently available By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 01/03/2019 ADVERTISEMENT FOLLOW REALITY TV WORLD ON THE ALL-NEW GOOGLE NEWS! Reality TV World is now available on the all-new Google News app and website. Click here to visit our Google News page, and then click FOLLOW to add us as a news source! ADVERTISEMENT Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade. Season 22 star, Arie Luyendyk Jr. , apparently holds a grudge -- because his feud with former friend, Jef Holm , is still ongoing.Arie and Jef both competed for Emily Maynard on ette's eighth season in 2012 and became close friends afterwards, but later had a falling out. (Jef won Emily's heart with Arie finishing as her runner-up, however Jef and Emily split less than three months after their finale aired).Although Arie claimed in January 2018 he hadn't seen Jef for "four or five years," Jef took a shot at Arie after he was announced as the Bachelor in September 2017.Jef tweeted that he stopped being friends with the Arie years ago because "he's disgusting," later adding, "Oh the stories I could tell..."And then on January 1, 2018, Jef slammed Arie even harder when he tweeted the following on the night of 's Season 22 premiere: "Doesn't matter who gets out of the limo...I'll give 5k to the charity of @chrisbharrison's choice if @ariejr lasts 1 year with anyone."Jef's prediction clearly bothered Arie and ate him alive over the last year, because on January 2, 2019, Arie decided to publicly clap back."Pay up @jefholm... Put that trust fund money into something positive instead of bottle service. Asshole," Arie tweeted, throwing it in Jef's face that he is still engaged to Lauren Burnham However, depending on one's interpretation of the intended meaning of Jef's tweet, Arie's boastful slam is either a bit of a stretch or still technically a couple of weeks premature.If Jef intended to say Arie wouldn't last a year with whoever he picked on , then Jef ended up being correct.Arie actually proposed marriage to Becca Kufrin during the finale of Season 22 that aired last year, and on New Year's Eve a few months earlier -- when Arie first reached out to Lauren after wrapped filming in Peru in November 2017 to allegedly "check in" on her and attempt to get closure for his lingering feelings -- the pro racing driver was in a relationship with Becca.Becca, in fact, said she gave Arie permission to call Lauren at the beginning of 2018, but she was under the impression her fiance just wanted to relieve some guilt about breaking Lauren's heart.Arie later claimed he realized Lauren was "the one" for him during that phone call.However, Arie then still continued his relationship with Becca until mid-January when he suddenly blindsided her and broke-up with her during a secret "happy couple" visit that was filmed by producers and aired on 's finale in March.Afterward, Arie traveled to Virginia to reunite with Lauren, who took Arie back almost immediately and their engagement aired live on : After the Final Rose in March 2018.Becca's pal, Tia Booth , revealed on After the Final Rose that she was with Lauren on New Year's Eve that night when Arie called and felt the pro racing driver was seeking "insurance," explaining she believed Arie would never have dumped Becca if Lauren had told Arie she would not give him another chance.Arie -- who is set marry Lauren later this month in Hawaii -- told Ben Higgins and Ashley Iaconetti 's Almost Famous Podcast last year that he had no idea why Jef was throwing "shade" at him once news circulated of his gig."I just don't see why he had to come after me and be so negative when his own relationship didn't work out," Arie said at the time.After Emily's ette finale aired in July 2012, she and Jef ended their engagement and announced their split less than three months later. Arie apparently didn't think Jef was one to talk about finding lasting love on reality TV."I feel it's unfair to judge, and I feel more disappointed than anything, because I don't feel it's a warranted attack on me," Arie admitted to Ashley and Ben.Once Ben and Ashley probed for more details about the tension between Arie and Jef , the former star seemed to let his guard down."We had -- [ Sean Lowe ]'s wedding, you know, he brought a date," Arie explained of Jef, "and I feel he handled the situation badly with his date and he didn't treat that person right. And I spoke out."Arie revealed, "Then he got into a fight with myself and a few of the producers, and that was the last time we talked... I just felt like in the moment, I had to stick up for that person that [Jef] brought instead of him. And I feel like he thought I chose the wrong side. [And] I think maybe there is a little bit of jealousy."Interested in more news? Join our The Bachelor Facebook Group By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 01/03/2019 ADVERTISEMENT Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade. couple Paola Mayfield and Russ Mayfield have welcomed their first child into the world.Paola gave birth to a baby boy on New Year's Day 2019, just after midnight! She and Russ named their son Axel."We are so blessed! Baby Axel was born January 1, 2019 at 12:22 AM," Paola announced Thursday on Instagram.As part of Paola's announcement, she posted a sweet family photo on her Instagram account."What an amazing way to start the new year, while I was hearing the fireworks and people telling me 'happy new year,' I was just focused on meeting my baby boy," Paola captioned the picture."Our little miracle is so beautiful and calm. I feel so blessed and I can't believe I am a mom now! I'm ready to start this new adventure and to be the best mom for baby Axel. I'm so proud of my husband, he was there for me the entire time, I couldn't have done it without you."Paola said the joy she is feeling as a new mom is "indescribable.""I've never felt so happy in my life," she continued in her post on social media. "Axel has become my whole world and I'm so in love with him. Thank you all for supporting us and 'patiently' waiting to finally meet him! #babyaxel #russandpao #90dayfiance #2019baby."Russ shared the same photo on his own Instagram page and opened up about becoming a first-time parent."What an amazing feeling to be overwhelmed with joy. We would like to introduce you to Axel Mayfield. He is already taking after his father and is such a cute, sweet, and calm little boy. Axel was born... measuring 22 inches in length, and weighing in at 7 lbs and 5 oz," Russ revealed."This has been the HAPPIEST NEW YEAR we have ever experienced. Momma and baby are doing so well! I cannot express enough how proud I am of Pao, she was such trooper bringing him into the world. Pao's bouncing back stronger than ever and Axel is rocking his eat, sleep, poop, repeat like a champ."Russ also thanked fans for all of their "love, support, prayers, good vibes, and all the encouraging messages.""It brings us so much joy knowing how much our baby boy is already adored," Russ concluding, before adding the following hashtags: "#babyaxel #russandpao #90dayfiance #happynewyear #2019baby."The happy couple, who starred on Season 3 of : Happily Ever After? on TLC -- which sadly featured them experiencing a miscarriage -- announced in August 2018 they had a baby boy on the way , just one month after publicly disclosing that Paola was pregnant with their first child.Russ from Oklahoma met Paola, a model and former fashion designer, in her home country of Colombia while he was on a work assignment in the petroleum industry.The pair got married in October 2013 and initially starred on Season 1 of . 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Last month it was Kevin Hart, who stepped down from hosting the Oscars over homophobic tweets from his past. Before him, Nicholas and Erika Christakis were forced out of their roles as faculty in residence at Yales Silliman College for their remarks on Halloween and cultural appropriation. You may think that you are surely safe from all this. After all, you wont be hosting the Oscars or working with hyper-sensitive college students. Nor do you have wrong opinions on anything too controversial. You may think you are immune. But you are wrong. After all, many, if not most, victims of public shaming and retaliation for wrong think are average citizens. Just ask Salvatore Davi, who worked as an administrative law judge in New Yorks Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance from 2010 to 2015. He was considered an exemplary employee. Yet Davis employers charged him with seven counts of professional misconduct for comments he made while debating politics on Facebook. What sort of comments warranted seven counts of professional misconduct? Perhaps Davi spoke too critically of his superiors or of his departments policy? Perhaps he embraced racism? Or perhaps he dared to speak out against one of the two sacrosanct achievements of the sexual revolutionabortion or marriage equality? It was nothing so exciting. Davi was charged with professional misconduct for expressing an opinion on Facebook about welfare reform. It all began when one of his Facebook friends posted an article from The Daily Kos arguing that welfare programs such as food stamps were working well and should be expanded. Davi offered a mild objection. He offered the opinion that the article used the wrong metric to weigh success. The efficacy of welfare programs, he suggested, should be judged by measuring how many people or families they get back on their feet. A truly effective social safety net, he added, should be of limited duration and designed to get people back to self-sufficiency. Someone anonymously sent Davis comments to his employers. Because he worked with welfare applicants and made recommendations about which applicants should receive benefits, his employers claimed that someone with his views couldnt impartially manage his caseload. They charged him with professional misconduct for bias and tried to terminate him. When that failed, they suspended him for six months and moved him to a position where he would no longer adjudicate cases. No evidence was ever presented to support the allegation that Davi was biased or unprofessional in his role. No colleague or client of his agency ever complained that he handled his cases with bias. He didnt even have the power to deny anyone welfare benefits. His record showed he recommended benefits be awarded in 95 percent of the cases he managed. The only evidence New York could summon to support its charge that Davi was biased was the Facebook argument in which he expressed a position on welfare policy that is commonly espoused by conservatives (but not only conservatives). Represented by the Center for Individual Rights, Davi filed suit against New York for violating his First Amendment right to free speech. His case is currently pending before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Given that New York committed blatant viewpoint discrimination in punishing him for his political views, the case raises free speech issues important to all public employees. A court victory for Davi would be a welcome end to this saga, but it wont change the troubling fact that the government of one of the largest states in the country felt comfortable punishing a civil servant for his personal views. Private sector companies may be able to treat their employees this way, but governments are constrained by the First Amendment -- or should be -- and should set an example for the rest of us. After all, if Sal Davis speech isnt protected, then no ones really is. The courts should reprimand New York as sternly as possible and remind all government entities that they cant punish public servants for exercising their First Amendment rights of free speech. While our political parties squabble over funding, Americas enemies could weaponize illegal migration While some readers of this column are perhaps already familiar with this historical anecdote, its worth repeating every now and then that as recently as the year 2000, the state of Ohio had more paved roads than all of Russia combined. Please think about that for a minute. Ohio, a seemingly middle-of-the-economic-pack U.S. state, not too long ago had more paved roads than a country that is eleven time zones large. So how can the Buckeye State claim so much in the way of drivable terrain? Why is there so much throughout the U.S.? The answer is that Americans for good and bad produce so much taxable wealth. Government doesnt build roads as much as its able to pay private actors to build roads thanks to the endless amounts of money that flows into government coffers. Road construction doesnt drive (excuse the pun) economic growth in the United States; rather its an effect of it. Haiti, Peru and Democratic Republic of Congo dont have fewer roads because their politicians are thrifty; they do because theres insufficient growth in the private economy of each country such that their politicians have very little to spend. Which brings us to a recent New York Times piece which speculated on the economic impact of the federal governments partial shutdown. Alan Rappeport and Binyamin Appelbaum observed that the shutdown is unlikely to make much of an immediate dent in the growth of the United States economy. Later on they tried to tie a number to their assertion with their mention of a Standard & Poors estimate that the partial shutdown could shave $1.2 billion off gross domestic product each week, only for them to 'reassure' readers the latter only represents a very small fraction of the nations economic output. Rappeport and Appelbaum state the obvious, but unsurprisingly miss the point. They forget that the federal government has trillions to spend every year precisely because the American people produce many more trillions worth of wealth. The federal government is big in the United States solely because the U.S. economy is massive. Rappeport and Appelbaum comically confuse causation here. To believe their reporting, the U.S. economy is made bigger by government spending! Thats impossible. The federal government once again only has trillions to spend as a consequence of all the wealth already produced in the private sector. Thats why governments around the world spend much less than wasteful American politicians do. Applied to Russia and its substantial lack of roads relative to the U.S., its not that the pols there are stingy with the money of their people. In truth, the Russian people produce wealth at a small fraction of the rate at which the American people do. Rappeport and Appelbaum also forget that economic growth, despite what theyve been led to believe, is not an effect of consumption. Goodness, we all have endless consumptive desires. Thats just evidence that were human. What the Times scribes cant seem to wrap their heads around is why Americans are able to consume to much more than other people. Rest assured theyre not able to because politicians at all levels of government are so eager to reach into their pockets. Taxation logically limits our consumption. Back to some semblance of reality, Americans are able to consume abundantly because they produce wealth in abundant fashion. Consumption is an effect of production, and the more investment there is, the more production there is. If anyone doubts this, just stop and consider the relative productivity of a farmer who only has a shovel versus one with a tractor. Or a factory worker aided by robots versus one manually handling all aspects of production. Or a technologist working with dial-up internet speed versus 4 or 5G. The simple truth is that the more wealth invested in us, the quicker our productivity rises, and with the rising productivity, the greater our ability to produce in order to consume. Its all a reminder of how much bigger (and were talking exponentially bigger) the U.S. economy would be if government at all levels taxed and spent quite a bit less. Oh my, would we be prosperous. And for those who say we wouldnt be because there would be no roads, lets be serious. Capitalism is all about expanding ways for the productive to meet the needs of other productive people. For individuals to suggest wed still be riding in horse-drawn carriages from Los Angeles to San Francisco absent government is for certain people to reveal a level of unseriousness that is awe inspiring. For now, though, it should be said that Rappeport and Appelbaum are engaging in double counting of the most dishonest kind when they claim even small economic growth decreases as a result of the partial shutdown. Theyre being silly. Economic growth is once again what enables government. And if it were smaller, the private investment without which there is no growth would be quite a bit more sizable. So while its a reach to suggest President Trump understands what Rappeport and Appelbaum plainly do not, how dreamy if he did only to ride out the shutdown at least through 2020. This way theres thankfully no wall, and no growth in government. Congress and the White House lose, but those of us not in government win. As for the estimated 500,000 federal employees who will have less thanks to a partial shutdown, welcome to the world of the private sector American worker 365 days/year thanks to government that grows and grows on the backs of those not in its employ. My assigned task here is to discuss challenges ahead in the nuclear environment. There are, of course, a variety of interrelated challenges in the international environment that cross multiple domains, but my task here is to discuss nuclear challenges. That will be my focus. There are two distinct but related nuclear challenges: 1) the challenge of external nuclear developments among potential adversaries; and, 2) the internal challenge of establishing an enduring, effective Western response to those foreign developments. External Nuclear Developments There are multiple emerging or potential nuclear challenges, including from North Korea, China, and Iran. But, here I will comment on only the most apparent, immediate external nuclear challengewhich I believe to be Russia. The Russian nuclear challenge follows from the combination of Russias goal to revise the existing international political order, and the apparent role Moscow envisages for its nuclear forces in advancing that goal. What is the geographic extent of Russias revisionist goal? The answer to this key question is unclear. Perhaps the geographic extent corresponds to that of the former territory of the Soviet Union, or perhaps to the expanse of the earlier Imperial Russia. It is not obvious what the current leadership in Moscow believes to be the rightful boundaries of Russia. Whatever may be the case, it is clear that Moscows leadership aspires to return to past greatness, and doing so involves geography. While political geography may seem an archaic national focus to many in the West, it remains a prominent theme in Russian security thinking. This should be no surprise given Russian history and the value of its expansive territory for power and survivalfrom Napoleons invasion in 1812 to Hitlers invasion in 1941. It also is unclear whether, or how much of Russias geographic goal would be satisfied with: 1) Political/economic hegemony over its desired historic space; 2) the actual incorporation within Russian borders of now-external territory and ethnic Russian populations; or, 3) a combination of these two. The first of theseseeking political/economic hegemonyis a threat to the sovereignty of Russias neighbors. The second of thesethe incorporation of territory and ethnic Russian populations into the Russian homelandis a possible threat to neighbors national survival. Over the past ten years, we have seen evidence of both approaches: Russias operations in Crimea suggest the goal of expanding Russian borders and absorbing ethnic Russian populations. Russias political and economic efforts elsewhere suggest the goal of establishing a form of economic and political hegemony. Whatever are the parameters and nature of Russias territorial ambitions, it is clear that, given the expansion of NATO since the end of the Cold War, Russias revisionist goal may be satisfied at the expense of our allies and partners sovereignty or territory. As a former U.S. intelligence official reportedly stated, Everything for Vladimir Putin is a zero-sum game, and we are his main enemy. The Russians are continually probing us, and theyre going to keep going as far as they can until we push back in such a way that we deter them from taking even more aggressive action.[1] This Russian ambition and perspective is the disturbing reality we now confront. In contrast to this disturbing reality, the possible good news is that the Putin regimewhile revisionist and expansionistalso appears to be pragmatic and calculating. These characteristics are significant because a potential opponents pragmatism, and related willingness to stand back following the calculation of risk, are necessary for deterrence to operate to prevent or defer aggression. The good news here is that Russia appears not to be akin to National Socialist Germany in this regard. Where contemporary Russia appears pragmatic and calculating, Hitler had set expansionist goals and a timeline, and his dedication to the realization of those goals was not highly subject to pragmatism or the calculation of risk. Instead, Adolf Hitler often boasted of his unalterable goals and unhesitating decisions: Neither threats nor warnings will prevent me from going my way. I follow the path assigned me by Providence with the instinctive sureness of a sleepwalker.[2] With such an adversary, effective strategies of deterrence may be extremely difficult or even impossible. But, that does not appear to be Russia. This difference between contemporary Russia and National Socialist Germany of the 1930s is critical. Where Russia sees opportunity and the potential for expansion at tolerable risk and cost, it will likely act, including with hard and soft power. However, where Russias geographic appetite is opposed by countervailing Western power, Russias behavior will likely be limited by its pragmatism and related willingness to stand back in the face of too much calculated risk and cost. I do not mean by this that Russia is likely to adopt amicable intentions in response to Western power. While an amicable relationship is a long-term goal, deterrence is not about creating amicable intentions. It is about preventing aggression in the context of less-than-amicable relations. The combination of Russian pragmatism and risk calculation suggests that in the face of countervailing Western power, there is room for Moscow to moderate its provocative pursuit of revisionist goals. This is good news because it means that there is the potential for Western power to deter extreme Russian behavior, at least in principle. A Nuclear Challenge The key question that follows is: How are these apparent Russian geopolitical aspirations and regime characteristics related to a Russian nuclear challenge? A very concise answer is as follows: Russias leadership reportedly believes that Moscow can use the threat of nuclear first-use, or actual limited nuclear first-use if necessary, to help advance its goal of revising the political order in Eurasia.[3] In short, there is a link between Russias nuclear capabilities and its expansionist goals that includes two mechanisms. First, Moscow appears to believe that it can use nuclear threats against U.S. allies and partners to move them away from policies and positions Moscow opposes, and to compel their conciliation in crises. This apparent coercive role for nuclear threats is a return to Soviet Cold War practice.[4] It goes beyond traditional Western notions of limiting the scope and purpose of nuclear deterrence to the protection of a countrys existence. Rather, Russia appears to have lowered the threshold for making nuclear threats to include preventing Western actions that seem to have little to do with threats to Russias survival; to put it differently, Russia appears to have expanded the range of foreign behaviors it believes it can influence via explicit nuclear threats. For example, Russia has made explicit nuclear threats to allies regarding participation in the U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) program: In 2015, Russias Ambassador to Denmark, Mikhail Vanin, reportedly made an explicit nuclear targeting threat: I dont think that Danes fully understand the consequence if Denmark joins the American-led missile defence shield. If they do, then Danish warships will be targets for Russian nuclear missiles.[5] The second linkage between Russias geographic aspirations and nuclear weapons is that Moscow appears to believe that it can employ limited nuclear strikes against U.S. allies and possibly against the U.S. itself to prevent a cohesive, powerful Western response to Russias use of hard power in support of its expansionist goals. This is the much-discussed Russian approach to de-escalation. The underlying concept appears to be that a conflict is de-escalated because Russias opponent decides to cease resistance in the face of limited Russian nuclear use. In 2015, NATO Deputy Military Commander, Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Bradshaw, pointed out, Russia might believe the large scale conventional force it has shown it can generate on very short noticecould in the future be used not only for intimidation and coercion but potentially to seize NATO territory after which the threat of escalation might be used to prevent reestablishment of territorial integrity.[6] This apparent Russian notion again has little to do with Russia using nuclear threat or escalation in the protection of its existence; escalation here would be in the service of expansion. I believe that this combination of Russian expansionist goals and nuclear concepts is the most obvious and immediate nuclear challenge. The questions that arise from this combination are: First, what is the basis for Russias felt freedom to lower the threshold for nuclear threats and potentially nuclear first-use? What are the gaps, as perceived by Moscow, in the existing Western deterrence position that allow this perceived freedom? And, second, how can the West moderate Russian views about the potential value of nuclear threats and nuclear first-use in support of its expansionist goals? The short answer to this latter question is that the West must take advantage of Russian pragmatism and risk calculation to move it away from nuclear threats and any anticipation of success via nuclear first use. What does this require in principle? The West must move Russia to see that: its frequent nuclear threats are counterproductive; and any level of nuclear first use would risk unleashing an uncontrollable process with potentially intolerable consequences for Russia. This does not mean that the West must adopt the apparent Russian view that nuclear escalation is controllable. No, it means that the West must lead Russia to understand that: 1) it cannot fracture NATO cohesion via nuclear threats; and 2) it would not be able to control nuclear escalation to its advantage and success. Rather, such escalation would always entail too much risk. Western nuclear deterrence posturing and capabilities alone probably cannot produce this change in Russian thinking, but it cannot be accomplished without nuclear deterrence. A Domestic Nuclear Challenge At the outset of this discussion I suggested that there are two different but related nuclear challenges. One external, the other domestic. I have briefly described what I believe to be the most obvious and immediate external nuclear challenge: It is the linkage between Russian national aspirations and Moscows apparent views regarding the value of nuclear weapons in the pursuit of those aspirations. The domestic challenge confronting us is whether there will be clear-eyed recognition of these external nuclear threat developments, and the corresponding establishment of an enduring and responsive deterrence policy and posture. Throughout much of the Cold War, the United States sustained a bipartisan deterrence policy and posture vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. It was sufficiently effective to help bound U.S.-Soviet hostilities throughout the Cold War. Doing so again in this new post-Cold War era will cut against considerable established thought: For almost three decades, the common Western expectation has been that great power nuclear threats were a thing of the past. That expectation led the United States and allies in a very particular direction. This direction was generally based on the underlying bipartisan presumption that nuclear deterrence and capabilities were of sharply declining value, and that continually reducing and limiting nuclear capabilities was synonymous with reducing nuclear dangers. That is, the security value of continuing to reduce and limit U.S. nuclear systems was deemed to be greater than the potential value of continuing to modernize and replace those nuclear systems. If you doubt my point, I encourage you to read or reread President George H. W. Bushs landmark September 21, 1991 speech introducing the Presidential Nuclear Initiative, and President Obamas landmark 2009 Prague speech in favor of nuclear disarmament. The common apparent underlying current in each noted speech is the presumption that the great power nuclear environment was moving in an increasingly benign direction, would continue to do so, and that continuing reductions in U.S. nuclear forces would reduce nuclear dangers rather than risk endangering Western security. There is this enduring strain in U.S. thinking about nuclear capabilitiesthat they should continually be reduced because greater safety is to be found in ever-lower numbers and greater limitations. I understand and would agree with that thought in the right context, but not in the context of the deep U.S. nuclear reductions already made and the emerging external nuclear challenges we now see. Instead, effective nuclear deterrence appears to be of increasing value, and U.S. nuclear capabilities again are needed to make deterrence as effective as possible given the reality of external nuclear challenges. That is, modernizing U.S. nuclear forces now in support of deterrence is more likely to reduce nuclear dangers than would their continuing reduction at the possible expense of sustaining effective deterrence capabilities. This does not mean that the United States needs to increase the number of its strategic nuclear weapons, nor that future nuclear reductions must be avoided. Rather, it means recognizing that sustaining nuclear deterrence, and the needed nuclear posture for deterrence at multiple levels, is again a key to addressing emerging external nuclear dangers. That recognition should underlie how we think about these issues. The related internal challenge is whether the United States and key allies will be able to establish and sustain the domestic political consensus necessary for an enduring countervailing nuclear policy and posture designed to help address the gaps that Russia apparently perceives in the Wests deterrence position. These are the gaps that appear to give Russia, according to its perceptions, the liberty to: 1) engage in unprecedented coercive nuclear threats, and, 2) potentially engage in coercive nuclear first-use to de-escalate or end a conflict on its favored terms. That Russia perceives such liberty is, I believe, unarguable given its open statements and behavior. What may be the Western deterrence gaps in Russian perception is an important question for another day. The answer may be a moving target with multiple parts, but it is important to note that this is all about Russian perceptions and decision making. It is Moscows perceptions that matter in this regard; it is irrelevant whether or not we in the West believe that Moscow should perceive whatever gaps it may see. Whether they are real or not by our calculations, they need to be addressed to move Russian views in a more benign direction. Consequently, I will conclude with the two basic questions regarding our internal nuclear challenge. Will we have the courage and stamina to ask ourselves, without flinching, what are the possible gaps in our deterrence position as perceived by Russia? And, will we have the unity and stamina to do what we must do, possibly over many years, to address those gaps? That is the domestic challenge. It is the flip side of the external challenge. I will conclude here by noting that I have no doubt that we will successfully address the external nuclear challenges if we are able to address the internal nuclear challenge. To do so will require the level of consistent bipartisanship that last enabled us to more than survive the Cold War. Dr. Keith B. Payne is a co-founder of the National Institute for Public Policy, head of the Graduate School of Defense and Strategic Studies at Missouri State University and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense. This article appeared originally at National Institute for Public Policy. Notes: [1]. Quoted in Guy Taylor and Ben Wolfgang, Zero-sum game: Russian Aggression tests Trump, US Power, The Washington Times, November 27, 2018, at https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/nov/27/russia-ukraine-kerch-strait-incident-tests-trump-u/. [2]. Adolf Hitler, Speech, Munich Exhibition Halls, March 14, 1936. Quoted in Max Domarus, Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations 1932-1945, The Chronicle of a Dictatorship, Vol. II, 1935-1938 (Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1992), p. 790. [3]. See the discussion in, Mark Schneider, Russia and Conventional Deterrence, Information Series, No. 434, National Institute Press, December 13, 2018. [4]. See Hans Speier, Force and Folly (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1969), pp. 70-99. [5]. Julian Isherwood, Russia warns Denmark its warships could become nuclear targets, The Telegraph, March 21, 2015, available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/denmark/11487509/Russia-warns-Denmark-its-warships-. [6]. Adrian Bradshaw, The Latest Security Challenges Facing NATO, Royal United Services Institute, February 20, 2015, https://rusi.org/multimedia/latest-security-challenges-facing-nato. The views expressed in this article reflect those of the author and do not reflect those of the National Institute for Public Policy or any institution with which the author is associated. This article is adapted from remarks delivered by the author at The 7th Annual D.C. Triad Conference, The Emerging Strategic Nuclear Environment: Challenges Ahead, Minot Chamber of Commerce in association with Geostrategic Analysis, Washington, DC, October 9, 2018. For additional information about this publication or other publications by the National Institute Press, contact: Editor, National Institute Press, 9302 Lee Highway, Suite 750 |Fairfax, VA 22031 | (703) 293-9181 |www.nipp.org. For access to previous issues of the National Institute Press Information Series, please visit http://www.nipp.org/national-institute-press/information-series/. In its latest splash of cash for acquisitions, The E.W. Scripps Company has closed its acquisition of three ABC-affiliated television stations in Florida and Texas owned by Raycom Media and announced new leadership for both markets. The $55 million purchase of KXXV and KRHD in Waco-Temple-Bryan, Texas, and WTXL in Tallahassee, Florida comes as a result of Gray Televisions acquisition of Raycom and the acquisitions expand Scripps holdings to 36 TV stations in 26 markets and increase its US TV household reach to 18.5%. KXXV and KHRD are the companys first stations in Texas and adding WTXL expands the companys presence in Florida, which already includes the Fort Myers, West Palm Beach and Tampa markets, to reach nearly half of the states TV households.Scripps footprint will also grow with its purchase of 15 TV stations in ten markets from Cordillera Communications which is expected to close this spring.Both transactions further the companys strategies to improve the durability of its broadcast portfolio, said Brian Lawlor, president of Scripps Local Media. The acquisitions of the Waco and Tallahassee stations and those from Cordillera increase the scale of our portfolio and deepen our presence in politically important markets including Florida, Texas and Colorado, he noted. These strong additions to our footprint help advance our strategies to improve margin profile, cash flow and operating performance.In terms of the acquired companies management, Scripps has promoted from within to appoint new leaders for both new markets. Matt Brown will serve as vice president and general manager for WTXL in Tallahassee, Florida and Adam Chase will serve as vice president and general manager for KXXV and KRHD in Waco, Texas. The month begins with Laras romantic action drama Carrera a Muerte (Race of Death). Its the story of two adopted brothers who fall in love with the same mysterious woman a woman who is playing a dangerous game of deception. What they dont know is she has changed her name to conceal her deceit. What she doesnt know is that the two men she is playing with are related.El Motero, also from Lara, depicts a group of families dedicated to growing and trafficking drugs. With the police constantly on their heels, the criminal organisation and their respective families face betrayal, murder and deception.Alfonso Ortiz Lara has definitely grown as a director over the years, as we can see in these releases, said Jesus Pinango, director of TV content strategy at Olympusat , parent company of Cine Mexicano . Having started with short videos and other clips, Mr. Lara is quickly building an impressive list of full-length, high-quality motion pictures, Pinango said.Meanwhile, Rodriguez Libertad Verdadera (True Freedom) follows a professional assassin with ties to a ruthless criminal organisation, who faces the biggest decision of his life when he is ordered to kill a little girl.And finally, Rodriguez Pedro y Pablo (Peter and Paul) is the story of two inseparable brothers who tragically lose their parents and find themselves in a constant struggle to survive. With little food to eat and the bills mounting, Pedro, the oldest, makes the hard decision to cross the border illegally to find better work so that his brother doesnt have to discontinue his education. Netflix has reportedly removed an episode of a satirical comedy from its video-on-demand service in Saudi Arabia following an official complaint by the kingdom. The second episode of Patriot Act with US comedian Hasan Minhaj, which was critical of Saudi Arabias rulers, was considered a violation of the countrys anti-cybercrime law.Saudi Arabias Communications and Information Technology Commission said that the episode violated a law banning production, preparation, transmission, or storage of material impinging on public order, religious values, public morals, and privacy, through the information network or computers. Netflix confirmed to The Financial Times that the episode is no longer available to Saudi viewers. The US streaming giant said that while it strongly supported artistic freedom worldwide it had to comply with local legislation.Article 6 of Saudi Arabias anti-cybercrime law is punishable by up to five years in prison.In the show, Minhaj criticised Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last year.The episode had been available to Netflix subscribers in the Gulf Kingdom for several weeks prior to the complaint. Liz Gunn talks with Sydney-based Kiwi Nicole Timoko on setting up a new art gallery with a difference for New Zealanders. Nicole wants to support talented Kiwis and their art, through her disruptor Sydney art gallery and e-commerce platform. This is not a vanilla space for art! Contemporary On Crown is an art gallery with a difference - new lighting, DJ'd events and Gallery openings, and avenues into China where art, properly curated, is in high demand. Nicole talks about her whakapapa, her all-important Maori / Kiwi lineage - and how it has shaped her high energy drive to help others to succeed . Then two ex-pat artists, also based in Sydney - Timothy Laffey and Rex Turnbull - follow up with a discussion about their art and perspectives. Nine months after filing an initial lawsuit against Tyndale House Publishers, the subject of the 2010 bestselling book The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven has refiled a complaint against the Christian publisher. Alex Malarkey was named co-author (with his father Kevin) of The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, which was published by Tyndale and portrayed his alleged life-after-death experience following a traffic accident that left him severely paralyzed. The book sold thousands of copies before Malarkey recanted the story and named his father as the sole author in 2015. Shortly thereafter, Tyndale pulled the title from shelves. Malarkey, now 20, initially filed a lawsuit against Tyndale in DuPage County, Ill. on April 9 which sought punitive damages for defamation, deceptive trade practices, intrusion upon the seclusion of another, and four other charges. However, a circuit judge dismissed five of the seven counts to one extent or another, Malarkeys attorney, Scott Miller of Gibbs Law Firm P.A., told PW. For example, the defamation claim was thrown out due to a statute of limitation, according to Miller. Also, since injunctions cannot be issued for past conduct, the judge dismissed charges of deceptive trade practices. Today, Malarkey is suing the publisher for appropriation, publicity given to private life, and financial exploitation of a person with a disability. We refiled three counts on December 28, said Miller. Before the end of January we will have a status conference. We will go forward and I think we will prevail. The latest proceedings were filed in the circuit court of DuPage County, Ill. In response to the first lawsuit, Tyndale House called it "a terribly unfortunate situation" and claims to have "paid all royalties that were due under the terms of our contract on his book." In a letter to the staff of the Hachette Book Group that looked back over 2018, CEO Michael Pietsch cited a strong year that achieved our budget for revenue and profit and surpassed 2017s results. Pietsch noted a long list of bestselling titles for the year, beginning with the The President is Missing, written by James Patterson and former President Bill Clinton. He also called out novels by Nicholas Sparks, Sandra Brown, J.K. Rowling (aka Robert Galbraith), and Joyce Meyer, as having all had great runs on bestseller lists. Nonfiction bestsellers, in the form of political books, included such titles as Shade and Obama by Pete Souza, and Liars, Leakers, and Liberals by Jeannine Pirro. Other nonfiction successes included David Sedariss Calypso and In Pieces by Sally Field. Backlist sales, he said, were a major highlight of 2018; as one example, he pointed to HBGs bestselling paperback of the year, Jen Sinceros Youre a Badass. The book, he noted, sold more copies in its fifth year than in any year prior. Pietsch also highlighted a string of literary prizes HBG's books won: a fiction Pulitzer for Andrew Sean Greer's Less (Little, Brown); an Edgar Award for best mystery for Attica Lockes Bluebird, Bluebird (Mulholland); a Hugo and a Nebula won by N.K. Jemisins The Stone Sky; and World Fantasy Awards for Fonda Lees Jade City. On the nonfiction side, Basic Books earned the Bancroft History Prize for Gods Red Son by Louis Warren. Despite the revenue and profit gains, Pietsch said the biggest frustration of the year was printer delays; he claimed that, in the second half of 2018, they "affected all major publishers. Nevertheless, Pietsch went on, HBG achieved 95% of our on-sale dates. HBG also continues to grow through acquisitions and internal expansion. Pietsch cited the acquisition of Christian publisher Worthy Books, which joined the Hachette Nashville division in September. HBG launched two new imprintsSpark for health and wellness titles, and Running Press Studio for giftsand restructured others. Da Capo was moved to Hachette Books, the FaithWords staff were relocated to Nashville as part of the Worthy acquisition, and the Life & Style imprint was closed with food and health publishing shifted to Grand Central. The year also featured the installation of software for a new title management system, a new financial system, and new Author and Retailer Portals. These changes will allow authors to more easily access sales and royalty information, and retailers to track orders. Looking forward into 2019, Pietsch called out some authors the publisher expects big sales from, among them Ronan Farrow, former Governor Chris Christie and Malcolm Gladwell. In his conclusion, Pietsch called out the work of the HBG senior management group and its effort to make the publisher "a more inclusive employer. Diversity, he said, continues to be a major focus. Michelle Obama's Becoming has continued to hit impressive sales heights since its release by Penguin Random House's Crown division on November 13. In the last full week before Christmas (which ended December 23), the memoir had print sales of more than 712,000 copies, according to NPD BookScan. The 712,000 figure was higher than the 710,000 print copies that Becoming sold in its first week on sale at outlets that report to BookScan. PRH said at the time shortly after Becoming's release that the book sold about 725,000 units across all formats in the U.S. and Canada on its first day on sale. The memoir is well on its way to becoming the top selling title of 2018 despite its late publication date. According to BookScan, with one week of sales to go in 2018 Becoming sold nearly 3.2 million copies, easily outpacing Magnolia Table by Joanne Gaines which is currently in second place with just under 1.3 million copies sold. Gamma Phi Beta sorority member Gianna McCrystal turns one of more than 100 pens made by San Diego State University students this year. Our brothers and sisters in uniform who serve for all of us will benefit by knowing someone else cares about the sacrifices they make. For the 15th year in a row, volunteer woodturners gathered at Woodcraft stores nationwide over Veterans Day weekend to make pens during the Turn for Troops National Turn-a-Thon. This years event produced 17,097 one-of-a-kind wood pens which will be sent to active duty or recovering military personnel across the globe. That total is the second highest in the events 15-year history, with the record year being 2009 with 17,228 pens. Since the first event in 2004, 175,224 pens have been crafted for the troops. Dedicated Volunteers Though many volunteers are practiced turners, for a lot of folks woodturning is a first-time experience. Anyone with a desire to say thank you to the troops can come in and make pens during a Turn for Troops event. Youth, college students, Veterans and senior citizens have all given their time to turn pens, with an opportunity to include a personalized note with each pen made. The San Diego State University Gamma Phi Beta sorority and Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji) fraternity have participated in Turn for Troops by making more than 400 pens over the last three years. Sorority member Gianna McCrystals father Eric, who owns the San Carlos Woodcraft store, has assisted the college students in their volunteer efforts as well as hosting events at the store. After submitting a total of 727 pens in 2018, a happy Eric said, We joined the 10,000 pen club this year! Store Milestones Four other Woodcraft stores have exceeded the 10k mark since the program began: Tucson (19,308), Nashville (18,921), Boise (16,154) and Grand Rapids (15,682). The top four contributing stores for 2018 are Grand Rapids (2,981), Tucson (1,764), Nashville (1,390) and Boise (1,086). The Boise location has been a Top 4 contributor all 15 years. According to Boise Woodcraft owner Monte Eldfrick, their store looks forward to the Turn for Troops event each year. It brings a community of woodworkers together for the benefit of people they may never meet. We get a chance to honor, pray and spend time thinking about our service men and women across the world, he said. Though it makes for a long, hard day, everyone leaves our shop with huge smiles on their faces knowing their day and craft counted for something beyond themselves. Other stores submitting 1,000+ pens in 2018 are Seattle (1,054) and Milwaukee (1,050). The single highest contribution overall was Grand Rapids with 4,004 in 2016. Expressing Thanks Woodcraft President Jack Bigger extends his own heartfelt thanks for another successful year of Turn for Troops. On behalf of Woodcraft, thank you to the many store owners, employees and volunteers for their wonderful contributions of time and talent, which have collectively allowed us to support more than 175,000 service men and women over the last 15 years, he said. Most importantly, our brothers and sisters in uniform who serve for all of us will benefit by knowing someone else cares about the sacrifices they make. For more information about Woodcraft, please contact the Woodcraft store nearest you, visit Woodcraft or call (800) 535-4482. Click here to learn more about Woodcraft franchise opportunities or email woodcraftfranchise(at)woodcraft.com. The Australian Government is proud to support such an innovative enterprise. By supporting (it), we would like to see women participate and help them become leaders in their community and the country, Minister Counsellor Andrew Egan said. The Womens Business Resource Center (WBRC) in Papua New Guinea is celebrating two years of ground-breaking work in a country where women face many daunting obstacles to economic empowerment. The Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) opened the WBRC in Port Moresby in late 2016, with support from the Australian Government in partnership with the Government of Papua New Guinea and the U.S. Department of State. The WBRC is a walk-in center that provides a safe setting for women to meet mentors and receive training or resources that can help them launch and run profitable businesses. More than one thousand local women have utilized WBRC services and many shared their stories at a recent event to celebrate the centers success. Andrew Egan, Minister Counsellor, Development from the Australian High Commission in Port Moresby, was among those at the event who stressed the importance of investing in programs that help women and girls in PNG realize their full potential. The Australian Government is proud to support such an innovative enterprise. By supporting (it), we would like to see women participate and help them become leaders in their community and the country, Mr. Egan said. The PNG Womens Business Resource Center, over the past two years, has gained a reputation as the resource hub where women in our community can learn to grow their business from the ground up, to gain personnel and professional confidence, and to be mentored by other women business owners, entrepreneurs, and academics. The need for the WBRC is particularly great in Papua New Guinea, ranked 159 of 160 countries in the latest United Nations Development Programme gender inequality index, ahead of only Yemen. About two-thirds of PNG women are victims of gender-based violence, according to reports, and far fewer women than men hold formal jobs in the workforce. The WBRC has round-the-clock security and most services are offered free of charge. In addition, childcare services are offered so that women with children are not excluded from benefiting from the WBRCs services. Increased economic opportunities flow into possible increased financial independence and awareness, which help women gain confidence and be better positioned to assume leadership roles in their families, communities, and businesses, Eli Webb, CIPE Country Director for PNG said. Stronger women build stronger families, and stronger families build a stronger Papua New Guinea. The WBRC is gaining worldwide attention and may serve as a model for similar initiatives in emerging economies and developing countries. The WBRC was highlighted recently during global events, including APECs Women and the Economy Forum in September and the Civil Society Policy Forum conducted during World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund Annual Meetings in October. The WBRC will launch a website with additional resources and information in early 2019. In the meantime, visit http://www.facebook.com/pngwbrc to learn more about center offerings and the women in business receiving assistance. CIPE implemented the cutting-edge program through ongoing partnerships with the U.S. State Departments Office of Global Womens Issues and the Australian Governments Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development program, which aims to improve the political, economic and social opportunities for women in 14 Pacific Island countries. CIPE is an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and is a core institute of the National Endowment for Democracy. Village Dermatology welcomes Amanda Lanier, PA-C to the medical dermatology team. Amanda joins Village Dermatology with practical dermatology experience after working in Nashville for the past 2 years at Gold Skin Care where she treated a variety of dermatological conditions. Amanda is a member of the American Academy of Physician Assistants and the Society of Dermatology Physician Assistants. Amanda is not only a skilled and experienced dermatology PA, she also has a unique way with patients, explains Dr. Jenny Sobera. She is thorough yet efficient, and her patients love her approachable and calm bedside manner. One of the hallmarks of a strong PA (or any clinician for that matter) is knowing when to seek assistance when there is any doubt about a diagnosis or treatment plan. I have watched Amanda continually make very good clinical decisions on her own, but she knows when to call on me, which gives me great confidence in her caring for our patients. Amanda graduated from the University of Alabama in 2011 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and a minor in Spanish. She then earned her PA degree at Nova Southeastern University in Jacksonville, Florida. Amanda Lanier, PA is currently accepting new patients at Village Dermatology. Interested persons should contact the practice at 1 (205) 877-9773 or visit http://www.villagedermatology.net for more information. About Village Dermatology: Village Dermatology was founded in 2008 by Dr. Jenny Sobera. Dr. Sobera had a vision to bring world class dermatology to her native home of Birmingham, AL. The practices motto of live a beautiful life is on display from the moment you walk through the door at Village Dermatology. Since 2008 Village Dermatology has seen thousands of medical and cosmetic patients. Village Dermatology has 3 locations for your convenience: 2900 Cahaba Road, Mountain Brook, AL 35223; 201 Doug Baker Boulevard, Birmingham, AL 35242; and 150 Gilbreath Drive, Oneonta, AL 35121. Our Board did a lot of due diligence in identifying a candidate for the President and CEO, and I am excited about the selection of Lori. My knowledge of her reputation and fine work in the field make her an outstanding successor, states Ron Cohen. United Cerebral Palsy of Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties (UCPLA) Board of Directors is pleased to announce the appointment of Lori Anderson as the organizations President and Chief Executive Officer, effective January 21, 2019. As UCPLA celebrates its 75th anniversary, the current President and CEO, Ronald S. Cohen, will be retiring after leading the organization for over 30 years. Our Board did a lot of due diligence in identifying a candidate for the President and CEO, and I am excited about the selection of Lori. My knowledge of her reputation and fine work in the field make her an outstanding successor, states Ron Cohen. Prior to joining the UCPLA team, Anderson was the Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Residential Services for Bethesda Lutheran Communities, overseeing the organizations residential operations throughout the United States. Previously, Anderson served as Bethesdas Regional Director of California. In this role, she managed referral relationships, developed an innovative, new management structure, and provided leadership for Bethesdas programs. This is a good time for the organization to make this change in leadership, says Board Chair Paul Miller. Ron established a strong and diverse organization that has thrived under his tenure. The Board is thrilled to have Lori joining the organization and confident that she will leverage her expertise in residential programs and services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to successfully navigate the organization for many years into the future. Before joining Bethesda Lutheran Communities in 2013, Anderson served as the Vice President of Mission Services for Goodwill in Springfield, Illinois. She also spent a number of years in New Mexico with Community Options, Inc., as their State Director and held the position of President and Chief Executive Officer of Unified Health Solutions, Inc., in Dayton, Ohio. Anderson has a masters degree in Applied Behavioral Science from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and a bachelors degree in psychology from the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio. United Cerebral Palsy of Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties (UCPLA) operates over 40 program sites throughout five counties in Southern California and has extended its mission to serve all people with developmental disabilities. These programs include adult day activity centers, childrens programs, community living support services, group homes and independent living apartments. UCPLA provides services to over 1,000 individuals with developmental disabilities and their families daily. For more information on UCPLA visit our website at: http://www.ucpla.org or Facebook page at facebook.com/ucpla. King Cake at Three Brothers Bakery. We cant think of a better way to kick off our 70th anniversary celebration than by encouraging customers to come in store or shop our online store to enjoy our King Cakes. January marks the start of a sweet 2019, as Three Brothers Bakery looks forward to commemorating their 70th anniversary. Three Brothers Bakery opened in Houston on May 8, 1949 and will roll out a series of specials and promotions throughout the year to celebrate. Mardi Gras also begins this month, on January 6, so customers can begin placing their orders for the bakerys famous King Cakes. We cant think of a better way to kick off our 70th anniversary celebration than by encouraging customers to come in store or shop our online store to enjoy our King Cakes, said Bobby Jucker, bakery co-owner and fifth generation baker. Our King Cake has become one of our signature items, and we are thrilled with how it brings a real piece of Louisiana Mardi Gras tradition to Houston. Three Brothers Bakery perfected their King Cake recipe over the years, traveling to Louisiana to discover what makes the perfect traditional King Cake. Available in three sizes to feed groups from eight up to 24 people, the King Cakes from Three Brothers Bakery are made in the classic Louisiana style, filled with cream cheese or fruit flavors and topped with Mardi Gras purple, green and yellow colored sanding sugar on white icing. A small plastic baby is included with each of the sweet desserts, allowing the giver of the King Cake to hide the surprise within the cake. Whoever finds the baby is tagged as the person to bring the next King Cake. For the last 70 years, Three Brothers Bakery has woven itself into the fabric of the city of Houston, creating memories for generations of families. In addition to the bakerys three Houston locations, they also recently launched a redesigned online store, making it easier than ever for customers from all across the U.S. to shop online. The bakerys online store features select items that can be ordered and shipped across the U.S., including King Cakes, making the Houston-based bakery the one stop shop for desserts and pastries all year long. About Three Brothers Bakery The traditions of Three Brothers Bakery began in Chrzanow, Poland circa 1825, and were preserved despite the familys concentration camp imprisonment during the Holocaust. Their miraculous liberation, and subsequent move to Houston, brought Eastern European scratch baking traditions to 4036 S. Braeswood Blvd, 12393 Kingsride Lane, and 4606 Washington Ave where the owners are now proud to call themselves memory makers who just happen to be bakers. Perfecting the process for almost 200 years, each day the fifth generation bakers produce breads and pastries, cookies, a full line of specialty dessert cakes and pies, as well as custom birthday, special occasion, wedding and grooms cakes using only the highest quality ingredients. They also have an extensive dairy-free baked goods line. The Three Brothers Bakery pecan pie was named the best mail order pecan pie America has to offer by Country Living magazine in 2016 and 10 Best Mail-Order Pies Made In the U.S. Bakery owner, Bobby Jucker, competed in the popular "Food Network Challenge" and has been seen on Food Networks Outrageous Food. Three Brothers won Best Mail-Order Pies 2012 from Bon Appetit, as well as Modern Bakings 2013 Retail Bakery of the Year and was part of The Knots 2010-2013 Best of Weddings and Hall of Fame picks. In 2013, the bakery won the Jeffrey Butland Family-Owned Business of the Year by the Houston division of the U.S. Small Business Administration. Most recently, Three Brothers Bakery was named one of Americas 20 Best Bakeries by The Daily Meal in 2016 and in 2018, the bakerys Pumpecapple Pie Cake was featured on BuzzFeeds "Worth It" web series. In 2018, Three Brothers Bakery received the SBA Phoenix Award for Small Business Disaster Recovery. Follow Three Brothers Bakery on Facebook and Twitter for Houston area news, information and events. https://3brothersbakery.com/ AccentCare, Inc., a nationwide leader in post-acute healthcare, acquired Steward Home Care and Hospice, effective December 31, 2018. Steward Home Care and Hospice is one of the largest post-acute care providers in its region, serving more than 14,000 patients annually across eight counties in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. While under new ownership, Steward Home Care and Hospice will continue to serve as the exclusive preferred post-acute provider in Steward Healths care services network and will also participate in Steward Health Choices accountable care organization (ACO), which covers over one million lives. AccentCare brings clinical and operational expertise and resources to Steward Home Care and Hospice that will benefit our patients and members in the communities we serve, said Ruben Jose King-Shaw Jr., Chief Strategy Officer and President of Steward Health Care Network. Acquiring Steward Home Care and Hospice expands AccentCares footprint to a 16-state reach and its delivery to over 110,000 patients and clients annually. I am excited for Steward Home Care and Hospice to join the AccentCare family and honored to serve the Steward Health Care system, said AccentCare CEO Steve Rodgers. We are impressed with the dedication of Stewards employees, and I am confident the uniting of our two companies will deliver our collective best for patients and community healthcare partners. Steward Health Care is proud of its services across the care continuum, including our home health and hospice divisions that provide valuable in-home care, said Brian Swartz, President, Steward Home Care and Hospice. We are delighted to join a post-acute care company of AccentCares caliber in quality and customer service. About AccentCare AccentCare, Inc. is a nationwide leader in post-acute healthcare as well as specialized care management prior to acute episodes. Its wide variety of innovative services ranges from personal, non-medical care to skilled nursing, rehabilitative therapies, hospice, private duty, care management, and healthcare management services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, AccentCare has over 24,000 compassionate professionals in more than 190 locations, serving over 17,000 physicians and 2,000 facilities, regionally branded as AccentCare, AccentCare of New York, Accolade, Alliance For Health, Doctors Choice, Guardian Home Health & Hospice, Nurses Unlimited, Sta-Home, Steward Home Care and Hospice, and Texas Home Health. In addition, the company has over 30 regional strategic partnerships with insurance companies, physician groups, and major health systems, including joint ventures branded as AccentCare Asante Home Health, AccentCare UCLA Health, AccentCare UC San Diego Health at Home, and Texas Home Health Group, a home healthcare affiliation with Baylor Scott & White Health. AccentCare is committed to improving the quality of living for approximately 112,000 individuals each year. Its approach to care, including proprietary RightPath disease-specific programs, consistently exceeds the industry in avoidance of unplanned re-hospitalizations, faster starts of care, and quality performance. Among its distinctions, AccentCare has a 4.4-star quality rating for legacy home health agencies, many of which have earned the HomeCare Elite distinction. All legacy hospice locations are CHAP-accredited, many with advanced designations from the We Honor Veterans program. About Steward Home Care and Hospice Steward Home Care and Hospice was previously owned by Steward Health Care, the largest private for profit physician led health care network in the United States. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Steward operates 36 hospitals in the United States and the country of Malta that regularly receive top awards for quality and safety. The company employs approximately 40,000 healthcare professionals. The Steward network includes multiple urgent care centers and skilled nursing facilities, substantial behavioral health services, over 7,900 beds under management, and approximately 2.2 million full risk covered lives through the company's managed care and health insurance services. The Steward Health Care Network includes five thousand physicians across 800 communities who help to provide more than 12 million patient encounters per year. Steward Medical Group, the company's employed physician group, provides more than six million patient encounters per year. The Steward Hospital Group operates hospitals in Malta and nine states across the U.S., including Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Utah. Throughout the past year, Shelton has been critical in defining and improving our Contract operations. Lucas Group, ranked third on Forbes Best Professional Recruiting Firms list for 2018, recently announced the promotion of Shelton Blease to Director of Human Resources Operations. Blease is a 2006 graduate of the Terry School of Business at the University of Georgia with more than 10 years of experience in the world of HR management and finance. He joined Lucas Group in 2014 as an HR Business Partner before elevating to Senior HR Business Partner in 2017. Throughout the past year, Shelton has been critical in defining and improving our Contract operations, said Carolina King, CPO for Lucas Group. His impact continues to be recognized throughout the organization and this promotion demonstrates our belief that he will continue to advance and expand our Contract capabilities. Bleases initial charge at Lucas Group revolved around analyzing sales performance data for the executive recruiters and determining how to replicate trends for future revenue success. Shelton also worked to automate and improve numerous HR business systems and reporting, saving time and enhancing the employee experience. His past background in Contract staffing ultimately led him to lead Lucas Groups Contract staffing operations, with an emphasis on scaling and improving process while limiting employment liability. Im grateful for this opportunity to grow with Lucas Group and am confident that we can continue building our Contract division to serve as a one-stop shop for all of our clients needs, said Blease. Lucas Groups Contract staffing places temporary employees across four practice groups: Accounting & Finance, Information Technology, Legal and Manufacturing. While most contract positions are held for four months on average, roles can range in length from one to 10 months. Every Contract employee is onboarded with Lucas Group before moving on to the client and is eligible for Lucas Groups benefits package. Giving our Contract placements many of the same benefits that full-time Lucas Group employees enjoy is one of the keys differentiators that separates us from our competition, Blease added. It helps reinforce that we view the Contract workforce as more than a billable resource for the company; they are valued members of our family. About Lucas Group Lucas Group is North Americas premier executive search firm. Since 1970, our culture and methodologies have driven superior results. We assist clients ranging in size from small to medium-sized businesses to Fortune 500 companies find transcendent, executive talent; candidates fully realize their ambitions; and associates find professional success. To learn more, please visit Lucas Group at http://www.lucasgroup.com and connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Prof. Yitshak Kreiss speaking at the Globes Business Conference Our goal with the support of the government is to transform patient care via our City of Health concept. This emerging ecosystem will enable us to change healthcare not only at Sheba, but also around the globe. Professor Yitshak Kreiss, Director General of Sheba Medical Center, Tel HaShomer and Dr. Nathalie Bloch, the director of the hospital's new ARC Innovation Center, revealed the future of patient healthcare at the Globes Business Conference, Israel's premier annual gathering of executives from the country's burgeoning business and financial communities. Prof. Yitzhak Kreiss, CEO and Director General of Sheba, spoke to a crowd of hundreds as he anchored a panel on The New Healthcare Challenges. Joining him on stage was Globes moderator Hila Weissberg. In his remarks, Prof. Kreiss claimed that the next round of social protests in Israel could emerge around the quality of healthcare in the country. "We are at a critical juncture," Kreiss revealed to the audience. "If we don't start dealing with this matter seriously now, we won't have the luxury in a few years of discussing what can we do to improve things. We cannot continue down the same path we are on now, just by adding a doctor here or an extra bed there. The needs are much bigger, and we must change things now. At Sheba, we are in the midst of changing the healthcare ecosystem by championing innovation from within our hospital and through our new VC invest fund for start-ups. Our goal with the support of the government is to transform patient care via our City of Health concept. This emerging ecosystem will enable us to change healthcare not only at Sheba, but also around the globe." Dr. Nathalie Bloch, Director of Shebas ARC Innovation Center, also revealed her perspectives on critical healthcare issues along with AIDOC CEO Elad Walach, Senior Director of Digital Healthcare at Israels Ministry of Health Esti Shelly and Prof. Ron Blitzer, Director of Clalit (HMO) Research Department. Bloch said: "Healthcare is going to be more personalized based on a patient's genetics. As there will not be enough bed space for everyone, we will be working on all aspects of digital healthcare and big data, where we will have access to everything we need to know about patients. And AI - Artificial Intelligence will become an integral part of predicting and preventing diseases, keeping people healthier and being able to recuperate at home and not in the hospital. We are already working on these things at the ARC Innovation Center." About Sheba Medical Center Born together with Israel in 1948, Sheba Medical Center, Tel HaShomer is the largest and most comprehensive medical center in the Middle East. Sheba is the only medical center in Israel that combines an acute care hospital and a rehabilitation hospital on one campus, and it is at the forefront of medical treatments, patient care, research and education. As a university teaching hospital affiliated with the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University, it welcomes people from all over the world indiscriminately. For more information, visit: http://www.eng.sheba.co.il We are very excited about the new VeriTrace website as it not only discusses all our capabilities for security printing but provides a great avenue for our customers to communicate with us, and we with them, about their security needs. VeriTrace, Inc., a manufacturer of anti-counterfeit labels, tapes, seals and security documents, is excited to announce the launch of their new website. Designed to offer a user-friendly experience, the website includes improved navigation and industry-specific secure print solutions product pages. Our new website highlights the wide variety of security technologies and the expertise we offer to help brands: authenticate, track, trace, fight diversion, secure and provide visibility into their supply chains, Robert Sherwood, VP of Security Programs, points out. VeriTrace is becoming an industry leader by offering more than secure print products, they offer complete customized solutions. For instance, their use of intaglio print technology with pressure sensitive materials to create a label that can be applied directly to products or cartons and can be easily verified for authenticity. They can add several overt and covert print technologies that can be linked to a secure track and trace solution to create labels that will help combat counterfeiting of consumer products. With these multi-layered security solutions, VeriTrace strives to be a thought leader and resource for brands looking to secure their operations and supply chain. VeriTrace owner, Bob Hakman, states We are very excited about the new VeriTrace website as it not only discusses all our capabilities for security printing but provides a great avenue for our customers to communicate with us, and we with them, about their security needs. The new site also makes it easy for us to show new or enhanced security features and technologies as we work to expand our innovative product offerings to both governmental and industrial clients. In addition to print services, VeriTrace offers supply chain track and trace solutions. Track and trace software allows companies to make improvements throughout the entire production and distribution process. The platform enables manufacturers to recall defective products, implement quality assurance procedures, and minimize errors. In addition, track and trace offers a line of defense against counterfeiting and diversion by creating a transparent supply chain. Along with secure labels, seals, and tapes; track and trace technologies offer a sophisticated multi-layered brand protection solution. Users are invited to join VeriTraces mailing list to have industry news regarding the latest in secure print technologies delivered right to their inbox. Valuable anti-counterfeiting content will also be available on the sites blog section. About VeriTrace VeriTrace offers a complete line of state-of-the-art anti-counterfeit and tamper/void solutions combined with unique security designs providing powerful brand protection tools. The companys labeling and packaging experience guarantees quality, successful application, long life expectancy and achievement of program objectives. To learn more about their products and services, please visit veritrace.com. We have been helping engineers pass their licensure exams since 2004, and we felt that we could also do the same for architects. School of PE is excited to announce the launching of its ARE 5.0 exam review course. The ARE 5.0 exam is an architecture licensing examination that is developed and administered by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB). According to NCARB, The Architect Registration Examination (ARE) is a multi-division exam used to assess your knowledge and skills regarding the practice of architecture the exam is accepted by all U.S. jurisdictions and is a key step on the path to earning a license. The exam is divided into six different exams: Practice Management, Project Management, Programming & Analysis, Project Planning & Design, Project Development & Documentation, and Construction & Evaluation. All sections must be completed for licensure. Licensure is a public safeguard, Paul Spite, a registered architect, said. School of PE, an exam review course provider, recognized the need for an ARE 5.0 exam prep course. According to the National Council Architectural Registration Boards, 7,657 individuals partook in the exam with an average pass rate of 54%. We have been helping engineers pass their licensure exams since 2004, and we felt that we could also do the same for architects, said School of PEs Program Director, Chris Miller. Since the pass rate is barely above 50%, we felt that we can increase the overall pass rate by offering an exam prep course. According to Spite, obtaining an architecture license has great impacts on an architects career because it can push individuals to develop experience in areas of practice in which they might not otherwise push to become involved. When you know the exam will cover areas of expertise in which you have no experience, you quickly seek opportunities to gain that experience No one cannot possibly learn everything regarding building processes, materials, systems, etc. needed to safeguard owner interests, but a properly educated and trained architect should possess the greatest amount of such knowledge, Spite said. Before this launch, School of PE only offered Fundamentals of Engineering (FE), Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE), Structural Engineering (SE) and surveying review courses to help individuals prepare for engineering licensure exams. Now, School of PE can help individuals in other fields achieve licensure. School of PE will offer courses for each of the six sections of the exam. Each division will be covered in 24 hours. Courses will begin on April 15, 2019. To learn more about School of PEs ARE 5.0 exam prep course, please visit https://www.schoolofpe.com/are-5-review-exam/. 400 Poydras Tower The opportunity accommodates all employees on a single, dedicated floor, and facilitates the collaboration and interaction essential to the companys operating philosophy. Savills Studley today announced the successful completion of a 22,594-square-foot lease for Accruents first regional office in New Orleans. The company will occupy the entire sixth floor of 400 Poydras Tower, a 32-story, Class A office building in the citys Central Business District. The new offices will house approximately 150 employees, with move-in scheduled for the first quarter of 2019. New Orleans is one of the fastest growing technology hubs in the country, and it was imperative for our company to have a presence here, said Kirk Orgeldinger, CFO of Accruent. The area has an outstanding university system, an affordable cost of living, and a vibrant and authentic culture. These attributes support our focus on designing an exceptional employee experience, and make it great base from which to attract talent and serve our clients. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Accruent is the leading provider of physical resource management solutions and has 29 offices around the world. Marcus Arredondo of Savills Studley represented the tenant in the long-term transaction, along with Jordon Johnson of Beau Box Commercial Real Estate. Arredondo said: After an extensive analysis of the marketplace, we determined that 400 Poydras was best suited to Accruents needs. Most significantly, the opportunity accommodates all employees on a single, dedicated floor. This facilitates the collaboration and interaction essential to the companys operating philosophy. Additionally, competitive transaction terms build in lease flexibility, including options to expand or contract as needed, and provide for monument signage. Owned by an affiliate of Hertz Investment Group, 400 Poydras Tower is a prominent 606,000-square-foot office tower, strategically located in the city center and within walking distance of cultural, retail and hospitality amenities. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the facade is clad in black granite, with insulated glass set into black aluminum framing. The building plaza features the sculpture Painted Trio, by Dr. Arthur Silverman, and the lobby area serves as a gallery for a collection of regional artwork. Onsite services include a bank, convenience store and sandwich shop. Cres Gardner, CCIM and SIOR, of Beau Box Commercial Real Estate is the leasing agent for the building. About Savills Studley Savills Studley is the leading commercial real estate advisory firm specializing in tenant representation. Founded in 1954, the firm pioneered the conflict-free business model of representing only tenants in their commercial real estate transactions. Today, supported by high quality market research and in-depth analysis, Savills Studley provides strategic real estate solutions to organizations across all industries. The firms comprehensive platform includes brokerage, project management, capital markets, consulting and corporate services. With 31 offices in the U.S. and Canada, and a heritage of innovation, Savills Studley is well known for tenacious client advocacy and exceptional service. The firm is part of London-headquartered Savills plc, the premier global real estate service provider with over 36,000 professionals and more than 600 offices in over 60 countries around the world. Savills plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (SVS.L). For more information, please visit http://www.savills-studley.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter @SavillsStudley. About Accruent Accruent is a global software company that helps organizations achieve superior performance by transforming how they manage their physical resources. Its innovative, industry-leading cloud-based software and services enable organizations to optimize all stages of real estate, facilities and asset management, from capital planning through to IoT-based monitoring and control. With a proven track record across two decades, Accruent has created the only integrated SaaS-based framework and reporting platform for full lifecycle physical resource management. More than 10,000 global customers depend on Accruent solutions to drive out hidden costs, extend asset lifecycles, protect their brands, ensure compliance and deliver on the missions of their organization. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Accruent serves a wide range of industries in 150+ countries around the world. For more information, please visit http://www.accruent.com. Barton and Mabel Conant We were almost certain that Mabel would have to be delivered early to give her a chance to survive. Dr. Zilberman gave us safe options for extending the pregnancy. We had complete confidence in him knowing how far we could push it and when Mabel had reached her limit, said Carolyn. Barton and Mabel Conant celebrated an extra-special first birthday thanks to the world-class care they received from Danbury Hospital and Connecticut Childrens Medical Center. Summary: 1) In a rare and unique case, extreme preterm, very low birth weight twins were born at Danbury Hospital on December 13, 2017. 2) Born at 28 weeks, the baby boy, Barton, weighed 2.5 pounds. The baby girl, Mabel, was one of the smallest babies ever born at Danbury Hospital, weighing just 1.5 pounds. 3) Barton spent 74 days in the Danbury Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), and Mabel spent 99 days in the NICU. During this time, Mabel also underwent surgery at Connecticut Childrens Medical Center (Connecticut Childrens) to repair a complication affecting her heart and lungs. 4) The Western Connecticut Health Network (WCHN) and Connecticut Childrens pediatric care alliance enables families to access exceptional, specialized pediatric care while staying close to home. Carolyn Conant of Newtown, Connecticut, had a textbook first pregnancy three years ago with her daughter, Teagan. That is why she was so surprised to learn about the complications she and her husband, Barton, were about to experience with the expected birth of their twins, Barton and Mabel. The Pregnancy Although a twin pregnancy means double the excitement, it also means there is a higher risk of complications compared to a single pregnancy. One complication is the increased risk of premature birth. In the United States, about 60 percent of all twins are born prematurely (before 37 weeks gestation). As a result of this higher risk, a twin pregnancy requires more monitoring than a single pregnancy. Carolyns obstetrician/gynecologist referred her to Dimitry Zilberman, DO, a maternal/fetal medicine specialist at Danbury Hospital, to support her throughout her pregnancy. When Carolyn was about 20 weeks pregnant, an ultrasound revealed that Mabel (Baby B at the time) had severe growth restriction. Severe growth restriction is a rare condition where a baby does not grow to a normal weight during pregnancy. The condition was most likely due to a placenta malfunction, but other factors can also lead to severe growth restriction. As the weeks progressed, Barton (Baby A at the time) was on track with appropriate growth, while Mabel continued to fall further behind. This was a very complex case. The Conants and I had many discussions about different scenarios, and what was the best option for both babies. There was a possibility that we would have to deliver Baby B at 23 or 24 weeks to give her a chance to survive, although the odds of survival would be low. Also, the other healthy baby could have complications from being delivered too prematurely. There was also a possibility that we could wait until later in the pregnancy to deliver the babies, but then the weaker baby may not survive in utero, explained Dr. Zilberman. We decided to continue the pregnancy, with very close monitoring. Our goal was to make it to 28 weeks. Although being born at 28 weeks is still extremely preterm, Mabel would be at risk of stillbirth if they waited any longer to deliver. We were almost certain that Mabel would have to be delivered early to give her a chance to survive. So the most heartbreaking part for my husband and me was that Barton was just along for the ride he would have to be delivered early too, which meant he would be in for a tough fight as well, said Carolyn. Dr. Zilberman gave us safe options for extending the pregnancy. We had complete confidence in him knowing how far we could push it and when Mabel had reached her limit. We follow proven standards to deliver excellent, high-quality care, while also providing very personalized care, which was particularly evident in this unique case, said Dr. Zilberman. Dr. Zilberman was fantastic throughout my pregnancy. We had to have difficult conversations about the babies, but his compassion, honesty, and dedication helped us through the experience, said Carolyn. Carolyn was an inpatient at Danbury Hospital the last week and a half before the babies were born. She was on continuous observation, with three monitors on her stomach one for her, and one for each baby. During this time, Dr. Zilberman worked closely with Danbury Hospitals neonatologists, Jeffrey Bartlett, DO, Director of Neonatology, Catherine Hansen, MD, and Morgan Spaight, MD. Drs. Bartlett, Hansen, and Spaight are neonatologists for the Western Connecticut Health Network (WCHN) and Connecticut Childrens Medical Center (Connecticut Childrens). That week and a half in the hospital was surreal. While I tried to stay positive, I knew that something bad could be coming. Sometimes I thought, Is this the last day Im going to be really happy? because I was never sure what the next day, and toward the end, what the next hour was going to bring, recounted Carolyn. I think because I had a rough pregnancy, I was more prepared for what was to come. I started to live life moment to moment. The Delivery During their respective shifts, Drs. Zilberman, Bartlett, Hansen, and Spaight kept Carolyn informed each hour about whether or not they needed to deliver the babies. Carolyns due date was March 3, 2018. On December 13, 2017, Barton Rohde and Mabel Rose Conant were born at 28 weeks. Barton weighed 2.5 pounds. Mabel was one of the smallest babies ever born at Danbury Hospital, weighing just 1.5 pounds. Newborns who weigh less than 3.25 pounds are considered very low birth weight (VLBW). Only about 1.08 percent of babies born in the United States each year are VLBW. Yelena Paranyuk, MD, of Physicians for Women and Danbury Hospital, delivered the babies via Cesarean section. There were about 10 Danbury Hospital Family Birthing Center medical staff in the delivery room, including Dr. Bartlett and two nurses per baby. The hospital staff stabilized both babies quickly and brought them immediately to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Danbury Hospital is one of only a few in the state of Connecticut that has a Level IIIB NICU. Neonatologists, neonatal nurses, and respiratory therapists are available 24 hours a day to care for very small or very sick newborn babies. I didnt see the babies right away because they needed immediate medical attention. I knew they were alive and had 10 fingers and 10 toes, so I felt relieved, said Carolyn. The baby boy needed respiratory support, but his condition was mild in comparison to his sisters, said Dr. Bartlett. The baby girl had urgent breathing problems. We focused on establishing an airway and inserted a breathing tube for respiratory support via a ventilator. We also inserted central intravenous lines into her umbilical stump to expedite the delivery of nutrition to her body. After the babies were stable in the NICU, Carolyn and Barton visited their twins. I knew they were small, but nothing could have prepared us for how heartbreakingly tiny they actually were, said Carolyn. Despite the long road I knew we had ahead of us, I found comfort knowing my babies were in the Danbury Hospital NICU. Since Barton and I knew the babies were going to go to the NICU, we toured the space before the babies were born. We had already gotten to know the nurses and they were prepared for us, which was reassuring. Tiny Feet, Big Strides at the Danbury Hospital NICU and Connecticut Childrens Barton spent 74 days in the Danbury Hospital NICU building his strength. While we were happy Baby Barton was coming home after almost two and a half months in the NICU, we were torn because Mabel had to stay at the hospital. The nurses helped so much with the transition. We could call and text them for updates about Mabel. They sent us pictures. We felt comfortable and knew that Mabel was well cared for, said Carolyn. Danbury Hospitals NIC-View also helped Carolyn and Barton stay in close contact with Mabel when they were home with Baby Barton and their 3-year-old daughter Teagan. The bedside video camera allows parents and family members anywhere in the world to see their babies by using a secure, encrypted login. Mabel spent 99 days in the NICU. During this time, she overcame many obstacles including pneumonia and heart surgery. She underwent Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA) ligation at Connecticut Childrens. Brendan Campbell, MD, MPH, FACS, pediatric surgeon at Connecticut Childrens, surgically repaired a heart problem that was also causing Mabel lung complications. PDA is common in babies born prematurely. It was clear after medication therapy did not improve her symptoms that surgery was Mabels best option. The surgery marked a turning point for Mabel. Her vitals breathing and blood pressure improved and she was much more stable. We have been working closely with Connecticut Childrens for many years before their neonatologists were officially onsite at Danbury Hospital and Norwalk Hospital starting in July 2018 part of an exciting new pediatric care alliance between WCHN and Connecticut Childrens. Through the alliance, we can provide the majority of care that babies need right here at home, said Dr. Bartlett. Because of the existing relationship, babies like Mabel and their families have benefited from streamlined communication between WCHNs hospitals in Danbury and Norwalk and Connecticut Childrens in Hartford. When Mabel needed surgery to repair PDA, she was back at Danbury Hospital in just three days to continue her recovery close to home. Connecticut Childrens relationship with Danbury Hospital helped a lot. When Mabel needed to go to Hartford for a special surgery, Connecticut Childrens came to Danbury Hospital, stabilized her, took her in an ambulance to Hartford, and performed the surgery. She was transported back to Danbury Hospital the same way. In just three days, we were all back home and hopeful, said Carolyn. Upon returning to Danbury Hospital, before I even got past the parking garage, I ran into Dr. Hansen. Following a hug and sharing the good news about Mabels surgery, I realized that Mabel wasnt just a patient she was one of their babies, too. Carolyn and Barton developed very close relationships with Mabels Danbury Hospital NICU nurses and they still keep in touch with them. When Mabel was in the NICU, the nurses would joke that they were happy if they were the boring room. The nurses would say: We want a stable Mabel today! Home Barton has been doing very well since coming home from the NICU. Although Mabel was discharged from the NICU on just a very small amount of oxygen, she had to overcome additional obstacles. She was hospitalized twice since coming home due to swallowing complications, which are common for babies born prematurely. She had a gastrostomy tube (G-tube) inserted through her abdomen to help deliver nutrition directly to her stomach. Despite these complications, Dr. Bartlett said Mabels outcome is quite notable. There is no evidence of neurologic injury despite being very high risk. Even having PDA and surgery, we were able to prevent Mabel from having bleeding within the brain. Carolyn agrees that Mabel is rather remarkable. Mabel is so resilient. As far as we are concerned, Mabel is developmentally where she should be for her age. She is very social, and she wants to be a part of everything, especially with her brother and sister, said Carolyn. Besides her physical challenges, shes the easiest child! She sleeps the best and is a super happy girl. Mabel no longer needs oxygen support, which is an exciting milestone. Although she still has a G-tube, Mabel is making progress with her oral feeds. Barton and Mabel turned one year old on December 13, 2018, and celebrated along with their big sister Teagan, who also has a December birthday. As for Carolyn, she hopes that by sharing her familys experience, she can give guidance to another family going through a similar situation. Its a tough question to answer as to what did it feel like? to go through this experience. If I had to put it into words, it feels like youre going to have a heart attack yet youre numb at the same time. Its the sort of situation youd see in a movie or read about, but never think it could happen to you. But then youll find that once youre over the initial shock, you can manage each day: there are good days and bad days; days where mundane things still need to get done, like grocery shopping and laundry; and, days where putting on surgical scrubs to visit your baby in the NICU feel like your new normal. Then there are very tough days when everything else stops and you only live and breathe hour by hour and minute by minute along with your baby. Although the Danbury Hospital NICU is beautiful with private rooms, allowing for much-needed privacy at times, Carolyn said she felt like it was also a community where everyone was aware that the families there are in a tough situation. That helped, knowing that we werent alone. To any other families going through a similar experience as my family did, know that youre not alone, Carolyn said. About WCHN and Connecticut Childrens Pediatric Care Alliance WCHN and Connecticut Childrens have joined together to create a new pediatric care alliance. Connecticut Childrens pediatric hospitalists and neonatologists are now providing inpatient medical care for children at the Danbury Hospital and Norwalk Hospital pediatric units and NICUs. Through the alliance, children and their families have 24/7 access to readily available specialized and subspecialized pediatric services. Even more pediatric consultations are available at Danbury Hospital and Norwalk Hospital emergency departments (EDs), ensuring best-in-class pediatric emergency care for young patients. To learn more about pediatric services at WCHN, please visit our website. Catch up on the latest news at WCHN. Visit wchn.org/news today! About Western Connecticut Health Network Western Connecticut Health Network is the regions premier, patient-centered healthcare organization serving residents of western Connecticut and adjacent New York. WCHN is anchored by three nationally recognized hospitals, Danbury Hospital, New Milford Hospital, and Norwalk Hospital. We have an integrated network of more than 1,300 employed and community physicians and specialists, 70 Western Connecticut Medical Group medical and sub-specialty practices across 16 communities, and Western Connecticut Home Care. Our nationally renowned Rudy L. Ruggles Biomedical Research Institute is leading innovative research, especially for cancer and Lyme disease. Many of our advancements have been made possible by generous donors from our community and through the Danbury Hospital & New Milford Hospital Foundation and the Norwalk Hospital Foundation. As an academic institution, we are proud to shape the future of care through our partnership with the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine. WCHN employs nearly 6,300 employees including about 1,900 clinical staff. For more information, visit wchn.org. Share your comments with us at Facebook.com/DanburyHospital, Facebook.com/NewMilfordHospital, and Facebook.com/NorwalkHospital. About Connecticut Childrens Medical Center Connecticut Childrens Medical Center is the only hospital in Connecticut dedicated exclusively to the care of children and is ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the best childrens hospitals in the nation. With a medical staff of more than 1,000, Connecticut Childrens provides comprehensive, world-class health care in more than 30 pediatric specialties and subspecialties. Connecticut Childrens Medical Center is a not-for-profit organization, which serves as the primary pediatric teaching hospital for the UConn School of Medicine, has a teaching partnership with the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University, and is a research partner of The Jackson Laboratory. Connecticut Childrens Office for Community Child Health is a national leader in community-based prevention and wellness programs. PMG's interactive CES 2019 guide reveals how 5G will reshape the future of healthcare. The launch of 5G this year will reshape the health industry completely and support high-throughput applications like remote surgery. PMG, a content marketing and demand generation agency for tech and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies, today announced that members of the agencys leadership team, including Founding Partner Kim Charlton and CMO Jessica Legg, will follow up on its 5G-focused predictions for 2019 by attending CES to discuss the future of connected health with digital health industry leaders. CES, the worlds largest technology event, has for more than 50 years served as the proving ground for breakthrough technologies, where next-generation innovations are introduced to the marketplace. From the extraordinary future of healthcare that will be supported by 5G technologies to the secure aggregation of patient data all in one place, this years CES Digital Health Summit will feature digital health leaders from around the world showcasing the healthcare industrys newest connected health innovations. With a projected global healthcare industry revenue impact of $1.2 trillion, 5G is set to steal a large part of the spotlight for those attending the CES Digital Health Summit. Legg, formerly head of demand generation at Grand Roundsthe healthcare unicorn holding down spot 54 on Forbes 2018 Cloud 100 listsays, The launch of 5G this year will reshape the health industry completely. 5G will deliver 1,000 times the bandwidth at 10 times the speed with 50 times less latency than 4G, to support high-throughput applications like remote surgery. Beyond the introduction of billions of connected things to the network, 5G will enable network slicing, empowering hospitals and private providers to secure their own private slice of the network with dedicated bandwidth to ensure security and reliability. Nathan Treloar, president and co-founder of Orbita, will be speaking at the Digital Health Summit at CES and tells PMG, Voice-powered virtual assistants are transforming digital healthcare by reducing one of the biggest barriers to better outcomespatient engagement. You can attend Treloars presentation on January 8th at 3:30 p.m. in the Venetian on Level 4 in Lando 4305. Ardy Arianpour, CEO and co-founder of Seqstera secure platform that enables the aggregation of patient data all in one placetells PMG, We created the platform and technology to put the consumer at the center of their health and empower them to disrupt data silos. Arianpour will be speaking at CES on January 8th at 2 p.m. in the Venetian on Level 4 in Lando 4305. Moving from the macro to the micro, those interested in how the proliferation of IoT devices will reshape connected health can learn more about technologies such as AerNos' nano gas sensor module that integrates within automobiles to accelerate smart air-quality monitoring and hazardous gas detection. Sundip Doshi, founder and CEO of AerNos, tells PMG, Nano gas sensors will revolutionize how we monitor air quality and other dangerous gases in our cities, cars and transportation systems. Tiny, affordable and sensitive, for the first time we will have granular real-time data about whats in our air and this will power better decisions that will improve health and safety. Doshi will speak during the Fueling Big Cities session at CES on January 10th at 9 a.m. at Westgate Level 1 in Ballroom F. The stage is set for 5G breakthroughs at this years CES and Charlton says, For more than fifteen years, weve lived and breathed tech, touching virtually every aspect of the ecosystemfrom smart things and devices, to the infrastructure and technology that supports them, to the software, cloud services and content that give them purpose, and the user services and experiences they enable. We know where the market has been, and we look forward to attending CES every year to stay ahead of the curve on where its going. For more insight into what to expect across all industries as 5G comes to market, be sure to check out the interactive guide: The Future of 5G: Predictions for CES 2019 and Beyond. ABOUT PMG: PMG is a content marketing and demand generation agency that builds brand and drives demand for tech titans and SaaS innovators. Founded in 2003, the PMG team is comprised of tech subject matter experts and senior marketing strategists with deep experience in high tech and software. Clients include Fortune 10 and other tech behemoths, such as Samsung, Qualcomm and Synchronoss, as well as leading SaaS companies including Rackspace, CrowdStreet, and GoodData to name a few. For more information, please visit: http://www.thepmgco.com. Adding Cogen Cleaning Technology to the RIG service platform meets the market request to be a single source engineered pre-commissioning and reliability services company. Cogen Cleaning Technology is the global market leader with a proven track record of executing large scale pre-commission projects PetrolinkUSA and Cogen Cleaning Technology have joined forces to expand the current platform of industrial reliability and global pre-commission services. The new name of the holding company for the two brands is Reliable Industrial Group (https://therigteam.com/). Bringing together PetrolinkUSA and Cogen Cleaning Technology will expand the geographic footprint to better serve the global precommissioning and reliability services market by allowing quick response for operations and engineering execution with the largest fleet of pre-commissioning and reliability service equipment in the industry. The RIG strategy will be focused on bringing in proven processes, training and technology to expand market share, and deliver reliable services to a broad range of global customers. Cogen Cleaning Technology (https://www.cogencleaning.com/) provides a complete range of pre-commission cleaning needs, including; Steam Blows of headers, boilers, HRSGs and process lines, Airblows of HRSGs, boilers, and process equipment, Gas Line Air Blows on underground and above ground piping up to all users, Hydrolazing of piping systems, ACCS and vessels, Hydrostatic Testing of all vessels, piping and pressure parts, Circulating Degreasing & Citric Acid Cleaning of HRSGs, boilers and piping, Circulating Degreasing of HRSGs and Boilers, Line Purging, ACC steam Flushing, Oil Flushing of all rotating equipment, Surge Flushing of process lines and Vaporphase Flushing Gregg Alper, President and Owner of Cogen Cleaning Technology is recognized as a proven industry leader with over 25 years of experience planning and engineering global pre-commissionining projects. Adding Cogen Cleaning Technology to the RIG service platform meets the market request to be a single source engineered pre-commissioning and reliability services company. Cogen Cleaning Technology is the global market leader with a proven track record of executing large scale pre-commission projects, said Gregg Alper. We are happy to have Gregg and his team join our platform of companies. Mr. Alper is a managing partner and directly involved with all aspects of the combined companies. This service expansion puts our customers first, by forming a single source on-track, on-budget, critical path, engineered solution provider. Gregg and his team will be a valued part of our continued growth, said Jason A. Bandy. About PetrolinkUSA, LLC PetrolinkUSA (https://petrolinkusa.com/) has locations throughout the U.S., with primary service operation in Houston, Texas, PetrolinkUSA performs technically advanced oil flushing, chemical cleaning and other emergency decontamination services to guarantee system cleanliness on critical turbine, compressor and hydraulic systems in the US, Canada and Mexico. The company was founded in 1989 and is experiencing consistent growth by providing the market with technically trained operators and engineers. For more information please call 800-770-4510 or contact info@petrolinkusa.com We believe that her experience and leadership will provide support to strengthen our organizational structure to better serve our clients. Economic Group Pension Services (EGPS), one of the nations premier third-party administration firms, announced today the appointment of Dawn Genz as the new Chief Operations Officer (COO). With more than 24 years of industry experience, Dawn begins her new professional journey with EGPS. Her extensive focus will be on the strategic operations of the company by setting goals, policies and creating action plans for logistics management, budget management, and support services management. We are fortunate to have Dawn joining our team, explains Daniel Liss, CEO of EGPS. We believe that her experience and leadership will provide support to strengthen our organizational structure to better serve our clients. Dawns industry proficiencies include sales, ERISA consulting, education, and retirement plan administration. Her years of professional experience, military background, personal business ownership, and multiple boards of director positions, make Dawn an asset to the team. Her dynamic personality brings sensitivity and understanding of each clients unique business needs. Bill Presson, who had graciously stepped in as interim COO for EGPS, will reassume his original position of Executive Vice President, Sales & Consulting. Bill will continue to focus on his own areas of expertise in business development, sales and client consulting. About Economic Group Pension Services Founded in 1971, Economic Group Pension Services (EGPS) is a national independent consulting firm that designs and administers cutting edge retirement plans. With offices in Alabama, California, Florida, Louisiana, and New York, the company serves over 4,000 benefit plans for business owners and their employees across the country. For more information about EGPS, please visit https://egps.com. There is nothing more rewarding than building a business from the ground up. We know consumers have options and we will have to surpass consumer expectations to succeed. We plan on doing just that British luxury is now available to consumers in Ocala, Fl. Jaguar Land Rover Ocala is the latest dealership to be opened by the growing Morgan Auto Group, named one of the fastest growing retail automotive groups in the country by Automotive News. It is the groups first Jaguar Land Rover franchise across their roster of 34 franchised dealerships. The dealership will be managed by General Manager Paul Corbett. Not only are we thrilled to be able to represent the Jaguar and Land Rover brands, but we are proud to once again be a part of the sustained business growth within the Gainesville-Ocala region, said Morgan Auto Group CEO Brett Morgan. The Morgan Auto Group operates six additional dealerships within Gainesville-Ocala, including Mercedes-Benz and Honda operations. We have built a first-class facility in a convenient location near I-75. And the goal is to provide additional options for consumers and a premium experience to our prospective guests in the region, offered Morgan Managing Partner Victor Young. In anticipation of this exciting opening, we have had General Manager Paul Corbett within our organization for over a year. He has been integral to every part of the planning process regarding Jaguar Land Rover Ocala, remarks Morgan COO Tom Moore. Paul is a proven luxury leader with over 30 years of automotive experience. Paul was most recently managing another luxury brand in the Jacksonville market. "There is nothing more rewarding than building a business from the ground up. We know consumers have options and we will have to surpass consumer expectations to succeed. We plan on doing just that," said General Manager Paul Corbett. Jaguar Land Rover Ocala is now serving customers from Ocala, Gainesville, Belleview, Wildwood, the Villages and beyond from their convenient location at 5830 Southwest College Road, just off I-75. We want the community to know that when you make it Morgan, we make it happen! About Morgan Auto Group About Morgan Automotive Group | Morgan Auto Group is one of the largest, privately held automotive dealer groups in the nation, recently ranked in the top 50 by Automotive News. Through its 32 dealerships, the Tampa-based business offers 22 unique brands, from Honda to Lamborghini, with new, certified pre-owned, and quality used vehicles available for lease or purchase. These retail locations also sell car parts, service contracts, along with maintenance and repair services. The company's famous slogan, "When You Make It Morgan, We Make It Happen" is the basis for all customer service, branding, promotions, and other key operations at its 32 locations from Columbia, Missouri to Naples, Florida. My parents founded MSI on a beautiful ideal: create jobs and help everyone make their dreams a reality. This applies not only to our suppliers and end-consumers, but also to our employees.MSI MSI, North Americas Leading Supplier of Premium Surfaces, has been awarded a Top Workplaces honor by The Orange County Register. The award is based solely on employee feedback on several aspects including workplace culture, alignment, execution, and connection, just to name a few. Founded as a natural stone business approximately 45 years ago, MSI has grown into a complete surfacings company with over $1 billion in annual revenues and more than 2,000 employees worldwide. Raj Shah, President of MSI, comments, My parents founded MSI on a beautiful ideal: create jobs and help everyone make their dreams a reality. This applies not only to our suppliers and end-consumers, but also to our employees. Shah adds, Being named a Top Workplace is truly an honorespecially because the judges were our own people. We are a family business and continue to build the culture of family within our Company. Top Workplaces is more than just recognition, said Doug Claffey, CEO of Energage. Our research shows organizations that earn the award attract better talent, experience lower turnover, and are better equipped to deliver bottom-line results. Their leaders prioritize and carefully craft a healthy workplace culture that supports employee engagement. Learn more about MSI, its company culture, and career opportunities. Founded in 1975, MSI is the leading supplier of premium surfaces in the U.S. - including flooring, countertops, decorative mosaics and wall tile, and hardscaping products. The company offers an extensive selection of quartz, natural stone, porcelain, ceramic, luxury vinyl tile and glass among other materials. Headquartered in Orange, California, MSI has distribution centers across the United States and Canada and maintains over 150 million square feet of inventory, imported from over 36 different countries on six continents. For more information on MSI, visit msisurfaces.com Through an exclusive interview on the interior, Love speaks about her experience in studying engineering at Prairie View A&M University in Texas, and what it was like being a student of color on a predominantly white campus. Mediaplanet announces the launch of the first edition of the Campus Diversity campaign. This campaign will advocate for awareness of the importance of diversity in Americas universities. The print component of Campus Diversity is being distributed within todays edition of USA Today in Atlanta, Washington DC, Baltimore, Chicago, Tennessee, Kansas City, South Florida, North Central Florida, New York, and Los Angeles markets. The digital component is distributed nationally, through a vast social media strategy, and across a network of top news sites and partner outlets. To explore the digital version of the campaign, visit: http://www.educationandcareernews.com/topic/campus-diversity American comedian Loni Love graces the cover of the print publication. Through an exclusive interview on the interior, Love speaks about her experience in studying engineering at Prairie View A&M University in Texas, and what it was like being a student of color on a predominantly white campus. This campaign was made possible with the support of Loni Love, John B. King, The National Association of Student Affairs Professionals in Higher Education, Taco Bell Live Mas Scholarship, Association of College Unions International, University of Southern California, Ramapo University, Albany State University, The University of Wisconsin Whitewater, Community America Credit Union, Financial Planning Association, and many more leaders featured in print and online. About Mediaplanet Mediaplanet specializes in the creation of content marketing campaigns covering a variety of industries. We tell meaningful stories that educate our audience and position our clients as solution providers. Our unique ability to pair the right leaders with the right readers, through the right platforms, has made Mediaplanet a global content marketing powerhouse. Our award-winning stories have won the hearts of countless readers while serving as a valuable platform for brands and their missions. Just call us storytellers with a purpose. Please visit http://www.mediaplanet.com for more on who we are and what we do. Press Contact: Isabel Carretero isabel.carretero(at)mediaplanet.com (646) 619-3514 The funded projects for the 2018-2019 school year revolve around the theme Connection. Each project connects educators and students to one another to the benefit of their school and community. Combining resources, knowledge, and skills can achieve larger goals than individuals working solo in their classrooms. Professor Sarah McCarthey, President of the Foundation, was enthusiastic about the projects funded, We have seen an increasing focus on teachers connecting with other teachers, students connecting with their peers within authentic contextsboth inside and outside the classroom, and educators reaching beyond their classrooms to make major contributions to their communities and districts. The projects funded this year are, once again, cutting-edge and teacher-initiated; they promise to make a significant difference in the lives of teachers and students. While these projects take the theme of connection in different directions, the thematic resonance is there for all of them: For example, the educators at Ashford School in Vermont are attempting to build an infrastructure to facilitate virtual, international cultural exchanges. The Global Learning Experiences Take Students to New Heights project will see students in K-8th grade immersed in school-wide projects that connect them with their global peers. Even more exciting, this project is the first of its kind to utilize the parameters and tools laid out by the United Nations. By building connections internationally students will see a broader range of opportunities beyond the borders of our own country. The Pleasant Avenue Critical Friends Group in Niskayuna, NY will connect teachers in their school and district. Through classroom visits and conversations, peers will have an opportunity to participate in a unique professional development experience. The model they develop will spread to other schools in the district further connecting teachers to each other. The connection theme pervades the Academic Enrichment grants as well . Joining in the Present to Build an Equitable Shared Future builds on a simple premise: Bringing educators together can build community and a shared vision. Grant recipients are seeking to reconstitute the long dormant New York City Chapter of the New York State English Council and National Council of Teachers of English and will be open to any teacher, across content areas, that seeks to improve their instruction of reading/writing. The nucleus of teachers will be from a NYC school, but will quickly be taken up by teachers throughout the city. Connections can also be reflected in local communitiesexamining in detail taken-for-granted artifacts and practices that have been largely ignored. Thats the goal of the Inaadiziwin project. Inaadiziwin means means way of life in Ojibwe, referring to the traditional seasonal activities that make up the Ojibwe year. Through activities such as making birchbark baskets, snowshoes, and moccasins; building wigwams and birchbark canoes; collecting and preparing maple syrup; ice fishing; and growing and harvesting traditional food and medicinal plants, grant recipients will transform the All Nations Program to increase the engagement, achievement, and cultural knowledge of Native American students. While student newscasts are far from a new idea, in an age of declining trust in media and journalism, it is imperative to instill a healthy respect for one of the institutions most sacred to our democracy. By participating in the Gecko Newscast, students will have the opportunity to work in all aspects of broadcast news while getting the chance to connect with students, faculty, and community members as they hunt down stories. Innovative presentations of stories will connect students with other students in a more engaging manner than traditional formats such as a disembodied voice over the loudspeaker. In 2018-19, the Foundation has funded five new Academic Enrichment Grants at schools serving minority and economically disadvantaged students; three Teacher Development grants with similar demographics; and four student teacher scholarships. Recipients include: Academic Enrichment Recipients Global Learning Experiences Take Students to New Heights Kathryn Craven Vernon, CT Inaadiziwin David Butler Minneapolis, MN Sensory Friendly Classroom Lea Greene Fabius, NY Gecko Newcast Gregg Deatley Austin, TX Cavity Nester Citizen Science Study Nikki Wayment Salt Lake City, UT Teacher Development Recipients Pleasant Avenue Critical Friends Group Lynn Makrin Niskayuna, NY Developing a Bilingual, Culturally-Relevant Writers Workshop in the Elementary Grades Caroline Sweet - Austin, TX Joining in the Present to Build an Equitable Shared Future Adam Kinory New York, NY Scholarship Recipients Maria Garcia, Stephen F. Austin University Alicia Romero, University of California, Santa Cruz Molly Quijano, Stephen F. Austin University Mari Evelin Moreno Velasco, University of California, Santa Cruz The mission of McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation is to serve as a catalyst in maximizing the skills and creativity of educators at the K-12 levels and in pioneering approaches to teaching that result in dynamic student learning. The Foundation sponsors proposals that enhance student learning and educational quality, paying particular attention to those that best serve under-funded schools. The application opens January 15 of each year and remains open until 350 submissions are received or by April 15. Proposals designed with significant potential to enrich the educational experiences for youth are encouraged. Applicants should carefully review the application instructions, the Foundations blog and funded project directory before applying. All are available at mccartheydressman.org. Liberty University is pleased to announce the hiring of a new dean for its School of Business, Dr. Dave Brat. Effective Jan. 2, 2019, Dr. Brat will take the helm of the School of Business, one of Libertys largest schools. Dr. Brat has worked in the private sector for the accounting firm Arthur Andersen and for the World Bank assisting developing world economies. Prior to this time, he held a teaching position and was Chairman of the economics and business department at Randolph-Macon College. In his most recent role as a Congressman, Dr. Brat served Virginias 7th District. Dr. Brat holds a B.A. in Business Administration from Hope College, an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in Economics from American University. Dr. Brat and his wife, Laura, have two children, Jonathan and Sophia. We are excited to have Dave Brat joining our team at Liberty and especially in our School of Business, said Liberty Interim Provost Dr. Scott Hicks. Daves experience in the private business sector, in higher education, and most recently as a U.S. Congressman, offer a unique blend of applied experience that brings additional value and depth to our business faculty. President Jerry Falwell added: Liberty continues to hire brilliant people who bring with them a wealth of knowledge and life experience. Both Dr. Brat and Professor Tony Nobles (Libertys new Center for Entrepreneurship executive director) have established themselves as leaders. Im thrilled to have them join our faculty. About Liberty University Liberty University, founded in 1971, is the worlds premier Christian university, the largest private, nonprofit university in the nation, and the largest university in Virginia. Located near the Blue Ridge Mountains on more than 7,000 acres in Lynchburg, Va., Liberty offers more than 600 unique programs of study from the certificate to the doctoral level. Over 300 programs are offered online. Utilizing its world-class infrastructure and Christian faculty, Libertys mission is to train Champions for Christ with the values, knowledge, and skills essential for impacting tomorrows world. Liberty Universitys School of Business welcomes a new executive director for its Center for Entrepreneurship. Professor Anthony (Tony) Nobles has founded more than 28 companies in the fields of electronics, medical devices, banking, automotive engineering, retail, real estate, among others. In his capacity as the chairman, president, and/or CEO of both private and publicly traded companies, Professor Nobles has invented and developed more than 155 medical devices, as well as leading electronic technologies, including the portable electronic book and endoscopic imaging systems. Professor Nobles has been directly responsible for the sale of companies or has licensed their technologies to several of the largest medical device companies, including Medtronic, Johnson and Johnson, and Boston Scientific. All combined, these sales or licensing actions involve over 27 individual companies. He has developed automotive technologies for both consumer vehicles as well as Formula 1 racing technologies for Ferrari, Italy. Tonys entrepreneurial experience and reputation as a gifted innovator are well established, said Liberty Interim Provost Dr. Scott Hicks. His desire to serve with us here at Liberty University by helping lead our entrepreneurship center demonstrates the growing reach of our university. Our students stand to benefit greatly from Tonys abilities in the areas of entrepreneurship and business development. President Jerry Falwell added: Liberty continues to hire brilliant people who bring with them a wealth of knowledge and life experience. Both Dr. Brat (Libertys new School of Business dean) and Professor Nobles have established themselves as leaders. Im thrilled to have them join our faculty. Read about Nobles' innovative heart device and how President Falwell benefited from the breakthrough procedure in the Liberty Journal. Read more about Nobles and Liberty's entrepreneurial spirit in Virginia Business Magazine. About Liberty University: Liberty University, founded in 1971, is the worlds premier Christian university, the largest private, nonprofit university in the nation, and the largest university in Virginia. Located near the Blue Ridge Mountains on more than 7,000 acres in Lynchburg, Va., Liberty offers more than 600 unique programs of study from the certificate to the doctoral level. Over 300 programs are offered online. Utilizing its world-class infrastructure and Christian faculty, Libertys mission is to train Champions for Christ with the values, knowledge, and skills essential for impacting tomorrows world. At its recent Annual Gathering and National Awards, The Learning Counsel recognized 10 innovative schools and districts for their transformational work in creating digital ecosystems that catalyze the learning experience and offer increased opportunities for both students and educators. Several Honorable Mentions were also awarded at the ceremony, where top education executives from across the U.S. gathered to acknowledge the winners. (View the 2018 National Gathering Image Gallery.) Over the course of 2018, Learning Counsel CEO Leilani Cauthen hosted more than 25 events in key metro areas across the nation, where she had the opportunity to speak with hundreds of schools and districts about their digital realities. According to Cauthen, The entire process of becoming digital is maturing. Were finding real heroes across this new digital landscape, and learners are the beneficiaries. Recipients of the 2018 Digital Curriculum Strategy Awards are: Buckeye Union High School District, Phoenix, AZ Buckeye Union High School District is committed to ensuring that all learners are ready for the future by providing an exemplary digitally-immersive high school experience. Classical Online Academy, Escondido, CA Classical Academy Online is a self-directed digital learning program that provides live supportive, collaborative workshops. Students work alongside teachers in an open, flexible community learning environment that is focused on preparing every student to become an exceptional thinker, communicator, and achiever. Evergreen School District 114, Vancouver, WA Evergreen School District 114s transition to personalized learning, amplified by technology tools, meant a significant shift in instructional design, including changes in how they select instructional materials, budget development, and measurement of what works. Georgia Department of Education - Georgia Virtual, Atlanta, GA Georgia Virtual school delivers quality digital material with refined technical interoperability among a myriad of learning systems. This unique state and national offering allows data to enhance and inform the personalized learning process for students and teachers. Highline Public Schools, Burien, WA Highline Public Schools promises to know every student by name, strength and need, and to engage students in personalized learning across all grade levels. Highlines unique work includes preparing students for project- and inquiry-based learning through a digital citizenship initiative. Houston Independent School District, Houston, TX Houston Independent School District maintains a major 1:1 device initiative, a deep digital library of over 2 million curriculum and software resources in an integrated environment that provides students and teachers safe resources for instructional activities, and is working on remodeled teaching and learning spaces to suit the new learning realities. Lammersville Joint Unified School District, Mountain House, CA Lammersville has used technology to increase efficiency and provide meaningful data on demand to personalize instruction. A proud accomplishment towards this goal is the development of a year-long, cohort-based Blended Learning Academy and Advanced Academy for professional development. Los Angeles Unified School District, Los Angeles, CA LAUSD is ensuring digital navigation skills and digital literacy for all teachers and students. As the nations second-largest school district, LAUSD has reimagined models of support to reach the 60,000 educators who serve a student body of over 600,000. Meriden Public Schools, Meriden, Connecticut The Meriden Public Schools aligned technology and curriculum to ensure that technology was infused in all aspects of course content. With devices in the hands of students, key digital content partners onboard, and staff supports in place, Meridens transformation increased rigor and opportunities for all students, and led to the highest academic gains in district history. Warroad Public Schools, Warroad, MN To focus on personalized, student-centered learning, Warroad adopted a learning management system (LMS), hired an Innovation Facilitator, signed on with Zia Learning to provide professional learning for all teachers, and synced their student information system with the LMS. Upgrades to WiFi bandwidth created access throughout the school campus as part of a complete facilities renovation that improves the user experience with digital curriculum at all grade levels. The Honorable Mention recipients for their work in digital transition included: Beta Academy in Houston, TX; Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Charlotte, NC; Dekalb County Public Schools, Stone Mountain,GA; District of Columbia Public Schools, Washington, DC; Moose Lake Community School, Moose Lake, MN; New York City Department of Education, New York, NY; Philadelphia Public Schools, Philadelphia, PA; Pickerington Local School District, Pickerington, OH; Santa Ana Unified School District, Santa Ana, CA; and St. Katharine Drexel Academy, San Diego, CA. About the Learning Counsel The Learning Counsel is a mission-based organization focused on helping education professionals in the K12 sector gain research and context on the digital education experience. For more information, please visit LearningCounsel.com. Press contact: Doug Cauthen doug@learningcounsel.com | 800-780-8834 Custom Paint by Number Kit The Paintify.app is going to open up the joy of paint by numbers to a whole new audience and improve our overall customer experience considerably Just Paint by Number, an e-commerce website specializing in paint by number kits, launched a campaign today on Kickstarter with a goal of $7,500 to help fund the development of their mobile app, Paintify.app. The Paintify.app will allow users to take any photo on their mobile iOS or Android device and convert it into a paint by numbers kit. Paint by Numbers is a system where a painting is converted to a blank canvas divided into different areas by light blue or gray lines and each area is marked with a number that corresponds to a particular color and allows individuals with little artistic ability to paint a beautiful piece of art without the aid of an instructor. This system is a fun, relaxing activity enjoyed by millions of people all over the world. In fact, there are over 200,000 searches per month on Google alone related to paint by numbers. "The Paintify.app will solve two problems for our customers," says Just Paint by Number owner Xan Hong. "Number one, customers will be able to instantaneously see what their final painting will look like prior to purchasing their custom paint by number kit. And number two, customers will receive their kit in a fraction of the time that they currently do now." Currently producing their kits in China, Hong says it can take up to a couple of days for customers to be able to view a rendering of what their final painting will look like and, with standard shipping methods, upwards of 30 days for the custom kits to be produced and delivered to the customer. Now, by utilizing production facilities in the United States and the United Kingdom, Hong says kits can be delivered in as little as 5 days to customers in the United States. With people placing a high value on instant gratification, "The Paintify.app is going to open up the joy of paint by numbers to a whole new audience and improve our overall customer experience considerably," says Hong. Individuals that want to help support the launch of the Paintify.app can do so with pledges as little as $1 with rewards provided for pledges up to $100. The campaign begins today and runs for 30 days. Anyone interested in finding out more information can do so by visiting the Paintify.app Kickstarter page. About Just Paint by Number Just Paint by Number is an e-commerce website that offers a large and diverse variety of Paint by Number kits with various themes such as animals, landscapes, and custom kits created from any photo. Free shipping is available to anywhere in the world. We extend our sincere congratulations to the outstanding class of 2019 IoT Breakthrough Award winners IoT Breakthrough, an independent organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies and products in the global Internet-of-Things (IoT) market, today announced the winners of the organizations third annual awards program, showcasing technologies and companies that drive innovation and exemplify the best in IoT technology solutions across the globe. The mission of the IoT Breakthrough Awards program is to recognize the innovators, leaders and visionaries from around the globe in a range of IoT categories, including, Connected Home and Home Automation, Industrial and Enterprise IoT, Smart City technology, Connected Car, and many more. This years program attracted more than 3,500 nominations from companies all over the world. As we anticipate an installed base of over 26 billion IoT connected devices worldwide this year, IoT industry growth and adoption is proven, said James Johnson, managing director at IoT Breakthrough. We now see the IoT market focused not just on growth, but on creating tangible value for consumers and businesses. Our 2019 IoT Breakthrough Award winners deliver on that focus, providing true value with new and innovative technology such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. We extend our sincere congratulations to the outstanding class of 2019 IoT Breakthrough Award winners. All nominations were evaluated by an independent panel of experts within the IoT industry, with the winning products and companies selected based on a variety of criteria, including most innovative and technologically advanced products and services. The 2019 IoT Breakthrough Award winners include: Connected Home Smart Appliance Company of the Year: GE Appliances, a Haier Company Connected Home Speaker Company of the Year: Sony Smart Heating and Cooling Product of the Year: Rheem Manufacturing - EcoNet Smart Thermostat Home Automation Company of the Year: Control4 Consumer IoT IoT Wearables Innovation the Year: Carnival Corporation - OceanMedallion IoT Wearable Device of the Year: Elvie Pump Sleep Monitoring Solution of the Year: Owlet Baby Care IoT Innovation Award - Consumer Product of the Year: Minim Enterprise IoT IoT Innovation Award - Enterprise Solution of the Year: Dell Technologies - IoT Connected Bundles Emerging Company of the Year for the Enterprise Market: TeamViewer IoT Enablement Company of the Year for the Enterprise Market: Advantech Corp. IoT Enterprise Software Company of the Year: Software AG IoT Security Company of the Year: ForeScout Technologies IoT Security Product of the Year: Intrinsic ID - BroadKey IoT Analytics Company of the Year: Mnubo IoT Enterprise Wearable of the Year: Toshiba America Client Solutions, Inc. - dynaEdge AR Smart Glasses IoT Component IoT Sensor Product of the Year: Samsung Electronics - Smart Sensor Module U Series Wireless Router of the Year: Robustel IoT Semiconductor Product of the Year: Skyworks Solutions, Inc. IoT Semiconductor Company of the Year: MediaTek Industrial IoT Industrial IoT Company of the Year: Emerson Industrial IoT Solution of the Year: Advantech Corp. Industrial IoT Innovation of the Year: Cumulus Digital Systems, Inc. - Smart Torque System (STS) Public Safety Solution of the Year: Itron - Intelis Industrial IoT Innovator of the Year: Johnson Controls M2M and Connected Car M2M Embedded Hardware Company of the Year: Adesto Technologies M2M Innovative Solution of the Year: HARMAN, a Samsung Company - 5G ready multiband conformal antennas M2M Vehicle Telematics Solution of the Year: BlackBerry Radar Connected Car Platform of the Year: Cubic Telecom General IoT IoT CEO of the Year: Jeff Benck, Lantronix Global IoT Innovation Vendor of the Year: FogHorn Systems IoT Connected Retail Application of the Year: Acuity Brands Lighting IoT Partner Ecosystem of the Year: EVRYTHNG Overall IoT Company of the Year: Rockwell Automation About IoT Breakthrough IoT Breakthrough, part of the Tech Breakthrough Awards organization, is devoted to honoring excellence in Internet-of-Things technologies, services, companies and products. The IoT Breakthrough Awards program provides a forum for public recognition around the achievements of IoT companies and products in categories including Connected Home and Home Automation, Connected Car, Industrial IoT (IIoT) and Smart City, Consumer IoT and more. For more information visit IoTBreakthrough.com. AIM is thrilled to partner with ICELab, OIA, and Moosejaw to bring a first of its kind accelerator to the outdoor industry and to Colorado. Active Interest Media (AIM), the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA), ICELab @ Western, and Moosejaw have joined forces to launch the Catapult Outdoor Recreation Accelerator open to outdoor industry startups throughout the U.S. The Catapult OR Accelerator is a 12-week intensive program focusing on product and service-based startups positioned for growth. Only 3 teams will be accepted into the 2019 program. Finalists will split time between the ICELab Campus in the Gunnison Valley and at AIM headquarters in Boulder. Teams will have the opportunity to learn from industry professionals, develop new strategies, and are provided the tools to ramp up quickly for success. The program will place all of its support on the needs of each of the three businesses accepted into the program. According to Sharon Houghton, AIM Managing Director of the Outdoor Group, AIM is thrilled to partner with ICELab, OIA, and Moosejaw to bring a first of its kind accelerator to the outdoor industry and to Colorado. It is truly an honor to develop a program that helps innovators catapult their visions to the next level with simple goals. For outdoor recreation businesses interested in applying to Catapult: Expensive Car Insurance Auto insurance can be really expensive in some areas of the United States. Local legislation, population density, geographical layout and criminality are the main reasons why carrying car insurance will cost you more, said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company. Carinsurancehints.com has launched a new blog post that explains the main reasons why car insurance is extremely expensive in some parts of the United States This blog post explains the main reason why Michigan is, for the fifth year in a row, the most expensive state. The legislation is the one causing financial disadvantages. More exactly, the states no-fault unique system that grants the victims of an accident unlimited financial compensation. A high number of uninsured and underinsured drivers will also make the insurance costs soar. The blog post also explains why and gives 2 states as examples. A high number of people means more cars. Thus, more chances of being involved in accidents and making claims. People living in metropolitan areas are charged more, based on this simple fact. Criminality is also a top rating factor. Areas where riots, vandalism and car theft are a common occurrence are very expensive, from an insurers point of view. New Mexicos capital city, Albuquerque, is for the second time on the row the countrys No. 1 in auto theft. That is the main reason why coverage is expensive in this state. For more car insurance info and money-saving tips, please visit http://www.carinsurancehints.com Carinsurancehints.com is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc. Were empowering a dramatic change in the scope of natural stone design available to architects, interior designers and landscape professionals. Indiana Limestone Companys display at the upcoming Landscape Ontario Congress will feature both the companys growing Urban Hardscape natural stone line and the companys ties to its new Quebec-based merger partner, Polycor. The event, slated for Jan. 8-10 at Toronto Congress Centre, is one of Canadas premier exhibitions in the landscaping industry. Booth 2153 will showcase the many products and possibilities available with the Urban Hardscape line, bringing the beauty, versatility and permanence of the companys classic limestone to an extraordinary range of residential landscaping projects. Urban Hardscape products give architects, contractors, landscape designers and homeowners many design and construction tools in premium natural stone. Were also excited to talk about our recent merger with Polycor, which is greatly expanding both the selection of products and the capabilities they represent, said Tim Pick, Indiana Limestone Company Regional Manager in Canada. The shows stature in landscape architecture and design, Pick said, makes it one of the best-attended expositions in the industry. Its a great opportunity to see many of our customers, who always attend this one. We hope theyll visit us to learn more about whats happening right now with us. In combining the versatility, permanence and aesthetic range of stone products from Indiana Limestone Company with those of Polycor, said Duffe Elkins, Chief Operating Officer of Indiana Limestone, were empowering a dramatic change in the scope of natural stone design available to architects, interior designers and landscape professionals. Our presence at Landscape Ontario is a welcome opportunity to share these strong new capabilities with the design community. About Indiana Limestone Company Indiana Limestone Company is unmatched as the premier supplier of Indiana limestone in a range of beautiful and lasting building products. Founded in 1926 (with predecessor firms that had been quarrying limestone since the mid-1800s), Indiana Limestone Company today remains the provider of choice for this internationally renowned natural stone. Throughout an illustrious history in which its stone has made such iconic structures as the Empire State Building, National Cathedral, and the Pentagon, Indiana Limestone Company has reliably provided the highest quality products and services carefully tailored to the needs of the market with an environmental, natural focus. Clark McIntyre has joined Homestake Capital as its new Director. "Michael [Kokes] and his team have done a tremendous job of growing Homestake since its inception, and I am extremely enthusiastic at the prospect of helping the company elevate its status as one of the premier real estate investment firms in the Northeast," said McIntyre. Homestake Capital, LLC is proud to announce its newest addition to the team with the hiring of Clark McIntyre as its new Director. McIntyre has joined the Monmouth County-based firm to assist in acquisition and risk analysis, deal structuring, pro forma development and asset management. I am incredibly excited and humbled to be joining the Homestake team, McIntyre said. I have had the pleasure of getting to know Michael Kokes over the last year and have always been highly impressed by his incredibly nuanced understanding of project planning, real estate finance and the development process. Michael and his team have done a tremendous job of growing Homestake since its inception, and I am extremely enthusiastic at the prospect of helping the company elevate its status as one of the premier real estate investment firms in the Northeast. McIntyre will work closely alongside Kokes to ensure that the firm continues to identify accretive development opportunities that enhance the firms balance sheet. Homestake has a high level of confidence that the addition of McIntyre will help to position the company for future growth through its strategic investments across an array of real estate asset classes. Prior to joining Homestake, McIntyre served as Vice President of Operations at Roger Mumford Homes, where he was responsible for land acquisition, project financing, contract negotiation, and oversight of the firms multifamily asset holdings. Prior to his involvement with Roger Mumford Homes, McIntyre worked for Union Gaming, a boutique investment bank and equity research firm specializing in the gaming and lodging industries. McIntyre holds a BA in Economics from the University of Michigan and a MS in Real Estate from New York University with a concentration in finance and investment. As Homestake continues to grow, we recognize that the addition of well-rounded, intelligent people will help us to unlock our full potential, said Michael J. Kokes, Managing Principal of Homestake Capital. We believe that Clark will be an asset to the team and will enable us to continue growing and moving in the right direction. We welcome Clark to the Homestake family and we know that his expertise and insights will be invaluable to us as we continue to build and grow the firm. About Homestake Capital, LLC Homestake Capital, LLC, a boutique real estate investment firm located in Monmouth County, New Jersey, is focused on providing direct investment and non-traditional lending to residential and commercial developers. Homestake further adds value by providing development and building experience to the sponsor or borrower. Homestakes unique niche is providing capital for projects that are too big for one investor, but too small for a traditional institutional investor. To learn more, visit https://homestakecapital.com. Homestake Capital announces new director Firstmark Credit Union gets a new look While our look is changing, our commitment to our members success and happiness is stronger than ever, said Nathanael Tarwasokono, CEO of Firstmark Credit Union. Firstmark Credit Union is pleased to announce a new look in the new year. While the changes are subtle, the new and improved colors of our brand reaffirm the credit unions common purpose of helping people to better their lives and businesses. While our look is changing, our commitment to our members success and happiness is stronger than ever, said Nathanael Tarwasokono, CEO of Firstmark Credit Union. Simply stated, we exist to create a better future for our members. From opening a first checking account and funding a first car to launching a small business and saving for retirement, we want to help our members through every stage of life. The updated logo is expected to launch in late-December. Firstmark members can expect to see the new brand colors and logo over the next several months. For more information about the new logo, please visit firstmarkcu.org/NewLook About Firstmark Credit Union Firstmark Credit Union has been helping people achieve financial success for more than 85 years. The Firstmark story began in 1932 at Fox Tech High School where ten teachers signed a charter to form the San Antonio Teachers Credit Union. Firstmark has grown the ten teachers original $475 investment to almost 100,000 members and over $1 billion in assets. Firstmark is a not-for-profit, member-owned financial institution focused on helping people to better their lives and small businesses. For more information, visit http://firstmarkcu.org or call 210.342.8484. Snorkeling with Stingrays, Starfish, Four Species of Turtles Too in Unique Experience The AAA Five Diamond Grand Velas Riviera Maya is now offering guests a unique opportunity to visit Isla Contoy, a small protected Mexican island about 5 miles long off the north east coast of Quintana Roo. Guests at the resort will be transported to the uninhabited island via 50 ft. private yacht, complete with a seafood lunch and champagne. Once to the island, guests will be able to snorkel and explore the crystal waters around the island with marine life like stingrays and starfish aplenty. Isla Contoy was declared a national park in 1998. It is also known as "La Isla de Los Pajaros" (The Island of Birds) and considered to be an important nesting place of sea birds from all over the Mexican Caribbean. The island boasts more than a hundred and fifty migrating and resident bird species, including the orange-breasted frigate, brown pelican and double-crested cormorant. Isla Contoy is also an important nesting place for four species of Sea Turtles, such as the loggerhead, green, hawksbill and leatherback. Nightly resort rates start at $434 USD. Rates are per person based on double occupancy and include a la carte gourmet meals at a variety of specialty restaurants, luxury suite accommodations, premium branded beverages, 24-hour in-suite service, fitness center, taxes, gratuity and more. For reservations or additional information, call 1-888-407-4869, or visit https://rivieramaya.grandvelas.com/. About Grand Velas Riviera Maya: The AAA Five Diamond Grand Velas Riviera Maya is an ultra-luxury all-inclusive resort set on 206 acres of pristine jungle and mangroves and with the finest white sand beach in the Riviera Maya. Guests can choose accommodations among oceanfront, ocean view and a Zen-like tropical setting, embraced by the flora and fauna of the Yucatan Peninsulas jungle. All 539 designer-like suites are exceptionally spacious, more than 1,100 square feet each, all with balconies, and some with private plunge pools. All feature fully stocked mini bars, LOccitane amenities, artisanal mezcal, and Nespresso coffee machines. Bathrooms deserve special mention with walk in glass shower, deep soaking Jacuzzi tubs and marble interior. Eight restaurants, including five gourmet offerings, present a tour through Mexico, Europe and Asia. Cocina de Autor, at the hands of world renowned celebrity chefs Bruno Oteiza and Mikel Alonso, holds the AAA Five Diamond Award, the first all-inclusive restaurant in the world to win this prestigious distinction. Se Spa is the region's largest spa sanctuary at more than 90,000 square feet, known for its authentic Mexican treatments, offerings from around world and signature seven-step water journey. Other features include 24-hour Personal Concierge; 24/7 in-suite service; three swimming pools; two fitness centers; water sports; innovative Kids Clubs and Teens Club; baby concierge; Karaoke Bar; Koi Bar; Piano Bar, and business center. The resort offers more than 91,000 square feet of meeting space and outdoor areas for events inclusive of a 31,000-square-foot Convention Center, able to accommodate up to 2,700 guests. The resort has won numerous awards from Travel + Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, USA Today and several other magazines and major companies worldwide, including Virtuosos Best Spa and TripAdvisors Hall of Fame. A member of the Virtuoso Hotels & Resorts Program, Grand Velas Riviera Maya was built and is operated by Eduardo Vela Ruiz, founder and president of Velas Resorts, with brother Juan Vela, vice president of Velas Resorts, by his side. For reservations or additional information, call 1-888-407-4869, or visit https://rivieramaya.grandvelas.com/. Kari Warberg Block, CEO/Founder of EarthKind "Pest prevention, even in the smallest spaces like the home, needs to be done ethically, sustainably, honorably and safely. If we dont take charge of our environment to keep it healthy and safe, who will? Kari Warberg Block is no stranger to bugs, as the daughter of an entomologist, environmentalist and CEO/Founder of EarthKind, she has successfully created a sustainable, more mindful approach to pest prevention. Recent reports indicate that the insect population has declined by almost 75% in Germany, with patterns following similarly in other regions of the world, including the US. The now-coined Insect Armageddon has scientists declaring the issue is much more pertinent than anticipated, with insect decline revealing the devastating effects of heavy pesticide-use, pollution and climate change on the environment. Opening peoples hearts to a kinder way of controlling pests, by offering a more affordable option that treats the cause, not just the symptom, has always been the mission of Kari Warberg Block, who commercialized the first DIY botanical rodent repellent to gain a federal EPA registration in 2007. As a fearless woman entrepreneur and industry-disruptor, Kari built her business from the ground up. As a mom of two and farm wife once living off food stamps, Kari has worked relentlessly with universities and Government programs in her home state of North Dakota, now running her multi-million-dollar company with a conscious commitment to kindness, transparency, traceability and sustainability. She single-handedly brought change to the chemical-and-kill-based pest control industry by paving her own way into it without the toxins, pesticides and harm. With her love for Mother Earth always overriding the harmful nature of traditional practices, Kari attests, and has proven, that pest protection really can be harmonious, and effective. Honoring a live-and-let-live approach, Karis business plan continues to be fundamentally different than any other in the space, acquiring impressive sustainable initiatives such as having a USDA certified 98% carbon-free footprint, biodegradable packaging and products, and commercializing a way to mimic plastic using ND grown flax shive, beet pulp, and sunflower hulls. However, what may be most unique about Kari is her ability to create transformation at all levels of society through innovation, education and entrepreneurship. Her attitude of all harmony, no harm supersedes that of most, launching plant-based repellent pouches that work, without any mess, by changing insect and rodent behavior, rather than killing them. Through a mixture of essential oils and plant fibers sourced from family farms, such as thyme, lemongrass and rosemary, these natural scents are proven to disrupt insects olfactory receptors, effectively deterring them from encroaching on certain areas, without compromising their place in our ecosystems. Manipulating natures balance through toxins and kill-based methods detrimentally impacts the integrity of our planet while interfering with insects natural place in the eco-system and food-chain. The proof is in the numbers, or even through the windshield test. Where are all of our bugs going? And why are they dropping at such alarming rates? Pest prevention, even in the smallest spaces like the home, needs to be done ethically, sustainably, honorably and safely. If we dont take charge of our environment to keep it healthy and safe, who will? Karis drive, commitment to her values and success has won her recognition as one of EYs Entrepreneurial Winning Women, and she has gone from being part of her local homemakers club to advising the SBA, Congress and the White House on policy that impacts women in business, constantly pushing the agenda for sustainability and woman-empowering initiatives. She leads the EarthKind family with strong values, always inspiring others to see themselves and their surroundings as sacred. Every creature has a purpose, and the role insects play is vital to the sustenance of our environment we need our beetles, our moths, our spiders, and our ants without them, our eco-system will face a devastating collapse they are our pollinators, our aerators, decomposers, and serve as a main source of food for hundreds of species. We need to do better, we need to save our bugs This new year, Kari is urging everyone to be more conscious and mindful, pushing the agenda that we all need to protect our insects, protect our homes, and to protect our Earth and, of course, to always keep it kind with EarthKind. For additional information about Stay Away products, please visit earthkind.com. Media interested in setting up an interview with Kari Warberg Block to learn more about her all-natural pest prevention techniques, please contact Sara White at sara@adinnyc.com or 212-693-2152. About EarthKind Founded by leading pest prevention expert Kari Warberg Block, EarthKind is a pioneer in natural prevention for families and households everywhere. Its line of high performance, plant-based pest repellent products provide kind and effective ways to get rid of insects, pests and mice, while bringing inviting smells into your home. All EarthKind products are sourced from American farms and designed by inventive artists, scientists and engineers who care about the earth. EarthKind products are made in the USA and the company provides handicapped individuals with meaningful employment. Kari was named to the EY Entrepreneurial Winning Woman Class of 2012, 2013 ND SBA Small Business Person of the Year and National Second Runner Up. Her latest product, Stay Away was the winner of the 2015 NEXTY Peoples Choice Award for Best New Product of the Year. Learn more at EarthKind.com and on social media: Eastern Canyon Team will move to the Perfect Smile location Our shared vision of providing the highest quality care to our patients will make uniting our offices a success. Dr. Joel Stokes of Eastern Canyon Dental, today announced a long-term partnership with Perfect Smile Dental, beginning January 1, 2019. Under the terms of the partnership, Dr. Joel Stokes practice - Eastern Canyon Dental, his staff; and patients will move to Perfect Smile Dentals offices and become known by that name. The partnership aims to enhance patient experience and expand availability. Starting in the new year, all Eastern Canyon patient records will be automatically forwarded to Perfect Smile Dental, and all patients will be referred to Perfect Smile Dentals office, located less than one mile down the street at 8965 S. Eastern Ave., Suite 100. All patients will be able to see Dr. Stokes and members of his team at the new office. It is with great pleasure that we announce this partnership between Eastern Canyon Dental and Perfect Smile. I look forward to a smooth transition and being able to share this offices resources and talents with my current patients, said Dr. Stokes. Our shared vision of providing the highest quality care to our patients will make uniting our offices a success. Dr. Stokes, who dreamt of becoming a dentist since he was thirteen, received his training from the School of Dentistry at The University of The Pacific, San Francisco where he holds the title of Doctor of Dental Surgery. Dr. Stokes has completed hundreds of hours of continuing education, emphasizing in preventative, restorative and cosmetic dentistry. Dr. Stokes expertise in general and cosmetic dentistry and impressive 40 years of experience is a huge asset to the Perfect Smile team, said Dr. Matthew Welebir, founder of P3 Dental Group. We welcome him, his team and his patients to Perfect Smile and sharing his approach to comprehensive care with our patients in the Las Vegas area. Former Eastern Canyon patients may visit Perfect Smile Dentals website, http://www.perfectsmilelasvegas.com/ or call their office at (702) 387-6453 for more information or to book an appointment. About P3 Dental Group P3 Dental Group is a rapidly growing group dental practice affiliated with Smile Brands Inc. Founded by Dr. Matthew Welebir in 2003, P3 Dental has been delivering quality care to Las Vegas area residents. With five convenient general dentistry locations and two co-located specialty centers, P3 Dental Group provides state-of-the-art general and specialty care, including: preventative care, periodontal care, restorative care, cosmetic care, Invisalign, dental implants, oral surgery, and sedation dentistry. Their mission is to create long-term patient relationships by making dental visits convenient, affordable and stress-free. P3 relies on Smile Brands to provide world-class business support services so they can focus on delivering highly personalized patient care. Representatives with Los Angeles-based Vitamin T are excited to announce the 2019 Talent Calendar, where artists from across the globe submitted their work for consideration, vying for a final spot in the fourteen pieces to be featured. The yearly talent calendar, now in its twenty-first year, is highly anticipated among Vitamin T and Aquent customers. Inclusion in the calendar is a matter of prestige for the artists, whose work will also be featured throughout company communication, in addition to the printed version atop customers desktops. According to Vitamin T President Susie Hall, "We are proud to represent amazing talent with diverse creative skills and even more pleased to share their work with our clients around the globe, who eagerly await our calendar each year. We look forward to another year of building meaningful relationships that last, and our Talent Calendar is one more way to connect our customers through design." This years calendar reflects the broad diversity of creative talent represented by Aquent and Vitamin T. From digital drawings to watercolor painting, nature photography to photo-realistic artwork, the diverse mediums represented show the wide-range of skills the talent they represent possess. Artists from this years calendar are from a wide range of locations including Amsterdam; Tokyo; New York City; Paris, London; Austin, TX; Sydney, Australia; and other cities worldwide. To see the featured works, please visit the Talent Calendar website. Any request to use these images should be submitted to Vitamin T. Use of the art is strictly prohibited without authorization from the artist. For more information on Vitamin T, visit https://vitamintalent.com/what-we-do and https://vitamintalent.com/blog/ About Vitamin T Vitamin T is an innovative creative and marketing talent agency for some of the worlds biggest and fastest moving brands. We combine technology and best-in-class recruiting practices to understand your unique needs and provide you with cutting-edge creative and digital talent, FAST. And we back up everything we do with a 110% money-back guarantee. We also provide subsidized medical, dental, and vision benefits, as well as a 401(k) plannot to mention free online training through Aquent Gymnasium. To learn more, please visit: https://vitamintalent.com. Contact Details: Tim Donnelly, Media Contact Phone: 323.475.7372 Email: tdonnelly(at)vitamintalent.com Address: Vitamin T 5670 Wilshire Blvd #1000 Los Angeles, CA 90036 Web: https://vitamintalent.com Counselor Realty, one of Minnesotas most reputable Real Estate companies, announced today it has hired Nick Dreher as its new Director of Growth and Development as it aims to strengthen its profile in the Minnesota and Wisconsin real estate market. In his new role, Dreher will be charged with re-energizing the Counselor brand both internally as a culture leader and externally as a brand ambassador. We are very excited to welcome Nick to the Counselor family where he will be a perfect fit, said Andy Barnes, CEO/President of Counselor Realty of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Nick has built strong relationships with many of our agents already and they are extremely energized to have him join our team. Dreher said that Counselors business model and commitment to its agents is what drew him to the new position. I am so excited to tell the Counselor story and delineate what sets us apart from others in the industry, said Dreher. I am thrilled to begin rejuvenating the Counselor Realty brand in a number of ways. Dreher added that the unique Co-op approach Counselor takes was one of many reasons he came onboard. This business model is unmatched in the Twin Cities and nobody knows about it, he said. By building the brand we hope to show customers and prospective agents how unique and rewarding being a part of Counselor can be. The Counselor way, Barnes said, is an internal structure that supports Counselor agents both in terms of collaboration and in terms of financial incentive. We are all here to help each other. Its not a competition. We offer a family dynamic where everyone can succeed, added Barnes. For Dreher, who most recently worked in the mortgage industry, joining Counselor was something he had thought about for some time. In my past positions, I could see the challenges Counselor had, but I wasnt quite close enough to provide the support and skills I have, said Dreher. This opportunity matches my skill-set and a desire to return this company to a visible leader in the local real estate market. With a renewed commitment to culture, education, innovation and good old fashioned customer service, we have all the components of success About Counselor Realty: Counselor Realty began more than 50 years ago with a handful of successful real estate agents when they made the connection between offering superior service and directing their own business. They created a company owned by the real estate agents themselves, so they could offer this connection to their clients. This concept proved so effective that the handful has grown to hundreds of owner and non-owner real estate agents in multiple offices and satellite locations throughout the Minnesota and Wisconsin real estate markets. The prime purpose of Counselor Realty is to develop experienced agents so that customers and clients receive superior service and value. For more information please visit https://www.counselorrealty.com/ . CNA Diagnostics Inc. (the Company or CNAD) is pleased to announce the results of its recent blind study as part of its development of a new human sepsis diagnostic screen test. The CNA Rapid Sepsis Dx blind results are better than anything available in the market today both in terms of test accuracy and how early a diagnostic result can be obtained, said Dr. Christoph Sensen, CSO of CNAD. We believe this test will have a profound positive impact on worldwide healthcare systems and patient outcomes. This blind study, completed with a European clinical trial partner, the Medical University of Graz, consisted of 101 samples from 46 patients from a geographic location unrelated to the initial test development. Results of the CNA Rapid Sepsis Dx tests are as follows: Proof of Concept Study (unblinded): Sensitivity: 93.2% Specificity: 89.0% Study size: 153 Patients Days before symptoms: N/A Diagnosis time: 4 hour turnaround. Blind Study: Sensitivity: 90.6% Specificity: 82.6% Study size: 46 Patients Days before symptoms: Up to 3 days before Diagnosis time: 4 hour turnaround. Both studies used the same 24 DNA biomarkers and same proprietary neural network algorithms for diagnostic decision making. The biomarkers and proprietary algorithms allow for diagnosis of sepsis up to three days before symptoms appeared. The results achieved exceed any commercially available sepsis diagnostic test. Included in the unblinded study are sepsis samples with fungal, Gram-negative bacterial and Gram-positive bacterial pathogens, as well as control samples with non-sepsis disease conditions such as influenza, lymphoma and preeclampsia. The blind study involved patients at high risk of developing sepsis, and includes bacterial sepsis samples with Gram-negative and Gram-positive pathogens, unidentified positive culture and diagnosis without positive culture. The samples had been collected over time, including before and after a surgical procedure, with the control samples from the patients discharged without sepsis after a surgery and the sepsis samples of those patients eventually diagnosed with sepsis after a surgery. The results of these two studies form the overall proof of concept that indicates the CNA Rapid Sepsis Dx test can accurately diagnose sepsis days before symptoms appear with the use of standard and cost effective PCR based diagnostic equipment. A diagnostic decision can be made within 4 hours from blood draw to patient results. CNAD is presently optimizing the test which management believes will lead to improved performance over the blind results that are being published in reputable scientific journals. CNADs commercial variant of the test is expected to use fewer biomarkers. CNAD is also developing its sepsis test to accurately differentiate between bacteremia and fungaemia in the days before symptoms develop, and is planning to conduct a fully independent, multiplexed based, validation study with a European clinical trial partner in early 2019. The Company has contracted with Wayne State University to conduct a U.S. based clinical trial in 2019 similar to the European trials described above. The U.S. based study will support FDA clearance and commercialization of CNA Rapid Sepsis Dx in the United States. Sepsis impacts the lives of >30M people annually and kills >6M globally. It is one of the largest costs to the U.S. and global healthcare systems. The early diagnosis of sepsis when coupled with early treatment reduces a hospitals overall cost of treatment, leads to improved patient outcomes, improves compliance with insurance coding for reimbursement claims, and contributes to a reduction of sepsis impact to a hospitals environment. About CNA Diagnostics: CNA Diagnostics Inc. is a molecular diagnostics company focused on the development of diagnostic tests for the early detection of the presence of disease in humans and animals (mammalians). Test development is focused on disease stages prior to the onset of observable clinical symptoms, which currently cannot be detected reliably with existing commercially available methods. The Company commercializes its tests primarily by licensing its technology to strategic partners. Forward-Looking Information Advisory Certain information in this press release is forward-looking within the meaning of certain securities laws, and is subject to important risks, uncertainties and assumptions. This forward-looking information includes, among other things, information with respect to grant funding and related projects, scientific studies and results, assumptions about future economic conditions and courses of action, and the Company's beliefs, plans, expectations, anticipations, estimates and intentions. The words may, could, should, would, suspect, outlook, believe, anticipate, estimate, expect, intend, plan, target and similar words and expressions are used to identify forward-looking information. The forward-looking information in this material change report describes the Company's expectations as of the date of this news release and accordingly, is subject to change after such date. Readers should not place undue importance on forward-looking information and should not rely upon this information as of any other date. While the Company may elect to, it does not undertake to update this information at any particular time. Dr. Meryl Joerg Adult acne requires treatment. Fortunately, we have increasing options that include alternatives to antibiotics. An increasing number of adults can no longer count on pimple-free skin as a perk of aging. Adult acne is on the rise, notes Dr. Meryl Joerg, a dermatologist with Advanced Dermatology PC. And it can carry serious psychological tolls: depression and disruption of our ability to fully participate in life. The statistics are staggering: In the United States, the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) reports that as many as 50 million people have acne, which in its severe form can be disfiguring and leave scars. While researchers are still piecing together the puzzle of what causes the condition, we know genetics and hormones are involved. Most adults with acne are women, who experience hormonal fluctuations as they age. Overall, 15 percent of women experience acne and they count for one in three acne-related visits to the dermatologist. For these patients, research shows that acne can be more distressing than it is for younger people. (cause even deeper levels of distress than for young people.) Clearly, observes Dr. Joerg, adult acne requires treatment. Fortunately, we have increasing options that include alternatives to antibiotics. Antibiotics have been a front line treatment due to the role of the bacteria p. acnes. If our skins regenerative cycle is disrupted, explains Dr. Joerg, sebum, the skins oil, can trap dead skin cells and an acne lesion (a pimple) forms. And if we have too much p. acnes a normally occurring skin bacteria this triggers an inflammatory cascade that causes more serious acne. If antibiotics are to be used, the AAD recommends that patients be prescribed limited courses and that antibiotics be paired with other treatments. Our understanding of the potential for antibiotic-resistant bacteria underscores the need for other options, says Dr. Joerg. Fortunately, there are many effective non-antibiotic treatments available. With that in mind, Dr. Joerg makes the following suggestions: 6 Tips to Clear Adult Acne without Antibiotics: 1. Learn the ABCs of the OTCs: For adults with mild to moderate acne, says Dr. Joerg, there are very effective non-antibiotic over-the-counter treatments. Some like benzoyl peroxide address the bacteria. Others like salicylic acid address clogged pores. Often a dual approach is effective. But it can take up to two months for these medications to make a difference, so being patient is important. 2. Treat problem skin with a gentle touch: We cant scrub acne away, observes Dr. Joerg. In fact, over-cleansing will exacerbate problem skin by stripping essential oils. Using gentle, non-soap cleansers is key, as is moisturizing. Patients should look for the term non-comedogenic, which means that the product has been designed so that it doesnt clog pores. 3. For serious acne, consider seeing a doctor: Typically, over-the-counter treatments are not suited for serious acne, explains Dr. Joerg. This is when the dermatologist can help. We have a range of non-antibiotic treatments, from prescription-level topical applications to procedures such as lasers. For severe acne, we can also prescribe the oral retinoid isotretinoin, which has unmatched success though patients need to be aware of its side effects. An experienced dermatologist can help adults make informed choices and find relief. 4. For women, hormones can help: Our understanding of hormones role, states Dr. Joerg, has supported our ability to use combined oral contraceptives to treat women. Modulating the levels of female hormones can adjust the androgens that are tied to acne. 5. Remember: Acnes after-effects can be treated, too: Acne can result in scarring and discoloration, notes Dr. Joerg. Procedures such as lasers and chemical peels can help alleviate the damage. 6. Stay posted: New treatments are on the horizon: Its exciting, says Dr. Joerg. Research is giving us a nuanced understanding of the biochemical processes involved, which will hopefully open the doors to new non-antibiotic ways to treat and prevent acne. The idea that acne is an adolescent skin problem, concludes Dr. Joerg, is a myth. The good news is we can treat it and we dont have to rely on antibiotics to do so. Meryl Joerg, M.D., is board certified dermatologist with Advanced Dermatology P.C. Advanced Dermatology P.C. and the Center for Laser and Cosmetic Surgery (New York & New Jersey) is one of the leading dermatology centers in the nation, offering highly experienced physicians in the fields of cosmetic and laser dermatology as well as plastic surgery and state-of-the-art medical technologies. http://www.advanceddermatologypc.com. Get Car Insurance Quotes Online And Save Money Online car insurance quotes will help drivers find affordable coverage. It only takes several minutes to fill in questionnaires, but you can save hundreds of dollars, said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company. Compare-autoinsurance.org has released a new blog post that highlights the importance of online car insurance quotes and how they can help drivers find cheaper auto insurance. Car insurance companies have different algorithms of determining rates. That makes prices vary a lot between carriers and increases the necessity of using online quotes. Online quotes provide price estimates, allowing the users to select a coverage plan that will meets his financial needs. The blog explains why drivers should use multiple online quotes, not just one or two quotes. Brokerage websites allow drivers to get in contact with multiple companies licensed to sell coverage in a particular ZIP code. When getting online quotes, it is possible to preview paid-in-full costs, for how many discounts the driver can potentially qualify for and how much will it save. Online tools allow drivers to customize multiple coverage parameters, thus making the coverage cheaper or more expensive. For example, online users can modify the deductible levels and the price will be updated. The same goes for selecting liability coverage, purchasing add-ons or selecting addition medical payments. Online quotes are free and do not oblige the user to buy coverage. In fact, insurance companies encourage drivers to get estimates. Some of them even offer a discount for those who got discounts and bought coverage after that. Comparing prices online is the best way to find cheaper coverage. It only takes several minutes to fill a form and receive estimates. By comparing multiple quotes for the same coverage options, drivers can make an educated choice, in terms of both price and quality of the services. For more car insurance info and money-saving tips, please visit http://compare-autoinsurance.org Compare-autoinsurance.org is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc. As many on our panel point out, colleges can work to destigmatize mental health problems around their campuses by talking about these issues openly and providing the necessary support services to accommodate their students. BestColleges, a leading provider of college planning resources and higher education research, welcomed a panel of experts in mental health and counseling to discuss the academic implications and institutional issues surrounding mental health among college students. This discussion was the subject of the fifth and final publication in a series dedicated to examining student educational barriers in the United States. Recent studies show that mental health is one of the most predominant concerns for college students. According to the National College Health Assessment, over half of college students report feeling overwhelmingly anxious during their studies, while 20% report feeling so depressed that its difficult to function and complete academic and social activities. In response to this growing issue, BestColleges and experts -- including mental health professionals and college counselors -- discussed how schools can increase their support services and disability accommodations to enable learners who struggle with mental health issues to excel at the same level as their peers and graduate with a college degree. In many cases, students struggle because their school lacks adequate mental health resources such as counseling and psychiatric services. This is a major concern for both parents sending their children off to college for the first time and for students dealing with the many stressors of college life, said Stephanie Snider, Director of BestColleges. As many on our panel point out, colleges can work to destigmatize mental health problems around their campuses by talking about these issues openly and providing the necessary support services to accommodate their students. The publication also addresses how students can discover and use various tools and support systems while developing coping skills to facilitate their transition into college. Snider continued, By building knowledge and communication channels with regard to their mental health issues, students can begin to get the help they need and overcome the stigmas surrounding mental health so they can succeed in college. To view the complete publication, please visit: https://www.bestcolleges.com/perspectives/college-barriers-mental-health/ Meet the Panel Janet Ferone, President, Ferone Educational Counseling Before even asking any questions, students should soak in the atmosphere and do a gut check of how they feel on the campus. Do they feel comfortable and welcomed, can they envision themselves on the campus? Dr. Arian Elfant, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist Someone with a mental health challenge should spend even more time thinking ahead about how the university experience might impact their overall state of mind. For some individuals, this means staying away from a rainy, cold climate. For others, it means ensuring a small class size. Dr. Mark Scholl, Associate Professor of Counseling, Wake Forest University I would encourage students to consider the overall climate of the university. Though it is important to consider the specific goals of a given student (such as attending a highly competitive university), some universities focus more on providing a supportive climate for students and are generally more student-centered. Rhonda Lesley, Director of Counseling Center, Missouri State University Speak up and ask about not only the type of care provided but evidence of the quality and satisfaction of mental health and counseling services. Many schools publish student satisfaction and outcome data and comparing this info, school by school can help you in making a better informed decision. Katie DiMuzio, Partnerships Manager, Zencare.com Struggling with a mental health issue or disability doesnt mean you cant survive and thrive in college! Given the proper tools and resources to succeed, you might be surprised at how resilient and capable you are, even in a new and at times stressful environment like college. Anisha Makhija, Support Community Lead, Supportiv Mental health challenges are really common among students -- 1 in 4 young adults have a diagnosable mental illness. For those who dont believe they can attend college because of such challenges, I would suggest seeking out the systems and resources in place at prospective colleges that can enable you to manage your mental health and still give you the opportunities to do your best. Amelia Dillon, Director of Employment and Education Services, Open Sky Community Services If a student doesnt ask for help, then no one knows that he/she needs the help. At the college level, professors expect students to be independent and to ask for help if they need it. Professors will typically list their phone number, email address and office hours, so that students know how to reach them for extra support. Lauren Rigney, Licensed Mental Health Counselor If you do not want to disclose a disability, you do not have to. You can go your entire college career without anyone on campus needing to know your struggles. However, still know where services are in case you need them. You can always get help after your acceptance or anytime during your college career. About BestColleges BestColleges helps prospective students find the school that best meets their needs through proprietary research, user-friendly guides, and hundreds of unique college rankings. They also provide a wide array of college planning, financial aid, and career resources to help all students get the most from their education and prepare them for the world after college. They will be a great proponent of BACnet by training the next generation of building automation professionals. BACnet International and Zhijiang College, Zhejiang University of Technology, signed a cooperation agreement during the BACnet Interest Group China/Asias BACnet Golden Week. The agreement, signed on November 12, 2018 in Shaoxing, China, provides a way for Zhijiang College to fulfill its desire of providing education relating to the BACnet protocol in the region. Lin Peng Li, Dean of Zhijiang College, and Andy McMillan, president of BACnet International, signed the agreement which details the creation of a lab at the university providing students with the training ground to expand their knowledge of BACnet which will ultimately progress the protocols adoption. In support of the agreement, Delta Electronics will be donating equipment to the lab to create a true hands-on experience for the students. Were very excited to enter into this agreement with Zhijiang College, said McMillan. They will be a great proponent of BACnet by training the next generation of building automation professionals. This will only strengthen the industry and provide the opportunity for more building owners and operators to benefit from BACnet. Timing of the lab opening is currently being finalized. About BACnet International BACnet International is an industry association that facilitates the successful use of the BACnet protocol in building automation and control systems through interoperability testing, educational programs and promotional activities. BACnet International oversees operation of the BACnet Testing Laboratories (BTL) and maintains a global listing of tested products. The BACnet standard was developed by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) and has been made publicly available so that manufacturers can create interoperable systems of products. BACnet International complements the work of the ASHRAE standards committee and BACnet-related interest groups around the world. BACnet International members include building owners, consulting engineers and facility managers, as well as companies involved in the design, manufacture, installation, commission and maintenance of control equipment that uses BACnet for communication. For more information, please visit http://www.bacnetinternational.org. The AssuredPartners culture and strategic growth is exciting for the Northeast operations, said AssuredPartners Regional President Tom Kozera. We are motivated to continue to expand operations that will allow us to enhance our capabilities and client offerings. AssuredPartners, Inc. is pleased to announce the acquisitions of three prominent insurance agencies in Connecticut. Darton & Company, Inc. of Westport, Golden, ONeill & Gebhardt, Inc. of New Haven, and Torres Insurance Agency, Inc. of Chicopee, MA & Hartford, CT all joined AssuredPartners operations in December. Darton & Company and Golden, ONeill & Gebhardt are specialized personal lines agencies with a focus on high net worth clients and partnerships with the premier insurance carriers. The agencies are a powerful addition to AssuredPartners and will continue to operate under the leadership of Patrick Healy. The Torres Insurance Agency, under the leadership of William Dominguez and Bernard Halligan, will join with the AssuredPartners existing location in Rock Hill, CT while the Chicopee, MA office will remain open. With over 35 years of experience, the team at Torres helps clients evaluate their needs while customizing options for their personal and commercial needs. The AssuredPartners culture and strategic growth is exciting for the Northeast operations, said AssuredPartners Regional President Tom Kozera. We are motivated to continue to expand operations that will allow us to enhance our capabilities and client offerings. AssuredPartners has a strong presence throughout the state and Connecticut and we are pleased to now have expanded our operations in Rocky Hill and Westport, stated AssuredPartners President and COO Tom Riley. Evolution with these amazing companies is what makes AssuredPartners so exceptional. We are delighted to have the talent and additional resources added to our team in Connecticut, welcome to AssuredPartners. ABOUT ASSUREDPARTNERS, INC Headquartered in Lake Mary, Florida and led by Jim Henderson and Tom Riley, AssuredPartners, Inc. acquires and invests in insurance brokerage businesses (property and casualty, employee benefits, surety and MGUs) across the United States and in London. From its founding in March of 2011, AssuredPartners has grown to over $1.1 billion in annualized revenue and continues to be one of the fastest growing insurance brokerage firms in the United States with over 170 offices in 30 states and London. For more information, please contact Dean Curtis, CFO, at 407.708.0031 or dean.curtis(at)assuredpartners.com, or visit http://www.assuredpartners.com. Andrew Curran (Wesleyan), the writer of a popular book called "Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely," will discuss the book about well-known French philosopher Denis Diderot at the Princeton Library in January 2019. During the event, which will take place on Jan. 23 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., Curran will explain what drove him to create a biography of Diderot, a sympathetic and prophetic philosopher known for helping to build the modern worlds foundations. For instance, Diderot is known for helping to bring to fruition the first full Encyclopedie in the world. However, some of the most dauntless writing he did occurred behind the scenes. Diderots daring writing eventually got him in trouble; for example, he was thrown into prison for being an atheist in 1749. However, he did have some big fans in his day, including Catherine the Great, who supported Diderot financially and also welcomed him to visit St. Petersburg to discuss the idea of making the Russian empire a democracy. In his book, Curran talks about his iconoclastic viewpoints regarding art, morality, religion, theater, and politics. Curran also discusses his challenging relationship with philosopher Jean-Jacques Rosseau, as well as his intriguing correspondence with French writer Voltaire. Still, readers today can enjoy his best works, which he reserved for posterity. In several unpublished writings that were introduced following his death, Diderot vigorously challenged nearly all of the accepted truths of his century. For instance, he challenged the monarchys sanctity, the slave trades racial justification, and even human sexuality norms. Curran was recently highlighted in an article in The Guardian on Dec. 15, 2018, which discussed how Diderots political writing is now prescient during the era of President Donald Trump. The Princeton Library event at which Curran will take place at 65 Witherspoon Street in Princeton, New Jersey. The event has received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Shown above are our New Family Law Judges Lets us hope with this new transition, our Democratic judges improve upon and make better the foundation that the Republican have set up for them in our family law courts of Harris County, Texas. Busby & Associates, a Houston-based family law practice owned by Michael G. Busby Jr., this week reported on Harris Countys turning blue and its impact on the family law bar and litigants in the family law courts of Harris County, Texas. As a previously Republican controlled county within the United States, the results produced 55% Democrat and 45% Republican in voter turnout, which cause a sweep of the democrats into the Family Law Courts. Along with the newly elected Democratic Judges comes additional Associate Judges, Coordinators, and Court Reporters that will support and assist these new judges in their everyday activities and representation. A comprehensive list of courtroom personal has been releases in lawyer social media groups. The new County Judges have received the official names for their office appointees, as listed below. In the 245th District, Tristan H. Longino will be supported by Associate Judge Jim Cooper, Coordinator Rosie Diaz, and Court Reporter Barbara Nagji. In the 246th District, Judge Angela Graves-Harrington will be supported by Associate Judge Yahaira Quezada, Coordinator Astrid Rivas, and Court Reporter Delores Johnson. In the 247th District, Judge Janice Berg will be supported by Associate Judge Bethany Arnold, Coordinator Victor Almendarez, and Court Reporter Karen deShelter. In the 257th District, Judge Sandra Peake will be supported by Associate Judge Deborah Patterson, Coordinator Pamela Hunt, and Court Reporter Angela McBridge. In the 280th District, Judge Barbara Stalder will be supported by Coordinator Elsa Ramirez and Court Reporter Jill Bartek In the 308th District, Judge Gloria Lopez will be supported by Associate Judge Ryan Salfiti, Coordinator Jeanadrea Beard, and Court Reporter Phyllis Gonzales. In the 309th District, Judge Linda Dunson will be supported by Associate Judge Shailey Gupta-Brietzke, Coordinator Molly Mai, and Court Reporter Ehdi Sepulveda. In the 310th District, Judge Sonya Heath will be supported by Associate Judge Charles Collins, Coordinator Melina Schmidt, and Court Reporter Leticia Salas. In the 311th District, Judge Germaine Tanner will be supported by Associate Judge Frank Pierce, Coordinator Cindy Del Rio, and Court Reporter Chelsea Allen. Lastly, in the 312th District, Judge Chip Wells will be supported by Associate Judge Kimberly Baughman, Coordinator Laura Hersch, and Court Reporter Karen Bauer. Together, these teams of Judges and Associate Judges with similar backgrounds in family law, practice, and education, will work together to provide Democratic law interpretation and stability in the greater region, collaborating with working families and community members. Collectively, this is a group of people with expertise in family law issues, civil matters, and appeals, working together to bring much needed change and stability to the hard working, as well as the struggling families, here in our community, said Busby. At the same, there are several very young judges who have never been married, have no children. I have always felt that someone who has either been through a 9 month pregnancy, or lived with another who has, coupled with managed an estate with another, and then have their life turned upside down by a divorce, is better suited for the role of a family law judge, Says Busby. But in the end, more than several Republican judges sat on the bench having been unmarried with no children". In the last several years considerable criticism has come from the local bar on attendance from one Harris county family law judge. This one judge, who worked about 2 days a week for about the last 8 years, was endorsed by almost every Republican group in Harris county during the 2018 campaign. For me, that is enough to clean house and welcome the new democrats, give the thousands of families who lost time off work, paid for lawyers fees, and got no resolution from this court in Harris County, Texas. Lets us hope with this new transition, our Democratic judges improve upon and make better the foundation that the Republican have set up for them in our family law courts of Harris County, Texas. For more information regarding Busby & Associates, visit: https://www.busby-lee.com/. AerNos nanotechnology based gas sensors will be incorporated in a new wearable alert device that will detect certain exhaled gases indicative of hypoglycemic and hyperglycemic diabetic episodes. affordable sensor technology that could sense these gases in the breath AerNos, Inc. today announced that its nanotechnology based gas sensors will be incorporated in a new wearable alert device that will detect certain exhaled gases indicative of hypoglycemic and hyperglycemic diabetic episodes. Using a non-invasive, always-on alert system, AerBetic will enable a higher quality of life for the more than 460 million people worldwide diagnosed with diabetes. AerBetic will be demonstrated during CES 2019 in AerNos booth 42349, Sands Expo, January 8-11 in Las Vegas. Initially, AerBetic will be designed as wearable bracelets and pendants. The sensors detect target gases, indicative of blood glucose levels, at parts-per-billion levels. AerBetic connects to smart phones and smart home devices via Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi. A mobile app displays alert notifications based on sensor readings, and sends periodic reminders to check blood glucose levels. The app can also notify caregivers of patient status and will relay sensor and diagnostic information to a cloud-based data warehouse. AerBetic will use machine learning and artificial intelligence to continuously improve the performance of the sensors and fine-tune each unit to the individual patient. Until now, there has not been a compact, affordable sensor technology that could sense these gases in the breath, said Sundip Doshi, founder and CEO, AerNos. Leveraging our research and development of air quality sensors, weve designed a sensor that enables AerBetic to develop this diabetic alert solution that has the potential of positively impacting the millions of people living with diabetes. Many diabetics use specially trained dogs with a keen sense of smell to detect increases of Volatile Organic Compounds in the exhaled breath of their subjects with diabetes, said AerBetic CEO, Arnar Thors. Together with AerNos we have developed a wearable solution that will detect these same gas patterns and thus enable a higher quality of life for diabetics worldwide. # # # About AerNos AerNos, Inc. develops application-specific nano gas sensors based on its breakthrough and proprietary AerNS Technology to detect harmful gases in the environment. AerNos nano gas sensors are designed to be easily integrated into consumer and commercial product lines, such as standalone monitoring devices, non-stationary devices (e.g., drones, industrial robots, and construction equipment), modes of transportation, wearables, smartphones, and IoT. AerNos is the recipient of the 2018 Global Gas Sensors Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award from Frost & Sullivan. AerIoT, AerBand, AerCity, AerHome, and AerNos are trademarks of AerNos, Inc. For more information, please visit http://www.AerNos.com. You may also contact us at media(at)AerNos.com. About AerBetic Based in Birmingham, Alabama, AerBetic, Inc. develops wearable, non-invasive diabetes alert devices using nanotechnology based gas sensors. The company also provides a smartphone app that alerts and updates patients and caregivers. AerBetics mission is to improve the quality of life for people with diabetes and their caregivers worldwide. For more information visit http://www.AerBetic.com, follow @aerbetic on social media, or email info(at)aerbetic.com. NASHVILLE, Tenn., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP, a leading provider of legal services to the healthcare, financial services, technology, retail and hospitality industries, elected five partners from the firm's Healthcare Compliance & Operations, Finance & Restructuring Corporate, and Litigation & Dispute Resolution practices. "It's an honor to welcome these extraordinary attorneys to the partnership," said Waller chairman Matt Burnstein. "Their talent, experience and dedication to the firm's clients represent the very best of the legal profession." The new partners are: Caitlyn W. Page assists investor-owned hospitals and health systems in mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures, managing all aspects of the regulatory diligence which play key roles in healthcare transactions. She also advises specialty physician practices and outpatient services providers including ophthalmology practices, urgent care centers, ambulatory surgery centers and medical spas as they establish new practices and facilities across the country. She provides counsel on state corporate practice of medicine regulations, scope of practice rules for physicians and other practitioners, licensure requirements and other business formation issues as clients enter into new markets. Page earned her J.D. in 2011 from Vanderbilt University Law School. She received her B.A., cum laude, in 2008 from California State University, Fullerton. Jonah L. Price provides counsel to healthcare companies, financial services institutions, specialty lenders and private equity firms in domestic and cross-border acquisition financing, asset based lending, working capital financing, corporate restructuring and bankruptcy proceedings. Before joining Waller, Price gained extensive commercial finance experience in the New York offices of Proskauer Rose, LLP, Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Mayer Brown LLP. Price earned his J.D, cum laude, in 2006 from Indiana University Maurer School of Law. He received his B.A. in 1998 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Stephen Quinn assists clients across the healthcare industry in complex mergers and acquisitions and securities and corporate governance matters. His extensive transactional and securities experience spans hospitals and health systems, behavioral healthcare providers, physician practices, ambulatory surgery centers as well as private equity healthcare investors and specialty lenders. Quinn earned his J.D., summa cum laude, in 2011 from the University of Tennessee College of Law where he graduated Order of the Coif and served as editor-in-chief of Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law. He earned his B.A. in 2005 from Washington University in St. Louis. Wells Trompeter represents corporate clients, as well as executives, business owners, and other individuals in high-stakes government investigations and civil and criminal enforcement actions. Her experience includes assisting healthcare providers, hospital systems, universities, and defense contractors, in disputes with the government, up to and including federal False Claims Act matters. Within the healthcare context, Trompeter has helped clients secure reinstatement in federally-funded healthcare programs following Medicare exclusion. She has also successfully represented providers in matters involving Medicare reimbursement disputes. Trompeter earned her J.D., summa cum laude, in 2011 from the University of Tennessee College of Law where she graduated Order of the Coif. She earned her B.A. in 2007 from the College of Charleston. Joseph L. Watson is a commercial litigator with experience spanning a broad variety of industries. Watson represents real estate owners, developers and contractors in disputes related to construction defects and delays, payment disputes and construction lien issues. He also assists banks and financial services institutions in disputes involving commercial and consumer financial arrangements. Watson also provides counsel to manufacturers in high-profile litigation ranging from ERISA class actions to lawsuits brought in opposition to the construction of manufacturing facilities. Watson earned his J.D., with honors, in 2011 from the University of Tennessee College of Law where he graduated Order of the Coif. He received his B.A., with honors, in 2007 from Furman University. About Waller With approximately 250 attorneys in Austin, Birmingham, Chattanooga, Memphis and Nashville, Waller assists clients in complex transactional, regulatory and litigation matters. The firm has built a national reputation for its work in healthcare, financial services, retail and hospitality, and has extensive experience in manufacturing, real estate, technology and other industries. For more information, please visit www.wallerlaw.com. Related Links Waller SOURCE Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP Related Links http://www.wallerlaw.com WASHINGTON, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Antimicrobials Working Group (AWG) announced today the addition of VenatoRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to its coalition of companies with the mission to combat drug resistant infections and spur life-saving innovations. This new addition brings AWG's membership to 15 antimicrobial drug companies. VenatoRx is a world leader in antibacterial and antiviral drug research and development. The Company's lead product, VNRX-5133, is an injectable broad-spectrum beta-lactamase inhibitor (BLI) that features uniquely potent and selective activity against both serine- and metallo-beta lactamases. VenatoRx believes that VNRX-5133, in a fixed combination with the fourth generation cephalosporin, cefepime, has the potential to provide a best-in-class broad-spectrum treatment option for infections due to carbapenem resistant pathogens including carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) and carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa (CRPA), bioterror pathogens such as Burkholderia spp. and Salmonella spp. engineerable with serine- and metallo-beta-lactamases, and suspected polymicrobial infections caused by both gram-negative and gram-positive pathogens. "VenatoRx's dedication to the discovery and development of new medicines to treat drug resistant infections has been recognized with funding awards from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Wellcome Trust, CARB-X, and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) as well as private equity investments from Versant Ventures, Abingworth, and Foresite Capital," said Jeffrey Stein, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Cidara Therapeutics and Chairman of AWG. "We are happy to have VenatoRx join AWG and believe their commitment to solving the global health problems created by the spread of drug resistant infections will be a great benefit to our coalition's efforts to improve the landscape for emerging infectious disease companies." "The antibiotics industry is experiencing significant commercial and reimbursement headwinds that are collectively driving down valuations and discouraging big pharmaceutical companies from investing in the sector," said Christopher J. Burns, Ph.D., Founder, President and CEO of VenatoRx. "It's critical to have an organization like AWG that can assemble a coalition of companies in the space in order to communicate like-minded goals: the improvement of the overall environment for antimicrobial drug and diagnostic development in order to provide physicians and their patients best-in-class, innovative infectious disease treatment options. We look forward to partnering with AWG and its member companies to affect change and facilitate a win-win environment for all stakeholders in the fight against resistant bacteria." All pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies developing new antimicrobial therapeutics and diagnostic devices are eligible for consideration of membership in AWG. If you are interested in learning more about becoming a member of AWG, please contact us here. About VenatoRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. VenatoRx is a private pharmaceutical company that is focused on the discovery and development of novel anti-infectives to treat multi-drug-resistant (MDR) bacterial infections and hard-to-treat viral infections. VenatoRx's lead product, VNRX-5133, is an injectable broad-spectrum beta-lactamase inhibitor (BLI) that directly inhibits all four Ambler classes of beta-lactamases. In addition, VenatoRx has a broad pipeline of preclinical programs, including a broad-spectrum orally bioavailable BLI, a novel class of Penicillin-Binding Protein (PBP) inhibitors that are impervious to beta-lactamase-driven resistance, and novel antiviral agents. For more information, please visit www.venatorx.com. About The Antimicrobials Working Group AWG was founded in 2012 with the vision of utilizing collective power to improve the regulatory, investment, and commercial environment for emerging infectious disease companies. Today, AWG is comprised of fifteen antimicrobials companies: Amplyx Pharmaceuticals, Aridis Pharmaceuticals, Cidara Therapeutics Inc., ContraFect Corporation, Entasis Therapeutics Inc., Iterum Therapeutics Ltd., Melinta Therapeutics Inc., Motif Bio PLC, Nabriva Therapeutics US Inc., Paratek Pharmaceuticals Inc., Qpex Biopharma, Inc., SCYNEXIS Inc., Spero Therapeutics, Inc., Summit Therapeutics plc, and VenatoRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. For more information, visit: www.antimicrobialsworkinggroup.org About The Conafay Group The Conafay Group, led by Stephen R. Conafay, Principal, is a life-sciences government relations firm based in Washington D.C. that serves as Washington counsel and coalition manager for AWG. For more information, visit: www.conafaygroup.com SOURCE Antimicrobials Working Group (AWG) Related Links http://www.antimicrobialsworkinggroup.org HEFEI, China, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- VariFlight, a leading aviation data technology provider, has released the latest Global Airports and Airlines On-time Performance (OTP) Report for 2018 based on its comprehensive flight database between January 1 and December 31, 2018. The study revealed that in 2018, Japan's Osaka Itami International Airport (IATA Code: ITM) topped large global airports in on-time departure performance, while Japan Airlines was the most punctual major airline. The report investigated punctuality (flights that departed or arrived within 30 mins of schedule are taken as on-time) of airports and airlines worldwide in the past year in terms of region and size. Moreover, it also revealed the on-time arrival performances of major airline alliances and the most on-time air routes. Below are some findings of the report: 10 most punctual large airports (departure performance): Itami Airport, New Chitose Airport, Honolulu Airport, Haneda Airport, Portland Airport, Pulkovo Airport, Brasilia Airport, Tocumen Airport, Fukuoka Airport, Osaka Airport. Itami Airport, New Chitose Airport, Honolulu Airport, Haneda Airport, Portland Airport, Pulkovo Airport, Brasilia Airport, Tocumen Airport, Fukuoka Airport, Osaka Airport. 10 most punctual medium-sized airports (departure performance): Kaohsiung Airport, Sendai Airport, Miyazaki Airport, Mohammed V Airport, Kona Airport, Tenerife North Airport, Nagoya Airport, Kagoshima Airport, Kahului Airport, Minsk Airport. Kaohsiung Airport, Sendai Airport, Miyazaki Airport, Mohammed V Airport, Kona Airport, Tenerife North Airport, Nagoya Airport, Kagoshima Airport, Kahului Airport, Minsk Airport. 10 most punctual major airlines (arrival performance): Japan Airlines, Qatar Airways, All Nippon Airways, Emirates Airlines, Aeroflot Airlines, Royal Dutch Airlines, Iberia Airlines, Alitalia Airlines, Air New Zealand, Korean Air. Japan Airlines, Qatar Airways, All Nippon Airways, Emirates Airlines, Aeroflot Airlines, Royal Dutch Airlines, Iberia Airlines, Alitalia Airlines, Air New Zealand, Korean Air. 10 most punctual medium-sized airlines (arrival performance): Copa Air, Hawaiian Airlines, Singapore Airlines, TAM Airlines, Etihad Airways, Volaris, UTair, Bangkok Airways, Avianca Brazil, Royal Air Maroc. Copa Air, Hawaiian Airlines, Singapore Airlines, TAM Airlines, Etihad Airways, Volaris, UTair, Bangkok Airways, Avianca Brazil, Royal Air Maroc. The most punctual airlin e alliance s : Oneworld, Sky Team, Star Alliance . Oneworld, Sky Team, . The most punctual air route: New Chitose - Haneda. Backed by VariFlight's complete and accurate aviation data set, the VariFlight OTP report is one of the most trusted sources to identify on-time performance of the aviation industry. To read the full report, please click here to download or visit our official website www.variflight.com/en/. About VariFlight Founded in 2005, VariFlight is the leading brand providing aviation data services. Beginning with the issue of flight delays, VariFlight has spearheaded the realization of flight data transparency. In 2009, VariFlight released the first version of VariFlight mobile application and achieved the milestone of 100% coverage on domestic Chinese flights. VariFlight has started working on international flight data services since 2010, and we have covered 94% of the global commercial flight data by May 2017. VariFlight's data is used by over 300 million of travelers and thousands of leading businesses around the world. Lean more about us by visiting: www.VariFlight.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/VariFlight Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/variflight Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/variflight SOURCE VariFlight Related Links http://www.VariFlight.com TAIPEI, Taiwan, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Taiwan Civil Government (TCG), an educational and advocacy organization based in Taiwan, held a press conference to call upon the United States and the Republic of China (ROC) authorities to sign a new treaty resolving outstanding issues from World War II and addressing the international recognition of Taiwan. The Secretariat Cabinet Minister Shangfong Lin released a written statement outlining the TCG's position that the US-led coalition defeated the Japanese Empire (including Taiwan and Penghu) during World War II, and therefore continues to be the sole and best solution towards Taiwan's sovereignty. The TCG points out that on September 2, 1945, Allied Commander General MacArthur appointed Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek to represent the Allied forces in accepting the surrender of the Japanese military. On October 25, 1945, ROC occupied Taiwan and Penghu, which it has done ever since. The TCG further explained that on September 8, 1951, 48 countries signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty (SFPT) with Japan, which included several provisions on Taiwan, including the following Article: Article 23: The United States of America is the principal occupying Power of Japan (including Taiwan, Penghu). Notably, the ROC did not sign the SFPT, and therefore Taiwan was in anarchy, the TCG explained. According to the laws of war, a Taiwanese government must be established by the people of the occupied territories. The ROC, as an agent of the United States, did not help the Taiwanese people establish a Taiwanese government; therefore violating the laws of war by establishing the Taiwan Chief Executive Office. A recent diplomatic conversation illustrates the TCG's argument. In a November 14, 2018 meeting, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin, expressed that Japan and Russia will elevate their mutual trust and resolve the territorial disputes stemming from a post WWII "joint declaration" in 1956. In dispute are four islands referred to as the Northern Territories by Japan and the Southern Kuriles by Russia. One key issue in Russia returning the islands to Japan is that no U.S. military bases will be built on the islands. Abe and Putin stressed that while World War ll ended more than 70 years ago, they recognize the outstanding territorial issues, and, they should be resolved and not left for future generations to address. Similarly, Formosa (Taiwan) and the ROC were both participants in World War ll. It has been 73 years since the end of that war, but no Peace Treaty has been signed between the US, ROC and TCG, regarding Taiwan's sovereignty. The TCG argued it must be resolved now to avoid leaving this problem to future generations. At the press conference, the TCG appealed to the United States, the principal occupying Power, that TCG should sign a war-ending agreement and peace treaty with Kinmen and Matsu's ROC to conclude World War II, bringing peace to Taiwan and the world. For more information, visit www.taiwancivilgovernment.com SOURCE Taiwan Civil Government Related Links http://www.taiwancivilgovernment.com LONDON, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Synamedia, the largest independent video software provider, will bring its newest solutions to CES 2019, illustrating how pay-TV providers can migrate to the cloud at their own pace, and seamlessly. The company also unveiled new security software that combats the rapid rise in account sharing between friends and families, turning it instead into a new revenue-generating opportunity for operators. Synamedia is bringing to market effective solutions built to support customers wherever they are on their journey to deliver a blended broadcast and OTT multi-screen experience. Now an independent business, the company is committed to providing the world's most complete, secure and advanced end-to-end open video delivery solutions. Synamedia was formerly Cisco's Service Provider Video Software Solutions business. Its enviable portfolio of over 200 pay-TV and media customers includes AT&T, Charter, Comcast, Cox, Disney, Liberty Global, Rogers, Sky, Verizon and Vodafone. At the core of the Synamedia offerings is Foundation (formerly known as Evo), the pay-TV industry's most widely deployed platform across cable, satellite and IPTV. Additionally, Infinite allows blended broadcast-OTT services to be delivered from a cloud-based infrastructure. With a clearly defined migration roadmap, pay-TV customers using the Foundation hybrid broadcast platform can now deploy Infinite to embark on a smooth and measured transition to the cloud. At CES 2019, Synamedia will showcase its leading technologies and latest offerings, including: Credentials Sharing Insight is a new offering within the video security portfolio. It uses AI, machine learning and behavioral analytics to identify, monitor and analyze credentials sharing activity across consumer accounts. It allows operators to turn casual sharing into incremental revenue, as well as detect and apply enforcement procedures on fraudulent, for-profit credentials sharing accounts. Video Processing features Synamedia's patented low-latency ABR and Smart Rate Control that optimize IP video processing to match traditional broadcast quality, reliability and cost currently major challenges for IP video streaming. Synamedia's ABR solution uses patented technology to optimize the perceived quality of live streams. It includes machine learning techniques to further adapt the encoding quality target to match content characteristics. Foundation which manages and monetizes in-home experiences on a broad range of broadcast and hybrid-IP set top boxes (STBs) and media gateways including Android TV. Deployed by 40+ pay-TV operators, it offers a smooth migration path to Infinite and the cloud. A prime example of the power of Foundation is a first-of-a-kind integration of the Netflix application on the OSN Network. This integration enables: which manages and monetizes in-home experiences on a broad range of broadcast and hybrid-IP set top boxes (STBs) and media gateways including Android TV. Deployed by 40+ pay-TV operators, it offers a smooth migration path to Infinite and the cloud. A prime example of the power of Foundation is a first-of-a-kind integration of the Netflix application on the OSN Network. This integration enables: Consumers to gain convenient access to OTT content via a single application; The OTT provider obtains access to the pay-TV service provider market and the existing billing/payment relationship between the customer and pay-TV provider; The pay-TV operator continues to bring value to consumers via a familiar application, and can generate additional revenues when new subscribers sign up for OTT via their platform. Infinite is a fully integrated cloud service platform for pay-TV operators to process, secure, distribute and monetize premium video experiences on all devices including those available via Foundation. Infinite enables operators to take advantage of the cloud economy and re-capture subscriber share of wallet by offering products, such as Cloud DVR, that leverage new business models and OTT partnerships. It is designed to help operators attract new customers, reconnect cord cutters, and increase the life-time value of a subscriber base. At CES, Synamedia will showcase a joint demo with Amazon Web Services, using Alexa technology integrated into Infinite in order to provide consumers with voice activated recommendations and content information. "More and more of the consumer's share of the video wallet expands beyond traditional pay-TV, pointing operators to the enormous OTT opportunity. To protect and grow new revenue streams and boost their brand value, operators need to broaden and deepen existing subscriber engagement, and entice new audiences. To do so, the sometimes difficult first steps for many are to add integrated OTT services and avail offerings across all consumer devices, which can seem overwhelming. Our roadmap takes a step-by-step approach that makes it easy to extend operators' existing offerings and avoid any disruption to subscribers," said Yves Padrines, CEO of Synamedia. Synamedia will be in Chambertin 1 on the ground floor of the Wynn hotel. Appointments can be booked here. Synamedia's voice recommendation technology will also be shown in the Amazon booth, Venetian Ballrooms C-D. About Synamedia As an independent business, Synamedia is committed to providing the world's most complete, secure and advanced end-to-end open video delivery solution. Building on more than 30 years of expertise, the firm is the largest global provider of video solutions, trusted by over 200 top satellite DTH, cable, telco and OTT operators, content owners and broadcasters. Synamedia is backed by the Permira funds. Twitter: @synamediaSPVSS For press and analyst queries, please contact: Kelly Fitzgerald/Tracey Sheehy Breakaway Communications +1.917.731.5734 / +1.908.705.4596 [email protected] SOURCE Synamedia Related Links https://www.synamedia.com LAS VEGAS, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The StreetSmart Door, a collaborative effort between International Automotive Components Group (IAC) and AGC Automotive Europe, combines innovative technologies and advanced materials to increase occupant safety and driver awareness. The StreetSmart Door, in cooperation with FICOSA, a Panasonic subsidiary, is being introduced in the Panasonic booth at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas (January 8-11). The concept features seamlessly integrated, shaped, glass surfaces in the door panel, a display for a digital side camera monitoring system (CMS) and comfort and lighting controls. The system can support the full range of driving modes from personal to autonomous to ride-sharing, both for current and future multimedia applications. The crafted design includes an industry-first glass speaker, premium materials and dynamic ambient lighting for personalizing the cockpit environment. AGC's ultra-thin (0.5 mm) and highly shock-resistant glass features a coating that enhances both the cleanability and tactile feel of the touch screen. The elegantly curved lines and back-painted glass give it a unique and customizable finish. The industry-first, transparent audio glass speaker contributes not only a stunning design feature but also achieves reduced production complexity and a weight savings of about 50% compared with a conventional automotive speaker system. Additionally, the audio glass speaker treats passengers to a unique acoustic experience, diffusing the sound for an immersive surround-sound experience throughout the cockpit. The camera monitoring system features aerodynamic folding wings with high-dynamic range cameras, that replace the traditional external side mirrors and a tactile, optimally positioned 7-inch OLED displays inside the vehicle. The digital rear-view mirror offers users multiple safety advantages such as a broader field of vision, elimination of blind spots, anti-glare screens and night-time vision, among others. The multi-level, reconfigurable armrest display features tactile surfaces and haptic feedback for an intuitive, eyes-on-the-road user interface. "Integrating multiple innovations into production-ready interiors is IAC's strength. By leveraging our world-class research and development capabilities as well as our production network, we ensure that the craftsmanship and usability of the StreetSmart Door is easily adapted to different users' needs while still being able to efficiently and reliably supply to our OEM customers around the world," said Dave Pascoe, Chief Technical Officer for IAC. "Glass covered interfaces are being extended from smart devices to vehicle interiors. Tailored applications of interior glazing have the potential to optimize designs," said AGC Automotive Senior Vice President of Europe Jean-Marc Meunier. "AGC is a leading expert in shaping and processing thin glass that is multifunctional. This translates to a reduction in weight and packaging space, and the ability to simplify modular assemblies and provide a familiar user interface and experience," For more information: www.streetsmartdoor.com Note to the editors: IAC's StreetSmart Door expert Carter Cannon will be available for interviews at CES January 8-11 please contact IAC Communications to schedule a time. ABOUT IAC Headquartered in Luxembourg, International Automotive Components (IAC) Group is a leading global supplier of automotive components and systems, including instrument panels, console systems, door panels, headliners and overhead systems to automakers around the world. The company's 2017 sales were $4.4 billion. IAC has more than 160 years of expertise in the automotive interiors sector and it operates from more than 60 locations in 20 countries, employing more than 22,000 people globally. For more information, visit www.iacgroup.com. ABOUT AGC Automotive Europe Based in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium), AGC Automotive Europe is a member of AGC Glass Europe, which in turn is the European branch of AGC Group. The AGC Group, with Tokyo-based Asahi Glass Co., Ltd. at its core, is a world-leading supplier of flat, automotive and display glass, chemicals and other high-tech materials and components. AGC Automotive Europe specializes in production of windows (OEM and replacement) and interior glass for vehicle manufacturers. It also provides ready-to-assemble systems (fixation devices), higher value added functional systems (antennas, sensors, heating elements) and enhanced property glazing (improved thermal, sound and vision comfort). For more information go to: www.agc-automotive.com (automotive glass) or www.agc-glass.eu (corporate site). ABOUT Ficosa Ficosa is a global company devoted to the creation of high-technology vision, safety, efficiency and connectivity solutions for the industry, with the desire to contribute to society through our commitment to technological innovation, human values and energy efficiency. Founded in 1949 and based in Barcelona, Ficosa currently has more than 10,500 employees in 19 countries worldwide in Europe, North and South America, Asia and Africa, with consolidated sales of 1.208 billion in 2017. The rear-view system (interior/side mirror) is Ficosa's main business, known worldwide and recognized by top global OEMs. Ficosa has worked with Audi to launch, within the e-tron model, the first digital rear-view system that will hit the European market in late 2018. For more information go to: www.ficosa.com. Media Contacts IAC Group Julie Noyes USA: +1 248 455-4111 [email protected] AGC Automotive Europe Karine Druelle-Lips Belgium: +32 2 409 34 77 [email protected] SOURCE International Automotive Components Group (IAC) Related Links http://www.iacgroup.com SHANGHAI and BEIJING, Jan. 2, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Sinovant Sciences today announced that Dr. Xinan Chen, Executive Chairman, and Dr. Rae Yuan, President, will present an overview of the business at the 37th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, CA. The company's presentation is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. Pacific Time on January 10, 2019 at the Westin St. Francis. About Sinovant Sinovant is a Chinese biopharmaceutical company dedicated to conducting globally innovative biomedical R&D in China to meet the needs of patients in Greater China and around the world. Sinovant's mission is to develop and commercialize new medicines that address the most pressing public health challenges in China while simultaneously advancing Chinese biopharmaceutical research abroad. For further information, please visit www.sinovant.com. Contact Xinan Chen, MD Executive Chairman [email protected] SOURCE Sinovant Sciences Related Links http://www.sinovant.com BEDFORD, N.H. and SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Single Digits Inc. announced today that it has been acquired by GI Partners, a leading private equity firm. Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Bedford, NH, Single Digits provides secure managed wireless network solutions. The company's broadband authentication software platform allows property owners to tailor their wireless internet access to the specific needs of their guests and residents and is complemented by a full suite of service offerings, including upfront network design and installation, real-time network monitoring, and 24x7 call center support. Single Digits currently serves over 1,600 customers across the hospitality, student housing, MDU, transportation, and other end markets. "We look forward to our partnership with GI Partners to continue to grow the company, both organically and through acquisitions," commented Bob Goldstein, the company's co-founder and CEO. "We see numerous exciting growth avenues to expand the breadth of the company's relationships and product offerings, and we look forward to accelerating those initiatives and leveraging GI Partners' expertise in technology infrastructure, property management, and software as we enter our next chapter of growth." "We are confident that under the ownership of GI Partners, Single Digits will continue to deliver the highest quality customer service and industry-leading technology to our customers. We are now positioned to make new investments that will create scale, broaden our range of services, and enhance our current technology offerings," added co-founder and President Stephen Singlar. GI Partners' acquisition of Single Digits builds on the firm's extensive track record of investing in technology infrastructure and services. "Secure network management is an increasingly critical service to building owners and operators," said David Mace, Managing Director at GI Partners. "Single Digits has developed lasting relationships with leading hospitality brands and technology vendors to provide a software platform and full suite of services that improve the user experience. Single Digits' reputation as an industry leader in hospitality and student housing is well established and the company is positioned to continue to grow and innovate as customers' technology needs evolve. We are excited to work with management to continue growing the business over the coming years." Single Digits represents the sixth platform investment in GI Partners Fund V, a $2.8 billion private equity fund raised in 2017. As part of the transaction, Bregal Sagemount, a leading growth equity firm, will exit its investment in Single Digits. "We are excited by the momentum that the Single Digits team has built over the past few years, particularly on new product development and market expansion," said Daniel Kim, founding Partner at Bregal Sagemount. "We look forward to following their continued success in partnership with GI Partners in the years to come." Paul Hastings LLP acted as legal counsel to GI Partners. SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc. provided financial advice and Goodwin Procter LLP provided legal advice to Single Digits. About Single Digits Single Digits is a leading provider of High Speed Internet Access management and support solutions. The company offers a complete guest internet solution, including components of IP network design, engineering, professional services, ongoing maintenance, networking monitoring, multi-lingual support, revenue reporting and authentication tracking. For more information, please visit www.singledigits.com. About GI Partners GI Partners is a private investment firm based in San Francisco. The firm has raised over $17 billion in capital from leading institutional investors across the globe. GI Partners' private equity team focuses on investments in the IT Infrastructure, Healthcare, Software, and Services sectors. For more information on GI Partners and its entire portfolio, please visit www.gipartners.com. About Bregal Sagemount Bregal Sagemount is a growth-focused private capital firm with $1.7 billion in committed capital. Founded in 2012, the firm provides flexible capital and strategic assistance to market-leading companies in high-growth sectors across a wide variety of transaction situations. Bregal Sagemount invests up to $150 million per transaction into both control and non-control positions and will make equity and/or debt investments. Targeted sectors include digital infrastructure, software, healthcare IT services, business and consumer services, and financial technology / specialty finance. For more information, please visit www.sagemount.com. Media Contacts : Chris Tofalli Gretchen Robinson Chris Tofalli Public Relations LLC GI Partners Investor Relations 914-834-4334 415-688-4866 [email protected] [email protected] SOURCE GI Partners Related Links http://www.gipartners.com SAN FRANCISCO BAY, Calif., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Simulation Studios (SimStudios) has today announced that one of its prestigious clients, Hogan Lovells, was a finalist in the 2018 Financial Times North America Innovative Lawyer Awards. SimStudios' innovative business simulation solution garnered the international law firm "Commended" and "Highly Commended" slots on the Financial Times awards shortlist. The computer software developed by SimStudios enabled Hogan Lovells to successfully implement a training strategy for its new equity partners. SimStudios' computer simulations put the participants through 60 strategic decision-making scenarios, providing real-time feedback as they competed in teams to win clients. Participants stated that the program was an intense, rewarding boost for their future careers. Hogan Lovells, was a finalist in the 2018 Financial Times North America Innovative Lawyer Awards. "Hogan Lovells is the first law firm to implement our business simulation training strategy," said Bill Hall, SimStudios founder and President of Learning and Strategy. "We're pleased that they selected us as their training vehicle." Hogan Lovells sought SimStudios' expertise in order to provide a high-impact learning curve for the firm's equity partners. Hall worked closely with Hogan Lovells' Global Chief Learning Officer, Heather Bock, to create the Transition to Equity leadership development simulation specifically for the firm. According to Bock's personal endorsement on SimStudios' website, she highly commends Hall as a master of multicultural nuances with a flair for interacting with stakeholders. "He was a terrific strategic partner for us in developing a leadership development course that engaged our participants and resulted in high impact learning," she stated. "I look forward to working with Bill again." Hall founded SimStudios after years of experience at high-tech companies such as AOL, Apple, Nortel, and Skype. His positions in the upper ranks of these companies allowed him to observe how effective leadership strategies, coupled with employee alignment initiatives, could transform simple business strategies into successful ones. His solution was to create a computer-simulated strategy to train companies in the what, why, and how of leadership in a way that delivered a demonstrable impact on business performance. Now, more than a decade later, SimStudios has helped high-ranking companies around the world produce transformative results with its innovative business development simulations. SimStudios client Hogan Lovells is a marriage of two branches: Hogan & Hartson in the US and Lovells in Europe. The two firms merged on May 1, 2010. They're now an internationally acclaimed top-ten firm with offices in Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Americas and the Middle East. About SimStudios Simulation Studios is a boutique corporate training firm that creates highly engaging strategic tools for Fortune 500 corporations and small-medium sized businesses. SimStudios' proprietary training programs integrate a company's leadership models that can be used to spark change within leadership programs. Founded in 2003, SimStudios offers the perfect training solution for companies of all sizes. For more information, visit www.simstudios.com. Media Contact: Jennifer Rodriguez Firecracker PR (888) 317-4687 [email protected] SOURCE Simulation Studios Related Links http://www.simstudios.com ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Jan. 2, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Directors of PNM Resources (NYSE: PNM) announces the addition of two new directors, Vicky A. Bailey and James A. Hughes. The terms for both directors began Jan. 1, 2019. Ms. Bailey has extensive knowledge of the electric utility industry and nuclear energy operations, including significant state and federal regulatory and public policy experience. She served as a commissioner of the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), a trustee of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), and as president and as a director of PSI Energy, Inc., Indiana's largest electric utility, now Duke Indiana. Ms. Bailey was appointed as Assistant Secretary at the United States Department of Energy for both International Affairs and Domestic Policy, and she was appointed to the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future that conducted a review of nuclear policies and activities. Ms. Bailey currently serves as president of Anderson Stratton International, LLC, a strategic consulting and governmental relations firm. She also serves as a director of two publicly traded companies: Cheniere Energy, Inc. and Equitrans Midstream Corporation. She previously served as a director of publicly traded EQT Corporation and of Cleco Corporation while it was publicly traded, prior to its acquisition by private entities. Ms. Bailey also currently serves on the boards of numerous non-profit entities, including: Battelle Memorial Institute, a non-profit applied science and technology organization that manages several of the National labs across the country for the Department of Energy, Resources for the Future, United States Energy Association, World Energy Council and American Association of Blacks in Energy. Mr. Hughes' corporate executive experience in the renewable energy and energy storage sectors is highly relevant in the transition to cleaner, more sustainable energy at PNM, the New Mexico regulated utility subsidiary of PNM Resources. He is currently the CEO and managing director of Prisma Energy LLC, a private entity focused on investments in energy storage, and is the former CEO and director of publicly traded First Solar, Inc. Mr. Hughes currently serves as a corporate director of: Alcoa Corporation, a publicly traded producer of bauxite, alumina and aluminum products; Eos Energy Storage, a private company developing novel, low-cost energy solutions for the electric utility and transportation industries; and TPI Composites Inc., a publicly traded manufacturer of composite wind blades for wind turbines and composite products for the transportation market. Mr. Hughes is the former chairman and serves as a director of the Los Angeles Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. More information on the PNM Resources Board of Directors can be found at: http://www.pnmresources.com/corporate-governance/board-of-directors.aspx. Background: PNM Resources (NYSE: PNM) is an energy holding company based in Albuquerque, N.M., with 2017 consolidated operating revenues of $1.4 billion. Through its regulated utilities, PNM and TNMP, PNM Resources has approximately 2,580 megawatts of generation capacity and provides electricity to more than 773,000 homes and businesses in New Mexico and Texas. For more information, visit the company's website at www.PNMResources.com. CONTACTS: Analysts Media Lisa Goodman Ray Sandoval (505) 241-2160 (505) 241-2782 Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 Statements made in this news release that relate to future events or PNM Resources, Inc.'s ("PNMR"), Public Service Company of New Mexico's ("PNM"), or Texas-New Mexico Power Company's ("TNMP") (collectively, the "Company") expectations, projections, estimates, intentions, goals, targets, and strategies are made pursuant to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Readers are cautioned that all forward-looking statements are based upon current expectations and estimates. PNMR, PNM, and TNMP assume no obligation to update this information. Because actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements, PNMR, PNM, and TNMP caution readers not to place undue reliance on these statements. PNMR's, PNM's, and TNMP's business, financial condition, cash flow, and operating results are influenced by many factors, which are often beyond their control, that can cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. For a discussion of risk factors and other important factors affecting forward-looking statements, please see the Company's Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which factors are specifically incorporated by reference herein. SOURCE PNM Resources, Inc. Related Links http://www.pnmresources.com SOUTHFIELD, Mich., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Plante Moran, one of the nation's largest certified public accounting, tax and consulting firms, announced today the acquisition of Planning Perspectives, Inc., (PPI) Birmingham, MI, the world's leading authority on company-supplier working relations. The acquisition covers all of PPI's intellectual property including the Annual North American Automotive OEMTier 1 Supplier Working Relations Index Study conducted by Dr. John Henke, which Plante Moran plans to continue. "We are thrilled to have a firm with the reputation of Planning Perspectives joining Plante Moran," said Daron Gifford, Partner and Automotive/Mobility Consulting Leader. "Dr. Henke is the recognized expert in buyer-supplier relations and his work and reputation are second to none. That, combined with our portfolio of hundreds of automotive supplier clients, makes this a perfect fit and further solidifies Plante Moran's position as a leading consultancy with deep and specific expertise in the global automotive and mobility industries. "With the dramatic and revolutionary changes going on in these industries and with many new companies and suppliers entering and leaving the market, trusting relations between existing and new companies will be critical to achieve success. Adding Henke's buyer-supplier relations expertise enables Plante Moran to provide a degree of practical, measurable intelligence that no other firm can offer." Commenting on the sale, Henke said: "We've had an incredibly successful run since launching our proprietary automotive industry research more than 25 years ago, and it is truly gratifying to know that we've had a significant impact on improving automakers' purchasing practices and attitudes towards their suppliers. In fact, several OEMs have told us this. "But knowing that one day I was going to retire, I began talking to various consulting firms in both Europe and the US about taking over the study. After two years of exploration, I concluded that Plante Moran was best suited to continue our research and maintain its academic-level integrity. In addition, having a major automotive financial and accounting firm presenting the data on the profit impact of good supplier relations to OEMs would only add to the results' credibility. Plante Moran's reputation for integrity and working for the good of their clients made them the perfect match." Under terms of the agreement, Plante Moran will take over the annual Working Relations Index study; Henke will remain involved on a consulting basis for one year during the transition. Planning Perspectives and its studies will be merged into Plante Moran's Strategy and Automotive/Mobility Consulting Practice, headed by Daron Gifford, practice leader. Leadership of the annual Working Relations Index Study will be overseen by Dave Andrea, who joined Plante Moran last month as Principal and reports to Gifford. About Plante Moran: Recognized as a leader in automotive and mobility strategy, Plante Moran is among the nation's largest accounting, tax and consulting firms and provides a full line of services to organizations across many industry segments. In addition to automotive, Plante Moran has depth of expertise in manufacturing and distribution, private equity, Japanese-owned businesses, financial institutions, service, health care, public sector and real estate and construction. Headquartered in Southfield, Michigan, Plante Moran has a staff of more than 3,000 professionals throughout Colorado, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio with international offices in China, Mexico, India and Japan. Plante Moran has been recognized by a number of organizations, including FORTUNE magazine, as one of the country's best places to work. For more information, visit plantemoran.com. About the Working Relations Index Study: Now entering its 19th year, the Annual North American Automotive OEM-Tier 1 Supplier Working Relations Index Study is conducted from early March to mid-April. Respondents are sales persons from Tier-1 suppliers serving the Top 3 Detroit and Top 3 Japanese automakers and typically represent more than 60 percent of their annual buy. The annual study tracks supplier perceptions of working relations with their automaker customers in which they rate the US and Japanese automakers across the six major purchasing areas broken down into 14 commodity areas. The results of the study are used to calculate the WRI which can then be used to calculate the economic value of working relations based on a proprietary PPI-developed economic model. About PPI: Since 1990, PPI has specialized in developing and implementing supplier surveys for the automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, and companies in 17 other service and manufacturing industries worldwide, including the airframe, aircraft engine, computer, construction tool, electronics, energy, and food industries. In 2001, PPI initiated its syndicated annual North American Automotive OEM - Supplier Working Relations Index Study of the Big Six US and Japanese automakers and in 2010 began tracking the US-based German automakers as well. In 2011, PPI added a financial-impact study that quantified the profits associated with the OEM supplier relations. SOURCE Plante Moran WASHINGTON, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Association of Professional Insurance Agents (PIA) has announced a call for nominations for three prestigious awards in its 2019 Spring Awards program. Nominations are being accepted now through February 20, 2019 for the association's Professional Agent of the Year, Customer Service Representative (CSR) of the Year and Young Insurance Professional (YIP) of the Year awards. The deadline for all nominations is February 20, 2019. Nomination forms are currently available to download at www.pianet.com/awards. To enter, all completed nomination forms must be emailed to [email protected]. "These national awards are the highest honors independent insurance agents can receive from their peers," said Gerald F. Hemphill, a Virginia agent who chairs the PIA National Awards Task Force. "PIA encourages our affiliates and members to nominate their fellow deserving PIA members for these awards." All three awards will be presented during a gala luncheon ceremony on Tuesday, April 2, 2019, in Arlington, Virginia, held in conjunction with the 2019 PIA Federal Legislative Summit and Spring Governance meetings. PIA members submitting nominations will find nomination forms and further instructions at: www.pianet.com/awards. For questions or additional information on the awards, contact Sade Hale at [email protected] or 703-518-1350. This is the 14th consecutive year that the PIA National Young Insurance Professional (YIP) of the Year award is sponsored by Rough Notes magazine. Founded in 1931, PIA is a national trade association that represents member insurance agents and their employees who sell and service all kinds of insurance but specialize in coverage of automobiles, homes and businesses. PIA members are Local Agents Serving Main Street America SM. PIA's web address is www.pianet.com. This press release is online at: https://pianet.com/news/press-releases/2019/pia-announces-call-for-award-nominations SOURCE National Association of Professional Insurance Agents Related Links http://www.pianet.com HARRISBURG, Pa., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) will again have a presence at one of the biggest events in the commonwealth and the largest indoor agricultural event in the country the 103rd Pennsylvania Farm Show. From Saturday, Jan. 5, through Saturday, Jan. 12, the PLCB Bureau of Alcohol Education will staff a booth in the Main Hall (where the famous butter sculpture is featured) of the Farm Show Complex and Expo Center in Harrisburg. The PLCB booth will be staffed from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM Saturday, Jan. 5, through Friday, Jan. 11. On Saturday, Jan. 12, the PLCB booth will be staffed from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. The booth will feature educational materials for parents and educators, along with notebooks and folders for children. Some of the materials are from the PLCB's award-winning Know When. Know How.SM statewide education and prevention campaign. The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board works to educate the public about the dangers of underage and dangerous drinking through a variety of avenues, including a poster contest for students in kindergarten through 12th grade, a free alcohol educational conference, the creation and distribution of a wide range of educational materials, and training and technical assistance for licensees through the Responsible Alcohol Management Program (RAMP) and other organizations working to address the issues related to irresponsible consumption. The PLCB also provides about $1 million annually in alcohol education grants to communities, educational institutions, and law enforcement agencies. The PLCB regulates the distribution of beverage alcohol in Pennsylvania, operates more than 600 wine and spirits stores statewide, and licenses 20,000 alcohol producers, retailers, and handlers. The PLCB also works to reduce and prevent dangerous and underage drinking through partnerships with schools, community groups, and licensees. Taxes and store profits totaling $16.5 billion since the agency's inception are returned to Pennsylvania's General Fund, which finances Pennsylvania's schools, health and human services programs, law enforcement, and public safety initiatives, among other important public services. The PLCB also provides financial support for the Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs, other state agencies, and local municipalities across the state. For more information about the PLCB, visit www.lcb.pa.gov. MEDIA CONTACT: Shawn M. Kelly, 717.783.8864 SOURCE Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board Related Links http://www.lcb.pa.gov NEW YORK, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Olshan Frome Wolosky LLP today announced that partners Nina Roket and Elizabeth Gonzalez-Sussman have been selected by Crain's New York Business for its 2nd annual "Notable Women in Law" honor roll of female attorneys, found here. Roket and Gonzalez-Sussman are profiled in the publication's special edition which "celebrates an exceptional pool of talented female attorneys in the New York City metropolitan area." Roket was also honored as part of Crain's 2018 inaugural "Notable Women in Law" list. She is a co-administrative partner, member of the firm's Executive Committee, a partner in the Real Estate Practice Group, and leader of the firm's Leasing Practice Group. She has been consistently acknowledged by numerous legal and trade organizations as a leading woman lawyer in New York, particularly in the real estate sector, including selection in 2018 by Real Estate Forum to the "Women of Influence Hall of Fame." In highlighting her professional accomplishments, Crain's notes that Roket, "has developed a keen understanding of commercial real estate law, specifically leasing, conveyancing and finance transactions, over the course of her nearly 20 year career in the industry." Roket is also the head of the firm's hiring committee and founder and chair of the Women's Committee, and serves as a member of WX (New York Women Executives in Real Estate), and of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC). She is a board member of the Sarcoma Foundation of America. Roket leads a high-profile list of real estate projects, including acting as lead counsel in the leasing, financing and development of TurnStyle, a retail underground market in the 59th Street Columbus Circle concourse, representing JEMB Realty Corporation at its leasing site for the development of a 500,000-square-foot office tower located in Downtown Brooklyn known as One Willoughby Square, and representing many of the most active New York City owners in their respective leasing programs and noteworthy office tenants in their headquarters' leases. Gonzalez-Sussman is a partner in the Corporate/Securities Law Group, and a member of Olshan's top-ranked Shareholder Activist & Equity Investment Practice. She is one of the very few women lawyers representing shareholder activists and has worked on numerous high-profile, significant shareholder activist matters over the past eighteen months, including representing George Feldenkreis, founder and former Executive Chairman of Perry Ellis International, Inc., in his nomination of directors and successful unsolicited $437 million acquisition of Perry Ellis. Gonzalez-Sussman is an active member of the firm's hiring committee, diversity committee and Women's Committee. Additionally, she serves as a leader in her community and was elected a Westchester County Democratic Committee member in 2018. As a member of Olshan's corporate group, Gonzalez-Sussman regularly serves as outside corporate counsel to numerous clients, and assists both public and privately-held companies in capital raising transactions, tender and exchange offers, mergers and acquisitions, and general corporate and securities law matters, including SEC reporting and corporate governance. Crain's highlighted that Gonzalez-Sussman, "is a key member of the firm's renowned shareholder activist and equity investment practice." About Olshan Olshan Frome Wolosky LLP, a law firm based in New York, represents major businesses and entrepreneurs in their most significant transactions, problems and opportunities. Olshan's clients range from public companies, hedge, venture capital, private equity and other investment funds to entrepreneurs and private companies worldwide. Clients choose Olshan for innovative strategies and sophisticated, game-changing advice in corporate, securities law, equity investment and shareholder activism, complex commercial, corporate and securities litigation, real estate, intellectual property, bankruptcy and creditors' rights, and advertising. Since its founding, Olshan has offered an alternative to the AmLaw 50 law firm business model with responsive, independent and client-focused legal counsel provided by the firm's lawyers. Contact: Madelaine Miller Strauss [email protected] 646.331.2691 SOURCE Olshan Frome Wolosky LLP Related Links http://www.olshanlaw.com NORGINE B.V. (Norgine), a leading European specialist pharmaceutical company and KOREA PHARMA CO., LTD. (Korea Pharma), a premier pharmaceutical manufacturer in Korea, today announced an exclusive licence and distribution agreement in the Republic of Korea by which Korea Pharma will commercialise Norgine's product PLENVU. (Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/597589/Norgine_Logo.jpg ) (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/802064/NORGINE_KOREA_PHARMA.jpg ) PLENVU is a lower-volume (1L) polyethylene glycol (PEG) based bowel preparation for colonoscopy in adults. It is the first lower-volume bowel preparation to show superior segmental cleansing of the colon vs. standard of care.[1] Jae-Don Park, CEO and Chairman of Korea Pharma said, "Building on our strong presence and knowledge in the South Korea market, we look forward to making PLENVU available to healthcare professionals to help them to improve colonoscopy outcomes as well as patient experience and adherence to bowel cleansing instructions." "We are excited about our collaboration with Korea Pharma, a trusted player," said Peter Stein, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Norgine. "South Korea is an important market and this partnership reflects the breadth and scope of Norgine's capabilities to build a strong network and reach out to more patients worldwide." PLENVU is currently available in mainland Europe (except France and Sweden) and Australia via Norgine and in the USA via its partner Salix Pharmaceuticals.[2] For further information on PLENVUin the EU visit http://www.expertiseincolonoscopy.com/plenvu http://www.norgine.com Follow us @norgine Notes to Editors: About PLEN VU PLENVU, Powder for Oral Solution (PEG 3350, Sodium Ascorbate, Sodium Sulfate, Ascorbic Acid, Sodium Chloride, and Potassium Chloride), is indicated in adults for bowel cleansing prior to any procedure requiring a clean bowel. About Colorectal Cancer and colonoscopy Colorectal cancer is the second most common cause of cancer-related mortality world-wide.[3] Colorectal cancer is largely preventable, with early detection being associated with a 90% cure rate.[4] Colonoscopy is an effective method for colorectal cancer screening and has been shown to reduce both the incidence and mortality of colorectal cancer when applied in the general population. Inadequate pre-colonoscopy bowel cleansing reduces the diagnostic accuracy of colonoscopy, particularly for the detection of smaller lesions and sessile (slightly flattened) polyps. This may result in repeated procedures, thereby potentially increasing patient burden, resource requirement and costs and can possibly delay the initiation of treatment.[5],[6],[7] About Norgine Norgine is a leading European specialist pharmaceutical company with a direct commercial presence in all major European markets. Norgine specialises in gastroenterology, hepatology, cancer and supportive care. In 2017, Norgine's total net product sales were EUR 345 million, up 17 per cent. Norgine employs over 1,000 people across its commercial, development and manufacturing operations and manages all aspects of product development, production, marketing, sale and supply. In 2012, Norgine established a complementary business, Norgine Ventures, supporting innovative healthcare companies through the provision of debt-like financing in Europe and the US. For more information, please visit http://www.norgineventures.com NORGINE and the sail logo are trademarks of the Norgine group of companies. About Korea Pharma Since it was established in 1974, Korea Pharma has established a high-tech current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) facility for world-class GMP. Korea Pharma specialises in gastroenterology (including bowel preparation), antibiotics and diseases of the central nervous system (CNS). With this agreement signed today with Norgine, Korea Pharma has the opportunity to make a quantum leap in gastroenterology. Korea Pharma entered into a technology agreement for the treatment of dementia with Kyungsang national university in 2014. References Repici A., Amlani B., Uebel P., Schreiber S. Superior high-quality colon cleansing with 1L NER1006 versus sodium picosulfate + magnesium citrate, 2L polyethylene glycol + ascorbate, or oral sulfate solution: Post hoc pooled analysis of three randomised phase 3 clinical trials. #P0159. Monday 22 October. 12:30 - 13:30 CET . UEGW 2018 In Austria , Spain and the Netherlands it is known as PLEINVUE rather than PLENVU World Health Organisation. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cancer Last accessed December 2018 American Cancer Society. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/colon-rectal-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/detection.html Last accessed December 2018 Bechtold ML, Mir F, Puli SR et al. Optimizing bowel preparation for colonoscopy: a guide to enhance quality of visualization. Ann Gastroenterol 2016; 29: 137 - 146 Brenner H, Stock C, Hoffmeister M. Effect of screening sigmoidoscopy and screening colonoscopy on colorectal cancer incidence and mortality: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials and observational studies. BMJ 2014; 348: g2467 Baxter NN, Warren JL, Barrett MJ et al. Association between colonoscopy and colorectal cancer mortality in a US cohort according to site of cancer and colonoscopist specialty. J Clin Oncol 2012; 30: 2664 - 2669 SOURCE NORGINE B.V. and KOREA PHARMA CO., LTD. LAKE ELSINORE, Calif., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A new technology platform Brands.Buzz launches January 3rd. The patent pending concept digitalizes word-of-mouth by enabling everyday people to post marketing content to their social networks. This allows businesses access to micro networks where they can market their products in highly engaged groups. Both consumers and businesses stand to benefit from this innovative new relationship. At the core, Brands.Buzz is a technology platform that enables businesses to execute in a large scale the most effective marketing strategy, word of mouth. Lead Software Engineer, Al Haveriku, describes the platform as "a simple to use tool that drives viral marketing results through sophisticated technology delivering a winning formula for both brands and brand ambassadors." The platform is expected to deliver high consumer engagement with social media messages the company calls "buzzes." Here's how buzzing works. Businesses join the platform by creating marketing profiles of their target customers, as well as profiles of their ideal brand ambassadors. Such profiles are matched with a large data pool of consumers. The software analyzes the information, determines effective pairings, and distributes buzzes. A buzz is a marketing campaign delivered to a highly engaged network. This allows businesses to directly reach their target consumers through their family and friends, delivering a high engagement rate. Consumers get paid to deliver marketing campaigns based on a proprietary algorithm. Those interested can learn more or signup at the company's website: www.Brands.Buzz Esmerina Kroi, Business Development Director offered, "This innovative marketing platform will help brands create a stronger relationship with consumers ultimately improving their business results. But most importantly, Brands.Buzz will make a difference in the life of millions of students, parents, grandparents, or anyone. It creates a new source of income with an asset almost everyone has, but very few use their social network. Companies grow their business and consumers earn money buzzing the brands they love." Contact: Rick Pinto Marketing Team Lead [email protected] 855.855.8880 SOURCE Brands.Buzz Related Links http://www.Brands.Buzz ORLANDO, Fla., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The economy may be booming right now but every business owner understands that running a consistently profitable venture over time will require certain skills, knowledge, resources, and guidance. Meet Christy Wilson Delk, who ran a successful franchise for 15 years. She is the author of a new book for small business owners or those curious about making the leap into entrepreneurship and franchising. "When I launched a new business and bought a franchise (Kids 'R' Kids Learning Academy) in 1996, I was not in a good place," says Delk, now a full time professor at Rollins College in Orlando, Florida. "At age 35, I suffered a corporate downsizing and I decided to open a business, sell my house, break into my 401K and scrounge up a down payment on a $1.7 million dollar loan to buy and build a franchised business." She turned her investment of $240,000 into a $6 million windfall. Delk believes that many franchise owners and entrepreneurs make costly mistakes or fail to sell at the right time. Now Delk shares what she learned as she managed her business through two recessions, three hurricanes, two expansions, one divorce, and too many employees to remember them all. Her book, Adventures in Franchise Ownership: 4 Pillars to Strengthen, Protect and Grow Your Business (Morgan James, www.ChristyWilsonDelk.com) relays Delk's keys of successful franchise ownership to those who are struggling. So what are some of the four pillars of successful franchise ownership? Layers of Loyalty : How to ensure customer and employee loyalty stays true to your mission. Strategic Leadership How to align practical leadership processes and methods with your time constraints and vision for your franchise. Money Metrics Knowing the numbers when it comes to your sales, expenses, industry norms, an franchise data will help you project and plan better. Why do so many people exit a business before reaching their potential and goals? Delk shows us how one can overcome challenges, avoid pitfalls, stay motivated, and leverage new opportunities. Delk offers a strategic framework for business owners to strengthen, protect, and grow their franchise year after year. Her book includes advice from 16 top-performing franchisers that represent over a dozen market segments. "To ensure your continued success,' says Delk, "business owners must prepare for the day competitors move in, down cycles occur, the unexpected happens, or business trends change." SOURCE Christy Delk Related Links http://www.ChristyWilsonDelk.com ST. LOUIS, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- According to new research, road warriors are relying more and more on technology to make life easier when they travel. The second annual National Car Rental State of Business Travel Survey* reveals that 93 percent of frequent business travelers prefer travel brands whose technology offerings make their travel experience better or easier. To showcase its commitment to providing frequent travelers with the innovative tech they crave, National Car Rental will partner with Andru Edwards, founder and chief executive officer of Gear Live and host of Geekwire, to broadcast live Jan. 8 and 9 from the CES 2019 (Consumer Electronics Show) to discuss the future of business travel technology. "As vehicle manufacturers have started to adopt consumer technologies like voice command, WiFi, driver assistance and more, CES has become the top destination for auto brands to announce their latest advancements," said tech ambassador and livestream host Andru Edwards. "National Car Rental has demonstrated through its own innovation as well as its presence at CES a commitment to introducing business travelers to the newest technology to enhance their experience both in and out of the car." Edwards will report live from the CES showroom to uncover new breakthroughs and share insights into the convergence of the automotive world and the tech industry. With roughly 300,000 square feet of automotive exhibit space, CES has become one of the largest automotive shows in the U.S. National will feature advancements and innovations from a select number of its vehicle manufacturer partners during its livestream broadcasts, which will be shared across National's social channels. "Today's business travelers are more tech-savvy than ever, and they depend on reliable platforms and tools that bring speed, choice and control to their travel," said Frank Thurman, vice president of marketing for National. "That's why National has made technology and innovation a priority for our customers by forming partnerships with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to ensure that our fleet is equipped with the best, cutting-edge technology." In addition to its presence at CES, National, the premier car rental brand for frequent airport travelers, continues to evolve its service offerings for road warriors, designing innovative initiatives and platforms that are more mobilefriendly and accessible. Highest-ranked in the Business Travel News Car Rental Survey, the National Car Rental mobile app has been updated to decrease the number of clicks required and improve customers' ability to select vehicles in advance. With the new National app, travelers receive a single point of contact to manage all aspects of the rental experience from reservation to return. App users can track everything from profiles to rewards, and at select airport locations they can view real-time inventory and hold a specific vehicle while they are on their way to pick it up. In addition, National launched an updated website platform earlier this year and has partnered with OEMs to provide the latest available in-vehicle technologies. For example, Enterprise Holdings, which owns and operates the National Car Rental brand, recently announced a partnership with General Motors to significantly increase the number of connected vehicles in the company's fleet to 100,000 by the end of 2019. Driven by a commitment to provide the best possible customer experience, the initiative will expedite the renting and returning of vehicles by automating such tasks as checking fuel levels, vehicle condition and odometer readings via onboard telemetry, which allows geofenced rental locations to automatically receive these readings. Beyond these benefits, the vehicles will also come with the latest technology for personalized driving experiences, including Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and OnStar. Such features as emergency services, crisis assistance, automatic crash response and remote lock/unlock will also be included to add an additional level of convenience and safety. National's CES livestream broadcasts will be produced by Chicago-based Intersport. To tune in, follow National at www.facebook.com/NationalCarRental and @NationalPro on Twitter. Follow Andru Edwards' CES conversation on Twitter at @AndruEdwards. *The National Car Rental State of Business Travel Survey was conducted from November 9-15, 2018, among 1,000 U.S. frequent business travelers using Lucid's Federated Sample market research panel. At the time of the survey, participants had to have been 25 to 65 years of age, be currently employed or self-employed on a full-time (35+ hours a week) basis, and traveled in the past 12 months for business purposes with a minimum of eight total nights. About National Car Rental Founded in 1947, National Car Rental's time-sensitive customers in the United States are able to quickly choose their own vehicles, based upon their advance reservation and requested car class, and then simply drive away from the airport. National which launched the car rental industry's first comprehensive frequent-renter program further expedites the rental process for Emerald Club members by offering counter bypass as well as access to National's "Emerald Aisle." In addition, Emerald Club members can choose to receive EmeraldAlertsSM emailed communications that include Arrival and Return Alerts, and Drop & GoSM service with convenient eReceipts. St. Louis-based Enterprise Holdings, through its regional subsidiaries, operates the National Car Rental, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Alamo Rent A Car brands. SOURCE National Car Rental Related Links http://www.nationalcar.com PUNE, India, January 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- ProMobi Technologies is excited to announce that its Mobile Device Management Solution, MobiLock Pro, now supports management of employee-owned (BYOD) Android devices. It ensures total corporate data security and employee privacy by keeping personal data free from corporate control. MobiLock BYOD is introduced, considering the dynamic IT challenges and business requirements in a 'mobile first' environment faced by SMBs as well as large organizations. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/690217/MobiLock_Pro_Logo.jpg ) MobiLock supports Android Work profile that creates an OS-level container, which will include all the corporate data and applications and will keep them separated from the user's personal data and apps. The industry-guided observations and in-depth market analysis have led MobiLock to understand that companies need to fast adopt BYOD as a proactive strategy to not only save costs but also encourage employee productivity and satisfaction by allowing them the flexibility to work with their favourite devices, anytime, anywhere. A major differentiator that would keep MobiLock BYOD one step ahead of the competitors is its tight integration with EVA Communication Suite, which facilitates an enterprise-wide real-time and effortless communication amongst employees through two-way chat and VoIP calls, to help them make faster and more efficient decisions with better resolutions. Some of the key features of MobiLock BYOD are: Implements robust security and data protection policies such as disabling data copying from the work app to a personal app, and many more Containerizes business data and apps that are separated from personal data and non-work apps Effortless management of user accounts for device enrolment through secured configuration options Offers EVA Communication Suite that securely enables users to communicate and collaborate with the team across the organization Allows companies to customize the work app according to their branding requirements "We got another feather in our cap by adding BYOD Management support through our MDM solution as we are persistently focused to offer newer and better business benefits to our customers. We have been working towards this value-addition since some time and would keep working towards bringing BYOD management support for iOS and Windows 10. Companies embracing BYOD policy see multi-dimensional advantages including overall cost-optimization, enhanced work-productivity, better employee engagement, faster issue resolution, and improved employee satisfaction. MobiLock BYOD ensures that the company IT has complete supervision over the security policies while assuring total privacy for users' personal information," said Sriram Kakarala, VP - Mobility at ProMobi Technologies. For more information about MobiLock BYOD or to request an evaluation, please visit: https://mobilock.in/bring-your-own-device-byod About ProMobi Technologies: ProMobi Technologies provides a leading Mobile Device Management Solution under the brand MobiLock Pro. MobiLock Pro allows organizations to secure and manage employee-owned (BYOD) and company-owned devices. Organizations can manage Android, iOS and Windows 10 based endpoints including smartphones, tablets, laptops, rugged devices, mPOS, and digital signages. More than 3000 companies across the world are unlocking their true potential using MobiLock Pro, which is used across various industries such as Transportation & Logistics, Retail, Education, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Construction & Real Estate, Hospitality, Software & Telecom, Financial Services & other industrial sectors. For more information, please visit https://www.mobilock.in/. Media Contact: Swapnil Shete [email protected] SOURCE ProMobi Technologies Private Limited Integrating LAMP technology with MGC proprietary genetics accelerates accurate detection of cannabis genes, genotypes, pests and pathogens. WOBURN, Mass., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Medicinal Genomics Corp. (MGC), a pioneer in improving the quality, quantity and safety of cannabis, today announced it has signed a licensing agreement with Eiken Chemical Co., Ltd. of Tokyo, Japan. The licensing agreement covers the use of a dozen patents related to Eiken's Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) technology. MGC will integrate the technology in its youPCR proprietary cannabis testing platform for the detection of cannabis genes, genotypes, microorganisms, pests and pathogens on or in cannabis. With LAMP technology, MGC's youPCR platform will enable marker-assisted selection at the point of grow, making it the most comprehensive, accurate and streamlined testing platform available. The test simply changes color to indicate if the pathogen or gene selected is present, similar to an over-the-counter pregnancy test. "We are honored to be able to partner with Eiken and bring its innovative LAMP technology to the cannabis industry," said Medicinal Genomics's Chief Scientific Officer, Kevin McKernan. "Their methods are impeccable and their creative use of the science qualifies as a breakthrough for us and our customers. There is no doubt that this industry must embrace the very highest standards of quality and safety, and working with companies like Eiken helps get us to that elevated goal." "Our proprietary LAMP technology has been widely used in many fields including medical (human in vitro diagnostics), food testing, infectious disease test for animals and plants, environmental testing. We are very pleased Medicinal Genomics selected LAMP technology to integrate in their youPCR platform. We look forward to the contributions MGC's youPCR platform utilizing LAMP will make to the cannabis industry," commented Eiken's President & CEO, Morifumi Wada. LAMP is a simple, rapid, specific and cost-effective nucleic acid amplification method solely developed and patented by Eiken Chemical is extremely fast and does not require thermocyclers, making it particularly well suited for field applications and point-of-care molecular diagnostics assays. Incorporating it in the youPCR genetic screening platform will let hemp and cannabis cultivators run a more efficient operation by screening plants for gender, pest infestation, or genetic traits early in the grow cyclewhile they are still in the seedling tray. Early screening can prevent costly infestations and save valuable time and resources that would otherwise be spent on sub-optimal plants or males. The youPCR platform can also give early feedback on the progress of breeding strains with specific cannabinoid ratios. The youPCR CBDA Marker and youPCR THCA Marker tests can determine if a plant has the genes needed to produce CBGA, CBDA and/or THCA, just one week after germination in order to help growers select the best plants with the traits that will be most desirable in cross breeding. Perhaps most beneficially, the youPCR platform can identify plants infected with powdery mildew, russet mites, or botrytis before they show visual symptoms. Growers can even use youPCR to screen incoming clones to make sure they are not introducing infected plants to the grow, and continue to screen plants throughout their life to keep pathogens in check. About Medicinal Genomics Corporation Medicinal Genomics Corporation has pioneered the genomics of cannabis to build a stronger scientific foundation for cannabis-based products. Our unmatched expertise in genetic science has helped cultivators, dispensaries and testing laboratories characterize and understand the quality and consistency of cannabis to ensure patients and consumers have access to safe, quality cannabis. About Eiken Chemical Co., Ltd. EIKEN CHEMICAL CO., LTD., from its foundation in 1939, has been committed to contributing to public health and the prevention of epidemics. In addition to microbiological diagnosis, the company has played an active role in medical progress and public health through the development of clinical diagnostic aids vital to various aspects of contemporary medicine, including biochemical, immunological, serological, dry chemical diagnosis, and automatic analyzers. Clinical diagnosis is expected to grow in importance as a result of rising public demand for healthier living, and the prevention and early diagnosis of lifestyle-related diseases. The company has established itself as a leader in the clinical diagnostics market, and will maintain its commitment to public health through the development of products and technologies that fill needs at the cutting edge of contemporary medicine. Ben Amirault Medicinal Genomics [email protected] 866-574-3582 SOURCE Medicinal Genomics Related Links https://www.medicinalgenomics.com/ IRVINE, Calif., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Mazda North American Operations (MNAO) today reported total December sales of 25,870 vehicles, a decrease of 3.8 percent compared to December 2017. With 26 selling days in December 2018, compared to 26 the year prior, the company posted a decrease of 3.8 percent on a Daily Selling Rate (DSR) basis. Sales for 2018 totaled 300,325 vehicles an increase of 3.7 percent compared to 2017. There were 307 selling days in 2018, versus 306 in 2017, resulting in a full-year DSR increase of 3.4 percent. KEY SALES NOTES: While Mazda's CX-line, including the CX-3, CX-5 and CX-9, saw December sales decline by 6.5 percent to 18,955 vehicles, total sales of the three crossover vehicles finished the year up 15.3 percent, with 195,778 vehicles sold in 2018. Sales of the Mazda6 totaled 2,357 in December, an increase of 32.7 percent compared to 2017. Mazda6 sales for 2018 reached 30,938 vehicles, a decrease of 7.4 percent compared to 2017. The Mazda MX-5 Miata finished December up 3.7 percent, with 511 vehicles sold, while full-year sales of the two-seat roadster totaled 8,971, a decrease of 20.6 percent compared to 2017. Mazda Motor de Mexico (MMdM) reported December sales of 6,055 vehicles, an increase of 8 percent compared to December last year. MMdM saw record-setting sales in 2018 totaling 58,105 vehicles, an increase of 7 percent compared to last year. 2018 was an exciting year for Mazda, with many developments in North America. Major announcements included: Mazda North American Operations is headquartered in Irvine, California, and oversees the sales, marketing, parts and customer service support of Mazda vehicles in the United States and Mexico through nearly 700 dealers. Operations in Mexico are managed by Mazda Motor de Mexico in Mexico City. For more information on Mazda vehicles, including photography and B-roll, please visit the online Mazda media center at InsideMazda.MazdaUSA.com/Newsroom. Follow MNAO's social media channels through Twitter and Instagram at @MazdaUSA and Facebook at Facebook.com/MazdaUSA. Month-To-Date Year-To-Date December December % % MTD December December % % YTD 2018 2017 Change DSR 2018 2017 Change DSR Mazda3 5,277 5,669 (6.9)% (6.9)% 64,638 75,018 (13.8)% (14.1)% Mazda6 2,357 1,776 32.7% 32.7% 30,938 33,402 (7.4)% (7.7)% MX-5 Miata 511 493 3.7% 3.7% 8,971 11,294 (20.6)% (20.8)% CX-3 1,144 1,582 (27.7)% (27.7)% 16,899 16,355 3.3% 3.0% CX-5 13,741 14,097 (2.5)% (2.5)% 150,622 127,563 18.1% 17.7% CX-9 2,840 3,276 (13.3)% (13.3)% 28,257 25,828 9.4% 9.0% Total Vehicles CARS 8,145 7,938 2.6% 2.6% 104,547 119,724 (12.7)% (13.0)% TRUCKS 17,725 18,955 (6.5)% (6.5)% 195,778 169,746 15.3% 15.0% TOTAL 25,870 26,893 (3.8)% (3.8)% 300,325 289,470 3.7% 3.4% Selling Days 26 26 307 306 SOURCE Mazda North American Operations Related Links http://www.mazdausa.com ELMSFORD, N.Y., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Mack-Cali Realty Corporation (NYSE:CLI), an owner, manager and developer of premier office and multifamily properties, today announced the $70.25-million sale of Elmsford Distribution Center in Westchester County, New York. Realterm Logistics, an owner and manager of high-flow-through logistics facilities serving the transportation industry, acquired the six-building industrial park, which comprises more than 386,000 square feet of warehouse/distribution space. Like the recent sales of industrial properties in Moorestown and Totowa, New Jersey, the transaction represents the next step in Mack-Cali's plan to exit the flex-warehouse business while simultaneously investing in the transformation of its office properties in Jersey City and developing its multifamily platform on the waterfront. Mack-Cali was represented in the transaction by the HFF investment sales team of Senior Managing Director Jose Cruz and Directors Jordan Avanzato and Marc Duval. "The sale of Elmsford Distribution Center serves as a significant milestone in our plan to strategically consolidate the Mack-Cali portfolio," said Michael J. DeMarco, Chief Executive Officer of Mack-Cali. "While we expect the park's new owner will experience leasing success in an industrial market that has seen strong rent growth in recent years, the disposition enables us to pay down debt levels from investments we made in creating our multifamily platform." In New Jersey, Mack-Cali is in the midst of a $75-million multi-phase improvement plan for its Harborside office and retail portfolio, a destination neighborhood where ambitious and creative people come together in a setting that harnesses the distinct character of Jersey City. Additionally, the company recently completed a $50-million capital transformation program for its portfolio of transit-oriented suburban office properties, including the comprehensive renovation of building exteriors, installation of state-of-the-art amenities, and modernization of common areas. About Mack-Cali Realty Corporation One of the country's leading Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), Mack-Cali Realty Corporation is an owner, manager and developer of premier office and multifamily properties in select waterfront and transit-oriented markets throughout the Northeast. Mack-Cali is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey, and is the visionary behind the city's flourishing waterfront, where the company is leading development, improvement and place-making initiatives for Harborside, a master-planned destination comprised of class A office, luxury apartments, diverse retail and restaurants, and public spaces. A fully-integrated and self-managed company, Mack-Cali has provided world-class management, leasing, and development services throughout New Jersey and the surrounding region for two decades. By regularly investing in its properties and innovative lifestyle amenity packages, Mack-Cali creates environments that empower tenants and residents to reimagine the way they work and live. For more information on Mack-Cali Realty Corporation and its properties, visit www.mack-cali.com . Contacts: Deidre Crockett Mack-Cali Realty Corporation Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications and Investor Relations 732-590-1528 [email protected] Ryan Smith Beckerman [email protected] 201-465-8023 SOURCE Mack-Cali Realty Corporation Related Links http://www.mack-cali.com NEW YORK, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Layton Road Group (www.laytonroadgroup.com) is pleased to welcome industry veteran Anthony ('Tony') Lombardi as a Managing Director of the firm's newly established Chicago office. Layton Road's expansion to Chicago will help the firm further meet the needs of the Midwest alternative investment managers and institutional investors. In addition to the firm's headquarters in New York City, Layton Road will also have professionals in New York, Dallas and San Francisco. Tony will serve the Midwest alternative investment manager and institutional investor communities, bringing insights and perspective gained over 20+ years in the industry. He will expand the firm's efforts to deliver a meaningful and impactful menu of capital introduction and placement agent services to meet the needs of investment managers in the region. Additionally, Tony will seek to introduce and expand Layton Road's innovative outsourced capital introduction solutions to the prime brokerage and custodial services industries. Tony joins the Layton Road Group after more than five years at Aon where he was an Associate Partner and led the emerging manager managed account platform there. His responsibilities included operations, sales, counterparty risk management, and relationship management. He has spent almost two decades in the alternatives industry having held senior roles in sales, operations and risk management. Tom Mahala said, "Tony's years of experience and abundant industry relationships in the Midwest and West Coast puts him in an ideal position to deliver a better capital services offering to investors and managers alike. The alternatives industry is eager to partner with high-quality, connected professionals, to assist them in achieving their asset-raising goals. We believe that hiring Tony helps Layton Road meet this growing need." Tony stated that, "I am very excited to be part of a talented Layton Road team and working with Tom and Danny Cohen once again. Layton Road's product is changing the capital introduction landscape with investors and fund managers benefitting tremendously from Layton Road's suite of services." About Layton Road Group, LLC Layton Road Group, LLC ("Layton Road") was founded in 2017 with the belief that there was a better way to offer capital introduction & capital raising services to alternative investment managers, institutional investors and prime brokerage divisions within investment banks. The firm was founded by Tom Mahala, a 26-year industry veteran of the prime brokerage industry. Layton Road will provide a meaningful and impactful menu of capital introduction services ranging from capital introduction and placement agent services to targeted events and novel outsourced solutions for the prime brokerage industry. The firm is comprised of seasoned industry professionals situated in multiple geographies, with diverse capital markets, asset management and capital introduction backgrounds committed to thoughtful, consultative interactions with stakeholders across the alternative investment management industry. For more information about the firm and team, please visit www.laytonroadgroup.com. Media Contact Dan Sheridan, Associate T: 212.271.4290 E: [email protected] SOURCE Layton Road Group Related Links http://www.laytonroadgroup.com PARIS, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Iris Capital, a leading European venture capital firm, announce today that it has led a strategic investment of US$10 million in Celeno, a global leader and innovator in Wi-Fi solutions. This investment, joined by Celeno's existing shareholders, will support Celeno's expansion in Europe and its product development. As Wi-Fi has become an indispensable part of our lives, with over 10 billion Wi-Fi enabled devices in use worldwide, it is now a strategic imperative for service providers as the ubiquitous touchpoint for broadband services such as data, video and various IoT applications in the home. The growing reliance on Wi-Fi as infrastructure and subscribers viewing Wi-Fi more as a utility than an add-on are causing the demand for Gigabit Wi-Fi to skyrocket, challenging standard equipment that was not designed for this. Celeno is pushing the envelope of Wi-Fi with its groundbreaking silicon and software technology, taking Wi-Fi beyond connectivity and allowing unprecedented capabilities and savings. Celeno's Wi-Fi chipsets are used globally by OEM customers such as ARRIS, Compal and Samsung in home gateways, routers, set-top boxes, Wi-Fi access points and extenders. Celeno's technology is already deployed in tens of millions of homes worldwide with Tier-1 service providers such as Charter Communications (ex-Time warner Cable) in North America and Vodafone and Liberty Global across 15 countries in Europe and Latin America. The smart Wi-Fi technologies provided by Celeno for these customers include advanced QoS (Quality of Service) management technologies, multi-AP mesh management and smart antenna technology to intelligently manage the connection to each of the many connected devices in the home and enable consumers to achieve true Gigabit speeds in their home. Early 2019, Celeno will unveil its next generation Wi-Fi 6 chipset which will include many industry-first innovations including Elastic MIMO, a world-first capability set to revolutionize access-point equipment design by substantially cutting costs and size while doubling the performance. "We believe that our disruptive, next generation Wi-Fi technology will deliver substantial value to our market as well as new core IoT markets such as smart homes, smart cities, automotive and eHealth. With our high standards of innovation and global roadmap, we were looking for ambitious investors to support our European expansion. Iris Capital is a leading European VC that will help expand our market leadership by leveraging their connections, expertise, and influence," says Gilad Rozen, Founder and CEO of Celeno. "To support Gigabit speeds over Wi-Fi, especially in a congested and noisy spectrum, breakthrough innovations are required. Celeno's team has built a reputation as one of the best Wi-Fi teams in the world and has already developed disruptive Wi-Fi technology that pushes the technological envelope. Their upcoming products will take Wi-Fi to completely different domains and their strategic industry position made the choice to invest in Celeno obvious for Iris Capital, especially given our relationships with telecom and services providers across Europe. We are proud to fuel this world-class team which is truly advancing the industry," adds Yaron Rosenbaum, Partner at Iris Capital. About Iris Capital Iris Capital is a European VC specialized in the digital economy. It fuels entrepreneurs at various stages of maturity, from early-stage to growth equity. With its deep sector specialization and extensive experience acquired over 30+ years, as well as the backing of its corporate sponsors, Iris Capital provides active support to its portfolio companies, through its presence in Paris, Berlin, San Francisco, Tel Aviv, Tokyo and Dubai. IrisNext, Iris Capital's new fund, includes for industry leaders and institutions such as Orange, Publicis, Valeo, Bpifrance and BRED Banque Populaire. Iris Capital investments include, among others, companies such as, Adjust, Careem, Exotec, Happy Car, Hola, Jedox, Kyriba, LeanIX, Open-Xchange, Mojio, Netatmo, reBuy, Scality, Secret Double Octopus, Shift Technology, Studitemps and Talend. For more information, visit www.iriscapital.com About Celeno Leveraging Wi-Fi smarts perfected in the home environment, Celeno offers advanced Wi-Fi chipsets, edge software and cloud technology to take Wi-Fi beyond connectivity into the realm of smart homes, smart cities, smart buildings and smart industry. Celeno's field-proven chips and software technology have been successfully integrated into numerous OEM Wi-Fi devices and have been deployed in tens of millions of homes around the world by almost 100 leading service providers worldwide. Founded in 2005 and backed by blue chip investors, Celeno is a well-established company headquartered in Ra'anana, Israel, with a global presence and offices in the US, EMEA and Asia Pacific. For more information, please visit www.celeno.com Media Contact: Tal Sacharov Director of Marketing Celeno Email: [email protected] SOURCE Celeno and Iris Capital Related Links http://www.iriscapital.com Chinese dragon dance greets the new year The Tongliang dragon dance troupe, which had performed at the same place last year, entered the site where there were many people who were waiting in orderliness. As an officially designated partner city of New York Times Square's countdown, Chongqing seized this opportunity to introduce its image as "a land of natural beauty and a city with cultural appeal" at the scene. In addition, the tune with distinctive characteristics of Chongqing during the performance gave visitors a feast of music, intensifying the flavor of New Year's Eve and showing a picturesque Chongqing with unique charisma. Huang Ping, the Consul General of China in New York, said that the celebration of this year had brought the Chinese culture to Times Square via Chongqing, and China is reaching out the hands to embrace the world. Also, China welcomes people from all over the world to visit it and experience its culture. Chongqing strives to promote its culture and tourism On the same day, Chongqing's Tourism Press Conference and Photo Exhibition was held at The Westin New York. Present at the event were over 200 guests from the Consulate General of China in New York, New York City Council, China National Tourist Office in New York, Sino-American Friendship Association, Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) New York Branch, as well as media representatives. After viewing the photo exhibition and experiencing the VR show, they highly praised the culture and tourism of Chongqing. Also, the event received much attention from local travel agencies. In his speech, Wang Dingguo, Deputy Director General of Chongqing Municipal Culture and Tourism Development Commission, said that Chongqing is a renowned cultural city with a history of more than 3,000 years, and it is located at the junction of the Belt and Road and the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Thus, "We hope we will seize the opportunity of this event and make joint efforts to advance our tourism exchange and cooperation to a higher level." In addition, Wang sincerely invited the audience to participate in the Sixth Western China Tourism Industry Expo and the 2019 Smart China Expo. At the event, five featured tourist routes of Chongqing were especially promoted, including the famous Three Gorges tour, the city tour, the culture and folklore tour, the hot spring tour, and the rural tour. To know more about the interesting city, please visit: www.ichongqing.info. SOURCE iChongqing Related Links http://www.ichongqing.info The warming up of China's political and economic relations with countries along the Belt & Road in recent years has propelled Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises to expand into overseas markets, and the structural adjustment and gradual connection with ICH and WHO guidelines of China's pharmaceutical industry have accelerated the internationalization of China's pharmaceutical preparation enterprises. Under such background, the FDF China 2019 hosted by CCCMHPIE and UBM EMEA and co-organized by Shanghai UBM Sinoexpo will take place in Hall E3 of Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC) on June 18-20, 2019. The exhibition will integrate Chinese and overseas professional media resources, combine online and offline business models, help enterprises expand channels for brand internationalization, and furnish exhibitors with a platform to enter the international market. Gathering Chinese and overseas quality preparations, and promoting international competence of products China exported western medicine preparations to 167 countries and regions in the first half of 2018, with the proportion of exportation to developed countries in the Europe, U.S., Japan, and Australia reaching 49.3%. Chinese enterprises' exportation has increased largely with the accelerating progress of international certification of preparations in China. FDF China 2019 will not only attract numerous excellent preparation export enterprises in China such as Qilu Pharmaceutical, Shijiazhuang No. 4 Pharmaceutical, Hebei Tiancheng, Cisen Pharmaceutical, Shanxi Zhendong, Nanjing Sannuo, Zhejiang Research Institute of Chemical Industry, Yiling Wanzhou, Hebei Kivipharm, Shandong Qidu, Yangcheng Health, Jiangsu Simcere, and Youcare Pharmaceutical, but also tens of thousands of overseas professional buyers, to join the annual event of the international pharmaceutical industry. FDF and the concurrent CPhI China jointly attracted 60,744 visits of visitors from 120 countries and regions in 2018, in particular, the visits of overseas visitors showed explosive growth to reach 15,329, growing by over 50% than 2017. According to Gong Weizheng, the International Business Director of Shandong Qidu Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., CPhI China is an international event for Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises to show their images, publicize products, build brands, and develop markets, "We've been joining CPhI China and achieved very good effects this year by expanding the booth into a specially decorated one according to the business development need. Chinese and overseas customers who went to our booth to negotiate on injection and API export were in an endless stream during the exhibition. We have already booked the stand for next year." Depending on the powerful brand appeal of CPhI, FDF China 2019 will not only offer business opportunities for the API and preparation industries, but also gather Chinese and overseas top brands, global governments, and relevant medical institutions, to render enterprises fully in step with the international pharmaceutical trends. Building quality connections for the industry through innovative conferences and activities with multiple themes There will also be many conferences and activities concurrently with the exhibition, relating to the theme of internationalization of preparations, to share about the international pharmaceutical policies and enterprises' foreign trade strategies and accelerate the internalization of Chinese pharmaceutical industry. 2019 Award for Top 100 Internationalized Companies will be based on indicators of product export, international registration, overseas M&A, international cooperation, and overseas R&D, etc. and committed to increasing the international recognition and influence of enterprises, in order to establish industry benchmarks for international strategies of Chinese pharmaceuticals. CPhI International Agencies Updates and Q&A Session will gather experts from National Medical Products Administration of China, Chinese Pharmacopoeia Commission, Center for Food and Drug Inspection of NMPA, World Health Organization, Delegation of the European Union to China, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare, etc., to analyze recent dynamics of drug regulatory policies, laws and regulations. CPhI Formulation Companies Salon will gather leading preparation enterprises, and via their information and experience sharing, analyze new trends of preparation internationalization, to offer quality references for exporting preparations to overseas markets. Visit the exhibition website http://www.cphi-china.cn/fdf/en to join us in the annual event of pharma preparation in Asia! FDF China 2019 June 18-20, 2019 | Hall E3, SNIEC, Shanghai, China Organizer: UBM EMEA, CCCMHPIE Co-organizer: UBM Sinoexpo Website: http://www.cphi-china.cn/fdf/en SOURCE Shanghai UBM Sinoexpo International Exhibition Co., Ltd The store's concept is minimalist yet sophisticated and reflects Furla's values of combining authentic Italian heritage with contemporary design. The new store will be located on Level 2 adjacent to the shopping center's most prestigious stores and will occupy over 1,151 square feet. The South Coast Plaza boutique will offer an assortment of women's, men's, small leather goods, shoes, sunglasses and scarves. "We have seen high traffic on our e-commerce site from LA-based customers and have identified this region as a market for opportunity," says Alberto Camerlengo, Furla's CEO. "We are excited to finally share the full Furla experience with fans of the brand in Southern California." The new Costa Mesa and Miami store openings highlight the importance of the US market to Furla and align with the brand's global expansion strategy. Furla has invested in prestigious real estate worldwide to increase brand awareness and help customers discover Furla's Italian DNA, quality and creativity. FURLA South Coast Plaza 3333 Bristol St. Costa Mesa, CA 92626 Store Hours: Monday Friday: 10:00am - 9:00pm Saturday: 10:00am 8:00pm Sunday: 11:00am 6:30pm FURLA.com SOURCE Furla "I am excited to be among the first physicians to treat neurotrophic keratitis patients with this new therapy," said Giacomina Massaro-Giordano, MD, of the Scheie Eye Institute at the University of Pennsylvania and an investigator in the Oxervate clinical trials. "This newly approved therapy provides clinical improvements for NK patients, many of whom are at risk for losing their sight, and treatment options to help them were previously limited to symptom management." Patient Access to Oxervate Prior to commercial availability, Oxervate was provided to individual patients through an Expanded Access Program with approval from the FDA. Dompe remains committed to patient access and has provided a comprehensive patient support program called Dompe Connect to Care (DC2C). DC2C will provide educational resources on NK and Oxervate for both patients and physicians. DC2C also provides financial assistance to eligible patients through the Oxervate Co-pay Card Program, and the Dompe Patient Assistance Program. More information on these programs is available by calling 1-833-DOMPE-US. Dompe is also a member of the Corporate Council of the National Organization for Rare Diseases (NORD) and supports the organization's RareCare program for patients with rare diseases, including neurotrophic keratitis. "We would like to thank the patients and physicians who participated in our clinical trials and the ophthalmic and rare disease communities who have contributed to making Oxervate available," said Sergio Dompe, Chairman of Dompe. "At Dompe our top priority is ensuring that NK patients are able to access the clinical benefits of Oxervate. We are also committed to continuing our investments in innovation, including our programs related to nerve growth factor and in other areas of unmet medical need." Oxervate is now commercially available in the U.S. and can be ordered through Accredo Specialty Pharmacy by calling 1-877-831-8112. Oxervate is the first-ever FDA-approved application of a human nerve growth factor as drug or treatment, and the first-ever topical biologic medication approved in ophthalmology. Oxervate was approved in August 2018 as an orphan drug by the FDA after being granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation, Fast Track Status, and Priority Review. Oxervate is approved in multiple jurisdictions worldwide, including those in the European Union. Oxervate: Safety and Efficacy Data The efficacy and safety of Oxervate in NK was established in two independent, double-masked, randomized, multi-center, controlled clinical trials.2,3 This program represents the largest combined population of patients with NK ever examined in randomized controlled trials. Both trials studied Oxervate monotherapy (20 mcg/mL) as compared to vehicle, a proxy for preservative-free artificial tears, among patients with moderate or severe NK. Study NGF0212 (REPARO), which was conducted in Europe, randomized 52 patients to each group. After eight weeks, 72.0 percent of patients in the treatment group were completely healed vs 33.3 percent in the vehicle group. Study NGF0214, conducted in the U.S., randomized 24 patients to each group, and 65.2 percent of treated patients were completely healed vs 16.7 percent in the vehicle group. In REPARO, the study with the longer follow-up, approximately 80 percent of patients who healed during the eight-week treatment period remained healed after one year.4 Oxervate was well tolerated in clinical trials. Eye pain, which investigators reported can be associated with regaining sensation that has been lost due to the disease, was the most frequent adverse reaction observed with Oxervate, and was reported in approximately 16 percent of patients.4,5 Other adverse events reported in more than five percent of patients included corneal deposits, swelling (inflammation) of the eye, increase of tears (increased lacrimation) and ocular hyperemia.4 Findings from the REPARO trial program are published in the September 2018 issue of Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Topline data from the confirmatory NGF0214 study were presented at the 2017 Congress of the European Society of Ophthalmology, and trial results are in preparation for publication. About Neurotrophic Keratitis Neurotrophic keratitis, also known as neurotrophic keratopathy, is a rare disease that can be caused by damage to any level of the fifth cranial (trigeminal) nerve. Causes of impaired corneal sensation include herpetic or other infections, ocular or neurologic surgeries, physical injury to the ocular surface, and some systemic conditions that impair sensation. Neurotrophic keratitis can progress to corneal scarring and vision loss. Diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment are based on disease severity, which is classified broadly into three stages. Stage 1 (mild) exhibits ocular surface irregularity and reduced vision, stage 2 (moderate) exhibits a non-healing persistent epithelial defect (PED), and stage 3 (severe) exhibits corneal ulceration involving subepithelial (stromal) tissue, which may progress to corneal melting and perforation. Patients with the more advanced stages of neurotrophic keratitis are typically treated by cornea specialists. Neurotrophic keratitis affects fewer than 65,000 persons in the U.S. based on estimated disease prevalence.1 The cornea is the most densely innervated tissue in humans, with approximately 7,000 nerve endings per square millimeter. These nerves are unique in providing support to the cornea, which is crucial to help maintain transparency in this tissue that is normally devoid of blood vessels. In fact, corneal nerves help maintain ocular surface health by producing soluble factors called neurotrophins and facilitating sensory-dependent blinking and tearing reflexes.6 About Oxervate (Cenegermin-bkbj Ophthalmic Solution) Oxervate is a topical solution 0.002% of cenegermin-bkbj (20 mcg/mL) administered six times per day for eight weeks to treat neurotrophic keratitis. Its active ingredient is a recombinant form of human nerve growth factor, a protein made by the human body. Nerve growth factor (NGF) acts through specific high-affinity and low-affinity nerve growth factor receptors in the anterior segment of the eye to support corneal innervation and integrity. More information on Oxervate can be found here in the full prescribing information on the product: www.oxervate.com Important Safety Information The most common adverse reaction in clinical trials that occurred more frequently with Oxervate was eye pain (16% of patients). Other adverse reactions included corneal deposits, foreign body sensations in the eye, ocular hyperemia (enlarged blood vessels in the white of the eyes), swelling (inflammation) of the eye, and increase of tears (1-10% of patients). About Dompe Dompe is a private, rapidly scaling global biopharmaceutical company founded in Milan, Italy, with a 165-year legacy of medical innovation. Today, Dompe employs 700 employees worldwide and is growing in the United States, Spain, Germany and France. In the United States, the commercial operations hub is located in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the company maintains an R&D presence in Boston. Forward Looking Statements This press release makes reference to certain information that may not coincide with expected future results. Dompe firmly believes in the soundness and reasonableness of the concepts expressed. However, some of the information is subject to a certain degree of indetermination in relation to its research and development activities and the necessary verifications to be performed by regulatory bodies. Therefore, as of today, Dompe cannot guarantee that the expected results will be consistent with the information provided above. 1Sacchetti M, Lambiase A. Diagnosis and Management of Neurotrophic Keratitis. Clinical Ophthalmology. 2014;8:571-9. 2Bonini S, Lambiase A, Rama P, Sinigaglia F, Allegretti M, Chao W, Mantelli F, for the REPARO Study Group. Phase II Randomized, Double-Masked, Vehicle-Controlled Trial of Recombinant Human Nerve Growth Factor for Neurotrophic Keratitis. Ophthalmology. 2018;125:1332-43. 3Chao W, Benitez Del Castillo JM, Dana R, Geerling G, Mantelli F, Massaro-Giordano G, Rama P. Healing of Persistent Epithelial Defects or Corneal Ulcer by Recombinant Human Nerve Growth Factor Eye Drops in Patients with Stage 2 or 3 Neurotrophic Keratitis. Presented at the Congress of the European Society of Ophthalmology (SOE), Barcelona, Spain, June, 1013, 2017. 4 U.S. Prescribing Information 5 McKay TB, Seyed-Razavi Y, Ghezzi CE, Dieckmann G, Nieland TJF, Cairns DM, Pollard RE, Hamrah P, Kaplan DL. Corneal pain and experimental model development. Prog Retin Eye Res. 2018 Nov 16. pii: S1350-9462(18)30013-2. [Epub ahead of print] 6 Mastropasqua L, Massaro-Giordano G, Nubile M, Sacchetti M. Understanding the Pathogenesis of Neurotrophic Keratitis: The Role of Corneal Nerves. Journal of Cellular Physiology. 2017;232(4):717-24. US-NK20190103 SOURCE Dompe STAINES-UPON-THAMES, United Kingdom, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Mallinckrodt plc (NYSE: MNK), a leading global specialty pharmaceutical company, today announced publication of a retrospective analysis assessing the efficacy of H.P. Acthar Gel (repository corticotropin injection) in kidney transplant recipients with treatment-resistant focal segmental glomerular sclerosis (FSGS). FSGS is a rare disease that can cause nephrotic syndrome, a serious kidney disorder that may raise the risk of progression to end stage renal disease (ESRD).[2] Results from the analysis, which included data from patients treated at two large U.S. transplant centers between April 2012 and December 2016, were published in the January issue of Transplantation. "This is the first study of H.P Acthar Gel treatment in renal transplant patients who were previously treated with conventional therapy for FSGS, a rare and serious kidney disease with few available treatments," said Steven Romano, M.D., Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at Mallinckrodt. "We are pleased to share these valuable insights to better understand the potential applications of Acthar in treating patients who develop FSGS after their kidney transplant." H.P. Acthar Gel is U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved to induce a diuresis or a remission of proteinuria (excess protein in the urine) in nephrotic syndrome without uremia of the idiopathic type or that due to lupus erythematosus. Clinical experience has shown reduction in proteinuria in multiple glomerular nephropathies, including FSGS.[3] H.P. Acthar Gel in Resistant Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis after Kidney Transplantation[1] This retrospective study evaluated 20 kidney transplant patients (mean age of 49 years; range 22-80 years) who received H.P. Acthar Gel for the treatment of proteinuria due to new or recurrent post-transplant FSGS. Subjects had previously received conventional FSGS treatment with therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) and/or rituximab and developed FSGS approximately three months after their transplant (median interquartile range [IQR] of three months; range 0.75-7.5 months). Forty percent of patients (8/20) received rituximab within 24 hours of the transplant surgery and twenty percent (4/20) received TPE before transplantation. Seventy-five percent of patients (15/20) were treated with TPE at the time of post-transplant FSGS; 50 percent (10/20) received rituximab as well which was started before the use of H.P Acthar Gel. Eighty percent (16/20) were treated with TPE and/or rituximab prior to initiating H.P. Acthar Gel therapy. All 20 patients in the study received thymoglobulin induction therapy (an immunosuppressive used in kidney transplantation). All patients were maintained on triple immunosuppression antirejection therapy of a calcineurin inhibitor (CNI), mycophenolate mofetil and prednisone. Tacrolimus (CNI) was used in 85 percent (17/20) of patients and cyclosporine (CNI) in 15 percent (3/20). One patient (5 percent) was switched from a CNI to belatacept because of CNI nephrotoxicity. Subjects took H.P. Acthar Gel twice a week for approximately six months (median IQR of 24 weeks; range 8-32 weeks) and were evaluated for treatment response using the urine protein to creatinine ratio to determine complete or partial remission of proteinuria. Complete remission (CR) was defined as a decrease of proteinuria 1g/g with stable kidney function (creatinine within 30 percent from baseline after H.P. Acthar Gel treatment), and partial remission (PR) was defined as a decrease of proteinuria between 1 and 3.5 g/g with stable kidney function (creatinine within 30 percent from baseline after H.P. Acthar Gel treatment). Key Findings The analysis found significant improvement in proteinuria after treatment with H.P. Acthar Gel from a mean Standard Deviation (SD) of 8.6 7.6 g/g at baseline to a mean SD of 3.3 2.3 g/g at about six months (P=0.004). Fifty percent of patients (10/20) who received H.P. Acthar Gel had a complete or partial remission of proteinuria (four patients achieved CR and six patients achieved PR). The use of H.P. Acthar Gel did not significantly change mean serum creatinine levels (3.3 2.7 vs. 2.8 1.67 mg/dL, P=0.42) or estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) (30.7 19.3 vs. 34.4 20 mL/min/1.73 m2, P=0.56). Three patients died, one during treatment and two in the post-treatment follow-up period. Additional Observations During the observation period, 40 percent (8/20) of patients had transplant failure, with five cases attributed to new or recurring FSGS, while 60 percent of patients (12/20) reported no transplant failure. The analysis also assessed if patients on TPE (10/20) could discontinue therapy. Six patients were weaned off TPE. The remaining four were reported to require TPE less frequently. Study Limitations This was a retrospective study with no control group. Not all patients were treated similarly; this included some subjects who received initial prophylactic TPE or rituximab as a preventative measure at their treatment center. A variety of factors may have influenced the improvement in proteinuria including TPE given with H.P. Acthar Gel. The analysis was supported, in part, through the Mallinckrodt Investigator-Initiated Research program. "The incidence of recurrent FSGS after kidney transplant has been reported between 20 percent to 50 percent but may exceed 80 percent in patients with a history of transplant failure from a prior FSGS recurrence. Further, transplant recipients with recurrent FSGS are two to five times more likely to have transplant loss compared to those with no recurrence. The goal of treatment is to reduce patients' disease activity or, ideally, achieve remission, but there are no real standards of care and challenges exist with current approaches," said Tarek Alhamad, MD, MS, FACP, FASN, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Medical Director of Transplant Nephrology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and the study's lead author. "This retrospective analysis the first retrospective cohort review to date provides data insights regarding H.P. Acthar Gel for physicians treating patients with post-transplant FSGS." About Nephrotic Syndrome Nephrotic syndrome (NS) is a collection of symptoms that occur when the blood vessels in the kidney begin to leak excess protein in the urine, a condition called proteinuria. A variety of diseases and underlying disorders may damage the kidneys and cause proteinuria in people with NS. These etiologies can include glomerular diseases such as: idiopathic membranous nephropathy, focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, minimal change disease, membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis, lupus nephritis, and IgA nephropathy. In these and other related disorders, the glomeruli, or small blood vessels that work as the kidney's filtering system, are damaged. Proteinuria is one of the most important adverse prognostic factors for progression to end stage renal failure in patients with glomerular disease. One of the goals of treating nephrotic syndrome includes reducing or eliminating proteinuria.[4] H.P. Acthar Gel (repository corticotropin injection) Indications H.P. Acthar Gel is an injectable drug approved by the FDA for the treatment of 19 indications. Of these, today the majority of Acthar use is in these indications: Adjunctive therapy for short-term administration (to tide the patient over an acute episode or exacerbation) in rheumatoid arthritis, including juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (selected cases may require low-dose maintenance therapy) Monotherapy for the treatment of infantile spasms in infants and children under 2 years of age Treatment during an exacerbation or as maintenance therapy in selected cases of systemic lupus erythematosus The treatment of acute exacerbations of multiple sclerosis in adults. Controlled clinical trials have shown H.P. Acthar Gel to be effective in speeding the resolution of acute exacerbations of multiple sclerosis. However, there is no evidence that it affects the ultimate outcome or natural history of the disease Inducing a diuresis or a remission of proteinuria in nephrotic syndrome without uremia of the idiopathic type or that due to lupus erythematosus Treatment during an exacerbation or as maintenance therapy in selected cases of systemic dermatomyositis (polymyositis) The treatment of symptomatic sarcoidosis Treatment of severe acute and chronic allergic and inflammatory processes involving the eye and its adnexa such as: keratitis, iritis, iridocyclitis, diffuse posterior uveitis and choroiditis, optic neuritis, chorioretinitis, anterior segment inflammation IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION Contraindications Acthar should never be administered intravenously Administration of live or live attenuated vaccines is contraindicated in patients receiving immunosuppressive doses of Acthar Acthar is contraindicated where congenital infections are suspected in infants Acthar is contraindicated in patients with scleroderma, osteoporosis, systemic fungal infections, ocular herpes simplex, recent surgery, history of or the presence of a peptic ulcer, congestive heart failure, uncontrolled hypertension, primary adrenocortical insufficiency, adrenocortical hyperfunction or sensitivity to proteins of porcine origins Warnings and Precautions The adverse effects of Acthar are related primarily to its steroidogenic effects Acthar may increase susceptibility to new infection or reactivation of latent infections Suppression of the hypothalamic-pituitary-axis (HPA) may occur following prolonged therapy with the potential for adrenal insufficiency after withdrawal of the medication. Adrenal insufficiency may be minimized by tapering of the dose when discontinuing treatment. During recovery of the adrenal gland patients should be protected from the stress (e.g. trauma or surgery) by the use of corticosteroids. Monitor patients for effects of HPA suppression after stopping treatment Cushing's syndrome may occur during therapy but generally resolves after therapy is stopped. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms Acthar can cause elevation of blood pressure, salt and water retention, and hypokalemia. Blood pressure, sodium and potassium levels may need to be monitored Acthar often acts by masking symptoms of other diseases/disorders. Monitor patients carefully during and for a period following discontinuation of therapy Acthar can cause GI bleeding and gastric ulcer. There is also an increased risk for perforation in patients with certain gastrointestinal disorders. Monitor for signs of bleeding Acthar may be associated with central nervous system effects ranging from euphoria, insomnia, irritability, mood swings, personality changes, and severe depression, and psychosis. Existing conditions may be aggravated Patients with comorbid disease may have that disease worsened. Caution should be used when prescribing Acthar in patients with diabetes and myasthenia gravis Prolonged use of Acthar may produce cataracts, glaucoma and secondary ocular infections. Monitor for signs and symptoms Acthar is immunogenic and prolonged administration of Acthar may increase the risk of hypersensitivity reactions. Neutralizing antibodies with chronic administration may lead to loss of endogenous ACTH activity There is an enhanced effect in patients with hypothyroidism and in those with cirrhosis of the liver Long-term use may have negative effects on growth and physical development in children. Monitor pediatric patients Decrease in bone density may occur. Bone density should be monitored for patients on long-term therapy Pregnancy Class C: Acthar has been shown to have an embryocidal effect and should be used during pregnancy only if the potential benefit justifies the potential risk to the fetus Adverse Reactions Common adverse reactions for Acthar are similar to those of corticosteroids and include fluid retention, alteration in glucose tolerance, elevation in blood pressure, behavioral and mood changes, increased appetite and weight gain Specific adverse reactions reported in IS clinical trials in infants and children under 2 years of age included: infection, hypertension, irritability, Cushingoid symptoms, constipation, diarrhea, vomiting, pyrexia, weight gain, increased appetite, decreased appetite, nasal congestion, acne, rash, and cardiac hypertrophy. Convulsions were also reported, but these may actually be occurring because some IS patients progress to other forms of seizures and IS sometimes mask other seizures, which become visible once the clinical spasms from IS resolve Other adverse events reported are included in the full Prescribing Information. Please see full Prescribing Information. ABOUT MALLINCKRODT Mallinckrodt is a global business that develops, manufactures, markets and distributes specialty pharmaceutical products and therapies. Areas of focus include autoimmune and rare diseases in specialty areas like neurology, rheumatology, nephrology, pulmonology and ophthalmology; immunotherapy and neonatal respiratory critical care therapies; analgesics and gastrointestinal products. To learn more about Mallinckrodt, visit www.mallinckrodt.com. Mallinckrodt uses its website as a channel of distribution of important company information, such as press releases, investor presentations and other financial information. It also uses its website to expedite public access to time-critical information regarding the company in advance of or in lieu of distributing a press release or a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosing the same information. Therefore, investors should look to the Investor Relations page of the website for important and time-critical information. Visitors to the website can also register to receive automatic e-mail and other notifications alerting them when new information is made available on the Investor Relations page of the website. CONTACTS For Trade Media Inquiries Caren Begun Green Room Communications 201-396-8551 [email protected] For Financial/Dailies Media Inquiries Daniel Yunger Kekst CNC 212-521-4879 [email protected] Investor Relations Daniel J. Speciale, CPA Investor Relations and Strategy Officer 314-654-3638 [email protected] Mallinckrodt, the "M" brand mark and the Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals logo are trademarks of a Mallinckrodt company. Other brands are trademarks of a Mallinckrodt company or their respective owners. 2019 Mallinckrodt. US-1900004 1/19 [1] Alhamad T, Dieck JM, Younus U, et al. ACTH gel in resistant focal segmental glomerulosclerosis after kidney transplantation.Transplantation. 2019;103: 202209. [2] Korbet SM. Clinical picture and outcome of primary focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. Nephrol Dial Transplant. 1999;14 Suppl 3:68-73. [3] H.P. Acthar Gel (repository corticotropin injection) [prescribing information]. Mallinckrodt ARD, Inc. [4] Troyanov et al. J Am Soc Nephrol. 2005;16(4):10611068. SOURCE Mallinckrodt plc Related Links http://www.mallinckrodt.com SAO PAULO, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Cosan Limited (NYSE: CZZ) announced today the final results of its tender offer to purchase up to U.S.$100,000,000 of its Class A common shares, or the shares, at (i) prices specified by the tendering shareholders of not greater than U.S.$9.30 nor less than U.S.$8.88 per share or (ii) at the purchase price determined in accordance with the tender offer. The tender offer expired at 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on December 28, 2018. Based on the final count by Computershare Trust Company, N.A., the Depositary for the tender offer (the "Depositary"), a total of 30,871,499 Class A common shares of Cosan were properly tendered and not properly withdrawn at the final cash purchase price of U.S.$8.88 per share. Because the tender offer was oversubscribed, the Company purchased only a prorated portion of the shares properly tendered by each tendering shareholder (other than "odd lot" holders whose shares were purchased on a priority basis) at the final per share cash purchase price of U.S.$8.88. Based on the final tender count, and taking into consideration the effect of odd lot priority and conditional tenders on the proration factor, the final proration factor for the tender offer was 49.74% of the shares properly tendered at the cash purchase price of U.S.$8.88 per share. Accordingly, Cosan acquired 14,228,134 shares at a purchase price of U.S.$8.88 per share, for a total cost of approximately U.S.$126.3 million, excluding fees and other expenses related to the tender offer. These shares represent 9.6% of the issued and outstanding Class A common shares of Cosan as of December 31, 2018. The shares accepted for purchase include 2,966,873 additional shares that Cosan has elected to purchase pursuant to its right to purchase up to an additional 2% of its outstanding Class A common shares. The Depositary will promptly pay for the shares accepted for purchase. After giving effect to the purchase of the Class A common shares, Cosan will have 134,115,534 outstanding Class A common shares. Cosan funded the share purchases in the tender offer from its cash and investments. Cosan's tender offer was made pursuant to an Offer to Purchase and Letter of Transmittal, each dated November 30, 2018 and as amended on December 13, 2018 and December 31, 2018. About Cosan Cosan Limited (NYSE: CZZ) is an energy and infrastructure conglomerate and, when considered together with our joint venture entities formed with Shell Brazil Holdings B.V. (i.e., Raizen Combustiveis S.A. and Raizen Energia S.A., collectively known as "Raizen"), a Brazilian market reference in fuel distribution, sugar and ethanol production, natural gas distribution and railway-based logistics. All statements contained in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements including those regarding the tender offer described in this press release. These statements speak only as of the date of this press release and are based on our current plans and expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual future events or results to be different from those described in or implied by such forward-looking statements, including risks and uncertainties regarding: changes in financial markets; changes in economic, political or regulatory conditions or other trends affecting the ethanol, sugar and logistics industries; and changes in facts and circumstances and other uncertainties concerning the completion of the tender offer. Further information about these matters can be found in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Except as required by applicable law or regulation, we do not undertake any obligation to update our forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances. SOURCE Cosan Limited "Evolving our presence at CES to a multi-brand experience is a natural progression as we roll-out portfolio-wide smart innovations to meet the demand for a smart home ecosystem," said Brett Dibkey, Whirlpool Corporation vice president, brand and strategy in North America. "As a Corporation, we're singularly focused on using smart technology to positively change our consumers' lives. Our products should offer them a means to care for their loved ones, create truly personalized meals, and really enhance the cooking experience they are already passionate about." Located in the Smart Home section at the Sands Expo Center (Booth #41925), the products and digital experiences will showcase the latest in smart home technology and advancements for Whirlpool Brand, KitchenAid, WLabs and Yummly. CES 2019 attendees will: Connect to the future of care with Whirlpool smart kitchen and laundry experiences that provide simplified, personalized care for families. smart kitchen and laundry experiences that provide simplified, personalized care for families. Preview the Whirlpool Connected Hub Wall Oven concept, a vision for a central cooking hub which will enhance the traditional built-in wall oven with a transparent interface on the oven door that unlocks access to personalized recipe suggestions, guided cooking, food detection, food monitoring and cooking techniques. concept, a vision for a central cooking hub which will enhance the traditional built-in wall oven with a transparent interface on the oven door that unlocks access to personalized recipe suggestions, guided cooking, food detection, food monitoring and cooking techniques. Perfect for tight spaces or for families looking to remove an extra step in their laundry process, the Whirlpool Smart All-In-One Washer & Dryer completes a load of laundry in the same machine. completes a load of laundry in the same machine. Connect to passion with KitchenAid smart cooking appliances that inspire consumers to connect to their passion for cooking. smart cooking appliances that inspire consumers to connect to their passion for cooking. KitchenAid will be offering the first-ever collection of oven-powered grill, baking stone and steamer attachments. Launching in 2019, the KitchenAid Smart Oven+ with Powered Attachments will act as the hub of the kitchen with attachments for in-home grilling, baking and steaming, empowering the passionate home cook. * will act as the hub of the kitchen with attachments for in-home grilling, baking and steaming, empowering the passionate home cook. * Planned for launch in 2019, the all-in-one KitchenAid Cook Processor Connect will be a one-stop shop for home cooks, giving them every tool they need to make great-tasting homemade meals - from step by step recipe guidance, to an integrated ingredient weight scale, to attachments that handle everything from steaming and stewing to mincing and pureeing. will be a one-stop shop for home cooks, giving them every tool they need to make great-tasting homemade meals - from step by step recipe guidance, to an integrated ingredient weight scale, to attachments that handle everything from steaming and stewing to mincing and pureeing. Connect to homemade meals with Yummly's personalized recommendations and new offerings guiding consumers through every step of the cooking process with amazing results. personalized recommendations and new offerings guiding consumers through every step of the cooking process with amazing results. Already live on select, smart Whirlpool brand appliances, Yummly Guided Cooking offers recipes having the ability to connect to Whirlpool appliances to set and change temperatures, settings, cook times and more at exactly the right times. ** offers recipes having the ability to connect to Whirlpool appliances to set and change temperatures, settings, cook times and more at exactly the right times. ** Yummly Pro will dish up cooking curricula to help users gain confidence in the kitchen and will feature well-known celebrity chefs and influencers, curating engaging exclusive content on its app, such as guided recipes and e-learning courses. will dish up cooking curricula to help users gain confidence in the kitchen and will feature well-known celebrity chefs and influencers, curating engaging exclusive content on its app, such as guided recipes and e-learning courses. Connect to the future of the home with Whirlpool Corporation's innovation incubator WLabs' groundbreaking solutions that offer eager early adopters a glimpse into the future of cooking. with Whirlpool Corporation's innovation incubator WLabs' groundbreaking solutions that offer eager early adopters a glimpse into the future of cooking. The WLabs Smart Countertop Oven's unique food identification technology automatically recognizes a wide variety of foods placed in the oven, setting the time and temperature accordingly for an output that's cooked to the desired doneness level. For more information on the corporation's products and to join the conversation, follow #ConnectToMore #CES2019. Product features subject to change. WiFi & App required for connected features. Details and privacy info at whirlpool.com/connect, kitchenaid.com/connect, and yummly.com. Appliances must be set to Remote Enable for remote control capabilities. * Attachments may ship separately. ** Guided Cooking available on select recipes only - look for recipes with the Connected Fork icon in the Yummly app. CES is a registered trademark of Consumer Technology Association (CTA). About Whirlpool Corporation: Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE: WHR) is the world's leading major home appliance company, with approximately $21 billion in annual sales, 92,000 employees and 70 manufacturing and technology research centers in 2017. The company markets Whirlpool, KitchenAid, Maytag, Consul, Brastemp, Amana, Bauknecht, Jenn-Air, Indesit and other major brand names in nearly every country throughout the world. Additional information about the company can be found at WhirlpoolCorp.com, or find us on Twitter at @WhirlpoolCorp. SOURCE Whirlpool Corporation FLORHAM PARK, N.J., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Conduent Incorporated (NYSE: CNDT) today announced it has completed its acquisition of Health Solutions Plus (HSP), a software provider of healthcare payer administration solutions. The acquisition enables Conduent to better serve current and prospective commercial and government payer clients with core administration processing technology. In particular, with the purchase of HSP, Conduent offers a modern Core Administration Processing System (CAPS) solution, which is a key connector of administrative functions for healthcare funding entities, including commercial payers, managed care organizations, state Medicaid agencies and Medicare Advantage payers. The transaction, announced Oct. 31, also aligns with Conduent's strategy to make acquisitions that will enhance its core portfolio and position it as a technology-led, digital interactions company. "This purchase strengthens our leadership position in the market, enhancing our capacity to connect the entire healthcare ecosystem," said Pratap Sarker, group chief executive, Conduent, Financial Services and Healthcare. "We can now bring an end-to-end healthcare payer administration solution to our commercial and government payer clients, helping them achieve operational efficiencies, lower costs and an enhanced digital experience for members and providers." Conduent serves all 20 of the top health plans, nine of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies and more than 2,200 healthcare providers. Founded in 1996, HSP was a privately held company based in Melville, N.Y., supporting more than 20 million people insured by healthcare organizations across medical, dental, vision and extended health products. The company was ranked as the No. 1 vendor for payer claims and administration platforms in the 2018 Best in KLAS: Software and Services report. Additionally, HSP brings a proven track record of providing comprehensive payer solutions that offer the flexibility and automation needed to support extended health products like dental, vision and specialty health benefits products. Besides providing end-to-end administration processing from enrollment to billing to final reporting the HSP Payer Suite can support multiple lines of business, including commercial, Medicaid, Medi-Cal and Medicare Advantage. Former HSP employees, including HSP co-founders John Buser and Dr. James Basile, are now part of Conduent's Financial Services and Healthcare sector, led by Pratap Sarker. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Sheppard Mullin served as legal counsel to Conduent. Bruderman Brothers served as HSP's financial advisor. Click to Tweet LinkedIn About Conduent Conduent creates digital platforms and services for businesses and governments to manage millions of interactions every day for those they serve. We are leveraging the power of cloud, mobile and IoT, combined with technologies such as automation, cognitive and blockchain to elevate every constituent interaction, driving modern digital experiences that are more efficient, helpful and satisfying. Conduent's differentiated offerings touch millions of lives every day, including two-thirds of all insured patients in the U.S. and nearly nine million people who travel through toll systems daily. Whether it's digital payments, claims processing, benefit administration, automated tolling, customer care or distributed learning Conduent serves a majority of the Fortune 100 companies and more than 500 government entities. Learn more at www.conduent.com. Note: To receive RSS news feeds, visit www.news.conduent.com. For open commentary, industry perspectives and views, visit http://twitter.com/Conduent, http://www.linkedin.com/company/conduent or http://www.facebook.com/Conduent. Conduent is a trademark of Conduent Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. SOURCE Conduent Incorporated Related Links https://www.conduent.com DALLAS, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Comerica Bank's Michigan Economic Activity Index ticked up in October to a level of 118.9. October's reading is 21 points, or 21 percent, above the index cyclical low of 97.9. The index averaged 118.2 points for all of 2017, one point above the index average for 2016. September's index reading was 118.1. Comerica Bank's Michigan Economic Activity Index increased in October, reversing a slide that started in June. Seven out of nine sub-indexes were positive in October. There were nonfarm payrolls, unemployment insurance claims (inverted), housing starts, house prices, industrial electricity demand, auto and light truck production and hotel occupancy. Total state trade and sales tax revenues were negatives in October. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement was signed by the leaders of the three countries in Buenos Aires on November 30. This will reduce some uncertainty for Michigan businesses, However, the new trade deal must still be ratified legislatively by the three countries. Even with a clearer line of sight regarding trade deals, exporting businesses may soon feel softer demand from their international buyers. China and Europe are both showing signs of cooler growth heading into 2019. Another major automobile company has announced plant closures and layoffs. After GM's announcement, Tata Motors (parent company of Land Rover and Jaguar) announced closures and layoffs in the U.K. and in India. This does not impact Michigan directly but it does show the unsettled nature of the global auto industry. U.S. auto sales have held up well, averaging a 17.5 million unit annual rate from September through November. The Michigan Economic Activity Index consists of nine variables, as follows: nonfarm payroll employment, continuing claims for unemployment insurance, housing starts, house price index, industrial electricity sales, auto assemblies, total trade, hotel occupancy and sales tax revenue. All data are seasonally adjusted. Nominal values have been converted to constant dollar values. Index levels are expressed in terms of three-month moving averages. Comerica Bank, with one of the largest banking center networks in Michigan, is a subsidiary of Comerica Incorporated (NYSE: CMA), a financial services company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and strategically aligned by three business segments: The Business Bank, The Retail Bank, and Wealth Management. Comerica focuses on relationships, and helping people and businesses be successful. In addition to Michigan and Texas, Comerica Bank locations can be found in Arizona, California, and Florida, with select businesses operating in several other states, as well as in Canada and Mexico. To subscribe to our publications or for questions, contact us at [email protected]. Archives are available at http://www.comerica.com/insights. Follow us on Twitter: @Comerica_Econ. SOURCE Comerica Bank Related Links http://www.comerica.com FOSHAN, China, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Bright Scholar Education Holdings Limited ("Bright Scholar" or the "Company") (NYSE: BEDU), the largest operator of international and bilingual K-12 schools in China*, today announced that it will release its unaudited financial results for the first fiscal quarter ended November 30, 2018 on January 17, 2019 after the US market closes. The earnings press release will be available on the investor relations page at http://ir.brightscholar.com. Conference Call BEDU's management will host a conference call at 8:00 am US Eastern Time (9:00 pm Beijing/Hong Kong Time) on January 18, 2019, to discuss its quarterly and recent business activities. To participate in the conference call, please dial the following number five to ten minutes prior to the scheduled conference call time: China: 4001-201-203 Hong Kong: 852-301-84992 United States: 1-888-346-8982 Canada Toll Free: 1-855-669-9657 International: 1-412-902-4272 - No passcode is needed for the call. Please request to join Bright Scholar Education Holdings Ltd.'s call as you dial in. The Company will also broadcast a live audio webcast of the conference call. The webcast will be available at http://ir.brightscholar.com/. Following the earnings conference call, an archive of the call will be available by dialing: United States: 1-877-344-7529 International: 1-412-317-0088 Canada Toll Free: 855-669-9658 Replay Passcode: 10127413 Replay End Date: January 25, 2019 About Bright Scholar Education Holdings Limited Bright Scholar is the largest operator of international and bilingual K-12 schools in China*. The Company is dedicated to providing quality international education to Chinese students and equipping them with the critical academic foundation and skillsets necessary to succeed in the pursuit of higher education overseas. Bright Scholar also complements its international offerings with Chinese government-mandated curriculum for students who wish to maintain the option of pursuing higher education in China. As of August 31, 2018, Bright Scholar operated 65 schools covering the breadth of K-12 academic needs of its students across eight provinces in China. In the fiscal year 2018 school year ended August 31, 2018, Bright Scholar had an average of 36,679 students enrolled at its schools. ____________ * In terms of student enrollment as of August 31, 2018, according to an industry report commissioned by Bright Scholar and prepared by Frost & Sullivan in 2018. Safe Harbor Statement This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the Company's business plans and development, can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "expect," "anticipate," "aim," "estimate," "intend," "plan," "believe," "potential," "continue," "is/are likely to" or other similar expressions. Such statements are based upon management's current expectations and current market and operating conditions, and relate to events that involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond the Company's control, which may cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties or factors is included in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under law. SOURCE Bright Scholar Education Holdings Ltd. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/644091/Artprice_Logo.jpg ) (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/803611/A_Banquet_of_the_Gods.jpg ) Top 10 upcoming artworks at auction in January 2019 Artprice.com 1 : Joachim WTEWAEL (c.1566-c.1638) Artwork : A Banquet of the Gods Estimate : $5,000,000 - $7,000,000 Sale : 01.30.2019 - Sotheby's NY 2 : Elisabeth VIGE-LEBRUN (1755-1842) Artwork : Portrait of Muhammad Dervish Khan (1788) Estimate : $4,000,000 - $6,000,000 Sale : 02.30.2019 - Sotheby's NY 3 : Jan VAN DE CAPPELLE (c.1624-1679) Artwork : A Shipping Scene on a Calm Sea Estimate : $4,000,000 - $6,000,000 Sale : 03.30.2019 - Sotheby's NY 4 : Ambrosius BOSSCHAERT I (1573-1621) Artwork : A Still Life of Flowers in a Glass Flask (1607) Estimate : $2,500,000 - $3,500,000 Sale : 04.30.2019 - Sotheby's NY 5 : Peter Paul RUBENS (1577-1640) Artwork : Nude Study of a Young Man Estimate : $2,500,000 - $3,500,000 Sale : 05.30.2019 - Sotheby's NY 6 : Orazio GENTILESCHI (1563-1639) Artwork : The Fall of the Rebel Angels Estimate : $2,500,000 - $3,500,000 Sale : 06.30.2019 - Sotheby's NY 7 : Pieter BRUEGHEL II (c.1564-1637/38) Artwork : St. George's Kermis (1627) Estimate : $2,000,000 - $3,000,000 Sale : 07.30.2019 - Sotheby's NY 8 : Fede GALIZIA (1578-1630) Artwork : A Glass Compote with Peaches Estimate : $2,000,000 - $3,000,000 Sale : 08.30.2019 - Sotheby's NY 9 : Jacobus VREL (c.1630-c.1680) Artwork : Street Scene with Two Figures Walking Away Estimate : $1,500,000 - $2,000,000 Sale : 09.30.2019 - Sotheby's NY 10 : Luis MELENDEZ (1716-1780) Artwork : Still Life with a Plate of Azaroles Estimate : $1,500,000 - $2,000,000 Sale : 10.30.2019 - Sotheby's NY Nevertheless, the most exciting lots are not necessarily the most expensive ones. thierry Ehrmann, Founder and CEO of Artprice insists : "The mid-range Art Market is full of opportunities and it is worth keeping track of what is on offer as soon as the year begins" The unique world of Henry Darger Henry Darger (1892-1973) created an exceptionally broad spectrum uvre that was discovered in his room after his death. A secretive and reclusive character, Darger created a unique world, including a 15,000-page illustrated and typed manuscript, The Realms of the Unreal, describing events from a completely imaginary world in which a bunch of pre-teen girls (the Vivian Girls) on an imaginary planet wage a war against adults to obtain their freedom. Parallel to this written saga (but never published), Darger also painted. He produced - sometimes on both sides - large narrative panels that are pure masterpieces. His technique was also unique, drawing inspiration from a variety of sources (children's art books, various magazines, fashion catalogs, etc.) copying the images in charcoal before applying water colours. The first Darger works sold on the secondary market were actually auctioned in France at Loudmer's in 1989. At that time, a panoramic drawing by the obscure celebrity fetched less than $10,000. Today, his drawings are in the collections of major museums including the MoMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris and the Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne. On the auction market one would expect to pay at least $150,000 for one of his most important works because they are both in-demand and rare. The one proposed by Christie's on 18 January in New York is monumental - nearly three meters wide - and double-sided (drawn on both sides). It is expected to fetch between $250,000 and $500,000. Two days later, Sotheby's will, in turn, sell a smaller double-sided drawing by Henry Darger (178-cm long) with an estimate value between $150,000 and $300,000. The simultaneousness of these two upcoming sales is noticeable, as only 19 drawings by Henry Darger have been seen in auction room since 1989. The opulence of a small masterpiece by Wtewael Jumping back over 400 hundred years... we have a superb baroque painting on copper entitled Banquet of the Gods by the Dutch painter Joachim Anthonisz Wtewael, one of Holland's most important artists, active in the years 1580 - 1620. This masterful work depicts 47 figures - gods, fauns, women and putti - in orgiastic debauchery... all within the confines of 15.8 x 20.4 cm. With unmatched density, the artist portrays Bacchus, Ceres, Mars, Venus, Cupid, Pan and his muses at a grand banquet, and despite its small size, the work is expected to sell for between 5 and 7 million dollars on 30 January at Sotheby's (New York). However, in view of its quality, it is quite possible the lot will reach its high estimate, especially since a smaller Wtewael work has already crossed the $7 million threshold. That was also an oil-on-copper measuring just 18.2 x 13.5 cm, a virtuoso composition depicting 12 bodies on the sensual theme of Mars and Venus surprised by Vulcan (Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan, $7.26m, at Christie's London in 2012). One of Rubens' best drawings Sotheby's will also be offering an exquisitely rare drawing by Rubens which should fetch the Dutch virtuoso's second best-ever auction result for a work on paper. It's a study of a young man with arms raised measuring almost 50 centimeters, drawn in charcoal with a couple of white chalk highlights to catch the light. The work shows the artist's change of mind regarding the position of the tensed and muscular legs. The torsion of the lower limbs and the momentum of the figure, forward and upward, is typical Baroque bravura. A result within the estimated range of $2.5 - $3.5 million would make it the second best-ever auction result for a Rubens drawing (and the best result for a Rubens charcoal). On 10 July 2014, Christie's London hammered his best-ever result for a work on paper - an ink representing Samson and Delilah - at over $5.5 million. Apart from the provincial sales in France and the year's first New York sessions at Christie's and Sotheby's, we don't yet know what other wonders the other major auction houses around the world will be offering over the coming months (China's Poly Auction and China Guardian, Germany's Dorotheum, France's Artcurial, Korea's Seoul Auction). In fact, the majority of auction operators do not start selling until later in the year, and some wait as long as May (Grisebach) before reopening after the winter break. Copyright 2019 thierry Ehrmann - http://www.artprice.com About Artprice: Founded by thierry Ehrmann (see Who's who certified Biography ) (c) https://imgpublic.artprice.com/img/wp/sites/11/2018/10/bio-2019-whos-who-thierry-ehrmann.pdf ). Artprice is listed on the Eurolist by Euronext Paris, SRD long only and Euroclear: 7478 - Bloomberg: PRC - Reuters: ARTF. Dicover Artprice in video: https://www.artprice.com/video Artprice is the global leader in art price and art index databanks. It has over 30 million indices and auction results covering more than 700,000 artists. Artprice Images gives unlimited access to the largest Art Market resource in the world: a library of 126 million images or prints of artworks from the year 1700 to the present day, along with comments by Artprice's art historians. Artprice permanently enriches its databanks with information from 6,300 auctioneers and it publishes a constant flow of art market trends for the world's principal news agencies and approximately 7,200 international press publications. For its 4,500,000 members, Artprice gives access to the world's leading Standardised Marketplace for buying and selling art. Artprice is preparing its blockchain for the Art Market. It is BPI-labelled (scientific national French label) Artprice's Global Art Market Annual Report for 2017 published last March 2018: https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-art-market-in-2017 Artprice is associated with Artron Group the Chinese leader in the Art Market, its solid institutional partner. About the Artron Group: "Artron Art Group (Artron), a comprehensive cultural industrial group founded in 1993 by Wan jie, is committed to inheriting, enhancing and spreading art value. Based on abundant art data, Artron provides art industry and art fans with professional service and experience of quality products by integrated application of IT, advanced digital science and innovative crafts and materials. Having produced more than 60,000 books and auction catalogues, Artron is the world's largest art book printer with a total print volume of 300 million a year. It has more than 3 million professional members in the arts sector and an average of 15 million daily visits, making it the world's leading art website." Artron's Web: http://www.Artron.net Artprice's Contemporary Art Market Annual Report for 2017 - free access at: https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-contemporary-art-market-report-2017 Artprice's press releases: http://serveur.serveur.com/Press_Release/pressreleaseen.htm https://twitter.com/artpricedotcom Artmarket News: https://twitter.com/artpricedotcom & https://twitter.com/artmarketdotcom https://www.facebook.com/artpricedotcom 3.4 million subscribers http://artmarketinsight.wordpress.com/ Discover the Alchemy and the universe of Artprice http://web.artprice.com/video, which headquarters are the famous Museum of Contemporary Art, the Abode of Chaos: http://goo.gl/zJssd https://vimeo.com/124643720 The Contemporary Art Museum The Abode of Chaos https://www.facebook.com/la.demeure.du.chaos.theabodeofchaos999 3.4 million subscribers Contact: thierry Ehrmann - [email protected] SOURCE Artprice.com WALLED LAKE, Mich., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Armaly Sponge Company home to the Brillo brand, a global leader in consumer household cleaning products, and Armaly ProPlus brand America's Best Soft Tools, the #1 brand in professional and do-it-yourself surface preparation, finish and cleaning announced today it has acquired Acme Sponge Company. Acme Sponge Company, located in Tarpon Springs, Florida, is the #1 distributor of natural sponges globally and in the United States, and traces its roots back four generations to sea sponge merchants and divers in Greece. However, Acme Sponge Company is not just a sponge company anymore. Over the past 70 years, it has grown into a diverse multi-national company. Acme offers a wide variety of high quality products, including natural sponges, synthetic sponges, natural loofahs and loofah products, bath and body brushes, and assorted cleaning products and accessories. The acquisition will increase Armaly Sponge Company's market share in the natural sponge segment and provide new distribution opportunities and logistical efficiencies with retailers. This transaction also provides an additional global growth platform for other Armaly branded products while maintaining best in class quality, value and standards. "We are excited to combine our unique assets and expertise with that of Armaly Sponge Company to create an even stronger company with the same family values upon which both companies were founded and have thrived," said Jim Cantonis, president of Acme Sponge Company. "It's an exciting time at Armaly Brands as we continue to grow our portfolio of brands and products. The acquisition of Acme Sponge Company provides a combined legacy of over 180 years in the natural sponge business and aligns with our growth strategy of becoming #1 in all segments of our business through providing the consumer with innovative quality products and a great value, all while maintaining our family culture and values. Acme Sponge Company is the perfect fit for us today and we look forward to continuing the successful growth with future product innovation," said John Armaly, president of Armaly Sponge Company. About Armaly Sponge Company Headquartered in Walled Lake, Michigan, family owned and operated for 110 years, and founded in 1908 in the Bahamas as a worldwide producer of natural sponges, Armaly has grown and changed with technology and the times to maintain its reputation and position as one of the world's leading manufacturers of consumer and professional sponge and cleaning products. Armaly Brands has a long history of innovation in sponge technology, including the introduction of Armaly ProPlus polyester sponges and Brillo Estracell More Sanitary sponges in the 1960s and America's favorite car wash sponge, AutoShow brand in the 1990s. In 2010, Armaly acquired the Brillo brand and in 2016 acquired the traditional cleaning brands SnoBol, Cameo and Parsons. Contact Info Matt Kirk [email protected] 800-772-1222 ext.241 SOURCE Armaly Sponge Company TEL AVIV, Israel, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Arbe is excited to announce the launch of Phoenix, its automotive 4D imaging radar beta product. This new front-end system, powered by Arbe's proprietary chipset technology, enables evaluation and development towards production and full commercialization of 4D imaging radar for all levels of vehicle autonomy. Phoenix provides an image 100 times more detailed than other top industry radars, offering superior separation of stationary and moving objects in real time an industry first. Arbe will present Phoenix at CES 2019 in Las Vegas and during the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Phoenix proprietary chipset is the first system in the industry to leverage the advanced 22nm RF CMOS process. This allows a breakthrough in radar performance by: Delivering an image 100 times more detailed Doubling radar sensitivity Reducing false alarms through advanced algorithms and unparalleled channel separation Separating small and large objects through a high dynamic range Providing clear boundaries of stationary and moving objects Additionally, by leveraging the 22nm RF CMOS process, Phoenix dramatically reduces costs while consuming the lowest power per channel in the industry. "The launch of our radar's front-end system is a major step toward making our vision a reality," said Kobi Marenko, CEO of Arbe. "The advanced functionality achieved by this launch will transform the radar's role from a supportive sensor to the backbone of the autonomous driving sensor suite for all levels of vehicle autonomy." While current radars have up to 12 channels, Phoenix is 100 times more detailed, supporting more than 2000 virtual channels with two transmit devices (24 channels each) and four receiving devices (12 channels each). This allows Phoenix to track, separate and identify hundreds of objects simultaneously to deliver a highly detailed image of the environment in a wide field of view and at long range, in addition to separating objects by elevation. "The advanced safety achieved through high resolution, separation by elevation, and the elimination of false alarms would resolve many of the factors behind recent autonomous vehicle accidents," said Marenko. "To achieve the next level of vehicle autonomy, it is essential for automakers to leverage a robust radar. The launch of the Phoenix places Arbe in an excellent position to lead this market." Arbe is a recipient of the 2018 Global Technology Innovation Award from Frost & Sullivan. Recognized for its breakthrough full-stack 4D imaging radar system for the automotive environment, along with its future business value in terms of scalability, application diversity, technology licensing and human capital. About Arbe Arbe is the world's first company to demonstrate ultra-high-resolution 4D imaging radar with post processing and SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping). It is disrupting autonomous driving sensor development by bridging the gap between radar and optics with its proprietary imaging radar solution that provides optic sensor resolution with the reliability and maturity of radar technology for all levels of vehicle autonomy. As the winner of Frost and Sullivan's 2018 Global Technology Innovation Award, and "Most Innovative ADAS Technology" award from Tech.AD Arbe continues to innovate real time 4D imaging. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, Arbe has business development and customer service locations in the United States and China. The company was founded in 2015 and raised $23 million in funding to date. For more information, visit www.arberobotics.com. For visuals follow this link SOURCE Arbe Robotics Related Links http://www.arberobotics.com LAKE FOREST, Calif., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- 1031 Crowdfunding LLC announced today that on Jan. 1, 2019, through its affiliate 1031 CF Properties LLC, it acquired a 99-bed assisted living/memory care facility in Bandon, Oregon, for a purchase price of $19,050,000. The 84-unit, 72,430-square-foot facility will be operated by Seasons Management LLC ("Seasons"). They have operated the facility since 2013 with a 92 percent average occupancy. The principals of Seasons have participated in the financing, development, construction and operation of over 200 properties during their careers in the senior housing industry. "Senior housing has already outperformed other noted real estate sectors in the past and we believe it will continue to be a favorable opportunity due to impressive demographic fundamentals," said Edward Fernandez, founder and chief executive officer of 1031 Crowdfunding. "The acquisition of this facility is a great way to start off the new year." About 1031 Crowdfunding LLC 1031 Crowdfunding LLC is an online marketplace where real estate investors can find, view and purchase a variety of available, turn-key, investment-grade properties. We present investors with 1031 exchange-qualified properties through Delaware Statutory Trusts (DSTs) to ensure every 1031 exchange investor has the opportunity to complete a successful exchange. Contact an experienced representative at 1031 Crowdfunding for further information about individual investing needs. For more information on 1031 Crowdfunding, visit www.1031Crowdfunding.com or call (844) 533-1031. This material does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. An offer can only be made by a prospectus that contains more complete information on risks, management fees and other expenses. A copy of a prospectus must be made available to individuals in connection with any offering and should be read carefully prior to investing. There are material risks associated with investing in real estate, Delaware Statutory Trust (DST) and 1031 exchange properties. These include, but are not limited to, tenant vacancies; declining market values; potential loss of entire investment principal; that past performance is not a guarantee of future results; that potential cash flow, potential returns and potential appreciation are not guaranteed in any way; adverse tax consequences and that real estate is typically an illiquid investment. IRC Section 1031, IRC Section 1033 and IRC Section 721 are complex tax codes; therefore, people should consult their tax and legal professional for details regarding their situation. 1031Crowdfunding.com is an investment platform owned by 1031 Crowdfunding LLC. 1031 Crowdfunding is not a registered broker-dealer. Securities are offered through Capulent LLC, a registered broker-dealer and member FINRA/SIPC (CRD# 155155). Certain principals of 1031 Crowdfunding are affiliated with Capulent LLC and when offering investment services, such offers are made in their capacities as registered representatives of Capulent LLC. Media Contact Information Tom R., Marketing Manager (844) 533-1031 ext. 110 [email protected] SOURCE 1031 Crowdfunding LLC Related Links https://www.1031crowdfunding.com SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Toft Group Executive Search, a global life sciences and healthcare executive recruiting firm, announced today that it has expanded its presence in the San Francisco Bay Area and designated its location at 400 Oyster Point Boulevard, South San Francisco, as its new corporate headquarters to help combat the regional talent crisis. Toft Group will host an open-house for the life sciences and digital health communities in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley at its new headquarters on February 7, 2019. Toft Group's Founder and CEO, Robin Toft, will also be signing copies of her new book WE CAN, The Executive Women's Guide to Career Advancement at the event. "By establishing our San Francisco office as our new headquarters, we are going into the epicenter of the talent crisis to really make a difference on this pressing issue," said Toft. "In 2018, the competition for top talent at biotech, pharmaceutical and digital health companies reached a boil," Toft continued. "With unemployment at an all-time low and the city of San Francisco facing increasing pressures around the high cost of housing and transportation, the region has fast become a candidate's market and a hiring manager's hurdle." As a leader in recruiting for life science and healthcare high tech companies in California, Toft Group is well versed in the talent crisis facing these industries, and the need for a more diverse pool of talent to ensure that companies continue to grow and meet their objectives. Unlike other executive search firms, Toft Group places women in nearly half of its executive roles, helping to close the diversity gap and improve innovation and financial performance at the most senior levels in the healthcare industry. Added Toft, "One way that Toft Group plans to continue making a difference is through diversity hiring. Last year, more than 40% of the candidates we placed into executive roles were women and we plan to reach 50% in 2019. When tapped into correctly, the pool of female candidates available to Bay Area companies will create a stronger, more stable and more competitive workforce." Toft Group advances diversity and inclusion through its "WE CAN" (Women's Executive Career Advancement Network) network of VP through C-level women in San Francisco and San Diego. WE CAN was founded by Toft Group in San Francisco in 2016 and enables leading executive women to mentor and collaborate with talented executives at their level to disseminate best practices for hiring and other key talent initiatives more quickly throughout the region. In 2019, Toft Group will host multiple WE CAN events in the San Francisco and San Diego markets. For more information on Toft Group please visit www.thetoftgroup.com. About Toft Group Executive Search Toft Group is a global executive search firm fully devoted to life sciences and healthcare, with a focus on innovation-driven companies at the intersection of biotech and high tech. Toft Group's targeted, accurate searches translate into exceptional return-on-investment for clients nationwide, and the team's extensive networks enable the presentation of more highly qualified and diverse candidates than clients would otherwise see. The firm has an extensive track record of placing more than 40% of diverse candidates in top executive roles annually, showcasing its ability to quickly fill highly specialized leadership roles where talent is limited. The company has offices in the three major U.S. biotech hubs: San Diego, San Francisco and Boston. For more information, please visit thetoftgroup.com. SOURCE Toft Group Related Links http://www.thetoftgroup.com HOUSTON, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- To help support its continued expansion into a variety of trenchless product in service industries, The Vortex Companies recently announced the hiring of Tammy Love, a highly experienced human resource and labor relations professional, as its Director of Human Resources. "Our growth path has led us into some nontraditional areas in our industry that now requires more depth and breadth in the management of our existing employees and future recruits," said Michael Vellano, CEO of the Vortex Companies. "Tammy has been hired to help us oversee our employee growth and put some new systems in place for their success." Ms. Love brings two decades of combined employee relations, compensation, workforce planning and recruitment management skills to Vortex. "Throughout my career I have had the privilege of working for large companies that required me to wear a lot of hats. I'm extremely excited to be able to take my knowledge and apply it here, with a company committed to the welfare of its employees in an industry that is constantly changing," said Love. "We believe Tammy's prior experience in the industrial, energy and big box DYI retail businesses are a great fit," added Matt Samford, CFO of Vortex. "The HR and labor relation demands in those industries are high and attention to detail is extremely important." ABOUT THE VORTEX COMPANIES The Vortex Companies deliver advanced trenchless technologies and turnkey services to cost effectively renew municipal, industrial and commercial infrastructure. The Vortex Services division provides lining and coating solutions, pipe bursting, CCTV and inspection. The Vortex Products division develops and sells manhole and pipe rehabilitation materials, polymeric coatings and resins, sewer robot systems, and high-speed drain cleaning tools. With strategic acquisitions planned for 2019, the Vortex Companies remains focused on its vision of providing a broad range of intelligent and economical trenchless infrastructure renewal solutions, supported by highly experienced and trained personnel. For more information, go to: www.vortexcompanies.com MEDIA CONTACT: Kit Jones 713-269-2333 [email protected] SOURCE Vortex Companies Related Links http://www.vortexcompanies.com CHICAGO, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. [NYSE: TDS] and United States Cellular Corporation [NYSE: USM] are presenting on January 9, 2019 at the Citi Global TMT West Conference at 12:30 p.m. PST (2:30 p.m. CT). Kenneth Meyers, President and CEO U.S. Cellular; Michael Irizarry, Executive Vice President and CTO Engineering and Information Services U.S. Cellular; Vicki L. Villacrez, Senior Vice President of Finance and CFO TDS Telecom and Jane W. McCahon, Senior Vice President, Corporate Relations TDS will attend. To listen to all presentations, please visit the events and presentations pages of investors.tdsinc.com or investors.uscellular.com . The presentation will be webcast both live and on-demand. It is recommended that you register at least 15 minutes before the start of the presentation to register, download and install any necessary multimedia streaming software. About TDS Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. (TDS), a Fortune 1000 company, provides wireless; cable and wireline broadband, TV and voice; and hosted and managed services to approximately 6 million connections nationwide through its businesses, U.S. Cellular, TDS Telecom, BendBroadband and OneNeck IT Solutions. Founded in 1969 and headquartered in Chicago, TDS employed 9,600 people as of September 30, 2018. For more information about TDS and its subsidiaries, visit: TDS: www.tdsinc.com U.S. Cellular: www.uscellular.com TDS Telecom: www.tdstelecom.com OneNeck IT Solutions: www.oneneck.com SOURCE Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. and United States Cellular Corporation Related Links http://www.uscellular.com SEATTLE, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Aegis Living, a leading senior living owner, developer and operator known for its disruptive approach to assisted living and memory care, is pleased to announce the hire of Kris Engskov to the role of president. In his 16 years with Starbucks, Engskov successfully led a number of the company's global businesses in roles including president of the company's flagship U.S. Retail business leading 170,000 employees across 8,300 stores, and president of the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) division where he spent five years building the Starbucks brand across 30+ countries. Most recently, Engskov served as executive vice president of Business Integration. Having impacted all parts of the organizationfrom brand strategy and marketing, to real estate development, to technology implementation, to customer experiences and operational excellence, Engskov brings particularly valued operational expertise to Aegis Living. Kris Engskov, president Aegis Living NIC Conference keynote Dwayne J. Clark "Creating a Culture of Contentment" Mandarin Oriental, St. Regis, Hotel Nikko and Fairmont Hotels Executive journeys to Aegis Living validates company practice of hiring outside the senior living industry "Kris brings exceptional experience driving business development and enterprise growth that is highly relevant as Aegis Living continues to innovate and offer a premium assisted living experience," said Dwayne J. Clark, founder and CEO, Aegis Living. "His passion for fostering a nurturing and caring workplace also stands out as a fit for Aegis Living's hallmark 'employee first' culture that is at the heart of how we help our residents live their best lives each day. With a winning combination of operational expertise and focus on people, Kris is the right person to sustain our culture and lead our organization through future growth, and to continued success." Engskov joins Aegis Living as it moves forward with a vision of smart growth to meet the demand of a rapidly aging U.S. baby boom generation. Aegis Living's innovative, standard-setting communities feature award-winning building design, engaging mind, body, spirit focused Life Enrichment programs, and a progressive, positive approach to caring for seniors that celebrates the possibilities of each day. The company currently has eight new assisted living communities under development in Bellevue, Kirkland, Mercer Island and Seattle, Washington, and in San Rafael, California. New communities include inspired, upscale buildings in urban neighborhoods, with vibrant natural features like living walls, waterfalls, and a rainforest conservatory, with public amenities such as coffee shops, dog day care and public courtyards enabling residents to mingle with people in the neighborhoods where they are located. Of joining Aegis Living, Engskov says, "I have known Aegis and its stellar reputation for a long time and have been particularly impressed with its culture and mission helping residents live their best lives with dignity and respect. That commitment alongside the Aegis people-first culture that supports it, creates an amazing platform for care quality, excellence and growth. I can't wait to join a team that shares such strong values and look forward to bringing my own experiences in pursuit of this critical mission." Hiring outside the senior living arena is standard practice for Aegis Living. Since its inception, the company deliberately draws senior leaders from the hospitality, high end retail, and restaurant industries for fresh, creative perspective that fuels business and program transformation. Recent hires include leaders from Amazon, The Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis and Wynn Hotels, and Nordstromimproving standards and bringing innovations that lead to improved employee experiences, a heightened holistic approach to health and wellness, restaurant quality meals, and high-end building features and designs. Aegis Living's employee-focused culture features an array of unique benefitsincluding an annual cash lottery, Winterfest holiday giveaway event, and the Potato Soup Foundation offering assistance in times of need. This culture focus creates overwhelmingly delighted employees who feel valued and rewarded, which translates into passionate service to seniors. A commitment to employee job satisfaction and personal growth resulted in Aegis Living's ranking as a top 50 company on Glassdoor's 2017 "Best Places to Work" list, the first senior living operator to achieve this meaningful distinction. With healthcare workers in high demand in an industry known for high turnover, Aegis Living maintains one of the highest retention rates in the senior living arena. In addition to Starbucks, Engskov also worked for Madrona Venture Group, LLC, a Seattle-based venture capital fund and spent most of his early career in public service. From 1993 to 2000, he served in the White House, first as Assistant Press Secretary and later as Personal Aide to President Bill Clinton. He graduated from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville with a B.A. in Public Administration. Engskov succeeds Judy Meleliat who is retiring after holding the role for six years following three years as Chief Marketing Office with Aegis Living. "Judy has played an integral part in the growth and success of Aegis Living for most of the last decade, leading us to be better and stronger contributors to our mission. Her many operational and cultural contributions encompass how we positively impact the lives of seniors, as well as members of the Aegis Living team," said Dwayne J. Clark. Meleliat will remain as president while Engskov is exposed to all aspects of the companyengaging at all 31 Aegis Living communities. This is integral to the concept of hiring from outside the industry, building on the strong skills brought in and building industry-specific knowledge through intensive training. Engskov will officially assume the position of president in late Spring 2019. About Aegis Living Aegis Living is a national leader in assisted living and memory care. The privately-held company founded in 1997 is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, and operates 31 communities in Washington, California and Nevada. For more information, visit www.Aegisliving.com. Follow the company on Twitter @Aegisliving and Facebook at www.facebook.com/AegisLiving. SOURCE Aegis Living Related Links http://www.aegisliving.com OMAHA, Neb., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The World Health Organization estimates that 70 million people need a wheelchair but cannot afford one. Free Wheelchair Mission believes in a world where everyone who needs a wheelchair has one. FWM exists to provide the transforming gift of mobility to people with disabilities living in developing nations around the world a gift that embodies in-home care provider Right at Home's mission, "to improve the quality of life for those we serve." To date, FWM has provided more than 1 million wheelchairs to people most in need, and their goal is to provide the next million wheelchairs by 2025. Right at Home is committed to supporting FWM in this lofty goal. Since beginning their partnership with FWM in 2016, the Right at Home system has raised nearly $200,000 and improved the quality of life of more 2,250 families. The partnership with FWM has allowed Right at Home to extend the reach of its mission beyond the eight countries in which it operates by hand-delivering the gift of mobility during FWM Vision Trips. Last October, a team of 12 Right at Home representatives from across the U.S. and Canada traveled to Costa Rica where they assembled and delivered 62 wheelchairs to a variety of inspiring individuals with incredible stories. One such recipient was Ervin, a 35-year-old who was paralyzed after a tragic spinal cord injury when he was 18. With the mobility his new wheelchair gives him, Ervin now has the independence to go to the supermarket down the street for his family and can enjoy life's simple pleasures like spending time outside. Last November, another team of 14 Right at Home franchisees, employees and corporate team members traveled to Vietnam, where they provided 42 wheelchairs to members of the community. Here, the Right at Home team met 61-year-old Guy. After a career spent working in jobs ranging from soldier, to sticky rice chef, to leader of the people's committee for the Van Lang District, she retired to spend time with family, but a motorbike accident and subsequent stroke left Guy with weakness on the left side of her body and a loss of feeling in her legs. Before receiving a wheelchair, Guy spent all her time doing rehabilitation exercises and therapy on her legs; with her newfound mobility, she is looking forward to going to the market and picking up new hobbies. "We're absolutely thrilled to have found a partner that shares our global vision," said FWM Development Officer Georgia Kloos. "This initiative is really special and powerful, and we have benefited greatly from Right at Home's resources. The brand feels like an extension of us, and we are so grateful for this relationship." "After such a memorable first Vision Trip in Costa Rica in 2017, we knew our partnership with Free Wheelchair Mission would evolve to be extremely special," said Right at Home CEO and President Brian Petranick. "The enthusiasm for this initiative throughout the entire Right at Home system has been nothing short of inspiring, and we are grateful to have completed our third Vision Trip as a franchise system. The backbone of our partnership with FWM is the mission both organizations share, and Right at Home franchisees and corporate team members alike are excited to continue making an impact on a global scale with Free Wheelchair Mission. We're just getting started." Right at Home's 2019 goal is to raise $88,000 (enough for two containers of wheelchairs) for FWM to continue their efforts to provide the gift of mobility to those most in need around the world. Right at Home invites the public to help the in-home care provider achieve its goal. To get involved, join Right at Home's fundraising team and learn about the Right at Home and Free Wheelchair Mission partnership here. ABOUT RIGHT AT HOME Founded in 1995, Right at Home offers in-home companionship and personal care and assistance to seniors and adults with a disability who want to continue to live independently. Local Right at Home offices are independently owned and operated and directly employ and supervise all caregiving staff, each of whom is thoroughly screened, trained, and bonded/insured prior to entering a client's home. Right at Home's global office is based in Omaha, Nebraska, with more than 500 franchise locations in the U.S. and seven other countries. Right at Home is the highest-ranked senior care franchise opportunity on Entrepreneur magazine's Franchise 500 list in 2018, coming in at No. 49 overall. In 2018, Forbes Magazine ranked Right at Home the No. 1 franchise to own under $150,000. For more information on Right at Home, visit About Right at Home at http://www.rightathome.net/about-us or read the Right at Home franchising blog at http://www.rightathomefranchise.com/blog/. To learn more about franchising opportunities, please visit http://www.rightathomefranchise.com/. ABOUT FREE WHEELCHAIR MISSION Free Wheelchair Mission is a humanitarian, faith-based, nonprofit organization that provides wheelchairs at no cost to people with disabilities living in developing nations. In collaboration with a network of like-minded partners, FWM has been providing wheelchairs to those in need around the world since 2001, providing dignity, independence and hope through the gift of mobility. Free Wheelchair Mission will be a leading provider of mobility, transforming the lives of 2 million people with physical disabilities by the end of 2025. MEDIA CONTACT: Lauren Turner No Limit Agency 312-526-3996 [email protected] SOURCE Right at Home Related Links https://www.rightathome.net HARRISBURG, Pa., Jan. 2, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Pennsylvania counties can now choose from three paper-record voting systems certified by the secretary of state, with another two systems currently in the certification process. Acting Secretary of State Robert Torres certified the Unisyn Voting Solutions OpenElect 2.0A2 on December 14. The Unisyn Voting Solutions OpenElect 1.3.0.2A and the ES&S EVS 6.0.2.1 systems were certified earlier in 2018. To attain Pennsylvania certification, a system must meet the Department of State's updated security and accessibility standards and also be certified by the federal Election Assistance Commission. There are two additional systems now undergoing certification testing, and one system expected to be submitted for testing in January. "We are pleased to announce this certification of a third new voting system with a paper record that will allow voters to verify their selections on the spot before casting their ballot. We want Pennsylvanians voting on the most secure and accessible voting equipment available so they can continue to have confidence in the integrity of our elections and so every eligible voter's voice can be heard," Secretary Torres said. Nationwide, there is bipartisan and near universal agreement that, in the interest of security, Direct Recording Electronic voting machines (DREs), still in use in most Pennsylvania counties, should be replaced, and all voters should be voting on paper ballots they can verify. The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and many experts have urged states to switch to new systems that produce paper records. In April, the department informed counties they have until the end of 2019 to select new voting systems that provide a paper record. The new systems are to be in use no later than the 2020 primary, and preferably by the November 2019 general election. Systems with paper trails allow for more accurate and reliable post-election audits. Counties will have their choice from among any of the voting systems that attain both federal and state certification. Governor Wolf has committed to seeking state funding for at least half of the counties' cost for new voting systems. He will work with the General Assembly in the new year to develop specific proposals for state funding and financing. The governor has already earmarked for counties nearly $13.5 million in federal funding for election security, plus the state's required 5-percent match, which raises the total available to $14.15 million. The department revised and reissued in December a statewide purchasing contract that vendors and counties can leverage to support voting system purchases. The department also is investigating and pursuing other funding options, including additional federal aid, low-interest financing, leases, cost-sharing and other means. A regional new voting system expo, hosted by the department with exhibits by five vendors, will be held in Erie on January 29. Earlier expos were held in State College, Moosic, Carlisle and Doylestown. The events are a continuation of the department's public education campaign to inform voters and local officials about new voting systems and to allow them to test the systems' features. MEDIA CONTACT: Wanda Murren, 717-783-1621 SOURCE Pennsylvania Department of State Related Links http://www.state.pa.us PARSIPPANY, N.J., Jan. 2, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- PBF Energy Inc. (NYSE: PBF) announced today that the company's management will be participating in the Mizuho Securities Virtual Refining Conference on January 3, 2019, and attending the Goldman Sachs Global Energy Conference on January 8, 2019. Relevant presentation materials will be available on the Investor Relations section of the PBF Energy website at www.pbfenergy.com. About PBF Energy Inc. PBF Energy Inc. (NYSE: PBF) is one of the largest independent refiners in North America, operating, through its subsidiaries, oil refineries and related facilities in California, Delaware, Louisiana, New Jersey and Ohio. Our mission is to operate our facilities in a safe, reliable and environmentally responsible manner, provide employees with a safe and rewarding workplace, become a positive influence in the communities where we do business, and provide superior returns to our investors. PBF Energy Inc. also currently indirectly owns the general partner and approximately 44% of the limited partnership interest of PBF Logistics LP (NYSE: PBFX). SOURCE PBF Energy Inc. Related Links http://www.pbfenergy.com LOS ANGELES, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Hahn & Hahn announced today it has promoted attorney D. Jason Lyon to Partner effective January 1. "Since he joined us from Latham & Watkins two years ago, Jason has proven himself to be a dedicated advocate for his clients as well as for greater diversity in the firm," said Hahn & Hahn Managing Partner Karl Swaidan. "It was Jason who advocated for the firm to be certified as a majority Women & Minority Owned Business Enterprise." D. Jason Lyon Lyon, a commercial litigator and the firm's first openly LGBTQ partner, says he is excited to play more of a leadership role at one of the state's oldest law firms as it prepares for the future. "At 120 years old, Hahn & Hahn is practically an institution in this community," said Lyon. "So, I was very pleasantly surprised to discover when I joined the firm how forward-thinking and open to new ideas the partners are. I'm honored to help further our tradition of innovation in response to the changing needs of our clients and our community." Lyon, who obtained his Bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and his J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, began his practice in complex commercial litigation, including international arbitration and securities fraud class action defense. His practice now emphasizes business disputes, pre-litigation risk mitigation and strategy consulting, and high stakes trust contests. Before becoming an attorney, Lyon was a producer of documentaries, including the 1999 feature release, Five Wives, Three Secretaries, and Me. About Hahn & Hahn LLP Founded in 1899, Hahn & Hahn LLP is among the state's oldest law firms and is one of the largest general practice firms in L.A.'s San Gabriel Valley. Its practices include Litigation, Business, Employment, Family Law, Trust & Estates, Trust Litigation, Real Estate and Land Use/ Environmental. Media Contact: Jonathan Fitzgarrald (310) 601-6008 [email protected] SOURCE Hahn & Hahn LLP Related Links https://www.hahnlawyers.com MINNEAPOLIS, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Cargill today reported results for the fiscal 2019 second quarter and first half ended Nov. 30, 2018. Key measures include: Adjusted operating earnings were $853 million , down 10 percent from the $948 million earned in last year's strong comparative period. This brought first-half earnings to $1.74 billion , a 5 percent decrease from the prior year. , down 10 percent from the earned in last year's strong comparative period. This brought first-half earnings to , a 5 percent decrease from the prior year. Net earnings on a U.S. GAAP basis for the quarter were $741 million , a 20 percent decline from $924 million in the year-ago period. For the half, net earnings dipped 7 percent to $1.76 billion . , a 20 percent decline from in the year-ago period. For the half, net earnings dipped 7 percent to . Second-quarter revenues decreased 4 percent to $28 billion , bringing the year-to-date figure to $56.7 billion . "Our teams executed in a world of uncertainty to bring the best solutions to our customers and the consumers they serve," said Dave MacLennan, Cargill's chairman and chief executive officer. MacLennan referenced Cargill's ability to adjust rapidly to changing market conditions throughout the quarter and deliver safe, reliable and sustainably produced foods to their destinations. "Now, we are pushing to ready our businesses for the future with continuous improvement, financial discipline and a disruptive mindset." Segment results Animal Nutrition & Protein was the largest contributor to Cargill's adjusted operating earnings, with results just below last year's strong comparative quarter. Performance in North American protein moved higher, as robust demand for beef and large supplies of fed cattle boosted beef production and sales to domestic and export markets. Demand for egg products also drove protein earnings. Continued political instability in Central America and market challenges in Southeast Asia reduced results in the segment's global poultry business. Sales volumes for salmon and shrimp feeds in the North Sea region and Mexico, respectively, were up, but animal nutrition earnings trailed the prior year due to adverse market conditions in several regions. This included lower hog volumes in China and Vietnam, and unfavorable dairy and poultry economics in the U.S. Cargill expanded in Colombia with the acquisition of Campollo, one of the country's leading makers of chicken and protein products. The deal complements the purchase of Colombia-based Pollos El Bucanero last fiscal year and advances the segment's strategy to serve growing protein demand in emerging markets with world-class poultry products. Food Ingredients & Applications decreased on mixed results across the segment. Starches and sweeteners earnings decreased on historically low ethanol prices in North America and higher energy and raw material costs in Europe. Lower sales volume and higher operating costs in North America trimmed otherwise strong cocoa and chocolate performance in other regions. Good positioning helped lift edible oils above last year. Bioindustrial posted a solid gain, while salt earnings edged ahead as higher road salt production costs were offset by increased results in food and water quality. The segment announced Avansya, a new joint venture with Royal DSM that will produce zero-calorie sweetness solutions through fermentation. These products, such as steviol glycosides Reb M and Reb D, will give food and beverage companies a more scalable, sustainable and cost-effective alternative to extracting them from stevia plants. Avansya will market these products under the EverSweet brand. Subject to regulatory approvals, the venture is expected to launch in the first quarter of calendar 2019. Origination & Processing earnings rose as the segment leveraged its global network to keep products moving while navigating volatile agricultural markets disrupted by trade turbulence. Oilseed processing stayed strong in North America and Europe, bolstered by growing protein consumption that drove global demand for soybean meal for livestock feeds. Grain exports from the U.S. and Canada, and biodiesel production in Europe also contributed to the strong quarter. Better-than-anticipated crops in Argentina supported a gain for the segment in South America. Cargill announced two new projects to further digitalize the agricultural supply chain to the benefit of farmers and end users. With Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill agreed to form Grainbridge, a technology joint venture that intends to provide support to North American farmers on grain marketing decisions, e-commerce and account management software. The venture will consolidate information on production and grain marketing into a single digital platform for farmers at no cost to them. Cargill also announced a collaboration with ADM, Bunge and Louis Dreyfus to investigate ways to standardize and digitalize global agricultural shipping transactions, leveraging technology to the benefit of the entire industry. This will reduce time- and resource-intensive processes, lowering costs and increasing transparency for customers in supply chains. In late December, COFCO International joined the initiative. The companies are seeking broad-based industry participation to promote global access and adoption. Industrial & Financial Services trailed the year-ago quarter, due in part to broader weakness in financial markets that negatively affected Cargill's investments in managed funds. The ocean transportation business lagged last year as freight markets declined sharply in response to weakening macroeconomic sentiment, the uncertain effects of trade conflict on commodity flows, and the hesitance of third-party charterers to contract vessels ahead of the implementation of new international rules on sulphur dioxide emissions. Elsewhere, the segment's metals and risk management businesses posted increased earnings for the period. Sustainable nutrition in Asia Pacific Recognizing Asia Pacific's growth, Cargill is convening expertise to help secure a positive future for food and agriculture in the region. Recently, Cargill brought together the shared insights of senior managers in Asia's food industry to understand the challenges of nourishing a regional urban population set to reach nearly 2.5 billion by 2030. These insights are being shared in an ongoing series of reports published by the Economist Intelligence Unit. And in November, 30 Cargill Global Scholars from China, India and Indonesia visited the company's headquarters in Minneapolis to collaborate with peers from other regions and receive mentoring from senior executives. These university students are studying in food- and agriculture-related fields and will one day be leaders. Cargill employees in Asia Pacific also are directing their efforts toward sustainable nutrition. In connection with the U.N.'s World Food Day in October, teams in China and India donated almost 150,000 meals to school children and those in need. Added to the activities and volunteering of employees in other regions, Cargill reached hundreds of thousands of people for World Food Day with food donations, nutrition education and other community-focused efforts. * This earnings release is published prior to the issuance of Cargill's quarterly financial statements. Explanation of non-GAAP financial measure Cargill reports financial results in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). The company additionally reports adjusted operating earnings, a non-GAAP financial measure that management believes provides additional insight into the underlying financial performance of ongoing operations. In calculating adjusted operating earnings, Cargill includes earnings and losses attributable to non-controlling interests in consolidated companies, with the exception of those from its asset management business. Mark-to-market gains and losses on intercompany contracts between the Origination & Processing and the Food Ingredients & Applications segments also are included. Cargill excludes the following six items: timing differences related to inventory, derivatives and hedging; last-in, first-out (LIFO) inventory adjustments; amortization of intangible assets; gains and losses on changes in investment structures; asset impairment and restructuring charges; and gains and losses on disposals of businesses and other long-term assets. For more information, visit www.cargill.com/company/financial/index.jsp. About Cargill Cargill's 155,000 employees across 70 countries work relentlessly to achieve our purpose of nourishing the world in a safe, responsible and sustainable way. Every day, we connect farmers with markets, customers with ingredients, and people and animals with the food they need to thrive. We combine 153 years of experience with new technologies and insights to serve as a trusted partner for food, agriculture, financial and industrial customers in more than 125 countries. Side by side, we are building a stronger, sustainable future for agriculture. For more information, visit Cargill.com and our News Center. SOURCE Cargill Related Links https://www.cargill.com LIVONIA, Mich., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Beginning in January of 2019, Auros will be hosting monthly 30-minute educational webinars to provide Auros users with more information on the features available to them. These live webinars are designed to support current and potential Auros users interested in learning more about the software and its features, including its ability to intelligently deliver knowledge in their flow of work. To support the growing user base in the expanding industries, educational webinars are one of the many resources provided by Auros Knowledge Systems. Auros Knowledge Systems https://aurosks.com/webinar Live webinars will continue to be held every third Wednesday of each month and will be available to be viewed following the live session. Each webinar will cover a unique topic, that is driven by customer feedback. The webinars are limited in capacity and will accommodate the first few hundred attendees. The first educational webinar, titled "What's New in Auros in 08 01," will be held at 10 AM Eastern Time on January 23, 2019. The session will go over a few new and noteworthy Auros features in its latest release version 08 01. To register for the webinar, visit https://aurosks.com/webinar. About Auros Knowledge Systems Auros Knowledge Systems is the leading enterprise solution for a fundamentally new approach to managing technical knowledge, through Knowledge Aware. By converting traditional reference libraries into 'Active Knowledge,' Auros software has rapidly become the go-to solution to provide value across multiple disciplines, including design, engineering, manufacturing, quality, and plant operations. With over 36,000 active users globally, Auros is delivering knowledge-in-the-flow of work for major corporations in the automotive, aerospace and defense, consumer products, heavy manufacturing, and ship building industries. To learn more about Auros, visit www.AurosKS.com. Media Contact: Brittany Satterfield 734-365-2606 [email protected] SOURCE Auros Knowledge Systems Related Links http://www.AurosKS.com CANTON, Mich., Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- American Pharmacy Purchasing Alliance (APPA) recently acquired Prestige Medical Group (PMG) Pharmaceutical Solutions, a move that will increase and improve services provided to APPA members, particularly with group purchasing. PMG is a pharmacy that offers institutional, fullservice, and long-term care with a licensed pharmacist who provides consultations for all aspects of their pharmaceutical services, including a designated account specialist, next-day delivery capabilities within the US, and Transaction Data compliant products. With the acquisition, PMG will be a division of APPA and will be renamed to APPA Group Purchasing Solutions. This brings several benefits to APPA members, who are pharmacy business owners. Michigan-based secondary pharmaceutical wholesaler PMG can drop ship anywhere in the USA for convenient purchasing and shorter delivery time. Members can take advantage of the group negotiated contracts to save money, time, and effort when ordering pharmaceuticals. Wholesale purchasing of pharmaceutical products is one of the hurdles that pharmacy business owners face since success often requires expert representation. APPA has found a way to remove the hurdles and ensure significant savings for its members. No need for them to master how to negotiate prices or about rebates, terms, etc. The complementary group purchasing concierge service is a value-added program that offers an Employee Discount program, pharmacy education, and a Government Affairs program. APPA members will learn more about disease-specific care solutions, CE credits, and other clinical expertise and news. Their business and patient-care needs are also protected through people who will work tirelessly to push their advocacy. Member pharmacy business owners will also receive support for a wide spectrum of the best business practices without any cost or fees. Offered as value-added programs, members can participate in these programs for free. About APPA The American Pharmacy Purchasing Alliance brings together pharmaceutical experts and professionals to boost the significance of pharmaceutical purchasing in the industry of pharmacy and patient care. From pharmacy buyers to non-profit private purchasing companies, APPA provides the tools, knowledge, and expertise to ensure that the specialized industry of pharmaceutical purchasing is pushed to the forefront. Visit APPA in their new corporate office located at 7940 N. Lilley Rd. Suite A-110 Media Contact: Joshua Pirestani Address: 7940 N. Lilley Rd., Ste. A110, Canton, Michigan 48187 Phone: 1-877-570-2665 Email: [email protected] Website: www.joinappa.com SOURCE American Pharmacy Purchasing Alliance Related Links http://www.joinappa.com CNN hosts laugh in response Paul Joseph Watson PrisonPlanet.com January 3, 2019 Nancy Pelosis daughter issued a political warning to President Trump during an appearance on CNN when she said of her mother, shell cut your head off and you wont even know youre bleeding. Alexandria Pelosi, a documentary filmmaker, spoke at length about how there are rules by which Washington works, including be nice and make friends, and that Trump has completely ripped apart the rules of engagement. She was then asked about her mother becoming Speaker of the House for the second time. Shell cut your head off and you wont even know youre bleeding, responded Pelosi, adding, Thats all you need to know about her, no one ever won betting against Nancy Pelosi, shes persevered. Youve got to give her credit. No matter what you think of her, youve got to give her credit because she, think about it, think about all those presidents shes endured, right? asked Pelosi. She was the Bush, the Bush, the Clinton, you know, shes been through it all. So shes been around. This is not her first rodeo, as your friend George Bush would say, she continued. So she knows what shes doing. That should make you sleep well at night, knowing that someone in this town knows what theyre doing. Despite constant demands by the media that Trump tone down his rhetoric, CNN hosts Alisyn Camerota and John Berman responded to the provocative language by laughing. Despite Alexandrias aggressive confidence in her mothers political nous, it wasnt much on display during the 2016 campaign trail when Pelosi boldly asserted, Donald Trump is not going to be President of the United States.take it to the bank, I guarantee it. She went on to claim that Trump was a here today, gone tomorrow presidential candidate. SUBSCRIBE on YouTube: Follow on Twitter: Follow @PrisonPlanet Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paul.j.watson.71 ********************* Paul Joseph Watson is the editor at large of Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. This article was posted: Thursday, January 3, 2019 at 8:04 am Print this page. Infowars.com Videos: Comment on this article American Mirror January 3, 2019 Just when you thought CNN couldnt stoop any lower, they find a way to outdo themselves. CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota interviewed the brother of a detained American on Wednesday, but she bizarrely spent most of the segment grilling him about his brothers alleged anti-CNN posts on social media. The segment began with Camerota speaking with David Whelan, the brother of Paul Whelan, a former Marine who was detained in Russia earlier this week on allegations that hes an American spy. Camerota grilled David about his brothers alleged social media posts, where he shared memes that referred to CNN as fake news. How petty & small can you get? CNN combed a detained American and Ex-Marine's social media and found a post calling CNN "fake news." Then the CNN anchor grills brother of the detained American ON AIR about the anti-CNN post. These people have problemshttps://t.co/WwKMdiKkIJ pic.twitter.com/W2urE1sluJ Benny (@bennyjohnson) January 2, 2019 There are some strange elements of your brothers story, Camerota said, playing up the theatrics and acting as if there was some justifiable reason that he was detained. Camerota then detailed one of the memes that Paul had shared, noting that the caption of the photo stated, Just drinking coffee and watching fake news. Now, Im not taking this personally that hes pictured with CNN, but I just am wondering is this a statement on his part somehow? she asked. Davids face was completely bewildered as it was more than obvious he was stunned by the question. He responded by saying he wasnt concerned about his brothers social media posts and only cared about getting him home safe. I dont know whats on his page, Whelan said. I dont follow him on social media other than Twitter, which is where I am. I dont know what he was intending by those photos. Camerota continued to grill him, again asking why the detained American had a Russian social media presence. David remained calm and responded by saying his brother likely kept his social media pages so he could keep in contact with people he met in the Marines. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters on Wednesday that the U.S. was working to get more information on Paul, who faces up to 20 years in prison in Russia if convicted. Weve made clear to the Russians our expectation that we will learn more about the charges, come to understand what it is hes been accused of and if the detention is not appropriate we will demand his immediate return, he said. Of course, Camerota wasnt concerned with a former U.S. Marine being detained in Russia. She was more upset that the former American serviceman was sharing anti-CNN memes that referred to the left-leaning network as fake news. This is the second time in recent weeks Camerota has gone off-the-rails and sabotaged a segment. Last month, Camerota asked Colorado Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper if 2020 is the right time for a white guy to run for president. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper on President Trump: Were seeing all kinds of evidence that the Trump presidency isnt succeeding. Its not taking America where it needs to go. It certainly isnt fulfilling his promises to the rural parts of America. pic.twitter.com/g4ibsk67qf New Day (@NewDay) December 10, 2018 You know the debate that the Democratic Party is having right now is it time to have somebody of color and a woman and somebody younger? Camerota asked. Or somebody more establishment? This article was posted: Thursday, January 3, 2019 at 4:52 am Print this page. Infowars.com Videos: RT January 3, 2019 Apple shares plummeted after CEO Tim Cook revealed that the iPhone maker expects a drop of up to $9bn in revenue compared to its November report. More affordable battery replacements are to blame, among other things. Apple stated that it now expects a revenue of approximately $84 billion in the first quarter of 2019, down from its previous estimate of $89bn to $93bn. Markets have reacted swiftly to the news, sending Apple shares into a 7.5-percent nosedive. Explaining the causes behind the revision, Cook almost squarely blamed the expected drop in sales on the economic slowdown in mainland China, a key emerging market for Apple smartphones. While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China, Cook wrote, noting that most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China. By far the greatest hit was dealt by iPhone sales, which, per Cooks admission, are responsible for all our revenue shortfall to our guidance and for much more than our entire year-over-year revenue decline In fact, non-iPhone product revenues actually contributed to 19-percent growth, except in China, where, according to Cook, a cooling-down economy hurt all kinds of Apple products (but still, the iPhone was the worst by far). The ongoing US-China trade spat has also played its part in driving down Apple sales in the country, Cook stated, citing the climate of mounting uncertainty over the back-and-forth between Washington and Beijing. If Apple racks up $84bn by the end of the first quarter, it will be a decrease of more than $4bn from the same period last year, when it pocketed $88.3bn. Buried deep in the letter is Cooks admission that some of the devoted Apple fans who used to buy new devices every year are now taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements. Following a massive scandal over its practice of deliberately slowing down older iPhones, Apple reduced the price for its battery replacements, charging $29 instead of $79 in 2018. The program was wrapped up by the end of the year. Twitter has met Apples troubles with derision, with many pointing out that new models are massively overpriced while hardly being technological breakthroughs. Fewer iPhones than anticipated? You mean the competition has finally caught up, consumers dont view Animojis as innovation and have realise your marketing gimmicks Liquid Retina #aapl #apple Wasim Yaqoob (@WasimYaqoob) January 2, 2019 Others advised Cook to stop pointing the finger at China, and instead fix the flaws in Apple services and work on new products. So just due to China weakness. Got it. Went into an Apple store in MA 2x before Christmas, both times saw employees not helping customers. Few years ago, there would be 2-3 customers for every employee. James D. (@JDiP09) January 2, 2019 There is this thing called competition Tim. Failed in India and China, not surprised one bit by this. Cook blaming the trade war so when it ends they get the biggest bump, but it will be short-lived bc their phones are losing appeal Nicholas Ramos (@NickVRamos) January 2, 2019 One user argued that Cooks mentioning of the battery drama serves as proof that it was Apples strategy from the beginning to fire up sales by damaging the performance and battery life of older models. Not sure Cook should have listed this as a reason for slower than expected iPhone sales. Sure makes it sound like the old way of handling battery degradation was intended to drive people to buy new phones. pic.twitter.com/rd4pl7vqOy John Gruber (@gruber) January 2, 2019 This article was posted: Thursday, January 3, 2019 at 7:11 am Print this page. Infowars.com Videos: Comment on this article Southbury, CT (06488) Today Cloudy with periods of rain. Low 61F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Cloudy with periods of rain. Low 61F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. A/R: Police arrest suspected highway robbers Police in the Ashanti region have arrested four suspects in connection with a WhatsApp launches privacy campaign after backlash WhatsApp has launched its first major privacy-focused advertising campaign in Tullow rules out further layoffs Tullow says there will not be further layoffs in the coming days. TUTAG begins strike today The leadership of the Technical Universities Teachers Association of Ghana A/R: Police arrest suspected highway robbers Police in the Ashanti region have arrested four suspects in connection with a B-Heck Africa Sanitation Challenge launched B-HeCK Africa NGOs Alliance has launched their novel sanitation campaign WhatsApp launches privacy campaign after backlash WhatsApp has launched its first major privacy-focused advertising campaign in Police officer, onlooker killed as robbers attack bullion van An attack on a bullion van on Monday, June 14, 2021, by suspected armed robbers Court to hear case against #fixthecountry convenors today The Criminal Division of the Accra High Court presided over by Justice Ruby #Fixthecountry case adjourned to June 21 An Accra High Court presided over by Justice Ruby Aryeetey has adjourned a case Pan-African Parliament: Punches, kicks and death threats Founded with the noble ambition of uniting the continent, a session of the Black Stars, Ivory Coast fire blank in international friendly Black Stars and Ivory Coast played a pulsating goalless draw in a friendly on Virgin Atlantic explores 'flying taxi' partnership Virgin Atlantic is exploring whether it could launch a flying taxi service as TUTAG begins strike today The leadership of the Technical Universities Teachers Association of Ghana Black Stars, Ivory Coast fire blank in international friendly Black Stars and Ivory Coast played a pulsating goalless draw in a friendly on Plattsburgh, NY (12901) Today Thunderstorms this evening, then skies turning partly cloudy after midnight. Low 56F. S winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph. Chance of rain 70%.. Tonight Thunderstorms this evening, then skies turning partly cloudy after midnight. Low 56F. S winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph. Chance of rain 70%. Murphy says NJ Transit meets safety equipment deadline KEARNY New Jersey Transit has made enough progress on installing a federally mandated emer The federally mandated safety mechanisms known as positive train control were installed on rail lines statewide, but Atlantic Citys was the only line completely shut down. In the interim, commuters have been diverted to buses. In December, NJ Transit announced it had completed its first milestone ahead of the Dec. 31 deadline and was working to get the line running in 2019. Armato and Mazzeo met with agency officials in December and said their understanding was that the line would be operating toward the first of the year. The issue here is really that it was our understanding that it would be up and running sometime in January, Mazzeo said. In December, the agency announced it was looking to reopen the line but was first awaiting confirmation by the Federal Railroad Administration of the agencys request for an extension that would give them until year-end 2020 to fully implement the PTC system. +8 Atlantic City Rail Line shutdown begins Wednesday ATLANTIC CITY A four-month shutdown of NJ Transits Atlantic City Rail Line begins Wednesd Van Drew said hes frustrated by the lack of answers, and that not having an update for commuters is unacceptable. He said hes giving the agency the benefit of the doubt until the end of the month, however. Im waiting to see in this month of January, Van Drew said. If we find that were just kind of going along here there will be hell to pay. GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP The Ram's Head Inn took its last orders Wednesday night for the foreseeable future, according to co-owner Kurt Knowles. "About a day or so before New Year's Eve, we had an issue with our sprinkler line system in the building. It kept losing pressure, and it won't hold, so we have had the sprinkler maintenance company come in and address it, and two other quotes from other companies," Knowles said, adding he does not know when or if the Ram's Head Inn will reopen. The companies have told Knowles it is a quite an extensive "multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars sprinkler job." "That does not include cutting open walls and ceilings and things of that nature for the (sprinkler) lines," Knowles said. "We have to look into this. We are trying to get other quotes. We don't know." The biggest concern was putting the patrons and customers in harm's way by not having a fully functioning sprinkler system, Knowles said. "We have to close indefinitely until we can resolve this," said Knowles. "If this job becomes very expensive, we will have to approach it as a business. We need to get all the fact and figures in line because we can make a decision." ATLANTIC CITY New year, same state takeover, even by any other name. At City Councils annual reorganization meeting Wednesday, newly reappointed Council President Marty Small Sr. said the state would be assuming full authority under the Municipal Recovery and Stabilization Act of 2016. The state has exerted their power for full state takeover at this time, said Small. Small made the comments after a council discussion about newly appointed Chief Financial Officer Tobo Aboderin and what her roles and responsibilities would be. Aboderins four-year term starts on Jan. 21. She replaces Michael Stinson, who served as the citys CFO since 2010. The state Department of Community Affairs chose not to renew his contract, which expired Dec. 31. The state has unilateral authority over personnel decisions in the city under the takeover law. Small said he was informed by Rob Long, deputy commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs, that the state was moving in this direction. Atlantic City looks to build on 2018 successes, execute in 2019 ATLANTIC CITY The first year of the Murphy administrations oversight of the resort built On Thursday, DCA spokeswoman Lisa Ryan said nothing had changed in terms of the relationship between the state and the city. ATLANTIC CITY Leadership of City Council will remain steady for the third straight year as both the governing bodys president and vice president were re-elected for 2019. Second Ward Councilman Marty Small Sr. was re-elected to serve as council president by a vote of 8-1 during the annual reorganization meeting Wednesday night. Councilman-at-large Jeffree Fauntleroy II voted against Smalls nomination. Id like to thank my colleagues for their continued support, said Small after the vote. And even my colleague who didnt vote for me, hopefully I can gain his trust and vote on future items. As we know, we have a lot of work to do. Its still a tough task ahead. We are light-years from where we were two years ago, and a lot of kudos goes to this governing body. First Ward Councilman Aaron Randolph was unanimously elected to serve as council vice president. Following the formality of selecting leadership, council approved the appointment of a new chief financial officer, Toro Aboderin, who will begin her four-year term Jan. 21. Aboderin currently holds the same position in Ventnor and will replace Michael Stinson, who had served as Atlantic Citys CFO since 2010. Stinsons term expired at the end of 2018, and the state Department of Community Affairs chose not to renew his contract. Atlantic City public employees uncertain about stipend proposal ATLANTIC CITY While city and state officials iron out details on securing additional funds Council President Marty Small denied these claims and said the positions were properly advertised. Three advertisements for Keyboarding Clerk 1 positions were advertised in The Press of Atlantic City, one in July and two in August. OBrien, who said the union still has a dozen unresolved grievances dating to the start of 2018 for promotions and out-of-title pay, hopes officials will meet to resolve the issue. Were hopeful that the city and the state overseer understand that people cant live on less than $25,000 a year, which members of the bargaining unit are living on, and that they need to respect the precedent to match the new hires, he said. The Department of Community Affairs, the state agency that controls the citys finances, verified that council had enough in its budget to pay for these new positions, Ryan said. These positions assist with the work of City Council. As such, City Council was looking to fill these vacancies as promptly as possible, and council asked that salaries be set at a competitive rate to attract qualified prospective hires, Ryan said. Linda Garlitos, of Atlantic City, was hired as a Clerk 1 in the Mayors Office in 2014 and currently makes $22,400 a year working the front desk at City Hall. The American Legion in Wildwood and the Seaville Fire & Rescue Company are collecting food, diapers and cash to help furloughed Coast Guard employees and enlistees working without pay during the ongoing government shutdown. But would-be beneficiaries are limited by ethics guidelines as to how much they can accept. We appreciate the mindset, certainly; were just governed by policies, said John Edwards, a spokesman for Coast Guard Training Center Cape May. Thats just the way it works, whether theres a shutdown or not. Edwards said members are bound by policies in the Code of Federal Regulations that say they can accept no more than $20, or the equivalent in goods, on any occasion and $50, or the equivalent in goods, from any one organization in a year. The shutdown is the third longest of its kind since 1980, according to the Congressional Research Service. Edwards said the Coast Guard has about 1,000 employees in Cape May, 24 of whom are furloughed. The rest, enlistees and civilian employees, are working their normal hours and will be paid when a budget is passed. And the longer the budget impasse lasts, the longer federal workers will have to stretch their budgets. ATLANTIC CITY An Egg Harbor City man was arrested Tuesday in separate shooting and stabbing incidents. Robert Harrell, 31, was arrested at 9:07 p.m. at the Econo Lodge motel in the 3000 block of Pacific Avenue. Earlier that night, officers responded to AtlantiCare Regional Medical Centers City Campus for a patient admitted with a stab wound. The 47-year-old victim was driven to the hospital after being stabbed at Georgia and Pacific avenues. Police said the victim was stabbed while intervening as Harrell attempted to steal a womans purse. The victim gave police a description of Harrell and the direction he ran after the stabbing. Harrell also was wanted in a Dec. 31 shooting at the Econo Lodge, where a 48-year-old victim was shot multiple times. Harrell is charged with attempted murder, four counts of aggravated assault, robbery, two counts of unlawful possession of a weapon and two counts of possession of a weapon for unlawful purpose. He was taken to the Atlantic County jail. Contact: 609-272-7239 aauble@pressofac.com Reported local South Jersey news for the weekly papers before joining the Press of Atlantic City in November. Graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2017 with degrees in writing. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. ATLANTIC CITY A Pleasantville man was found shot to death inside a car in the city Tuesday. The Atlantic County Prosecutors Office said police found the body of Lamir King, 21, at Lincoln and Ohio avenues. Police received a 911 call reporting a car crash at the intersection. The car had rolled through the intersection before stopping. Efforts to revive King were unsuccessful, and he was pronounced dead at the scene, according to a news release from the Prosecutors Office. Investigators found he had multiple gunshot wounds. An autopsy completed Wednesday afternoon listed the cause of death as homicide. Anyone with information about this incident can call the Prosecutors Office at 609-909-7800 or visit acpo.org/tips. People also can call Crime Stoppers at 609-652-1234 or 800-658-8477 (TIPS) or visit crimestoppersatlantic.com. Staff Writer Lauren Carroll contributed to this report. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. +20 LoBiondo leaving Congress, but plans to stay involved MAYS LANDING U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo worked his way up in seniority during 24 years in th Van Drew has been getting ready for weeks, choosing and furnishing an office, finding a place to live in Washington, hiring staff and applying for committee assignments. The lottery has been in place since members first got offices in 1908, according to the House historians website. Before that, there was just a desk lottery for seats on the floor of the House. Despite his lottery pick, Van Drew said hes happy with the outcome. His chief of staff, Allison Murphy, who has been with him for 16 years in politics in New Jersey and will remain his chief of staff in D.C., had spotted a large office of more than 1,000 square feet on the third floor of the Cannon Building. +3 What a government shutdown may mean for South Jersey Fridays possible partial federal government shutdown could require some Federal Aviation Ad Its a few doors away from the first office of Congressman William Hughes, the last Democrat to hold the seat from 1975 to 1995. Hughes was followed by LoBiondo. Van Drew will find out his committee assignments in January but requested joining the natural resources and transportation and infrastructure committees. Kids, they see it. They want a good job, a good house, he said. Its such a real world skill. The earlier they start thinking about those things the better off they are. He said it also focuses them, letting them see the earning potential of different careers, and how a household budget would work. It gets them to see the bigger picture at a younger age, Morrison said. During fifth and sixth grade, students take each of the schools six electives, also called specials. In seventh and eighth grade, they can choose one elective to take the entire year. In the financial literacy elective students do several projects, including one on the stock market and a trip to the Atlantic City Boat Show, where they have to find and purchase a boat within their budgets. The need for financial literacy education in schools has been championed for several years by business organizations and others. Police blotter information is supplied by local police departments and other law-enforcement agencies. All people named are presumed innocent unless proven guilty. Kenneth Wayne Gunter, 45, of Pleasantville, was arrested Dec. 19 and charged with receiving stolen property. Luke X. Hawkins, 59, of Pleasantville, was arrested Dec. 19 and charged with robbery and terroristic threats. Brenna K. Baine, 20, of Forked River, was arrested Dec. 19 and charged with possession of controlled dangerous substance in a motor vehicle and possession of drug paraphernalia. Thomas Joseph Derocker, 22, of Manahawkin, was arrested Dec. 19 and charged with possession of cocaine/heroin and possession of drug paraphernalia. Nicholas P. Hernandez, 23, of Manahawkin, was arrested Dec. 19 and charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. Tomas Alberto Franco, 20, of Pleasantville, was arrested Dec. 20 and charged with aggravated assault, criminal mischief, possession of weapon for unlawful purpose, receiving stolen property and unlawful possession of a weapon (handgun). HAMILTON TOWNSHIP Knitters of various ages and experience levels met in the Oakcrest High School library Dec. 8 to make more than a dozen scarves to be shipped via the Seamen's Church Institute to merchant mariners spending the holidays at sea and away from their families. Five area schoolchildren will see their artwork professionally published in holiday cards sent by Atlantic City-based law firm Cooper Levenson. The firms annual holiday art contest encourages students to engage in the arts, and underscores Cooper Levensons support of charities in the communities it serves. The holiday cards noted that, in lieu of corporate gifts, the Atlantic City office will contribute to Let Us Eat Please Inc., a charity formed by the firms founding partner, the late James L. Cooper. The following five winners were chosen from the hundreds of entries submitted: Amayah Cruse, an eighth-grade student in the Egg Harbor City School District Joshua Castillo, an eighth-grade student in the Egg Harbor City School District Samantha McDow, a sixth-grade student in the Hamilton Township School District Paisley Migliacco, a fifth-grade student in the Hammonton School District Avery Street, an eighth-grade student in the Evesham School District Galloway Township - Exhibits on the history of the Spanish flu in New Jersey and the civil rights work of Atlantic City attorney James Cooper, curated by students Brianna DeCicco of Barnegat and Brendan Honick of Linwood were displayed at the Richard E. Bjork Library at Stockton University in December. Brendan Honick is a junior who is part of the LIBA program in which he individualized his own major. As an analytical writing student, he had an internship with Special Collections Librarian, Heather Perez over the summer. His exhibit, A Century Later: The Spanish Flu in New Jersey, explores how people in New Jersey lived a century ago, and the challenges they faced when affected by the Spanish flu. Honick studied four different regions of New Jersey that were affected by the Spanish flu including Fort Dix, Newark, Cape May, and Atlantic City. One of Honicks biggest resources was the Atlantic City Public Library because of the Atlantic City Heritage Collections containing microfilm dating back to the 19th century. As a Linwood native, Honick originally focused his research on how the Spanish flu impacted the people of Cape May and Atlantic City only. In his findings, Honick realized the Spanish flu was so widespread in New Jersey that it was impossible to only focus on one region. Joyce Molter, shown in center, was recognized as the 2018 Volunteer of the Year by AARP Chapter 710 during its annual holiday luncheon Dec. 13. Molter has been an active member of the organization for five years and serves as the membership chairwoman. Originally from Feasterville, Pennsylvania, Molter is also a member of the Sea Isle City Womens Civic Club and volunteers her time at the Sea Isle City Historical Museum. She and her husband of 48 years, Joe, lived in Gloucester Township before retiring to Sea Isle City. They have one son, one daughter and six grandchildren. ADVERTISEMENT Adekunle Akinlade, the governorship candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), in Ogun, says he has a 50 years vision for the south-western state. Mr Akinlade, who said his team was the most capable and fortified to take over from Governor Ibikunle Amosun in 2019, declared that the state would be the pride of Africa within 15 years, if he was voted into power. He spoke in Abeokuta on Thursday, when he paid a courtesy call on the Egba Traditional Council at the Ake Palace. Mr Akinlade is backed by the Mr Amosun. Mr Akinlade said he had the experience to transform Ogun, having performed excellently as Special Assistant on Revenue Mobilisation, When I served as Special Assistant to the Governor on Revenue Mobilisation, I was able to raise the Internally Generated Revenue of the state from N700 million to an average of between N6 billion and 7 billion per month, he said. He said that Amosuns legacies must be sustained, promising that projects started by Amosun would be completed and put to use. The developmental strides in the state is less than 10 per cent of what was contained in Amosuns blueprint; part of the blueprint is the rail project that will cut across major areas in Ogun. When I met Amosun, I met a man of vision who knew what he wanted for the state. But the initial challenge we faced was finance. I was part of the history which increased our revenue to what it is today before I left for a federal assignment in Abuja. While seeking the blessing of the traditional rulers, Akinlade said that the result of the election would not be determined in Abuja. The results of the election will be determined by the good people of the state; no one can impose anyone on them, he said. Earlier, the Director-General of the Akinlade Campaign Organisation, Sarafa Tunji Isola, had faulted the allegation that Mr Akinlade was imposed on the people of the state by Mr Amosun. The party leadership assessed his character, capacity and capability before endorsing the candidature of Mr Akinlade, he said. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that the Alake, who is the paramount ruler of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Aremu Gbadebo, later led other traditional rulers to bless Akinlades candidature and prayed for his victory. (NAN) The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, Jimi Agbaje, has faulted the appointment of Hakeem Muri-Okunola as the new Head of Service. In a statement by his campaign organisation on Thursday in Lagos, Mr Agbaje said the action sacrificed career progression and was politics taken too far. Governor Akinwunmi Ambode had on Monday sworn in 46 year-old Muri-Okunola as the 21st Head of Service (HOS) in the state. Mr Muri-Okunola, who was a Permanent Secretary until his appointment, replaced Folashade Adesoye, who retired in December 2018. Reacting to the development, the PDP candidate described the appointment as insensitive, unjust and disruptive of the civil service hierarchy. He alleged that the government had forcefully retired no fewer than 21 senior and more experienced permanent secretaries to pave the way for the new man. There is a sense of shock and injustice in all these. It is bound to create bad blood and injustice within the system. These are seasoned personnel capable of fitting perfectly and effectively in that office. But in this era of impunity, they have been offloaded prematurely, he said. Mr Agbaje said Mr Muri-Okunola served as the Personal Assistant to former Governor Bola Tinubu and that the All Progressives Congress (APC) had imbued him with very abnormal privileges. Muri-Okunola lacks that broad-based exposure, which makes him a misfit for the post on which he has been imposed. Whoever becomes HoS is usually a civil servant with widespread exposure, as he must be abreast of all issues related to the bureaucracy and governance. But all these rules and traditions have been bent for this appointment, he said. Mr Agbaje said the development portends grave danger to the states bureaucracy, founded on the foundations of merit-nurtured progression through the rungs of the career ladder. It is befuddling to imagine how officers who are 15 years older than the new HoS will take orders and directives from him. From all indications, this might be too farfetched and difficult, and it has a way of impacting negatively on governance, taking into cognisance that the Civil Service is the engine room of not just government but the society, he said. Meanwhile, Mr Ambode has confirmed the appointment Adetokunbo Fabamwo, a professor, as the new Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja, Lagos. LASUTHs Public Relations Officer, Anifowoshe Bello, said on Thursday in Lagos, that Mr Fabamwo had served in some notable capacities at the hospital. ADVERTISEMENT His appointment is for a three-year term with effect from January 1. The new CMD is a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynecologist at LASUTH, whose professional experience spans over three decades. He graduated from the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in June 1978 and won various prizes and awards. The state government expresses confidence in Fabamwos capacity to successfully lead the institution thus in approving the appointment, due cognisance has been taken of his track record. Fabamwo, a member of several professional bodies, is not new in the history of LASUTH, as he had served in some notable capacities. Worthy of note is his tenure as the Pioneer Director Clinical Services and Training, (DCST) and Chairman Medical Advisory Committee (CMAC), April 2000 to February 2007. Until his recent appointment, Prof, Fabamwo is a member of the Institute of Fertility Medicine and Chairman, Medical Care Audit, Mrs Bello said. (NAN) The Ogun State caretaker committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Wednesday said Governor Ibikunle Amosun is suffering from what it termed, an outgoing syndrome, and needs pity and prayers. The committee was reacting to recent comments made by Mr Amosun where he said the party would lose in the forthcoming elections. Mr Amosun, who is serving out his last term in office, has been having running battles with his party over his inability to prop up his candidate for the governorship slot in the recently concluded party primaries. While most of his aides have since moved to an opposition party, Allied Peoples Movement (APM), Mr Amosun has remained in the APC vowing to work against the party. An enraged APC national leadership led by Adams Oshiomhole recently sacked the state executive saying since they were loyalists of the embittered governor, they could not be trusted. The newly installed caretaker party executive on Wednesday through its publicity secretary, Tunde Oladunjoye, in reaction to Mr Amosuns recent comments said the governor should be ignored. But for the fact that the reported outbursts of the Governor was reported by a credible online medium, we would not have taken him serious, the party said. However, rather than exchange words with the Governor, we would call on members of the public to please sympathise with the Governor and pray for him, as he is obviously manifesting outgoing syndrome resulting from political amnesia, loss of touch with reality and fear of life after office, it added. It also said Mr Amosun cannot install a new governor single-handedly. For an individual to attempt to play God, and assault the collective intelligence of the well-informed people of Ogun State by telling them who the next Governor of Ogun State will be, as if he has already written the results, shows that such a person deserves our pity; we dont need to exchange words with him, but to actually sympathise with him. The statement said the constant, unceasing and monotonous attacks on Dapo Abiodun, the APC governorship candidate, shows that he is the leading contestant in the race. We challenge the governor to publish the recent survey he commissioned and which he read to some leaders in his house last week, wherein it was revealed that his preferred governorship candidate will not only lose the election but also lose in the Governors hitherto strongholds of Ifo, Ewekoro and Ado Odo Ota local governments. Our party and candidate will remain focused, maintain decorum and continue to sell out policies and programmes to the good and discerning people of Ogun State, even as we are sure of victory, the party said. Meanwhile, the recently sacked executive of the party in a reaction said the caretaker committee members are interlopers and confusionists. In a press release issued Thursday by the sacked publicity secretary, Wole Elegbede, it said the Tunde Oladunjoye- led committee lacks integrity. If he is truly a member of APC in Ogun State as he wants us to believe, then he should not have spoken thoughtlessly to the leader of our party in Ogun state (Amosun) the way he did. It could be recalled that Oladunjoye was recently disgraced out of Ogun APC after which he wrote an epilogue that he was quitting politics for good. How such an ingrate now turns around to speak for Ogun APC should baffle the understanding of every reasonable men. The statement added that the State Executive Committee of Ogun APC is currently and effectively discharging its responsibilities under the constitution of our great party, hence the supreme law of Nigeria. ADVERTISEMENT Any other body which pretends to carry out those functions is a contrived body unknown to the constitution, the Exco of our party and the generality of our dedicated members across the state. The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has called for the removal of Labode Popoola, the vice-chancellor of the Osun State University, Osogbo (UNIOSUN). The union, in a statement signed by its national spokesperson, Salaam Abdussobur, on Wednesday called for removal of the VC over alleged unlawful suspension of the leaders of three non-teaching unions National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT), Non Academic Staff Union (NASU) and Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU). The workers were allegedly suspended for staging protests over the tyrannical and despotic disposition of the Management of the University. The union also accused the vice-chancellor of illegally directing a stop in the deduction of union check-off dues, and non-payment of staff salaries for the months of May and June 2018. These actions have reached the lowest depth with the unlawful and irregular suspensions of the leaders of the three non-teaching unions of National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT), Non Academic Staff Union (NASU) and Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) staging protest over the obnoxious stand of the university management on worker issues. Prior to then, the Management had directed a no work, no pay rule on staff who had participated in a local strike to protest the non-payment of Earned Allowances which had been approved for staff of the University since December 2016. This refusal of management to pay the earned allowances, in the name of lack of funds, fell flat in the eyes of the staff who saw a management approving for itself bogus allowances and allocating huge benefits to themselves including cars and other luxuries. Following the strike action by the unions, the management decided to withhold the salaries of staff for the months of May and June 2018 in the name of no work, no pay. The union said it finds the no-work, no-pay rule totally unacceptable. The no work, no pay rule implementation, which we find totally unacceptable, is even considered worse, because of the double standards involved in the implementation, as it is recorded that a sister union, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), had similarly embarked on a strike and their salaries were not withheld. We are then forced to wonder why the double standards if not an attempt at divide and rule among the unions, with an intent to cause disaffection and ill will between the unions in the university. The matter has further been compounded by the recent illegal directive of the management stopping union check off dues. This we see, as an attempt to stifle and cripple the unions in order to ensure that their obnoxious anti-worker policies continue unchecked without the vigilant scrutiny of the unions as the conscience of the University. With this decision to stop check off dues by the UNIOSUN management, they have shown gross disrespect for the trade union laws of the country which should not be tolerated by the government of Osun State. The union said the situation has been worsened by the seeming inability of the governing council, led by Yusuf Ali, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, to put the Vice-Chancellor and Management in check. According to the union, the national leadership of the Joint Action Committee of NAAT, NASU and SSANU engaged the pro-chancellor and chairman of the council in seemingly fruitful discussions on the situation in the university. They said the discussions appear not to have yielded any result. They called for the investigation of various allegations of infractions in the Osun State University and recall of all staff who are being victimised because of their union activities. They also made a demand for payment of salaries of staff for May and June 2018, which were withheld because of their participation in a lawful union activity and reinstatement of the union check off dues in compliance with relevant Trade Union laws. We also demand the removal of the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Labode Popoola in view of his act of gross misconduct and abuse of office and abuse of trust. Efforts to get the reaction of Mr Popoola were unsuccessful as he neither responded to calls and text messages seeking clarification on the allegations. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has said he welcomes whatever reasonable measures the federal government takes to put an end to the needless loss of lives and property in Zamfara and Katsina states, but warned that imposing emergency rule in the two states can only address the symptoms rather than the cause of the current security crisis facing the North West states. Reacting to the call by Governor Abdul-Aziz Yari for the imposition of a State of Emergency in Zamfara State, Mr Abubakar said in a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, that a fundamental solution must be sought to the crisis to ensure lasting peace. The statement said the deal being struck between the federal government and the governors of Zamfara and Katsina states reflects the desperation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) led FG to capture the states at all cost during next months general elections. The deal, cut at a meeting in the presidential villa in Abuja is simple: The FG will impose a state of emergency in Zamfara, to provide a window for APC to field a candidate for the governorship election in the state having failed to do so within the time frame stipulated by the commission, Mr Shaibu said in a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday, adding that everything that is required for this manipulation has been provided by the leadership of the party. Mr Abubakar said the implication of the plot is that even President Buhari, for all his sweet words on ensuring free and fair elections and avoiding unethical measures to win at all cost, is ready to do anything just to capture Zamfara and Katsina states for his party. The PDP presidential candidate however said although the plot is meant to put his party at a disadvantage, PDP would not lose any sleep over the ignoble deal, since the battle to rescue Nigeria from incompetence and bad leadership will be fought by the people themselves and not by the Governor of Zamfara or President Buharis hatchet men. Atiku said the state of emergency will simply result in more militarization of the affected areas, more road blocks and the constriction of the civil liberties of the people, adding that unless legitimate and more far-reaching measures are adopted for common good, the perpetrators of the crisis will simply leave the affected areas and move to other areas to continue their dastardly act. He called on Governor Yari to resign since he has confessed to his failure to protect the security of lives and property of the people of the state. In other climes, Governor Yari would have gone ahead to address the people of Zamfara State who elected him into office to let them know that he is incapable of protecting them, instead of merely calling on the president to declare a state of emergency in the state. There is no need for any expanded argument or unnecessary debate on what is apt at this moment. Heavens will not fall if Governor Yari resigns, since he wont be the first governor to do so, as Robert J. Walker, Governor of Kansas in the USA resigned as far back as 1857 under similar circumstance after confessing to his inability to preserve the peace or promote public welfare of his people. ADVERTISEMENT A new commissioner of police, Zanna Ibrahim, has been posted to the troubled northwestern state of Zamfara and has assumed duty. The command spokesperson, Muhammad Shehu, in a statement on Thursday said Mr Ibrahim, an indigene of Borno State, was born on November, 26, 1962. He obtained a Bachelors degree in Political Science and Masters degree in International Relations and Strategic Studies both from the University of Jos, Plateau State, he added. Mr Shehu described the new police commissioner as a professional and an experienced police officer. He was enlisted into the Nigeria Police Force, on 15th March, 1988, he said. On successful completion of training at the Nigeria Police Academy Annex, Kaduna, he was posted to Borno State Police Command, where he had a one year compulsory attachment at Biu Divisional Police Headquarters, and later served in various Commands and formations across the country which includes, the statement said. As a proficient and astute investigator, CP Zanna Mohammed Ibrahim mni, was appointed a member of the presdential Investigation team on crude oil theft in Nigeria set up by the former president Goodluck E. Jonathan. The new CP while addressing officers and men of the Command reiterated his determination and total commitment to enhance robust Policing to actualise the transformation and repositioning Agenda of the Inspector General of Police IGP Ibrahim Idris, the release added. Despite the deployment of troops and policemen to the troubled state, sporadic attacks by armed bandits have left hundreds dead and more homeless. The embattled state governor, Abdulaziz Yari, on Thursday restated his willingness to stand aside so the federal government can declare a state of emergency on the state to stem the bloodletting. ADVERTISEMENT The Niger Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) said on Thursday that it had arrested 112 suspects for different offences between January and December 2018. The state Commandant of the NSCDC, Philip Ayuba, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Minna that most of the cases were settled out of court while some were undergoing court processes. He said that 22 suspects were arrested for alleged armed robbery, 14 for kidnapping, six for rape, 60 for alleged house-breaking and theft , two for cattle rustling and 8 were released for want of evidence . He explained that the command settled various disputes, including 98 domestic, 15 land cases and four communal. He attributed the successes recorded by the corps to the support and cooperation from members of the public. He, therefore, appealed to the public to sustain the relationship and always be security conscious by reporting strange and suspicious activities in their neighbourhood for prompt action. The NSCDC boss warned politicians and party supporters against thuggery during the forthcoming general elections. Mr Ayuba explained that the warning became necessary following the commitment of the command to provide a level-playing ground toward ensuring crises-free 2019 polls in the state. We will arrest and charge to court any politician or youth caught perpetrating violence during the political campaigns. We will not fold our hands and watch any politician or group of youths carry arms before, during and after the elections, he said. (NAN) ADVERTISEMENT Ademola Emmanuel-Longe has assumed office as the new Commissioner of Police in Nasarawa State, following the retirement of Yahaya Bello on December 24. The commands spokesman, Samaila Usman, an assistant superintendent of police, in a statement on Thursday in Lafia, the state capital said the new commissioner was, until his posting to Nasarawa State, the Commissioner, Office of the Force Secretary at the Force Headquarters, Abuja. Mr Usman said the new CP, who joined the force on March 15, 1988, had served in different capacities in the course of his career. According to him, Mr Emmanuel-Longe has served as a Police Public Relations Officer; Officer in Charge of State Intelligence Bureau Kebbi State; Assistant Commissioner of Police, Department of Finance and Administration at the Plateau State Command; as well as Deputy Commissioner of Police, Finance and Administration at the Police Staff College, Jos. He has also served as Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of Operations at the Ogun State Command and worked at the Explosive Ordinance Disposal Command in Lagos. (NAN) ADVERTISEMENT The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Nigeria Humanitarian Fund (NHF) with Canada and Japan Government, on Thursday flagged off 10 weeks vocational training of youth in Damaturu, Yobe. Musa Abdussalam, Executive Secretary, Yobe State Science and Technical Schools Board, said at the occasion that the UNDP integrated community stabilisation project was necessary for self-employment. There is need for the acquisition of technical and vocational skills, especially in the contemporary world. Knowledge acquisition through this system is a life-long, sustainable and necessary for self-employment and administration, Mr Abdussalam said. He also reassured the state governments commitment for the success of the programme. We assure you that with the calibre of the manpower and dedicated staff members, there will be no doubt in handling the programme, Mr Abdussalam said. He said the trainees would be trained, using the available training equipment. According to him, the participants are expected to acquire skills on tailoring, fashion design, garmenting, carpentry, welding, among other disciplines. The UNDP Head of North-East Sub-Office, Maiduguri, Mizuho Yakoi, urged the participants to concentrate and cooperate with the instructors during the training. One of the participants, Maryam Usaini, lauded the gesture of UNDP, saying that they would utilise the opportunity maximally. (NAN) ADVERTISEMENT As part of the strategy to harmonise its global brand and identity, FCMB Group Plc has announced a change of name in the pension management arm of its business. Formerly known as Legacy Pension Managers Limited, the leading financial services holding companys fund managers firm will now be known as FCMB Pensions Limited. In a statement released in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, the Group said, following the acquisition of majority shareholding in the company by FCMB Group Plc and the approval of the Board of Directors at its meeting of October 17, 2018, the change of name will positively enhance the companys marketing and distribution activities. Reacting to Media inquiries, the Managing Director of FCMB Pensions Limited, (formerly Legacy Pension), Mr. Misbahu Yola, notifying shareholders said, what has happened is expected and an important alignment of our marketing message. There has been a comprehensive integration of the pensions business into FCMB Group, which is known for its culture of excellence, resilience and customer focus. It is another way of welcoming it to a group that has endured and enjoyed stability and sustainable growth in the last 41years. FCMB Group Plc is a leading financial services group with businesses in commercial and retail banking, investment banking and wealth management, across seven subsidiaries that was founded in 1977 and became a public listed company in 2005. FCMB increased its stake in its pensions business between 2017 and 2018 from 28.3% to 91.6% currently. The acquisition is expected to engender sustainable and diversified low-risk growth momentum. The pension firm will also leverage on FCMBs extensive distribution network, alternate channels, digital innovation, investment research, and rapidly expanding customer base. Chairman of the Board of FCMB Pensions Limited and the Group Chief Executive of FCMB Group Plc, Mr. Ladi Balogun said, the change of the companys name will entrench a single brand identity across our pensions and retail banking businesses. Having distinguished ourselves in consumer finance over the years and gaining greater market share in retail payments solutions and savings accounts, a comprehensive suite of asset and wealth management propositions is a natural addition to our growing base of 5 million customers. The brand harmonisation will enable us create greater marketing synergies and, along with other initiatives, accelerate the growth of our pensions business. ADVERTISEMENT A former governor of Kano State, Hamza Abdullahi, is dead. He died in a German Hospital after a brief illness. He was 74. Hadejia Emirate Council spokesperson, Talaki Mohammad, confirmed his death to journalists on Thursday. Mr Abdullahi was governor of old Kano State from January 1984 to August 1985 during the military regime of Muhammadu Buhari. After Ibrahim Babangida took power, he was appointed Minister of Works and Housing, and later Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. He was born in Hadejia, Jigawa State. He attended the Nigeria Air Force Tactical Training Wing, Kaduna in 1964. He completed the Aircraft Technical Officers Course in West Germany (19641966), and studied at the Royal Military Training Centre in Chichester, England in 1974. In July 1975, Mr Abdullahi was air provost marshal and assisted in the coup that removed Yakubu Gowon from power. Mr Abdullahi was appointed the Governor of Kano State in January 1984. He announced in January 1985 that his government was revitalising the expanded programme on immunisation, targeting children and pregnant women at risk from preventable diseases. As Minister of Federal Capital Territory from 1986 to 1989, Mr Abdullahi oversaw the construction of Phase 1 of Abuja. He described the new city as a symbol of our unity then. He was promoted air vice-marshal in October 1988 and retired from the Nigerian Air Force two months later. He left behind three wives, undisclosed number of children and grand children. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has rejected the appointment of Amina Zakari as the chairperson of INEC Advisory Committee and Presidential election Collation Center Committee. The party said it took the position because Mrs Zakari is President Buharis niece. The PDP presidential campaign organisation made this known by its director, media and publicity, Kola Ologbondiyan, on Thursday, during a press briefing at the partys campaign headquarters. INEC chairman, Mahmud Yakubu, had earlier announced the appointment of Mrs Zakari as the chairperson of the presidential election collation committee. He disclosed this on Thursday while inaugurating two ad-hoc committees, as part of the commissions determination to ensure seamless preparations for the general elections. He said the commission decided to set up two adhoc committees to drive important component of the electoral process, adding that the first committee would be responsible for logistics, while the second committee would be responsible for collation of presidential election. Mrs Zakari, a former acting head of the commission, is said to be Mr Buharis relative. Mr Ologbondiyan, while addressing journalists, described the development as an outright manipulation. He also challenged the president to excuse his niece from such a critical assignment if he is actually committed to free, fair and credible elections. The Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organization (PPCO) out rightly, vehemently and unequivocally rejects, in its entirety, the appointment of Mrs Amina Zakari, President Buharis blood relation, as the head of the collation of results, in the same election in which his uncle, President Buhari, as a candidate, has displayed a huge desperation to win. The appointment of Mrs Amina Zakari, who had been openly accused in various quarters as being the link person between INEC and the Buhari Presidency in their schemes to rig the election for President Buhari, constitutes a direct violence against the Presidential election and the PDP will not, in any way whatsoever, accept it. This is the same Amina Zakari, who headed the ICT Department of INEC at the time that department was accused of manipulating the INEC voter register to accommodate fictitious, underage and alien voters, particularly, in remote areas where they plan to allocate and announce conjured votes for President Buhari and the APC. It will interest Nigerians to note that this is the same Amina Zakari that was alleged to have played some roles in the 2018 governorship election in Osun State, where the electoral processes were flagrantly abused. Mr Ologbondiyan said appointing Mrs Zakari to head the collation of the presidential election is a confirmation that INEC has been compromised and has succumbed to pressure by the Buhari Presidency and APC to open the way for the self-succession of Mr Buhari. The fact remains that there is no way Amina Zakari will not allocate votes to her blood relation, President Buhari, whom Nigerians have indicated clearly that they are not ready to return to office as President. With Amina Zakari at the head of results collation, there is no way votes cast by Nigerians will count, he declared. Mr Ologbondiyan called on all Nigerians, particularly, the National Peace Committee to note that with the appointment of Mrs Zakari as head the collation of presidential results, the INEC chairman is setting the stage for a very huge political crisis, which he said is capable of derailing Nigerias democratic process. He also urged the United Nations and other global democratic institutions to take copious note of this noxious appointment by the INEC chairman. ADVERTISEMENT He called on the INEC chairman to reverse the controversial appointment with immediate effect. If the INEC chairman wants a peaceful presidential election, he should, with the speed of light, reverse himself on this appointment. He added that the PDP campaign organization reiterated its position that for Nigeria to have a peaceful election, Mrs Zakari should not be seen anywhere near any of the 2019 election processes, not to talk of being involved in the collation of presidential results. The PDP remains committed to a peaceful and credible process, but we will never, in any way, allow anybody to use any means, under any guise whatsoever, to rig us out in this election. Not after it is clear that Nigerians have attained a consensus to rally behind our presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, as their next president. All we ask for is a free, fair, credible and transparent electoral process in which the votes of Nigerians will not only count, but will be seen to have counted. Like Mr President said during his 2019 budget presentation at the National Assembly, the world is watching us. INEC has not commented on the partys demand yet. ADVERTISEMENT President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday met the national leadership of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) to discuss the lingering strike in the education sector. The meeting took place at the Council Chamber in the presidential villa, Abuja. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has been on strike since November 4, 2018. Polytechnic lecturers (ASUP) joined their university counterparts on December 12, 2018. The lecturers are protesting poor funding of universities and the failure of the government to implement an agreement it signed in 2009 with ASUU to improve facilities and enhance staff welfare at the institutions. The strike has left academic activities in the various institutions paralysed, and talks held so far to resolve the dispute have ended in a deadlock. NANS had earlier issued a two-week ultimatum to the federal government, ASUU and ASUP on December 23, 2018, to call off the strike or face confrontation. Also, the students association also issued a notice to all NANS structures and organs to commence mobilisation for mass action against the federal government, ASUU and ASUP. Speaking with journalists after the closed-door meeting, one of the delegates from the University of Abuja said it was a productive meeting. The president told us that the current price of crude oil is low and what the country is generating from that will not take care of all that government needs to provide for the people and also pay all the demands of ASUU, he said. He also said there were other areas that require government attention. When asked if meeting and approving the stance of the president will not amount to backstabbing ASUU, Mr Yahuza said, the president told us the truth and we are trying to plead with them. Just like the president said, the government is going to look at everything gradually and in the nearest future. But, ASUU, on Thursday, declared that it would not be distracted by the 2019 elections in its struggle to revitalise public varsities. The Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore Fulani Socio-Cultural Association has urged Nigerians to reject Atiku Abubakar as the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at February 16 polls. The National President of the Association, Bello Bodejo, made the call at a news conference in Abuja on Thursday. He accused Mr Atiku of trying to destabilise the country using the latest Amnesty International (AI)s report on the farmer/herders conflicts in some parts of the North. In the AIs report released in December and entitled, Harvest of Deaths: Three Years of Bloody Clashes Between Farmers and Herders, the international organisation said the clashes claimed 3,641 lives in the past three years. The organisation said the killings were fuelled by the failure of authorities to investigate communal clashes and bring perpetrators to justice, an allegation that the Federal Government has dismissed as false. Atiku weighed in on the report to attack the President Muhammadu Buhari administration for failing in its duty to protect the lives of its people who have witnessed many preventable deaths. Miyetti Allah came down hard on the former vice president, describing his reaction as a naked dance in the market place. We totally condemn the desperate vituperation of Atiku for lashing on the false Amnesty International report with the hope of garnering political capital from the farmers/herders conflict. We call on our members and peace-loving Nigerians not only to condemn him for the naked dance in the market place but to totally reject him as a presidential candidate. This is because his intentions are inimical to progress, development and peaceful coexistence of the country. The associations leader said former President Olusegun Obasanjo should be blamed for hoisting a shadowy character like Atiku as vice president on the nation, and now trying desperately to bring him back as president. The PDP candidate, he further alleged, is surrounding himself with ethnic irredentists and hate speech merchants that have been profiling the Fulani race and calling for their genocide. Mr Bodejo called on Mr Buhari to direct the security agencies to place Mr Atiku under surveillance for his alleged inciting statements against the herders. His statement as a presidential candidate is capable of destabilising the country, especially considering that he is currently surrounded by anarchists and hate speech merchants feeding on the lucrative industry of fake news and ethnic irrenditicism. The association also condemned AI for releasing a substantially false report, which it said was intended to satisfy the organisations paymasters and further stoke the conflict. The national president called on the federal government to closely monitor AIs activities in the country, especially its sources of funding. Both President Muhammadu Buhari and Mr Abubakar are of the Fulani ethnic nationality. (NAN) ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The Court of Appeal, Abuja Division will on January 15 hear a suit challenging the decision of a High Court which directed the Social Democratic Party to recognise former minister, Jerry Ghana, as its presidential candidate. The court gave the date after parties in the matter confirmed receipt of documents relating to a motion filed by Mr Ganas challenger, Donald Duke, and the SDP. They are questioning the lower courts decision which ordered the party to recognise the Niger State politician in November. The applicants are asking the court to set aside a decision of the Federal Capital Territory High Court, presided by Hussein Baba-Yusuf, on the grounds that the former Cross River State governor secured higher number of votes than Mr Gana at the SDP primaries conducted in October. Although the parties present in court confirmed receipt of processes as ordered by the court, a lawyer representing Mr Gana requested time to allow him to access the documents and prepare a response on behalf of the respondent. The lawyer representing the applicants, Eyitayo Jegede, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, asked the court for a rather short adjournment, but the three-member panel of the court, led by Adamau Jauro, granted the request by Mr Ganas lawyers for eight days to allow them file their response to the application. Subsequently, the court adjourned the matter till January 15 for hearing. Mr Duke had emerged winner of the partys primaries conducted in October, after he polled 812 votes to defeat Mr Gana who closely followed with 611 votes. But in its ruling, the FCT High Court in Maitama, Abuja said the partys zoning formula does not allow a presidential candidate to emerge from the same zone, as the chairman of the party. Subsequently, the court ordered Mr Gana to be recognised as the authentic flag bearer of the SDP presidential ticket in the 2019 election. ADVERTISEMENT The presidential candidate of the Accord Party, Isaac Ositelu, has said he would create jobs, battle hunger and tackle the rot in the power sector if elected into office in 2019. In a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES, on Wednesday, Mr Ositelu urged Nigerians to join the new movement, the Accord Party, in order to fight for peace, prosperity, accountability and an improved standard of living. He condemned the policies initiated by President Muhammadu Buhari both as a military head of state in 1984 and as a democratic leader in 2015. He said the policies have yielded fewer results over the years. He said the only war necessary for the common man to live the Nigeria dream is the fight for basic necessities of life and affordable accommodation. There is only one WAR to fight in this country, and that WAR is the fight for basic necessities of life and affordable accommodation (Nigeria dream), he said. In 1984 we were led in a war against indiscipline. Where did it get us nowhere. In 2015 we started another war against corruption. Where did it lead us again to nowhere. According to him, for the country to attain such success, the citizens must use their Permanent Voters Card (PVC) as a weapon to vote for a good standard of living. If you desire good standard of living, an opportunity for self-determination and functional government, instead of living in slumps then cast your vote for ACCORD party, he said. Vote using your PVC is the weapon that will liberate you and your family from poverty, insecurity and diseases. He said Nigerians must vote out the two major parties, the All Progressive Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2019. ADVERTISEMENT President Muhammadu Buhari has appreciated the confidence reposed in him by Nigerians vowing that he will not disappoint them. The president spoke Thursday at State House, Abuja, as he was decorated Grand Patron of the Nigerian Media Merit Award (NMMA) by the Board of Trustees of the media awards organisation. He described the investiture as a timely honour, adding that he had known a good number of the members of the NMMA board, since the time I didnt even know I would be here. Former Director-General of the Nigerian Television Authority, Vincent Maduka, who led the delegation, said President Buhari was qualified to be a grand patron, because you respect the rights of the media to practice, without any hindrance. The organisers noted that under President Buhari, no media house has been shut, and the first ever campus television licence was awarded to the University of Lagos, under the chairmanship of veteran Mass Communication teacher, Professor Ralph Akinfeleye. Mr Maduka said the NMMA was established in 1990, to promote excellence in Nigerian media, and has hosted 26 grand award presentations, with the latest holding just a week ago. Part of the goals of NMMA, he added, was the promotion of patriotism, and unity of the country. ADVERTISEMENT Four men arrested by the police in the United Kingdom after they sneaked aboard a ship which set off from Lagos, Nigeria, and allegedly threatened the crew are now facing trial, the UK police have told PREMIUM TIMES. In an exclusive email to this newspaper on Thursday morning, the Essex police disclosed the names of the suspects as Samuel Jolumi, 26; Ishola Sunday, 27; Toheeb Popoola, 26; and Joberto McGee, 20. Apart from confirming that they are all men, the police did not disclose their names when they were arrested late December. The police refused to confirm the nationalities of the suspects when questioned by this newspaper We dont confirm nationalities, said a press officer, Matthew Stanton, for the Essex Police. They were taken to custody on December 21 after 25 members of the British Navys Special Boat Service were deployed that day to regain the control of the ship. British Prime Minister, Theresa May, was said to have sanctioned the operation of the SBS, an elite naval unit in the UK, and the special commandos were flown on a helicopter to the vessel off the coast of Kent near the Thames Estuary. The ship left Lagos on December 10 and the suspects were found when they allegedly threatened to harm the crew, according to the owner of 71,000-tonne ship Grande Tema, Napoli-based Grimaldi Lines. They are now being prosecuted for affray, the Essex Police told PREMIUM TIMES. They appeared at Chelmsford Magistrates Court on Monday, December 24, said the police, adding that they were remanded in custody and the case was adjourned until January 18 at Southend Magistrates Court. In the UK, Affray is a common law offence involving unlawful fighting, violence or a display of force by one person or a group of persons to the terror of others. The maximum penalty for the offence is five years (level 6) imprisonment. To ensure the suspects are convicted, the police would have to prove the suspects used force or display violence aboard the ship and that in that circumstance force or violence was unlawful and that action could terrify others. ADVERTISEMENT The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has inaugurated two committees to ensure the smooth conduct of the 2019 general election. The swearing in ceremony took place on Thursday at the commissions headquarters in Abuja. After the inauguration, the chairman, Mahmood Yakubu said he would meet with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Friday by 4pm at the unions secretariat to discuss the strike it embarked on and how it affects the election. The first committee will cover logistics for the election while the second committee will take care of in-house affairs, according to Mr Yakubu. The logistics committee is made up representatives from Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Immigration, Nigerian Army, Air force, Navy, Custom, Department of State Security Service (DSS), Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, the police, and the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria. Mr Yakubu also said the commission would meet with the Nigerian Labour Congress next week as part of the preparation for the elections. ABM Muazu, speaking for the committee, appreciated the commission for the responsibility, while assuring the chairman and the nation that the committee will do whatever is needed to ensure a smooth process. ADVERTISEMENT Fiery Catholic Priest, Ejike Mbaka, has declared support for President Muhammadu Buhari, urging Nigerians to vote for him (Mr Buhari) in the presidential elections in February. A President that is fighting corruption needs to be supported, Mr Mbaka said on Tuesday during his New Year prophetic message and crossover service, Punch reported. This is coming a month after the priest had at his church bazaar promised to make predictions regarding the future of Nigeria during the presidential elections. Mr Mbaka, who seems to have ignored critics over his support for Mr Buhari, urged Nigerians to pray hard so that the country would overcome what he described as impending unimaginable difficulty in 2019. We pray for President Muhammadu Buhari; he is a man who understands the situation. Since Nigeria started, we have never experienced a President that has agricultural programmes like him. For 16 years, the road from Anambra to Enugu was overgrown with weeds but within four years, the road is being reconstructed and the same way they are doing it to Umuahia. This one that remembered us, may God bless him. Four years doesnt mean eight years; he has finished his four years. I pray for peaceful transition that he may complete his remaining four years. He will hand over to a better person, may the Lord keep him. When he was sick, he was almost dead and we said prayer and God granted him healing. God knows the purpose for allowing him to be alive; if God doesnt want him, he could have died. The roads that were not going has started going. A lot of things are happening now which nobody knows. May the lord protect Buhari; it shall be well with our President. Mr Mbaka, the Spiritual Director of Adoration Ministry, has over the years become famous for using his platform to make political statements before presidential or governorship elections in Nigeria. Before the 2015 general election, Mr Mbaka had predicted Mr Buharis victory at the polls which drew him criticism by many South-easterners. The clergyman was in the news recently when he openly criticised the vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who refused to make open financial donations to his ministry during a 2018 celebration. Peter Obi had promised to make his own donation later after the event attended by many politicians, including Mr Buhari, who donated N2 million through his representative, Hope Uzodinma. But the controversial priest could not have it. In your capacity and what God has done for you as Governor God hates stinginess. What I am saying is not to please you, but what will save your life. Otherwise you and Atiku will fail, he said with hands firmly clutched on Obis wrist in the video now widely shared on social media and criticised by many Nigerians. If there is a place they will coat words for you, it is not at Mbakas altar. You can save your political destiny. Or in 2019, you people will not even know how they did the election. What will make my brother to come for bazaar and he wont even break kola? Your own is taking time; the way you and Atiku [Abubakar] are moving will end in shame. ADVERTISEMENT Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State says the policy of transfer of police officers as ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari aids bandits in attacking villages in the state. Mr Yari said President Buhari recently instructed the Inspector General of the Police, Ibrahim Idris, to transfer any policeman who has spent more than three years in the state. Mr Yari stated this on Thursday while briefing State House correspondents after meeting with President Buhari in his office at the Presidential Villa Abuja. There is an instruction given by the president that every policeman who spent more than three years in the state should be transferred. Unfortunately, when they were transferred, they were not replaced, he said. Mr Yari said there are 230 districts, 147 elective wards in the state which were inhabited by more than 20,000 people but that only some have police outposts. So, you can understand the number of places where there is no presence of the police and these people (bandits) are aware of this and these are the areas that they hit, he said. Several residents of the state have been killed by bandits, while more are kidnapped. The governor said the bandits often attack areas where they know there is no police presence. What I Told Buhari He said he took advantage of his meeting with the president to brief him on the situation. We have issues like that which I explained to the president so that we can get the attention of the IG so that the number (of police officers) that was reduced in the name of transfers should be replaced, he said. Mr Yari also said the situation in the state is now calm. We have started getting results. We believe strongly with what we have on ground, in terms of the number of security personnel, if they take their job seriously, within a short time we will get out of this situation. We hope with the encouragement from the president, in no time, the issues will be a thing of the past, he said. An embittered Mr Yari recently called on the federal government to declare a state of emergency in the state in the midst of the unending bloodletting in the state. He also said he would be willing to step aside as governor if/when the declaration was effected. ADVERTISEMENT The Nigerian Air Force has confirmed that five of its officials died in a helicopter crash that occurred on Wednesday. PREMIUM TIMES reported the crash which the air force said occurred during an air operation against Boko Haram terrorists in Borno State. The air force spokesperson, Ibikunle Daramola, provided details of the crash in a statement on Thursday. He also named the five victims. See the full statement by Mr Daramola, an air commodore, below. NAF Loses 5 Officer in Crashed Helicopter 1. It is with a heavy heart that I announce the death of the 5 crew members who were on board the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) Mi-35M Helicopter which crashed in combat yesterday, 2 January 2019, while providing close air support to troops of 145 Battalion, Damasak in Borno State. The deceased personnel, whose remains have been recovered to Maiduguri, are: a. Flight Lieutenant Perowei Jacob Pilot in Command. b. Flight Lieutenant Kaltho Paul Kilyofas Co-Pilot. c. Sergeant Auwal Ibrahim Flight Technician. d. Lance Corporal Adamu Nura Gunner. e. Aircraftman Meshack Ishmael Gunner. 2. These gallant fallen heroes made the supreme sacrifice in the service of our Fatherland, for which the NAF, and indeed the entire Nation, owes them an unending debt of gratitude. The Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, on behalf all officers, airmen, airwomen and civilian staff of the NAF, commiserates with the families of the 5 fallen heroes and prays that the Almighty grants their souls peaceful repose. The CAS was in Maiduguri today, 3 January 2019, to convey the condolences of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, President Muhammed Buhari, to personnel of the Air Task Force Operation LAFIYA DOLE over the unfortunate loss. While in Maiduguri, the CAS also received a condolence visit from the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai. 3. The NAF appreciates the overwhelming support shown by the general public to the Service over the sad incident. We continue to solicit your understanding and support as we daily strive to ensure the security of Nigeria and Nigerians. 4. You are please requested to disseminate this information through your medium for the awareness of the general public. Thank you for your usual cooperation. ADVERTISEMENT A national leader of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, and the national chairman of the party, Adams Oshiomhole, were conspicuously absent on Thursday afternoon as President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated a campaign team formed and led by Aisha Buhari. PREMIUM TIMES reported how Mrs Buhari, in an unprecedented move, announced the campaign team which will work alongside the official Presidential Campaign Council. The campaign team is described as women and youth campaign team for the 2019 election. The inauguration, which is holding at the Banquet Hall of the State House Presidential Villa, Abuja, began some few minutes after 3 p.m. The team to be inaugurated is chaired by the presidents wife, Aisha, and co-chaired by the wife of the vice president, Dolapo Osinbajo. Mr Buhari chairs the official APC Presidential Campaign Council. The council is co-chaired by Mr Tinubu and they are assisted by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and Mr Oshiomhole. Mrs Buhari had publicly criticised the APC and Mr OShiomhole over the handling of the parties primaries across the country. Details later ADVERTISEMENT The Zamfara State Governor, Abdulaziz Yari, has said that he is ready to vacate office if that is what is required to restore peace and security to the state. Zamfara has been bedevilled by armed bandits who kill villagers and also abduct some for ransom. There have been recent calls for an imposition of a full state of emergency similar to the one imposed by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in Plateau State. Following that declaration, the governor and his deputy vacated their offices for an initial period of six months. That move was criticised by some as draconian although it restored peace to Plateau State then. Mr Yari last week said he is in support of a declaration of a state of emergency in his state. Speaking with State House correspondents Thursday after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, Mr Yari said I was not being political, we are talking about human lives here. If that is what will stop this thing, I am ready to step down, he said. Details later ADVERTISEMENT A Federal High Court in Abuja has refused a request by a senator, Dino Melaye, for police officers to vacate his residence and desist from further attempts at arresting him. Mr Melaye had approached the court after the police officers laid a siege to his residence following allegations by the senator that the police planned to poison him. Mr Melaye also asked the court to stop the police from what he described as acting in a manner threatening his life. The requests were presented as ex-parte applications after Mr Melaye asked the court for enforcement of his fundamental rights in the same court. An ex-parte application could have allowed the judge to grant the order without hearing from the police. In a ruling on the ex-parte application on Thursday, a judge, N. E. Maha, refused the application, but ruled that the substantive matter be granted accelerated hearing. The police have insisted on arresting Mr Melaye, accusing him of involvement in the killing of a police officer. The controversial senator is already facing two separate charges of attempted suicide and allegedly arming criminal suspects. In an unprecedented move, a parallel campaign structure put in place by the wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, Aisha, is scheduled to be inaugurated today (Thursday). The inauguration of the over 500-member campaign team, said to be focused on women and young people, will take place inside the Banquet Hall of the State House Presidential Villa, Abuja, an official said. The team, the brainchild of Mrs Buhari, is different from the 47 member Presidential Campaign Council earlier released by the presidency for the re-election bid of the president. According to a Monday statement by the spokesperson of Mrs Buhari, Suleiman Haruna, the president will inaugurate the team by 2 p.m. Checks by PREMIUM TIMES show that the move by Mrs Buhari is unprecedented as no Nigerian first lady has ever set up a separate campaign council for their spouse seeking re-election. While some APC supporters express fears that having two different campaign councils might lead to a clash or that Mrs Buhari has no confidence on the council earlier released, the spokesperson of Mr Buharis campaign, Festus Keyamo, said there is no cause for concern. It is just an expanded part of the campaign. It only shows the commitment of the wife of the president to work for the success of the president and we will work together very well, he told PREMIUM TIMES. Lack Of Trust? The presidents wife had in an interview with the BBC in 2016, threatened to withdraw support for her husband if he chose to seek re-election unless he shakes up his cabinet and includes more people who worked for his success in 2015. Mrs Buhari said although the victory of the APC in 2015 was a collective effort of millions of people she was unhappy hat the government is being operated by a few people. Also, while addressing a gathering of APC women in Abuja recently, Mrs Buhari accused Nigerian men of allowing two or three unnamed persons to cage her husband, thereby limiting his ability to perform to the expectation of millions who voted him into office. Although Mrs Buhari did not name the persons who caged her husband, she is believed to have been referring to Mr Buharis influential relative, Mamman Daura; and his chief of staff, Abba Kyari. The first lady has had no love lost for both men since her husband assumed office. Another of Mrs Buharis major grouse with her husbands administration and party, APC, was the handling of the APC primaries including the loss her brother suffered in the Adamawa governorship primaries. PREMIUM TIMES reported how Mahmoud Ahmed lost the Adamawa governorship primary in controversial circumstances to Governor Bindow Jibrilla. The process was described as flawed and fraudulent by Mr Ahmed and other candidates including Nuhu Ribadu, a former anti-graft chief and now a member of the Presidential Campaign Council. After the primaries, Mrs Buhari publicly criticised the APC and its national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, for the handling of the primaries. It is disheartening to note that some aspirants used their hard earned money to purchase nomination forms, got screened, cleared and campaigned vigorously yet found their names omitted on Election Day, these forms were bought at exorbitant prices. All Progressives Congress being a party whose cardinal principle is change and headed by a comrade/ activist whose main concern is for the common man, yet, such impunity could take place under its watch, the presidents wife wrote on her official Instagram page. Given this development one will not hesitate than DISSOCIATE from such unfairness, be neutral and speak for the voiceless, she said. ADVERTISEMENT It is not clear how much Mrs Buharis anger at the APC leadership influenced her decision to form her own campaign committee. However, a source close to her said Mrs Buharis decision to set up a separate campaign team stems from her fear that the main presidential campaign council may not pay needed attention to the youth and women who constitute the larger majority of voters in Nigeria. While the main team will focus on campaign rallies full blast, the team headed by the wife of the president will deliberately target young persons and especially women. At the end of the day, we will not miss out on sending the NEXT LEVEL message to all and sundry, the source said, asking not to be named as he was not authorised to speak on the matter. While Mrs Buhari will serve as the chairperson of her campaign committee, the wife of the Vice President, Dolapo Osinbajo, would serve as the co-chairperson. The list of the appointees also has the APC national woman leader, Salamatu Baiwa, as the national coordinator. Other executive team leaders include Adejoke Adefulire as vice chairman (South), Mairo Al-Makura as vice chairman (North), and Juliet Ibekaku-Nwagu as deputy national coordinator (South). See the full list of the campaign team here. ADVERTISEMENT A Nigerian air force helicopter being used to bomb Boko Haram members has crashed. The crash was confirmed by the air force spokesperson, Ibikunle Daramola. Mr Daramola, an air commodore, said details of the cause of the crash are still scanty. Nigerian Air Force (NAF) Helicopter was lost in combat while providing close air support to troops of 145 Battalion at Damasak in Northern Borno State, Mr Daramola said. The mission was part of the ongoing counterinsurgency operations in the North East. The incident, occurred about 7:45 pm today, 2 January 2019. Details of the cause of the crash are still scanty. As soon as the details of the crash are known, they will be made available to the public. Attacks by air force aircraft have helped Nigerian troops in tough battles against Boko Haram. It was such attacks that helped in the recent battle in Baga where Boko Haram soldiers virtually overran a military base. A senior air force official later told PRNigeria, a news agency with close ties to the military, that the soldiers withdrawal from the base was tactical to allow air force aircraft bombard the insurgents who gathered there thinking they had taken over the base. Despite the efforts of security forces of Nigeria and neighbouring countries, the Boko Haram terrorists have continued to carry out attacks on civilians and security formations, particularly in Borno and Yobe states. Following the renewed attacks, the Borno State Government held a recent enlarged security council meeting where the governor expressed concern about the security situation and charged security forces and civilian militia to work harder to contain the terrorists. The defence minister, Mansur Dan-Ali, also visited Maiduguri on Wednesday at the instruction of President Muhammadu Buhari to assess the situation. ADVERTISEMENT Saudi Arabias Public Prosecutors on Thursday demanded capital punishment against five out of 11 suspects over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Press Agency reported. The Saudi attorney general highlighted in a statement that the demand was made during the first hearing of the case at the criminal court held in Riyadh. He said the Public Prosecutors requested death sentence of the five over the involvement in the murder, adding that all the 11 suspects attended the hearing with their lawyers. The attorney general also revealed that the Public Prosecutors had waited until now to get information about the case from its Turkish counterpart. Mr Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey on Oct. 2, 2018 and a number of top Saudi officials were arrested in connection with the case. The Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud ordered to restructure the intelligence authority. (Xinhua/NAN) ADVERTISEMENT Irans health minister has resigned, saying he could not accept any further cuts to his budget as the country struggles with a severe financial crisis. I am not an impatient person, but enough is enough, Hassan Hashemi said on a video posted to the Khabar One portal on Thursday. Reports that Mr Hashemi had resigned have been circulating for days, but on Thursday came confirmation on state media that President Hassan Rowhani had accepted his decision. Mr Hashemi said he could no longer work effectively given the restricted spending limits proposed in the governments next budget. The ministrys budget was significantly cut for the year beginning March 21. The cuts were linked to an acute financial crisis caused partly by U.S. sanctions that were re-imposed in 2018. As the sanctions have hit oil exports, it is not clear how much the state will earn from oil revenues in the future. The U.S. measures have badly affected the health sector, as some medicines cannot be imported due to bank sanctions. The sanctions have also put moderate Mr Rowhani under serious political pressure. He has had to reorganise his cabinet due to pressure from parliament. Many Iranians are also unhappy that the government is spending money in conflicts abroad including in wars in Yemen and Syria, and in support of Palestinians instead of focusing on domestic affairs. (dpa/NAN) India was Nigerias biggest trading partner in the third quarter of 2018, gulping N719.2billion of crude and N37.7billion of natural gas exports from the country. India also bought cashew nuts worth N4.7billion. Latest figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), covering July, August and September, showed that Nigeria imported motorcycles and cycles worth N29.2billion from the Asian country. Other imports were medicines, such as antibiotics to the value of N7 billion, agricultural machines worth N3.6billion, dried vegetables N3.6billion and treated mosquito nets N3.4billion. The NBS also listed Spain, France, Netherlands and China as Nigerias major trading partners in the statement titled Commodity Price Index and Terms of Trade for third quarter, 2018. Spain was the second biggest buyer of Nigerias crude, after India. The European country bought crude worth N463billion and liquified gas valued N52.7billion. Nigeria also shipped leather valued N4.3billion and cocoa paste worth N300million to the country. In return, Nigeria imported petrol or motor spirit at N25.7 billion, bitumen N3.7billion and petrochemical products N3.4billion. France is Nigerias third biggest trading partner, the NBS figures showed. France bought N422.5 billion crude and N74.2billion liquified natural gas and N1.1billion of soya bean oil from Nigeria, during the period. Nigeria imported petrol, called motor spirit worth N54.6billion and lubricating oil, worth N16.1billion. Netherlands is also a major importer of Nigerias crude as it bought N260.7billion worth in third quarter. It also bought liquified gas valued at N5.6billion, cocoa beans N2.9 billion and frozen shrimps and prawns N1.9billion. Nigeria imported from The Netherlands motor spirit or petrol valued at N337.2 billion, gas oil, N48.2 billion, medical equipment N36.7billion and medicines, such as antibiotics N9.5billion. China, the fifth important country to Nigeria in terms of trade bought crude worth N24.5billion, gas that includes LNG and butane N48.6billion. Nigeria imported chips worth N14.6billion from China, herbicides N14billion, motorcycles N12billion, vehicle chassis N10billion, iron and steel N10billion. The NBS said the all products Terms of Trade (TOT) index rose 0.52 per cent during the period under review. TOT is the relative price of imports in terms of exports and is defined as the ratio of export prices to import prices. It can be interpreted as the amount of import goods an economy can purchase per unit of export goods. The NBS said the increase in the TOT was driven by prices of prepared foodstuffs; beverages, spirits and vinegar; tobacco, footwear, headgear, umbrellas, sunshades, whips among others. According to the report, the all commodity group import price index decreased in the period under review by 1.76 per cent. It stated the decrease was due to change in prices of vegetable products. ADVERTISEMENT In addition, the report stated that all commodity group export price index rose by 1.26 per cent in the quarter under review. This, it stated was driven by prices of prepared foodstuffs, beverages, spirits and vinegar, tobacco, footwear, headgear, umbrellas, sunshades and whips among others. It further stated that all region group export index rose by 1.05 per cent as a result of trade with Asia. According to the report, the all regions group import index rose by 1.22 per cent as a result of trade with Oceania and Asian Regions. It stated that all regional terms of trade rose marginally by 0.10 per cent as a result of trade with Asia and other African Countries. (NAN) ADVERTISEMENT Senegals Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that jailed presidential hopeful Khalifa Sall could not appeal a prison sentence for embezzlement, his lawyers said, likely ending his chance of running as a free man in February polls. The popular former mayor of Dakar was arrested in March 2017 on suspicion of embezzling 3 million dollars (1.8 billion CFA francs) in public funds. In 2018, he was sentenced to five years in jail. Opponents of President Macky Sall, who is no relation to Khalifa, say he has tried to silence political opposition ahead of the February 24 election. The ruling party and state lawyers have denied that. In a report in 2018, Amnesty International criticised the Senegalese government for cracking down on peaceful demonstrations and said the judiciary handling Khalifas case showed a lack of independence. Salls lawyer, Seydou Diagne, said his client had not been stripped of his political rights and still stood a chance of running in the election. Diagne said he plans to take the case to another chamber of the court, which would take more than a month. State lawyers were not available for comment. In spite of his imprisonment, Sall was one of just five candidates, who collected the 53,000 supporting signatures required to run for election. Karim Wade, the son of former President Abdoulaye Wade, also collected enough signatures. He served three years of a six-year prison sentence for corruption between 2015 and 2017 before going into exile in Qatar. Senegalese law bans citizens sentenced to more than five years in prison from running for election. The Constitutional Council said it would publish a final list of approved candidates on January 21. Senegal has had three largely peaceful transitions of power since independence from France in 1960. (Reuters/NAN) Examples of some of the key players operating in the White Matter Injury treatment market are GE Healthcare, Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc., Pfizer Inc., Kitov pharmaceuticals, United Therapeutics, CJ HealthCare Corp. among others. White Matter Injury Treatment Market PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 06:06:30 Press Information Future Market Insights Future Market Insights U.S. Office 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Web: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com Umesh SEO Manager 3479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/white-matter-injury-treatment-market # 781 Words Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comSEO Manager3479183531 White matter is a part of brain that works as a cable that connect entire thing together and transmit signals. White matter is tissue made up of nerve fibers in the brain. The fibers are called axons which connect nerve cells and are covered by myelin. The white matter gets it color from myelin. White matter injury occurs as a consequences of premature birth and can produce long-term neurodevelopmental deficits. White matter injury causes the death of brain tissue around ventricles. White matter injury is majorly occurs due to lack of blood flow to the periventricular are of brain during delivery or either in womb this may result in the death or loss of white tissues.The babies with white matter Injury does not show obvious symptoms as they are new born, but white matter injury can lead to delayed mental development, motor disorder, hearing and vision impairment. If white matter injury can be accompanied by internal bleeding and may lead to cerebral palsy. After eight weeks of birth the white matter injury becomes detectable by performing magnetic resonance imaging of the brain or also with ultrasound. There are no accurate cure for white matter injury and no specific treatment is available for white matter injury. The symptomatic and supportive care is the only treatment for white matter injury. However, maintaining the blood pressure and cholesterol level can also help with managing the white matter injury.White Matter Injury treatment Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe global white matter injury treatment market is expected to grow significantly due to several new drugs are currently in clinical trials for white matter injury treatment. Several leading companies are looking forward to launch new drugs in market in recent years which will create several opportunity in the white matter treatment market. The increase in governmental funding for research and development purpose will drive the global white matter injury treatment market. The lack of awareness for diagnosis of White Matter Injury is the current hindrances for the market of White Matter Injury treatment. However, the stringent regulatory scenarios for drug approvals can slower the drug launching process and is expected to hamper the growth of white matter injury treatment market.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-8120 White Matter Injury treatment Market: SegmentationThe global White Matter Injury treatment market can be segmented on the basis of Treatment Type, End Users and Regions.Based on Treatment Type, the global white matter injury treatment market is segmented into:Drug Based TreatmentPalliative careSymptomatic TreatmentBased on End Users, the global White Matter Injury treatment market is segmented into:HospitalsAmbulatory Surgery CentreEmergency CentreOthersWhite Matter Injury treatment Market: OverviewWhite Matter Injury treatment market is a growing market, as the demand for the treatment is increasing due several premature birth cases and increasing health issue in patient. Research and development is going on at industry level to come up with various White Matter Injury treatment which can reduce patient problems. In recent year many new drug development procedures are carried out by leading pharmaceutical companies which may create ample of opportunity in the white matter injury treatment market in the forecast period. As several clinical trial for drug treatment for white matter injury is carried out in various geographical regions it is expected to drive the growth of the white matter injury treatment market owning to various regulatory approvals for better treatment options.White Matter Injury treatment Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the global White Matter Injury treatment market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan, Japan, Middle East and Africa. North America is anticipated to dominate the white matter injury treatment market during the forecast period, due to the increase in white matter injury cases and rapid technological developments in the region. Europe show increasing growth rate for White Matter Injury treatment, as increasing governmental initiatives for research and development of new drugs for white matter injury treatment. The reimbursement scenario also boost the overall market of White Matter Injury treatment. Asia Pacific excluding Japan is expected to show sluggish growth due to low medical infrastructures in various countries and lack of proper distribution channel for product. Middle East and Africa is expected to have slow growth due to lack of awareness among healthcare professional and under develop medical infrastructures in various countries.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-8120 White Matter Injury treatment Market: Key PlayersExamples of some of the key players operating in the White Matter Injury treatment market are GE Healthcare, Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc., Pfizer Inc., Kitov pharmaceuticals, United Therapeutics, CJ HealthCare Corp. among others. PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 21:35:38 Tradeline Supply Company, LLC Has Released a Guide to Credit Privacy Numbers (CPNs) That Will Help Alert the Public to Their Possible DangersSAN DIEGO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / January 3, 2019 / CPNs, which stands for credit privacy numbers, credit profile numbers, or consumer protection numbers, have exploded in popularity in the credit repair industry, but they can have a dark side. Use of these numbers, marketed as a replacement for consumers' social security numbers (SSNs), can land users in federal prison on felony charges. Tradeline Supply Company, LLC has compiled the most comprehensive guide to CPNs to date in an effort to alert the consumers to the dangers of CPNs and protect them from being taken advantage of by dishonest companies.Read Tradeline Supply Company, LLC's detailed guide to CPNs for an in-depth analysis of this phenomenon."Tradeline Supply Company, LLC feels a responsibility to educate consumers on the pitfalls that exist in the credit repair industry," said Darren Iba, Operations Manager. "Having the power to protect people through education, we strive to be a force against fraud and feel compelled to get this information out to as many people as possible before they make mistakes that can alter their lives forever." As Iba noted, there is no legitimate way to obtain a CPN because they are not issued or recognized by any government agency. The Federal Trade Commission and the Social Security Administration have both confirmed that CPNs are illegal and that using them in place of a real SSN is fraud.Right now, Ibasaid, the only way to get a CPN is to purchase a stolen or fake SSN on the black market. Often, so-called CPNs are actually SSNs stolen from children, the elderly, homeless people, deceased people, or those who are incarcerated. The rest are new, fake SSNs that have not yet been issued by the government. These are generated by algorithms and checked against databases to see which numbers can pass as SSNs.CPNs are often used to commit a new and increasingly common form of fraud called synthetic identity fraud, which is the practice of creating fake personas through a combination of real and fictitious data. This phony identity is then used to open credit accounts and make thousands of dollars in fraudulent purchases. Since the accounts are not linked to real individuals, it is difficult to track down the perpetrators and collect the debts. This type of fraud is estimated to cause billions of dollars in losses each year, with untold damage to the victims whose identities are compromised.Lured by promises of clean credit scores, consumers are deceived into purchasing CPNs and using them to apply for credit. Unfortunately, even if people are unaware that they are committing a crime, they can still be held liable and punished with prison time and hefty fines. Sadly, scammers often prey on those who are most in need and who can't afford to get on the wrong side of the law."It is imperative that we warn the public about this predatory scam that has the potential to ruin lives. Ultimately, using a CPN is not worth being convicted of a felony, and consumers need to know about this destructive and illegal practice," Iba noted.About Tradeline Supply Company, LLC:Tradeline Supply Company, LLC created an innovative online platform to connect buyers and sellers of tradelines. They empower people to make informed financial choices with free tools and information and open up new opportunities to those who need them most. For more information, please visit tradelinesupply.com Tradeline Supply Company, LLC2534 State St., Suite 433San Diego, CA 92101CONTACT:Darren Iba -Media RelationsPhone: 888-844-8910Email: media@ tradelinesupply.com SOURCE: Tradeline Supply Company, LLC PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 08:58:21 The main objective of the report is to offer a wide ranging strategic scrutiny of worldwide warehouse management systems market revenue along with the growth estimates for the assessment period, 2017 till 2025. This new publication namedWarehouse Management Systems Market has recently been included by Research Report Insights (RRI) in its database. The report provides a comprehensive analysis and insights that are supported by vital data and statistics. Escalating response for global warehouse management systems in the retail sector is anticipated to boost the development of warehouse management systems market at regional and global level in the near future.Report For Sample with Table of Contents@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/upsample/120124586/Warehouse-Management-Systems-Market In addition, a high demand in the healthcare industry and rising awareness of warehouse management systems incorporated with advanced RFID technology in growing regions like Europe and North America is also a growth driver. Several micro and macro-economic aspects are analyzed for driving the development of this market. The report also highlights other factors responsible for the development of the marketplace as well as drivers and restraints influencing market growth. The report throws light on the key trends and strategies impacting market growth. The study also offers a broad scrutiny of the prominent players and important strategies devised by the companies to succeed in this market.The report segregates the global market for warehouse management systems into component, region and application. Among the component, the study segregates warehouse management market systems market into services, cloud,on-premise, as well as software. Further the report divides the servicessegment into sub segments such as system integration, operations and maintenance and consulting. Similarly, cloud is segregated into Analytics and Optimization, Labor Management Systems and Others (Yard Management and 3PL Biling); Software into Other (Yard Management as well as 3PL Billing), and Analytics and Optimization.Request For Report Discount@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/updiscount/120124586/Warehouse-Management-Systems-Market On the basis of region,the study categorizes global warehouse management systems market into South America, North America, Asia Pacific, the United Kingdom and MEA. Europe is divided into Italy, Spain, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and rest of Europe. Similarly, South America is bifurcated into rest of South America and Brazil. MEA is categorized into Saudi Arabia, the UAE, South Africa and rest of MEA. Likewise, North America is divided into the United States, Canada and rest of North America. In terms of application, the study fragments the market intopharmaceutical, electronics, others (Books & Publishing, Home Improvement), retail (apparel, department and general merchandise), grocery/food and beverage and 3PL.Global Warehouse Management Systems Market: Competitive AnalysisThe report presents a dashboard view of the market enabling the reader to understand the competitive scenario in the global market for warehouse management systems. This report features companies in the international warehouse management systems Marketand provides useful information such as overview of the company, product portfolio, financial ratios, and current developments in warehouse management systems market. Major companies showcased in warehouse management systems market report include SAP SE, Synergy Logistics Ltd.,Infor Inc.,Made4net LLC,HighJump Software, Tecsys, Inc.,Softeon Inc.,Manhattan Associates Inc.,and LogFire Inc.Report Analysis@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/upcomming/120124586/Warehouse-Management-Systems-Market Examples of some of the key participants in the global vacuum-mixing devices market identified across the value chain includeZimmer Biomet, Heraeus Holding, Stryker, MDM Medical ltd., DJO Global, Murray; William M., Summit Medical, Ltd., Amplitude, Corin, Merit Medical Systems, Baumer and Synimed Synergie Ingenierie Medicale S.A.R.L. Future Market Insights PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 13:04:28 Press Information Future Market Insights Future Market Insights U.S. Office 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Web: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com Umesh SEO Manager 3479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ # 713 Words Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comSEO Manager3479183531 Bone cement also known as polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) is highly used for implant fixation procedures in various trauma and orthopedic surgeries to anchor artificial joints. According to the Orthopedic Statistics and Demographics, 7 million Americans require orthopedic surgery treatments every year and the most common sub-specialty includes joint replacement. Joint replacements require fixation, which needs vacuum-mixing devices. Bone cement is filled in the elastic zone between the prosthesis and the bone for fixation. Bone cement is also used for certain dental surgeries. Vacuum-mixing devices used to mix the bone cement for these procedures. Vacuum-mixing devices allow standardized mixing of the cement to form bone cement. Vacuum-mixing devices are highly used for cement-based arthroplasty procedures. Efficiency of a vacuum-mixing device depends upon the ability to mix all viscosities of the polymethyl methacrylate bone cement.Vacuum-Mixing Devices Market: Drivers and RestraintsIncreasing incidence of orthopedic, trauma and dental surgeries is driving the market for vacuum-mixing devices. Increase in geriatric population leading to increase in number of joint replacement and denture procedures is also expected to drive the market for vacuum-mixing devices over the forecast period. Technological advancements in vacuum-mixing devices is making it more capable to mix low as well as high viscosity bone cement, which also is expected to drive the market for vacuum-mixing devices over the forecast period.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7515 However, high prices associated with orthopedic procedures, especially implant fixation procedures and lack of awareness of the device in the market might hinder the growth of the vacuum-mixing devices market over the forecast period. Certain government regulations regarding the mix of the bone cement might also affect the growth of the vacuum-mixing devices market. Also, certain adverse events such as infection, implantation syndrome and loss of function after the use of bone cements might also hinder the market growth over the forecast period.Vacuum-Mixing Devices Market: SegmentationTentatively, the vacuum-mixing devicesmarket has been segmented on the basis of product type, end users and geography.On the basis of Product type, the vacuum-mixing devices market is segmented as:Bench Top Vacuum-Mixing DevicesPortable Vacuum-Mixing DevicesOn the basis of end users, the vacuum-mixing devices market is segmented as:Ambulatory Surgical CentersHospitalsResearch InstitutesSpecialized ClinicsOthersOn the basis of geography, the vacuum-mixing devices market is segmented as:North- AmericaEastern EuropeWestern EuropeAsia-Pacific excluding China & JapanChinaJapanMiddle East and AfricaLatin AmericaVacuum-Mixing Devices Market: OverviewThe global vacuum-mixing devices market is expected to grow significantly owing to the increase in incidence and prevalence of joint and bone surgeries. Rising unhealthy lifestyle leading to obesity is also leading to the growth of the vacuum-mixing devices market. Increase in ageing complaining about joint-related ailments leading to joint surgeries is also anticipated to contribute to the vacuum-mixing devices market. By end users, the hospitals is expected to dominate the vacuum-mixing devices market attributing to high feasibility and government support for government-funded hospitals. Vacuum-mixing device manufacturers are focusing on research and development for developing improved mixers with wide viscosity ranges and easy unloading.Vacuum-Mixing Devices Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the vacuum-mixing devices market is divided into eight regions viz. North America, Asia Pacific excluding China & Japan, China, Japan, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Middle-East & Africa. The North America vacuum-mixing devices market is expected to witness significant growth because of high rate of installations and adoption rate, as well as developed healthcare facilities and increased expenditure. The incidence of orthopedic surgery cases is increasing, which also contributes to the share in the region. The Europe vacuum-mixing devices market is also expected to grow at a significant rate due to increase in geriatric population and improved product range of the vacuum-mixing devices. The Asia-Pacific vacuum-mixing devices market is projected to grow at a moderate rate due to lack awareness regarding the benefits of vacuum-mixing devices and low healthcare expenditure.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7515 Vacuum-Mixing Devices Market: Key ParticipantsExamples of some of the key participants in the global vacuum-mixing devices market identified across the value chain includeZimmer Biomet, Heraeus Holding, Stryker, MDM Medical ltd., DJO Global, Murray; William M., Summit Medical, Ltd., Amplitude, Corin, Merit Medical Systems, Baumer and Synimed Synergie Ingenierie Medicale S.A.R.L. PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 02:47:01 Seoul Semiconductors SunLike Series Natural Spectrum LEDs Adopted by JingDong for New LED Desk Lamps in China Seoul Semiconductor Inc. Cynthia Zhang cynthia.zhang@seoulsemicon.com +86-157 2114 8576 Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (KOSDAQ 046890), a leading global innovator of LED products and technology, today announced that the leading Chinese e-commerce company JingDong (www.jd.com) has adopted Seoul Semiconductors SunLike Series natural spectrum LEDs for its first desk lamp product line. The new desk lamps are part of the JingDong Jingzao brand lighting products, and feature a human-centric lighting design enabled by the SunLike Series LEDs. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190102005 JingDong Beijing brand LED desk lamp with SunLike Series LEDs of Seoul Semiconductor (Graphic: Business Wire) SunLike Series natural spectrum LEDs produce light that closely matches the spectrum of natural sunlight, delivering human-centric lighting that lowers the blue light peak common in conventional LEDs. Light sources with SunLike LEDs more accurately show the color of objects as they would appear in natural sunlight. The new Jingzao LED desk lamps with SunLike LEDs incorporate technology that enables users to control the color temperature of the light source according to their needs, delivering light that eases eye strain, helps maintain stable human circadian rhythms, and reduces the risk of myopia for children. This is the first LED desk lamp independently developed by JingDong, which has adopted SunLike technology to provide consumers with the safest and healthiest light, and popularize the concept of healthy lighting to the public. We are proud that our innovative SunLike Series LEDs are being applied in JingDongs first LED desk lamps, and that we can help to increase eye safety and comfort, especially for children, said MinSu Son, marketing vice president of Seoul Semiconductor. SunLike Series LEDs have achieved the highest level of eye safety certification from the International Commission on Illumination as an RG-1 level light source with no photo-biological risks. Several lighting manufacturers in Europe, Asia, and North America have adopted the SunLike Series natural spectrum LEDs for their advanced lighting designs. SunLike LEDs also have been recognized in innovative technology for human-centric lighting from worldwide lighting awards held recently in China, Germany and the US. We are proud to deliver the benefits of our SunLike Series LEDs to our customer, JingDong, added Son. SunLike series natural spectrum LEDs were co-developed through the combination of Seoul Semiconductors optical semiconductor technology and Toshiba Materials TRI-R technology, which defines its original concept as the light closest to the sun for human well-being. TRI-R technology enables the spectrum of natural sunlight to be reproduced by a white LED light source. TRI-R is a registered trademark of Toshiba Material Co., Ltd. To learn more about the SunLike Series natural spectrum LEDs, please visit: http://www.seoulsemicon.com/en/technology/Sunlike/ To learn more about JingDongs new LED desk lamps, please visit: https://item.jd.com/100001705917.html About the JingDong brand Jingzao Jingzao is a self-owned brand of JingDong (JD.com), announced on January 17th this year. With an integrated product supply chain, JD.com offers high quality and cost-effective products that meet consumers needs for home and living, including: electronics, office supplies, clothing, handbags, shoes, goods for beauty and baby, and more. JingDong is committed to achieving better prices for high-end products and better quality for mass-produced products. About Seoul Semiconductor Seoul Semiconductor develops and commercializes LEDs for automotive, general illumination, specialty lighting, and backlighting markets. As the second-largest LED manufacturer globally excluding the captive market, Seoul Semiconductor holds more than 12,000 patents, offers a wide range of technologies, and mass produces innovative LED products such as SunLike delivering the worlds best light quality in a next-generation LED enabling human-centric lighting optimized for circadian rhythms; WICOP a simpler structured package-free LED which provides market leading color uniformity and cost savings at the fixture level, providing high lumen density and design flexibility; NanoDriver Series the worlds smallest 24W DC LED drivers; Acrich, the world's first high-voltage AC-driven LED technology developed in 2005, including all AC LED-related technologies from chip to module and circuit fabrication, and nPola, a new LED product based on GaN-substrate technology that achieves more than ten times the output of conventional LEDs. UCD constitutes a high color gamut display which delivers more than 90% NTSC. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190102005 PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 19:38:30 Global Security-as-a-Service (SaaS) market revenues totalled US$ 3.3 billion in 2016, and are anticipated to grow at a staggering CAGR of 17.1% through 2026. Key factors propelling the adoption of SaaS services include proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing. The key end use sectors for SaaS include telecom and IT, BFSI, and healthcare remain the largest end-users of SaaS, with telecom and IT particularly witnessing robust adoption. By 2026, the revenue share of telecom & IT is expected to reach 30%, whereas BFSI sector will account for 20.3% of total revenues.Concerns about potential security threats to confidential and important information is influencing telecom & IT companies to invest in SaaS. Consequently, providing end-to-end security solutions remains a lucrative mode of operation of SaaS companies. Prominent SaaS companies, including Intel Security, Cisco Systems, Inc., and Oracle Corporation are focusing on offering customised solutions to their clients. While IT & telecom will continue to remain the most lucrative end-user, gains will be steady in the healthcare and BFSI sector.Global SaaS market revenues remain equally concentrated between large players and local vendors. It is projected that by 2026, large companies and multinational corporations will account for over 50% share, with the rest remaining fragmented among small and medium enterprises.A key trend in the global SaaS market is that service providers are focusing on becoming integrators of holistic solution providers rather than just offering one particular type of service.Report For Sample with Table of Contents@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/upsample/120124598/Security-as-a-Service-Market Reluctance to adopt cloud based solutions is steadily waning, and as more companies come on board, the SaaS market is anticipated to gain further traction.It is projected that the SaaS delivery market will grow at a higher rate as compared to traditional software. File sharing continues to be the leading end-use for SaaS globally, with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) being the otherleading segment.For global players, growth of the security services of IoT and cost advantages remain key opportunities to leverage during the forecast period.Although the outlook on SaaS remains positive, longstanding challenges, such as difficulty in storing unstructured data and risk of organized attacks remain key challenges. Further, easy accessibility to data makes confidential information vulnerable to cyber-attack and hacks.Some of the leading market players profiled in this report include Intel Security, Oracle Corporation, Cisco Systems, Inc., Gemalto NV, Qualys Inc., Alert Logic Inc., Trend Micro Inc., Proofpoint Inc., Zscaler, Inc., and Okta, Inc.Request For Report Discount@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/updiscount/120124598/Security-as-a-Service-Market North America and Western Europe remain the two largest markets for SaaS, with the former accounting for over 35% revenue share of the market in 2016. The North America SaaS market was valued at US$ 1.04 billion in 2015, and is anticipated to grow at a staggering 20% CAGR through 2026. Western Europe, the second largest market globally, will also be the fastest growing market after North America.It is worthwhile to mention that SaaS market in North America will be completely dominated by the U.S., with Canada accounting for only 22% share of the market. This is expected to further decline to nearly 19% by the end of the forecast period.Report Analysis@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/upcomming/120124598/Security-as-a-Service-Market Persistence Market Research Released New Market Report on Global Market Study on Membrane Separation: Water & Waste Water Segment to Witness Highest Growth by 2019 Persistence Market Research PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 10:46:42 Press Information Persistence Market Research Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Yogesh Team Lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 469 Words Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353 Persistence Market Research Released New Market Report on Global Market Study on Membrane Separation: Water & Waste Water Segment to Witness Highest Growth by 2019, the global membrane separation market was valued at USD 19.0 billion in 2012 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.8% from 2013 to 2019, to reach an estimated value of USD 39.2 billion in 2019.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/2888 Mandatory government regulation and increasing demand for clean processed drinking water is propelling the water processing industry to provide the public with clean processed drinking water free of impurity. Providing growth opportunity for water treatment industry among which, Membrane separation technology is one of the most popular methods used for cleaning water. Mandatory adherence of certain environmental standards by the national government such as the Clean Water Act especially in areas with water scarcity have influenced the demand for better water treatment technology, including membrane separation technology. Shifting from chemical to physical treatments of water is also a major driver as chemical treatments are perceived as an environmentally unclean technology with associated disposal costs. Additional awareness of water scarcity has influenced the demand for water reuse in water stressed areas.Governments and municipal authorities are increasingly waking up to the effects of environmental degradation on the economy. Worldwide industrial expansion and growing population are propelling the demand for better water treatment technology, providing growth opportunity for the global market of membrane separation technology. Additionally, the oil and petroleum industry is well established in the gulf and European countries such as Italy and Germany which involve membrane separation technology for liquid separation. Expansion of such industry is expected to increase the overall demand for membrane separation technology. Membrane separation technology is bifurcated into four major processes, microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis. Microfiltration dominates the market with more than 35% global market share in 2012.Whereas water & wastewater dominates the end-user market with 36% global market shares in 2012. The global membrane separation market grew from USD 19.0 billion in 2010 to USD 21.2 billion in 2013.European membrane market (largest in 2013) is expected to reach USD 13.8 billion in 2019, growing at a CAGR of 9.6%. In 2012 water & wastewater sector was the major end-user of membrane separation technology and is expected to increase at a CAGR of 11.1% during 2013-19. The membrane separation market is fragmented with several players in the market supplying membrane separation products to the end-users (water and wastewater, industrial and healthcare) in the market. Most of the companies produce different types of membrane products such as microfiltration, nanofiltration, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis and sell them globally. Major companies operating globally and manufacturing all four products are Evoqua Water Technologies, Pall Corporation, Koch Membrane Systems Inc., Merck Millipore, Degremont SA, Dow Chemical Company, GEA Filtration, 3M Company, Nitto Denko Corporation and Veolia Environnement.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC)@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/2888 PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 13:53:35 Press Information Future Market Insights Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com abhishek manager +1 03479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 559 Words Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.commanager+1 03479183531 Peanut butter is a high protein, low calorie product that possess high nutritional value. It is healthy alternative to dairy butter and used as bread spread. Major market presence of peanut butter is in western countries in comparison to Asian countries such as India as product is relatively new to the Asian region. Peanut butter is used in various applications in the form of spread and is used as the substitute for milk butter. However, in comparison to other spreads peanut butter is a low calorie product with high protein content. Consumption of peanut butter includes various benefits associated with it such as it helps to reduce the weight and also possess optimum nutrition value. Peanut butter are also available in powder form and used in various applications such as breakfast food, savory sauces and smoothies.Peanut butter market is segmented on the basis of product type, distribution channel and region. On the basis of product type peanut butter market is divided into regular, low sodium, low sugar and plain. Among all the segments of the peanut butter, regular peanut butter is the dominating segment, followed by other segments. However, low sodium peanut butter is expected to show fastest growth in the forthcoming years. Peanut butter market is segmented on the basis of distribution channel into supermarkets, hypermarkets, retailers and others. Among all the segments of peanut butter market supermarket segment is expected to contribute maximum revenue to the overall revenue of the peanut butter market, followed by hypermarkets and retailers. Peanut butter market are segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Middle East and Africa and Japan.Buy This Report@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/904 The global peanut butter market is expected to witness robust growth over the forecasted period due to the rising needs of the consumers for low calorie nutritious products. Globally, among all regions, North America is expected to contribute highest market share, followed by Europe over the forecasted period. In North America, U.S. is expected to contribute maximum market share due the high disposable income of the consumers. However, in emerging economies such as Asia Pacific peanut butter market is anticipated to witness highest growth owing to the rising disposable income of consumers in these regions.Various drivers for peanut butter market includes rising demand for nutritious products coupled with increasing disposable income of consumers especially in developing countries. Other drivers that fuel the growth of peanut butter market are increasing demand for low calorie healthy food and emergence of hectic life schedule. Changing lifestyle coupled with shift towards the intake of convenient food are also factors that are expected to drive the peanut butter market in the coming four to five years. Major restraint that is expected to hamper the growth of the overall peanut butter market is the availability of peanut at relatively competitive prices coupled with fluctuating production of peanuts especially in India.Major players operating in peanut butter market are Procter & Gamble, Unilever, The J.M. Smucker Company, Hormel Foods Corporation, Boulder Brands Inc., Kraft Canada Inc., Algood Food Company Inc. Various companies operating in peanut butter market are mainly adopting strategy to launch new varieties of peanut butter in order to grab the changing needs and preferences of the consumers.Request For Report Sample: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-904 Nanomaterial Supercapacitors Market PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 09:56:12 Press Information Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Abhishek Budholiya Manager 3479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 574 Words 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Manager3479183531 The ever-increasing need for electrical energy storing devices will continue to influence the growth of the nanomaterial supercapacitors market during the forecast period 2016-2026. The surging end-use applications of nanomaterial supercapacitors in transportation, consumer electronics, wind turbines and sensors will continue to drive the growth of the market during the forecast period. Increasing preference towards compact devices that have high electric storage capacity will continue to create sustained demand during the forecast period.High cost and low availability continue to remain persistent challenges with nanomaterial supercapacitors.Global nanomaterial supercapacitors market: SegmentationOn the basis of the product type, the global nanomaterial supercapacitors market can be segmented as follows:IndustrialConsumerTransportOn the basis of applications, the global nanomaterial supercapacitors market can be segmented as follows:SensorsInstrumentationElectric & hybrid vehiclesWind turbinesPhotovoltaic modulesGet Sample Copy of Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1593 On the basis of end-use industry, the global nanomaterial supercapacitors market can be segmented as follows:HealthcareEnergyElectronicsTransportationOthersGlobal nanomaterial supercapacitors market: Region Wise OutlookThe global nanomaterial supercapacitors market can be divided into seven regions, namely North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan and Middle East and Africa. Asia Pacific dominates the global nanomaterial supercapacitors market due to the mature electronics industry in the region. Strong demand from China will be key to the growth of the market in the region. North America is the second largest market globally, and demand is on account of its flourishing medical and healthcare industry.Demand for nanomaterial supercapacitors in Europe will continue to be driven by the booming automobile sector in Europe. Latin America is witnessing a modest CAGR in terms of value in global nanomaterial supercapacitors market because of the strengthening information technology in this region. Middle East and Africa (MEA) is at a nascent stage in the global nanomaterial supercapacitors market but is expected to have a healthy CAGR in the forecasted period.Global nanomaterial supercapacitors market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in the global nanomaterial supercapacitors market are:Nippon electrical Co.Panasonic Electronic Devices Co. LtdTTI, IncMAXWELL TECHNOLOGIES, INCNesscap Co., LtdAxion Power International, Inc.Cap-XXSPELMurata Manufacturing Co., LtdAbout Nanomaterial SupercapacitorsBuy Full Report Now @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/1593 A capacitor is an electronic component that stores energy in the form of electrostatic field. The amount of electrical energy stored in the capacitor is directly proportional to the surface area of the conducting plates and inversely proportional to the distance between the conducting plates. Nanomaterial supercapacitors are the devices that increases the surface area of the plates, thus increasing the storage capacity of the capacitor. Nanomaterial supercapacitors uses nanomaterial in the manufacturing of the dielectrics or electrodes. Supercapacitors are used instead of capacitors for high energy density, and are used in electric vehicles, grid energy storage, mobile electronics, power tools and hybrid vehicles. Nanomaterial supercapacitors are generally made up of Nano composites that are composed of nanotubes (that are composed of carbon materials). Nanomaterial supercapacitors is an electronic device that has the capability of increasing the storage of electrical energy by improving the storage of electrons with the expanding the surface area of the electrodes. The overall efficiency of nanomaterial supercapacitors is dependent on the material used for its manufacturing and its electrodes properties. The nanomaterial supercapacitors market is anticipated to expand at a modest CAGR in the forecasted period. PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 12:21:02 Press Information Future Market Insights U.S. Office 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Web: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com Amir Manager +1-347-918-3531 email http://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 694 Words U.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comManager+1-347-918-3531 Muscle relaxant drugs are primarily used in conjunction with general anesthetics to achieve muscle relaxation during surgical interventions. However, they are also being used in the treatment of muscle spasm and spastic neurological conditions secondary to multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, fibromyalgia, myofascial pain syndrome etc. Muscle relaxants can be used in alleviating acute pain in muscle spasm, tension headache etc. Spasticity arises from conditions affecting brain and spinal cord, and lasts for a long time. However, muscle relaxant drugs only provide symptomatic treatment and do not cure the underlying disease or disorder. Loss of muscle tone associated with old age, due to loss of fibrous tissue and reduced vascular network in the skin makes old age population the biggest target group for the use of skeletal muscle relaxant drugs.Moreover, geriatric population is highly prone to the musculoskeletal disorders including Carpal Tunnel syndrome, ligament sprain etc. Muscle relaxant drugs are commercially being used from 1940s, and since 1995, 10 new muscle relaxant drugs have been introduced in a market including vecuronium, Atracurium etc. Some of the commonly used brands of skeletal muscle relaxant drugs include Gablofen (baclofen injection), Lioresal Intrathecal (baclofen), Soma (Carisoprodol), Lorzone (Chlorzoxazone), Flexeril (Cyclobenzaprine), Dantrium (Dantrolene), Skelaxin (Metaxalone) and others. According to the Medicaid reported data, carisoprodol, cyclobenzaprine and metaxalone comprised 45% of overall prescription for lower back pain in the U.S. in 2015.Muscle Relaxant Drugs Market: Drivers and RestraintsGlobal market for muscle relaxant drugs is primarily driven by increasing incidence of lower back pain, surge in number of surgical procedures and expanding geriatric population. Low back pain has been ranked among the top 5 causes of physician visits in the U.S. In 2007, The American Pain Society and the American College of Physicians published a guideline for the treatment of low back pain in which skeletal muscle relaxants are recommended as a second line therapy for low back pain. Moreover, changing prescription practices may alter the growth rate of muscle relaxant drugs market. For instance, even though muscle relaxants drugs are not recommended as a first line of therapy 35% of patients suffering from non-specific lower back pain are prescribed with muscle relaxants in the U.S. However, severe side effects related to muscle relaxant drugs such as habituation and respiratory arrest will restrict the growth of global muscle relaxant drugs market.Muscle Relaxant Drugs Market: OverviewThe global market for muscle relaxant drugs is expected to gain traction during the forecast period due to increasing aging population and availability of generic drugs. Centrally acting muscle relaxant drugs segment is expected to hold the largest share in the global muscle relaxant drugs market due to increasing number of prescriptions. However, facial aesthetic relaxants segment is expected to witness highest growth rate due to increasing number of facial and cosmetic surgeries and changing perception of beauty all over the world. Increasing usage of neuromuscular blocking agents during general surgeries would drive the growth of global market for muscle relaxant drugsMuscle Relaxant Drugs Market: Regional Wise OutlookGeographically, the global muscle relaxant drugs market is classified into regions viz. North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific, Japan, Middle East and Africa. North America will continue to hold largest share in the global muscle relaxant drugs market due to rising number of ANDA applications being filed by the key players. Europe is expected to hold second largest share in global market for muscle relaxant drugs market. However, APAC is expected to witness highest growth rate due to expansion activities by the key players in the regionand launch of generic muscle relaxant drug formulations.Request For Report sample @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2836 Muscle Relaxant Drugs Market: Key PlayersSome of the market players operating in global muscle relaxant drugs market are Abbott Laboratories, Mallinckrodt plc., Medtronic Neuromodulation (Medtronic Inc.), Vertical Pharmaceuticals LLC, Johnson & Johnson, Par Sterile Products, LLC., Endo Pharmaceuticals, Inc., SteriMax Inc. and others. Companies are facing patent cliff as majority of the muscle relaxant drugs have lost the patent exclusivity. However, generic players such as Upsher Smith Laboratories, Inc., Orient Pharma Co., Ltd. and others are introducing generic versions of these drugs in the global muscle relaxant drugs market. Some of the key players operating in the global Microwave Ablation Devices Market are Medtronic plc, AngioDynamics Inc, Johnson & Johnson Services Inc., MedWaves Inc, and Terumo Corporation. Future Market Insights PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 13:03:57 Press Information Future Market Insights Future Market Insights U.S. Office 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Web: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com Umesh SEO Manager 3479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ # 808 Words Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comSEO Manager3479183531 Microwave ablation devices are the advance medical devices which are used to treat different type of cancer which can also be treated by radiofrequency (RF) ablation devices. Microwave ablation devices are the ultimate option for minimally invasive surgery of soft tissue such as liver, kidney, and lung. The basic components of microwave devices include a generator, power distribution system and antennas. Majority of the component of microwave ablation device is the same as the component of RF ablation device. But microwave ablation device has several benefits over the RF ablation devices. Some of the microwave ablation devices are also compatible with the CT scanner and ultrasound scanner, which provide the option for image-guided surgery.The guided surgery with CT scanner or ultrasound scanner enables the surgeon to identify the ablation target more easily though it allows the appropriate probe placement. This image guide surgery of microwave ablation device has also improved the success rate of the surgery. During the surgery, the needle like antenna is inserted into the tumor. The tip of the antenna emits the electromagnetic radiation, which results the frictional tissue heating and causing the cell death by coagulation necrosis. Majority of the microwave ablation devices available in the market uses 915 MHz generator while few of microwave ablation devices uses 2450 MHz generator.Microwave Ablation Devices Market: Drivers and RestraintsIncreasing incidences of benign and malignant tumor of lung, liver, bone and kidney throughout the globe is the primary factor driving the growth of the microwave ablation devices market. Moreover, the rising number of tumor ablation procedure with the help of image-guided device will also propel the growth of microwave ablation devices market. Additionally, change in the lifestyle of people and unhealthy eating habit along with consumption of alcohol and tobacco is also fueling the number of cancer cases which will ultimately upsurge the growth of microwave ablation devices market. Increasing demand for minimally invasive procedures and technological advancement is also responsible for the robust growth of microwave ablation devices market throughout the forecast period. The high-cost device associated with high risk during microwave ablation procedure may also impact the sale of microwave ablation devices over the next decade. Also, the high preference of surgeon towards RF ablation device over the microwave ablation device may deter the growth of this market.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7511 Microwave Ablation Devices Market: SegmentationTentatively, the global microwave ablation devices market can be segmented on the basis of component type, application, and end user, and geography.Based on component type, the global Microwave Ablation Devices market is segmented as:GeneratorPower Distribution SystemAccessoriesBased on application, the global Microwave Ablation Devices market is segmented as:OncologyCardiovascularUrologyOrthopedicOthersBased on end user, the global Microwave Ablation Devices market is segmented as:HospitalsAmbulatory Surgical CentersResearch LaboratoriesMicrowave Ablation Devices Market: OverviewMicrowave ablation devices market is expected to show significant growth over the forecast period due to rising incidence of cancer throughout the globe. According to the National Cancer Institute, around 1,685,210 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in the U.S. in 2016. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) data, in 2012, 30-50% of deaths are caused due to cancer can be prevented if the treatment is taken at the early stages. By component type, accessories segment is expected to dominate the microwave ablation device market by revenue due to rising number of tumor ablation procedure. By application, the oncology segment is expected the gain majority of share for microwave ablation devices market by revenue which is then followed by cardiovascular. Among all end users, the hospital segment is expected to dominate the microwave ablation device market whereas ambulatory surgical centers segment is projected to grow at a faster rate.Microwave Ablation Devices Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the global microwave ablation devices market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Europe, CIS and Russia, Asia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan and the Middle East and Africa (MEA). North America is expected to gain maximum market share for microwave ablation devices market in term of revenue owing to increased incidences of cancer. After North America, microwave ablation devices market is followed by Western Europe and Japan due high health infrastructure in these regions. Asia-Pacific excluding Japan region is expected to grow at a faster rate than other regions for microwave ablation devices market due to rising geriatric population in India and China. Middle East and Africa and Latin America for microwave ablation devices market is expected show delayed growth due to lack of availability of skilled healthcare professionals in this region.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7511 Microwave Ablation Devices Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players operating in the global Microwave Ablation Devices Market are Medtronic plc, AngioDynamics Inc, Johnson & Johnson Services Inc., MedWaves Inc, and Terumo Corporation. Example of some key participants in the global microplate washer market are BioTek Instruments, Molecular Devices LLC, BD Biosciences, Bio-Rad, Calbiotech, Inc, Hudson Robotics, Inc, Tecan Trading AG, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Titertek-Berthold, among others. Future Market Insights PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 13:04:35 Press Information Future Market Insights Future Market Insights U.S. Office 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Web: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com Umesh SEO Manager 3479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ # 741 Words Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comSEO Manager3479183531 Microplate washers are used to remove reagents from sample wells such that they can be prepared for the next process. The microplate washer dispenses wash solution into the sample wells. This is done through a series of cycles of buffer dispense and aspiration. Microplate washer follows a series of cycles to ensure that any unbound liquid is thoroughly removed and other bound substances are left within the microplate wells. The microplate washer then removes the wash solution through suction.The microplate washer is composed of a microplate work station that includes a priming tray, reservoir kit, pump module and aspiration head used for dispensing the wash solution. These microplate washers are available as automates and manual microplate washers. The manual microplate washers are designed such that they can be completely controlled by its operator, from filling the reservoir to aspiration. For the manual type of microplate the lab technician or researcher prepares a script for the timing of the activities such as dispensing, waiting, shaking and aspiration. Once the script is prepared the microplate is inserted into the microplate washer for processing. The automatic microplate washer is designed such that it can profile the microplates automatically thereby reducing human errors. The automatic microplate washers can read and interpret the size of the microplate. Some microplate washers require hardware attachments for different types of microplates. Automatic and manual microplate washers are available in two configurations, i.e., plate and strip. The plate type of microplate washer cleanses the whole microplate in a single process, while the strip type of microplate washer cleanses the microplate strip by strip.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7518 Microplate washers can be used for a number of applications including cell cultures, protein assays, western blots and beads, Enzym-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), as well as for DNA purification processes. The microplate washers available in the market are compatible with microplates up to 384 wells. Up to 5 wash solutions or buffers can be dispensed or attached to the microplate washer and can dispense a range of volumes from 10 microliters to 3 milliliters.Microplate Washer Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe microplate washers market is expected to witness significant growth in the near future owing to increase in number of drug discovery research centers and clinical diagnostics, and high throughput screening application. Other factors that are expected to drive the growth of the market are increased research funding in the biotech & pharmaceutical industry along with the increasing number of service providers through private labs.Microplate Washer Market: SegmentationOn the basis of product type, the microplate washer market can be segmented as:Automated Microplate WashersManual Microplate WashersOn the basis of configuration, the microplate washer market can be segmented as:Plate ConfigurationStrip ConfigurationOn the basis of the end users, the microplate washer market can be segmented as:AcademicsHospitalsPrivate labsResearch InstitutesBiotechnology IndustryPharmaceutical IndustryMicroplate Washer Market: OverviewThe global microplate washer market is expected to gain significant growth rate over the forecast period. The demand for microplate washers is expected to gain traction over the forecast period due to increasing research in the biotechnology & pharmaceutical industries. The increasing number of private labs for research & similar services is also adding to the increased demand for the product worldwide.Microplate Washer Market: Regional OutlookIn terms of geography, the global microplate washer market is segmented into North America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Asia- Pacific excluding China & Japan (APECJ), China, Japan, Middle-East & Africa and Latin America. North America is expected to be the dominant regional market for microplate washers due to the rise in per capita expenditure on healthcare and technological advancement. Germany, France, and the U.K. are expected to the key contributing courtiers in the Western Europe market for microplate washers. The Asia Pacific excluding China and Japan microplate washer market is expected to witness significant growth over the forecast period due to availability of low-cost products in the region. China is expected to be one of the major revenue contributing countries in the global microplate washer market due to the availability of cost-effective microplate washers increased healthcare funding in the region.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7518 Microplate Washer Market: Key ParticipantsExample of some key participants in the global microplate washer market are BioTek Instruments, Molecular Devices LLC, BD Biosciences, Bio-Rad, Calbiotech, Inc, Hudson Robotics, Inc, Tecan Trading AG, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Titertek-Berthold, among others. PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 12:20:40 Press Information Future Market Insights U.S. Office 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Web: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com Amir Manager +1-347-918-3531 email http://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 688 Words U.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comManager+1-347-918-3531 Filtration is one of the commonly used separation process for removing solid particles, microorganisms or droplets from a liquid or a gas by depositing them on a filter medium. Laboratory filtration devices have enormous applications in everyday research practices being performed in various setups including research and development laboratories, academic institutes, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, food industries and many more. In all these industries filter membranes or filter assemblies are routinely used for water treatment and filtration of particulate matter. Filtration is the important process used in many chemical, clinical, biological and analytical laboratories for various applications such as water treatment, percolation, concentrating the solution, gas purification in analytical processes etc. Various filtration techniques are used to separate solid from liquids or solutions by interposing a filter medium through which solutions or liquids can pass. Ultrafiltration technique is commonly used in biotechnology industry for protein concentration or purification, DNA or RNA concentration, etc. Microfiltration techniques are commonly used in pharmaceutical industry in preparation of sterile formulations. Some of the commonly used brands of laboratory filtration devices are Whatman, Millex syringe filters, Minisart syringe filters, Vivapore ultrafiltration membrane filters, AKTAcrossflow systems and others. Cross flow filtration techniques are specifically in bioprocess filtration where purification of biomolecules is desired.Laboratory Filtration Devices Market: Drivers and Restraints Global market for laboratory filtration devices is expected to be driven by increasing pace of research and development activities in pharmaceutical, life sciences and biotechnology industry. Thus, increasing research activities in the biopharmaceuticals segment, and focus on development of biopharmaceutical molecules is fueling the growth of global laboratory filtration devices market. However, increasing competition from local and Chinese players and requirement of is expected to hinder the growth of laboratory filtration devices market over the forecast period.Laboratory Filtration Devices Market: Segmentation The global laboratory filtration devices market has been segmented on the basis of product type, utility, technology, end user, and geography. Based on product type, the global laboratory filtration devices market is divided into following: Membrane Filters, Filter papers, Fibrous Filters (glass fibers, quartz filters etc.), Syringe Filters, Capsule Filters, Filtration Microplates, Bottle-top Units, Filtration Assembly, Vacuum Filtration Devices, Pressure Driven Filtration Devices, Stirred Cells, Based on utility, the laboratory filtration devices market is divided into following:, Disposable, Reusable, Based on technology, the laboratory filtration devices market is divided into following: Microfiltration, Macrofiltration, Ultrafiltration, Cross Flow Filtration, Based on retail end user, the laboratory filtration devices market is segmented as below: Academic , nd Research Institutes, Pharmaceutical Companies, Biotechnology Companies, Diagnostic Centers, Contract Research Organizations, Food and Beverage Companies.Laboratory Filtration Devices Market: Overview The global market for laboratory filtration devices is highly fragmented with presence of local and regional players. Top 5 players in the market account for more than half of the market share due to specific product features offered specifically for use in life science and biotechnology industry. Obvious use of Whatman and other filter papers in academic and research laboratories causes the highest demand for membrane filters followed by syringe filters. Based on techniques, microfiltration techniques are expected to hold the largest share in the global laboratory filtration devices market.Laboratory Filtration Devices Market: Regional Wise Outlook Geographically, the laboratory filtration devices market is classified into regions viz. North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific, Japan, Middle East and Africa. The market in Asia Pacific and Japan is expected to grow at significant CAGR due to increasing number of research institutes in countries such as India, Australia and Japan. North America will continue to hold largest share in the laboratory filtration devices market. Many of the best academic institutions are located in the U.S. and a culture positive to innovation as well as the presence of venture capital has led to the emergence of a number of regions with top universities and businesses.Laboratory Filtration Devices Market: Key Players Some of the players operating in the global laboratory filtration devices market are Spectum Inc., GE Healthcare, Merck KGaA, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Cole-Parmer Instrument Company, LLC., Spectrum Chemical Manufacturing Corp., Sartorius AG, Pall Corporation and others.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2835 PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 13:55:05 Press Information Future Market Insights Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com abhishek manager +1 03479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 608 Words Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.commanager+1 03479183531 Gourmet salts are unrefined and high quality salts used in cuisine in order to enhance taste and appeal of the food. Gourmet salts are used for to enhance the texture and flavor. In addition, these type of salts possess better solubility and also high mineral content. Gourmet salts are also blended with other type of herbs, spices and flavors in order to enhance the flavor and color of spices. Gourmet salts are used in various applications such as bakery, savoury, confectionery, poultry and sea food.Fleur de sel is one of the widely used gourmet salts, which is used in variety of food products such as roasted meat, vegetable dishes and salads. Gourmet salts are also used in for preserving canned food products in order to store food item for longer duration.Gourmet Salts Market: Segmentation, Region-wise Outlook, Drivers and Key PlayersGlobal Gourmet salts market is segmented on the basis of product type, application and region. Based on the product type segmentation includes fleur de sel, Himalayan salts, sel gris, and flake salts. Of which, fleur de sel is used widely in various food applications such as meat and salads. Fleur de sel is anticipated to be the dominating segment during the forecasted period, followed by other gourmet salts. On the basis of application, gourmet salts is segmented into savoury, bakery and confectionary, poultry and seafood products and others.However, among all the segments, bakery and confectionary segment is expected to contribute maximum revenue to the overall gourmet salts market. Global gourmet salts market is segmented on the basis of regions into North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Middle East and Africa and Japan. Gourmet salts market is dominated by European region, followed by North America and Asia Pacific excluding Japan. In Europe, France and Spain are expected to contribute maximum revenue share to the overall gourmet salts market. However North America is projected to witness fastest growth in the next four to five years owing to the high disposable income of consumers in this region.Buy This Report@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/898 The Global gourmet salts market is expected to witness vigorous growth during the forecasted period due to the rising awareness among consumers related to changing food or cuisine preferences among consumers .Globally, among all regions, Europe is expected to witness significant growth in the gourmet salts market and contribute maximum market share, followed by North America and Asia Pacific over the forecasted period. However, North America is expected to experience fast growth due the high disposable income of the consumers, which results in buying patterns for products rich in gourmet salt. Since, these products are expensive in nature.Various factors that fuel the growth of gourmet salts market includes rising living standard of consumers, increasing commercialisation of food industry by various media shows and also awareness regarding benefits of gourmet salts in the traditional food.However, factors that hampers the growth of gourmet salts market are high price associated with gourmet salts in comparison to conventional salts. Other major factor that restraints the growth of gourmet salts market that hinder the growth of gourmet salts market is lack of awareness among consumers in developing countries. Companies operating in gourmet salts market are mainly adopting new product development strategy in order to enhance their product portfolio and also to expand into new markets.Major companies that operate in gourmet salts market includes Cargill Inc., Morton Salt Inc., Murray River Salt, Alaska Pure Sea Salts Co., Infosa, Amagansett Sea Salt Co., Maldon Crystal Salt Co., Pyramid Salt Pty. Ltd.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-898 Persistence Market Research has announced the addition of the Optoelectronics Market to Register Steady Expansion During 2016 2026" report to their offering. Optoelectronics Market PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 14:28:59 Press Information Persistence Market Research CONTACT: Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com Web: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com yogesh sengar team lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 475 Words CONTACT:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comteam lead800-961-0353 Increasing demand for consumer electronic devices fuel the Optoelectronics Market. Optoelectronics consist of light emitting devices which converts electrical signals to visible or infrared radiation energy, or vice-versa. Consumer electronic devices, digital imaging solution and communication network are the major areas where Optoelectronics has huge market opportunity for its major High-brightness LEDs (HB-LEDs), CMOS image sensors and Fiber-optic laser transmitters components.In addition to this, increased demand for advanced technology in automotive industry is creating market opportunity for Optoelectronics. Most of the automotive vendors are integrating infrared components in cars for detect ambient light, whether estimation, gestured control for the infotainment console and night vision. These new application areas strengthen the Optoelectronics market share in emerging sectors.Optoelectronics Market: Drivers and ChallengesThe driving factor for Optoelectronics market is the growing usage of high brightness LEDs which are used in backlight systems of Tablets, smartphones and LCD television sets. Furthermore, rising usage of LEDs in illumination devices is also helping this Optoelectronics market to grow significantly in coming five years.The challenge for Optoelectronics technology is the usage of complex fabrication due to which it become difficult to get proper supply of fabrication technology required from the suppliers as these are rarely available to them.Request for Sample Report @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/12559 Optoelectronics Market: SegmentationSegmentation on the basis of Product Type:Light emitting diodes (LED)OptocouplersInfrared ComponentsOthersThese are electronically managed. These are used to control light and to manage invisible and visible form of light.Segmentation on the basis of Application:Optoelectronic components are used in many application field such as:Medical DevicesTraffic SignalsConsumer ElectronicsHome AppliancesOthersThe laser diodes, one of the important component of Optoelectronics is used in medical field, military and defense, CD players, and surgical procedures.Key Market PlayerSome of the major Optoelectronic players are Avago Technologies, Cree, Inc., a FiberHome Technologies Group Omnivision Technologies, Inc., and Micropac IndustriesRegional OverviewIn North America region adoption of Optoelectronics technology is at a faster pace and currently, this region holds the largest market share of global Optoelectronics market. The market for Optoelectronics is growing comprehensively in countries such as US and Canada due to the high adoption in medical field. The market for Optoelectronics market is in the growth phase so vendors in North America, are developing and researching the integration of Optoelectronics in this market.The Europe region is following the North America region in this Optoelectronics market due to the adoption of AR and VR technology.In Asia Pacific region, the market for Optoelectronics market is witnessing slow growth rate due to lack of knowledge and modern technologies to integrate with this technology. Although, it is expected that in coming years this region will adopt Optoelectronics technology at a higher rate.Request for view TOC @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/12559 PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 13:31:55 Press Information Future Market Insights Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com abhishek manager +1 03479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 687 Words Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.commanager+1 03479183531 The global genetically modified food market has been significantly growing due to the rise in demand for healthy and nutritional food products by consumers of different age group The global genetically modified food market has been significantly growing due to the rise in demand for healthy and nutritional food products by consumers of different age group. Genetically modified (GM) foods are foods which are derived from organisms whose genetic material (DNA) has been modified in such a way that it does not occur naturally, e.g. through the introduction of a gene from a different organism (i.e. plants, animals or microorganisms). Foods produced from by using GM organisms are often referred to as GM foods. The major advantages of genetically modified foods are better texture, flavor and high nutritional value along with longer shelf life. However, unusual taste over non-GM food and safety concerns as it might interfere with the body normal functioning are some of the disadvantages of genetically modified food.Request for sample report: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-889 Genetically Modified Foods: Drivers and Restraints The major factors driving the genetically modified food market are high nutritional content in the food, high production quantity and less requirement of pesticides. However, damage to beneficial insects and soil fertility coupled with genetic pollution, absence of any centralized government regulation and lack of awareness about the benefits of GMO are factors which are restraining the market potential growth. Rising demand for healthy food products, year round and easy availability of genetically modified food are main trends in the genetically modified food market globally.Genetically Modified Foods: Segmentation Genetically modified food market is segmented on the basis of type and region. On the basis of type genetically modified food is segmented into crops, vegetables, fruits and animal products. Corn and Soya are widely cultivated in genetically modified form as compared to other crops in the US. Furthermore, on the basis of region the market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan and Middle East and Africa.Genetically Modified Foods: Key Players Major players operating in this category are Monsanto US, DuPont US, Syngenta Switzerland, Bayer Crop Science Germany, Sakata Japan, BASF Gmbh, Group Limagrain France to name a few. The global players are focused on partnership and collaboration with other companies in order to increase its product portfolio, industry offering and global presence. The global giant in genetically modified food are actively involved in collaboration with the Advanced Research Institutes (ARIs) in the industrial countries such as Brazil, Argentina, China, India, Malaysia and the Philippines for significant R&D program in biotechnology and transgenic crops. Companies are also increasing their R&D in some of the African countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Mali, Nigeria, Egypt and Uganda in order to cater the growing demand for genetically modified food in AfricaAsk the analyst@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/genetically-modified-foods-market#engage_analyst Genetically Modified Foods: Regional Outlook In 2014, North America was the largest market for genetically modified food and likely to remain as market leader in terms of revenue during the forecast period. China and India are the major countries in Asia-Pacific which is expected to emerge as major market for genetically modified food market. Also, other developing countries such as Brazil is anticipated to growth at a robust CAGR over the forecast period. The US government is focused towards the safety of GM products. The industry is regulated by the Department of Agriculture, for farm biotechnology, and the Food and Drug Administration, which governs food and its ingredients. The developers of the genetically modified food products are intensely involved in certifying their safety. For instance, FDA depends on a consultative process with developers who voluntarily present their plans to the agency before marketing the productsThe report covers exhaustive analysis on:Genetically Modified Food Market SegmentsGenetically Modified Food Market DynamicsHistorical Actual Market Size, 2012 2014Genetically Modified Food Market Size & Forecast 2015 to 2025Supply & Demand Value ChainDairy Product Packaging Market Current Trends/Issues/ChallengesCompetition & Companies involvedTechnologyValue ChainGenetically Modified Food Market Drivers and Restraints PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 13:25:26 Press Information Future Market Insights Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com abhishek manager +1 03479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 595 Words Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.commanager+1 03479183531 Fruit snacks is the type of processed food eaten as a snack in various countries. Fruit snacks includes various types of candies that are usually high in sugar content and includes apple and grape juice. Fruit snacks market is increasing drastically especially among kids due to the health benefits associated with the consumption of fruit snacks. Fruit snacks imparts high nutritional value to the consumers especially kids.Global fruit snacks market is segmented on the basis of application, distribution channel and region. Based on the application fruit snacks market segmentation includes beverages, dairy, sweets and savoury and others. Among all the segments of the fruit snacks market sweet and savoury is expected to be the dominating segment over forecast period ,followed by other fruit snacks segments owing to the high preference of consumers for the processed food that are rich in nutritional content in comparison to other regular processed food.However, dairy segment of the fruit snacks market is anticipated to witness significant growth in comparison to other segments of the fruit snacks market over the forecast period. On the basis of distribution channel fruit snacks market is segmented into supermarkets, convenience stores, general stores, online and others. Among all the segments of fruit snacks market general store is expected to be the dominating segment, followed by other segments over the forthcoming years. However, online distribution channel for the fruit snacks market is expected to experience noticeable growth in the coming four to five years. Global fruit snacks market is segmented on the basis of region into North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Middle East and Africa and Japan.Buy This Report@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/896 The global fruit snacks market is expected to witness robust growth over the forecast period due the high nutritional content present in the fruits added to the various products. Globally, among all regions, North America is expected to be the dominating segment in terms of revenue contribution ,followed by other regions especially Europe during the forecast period. In North America, U.S. is the most dominant country that contributes the maximum market share to the overall fruit snacks market in North America. However other regions especially Asia Pacific is expected to show fast growth owing to rising disposable income of the consumers in the developing regions coupled with health awareness among consumers related to the consumption of the food rich in nutritional content.Major factors that fuel the growth of fruit snacks market includes the health benefits related to the consumption of the snacks rich in fruit content and rising consumer awareness related to the consumption of fruit based products such as snacks. Other factor that is expected to boost the growth of the fruit snacks market is the rising disposable income among consumers in the developing region such as India. Major restraint that hinders the growth of fruit snacks market is the increasing perception among consumers related to the harmful effects of the consumption of various processed food.Major companies operating in fruit snacks market are Welch Foods Inc., General Mills Inc., SunOpta, Kellogg Co., Sunkist Growers, Inc., Crunchies Food Company. Companies operating in the fruit snacks market are promoting product innovation by investing huge amount in the product development activities in order to cater the demand of the existing and also potential customers. For instance company such as SunOpta are investing huge amount for launching new products in order to increase its market presence and also grab the potential untapped marketVisit For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-896 Example of some of the market players participants in global Foot Suction Unit market identified across the value chain are Specmed, Deepak Healthcare, Narang Medical Limited, Blue Cross, WEINMANN Emergency Medical Technology GmbH, Jiangsu Folee Medical Equipment Co., Ambu A/S, CA-MI, Tenko Corporation Group, among others. Future Market Insights PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 13:04:31 Press Information Future Market Insights Future Market Insights U.S. Office 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Web: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com Umesh SEO Manager 3479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ # 715 Words Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comSEO Manager3479183531 Medical suction pumps are compact and portable. These devices are used in operating rooms, intensive care units, ambulances and other similar settings. Foot suction unit is a suction device that is powered by the user. The foot suction units are cost effective alternatives to the electrical suction units. Foot suction units can be used for a wide variety of functions including removal of secrete and fluids in airways and infected wounds. The foot suction unit is most suited for use in ambulance, clinics including dental clinics and home care.Some of the major advantages of the foot suction unit include portability, no requirement for power supply and easy cleaning. Most foot suction units include a foot paddle attached to a piston pump that creates a vacuum pressure in the jars connected to it, thereby allowing the fluid to drain into the jars. The foot suction unit may have a single or two jars for fluid collection that can be easily disconnected from the system and sterilized. The jars of the foot suction units can be sterilized either by autoclave or by the means of chemical sterilization. The capacity of these jars varies from small capacity of 250 ml up to large capacity of 1 lt. These foot suction units are also attached to a pressure gauge that helps maintain and control a steady vacuum pressure for continuous drainage of the liquid.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7516 Foot Suction Unit Market: Drivers and Restraints-Foot suction units market is expected to witness the maximum growth in the near future owing to increase in number of ambulances globally. The increased number of road accident cases in the Asia Pacific region is further increasing the demand for emergency services in the region. Low cost and easy portability of foot suction units make it most suitable to be used in emergency medicine. Thus, the increase in demand for emergency medicine may result in the rise in demand for foot suction units. However, the availability of electric suction units that reduces manual errors pose to be a threat to the foot suction units.Foot Suction Unit Market: SegmentationOn the basis of number of jars, foot suction unit market can be segmented as:Single JarDouble JarLarge On the basis of capacity, foot suction unit market can be segmented as:SmallMediumLargeOn the basis of the end user, the foot suction unit market can be segmented as:AmbulanceTrauma centersHospitals & ClinicsAmbulatory Surgical CentersFoot Suction Unit Market: OverviewGlobal foot suction unit market is expected to gain significant growth rate over the forecast period. Foot Suction Unit is expected to witness high demand during the forecast period due to increasing in number of cases in emergency medicine. The increasing number of ambulances worldwide is another major driving factor for the global foot suction unit market. However, the availability of electric powered suction units may hinder the growth of the foot suction units market.Foot Suction Unit Market: Region-wise OutlookIn terms of geography, foot suction unit market has been divided into eight regions including North- America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Asia- Pacific excluding China & Japan (APECJ), China, Japan, Middle-East & Africa and Latin America. North America is the most dominating market for foot suction unit market due to the high per capita expenditure on healthcare and technological advancement. Western European countries such as Germany, France, and the U.K. are top revenue contributing courtiers in Western Europe. The Asia Pacific excluding China and Japan Foot Suction Unit market is expected to expand at the fastest growth rate over the forecast period due to increasing focus on emergency medicines in the region. China is one of the important revenue contributing countries in the global foot suction unit market due to the availability of cost-effective foot suction units and large number of ambulance and emergency medical centers in the region.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7516 Foot Suction Unit Market: Key Market ParticipantsExample of some of the market players participants in global Foot Suction Unit market identified across the value chain are Specmed, Deepak Healthcare, Narang Medical Limited, Blue Cross, WEINMANN Emergency Medical Technology GmbH, Jiangsu Folee Medical Equipment Co., Ambu A/S, CA-MI, Tenko Corporation Group, among others. PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 12:20:01 Press Information Future Market Insights U.S. Office 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Web: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com Amir Manager +1-347-918-3531 email http://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 663 Words U.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comManager+1-347-918-3531 Endometrial cancer or uterine cancer is one of the most common gynecological cancers and 2.8% of women are diagnosed with the endometrial cancer at some point in their lives. According to National Cancer Institute statistics, in 2015 endometrial cancer contributed to 1.8% of all cancers and 3.6% of all new cancer cases were diagnosed as endometrial cancer. Early detection of endometrial cancer helps in the selection of proper treatment options. Endometrial cancers are typically diagnosed as type I and type II tumors and majority of the patients diagnosed with endometrial cancer represent early-stage cancers.Radiation therapy is also recommended in patients who have undergone the surgery, in order to avoid the relapse of endometrial cancer. Endometrial cancer is often detected in women above the age of 50 years and risk of endometrial cancer increases with the age. Also the risk of development of endometrial cancer is more in breast cancer patients who are being treated with tamoxifen or estrogen for long time. Plenty of chemotherapeutic agents are available and are recommended in the combination for the treatment of endometrial cancer. Some of the combination therapies include carboplatin & paclitaxel, Cisplatin & doxorubicin, Carboplatin & docetaxel and others.According to Yale University School of Medicine, U.S., in 2014, type I tumors constitute 80% of all cases of endometrial cancers diagnosed in the U.S. Endometrial cancer can be treated by one or combination of chemotherapy, radiation therapy and hormone therapy. Most of the physicians recommend combination treatments as chemotherapy alone has traditionally been deem ineffective. Adjuvant radiation therapy is preferred in patients who have diagnosed with sage I or II endometrial cancer.Increasing incidence of uterine serous carcinoma a highly aggressive variant of endometrial cancer and relapse of endometrial cancers in patients treated with chemotherapy are the prime factors driving the growth of global endometrial cancer treatment market over the forecast period. In 2014, uterine serous carcinoma represented 10% of all caseload of endometrial cancers in the U.S. Some of the risk factors of endometrial cancer include obesity, presence of polycystic ovarian syndrome, long-term consumption of birth control pills, delayed pregnancy etc.Increasing incidence of obesity in the women aged above 50 can lead to the growth of endometrial cancer treatment market. However, divergent nature of cancer and increasing stringency in the regulatory requirements are the prime factors limiting the growth of global endometrial cancer treatment market. Besides this, side effects related to chemotherapy, radiation therapy and hormone therapy also restricts the adoption of these agents for endometrial cancer treatment.Global market for endometrial cancer treatment is forecast to grow at moderate rate owing to less number of drugs approved for treatment of endometrial cancer. Despite of this, chemotherapy segment is expected to hold the highest share in the global endometrial cancer treatment market due to high adoption rate of chemotherapy over radiation and surgical treatment. Also chemotherapeutic agents such as carboplatin and paclitaxel are recommended as a first line of therapy in majority of the cases, which increases demand for these products. Recent FDA approval of IXEMPRA (ixabepilone) for use in the treatment of endometrial cancer treatment is expected to fuel the growth of global market over the forecast period.Geographically, the global endometrial cancer treatment market is classified into regions viz. North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific, Japan, Middle East and Africa. North America will continue to hold largest share in the global endometrial cancer treatment market due to high incidence of uterine serous carcinoma. Europe is expected to hold the second largest share in the global market partly due to increasing product availability in the region. North America is expected to expand at the highest rate over the forecast period.Request For Report sample @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2834 Some of the players operating in the global endometrial cancer treatment market include R-Pharm-US LLC., Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Pfizer Inc., AstraZeneca Plc., Novartis AG and others. The global endometrial cancer treatment market is expected to grow in future due to increasing investment by multinational companies in cancer research. Examples of some of the key participants operating in the dental orthotic devicesmarket are Southern Cross Dental, First Lab Direct Ltd, Dentaurum Group, Glidewell Laboratories, Sentinel Mouth Guards, Hizart Dental Laboratory Future Market Insights PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 13:04:01 Press Information Future Market Insights Future Market Insights U.S. Office 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Web: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com Umesh SEO Manager 3479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ # 807 Words Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comSEO Manager3479183531 Dental orthotic devices also called as occlusal splints are specially designed mouth guards for people who have temporomandibular joints (TMJ), or habit of teeth grinding, or who need complete mouth reconstruction. Dental orthotic devices are custom made hence their size and shape vary person to person. Temporomandibular joints (TMJ) disorder is associated with the pain and partial dysfunctioning of the jaw, which makes the person uncomfortable resulting in difficulty in chewing, locking of joints, etc.Dental orthotic devices in TMJ disorder help to stabilize the jaw, improve function muscles around the jaw and protect the teeth from attrition. In people with habit of teeth grinding, dental orthotic devices help to move the jaw while chewing in rhythm as front-to-back or side-to-side, whereas people who need complete mouth reconstruction due to various conditions such as decay or broken teeth or teeth grinding, dental orthotic devices help to hold the teeth in the desired shape and prevent the teeth from any damage due to abnormal muscle movement.Dental Orthotic Devices Market: Drivers and RestraintsAs per the National Health Interview Survey that lasted for around two decades, the self-reported prevalence of TMJ was around 5% of adult population in the U.S. representing a significant share of population, which increased the diagnosis rate and consequently contributed to the growth of the Dental orthotic devices market. Increasing treatment-seeking rate and growing awareness regarding the possible treatment options for teeth grinding and TMJ are expected to fuel the growth of the dental orthotic devices market.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7512 As per the National Health Interview Survey the rate with which TMJ is increasing is more than 3.5% per year and as per the National Sleep Foundation around 8.0% of adults grind their teeth during sleep and more than one-third of parents have reported the habit of teeth grinding in children. Increasing incidence of TMJ and teeth grinding is expected to fuel the growth of the dental orthotic devices market. Increasing number of surgeries for complete mouth reconstruction for better functional and aesthetic purpose globally is further expected to fuel the growth of the dental orthotic devices market. Availability of customization in the size and shape of dental orthotic devices further will improve the patient compliance and consequently drive the growth of the market. Whereas, limited awareness regarding the treatment options available for the teeth grinding and lower treatment-seeking rate for jaw pain are factors expected to hamper the growth of the dental orthotic devices market.Dental Orthotic Devices Market: SegmentationThe global dental orthotic devices market can be segmented on the basis of product type, distribution channel and geography.Based on the product type, the dental orthotic devices market is segmented as:Stabilization Dental Orthotic DevicesAnterior Repositioning Dental Orthotic DevicesAnterior Bite Plane Dental Orthotic DevicesPosterior Bite Plane Dental Orthotic DevicesOthersBased on the distribution channel, the dental orthotic devices market is segmented as:Hospital PharmaciesRetail PharmaciesDental ClinicsOnline PharmaciesDental Orthotic Devices Market: OverviewGlobally increasing incidence of TMJ and teeth grinding coupled with improving treatment seeking rate are factors expected to contribute to the growth of the dental orthotic devices market. By product type, the anterior reposition dental orthotic devices is expected to be the dominant segment due to their higher adoption among the patients. By distribution channel, the dental clinics expected to be the most lucrative segment in the dental orthotic devices market due to preferred destination of treatment by the patients. Manufacturers are exploring and innovating possibilities of different usage of dental orthotic devices such as recently specific modification in dental orthotic devices helped to improve airflow, while the patient is sleeping resulting to be the treatment for sleep apnea.Dental Orthotic Devices Market: Regional OutlookNorth America is expected to be the most lucrative dental orthotic devices market due to higher treatment-seeking rate. Europe is expected to be second most lucrative dental orthotic devices market due to higher incidence of TMJ and teeth grinding coupled with widespread awareness regarding the treatment options. Latin America dental orthotic devices market is expected to witness steady growth due to improving treatment-seeking rate. Asia-Pacific is regarded as the emerging dental orthotic devices market due to emerging economies such as India and China coupled with improving awareness among general population about the treatment options. MEA is expected to be the least lucrative dental orthotic devices market due to lowest adoption of dental orthotic devices as a treatment option.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7512 Dental Orthotic Devices Market: Key PlayersExamples of some of the key participants operating in the dental orthotic devicesmarket are Southern Cross Dental, First Lab Direct Ltd, Dentaurum Group, Glidewell Laboratories, Sentinel Mouth Guards, Hizart Dental Laboratory, The Dental Solution Australia, Fotis Dental Laboratory, Space Maintainers Dental Labs, and S4S Dental Laboratory, among others. Fact.MR PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 10:52:31 Press Information Fact.MR Suite 9884 27 Upper Pembroke Street, Dublin 2, Ireland Abhishek Budholiya Marketing Manager +353-1-6111-593 email https://www.factmr.com/ # 749 Words Suite 988427 Upper Pembroke Street,Dublin 2, IrelandMarketing Manager+353-1-6111-593 The CHPTAC market is anticipated to witness sluggish growth, with global demand likely to surpass 117 kilo tons in 2018, according to a latest report by Fact.MR . Wide application of 3-chloro-2-hydroxypropyltrimethyl ammonium chloride (CHPTAC) in paper and textile industry continues to offset some of the sluggishness, however, regulations and availability of less potent alternatives is impeding demand.The demand for CHPTAC from end-use industries such as paper and textile continues to be steady. The use of paper in the packaging industry is increasing consistently in recent years, especially in North America and Europe. However, as the paper industry in North America is moving towards eco-friendly paper production CHPTAC is losing favor among end-users.High toxicity in inorganic compounds and chemicals used in paper industry is leading to the legal restrictions on consumption. Moreover, the introduction of stringent greenhouse gas emission regulation and rise in environmental awareness is creating impediments to demand. However, increasing crude oil prices and rise in oil & gas exploring activities in the US can create few opportunities for stakeholders.Request For Sample Report- https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=2444 In addition to the US, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ) is another lucrative region in the CHPTAC market. The demand for CHPTAC is also growing in textile and water-treatment industries in APEJ.In the oil & gas industry, CHPTAC is widely used in cationisation of guar gum, which is used as a key raw material in fracking sands. Moreover, rise in gaur cultivation in India has resulted in increasing exports of gaur from India to the United States.Paper Industry to Account for Largest Share in CHPTAC Market Fact.MR expects the paper industry to emerge as one of the largest users of CHPTAC in papermaking process. The demand is expected to surpass 70 kilo tons by 2018 end. Paper-based packaging is gaining popularity owing to its versatility and cost-efficiency. The packaging industry is using paper on a large scale to develop various types of packaging such as paperboard, containerboard, shipping sacks, and paper bags.Traditionally, paper manufacturers worldwide used high quantity of retention agents, especially cationic substances. In recent years, the addition of these substances in paper manufacturing has triggered economic and environmental issues with the rise in contamination of effluents. In the last few years, semisynthetic compounds produced from natural polymers have found large application in paper industry.Browse Full Report on CHPTAC Market with TOC- https://www.factmr.com/report/2444/chptac-market Modification of natural polymers to develop new materials with specific properties have been the key focus area of manufacturers. This is driving the demand for 3-chloro-2-hydroxypropyltrimethyl ammonium chloride for cationic modification of cellulose.Modified natural polysaccharides made using CHPTAC are emerging as a sustainable alternative to non-biodegradable and synthetic polysaccharides, thus supporting the development of new processes and products in paper industry.Cationic Starch to Witness Huge Demand in Paper and Textile Industry Fact.MR study estimates that CHPTAC is likely to find wide application in cationisation of starch, with demand expected to reach nearly 100 kilo tons in 2018. Cationic starch is witnessing growing demand as the wet-end additives in the paper industry as it helps in improving mechanical strength, reduces wastewater pollution, and enables faster drainage.Cationic starch is also witnessing increasing demand in salt-free dying of cotton fiber. Chemical cationization is allowing cotton fibers to be dyed without using salt. Moreover, cotton fabric cationized using CHPTAC has resulted in significantly higher color strength. It also enhanced dye uptake properties, resulting in better dyeing without using or adding salt.Request For Methodology of this Report- https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=RM&rep_id=2444 The demand for CHPTAC is also likely to increase in the oil & gas industry owing to the improving market condition for crude oil and rise in exploring activities. Moreover, the US is likely to witness an increase in rig count, resulting in the US emerging as one of the largest oil producer behind Saudi Arabia and Russia.The Fact.MR report tracks the CHPTAC market for the period 2018-2027. According to the report, the CHPTAC market is expected to reach CAGR of 2.4% in terms of volume during the forecast period.About Fact.MR Fact.MR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports. Research Report Insights PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 16:31:47 Press Information Research Report Insights Research Report Insights 42 joseph street, Portcarling P0B 1J0, Muskoka, Ontario T: +1-631-721-4201 Vikas Bahurupi Manager 6317214201 email https://www.researchreportinsights.com # 562 Words Research Report Insights42 joseph street,Portcarling P0B 1J0,Muskoka, OntarioT: +1-631-721-4201Manager6317214201 Increasing adoption of therapeutic antibodies along with elevated rate of product approval in developing countries is propelling the growth of the global antibodies market. The market had surpassed US$ 104 Bn in 2016. Additionally, approval of monoclonal antibody products, combined with drug conjugates, antibody fragments, and therapeutic antibodies in key markets of Europe, Japan and the U.S. have boosted the growth of the market as well as inexpensive biosimilar antibody therapeutics available in the market is another driving factor for the market.However, failure of investigational drugs in late stages of improvement and side effects associated with antibody treatment can be key factors to pose challenge to widespread adoption. Antibodies administration has been linked with acute anaphylaxis and serum sickness, restraining the growth of the market. The global antibodies market is anticipated to expand at CAGR over the forecast period, witnessing to surpass US$ 340 Bn in terms of revenue 2026.Request For Report Sample with Table of Contents@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/sample/110114965/Antibodies-Market Segmental Analysis of Antibodies MarketMonoclonal antibodies segment, by drug type had robust demand in 2016 and secured above 93% market share in terms of revenue. This segment had generated nearly US$ 100 Bn. Antibody drugs complexes and polyclonal antibodies are likely to exhibit minority market share.Hospitals are likely to remain the largest end-user in the market and accounted for more than 85% market share in terms of revenues in 2016. The hospital end-user segment had exhibited y-o-y growth rate of nearly 13% and surpassed US$ 89 Bn in revenues.The global antibodies market has been segmented on the basis of disease indication into autoimmune disorders, CNS disorders, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Cancer was the most leading indication segment, which had accounted for nearly 55% market share in terms of revenues in 2016. In revenues, cardiovascular disease segment was the smallest segment in the antibodies market and had witnessed the lowest growth rate amongst other indication segments.Request For Report Discount@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/discount/110114965/Antibodies-Market U.S. to Hold Majority Share of North America Antibodies MarketNorth America was the largest market for antibodies and had accounted for nearly two-fourth of the revenue share of the global antibodies market in 2016. Therapeutics antibody products are likely to witness submission of biologics licence application (BLA) in the U.S., whereas in Biologics and Genetic Therapies Directorate (BGTD) oversees the biological products approval. The U.S. is likely to hold majority share of the North America antibodies market in terms of revenues with highest growth rate than Canada.Additionally, APEJ and Western Europe are likely to be the other top antibodies markets. While markets in Germany, France and the U.K. are likely to continue their top position in Western Europe, in APEJ, demand for antibodies is likely to remain largely concentrated in India, ASEAN and China.Johnson & Johnson, AbbVie Inc., and F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG will continue their position as top 3 players in the global antibodies market. In revenues, these three players collectively generate nearly 56% market share. Remicade (J&J), Avastin (Roche), Herceptin, and Humira (AbbVie) are successful drugs in the market. Novartis, Amgen Inc., Biogen Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, and Merck & Co are some other leading players operating in the global antibodies market. Strengthening collaboration with distribution partners and achieving product approval from FDA and EU are key strategy for prominent players in the market.Report Analysis@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/rd/110114965/Antibodies-Market PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-03 10:59:05 Press Information Persistence Market Research (PMR) 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, yogesh sengar Team Lead +1-646-568-7751 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 946 Words 305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Team Lead+1-646-568-7751 Agricultural Films and bondings are films which are used specifically for agriculture purposes. Agricultural Films is a polyethylene film or made from other compounds are widely used in various types of agricultural practices. As compared to traditional methods of growing crops, use of agricultural films is much advanced and eliminates the rotting of plants. Agricultural films can be used in various ways such as mulching, greenhouse covering, netting, Silage and much more. Mulching is the most common application of these films which require sophisticated systems, but once installed can last for many seasons and helps in better yields with almost zero destruction of crop or waste of land. The Agricultural films are a basic necessity for starting a horticulture, hydroponic or greenhouse system for the production of crops, where these films provide an outer covering to the whole area and provide a syndicate atmosphere for the production. The films help the plants to grow with minimum water, soil, and nutrition. Materials used to produce Agricultural Films, and bondings are PE, LLDPE, PVC, PET, Laminated Materials and others. Agricultural films are mostly opaque while some farmers also use transparent or translucent films for specific purposes. Due to its versatile features and vast usage, Agricultural Films and Bonding market is expected to witness an escalating demand among the industries.Request Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/14548 Agricultural Films and Bonding: Market DynamicsAgricultural Films and Bonding market is driven due to the increasing usage in the greenhouse industry. Despite the growth of large greenhouses, small greenhouses with the limited area are getting traction globally and creating a robust demand for Agricultural Films and Bonding market. Agricultural Films provide temperature and moisture control, protection from frost and low temperature, reduces energy consumption for heating, increases crop yield and helps in achieving a better quality of plants. Bonding is used to join two or more films and helps in providing shape and stability to a structure. Manufacturing companies are focusing on providing films which give high-quality finish on flat or cylindrical surfaces. Most of the manufacturers of Agricultural Films and Bonding are located in China and South Asian countries which are exporting Agricultural Films and Bonding to North America, Europe, and other regions.However, Agricultural Films and Bonding is not 100% efficient. In the case of heavy rain or extremely low temperatures or extreme frost, these films dont even work. The Agricultural Films come at a higher cost than planting in bare soil. Most of the cost in establishing Agricultural Films structure bears to films, equipments, transplanters designed for plastic beds and additional labor. Removal of Agricultural Films is also costly and require a lot of efforts.Agricultural Films and Bonding: Market SegmentationAgricultural Films and Bonding market can be segmented on the basis of type of material, which include:Agricultural filmsPELLDPEPVCPETLaminated MaterialsBOPPCPPEVATwineSisalPolypropyleneLDPEOthersNettingHDPELDPEPolypropyleneOthersAgricultural Films and Bonding market can be segmented on the basis of type of colour, which include:OpaqueTransparentTranslucentAgricultural Films and Bonding market can be segmented on the basis of type of feature, which include:Moisture proofWater SolubleAgricultural Films and Bonding market can be segmented on the basis of type of films, which include:Stretch filmShrink filmMetallized filmRelease filmTwist filmAgricultural Films and Bonding market can be segmented on the basis of type of process, which include:Blow moldingCastingMultiple ExtrusionInjection moldingAgricultural Films and Bonding market can be segmented on the basis of type of application, which include:Covering of Greenhouse, horticulture, etc.Mulching (Ground Covers & Crop Covers)SilageStretch wrapBagsSheetsTwineBaleOthersNettingShadeAnti-hailAnti-insectOthersAgricultural Films and Bonding: Segment OutlookAgricultural Films and Bonding market can be segmented on the basis of type of material which include Agricultural films (PE, LLDPE, PVC, PET, laminated materials, BOPP, CPP and EVA), Twine (Sisal, Polypropylene, LDPE and Others) and Netting (HDPE, LDPE, Polypropylene and Others). Agricultural Films and Bonding market can be segmented on the basis of colour which includes opaque, transparent and translucent. Agricultural Films and Bonding market can be segmented on the basis of feature which includes moisture proof and water soluble.Agricultural Films and Bonding market can be segmented on the basis of type of film which include Stretch film, Shrink film, Metallized film, Release film and Twist film. Agricultural Films and Bonding market can be segmented on the basis of type of process which include blow molding, casting, multiple extrusion and injection molding. Agricultural Films and Bonding market can also be segmented on the basis of type of application which include Covering of Greenhouse, horticulture, etc., Mulching (Ground Covers & Crop Covers), Silage (Stretch wrap, Bags and Sheets), Twine (Bale and Others) and Netting (Shade, Anti-hail, Anti-insect and Others)Agricultural Films and Bonding: Regional OutlookRegional coverage for Agricultural Films and Bonding market includes North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and Japan. Agricultural Films and Bonding market will witnesses a high demand in APEJ due to the high investments in the region and its manufacturing units. Market in India and China is still at growth stage which will fuel the market for next ten years in the region.Visit For TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/14548 Agricultural Films and Bonding: Market PlayersThe market players in Agricultural Films and Bonding market are Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd., PLASTIKA KRITIS S.A., and NOVAMONT S.P.A., BASF SE, Berry Plastics Corporation, Exxon Mobil Corporation, Industrial Development Company (INDEVCO) sal, POLYPAK AMERICA INC. and many more Steve has already leveled what is probably the most salient criticism of Mitt Romneys anti-Trump op-ed in the Washington Post. As Steve showed, Romney inadvertently made a case against his own style of Republicanism. I want to focus on this passage in Romneys piece: Furthermore, I will act as I would with any president, in or out of my party: I will support policies that I believe are in the best interest of the country and my state, and oppose those that are not. I do not intend to comment on every tweet or fault. But I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions. It should go without saying that a Senator will support policies he agrees with and oppose ones he doesnt like. It should also go without saying that a Senator will not comment on every tweet or fault of a president, and certainly not a president of the same political party. The people of Utah didnt elect Romney to provide punditry. It shocks me that Romney would even think this role might be on the table. Romneys pledge to speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive is pathetic. Any statement or action of a conservative-leaning Republican president is going to be divisive. Apparently, Romney wants Trump to be a punching bag. That didnt work so well when Romney was the GOP standard-bearer. Romneys pledge to speak out against any racist statements or actions of Trump sounds commendable. But he seems to assume that Trump is inclined to make such statements and take such actions. What is Romneys basis for this assumption? Saying that some of the people who attended a rally protesting the taking down of a statute of Robert E. Lee are good people isnt racist. Harshly criticizing political adversaries who happen to be African-American isnt racist not when were talking about a president who is nasty towards critics regardless of race. Romney, of all people, should be particularly loath to buy into the liberal medias nauseating practice of stretching to find racism and sexism where theres no sound reason for inferring either. He was a victim of this practice. Or has Romney forgotten that he was accused of sexism for saying that, as governor of Massachusetts, he had binders full of women candidates resumes he considered in filling top jobs in his administration? I find myself agreeing with Romneys niece. Ronna McDaniel, chair of the National Republican Committee Committee, tweeted this about her uncles op-ed: POTUS is attacked and obstructed by the MSM media and Democrats 24/7. For an incoming Republican freshman senator to attack @realdonaldtrump as [his] first act feeds into what the Democrats and media want and is disappointing and unproductive. Why did Romney do it? Why such an unusual step? One possibility is that hes still sore about being passed up by Trump for Secretary of State. Recall that during the transition period, Romney, who had attacked Trump without mercy during the campaign, went to New York to seek the top job at State. Trump had Romney come to Trump Tower for dinner, but then passed over him in favor of Rex Tilleson. This had to be humiliating. But Romney had mainly himself to blame for trying to worm his way into the administration of a man he had declared unfit for the presidency. There was speculation that Trump orchestrated this dance as revenge for Romneys attacks on him. Now, Romney may be seeking revenge for the revenge. Or perhaps Romney wants to position himself as the man to pick up the pieces if Trump comes crashing down before the 2020 election (as Romney probably believes might happen). If so, I question whether Romney is going about it very shrewdly. In a scenario where Trump isnt the Republican nominee in 2020, the Party better nominate someone who has a chance of holding the Trump and non-Trump factions of the GOP together. Romney isnt that guy and cant become that guy by calling out Trump for imagined racism, sexism, etc. (Why not leave that job to Dana Milbank?) And by 2024, when, conceivably, Trumpism may fully have blown over, Romney will be 77 years old. My guess is that Romneys motivation is similar to what John McCains was. He hates Trump (not without cause) and sees the role of leading Republican critic of Trump as a good way to cap off his career. In any case, its the only leading role available to him. And Romney didnt come to Washington to be a bit player. In the wake of Nikolas Cruzs murder spree at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, a 15-member commission was appointed to study ways in which Floridas public schools could be secured against such attacks. The commission released its report today. The report doesnt mince words in detailing the incompetence, and perhaps cowardice, that amplified the scale of the tragedy: The state commission investigating the Parkland school shooting unanimously approved a tough final report Wednesday that puts the responsibility for reform on school districts, law enforcement agencies, Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis and state legislative leaders. The 458-page report by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission addresses the cascade of errors revealed in the wake of the shooting, including fumbled tips, lax school security policies and unaggressive Broward sheriffs deputies who hung back as shots were fired. *** Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, chairman of the commission, said many recommendations could have been implemented a long time ago had school safety been treated with the importance it deserved, particularly by school districts. The commissions recommendations seem entirely sensible: The report contains dozens of recommendations. Some would require action by the governor and Legislature, such as the proposals to allow some teachers to carry guns and increase spending on school security. It also calls for laws to be changed to allow school districts to raise taxes for security improvements and to require rather than simply permit mental health providers to notify law enforcement if a patient threatens anyone with harm. While the selective, voluntary arming of teachers is just one of numerous recommendations, it has gotten the most attention in newspaper headlines. Perhaps appropriately, as it is an important measure. The Commissions chairman talked about the issue at todays press conference: [Pinellas County Sheriff Bob] Gualtieri spoke forcefully in favor of the commissions proposal to arm teachers, noting that the shooter had paused five times to reload providing opportunities to stop him. So what are we saying to people were not going to allow you to defend yourself, were not going to allow you to defend the kids why? Because of some ideology that we dont like guns? Anyone who thinks theyre going to get rid of guns is crazy, he said. It isnt going to happen. Weve got to do something differently and people should be able to protect themselves. Lets hope state and county officials in Florida pay close attention to the commissions recommendations. You can read the commissions report here. The Senate Judiciary Committee has set January 15 and 16 as the dates for the confirmation hearing of William Barr, President Trumps nominee to serve as Attorney General. The Committee now consists of 12 Republicans and 10 Democrats. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris remain on the Committee, so there will be no shortage of showmanship and viciousness. Lindsey Graham now chairs the committee, so there will be some comedy mixed in. Jeff Flake is gone, for which we should be grateful. I expect Barr to be confirmed, probably on a straight party vote. Democrats will demand that he (1) commit to recusing himself from the Mueller investigation and, failing that, (2) commit to letting Mueller do whatever he pleases. Barr will reject these demands, I should think. To ensure Republican support he will probably have to provide some assurances that Mueller will have a fair amount of latitude. But he need not promise that Mueller can do whatever he pleases. Barr is already on record that certain matters Mueller reportedly is investigating e.g., the firing of James Comey are not obstruction of justice as a matter of law and that a contrary view would damage the presidency. He should politely defend this position. Democratic members may secretly hope Barr is confirmed. They arent fans of Matt Whitaker, the acting AG, nor are they likely to be fond of the alternatives to Barr whom Trump would probably consider if Barr is not confirmed. The Dems will be hoping that after Barr is confirmed, Justice Department ethics lawyers will say he should recuse himself the Mueller investigation, due to his past statements about the proper scope of the investigation. Even if Barr rejects this opinion, the Democrats will still have a talking point with which to attempt to discredit Barr if he interferes with Mueller in any way. The notion that Barr is disqualified from overseeing the Mueller investigation because he has opined about a particular legal theory Mueller may be considering strikes me as baseless. Its not unusual for an incoming Attorney General to have taken legal positions on matters the Justice Department handles. Jeff Sessions had served on the Judiciary Committee for years. Its likely he had expressed opinions on various legal matters relevant to the DOJ e.g. the legality of DACA before he became the AG. Robert Kennedys opinions on organized crime were well known and oft expressed before he became Attorney General. He might well have made public statements about the legal theories that should be used to attack it. If he did, this was no reason for him to recuse himself from the Departments investigation and prosecution of organized crime. Like almost every lawyer in America, Barr has opinions about the Mueller investigation. Like many lawyers, he has expressed some of his opinions. If Senators disagree with Barrs opinions, thats possible reason to vote against confirming him, just as strong disagreement with Sessions view on immigration law were a legitimate reason for voting against him. But if Barr is confirmed, he need not recuse himself from overseeing the Mueller investigation, whatever the ethics lawyers may recommend. (Matt Whitaker has already declined to follow the DOJs ethics lawyers advice that he recuse himself). Once Barr is in place at the DOJ, he can pick a successor to Rod Rosenstein. The sooner Rosenstein departs the better. The sooner Barr takes command, the better too. Jeff Sessions had a good run, but with him gone the DOJ needs a Senate confirmed replacement to steer the ship so as to make maximum use of the next two years. Jill Abramson is a former executive editor of the New York Times. She made her name in 1995 with a book, co-written with Jane Meyer, taking Anita Hills side in the matter of Clarence Thomas a battle shes still waging after all these years. The 1995 book was called Strange Justice. But Abramson seems a little strange herself. John ridiculed her for keeping a Barack Obama doll in her purse and calling on it for comfort in the distressing Age of Trump. Things ended badly for Abramson at the New York Times. It sacked her in 2014. Before she was fired, Abramson had hired a lawyer to complain that her salary was not equal to that of her predecessor, Bill Keller. Her complaint seemed specious, as I tried to show in a post called Jill Abramson and the Road to Misery. Now, Abramson has written a book in which she says the Times news pages have become unmistakably anti-Trump. Some may file this under sour grapes. I file it under no sh*t, Sherlock. Abramson presents her non-revelations in a forthcoming book called Merchants of Truth. According to this report by Howard Kurtz, Abramson invoke[s] Steve Bannons slam that in the Trump era the mainstream media have become the opposition party.: Though Baquet said publicly he didnt want the Times to be the opposition party, his news pages were unmistakably anti-Trump, Abramson writes, adding that she believes the same is true of the Washington Post. Some headlines contained raw opinion, as did some of the stories that were labeled as news analysis. In the Posts case, we need to change some to most. I dont read enough of the Times to know whether the same alteration is warranted in its case. Abramson says the extent of the bias expressed by Times reporters in their work correlates with age: Abramson describes a generational split at the Times, with younger staffers, many of them in digital jobs, favoring an unrestrained assault on the presidency. The more woke staff thought that urgent times called for urgent measures; the dangers of Trumps presidency obviated the old standards, she writes. Abramson hasnt worked at the Times since Trump burst on the political scene, so I assume shes basing this account on second-hand information and/or inference. However, it has the ring of truth indeed, obvious truth. Outlets like the Times have slanted the news in favor of liberalism for decades. But the new generation of journalists, as a group, is more unabashedly partisan than its predecessors. It makes less pretense of objectivity. The Times anti-Trump bias has been good for business, according to Abramson: Given its mostly liberal audience, there was an implicit financial reward for the Times in running lots of Trump stories, almost all of them negative: they drove big traffic numbers and, despite the blip of cancellations after the election, inflated subscription orders to levels no one anticipated. I cant tell from Kurtzs account whether Abramson is arguing that financial considerations are causing the Times to become ever-more biased or whether financial gain is just a happy byproduct of the bias. At a minimum, I think we can say that the Times editors have a financial incentive not to restrain the rabid anti-Trump stories its woke reporters produce. But I doubt they would want to, in any event. The floodgates are open and there is no turning back. Commentary >> Marc Thiessen The 10 worst things Trump did in 2018 @montcocourtnews on Twitter Carl Hessler Jr. is a multi-media reporter who writes about crime and justice from the Montgomery County Courthouse for 21st Century Media Newspapers Greater Philadelphia area publications. Follow Carl on Twitter: @MontcoCourtNews Musician Billy Joel performs during his 100th lifetime performance at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, July 18, 2018, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email circulation@postregister.com for help creating one. Gov.-elect Lou Leon Guerrero announced 16 additional appointments to her Cabinet, calling the appointees "proven agents of change." Former Guam Police Department chief and lieutenant governor candidate in the 2018 election, Fred Bordallo was tapped as the new director of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Chelsa Muna-Brecht has been nominated to lead the Department of Agriculture. She recently served as project director for the Guam Department of Education managing a multimillion-dollar curriculum project. Superior Court of Guam Chief Probation Officer Melanie Brennan has been tapped to run the Department of Youth Affairs, bringing 33 years of government service to her new position. Current DYA Deputy Director Krisinda Aguon will retain her position. Former Guam Department of Labor Director David Dell'Isola will return to the agency he once led under the Gutierrez administration. Dell'Isola also previously ran DYA, and the Agency for Human Resources Development. Jerry Toves was named the deputy director of DOL. He is currently the territory business manager for Mead Johnson Nutrition with Ambros Inc. The Department of Parks and Recreation will be run by Richard Ybanez and Victor Villagomez. Chief Hurao Academy founder Anna Mare Arceo was named president of the Department of Chamorro Affairs, bringing more than 30 years of experience perpetuating the CHamoru language and culture. Two individuals who unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the 35th Guam Legislature were appointed to positions in the Leon Guerrero-Tenorio administration. Celestin Babauta was appointed the director of the troubled Guam Regional Transit Authority and Lasia Casil was named the new director of the Hagatna Restoration and Redevelopment Authority. Other appointments announced include: Maj. Gen. Roderick Leon Guerrero, to lead the Department of Military Affairs; Ina Carillo, as the station manager of PBS Guam; Leah Beth Nahalowaa, as the executive director for the Guam Commission for Educator Certification; Alice Taijeron, as the president of Guam Housing Corp.; and Angela Camacho, as housing manager of GHC. "Each of our appointees are proven agents of change, and we are excited to see significant progress being made early on at every agency in the government," Leon Guerrero stated. About the nominees David Dell'Isola, director of the Department of Labor. Dell'Isola has 12 years of government service experience. He has been the director of the Department of Youth Affairs, the director of the Guam Department of Labor and the director of the Agency for Human Resources Development. He was a member of the governor's Civilian Military Task Force for Labor, which planned for the Guam military buildup. Dell'Isola earned a bachelor's in Business Marketing from the University of Guam. Jerry Toves, deputy director of Labor. Toves is currently the territory business manager for Mead Johnson Nutrition with Ambros Inc. He has more than 25 years of experience in diverse management positions. He has an associate's degree in Liberal Arts from Santa Rosa Junior College in Santa Rosa, California. Chelsa Muna-Brecht, director of the Department of Agriculture. Muna-Brecht has served as a project director for the Guam Department of Education for the last four years, successfully managing a multimillion-dollar curriculum project. Prior to that, she developed and managed a workforce development project for Guam Community College. She gained policy experience working in the Legislature, first as a policy writer then as a chief of staff for Sen. Tina Muna Barnes. Muna-Brecht is an honors graduate from the University of Guam with a bachelor's in psychology. Celestin Babauta, director of the Guam Regional Transit Authority. Babauta enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1971 after graduating from George Washington High School. In 1988, he was promoted to chief master sergeant. During his years on active duty he served as a transportation manager at Andersen Air Force Base; a telecommunications systems control manager at Misawa Air Base in Japan, and a mechanical systems manager and superintendent of the Damage Control Center at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Melanie Brennan, director of the Department of Youth Affairs. Brennan has 33 years of combined government service. She started off with the Department of Public Health, as a Child Protective Services social worker and later worked for the Division of Senior Citizens Adult Protective Services, working with elderly and disabled adults. In 1991, she became a probation officer and she is currently the chief probation officer for the Probation Services Division of the Judiciary of Guam. Krisinda Aguon, deputy director of DYA. Aguon is currently the deputy director of the Department of Youth Affairs and has agreed to stay on in that role. Her career began with GDOE as a teacher in 1998 and built her experiences and training with GDOE as an administrator. She earned her bachelor's from UOG. Richard Ybanez, director of the Department of Parks and Recreation. Ibanez has nearly 20 years of managerial experience in the private sector, most recently as the sales manager for All Micronesian Media Inc. He has also served as the general manager of the Windward Hills Country Club, and as director of sales and marketing for Guam International Country Club. He is a former member of the Guam national volleyball team and the current vice president of the Iloilo International Community of Guam. Victor Villagomez, deputy director of DPR. Villagomez has 18 years of combined service in the private sector and the government of Guam. He has worked with the Department of Parks and Recreation since 2008 as a municipal clerk, maintenance supervisor and community worker. He has assisted with numerous youth programs and activities. He is a certified emergency operations center facilitator. He is also certified in CPR. Villagomez graduated from Capitol High School in 2005. Maj. Gen. Roderick Leon Guerrero, adjutant general of the Department of Military Affairs. Leon Guerrero is currently the adjutant general of the Guam National Guard and the director of Military Affairs. His military career began in 1985. In 2007 and 2008, he was deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He has served as chief of joint staff for the Guam National Guard. He graduated from UOG with a bachelor's in Political Science and received his commission as a second lieutenant from UOG's Army ROTC program. Fred Bordallo, director of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Bordallo served in the Marine Corps from 1978 to 1985. In 1986, he joined the Guam Police Department. In 2011, he was promoted to chief of police. He retired from the force in 2015. Bordallo received an associate's degree in Criminal Justice from Guam Community College in 1991 and a bachelor's in Public Administration from UOG in 1998. Last year he was a lieutenant gubernatorial candidate on a ticket with former Gov. Carl Gutierrez. Alice Taijeron, president of Guam Housing Corp. Taijeron is the current director of the Guam office of Empower Retirement. She joined the organization in 2006 as a retirement plan counselor and became director in 2010. Taijeron holds a bachelor's in Political Science and a master's in Organizational Management. Angela Camacho, housing manager of GHC. Camacho has been a realtor with Today's Realty since 2003. Before that she was an office manager and administrative officer with a local engineering and environmental firm. Camacho holds a bachelor's from UOG. Anna Marie Arceo, president of the Department of Chamorro Affairs. Arceo has more than 30 years of experience advocating for the CHamoru language and culture. She has been a CHamoru language teacher, curriculum writer and trainer with GDOE and a program specialist/planner for the CHamoru Language Commission. She wrote and published the "Basic Chamoru" CDs and book with Dr. Jackie Millman and "Biba Chamoru" Children's Activity Book with Professor Samantha Reagan. Lasia Casil, director of the Hagatna Restoration and Redevelopment Authority. Casil is an accomplished jewelry designer and entrepreneur, LGBT rights and environmental activist, and commercial real estate broker. Casil began her real estate career more than 20 years ago in New York City. In 2013, she returned home to Guam to launch her own jewelry brand, Infinite Charm. In 2015, she founded Guam Pride. She is also the co-founder and president of Save Southern Guam. Casil graduated from Bitburg American High School in Bitburg, Germany, in 1991. She attended the University of Maryland in Munich, Germany, studying psychology and German. Leah Beth Nahalowaa, executive director of the Guam Commission for Educator Certification. Naholowaa is currently the project director of the federally-funded College Pathway Program at GDOE. Nahalowaa served as director at the Department of Labor in 2010. She earned her bachelor's Communication and master's in Public Administration from UOG. She went on to earn a doctorate in Educational Leadership at the Argosy University in 2012. Ina Carillo, station manager of PBS Guam. Carillo is a media professional and small business owner with more than 20 years of experience in media management, programming, network relations and client management. She has worked for Marianas Cable Vision, DOCOMO PACIFIC, Moycom and Directions magazine. The Jive Mill has been working to keep music alive and well in Rochester for the last six years by supporting artistic expression and contributing to a creative community. This past year, after the close of their Broadway listening room a temporary venue that hosted more than 55 shows between July and December of 2017 Christopher and Noelle Roberts, the husband-and-wife team behind the Jive Mill, helped organize concerts pairing regional acts like Gaelynn Lea and local musicians like Amy Abts. Theyve also collaborated with community partners to present shows featuring Rochester-based musicians like Pat Eagan, Tim Dallman, and Root River Jam. And in 2019, theyre kicking things off with another strong concert. Since its inception, one of the Jive Mills strong suits has been the house concerts it organizes. "I often boast that its like having a backstage pass to a concert," says Noelle. The first show the Jive Mill will present in 2019 will be a house concert featuring Mike Munson on Friday night. Mike Munson released his "Rose Hill" record earlier this year and will be playing some of its music at the show. His sound on tracks like "Big Black" takes listeners to the juke joints and dives where Mississippis low-down, belly-dragging blues tells it straight. With blues woman Libby Rae Watsons musical saw vibrating over Munsons raspy strings, his tunes feature both quaver and grit. House concerts are something Munson looks forward to. "This may sound silly, but I enjoy playing guitar in other peoples houses because of what it sounds like," he says. "At house shows I rarely use amplification and the sound of the instrument in different spaces is in a nerdy sort of way very exciting for me." He also promises that his house concert sets are spontaneous and change depending on the "feeling in the room." Munson admires the Jive Mills commitment to music: "I am so heartened that they have continued to work to grow a community and have great music be a part of that," he says. "It is such a beautiful model." The Jive Mill hopes to expand upon that theme as well. "We were thrilled to try some new things this year in partnering with individuals that are doing their own part to create experiences in the area," Noelle says. "The top of that list is Squash Blossom Farm and our Cider Show and the 125 Live summer series." The Cider Show involved a day-long fall concert with music from the likes of My Grandmas Cardigan and came complete with homemade bread, soup and cider. The 125 Live series was a multi-week, outdoor, free concert series featuring local musicians, food trucks, and family activities. In 2019, the Jive Mills goal will be to offer "a blanketed support of the musicians and venues who are creating." With venues like the Art Heads Live Tuesday night concert series at Canvas and Chardonnay and the shows planned for The Castle Community, Noelle thinks that the Jive Mills role wont be to open another music venue. "Weve felt honored to break ground and open pathways which I truly believe have caused space for these venues to be successful in a way we couldnt," she says. Decades of hemp prohibition came to an end last week as President Trump signed the 2018 Farm Bill. Under the legislation, hemp will no longer be under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice but will fall under the oversight of US the Department of Agriculture. Forty-one growers in Minnesota are authorized to cultivate hemp on about 1,200 acres of land under a state pilot program. The bill will now allow prospective growers to cultivate the crop. For pilot growers, the bill removes legal hurdles they faced in getting the most value out of their crop. "It will open up commerce," said Ted Galaty, who has a test acreage of hemp south of Zumbrota. Cultivators can now get loans for equipment or starter seed and will be able to transport their crop across state lines. Growers will be entitled to insurance coverage in the same way that farmers for other legal agriculture products are under the Federal Crop Insurance Act. Most Minnesota producers have brought the crop to Canada, where hemp is legal to cultivate and process. Galaty plans to have his crop processed next season at a facility in Wisconsin that is scheduled to come online in 2019. "This year, I couldnt drive my crop to North Dakota or to Iowa," he said. "The minute you drive to Iowa, youre carrying an illegal product." Galaty is also looking at buying equipment to process fiber in the stalks. Minnesota growers will still have to submit cultivation plans to the USDA through the state Minnesota Department of Agriculture. Cultivators must demonstrate the product they plan to grow contains less than 0.3 percent THC the psychoactive compound in marijuana that gets users high. Hemp is a cousin of marijuana, but Galaty said thats like saying a pug is a cousin to a wolf. Hemp offers far more value to growers. "This plant is amazing because you can use all parts of it," Galaty said, adding the legalization was "inevitable" given the plants benefits and uses. The flowers and seeds can be processed into CBD, or cannabidiol, a non-intoxicating compound found in marijuana and hemp. The stalks can be processed for fiber to make paper, cloth, rope, wood-like material or hemp concrete. Under the farm bill, CBD oil produced by licensed growers in a manner regulated by state and federal guidelines will be legal to sell. Galaty hopes this change makes it possible to sell products from his hemp locally next year. "Next year, Ill have somewhere to bring my crop," he said. Opening the CBD market will have a big economic impact, he added, noting major companies are already exploring its use in tea, sodas and other drinks. He said bringing it under the auspices of the FDA will help regulate CBD content products and medications that were illegal at the federal level. This fall, Galaty used his acres of hemp to create an educational maze. When he went to cut stalks for the maze path, he immediately bound up his trimmer with hemp fibers. He has been unable to free the mechanism. He is currently harvesting the stalks from the crop for the woody fibers. "Its like a balsa wood a little bit harder than a balsa wood," he said. Galaty said he plans to have a maze again this year but grow a taller variety. He plans to have the oil processed in Wisconsin and will work to process the fibers himself. WASHINGTON Keeping a campaign promise not to vote for Nancy Pelosi for House speaker, newly installed U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham instead cast his first vote in Congress for U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos. Even without Cunningham's vote, Pelosi comfortably won back the gavel with 220 votes, as the vast majority of other Democrats supported her. Though he decided to keep his alternative choice secret until shortly before Thursday's House floor vote, Cunningham told The Post and Courier he wanted someone who would be a "fresh face" and help Democrats be competitive in more historically red districts. After the vote, he described Bustos as somebody who checks all the boxes he was looking for and praised her for being "willing to work across the aisle" with Republicans. Bustos, a 57-year-old Illinois Democrat, is also the new chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which helps support the party's candidates around the country with financial aid and other resources. A former newspaper reporter and the wife of a county sheriff, Bustos has argued Democrats need to focus on winning back areas where they have struggled in recent years, including rural, blue-collar communities. While Bustos noted that she personally supported Pelosi, she said after the vote that she considers Cunningham a friend with similar politics to hers and appreciates his support. Cunningham, who won the state's 1st Congressional District seat in November, began his campaign last year with a call for new leadership in both parties, a desire that he has not wavered from since. As the first Democrat to win the district in decades, Cunningham is expected to face a stiff reelection challenge from Republicans in 2020 due to the district's conservative track record. Bustos will have significant control over how much national support his campaign receives. "Joe Cunningham's going to be a great member of Congress," Bustos said. "He understands first and foremost that he represents the people in his district in South Carolina, and I think in two years they're going to have all kinds of reasons to support him again." Sign up for updates! Get the latest political news from The Post and Courier in your inbox. Email Sign Up! Three other new Democratic members of Congress also voted for Bustos for House speaker: U.S. Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia. They were among 15 Democrats total to oppose Pelosi getting the speaker's gavel. South Carolina's other new congressman, Republican William Timmons of Greenville, voted for U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy for speaker, along with all four of the state's other Republicans. McCarthy, R-Calif., will instead become House minority leader. U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn of Columbia, who will now become the third-ranking House Democrat as majority whip, voted for Pelosi. Cunningham faced several other key votes in his first day on the job. He supported Democratic efforts to end the partial shutdown by passing a government funding bill without money for President Donald Trump's proposed border wall. Trump and Senate Republicans have vowed to continue opposing that effort, claiming the wall is vital for border security. But Cunningham noted that Trump promised the wall would be paid for by Mexico, and he said the U.S. should instead spend money on other border security measures, like increased personnel and satellite imagery. I think walls were great methods in the 1400s because that was the only technology we had, Cunningham said. Now, when we start hearing from the experts on what the most efficient use of our tax dollars are I think that a lot of people would believe we have so much technology at our fingertips right now that we can control our border in a more efficient manner." Cunningham also supported a rules package that would institute a system known as "paygo," which means any legislation that increases spending or cuts taxes would need to be offset by other spending cuts or tax increases a rule designed to avoid increasing the national deficit. The rule has become increasingly controversial, as some progressive members fear it will hamstring their efforts to pass ambitious new government projects. Cunningham said he views it as an issue of fiscal responsibility. "In my house, our kitchen table, we balance our budget every month, and like most families in the Lowcountry and South Carolina, you spend only what you bring in," Cunningham said. "I think people want their government to act in that same manner." Jamie Lovegrove is a political reporter covering the South Carolina Statehouse, congressional delegation and campaigns. He previously covered Texas politics in Washington for The Dallas Morning News and in Austin for the Texas Tribune. Editorials represent the institutional view of the newspaper. They are written and edited by the editorial staff, which operates separately from the news department. Editorial writers are not involved in newsroom operations. Get the SC business stories that matter. Our newsletter catches you up with all the business stories that are shaping Charleston and South Carolina every Monday and Thursday at noon. Get ahead with us - it's free. Mary Katherine, who also goes by MK, covers health care for The Post and Courier. She is also pursuing a master's degree in data science. She grew up in upstate New York and enjoys playing cards, kayaking and the Blue Ridge Mountains. 273 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising By Tom Hals WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) The partial U.S. government shutdown is showing signs of straining the countrys immigration system and has been blamed for worsening backlogs in courts and complicating hiring for employers. U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to continue the shutdown until he gets the $5 billion he is seeking for a wall on the Mexican border, which the opposition Democrats have refused, prompting the 13-day shutdown. About 800,000 federal employees have been affected. That includes border patrol agents who are working without pay, according to Joshua Wilson, vice president of the border patrol union in San Diego. Advertising Immigration judges have been furloughed, which means thousands of long-delayed deportation cases will have to be rescheduled, frustrating efforts by Trumps Justice Department to clear a backlog of 800,000 cases. Jeremy McKinney, an immigration lawyer in North Carolina, said a client who is fighting deportation had a procedural hearing canceled this week and it probably will not be rescheduled until 2020 due to overflowing dockets. Thats one case for one judge in one city. Multiply that by hundreds in Charlotte and thousands and thousands of cases across the country, he said. The shutdown has resulted in a complete standstill for most of the immigration docket. The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which is part of the Justice Department and runs the immigration courts, said in a notice that immigrants in detention still will have court dates. However, the judges hearing those cases are working without pay, according to Ashley Tabaddor, the president of the national immigration judges union. In the past there has been retroactive pay provided but that has to be provided by Congress, so there is a lot of anxiety among the judges about what will happen, Tabaddor said. A Justice Department spokesman said he could not respond to a request for comment because of the shutdown. A system known as E-Verify, which is used to check if a person is authorized to work in the United States, was taken offline for a lack of funding. Several states require employers to use the program and the Trump administration has considered making E-Verify mandatory for employers. Shanon Stevenson, a lawyer with Fisher & Phillips in Atlanta, said she has heard from clients that they may postpone adding staff until E-Verify is available. They dont want to invest the time and training and find they then have problem, she said. (Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware, Kristina Cooke in San Francisco and Mica Rosenberg in New York; Editing by Bill Trott) 2.1k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising Twice as many Americans blame Donald Trump than blame congressional Democrats for the partial government shutdown that is now nearly two weeks old. In a new The Hill-HarrisX poll only 21 percent of registered voters blamed Democrats for the shutdown, which should cause Republicans to lose some sleep. There is no end in sight for this shutdown, and 42 percent of voters who responded to the survey said President Trump was to blame for it. One-third of voters said that both parties in Congress and the president were all equally responsible. The government has been shut down since Dec. 22 when President Trump changed his mind and said he would not sign a spending bill that had been passed by Congress to keep the government operating. After being pushed by right-wing media, Trump took the position he would not sign any bill to fund the government that did not include his requested $5 billion in funding for a border wall. Democrats have offered $1.3 billion for border security, and this amount was approved in legislation passed by the Republican-controlled Senate two weeks ago. Advertising This is the third government shutdown in the past year, and normally each party tries to point the finger at the other for causing the funding impasse. However, during a meeting in the White House on December 11, Trump said he would own the shutdown and he would be proud to make it happen. During that meeting, attended by Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Pelosi labelled it the Trump shutdown and he did not object to that terminology. Trump claimed he would be proud to shut down the government for border security and that he would not blame Democrats for any government closure that might result from the lack of a spending deal. Since then Trump and other Republicans have still tried to shift blame to Democrats, but this latest poll shows that the strategy is not working. Republicans will not gain political points from extending the shutdown or from providing $5 billion in money for a misguided border all that will not enhance the border security of America. But because Trump has shifted his rhetoric to claim Democrats are responsible for the partial shutdown, Republican voters appear confused. According to The Hill, The shifting GOP messaging appears to have caused some confusion for Republican voters over whom to blame for the situation. In The Hill-HarrisX poll only 47 percent of Republican voters said congressional Democrats were responsible for the shutdown while 39 percent said that both parties in Congress and the president are to blame. Just 17 percent of Democratic respondents agreed with that, while 75 percent of Democrats said Trump was responsible. The president did say I will shut down the government if I dont get this, this will be the Trump shutdown. The fact that he sort of owned it makes it easier for a lot of these Americans to say, Yeah its his fault, Molly Murphy, a Democratic pollster said on Hill.TV. A plurality of independent voters, 44 percent, said that both parties are equally at fault. Thirty-seven percent of independents said that Trump is to blame while 16 percent said congressional Democrats were primarily responsible. Overall, this poll gives ammunition to congressional Democrats to hold out and not compromise with Donald Trump on the border wall funding. To give in to Trumps childish demands would anger their progressive base of voters and would also not be popular with the majority of Americans. 125 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising WASHINGTON (Reuters) The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating whether President Donald Trumps former Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, lied to Department of Interior investigators in what could be a potential criminal violation, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. The Post, citing three people familiar with the matter, said the former Cabinet official was the center of two probes by his departments inspector general: one involving his real estate transactions in Montana and another over his role in a review of a Connecticut casino project proposed by Native American tribes. Zinke left the administration on Wednesday but had made no public mention of the ethics investigations upon his departure from Interior, which oversees Americas vast public lands. Trump did not give a reason for the departure when he announced it last month. The people familiar with the matter said Interior investigators had referred the matter to the Department of Justice after coming to believe that Zinke had lied to them about his dealings, according to the Post. Advertising Representatives for Zinke could not be immediately reached for comment on the Post report. A spokesman for Zinke told the Post that the former secretary had not been contacted by the Justice Department, the Post said. Zinke had voluntarily been interviewed by Interior investigators regarding the casino, he also told the Post. As a general matter, the department doesnt confirm or deny the existence of any ongoing investigation, Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said. The Post, citing people familiar with the matter, said Justice Department officials have not decided yet whether to charge Zinke. Zinke, a former Navy Seal and U.S. congressman, had served as Interior secretary since early 2017 but had faced investigations into his use of security details, chartered flights and a real estate deal in his home state of Montana. Trump had said in November he would look at the allegations. (Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by James Dalgleish) 935 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising House Democrats are making history as their majority is sworn in, and they intend to hold first-ever hearings on Medicare for all. The Washington Post reported: Pelosi, who had been one of those co-sponsors, said throughout the 2018 campaign that Democrats were free to discuss many other health-care programs. She strongly suggested that a Democratic House would at least hold hearings on the far-reaching Jayapal bill; on Wednesday, Jayapal got Pelosis commitment to hearings in the Rules and Budget committees. The incoming chairmen of those committees, Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), support Medicare for All. Advertising The American people deserve to know what the various options for Medicare for All would mean to them as health care consumers and taxpayers, Yarmuth said. The legislation will be released in the next couple of weeks, and for the first time, it is going to get a full hearing in Congress. Democrats are open to all policy options on healthcare. The debate on Medicare for all within the Democratic Party has always been more quibbling about splitting hairs than a serious policy difference. All Democrats support universal coverage and universal access to healthcare. The difference within the party is about how to get there, not the goal itself. The Medicare for all hearings shows why elections matter. The legislation would have been buried by a Republican Congress, and the hearings also show that with Democrats in charge of the House, it will no longer be business as usual in Trumps Washington. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook. 1.5k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising Democrats have vowed to obtain Donald Trumps tax returns this year. And they know this is politically popular, as the majority of American voters also want to see the presidents returns and what they will show us about his foreign entanglements, the size of his fortune, and even if he has been a tax cheat. And, according to CNN: Democrats will include a provision in their new bill that would require presidential nominees to disclose 10 years of tax returns shortly after they become the nominee. Vice presidents would also be required to disclose a decade of returns. The tax returns would then be posted on the Federal Election Commissions website for public viewing. The 10-year requirement is new since previously Democrats had said that H.R. 1 would require presidential candidates to release just three years of tax returns. But after reviewing legal authority and precedent, the bill was changed to ask for a decade of returns. Advertising H.R. 1 is a far-reaching bill that makes sweeping ethics changes as well as lays out Democratic priorities on voting rights and health care. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said this bill will be the top priority of the new House that she takes control of today. Even though it will pass the House, it wont pass the Republican-controlled Senate and wont ever go to Trumps desk for signature. However, it will give Democratically-controlled House committees an opportunity to set Democratic priorities in the new Congress. The House Ways and Means Committee will also take an alternative route to attempt to get their hands on Trumps tax returns. Under a little-used IRS rule, the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, will have the power to obtain the returns from the Treasury Department. Neal has said he plans to ask for them in the new Congress, but did not specify when he will do so. Trump is the only president or presidential candidate in the past 50 years who has refused to release his tax returns. He told voters that he could not do so because hes under audit by the IRS. However, the existence of an IRS audit does not mean he cant disclose his tax returns. And even though Neal may attempt to get the returns, Trumps supporters have already vowed to fight such a request. If they do that will set up a legal battle between Democratic lawmakers and the Trump administration. The quest to obtain Donald Trumps tax returns is just one more politically-charged Washington event that will surely make 2019 one of the most interesting and eventful years in American history. 495 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising WASHINGTON (Reuters) Democrats wasted no time flexing their new power in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday as they maneuvered to pass legislation that would end a 13-day partial government shutdown while ignoring President Donald Trumps demand for $5 billion for a border wall. Thursday marks the first day of divided government in Washington since Trump took office in January 2017, with Democrats taking control in the House from his fellow Republicans, who remain in charge of the Senate. The 2019-2020 Congress begins work with roughly a quarter of the federal government closed, affecting 800,000 employees, in a shutdown triggered by Trumps demand last month for the money for a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border opposed by Democrats as part of any legislation funding government agencies. Congressional leaders from both parties held unproductive talks with Trump at the White House on Wednesday and are to return for another round on Friday, a sign the shutdown is likely to continue for the rest of the week. Advertising Passage of the bill by the new Democratic House majority was expected to occur shortly after Nancy Pelosi is elected its speaker, as the liberal from San Francisco ascends for a second time to one of Washingtons most powerful jobs. The two-part Democratic package includes a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security at current levels through Feb. 8, providing $1.3 billion for border fencing and $300 million for other border security items including technology and cameras. The second part would fund the other federal agencies that are now unfunded including the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, Transportation, Commerce and Justice, through Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year. Democrats said their approach would give both sides a month to negotiate a compromise on border security while reopening all other parts of the government. Trump made the wall a key campaign promise in 2016, saying Mexico would pay for it and arguing it is needed to combat illegal immigration and drug trafficking. Democrats have called the wall immoral, ineffective and medieval. NOTHING FOR THE WALL No, no. Nothing for the wall, Pelosi said in an interview aired on Thursday on NBCs Today show. Were talking about border security. There is no amount of persuasion he (Trump) can do to say to us, We want you to do something that is not effective, that costs billions of dollars. That sends the wrong message about who we are as a country. Trump on Thursday accused Democrats of playing politics. The Shutdown is only because of the 2020 Presidential Election, Trump wrote on Twitter. The Democrats know they cant win based on all of the achievements of Trump, so they are going all out on the desperately needed Wall and Border Security and Presidential Harassment. For them, strictly politics! Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday his chamber, still in Republican hands, would not vote on the Democratic legislation, calling it a political sideshow and total non-starter. Senator Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat and a participant in Wednesdays meeting, told MSNBC, We have to find a way to reopen the government. He (Trump) really wants this confrontation because he thrives on chaos. He is stuck on this notion that he has to have a wall and hell see this government come down rather than face the reality he doesnt have the votes for that wall. National parks have closed campgrounds for fear that toilets will overflow. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees are working without pay. The immigration courts, already overburdened, are largely shuttered. The $5 billion Trump is seeking would cover only a portion of the money needed for a border wall, a project estimated to cost about $23 billion. (Reporting by Ginger Gibson and Amanda Becker; Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell and Susan Heavey; Editing by Peter Cooney and Bill Trott) 3.3k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising As Donald Trump continues to box himself into a corner over his government shutdown, Ari Melber pointed out on Wednesday that the world is laughing at him. According to the MSNBC host, the shutdown of the government over Trumps border wall is a total and complete violation of what he ran on and the United States is falling further into laughingstock territory as a result. No, its not what he ran on. Its the total and complete violation of what he ran on, which was Mexico funding the wall, Melber said. On the wall whether you think we should build one or not we are looked at as suckers right now, Melber added. Around the world, people marveling at Trump negotiating himself into punishing his own country after failing to get a peso from Mexico. Advertising Video: Ari Melber hits pro-Trump pundits for giving the president a pass on his massive lie that Mexico would pay for the wall. #ctl #p2 pic.twitter.com/kUveoOzBqB PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) January 3, 2019 Ari Melber said: You may have heard this now-common claim that the shutdown that breaks Trumps promise is actually Trump standing by his promise. No, its not what he ran on. Its the total and complete violation of what he ran on, which was Mexico funding the wall. Now we can all debate whether America First is a good idea, but even as Trump loudly breaks his wall promise, he continues to claim hes putting America first by getting other countries to meet their obligations, from boots on the ground to picking up the tab as he recently told our troops. Trump declares were not suckers and were not looked at as suckers, but on the wall whether you think we should build one or not we are looked at as suckers right now. Around the world, people marveling at Trump negotiating himself into punishing his own country after failing to get a peso from Mexico. The biggest suckers? Trump supporters. While Donald Trump likes to claim that America is no longer a sucker with him in the White House, the opposite is true. His election and the fact that a stubborn 35-40 percent of the country still support him is proof of that. After spending years pledging that the United States wouldnt pay a single cent for his wall, not only has he completely backed away from his promise to get Mexico to pay for it, but he is shamelessly asking taxpayers to foot the bill. In response, his supporters arent groaning their disapproval at this obvious broken campaign promise. Instead, theyre actually putting their own money toward funding the project. If that isnt the definition of a true sucker, Im not sure what is. Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook. 1.4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren proved on Wednesday that even though some pundits have already dismissed her candidacy as a long shot, she would make a formidable challenger to Donald Trump. She took direct aim at what she called two years of Trump scamming and grifting the American people right before our eyes. We have lived through two years of one scammer and grifter after another, running federal agencies, running our federal government, Warren said. And we have lived through two more years of giant tax giveaways to the billionaires, to big corporations, and a harder and harder squeeze on working families. Elizabeth Warren shreds Trump for spending the past two years scamming the American people. #ctl #p2 #maddow pic.twitter.com/rXqKKqfSXE PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) January 3, 2019 Advertising This isnt about me. Warren was also asked by Maddow why she would seek the presidency when she has a safe Senate seat in a blue state like Massachusetts. This isnt about me, the Democratic senator responded. This is about tens of millions of families across this country who are getting cheated. This is truly about what kind of a country were going to be, Warren said. Maddow asked why Warren would want to run for president when she has a safe Senate seat: This isnt about me, the Democratic senator responded. This is about tens of millions of families across this country who are getting cheated. #ctl #p2 #maddow pic.twitter.com/A61DIbnLW3 PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) January 3, 2019 Warrens message could resonate everywhere After this corrupt president has spent nearly two years making everything about him, Warrens message of putting the focus back on the cheated middle class could resonate everywhere not just in blue states. Her long record of taking on the forces that repeatedly screw over the middle class combined with her willingness to take the fight directly to Trump make her a strong candidate. There is a wide range of potential nominees in the Democratic field that could defeat Trump in 2020 from Joe Biden and Beto ORourke to Kamala Harris and Sherrod Brown but Elizabeth Warren proved on Wednesday that she could be a strong nominee to send Donald Trump packing. Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook. 3.8k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising Trump has adopted a different tone with Nancy Pelosi that is a sign that he is scared of the incoming Speaker of the House who has the power to break him. Ari Melber said on his MSNBC show The Beat: While Donald Trump has made a lot of noise about a lot of people he doesnt get along with including Mitt Romney. There are signs we want to show you he seems to now realize the incoming speaker has real power and hes got to deal with her. Note how trumps tune has changed when dealing with Pelosi or talking about her from the Oval Office to interviews on Fox. .. Advertising It is early in this new chapter but as you see there Donald Trump doing something thats rare. Skipping the opportunity from a forced fed Fox News question to lit back at someone while Pelosi has seemed to take a page from Trumps own playbook, The Art Of The Deal. Remember that in that book he wrote bullies may act tough but they are really closet cowards. The only people bullies push around are the ones they know they can beat. Confront a bully and in most cases, hell fold like a deck of cards. Video: Trump is scared of Nancy Pelosi. https://t.co/IYCfDX5F0O pic.twitter.com/SdH0T7ofoY Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) January 2, 2019 Ari Melber brought up a great point. It is easy to tell who scares Trump based on how he talks about them. Trump is going out of his way not to attack Pelosi because she has the ability to make or break the president. If she agreed to money for his wall, which she wont, Trump would be set up with his base for the 2020 election. There is also the impeachment question. Nancy Pelosi controls whether or not Democrats investigate and pursue impeachment against Donald Trump. For the first time since he entered politics, Trump is facing an American who has power over him, and it is Donald Trump who appears to be folding like a deck of cards. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook. 12.1k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising Conservative columnist Mona Charen had some harsh criticism for Donald Trumps cabinet on Wednesday after they met for the first time of the new year. In the meeting, Trump officials were quick to heap praise on the president as if theyre working for some third-world dictator. Look, honestly, you do wonder, do they keep the barf bags underneath the table there at those cabinet meetings? Charen said during an interview with Chris Hayes. Video: Advertising Charen said: Look, honestly, you do wonder, do they keep the barf bags underneath the table there at those cabinet meetings? Its just beyond belief the toadee-ing, and the lack of self-respect. Now, admittedly, this is already the B team and some of them are C team, but that is the part look, Mike Pence used to be a man a long time ago and look at what he has become. Its a really lamentable display, Im sorry to say. The blind praise of Trump is unprecedented Its typical for a presidents staff to support his or her agenda, but the level of suck-uppery we see on display in front of Trump is unprecedented and scary. Thats because part of the job description when you work for this administration is that you must blindly and publicly support Trump no matter what he says and does. If you dont, you lose your job. Its partly why no adults remain in this White House. Its the stuff of authoritarian regimes, not democracies. As former Obama White House cabinet secretary Chris Lu said on Wednesday, If one of us, whether staff or cabinet, had ever done something like this, we would have been mercilessly mocked by President Obama, and in the Trump administration, this gets you the job of attorney general. That was put on full display on Wednesday as Trumps cabinet members left their self-respect at the door before meeting with their boss. Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook. Photographed for Pointe by Jayme Thornton. From Home-State Stardom to ABT's Corps, Betsy McBride Finds Grace in Every Role Newest Report shows a reduction of occupational fatalities in Wyoming CHEYENNE Today, the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services (DWS) released its annual Work-Related Fatal Injuries report. The report, which provides analysis over the years 2012-2017 and is the third multi-year report, offers a complete review of occupational fatality patterns in the state by industry and cause. In 2017, State Occupational Epidemiology identified 20 workplace fatalities in Wyoming, which is a reduction from the 27 fatalities identified in 2016 by the same program. On Dec.18, the federal Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) also reported 20 deaths in Wyoming in 2017. According to the state report, most of the high-risk industry groups monitored experienced stability or a decrease in the number of deaths from 2016 to 2017, except for the Transportation & Warehousing industry, which experienced an increase. "We are pleased in the apparent decrease in occupational fatalities over the last year, said Governor Mead. I appreciate the hard work of our industry safety alliances and Wyoming businesses in the effort to reduce workplace fatalities. Any workplace fatality is one too many. We want every Wyoming worker to be safe, to return home to their families and enjoy a high quality of life in our state. During the period 2012-2017, 163 total occupational fatalities were identified by the state program. The Transportation and Warehousing industry accounted for the largest proportion (28 percent), followed by the Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting industry (17 percent), and the Oil & Gas Extraction and Production industries (15 percent). Motor vehicle crashes were the leading cause, accounting for 50 percent of the 163 deaths; this includes roadway travel crashes, as well as pedestrian-involved crashes on a worksite, ATV and UTV crashes, and aircraft crashes. In recent years, many steps have been taken to improve worksite safety and reduce occupational deaths in Wyoming, State Epidemiologist Meredith Towle said. Restructuring the Department of Workforce Services technical consultation programs, and partnering with industry and safety alliances to increase training opportunities to employers and workers are all steps in the right direction. We will continue to prioritize and facilitate prevention efforts with evidence-based strategies. Two DWS programs monitor workplace-related deaths: the State Occupational Epidemiologist and the federal CFOI program. Differences in program confidentiality rules and information access means that the two strategies will likely produce different counts of workplace deaths. The programs collect similar information but have two different goals: the State-run program allows for a more detailed look at workplace deaths; while the CFOI program allows for the collection of standardized data across states and the nation. Published August 2 Over a 10-day period, the National Weather Service in Cheyenne issued 95 total warnings. As a breakdown, thats 74 severe thunderstorm warnings, 14 tornado warnings and seven flash flood warnings. Compare that to a low of eight warnings issued in 2009, all severe. In 2016, the NWS Cheyenne office issued 71 warnings, all of which were severe over the same 10-day period of July 20 - 30. Of those, 59 were severe, 10 were tornado warnings and two were flash floods. The NWS Cheyenne office covers rural northern Colorado, southeastern Wyoming and the Nebraska Panhandle. A storm produced damaging hail in the Cheyenne area Sunday afternoon. But that anomaly isnt that unusual said NWS Meteorologist Bill Mokry. It seems astronomical, but its not unusual to have these types of storms this time of year, Mokry said. Mokry attributed the increase in warnings to scenic tornadoes. Pictures and video of a tornado north of Laramie made the rounds on social media last month, and one near Douglas that touched down on Saturday is doing the same now. The weather community is figuring out that there are tornadoes in Wyoming too, Morkry said, adding that many in Wyoming are easier for photographers and videographers to get images of because they are not rain-wrapped. There are also more boots on the ground with local agencies keeping an eye out for severe storms as well as an influx of trained spotters. Mokry cited a case in which residents in a rural area were able to notify NWS of quarter-sized hail just by stepping outside and making a phone call. He said it takes people seeing severe weather events and contacting NWS when appropriate. It helps us meet our goals as an agency and keep people safe, he said. Mace performing for the 50 fallen American soldier in France with a group of bagpipers. Each one of the soldiers has a street named after them in France. Melvin E. Waterman was born December 24, 1945 in Stronghurst, Illinois. He is one of ten children. Of the six boys, he is the only one to have served in the U. S. Navy. Two brothers, however, have served in the U. S. Army. Waterman's father and grandfather, while being extremely patriotic, were unable to serve during war time due to having such large families. His grandfather had 16 children. Upon graduation from high school in Media, Illinois in 1964, Waterman and a high school friend, Donald Pendry enlisted in the U. S. Navy Reserves in the "buddy system". When their basic training was finished, Waterman headed to Chicago for training and Pendry headed to San Diego, California and then out to sea on a PT boat in Viet Nam. "So much for the buddy system!" Waterman said with a laugh. Waterman is proud to say his son Rob, served on the USS Forrestal, and the USS Eisenhower. Also serving is his granddaughter, Kennedy Todd is in the U. S. Air Force, and upon high school graduation, her brother Tanner Todd will go in under delayed enlistment. Thank you for serving, Mel Waterman. Traveling was not a new concept to Jeffrey Clay Stottlemyer. Born in Hampton, Iowa in November of 1965. He is the son of a minister, and his father's work took him many places in his young life. The family settled in Winslow, Arizona, where he would graduate from Winslow Senior High School in 1984. After graduation, Stottlemyer worked a variety of jobs, and even started his own landscaping business. "I gave my best effort and it was doing great, just couldn't find my place...not what I wanted to be doing for a career." he stated . At the age of 23, after trying different things, he thought about the military. "My brother served in the United States Air Force, and my grandfather was in the United States Army, and after listening to both, I chose to follow in my granddad's footsteps...I went Army!" Stottlemyer said with strong conviction. During this tour of duty, he would develop a condition with his eye, and would be medivaced back to the states. He would spend 22 months at Fort Lewis, Washington, Wounded Warrior Battalion. Upon his discharge from the Wounded Warrior Battalion, fate would send him back to Fort Gordon, Georgia. His new assignment was supply sergeant, until he received his certification and license as a master amour. He would head back to Colorado Springs, where he would retire from the United States Army, after 22 years. Thank you for your service Sgt. Stottlemyer. Father Soldier A Daughter's Story You watch him come down the hall, his uniform all intact, neat and sharp. He pats you on the head or gives you a playful swat on the backside, before he heads over to mom, to say goodbye. Sometimes, his good-byes are just for the day and he will be back at the end of his shift, or they are for months at a time because he has gone TDY overseas. Yes, we are the daughters of a soldier, a military man, whether it be Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force or Coast Guard and Reserves. We know the drill...Dad is going to be gone, help your mother, and don't get in trouble! Those were words that still to this day, echo in our heads. Waiting for your Dad to get home, whether for excitement, or punishment was sometimes a long wait. But wait we did. The days of waiting for Dad to step off that plane, or ship, still is there today. The wait is still great with anticipation and utter excitement. So while some of our Dads are gone to the permanent wild blue yonder, there are those who still come home to little ones that have grown by leaps and bounds, and Dads still treat them like they were younger! To all this Dads, that have served, or are still serving, Charlie Henry Cunningham, Jr. calls Wyoming home. But it wasn't always home to this outstanding United States Air Force veteran. Cunningham, Jr. started out in this world on April 14, 1958 in Birmingham, Alabama. Cunningham, Jr. graduated from Montevallo High School, Montevallo, Alabama in June of 1976. He continued his education at the University of Montevallo earning a degree in statics. Cunningham, Jr. had a thirst to see the world. He had lived pretty much his whole life in Alabama, and wanted to see what the world had to offer. In his seeking of adventure, he enlisted in the United States Air Force. "I wanted to see the world, and the Air Force offered me that chance to see more than Alabama!" Cunningham , Jr. stated. "The world has changed since I was a youngster, but I would still advocate going in the military. See things from other areas, how others live. Make sure you look, listen and learn as the military is a great educational opportunity." Cunningham, Jr. said. "It will give you experience for the career you have chosen." he added. Cunningham, Jr. has one son, Charles in Nevada, and a nephew, Korey Cunningham No.79 offensive tackle Arizona Cardinals. Thank you for serving. Family history and the dream of a six year old girl to be a soldier in the military was Marti L. Mace's driving force to her enlistment in United States Army. "I wanted to follow in my dad, and grandfather's footsteps, but there wasn't a Marine recruiter in our town, so the Army is where I landed!" said Mace. Mace was born in February of 1961 in Ulysses, Kansas. She attended Johnson High School in Johnson, Kansas and received her GED in 1978. She immediately entered the military. Her grandfather, Marion Willis served in WWI in the Army. Dad, Lewis Mace, served in WWII, in the Marines. Mace joined up immediately upon graduation, and dad, Lewis Mace signed for her as she was 17 years of age upon graduation. She was the youngest of four children and the only one to follow in dad's footsteps. Mace self taught herself to play the bagpipes as a means of relaxation, and while there is family history for bagpipes she is the first in five generations to play. Mace was selected to play in France at the 75th Commemoration of Raid of August 19, 1942 with other bagpipers. She was the only American selected. She traveled to France and participated at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. Mace has lived the dream of being active duty and belonging to the military. She shares her love for the military with everyone she comes in contact with. She advocates this life style to up coming high school graduates, stating, "Your mom and dad are going to always take care of things for you, this way you can for yourself." Thank you for serving. A Veteran Mother's Story As with any branch of service, our soldiers can be sent to a war zone, be assigned to foreign countries where there is unrest and instability. Moms and Dads stand proud of their child, who has grown up and is now serving their country in some field...artillery, medical, in the air and on the sea! Parents let them go, and wait for their return. Sometimes, the homecoming is happy and full of excitement and they share the stories of far away lands and cultures. However, sometimes their voices are silenced, and parents draw on the memories of events before. National Gold Star Mother's Day was created to recognize and honor those that have lost their son or daughter while serving our country in the United States Armed Forces. A gold star symbolizes a family member who died in the line of duty while serving the United States Armed Forces. "Gold Star mothers and families know the immeasurable cost of fighting for the ideals we believe in, and they know the pride that comes with exemplary service to America. ~ President Barack Obama ~ September 23, 2011 ~ Presidential Proclamation" To all the families that celebrated September 30, 2018 due to a fallen soldier, you are in our thoughts, and prayers. Veterans Day, formerly Armistice Day, is an annual United States holiday honoring military veterans. It is a federal holiday that is observed on November 11. It coincides with other holidays such as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day, which are celebrated in other parts of the world and also mark the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended World War I. (Major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice.) History of Veterans Day World War I known at the time as "The Great War" - officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of "the war to end all wars." Soldiers of the 353rd Infantry near a church at Stenay, Meuse in France, wait for the end of hostilities. This photo was taken at 10:58 a.m., on November 11, 1918, two minutes before the armistice ending World War I went into effect. In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations..." The original concept for the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business beginning at 11:00 a.m. The United States Congress officially recognized the end of World War I when it passed a concurrent resolution on June 4, 1926. Veterans Day continues to be observed on November 11, regardless of what day of the week on which it falls. The restoration of the observance of Veterans Day to November 11 not only preserves the historical significance of the date, but helps focus attention on the important purpose of Veterans Day: A celebration to honor America's veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good. Sources: Military,com and history. Veterans have served many months and years away from home. Leaving their families is hard, but being in a foreign country during the Christmas season is sometimes more than unbearable. It is times like this many Americans have stepped up to the plate, or shall we say the microphone and brought joy and laughter to our overseas troops. To the orient to the South Pacific to the middle east and more, entertainers have jumped on planes, ships and trucks to go on tour and bring some home entertaining to our men and women in uniform. The United Service Organizations Inc. (USO) was founded in February of 1941. It's purpose was to strengthen America's military service members by keeping them connected to family, home and country, throughout their service to the nation.1 One of the most memorable and longest performers for the USO is Bob Hope. Hope began entertaining the troops in May 1941 and continued this great service to many troops around the world for nearly fifty years. He was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1969 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. While there were many Hollywood entertainers "serving" entertaining, a touch of home and Americana, many bands, and other entertainers from across the states were in the USO to serve our troops. One such USO member was Dalton Fuller. Fuller, a local musician, veteran and member of the Donald Eisenhauer American Legion Post 60, spent time in Vietnam entertaining our troops right along side of Bob Hope, Sammy Davis Jr., and Dean Martin to name a few. Fuller, originally from McCook, Nebraska, took his Dalton Fuller Band and the Nebraska Playboys on tour. He served several tours overseas, and even played for King and Queen of Thailand. Fuller still entertains today. He can be found at the Pine Bluffs Senior Center performing for a local dance on the first Sunday of each month. Many veterans in the area come and join in on the music, dancing and potluck. He can tell you how important it is to keep the moral of the troops up. THANK YOU FOR SERVING. Staff reports The Petoskey News-Review The closing weeks of the 2018 legislature in Michigan were fast-paced and contentious, to say the least. Lame duck session shenanigans brought Michigan politics to a divisive low. A flurry of poorly thought-out bills some with blatantly partisan roots shot from Senate to House to the governors desk at a reckless pace. Several of those bills were widely seen as attempts to diminish power from incoming politicians before they took their elected offices. The mid-term election results mean that, after eight years of full Republican control, Michigans executive office will now house Democrats in the governor, attorney general and secretary of state positions. One bill that saw notable opposition was House Bill 6553, which would have let the legislature intervene if a court action challenged the constitutionality of a state statute or the validity of any legislative act, according to the Associated Press. The bill was roundly derided as undermining the authority of incoming Attorney General Dana Nessel. Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed that bill on Dec. 28, a decision that was lauded by Nessel. We are grateful to Gov. Snyder for demonstrating his integrity and commitment to upholding the Michigan Constitution, Nessel said in a statement. We can only hope that state politicians take a cue from this exchange and work toward more thoughtful legislation and respectful cooperation in the next year. If the government does not act in bipartisan ways, the state will not be able to address many of its major issues. An effective government means cooperation. We saw partisan politics hit the lowest of the low in 2018. Our hope for 2019 is that bipartisan solutions will now come to the forefront of Michigans government. William T. Perkins (231) 439-9353 Within her first 24 hours in office, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took aim at the web of agreements between the former administration and energy company Enbridge. In a memorandum sent Tuesday to Dana Nessel, the new Attorney General, Whitmer questioned the legality of the Straits Corridor Authority, a new body set up by Gov. Rick Snyder and Republican legislators just before their terms ended last year. That body was appointed with the intention of securing a new utility tunnel beneath the straits of Mackinac which would house the Line 5 petroleum pipeline and other utility lines. Once signed, the bill which created the Straits Tunnel Authority became Public Act 359. Nessel said issuing a legal opinion on the matter will be a top priority for her office. Resolving any legal uncertainty regarding PA 359, the Mackinac Straits Corridor Authority and action taken by the authority is necessary to assure that we can take all action necessary to protect the Great Lakes, protect our drinking water and protect Michigan jobs, Whitmer said in a press release Wednesday. I pledged to take action on the Line 5 pipeline on day one as governor, and I am holding true to that campaign promise. Michigan environmental advocacy groups which generally supported Whitmers campaign rhetoric of shutting Line 5 down widely applauded the action. This is hopefully the first step towards the timely decommissioning of Line 5, Jennifer McKay, Policy Director for Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council, said in a prepared statement. And we look forward to working with the new administration to ensure oil and natural gas liquid transportation in Michigan is done in a manner that protects public health and safety and the states economy and natural resources. As it currently sits, Line 5 runs across a wide stretch of the Upper and Lower Peninsulas on its way from Superior, Wisconsin to Sarnia, Ontario. It splits into dual pipelines underneath the Straits of Mackinac. According to agreements between Snyder and Enbridge, that stretch of line would be replaced with a new segment contained within the proposed tunnel. McKay said Tip of the Mitt took issue with PA 359 from day one, specifically when it came to the rushed nature of last years lame duck session. Legislators approved plans for the Corridor Authority within the last few weeks of December, after a failed attempt to place the proposed tunnel under the oversight of the Mackinac Bridge Authority. Then, within the span of a week, Snyder appointed members to the board, the board held its first meeting, and board members approved a series of agreements with Enbridge. In a statement, Nessel said that entire process happened without the care and caution one would expect for an issue that will have a monumental impact on our state. Governor Whitmer has rightly and immediately raised important questions about the legality and statutory underpinnings of this act and my office is prepared to tackle her request for an opinion immediately, Nessel said. I encourage any interested or concerned party to forward a brief or legal memo on the issues raised by the opinion request. Nessel also warned "those who stand to benefit" from Public Act 359 chiefly Enbridge not to move forward with Line 5-related plans until the matter is resolved. In a statement, Ryan Duffy, spokesman for Enbridge, said the company looks forward to working with Whitmer and Nessel on making their infrastructure more safe. "We believe there is an opportunity to work on these important issues together," he said. "Enbridge also believes that the time is right to build for the future. This tunnel project would make a safe pipeline even safer and reflects Enbridges steadfast commitment to protecting the Great Lakes while safely meeting Michigans energy needs." William T. Perkins (231) 439-9353 PETOSKEY An online petition opposing upcoming downtown Petoskey parking rate increases easily reached its goal of 1,000 signatures last week, but for now, its unclear what effect that will have. The petition, launched on Change.org shortly before the holidays, had reached nearly 1,500 signatures by the time of the News-Reviews print deadline Wednesday. Ryan Dunneback, a local resident and employee at a downtown business, created the petition with the intention of making Petoskey local friendly again, and said he would try to set up a meeting with Petoskey City Council once the the petition reached 1,000 signatures. Attempts to reach Dunneback via social media have been unsuccessful. The people of petoskey (sic) have spoken? Dunneback said in an online post on Dec. 26. 1,011 supporters and climbing, next step we make our voices heard. There is no legal weight to the petition as is, but Dunneback could request to have his issue placed on the agenda for the next city council meeting. According to the City of Petoskey meeting procedures, members of the City Council and others may request the City Manager to include items on the agendas of regular meetings of the City Council for and upon which the City Council would be asked to consider, discuss, or act. The creator of the petition has not reached out to me at this point but could address elected officials at any City Council meeting under Miscellaneous Public Comments, city manager Rob Straebel said in an email. Council could elect to have a more in-depth conversation on this topic at a future meeting if they so desire. The next Petoskey City Council meeting is at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 7 at at city hall. The parking policy in question has not yet come into effect, but when it does, it will mean the average parking rates in the downtown district will approximately double. That change came as a result of a controversial 3-2 city council vote in December the councils last meeting with its 2018 membership lineup. Technically, the power to set parking rates falls under the sole purview of the city manager, but Petoskey City Council members have authority to set maximum parking rates. Straebel said the city received 23 email comments regarding the proposed rate increase. Based on a verbal summary of those comments, a majority swung in opposition to most elements of the policy. Then-councilwoman Izzy Lyman also noted that she received the most comments ever in her tenure from constituents concerned about the change. Still, Downtown Management Board officials and committee members, who initially drafted the policy, held that the rates needed to be updated, as they had not changed for 15 years. The intended goal of the rate increase is twofold: to increase turnover in prime downtown parking locations and to raise revenues that will eventually be used for parking infrastructure. Under the proposal, meter fees on Lake, Mitchell and Howard streets, and the Elks, Clifton and Saville lots would increase to $1 an hour; on all other three-hour meters to 50 cents an hour; and on all 10-hour meters to 25 cents an hour. Tiered rates for long-term parking permits will increase from $20, $30 and $40, to $30, $60 and $120. Parking tickets would increase from $5 to $10, but subsequent late fees would accumulate at a slower pace, maxing out at $100 rather than $225 after 90 days. The policy is set to take effect in the second quarter of this year. In an email, Straebel noted that parking revenues in the past have been used for projects including expansion of the downtown bathrooms, land purchase for Phase II of the Greenway Corridor, funding of way-finding signs, and parking lot and landscape improvements. These improvements directly contribute to creating one of northern Michigan most vibrant downtowns that make Petoskey so special, he said. Although elected officials, the DMB and City Staff recognized the decision to raise fees and fines would be an unpopular one, studies show that our currently parking inventory is lacking and that a future parking structure is needed. Sean Miller (231) 439-9394 semiller2@petoskeynews.com The Petoskey News-Review Area arts centers and galleries had a full year in 2018 and are now looking forward to what 2019 has in store. The Crooked Tree Arts Center in Petoskey and the Charlevoix Circle of Arts in Charlevoix both have a number of new exhibits, workshops, classes and more in store to kick off the new year on a high note. Crooked Tree Arts Center The Crooked Tree Arts Center has a full year planned already in 2019 starting with a number of exhibits based on photography. We are excited to be opening three exhibits at the beginning of the year revolving around photography, said galleries director Liz Erlewine. I didnt see yet what all overlaps in terms of what artists we will have, but we have 34 in our juried show, 15 in the Photographic Society Show and three in our other exhibit. Two of the photography exhibits the 2019 Crooked Tree Photographic Society Show and the 2019 Juried Photography Exhibit will show off the photographic talent of Northern Michigan. The society show, according to an arts center handout, will showcase the work for the centers photographic society. The society is a group of photographers who reside throughout Northern Michigan that enjoy getting together each month to discuss and practice photography. The annual juried photography exhibition is judged by photography scholar John Fergus-Jean with a selection of works from Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Indiana photographers. I think its really exciting to start the year off with these exhibits to feature the amazing work being produced right here in our own backyard, said Erlewine. Even our curated exhibit features Midwest ties having been placed in different spaces around the country. The curated show the Crooked Tree Arts Center will be hosting revolves around themes of time and place, aptly called Here and There. The exhibit includes work from photographers who were invited to participate to offer a look at how photography can tell personal narratives about place in time. I am interested in seeing photography pushed beyond just the idea that its about documenting or capturing through these exhibits, said Erlewine. In March, the Crooked Tree Arts Center will say goodbye to all of its photographic work and exhibits to prepare its annual student and faculty shows that will take over its exhibit spaces. The 2019 North Central Michigan College Student Show will take place March 9 through April 13 and the annual North Central Michigan College Faculty Show will take place the next month from April 22 to May 18. Erlewine said she is also excited for the center to host the American Impressionist Society later this year with about 200 different paintings that will take over two galleries. More information about the Crooked Tree Arts Center can be found at www.crookedtree.org. Charlevoix Circle of Arts The Charlevoix Circle of Arts is also set with a complete schedule through all of 2019 but kicks off the year with an exhibit titled CMU Childrens book Illustration. The exhibit, according to executive director Gail DeMeyere, is out of a collection of original childrens book art that was gifted to Central Michigan University and its library. I went down and reviewed the collection and selected 52 pieces that Ill be picking up in January to bring here, she said. The exhibit will also be working with local illustrators and childrens book illustrators to come in and do gallery talks to fill out the exhibition. The second exhibit the organization will house will take place March 9 to April 6 and is its annual Spotlight on Innovation, working with local high school students and the Kendall College of Art and Design. Each year the Circle of Arts calls for students to submit work, and, alongside the exhibition, the college reviews it and has a portfolio review day for the students. Last year, as a result, $64,000 in scholarships were awarded to local students to attend the college after graduation. Its a very rewarding, gratifying and robust relationship with have between the Circle of Arts and the college to showcase student work and help them financially, said DeMeyere. Later on in the year, DeMeyere is extremely excited for the second annual Dragon Boat Festival that will take place on Saturday, Aug. 3. This festival exceeded our expectations this year and it was just so great, she said. It was a great community building event that was a whole lot of fun while bringing a new culture to Northern Michigan. The Charlevoix Circle of Arts has a lot more planned through 2019 with a full exhibit and workshop schedule and more. One constant that DeMeyere is proud of is the growth of the Circle of Arts and its Dorothy Gerber Strings program. Its been phenomenal with all the private lessons and in school instruction. We did over 20 concerts in the later part of 2018 and, for the first time in May, we will have an end of the year concert at the Great Lakes Center for the Arts, she said. More information about the Charlevoix Circle of Arts can be found at www.charlevoixcircle.com. Sean Miller (231) 439-9394 semiller2@petoskeynews.com The Petoskey News-Review HARBOR SPRINGS One local fused glass artist has been artistic her whole life but it wasnt until recently that she really dove into her preferred medium. Candace Spees, an artist from the Harbor Springs area, has moved back and forth from Northern and Southern Michigan over the past few decades. However, it was her last move to the north that landed her in an art class at North Central Michigan College. It was about two and a half years ago that my son and I decided to move back up here. I was working part time and thought Id take a class at the college, she said. I took a class with Lynn Dinning and she was an amazing instructor. I learned so much from her. Spees, who had previously taken classes at Kalamazoo Valley Community College, fell in love with her classes at North Central and followed that love into her passions for fused glass artwork. I had a bunch of stuff that I had made but ended up buying my own glass, my own tools and that kind of really got me into wanting to do more things than I was comfortable with, she said. One thing led to another and Spees found herself selling her work at the Crooked Tree Arts Center in Petoskey where she would routinely set up her booth in its market, talk with people and sell her work. Conversations with other area artists led her to show her work north of Petoskey, and closer to home, in Good Hart. Its a nice little area and hundreds of cars go by, she said. They let us set up there at their market on Saturdays and in the fall we can be there all weekend. Its always fun to go up there and sit and chat with people. Spees sold her work but wanted to continue developing her artwork and started making more than before. I had a lot of experimentation but made pendants, dishes and more and then got this idea to make Christmas ornaments. I started working on some designs and it was ridiculous. I had people buying eight or nine ornaments at a time and in September even. Spees passion for the medium continues her drive in continually making more and seeing what she can make next. Before she took her classes at North Central she didnt really use social media. Now she has over 7,000 pinned items on Pinterest helping her decide what to try and make next. I have all these ideas of things I want to make, she said. Aside from Pinterest I have books, sketches and all these drawings of things I want to make. That alone tells me Im enjoying myself. Most recently, Spees took part in the inaugural Slifco Electric Christkindlmarkt, a holiday market in Bay Harbor, and gained some interest in her work. It was a lot of fun and I seemed to get interest in my work, she said. Jillian Fellows (231) 439-9389 jfellows@petoskeynews.com The Petoskey News-Review ALANSON Samuel Lowery, a senior at Alanson Public Schools, recently received multiple nominations for appointment to United States military academies. Lowery, 17, was nominated to the United States Naval Academy by Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, and to the Naval Academy and the United States Air Force Academy by Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet. Applicants to military academies such as the United States Military Academy, the United States Naval Academy, the United States Air Force Academy and the United States Merchant Marine Academy are required to obtain a nomination from their U.S. senator, their U.S. representative or the U.S. vice president as part of the application process. Its a very big part (of the application process) because legally you have to have at least one nomination for the school to even look at your application, Lowery said. Lowery added that he was inspired to commit to service, to serving our whole country and serving a wider group of people, after years of scouting experience. A lot of it really came from scouting because scouting has really showed me a lot of different ways of serving the community and serving the people, he said. Rachelle Cook, Alansons superintendent and K-12 principal, said Lowery is a stellar student. I am not surprised that hes gotten this far in the process and has been nominated for both academies, she said. Were very proud of him. He goes above and beyond. He has always wanted to take challenging curriculum. Lowery was one of only four students from Northern Michigan to receive a nomination from Stabenow, and the only one from Emmet and Charlevoix counties. Michigan is fortunate to have so many exceptional students who want to serve our country through military service, Stabenow said in a press release. Having demonstrated a strong commitment to excellence in and out of the classroom, I am confident they will represent Michigan and our country well. Other students from Emmet and Charlevoix counties who received a nomination from Bergman include Hailey Mesner, Harbor Springs High School; Daniel Nesburg, Charlevoix High School; and Gabriella Rose, Petoskey High School. Having the opportunity to work with the young men and women seeking appointments to one of our nations service academies is one of the greatest honors of representing the First District. These impressive students are tomorrows leaders, and they have demonstrated their commitment to service and education, Bergman said in a press release. Seeing first hand the dedication of so many young men and women raised in the First District, I have every confidence that the future of our great nation is bright. Students who have been nominated must now wait to hear if they have been accepted to the military academies to which they have applied. By Hugh Hewitt Congressional Republicans have little to say or do in the shutdown debate. Whatever deal emerges from President Donald Trump's negotiations with incoming speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., will be supported by GOP members in both the House and Senate. So what should Capitol Hill supporters of the president focus on in the meantime? House Republicans, in the minority, ought to concentrate on recruiting strong candidates to retake the chamber in 2020. Their Senate colleagues, though, remain in the majority and, thus, should be working on nominations - around the clock, with no days off. When the last Congress adjourned, there were 12 federal appeals court nominations and more than 60 federal district court nominations pending. Even after nominees clear the Judiciary Committee, Senate Democrats have been insisting on using the 60 hours of floor time per nominee allotted under Senate rules before a final vote on confirmation. The Democrats dont actually speak during these delays; many often end up voting for the nominee. They are simply slowing down the train of nominees by blocking as much of the track as they can. It worked well in the last Congress. This Senate Republican majority, up to 53 in number, should just say no. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., can announce a "no recesses, no days off" policy until the backlog on judges and key executive branch posts is cleared. Not every senator has to stay at the Senate 24/7, of course, but all must take their turns keeping the clocks running. If Democrats don't relent, clearing the current backlog will still take between five and six months working around the clock. (And center-right judges of a certain age should think about retiring sooner rather than later. Personal vanity should not be placed before the need to further infuse the judiciary with young judges who take the Constitution seriously.) Staying in session around the clock is hard work, but it is what Republican and the conservative grass roots expect. Some senators facing potentially tough reelections may have to make it home more often than others, but anything less than a full commitment from Senate Republicans to clearing the nominee decks will be seen as business-as-usual-Inside-the-Beltway. McConnell did the most of any senator of the modern era to renew the courts, saving the Constitution as we know it by holding open the seat vacated by Justice Antonin Scalia's death in 2016, and he's made judicial confirmations his priority. He, outgoing Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and their colleagues did a great job these past two years. But it is now time to hit fifth gear. Go around the clock, or use the precedent set by then-Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to change the amount of time available to slow-walk any nominee below the level of the Supreme Court or the president's Cabinet to five hours- both before and after cloture. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., can be counted on to accelerate Judiciary Committee proceedings now that he has the gavel (why not two hearing days for nominees each week rather than one every two weeks?), and if the caucus won't support the use of the Reid Rule, then the majority leader has to make life uncomfortable for every senator. Voters won't mind seeing senators inconvenienced. Conservatives would cheer it, in fact, and approval from the center-right of the Senate would quickly rise. No matter how much senators are in session, most Americans would love to have jobs as undemanding as theirs, and six months of ceaseless work is what voters deserve. It took a lot of effort to save the GOP's Senate majority in 2018. Keeping it in 2020 requires the first half of 2019 be spent demonstrating why the majority is so crucial to hold. Hugh Hewitt, a Washington Post contributing columnist, hosts a nationally syndicated radio show and is a professor of law at Chapman Universitys Fowler School of Law. His work appears frequently on PennLive Opinion. York City Police said Dajuan Williams-Banks, 21, turned himself in Wednesday afternoon. Williams-Banks, of York, was wanted on a warrant for felony attempted homicide and aggravated assault connected to the shooting of a juvenile at Allen Field in York on Nov. 28, 2018. Fugitive Arrested On January 2, 2019 at 1230 pm, Dajuan Williams-Banks, age 21, of York, PA voluntarily surrendered... Posted by York City Police Department (York, Pa) on Wednesday, January 2, 2019 Williams-Banks was arraigned and transported to York County Prison after being unable to post $50,000 bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 15, according to online court documents. WATERVILLE - The death of the 62-year-old man killed following a seven-hour standoff Monday with law enforcement in Lycoming County has been declared a homicide. But, Lycoming County District Attorney Kenneth Osokow said Wednesday his preliminary ruling is a state police special response team member was justified in killing Brant Hartung. The ruling will not be made final until interviews with those at the scene in Waterville are completed, Osokow and Coroner Charles E. Kiessling Jr. said Wednesday. An autopsy was conducted on Hartung's body, but Kiessling said he will not release the location of the fatal wound until the investigation is completed. The trooper who fired the fatal shot has been placed on administrative leave per department of policy, a state police spokesman said. Hartung was killed when law enforcement personnel returned fire after he shot at them from his home on Church Street about 12:30 p.m. Additional details about the incident were disclosed in an affidavit of probable cause to support counts of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer and aggravated assault with which Hartung would have been charged had he surrendered. The incident began at 4:42 a.m. Monday when emergency services personnel were dispatched when Hartung called the 911 center to report he was suffering chest pains. When EMS personnel arrived, Hartung slammed the door on them, the affidavit states. As they began retreating from the area of house, they said they heard Hartung rummaging about and then a gunshot. State police were dispatched at 5:05 a.m. and they said they were fired on at 7:39 a.m. One of the rounds Hartung fired from a second floor window struck an ambulance, the affidavit states. Efforts were continuing to try to get Hartung to surrender when he again opened fire about 12:30 p.m., police said. They returned fire, killing him. No one was injured. A male neighbor who said he knew Hartung for 18 years told investigators he seemed to be acting abnormally over the weekend, the affidavit states. When he took food to the house Friday, Hartung was acting strangely and pacing about, police said they were told. On Saturday, he was seen outside yelling at his chickens and firing a shotgun at them because they would not listen, the affidavit states. State police in Carlisle are looking to identify a woman they said was involved in a Wednesday afternoon robbery at a bank in Cumberland County. Police were called about 12:47 p.m. to the Members First Federal Credit Union at 321 York Road in South Middleton Township, where the robbery was reported. According to police, the woman entered the bank and waited several minutes to approach a teller, allowing others to speak to tellers before her. The woman eventually approached a teller and presented a note, which demanded money, according to police. No weapons were displayed, police said. The woman was given an undisclosed amount of money before she fled the bank, police said. The robbery took place at about 12:30 p.m., police said. The woman was described as 5 feet, 4 inches tall with long brown hair and glasses, police said. She was wearing a gray zip-up hoodie and black gloves, and she carried a backpack, police said. Police have asked anyone with information about the robbery to call them at 717-249-2121. A police chief in Lackawanna County is back on the job after after being suspended and the subject of an investigation by the Pennsylvania Attorney Generals Office. Dunmore police chief Sal Marchese has been restored to his position as chief, according to a news release from borough officials issued Wednesday. The release indicates former state attorney general Walter Cohen informed borough officials last week that Marchese did not commit any violation, as had been suggested. Marchese was placed on paid administrative leave in December after a borough-led investigation began after a statement was made about him. It is not immediately clear what statement was made about Marchese, or by who. Basically, it was kind of some things that were going on in the department that were brought to the attention of different people there, State police spokesman Bob Urban in Dunmore-based Troop P said last month. GETTYSBURG -- The Gettysburg National Military Park remains open as the partial shutdown of the federal government stretches into its second week. And with a little help from the non-profit that works closely with the park, it has so far avoided problems of growing piles of trash and unsanitary bathrooms that have been reported at other national parks around the country. A lack of staff due to furloughs and unsanitary conditions have forced national parks like Sequoia and King Canyon to close, according to USA Today. Other parks that remain open, but with little staffing due to the shutdown, are reporting problems such as overflowing garbage and illegal offroading. Its a free-for-all, Dakota Snider, who lives and works in Yosemite Valley, told USA Today. Its so heartbreaking. There is more trash and human waste and disregard for the rules than Ive seen in my four years living here. But things are quite a bit cleaner in Gettysburg, where the Gettysburg Foundation, the non-profit, educational partner of the park that owns and operates the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitors Center, has stepped up to help. Brian Shaffer, the Gettysburg Foundations vice president of facilities, said workers go out daily to keep two of the five comfort stations which are restroom and information center combinations open and clean. Our normal custodial service will go out there and take care of that daily cleaning, he said. The roads on the battlefield remain open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., weather permitting. Battlefield tours with licensed guides will be able to continue because of this. And throughout the park, Teddi Joyce, vice president of marketing and sales at the Gettysburg Foundation, said there doesnt seem to be a problem with trash thats been reported in other national parks. And that may be because its Gettysburg. I drove round battlefield yesterday, and one of the things about this being such an important place and hallowed ground is that people are being respectful, she said. Theyre taking care of the park. While much of the park is open, programs, like the Winter Lecture Series, have been canceled for the remainder of the shutdown. The Eisenhower Historic Site, David Wills House and Soldiers National Cemetery are closed, as well. Despite the shutdown, tourism has actually seen a bit of an uptick for this time of year in Gettysburg. A lot of people whose travel plans to Washington DC were disrupted are making the drive up here because they hear Gettysburg is still open, Rachel Wright of Destination Gettysburg said. Were making lemonade out of lemons. Once such visitor Wednesday was Civil War buff Mike Wolfe, from Kansas. Ive never been here before, to Gettysburg, and its iconic, so we really want to take this opportunity to visit, Wolfe said. Its funny that its happening during this shutdown of the federal government, so there was some concern about whether the park would be open. We were pleasantly surprised that it was. Other effects of the shutdown on Pennsylvania are still being felt: If you want to purchase flood insurance, you can still do that. FEMA announced Friday that its reversing an earlier decision that would have limited sale of new policies and renewals. Most central Pennsylvania municipalities have managed to approve budgets that hold the line on taxes in 2019. But it wasnt always easy. Infrastructure and equipment costs add up. With paving projects and repairs on the horizon, officials in some boroughs and townships say it might be difficult to keep their budgets balanced in the future. A few decided to raise taxes, to cover these increasing costs after several years of no tax increases and, in some cases, to help pay for new multi-million-dollar buildings. Heres a look at some of the boroughs and townships in the region: Cumberland County: Camp Hill Camp Hill Borough officials were able to hold the line on taxes, which will remain at 3.33 mills, borough Manager Patrick Dennis said. That rate was approved at the boroughs December meeting, he said. A $17,000 surplus is predicted for the $5.4 million 2019 budget, Dennis said, unable to pinpoint any outlying operational costs. One-time projects could prove more costly, with borough officials planning park improvements as well as upgrades to composting equipment and a Market Street streetscape project, Dennis said. A school resource officer also has been added to the police force, Dennis said, explaining that the officers salary is partly reimbursed by the local school district. Carlisle Documents posted to the Carlisle Borough website show that there will be no tax increase in 2019. The millage rate is to remain at 3.058 mills, which translates to about $3.06 per every $1,000 of assessed value, the documents show. According to the documents, the 2019 general fund budget is balanced at $12,639,672. A letter signed by borough Manager Matthew H. Candland and posted to the site, said that 2018 revenue was slightly higher than expected due to the local earned income tax. That growth is expected to continue in 2019. But in 2019, the cost of health insurance premiums also will increase, the letter shows, adding that the increase will amount to about 12 percent. This translates to almost $200,000, the letter reads. At the same time, workers compensation premiums are expected to decrease by about $40,0000 to $50,000 due to low claims over the past few years, according to the letter. Dickinson Township Dickinson Township, which does not collect real estate taxes, will see no change to its fire tax in 2019, according to Assistant Manger Marge Metzger. Metzger said the balanced $1.2 million general fund budget does not include any outlying expenses, partly because a large roadwork project was completed in 2018. Actually, we are going to take it kind of easy on roadwork this year, she said. East Pennsboro Township Emergency services costs are the leading expense in East Pennsboro Township, township manager John Pietropaoli said. Out of 2019s balanced $10,328,00 budget, Pietropaoli said $2.5 million is planned for police costs. Thats the big thing in probably everyones budget, he said. That includes a school resource officer, he said. Township leaders were able to forgo a tax increase in 2019 with the real estate tax rate remaining at 1.1 mills, he said. That translates to $110 per every $100,000 in assessed value, and in the township an average home is valued at $200,000, Pietropaoli said. Though taxes will not be raised in 2019, Pietropaoli said there is a chance that there will be an increase in 2020. Hampden Township In Hampden Township, there was no tax increase, with the municipalitys millage rate remaining at 0.156 mills. The Hampden budget was approved at the townships November meeting and includes a projected surplus. Expenses in 2019 have been estimated at $15,234,820, with revenue projected at $15,824,932, according to township manager Keith Metts. That means municipal leaders are predicting a $590,112 general fund surplus in 2019. Both expenses and revenue are up from 2018 predictions, which were estimated at $15,110,113 and $15,401,552, respectively. In terms of outlying costs, Metts said one 2019 expense stands out. The commissioners have retained an architectural firm to design a new municipal building, he said. Bids are expected to be released in the first quarter of 2019. Hopewell Township Hopewell Township leaders have approved a $1.5 million 2019 budget, which includes a minor surplus, according to secretary Kim Myers. The township does not collect real estate taxes. Lower Mifflin Township Lower Mifflin Townships 2019 budget includes a slight surplus, with projected revenue of $209,160 and $208,020 in projected expenses, according to Brandi Lay, the townships secretary/treasurer. The township does not collect real estate taxes, Lay said. Mechanicsburg Mechanicsburg Borough also was able to hold the line on real estate taxes in 2019, according to a report from The Carlisle Sentinel. According to the report, the approved $5.5 million budget maintains a 3.83-mill real estate tax, which translates to $383 for every $100,000 in assessed real estate value. Middlesex Township Middlesex Township homeowners will see a real estate tax increase this year, with officials increasing the rate from .00153 to .00176 mills, according to township Manager Eileen Gault. That increase, Gault said, will help to fund a balanced $3,972,305 spending plan. The tax hike amounts to about $46 more dollars a year on a home valued at $200,000. That translates to about 88 cents a week for the average taxpayer, Gault said. Gault said there are some expensive maintenance and facility upgrade projects planned for 2019. Mount Holly Springs Mounty Holly Springs Borough will not see a real estate tax increase in 2019, with the rate remaining at 2.3 mills, according to Sara Jarrett-Eaton with the borough. However, there will be an increase to the fire tax rate, which will increase from .216 mills to .2341 mills, she said. The budget is balance at $969,668, with no large-scale projects planned, Jarrett-Eaton said. New Cumberland There is no tax increase in New Cumberland for 2019. The boroughs millage rate remains at 3.9 mills, or $390 for each $100,000 of assessed value. Receipts are estimated at $4,515,706 and expenditures are $5,049,021 with a projected ending fund balance of $1,277,483. Newburg Newburg Borough leaders have approved a 2019 general fund budget, with a more than $50,000 deficit, according to secretary Sara Rhine. The budget includes projected revenue at $204,055 and expenses at $260,059, Rhine said, adding that reserves are available to fill the deficit. She said expenses are largely driven by unfinished 2018 street projects, Rhine said. We have several street projects that were supposed to be done last year, she said. The boroughs real estate taxes remain unchanged at 2.5 mills. Silver Spring Township The township is holding the line on taxes, keeping the rate at 1.3045 mills with a general fund budget of $14.5 million. Dauphin County: Harrisburg Harrisburg City County also voted to hold the line on taxes in their approved, balanced $70.8 million 2019 budget. The budget fully funds the planned purchase of body cameras for Harrisburg police in 2019, appropriates funds for two new fire engines and contains $2.5 million for the hoped-for acquisition of a new public works headquarters building. Other notable expenditures in the new spending plan include: $345,000 for repairs to the sidewalks along the Susquehanna River. $270,000 to cover the citys match for mobility and other neighborhood improvements on Mulberry Streets approach to Derry Street. A continuation of the demolition of blighted buildings around the city. Papenfuses budget calls for the eradication of 41 blighted buildings in 2019. Derry Township Residents in Derry Township are looking at a tax increase in 2019 and possibly another one in 2020. Township supervisors approved the budget in a December meeting attended by many residents who voiced their opposition. Part of the tax hike is going toward paying the debt service on the planned $32 million Hershey Community Center. Construction on the center will begin in the spring. The 0.30 mill tax increase approved Dec. 18 will bring in an additional $621,995 for the township, costing homeowners $30 more per year for each $100,000 of assessed value. The township could be facing a second tax increase of 0.25 mills in 2020, but officials support that by saying it would place the township on solid financial footing until at least 2026. The tax increase also will help provide $170,000 to upgrade outdated software, $19,500 for two new police cars and $186,111 for public works vehicles and equipment. The townships general fund expenditures total $18,098,336, which is a 1.16 percent increase over last year. Hummelstown Hummelstown Borough will not see a 2019 tax increase, according to budget documents posted to the municipalitys website. Those documents show a projected general fund budget with an expected $3,143,040 in revenue and $2,380,839 in expenses, meaning officials are planning on a year-end surplus of $762,201. According to minutes from a budget workshop, expenditures are budgeted at $26,000 higher for 2019 than in 2018, with a salary increases of 3.5 percent budgeted through an approved police contract. An 8 percent increase also is estimated for liability insurance premiums. There is no increase proposed for the boroughs health and dental insurance plans, which saw a 3.4 percent hike in 2018. Lower Paxton Township The supervisors Dec. 18 approved a budget with no tax increase and a general fund balanced at $24,935,195. The millage rate remains at 1.95 mills. Township spokeswoman Leigh Ann Urban said the biggest change coming for this budget is the stormwater fee for 2019. Funds from this fee, which will be billed starting in July, will be collected by the townships sewer authority to be used for maintenance and operations of the stormwater system as well as future projects to reduce sediment in the townships streams. The township this year is also purchasing three new pieces of equipment for the three fire companies in the township for $2.3 million. Lower Swatara Township Residents in Lower Swatara Township will see no tax increase in 2019. The millage rate remains at 3.25 mills, or $325 for a $100,000 home. Revenue and expenses even out at $7,122,428 in 2018. Those numbers were $6,424,309 in 2018. Middletown Residents in Middletown will see their first tax increase in a decade. The Press & Journal reports the property tax bill will increase by 2 mills, or $200 for the owner of a $100,000 home. Borough officials said the tax hike is needed after holding the line on taxes for the last 11 years, according to reports, and despite 5 percent cuts in funding for discretionary items, general-fund spending is still higher at $6.9 million in 2019 compared to $6.1 million in 2018. Steelton Homeowners in Steelton will not see a tax increase this year, either. We have really focused on cost cutting to balance the budget and not balancing through increased revenue. That has remained relatively flat for the last 10 plus years, borough manager Douglas Brown said. Homeowners with a $100,000 assessed property value will continue paying $1,700 in taxes. The borough has held off on hiring one unfilled, part-time position and is also using $250,000 in unspent funds from 2018 for 2019 paving projects. For infrastructure projects, its about doing what the borough can when its able, Brown said. The good news is the pending sale of the boroughs water system could have Steelton debt-free by late summer. Brown said that would free up roughly $400,000 to $500,000 per year in the general fund for future projects and for leverage in securing grants. Susquehanna Township In Susquehanna Township, residents will see a tax increase in 2019. Township Manager David Kratzer said the millage rate is rising from 2.8 mills to 3.3 mills which would be a tax bill of $330 for a $100,000 home. Additionally, the fire-protection rate is increasing from 0.6 mills to 0.675 mills. Rising costs have been a big factor. Its largely just driven by increases related to employee expenses that are, in most cases, contractually obligated by collective bargaining, Kratzer said. And so is the fact that there is just no room to grow. Susquehanna Township is really built out, and theres not a tremendous amount of new growth to enhance the tax base, Kratzer said. As costs go up, there is no offsetting it with new development activity. To balance the budget, the township has also had to make cuts in its Parks and Recreation Department, he said, cutting down from three fulltime employees to no fulltime employees. The intention is to replace one of those positions with a part-time employee, he said. The township last raised taxes in 2017. Looking ahead to 2019, he said Susquehanna Township will continue to fight the challenges many suburban townships face with a lack of room to grow while providing services to its residents. Swatara Township No tax increase is in store for Swatara Township, but officials say its often tough to keep it that way with rising costs. Health insurance is one of the biggest costs that goes up each year, township manager Jim Fosselman said. Those continue to increase beyond the annual cost-of-living expenses. The cost of highway equipment is constantly on the rise, as well, he said. The township is also adding three new police officers and a GIS mapping technician. The township has gone for five or six years without a tax increase, he said, holding the tax rate steady at 3.76388 mils, or $376.39 for the owner of a $100,000 home. But some challenges are on the horizon. One is that the township lost about $160,000 in revenue because Norfolk Southern Railroads property has become tax exempt, he said. The township will need to pay for a few projects soon, such as paving work throughout township, and beginning work to fix the deteriorating stormwater infrastructure. Looking ahead, the township also will discuss the possibility of a new or renovated administrative building in 2019. Officials still have to work out how that will be done and want to be conservative with the costs, he said. West Hanover Township In West Hanover Township, there is no tax increase. Township Manager Daniel Rosario said this is the 30th year the township has held the line on taxes. The revenue for the township comes in at $3,656,086, which is slightly more than the expenses, leaving the township with a $1,243 surplus. Rosario said they operate on a cash in, cash out basis, paying for everything in cash. Perry County: Newport In Perry County, Newport Borough Council approved a budget that maintains the current tax rate of 4.341 mills. The Perry County Times reports the general fund budget is $892,848. The biggest expense is for public works and streets at $97,310. New Bloomfield Bloomfield Borough Council approved a budget with no tax increase as well, maintaining the rate at 2.1622 mills, or a $216.22 tax bill on a home assessed at $100,000. Taxes have stayed the same for 11 years. Duncannon Duncannon is keeping its general fund tax rate level but its budget includes an increase in the fire tax and water rates. This story has been updated to add more municipalities. Billing them as listening sessions, the Harrisburg Diocese has announced that Bishop Ronald Gainer early this year will hold town hall style meetings to address a host of topics, chief among them the 2018 grand jury report on clergy sex abuse. Gainer also plans to address the dioceses response to abuse and its path forward. Janet McNeal, who was recently appointed to oversee the dioceses youth protection program will also participate in the meetings. McNeal is a retired Pennsylvania State Police captain. The listening sessions will be held in January and February of 2019. The Harrisburg Diocese is expected to launch in coming weeks a fund that will financially compensate victims of clergy sex abuse. Harrisburgs program will operate independently of other dioceses, and will be overseen by attorney Kenneth Feinberg, who administered the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund as well as a similar compensation fund for the Archdiocese of New York. The Harrisburg Diocese last year was one of six Catholic dioceses at the center of a grand jury investigation led by Attorney General Josh Shapiro. State investigators unearthed widespread clergy sex abuse across the dioceses, and spanning some seven decades. Thousands of children were over the decades sexually molested by priests, even as bishops and church officials turned a blind eye to the crimes. Under a court order issued in December, the identity of Catholic priests whose names were redacted from the scathing report on clergy sex abuse will remain protected by that redaction. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that redaction was the only viable due process remedy that could be extended to the petitioners - the priests - to protect their constitutional rights to reputation. Eleven priests - out of the more than 300 priests identified in the report from the 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury - had petitioned the court to keep their names blacked out of the report as revealing their names would violate their constitutional rights. Victims and victims advocates this year pressured lawmakers to reform the statute of limitations, specifically to install a retroactive window for victims timed out of the legal system. Those efforts largely failed in the Legislature. Advocates pledge to revive those efforts in the new legislative session. Meanwhile, the federal government is conducting its own investigation into the sexual abuse of minors by priests. Victims widely say that the idea of a compensation fund program alone will not be sufficient to help them heal without the ability to seek legal recourse through a retroactive statute of limitation. The Pennsylvania grand jury investigation last year spawned a number of other similar states probes into the Catholic Church. As many as 20 local, state or federal investigations, either criminal or civil, have been launched since the release of the grand jury findings, the Associated Press is reporting. Over the past four months, Roman Catholic dioceses across the U.S. have released the names of more than 1,000 priests and others accused of sexually abusing children. Nearly 50 dioceses and religious orders have publicly identified child-molesting priests in the wake of the Pennsylvania report issued in mid-August, and 55 more have announced plans to do the same over the next few months, the AP found. Together they account for more than half of the nations 187 dioceses. The first listening session scheduled by the Harrisburg Diocese will take place at 7 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 10 at Saint Catherine Laboure Parish; 4000 Derry Street, Harrisburg. A full listing of the scheduled meetings are found on the dioceses website. Police in Lancaster have arrested a fourth suspect in the robbery at Smithgalls Pharmacy in October. Lamar Black, 29, of Harrisburg, was taken into custody on Dec. 23 after being served with a warrant, according to police. He faces charges of robbery and criminal conspiracy. Black is accused by police of being at the scene with the other three suspects - Johnny L. Straining Jr., Andrew S. Garrett, and Brandon L. Galette. Police also said he provided Galette with the handgun used in the robbery. Officers were dispatched at approximately 2:40 p.m. on Oct. 23 to the 500 block of West Lemon Street for a report of a robbery in progress at Smithgalls Pharmacy. Police said that when officers arrived, Galette was found lying on a nearby sidewalk, wearing a ski mask with a revolver near his right hand, and had been shot multiple times. Galette was one of two masked men who police said went to the pharmacy in an attempt to rob the business - the second man was later identified as Straining. During the robbery, Galette grabbed a pharmacy clerk by the neck before violently" throwing her into a display and eventually onto the ground, police said, adding that Galette then made his way to an area where employees were filling prescriptions. Straining joined Galette in the back room, where Galette pointed a gun at employees, police said. At some point during the robbery, former Lancaster mayor and pharmacy owner Charlie Smithgall retrieved his own firearm and pointed it at Galette, shooting him several times as they engaged in a fight, police said. Smithgall and Galette did fight over ... Smithgalls weapon for approximately 32 seconds in a violent struggle, police said, adding that Galette eventually took control of the weapon before fleeing the store and later being found on the sidewalk. Smithgall sustained "severe bruising to both of his forearms, as well as the left side of his chest and his back, police said. He also had cuts on his right hand, and was taken to a hospital to be treated for his injuries. Smithgall does not face charges for the shooting. Along with Black, here are the charges the other suspects face: Galette, Straining Jr., Garrett, and Black are all confined at Lancaster County Prison in lieu of $1 million bail. A federal appeals court panel has refused to revive a lawsuit by a female prison guard who was fired for making sexual comments to and sharing personal information with a male inmate. Lisa Hatch simply didnt prove discrimination was behind her termination from the Franklin County Jail, Judge Thomas I. Vanaskie found in the opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. Hatch appealed to the circuit court after U.S. Middle District Judge Yvette Kane dismissed her suit against Franklin County and prison administrators. Hatch claimed she was subjected to a hostile work environment. The path that led to Hatchs firing began in February 2014 when the male inmate reported she had been making inappropriate sexual comments to him, including talking about her sex life. The inmate also claimed Hatch gave him her Facebook information, would flick her tongue at him, discussed her mental health issues and complained about her job, Vanaskie noted. Hatch admitted some of the allegations, including discussing her mental health with the inmate, when confronted by prison investigators, the judge wrote. Vanaskie cited Hatchs claim that she did things like singing and sticking out her tongue to make the prisoner laugh. She maintained her behavior was not inappropriate, but rather was done to build a rapport with inmates, Vanaskie wrote. Prison officials disagreed and in March 2014 fired Hatch for conduct unbecoming of an officer and detrimental to the spirit of the jail. She had worked at the prison for six years. Hatch insisted in her suit that she was fired because of her sex and mental health condition and because she had taken a federally-guaranteed medical leave. Vanaskie found she provided no proof of such discrimination. The circuit judge also rejected Hatchs argument that she was punished more severely than other white male guards at the Franklin jail who broke the rules. Hatch cited instances where a male guard was suspended for sharing personal information with inmates and where four others were suspended for talking to an inmate about religion, posting on Facebook about dating an inmates sister, and harassing another officer. None of those cases involved behavior that was as ongoing, personal, and sexually explicit as the behavior that led to (Hatchs) termination, Vanaskie found. Nor, he concluded, did sparse discussions by prison officials regarding Hatchs mental health create a severe or pervasive hostile work environment. Those looking to skirt parking fees at this years Pennsylvania Farm Show should rethink any plans to park illegally. In the days before the shows Saturday opening, police and show officials have warned that those breaking parking rules may be ticketed, but its much more likely that their vehicles will be towed at owners' expense a cost that would far exceeds the $15 fee charged for parking in Farm Show lots. Last year in Harrisburg, city police issued only four parking enforcement tickets in the area near the Farm Show complex during the show, according to police Capt. Gabriel Olivera. But private property owners had 24 vehicles towed away. Robert Martin, chief of police in nearby Susquehanna Township, said his municipality sees very few parking issues during the Farm Show. But Troy Thompson, spokesman for the state Department of General Services, said there are people who try to find free parking in places where they shouldnt such as the shoulder of a nearby road, or in the parking lots of private businesses on North Cameron Street. You do see some creative parking in terms of what people try to do, Thompson said. Those issues largely are dealt with by local police, Thompson said, adding that Capitol Police are on hand at the Farm Show to deal with crowd control, traffic and security issues. Last week, state police spokesman Ryan Tarkowski said the same, explaining that troopers from throughout the state are assigned to work the show, where they maintain a visible presence. They arent there to issue parking tickets, he said. Our message to people is that several law enforcement agencies are working together both visibly during the event and behind the scenes to keep them safe, Tarkowski said. We know that traffic will be heavy in the area during the Farm Show, and we ask everyone to be patient and courteous to their fellow drivers. According to state Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Shannon Powers, parking can sometimes be problematic in the shows lots, with motorists ignoring rules and becoming angry with growing crowds. One of the biggest problems we encounter are people disregarding parking guards instructions, or being irate when parking is not unlimited, Powers said. Vehicles enter the North Lot at the 2016 Pennsylvania Farm Show, January 14, 2016. Dan Gleiter, PennLive.comPENNLIVE.COM Farm Show security officers do not issue tickets to those breaking parking rules, but they will call towing companies to remove vehicles in no-parking areas and fire zones, and those blocking traffic, Powers said. She said she didnt know how many vehicles were towed in a typical year. An employee at the Burger King on North Cameron Street near the complex said the restaurant sometimes sees Farm Show attendees attempting to park in its lot. If they do park in our lot, they will be towed, she said. You are ... not allowed to park on private property without permission, Capt. Olivera said. Olivera also cautioned that vehicles may be towed at the behest of Harrisburg police if they are parked in areas where it is prohibited, such as along the roadside near the complex. In 2018, more than 57,000 motorists paid to park in the four lots managed by Farm Show security officers, said Powers. That does not include complimentary parking passes issued to exhibitors, vendors, staff, volunteers, and credentialed media covering the show, Powers said. The Farm Shows four lots offer about 10,200 parking spots, Powers said. That includes about 3,500 at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex & Expo Center on the 2300 block of North Cameron Street and another 400 spots across Cameron Street at the Department of Agriculture. The other two off-site lots are located at the intersection of Elmerton Avenue and Sycamore Street, where another 3,500 spots are available, and at Harrisburg Area Community College along Wildwood Park Drive, where 2,800 spots are available, Powers said. Handicapped-accessible parking is located in lots adjacent to the complex, which also has drop-off locations available, said Powers. Shuttles area available to people parking in the off-site lots. William Morris, 7yrs., has his scarf rapped around his face as him and his family sister Jenny, 4yrs, mom Lynda, and dad Bob, from Carlisle, wait for the shuttle back to their car in front of the Farm Show complex in Harrisburg Saturday January 10, 2004. (CHRIS KNIGHT) Some neighbors offer parking, but it is not under the management of the complex, Powers said. The Pennsylvania Farm Show website offers tips to prospective parkers, urging them to be prepared for heavy vehicle and pedestrian congestion and to follow PennDOT traffic signs, which will lead to open parking lots. The show and its lots are the busiest on weekends and during weekdays between 3:30 and 5:30 p.m., according to the site. Remember to write down the name of your parking lot and general location of your vehicle, officials posted on the site. A former veterinarian has avoided more prison time after pleading guilty to animal cruelty charges for brutally debarking dogs in Lancaster County. County Judge Dennis E. Reinaker sentenced Denise Felling, 55, to time served to 23 months in prison after she pleaded guilty to eight aggravated cruelty to animals charges late last month, court records show. Investigators said Felling illegally rendered the dogs in Quarryville and Kinzers unable to bark by shoving a rod into their vocal chambers. Felling had been in county prison since being extradited from her home state of Iowa in early December to face the Pennsylvania felony charges. Gillian Kocher, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania SPCA, said Thursday that Felling returned to Iowa after being sentenced. We are grateful to the district attorneys office for taking this case so seriously and going to the extent of extraditing Felling to Pennsylvania to face her crimes, Kocher said. We hope this will serve as a deterrent to both Felling and other individuals who may consider committing such heinous acts. This case only further highlights the Pennsylvania SPCAs dedication to Lancaster County. The charges on which Felling was prosecuted resulted from a 2017 overhaul of Pennsylvanias animal cruelty laws. WASHINGTON (AP) The 116th Congress gaveled into session Thursday swathed in history, returning the first woman to the House speakers office and ushering in a diverse class of Democratic freshmen ready to confront President Donald Trump in a new era of divided government. The new Congress is like none other. There are more women than ever before, and a new generation of Muslims, Latinos, Native Americans and African-Americans in the House is creating what academics call a reflective democracy, more aligned with the population of the United States. The Republican side in the House is still made up mostly of white men, and in the Senate Republicans bolstered their ranks in the majority. In a nod to the moment, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader, was broadly pledging to make Congress work for all Americans addressing kitchen table issues at a time of deep economic churn even as her party is ready to challenge Trump with investigations and subpoena powers that threaten the White House agenda. It's the first new Congress to convene amid a partial government shutdown, now in its 13th day over Trump's demands for money for a wall along the U.S-Mexico border. "This House will be for the people," Pelosi was to say in remarks after winning the gavel, according to excerpts released ahead of time, "to lower health costs and prescription drugs prices, and protect people with pre-existing conditions; to increase paychecks by rebuilding America with green and modern infrastructure -- from sea to shining sea." Pelosi vowed "to restore integrity to government, so that people can have confidence that government works for the public interest, not the special interests." The day was unfolding as one of both celebration and impatience. Newly elected lawmakers arrived, often with friends and families in tow, to take the oath of office and pose for ceremonial photos. The Democrats planned to quickly pass legislation to re-open the government, but without the funding Trump is demanding for his promised border wall. Vice President Mike Pence swore in newly-elected senators, but Senate Republicans under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had no plans to consider the House bills to fund the government unless Trump agrees to sign them into law. That ensures the shutdown will continue, clouding the first days of the new session. It's a time of stark national political division that some analysts say is on par with the Civil War era. Battle lines are drawn not just between Democrats and Republicans but within the parties themselves, splintered by their left and right flanks. Pelosi defied history in returning to the speaker's office after eight years in the minority, overcoming internal opposition from Democrats demanding a new generation of leaders. She will be the first to regain the gavel since legendary Sam Rayburn of Texas in 1955. Putting Pelosi's name forward for nomination, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the incoming Democratic caucus chair, recounted her previous accomplishments -- passing the Affordable Care Act, helping the country out of the Great Recession -- as preludes to her next ones. He called her leadership "unparalleled in modern American history." As speaker, she'll face an early challenge from the party's robust wing of liberal newcomers, including 29-year-old New Yorker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has risen to such prominence she is already known around the Capitol and on her prolific social media accounts by the nickname "AOC." She said she'd cast a no vote on a new package of rules to govern the House. Ocasio-Cortez and other liberals oppose the pay-as-you-go budget provisions in the rules package that would allow restrictive objections to any legislation that would add to federal deficits. They say such restraints would hamstring Democratic efforts to invest in health care, education and develop a Green New Deal of renewable energy infrastructure projects to fight climate change. Republicans face their own internal battles beyond just the conservative House Freedom Caucus, but as they decide how closely to tie their political fortunes to Trump. GOP leader Kevin McCarthy's name was put into nomination by his party's caucus chair, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the daughter of the former vice president. She said McCarthy knows "our rights come from God" and "government is not the source of our liberty." Many GOP senators are up for re-election in 2020 in states, including Colorado and Maine, where voters have mixed views of Trump's performance in the White House. Trump, whose own bid for 2020 already is underway, faces potential challenges from the ranks of Senate Democrats under Chuck Schumer. Trump had little to say early Thursday as the new Congress was convening, but he did tweet an attack on one of his likely presidential challengers, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, mocking her claim to Native American ancestry. The halls of the Capitol were bustling with arrivals, children in the arms of many new lawmakers. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., opened the House prayer asking at "a time fraught with tribalism at home and turbulence abroad" that lawmakers "become the architects of a kindlier nation." Overnight, Democratic Rep.-elect Ilhan Omar of Minnesota tweeted a picture with her family at the airport. She wrote, 23 years ago, from a refugee camp in Kenya, my father and I arrived at an airport in Washington DC. Today, we return to that same airport on the eve of my swearing in as the first Somali-American in Congress. U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., begins his third term today. U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, a York County Republican, begins his fourth term today. ___ By Lisa Mascaro, AP Congressional Correspondent; AP writers Alan Fram and Laurie Kellman in Washington contributed to this report. A York County man faces 20 felony child pornography charges, after police said he was caught with sexual images of children on his phone. The man was not allowed to have the phone because he previously pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography, police said. Robert G. Cave, 47, of York was scheduled to be arraigned on the 20 charges Thursday morning before Magisterial District Judge Joel N. Toluba, according to online court records. In 2013, Cave pleaded guilty to previous charges of possession of child pornography, police said, adding that he is currently on parole for those charges. In September, police were contacted by Caves probation officer, who said he caught Cave trying to conceal a smartphone, which he is not allowed to have as a condition of his parole, according to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday by York City police. The parole officer took the phone, and, on it, he found a number of internet searches referencing children, police said. The phone was turned over to police, and, on it, investigators found 79 notable photographs, police said. Some of those photographs showed children as young as 3 to 5 years old performing sex acts on adults, according to the complaint. A total of 20 images out of the 79 found on the phone could be considered child pornography, police said, explaining that is why the 20 felony charges were filed. On the phone, police said they also found searches on a Russian website, known for its usage of child pornography spreading. Clifford A. Christian was 69 years old when he raped an 8-year-old girl in a Swatara Township motel room in June 2017. He was 71 as he stood before Dauphin County President Judge Richard A. Lewis in shackles Thursday morning, waiting to learn how long hed be spending behind bars for the crime. The answer provided by Lewis was 8 to 20 years, a penalty the judge observed could very well equate to a death sentence. You know judge, there are a lot of people who would argue that is exactly what he deserves, Chief Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Gettle said. Christian pleaded guilty to charges including rape of a child in October, just before he was to go to trial. He had no specific sentencing deal, just a guarantee that hed have to spend at least five to 10 years in prison, Gettle said. The final call on sentencing was left to Lewis. The prosecutor said the rape occurred when Christian was alone in the motel room with the girl. He told her, Lets make this quick, and then forced himself on her, Gettle told the judge. Id like to turn back the clock, but I cant, Christian said when Lewis gave him the chance to speak. What was done by me was inexcusableIve got to pay the piper now. Im pleading for a little bit of mercy from you, sir, he added. Defense attorney Damian Destefano urged Lewis to impose a minimum 5-year prison sentence, which he insisted would constitute a just punishment. Christian had suffered a stroke not long before he committed the crime, Destefano said. Gettle said the girl and her family didnt attend the sentencing hearing because they couldnt endure the emotional pain. Township police Detective Thomas Robbins, the lead investigator, said he was there to represent the victim. She said she took three showers (after the rape) and three showers were not enough, Robbins said. Gettle said the girl still is struggling emotionally and physically because of the attack. She quoted the girls mother as saying, Its hard to fathom and it is impossible to put into words the harm (Christian) has caused. Lewis said that in choosing a punishment, he had to consider not only Christians age and health issues, but also the devastating impact on the victim. I cant imagine what this child is going to go through for decades to come, the judge said. PHILADELPHIA (AP) Over the past four months, Roman Catholic dioceses across the U.S. have released the names of more than 1,000 priests and others accused of sexually abusing children in an unprecedented public reckoning spurred at least in part by a shocking grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania, an Associated Press review has found. Nearly 50 dioceses and religious orders have publicly identified child-molesting priests in the wake of the Pennsylvania report issued in mid-August, and 55 more have announced plans to do the same over the next few months, the AP found. Together they account for more than half of the nation's 187 dioceses. The review also found that nearly 20 local, state or federal investigations, either criminal or civil, have been launched since the release of the grand jury findings. Those investigations could lead to more names and more damning accusations, as well as fines against dioceses and court-ordered safety measures. "People saw what happened in these parishes in Pennsylvania and said, 'That happened in my parish too.' They could see the immediate connection, and they are demanding the same accounting," said Tim Lennon, national president of the board of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. The recently disclosed accusations date back six or seven decades in some cases, with the oldest from the 1910s in Louisiana. Most of the priests were long ago removed from ministry. An AP examination found that more than 60 percent are dead. In most cases, the statute of limitations for bringing criminal charges or suing has run out. FILE - In this Aug. 15, 2018 file photo, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, conducts Mass at St. Mathews Cathedral in Washington. Over the past four months, Roman Catholic dioceses across the U.S. have released the names of more than 1,000 priests and others accused of sexually abusing children in an unprecedented public reckoning spurred at least in part by a shocking grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania, an Associated Press review has found. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File)AP Nevertheless, advocates say exposing molesters nearly two decades after the scandal first erupted in Boston in 2002 is an encouraging step, in part because it gives some victims a sense of vindication after decades of official silence or denials. Also, it could increase pressure on dioceses to set up victims' compensation funds, as the church has done in Pennsylvania already. And it could result in the removal of molesters from positions outside the church that give them access to children. "This is a milestone. We are getting closer and closer to what this ought to be, the true coming to terms that would have to be at a national level," said Joe McLean, who filed a lawsuit with other victims seeking to compel the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to release files on alleged abusers nationwide. The Pennsylvania investigation, led by state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, identified nearly 300 predator priests dating back seven decades and accused church leaders of covering up for the abuses, in some cases by returning priests to duty after short stays in treatment centers or reassigning them. Advocates said the report had big impact because it was the largest to date in scope, encompassing most of the state. Victims' advocates and others, including some church officials, said the report was largely responsible for the urgency now being shown by the church. Many bishops cited those findings and other scandals including the resignation over the summer of Washington Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, accused of groping an altar boy in the 1970s in their letters to their congregations. The biggest list of names has come from the Jesuits West Province, a religious order that encompasses nine Western states. It identified 111 priests. The New Orleans Archdiocese and the Diocese of Syracuse, New York, named 61 and 57 respectively. The Great Falls-Billings, Montana, Diocese disclosed 47 names, including those of a few nuns, while the Los Angeles Archdiocese reported more than 50 from the past decade or so. Some dioceses, like Peoria, Illinois, released only names with no information on the allegations or the church's response. Others detailed such things as parish assignments, numbers and dates of allegations including an Omaha priest with 20 to 35 accusations against him and attempts at treatment, restriction and punishment. And more names could be coming in places where attorneys general have launched statewide investigations such as New Jersey, New York, Nebraska, Florida and Delaware, or in cities like Houston or Cheyenne, Wyoming, where local prosecutors are looking into individual priests. In his Christmas address last month, Pope Francis made an unprecedented call for priests who had abused children to turn themselves in and vowed the church will "never again" hide their crimes. The world's bishops will hold a summit at the Vatican next month to forge a comprehensive response to the crisis. FILE - In this Monday, April 23, 2018 file photo, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan speaks during a news conference in Chicago. In mid-December, Madigan issued a blistering preliminary report saying a review of church files showed dioceses in Illinois had withheld the names of at least 500 clergy accused of sexually abusing children. It was obvious that this type of concealment, this type of unresolved action in Pennsylvania, that we were going to find the same thing in Illinois, Madigan said. (Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times via AP, File)AP The U.S. bishops adopted new reporting procedures and other reforms after the furor in Boston but held off on any further measures recently at the direction of the Vatican. The bishops are holding a retreat outside Chicago starting Wednesday for "prayer and reflection" upon the scandal. Messages left by the AP seeking comment from conference officials were not returned. In the 16 years between the Boston scandal and the Pennsylvania investigation, only about 30 dioceses around the country had released lists of priests they deemed credibly accused of abuse. Most of those dioceses came clean because they were forced to do so by lawsuits or bankruptcy filings. Some dioceses declined to name any deceased priests, since they could not defend themselves, and some would not identify any clergy members at all. Now, 13 dioceses have hired outside consultants including FBI agents and former judges to review their files, and dioceses that had previously been secretive are coordinating to release statewide lists in such places as Texas and New Jersey. Bishop Anthony B. Taylor of the Little Rock Diocese in Arkansas disclosed the names of 12 priests in September and announced the hiring of a consultant to review diocesan files. "The Pennsylvania grand jury report kind of helped us firm up our decision to move forward with what we were doing. It affected the timing rather than the decision," Taylor said. In October, the pope accepted the resignation of Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, D.C., after he was accused in the report of mishandling some allegations of abuse against priests and others while bishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006. The report is also credited with spurring an uptick in victims contacting support networks or law enforcement. Pennsylvania's clergy abuse hotline has received more than 1,400 new allegations since August, and Lennon said there has been a dramatic increase in victims reaching out to SNAP. While praising the release of names, many experts said the lists are often incomplete. Terence McKiernan, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, which has tracked abuse for more than a decade, said many dioceses have left off names of known abusers his group has published in its online database. "It's not enough," Pennsylvania's Shapiro agreed. "I do not believe that the church is capable of policing itself though. They need outside forces, ideally law enforcement, to hold them accountable." Shapiro said he has spoken to 45 other attorneys general since his report, and 14 have publicly acknowledged some form of investigation. Other investigations have become public because of dioceses acknowledging subpoenas, reporters documenting raids or state agencies advertising victim hotlines. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan printed a copy of the Pennsylvania report the day it came out. In mid-December, she issued a blistering preliminary report saying a review of church files showed dioceses in Illinois had withheld the names of at least 500 clergy accused of sexually abusing children. It was obvious that this type of concealment, this type of unresolved action in Pennsylvania, that we were going to find the same thing in Illinois, Madigan said. Mitt Romney will replace Orrin Hatch in the Senate this year, and he has kicked 2019 off with a bang, writing a how dare you sir-esque column about President Trump in The Washington Post. Per the incoming Junior Senator from Utah (emphasis mine): It is well known that Donald Trump was not my choice for the Republican presidential nomination. After he became the nominee, I hoped his campaign would refrain from resentment and name-calling. It did not. When he won the election, I hoped he would rise to the occasion. His early appointments of Rex Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, Nikki Haley, Gary Cohn, H.R. McMaster, Kelly and Mattis were encouraging. But, on balance, his conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions last month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office. It is not that all of the presidents policies have been misguided. He was right to align U.S. corporate taxes with those of global competitors, to strip out excessive regulations, to crack down on Chinas unfair trade practices, to reform criminal justice and to appoint conservative judges. These are policies mainstream Republicans have promoted for years. But policies and appointments are only a part of a presidency. To a great degree, a presidency shapes the public character of the nation. A president should unite us and inspire us to follow our better angels. A president should demonstrate the essential qualities of honesty and integrity, and elevate the national discourse with comity and mutual respect. As a nation, we have been blessed with presidents who have called on the greatness of the American spirit. With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable. And it is in this province where the incumbents shortfall has been most glaring. Now, this isnt nothing. Mitt Romney said that the leader of his party lacks the character to lead the country. Thats about as strong of a condemnation of Trump as we have heard from rank-and-file Republicans (which says more about the Republicans than Romney, but I digress), and doing it just before he is about to join the new congress sends a message. The question is: what kind of message does it send? There is no mention of the children who have died on the border on Trumps watch, despite Romneys insistence that we should favor politicians who respect the dignity of every child of God. He doesnt speak of immigration policies like Trumps child concentration camps, and only asserts that I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant. Even by Mitts own admission, all he will do in the face of Trumps injustices is speak out. And thats the message that this sends. That when confronted with a historically unpopular president surrounded by a sprawling federal investigation that gets worse by the day, Mitt will sprint to the op-ed page of The Washington Post to speak out about how concerned he is. There are no specifics on what he will actually do with his power, outside of this boilerplate statement that could have come from any politician from either party in congress: I will act as I would with any president, in or out of my party: I will support policies that I believe are in the best interest of the country and my state, and oppose those that are not. In 2018, Mitt Romney said that hes more of a hawk on immigration than Trump, and cited his opposition to an Obama-initiative that offered protections for young undocumented immigrants. In 2012, Mitt Romney sought out Donald Trumps endorsement after Trump had already said things like: Why doesnt [Obama] show his birth certificate? Theres something on that birth certificate that he doesnt like. And He doesnt have a birth certificate, or if he does, theres something on that certificate that is very bad for him. Now, somebody told me and I have no idea if this is bad for him or not, but perhaps it would be that where it says religion, it might have Muslim. And if youre a Muslim, you dont change your religion, by the way. And His grandmother in Kenya said, Oh, no, he was born in Kenya and I was there and I witnessed the birth. Shes on tape. I think that tapes going to be produced fairly soon. Somebody is coming out with a book in two weeks, it will be very interesting. So why should we believe anything that Mitt Romney has to say when he tweeted this in 2016? If Trump had said 4 years ago the things he says today about the KKK, Muslims, Mexicans, disabled, I would NOT have accepted his endorsement Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) March 3, 2016 Especially when the cycle replayed itself all over again, as Trump said this in 2017 after a group of Neo-Nazis marched on Charlottesville and one of them murdered Heather Heyer: You also had some very fine people on both sides. And yet, here is Mitt again in 2018: Thank you Mr. President for the support. I hope that over the course of the campaign I also earn the support and endorsement of the people of Utah. Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) February 20, 2018 Now in 2019, he's supposedly worried again. There is absolutely, positively no reason to think that Mitt Romney will back these words up with any coherent action that aims to enforce his concerns. There is every reason to expect him to be just another version of Jeff Flakean empty suit only interested in scoring points with the public and major media by expressing his concern over the president he continually votes to empower. That said, the immediate response from everyone online of oh, this is just another Flake is a bad comparison right now. Until Mitt Romney gains the power we claim he won't use, we cannot say that this is feckless. There's always a nonzero chance that a person can truly change for the better. Right now, all we can do is rely on Mitt Romney's history to inform us of what his future actions may be, and his history gives us every indication that the op-ed will be nothing more than vacuous words that disappear the moment that Romney gets a chance to vote yea on a 32 year-old Federalist Society-backed judge who wrote that unborn babies should have more constitutionally protected rights than living women. There's also another possible angle to the what kind of message does it send? that doubles as the elephant in the room. Mitt may be thinking about primarying Trump in 2020. Given the cultishness of the GOP, and Trump's near 90% approval rating within it, that seems incredibly unlikely, but it's certainly spooked some in the Republican Party. Romney's own niece, who is the GOP Chair, denounced Romney's op-ed in defense of Dear Leader. The Washington Examiner got their hands on an e-mail from RNC committeeman Jevon O.A. Williams, saying: Look, the political history is clear. No Republican president opposed for re-nomination has ever won re-election. Unfortunately, loopholes in the rules governing the 2020 re-nomination campaign are enabling these so-called Republicans to flirt with the possibility of contested primaries and caucuses. Mitt Romney's presidential ambitious are obvious, as his history of courting Trump's endorsement and denouncing him when convenient prove. This could be him positioning himself for a 2020 primary or a 2024 run against the Democratic nominee, or it could be him trying to brandish his Very Serious Person bona fides to guarantee him bookings on major TV outlets for the rest of his life. Whatever Mitt Romney is trying to do with this op-ed, his history indicates that it's likely about serving the interests of one person and one person only: Mitt Romney. UPDATE: Shortly after this column posted, Mitt Romney went on CNN and shed light on the 2020 speculation. Romney in CNN interview right now. Romney on whether he would endorse Trump in 2020: "I want to see what the alternatives are." Will Romney himself run?: "No." S.V. Date (@svdate) January 2, 2019 Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling. The Colorado River Indian Tribes have loosened rules on face mask requirements. The Tribes introduced an updated policy Monday that says people who have been fully vaccinated are not required to wear face masks while indoors. The Tribes said businesses on tribal land may choose to continue to enforce facemask requirements for all patrons because there's not an effective way to monitor vaccination status for individuals, according to a CRIT statement published on the tribes' social media sites. CRIT's modified order says businesses must verify whether all employees are vaccinated before allowing them to work unmasked. Face masks must still be worn by employees working congregate settings such as nursing homes, hospitals and detention facilities. The order says face masks do not have to be worn outdoors. Organizing a richly diverse political coalition is tough. Keeping it together can be even tougher. Thats the big message in the cancellation by local organizers of plans for a 2019 Chicago Womens March after months of controversy over links in the movements national leadership to the perennially controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. On their Facebook page, Chicago march organizers cite high costs and limited volunteers for canceling the march. They would plan another activity yet to be announced for Jan. 19, the day of the scuttled march. Organizers also urged supporters to join marches in other cities, including some elsewhere in Illinois. Unmentioned in that announcement is the condemnation by the Chicago chapter of the national Womens March leadership for its ties to anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQ statements by Chicago-based Minister Farrakhan. National co-chair Tamika Mallory raised an uproar in February by attending the Nation of Islams annual Saviours Day program in Chicagos Wintrust Arena and defending her attendance later. There Farrakhan slandered the powerful Jews as my enemy and the mother and father of apartheid, who, among other things, are supposedly doctoring marijuana to turn black men gay by blocking their testosterone. (If that doesnt reduce pot smoking, in my sarcastic opinion, nothing will.) Amid the backlash, Mallory tried to mend fences by denouncing Farrakhans divisive rhetoric but praised the help given to her, particularly by women of the Nation of Islam after her sons father was murdered in the late 1990s. My reaction: Here we go again. Having observed, interviewed or commented on Minister Farrakhan and his controversies for more than three decades, Im disappointed but not surprised by this latest dust-up. The ministers anti-Semitic rhetoric, in particular, has been disrupting interracial appeals of black politicians for more than 30 years. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Among other notables, the Rev. Jesse Jackson in his first presidential campaign in 1984, former Chicago Mayor Harold Washington in his first campaign a year earlier and Barack Obama in his first presidential run in 2008 were called upon to denounce anti-Semitic comments by Farrakhan without committing political suicide by alienating their own political base. The Daily Caller, among other conservative media, has called out black lawmakers for merely meeting with Farrakhan or sharing the same stage with him. Yet countless African-Americans, particularly those who live in troubled neighborhoods, have a more complicated view of the minister as a champion of the black poor and dispossessed. Theyve seen his bow-tied Fruit of Islam patrol tough neighborhoods and run off drug dealers. Theyve seen the Nation reform family members who went to prison and came out as self-respecting workers, family leaders and entrepreneurs. Some were present as I was at Farrakhans historic Million Man March on the Washington Mall, where he uttered not a divisive word about other races or gender preferences. Instead he offered a revival-like message of hope and unity that even impressed some conservative commentators. Many had mistaken him for a liberal, instead of a bow-tie-wearing self-help Booker T. Washington conservative. Nevertheless, like others, I have often asked why black political leaders have such a tough time denouncing Farrakhans bigoted remarks. Ironically my efforts to understand President Donald Trumps support base have helped me to understand Farrakhans appeal. When we criticize Farrakhan by focusing on his radical, ethnic or gender bias, we run the same risk that we run in attacking Donald Trumps scapegoating of immigrants and others as racist. We can unintentionally glorify him in the eyes of his target audiences as a false prophet of black American aspirations, in much the same way that Trump turns criticism into evidence for his base that he must be doing something right. Like Trump, although more eloquently, Farrakhan offers a narrative that names the cause of his audiences oppression, often in an oversimplified explanation that gives them someone upon whom they can blame their troubles. When I run into Trump supporters who say they support him in spite of his racial-ethnic fearmongering, not because of it, I am now reminded of Farrakhan supporters who say pretty much the same thing from our side of the color line as African-Americans. But those of us who want to build true coalitions across racial and gender lines cannot afford to ignore the divide-and-conquer approach that makes Trump and Farrakhans messages ultimately self-defeating. We all make choices in voting for one candidate over another in spite of certain shortcomings. But the shortcomings that turn us into warring tribes are too dangerous to be ignored. Clarence Page is a member of the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board. Readers may send him email at cpage@chicagotribune.com. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The Lord is her shepherd, and she is ours having led all of us to know the glory of God and his son, Jesus Christ. Evelyn Tosh left us at 9 p.m. Sunday night (Dec. 30, 2018) at Heritage Health in Bloomington. Her funeral will be at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Beck Memorial Home, Bloomington, with visitation beginning at 11:30 a.m. The Rev. Larry Gaylord will officiate. Evelyn was born May 2, 1919, at her home in West Burlington, Iowa, the daughter of Fritz and Emma Pierson Hogberg. She married William Tosh on Jan. 21, 1939 in Bloomington. He passed away Jan. 3, 1997. Surviving are four children, Sherrilyn (Gib, deceased) Smith, Bloomington; Stephen R. (Roberta) Tosh, Logansport, Ind.; Terry (Kathy Nicholson-Tosh) Tosh, Bloomington; and Debra (Dave) Damron, Olive Branch, Miss. Evelyn was also blessed with 16 grandchildren, 36 great-grandchildren, and 36 great-great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her parents, six sisters, a granddaughter and two great-great-grandchildren. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Evelyn loved her family fiercely. She was gracious, honest to a fault, and the consummate homemaker, wife, mother and grandmother, all roles she managed with amazing patience and expertise and, as she believed, the Lord received all the credit. She was a loyal friend to many and will be missed by all who knew her and received her wise guidance. This past Christmas, Evelyn delivered a personal message to all her family during Swedish Christmas dinner at West Olive Faith United Methodist Church. With 50 or so present, Evelyn thanked the family for being there, for their love over the years, and, once again, took the opportunity to encourage our continuing faith journey and reliance on Jesus Christ by putting him in the center of our lives. The Lord has received a voracious disciple! Evelyn was a lifelong member of West Olive Faith UMC, Bloomington; United Methodist Women; and Home Extension. She worked as a cook at Brigham Elementary School, serving children in His name. The family suggests memorials be made to West Olive Faith United Methodist Church, Bloomington. Condolences and memories can be shared online at www.beckmemorial.com. NORMAL A Missouri administrator with Illinois roots will be Normal's new assistant city manager. Eric Hanson, who most recently served as city administrator in Ballwin, Mo., and held the same position in Monmouth for five years, will join the town staff Monday, City Manager Pam Reece announced Thursday afternoon. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Hanson holds a master of public administration degree from the University of Illinois Springfield and a bachelor's degree from Monmouth College, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also served as city manager in Indianola, Iowa, for nearly three years and taught at Monmouth College for three years. Hanson "has been active in the International City/County Management Association, Missouri City Management Association and St. Louis Area City Management Association, among other professional organizations," according to a town release. Hanson replaces Reece, who was deputy city manager before succeeding Mark Peterson after his retirement last spring. Hanson's salary will be $148,746. Teri Legner served as interim assistant city manager but will return to her previous position as director of information technology. Contact Derek Beigh at (309) 820-3234. Follow him on Twitter: @pg_beigh Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 5 Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Terry A. Skaro, 71, of Elkhart went to be with his heavenly Father on Friday, June 11, 2021. He passed away at Trinity Mother Frances in Tyler, Texas. Terry was born in Denver, Colorado on December 17, 1949. His parents Ed and Mary Skaro. He was a member of First Baptist Church in Elkhart, T Our lives are inexplicably entwined with the families we are born into and to tell the whole story we have to tell their story, too. So Craig McDonalds story begins with his maternal grandparents Ed and Dorothy Flore and his paternal grandparents Donald and Edith McDonald. Ed Flore was the third of nine children born to Aurelio Charles Flore and Mary Gardella Flore in Flint. Dorothy Flore was the twelfth child of Milton and Mary Neola Bush. Ed and Dorothy met when he worked at the Kroger store in Owosso. They fell in love, married and had two daughters, Bev (Craigs mom) and Sally. Bev Flore grew up to marry Ron McDonald and they had three sons: Jeffrey, Brian and Craig. They met in high school with Ron graduating in 1956 and Bev graduating in 1957. Ron enlisted in the Army Reserves and went to work at Dow Corning. Bev attended Ferris to earn a dental assistants degree. They married in 1961 in Memorial Presbyterian Church. Ed and his brother Andrew ran a wholesale produce business in downtown Midland on Gordon Street, where the H Hotel is today. They also had a warehouse on Bay City Road to store extra produce. But changes in the food market were coming and Ed realized that frozen foods were going to impact the produce business. They sold the business and bought a motel in Clare. After 10 years, Ed and Dorothy decided to retire and returned to Midland to be closer to their grandsons, Jeffrey, Brian and Craig McDonald. Craig spent a lot of time with them. They made the ordinary seem extraordinary," Craig said. "We were blessed to have them in our lives. He paused and then added, Joyous is the word I come up with when I speak about my grandfather Ed Flore. Craigs paternal grandparents were Donald and Edith Laney McDonald. Both grew up on farms in the Coleman area but on Dec. 24, 1929 Don got a job at The Dow Chemical Co. in the ammonia plant and they moved to Midland. They had five children: Jean McDonald Brascom, Alma McDonald Shook, Joan McDonald Stewart, their only son Donald Thomas McDonald (Craigs dad) and Shirley McDonald. Don and Edith McDonald ran a boarding house where many Dow workers lived. Edith did the cooking not only for her own family but for the boarders, too. One of the boarders was a man named Sam Brascom and he eventually married Jean McDonald, Craigs aunt. They were wonderful people, very kind," Craig said. "They were important figures in our lives. After Don retired from Dow, Craigs dad Ron established a pallet repair business and Don ran that. When Don died, Edith continued running the business. Craig remembers one summer when his mom, his dad, his two brothers and he helped to make over 1,000 new pallets. It was a way for our family to make extra income," Craig said. Then he said, I have great memories of all my grandparents. They were strict but very joyous and happy people. They created an environment of great love and care. My brothers and I would go on excursions with our grandparents Ed and Dorothy Flore in their Airstream trailer. We loved spending time with them and they influenced our lives greatly. I was very fortunate. Bev McDonald was deeply involved in the young lives of her three sons. She was a room mother, a scout leader, took the boys to Plymouth Park pool and to concerts at the Central Park Bandshell. "This is where I learned all of the music of John Philip Sousa, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter and Ira and George Gershwin," Craig said. "Mom always had some kind of artistic or creative outlet going on in her life in addition to being an avid reader. Holidays were magic because of my mom, my grandparents and my Aunt Sally. My mom had great love for family and a deep faith. She was a very quiet and shy person but she had very strong and loving convictions. Like her father Ed Flore, she was always helping someone and doing good things for other people, quietly and without need or desire for recognition." Two life-changing events were waiting in the wings for teenage Craig McDonald. In the tenth grade at Midland High, he would get a job working for Alden B. Dow. In the eleventh grade, he would become a part of Teenage Musicals Inc. In 1983, Craig began working for Vada and Alden B. Dow. Andy Grubb, a good friend, had been working for them but was leaving for college and he asked Craig if he would like the job. Andys mom, Bev Grubb, was Alden B. Dows personal secretary. Alden B. Dow passed away in 1983. Vada Bennett Dow passed away in 1991. But Craigs path was firmly established and today he is the Director of the Alden B. Dow Home and Studio and Director of the Alden and Vada Dow Family Foundation. I took care of the cars. I emptied the trash in the architectural firm and drove Mrs. Dow wherever she wanted to go," Craig said. "She didnt drive so I took her to her hairdresser appointments, to events like the symphonies at the Center for the Arts and to her cottage on Higgins Lake. When Craig was in the 11th grade, he tried out for a Teenage Musical production of Hello Dolly. TMI was run completely by volunteers who were passionate about the theater and teaching the craft of musical theater to young people. I was blessed to meet and be influenced by people like Kay Driver Collinson, Pete Conarty, Amy Behrens, Bobbie Lucas, Robyn Bullen and others who were such great mentors," Craig said. "I met dozens of kids my age, many of whom are still close friends today. Craig was in four TMI productions, Hello Dolly, New Moon, West Side Story and Mame. He served on the TMI board and continues to be an advocate for TMI. They would rehearse at the Midland Center for the Arts each night Monday through Thursday throughout the summer. They learned to know the auditorium and learn all aspects of theater. They had to sell tickets, help make scenery, work lights and operate the curtains. Craig met a young woman named Michelle LoFiego when he was going to a rehearsal for his first TMI show. A man named Bob LoFiego came up to him and asked if his daughter Michelle could go in with him. The LoFiego family had just come to Midland from Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was a meeting that would add a new dimension to Craigs life. The LoFiegos became a second family to him. Later he stood up in Michelles wedding and still later became godfather to her two children, Jacob and Kelsea. Craig also became friends with Chris Curtis, who played in the orchestra for some TMI shows. Later he introduced Chris to Regina Borrousch. He was best man at their wedding and then godfather to their son Cameron. (This ends Part I. Part II will continue in two weeks.) In a time when it seems like everyone is getting a drone, Mid Michigan College is offering professionals and hobbyists alike an opportunity to learn more about the devices and how they can changing everyday business practices. According to the college website, its "Drone Training" program is designed to teach drone-piloting skills, address the types of drone systems on the market, identify potential uses and industry applications for drones and prepare students to pass the remote pilot knowledge test required for Federal Aviation Administration certification. All sessions will be taught by Mid Michigan College adjunct faculty member Robert Giuliani. "The drone field is just exploding -- it's becoming a multi-billionaire business," Giuliani said. "It's amazing what's happening in this field." Giuliani points towards several examples of drone use revolutionizing business practices across the world, like businesses in New Zealand using drones to deliver pizza, and doctors in Missouri developing emergency first-aid kits that can be dropped into areas where emergency crews would not otherwise be able to access. A highly focused, all-day course developed to prepare participants for the FAA certification test will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 6 at the Morey Technical Education Center in Mount Pleasant. The cost is $495. "Pretty much anybody can fly a drone nowadays, but do they really understand all of the ramifications, like weather conditions and the restrictions the FAA has produced as far as flying goes," Giuliani said. He points to the recent incident in Great Britain where Gatwick Airport -- the country's second largest airport -- had to delay flights for hours on both Dec. 19 and Dec. 21 because people were flying drones close by. The first session to be offered is titled "Intro to Drones for Public Safety Personnel." The cost of attendance is $1,980. The 24-hour course will take place 6-10 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays beginning Jan. 31 and continuing Feb. 5, 7, 12, 14 and 19. Classes will take place at the Morey Tech Center. The course will be offered again with classes taking place March 26 and 28, April 2, 4, 9 and 11 at the DTE Renewable Energy Center in Bad Axe. Giuliani said the session is designed mostly for first-responders and other public safety personnel, and will cover the basics of drone flight and safety, while including additional information regarding how drones can be used in the public safety field -- such as searching for someone who is lost, or a suspect who is hiding. "All these 911 and emergency organizations are buying drones knowing nothing about them and thinking, 'Huh, maybe we should have investigated this a little bit more,'" Giuliani said. "That's what the class partly does -- help (firefighters and police departments) decide what kind of drones they should get initially, and also what they're going to use it for." A shorter, 18-hour course titled "Intro to Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Drones" could potentially begin in February. Giuliani said Mid Michigan College will finalize a schedule in the near future. The course will teach the basics of drone flight, as well as the laws and regulations surrounding it. Dates will be announced on Mid Michigan College's website, and the cost of attendance is $1,490. Both courses will implement a "training drone" to teach participants how to fly without using a GPS system. Giuliani also said Mid Michigan College is looking to offer more drone-based courses in the future. Thursday, Jan. 3 COMEDY NIGHT AT THE CENTER will feature Brent Terhune and opener Paul Piziks at 8 p.m. in Little Theatre, Midland Center for the Arts. Tickets. PG-13. Cash bar available. Celebrate National Science Fiction day and enjoy some out-of-this-world fun at Midland Center for the Arts. Family STEM Night will include designing a rocket and testing its ability to fly; creating a space habitat for humans on a different planet; shows in our portable planetarium; and more. Family STEM Night is open house style and takes place from 4 to 8 p.m. Activities are included with Museum admission. www.midlandcenter.org Saturday, Jan. 5 CENTER STAGE CHOIRS presents Patrick Owen, a Midland native and one of the leading cellists in the industry, earning degrees from Eastman, Juilliard and Boston University. Owen returns to the Midland Center for the Arts' stage at 7:30 p.m. performing an evening of solo repertoire and chamber music with local musicians. Tickets. http://www.mcfta.org Wednesday, Jan. 9 The Windows on the World Series at Midland Center for the Arts presents Brazilian a cappella ensemble Ordinarius at 7 p.m. The vocal sextet Ordinarius offers a varied repertoire, with the voice as its primary instrument. The group's repertoire includes both a capella pieces and songs with guitar, ukulele and percussive instrumental accompaniment. Tickets are available at midlandcenter.org, at the Center Ticket Office, or by calling 800-523-7649. Thursday, Jan. 10 The Cool Lemon Jazz Duo of Val and Cynthia, a husband and wife vocal/piano duo, will perform classic jazz and pop favorites from 5:30 to 8 p.m. as part of Uncorked in the Saints & Sinners Lounge at the Midland Center for the Arts. Cynthia's voice has been described as "smooth as well aged brandy" and her expressive style as "reminiscent of a young Judy Garland." Drink specials and small plates will be available for purchase while enjoying the free live music. http://www.mcfta.org Saturday, Jan. 12 KEYBOARDFEST 2019 is set for 7 p.m. at the Midland Center for the Arts. KeyboardFest is an annual piano festival sponsored by the Midland Music Teachers Association. This concert is designed to develop ensemble skills for the 250 participating pianists. As many as 26 students will be on stage performing duets on grand pianos at the same time, under the direction of Conductor Jim Hohmeyer. Tickets. http://www.mcfta.org Live music, easy dancing, friendly fellowship and yummy treats are part of a Contra Dance set for 7 to 9:30 p.m. at the Greater Midland Community Center. All dances are taught. A complimentary dance lesson is at 6:30 p.m. Pay as you come into the center; take receipt and turn in at the dance. https://www.facebook.com/midlandtraditionaldancer or call 989-631-7153 Harry and Snowman, the Cinderella love story about a man and a horse, will be screened at 7 p.m. at The State Theatre, 913 Washington Ave., Bay City. Tickets range from $15 to two tickets for $25. The show will benefit the Humane Societies of Midland and Bay counties. The movie tells the story of Dutch immigrant Harry deLeyer who journeyed to the United States after World War II and developed a transformative relationship with a broken down Amish plow horse he rescued off a slaughter truck bound for the glue factory. He paid $80 for the horse and named him Snowman. In less than two years, Harry and Snowman went on to win the triple crown of show jumping, beating the nations blue bloods. They were famous for their day and traveled around the world together. Their chance meeting at a Pennsylvania horse auction saved them both and crafted a friendship that lasted a lifetime. Eighty-six year old deLeyer tells their Cinderella love story firsthand, as he continues to train on today's show jumping circuit. http://statetheatrebaycity.com Jan. 12-13, 18-20 CENTER STAGE THEATRE presents The Cherry Orchard at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 12, 18-19 and at 3 p.m. Jan. 13 and Jan. 20, at the Midland Center for the Arts. Anton Chekov's final play is a portrait of a family on the brink of social change in Tsarist Russia. Refusing to acknowledge that their estate is about to be sold out from under their well-shod feet, the aristocratic Gayev family laments over old times and lost chances, all the while turning a blind eye to the new social class that's waiting at the gate. Directed by Keeley Stanley Bohn. http://www.mcfta.org Saturday, Jan. 19 Comedy Night With Rob Little at 7 p.m. at The State Theatre 913 Washington Ave., Bay City. Tickets. http://statetheatrebaycity.com Sunday, Jan. 20 Rock of Ages, Broadway's best party, is set to take the stage at Midland Center for the Arts. Nominated for five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Rock of Ages captures the iconic era that was the big bad 1980s Hollywood. The musical features the music of hit bands such as Styx, Poison, Twisted Sister and Whitesnake among many others. Tickets are available at midlandcenter.org or through the Center Ticket Office, 800-523-7649. Jan. 25-27 MATRIX:MIDLAND CINEMA will screen "Puzzle," which tells the story of Agnes, a taken for granted as a suburban mother, who discovers a passion for solving jigsaw puzzles which unexpectedly draws her into a new world where her life unfolds in ways she could never have imagined. The movie will be shown at 7 p.m. Jan. 25-26 and 3 p.m. Jan. 27. Admission. Rated R. Sunday, Jan. 27 BAND ROULETTE is set for 5 p.m. at The State Theatre, 913 Washington Ave., Bay City. Band Roulette is "Whose Line is it Anyways" with musicians. Musicians' names and songs will be drawn from a hat and performed on the spot by some of the biggest names from the Great Lakes Bay Regions music scene. The event benefits DStreet Music Foundation. Tickets. http://statetheatrebaycity.com Saturday, Feb. 2 THE SPAZMATICS, live and in concert, at 7 p.m. at The State Theatre, 913 Washington Ave., Bay City. The Spazmatics features all the awesome sounds, styles, and way cool dance steps from the 1980s decade we'd love to forget. Admission. http://statetheatrebaycity.com RHAPSODY IN BLUE WITH KEVIN COLE, presented by Midland Symphony Orchestra, is set for 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Midland Center for the Arts. The pride of Bay City and master Gershwin interpreter Kevin Cole makes his MSO debut with two rhapsodies for piano by renowned American composer George Gershwin. Also on the program, the fifth symphony by Prokofiev, one of classical music's most enigmatic composers. Tickets. http://www.mcfta.org Wednesday, Feb. 6 Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, a drama with music presented by a professional national tour, is set for 6 p.m. As Harriet and her friend Sarah Bradford narrate her adventurous life, we share in the joys, sorrows, and challenges faced by this brave woman who changed the world through her courage. Tickets. http://www.mcfta.org Thursday, Feb. 7 COMEDY NIGHT AT THE CENTER, with opener Nate Armbruster, is set for 8 p.m. at the Midland Center for the Arts. Cover charge $10. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Cash bar available. Cover charge of $10, Feb. 7-8 Potted Potter - The Unauthorized Harry Experience - A Parody by Dan and Jeff is a gloriously goofy parody that takes on the ultimate challenge of condensing (or "potting") all seven Harry Potter books - and a real-life game of Quidditch involving the audience - into 70 hilarious minutes with songs, ridiculous props, and a generous helping of Hogwarts magic. The show is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at the Midland Center for the Arts. Tickets. http://www.mcfta.org Friday, Feb. 8 Totally Interstellar Late Night Party, a late night adult museum party, is set for 7 p.m. at the Midland Center for the Arts. The event series features the Museum and its exhibits in an evening experience just for adults. Each Late Night features cocktails, beer, snacks and new themed programming - all while having access to galleries and newest exhibits after daytime guests have gone home. Tickets are $15 for people ages 21 and older and $12 for ABDM Museum Members 21 and up Sunday, Feb. 10 Midland Community Orchestra in concert at 3 p.m. in the auditorium of Bullock Creek High School. Conductor is Gina Provenzano. www.midlandcommunityorchestra.com Friday, Feb. 15 The Cat in the Hat play at 7 p.m. at The Temple Theatre in Saginaw. Tickets. templetheatre.com Feb. 15-17 THE SOUND OF MUSIC, presented by a professional Broadway touring company, is set for the Midland Center for the Arts. Shows are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Feb. 15-16 and 1 p.m. Feb. 16-17. Tickets. http://www.mcfta.org Thursday, Feb, 21 Family STEM Night is set for 4 to 8 p.m. at the Alden B. Dow Museum of Science & Art museum at the Midland Center for the Arts. There will be exciting experiments, discussions and demonstrations as the wonders of science, technology, engineering, art, and math are highlighted. Admission is included with museum admission for the day, and free for members. MIDLAND COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY will present a program on "Freedom's Road: The Extraordinary Journey of the Highgate family to Midland, 1806-1945, at 7 p.m. in the Little Theater of the Midland Center for the Arts. The program will be presented by Tawny Ryan Nelb, archivist and historian. Discover the extraordinary history of the Aaron and Caroline Highgate family, who arrived in Midland in 1882 from Canada. From Caroline's father, Lewis Woodson - a descendant of Sally Hemmings and born a slave in 1806 - to the Highgate children - Fred, Oliver and Ada - hear how the family's skills, hopes and determination contributed to the fabric of our community. The fascinating story of the Highgate family will be illustrated through photographs, maps, census records, and other unique artifacts from the era. Admission. MCHS members free. Tickets, 989-631-8250 Saturday, Feb. 23 DEAN SAMS of Lonestar has scheduled an acoustic show at 7 p.m. at The State Theatre, 913 Washington Ave., Bay City. Tickets. http://statetheatrebaycity.com Thursday, Feb. 28 Rhythm of the Dance, an inspiring epic, reliving the journey of the Irish Celts throughout history with traditional dance and music, is set for 7:30 p.m. at Temple Theatre, 201 N. Washington Ave., Saginaw. templetheatre.com March 1-3 Sondheim on Sondheim, a musical revue of music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, is set for The State Theatre, 913 Washington Ave., Bay City. Shows are at 7 p.m. March 1-2 and at 3 p.m. March 3. The local production is directed by Mike Wisnewski and features the State Theatre Sondheim Orchestra. Performers include Vickie Bowden, Sue Littell, Gaye Terwillegar, Susan Mercy, Cathy White and Mary Demand. Catherine McMichael is keys and orchestra leader. Tickets. http://statetheatrebaycity.com Saturday, March 9 Memories of the Rat Pack ,a celebration of the lives and music of the three most famous members: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., is set for 7 p.m. at The State Theatre, 913 Washington Ave., Bay City. In two 50-minute acts divided by one intermission, the audience learn about the men behind the legend, enjoy 30 of their more popular songs, and experience a recreation of the famous night club act at The Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. Tickets. http://statetheatrebaycity.com Backtrack, an a capella powerhouse from New York City, is scheduled in concert at 7:30 p.m. at Temple Theatre, 201 N. Washington Ave., Saginaw. templetheatre.com Sunday, March 15 Midland Community Orchestra in concert at 3 p.m. in the auditorium of Bullock Creek High School. Conductor is Gina Provenzano. www.midlandcommunityorchestra.com Friday, April 12 The Ultimate Queen Celebration featuring Marc Martel is scheduled for 7:30 at Temple Theatre, 201 N. Washington Ave., in Saginaw. Long praised for his vocal resemblance to the late Freddie Mercury, Martel spent over a decade earning his stripes as a rock frontman with the group Downhere. In 2011, he casually cut a version of "Somebody To Love" to audition for a contest spearheaded by members of Queen. Little did he know the video would reach 30 million views on YouTube and Facebook. Tickets. templetheatre.com Sunday, May 19 Midland Community Orchestra in concert at 3 p.m. in the auditorium of Bullock Creek High School. Conductor is Gina Provenzano. The concert is free. A reception is scheduled after the concert. www.midlandcommunityorchestra.com Goose Creek, SC (29445) Today A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 72F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 72F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. The U.S. ambassador to Russia was allowed to meet Wednesday with a Michigan man imprisoned in Moscow on suspicion of espionage, the first contact U.S. officials have had with him since he was arrested last week at a hotel. Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor who is now ambassador in Moscow, spoke with Paul Whelan at Lefortovo Detention Facility, a notorious prison that has held many spies and political prisoners in spartan conditions. State Department officials said Huntsman offered Whelan the embassy's support and spoke by phone with Whelan's family afterward. But many details of Whelan's arrest and condition since then remain unknown. It is not even clear whether he has been formally charged with espionage. The State Department declined to say how long Huntsman spent with Whelan, whether their visit was in private or in the presence of prison authorities. The visit came a few hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he expected officials from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to be given access to Whelan within hours. Pompeo said they need to learn more about why Whelan was detained last Friday. Speaking to reporters in Brasilia, where he attended the inauguration of Brazil's new president, Pompeo also said the United States will demand Whelan's release if it is determined that his arrest was unjust. "We've made clear to the Russians our expectation that we will learn more about the charges, come to understand what it is he's been accused of and if the detention is not appropriate, we will demand his immediate return," he said. U.S. officials are concerned about the delay between his arrest and the consular visit, believing it violates the time frame dictated by the Vienna Convention. Russian officials first announced his arrest on Monday, three days after he was picked up, and the ensuing news accounts were his family's first notice of what had happened to him. Whelan, 48, a former Marine, was in Moscow last week for the wedding of a fellow Marine on Dec. 28, his family has said, the same day he was detained by Russia's domestic security service. "We are deeply concerned for his safety and well-being," his family said in a statement. "His innocence is undoubted and we trust that his rights will be respected." Whelan is the corporate security director for BorgWarner, an automotive parts supplier based in Auburn Hills, Mich. He has visited Russia several times and is said to speak passable Russian. Relations between the United States and Russia have deteriorated over a series of events, including its aggression toward Ukraine as well as Russian interference in elections in the United States and other democracies around the world. The arrest of Maria Butina, who confessed to being a Russian agent, has raised suspicions that Whelans detention is payback or an attempt to arrange a prisoner swap. If convicted, Whelan could face up to 20 years in prison. The Washington Post A grassroots group focused on making elected leaders more accessible to their constituents has named Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden its town hall MVP for the second year in a row. Wyden held 52 town hall meetings in 2018, the most by any U.S. senator, according to the Town Hall Project. The Democrat has convened over more than 900 gatherings throughout Oregon since he was first elected to the Senate in 1996, including a whopping 80 in 2017. These meetings give Oregonians a greater understanding of how their government works, and they are critical for members of Congress to stay in touch with the issues that really matters to the people they work for their constituents, Nathan Williams, co-founder and managing director of Town Hall Project, said in a news release. Senator Wydens career-long commitment to the hard, sometimes unglamorous work of town hall meetings is a model for lawmakers everywhere. Wyden said he was honored to receive the award, which he hailed as a tribute to Oregonians who have come out to these open-to-all meetings to educate me about the issues they care about. The senator is kicking off the new year with six town halls in January alone, including one Friday at Cleveland High School in Portland, where he will be presented with his MVP award. The Town Hall Project noted in a tweet that Wyden may face a challenge for the 2019 town hall crown from Oregon colleague, Sen. Jeff Merkley, who has nine town halls on his calendar this month. The full list of award winners can be found at townhallproject.com. --The Oregonian/OregonLive Oregon labor regulators have found substantial evidence of sexual harassment at the state Capitol, concluding that lawmakers and administrators have known about it for years and did little to stop it. The Bureau of Labor and Industries released its findings Thursday after a five-month investigation, as well as a laundry list of allegations gleaned from witness interviews conducted by agency investigators, legislative analysts and a lawyer hired by the Legislature to investigate the harassment claims. The report concludes that the most powerful lawmakers and administrators in the Capitol mishandled, downplayed and ignored allegations of sexual harassment, including inappropriate touching, sexually suggestive language and the lopsided power dynamics that enabled the behavior. Much of the report centers on improper behavior by former Sen. Jeff Kruse, who resigned in March after news reports and an outside investigation revealed he may have sexually harassed as many as 15 women working at the Capitol, and that the behavior went on for years despite repeated warnings. At least two state senators, a lobbyist and two interns were among the complainants, and the report includes new details on their allegations. But the agency also concluded that sexual harassment was not limited to the Roseburg Republican. For the first time, for example, the BOLI report describes allegations by Senate President Peter Courtneys former office manager that he gave her an ultimatum to either resign or be fired or be demoted because he disapproved of her dating a House lawmaker. The Oregonian/OregonLive, though a public records request, obtained copies of both her resignation letter and an agreement for her to work from home for five months in exchange for a job recommendation and her agreement not to sue the state. Courtney denied the allegations Thursday, saying, Its not true. I cant believe this. The report also highlights other skewed power dynamics in the Capitol, where young aides -- sometimes still in college or graduate school work -- alongside lawmakers who are typically decades older, and lobbyists depend on good relationships to get bills killed or passed. Likewise, women lawmakers told investigators they were wary of reporting bad behavior because it would make it more difficult for them to line up votes for their legislative priorities. In one example, the report cites a witness, whose name is redacted, who describes an encounter at a bar between Rep. Bill Post, R-Keizer, and a female staffer. The witness said Post and the staffer were sitting side-by-side, that he touched her leg under the table, sent her repeated texts during the course of the evening, repeatedly told her his wife was out of town, held her chin and called her cute. House Republican leaders issued a statement Thursday saying that the Legislatures 2017 investigation found that Post had engaged in inappropriate and unwelcome conduct, including physical contact, with a legislative staffer. Such conduct is unacceptable, and the House Republican caucus leadership team strongly condemns it. Post, for his part, confirmed the evening outing but said there was no inappropriate behavior. He said he was mystified by his caucus statement. In November 2017 some allegations were made, I denied them. It was investigated, and the matter was closed. And that was the last I heard of it until today, he said. I was instructed by (legislative counsel) and (human resources) when the matter was closed that I was never to speak of it to anyone. That information was supposed to be confidential, and Ive honored that. I denied the allegation then, and I still do. . Im shocked that they sent out confidential information. Indeed, the report is replete with allegations of how legislative leaders and administrators, including the Legislatures top lawyer, Dexter Johnson, sought to keep the allegations and investigative results quiet. Sen. Sara Gelser, a Corvallis Democrat, went public with her concerns about Kruses behavior in 2017. But the report includes new details about her interactions with Courtney. She told investigators she approached him at a Democratic retreat on the coast this year to suggest lawmakers not fight state Labor Commissioner Brad Avakians investigation. Gelser told Courtney that lawyers for the Legislature had downplayed the prevalence of harassment and questioned the accounts of some women complainants. That is having a chilling effect on people that work here now, Gelser told Courtney, according to the report. After Gelser listed several more concerns, Courtney freaked out and was yelling at me that I didnt understand. He caused such a disturbance that his wife asked him to leave the restaurant, Gelser said. Courtney acknowledged the incident, telling The Oregonian/OregonLive on Thursday, I lost my temper ... It got heated. He said he apologized and later discussed the issues at length with Gelser. Investigators also concluded that lawmakers and administrators failed to take immediate and appropriate corrective action to prevent the behavior. They drew heavily on a report released in February by employment attorney Dian Rubanoff, who was hired by the Legislature to investigate the sexual harassment allegations. The agencys investigation dates back to Aug. 1, when Avakian took the extraordinary step of filing a complaint with his own agency alleging that Courtney and House Speaker Tina Kotek, both fellow Democrats, knew or should have known about complaints about Kruse and the broader sexually hostile environment in the Capitol. For example, investigators pointed to Koteks notes from 2013 about alleged inappropriate behavior by Rep. David Gomberg, a Democrat from Otis, toward women in the Capitol. Although Kotek and Majority Leader Jennifer Williamson acknowledged the issue a year ago and Gomberg apologized, the report revealed cringe-worthy new details. In addition to fielding reports that Gomberg gave one woman unwanted shoulder rubs or hugs, Kotek also heard that he told a young woman to get ready for a birthday spanking and joked about introducing an intern on the House floor as a pole dancer and stripper, according to Koteks notes. Koteks office sent out a statement in response to the report, saying that while she had and would continue to take all complaints of workplace harassment seriously, her initial reaction to the report was one of disappointment and frustration. Its just not okay that anyone who has worked in the Capitol has experienced harassment or inappropriate behavior, the statement said. But it is utterly false to conclude that I have knowingly allowed people to be harassed in the Capitol, and I dispute how the report has characterized my conversations about incidents of harassment. On the contrary, I have been very clear that we need to be a model workplace and continue to do everything in my power to improve the Legislatures culture. Report finds Kruse groped women at Oregon Capitol, misbehavior escalated after warnings The workplace regulators investigation dovetailed with the national #MeToo moment that has put sexual harassment into the public consciousness and ended the careers of some of the biggest names in business and industry. Statehouses across the country have also been grappling with the issue. An investigation by The Associated Press this summer found that dozens of lawmakers have been forced from office, removed from leadership roles, reprimanded or publicly accused of sexual misconduct. The news organization unearthed roughly 70 complaints from about two dozen states and nearly $3 million in sexual harassment settlements. But the actual figures are almost certainly higher, the report found, because many states refused to turn over any information or claimed there were no public records available. Avakians complaint also named seven other individuals, including the Legislatures human resources chief and top lawyer, plus the entire Legislature and Department of Administrative Services, which handles human resources for much of state government. In August, a Multnomah County judge ordered the Legislature to comply with subpoenas for documents and testimony in the sexual harassment investigation. The Legislature had sought to block those subpoenas, arguing that the information would jeopardize the privacy of people who had complained about misconduct to higher-ups at the Legislature. Based on the investigative findings, BOLIs civil rights division could work with the Legislature to determine appropriate remedies. The agency could initiate an administrative hearing process that might include fines or other penalties, or it could decide to close the case. That decision is up to incoming Labor Commissioner Val Hoyle, who will be sworn in Monday, or her yet-to-be-named civil rights administrator. Hoyle said Thursday afternoon that she hadnt been sent an advance copy of the report or had a chance to read it yet. On Monday, Ill sit down with my staff and figure out where we go from here, she said. The fact is, nobody should feel unsafe in the workplace, no matter where it is. That is part of this agencys core jurisdiction. Im not commissioner until Monday, but were prepared to do what we need to do to build trust, both with victims and employersWere going to deal with all of these things in a fair and transparent manner. Some of the reports other revelations include: Lore Christopher, the Legislatures human resources director, reportedly told a lobbyist that a complaint about Rep. Diego Hernandez, D-Portland, making a list ranking women lobbyists by their physical attributes wouldnt go anywhere because he was an up-and-coming person that was going to have a lot of power, according to a state interview with Gelser. State investigators determined that legislative lawyers decision to mark this complaint false, rather than unsubstantiated, could reasonably be expected to discourage female lobbyists from coming forward with any similar concerns. Gelser said she was repeatedly told by Johnson, the top legislative lawyer, that her complaints about Kruse were confidential and I should not talk about it. Johnson told BOLI that some people were worried about their cooperation with a sexual harassment investigation becoming public: [T]hese are predominantly lobbyists and I think exclusively lobbyists. And its a loss of business opportunity, is the best way to describe it It is challenging for a lobbyist to publicly make a claim of harassment of a legislator by a legislator, and then two weeks later go and ask that legislator, Will you support this legislation or, Will you oppose this legislation. An unidentified lobbyist who complained to Christopher, the human resources chief, about Kruses conduct in late 2017 told state investigators that Christopher told her that more than two dozen people had complained about the senator. Long workdays and the mix of lawmakers, lobbyists and alcohol can fuel bad behavior such as inappropriate jokes and people getting handsy, according to notes apparently taken by a legislative employee regarding one womans complaint. Inappropriate jokes and unwanted touching is prevalent behavior in the building. Sen. Jackie Winters, a Salem Republican who at the time was her caucus leader, allegedly refused to ask Kruse to stay away from the Capitol and told Gelser, You just need to learn how to deal with this. Hillary Borrud | hborrud@oregonian.com | 503-294-4034 Ted Sickinger | tsickinger@oregonian.com | 503-221-8505 Susheela Jayapal was sworn in Thursday as a Multnomah County commissioner, making her the first Indian American to hold an elected county office in Oregon. Jayapal, who left India at 16 to attend college in the U.S., had 7 months to prepare to take office, after handily winning a four-way race for the open seat back in May. A longtime leader of nonprofit and community groups, Jayapal told the large crowd at the ceremony that she never planned to run for office but felt a sense of urgency about the fact that the region has become unlivable for too many people. Our economy has been booming, and we all know the adage that says a rising tide lifts all boats, she said. And you all know very well thats simply not true. For too many in our region, they are drowning in that rising tide, or being pushed farther and farther from shore or, at best, just barely treading water. And those folks who are sinking are being pushed out or just barely keeping afloat, they are disproportionately black or brown, immigrant and refugee. Thats not the kind of place I want to live in." Jayapal, who represents North and Northeast Portland, ran on a platform that emphasized combatting gentrification and homelessness, in part by providing rental assistance to help keep people in their homes. She also called for more focus on mental health and addiction treatment and for restorative justice programs in every school. I ran for office because I believe you dont do this unless you believe in government. I ran for office because I believe that we can together find solutions by taking down barriers between our systems and by focusing on root causes, she said. Jayapal, who relied on advice from her younger sister, Pramila Jayapal, who represents the Seattle area in Congress, secured the most endorsements and raised the most in contributions before securing almost 60 percent of the vote. The two Jayapal sisters and India Abroad, a news site covering the Indian American community, all heralded Susheela Jayapals election as the first win for an Indian American seeking public office in Oregon. So did Multnomah Countys communications department. This article initially made the same claim. But that distinction in fact belongs to Balwant Bhullar, who won a seat on the Fairview City Council in 2008, county officials said Thursday afternoon. He served about six months before stepping down for health reasons. He won election to the council again in 2018 and took office this week. Jayapal won the seat previously held by Loretta Smith, who was required to step down after two terms. With her election, the county commission remains all-female and the most diverse in the state, with a Mexican American member, Jessica Vega Pederson, and a Korean-born one, Lori Stegmann, as well as Jayapal. The commissions chairwoman, Deborah Kafoury, was also sworn in Thursday, in her case to a second term, as was the countys sheriff, Mike Reese. Newly-elected Multnomah County Auditor Jennifer McGuirk also was ceremonially inducted into office. Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Nan Waller presided at the ceremonies. -- Beth Nakamura and Betsy Hammond bnakamura@oregonian.com betsyhammond@oregonian.com Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get daily highlights of Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox A McMinnville woman who authorities say caused the death of her 3-month-old baby in 2017 after a night of drinking alcohol with her boyfriend was sentenced Wednesday to three years and four months in prison. Clely A. Flores-Ramirez, 31, pleaded no contest in November in Yamhill County Circuit Court to criminally negligent homicide. She was ordered by a judge to complete a substance abuse program as part of her three years of post-prison supervision. Flores-Ramirez faced up to 10 years in prison. Flores-Ramirez has prior convictions since 2016 for driving under the influence of intoxicants, driving with a suspended license, and attempted driving under the influence of intoxicants, according to Oregon court records. McMinnville police said Raquel Ramirez was brought to a hospital on Nov. 21, 2017, with a severe brain injury and died two days later. Flores-Ramirez and then-boyfriend David Arias initially told investigators that they were sleeping in the same bed with the baby and Arias noticed Raquel was having trouble breathing after he woke up, according to a probable cause affidavit. Both people said they couldnt remember if anything happened to the child before then because theyd been drinking, and Flores-Ramirez told police she had three to four shots of alcohol that night. The couple believed Flores-Ramirez could have accidentally smothered the baby while sleeping. A doctor told police the babys injuries were likely caused by head trauma, the affidavit said. Arias two months later told police that when he awoke the night Raquel was injured, he saw Flores-Ramirez shaking the baby for 10-15 seconds, according to the affidavit. He claimed the mother drank seven or eight double shots of rum before then. Flores-Ramirez was arrested in connection with her daughters death on Jan. 18, 2018. Flores-Ramirezs attorney Jason Thompson claimed in court documents that Arias wasnt a credible witness, saying he reported to police several different versions of how Raquel was injured, including accidentally hitting the girls head on a car door while out getting pizza. Arias took a polygraph test in January 2018, failed it and then accused Flores-Ramirez of shaking the baby, the attorney said. Arias hasnt been charged in the death. -- Everton Bailey Jr. ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 |@EvertonBailey Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. Gov. Kate Brown is proposing a $2 billion package for schools, leading stakeholders to claim their share of the pie. Meanwhile to fiscal hawks, any tax increase to fund schools is like a dose of hemlock. The simple answers are to add more teachers and reduce class sizes. Clearly, effective solutions demand more complex analysis. To get an inside perspective, I consulted my son-in-law who happens to be a high school teacher in a large suburban school district. His immediate answer: Additional funding, while essential, will not by itself improve K-12 education. As they say in TV ads, there is more. Rather than obsessing over the 40-40-20 goal, Oregon needs to ensure that students are exposed to the right curricula. Teacher trainers and advisers need to be more proactive. They should frequently visit classrooms rather than sitting in their offices and waiting for teachers to come to them. Not all students are college bound. To succeed in life, these students need more classes in trades. How about having them build tiny houses while learning disciplines such as electrical installation, plumbing and roofing? Graduation rates are subject to manipulation. A better measure would be to evaluate student success three to five years after graduation. Finally, I must state that I rarely agree with Elizabeth Hovde. However her plea to improve parental involvement has tremendous merit (Money wont buy education happiness, Dec. 23). Vidya Kale, Lake Oswego By Marc A. Thiessen WASHINGTON -- In his second year in office, President Trump did many positive things, and on Monday, I offered my list of the 10 best things Trump did in 2018. But he also did a lot of bad things that ranged from cringeworthy to catastrophic. Here are the 10 worst: 10. His comment about "sh--hole" countries blew up negotiations for a deal that would have given Trump his border wall. Nearly a year ago, the president made a bold offer to Democrats -- putting not just legal status but also a path to citizenship for nearly 1.8 million young illegal immigrants on the table. Then his abhorrent comment undermined Democrats who were serious about cutting a deal and gave those who were not a pretext to walk away. 9. His offensive tweets continued to undermine his presidency. Calling former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman "a dog" and Stormy Daniels "Horseface" -- among countless offensive tweets -- is not just unpresidential, it drives away potential supporters who like his policies but then are reminded how much they don't like Trump. 8. His misuse of power turned critics into martyrs. Revoking former CIA director John Brennan's security clearance and CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta's White House press pass turned partisan critics who were embarrassing themselves into victims -- and gave them an even greater platform from which to attack him. 7. He drove away suburban voters and caused the GOP to lose control of the House. That's because the president has sought to energize his base in ways that drive those voters away. If he wants to win reelection, Trump needs to bring suburban Republican voters back into the GOP fold. 6. His graceless handling of Sen. John McCain's funeral was a new low. Trump didn't like McCain, but when you're the president, sometimes you must honor people you didn't like. McCain was an American hero. Trump's inability to muster a kind or generous word reflected poorly on the president. 5. His handling of Jamal Khashoggi's murder harmed America's moral standing. Trump is right that a permanent breach with Saudi Arabia is not acceptable, because there is no other country in the Middle East that can serve as a counterweight to Iran. But it was unseemly to declare that "It's all about 'America First'" and "We're not going to give up hundreds of billions of dollars in orders." 4. His news conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki was an embarrassment. His meeting with the Russian president came on the heels of Russia's attempted assassination of a dissident on British soil using banned chemical weapons and the indictment of 12 Russians for 2016 election meddling. Instead of condemning these actions, Trump publicly sided with Putin over his own intelligence community. 3. His policy to separate migrant children from their families at the southern border was an avoidable tragedy. There is nothing wrong with a zero-tolerance policy for illegal crossings. But his administration's failure to anticipate and prepare for how to deal with migrant families was gross negligence -- a symptom of the chaos that is undermining his presidency. 2. His planned withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan is a gift to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. In 2017, my Top 10 Best list praised Trump for reversing President Barack Obama's disastrous withdrawal, which he said "would create a vacuum for terrorists." But in December, Trump ordered the military to start planning the withdrawal of roughly 7,000 troops -- about half the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The news came just as U.S. officials were holding talks with the Taliban, whose No. 1 demand is the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Hardly the "art of the deal." 1. His pullout of all U.S. troops in Syria will take America's boot off of the terrorists' necks. Trump's claim that "we have defeated ISIS in Syria" is as bad as Obama's dismissing them as the "J.V." squad. The Islamic State still has up to 30,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria and about $400 million in their coffers. The Islamic State is not defeated, and not one member of Trump's national security team agrees with his decision to withdraw. If he lets the Islamic State off the mat like Obama did in Iraq in 2011, our nation will pay a terrible price. It is notable that, with the exception of troop withdrawals and family separations, most of the items on this list were transgressions of style rather than substance. With the mute button on, the Trump presidency is pretty good from a conservative policy perspective. And yet Trump's approval rating at year's end is just 39 percent -- because most Americans don't follow politics with the sound off. Read Thiessens take on Trumps top 10 success. Follow Marc A. Thiessen on Twitter, @marcthiessen. (c) 2019, The Washington Post Writers Group WASHINGTON President Donald Trump said Wednesday the partial government shutdown will last as long as it takes as closures entered a 12th day over his demands for billions of dollars from Congress to build a border wall with Mexico. "Could be a long time or could be quickly," Trump said during lengthy comments at a Cabinet meeting at the White House, his first public appearance of the new year. The president said his Homeland Security officials will "make a plea" for the border wall during a briefing for congressional leaders later Wednesday at the White House. But Trump also rejected his own administration's offer to accept $2.5 billion for the wall. That offer was made when Vice President Mike Pence and other top officials met with Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer at the start of the shutdown. Instead, Trump repeatedly pushed for the $5.6 billion he has demanded. Trump made his case ahead of the afternoon session with Democratic and Republican leaders about the migrants arriving at the border in recent days. He said the current border is "like a sieve" and noted the tear gas "flying" overnight to deter arrivals. He called the border "very tough" at keeping immigrants out. "If they knew they couldn't come through, they wouldn't even start," Trump said at the meeting, joined by Cabinet secretaries and top advisers, including Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. The meeting came as the shutdown dragged through its second week, closing some parks and leaving hundreds of thousands of federal employees without pay. Trump complained that he had been "lonely" at the White House during the holiday break, having skipped his getaway to Mar-a-Lago in Florida. He claimed his only companions were the "machine gunners," referring to security personnel, and "they don't wave, they don't smile." He also criticized Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, for visiting Hawaii. At the Capitol on Wednesday, Pelosi said she hoped Republicans and the White House "are hearing what we have offered" to end the shutdown. So far, the administration has rejected a proposal from Democrats to re-open government without money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump contended the Democrats see the shutdown fight as "an election point" as he celebrated his own first two years in office. He promised "six more years of great success." The partial government shutdown began on Dec. 22. Funding for the wall has been the sticking point in passing funding bills for several government departments. The Wednesday afternoon briefing with the congressional leaders is taking place the day before Democrats are to assume control of the House and end the Republican monopoly on government. The session will be held in the high-security Situation Room at the White House, which is typically used to handle sensitive information. The location means the conversation will not be televised, unlike the volatile sitdown during which Democratic leaders talked back to Trump last month. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the top incoming House Republicans Kevin McCarthy of California and Steve Scalise of Louisiana planned to attend, according to aides. The departing House speaker, Paul Ryan, was not expected. Pelosi, who is expected to become speaker on Thursday, and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer planned to attend. Pelosi said Tuesday that Democrats would take action to "end the Trump Shutdown" by passing legislation Thursday to reopen government. "We are giving the Republicans the opportunity to take yes for an answer," she wrote in a letter to colleagues. "Senate Republicans have already supported this legislation, and if they reject it now, they will be fully complicit in chaos and destruction of the President's third shutdown of his term." The White House invitation came after House Democrats released their plan to re-open the government without approving money for a border wall. They planned to pass them as soon as the new Congress convenes Thursday. Trump spent the weekend saying Democrats should return to Washington to negotiate, firing off Twitter taunts. Aides suggested there would not necessarily be a traditional wall as Trump has repeatedly insisted since his presidential campaign, but he contradicted them. On Tuesday morning, after tweeting a New Year's message to "EVERYONE INCLUDING THE HATERS AND THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA," Trump tweeted: "The Democrats, much as I suspected, have allocated no money for a new Wall. So imaginative! The problem is, without a Wall there can be no real Border Security." But he seemed to shift tactics later in the day, appealing to Pelosi. "Let's make a deal?" he tweeted. Whether the Republican-led Senate would consider the Democratic funding bills or if Trump would sign either into law was unclear. McConnell spokesman Donald Stewart said Senate Republicans would not take action without Trump's backing. Even if only symbolic, passage of the bills in the House would put fresh pressure on the president. At the same time, administration officials said Trump was in no rush for a resolution to the impasse, believing he has public opinion and his base on his side. The Democratic package to end the shutdown would include one bill to temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security at current levels with $1.3 billion for border security, far less than Trump has said he wants for the wall through Feb. 8 as talks continued. It would also include another measure to fund the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Housing and Urban Development and others closed by the partial shutdown. That measure would provide money through the remainder of the fiscal year, to Sept. 30. --The Associated Press A 54-year-old former substitute teacher was sentenced to 6 years in prison Wednesday for sexually abusing a third-grade girl while in class. A jury in December found Dale Buckendahl guilty of first-degree sexual abuse for sticking his hand up the skirt of a 9-year-old student and rubbing her bare leg in a sexual manner as she sat at a table at Alder Elementary School in the Reynolds School District in outer Southeast Portland. The girl testified that he touched her inner thigh and she considered that to be a private part of her body. She said Buckendahl also touched her vaginal area, but the jury found him not guilty of a second count of first-degree sexual abuse for that allegation. The sexual abuse happened in 2008. The girl confided in a school counselor in 2011, but Buckendahl wasnt charged until 2017, months after the victim filed a lawsuit against the Reynolds School District for allowing Buckendahl to be alone with students despite his concerning past. The school district settled the case for $70,000. Now a young adult, the victim said Buckendahl forever changed her life. We tell our children not to worry as we look for the monsters under the bed, the young woman said, as she addressed Buckendahl in court. But the real monsters are people like him who are in our day cares, our schools, our churches. Its always people like him who hide behind the power and the title that they have and use it to take advantage and pray on the vulnerable. She said she was "never able to feel like a normal child again. I wasnt able to have the typical experience in schools anymore because school to me was never about my education from that day on, but more about survival. Although sentencing guidelines call for a mandatory minimum of 6 years in prison under the states Measure 11 law, defense attorney Rich Cohen asked the judge to find the required sentence disproportional to Buckendahls case. Cohen asked the judge to sentence Buckendahl to 12 to 13 months in prison, based on a previous Oregon Supreme Court ruling that allows exceptions in unusual cases. But Multnomah County Circuit Judge Kelly Skye said she wouldnt make an exception because she doesnt think 6 years for a teacher who abused a student at school would shock the moral sense of reasonable people. Skye told the victim she was courageous for testifying during trial, which lasted nine days. The judge also apologized on behalf of the government that more wasnt done to intervene in Buckendahls teaching career after his earlier behavior raised red flags among educational administrators. According to the victims 2017 lawsuit, the Beaverton School District had reprimanded Buckendahl in a letter for exchanging inappropriate emails with students, giving them presents and having inappropriate contact with a former elementary student while he worked as a substitute teacher from 1998 to 2003. Oregons Teacher Standards and Practices Commission also found that Buckendahl tried to view sexually explicit material on a classroom computer in 2002. The commission suspended Buckendahls teaching license for 30 days and he was put on probation from 2003 to 2007. He was off probation by the time he encountered the victim in 2008 at Alder Elementary in Portland. The Reynolds district serves parts of Portland and Gresham, as well as Fairview, Wood Village and Troutdale. Unfortunately, I feel like the Teacher Standards and Practices Commission may not have caught this one correctly, Skye said. ... I do look at that as a potential government failure. Buckendahl spoke briefly, saying he didnt touch the victim with any sexual intent. As part of his sentence, he will be required to register as a sex offender. -- Aimee Green agreen@oregonian.com o_aimee For as long as Paula Myers can remember, the states lone womens prison has provided sanitary pads to inmates. But if women wanted tampons, they had to go to the prison store to buy them at a premium price. The practice seemed out of touch to Myers, a longtime corrections administrator who was named superintendent of Coffee Creek Correctional Institution last spring. By fall, she arranged for the state to provide tampons to inmates who want them. Oregon is among a small number of states that give tampons to inmates. "Access to feminine hygiene products, to me, seems like a basic right," Myers said. All women have different needs. I think supplying a variety of different products seems reasonable. Coffee Creek inmates may have up to 10 pads or regular-sized tampons, or a combination of the two products. Theyll still need to shop at the prison store if they want a brand name tampon or a different size. The shift is part of a national movement focused on giving incarcerated women -- who make up about 9 percent of the imprisoned population nationwide -- free access to menstrual hygiene products, including tampons. A new federal policy requires the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to provide its women inmates with sanitary pads and tampons at no charge but the rule doesnt apply to states. Oregon joins states like Arizona and Maryland in giving out tampons, prison reform advocates said. Its pretty atypical from what I have seen, said Bianca Tylek, director of the New York-based Corrections Accountability Project, a national group focused on prison reform. Most places you go, whether its a county jail or a state prison, dont provide women with tampons and often when they provide them with any type of menstrual hygiene product, it tends to be insufficient for the length of the period. Prisons, said Tylek, tend to be overseen by men and this is just not on their radar. Kelly Simon, staff attorney for ACLU of Oregon, said the new practice at Coffee Creek appears to be an improvement. But she said prison officials shouldnt limit the number and type of pads and tampons women use. Periods are a basic fact of life and people in prison have a right to necessary hygiene products as each individuals period demands, not as determined by an arbitrary policy, she said in a statement late Wednesday. When people cannot adequately manage their periods to prevent bleeding onto clothing or other items, it can be humiliating. Its unclear how the issue plays out in Oregon jails, which are run by local sheriffs. The Oregon State Sheriffs' Association said that 27 jail commanders responded to a poll this week saying their facilities provide free feminine products to inmates but whether that includes tampons isnt clear. Marion County Sheriff Jason Myers said the jail in his county provides tampons or pads free of charge. At Coffee Creek, Myers said administrators worried that tampons would add to prison costs or wreak havoc on the plumbing because women would flush them. She said her male predecessors likely found the topic of menstruation too awkward to address. The fact that its 2018 and we are still talking about tampons for women -- its like, lets get to yes, she said. You tell me all the reasons from a security standpoint that you think we cant do that. It turned out that tampons didnt add to the cost of supplies. The state already spends about $5,900 a month on sanitary pads. Replacing some of them with tampons saved about $500 a month, Myers said. And worries that women would flush tampons werent enough to derail the idea, she said. You cant tell me that if they were flushing pads, that was any worse or better than a tampon, Myers said. The change makes a big difference, some inmates said. In the past, some women resorted to fashioning makeshift tampons out of pads. Hope Cavagnaro of The Dalles served two stints at Coffee Creek and has been out since 2015. She said spending $4.29 on a box of 20 tampons represents a huge splurge for incarcerated women, who tend to prioritize purchases like envelopes and phone fees so they can stay in touch with family. Having to buy something as essential as tampons can seem like an added punishment, she said. Our punishment, she said, is being in there. Noelle Crombie ncrombie@oregonian.com 503-276-7184 @noellecrombie Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. A 58-year-old homeless man who told police he fatally choked a homeless woman after doing drugs with her in his parked van was sentenced to 17 years in prison Wednesday. Terry Hickman declined to say anything when given the chance by the judge. He pleaded guilty last month to first-degree manslaughter and attempted second-degree assault in the death of Dallas Boyd, 29. Police found her decomposing body in Hickmans van parked in a Portland tow yard in July, days after shed been killed. Boyds relatives attended Hickmans sentencing hearing. Some wore photos of Boyd pinned to their shirts. They said Boyd was fun-loving, spunky, generous to other homeless people and a mother of two children she loved dearly. She also struggled with schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder, said her sister, Shanda Thurston. She turned to drugs because -- according to her -- it was the only thing that made the voices go away, Thurston said. Thurston said she misses the excited 2 a.m. phone calls she used to receive from Boyd. She was a woman with one feisty mouth on her...but she was always a loving person who just wanted to be loved back, Thurston said. Dallas Boyd died in July. Michael Riggins, who was engaged to Boyd, said both he and Boyd used drugs and were homeless. Those problems grew worse for Boyd because being separated from her children was so hard on her, he said. Riggins said he and Boyd separated several weeks before her death because he wanted to get sober and she wasnt ready yet. I told her I loved her and to call me," he said. Riggins said he told her hed come running when she needed him, but then it was too late. I never got to say goodbye, he said. Boyds sister, Thurston, said Boyd was planning to go to Wyoming, where Thurston lives, to enter treatment. Police learned of Boyds death after a friend of Hickmans flagged down police, saying Hickman had come to her North Portland apartment the night before and confessed to killing someone. Hickman had told the friend that he and a woman had been doing drugs in his van, he dozed off and then he awoke to find the woman trying to steal some of his stuff -- including drugs that were hidden in her bra, according to a memo filed by the prosecution. Hickman then said he and the woman began to struggle and he ended up choking her and snapping her neck, according to the memo. A medical examiner later determined Boyd died of manual strangulation. Police interviewed Hickman, who told them where his van was parked, according to a probable-cause affidavit. Police discovered the van had been towed a few days earlier, and ultimately discovered Boyds body inside. -- Aimee Green agreen@oregonian.com o_aimee Jo Ann Hardesty was sworn in as a city commissioner on Wednesday, ushering in a new era for the Portland City Council in which women hold the majority of its seats for the first time and Hardesty, long a critic of City Hall, has become one of its power brokers. Hardesty, 61, also made history as she became the first African American woman to join the council. She is its third African American member and the first since 1992. An activist and former state representative, Hardesty rose to power defying historical norms for city council candidates, who have typically been white, male businessmen. She lives in East Portland, has scraped by on a modest income and has for years pushed from the outside for police reform experiences that helped her connect to voters. Now, the critic is the commissioner. When I look around me, I see a city filled with people with hope and I dont take that hope lightly, Hardesty said after taking the oath of office, administered before a crowd of supporters at City Hall by Adrienne Nelson, the first African American justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. I look forward to what were going to be able to do together as Portlanders, Hardesty said. Hardesty won election to the council in November when she beat then-Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith by more than 65,000 votes, a decisive victory. The campaign was intense. Both women disagreed vehemently about how best to address Portlands pressing homelessness crisis and weathered credible accusations of misconduct. Smith was scrutinized over a county investigation of her management and spending, and Hardesty was the subject of news coverage that detailed her use of a nonprofit to direct a $10,000 contract to herself income she did not report to tax authorities. Hardesty rode her activist credentials to victory on Election Night, promising to amplify outsiders usually muffled voices within City Hall and to bring a new tack to housing and police policy. Her platform includes mandating anti-bias and de-escalation training for police officers, reassigning officers from schools and gang enforcement teams to street patrols, giving new teeth to police oversight bodies, and supporting programs that give rental units to the homeless and tighten regulations on landlords. Since Mayor Ted Wheeler, not she, oversees the police and housing bureaus, she would at a minimum need to line up majority votes on the council to require any of that. Hardesty has embraced that fact. I have an office that wont stay in the box weve been assigned to, she said. When it comes to working with Wheeler, who is also the police commissioner, Hardesty said they have more in common than they do differences. But she said she will look for others commissioners' support for her ideas when Wheeler is not supportive. Sometimes hell be successful, and I hope most of the time Im successful, she said. As a city commissioner, Hardestys day-to-day agenda stands to draw her attention far from issues of police and housing. Wheeler has said he will assign Hardesty to oversee the Portland Fire Bureau and the departments that run 911 services, emergency management and firefighters pensions agencies with annual budgets exceeding $387 million. Former Commissioner Dan Saltzman, whose seat Hardesty now occupies, had been assigned the same bureaus. Hardesty told reporters Wednesday that her vision for those bureaus includes rethinking how first responders take calls for service and whether mental health professionals can at times intervene instead of police officers or firefighters. In another first, the city councils more than 100-year male majority ended Wednesday. Wheeler called the day momentous and historic in a Twitter post, saying he could not be more proud to sit beside these powerful, brilliant and successful women. Whether Hardesty will form a voting block with Commissioners Amanda Fritz and Chloe Eudaly remains an open question. In a Facebook post, Eudaly said Hardestys election brings a sea change" to City Hall, declaring that the old rules no longer apply. While that may scare those used to wielding unearned and undeserved privilege and influence, its good news for the people of Portland, Eudaly said. Because now, more than ever, the people of Portland have the power. After taking the oath of office, Hardesty took her seat at the council dais to the left of Wheeler and began her first council meeting. Hardestys first vote was perfunctory: to make Eudaly the council president, a ceremonial role that rotates between the commissioners every few months. Hardesty voted yes. Her warm welcome quickly faded. Wheeler was not 10 seconds into congratulating Hardesty as a tireless leader and an effective advocate before he was interrupted by a shouting, swearing heckler, who was eventually removed by security. Minutes later, Wheeler ordered the council chambers emptied after another man flopped on the ground after a meandering rant in which he called the commissioners serial killers. Its kind of an interesting start, Hardesty said. As the commotion erupted she turned to Wheeler: "I leaned over and said to the mayor, Is this normal? And he said, every week. -- Gordon R. Friedman GFriedman@Oregonian.com Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. Prominent tax dodger Winston Shrout, sentenced in the fall to 10 years in federal prison for failing to file tax returns and issuing fake financial documents, likely wont have to report to prison Monday as ordered. Shrout has filed an appeal of his sentence to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and has requested to remain out of custody pending the outcome. U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones granted Shrout a stay, or hold on his prison surrender, pending the 9th Circuits decision. If the appeals court denies Shrouts motion to remain out of custody, he must surrender to the federal prison in Sheridan on the first Monday after the ruling, Jones said. Last month, Jones said Shrout had to turn himself in to prison no later than 2 p.m. on Jan. 7, calling him a crafty, manipulative and knowledgeable individual who enjoys, not suffers from, a grandiose opinion of himself. In short, this individual has been pretending to be incompetent knowing full well that he is responsible for his criminal acts, Jones said. But the judge reconsidered after Shrout challenged the denial on Dec. 20. He has remained out of custody for the last three years on supervision. Shrout, in his appeal, argues that hes not likely to flee or endanger the community. The 70-year-old has no prior criminal record, his defense lawyer Ruben Iniguez noted. Shrout also has significant family and community ties to Oregon and followed conditions of supervised release for the past three years, Iniguez said. Shrouts attorney further argued the federal trial judge should have held hearings before trial to determine whether his federal prosecution was vindictive and whether Shrout was competent to stand trial. Shrout also contends that Jones should have held a hearing on his motion to stay out of custody pending his appeal but ruled without oral argument allowed. Prosecutors have countered that Shrout is simply trying to delay his prison term. Jones found Shrout competent to stand trial after a September hearing before he was sentenced. This Court has made clear that a defendants choice to advance meritless arguments including challenges to the courts jurisdiction, claims of sovereign citizen[ship] and other unorthodox defenses does not mean that a defendant is incompetent, wrote Katie Bagley, an attorney for the United States. Shrout was sentenced Oct. 22 after a jury convicted him of six misdemeanor counts of willful failure to file tax returns and 13 felony counts of producing, presenting and shipping fictitious financial instruments. Shrout made and issued more than 300 fake "International Bills of Exchange'' on his own behalf and for credit to third parties. The government said Shrout falsely claimed the bills had value and purported them to be worth more than $100 trillion. Shrout also testified at trial that he stopped paying income tax or filing income tax returns well over 20 years ago. The government proved at trial that from 2009 through 2014, Shrout received over $500,000 in gross income through pension payments, speaking fees at seminars where he espoused his theories abroad, royalty payments for the sale of DVDs and other products he sold and for private client consultations through his business Winston Shrout Solutions in Commerce, yet never filed a single tax return. -- Maxine Bernstein Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. Gov. Kate Brown threw her support on Thursday behind a proposal to make Oregons drunken driving laws some of the toughest in the nation. Brown said a proposal floated by Senate President Peter Courtney last week to lower the states legal blood alcohol limit from .08 to .05 sounds like the right way to go. The recently re-elected Democratic governor made the comments in a conference call with reporters. Utah on Sunday became the first state to lower its legal limit from .08 or higher to .05. If approved, the lowered blood alcohol content would amount to roughly no more than three beers in an hour for a 160-pound man or roughly two beers in an hour for a 140-pound woman. It makes sense for Oregon to take a leadership role on this issue, Brown said on the conference call. While state action is new, federal safety officers have recommended the change for years. The National Transportation Safety Board issued a report in 2013 urging states to act. According to the government, about one-third of highway fatalities are alcohol related. The cause of these deaths is well understood and preventable, yet even the most concerted efforts have not kept thousands of lives from being lost each year, documents said. Oregons traffic fatalities increased in 2018, according to preliminary figures, with state officials pointing to alcohol and drug-impaired driving as one of the main causes along with cell phone distraction and other issues. Courtney told The Oregonian last month the legislation still allows for responsible drinking. Alcohol is a deadly weapon, he said. He recognized the legislation would be a struggle to pass and he expected pushback from the liquor industry. This is a Mount Everest move. Its doable, but it isnt going to be easy. Im going to fight like hell to make it happen. A spokesman representing the American Beverage Institute told the Oregonian most fatal crashes are caused by repeat offenders or drivers who drink high amounts of alcohol. Jackson Shedelbower, the spokesman, said the proposed bill criminalizes perfectly responsible behavior, noting that 70 percent of alcohol-related fatalities involved drivers with blood alcohol content of .15 or higher. Brown indicated Thursday she would help Courtney get the legislation through the Democratically controlled Legislature. Brown acknowledged her experience is somewhat limited in this arena. But the dinner party that I was at on New Years Eve, she said, Everybody who was driving was a designated driver and not drinking. Brown said she believes theres been a culture shift on driving after drinking. I think the shift is going toward safety and in the right direction, she said. Oregon law does allow law enforcement officers to arrest drivers who blow less than a .08 but show signs of impaired driving. Commercial drivers license holders have a more stringent requirement already. Those license holders cant register a .04 or greater blood alcohol content level. -- Andrew Theen atheen@oregonian.com 503-294-4026 @andrewtheen Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. Ready to drink Protein Market 2018-2025| Rise Bar(US), Labrada(US), Health Warrior(US), Idealshape(US), ThinkThin, LLC(US), General Mills(US), GoMacro(US), Slimfast(US), PowerBar(US) Ready to drink Protein Market https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/requested_sample/28913 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/enquiry_before_buying/28913 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/buy/ready-to-drink-protein-market https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/request_for_discount/28913 www.upmarketresearch.com UpMarketResearch offers a latest published report on Global Ready to drink Protein Market Industry Analysis and Forecast 2018-2025 delivering key insights and providing a competitive advantage to clients through a detailed report. 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The report contains basic, secondary and advanced information pertaining to the Ready to drink Protein global status and trend, market size, share, growth, trends analysis, segment and forecasts from 2018 - 2025.The scope of the report extends from market scenarios to comparative pricing between major players, cost and profit of the specified market regions. The numerical data is backed up by statistical tools such as SWOT analysis, BCG matrix, SCOT analysis, PESTLE analysis and so on. The statistics are represented in graphical format for a clear understanding on facts and figures.For more information on this report, please visit@The generated report is firmly based on primary research, interviews with top executives, news sources and information insiders. Secondary research techniques are implemented for better understanding and clarity for data analysis.The report for Ready to drink Protein market industry analysis & forecast 2018-2025 is segmented into Product Segment, Application Segment & Major players.Region-wise Analysis Global Ready to drink Protein Market covers: North America Europe China Japan India Southeast Asia Other regions (Central & South America, Middle East & Africa)The key players covered in this study Phd women(UK) GoMacro(US) Rise Bar(US) Labrada(US) Health Warrior(US) Idealshape(US) ThinkThin, LLC(US) General Mills(US) GoMacro(US) Slimfast(US) PowerBar(US) Simply Protein(CA) Zoneperfect(US)Buy Ready to drink Protein Market analysis & forecast 2018-2025 Report along with complete TOC@Market segment by Type, the product can be split into Gluten-Free VegetarianMarket segment by Application, split into Adult Male Adult Female YouthThe Report covers in-depth analysis as follows: Chapter 1 Study Coverage Chapter 2 Executive Summary Chapter 3 Market Size by Manufacturers Chapter 4 Unmodified Ready to drink Protein by Region Chapter 5 Unmodified Ready to drink Protein by Region Chapter 6 Market Size by Type Chapter 7 Market Size by Application Chapter 8 Manufacturers Profiles Chapter 9 Production Forecasts Chapter 10 Consumption Forecast Chapter 11 Upstream, Industry Chain and Downstream Customers Analysis Chapter 12 Opportunities & Challenges, Threat and Affecting Factors Chapter 13 Key Findings Chapter 14 AppendixGrab Best Discount Price @Global Ready to drink Protein Market Industry Analysis and Forecast 2018-2025 report helps the clients to take business decisions and to understand strategies of major players in the industry. 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We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers.The market research industry has changed in last decade. As corporate focus has shifted to niche markets and emerging countries, a number of publishers have stepped in to fulfil these information needs. We have experienced and trained staff that helps you navigate different options and lets you choose best research solution at most effective cost.Contact UsPhone : +1-646-491-9876E-Mail : sales@reportsweb.com OBD Aftermarket to grow at 17% CAGR to 2024| Key players are Verizon Communications, Xirgo Technologies, Azuga, Bosch, CalAmp, Continental, Danlaw, GEOTAB, Innova, Intel Corporation, Metromile, Mojio, Vector Informatik https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/2839 https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/2839 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/on-board-diagnostics-obd-aftermarket https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/by-2024-atm-market-to-reach-25-billion-2018-09-19 https://www.gminsights.com http://solutionrocket.com Companies operating in the On-board Diagnostics Aftermarket focus on offering new products along with strategic acquisitions to leverage their mutual technological capabilities and create innovative offerings. For instance, in April 2018, Quartix launched a new installation option; plug, and track. The new tracking device can be easily installed into the OBD port and it eases the installation and flexibility when moving the tracking function from one vehicle to another without disconnecting the hardwiring. In April 2017, SiriusXM acquired Automatic, the maker of the Automatic Pro and Automatic Lite connected car OBD II ports accessories for USD 10 million. The acquisition enabled the company to expand and improve its connected vehicles services.Request for a sample of this research report @OBD Aftermarket size is set to exceed USD 1.5 billion by 2024; according to a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc. The increasing emphasis on developing connected vehicle solutions and the growing adoption of IoT technology in the automobile sector are driving the growth of the OBD aftermarket. The increase in vehicle production, particularly LCVs and HCVs, has generated the demand for more stringent emission control standards.The government agencies around the world have implemented stringent emission control regulations to combat the increasing impact of air pollution on the environment. The increasing complexities in vehicles have generated the need to have more robust remote diagnostics solutions. Remote diagnostics technology is also gaining more popularity as it provides the vehicle owners and technicians with the real-time information about the vehicles status and helps in the effective monitoring of vehicle components remotely.Company profiled in this report based on Business overview, Financial data, Product landscape, Strategic outlook & SWOT analysis: Autel Intelligent Technology Corp.,Ltd. Automatic Labs AVL Ditest Azuga Bosch Diagnostics CalAmp Continental AG Danlaw, Inc. ERM Electronic Systems LTD Geotab Inc. Innova Intel Corporation Magneti Marelli S.p.A. Metromile Mojio TomTom International BV. Vector Informatik Verizon Communications Xirgo Technologies, Inc.The passenger vehicles segment held a dominant share of over 40% in 2017 in the global OBD aftermarket. The increased production of passenger vehicles, particularly in the U.S. and China, is majorly contributing to the adoption of OBD telematics solutions in the segment. According to the American Auto Council, the U.S. auto production is expected to exceed 12 million vehicles per year through 2019 and reach 13 million by 2020. As it has been made mandatory by government institutions in various countries to have OBD compatibility for passenger vehicles, the segment is projected to grow consistently during the forecast timeline.The hardware segment held a majority share of over 40% in the OBD aftermarket in 2017 due to the large-scale adoption of traditional OBD scanners such as scan tools and code readers to access the vehicles OBD port. These scanners act as an interface to provide users with the vehicles engine-related parameters. However, with the emergence of OBD dongles, additional information, such as driver behavior analytics and remote diagnostics, can be effectively extracted from vehicles.The OBD apps segment is expected to exhibit the fastest growth by 2024 at a CAGR of over 25%. The increasing penetration of smartphones and the adoption of advanced telematics technologies have triggered the demand for mobile-based apps. As the OBD apps reduce the dependency on any hardware to gather information and make it possible for the user to convert the smartphone or tablet into a portable OBD scanner for gathering diagnostic information, the demand for apps is likely to grow during the forecast timeline. These apps handle all the information collected from the OBD systems and ease the task of monitoring the vehicle parameters in the real-time, allowing the continuous monitoring of the vehicles status.The fleet management segment dominated the OBD aftermarket in 2017 with a market share of over 45% and is expected to maintain the dominance throughout the forecast period. The use of OBD in the fleet management software offers effective management of fleet operations and provides access to the real-time data regarding the vehicles location. It also monitors the driving patterns and helps in early diagnosis and mitigation of any malfunction in the vehicle components. With the significant growth in the electric vehicle technology, the demand for OBD telematics systems for managing and controlling the vehicle components is expected to increase significantly. The fleet management software in electric vehicles helps in increasing the fleet efficiency and reducing the operational costs.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @North America held a major share of the OBD aftermarket in 2017. The proliferation of OBD dongle-based solutions is estimated to grow at a faster pace in the region between 2018 and 2024. The automobile sector in this region continues to record a steady growth due to the high penetration of advanced technologies in the transportation systems and the increased momentum of autonomous vehicles. The presence of some major global automobile players and the increasing investments by foreign auto suppliers in their manufacturing facilities are driving the regions automobile market growth.For instance, in January 2018, Ford planned to invest USD 11 billion in electric vehicles to have 40 hybrid and fully electric vehicles in its model lineup by 2020. Similarly, in April 2016, Nissan made strategic investments in its U.S. operations to meet the growing need of the U.S. consumers. The company has invested around USD 10.8 billion in its U.S. operations since 1981.Browse Full Report @Some of the key players operating in the OBD aftermarket are Continental, Automatic Labs (SiriusXM), Magneti Marelli, Tom Tom, Geotab, Danlaw, CalAmp, Verizone, Mojio, Intel, Metromile, ERM Telematics, Azuga, Xirgo Technologies, AVL Ditest, Vector Informatik, Bosch Diagnostics, and Autel.Browse Related Report:ATM Market Size By Solution (Deployment [Onsite, Offsite, Worksite, Mobile], Managed Services), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, UK, France, Italy, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, UAE, South Africa), Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2017 2024About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:Blog: Future Trends in Laser Diode Market 2025 Leading Key Players - Osram Licht Group, Panasonic Semiconductor Solutions, Rohm, IPG Photonics Corp., Sharp Corp., Coherent, Hamamatsu Photonics K.K Laser Diode Market www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/download-sample/?rid=3222&utm_source=OPR&utm_medium=AK www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/ask-for-discount/?rid=3222&utm_source=OPR&utm_medium=AK https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/product/global-laser-diode-market-size-and-forecast-to-2025/?utm_source=OPR&utm_medium=AK Verified Market Research added a new report Laser Diode Market: Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecasts 20182025 in its database, which provides an expert and in-depth analysis of key business trends and future market development prospects, key drivers and restraints, profiles of major market players, segmentation and forecasting.Global Laser Diode Market report offers a complete overview of the Laser Diode Market Globally. 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The Global Laser Diode Market report elaborates the crucial data along with all important insights related to the current market status.Global Laser Diode Market was valued at USD 8.27 Billion in 2017 and is projected to reach USD 21.23 Billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 12.5% from 2018 to 2025.Get | Download FREE Sample Copy @Leading Laser Diode Market Players:Osram Licht Group,Panasonic Semiconductor Solutions,Rohm,IPG Photonics Corp.,Sharp Corp.,Coherent,Hamamatsu Photonics K.KGLOBAL LASER DIODE MARKET, BY TYPEInjection Laser Diode (Ild)Optically Pumped Semiconductor Laser (OPSL)GLOBAL LASER DIODE MARKET, BY MODE OF OPERATIONContinuous Wave ModePulsed ModeGLOBAL LASER DIODE MARKET, BY WAVELENGTHNear InfraredRed LaserBlue LaserGreen LaserOthersGlobal Laser Diode Market Geographic Scope North Americao U.S.o Canadao Mexico Europeo Germanyo UKo Franceo Rest of Europe Asia Pacifico Chinao Japano Indiao Rest of Asia Pacific Latin Americao Brazil Rest of the WorldAsk For Discount @It provides a refined view of the classifications, applications, segmentations, specifications and many more for Laser Diode Market. Recent developments and policies with respect to this market are elucidated with maximum data. It examines the cost structures and pricing regarding the suppliers, raw materials, labors, equipments needed, and many others.Table Of Content1 Introduction Of The Global Laser Diode2 Executive Summary3 Research Methodology Of Verified Market Intelligence4 The Global Laser Diode Outlook5 The Global Laser Diode, By Systems6 The Global Laser Diode, By Service7 The Global Laser Diode, By Verticals8 The Global Laser Diode, By Applications9 The Global Laser Diode, By Geography10 The Global Laser Diode Competitive LandscapeReason to Buy- Save and reduce time carrying out entry-level research by identifying the growth, size, leading players and segments in the global Laser Diode market- Highlights key business priorities in order to assist companies to realign their business strategies.- The key findings and recommendations highlight crucial progressive industry trends in the Laser Diode market, thereby allowing players to develop effective long term strategies.- Develop/modify business expansion plans by using substantial growth offering developed and emerging markets.- Scrutinize in-depth global market trends and outlook coupled with the factors driving the market, as well as those hindering it.- Enhance the decision-making process by understanding the strategies that underpin commercial interest with respect to products, segmentation and industry verticals.Complete Report is Available atAbout Us:Verified Market Research' has been providing Research Reports, with up to date information, and in-depth analysis, for several years now, to individuals and companies alike that are looking for accurate Research Data. Our aim is to save your Time and Resources, providing you with the required Research Data, so you can only concentrate on Progress and Growth. Our Data includes research from various industries, along with all necessary statistics like Market Trends, or Forecasts from reliable sources.Contact Us:Mr. AnkushCall: +1 (650) 781 4080Email: sales@verifiedmarketresearch.com Global Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Market 2018: Key Players nuTravel, Pana, TripCase, TripActions, Nextra ..... Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Market 2018 https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/3517946-global-corporate-travel-management-ctm-software-market-size https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/3517946-global-corporate-travel-management-ctm-software-market-size SummaryWiseGuyReports.com adds Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Market 2018 Global Analysis, Growth, Trends and Opportunities Research Report Forecasting to 2023 reports to its database.This report provides in depth study of Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Market using SWOT analysis i.e. Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threat to the organization. The Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Market report also provides an in-depth survey of key players in the market which is based on the various objectives of an organization such as profiling, the product outline, the quantity of production, required raw material, and the financial health of the organization.Corporate travel management (CTM) is a type of software used to better oversee, regulate, and coordinate the travel activities and expenses of a companys employees.This report focuses on the global Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. The study objectives are to present the Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software development in United States, Europe and China.The key players covered in this studynuTravelPanaAirPortal 360TripCaseTripActionsNextraGEM-TABSDatalexINNFINITYSTP PlusPASS Corporate IBERamcoMarket segment by Type, the product can be split intoCloud BasedWeb BasedMarket segment by Application, split intoLarge EnterprisesSMEsMarket segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaCentral & South AmericaRequest a Sample Report @Major Key Points in Table of Content1 Report Overview1.1 Study Scope1.2 Key Market Segments1.3 Players Covered1.4 Market Analysis by Type1.4.1 Global Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Market Size Growth Rate by Type (2013-2025)1.4.2 Cloud Based1.4.3 Web Based1.5 Market by Application1.5.1 Global Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Market Share by Application (2013-2025)1.5.2 Large Enterprises1.5.3 SMEs1.6 Study Objectives1.7 Years Considered2 Global Growth Trends2.1 Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Market Size2.2 Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Growth Trends by Regions2.2.1 Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Market Size by Regions (2013-2025)2.2.2 Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Market Share by Regions (2013-2018)2.3 Industry Trends2.3.1 Market Top Trends2.3.2 Market Drivers2.3.3 Market Opportunities.12 International Players Profiles12.1 nuTravel12.1.1 nuTravel Company Details12.1.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.1.3 Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Introduction12.1.4 nuTravel Revenue in Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Business (2013-2018)12.1.5 nuTravel Recent Development12.2 Pana12.2.1 Pana Company Details12.2.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.2.3 Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Introduction12.2.4 Pana Revenue in Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Business (2013-2018)12.2.5 Pana Recent Development12.3 AirPortal 36012.3.1 AirPortal 360 Company Details12.3.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.3.3 Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Introduction12.3.4 AirPortal 360 Revenue in Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Business (2013-2018)12.3.5 AirPortal 360 Recent Development12.4 TripCase12.4.1 TripCase Company Details12.4.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.4.3 Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Introduction12.4.4 TripCase Revenue in Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Business (2013-2018)12.4.5 TripCase Recent Development12.5 TripActions12.5.1 TripActions Company Details12.5.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.5.3 Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Introduction12.5.4 TripActions Revenue in Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Business (2013-2018)12.5.5 TripActions Recent Development12.6 Nextra12.6.1 Nextra Company Details12.6.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.6.3 Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Introduction12.6.4 Nextra Revenue in Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Business (2013-2018)12.6.5 Nextra Recent Development12.7 GEM-TABS12.7.1 GEM-TABS Company Details12.7.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.7.3 Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Introduction12.7.4 GEM-TABS Revenue in Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Business (2013-2018)12.7.5 GEM-TABS Recent Development12.8 Datalex12.8.1 Datalex Company Details12.8.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.8.3 Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Introduction12.8.4 Datalex Revenue in Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Business (2013-2018)12.8.5 Datalex Recent Development12.9 INNFINITY12.9.1 INNFINITY Company Details12.9.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.9.3 Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Introduction12.9.4 INNFINITY Revenue in Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Business (2013-2018)12.9.5 INNFINITY Recent Development12.10 STP Plus12.10.1 STP Plus Company Details12.10.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.10.3 Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Introduction12.10.4 STP Plus Revenue in Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Software Business (2013-2018)12.10.5 STP Plus Recent Development12.11 PASS Corporate IBE12.12 RamcoAt any Query @Continued.Contact Us: sales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US); Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)About Us:Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Virtual Reality (Vr) In Healthcarenning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.Addres:: Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt Ltd: Pune 411028: Maharashtra,: Ph: +91 841 198 5042 Biopharmaceuticals Market Analysis On Competition Landscape In 2019 By AbbVie, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Company, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, GSK, Roche, Biogen, Bayer, Abbott, Amgen, Biogen, Amgen, Biopharmaceuticals Market https://databridgemarketresearch.com/request-a-sample/?dbmr=global-biopharmaceuticals-market https://databridgemarketresearch.com/speak-to-analyst/?dbmr=global-biopharmaceuticals-market https://databridgemarketresearch.com/toc/?dbmr=global-biopharmaceuticals-market https://databridgemarketresearch.com/inquire-before-buying/?dbmr=global-biopharmaceuticals-market A SWOT analysis proves to be a handy tool when it comes to determining the market drivers and restraints in the Biopharmaceuticals market. The report aims to underline all the key aspects of the market to keep you apprised about the recent on goings of key players and brands acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures, recent developments, products launches, and the competitive research.The Biopharmaceuticals report further explains the exclusive terminologies like the market definition, classifications, applications, engagements, and global reach is for the Biopharmaceuticals industry while providing a CAGR forecast for the period of 2019 and 2025.For In-Depth Review | Get Sample Copy@Biopharmaceuticals Market is expected to growing at a CAGR of 8.5% during the forecast period of 2018 to 2025. The upcoming market report contains data for historic years 2014 & 2015, the base year of calculation is 2016 and the forecast period is 2018 to 2025.Market Key Developments: In January 2018, AbbVie Inc. which is one of the major key players has a Bioresearch Center in Worcester, Massachusetts where scientists are forging a new path for treating autoimmune diseases. Their vision is a bold one. To stop autoimmune diseases in their tracks. To discover the true cause of these diseases. In August 2017, Abbkine launched released its latest antibody named the Anti--Tubulin Monoclonal Antibody (3G5). The product joins the illustrious list of scientific tools and products from the research giant. The antibody has a recombinant protein that is immune with human, mouse and rat reactivity. The different applications of the antibody include IF, IHC, IP, WB and users are advised to determine the best working dilutions after series of experimentsMarket Key Competitors: Abbvie Inc., Amgen Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Eli Lily & Co., Johnson & Johnson, Novartis AG, Novo Nordisk Inc., Pfizer Inc., GlaxoSmithKline Plc., Roche Holding AG, Biogen Idec, Bayer AG, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Abbott Laboratories, Amgen Inc. Biogen Idec among others.Competitive Analysis:The global biopharmaceuticals market is highly fragmented and the major players have used various strategies such as new product launches, expansions, agreements, joint ventures, partnerships, acquisitions, and others to increase their footprints in this market. The report includes market shares of biopharmaceuticals market for global, Europe, North America, Asia Pacific and South AmericaSpeak To Industry Experts, Request For Details Report@Table of Content1. Executive Summary2. Scope of the Report Market Definition Scope of the Study Definition Research Objective Assumptions Limitations Research Process Primary Research Secondary Research Market Size Estimation Forecast Model3. Market Landscape Porters Five Forces Analysis Threat of New Entrants Bargaining Power of Buyers Bargaining Power of Suppliers Threat of Substitutes Segment Rivalry Value Chain/supply Chain Analysis4. Market Dynamics Introduction Market Drivers Market Restraints Market Opportunities Market Trends5. INDUSTRY ANALYSIS Value Chain Analysis Technology Roadmap Market Attractiveness Analysis6. Major Application Analysis: Major Application Market Share Major Down Stream Customers Analysis Others Global7. New Project Investment Feasibility Analysis: New Project SWOT Analysis New Project Investment Feasibility AnalysisContinued..........For Full TOC Visits@Market Drivers and Restraints: Increasing acceptance for biopharmaceuticals Ability of biopharmaceuticals to treat previously untreatable diseases Huge market demand Increasing demand for affordable biopharmaceuticals High-end manufacturing requirements Complicated and cumbersome regulatory requirementsBiopharmaceuticals Market Segments:The global biopharmaceuticals market is segmented based on: product type, application, geographical segments,On the basis of product type the global biopharmaceuticals market is classified into: monoclonal antibodies, recombinant growth factors, purified proteins, recombinant proteins, recombinant hormones, synthetic immunomodulators, and vaccines.On the basis of application the market is segmented into: inflammatory infectious diseases, autoimmune disorders, metabolic disorders, hormonal disorders, disease prevention, cardiovascular diseases, neurological diseases, other diseases.On the basis of Key Stakeholders market is segmented into: Biopharmaceuticals Manufacturers Biopharmaceuticals Distributors/Traders/Wholesalers Biopharmaceuticals Subcomponent Manufacturers Industry Association Downstream VendorsBased on geography: North America & South America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa.Note: If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Make an Inquiry for Discount On this Report@About Us:Data Bridge Market Research set forth itself as an unconventional and neoteric Market research and consulting firm with unparalleled level of resilience and integrated approaches. We are determined to unearth the best market opportunities and foster efficient information for your business to thrive in the market. Data Bridge endeavors to provide appropriate solutions to the complex business challenges and initiates an effortless decision-making process.Contact:Data Bridge Market ResearchTel: +1-888-387-281Email: sopan.gedam@databridgemarketresearch.com Zika Vaccines Market Insights With Key Players Cerus Corporation, Biken, GlaxoSmithKline plc, Bharat Biotech International Pvt. Ltd, GeneOne Life Science Zika Vaccines https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-discount/413 https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-pdf/413 Zika vaccines are developed for immunization & prevention against diseases caused by Zika virus. This virus belongs to genus Flavivirus and is transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. The virus can also be transmitted through blood transfusion, sexual contact or from infected pregnant women to the fetus. Diagnosis of this infection is confirmed by detecting viral DNA through PCR. However, only 1 in 4 people with zika infection are prone to develop symptoms. In November 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that zika infection no longer constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) as major cases of zika virus were asymptomatic.In April 2015, a major ongoing outbreak of Zika virus was registered in Brazil, which later affected the population in South and Central America. This outbreak caused mild illness (fever, rashes, joint pains, conjunctivitis, nausea, and muscle pain), though the recent outbreaks showed severe complications such as microcephaly, Guillain-Barre syndrome, and various congenital neurological abnormalities in infants who were born to infected mothers. The link between zika virus and microcephaly and Guillain-Barre syndrome was identified and reported in 2015 in Brazil.According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 70 new zika virus infection cases were reported in the U.S. in 2015, which increased to 41,181 cases in 2016. Lack of reporting is a major factor for lower incidence rate in 2015. Increase in awareness can result in more diagnosis and reporting thus generating growth of the global zika vaccines market.Get Discount On This Report:Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology found that the extract of San Francisco plant (Codiaeum variegatum) found in Australia, can kill the zika virus. This extract can arrest the virus and stop it from replicating without causing any damage to the host cells.As of March 2016, 67 companies and research institutions were working on various kinds of R&D projects and clinical trials aided to develop effective vaccines against zika virus. The FDA approved the first human clinical trial for GLS5700 in June 2016, a zika vaccine being developed by Inovio Pharmaceuticals. Further in 2017, a grant was approved for phase 2 clinical trials for a DNA vaccine conducted by NIAIDs Vaccine Research Center (VRC).Increasing awareness among the population would aid in controlling the incidence rate of zika infection. The WHO implemented a global framework for creating public awareness through its Zika Strategic Response Framework and Joint Plan in February 2016. This plan outlines all the points to be taken care of at the time of infections. In June 2016, WHO Regional Office for Europe developed a training curriculum to increase awareness by the publication of Zika Risk Assessment for European Region.High investment costs required for R&D and the development of effective zika virus vaccines serves as a restraining factor for the global zika vaccines market.While major of the Zika virus cases occur in tropical regions such as Brazil, Paraguay, Venezuela, Colombia and Suriname, there are higher chances of mosquito infections in tropical areas of the U.S. like Texas and Florida. According to Pan American Health Organization, around 1,246 suspected and confirmed cases were reported between epidemiological week (EW) 10 and EW 14 of 2016 in the sub region which involves Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Ecuador.Download the PDF brochure:About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Mr.ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email:sales@coherentmarketinsights.com Masterbatch Market Comprehensive Analysis 2024 by Leading Players RTP Company, PolyOne, Clariant, BASF, The Dow Chemical Company, Cabot Corporation, Ampacet Corporation, Tosaf Group, A. Schulman, Inc. Masterbatch market https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/2362 https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/2362 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/masterbatch-market www.gminsights.com Masterbatch market is likely to grow at a CAGR of over 5.4% in the forecast timeframe, rising usage of plastic alternative to metal in automotive will accelerate growth. Government investment plan and stable policy framework for automobile manufacturers in Asia Pacific will significantly impact market growth by 2024.Further changing consumer preferences toward better living standards with growing per capita income in the region is cumulating purchasing power of customer, will substantially boost revenue generation of automotive industry. These factors will positively grow market demand for polymers in automotive industry, promoting growth for masterbatch products by the end of forecast period.Request sample copy of this report @Masterbatch Market size is forecast to exceed USD 14 billion by 2024; according to a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc.Growing percentage of agricultural land due to increasing population will enhance the demand for agricultural films. This film is manufactured by polymers which comprises of masterbatches synthesized from bioplastics. Moreover, rising trend for eco-friendly products among the industrial players and consumers is driving the masterbatch market for bioplastics, further excellent moisture shielding and protecting properties had increased crop productivity which is significantly driving the market.- Masterbatch Market By End-usero Automotiveo Consumer goodso Packagingo Agricultureo Constructiono OthersMake an inquiry for purchasing this report @Black masterbatch product is significantly growing with a CAGR of around 5.7%, owing to increasing application in automotive industry. It is highly consumed product in various end-user industry. Second largest segment is color masterbatch which have widespread application in various consumer goods and packaging products. Shift in consumer preference toward packaged food product is augmenting market demand for polymers which is favoring the market.Automotive industry holds highest market share in terms of revenue with USD 6.3 Billion in 2016, the industry is witnessing high growth in Asia Pacific and Europe. China is majorly dominating the market owing to government automotive mid and long-term development plan. In addition, government is highly investing to develop electric vehicle which will drive polymers market in coming years. Agriculture is estimated to grow with CAGR of around 6.0%, the market growth is significantly driven by growing percentage of cultivation land and rapidly increasing population.Browse Complete Report Summary @Asia Pacific, primarily China, is expected to grow at a significant rate during forecast timeframe. Automotive, consumer goods and packaging are growing industries of Asia Pacific. Europe is second highest country in terms of market share with CAGR of around 5.6%, high automobile production and improving market condition post rescission is likely to grow the market.The masterbatch market is highly fragmented comprises of numerous local & global manufacturers, supplier and distributors operating worldwide. Few of these market players follow both backward and forward integration system. BASF and Clariant follow backward integration by manufacturing pigments for their masterbatch products. Prominent industry players include Cabot Corporation, PolyOne, RTP, Ampacet, Plastika Kritis S.A. and Tosaf Group.About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Contact Person: Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone:1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb: Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) Market 2026 By Major Key Players - Merck & Co., EMD Sereno, Fresenius Kabi Human Chorionic Gonadotropin https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-sample/1011 https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-pdf/1011 https://www.coherentwire.com Human chorionic gonadotropin hormone (HCG) is a hormone secreted by the placenta after implantation of a fertilized zygote in the uterus. The hormone also supports normal development of an egg and helps in the stimulation of egg release from the ovary. The HCG is mainly used to induce ovulation in the women under infertility treatment. It is also used among males mostly to increase the sperm count and in young boys, due to pituitary gland disorders and other diseases, due to which the testicles of the young males does not drop down naturally into the scrotum. The HCG is usually administered as an injection under the skin into a muscle. The HCG can also be administered at home under the advice of a gynecologist or a pharmacist. The HCG levels can be determined with the help of urine or blood test. Result of specific test helps in the determining accurate measurement of the levels. These tests are mostly used to identify and confirm pregnancy or as a screening test to determine birth defects.Request Sample Copy Of This Business Report:According to Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2016, approximately 7.3 million women aged 15 - 44 have used infertility services. Moreover, 6.7% of the married women aged 15 - 44 were reported infertile. According to Azura Vascular Care, around 17% of the couples in the U.S. deal with infertility out of which 30% cases are a result of male infertility. These numbers suggests significant demand for infertility treatments, such as HCG in order for females to conceive a child. According to a statistical survey conducted by HealthGrove, pituitary gland disorders resulted into the death of around 205 people in 2015, out of which highest percentage belonged to white men. Pituitary disorders resulting into significant mortality rate are propelling the demand for human chorionic gonadotropin hormone.Additionally, various other factors such as endometriosis, hormonal imbalance, polycystic ovary syndrome, and others are expected to propel the growth of global HCG market. For instance, according to Frisco Institute of Reproductive Medicine, around 10% of women of reproductive age in the U.S. suffer from polycystic ovary syndrome. However, easy availability of alternatives to treat infertility could act as potential barriers for the market growth.Market Taxonomy:The global human chorionic gonadotropin by Coherent Market Insights is segmented on the basis of Technology, Therapeutic area, and end user.On the basis of technology, the global human chorionic gonadotropin is segmented as:Natural Source ExtractionRecombinant DNA TechnologyOn the basis of therapeutic area, the global human chorionic gonadotropin market is segmented as:Female infertility treatmentOligospermic TreatmentCryptorchidism TreatmentOthersOn the basis of end user, the global human chorionic gonadotropin market is segmented as:Fertility CentersResearch InstitutesOthersNorth America to dominate global human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) market, owing to rising frequency of infertility casesOn the basis of geography, the global human chorionic gonadotropin market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. North America is the highest regional contributor to the market and is expected to continue as a regional dominator over the forecast years. This primarily owes to the rising number of infertility cases as well as hormonal dysfunction among young males and females as a result of changing lifestyle.Download the PDF brochure:The key players operating the global human chorionic gonadotropin market include Merck & Co., Inc., EMD Sereno, Inc., Fresenius Kabi, Bristol Myers Squibb Company, Ferring BV, and Kamia Biomedical Company. Acris Antibodies developed a human chorionic gonadotropin hormone by recombinant DNA technology that helps to prevent the disintegration of the corpus luteum of the ovary thereby, maintaining levels of progesterone production for healthy pregnancy in females.About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Mr.ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email:sales@coherentmarketinsights.comVisit our news Website: Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services 2019 Global Market Key Players Accenture, Infosys, TCS, Attra Infotech, Birlasoft, Capgemini, Cognizant, Dell, eClerx Analysis and Forecast to 2025 Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Market https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/3493189-global-back-office-outsourcing-in-financial-services-market https://www.wiseguyreports.com/reports/3493189-global-back-office-outsourcing-in-financial-services-market www.wiseguyreports.com WiseGuyRerports.com Presents Global Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2023 New Document to its Studies DatabaseBack office outsourcing is a cost-effective arrangement that helps organizations to save up to 30% of its operational costs. This cost efficiency is achieved because the outsourcing companies help enterprises to manage routine responsibilities at very minimal costs, which in turn, reduces their overhead liabilities. Back office outsourcing companies offer several benefits to the financial institutions such as access to specific domain knowledge, best practices, new ideas, and high-quality talent for data-related services. With such quality outsourcing services, the organizations are able to deliver projects in lesser time and at affordable prices.Scope of the Report:This report studies the Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services market status and outlook of Global and major regions, from angles of players, countries, product types and end industries; this report analyzes the top players in global market, and splits the Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services market by product type and applications/end industries.A key growth driver for this market is the need for greater efficiency and productivity. Given the limited workforce and budget allocation, there are always few specific business operations that a company is not able to focus on properly. Expansion through outsourcing of these resource intensive back office functions, such as monitoring budgets, maintenance of database, fielding queries helps companies to refocus on activities that are integral to the company's growth. Also, a huge chunk of the burden of employees is also brought down through the outsourcing of these administrative and procedural back office responsibilities. This, in turn, helps them to utilize the saved time in working towards core competencies of the company. One challenge that could hamper market growth is the high attrition levels and employee turnover in BPO companies.The global Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services market is valued at xx million USD in 2017 and is expected to reach xx million USD by the end of 2023, growing at a CAGR of xx% between 2017 and 2023.The Asia-Pacific will occupy for more market share in following years, especially in China, also fast growing India and Southeast Asia regions.North America, especially The United States, will still play an important role which cannot be ignored. Any changes from United States might affect the development trend of Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services.Europe also play important roles in global market, with market size of xx million USD in 2017 and will be xx million USD in 2023, with a CAGR of xx%.Market Segment by Companies, this report coversAccentureInfosysTCSAttra InfotechBirlasoftCapgeminiCognizantDelleClerxEndavaRequest For Sample Report @Market Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth America (United States, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, coversHardwareSoftwareServicesMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided intoLarge PlayersSmall PlayersComplete Report Details @Table Of Contents:1 Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services1.2 Classification of Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services by Types1.2.1 Global Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Revenue Comparison by Types (2017-2023)1.2.2 Global Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Revenue Market Share by Types in 20171.2.3 Hardware1.2.4 Software1.2.5 Services1.3 Global Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Market by Application1.3.1 Global Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Market Size and Market Share Comparison by Applications (2013-2023)1.3.2 Large Players1.3.3 Small Players1.4 Global Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Market by Regions1.4.1 Global Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Market Size (Million USD) Comparison by Regions (2013-2023)1.4.1 North America (USA, Canada and Mexico) Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Status and Prospect (2013-2023)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy) Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Status and Prospect (2013-2023)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia) Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Status and Prospect (2013-2023)1.4.4 South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia) Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Status and Prospect (2013-2023)1.4.5 Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa) Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Status and Prospect (2013-2023)1.5 Global Market Size of Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services (2013-2023)2 Manufacturers Profiles2.1 Accenture2.1.1 Business Overview2.1.2 Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Type and Applications2.1.2.1 Product A2.1.2.2 Product B2.1.3 Accenture Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.2 Infosys2.2.1 Business Overview2.2.2 Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Type and Applications2.2.2.1 Product A2.2.2.2 Product B2.2.3 Infosys Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.3 TCS2.3.1 Business Overview2.3.2 Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Type and Applications2.3.2.1 Product A2.3.2.2 Product B2.3.3 TCS Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.4 Attra Infotech2.4.1 Business Overview2.4.2 Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Type and Applications2.4.2.1 Product A2.4.2.2 Product B2.4.3 Attra Infotech Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.5 Birlasoft2.5.1 Business Overview2.5.2 Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Type and Applications2.5.2.1 Product A2.5.2.2 Product B2.5.3 Birlasoft Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.6 Capgemini2.6.1 Business Overview2.6.2 Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Type and Applications2.6.2.1 Product A2.6.2.2 Product B2.6.3 Capgemini Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.7 Cognizant2.7.1 Business Overview2.7.2 Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Type and Applications2.7.2.1 Product A2.7.2.2 Product B2.7.3 Cognizant Back Office Outsourcing in Financial Services Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)Continued.CONTACT US:NORAH TRENTPartner Relations & Marketing Managersales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)ABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.Address:WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India Papua New Guinea tops Pacific Region in most New Year babies Yemen: International food aid worth millions are getting stolen as people continue to starve International oi-Shubham Ghosh Sana'a, Jane 3: There has been no shortage of food and other aid to the war-ravaged Yemen but yet the dark fact that millions in the country were inching closer to devastating famine didn't change. There are instances of rampant loot in the country. According to an investigative report by Associated Press, some examples of the thievery include: doling out 5,000 sacks of rice without any record of where they are going; looting of over 700 food baskets from warehouses of a welfare agency; pillaging of 110 sacks of grain from trucks while they travelled through the country's northern highlands overlooking the city of Taiz. 70% Yemenis are hungry, 250,000 face catastrophe: UN The AP report said review of documents and interviews of officials and aid workers confirmed that thousands of starving families in Taiz were not getting the food that came in form of aid from abroad mostly because they were being taken away by armed personnel who are allied with the Saudi-led military coalition which also has the backing of the US fighting in Yemen against the Houthi rebels. On Monday, December 31, the World Food Programme (WFP) which provides food to millions of starving in Yemen accused the Houthi rebels of stealing the food from the needy and selling it on the black market. The Houthis have denied the charges. "Across Yemen, factions and militias on all sides of the conflict have blocked food aid from going to groups suspected of disloyalty, diverted it to front-line combat units or sold it for profit on the black market, according to public records and confidential documents obtained by the AP and interviews with more than 70 aid workers, government officials and average citizens from six different provinces," the AP report added. Yemen conflict has seen around 85,000 children starving to death: Report The AP report said that the problem of aid getting lost or stolen is common in Taiz and other areas that are controlled by Yemen's internationally acknowledged government, which is also supported by the Saudi led military coalition. It also said the instances are also rampant in territories that are controlled by the Houthi rebels. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 6:04 [IST] Covid-19 origin: Was right about China virus coming from Wuhan lab, says Donald Trump Why isnt India there, Trump asks on troops in Afghanistan International oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Jan 3: Making a larger point that the United States is fighting wars for other countries, US President, Donald Trump asked why isn't India there in Afghanistan. Why isn't India there, why isn't Russia there or why isn't Pakistan there, Trump asked during a live telecast of the opening hour of Cabinet's meeting. Why Trump's promise of a wall may not come true Why are we there, Trump asked while stating that the US was 6,000 miles away from Afghanistan. The US had invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to avenge the 9/11 attacks and also to hunt down the Al-Qaeda which was harboured by the Taliban. The US stayed there and continued to the fight one of the largest wars in history that has lasted 18 years. Earlier Trump mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan while suggesting that it was of no use. White House dismisses Democrat plan to end govt shutdown While stating that he got along with Modi, Trump said the Modi was "constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan." "You know what that is? That's like five hours of what we spend," Trump said. "And we're supposed to say, 'Oh, thank you for the library.' I don't know who's using it in Afghanistan," Trump said. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 11:54 [IST] Govt gives 'one last chance' to Twitter to comply with new IT rules Can we have a lift? Scores of toads seen taking a ride on a python and Twitter is stunned International oi-Shubham Ghosh Canberra, Jan 2: Many a time, we humans have taken lift from strangers in times of extreme weather conditions. But if we say that the same holds in the animal kingdom also, will your ears believe it? Even if they don't, take your time to go through this story. Recently, a knot of toads in Australia 'sought' a lift from a python while it was slithering its way out of a lake after heavy rainfall. The rare sight looked to be out from the fairy tale books straightaway and one man in Kununurra in Northern Territory posted a picture of the same online, attracting a lot of attention. Germany: 'Fed up' with husband, woman lists his name online for sale at 16 Andrew Mock posted the picture taken by his brother Paul Mock from whose dam the toads came out and soon the Twitterati came up with their own jokes about the 'situation'. 68mm just fell in the last hour at Kununurra. Flushed all the cane toads out of my brothers dam. Some of them took the easy way out - hitching a ride on the back of a 3.5m python. pic.twitter.com/P6mPc2cVS5 Andrew Mock (@MrMeMock) December 30, 2018 One of the Twitter user said the python was nothing but an 'Uber ride' for the toads. "When I was halfway across the lawn, I bumped into the snake and he was just crawling along with all these toads hanging on, which I thought was extremely unusual and had never seen anything like that before. So I thought I better get a photo of this, and got a video of it, posted that to my brother who's in New Zealand at the moment," Paul told ABC Net Australia. "He (the snake) was literally moving across the grass at full speed with the frogs hanging on," he told the Guardian, adding that the snake is known to the family as it often comes by near the farm. Amazing! Must be with Uber to fit that many on the ride! Peter Letchford (@cosmoswest) December 31, 2018 Amphibian expert Jodi Rowley, a senior lecturer in biological sciences at the University of New South Wales, made things even more surprising when he said on Twitter that the male cane toads were trying to mate with the python! She said that males often get carried away. Mom catches 6-year-old son asking Alexa to complete his maths homework; says he is taking shortcut Male Cane Toads (Rhinella marina) can often be a little *too* keen to mate! They're all trying to mate with the poor Olive Python (Liasis olivaceus)! #Australia #WildOz #CaneToads #ItIsNYE https://t.co/XCHSDB6sgX Jodi Rowley (@jodirowley) December 31, 2018 Many joked that the python was nothing but an Uber ride for the toads. Here are some the reactions that the Twitterati came up on the incident: No no no no noooooo! Youre telling me those TOADS were trying to HUMP the SNAKE?!? pic.twitter.com/7qZ9EmAO0E NotMyPresident (@Chris6375) January 1, 2019 So is that considered porn? Is that beastiality ? Inter species erotica? Borda (@KarmaKinetics) January 1, 2019 Python does NOT consent to this! #MeTooHissssss Justin Dennison (@justinsane1987) January 1, 2019 The whole internet loves cane toad snake, some lovely cane toads riding a python to escape a storm! *5 seconds later* We regret to inform you https://t.co/j15bzCy45x Bec Hill (Be Chill) (@bechillcomedian) January 1, 2019 I was today years old when I found out toads use snakes as public transport. Laurel (@Laurel_Aust) December 31, 2018 For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, January 2, 2019, 18:13 [IST] Yes Mr Trump, a library can achieve in Afghanistan what yours troops & guns could not in 17 years International oi-Shubham Ghosh New Delhi, Jan 3: US President Donald Trump is known for his bizarre words and moves. On Wednesday, January 2, Trump mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for setting up a library in Afghanistan, saying he had no idea who was going to use it in the war-ravaged nation. The president also said that he wanted the regional powers around Afghanistan like India, Pakistan and Russia fight the Taliban. In 2017, too, Trump had expressed a similar wish, saying India should play a bigger role in Afghanistan and his words made Pakistan hysterical on that occasion. Trump's latest suggestion for India is as hollow as it was in 2017. India has taken the right approach in Afghanistan by making use of its softer influence in the country's rebuilding from the ashes. It might be too difficult for Trump to comprehend that a library could go a long way to put things in order instead of troops and hardware that the US has been assembling in Afghanistan for almost two decades now but to no avail. Before mocking India, the US president should have understood that it is because of the soft approaches that a country like India has taken that rebuilding of institutions in Afghanistan has been possible. Compare India's approach with that of Pakistan in Afghanistan which has only saw issues getting more complicated. India rejects Donald Trump's jibe at PM Modi, says it plays 'significant role' in Afghanistan Trump's job ends with withdrawing his own troops; he need not lecture on what to be done after that Trump, who recently spoke in favour of reducing American troops from Afghanistan, clearly aims for a scenario where others take over the fight in Afghanistan so that Washington can save its own money. As far as withdrawing troops from the countries that the US invaded over the past decades that got it nothing, it is a right move for Washington has no business remaining in other countries and fight alien wars. But Trump will do himself and his country a service by stopping articulating his future plans there. Asking India, Pakistan and Russia to jointly fight Taliban when the last two countries are clearly in support of them shows the US president has a very brittle understanding of things on the ground. Moreover, asking India and Pakistan to jointly fight Taliban is akin to day-dreaming and the mercurial US president doesn't understand that. India has never involved herself military in other lands Why isn't India there, Trump asks on troops in Afghanistan India will never involve itself militarily in Afghanistan given a choice. If India makes itself a direct party to the military conflict in Afghanistan post US withdrawal, it will only endanger its western borders. India can't expect the US to shield its interests in Afghanistan through a continued military presence for sure but there is no point either to plunge into the chaos believing that it would help India's own security interests in Afghanistan. India has been doing perfectly well by playing a soft player in Afghanistan and can't really replace Pakistan in Kabul's affairs since as the immediate neighbour, Islamabad has a far bigger role to play there. Also, it has not been India's international stance historically to send troops to other countries. Trump is clearly trying to flee the battlefield now at the expense of putting others in trouble. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 15:36 [IST] Dont you have confidence in the state you served for 30 years: SC to Param Bir Singh Dead or alive, they should be taken out says SC on Meghalayas missing miners India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Jan 3: The Supreme Court has sought to know what action the Meghalaya government had taken on the trapped miners. The court asked," what action have you taken. The miners have been missing for so many days. The court also said that it was not satisfied with the rescue operations. No matter whether they are all dead, some alive, few dead or all alive, they should be taken out. We pray to God that they are alive, the court said while summoning the Central Government counsel. Meghalaya: 'No way trapped miners will come out alive,' says survivor The court also told Solicitor General, Tushar Mehta, ' you wanted to send pumps to Thailand. That is not happening here. Why not,' the court also asked. Further it said that it is the Centre which has to do something. The Army had volunteered to help, but government did not want it. Why? Mehta said that instead of the Army, the NDRF is there. The court said that there are 72 NDRF men there, but there has been no result. Mehta then said that instead of the Army, they had sent the Navy. The Supreme Court had on Wednesday agreed to hear a plea seeking urgent steps to rescue 15 miners trapped inside an illegal coal mine in Meghalaya since December 13. The matter was mentioned for urgent listing before a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul. The PIL filed by Aditya N Prasad also sought a direction to the Centre and other authorities concerned to prepare a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for rescue operations in mining. The rat-hole mine, located on top of a hillock fully covered with trees in East Jaintia Hills district, had got flooded when water from the nearby Lytein river gushed into it, trapping the miners. Also Read Meghalaya Mining Disaster: Navy divers re-enter shaft, want water level reduced Rat-hole mining involves digging of narrow tunnels, usually three-four feet high, for workers to enter and extract coal. The horizontal tunnels are often termed "rat holes" as each just about fits one person. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) had contradicted media reports which quoted it as saying the trapped minors were suspected to be dead on the basis of a foul odour that the force's divers had encountered when they went inside the mine. It had said the foul smell could be due to the stagnant water in the mine as pumping had been halted for more than 48 hours. A survivor of the accident said Saturday there was no way the trapped miners would come out alive. Family members of at least seven trapped miners had already given up hope to rescue them alive and requested the government to retrieve the bodies for last rites. Calls for adopting children orphaned by COVID-19: Act against these illegal calls says SC Class 5 girl from Kerala writes to CJI hailing SC's effective intervention in COVID issues, gets reply Dont you have confidence in the state you served for 30 years: SC to Param Bir Singh Before SC, women narrate horrific gang rape incidents by members of TMC in Bengal We will hear it on Jan 22 says SC on early hearing in Sabarimala matter India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Jan 3: The Supreme Court has refused an early hearing on a contempt plea in the Sabarimala Temple case. The court said that it has been made clear that the matter would be taken up on January 22 and there would be no hearing before that. The matter came up before a Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi. The matter on hand pertained to the contempt plea filed against the Tantri of the Sabarimala temple. He was accused of shutting down the sanctum for purification after 2 women entered the temple on Wednesday. Kerala Bandh: KSRTC buses stay off roads, University exams postponed The court said that it had fixed the date of hearing as January 22. We have arranged our schedules for that. We will hear this then. On January 22, the SC will hear the review petitions filed against its order, which permitted the entry of women of all ages into the Sabarimala temple. Meanwhile a dawn-to-dusk 12-hour hartal called by Hindu outfits began Thursday morning in protest against the entry of two women of menstruating age into the Sabarimala temple of Lord Ayyappa . As per initial reports, auto-rickshaws and two-wheelers were plying at the railway station in the state capital and various other places. But in Kozhikode, protesters blocked vehicles and burnt tyres in the morning. The hartal, which began at 6 am, has been called by Sabarimala Karma Samithi, an umbrella organisation of various pro-Hindutva groups, spearheading protests against the Supreme Court's September 28 verdict, and Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP). The BJP is supporting the shutdown while the Congress-led UDF is observing a "black day" on Thursday. Entry of women into Sabarimala "daylight rape of Hindus": Ananth Kumar Hegde Two women, Kanakadurga (44) and Bindu (42), created history be stepping into the hallowed precincts guarded by police three months after the Supreme Court's historic judgement lifting the ban on entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its "eternally celibate" deity. As the news spread like wildfire from the hill shrine, protests erupted at several places, with Hindu right-wing activists blocking highways and forcing closure of shops and markets. BJP and CPI(M) workers clashed in front of the Secretariat for over five hours Wednesday as police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse them. A 55-year-old man, who was seriously injured in stone throwing at Pandalam, died late Wednesday night. Merchants' organisations have said they would not cooperate with the hartal and keep shops and business establishments open. Meanwhile, state DGP Loknath Behara has warned of strict action against those indulging in violence during the hartal. Various universities, including Kerala, Mahatma Gandhi, Calicut and Kannur have postponed their examinations scheduled for Thursday. Zakir Naiks deportation cannot be decided by one man say Indian-origin ministers in Malaysia 7 Rohingyas will go back to Myanmar as SC rejects plea to stall deportation US scribe working on Sterlite issue goes back home, to be blacklisted India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Jan 3: A US-based freelance journalist left the country, a day after authorities here ordered his deportation for working on the Sterlite issue in violation of his tourist visa conditions, an official said. Mark Scialla, who arrived here on December 27 last, boarded a flight to the US from Hyderabad Wednesday morning, Tuticorin district Superintendent of Police Murali Rambha, who issued the deporation order in his capacity as the district Foreigners Registration Officer, said. Tamil Nadu moves Supreme Court against reopening of Sterlite Plant in Thoothukodi The official also said steps had been initiated to blacklist the journalist and a communication was being sent to the Foreigners Regional Registration Office in Chennai in view of "violation" of the visa conditions by him. After arriving in the country on a tourist visa, Scialla had interviewed several people here on December 28 and 29 on alleged health issues faced by them due to the now closed Sterlite copper plant. Rambha said the visa clearly stated that the American national should not embark on any work except tourist activities. "Yet he violated it. He did not come here for tourism purposes... I am just sending the recommendation (for blacklisting) to the FRRO," Rambha told PTI. After a thorough enquiry, it was concluded that Scialla had violated the visa norm and he was served a notice Tuesday to leave the country immediately, the SP said. The officer said questioning of some local activists in connection with the journalist's Tamil Nadu visit would be concluded soon. Once blacklisted, a foreigner's visa application will not be processed for a stipulated period of time, officials said. The journalist, during his stay here had posed questions to local people on the "health issues" they faced before and after the closure of Sterlite's shut copper plant. He had also met an injured person in the May 22-23 police firing after the protests against Sterlite over pollution concerns turned violent here. Thirteen people were killed in the firing. No stay: CBI probe into anti-sterlite protests will continue When contacted, a US Consulate spokesperson here had said "We are aware of media reports concerning the American citizen. However, due to privacy laws, we do not comment on matters involving U S citizens." According to Scialla twitter handle, he is an "independent writer and video journalist covering environmental conflict and social issues." After the violent protests, the state government had ordered the permanent closure of the Sterlite plant, part of the mining major Vedanta group. On December 15, the National Green Tribunal set aside the closure order state government, saying it was "non sustainable" and "unjustified". For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 12:41 [IST] How naxals are using coal transport contracts to fund their activities To meet energy demands, coal ministry increases fuel supply to power plants India pti-PTI New Delhi, Jan 3: The government on Thursday said it has augmented the supply of coal to power plants to meet the country's energy demands. The development assumes significance as Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy recently met Coal Minister Piyush Goyal and demanded the Centre to ensure immediate supply of coal to Raichur Thermal Power Station. "Ministry of Coal has increased the coal stock and coal supply to power plants to meet the energy demands in the country," the coal ministry said in a statement. The coal stock in power plants as on December 31, 2018, was 16.60 million tonnes (MT) as compared with 13.20 MT on December 31, 2017, showing an increase of around 25 per cent. As on December 31, 2018, the number of power plants in the critical/super-critical category was nine, compared with 13 on December 31, 2017. [India's coal production: What's in store for 2019?] "The coal stock in power plants on December 31, 2018, was sufficient for 10 days as compared to the coal stock in power plants on December 31, 2017, which was sufficient for nine days," it said. The supply from Coal India Ltd (CIL) to power plants as on December 30 was 357.5 MT as against 332.03 MT as on December 30, 2017, showing a rise of around 7.7 per cent. PTI Rules permitting liquor home delivery in Delhi come into force, but wait not over yet This tweet on Marijuana by Delhi Police is more like a 'guide' to smoking good pot India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Jan 3: The Delhi police had issued a press release about arresting two people who were importing marijuana from the US. However, it read less like a press release and more like a guide to smoking good pot. According to the police smoking a specific strain of weed might help you win friends. The list, instead of warning people away from trying the illegal substance, probably made even non-smokers curious about it. It says that Bubba Kush will give smokers "contagious laugh", Pineapple Express "seeks inner peace", Alien OG "laughs at own jokes", Jack Herer is "friends with everyone", Grandaddy Purr is "always there for you" and Dab is "intimidating hot". A very detailed (but riddled with typos) Delhi Police news release about a seizure of marijuana said to have been imported from the US. https://t.co/bWXwRS4Hk4 pic.twitter.com/aBlhwOlTnl Steve Herman (@W7VOA) January 1, 2019 The Delhi police further said that the arrested individuals obtained the marijuana on the dark web, paying for it in bitcoin and having it couriered to them, according to the police. The dark web comprises parts of the internet that require special software to view; it is often associated with the encrypted Tor network. The report said that the recovered marijuana was sold in Delhi for Rs 2000 a gram and 50 grams of cannabis wax worth Rs 1,00,000 was imported from the US. J&K village becomes first in India to vaccinate adult population fully against COVID-19 False: Centre is not planning to bifurcate Jammu and Kashmir Some actions by Indian government inconsistent with democratic values: Top US official Soldier dead, another injured after avalanche hits Army post India oi-Chennabasaveshwar P Poonch, Jan 3: One Army jawan died and another injured after an avalanche hit an Army post in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday. Two soldiers came under the avalanche, news agency GNS quoting sources reported. "A search operation was started immediately and the duo trapped under snow was evacuated," they said. However, one died on the spot and another sepoy Harpreet Singh of Punjab was taken to nearby army's health facility for treatment, reports said. The deceased has been identified as Lance Naik Sapan Mehra of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. Dead or alive, they should be taken out says SC on Meghalaya's missing miners A year ago 11 bodies were recovered from a spot in north Kashmir's Kupwara district where a passenger vehicle was hit by a huge avalanche of snow. A passenger vehicle was hit by a huge avalanche of snow at Khooni Nallah near Sadhan Top on the Kupwara-Tangdhar road. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 14:37 [IST] BJP tally in Rajya Sabha likely to go up by 1 next year Samundhari jihad: The maritime capabilities of Pakistans top terror groups India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Jan 3: The Rajya Sabha was informed that terror groups were training their cadre for carrying out Samundari Jihad against India. The revelation came in the wake of several intelligence reports suggesting that Pakistan based routs are planning sea borne strikes on India. In the past few months there have been several intelligence reports suggesting that Pakistan is gearing up its terrorists to carry out maritime strikes in India. The attack from the seas was witnessed during the 26/11 attack. This time around the alert suggests that the terrorists of both the groups are training hard in a bid to launch an attack on the Indian Navy. The threat looms large in the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, an IB officer told OneIndia. Samundari Jihad: Pak terror groups readying for sea borne attacks The Musa Company: Several intelligence reports available with OneIndia state that the naval wing of these groups is handled by the Musa Company, which is the special services group of the Pakistan Army. The naval wing of these terrorist groups is not often used by terror groups. It is part of the surprise element, the reports state. Since 2004, it had become mandatory for every Lashkar-e-Tayiba recruit to undergo a certain amount of maritime training. This apart, the terrorists also take part in classes on elementary flying. As part of the training programme, the first class is held in Thakot and then at Murdike. The training programme comes to a close at Karachi and each of these sessions is conducted by officers of the Musa company. The preferred route: In the days to come the sea route would be the most preferred for terrorists. It is impossible to man the entire sea and hence in this regard, intelligence and coordination becomes the key. In addition to this there is also a dire need to introduce hi-tech technology to aid the Intelligence Bureau. The reason why Intelligence, technology and coordination becomes crucial is because 90 per cent of the world trade is sea based and it is impossible to man each and every vessel on the sea. The smaller ones in particular pose the maximum danger. A combined unit: In a bid to boost up the maritime capabilities, the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the al-Shahbab came together in 2011. The coming together of these two outfits was specifically to spruce up their maritime capabilities. Investigations conducted have revealed that the pirates from Somalia who are dominant on Indian waters were sponsored by the al-Shahbab group which is linked to the al-Qaeda. It was the ISI that had suggested that the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the al-Shahbab come together and carry out strikes. The idea was to send out the terrorists along with some of the pirates in a bid to carry out strikes. Since manning all vessels is an impossible task for India alone, it became necessary to seek the cooperation of other nations such as Africa. The Lashkar-e-Tayiba on the other hand entered into several alliances in a bid to spruce up its maritime capabilities. An operative by the name Abu Yakub was tasked with coordinating with the al-Shahbab. A plan hatched back in 2011 indicated that these groups would send out several pirates into the sea in a bid to keep the Indian Navy busy. On the other hand they would take advantage of the situation and then get their terrorists to launch an attack on the Navy. How ready is India: Post the 26/11 attack, maritime security had been increased. There are over 400 warships which are on guard. In addition to this several more coastal police stations were set up and the fishermen were roped in to provide human intelligence. Capabilities: Lashkar-e-Tayiba: High speed recreational boats, scuba diving equipment, water scooters. Jemmah Islamiah: Attempted an attack on a US vessel in Singapore, the groups is equipped with speed boats also known as suicide boats. Abu Sayaaf: Bombed the Super Ferry in 2004 that killed 100. High level of experience on sea, but still uses wooden boats loaded with machine guns. Al Qaeda: Capable of underwater strikes by its suicide squad. Heavily dependant on Lashkar-e-Tayiba for equipment. Jaish-e-Mohammad: Armed with 600 sea specialists, coordinates with Lashkar-e-Tayiba for equipment. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 16:57 [IST] Can men get arrested for sporting long hair: Apparently in Pakistan YES! Samundari Jihad: Pak terror groups readying for sea borne attacks India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Jan 3: The Central Intelligence Bureau has said that while there are inputs suggesting a sea borne strike on India, the same is not specific in nature. There were intelligence reports that Pakistan based terrorists could launch a sea borne attack on India. The government however in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha has said that as per the information available Pakistan based terrorists continue to train their cadre for underwater strike capabilities in a bid to infiltrate them into India by sea or waterways. To launch major seaborne attack, Pak Army plans major distraction in Kashmir: IB The government further said that the terror groups were training their cadre for carrying out Samundari Jihad against India. The revelation comes in the wake of several intelligence reports suggesting that Pakistan based routs are planning sea borne strikes on India. While there is no specific input about any terrorist group carrying out a 26/11 type attack, there is intelligence that these groups are enhancing their sea borne capabilities. India on high alert for sea borne terror strike: How terror groups built maritime capabilities The information states that the recruits have received psychological indoctrination, learned basic combat and training in maritime capabilities. Will enact law to protect Sabarimala Ayyappa temple's customs if voted to power: UDF Sabarimala issue pending in Supreme Court, nothing to be debated now: CM Pinarayi Vijayan Kerala Bandh Updates: Governor seeks report from state govt on violence India oi-Deepika S Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 4: Violent protests have brought Kerala to a standstill after two women below the age of 50 entered the Sabarimala shrine on Wednesday. The protests have spread beyond Kerala as effigy of CM Pinarayi Vijayan was burnt in Hyderabad and some clashes were also reported from Kerala House in Delhi. Hindutva outfits under the umbrella Sabarimala Action Council have called for a statewide shutdown on Thursday. This is the the seventh shutdown called by right-wing groups in just three months over the Sabarimala issue. Two women make history, enter Sabarimala: A timeline of events Two women of menstruating age group, cloaked in black veils, created history on Wednesday as they stepped into the Sabarimala temple of Lord Ayyappa, breaking a centuries-old tradition defying dire threats from the Hindu right. Kerala Bandh: KSRTC buses stay off roads, University exams postponed Stay tuned for Sabarimala updates Pinarayi Vijayan takes oath as Kerala Chief Minister for second time; 20 ministers inducted in his cabinet Meet Subaida, Kerala woman who sold goats to donate for CM fund, gets VVIP pass to attend swearing-in ceremony Sabarimala protest: CM Pinarayi Vijayan blames BJP for violence during hartal India oi-Madhuri Adnal Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 3: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan blamed BJP for violence in the state over Sabarimala Temple row. Addressing a press conference amid growing turmoil over the women visiting Sabarimala on Wednesday, the Chief Minister said,''Devotees themselves helped these two women.'' He also said that the two women who entered the Sabarimala temple yesterday defying a decades-old ban on women of menstrual age faced no opposition from devotees. The women's entry has led to massive protests across Kerala and a shutdown call by rightwing groups. The chief minister also said that conducting hartal over women's entry into the shrine was like calling hartal against the Supreme Court's order. "Such things are to be decided by the Devaswom Board. The action was not only a violation of the Supreme Court's verdict but also against the rules of the board," Vijayan added. Earlier on Wednesday, Bindu and Kanaka Durga, both in their early 40s, entered the hilltop shrine around 3.45 am on Wednesday, becoming the first to do so since the Supreme Court order on September 28. The women have been kept by the state government at an undisclosed place. Kerala has been witnessing violent protests since yesterday. A man who was injured during clashes between workers of the ruling CPI(M) and the BJP died late last night. A total of 79 KSRTC buses were damaged in stone-pelting. Many media personnel, including women, were attacked and 31 policemen were injured. The BJP and the Congress back the protests and have accused the ruling Left of offending Hindu sentiment by facilitating the women's entry. Protesters blocked highways and forced shops and markets to shut down on Wednesday in various parts the state. Journalists reporting from outside the secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram were allegedly attacked by alleged BJP activists and its youth wing activists. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 12:53 [IST] Relook into Steel Bridge project shows 'arrogance' and 'insensitivity' of ruling class: Activist India oi-Chennabasaveshwar P Bengaluru, Jan 3: City-based environmental activist is shocked by the 'arrogance' and 'insensitivity' of the government over renewed interest in the controversial 'Steel Bridge' project. Activists have kept their fingers crossed after Karnataka Deputy CM G Parameshwara and stated that he would 'relook' into the controversial steel bridge. Speaking to OneIndia Environmental activist, Vijay Nashant, also known as 'Tree Doctor' expressed shock over Dr G Parameshwara's remark on the project. Vijay Nashant, said, "Bengalureans are dead against this project. This is backstabbing. When HDK was opposition leader he opposed the project. I am very shocked and disappointed by Dr Parameshwara's statement. I did not expect such statement from a sensible person like him." "Alleviated corridor, suburban railway and steel bridge for the city. Why is there a confusion?. Government's keep changing. They should ask what people want, " said the activist. IT scanner on Sandalwood: Puneeth Rajkumar, Sudeep among others raided Vijay Nashant went on to say that with this project the government is managing the problem of traffic congestion in the city rather than finding a solution. "The worst part is this example of political arrogance," he added. Vijay Nashant urged Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy to clarify on the statement by Dr. G Parameshwara On steel bridge row, Karnataka Deputy CM G Parameshwara, said, "It's not the question of the steel bridge, we need an elevated road from Esteem mall to Chalukya circle. There is a lot of congestion, it was a very good plan, I don't know why it was stalled." He said, "We want to relook at it, I'd like to discuss it with CM, Cabinet will take decision, people are facing traffic issues. We're talking about easing traffic in Bengaluru. I will leave it in public domain for suggestions, I'm open for it." It may be recalled that the 6.7 km steel bridge, estimated to cost Rs. 1,800 crore, was scrapped amid firm opposition by many citizens. It would have required the chopping of 812 trees and Bengaluru residents had managed to get the National Green Tribunal to stop its construction pending an audit. Then Bengaluru city development minister K George had scrapped the plan, saying as a "decision taken with pain." For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 12:22 [IST] Rahul Gandhi stoking fear on vaccine, all will be vaccinate by December: Union Minister Is the Modi govt fighting for blue tick or against pandemic: Rahul Gandhi If vaccines are free, why should private hospitals charge for them: Rahul to PM Modi Ayodhya land deal: Rahul Gandhi slams BJP, says betrayal in name of Lord Ram is unrighteous Rahul tweets 4 questions to Modi, misses out number 3, reveals it later on public demand India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Jan 3: Hours after a fiery debate in parliament and a press conference later, Congress President Rahul Gandhi, on Wednesday, tweeted four questions for Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Rafale deal. However, the list didn't include question no. 3, which RaGa tweeted separately hours later. Tomorrow, the PM faces an Open Book #RafaleDeal Exam in Parliament. Here are the exam questions in advance: Q1. Why 36 aircraft, instead of the 126 the IAF needed? Q2. Why 1,600 Cr instead of 560 Cr per aircraft. Q4. Why AA instead of HAL? Will he show up? Or send a proxy? Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 2, 2019 Congress chief has repeatedly challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to answer four questions on the deal that involved the number of aircraft, pricing, claims about defence ministry objections and what the party called patronage. The twitter was confused when question 3 was missing. Rahul then posted the third question! The Missing Q3! I had held back Q3 because Madam Speaker had said, no talking about the Goa tape! But the missing Q3 has become as controversial as Rafale:) So on popular demand: Q3. Modi Ji, please tell us why Parrikar Ji keeps a Rafale file in his bedroom & whats in it? https://t.co/6WdiN487HJ Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 2, 2019 Gandhi had targeted Ms Sitharaman during the debate in Lok Sabha and accused her of "hiding" behind the protesting AIADMK members. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 10:49 [IST] Rahul Gandhi stoking fear on vaccine, all will be vaccinate by December: Union Minister Is the Modi govt fighting for blue tick or against pandemic: Rahul Gandhi If vaccines are free, why should private hospitals charge for them: Rahul to PM Modi Ayodhya land deal: Rahul Gandhi slams BJP, says betrayal in name of Lord Ram is unrighteous Rahul Gandhi urges Lovely University students to ask questions to PM Modi India oi-Chennabasaveshwar P New Delhi, Jan 3: Congress President Rahul Gandhi continued his attack against Prime Minister Narendra Modi over Rafale deal. A day after a furious speech in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi urged students of Lovely University in Punjab to pose the same questions raised in Lok Sabha to PM Modi. Rahul tweets 4 questions to Modi, misses out number 3, reveals it later on public demand Congress President tweeted, "So it seems our PM has fled Parliament & his own open book Rafale exam & is instead lecturing students at Lovely Univ. in Punjab, today. I request the students there to, respectfully, ask him to please answer the 4 questions posed to him by me, yesterday." So it seems our PM has fled Parliament & his own open book Rafale exam & is instead lecturing students at Lovely Univ. in Punjab, today. I request the students there to, respectfully, ask him to please answer the 4 questions posed to him by me, yesterday. #RafaleScam Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 3, 2019 Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to inaugurate the 106th edition of the Indian Science Congress at Lovely Professional University (LPU) in Jalandhar today, and later also address a public rally in Gurdaspur. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 12:51 [IST] PM Modi in Gurdaspur: Attacks Congress on 1984-anti Sikh riots issue India oi-Chennabasaveshwar P Gurudaspur, Jan 3: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is under fire from Congress President Rahul Gandhi in and out of parliament, did not miss the chance to hit back the Gandhi family in a rally held in Punjab's Gurdaspur. In a bid to strike a chord local population, PM Modi said how Kamal Nath, allegedly involved in 1984 anti-Sikh riots, has been made Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh by the Congress party. PM Modi, said, "People of the country, including Punjab, need to be cautious about people whose history has been playing with national security and who are still spreading lies to weaken the soldiers and the Army of the country; whose history is just hailing from one family and who are still opposing Vande Mataram and Bharat Mata; whose history of brutally murdering thousands of Sikh brothers and who are still giving the Chief Minister's post to the accused in the riots." Not from Varanasi, but Modi to contest 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Puri? PM Modi took credit for constituting SIT to probe into anti-Sikh riots of 1984. He said, "At the behest of a family, the accused were called 'gentlemen' and the files were suppressed, the NDA government took them out, constituted the SIT and the results were in front of everyone." He went on to hail Sajjan Kumar's conviction in 1984 riots case during NDA government's regime. "At the behest of a family, the accused were called 'gentlemen' (Sajjan) and the files were suppressed but the NDA government formed the SIT and the results are in front of everyone, said PM Modi. Talking about the success of Ujjwala and MUDRA scheme, he said, "Free LPG gas connection has been given to more than 11 lakh women of Punjab. Youths have been given Rs 28 lakh loan under MUDRA scheme." Pakistan is buying new T-90 tanks: India has formidable MBT Arjun India oi-Vikas SV New Delhi, Jan 3: Pakistan is planning to buy T-90 battle tanks from Russia and this stirred up some concerns in India. Pakistan Army's move to enhance its armoured corps comes at a time when the Line of Actual control in Jammu and Kashmir has witnessed growing hostilities in the last one year. Battle tanks can be deadly war machines in certain kinds of terrains. A division of tanks can lend a powerful support to the infantry and crush the enemy defences when used in right conditions and terrain. In India's context, tank divisions are mostly used in borders areas of Rajasthan where desert poses a major challenge for other equipments to be moved into position in the event of war. Tanks are used both for offensive and defensive maneuvers of the army. Most of India's tank fleet comprises of Russian made T-90s which is a modern variation of the T-72B and incorporates many features found on the T-80U. The T-90M Bhishma is a vehicle tailored for Indian service, improving upon the T-90S, and developed with assistance from Russia and France. The tanks are equipped with the French Thales-built Catherine-FC thermal sights, and utilise Russian Kontakt-5 K-5 explosive reactive armoured plates. Our focus here is on ingenuously made Main Battle Tank Arjun. It is a state-of-the-art tank with superior firepower, high mobility, and excellent protection. The superior armour defeating capability of the ingenuously developed Fin Stabilized Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot (FSAPDS) ammunition and 120 mm caliber rifled gun give MBT ARJUN an edge over contemporary world tanks. A computer-controlled integrated fire control system incorporating day-cum-night stabilized sighting system guarantees a very high first round hit probability and reduced reaction time to bring effective fire on targets. [Can MBT Arjun be called 'truly' indigenous?] The Arjun entered service with the Indian Army in 2004. The tanks were first inducted into the 43 Armoured Regiment, Indian Army Armoured Corps while the latest induction has been into the 75 Armoured Regiment on 12 March 2011. The reason why the Indian Army relies heavily on T-90s is because of considerable delays and other problems in Arjun's development from the 1990s to the 2000s. This prompted the Indian Army to order T-90 tanks from Russia to meet requirements that the Arjun had been expected to fulfill. In March and April 2010, comparative trials on the maneuverability of the Arjun MBT and the Russian T-90 tank in Rajasthan deserts resulted in a better performance from the Arjun tank. MBT Arjun vs T-90: If we compare specifications of Arjun and T-90, then we can see that Arjun is far more heavier than T-90. But, at the same time, Arjun has a 1400 hp engine as compared to 950 hp engine of T-90, which explains why the top speed of Arjun is 72 km/h, whereas that of T-90 is 60 km/h. Arjun requires a crew of four to operate - commander, gunner, loader and driver. T-90 needs a crew of three to operate. It was also reported that T-90s have had performance issues in extremely hot weather. Recent comments from Army sources indicate that the Russian T-90S will form the mainstay of its future force, despite that tank's performance issues in hot weather. Although a formidable tank, Arjun (the original version) has had issues. The Arjun faced persistent problems of overheating and that tank's main subsystems, the fire control system (FCS), the suspension system, integrated gunner's main sight, which includes a thermal imager and laser range-finder, which were rendered erratic and useless by the abnormally high peak internal temperature of beyond 55 C in India. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 5:00 [IST] Fake: PM Modi did not change attire four times in a day to meet four different leaders Not from Varanasi, but Modi to contest 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Puri? India oi-Madhuri Adnal Bhubaneswar, Jan 3: A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi parried questions over contesting the 2019 general elections from Puri, the State BJP continued to stick its neck out, asserting there was every possibility of him entering the fray from the holy town. According to reports, a proposal in this regard was given by the Odisha BJP unit to Prime Minister Modi in October 2018 itself. "One cannot rule out the prime minister contesting from Puri. There is 90 per cent possibility of the PM contesting from Puri seat," Senior BJP leader and lawmaker Pradip Purohit told reporters. Notably, in October 2018, senior BJP leaders, including Dharmendra Pradhan and Smriti Irani, had held discussions in Odisha about the possible candidature of Prime Minister during Lok Sabha elections 2019 from Puri. Odisha is important for the BJP as it reached the saturation point in the North, West and the Hindi heartland States in 2014. In contrast, the party won just one out of 21 Lok Sabha seats in Odisha and two out of 42 in West Bengal in 2014. The ruling BJD headed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has had a continued win in the constituency for the last 20 years. In the 2014 elections, BJD's Pinaki Mishra won from the Puri seat by bagging 50.33 per cent votes. While, the Prime Minister had won the Vadodara Lok Sabha seat by a margin of 5,70,128 votes over his Congress rival Madhusudan Mistry in Vadodara. There was the highest ever 70.57 per cent polling in Vadodara, with the expectations that people of the city will elect Prime Minister from the constituency. Apart from Vadodara, Modi also won the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat by defeating Arvind Kejriwal by a massive margin of 3.37 lakh votes. His margin of victory in this eastern Uttar Pradesh constituency, which happened to be his first electoral attempt anywhere outside Gujarat, also happens to be the highest ever for the Lok Sabha seat. Since the prime minister had fought from Varanasi in 2014 with the blessings of Lord Jagannath, he might prefer Puri this time, Purohit said, adding that the party's Parliamentary Board would take a final decision on it. (with PTI inputs) No camp space for 'godmen' Swami Nithyananda, Yogi Satyam during Kumbh Mela India oi-Madhuri Adnal Allahabad/Prayagraj, Jan 3: The Kumbh administration on Wednesday decided to refuse space for camps to two 'godmen' ( Swami Nithyananda and Yogi Satyam) who have been accused of rape in the past. Kumbh Sub-Divisional Magistrate Rajeev Rai said, "A complaint was submitted to us requesting to reject applications from Nithyananda and Yogi Satyam for camps at the venue as both were facing rape charges. We forwarded the complaint to police seeking a report in this regard. The police confirmed the same." For those of you who missed the bus, Swami Nithyananda is the controversial godman seen with a movie star in a sex tape. In the wake of these developments, a team of police officials had arrested Nithyananda from Himachal Pradesh. He is also accused in a 2010 rape case, in which charges, they say, will be framed soon. Meanwhile, Yogi Satyam was one amongst five named in an FIR lodged at the Colonelganj police station in Prayagraj in June of last year. All those named in the FIR were accused of holding a woman hostage and raping her repeatedly while threatening to kill her if she were to reveal her ordeal to anyone. Station House Officer (SHO) of Colonelganj police station, Satyendra Singh said that an investigation into the matter is still underway and the accused have not been arrested as of yet. New Year tragedy in Delhi: Woman shot at by former JDU MLA dies India oi-Chennabasaveshwar P New Delhi, Jan 3: Woman allegedly shot at by BJP leader and former JDU MLA Raju Singh during new year's celebrations in a farmhouse in Delhi passed away on Thursday. The victim identified as Archana Gupta is an architect, an officer told PTI. In his complaint, the victim's husband alleged they were in the farm house on Monday night to celebrate the new year along with friends. At around 12 am, two-three rounds were reportedly fired by Raju Singh, the senior police officer said. UP: Bulandshahr main suspect Yogesh Raj arrested by police Ms Gupta was taken to the hospital where she was receiving treatment, he added. A case was registered against Raju Singh under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Arms Act. Delhi Police Wednesday arrested former JDU MLA Raju Singh, who joined BJP in 2015, from Uttar Pradesh. Police said they have recovered 2 rifles and 800 bullets from a farmhouse in Delhi where the incident took during new year celebrations. The JDU leader had fled the place after a 42-year-old woman was injured in the suspected celebratory firing. Special Commissioner of Police, (Law and Order) South, RP Upadhyay, said that information regarding the incident was received by authorities at Fortis Hospital in the Vasant Kunj area around 1 am. (With PTI inputs) Kerala Bandh: KSRTC buses stay off roads, University exams postponed India oi-Deepika S Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 3: A dawn-to-dusk 12-hour hartal called by Hindu outfits began Thursday morning in protest against the entry of two women of menstruating age into the Sabarimala temple of Lord Ayyappa . The hartal, which began at 6 am, has been called by Sabarimala Karma Samithi, an umbrella organisation of various pro-Hindutva groups, spearheading protests against the Supreme Court's September 28 verdict, and Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP). Kerala Bandh LIVE: State-wide hartal begins over women's entry into Sabarimala Two women, Kanakadurga (44) and Bindu (42), created history be stepping into the hallowed precincts guarded by police three months after the Supreme Court's historic judgement lifting the ban on entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its "eternally celibate" deity. KSRTC to stay off the roads, Air India issues advisory Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) buses are expected to stay off the roads, as the right-wing outfits have pledged to enforce a total shutdown in the state on Thursday. Meanwhile, in view of the state-wide bandh and protests, Air India has issued an advisory to its passengers. Auto rickshaw plying As per initial reports, auto-rickshaws and two-wheelers were plying at the railway station in the state capital and various other places. Two women make history, enter Sabarimala: A timeline of events Trade organisations support bandh Meanwhile, traders' organisations and firms operating in the tourism sector in Kerala have announced their decision to boycott Thursday's bandh call, citing financial losses. 28 organisations passed a six-point resolution in a joint meeting to ensure that their tourist services are not disrupted during the hartal. Varsities postpone exams scheduled for today Several universities, including Kerala, Mahatma Gandhi, Calicut and Kannur have postponed their examinations scheduled for Thursday. Jharkhand: 13 dead, 18 injured in separate road accidents India pti-PTI Jamshedpur, Jan 3: A total of 13 people, including two children, were killed and 18 more injured in separate road accidents in Jharkhand on Thursday, police said. A speeding trailer mowed down the children and one person sleeping on a footpath in the early hours near the Tatanagar railway station here, they said. Four people were injured in the accident that took place after the driver of the trailer lost control over the vehicle, hit a divider and ran over the people, East Singhbhum district Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Alok Ranjan said. The injured were rushed to the M G M Hospital, he said, adding that the driver has been arrested and the vehicle confiscated. Five people were killed and eight others injured when a passenger van collided with a truck near Dakaya forest in Deoghar district. Sub-divisional Police Officer Vikas Chandra Srivastav said three of the injured were stated to be critical, and are undergoing treatment at the Sadar hospital. In a third accident, three people died and five others were injured when a pick-up van overturned at Dhava village in Palamau district, a police officer said. The injured are undergoing treatment at the Medininagar Sadar hospital, he said. In another accident, two people were killed when a speeding car ran them over on the Marine Drive in Jamshedpur and fell into the river Kharkhai, police said. The two were going to take a bath in the river. The driver of the car, who was allegedly in an inebriated state, was injured and hospitalised, Deputy Superintendent of Police Arvind Kumar said. Local people put up a road blockade, demanding adequate compensation to the victims' family. It was withdrawn after police intervened. PTI J&K village becomes first in India to vaccinate adult population fully against COVID-19 False: Centre is not planning to bifurcate Jammu and Kashmir Some actions by Indian government inconsistent with democratic values: Top US official J&K: Encounter breaks out in Tral, 2-3 terrorists trapped India oi-Deepika S Srinagar, Jan 3: An encounter broke out between security forces and terrorists in Tral of Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday. Three militants are believed to be trapped in the gunbattle. The encounter started early morning in an open area of Gulshan Pora village and is underway. Police said security forces started a cordon and search operation in Gulshan pora village of Tral area after receiving information about the presence of militants there. "As the cordon around the hiding militants was tightened, they fired at the surrounding security forces, triggering an encounter which is underway," a police officer said. Taking to Twitter, police said, "Exchange of fire between security forces and terrorists at higher reaches of Tral, Awantipora." Exchange of fire between security forces & #terrorists at higher reaches of #Tral Awantipora. Further details will follow. @JmuKmrPolice Kashmir Zone Police (@KashmirPolice) January 3, 2019 Two days ago, a Special Police Officer (SPO) of J&K Police was killed by suspected militants in the district. The policeman belonged to a village in which another encounter had taken place a few days ago and where four Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) militants were killed by security forces. ISRO's new station in Bhutan to pose stiff challenge to China India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Jan 3: India is building a satellite tracking and data reception centre in neighbouring Bhutan. The new station is likely to double up as "a strategic asset" for the country, given its location between India and China, said reports citing unidentified people aware of the matter. It may be mentioned that China has already set up an advanced satellite tracking centre and astronomical observatory at Ngari in Tibet Autonomous Region, about 125 km away from the Line of Actual Control. It has been learnt that the Chinese facility in Tibet is so advanced that apart from tracking Indian satellites, it can also "blind" them. Why 2019 is going to be a busy year for ISRO? Prime Minister Narendra Modi had mentioned the ground station in his media statement on December 28, 2018. "Space science is the new dimension of our cooperation (with Bhutan). I am happy that Ground Station being built by ISRO in Bhutan to reap the benefits of the South Asian Satellite is soon going to be completed," he said. "With the completion of this project, Bhutan will get help in tasks such as weather information, tele-medicine and disaster relief in the far-flung areas of the country," said Modi. The South Asia Satellite was launched back in 2017 with India funding the entire project. Although this project will help Bhutan, this will serve as a strategic countermeasure for India to stop the Chinese advance in Tibet by having our own tracking station. China has technology that can not just track satellites, but also blind them. Flashback 2018: A year of success for ISRO The strategic step by India comes after the Doklam crisis when China tried to construct a road at a tri-junction between India, China and Bhutan, which led to a 72 day face-off between the Indian Army and the Chinese People's Liberation Army at Doklam in 2017. Meanwhile, India announced a Rs 4,500 crore financial assistance to Bhutan for its 12th five-year plan (FYP 2018-2023) in continuation to the policy of India that has provided assistance to Bhutan in every FYP. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 11:45 [IST] Hyderabad woman cop becomes superhero after breastfeeding abandoned infant India oi-Shubham Ghosh Hyderabad, Jan 3: A woman cop in Hyderabad made the headlines recently after chipping in to breastfeed an infant which was found outside a local hospital. The cop, Priyanka, currently on a maternity leave came to the aid of the abandoned two-month-old baby soon after her husband M Ravinder, also a police constable, informed her about it continuously wailing because of hunger. The Hyderabad Police said in a post on Facebook that a drunk woman had handed over the baby girl to a man standing outside the Osmania General Hospital on December 30. She told the man that "she would come back within few minutes as she wanted water, but she didn't return back." MP: As mother lay dead along railway track, baby tries to breastfeed Finding himself in a helpless situation, the man went to the nearby Afzlgunj police station around 11.30 pm and sought help. It is then when Ravinder, who was present at the police station, realised that the baby was hungry and told her wife about its ordeal. Priyanka rushed in to feed the baby and she was shifted to the Government Maternity Hospital in Petlaburz after that. On the New Year's Eve, she was returned to her family, the police informed. Australian senator scripts history, becomes first woman to breastfeed in Parliament The social media was abuzz with the woman constable's humanitarian gesture and praises poured in for. Here are some reactions on twitter: Priyanka,constable of Hyderabad Police breastfed a 2-mnth-old baby who was found abandoned near Osmania Hospital y'day, says,"my husband who is a constable told me about the baby&I immediately decided to see her.Upon seeing her I realised she was hungry&breastfed her,felt happy." pic.twitter.com/TNE3NaQkHE ANI (@ANI) December 31, 2018 well done dear sister, u r a great MOM, wish you Happy New Year #Hyderabad #NewYear2019 https://t.co/iKwFfcVtSP armanwonder (@armanwonder05) December 31, 2018 Very good. Congratulations upon your greate humanitarian motherly treatment to the young kid by breast feeding. Angels are still available in this World. Ramavtar Tyagi (@tyagiramavtar70) December 31, 2018 Mother first constable next. Respect your love for the abandoned child. mohd.ibrahim khaleel (@mohdibrahim729) January 1, 2019 The New Year could not have got a more better start by reading such a beautiful and positive news. Huge Huge Respect to you Mam, People like you keep Humanity alive https://t.co/DoPBeOdbKk Keshav (@keshavk789) January 1, 2019 For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 9:48 [IST] Lockdown without aid package is inhuman and will cause huge suffering and damage: AAP HS Phoolka resigns from AAP India oi-Vikas SV New Delhi, Jan 3: Senior Advocate HS Phoolka on Thursday resigned from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Phoolka has not yet given the reason for his decision. Phoolka had in October 2018 resigned as a legislator from the Punjab Assembly, expressing unhappiness over the state government's alleged "failure" to initiate action against former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and retired DGP Sumedh Singh Saini in sacrilege incidents. "I have resigned from AAP & handed over resignation to Kejriwal ji today. Though he asked me not to resign but I insisted. Will be briefing media tomorrow at 4pm at Press Club, Raisina Rd, New Delhi to explain the Reason of leaving AAP & my further plans," Phoolka tweeted today (January 3). I have resigned from AAP & handed over resignation to Kejriwal ji today. Though he asked me not to resign but I insisted. Will be briefing media tomorrow at 4pm at Press Club, Raisina Rd, New Delhi to explain the Reason of leaving AAP & my further plans. H S Phoolka (@hsphoolka) January 3, 2019 [Sajjan Kumar convicted: HS Phoolka resigned as Opposition leader to fight case in Delhi] Phoolka has been fighting 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases in courts at New Delhi. He had been asking the state government to initiate action against the perpetrators based on the findings of Justice (Retd) Ranjit Singh Commission. Phoolka had unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha election from Punjab on an AAP in 2014, had won the assembly election earlier this year. After that AAP, which had won 20 seats in the 117-member house and emerged as the largest opposition party, had made him the leader of the opposition. He served as member-secretary of the Justice Narula Committee formed in 1993 to probe the carnage. He was later appointed the counsel for Central Government in January 2001. He is known as a lawyer who won't take up a case if he finds that the client is in the wrong. How dare PM teach us democracy: Mamata Banerjee India pti-PTI Ilambazar (WB), Jan 3: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he should refrain from teaching the state democracy when his government had "curbed" the democratic rights of the people. Her comment came in the backdrop of a January 1 Prime Minister's Office tweet, quoting Modi as saying, "What has happened in West Bengal. A political party (the BJP) is being denied a basic democratic right." "Our workers are brutally killed in West Bengal, Kerala, Karnataka. Politics of violence has to end. All parties have to reaffirm their commitment to peaceful politics: PM," the PMO had tweeted. West Bengal is the only place where democracy is maintained and well protected, Banerjee said. "How dare he (Modi) teaches us democracy. All democratic rights have been curbed under his government. People's rights have been taken away. Even comments on social networks are under scanner,and phone calls are being tapped," Banerjee said while addressing a public meeting here in Birbhum district. The tweets of the PMO came in the backdrop of a January 1 interview of Modi, which was broadcast by several TV channels. "His comment is absolutely wrong. Both peace and democracy prevails in Bengal to its maximum extent unlike in many other places," she said. [Mamata Banerjee running 'dictatorship' in West Bengal, alleges BJP] The TMC leader accused the BJP of spreading canards against her government, dividing people on religious lines and trying to foment trouble in the state. Banerjee said all efforts of the BJP would be foiled and it would not be able to fulfil its electoral expectations here. BJP leaders on several occasions have said West Bengal is a priority state for them and its president Amit Shah has set a target to win 22 Lok Sabha seats out of a total of 42 in Bengal in the 2019 elections. "People have seen and learned a lot about what his (Modi) government is doing in the last few years. They will reply them in appropriate terms in the Lok Sabha elections next year," the chief minister said. People in the country are totally confused in the BJP's misrule. Over 12,000 farmers had to commit suicide because of the wrong policy of the Modi government, Banerjee alleged. Banerjee, who recently floated the idea of a Federal Front of the regional parties, has emerged as an important leader of the opposition unity against the BJP in the country ahead of the general elections. PTI Farm loan waiver in Rajasthan yet to kick in India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Jan 3: On one hand Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot has announced loan waiver for farmers in the state, on the other hand banks are denying loan for the Kharif crops that has intensified the trouble of farmers. Actually, land of 32 lakh farmers is mortgaged with the commercial banks. Banks give loan to farmers only after mortgaging their land. Rajasthan chief minister had around 10 days ago announced loan waiver but the process of it has not yet started. The chief minister has announced waiving of loan of farmers up to Rs two lakh to fulfill its election promises but the process has not yet been initiated to provide them the benefit. However, the CM has constituted a committee for it but no meeting has taken place so far. Finance and cooperative department suggest that around Rs 9500 crore debt of farmers is with cooperative banks and around Rs 11000 crore is with the Land Development Bank. Banks have already taken loan to the tune of Rs 2200 crore from NCDC. [RBI expresses its reservation over loan waiver of farmers; political parties promises it] Besides cooperative banks, lakhs of farmers have borrowed money from commercial banks, gramin banks and many other banks operational in the rural areas. Around 24 lakh farmers have borrowed money from 21 nationalized banks and around 7 lakh farmers have taken loans from private banks. Similarly, 7500 farmers have taken loan from Overseas Banks. All these banks have taken land document of farmers as collateral. A report by Rajasthan State Level Bankers Committee tells that around 58 lakh farmers in Rajasthan are under debt and on an average a farmer has a debt of Rs 1.69 lakh. Around 32 lakh farmers have taken loan from commercial banks which is Rs 2.20 lakh crore on an average. As per the commitment made by the Congress, the government will have to bear the burden of Rs 38000 crore for waiving loan up to Rs two lakhs. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 19:17 [IST] Nagrota attack: Def Ministry forms panel to probe death of Major Akshay Girish India pti-PTI New Delhi, Jan 3: The Defence Ministry has set up a panel to probe the death of Major Akshay Girish in a terrorist attack on Nagrota military base in Jammu and Kashmir in November 2016, officials said on Thursday. Seven Army personnel including two officers were killed in the attack which was allegedly carried out by Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in a tweet said, the committee has been constituted as sought by Major Akshay's mother Meghna Girish to probe his death. "As assured by the Raksha Mantri, a Committee has been constituted with members, inter alia, as suggested by Smt Meghna Girish to look into the supreme sacrifice made by her son Major Akshay Girish. Smt Meghna Girish has been invited to depose before and assist the Committee," the defence minister tweeted. [Nagrota terrorist attack in pictures] The National Investigation Agency (NIA) was probing the terror attack. Three Pakistani terrorists were killed in the operation and a huge quantity of firearms, ammunition, explosives and other articles were seized from them. The NIA had registered a case into the incident in December 2016 for offences under sections 120B, 121, 307 of the Ranbir Penal Code (RPC) and sections 7 and 27 of the Arms Act, 1958. Preliminary interrogation of the accused revealed that the attack was carried out by banned terror group JeM in furtherance of a well-planned conspiracy from Pakistan, investigators had said. PTI As COVID-19 cases rise, winter-budget sessions of Parliament likely to be clubbed Congress's mistakes hurting Kashmir, says Jaitley on J&K President's rule India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Jan 3: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday blamed the Congress and its Jammu and Kashmir ally National Conference (NC) over the political instability in the Valley. "Congress ruled Jammu and Kashmir using undemocratic means and the party had manipulated the election processes in Jammu and Kashmir to stay in power. Congress' mistakes are hurting Kashmir, not the recent rule of the BJP," Jaitley said. "Problems in Kashmir did not start in 2014 after BJP came to power, Congress and NC ruined Kashmir," he said, adding that the saffron party had no role in creation of J&K. "First free and fair election in Kashmir was held in 1977 when Congress was not in power, it was under Morarji Desai ji," said Jaitley, adding that in the subsequent years - when the Congress returned to power - it resorted to alleged malpractices to form the state governments of its own choice. Ready to hold polls in J&K: Rajnath Singh "Everyone knows how election processes were done and how governments were formed in the Valley during Congress rule...Congress has left Kashmir alienated," the Finance Minister was quoted as saying. Jaitley further added that the BJP had a chance to resolve the instability in Kashmir only after 2014. Before that, he added, the party had "no role in Kashmir's old chapters". Jammu and Kashmir is presently under President's rule . The governor on November 21 dissolved the 87-member state assembly after the PDP, supported by the Congress and their arch rivals National Conference, had staked claim to form the government. Simultaneously, the two-member People's Conference led by Sajjad Lone had also staked claim to form a government with 25 members of the BJP and other 18 unknown members. The governor had dissolved the assembly citing horse-trading and lack of stability to form a government as the reasons. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 16:48 [IST] Calls for adopting children orphaned by COVID-19: Act against these illegal calls says SC Class 5 girl from Kerala writes to CJI hailing SC's effective intervention in COVID issues, gets reply Dont you have confidence in the state you served for 30 years: SC to Param Bir Singh Before SC, women narrate horrific gang rape incidents by members of TMC in Bengal BJP yatras in Bengal: SC to hear plea on Monday India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Jan 3: The Supreme Court will hear a petition filed by the West Bengal BJP seeking permission to hold rallies in the state. The West Bengal BJP in its appeal sought permission to hold the 'Save Democracy Rallies in the state after permission was denied by the state government. BJP getting ready to organise Prime Minister's rally in West Bengal The matter had first reached the Calcutta High Court. A single judge had quashed the decision by the state government denying the BJP permission to hold the rallies. The state then went in appeal before the Division Bench, which while staying the order referred the matter back to the single judge for fresh consideration. Jana Gana Mana united India for years: Mamata Banerjee The Supreme Court while hearing the BJP's plea has fixed the date of hearing for Monday. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 11:34 [IST] Haryana gets response from Malta firm on global COVID-19 vaccine bid, to get supply upto 60 mn Sputnik V dose Haryana cabinet to decide on Malta firm's offer for selling Sputnik-V vaccine at cost of Rs 1,120 per dose Haryana Unlock Guidelines: What is open, What is not; Check details Bhupinder Hooda, Motilal Vora granted bail in AJL case India oi-PTI Panchkula, Jan 3: Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and senior Congress leader Motilal Vora were Thursday granted bail by a CBI court here in a case pertaining to alleged illegal re-allotment of land to Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) in Panchkula in 2005. Hooda and Vora were granted bail by CBI judge Jagdeep Singh on furnishing a bail bond of Rs five lakh each, their counsel Abhishek Rana said. The Congress leaders were handed over copies of charge-sheet filed against them by the CBI. The next date for hearing in the case has been fixed for February 6, he said. On December one last year, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had filed charge-sheet against Hooda, Vora and Associated Journals Ltd (AJL), publisher of the National Herald newspaper, in special CBI court in Panchkula, for the alleged illegal re-allotment of land. The charge-sheet was filed in the CBI court under sections 120 B and 420 of IPC and Sections 13 (I) (d) read with 13 (2) of prevention of corruption act. As per the allegations, an industrial plot at Panchkula was illegally re-allotted to Associated Journal Ltd (AJL), which is reportedly controlled by senior Congress leaders, including the Gandhi family, through Young India Ltd. Founded by former prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru, AJL runs National Herald newspaper. It is alleged that Hooda, the then CM-cum-chairman Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) re-allotted the plot to AJL in 2005 at original rates plus interest, by abusing his position and against the legal opinion of authorities and advice of Legal Remembrancer for re-advertising the said plot. Allotment of plot caused loss to exchequer and wrongful enrichment to the company, it is alleged. A case of cheating, corruption and criminal conspiracy, was registered by the Haryana Vigilance Bureau against Hooda and AJL for alleged irregularities in allotment of the plot to the firm. The case was taken over by the CBI last year. Registered against former Hooda in his ex-officio capacity as Haryana Urban Development Authority chairman, the FIR also named HUDA's former chief administrator and AJL amongst others. The Haryana government's complaint, on the basis of which the case was registered, had alleged that AJL was allotted a plot in Panchkula in 1982 on which no construction took place till 1992. It prompted HUDA to cancel the allotment of the plot and resume it. The CBI FIR, quoting the Haryana government's complaint, said the AJL filed an appeal against the HUDA's decision before HUDA administrator, who dismissed the appeal on July 26, 1995. AJL subsequently challenged the HUDA administrator's decision before the Haryana's Town and Country Planning Commissioner who too set aside the appeal, the CBI FIR said. The FIR further alleged that abusing his official position as HUDA chairman and contravening HUDA's policies, Hooda went against the advise rendered to him by the officials and ordered re-allotment of the plot to AJL at original rates plus interest on August 28, 2005. The investigation carried out by the Haryana Police after the BJP government came to power concluded that allotment was made in an "arbitrary manner" and in complete violation of the HUDA Act and against the advise of the officials due to which a wrongful loss was caused to the exchequer. The state government had referred the matter to the CBI because of the alleged involvement of persons in "high places" and the company having offices in number of states which would be beyond the working of the State Vigilance Bureau. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 14:16 [IST] Lakshadweep MP says Amit Shah has assured draft laws won't be finalised without consulting locals BJP denies reports of Amit Shah discussing elections with Maharashtra MPs India oi-Vikas SV Mumbai, Jan 3: The BJP has denied reports of party president Amit Shah holding a discussion about elections with the Maharashtra MPs, reported ANI. News agency ANI had earlier reported that Shah has asked party's Maharashtra MPs to be prepared to contest 2019 elections alone in the state. BJP denies news of Amit Shah meeting to discuss elections in Maharashtra. Original tweet will be deleted. https://t.co/JYObUOVsvm ANI (@ANI) January 3, 2019 BJP is in alliance with Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and in Centre. Shiv Sena is part of BJP-led NDA and one of the oldest allies of the BJP. In the last one year or so, Shiv Sena has been critical of BJP rule at the Centre. Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut had even said in 2018 that the party may contest 2019 Lok Sabha elections alone. Sena has dropped several hints that it may sever ties with the BJP. [When will "achhe din" come for Lord Ram: Shiv Sena] In a sharp attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Shiv Sena on Thursday said it wondered when the Ram temple could be constructed in Ayodhya if not during the tenure of the current BJP-led majority government. Even on the Rafale deal issue, Shiv Sena sided with the opposition's demand for a JPC probe. AAP to start Lok Sabha campaign from January 4; ready for alliance with anyone to defeat BJP India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Jan 3: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has intensified its preparation for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and convener of the party and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal will start meeting with the party leaders and workers in this regard from January 3, 2019. He will start addressing public meetings from January 4. Convener of Delhi AAP Gopal Rai and national secretary of the party Pankaj Gupta said that the party will declare its candidate for Delhi, Haryana and Punjab by February 15, 2019. They said that the party is ready to enter into alliance with any party to defeat the BJP. The party will start canvasing for the candidates declared by the party soon. Kejriwal to remain party chief, AAP national council's term extended by a year The party will not contest all the Lok Sabha seats as it contested during 2014 LS elections. At the moment the party is focusing on 33 Lok Sabha seats that included seven from Delhi, 13 from Punjab, two of Goa and one from Chandigarh and 10 seats from Haryana. The party has already announced candidates on five seats of Punjab. Gopal Rai said that if the Punjab MLAs will contest Lok Sabha elections of not. This call will be taken by the Punjab Committee. There is no possibility of change in the candidates of Delhi and in-charge of the Lok Sabha seats will be made candidates in Delhi. Kejriwal will start rallies from January 4 keeping in mind the Lok Sabha elections. Strategy is prepared for Punjab and Haryana and as per that strategy, Kejriwal will address a rally at Charkhi Dadri in Haryana on January 4. Gadkari rescues Kejriwal as miscreants begin coughing The AAP convener will hold meetings with the office bearers of 10 Lok Sabha constituencies of Haryana between January 5 and January 9 at his residence. The party will start door-to-door campaign in Haryana from January 10. For this campaign a teams of 10-10 workers will be constituted. The AAP leaders are saying that they are ready for any kind of alliance to defeat the BJP including withdrawing their official candidate if it helps defeating the BJP candidate. They did not give any specific answer if the party is entering into alliance with Congress in Delhi. They just said that the party is starting its campaign in these states. However, the party is likely to contest some seats in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, January 3, 2019, 10:22 [IST] Congress needs widespread reforms to show it's no longer in inertia: Kapil Sibal Trouble for Congress in Bihar? 13 MLAs could soon defect to JD(U) Around 4,000 cops deployed ahead of Modi's rally in Punjab's Gurdaspur India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Jan 3: For his first rally of 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Modi will address a public rally in Punjab's Gurdaspur town on Thursday as part of the BJP's campaign to hold 100 rallies ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The rally would also kickstart the election campaign for the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance in Punjab. Meanwhile, around 4,000 policemen have been deployed from at least six districts of Punjab in Jalandhar and Phagwara ahead of Modi's visit. Nearly 200 CCTVs and 60 metal detectors have been installed at strategic locations in and around the venue. CCTVS have also been installed on the Batala-Gurdaspur and Gurdaspur-Pathankot national highways. The Prime Minister will address the rally at the PUDA ground in Gurdaspur, around 225 km from here. The Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat was won by the Congress in a by-election in October 2017. Punjab Congress President Sunil Jakhar represents Gurdaspur in the Lok Sabha. Modi will also deliver the inaugural address at ISC-2019. The theme for which is 'Future : India-Science and Technology'. This will be his 5th address to Indian Science Congress after assuming office as Prime Minister. During the five-day-long ISC, around 100 plus conferences and events of scientific and technological origin will also be held, where scientists, senior officials from DRDO, ISRO, Department of Science and Technology, AIIMS, UGC, AICTE, and many elite universities of the US, UK, India and other countries will participate. About 30,000 people, including Nobel laureates and scientists, are expected to participate in the 106th science congress. A huge pandal has been put up with a sitting capacity of around 25,000 at LPU. Apart from women and children science congress, various sessions will be conducted on health and agriculture. After inaugurating the Indian Science Congress, the PM will address the students and also have 'Chai pe Charcha' with the dignitaries. Then he will leave for Gurdaspur where a political rally will be held. Odisha boat tragedy: Death toll rises to 9, govt orders probe Bhubaneswar pti-PTI Paradip/Bhubaneswar, Jan 3: The death toll in the boat capsize tragedy in Mahanadi river rose to nine on Thursday with the recovery of eight more bodies in Odisha's Kendrapara district, while the state government ordered a probe into the incident. While the body of a woman was found shortly after the incident took place Wednesday evening, eight bodies were recovered during a search operation in the early hours of Thursday, officials said. "Altogether nine bodies have been recovered, while a 6-year-old girl is still missing," Kendrapara District Collector Dasarathy Satpathy said. The incident took place when the mechanised boat ferrying passengers capsized in the Mahanadi river Wednesday apparently after losing balance, the collector said. Expressing deep grief, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Thursday announced ex-gratia of Rs 4 lakh each for the next of kin of the deceased, officials said. Patnaik had on Wednesday night instructed the administration and search teams to expedite rescue operations. Stating that an inquiry has been ordered into the accident, Commerce and Transport Minister Nrusingha Charan Sahu said senior officials of the Port and Inland Water Transport have gone to the spot to ascertain the circumstances under which the incident took place. They will also ascertain whether the boat had proper licence and registration. The team will submit a report within a week, after which appropriate action will be taken, Sahu said. Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) B P Sethi said the boat which capsized was meant for fishing activity and not for carrying passengers. As per available information, the boat did not have any life jacket, he said. The deceased included two women, aged between 40 and 45, and seven children (7 to 10 years), the collector said. The victims were residents of Hasina village in Kujang area of Jagatsinghpur district. Fire brigade personnel and members of the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF), along with Coast Guard teams and local fishermen, carried out the rescue and search operations, Satpathy added. The victims were returning after a picnic at the light house in Hukitola when the mechanised boat capsized apparently after losing balance in the Batighar creek under the jurisdiction of the Mahakalpada police station. Police said the boatman of the fishing vessel was questioned in Mahakalapada in connection with the incident. Meanwhile, residents of Hasina village staged a blockade on the Paradip-Cuttack and the Paradip-Chandikhole roads at Bhutmundai near here, demanding adequate compensation for the families of the deceased, police said. PTI The Russian ruler has motive to escalate his war against Ukraine, which has been simmering for several years. He is eager to undermine Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who faces a re-election contest in the spring. Putin was infuriated by a recent move by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to establish its independence from the Russian church. And he may believe that Trump, who lately has been loudly repudiating a U.S. role as the policeman of the world, is in no mood to defend a remote piece of Ukraine from Russian tanks. It could well be that Putin can accomplish his aims simply by raising the level of tension and by showing that he can strangle Ukrainian ports with impunity. But whatever his intentions, the United States and its NATO allies should be acting to punish Putin for his coast guards actions in the Kerch Strait and to deter an escalation. A number of steps could be taken, ranging from dispatching warships to the Black Sea, with a stop in the Ukrainian port of Odessa, to stationing NATO or European Union observers in eastern Ukraine. There have, as yet, been no sanctions against Russia specifically linked to its seizure of the Kerch Strait; there should be. Trump still aspires to friendly relations with Putin. That wont be possible if the Russian ruler initiates more aggression against Ukraine or other neighbors. It is consequently in Trumps interest to make clear to Moscow that any further attacks will trigger a strong response from the United States. The generosity of the Douglas County 911 Center employees is truly amazing. I dont want to diminish their giving spirit, but I am confused about how they chose this nonprofit organization. Did the Douglas County Board decide who the recipient of this donation would go to? Board member Mary Ann Borgeson is also on the Millard Business Foundation. Why was the donation not given to the Food Bank of the Heartland? Statistically, more people below the poverty line reside in northeast and southeast Omaha. Millard typically is not food insecure. In fact if you take a look at the website for which the donations were given, it does reflect a diverse group. I am not trying to diminish the good deed the 911 employees did. I simply dont understand why this particular food drive is supporting the western part of the county. Arent food drives for the needy and poor? Maria Moreno, Omaha Wall may be a futile effort How inappropriate was it for President Donald Trump in his Dec. 21 tweet to display an enlarged picture of the spears at the top of each slat in the border wall fence? The event takes place Jan. 14 starting at 6 p.m., and the food is first come, first served. For more information, visit facebook.com/events/272326430108083. Get your mac and cheese on at Midtown Crossing The annual Midtown Crossing macaroni and cheese binge is back for its third year. Participating restaurants around the neighborhood, which will be released soon, will create a special $3 mac and cheese sampler, which will be paired with a suggested drink. Diners are encouraged to visit as many spots as possible and vote for the best sampler. The event takes place Jan. 26 starting at 11 a.m., and diners are encouraged to bring cash. Visit facebook.com/events/208872160042993/ for more information. An event for pretzel lovers only The menu for the upcoming pretzelfest at Farnam House Brewing isnt just a list of regular old pretzels. Those are on there, of course, but what about a pretzteak sandwich, which is a steak topped with cheddar, horseradish and an onion ring served on (duh) a prezel? Or a pretzel stick topped with chocolate and sprinkles? Or a spent grain pretzel infused with cheese, garlic and parmesan and served with queso and mustard? The Omaha Police Department concluded its participation in the nationwide You Drink You Drive You Lose campaign during the Christmas season by announcing 122 arrests for drunk driving. The campaign, made possible by a $23,750 grant from the Nebraska Office of Highway Safety, took place from Dec. 14 through New Year's Day. Officers also made three arrests for drugged driving, a spokesman said. The Lancaster County Sheriff's Office announced it had made three arrests for drunk driving from Dec. 14 through Dec. 29. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. After 20 years in the dairy business, Don, always seeking a better life for himself and his family, decided to change course, trading one challenging business for another. Don bought the bindery in 1977 after seeing an advertisement in The World-Herald. He didnt have a background in books or binding. He wanted to keep his children in Nebraska, Connie said of his motivation for buying. That was his goal, to keep his family close. He kept three of them here. But all of the Osborne kids and grandchildren worked in the bindery at some point. Damon Osborne said his dad was never too proud to take on menial tasks and would work long into the night to make up for time he spent running to his kids recitals and ballgames. Don helped expand the bindery by acquiring 15 other regional book binderies over the years. And under his leadership, Houchen became nationally known in the binding industry, Connie said. I dont think I ever saw him sweat about it, Damon Osborne said. Work was not work for him. It was enjoyment. Don loved working in a small town and giving people jobs. He gave many kids their first jobs binding textbooks in the summer. Family and friends brushed back tears and paid their final respects Tuesday to Haji Mohamed, the 8-year-old boy with a big smile who was struck and killed by a school bus Monday afternoon. Haji was buried Tuesday afternoon in Graceland Park Cemetery on South 42nd Street. His loved ones left flowers and handfuls of earth on his grave. Several staff members from Pawnee Elementary came to support the family. Haji and his siblings had attended Pawnee before busing changes prompted a move to Springville Elementary this year. He was a sweetheart, said Diana Styles, an English as a second language teacher at Pawnee. Ornery at times, bilingual liaison Yessica Valadez remembered fondly. We wanted to be here to pay our respects. Haji, one of nine kids, was part of a sprawling but close-knit family who had fled war-torn Somalia and lived for years in a Kenyan refugee camp. The family is Muslim, and in the Islamic religion its customary to bury people within about 24 hours of their death. Staffers at Pawnee had taught his siblings and several cousins. We have had the whole family at Pawnee, Styles said. We love this family. The school bus driver who was involved in Mondays fatal collision with an 8-year-old boy will not be criminally charged. Ashleigh Avant, 33, had dropped off Springville Elementary second-grader Haji Mohamed moments before he darted across Sprague Street between 22nd and 23rd Streets. Mohamed was immediately struck when he entered the street, authorities have said, and died after being rushed to a hospital by an ambulance. Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said Wednesday that evidence from a police investigation showed no criminal fault by Avant. Surveillance video from a nearby home captured the accident. The driver wasnt in any way criminally responsible for this, Kleine said. Avant has worked for Student Transportation of America, the Omaha Public Schools busing contractor, for four years. Mohameds funeral was Tuesday, following the Muslim custom of burial within about 24 hours of a persons death. Amina Khamis, the boys mother, had said on Monday that she holds no anger toward the driver of the bus, a perspective driven by her faith. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Omaha attorney Tim Ashford, who represented Hajis parents, said the settlement avoids long, protracted litigation over the childs death. While prosecutors say the video showed Haji dart in front of the bus, Ashford said the video also showed that nothing would have obstructed the drivers view of Haji. There were no parked cars or bushes in the way, Ashford said. There was nothing to prevent her from seeing Haji as he ran into the street, Ashford said. Hajis mother has said she bears no anger toward the driver. And Ashford expressed sympathy for her. Nobody wakes up in the morning and wants to get in this type of an accident, he said. This was a great loss and a tragedy for both the driver and for Hajis family. Haji was born in the United States to a Kenyan family who had fled violence in their home country. He was just 100 feet from his front door when he was struck. Haji was such a happy kid, with a sweet personality, Ashford said. There is now a hole that can never be filled. The parents and all the siblings miss Haji terribly. A second trial had been set to begin Thursday but is on hold after Ramos attorneys claimed that a second trial would be a violation of the Constitutions double jeopardy clause, which bars an accused person from being tried twice for the same offense. An evidentiary hearing on that motion has not yet been scheduled. Regardless of how the judge ultimately rules, the double jeopardy question is likely to be appealed to a higher court and could take months to resolve. The Nov. 2 motion filed by Ramos attorneys, Jeff Gaertig and Tim Nelsen, maintains that they were provoked or goaded into filing for a mistrial because of the actions of prosecutors. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. He said he held off after a compelling explanation of the need to get the water mains replaced quickly. He now says he should have pushed his plan anyway. We are very sensitive to the commercial customers, he said. Theyre just as important as the residential customers I think its just the right thing to do. Board members Gwen Howard and Jim Begley said they were pleased that the proposal included a phase-in for residential water customers, too, because theyre planning their budgets, too. Henry Davis, owner of Greater Omaha Packing Co., said he was disappointed he didnt hear earlier about such a significant rate increase to his business. Their budgeting process begins six months before the new year, he said, and a 19 percent rate increase risks cutting into his operations, production and pricing. Several members of the MUD board said they would press management to reach out and notify large commercial and industrial users of possible rate increases earlier, perhaps months ahead. That was music to the ears of the large water users group, members of which employ more than 5,000 people in Omaha. The group says it wants to help keep those businesses competitive. The group plans to meet with MUD in January and discuss whether the increases are appropriate and whether an independent rate consultant should be hired to weigh the changes. The taxes to be collected are not new. Long-standing state law requires Nebraskans to pay sales taxes on purchases online or from out-of-state mail-order catalogs. If taxes are not collected by a retailer, customers are supposed to pay directly to the state. In practice, however, most do not pay. Fulton said revenue officials plan to enforce the tax collection requirement only for businesses with more than $100,000 worth of sales or at least 200 separate transactions in Nebraska during the year. Those thresholds match exceptions in the South Dakota law that was considered by the Supreme Court. The court cited the exceptions as factors in determining that the law did not pose an unconstitutionally undue burden on interstate commerce. While current Nebraska law has no tax collection exception for smaller businesses, Fulton compared the decision not to go after smaller retailers to a prosecutors discretion about filing criminal charges. But he also said revenue officials will be asking the Nebraska Legislature to put exceptions in the law. In the meantime, he said smaller businesses can collect taxes voluntarily. Businesses that cross either threshold during a year would be given at least 30 days to start collecting on future sales. Some of the most accurate gauges of economic health are pricing in lower Fed rates for the first time in more than a decade. The little-known near-term forward spread, which reflects the difference between the forward rate implied by Treasury bills six quarters from now and the current three-month yield, fell into negative territory on Wednesday for the first time since March 2008. Two-year yields dipped below those on one-year paper in December. This is a crystal ball, its telling you about the future and what the market thinks of the Fed and what it will do with its policy rate, Tony Crescenzi, market strategist and portfolio manager at Pimco, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. The market is predicting a rate cut at the beginning part of next year. Federal Reserve economists said looking at forward rates relative to those on current Treasury bills has served traders well in the past. When market participants expected and priced in a monetary policy easing over the next 18 months, their fears were validated more often than not, Eric C. Engstrom and Steven A. Sharpe wrote in a research paper dated July 2018. If I asked you to tell me about yourself, about who you are, what would you tell me? Would you tell me the color of your hair, your favorite song, your hobbies, who raised you, what town you grew up in, the schools you went to, your profession? Or would you tell me about the god you pray to, the language your grandparents spoke, the holidays you celebrate, your country of origin, the color of your skin? Would you tell me who you truly are? Let me tell you who I truly am. Wiragusge Sibre Wiga higaire na. They call me Shooting Star. That is my Winnebago Ho-Chunk Indian name. My English name is Daunnette Moniz-Reyome. I am 15 years old, I live on the Umonhon Indian Reservation, and I am enrolled in the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. I come from the Bear Clan, the Peacemakers of the tribe. I have grown up everywhere except my tribes reservation. I know what society expects of me, but I refuse to limit myself to those expectations. I am expected to stay quiet and listen. (Dont say anything; the adults are speaking.) I am expected to cover every blemish that appears on my face. (Boys dont like pimples.) I am expected to know all my culture, language, traditions and practices. (But who is left to teach me?) I am expected not to have an opinion yet. (Youre too young you dont know enough yet.) And I am expected to fail because of institutional racism and historical trauma that never seems to end. For many generations, my peoples culture was outlawed. We werent allowed to speak our own language, pray to our creator, perform our songs and dances, or wear our traditional clothing. We have been called heathens and savages. We were told our saving grace was to be like the white man. And so weve been struggling to reclaim who we are ever since. To be a 15-year-old Native American girl in 2018 is to be challenged. It is to be strong. It is to be intelligent. It is to be resilient. Yes, it is hard to be all of these things that contradict what society wants of me, especially in a time and place where everyone has an opinion, and everything has the potential to be offensive. But why should we be scared to share our story or our truth strictly because it may hurt or offend someone? Being a 15-year-old Native American girl in 2018 is not to be silenced but to be heard. It is to not be afraid of feedback or fearful of what people may think because it is your truth. It is to not sugarcoat, or tactfully say something because you dont want to make someone feel uncomfortable. You say whats on your mind, exactly how it is. Ive learned from experience that your word will not be heard until you make them listen. Until you make them uncomfortable. To be a 15-year-old Native American girl in 2018 is to be a powerful voice for those who have lost their ability to speak, for those who listened to society, and for those who feared what the world may think. There was once a 15-year-old Native American girl who stood at the front lines of the Dakota Access Pipeline and did everything she could to protect our water and our sacred land. Another 15-year-old Native American girl told Teen Vogue everything the world didnt know and needed to know about her culture. And yet another fearless 15-year-old Native American girl got kicked out of class for pointing out that her teacher had concealed the harsh and haunting history indigenous peoples had faced. We need more fearless people who are willing to make a change. When you dont hold your words in, when you speak your mind, amazing things can happen. How will you let your true self shine? How will you be an agent of change? They call me Wiragusge Sibre Wiga. I am a 15-year-old Native American girl. One theme that came up over and over again was that this is a problem reaching far higher into the economic spectrum than we first thought. Many of the more than 100 people we interviewed over the year had incomes of $100,000 or more. These were comfortable families, from outside. Yet, when they opened up their books to us, it became clear how much they needed to stretch to afford health care. That often meant self-imposed health-care rationing. They didn't make these decisions lightly. These weren't uninsured-by-choice "young invincibles." They weren't reckless or ignorant quite the opposite. Many were educated professionals, entrepreneurs and business owners. They had bad options and were forced to make a choice about which family "need" had to be downgraded to a "want." Some were more comfortable with the risks they were taking than others. Keith and Diana Buchanan of North Carolina gave up their expensive health insurance this year and bought a Bowflex exercise machine. Keith said he got into the best shape of his life: "A lot of it is a result of knowing that we're going to have to take care of our own health a little better," he said. Not all dives are cut from the same cloth. Choosing the right one is important. Recommending good ones is modestly powerful (subjectively speaking), and with subjectively modest power comes objectively minor responsibility. Example: I try to never recommend any bar unwelcoming or dangerous to new people. Should I or my thoroughly respectable drinking companions be unwelcomingly viewed askew or generally accosted, youll not see me yelping about them here. Catch me out to hear those stories and share your own. With that said, let me recommend Georges Tavern in Blair. It hits all the right notes for socializing on the DL. Georges has what discriminating tastes aspire to, if not actually settle for, in a dive. Top of that list of features is location. How far do you want to drive to the bar and, more importantly, how far do you want to drive back? Georges is a lovely country drive north to Blair, the happening capital of Washington County, where light has been hidden under a bushel for far too long. Take Highway 75 or I-29 and see the light in about 20 minutes. He loved life. He was full of life. He was grateful to God for his life, Hague said. He just lived life to the full. Metzs Omaha funeral marks a homecoming of sorts for a globetrotting man whose curiosity about the world and desire to serve others took him to poor communities in the United States and beyond. He was the youngest of seven Metz children raised in Omaha and the first of them to die. There is an 18-year gap between Michael and his oldest sibling, Gwen Neff of Colorado. There is a five-year gap between Michael and the sibling next closest to him in age, OKeefe. His other siblings are: Mary Rae Gibbons, Anthony Metz and Kathy Trenolone, all of Omaha, and Dr. Philip Metz of Colorado. Despite age gaps that made Michael sometimes complain that he felt like an only child, and the geographic distance later on, he held his family dear and requested an interment in Omaha. His second funeral will be held at the church of his childhood, St. Margaret Mary, 6116 Dodge St. Following the 10 a.m. Mass Friday, Metz will be buried in a family plot at Calvary Cemetery near his late parents, Roman and Gwanetha. Mairead McGuinness MEP for Offaly and first Vice-President of the European Parliament recently welcomed students from Ireland to the European Parliament in Brussels. Participating in the Graduate.ie schools competition, an online competition to win a trip to the European Parliament to participate in Euroscola, the students aged between 16 to 18 from across the EU have the chance to become an MEP for a day. They debate, negotiate, amend, vote and adopt resolutions on real European issues. Here the MEP is pictured with Marie Moran, group leader and Eabha Enright, Sacred Heart Secondary School, Tullamore, Co. Offaly. They visited the Parliament in Brussels before travelling to Strasbourg. MEP McGuinness explained the functioning of the EU institutions to the students, Ireland's role in the EU and current issues. Bob East ICR has acquired Westwicke Partners, a health-centered investor relations firm based in Baltimore with offices in New York, Boston, San Diego, San Francisco and London. Headed by founders Bob East and Mark Klausner, Westwickes 30 staffers serve more than 100 clients in the life science, medical technology and healthcare sectors. ICR CEO Tom Ryan plans to combine his firms 75-plus healthcare staffers with Westwickes group to create the Westwicke, An ICR Company, brand. East and Klausner will helm the new entity that has expanded its capabilities to include PR, digital branding, crisis/special situations and governance advisory services. Founded in 2006, Westwicke has worked for Quorum Health, Ensign Group, Archer, Netsmart, Tonix Pharmaceuticals and Teleflex. Shares of Apple plummeted in early trading Thursday after chief executive Tim Cook said the company lowered quarterly sales estimates for the first time in more than 15 years, pinning the shortfall on a deteriorating economy in China, inflamed by President Donald Trump's trade war. But as Cook acknowledged, Apple's woes extend beyond shifting preferences in foreign markets. Not only does Apple's warning highlight the consequences of a slowing global economy, it brings to center stage enduring concerns about the company's ability to innovate and maintain its position as a cutting edge technology company despite crucial changes in the smartphone market and the relationship people have with their costly devices. "[I]n the modern iPhone era last night was clearly Apple's darkest day in our opinion and represents a challenging growth period ahead for the company (and its investors)," Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, said in a note to clients Thursday. The biggest fear for Apple investors, Ives said, is a customer base that stalls out, failing to grow over the next few years and triggering a "nightmare scenario decline." To stave off that possibility, Apple could bank on future iPhone redesigns and hope that more people choose to upgrade, or it could slash prices ahead of the next iPhone release, with aims to boost demand in China. JOHANNESBURG An intense spate of six U.S. airstrikes on a coastal town in Somalia, in which 62 people were killed, were pre-emptive strikes to prevent a major extremist attack, according to a Somali intelligence officer. The U.S. military said Monday it carried out four strikes on Dec. 15 in which 34 people were killed and two more on Dec. 16 which killed 28. The air attacks targeted Gandarshe, south of the capital, Mogadishu, it said. No civilians were injured or killed in the attacks, it said. The strikes were carried out in close coordination with Somalia's government and were "conducted to prevent al-Shabab from using remote areas as a safe haven to plot, direct, inspire, and recruit for future attacks," said the U.S. military statement. The U.S. airstrikes were aimed at al-Shabab fighters who were preparing a major attack on a Somali government military base in the Lower Shabelle region, said a Somali intelligence official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. "The strike has neutralized an imminent attack," he said. The airstrikes hit both a military camp and battle vehicles in Gandarshe, the official told The Associated Press. There will be more rain before Lee County residents can expect to see the sun again. The National Weather Service in Birmingham is projecting more rainfall throughout today and Friday before things begin to dry out. The next couple of days are going to be wet and rainy, said Gary Goggins, meteorologist for the National Weather Service Birmingham. Fortunately this is going to be the last wave of rain we will have. The rain is expected to subside in time for the weekend, but not before it dumps an additional 2-3 inches in Lee County. The heaviest rain for yall will start, based on radar here, later this afternoon and last all through the overnight hours, Goggins said Thursday. With that 2-to-3 extra inches of rain, there could be some localized flooding in some of the low-lying areas and the areas around some of the creeks and streams out there where the water starts to back up a little bit. But no threat of any flash flooding. Goggins added that he does not expect any severe weather in the area, just light to moderate rain, which may become heavy at times and could pose a flooding issue. Auburn Police Division >Theft of property from an unlocked vehicle was reported Wednesday in the 1000 block of Opelika Road. >First-degree criminal Trespass was reported Wednesday in the 900 block of Law Drive. >First-degree theft of property was reported Wednesday in the 700 block of East Glenn Avenue. Tallapoosa County Sheriffs Office >Theft of property was reported by a resident of Greenleaf Way in Troy. Chambers County Sheriffs Office >James Mcquade, 54, of Shalimar, Florida, was arrested and charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance. **Reports will be updated as they become available.** A man facing a murder charge in Opelika and out on bond was charged by Auburn police on New Years Day in a separate incident of burglary and theft offences that occurred in 2018. Teddy North Jr., 30, of Opelika, was charged with third-degree burglary and fourth-degree theft of property. These new charges are in connection to a burglary which occurred in the 800 block of Tullahoma Drive which was reported to police on Aug. 20, 2018. Electronics, valued at less than $500, were taken from the location. Forensic evidence was collected at the scene, examined by the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences and linked North to the burglary, read a statement from Auburn police. North was out of jail on bond when he was taken in to custody by the Opelika Police Department on Jan. 1 and turned over to Auburn police. He was taken to the Lee County Jail where he was booked on a $4,000 bond. The burglary incident occurred prior to his arrest in the murder case. Murder charge A citizens proposal Back when the convictions came down, I put in the paperwork to the planning department and talked to planning director Forrest Cotten about having the name changed, area resident Ken Busby said. I was told that a new council needed to be appointed because the one that was there was not for it. Here I am, asking for the name to be changed. Busby said the name of the road misrepresents Auburn, and with the convictions and the first appeal denied, he wants to take action. Hes already had an appeal, and there are still 12 convictions there, Busby said. How long are we going to let this charade go on? How long are we going to keep that name up there and have Auburn associated with a convicted felon that used his place as a representative for his personal gain? Its a black eye to any politician in the area. Busby spoke of reminders of the convictions when he passes traffic signs displaying the former speakers name as he commutes to his workplace. Flash Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron discussed the Syrian settlement and Ukraine-related issues over the phone on Wednesday. The Kremlin said in a statement that the two presidents examined the problems of the Syrian settlement in detail, primarily in the context of a four-party agreement on the formation of a constitutional committee. Putin, Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to set up a Syrian constitutional committee during a summit on Oct. 27 in Istanbul. In a statement released by the French Presidency, Macron said France's priority in Syria was the fight against terrorism with a view to eradicating the terrorist group ISIS and countering any resurgence of terrorism in the region. "This fight is not over and continues on the ground as part of the international coalition," the French presidency said. Macron also said France remains committed to a political settlement of the Syrian issue in the framework of the UN Security Council Resolution 2254, the only possible way of stability, protection civilian populations and peace, according to the French statement. On the Ukraine issue, Macron welcomed the agreement reached on Dec. 27, 2018 for a recommitment to the ceasefire and called for its full and lasting respect, according to the French presidency statement. The Kremlin said the two presidents exchanged views on the Ukrainian crisis, taking into account what had happened in the Kerch Strait on Nov. 25. Moscow-Kiev tensions flared up after Russia shot at and seized three Ukrainian naval ships attempting to sail through the Kerch Strait from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov, alleging that they had intruded into Russian territorial waters. However, the Ukrainian government insisted that it had informed the Russian side beforehand and has arranged lawyers to defend the captured sailors. PARIS The French police have arrested a prominent leader of the Yellow Vest movement for a second time, in a clear sign that the government is following through on a pledge to crack down on the protests that have shaken France for much of the past six weeks. Eric Drouet, a 33-year-old truck driver from the Paris exurbs who was one of the original organizers of the movement, was arrested Wednesday night in Paris for what the authorities said was organizing an undeclared demonstration. On Thursday, he was released pending a trial. Weve got to shock public opinion, Mr. Drouet said in a video on Facebook before going to the Place de le Concorde on Wednesday and placing candles for the movements wounded. He called for action on the Champs-Elysees, where several dozen Yellow Vests were waiting for him that evening outside a McDonalds restaurant. Instead, shortly after 9 p.m., Mr. Drouet was hustled into a police van by riot police officers. French law requires the organizers of street demonstrations to inform the local authorities about their plans. Violations can bring six months in jail and a fine of 7,500 euros, about $8,500. A quick survey of Mr. Whelans Russian social media contacts, about 70 in all, indicated that most seemed to be men with some sort of connection to academies run by the Russian Navy, the Defense Ministry or the Civil Aviation Authority. Most of those he reached out to said that Mr. Whelan seemed like a friendly, open American interested in learning the Russian language and culture and traveling around the country. Although he studied Russian, some of his social media contacts said he communicated through Google Translate. One Russian whom Mr. Whelan started following on Instagram six years ago was Sergei Artyomenko, 26, a Moscow hair stylist who was then serving in the military. The two men never met in person, although they had a running joke about his getting a haircut, Mr. Artyomenko said. I am not sure how he found me, but he would initiate small talk every six months or so, Mr. Artyomenko said, adding that they had mostly discussed interesting places to travel. Mr. Whelans family said that he was in Russia on his most recent trip, in December, to attend the wedding of a friend from the Marine Corps who was marrying a Russian woman at the storied Metropol Hotel in Moscow. That is where Russian authorities apprehended Mr. Whelan last Friday during a meeting with a Russian citizen in his hotel room. Rosbalt, a Russian news agency close to the security services, quoted an unidentified intelligence source on Wednesday who said that Mr. Whelan was accused of trying to recruit the Russian to obtain classified information about staff members at various Russian agencies. Mr. Whelan was arrested five minutes after receiving a U.S.B. stick containing a list of all of the employees at a classified security agency, Rosbalt said. Despite the accusations, C.I.A. officers expressed skepticism that Mr. Whelan was a spy. First, they said, the court-martial was the kind of black mark on his record that would most likely have prevented him from being hired by the C.I.A., or would at least complicate his tenure there. Most C.I.A. officers work in foreign countries while posing as diplomats, and if caught by a hostile government in an act of espionage, their diplomatic passports ensure they cannot be long detained, and at worst face expulsion. Former C.I.A. officials who have operated in Moscow said the agency almost never sends officers into Russia without diplomatic protections. The United States, said John Sipher, a former C.I.A. officer who served in Moscow and ran the agencys Russia operations, would never leave a real intelligence officer vulnerable to arrest. Flash Scientists from NASA's New Horizons mission on Wednesday released the first detailed images of the most distant object ever explored - the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule. New Horizons performed the farthest flyby in history at 12:33 a.m. EST (0533 GMT) on New Year's Day, as it approached Ultima Thule within 2,200 miles (about 3,540 km) of the surface at a velocity of 31,500 miles (about 50,694 km) per hour. The new images - taken from as close as 17,000 miles (about 27,000 kilometers) on approach - revealed Ultima Thule as a "contact binary," consisting of two connected spheres, said NASA. End to end, the world measures 19 miles (about 31 kilometers) in length. The team has dubbed the larger sphere "Ultima" (12 miles/19 kilometers across) and the smaller sphere "Thule" (9 miles/14 kilometers across). The two spheres likely joined as early as 99 percent of the way back to the formation of the solar system, colliding no faster than two cars in a fender-bender, said the team. The appearance of Ultima Thule, unlike anything human have seen before, illuminated the processes that built the planets four and a half billion years ago, said NASA. "New Horizons is like a time machine, taking us back to the birth of the solar system. We are seeing a physical representation of the beginning of planetary formation, frozen in time," said Jeff Moore, New Horizons Geology and Geophysics team lead. "Studying Ultima Thule is helping us understand how planets form, both those in our own solar system and those orbiting other stars in our galaxy," he said. Data from the New Year's Day flyby will continue to arrive over the next weeks and months, with much higher resolution images yet to come, said NASA. "In the coming months, New Horizons will transmit dozens of data sets to Earth, and we'll write new chapters in the story of Ultima Thule - and the solar system," said Helene Winters, New Horizons Project Manager. Ultima Thule, at 4 billion miles (about 6.4 billion km) from the Sun and 1 billion miles (about 1.6 billion km) from Pluto, will be the most distant object ever directly explored, according to NASA. BERLIN The director Steven Spielberg cited a renewed cycle of hate in society behind his decision to bring Schindlers List back to movie theaters around the world, hoping it would provoke discussion. An independent movie theater in western Germany embraced that very idea when it offered free tickets to members of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, to its screening of the classic film on Jan. 27, Holocaust Remembrance Day. But some members of the AfD, whose leaders have dismissed the Nazi era as a speck of bird poop in more than 1,000 years of successful German history and have referred to the countrys main Holocaust Memorial as a monument of shame, saw the offer from the Cinexx theater more as a provocation than an invitation. They have called it a tasteless instrumentalization and a senseless provocation. Members of left-leaning political parties and others in Germany have praised the offer, however. As justification, they point to the AfDs penchant for reciting slogans like Germany for the Germans, for questioning the countrys post-World War II culture of atonement and for being willing to march alongside neo-Nazis during protests in the eastern city of Chemnitz. Though the abuse crisis is a global phenomenon, recent investigations in the United States have underscored the gravity of the scandal. A grand jury report in Pennsylvania last year found that 301 priests had sexually abused minors for some seven decades. Attorneys general in at least 16 other states have initiated investigations. The hurt caused by these sins and crimes has also deeply affected the communion of bishops, and generated not the sort of healthy and necessary disagreements and tensions found in any living body, but rather division and dispersion, the pope wrote. Only about 200 bishops are attending a retreat that the pope himself had insisted on, out of more than 450 active and retired bishops, according to a spokeswoman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. A list of attendees has not been made public. The pope said there was an urgent need for a renewed and decisive approach to resolving conflicts. But the letter also suggested that the pope might not see eye-to-eye with the American bishops on policies they proposed last year, including a new code of conduct for bishops and a hotline run by a third party to report problems about bishops conduct. Loss of credibility calls for a specific approach, since it cannot be regained by issuing stern decrees or by simply creating new committees or improving flow charts, as if we were in charge of a department of human resources, the pope wrote. Francis met with United States bishops in September and suggested that they hold a meeting for spiritual reflection as a necessary step in responding to the crisis of credibility. He also asked the leaders of the American church to cancel their previously scheduled November meeting in Baltimore, and hold a spiritual retreat instead. But the bishops, aware of the anger in the pews, insisted on going through with the meeting so they could vote on a set of measures they had come up with to hold bishops accountable. The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau chief. Sign up to get it by email. ___ Extreme heat often sends me to art museums thus my recent afternoon with the photographs of David Goldblatt at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. He was a master of capturing the cold fury of South Africa as the country moved through apartheid to its end and aftermath, but the exhibition goes far beyond that, spanning 70 years and featuring around 360 prints, plus archival materials and documentary interviews. Its an almost overwhelming meditation not just on race, but also on the way power gets written into the landscape of a nation, from mines to churches, cemeteries and suburbs. MANILA The Philippine police said on Thursday that a mayor had ordered the killing of a congressman who was gunned down shortly before Christmas, and that one of the men he hired to carry out the assassination had been arrested. The police said they would seek to arrest Carlwyn Baldo, mayor of the city of Daraga, whom they accused of arranging the Dec. 22 killing of Rodel Batocabe, a member of the Philippine House of Representatives and an ally of President Rodrigo Duterte. Mr. Batocabe was leaving Congress and had announced his intention to run against Mr. Baldo in Daragas mayoral election in May. Orlando Diaz, a police officer who was guarding Mr. Batocabe, was shot and killed along with the congressman at a gift-giving ceremony for senior citizens in Daraga, a city of about 125,000 in Albay Province, southeast of Manila. From all indications, as revealed by suspects and witnesses and physical evidence that was gathered by the police, the group that killed Batocabe and Diaz is a private armed group employed by the mayor that is involved in contract killing as a gun-for-hire syndicate, said the national police chief, Oscar Albayalde. TOKYO North Koreas acting ambassador to Italy disappeared from the embassy in Rome in November, apparently in a defection attempt, according to a South Korean lawmaker briefed by intelligence officials. The potentially embarrassing news for Kim Jong-un, North Koreas leader, came just two days after he extolled his countrys economic and diplomatic progress and delivered an implied threat that if international sanctions against the North continued, he would have no choice but to return to nuclear confrontation. Little is known about what happened to Cho Seong-gil, who had been North Koreas acting ambassador to Italy since October 2017. If his defection is confirmed, he would be the highest-ranking defector since Kim Jong-un became leader in 2011. In 2016, the No. 2 diplomat in Britain, Thae Yong-ho, defected to South Korea, expressing disillusionment with Mr. Kims government. According to Kim Min-ki, a lawmaker in the party of President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, Mr. Cho and his wife fled the North Korean Embassy and residence in Rome and have been in hiding since early November, about a month before his term there was due to end. The first of three photographs sent by Change-4 appeared a little over an hour after the spacecraft touched down as planned at 10:26 a.m., Beijing time, in the middle of a crater not far from the moons south pole. It showed a barren, undulating vista pocked by a smaller crater, as did another picture sent 12 hours later as the rover began its journey. Contrary to the enduring but mistaken notion that the moon has a dark side you can blame Pink Floyd for that, at least in part the photographs showed the landscape bathed in an orange hue, casting the sharp shadows from the lander and the rover. The other two, in black and white, showed the lander descending. The spacecraft was the first to land intact on the side of the moon that perpetually faces away from Earth. A Soviet satellite took the first photographs of the far side in 1959, and the Apollo missions circled above it between 1968 and 1972, but the difficulty of communicating with earthbound scientists had always made the idea of landing there more complex, if not necessarily prohibitive. As Rashida Tlaib arrived on Capitol Hill to be sworn into the House of Representatives on Thursday, she was wearing a distinctive outfit: a traditional Palestinian thobe, or dress, adorned with the elaborate, hand-stitched embroidery known as tatreez. [Read live updates from the opening of the 116th Congress.] Ms. Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan who is the first Palestinian-American woman to serve in Congress, had posted a photo of the dress on Instagram on Dec. 14, garnering 11,000 likes but also criticisms, including racist comments. Nancy Pelosi has led the Democrats in the House for the last 16 years. Shes been in power for the partys highs and lows. Sweeping, stunning Republican victories all across the country. the president of the United States. Now she is again Speaker of the House, and leading an impeachment battle in a big election year in 2020. I couldnt be more honored. So what are the tactics that have kept her in power for so long? Good morning. Pelosis affinity for politics may be genetic. Well, I was born into a political family in Baltimore, Md. My father was in Congress when I was born, and he was mayor my whole life from when I was in first grade to when I went away to college. But despite being raised in political circles, Pelosi didnt jump in right away. Instead, she moved to San Francisco with her husband in the late 1960s and raised their five children as a stay-at-home mom. But as they grew up, Pelosi decided to enter the fray. Pelosi quickly rose through the ranks of the California Democratic Party, earning a reputation as a star fund-raiser, and in 1987 she won a seat in Congress. Through the 90s Pelosi navigated the party in Washington, becoming leader in 2003. Thank you all very much. Since then, shes raised millions for the Democrats. Over the years, Pelosi has earned a reputation as a shrewd legislator, especially when it comes to corralling votes. Her tactic: rewarding loyalty with good roles and coveted assignments, and punishing those who cross her. Exhibit A: when Representative John Dingell didnt support Pelosi for Democratic whip, she eventually backed someone else to take one of his committee seats. Pelosi has never been shy about how she feels about her leadership. Well, Im a master legislator. I think Im the best person to go forward to unify. I have a strong following in the country. Thank you. And while her confidence has likely paid off, it also provides a counter to her other public persona: Democratic bogeywoman. Pelosis long tenure has made her an easy target for the right. Amy McGrath is a Nancy Pelosi liberal whose name is Conor Lamb, but in Washington hed be one of Nancy Pelosis sheep. And occasionally for the left. I didnt support Nancy Pelosi for any leadership position. We need some new leadership. But when asked, she just shrugs it off. I think Im worth the trouble, quite frankly. Pelosi is no stranger to a fight or a quick retort. Please dont characterize the strength that I bring to this meeting. Shes battled President Bush and recent G.O.P. leaders. Mr. President, stay the course is not a strategy its a slogan. Say one nice thing about Paul Ryan Theres a big difference between the president and me: He has very thin skin, and I have very thick skin. And with a challenging year ahead, there are inevitably many more fights to come. So, help us God. If all had gone as he hoped, Mark Harris would have been sworn in to the House of Representatives Thursday as the new member from North Carolinas Ninth Congressional District. Instead, as the new House was installed, Mr. Harris, a Southern Baptist preacher and staunch conservative, was far from Washington and his seat still up for grabs. There are increasing worries it could remain vacant for months. Mr. Harris, whose election is now in limbo because of fraud allegations against one of his campaign contractors, instead spent much of the day at another government office. He was being interviewed by elections investigators in Raleigh looking into the unusual handling of absentee ballots by the contractor, L. McCrae Dowless Jr. Standing outside the investigators offices, Mr. Harris expressed his disappointment. I am the one seat remaining of the 435 to be seated, he said, in remarks to reporters broadcast by WSOC-TV, the ABC affiliate in Charlotte. We kind of find ourselves in no-mans land, if you will, and we have asked the court to step in. WASHINGTON The Trump administration is considering Jim Webb, a former Democratic senator and Reagan-era secretary of the Navy, to be the next defense secretary, according to three officials, potentially bypassing more hawkish Republicans whose names have been floated to replace Jim Mattis. Mr. Webb, an outspoken opponent of the Iraq war, is being considered as President Trump seeks to carry out campaign promises to withdraw American troops from Syria and Afghanistan. Those two decisions prompted Mr. Mattis to resign late last month, putting the deputy defense secretary, Patrick M. Shanahan, a former Boeing executive, in the top role in an acting capacity. Representatives for Vice President Mike Pence and Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, have reached out to Mr. Webb, one of the three officials said. Separately, a senior Defense Department official confirmed that Mr. Webbs name had been circulating at the White House. Those two and the third official all spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal discussions. Flash British police have said a man suspected of stabbing three people with a kitchen knife at Manchester Victoria train station on New Year's Eve has been detained under the Mental Health Act. Counterterrorism officials are continuing to investigate what led to the stabbing attack that injured a British Transport Police officer, and a woman and a man in their 50s. Police said the suspect, a 25-year-old man who had been living in the UK for about a decade, remained in custody and was refusing to cooperate. He had been assessed by specialist medical staff, Greater Manchester police added. On Tuesday morning, armed officers raided a property in the Cheetham Hill area of the city, where the suspect, who is being held on suspicion of attempted murder, lived with his parents and four siblings. A police spokesman said: "The counterterrorism investigation remains ongoing. There is nothing to suggest the involvement of other people in this attack, but confirming this remains a main priority for the investigation. The search of the address in Cheetham Hill continues." On Tuesday afternoon, tactical aid unit vans were stationed outside the property, with a police officer guarding the door. The Manchester Evening News reported that a neighbor of the occupants of the searched property said they have lived there for at least 10 years, and described them as 'good people'. Counterterrorism police are leading the investigation into the attack at Victoria station, which is adjacent to Manchester Arena, where suicide bomber Salman Abedi killed 22 people on May 22, 2017. Earlier, Chief Constable Ian Hopkins praised officers at the scene for their bravery in arresting the suspect within minutes. Hopkins said many people would have been affected by Monday's attack, particularly since it happened so close to the scene of the 2017 bombing. "I believe that makes it an even more dreadful attack for our city," he told reporters. Mayor Andy Burnham said the incident had all the hallmarks of an isolated incident, but urged people to 'remain vigilant'. Britain is on its second-highest threat level of severe, meaning an attack is considered highly likely. Security officials said they are facing record levels of work in countering Islamist militants as well as far-right extremists after four major attacks in 2017. Sam Clack, a BBC producer who witnessed the attack, told the broadcaster: "I just heard the guy shout, as part of a sentence, 'Allah'." "I heard the man say, 'As long as you keep bombing these countries this is going to keep happening'," Clack told BBC 5 Live radio in another interview. "It was very, very scary." The Kennebunk-based New England Radio Discussion Society facilitated a talk between Sea Road School students and an International Space Station in January. South Portland Sentry Construction has started on the state-funded school, which is expected to be completed in 2023. LONDON The Theater Royal in Drury Lane one of Londons most historic venues, tracing its origins back to 1663 is closing this weekend for a $56 million refurbishment, in part to meet a very immediate need: for more womens toilets (18, in this case). The nearby Old Vic will start a $4.1 million project this month that includes adding 12 stalls, while the Queens, home of Les Miserables, will shutter for a renovation this summer that will include 18 more places for women to use the bathroom. Last year, a host of Broadway theaters started excavating, annexing, converting and renovating their buildings to remedy the problem of long, slow lines to the bathroom, for men and women. Now many in London are doing or considering the same. They include the Novello, home of Mamma Mia!, and the Noel Coward, showing The Inheritance. A British theater publication this week put numbers to anecdotal evidence that going to the bathroom had become a major hassle at the theater. The guy with the alligator in his pants never made it to Instagram and neither did the man with Ziploc bags of vodka taped to his thighs. But the supermarket-grade meat slicer someone tried to pack in a carry-on did make a social media appearance (and quickly garnered over 4,100 likes). Though it may not always seem so to followers of the Transportation Security Administrations wildly popular (and currently unmanaged ) Instagram feed, standards apply to what it can post. The T.S.A. is, after all, a federal agency, one with a multibillion dollar budget and over 57,000 employees and the daunting task of safeguarding the skies. Screeners at airports are considered essential employees and are working without pay in the government shutdown although, according to CNN, hundreds are now calling in sick, many for practical reasons (child care, work that pays their bills). And challenges for those workers ramp up this time of year when, over a two-week period that starts before Christmas and ends just after New Years Day, an estimated 41 million harried travelers shed belts and shoes, grudgingly remove both laptops and liquids from their luggage and also, not infrequently, fail to recall that they have tucked a loaded pistol, say, or a pet tarantula or some throwing stars in their carry-ons. Flexners case for such untrammeled freedom isnt that its a good unto itself. Freedom also produces a lot of garbage. His case is that freedom is the license the roving mind requires to go down any path it chooses and go as far as the paths may lead. This is how fundamental discoveries a.k.a., useless knowledge are usually made: not so much by hunting for something specific, but by wandering with an interested eye amid the unknown. Its also how countries attract and cultivate genius by protecting a space of unlimited intellectual permission, regardless of outcome. All of this, of course, has its ultimate uses hence the usefulness of Flexners title. Newtons third law of motion begets, after 250 years, the age of the rocket; the discovery of the double helix delivers, several decades later, Crispr. Its also how nations gain or lose greatness. The reorganized universities of fascist Italy and Germany had no place for Leo Szilard, Enrico Fermi or Albert Einstein. They became the Allies ultimate weapon in World War II. Which brings us back to New Horizons, Osiris-Rex, InSight and every other piece of gear flying through the heavens at taxpayer expense and piling up data atop our already vast stores of useless knowledge. What are they doing to reduce poverty? Nothing. Environmental degradation? Zippo. The opioid crisis? Still less. And yet, in being the kind of society that does this kind of thing that is, the kind that sends probes to the edge of the solar system; underwrites the scientific establishment that knows how to design and deploy these probes; believes in the value of knowledge for its own sake; cultivates habits of truthfulness, openness, collaboration and risk-taking; enlists the public in the experience, and shares the findings with the rest of the world we also discover the highest use for useless knowledge: Not that it may someday have some life-saving application on earth, though it might, but that it has a soul-saving application in the here and now, reminding us that the human race is not a slave to questions of utility alone. There are plenty of reasons to worry about the state of the American mind today, as well as the state of the university. Speech is not as free; gadflies are not as welcome; inquiry is dictated as much by the availability of funding as it is by the instincts of curiosity, and funding itself is often short. But lets start 2019 on a happier note. Even in the midst of the shutdown, the New Horizons mission was still considered an essential activity of government. If Flexner were alive to witness it, he might say, most essential. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram, join the Facebook political discussion group, Voting While Female, and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. To the Editor: Re The Inevitability of Impeachment, by Elizabeth Drew (Op-Ed, Dec. 29): I have always admired Ms. Drew for her political acumen in writing about Washington. However, in suggesting that congressional Republicans might act to help remove President Trump from office, Ms. Drew is allowing hope to overcome reality. Aside from occasional rebukes to the president, congressional Republicans have resolutely refused to criticize him for his lying, for his denigration of anyone who disagrees with him, and for his policies, which have isolated this country from its allies. So to expect these Republicans to suddenly help usher President Trump out of office is to expect them to demonstrate some spine and concern for the well-being of the country something they have thus far refused to do. Dorian Bowman Cambridge, Mass. To the Editor: Thank you, Elizabeth Drew, for a glimmer of hope regarding impeachment. For the first time I feel there is hope that enough Republicans will finally do their job and put the country ahead of party. Their power is now diminished, President Trumps behavior continues to be erratic and his lack of leadership before the world will finally force them to seek self-preservation. To the Editor: The main reason for what is happening in Hungary (Hungarys Autocracy Beneath a Patina of Democracy, news article, Dec. 26 ) is the alienation and anger Hungarians feel toward Western Europe and the European Union. The cause of this anger is Europes failure to do anything to correct the terrible injustice that occurred at the end of World War I through the Treaty of Trianon, when this kingdom, over a thousand years old, was dismembered. This occurred not because Hungary was on the wrong side in the war but because Central Europe was getting too strong and could no longer be dominated by the French and the British. President Woodrow Wilson rightly opposed the Trianon Treaty; he felt that strangers should not be allowed to redraw the borders in Central Europe and overnight turn millions of Hungarians into foreigners in the towns that were built by their fathers. It is the responsibility of the European Union to require at least local autonomy for these millions of Hungarians. And it is also important for the general public to understand the reasons for the underlying alienation and anger that are exploited by demagogues. Most people in the West dont even know that this national minority one of Europes largest exists. Nor is the Second Amendment absolutism that Justice Thomas is calling for reflected in the way the Supreme Court interprets most other constitutional guarantees. Judge Bruce Selya of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit made this point in a majority opinion in November rejecting a challenge to a provision of the Massachusetts gun licensing statute. Even though the Second Amendment right is fundamental, Judge Selya, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, wrote in his opinion for a unanimous panel, the plaintiffs have offered us no valid reason to treat it more deferentially than other important constitutional rights. That decision, Gould v. Morgan, will shortly be appealed to the Supreme Court . My second point is to underscore the role Justice Thomas plays in creating this rhetorical tidal wave. He is a Federalist Society icon and a hero to many young conservative lawyers, including the 10 former Thomas law clerks whom President Trump has already appointed to federal judgeships. (A dozen other former Thomas clerks hold important nonjudicial positions in the administration.) They and their colleagues among the new Trump judges, many of whom clerked for other conservative justices, are the ones who are making the second-class right mantra a standard feature of any Second Amendment dissent in other words, not only that a particular majority opinion is incorrect, but that it is part of a dangerous trend that the Supreme Court, by implication if not explicitly, needs to address right now. For example, the full 15-member Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently refused to reconsider a decision by a three-judge panel to uphold the longstanding federal ban on interstate sales of handguns. Dissenting from that refusal, Judge James C. Ho, a former Thomas clerk who joined the Fifth Circuit last year, cited Justice Thomass opinions in observing, Yet the Second Amendment continues to be treated as a second-class right. His dissent included a subtle dig at Chief Justice John Roberts, who notably has not joined Justice Thomass Second Amendment choir. The government rationale for the ban on interstate handgun sales is that while federally licensed firearm dealers can be expected to know the laws of their own state, they may not be familiar with laws of other states and so may not know whether an out-of-state purchaser is legally entitled to own a gun. That is not sufficient justification for the ban, Judge Ho wrote; if dealers could learn their own states laws, they could learn other states laws as well. Put simply, the way to require compliance with state handgun laws is to require compliance with state handgun laws, he wrote in a riff on the chief justices much-discussed line in a 2007 school integration case: The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. Judge Hos Fifth Circuit colleague Don R. Willett, another new member of the court, observed in his own dissenting opinion in the same case, The Second Amendment is neither second class, nor second rate, nor second tier. An appeal in that case , Mance v. Whitaker, is now pending at the Supreme Court, and the justices will decide this month or next whether to accept it. Another new judge, Stephanos Bibas, dissented last month from a decision by a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that upheld a New Jersey law limiting a firearm magazine to 10 rounds of ammunition. He said the state had failed to provide sufficient evidence that specifically links large magazines to mass-shooting deaths. Acknowledging that five other federal circuit courts have also upheld limits on magazine sizes, Judge Bibas observed that while judges were understandably concerned about gun violence, they err in subjecting the Second Amendment to different, watered-down rules and demanding little if any proof. Abiy Ahmed, the 42-year-old prime minister of Ethiopia, has dazzled Africa with a volley of political reforms since his appointment in April. Mr. Abiy ended the 20-year border war with Eritrea, released political prisoners, removed bans on dissident groups and allowed their members to return from exile, declared press freedom and granted diverse political groups the freedom to mobilize and organize. Mr. Abiy has been celebrated as a reformer, but his transformative politics has come up against ethnic federalism enshrined in Ethiopias Constitution. The resulting clash threatens to exacerbate competitive ethnic politics further and push the country toward an interethnic conflict. The 1994 Constitution, introduced by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front governing coalition, recast the country from a centrally unified republic to a federation of nine regional ethnic states and two federally administered city-states. It bases key rights to land, government jobs, representation in local and federal bodies not on Ethiopian citizenship but on being considered ethnically indigenous in constituent ethnic states. The system of ethnic federalism was troubled with internal inconsistencies because ethnic groups do not live only in a discrete homeland territory but are also dispersed across the country. Nonnative ethnic minorities live within every ethnic homeland. William C. Thompson, a former Brooklyn legislator and judge who was in the vanguard of the black Democrats who staked their claim to elective office beginning in the mid-1960s, died on Dec. 24 at his home in Brooklyn Heights. He was 94. The cause was complications of colon cancer, his son, William C. Thompson Jr., the former New York City comptroller, said. In 1964, Mr. Thompson became the first black state senator elected from Brooklyn, a borough where, as recently as 1960, the fanciest restaurant, Gage & Tollner, did not seat black people. He was on the City Council from 1969 to 1973; elected to the State Supreme Court in 1974; and named assistant administrative judge of the Supreme Court in Brooklyn and Staten Island in 1978. In 1980, he was the first black associate justice appointed to the Appellate Division of the Second Judicial Department in Brooklyn. Geoffrey D. Langlands, a British officer who stayed in Pakistan after his military service ended and became one of the countrys most celebrated educators, died on Wednesday at a hospital in Lahore. He was 101. His death was confirmed by Aitchison College, Pakistans most prestigious boarding school, in Lahore. Mr. Langlands spent 25 years there as a teacher and later a headmaster. In more than six decades of teaching mathematics and English, sometimes in regions rife with violence, Mr. Langlands, commonly known as the Major, guided the children of Pakistans elite to top careers. His students included Zafarullah Khan Jamali, a former prime minister, and Imran Khan, the current prime minister. He stood out, Mr. Khan said of Mr. Langlands, the subject of a Saturday Profile in The New York Times in 2012. He had this mixture of being firm yet compassionate. On Wednesday, Mr. de Blasio told reporters that he would announce the details in a few days and that New Yorkers would understand if it takes a few extra days. Mr. de Blasio said the city was considering how it could include pay-per-ride MetroCards, which are often favored by New Yorkers who are living paycheck to paycheck. The city agreed to pay $106 million for the first six months of the program. Under the agreement, it would apply to New Yorkers below the federal poverty line a household income of about $25,000 for a family of four. [Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo canceled the full shutdown of the L train between Brooklyn and Manhattan.] For transit advocates who aggressively pushed Mr. de Blasio to support the idea, his failure to start the program on time or to publicize it has been frustrating. To see people not taking this as incredibly seriously as they should be, it is disappointing to say the least, said David R. Jones, president of the Community Service Society of New York, an antipoverty nonprofit. This is not just any ordinary mayor, this is a mayor who guaranteed hed make this the most equitable city in the nation. Mr. de Blasio has struggled at times to prove he is skilled at managing a sprawling city government. And he has recently received criticism for spending less time at City Hall and for his hands-off management style. Mr. Johnson, who has been an enthusiastic supporter of Fair Fares, has not yet joined in the chorus of criticism over the start of the program. His office said in a statement on Wednesday that Mr. Johnson was working to make sure that Fair Fares is a success. The Council has always believed that this program is for all New Yorkers living at or below the federal poverty line, and is committed to making sure that vision becomes a reality, said Breeana Mulligan, a Council spokeswoman. Flash China said on Wednesday it hoped that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States would respect and accommodate each other's reasonable concerns to achieve progress in the denuclearization of and establishing a peace mechanism on the Korean Peninsula in the new year. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang made the comments at a routine press conference when responding to a reporter's question on the New Year's speech by top leader of the DPRK Kim Jong Un. Kim said Tuesday that he would push forward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and was ready to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump at any time. "We hope the DPRK and the U.S. will respect and accommodate each other's reasonable concerns, and make positive progress in advancing the denuclearization of and establishing a peace mechanism on the Korean Peninsula in the new year," Lu said. "China will continue to play its role in this regard." China encourages and supports further talks between the DPRK and the U.S. and hopes for positive results, Lu said. He said that important and positive changes took place in the situation on the Korean Peninsula, peninsula issue was back to the track of dialogue and negotiation, and relations between the DPRK and the Republic of Korea (ROK) witnessed all-round improvement over the past year. "China recognizes the measures taken by the DPRK for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, supports DPRK's stance to further stick to denuclearization and peace talks," Lu said. "China supports the DPRK and the U.S. as well as the DPRK and the ROK in continuing their good interaction and showing goodwill, consolidating mutual trust and improving relations, so as to advance the denuclearization and political settlement of the peninsula issue." On Dec. 30 last year, Kim sent a letter to ROK President Moon Jae-in, showing his willingness to visit Seoul. [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] Good news, New Yorkers: You may no longer need $1 million to buy a middle-of-the-road Manhattan apartment. But just barely. Lest the financially average among us get too excited, the median price only fell to $999,000, dipping below $1 million in the last quarter of 2018, according to a report from Douglas Elliman. It was the first time the median price fell below seven figures since crossing the million-dollar listing threshold in 2015. A report from another firm, Brown Harris Stevens, noted a similar decline, but found the median apartment sale price to be $1,050,000. Still, taken together, the end-of-the-year data in both reports suggested that New York Citys real estate market continued the gradual slowdown that had characterized it for most of the year. How could the M.T.A. do this without a shutdown? The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will keep both tunnels open during weekdays for full L train service and do its work on nights and weekends, shutting down only one tube at a time. Trains will run in both directions, but that will result in long waits between trains up to 15 and 20 minutes during repair times. The authority still plans on running more G, M and 7 trains to handle passengers who are rerouted during the repairs. When will this start? If the board approves, the work would probably start at the end of April, which was when the shutdown was supposed to begin. How long will it take? Transit officials said it could take 15 to 20 months. The previously planned shutdown was supposed to take 15 months. The governor stopped short of guaranteeing that it would not go beyond 20 months. Its a silly question, am I going to promise on a construction project? he said. Who will be most affected? L-train riders who work nights and weekends, or those who play on nights and weekends. A luxury ride share company that started just for the shutdown, The New L, said it would keep its wait list open, just in case the new plans didnt work, and there was still a need for the $155-a-month service. Construction and congestion on side streets in the East Village could be abated, sparing neighbors fumes from supplemental buses and asbestos in the debris removed from the tunnel. Wirathu, now 50, became aligned with Myanmars nationalist 969 movement in 2001 and has founded, since that movement was banned, a similarly anti-Muslim organization. His brief is that Myanmars Muslim population (which he refuses to refer to as Rohingya, which is how the stateless people refer to themselves) represents a mechanics of evil. To Schroeders camera and in public preaching, he pursues this theme with relentless insistence while denying he condones violence. But the words he preaches to his followers go well beyond implication. And the violence he inspires, shown in this film in footage culled from phone videos and other immediate media sources, is horrific. [Our chief film critics choose the films that moved them in 2018.] The monk is perhaps the least showy of the subjects of Schroeders trilogy. He speaks quietly, although his mouth often twists into an expression of petulant smugness. But in a sense, this is the most terrifying of Schroders portraits. Amin, as heinous as he was, was one person, as was Verges. Wirathu represents an awful idea, one that cannot be banished, and one he propagates with chilling skill. He speaks of seeing through the intentions of Muslims, which sounds ridiculous. But then he talks of ISIS beheadings, and how in footage of these atrocities the perpetrators, after completing their work, raise a finger, to signify that there is only one God. He takes factual examples, distorts them, uses them to slander a whole faith and a whole people, and concludes that the Muslim cannot be lived with. And people believe, then follow him. Schroeders approach is calm, almost detached, in keeping with his other work (although the choice of de Medeiros to speak for Buddhism, and with a nonspecific Asian-seeming accent at that, struck me as an avoidable misstep); this makes the bleakness of what he recounts (which is buttressed by an insinuatingly menacing score by Jorge Arriagada) that much more resonant. Far from a fantasy, but not quite a nightmare, State Like Sleep is a thriller without thrills, where every setting that was once familiar has become loaded with a sense of dread. It pauses before turning any corner, anticipating horrors that never satisfyingly arrive. The movie follows Katherine (Katherine Waterston), the wife of Stefan Delvoe (Michiel Huisman), a rising Belgian film star who died in an apparent suicide. Their marriage was a rocky one, shaken by revelations about Stefans drug use and the possibility that he was unfaithful. It was Katherine who found Stefans body with a bullet lodged in his temple. One year after Stefans death, Katherine returns to their home in Brussels. Her mother (Mary Kay Place) has suffered a minor stroke and is in need of medical care. In between her visits to the hospital, Katherine unpacks the mess Stefan left behind. She finds matchboxes with the name of his favorite club written on them the first bread crumb in a trail that leads Katherine to suspect her husbands death was a conspiracy. Katherine retraces Stefans final days and finds herself submerged in a world of nightclubs and narcotics. In this shadowy landscape, Katherines numbed grief is indistinguishable from a high. When horror movies head for the woods, their titles may vary I Spit on Your Grave, Wolf Creek but their central dynamic is too often the same: At some point, an attractively trembling woman will be forced to run like the dickens from a yokel who butchers his own meat. What sets Rust Creek apart from most of its genre predecessors, though, is that its director, screenwriter and cinematographer are all women. Sadly (or happily, depending on your viewpoint), this hasnt made an appreciable difference to the broadly familiar beats of Julie Lipsons screenplay, even if Jen McGowans direction is as attentive to stasis as action. Midway through the movie, when the lead character, a Kentucky college student named Sawyer (Hermione Corfield), finds herself trapped in a trailer with Lowell (Jay Paulson), a hinky meth cook, her slow transition from suspicion to trust is accomplished with near-subliminal sensitivity. For the Japanese filmmaker Isao Takahata, who died last year at the age of 82, the animated film was more than a vehicle for the whimsical and phantasmagoric, it was a platform for personal expression. While the same is certainly true for his friend and colleague Hayao Miyazaki, with whom Takahata co-founded the production house Studio Ghibli, Takahata pushed harder at accepted boundaries. Grave of the Fireflies, the 1988 film that was Takahatas first for Studio Ghibli, is a still-stunning example. While suffused with near-fantastic elements, Fireflies, based on a late-days-of-World-War-II story by Akiyuki Nosaka, mostly uses animation to heighten a harrowing realism. The movie begins on a blunt note that resonates more of its awful tragedy as it continues: with the death by starvation of one of its lead characters, Seita, who then is reunited with his dead younger sister, Setsuko, the two of them now wandering as spirits. The movie flashes back to events of earlier months when the duo were still alive. Separated from their mother after an American bombing raid on Kobe, the pair spend their last days fending for themselves in a wasteland where no adult help is forthcoming. As much as they struggle, they remain beautifully and sometimes humorously childlike. Although intermittently available on home video in the United States, Fireflies is only now getting an official theatrical release here. The movie remains one of the most startling and moving animated films ever. It is also, with the likes of The 400 Blows, Kes, and Vagabond, one of the finest films about being young in an indifferent world. PIER PAOLO PASOLINI: A FUTURE LIFE, PART 1 at Metrograph (Jan. 4-10). The first weekend of this planned multipart retrospective on the Italian director, poet, author and theorist (1922-1975) centers a trilogy of literary adaptations (The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales and Arabian Nights) that he ultimately repudiated. It also includes the film that followed: Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (on Friday and Saturday), which adapts a Marquis de Sade novel in the context of Fascist Italy. Notorious for its depictions of rape, torture and human feces repurposed as haute cuisine, the movie is a harrowing portrait of bodies in total service to a state. Its also must-see Pasolini or at least the most difficult Pasolini to un-see. 212-660-0312, metrograph.com THE SOPRANOS FILM FESTIVAL at SVA Theater and IFC Center (Jan. 9-14). To celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Sopranos, this festival will host discussions with the series creators as well as screenings of movies that influenced the landmark HBO show from the obvious (Goodfellas, showing on Jan. 12) to the perhaps less well known (Trees Lounge, directed by Steve Buscemi, playing on Jan. 13). 212-924-7771, ifccenter.com TO SAVE AND PROJECT: THE 16TH MOMA INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF FILM PRESERVATION at the Museum of Modern Art (Jan. 4-31). Technically, MoMAs annual bonanza of newly preserved films opens this Friday, but it seems more proper to think of the first weeks offerings as an aperitif, because they focus almost entirely on one filmmaker, Barbet Schroeder (Single White Female) and specifically on his documentaries. These include up-close looks at the Uganda dictator Idi Amin (General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait, on Saturday and Tuesday) and at Jacques Verges (Terrors Advocate, on Saturday and Wednesday), a French lawyer famous for defending clients like the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and the terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal. On a lighter note, in Koko: A Talking Gorilla (showing in the program on Friday and Tuesday), the director captures the interactions of the celebrated western lowland gorilla Koko, who had an apparent facility for sign language (and who died in June). 212-708-9400, moma.org Its no mere coincidence that Jeffrey R. Brown, the dean of the Gies College of Business, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is also a scholar of risk management. At his first faculty meeting four years ago, Brown fretted that his school had become, like many American universities, overly dependent on a single source of money roughly a fifth of tuition revenue came from Chinese students. I saw our reliance on China as a risk, says Brown, noting that 800 or so of the universitys nearly 5,800 Chinese students attend the business school. At the time, I was concerned that China could pull the plug on students coming to America. But then the U.S. political landscape shifted, and we were vulnerable to changing visa and immigration policies here, too. Both were threats we could not control. Brown approached the problem as a risk manager, which meant doing what no school has been known to do before: buying insurance to protect against a sudden drop in Chinese enrollment. The three-year policy requires the university to pay $424,000 annually for up to $60 million in coverage. The insurer, Lloyds of London, will pay out a claim if a specific incident a visa ban because of a government action, for example causes the number of Chinese students in the colleges of business and engineering to decline by 18.5 percent over a 12-month period. The political risks have only grown since the policy went into effect. The trade war with China, visa restrictions and the anti-immigrant rhetoric coming from the White House are making it more complicated for international students to come to America. Its a tough environment right now, Brown says. But the insurance gives him peace of mind. The school continues to invest in China, he says, but now with the confidence that we are not doubling down on risk. Over the past decade, the explosion in the number of international students has turned education, almost by stealth, into one of the most vital American exports. The idea that a student taking classes in Iowa City or Ann Arbor can be counted as an export might seem strange. In economic terms, however, the students situation is not so different from, say, a Japanese company buying American soybeans: Foreign money flows into the United States from abroad except that in this case, the product doesnt leave the country. Nearly 1.1 million international students attended American colleges and universities in 2017. They generated $42.4 billion in export revenue, more than double the amount eight years ago, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. (Because far fewer Americans study abroad, the United States ran a $34.2 billion surplus in education in 2017.) Nafsa, a nonprofit group that supports international education, estimates that students from abroad created or sustained more than 455,000 jobs in the United States, almost nine times the number of American coal miners. The value of education is almost double the revenue from Americas top agricultural export in 2017, soybeans ($21.6 billion). When other student spending is factored in food, cars, clothes educations total export value rivals that of pharmaceuticals ($51 billion) and automobiles ($53 billion). In the public at large, theres little awareness that higher education is one of Americas biggest exports, says Rajika Bhandari, senior adviser for research and strategy at the Institute of International Education. Or that this export drives American competitiveness. Where did they live after marrying? After she graduated from law school in 2006, she moved to Chicago where he had one more year of law school. They made a plan to move to Texas after his graduation. How were the early years? For both, the first years were great. They traveled, worked hard, but discussions about where they would live and how many children they would have sowed seeds for future challenges. He didnt want to leave Chicago for Texas, and when his mom became ill in 2007, it gave him a good reason to stay. Were they happy? Yes, he said, though he thought he had the better deal of the two of them. Vanessa made lots of concessions, she agreed not to do things because of my fears and I think I held her back, he said. I sacrificed to leave my family, and made concessions in my career in Chicago because in the back of my mind I thought we were going back to Texas, she said. First signs of trouble? His mother died of cancer in May 2009 and after his father came to live with the couple. After the birth of their son in 2010, his father helped with their newborn. It was a lot to handle all at once, he said. A child and the death of my mother. Early on they fought about the Texas move, but by 2013, when their son was nearly 3, she felt something was amiss. He was snappish, acting strangely and drinking too much. She discovered he had had an affair. It was a reaction to a perfect storm of circumstances, he said: his mothers death, the pressure of his job and their son whom he at first, felt replaced by. It was just one of many symptoms of a marriage in trouble, he explained. Bristol-Myers Squibb said on Thursday that it would buy Celgene, a maker of cancer-fighting drugs, in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $74 billion, the first major pharmaceutical deal of 2019. Between them, the two companies produce nine drugs with annual sales of more than $1 billion apiece, Bristol-Myers said in a statement. Bristol-Myers shareholders will own 69 percent of the combined entity; Celgene shareholders will own the rest. Celgene shareholders will get one Bristol-Myers share and $50 in cash for each Celgene share. The deal values Celgene shares at $102.43 apiece, a 53.7 percent premium on the stocks closing price on Wednesday. The deal, which both companies boards have approved, will help the drugmakers advance their work in oncology, cardiovascular disease, immunology and inflammation, Bristol-Myers said in its statement. Celgene is known for its blockbuster Thalomid and Revlimid cancer medicines. You are here: World Flash So far 31 people, including four children, were confirmed dead in a household gas explosion in Russia on Monday, the country's emergency ministry said Wednesday. The body of the 31st person was recovered from under the debris of the partially collapsed 10-story residential building in Magnitogorsk City, the Chelyabinsk Region, the ministry said. Rescuers are searching around the clock for 10 people who are believed to be still buried in the rubble. Wednesday has been declared a day of mourning in Chelyabinsk for those killed in the explosion. Mr. Trump was adamant in his demands for $5.6 billion in funding for a border wall, and he rejected Democrats proposals to fund the government while the two sides negotiated further. The Democrats refused to increase their offer of $1.3 billion for border security. Mr. Trump asked congressional leaders to return to the White House on Friday to resume talks, an official said. Go deeper: Nancy Pelosi is poised to reclaim the title of speaker of the House today. How she deals with Mr. Trump will define her tenure. The Daily: In todays episode, Senator Chuck Schumer discusses the shutdown and the era of divided government. 1. Democrats took control of the House of Representatives and elected Nancy Pelosi as speaker, returning divided government to Washington. The power shift came amid a partial government shutdown, with President Trumps insistence on a wall on the Mexican border running headlong into newly energized Democratic opposition. House Democrats are voting on two new bills to reopen the federal government this evening, but their prospects in the Senate seemed dim. Hours before her election, Ms. Pelosi, center, suggested in an interview that a sitting president could be indicted and left open the option of impeachment, kicking off what could shape up to be a memorable term. MUD (2013) on Amazon, Google Play, Hulu, iTunes and Vudu. In small-town Arkansas, two boys, Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), explore an island on the Mississippi River and make two discoveries: a boat wedged in a tree and a sun-kissed runaway whos been living in it. That man, Mud (Matthew McConaughey), comes to rely on the boys as they supply him with food. He in turn supplies them with colorful stories in this coming-of-age drama from the director Jeff Nichols. In his review for The Times, A. O. Scott wrote: Mr. Nicholss screenplay is perhaps a little too heavily plotted, especially toward the end, when everything comes together neatly and noisily, but he more than compensates with graceful rhythm, an unfussy eye for natural beauty and a sure sense of character and place. Whats on TV BEN-HUR (1959) 8 p.m. on TCM. Watch one of Hollywoods biggest films on the small screen when TCM shows this epic, which turns 60 this year. MR. DIAGNE She is someone who stands her ground, and that is the case for Felwine also. I spoke to them often as they were writing the report. They consulted widely. They traveled back and forth to Senegal, Mali, Cameroon. And they spoke with people in the presidents office, who gave them legal advice. The biggest surprise, even shock, of the Savoy-Sarr report is that it explicitly says that only full restitution of works of art will be acceptable. Curators have dodged this debate before by pointing to Frances centuries-old inalienability law; national institutions do not have the right to deaccession anything in a public collection. Savoy and Sarr say: no, the law has to change, it is the only morally responsible thing to do. MS. FROMONT Thats why the report is potentially so impactful. It demands that the logic of Frances relationship to Africa be renegotiated. Its not simply about the objects, and where they are. By insisting on full restitution, the idea of long-term loans to African countries becomes as absurd as it sounds. MS. OJIH ODUTOLA There has to be a principle that both African and European institutions agree with. MR. DIAGNE When I had my first conversations with Felwine, he was telling me that many of his interlocutors civil servants, functionaries, or museum people would tell him, You see, it is so complicated legally. We should really agree on the principle that these objects need to circulate. The concept of circulation was being sold to him. And he said, yes, circulation makes sense. Somehow Africa has to share its art with the rest of the world. But Macron said restitution, and restitution has a meaning. So the authors said, we will be sticking to that word. If there is going to be circulation, it should be Africa lending the objects, not the other way around. MS. FROMONT Maybe in the future African countries will make long-term loans to Quai Branly! The American arrested in Russia on suspicion of spying met with the United States ambassador on Wednesday, and the secretary of state said he would demand the mans return if the detention was not appropriate. Russias domestic security agency said on Monday that it had detained the American, Paul N. Whelan, three days earlier during an act of espionage, a crime that in Russia can carry a term of up to 20 years in prison. The agency, the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., said it had opened a criminal case against Mr. Whelan but provided no other details. On Tuesday, the State Department said it was still waiting for Russian authorities to provide consular access to Mr. Whelan, a Marine Corps veteran whose family said he was in Moscow to attend a wedding. That access was granted on Wednesday, a State Department spokesperson said, when Ambassador Jon M. Huntsman Jr. visited Mr. Whelan at the Lefortovo Detention Facility in Moscow. Mr. Huntsman offered the American Embassys assistance, and later spoke with Mr. Whelans family by phone. ATHENS When wildfire winds devoured the Greek countryside last summer, flames cut off escape routes for dozens of people in a small coastal town until only one option remained: the sea. Three fishermen raced to help from their boats, pulling people from the waves, where they had been struggling to breathe between the surf and a choking blanket of smoke. Months later, the men three migrants to Greece received their reward. The Greek government awarded the men citizenship on Wednesday for their actions on July 23, when the fast-moving wildfire engulfed the seaside village of Mati, near Athens, and forced desperate residents and tourists into the water. The mens actions bolstered the rescue efforts of dozens of Greek fishermen and the Coast Guard. The wildfires were the deadliest disaster in recent Greek history, killing 100 people, some of whom drowned or died of toxic fumes or serious burns. The authorities later said that arsonists probably started the fire. BEIJING China reached a milestone in space exploration on Thursday, landing a vehicle on the far side of the moon for the first time in history, the countrys space agency announced. The landing of the probe, called Change-4 after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology, is one in a coming series of missions that underscore the countrys ambitions to join and even lead the space race. China landed another rover on the moon in 2013, joining the United States and the Soviet Union as the only nations to have carried out a soft landing there, but the Change-4 is the first to touch down on the side of the moon that perpetually faces away from the Earth. The mission has opened a new chapter in humanitys exploration of the moon, the China National Space Administration said in an announcement on its website. The agency said the spacecraft landed at 10:26 a.m. Beijing time at its target on the far side of the moon. In the days after Jazmine Barnes, 7, was fatally shot inside a moving car near a Walmart outside Houston on Sunday morning, the police have released just one concrete clue about her killer: an image of a red pickup truck recorded by a surveillance camera near the scene of the shooting. The authorities believe that the gunman, described as a man in his 30s or 40s with a beard and wearing a hooded sweatshirt, was driving the truck. The Harris County Sheriffs Office believes the gunman fired at random into the car in which Jazmine was riding with her mother and three sisters, a 6-year-old and two teenagers. A bullet struck Jazmine in the head, her mother said. The police said Wednesday that they still had not identified the gunman. But the case has drawn the attention of national civil rights activists and fueled speculation that the shooting was racially motivated. The gunman is white, the police said, and Jazmine was black. At a news conference on Wednesday afternoon, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said officers were pursuing a number of tips they had received, and taking a fresh look at a similar and still unsolved shooting that took place nearby in 2017. The department was also increasing patrols amid concerns that the gunman could strike again. Id love him to be a team player, possibly he wont be, Mr. Trump said. The president noted that he had endorsed Mr. Romney for the Senate, and Mr. Romney, in turn, had praised him profusely. Then Mr. Trump added that Mr. Romneys words might not play well in Utah, where the president said he is extremely popular. (Mr. Trump is probably less popular in Utah than almost any largely Republican state.) He went on to criticize Mr. Romneys race against Mr. Obama in 2012, and said that if Mr. Romney had fought Mr. Obama as hard as he has fought him, Mr. Romney might have won. And when asked if he were concerned about a primary challenge from Mr. Romney in 2020, Mr. Trump replied, They say I am the most popular president in the history of the Republican Party. (Actually, Mr. Trumps approval rating among Republicans was 88 percent at 701 days into his term, according to Gallup, the same as President George W. Bush at the same point. Over all, Mr. Trumps approval ratings among his own party have largely hovered below Mr. Bushs.) Cabinet members know the value of praise. One by one, the president called on select cabinet members for their contributions to border security. One by one, they responded by praising their boss. Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, applauded his leadership on border security. She was followed by the acting attorney general, Matthew G. Whitaker, who saluted the president for giving up his Christmas and New Years holidays while some members of Congress went on vacation. Rick Perry, the energy secretary and a former governor of Texas, also praised the president, saying he had been rebuffed on border security from the Obama administration. Youre standing up and saying dont come, Mr. Perry said. Not to be outdone, Vice President Mike Pence noted that he, too, stayed in Washington over the holidays. Then he, too, piled on the compliments: I want to thank you for the strong stand you have taken on border security. Syria and ISIS are on Mr. Trumps mind. Mr. Trump was still stinging from criticism over his decision to withdraw American troops from Syria, lamenting that he was the only person who would get bad publicity for it. One rebuke in particular, from Mr. Mattis, seemed to prompt the president to issue some criticism of his own. How has he done in Afghanistan? Not good. Im not happy, Mr. Trump said, before adding, I wish him well. President Obama fired him and, essentially, so did I. (Mr. Mattis resigned in protest, and Mr. Trump initially characterized the retired Marine generals departure as a retirement.) A man was charged with murder on Wednesday after he fatally shot a California police officer who pulled him over under the suspicion of drunken driving, the authorities said. The man, identified by the authorities as Gustavo Perez Arriaga, was arrested Friday after a manhunt that fueled tensions over illegal immigration when President Trump tweeted about it. The police say Mr. Perez Arriaga entered the United States illegally. On Wednesday, Mr. Perez Arriagas lawyer argued that he was mentally incompetent and unable to stand trial, delaying the criminal proceedings, said John Goold, a spokesman for the Stanislaus County district attorney. Mr. Perez Arriaga, who is in his 30s, is accused of shooting and killing Ronil Singh, a 33-year-old officer with the Newman Police Department, early on Dec. 26. The police said the shooting occurred after Officer Singh pulled Mr. Perez Arriagas vehicle over because he suspected that he was driving under the influence. Flash U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he has received a "great" letter from the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Un and expected their second meeting to take place in the "not-too-distant future." "I just got a great letter from Kim Jong Un," Trump told reporters at the White House during a Cabinet meeting. "We'll probably now have another meeting ... we'll be setting that up in the not-too-distant future," added Trump, who revealed in early December that his second meeting with Kim was likely to happen in January or February. Trump's words came one day after Pyongyang released a series of positive signals over the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Kim said on Tuesday in his New Year speech the he would push forward the denuclearization and was ready to meet with Trump at any time. Kim also stressed his determination to work to build new relations with Washington on the condition that the United States takes corresponding measures. "We could be left with no choice but to seek a new way if the U.S. does not make good on its promises, misjudges our patience, while seeking to force things unilaterally and clinging to sanctions and pressure," Kim warned. The relations between the DPRK and the United States improved last year. The first-ever summit between Trump and Kim was held in Singapore in June. Meanwhile, differences between the two sides remained over key issues like the scale of denuclearization, U.S. sanctions, and whether to issue a war-ending declaration. For the last month, Marci T. House has had the perfect plan for the first week of the year: She would spend it in Washingtons museums and galleries, with her wife beside her. The first day was to be spent in the National Museum of African-American History and Culture; the second day at the National Portrait Gallery, taking photos in front of the Obamas portraits; the third day was for getting on tour buses and seeing outdoor monuments. But that plan was ruined before it even began when Ms. House learned, after arriving in Washington on Tuesday, that the Smithsonian Institutions museums, along with many other federally funded tourist attractions, were closing because of the government shutdown. The Smithsonians museums and the National Zoo initially remained open when the shutdown began on Dec. 22, but closed on Wednesday. We literally flew all day from Vancouver, British Columbia, to D.C. to see the museums and galleries, said Ms. House, an actress. Disappointed is putting it mildly. She and her wife now plan on spending their trip exploring the citys monuments, like the National Mall, which is open, and are keeping their fingers crossed that the museums will open before the end of the week. In a spaceflight first, Chinas Change-4 has landed where no spacecraft has touched down in one piece before: the far side of the moon. This is a historic step in international scientific exploration of the moon, opening up the Luna Incognita of the lunar far side to surface exploration for the first time, said James Head, a planetary scientist at Brown University. If successful, the mission could answer fundamental questions about Earths only natural satellite. There are still mysteries, for example, about the moons formation and early evolution, which, in turn, hold clues to the history of the entire solar system. Additionally, the mission will conduct the first radio astronomy experiments from the moons far side and the first investigations to see whether plants can grow on the moon a crucial step toward long-term human missions beyond Earth. President Trump seems to think that his hard-line immigration stance is a political winner, s aying hes willing to keep much of the government shut down in order to get funding for his border wall. Polls suggest voters dont see this Mr. Trumps way, and blame him, not the Democrats, for the impasse. With Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives on Thursday, he now has the excuse he needs to make a deal. But if he doesnt compromise, if he instead continues to try to transform his once proudly pro-growth party into the anti-immigration party, he will threaten Republican prospects for a generation. Novembers midterm elections provided a clear indication that Mr. Trumps strident positions on immigration were not widely popular. Ignoring the pleas of top Republicans, the president made the elections a referendum on the issue, vowing to end birthright citizenship, sending the military to deal with a caravan of asylum seekers and championing fringe legislation to cut legal immigration in half. TOURS, France A dozen of us sit expectantly in the orthopedic surgeons waiting room. Were here for follow-ups. Some, like me, have had bunions removed. Others have had hips or knees replaced. Most are older women. The copies of Paris Match and Le Monde on the table are at least six months old. The only artwork is a framed print of Claude Monets Poppy Fields Near Argenteuil. Since Im only two weeks out from surgery and cant drive, I came by taxi. The fare was underwritten by the French social security system, known familiarly as la Secu, which also provides health insurance for all residents. The woman seated opposite me tells me shes on her second bunion surgery. Her doctor, a top orthopedic surgeon, charges more than the normal Secu compensation, as do many specialists. Most French people purchase a supplementary insurance plan to cover costs not picked up by la Secu. As a French resident and taxpayer, I have one too. Another woman is recovering from a hip replacement. Medical chat is common in French waiting rooms. If the wait is long, everyone comes to know everything about one anothers complaints. Ms. Ayala, 48, died on June 17 of an embolism after the police say Ms. Castillo pumped silicone into her buttocks and thighs. Ms. Ayala had traveled from her home in Philadelphia to Ms. Castillos apartment on Seward Avenue for the illegal procedure. Ms. Castillo could not be reached for comment on Wednesday because she was being held in jail pending an arraignment. Her lawyer, Robert Osuna, said he had not yet read the criminal complaint and could not comment on it. Well have to see what the charges allege, he said. Buttock enhancement surgery, known as a Brazilian butt lift, has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years, driven in part by the allure of famously curvy pop-culture figures like Beyonce, Kim Kardashian and Nicki Minaj, plastic surgeons say. Cardi B, the former exotic dancer turned hip-hop superstar, told GQ Magazine last year that she received silicone injections in her buttocks and thighs for $800 from an underground medical clinic in Queens. The injections, she said, were performed without painkillers and leaked for almost a week. In New York City, the authorities have seen a surge in illegal clinics catering to women who want to change their shapes but might not be able to afford a licensed plastic surgeon. The procedures can be fatal, as silicone injected directly into tissues in the legs can be carried by veins to the heart and lungs. RICHMOND, Ind. Indiana regulators are seeking a more than $12,000 fine against a Texas trucking company accused of causing a fish kill in eastern Indiana. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management recently issued a notice of violation against MOB Carriers, Euless, Texas, which does business as TX Loadrunners. The agency proposes that the company pay a $12,500 civil penalty for the fish kill. IDEM says a truck overturned along Interstate 70 in June, spilling about 1,000 gallons of a cosmetic ingredient used in shampoos, shower gels and foam baths. The spill killed more than 40,000 fish, according to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. That substance impacted about four miles of a creek with what IDEM called "significant foaming." Associated Press Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 3 Artist Anthony May, who lives in New York, said he had done 20 similar pieces of art and applauds East Chicago for being "progressive" in its efforts to extend the life of doomed trees. "It's kind of an open studio working here on site, outdoors in the park," May said. No painting was involved in his work on a willow tree for which he said the public works department helped by cutting off branches. "What I did was transform the tree into something that looks like a glitch, like a computerized glitch in the landscape," May said. "So what I did was take the branches that we trimmed down and reattached them in cube form." Acosta said Ameristar Casino is sponsoring three of the artists, providing them with a hotel room for the duration of their stay here while they're working on the tree. Another component of the Art in the Parks Project is the receipt of large metal sculptures leased for a year that Acosta said were also selected by Copeland. "The metal sculptures are coming from different parts of the U.S.," Acosta said. "They're abstract art and they're completely different from each other," Acosta said. Hammond police Cpl. Denise Szany arrived to find Kudla yelling obscenities at several women in the parking lot and complaining that someone took her parking space, according to documents. At the time, Kudla had parked her car so that it blocked several vehicles from being able to leave their spaces. On the way to jail for ignoring commands to quiet down outside the complex, Kudla reportedly threatened Szany, saying she would put a bullet in her if she ever saw her in court. Records state McGing was standing behind Kudla as he and others were trying to place her in a jail cell when Kudla allegedly again became irate and mule kicked him in the upper thigh/groin area. Kudla twice fell, struck her head, and was hospitalized during the incident, the affidavit states. At the scene, before polices arrival, a witness said they observed Kudla fall and strike the back of her head. At the jail, officers observed her fall forward and strike her forehead on the wall and floor. The suit contends McGing forcibly drove a handcuffed Kudla head-first into the concrete while several observers at the jail failed to intervene and instead watched her on the ground in an unconscious state. VALPARAISO Newly elected Porter County Prosecutor Gary Germann hit the ground running during his first day in office this week with staff changes and plans to join his deputies in the courtroom. "I have forgotten how much fun this job is," he said. While he has been in private practice for the past 36 years, Germann began working at the prosecutor's office in 1973 and headed up the office from 1978 to 1982. He returned to the office Tuesday with several new faces, including his new Chief Deputy Armando Salinas, who had been working for the U.S. attorney's office. Rebecca Buitendorp has returned from her job as deputy prosecutor in LaPorte County, Mary Ryan was brought over from her post as chief deputy prosecutor in Starke County, and Harry Peterson is a new attorney, Germann said. Joining the staff in the next few weeks will be John Norris from the Lake County prosecutor's office. The new crew replaces former Chief Deputy Prosecutor Matt Frost and deputies Cheryl Polarek and Tammy Gregg, who were reportedly let go by Germann. HAMMOND A judge has postponed the trial of an Illinois man accused of killing a Hammond police officer in a 1980 attempted robbery. Pierre Catlett, of Harvey, is now set to face a jury June 24. Lake Criminal Court Judge Salvador Vasquez pushed Catlett's trial back Wednesday from its prior setting of Feb. 11 at the request of trial lawyer Robert Lewis, who is defending Catlett. Lewis said he needs more preparation time. Catlett would be the second defendant to face trial in Hammond police officer Larry Pucalik's death. A jury last August convicted James Hill of murder and attempted robbery for his role in the crime. He has been sentenced to 47 years in prison. A third defendant, Larry Mayes, was declared medically incompetent to stand trial in March 2014 for the officer's shooting. He was freed following treatment in a state facility. Catlett wasn't brought to Indiana for trial until late last year because he has been in custody in Illinois serving a prison sentence for aggravated battery. Catlett is pleading not guilty to allegations he took part in a holdup at the Holiday Inn-Southeast, formerly at the intersection of Cline and Interstate 80/94. Flash According to reports from Taiwan's CTnews, the number of visits by Taiwan residents to the Chinese mainland from January to October in 2018 increased by more than 220,000 compared to the same period in 2017, and Chinese mainland has seen more than 4 million trips by Taiwan residents for the first time in 2018. It is thought that this number will continue to grow in 2019. A survey conducted by the Taiwan's transportation department shows that Taiwan's outbound tourism from January to October 2018 increased in general compared to the same period in 2017. Among the most popular places for this outbound tourism was Chinese mainland. In total, from January to October 2018, more than 3.52 million trips were made by Taiwan residents to the mainland, which is an increase of 6.85 percent over 2017. Although it is important to note that this figure incoporates people making multiple trips over the period. It had been estimated by Taiwan's tourism industry that the number of trips made by Taiwan residents to the mainland in 2018 would breakthrough the psycholologically important 4 million number for the first time. Multiple preferential policies To date, multiple preferential policies have been taken to boost the future of cross-Strait relations and developments. According to Xinhua, five new cross-Strait exchange bases were approved to increase communication between people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, including the Beijing-based Museum of the War of Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. In addition, a new regulation implemented on September 1, 2018 has allowed Taiwan residents to apply for residence permits in the Chinese mainland. That means people from Taiwan could share the mainland's development opportunities and enjoy the same treatment as mainland residents when they live in the mainland. This new regulation also provides more convenience to people from Taiwan in terms of their study, work and daily life in the mainland, as well as brings more benefits to the Taiwan's tourism industry. In 2018, a growing number of young people from Taiwan pursued studies, internships, jobs as well as travel on the mainland. It's expected that the Chinese mainland would see more Taiwan residents in the coming years. CHICAGO Chicago police say a 12-year-old boy who was wounded by gunfire as people were ringing in the new year was the first person shot in the city in 2019. Police say the boy was looking out of a second-floor window in the city's Englewood neighborhood about 12:10 a.m. Tuesday when a bullet struck his left hand. He was treated at a hospital and released. The Chicago Tribune report s that police say the shooting was Chicago's first of 2019. Chicago police released preliminary numbers Tuesday showing the number of homicides and the number of people shot in the city fell in 2018. Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 1 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. A Hammond man allegedly used social media to kidnap, assault and rob a woman in Chicago. Deangelos Brown, 21, was charged with two counts of felony aggravated criminal sexual assault, kidnapping and armed robbery, according to the Chicago Police Department. At 9 p.m. Nov. 29 a 22-year-old woman got into Brown's vehicle after talking to him through social media, according to the Chicago Police Department. The woman told police she thought Brown was someone she knew, but once they met, she realized he was not an acquaintance. When she confronted Brown about not knowing him, Brown told her to just do what she is told and brandished a weapon, police said. Brown then drove her to the 13600 block of South Torrence Avenue and sexually assaulted her and dropped her off without her personal belongings. The woman fled the scene and contacted police. No information is known yet concerning the incidents surrounding Brown's second set of charges pertaining to sexual assault, kidnapping and armed robbery. "It's like really the end of the era of the corset...that's something you really can't avoid. We can't all have period bras but we worked with Playtex and they had a certain bra they created for us that we used. And so you do to a degree have to sort of pull women in, you know, bring the bust up....there's no way around it, otherwise we couldn't get people into those dresses." The second season provides much deeper insight into the characters, like Midge's mother, Rose, who leaves her uptight life in Manhattan and takes off to Paris, which Zakowska relays in color and style. "In season one, I talked about the idea of her being like in a little Chanel suit or being the perfect mother on the Upper West Side. Now her power has really taken on... these deep purple and deep red tones, sort of very intense romantic palette. And so what she's really doing is revisiting that bohemian student life when she begins season two. And so it was really important to heighten her palette and to work with those colors and I think they're very Parisian," Zakowska said. Marin Hinkle, who plays Rose, said wearing the costumes helped her get into character. WINCHESTER Standing in his apartment, Darryl Johnson Sr. points to a scar on his arm. It is the result of a heroin needle that broke when he With 2018 history, and 2019 just beginning, you might think you can toss your concerns about elections along with last year's calendar. Not so fast. The municipal primary election is scheduled for May 7, and the general election will be Nov. 5. In addition, Marion County will be moving to vote centers, and away from paper ballots. The following is a list provided to NUVO by Derrick Johnson, lead election clerk, of all the municipal offices before Marion County voters in 2019: Beech Grove: City Clerk-Treasurer; City Common Council (Two At-Large Seats, and Districts 1-5); City Judge; and Mayor. Clermont: Clerk-Treasurer; and Town Council (Two At-Large Seats). Crow's Nest: Town Clerk-Treasurer; and Town Council (Three At-Large Seats). Cumberland: Town Clerk-Treasurer; Town Council (Districts 1-4); and Town Judge. Homecroft: Town Clerk-Treasurer; and Council (Four At-Large Seats). Indianapolis/Marion County: City-County Council (Districts 1-25); and Mayor. Lawrence: City Clerk; City Common Council (Three At-Large Seats, and Districts 1-6); and Mayor. Meridian Hills: Town Clerk-Treasurer; and Town Council (Three At-Large Seats). Rocky Ripple: Town Council Member (Three At-Large Seats). Southport: City Clerk-Treasurer; City Common Council (One At-Large Seat, and Districts 1-4); and Mayor. Speedway: Town Council (Districts 1-5). Warren Park: Town Clerk-Treasurer; and Town Council (Two At-Large Seats). William's Creek: Town Clerk-Treasurer; and Town Council (Two At-Large Seats). Wynnedale: Town Clerk-Treasurer; and Town Council Member (Five At-Large Seats). Though candidates don't officially begin declaring with the Marion County Elections Board to be included on the ballot until Jan. 9, there have been a few candidates who have already made their intentions known. Hogsett Running For Re-Election Dec. 5, a not-so-mysterious announcement was released by the Marion County Democratic Party advising Mayor Joe Hogsett will join community members for a special campaign announcement at the Phoenix Theatre. The reason soon became clear as Hogsett officially announced his candidacy for re-election. Dec. 19, Kate Sweeney Bell, Marion County Democratic Party chair, announced two hires for Hogsett's 2019 municipal election campaign team. Peter Luster was named the county-wide coordinated campaign manager, and Heather K. Sager was named campaign spokesperson for the Hogsett for Indianapolis re-election campaign. Dec. 20, the Indianapolis Professional Firefighters Union Local 416 announced their unanimous support for Hogsetts re-election. The Indianapolis Professional Firefighters Union Local 416 represents over 2,300 firefighters in Indianapolis and Marion County. But, Hogsett may soon face stiff competition as he looks to retain his seat this year. Merritt Seeking Hogsett's Job? First elected to represent District 31 in the Indiana State Senate in 1990, Merritt defeated Democratic challenger Derek Camp at the polls during last month's midterm election by a 51.4 percent to 48.6 percent margin. After Hogsett announced his intentions to run for re-election, Jim Merritt, Marion County Republican Central Committee chairman, had some less-than-encouraging words. Nearly three years ago, and with great fanfare, Joe Hogsett became Mayor of Indianapolis, he wrote in a Dec. 5 press release. Since then, our City has seen our infrastructure crumble and our neighborhoods shaken by record-setting homicides. Sadly, the self-described 'public safety Mayor' has been anything but. With today's seemingly reluctant decision to seek re-election, we look forward to a robust discussion on his record and how new leadership can make our city a safer and a more vibrant place to raise a family and pursue your dreams. Then, on Dec. 14, Merritt announced his resignation from that post effective immediately. Though his farewell message didn't spell it out, speculation immediately swarmed around Merritt's intentions to seek Hogsett's job. A message for Merritt seeking comment left by NUVO was not returned as of press time. Editor's note: Merritt announced his candidacy on Jan. 10, 2019 Register to vote To vote in the upcoming 2019 primary and general elections, you must be registered to vote in Marion County. To register, you must: Be a citizen of the United States Be at 18 years of age by Nov. 5, 2019 Have lived at your current residence for 30 days prior to election Not be incarcerated Local government has a handy website at my.indy.gov where can check your registration to see if its up to date. When you register to vote, you need to provide your Indiana drivers license number, state identification number, or last four digits of your social security number. The state of Indiana will use the digitized signature thats on file with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles as your voter registration signature. For the May 8, 2018 primary election, the deadline to submit a voter registration form is April 9, 2018. For the Nov. 6, 2018 general election, the deadline to submit a registration form is Oct. 8, 2018. You can register in person at the Marion County Board of Voters Registration in the City-Council Building, branches of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, Township Trustee Offices, and Indianapolis/Marion County Public Library branches. Like in any other big city, Indys nonprofit arts organizations are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to engage audiences. This goes for both the dance companies and orchestras organizations that occasionally finding themselves tag-teaming it. Take for example the upcoming performance at the home venue of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Hilbert Circle Theatre. The concert A Night in Paris (Jan. 18-19), features the dancers of Dance Kaleidoscope and Expressenz to orchestra accompaniment under the direction of pops conductor Jack Everly. Many other dance performances in the Circle City are set to recorded music. Not, as Jerry Seinfeld would say, that theres anything wrong with that. But the exceptions are work noting. Dance Kaleidoscope doesnt just collaborate with the ISO. They collaborate with other groups as well, such as they did with the American Pianists Association (based in Indy) when DK dancers did their thing to the stylings of pianist Eric Zuber, playing Gershwin hits, in Oct. 2018. Indianapolis Ballet, when they perform The Nutcracker on the Murat stage, perform to live musical accompaniment (the ISO in 2016 and the Indianapolis Ballet Orchestra in 2017 and 2018). But when it comes to ballet, most would agree that its the quality of the dancing that matters more than the question of whether or not theres live music accompaniment. Theres no question about the quality of Indianapolis Ballets dancing, at least as far as the Balanchine Trust is concerned. This is the trust that zealously guards the legacy of New York City Ballet artistic director George Balanchine, and wont let just any ballet company use their choreography. Theres also the Ballet Theatre of Indiana. While this company may be scrappier than Indy Ballet, their performances are just as energetic and engaging. But its their urgency (as well as occasional sword and gun-play) that make their performances unique. Dont believe me? Check out their annual Beer and Ballet Feb. 15 and 16 at the Athenaeums Basile Theatre. And lets not forget the Butler Ballet (at Butler University) consistently ranked as one of the top five dance programs in the U.S. which also stages performances throughout the school year. The dance scene in Indy doesnt just include ballet, of course. Theres the aforementioned Dance Kaleidoscope under the leadership of longtime artistic director David Hochoy, who certainly has an appreciation for avant-garde modern dance. But he also knows where his audience is. The model I like to use is the kind of model the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra uses, Hochoy told NUVO back in July. They have a classical series and they have a pops series. And they know very well that the pops series is going to sell much better than the classical series. The pops series is actually what keeps them alive so they can do the classical. DK isnt the only game in town when it comes to modern dance. If youre into extravagant set and costume design and a strong narrative element, theres Gregory Hancock Dance Theatre. Indy also has a plethora of smaller dance companies, including Kenyetta Dance Company and Phoenix Rising Dance Company now based in the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre. Theres also the Indianapolis Movement Arts Collective which collaborated with No Exit Performance to produce the collaborative dance program Open Indy. Open Indys culminating Nov. 2018 performance took place in the District Theatre, on Mass Ave., a storefront that was saved from bankruptcy by the Central Indiana Community Foundation now managed by IndyFringe. The aforementioned is an example of how arts organizations, working in tandem with foundations and each otherbecome more than just the sums of their parts. There are other notable collaborations between performance organizations such as the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir which combined with the ISO to put on Handels Messiah, which they did in December 2018 at the Palladium at the Center for the Performing Arts. Even longtime patrons of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra might not be aware that their Leonard Bernstein at 100 program this past October was a collaboration with the Indianapolis Sister Cities International Program and the city of Cologne, Germany. Going international seems to be something of a trend for the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. Their upcoming performance East Meets West at the Schrott Center for the Arts at Butler University (Jan 26, 2019) features the world's premier pipa virtuoso Wu Man, who is also a prominent ambassador of Chinese music. Britain is due to leave the European Union (EU) on March 29. The Withdrawal Agreement negotiated by Theresa May's Conservative government is likely to be defeated in Parliament. Many in May's own party both Brexiters and Remainers have said they will vote against the deal. The dissent even reached May's own cabinet. On Nov. 15, 2018, Dominic Rabb (the minister responsible for negotiating the deal) resigned in protest at the deal. The main point of contention surrounds the so-called "Northern Ireland backstop." If Britain exits under the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement, Northern Ireland will maintain an open border with the Irish Republic in effect retaining de-facto membership of the EU while the rest of the United Kingdom operates according to new customs and trading relations. Such an agreement is unacceptable to the Conservative party's Northern Irish partner the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) which guarantees the government its working majority. Meanwhile, the European Research Group (ERG) led by Jacob Rees-Mogg MP is also implacably opposed to the deal. Rees-Mogg instigated a vote of no-confidence in May's leadership of the Conservative party which was held on Dec. 13. May won the vote amongst Conservative parliamentarians by 83 votes. However, although she secured 200 votes, 117 of her MPs voted against her. Opposition to her leadership would have been even greater had she not, at the last minute, promised to resign before the next election. This promise to relinquish her leadership within a couple of years guarantees that internal party conflicts will continue to sap away at her authority. Over the next few weeks, May will be doing her best to adjust elements of the deal in order to win over the DUP, and thereby neutralize the Irish question. If she is able to buy the acquiescence of the DUP then her focus will be to defuse Rees-Mogg and the ERG. Rees-Mogg has consistently called for a more militant negotiating stance. In his view, leaving the EU without a deal on March 29 would not produce a catastrophe. Furthermore, he believes that by threatening a no-deal scenario, the leadership of the EU would be forced to make greater concessions. It is certainly true that as things stand, the government's negotiating position with the EU is rather weak. May will therefore be making offers to her backbench opponents in a desperate bid to stave off the threat that her agreement will be voted down, which seems likely. Following this, a Labour Party motion of no-confidence in the government could lead to an imminent general election. Indeed, it would only require 10 to 15 Conservative and DUP MPs to support such a motion for the government to be defeated. But this scenario seems unlikely given that Labour would likely win an imminent general election. Given the conflict both within the ruling party and in the government's coalition with the DUP, it is extremely difficult to predict how things will develop before March 29 arrives. It is entirely possible that Britain may unilaterally retract its decision to leave the EU. Certainly, for many who despise the consequences of the Brexit vote in 2016, this would be a welcome decision. Nevertheless, it seems inconceivable that Conservative party MPs could stomach such a maneuver, which they and their base, would regard as an utter betrayal. There is substantial support for a new referendum. Those who advocate such a proposal state that because Parliament and the government have been unable to break the deadlock, the public should be allowed a final say on May's deal. Such a "final say" or "people's vote" has been strongly supported by those who voted to remain in the EU. This idea has also gained widespread support on the opposition benches of parliament. Many Labour MPs would prefer a referendum to a general election. However, it is highly implausible that a referendum could be called before the March 29. So even if a referendum were backed by a parliamentary majority, it would require that the Brexit date be delayed to accommodate such a "people's vote." Heiko Khoo is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:http://china.org.cn/opinion/heikokhoo.htm Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn. If youre looking for theater in the Circle City, youll find everything from tried and true Broadway musicals to thought-provoking plays about gentrification. Lets start at Beef & Boards, the dinner theater on Indys northwest side that has been operating since 1973. Its where you can catch a Broadway-type musical like, say, 42nd Street (opening date April 4), after scarfing down a plateful of roast beef, if thats what you so desire. But Beef & Boards isnt the only venue in the Greater Indianapolis area to offer such traditional fare. (Were talking performance here, not food.) Footlite Musicals, showing continues to demonstrate that community theater is alive and well in the Circle City. Ditto for Epilogue Players, which emphasizes inclusion of senior citizens in its theatrical productions. Actors Theatre of Indiana, based in the Studio Theatre at the Center for Performing Artsjust north of Indianapolisalso offers traditional fare. But they also offer slightly edgier stuff like Forbidden Broadway, a send-up of dozens of well-known Broadway plays (opening April 26). Also at the Center for Performing Arts youll find the ornate musical performance venue The Palladiumand the Tarkington Theatre which hosts Civic Theatre (among their upcoming shows: To Kill a Mockingbird opening Feb. 8 and The Importance of Being Earnest opening March 22.) The compact CAT Theatre, also located in Carmel, cant really be said to be giving the neighboring The Center for the Performing Arts a run for its money, But with its six resident theater companies, it can be said to be keeping community theater alive north of 96th St. Moving south from Carmel, we come to Clowes Memorial Hall and Schrott Center for the Arts on the Butler University Campus, venues which host musicals, plays, orchestra performances, and guest speakers. You can catch a performance of The King & I at Clowes opening March 5, 2019. Closer to Downtown Indy, youll find the Phoenix Theatre. The biggest theater story this year was the relocation of the Phoenix from a repurposed church in the Mass Ave theatre district to a multi-million dollar Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre and the aftermath. Not long after the move into the new space, longtime artistic director Bryan Fonseca left the theater and Bill Simmons was named artistic director. The dust is still settling over that shakeup, but the move into that venue has certainly had repercussions for the theater scene in Indianapolis. One things for sure: the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre has allowed for the expansion of the Indianapolis Theater scene in Indianapolis. Evidence of this expansion can be seen in the existence of the brand new performing arts organization Summit Performance, a member of the Phoenix Theatre Performance Collective. Summit, which bills itself as a theatre by women, about women, for everyoneheld their very first performance at the Cultural Center in June. Also utilizing the Phoenix as a performance space is Q Artistry, creators of the remarkable Cabaret Poe for ten years running. It used to be that much of the edgiest theater fare in town could be found at the Phoenix Theatre (along with Theatre on the Square which ceased to exist in 2017). But then came the inaugural IndyFringe Festival in 2005which has grown into an 11-day festival every August featuring 5 dozen + performers and performing groups. In 2008 the IndyFringe Basile Theatre repurposed an historic church at 719 E. St. Clair, just off Mass Ave., and became a year-round theater space. And then IndyFringe began hosting other annual festivals as well, such as Onyx-Fest, celebrating African American Playwrights. In 2018, IndyFringe took over day-to-day management of The District Theatre, located in a storefront space on Mass Ave., a venue that was in danger of being turned into another bar or restaurant and diminishing the areas importance as a theater district after the demise of the aforementioned Theatre on the Square in that space. The District Theatre is where you can catch a performance of Tennessee Williams, and Tell Sad Stories of the Death of Queens... put on by Be Out Loud Theatre, Indys only exclusively LGBT theatre, opening Jan. 4. You may wonder where amidst the tall buildings in Downtown Indy where you can catch a theatrical performance. There is in fact such a place, and that place is the the Indiana Repertory Theatre. Theres something there to suit just about every taste, from The Christmas Carol to Pipeline, Dominique Morisseaus challenging play about race and class. Also offering challenging fare is the newly created Fonseca Theatre Company, opening up a new storefront venue in January, 2019, run by the former artistic director of The Phoenix, Bryan Fonseca. If you check out their 2019 season lineup, youll see plays notable for their focus on urgent social issues. In their performances, youll also notice gender and race diversity. If youre in the mood for gritty, challenging theater, keep an eye out for Pilgrims opening Feb 9 at the Storefront Theatres brand new storefront theater in Broad Ripple. Editor's Note: The text in this article has been supplemented to include some history about the now defunct Theatre on the Square (TOTS). A 14-year-old boy evaded police for five days before he was arrested on suspicion of assault on a police officer, criminal impersonation and resisting arrest. The series of incidents began Dec. 27, when a North Platte police officer responded to a call of an uncontrollable juvenile. It was reported the juvenile had refused to do his chores, then ran away, according to the North Platte Police Department. The boy could not be located and was reported to the Nebraska State Patrol as a runaway. At 2:05 p.m. Monday, a police officer received information that the teen was in a vehicle that was driving on the one-ways, Jeffers and Dewey, in North Platte. The vehicle was spotted and the officer stopped it near G Street and York Avenue. The boy, a passenger in the vehicle, gave the officer a false name and date of birth, according to information from the Police Department. After confirming that the youth was the missing person through other means, officers attempted to arrest him. A struggle ensued, during which both officers were injured. The Police Department said icy conditions in the area complicated the attempted arrest. The teen ran away. Both officers were treated at a medical facility and released. Dawson County Sheriff Gary W. Reiber steps down from his office today after 43 years in law enforcement and 41 with Dawson County. He began his career in law enforcement as the Sumner marshal in 1976 and in 1978 joined the Dawson County Sheriffs Office. In 1982, Reiber was appointed chief deputy and in 1994 was elected sheriff of Dawson County. In a press release from Dawson County, Reiber called his three-year involvement in the development and construction of the Dawson County Law Enforcement Center one of the highlights of his career. The new Dawson County Jail also allowed the opportunity to contract for housing of inmates from other counties and jurisdictions. He also cited the development of the D.A.R.E. program working with students in the schools and K-9 partners with deputies. One solemn time in his career came on July 2, 1990, when Gothenburg Police Sgt. Glenn Haas was shot and killed at the Gothenburg Police Station. Reiber was born and raised in Hastings. After graduation from high school, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1968 to 1972, spending part of that time in Vietnam. He is a graduate of the University of Nebraska at Kearney with a bachelors degree in criminal justice. This years Crop Production Clinic will take place Jan. 10 at the Sandhills Convention Center in North Platte. The annual update from University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension is also an opportunity for commercial pesticide applicators to become recertified in the agriculture plant and demonstration/research categories. Private applicators can also certify at the clinic. Topics will include research updates on dicamba drift, urease and nitrification inhibitors, field peas in a semi-arid cropping situation, farm policy and risk management, root disease update and other topics. Participants will also learn results of the 2018 TAPS project at North Platte. TAPS stands for Testing Ag Performance Solutions and involves farmers and others in crop management competition. We strive to provide practical, profitable, environmentally sound, high-impact training for agricultural professionals and producers at the crop production clinics, said Chris Proctor, weed management extension educator and clinic coordinator. Williamsport, PA (17701) Today Thunderstorms early, then becoming mostly clear after midnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 57F. WNW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Thunderstorms early, then becoming mostly clear after midnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 57F. WNW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph. Chance of rain 80%. North Augusta, SC (29841) Today Scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Partly cloudy skies after midnight. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low 71F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Partly cloudy skies after midnight. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low 71F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%. In a state whose laws direct government officials to err on the side of transparency, not secrecy, the boards stretching legal definitions in search of loopholes is more than disappointing. Talk about irony: As we observed before, the very agency that should be the No. 1 advocate for transparency is No. 1 on the list of governmental bodies ever denying the ombudsman this sort of access by citing attorney-client privilege. Its a short list: There is no No. 2. Overall, the Iowa Public Information Board is doing good work, educating citizens, governmental bodies and media outlets, and generally keeping smaller issues from becoming big (and expensive) ones. However, those positives are being offset by all this. It creates a precedent for other officials wishing to play fast and loose with transparency laws. Despite being raked over the coals, board members received good news. Though the ombudsman sees the boards position as absurd, she added, It makes little sense for us to spend years to resolve an argument that could be easily settled with a few moments of self-awareness and reflection on the part of IPIBs board members. That members wont faces charges and fines for violating a very law that was the basis for their boards creation is no vindication. Members of the Iowa Public Information Board should make a New Years Resolution to reverse this irony and get on the right side of this issue. Sen. Elizabeth Warren will visit Council Bluffs for an organizing event Friday night. Warren first announced Monday that she was launching an exploratory committee for president. In an email to supporters, Warren said shed more formally announce a campaign plan early in 2019. The event is one of the first events for her 2020 exploratory committee and will be held Friday from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Gathering Room, 1900 Madison Ave. The event was previously scheduled to be at McCoys Bar Patio and Grill both are located at Thunderbowl. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Doors will open at 5 p.m. with the event beginning at 6 p.m. Admission is first come, first served and signing up does not guarantee entry, according to information posted in a Facebook event. Warren is the most prominent Democrat yet to make a move toward a presidential bid and has long been a favorite target of President Donald Trump. CORALVILLE A former Council Bluffs man convicted in 1980 of killing his infant son has died at an Iowa prison facility. The Iowa Corrections Department said in a news release Wednesday that Kevin Johnson was pronounced dead of natural causes on Monday evening in a hospice room at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville. Hed been housed there because of chronic illness. He was 64. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Johnson had been serving a life sentence after being found guilty in Pottawattamie County District Court of first-degree murder. The body of Kevin Johnson Jr. was found July 17, 1979, buried in a wooded area behind the familys home in Council Bluffs, less than three weeks after hed been killed. An autopsy showed the 2-month-old died of blunt trauma to his head. Johnson lost an appeal to overturn his conviction in 1984. Johnson alleged his conviction was tainted by pre-trial publicity and incriminating statements he said were improperly obtained from him by police. Then-U.S. District Judge Harold Vietor agreed with the findings of then-Magistrate Ronald Longstaff that Johnsons constitutional rights were not violated. The BH News Service contributed to this report. Boys Town Iowa will offer a free Common Sen se Parenting class designed for parents of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The seven-week class will meet on Mondays from Jan. 21 through March 4 at the Charles E. Lakin YMCA, 235 Harmony St. in Council Bluffs. A free meal will be offered at 5:30 p.m., followed by the class from 6 to 8 p.m. Weekly attendance is required for completion of the class. Topics covered will include the following: Effects of ADHD Parents as Teachers Powerful Encouragement Preventive Teaching Correcting Problem Behaviors Staying Calm Putting It All Together The class is funded by CHI Health in partnership with the Y. To register, call 712-302-7999. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Two Council Bluffs women are accused of felony theft and felony exploitation of a dependent adult. Authorities allege they stole approximately $19,200 from their fathers bank account while he lived at an assisted living facility. Mary Mark, 47, and Julie Frieze, 51, face up to 15 years in prison if convicted on the charges. Marks attorney, Andrew Munger, said he had no comment on his clients case at the time. Attempts to reach Friezes attorney, Jaclyn Tackett, were not successful. According to Pottawattamie County Sheriffs Office investigators, the sheriffs office was contacted Oct. 11 by the Iowa Department of Human Services regarding financial exploitation of a dependent adult at Oakland Manor. The family of the alleged victim had paid $100 towards his bill of $29,381.94 at the time, court documents state. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Mark and Frieze held power of attorney over their father. Authorities interviewed them both. Frieze allegedly told investigators she had only paid $100 to Oakland Manor because she was waiting to see what Medicaid would pay, reports stated. On that day, police were notified at about 3 p.m. of an incident involving a city employee, who told officers she had been threatened by Points, the report stated. The city employee came back to work after lunch and noticed Points leaving the mayors office while Walsh was not there. The employee asked Points if he needed help and he got in her face and growled at her then walked out, police said. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} The employee checked Walshs office to see if anything was missing or broken. Reports stated that on his desk was a handwritten note in large letters stating God is going to cut you down. The employee called 911 as she saw Points cross the street to the Pottawattamie County Courthouse. Courthouse staff and officers were unable to find him at that time. Officers searched Points Facebook profile and found statements made less than an hour after the incident in September, reports said. One post said Matt Walsh Hope you got the message with flames in the background. Another read If these stupid (expletive) dont want to give me a job, kill them all. High School Equivalency Diploma Adults who need a high school diploma can enroll in Iowa Western Community Colleges Adult Learning Center program for the High School Equivalency Test (which replaced the GED). Study reading, writing and math in morning, afternoon or evening classes. Visit the center at Kinney Hall on Iowa Westerns Council Bluffs campus or call 712-325-3266. Flag Disposal Missouri Valley residents with U.S. flags for disposal may take them to the Times-News Office, 501 E. Erie St., in Missouri Valley. Flags may also be deposited in the special drop box located near the meeting room door of the Jesse Post No. 378, American Legion in the Mondamin Community Center. They will be given to the American Legion for a flag disposal ceremony. Oakland Senior Center Meal reservations, inhouse or delivered, available Monday through Friday. Call prior to 11 a.m. the day before the meal. Friends of Underwood Community Organization Meets every other Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at Underwood City Hall. The group would like to have more people join to come up with and implement ideas on how to make the Underwood community a better place to live and work. Like them on Facebook: Friends of Underwood, IA Community. Flag Installations The Underwood Avenue of Flags project installs American flags on residents property in the morning and removes them at night on the following holidays: Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Patriot Day and Veterans Day. Avenue of Flags is sponsored by the Underwood High School Junior Optimist Club. Cost is $35 per year. Call Dale and Barb at 712-566-2820 or email agidale@aol.com. Subscribers without changes may send check to J.O.O.I. Club, 505 N St., Underwood, 51576. Look to the sky, or the trees, and you might be lucky enough to spot a bald eagle in Council Bluffs. According to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, winter is the best time to observe bald eagles in Iowa, where they migrate from northern states and Canada to find food. The bald eagles usually begin arriving in Iowa around September and become more numerous through January. Rene Stroud, a naturalist with Pottawattamie County Conservation, said in an interview last year that eagles in their spring migration seek out bodies of water that arent as likely to freeze over. Locally, Lake Manawa State Park is an annual hot spot for the majestic birds to nest. Stroud noted that not all bald eagles in the area are migratory. Pottawattamie County Conservation has recorded many resident bald eagles that have made their homes in some of the countys various parks and other locations. They said that while they know of several nests in the Council Bluffs area, the conservation staff or DNR doesnt disclose their locations. Bald eagles are a protected species, and their survival rate is higher when they arent disturbed by the public. Officials ask that bird watchers, boaters and fishermen stay at least 400 feet away from a perched bald eagle, as getting too close to their perch may cause it to fly away and could cause an abandonment of its site. This forces eagles to expend valuable energy and body heat they are trying to store through the winter months. If possible, the DNR asks that you use a blind, stay in your car or stand behind stationary objects when viewing eagles. The Scooters Coffee Shop located in the lobby area of the Council Bluffs Area Chamber of Commerce offices at 149 W. Broadway has closed. The Scooters located there was operated by Freedom Enterprises LLC of Leawood, Kansas. Attempts to contact Freedom Enterprises at two listed telephone numbers were unsuccessful. The location was opened in 2013. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Chamber President and CEO Dan Koenig said Freedom Enterprises lease on the space in the chamber lobby ended on Dec. 31. Koenig said chamber officials hope to sublease the space to a similar operation as soon as possible. This would be a great opportunity for someone looking to fill a niche, Koenig said. There is a lot of foot traffic in this area. Were hoping that we can find a new entrepreneur who would perhaps offer something more than coffee. Scooters locations at 3030 W. Broadway, at the corner of West Broadway and North 16th Street and at the corner of Madison and Woodbury Avenues will remain open. Louisiana bettors got a step closer to being able to start wagering on sporting events by fall if the governor approves the second of two bills that is about to clear the Legislature. A common gripe among some private school parents in Louisiana is that they must pay taxes for public education even though their children are not enrolled in public schools. On top of taxes, they lay out thousands of dollars in tuition for private schooling. While there is no relief in sight for them on the former, the state is now giving them a little help on the latter. As a result of the 2017 tax changes in Congress and a 2018 act of the Louisiana Legislature, the state has started a program to let parents sock away money for private school tuition and earn interest or dividends untaxed by the federal government, officials said. Its a small but notable benefit in a state that has the largest share of children in private schools in the country: 18.4 percent compared to the national average of 10.3 percent, according to the Census Bureaus 2017 estimates. New Orleans area private schools charge annual tuition ranging from $3,800 to $23,000 per child. Scroll or tap graphic for more information: State Rep. Polly Thomas, R-Metairie, a former educator and a member of the House Education Committee, said the new START K12 savings plan gives parents - and grandparents - some flexibility in family budgeting. And what better way to spend your money than on your childs education, she said. START K12 grew out of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, when Congress made it possible for states to create tax-advantaged savings plans for elementary and secondary school tuition. These are similar to the 529 savings plans - named for a section of the Internal Revenue Code - that Louisiana and many other states already have for college tuition. More than 62,000 Louisianians have opened 529 college accounts, totaling $891.8 million, according to the state Office of Student Financial Assistance. The state extended its college plan to cover kindergarten-12th grade tuition with Act 687 of the 2018 regular legislative session. Rep. Franklin Foil, R-Baton Rouge, sponsored the bill, which passed the House 97-0 and the Senate 32-0. La. governor signs bill expanding college savings plan to k-12 education Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Heres how the Office of Student Financial Assistance describes the program: A parent or other relative opens a START K12 account and begins depositing money into it. The National Association of Independent Schools, which serves more than 1,500 private schools in the U.S., applauded Louisianas move. The expansion of the 529 plan to K-12 creates opportunities for children everywhere, improving access and helping families reach their educational goals, Vice President of Media Myra McGovern said. But it presents both opportunities and a challenge for private schools, and for parents who already have a 529 college savings plan, McGovern said. These parents now must decide how to fund a k-12 plan: by reducing their college plan contributions or cutting back on spending elsewhere. Private schools, too, might change how they award financial aid. They typically compute a familys need by considering its income and expenses, and a k-12 savings plan could be seen a lessening the need for aid. . . . . . . . CORRECTION: Based on incorrect information from the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance, an earlier version of this story erroneously said Louisiana does not tax earnings on START K12 deposits. Drew Broach covers Jefferson Parish politics and education, plus other odds and ends, for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Email: dbroach@nola.com. Facebook: Drew Broach TP. Twitter: drewbroach1. Google+: Drew Broach. Sister Imelda Moriarty, a firm and caring educator who for 29 years was principal of St. Catherine of Siena School in Old Metairie, the largest elementary school in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans, died Saturday (Dec. 29) at The Village at Incarnate Word in San Antonio. She was 93. Born in County Kerry, Ireland, Sister Imelda entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word in 1942 and taught school in St. Louis and San Antonio before moving to New Orleans. She taught at St. Francis de Sales School in Central City, where one of her students was Carolyn Campagne Landwerlin. They dont make em like her anymore, Landwerlin said Wednesday. Sister Imelda arrived at St. Catherine of Siena in 1969 and taught mathematics for five years before being appointed principal. She developed a reputation as compassionate but strict educator with a forthright approach to fundraising, a requirement of private school leaders. In a 2012 story in the archdioceses Clarion Herald newspaper, parish deacon Drea Capaci recalled her attending a Mens Club meeting to tout a $28,000 project. Then she said, Can I expect the check tonight, or will you give it to me on Monday morning? Capaci was quoted as saying. Ray Areaux, a St. Catherine student who later sent his daughter to the school, recalled in a 2004 Times-Picayune story an incident from eighth grade, during Sister Imeldas first year as a teacher at the school. On the metal book compartment beneath his desk, he started drumming the Iron Butterfly song In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. After ignoring him a bit, Sister Imelda ejected him. Eventually bored in the hall, Areaux tried to re-enter class. Sister Imelda would not allow it. Only after he apologized did she relent, teaching him what he considered to be a lesson in respect for others. Having attended St Catherines from second to seventh grade in the late 70s, early 80s, I can say unequivocally that Sister Imelda ruled with an iron fist," Shaun Adams said Wedensday. Sister Imelda also demonstrated a deep concern for pupils. At dismissal every day, she stood at the schools doors waving goodbye to students, regardless of fatigue or other demands on her time, second-grade teacher Carol Wall told The Times-Picayune in 2004. She personally distributed report cards to students at the end of the academic year, parents said at a Mass and farewell reception in 2013. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up If a student needed a ride somewhere, Sister Imelda would find them a ride, or if a student needed a coat, she would find a coat for that student, pre-kindergarten teacher Jan Singletarty told The Times-Picayune. Sister Imelda stepped down as principal in 2004, two years after St. Catherine was accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. But she continued working in the school library. Incarnate Word sisters honored at St. Catherine Church in Old Metairie In 2012, she received Loyola Universitys highest honor, the Integritas Vitae Award for high moral character and a commitment to selfless sacrifice. The next year, she moved to the Incarnate Word motherhouse in San Antonio in 2013. Sister Imelda is survived by a sister, Bridie Carroll. Funeral services were scheduled at the Chapel of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, with a vigil Wednesday evening and a burial Mass on Thursday at 11 a.m., followed by internment at the convents cemetery. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, 4503 Broadway, San Antonio 78209. Social scene: Words of praise flow at dinners, gala . . . . . . . Drew Broach covers Jefferson Parish politics and education, plus other odds and ends, for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Email: dbroach@nola.com. Facebook: Drew Broach TP. Twitter: drewbroach1. Google+: Drew Broach. The parents of an off-duty New Orleans police officer who died after his motorcycle hit a car in St. Tammany Parish last August have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the driver of the car. Melissa Rivera and Ricardo Silva Sr., of Indiana, are seeking damages in the death of their son, Ricardo Silva Jr., 26, of Bush, who died shortly after the Aug. 25, 2018, crash on Louisiana 1082 north of Covington. The lawsuit, filed Dec. 20 in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, says the crash was caused by the grossly negligent, careless, reckless, distracted driving of Jennifer Robinson, who turned in front of Silva that evening. In addition to Robinson, the suit names as defendants State Farm Mutual Insurance, Church of the King Inc., Church of the King and Church Mutual Insurance Co. The suit says Robinson was an employee of the Mandeville-area church and that the car she was driving was owned by the church. The churchs website lists Jennifer Robinson as the wife of Senior Pastor Steve Robinson. Motorist faces traffic charges in crash that killed off duty NOPD officer The crash occurred around 6 p.m. when Robinson, driving north on Louisiana 1082 or Old Military Road, tried to make a left turn into her driveway. Silva, who was heading south on a Honda CBR motorcycle, slammed into the right side of the Acura MDX, according to a Louisiana State Police report. Silva was thrown from the motorcycle and died later at St. Tammany Parish Hospital. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up In a 37-page investigative report, State Police said the motorcycle was traveling at 62 to 64 miles per hour prior to impact and that Silva applied the brakes, leaving 127 feet of skid marks. Louisiana 1082 has a posted speed limit of 55 mph. Robinson told investigators she checked for oncoming traffic before making the turn and did not see the motorcycle, according to the report. While turning, she said she saw the motorcycle approaching at top speed, it said. Police cited Robinson with making an improper turn and failure to wear a seatbelt. The lawsuit, filed by attorney Glenn C. McGovern of Metairie, alleges Robinson was distracted, had an obstructing window shade over her vehicles drivers side window and failed to look for oncoming traffic before braking heavily and making an abrupt turn. Silva joined the New Orleans Police Department in November 2016 and graduated from the academy in December 2017. He was engaged to Taylor Stevens, and the couple had planned to marry in November 2018, the suit says. The suit is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon. 'I just can't believe he's gone': Father grieves son, NOPD officer killed in motorcycle crash Tuesday marked one year since Francisco Nieves was fatally shot at a Marrero apartment on New Years Day 2018 authorities say by friends and his body abandoned 65 miles away in Gonzales. But the loss, the pain is still raw for Nieves relatives, who are waiting justice for those accused in his death. Its still a nightmare, Nieves grandmother, Patricia Hernandez, 56, said Wednesday (Jan. 2). Yesterday was a year that I havent seen or spoken to my grandson. It just kills me. Murder suspect took victim's mom out in car used to dump body, family says The Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Office arrested three suspects in connection with 20-year-old Nieves homicide, including his girlfriend, Stefanie Enciso, 32, of Covington. The trio used Encisos vehicle to dump Nieves body, according to authorities. But Jefferson Parish prosecutors havent charged any of the defendants with murder. Instead, Archie Armstrong, 22, the suspected shooter; Armstrongs brother, Vernell Wilson, 23; and Enciso face one count each of felony obstruction of justice and are being held under $100,000 bonds, according to Jefferson Parish court records. Armstrong is also charged with being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm and third-arrest possession of marijuana, and is being held under a $251,500 bond. The Jefferson Parish district attorneys office had not responded to a request for comment as of Wednesday afternoon. But the office usually does not comment on open cases. They said its a process, Hernandez said, recalling what authorities told her family when they asked about murder charges. I just dont understand. I just dont understand. Missing body Nieves became the focus of JPSOs first homicide investigation of 2018 when the department received a tip just after midnight on Jan. 2, 2018, about a possible murder at Armstrong and Wilsons apartment in the 1500 block of Avenue A, authorities said. Detectives found evidence of a homicide and clean-up efforts but no body. As JPSO notified surrounding law enforcement agencies about their missing person, Hernandez and other family members reached out to Enciso that same morning after they realized no one had spoken with Nieves. Enciso and Nieves lived together on the North Shore. They met when Enciso, 11 years his senior, was assigned as his counselor when Nieves was being held at Rivarde Juvenile Detention Center in Gretna as a teenager, Hernandez said. Relatives suspected an inappropriate relationship, but the couple denied any romantic involvement until Nieves turned 18, family members said. On the day he was reported missing, Enciso told his family she hadnt spoken with Nieves since New Years Eve and was beside herself with worry, according to Hernandez. Cover up Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up But detectives accused Armstrong of killing Nieves, then working with Enciso and Wilson to cover up the crime. The trio moved Nieves body from the shooting scene in a 2017 GMC Acadia, according to the bill of information filed by the district attorneys office. They also removed carpet, bullet casings and other blood evidence, authorities said. While Armstrong and Wilson were in custody the day after Nieves death, Enciso made missing person flyers and picked up his mother, Summer Perez, to search for him in the same vehicle authorities allege was used to dump his body, according to relatives. Stefanie came here and had me ride around in her car with her. The same car they had my child in, Summa Perez said last year. The Gonzales Police Department contacted JPSO around 3 p.m. on Jan. 2, 2018, after Nieves body was discovered there. Hed been shot multiple times. The funeral director said he stopped counting at 13 holes, Hernandez said. Sheriffs Office detectives eventually arrested Enciso. Armstrong was booked with second-degree murder while Enciso and Wilson were booked with being accessories to murder after the fact. Why? Nieves relatives have already attended several court hearings related to the case. Theyll return to court on Jan. 9 for motion hearings and a probation revocation on a 2015 burglary conviction for Armstrong. The hearings take their toll. My body starts going into shock whenever I see them in there, Hernandez said. I just start shaking. On other days, she and Nieves brothers, ages 19 and 23, would love nothing more than to confront Armstrong and Wilson, Nieves neighborhood friends. Hernandez especially wants to face Enciso, someone who had professed to love Nieves. It was her car that they transported him in, Hernandez said. And then she just went home like nothing happened. Encisos attorney, Kevin Boshea, did not return a telephone call requesting comment Wednesday. But he told The Tribune-Review Newspaper from Encisos home state of Pennsylvania that she had been threatened and intimidated by the other two suspects in the case, characterizing it as the wrong place at the wrong time. Hernandez and relatives intend to be in court until they get justice for Nieves, and, perhaps, a chance to address those responsible for his murder. I just keep asking myself every day, Hernandez said. I keep wracking my brain. Why? A Westwego man accused of shooting a woman during a holdup in Gretna pleaded not guilty Thursday (Jan. 3) to two counts of attempted second-degree murder and two counts of attempted armed robbery. Darval Ledet, 44, also pleaded not guilty to being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm and resisting an officer, according to Jefferson Parish court records. $350,000 bond for West Bank man accused of molesting girl Gretna police identified Ledet as the suspect who approached a 25-year-old woman and her male friend in the 900 block of OConnor Street in Gretna as the pair left a nightclub and walked to their vehicle around 12:40 a.m. The robber was armed with a pistol and had his face covered. When he demanded cash from the man and woman, they dropped their property and ran, authorities said. But the robber fired his gun twice, hitting the woman in the leg. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Gretna police officers responded to the scene and spotted a car matching the description of one used by the suspect, authorities said. Ledet was arrested after a brief chase. The Jefferson Parish district attorneys office filed a bill of information charging Ledet on Dec. 27. His bond was increased from $601,150 to $1.06 million. Ledet, who is being held at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna, returns to court Jan. 24 for a pretrial hearing. No murder charges 1 year after man shot in Marrero, dumped in Gonzales An Orleans Parish grand jury on Thursday (Jan. 3) indicted a 31-year-old man on a second-degree murder charge after he allegedly stabbed his girlfriend to death in September. Shawn Jackson is accused of fatally stabbing 52-year-old Betty Perry in the 4100 block of North Derbigny Street on Sept. 16, 2018. Jackson told police he was upset she did not defend him during an argument with her family, according to court records. The grand jury also indicted Jackson on an obstruction of justice charge, according to District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office. Jackson has been in the Orleans Justice Center since his arrest Sept. 18. According to Cannizzaros office, Ad hoc Criminal District Judge Dennis Waldron raised Jackson's bond from $250,000 to $300,000 after his indictment was read Thursday. Jackson has previous convictions for simple battery, theft, forgery and illegal possession of a stolen vehicle. Hanna Krueger contributed to this report. A Jefferson Parish judge on Thursday (Jan. 3) set bond at $350,000 for an unincorporated Gretna man accused of inappropriately touching and raping a girl, according to court records. Shadrach Diamond-Cooper, 36, was arrested Dec. 27 by the Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Office and booked with first-degree rape and sexual battery. No murder charges 1 year after man shot in Marrero, dumped in Gonzales Investigators allege he repeatedly molested the victim over a seven-year period beginning when she was 6, an arrest report said. Diamond-Cooper is known to the girls family, according to authorities. The girls mother contacted the Sheriffs Office in December after her daughter revealed the abuse. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Detective Sean Williams handled the investigation and obtained a warrant for Diamond-Coopers arrest. He was booked into the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna. Diamond-Cooper appeared before Jefferson Parish Magistrate Commissioner Patricia Joyce Thursday morning. In addition to setting bond, Joyce issued an order of protection barring contact with the girl. Joyce also prohibited Diamond-Cooper from possessing any firearm, court records said. Resources for sexual assault survivors in the New Orleans area After an argument over an umbrella, a 23-year-old man pulled out a gun and robbed a 20-year-old woman of her wallet and cell phone in the Florida neighborhood of New Orleans Wednesday afternoon (Jan. 2), New Orleans Police said. He agreed that he would give the womans items back once she gave back the umbrella. Around 11:10 a.m., the 23-year-old man asked the 20-year-old woman about money she owed him, police said in an initial police report. The woman said she didnt have the money, but would pay him on her payday. The 23-year-old man then asked the woman about her his mothers umbrella, police said. The woman told the man she would go get it when she felt like it. The 23-year-old man then took out a gun and took the womans cell phone and wallet. Police also reported the following in a crime log between Wednesday (Jan. 3) and Thursday (Jan. 4): Police arrest 21-year-old in connection with stabbing near French Quarter A 20-year-old man left a bar near the intersection of Toulouse Street and North Rampart Street around 12:40 a.m. Thursday when a 21-year-old man, who he had been in a verbal altercation with earlier in the night, approached him, police said. The 21-year-old, later identified by police as Charles Evans, threw beer in the 20-year-olds face and took out a knife. The 20-year-old started to run toward Toulouse and Burgundy streets and tripped and fell, police said. The 21-year-old caught up to the 20-year-old and stabbed him below his left knee, police said. The 20-year-old was transported to a local hospital and Evans was arrested on the scene. Evans was booked with aggravated battery, domestic abuse battery and assault. Bond information was not immediately available. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Woman cuts 42-year-old woman in arm with broken bottle in 7th Ward A 42-year-old woman was arguing over a male friend with a woman she knew around 4:25 a.m. Thursday in the 1900 block of North Broad Street, police said. The woman broke a bottle and cut the 42-year-old woman on the arm several times, according to police. 25-year-old pistol-whipped, robbed in Little Woods Three armed men approached a 25-year-old man in the 9600 block of Hayne Boulevard on Tuesday (Jan. 1), police said. They demanded the 25-year-olds property and took his wallet and car keys. The 25-year-old man was transported to a local hospital after one of the armed men pistol-whipped him. The following day, the 25-year-olds car was stolen. Police said it was possibly stolen by the three men. The armed robbery was reported to NOPD on Wednesday (Jan. 2). NOPD also reported two shootings: one in Central City and one in Little Woods. Police also found a man and a woman dead in a garage in Little Woods. 2 teens shot in Little Woods area, New Orleans police say A Cranford teacher is banned from setting foot on any campus in the Cranford School District after pleading guilty to a disorderly conduct charge that stemmed from the teacher reporting a gun threat against the school. Matthew Acosta, 34, of Kenilworth was a special education teacher at Orange Avenue School, which houses third- through eighth-grade students. In November, prosecutors in Union County say Acosta told a staff member that he might commit an act of gun violence at the school, but Acosta told prosecutors he was not serious when he made the remark. According to Cranfords Superintendent Scott Rubin, a staff member reported the incident to the principal who subsequently informed police. Initially, after being arrested and given a mental evaluation, Acosta was facing a third-degree terroristic threats charge, however he pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct charge and forfeited his position as a teacher in the Cranford Public School District, officials said. He is permanently banned from ever again holding any public office in New Jersey. Taylor Tiamoyo Harris may be reached at tharris@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @ladytiamoyo. Find NJ.com on Facebook. State lawmakers' investigation into how Gov. Phil Murphys team responded to Katie Brennans allegations that a former senior staffer raped her will continue next week with not one but two public hearings. The special legislative committee was already scheduled to hear more testimony from senior Murphy aides Tuesday. The panel will also hear testimony two days later, Jan. 10, said state Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen, one of its co-chairs, told NJ Advance Media. Lawmakers held two hearings last month, getting testimony first from Brennan and then from three Murphy staffers, including Chief of Staff Pete Cammarano. Cammaranos testimony was cut off due to time constraints. But Weinberg said he wasnt available to continue Tuesday. Instead, lawmakers will pick up where they left off with Cammarano next Thursday. Among the new people expected to testify is Matt Platkin, Murphys chief counsel, whose name was repeatedly brought up during the first two hearings. Meanwhile, the panel has also called Jonathan Berkon, Murphys campaign counsel, who responded to Brennan after she emailed the governor last June to discuss a sensitive matter. The other people on the docket for next week are: Jose Lozano, Murphys transition chairman. Raj Parikh, Murphys chief transition counsel. Heather Taylor, Murphys chief ethics officer. Parimal Garg, Murphys deputy chief counsel. Weinberg said the committee will hear from as many of those people as possible Tuesday and continue with the list Thursday if needed. There will likely be further hearings after that. Brennan alleges that Albert J. Alvarez raped her after a Murphy campaign gathering in 2017, when she was a Murphy supporter and he was a campaign officials. Brennan, who is now chief of staff of the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, says she alerted Murphys team three times about her accusations over the last two years once in the transition period after Murphy was elected and twice after the Democrat took office. Yet, Alvarez was hired and remained in his job as chief of staff of the New Jersey Schools Development Authority until October, when he resigned after the Wall Street Journal asked him to comment. Brennan said she believes Murphys team didnt take action until there was a danger of this hurting the governor. Alvarez has denied the allegations. No criminal charges were ever brought in the matter. Cammarano testified last month that Alvarez was twice told to leave state government in March and June but was never fired. Cammarano also said Platkin told him not to alert anyone about Brennans accusations because of state confidentiality rules. Murphy insists he did not learn about the allegations until Alvarez stepped down in October. The governor has also defended his staff, saying he believes they were simply following the policies in place. Brennan did email the governor and his wife, First Lady Tammy Murphy, in June, asking them to discuss a sensitive matter from during the campaign. The governor responded that he was on it but has said he didnt know what Brennan was referring to in her email. Shortly after that email, Berkon, Murphys campaign attorney, reached out to Brennan and told her Alvarez would leave state government. Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. Gov. Phil Murphy has fired another shot that appears to be directed at New Jerseys top state lawmaker. The governor again vetoed minutes of a South Jersey board with close ties to state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, NJ Advance Media has learned. Its the second time in as many weeks and the fourth time over the last year Murphy has used that constitutional authority. Murphy vetoed December minutes of the Delaware River and Bay Authority, which voted on a $1 toll hike for the Delaware Memorial Bridge that would go into effect in March. The veto effectively nullifies action taken by the board, including the planned toll hike. As was expressed to the board and the executive director on numerous occasions since my inauguration, I am not ready to support any toll increases at the Delaware Memorial Bridge that extend beyond the bridges critical safety enhancements, Murphy said in his veto message. Passenger car tolls would jump from $4 to $5, under the vote the authority took during the Dec. 18 meeting. NJ Advance Media learned of the latest veto as Murphy and Sweeney, both Democrats, were together in Evesham Township in South Jersey for the swearing in ceremony of a new mayor. Sweeney, D-Gloucester, said he was surprised by Murphys veto, saying the toll hike would go toward bridge safety. The governor has a right to veto minutes," Sweeney told NJ Advance Media. "Hopefully, this doesnt sacrifice any safety measures. Because its my understanding thats what this is for. In his veto message, Murphy insisted the toll increase would fund priorities beyond safety improvements. The authority oversees the bridge, as well as surrounding highways; police for the airport in Wilmington, Delaware; and multiple ferries in South Jersey. Murphy and Sweeney have had a frosty relationship since the governor took office a year ago even though both men are Democrats and must work together to enact any significant legislation, including raising the states minimum wage and legalizing recreational marijuana. This veto comes just weeks after Sweeney said he wont agree to any new state tax hikes in the coming year unless there are significant state government cuts. Murphy has refused to rule out new tax increase proposals as he enters his second year as governor. Just before Christmas, Murphy vetoed the minutes of the South Jersey Port Corporation for a third time. Many of the appointees of both boards are Sweeney allies. Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or Facebook. Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01. WASHINGTON -- Nancy Pelosi was elected House speaker Thursday on the first day of the 116th Congress as Democrats recaptured the majority and returned her to the post she had to give up eight years earlier. New Jerseys four new Democrats, just sworn in, split when it came to supporting Pelosi. The vote, largely along party lines, was 220-192, with 18 lawmakers, including Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-11th Dist., choosing someone other than Pelosi or House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California. Sherrill voted for Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., who she said "represents the future of the Democratic Party and the future leadership of the Democratic Party. Three other representatives, including Rep. Jeff Van Drew, D-2nd Dist., voting present. Van Drew initially voted no, but his vote was changed to present. Under House rules, lawmakers who dont want to take a position on a particular issue can vote present. New Jerseys other two freshmen, Reps. Tom Malinowski, D-7th Dist., and Andy Kim, D-3rd Dist., voted for Pelosi as did the states other Democratic representatives. New Jerseys lone Republican, Rep. Chris Smith, R-4th Dist., voted for McCarthy. Malinowski said Pelosi would be an ally in efforts to obtain federal funding for the Gateway Tunnel under the Hudson River and the full restoration of the federal deduction for state and local taxes. Shes going to be with us on Gateway, with us on the SALT deduction, Malinowski said, and I also think her performance in the last few weeks has just reenforced my conviction that this is the strong and unifying leadership that we need at a moment of crisis in our country. Kim voted against Pelosi in November when the House Democratic caucus nominated her for speaker. He said that he backed her when the other choice was McCarthy. The National Republican Congressional Committee immediately seized on Kims vote, sending text messages to voters about his change of heart. Welcome to the big leagues, Andy, NRCC spokesman Bob Salera said. McCarthy handed Pelosi the gavel as she assumed her new duties. Even when we disagree with one another completely -- it is important to remember that we are bonded together in a common cause, our love for America, McCarthy said. "As fellow citizens and friends, let us lead together and show the people that we are truly their voice and their vote. Pelosi, the first person to reclaim the speakership since Rep. Sam Rayburn, D-Texas, in 1955, outlined some of her priorities in her acceptance speech. We must fight for the middle class in a way that is fair and fiscally sound protecting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, she said. We must also face the existential threat of our time: the climate crisis a crisis manifested in natural disasters of epic proportions. The American people understand the urgency. The people are ahead of the Congress. The Congress must join them. Also Thursday, Rep. Frank Pallone Jr.. D-6th Dist. was sworn as chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, and announced that the panel would soon hold hearings on efforts to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, climate change, and President Donald Trumps policy of separating families that enter the U.S. and request asylum. Pallone and other lawmakers spent Fathers Day last year at the federal detention center in Elizabeth in support of parents whose kids were taken from them under the policy. For the last 2 years the Trump administration has attacked our state relentlessly. Today we start fighting back. #JerseyStrong pic.twitter.com/STfMQhRcM7 Rep. Frank Pallone (@FrankPallone) January 3, 2019 Even as they were sworn in for the first term, lawmakers were raising money for their second. I wish I didnt have to think about 2020 yet, Kim wrote in an email to supporters. "We have no doubt Republicans and corporate PACs are going to flood our district with dark money and negative ads once again. Van Drew also asked for donations: We are carrying our momentum from the 2018 midterm victory straight through 2020." Earlier in the day, U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., was sworn in for another term by Vice President Mike Pence. As is tradition, Menendez was accompanied by New Jerseys other U.S. senator, fellow Democrat Cory Booker. Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. Heres a quick quiz: Name one issue on which Mitt Romney has ever taken a principled stand and continued to defend it in the face of criticism. Cant think of one? Me neither. So I got a good laugh the other day when the incoming senator from Utah penned a piece for the Washington Post in which he attacked President Trumps character. Say what you will about Trump, but this is a guy who takes a position and sticks to it in the face of whatever opposition is thrown at him. Just in the past couple weeks, he has outraged the Washington establishment by declaring he will keep his campaign promises to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and to build a wall on the Mexican border. You might dislike his promises, but you certainly cant accuse him of abandoning them. As for Romney, hes like that politician during the French Revolution who said, There go the people. I must follow them because I am their leader. Typical was his stance on abortion. When he was running for office in the liberal state of Massachusetts, Romney said, "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country." But when he ran in the Republican presidential primaries in 2012, Romney declared I am pro-life. The Politifact column that runs in the Post offered a Flip-o-Meter that listed Romneys flops on all the major issues, from guns to taxes. But the biggest flop was on Obamacare. The idea of a health plan based on an individual mandate to purchase insurance was pioneered not by Barack Obama as president but by Romney as governor of Massachusetts. MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, who was an adviser on both programs, famously said of the state and federal measures Its the same (expletive) bill. Yet there was Romney in the 2012 presidential campaign pledging that the first thing hed do in the White House would be to repeal Obamacare. He never got to the White House, of course, and for a simple reason: Obama stood for something and Romney stood for nothing. But guess whos willing to give it another go? To reassume our leadership in world politics, we must repair failings in our politics at home, Romney writes. That project begins, of course, with the highest office once again acting to inspire and unite us. This a variant on the old Who will save us from this peril? tactic. Chris Christie tried the same stunt back in 2016 when he was running for the GOP presidential nomination. In his State of the State speech that year he brought up an incident involving an 82-year-old woman he met on a campaign stop in Florida. "She grabbed my hand and asked me a simple, but powerful question: What's happened to our country? We used to control events. Now events control us.' " The unspoken message was that President Christie would rescue us from the damage done by the dastardly Obama. Now Romneys peddling that message, but with Trump cast in the role of the threat to all that is holy. The way to do so would be through a challenge for the 2020 GOP nomination. Romney looks like hes setting himself up for another run and another loss. I recall his last pathetic attempt. That came in March of 2016, when I was in D.C. for the Conservative Political Action Conference. Romney was prominent on radio and TV, trying to position himself as the mainstream alternative in the event of a deadlocked convention. After calling Trump a phony and a fraud, Romney made it plain that he was ready to save his partys leaders from the peril of a Trump candidacy if only theyd call. That call never came. Trump proceeded to pile up enough delegates to win comfortably. He did so by offering an America-first agenda that appalled the party elite but resonated with the base. The base also likes The Donalds bombastic style. In that op-ed, Romney objects to Trumps policy of governing by Tweet. But at least Trumps Tweets are short and to the point. Compare that to the wrap-up of Romneys op-ed: The people of this great land will eschew the politics of anger and fear if they are summoned to the responsibility by leaders in homes, in churches, in schools, in businesses, in government who raise our sights and respect the dignity of every child of God the ideal that is the essence of America. No, they wont - at least not if the leaders name is Romney. By Neil C. Bhavsar Everyday our bodies are at war constantly defending us against predatory pathogens trying to best our natural defenses. Humanity has made easy work of many bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi that once took lives by the hundreds of millions making casualties inflicted by man pale in comparison. With the advent of modern medicine, we often find it hard to fathom what the world would look like if epidemics from our past came back to haunt us. But its a possibility that we all must consider in New Jersey at this critical juncture. With children at the forefront of the current measles outbreak in Lakewood, its easy to point fingers and write nasty comments on social media, but it wont help the children who are too young or too sick to be vaccinated. These include infants whose immune systems arent ready for the MMR vaccine until 12 months; children who unfortunately need chemotherapy, organ transplantation or were born with HIV; children whose immune systems are too weak for the vaccine again through no fault of their own. The parents of these children are terrified and holding their breath for this all to blow over. Roughly 84 children who are medically exempt from vaccines in Ocean County are at risk of contracting measles. If this infection spreads to other counties, that can put more than 1,000 young children at risk of experiencing very serious complications from measles. The scariest thing about measles is that it is highly contagious and theres no cure. Ninety percent of those exposed to someone with measles will contract it if not vaccinated. It also remains airborne for more than two hours, which is why the state Department of Health collected a list of locations to identify exactly when and where infected individuals had been when they first began noticing symptoms. Initial symptoms include high fever, a cough, runny nose and red, watery eyes. A rash may develop a few days later, beginning on the face and spreading to other parts of the body. At three weeks, if the symptoms do not subside, complications can cause patients to experience potential bacterial superinfections. This can cause diarrhea, pneumonia, ear infection, corneal ulceration and scarring, and miscarriages in pregnant women. In rare cases, it can lead to permanent brain damage and death. Who is at the highest risk for complications? Children under 5, pregnant women, and immunocompromised individuals. Measles is especially deadly in immunocompromised children. What do you say to their parents people who are fighting with their every breath to make sure their child survives chemotherapy only to watch them end up with an entirely preventable disease because of a growing disbelief in vaccines? Unlike most personal medical decisions, opting out of vaccines can put many vulnerable people at risk. Ocean County has one of the highest rates of religious exemptions from vaccines in New Jersey. This creates pockets of unvaccinated children that can lead to our current situation. With 2,000 more parents opting their children out of vaccines due to non-medical reasons in 2018, that brings the total number of non-medical vaccine exemptions in the state to around 12,000. This exposes the most vulnerable members of our community to disease threats that were virtually nonexistent in the early 2000s. Were talking about measles, mumps, pertussis, a few other deadly and debilitating vaccine preventable diseases. This is a dangerous precedent that stems from a miscommunication of science and medicine. But we can clear up this misunderstanding by fostering dialogues between health care providers and vaccine-hesitant parents. At the end of the day, parents try to do whats best for their children. If we empower everyone with an evidence-based approach to medicine, we can drastically change how we look at vaccines. To promote a safe and healthy environment for the next generation, we must take measures to reduce potential epidemiological and public health risks. A good start would be supporting two pieces of legislation: Assembly bill A3818 and Senate bill S2173 that are sitting in the Legislature. This policy proposal is not a vaccine mandate, but asks that vaccine-hesitant parents have a dialogue with a physician before deciding if they want to opt-out with a non-medical vaccine exemption. This way, physicians can hear their patients perspectives and establish ongoing conversations that will result in better health outcomes for everyone. Thats why I, along with other New Jersey Medical School students, came together in support of these bills, and are working on a campaign to help pass them in our state. We believe that dialogue is the best compromise and would prevent future preventable outbreaks in New Jersey. All we are asking for is more discussion so that we can better understand what specific grievances with vaccines are, and how we as medical providers can address them. By making a 30-second phone call to your legislators, you can help us win this battle against measles and a host of other preventable diseases. Neil C. Bhavsar is a second-year medical student at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. President Trump claimed Wednesday that Mexico was indeed paying for his wall along the border, that much of the wall is completed, and that America is now home to at least 30 million undocumented immigrants. All of that is wildly untrue. Mexico hasnt paid a dime. His own administration says about 5 percent of the wall is done. And estimates of the number of undocumented hover around 11 million. Its tempting to go numb when Trump does this. But imagine trying to negotiate a deal with him to end this government shutdown. Would you take a political risk and offer compromise? As hopeless as it seems, there is at least a slim chance for a deal that would allow both sides to claim victory. Heres the gist of it: Democrats could give Trump the $5.6 billion for his wall, in return for Trumps agreement to let the roughly 800,000 Dreamers stay in America with a path towards citizenship. Both sides would hate that deal about equally. For Trump, it would vindicate a core promise of his 2016 campaign. Polls show that most Americans oppose the construction of the wall, which is rightly seen as a wasteful and ineffective way to control our borders. A crackdown on employers who knowingly hire undocumented immigrants would be far more effective and humane, as would drones and electronic surveillance of the border. But Trumps base wants that wall, thanks largely to his constant lies about a huge swell of violent immigrants fueling a crime wave in America. In reality, illegal immigration is way down, immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans, and crime rates have been dropping for years, from coast to coast. Inconvenient facts, again. Speaker Nancy Pelosi intends to pass a spending bill Thursday that doesnt include money for the wall, one that has no chance of becoming law. That would cause the shutdown to drag on, as nearly 1 million federal workers try to live without paychecks, and as more and more federal agencies run out of money and shut their doors. What is her endgame? Does she expect Trump to fold? Does she believe he gives a damn about those 1 million federal workers and their families, people he recently dismissed as mostly Democrats? Why not instead try to use this moment to protect the Dreamers? They are the children who entered the country illegally with their parents, most of whom are Americans in everything but the legal status. They grew up here, made friends here, speak the language here, and even volunteered as soldiers and sailors. Trump ended the program and has threatened to deport them. Hes been blocked in court so far, but that could change as several cases wind their way towards the Supreme Court. Those 800,000 Dreamers are vulnerable, even though a Gallup poll showed that 83 percent of Americans want to give Dreamers the right to stay and become citizens. Last year, Sen. Robert Menendez was one of six senators who proposed a bipartisan deal that would have funded the wall and protected Dreamers, along with several other changes to immigration law. Today, he wont say whether he would go along with a similar deal. But it made sense then, and it makes sense now. Political compromise is painful. But until 2020, it is the only way forward. More: Tom Moran columns Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or call (973) 836-4909. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.comOpinion on Facebook. As Jermaine Covington was being arrested June 22 after allegedly fleeing an accident, eluding police and attempting a carjacking, he said he wanted to die and asked police to shoot him, according to police reports. The attorney for his wife said Covington was apparently upset that he had crashed her BMW. If the Hillside Township officers were worried that Covingtons comments meant he was an imminent suicide risk, they didnt mention those concerns or any steps they took to address them in several reports about the incident. If they thought the 41-year-old Maryland man wasnt serious about wanting to die, they were wrong. He was cuffed with his right hand onto a bar in the processing room and he dropped a cup of coffee or water on the floor. A police officer went over and picked the cup off the floor, Eldridge Hawkins, attorney for Covingtons widow, said in an interview last month. Mr. Covington reached out with his left hand and pulled the gun out of the holster and shot himself dead. Hawkins said he knows that is what happened because he watched video of the incident, captured by the police stations recording system, in a meeting at the Union County Prosecutors Office. But his client, Nyisha Lassiter-Covington, said she walked out of the meeting before the video was played. Although her husband has had previous mental health issues, she does not believe he killed himself. What happened to Jermaine Covington has been a bizarre and confounding story since Day One. Over the last six months, authorities stayed tight-lipped about how a man in custody could have killed himself and what could have been done to prevent it. The prosecutors office declined to confirm Hawkins' description of what happened. Covingtons widow said she and her attorney cannot get basic reports about the arrest, let alone her husbands possessions, as Hillside police say the ongoing investigation prevents their release. Both Hawkins and Lassiter-Covington said they had been told by authorities that the police pursuit of Covington began because officers believed he had carjacked the BMW, but police reports later obtained by NJ Advance Media contradict that. Hawkins said he doesnt want to file a wrongful death suit without the basic information, but he will have to if authorities continue to stonewall him. Changes made What is clear is that the Hillside Police Department didnt waste much time in making changes to prevent future shootings in the processing area. Police Chief Vincent Ricciardi declined to comment but department policies obtained through a records request show that a big change went into effect 11 days after Covingtons death. Officers must now lock their guns in secure cabinets before going in any area of the department where arrestees are being held, while before that was only the case in the departments cell area. No firearms are allowed in the report room, processing room, or cell block area at any point in time while a detainee is present. There shall be no exceptions, the new policy states. It also says that a shift commander should be notified immediately if a detainee makes any suicidal statements. Jermaine Covington, left, with his son, Nijee Covington, in this undated family photo. (Provided) The Union County Prosecutors Office said Friday that it completed an investigation into what happened June 22, but cannot release the findings due to internal affairs rules. However, the investigation did not reveal information that any Hillside Police Department representative committed any act of criminality, the office said in a statement. The prosecutors office and Union Township police did release some reports, 911 calls and dispatch recordings to NJ Advance Media last week in response to public records requests. They reveal details about the alleged chase and crash that led to Covingtons arrest. For Lassiter-Covington, the information just raises more questions. She said police have not been forthcoming with her from the beginning. When they told her that her husband died, she said police wouldnt explain how. It makes it hard to trust anything they say, she said. Im not getting closure. Nobody cares. Hes just another black man, she said. She said the loss is especially hard for their son, Nijee Covington, who turned 14 in December. My heart breaks for him because theres nothing I can do to bring this man back, she said as she fought back tears. This just hurts so bad. Adding to her distress was her belief that her husbands body had been cremated without her consent, because his death certificate said so. She said Plinton Curry Funeral Home agreed to preserve the body in case further investigation was needed, but since then the funeral home has not returned her calls or allowed her lawyer to see the body. Funeral director Ronald Curry said the body is still being preserved in refrigeration, and cremation is listed on the document because that is the familys ultimate plan for the body. He said he does not understand why the attorney needs to see the body because he is not a pathologist and the family has the medical examiners report. Curry also said he agreed to take the body from another funeral home to help Lassister-Covington, but it has been half a year and he has not been paid for most of his work. Why was he arrested? Lassiter-Covington said her husband grew up in Newark and got pulled into the street life. He was convicted of selling drugs in 1994 and 2003 and was injured in a shooting. But he turned his life around when they moved to Maryland in 2004, she said. I know he had a record before but I took Jermaine out of New Jersey to give him a better life, she said. He became a landscaper, despite injuries to his hip and left arm. That man worked every day. Thats why, she said, its hard for her to believe that her husband was trying to carjack people in Hillside on June 22, as police have said. The only reason he was in New Jersey, she said, was to pick her up from Newark Liberty International Airport. Though they lived in Baltimore, she had flown out of Newark when she went on a trip to the Dominican Republic with friends. She waited at the airport for him to pick her up that afternoon, but he was already dead. Hours earlier, around 1:30 p.m, police had received reports of a man in a black or blue BMW who struck a car and was driving on the wrong side of the road on Stuyvesant and Roosevelt avenues in Union Township, according to reports and dispatch recordings. Township Officer David Popick wrote in a report that he pursued the vehicle, but eventually called off the high-speed chase. He said he later learned that two officers on Stuyvesant Avenue had nearly been rammed by the same BMW as it drove on the sidewalk. The next 911 call came in at 1:46 p.m. A man said he saw the BMW with Maryland plates crash into a telephone pole on Route 22 in Hillside and saw the driver run away, holding a gun. Police searched but couldnt find him. An excerpt of police reports about the arrest of Jermaine Covington June 22, 2018. (UCPO) Then, at 3:40 p.m., Hillside officers radioed that they had seen the man try unsuccessfully to carjack a vehicle at a carwash. They chased and arrested him as he was trying to kick in the door to a building on Leo Street, the report said. Police said they did not recover a gun from Covington or at the site. At the scene he was uncooperative and yelling he wanted to die, Popicks report said. Hillside Township Officer Natalie Ogonowski noted in her report that as Covington walked toward the cruiser he repeated, Why didnt he shoot me? He should have shot me. Questions remain Authorities redacted parts of the records that dealt with Covingtons death, but the dispatch logs and Covingtons death certificate show he was at the station for 26 minutes before he shot himself in the head at 4:46 p.m., per the medical examiners office. He was pronounced dead by a medical professional 31 minutes later. The dispatch logs show police called the prosecutors office, Chief Ricciardi and EMS at 4:49 p.m. Fifty minutes later, five Hillside officers were taken to Newark Beth Israel Hospital to be checked, the logs say. Meanwhile, Lassiter-Covington was at the airport, worried because her husband didnt answer his phone or pick her up. She went to her brothers house, where police contacted her to verify the BMW was hers and asked her to come into the station. They eventually told her Covington had killed himself, but they wouldnt say how. She said they asked whether he had mental health issues, and she confirmed that he was bipolar and saw a therapist. She said she eventually guessed out loud that he had shot himself with one of their guns. No one would confirm it, but she read it in the news the following day. They wouldnt let her see his body, she said. Lassiter-Covington said she doubts that her husband killed himself partly because he had limited use of his left arm from an old injury, and that was the hand he supposedly used to grab the gun. She thinks he was actually beaten to death, despite what police and the medical examiner said. When she saw her husbands body and took photographs at the funeral home, skin was missing from a large part of his forehead. But, she said, she never saw a gunshot wound. While she and her lawyer disagree on how he was killed, they both agree that Covington should not have died and that the Hillside Police Department should have to answer for what happened. He didnt deserve to die. He was just scared, she said. Hawkins said a civil complaint is in the works, and he hopes the formal discovery process will mean more answers for Lassiter-Covington and her son, who are in mourning. My client is extremely in grief because no one will answer, he said. The Union County Prosecutors Office issued the following statement Jan. 9: We extend our deepest sympathies to the friends, family, and loved ones of Mr. Covington it is out of respect for them that we have repeatedly declined to publicly comment on the circumstances of his death and even redacted portions of publicly released documents that referred to it. However, according to every available and applicable piece of evidence, including video footage, any allegation that any other person deliberately contributed to or caused his death is objectively and demonstrably false. Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips A Superior Court judge Wednesday sentenced a Piscataway man to eight years in prison for causing his girlfriends death in a motorcycle crash in South Plainfield last year. Ruddy Custodio, 30, pleaded guilty in October to vehicular homicide, driving while intoxicated and driving on a suspended license in the July 4 crash that claimed the life of Jessica Montes, 28. Custodio had been driving his 2016 BMW motorcycle on New Brunswick Avenue near Carlton Avenue, by the South Plainfields border with Piscataway, when he lost control and struck a curb, according to the Middlesex County Prosecutors Office. Montes, of Piscataway, was thrown from the bike during the crash, and pronounced dead at Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center shortly after her arrival. Custodio later admitted he was on drugs at the time of the crash, prosecutors said. In addition to the eight-year prison term, Judge Diane Pincus ordered Custudios license suspended for 15 years, beginning when hes released from prison. Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Two South Carolina residents have been arrested and charged with the death of a gas station clerk in Edison early on Dec. 20. Olya Quinnam waited outside while Marcus Wright held up John Bertram, the clerk at the gas station store on Amboy Avenue. Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew Carey said Wright, after getting the cash from the register, shot and killed Bertram. Quinnam and Wright are both 22 and from Beaufort, South Carolina. They were arrested in that state Thursday and are being held there before extradition to New Jersey. Details of their apprehension were not clear, and a U.S. Marshals spokeswoman in South Carolina did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Wright is charged with first-degree murder and armed robbery and second-degree conspiracy to commit armed robbery and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. Quinnam was charged with second-degree conspiracy to commit armed robbery and hindering apprehension. Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JBrandt_NJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Four firefighters were hurt early Thursday battling a three-alarm blaze in a Trenton apartment building that had apparently been refurbished by tenants into a rooming house, authorities said. The fire began about 1 a.m. in the 900 block of West State Street, in the citys West Ward. Two of the firefighters were burned. None of the injuries were considered life-threatening, officials told 6abc.com. One tenant was rescued from a second-floor balcony, according to Fox 29 News Philadelphia. The man was treated and later released from a local hospital. Officials told news outlets there were fears the 106-year-old building could collapse. The older units have drier wood, which allows the fire to expand and spread that much quicker, Deputy Fire Chief Tony Moran told Fox 29. Moran said the building appeared to have been divided up into smaller apartments, which made it difficult to flight the blaze. Trenton fire officials, who remained at the scene Thursday morning, were not immediately available to comment. 4 Trenton firefighters hurt battling stubborn fire in 106 year old big home mile down State Street from New Jersey Statehouse overnight. Firefighters have burns&other non-life threatening injuries, now getting treated at hospital Deputy Chief Anthony Moran says @FOX29philly pic.twitter.com/S8P8ylLxJv Steve Keeley (@KeeleyFox29) January 3, 2019 BREAKING Huge fire in Trenton has destroyed a 100 year old boarding house. Four firefighters hurt, two w burns, but all injuries non life threatening. Fears the building will collapse. @KScott6abc is live, on 6abc pic.twitter.com/abiPOFtANC Tamala Edwards (@TamEdwards6abc) January 3, 2019 Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook. On bustling Park Avenue in Weehawken, you will find what can only be described as a cozy, country-style church: Good Shepherd Lutheran. It's so small, it could be mistaken for a combination dining/living room, which isn't far from the mark. But there's no mistaking it for anything other than a church when you gaze on the radiant stained glass windows that date back 100 years. "They are nice, diffused light with considerable depth to them," said Denis Finnin, director of the photography studio for the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, who photographed the stained glass windows for the parish's 2019 calendar. Each photo complements a feast that is celebrated that month. And for Finnin, it is also an act of faith since he has worshiped at the church almost as long as Pastor Birgit Solano, who has led it since 1995. Four of the windows were done by Joseph G. Lamb, whose J&R Lamb Studios is America's oldest continuously run decorative arts company, having been established in 1857 by brothers Joseph and Richard Lamb. The remaining eight windows were done by A.L. Brink Studios, founded in 1926. Both studios were in New York City. Good Shepherd is thriving today because of the pastoral style of Solano, a native of Germany, who also speaks fluent Spanish. Finnin, who was raised Catholic and attended a high school seminary, found Good Shepherd after he grew disillusioned with Catholicism and went church shopping. He and his wife, Margery, wound up going to the church two doors from their home on Columbia Terrace. The clincher for him: Solano's "warmth." The church attracts about 40 worshipers at the Sunday English service and 60 at the Spanish-language one. It attracts people who hail from 25 countries, including Finland, Iceland and India, Solano said. The church developed bi-lingual liturgies at Christmas, Easter and for the summer. "If not, we are two communities sharing the same building," said Solano, who is also a member of the board of PERC, the north Hudson shelter for the homeless. The parish also runs a state-approved daycare, Little Lambs, for 60 children, which is always at capacity, and serves sandwiches every morning for the homeless. Solano is strong on protecting and helping immigrants, since she is one herself. She recounts numerous stories of children afraid their parents will be taken from them and advises and helps parents to be prepared. She describes Good Shepherd as "a safe haven," a fitting image of its namesake. Solano is the parish's only paid employee and relies on parishioners and neighbors to pitch in, which they do. They are inspired by her unconditional love for all who enter the doors of Good Shepherd, which calls them before every service by the manual ringing of bells in the choir loft. Finnin and his wife restored those bells and are thrilled to ring them and welcome everyone into the quaint church bathed in the light of stained glass with "a lot of feeling," said Finnin. Like the pastor and community. The Rev. Alexander Santora is the pastor of Our Lady of Grace and St. Joseph, 400 Willow Ave., Hoboken, 07030, FAX: 201-659-5833; Email: padrealex@yahoo.com; Twitter: @padrehoboken. Details ... Good Shepherd Lutheran Church is located at 98 Columbia Terrace, Weehawken, NJ 07086. Sunday services (September-June) are in English at 10 a.m. and Spanish at 11:45. Sunday school is offered at 11:45 a.m. For information, call (201) 863-2029 or e-mail buenpastornj@aol.com. To purchase a calendar, send a check or money order for $15 to the church address. A 17-year-old New Jersey boy died after falling from a ski lift Tuesday morning at a Carbon County resort, the coroner reports. Connor Golembiewski, of Flemington in Hunterdon County, was on his way up above the slopes at Blue Mountain Resort in Lower Towamensing Township, county Coroner Robert W. Miller Jr. said. A resort official said the incident happened about 11:30 a.m. Golembiewski dropped approximately 20 feet, Miller said. Golembiewski was pronounced dead at St. Lukes Hospital in Palmerton. Golembiewski died Tuesday from multiple blunt force trauma and his death was ruled an accident, the coroner said. Pennsylvania State Police on Wednesday afternoon had no new information to add, a public information officer said. It was the third deadly incident in the past year at the ski resort. Grygoriy Sologub, 53, of Philadelphia died Jan. 21 following a collision with another skier on a slope, authorities had said. Euna Shin, 20, of Piscataway, New Jersey, died from injuries sustained while snowboarding at the resort, authorities said. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. JERSEY CITY Former Gov. Jim McGreevey, who is potentially on his way out as chief of Jersey Citys prisoner re-entry program, alleges he is the victim of retaliation by Mayor Steve Fulop and is threatening to file a lawsuit against Fulop if he is fired. In a Jan. 3 letter to Fulop, McGreevey attorney Michael Critchley said any termination of McGreevey as executive director of the Jersey City Employment & Training Program would violate New Jerseys whistleblower act. The apparent basis for Fulop punishing McGreevey, Critchley claims, is McGreeveys termination of a Fulop operative from JCETP last year. Should you or others at your direction effectuate what we believe to be your purely personally motivated desire to terminate Executive Director McGreevey, we will immediately file a complaint against you and others seeking all available remedies for all wrongful actions taken against Executive Director McGreevey, the letter reads. The Fulop-McGreevey feud has been simmering for years but broke into public view late last year when Fulop began appointing his allies to the JCETP board, including most recently one of the mayors drivers. When Sudhan Thomas, the Jersey City school board president, took over as the board chair, McGreeveys allies saw the change as a sign that McGreeveys days were numbered. The Critchley letter is a dramatic escalation of hostilities for two Democrats who were close political allies in 2013. Thats when Fulop, fresh off his initial mayoral victory, hired McGreevey to take over JCETP and widen the nonprofits duties to include prisoner re-entry services. Most political observers saw Fulops move as an effort to gain statewide influence as Fulop mulled a run for governor. Sources say the relationship between the two men essentially ended after Fulop decided in 2016 not to seek the Democratic nomination for governor. McGreevey declined to comment on the letter. Fulop spokeswoman Ashley Manz implied that the letter is a way for McGreevey to distract from his own misdeeds. Manz referred to allegations of a misappropriation of funds related to McGreeveys JCETP work. This letter is merely his attempt to cover that up, Manz said. The mayor defers to the JCETP board. McGreevey called that allegation beyond ludicrous and a classic Fulop deflection from the truth. Critchleys letter also threatens Thomas with a lawsuit if McGreevey is fired. Asked to respond, Thomas said, We have received numerous questions and concerns from all around about the affairs of the JCETP including citizens and various departments across city, county and state. The boards job is to ensure the charter of the JCETP to help the citizens of Jersey City. This is another quixotic attempt to draw a smokescreen on a clear ongoing attempt to usurp the JCETP. In March, JCETP fired Eugene McKnight, a Fulop political operative, who was accused of taking cash payments from JCETP clients McKnight helped find jobs for. At the time sources told The Jersey Journal the payments were characterized to the workers as job protection. Critchleys letter accuses Fulop of taking unspecified measures to protect McKnights job. Manz said Fulop never spoke to McGreevey or anyone about McKnight. Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, whose eyes are usually glued to his phone when hes not speaking to someone in person, sent not one work email or text during the Nov. 15 snowstorm that created citywide gridlock. Same for Jimmy Davis, the mayor of Bayonne, where the storm led to a complete closure of the Bayonne Bridge for more than five hours. North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco, whose township includes steep hills that are treacherous for drivers during the mildest of storms, also sent no emails or texts. Ditto for Union City Mayor Brian Stack. Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla sent one text OK Ill try n keep you posted as part of a group text with six other people that included the citys police chief. The Jersey Journal learned of this near-blackout of digital communication after filing numerous public-records requests seeking the Democratic mayors texts and emails during the afternoon of Nov. 15, when the region was crippled by about six inches of snow. Spokespeople for the mayors who responded to The Jersey Journals inquiries said the lack of texts and emails doesnt mean they were absent from emergency management during that chaotic day. The mayor's communications that day were in person and on the phone, Fulops spokeswoman said. Bhalla has faced heat from critics who say his part-time legal job has stolen focus from his mayoral duties. His spokesman, Vijay Chaudhuri, said Bhalla was actively engaged on Nov. 15 by phone and in person. During the storm, he rode alongside our environmental services director and OEM personnel to survey conditions throughout the city in car and on foot, and directly communicated with city staff, Chaudhuri said. Jay Coffey, Bayonnes citys corporation counsel, said Davis sent personal texts or emails but nothing work-related. All of his work communication was done by phone, Coffey said. Davis is a Luddite when it comes to email, Coffey added. Asked to confirm whether the problems at the Bayonne Bridge didnt result in one email to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Bayonne spokesman Joe Ryan said Davis had a meeting with Port Authority officials the next morning. Ryan later emailed to say Davis was himself stuck in hours of traffic during the storm. Davis was driving back from a four-day Atlantic City convention for municipal officials. So he experienced what thousands of other metropolitan area residents went through that day, Ryan said. The Jersey Journal also filed requests for emails and texts from and to the citys DPW and emergency management directors. The city has asked for two extensions beyond OPRAs seven-day maximum. A Union City spokeswoman said Stack does not use email and communicates with city officials using walkie talkies during storms. A request for comment from Saccos spokesman was not returned. The story was different in Paterson, where Mayor Andre Sayegh sent his DPW director screenshots of residents complimenting city workers on their snow removal and requesting snow plows for their neighborhoods, records released by Paterson show. At 6:28 p.m., Sayegh asked for a plow at Butler and Lyon streets and about an hour later asked for one in his section of town. At about 7 p.m., he exchanged a few texts with someone who asked why the roads were so dangerous and then asked for a plow at East 32nd Street and 19th Avenue. I will alert the DPW Director, Sayegh said before adding, Who is this? Sayegh, who took office in July, told The Jersey Journal he posted his cell phone number on Facebook to encourage everyone to reach out to him with snow-related problems. I was on it. I take snowstorms very seriously, he said. I just try to be as accessible as possible. Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. BAYONNE The Bayonne Board of Education will vote on a replacement for Michael Mulcahy, who resigned from his position after winning the November election, at its reorganization meeting on Jan. 3. Eight candidates were interviewed by a special committee of trustees Michael Alonso, Carol Cruden, Christopher Munoz and Vice President Denis Wilbeck. Sources called the debate to select three finalists heated and contentious. All of the candidates were well presented and carried themselves well, Wilbeck said. Some a little more knowledgeable than others and a little more standout. Of the eight candidates, committee members said three Charles Ryan, Melissa Godesky-Rodriguez and Sharma Montgomery would be considered Thursday night. All three ran in November and lost. In a field of 14 for three seats, incumbent Ryan finished sixth with 9.5 percent of the vote, while Godesky-Rodriguez was 10th with 4 .5 percent and Montgomery was 11th with 4.2 percent. Former board Business Administrator Leo Smith and Jan Patrick Egan, two of the applicants for Mulcahys seat, also ran unsuccessfully in November, but Smith (10.7 percent) and Egan (10.4 percent) garnered more votes than any of the three finalists. Montgomery said that the appointment of a new superintendent will have a gigantic impact on the community and I hope to be a part of that process. Godesky-Rodriguez said her first priority would be filling the positions of superintendent and business administrator. In a letter sent Wednesday to the board, the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association urged members not to select Ryan. Ryan "chose to conduct himself in a less than professional matter on multiple occasions by verbally attacking and publicly ridiculing district staff in a November open public workshop, the letter said. Ryan drew heat from the union last month after he grilled Tim Craig, the districts director of fine and performing arts, and band director Samantha Hitchell over the elimination of an after-school, indoor percussion program. Ryan could not be reached for comment. The board was caught off guard last month when Mulcahy announced his resignation a month after winning election, and a month before taking office, because he said he will no longer be a resident of the city. The district was forced to consider Mulcahys resignation a vacancy since the Hudson County superintendent of elections has already certified the election results. Mulcahy won the race for the unexpired one-year term of Mary Jane Desmond, who cited a conflict of interest related to her daughter applying for a job in the district, when she resigned from the board. Desmond, who ran unsuccessfully for a three-year seat in November, was one of the eight who sought Mulcahys open seat. Others who did not make the final round included former board Business Administrator Leo Smith and Jan Patrick Egan, two who also ran unsuccessfully in November. Both Smith and Mulcahy garnered more votes in the November election than any of the three finalists. We were looking at experience, knowledge of issues and policy, why they wanted to be a candidates, that kind of thing, Wilbeck said. I think its the fairest way we couldve done it, board President Joe Broderick added. Hopefully well come out with the best candidate. JERSEY CITY The beginning of the end of Marcia V. Lyles occasionally tumultuous tenure as Jersey Citys schools superintendent came not with a bang but a whimper. It happened at Wednesday nights reorganization meeting of the Jersey City Board of Education, a ho-hum affair used to swear in new board members and vote on items like establishing the meeting calendar for 2019. There werent many people in the audience. The meeting was wrapping up after about an hour. Just as Board of Education President Sudhan Thomas appeared ready to adjourn the meeting, board member Marilyn Roman said she had a resolution to add that was not advertised on the agenda. Nothing big, just a resolution telling Lyles that she will not be rehired when her contract expires next year. There was little discussion before the board voted 7-1 in favor, with Matt Schapiro voting no. Schapiro asked Roman to explain her reasoning for the resolution. She declined. The board then voted on a resolution to start a national search for Lyles successor. That vote was 8-0 and also included little debate. The meeting then adjourned. The entire discussion lasted about six minutes. The decision isnt a complete surprise: after Novembers school election, the nine-member board comprises largely members who are critics of Lyles administration. But because Wednesdays action was not advertised in advance on the meeting agenda, there were a handful of people gathered inside the School 26 auditorium who were stunned. Lyles declined to comment afterward, other than to say she was not surprised the board made the decision but she was surprised that it happened when it did. Thomas defended the decision not to advertise beforehand that the board would be voting to tell Lyles she will not be re-hired. Roberts Rules (of Order) allow walk-on resolutions, Thomas said. After the meeting, Schapiro told The Jersey Journal, Its embarrassing that they will not honestly explain any of the reasons for the early, sudden, non-renewal vote on the superintendent of schools. My belief is that this consequential decision deserves public scrutiny to ensure it is in line with the communitys vision for our public schools. Lyles was hired in 2012 to replace Charles Epps and was immediately greeted with skepticism from some in Jersey City, not least of which because she was chosen over an existing school administrator. Her connection to the Broad Academy also raised eyebrows. She has tussled with the teachers union over the years and has watched as the nine-member board has grown more hostile to her and her initiatives. Her contract automatically renewed in 2016 when the board never acted on the renewal, which was another source of contention among her critics. Lyles' base salary is $231,000. The boards Wednesday action comes long before they are forced to give Lyles her notice of nonrenewal. State law requires a minimum of four months' notice. Thomas said board members wanted to start the process early so the candidates who apply to succeed Lyles arent superintendents solely in need of a job. Earlier at Wednesdays meeting, Joan Terrell-Paige was sworn-in to her first term, Mussab Ali to his first three-year term and Marilyn Roman to her third term. Adreana Williams, 16, of McNair Academic High School, also joined the board as a non-voting student representative. Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. EXIT Realty welcomes new team members Local EXIT Realty affiliated offices recently announced the addition of the following individuals to their teams of real estate professionals: Tammy Blount has joined EXIT on the Hudson Realty located at 867 Broadway, Bayonne, Antelmo Guevara-Melo has joined EXIT Frontier Realty located at 6804 Bergenline Ave Suite #2, Guttenberg, and Jyoti Thakker and Gerald Lucas have joined EXIT Realty Urban Living located at 381 Monmouth St, Jersey City. Shoprite donates 6,500 turkeys ShopRite associates from Inserra Supermarkets, Inc. joined community leaders at the ShopRite of Wallington on Dec. 17 to donate 6,500 turkeys to people in need. Volunteers helped load pallets of frozen turkeys into waiting trucks, vans, and cars destined for organizations such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, Table to Table, Community Food Bank of New Jersey, the American Legion and the Salvation Army. The turkeys were to be distributed to 150 community and faith-based organizations located in the communities where ShopRite stores operate in Bergen, Hudson, and Passaic counties in New Jersey, and Rockland County, NY. The turkeys, which were picked up by representatives from local and regional organizations, were expected to help feed 50,000 people in New Jersey and New York. Special Properties welcomes new members Special Properties Real Estate Services, LLC, an exclusive affiliate of Christies International Real Estate, recently welcomed Michael Renaud and Katherine Petsinis as new members of its Hoboken Office. Renaud is a real estate professional with more than three decades of experience and has joined Special properties as a Broker Associate. He joins Special Properties with over 30 years of experience in residential and commercial real estate and has expertise in new construction development, multi-family investment properties, commercial and industrial sales/leasing, as well as his residential real estate capabilities. Petsinis is a real estate professional with more than 13 years of industry experience and has joined Special Properties as a Realtor Associate. She specializes in residential real estate in both Hudson and Union Counties. A current resident of Mountainside, Petsinis is a former 15-year resident of Hoboken. Hoboken shelter receives perishable donations On Tuesday, Dec. 18, Hoboken based company Jet donated perishable items and other goods to The Hoboken Shelter. Headquartered in Hoboken, volunteers from Jet spent time giving back to their local community helping to unload a van filled with donations. Jet has worked with several local charity organizations this past holiday season. Sawyer Smith Residential gets new members Licensed realtor Ana Ford has recently joined Sawyer Smith Residential in Jersey City. Ford was born in Hawaii and raised in the Philippines and Seattle, WA., where she earned a bachelors degree in cultural anthropology. She spent two years managing vacation properties in the beach town of Rincon in Puerto Rico. She came to Jersey City after Hurricane Maria. Also joining Sawyer Smith Residential is Selina Vargas, who has served as a sales executive in the apparel and fashion industry for brands including H&M, Diesel, and FILA USA. She managed and directed operations, sales, marketing, and creative visual for North America. She is a Jersey City resident. Sawyer Smith Residential is a local real estate agency that provides assistance in searching for and buying houses as well as assisting sellers with advertising, open houses and private showings, negotiations, and contract contingencies. Get news from your business or your accomplishments included in Business Notes. Submit items to lditommaso@jjournal.com. JERSEY CITY The court case that included a mistrial, a contempt charge, and an 11th hour guilty plea ended Thursday when a 26-year-old Jersey City man was sentenced to eight years in prison for killing a man inside an illegal gambling joint in 2015. In October, DeAndre Thomas pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter for fatally shooting Davonte Carswell, 23, on Nov. 15, 2015, inside a bodega that doubled as an illegal gambling joint on Ocean Avenue in Jersey City. At Thursdays sentencing before Hudson County Superior Court Judge John Young, Carswells mother and other relatives spoke tearfully about their pain. When Thomas was asked if would like to speak, he had no words of apology for Carswells family. All he said to Young was No sir. Young noted that Thomas had 12 contacts with the justice system as a juvenile and three gun-related convictions as an adult. The judge said he had no confidence Thomas would not commit another crime after his release. His mother cant forgive you and I cant blame her, Young told Thomas. Why should she? I saw the video. You hid in wait and executed her son. Young also noted that he understood why prosecutors struck a plea deal with Thomas, since it was hard to identify him in video footage of the incident, in which the gunman shot Carswell on a staircase and then again in the face after he went down. Thomas' first trial ended on April 21 after jurors told Young they were hopelessly deadlocked. He faced 30 years to life if he was convicted. His brother, Devon Thomas, 26, was fatally shot inside a parked car at the Curries Woods housing complex in Jersey City during the trial. At one court hearing Young found DeAndre Thomas in contempt and more than 80 days were removed from his jail credit for time he had already served. In October, as jury selection was about to begin for his retrial DeAndre Thomas pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter and possession of a weapon by a felon. Carswells mother, Donisha Carswell-Clarke said in court Thursday that she still looks for her son who she said was a hardworking, good father. Speaking through tears, she said I just want him to come home. I just want him to come home. Its not fair to his children. Its not fair to me. Its not fair to his brother. Its not fair to his father. Its not fair to so many people who loved Davonte," she added. "This violence has to stop. Young sentenced to DeAndre Thomas to eight years for aggravated manslaughter and 10 years for the gun offense. The plea deal mandates the prison terms to be served concurrently, and he will be eligible for parole after serving nearly seven years. Alzheimers is coming out of the shadows in New Jersey, but many families struggling with it arent being guided to services that could help them cope. Those are the key findings from a statewide survey done by Fairleigh Dickinson Universitys PublicMind for Alzheimers New Jersey. The survey found 89 percent of people concerned about memory loss went to see a doctor about the problem, and 87 percent received a formal diagnosis of Alzheimers or some other form of dementia. These are unexpectedly high numbers for a disease surrounded by such fear and stigma that families often have avoided seeking medical help in the past and doctors have been reluctant to give that diagnosis to patients. I was surprised by the percentage of people who responded saying they did indeed seek a medical diagnosis when they suspected their loved one had Alzheimers, says Kenneth Zaentz, president and CEO of Alzheimers New Jersey. It was much higher than I thought it would be and higher than some other data Ive seen in past. Previous studies done nationally have shown that when families begin to suspect a loved one has Alzheimers, they may put off a diagnosis for years, until the memory problems become so severe that they can no longer be avoided. And as recently as 2015, a national report showed that only 45 percent of people with Alzheimers or their family members were told of the diagnosis by their doctor, either because the doctor wasnt sure about the diagnosis or didnt think the patient would benefit from knowing. But organizations like Alzheimers NJ have been working hard to educate the public on the importance of getting a diagnosis of Alzheimers as early as possible. Zaentz says the new findings by the PublicMind survey in New Jersey suggest that effort may be paying off. The only thing I can attribute it to is that perhaps we done, over the years, a better job than other areas of the country about educating people about the importance of getting a diagnosis, he says. However, only about half of those who responded to the PublicMind survey said their doctor suggested support programs to assist them after the diagnosis was made. Thats where more education has to occur, to have physicians become more aware what services are available, Zaentz says. Im not saying a physician has to be an expert on everything thats available in the community, but its at least important to let the family know that, yes, this is not a diagnosis anyone wants to receive, but there are services that can help. The Fairleigh Dickinson survey was conducted in late September and involved 805 adults in New Jersey, about 30 percent of who said they either are or have been a caregiver for someone with dementia. The survey results regarding a diagnosis of Alzheimers are based on those who had direct experience with it. About one-third of them said they received the Alzheimers diagnosis from a neurologist, and a similar percentage said the diagnosis came from a combination of physicians. For six percent, the diagnosis was by a geriatrician, and 18 percent said their primary care doctor was the one to deliver the diagnosis. Even at a time when people are more willing to go to a doctor when they see possible signs of Alzheimers, Zaentz says the diagnosis remains a difficult one for families and patients to receive. People go through stages with news like that, he says. Theyre in shock. They dont want to believe it. Some people are in denial. Some dont understand what the progression of the disease is going to be, or they dont fully understand how many changes this disease is going to bring to their lives, not just the person but also the caregiver. Still, health experts agree that seeking a diagnosis as early as possible is always better than denying the problem or putting it off. For one thing, memory loss that resembles the symptoms of Alzheimers is sometimes caused by other medical conditions that can be identified and treated. Some kinds of dementia that someone might have are reversible, Zaentz says. For example, people can get dementia due to a urinary tract infection. A wrong medications interacting can cause dementia. So certainly its important to get a diagnosis to find out, what exactly am I dealing with? Is it something thats more treatable? And even if the diagnosis is Alzheimers, early detection can: Give the patient more time to adopt lifestyle changes that might help slow the progression of the disease. Allow the patient to be considered for a clinical trial that could result in receiving a promising medical treatment for Alzheimers. Provide the family with more time to do advance planning, which also gives the patient a greater say in his or her future care. Offer the family and patient more opportunity to connect with support groups, organizations and services that can assist them in dealing with the many medical, emotional and financial challenges that comes with this disease. But to take advantage of those services, they have to learn about them. Based on the survey findings, Alzheimers New Jersey will be looking for additional ways to educate both the medical community and the public about the help thats out there. There are definitely services available, Zaentz says. I wouldnt say its anywhere near perfect, and clearly there are more services needed, but for families to say, OK, I have this diagnosis and feel like Im afloat on the raft without a paddle, that is not the case, so knowing they are not alone and there are places they can turn, thats important. Alzheimers New Jersey, formerly known as the Alzheimers Association Greater New Jersey Chapter, is a resource for families and patients, and also can help point people to other resources and services they might need. More information is available at the Alzheimers NJ website at www.alznj.org or by calling the organizations Helpline at 888-280-6055. Other good sources of information and help for families dealing with Alzheimers include: The Office on Aging in your county has expertise on local resources for patients with Alzheimers and for caregivers. You can find contact information for your county office here. The National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys offers services provided by lawyers specially trained to give legal guidance to families dealing with dementia. You can find elder law attorneys in New Jersey using this search tool. The Aging Life Care Association offers the services of professional care managers, many of whom have a background in nursing or social work and specialize in helping make sure that older adults and families get the help and services they need. You can find an Aging Life Care professional near you by using the search tool on the association's website. The Veterans Administration offers a broad range of services to veterans dealing with any form of dementia. More information is available here. New Jerseys largest hospital chain on Thursday completed a merger with the states largest private mental health facility its executives say will create the states first walk-in urgent care center that will divert people in crisis from the emergency room. The merger between Hackensack Meridian Health and Carrier Clinic also will expand addiction treatment programs in a state where eight people die every day from an opioid drug overdose. Hackensack Meridian and Carrier announced their agreement to merge in August but the deal needed approval from state and federal regulators. On Thursday, the CEOS of both institutions said that review was complete. We are writing a new chapter for the treatment of mental illness and substance use disorder as we integrate Carriers proven services into our networks robust behavioral health care, said Hackensack Meridian Health CEO Robert C. Garrett said. We must truly integrate behavioral health into health care and expand treatment options as our state battles an opioid epidemic that has claimed too many lives and devastated so many families. The urgent care facility will open in Neptune near Jersey Shore University Medical Center, and the inpatient treatment facility will be housed in a Bergen County location to be announced after the lease is signed, Garrett said. Hackensack Meridian also has committed spending $25 million over three years to renovate the century-old Carrier Clinic, located in Montgomery, introduce new technology and expand treatment programs, Carrier CEO Donald Parker said. Creating an urgent care facility for people with mental illness will reduce costs by diverting people from a hospital emergency room, where treatment is the most expensive, and reduce overcrowding. According to the New Jersey Hospital Association and mental health advocates, from one-third to one-half of the people who go to the ER have an underlying mental health condition. Carriers facilities include a licensed 281-bed capacity hospital; a licensed 40-bed inpatient and outpatient detox and recovery facility; a residential treatment facility which can house up to 91 residents ages 13-18; and East Mountain School, a fully-accredited school for 120 middle-school and high-school students. The merger will not lead to layoffs, Garrett said. We are in a growth mode, he said. Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. With the help of social media, a wedding ring that was found on a Jersey Shore street could be reunited with the family. On Dec. 31, Mike Delaney tweeted a picture of a simple silver engraved wedding band he had found in Stone Harbor more than a year ago. He rediscovered the ring while cleaning his Jeep and sought help finding its rightful owner or a family member. It is engraved with Marian and Jack 12-19-53. Delaney and his wife, Ann, received many possible leads but only one checked out after the possible grandson of the couple saw the news in California and recognized the dates, name and style of the ring. We may have a match. The far reaching power of social media / press. From Stone Harbor to grandson in California and back to son who's parents had summer home in Stone Harbor. Will update after they see the ring. Mike Delaney (@JeeponeSH) January 3, 2019 Its a full match, so it makes the most sense," Ann Delaney said. It would be too much of a coincidence for it not to be his mothers ring. The man said his father, Jack, died two years ago. He believes it could belong to his mother, Marian, who is older and may have dropped the ring without realizing. The pair, who were married on Dec. 19, 1953, had a summer home in Stone Harbor that they left to their son, who is planning a trip the Jersey Shore town next week to look at the ring first-hand. The Delaneys declined to name the family until the match could be verified. And if its not the familys ring, the search will continue, Ann Delaney said. It seemed important and looked well worn, Ann Delaney said, adding how significant it was for her and her husband to find the owners. I just imagine an older woman wearing gloves and it coming off by accident, and your heart breaks for that, so hopefully it does belong to that person. The inside of the band is engraved with a couple's name, Marian and Jack. Sophie Nieto-Munoz may be reached at snietomunoz@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her at @snietomunoz. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips The extension of metro Line 5, the first metro line in Shanghai to cross the Huangpu River on a bridge, has been put into trial operation. Covering 16.1 kilometers, the new extension southward links Dongchuan Road station and Fengxian Xincheng station. It crosses the Huangpu River from Minpu Second Bridge. Together with the newly opened Phase Two and Three of Line 13, the new extension increases the total length of Shanghai's operational metro lines to 705 kilometers, making it the longest urban rail transit system in the country. The addition of the new extensions also increase the total number of subway stations to 415. Some of the highlights of the new extensions include intelligent robots, bilingual ticket vending machines and an audio navigation application for the blind. According to the Shanghai urban rail transit plan, the city will have a total of 27 lines with a combined length of 1,154 km by 2023. The Associated PressThis Oct. 9 photo shows Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mitt Romney answering a question about tariffs during the debate with Democratic opponent Jenny Wilson in the America First Event Center in Cedar City, Utah. Rust bar at 462 Third St. shut its doors, according to a post on its Facebook page. "This is something out of our hands and we are so very sorry that we have to do this," the post said, in part. US&J FILE PHOTODavid Marotta, who resides on the 7100 block of Chestnut Ridge Road, has protested Verizon's proposed construction of a cell tower near his property for several years, claiming the tower would reduce property values in his neighborhood. He recently filed a lawsuit challenging the Town of Lockport planning board's Nov. 20 approval of a site plan for the tower. Niagara Falls, NY (14301) Today Cloudy with a few showers. Low 58F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight Cloudy with a few showers. Low 58F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%. Most of letter writers writing is wrong Just about everything Justine McCabe wrote (Murphy wrong on support for Israel, Dec. 22) is wrong. There was a British Mandate, not a pre-1948 Palestine, on former Ottoman Empire land intended for a Jewish National Homeland. While Jerusalem has been united under Israeli sovereignty, the West Bank, captured in the defensive Six Day War, isnt occupied Palestinian territory. Almost all West Bank Arabs are now under the civil misrule of the Oslo Accords established Palestinian Authority. And Gaza? Israel left unilaterally in 2005. The nation-state law changed neither the status of non-Jewish citizens, nor that of Arabic. That Israel maintains an apartheid-like system that mirrors U.S. Jim Crow is utterly absurd. Arab-Israelis are represented in every segment of Israel society, in education, medicine, government ministries, the judiciary, even the diplomatic service. Though not required to do military service, increasing numbers are volunteering. That Arab judge sentencing a former P.M. to jail, surely epitomizes equality before the law. BDS, neither nonviolent nor peace-seeking, is an overtly anti-Semitic movement designed to delegitimize, demonize and, ultimately, destroy the worlds only Jewish-majority nation. Israel rightly bars entry to its most vocal proponents. Pursuit of a two-state solution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict remains elusive. The Palestinians continue to deny the legitimacy of the Jewish State and refuse any negotiations; their schools and media incessantly incite violence and hatred toward Israel and Jews. Given such societal toxicity, any notion that a One Democratic State could be a sustainable and just solution to this century-old conflict, is simply ludicrous. Richard D. Wilkins Syracuse, New York Letter ignored facts because facts dont support hatred Justine McCabes criticism of Sen. Chris Murphy for sometimes expressing support for Americas only real friend in the Middle East might be more convincing if it didnt depend on blatant lies, such as claiming that Israel maintained an apartheid like system and claimed sovereignty over all pre-1948 Palestine, including the alleged but nonexistent annexation of what she falsely refers to as occupied Palestinian territory. False, false and false. Israeli law is unique in the Middle East in that it gives equal legal rights to all citizens, including nearly two million Arabs. Israeli Arabs are disproportionately represented in many of the most prestigious professions, particularly in the medical field. This equality is in sharp contrast to the Palestinian Authority, which governs almost all the Arabs in the disputed territory and doesnt even allow Jews to live in the areas it has controlled for nearly a quarter-century. It recently arrested dozens of Arabs, including an American citizen, whom it accused of participating in the sale of property to Jews. Such actions are serious crimes, punishable by death, under what passes for law in the Palestinian Authority. Apartheid would actually be less malignant than the policy of the Palestinian Authority. Perhaps the reason McCabe makes things up is that she knows how difficult it would be to get honest people to join in her hatred of the worlds only Jewish state if she confined herself to the facts. Linwood Fleischer Waterbury Writer doesnt just dislike Israel, but also the truth To paraphrase Winston Churchill, seldom in the history of letters to the editor has one person, Justine McCabe, gotten so much wrong about so many aspects of her subject, Israel. I refer, of course, to her recent baseless screed in the New Haven Register libeling the worlds only Jewish state. Contrary to McCabes assertions, Israel is not guilty of apartheid. Arab Israelis have equal legal rights, and have reached many high posts in Israel including Supreme Court Justice. Arabic has special status as an Israeli language. The new Israeli nation-state law encoding Israel as the Jewish homeland mirrors similar statutes in other countries, including Western democracies like Denmark and the United Kingdom, and dozens of statutorily Muslim countries which declare a state character or religion. Contrary to her erroneous contentions there was no pre-1948 Palestinian state, and the only illegal occupation of the West Bank (actually Judea and Samaria) was perpetrated by Jordan, which was expelled by Israel in a defensive war in 1967. Contrary to McCabes falsehoods, BDS is an anti-Semitic organization whose purpose is to destroy Israel, according to BDS founder Omar Barghouti. American aid to Israel is, by law, spent entirely in the United States, creating jobs for Americans and Israeli technology of direct value to our economy and military. It is clear from her letter that McCabe does not think there is anything sacred about our alliance with Israel. It is also clear that when it comes to Israel, she does not think there is anything sacred about the truth. Daniel H. Trigoboff, Ph.D. Williamsville, New York Focus on decency instead of false claims against Israel Justine McCabe wrote a hateful rant against Sen. Chris Murphy regarding his support of Israel. A careful reading of her letter has made me question her facts and her biases. Why support Israel? Well, its the only democracy and only country friendly to America in a turbulent Middle East. Its the only country in the Middle East where Jews, Christians and Muslims can freely worship: Saudi Arabia allows for no other religion to be practiced there and most of the other dictatorships in that area are hostile to religious freedom. Israel is the only country in the Middle East where LGBT people are free to live and can practice their lifestyle without fear of arrest and persecution: imagine that freedom happening in Saudi Arabia or Iran. Perhaps Ms. McCabe should turn her laser vision to Israels neighbors. The Palestinians in Gaza elected a terrorist organization Hamas which vows to destroy Israel and which uses children as human shields while it sends rockets into civilian Israeli homes. Ms. McCabe, your reactions? The Palestinian Authority on the West Bank has been accused by Human Rights Organizations of arresting and torturing its critics. Your thoughts, Ms. McCabe? Iran is developing nuclear weapons capable of hitting European cities. Saudi Arabia kills its opponents. And let us not forget Syria, where President Assad has gassed his people and caused a human exodus of gargantuan proportion with misery and deprivation. Yet Ms. McCabe is only worried about the one true Middle East democracy that allows its police to investigate its prime minister without fear; that allows all religions to be practiced openly and freely; and which provides aid to Syrian refugees and Indonesian tsunami victims without consideration of religious practice. By singling Israel out for vitriol, Ms. McCabe has failed to consider the world Israel lives in, her neighbors and Israels own decency. Perhaps she should look into her own decency. Elaine Albom Braffman, esq. Woodbridge Murphy supports Israel because he knows the facts Sen. Murphy understands the Israel Anti-Boycott Act extends the prohibition against complying with boycotts beyond those imposed by foreign countries, to cover boycott-related activities by international governmental organizations like the U.N. or the European Union. He also knows the IABA targets only commercial conduct as described in existing law and regulations, and in no way limits individual political speech or activities. Additionally, Murphy is fully aware that the BDS objective is the end of the Jewish state, acknowleged even by Israel critics Roger Cohen and Norman Finkelstein, who pointed out that those who ran the BDS movement were dishonest: At least be honest about what you want we want to abolish Israel and this is our strategy for doing it. Murphy is well of the ongoing ugly reality as reported by Bret Stephens (The Wall Street Journal ): Arafat told an Arab audience in Stockholm in 1996, We plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. ... We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem. This is what doomed the two-state solution. Murphy also knows that decades of international aid has been stolen and pocketed by corrupt Palestinian leaders, or has been misappropriated for building terror tunnels instead of developing the infrastructure and economy of the people trapped under their misrule. Palestinian poverty is the result of corruption and hatred, not lack of resources. Arab-Israelis become doctors, nurses, lawyers and pharmacists because they have the same opportunities, rights and freedoms as other Israelis. None of Israels neighbors offer such a wealth of possibilities for their Palestinian citizens. As Murphy knows, this is one consequence of the fact that countries surrounding Israel endlessly wage war on each other and gas their own citizens, while invariably rejecting Israels offers for peace. Murphy is right to support Israel, and to demand that her neighbors hold themselves to a higher standard, so that one day there actually can be peace. Julia Lutch Davis, CA Why attack the only democratic nation in the Mideast? The recent condemnation of Chris Murphy, along with condemnation of Israel and Zionists, and praise for the people who are proponents of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, tells me that the New Milford letter writer is far from a friend of Israel and the Jews who inhabit that state along with those of us who stand firmly behind the only democratic country in the Middle East. Israel is the only Middle Eastern country to have a supreme court. If the Palestinians want a two-state entity as a solution to their demands for independence, let them prove well beyond a reasonable doubt not to pursue terrorism, like firing rockets to Israeli villages and attacking people at night in their homes and murdering innocent people. Back in the late 80s, the Palestinians killed 40 young children in a school. Can the letter writer from New Milford not realize that dealing peacefully with such people is not easy? Many of the Jewish faith are not Zionists, some are even anti-Zionists. Even the pro-Israel writer Amos Oz, who recently passed away, was a strong critic of Israel and its occupation of the land the Palestinians want for themselves at the present time. The late essayist Dr. Charles Krauthammer, who died this past June, once wrote, if the state of Israel were gone, would the Arab world stop killing each other? The answer is obvious. Barbara Tuchman, the late great historian, once wrote that the land of Israel is the only nation in the world that is governing itself in the same territory, under the same name, and with the same religion and same language as it did 300 years ago. Israel is a solid democracy, not a Jim Crow or an apartheid like system. Murphys appointment to a Mideast subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee guarantees every pro-Israel and every pro-Palestinian someone who can honestly examine any peaceful plan that satisfies peace and prosperity for one and all. Marvin Cohen Hamden Justine McCabe wants to replace Israel (the freest country in the Middle East) with a "one state solution." Does McCabe propose as a model neighboring Syria, whose dictatorship has killed at least five times as many people in the last five years as have died in the entire Arab-Israeli conflict? Does McCabe propose neighboring Egypt, whose government crushes all dissent and oppresses its Coptic minority? Or neighboring Jordan whose laws explicitly exclude Jews from citizenship? Or Hamas-ruled Gaza, where all resources are confiscated for armed struggle? Or the Palestinian Authority whose officials filch much of the foreign aid into their own bank accounts? The tragedy of the Palestinian cause is that it was set up solely to dismantle Israel. If it had had a positive vision, there could have been a Palestinian state alongside Israel in 1948 and several times since. Just imagine how different the region could be if the Arab world had followed Israel's positive outlook, after Israel survived the 1948 Arab invasion? Israel built a modern economy and open society while under siege. It uplifted all the Jewish refugees from Arab countries, whose ancestors survived a millennium of third class status and persecution under Islam. It is a society in which there is a higher percentage of Arab students than Jewish students in Israeli medical schools. It is one where Arab Israelis serve on the Supreme Court. Of course it has flaws, but compared to any of its neighbors, it offers far more freedom and opportunity to all its citizens. You are here: China Notorious serial killer Gao Chengyong was executed Thursday morning according to the official Weibo account of the people's intermediate court of Baiyin City, Gansu Province. Dubbed the Chinese "Jack the Ripper," Gao killed 10 women and one girl between 1988 and 2002. Many of his victims were wearing red when their mutilated bodies were found. Gao raped the victims before killing them and dismembering their bodies. He was arrested in August 2016 and was sentence to death last March for robbery, rape, murder, and corpse abuse. WEST HAVEN The city met state requirements and has initiated the process to receive $8 million in municipal restructuring funds expected to provide West Haven with the means to finish the 2017-18 fiscal year in the black, Mayor Nancy Rossi said Wednesday. Rossi made a formal request to Ben Barnes, outgoing secretary of the state Office of Policy and Management and chairman of the Municipal Accountability Review Board, in a letter dated Dec. 27. The city complied with the two conditions the MARB previously placed on its approval of West Havens five-year fiscal recovery plan by submitting a plan to complete a study of its fire service on Nov. 29 and submitting a draft statement of revenues, expenditures and changes in its fund balance on Dec. 20, the letter said. Rossi said she was told the city had met the necessary conditions last week by OPM and MARB staff member Julian Freund. Freund informed her on Monday the $8 million was in the process of being transferred to the citys account, Rossi said. Freund said Wednesday the payment still was in process. Its an electronic payment, so Im told it takes a day or two to appear in their account, he said. Rossi said that while she does not expect the citys audit for the fiscal year that ended June 30 to be delivered until Feb. 28, I do believe that weve balanced it. Plus, we worked very hard to make significant cuts and a lot of changes in the way we do businesses ... so we hope that it will at least balance and maybe give us a little extra, Rossi said. But she said she wont know for sure until I have an audit in my hand. Thats what makes it definite. The MARB, which is expected to give West Haven an additional $8 million to help balance the current 2018-19 fiscal year budget, approved West Havens five-year plan by an 8-3 vote on Nov. 1, 2018. Under the terms of the approval, the state agreed to pay West Haven up to $8 million for fiscal 2018 and 25 percent of the $8 million set aside for fiscal 2019 by Dec. 31, 2018. It then would pay West Haven an additional 25 percent by April 30, and the final 50 percent by June 30. No payment will be made toward the payments scheduled after Dec. 31 until the state receives the citys final audit for fiscal 2018. The April 30 payment may be withheld until the city submits several requested studies included a completed fire service consolidation study and the June 30 payment will be held until the MARB approves the citys fiscal 2020 budget and an update to the five-year plan, along with evidence that it is fully funding the Allingtown fire department pension plan. TORRINGTON Patrons of the Torrington Library are quite impressed by the new exhibit of Early American historical documents written by city native John Brown, his father, Owen Brown and Gen. George Washington, among others. People are in awe. They are super excited and unaware that they are here, said Torrington Library Director Jessica Gueniat. They walk in and do a second glance. Before there was the (Torrington) Historical Society, Gueniat said, the library would acquire documents because people knew they would be safe with us. The library has owned the 11 documents in the exhibit for quite some time, Gueniat noted. We decided to take them out and we got a grant to scan them and have them framed, she said. A $3,000 grant from the Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation funded the effort, according to the foundation website. The oldest document on display is a 1777 letter written by General John Burgoyne, and the most recent is an 1899 land deed from Elisha Turner, who donated the property on which the library was built. Two letters from John Brown were written from Akron, Ohio in Aug. 1854 and Feb. 1855. The topic of both of the letters is about selling or buying cows. Please say how my cows are getting along. You will further oblige me by saying how the market stands for horses and cattle, Brown wrote in the first letter. He was very good at raising cattle, Gueniat said. She added that Charlie Roraback, president of the Library Board of Trustees, and a scholar of John Brown history, told her, It was one of the few business ventures he was successful in. The second letter from Brown asks his neighbor to sell his three cows. It also contains some foreshadowing of Browns abolitionist stance, Gueniat noted. The letter states, Ive undertaken to direct the operations of a surveying and exploring party to be employed in Kansas for a considerable time, perhaps two to three years. The wording in the 1855 letter, Gueniat believes, is a preview of the Harpers Ferry Raid in Virginia in 1859 where Brown and his men seized an armory. The failed attempt to free slaves in the region ended with Brown being charged with treason, convicted and hanged. Some of the letters have been transcribed to be more easily read, such as Burgoynes. He had such small penmanship, Gueniat said. She also noted that tone of the letters from Burgoyne and Washington was starkly different. Washington was being very persuasive and charming, in asking for more troop support. Burgoyne was anything but. If you are faithful to the crown, you will have a good life. If you rebel... you will be much more threatened, the British General wrote. You can see a pattern from history. Human nature hasnt changed that much, Gueniat noted. The exhibit can be seen during the librarys hours:10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday, Tuesday, Friday; 10 a.m to 8 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday. The library is located at 12 Daycoeton Place. To contact the staff, call 860-489-6684 or visit torringtonlibrary.org. NEW HAVEN A mayoral appointment to the Board of Education was unanimously approved by the Board of Alders Aldermanic Affairs Committee after drawing about three hours of divided testimony. The reappointment of Jamell Cotto, executive director of Farnam Neighborhood House and vice president of the school board, will receive a first reading at the next Board of Alders meeting. Mayor Toni Harp, who serves on the Board of Education and appoints four of the other six seats on the board, praised Cotto in a statement to the Board of Alders last month. Jamell Cotto, appointed to fill a vacancy under difficult circumstances, has demonstrated commitment and versatility while serving the New Haven Board of Education and its constituents admirably these past 15 months, Harp said in a December statement. Harp appointed Cotto in 2017 to serve out the remainder of then-President Daisy Gonzalezs term when the latter died unexpectedly. Cotto, who testified to the committee about his appointment before the public had an opportunity, preemptively defended himself against some criticisms that he correctly anticipated would be mentioned. The board has been run by educators for decades and that hasnt gotten us anywhere, he said, preempting some community criticisms that he lacks the proper credentials to serve on the board. Cotto also highlighted that his day job is engaging and working with communities, as some parents who have repeatedly expressed feeling shut out of decision-making by board members watched from the benches, waiting to testify in opposition. The New Haven Public Schools Advocates, an organized group of parents who have been critical of the Board of Education over concerns of transparency, governance and perceived cronyism since the most recent hiring search for a superintendent of schools in 2017, had released a statement in opposition to Cotto. The role of a school board member, they said in the statement, should be to voice stakeholder concerns, work collaboratively with the community and to make careful, reasoned, independent decisions for the betterment of children. Over the course of one and one quarter years on the Board of Education, Mr. Cotto has unfortunately not demonstrated these qualities, the statement said. NHPS Advocates representatives said Cotto voted against the wishes of 100 [percent] of parents who testified by acting as the swing vote to hire Carol Birks as superintendent of schools, although a contingency of Delta Sigma Thera Sorority alumnae filled the auditorium in silent support of Birks at that meeting. The NHPS Advocates statement also criticized Cottos disrespectful tone, meeting attendance, irrational decisions and conflicts of interest, as fellow board member Tamiko Jackson-McArthur is his direct supervisor at his job at Farnam Neighborhood House. Some members from the group spoke about these concerns, with two issues coming to the fore: a finance meeting at which emailed corrections and questions on contracts went unanswered; and the decision to release a list of six schools that might be closed most of which were located in the wards of alders who were vocal about rerouting a $5 million line item increase in the budget to another area panicking some members of the community, as it happened shortly after three schools had just been closed. Cottos school board colleague Ed Joyner testified against him, criticizing Cotto for not being an educator and for micromanaging the superintendent, which Joyner said he sees as overstepping his boundaries. Former school board colleague Carlos Torre said Cotto had lost sight of Gonzalezs legacy. My policy is if you dont have something good to say about somebody, say nothing at all, but the stakes are too high, Torre said. Throughout the hearing, some were split on Cottos record with representing Latino students in the district. According to parent Lee Cruz, Cotto had not adequately represented students arriving to the district after being displaced by Hurricane Maria, was absent from discussions about the creation of a districtwide sanctuary policy and was not forceful enough in support of translation services. State Rep. Juan Candelaria, D-New Haven, disputed that characterization, saying Cotto represents Latinos well and an entire school boards burden had been placed on Cottos shoulders throughout the hearing. Although several parents with NHPS Advocates testified in opposition to Cotto, parent Camille Ansley said Cotto had been a presence at a weekly Saturday evening meeting of parents under the moniker C.H.A.N.G.E. At C.H.A.N.G.E, were advocating for Cotto because hes participating in the process, she said. Fair Haven School teacher David Weinreb, a member of NHPS Advocates, testified that he had been to a few meetings of C.H.A.N.G.E in spring but had not seen Cotto at any meetings. The agenda felt confusing and was not community-led, he said. Krystal Augustine, president of the district-affiliated Citywide Parent Team, said she felt she had been able to get answers from the school board, including Cotto, by acting as a partner with school board members instead of being publicly critical. This feels like were crucifying someone, she said. A number of young men associated with a lifeguard training program operated by Cotto testified that he had been a strong mentor to them. He pushes us immensely to better ourselves and to strive in the community, said Julian Segui. One last issue brought up by multiple speakers was Cottos attendance at meetings. Alder Gerald Antunes, D-12, said he thought Cottos attendance record was stellar, at 87 percent. Joyner brought up that, as a student in the citys public schools, this would make him chronically absent, or missing 10 percent or more of all instructional days. Eighty-seven percent is a good attendance average; we dont see that in many of the other boards and committees, Antunes said, adding that he felt the comparison of students to volunteers didnt hold. The four committee members all advised Cotto that, from the testimony, it seemed apparent he could do better in some areas. Parents are crying out, said Alder Evelyn Rodriguez, D-4. They need to be heard. They need to be responded to. Alder Hacibey Catalbasoglu, D-1, said that as a first-term alder, he would not want to be judged too harshly and he would extend the same courtesy to Cotto. brian.zahn@hearstmediact.com Editors note: The headline on this story has been corrected to reflect that Cottos reappointment to the board cleared the aldermanic committee but is not yet final. NEW HAVEN A Hamden man who made no effort to disguise himself while robbing three New Haven banks and escaping in taxi cabs was sentenced Thursday to serve 10 years in prison. You were not very clever, Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Clifford told Andre Edwards, 41, of Grandview Avenue during the sentencing hearing. You wore no mask and did nothing to hide your identity. You were all over the surveillance tapes. Clifford also noted that when Edwards checked into a West Haven motel, you paid for it with money that had red dye all over it as part of the banks tracking systems. New Haven Public Defender Beth A. Merkin told Clifford that Edwards has had a substance abuse problem. She noted Edwards confessed to the crimes and did not use a weapon during any of the robberies. Clifford read aloud the notes Edwards handed to the tellers: Give me all your money, Give me the money or I will hurt you and This is a robbery. If you move, I will hurt you. Assistant States Attorney Reed Durham reported the recurring traumatic effects felt by one of the tellers: Each customer who hands her something now makes her nervous. None of the tellers came to the sentencing hearing. The first robbery came just before 9 a.m. on Nov. 6, 2017, when Edwards walked into the Key Bank at 195 Church St. and handed the note to a teller. Police said he fled in a taxi shortly before officers arrived. Five days later, just before noon, Edwards entered the Webster Bank branch at 894 Whalley Ave. and waited in line before demanding cash from a teller. In that incident, a dye pack in the bag of money exploded as he headed for a waiting taxi. He fled on foot. The third robbery occurred two days after the second one when Edwards walked into the Key Bank at 201 Grand Ave. shortly after 9 a.m. After he demanded and received cash, a dye pack exploded outside the bank as Edwards headed toward a waiting taxi. Police said the third cabbie remembered Edwards destination: the Econo Lodge in West Haven. This helped police in West Haven and New Haven work together to locate and arrest him. Edwards had been held in lieu of $999,000 bail since his arrest on Nov. 14, 2017, one day after the third robbery. He came to the sentencing hearing dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit. He said nothing on his behalf when Clifford gave him that opportunity. Edwards pleaded guilty in October to three counts of second-degree robbery. The plea agreement called for him to serve a total of 10 years in prison, followed by six years of special parole. Durham said the banks sustained total losses of $8,028 and they want restitution. But Clifford recommended those payments by Edwards based on his ability to pay. Clifford noted: I dont think its likely hell be able to pay it. Maybe hell win the lottery or something. Clifford told Edwards, Youre 41. You would expect to be aging out of this. Clifford said a key reason for the 10-year sentence was Edwards extensive criminal record. It stretches back to 1995 for a conviction on burglaries. Later came convictions for third-degree robbery (one year in prison), larceny (one year in prison) and misconduct with a motor vehicle (five years in prison). Then in 2006 Edwards received a 10-year sentence, Clifford noted, for four similar robberies to the 2017 crimes. You were out just four months on probation when this (the three bank robberies) happened. Clifford said Edwards had written him letters asking for less prison time than 10 years. But this is a reasonable disposition, Clifford told Edwards. In addition to the restitution recommendation, Clifford recommended these conditions of the special parole: Edwards cannot go back to those three banks and he should seek substance abuse counseling and treatment. randall.beach@hearstmediact.com ORANGE A deal in which the state was to give the town a $6.1 million grant to buy eight acres off Marsh Hill Road that was once earmarked for a train station is off the table, as the two could not agree on conditions, including potential affordable housing, according to letters and emails. At a couple of junctures, politics appeared to creep in to the scenario. After the town and state couldnt agree on terms regarding use of the land, the state informed Orange First Selectman Jim Zeoli that funding for the project through an urban act grant had been recycled to other projects at a state Bond Commission meeting. In a previous email to the states representative at the time former OPM secretary Benjamin Barnes Zeoli sent a final offer and ended the email with comments directed at political overtones developing in the situation: I will not subject myself or the Town of Orange to further ridicule in the news papers or other media outlets regarding this Urban Act Grant, Zeoli wrote. I do not operate as a Republican or Democrat in this position as First Selectman, I attempt to represent all residents equally and fairly at all times. The articles each seem to get a little stronger as if I created this deal, which is not the case and will not be subject to the attempts of some to tarnish my or the towns good name. When residents approved the deal at a town meeting several months ago, they were told the state would allow the town to do anything with the land even sell it with the only requirement being an easement on a portion of the property in case the state ever wanted to put a train station there. Many residents who spoke expressed skepticism because the deal, as many said, seemed too good to be true, in part because the amount the state was offering to pay the town to buy it from a developer was way above market value. After the deal was approved at the town meeting, the state tossed conditions Zeolis way and it came to light the property the town would purchase using the grant is owned by Edward M. Crowley of Branford, a major Democratic Party contributor. Malloy administration officials have denied political contributions had anything to do with the deal, in which Crowley would be paid 11 times what he paid for the land three years ago. Town officials learned in negotiations that the state wanted conditions on the grant, including that the town not rezone the property now a Transit Oriented Development District and that if housing eventually were built on part of the land that it would be under the affordable housing act, meaning 10 percent of the units would be set aside for affordable housing under state guidelines. Avoiding the building of affordable housing on the property allowed in the TODD district had been one of the perks for Zeoli in the town getting the property, as he said residents had expressed that desire. The differences in conditions of the land use between the state and town had to do with land-use restrictions. The state maintained the value of the land was determined by the assumption the train station would be built and that the highest and best uses of the property would be transit-oriented. The town was looking for a light industrial use. Of the $6.1 million urban act grant, $5.5 million was allotted to buy the property and the rest was earmarked for attorney fees and other associated costs, including an environmental study. Many at the town meeting agreed the $700,000 per-acre price to be paid was much higher than market value. Zeoli was led by the state at that time to believe the town would be able to sell the property at any price at any time if it were to choose to do so. The area where the property is located off Marsh Hill Road near the Yale West campus is a hotbed of new development there is a hotel being built there and also a mixed-use building. That development was sparked in part by the expectation that a train station would be built there, but that was since nixed from the state budget. You are here: China A man was detained after he took pictures wearing a military uniform with a Nazi symbol at a martyrs' cemetery in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province on December 30, local police announced in a statement on Wednesday. The man, surnamed Li, 18, is a Henan native. He and his colleague, a man surnamed Wu, dressed in Nazi uniforms which Li ordered in his hometown. The pair went to Xiaoshan Martyrs' Cemetery to take pictures at 10pm on Sunday, along with three other colleagues, according to the statement. Li then posted the photos online, which were soon widely spread, causing "bad social influence." Police launched an investigation and caught those involved, including Li, at 5pm on Monday after a netizen revealed their behavior online. Li told police he's a military enthusiast and that he took photos while wearing the uniform "just for fun." He has been detained for "picking a quarrel and making trouble." Further investigation is ongoing. Fallsburg, N.Y. Four members of an extremist Jewish cult have been charged with kidnapping two Hudson Valley children. Nachman Helbrans, Mayer Rosner, Aaron Rosner and Jacob Rosner were charged Friday in federal court with kidnapping a 12-year-old boy and his 14-year-old sister, according to the Hudson Valley Post. The children were living with their mother in Sullivan County. The kidnappers were part of a group known as Lev Tahor, which translates to pure heart in Hebrew, according to The New York Times. Members practice a strict form of Orthodox Judaism and critics have referred to it as a cult, the Times said. Children in the group have been subjected to physical, sexual and emotional abuse, authorities said in a court complaint, according to the Times. The children and their mother previously lived with the group in Guatemala, according to the New York Post. The kids were taken in December and were last seen getting into a vehicle in front of their home. Authorities eventually found the children in a Mexican town with the help of authorities there. Officials are planning to return the children to the United States and reunite them with their mother. The mother of the children, Sara Helbrans, is the sister of one of the kidnappers, Nachman Helbrans, and the daughter of the group's founder, Shlomo Helbrans. Sara decided to leave Lev Tahor and move to New York in October after new leadership took the group in a more extreme direction, according to the Times. The kidnappers were trying to return the children to the Lev Tahor community in Guatemala, the Times said. The men charged in the case face sentences of life in prison if convicted, according to the Hudson Valley Post. Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598 China's booming on-demand services market has created millions of delivery job opportunities for migrant workers from rural areas, whose quick work has become indispensable in urban life. Despite long working hours and intense deadlines, delivery jobs have allowed many to settle in cities and earn a decent salary to support their families, according to two recent reports released by the country's two leading services. In its 2018 Insight Report on Deliverymen released on Friday, Fengniao Deliverywhich is owned by internet giant Alibaba Group and is responsible for its online-to-offline, or O2O, delivery services, including its food catering arm Ele.mesaid 84 percent of its 3 million registered delivery drivers come from rural areas. Meituan, which accounted for 41 percent of China's food delivery market in the first quarter of 2018, compared with Ele.me's 55 percent, released a similar report in May. The report, based on a survey on Meituan's more than 38,000 registered delivery drivers, said more than three-quarters of the company's nearly 2.3 million registered delivery riders have rural origins. While Anhui province tops the hometown list of couriers registered with both companies, Henan and Sichuan provinces are also major sources of the delivery workforce at Meituan. The report from Fengniao shows the average driver to be 29 years old; the report from Meituan said that more than 80 percent of its riders were born in the 1980s and 1990s. Each driver, or rider, delivers 48 orders per day on average, racking up a total distance of 150 kilometers, the reports said. Despite long working hours and intense deadlines at peak hours, the couriers are attracted to the city by the flexible working hours, low entry requirements and relatively high pay. Both reports said most delivery drivers earn 4,000 to 8,000 yuan ($584 to $1,168) per month, outstripping the 2017 average monthly salary of employees in the domestic private sector, which was 3,813 yuan. While males still dominate in the delivery service, more femalesaccounting for around 10 percentare joining in as a part-time job, the reports said. The work attracts well-educated people, too, with both companies saying 16 to 20 percent of their registered deliverymen have a bachelor or associate degree. Unlike the previous generation of migrant workers, these deliverymen tend to settle in a city for many years partly because their service has become embedded in urban life. More than half of Meituan's drivers said they have been living in the city where they currently work for more than nine years. According to Chinese research firm iiMedia Research, instant delivery in the first three quarters of 2018 exceeded 15.3 billion orders, more than double the 6.3 billion in the same period of 2017. Analysts from iiMedia Research believe the demand for instant delivery services will continue to expand. Chen Longjun, from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, has been a deliveryman in Shanghai for more than three years. He's been dubbed "order delivery king" for delivering an average of 100 orders per day. He earns 30,000 yuan per month. Chen, 31, said he works 15 hours per day but still appreciates the job since it helps him afford an 80-square-meter apartment in Jiashan, Zhejiang province. "Good traffic facilities and conditions are the reasons for me to deliver in Shanghai," Chen said. "We bear a lot of burdens when we have fewer orders, especially in harsh weather conditions or during emergencies, but the job allows me to make friends and, more importantly, to improve my economic condition." At 12:33 a.m. EST on New Years Day, NASAs New Horizons spacecraft performed the most distant flyby by any spacecraft ever. The mission was to capture images of Ultima Thule, an icy minor planet in the Kuiper belt, which is believed to date back to the beginning of the solar system. Ultima Thule is a nickname for the world -- its technically classified as 2014 MU69 -- which aptly means distant places beyond the known world. It is 20 miles wide, and based on the photos the spacecraft has transmitted back 4 billion miles to us here on Earth, is kind of shaped like a giant jelly bean or a bowling pin. First image of #UltimaThule! At left is a composite of two images taken by @NASANewHorizons, which provides the best indication of Ultima Thule's size and shape so far (artists impression on right). More photos to come on Jan 2nd! https://t.co/m9ys0VhmLA pic.twitter.com/qZu0KL8uJB Johns Hopkins APL (@JHUAPL) January 1, 2019 New Horizons completed its first mission back in 2015 -- nine years after its launch in 2006 -- when it became the first spacecraft to fly past Pluto. And this successful trip, headed up by a team from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, to Ultima Thule fell on a major space exploration milestone, the week of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 8s historic first orbit of the moon. In The New York Times, Dr. Alan Stern, the planetary scientist at NASA that leads the project, meditated about the significance of both. Related: The 10 Things You Must Do to Achieve Your Goals Ultima Thule is 17,000 times as far away as the giant leap of Apollos lunar missions. The exploration at Ultima Thule is a fitting way to honor the brash exploration and boldness that was Apollo, Stern wrote. Cast an eye upward and think for a moment about the amazing things our country and our species can do when we set our minds to it." As you begin to work on making your 2019 goals a reality, get inspired by New Horizons. Remember that youre not going to be able to do it alone -- Stern noted that it took 2,500 people to design and build Horizons. You might have to play the long game and even then, the first step might not look like much. As project scientist Hal Weaver commented at the press conference following the flyby, "Even though it's a pixelated blob still, it's a better pixelated blob. If you keep going, who knows what you could learn or what could be possible. Related: Take the Energy of NASA's Record-Breaking Mission With You Into 2019 How to Set New Year's Resolutions the Right Way 19 Reasons You Did Not Achieve Any of Your Goals This Year Copyright 2019 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved Motivation influences our needs, desires and actions. It exists on a spectrum from zero interest to an off-the-charts drive to take action. And it often comes naturally. After all, no one needs an extra nudge to flee a burning building. In lower-stakes scenarios, though, procrastination can take over. Should you initiate that tough conversation or hope things blow over in time? What about hitting the gym now versus starting your new wellness program next week? At some point, the pain of not doing it becomes greater than the pain of doing it, Steven Pressfield wrote in "The War of Art." Eventually, it feels worse to avoid your angry coworker than it does to take a deep breath and knock on his or her door to hash out the problem. Related: The Proven, Reasonable and Totally Unsexy Way to Become More Successful Success doesnt necessarily require motivation or ironclad willpower. And you dont need to wake up before sunrise to drink bulletproof coffee, meditate, journal or do headstands before you can bring great ideas to life. Creating systems and habits can remove a fickle internal drive from the equation. When routines do the heavy lifting, it doesn't matter if you feel like tackling a task. You simply need to show up and follow through. Established, efficient processes will not only benefit your business but enhance personal and team productivity. Systems arent exactly a hot topic in startup circles, but they do work. Clear, repeatable routines have fueled my 12-year entrepreneurial journey. I'd be lost without those near-automatic steps, and I continue to refine my habits over time. They've helped me grow my company, JotForm, to 4.2 million users. Two types of motivation. In "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us," Daniel Pink explained motivation's different forms: extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic motivation depends on outward rewards such as money, praise, landing a corner office or winning a 5K race. Intrinsic motivation comes purely from within. If you run that 5K because the movement itself feels good or you experience a sense of personal accomplishment, the medal becomes a shiny afterthought. In his book, Pink suggests that extrinsic motivation -- the carrot on a stick -- is ineffective. He proposes that humans can achieve higher performance and lasting satisfaction by tapping into the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and the world. Yet even intrinsic motivation fades if you overtax it. Starting a business takes grit and determination, but you still might have moments when its difficult to move forward. Maybe you feel afraid or the task is dull. That's precisely the moment when systems can take you over the finish line. Related: 4 Ways to Build Better Habits Three strategies to create reliable systems. 1. Focus only on true priorities. Focus and motivation are remarkably connected. Imagine you have three business priorities this year: expanding your team, developing a social-media marketing strategy and overhauling an important product feature. These priorities should inform everything else you do. If a project or opportunity doesnt match one of these goals, it hits the chopping block. Distractions will slip away and youll be better equipped to make meaningful progress. I reaffirm my priorities by spending my first 30 to 90 minutes at the office doing morning pages. This daily practice begins as stream-of-consciousness writing and inevitably turns into a tangible plan, email or presentation. Its a routine that stimulates creativity and strategic thinking. If I arrive at work feeling foggy, I allow myself to do something else that advances my own focus areas. I can meet with a team member or read about a related topic. My mind soon begins to engage, and the flow of new ideas inspires me to keep going. Before I know it, 90 minutes have passed -- and so has the fog. Motivation flows from focus. Once you get started, a powerful feedback loop almost always kicks in to help you engage, even on days when motivation is in short supply. Related: The Difference Between Being Productive and Being Busy 2. Understand that motivation is optional. Motivation and enthusiasm dont always show up for work when you do. Journalist Melissa Dahl shared some deceptively simple advice in a 2016 piece for The Cut: You dont have to feel like getting something done in order to actually get it done. Her point is surprisingly brilliant. People often think getting motivated means generating inspiration or excitement before starting an activity. But feelings dont need to align with actions. You can lack motivation and still move forward. For example, finishing that presentation deck instead of binge-watching Netflix. Another journalist, Oliver Burkeman, tackled the topic of motivation in his book, "The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking." Who says you need to wait until you feel like doing something in order to start doing it? Burkeman wrote. The problem, from this perspective, isnt that you dont feel motivated; its that you imagine you need to feel motivated. Routines can outsmart feelings because they dont consider your interest level. If you follow the routine, youll engage in the task. It's that simple. Theres no need to take your emotional temperature because it doesnt matter. Results accumulate when you repeat the system without stopping to gauge your feelings. Related: The #1 Secret to Amazing Time and Calendar Management 3. Learn how to delegate. The other day, I had a lightbulb moment during my morning workout. I even asked my trainer if I could drop the kettlebell to jot it down. As I drove to the office, however, I realized my breakthrough had nothing to do with my three priority areas. I really wanted to chase this idea myself, but I asked JotForm's COO to take the reins instead. Clearly, delegation isnt always an option, especially if the business just launched or budgets are tight. Delegating when you're able -- even if it means hiring a consultant or calling in a favor -- can pay real dividends. Tasks are best offloaded to someone else when you can redirect that time, focus or energy to high-level activities only you can carry out. As a founder, your job is to work on the business, not in it. According to author Ray Silverstein, There is a bridge every entrepreneur must cross in order to grow a business beyond a certain point, a point where they must transition from doing to leading. It means stepping back from day-to-day operations and slipping into the role of overseer. Delegation also makes sense when someone else is better equipped for the task. If you hire marketers, designers, developers, managers and researchers for their professional expertise, it's important to lean on those skills. Most companies and products gain complexity as they grow, and theres usually someone who can achieve better results in less time. That enables you to remain focused on your top priorities. Related: 4 Tasks Successful Leaders Should Delegate Remember to enjoy the ride. Routines can override the need for everyday motivation. But how do you maintain drive and focus for the long run? While there's no simple, universal answer, it is true that nearly everyone craves joy and meaning. In 2010, Buddhist teacher Susan Piver wrote a fascinating blog post about her battles with personal motivation. After struggling to meet daily goals and cursing a lack of discipline, she decided to try a new approach. She stopped putting motivation behind the wheel and focused instead on the pleasure of her work. Once I remembered that my motivation is rooted in genuine curiosity and my tasks are in complete alignment with who I am and want to be, Piver wrote, my office suddenly seemed like a playground rather than a labor camp. She slashed her aggressive schedule and prioritized work activities that sounded fun. Piver soon realized that her days looked much the same, but the experience felt almost effortless. Related: How to Disrupt the Way You Talk to the Person in the Mirror Unfortunately, you cant eliminate all forms of daily drudgery. Someone has to scoop the cat litter and pay the bills. But I suggest that instead of being disciplined about hating on yourself to get things done, Piver wrote, try being disciplined about remaining close to what brings you joy. Prioritizing the pleasure of work is an interesting perspective shift. There may certainly be times when joy isnt easy to access. But if your intrinsic motivation aligns with your external path, its a power source you can mine to great effect. Focus on what matters, create systems to support your mission, and motivation soon will fall into step alongside you. Related: Motivation Is Not Really Required to Succeed How Individual Motivational Guest Speakers Can Educate You in 2019 Lessons From the NBA Greats on Motivation Copyright 2019 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved STAMFORD Incoming Gov. Ned Lamont worked hard to bring Infosys to Hartford; outgoing Gov. Dannel Malloy helped. They celebrated earlier this month when the technology services giant, based in India, opened its third U.S. hub in the capitol city, promising 1,000 jobs and partnerships with colleges to hire and train new graduates. The regional tech center is one of the biggest development deals of Malloys two-term tenure, and an early symbol of success for Lamont. Taxpayers will give Infosys $12 million in state grants plus $2 million to spend on training. There is talk that Infosys may open an office in Stamford. But, as the governors lauded news of the global companys expansion in Connecticut, alarms sounded for tech workers John Robert and Craig DiAngelo, so much so that they formed a group, the Connecticut Tech Worker Coalition, and now plan a Jan. 26 protest in Hartford. Visa vice Infosys is bad for American tech workers and has a history of manipulating the nations visa programs to displace them, said Robert, a programmer at a Stamford software company. In 2013, the federal government fined Infosys $34 million for fraud and abuse of the visa system, and Infosys has been on the receiving end of countless civil suits where they were charged with discriminating against American workers, Robert said. Our group is part of a national movement to call attention to this. The Justice Department alleged that Infosys sent people to work in the United States without the proper visas and tried to deceive government officials about the purpose of the visits. The government charged that Infosys used B-1 visas to circumvent the requirements of the strictly regulated H-1B visa program, which allows companies to bring in foreign workers for up to six years to fill high-skill jobs employers say cannot be filled by American workers. A B-1 visa allows foreign workers into the country only to attend meetings and conferences, not stay and work. The government alleged that Infosys fraudulently used B-1 visitors as if they were H-1B workers. Low-cost labor The reason is money, said DiAngelo, who was one of 220 Eversource employees replaced when the Connecticut utility hired Infosys in 2013. The people they sent over from India earned less than half what we earned, with no benefits, no health insurance, no paid vacation, said DiAngelo, who now works for a tech consulting company. Some of the Indian guys worked 12-, 13-, 14-hour days. Sometimes they wouldnt get paid for weeks. Many of them lived five or six together in one apartment. So not only are American IT workers getting hurt by this, many Indian IT workers are abused. Most of the Indian workers came over on H-1B visas, meaning they were supposed to have skills American workers do not. That wasnt the case, DiAngelo said. As a condition of getting our severance pay, we had to train our replacements. I had to train 10 people in India via a web session every day for weeks, he said. Most of them were kids. They had no clue about what I was telling them. All I did was repeat myself. (Eversource) realized that the people in India were not competent to take our places, so they gave us 10 more weeks of severance to stay and do more training. The repercussions continue, DiAngelo said. Many of my former co-workers are still out of work. One has a double masters degree and is working in a supermarket, he said. With all these H-1B visas, there are not enough jobs, and the base salary for IT workers in this country has declined. Headed here? Robert said he doesnt doubt the talk that Infosys has its eye on Stamford. Theyre licking their chops to come to Stamford, where a lot of corporations have their headquarters or have big operations, he said. DiAngelo said Infosys crews already service Stamford companies. I know there are a lot of people working in the Stamford area on H-1Bs, he said. Michael Pollard, chief of staff for Stamford Mayor David Martin, said he has not heard anything about an Infosys move here. The company would have talked to the state, not the city, about any possible expansion plans, Pollard said. DiAngelo and Robert hope the Jan. 26 protest pressures Lamont, who becomes governor Jan. 9, to respond to their concerns. Did they make it a condition of Infosys getting the $14 million that they hire 1,000 American citizens? Robert said. If they didnt require that, then they are incentivizing these guys to come in and put people out of work. It would be state-sponsored job destruction. Aiding Americans Requests for comment from Lamonts transition team were not returned Friday. A spokeswoman for Malloy said the state Department of Economic and Community Development, not the governors office, enters into agreements such as the one with Infosys. In an email, a DECD spokesman said the grant money will only be dispersed after certain job-creation milestones are met Further, while (the hired employees) do not have to be American-born, they must be American citizens. The deal contains assurances about employment obligations and salaries, the spokesman wrote. While we cannot go into specifics, the 1,000 jobs created in Connecticut will be good-paying jobs. The state will audit Infosys two years after the hires are complete to ensure compliance, he said. In an emailed statement, a spokesman for Infosys said, Infosys is committed to hiring 1,000 American workers in Connecticut by 2023 as part of its ongoing commitment to accelerate innovation for American business. On Dec. 5, we announced that we have hired more than 7,000 American workers in the last 18 months as part of our commitment to hire 10,000 American workers by 2019. Besides Hartford, Infosys is building a tech hub in Providence, R.I. The company opened its flagship center in Indianapolis in March, and in August opened another in Raleigh, N.C., all with the promise to hire American workers. Trump tension In October, The New York Times reported that 80 percent of Infosyss 200,000 employees are in India. One-tenth of that number about 20,000 employees are in the United States, where most are working on H-1B visas. Though most of its employees are in India, the company earns 60 percent of its revenue in North America, mainly in the United States, the Times reported. Critics say Infosys is hiring Americans now to avoid repercussions from President Donald Trumps America first policy. Company officials have denied it. But Infosys is far from the only outsourcer manipulating the U.S. visa system, said Kevin Lynn, executive director of Progressives for Immigration Reform and founder of U.S. Tech Workers, which pressures the federal government for visa reform. Abuse of the visa system means job insecurity and suppression of wages. Its happening with tech workers, accountants, in law and other professions all over the country, Lynn said. Its become a racket. Its hurting the middle class, and the federal government has to get involved. Hiring hype? Lynn said he doesnt believe Infosys will change its business model. I think its propaganda, he said. I read very recently that India Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi said he wants all this data handled by companies like Infosys, one of their biggest, to reside in India. In 2017, four years after Infosys paid the federal government $34 million and agreed to stop visa abuse, the company paid New York state $1 million to settle similar allegations. DiAngelo said he doesnt think Infosys will alter the corporate culture. Its just a promise, DiAngelo said. They can always come back and say, We couldnt find enough skilled American workers. Robert said its difficult to envision a shift when big profits the Times reported worldwide revenue of $11 billion for Infosys last year are at stake. If they change, they might not still be profitable, he said. If they dont change, pink slips will start flying wherever they show up. acarella@stamfordadvocate.com; 203-964-2296. State Rep. Kurt Vail has tried without success in the past to get his colleagues to pass legislation that would keep Connecticut on daylight saving time. This year, hes trying a new approach. The Republican legislator from Stafford Springs has added a caveat to his draft language in a proposed bill when the General Assembly opens on Wednesday. It calls for Connecticut general statutes to be amended to require that once the states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island adopt Atlantic standard time, the governor of this (Connecticut) state apply to the United States Secretary of Transportation to change the standard of time for this (Connecticut) state to Atlantic standard time. Massachusetts and Rhode Island also have been studying the issue for years but have not yet passed legislation. Attempts by proponents have been made in New Hampshire and Vermont. Vail has tried and failed more than once with his initiative. Its gotten as far as public hearings but its never been voted out of committee. Farmers and businesses have supported the notion of keeping the additional hour of daylight in the afternoon. They get more production in the afternoon sunlight than the morning sunlight, Vail said of the businesses. There are two common objections to the idea. The first is that schoolchildren would be waiting for the bus in the dark before sunrise. Thats because the extra hour of daylight would come at the end, instead of the beginning of the day. In Massachusetts, the Special Commission on the Commonwealths Time Zone suggested that the impact could be mitigated by delaying school start times, which is a cost-effective way to alleviate safety concerns as well as improve students physical and mental health, attendance and graduation rates, tardiness and dropout rates, and grades and standardized test scores. The second complaint is that surrounding states would be on a different schedule. Thats where this years language comes into play, should other New England states move to adopt year-round daylight saving time. Vail points to science to back up his argument, citing increases in both heart attacks and motor vehicle accidents the week after the clock changes in March and in November. A 2014 study in the journal Open Heart found an increase in heart attacks on the Monday following the switch to daylight saving time in the spring. A 2001 study in the Sleep Journal found an increase in motor vehicle accidents on the Monday following the spring shift and the Sunday night before the fall shift. Daylight saving time was introduced during World War I and then abandoned until Congress passed the Uniform Time Act in 1966, which established daylight saving time from the last Sunday in April until the last Sunday in October. The dates have been amended several times. The current dates for springing forward and falling back are the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November, respectively. Those dates have been in place since 2007. Other proposed legislation that has been submitted includes some familiar topics. One proposed by a multitude of legislators from both chambers eliminates the requirement for the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to approve the operation of a casino gaming facility in East Windsor. The legislation would be a response to a recent federal judges ruling that the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan Tribal Nations plans for an East Windsor casino have no legal standing to compel the Department of Interior to accept revisions to the existing gambling pact they have with the state. Connecticuts authorization of the East Windsor casino in 2017 was contingent on Interior accepting the revisions as a means to guarantee the new project would not jeopardize the states current revenue-sharing deal with the two tribal casinos. The ruling approved the federal governments motion to dismiss the lawsuit by Connecticut and the tribe, and granted MGM, which just opened a casino in Springfield, Mass., the right to intervene if the state and tribe appeal the decision. Other proposed bills that may hit legislative committees include: eliminating the business entity tax; eliminating the estate and gift taxes; eliminating the limits on taxpayers federal adjusted gross income for Social Security benefits to be exempted from the personal income tax and limits on pension exemptions from personal income tax; granting tax credits to businesses that provide paid family and medical leave for employees; establishing a task force to increase employment opportunities for people recovering from substance abuse issues. In addition, state Rep. Charles Stallworth, D-Bridgeport, has proposed legislation to restrict the use of exotic and wild animals in circuses and traveling performances. State Rep. Bobby Gibson, D-Bloomfield, has proposed legislation to ensure that African-American studies be included in Social Studies curricula. There are also proposals drafted to create all-terrain vehicle trails on state lands, and to allow the sales of beer and wine at cideries. House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz and Majority Leader Matt Ritter unveiled new leadership assignments Thursday for the 2019 General Assembly session, including new co-chairs for 11 of the 27 committees. And while several of the most prominent committees will have the same House co-chairs, some panels with new leadership include Education, Energy and Technology, Housing, Judiciary, Planning and Development, and Transportation. The new assignments take effect on Jan. 9, when the new legislative session begins. This is a great time of opportunity for our state, and the leadership team we have put together is committed to working to develop policies that help improve the quality of life for everyone in our state, Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, said. House Democrats represent diverse communities from all corners of our state, and with more than a quarter of our members entering their first term in the legislature we have a great combination of fresh faces to go along with the experience necessary to make positive change. Democrats gained 12 seats in the House in last Novembers elections, increasing their advantage over the GOP in the chamber from 80-71 to 92-59. Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, will take over as co-chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee, replacing Rep. William Tong, D-Stamford. Tong did not seek re-election this fall, instead winning his first term as state attorney general. All legislative committees are joint panels, meaning they have both representatives and senators among their members and feature a co-chairman from each chamber. Democrats also will hold a majority in the Senate, where leaders announced their committee assignments last month. Leadership of the Transportation Committee will pass from Rep. Tony Guerrera, D-Rocky Hill, to Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven. Guerrera, who gave up his seat, lost the Democratic primary in the 9th District to Rep. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown. The transportation panel is expected this year to again debate whether Connecticut should establish electronic tolling on its highways. Rep. Cristin McCarthy Vahey, D-Fairfield, will succeed Lemar as House chair of the Planning and Development Committee. New Britain Democrat Bobby Sanchez will replace Andrew Fleischmann of West Hartford as House chair of the Education Committee. Fleischmann was defeated in a primary by West Hartford Democrat Jillian Gilchrest, former director of health professional outreach at the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence. And Rep. Brandon McGee, D-Hartford, will succeed Rep. Larry Butler, D-Waterbury, as leader of the Housing Committee. Other new committee leaders appointed Thursday include: Rep. Ezequiel Santiago, D-Bridgeport, Banking; Rep. Liz Linehan, D-Cheshire, Children; Rep. Daniel Arconti, D-Danbury, Energy and Technology; Rep. Kim Rose, D-Milford, Internship; Rep. Susan Johnson, D-Windham, Regulation Review; Rep. Dorinda Borer, West Haven, Veterans Affairs. Several major committees will face no change in House Democratic leadership. Reps. Toni Walker of New Haven and Jason Rojas of East Hartford again will lead the two major budget-writing panels, the Appropriations Committee and Finance Revenue and Bonding Committee, respectively. Nonpartisan analysts say state finances, unless adjusted, are on pace to run $1.7 billion, or 10 percent, in deficit in the upcoming fiscal year. New Haven Democrat Robyn Porter remains House chair of the Labor and Public Employees Committee, which likely will debate a potential increase in Connecticuts minimum wage. BETHEL As the family of the Bethel woman slain in Bridgeport grieves, the community is rallying around her loved ones. A GoFundMe page has been set up to benefit the family of Emily Todd, a 25-year-old who was shot to death near a Bridgeport boat ramp last month. Losing any loved one to sudden death is obviously devastating, friends of the family wrote in a post. Losing someone to murder is about as traumatic as it gets. Your life is turned upside-down in a way that is, all at once, overwhelming, baffling, senseless, unmanageable, anger-provoking, gut-wrenching, and painful beyond words. Thats just the emotional part and it is deep. But friends said the family is facing financial burdens, as well. Todds mother and step-father are self-employed, but need to take time off work to heal and take care of their 8-year-old son, the friends said. The family also has Todds car lease payment to worry about, on top of other expenses. Almost $4,450 of the $20,000 goal have been raised, as of 1 p.m. Thursday. In a message on the GoFundMe, the family thanked the community for its support. This is who Bethel is, the post said. Its the community that we were raised in and the community that we so proudly call our home. Todd graduated from Bethel High School in 2011 and worked on the memory care unit at Saint John Paul II Center, a senior living facility in Danbury. Her friends and colleagues have described her as compassionate. Donations can also be made in Todds honor to the Avielle Foundation, an organization formed after the Sandy Hook tragedy that aims to prevent violence. As a child, Emily showed a level of empathy that was mature beyond her years, wrote Nick Hoffman, a friend of Todds mother and development director for the foundation. She cared deeply for all living beings and sought ways to shine a light on all who crossed her path. Emily loved looking out at the ocean with all its might and beauty and connecting with the rhythmic crash of the waves meeting the shore. Emily was passionate about art; she turned this passion into her superpower. Todd had a degree in expressive arts therapy and often did art projects with the seniors at Saint John Paul II Center. The Avielle Foundation uses brain research, community engagement and education to build compassion to put an end to violence. We can ensure Emilys legacy is one of lasting change, taking on violence as a public health epidemic that can be studied, intervened and cured and embracing compassion as a protective factor to diffuse the disease of violence before it can spread, Hoffman said. Todds accused killer, Brandon Roberts, was in court earlier this week after being extradited from Ohio. The Ansonia High School graduate has been charged with murder, felony murder, first-degree robbery, using a firearm in the commission of a felony and carrying a pistol without a permit. On the last day of 2018, UNICEF released a prediction that China would welcome 44,940 babies into the world on New Year's Day, accounting for just over 1 in 10 births worldwide on January 1. According to UNICEF's prediction, over half of the world's New Year's Day newborns were expected to arrive in eight countries: India, China, Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia, the United States, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Bangladesh. To meet every newborn's right to survive and live with good health, UNICEF has been implementing its "Every Child Alive" campaign, which calls for immediate investment to deliver affordable, quality health care for every mother and every newborn. To achieve this goal, UNICEF has partnered with national governments on work to reduce the infant mortality rate. "China has made enormous progress on reducing the number of mothers and children dying, by increasing access to high-quality primary health care across the country," said Dr. Douglas Noble, the UNICEF deputy representative to China. He added that "UNICEF has worked, and will continue to work, in partnership with the Government of China to ensure every birth occurs with skilled birth attendance, ending preventable newborn deaths and stillbirths and making sure no child dies from a preventable cause." New Delhi: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he is looking forward to meeting the new leadership in Pakistan and wants to have great relationship with the country. Trump told his Cabinet colleagues in the same meeting that he has ended USD 1.3 billion in aid to Pakistan because "this South Asian country houses enemies". The US President underscored that his administration has initiated peace talks with the Taliban. He also announced that a meeting with the new leadership of Pakistan will take place "very soon". Earlier, Donald Trump had accused Pakistan of not doing "a damn thing for us" and defended his administration's decision to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Islamabad. ALSO READ | Syria: 19 killed in clashes between militants and rebels in Idlib South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, who is considered close to President Trump, had told CNN in an interview that if Pakistan helped the US in bringing the Taliban to the table for negotiations, then the US would focus on counterterrorism and the IS. The Republican Senator wants the US to offer Pakistan a free trade agreement as an incentive for Islamabad to push the Taliban to the peace table to end the Afghan war. Trump alleged that Pakistan has not been fair to the United States. "We want to have a great relationship with Pakistan, but they house the enemy. They take care of the enemy. We just can't do that," Trump said. "So, I look forward to meeting with the new leadership in Pakistan. We will be doing that in the not too distant future. But I ended USD 1.3 billion that we paid. I think it was water, we were just paying to Pakistan. So, I ended that." Trump had slashed nearly US Dollar 800 million in military assistance to Pakistan this year, saying it has not done enough to eliminate safe havens for the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network within its borders. Trump earlier in 2018 wrote on Twitter that the "United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools." ALSO READ | After 600 tanks, China to provide 4 naval warships to Pakistan Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had met Prime Minister Imran Khan in Islamabad in September last year and pressed him to take "sustained and decisive measures" against terrorists threatening the regional peace and stability. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: At least 50 people were killed on Wednesday in clashes between jihadists and rebels in northern Syria. Clashes flared Tuesday between Al-Qaeda-linked coalition Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and an alliance of rebel groups in western Aleppo province. On Wednesday the fighting spread to the neighbouring province of Idlib, the country's last opposition bastion, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Al-Qaeda-linked coalition Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) had on Monday accused rebel group Nureddine al-Zinki of killing five of its fighters, and launched an offensive against rebel positions close to the country's last opposition bastion in the north western province of Idlib. Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britain-based Observatory, said 12 HTS fighters and five from the Zinki group had been killed, along with two civilians. A further 35 people were wounded, he said. ALSO READ | Donald Trump mocks PM Modi for library in Afghanistan Nureddine al-Zinki is a major player in the National Liberation Front (NLF), a Turkish-backed rebel alliance. Abdel Rahman said Wednesday that other NLF factions had now joined the fighting, while the jihadists had advanced into seven areas. Those killed include 24 HTS jihadists and 19 Nureddine al-Zinki fighters, the war monitor said. Earlier, Last week, Trump surprised the world and his country as well when he suddenly announced that the US is pulling out its troops from Syria. "In Syria, Erdogan said he wants to knock out ISIS, whatever's left, the remnants of ISIS. And Saudi Arabia just came out and said they are going to pay for some economic development. Which is great, that means we don't have to pay. We are spread out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven't even heard about. Frankly, it's ridiculous," Trump added. Trump's sudden decision sparked turmoil in his administration, prompting the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, as well as of Brett McGurk, the special envoy to the anti-IS coalition. Brett McGurk, the US envoy to the global coalition fighting the Islamic State group, resigned in protest over President Donald Trump's abrupt decision to withdraw US troops from Syria, a US official said, joining Defence Secretary Jim Mattis in an administration exodus of experienced national security figures. ALSO READ | Looking forward to meet new Pakistan leadership, says Donald Trump McGurk had said it would be "reckless" to consider IS defeated and therefore would be unwise to bring American forces home. McGurk decided to speed up his original plan to leave his post in mid-February. Appointed to the post by President Barack Obama in 2015 and retained by Trump, McGurk said in his resignation letter that the militants were on the run, but not yet defeated, and that the premature pullout of American forces from Syria would create the conditions that gave rise to IS. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday said that he wants the regional countries, including India, Russia and Pakistan to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. US President also referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan, wondering who would use it in that country. Trump brought up India's aid during a rambling press appearance at a Cabinet meeting as he defended his push for the United States to invest less overseas. While stating that he got along with Modi, Trump said the Indian leader was "constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan." "You know what that is? That's like five hours of what we spend," Trump said. "And we're supposed to say, 'Oh, thank you for the library.' I don't know who's using it in Afghanistan," Voice of America quoted Trump as saying. ALSO READ | Looking forward to meet new Pakistan leadership, says Donald Trump The US President cited India's efforts towards peace and development in Afghanistan but alleged that the countries were not doing enough in the war-ravaged country and that they were taking advantage of the United States. "Why is not Russia there (in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban)? Why isn't India there? Why isn't Pakistan there? Why are we (US) there? We are 6,000 miles away. But I don't mind. We want to help our people. We want to help other nations," Trump told reporters in response to a question during the Cabinet meeting. Asserting that the Afghan war costs billions of dollars to the US, Trump said, "I want people to treat us fairly". He noted that heads of countries have told him that they are involved in the peace process by "just sending some 100 or 200 soldiers". Earlier, South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, who is considered close to President Trump, had told CNN in an interview that if Pakistan helped the US in bringing the Taliban to the table for negotiations, then the US would focus on counterterrorism and the IS. The Republican Senator wants the US to offer Pakistan a free trade agreement as an incentive for Islamabad to push the Taliban to the peace table to end the Afghan war. The US President referred to his friendly terms with Prime Minister Modi, but appeared critical of a library funded by India in Afghanistan. "I could give you an example where I get along very well with India and Prime Minister Modi. But he is constantly telling me, he built a library in Afghanistan. Library! That's like five hours of what we spend (in Afghanistan)," Trump told his cabinet colleagues. "And he (Modi) tells me. He is very smart. We are supposed to say, oh thank you for the library. Don't know who's using it (the library) in Afghanistan. But it's one of those things. I don't like being taken advantage of," he said. Trump drew a comparison between the expenses being borne by the US and other countries in the Afghan peace efforts. "What other countries have done for the last long period of time is given us some soldiers and then talk about it like it's the end of the world. And we are subsidizing their military is by billions and billions and billions of dollars, many, many, many times, what those soldiers cost that country," the US President said. Responding to a question, he said he wants India to be involved in Afghanistan. Asked if India's role in Afghanistan was going to be security related, Trump said: "We are going to be doing something that is right. We are talking to the Taliban. We are talking to a lot of different people." "But here's the thing, because you mentioned India. India is there. Russia is there. Russia used to be Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan. Russia. So, you tend to look at other countries. Pakistan is there. They should be fighting. But Russia should be fighting," he said. ALSO READ | After 600 tanks, China to provide 4 naval warships to Pakistan "The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was that terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there. The problem is it was a tough fight and literally they (Russia) went bankrupt," Trump said. Trump had slashed nearly US Dollar 800 million in military assistance to Pakistan last year, saying it has not done enough to eliminate safe havens for the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network within its borders. Trump earlier in 2018 wrote on Twitter that the "United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools." For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: In a first for the mankind, a Chinese space probe landed on the dark side of the moon, the official Xinhua news agency reported. This mission is seen significant as China pushes forward its space programme. The probe, Chang'e-4, entered a planned orbit on Sunday "to prepare for the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon", the news agency said, citing the China National Space Administration. China launched the Chang'e-4 probe earlier this month, carried by a Long March-3B rocket. It includes a lander and a rover to explore the surface of the moon. China aims to catch up with Russia and the United States to become a major space power by 2030. It is planning to launch construction of its own manned space station next year. Xinhua said that the probe had entered an elliptical lunar orbit at 08.55 Beijing time, which brought it at its closest point just 15 kilometres away from the surface of the moon. The Chang'e-4 first entered a lunar orbit on December 12. Earlier, China planned to establish a robot station on the moon to conduct bigger and more complicated experimental research on lunar geography. The station could slash the costs of returning rock samples to Earth, Jiao Weixin, a Peking University space science professor had said. China's ambitious space programme included several manned missions, building a permanent space station and reaching to Mars. In support of the lunar landing programme, China will launch a carrier rocket with a 100-ton-plus payload for the first time by about 2030, the report quoted a report of the symposium published on the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the central cabinet. China's first Mars probe is scheduled to be launched on a Long March 5 by 2020 from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site, South China's Hainan Province. The probe will hopefully orbit, land and deploy a rover on the Red Planet, the report said. For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Newlywed couples asking guests not to give any present or donating the gifts for social cause may be common in India but it was utterly surprising when the parents of a bridegroom requested people to cast votes for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections 2019 as part of their wedding gifts. "Our gift is your vote for Modi in 2019 Lok Sabha elections," the invitation card reads. The invite was for a wedding which was held on December 31, 2018. Read | Moushumi Chatterjee, veteran actress and Congress member, joins BJP ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha polls However, this is not the only wedding card which has gone viral on social networking sites. Another die-hard fan of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Mangalore also made a similar appeal to his guests. Some of the wedding cards also feature the list of achievements by the Narendra Modi government over the last five years. @narendramodi Sir. With my wedding invitation card, I am trying to explains the lot of achievement, schemes by Modi Govt. & Urging all invitees get the use. Hand to hand helping them to get the max.benefit . I believe "We have to take care of Modi, Modi will take care of nation. pic.twitter.com/tZcgdX7uUw Bhushan Branson (@mf5245pd) January 3, 2019 Read | Watch: Viral video of pregnant woman dancing with doctor before C-section Earlier, Modi took to Twitter to share one such incident where one of his supporters put the Swachh Bharat logo on wedding cards. The incidents came on the heels of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s massive defeat in recently concluded Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram. 2018 Assembly polls are considered to be the semi-final battle in the run-up of 2019 general elections due by May. However, PM Modi's popularity has increased by leaps and bounds over the last few years and supporters are leaving no stone unturned to make him return to power in 2019. For all the Latest Offbeat News News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: What if the moment youve waited for all your life, ends in an embarrassing disaster? One such incident happened on the stage of Miss Africa 2018 pageant. Miss Congo 2018 Dorcas Kasinde's hair caught fire while she was being crowned as Miss Africa 2018 on stage on Thursday night during the crowning ceremony in Cross River State in Nigeria. Kasinde was announced as the winner on December 27 and as she stepped forward to wear the crown, her wig burst into flames, presumably from a spark of the fireworks. This shocking incident turned into an advantage to her popularity as she became an internet sensation in no time. The beauty queen set the stage on fire, literally. Or maybe, just her own hair! Take a look at the video here: Miss Congo, Kasinde's hair caught on fire after she was crowned Miss Africa 2018 on stage. pic.twitter.com/6VxXGD58S5 Africa Facts Zone (@AfricaFactsZone) December 28, 2018 After being crowned, Kasinde was seen crying overwhelmed after winning the title when her afro wig began to light up. A man quickly jumped into action to help put out the fire. The 24-year-old beauty queen was checked by medics after the incident and was found not to have suffered any injuries. All hail a new Queen! Congo's Dorcas Kasinde was crowned #MissAfrica2018Calabar last night. Join us in continuing to wish her well. pic.twitter.com/nMdvrP7Gh6 Miss Africa (@MissAfrica_2018) December 28, 2018 The beauty queen later thanked her fans for all their support and says she is happy to be the new Miss Africa 2019 Calabar. For all the Latest Offbeat News News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. China will introduce measures to upgrade its comprehensive bonded zones in line with advanced international standards to promote trade and investment facilitation, sustain steady growth in foreign trade and investment, and nurture new competitive advantages, the State Council's executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang decided on Wednesday. The Chinese government places high importance on the development of the comprehensive bonded zones and other forms of special customs supervision areas. Premier Li Keqiang repeatedly called for efforts to expand and upgrade opening-up, substantively enhance trade facilitation and improve the business climate for overseas investors. In the first three quarters of 2018, the imports and exports in China's special customs supervision areas, comprehensive bonded zones included, reached 3.668 trillion yuan (535 billion U.S. dollars), up by 11.8 percent year-on-year and accounting for 16.5 percent of the country's total foreign trade in the same period. These special areas have also attracted investment from many leading global manufacturers and created over two million jobs. "The comprehensive bonded zones have served as a window in China's opening-up. Their special and important role in sustaining the steady growth of foreign trade and investment must be fully harnessed. We should also encourage these zones to actively expand the domestic market," Li said. The Wednesday meeting decided on a number of supportive measures for these zones. More efforts will be made to facilitate the domestic sales by companies in the zones. The general taxpayer status of VAT will be piloted in the comprehensive bonded zones. Processing and manufacturing companies in the zones will be permitted to undertake outsourced processing businesses from outside the zones of the mainland market. No application for the automatic import license will be required for the selling of products made in the zones, such as cell phones and auto parts, on the domestic market. Meanwhile, research and development (R&D), and innovation will be spurred. All goods and items that companies in the zones import for R&D purposes will be exempted from import licensing, except for those prohibited for border entry. The bonded and other policies will be employed in a holistic way to support the R&D and innovation institutions in the zones. Newly established R&D and processing companies in the zones, once evaluated as having met relevant standards, will immediately be granted the highest credit rating. Logistics will also be facilitated. In the course of corporate production and operation, any eligible item entering the comprehensive bonded zones and the bonded goods in transfer from one zone to another will be exempted from customs clearance procedures. The comprehensive bonded zones in ports that allow whole-vehicle import will be permitted to undertake bonded storage, display and other businesses. New forms of business will be developed. Companies in the zones will be allowed to undertake high-tech, high-value-added bonded test, global maintenance and re-manufacturing businesses that meet environmental requirements. International services outsourcing will be supported to boost cross-border trade in services. The policies for retail imports under cross-border e-commerce will be fully adopted in the comprehensive bonded zones in due course. Qualified comprehensive bonded zones will receive support to conduct bonded futures delivery. The comprehensive bonded zones will be supported in taking the lead in applying the experience gained in the pilot free trade zones to realize the integrated upgrading of all special customs supervision areas. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday reprimanded Meghalaya government over tardy rescue operations for the 15 miners trapped inside a 370-feet rat-hole coal pit in East Jaintia since December 13 last year. Hearing an urgent plea, the top court expressed its dissatisfaction over the rescue efforts. Rebuking the state government, the Supreme Court said that "dead or alive, they (the miners) should be taken out." The top court also questioned the government and asked as to what steps have the authorities taken to rescue the miners. Meanwhile, divers of Indian Navy and rescuers from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) on Monday reached the bottom of the mine, as per some reports. "Divers of the Indian Navy have entered the main shaft of the coal mine to survey the bottom of the sheet using underwater remotely operated vehicle (UWROV)," R Susgni, spokesperson of the rescue operations, said. The rescue operation, to save 15 miners who have been trapped in a rat-hole mine in Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya East for the last 19 days, was resumed on Monday morning. Also Read | Meghalaya Mining Disaster: On day 17, no clue of survivors in East Jaintia, only 3 helmets recovered Susgni said that they have requested the East Jaintia Hills district authorities to assist in dewatering the 370-feet-coal pit to 30 meters or within the safe diving limit so that the divers can resume diving. Odisha fire services are also dewatering at least three abandoned mines where 15 trapped miners are trapped. Also Read | No clue of 13 people trapped in Meghalaya rat-hole mine, scuba divers called in to search More than 200 rescuers, including 72 NDRF rescuers, 14 members of the Indian Navy, 21 Odisha firefighters, 35 Coal India Limited (CIL) officials along with a team of Meghalaya-owned State Disaster Response Force are deployed to carry out the operations. The miners have been trapped in the mine in the Ksan area of Lumthari village in Meghalaya's East Jaintia Hills district since December 13, after water from the nearby Lytein river gushed into it. General Manager of Coal India Limited (Northeastern Coalfields) J. Borah said two more pumps will be reaching the site with the auxiliary pipes and other materials which are not available in Jaintia Hills or Shillong. Meanwhile, Congress women workers stage a token protest against the Conrad Sangma-led government for the slow process' in rescuing the trapped miners. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Jaipur: Swine flu has made a comeback in Rajasthan with 88 people tested positive for the disease and 3 persons succumbing to the disease since the beginning of the New Year. People from Ajmer, Tonk, Jodhpur, Pali, Jaisalmer, Barmer, Kota, Udaipur have been diagnosed positive for the disease. According to reports, two doctors of Sawai Man Singh Hospital have also been tested positive. Considering the gravity of the situation, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has directed health department officials to check the spread of swine flu in the state with special focus on Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kota, Udaipur, and Baran districts. These five districts have seen a sharp rise in the number of swine flu cases in recent months. The chief minister was apprised on the preparedness of the administration to curb the spread of swine flu. The principal of state-run SMS Hospital Sudhir Bhandari told him that every measure has been taken to curb it in Jaipur. Gehlot has directed a team of the state-run Hospital to visit other medical colleges and hospitals in the state and coordinate with the health department staff to curb the spread of the disease. He asked officials to ensure availability of required medicines at all hospitals and Primary Health Centres. As per the data available with the medical and health department, a total of 22,172 people in the state were tested for swine flu from January 1 to December 28. Out of them, 2,315 were diagnosed positive and 218 died. Meanwhile, State Medical and Health Minister Raghu Sharma has directed staff at control rooms to remain alert and work in an effective manner. To review the preventive measures taken up by the state, a video conference meeting will be held on Monday. Principals of medical colleges, superintendents of hospital and officers at the district and block-level will attend the meeting. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Shatrughan Sinha has launched an all-out attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his 'well scripted and choreographed' interview on the first day of 2019. The actor-turned-politician not only criticised the prime minister for one-to-one interaction with the editor of news agency ANI, but he also gave a piece of advice to him. The parliamentarian from Patna Sahib said it is the right time for PM Modi to hold a press conference like his predecessors and take 'candid extempore questions'. Sir, we all saw your well scripted, choreographed, well researched & rehearsed TV interview on Monday evening. With due respect to the anchor, wonder lady, Smita Prakash @smitaprakash, isn't it high time & the right time to enhance your image as an able & capable leader taking Shatrughan Sinha (@ShatruganSinha) January 3, 2019 "Sir, we all saw your well scripted, choreographed, well researched and rehearsed TV interview on Monday evening. With due respect to the anchor, wonder lady, Smita Prakash, isn't it high time and the right time to enhance your image as an able and capable leader taking candid extempore questions?" Sinha said. Sinha, who has been a vocal critic of the PM, also questioned him for not holding a single press conference in the last four and a half years. "We know you don't want to face them but at least have the courage to answer questions from the tall statesman Yashwant Sinha and learned journalist Arun Shourie," he said. "Let's have genuine journalists without the 'Sarkari' (government) mindset and not your regular 'Raag Darbari' (King's court) clan," he added. Are you uncomfortable to face/take on TV anchor, journalist Ravish Kumar @ravishndtv & consulting editor, The Wire, Vinod Dua @VinodDua7? Why are different people leaving us despite 'Sab ka Saath Sab ka Vikas', 'Ram Janam Bhoomi' etc.? Let's come clean in the New Year, being Shatrughan Sinha (@ShatruganSinha) January 3, 2019 The veteran actor also questioned PM Modi over the allies leaving the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) fold despite him claiming 'Sab ka Saath Sab ka Vikas'. "Why are different people leaving us despite 'Sab ka Saath Sab ka Vikas', 'Ram Janam Bhoomi' etc.?" he said, adding, "Let's come clean in the New Year, being bold, honest and transparent without dramatic effects." bold, honest & transparent without dramatic effects. I very humbly suggest as a friend, colleague & brother this food for thought. Accept it, good for you & the nation, but if you reject it then may God Bless us. Elections are around the corner,Sir. Long Live Democracy! Jai Hind! Shatrughan Sinha (@ShatruganSinha) January 3, 2019 "As a friend, colleague and brother this food for thought. Accept it, good for you and the nation, but if you reject it then may God Bless us. Elections are around the corner, Sir. Long Live Democracy," he tweeted. Earlier, Sinha had praised RJD chief Lalu Prasads son Tejeshwi Yadav calling him Bihar's face and its future. "Tejeshwi is a very good and talented boy. I believe he is the face of Bihar and its future," he had said. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Bindu and Kanakdurga, two women who successfully managed to enter the Lord Ayyappa Temple in Keralas Sabarimala, have become a household name now. But how exactly they managed to sneak past the protesters and onlookers? Answer lies in meticulous planning by Kerala Police, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayans Office. Such was the secrecy of this entire mission that only top officers and the Chief Minister was aware about this. In fact, to avoid any glitch, the Travancore Devaswom Board officials were also kept out of the loop. According to a Times of India report, the women were living at a secret location for past one week. The police planned a pre-dawn trek to avoid any attention. Only six hand-picked officers dressed in black clothes accompanied the women devotees. They avoided the usual route and stepped inside the temple via the staff entrance. The women also avoided the Pathinettam Padi (the 18 holy steps) and didnt carry irumudikettu (the offerings for the deity) on their heads, the report said. The women began trekking at around 1 am and reached the temple around 3:30 am. Within ten minutes, they entered the temple, had quick darshan, and were whisked away by the cops. The Wednesday darshan broke the decades-old tradition. Though there is no clarity over the ban of womens entry inside the temple, it was in 1991 that the Kerala High Court formally banned entry of women of menstruating age inside the temple. 27 years later on September 28, 2018, the Supreme Court lifted the ban, saying that discrimination against women on any grounds, even religious is unconstitutional. Reacting to the entry of the two women into the temple, senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala said it showed the "headstrong attitude" of the chief minister. PS Sreedharan Pillai said the CPI-M-led government had "betrayed" the sentiments of Ayyappa devotees. Women's rights activist Trupti Desai, the leader of Bhumata Brigade who led the campaign for women to be allowed to offer prayers in Maharashtra's Shani Shingnapur temple, Haji Ali Dargah, Mahalakshmi temple and Trimbakeshwar Shiva temple, hailed the courage of the two women. "This is a big victory for our agitation. Victory of equality...This is a good beginning for women in the new year," Desai was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India. (With inputs from PTI) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The Income Tax Department (I-T) on Thursday conducted coordinated raids at over two dozen popular hotel and restaurant chains including Saravana Bhavan group in Chennai on charges of alleged tax evasion, according to officials. Apart from Saravana Bhavan group other popular companies which are being raided include Hot Bread, Anjappal, Grand Sweets and many others. A special team consisting of over 100 I-T sleuths conducted series of searches and raids at the residences and offices of the directors of these eatery chains on Thursday. Searches are underway at as many as 32 locations across the city. Read | Burger King pranks McDonalds again! This time with 1 Whopper Detour offer The development came after the I-T department received certain inputs about the suppression of income by these groups by various means. However, there was no immediate word on behalf of the restaurant chains about the tax-raids. These restaurants serve some of the best south Indian delicacies, including cakes, pastries and sweets that are even shipped abroad. Saravana Bhavan, being founded by P Rajagopal in 1981, is one of the largest South Indian vegeterian restaurant chains in the world. The group has more than 33 outlest in India and 47 across several countries in Southeast Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and North America. Read | Five foods to safeguard yourself against smog and air pollution The Anjappar, the Indian casual-dining restaurant chain, has 70 outlets, including a few in abroad. Bakery chain Hot Breads has branches in Tamil Nadu and neighbouring Puducherry. Grand Sweets, which is known for its sweet and snack items, has been in the business for the last 25 years. In 2010 the shop was partitioned into two businesses, following a family ownership dispute. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Escalating his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the the Rafale deal issue, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi Thursday said it seems the PM has "fled" his "open book Rafale exam" in Parliament and is instead lecturing students in Punjab. Gandhi's attack came a day after he said Modi faced an open book exam on the deal in Parliament and asked if he will show up at the exam or send a proxy. The Congress president had on Wednesday also tweeted four questions related to the Rafale deal and demanded answers from the prime minister. "So it seems our PM has fled Parliament & his own open book Rafale exam & is instead lecturing students at Lovely University in Punjab, today," Gandhi tweeted on Thursday. He also urged students at the university to ask the prime minister to answer the four questions posed by him. So it seems our PM has fled Parliament & his own open book Rafale exam & is instead lecturing students at Lovely Univ. in Punjab, today. I request the students there to, respectfully, ask him to please answer the 4 questions posed to him by me, yesterday. #RafaleScam Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 3, 2019 Gandhi had tweeted, "Here are the exam questions in advance: Q1. Why 36 aircraft, instead of the 126 the IAF needed? Q2. Why 1,600 Cr instead of 560 Cr per aircraft. Q4. Why AA instead of HAL? Will he show up? Or send a proxy?" He later tweeted another question, terming it as "The Missing Q3!". In the third question, he asked the prime minister to tell why former defence minister Manohar Parrikar keeps a Rafale file in his bedroom and what's in it. On Wednesday, the Opposition and the government were involved in a bitter war of words on the Rafale issue in the Lok Sabha, with Rahul Gandhi saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi "does not have the guts" to face questions in Parliament and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley accusing the Congress chief of peddling "lies" and "falsehood". Also Read | What is Rafale audio tape leak controversy? Know in 10 points The Lower House witnessed frequent adjournments as barbs flew from both sides and Opposition members tried to disrupt speeches of rival leaders during a nearly three-hour debate. The discussions ended abruptly midway after Speaker Sumitra Mahajan suspended 24 AIADMK members for five days due to the "grave disorder" they caused with their protests in the Well of the House. In an embarrassment to the Modi government, its ally Shiv Sena also supported the Opposition's demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the Rafale deal. Following Gandhi's hard-hitting attack on the government, Jaitley led the government's charge in a counter-attack as he referred to alleged defence scams during the Congress rule and said the "conspirators" of past defence scams had the "audacity" to target the Modi dispensation. He also ruled out a JPC probe, a demand made by most Opposition leaders including Gandhi, saying there was no need for it as the Supreme Court had already satisfied its "conscience" on the issue. Targeting Gandhi, the BJP leader said he would have played in the lap of 'Q', an apparent reference to Ottavio Quattrocchi -- allegedly involved in the Bofors case. Jaitley also mentioned the recent disclosure allegedly made by AgustaWestland accused Christian Michel and referred to terms like "Mrs G" and "the Italian lady" and "her son" to attack the Congress leadership. Attacking Gandhi, he said, "There are some people who have a natural dislike for the truth. Every word spoken for the last six months on this subject, including in this House (by them), are false....He has a legacy of speaking falsehood." Also Read | Rafale Deal: Congress members throw paper planes after Arun Jaitley accused Rahul Gandhi of lying in Lok Sabha The House also witnessed high drama after Gandhi sought the speaker's permission to play an audio tape, purportedly of a Goa minister, on the Rafale deal. Jaitley said the tape was "false and fabricated", asking Gandhi if he could authenticate it. He might have to face a privilege motion and even expulsion if it turned out to be fabricated, the BJP leader added. Amid an uproar, which caused a brief adjournment of the House proceedings, Gandhi said he would not play it and authenticate it, prompting Jaitley to say that he was "scared" as he knew it was false. "This man lies and lies repeatedly," Jaitley said. The Speaker also disallowed Gandhi's request to play the clip. Gandhi claimed the BJP members were "terrified" of the clip, in which Goa minister Vishwajit Rane purportedly told someone that former defence minister Manohar Parrikar had a Rafale file in his bedroom. Rane had already termed the tape "fabricated", Jaitley said. In his speech, Gandhi referred to Modi's comments in an interview that no personal allegation was levelled against him in the matter and said this was not true as the "entire nation" was asking him a direct question on the Rafale fighter jets deal. "He (Modi) spoke for 90 minutes in a staged interview but still did not answer questions on the Rafale issue... He does not have the guts to come to Parliament and confront questions (on Rafale) and hides in his room," Gandhi said. "We demand a JPC probe into the matter. There is no reason for the BJP leaders to feel afraid. The country will get to know that Modi put Rs 30,000 crore in the pockets of 'double A'. The contract was snatched from the HAL (a government-run unit)," Gandhi said. "Double A" was an apparent reference to Anil Ambani, whom Gandhi repeatedly referred to in his speech before the speaker asked him not to name him as he was not a member of the House. The Congress leader described Ambani as a "dear friend" of Modi and a "failed businessman". His defence firm was registered only 10 days before it got the offset contract from Rafale, a French firm, Gandhi said, alleging corruption in the Rs 58,000-crore deal. Hitting back, Jaitley said, "It is a tragedy that the grand old party, which was headed by legends in the past, is now headed by a gentleman who does not have basic understanding of combat aircraft." Also Read | Rafale Row: Former BJP ministers Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie file review plea in Supreme Court The Congress felt that since "its hands are already soaked in corruption", it had to "manufacture" a lie to defame the Modi government which had a clean record. "Remember the JPC on Bofors...it said the kickback were winding up charges...it whitewashed corruption," Jaitley said, rejecting the JPC probe demand. The JPC often worked on partisan lines and could not investigate fairly, he added. The finance minister noted that the price of the "bare aircraft" was revealed and the price of the "weaponised" version could not be told as it would help India's adversaries. He also asserted that the bare aircraft was nine per cent cheaper than the one negotiated by the UPA and the weaponised version was 20 per cent cheaper. Mentioning alleged defence scams during the Congress rule, Jaitley, in a repartee, quoted from a James Bond movie which, he added, the Congress president must have seen. "In the movie, Bond says if it happens for the first time then it is happenstance, if it happens twice it is coincidence and if it is thrice then it is conspiracy. The Congress president is doing the same," he said. Jaitley also recalled a famous British sitcom to mock the UPA's indecisiveness on the Rafale deal. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Hours after the Janata Dal-United, one of the BJP's key ally in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) decided to vote against the Triple Talaq Bill in the Rajya Sabha, BJP leader CP Thakur from Bihar launched a scathing attack on the Nitish Kumar-led party. In an apparent reference to the JD-U, Thakur said "Some political parties feel that if they support the Triple Talaq Bill, then they would lose the votes of a particular community". He also accused the party of playing votebank politics. Early in the day, the JD-U had announced its stance on the Triple Talaq, saying it would vote against the Centre if a Bill comes up in the Rajya Sabha for passage. In a veiled attack at the BJP, the JD-U said the Triple Talaq Bill was unnecessarily hurried and rushed up. The way the Bill was taken up in a hurried manner should have been avoided and more consultation should have taken place on the issue. If it comes up in the Rajya Sabha for passage we will oppose and vote against the government, JD-U state president Vasistha Narayan Singh told reporters in Patna. Singh's statement came as a major embarrassment for the BJP in the run-up of the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections and most of the party's central leaders chose to remain tight-lipped on the same. According to political observers, the JD-U cannot afford to support the Triple Talaq Bill in the view of 17 per cent Muslim population in Bihar. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has also dashed a letter to the state's Law Commission, seeking an opinion on whether the party can impose an agenda over a minority community. Earlier, the JD-U had made it clear that it would not support the Ram Mandir agenda, one of the BJP's trump cards for the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections in 2019. The contentious Triple Talaq Bill seeking to criminalise instant divorce was passed in the Lok Sabha on December 27 but has been stalled in the Rajya Sabha amid continuous protests and uproar by the Opposition. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: From Ram Mandir to Rafale to Triple Talaq, Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Thursday addressed several ongoing issues in an exclusive chat with News Nation. As 2019 Lok Sabha Election is just a few months away, the government buckles under the pressure with the Opposition trying to corner them on several contentious issues in the Winter Session of Parliament. The session will be a test of opposition unity since this is the last full-fledged parliament session before the 2019 Lok Sabha election due by May. In his very first interview of 2019, Naqvi sat down with senior anchor Ajay Kumar and answered questions regarding several issues, including those related to the Triple Talaq Bill, Rahul Gandhi's series of allegations over Rafale fighter jet deal and the construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya. Read | On PM Modis 'open book Rafale exam', Rahul has special message for LPU students In the 15-minute-long interview, Naqvi clarified that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has given a befitting reply to Rahul Gandhi's baseless allegations over Rafale. The Union minister further said the Congress chief is making a vain attempt to mislead the nation ahead of the 2019 General Elections. In an inquiry about the Bihar seat-sharing arrangement, Naqvi refuted the reports of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) being pressurised by its allies. The union minister has further promised to go hand-in-hand with all the coalition parties under the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 2019. Read | Rafale Deal: Congress members throw paper planes after Arun Jaitley accused Rahul Gandhi of lying in Lok Sabha Showing confidence in the BJP's victory in the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections, the Union minister said Prime Minister Narendra Modi will return to power yet again in 2019 and is all set to continue his developmental works across the nation. On Triple Talaq, the Minority Affairs Minister said the move to pass the Muslim Women Bill (Triple Talaq) 2018 in Rajya Sabha was all about giving constitutional rights to the Muslim women of the country. Being asked about the construction of Ram Temple, Naqvi said there are still five months left before Lok Sabha elections and the time period is more than enough for any developmental work. Read | PM Modi in Gurdaspur takes a dig at Kamal Nath, says Congress has made 1984 anti-Sikh riots accused a CM Earlier on Tuesday, PM Modi made it clear that an ordinance to build the Ram Mandir would arise only after the Supreme Court, which is hearing the matter, delivers its verdict. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan suspended 12 Telugu Desam Party lawmakers for stalling the House proceedings on Thursday. The TDP leaders were protesting in the Lower House demanding special status for Andhra Pradesh. The lawmakers have been barred from attending the proceedings for next four days under rule 374A. The suspension comes a day after Mahajan suspended 26 All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) members for 'continuously coming to the Well of the House and obstructing proceedings' on Wednesday. The Lower House saw repeated adjournments on Wednesday as several AIADMK and DMK members protested over the Cauvery river dam issue while Congress MPs raised slogans for a JPC probe into the Rafale fighter jet deal. Speaking to news agency ANI, AIADMK's M Thambidurai had said, "Now elections are coming, so BJP wants to get some seats there, that is why they gave approval to Karnataka for Mekedatu dam project. Protesting is our democratic right, there has been no response from the government" The AIADMK members trooped into the well of the House and raised slogans demanding justice. The Tamil Nadu parties are protesting against the proposed Mekedatu dam in Karnataka on Cauvery, claiming that it will affect farmers in their state. Later, they were joined by several TDP members who have been demanding special financial assistance for Amravati, the capital of Andhra Pradesh. While the House was adjourned once in the morning, later it was again adjourned till 2 PM during the Question Hour, despite assurances by the government that Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari would make a statement on the Cauvery river issue. As soon as the AIADMK members started their protest, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said that their problem would not be solved like this and asked them to discuss the issue with the minister concerned. "I don't think it sends the right message to your state... this unruly behaviour must stop," she told the protesting members. Mahajan has adjourned the proceedings of Lok Sabha till 11 am on January 3. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister has apparently made a U-turn on singing Vande Mataram on the first day of every month at the secretariat. The Chief Minister has now said that his government will give a new form to the practice. He said that on the first working day of every month it will be sung along with police band to encourage patriotic feelings. The remarks after the BJP criticised the new Congress government for suspending the tradition that was started by former BJP Chief Minister Babulal Gaur in 2005. #MadhyaPradesh CM Kamal Nath: At 10:45 am on first working day of every month,police band will play the tunes that encourage patriotic feelings during their march from Shaurya Samarak to Vallabh Bhawan in Bhopal.On arrival at the Bhawan, National Anthem&Vande Mataram will be sung pic.twitter.com/B516wGW3l1 ANI (@ANI) January 3, 2019 "At 10:45 am on the first working day of every month, police band will play the tunes that encourage patriotic feelings during their march from Shaurya Samarak to Vallabh Bhawan in Bhopal. On arrival at the Bhawan, National Anthem and Vande Mataram will be sung," CM Kamal Nath was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. He holds the portfolio of General Administration Department (GAD), which is responsible for organising the monthly event. January 1, 2019, was the first day in the past 14 years when the national song was not sung. Nath had to face a slew of criticism when he announced the end of this tradition. Later, he had clarified that the practice of collectively reciting the national song will be adopted in a new way. "The national song is in our hearts and we also sing it from time to time. However, we also believe that merely singing Vande Mataram once a month is not a certificate for one's patriotism. Love for one's country cannot be linked to singing the national song once a month," he had said. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. The Ministry of Education has asked education authorities at all levels as well as middle and primary schools to establish daily supervision to ensure that mobile device apps used by the schools meet the standards set by the ministry. Some apps contain pornography, violence, online games, commercial advertisements as well as those that violate education rules, the ministry told Xinhua. Negative content can impact the physical and psychological health and education of students. In a notice recently issued by the ministry's general office, content, links, functions and information security of apps should be strictly reviewed and filed to higher education authorities for approval. Schools should avoid using apps to increase the course load for students and educational apps used on campus are not allowed to charge students. Information should be protected and privacy leaks should be prevented. Apps that are not filed for record and approved by education authorities are forbidden to be used by schools, the notice said. It also required regular checking of changes and updates of apps in order to deal with harmful information in a timely manner. Schools and teachers should not release grades and ranks of students through apps, it said. New Delhi: In an alarming development for the Indian security forces, latest media reports suggest that Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar has sent Abdul Rasheed Ghazi, an Afghan war veteran, to Jammu and Kashmir to avenge the 2017 killing of his nephews. The terrorist is an IED expert, who has also been tasked to train young recruits. According to a report published on news portal The Print, Ghazi infiltrated from Pakistan occupied Kashmir in the month of December last year. Usman and Talha Rasheed were gunned down by the security forces in an anti-terror operation in 2017. The report says that the dreaded terrorist has been hiding in south Kashmirs Pulwama. Also Read | Yearender 2018: Kashmir suffered worst bloodshed in a decade this year The development comes at a time when the security forces are continuing the anti-terror Operation All Out in the troubled Valley. As many as 257 terrorists were killed across Jammu and Kashmir last year, Director General of Police Dilbagh Singh was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India. The state has witnessed the deadliest year in decades gone by. According to a Union Home Ministry report, there were 37 civilian causalities, but human rights groups have claimed that the fatalities were over 100. Meanwhile, Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat visited the south Kashmir area on Wednesday to review the security situation and counter-insurgency operations in the region, officials said. "Continuing with his visit to the Valley, the Chief of Army Staff Gen Bipin Rawat reviewed the prevailing security situation and strategy for counter terrorist operations in the hinterland," an army official had said. Also Read | Masood Azhar is a terrorist, Beijing should adjust its stand accordingly: Ex-Chinese diplomat Accompanied by the Northern Army Commander Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, Rawat was briefed by the Chinar Corps Commander Lt Gen A K Bhatt at Badami Bagh Cantonment on the overall situation and major operational, informational, logistical and administrative aspects pertaining to the Corps, the official said. Rawat visited the formations and units deployed in south Kashmir, where he was briefed by the local Commanders on existing security situation and the measures instituted to ensure close coordination with all government agencies towards maintaining vigil and peace in the Valley, the official added. During his interaction with the soldiers on ground, the Chief of Army Staff lauded them for their high levels of morale and dedication and further reinforced the need to be prepared to meet emerging security challenges effectively, the official added. Rawat had arrived here on Tuesday on a two-day visit. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Hours after US President Donald Trump took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan, Indian officials came out with a befitting reply this evening. Replying to Trump's "Library In Afghanistan" dig, India said developmental help can be critical to transforming the war-ravaged country. "India firmly believes in the critical role that developmental assistance can play in transforming human lives. They added that "India's partnership with Afghanistan is built on the specific needs and requirements worked out with the government of Afghanistan and is aimed at the welfare of the people of Afghanistan and for a tangible improvement in the lives of its people," the government sources said on Thursday. Mocking at India's developmental works in the strife-torn country, Trump said the library is of no use in Afghanistan as he accused India of not doing enough for the security of the land-locked country. Besides, Trump also asked Russia, Pakistan and other neighbouring countries to take responsibility for the security of Afghanistan, where he has ordered a troop reduction on an unspecified timetable. Trump last month moved to cut by half the 14,000-strong force in Afghanistan, calling for less spending overseas. Read | Want great relationship with Pakistan, meeting with new leadership soon, says Donald Trump Meanwhile, reacting to Trump's dig, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel said, "Tenor and tone of the US president describing the Prime Minister of India is not in good taste and is completely unacceptable." Taking to Twitter, Patel wrote, "Hope our government responds firmly and reminds America that since 2004, India has built extensive roads, dams in Afghanistan and pledged over USD 3 billion in assistance". Tenor & tone of the US President describing the Prime Minister of India is not in good taste & is completely unacceptable Hope our Govt responds firmly & reminds America that since 2004,India has built extensive roads,dams in Afghanistan & pledged over $3 billion in assistance pic.twitter.com/wdil1hse6w Ahmed Patel (@ahmedpatel) January 3, 2019 Read | Withdrawal from Syria changes nothing in US support for Israel: Mike Pompeo Though the United States has been pressing India to send troops to Afghanistan, a demand repeatedly rejected by India, this is the first time the US administration has publicly mocked India's developmental works in the strife-torn country. Trump in his comments to his Cabinet colleagues referred to Prime Minister Modi as an example of how world leaders are talking about their contributions that were nowhere near the "billions of dollars" the US was spending. In his remarks, Trump said, "I could give you an example where I get along very well with India and Prime Minister Modi. But he is constantly telling me, he built a library in Afghanistan. Library! That's like five hours of what we spend (in Afghanistan)." "And he (Modi) tells me. He is very smart. We are supposed to say, oh thank you for the library. Don't know who's using it (the library) in Afghanistan. But it's one of those things. I don't like being taken advantage of," he said. Read | Oh, thank you for the library: Donald Trump mocks PM Modi over funding project in Afghanistan "I say this, India. (I have) great relationship with Prime Minister Modi. He is a great gentleman and a great man and he's done a fantastic job. He has brought the country together," Trump added. (With inputs from agencies) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Jammu: An army soldier was killed and another injured in an avalanche in the forward area of Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district on Thursday. According to reports, the avalanche hit the post of Rashtriya Rifles in Sawjian sector around 4 am in the morning. It buried two soldiers, following which a rescue operation was launched immediately, the police said. "Two soldiers were trapped under the avalanche. A rescue operation was immediately started and both were taken out of the debris. One of the soldiers identified as Lance Naik Sapan Mehra has succumbed to his injuries while the other has been shifted to a hospital for treatment," an official said. Army Sources: One Army jawan dead and one injured in an avalanche in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir pic.twitter.com/hsVnmypzk7 ANI (@ANI) January 3, 2019 This is not the first time when our soldiers have lost their lives due to an avalanche. Three soldiers were killed when an avalanche struck their post in Machhil sector of Jammu and Kashmir in February 2018. In 2016, a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) and nine other soldiers of Madras Regiment were buried after their post was hit by an avalanche in Siachen at an altitude of 19,600 feet close to the Line of Control (LoC). Meanwhile, Kashmir received it first snowfall of the New Year on Wednesday, breaking a month-long dry spell in the Valley. The 300-kilometre-long Jammu-Srinagar national highway and the Mughal Road, which connects Jammu's Poonch and Rajouri districts with south Kashmir's Shopian, have been closed for vehicular traffic after the fresh snowfall, according to officials. #JammuAndKashmir : Visuals from 'Dera Gali in Poonch district after fresh snowfall in the region. pic.twitter.com/CmB4OKtaCc ANI (@ANI) January 3, 2019 Kashmir is currently under the grip of 'Chillai-Kalan', the 40-day harshest period of winter when the chances of snowfall are most frequent and maximum and the temperature drops considerably. The period ends on January 31. The weather department has predicted more precipitation in Kashmir over the next three days. With PTI Inputs For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Days after resigning from Punjab Assembly, senior lawyer HS Phoolka has resigned from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). "I have resigned from AAP & handed over resignation to Kejriwal ji today. Though he asked me not to resign but I insisted," he tweeted. He will address media tomorrow at 4 pm at Press Club, Raisina Road, New Delhi to explain the reason behind his decision. I have resigned from AAP & handed over resignation to Kejriwal ji today. Though he asked me not to resign but I insisted. Will be briefing media tomorrow at 4pm at Press Club, Raisina Rd, New Delhi to explain the Reason of leaving AAP & my further plans. H S Phoolka (@hsphoolka) January 3, 2019 "Will be briefing media tomorrow at 4 pm at Press Club, Raisina Rd, New Delhi to explain the Reason of leaving AAP & my further plans," the senior lawyer said. According to reports, Phoolka was unhappy with the AAP since the party moved a resolution to withdraw Bharat Ratna conferred upon former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The other probable reason behind his resignation from the party is reports of prospects of AAP forging an alliance with the Congress. Phoolka, who represented the victims of anti-Sikh riot had got emotional when former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar was convicted. "It's a huge victory. This moment has come after 34 years," Phoolka had said. Earlier, Phoolka had resigned as a legislator from the Punjab Assembly. He took this step over state government's alleged 'failure' to initiate action against those behind the incidents of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib and the police firing in October 2015 on those protesting against the sacrilege. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: After the reading down of the law Section 377 in September 2018 by the Supreme Court, thereby legalizing same-sex marriage in India, there has been a new focus in making the LGBTQ community more visible through cinema and the arts. Two Hindi feature films are slated to be released in theatres early 2019 Evening Shadows directed by Sridhar Rangayan will release on January 11 and Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga directed by Shelly Chopra Dhar will release on February 1st. While Evening Shadows starring Mona Ambegaonkar, Ananth Mahadevan and newcomers Devansh Doshi and Arpit Chaudhary is a heartwarming drama highlighting the struggle by a mother to accept her gay son. The upcoming movie, Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga starring Sonam Kapoor, Rajkumar Rao and Anil Kapoor is said to be a coming-of-age romantic comedy-drama. Both films seem to focus on the challenges faced by families in accepting their children who have a different love interest. It is a good time for Indian cinema to push boundaries and spotlight issues which have been hidden and buried till now. Bringing it to mainstream theatres for the larger audience to see the films with their families, will remove prejudices and pave way for an equal society, said Sridhar Rangayan who is hopeful that his film Evening Shadows will make an impact on mindsets. Filmmaker Onir, who has handled complex stories of same-sex love in his pathbreaking films My Brother Nikhil, I Am and Shab said, Post the Supreme Court ruling on IPC 377, the New Year begins with a beautiful gift to LGBTQ cinema in India. Evening Shadows releasing on 11th of January will hopefully start a new episode of more such narrative in our theatres. Its a film about acceptance and celebrates love. It remains to be seen how cinema-going audiences will react to these films. While Evening Shadows has won 13 audience and jury awards and screened at more than 50 international film festivals around the world, the real test would be how mass audiences in India embrace our film, said Rangayan who has been championing for LGBTQ cinema in India for over two decades with his films (Gulabi Aaina, Purple Skies, Breaking Free) and also organizing KASHISH, Mumbais LGBTQ film festival. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Please purchase a subscription read this premium content. If you have a subscription, please sign up for a digital website account or log in. An orphan bird who sidled her way into a Hawke's Bay family is now missing, and her adopters are asking Poraiti locals to keep an eye out for an over-friendly magpie. Marty Smith says Edgar the bird is so friendly she would land on your head and even walk straight into your home. Ms Smith addresses Edgar as a male because she likes the name, but says locals should be keeping an eye out for a female magpie because she is really a girl. Edgar has black feathers and may have a white beak by now. Many people find magpies pesky, but Ms Smith says Edgar is a quirky bird and is loved by the whole family. She came into their lives a year ago when she blew out of her nest. Their dog Hunter, true to her name, went in for the kill but couldnt get her jaw over Edgar's chirping beak, "she would have killed him", Ms Smith said. Ms Smith stepped in and picked Edgar up, she couldnt find her mother and took him in. "I didn't think I was saving him for us, I thought I was saving him for the bird sanctuary," she says. She had no luck there, magpies are known to harass people and even kill native birds, and the sanctuary didn't want her. Her whole family fell in love with her. Her son would play jazz for Edgar because it was her favourite music. Marty Smith is an author and English teacher, so no surprise Edgar was named after American poet Edgar Allen Poe. Hunter the dog is besotted with Edgar and misses her terribly. Edgar was spooked by a low flying plane and flew away but her family are not giving up the search. Even Hunter the dog has been helping. Newshub. Scottish comedian Billy Connolly has shared his intimate thoughts about his battle with Parkinson's disease in his BBC documentary series. Mr Connolly revealed in a teaser trailer for the series finale that his days are numbered. "My Parkinson's is not going away and it's going to get worse," he told the camera. Mr Connolly was diagnosed with the disease six years ago, and now says that he may soon retire from the spotlight as his condition grows worse. "My life is slipping away and I can feel it, and I should" he confessed. "I'm 75, I'm near the end, But it doesn't frighten me - it's an adventure and it is quite interesting to see myself slipping away." Although he is not afraid, he says that the loss of his hobbies has been difficult "As bits slip off and leave me, talents and attributes leave. I don't have the balance I used to have, I don't have the energy I used to have. I can't work my left hand on the banjo, it is as if I am being prepared for something. Some other adventure, which is over the hill." Parkinson's disease is a neurological condition that affects body movements. Newshub. All the new X-Men comics, graphic novels, collections from Marvel arriving in 2021 and beyond Every single new X-Men comics arriving in the next few months that you need to get excited about Jeffersonville, IN (47130) Today Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Hot. Low 61F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Hot. Low 61F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph. Pell City, AL (35125) Today A mix of clouds and sun. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 91F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight A stray thunderstorm is possible throughout the evening. Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 67F. Winds light and variable. Scott and Becky Harris, founders of the small-town distillery in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, even had handshake agreements with the cocktail shakers of London's finest hotels. But weeks after the Harrises' triumphant European tour, the White House unleashed a trade war with the European Union by slapping tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The EU retaliated with tariffs that made some American goods, including bourbon and rye whiskey, more expensive to import. Catoctin Creek's orders from Europe dried up, and a potential British distributor lost interest. He "ghosted us like a bad girlfriend," Scott Harris said from the distillery's red-brick tasting room as a pair of shiny stills chugged away behind a plate-glass window. "He just stopped answering the phone." Washington's trade dispute with Europe may have faded from the headlines in recent months, eclipsed by grander tensions with China, but the fallout continues for many companies around the country that have long targeted Europe as an achievable export market. Barriers to Europe are especially vexing for small businesses, which often turn to the EU as their first export destination. The reliability of the legal system, the prevalence of English speakers and the high level of consumer income make it an easier market for small U.S. firms to navigate, entrepreneurs say. The E.U.'s 25 percent tariffs have crimped the sales growth of a variety of U.S. exporters, including apparel companies, boat builders and peanut butter-makers. Lee Zalben, founder of Peanut Butter & Co., a 15-person firm in Manhattan, said European buyers are canceling or trimming orders, or asking for discounts. Exports to the European Union make up less than 2 percent of the firm's revenue, but the company had been targeting Europe for sales growth, "so we're having to find that growth in other areas," Zalben said. Catoctin Creek had been aiming to boost European exports from about 10 percent of its sales in early 2018 to as much as 25 percent to take advantage of the hip profile American whiskey has developed overseas. Instead, exports have fallen to close to zero. "It's essentially decimated our European business, and it's put our expansion on hold," said Scott Harris, who has instituted a hiring freeze and put off buying new stills and fermentation tanks at the 20-person distillery on Purcellville's Main Street. European officials are due to visit Washington next week to continue talks aimed at resolving the trade dispute. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative didn't respond to a request for comment. Becky Harris, the chief distiller, said the slowdown also affects the company's suppliers. "One of our (rye) farmers keeps asking, 'When are we going to need more?' " she said. Rivals are similarly discouraged. "We've spent a lot of time and money to build up our business (in Europe), and to have it taken away with tariffs is frustrating," said Paul Hletko, founder of Few Spirits, a gin and whiskey distillery in Evanston, Illinois, that employs about 100 people. The company's export volume fell by about 75 percent last year. Cleveland Whiskey, an Ohio distiller with 15 employees, has lost about $150,000 in European revenue and has scrapped plans to hire two additional workers, said founder Tom Lix. He expressed frustration with what he sees as a self-inflicted wound. "We started this, so I can't really blame (Europe)," he said. "We started this, and everything else was retaliatory." Exports have become crucial in the whiskey business as the U.S. market grows crowded with craft distillers. When the Harrises co-founded Catoctin Creek in 2010, there were six distilleries in Virginia. Today, there are 70 - and more than a thousand nationwide. The boom has revived an industry that dates back to America's earliest English settlers, who made whiskey on the banks of Virginia's James River. George Washington eventually became one of the country's biggest distillers, producing more than 10,000 gallons of whiskey at Mount Vernon a year. Whiskey production withered in some parts of the country during Prohibition; when Catoctin Creek opened for business, it was the first legal distillery in Loudoun County since the 1920s. Scott Harris, an engineer by training, had spent 20 years working in government contracting and wanted a change of pace. Becky Harris, a chemical engineer, was the brains behind the distilling process. "If there is a fruit, vegetable, tuber with starch or sugar in it, you can bet that Becky will try to distill it," the company's website says. The couple got a $250,000 small-business loan and renovated a former Buick dealership from the 1920s. On a recent morning, a handful of employees filled and labeled bottles for shipping as a new batch of rye mash fermented in a large tank, filling the room with a sweet aroma. Later, the mixture will be pumped into a pair of German-made stills that will boil it and turn the alcohol into vapor, which will revert to liquid as it cools. Catoctin Creek did well in the U.S. market, but as competition grew, it found that U.S. distributors weren't as interested in new products, Harris said. About five years ago, the distillery decided it wanted to crack Europe. It started investing in new bottles and labels that met EU standards, hired a European consultant, and began attending an annual trade show in Berlin. Catoctin Creek eventually found distributors in Germany and Italy, which helped get the company's whiskey into some high-end cocktail bars, Harris said. All told, the company has spent about $100,000 on the effort, he said. Early last year, the Harrises traveled to Britain to meet with a potential distributor and to market their whiskey to top hotel bars. They poured samples for buyers at London's famous Savoy and Claridge's hotels and struck a tentative agreement with a distributor in Manchester, Harris said. Two weeks after they returned to the United States, the White House announced plans to levy tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from the EU and elsewhere, calling the imports a threat to domestic production. The EU soon threatened, and then enacted, retaliatory tariffs on a host of U.S. goods. Europe pointedly included products made in the home states of congressional Republican leaders Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, including motorcycles and whiskey, but the tariffs applied to producers nationwide. In July, President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker declared a truce in the trade war, promising to delay additional tariffs and to start negotiations toward a new trade deal. But they didn't roll back the tariffs levied earlier. "We would very much like to lift our rebalancing tariffs, but obviously will only be in position to do so as and when the U.S. is in a position to do the same" with its steel and aluminum tariffs, David O'Sullivan, the EU ambassador to the United States, said in a phone interview. Michele Richards Fredericks will be showing her work in January, alongside paintings from the clubs permanent collection. Fredericks is a Lynchburg native who recently moved back to the area to work professionally as an architect. She draws inspiration from her travels and her architecture studies, according to a news release, and enjoys creating work that is playful and light. Her current technique involves mixing acrylic and pen, taking the rigid line work of architectural drafting to the canvas. The work from the permanent collection will include paintings by founding club members Bernhard Gutmann, Julia Mahood, Louise Jordan Smith and Georgia Morgan, as well as other notable artists in Lynchburg, such as Pierre Daura, Louise Payne, Elliot Twery and Annie Adams Robertson Massie. (434) 528-9434, www.lynchburgartclub.org. The Lynchburg Museum, 901 Court St. The museum is displaying items from Lynchburgs downtown theaters during First Friday, with a reception that runs from 5 to 8 p.m. Women in service and the ERA As a woman veteran, I am proud of my sisters who serve in the military. It is on their behalf that I support Virginias ratification of the long-awaited federal Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Today, women represent more than 15 percent of our military, serving as fighter pilots, engineers, communications specialists, military police officers and numerous other supportive roles. Recently, the first two women graduated from Army Ranger training joining one of the most elite fighting forces on the planet. Although the prohibition against women serving in combat units was lifted in 1994, it has been U.S. policy to exclude women from ground combat units. However, women are serving in Afghanistan and Iraq on the front lines. Women are dying in combat. We must not forget Lori Ann Piestewa and Major Marie Rossi. Piestewa, a member of the Quartermaster Corps, died during the Iraq War in 2003, becoming the first Native American woman to die in combat on foreign soil. Rossi, an aviation unit commander, was shot down during the Persian Gulf War and is known as the first woman to fly combat missions. Military stats indicate that most female soldiers who have lost their lives during the last 10 years have been the victims of hostile action. Witt will tell the audience the timing of the eclipse, how to view it and how to dress for the cold. You have to protect yourself from the cold, he said. You could look at it through a telescope, but when its so cold, your eyelids could get frozen to the telescope. Thinking about powerlessness is also important for understanding the backlash against immigration. There is good reason to be horrified at the xenophobia and racism underlying Trumps cruel policies toward immigrants and refugees. Opposing what Trump is doing is a moral imperative. But there is nothing new (or necessarily indecent) about citizens saying that nations have a right to control their borders and to decide what levels of immigration they want to accept at any given time. In truth, almost all of Trumps critics believe this, and proposals for immigration reform that have advanced in Congress have always provided for border security and set limits of some kind on immigration flows. The challenge for the left and for all advocates of humane immigration policies is to move the debate from angry abstractions about open borders and toward a practical engagement with basic questions: What level of immigration is optimal at this moment for the nation as a whole? What will it take to reach a consensus for creating a path toward citizenship for immigrants who are here illegally? And how do we build a stronger civic culture that acknowledges the rights but also the duties of the native born and immigrants alike? Lawyers for the state have denied that the prison breached any of the provisions of the settlement agreement. The Virginia attorney general's office referred requests for comments to the Virginia Department of Corrections, which could not immediately be reached for comment. The appropriate level of care was established in a 2016 consent order settling a class action lawsuit filed by the Legal Aid Justice Center, the law firm of Wiley Rein LLP, and the Washington Lawyers Committee challenging the constitutionality of the medical care provided to the 1,200 inmates at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women. Moon did not hold the officials in contempt, citing technical reasons, but he ruled that he was going to enforce provisions of the 2016 agreement. Referring to the deaths of at least four inmates at the prison after the 2016 agreement was reached, Moon wrote on Wednesday, "In sum, the medical treatment these women received was neither timely nor appropriate, and their deaths illustrate the danger of not having appropriate medical equipment on hand." "Deanna Niece died on a prison cell floor at FCCW, days away from her release date ... as she died, nurses 'casually walk[ed]' to Niece's cell minutes after a correctional officer called in an emergency," wrote Moon about one of the deaths. Ben Blanks stands in several inches of snow. Its 6 a.m. and hes waiting for the bus outside his apartment off Langhorne Road. Blanks works at the Wards Road Walmart and his shift this day in early December starts at 8 a.m. A 45-minute layover between buses on the old Greater Lynchburg Transit Center route schedule required him to start his journey two hours before his shift began. With the implementation of route changes Dec. 17, 2018, he now has a five-minute layover between buses. Blanks is a vocal advocate for the changes, but some other riders didnt express the same support on the second day of the new routes. Many rode the wrong buses and said they were confused about which route to take to get to their final destination. I was used to the old routes, Zucord Payne said. Now, I never know where the bus is going to go. Payne had just gotten off the bus at River Ridge mall, which was not his intended destination. After a consultation with Blanks, who serves as a volunteer GLTC ambassador, Payne learned he had to take another bus on a different route to get to work. Prolonged exposure to pollutant particles was shown to reduce the output of workers in China Economists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have completed an extensive study which reveals that exposure to air pollution over several weeks is not just unhealthy, it can also reduce employee productivity. Associate Professor Alberto Salvo from the Department of Economics at the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and an author of the study, explained, "Most of us are familiar with the negative impact air pollution can have on health, but as economists, we wanted to look for other socioeconomic outcomes. Our aim with this research was to broaden the understanding of air pollution in ways that have not been explored. We typically think that firms benefit from lax pollution regulations, by saving on emission control equipment and the like; here we document an adverse effect on the productivity of their work force." The results of this study were published in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics on 3 January 2019. The link between air pollution and productivity The NUS team, including Associate Professor Haoming Liu and Dr Jiaxiu He, spent over a year gathering information from factories in China. This involved interviewing managers at one dozen firms in four separate provinces, before obtaining access to data for two factories, one in Henan and the other in Jiangsu. The factories were textile mills, and workers were paid according to each piece of fabric they made. This meant that daily records of productivity for specific workers on particular shifts could be examined. Hence, the researchers compared how many pieces each worker produced each day to measures of the concentration of particulate matter that the worker was exposed to over time. A standard way of determining the severity of pollution is to measure how many fine particles less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter (PM2.5) are in the air. The majority of people living in developing countries are exposed to particle concentrations that health authorities deem harmful. At the two factory locations, pollution levels varied significantly from day to day, and overall they were consistently high. At one location, PM2.5 levels averaged about seven times the safe limit set by the US Environmental Protection Agency, at 85 micrograms per cubic metre. Interestingly, unlike previous literature, the team found that daily fluctuations in pollution did not immediately affect the productivity of workers. However, when they measured for more prolonged exposures of up to 30 days, a definite drop in output can be seen. The study was careful to control for confounding factors such as regional economic activity. "We found that an increase in PM2.5, by 10 micrograms per cubic metre sustained over 25 days, reduces daily output by 1 per cent, harming firms and workers," says Associate Professor Liu. "The effects are subtle but highly significant." The researchers remain agnostic about the reasons that explain why productivity goes down when pollution goes up. "High levels of particles are visible and might affect an individual's well-being in a multitude of ways," explained Assoc Prof Liu. "Besides entering via the lungs and into the bloodstream, there could also be a psychological element. Working in a highly polluted setting for long periods of time could affect your mood or disposition to work." First-of-its-kind study examining prolonged exposure to air pollution Research on how living and working in such a polluted atmosphere affects productivity is very limited, partly due to worker output being difficult to quantify. One previous study that focused on workers packing fruit in California found a large and immediate effect from exposure to ambient PM2.5, namely that when levels rise by 10 micrograms per cubic metre, workers become 6 per cent less productive on the same day. That study's estimate appears large for a developing country. "Labourers in China can be working under far worse daily conditions while maintaining levels of productivity that look comparable to clean air days. If the effect were this pronounced and this immediate, we think that factory and office managers would take more notice of pollution than transpired in our field interviews. Therefore, our finding that pollution has a subtle influence on productivity seems realistic," Assoc Prof Liu added. All the data collected in the NUS study are being made open access to serve as a resource for other researchers to accelerate progress in this topic. "This was a key criterion for inclusion in our study," Assoc Prof Salvo added. "We wanted to share all the information we gathered so that other researchers may use it as well, hopefully adding to this literature's long-run credibility. We saw no reason why data on anonymous workers at a fragmented industry could not be shared." When expectant parents learn their child will be born with Down syndrome, they invariably have questions about what this diagnosis will mean for their son or daughter and for the rest of their family. When will their child be able to walk, to speak clearly, to care for most basic needs? Will he or she be able to hold a job, to live or travel independently? A new study from investigators at MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC) and colleagues in the Netherlands is providing answers to some of those questions. "More and more parents are opting for prenatal testing during their pregnancies, and if they learn about a diagnosis of Down syndrome, they want to know real-life answers to such questions," says Brian Skotko, MD, MPP, the Emma Campbell Endowed Chair on Down Syndrome at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), director of the MGH Down Syndrome Program, and senior author of the study published online in American Journal of Medical Genetics Part A. "Contrary to some public beliefs, people with Down syndrome never stop learning, and functional skills can still be attained and improved well into adulthood." While several previous studies have looked at the development of specific skills by people with Down syndrome, most of them have been small, and several were based in countries where limited support services can restrict the potential of children with Down syndrome. The current study combines the results of surveys taken of more than 2,600 families in the U.S. and the Netherlands. The U.S. survey, sent in 2008 and 2009 to families involved with six nonprofit Down syndrome organizations across the country, asked parents to rank their child's functional abilities in 11 areas - walking, eating, speaking, grooming/personal hygiene, reading, writing, preparing meals, working at a job, going on dates, traveling independently and living independently. They were also asked whether their child had significant health problems or educational/learning difficulties. The same questionnaire - with some subtle differences due to translation from English into Dutch - was administered online in mid-2016 to families recruited through the Dutch Down Syndrome Foundation. For both groups, the ages of the family members with Down syndrome ranged from under 5 to over 40, with the largest numbers in the youngest age groups. From the standpoint of major functional milestones, the results indicated that most people with Down syndrome in the U.S. could walk by 25 months of age, speak reasonably well by age 12 years, maintain personal hygiene by 13 and work independently by 20. By the age of 31, 49 percent were reading reasonably well, 46 percent could write reasonably well, 34 percent were living independently, and around 30 percent could travel independently. Dutch parents reported largely similar results. In both groups, learning challenges were reported more often than were health problems, and reports of serious health problems in individuals with Down syndrome increased as they grew older. An associate professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, Skotko explains, "Once a child with Down syndrome is born, parents frequently want to know how well their son or daughter is developing. Now we have guideposts - based on the responses of thousands of parents - that can help clinicians know when children may be falling behind their peers with Down syndrome and, when necessary, refer parents to additional supports, resources and therapies." He also notes that recent advances in social, educational and medical supports for people with Down syndrome should lead to even greater improvement in the acquisition of functional skills. Skotko adds, "Here in the U.S., there have been 'wrongful birth' and 'wrongful life' lawsuits filed either by parents of children with Down syndrome or on behalf of the children themselves, claiming that parents were not given information allowing them to terminate a pregnancy or that the child is living a life of suffering. These headline-grabbing lawsuits center around basic questions, such as what a person with Down syndrome can reasonably be expected to achieve. Such discussions should be centered around accurate information, rather than wild, outdated speculation, and we hope our research will help give clearer answers to those questions." A research team led by scientists at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health report on a new method to help health officials control outbreaks of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, a life-threatening antibiotic-resistant infection often seen in hospitals. The researchers are the first to reveal the invisible dynamics governing the spread of these outbreaks and demonstrate a new, more effective method to prevent their spread. Findings are published in the journal eLife. The research team developed a computer model of MRSA outbreaks using more than 2 million admission records from 66 hospitals in Stockholm County, Sweden, representing a period of six years. Their model recreated outbreaks of the most prevalent MRSA strain, UK EMRSA-15, which is present in 16 countries worldwide, including the United States. Adapting statistical techniques used in weather forecasting, the model simulates two connected dynamics at the individual scale: transmission within hospitals and infections imported from the community. Information on when and where patients were admitted and discharged and who was diagnosed for MRSA is used to reveal a group of "stealth colonizers"--individuals who are infectious but whose status is invisible. The model-inference system estimated as many as 400 asymptomatic MRSA cases per month in the Swedish hospitals, and that up to 61 percent of MRSA infections diagnosed in the hospital setting were imported from the community. More than revealing hidden transmission dynamics, the new MRSA simulation method calculates the chances each patient might get infected. The researchers tested the value of these probabilities by simulating an intervention that provides treatment to high-risk patients. They found their targeted intervention was better at controlling an outbreak than current practices, which involve either treating patients who have spent the most time in hospital, treating patients with the most contacts in hospital, or using contact tracing to treat those patients who were exposed to a patient testing positive for the infection. The targeted intervention provided a 50 percent further reduction in infections and 80 percent further reduction in colonized patients. "Compared with traditional intervention strategies that may overlook a considerable number of invisible colonized patients, this new model-inference system can identify a pivotal group for treatment, namely individuals who may otherwise transmit MRSA asymptomatically," says first author Sen Pei, a postdoctoral research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Columbia Mailman School. The researchers first validated their inference method using virtual outbreaks generated with the computer model. Unlike records from the hospital, where only infections are observed, this model-generated outbreak "observes" all outbreak characteristics (e.g., the number of "stealth" colonized patients). They then used the simulated observations of infection as input for their model-inference method and were able to reliably estimate the hidden dynamics of the virtual outbreak, including rates of MRSA importation from the community and numbers of colonized patients. These findings confirmed the validity of the approach and motivated its application to the Swedish hospital data. The researchers say they plan on applying their system to to other antimicrobial resistant pathogens and in settings with a higher burden of disease. "Our method provides a powerful and cost-effective way for hospitals and public health officials to contain outbreaks of MRSA and other antibiotic-resistant infections as they become increasingly common," says senior author Jeffrey Shaman, associate professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia Mailman. Indiana Youth Ballet will host auditions for Peter Pan Jan. 13 and 20 at St. John Township Community Center, 1515 W. Lincoln Highway, Schererville. All ages and ability levels are welcome. Parents are asked to bring their children on the following date and time based on their experience. On Jan. 13: 1:30 p.m., ages 5-6, all levels; 2 p.m., ages 7-8, all levels; 2:30 p.m., all tumblers age 9 and older with three years of dance training; 3 p.m., ages 9-10 with more than three years of training; 3:30 p.m., ages 11-12 with more than three years of training; and 4:30 p.m., ages 13 and older with more than three years of training. On Jan. 20: 1:30 p.m., ages 5-8; 2 p.m., ages 9 and older; 3 p.m., call backs; and 4:30 p.m., mandatory parent meeting. It is recommended that children attend the Jan. 13 audition. Those unable to do so may attend the secondary audition on Jan. 20. The ballet will be performed April 25-28. More information is at www.indianayouthballet.com or with Elizabeth Bathurst at admin@indianayouthballet.com. The most likely source of the cholera epidemic in Yemen has been discovered by scientists The most likely source of the cholera epidemic in Yemen has been discovered by scientists. Through the use of genomic sequencing, scientists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and Institut Pasteur estimate the strain of cholera causing the current outbreak in Yemen - the worst cholera outbreak in recorded history - came from Eastern Africa and entered Yemen with the migration of people in and out of the region. The results, published today (2 January) in Nature show that genomic data and technologies can enable researchers to estimate the risk of future cholera outbreaks in regions like the Yemen and ultimately be used to better target interventions. Yemen is facing the worst epidemic of cholera since records began. The disease has affected over 1 million people and caused almost 2,500 deaths. The United Nations estimate that 16 million of the 29 million people in Yemen lack access to safe water and basic sanitation. The population in Yemen has experienced two outbreaks of cholera; the first occurred between September 2016 and April 2017, and the second began later in April 2017 and has since resulted in more than 1 million suspected cases. To understand the nature of the strain of bacteria behind these devastating cholera outbreaks, researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Institut Pasteur and their collaborators sequenced the genomes of Vibrio cholerae from cholera samples collected in Yemen and nearby regions. The team sequenced 42 V. cholerae samples from both Yemen outbreaks. To do this samples were collected in Yemen itself and from a Yemeni refugee centre on the Saudi Arabia-Yemen border, along with 74 other cholera samples from South Asia, the Middle East and Eastern and Central Africa. Researchers compared these genomic sequences to a global collection of over 1000 cholera samples from the current and ongoing pandemic, known as the seventh cholera pandemic, which began in the 1960s and is caused by a single lineage of V. cholerae, called 7PET. Scientists discovered that the cholera strain causing the Yemen epidemic is related to a strain first seen in 2012 in South Asia that has spread globally, but the Yemeni strain did not arrive directly from South Asia or the Middle East. This particular cholera strain was circulating and causing outbreaks in Eastern Africa between 2013 and 2014, prior to appearing in Yemen in 2016. Professor Nick Thomson, from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "Genomics enabled us to discover that the strain of cholera behind the devastating and ongoing epidemic in Yemen is likely linked to the migration of people from Eastern Africa into Yemen. Knowing how cholera moves globally gives us the opportunity to better prepare for future outbreaks. This information can help inform strategies for more targeted interventions with the ultimate aim of reducing the impact of future epidemics." Dr. Francois-Xavier Weill, Head of the Institut Pasteur's Enteric Bacterial Pathogens Unit, said: "Genomic analysis continues to show its power to provide a high resolution, detailed view of the bacteria that causes cholera, Vibrio cholerae, which is critical to tackling this devastating disease. Like the other major cholera outbreaks around the world, we discovered that the atypical strain of bacteria behind the Yemeni cholera epidemic is linked to the single lineage called 7PET, which is responsible for the current and ongoing global pandemic. This potentially enables us to focus our research and direct interventions towards this particular lineage of Vibrio cholerae to greater effect." Contrary to previous theories that the two outbreaks of cholera in Yemen were caused by two different strains, this study revealed they were caused by the same strain of the Vibrio cholerae bacterium that entered the Yemen in 2016. While most strains of cholera that are causing epidemics are resistant to many antibiotics, the team discovered the unusual finding that the Yemeni cholera strain was susceptible to many of these antibiotics. Dr Daryl Domman, a visiting scientist at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, now based at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States, said: "Surprisingly, we discovered the cholera strain causing the Yemen outbreaks is less resistant to antibiotics than related strains. The strain causing the Yemeni cholera epidemic has deleted four genes responsible for resistance to clinically relevant antibiotics, making itself more vulnerable to treatment." Dr Marie-Laure Quilici, a scientist in the Institut Pasteur's Enteric Bacterial Pathogens Unit and Head of the National Reference Center for Vibrios and Cholera, said: "This study illustrates again the key role of genomic microbial surveillance and cross-border collaborations in understanding global cholera spread. All countries need to be aware of this and act accordingly if they are to achieve the targets set by WHO's Global Task Force on Cholera Control, which aims to reduce the cholera death toll by 90 per cent by the year 2030." Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account to continue reading. To subscribe, click here. Already a subscriber? Click here. The "Children of the Confederacy Creed" plaque has drawn controversy for its denial that preserving slavery was an underlying cause of the Civil War. Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. "We hope to attract more Lake County residents as they become aware of the many programs, events, and tours we offer. Lake County History Center Executive Director Lea Filson Pull Quote Free access for current print subscribers As a home delivery subscriber, you get free unlimited digital access to news-daily.com including stories, photos, obituaries, e-edition and more on your computer, tablet or phone. All you need is your print subscription account number and your last name. Don't know your subscription number? Email access@news-daily.com with your delivery address. Activate your account now. Gunn Memorial Library in Washington will present free screenings of Lizzie: The Legend of Lizzie Borden (R) Jan. 7, A Simple Favor (R) Jan. 14 and Old Man & The Gun (PG-13) Jan. 28, all at 1 p.m. Movies are free and open to the public at the Wykeham Road library. Frangos was paid $37,000 last year by Gary for work he did to review Indiana state law to see what could be done by the city to create the concept of land banks, which in Ohio and in Illinois allow communities to pool their vacant land with surrounding communities to try to attract developers. Help support your local hometown newspaper/website. Independent local news reporting matters. Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription, for as little as $3, so we can continue to provide independent local reporting on our communities. If U.S. EPA expects that staff will be unavailable on January 10, how does USEPA know that staff will be available on Jan. 14? the group wrote. U.S. EPA has not explained the basis for maintaining the Jan. 14 comment deadline. Considering that U.S. EPA indicated that the proposed plan would not likely proceed to the construction phase for one year, it can afford to offer the residents an extension. Lawrence - Madeleine "Maddy" (Waye Descoteaux Brown), 87, passed away on April 5, 2020. Maddy was born to Irene and Charles Waye in Nashua, N.H., on December 17, 1932. She was predeceased by her parents; a brother Charles Waye; and husbands, Louis G. Descoteaux of Nashua, N.H., and George Br As Elizabeth Warren focuses her 2020 presidential campaign on big money in politics, President Donald Trump appears intent on trolling his possible challenger. During an interview Wednesday night on MSNBC's Rachael Maddow Show, the Massachusetts Democrat announced she was closing her joint fundraising committee, the Elizabeth Warren Action Fund, in an effort to walk her talk about rejecting funds from political action committees ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Warren also said during the interview that Trump is "what happens when corruption invades a system." Meanwhile, Trump tweeted out a meme saying "Warren - 1/2020th" in an apparent hit on Warren's Native American heritage. The president has repeatedly mocked her claims and called her "Pocahontas." After Warren released her DNA test in October, which showed she had a Native American ancestor six to 10 generations ago, she asked for Trump to make good on a bet to donate $1 million to a charity if she offered proof of her Native American ancestry. Trump then falsely said he never made the challenge, adding later that he would only donate the money if he could administer the genetic test. Warren announced on Monday she was exploring a run for the White House, and so far has tried to make the issues about the economy and the middle class. Trump was also quick to insult the senior U.S. senator from Massachusetts, telling a Fox News interviewer that "you would have to ask her psychiatrist" if she thought she could beat him. Scott Spradling, a former political director for WMUR who covered four New Hampshire primary cycles, said the campaign styles exhibited by Warren and Trump are divergent, but cautioned that New Hampshire primary voters won't be inspired by their "venomous" rhetoric. "It's awfully early in the campaign for these two to go after each other's jugular," he said. The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended its search for two fishermen who were reported missing after their boat capsized off Block Island, Rhode Island. The Coast Guard made the announcement Wednesday after failing to find boat owner Oscar Diaz and his nephew John Ansay. Officials received a distress call after the fishing boat Mistress capsized Tuesday morning. A nearby fishing boat, Captain Bligh, arrived to the scene first and rescued Tim Diaz, who is Oscar Diaz's son. Relatives say the Coast Guard told them it is unlikely that the other two men are still alive. John Ansay's mother, Sandy Gallo, says she still believes he is out there and wants the Coast Guard to keep searching. It is unclear why their boat starting taking on water. A Massachusetts man charged with fatally stabbing a kitten, taking a photo of the animal and throwing it in the trash has been held without bail. The Salem News reports that 43-year-old Peter Rice, of Salem, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges including animal cruelty and carrying a dangerous weapon. Police arrested Rice on Tuesday after a woman sent police an image of the stabbed kitten her boyfriend had received from Rice. Investigators say Rice initially denied knowing about a cat his girlfriend had been watching for a neighbor. Police say Rice later told investigators he had punched and stabbed the cat after it scratched him. His court-appointed attorney said Rice was asking to be sent to a Veterans Administration hospital for treatment in lieu of being held in jail. Maine's new governor is vowing to restore "unity" after eight years of partisanship under Republican Gov. Paul LePage. Democrat Janet Mills said Wednesday evening, "we are all in this together." Without mentioning LePage by name, Mills swore to restore civil discourse in Maine politics. She cited former Gov. Israel Washburn's 1861 inaugural vow to wave "aside petty schemes and unseemly wrangles." Mills is vowing to fight global warming, expand access to health care, improve education and develop a "world-class workforce." She vowed to expand Medicaid, as mandated by voters, and embrace clean energy including wind energy. She said solar panels will be installed on the Blaine House. She also says her administration will create an Office of Innovation and the Future that will dive into major policy challenges and propose workable solutions. Mills, the first woman to be elected governor in Maine, delivered her address Wednesday evening to state lawmakers, tribal leaders, members of the military and others at the Augusta Civic Center. Her first full day on the job is Thursday. She said diversity is a virtue and that she'll welcome all, including Maine's newcomers and immigrants, to the conversation about the state's future. She said the state must find its "own common ground, expand our horizons and become one Maine again." She concluded the speech by saying, "Welcome home." A good Samaritan helped stop a man police say was driving drunk on New Year's Eve in New Hampshire. Ian Kelley is one of the people who tried to stop the driver from causing even more chaos then he already had. "He could have hurt a lot of people that night," said Kelley. Police say Aaron Marconi was intoxicated while driving near downtown Portsmouth when he crashed into several cars and businesses, ending up in a restaurant parking lot. "I heard a loud crash," said Kelley. "I then checked my rear view mirror ... saw a very large truck barreling at me." Kelley was driving for Uber that night when he saw the suspect lose control of his pick-up truck. He pulled over to help. "At first, I got out with the intention to check on the individual just to make sure he wasn't injured or having a medical condition," Kelley said. "The way he was driving it looked like he may have been having a stroke behind the wheel." Kelley got out out of his car just as Marconi was allegedly threatening another good Samaritan who had also pulled over. "He said, 'I will kill you, get out of my way,'" Kelley said. Kelley then pulled out his gun. "I said, 'I need you to stop. I have a gun, please stop. Turn off the engine.' Because at that time, he was still trying to back up," Kelley said. Kelley pointed the gun at Marconi until police arrived. Police said many people were on the sidewalk and it was lucky no one was hurt. Kelley says he's only used his gun at firing ranges and in training classes, but he was prepared to pull the trigger if that driver tried to take off. Police are investigating after two people were found dead inside a home in Northampton, Massachusetts. The Northwestern District Attorney's Office said the people were found dead inside a residence on Village Hill Road. They said there is no concern for public safety. Northampton police and state police assigned to the district attorney's office are investigating. No further information was released. What to Know Apple lowered its Q1 guidance, following weaker than expected iPhone sales and a weakening economy in China Apple stock fell about 7 percent on the news There have been several signals throughout the quarter that Apples latest iPhone models werent selling as well as expected Apple has lowered its Q1 guidance in a letter to investors from CEO Tim Cook Wednesday. Apple stock was halted in after-hours trading just prior to the announcement, and shares were down about 7 percent when trading resumed 20 minutes later. Apple lowered revenue guidance to $84 billion, down from the $89 to $93 billion it had previously projected. The company lowered gross margin to about 38 percent from between 38 percent and 38.5 percent. Apple blamed a variety of factors for the lowered guidance, including a weakening economy in China and lower-than-expected iPhone revenue. Apple said the lower-than-anticipated revenue happened primarily in Greater China, but also said that upgrades to new iPhone models in other countries were not as strong as we thought they would be. Cooks letter said fewer carrier subsidies, price increases based on the strength of the U.S. dollar and cheaper battery replacements caused the weak iPhone upgrades for the quarter. If you look at our results, our shortfall is over 100 percent from iPhone and its primarily in greater China, Cook told CNBCs Josh Lipton in an interview Wednesday. Its clear that the economy began to slow there for the second half and what I believe to be the case is the trade tensions between the United States and China put additional pressure on their economy. A White House spokesman did not immediately have a response to Cooks comments on the trade tensions between the U.S. and China. There have been several reports pointing to weak iPhone sales in recent months. Some Apple suppliers cut their estimates last quarter, leading many to speculate consumers werent upgrading to the new models. Apple also took the unusual step of promoting discounted prices for iPhones on its website if customers traded in an older model. The company also increased the trade-in value of some older iPhone models. Despite the lowered guidance, Cook did point out some growth areas in the letter to investors. He said Apples device install base increased by 100 million units over the last year. Apple has been promoting its growing install base as a way to show it can squeeze more revenue out of each of its uses through subscription services like iCloud storage and Apple Music. The company is said to be considering new subscription products through its Apple News and TV apps as well. We had sort of a collection of items going on. Some that are macroeconomic and some that are Apple specific, Cook said in his CNBC interview. And were not going to sit around waiting for the macro to change. I hope that it does and Im actually optimistic, but we are going to focus really deeply on the things we can control. Here's the full letter from Cook to investors: To Apple investors: Today we are revising our guidance for Apple's fiscal 2019 first quarter, which ended on December 29. We now expect the following: Revenue of approximately $84 billion Gross margin of approximately 38 percent Operating expenses of approximately $8.7 billion Other income/(expense) of approximately $550 million Tax rate of approximately 16.5 percent before discrete items We expect the number of shares used in computing diluted EPS to be approximately 4.77 billion. Based on these estimates, our revenue will be lower than our original guidance for the quarter, with other items remaining broadly in line with our guidance. While it will be a number of weeks before we complete and report our final results, we wanted to get some preliminary information to you now. Our final results may differ somewhat from these preliminary estimates. When we discussed our Q1 guidance with you about 60 days ago, we knew the first quarter would be impacted by both macroeconomic and Apple-specific factors. Based on our best estimates of how these would play out, we predicted that we would report slight revenue growth year-over-year for the quarter. As you may recall, we discussed four factors: First, we knew the different timing of our iPhone launches would affect our year-over-year compares. Our top models, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, shipped in Q4'18 placing the channel fill and early sales in that quarter, whereas last year iPhone X shipped in Q1'18, placing the channel fill and early sales in the December quarter. We knew this would create a difficult compare for Q1'19, and this played out broadly in line with our expectations. Second, we knew the strong US dollar would create foreign exchange headwinds and forecasted this would reduce our revenue growth by about 200 basis points as compared to the previous year. This also played out broadly in line with our expectations. Third, we knew we had an unprecedented number of new products to ramp during the quarter and predicted that supply constraints would gate our sales of certain products during Q1. Again, this also played out broadly in line with our expectations. Sales of Apple Watch Series 4 and iPad Pro were constrained much or all of the quarter. AirPods and MacBook Air were also constrained. Fourth, we expected economic weakness in some emerging markets. This turned out to have a significantly greater impact than we had projected. In addition, these and other factors resulted in fewer iPhone upgrades than we had anticipated. These last two points have led us to reduce our revenue guidance. I'd like to go a bit deeper on both. Emerging Market Challenges While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China. In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad. China's economy began to slow in the second half of 2018. The government-reported GDP growth during the September quarter was the second lowest in the last 25 years. We believe the economic environment in China has been further impacted by rising trade tensions with the United States. As the climate of mounting uncertainty weighed on financial markets, the effects appeared to reach consumers as well, with traffic to our retail stores and our channel partners in China declining as the quarter progressed. And market data has shown that the contraction in Greater China's smartphone market has been particularly sharp. Despite these challenges, we believe that our business in China has a bright future. The iOS developer community in China is among the most innovative, creative and vibrant in the world. Our products enjoy a strong following among customers, with a very high level of engagement and satisfaction. Our results in China include a new record for Services revenue, and our installed base of devices grew over the last year. We are proud to participate in the Chinese marketplace. iPhone Lower than anticipated iPhone revenue, primarily in Greater China, accounts for all of our revenue shortfall to our guidance and for much more than our entire year-over-year revenue decline. In fact, categories outside of iPhone (Services, Mac, iPad, Wearables/Home/Accessories) combined to grow almost 19 percent year-over-year. While Greater China and other emerging markets accounted for the vast majority of the year-over-year iPhone revenue decline, in some developed markets, iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be. While macroeconomic challenges in some markets were a key contributor to this trend, we believe there are other factors broadly impacting our iPhone performance, including consumers adapting to a world with fewer carrier subsidies, US dollar strength-related price increases, and some customers taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements. Many Positive Results in the December Quarter While it's disappointing to revise our guidance, our performance in many areas showed remarkable strength in spite of these challenges. Our installed base of active devices hit a new all-time high growing by more than 100 million units in 12 months. There are more Apple devices being used than ever before, and it's a testament to the ongoing loyalty, satisfaction and engagement of our customers. Also, as I mentioned earlier, revenue outside of our iPhone business grew by almost 19 percent year-over-year, including all-time record revenue from Services, Wearables and Mac. Our non-iPhone businesses have less exposure to emerging markets, and the vast majority of Services revenue is related to the size of the installed base, not current period sales. Services generated over $10.8 billion in revenue during the quarter, growing to a new quarterly record in every geographic segment, and we are on track to achieve our goal of doubling the size of this business from 2016 to 2020. Wearables grew by almost 50 percent year-over-year, as Apple Watch and AirPods were wildly popular among holiday shoppers; launches of MacBook Air and Mac mini powered the Mac to year-over-year revenue growth and the launch of the new iPad Pro drove iPad to year-over-year double-digit revenue growth. We also expect to set all-time revenue records in several developed countries, including the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Korea. And, while we saw challenges in some emerging markets, others set records, including Mexico, Poland, Malaysia and Vietnam. Finally, we also expect to report a new all-time record for Apple's earnings per share. Looking Ahead Our profitability and cash flow generation are strong, and we expect to exit the quarter with approximately $130 billion in net cash. As we have stated before, we plan to become net-cash neutral over time. As we exit a challenging quarter, we are as confident as ever in the fundamental strength of our business. We manage Apple for the long term, and Apple has always used periods of adversity to re-examine our approach, to take advantage of our culture of flexibility, adaptability and creativity, and to emerge better as a result. Most importantly, we are confident and excited about our pipeline of future products and services. Apple innovates like no other company on earth, and we are not taking our foot off the gas. We can't change macroeconomic conditions, but we are undertaking and accelerating other initiatives to improve our results. One such initiative is making it simple to trade in a phone in our stores, finance the purchase over time, and get help transferring data from the current to the new phone. This is not only great for the environment, it is great for the customer, as their existing phone acts as a subsidy for their new phone, and it is great for developers, as it can help grow our installed base. This is one of a number of steps we are taking to respond. We can make these adjustments because Apple's strength is in our resilience, the talent and creativity of our team, and the deeply held passion for the work we do every day. Expectations are high for Apple because they should be. We are committed to exceeding those expectations every day. That has always been the Apple way, and it always will be. Tim This story first appeared on CNBC.com. More from CNBC: Tesla shares tumble as much as 10% as company misses Wall Street vehicle delivery estimates, cuts prices Sears Chairman Eddie Lampert makes two offers for Sears: one to save it, one to salvage pieces in a partial liquidation Americans are flocking to these 10 cities where you can afford to buy a home on a $60,000 salary President Donald Trump is, at once, demanding billions of dollars from the U.S. Treasury for a border wall and insisting the wall won't really cost America anything. As he's done before, Trump argued Wednesday that Mexico is footing the bill thanks to a revised trade agreement. That's not true. If the wall is to be built, the money will need to come from Washington's coffers and be approved by Congress. There is no mechanism in the trade agreement or anywhere else for Mexico to pay back the U.S. or for the money to be refunded to the Treasury. Trump also vastly overstated the number of people who are thought to be in the country illegally, retroactively declared that his defense chief who resigned was pushed out and raised what appear to be thin hopes for cheaper drug prices. A look at some of his statements Wednesday on Twitter and at a Cabinet meeting: IMMIGRATION TRUMP, on the number of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally: "I used to hear 11 million all the time. It would always stay right at 11. I said, 'Does it ever increase or go down?' 'No, it's 11.' Nobody knows. It's probably 30, 35 million people. They would flow in, mostly from the southern border, they'd come in and nobody would talk about it, nobody would do anything about it." Cabinet meeting. THE FACTS: It's nowhere close to 30 million to 35 million, according to his own Homeland Security secretary as well as independent estimates. The nonpartisan Pew Research Center estimates there were 10.7 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally in 2016, the most recent data available. Advocacy groups on both sides of the immigration issue have similar estimates. At a House hearing last month, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen acknowledged the number was "somewhere" between 11 million and 22 million, significantly lower than Trump's claim of 35 million. According to Pew, the number of immigrants in the U.S. illegally had reached a height of 12.2 million in 2007, representing about 4 percent of the U.S. population, before declining in part because of a weakening U.S. economy. TRUMP: "The coyotes are using children to gain access into this country. They're using these children. They're not with families. They're using the children. They're taking the children. And then they dispose of the children after they're done. This has been going on for years. This isn't unique to us. But we want to stop it." Cabinet meeting. THE FACTS: This does happen, though it's not as common as Trump suggests by talking about it so often. He is referring to adults who come with children they falsely claim to be theirs, so that they won't be detained under a no-child-separation policy. But such cases of fraud are rare. According to the Homeland Security Department, about 500 immigrants were found to be not a "legitimate family unit" and thus separated upon detention from April 19 to Sept. 30 of last year. That's a small fraction of the 107,000 families apprehended in the last budget year, which ended Sept. 30. DRUG PRICES TRUMP: "I think you're going to see a tremendous reduction in drug prices." Cabinet meeting. THE FACTS: Prices continue to rise. Administration policies announced last year and currently being completed don't seem to have shifted that trend. Figures on U.S. prescription drug price changes compiled by health data company Elsevier show that from Dec. 20 through Jan. 2, there were 1,179 product price changes. Of those, 30 were price cuts and the remaining 1,149 were price increases, with 328 of them between 9 percent and 10 percent. All but one of the rest were by lower percentages. Elsevier spokesman Chris Capot said more companies will be announcing price increases this month. Separately, a data firm whose software can help patients find the most cost-effective medications says its information shows price increases on many commonly used drugs for conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes. "In the first two days of January, prices have increased on more than 250 different products," said Michael Rea, CEO of Rx Savings Solutions. The average increase is about 6 percent, he added. MATTIS TRUMP, on Jim Mattis: "I wish him well. I hope he does well. But, as you know, President (Barack) Obama fired him and essentially so did I. I want results." Cabinet meeting. THE FACTS: Actually, Mattis resigned as defense secretary in protest over Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops from Syria. The retired Marine general announced on Dec. 20 in a resignation letter that he was stepping down after Trump's decision to withdraw 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria. Mattis said he would stay on the job until the end of February. Three days later, Trump abruptly said he was replacing Mattis with the second-ranking defense official, Pat Shanahan, on Jan. 1. As to the tenure under Obama, Mattis served as commander of the military's Central Command. He departed a few months earlier than expected in 2013, in part because of disagreements over Iran. THE WALL TRUMP: "Mexico is paying for the Wall through the new USMCA Trade Deal. Much of the Wall has already been fully renovated or built. We have done a lot of work. $5.6 Billion Dollars that House has approved is very little in comparison to the benefits of National Security. Quick payback!" tweet. THE FACTS: Mexico isn't paying. It's also not true that there's been much construction beyond fencing erected during previous administrations; some renovation of the existing barrier has been achieved. Trump is arguing, in essence, that the updated trade pact with Mexico and Canada, known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement, will yield economic benefits to the U.S. that, years from now, will cover the unrelated costs of the wall today. That assertion doesn't hold water even with those who support his push for a wall. He went further at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, contending the wall will pay for itself on a "monthly basis." The new trade deal won't change that much from the previous North American Free Trade Agreement. The three countries would continue trading in an environment of mainly low or no tariffs, with certain improvements for all three partners from the terms of NAFTA. Moreover, the new deal isn't in effect. It's awaiting ratification from legislative bodies in each country, and that is not assured. There is no credible way for Trump to forecast additional growth covering costs that are being charged to U.S. taxpayers if the wall is built. Trade balances depend on too many factors consumer tastes, exchange rates, overall economic performance and the choices of thousands of companies, for example and some are well outside any government's control. Trump specifically promised in his 2016 campaign that Mexico would pay for the wall. It is not doing so. Trump's case is also built on a mischaracterization of trade balances. Unlike economists and governments, he considers a trade deficit to be a payment to the exporting country. By that argument, if a trade deficit shrinks, the U.S. is saving money. But that's not how trade works. Consumers create a trade deficit by buying products made abroad. They get value for their purchase the products and are not giving money away. Trump's claim that much of the "Wall has already been fully renovated or built" is only supported when counting work done by past administrations and ignoring the fact that fences are not the towering walls he promised. The 2006 Secure Fence Act has resulted in about 650 miles (1,050 kilometers) of border barrier. Money approved by Congress in March 2018 is to pay for 84 miles (135 km), but that work is not done. Trump's point that the national security benefits would outweigh the economic cost is a legitimate one to debate. But the notion that U.S. taxpayers would not be covering the cost is baseless. A guard at Marine Barracks Washington was reassigned after a fatal New Years Day shooting of another Marine. A Marine guard fired his weapon, hitting Lance Cpl. Riley Kuznia, 20, of Karlstad, Minnesota, about 5 a.m. Tuesday inside the barracks at 8th and I streets in Southeast. Kuznia was taken to a hospital but pronounced dead at 5:59 a.m. The Marine who fired his weapon was relieved of his guard duties and assigned to administrative duties pending the results of an investigation. The Metropolitan Police Department is treating the shooting as a death investigation, not a homicide, according to the Marines. "The safety and well-being of the Marines, Sailors and civilians here at the Barracks is paramount, and something we take very seriously," Marine Barracks Washington commanding officer Col. Don Tomich said in a press release. Kuznia's decorations include the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the National Defense Service Medal. The father of a Marine killed in a shooting at a Marine barracks in D.C. says his son always was defined by his sense of honor and desire to serve others. In his short life, 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Riley Kuznia loved his country, family and the outdoors, said his father, Adam Kuznia. He was moving up the ranks quickly, Adam Kuznia said. I didnt think he was going to be that far up and I am very proud of him, he added. Little is known about the circumstances under which Lance Cpl. Kuznia was shot in the head about 5 a.m. Tuesday inside the Marine Corps Washington Barracks at 8th and I streets in Southeast Washington. Officials confirmed the gunshot was not self-inflicted. Adam Kuznia said hes anxious for more information. Well, I mean Im not blaming anybody, but I mean, from just what Ive read, I mean if proper procedures would have been followed, I would have my kid today yet, he said. The commanding officer of Marine Barracks Washington released a statement that reads, in part: "We are truly saddened by this terrible loss. Riley was a highly driven and goal-oriented Marine whose positive attitude set the example here at the Barracks. An investigation is underway, and officials released few details on how the shooting occurred. Kuznia's decorations include the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the National Defense Service Medal. A man arrested on Christmas Eve after police say he secretly filmed a teenage girl in a Virginia store dressing room is now accused of filming at least 60 other women and girls. Mumtaz Rauf, 39, is accused of using tiny cameras to film dozens of women and girls at the Forever 21 and H&M stores in the Fair Oaks Mall in Fairfax, plus the Old Navy store nearby, Fairfax County police said Thursday. It is early in the investigation, and other stores may be identified in the more than 100 videos seized by police. Many of the victims are young girls recorded in states of undress with their mothers, police said. "This is a massive case," Col. Edwin Roessler Jr. said at a news conference. The recordings were made between Dec. 15 and Dec. 24. Rauf was arrested on Dec. 24 and charged with unlawful filming of a minor, which is a felony because of the victim's age. The victim was inside the Forever 21 store at about 4 p.m. when she saw a black device pointing down from the wall of her dressing room. "This young lady, on Christmas Eve, saw something that didn't seem right and took the right step," Maj. Ed O'Carroll said. The girl told police she believed photos may have been taken of her. A store employee then saw a man leave the store. Officers later found the suspect inside a dressing room of the H&M store. Both stores are known for having young customers. Officers found a pinhole camera, black tape and a battery-powered Bluetooth transmitter in Rauf's possession. Investigators believe he was using the transmitter to remotely gather video and photos. Police are investigating whether the images were shared or put online. Robbie Stark, the general manager of the Fair Oaks Mall, said mall officials and store employees are keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. Mall officials are working to educate employees and make sure they're in touch with police, Stark said. Rauf is being held pending trial. It's unclear whether he has an attorney who could comment. Police believe that some of the recordings were made at the following places, at the following times: Dec. 22, 2018: 1:15-2:10 p.m., Fair Lakes Old Navy 2:50-3:20 p.m., Fair Oaks Mall H&M 3:40-4:15p.m., Fair Oaks Mall Forever 21 4:25-5:45 p.m., Fair Oaks Mall H&M Dec. 24, 2018: 12:30-2 p.m., Fair Oaks Mall Forever 21 and H&M Also, police believe recordings were made 9:15-10 p.m. Dec. 22, possibly at the H&M and Old Navy at the Tysons Corner Center mall. The list of locations and times is likely to grow, according to police. If you think you may have been a victim of illegal filming, call police at 703-246-4600, text police at 703-718-5806 or email the police task force. Stay with News4 for more details on this developing story. What to Know The threats, made through email or social media, are not believed to be credible, officials said. Increased security is in place Wednesday as a precaution for William Wirt Middle School, Bladensburg High School and Parkdale High School. A 14-year-old girl confessed to threats against three Maryland schools, according to Prince George's County police. The threats were not credible, police said. The threats were made through email or social media against William Wirt Middle School, Bladensburg High School and Parkdale High School. One of the emailed threats included obscene photos, police said. "We conducted a search of this juveniles home and we seized all of her computer equipment," Police Chief Hank Stawinski said. "Now her family is having to suffer consequences as they now have to work through the legal system with their daughter." Increased security was in place Wednesday for those schools as a precaution. "Providing students with a safe & orderly environment is our top priority & all threats are taken seriously. As a precaution, there will be additional security at all three schools when classes resume Wednesday, Jan. 2," a statement from the school district said. The suspect, whose name is being withheld because she is a juvenile, is charged with making threats of mass violence, electronic threats mailed to minor and obscene matter/possession with intent to distribute. The University of Virginia's College at Wise is looking to boost enrollment by offering discounted tuition to out-of-state students from Appalachia. The Daily Progress reports that the college is pushing a proposal for reduced tuition to counter declining enrollment. The proposal would affect students from the federally defined Appalachian region, which stretches from New York to Alabama and includes all or parts of 13 states. The College at Wise is close to the geographic center of the Appalachian region. Chancellor Donna Henry hopes the proposal would bring in about 100 additional students. Del. Terry Kilgore has a bill that would reduce tuition for out-of-state Appalachian students that will be considered by lawmakers during this year's legislative session. Police arrested a 60-year-old Virginia woman in the suspicious death of a 64-year-old woman. Arlington County police responded to a report of a stabbing in the 5100 block of 8th Road S about 10 a.m. Tuesday. Officers found Alice Carter of Arlington suffering from trauma, police said. She was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. The incident was a result of dispute between two people who knew each other, police said. Linda Snow of Arlington is charged with second-degree murder and is being held without bond. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will determine the exact cause of death. The body of a 7-year-old girl who died while in custody of the U.S. Border Patrol arrived in her native Guatemala on Sunday and was being driven hours into the countryside to be handed over to family members for a last goodbye. A white coffin containing Jakelin Caal was received in the afternoon at Guatemala City's international airport by representatives of the country's Foreign Ministry and then loaded into the back of a black hearse by workers in orange vests. No family members were on hand. Domingo Caal, the girl's grandfather, told The Associated Press that the family didn't have money to travel from their poor hamlet to Guatemala's capital. At Domingo Caal's home in the village of San Antonio Secortez, in the department of Alta Verapaz, relatives set up a small wooden altar flanked by vases overflowing with flowers, with photographs of Jakelin and the hand-lettered message, "We miss you." Behind the house, dozens of women prepared tamales and beans to feed mourners. Relatives expected the body to arrive in the pre-dawn hours Monday in the hamlet of about 420 people who mostly live off growing of corn and beans. The village has no paved streets, running water or electricity, and residents say declining crop yields and a lack of work have pushed many in the community to emigrate in recent years. Caal and her father, Nery Caal, were traveling with a group of 163 migrants who arrived at the New Mexico border earlier this month. After they were taken into custody Dec. 6, the father told a U.S. agent that the girl was sick and vomiting. The father signed a paper stating that Jakelin was in good health, but it is not clear how much he understood what it said. The form was in English, and agents read it to him in Spanish. A bus carrying the two left the Antelope Wells port of entry for the Lordsburg station, roughly 90 minutes away. By then, according to a Customs and Border Protection statement, Jakelin's temperature had reached 105.7 degrees Fahrenheit (40.9 degrees Celsius). Emergency medical technicians had to revive her. She was then flown to a hospital in El Paso, Texas, where she died the next day. Guatemalan Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marta Larra said the ministry had sent a diplomatic note to the U.S. State Department asking for it to monitor the case and determine the cause of death. Domingo Caal said his son has a Jan. 3 court date in the United States to determine his migratory status. Associated Press writer Sonia Perez D. contributed to this report. Child's death highlights communication barriers on border By JULIE WATSON, Associated Press Shortly before a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl died in U.S. custody, her father signed a form stating that his daughter was in good health. But it's unclear how much the man understood on the form, which was written in English and read to him in Spanish by Border Patrol agents. The death of Jakelin Caal highlights the communication challenges along the U.S.-Mexico border as agents come in contact with an increasing number of migrants who speak neither English nor Spanish. Her father's native language is the Mayan tongue known as Q'eqchi'. His second language is Spanish. It's unclear whether something was lost in translation or whether it would have made a difference in saving Jakelin after the two were detained and underwent a health screening along a remote stretch of U.S.-Mexico border. But the case raises questions about the Border Patrol's use of English-only forms. All agents are required to speak Spanish, and they receive formal Spanish training. Reading forms in Spanish is often enough to pose basic questions. But some other Spanish-speaking migrants reported signing paperwork that they later said they did not understand. Scores of immigrant parents who were separated from their children after crossing the border in the spring said they signed forms agreeing to be deported with the understanding that their kids would be returning with them, only to find themselves deported without them. Many had to wait months before being reunited with them in their homelands. Jakelin and her father, Nery Gilberto Caal Cuz, were part of a group of 163 migrants arrested Dec. 6 near a border crossing in New Mexico. Hours later, they were placed on a bus to the nearest Border Patrol station, but Jakelin began vomiting and eventually stopped breathing. She later died at a Texas hospital. Border Patrol officials on Friday said agents did everything they could to save the girl but that she had not had food or water for days. An initial screening showed no evidence of health problems, they said, and her father spoke to them in Spanish and signed a form indicating she was in good health. Attorneys in Texas representing Caal criticized U.S. officials for asking him to sign Form I-779, which asks a series of questions with check boxes of "yes" or "no." In the additional comments section on the form was written "claims good health." "It is unacceptable for any government agency to have persons in custody sign documents in a language that they clearly do not understand," the attorneys said in a statement. The family also disputed the accounts offered by U.S. officials that the girl walked for days in the desert without food or water before crossing. The father's lawyers said Caal took care of his daughter, giving her sufficient water and food, and she appeared to be in good health. Jakelin's family is asking for an "objective and thorough" investigation to determine whether officials met standards for taking children into custody. Border Patrol officials did not immediately respond to the family lawyers' statement. The father, who is staying at a shelter in El Paso, Texas, has asked for privacy. Authorities are conducting an autopsy to determine the cause of death. Results are expected in about a week, said Tekandi Paniagua, the Guatemalan consul in Del Rio, Texas. Paniagua, who spoke with Jakelin's father, said the two had walked with the other migrants for about 90 minutes before crossing and Caal told him he had no complaints about how agents treated him and his daughter. Caal speaks broken Spanish. In his impoverished village in Guatemala, Spanish is needed only occasionally, such as when the community deals with schools and health care or for work, Paniagua said. More than two dozen languages are spoken in Guatemala, and the consulate tries to send interpreters as soon as possible to help detained migrants, Paniagua said. But sometimes by the time they get there, the migrants have already signed forms. "We'll ask, 'Do you speak Spanish?' And they'll say yes," he said. "Then we'll ask, 'But do you understand Spanish?' And often they'll say, 'No, I need an interpreter.'" Caal asked the Guatemalan consulate in Texas, which had reached out to him, if he could see his daughter one last time before her body was sent back to her homeland. That request prompted special arrangements at a private funeral home on Friday, when he said goodbye to Jakelin. The consulate asked him if he wanted an interpreter who could explain everything, including the repatriation of her body, in Q'eqchi.' He said he did. After listening to the interpreter, Paniagua said, Caal thanked the consulate and said "he felt more comfortable in his own language. 2019 is the Year of the Pig and for NBC 7 anchor Marianne Kushi's family, it's tradition to celebrate every New Year with a big Japanese-style feast. Kushi says the meal often takes a week to prepare and food consists of raw and cooked delicacies like sauteed root vegetables, sashimi, caviars, fermented beans and mochi. "It's a tradition that ties generations together 'down to the root,'" Kushi says. Watch the video above to see the Kushi family prepare for their Year of the Pig feast. What to Know A judge has ordered Morton Mayor Bruce Blunt's removal from office over a decades-old felony conviction. Blunt was convicted of assault and resisting arrest in 1988 after he punched officers who were called to break up a bar fight. Delaware County District Attorney Katayoun Copeland said she is "pleased" with the removal decision. A judge has ordered a suburban Philadelphia mayor's removal from office over a decades-old felony conviction. The Delaware County District Attorney's office announced the judge's ruling Wednesday against 54-year-old Morton Democratic Mayor Bruce Blunt. Blunt was convicted of assault and resisting arrest in 1988 after he punched officers who were called to break up a bar fight at Houlihans Bar in the Springfield Park Shopping Center. He was sentenced to five to 23 months in prison. Blunt was elected to mayor in January 2018, beating incumbent Maureen Pisselli. District Attorney Katayoun Copeland filed for Blunt's removal in February 2018. We are pleased that effective immediately, a court order has been granted directing his removal from office," Copeland said in a news release. "As a convicted felon, Mr. Blunt violated the law by assuming the position of Mayor, meanwhile wasting the valuable time of our voters and breaching their trust, compromising the electoral process. He is unauthorized and therefore incapable of holding the position of Mayor, and therefore, must step down immediately. Blunt has not responded to requests for comment. Morton Borough Manager Robert Poole told the Philadelphia Inquirer he was unaware of Blunt's removal, and declined to say who would serve as interim mayor. A Lehigh Valley woman has been charged with battering her infant triplets. Lehigh County prosecutors said Thursday that 52-year-old Ann Henry of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, injured her children in September 2016, when they were 8 weeks old. One infant suffered a broken arm, another suffered fractured ribs and the third had head trauma. Prosecutors say Henry also assaulted one of her children, then 23 months old, last July. The child suffered bruising due to lack of oxygen or blood flow to the brain, as well as a broken leg. Henry is charged with aggravated assault and other offenses. It's not clear whether she has a lawyer to speak on her behalf. A Canadian man has been sentenced after drunkenly driving his pickup truck head-on into a Lyft ride-sharing vehicle in Bensalem, killing a passenger and severely injuring the passenger's wife. Shane Learn, 49, of Toronto, was sentenced Wednesday to four and a half to nine years in prison for the April 28 crash that killed 57-year-old Neil Weiner and severely injured his wife Audrey Shapiro, the Bucks County District Attorney's Office announced. Learn pleaded guilty in November to homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence, aggravated assault and related charges, the district attorney's office said. Officials said Learn was driving a 2014 Ford F-150 truck northbound along the 4000 block of Richlieu Road around 6:45 p.m. on April 28, 2018, when he left his travel lane and struck a guardrail. The truck then veered into the northbound lane and struck the Lyft vehicle, a Chevrolet Malibu. Weiner, of Holland, Pennsylvania was seriously injured and taken to Jefferson Hospital, where he died the next day. Shapiro was seriously injured and the Lyft driver suffered minor injuries. Learn's eyes were bloodshot and police noticed alcohol on his breath, according to the affidavit. Learn failed two field sobriety tests and registered a .162 percent blood alcohol concentration after taking a breath test, according to the affidavit. Learn allegedly told officers he drank two beers and a double Jameson shot before driving. "It was my fault," Learn said, according to the affidavit. "I crossed the line." At his sentencing, Learn's attorney told the judge that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has filed a detainer for his client, and he expects Learn will be deported to Canada after serving his sentence, according to the district attorney's office. What to Know The U.S. State Department on Thursday updated its increased travel warning about China, urging Americans to "exercise increased caution" The State Department warning said that Chinese authorities have "exit bans" to prevent US citizens from leaving China, sometimes "for years" The department said those bans are used "coercively" to compel Americans to participate in Chinese government investigations, The U.S. State Department on Thursday updated its travel warning about China, urging Americans to "exercise increased caution" in the country "due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws as well as special restrictions on dual U.S.-Chinese nationals." The State Department's "Level 2" warning, which was first issued last year, noted that Chinese authorities have "exit bans" to prevent U.S. citizens from leaving China, sometimes "for years." The updated warning notes that the bans are used "coercively" to "lure" people back to China from abroad, a point that was not mentioned when the warning was first issued. The bans are also used compel Americans to participate in Chinese government investigations and to help Chinese authorities resolve civil disputes "in favor of Chinese parties," the warning says. "In most cases, U.S. citizens only become aware of the exit ban when they attempt to depart China, and there is no method to find out how long the ban may continue. U.S. citizens under exit bans have been harassed and threatened," the warning said. The State Department in recent weeks has issued a number of Level 2 travel warnings for countries, including the United Kingdom, Spain, Russia, France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands, citing the risk of terrorism. Last week, that level of warning was issued for Burma, urging travelers to "exercise increased caution ... due to areas of civil unrest and armed conflict." Level 2 travel warnings are one step more serious than Level 1 warnings, which urge travelers to "exercise normal precautions." The next more serious warnings are Level 3, or "Reconsider travel," and Level 4, "Do not travel." The updated warning does not apply to Hong Kong. The State Department's advisory on that special administrative region urges travelers to "exercise normal precautions." This story first appeared on CNBC.com. More from CNBC: According to Waukegan police reports after the death, Salcedo allegedly told investigators he drove into a crowd of people that was attacking one of his friends, and then fled because he panicked and was drunk. Cheering Democrats returned Nancy Pelosi to the House speaker's post Thursday as the 116th Congress took office and ushered in a historically diverse class of freshmen ready to confront President Donald Trump in a new era of divided government. Pelosi, elected speaker 220-192, took the gavel saying U.S. voters "demanded a new dawn" in the November election that swept the Democrats to a House majority and are looking to "the beauty of our Constitution" to provide checks and balances on power. She faced 15 dissenting votes from fellow Democrats. For a few hours, the promise of a new era was the order of the day. The new speaker invited scores of lawmakers' kids to join her on the dais as she was sworn in, calling the House to order "on behalf of all of America's children." Even Trump congratulated her during a rare appearance at the White House briefing room, saying her election by House colleagues was "a tremendous, tremendous achievement." The president has tangled often with Pelosi and is sure to do so again with Democrats controlling the House, but he said, "I think it'll be a little bit different than a lot of people are thinking." As night fell, the House quickly got to work on the partial government shutdown, which was winding up Day 13 with Trump demanding billions in Mexican border wall funding to bring it to an end. Democrats approved legislation to re-open the government but without the $5.6 billion in wall money, which means it has no chance in the Republican Senate. The new Congress is like none other. There are more women than ever before, and a new generation of Muslims, Latinos, Native Americans and African-Americans is creating a House more aligned with the population of the United States. However, the Republican side in the House is still made up mostly of white men, and in the Senate Republicans bolstered their ranks in the majority. In a nod to the moment, Pelosi, the first female speaker who reclaimed the post she lost to the GOP in 2011, broadly pledged to make Congress work for all Americans addressing kitchen table issues at a time of deep economic churn even as her party readies to challenge Trump with investigations and subpoena powers that threaten the White House agenda. Pelosi promised to "restore integrity to government" and outlined an agenda "to lower health costs and prescription drug prices and protect people with pre-existing medical conditions; to increase paychecks by rebuilding America with green and modern infrastructure from sea to shining sea." The day unfolded as one of both celebration and impatience. Newly elected lawmakers arrived, often with friends and families in tow, to take the oath of office and pose for ceremonial photos. Then they swiftly turned to the shutdown. Vice President Mike Pence swore in newly elected senators, but Senate Republicans under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had no plans to consider the House bills unless Trump agreed to sign them into law. That ensured the shutdown would continue, clouding the first days of the new session. McConnell said that Republicans have shown the Senate is "fertile soil for big, bipartisan accomplishments," but that the question is whether House Democrats will engage in "good governance or political performance art." It's a time of stark national political division that some analysts say is on par with the Civil War era. Battle lines are drawn not just between Democrats and Republicans but within the parties themselves, splintered by their left and right flanks. Pelosi defied history in returning to the speaker's office after eight years in the minority, overcoming internal opposition from Democrats demanding a new generation of leaders. She will be the first to regain the gavel since Sam Rayburn of Texas in 1955. Putting Pelosi's name forward for nomination, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the incoming Democratic caucus chair, recounted her previous accomplishments passing the Affordable Care Act, helping the country out of the Great Recession as preludes to her next ones. He called her leadership "unparalleled in modern American history." One Democrat, Rep. Brenda Lawrence of Michigan, cast her vote for Pelosi "on the shoulders of women who marched 100 years ago" for women's suffrage. Newly elected Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia, an anti-gun violence advocate, dedicated hers to her slain teenage son, Jordan Davis. As speaker, Pelosi will face challenges from the party's robust wing of liberal newcomers, including 29-year-old New Yorker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has risen to such prominence she is already known around the Capitol and on her prolific social media accounts by the nickname "AOC." California Rep. Brad Sherman introduced articles of impeachment against Trump, though for now the measures are largely symbolic. Republicans face their own internal battles as they decide how closely to tie their political fortunes to Trump. House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy's name was put into nomination for speaker by his party's caucus chair, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the daughter of the former vice president. He faced six "no" votes from his now-shrunken GOP minority. As McCarthy passed the gavel to Pelosi he said voters wonder if Congress is "still capable" of solving problems, and said this period of divided government is "no excuse for gridlock." One office remains disputed as the House refused to seat Republican Mark Harris of North Carolina amid an investigation by state election officials of irregularities in absentee ballots from the November election. Many GOP senators are up for re-election in 2020 in states where voters have mixed views of Trump's performance in the White House. Trump, whose own bid for 2020 already is underway, faces potential challenges from the ranks of Senate Democrats under Chuck Schumer. The halls of the Capitol were bustling with arrivals, children in the arms of many new lawmakers. Visitor galleries included crooner Tony Bennett and rock legend Mickey Hart, both guests of Pelosi. Incoming White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman, sat with Republican leaders. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., opened the House prayer asking at "a time fraught with tribalism at home and turbulence abroad" that lawmakers "become the architects of a kindlier nation." Overnight, Democratic Rep-elect Ilhan Omar of Minnesota tweeted a picture with her family at the airport. The House rules were being changed to allow Omar, who is Muslim, to wear a head scarf on the chamber floor. She wrote, "23 years ago, from a refugee camp in Kenya, my father and I arrived at an airport in Washington DC. Today, we return to that same airport on the eve of my swearing in as the first Somali-American in Congress." A decorated Navy SEAL will face court-martial for charges including premeditated murder in the death of a young ISIS fighter in Iraq, NBC 7 has confirmed. Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher faced an Article 32 hearing in November at Naval Base San Diego. During the hearing, U.S. Navy prosecutors accused Gallagher of premeditated murder for the stabbing death of an injured ISIS fighter who they estimate was about 15 years old. The stabbing happened in Mosul, Iraq, in May 2017. Gallagher is also charged with aggravated assault for shooting Iraqi civilians. Special Operations Chief Gallagher has denied the charges. He will be arraigned at Naval Base San Diego on Friday. Rear Adm. Yancy Lindsey, commander of Navy Region Southwest, reviewed evidence presented at the hearing and determined Gallagher should face court-martial, according to a U.S. Navy spokesperson. NBC 7 was the only broadcast news station at the Article 32 hearing at Naval Base San Diego. Special Operations Chief Gallagher has been held in the Miramar Brig since Sept. 11 when he was arrested at the Camp Pendleton Intrepid Spirit Center. The Navy outlined its evidence, including cellphone photos that show Gallagher holding up the head of the deceased fighter during a reenlistment ceremony. That evidence is considered privileged and was not shown in court because it could be used as propaganda by enemies of U.S. troops. The government also said it had a video of the Iraqi fighter before he was killed. Prosecutors also presented evidence that they say shows that Chief Gallagher tried to bribe fellow SEALs not to talk about the incident to NCIS investigators. Gallagher's private defense attorney, Phil Stackhouse, questioned conflicts in dates and testimony in court and asked if investigators were able to determine if the ISIS fighter could have died from injuries suffered in an airstrike. Stackhouse told NBC 7 in an exclusive interview that he's confident his client will be acquitted. "What we've asked for and what we're going to continue to ask for is that Eddie is judged by a jury of his peers so that there are special operators, both officers and enlisted sailors that are on this court-martial panel that's going to hear the evidence because of the unique nature of allegations arising in a combat zone," Stackhouse said. The defense says Gallagher was turned in by his subordinates because he was too tough on them. Naval Special Warfare Group One reviewed the evidence presented at the hearing according to the Navy and requested the charges be reviewed by RADM Lindsay, who then referred most of the charges to the court. The Navy SEALs Fund Brotherhood Beyond Battlefield has launched a fundraising campaign for Gallagher who served eight tours of duty with six as an elite special forces operator. Gallagher has served 19 years in the U.S. Navy and more than 14 years as a Navy SEAL, his attorney said. In 2017, Gallagher was ranked as the top SEAL chief and his platoon was ranked as the top SEAL platoon, the website said. If convicted on the most serious charge, Gallagher could face life in prison. Valentina Corpas is a very popular 13-year-old who receives a lot of love from friends and family. You cant miss her -- shes all pinked out from the top of her head all the way down to her wheelchair. Corpas also has some big goals in her life too. "Im an aspiring actress," she told NBC 6. "Ive actually written two plays." With her loving and infectious personality, you wouldnt know this teenager has been through a lot in her short life. Corpas was born with severe spina bifida, a birth defect that impacts the spine. "I cant feel from my knees down, so Ive gone through many wheelchairs in my life, but the power wheelchair was designed for me," she said. Even with the custom wheelchair, Corpas family does not have the proper ramp to get into her familys vehicle. Thats why the Miami Herald put the girl in their Wish Book program in 2018, a nonprofit effort that spotlights the needs of the less fortunate in South Florida. The Miami Seaquarium decided to give her a trip to their facility for a special VIP day out with friends and family. Corpas spent the day with the birds, and even got a chance to see Flipper. Its a moment she says she will never forget, all in hopes of inspiring others. "I want to be able to inspire people to smile more," Corpas said. Click here for more information on the Miami Herald's Wish Book. What to Know The state of Florida currently does not allow individual cities and counties to ban smoking on beaches. A state senator in Florida hopes to put an end to residents and tourists being able to light up tobacco items while enjoying their day at the beach. Sen. Joe Gruters, a Republican from the Sarasota area, filled Senate Bill 218 on Wednesday that would ban all tobacco items from public beaches. Anyone caught smoking would be fined $25 or have to perform 10 hours of community service for a first time offense. The bill does not specifically mention the use of vaping items or other e-cigarettes. The state of Florida currently does not allow individual cities and counties to ban smoking on beaches. The city of Miami Beach created a voluntary smoke-free zones two years ago at 5th Street and 86th Street while Hollywood erected signs in 2017 encouraging people not to light up. Sarasota County passed a law in 2012 banning smoking on beaches before it was ruled unconstitutional five years later. If the law passes, Florida would join New Jersey in banning smoking on beaches after that state passed a law that fined violators $250 for each offense. What to Know 73-year-old Roland Robidoux was pulling a drag-style race car when he accidentally hit the child. Authorities say an 8-year-old Florida boy was killed when he was hit by a race car that his grandfather was pulling into a garage. Edgewater interim police Chief Joe Mahoney tells The Daytona Beach News-Journal that 73-year-old Roland Robidoux was pulling a drag-style race car when he accidentally hit the child. Officials say Conner R. Allen died at the scene near Daytona Beach from his injuries. In an effort to halt the devastating impact of the opioid crisis, state regulators are now reviewing the prescribing history of doctors whose patients overdosed on powerful and addictive narcotics. The Medical Board of California says Dr. Frank Gilman negligently prescribed powerful opioids and sedatives to a San Diego woman, failed to heed warning signs of her possible abuse of those controlled substances, and increased her risk of harm by his haphazard prescribing. That patient, 66-year-old Diana Barliant, had a history of depression and suicidal thoughts and at least one suicide attempt. On July 3, 2012, Barliant killed herself by overdosing on prescription opioids and sedatives. In an accusation filed against Dr. Gilman, the Medical Board cites his allegedly substandard care of Barliant and three other patients as a reason to revoke Dr. Gilmans license. But Barliants widow strongly disagrees with those allegations and is refusing to help the Medical Board pursue its action against Dr. Gilman. This is a witch hunt, and I wont be part of it, said Nowell Wisch. And I will fight [the Medical Board] every step of the way. Wisch said Dr. Gilman diligently prescribed different medications, including narcotics, to help his wife cope with the intense, unrelenting pain of thyroid cancer, fibromyalgia, and nerve pain. She was just falling apart, and the opioids were the only drug [that helped her], Wish told NBC 7 Investigates. This was a highly thought-out process. We discussed every single treatment option. We accounted for every single pill. And no one involved in this process was responsible in any way for her death. Dr. Gilman was responsible for keeping her alive. Wisch said he has refused a request from the Medical Board to assist with the investigation, and would not help an investigator obtain his late wifes medical records. The Medical Board has a very different, and extremely critical, view of Gilman's treatment. Its 63-page accusation seeks to revoke Gilman's license, based on his alleged sub-standard care of Diana and three other patients. According to that document, Gilman prescribed thousands of powerful opioid pills -- including Oxycodone and Oxycontin -- for Diana in the five years he treated her. The Medical Board accuses Gilman of "haphazard" and "incompetent" prescribing and claims he "failed to respond to warning signs [of Diana's] possible misuse and abuse" of narcotics and sedatives. The Medical Board alleges that those actions amount to gross negligence" on Gilmans part, and contributed to Barliants suicide by an overdose of narcotics and sedatives. Dr. Gilman did not respond to a request for comment from NBC 7 Investigates. But his attorney said, To my knowledge, Dr. Gilmans investigation has not been concluded, therefore detailed comments regarding this matter are premature. However, I can share that Dr. Gilman continues to cooperate with the investigation. Nowell Wisch isn't the only one questioning the Medical Board's accusation against Gilman and 22 other California doctors, who are all are accused of negligently prescribing powerful and addictive drugs. Those accusations are the result of a relatively new enforcement effort called the "Death Certificate Project." Medical Board investigators reviewed more than two thousand autopsy reports from 2012 and 2013 that implicated prescription opioids in a patient's death. The Medical Board says this new strategy helps it root out negligent prescribers, without waiting for a complaint. The systematic approach of this project has given the Board a chance to discover who the over-prescribers are, rather than having to wait for specific complaints to be made, reads the minutes of a July 2017 meeting of the Boards Enforcement Committee. But the California Medical Association, which represents thousands of California physicians, is concerned that the Death Certificate Project has ensnared doctors who were correctly following accepted opiate prescription practices in place when they treated those patients. Are there bad prescribers? Yes. Are there so many that these investigations had to blanket so many people? We don't think so," said Dr. Ted Mazer, a San Diego physician and immediate past president of the California Medical Association. "The issue is, are the [Medical Board] reviewers applying the right guidelines, and are the investigations focusing improperly on certain areas and certain specialties?" In response to this, a Medical Board spokesman said the Boards expert reviewers, ...are expected to use the standard of care in effect at the time the incident/care and treatment occurred. The spokesman also noted that the Medical Board did have opiate prescription guidelines in place as early as 2013. Mazer said the issues of concern to the Medical Association were first raised in a series of articles in the online medical publication MedPage Today. Those articles and the concerns of some physicians have prompted the Medical Association to request an independent, outside review of the Death Certificate Project. Were not accusing the Medical Board of improper investigations, but were hearing enough concern that we think it needs to be looked into, Mazer said. In the meantime, Mazer warns that until California doctors are confident that the investigations are fair, some will stop prescribing narcotics and turn away patients who have a legitimate need for those medications. "The patient who truly needs pain medication may not be able to access it, Mazer said. Then they have two choices: They can suffer, which is not what medicine is supposed to have them do. Or they can go to the street to buy illicit narcotics. A man charged with the killing of police officer in Northern California made his first court appearance but did not enter a plea. Gustavo Perez Arriaga told the judge Wednesday his true name is Paulo Virgen Mendoza. His attorney questioned his mental competency, prompting the court to suspend the case until Perez Arriaga gets a mental evaluation. Authorities say Virgen Mendoza was in the country illegally and had previous arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol. He was arrested Friday after a dayslong manhunt as he prepared to flee to Mexico, officials said. He is accused of killing Cpl. Ronil Singh of the tiny Newman Police Department, who pulled over the suspect Dec. 26 to investigate if he was driving drunk. The 33-year-old Singh was married and had a 5-month-old son. He was also an immigrant, coming to the U.S. legally from his native Fiji to pursue his dream of serving in law enforcement, authorities have said. He joined the 12-officer Newman police force in 2011. A complaint lists three aliases for Virgen Mendoza, including one matching that of two brothers who were arrested on suspicion of helping him evade authorities. Five others have also been charged with helping him. The case has rekindled a debate over California's sanctuary law that limits cooperation with federal immigration officials. President Donald Trump seized on the case to call for tougher border security amid a fight with congressional Democrats over funding for a border wall, which has forced a 12-day partial government shutdown. It could not be immediately determined if Virgen Mendoza had an attorney who could speak on his behalf. A man is under arrest after authorities say he grabbed the shirt of a Florida McDonald's employee and tried to pull her over a counter during an argument over a straw. The employee responded by punching the customer several times in the face at the St. Petersburg restaurant on Monday. Brenda Biandudi, who witnessed the fight and whose son posted the video on Facebook, told WFLA Daniel Taylor started yelling because there were no straws at the drink station. (Caution: The video posted on Facebook contains profanity). A new ordinance passed by the St. Petersburg City Council last month says restaurants in the city can only give out plastic straws to those who request them. A full ban on plastic straws will take effect in 2020. "The young lady behind the counter told him, it's the law now, we're not allowed to have straws in the lobby but you can request one," Biandudi said. In a separate interview with The Washington Post, Biandudi said that the man didn't believe that there was such a law and the argument escalated. St. Petersburg police say the video shows Taylor grabbing Yasmine James' shirt. James responded by hitting him several times. "She starts defending herself," Biandudi said. "She started hitting him and the other employees came from behind." Police say Taylor is charged with two counts of simple battery for grabbing James and for kicking another worker in the stomach as he was being escorted out. Taylor is being represented by the public defender's office, which didn't respond to a request for comment. James is still employed at McDonald's but cannot comment due to the company's policy, according to WFLA. Congress is back in session, and North Texas freshmen are getting situated. Political reporter Julie Fine is in Washington as the new Congress gets to work. I am trying to figure out where the bathrooms are, and figure my way around here. I am meeting a lot of people and trying to connect faces with names and all that, but I also feel like there are a lot of people helping me out. I feel a lot of support, said Democrat Rep. Colin Allred of Dallas. We were fortunate enough to win, and we are here, and a lot of times I say to my wife, 'can you believe were in Washington?', so its a combination of surreal and also very fulfilling, said Republican Rep. Lance Gooden of Mesquite. Very excited to be sworn in. Exciting times here in Washington D.C., and ready to represent the people of North Texas, said Republican Rep. Van Taylor of Plano. But the representatives arrive while the government remains shutdown. The president wants more than $5 billion for border security and a barrier. I think we need a secure border and I think we need an open government. So I think those two things are tied together. I am very surprised that people dont want to see a secure border, said Taylor. Gooden wants to see the money included in legislation. I have campaigned for over a year with my constituents. They all say we want meaningful border security. They are prepared to stand with me as long as it takes to stand with the president, said Rep. Gooden. Allred said the government should be opened immediately, and the house will vote on legislation to re-open the government without the more than $5 billion included in it. I think we all agree about border security and there is funding for border security in this budget that we are going to pass. What we are not going to do is fund something that does not work, that does not invest in our own people, Allred said. Republican Congressman Michael McCaul of Austin thinks there could be a solution soon. I do think after Nancy Pelosi is elected today that takes a lot of pressure off of her frees her up to negotiate. We are hopeful we will have something this weekend, said McCaul. Police say a man was fatally shot by police in San Antonio after he shot an officer with a police stun gun. Police Chief William McManus says officers investigating reports of a suspicious man taking a license plate off a car Wednesday, shot the man as he resisted being handcuffed. No names have been released. McManus says as officers were trying to handcuff he man, he resisted and was shot with a stun gun by one officer, then wrestled the stun gun from the officer and shot an officer, who was not seriously injured. McManus says the man then reached into his pocket where a knife was later found and a second officer fatally shot him. Police say the car was later determined to have been reported stolen. Indiana regulators are seeking a more than $12,000 fine against a Texas trucking company accused of causing a fish kill in eastern Indiana. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management recently issued a notice of violation against MOB Carriers, Euless, Texas, which does business as TX Loadrunners. The agency proposes that the company pay a $12,500 civil penalty for the fish kill. IDEM says a truck overturned along Interstate 70 in June, spilling about 1,000 gallons of a cosmetic ingredient used in shampoos, shower gels and foam baths. That substance impacted about four miles of a creek with what IDEM called "significant foaming." Indiana Department of Natural Resources spokesman Marty Benson tells The Star Press more than 40,000 fish were killed in the spill near the city of Richmond. The Frisco Independent School District is the fastest-growing district in Texas. Every year a couple thousand families opt to move into the relatively diverse northern Collin County school district, where minority students tally more than half of the student population. In October, Frisco ISD celebrated the enrollment of its 60,000th student with balloons and a pep rally. Known for strong academics and a small high school philosophy of about 2,100 students, Frisco ISD's reputation is passed along by parents, co-workers and friends. CLICK HERE to read more from our media partners at The Dallas Morning News. Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price announced Thursday that she will seek an unprecedented fifth, two-year term leading Cowtown. If successful, she would become the longest serving mayor in Fort Worth history. Price, former Tarrant County Tax Assessor-Collector, was first elected in 2011. She made the announcement at a meeting of the East Fort Worth Business Association. So far, nobody has announced plans to challenge her. Deborah Peoples, chair of the Tarrant County Democratic Party, said she is considering running against Price but hasn't reached a decision. "We are still talking to people and listening," Peoples said Wednesday. Two years ago, Price beat political newcomer Chris Nettles with 70 percent of the vote. Nettles is now running for the city council. Price, 69, has presided over huge population growth in the city now the countrys 15th largest -- but has struggled to bring in new corporate headquarters. A 2017 city-funded study suggested Fort Worth has an image problem and raised the prospect of Fort Worth becoming a suburb of Dallas. Price, an avid bicyclist, has promoted bike lanes throughout the city and pushed healthy living. Fort Worth recently became the largest city in the country to be certified by the nonprofit health group Blue Zones. The mayor has also supported literacy programs in schools. Price also has addressed racial tensions. She supported the creation of a task force on race and culture following the controversial arrest of an African-American woman, Jacqueline Craig, in December 2016. Last month, the task force recommended that the city council approve a number of changes, including creating a citizens board to review police incidents. Price has faced criticism from some Latino groups over what they see as a lack of support on immigration issues. Fort Worth was the only large Texas city not to challenge Senate Bill 4, which critics called a show me your papers law giving police too much leeway in questioning undocumented immigrants. Price said she supports diversity but saw no benefit in joining other cities in a lawsuit. Police said the law would not change the way they deal with immigrants. In October, Price called for an audit of Panther Island, a $1.1 billion project organized by the Tarrant Regional Water District that would create a stylish riverwalk and double the size of downtown. The district agreed to the review. The federal government stopped funding the work amid criticism it has more to do with economic development than its original purpose of flood control. Promoters say they believe federal funding will be approved in future years. Price has amassed a large campaign warchest. Her last finance report in July showed she had $370,373. The Lone Star State was U-Haul's top market for growth for a third consecutive year, the truck and trailer provider says. The Phoenix-based company said more one-way truck rentals arrived in Texas in 2018 than any other state, leaving Florida and South Carolina in second and third place, respectively. "North Texas is truly bursting at the seams," said Kevin Flanagan, president of U-Haul of Northwest Dallas. "McKinney, Frisco and the entire Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex has been growing substantially in recent years. Texas is gaining more residents than any other state." [[415597543,C]] Texas arrivals of one-way trucks increased 5 percent compared to the state's arrivals in 2017, U-Haul said, with many of those heading to Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and Austin. Grab that lost shaker of salt, because Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band have announced they will return to a long, lost concert venue in 2019: Dos Equis Pavilion in Dallas. Since 2007, Buffett and his trop-rock troupe has played at Toyota Stadium in Frisco nearly every year. Exceptions include a stop in 2012 at the outdoor amphitheater in Fair Park (which is today called Dos Equis Pavilion) and no North Texas show at all in 2018. (In 2014, Buffett also played a special show at Coyote Drive-In in Fort Worth, but he made an appearance at Toyota Stadium as well.) Read more on this report from our media partners at The Dallas Morning News. The idea is on the table in Wallingford to raise the legal age to buy tobacco and e-cigarettes in order to combat the exploding popularity of the tobacco products among teens. President of the Coalition for a Better Wallingford Ken Welch said vaping is an epidemic every parent should worry about. "Thirty-five percent to 40 percent of our high schoolers are vaping," he said. "We know middle school students are doing it on the bus. Kids are selling this stuff." He said e-cigarettes are highly addictive and dangerous. "This is something the kids can do to get 'high' without their parents knowing about it." In Connecticut, the legal age to purchase tobacco, including e-cigarettes, is 18. In October, Hartford City Council voted to raise the legal age to purchase tobacco products there to 21. Now, Wallingford town council is considering a similar ordinance. "I dont know if its going to make much difference other than they wont be able to buy them legally," said Wallingford resident, Ralph Demusis. "The longer you can hold them off from smoking the better off they are as far as Im concerned," Jim Craigen of Wallingford said. At Silver City Vapors, co-owner Martin Pizzani said while he thinks the ordinance is well intentioned, it wont work. Whether the legal age is 18 or 21, he said it should be consistent statewide. "Its very easy for underage kids to drive across town borders and go to the next town and buy stuff," Pizzani said. Wallingford town council plans to lay out more specifics of the proposed changes at their meeting tonight, and hopes to have a draft of the ordinance next month. State officials are warning business owners to be on alert for a reporting scam that claims to be an official notice from the state. In a joint release, Secretary of the State Denise Merrill and Attorney General George Jepsen warned of a mailing sent by Workplace Compliance Services that claims to be an official Annual Report Instruction Form that requests payment, citing Connecticut law. Officials say this is a scam, and that there is no need for businesses to file a form from Workplace Compliance Services or to pay any fee. The scam may look official and references Connecticut state law. After almost two dozen complaints, the attorney general's office launched an investigation to track down the source of those letters. NBC Connecticut spoke with a savvy business owner who said she knew something wasn't right. There was no state seal or anything that indicated that it was an official state document," Cynthia Kaplan explained. She opened it up and saw a letter from the Workplace Compliance Services in West Hartford. The mailing appears to be an Annual Report Instruction Form, alleging that payment is required by Connecticut law. In Kaplans case, the form instructed her to send a check to cover a $20 report fee, along with an additional $110 processing fee to file her annual report. Connecticut businesses do file a report that can be filed directly with the state on line. It was too many things that did not look like they were an official document. In addition, its an annual report that I do file electronically every year," Kaplan said. According to the state, the deceptive solicitation may look legit and references a Connecticut state law. But it also pressures business owners to pay right away or be dissolved. Kaplan didnt fall for it. Even though, she says the report fee is consistent with what shes paid before. You have to log on with username and password and click through a few different windows and pay your amount by credit card online through the Department of Administrative services," she said. NBC Connecticut Responds went to the West Hartford address listed on the letter which is a UPS store. We showed the letter to a UPS employee, who confirmed the P.O. Box number 248, but couldnt comment further. Then we called the number listed on the form in which the message told us we could file on our own, wait to speak with a representative or leave a message. Jepsen said the mailings target small business owners who often don't have the resources to fight back. Frequently they ask for amounts of money that are not huge and so its sometimes just easier to pay it and then be done with it. But in the course of paying it, you end up giving up personal information or business information that they can then use again and again," Jepsen said. He said business owners need to be vigilant. Most of these scammers are from out of state. So, theyre very difficult to find and so prevention is really the key," he said. Businesses in the state are only required to file Annual Reports with the state, which can be done online at ct.gov/annualreport. Any businesses who receive the bogus mailing should file a complaint with the Office of the Attorney General. A resolution to reinstate the Meriden Police Departments Neighborhood Initiative Unit is moving forward and will go before city council next week. The citys finance committee narrowly passed the proposal on Wednesday night in a 3-2 vote to reinstate five police officers to the NI after the city eliminated it several months ago as a money-saving measure. Theyve got a tremendous task and responsibility ahead of them on how to best spend the taxpayer money, and this became a casualty at some point, Sgt. Christopher Fry of the Meriden Police Department explained. As being taxpayers, we certainly appreciate that, but, unfortunately, it was the neighborhoods that suffered from this, Holly Wills, president of the Council of Neighborhoods, said. While councilors have questioned the need for the unit and noted that overall crime is down, police said there has been an uptick in violence in certain areas and neighborhoods have pushed back. People had a perception that theyre not safe, and thats not good for Meriden because we want to build Meriden, Steven Cardillo, president of the North End Meriden Neighborhood Association, said. We want people coming to Meriden and we want businesses to come here, and if they dont feel safe, we cant grow. If passed, the resolution would allocate $200,000 of the more than $400,000 that was cut from the police department to cover overtime costs. In a statement to NBC Connecticut, Mayor Kevin Scarpati, who is in favor of bringing back the unit, said: "The safety of our community needs to remain a priority. While our stats will show an overall decrease in crime rates year over year, the public needs to feel safe. Programs such as our Neighborhood Initiative Unit, provide this type of security for residents living in areas that have been exposed to targeted criminal activity. The perception of safety not only impacts residents within these neighborhoods, but also our schools, business community, property values and overall quality of life as a City. These Neighborhood Initiative positions need to be reinstated and the City Council must work collaboratively with our Police Department moving forward to ensure the safety of our neighborhoods are not compromised." City council is expected to vote on the measure on Monday. Greenwich police have arrested two people accused of stealing thousands of dollars worth of purses from Saks Fifth Avenue in Greenwich. Police said several people stole three handbags, which together were worth $7,000, from the Saks Fifth Avenue on Greenwich Avenue on July 31 and they identified 18-year-old Yelco Guzman Fernandez, of New York, and 34-year-old Mariel Natalie Miranda Guerro, also of New York, as being responsible. Both suspects were being held at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Eagleville, Pennsylvania, on unrelated charges and they were extradited to Connecticut on Wednesday, according to Greenwich police. Fernandez and Guerro were charged with organized retail theft, conspiracy to commit larceny in the third degree and third-degree larceny. Bond was set at $50,000 for both of them and they are due in court on Jan. 16. Fliou describes Chez Benoit as a little part of Paris in the middle of Highland Park and adds, I was born and raised in that beautiful place. I miss my city and try to create that atmosphere of a classic French bistro. That translates to a little noisy and the owner is behind the bar cracking jokes and calling customers by their name, he mused. Each bistro is a kind of family and all the customers become like a new member of the family. Disney on Ice World of Enchantment Giveaway Official Rules January 4, 2019January 4, 2019 PRELIMINARY INFORMATION: NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. A PURCHASE WILL NOT IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. Void outside the WVIT Terrestrial Geographic Viewing Area (described below) and where prohibited. The Call to Win Giveaway (Sweepstakes) will begin on January 4, 2019 at 11:30 A.M. ET and end on January 4, 2019 at 12:00 P.M. ET (Sweepstakes Period). All times in the Sweepstakes refer to Eastern Time (ET). Odds of winning depend upon the number of eligible Entries (defined below) received. Sweepstakes is subject to all applicable federal, state, and local laws. PRIZE DOES NOT INCLUDE ACCOMMODTIONS, PARKING OR TRANSPORTATION. ELIGIBILITY: Open only to permanent, legal United States (U.S.) residents who are physically located and residing in the WVIT Terrestrial Geographic Viewing Area in the counties of Hartford, New Haven, New London, Windham, Tolland, Middlesex, Litchfield, and Fairfield in the state of Connecticut (WVIT Terrestrial Geographic Viewing Area), and who are eighteen (18) years of age or older as of the start of the Sweepstakes Period. Officers, directors, and employees of Sweepstakes Entities (defined below), members of these persons immediate families (spouses and/or parents, children, and siblings, and their spouses, regardless of where they reside), and/or persons living in the same households as these persons (whether or not related thereto) are not eligible to enter or win the Sweepstakes. Sweepstakes Entities, as referenced herein, shall include WVIT, 1422 New Britain Avenue, West Hartford, CT 06110, and NBCUniversal Media, LLC, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10112 (collectively, Sponsors), and their respective parent, subsidiary, and affiliate companies, their administrative, advertising, and promotion agencies, and any other entity involved in the development, administration, promotion, or implementation of the Sweepstakes. TO ENTER: To enter, watch NBC Connecticuts local newscasts during the Sweepstakes Period and listen for the cue to call (Cue). The Cue will be announced any time between 11:30 A.M. ET and 12:00 P.M. ET during the 11:30 A.M. ET local newscast on NBC Connecticut (Entry). To win, you must be the tenth (10th) caller, as determined by Sponsors in their sole discretion (Winner). In the event that the designated numbered caller becomes disconnected or is found to be ineligible, the next eligible caller who successfully makes it through on the line and completes his or her Entry, as determined by Sponsors in their sole discretion, will be the potential Winner. All Entries become the property of Sponsors and will not be acknowledged. There will be one (1) Winner during the Sweepstakes Period. Entries must be received before January 4, 2019 at 12:00 P.M. ET to be eligible for the Sweepstakes. Sponsors computer shall be the official timekeeper for all matters related to this Sweepstakes. You may enter once during the Sweepstakes Period. Multiple Entries received from any person or email address beyond this limit will void all such additional entries. Entries generated by a script, macro, or other automated means will be disqualified. Entries that are incomplete, garbled, corrupted, or unintelligible for any reason, including, but not limited to, computer or network malfunction or congestion, are void and will not be accepted. In case of a dispute over the identity of an entrant who made a potentially winning Entry, Sponsors reserve the right to deem that the entry was made by the registered subscriber of the email address submitted at the time of entry. Entry constitutes permission (except where prohibited by law) to use entrants name, city, state, likeness, image, and/or voice for purposes of advertising, promotion, and publicity in any and all media now or hereafter known, throughout the world in perpetuity, without additional compensation, notification, permission, or approval. PRIZE: There will be one prize (1) (Prize) awarded. Prize will consist of four (4) tickets for Winner and three (3) guests (Guest) to see Disney on Ice World of Enchantment, scheduled to take place between January 10, 2019 to January 13, 2019 at the XL Center, 1 Civic Center Plaza, Hartford, CT 06103 (Event). If any Guest is a minor, Winner or another Guest must be such minors parent or legal guardian. PRIZE DOES NOT INCLUDE ACCOMMODTIONS, PARKING OR TRANSPORTATION. Total Estimated Retail Value (ERV) of all Prizes is two hundred dollars ($200). Actual retail value (ARV) of Prizes may vary. Any difference between ARV and stated ERV will not be awarded. Prizes are subject to certain terms and conditions as specified thereupon by the issuer. If Prize awarded exceeds six hundred dollars ($600), Sponsors will furnish an Internal Revenue Service Form 1099 to Winners of such Prizes for the ARV of their Prize for the tax year in which Prize was awarded. All details of the Prize will be determined by Sponsors in their sole discretion. Sponsors reserve the right to substitute a similar Prize (or Prize element) of comparable or greater value. All taxes and other expenses, costs, or fees associated with the acceptance and/or use of the Prize are the sole responsibility of Winner. Prize cannot be transferred by Winner or redeemed for cash and are valid only for the items detailed above, with no substitution of Prize by Winner. If the Prize is unclaimed within a reasonable time after notification from Sponsors, as determined by Sponsors in their sole discretion, it will be forfeited, and time permitting, an alternate Winner may be selected from the remaining eligible Entries at Sponsors sole discretion. Winner agrees to comply with all applicable regulations in connection with the Prize. Winner must be able to attend Event between January 10, 2019 to January 13, 2019, on a date to be determined by Sponsors in their sole discretion, or Prize will be forfeited. Sponsors shall have no responsibility or liability for cancellations, delays, or any other change by any company or person providing any element of Prize, and are not responsible or liable for any expenses incurred as a consequence thereof. Date and/or time of Event is subject to change. Event are subject to cancellation. Location of seats at Event, if any, will be determined by any company or person providing any element of Prize, and Sponsors are not responsible or liable for any expenses incurred as a consequence thereof. If Winner chooses to redeem Prize (if applicable) with fewer than three (3), or no, Guests, the remaining elements of Prize shall constitute full satisfaction of Sponsors Prize obligation to that Winner and no additional compensation will be awarded. All taxes and other expenses, costs, or fees associated with the acceptance and/or use of Prizes are the sole responsibility of Winners. Winner and Guests, if any, must comply with all applicable rules and regulations in connection with Prizes, and failure to do so may result in forfeiture of Prizes. If a Prize element is not available for any reason, as determined by Sponsors in their sole discretion, the remaining elements of Prize shall be awarded and shall constitute full satisfaction of Sponsors Prize obligation to Winners and no additional compensation will be awarded. All details of Prizes will be determined by Sponsors in their sole discretion. Guests, if any, may be required to execute and return releases of liability and, except where prohibited, publicity releases (collectively, Guest Documents), which must be returned with the Sweepstakes Documents, or Guest portion of Prizes will be forfeited. If any Guest is a minor, Winner or another Guest must be such minors parent or legal guardian and must execute and return the Guest Documents on such minors behalf. CONDITIONS: By entering the Sweepstakes, each entrant agrees for entrant and for entrants heirs, executors, and administrators (a) to release and hold harmless Sweepstakes Entities, Facebook, and their respective officers, directors, and employees (collectively, Released Parties) from any liability, illness, injury, death, loss, litigation, or damage that may occur, directly or indirectly, whether caused by negligence or not, from such entrants participation in the Sweepstakes and/or his/her acceptance, possession, use, or misuse of Prize or any portion thereof (including any travel related thereto); (b) to indemnify Released Parties from any and all liability resulting or arising from the Sweepstakes and to hereby acknowledge that Released Parties have neither made nor are in any manner responsible or liable for any warranty, representation, or guarantee, express or implied, in fact or in law, relative to Prize, including express warranties provided exclusively by Prize supplier that are sent along with Prize; (c) if selected as a Winner, to the posting of such entrants name on www.NBCConnecticut.com and/or www.Facebook.com/NBCConnecticut and the use by Released Parties of such name, voice, image, and/or likeness for publicity, promotional, and advertising purposes in any and all media now or hereafter known, throughout the world in perpetuity, without additional compensation, notification, permission, or approval, and, upon request, to the giving of consent, in writing, to such use; and (d) to be bound by these Official Rules and to waive any right to claim any ambiguity or error therein or in the Sweepstakes itself, and to be bound by all decisions of the Sponsors, which are binding and final. Failure to comply with these conditions may result in disqualification from the Sweepstakes at Sponsors sole discretion. ADDITIONAL TERMS: Sponsors reserve the right to permanently disqualify from any promotion any person they believe has intentionally violated these Official Rules. Any attempt to deliberately damage the Sweepstakes or the operation thereof is unlawful and subject to legal action by Sponsors, who may seek damages to the fullest extent permitted by law. The failure of Sponsors to comply with any provision of these Official Rules due to an act of God, hurricane, war, fire, riot, earthquake, terrorism, act of public enemies, actions of governmental authorities outside of the control of Sponsors (excepting compliance with applicable codes and regulations), or other force majeure event will not be considered a breach of these Official Rules. Released Parties assume no responsibility for any injury or damage to entrants or to any other persons computer relating to or resulting from entering or downloading materials or software in connection with the Sweepstakes. Released Parties are not responsible for telecommunications, network, electronic, technical, or computer failures of any kind; for inaccurate transcription of entry information; for errors in any promotional or marketing materials or in these Official Rules; for any human or electronic error; or for entries that are stolen, misdirected, garbled, delayed, lost, late, damaged, or returned. Sponsors reserve the right to cancel, modify, or suspend the Sweepstakes or any element thereof (including, without limitation, these Official Rules) without notice in any manner and for any reason (including, without limitation, in the event of any unanticipated occurrence that is not fully addressed in these Official Rules). In the event of cancellation, modification, or suspension, Sponsors reserve the right to select Winners in a random drawing from among all eligible, non-suspect entries received prior to the time of the event warranting such cancellation, modification, or suspension. Notice of such cancellation, modification, or suspension will be posted at www.NBCConnecticut.com. Sponsors may prohibit any entrant or potential entrant from participating in the Sweepstakes, if such entrant or potential entrant shows a disregard for these Official Rules; acts with an intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any other entrant, Sponsors, or Sponsors agents or representatives; or behaves in any other disruptive manner (as determined by Sponsors in their sole discretion). DISPUTES: THE SWEEPSTAKES IS GOVERNED BY, AND WILL BE CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH, THE LAWS OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, AND THE FORUM AND VENUE FOR ANY DISPUTE SHALL BE IN NEW YORK, NEW YORK. IF THE CONTROVERSY OR CLAIM IS NOT OTHERWISE RESOLVED THROUGH DIRECT DISCUSSIONS OR MEDIATION, IT SHALL THEN BE RESOLVED BY FINAL AND BINDING ARBITRATION ADMINISTERED BY JUDICIAL ARBITRATION AND MEDIATION SERVICES, INC., IN ACCORDANCE WITH ITS STREAMLINED ARBITRATION RULES AND PROCEDURES OR SUBSEQUENT VERSIONS THEREOF (JAMS RULES). THE JAMS RULES FOR SELECTION OF AN ARBITRATOR SHALL BE FOLLOWED, EXCEPT THAT THE ARBITRATOR SHALL BE EXPERIENCED AND LICENSED TO PRACTICE LAW IN NEW YORK. ALL PROCEEDINGS BROUGHT PURSUANT TO THIS PARAGRAPH WILL BE CONDUCTED IN THE COUNTY OF NEW YORK. THE REMEDY FOR ANY CLAIM SHALL BE LIMITED TO ACTUAL DAMAGES, AND IN NO EVENT SHALL ANY PARTY BE ENTITLED TO RECOVER PUNITIVE, EXEMPLARY, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING ATTORNEYS FEES OR OTHER SUCH RELATED COSTS OF BRINGING A CLAIM, OR TO RESCIND THIS AGREEMENT OR SEEK INJUNCTIVE OR ANY OTHER EQUITABLE RELIEF. WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT: For the names of Winners, available after January 13, 2019, visit www.NBCConnecticut.com, or send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to be received by March 14, 2019 to: Call to Win Giveaway, 1422 New Britain Avenue, West Hartford, CT 06110 attn: Dhurata Lluhani Connecticuts U.S. Senators are in agreement that President Donald Trumps demand for a wall along the southern border is what will keep the government closed indefinitely. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, during a press conference Wednesday, said the framework of an agreement to reopen the government with the exception of the Department of Homeland Security, was agreed to in December, but the president scuttled those talks. He said, Theres a clear path forward. Border security has to be a priority but not a concrete physical wall from sea to shining sea which my Republican colleagues have abandoned. The president had been demanding $5 billion in the next budget agreement to pay for the wall, but hes since lowered that demand to $2.5 billion as of Wednesday. Blumenthal and Sen. Chris Murphy both agree that there needs to be beefed up security at the southern border, but not with a wall. Im just not going to ask taxpayers in Connecticut to pay for a medieval defense system that is a total waste of money. We should be building 21st century security on the border not fifth century, Murphy told NBC Connecticut in a statement. Thats where most Republicans and Democrats are. Weve shown the ability as Republicans and Democrats to find more border money. Were just not going to ask our taxpayers to pay for something that Donald Trump saw a cartoon of and now wants to build on the Mexican border. There are 1,483 federal workers in Connecticut directly impacted by the shutdown. Against the advice of many in his own administration, President Donald Trump is pulling U.S. troops out of Syria. Could a withdrawal from Afghanistan be far behind? Trump has said his instinct is to quit Afghanistan as a lost cause, but more recently he's suggested a willingness to stay in search of peace with the Taliban. However, the abruptness with which he turned the page on Syria raises questions about whether combat partners like Iraq and Afghanistan should feel confident that he will not pull the plug on them, too. "If he's willing to walk away from Syria, I think we should be concerned about whether Afghanistan is next," Jennifer Cafarella, the director of intelligence planning at the Institute for the Study of War, said in an interview Wednesday. The U.S. has been at war in Afghanistan for 17 years and still has about 15,000 troops there helping government troops combat the Taliban. The approximately 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are training and advising Iraqi security forces as they continue to fight Islamic State militants, a battle the U.S. entered in 2014 after IS swept into Iraq from Syria. Before other officials confirmed the withdrawal decision, Trump tweeted, "We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency." The aspect of this that he did not address is whether the extremists or others will fill the security vacuum created by the U.S. withdrawal to regroup and pose a new threat. The administration said it intends to continue combatting Islamic State extremists globally and could return to Syria if necessary. Still, critics launched a barrage of questions about the implications of Trump's decision, including whether it opens the door for Turkish forces to attack the Syrian Kurds who had partnered with the U.S. Kori Schake, deputy director-general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, wrote on the Atlantic.com website Wednesday that the Syria decision ought to unsettle every ally that relies on U.S. security assurances. "The governments of Iraq and Afghanistan ought to be very, very worried," she wrote. "For if Syria can be so lightly written off, the fight arbitrarily declared won, what is the argument for continuing to assist Iraq where ISIS is even more defeated? And if Trump has so little interest in stabilizing security and assisting governance in Syria, how can Afghanistan have confidence that he won't make the same decision about them, when the fight there is costlier and progress less evident?" These and other questions about the Trump decision and its broader implications were on the minds of many in Congress. Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, denounced what he called a betrayal of the Syrian Kurds. "Now the President seems content to forsake their trust and abandon them to a potentially bloody conflict with Turkey," Reed said. "This decision also significantly increases the security risks to our key regional partners in Israel, Iraq and Jordan." Trump has argued for a Syria withdrawal since he was a presidential candidate in 2016, and he has repeated his view several times since taking office. Still, the decision appeared to catch many in his administration by surprise; Pentagon officials offered no details on the timing or pace of the withdrawal, nor could they square it with numerous statements by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis about the importance of remaining in Syria to assure stability. Sen. Lindsay Graham, a South Carolina Republican and typically a Trump supporter, said he was "blindsided" by the decision and called it "a disaster in the making." He said, "The biggest winners in this are ISIS and Iran." Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said the withdrawal would be a "grave error with broader implications" beyond the fight against IS. He called it "one more example of how the United States is not a reliable partner." Just last week, the U.S. special envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition, Brett McGurk, said U.S. troops would remain in Syria even after the Islamic State militants were driven from their strongholds. "I think it's fair to say Americans will remain on the ground after the physical defeat of the caliphate, until we have the pieces in place to ensure that that defeat is enduring," McGurk told reporters on Dec. 11. "Nobody is declaring a mission accomplished. Defeating a physical caliphate is one phase of a much longer-term campaign." And two weeks ago, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. still has a long way to go in training local Syrian forces to prevent a resurgence of IS and stabilize the country. He said it will take 35,000 to 40,000 local troops in northeastern Syria to maintain security over the long term, but only about 20 percent of them have been trained. Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report. French authorities have dropped a sensitive investigation into the plane crash that sparked Rwanda's 1994 genocide, citing lack of sufficient evidence. Several people close to Rwanda's current president, Paul Kagame, had been under investigation. Rwanda's government denounced the probe as an attempt to deflect responsibility from France's suspected role in the genocide, and welcomed the decision to end it. A French judicial official said Wednesday that investigating judges decided last week to close the case, based on a request from prosecutors. The official provided no details about the decision. The April 6, 1994 plane crash killed Rwanda's then-President Juvenal Habyarimana, an ethnic Hutu. Militants from the Hutu majority blamed minority Tutsis for the death, sparking the ethnic slaughter of some 800,000 people. France was Rwanda's longtime benefactor, and the plane had a French crew. The cause of the crash has long been a contentious issue. The Rwandan government says the plane was shot down by Hutu extremists who opposed the government's efforts to forge a peace deal with Tutsi-led rebels. Kagame led the Tutsi rebels at the time. An initial French investigation completed in 2012 found that the missile came from a Rwandan military camp. But France re-opened the probe after a prominent Rwandan exile said he had evidence that Kagame ordered the plane shot down, which Kagame denies. The Rwandan government praised the definitive end of what it called a "politically motivated investigation." "We welcome this decision which brings to an end a brazen attempt over two decades to obstruct justice for the genocide against the Tutsi, and prevent accountability for both the perpetrators and their wilful accomplices," Foreign Minister Dr. Richard Sezibera said in a statement. Critics say France was too supportive of Rwanda's Hutu-led government whose supporters carried out the genocide, and that France turned a blind eye to the killings for too long. Rwanda's government has named 22 senior French military officers accused of helping plan and carry out the genocide through support for the Rwandan army. France denies complicity, but has launched several investigations in recent years into the genocide in an effort to come to terms with its role. They notably involve Rwandans who fled to France after the killings but also some French figures. Associated Press writer Ignatius Ssuuna contributed. A former sex crimes investigator in Vermont is accused of inappropriately touching a child. Vermont State Police arrested Arthur Cyr, 51, of Bristol, Vermont, Wednesday on a felony charge of lewd or lascivious conduct with a child under the age of 16, according to a news release from the department. Cyr allegedly touched a girl inside a Bristol home on New Year's Eve in 2016. The incident was not reported to the police until last month, and state police launched an investigation on Dec. 14. The former officer retired from the Burlington Police Department in March 2016. He was hired in 1995. He was assigned to the Chittenden Unit for Special Investigations. "An allegation like this against a retired police officer will always be painful and disappointing, but given Art Cyr's prior role of supervising the county's child abuse investigations, it is especially troubling," Burlington Police Chief Brandon Del Pozo said. Cyr faces between two to 15 years behind bars and up to $5,000 in fines. He is due in Vermont Superior Court in Middlebury on Jan. 28 at 2 p.m. Police are investigating after a body washed ashore in Hull, Massachusetts on Wednesday afternoon. Massachusetts State Police said the body, believed to be a man in his 30s, washed up on a beach off of Main Street near the Hull Ferry Terminal around 12:30 p.m. The investigation remains active, and state police detectives, Hull police and firefighters are all at the scene; however, the initial investigation indicates the incident is not suspicious. The Plymouth County District Attorney's Office is in charge of the investigation. No further information was immediately available. Hull is a small town located on a peninsula at the southern edge of Boston Harbor, near Hingham and Cohasset. Drivers are being warned about snowy road conditions across New Hampshire and Maine that are causing crashes and delays Thursday morning. New Hampshire State Police say a tractor trailer jackknifed on Interstate 93 northbound just before exit 10 in Hooksett. Two lanes have been shut down as state police respond to the scene. It's unclear if any injuries have been reported. Troopers also assisted cars that had slid off of the road on Route 101 eastbound from I-93 southbound in Manchester. On the Maine Turnpike, authorities say a tractor trailer was involved in a crash in Biddeford, blocking the right and center northbound lanes. Officials have lowered the speed limit on the Maine Turnpike from the New Hampshire border to Augusta to 45 mph as a result of slick road conditions. Click here for our traffic map. San Jose once called itself the safest big-city in America. Now, a new report shows its struggling to keep the local title. According to the latest figures, violent crime in San Jose increased by 6 percent in 2018. That number is coupled with a projected 17 percent increase in burglaries. This is all while the Police Chief Eddie Garcia has said staffing remains a big part of the problem. The San Jose Police Department is still 300 officers short of where it wants to be, and thats still less than the national average per capita. The silver lining is that homicides in the city did drop, from 32 to 27 last year. On the other hand, Oakland is trending in the opposite direction as violent crimes are down: robberies by 1 percent, rapes by 12 percent, residential burglaries by 20 percent and car burglaries by 25 percent. Even homicides dropped from 71 to 68 last year. Oakland city leaders will hold a news conference Thursday to unveil the numbers. San Francisco figures havent been revealed but preliminary figures show violent crime is also down in the city. A California utility said in a federal court filing this week that 2017's deadly Tubbs Fire in Napa, Sonoma and Lake counties, which killed 22 people, was likely sparked by electrical equipment on private property that had been installed and repaired without permits, NBC News reported. The Tubbs Fire was one of 22 devastating fires that spread across the wine country and beyond that fall, destroying more than 5,600 structures, state fire officials said. Pacific Gas and Electric has been blamed for a dozen of the October blazes, but the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, has not concluded its investigation into the cause of the Tubbs Fire. "The evidence supports the conclusion that this equipment, located beyond PG&Es service delivery point, was planned, designed, installed, maintained and operated by third parties, not PG&E," lawyers for the utility wrote in a 16-page supplemental filing that offers their description of the incident. PG&E could face charges up to murder if it's found criminally liable in any of the state's recent wildfires, California's attorney general said in a court filing last week. A 33-year-old member of a notorious Australian graffiti crew was arrested last month in the vandalism of BART trains at multiple yards around the Bay Area, according to court filings. Police arrested Matthew Raoul White at San Francisco International Airport as he was awaiting a connecting flight to Sydney, prosecutors said. Officers found spray paint on White's clothes and shoes at the time of his arrest. BART PD White, who was identified by Australian authorities as a member of Get Hectik, was responsible for graffiti found on BART trains at the agency's Millbrae yard on Dec. 5, prosecutors said. Similar graffiti was found on trains at BART yards in Daly City, Richmond and Concord, and an Australian official positively identified all the graffiti as the work of a Get Hectik tagger, they said. "Hes a prolific tagger," said Ed Alvarez, BART's deputy police chief. "He is well known in Australia; when he was leaving the country, contacts were made out here in the United States." White is being charged with two felony counts of vandalism for the Millbrae tagging, according to the San Mateo DA's Office. Authorities are still investigating whether or not he is linked to the other BART yard incidents. White is being held at San Mateo County jail on $400,000 bail. His next scheduled court date is Jan. 14. The 46 municipalities were notified Dec. 28 of the need to adopt and submit an affordable housing plan by June 28, 2020. By law, the plan should identify properties most appropriate for creating affordable housing through new construction or rehabilitation. The plan also should identify incentives the municipality plans to use to attract affordable housing; the number of affordable units needed to reach the 10 percent target and how the town will reach 10 percent. Another day, and another iconic San Francisco store shut its doors for good. Mission Thrift, on Mission and 19th streets is the latest casualty. In the past week, three stores on one block of Mission Street have closed or are about to close. Store owners say rising rents are certainly an issue, but theyre making money. Theyre fed up with the street conditions and other problems and say they dont need the headache anymore. On Wednesday along Mission, a man was seen kicking another man in the face, and bystanders had to intervene. For almost half a century, Michael Gardner has owned Siegels on Mission Street. Eyeing retirement, the father of three says he could continue running the store, but the stumbling blocks are starting to stack up, from bus zones eating up parking to safety and staffing problems. "The last couple of days have been very difficult for me, very depressing," Gardner said. "Forty-six years in business. Reality set in." Among the problems Gardner cited were crime and security. "An inordinate amount of shoplifting. You cant control it in this neighborhood," he said. "The second thing is you cant find help. Its virtually impossible to find help." On a one-block stretch between 19th and 20th streets, the "Closing" signs almost outnumber the store fronts. Mission Thrift has one more blowout sale before ending a 20-year run, while the pawn shop next door is already shuttered, punctuating a transformation. "The gentrification is really sad to see," USF professor Reggie Daniels said. "And there are people here who dont really know the rich history. I run around and theyre like, 'Oh yeah, I just got to San Francisco.' And they dont know the struggles and the beauty of the city." Still, there is hope for saving the neighborhoods fabric. Armando Ramirez rents an office space for less than the market rate of $8,000 thanks to the Mission Economic Development Agency, or MEDA, which backs local businesses. "Theres certain places in San Francisco where I feel comfortable as a Latino, where I feel that it really represents our culture," Ramirez said. "And I feel like those things should be protected." Claudia Alcantara, an outreach specialist at MEDA, has surveyed almost 400 businesses in the busy corridor. "We are trying to find where the problems are and how to attack them in a way where we can represent the businesses and also the community," Alcantara said. Some of the merchants cited unreasonable rents, others the loss of regular customers. MEDA, which has loaned out more than $2 million to 70 businesses since 2015, is working with the city to implement strategies to keep the original merchants in the district. (Natural News) Cybersecurity experts in the United States have long alleged that Russian bots were used to meddle in the 2016 elections. But, as it turns out, the authors of a Senate report on Russian election meddling actually ran the false flag meddling operation themselves. (Article by Mac Slavo republished from SHTFplan.com) A week before Christmas, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report accusing Russia of depressing Democrat voter turnout by targeting African-Americans on social media. Its authors, New Knowledge, quickly became a household name. Described by the New York Times as a group of tech specialists who lean Democratic, New Knowledge has ties to both the U.S. military and the intelligence agencies. The CEO and co-founder of New Knowledge, Jonathon Morgan, had previously worked for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the U.S. militarys advanced research agency known for horrific ideas on how to control humanity. Morgans partner, Ryan Fox, is a 15-year veteran of the NSA (National Security Agency) who also worked as a computer analyst for the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Their unique skill sets have managed to attract the eye of authoritarian investors, who pumped $11 million into the company in 2018 alone, according to a report by RT. Morgan and Fox have both struck gold in the Russiagate scheme, which sprung into being after Hillary Clinton blamed Moscow for Donald Trumps presidential victory in 2016. Morgan, for example, is one of the developers of the Hamilton 68 Dashboard, the online tool that purports to monitor and expose narratives being pushed by the Kremlin on Twitter. And also worth mentioning, that dashboard is bankrolled by the German Marshall Funds Alliance for Securing Democracy a collection of Democrats and neoconservatives funded in part by NATO (North AtTreaty Tready Organization)and USAID (United States Agency for International Development). It is worth noting that the 600 Russia-linked Twitter accounts monitored by the dashboard is not disclosed to the public either, making it impossible to verify these claims. This inconvenience has not stopped Hamilton 68 from becoming a go-to source for hysteria-hungry journalists, however. Yet on December 19, a New York Times story revealed that Morgan and his crew had created the fake army of Russian bots, as well as several fake Facebook groups, in order to discredit Republican candidate Roy Moore in Alabamas 2017 special election for the U.S. Senate. From the way it was formed to the secrecy of its "methods" to the blatantly false assumptions on which its claims rest, "Hamilton68" is probably the single most successful media fraud & US propaganda campaign I've seen since I've been writing about politics. It's truly shocking. Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 22, 2018 Working on behalf of the Democrats, Morgan and his crew created an estimated 1,000 fake Twitter accounts with Russian names, and had them follow Moore. They also operated several Facebook pages where they posed as Alabama conservatives who wanted like-minded voters to support a write-in candidate instead. In an internal memo, New Knowledge boasted that it had orchestrated an elaborate false flag operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet.RT This scandal is being perpetrated by the United States media and has so far deceived millions, if not more. The botnet claim made a splash on social media and was further amplified by Mother Jones, which based its story on expert opinion from Morgans dubious creation, Hamilton 68. Things got even weirder when it turned out that Scott Shane, the author of the Times piece, had known about the meddling for months because he spoke at an event where the organizers boasted about it! Shane was one of the speakers at a meeting in September, organized by American Engagement Technologies, a group run by Mikey Dickerson, President Barack Obamas former tech czar. Dickerson explained how AET spent $100,000 on New Knowledges campaign to suppress Republican votes, enrage Democrats to boost turnout, and execute a false flag to hurt Moore. He dubbed it Project Birmingham. -RT There really was meddling in American democracy by Russian bots. Except those bots werent run from Moscow or St. Petersburg but from the offices of Democrat operatives chiefly responsible for creating and amplifying the Russiagate hysteria over the past two years in a textbook case of psychological projection, brainwashing, and Nazi-style propaganda campaigns. Read more at: SHTFplan.com (Natural News) The liver size in mammals was found to grow by nearly 50 percent when they are active and feeding, according to a recent study published in the journal Cell. According to researchers, the liver plays an essential role in metabolism and toxin elimination. The researchers also noted that the liver reaches it optimum efficiency during physical activity and feeding. As part of the study, a team of researchers at the University of Geneva and the University of Lausanne in Switzerland as well as Nestle Institute of Health Sciences examined the liver activity in mice models. The researchers found that the organ responds to the bodys feeding and fasting cycles, as well as the variations of day and night within 24 hours. According to the research team, the liver size in mice increased by nearly half before returning to its normal dimensions. The study also showed that the mechanism disappeared when normal biological rhythm was reversed. The experts noted that circadian rhythm disruptions due in part to professional constraints or private habits may potentially affect the livers functions. According to the researchers, mammals have adapted to diurnal and nocturnal circadian rhythms through a central biological clock located in the brain. Nocturnal rhythms, which reset at daylight, was found to coordinate the subordinate clocks seen in most of our cells. The experts also found that more than 350 liver-related genes involved in metabolism and detoxification were expressed in a circadian fashion that follows 24-hour biological rhythm. Many of these genes were influenced by food intake and physical activity patterns, according to Ueli Schibler, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Molecular Biology of the University of Geneva Faculty of Science. What the animal study found The research team found that the size of liver cells changes back and forth depending on the bodys activity. However, the activity was only seen in the liver and not in other organs. In rodents following a usual circadian rhythm, we observed that the liver gradually increases during the active phase to reach a peak of more than 40 percent at the end of the night, and that it returns to its initial size during the day, study author Flore Sinturel reported in Science Daily. According to the research team, the number of liver ribosomes, organelles responsible for generating proteins needed for various liver functions, fluctuated together with cell size. According to Sinturel, the cell size adapted to the production and assembly of new ribosomes in order to ensure optimal protein production at night. Excessive ribosome components were then determined, labeled, and broken down during the resting phase. In addition, the research team found that feeding and fasting cycles influenced liver oscillation. The study also revealed that diurnal and nocturnal phases affected the livers size. According to the research team, fluctuations in liver size disappeared when feeding phases were no longer responsive to the biological clock. Study co-director Frederic Gachon noted that the size of the liver and the hepatocytes, as well as their contents in ribosomes and proteins, remain nearly stable when mice are fed during the day. Yet, these animals ingest similar amounts of food, irrespective of whether they are fed during the night or during the day. According to the research team, many humans no longer follow their bodies circadian clock due to various factors such as night work, rotating shifts and frequent international travels. The experts noted that the peoples current lifestyle may be affecting the livers function. The next step is to examined whether a similar mechanism is occurring in humans, and whether the livers biological function if influenced by the same mechanism, the researchers said. You can hear more fascinating research on the human body at Research.news. Sources include: ScienceDaily.com ScienceAlert.com (Natural News) Democrats are in continued desperation mode to get more voters to cheat the system so they can take back the tyrannical power they had under the former ruthless Dictator Barrack Hussein Obama. In 2019 and 2020, you will witness more planned and staged Antifa violence, more caravans of thousands of illegal immigrants flooding the border, more disease outbreaks and murders caused by those illegal aliens, more fake news about the non-existent TrumpRussia collusion, a massive Democratic-led gun confiscation campaign, a pandemic of opium-based prescription drug overdoses, and massive attempts to impeach a President who constantly calls out the lies and fake journalism that supports all these evil plans to turn America into a Socialist-Communist police-state nightmare. In America, nearly all mainstream media is controlled by the Deep State and the Globalists, who know that illegal immigrants can shift the election in 2020 and help the Democrats win, since tens of millions would all vote for free food, free healthcare, free income, and immunity from all laws. Meanwhile, the Democrats main goal and sinister plot is to broadcast the huge lie that all of these illegal immigrants are kind, peaceful, healthy people who never hurt a fly, and deserve the American Dream the second they illegally cross the wall-less border into the Land of Milk and Honey. In the U.S., the term sanctuary city means illegal immigrants can rape, steal, murder, and spread diseases they brought with them, and there are no laws to stop them Its not difficult to notice that whenever there is a disease outbreak, say the measles, hepatitis, HIV, or tuberculosis, the mainstream press immediately blames unvaccinated U.S. adults, teens and children. The goal there is to sell more toxic vaccines and defer attention away from the sick and diseased illegal immigrants that flood into our country from the Southern border daily. Sanctuary cities were created and are perpetuated so more illegal aliens will rush to them and remain there, free to break all laws, including voting illegally for Democrats who promise them more protection in the future. Whether an illegal immigrant belongs to the MS13 gang or is simply raping and murdering the children they were paid as coyotes to bring across the border, it doesnt matter to the Democratic leaders because recapturing power is the end goal, and at all costs. Its not looking too good for the sane citizens who are living to protect the Republic, the Constitution, and our health. The Left now controls all social media, Google, YouTube, and all major networks (except a few select Fox News hosts). Anyone who seeks actual real news about the struggling Republic of the USA must turn to ZeroHedge, Natural News, Trump.news, and other independent media websites that havent been bankrupted by the corrupt Left and the Globalists. The irony strikes when illegal immigrants sicken, rape, and murder the very Democrats who support their illegal migration into the USA Most corrupt politicians are all for anything that gives them more power and control, but when tragedy hits home, reality sets in, and its a whole different story. Rich Democrats, Hollywood celebrities, and internet tech gurus all scream for no walls and no border police and no borders and sanctuary cities! Meanwhile, they keep guns in their homes, build huge barrier fences and walls around their prestigious multi-million-dollar estates, and secretly pray that illegal immigrants and Mexican gang members dont rob them, rape them, murder them, or give them deadly diseases. The more Democrats support the illegal flood of foreigners into the USA, the more our country will resemble European countries, like Germany, Italy, and France, that are currently struggling with mass rape, murder and disease issues due directly to that policy of open borders. Folks, socialism is communism, and anyone who supports it and claims otherwise is an insidious liar who supports the complete elimination of the middle class and who would also love complete Republican genocide. A civil war is brewing which side are you on? Sources for this article include: ZeroHedge.com NaturalNews.com Trump.news (Natural News) Like previous years, 2018 will be remembered for a great many things, but one of them that isnt likely to get much mention by the Leftist mainstream media is that it was a year of big tech censorship. As the stock market soared to record heights, the Chicago White Sox were enduring a tough rebuilding year, and the Lefts resistance to POTUS Donald Trump grew, only the conservatives who were targeted by the social media behemoths for silencing will remember what happened to them last year. As Breitbart News reported: In virtually any given week in 2018, you could expect at least one of the following: the media would run a negative story about the president, a Democrat would complain about Russia, and a tech platform would censor a prominent conservative. The news site noted further that all three of those things are connected. The so-called alternative media (hint: sites like ours) has increasingly served as a reliable check on the hysterics of the once-dominant establishment media, much of which has shed scores of viewers or readers as it lost even more credibility throughout the year. (Related: YouTube alters search results to appease pro-abortion Leftists who seek total domination over all online content.) But thats why such news outlets have sustained relentless assaults by the big tech giants the masters of the universe in Silicon Valley, as Breitbart noted, who have either banned them from their platforms or undercut their traffic with algorithm changes, both with an eye towards putting them out of business altogether. Even as the alternative media was attacked and suppressed, the big tech giants poured millions into propping up the old media. Meanwhile, two years into the Trump presidency, Democrats continue to claim that he colluded with Russia to steal the election from Hillary Clinton, despite the continued emergence of evidence showing just how minuscule the Kremlins influence operation was. In fact, you could argue that the Russia-style meddling operation launched against GOP senatorial candidate Roy Moore in Alabama was a more concerted, much larger effort that very likely did have a negative effect on his chances. In Alabama, a Democrat-aligned tech company spent $100,000 on social media ads in an experiment that mimicked Russian influence; meanwhile, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, told Congress recently that his company only discovered $4,700 in advertising spending from Moscow-linked firms in the 2016 presidential election cycle. So many examples of Left-wing bias and censorship The same Democrats who continue to scream Russia, Russia, Russia! also deny that the tech giants are actually banning and censoring conservative and Right-leaning figures and voices, when anyone who can rub two brain cells together knows thats happening. Here are just a few examples: Alex Jones was deplatformed from every major social media platform in existence YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and others before he finally found a new home at Brighteon.com, a rising star in video platforms. A critic of violent Islam, Robert Spencer, was banned by Patreon in response to sustained pressure by credit card companies. Conservatives Candice Owens and actor James Woods were both suspended by Twitter. Twitter banned conservative activist Laura Loomer, GOP consultant R.C. Maxwell, and Gavin McInnis, founder of Proud Boys. Facebook banned I, Hypocrite, a page that drew attention to hate speech by the far Left. The platform also banned Avi Yemini, a Jewish-Australian Israel Defense Force vet and conservative activist. McInnis was also banned by Facebook. Just a few weeks before the 2018 midterms, Facebook banned more than 800 alternative news and media sites. Rank-and-file conservatives who dont have the influence to shame the platform into reinstating them have also been banned. The censorship got so bad that POTUS Donald Trump even noticed. In August he blasted the social media behemoths for their bias and vowed action in the future to prevent it. Get around the social media censorship by getting your daily news and information at Censored.news. Sources include: Breitbart.com TheNationalSentinel.com (Natural News) In the wake of another migrant childs death, the left-wing media has been lambasting the Trump administration. Despite the fact that these children were put into danger by their own families, mainstream news outlets have been quick to lay blame solely at the feet of President Trump. The loss of a child is always a tragedy, but the propagandists didnt seem to mind when immigrant children were dying under Obamas watch. Over a dozen migrants lost their lives while in the care of the Obama administration, and nary a peep was heard from the outraged media. Of course, what else would you expect from the dishonest establishment media? The Left is doing everything in their power to make Trump look like the bad guy and push their anti-American agenda. Media launches outrage campaign Eight-year-old Felipe Alonzo-Gomez passed away shortly before Christmas, a few days after being apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border. Reports indicate that Felipe was showing signs of illness, prompting officials to send him and his father to a hospital for evaluation. The boy was diagnosed with a cold and a fever, given a prescription and sent back. Around 7 oclock that evening, Felipe starting feeling nauseous and threw up. Felipes father reportedly declined further medical care at that time. Hours later, the child was still unwell and border patrol officials made the decision to send Felipe and his father back to the hospital. On the way there, Felipe began vomiting and lost consciousness. He was pronounced dead shortly before midnight. Earlier in December, a young girl from Guatemala died three days after being apprehended by border patrol. The left-wing has heavily insinuated that the deaths of these two children are directly the fault of the Trump administration, with some even going so far as to insinuate these kids were killed on purpose. Media pundits have criticized the conditions at border patrol facilities, seemingly neglecting the fact that illegal immigration already costs the United States billions of dollars. The Trump administration has made it clear they are doing everything in their power to provide adequate care to thousands of migrants on a budget. The simple truth is that this country cannot afford to spend unlimited amounts of money rolling out the red carpet for people who enter this country illegally. It is truly disturbing that liberals today cant seem to understand that facilities and medical care are all things that cost money and that these things are all paid for with tax-payer money. There are limited funds available, and our country already has a massive debt it will likely never pay off. To make matters even worse, the Left is also calling for full rights for illegal immigrants and demanding an end to jail time and deportation for migrants. Newsflash: Entering the U.S. illegally is a crime. Thats what illegal means. Most western nations have laws regulating immigration and protecting their borders. This is not something specific to the United States; the moral outrage over protected borders is nothing but a sham movement intended to push the globalist agenda. The media doesnt care about the deaths of these children; they didnt care who died while Obama was in office. They are using these tragedies for political gain. So in addition to demanding that the country bankrupt itself even further to provide the best care to an untold number of illegal aliens, the Left is also calling for open borders and full rights for migrants. Should the United States sacrifice itself for the sake of illegal immigration? Ultimately, thats what the Left is asking for. See more coverage of the latest illegal immigration news at OpenBorders.news. Sources for this article include: Townhall.com PBS.org CBSNews.com FAIRUS.org (Natural News) Theres a massive disinformation campaign currently underway that aims to deceive the public about whats really happening at Americas southern border. While the Leftist media would have us all believe that the so-called migrant caravans are filled with innocent women and children who merely want a chance at a better life, the truth of the matter is that these roving hordes are filled with violent, foreign invaders and many of them are also active carriers of deadly illnesses like tuberculosis, hepatitis, and HIV. The mainstream media, eager to pander to these potential new Democratic voters, is not only covering up the truth about the risks to public health posed by the migrant caravans, but is even going so far as to claim that [m]igrants dont bring disease. In fact, they fight it, was the precise claim made by NBC News which, as far as we know, hasnt taken in any migrants at any of its studios. Nevertheless, the message being conveyed over and over again is this: Migrants are wonderful people who dont have any diseases and who, by their very presence in the United States, are somehow able to fight disease citing fake science in the process thats meant to add an academic touch to the medias blatant disinformation efforts to deconstruct Americas borders and meld into one world globalism. As revealed by Judicial Watch, NBC News cited a study published in The Lancet entitled, Global patterns of mortality in international migrants: a systematic review and meta-analysis, which states migrant-disease claims represent a false argument. The study goes on to suggest that people who resist migrants are being divisive in an effort to advance a populist agenda. Concerning their disease risk, migrants are supposedly healthier than people in their host countries when it comes to dying from things like heart disease, cancer, and respiratory ailments. But buried deep down in the paper is an admission that migrants health superiority stops at hepatitis, tuberculosis, and HIV, which are cited as exceptions. Last we checked those are deadly diseases and Judicial Watch has interviewed medical experts that confirm illegal immigrants do indeed pose a serious public health threat to the U.S. by bringing dangerous diseases into the country, stated Judicial Watch in a recent article, warning the American public about what open-borders policies threaten to do in society. Just last month a prominent physician in a key border state warned that the caravan streaming north from Honduras will undoubtedly bring infectious diseases into the U.S. Among them are extremely drug resistant strands of tuberculosis and mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue and chikungunya that are widespread in the region, the article adds. For more related news, be sure to check out Outbreak.news. Not getting vaccinated is much more threatening than letting in thousands of diseased migrants, insists the mainstream media Down in Venezuela, those fleeing the horrors of socialism are reportedly carrying with them similar illnesses, as well as others like malaria, yellow fever, diphtheria, dengue, and AIDS, reports indicate diseases that, in many of the countries where Venezuelan migrants are fleeing, had previously been eradicated. As youll notice, many of these diseases are among those constantly being referenced in mainstream media reports as making a comeback, supposedly due to fewer Americans getting vaccinated. In other words, if youre not injecting yourself and your children with deadly chemicals, aborted human fetal tissue, and live viruses, youre putting public health at risk. However, when these same diseases are inside the bodies are politically-expedient migrants, whom the Left loves to pretend to care about in order to rally its base, the best thing to do is to pretend that theres no risk at all. This is how the mainstream media operates, and its the reason why millions of brain-dead Leftists are outraged every time theres a new mainstream media report about a disease outbreak, which theyre notorious for blaming on a lack of vaccination. But when diseased migrants are being sent back home by border patrol, these same Leftists cry themselves into a pool of virtue-signaling tears over the inhumanity of the Tangerine Tyrant (a.k.a. President Donald Trump). Its clearly a pre-programmed response thats been injected into the minds of the mainstream media-watching hordes that apparently believe everything theyre told, so long as it comes from the likes of MSNBC or CNN even when its blatantly obvious that these fake news outlets are selectively reporting facts mixed with lies in order to push an agenda. Even the recent study twisted by the mainstream media acknowledges that illegal immigrants are likely to carry hepatitis, tuberculosis and HIV, adds Judicial Watch about the most recent set of lies concerning the migrant caravans. Selectively burying the information doesnt change the severity of the matter. Though not a mainstream media outlet, a popular leftist news and opinion site went so far as to label those who claim migrants pose a threat to public health racist. Read OpenBorders.news for daily coverage of illegal immigration into the United States. Sources for this article include: JudicialWatch.org NBCNews.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) People are quick to judge smokers as folks who have completely given up on their health and wellness, knowing all the chemicals in their stogies are robbing their body of nutrients and filling their lungs and blood with carcinogens. The irony of that judgment comes when people who dont smoke find out the hard way that most of the chemicals in cigarettes are also found in common foods, over-the-counter medications, and yes, in vaccines. That bad news sometimes arrives when the oncologist informs them that they have cancer, but nobody can seem to figure out how they got it. Medical doctors usually blame genetics, only because they never took a single class on nutrition in medical college, and even if they did, they still have no clue how much it matters. Lets take a close look at the chemicals in cigarettes that invade common foods, water, prescription medications, and immunizations. #1. Bleach Most cigarettes are white because theyre rolled in paper, but paper comes from trees, and trees are brown. The paper is bleached. Smokers are smoking a little bit of bleach with every inhale. It adds up over time. Bleach burns your soft epithelial tissue inside your throat, lungs, stomach, and your cleansing organs, leading to cancer of the pancreas, bladder, and prostate. Most white foods are bleached too. Think about white bread, white flour, white pasta, white sugar, white salt, and white rice (except for basmati). Even white coffee filters are bleached. Quit judging smokers for sucking down chemicals all day when youre probably doing the same. Make that change immediately. #2. Formaldehyde Formaldehyde is embalming fluid used to preserve corpses for open casket viewings. You can find this deadly ingredient in cigarettes, carpeting, new clothing, and in most vaccines. Pro-vaxxers swear up and down theres not enough in vaccines to cause damage to the humans that are injected with it, but then again, the vaccine industry has shelled out over $4 billion, yes billion, in vaccine injury damages in the past few decades, mostly for the deadly multi-dose influenza vaccines that are also loaded with mercury. Never ever let a doctor or nurse stick a needle in your muscle tissue and inject formaldehyde or mercury (a.k.a. thimerosal), because there is NO safe level for humans, no matter what they say in those peer review journals. #3. Chemical insecticides Tobacco harvesters use deadly chemical insecticides to rid their farms of hornworms and budworms. These same chemicals remain on and inside the tobacco leaves, then get smoked and serve as the fuel for the fire that breeds lung cancer cells. Genetically modified corn, soy, and canola are crops that are modified by scientists in laboratories to contain insecticides that kill rootworm beetles that eat corn, bean leaf beetles and stink bugs that eat soy, and army worms and cutworms that eat canola. These DNA-embedded chemicals dissolve the digestive tract of the insects and destroy their reproductive abilities. What do you think those same genetically-infused chemicals do to humans? The science is settled GMOs cause liver and kidney damage in animals, and humans are animals, in case you forgot. #4. Chemical herbicides Tobacco farmers use boatloads of chemical herbicides to fight off superweeds that strangulate tobacco plants and decrease yield. The most popular herbicide in the world is Roundup, manufactured and sold by Monsanto. Roundup is comprised of about 50 percent glyphosate, an acid molecule implicated in dire health consequences for humans around the globe. Smokers smoke it. Consumers eat it. Youll find glyphosate in most conventional bread and childrens cereals. Its in tap water, sugarcane, and most grain products that arent organic. Nearly 200 million pounds of glyphosate gets dumped on American soil annually. Currently, the FDA and EPA have put zero regulations on glyphosate in order to protect humans, animals, or the environment. Go figure. Hundreds of tests and reliable studies have been conducted that expose the dangers of glyphosate consumption. The term Roundup Ready means crops also contain it in their DNA, so theres no washing that off. Scientific correlations have also been made between glyphosate and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). #5. Ammonia Cigarette manufacturers use ammonia to freebase tobacco so the nicotine is exponentially more potent as a vapor and reaches the heart and brain within 3 seconds. Smokers are smoking ammonia with every puff. Mix that with bleach and you have a deadly gas. Most conventional meat is bleached and ammonia-treated to kill E. coli and salmonella, then its dyed back pink or red to look attractive in the butchers window (think of steak, hamburger, salmon and tuna). Still going to make fun of smokers for knowingly ruining their health? Check your conventional meats for the same chemicals. #6. Lead Lead is a highly toxic metal found in tobacco smoke and contributes significantly to cancer risk by accumulating in tissues, causing serious effects on the nervous system, brain, and red blood cells. Lead can cause behavioral problems and lowered IQ. There is no safe level of lead in the blood. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) analyzed 11 years of FDA data and found lead in 20 percent of baby foods and at least 14 percent of other foods. More than a million children consume more lead than the FDAs set limit. Parents would be wise to watch out for those lead-loaded fruit juices and cookies, and not just those cancer sticks. #7. Aluminum High levels of aluminum can be found in cigarette smoke (699 1200 ?g/g). The human body does NOT need aluminum, and consuming it over time can lead to cancer and dementia. Aluminum is easily found in antacids, baking powder, processed cheeses, pickles, wine, tap water, food additives, pharmaceuticals, and many vaccines. Tune into FoodScience.news for updates on other cigarette chemicals you can easily find in your food, water, and medicine. Be careful and read all those labels. Sources for this article include: CDC.gov/vaccines NaturalNews.com FarmProgress.com Seralini.org TruthWiki.org Hindawi.com EDF.org LiveStrong.com FoodScience.news (Natural News) Its semi-official: U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has not publicly declared herself a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, but shes formed an exploratory committee, which is considered to be the first step toward an eventual declaration. In a video announcement on New Years Eve to her supporters, Warren revealed her plans ahead of what The New York Times notes is likely to be a long and crowded primary. In her video, Warren struck her usual anti-Wall Street tone galling, considering her millionaire status as well as announcing plans to visit Iowa, where the first-in-the-country caucuses are held. Ive spent my career getting to the bottom of why Americas promise works for some families, but others, who work just as hard, slip through the cracks into disaster, she said in the video. And what Ive found is terrifying: These arent cracks families are falling into, theyre traps. Americas middle class is under attack. But this dark path doesnt have to be our future, she noted further. We can make our democracy work for all of us. We can make our economy work for all of us. Watch: Every person in America should be able to work hard, play by the same set of rules, & take care of themselves & the people they love. Thats what Im fighting for, & thats why Im launching an exploratory committee for president. I need you with me: https://t.co/BNl2I1m8OX pic.twitter.com/uXXtp94EvY Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) December 31, 2018 Real Native Americans dont have much respect for Warren Now that shes formed a committee she is free to begin raising money for her candidacy in what is expected to be the most wide-open field for Democrats in a generation. But frankly, Warrens reputation as a fake Native American shes been dubbed Fauxcohontas by her critics ought to remove her from any serious consideration. (Related: Trump on Fauxcohontas Liz Warren in 2020: Id love to run against her.) And even her hometown newspaper, The Boston Globe, as liberal as it is, believes so. Warren missed her moment in 2016, and theres reason to be skeptical of her prospective candidacy in 2020, the paper wrote in a rather scathing piece after urging her to run for president in 2016. Now, shes a divisive figure who was mocked widely and harshly, even by fellow Democrats, for taking a DNA test this fall to prove she was of Native American ancestry. The test found she had no more than 1/1,024th such ancestry, or only as much as a potential potential 10th generation relative who was Native American. Real Native Americans were also upset by the test. Twyla Baker, a teacher and citizen of the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota, criticized the test because the genealogist didnt even use Native American DNA for comparison (because there isnt any); he used DNA from Central and South America as a stand-in. Warrens types of claims can damage the validity and work of indigenous people who are living their identities every day, Baker told NBC News. It also lays the groundwork to do serious damage to our sovereignty, as tribes are responsible for defining who is a tribal citizen. No more charlatans, please Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said much the same thing. Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage, he said. A DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship. Krystal Tsosie, an Native American geneticist who is a citizen of the Navajo Nation in Arizona, added: We as Native Americans are just concerned that people will start equating ancestry with identity. We feel this way because there was miscommunication with what Warren was trying to show and do. Individuals are trying to gain a sense of belonging in our communities when they havent lived with our ways and in our communities. Its not for an outsider to proclaim themselves as Native Americans, she added, according to NBC News. Thats currently the discussion that many members are having about non-Natives. Misappropriating Native American heritage is nothing new for Warren. In fact, she was criticized for it during her first senatorial campaign against then-incumbent moderate Republican Scott Brown. As The Wall Street Journal reports, throughout the 1980s and 1990s when she was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard, she was claiming in a legal directory to be a minority and was identified as such in federal forms filed by these universities. The WSJs James Freeman noted further that, at the time, no one in the hierarchy of those colleges was refuting her claim. In 2012, the Boston Globe reported that no one who considered Warren for teaching jobs was looking to diversify by hiring a Native American instructor, especially at Harvard. Yet that doesnt jibe with a 1991 Globe report detailing a lawsuit filed against the Ivy League school by students because it had failed to hire sufficient numbers of black, Hispanic, Native-American and women professors. To say that no one who hired her knew of her claimed status seems far-fetched enough. But what is clear is that Warren made the claim, and no one questioned her about it or thought it odd. Now she wants to be our president by claiming shes honest, up front, and on our side. No, thanks. Washington is already full of charlatans; we dont need one in the White House. Read more about Elizabeth Warren, read LizWarren.news. Sources include: TheNationalSentinel.com NYTimes.com BostonGlobe.com WSJ.com (Natural News) Daily consumption of tea may help keep dementia at bay, new research says. Researcher at the National University of Singapore examined the tea intake of 957 adults older than 55 years old for more than 12 years. Study data show that regular tea consumption is associated with a 50 percent reduced risk of developing dementia. Data also reveals that people carrying the dementia gene may decrease the risk of beta-amyloid plaque formation by 86 percent. Beta-amyloid plaques is shown to trigger the onset of cognitive disorders in patients. Researchers note similar effects regardless of whether the tea was green or black. The data from our study suggests that a simple and inexpensive lifestyle measure such as daily tea drinking can reduce a persons risk of developing neurocognitive disorders in late life. Our findings have important implications for dementia prevention. Despite high quality drug trials, effective pharmacological therapy for neurocognitive disorders such as dementia remains elusive and current prevention strategies are far from satisfactory, said researcher Dr Feng Lei of the National University of Singapore. The results were published in The Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging. Tea break proves beneficial in many previous studies The recent study is only one of many that demonstrates the benefits of regular tea intake. A 2014 study published in the journal Psychopharmacology showed that regular green tea intake results in improved cognitive function, which may prove beneficial for patients with Alzheimers disease or dementia. MRI data show that patients who were given a drink with green tea extracts exhibit increased brain activity in areas associated with memory function. An analysis of 2,500 participants also reveals that those who drank two to three cups of tea a day had a 55 percent reduced risk of dementia, while those who consumed six to 10 cups daily had a 63 percent decreased likelihood of developing dementia. In contrast, people who drank coffee do not demonstrate the same effect, but show an increased risk of dementia. Because tea is cheap, non-toxic and widely consumed, it has huge potential in promoting cognitive health and perhaps delaying the onset of dementia, the researchers note. Another study shows that regular green tea intake helps stave off dementia in people aged 60 years and older. Researchers examined more than 700 participants and found that those who did not drink green tea fared worse on a cognitive test called the Mini-Mental State Examination. The findings demonstrate that green tea consumption may help protect the brain from the debilitating effects of dementia. Additional research also reveal that taking digested polyphenol compounds from green tea is even more effective in preventing the onset of dementia in patients compared with freshly-brewed tea. Whats in a leaf: The source behind teas power against dementia Tea leaves are packed with a number of antioxidants that keep cognitive disorders at bay. Green tea contains a flavonoid called epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) that can bind with beta-amyloid proteins, which in turn prevents the formation of dangerous plaques associated with cognitive decline. Polyphenols found in tea leaves are also shown to inhibit the oxidation of brain cells and prevent the build-up of plaque. Compounds such as catechins and theaflavins found in tea leaves have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, which may help protect the brain from from neurodegeneration and vascular damage, a researcher said. In addition, various research show that compounds found in tea leaves can help lower cholesterol levels, reduce blood clots, and reduce the risk cancer onset. Sources include: DailyMail.co.uk Telegraph.co.uk Alzheimers.net NutraIngredients-USA.com (Natural News) Cannabinoids may show potential in the treatment of various skin diseases, according to a recent analysis. Health experts at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus examined current literature on the effects of cannabinoids on skin diseases and confirmed that pharmaceutical products containing the compound may prove effective in treating eczema, psoriasis, and both atopic and contact dermatitis. According to senior author Dr. Robert Dellavalle, Associate Professor of Dermatology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, the compounds most promising effect is addressing severe itch. The senior author cited one study where eight out of 21 patients who used a cannabinoid cream twice daily for three weeks were able to completely cure severe itching or pruritus. According to the study, cannabinoids helped relieve dry skin, which triggers itch in patients. The research team also found that tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient in marijuana, helped reduce swelling and inflammation in mice. The experts also noted that animal models of melanoma exhibited a significant inhibition of tumor growth following tetrahydrocannabinol injection. According to Dellavalle, the cannabinoids anti-inflammatory properties may play a role in the beneficial effects of therapies using the compound. Dellavalle said the treatments used were cannabinoid drugs that spurred little to no psychotropic effects, indicating that they can be used in skin disorders. He also stressed that cannabinoids may be an effective alternative for patients who were non-responsive to other itch and skin disease therapies. However, the senior author cautioned that the treatments were tested in laboratory models and that large-scale clinical trials have not been conducted. These diseases cause a lot of problems for people and have a direct impact on their quality of life. The treatments are currently being bought over the internet and we need to educate dermatologists and patients about the potential uses of them, the senior author said in Science Daily. The findings were published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. More studies link cannabinoids to better skin health The number of skin disorders have been on the rise in the U.S. over the last few years. The International Federation of Psoriasis Associations reported that there are about 150,000 new cases of psoriasis in the U.S. every year. The National Eczema Association also reported that about 31.6 million Americans show symptoms of eczema. In line with this, a large number of studies have previously established that cannabinoids show potential in addressing a variety of skin conditions. As part of research, a team of scientists from the University of Teramo, the Campus Bio-Medico University and the Santa Lucia Foundation in Italy examined the effects of phytocannabinoids on various skin genes. According to the study, both cannabidiol and cannabigerol significantly reduced the expression of all skin differentiation genes tested. This suggests that cannabinoids could serve as a primary therapy for skin ailments. These findings identify the phytocannabinoids cannabidiol and cannabigerol as transcriptional repressors that can control cell proliferation and differentiation, suggesting (especially for cannabidiol) a possible exploitation as lead compounds to be used in the development of novel therapeutics for skin diseases, the researchers said in The Joint Blog. Another study revealed that a cannabinoid-based topical cream helped improve the skin condition of participants after two weeks of treatment. According to the study, more than 85 percent of women who used the topical cream reported significant improvements after a week. The researchers also found that 100 percent of participants exhibited improvements at 14 days following the treatment. In addition, nearly 81 percent reported better skin texture, while the same number of participants observed improvements in fine lines and wrinkles around the mouth. See more benefits of cannabinoids at CannabisCures.news. Sources include: ScienceDaily.com MedicalNewsToday.com TheJointBlog.com MedicalMarijuanaInc.com Yves here. Its surprising to see Piketty and even more so, one of this co-authors, Gabriel Zucman, make such strong claims for tax data as a way to measure income inequality. The rich and super rich engage in tax avoidance and evasion, to the degree that Zucman has estimated that 6% of the worlds wealth is hidden. First, that wealth was hidden to avoid paying taxes on it and/or to hide its criminal origins (such as looting governments). Second, the income on hidden wealth is also by nature hidden. By James K. Galbraith, Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government and Business Relations, University of Texas at Austin. Originally published at the Institute of New Economic Thinking website Thomas Piketty and his colleagues[1] have produced a new exposition of their empirical work, entitled the World Inequality Report 2018 (hereafter: WIR). Their purpose is to showcase the exploration of income and wealth inequalities begun with the World Top Incomes Database (Atkinson and Piketty 2010) and theorized in Pikettys epic Capital in the XXI Century (2014). In particular the WIR concentrates on the presentation of measures and evidence; the stated goal is to inform a deliberative process with more rigorous and transparent information on income and wealth than has been available to date. In a review article published on-line and open access in Development and Change on December 24, 2018, I initiate this deliberative process by examining the WIR data and the claims made for it. The ground-breaking, systematic and transparent methodology on which the WIR rests is largely the use of tax recordsspecifically income tax recordsmined to show the income shares of tranches of the income-earning population: top one percent, top ten percent, next forty percent, and bottom fifty percent are the usual divisions. These Piketty and his colleagues argue are more complete, comprehensive, and comparable across countries and through time than the generally-used alternative, which is household or person-based surveys. The WIR authors write disparagingly of the Gini indexthe inequality measure most prevalent in such surveyswhich they find too technical and not sufficiently intuitive. But they also object to survey methods: The main problem with household surveys, however, is that they usually rely entirely on self-reported information about income and wealth. As a consequence, they misrepresent top income and wealth levels, and therefore overall inequality. (p. 29) This sweeping critique carries on for several pages, brushing aside a body of research comprising thousands of papers and millions of survey observations, including the work of the Luxembourg Income Studies, the World Bank, Eurostat, the Economic Commission for Latin America, and the United States Census Bureau among scores of national data-collection agencies. It is a repudiation of what almost every previous researcher has done in this field over fifty years. But are tax data really better? Where survey and tax measures both exist, and report different results, should one systematically prefer a measure based on taxes? The answer depends in part on the quality of the survey measures. But it also must depend in part on the quality, consistency, length and continuity of the national tax record, and in particular of the income tax. The WIR authors acknowledge that tax data have limits, in particular they cannot cover income and wealth hidden from tax authorities in tax havens. But the question of the quality of tax records goes much further than this. My new essay examines the question from three points of view: the coverage provided by tax data in the world economy, the consistency of tax data with other sources of information on income inequality, and the peculiarities of tax-based measurement of inequality in the United States. It goes on to make a comparison with measures drawn from other forms of administrative dataspecifically payroll records, used by the University of Texas Inequality Projectwhich are generally more consistent with records of inequality measured in household surveys than are the WIRs tax records. In brief summary, the review shows that by comparison with payroll and survey data, available records from tax files are relatively sparse, and biased toward wealthier countries and those that were once British colonies, which imposed income tax. It shows that tax data are far less consistent with survey and payroll records than are the latter two with each other. And it shows that even within the United States, a country with good tax records by world standards, changes in tax law distort the WIRs measures of changes in the top income shares, while a misunderstanding of the nature of low-income tax filers in the US leads to a dramatic but nonsensical claim that the earnings of the bottom 50 percent of Americans have collapsed in recent decades. Overall, the review casts doubt on claims by the authors of the World Inequality Report to have produced major advances in the study of world economic inequality, and documents that many of the findings touted in the Report as new and unprecedented have in fact been reported in the literature for years, even decades in some cases. [1] The credited co-authors are Facundo Alvaredo, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman. Figure 1 Top One Percent Shares from the World Inequality Database, showing an unacknowledged data break due to the US Tax Reform Act of 1986. Adjusting the data for the change in the tax definition of income would show that the US top share tracks the UK and Canada very closely. Low numbers for France and Italy are likely due to inferior tax recording of high income persons, not an underlying condition of less inequality. This post was first published on December 5, 2011 By Andrew Dittmer, who recently finished his PhD in mathematics at Harvard and is currently continuing work on his thesis topic. He also taught mathematics at a local elementary school. Andrew enjoys explaining the recent history of the financial sector to a popular audience. Simulposted at The Distributist Review This is the fifth installment of a six-part interview. For the previous parts, see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. Red indicates exact quotes from Hans-Hermann Hoppes 2001 book Democracy: The God That Failed. ANDREW: In the last interview, you told us how GLOs in the Middle Ages were noblemen, publicly recognized as being a cut above the ordinary person. Have the rich people and corporate leaders of today also risen to the top by being natural leaders? CODE NAME CAIN: No. Rich men still exist today, but more frequently than not they owe their fortune directly or indirectly to the state. Hence they are often more dependent on the states continued favors than people of far lesser wealth Their conduct is not marked by special virtue, dignity, or taste but is a reflection of the proletarian mass culture of present-orientedness, opportunism, and hedonism. [73-74] ANDREW: How did this happen? CNC: Unfortunately, democracy has succeeded in the ultimate destruction of the natural elites. The fortunes of great families have dissipated, and their tradition of culture and economic independence, intellectual farsightedness, and moral and spiritual leadership has been forgotten. [73] ANDREW: Its the fault of democracy? The noble families themselves bear no responsibility for their decadence? CNC: Maybe the noble families should have tried harder to resist democracy, but yes Hans-Hermann Hoppe proves in his book that democratic government always leads to welfare state socialism. The United States of today is a case in point. ANDREW: Libertarians are in general very critical of modern democracies. Still, many think that a legitimate government could exist, provided that it is very small and only does things that libertarians think are good. CNC: Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick, Milton Friedman, and even the sellouts at the Cato Institute have all worked hard to defend the rights of producers. However, they naively imagine that democratic government can be tamed: transformed into a reliable machine that will safeguard property and contracts without getting other ideas about its proper role in society. ANDREW: Are you sure that they are wrong? CNC: Completely sure. As I just told you, the destructive nature of government is a theorem, proven by applying the rules of elementary logic. ANDREW: Can you explain the theorem to us? CNC: The proof is best explained using the concept of time preference from Austrian economics. Draw a downward-sloping time preference curve for a given individual in the beginning of humanity ANDREW: Even though you might find a technical approach more elegant, you will reach a bigger audience if you explain the idea in ordinary language. CNC: Some precision will of course be lost, but I can try The idea is simple, yet profound. Begin by assuming that a government official is rational, and therefore acts in order to use the government apparatus to his personal advantage [Since] he does not own [the government] [h]e cannot sell government resources and privately pocket the receipts from such sales, nor can he pass government possessions to his personal heir [Consequently, a] president will use up as much of the government resources as quickly as possible, for what he does not consume now, he may never be able to consume. [24] ANDREW: Past presidents like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are millionaires. If your theory was correct, they would have plundered so much of the countrys resources that they would be richer more like billionaires. CNC: Ahh Thats what I thought when I first read Hans-Hermann Hoppes book. But you see, Dr. Hoppe thinks at the level of abstract theory. You have to understand how to apply his categories to the real world. Although Dr. Hoppe uses president as an example of a government official, there are many government officials, and they are all trying to plunder the government. What is more, there are official government officials, and there are also unofficial government officials, like lobbyists and campaign contributors and the presidents of too-big-to-fail (i.e. government-sponsored) banks. The plunder tally is too small if you dont count the booty of both official and unofficial government officials. ANDREW: Is this just your interpretation, or is it Dr. Hoppes, too? CNC: Well, he could maybe have been a little clearer. But he definitely understands. For instance, he points out that it is not likely that dullards, even if they make up the majority, will systematically outsmart and enrich themselves at the expense of a minority of bright and energetic individuals frequently it will actually be the better-off who succeed in being subsidized by the worse-off. [97] In other words, he agrees that welfare states mainly end up subsidizing unofficial government officials. ANDREW: I see. Anyway, you were explaining why you think other libertarians are chasing a mirage when they strive for a government that is as small as possible CNC: Right. As I was saying, Dr. Hoppes theory is strikingly accurate. Even professors from the mainstream like Tom Ferguson and Simon Johnson admit that Dr. Hoppe is right and that U.S. government decisions are, in reality, made by lobbyists and large campaign contributors. There is also broad agreement that any given unofficial government official is not sure when the party will be over for the interests he represents, and so he tries to plunder as much as possible now, with no thought for the future. Now lets take those pro-government libertarians I just mentioned. They know that the masses are not intelligent, they know that democracy is just a theater where the unofficial government officials use coercion to steal from productive people and then they forget it all and mindlessly accept and repeat nonsense such as that democracy is self-rule and government is of, by, and for the people [92]. They foolishly think that they can use the democratic process to redirect the unofficial government officials! Or that they can persuade the unofficial government officials to give up the benefits of lobbying and move toward a free society!! ANDREW: So youre saying that lobbyists run the government, the corporations they represent dont want a libertarian-style small government so it wont happen. CNC: Exactly. ANDREW: Id like to prove a theorem, too. Can I try? CNC: Sure but keep in mind that it takes a lot of practice to reason correctly about economic affairs. ANDREW: Ill never learn unless I try Begin by assuming that CEOs are rational, and therefore act in order to use the corporate apparatus for their personal advantage. Since they dont own the corporation, their incentive is to use up the corporations resources as quickly as possible what they dont consume now, they might never be able to consume. CNC: Your amateurism is showing. The behavior you describe is impossible, since stockholders only allow a CEO to run a corporation if they are confident that the CEO will act in their best interests. ANDREW: I thought there was lots of evidence that CEOs have been extracting much larger payments from their corporations than in the past. Are you sure you arent mindlessly accepting the myth that corporate governance is of, by, and for the stockholders? CNC: Sophistry. ANDREW: But think of how well your theory generalizes from democratic governments to GLOs! For example, bank traders at European banks like UBS deliberately bought lots of risky securities so that they could manipulate their own accounting rules and get paid large bonuses. We could call the traders unofficial corporate officials who cooperated with the official corporate officials in consuming the banks resources. CNC: If this was really happening, then stockholders would have stopped investing in the bank in question. Unless, of course, there was government interference. Thats why its so important to concentrate on the flaws of democratic government. ANDREW: Hmm If you and Dr. Hoppe think that the problem with democracy is that government decisions are bought and sold with money, why dont you try to fix the democracy so that it is less about money and lobbyists? CNC: Try to stop productive people from influencing elections using their money? Thats a terrible idea it means stifling individuals and organizations with large sums of money. It means suppressing their views about politics. ANDREW: Is it that you want everyone to be able to express their views about politics, or is it particularly important for some people to do so? CNC: The latter, of course. [I]magine that the right to vote were expanded to seven year olds. [The resulting governments] policies would most definitely reflect the legitimate concerns of children to have adequate and equal access to free french fries, lemonade, and videos. [95] Similarly, if we had democratic decision-making on a global scale, the government would probably find that the so-called Western world had far too much wealth With these thought experiments in mind, there can be no doubt about [95] the negative consequences of one-person, one-vote. ANDREW: So the problem is that the wrong people will end up voting. But what if only the right people vote? Would you support turning the U.S. into a dictatorship ruled by the Chamber of Commerce? Or if you prefer, you could put Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform in the top spot. CNC: The result would certainly be more farsighted, future-oriented decisions than we have today However, you have forgotten that libertarians do not make compromises when defending liberty. My principles would compel me to oppose a government of the sort you describe, no matter how economically sensible its policies might be. And to set the record straight, I am confident that Grover shares my idealism. ANDREW: Since you think the role of money in democracy should not change, that must mean that you accept lobbying as a necessary evil linked to the existence of a government. CNC: There are certain dark realities that we have to deal with while living in an unfree society. ANDREW: Do you lobby governments? CNC: Personally, I wish only to work, produce, and enjoy the fruits of [my] labor. However, if politics is permitted, even [people like me are] affected. In order to defend themselves against attacks on their liberty and property by those who have fewer moral scruples, even honest, hardworking people must become become political animals and spend more and more time and energy developing their political skills. [275-276] ANDREW: You are sometimes forced to engage in lobbying. CNC: Yes. For example, the current meme in the investment community is that the combination of climate change and population growth will make it almost impossible to have enough food for the world by the year 2050. Farmland is soaring in price. My hedge fund discovered uncultivated land in the African country of ***. The land did not belong to anyone, and so we tried to buy it from the relevant government. Outrageously, certain officials from *** insisted on ANDREW: Bribes? CNC: arrangements before they would agree to sell the land at a fair price. ANDREW: Was this farmland unoccupied? CNC: No one owned the land before we bought it. ANDREW: But was someone living there? CNC: There were some local tribesmen who claimed that they had a vague traditional right to the land. Decisive action was necessary before they stopped squatting on our land. ANDREW: Involving trucks of men carrying machine guns. Has it ever occurred to you that this success for your hedge fund was achieved at the cost a lot of real coercion of real people? CNC: It has occurred to me an unruly band of people aggressively trespassed on my land. My rights were violated and I was forced to make a substantial financial sacrifice in order to defend myself from coercion. ANDREW: It must have been terrible One thing that I have been wondering about it sounds like you do not have much respect for many GLOs of today. You believe that few of them are led by productive geniuses instead, many business leaders are instead disreputable people who lobby governments and owe their fortunes to the State. CNC: I criticize immoral behavior whether the perpetrators are government officials or businessmen. If CEOs spend their time lobbying and being political entrepreneurs, that is bad. You need to remember that competition is not always good. Competition in the production of goods is good, but competition in the production of bads is not. [275] As a result of open political competition the entire character structure of society [becomes] distorted, and more and more bad characters [rise] to the top. [275] ANDREW: But then why are you trying to help these people dominate the world of the future? CNC: You ask an interesting question. Its true that a lot of current GLOs are actually looters and moochers. But trying to sort out which GLOs are legitimate and which are illegitimate would be complicated and ultimately impossible and so why not create a society in which at least some of the GLOs in charge will be people who have earned their wealth by engaging in productive activities? ANDREW: People like you? CNC: Yes, like me. In the concluding part of this interview, Code Name Cain tries to delve deep into the cognitive biases that prevent his interviewer from having a mature understanding of libertarian principles. Note: bank traders at European banks like UBS deliberately bought lots of risky securities Yves Smiths ECONNED, Chapter 9 Even though there are unlikely to be any significant Brexit developments prior to Parliaments meaningful vote on Mays Brexit deal the week of January 14 (and even what happens then will probably be a lot of noise as opposed to signal), we thought wed do some catch-up, in part to let our plugged-in UK and Ireland readers supply their usual informative and sometimes amusing intelligence. The high level overview is that the UK leadership classes and the press continue to be disengaged from reality even as the Brexit clock keeps ticking. Can I get some of whatever they are smoking? Theresa May keeps up her Groundhog Day routine. If you follow the Brexit beat, you would have caught that Jean-Claude Juncker chewed the UK, meaning Theresa May, out over not having its act together late last week. Recall that at the December EU summit, Theresa May made yet another personal appeal to EU leaders, this time for legally binding assurances regarding the Irish border backstop. The problem is that what May wanted amounted to a renegotiation of terms, such as saying the backstop would only be temporary. For that to be valid, there would need to be a sunset date, which would create the possibility that the backstop would end before a new EU-UK deal was in place, leading to the hard border that the EU (and supposedly the UK) have deemed to be non-starters. EU leaders had said when they approved the draft Withdrawal Agreement in November that there would be no more negotiations. Donald Tusk reaffirmed that on December 10: I have decided to call #EUCO on #Brexit (Art. 50) on Thursday. We will not renegotiate the deal, including the backstop, but we are ready to discuss how to facilitate UK ratification. As time is running out, we will also discuss our preparedness for a no-deal scenario. Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) December 10, 2018 Yet when Theresa May came to the EU summit in December, she succeeded at the only thing she seems good at, which is alienating EU leaders. The EU had made clear it was willing to give not-legally-binding side statements that it was willing to spin in the manner that would be most helpful to Theresa May, such as saying they wanted the backstop only to be temporary and were as eager as the UK to conclude a trade agreement (which would put an end to the backstop). But to the frustration of EU state heads, May didnt ask for what was on offer, nor did she make a clear request for anything else. What May appeared to have communicated was that the UK was still not engaging with the reality that Brexit was looming. Their response was to send the Withdrawal Agreement out for approval by national parliaments (yet more confirmation, as if it were needed, that negotiations were over) and stepping up their Brexit planning. That is a long-winded way of demonstrating that Junckers remark was simply a blunt summary of the state of play, as well as a reminder that May was still not taking the EU up on its willingness to try to improve the optics. Instead, has kept asking for what she should understand that she wont get, as one can infer from the Suns account over the weekend: His broadside came as it also emerged last night that two weeks of talks to try to improve Theresa Mays Brexit deal have failed to produce a breakthrough. The PM has just nine days to go to win enough concessions on the hated Irish backstop to persuade Tory MPs to back her when the Commons debates it again. Help me. Juncker is no Barnier, and one can wonder whether his slap at May was another demonstration of his propensity to go off the rails (this time after considerable provocation), or a deliberate display of venom: In an interview with German newspaper Die Welt, he said: It is not us who are leaving the United Kingdom it is the United Kingdom that is leaving the European Union. I find it entirely unreasonable for parts of the British public to believe that it is for the EU alone to propose a solution for all future British problems. My appeal is this: get your act together and then tell us what it is you want. Our proposed solutions have been on the table for months. The former Luxembourg PM added: I have the impression that the majority of British MPs deeply distrust both the EU and Mrs May. So what do we see today? May is yet again forcing EU leaders to listen to another appeal for them to do what they have said they wont do, which is reopen the Withdrawal Agreement deal. As weve said from early on, the UK seems not to understand the meaning of the word no, at least with respect to Brexit. From the Financial Times, May to press EU leaders for Brexit concessions: Prime minister Theresa May will on Thursday launch a round of EU diplomacy as she seeks clarifications to sell her Brexit deal to sceptical MPs, who return to Westminster next week ahead of a vote on the package. She is expected to speak this week to EU leaders including German chancellor Angela Merkel, Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte and European Council president Donald Tusk in an attempt to break the Brexit logjam. Mrs May is seeking legally binding assurances that a so-called backstop plan intended to avoid a hard Irish border, based on proposals for a temporary UK-EU customs union will be time-limited. Brussels has so far refused to offer such assurances. If I were an EU head of state, at this point, Id be questioning Mays intelligence, sanity, or both. More evidence of shambolic UK Brexit preparations. The latest episode is the hiring of a ferry charter service from a recently-formed ferry company with no ferries and no experience. UK companies arent so lackadasical; theyve been stockpiling. But the lack of engagement with reality seems endemic. Richard North gives yet another sighting on what has come to be called ferrygate: Right up front were the throw-away lines from Grayling when he responded to the subject by claiming that he was expecting the Channel ports to operate normally in all Brexit circumstances. Hed had detailed discussions with his French counterparts and they wanted to keep the Channel ports moving freely. Thus, said Grayling, Im confident that will happen. Had any sentient interviewer been confronted with such claims from the Transport Secretary, less than 100 days before Brexit day, one might have expected them to clear the decks and devote the rest of the programme to taking them apart. But this is the BBC were talking about. The claims were allowed to pass unchallenged. The point at issue though is that, under all Brexit circumstances, bar one where the Withdrawal Agreement is ratified and we get a transition period there will be very significant changes to port operations, with the absolute certainty that there will be serious delays arising from the UKs newly acquired status as a third country. That the French want to keep the Channel ports moving freely should almost go without saying, but wishing something doesnt make it so. Like May, it seems that virtually every pol in the UK is serving up reheated non-starters. The press today is full of stories about Labour members being at odds with Corbyn over his no second referendum stance when there will be no second referendum. Or at least one that makes a difference (weve said it is entirely possible that the UK, channeling Greece in 2015, will schedule a second referendum to take place after the Brexit drop dead date, on the misguided belief that the EU would roll over). Consider: A Second Referendum would take a minimum of 21 weeks (147 days) & requires Government support to happen say, LSE, UCL, IoG & Guardian. 1. https://t.co/h47wAIYvjH 2. https://t.co/6AXePku23z 3. https://t.co/NmPEHqqGOi 4. https://t.co/NSR14zJgYc pic.twitter.com/dZ6YJluIIe Tory Fibs (@ToryFibs) December 28, 2018 Add to that: 1. May is not on board 2. In the unlikely event that May were booted in a no-confidence vote, there would be only a caretaker government until a new government was formed, which means no starting a referendum or asking the EU for a delay 3. Add to the timetable above a minimum of a month to pass primary legislation (revocation of the sections of the Withdrawal Act bill that hard-coded the Brexit date as March 29 as well as the referendum bill) and the time to set the wording of the referendum question. The polls continue to deliver mixed messages. Despite the press giving the impression of a lot of support for a second referendum, the enthusiasm is likely to be greater among MPs eager to find air cover for Remain than among the public at large. It does appear clear that voters are not keen about Mays deal or at least would not be if they understood it: "Anything less than a clean break from #EU will be a betrayal of the Referendum vote" NATIONAL Agree 48% Disagree 35% LEAVERS Agree 78% Disagree 11% CON VOTERS Agree 69% Disagree 22% LAB VOTERS Agree 37% Disagree 45% REMAINERS Agree 23% Disagree 61% YouGov Dec 15 (DK Excl) Matthew Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) January 2, 2019 But no one is telling UK citizens that they have only three choices: crash out, Mays deal, or a withdrawal of Article 50 with no referendum validating that action. Corbyn continues to disappoint. This section of a Guardian story is cringe-making: Corbyn said May should return to Brussels once her deal is voted down to find an agreement that Labour could support, including a full customs union. What we will do is vote against having no deal, well vote against Theresa Mays deal; at that point she should go back to Brussels and say, This is not acceptable to Britain and renegotiate a customs union, form a customs union with the European Union to secure trade, he said. Turning the mike over to vlade: Except, of course: the deal really is a withdrawal agreement. Theres no EU deal. Yet. Doh? theres no time to renegotiate anything, but hey, we just had Xmas, so sure some pressies are due? Full custom union (which you can talk about once you quit the EU and start talking future relationship, i.e. current political declaration) will solve precisely nothing to secure trade. CF Turkey. But I guess it you live in 19th century (as seems pretty mandatory for a UK politicians, unless you elect to go even further back), customs are the trade barriers you worry about. I have no idea what will happen when it finally becomes undeniable that the UK has very few Brexit options. But it wont be pretty. The crash landing of a military chopper in Gutu exposes the rot in the public sector. That a public official, a mere Permanent Secretary flies around on private visits in a military chopper is mind boggling. A military chopper is state property only to be used for purposes of protecting the Zimbabwean State, its territorial integrity and its citizens. A private graduation of a low ranking officer is not part of this obligation. Neither is a private graduation linked to the thwarting of vital threats of the State. There must be a proper audit of resources in the sector and information availed to Zimbabwean people save for that which falls under classified operations. More importantly a chopper belonging to the State was crashed on private business, the permanent Secretary must compensate Zimbabweans by paying the equivalent of the damage to the asset. Further reimbursement must be done to the state to the tune of the flying cost including previous trips done using military equipment. This entails that a detailed inquiry be conducted in respect of routine and operational use of military equipment and measures to combat further abuse of military resources be put in place. Murky use of public resources in any government department must come to an end. Jacob Mafume MDC National Spokesperson Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News A 61-YEAR-OLD Chipinge man was trampled to death by stray elephants along the Save River in the Chibuwe-Murovhoti area on Tuesday. Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority spokesperson Tinashe Farawo confirmed the incident yesterday. We received a report that two men were attacked by elephants while herding cattle along the Save River. One escaped, leaving the old man behind who then died as a result of the attack. We are still investigating the matter, he said. Farawo said the growing elephant population in the Chipinge-Masvingo area was to blame for the increasing cases of human-wildlife conflicts. There is an indication of a ballooning of elephants from the usual 5 000 to 13 000 where the carrying capacity for the area is pegged at 5 000 elephants. It means the elephants can freely make their way to communities, and we end up having this problem because the elephant population is more than double the carrying capacity, thereby endangering human lives, he said. NewsDay Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News WHEN Makhosana Mguni (27) went on bended knee to propose to his sweetheart Belinda Nyoni (24) at Chicken Inn Drive Thru in Bulawayo he never thought this would ignite a spirit of giving from all corners of the country. The couple lives in Bulawayos Nketa 6 and the proposal happened on December 26. Their photo went viral as many people admired the gesture made by Mguni in taking the bold step of asking the love of his life for her hand in marriage. However, no matter how kind and noble one is, there are always some people who will take the opportunity and be social media trolls. They were ridiculing the man for choosing a fast food outlet. However, what they did not know, said Mguni, is that Chicken Inn has some sentimental value as this was the place he first met Nyoni six years ago. It wasnt actually the Chicken Inn at ZITF where we met; we met at the one on 8th Avenue. We live in the same neighbourhood and I had always admired her from afar and got the opportunity to talk to her on that day. Thats the reason I chose to do my proposal at Chicken Inn, because it has a lot of sentimental value for us as a couple, said Mguni. Fortunately, the Internet trolls were quickly dismissed by the majority and their misgivings were soon drowned in the voices of those who celebrated the newly engaged couple. Some companies and individuals have gone as far as offering wedding services for them such as a wedding dress, make-up, free vehicle hire, live streaming, photo-shoots, even food for their wedding and the like just to hop onto the euphoria. Movie house Ster Kinekor were the first to jump on as they offered the lovebirds a Cine Prestige cinema and 44 of their friends and relatives for them to celebrate while watching a movie of their choice. Chicken Inn asked people to tell them what they want the outlet to do for the couple and most suggestions were that the food outlet should pay for the couples entire wedding, pay for lobola and also make them brand ambassadors for a year or life. A Facebook page called The Belinda and Makhosana Love Story has been set up and has nearly 1 000 followers. The couple denied owning or running it although a statement posted on the page thanking people was theirs. We shall set up a Facebook page thats official. The one thats there isnt ours. The statement that was published is one that we made, though we dont know where whoevers running the page got it, said Mguni in an interview. The couple, in their statement, said they were surprised that there were people trolling them. As you might have probably heard, we are just a young couple from Bulawayo. When we got engaged, it was a gesture of pure devotion and commitment. We did not think it would be the highlight of social media trolling but hey, all things work together for the good. When Jesus says yes, who can say no? said the couple. Ster-Kinekor Zimbabwe, we are truly grateful for the way you stood up and dared to be different just for us. When most laughed at us, you guys turned the ship around. We do not know how to thank you. To everyone who is showing their support through commitment and pledges, Zimbabwe needs more people like you. May God richly bless your businesses because its not easy to help a stranger but you guys are doing it for us. The couple said the dates for the lobola ceremony would be announced as they were being negotiated by both families. Chronicle Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News As my time as Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives draws to a close, I am grateful for the opportunity Ive had to serve, optimistic about the future and committed to continued progress on our priorities. As the presiding officer of the House, I have tried to bring people together around common-sense policies that address the challenges posed by a rapidly growing population. These are not the issues that tend to drive headlines or register at the top of opinion polls, but they are the very challenges that will shape our future. For example, we have strengthened career readiness in our public schools and put more Texas universities on the path to Tier One status. We provided long-needed funding for water-supply projects and transportation. And we put a spotlight on our mental health system, which resulted in needed and significant investments in services and behavioral health facilities. Importantly, we have acted on each of these issues while keeping our commitment to fiscal discipline weve balanced budgets, cut billions of dollars in taxes and kept record amounts of money in reserves. But there is more work to be done, and while I will no longer be shaping these issues from inside the Texas House, I will use my voice and platform to continue advancing the ideas and solutions we need. For example, Ive often said that public education is the greatest economic development tool we have. Its past time for the state to make a sizable, sustainable investment in our schools. Im looking forward to working with others who are focused on our most severe challenges and greatest opportunities. For example, the Texas 2036 project (founded by education-reform champion Tom Luce) highlights the fact that 65 percent of future jobs in Texas will require a certificate or two- or four-year college degree, yet only about 21 percent of the workforce has achieved those levels of education. All of us need to work together on these types of complex issues. There will be ample opportunity to continue the policy work that weve done in the Texas House over the last 10 years. In addition, I will continue to champion the governing style that I believe has served Texas well. American politics has become more divisive and tribal over the decade, with the angriest voices often crowding out mainstream concerns. But in the Texas House, weve shown that there is a better way to lead with a pragmatic and inclusive approach that balances adherence to core principles with a sense of collaboration and common purpose. It has always been our philosophy that the issues that are most worthy of our time and attention education, infrastructure, economic development arent partisan or especially ideological. These issues are best addressed when we bring all voices to the table. And while we havent always achieved the bipartisan cooperation to which weve aspired, we very often have. In a political climate that shuns compromise, thats a real achievement. Over the last couple of years, Texas voters have voiced support for our approach. It began in the summer of 2017, when the business community joined with leaders from law enforcement, the faith community and education to provide unexpected pushback against discriminatory legislation. Then, in the 2018 party primaries, Republican voters defied conventional wisdom and overwhelmingly supported mainstream conservative candidates over those who pandered to the far-right fringe. Now, with the next legislative session approaching, there is a growing sense of urgency to address the issues that weve been talking about for many years, such as school finance, and much less attention on issues that do little more than needlessly divide voters. Its clear that there is momentum, and growing public support, behind our brand of politics. Now its time to turn this momentum into action. I look forward to working with Texans who are demanding better schools, relief from high property taxes and a comprehensive, modern approach to economic development. I also hope Texans will join me in calling for unifying, constructive political leadership leadership that has the credibility and moral clarity to bring us together and solve big problems. Thank you to all who have given me the opportunity to serve as Speaker, from my constituents in San Antonio to my family to my colleagues in the Texas House. I also want to thank all 29 million of my fellow Texans. It has been an honor to serve you in this role, and I look forward to standing with you to advance the priorities and governing style that will lead Texas to an even brighter future. Joe Straus is a Republican from San Antonio who has served as Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives since January 2009. He did not run for re-election last year. Jamal DeBerry, 25, of the 2200 block of East 98th Street in Chicago, was charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault and taken into custody at the Evanston police department on Dec. 2, and during a brief hearing at the Skokie courthouse, he was ordered held without bond, police said. Why does President Donald Trump continue to keep the government shut down over his demand for a border wall, when large majorities oppose it? The most obvious answer is that he senses his long term political survival depends on keeping his wall-adoring base behind him as his legal travails mount. What is more interesting, though, is that the core of that base support may grow increasingly dependent on the white evangelical Christians who continue fervently supporting Trump no matter what he says and does. And for these voters, it appears, the wall is an extraordinarily potent totem, one whose significance for them calls for better explication as we head into a protracted showdown over it. On Wednesday, Trump will meet with Democratic leaders over the shutdown and the wall. Axios reports that Trump will stage this meeting in the Situation Room to dramatize "security concerns at the border," which is absurd, since in reality the wall has little to do with border security and is only about giving him the win he thinks he needs. But this also shows again that Trump senses just how important the wall has become as a political theater piece in the eyes of his base. And one fascinating component of this is white evangelical support for it. Among white evangelical Christians, support for the wall has risen nearly 10 points since Trump campaigned on it. In the most recent PRRI poll, in September of 2018, a staggering 67 percent of them favor Trump's wall. White evangelical Christian support for Trump may perhaps prove his strongest bedrock, one important key to holding his base. Ron Brownstein recently analyzed the 2018 election results and found that key elements of his blue collar white base moved away from Republicans - with the exception of white evangelicals, who instead showed a "hardening loyalty" to the Trump-era GOP. There appears to be a schism on the wall in particular, with some groups of non-evangelical whites opposing it while evangelical whites continue to overwhelmingly support it. Why is the wall so important to this segment of Trump's base in particular? Robert Jones, the head of PRRI, told me that the wall powerfully symbolizes the deeper reasons they supported Trump in the first place. "For white evangelicals who see the sun setting on white Christian dominance in the country, the wall is a powerful metaphor," said Jones, who has spent many years analyzing the attitudes of religious voters, and published a book about "The End of White Christian America." Jones added that this metaphor embodies a white evangelical view of the world "as a dangerous battleground" made up of "chosen insiders and threatening outsiders," as well as an "embattled minority trope that is rooted deep within southern culture," such as the "Lost Cause theology following the Civil War," and in "evangelical culture generally." In recent weeks, there's been renewed attention to the true nature of white evangelical Christian support for Trump, and its remarkable durability in the face of revelations of Trump's sordid personal behavior and corruption. This has been prompted by the release of a new movie, "The Trump Prophecy," which tells the tale of a former firefighter who experienced an epiphany in 2011 that Trump would be elected president. Analyzing the film, Katherine Stewart, a journalist who covers the Christian right, notes that it positions Trump as a modern day "King Cyrus," the 6th Century B.C. king of Persia who freed Jews from captivity in Babylon. As Stewart notes, Cyrus is the "model for a nonbeliever appointed by God as a vessel for the faithful," and in the eyes of white evangelicals, Trump plays that role. In this telling, Trump is a savior figure for "Christian nationalism," so his personal failings and misconduct are beside the point. Indeed, Stewart notes, his autocratic and anti-democratic conduct is a virtue, since it is being marshaled towards that end of rescuing evangelical culture from extermination. As Stewart points out, some leading evangelical figures have even talked about this in wall metaphors. One such figure, who appears in the film, has declared that "America has become a nation without walls," and that Trump will "restore the crumbling walls that separate us from cultural collapse." On this score, historian John Fea has noted a longtime strain in white evangelical culture of "racial and religious fear" built on anxiety over immigrants, secularization, modernization, and demographic change. While white evangelicals are not a monolith, Fea argues, many believe Trump is God's vessel for "delivering them from the 'captivity' of the Obama administration," so there's little Trump could do" that would "lead white conservative evangelicals to abandon him." All this taps into a broader global trend documented in Wendy Brown's remarkable book, "Walled States, Waning Sovereignty." In multiple countries, walls are becoming political totems and theater pieces that reassure those anxious about waning national sovereignty. Walls appear deeply ahistorical in the face of the actual challenges to sovereignty mounted by the facts of 21st century globalization, Brown writes, but their overtones of long-vanished historical times are key to what makes them reassuring. And so, it may seem unhinged when Trump tweets that... Throughout the ages some things NEVER get better and NEVER change. You have Walls and you have Wheels. ...but he may well be tapping into deeper impulses on the part of his most fervent supporters, which could be helping to keep that bond so tight. All of which makes it more likely that if special counsel Robert Mueller III's investigation and probes by the incoming Democratic House close in around Trump, these voters may end up being his most loyal backers. "Even if Trump loses support among other parts of his 2016 base, the data suggests white evangelicals may be the last loyalists standing by his side," Jones told me. "As Democrats take control of the House and as the Mueller investigation advances, white evangelicals look to be building their own wall of defense around Trump," Trump may end up needing their wall as much as they think they need his. San Antonio police are offering a reward for information on a suspect who allegedly filmed himself stomping dents into a car. Police believe Robert Esselborn Jr., 22, is the man in the videos. Esselborn is wanted for criminal mischief, according to police. He's 6 feet 3 inches tall and about 200 pounds. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox On Nov. 5, he allegedly caused dents on a Toyota Camry's roof, hood and doors, causing about $9,000 in damage. Police also obtained a video allegedly taken by Esselborn himself stomping on the car. Another video that appeared to be shot by his friend also captured the incident. The victim told police he lent the car to his son to take to work that day in the 21100 block of Hwy. 281. READ ALSO: Man killed by San Antonio police after allegedly using stun gun on officers while being detained Police believe up to three suspects are involved in the incident, but the only suspect identified so far is Esselborn. Anyone with information on his whereabouts can submit a tip anonymously by calling 210-224-7867. Information that leads to his arrest is eligible for a reward up to $5,000. Fares Sabawi covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | fsabawi@mysa.com|@FaresInSA Just weeks after a man was arrested by New Braunfels police for an alleged sexual relationship with a 12-year-old girl, officers brought him into custody again after discovering the two met up on Sunday. Isaiah Joel Correra, 20, was first arrested by police on Dec. 13 and charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, according to a news release from New Braunfels police. State District Judge Ron Rangel sentenced James Preston Green to six years in prison on Thursday for violating a condition of his probation stemming from a felony DWI conviction, the maximum amount allowed. Green, the son of prominent North Side jeweler Jimmy Green, already was on probation for an earlier felony DWI in Guadalupe County when he crashed his car last year into another vehicle on Wurzbach Parkway. His blood alcohol content was more than twice the legal limit for driving. Green fled from police and later told an arresting officer that his lawyer was then-Bexar County District Attorney Nico LaHood. Google Maps Deputies investigated a threat to a northwest Harris County Sheriff's Office substation Thursday, which was later determined to be not credible. The substation in the 16700 block of Clay Road, just west of State Highway 6, was closed for hours during the investigation, authorities said. The threat was received about 11 a.m. A Texas teacher was arrested Wednesday for allegedly trying to sell her underage relative for sex to multiple men in Morocco, according to authorities. Amber Parker, 37, was incarcerated after the combined investigative efforts of the Freestone County Sheriff's Office and the McLennan County Sheriff's Office resulted in sex trafficking charges against the middle school teacher, the arrest affidavit states. Jazmine Barnes: 7 things to know about the murder of the 7-year-old "After a joint investigation between Freestone County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Investigator Preston Cordova and McLennan County Sheriff's Office Detective Joseph Scaramucci, a female suspect was placed under arrest for the offense of Trafficking of Persons after conspiring to traffic a minor child to multiple male subjects online in Morocco," Freestone County Sheriff Jeremy Shipley said in a statement. The investigation started when family members grew concerned about Parker's intentions with the girl and contacted police, per the Waco Tribune-Herald. Parker made contact with the men via Facebook in December, the affidavit says, by sending them direct messages, along with photos of the girl wearing lingerie. Parker then allegedly tried to make arrangements to take the minor to Morocco and meet with men to allow them to have sex with the girl. Mugshots: Brazoria County officials net 32 felony DWI arrests in Nov Although the girl did not go with her, Parker traveled to Morocco in mid-December and returned January 1, the Waco Tribune says. Parker taught at Mexia Junior High School for three years, Mexia I.S.D. superintendent Lyle DuBus told Chron.com. She was placed on administrative leave Wednesday when the school district learned of the allegations and arrest, and resigned on Thursday, DuBus says. Parker reportedly remains in custody at Freestone County Jail. In an interesting twist, the Waco Tribune-Herald confirmed receipt of an email from the man in Morocco with whom Parker visited last month. The man claims that Parker is innocent of the charges. Marcy de Luna is a digital reporter specializing in social media, the famous, and food. You can follow her on Twitter @MarcydeLuna and Facebook @MarcydeLuna. Read her stories on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com. | Marcy.deLuna@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message A murder-for-hire suspect till the end, John Litchfield - the longtime lover of a fellow Galveston cruise ship captain imprisoned for stealing an infant's identity - has died of mad cow disease in a Friendswood nursing home. The 70-year-old was never charged or even arrested in connection with the 1988 slaying of his sweetheart's husband in California, but for decades authorities probed the murder of Harold "Skeeter" Lyerla as a possible hired hit that netted a hefty insurance payout. Even after another man - landscaper Victor Perea - was convicted in the brutal stabbing, police kept the case open, hoping to snare Litchfield and his lover, Cynthia Knox. Now, even with Litchfield dead and Knox in prison for identity theft, investigators have not given up. READ MORE: Captain's false identity held secret "We wanted to see this through and potentially put both of them in custody," said Lompoc police Sgt. Kevin Martin, who's overseeing the investigation in the California town that was the site of the slaying. "Up until his death he was a suspect in a murder-for-hire and Cynthia is still a suspect in that investigation," he added. "We are still working that." Matt Alford, the attorney who represented Litchfield, bristled at the suggestion. "There was no proof whatsoever that he was a killer," Alford said. "Absolutely he was not guilty of that crime." For the slain man's sister, Linda Pickarts, Litchfield's death seemed a "little suspicious" and a bit of a let-down. "I wanted him in prison," she told the Houston Chronicle on Thursday. "He escaped justice here on Earth, but he's getting his justice now." The aging case ended up back in the headlines in 2017. That year, federal agents swarmed South Shore Harbor and arrested Knox for identity theft after discovering she'd been hiding under a stolen name pilfered from a dead, one-day-old baby. The intrigue had started three decades earlier, when Lyerla - Knox's then-husband - was found stabbed to death in the couple's Lompoc home, about 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles. After picking up Perea's print on a faucet at the murder scene, police arrested the landscaping contractor. But before trial started in California, Knox disappeared and could not be subpoenaed, then Litchfield took the Fifth on the stand. The two got married not long after the killing - only to divorce two months after Perea's trial ended, a coincidence that led an attorney for Lyerla's family to suspect the pair married to avoid having to testify against each other. Perea was convicted and sentenced to 56 years in prison, though initially he said he'd been "set up." It wasn't until 2012 during a parole hearing that he began claiming Litchfield had paid him $4,000 to pull off the slaying. Adding to the intrigue and tragedy, not long after the stabbing, Knox and Lyerla's 13-month-old daughter, Kajsa, drowned in a shallow fishpond. Then, in 1992, Lyerla's mother sued Knox and Litchfield, accusing them of conspiring to kill Harold and Kajsa Lyerla to get a $279,000 life insurance payout. READ MORE: Ship captain still 'possible suspect' in murder case The case was tossed after a court found Lyerla's mother did not have standing. In the years that followed, Knox nabbed the birth certificate of an infant named Christina White, moved to League City along with her lover, and built a new life with a cruise ship business. For more than two decades, the presence of the friendly Capt. White didn't raise any eyebrows on the island, where she was known as a beloved mariner. But then in 2016, she went to renew her passport - and her manufactured life came crashing down around her. Authorities wouldn't say what about the application aroused their suspicions, but ultimately officials linked the fingerprints on White's application to Knox. In July 2017, she was sentenced to three years in federal prison. In court, prosecutors repeatedly laid out ties between Knox and the California slaying, and defense attorney John T. Floyd framed it all as a "heavy-handed approach trying to get her to cooperate in some way that she's not able to do." Even after Knox was sent to prison, investigators still sought to connect her and Litchfield to the killing. "The case is not closed," Santa Barbara Deputy District Attorney Steve Foley said at the time. "We are still interested in pursuing a case against Mr. Litchfield and Ms. Knox if enough evidence comes to light to prove the case. Then in late 2018, Perea called a Houston Chronicle reporter from a California prison, intent on breaking the news of Litchfield's death. But the mariner had been staying under the radar, and even the man's lawyer couldn't offer any details on what happened or when. Lompoc police said he'd died, and confirmed they were still investigating the decades-old case. Eventually the Galveston medical examiner's investigator D.J. Florence confirmed more details: Litchfield died on July 27. He had been living in a nursing home, and had suffered Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - better known as mad cow. His death was 29 years to the day after Kajsa's. To any resident walking an animal or walking himself or herself around the block for exercise: It is against the law to blatantly ignore a no trespassing on private property sign on a residents lawn. That sign is there for a reason. With the holiday season that just came and my niece so graciously giving me a security camera, I will now be able to show the police department when I file a complaint . . . It is against the law when you are told not to trespass on property. (CNN) The number of people killed in plane crashes jumped in 2018 compared with the previous year, with more than 500 deaths recorded, new figures show. Nonetheless, 2018 was still one of the safest years for commercial aviation on record, according to reports from Dutch aviation consultancy To70 and the Netherlands-based Aviation Safety Network (ASN). The ASN recorded a total of 15 fatal airliner accidents in 2018, leading to 556 deaths, compared with 10 accidents and 44 lives lost in 2017, the safest year in aviation history. Of those accidents, 12 involved passenger flights and three were cargo flights, the ASN report said. Three of the 15 planes were operated by airlines on the European Union "blacklist," it said. Despite the jump in the number of deaths last year, ASN Chief Executive Harro Ranter said the level of aviation safety had increased significantly overall. "If the accident rate had remained the same as 10 years ago, there would have been 39 fatal accidents last year," he said. The rate of the year 2000 would have seen 64 fatal accidents. "This shows the enormous progress in terms of safety in the past two decades," Ranter added. The figures for 2018 represent a rate of one fatal accident for every 3 million flights, said To70. The consultancy highlighted the Lion Air crash off Indonesia in October -- in which 189 people lost their lives -- as the deadliest single incident for the year. The aircraft involved was a brand new Boeing 737 MAX plane. A preliminary report by Indonesian investigators found that the pilots of Lion Air Flight 610 were engaged in a futile tug-of-war with the plane's automatic systems in the minutes before it plunged into the ocean. "As in previous years, Europe and North America remain the safest parts of the world to fly in. Accidents here are rare," said To70 in its analysis. "There are as many accidents within the Airbus 320 family as there involving 737s," To70 said. "However, the possibility that the Lion Air accident may have a technical cause is of serious concern, considering that the MAX is the future of the successful 737 model." In response to the Indonesian investigators' report, released in November, Boeing said it was "deeply saddened" by the loss of the Lion Air flight -- but maintained the 737 MAX 8 "is as safe as any airplane that has ever flown the skies." The company is "taking every measure to fully understand all aspects of this accident," it said. The ASN highlighted "loss of control" accidents as a "major safety concern" over the past five years, causing at least 10 of the 25 worst accidents. "Most of those accidents were not survivable," it said. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Plane crash deaths rise in 2018 but accidents are still rare." The most distant object ever explored by spacecraft is a reddish, snowman-shape rock 4 billion miles from Earth. The object, nicknamed Ultima Thule, was photographed by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during a late-night rendezvous on the first day of 2019. It is the first inhabitant of the Kuiper belt - the ring of rocky relics that surrounds the outer solar system - that scientists have seen up close. Its odd shape, which scientists term a "contact binary," indicates that it formed as two spherical rocks slowly fused together in the early days of the solar system. This finding lends support to a theory of planet formation that suggests worlds are born from slow accumulation, rather than catastrophic collisions, researchers said. "This is exactly what we need to move the modeling work on planetary formation forward," said Cathy Olkin, the mission's deputy project scientist. "Ultima is telling us about our evolutionary history." New Horizons's encounter with Ultima Thule happened so far away that it took six hours for signals traveling at the speed of light to reach Earth. Scientists didn't receive confirmation that the spacecraft survived until Tuesday morning, and the first scientific results didn't start streaming in until that night. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, where New Horizons is operated, were up late, working to transform those bits of data into the first high-resolution image of a Kuiper belt object. The black-and-white photo was taken from about 30,000 miles away, as New Horizons sped toward its target at 32,000 miles per hour. "Spectacular," principal investigator Alan Stern said at a Wednesday news conference at which he displayed the early images from the flyby. He described watching his colleagues jump out of their seats and embrace one another upon seeing the compelling, crystal clear image. "That's elation," he said. "And it's just the tip of the iceberg." Scientists had suspected that Ultima Thule would not be perfectly round since the summer of 2017, when a global network of observers found the rock passing in front of a distant star. But the Kuiper belt object is so distant and so dim that even the most powerful telescopes saw it only as a flicker of light in the sky. Even as New Horizons sped toward its target, in the hours before closest approach, Ultima Thule resembled little more than a blurry bowling pin. But now "it's a world," Stern said - with shape, character and implications for our understanding of planetary science. Jeff Moore, New Horizons geology team lead, said Ultima Thule likely formed in the first few million years of the solar system from a swirl of smaller objects. Over time, dust and pebbles clumped together to form the object's two lobes, which eventually combined to form a single body. The lack of evidence for damage at the sight of the collision suggests that the joining was probably gentle, like tapping someone's bumper as you fit into a tight parking space, Moore said. "You don't need to fill out any paperwork." This would make Ultima Thule a lot like the early planetesimals from which larger worlds - including our own - ultimately formed. But unlike the planets, which have undergone dramatic geologic change, and comets, which are heated and transformed by the sun, the Kuiper belt object has existed in a "deep freeze" since it first formed, 4.6 billion years ago. "What we think we're looking at is the end product of a process that took place at the very beginning of the formation of the solar system," Moore said. He called New Horizons "a time machine," capable of taking scientists back to the moment of our origins. Color images from New Horizons reveal that, like other Kuiper belt objects, it has a dark reddish hue. This is something of a mystery, because Ultima Thule is thought to be made mostly of ice. But researchers think radiation in this dark and distant part of the solar system could interact with contaminants in the ice, changing their color. Early observations about its chemical composition are expected to arrive Thursday, and they may help explain the phenomenon more. And there are many more oddities to be explored, scientists said. Olkin pointed out dramatic variations in brightness that speckle the object. Moore noted that the early images did not show any solid evidence of impact craters; additional images may reveal whether Ultima Thule has been struck in the past or is worn smooth. It will take as long as 20 months for scientists to download and process all the data collected during their brief encounter with Ultima Thule, scientists said. That includes a brief delay next week, when the sun comes between the Earth and the spacecraft, blocking all transmissions. And New Horizons' mission isn't over, Stern said. The spacecraft's subsystems are healthy, and it has sufficient fuel to operate for another 15 to 20 years. He and his colleagues plan to apply for NASA approval to extend their mission, either to conduct another Kuiper belt object flyby or explore other aspects of the outer solar system. Ruhi Thapar has joined an exclusive club in the Girl Scouts organization. Thapar, a Memorial High School senior, has become a Gold Award Girl Scout. The honor recognizes girls in grades 9 through 12 who demonstrate extraordinary leadership through sustainable and measurable community service projects that require a minimum of 80 hours to complete. Less than five percent of Girl Scouts earn the award. According to the Girl Scout Research Institutes (GSRI) report The Power of the Girl Scout Gold Award: Excellence in Leadership and Life, Gold Award Girl Scouts receive greater lifetime benefits than their peers with regard to positive sense of self, life satisfaction, leadership, life success, community service and civic engagement thanks to their experience in Girl Scouting, including earning their Gold Award. Thapar created an oral record of the concise history of the Memorial Villages and Spring Branch area. She wanted to help bridge the gap between generations. Thapar led more than 20 volunteers in research, interviews, taking landmark pictures, hosting tours and writing/editing. According to Thapar, she hopes that an insight into the rich history will encourage people to preserve not only traditions but also landmarks and the environment. Knowledge of history instills in people a sense of belonging to a community as they learn about the efforts and dreams of the founders, said Thapar. I hope that future generations will develop an appreciation of the past and the important lessons it teaches. Thapar also made a booklet which is available to the residents of the Memorial Villages and Spring Branch through the local library and city offices. Her project brought people close by enlightening them about the importance of traditions and community events. I was passionate about exploring the historical development of a community, said Thapar. I had noticed a growing emphasis on materialism and a disregard for preserving traditions and the environment. It is my belief that a community that appreciates its past is more likely to practice a sustainable lifestyle. Thapar plans to attend a four-year university and study health and human biology or public health. A little out-of-this-world fireworks just upstaged the biggest planet in our solar system. San Antonios Southwest Research Institute has revealed dynamic new images of a volcanic plume shooting from Jupiters moon Io, the most volcanically active body in the solar system. The eruption appears just past the moons day-night boundary, known as the terminator. The images come from NASAs Juno space probe mission, headed by the institutes Scott Bolton. Bolton referred to the Io shots in a statement as a lucky New Years present. When reached for comment later, he hinted at even more Jovian treats to come from the spacecraft with ties to the Alamo City. I definitely think youll see some spectacular images and movies of the planet, said Bolton, Junos principal investigator and an associate vice president of the institutes Space Science and Engineering Division. Were all sort of mesmerized by Jupiters beauty. And to think Juno spotted the fires of Io while focusing on its ice. Juno was scanning Ios polar region on Dec. 21 when several of its cameras captured the moons volcanic action during more than an hour of observation. Junos JunoCam acquired the first images, which look the most like standard photographs. These show a half-illuminated Io with a soaring volcanic plume lit by sunlight, much like a mountain range sometimes reflects sunset later than other elevations on Earth, Bolton said. Junos Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper shows Io in the infrared spectrum with glowing dots signifying high temperatures from volcanic activity. And Junos low-light Stellar Reference Unit offered a black-and-white view of Ios volcanic moment thanks to moonlight from Europa, one of Jupiters other moons, while Io was in total eclipse behind Jupiter. Whats great about this particular set of images is that youve got three different cameras that are looking at Io in totally different ways, said Heidi Becker, lead of Junos radiation monitoring investigation at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The ability to see the same body from all these different perspectives at essentially the same time gives you more information. As for capturing that seemingly perfect image of a half-lit Io with a glowing dot at its center, sometimes it comes down to more than just science. The symmetry is really luck, Becker said. Just the luck of the draw and just the way the sun happened to hit Io at that particular time. While the Juno mission concentrates on Jupiter, Becker said the Juno team always looks for opportunities to conduct even more science with the spacecrafts instrumentation than originally intended, such as taking a look at the planets moons whenever the probe is near them. According to Bolton, the new Io images can lead to new insights into Jupiters interactions with its Galilean moons, such as Ios volcanic activity or freezing of the moons atmosphere during eclipse, as well as Ios interaction with Jupiters magnetic field. NASAs Voyager first discovered Ios volcanoes in 1979. Juno has captured other Jovian wonders. In 2016, it provided a rare look at Jupiters south pole. And in 2017, Juno delivered stunning images of the gas giants 10,000-mile-wide storm known as the Great Red Spot, when the spacecraft flew just 2,200 miles from Jupiters surface. Launched in 2011, the solar-powered Juno reached Jupiter in 2016 and orbits the planet every 53 days. The latest Io images come halfway into Junos mission, which is scheduled to complete a map of Jupiter in July 2021. Michelle Risse, planetarium coordinator for the Scobee Education Center at San Antonio College, lauded the Juno mission as much for shedding light on the probes San Antonio roots as for showing Io in action. Now were seeing these awe-inspiring images through Juno, Risse said. And the great thing is most of the spacecraft was created by Southwest Research, so were touching the cosmos from our own backyard. Bolton said Juno has upended previous notions about Jupiter. Those swirling zones and belts around the gas giant? They seem to penetrate much deeper than anyone thought, he said. And in looking for a compact core or no core at all at the planets center, Juno researchers instead found evidence of a very large diffuse core. Were just rewriting the whole textbook of how giant planets work, Bolton said. For those next chapters on Jupiter, Bolton said Juno will get closer to the planets poles for a look at polar cyclones and fly over the Great Red Spot again, this time to see if there is a detectable gravitational mass associated with it. Juno also will continue to study Jupiters aurora and how northern lights work on the planet. Expect more surprises, Becker said. Rene A. Guzman is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | rguzman@express-news.net | Twitter: @reneguz The Texas Department of Transportation is seeking public input on its statewide truck parking study. TxDOT will host a meeting about the study on Jan. 9 from 8:30-11 a.m. at Plains Cotton Cooperative Association, 3301 E. 50th St. in Lubbock. The workshop is geared toward freight shippers, carriers, facility operators and the general public, according to a news release from TxDOT. It's been several decades since the Texas transportation system was created and many current standards are different than what was considered up to code back then, according to the news release. The study is a step in an effort to change that. Workshop topics will include truck parking and freight infrastructure design issues and solutions. The study is part of a Texas Freight Mobility Plan implementation, according to the news release. Those interested in attending must register and complete a quick online interactive survey about truck parking and infrastructure design issues, which can be found at www.movetexasfreight.com. JOSHUA TREE, Calif. - The government shutdown has left America's national parks largely unsupervised. No one is at the gate. No one is collecting a fee. The visitor centers are closed. There are some law enforcement and emergency personnel on site, but certainly nothing as standard as a park ranger who can answer a question. People are streaming into the parks, enjoying the free access, but they're finding trash cans overflowing and restrooms locked. Vault toilets are not serviced, and there's hardly a flush toilet to be found anywhere. If nature calls - well, the woods are over that way. At Joshua Tree National Park, in particular, conditions are deteriorating. "Once those port-a-potties fill up there's no amount of cleaning that will save them," said Sabra Purdy, who along with her husband, Seth, owns the rock-climbing guide service Cliffhanger Guides in the town of Joshua Tree. SHUTDOWN: Smithsonian and the National Gallery held on as long as they could, but they're closed The 40-year-old Purdy is among dozens of volunteers who have been collecting garbage, cleaning bathrooms and generally keep an eye on the park. Local business owners and park supporters are donating toiletries and cleaning supplies. "People are doing it because we love this place and we know how trashed it'll get if we don't," she said. "It's not quite 'Lord of the Flies' yet," said Bryan Min, 30, who traveled to Joshua Tree with friends from Orange County and are camping outside the park. "Who knows how it'll be tonight." The partial government shutdown, triggered by the dispute between President Donald Trump and Congress over funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, is now well into its second week, with no resolution in sight. Democrats, who take control of the House on Thursday, plan to vote on a bill to open much of the government while denying Trump money for the wall. The president, in a tweet on Tuesday, rejected the legislation that provides border security money but no funds for the wall. Trump also invited congressional leaders to the White House on Wednesday for a briefing on border security, the first sit-down since the shutdown began Dec. 22 though it was unclear if the session would break the budget impasse. One of the most dramatic repercussions of the shutdown will arrive Wednesday, when the Smithsonian Institution, having depleted temporary funding, will close all of its museums and the National Zoo. Some parks across the country have remained partially operational with state funding. Government shutdown contingency plans adopted by the National Park Service last year have allowed many national parks to remain accessible, but without staffing. The result is that "closed" parks are essentially wide open, and in some cases that gives them a Wild West vibe. The Park Service runs a broad constellation of parks, monuments, battlefields and historic sites. At Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland, the visitor center has a small notice on the front door advising visitors "to use extreme caution if choosing to enter" park property. On the hallowed ground, where the Army of the Potomac collided with the Army of Northern Virginia in the bloodiest day in American military history, the flagpole in front of the visitor center remains conspicuously bare. The access road to Maryland's Great Falls of the Potomac, part of the C & O Canal National Historical Park, has been blocked. At midday Tuesday, hundreds of cars were lined up on nearby neighborhood roads and streets as people walked into the park, many taking advantage of the canal towpath, which remains unblocked. The situation is fluid: Rumors spread Monday that Joshua Tree would close the campgrounds, though the Park Service's contingency plan indicates that campers will be allowed to stay and won't be evicted. Some advocates for the parks aren't happy about this situation, fearing that visitors will do permanent damage to the parks and potentially disrupt fragile ecosystems. They'd like to see the parks fully closed. "The parks are supposed to be heritage sites for generation after generation. I would rather they close than be damaged," said Joe De Luca, a sales associate at Nomad Ventures in the town of Joshua Tree. HEALTH HAZARD: With no bathrooms open, Yosemite visitors have created a health hazard by pooping on roads During a government shutdown in 2013, Joshua Tree was closed to all visitors. The winter holiday season is a busy time here and important for local businesses, and some people are grateful that the park hasn't blocked access this time, said Kenji Haroutunian, president of Friends of Joshua Tree, a nonprofit local climbing organization. But he's not happy with the shutdown and the attendant loss of normal services in the huge park that he said is within a two-hour drive of 14 million people in southern California. "It's hugely disappointing," Haroutunian said. The border wall dispute, he said, "is not a priority that deserves to close down the government." At Big Bend National Park in Texas, George Cashman of Milwaukee said he was disappointed by the absence of park rangers. Last year, he said, he took his family - including four kids under the age of 10 - to Yellowstone, where the kids enjoyed the junior ranger program. "There are no rangers to talk to and help the kids out. Last year, one of the rangers in Yellowstone let them take the temperature of one of the geysers. Those memories aren't going to happen this year," Cashman said. Greg Henington, owner of Far Flung Outdoor Center in Terlingua, a town just outside the park, said he voted for Trump but blames the president for the shutdown, which he says creates confusion and uncertainty for local businesses. "If we are going to continue to use the federal government as a weapon for not getting what we want in the sandbox, then this is untenable for small business. We can't make decisions, we layoff employees, we take cancellations," he said. Even more seriously affected is the Mexican town of Boquillas, which is just across the Rio Grande from the national park and has always enjoyed a stream of visitors this time of year. But the border crossing normally staffed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been closed during the shutdown, and no one is coming or going across the river. "It has been terrible. We were waiting for our best time of the year," said Lilia Falcon, who owns a restaurant and a bed & breakfast in Boquillas. "It's when we wait and stock up and save the money we make for the rest of the year. Christmas has not been good for us because of the shutdown, but what can we do? Nothing! Nobody will ever hear us." In Death Valley National Park, employees of The Oasis at Death Valley, a private resort inside the park, have joined other concessionaires in picking up trash and cleaning bathrooms, said Trey Matheu, general manager of the resort. "We're in it for the long haul," he vowed. At Yellowstone National Park, access this time of year depends on grooming of snow-covered roads - but the National Park Service's shutdown plan does not consider such activity to be essential. That means the private concessionaires have had to pool their money to pay for the grooming. "If we don't do this, we're closed. That's really not much of an option. Having said that, we're doing this certainly in hope and anticipation that the shutdown does not go on indefinitely," said Rick Hoeninghausen, director of sales and marketing for Xanterra Travel Collection, a concessionaire in Yellowstone and many other parks. Back at Joshua Tree, Sabrina Krafton, 50, who traveled to the park from London for some New Year's climbing, said she appreciates the hard work by volunteers who are collecting litter and donating toilet paper. "I think they actually provide better rolls than the government," Krafton said. "It's better quality paper." --- Waters reported from Big Bend National Park, Achenbach from Washington, D.C. The Washington Post's Emily Wax-Thibodeaux contributed to this report. There were no injuries when a series of oil tanks caught fire overnight near a Noble Energy well site in West Texas' booming Permian Basin. Three oil production tanks went ablaze at about 3:45 a.m. Wednesday in Reeves County. The emergency shutdown system from the well feeding the tanks was activated. The Reeves County Fire Department responded and secured the area. Village Attorney Kathi Orr, legal counsel to the electoral board, said that sustaining one of the five objections was enough to invalidate Brunis petitions. But the boards decision is not final until it issues a written ruling. The board recessed and will reconvene at a date and time to be determined because it does not yet know when the county clerk will complete the review of documents. CA Department of Finance View Photos Sonora, CA Tuolumne and Calaveras were among the 14 counties in California that saw a population drop over the past year. New statistics from the states Department of Finance put Tuolumne Countys population at 52,790 (effective July 1) compared to 52,862 exactly one year prior, a decline of 72 people. The net migration, which is the number of people that moved to the county minus those who moved away, is 179. The number of deaths (739) far exceeded the births (488), signaling that the county has an older population base compared to other parts of the state. Calaveras Countys population declined by 19 residents during that same span to bring the figure to 44,637. The net migration was only 8. There were 478 deaths and 451 births. It was a similar trend in Mariposa County as it saw its population decline by 17 to 17,918. Nearby county Amador bucked the local trend and actually had the largest percentage growth in the state (1.76). It gained 658 residents to bring the population to 38,063. There were 417 deaths and 294 births, but the net migration was 781. Other counties just outside of Sacramento, like Placer and El Dorado, were also in the top five when it comes to growth, Statewide, California had 272,166 deaths, 465,876 births, and a net migration of 20,915. The total population is up to 39.8-million which is an increase of 214,000 from a year ago. Crystal Lake police Detective Kevin Doherty testified that the girl also reported that when she was in sixth grade, Tapley took her to his office at the Roosevelt University campus in Schaumburg, where he worked at the time, and molested her there, though he was not charged in connection with that specific allegation. A university official confirmed Thursday that Tapley is no longer employed there. Some things werent forgotten at the stroke of 2019. The partial shutdown of the federal government extended into a new year today marking the 13th day of the shutdown with little promise of a resolution in sight. While the impact might seem marginal to many in west-central Illinois, the key reason behind it a budget impasse over the inclusion of $5 billion for a physical barrier along the southern border of the United States is eliciting passionate feelings on both sides. We should build the wall, whatever it takes, said Jackson Bean of White Hall. I support it, said Mindy Lynch of Jacksonville. If you want to come be a part of our country, thats great. Youre welcome. Just do it legally. We cant be the caretakers of the world. Others, like Kiki Gossage of South Pekin, dont see the expense justifying the results. It will not stop the drugs or the people theyll come in by planes [and] tunnels, she said. Border protection, specifically a physical wall, has been a key part of President Donald Trumps platform. He has said he will not sign legislation to fund most federal government agencies and operations without money for the wall along the border with Mexico. He is placing blame for the shutdown squarely on Democrats. Border Security and the Wall thing and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker! Lets make a deal? Trump tweeted Wednesday, hours before a meeting with Democratic leaders, who have offered $1.3 billion for border protection, but no funding for a wall. Legislators did not come to an agreement during Wednesdays meeting, and Trump has invited them to return Friday for more discussion. While the political side of the shutdown has grabbed a lot of the attention, its not and us-or-them issue for everyone. This is not a left or right issue, its a human-being issue, said Tammi Brown of Beardstown. Building a massive wall will not prevent immigrants from entering the U.S. illegally, as there are tunnels existing for many years that provide for the influx of narcotics. Most are concerned about the southern portion of the U.S. and lack of border security. Increase the security, yet hold them accountable either group for overzealous actions. Fix the broken immigration system. Still, many on both sides believe there is a need to protect the nation. Rachel Best of Kansas City, Missouri, said the best way to solve this is to come up with a thorough and well thought out plan, not having a political slap fight at the expense of the American people. Im not against having secure borders, but I am against half-assed ideas, wasteful spending and unnecessary drama, she said. Frank Stantin, who lives in El Paso, Texas, which sits on the U.S.-Mexico border, said he has an up-close look at the problem of uncontrolled immigration. Fentanyl is killing Americans at an alarming rate. [There are daily police reports] someone here in town has been arrested for possession and its all coming straight across that southern border, he said in response to a Facebook query of Journal-Courier readers opinions. Build that wall as fast as possible. Stop illegal immigration. Stop the toxic drugs that are killing our youth. Audrey Clayton can be reached at 217-408-2046, or on Twitter @JCNews_audrey. Facebook on Friday announced that it may allow former President Donald Trumps Facebook and Instagram accounts to be reinstated in January 2023. At that time, the social media company will re-evaluate whether the risk to public safety of allowing Trump back onto its services has receded. This two-year suspension will prevent Trump from using Facebook or Instagram to broadcast to his followers until after the 2022 U.S. midterm elections. Do you think tech giants like Facebook are using their power to censor political speech and manipulate U.S. politics? Choices are: You voted: First meteor shower of the year may be visible here Discuss this article with your neighbors or join the community conversation. Click here to get access We'll keep you connected to all the updated local news and information about what's happening in Murfreesboro and Rutherford County! Click Here to Subscribe! If 2019 is going to be the transformative year I believe it could be, people and organizations will need to step up. Here are some choices for those primed to have a stellar new year and thoughts on possible headlines for the new year. Permian Strategic Partnership. The companies that make up the PSP have promised to commit millions for a better Midland and Permian region. I expect that no matter the price of oil, the PSP will lead by example and give confidence to a community that is better-served to think about the long term. State Sen. Kel Seliger. The Texas Senate requires three-fifths of its members to back a bill before it can be heard on the floor. As the Dallas Morning News reported, if one Republican votes with the Democrats, legislation wont advance. Seliger hasnt always walked in lockstep with Patrick, but it appears that after the losses in November, the lieutenant governor will need him more than ever. Possible headlines A new water tower in northeast Midland. When we report that plans are set to build a new water tower in the fastest-growing area of the city, then we will know a certain seriousness exists when it comes to the creation of housing and development. Sales tax increase for infrastructure on the ballot. A proper course for a better Midland will include an election this year to dedicate a quarter-cent of sales tax inside the city for infrastructure, especially roads. An MISD agreement with IDEA Public Schools. The transformation of Midland ISD will get a huge boost if officials reach an agreement with IDEA Public Schools to start an in-district charter. IDEA schools are among the top-performing campuses in the state. Midland ISD also should open its Young Womens Academy this fall. Our community should have high long-term expectations for this school. Downtown lands its second hotel. During a discussion of a property tax abatement at a recent council meeting, a councilman boasted that downtown was on the verge of landing another hotel. I anticipate that city leaders will do whatever is needed to make a second hotel come to fruition. It would be a third high-profile get for the downtown area, following the anticipated completions of a convention center in the fall of 2019 and Centennial Park in 2020. No reform for school finance. I guess we could be more glass half-full here, but the plan to cap school finance payments is no plan at all, especially for a district expecting to send about $90 million to Austin to be redistributed to districts around the state. Washington STEM Academy sees an improvement in academic performance. We talk about transformation taking place inside Midland ISD, and it is needed. But I also expect Midland ISD to show us greater gains in terms of academic performance. I am confident that when the next round of state accountability ratings is reported, the number of failing campuses will decrease. Washington escaped a failing grade in 2018 but was performing at a level lower than Midlanders should expect of a STEM academy. State Highway 349 to Rankin will become four lanes. The best news from the upcoming legislative session will be that the Permian Basin can expect more transportation dollars. It makes sense, considering the amount of money sent to Austin because of the oil industry. SH 349 to Lubbock and State Highway 158 to Sterling City have been expanded. Expansion of SH 349 to Rankin is a logical next step. --Stewart Doreen, Reporter-Telegram editor A woman accused of biting an Odessa police officer was arrested Wednesday, according to a press release from Odessa Police Department. Nohemi Lozano Medina, 34, was arrested on a third-degree felony charge of assault on a public servant and three misdemeanor charges. OPD officers responded at about 11:30 a.m. to the 2100 block of West 8th Street in reference to a disturbance. LOCAL CRIME: Man arrested on stalking, arson charges A woman told officers that Medina had broken out a window at her residence before fleeing the scene in a blue Nissan Altima, according to the release. Officers located the vehicle and conducted a traffic stop. The driver, identified as Medina, failed to comply with the officers commands and began to walk away. As the officer attempted to detain her, Medina bit him on his left hand, leaving a distinct bite mark, according to the release. Medina was found to be in possession of hydroxyzine hydrochloride and was unable to provide a prescription, according to the release. While she was being transported to the Ector County Law Enforcement Center, Medina repeatedly kicked the back passenger door, causing damage to the speaker mounted on it, according to the release. Before its agreement to cut oil supplies even started, OPECs production plunged by the most in almost two years last month. In a sign of the urgency felt by the cartel amid tumbling crude prices, leading member Saudi Arabia throttled back production, according to a Bloomberg survey of officials, analysts and ship-tracking data. The groups pact to curb output only formally started this week. The kingdoms deliberate cutbacks were compounded by unplanned losses in Iran, which is being targeted by U.S. sanctions, and in Libya, where protests halted the biggest oil field. PREVIOUSLY: Oil jumps as U.S. equities regain ground, OPEC output declines As a result, oil output from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries fell 530,000 barrels a day to 32.6 million a day last month. Its the sharpest pullback since January 2017, when the group first embarked on its strategy to clear the glut created by rising supplies of U.S. shale oil. A global coalition of oil producers known as OPEC+, which comprises both members of the group and other exporters including Russia, agreed on Dec. 7 to reduce output during the first six months of 2019. Crude prices failed to rally however, and instead slumped to the lowest in more than a year. Brent crude futures climbed as much as 5.1 percent on Wednesday as shipping data showed Saudi Arabia was delivering its announced cutbacks. It traded at$55.74 a barrel at 5:52 p.m. in London. Thats about 35 percent below the four-year peak reached in early October. AT THE PUMP: Gas prices to start low, but push $3 a gallon by spring: forecast Investors remain concerned that OPEC+ isnt cutting enough to make way for another surge of supply anticipated from shale oil drillers in America. Theyre also increasingly worried that a slowing global economy, coupled with the U.S.-China trade dispute, will hit fuel demand and swell the pile-up of unwanted crude. Slowdown fears are putting more pressure on OPEC to stabilize the petroleum markets, said Phil Flynn, a markets analyst at Price Futures Group Inc. So let the cuts begin. The Saudis curtailed production by 420,000 barrels a day to 10.65 million last month, from a record of just above 11 million reached in November, the survey showed. Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih has promised to cut even deeper this month, going beyond the reductions the kingdom signed up to. Unintentional Cutbacks As is often the case with OPEC, not all of the supply restraint seen last month was deliberate. Libyas production fell by 110,000 barrels a day to 1 million a day. Sharara, the countrys biggest oil field, has been offline since it was stormed in mid-December by an armed group and demonstrators demanding better government services. The situation in the North African nation, plagued by clashes and unrest since the fall of former leader Moammar Qaddafi in 2011, worsened on Wednesday when bad weather at the Es Sider port forced a separate output reduction of 100,000 barrels a day. RUSSIA: OPEC+ caps prove no barrier to record Russian output Irans crude production fell by 120,000 barrels a day last month to 2.92 million a day, the survey showed. The countrys output has slumped 23 percent since U.S. President Donald Trump announced in May he would re-impose sanctions after abandoning a nuclear accord with the Islamic Republic. The penalties resumed in November, though the U.S. surprised importers by awarding many of them temporary waivers, which could cause shipments to rebound this month. Even with the pre-emptive Saudi cutbacks, OPEC has plenty of work still to do to fulfill its promises. The 11 members bound by the deal committed to an overall cut of 800,000 barrels a day, mostly from their October levels, while their non-OPEC partners pledged a decrease of 400,000 barrels a day. Production from those 11 countries is now 140,000 barrels a day below their October level, so they would need to cut about another 660,000 barrels a day to implement the agreement. Countries which last month rushed to maximize oil exports before the agreement took effect will now need to reverse those increases. Iraq, which bridled at the requirement to cut shipments last year, bolstered output by 130,000 barrels a day in December to 4.7 million a day, according to the survey. The United Arab Emirates, which has been expanding production capacity, also increased output. 2019 Bloomberg L.P. Boris Bozic wasnt supposed to carve out a living in the mortgage industry. At least, thats what he thought. With his sights set on becoming a real estate mogul, Bozic took a job as a mortgage broker solely to learn about the business with the intention to only stay for a short time. Id always envisioned myself being a real estate mogul, he says. I figured anybody could sell me real estate, but what I didnt understand is why anybody would give me money. That was the key. I really entered this profession as more of an education and thought that after six months a year maximum Id be out. Here I am 30 years later. Bozic offered his services to the broker who arranged his mortgage, who initially rebuffed him. Undeterred, Bozic eventually wore him down and immersed himself in the world of mortgages, going through file after file to learn the brass tacks of the industry. He tried passing me onto other brokers, but the fact that he didnt want me strengthened my resolve, Bozic recalls. I badgered him until he said, Yes, come work with me. Thats how I got into this business. Laying the foundation In 1993, Bozic moved to Vancouver, which proved to be a major turning point in his career. I didnt know anybody, and I had to start fresh, he says. I went through some personal issues, and I figured, if Im going to try something different and explore it, Ill probably never have a better opportunity than I do now. It ended up having the most profound impact on my career. In Vancouver, Bozic worked for TMG, knocking on doors to find new clients. Thats what you had to do, he says. It was old-school back then. You had to pound the pavement because we didnt have the technology back then to attract business like you can today. This was purely hustle you had to survive on your wits and look someone in the eye and convince them youre the right person to help them. I remember when the first fax machine came into the office and someone remarked that it would never last. We had to hand-deliver files to lenders and talk to underwriters a lot. By 2000, Bozic had moved back to Toronto to become the national sales manager for the broker channel at TD Bank. That marked his entry into the corporate world, where he learned about everything from structure and discipline to internal politics and what he calls empirebuilding. Working alongside Kathy Gregory, who eventually launched Paradigm Quest, Bozic laid the foundation for what would eventually become Merix Financial. It was interesting that a lot of what we came out with when we eventually launched were ideas that were pitched to the banks, he says. We were always told that what youre pitching is interesting, but not at this time, so carry on. Both of us were thinking about our businesses and realized that if were really this smart and think it could work, then nows the time to do it. In essence, the bank became this petri dish because we were always in that mode and trying to grow our business. Im not criticizing the bank for not adopting our ideas, he adds. Theyre successful and risk-averse, and we understood their decision, but we felt it could work and we went out to start something brand-new. Business builder Bozic founded Merix Financial in 2005 and realized early on that, rather than trying to replicate what A lenders were doing, he could establish Merix as a niche lender. While Merix originally marketed its products to established brokers, Bozic and his team soon identified an underserved market as a better target. We thought there would be this natural pull [from established brokers] because theyd get it from a business perspective, he recalls, but we changed on the fly and went after that 20-something broker who isnt a high producer and has only been in the industry for two to four years with potential ahead of them. What that message did is resonate with those individuals. We missed the mark when we first launched with a certain segment of the broker space, and that led us to rethink our position. Offering trailer fees to younger brokers indeed proved to be a turning point for Merix and allowed the lender to gain more and more market share with each passing year. However, bumps in the road are an inevitability, and the OSFIs changes to Guideline B-20 have been a major one. Id be lying if I said it didnt have an impact, Bozic says. When all these changes came into place, we knew there was going to be a change and it would have an impact, but we didnt realize the depth of changes. No doubt, the way regulators in the government and the Ministry of Finance proceeded gave the banks a significant advantage, and monolines couldnt compete with them. Now the stress test with insured business has narrowed the gap between the two in terms of what we cant do and what they cant do. With what weve seen in market share in 2018, he continues, monolines are winning some of the business back. Were on a level playing field, or close to a level playing field, with institutional banks. There wasnt a great deal of time to moan because you have to implement all the changes. The stricter mortgage qualification rules introduced at the beginning of 2018 will continue to bear down upon both sales activity and base prices across the Canadian housing market this year, according to a recent analysis by real estate portal Zoocasa. Average price levels are predicted to grow by only a miniscule 1.7% (up to $496,800) this year. Data from the CREA also indicated that total nationwide sales will fall for another 0.5% in 2019, after an 11.2% drop last year (down to 458,200 transactions). The reverberations will be particularly apparent in Calgary, Newfoundland, and Ontario, but Zoocasa also warned that B.C. especially Vancouver will suffer the most significant effects. This was supported by data from the British Columbia Real Estate Association, which reported a 23% decline in housing dollar volumes (down to $52.4 billion) and a 23.6% shrinkage in end-of-year-to-date sales. The analysis also cited a 1 Credit Union report, which raised the alarm on a likely housing recession in B.C. over next 3 years. Read more: The market has yet to feel the zenith of B-20's impact In addition, a slowdown in new mortgages already set by the trend announced by the CMHC late last year is predicted to continue in 2019. The Crown corporations Q2 report noted that the number of new mortgages in 2018 fell by 11.9% year-over-year, down to 205,000. The BCREAs end-of-year assessment of the situation dovetailed with the CMHCs findings. The impact of the mortgage stress test is weighing heavily on traditional lenders ability to grow their mortgage books, with growth in residential mortgages at its slowest pace in 17 years. Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Women were half of the 42,000-person workforce in World War II when the Willow Run Bomber Plant produced a B-24 bomber at the astonishing rate of one each hour. Those workers later were nicknamed Rosie the Riveter a female work force that launched sweeping social change for successive generations. Better Schools and a plan to get our people together after two school bond defeats. More Housing ... and a plan to finance more low-cost units for our many industrial workers. Downtown redevelopment ... This is a must and let us hope the new committees will solve the problem. The New Hospital Let's see the awaited dream come true when ground will be broken later this New Year. A better News Herald all of us will put our efforts to give you a better newspaper with more news, pictures, and feature editorials and with a wish that 1969 be A HAPPY NEW YEAR. BURKE SOLDIER HELPS OVERRUN ENEMY POSITION Pfc. Alan W. Garrison of Morganton was a member of a small assault team in Vietnam which overran an enemy position and captured what weapons the enemy had left. US farmers are no happier in 2019. There is still a lot of uncertainty around trade and Chinese buyers. In 2018, farmers got a taste of what it would be like without Chinese demand. Policy makers put a 25% tax on US soybeans. Chinese buyers looked elsewhere for their feed stock. Most went to places like Brazil. As a result, the US government stepped in to give farmers a helping hand. The BBC called it a US$12 billion trade war bailout. But is US$12 billion enough to sustain US famers through what could be a cold drawn-out trade war? Uncertainty over the lingering trade war between the U.S. and China and North American trading partners is clouding prospects for next years corn and soybean crops, the Wisconsin State Farmer wrote. Will they need yet more money as we move from globalism to a localised world? Special 2019 report: The next generation of Aussie income super stars revealed. Hint: its not the banks. Click here to claim your copy now. Global trade is falling Late last year, exports for most countries were getting weaker or declining. Business Insider wrote in October: The latest batch of manufacturing PMI reports for September have just been released, providing what is as close to a real-time snapshot of whats happening in the sector. So what is the main takeaway from what happened last month? Put simply, trade tensions between the United States and China are now clearly starting to impact demand from abroad, especially in Asia. This is not exactly what Trump wants with his trade war. Hed rather China buy more US goods. But in the interim, tariffs put pressure on China and serve a purpose. I believe declining trade will be a continuing trend in 2019 and beyond. It will happen whether China taxes US soybeans or not. And its because everyone is getting far better at producing stuff. It used to be that North America would buy as much oil as they could get their hands on. In nine years (197079), US crude oil imports grew 392%! While total imports of crude are higher than they were in 1979, growth is far from 392%. In fact, crude imports have declined noticeably since 2004. Why you ask? Because the US has become a whole lot better at producing oil themselves. Forbes writes: Unbeknownst to most people, oil producers were experimenting with a marriage between two established oil drilling technologies horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. The success of this marriage would unlock oil in tight oil and shale oil deposits that had previously been too expensive to recover, and would result in one of the greatest oil booms the world had ever seen. In fact, the fracking revolution caused U.S. oil production to turn upward in 2009, and then rise over the next seven years at the fastest rate in U.S. history. While it is still true that OPEC still produced 42.6% of the worlds oil in 2017, the majority of new oil production since 2008 has come from the U.S. This isnt just happening for oil. Its happening to cheap manufactured goods. Its already happened to agricultural products for the most part. As efficiency gains add up, soon everyone can produce all they need. Trade declines. Cheap labour no longer powers developing countries. Producers become localised. And the only advantage is a local one. Its why instead of trying to win in multiple geographies all at once, companies like Swisse Wellness (Aussie vitamins) should try to dominant local economies first. A local strategy is usually one that dominates over time Swisse is taking a leaf out of Treasury Wine Estates Ltds [ASX:TWE] book. Theyre not only trying to differentiate their brand. Theyre planning to elevate it. They want to sell quality to the masses in Australia and Asia. From the Australian Financial Review: Oliver Horn, the chief executive of Swisse Wellness says the company will be stepping up its premiumisation push in the $3.5 billion vitamins market as he borrows a little from his previous employer, Treasury Wine Estates, and the way it was able to supercharge Penfolds. Mr Horn said Swisse will unveil between 40 to 50 new products in the market in 2019, the most in the history of the company, which runs neck and neck with ASX-listed Blackmores as the biggest player in the Australian market. They each hold between 18 to 19 per cent of the market. Mr Horn expected the vitamins category to grow by between 6 to 7 per cent across the industry in 2019, but is positioning for faster growth than that from Swisse as it steps up its advertising and marketing spend, prepares to announce a new celebrity ambassador in the next few weeks and lifts new product development. The other big shift that Mr Horn is also trying to harness is that of premiumisation, where people are prepared to pay more and buy better for high-quality products made by prestigious brands. This is where his wine background and broad fast-moving consumer goods expertise comes in. I think its a great idea to try and increase market share. After all, quality is not long-term advantage. What could be a long-term advantage for Swisse is a low-cost structure. Picture it If Swisse can dominate the Aussie vitamin market, not only will they make a boat load of money, theyll be able to spread their costs over a much larger base. With more customers and more potential customers lining up to buy Swisse, they can spend many times more than competitors on developing and marketing new products. Such an advantage would make it that much easier for Swisse to continue dominating the Aussie vitamin market. Maybe if theyre lucky, theyll have the chance to dominate more than one market. First it might be Australia. Next it could be New Zealand. Of course, this is all just wishful thinking. I dont believe Swisse management will undertake such a strategy. Theyre too busy trying to generate sales from as many countries as possible. Rather, Ive used Swisse as an example. Swisse could be a far better business if they shifted their focus. So too could many other businesses. A local strategy is usually one that dominates over time. And as we move to a localised world, I think these locally dominant companies are the ones that will benefit. Maybe these are the stocks you want to look for in 2019. Forget the Apples and Amazons of the world. Perhaps think about stocks dominating a single product category or a local region. Chances are, if they dominate that market now, theyll do so in the future. And theyll likely get all the benefits that come along with it, rising sales, earnings and stock price. Local is the only strategy, Harje Ronngard, Editor, Money Morning Free Report: 10 ASX Resource Stocks you should be watching. Download your copy now. There is a significant increase in number of bank frauds, especially with the involvement of persons from within. Few days ago, Moneylife reported in the case of Dr Ajay Sood, a non-resident Indian (NRI), from whose account Rs1.33 crore were withdrawn using the same numbered cheques when the originals were in his possession in the US. He even found his mobile number changed and an Aadhaar number submitted in the bank. Since Dr Sood is an NRI, he is not required to submit Aadhaar. Yet there was one in the bank record along with changed mobile number. Such frauds are not possible without help or involvement from the insiders, including bank employees. However, banks are increasingly outsourcing many jobs and, thus, allowing employees of outsourced agency or agencies access to its core banking solution (CBS). The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in its Financial Stability Report December 2018 , has expressed concern over this. It says, "The employees in the outsourced agency had the same access rights, both read/ write, to the banks CBS. Further, it was also observed that user control related activities such as password resetting, access rights to banks applications and change request, were handled by the outsourced agency." In addition, RBI says, the service level agreements signed by banks with their outsourced agencies did not recognise the central bank's right to inspect the service-provider of the bank and their books and accounts. The RBI had conducted a thematic study on operations of the service centres or business process outsourcing subsidiaries of major foreign banks. RBI says, its study revealed that outsourcing agencies or group entities were working as per mandate given to them and no such concerns were observed, which may expose banks to reputation risk. During July 2017 to 30 June 2108, the central bank found non-compliance by banks on fraud classification and reporting. This resulted in the RBI's enforcement department taking action against 14 banks, including a payment bank and a small finance bank. The department also imposed a penalty of Rs102.4 crore (Rs1,024 million). Between 1st July and 31 October 2018, the enforcement department took action against seven banks, including a payments bank and a cooperative bank and imposed a penalty of Rs14.2 crore (Rs142 million) for non-compliance with fraud classification and reporting. In May, US First Lady Melania Trump was away from public eye for almost three weeks. Speculations and conspiracy theories were afloat; but Trump put a rest to all of this when he tweeted that she was back and doing well. Great to have our incredible First Lady back home in the White House. Melanie is feeling and doing really well. Were not sure what Melania thought of it. (Image: Reuters) President Donald Trump has said he wants talented people who can help American companies to grow to enter the US, asserting that a wall along the Mexico border is the only way to check illegal immigration. Chairing the first Cabinet meeting of the year, Trump said on Wednesday there was a need to fix the "crazy" loopholes in the immigration system. "We want to end all of this nonsense, the visa lottery system. So, they pick them out of a jar," he said in his remarks at the meeting which was dominated by the issue of illegal migration and border security. "We want to pick people to come into our country on the basis of merit and talent so that all of the companies that are moving in, we have large numbers of companies, many, many companies, and more than we've seen in many years, the companies that have left our country are coming back because of what's going on," he said. "You see, our job numbers are great. We need people to come in but we can't have these loopholes. These loopholes are crazy," Trump said. He reiterated his wish to end loopholes in the legal immigration system so as to attract more people based on merit. Trump said his administration wants people to come into the country legally and on merit. "We need people to come in to our country. But they have to do it through the system, they have to do it legally and we want people that can help our country - where it can be based on merit and achievement, people that are going to be helped, the companies that are going to be coming into our countries, which are so many," he said. Trump said every day border patrol encounters roughly 2,000 illegal immigrants trying to enter the US. Every week, 300 Americans are killed by heroin, the vast majority of which comes across through our southern border. "Our southern border is like a sieve. It just pours through our southern border. And unless we're going to have physical barriers, it's never going to be able to be stopped. Too much money is being made," he said. Last month, 20,000 minors were illegally smuggled into the United States, he said. In the last two years, officers arrested 235,000 criminals who were able to come in over the years through the United States, he added. "I think you see that even last night where people charged the border, tried to get through but they couldn't because we have a wall up. But tear gas was flying and a lot of things were happening and I guess for the most part you've seen it. It's very sad. "If they knew they had a physical barrier, if they knew they had a wall, if they knew they had something that's going to stop them, they would have never come up in the first place," he said as he made his case for a wall along the Mexico border. Trump said only a wall can stop the flow of illegal immigrants. "Walls work. If you look at Israel, I was with Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu and he threw up his hands. He said 'I don't understand why they fight you on a wall'. In Israel, as you know, they built a wall. He said '99.9 per cent it works'. And it would with us too. It'll work almost 100 per cent of the time," he said. "We have much less of a problem and we'd save money, so much money on a monthly basis, probably would pay for itself in a month or two because we lose pretty close to USD 250 billion on illegal immigration and I would say that it could be on a monthly or couple of months it would pay for the wall, pay for what we're talking about," he said. Trump has been seeking a USD5 billion in Congressional funding for the wall, which he believes is essential to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the US. Washington: FILE- In this combination of file photos, U.S. President Donald Trump, left, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on May 16, 2018, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in a meeting with South Korean leader Moon Jae-in in Panmunjom, South Korea, on April 27, 2018. Ahead of a planned summit Tuesday, June 12, in Singapore between President Donald Trump and North Korean autocrat Kim Jong Un, there has been talk of complete denuclearization, North Korea has shut down (for now) its nuclear test site, and senior U.S. and North Korean officials have shuttled between Pyongyang and Washington for meetings with Kim and Trump. The top U.S. diplomat declared that AuChairman Kim shares the objectives with the American peopleAu amid talk of a grand bargain that could see North Korean disarmament met with a massive influx of outside aid. AP/PTI(AP6_8_2018_000010B) US President Donald Trump has said that he has received a "great letter" from Kim Jong-Un and is looking forward to meet the North Korean leader for a second time in the "not-too-distant future" to restart talks about the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. President Trump's announcement came after the North Korean leader warned that Pyongyang may change its approach to nuclear talks if Washington persists with sanctions. "I just got a great letter from Kim Jong-un. Those few people that I've shown this letter to, they've never written letters like that. This letter is a great letter. We've made a lot of progress with North Korea and Kim Jong-un," Trump told his Cabinet colleagues during a meeting on Wednesday. "North Korea has tremendous economic potential and so I look forward to our meeting with Chairman Kim. We'll set that up. We'll be setting it up in the not-too-distant future," he said. Trump said he and Kim had established a very good relationship. "A lot of good things are happening. I never said speed. Look, it's been this way for 80 plus years," he said. Kim and Trump held a historic meeting in Singapore on June 12 last year. They issued a vague goal for the "complete denuclearisation" of the Korean Peninsula without describing when and how it would occur. "We'll probably now have another meeting. He'd like to meet, I'd like to meet, but we've established a very good relationship," he said. Trump said his administration was not getting any credit for this peace initiative which has averted the world from a major war. "We're given no credit for frankly if this administration didn't take place, if another administration came in instead of this administration, namely (Vice President) Mike (Pence) and myself and the group around this table, you'd be at war right now," he said. "You'd be having a nice big, fat war in Asia and it wouldn't be pleasant," he added. Trump said he was in no rush for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. "We're getting along fine. I'm not in any rush. I don't have to rush. All I know is there's no rockets, there's no testing," he said, expressing satisfaction over the progress in talks with the North Koreans. North Korea really want to do something, he said. "Now, does that mean it's going to be done? Who knows? Who knows? Deals are deals. You never know but I tell you, we've established a very good relationship with North Korea," he said. "That was going to be a war, that could have been a World War III to be honest with you because a lot of people would've had to get involved in that all over Asia and then it spreads beyond Asia, and instead we have somebody that I really think wants to get onto economic development and making a lot of success and money, frankly, for his country because North Korea has tremendous potential and will help them out," Trump said. US President Donald Trump on January 2 mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan, suggesting it was of no use. In his first Cabinet meeting of the year, the US President referred to PM Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan, wondering who would use it in that country. "Why is not Russia there (in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban)? Why isn't India there? Why isn't Pakistan there? Why are we (US) there? We are 6,000 miles away. But I don't mind. We want to help our people. We want to help other nations," Trump told reporters in response to a question during the Cabinet meeting. The US President cited India's efforts towards peace and development in Afghanistan but alleged that the countries were not doing enough in the war-ravaged country and that they were taking advantage of the United States. Asserting that the Afghan war costs billions of dollars to the US, Trump said, "I want people to treat us fairly". He noted that heads of countries have told him that they are involved in the peace process by "just sending some 100 or 200 soldiers". The US President referred to his friendly terms with Prime Minister Modi, but appeared critical of a library funded by India in Afghanistan. "I could give you an example where I get along very well with India and Prime Minister Modi. But he is constantly telling me, he built a library in Afghanistan. Library! That's like five hours of what we spend (in Afghanistan)," Trump told his cabinet colleagues. "And he (Modi) tells me. He is very smart. We are supposed to say, oh thank you for the library. Don't know who's using it (the library) in Afghanistan. But it's one of those things. I don't like being taken advantage of," he said. Trump drew a comparison between the expenses being borne by the US and other countries in the Afghan peace efforts. "What other countries have done for the last long period of time is given us some soldiers and then talk about it like it's the end of the world. And we are subsidizing their military is by billions and billions and billions of dollars, many, many, many times, what those soldiers cost that country," the US President said. Responding to a question, he said he wants India to be involved in Afghanistan. Asked if India's role in Afghanistan was going to be security related, Trump said, I think India should be involved in Afghanistan. I mean I'll give you an example. You can talk about our generals. I gave our generals all of the money they wanted, they didn't do such a great job in Afghanistan. They've been fighting in Afghanistan for 19 years." Trump last month moved to cut by half the 14,000-strong force in Afghanistan, calling for less spending overseas. Alluding in Wednesday's remarks to the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Trump said: "Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan." Without going into details, Trump asserted that he is going to do work out something good in Afghanistan. We are going to do something that's right. We are talking to the Taliban, we are talking to a lot of different people, he said. (With inputs from PTI) The administration on January 2 slapped the stringent Uttar Pradesh Gangsters Act on three men who allegedly built illegal multistorey apartment blocks and sold flats to gullible buyers in a Greater Noida village, where nine people were killed when two buildings collapsed last year. Those booked are Dev Sharma and Ravindra Nagar, both Gautam Buddh Nagar residents, and Prashant Sharma of Ghaziabad, the administration said. Based on a report by Senior Superintendent of Police Ajay Pal Sharma, District Magistrate Brajesh Narain Singh pressed charges under the Uttar Pradesh Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act against the three people, an official statement said. Last July, nine people were killed in the twin-building collapse in Shahberi village. During a probe, it was found that the buildings were built without permission from local authorities and by flouting several mandatory construction norms and guidelines. "The three had constructed multistorey buildings on agricultural land in Shahberi village without any approval from the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority and without getting buildings maps approved by it," it said. "They have also sold hundreds of flats to gullible buyers by telling them that the land was residential and its map was cleared by the local authorities," it added. "These land mafias have flouted several parameters of building construction, "the administration said. "Since the incident, the Greater Noida authority carried out multiple demolition drives to remove illegal structures, because of which an atmosphere of safety concern got created among the people. This situation of terror and fear among the people has impacted public order and, therefore, these people (the trio) should not be allowed to roam free in public interest. Hence, the Gangsters Act is being invoked against them," the administration said. Over 600 people, which includes murder accused, robbers, liquor, drug and land mafias, have been booked under the Act in the district since April 2017. The Act provides special provisions for the prevention of and, for coping with, gangsters and anti-social activities and for related matters. "Similar action will be taken in future against the mafia and criminals under the Gangsters Act and the Goonda Act, besides considering their expulsion from the district," the administration added. Rahul Gandhi_Congress president Congress president Rahul Gandhi on January 3 asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi what action will be taken on the Agriculture Ministry's reported statement that in the absence of effective steps, wheat production could go down by up to 23 percent by 2050. Gandhi asserted that he will not allow Modi to "ignore" farmers and their issues. The Congress chief cited a media report which claimed that the Agriculture Ministry has told the Estimates Committee that if effective steps are not taken in a timely manner then by 2050 production of wheat could decrease by up to 23 percent. "The very intelligent prime minister who said, 'Climate change hasn't happened. We have changed', should understand that whether he agrees with it or not, the truth does not change," Gandhi said. The Ministry of Agriculture has stated that if effective steps are not taken in a timely manner, then by 2050, production of wheat could decrease by up to 23 per cent, he said. "The prime minister should tell the country what steps he is going to take. I will not let him ignore the farmers," Gandhi said in a Facebook post. Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday took strong objection to some MPs blaming him for not doing enough to bring the House to order for conduct of proceedings, and said he had on several occasions spoken to members to break the deadlock. Rajya Sabha hasn't transacted much business in the winter session of Parliament as proceedings on most days have been adjourned because of disruptions, particularly by AIADMK members who are protesting against a proposed dam on Cauvery river. When the House met for the day, Naidu appealed to all sections to allow the House to function as only three working days were left and important bills, statutory resolution and ordinances are pending approval. "I would like everyone to understand that we are not sending a positive message," he said, noting that the House has not been able to conduct much work. As many as 14 days have been lost to disruptions, he said. "I appeal to everyone of you to cooperate." Without naming anyone, he held out a copy of an interview given by a member where it was said that the chair wasn't doing enough as only handful of members rush to the Well and hold the House to ransom. He said he feels sad about the Wednesday order when AIADMK members were suspended for the day but they continued their protest in the Well, forcing adjournment of proceedings for the day. Members, he said, have to follow instructions of the chair. Naidu said one section is saying that the Chairman hasn't done enough to smoothly conduct proceedings in the House. "I have spoken to those members who have been agitating (in the Well of the House) more than 10 times," he said, adding he had also taken up the matter with several leaders of the House and some members individually. Naidu said it is being said that there is a plan in these disruptions and the subsequent adjournment of proceedings to stall discussion on issues. "Plan by whom," he asked. The Congress, he said, has stated that the party is blamed but it wants the House to function. "I was keen to take action yesterday (January 2)" against the unruly AIADMK members, he said. But Leader of the Opposition as well as other senior members urged him that they would like to make one more attempt to get the disrupting members around, Naidu said. Naidu said he has tried hard to ensure that the House functions and yet he is blamed for not doing enough. He again appealed to members to allow the House to function and follow rules and procedures to raise discussions and debates on issues. The Chair, he said, is willing to allow discussions. Naidu said he had received notices under Rule 267 seeking 'suspension of rules' to allow discussion on issues such as women's reservation in legislatures and Sabarimala temple issue, but has disallowed them. The same, however, can be taken up for discussions under other rules, he said. Mike Pompeo The US ambassador to Russia on January 2 met an American ex-Marine accused of espionage whose detention has sparked the latest rift between the countries. Ambassador Jon Huntsman met Paul Whelan at the Lefortovo prison in Moscow and afterwards spoke to his family by telephone, the US State Department said. "Ambassador Huntsman expressed his support for Mr Whelan and offered the embassy's assistance," a State Department spokesperson said. The United States has been cautious in its public comments on the case, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying earlier on January 2 that Washington was trying to learn more about the situation. "If the detention is not appropriate, we will demand his immediate return," Pompeo told reporters while on a visit to Brazil. The consular visit took place five days after the 48-year-old Whelan was detained in Moscow. The Russian foreign ministry also confirmed that the United States was granted consular access. Whelan faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty, according to the ministry. He was arrested "while carrying out an act of espionage", Russia's FSB domestic security service said. His family has denied he is a spy, saying he was visiting Moscow to attend a wedding. Born in Canada, Whelan is director of international security for BorgWarner, a car parts manufacturer headquartered near Detroit, his brother David Whelan has told several US media outlets. His arrest came after President Vladimir Putin accused Western nations of using espionage cases to try to undermine an increasingly powerful Russia. US intelligence services have accused Moscow of interfering in the 2016 presidential election. US Special Counsel Robert Mueller has charged 25 Russians -- including members of the GRU military intelligence service -- and three Russian companies for that alleged interference, but they have not been arrested. In December, Russian national Maria Butina pleaded guilty in a federal court in Washington to acting as an illegal foreign agent. Source: PTI The Supreme Court is scheduled to take up on Friday a batch of petitions for hearing in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute case. The matter is listed before a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul. It is likely to constitute a three-judge bench for hearing as many as 14 appeals filed against the 2010 Allahabad High Court judgement, delivered in four civil suits, that the 2.77-acre land be partitioned equally among the three parties -- the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla. The apex court on October 29 had fixed the matter in the first week of January before an "appropriate bench", which will decide the schedule of hearing. Later, an application was moved for according an urgent hearing by advancing the date, but the top court had refused the plea, saying it had already passed an order on October 29 relating to the hearing on the matter. The plea for early hearing was moved by the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha (ABHM) which is one of the respondents in the appeal filed by legal heirs of M Siddiq, one of the original litigants in the case. A three-judge bench of the top court had on September 27, by 2:1 majority, refused to refer to a five-judge constitution bench the issue of reconsideration of the observations in its 1994 judgement that a mosque was not integral to Islam. The matter had arisen during the hearing of the Ayodhya land dispute. Various Hindutava organisations have been demanding an ordinance on early construction of Ram temple at the disputed site. The hearing on Friday assumes importance as Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday suggested any decision on an ordinance on Ram temple in Ayodhya can happen only after the completion of the judicial process. Modi's comments came amidst heightened demands by Hindutava organisations, including the RSS, for an ordinance for an early construction of the temple. assam, sarbananda sonowal Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on January 2 hailed the Centre's decision to set up a high-level committee to recommend safeguards to protect the identities of the indigenous people of the state. The powerful All Assam Students' Union (AASU) and Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS), however, criticised the BJP-led Central government decision and said the forming of another committee was a "gimmick" before the Lok Sabha polls. The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 2 decided that the panel would recommend how to provide constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards to the indigenous people of Assam, including by reserving seats in the state Assembly. "The decisions taken today by the Central government are historic steps to safeguard and protect the interest and cultural and linguistic identity of the indigenous people of Assam," Sonowal said in a statement. "This is a New Year's gift to the people of the state from the Central government. The decisions taken by the Union Cabinet will go a long way in securing the future of all indigenous communities of the state," he added. He said the Cabinet decision had secured the interest of indigenous people by resolving the matter, which remained undecided for 35 years due to lack of political will. "The decision taken to set up a high-level committee to implement Clause 6 of Assam Accord will pave way for reserving seats for indigenous people in Assam Legislative Assembly, local bodies and Assam Government jobs," Sonowal said. However, Samujjal Kumar Bhattacharya, the chief adviser of AASU, which was a signatory to the Assam Accord, termed the decision an attempt to "assuage the feelings of the Assamese community which was hurt due to the move to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955". In a statement, KMSS Adviser Akhil Gogoi too criticised the Union Cabinet decision and said that the people of Assam needed the implementation of Clause 6, not another committee to study the matter and suggest steps. "The Clause has been discussed many times by the Centre. Forming another committee is nothing but a political gimmick before the elections. They just want to mislead the people by false promises and get votes," he said. The Cabinet decision is also targeted to derail the massive protests by all sections of people in Assam against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, Gogoi claimed. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 was introduced in the Lok Sabha to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 to grant Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians, who fled religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan and entered India before December 31, 2014. The AASU, KMSS and other socio-political organisations of the North East are vehemently opposing the Bill. On December 31 last year, all amendments moved by the opposition in the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), headed by BJP MP Rajendra Agrawal, of the Bill were defeated. Following this, members of KMSS have sat on an indefinite hunger strike from January 1. The stir entered its second day on January 2. Rahul Gandhi_Congress president Escalating his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the the Rafale deal issue, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said it seems the PM has "fled" his "open book Rafale exam" in Parliament and is instead lecturing students in Punjab. Gandhi's attack came a day after he said Modi faced an open book exam on the deal in Parliament and asked if he will show up at the exam or send a proxy. The Congress president had Wednesday also tweeted four questions related to the Rafale deal and demanded answers from the prime minister. "So it seems our PM has fled Parliament & his own open book Rafale exam & is instead lecturing students at Lovely University in Punjab, today," Gandhi tweeted on Thursday. He also urged students at the university to ask the prime minister to answer the four questions posed by him. Gandhi had tweeted, "Here are the exam questions in advance: Q1. Why 36 aircraft, instead of the 126 the IAF needed? Q2. Why 1,600 Cr instead of 560 Cr per aircraft. Q4. Why AA instead of HAL? Will he show up? Or send a proxy?" He later tweeted another question, terming it as "The Missing Q3!". In the third question, he asked the prime minister to tell why former defence minister Manohar Parrikar keeps a Rafale file in his bedroom and what's in it. Haryana Assembly Elections 2019 EVM checking Voting machine at polling station and booth It is the "joke of 2019" when Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he does not know about the federal front of regional parties being attempted by Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, AICC spokesperson Sravan Dasoju claimed here on January 3. Dasoju, who has been appointed as the spokesperson for AICC two days ago, wondered how can Modi say (in a media interview) that he does not know about the non-Congress, non-BJP front proposed by Rao when the latter was going around the country to promote the initiative. "Both together (after) reaching a tacit understanding, to weaken Congress, by confusing parties who are pro-Congress and to move them away from UPA, Modi and KCR are conspiring" Dasoju told reporters. Modi talked about 'people's front' (comprising Congress, TDP and others) losing in Telangana Assembly polls but what about BJP which has been decimated, he said. "I don't understand whether shame is there or not. I am sorry to use such a language against the Prime Minister. But then, he says people's front lost. What happened to your party? BJP is decimated here," he said. It is a "funny" situation with Modi feeling happy about people's front losing in Telangana by forgetting as to why people rejected BJP, he said. Out of total 119 Assembly seats, BJP lost security deposit in 105 constituencies. Congress has not lost much as it won 19 seats now compared to 22 segments it won in 2014, he said. Noting that "a blind tiger in a forest eats its own cubs", Dasoju claimed that Modi, in a similar fashion, has sacrificed his own BJP MLAs before KCR and then talked about hurting Congress in Telangana. Alleging that the NDA government was trying to evade answers on the Rafale deal, Dasoju said the government should accept the demand for a JPC probe into the issue if it has any morals. India had inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September last year for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore, nearly one- and-half years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the proposal during a visit to Paris. The delivery of the jets is scheduled to begin from September, 2019. The Congress has raised several questions about the deal including the rates, and accused the government of compromising national interest and security while promoting "crony capitalism" and causing a loss to the public exchequer. Narendra Modi Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 3 launched a scathing attack on the Congress on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and farmers' loan waiver issues. The Congress had made tall promises to farmers on loan waiver, but later deceived them, he said at a rally here. Modi said the Congress in Punjab, too, had made big promises to farmers, but deceived them after coming to power. The Congress is also awarding those involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots with chief minister's post, he said. "On one family's direction, the files of those involved in the riots were put under wraps, but the NDA dug out these and set up a SIT and results are before you," Modi said. He said the NDA government took a historic decision to build the Kartarpur Corridor, which will link Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur in Pakistan, the final resting place of Sikhism's founder Guru Nanak Dev. Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy meets Congress President Rahul Gandhi, in New Delhi on Thursday, Aug 30, 2018. (Congress Twitter via PTI)(PTI8_30_2018_000084B) The Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition in Karnataka is headed for a battle over seat-sharing as the Lok Sabha elections near. Former prime minister HD Deve Gowda sparked a controversy on January 1 by demanding more seats for the JD(S) for the general election. Banking on the crucial victories in three Hindi heartland states Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan Congress, on the other hand, is hoping to get a lions share of seats. Heres how the seat-sharing battle is heating up between the coalition partners: 2:1 demand On January 1, Gowda told the press that his party was seeking to contest 12 out of the states 28 Lok Sabha seats. However, Deve Gowda said the Congress should give them at least nine seats, which would make it a 2:1 seat-sharing arrangement. The Congress has given us unconditional support. They must honour that. We are demanding 12 out of 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka. They must give us at least nine seats. The 1/3rd formula applies to all, Gowda said. According to the formula, Congress would contest from 18-19 seats, leaving the rest for its ally. Gowdas demand came days after former chief minister and leader of the Congress Legislature Party Siddaramaiah had alleged that the BJP was making fresh attempts to topple the coalition government by offering Rs 25 to 30 crore to the legislators. BJP state president and former chief minister, BS Yeddyurappa, however rejected the charge, and asked Siddaramaiah to speak responsibly and provide evidence to back his charge. According to political observers, Gowda has begun hardball negotiations with the Congress knowing that the Grand Old Party would not want risking its government in Karnataka months ahead of the general elections. According to a report by The Quint, Congress wants to give only 6-7 seats to the JD(S). It has not officially declared its position. The bone of contention The Old Mysore region is likely to be the bone of contention between the two parties. The former arch rivals have strong presence in the region and are involved in one-on-one fights here whenever they are fighting separately. Unlike coastal and Bombay Karnataka, the BJP is not a major player in this region. In the 2018 Assembly polls, the two parties together won 40 out of the 51 seats in the region even as they fought the elections separately. BJP won nine seats while one seat was won by JDS ally Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). One seat was bagged by an Independent candidate. While fighting together would help them consolidate their votes in the region, core voters may not be inclined to voting for their long-time rival. Power play In May 2018, Congress had extended support to JD(S)s HD Kumaraswamy to keep the BJP out of power in the southern state. Kumaraswamy, Deve Gowdas younger son, was sworn in as the chief minister. In November 2018, Congress and JD(S) scored a crucial 4:1 win over the BJP in the by-elections for three Lok Sabha and two assembly seats in Karnataka, proving that their votes were transferring within the alliance. The alliance also managed to create an upset in Ballari, a BJP stronghold for around 15 years. Congress termed it a teaser for what is in store for the BJP next year. BJP has been leading the tally for parliamentary seats in Karnataka since 2004. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP won 17 seats. Congress and JD(S) followed with nine and two seats each. In 2014, the JD(S) contested 25 seats, up from 21 it contested in 2009. The saffron party had a 43.37 percent vote share in the state followed by Congress 41.15 percent. The JD(S) commanded a vote share of 11.07 percent votes. BJP had win 18 seats in 2009, finishing ahead of Congress seven and JD(S) three. In 2004, the results were similar to 2014 with BJP winning 17 seats followed by Congress eight. JD(S) and an Independent won two and one seats each. Mayawatis BSP had given its backing to the JD(S) in the assembly polls. As a result of this pact, BSP saw election of its first Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) in Karnataka in 25 years. It remains unclear if BSP would back the Congress-JD(S) combine and if it would be accommodated for the Lok Sabha. In 2018, Mayawati had unsuccessfully bargained hard for seats in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan with the Congress three Hindi heartland states that latter won. Mayawati is also reportedly not keen on getting Congress on board for the Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) in Uttar Pradesh. Congress, which has not officially responded to Gowdas demand so far, is expected to deploy different seat-sharing strategies across various states. In Maharashtra, the party is likely to finalise a 1:1 formula. The party is likely to contest from Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in partnership with regional parties. Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray In a sharp attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Shiv Sena on Thursday said it wondered when the Ram temple could be constructed in Ayodhya if not during the tenure of the current BJP-led majority government. It said if the Ram temple cannot be built before 2019 (polls), it will be like betraying people of the country, for which the BJP and the RSS would have to apologise to them. The Sena, an ally of the BJP at the Centre and in Maharashtra, slammed Modi for his comment in a recent interview, broadcast by several TV channels, that any government action on the temple construction can happen only after the judicial process is over. "He (Modi) came to power in the name of Ram, however, according to him, law is not bigger than Lord Ram. The question now is if the temple cannot be constructed in the majority government, when will it ever be," the Sena asked in an editorial in party mouthpiece 'Saamana'. The Modi government got a magnificent statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel constructed in Gujarat, but the prime minister did not show the courage of 'sardar' over the Ram temple issue, it said, asserting that this would be recorded in the pages of history. The agitation for the Ram temple began in 1991-92 and hundreds of 'kar sevaks' lost their lives, it noted. "Who did this massacre and why? While hundreds of Hindu kar sevaks died, the subsequent (Mumbai) bomb blasts led to the killing of hundreds of people from both sides (Hindu and Muslim communities). If the Supreme Court had to take the decision, why this massacre and bloodshed?" it asked. The Uddhav Thackeray-led party further sought to know whether the BJP and the RSS were ready to take the responsibility for those killings and bloodshed. "The way the Congress had to apologise for the massacre of Sikhs (after the anti-Sikh riots in 1984), we have to understand the sentiments of those who demand an apology (from the BJP) for the massacre of Hindus," it said. Further attacking Modi over his interview in which he defended his government's decision of demonetisation in 2016, the Marathi daily said if note ban was not a shock and people had been warned a year before it was done, "who exactly were those people"? "Those who lost their lives standing in bank queues and those who lost employment, were they not citizens?" it further asked. In remarks laced with sarcasm, the Sena said if according to Modi, the upcoming general elections would be between people and the 'Mahagathbandhan' (the proposed anti-BJP alliance), "did people of Iran vote for the BJP in 2014?" "The people of five states who voted against the party (in the recent Assembly polls), are they not citizens of this country," the Sena queried. On November 6 2018, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced that Faizabad district would henceforth be known as Ayodhya. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has given all district magistrate about a week to ensure stray cattle across the state are shifted to cow shelters, officials said. The directions were given at a video conference January 2 night with all DMs, amid reports that stray cattle were destroying crops. In parts of the state, farmers have reportedly herded stray cattle into places like government schools to save their crops. Adityanath directed strict action against owners of stray cattle and those locking up the animals in government buildings, an official said. He has asked that stray animals, including cattle, should be sent to shelters by January 10. The directive follows a recent state government decision to levy a 0.5 percent cow welfare cess on some public sector undertakings to help construct and maintain more cow shelters. "Stray cattle sometimes become a reason for road accidents in urban areas. They also destroy crops in rural areas and can create law and order issues. All DMs should therefore take necessary action so that such issues do not happen," Adityanath said during the video conference. January 2 night's meeting was also attended by Chief Secretary Anup Chandra Pandey and other top officials. The chief minister told the DMs to ensure that farmers and others do not face any problems due to stray cattle. The district magistrates should impose fines on those who come to the shelters to claim their cows after abandoning them. He said the authorities should ensure proper fencing at cow shelters and see that arrangements for feeding and veterinary care are in place. He said help from traders, businessmen and people's representatives should be sought in running 'kanji houses', the shelters were cows are currently kept. Adityanath has held a series of meetings after angry farmers locked stray cows in government buildings in some other parts of the state. Recently, people in at least two villages in Aligarh and Firozabad districts rounded up stray cattle and herded them into government schools, refusing to let classes run until the administration did something about the animals. The Adityanath government has cracked down on illegal slaughterhouses in the state and tasked the police to prevent cow slaughter. The CM said the funds allotted for cow welfare Rs 60 crore in 2017-18 and Rs 95 crore in 2018-19 should be used effectively. The state government had on January 1 decided to introduce an additional levy of 0.5 per cent as cow welfare cess on eight profit-making public sector infrastructure companies to fund the construction and maintenance of cow shelters. The cess will also apply on travel on some expressways where motorists already pay a toll. The new cow shelters will be opened in all villages, panchayats, municipalities, nagar panchayats and municipal corporations, officials said. The shelters will have a capacity to hold at least 1,000 animals, they said. Ghulam Nabi Azad: He is the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, and has also been a former Union Minister. Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on January 3 attacked BJP, accusing it of destabilising the government in Jammu and Kashmir and trying to break National Conference (NC), PDP and Congress in the stat. Initiating the debate on resolution to impose President rule in Jammu and Kashmir in Rajya Sabha Azad said: "You made the government with fanfare in Jammu & Kashmir but BJP withdrew from it. "Why didn't you conduct elections. You took four months and tried to brake Congress, NC and whosoever (PDP) did development in Kashmir. The moment you came to know that government cannot be formed, you dissolved the assembly," he said. Azad further said :"We are secular forces. We want to have Kashmir with India. You withdrew security in the state and made them soft target (for militants)". The leader of the opposition in the House said it is necessary to strengthen regional parties for stability of elected state governments. However, Azad supported the resolution moved by Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday, to approve proclamation issued by the President on December 19, 2018 under Article 356 of the Constitution of India in relation to Jammu & Kashmir. The resolution has already been passed by the Lok Sabha on December 28, 2018. Azad also pointed out that since Jammu and Kashmir Governor has legislative and executive power, the Governor brought 55 amendments in different law in such a sensitive state. He also held BJP responsible for "100 per cent alienation" in the state alleging the government has brought this in the culture of state administration on how many Hindu or Muslim officials are appointed by them. He said there were maximum number of cease fire violations during the last four years and a large number of people as well as animals were killed due to shelling. "We had given you a Kashmir which was known for communal harmony and development. But it not the same," he said. Azad also accused government of not creating enough employment opportunities in the state and said this led to youth who were trained as doctors, engineers and Phd holders, to join militancy. Relying to Azad's accusations, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said if the Congress leaders want to become statesmen then they have to get out of blame game. He also said the Congress cannot get away with its responsibility regarding the situation of alienation in the state because "stone pelting incident came to light in your golden era only." He also said : "You ruled the state and now you say that people are alienated". Jaitley said :"When history will decide which point of view--Shyama Prasad Mukherjee or Jawahar Lal Nehru - was right, then you will have problem. West Bengal Congress chief Somen Mitra January 3 said the party was against any sort of alliance with the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the state. The "apprehension" that the Congress might join hands with TMC to fight BJP at the Centre has stopped various leaders of Mamata Banerjee's party and others from joining Congress in the state, he told newsmen here. His comments come in the wake of nearly 2000 activists from various political parties, including the TMC and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), joining the Congress in the state on Thursday to fight against the "rise of communalism". "We want to tell them (those wishing to join Congress) that this apprehension has no basis as Bengal Congress is against any sort of alliance with TMC. We have also conveyed it to the party high command," Mitra told reporters. "Leaders and workers of various political parties including TMC, BJP are in touch with us and are willing to join the Congress as they want to fight against the misrule and communalism of TMC and BJP in the state," he added. But they are in a dilemma as they are apprehensive and have a perception that Congress might join hands with the TMC either before or after Lok Sabha elections, he said. "Nearly 2000 activists from various political parties including TMC, BJP and AIUDF (an alliance partner of TMC) have joined us. They feel that Congress is the only platform from where you can fight against TMC and BJP," Mitra said. According to the state Congress sources, the party was yet to take a call on whether to forge an alliance with the CPI(M) or not for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. However, the state unit has conveyed to the party high command that it was completely against any sort of alliance with the TMC. Bikaner: Union minister BJP senior leader Sushma Swaraj during a party meeting, in Bikaner, Sunday, Dec. 2, 2018. (PTI Photo) (PTI12_2_2018_000148B) Asserting that every issue raised by the Congress on Rafale deal has been clarified by the Supreme Court, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Thursday said in Rajya Sabha that there is no controversy in the matter, except in minds of the opposition party leaders. Unsatisfied by the minister's reply during the Question Hour, the Congress members including former prime minister Manmohan Singh staged a walkout. Congress leader Anand Sharma in his supplementary query demanded that the government make public the minutes of the meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former French President Fracois Hollande held last year on the Rafale deal in a bid to settle the controversy once for all. To this, Swaraj said, "Anandji, there is no controversy. Controversy is there in your mind. All the controversy issues that you (Congress) raised, the Supreme Court has clarified on each of them. Please don't use the word controversy again." She said, "The whole country knows there is no controversy. The Supreme Court has cleared each issue. If you still think there is a controversy, then no one can reply." To a query raised by Shiv Sena member Sanjay Raut if there was any discussion on the Rafale deal during the recent visit of French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to India, Swaraj said, "There was no discussion on the matter." "On that day, the Supreme Court verdict (on Rafale deal) was pronounced. He (French Minister) was very happy. He expressed joy and felt there was no need to have discussion," she said. On the Indo-French fund for developing script for co- production of films, the Minister said the French delegation had visited Mumbai and had discussion with representatives of Bollywood besides meeting the state chief minister. To another query on the Jaitapur Nuclear Power project, Swaraj said that an agreement was signed on March 22, 2016 to set up a plant. France's EDF and India's NPCL are looking into it. "Six EPR units are to be set with each unit having a capacity of 1650 megawatt. Once it is ready, it will be the world's largest nuclear plant," she said. The project was reviewed in March last year, when the rate of power per unit and setting up of a reference plant were also discussed. "We will proceed after seeing the model plant. We have decided about the dates," she added. AAP Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader HS Phoolka, who has fought the legal battle for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots victims, resigned from the party on January 3. The move comes amid speculation over possibility of an alliance between the Congress and the AAP for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. In a tweet, Phoolka said he will explain reason behind the move in a press briefing in Delhi on January 4. "I have resigned from AAP & handed over resignation to Kejriwal ji today. Though he asked me not to resign but I insisted. Will be briefing media tomorrow at 4pm at Press Club, Raisina Rd, New Delhi to explain the Reason of leaving AAP & my further plans," he wrote on Twitter. The AAP has not denied alliance prospects with the Congress, saying its political affairs committee will take a call after considering opinion of its leaders and workers from Delhi, Punjab and Haryana. Former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar was recently convicted in an anti-Sikh riot case by the Delhi High Court, where Phoolka represented the victims. ahmed_patel_Congress The Supreme Court asked veteran Congress leader Ahmed Patel to face trial in connection with his election to the Rajya Sabha in 2017 which has been challenged by his rival BJP candidate Balwantsinh Rajput. The apex court declined to interfere with the October 26, 2018 order of the Gujarat High Court which had said that Rajput's allegations required a trial. "Let the trial go on," said a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul. Patel had challenged the high court order which had dismissed his plea questioning the maintainability of Rajput's election petition. Rajput in his election petition had challenged the Election Commission's decision to invalidate the votes of the two rebel MLAs. Had these votes been counted, he would have defeated Patel, the BJP leader had contended. The apex court said it will hear Patel's plea next month. It allowed the parties to file additional documents in the matter. In its order, the bench also said that "as contesting parties have appeared, no notice need be formally issued. List the matters for final disposal in the month of February, 2019. In the meantime, the High Court shall proceed with the trial of the Election Petition". Patel was declared the winner after the Election Commission invalidated the votes of rebel Congress MLAs Bholabhai Gohel and Raghavjee Patel, bringing down the number of votes needed for victory to 44 from 45. In the election petition before the high court, Rajput also alleged that Patel had taken Congress MLAs to a resort in Bengaluru before the election which amounted to "bribing the voters". In October 2018, the high court for the second time declined to give relief to Patel. Earlier, April 20, it had rejected Patel's plea. Patel moved the Supreme Court against the April 20, 2018 order, contending that the decision of the poll panel cannot be challenged by an election petition. The apex court on September 26 asked the Gujarat High Court to decide afresh a plea of Patel challenging the maintainability of a petition filed by Rajput. The High Court in October dismissed Patel's plea. On Thursday, senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi along with advocate Devadutt Kamat appeared for Patel in the apex court. Thiruvananthapuram: A policeman chases away protesters during a protest against the entry of two women to the Sabarimala temple, in Thiruvananthapuram, Wednesday, Jan 2, 2019. (PTI Photo) (PTI1_2_2019_000187B) Draped in black veils, two women -- Bindu (42) and Kanakadurga (44) -- created history on January 2 as they entered the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, defying threats from the Hindu right wing outfits. The women entered the Lord Ayyappa temple three months after the Supreme Court of India (SC), lifted the ban on entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine. Following the top courts verdict allowing women of all ages to offer prayers at the shrine, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government decided to implement the verdict. This was opposed by the states main opposition party Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and Hindu right wing groups. The womens entry sparked violent protests across Kerala, leading to the death of one person. Heres what happened in the 24 hours that followed the womens entry: Purification rituals After the video of Bindu and Kanakdurgas entry in the hilltop shrine went viral, the chief priest decided to close the temples sanctum sanctorum and perform a 'purification' ceremony. Devotees were asked to move out of the shrine during the ceremony and the temple only reopened after completion of the ritual. Violent protests Following the conformation of the womens entry from Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the police, protests erupted in several places in the state, with Hindu right-wing activists blocking highways and forcing closure of shops and markets. BJP and CPI (M) workers clashed in front of the Secretariat for over five hours. Police used water cannons and used teargas shells to bring the situation under control. The ruling CPI (M)'s offices were vandalised at multiple locations causing tension, police said. State-owned KSRTC buses were damaged at Konni and Kozhencherry in Pathanamthitta district where the temple is located, besides several other places. Activists death A 55-year-old Sabarimala Karma Samithi activist who was injured on January 2 in a clash between BJP and CPI (M) workers in Pandalam, succumbed to his injuries on January 3, according to reports. Police ordered an investigation into the matter. Ministers face protesters wrath BJP workers waved black flags at Devaswom minister Kadakampally Surendran in Guruvayur where he had gone to attend a function. Health minister KK Shylaja had to face the ire of activists of the Yuva Morcha, the party's youth wing at Kannur, who showed him black flags. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's effigy was burnt at Malappuram and four activists of the BJP's Mahila Morcha were arrested when they forced their way close to the chief minister's office in the secretariat complex. Bandh Sabarimala Karma Samithi, an umbrella organisation of various pro-Hindutva groups, spearheading protests against the SC's September 28 verdict, and Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP), called for a state-wide bandh on January 3. The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) said it would observe a "black day". (With inputs from PTI) File Pic: BJP President Amit Shah meets Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai BJP president Amit Shah has reportedly asked the party's Maharashtra MPs to be prepared to contest the ensuing elections alone in the state. Shah gave this message at a meeting with Maharashtra BJP MPs in Delhi, said an MP who was present. "Shah asked us to prepare for the possibility of contesting elections alone in the state if needed," the MP said. "The BJP president told us that efforts are on to have an alliance with the Sena but if that did not materialise, we should be prepared to fight the polls alone," he said. BJP is in alliance with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and at the Centre. The Sena has been critical of BJP and its leaders have spoken of contesting the Lok Sabha elections alone. Targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Shiv Sena on Thursday wondered when would the Ram temple be constructed in Ayodhya if not during the tenure of the BJP-led government. Shiv Sena has also backed the opposition's demand for a JPC probe in the Rafale fighter aircraft purchase deal. "Shah said that if need be, we should be prepared to contest all 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra," the MP said. A senior Maharashtra BJP leader told PTI that Shah was "very clear" in telling the party MPs from the state to "be prepared for going it alone" in case no tie-up happens with the Shiv Sena. Flipkart Amazon Bala Murali Krishna Last month, the commerce ministry amended rules governing e-commerce companies controlled by foreign investors. Among other things, the new regulations bar Amazon and Flipkart from selling products from entities they fully or partially own. The new rules have understandably led to apprehension in the United States because both companies are American since Walmart acquired Flipkart last year and the two together have a stranglehold over one of the worlds largest ecommerce markets. Some call the rules a protectionist move that will derail growth and hurt consumers with higher prices. However, viewing ecommerce only through the prism of cost is a blinkered view because it fails to assess broader harm to businesses and society. Such criticism also ignores gross free market distortions created by the monopolistic platforms. For many years now, Amazon and Flipkart have exploited a loophole in the Indian laws to expand their business. Indias ecommerce policy has created two broad sets of companies inventory-led platforms and marketplaces. It is a distinction not made in ecommerce markets elsewhere but has distinct merits. In the first, companies can stock products and sell them to consumers on their digital platforms. The grocer Bigbasket is one such. In the other, firms run an electronic platform for sellers and buyers, but are themselves barred from being a buyer or seller. Amazon and Flipkart are modelled on the second but only in letter. In reality, both run a marketplace and also maintain inventory getting around the existing limitation of not being able to sell directly by creating new companies that, in turn, stock goods and sell on their platforms. One such Amazon entity is Cloudtail, a joint venture with Infosys cofounder Narayana Murthys Catamaran Ventures. Similarly, Flipkart has WS Retail. Both etailers own and operate many such entities. With the help of these subsidiaries, Amazon and Flipkart dont control just inventory, distribution and prices, but also use them in some cases to directly undercut sellers on their platforms. For example, both companies have launched private labels that compete directly with other sellers. So, Amazon India sells its own brands of plastic bottles, mattresses and apparel, among others. Flipkart has since 2016 run a private label business in products ranging from home plastics to electronics. Why is that wrong? It wrong because it creates conflict of interest, distorts free markets and is built on manipulation of big data. The large etailers leverage a treasure trove of consumer data generated by sellers on their platforms to then selectively enter the most lucrative markets, and undermining their own partners. The data helps Amazon and Flipkart in many ways and is used to, say, offer discounts to select products at an opportune time, or cross-sell other products. Not all this data, or the market intelligence, is available to other sellers. Besides, electronic marketplaces are expected to enable free commerce, without disadvantaging one seller over another. By pushing their own private labels, they tilt the scales in their own favour, hurting other sellers on the platform. Tales of abuse by Amazon are abound in the US, where the etailer has a 41% share of a $500 million retail market. Its competitive intelligence unit is accused of adopting predatory tactics to deliberately run many small businesses into the ground, mainly on the strength of big data it relentlessly amasses. Amazon once even used predatory pricing to roll over a company worth hundreds of millions of dollars. How Amazon crushed Diapers.com has been well chronicled. It did so by slashing prices of diapers and other baby products on its platform by up to 30%, forcing Diapers.com to sell its business to Amazon for $540 million. Indias new rules will plug glaring loopholes and curb abuse of monopolistic power. Under them, an e-commerce entity providing a marketplace will not exercise ownership or control over goods sold on its platform. It will not let them directly or indirectly influence the price of goods or their distribution on coercive terms. Overall, the rules should create a level playing field, or certainly a fairer marketplace in which Amazon and Flipkart will not be allowed to use big data to squelch small sellers, or run parallel white label business that directly competes with other sellers. In fact, Indian policymakers would do well to extend the rule to all ecommerce platforms, not just the foreign-controlled ones. This would address potential homegrown ecommerce giants that could turn similarly abusive in the future. The rules are timely too. They come just as Amazon and Flipkarts parent company Walmart threaten to reprise their rivalry in the US here in India, and could stop them from bringing their worst practices to the Indian market. The rules also come in just as Amazon eyes expansion into more sensitive sectors like groceries and medicine. It is not clear if Amazon or Flipkart will challenge the new rules in court, or if there is a viable legal challenge. However, if the rules kick in on February 1, both companies will need to re-engineer their businesses, and perhaps shut down some subsidiaries. That is, by no means, a bad thing. Bala Murali Krishna works for a New York-based startup. Views are personal M Damodaran It is that time of the year when reviewers of all descriptions and dispositions take a look at the rear-view mirror and pronounce on what transpired in the preceding 12 months. Objectivity is sacrificed and personal prejudices rule the roost. We use the retrospectograh (a machine not invented) to ask ourselves what if... All resemblances to persons and events are not coincidental. Four public sector undertakings, holding 74% of the shareholding in an asset management company, are at daggers drawn with a foreign institutional investor holding 26%. The term of appointment of the managing director (MD) and CEO is to end in the second half of the year. While the four Indian entities are pushing for change, the foreign shareholder is insisting on a fresh term of office for the incumbent MD and CEO. Considering that time is running out and that a decision is required to be taken soon in the interest of the organisation, a meeting of the board of directors is called at short notice. After detailed discussions during which contrasting viewpoints are expressed on the performance of the MD and CEO and on the need for a change, it is decided in the interest of the organisation that the present MD and CEO shall continue for 12 more months in that capacity, and during the period of extension both contending parties would continue to engage in order to find a mutually acceptable solution. The board of directors of a very large private sector bank receive a complaint that the spouse of the MD and CEO has a business relationship with a group, which in turn has a borrowing relationship with the bank. The complaint alleges conflict of interest and hints at the possibility of corrupt practices. The board of directors, in a hurriedly convened meeting, shares the letter of complaint with the MD and CEO and seeks the latters response thereto. The CEO contests the content of the letter. Following detailed discussions, between the board and the CEO, it is decided that the CEO shall proceed on leave for a few months and an independent outside authority will enquire into the allegations. Since institutional interest is considered paramount, the CEO agrees with the suggestion and proceeds on leave and the board at the same time, decides on an external enquiry. It is agreed by both parties that if the enquiry leads to a favourable finding, the CEO will resume duties, and, having regard to the fact that the remaining period of the contract is only a few months, will take a decision on staying till the period of appointment is over or making an exit that might seem premature but will enhance governance standards. Accordingly, the CEO leaves and an interim CEO is appointed. The board of directors of a very large insurance company decides to become a majority shareholder in a beleaguered public sector bank. It is recognised by the board of directors that an investment which makes the insurance company a significant (above 10%) shareholder will need the approval of the insurance regulator. During discussions, some of the directors point out that the insurance company is primary responsible to its policyholders and that there is no pressing case for turning into a majority shareholder in a stressed public sector bank. At the same time, a view is expressed that the longstanding desire of the insurance company to have a bank of its own can be fulfilled by majority shareholding in the bank under examination. Protracted discussions ensue and there is no finality. Separately, the board of directors of the public sector bank decide that there is no great merit in agreeing to the insurance institution becoming the majority shareholder in place of the Government of India. It is also felt that this was not the first time that the bank or its parent institution was facing serious existential problems. On the previous occasion, it had been addressed by the creation of the Stressed Assets Stabilization Fund (SASF). A view is expressed that something similar can be attempted this time. The meeting concludes without any final decision. Simultaneously, the insurance entity files an application with the insurance regulator indicating its intention to acquire a commercial bank and seeking informal advice on whether permission is likely to be granted to acquire 51% shareholding in the bank when the limit prescribed by the regulator for such investments is 10%. The regulator responds by saying that there is no merit in such a proposal and that the insurance entity owed its duty primarily to policyholders. The regulator also advises the insurance company that if there was a felt need to become a majority shareholder in a commercial bank, the purpose will be achieved subject to regulatory approval, by increasing the shareholding in another bank where the insurance entity already held 26% of the shareholding. A large private sector bank is informed by the banking regulator that there is a very significant divergence between the NPA figures indicated by the bank and the NPA figures determined by the regulator. This large divergence would significantly impact the finalised results which had been communicated to shareholders and other stakeholders. After the next steps are discussed at the meeting of the board of directors, the MD and CEO whose term is to expire in a few months, decides to go to the RBI and to state that while he does not agree with the findings, he has no desire to enter into a public dispute on the subject and that if he had done anything remiss, he would be prepared to take the rap and move on. The MD and CEO makes an offer to the RBI that he would step down after three months, during which period a new MD and CEO would be inducted. The auditors of an entity, owning a leading airline, indicate their inability to certify the entity as a going concern. The audit committee meets soon thereafter and engages with the auditors to identify/confirm the problem areas and to determine remedial action(s). A leading management consultancy firm is brought in to prepare a roadmap for immediate improvement. Cost cutting, wherever necessary, is resorted to. Major stakeholders, such as representative unions and associations, are brought into the conversation, so that the sincerity of the attempts being made is effectively communicated and their buy-in obtained. Exploratory efforts are made to bring in a major investor. Questionable practices that have come to the adverse notice of investigative agencies are promptly discontinued and responsibility fixed on the persons responsible therefor. Meanwhile, aviation fuel prices, a major villain of the piece hitherto, starts moving southwards. Based on a whistleblower complaint, an exchange, which is a first-level regulator in the securities market, discovers that some brokers by virtue of co-location with the exchange, are privy to faster information, translating to a huge economic advantage. The senior management team immediately does a deep dive into the issue, identifies the problem and engages an expert agency to help it find a quick and effective solution. The exchange, on its own, informs SEBI regarding the problem and the steps being taken to address it. The individuals responsible and outside contributors, if any, to the problem are identified and promptly taken out of the equation. The whistleblower is suitably rewarded for his role in bringing the problem to the notice of the exchange. Two brothers, meet one morning, at breakfast, to discuss an emergent matter. A foreign entity to whom they sold their interest in a pharma company, has accused them of withholding vital information. They seek a meeting with the entity to iron out matters. Meanwhile, facing a cash crunch and having several commitments, they put a hospital company on the block. A transparent bidding process follows and the highest bid is accepted. The proceeds are used to meet their commitments and all litigation is avoided. William Wordsworth, the poet laureate of yore, recalled that, lying on his couch, in vacant or in pensive mood, his heart danced with the daffodils. Corporate historians, rewinding to 2018, will pensively remember nothing more than heart-wrenching fiddles. (This first appeared in www.excellenceenablers.com) M Damodaran is chairperson, Excellence Enablers, and former chairman, SEBI, UTI and IDBI. Views are personal. From why Rice Krispies snap, crackle and pop, to foods that explode when microwaved, to the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, here are 36 fun food facts you have no reason to know but will enjoy knowing anyway. (Kaitlin Miller and Bianca Sanchez, The Daily Meal) (CNN) As citizens of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) pointlessly refresh their web browsers this week, they may be getting a preview of just what Chinese-crafted cyberspace rules look like. The DRC on Monday became the latest country to cut its people off from the internet, as voters await the results of this weekend's highly-contested presidential election. Internet and social media shutdowns have become more and more common across Africa and Asia in recent years, particularly as authoritarian governments look to China as the model for controlling what people can say and do online. Speaking to Reuters Tuesday, a senior adviser to DRC President Joseph Kabila, said internet and text messaging services were shut down to preserve public order after "fictitious results" were circulated on social media. Barnabe Kikaya bin Karubi told the news agency that the country would remain offline until full results were published on January 6. Doing otherwise could "lead us straight toward chaos," he added. In a joint statement, U.S., European Union, Canadian and Swiss diplomats called on the Congolese government to refrain "from blocking means of communication, in particular access to the internet and the media." Growing trend Internet shutdowns have spiked sharply around the world in recent years, rising from 75 in 2016 to almost 190 last year, according to international digital rights group Access Now. "(We've seen an) increased number of intentional, government-sponsored internet disruptions in the past three years," Access Now's Melody Patry told CNN. "The techniques used by governments to shut down the internet vary, from total blackouts to targeted throttling or blocking of specific applications." Africa and Asia are the worst affected regions, with the longest recent shutdown happening in Cameroon when Anglophone regions of the country spent 230 days without internet access between January 2017 and March 2018. In the past three months, partial or full internet and social media shutdowns have been reported in the DRC, Sudan, and Cameroon, according to civil society organization NetBlocks. The effects of an internet shutdown go beyond simply cutting off people's access to information. A tool developed by NetBlocks and the Internet Society for measuring the financial costs of a shutdown estimates a day's outage in Congo alone can cause losses of more than $3 million. "Shutdowns are a blunt instrument for interrupting the spread of disinformation online," Washington-based Freedom House said in a report last year. "By cutting off service during such incidents, governments often deny entire cities and provinces access to communication tools at a time when they may need them the most, whether to dispel rumors, check in with family members, or avoid dangerous areas." Protecting 'national security' The methods behind an internet shutdown, particularly a complete one, are fairly simple. The government simply orders internet service providers (ISPs) to stop their connections -- it's like turning off a home modem, but for the entire country. Shutdowns can even happen accidentally, such as when one of the undersea fiber-optic cables which connect much of the world is damaged. This happened in 2008, cutting off a large swath of the Middle East from the global web. One of the first major political shutdowns occurred in Xinjiang, a region in far-west China long used by Beijing as a testing ground for its censorship and surveillance policies. After protests and riots broke out in the regional capital Urumqi in July 2009, internet access to all of Xinjiang -- along with international phone and text messaging services -- was cut off for almost a year. This was justified on the grounds of security, with the military newspaper China National Defense Daily warning the riots "once again demonstrates that it is becoming urgent to strengthen internet control. This is to avoid the internet becoming a new poisoned arrow for hostile forces." Similar justifications have been made by other countries following China's lead. According to Access Now, the top three reasons given for internet shutdowns are "public safety," stopping the spreading of illegal content and "national security." In Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni defended a 2016 shutdown as a "security measure to avert lies ... intended to incite violence and illegal declaration of election results." Last year, Museveni's government passed a new tax on social media, under which users must pay 200 Ugandan shillings ($0.05) a day to use popular platforms like Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp. Ugandan officials previously traveled to Beijing to learn from Chinese censors how to control social media, with government minister Evelyn Anite saying the country was "helpless" in the face of criminals using the web to "commit crimes with impunity." Chinese influence China is heavily involved in Africa's internet, with state-backed firms like Huawei and ZTE building internet backbones and other infrastructure for countries across the continent. This assistance often goes hand-in-hand with filtering technologies and advice on how to control online dissent. In its report last year, Freedom House warned "a cohort of countries is moving toward digital authoritarianism by embracing the Chinese model of extensive censorship and automated surveillance systems." It pointed to trainings run by Beijing for foreign officials on internet policy and controls. "While it is not always clear what transpires during such seminars, a training for Vietnamese officials in April 2017 was followed in 2018 by the introduction of a cybersecurity law that closely mimics China's own law," the report said. "Increased activity by Chinese companies and officials in Africa similarly preceded the passage of restrictive cybercrime and media laws in Uganda and Tanzania over the past year." Patry, the Access Now expert, said that China "has been pushing for a controlled internet" in international debates. The most recent example of this was at the annual World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, southern China. Long a roadshow for China's internet control policies, attendees at the latest conference -- including hundreds of government officials from African, Asian and Middle Eastern countries -- agreed to work towards "new global rules and norms for cyberspace while respecting nations' sovereignty in cyberspace." As citizens of the DRC are discovering, however, with more and more leaders hostile towards internet freedom and keen to follow China's model, new global rules crafted by Beijing are likely to benefit censors -- not users. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Democratic Republic of Congo internet shutdown shows how Chinese censorship tactics are spreading." Narendra Modi Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to begin the campaign for the 2019 Lok Sabha election in Assam from Silchar in Barak Valley on January 4, a Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson said. The rally is part of the first phase of the election campaign by Modi, the spokesperson said. This would be his second visit to Assam in a span of just 10 days. The prime minister had inaugurated the country's longest rail-cum-road bridge, Bogibeel bridge, on Christmas. During his day-long visit to the Northeast, Modi will first visit Manipur, where he will inaugurate and lay foundation stone of various projects at a rally. Then, he is scheduled to address a rally at Kalinagar in Silchar area, BJP state president Ranjeet Dass said. The BJP and its allies have set a target to win 21 out of the 25 parliamentary seats in eight states in the region. In Assam, they hope to win at least 11 of the 14 seats. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the saffron party had made massive inroads in Assam, winning seven seats. In the 2016 Assembly election, it emerged as the single-largest party with 61 seats. The BJP had also emerged as the winner in the Assam panchayat polls last month, bagging 42 percent of the total seats. The Congress won the second-highest number of seats, accounting for 34 percent of them, while regional party Asom Gana Parishad finished fourth, behind Independents who bagged 11 percent of the seats. India Economy India would not impose anti-dumping duty on coated paper from China, European Union and the US as the commerce ministry's investigation arm DGTR has not found any impact on the domestic industry due to the alleged dumped imports. After concluding its anti-dumping probe, the Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) has said "there is no causal link between the dumped imports" from these countries and "injury to the domestic industry". The directorate in a notification has said it "does not consider it appropriate to recommend levy of anti-dumping duty" on the papers from China, European Union and the US. It has also said there is a substantial increase in the imports from these counties in absolute terms but the increase was necessitated due to the decline in production of the domestic industry. The Indian Paper Manufacturers Association on behalf of BILT Graphics Paper Products, subsidiary of Ballarpur Industries, filed an application before the DGTR in January to initiate anti-dumping investigation on imports of coated paper from these countries. The directorate recommends duty only when it establishes that dumping has caused material injury to domestic players. The paper is primarily used for printing of magazines, catalogues, books and manuals, calendars, brochures, labels and flexible packaging. Countries carry out anti-dumping probe to determine whether their domestic industries have been hurt because of a surge in cheap imports. As a counter measure, they impose duties under the multilateral regime of the World Trade Organization. RA Sankara Narayanan is managing director and chief excecutive officer of Vijaya Bank. He has taken over the reigns of the bank from Kishore Sansi, who reached superannuation on August 31, 2018. Narayanan said the swap ratio for the proposed merger of Vijaya Bank with Bank of Baroda (BoB) was decided through fair and transparent process. Narayanan said the bank did not expect any issues with regards to the valuation or swap ratios. In an exclusive interview to CNBC-TV18, Narayanan also spoke about the future course of action after the merger. Watch the video here: Edited Excerpts: What is the reaction to the swap ratio itself, was it well received in the bank, any shareholders wrote to you? We are waiting. The swap ratio is 402 shares of Bank of Baroda for every 1,000 shares of Vijaya Bank. Number one, We have a fair and transparent way of independent valuations. Number two, fairness has been certified. Third, the grievances, if any, will be addressed by a committee. I do not see any issues on the valuations or the swap ratio as of now. Just a quick question in terms of rationalisation of operations, do you expect some layoffs post this entire amalgamation that will take place? Not necessarily because we are running totally combined around 9,500 branches. Bank of Baroda has branches across India. So there will not be much rationalisation or reduction in branch premises as of now. What would the total deposits look like for the combined entity? Will it become bigger than ICICI Bank? The combined business will be more than Rs 16.5 lakh crore; that will be the total business. I am sure there is good potential to grow and we shall be the second biggest public sector bank and third compared with all the banks operating in India. What are the steps that have already been taken? Have you taken steps in terms of who heads the bank, and how will be the fitment in terms of designations and ranks? As far as the operations are concerned, it is the staff from clerical to general manager level, they will all be fitted according to their date of joining, seniority, promotions, and all that. There will not be any issues as far as the regular offices of the bank is concerned. When it comes to management, it is a decision taken by the government from time-to-time and people effortlessly move from one bank to another. So the organisation and the sector of this will be decided by the finance ministry at appropriate time and we have no issues at all on that. You have no hint on is it that Jayakumar (BoB, MD) will continue to head the amalgamated entity, what will your role be, no hint has been given by the shareholders? Appropriate decision will be made by Department of Financial Services (DFS) and I think once the amalgamation takes place, definitely they will be thinking of proper roles for other MDs and EDs also, it should not be an issue. When is the amalgamated entity going to trade as one share and when will you change the name and put up common sign boards for all? April 1 will be the date for amalgamation. So the name boards cannot be changed overnight so there will be a group or member of BoB in all the 9,500 outlets and of course, the decision on logo and other things also has to be made and repainted. So it may take another six-nine months for the entire name board synchronisation, logo synchronisation. The staff deployment can happen maximum before September this year. So as of now, there is no decision or homework done on how many branches maybe duplicated? Not many. Maximum 200-300 branches may have duplication but depending on the potential and the business in that particular area, the decision can be taken. Are you all ready to integrate your treasury right away? After April. On April 1, you can have an integrated treasury, your software is talking to each other? The individual banks will declare the balance sheet on March 31. Whatever the integration is, it is from April 1 and for that too you require some regulatory approvals. Once it comes, everything will be formalised. Just a couple of questions on the new rules that have kicked in for MSMEs, what is your exposure to medium and small enterprises with loans under Rs 25 crore? The NPA or the performance of SME is much better in Vijaya Bank compared to many other banks. Our default ratio is somewhere 5-7 percent in that segment whereas industrywise it is around 15 percent. There are not many accounts as far as Vijaya Bank is concerned but we will selectively do the restructuring whatever prescriptions given by RBI. We will also follow it up. Overall the credit portfolio in Vijaya Bank is very sound. What is the amount, do you have the number? I dont have the number. Our results are on January 21. Are any of those in SMA? How many of the under Rs 25 crore are in SMA-I or SMA-II? Our portfolio is under SMA. It is insignificant as far as the value in Vijaya Bank is concerned. As of March 31, you are going to submit a standalone P&L (profit and loss). What will be the highlights of that P&L, are you expecting to maintain that 20 percent odd loan growth, are you expecting your net interest margin (NIM) around 3 percent? It is. Even for December as well as March, we are confident, we will maintain it including NPAs around below 6 percent as far as gross and below 4 percent. Are your provision coverage ratios as good as BoBs or will you have to increase it? We are somewhere around 63 percent. As far as the valuation is concerned, it has been valued at whatever RBIs valuations are concerned. We understand that many bankers have written to RBI asking for a bit of relaxation on several issues like for instance a standstill on IL&FS, that one day default should be changed to 60-day default or recognition only after 60-days, are you aware of this letter, were you signatory? Nothing specific from the bank has been given. Source: CNBC TV 18 live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear on January 8 Tamil Nadu's appeal against the NGT order to reopen Vedanta Ltd's Sterlite copper plant at Tuticorin. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul said the case will be heard next week. Senior advocate C A Sundaram, appearing for Vedanta, said Tamil Nadu has filed an appeal against the NGT order so the case be heard urgently as they are facing problems with storage of sulphuric acid in the plant. Startups Transparent practices will help protect consumer interests, the government on January 3 said in response to concerns raised by multiple stakeholders on the recently issued Press Note 2, adding that private label products will not be adversely affected under the new rules. "It has been commented by a few that the latest Press Note is against the interest of consumers. There are different views on how best consumer interests are protected and promoted. It is felt that fair, competitive and transparent business practices which are in compliance with law will better protect consumers in both short as well as medium and long term," Ministry of Commerce & Industry said in a statement. In a politically opportunistic move, the government last week tightened norms for online retailers, making it more difficult for them to use their nearly endless stream of foreign capital to fund high discount, banned exclusive tie-ups and covered group companies into the ambit of (foreign direct investment) FDI norms. It has also further tightened the norms under which discounts are offered to online customers, stressing upon the need for a level-playing field. The rules seemed to be a death knell for e-commerce companies. These are the companies that were circumventing Press Note 3 by means of tie-ups or stakes in third party entities. Press Note 2 also barred e-commerce entities from exercising control over the inventory - goods purported to be sold or directly or indirectly influence sale price of goods or services. Under this clause, marketplaces who were selling private label products on their websites were also to be affected. Private label products or brands are run by group companies of the parent marketplace or e-commerce sites. However for now, the government has clarified that the present policy does not impose any restriction on the nature of products which can be sold on marketplace. While it clarifies that private label will not come under the radar, it creates further ambiguity and loopholes which can thus be exploited by the marketplaces. "Concerns have been raised that Press Note 2/2018 prohibits sale of private label products through the marketplace. It is clarified that present policy does not impose any restriction on the nature of products which can be sold on the marketplace," the statement said. FDI policy on e-commerce, first pronounced through Press Note 2 of 2000, permitted 100% FDI in B2B e-commerce activities. With a view to clarify the already existing policy framework, Press Note 3 was issued by DIPP in 2016. "Through the latest Press Note the government has only reiterated the policy provisions to ensure better implementation of the policy in letter and spirit," it said. According to the government, this was in response to several complaints it received on how marketplace platforms were violating the policy by influencing the price of products and indirectly engaging in inventory-based model. "An e-commerce platform operating an inventory based model does not only violate the FDI policy on e-commerce but also circumvents the FDI policy restrictions on multi-brand retail trading. Therefore, latest Press Note on FDI policy on e-commerce sector was needed to ensure that the rules are not circumvented," it said. Online marketplace giants Flipkart and Amazon are planning to team up to voice concerns against the new e-commerce policy, according to a Business Standard report. e-commerce platforms are planning to take the help of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and investment giants such as SoftBank, Tiger Global and Naspers to hold a dialogue with the government. Also Read: Govt hands massive blow to Amazon, Flipkart; bars deep discounts, cashback schemes, exclusive deals These firms are set to suffer a big blow as the government has barred them from selling their own goods, while also putting an end to deep discounts and cashback schemes offered by them in the policy. "There is tangible fear that the government might enact a policy that makes it unviable for Amazon and Flipkart to continue their business here. They will have to completely revamp the way they work and whatever they have achieved in the country till now would all dial back to zero. The sector is now planning to take the help of industry bodies such as CII and FICCI, as approaching the government via them would be much smoother," a source told the paper. Read New draft e-commerce policy will fix loopholes: Report Experts are of the view that Amazon and Flipkart are being unnecessarily targeted as offline retailers have for long owned private labels, the report said. "Physical retailers also have private labels. It is a legitimate business practice. There is no reason to single out e-commerce firms. It is not a publicly held firm, so they have every right to run with their business plans. Let the Competition Commission of India (CCI) look into any issues if there are any," Arvind Singhal, Chairman, Technopak Advisors, told the paper. The companies fear that shutting down or cutting business under their private labels may impact the number of direct and indirect jobs they provide. They may also have to rethink their India expansion plans. Read New FDI policy on e-commerce: Domestic retailers welcome move The government's move comes after local traders complained that they were being put out of business because of steep discounts that these e-commerce giants offered. The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) and Swadeshi Jagran Manch has been reportedly putting pressure on the government to rollout an e-commerce policy favouring the interest of local traders. Players fear the government may take populist measures to appease traders ahead of general elections 2019. The committee constituted by the government to examine the difficulties faced in giving effect to provisions of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016 met on January 3 to discuss issues ranging from empowering regulatory authorities and adjudicating officers to direct even local administration and government authorities, to what constitutes a defect liability period. Suggestions from developers, RERA authorities and home buyers were received at the meeting held in the Capital. A draft would now be prepared by the ministry of housing and urban affairs and put up for further discussion at the next meeting to be held on January 22, sources said. It was recommended that the scope of RERA sections 35, 36 and 37 be widened to empower regulatory authorities and adjudicating officers to issue directions to any stakeholders including local administration and government authorities, those present at the meeting said. It was proposed that the powers provided to consumer forums should be given to RERA authorities too. They should have the power to issue arrest warrants and ensure execution of their orders in a time bound manner to ensure consumers get timely justice, sources said. The most important issue facing the credibility of RERAs today is giving it the power to implement its own decisions, said Anthony De Sa, Chairman, Real Estate Regulatory Authority, government of Madhya Pradesh. It should have the power to issue directives to other stakeholders besides allottees and builders such as government agencies and local departments. RERA should be given the powers of a civil court to implement its decisions otherwise it would be dependent on the civil courts and the time taken to implement the order would take far too long, he says. For example, if the builder defies the directive given by RERA such paying compensation to home buyers, the authority has to refer the matter to the civil court. If we had the powers of a civil court, we could do it ourselves and not go to civil court. There is therefore a delay in the procedure, he explains. Real estate developers represented by Naredco and Credai have suggested to bar the jurisdiction of consumer forum as presently done for civil courts under section 79 under RERA Act to avoid conflicts with judgments of RERA authorities and consumer forums which are presently both forums for RERA disputes. This was opposed by home buyers who were of the opinion that consumers have the right to decide the forum before which they wish to claim relief. "Rera should be the preferred forum that home buyers should approach rather than being forced to go to," said Abhay Upadhyay, President, Forum for People's Collective Efforts (FPCE). It was also proposed that presently some cases related to defaulting builders are directly being adjudicated by NCLT. While RERA Act does not presently provide for references of cases of defaulting builders to NCLT, it is suggested that such cases be initially referred to RERA authorities for resolution of dispute within 180 days before invoking the insolvency proceeding. If RERA authorities fail to resolve, the dispute may be referred to NCLT for adjudication, sources said. Developers have also proposed a bifurcation of the defect liability period and that of workmanship. "We have suggested that the defect liability period should start from the date of completion, occupation certificate instead of possession date as there would be multiple possession dates and that the defect liability period of five years from the date of completion/occupation certificate should be limited to structural defect. As for the defect liability period for workmanship, it is suggested to be for a period of one year from date of completion certificate," said Niranjan Hiranandani, president, National Real Estate Development Council (NAREDCO). This bifurcation has been opposed by home buyers. "It should be given to home buyers from the day they get possession of the apartment and not from the date of receiving the completion certificate," said Upadhyay. The decision to form the committee comes after four RERA workshops were organised in Pune, Chennai, Delhi and Ranchi where stakeholders, including home buyers, had given suggestions for effective implementation of the Real Estate Regulatory Act (RERA). The ministry has formed a committee under its joint secretary Shiv Das Meena. The panel will look into the suggestions received at the four workshops held on RERA and then submit its recommendations to the ministry. Section 91 of RERA provides that in case any difficulty arises in giving effect to the provisions of this Act, the Central Government may, by order, published in the official Gazette, (within two years of the commencement of the Act) make such provisions not inconsistent with the provisions of this Act as may appear to be necessary for removing the difficulty. Issuing a stern warning to states who have tweaked the Central Real Estate Regulatory Act (RERA), union housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri on November 15 had made it clear that the government would not amend any provision of the legislation at any cost and that states resorting to such practices would have to "fall in line, otherwise the consequences would be very harsh". Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (RERA) was passed by the Parliament in March, 2016. As many as 28 states and union territories have notified rules under RERA except Jammu & Kashmir (as RERA is not applicable there), six North Eastern states (Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim) and West Bengal has enacted its own Act I.e. Housing & Industry Regulation Act (HIRA). As many as 28 states/UTs have set up Real Estate Regulatory Authority (Regular - 15, Interim - 13). As many as 21 states/UTs have set up Real Estate Appellate Tribunal (Regular -09, Interim 12). Regulatory Authorities of 23 states/UTs have operationalised their websites under the provisions of RERA. As many as 34,893 real estate projects and 27,073 real estate agents have registered under RERA across the country. vandana.ramnani@nw18.com Indian workers build an information and technology park in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata April 26, 2006. Pradip Chopra, a real estate developer in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata, seems to be on a perpetual high these days. Business is a booming for Chopra's business has grown 10 times in the last five years and he is now building shopping malls and housing complexes worth 3 billion rupees ($67 million). REUTERS/Parth Sanyal - GM1DSLXNVOAA Ascendas Singbridge, a sustainable urban development and business space solutions provider, on January 3 announced the acquisition of a 12.20-acre land parcel in Chennai from GSquare Group to develop a new IT Park, the company said. With a total development potential of 2.30 million sq ft, the land parcel will be developed into an IT park with supporting amenities. The first phase will offer approximately 1.10 million sq ft of Grade A business space and construction will commence soon based on approvals. The land parcel is strategically located on PallavaramThoraipakkam Road (also known as Radial Road), an upcoming IT corridor that is connected to Old Mahabalipuram Road and Grand Southern Trunk Road, the two existing major IT corridors in Chennai, the company said in a release. The location is accessible by several main roads and well-connected to Chennai International Airport. It is also located in close proximity to residential catchments, educational institutions, and hospitals. As an expansion of Ascendas-Singbridge Group's iconic International Tech Park brand, the development will be named International Tech Park Chennai (ITPC) Radial Road, after the flagship ITPC Taramani. This will be the group's sixth property in Chennai, and will add to its current Chennai portfolio that comprises two IT parks (ITPC Taramani & CyberVale), an integrated industrial development (OneHub Chennai), and two logistics and warehouse facilities at Oragadam and Periyapalayam by Ascendas-Firstspace. "Chennai is a key market for our India business, and this acquisition further demonstrates our commitment to the city and the State of Tamil Nadu. ITPC Radial Road is well-located in an up-and-coming, high-growth area, and will strengthen Ascendas-Singbridge Group's International Tech Park suite of business space solutions. We will continue delivering our best in terms of quality, asset management services, and amenities, with the aim of providing an attractive and conducive business environment for our tenants," said Vinamra Srivastava, CEO, India Operations and Private Funds, Ascendas-Singbridge Group. The governments first debt Central Public Sector Enterprises exchange-traded fund (CPSE ETF) is coming soon. Edelweiss Asset Management Co has won the mandate to launch this ETF. Edelweiss was the best bidder in technical as well as financial bids. They are waiting for a written confirmation, but theyve won the bid to launch Indias first debt ETF, said a senior mutual funds industry who refused to be quoted. Edelweiss Asset Management refused to comment. Indias Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced in his Budget 2018 speech in February that the government will launch a debt CPSE ETF to help the state-owned companies raise money from the public by issuing bonds. So far, the government disinvested its stake in state-owned companies using the ETF route. Now, it wants some of these companies to also borrow money from retail investors via the ETF route. This is where the debt CPSE ETF comes in. At an expense ratio of 0.0005 percent, Edelweiss bid turned out to be the lowest. In simple words, the debt ETFs expense ratio will be 0.0005 percent, making it the scheme with the least total expense ratio (TER). As per the capital market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of Indias (Sebi) mutual fund regulations, equity funds can charge a maximum of 2.5 percent TER annually, debt funds can charge a maximum of 2.25 percent and passive funds like ETFs and index funds can charge a maximum of 1.5 percent TER. The contours of the scheme are yet unclear as the official quoted above said the fund house will discuss the modalities with the finance ministry. Broadly speaking, a bond ETF is an instrument that helps state-owned companies to borrow money. Instead of individual companies issuing securities like bonds as and when they wish to borrow money, a debt ETF would bring together many such securities across companies- typically 10-12- that wish to borrow money. An index would be created out of this basket of debt securities that would serve to the debt ETFs benchmark index. Another industry official that Moneycontrol spoke to said the scheme could be either an open-ended ETF or a closed-end ETF. He did not wish to be quoted but added, in case of an open-ended ETF, companies can approach the market (issue securities) as and when they decide to borrow. Every time such a security gets issued by a state-owned company, the benchmark index would undergo a change and the debt ETF would need to re-balance its portfolio. A closed-ended debt ETF would be different. Here, once this set of 10-12 companies decide to borrow, they would issue instruments in which the debt ETF would invest in. Then, anytime these companies from this set wish to raise more money, another benchmark index of such securities and by virtue, another debt ETF would need to be launched. The second debt ETF would then invest in the second set of securities, but issued by the same set of state-owned companies chosen to raise money through this route. Since the underlying companies are all government-owned companies, it should work. Especially, in these times when credit rating can be a scare, this debt ETF has a good scope. It gives investors a wide exposure. Its good," says Srikanth Bhagavat, Managing Director, Hexagon Capital Advisors. Shyam Sekhar, Founder of investment advisory firm ithought agrees: There is a huge market of investors who want to safer debt funds. There have been at least 3-4 instances where debt funds have rattled investors. This product will be welcomed by investors. Another mutual fund industry official told us the benchmark index could also include government bonds to ensure liquidity of the debt ETF. The exact contours of the scheme will be known in a few weeks time. Watch this space for more. Suresh Sadagopan Financial services field is replete with cases where client interests have been sacrificed at the altar of self-interest. The worst form of abuse of trust (by packaging risky securities and offering them as high-quality assets) happened in the US, which precipitated a global financial crisis in 2008. Regulators across the globe since then have started looking closely at investor protection. They started ringing in regulations to rein in the dubious practices that the financial services industry uses to ensnare the unsuspecting public. The investors had nowhere to turn to when they wanted conflict-free advice. They just had product sellers who also offered advice to their clients about financial matters. But, their role is conflicted as they are agents of a principal and represent them. True advisers, who worked only in the clients interest, were marked by their absence. SEBI Investor Advisor Regulation 2013 There was a dire need for advisors who would work in the clients interest. The capital market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had debated about this and finally came out with SEBI Investment Adviser Regulations 2013. This regulation was intended to create a new class of advisors who would work only in the clients best interests. These Registered Investment Advisers (RIA) were now required to work in the capacity of fiduciaries. Fiduciaries are those who put the clients interest above everything else. This was a major thrust area of the regulation. The regulation also sets higher benchmarks for RIAs which they need to adhere to - in education, experience and certification. It is also expected from them to follow proper processes while advising clients, ensure suitability of advice rendered, do proper risk profiling and consider other information before providing advice, etc. The compliance is also of a higher order which includes process and compliance annual audits. Leeway provided This regulation also allowed a corporate entity to offer advisory and distribution services within the same entity, provided they were properly segregated, maintained arms length dealings, disclosed conflicts of interests to the clients and gave them a choice to go anywhere for product sourcing. There were many corporate entities which had both departments within them. Individual advisors had to decide between advisory and distribution. In many cases, one became an advisor and the distribution business was anchored by a relative, friend or an associate. Again, in this model too, all safeguards were to be followed arms length dealings, a choice to investors to go wherever they want to source products, disclosure of conflicts of interest, etc. Fine-tuning the regulation The 2013 regulation was the first salvo. SEBI wanted to fine-tune the regulation to make it more sharply defined and sought to remove the potential conflicts of interests that were inherent in the regulation. Hence, they came with consultation papers which sought to redraw the regulatory framework. There have been three of them till now. The consultation papers have confused rather than clarify matters. The consecutive consultation papers have mapped quite different paths. The third consultation paper released on January 2, 2018 was the most radical in its prescription. It sought to sharply divide between advisory and distribution. It wanted to proscribe advisors from doing product distribution, through a separate department or even through an associate company (defined as anything where the advisory firm/ directors/ partners collectively have 15 percent or more beneficial interest). In the case of individual advisors, it wanted them to choose either advisory or distribution and sought to prohibit near relatives from agency work. It also wanted to restrict MF distributors to no longer offer any advice but rather stick to just explaining the product and ensure product appropriateness. Existing investment advisers who were offering both advisory and distribution were to decide what they want to do before March 31, 2019, as per this consultation paper. Scenario analysis RIAs are mostly those who have been distributors before who have made the transition. Based on the extant regulations, they have created their corporate/ individual structures and business models. When the regulatory intent suddenly tightens, it will result in turmoil in the advisory community and the velocity of the advisory practice will slow down for the entire industry. The intent of SEBI is clear. It wants to create conflict-free advisors who can offer truly aligned advice to investors. It wants the advisors to play a fiduciary role, where client interest is pre-eminent. SEBI needs to keep this as the central percept around which it needs to further weave the regulation. They can allow the existing RIAs to offer both advisory and distribution, and offer them a path to pure advisory, over time. These RIAs would need to play a fiduciary role and the centrality of client-interest and conflict-free nature of advisory needs to be maintained. They can have another category of RIAs who are fee-only, dont have any distribution arrangements and are pure play advisors. They will be advisors in letter and spirit, playing the fiduciary role for their customers. This would be the ultimate position that an advisor would want to be in terms of client centricity and professional maturity. SEBI can further distinguish these two categories of RIAs to differentiate them from each other and can give them a suitable name to position them correctly to the investing public at large. It can be something like RIA-composite and RIA-pure advisory. The existing mutual fund distributors would perform their role but SEBI can clarify exactly what they can & cant do. It is important to ensure continuity and enable smooth transitions in the regulatory regime so that it is not disruptive for the industry or the investors at large. A calibrated approach would ultimately achieve SEBIs objectives of having advisors who are entirely fee-only, unbiased and client-focused. Hoping that SEBI also sees it this way. The writer is the founder of Ladder7 Financial Advisories, a financial planning firm. January 03, 2019 / 03:36 PM IST Market at Close Equities are closing the session with cuts of over a percent on both indices. The Nifty ended below 10,700, while the Sensex ended nearly 400 points lower. Amid an all-round sell-off among sectors, financials, automobiles, and metals bled, while investors also dumped in the midcaps space. All of this added to the volatility on the market. At the close of market hours, the Sensex was down 377.81 points or 1.05% at 35513.71, and the Nifty lower by 120.20 points or 1.11% at 10672.30. The market breadth was negative as 962 shares advanced, against a decline of 1,588 shares, while 151 shares were unchanged. Asian Paints, HUL, and Bharti Infratel were the top gainers, while ONGC, M&M, IOC and Eicher Motors lost the most. The Nifty50 is likely to open higher on Thursday following positive trend seen in other Asian markets. The index closed 117 points lower at 10,792 on Wednesday. Trends on SGX Nifty indicate a positive opening for the broader index in India, a rise of 23.5 points or 0.22 percent. Nifty futures were trading around 10,855-level on the Singaporean Exchange. Wall Street edged higher on Wednesday after stumbling out of the starting gate on the first trading day of 2019, while fears of a global economic slowdown were exacerbated after Apple cut its holiday-quarter revenue forecast, said a Reuters report. Shares in Asia were trading flat after Apple Inc cut its revenue forecast due in part to weaker sales in China, adding to concerns about the slowing global economy. The Indian rupee on January 2 crashed by 75 paise, its first loss in last four sessions, to close at 70.18 against the US dollar amid strengthening of the greenback and heavy selling in domestic equities. Stocks in news: Bank of Baroda announced on January 2 the fair equity share exchange ratio for shareholders of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank. Bank of Baroda said Vijaya Bank shareholders will receive 402 shares of BoB for 1,000 shares held of Vijaya Bank. PNB Housing Finance said on Wednesday it has raised USD 265 million (Rs 1,853 crore) through external commercial borrowing (ECB) route last week. Indian state-owned fuel retailers, including Indian Oil Corp. Ltd, Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd (BPCL) have stopped absorbing a government-mandated cut of Rs 1 a litre in their marketing margins on the sale of petrol and diesel due to a steep fall in global crude oil prices, Reuters reported quoting sources. RBL Bank appoints Pankaj Sharma as Chief Operations Officer Motherson Sumi - ICRA reaffirmed term loan rating to ICRA AA+, while outlook revised from positive to stable Bank of India: Board approved to increase in authorized capital from Rs 3000 crore to Rs 6000 crore. Capital raising plan for issue of Equity Shares and Tier-I and Tier-II Capital Bonds to be raised at appropriate times in future Bharti Airtel: Lost 18.6 Lakh Subscribers Vs Loss Of 23.6 Lakh (MoM) Technical Recommendations: We spoke to Bonanza Portfolio Ltd and heres wha11t they have to recommend: Balrampur Chini Mills: Buy| CMP: Rs.104.50 | Target: Rs 114-116.50| Stop Loss: Rs 100| Return 11% Colgate Palmolive India: SELL| CMP: Rs 1301.80 | Target: Rs 1200| Stop Loss: Rs 1361| Return 8% Maruti Suzuki India Ltd: SELL| CMP: Rs. 7267| Target: Rs 6800| Stop Loss: Rs 7486| Return 6.30% Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by investment expert on moneycontrol.com are his own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More The market was highly volatile in 2018, but the benchmark indices managed to close the year with single-digit gains. Swings in crude oil prices, rupee volatility, trade tensions between US and China, liquidity crisis in non-banking finance companies, state elections, Fed rate hikes. etc. were prominent reasons for rangebound market in last year. Most experts feel some of these above reasons could be dominant in 2019 also, in addition to Lok Sabha elections, global growth concerns and earnings recovery. According to them, first half of the year is expected to be volatile due to general elections, but the second half is likely to be largely driven by earnings, macro and global factors. Hence, double-digit return in frontline indices can't be ruled out, they said. "Current macro-economic conditions and valuations are quite supportive and drive expectations of decent (10-15 percent) equity returns in 2019," Sanjeev Prasad of Kotak Institutional Equities said. He believes the market is reasonably valued although the reasonable valuations reflect strong earnings revival over FY19-21. The broader markets largely underperformed frontline indices with the BSE Midcap index falling 13.4 percent and Smallcap losing 23.5 percent in 2018, but it is likely reverse in 2019. "Midcaps and small caps have seen sharp correction in 2018 and several companies with solid fundamentals are available at much more reasonable valuations now. Given the overall robustness in earnings recovery, 2019 could be a year of midcaps and smallcaps," Harendra Kumar - Managing Director, Institutional Equities, Elara Capital told Moneycontrol. Here are top 10 picks one can consider for the portfolio. These stocks are expected to give 17-37 percent returns in 2019 and at the end of current year, average return could be 23 percent. So if one can invest Rs 10,000 in each of the 10 stocks, which comes to Rs 1,00,000, he/she could grow the sum to Rs 1,22,658 at the end of 2019, with 23 percent average. Brokerage: Credit Suisse L&T | Rating: Outperform | Target: Rs 1,700 | Return: 18% The research house reiterated its outperform rating based on domestic pick-up, lower Middle East dependence (only 6 percent of total orders in first half of FY19), strong cash flows, upside from divestiture and valuation at around 16x September 2020 estimates EPC earnings. Upside surprise is likely from better margins on strong execution, opportunities from budding private investment cycle and lower losses from Hyderabad Metro in FY20/21E. Bharat Heavy Electricals | Rating: Outperform | Target: Rs 100 | Return: 37% BHEL would have a sustainable opportunity of more than 10 GW per annum. This level of execution can drive sharp EPS recovery and rerating. The company has tremendous operating leverage, given 42 percent contribution margin on incremental revenues on low base. Target price implies a multipleof 6x EV/EBITDA on FY21E EBITDA and around 1x book. Key risk relates to the time taken for positive power sector dynamics to strengthen and get broadly recognised. Weak orders in any year, particularly in the near term, could affect sentiment. Large working capital exposure is a risk. State Bank of India | Rating: Outperform | Target: Rs 350 | Return: 18% Post several quarters of muted growth, SBI has seen a pick-up in loan growth over the past few quarters. Post several years of asset quality stress, the research house expects slippages to moderate in the coming quarters, credit costs should normalise in FY20. The bank would see strong recoveries in second half on account of a couple of large cases. With stock trading at around 0.9x FY20E core P/B and return on equity expected to improve to around 13 percent as credit costs moderate, the research house maintained outperform call. Analyst: VK Sharma, Head - PCG and Capital Market Strategy at HDFC Securities Axis Bank | Rating: Buy | Target - Rs 815 | Return - 31% Axis has gone through tough times. It has borne the brunt of deterioration of asset quality over the past few quarters. But that is now changing. The net NPA has come down from 3.09 percent in June to 2.4 percent in September 2019. We see the asset quality improving over the next four quarters and may also write back in a few cases. The bank is well capitalised at 16.2 percent and has the highest provision coverage ratio in the sector at 73 percent. The beginning of the year 2019 also sees a change of guard at the top which result in a further re-rating of the stock. We see a price target of Rs 815 in a year's time. ITC | Buy | Target: Rs 340 | Return - 21% ITC is an attractive consumption stock from a risk reward perspective. It is the most diversified consumer company in the country. Tobacco accounts for 44 percent of the sales and 85 percent of the EBITA. The company built 25 mother brands in the non-tobacco business of Rs 16,000 crore and plans to take it to Rs 1,00,000 crore by 2030. The tobacco business, saw a 3.5 percent volume growth in this year, something not seen since many quarters. The implementation of the GST has stabilised its external volatile environment. We see a re-rating of the company and see the market giving it a higher PE in the days to come. We see a price target of Rs 340 in a year's time. Prospective investors will do well to accumulate stocks at declines. Disclosure: Sharma has exposure to ITC stock. Brokerage: Motilal Oswal Titan Company | Rating: Buy | Target: Rs 1,105 | Return: 19% Wedding season demand is scaling up well for Titan. If consumers continue flocking to its stores in the wedding season, jewellery sales growth of 25 percent for the full year is achievable. Same-store-sales growth (SSSG) is likely to contribute 75-80 percent of jewellery sales growth, which is even higher than the impressive 60 percent that it was reporting earlier. This, in turn, would have extremely positive implications on jewellery EBIT margin. Revenue growth opportunity of 20 percent is immense and far superior to peers. Also, the margin trajectory appears to be on an uptrend, as revenue is being driven by SSSG. We expect 25 percent EPS CAGR over FY18-20. Infosys | Rating: Buy | Target: Rs 800 | Return: 21% Infosys has built capabilities to match spend shifts in the past three years and Digital revenue now accounts for around 30 percent of companys revenue. Infosys has also been one of the most disciplined companies in terms of operational efficiency in last couple of years which has helped maintain margins while investing aggressively in building capabilities. The acceleration in growth momentum, aided by a pick-up in verticals like Financial Services and Retail, and the visibility for its continual from recent deal wins provides confidence of improvement in the coming quarters. We expect Infosys to register a revenue/PAT of 8 / 13 percent CAGR over the next three years largely driven by Digital segment. Hindustan Unilever | Rating: Buy | Target: Rs 2,140 | Return: 18% HUL offers the best earnings growth visibility in the large-cap Indian consumer space. Four key trends are helping HUL in elevating its earnings growth trajectory to around 20 percent: (1) rapidly improving adaptability to market requirements, (2) recognition and strong execution on Naturals, (3) strong trend toward premiumization and (4) extensive plans to employ technology and create further entry barriers. The acquisition of GSK Consumer healthcare business pushes HUL among the market leaders in the only key category where it did not have market leadership (Food and Refreshments). Aurobindo Pharma | Rating: Buy | Target: Rs 920 | Return: 26% The company has guided for 2x industry growth rate in EU market along with better profitability on account of transfer of 97 products from EU to India. We remain positive on Aurobindo on robust ANDA filings rate, strong pace of approvals, minimal regulatory hurdles and the company outperforming the industry in the EU market. We expect Aurobindo to record 24 /22 /18 percent CAGR for revenue/EBITDA/Adjusted PAT over FY18-20E, with RoE/RoCE of 22 /16 percent in FY20E. Brokerage: Axis Securities IndusInd Bank | Rating: Buy | Target - Rs 1,876 | Return: 17% IndusInd Bank has an ideal mix of loan book with niche presence in vehicle finance and corporate banking inclined towards working capital finance. Strong NIM, higher other income and stable asset quality have resulted in consistent operating performance. We expect the bank with its high share of CASA (44 percent) to be amongst the key beneficiaries of the higher spreads and softening yields in the near term. Key monitorables are the Bharat Financial merger, IL&FS exposure and changes in top management. The views and investment tips expressed by investment expert on moneycontrol.com are his own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on Thursday asked the Ahmedabad bench of National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to expeditiously take a final decision in the Essar Steel insolvency case, where Arcelot Mittal has emerged as the highest bidder. A two-member bench, headed by NCLAT Chairman Justice S J Mukhopadhayam asked the NCLT bench to take an early decision in the matter as per the order passed by the Supreme Court in this regard. The appellate tribunal was hearing an application filed by the committee of creditors (CoC) seeking an early decision. Senior advocate Gopal Subaramanium appearing for the CoC said that NCLT was adjoining the matter without giving any reason twice. The matter is listed at NCLT Ahmedabad on January 7 for next hearing. Ravi Krishnan Its a mugs game to invest in government-owned institutions. The goal of a state-owned institution varies from serving underserved areas to providing jobs. Profit making is incidental. Moreover, the promoter, the government, is free to plunder reserves of a company it owns, arrange shotgun marriages between any of them, all without consulting the minority shareholder. The upshot: investors in state-owned banks, who seem to think that a new era is dawning with recognitions of bad loans over and that things will get better, would do well to mull over the consequences of Bank of Barodas merger with Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank. Bank of Baroda shareholders seem to have got a sweeter deal, but then thats the price they have to pay for the bitter pill of Dena Banks NPAs. Theres no guarantee that they will be compensated with higher returns after the merger takes place. Mergers and acquisitions are always tricky, but state ownership of these institutions will make success that much more elusive for this particular union. In the first place, it is still unclear what the government hopes to achieve. Synergy, that favourite word of investment bankers who get fat fees for brokering such marriages, would be difficult to achieve precisely because they are state-owned enterprises. For instance, will the merged entity be able to shutter branches? Will it be able to lay off, or at least offer a premature retirement package for some staff to save on employment costs? PSU bank employee unions are already crying foul and gone on multiple strikes. Will such a merger be effective in preventing such a massive NPA pile-up in the future? For that lending, habits have to change. Two months ago, in its analysis of the top 100 bank frauds in India (most of which took place in state-owned banks), the central vigilance commission showed up the lacunae in the credit appraisal and monitoring process, the same things responsible for NPAs. Its easy to blame PSU bankers, but the buck stops with the owner. When bankers are under repeated pressure to do directed lending and not incentivised for doing things the right way, its almost a miracle that the system has not already crumbled. This year is the 50anniversary of bank nationalisation. Its a good time to assess and ponder the future. While outright privatisation will be the best option, the least the government should do is consider overhauling governance and management structures at PSU banks. A truly independent board, which should ideally take calls on mergers, would be a good first step. Coffee exports from India declined 7.36 percent on a year-on-year basis to 3.50 lakh tonnes in 2018 owing to a fall in shipment of robusta and instant coffee varieties, according to Coffee Board. In terms of value also, coffee exports dropped to Rs 5,770.48 crore in 2018 from Rs 6,091 crore in the previous year. Italy was the top export market for India in 2018, as 76,437.56 tonnes of coffee was exported to the country followed by Germany (28,582 tonnes) and Russia (21,397 tonnes). As per the Board's latest data, the country exported 3,50,280 tonnes of coffee in 2018 calendar year, lower than 3,78,119 tonnes in the previous year. Out of which, export of robusta varieties showed a decline of 17.65 percent at 1,79,903 tonnes in 2018 as against 2,18,463 tonnes in 2017. The shipment of instant coffee also showed a decline of 39.87 percent to 29,157 tonnes in 2018 calendar year as against 48,496 tonnes in the previous year. However, there was slight increase in the shipment of arabica coffee varieties at 53,302 tonnes in 2018 as against 47,314 tonnes in 2017. The shipments in terms of value remained lower even as the export realisation was higher at Rs 1,64,738 per tonne in 2018 as against Rs 1,61,086 per tonne in the previous year, the Board data showed. Moneycontrol News Mumbai-based real estate developer Sanjay Agarwal (57) of Sanjona Builders committed suicide on January 3 by shooting himself with his licensed revolver, police have said. The builder shot himself at his office in Sindhi Colony, Chembur. Officials said that the incident happened at around 11:25 am. Agarwal's son, brother-in-law and members from his staff were present outside his cabin at the time of the incident. The police have registered a case of accidental death at Chembur police station and the deceased builder's body has been sent to Rajawadi hospital for postmortem, police officials said. According to Agarwal's family members, he was under stress as his project on 10th Road in Chembur had got delayed, police said, adding that a probe was underway. Earlier, Agarwal had worked in a senior position at Nukem Industries, one of the largest suppliers of chemicals to most of the top pharmaceutical companies in the country, for 20 years. He had formed Sanjona Builders in 1999 in partnership with one Sunil Gupta. (With inputs from PTI) Supreme Court of India (SC) live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More A Supreme Court order on an insolvency case could come to the aid of the Ruias who are battling to keep Essar Steel within the Essar Group fold. The Ruias had, in a last-minute move, proposed to withdraw insolvency proceedings against Essar Steel and offered to pay Rs 54,000 crore to the lenders. But the Committee of Creditors (CoC), consisting of Essar Steel lenders, had chosen to go with ArcelorMittal's offer of Rs 42,000 crore. The Ruias had appealed against this. The promoters may now have another argument to support their case. The Supreme Court on December 14 delivered an order on the insolvency proceedings against Brilliant Alloys, a company registered in Chennai. The promoters of the company had proposed that insolvency and bankruptcy proceedings be withdrawn in lieu of payment of outstanding dues. Even though the proposal was agreed to by the creditor State Bank of India, the Chennai bench of National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) turned it down. The NCLT bench had cited clause 30A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), according to which a resolution process can't be withdrawn after issuing an invitation for expression of interest. But Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman and Justice Navin Sinha in their order took another view. The order issued by them said: "According to us, this regulation has to be read along with the main provision section 12A which contains no such stipulation." "Accordingly, this stipulation can only be construed as directory depending on the facts of each case. Accordingly, we allow the Settlement that has been entered into and annul the proceedings." Section 12A allows for the withdrawal of an insolvency case, but with the approval of 90 percent of the CoC. "The order should help the Ruias. The Supreme Court is clear the Clause 30A is only directory in nature. An insolvency case can be withdrawn at any stage," said a lawyer from a legal firm. Another order The order in the Brilliant Alloys matter is not the only one that could help the Ruias present their case. In an order delivered on December 21, the Mumbai bench of the NCLT ruled that the CoC can't refuse a bid even if it has come after the deadline. This was regarding a petition by Omkara Assets Reconstruction, which had appealed against the resolution professional of Unimark Remedies, facing insolvency proceedings. The lenders had refused to accept Omkara's bid, as it had come after the deadline. The order said: "The rejection of the Resolution Plan... is certainly against the law/Code and we hereby direct the Respondent to forthwith consider the Resolution plan of the Applicant on its merits and a judicious decision may be taken in the best interest of the parties concerned." While it could be argued that the order will help the Ruias, with their proposal seen as a 'last-minute one,' there is a difference. While Omkara Assets had submitted an expression of interest for Unimark that was accepted as one of the resolution applicants, in the Ruias case it was not so. Essar Steel had three bidders - Numetal, which had Essar co-founder Ravi Ruia's son Rewant Ruia as a shareholder, ArcelorMittal and Vedanta Resources. "In Essar Steel's case, the Ruias are not presenting a resolution plan, but want the insolvency proceedings to be withdrawn," said the legal firm executive quoted above. The next hearing of the case at the NCLT is on January 7. The following companies are subsidiares of Laboratory Co. of America: 1957285 Ontario Inc. dba Quality Underwriting Services, 2089729 Ontario Inc., 2248848 Ontario Inc., 3065619 Nova Scotia Company, 3257959 Nova Scotia Company, 896988 Ontario Limited, 9279-3280 Quebec Inc., Accupath Diagnostic Laboratories Inc., Alpha Medical Laboratory LLC, Assets of Pathology Inc, Beacon LBS IPA Inc., Beacon Laboratory Benefit Solutions Inc., CannAmm GP Inc., CannAmm Limited Partnership, Center for Disease Detection International, Center for Disease Detection LLC, Centrex Clinical Laboratories Inc., Clearstone Central Laboratories (U.S.) Inc., Clearstone Holdings (International) Ltd., Clipper Holdings Inc., Colorado Coagulation Consultants Inc., Colorado Laboratory Services LLC, Correlagen Diagnostics Inc., Covance Inc., Curalab Inc., Cytometry Associates Inc., Czura Thornton (Hong Kong) Limited, DCL Acquisition Inc., DCL Medical Laboratories LLC (DE), DCL Medical Laboratories LLC (FL), DCL Sub LLC, DIANON Systems Inc., DL Holdings Limited Partnership, Decision Diagnostics L.L.C. (aka DaVinici/Medicorp LLC), Diagnostic Services Inc., DynaLifeDX, Dynacare - Gamma Laboratory Partnership, Dynacare Company, Dynacare G.P. Inc., Dynacare Holdco LLC, Dynacare Laboratories Inc., Dynacare Laboratories Limited Partnership, Dynacare Northwest Inc., Dynacare Realty Inc., DynalifeDX Infrastructure Inc., Endocrine Sciences Inc., Esoterix Genetic Counseling LLC, Esoterix Genetic Laboratories LLC, Esoterix Inc., Execmed Health Services Inc., FirstSource Laboratory Solutions Inc., GDML Medical Laboratories Inc, Gamma Dynacare Central Medical Laboratories GP Inc., Gamma Dynacare Central Medical Laboratory Limited Partnership, HHLA Lab-In-An-Envelope LLC, Health Trans Services Inc., Home Healthcare Laboratory of America LLC, IDX Pathology Inc., Impact Genetics Corp, Impact Genetics Inc., Kaleida LabCorp LLC, Lab Delivery Service of New York City Inc., LabCorp BVBA, LabCorp Belgium Holdings Inc., LabCorp Central Laboratories (Canada) Inc., LabCorp Central Laboratories (China) Inc., LabCorp Central Laboratories (Singapore) Pte., LabCorp Development Company, LabCorp Employer Services Inc., LabCorp Health System Diagnostics LLC, LabCorp Indiana Inc., LabCorp Japan G.K., LabCorp Limited, LabCorp Michigan Inc., LabCorp Nebraska Inc., LabCorp Neon Ltd., LabCorp Neon Switzerland S.a.r.l., LabCorp Specialty Testing Billing Service Inc., LabCorp Specialty Testing Group Inc., LabCorp Staffing Solutions Inc., LabCorp Tennessee LLC, LabCorp UK Holdings Ltd., LabWest Inc., Laboratoire Bio-Medic Inc., Laboratory Corporation of America, Lifecodes Corporation, LipoScience Inc., Litholink Corporation, MEDTOX Scientific Inc., Medical Neurogenitics LLC, Medtox Diagnostics Inc., Medtox Laboratories Inc., Monogram Biosciences Inc., Monogram Biosciences UK Limited, NWT Inc., National Genetics Institute, New Brighton Business Center LLC, New Imaging Diagnostics LLC, New Molecular Diagnostics Ventures LLC, Orchid Cellmark Ltd., Orchid Cellmark ULC, PA Labs Inc., Path Lab Incorporated, Pathology Associates Medical Lab LLC, Pee Dee Pathology Associates Inc., Persys Technology Inc., Pixel by LabCorp, Princeton Diagnostic Laboratories of America Inc., Protedyne Corporation, ReliaGene Technologies Inc., SW/DL LLC, Saint Josephs-PAML LLC, Sequenom Biosciences (India) Pvt. Ltd., Sequenom Center for Molecular Medicine LLC, Sequenom Inc, Sequenom Inc., Southern Idaho Regional Laboratory, Tandem Labs Inc., The LabCorp Charitable Foundation, Tri-Cities Laboratory LLC, Viro-Med Laboratories Inc., and Yakima Medical Arts Inc.. Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI United Kingdom ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI United Kingdom ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys. View MarketBeat's top stock picks here. Mitt Romney wrote a scathing opinion piece for the Washington Post castigating President Trump for all that he lacks. The Republicans, giving up any question that they are not now all in on the Trumpian era, tsk-tsked the new senator from Utah. CPD should feel some satisfaction in last years 15 percent decline in gun violence. Yet anyone living in, say, Washington Park or Princeton Park has a right to be fearful and angry. Those happened to be the locations of the last two homicides of 2018, but there are many neighborhoods where the sound of gunfire is common. But you no longer can get away with lame comments about the legal system working through the accusations against Burke. Guilty or innocent, Ed Burke exemplifies half of the alliance between aldermen and mayors who enable one another when they should be checks on one another. If voters choose you, what reforms will you demand? We wrote in Sundays Tribune that Chicagoans can elect a mayor and 50 aldermen who know and perform their respective jobs. Who pursue policy over politics. Who support transparency in City Hall operations. Who coalesce around new leadership in committee chairmanships. It may seem natural for a U.S. administration that has much support from evangelical conservatives to highlight the mistreatment of Christians. But it also has decried persecution of Muslims, some 1 million of whom are held in re-education camps in the province of Xinjiang. Human Rights Watch says, The authorities have effectively outlawed Islam in the region. In September, the White House indicated it was considering sanctions on individual Chinese officials involved in the crackdown. Read those numbers again for emphasis. This is not a blip or an outlier or the impact of a recession that ended 10 years ago. This is the result of decades of government mismanagement and haphazard tax policy and accumulation of public debt. These are the taxpayers who dont want to keep getting stuck with the bill for the decisions Democrats in the legislature have advanced. These are the voters who hoped Rauner could reverse it. He didnt. BAY CITY, MI A 61-year-old woman is facing a felony after police allege she injured her neighbors cat so severely it had to be euthanized. About 2 p.m. on Dec. 24, police responded to an apartment building in the 600 block of North Trumbull Street in Bay City after a woman had called 911 to say her neighbor, Jean L. Frost, had recently appeared covered in blood, proclaiming she had just killed a cat. Upon arrival, police saw numerous spots of blood on the buildings interior walls and apartment doors. Officers spoke with a couple residing in one unit who said they own three cats, foster another, and board a fifth. One of their own cats, named Mamma Kitty, was panting heavily, had a swollen face, and bore obvious injuries to her tongue, torso, and at least one leg. The cats owners told police Mamma Kitty had been in the buildings shared hallway before Frost came to their door carrying her, saying she had tried to give her a bath. The woman who initially called 911 told police she had heard a noise that sounded like a cat screaming, then encountered Frost claiming she had killed a cat. Police spoke with Frost, who had blood on her face, hands, and clothing, court records show. Frost appeared intoxicated, police wrote in their reports. Frost denied harming Mamma Kitty or that the feline had ever been in her apartment. She said when she came home, the cats owner came to her unit claiming Mamma Kitty was bleeding. Police asked Frost why she had blood on her while the cats owner did not bear any. Frost said she did not know. Officers asked Frost if they could enter her unit and she allowed them to do so. Inside, officers found a bloody hammer in a sink and a pair of scissors lying in blood on the kitchen floor, court records show. Questioned again, Frost said Mamma Kitty is mean. Officers then told her the cat was dying. So? Frost replied, according to officers reports. Im a human. Shes dead to me. She attacked me first. I was in my own home and I have a right to defend myself. Frost submitted to a preliminary Breathalyzer test, which indicated her blood alcohol level was 0.13. In Michigan, a person is legally intoxicated when the blood alcohol level hits 0.08. Police arrested Frost and took her to McLaren Bay Region Hospital for treatment of animal bites, then transferred her to the Bay County Jail. Bay County Animal Control personnel also responded to the scene and took Mamma Kitty, euthanizing her to due the nature of her injuries. Frost on Dec. 26 appeared in Bay County District Court for arraignment on one count of killing or torturing an animal. The charge is punishable by up to four years in prison. The arraigning judge set Frosts bond at $15,000 cash-surety. As of Jan. 2, she remains in the jail. Defense attorney Jeffrey M. Day declined to comment on the case when contacted by MLive. Frost is to appear for a preliminary examination on Jan. 10. SEBEWAING TWP, MI Police in Huron County say a 21-year-old Cass City man had wandered more than two miles on foot from the point where he got his vehicle stuck early Jan. 1. They found him deceased hours later in shallow water on Saginaw Bay. Huron County Sheriff Kelly J. Hanson on Thursday, Jan. 3, released additional details regarding the search for Parker J. Haire and the discovery of his body. Haire was a junior at Michigan State University studying actuarial science, according to the universitys website. Haire at about 7:20 a.m. on Tuesday called Tuscola County Central Dispatch to report that he needed help. He said he was cold, wet, and could see a factory before the call dropped. Dispatchers plotted the phones location to the Sebewaing River point. Huron, Tuscola, St. Clair, and Sanilac County Sheriffs deputies, Michigan State Police troopers, Sebewaing firefighters and police officers, Caseville police officers, Sebewaing Department of Public Works, and EMS responded to the area, bringing an airboat, an amphibious ATV, and a thermal-imaging drone from the Thumb Drone Works. The U.S. Coast Guard also joined in the search with a helicopter. Crews initially found nothing, including Haires 2014 Jeep. Deputies also checked the countys west side, as it is believed Haire had attended a party in the Thomas Road area of Tuscola County the night or early morning before. Parker J. Haire Shortly after noon on Tuesday, a Michigan Sugar Co. employee flagged down a state police trooper and reported seeing a vehicle out of place and stuck in mud on the other side of the Michigan Sugar treatment ponds fence on the Bay Shore Camp property. Investigators determined the vehicle in question was Haires Jeep. Officials suspended their search Tuesday night but resumed early Wednesday. About 8:35 a.m., Tuscola County deputies aboard an airboat found Haires body in waist-deep water on the north side of the Sebewaing River Point, more than one mile west of Sebewaing County Park. This was over two miles from where the victim's vehicle was found yesterday locked and stuck in the mud at Bay Shore Camp, Sheriff Hanson said. Though it's not completely clear what path of travel he took to get there, or why for that matter, it is believed he walked south down Miller Street to Union Street, then westbound to the location he was found. Haire veered north and ended up on ice that was approximately 3 inches thick. He continued westward, paralleling the point, Hanson said. It is then estimated he continued nearly 100 yards until he got next to a phragmites patch where the ice thinned enough not to support him, the sheriff continued. The phragmites - a tall, invasive weed - concealed Haire from searchers view, Hanson said. Haire was not properly dressed for the frigid weather, Hanson has said. Typically in conditions of such, a human being is not able to survive over one hour when in cold water, Hanson has said. Water temperatures were estimated to be in the mid-30s, not to mention that the air temperatures yesterday and last night were between the teens and mid-20s. An autopsy is scheduled to take place Thursday morning. The family wishes to extend a sincere thank you to the many volunteers who offered support or gave assistance throughout this tragic ordeal, Hanson said. MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI A new round of test results show that 20 additional homes in Norton Shores near the Muskegon County Airport have tested positive for toxic chemicals called PFAS in the drinking water. At least two of those homes, which were sampled between November and December, tested well above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys lifetime health advisory level of 70 parts per trillion (ppt). County officials said the latest detections are troubling. The investigation is ongoing and were definitely watching the situation, said Kathy Moore, Muskegon County public health director. In September, Muskegon County and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality found high levels of PFAS in drinking water wells near the airport. Those initial results prompted bottled water deliveries to four homes in Norton Shores; to the north, west and southwest of the airport, and led the DEQ to expand its testing area to at least 30 additional homes. In total, the county has tested for PFAS at 52 homes near the airport. The contamination is believed to result from the airports past use of chemical-based AFFF firefighting foam. The most recent results showed the highest PFAS levels at two homes located in the 4000 block of Martin Road and the 400 block of Wendover Boulevard the latter of which showed levels of Total PFAS, (the sum of all PFAS compounds in a given sample) at 518.6-ppt, according to a DEQ contractor lab report. Anything above 70-ppt of two individual compounds known as PFOS and PFOA is considered potentially harmful by the EPA. Moore said her department has delivered bottled water to the homes on Martin Road and Wendover Boulevard and specialized water filters are being installed at both locations. All of the most recent samples were collected between November and December 2018. The results show low levels of PFAS at homes on Porter Road, Eugene Avenue, Highgate Road, Loomis Drive, Stamford Drive, Wellesley Drive and Quainton Road. Nine other homes in the area that were tested did not have detectable levels of any PFAS compounds. The DEQ has a standing agreement with the county to pay for testing and monitoring of well water, Lake Michigan, public swimming pools, septic waste, area campgrounds and medical waste until Sept. 30, 2019. The agreement was renewed by the Muskegon County Board of Commissioners approved on Nov. 8. In addition, the county is currently seeking its own engineering contractor for PFAS monitoring and potential remediation. Those bids are due on Jan. 17. We are ready to respond for the safety of our residents at any time, said Moore. "Any time we know of PFAS (close to the 70-ppt advisory level), and if residents are concerned, we do advise them to use bottled water, consider connecting to a municipal water source or get a filter in their homes. Steve Fink, an engineer working with Muskegon County Public Works, said the county wont know how much monitoring or remediation will cost until a contractor can investigate the area and understand the scope of the problem. Exposure to PFAS is linked to certain types of cancer, high cholesterol, hypertension in pregnancy, thyroid disease and other health problems. State health officials say ingestion is the primary route of exposure concern. The following locations have tested positive for PFAS in their well. The exact addresses have been withheld for privacy. Test results are given in parts-per-trillion (ppt). The EPA health advisory level is 70-ppt. Total PFAS is the sum of all PFAS compounds detected. PFOS+PFOA is the sum of those two individual compounds detected. 50 block of Porter Road; PFOS+PFOA: 11-ppt, Total PFAS: 30.5-ppt. 80 block of Porter Road; Total PFAS: 49-ppt. 100 block of West Byron Road; PFOS+PFOA: 19-ppt, Total PFAS: 28.3-ppt. 100 block of Eugene Avenue; PFOS+PFOA: 2-ppt, Total PFAS: 29.4-ppt. 200 block of Eugene Avenue; Total PFAS: 2.7-ppt. 200 block of Eugene Avenue; PFOS+PFOA: 6.8-ppt, Total PFAS: 11.6-ppt. 300 block of Wellesley Drive; PFOS+PFOA: 12-ppt, Total PFAS: 64.4-ppt. 400 block of Wendover Boulevard; PFOS+PFOA: 436.4-ppt, Total PFAS: 518.6-ppt. 500 block of Wendover Boulevard; Total PFAS: 4.7-ppt. 500 block of Wendover Boulevard; PFOS+PFOA: 10-ppt, Total PFAS: 17.5-ppt. 500 block of Wendover Boulevard; PFOS+PFOA: 3.9 -ppt, Total PFAS: 9.3-ppt. 700 block of Wendover Boulevard; Total PFAS: 1.7-ppt. 3000 block of Highgate Road; PFOS+PFOA: 8.6-ppt, Total PFAS: 32.3-ppt. 3000 block of Stamford Drive; PFOS+PFOA: 2.5-ppt, Total PFAS: 8.6-ppt. 3000 block of Loomis Drive; PFOS+PFOA: 2.3-ppt, Total PFASL 13.9-ppt. 4000 block of Loomis Drive; Total PFAS: 2.8-ppt. 4000 block of Quainton Road; PFOS+PFOA: 27-ppt, Total PFAS 37.7-ppt. 4000 block of Martin Road; Total PFAS: 108.1-ppt. A duplicate test showed Total PFAS at 99.8-ppt. 4000 block of Martin Road; PFOS+PFOA: 3.2-ppt, Total PFAS: 30.2-ppt. 5000 block of Martin Road; PFOS+PFOA: 14-ppt, Total PFAS: 58.5-ppt. Each of the homes tested in Norton Shores get their drinking water from underground wells and are not connected to a municipal water source, Moore said. Norton Shores purchases its drinking water from the city of Muskegon, which draws water from Lake Michigan. When tested in July, the city of Muskegons water supply showed a Total PFAS level of 2-ppt and no detection of PFOS+PFOA. Fink said the Norton Shores groundwater investigation was spurred by interviews with former city firefighters who said they used a firefighting foam that contained per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, during training exercises at four points around the airport for several decades. One of those training sites was located near Porter Road. In September, four homes were identified as having harmful levels of PFAS in their drinking water. The home on Wendover showed levels of Total PFAS at 679-ppt and PFOS+PFOA levels of 563.7-ppt. The DEQs Scott Dean said those were the highest levels of PFAS found in the first round of sampling at 23 homes near the airport. Samples collected from the home on Porter Road had a Total PFAS level of 161-ppt and a PFOS+PFOA level of 120-ppt. The home on West Byron had a Total PFAS level of 164-ppt and a PFOS+PFOA level of 71.8-ppt. Dean said the fourth home was located on West Byron Road, but did not give an exact location. PFAS chemicals are now showing up in well water around the airport and other drinking water systems across the state. To date, the DEQ data shows that more than 1.9 million people -- about 20 percent of Michigans population -- have been drinking municipal water with at least a trace of PFAS detection. The list of systems with known PFAS levels include major systems that draw water from the Great Lakes like Saginaw, Grand Rapids and Wyoming, as well as groundwater systems like Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor, which draws primarily from the Huron River. Toxic PFAS chemicals have also been found in drinking water at a Grand Haven district elementary school at levels well above whats considered acceptable for human health. In December, the DEQ ordered testing at 41 more wells for PFAS near Grand Havens Robinson Elementary School. NORTON SHORES, MI The city of Norton Shores has ordered Wacker Neuson to pay back nearly $1 million in tax exemptions after the manufacturer closed its local factory in 2018. City officials allege that Wacker Neuson owes a total of $951,347 in abated taxes, which were approved as six separate industrial tax exemptions while the company was operating in the city. The tax exemption agreements require Wacker Neuson to pay back any abated taxes if the company closed its facility before the abatements expired, according to Norton Shores City Manager Mark Meyers. Wacker Neuson closed its 11-year-old Norton Shores factory in July 2018, shifting production to the companys North American headquarters in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, which is near the companys logistics facility in Germantown. Thirty-six employees were impacted by the closure. The companys tax abatements were set to expire in two years, Meyers said. When the city approves tax abatements, the applicant agrees to certain conditions, Meyers said. They were to remain in city for the duration of the abatement, and because they left two and a half years earlier than expected, theyre contractually obligated to pay what is owed. The Norton Shores City Council on Wednesday, Jan. 2, authorized the citys corporate counsel to seek full restitution and employ whatever remedy is needed, including litigation to recoup taxes from Wacker Neuson. Representatives from Wacker Neuson did not respond to a request for comment. Meyers said the companys decision was disappointing but not entirely unexpected. We had heard through the grapevine that they might be leaving, so we arranged a retention visit in October 2017 with local company officials and the response we received was it was one of the best years they had, Meyers said. The shared a lot of details about sales figures but did not indicate they would be relocating. However, Meyers said that in January 2018, city officials learned of Wacker Neusons departure through news media, and notified the company about its contractual obligation to repay its abated taxes. Norton Shores is demanding that Wacker Neuson pay its outstanding tax obligations as well as any legal fees and additional costs the city may incur through potential litigation. Our hope is that they pay what is owed without getting involved in litigation, Meyers said. TGW Systems, a growing warehouse automation manufacturer, moved its Norton Shores operations in September from Grand Haven Road to the former Wacker Neuson factory at 1300 E. Mt. Garfield Road. During a public hearing on Dec. 18, 2018, Wacker Neusons legal counsel argued that since it helped Norton Shores secure TGW Systems as a new tenant, the charges should be rescinded. The city councils resolution rejected that argument and cited the fact that Wacker Neuson was economically stable when it decided to move. Its the third time in the last 20 years that the city enacted its clawback provision to recoup abated taxes from a company that left Norton Shores. The city previously asked Philos Foods and Magna Mirrors formerly Donnelly Inc. to repay abated taxes after both companies left before their abatements expired. Both complied, Meyers said. The big difference between those departures and the Wacker Neuson closure was that both companies owed far less than the nearly $1 million in abated taxes for Wacker Neuson, Meyers said. Products manufactured at the Norton Shores plant included light towers and heaters primarily for construction and municipal industries. The Norton Shores facility opened in 2007 after Wacker Neuson purchased Ground Heaters Inc. in 2006. Promising not to write about her anymore would mean shutting down a vital part of myself, which isnt necessarily good for me or her. So my plan is to chart a middle course, where together we negotiate the boundaries of the stories I write and the images I include. This will entail hard conversations and compromises. But I prefer the hard work of charting the middle course to giving up altogether an impulse that comes, in part, from the cultural pressure for mothers to be endlessly self-sacrificing on behalf of their children. As a mother, Im not supposed to do anything that upsets my children or that makes them uncomfortable, certainly not for something as culturally devalued as my own creative labor. KALAMAZOO, MI Jury selection in the murder trial of Jason Dalton is taking longer than expected and will delay testimony in the trial. Jury selection in the case started Thursday, Jan. 3. Just over 200 prospective jurors were summoned in two waves, with about 20 excused Thursday morning and other 20 expected to be excused Thursday afternoon due to hardships, Kalamazoo County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Scott Brower said Thursday afternoon. Due to the large amount of prospective jurors left, Kalamazoo County Assistant Prosecutor Jeff Williams and defense attorney Eusebio Solis expect to do another round of questioning in a closed courtroom Friday. Voir dire, where the prosecutor and defense attorney question potential jurors, is expected to happen Monday, Brower said. It appears jury selection is taking longer than anticipated in that jury selection and voir dire may continue into Monday, Brower said. Opening statements and testimony could now start Tuesday instead of Monday as originally planned, Brower said. Kalamazoo County Circuit Court Deputy Administrator Chad Kewish confirmed in an email that voir dire was moved to Monday with opening statements and testimony to start Tuesday, Jan. 8. Kalamazoo County Circuit Court Judge Alexander C. Lipsey has issued a decorum order stating the courtroom will be closed to media and the public during the first stage of jury selection and would have access to a remote-operated pool video feed to observe voir dire. After MLive filed a motion requesting access to cover jury selection in the courtroom, Lipsey ruled a pool reporter would be allowed in the courtroom to cover voir dire but not hardship questioning. Dalton, 48, faces six counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder and several felony firearms charges for a shooting rampage that crossed Kalamazoo County Feb. 20, 2016. Police say Dalton shot Tiana Carruthers, 25, in the parking lot of the Meadows town home complex, 5066 Meadows Blvd,, just before 6 p.m. on Feb. 20, 2016. Dalton allegedly shot and killed father and son Rich, 53, and Tyler Smith, 17, in the parking lot of Seelye Kia on Stadium Drive just after 10 p.m. that same evening. Police say he then shot four women and a 14-year-old girl in the parking lot of Cracker Barrel, 5581 S. 9th St. in Texas Township. Mary Lou Nye, 62, of Baroda; Mary Jo Nye, 60, Dorothy Judy Brown, 74, and Barbara Hawthorne, 68, all of Battle Creek, were killed and the 14-year-old girl, Abigail Kopf, survived but was critically injured. Dalton allegedly drove erratically that afternoon, picking up Uber fares between the shootings. KALAMAZOO, MI -- Statewide hospital group Ascension Michigan has announced a new president to lead one of Kalamazoos hospitals, according to a press release from Ascension. Peter Bergmann was named as the new president of Ascension Borgess Hospital, effective Feb. 11, the release said. Ascension Michigan, which unified the states Catholic hospitals under a single name, announced in September that Borgess Hospital had been renamed Ascension Borgess Hospital as part of statewide rebranding efforts. Bergmann comes to Kalamazoo from Parma Medical Center, a part of the University Hospitals system in Cleveland. He served as president in Ohio for two years, the release said. Previously, Bergmann served within the Ascension system for 11 years as President of Sisters of Charity Hospital and St. Joseph Campus, a two-campus hospital in Buffalo, New York, where he achieved notable increases in quality and patient satisfaction measures, successfully merged two medical staffs, and led a financial turnaround," the release said. "Based on his outstanding credentials, his experience within and outside of Ascension, and his commitment to our Mission of service, quality care and the patient experience Peter is an excellent choice to lead Ascension Borgess, Jean Meyer, chief operating officer of Ascension Michigan, said in the release. Peter is a collaborative leader and an authentic communicator, who will immediately create strong connections with our Ascension Borgess associates and providers," she said. Bergmann holds a masters degree in health administration from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and a bachelors degree in business administration and health planning from Alfred University in New York, the release said. JACKSON, MI The Jackson County Animal Shelter, 3770 Spring Arbor Road, has many pets available for adoption. Here are two of them. Meet Ice, a male Akita/Alaskan husky mix who was surrendered by his owner. Hes a happy-go-lucky guy who gets really excited for visitors. Ice is not particularly fond of cats but seems to be OK with most other dogs. Rufus is a 4-year-old male brown tiger cat with white markings. Hes an extremely friendly character who seeks and loves attention. Rufus would probably do best as the only cat in the home He loves the wet cat food and is most appreciative when it arrives. All dogs and cats at the shelter are neutered/spayed and current on vaccines. A walk-through in the cat room is available to test a dog's reaction to cats. Dog adoptions are $150. Cat adoptions are $90 for one cat and $1 for a second cat. Those interested in adopting these pets must come to the shelter to meet them anytime from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday or 10 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Saturday. Office closes daily for lunch from 1 to 2 p.m. No phone calls please. All dog adoptions require an application. More information is available on the shelters Facebook page. See more pets available for adoption at jcasmichigan.petfinder.com. JACKSON, MI Police believe Daivon Brown likely laid dying in the street for more than 15 minutes after being shot multiple times early Monday morning. Brown, 25, of Jackson, was found at about 1:40 a.m., Dec. 31, in the 300 block of Mitchell Street after being shot multiple times, Jackson Director of Police and Fire Services Elmer Hitt said. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Brown was located after a passing motorist saw him on the ground and called 911. The motorist did not stop and was unaware Brown had been shot, Hitt said. About 15 minutes prior to the call that led to the discovery of Browns body, police received a report of shots fired in the area of E. High and Merriman streets, Hitt said. Investigators believe the sound likely originated from the Mitchell Street shooting, which is not far north of where the caller reported hearing the shots, Hitt said. There have been no arrests made in the shooting and there is no suspect information available at this time, Hitt said. Police have received several tips regarding the shooting, but no clear motive has been established, he said. Anyone with information is asked to contact Jackson Police Det. Rick Burkart at 517-768-8770 or submit a tip anonymously to Crime Stoppers of Mid-Michigan at 855-840-7867. BLACKMAN TOWNSHIP, MI A prison inmate found dead in an apparent suicide Sunday was serving a 50-year sentence for six counts of rape involving a child. The Michigan Department of Corrections on Wednesday identified the man as Peter Miller, 40. He was found hanging in his cell Sunday, Dec. 30, at the G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility in Jackson County, said Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Chris Gautz. Officials believe Miller intentionally hanged himself, though what material he used to do so was not clear. MDOC and Michigan State Police were still investigating the death, Gautz said. Miller had a bunkmate, but he wasnt in the cell at the time, Gautz said. Miller was convicted by an Oakland County jury in 2014 of six counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor younger than 13. He was sentenced to serve 50 to 100 years in prison, MDOC records show. He would have been 90 by the time he was eligible for parole. Prior to Millers 2014 conviction, he pleaded guilty in two separate second-degree criminal sexual conduct cases in 1996, also in Oakland County. He was sentenced in 1997 to serve one year and six months to 15 years in prison for each case. He was released 2003. Officials are reviewing circumstances and questioning people he had contact with to determine whether Miller had been planning the suicide. JACKSON, MI A man who got into a drunken fight with another man at a Jackson party store is going to trial for attempted murder. Darka Ross was bound over to trial after a Wednesday, Jan. 2 preliminary examination before District Judge Michael Klaeren. He is charged with two counts of assault with intent to murder, one count of possession of a firearm by a felon, one count of possession of ammunition by a felon and four counts of felony firearm. The case stems from a fight between Ross, 43, and another man at about 12:20 p.m., Dec. 5, at Franks Finer Foods, 418 First St. Ross, who was highly intoxicated at the time, got into an argument with the man inside the store that quickly became a physical altercation, Jackson Director of Police and fire Services Elmer Hitt said. The fight found its way outside where Ross pulled out a handgun and fired several times toward the store at the man, Hitt said. Nobody was struck in the shooting, he said. A Jackson County Sheriffs deputy passing by saw Ross firing the weapon and attempted to arrested him before Ross fled, Hitt said. After a brief foot chase, the deputy caught Ross and held him until Jackson police officers arrived and took him into custody, Hitt said. Ross had a loaded handgun, he said. According to Michigan Department of Corrections records, Ross is a felon and ineligible to legally possess a firearm. He has served prison sentences for assaulting police, larceny, felonious assault and assault with intent to rob, records show. The current case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Thomas Wilson. Ross is lodged in the Jackson County Jail awaiting trial. Assault with intent to murder is punishable by up to life in prison. CLARENDON TWP., MI Police are searching for a suspected arsonist after a car parked in front of a Clarendon Township business was set on fire and burned to ashes. Police and fire crews were called to the vehicle fire at 8:10 p.m., Jan. 2, near a business in the 23000 block of M-60, according to the Calhoun County Sheriffs Office. The vehicle was destroyed in the fire, police said. There were no injuries reported. Investigators determined an unknown individual lit the parked car on fire and then fled driving east on M-60 toward the village of Homer, police said. Police released three photos of the arson suspects vehicle, which was recorded leaving the scene. Detectives believe the vehicle is similar to an older-model red Chevrolet Camaro. Anyone with information on this incident is asked to contact Calhoun County sheriffs detectives at 269-781-0880 or Silent Observer at 269-781-9700. GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A 17-year-old accused of stealing a police cruiser early New Years Day and crashing into a stopped van has been charged with two felonies. Police say Alyssa Martinez was in a minivan near Courtney Street NW and Garfield Avenue when police stopped it about 4:30 a.m. Jan. 1, 2018. The driver fled on foot and the two officers in the cruiser gave chase. Police say Martinez -- one of seven people who jumped out of the van as police chased the driver -- then opened the cruiser door and slipped behind the steering wheel before taking off. The cruiser crashed into the minivan, then continued on about a mile before stopping near 11th Street NW and Powers Avenue. During the jaunt, the cruiser ran several stop signs and reached speeds that exceeded 50 mph, police said. Police quickly located the cruiser using GPS and found Martinez walking in the nearby area. She is charged with felony counts of auto theft and malicious destruction of property as well as a misdemeanor count of resisting and obstructing police. The minivan driver, 19-year-old Gidalthi Reyes-Macias, is charged with aggravated assault, driving with a suspended license and failing to obey a police officer command. Police initially responded to the area on a report of a large fight and stopped the minivan based on a description from other people at the fight scene. GRAND RAPIDS, MI In the days before Ashley Youngs mutilated body was found in his basement, Jared Chance told others he knew how to kill and get away with it, police said in court documents. Police found Youngs body parts in the basement of Chances rental home in the 900 block of Franklin Street SE and blood and tissue evidence in his bathroom and kitchen. Police also found a saw, believed to be used in the mutilation, under the couch of his parents home in Holland. The details are contained in a probable-cause affidavit filed Thursday, Jan. 3, in Grand Rapids District Court. Chance, 29, who has been held since early December in the victims dismemberment, has now been charged in the killing. He is expected to be arraigned Friday, Jan. 4, on charges of open murder and four counts of tampering with evidence. The charges resulted from a complex investigation that includes over 100 witnesses, including the suspects brother, Konrad, who was concerned by Jared Chances apparent obsession with a pistol. Konrad Chance said he last saw his brother and Young, a 31-year-old Kalamazoo woman, on Nov. 25, four days before she went missing. At that time Konrad Chance witnessed Jared Chance pull out a .22 revolver, empty it of ammunition, then Jared Chance pointed the gun at Konrad and pulled the trigger multiple times, Grand Rapids police Detective Erika Fannon wrote in the affidavit. In addition, in the days leading up to Ms. Youngs murder, (a man who lived below Jared Chances rental unit) had a conversation with Jared Chance in Jareds kitchen. At that time, Jared Chance had a .22 revolver and was constantly picking it up and moving it around the table in such a manner that (the neighbor) felt unsafe to be in Jared Chances presence. During this conversation, Jared Chance described to (the neighbor) about how he knew how to murder someone and get away with it. Police found several rounds of .22-caliber ammunition near the victims body. Police have not recovered all of the victims body parts. Young was last seen with Jared Chance around 1:30 a.m. Nov. 29 at Miss Tracys party store. The last text message was sent from her phone at 5:46 a.m. There was no further activity on her phone. Police had responded to Jared Chances home on Dec. 2 after the neighbor found a blood-covered tarp in the basement while investigating an odor that permeated the two-unit apartment. Neither tenant had legal access to the basement, police said. The neighbor told police he managed to squeeze past a washer and dryer to gain access to the basement. He saw pooled blood and flesh. DNA testing later identified Young, who had been reported missing by her family, as the victim. Police found body parts in a cardboard box on a stairwell landing to Chances apartment. The neighbor told police that before the body was found Chance had asked his help in getting into Youngs car. He never saw Young leave. The car had been parked in the driveway but was later moved a few streets away, police said. Police found traces of suspected blood in the upstairs bathroom, including the tub. Suspected tissue was found in the kitchen sink trap. Police also found suspected blood smears on the stairwell. On Dec. 1, the day before the victims body was found, Chances parents, Barbara and James Chance, picked up their son. He put boxes into their Honda before they headed to the couples Holland home. On the way, they stopped at Youngs car so Chance could retrieve another box. Police also conducted a search at the parents home in the 100 block of West 20th Street. Investigators found a saw, with traces of human blood and tissue on it, under a couch in their living room, police said. Traces of blood and tissue were also found in the Honda, police said. Dr. David Start, who conducted the autopsy, determined that Young did not die of a drug overdose or natural causes. He was unable to determine the exact cause of death but ruled it homicide by unspecified means, records show. He determined that a saw was used to dismember the body. Barbara Chance, 63, and her husband, James Howard Chance, 76, a retired Illinois police sergeant, have been charged with accessory after the fact and committing perjury in an investigative subpoena. Their son is scheduled to be arraigned Friday, Jan. 4, in the killing. He also has a probable-cause hearing set that day on charges of mutilation of a dead body and concealing a death. GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Two men who were stuck in an elevator lift outside the sixth floors of Grand Rapids City Hall are safe after a dramatic rescue Thursday. Firefighters used harnesses and ropes to lower the two men six stories to the ground safely. The two workers, who declined to be identified, with a private company got stuck in an elevator lift for 45 minutes after the emergency brake engaged. They were trapped between the sixth and seventh floors, according to Grand Rapids Battalion Chief David Noorman. Firefighters deployed their rescue team to the 10th floor to access the two men were trapped on the elevator lift. Noorman said firefighters put the two men in harnesses and lowered them down to safety, one by one. One of the firefighters was first lowered down in a basket to the lift to assist the workers. Both workers were examined by paramedics on the ground. No one was injured during the rescue. Other workers who witnessed the rescue clapped when both men were safely on the ground. Their procedures are, if the emergency break locks up, they dont use that lift anymore, Noorman said. They were out there for an estimated 45 minutes in the cold and the wind and we were able to assist them down to safety. The first of two phases of an $11-million project to renovate the shared Grand Rapids City Hall and Kent County administration building kicked off in October. The project involves the replacement of the buildings 49-year-old heating, ventilation and air conditioning system components. The two men were working on the construction project at the building. Afghanistan is truly a never-ending war. A major reason is that we have never been clear about the overall mission of our engagement. Is the goal to go after the terrorist forces, principally al-Qaida and more recently affiliates of the Islamic State, that could threaten the U.S. homeland? Is it to end the Afghan civil war, which in one way or another has been going on for 40 years, by countering the Taliban and force it to the negotiating table? Is it to rebuild Afghanistan as a functioning and peaceful nation state? At times it has been any one of these goals; at others all of them at once. GENESEE COUNTY, MI -- A new county Board of Commissioners chairman is taking a stab at fixing a pair of old problems -- the replacement of two aging buildings constructed decades ago. A divided board elected Commissioner Ted Henry chairman on Wednesday, Jan. 2, and the Clayton Township Democrat is already talking about taking on the massive job of replacing both the county administration building in downtown Flint and the Genesee Valley Regional Center on Pasadena Avenue. I think we are ready to do it in the first quarter, Henry said Thursday, Jan. 3. The controller is telling me, yes (it can be done financially) ... I think the first thing to do is to secure financing. Replacing the county administration building, which was built in 1968, wont be cheap, but it wont cost more than the renovations recommended by Redstone Architects, a county consultant that developed a space-needs analysis last year. The company issued a report in August 2018, projecting the cost of renovation of the county building at $32.2 million and the cost of a smaller, new office building on the same site at $32.8 million. The same report estimates the cost of a new GVRC at $25 million, replacing a complex of existing buildings, some of which are nearing 100 years old. The administration building houses county offices, including the county treasurer, but the 115,000-square-foot complex provides more room than needed, a problem that will become more obvious after the Friend of Court offices are moved to the McCree Courts & Human Services Building later this year. A preliminary space needs assessment indicates that significantly less space will be needed for the remaining departments, the Redstone study says. Replacing the administration building has been discussed for years but the idea never got traction. In 2015, former board Chairman Jamie Curtis suggested construction of a new downtown building called the Metroplex to house all Genesee County and Flint city offices, as well as all district courts. But enthusiasm for the project, which was proposed to be built on county-owned land at South Saginaw Street and East Court Street, never kindled. The replacement of GVRC has also been discussed for decades. The facility houses a day treatment center and a juvenile detention facility. Henry, 70, said its feasible to take on the necessary borrowing for both projects now because bonds for the expansion and renovation of the county courthouse are on schedule to be paid off before the new debt is added. Henry won election as board chairman in a 6-3 vote Tuesday, replacing Mark Young in the position. Young opposed Henry, gaining his own vote and those of Bryant Nolden and Brenda Clark, Democrat commissioners from the city of Flint. Henry, who also served as board chairman 10 years ago, praised Young for his work in the job, saying he left the county in a great financial position. Henry is a Vietnam veteran. He was first elected as a commissioner in 2006. ANN ARBOR, MI - The Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit has received a $1 million grant from University of Michigan alum and Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller. The grant, which is from the Seller-Lehrer Family Foundation, will fund the Summer Camp and the Mosaic Experience Empowerment Program. The grant, being distributed over five years, includes funds being set aside to establish an endowment to support future programs. The annual funding will support up to 200 camp scholarships. Mosaic provides summer camp, in-school mentoring and a variety of artistic opportunities for children in Detroit. The nonprofits alums have garnered Tony, Emmy, and Grammy nominations, performed for two U.S. presidents and toured three continents. Mosiac was founded 27 years ago by founding artistic director Rick Sperling and is now led by Stefanie Worth, executive director, and DeLashea Strawder, artistic director. Mosaic has sent 95 percent of its student participants to college. The Seller-Lehrer Family Foundation was founded by Seller, a Detroit native, and his partner Josh Lehrer, a prominent photographer and documentarist. It funds dynamic educational, cultural, and environmental organizations and initiatives. I have admired Rick Sperling since the 1980s when he directed shows at Performance Network in Ann Arbor, Seller said in a statement. He daily demonstrates that theater changes lives. His work with Mosaic has lifted and enriched the lives of thousands of young people and we are honored to help support a strong future for this extraordinary institution." After studying in UMs College of Literature, Science, and the Arts 25 years ago, Seller moved to New York City, where he has produced some of the most popular musicals on Broadway in the past two decades, including Rent, Avenue Q," In the Heights, and Hamilton. As if becoming the spacecraft to reach NASAs most distant target of all time wasnt cool enough, legendary Queen guitarist Brian May put the cherry on top of the achievement by dedicating a song to the New Horizons. May, who doubles as a PhD in astrophysics from Imperial College London and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member, posted the music video honoring the spacecraft and its recent milestone to Queens official YouTube page. Queens lead guitarist is working with the New Horizons missions science team, and the request for an official song came from Dr. Alan Stern. Check out the worthwhile music video below: The New York Times reports that May says he was reluctant at first because he was part of the team for the scientific work, and not as a celebrity. The legendary musician told the newspaper that when Stern first asked him that he thought this is going to be hard, because I cant think of anything that rhymes with Ultima Thule. Ultima Thule !! The first pictures from New Horizons emerged today that begin to show the shape of this mysterious Kuiper Belt Object for the very first time. This is just a putative https://t.co/KZdlxd8zFZ Dr. Brian May (@DrBrianMay) January 1, 2019 The space agency reports that its New Horizons spacecraft flew past the Kuiper Belt object referred to as Ultima Thule during the early hours of Tuesday, Jan. 1. Ultima Thule is said to be more than 4 billion miles from Earth, and an astonishing 1 billion miles from Pluto. NASA has said in the past that the object is unlike anything explored in space. NASA says that signals from the New Horizons show that it is healthy and is full of science data concerning Ultima Thule. The spacecraft completed a flyby of Pluto back in July 2015, and has given the space agency an up-close, unprecedented look of Pluto and its moons. The spacecraft came within 2,200 miles of Ultima Thule at about 12:33 a.m. Tuesday, and it revealed that the object resembles a bowling pin and spins end over end. There remains the possibility that the object is actually two objects orbiting each other. GRAND TRAVERSE COUNTY, MI A Michigan man has been charged with assault after he allegedly used a hot fire poker to burn his neighbor. Nicholas Matthew, 30, of Interlochen, was arraigned in 86th District Court in Traverse City on Thursday on one count of Assault with a Dangerous Weapon. The charges stem from a Dec. 31 incident in which Matthew allegedly attacked a 29-year-old female at her home on Karlin Road in Grand Traverse Countys Green Lake Township around 5 p.m. Troopers from the Michigan State Police Cadillac Post responded to the scene. A friend of the victim witnessed the assault and intervened, but the victim had already sustained burns to her extremities, according to a news release. Troopers documented the injures and seized the weapon. Matthew was later located at his nearby residence and was subsequently arrested for the assault and lodged in the Grand Traverse County Jail. The victim declined medical treatment for her burns, police said. The Grand Traverse Prosecutors Office reviewed the case and issued a felony warrant for Matthew. The federal government began a partial shutdown at midnight on Dec. 22, and has been in place for 12 days so far. The shutdown began over federal funding for a border wall, which President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for but Democrats now a majority in the U.S. House have opposed. Nine of the 15 federal agencies are affected, and employees considered non-essential are staying home instead of working. Here are a few ways that affects Michigan: 1) Volunteers are keeping Sleeping Bear Dunes accessible The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Northern Michigan is abuzz this time of year with cross-country skiiers and snowshoers. But the U.S. National Park Service employees who typically do things like maintenance, education and ranger-led hikes are not working due to the federal shutdown. Kerry Kelly, chairman of the board for Friends of the Sleeping Bear Dunes and Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail director, said volunteers were picking up some of the slack. We have an agreement with the national parks service that allows us to continue to operate on park service land during the shutdown, he said. Volunteers normally do some trail grooming but are also maintaining vault toilets around the park. Kelly is trying to get permission to address a full port-a-potty at the site of the parks iconic dune climb. Even with volunteers picking up the slack, the park services absence is notable, Kelly said. Unplowed parking lots have visitors either getting stuck or parking instead along the roadway. And if somebody gets hurt on the trails, now they have to rely completely on local emergency services. And his group gives grants to schools to bring kids out for a program where they learn to showshoe. It was supposed to start this week but cant because of the shutdown. Last year the program brought 1,400 kids out. They have such a great time out here at the park, Kelly said. Hes been through shutdowns before, but this one looks different. Normally the shutdowns are relatively short-lived. This time it looks like, I mean who knows how long its going to last? 2) Potential state government impacts Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said at a press conference Wednesday she had directed department leaders to assess how the federal shutdown might affect Michiganders. The state budget is fueled in part by federal dollars. Our state treasurer is starting that process of making sure that weve got cash on hand and to ensure that we can continue to do our jobs, Whitmer said. But my hope is that the shutdown does not last much longer. But if it does, we will be prepared, and we will make sure that we are doing critical functions in the state, she said. 3) National Wildlife Refuges may have limited access Michiganders may have more limited information about and access to the seven National Wildlife Refuges in the state that are run by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, which is also affected by the shutdown. According to a notice posted on the departments website, "Members of the public who are currently visiting certain units of the National Wildlife Refuge System must vacate the refuge immediately. However, where public access to refuge lands does not require the presence of a federal employee or contractor, activities on refuge lands will be allowed to continue on the same terms as before the appropriations lapse..." Michiganders wont be able to get too much clarification before they head out a notice on area wildlife refuge websites notifies people the websites will not be updated due to the shutdown. 4) FAA investigators slow to plane crash site Saginaw deputies guarded the site of a downed plane in Chesaning for days, waiting for Federal Aviation Administration investigators to arrive. Its not immediately clear whether the federal shutdown played a role in the delay, but Sheriff Bill Federspiel said in the past the FAAs response had been swift. In this case, local authorities guarded the crash from Dec. 29 to Jan. 2. 5) Costing Michigans tribes Michigans Native American tribes rely on federal dollars for things like staffing health clinics, paying other employees and providing food assistance. As the New York Times has reported, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians is losing $100,000 per day in supports for services like this. Its not yet clear when the shutdown will end. WYOMING - After securing an Assistance to Firefighters grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Wyoming Fire Department is set to purchase new rescue equipment that will help with various types of emergencies. The fire department, which learned that it had been awarded the $138,573 FEMA grant toward the end of December, will use the grant to purchase equipment that will aid firefighters with automobile extrications; hazardous material incidents; rope, water, ice and trench rescues; and medical technical rescue incidents. Wyoming firefighters spend nearly 5,000 hours in training each year, according to city officials, with a large portion of that time focused on fire operations and technical rescue. Carefully selected to serve multiple purposes, the new equipment will allow them to grow their skills and further prepare for a variety of rescue situations. The safety and well-being of our residents is the focal point for everything we do, Deputy Fire Chief Dennis Van Tassell said. This new rescue equipment will enhance our current capabilities and allow us to demonstrate additional leadership related to a wide variety of emergency incidents and operations. Were grateful for FEMAs confidence in our department -- both our skills and abilities, and the manner in which we steward our resources. Key Select Mineral List Type Standard Detailed Gallery Strunz Dana Chemical Elements Detailed Mineral List: Albite Formula: Na(AlSi 3 O 8 ) Description: XRD analysis has showed that the white feldspar here labelled as albite is orthoclase (Nordrum 2015) Reference: Rob Lavinsky photo and other photos posted in Mindat Anatase Formula: TiO 2 Habit: dipyramid crystals with flat, basal (pinacoidal )termination Colour: Black, brownish in splinters Reference: Arit, T. (2005): Die Grosste Anataskluft der Welt. Schweizer Strahler, 4/2005, 7-14; Nordrum, F. S. (2015): Anatas und weitere Mineralien aus der westlichen Hardangervidda, Norwegen. Mineralien-Welt. 26(6), 56-85 Brookite Formula: TiO 2 Reference: Nordrum, F.S. (1999): Nyfunn av mineraler i Norge 1998-1999. Bergverksmuseets Skrift 15: 87-90 Chalcopyrite Formula: CuFeS 2 Reference: Nordrum, F. S. (2015): Anatas und weitere Mineralien aus der westlichen Hardangervidda, Norwegen. Mineralien-Welt. 26(6), 56-85 'Chlorite Group' Reference: Norges Geologiske Underskelse (NGU) rapport nr 99.110 Goethite Formula: -Fe3+O(OH) Reference: Nordrum, F. S. (2015): Anatas und weitere Mineralien aus der westlichen Hardangervidda, Norwegen. Mineralien-Welt. 26(6), 56-85 Hematite Formula: Fe 2 O 3 Reference: Nordrum, F. S. (2015): Anatas und weitere Mineralien aus der westlichen Hardangervidda, Norwegen. Mineralien-Welt. 26(6), 56-85 'K Feldspar' Reference: Nordrum, F.S. (1999): Nyfunn av mineraler i Norge 1998-1999. Bergverksmuseets Skrift 15: 87-90; Nordrum, F. S. (2015): Anatas und weitere Mineralien aus der westlichen Hardangervidda, Norwegen. Mineralien-Welt. 26(6), 56-85 'K Feldspar var. Adularia' Formula: KAlSi 3 O 8 Reference: Nordrum, F.S. (1999): Nyfunn av mineraler i Norge 1998-1999. Bergverksmuseets Skrift 15: 87-90; Nordrum, F. S. (2015): Anatas und weitere Mineralien aus der westlichen Hardangervidda, Norwegen. Mineralien-Welt. 26(6), 56-85 Orthoclase Formula: K(AlSi 3 O 8 ) Reference: Nordrum, F. S. (2015): Anatas und weitere Mineralien aus der westlichen Hardangervidda, Norwegen. Mineralien-Welt. 26(6), 56-85 Pyrite Formula: FeS 2 Reference: Nordrum, F.S. (1999): Nyfunn av mineraler i Norge 1998-1999. Bergverksmuseets Skrift 15: 87-90 Quartz Formula: SiO 2 Habit: Baumbauerquartz common. Friedlanderquarz rare Reference: Neumann, H. (1985): Norges Mineraler. Norges geologiske Underskelse Skrifter 68, p 75 Titanite Formula: CaTi(SiO 4 )O Reference: Broekmans, M.A.T.M. (1999): Anatasforekomsten pa Geiteryggen ( Dyrefonni). Norges Geologiske Underskelse (NGU) rapport nr 99.110. 15p References Sort by Year (asc) Year (desc) Author (A-Z) Author (Z-A) Nordrum, F.S. (1999) Nyfunn av mineraler i Norge 1998-1999. Norsk Bergverksmuseum Skrift, 15, 87-90. Broekmans, M.A.T.M. (1999) Anatasforekomsten pa Geiteryggen ( Dyrefonni). Norges Geologiske Underskelse (NGU) rapport 99.110. 15p. Nordrum, F.S. (2004) Nyfunn av mineraler i Norge 2003-2004. Stein, 31(2), 36-44. Arlt, T. (2005) Die Grosste Anataskluft der Welt. Schweizer Strahler, 4/2005, 7-14. Her, . (2009) Anatas fra Hardangervidda. Harstad Geologiforening 1989-2009. Published by Harstad Geologiforening, 2009. p. 7. [Anecdotal notes on a visit on the locality]. Nordrum, F.S. (2015) Anatas und weitere Mineralien aus der westlichen Hardangervidda, Norwegen. Mineralien-Welt, 26(6), 56-85. External Links Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality This page contains all mineral locality references listed on mindat.org. This does not claim to be a complete list. If you know of more minerals from this site, please register so you can add to our database. This locality information is for reference purposes only. You should never attempt to visit any sites listed in mindat.org without first ensuring that you have the permission of the land and/or mineral rights holders for access and that you are aware of all safety precautions necessary. This locality is locatedthe border of the Hardangervidda National park. (Collectingthe national park is strictly forbidden). It should be noted though, that this locality has been staked out as a claim, and according to Norwegian mining laws it is considered theft to collect at this site without permission from the holder of the claim. Even so, at the end of the 1990s, several people collected more than 200 pieces of anatase specimens here illegally and subsequently sold them at mineral shows in USA and Germany. Some collectors have thus been legally prosecuted. Specimens of anatase from this locality have been erroneously labelled as coming from "Valdres", probably to avoid prosecution or to keep the locality a secret.This locality is often referred to as "Dyrfonni, Viveli", which is not correct. Viveli, a known accommodation place and a starting point for hiking in this area of Hardangervidda lies further east of Geiteryggen and is located in the municipality Eidsfjord, while the locality itself is located in Ullensvang, which is the neighbouring municipality. 2018 was a pretty good year for military innovation, but 2019 is shaping up to be even better. The Pentagon and DARPA are experimenting with virtual and augmented reality, developing new aircraft and vehicles, and expanding their robotics and hypersonic offerings. Get the skinny on what will likely break next year in the six entries below: 1. Augmented reality headsets Gen. Robert B. Neller, commandant of the Marine Corps, uses a HoloLens to manipulate virtual objects April 4 at the Marine Corps Installations Pacific Innovation Lab aboard Camp Foster, Okinawa, Japan. (U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Tayler Schwamb) The Army signed a contract for 100,000 HoloLens headsets from Microsoft for $479 million in late 2018 and they should start reaching combat units within the next year or so, once the Army figures out exactly how to use them. The idea is to give infantrymen and other troops true heads-up displays. Tankers could even see through their armor to better track enemy vehicles. The Army and other branches have researched augmented reality before, so there's plenty of groundwork already done. Once the HoloLens is incorporated, infantry could just glance around and see where their fire support is, how far it is to their objective, and where their squad support robot is. Speaking of which... 2. Robots joining human squads DARPA's Squad X competition aims to better incorporate robots into infantry squads. (DARPA) Yeah, one of the other additions to infantry squads and other maneuver units could be robots to carry gear, sensors, and electronic warfare modules. It's all part of DARPA Squad X Experimentation Program. The idea is to nest robots into Army and Marine units, especially infantry squads. Test runs have begun, and Lockheed Martin and CACI are each providing capabilities. The system brings in capabilities from all sorts of robots and drones already on the market. The Marines were able to use the robots to detect enemies and plan their assault before the simulated enemy even knew the Marines were there. 3. U.S. hypersonic missiles get faster, more operable DARPA wants new materials to make hypersonic missiles more stable and reliable. (DARPA graphic) Hypersonic missiles are the ultimate first-strike weapon. They fly at five times the speed of sound or faster, making it nearly impossible for ballistic missile interceptors to catch them. And reporting in the open seems to indicate that Russia and China are further along than the U.S. But DARPA is working to change that with a call for new materials that can withstand the forces at Mach 5, especially the extreme heat from friction with the air. That would be a huge breakthrough for the U.S., and it might allow America to leapfrog its rivals. 4. The SB-1 Defiant and V-280 Valor will show their stripes The S-97 Raider is the basis of Sikorsky's SB-1 Defiant, the company's proposed aircraft for the Army's Future Vertical Lift helicopter. The Army wants a whole new family of vertical-lift aircraft, starting with a bird to replace Black Hawks. The two top prototypes are going through trials now, and each has some exciting milestones scheduled for 2019. The biggest and earliest is the imminent first flight of the SB-1 Defiant, a compound helicopter that is thought capable of almost 290 mph in flight. Bell Helicopters, meanwhile, is promising that their tilt-rotor offering, the V-280 Valor, still has a lot more skills to show off, and it's already hit over 120 mph in forward flight and shown off its agility in hover mode. If Bell Helicopters wins the competition, the Army's first order will likely be the largest tilt-rotor sale in military history. 5. Light tank prototypes will be unveiled One of the leading contenders for the Army's new light tank is the AJAX armoured fighting vehicle from Britain, but with a beefed up gun to destroy enemy gun emplacements. The resulting vehicle would be known as the Griffin. (British Ministry of Defence) Over the next 14 months, BAE and General Dynamics will produce 12 examples of their light tanks, a modified Griffin and an updated version of the M8 Buford. Once the final prototypes roll off the line, the Army will test them side-by-side in exercises and trials, and then choose one design to purchase. It'll be sweet to see the first prototypes in 2019, but it'll be even greater at the end of 2019 or start of 2020 when the Army starts actually putting them through their paces. No matter which design is chosen, it'll be a big capability upgrade for the infantry. 6. More autonomous aircraft, especially Army helicopters It seems like the civilian market rolls out a new drone every weeks, and drone designs come around every few months. But the Army is trying to get a kit made that would actually change military aviation: a software and hardware suite that could make every Black Hawk and other helicopters into an optionally piloted drone. The ALIAS program is currently limited to a Sikorsky demonstrator, but if it reaches full production, any and all Army helicopters could be controlled via some commands typed into a tablet. They can even pick their own landing zones and fly at near ground lever, usually better than human pilots. MORE POSTS FROM WE ARE THE MIGHTY: 7 helpful habits that veterans instantly toss out after leaving Why veterans tapping a drink on the bar is a sign of respect 4 ways nicknames in the military are nothing like in pop culture We Are The Mighty (WATM) celebrates service with stories that inspire. WATM is made in Hollywood by veterans. It's military life presented like never before. Check it out at We Are the Mighty. Sponsored by Armed Forces Insurance After spending more than a decade as a military spouse, I know this to be absolute fact: The military spouse community is packed with amazing people, quietly doing incredible things for their communities. You know who I'm talking about, right? She is your neighbor and friend, your Family Readiness Group leader, the owner of that small business down the street or your wine night buddy. He is the spouse who pushes you and your community forward -- quietly, firmly, dynamically. These people lead by example, but not because someone pays them to do it or because they are bored. They do it simply because it is the right thing to do. These spouses are real and raw, open and honest, kind and compassionate. They are who you want to be when you grow up. Did someone specific in your circle jump to mind while reading? Great. Because here's what you should do next: Nominate this person for the Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year award. You might wonder why you should spend time nominating someone for an award that seems like a popularity contest run by an insurance company. This is a valid question, but the AFI Military Spouse of the Year award is not an insurance company's popularity contest. It's a program with a long history of not just recognizing military spouses who do good things, but elevating them to continue their leadership on a national stage, thanks to AFI support. The company sponsors these honors because they matter. They push this award forward, because supporting the people who support our community is not just meaningful -- it's life changing. The AFI Spouse of the Year program is a road to empowerment for the spouses out there doing the hard work of community building and base support leadership. But to put these movers and shakers on the path to national recognition and empowerment, AFI needs you to do a little work too. Now is the time to nominate the amazing spouse you know for the Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year award. Nominations are open from Jan. 2 to Jan. 31, and the form can be found here. The more details you can give, the better. Do this for anyone who deserves a bigger stage, a better way to make a difference in their communities and their country. Nominations are just the start of the AFI Military Spouse of the Year process. On Feb. 5, the profiles of nominated candidates will be announced, and voting will be held from Feb. 8 to Feb. 12 for base-level winners. Base-level winners will be announced Feb. 18. After that, a panel of experts goes to work, selecting 18 candidates from bases around the world to continue on in the process, contending for recognition as the AFI Spouse of the Year for their sponsors' respective branches. That vote will be open Feb. 25 to Feb. 26. Then, on March 1, these 18 winners will be announced, with the last vote for AFI Military Spouse of the Year open from March 7 to March 8. Finally, on May 9, the Military Spouse of the Year overall winner will be announced at an awards dinner at Fort Myer, Virginia. Of course, Military.com will be there to livestream the whole thing. It's an involved process, but that's because AFI wants to get it right. And it has. Without the AFI Military Spouse of the Year program, we would never have met Corie Weathers, the spouse of an Army chaplain and licensed mental health counselor whose work and friendship has had a profound impact since her selection as 2015 AFI Military Spouse of the Year. We might not know Lakesha Cole, the 2014 overall winner and a Marine Corps spouse and dynamic entrepreneur whose hustle and dedication inspires me and so many other military spouses daily. And then there's Jeremy Hilton, a military spouse and advocate for special-needs families whose work has bettered my personal ability to tell the military family story. Thanks to AFI and the Military Spouse of the Year awards, these people are a part of my personal journey, as well as those of so many others. If you know a Corie, Lakesha or Jeremy, now's the time to share him or her with the rest of us. Make a nomination today! -- Amy Bushatz can be reached at amy.bushatz@military.com. It's a new year, and with a new year come new laws and regulations. Let's take a look at which ones will affect veterans and military members across the nation, both at the federal level and state-specific. Check out our listing of all state veterans benefits. New State Veteran Benefits in 2019 California California will extend a handgun purchasing ban for those under 21 to long guns. Military members may be excluded from this ban. Georgia Effective Jan. 1, 2019, military firefighter training will be accepted as required basic training for full-time, part-time and volunteer firefighters, including airport firefighters. Military members who become delinquent on license fees or special, occupation or sales taxes can have the 10 percent penalty waived if they were unable to pay due to military service in a combat zone. This waiver applies only to combat-zone duty, and the taxpayer must provide proof of military service and make full payment of the taxes within 60 days of their return from military service. Illinois Veterans and active-duty military members who are believed to have physical or mental health problems may now be considered "high risk" if they go missing. This makes it easier for law enforcement to locate missing veterans and expedites the missing person report. Health-care facilities must provide a free copy of a homeless veteran's medical records when requested by the veteran or an authorized agent for the purpose of supporting a claim for disability benefits. Indiana National Guard members from Indiana or an adjoining state who attend an Indiana public university are entitled to a tuition refund or credit and guaranteed re-enrollment if they are called to active duty during an academic term. Sailors from any state who serve on the new USS Indiana submarine for at least 180 days are entitled to pay in-state tuition at Indiana's public universities if they enroll within one year of receiving an honorable discharge. Disabled military veterans who do not desire to have a disabled veteran license plate but would like to use disability parking can obtain a placard to hang from their rearview mirror. New Hampshire The property tax credit for service-connected total disability will increase from $2,000 to $4,000. New York Under the New York Paid Family Leave act, workers will now get 10 weeks of paid time off to bond with a newborn, adopted or fostered child; to care for family members with serious health conditions; or to address issues related to a family member's military deployment. Oregon On Jan. 1, 2019, the Oregon Equal Pay Act became effective. It guarantees that people receive equal pay regardless of age, disability, heritage, race, color, sexual orientation and veteran or marital status. Federal Veteran Benefit Changes for 2019 GI Bill A provision of the Forever GI Bill that provides more benefits for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) Programs will become effective Aug. 1, 2019. The VA will provide up to nine additional months of Post-9/11 GI Bill coverage to certain eligible individuals who are enrolled in a STEM program and use up all their GI Bill benefits. This applies only to veterans who already have completed at least 60 semester or 90 quarter hours and are in a STEM program that requires more than the standard 128 semester or 192 quarter hours for a degree. The VA can pay up to nine additional months of GI Bill benefits or $30,000, whichever is less. Those using the Yellow Ribbon program and dependents using transferred benefits are not eligible. Space-A Travel Disabled veterans with a 100-percent disability rating are now eligible for Space-A travel. New UCMJ Article Article 128b will be added to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, addressing domestic violence. It includes assault, intimidation, violation of a protective order, and damaging property or injuring animals in a domestic-assault situation. More UCMJ changes can be found here. High-Deployment Allowance for Reservists A new law adds reservists mobilized under Section 1104(b) to those eligible for the high-deployment allowance of up to $1,000 per month. New Tricare Retiree Dental Program The big news in Tricare coverage is the replacement of the Tricare Retiree Dental Plan (TRDP) with the FEDVIP program. Also, family members of active-duty personnel are now eligible for vision insurance through FEDVIP. Stay on Top of Your Benefits Military benefits are always changing. Keep up with everything from pay to health care by signing up for a free Military.com membership, which will send all the latest benefits straight to your inbox. The U.S. Military Academy at West Point is pulling away from the Defense Department's email system, a move that could show the U.S. Army how to communicate differently in the future. Beginning this month, West Point will break free from the Pentagon-controlled .mil network and move to a commercially managed .edu network as part of a larger effort to upgrade its website, email and cyber presence, according to a West Point press release posted by the Defense Visual Information Service. West Point is currently serving as a pilot program for the Army by switching its network and email from Defense Department-controlled systems to commercially owned and operated platforms, the release states. The need for a change emerged in 2015 when West Point officials realized that the tight security measures of the DoD network hindered the way the academy did business, as well as its ability to compete with universities such as Harvard, Yale and Stanford. "We are the Army's only university, so my peers are Penn State, Harvard and Yale," said Col. Edward Teague, West Point's chief information officer. "My peer is not the CIO at the 18th Airborne Corps. I have to set the staff, faculty and cadets up here for success by giving them appropriate [information technology] that is [commensurate] with the No. 1 public university in the United States. "We identified that there was a divide between what we needed to do as a university, as an academy, when you think about the university education missions versus what has to happen to be a military unit on a military network," he said. The academy also launched a new website Dec. 20 at the web address WestPoint.edu, part of a branding transition from USMA to West Point, according to the release. These moves may appear to distance the academy from the Army, but one of the program's goals is to serve as a model to the service of what can be accomplished with commercial systems instead of "building and running everything in house," the release states. The pilot program will also demonstrate to the Army the ability to secure a cloud-based system, while at the same time enabling a free flow of ideas and greater accessibility. "We are looking at what are those core competencies that the Army doesn't have to be in charge of. I submit that email is one of them. I submit that websites are another and storage," Teague said in the release. "It made a lot of sense for us to manage our own email system a long time ago because not a lot of people had it and you couldn't really buy something off the shelf. Now, you can." Military.com tried to contact Teague to find out more about how the Army might use the findings from the pilot but did not receive a response by press time. West Point's changes will take place throughout fiscal 2019 and be enhanced in fiscal 2020 before officials begin collecting and analyzing data on the changes starting in fiscal 2021, according to the release. "Security is paramount, but we also think that enabling IT in a way that people can work in the environment that we are used to now, which is work anywhere on any device, we are getting closer and closer to that as time passes," Teague said in the release. -- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com. U.S. officials have expressed concern in recent months that growing influence in the southern hemisphere from countries such as Russia and China may sideline regional stability. As a result, they are aiming to broaden military partnerships and alliances. Before his departure Dec. 31, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis signaled the need to expand relationships with several nations in South America, becoming the first defense secretary since Chuck Hagel in 2014 to visit the region last August. (Ash Carter traveled to the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago for the 12th Conference of the Defense Ministers of the Americas in 2016, a meeting that focused on increased cooperation during natural disasters.) During his trip to Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Colombia, Mattis said the U.S. is "looking to expand partnerships where it's mutually beneficial." "We see Latin America as our neighbor. Some people say we don't pay much attention to it. That is certainly not the case in the military," he said at the time. But with Mattis gone, will the Pentagon still make an effort to keep Latin American countries close? One expert recommends focusing on exercises conducted by the services in cooperation with other nations and their armed forces to monitor results. "While we don't see major exercises a la U.S.-NATO, there are many initiatives that do take place," said W. Alejandro Sanchez, a contributor to the Center for International Maritime Security, specializing in Latin American and Caribbean national security issues. "The U.S. enjoys generally pleasant and friendly relations -- diplomatic, trade, tourism, defense -- with most Latin American and Caribbean states, with the few exceptions," said Sanchez, who also is a member of the Forum on the Arms Trade. For example, on the defense side, U.S. National Guard partnerships with Latin American states have been a success, as well as the flourishing Air Force exercises held with them, he said. The Air Force participated in the 20th Air and Space Fair in Santiago, Chile, last April, a biennial international air show that is the largest in Latin America, said Maj. Joost Verduyn, spokesman for Air Forces Southern Command. According to Verduyn, the F-22 Raptor demo team and the Air Force Academy's Wings of Blue parachute team performed during the show, while two F-35 Lightning IIs, a B-52 Stratofortress, a KC-10 Extender, a KC-135 Stratotanker, a C-17 Globemaster III and a C-130 Hercules were flown in as static displays. "This marked the first time an F-35 landed in Latin America with the F-35s, F-22s and a Chilean F-16 conducting a formation flight while arriving to the air show," Verduyn said in a recent email. Here are a few more examples of U.S. participation in the region: In July, the Colombian Air Force participated in Red Flag 18-3, the U.S. Air Force's premier air-to-air combat training exercise, with six IAI Kfir fighter jets and their 767 Multi-Mission Tanker Transport Jupiter aircraft, at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. The 767 MMTT Jupiter refueled U.S. Navy EA-18 Growlers during the exercise, marking the first time the aircraft had refueled U.S. aircraft. Also in July, a three-month training and humanitarian exercise called New Horizons wrapped up in Meteti, Panama. The U.S. Air Force led a joint team conducting engineering and medical training in Panama. Medical teams saw more than 7,200 patients and conducted 315 eye and ear surgeries. Twelve partner nations' air force members went to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, to participate in the U.S. Southern Command exercise PANAMAX in August. The annual exercise focuses on building interoperability between countries, enabling quick response to emerging situations. An Air Force C-130 and C-17 participated in "Angel de los Andes," a Colombian-hosted international search-and-rescue exercise in September 2018. The two aircraft, along with 90 U.S. airmen, traveled to Colombia to participate in the exercise alongside airmen from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Panama, Peru and Uruguay. The exercise focused on responding to natural disaster scenarios, as well as practicing search-and-rescue techniques. F-16 Fighting Falcons and a KC-135 Stratotanker participated in CRUZEX, a Brazilian-hosted air-to-air combat exercise in November. Roughly 130 U.S. airmen went to Brazil to participate in the exercise and worked alongside airmen from Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Peru, Portugal and Uruguay. "Nearly every week of the year, the 12th Air Force (Air Forces Southern) and the U.S. Air Force are conducting smaller subject matter expert exchanges across Central and South America and the Caribbean," Verduyn said of the efforts. Also in 2018, the Pentagon sent the hospital ship USNS Comfort to Colombia's northwestern port city of Turbo to aid Venezuelan refugees who had fled political turmoil and economic hardship. Roughly one million refugees have migrated to Colombia in the onset of the crisis, which began in 2010. The number of exercises may not have grown from year to year, but the number of countries and service members participating in them is on the rise, Verduyn said. "What has been increasing is the participation in these exercises," he said. "The air show in Chile earlier [last] year was highlighted by the F-35, and the U.S. Air Force sent more aircraft to participate in the show than it had before. U.S. and partner nation participation in exercises in South America also continue to grow." But if the U.S. military truly wants to expand its reach in South America to garner influence before its adversaries accomplish their goals, it should bolster its funding toward the Southern Command region, argued Sanchez. "Over the years that I've followed Southern Command, various posture statements acknowledge that SOUTHCOM is the lowest priority command," he said. Navy Adm. Kurt Tidd, who recently relinquished command of U.S. Southern Command to Adm. Craig Faller, put it bluntly in a posture statement before Congress in 2016, Sanchez said. "Because no nation in the region poses a direct, conventional military threat to the United States, Latin America tends to rank fairly low on force allocation priorities," Sanchez said, quoting Tidd. While Mattis gave additional visibility to Southern Command during his tenure, "there was no visible increase to SOUTHCOM's budget or assets," Sanchez added. "The Navy didn't [even] give them those decommissioned frigates as they requested to combat drug trafficking in the Caribbean," he said. "So while the departure of Mattis is important, his tenure did not really change US-SOUTHCOM-Latin American-Caribbean relations. "If I ever hear the next SecDef openly lobbying for a greater budget or allocation of assets to SOUTHCOM, then I will say that things are changing," Sanchez said. -- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214. A team of experts, part of the Air Force's Physiological Episodes Action Team, or AF PEAT, recently held a day-long event to trade ideas on how best to curb hypoxia-like events from happening to pilots across the ranks. Pilots, physiologists, data scientists, engineers and maintenance personnel took part in the event, known as an AF PEAT hackathon, outside Washington, D.C., in December to find solutions to physiological phenomena that continue to plague pilots flying aircraft such as the T-6 Texan II, F-22 Raptor, F-15 Eagle, F-35 Lightning II and A-10 Thunderbolt II. Surprising among the industry leaders at the table? Google. Senior artificial intelligence managers with the tech giant participated in the hackathon, giving Air Force officials a glimpse into how the services can leverage developing technologies faster, according to a news release. Related content: "We're moving from a null set of data regarding humans in the loop, to an overwhelming big data challenge," said Brig. Gen. Edward Vaughan, the AF PEAT team lead. "We will lean heavily on industry experts to help us collect, model and apply these data," Vaughan said of Google's participation. Tony Carnevale, a Google solutions architect, gave a presentation on how machine learning and A.I. could aid the process, according to the release. The Silicon Valley company's latest involvement comes months after Google announced it would not pursue another contract with the Pentagon's Project Maven -- an AI system that sifts through collected drone and surveillance data -- after the current agreement expires in 2019. Company employees reportedly voiced concerns about their work being used by the military for deadly warfare. "Working closely with the Navy, NASA and other industry partners, the Air Force is making huge strides to better understand and solve issues," Vaughan said in the release. "We are in a period of very positive, but disruptive, innovation. There are hundreds of efforts across the human physiology and aircraft ecosystems moving in many directions." The Defense Department has been unable to find a root cause for pilots experiencing hypoxia-like symptoms -- disorientation, shortness of breath, confusion and wheezing, among other manifestations. In April, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said the manifestations may not be hypoxia in some cases, but instead hypocapnia, or reduced carbon dioxide in the blood. Hypocapnia often presents symptoms similar to hypoxia, such as dizziness and disorientation. Amid the spate of physiological events and ongoing aviation accidents, lawmakers in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act stood up the National Commission on Military Aviation Safety to review crashes, mishaps and phenomena that occurred between 2013 and 2018. During the hackathon, AF PEAT members reviewed "coordination and communication between research, sensor development, and system improvements/redesign from the T-6 Texan II level, across other aircraft, and all the way up through Department of Defense level," the release states. The event emphasized a renewed focus on people. "Physiological episodes happen to people, not equipment," said Jennifer Farrell, chief engineer for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Human Systems Program Office. "We must focus on design that enhances the human element." Last year, lawmakers criticized Air Force and Navy leaders over hypoxia-related incidents that were occurring in various aircraft because they believed top brass had not been honoring their obligation to pilots. During a House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee hearing, Lt. Gen. Chris Nowland, then the service's deputy chief of staff for operations, testified the Air Force needed to enhance training and explore how maintainers and engineers were looking at individual aircraft systems. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, said he was very disappointed in Nowland's remarks, once again turning the conversation back to the system rather than focus on pilots' needs. "No one ever came to us and tried to blame the pilots, and say it is just an issue of training," Turner said during the hearing in February. Lt. Gen. Mark Kelly, Nowland's successor, has tasked Vaughan to accelerate ongoing conversation on the issue, push for faster innovation and creative disruption, test new sensors and "drastically expand collaboration" across the Pentagon with industry's help, the release said. -- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214. Military Wants to Use Rockets to Deliver Cargo Anywhere in the World in Less Than an Hour The Air Force announced that "Rocket Cargo" will be the fourth experiment under its Vanguard program. The Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department continues to investigate the shooting of Lance Cpl. Riley Kuznia, who was killed Jan. 1 while on duty at Marine Barracks Washington. Police have classified the case as a death investigation rather than a criminal one, indicating they do not currently believe a crime was committed. According to a public police report, six police officers responded to a call of a shooting at the 800 block of I Street SE, site of the barracks, at 5 a.m. Tuesday. Officers found that an unidentified person (Subject 2) had been "handling a firearm" and "Subject 1 [Kuznia] was shot and transported to Washington Hospital Center" where, despite lifesaving measures, he was pronounced dead at 5:59 a.m. Marine Corps officials Thursday said another Marine guard fired his service weapon and the bullet struck Kuznia, who also was on duty at the time. The incident occurred inside the walls of Marine Barracks Washington and at no time were local residents in danger, they said. "The safety and well-being of the Marines, sailors and civilians here at the Barracks is paramount and something we take very seriously," Col. Don Tomich, commanding officer of Marine Barracks Washington, said in a release. Service officials declined to say why the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which usually oversees on-base incidents, is not conducting the investigation. Washington, D.C., police share jurisdiction of federal properties with federal law enforcement, including military bases. Gunnery Sgt. John Jackson said guards on duty at the barracks carry the M9 service pistol. During special security events, they carry the M4 service rifle. Officials have not disclosed what type of weapon was involved in the incident. The shooting led the service to cancel a traditional ceremony scheduled for later that day, the Surprise Serenade, in which the Marine Corps Band plays for the commandant and his guests at his home on the post. The Marine involved was relieved of his guard duties and has been reassigned to administrative duties pending the completion and outcome of the investigation. From 2013 to 2018, the Marine Corps reported 54 cases of negligent discharges that resulted in the deaths of three on-duty and three off-duty Marines, according to a safety bulletin issued by the service. Between fiscal 2016 and late October, Marines lost more than 1,700 days of work to negligent discharges. In June, a service member at Marine Barracks Washington suffered non-threatening injuries while standing guard, the result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In 2013, another Marine was killed at the Barracks as the result of a gunshot. In the wake of Kuznia's death, a battalion chaplain and battalion psychologist are providing counseling to Marines who request it, and a Military and Family Life counselor is available as well, Jackson said. Tomich said Wednesday the Corps is "truly saddened by this terrible loss." "Riley was a highly driven and goal-oriented Marine whose positive attitude set the example here at the barracks," he said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with Riley's family and friends, and our priority continues to be taking care of them during this tragic time." -- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Monster.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciankime. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan told President Donald Trump on Wednesday that the military is planning border security enhancements, suggesting that the deployment of active- duty troops to backstop Customs and Border Protection (CBP) could be extended past the Jan. 31 deadline. "We're doing additional planning to strengthen the support that we're providing to Kirstjen and her team," Shanahan said in a reference to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. "We've been very, very closely coupled with Kirstjen," he said in brief remarks at a White House Cabinet meeting presided over by the president. "The collaboration has been seamless." Shanahan, seated next to Trump during the meeting, said the border troops are conducting daily operational training and focusing on the "restoration of fences," as well as "building out additional mileage for the wall." In his only public remarks on his first full day as acting secretary, Shanahan said, "The Army Corps of Engineers is dialed in on doing this cost-effectively and with the right amount of urgency as to where we can build additional stand-up walls quickly and then get after the threat. "The threat is real. The risks are real. We need to control our borders," Shanahan said in remarks that echoed those of Trump on the need for border security enhancements, including major extensions of existing border walls. Days before the November midterm elections, the military -- on Trumps orders -- began deploying active-duty troops to southern border states to support CBP against a population of migrants streaming north, many of whom said they were seeking political asylum from violence in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. A total of 5,900 active-duty troops eventually were deployed to the border, according to U.S. Northern Command. The active-duty personnel were in addition to about 2,100 National Guard troops who had been on the border since April. The active-duty service members had an initial withdrawal date of Dec. 15. In early December, then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the number of active-duty troops on the border would be reduced, but those remaining would have their deployments extended to at least Jan. 31. In an informal session with Pentagon reporters last month, Mattis estimated the cost of the active-duty deployment was about $72 million through mid-December. On Dec. 21, Northern Command said that about 2,600 active-duty troops remained on the border, including 1,200 in California, 700 in Arizona and 700 in Texas. Last week, Pentagon officials speaking on background said it was unclear whether those troops would be extended past the Jan. 31 deadline. The troops' presence could also be affected by any proposed resolution to end the partial government shutdown, now in its 13th day. Homeland Security is one of several departments whose appropriations were not passed in the last Congress, resulting in border patrol agents working without pay. The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs both have their budgets fully funded and are not affected by the shutdown. At Wednesday's Cabinet meeting, Trump praised the active-duty troops' contribution to border security, and he was adamant that the government shutdown would continue until House and Senate Democrats agree to more funding for the wall. "The military's been fantastic. We've been working with Pat Shanahan. So much has been done. The Army Corps of Engineers has been fantastic," Trump said. But he added that border security can't be assured without the wall. In areas where the wall has been erected, "nobody's coming through," Trump said. "We want to finish it; we want to complete it. You can't have a partial wall," he said, because "people come through" the areas where the wall is absent. In the areas where the wall is present, "you can't get through unless you're a world-class pole vaulter on the Olympic team," Trump said. -- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com. CAMP COURTNEY, Okinawa -- On the night of May 14, 1945, Marine Maj. Henry Courtney Jr. led a daring assault on Okinawa's Sugar Loaf Hill. The Duluth, Minn., attorney and reservist was killed by a Japanese mortar after a vicious close-quarters fight, but not before his Marines had inflicted heavy casualties. Courtney was awarded the Medal of Honor two years later. Now, nearly 74 years after Courtney fell on the battlefield, a new fight is brewing, this time over the hero of Sugar Loaf Hill's Medal of Honor itself. Members of Courtney's family say the nonprofit that received it as a donation from the Marine's sister in the 1980s has broken its promise to honor Courtney's memory and has essentially hoarded the medal away in a vault with numerous others. The family is asking for the medal to be given or loaned to a Duluth veterans memorial and museum that has a substantial Courtney display. Thus far, the Valley Forge, Pa.-based Freedoms Foundation has refused to discuss the request with the family and the Veterans Memorial Hall. The family and its supporters have taken their fight public. "They're not telling Henry's story," Courtney's nephew, Court Storey, who was named for the Medal of Honor recipient, said of the Freedoms Foundation in a recent telephone interview. "I think it's a betrayal of trust when someone gives you something ... and wants his memory to live on and you don't do anything with one of the 10 [Medals of Honor] you have ... You don't hear anything about Henry [in their programs]," he said. The Freedoms Foundation was founded in 1949 by a group that included future President Dwight Eisenhower to educate Americans about their rights and responsibilities as citizens as well as to honor community service and those who give selflessly, according to its website. President David Harmer said the foundation "always" wants to honor donor intent, but in this case, that requires only that the medal be "safeguarded [at the foundation] in perpetuity." Courtney was born Jan. 6, 1916, the youngest of four siblings, according to a history written by a Duluth veterans' group. After graduating from the University of Minnesota, he received a law degree from Loyola University. While in school, Courtney had contacted a Marine recruiter and began the process of becoming commissioned in the Marine Corps Reserve, the history said. He took the oath of service in March 1940. After a stint in Iceland, he commanded a company of Marines during the Battle of Guadalcanal, the history said. After a bout of malaria that briefly saw him returned to the United States, Courtney requested combat duty and joined 2nd Battalion, 22nd Marines in November 1944. His next stop was Okinawa, Japan, and the bloodiest battle of the Pacific campaign. In the years since Courtney's death, the Navy destroyer escort USS Courtney and the Okinawa Marine base Camp Courtney -- today the home of the III Marine Expeditionary Force, 3rd Marine Division headquarters and the Operation Iceberg memorial -- have been named for the Marine legend. 'They don't tell his story' After his parents died, Courtney's Medal of Honor passed to his sister, Elizabeth Bean, Storey said. She assumed the mantle of trying to keep her brother's memory alive. Bean didn't want the medal to end up in some attic where no one could find it; she wanted her brother's "story to live on," he said. So, she began researching museums and educational institutions that would take and display the medal forever. Bean learned about the Freedoms Foundation, which had a 42-acre memorial, called Medal of Honor Grove, and a museum dedicated to recipients, Storey said. She contacted grove archivist Sister Maria Veronica Keane and was impressed by her dedication to the recipients. She donated the medal to the foundation in 1980 under the condition that Courtney's story be told in a meaningful way, Storey said. Keane left her position in 1986 and died in 2002, according to the foundation's website. Storey got involved with his uncle's legacy in 2013 when officials from the Duluth-based St. Louis County Historical Society contacted him for information on Courtney, he recalled. The society has since unveiled exhibits at the Veterans Memorial Hall in Duluth honoring Courtney and held three events dedicated to his memory. Storey said he was moved by the outpouring of support. "It just gave me this great feeling ... here in his hometown, 70 years later, people are getting to look at his picture," Storey said. Local resident and retired Marine Capt. Mike Stainbrook contacted the family on behalf of the society and expressed interest in displaying the medal at the Veterans Memorial Hall museum, Storey said. The family was interested. Courtney's nieces and nephews had a bad impression of the Freedoms Foundation after several relatives stopped by in recent years and had been barred from seeing the medal as it is kept secured in a vault. They were told they would have to call ahead if they wanted to view it, Storey said. They were able to view Courtney's file at the foundation but were surprised to see that it contained only his medal citation. There is no display dedicated to the Marine. "They have it in a glass case; I think they have 10 Medals of Honor and Henry's is one of them," Storey said. "They bring them up [together], and while they're doing one of their workshops or classes, [the medals are] sitting there [in the room]. It's some generic program. They don't tell his story." Storey said foundation educators talk about character development while the medals are in the room, but they don't talk about the individual recipients. In November 2015, Storey and seven other Courtney nieces and nephews wrote a letter to the foundation asking that ownership of the medal be transferred to the Duluth museum. That was denied. They then asked for a six-month loan, which was also denied. Unanimous decision In 2016, the historical society renovated Duluth's Veterans Memorial Hall Gallery at a cost of $75,000, said JoAnne Coombe, the society's executive director. The renovations included increased security for the Medal of Honor display in a section called "Medal of Honor Row," which features exhibits on Duluth Medal of Honor recipients. On Nov. 12, a replica of Courtney's medal was installed at the museum during its third event honoring the Marine hero. Members of Courtney's family were on hand. In numerous calls, Courtney's family has been unsuccessful in getting Harmer on the phone or getting a call back from him, Storey said. When reached by phone by Stars and Stripes, Harmer did not dispute Storey's comments about how the medal is stored and used, although he said that the foundation's file also includes a history, some photographs and correspondence with Bean. He said that he believed what the foundation did with Courtney's medal was adequate in honoring the recipient. Each time the family has contacted the foundation, its 13-member board of directors has been notified and after "careful deliberation" decided to "honor donor intent" and "retain the medal," Harmer said. The foundation's board includes Medal of Honor recipient Army Col. Walter Marm Jr. "I really feel for them but generally somebody who has been entrusted with one of these medals ... it is such an honor, such a responsibility, you safeguard it at all costs and so that's our motivation," Harmer said. "It involves no disrespect to the family, no lack of sympathy for them, no lack of appreciation what the group in Duluth has done; we respect it greatly, but again, after consultation with our board ... their unanimous decision was that we need to honor our original commitment to safeguard the medal," he added. Stainbrook said the foundation has offended many veterans in the Duluth area. "At the time that Henry Courtney's sister donated his [medal] to Freedoms Foundation there wasn't a suitable place in Minnesota to display the medal," Stainbrook said. The foundation's "stated mission of educating our youth in responsible citizenship is a noble cause. However, I don't see how stockpiling Medals of Honor fits that mission statement." Stainbrook vowed to continue the fight on behalf of Storey and Courtney's kin and Duluth's veteran community. He called on all veterans to write Harmer and the foundation's board of directors. "Our efforts to bring Maj. Courtney's medal back to his hometown are just beginning," Stainbrook said. "We are not going away." Storey said he was saddened that the foundation won't discuss a loan with the family. "If [my aunt] knew that they don't really use the medal and it's just there as a symbol ... I firmly believe ...[she] would say it's going to go in Duluth," he said. "I think they owe it to the man to give that medal back so it could appear in Duluth, so it could be seen." With passage of the new Blended Retirement System (BRS) in 2016, the Defense Department's Office of Actuary, assisted by computer modeling from the think tank Rand Corp., made some assumptions critical to planning future military retirement cost obligations. More than 862,000 active-duty members and 202,000 drilling Reserve and National Guard personnel, actuaries forecast, would opt to leave their High-3 retirement plan for the BRS during a year-long "open season" that ended Dec. 31. Turns out those projections were far too high. Near-final tallies of opt-in decisions for BRS (through Dec. 17) show only 280,000 active-duty members and just over 72,000 reserve component personnel chose to shift out of the High-3 plan. High-3 is the more generous retirement plan for members who serve 20 years or more and earn its lifetime annuity. The BRS provides a 20 percent smaller annuity. But for the majority of service members who don't serve full-length careers, the BRS also provides a Thrift Savings Plan that is bolstered by government matching of member contributions. Assuming no extraordinary rush to switch plans in its final two weeks of the open season -- before and after Christmas -- the BRS opt-in results fell as much as two-thirds below projections for active-duty and reserve component forces. In July 2016, the Department of Defense Board of Actuaries, which is responsible for ensuring the DoD Military Retirement Fund is properly valued and actuarially sound, accepted Rand's estimate that a total of 916,754 active and reserve component members would opt into the BRS when it became available. At the same time, the board concluded future military retirement obligations for the department could be lowered by 2.9 percent for the active force and .8 percent for reserve components, given the lower annuity formula for the BRS. DoD actuaries re-examined their estimates last year and raised the opt-in total by more than 100,000, to predict that 1.06 million active and reserve component members would choose to shift to the BRS during the open season. The opportunity to switch plans was opened to more than half of all active-duty and reserve component members. Active-duty members could switch if they had fewer than 12 years in as of Dec. 31, 2017. Reserve component members could do so if they had fewer than 4,320 drill points for retirement by that date. Members who enter service on or after Jan. 1, 2018, have no choice; BRS became their plan. Active-duty members who had more 12 years, and reservists with more than 4320 retirement points, by Dec. 31, 2017, stayed under High-3. The BRS is called "blended" because it combines an immediate but smaller annuity after 20 or more years with a Thrift Savings Plan enhanced by government matching of member contributions. That 401(k)-like nest egg can be rolled into a civilian employer's 401(k) benefit upon leaving service. Only 49 percent of new officers and 17 percent of enlistees attain 20 years of active-duty service to be able to retire. Because enhanced Thrift Savings helps that majority who leave short of retirement eligibility, the BRS was expected to be a more popular option, particularly for enlisted members in their first or second enlistment and for officers completing initial service obligations. DoD actuaries predicted in their Military Valuation Report that the vast majority of active-duty officers and enlisted with fewer than 12 years of service would opt into the BRS. Their opt-in assumption for active-duty members with one year of service, for example, was 85.5 percent for officers and 95 percent for enlisted. Only for enlisted members past their 9th year of service, and for officers past the 10th year, did assumed opt-in rates fall below 50 percent. The blended retirement has two more unique features. There's a one-time "continuation payment" payable by the 12th year of service, to be set at a minimum equal to two-and-half months of basic for active-duty members who agree to serve four more years. The minimum is one-half month of active-duty pay for reserve component personnel who make the same deal. Also, the BRS allows those who reach retirement to receive in a lump sum of either 25 percent or 50 percent of the value of annuities payable until old age. The lump sum is designed to help a member buy a home, start a business or pay off debts in return for cutting his or her annuity by one-quarter or half until age 67. Actuarial groups have railed against the lump-sum offer as an unfair choice for members who retire under the BRS, given the amount they would forfeit in total future benefits for the enticement of many thousands of dollars in cash. Whatever the reasons, the BRS features didn't attract nearly the number of current force members that the actuaries and Rand computer modeling forecast. Through mid-December only 21.6 percent of active-duty soldiers eligible for the BRS switched from High-3, giving the Army the lowest opt-in rate of the four DoD military branches. The active-duty opt-in rate was 26.3 percent for the Air Force, 28.3 percent for the Navy, and a surprising 53.7 percent for the Marine Corps. The BRS likely was far more attractive to Marines because the Corps keeps its career force proportionally smaller than do other service branches. A higher percentage of Marines can serve only a tour or two before returning to civilian life. With the BRS, they will leave with heftier Thrift Savings Plan balances. The Marine Corps Reserve also had a higher opt-in rate to the BRS, at 37.6 percent compared to 8.4 percent for eligible Army National Guard members, 9.4 percent for the Army Reserve, 10.1 percent for the Navy Reserve, 10.3 percent for the Air Force Reserve, and 10.6 percent among eligible Air National Guard members. The BRS opt-in rates for active-duty forces across the DoD was 29.2 percent through mid-December and 10.6 percent for reserve component forces. Those were far lower than anticipated. In fairness, the Defense Board of Actuaries, at the time it embraced Rand's modeling estimates, said it did so reluctantly, concluding that "we have no better basis for projecting opt-in behavior." In addition to those members who voluntarily opted into the BRS during the open season, more than 142,000 enlisted recruits and officers who first entered service in 2018 automatically became part of the BRS generation. To comment, write Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120 or email milupdate@aol.com or twitter: @Military_Update. The Pentagon is planning to cut its force size in Afghanistan by half, but special operations strike units will remain in country to carry out raids on Taliban and Islamic State fighters, a Defense Department official with knowledge of the withdrawal plans said Wednesday. Press reports of a decision by President Donald Trump to begin removing U.S. forces from Afghanistan began emerging in late December, shortly after the White House declared victory over ISIS fighters in Syria and ordered that American troops be pulled from that war-torn country. U.S. military leaders since have downplayed the reports of an Afghanistan departure as rumors. Following a Dec. 23 meeting with the governor of Nangarhar district, Gen. Scott Miller, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, told Afghanistan's TOLOnews agency, "I have seen the same rumors you have from the newspapers [on withdrawals], but all I would assure you is, first of all, I have no orders, so nothing changed. But if I do get orders, I think it is important for you to know that we are still with the security forces. Even if I have to get a little bit smaller, we will be OK." On Jan. 2, U.S. military officials remained reluctant to discuss withdrawal plans from Afghanistan, but a source familiar with the strategy told Military.com that Miller plans to pull about 7,000 of the estimated 14,000 U.S. troops out of the country over the next eight to 12 months. Currently, the bulk of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is dedicated to advising and training Afghan security forces to be able to operate without American assistance, but the fledgling force remains inexperienced in complex warfighting skills, such as combat aviation, combined arms operations and logistical support, military officials say. The direct-action portion of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan -- made up of a small contingent of U.S. Special Operations Forces, such as units from the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment; 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, known as Delta Force; and the Navy's Special Warfare Development Group, or SEAL Team Six -- will continue to carry out strike missions against enemy positions in the country, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official is not authorized to speak to the press. "We will have a strike force in country," the source told Military.com. U.S. military officials maintain that the Pentagon has received no official orders or guidance on withdrawal plans, despite reports Trump wants a plan to cut the number of troops in Afghanistan by half. "Nothing has changed," said Lt. Col. Kone Faulkner, a Pentagon spokesman, on Wednesday. "As peace talks with the Taliban continue, we are considering all options of force numbers and disposition." While not confirming plans for withdrawal, Miller said Tuesday at an event in Kabul that a major policy review is underway on the overall U.S. objective of driving the Taliban to a peace agreement with the Afghan government. "The policy review is going on in multiple capitals, peace talks [are] out there, regional players pressing for peace, the Taliban talking about peace, the Afghan government talking about peace," Miller said, according to TOLOnews. The Taliban has thus far refused to meet with Kabul representatives while they continue to maintain contact with U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad. Currently, there are about 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan serving in both the U.S. Operation Freedoms Sentinel and NATO's Resolute Support mission. About 8,000 coalition nation troops are also part of Resolute Support, for a total of about 22,000 U.S., NATO and partner nation troops in Afghanistan, according to NATO and the Pentagon Inspector Generals office. At the height of the U.S. and NATO commitment to Afghanistan in 2012, there were about 130,000 troops in Afghanistan from the U.S., NATO and other coalition countries. Despite the continued U.S. and NATO presence in Afghanistan, Taliban insurgents control nearly half the country and are more powerful now than they have been at any time since a 2001 U.S.-led invasion, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. The 17-year conflict has cost the U.S. about $900 billion and resulted in more than 2,400 American deaths. Editor's Note: This story has been updated to show there are currently about 22,000 U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan. -- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com. -- Richard Sisk can be reached at richard.sisk@military.com. President Donald Trump claimed Wednesday that he "essentially" fired Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who resigned in protest Dec. 20, for failing to crush the Taliban and end the war in Afghanistan, now in its 18th year. In remarks at a White House Cabinet meeting, Trump said of Mattis, "What's he done for me? How had he done in Afghanistan? Not too good. I'm not happy with what he's done in Afghanistan, and I shouldn't be happy. He [Mattis] was very happy," according to White House pool reports. The stunning comments by Trump about the legendary retired four-star Marine general followed the president's equally stunning announcement via Twitter on Dec. 19 that the estimated 2,000 troops in Syria would be withdrawn. A day after Trump's Syria announcement, Mattis sent out a letter of resignation in which he stressed that U.S. national security interests were best served by working with allies and local partnered forces in Syria and elsewhere. Mattis said Trump as commander-in-chief deserved a defense secretary who held views "better aligned" with his own and offered to stay until Feb. 28 while the president found a successor. At the Cabinet meeting, Trump said he "essentially" fired Mattis by ordering him out of the Pentagon by Jan. 1. Trump announced via Twitter that Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing executive, would become acting secretary of defense Jan. 1 and could possibly serve in that post for a lengthy period of time before he settles on a permanent replacement. In his first message as acting secretary Tuesday, Shanahan said he was looking forward to "working with President Trump to carry out his vision" for promoting the nation's defense. Trump initially praised Mattis following his sudden resignation, saying in a series of Tweets that Mattis had "served with distinction" for nearly two years as defense secretary and had made "tremendous progress" in reforming the Pentagon and carrying out Trump's policies. In October, Trump fueled speculation that Mattis was on his way out by going on CBS' "60 Minutes" to say of Mattis that "it could be" that he was about to resign. "I think he's sort of a Democrat, if you want to know the truth. But General Mattis is a good guy," Trump said. "We get along very well. He may leave. I mean, at some point, everybody leaves. Everybody. People leave. That's Washington." However, Mattis, in several informal sessions with Pentagon reporters in recent months, had brushed off increasing speculation that he was about to leave. Trump has often voiced doubts about the contribution to U.S. security from the commitment of troops to Afghanistan and the current cost to taxpayers of about $45 billion annually. In his August 2017 address to the nation, Trump announced he was reluctantly committing to sending an additional 5,000 troops to Afghanistan in a new "conditions-based" strategy that had no timeline for withdrawal. He also stated in the address that his initial instinct was to order the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, but he acted on advice from Mattis and Army Gen. John Nicholson, then the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, to commit more personnel. Since Trump announced the Syria withdrawal, reports from The Associated Press and others, citing U.S. defense officials, have stated that he also has ordered plans to cut the estimated 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan by half this year. In commenting on the reports, both Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford and Army Gen. Scott Miller, who took over in September as commander of U.S. and NATO forces, have said they have thus far received no orders on withdrawals, according to Stars & Stripes. -- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 3) President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday warned big-time drug traders that he has his eye on them and would not hesitate to slit their throats. Speaking at the birthday celebration of former presidential adviser Francis Tolentino Wednesday, Duterte said, "'Pag big time ka, hindi kita papatawarin. Sa harapan ng human rights, I will slit your throat. Wala akong pakialam. Sabihin ko sa inyo, huwag mong gawain 'yan sa bayan ko. Talagang yayariin kita. So I could not be more clear." [Translation: If you are a big time player, I will not forgive you. I will slit your throat in front of human rights. I don't care. I'm telling you not to do that to my country. I will get you. So I could not be more clear.] The President added, "I'm just warning for the remaining three years na 'yung malalaki, talagang tatamaan 'yan. And if you ask me kung mamatay 'yan, mamamatay talaga 'yan." [Translation: I'm just warning for the remaining three years that the big fish will take a hit. And if you ask me if they'll die, they will die.] However, Duterte said he had miscalculated just how much effort was required to fight the war on drugs. "Nagkamali kasi ako, because I thought that I could fix it just like Davao. Siyempre yung iba, pinatay ko talaga, wala tayong magawa e, lumaban," he said. [Translation: I made a mistake, because I thought that I could fix it just like Davao. Of course the others, I killed, I could not do anything because they fought back.] Duterte has taken a tough stance against drugs, promising to get rid of it along with corruption and criminality in his campaign for the presidency. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan told the military service chiefs Wednesday that dealing with China would be his top priority. He also announced that Pentagon Comptroller David Norquist would take on his former duties as Deputy Defense Secretary. In a closed-door meeting with the military service chiefs and undersecretaries of defense on his first full day as acting secretary, Shanahan said he would focus on implementing the National Defense Strategy drafted by former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and approved by President Donald Trump, according to a defense official who spoke on grounds of anonymity. The strategy singled out China and Russia as the main threats to U.S. national security, as opposed to the counter-terrorism focus of past formulas for the overall direction of the Defense Department. At the meeting, Shanahan indicated that China would be his top priority. "While we are focused on ongoing operations, Acting Secretary Shanahan told the team to remember China, China, China," the defense official said. In announcing Norquist as the Pentagon's new No. 2, Shanahan said the Department of Defense "chief financial officer and comptroller for the past 19 months ... has had insight into virtually every tenet of this department," according to the official. "I have the greatest confidence in his abilities to lead a phenomenally talented team while performing the duties as deputy secretary of defense," Shanahan said, according to the official. In his tenure as comptroller, Norquist presided last year over the first-ever audit of the Defense Department. In a news conference following the audit results' release, Norquist said he would give all the military branches a failing grade in their accounting procedures, but added that this was to be expected in a first-time audit. Following the meeting, Shanahan's spokesman, Army Lt. Col. Joe Buccino said the new acting secretary, a former Boeing executive, would steer clear of all matters concerning the aerospace firm. "Under his ethics agreement, Mr. Shanahan has recused himself for the duration of his service in the Department of Defense from participating in matters in which the Boeing Company is a party," Buccino said in a statement. -- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com. Pomfret School POMFRET Students named to the deans list at Pomfret School earned a grade-point average of 3.330 and received no grade lower than a B- for the fall term. They include Middlesex County residents Charles Ferrucci of Essex and Joshua Stielau of Middletown. Columbia College COLUMBIA, Missouri A Middlesex County resident is among students recently named to the Columbia College deans list for the fall semester. To be included, an undergraduate must have completed 12 semester hours in a 16-week period and achieved a minimum GPA of 3.5 on a 4.0-point scale. Kylene Fongemie, of the Moodus section of East Hampton, is attending the Redstone Arsenal campus in Alabama. Eastern Connecticut State University WILLIMANTIC Eastern Connecticut State University students and staff recently expanded their law enforcement knowledge through an extensive program offered by the Willimantic Police Department. Eight students and interim director of the Office of Student Conduct completed the WPDs Citizens Police Academy in November. Killingworth resident Lucian Afragola, class of 2020, a criminology major, was one of the student participants. The nine-week course covered a variety of topics centered on police officer training. Each week focused on a different component, including traffic stops, the use of force, drug searches and more. Those in the program were able to assess mock crime scenes and practice firing nonlethal weapons. Three-hour classes were facilitated by officers each week, according to a press release. District 13 announces kindergarten registration DURHAM / MIDDLEFIELD Parents of children living in Durham and Middlefield who will be five (5) years old on or before Jan. 1, 2020 must register them to attend kindergarten in September 2019 or apply for a waiver of attendance. In Regional School District #13, children may attend kindergarten in either the Contemporary Program or the Integrated Day Program. Parents need to choose the appropriate program for their child prior to kindergarten registration. School visits and information available at the schools will assist parents in making their choice. The Contemporary Program serves children in grades K-3 and is housed at Brewster School. Grade 4 students currently attend Memorial Middle School, officials said in a statement. The Integrated Day program serves students in grades K-4 at John Lyman School. The Contemporary Program and Integrated Day Program adhere to the same curriculum and utilize similar assessments. While the two programs share many similarities, they also have some distinct differences that you may want to consider when deciding which program is best for your child. The best way to understand the differences between the programs is to visit both programs. We encourage you to visit the schools. Only by visiting can you get the true flavor of the two instructional programs. You will receive additional information about the two programs during your visits. If you are unable to visit and would like the information on the two programs, please contact the school offices. Parents may visit the schools until Jan. 31 to observe classes and to discuss any specific questions or concerns. Visits, which are designed for adults, should be scheduled ahead of time to allow for optimum opportunities to observe the programs. Appointments to visit can be made by calling the individual schools. Schedules vary by school and not every date within the visitation window will be available. Call Lyman School at 860-349-7240 to visit the Integrated Day Program. To visit the Contemporary Program, call Brewster School at 860-349-7227. According to District #13 Board of Education policy, the program choice decision must be made by Feb. 1. Any child not registered in a specific program by that date may not be able to attend the program chosen by his/her parents(s). To register a child for the Contemporary Program, please call Brewster School at 860-349-7227. To register a child for the Integrated Day program, call John Lyman School at 860-349-7240. The school will then send you information and instructions for online registration. The online registration must be completed before Feb. 9 to guarantee your childs place in the school that you selected. Share this information with others you may know who have children eligible for kindergarten in the fall of 2019. Any parent of an eligible kindergarten child who wishes to hold his/her child out of school for another year must sign a form at the Office of the Superintendent of Schools. Kindergarten registration forms available, dates set LYME/OLD LYME Lyme-Old Lyme Public Schools kindergarten registration for fall 2019 is being held Jan. 28-29, 9 a.m-1 p.m. at at Lyme Consolidated School and Mile Creek School. Children who will be 5 on or before Jan. 1, 2020 are eligible to register for Kindergarten for September 2019. While parents may complete the registration process at either school, a childs school placement will depend on district attendance zones. Parents must bring each childs birth certificate, immunization and health records and 3 forms of proof of residency Those who cannot register on Jan. 28-29 can call Lyme Consolidated School at 860-434-1233, or Mile Creek School at 860-434-2209, to have childrens names placed on the kindergarten list. Portland kindergarten registration dates set PORTLAND Parents/guardians whose children will be five years of age on or before January 1, 2020, should now contact Valley View School at 860-342-3131 to have materials sent to them. Registration paperwork will be mailed to parents/guardians by the end of February. Kindergarten registration will be held the week of March 11-15, 2019. Parents will be assigned a day to register alphabetically according to their last name. At the time of registration, parents must bring two proofs of residency, a copy of their childs birth certificate and the completed paperwork that was mailed to them in February. Further information regarding the kindergarten orientation process will be provided at registration time. If you have any questions, call Valley View School at 860-342-3131. xxx School to hold open house events OLD SAYBROOK The Childrens Tree Montessori School, 96 Essex Road, Old Saybrook, will hold Open Houses on Jan. 26, Feb. 2 and Feb. 9 or March 2, 9 a.m.-12 p.m. The Childrens Tree offers an independent elementary school as well as toddler and preschool classrooms. As one of only three AMS accredited schools in our state, CTMS offers an authentic Montessori education, lead by certified teachers. In fact, it is the only school in the area to offer a Montessori education from toddler all the way through 6th grade. Montessori is a method of education that is based on the belief that children are individuals. The role of the teacher is to guide each child through the learning process using scientifically developed materials that fit their specific needs and pace. In addition, Montessori education supports and nurtures the whole child: social, emotional, physical and cognitive. The Childrens Tree is a non-profit school founded in 1995 to provide an alternative to traditional preschool programs, expanding to offer an elementary school in 2001, and a toddler community was added in 2014. The schools mission is to provide a carefully planned, stimulating environment in which children can develop a solid foundation and love of learning, using the Montessori method, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, or financial ability. For more information call 860.388.3536 or visit www.childrenstree.org. WASHINGTON - Democrats will take control of the House on Thursday with a stark challenge to President Donald Trump, voting on legislation that would fund the federal government while denying Trump the money he has demanded to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. GOP leaders in the Senate said they would support only a proposal that has the president's backing. And without additional wall money, the Democrats' offer is unlikely to break the stalemate that has shuttered large parts of the federal government since Dec. 22. But the strategy Democrats announced Monday would usher in a new era of divided government in Washington with a dare to Trump, aimed at forcing him and Senate Republicans to take their deal or prolong a partial government shutdown. House Democrats plan to use their new majority to vote through measures that would reopen nearly all of the shuttered federal agencies through the end of September, at funding levels Senate Republicans have previously agreed to. Those spending bills contain scores of priorities and pet projects for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The Democratic proposal holds out one exception: The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees border security, would keep its current level of funding, with no new money for a border wall. The plan would also extend the department's budget only through Feb. 8, allowing Democrats to revisit funding for key parts of Trump's immigration policy in a month. "The President is using the government shutdown to try to force an expensive and ineffective wall upon the American people, but Democrats have offered two bills which separate the arguments over the wall from the government shutdown," read a joint statement from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the likely next House speaker, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Republican leaders would have the option to pass the bipartisan bills, reopening much of the government while the border fight continued, but doing so could diminish Trump's leverage as he demands billions in taxpayer funding for a wall. On Monday, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the Senate, which will remain under Republican control, will bring up only legislation that has the president's blessing. "It's simple: The Senate is not going to send something to the president that he won't sign," Don Stewart, McConnell's spokesman, wrote in an email Monday. The president has asked for $5 billion in border money, far beyond the $1.3 billion that Democrats plan to vote through this week. Trump on Monday invited Democrats to continue negotiations but reiterated that he had no plans to back down. "They can come over right now, they could've come over anytime. I spent Christmas in the White House, I spent New Year's Eve now in the White House. And you know, I'm here, I'm ready to go. It's very important," he said in an interview with Fox News that's airing Monday evening during the network's New Year's Eve programming. "We are not giving up. We have to have border security, and the wall is a big part of border security," he said. The White House did not comment Monday on House Democrats' plan. One of Trump's close congressional allies, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., dismissed the proposal from Democrats. "Nancy Pelosi's newest funding proposal doesn't represent any serious attempt to secure our border or find a compromise," Meadows wrote on Twitter, adding that the plan was "a non-starter and will not be a legitimate answer to this impasse." The deadlock has resulted in what is already the longest partial government shutdown since a 16-day standoff in 2013 over the Affordable Care Act. Some 800,000 federal workers have been affected, with an estimated 350,000 furloughed at home and the others still working because their jobs are deemed "essential." Thus far workers have not missed a paycheck, but that will begin to happen if the shutdown is not resolved soon. Many federal contractors are without work as well. "The biggest reaction still remains anxiety: When will this end?" said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, a Democrat whose Northern Virginia district is home to tens of thousands of federal workers. "Coupled with now the creeping reality of the financial consequences if this goes on too long, everything from 'Can I pay rent on time?' to 'What kind of obligations, if any, can I incur while it's uncertain whether I get a paycheck?' " The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, representing some 700,000 workers, on Monday announced that it was suing the federal government over the shutdown, writing in a statement that "the federal government is violating the law by requiring some federal employees to work without pay during a shutdown." In an issue unrelated to the border wall but important to federal workers, the package of full-year bills that Democrats plan to pass would include a 1.9 percent raise for civilian workers that Trump has sought to deny. Earlier in December, Senate Republicans signed off on a plan that would have averted the shutdown but did not include new wall money, only to have Trump publicly denounce the proposal the next day. McConnell, who will remain in charge of the Senate in 2019 as the House flips to Democratic control, does not want to put his lawmakers in that position again. The construction of a wall along the Mexican border was one of Trump's top promises in the 2016 campaign and early in his presidency, and he vowed to make Mexico pay for it. More recently, he has asked for taxpayer money to build the wall and said Mexico will indirectly pay for it later, but his aides have struggled to explain how that will happen. Pelosi, who is expected to be elected speaker this week, has called the wall "immoral" and said her new majority will not pay for it. House Democrats settled on the approach of funding the Department of Homeland Security on a short-term basis after liberals objected to a proposal to fund the agency through the rest of the 2018 fiscal year, even without increasing spending at the border. A coalition of advocacy groups, including the ACLU, sent Pelosi and Schumer a letter Friday opposing extending funding for the Department of Homeland Security for a full year, citing concerns that such an approach "clearly funds Trump's wall project and must be rejected." A spokeswoman for the ACLU said Monday that the group supports extending Homeland Security funding to Feb. 8, which would allow newly empowered Democrats more latitude in determining the agency's budget for the remainder of fiscal 2018. Trump canceled a planned trip to his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., to stay in Washington to deal with the shutdown, but he has not been in touch with Democratic leaders. There have been no face-to-face negotiations since Vice President Pence and others held meetings at the Capitol on Dec. 22, the day the shutdown began. Pence made Democrats an offer that lowered proposed spending on the wall, but they rejected it in part because it included what they called a $400,000 "slush fund" that Trump could have spent on other immigration priorities. Despite Republicans holding a bigger majority in the Senate in the next Congress, some Democratic votes will still be needed to pass funding legislation there, and Democratic senators, even more moderate ones, have been resolute against money for a wall. That much was clear soon after the November midterms, when Schumer started gauging where Democratic senators stood on $5 billion for a border wall through one-on-one conversations in his office. Repeatedly, Democratic senators told Schumer that they would support money for border security but not Trump's specific request, according to a person familiar with the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe them. The agencies affected by the shutdown make up about 25 percent of the portion of the federal government that is funded by Congress. The Pentagon is mostly not affected, since a spending bill for the military was passed by Congress and signed by Trump earlier in 2018. Congress and the president also passed legislation to fund the Labor Department, the Health and Human Services Department and others, before Trump's demands for wall money ground negotiations on other spending bills to a halt. Programs like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid also are unaffected, since their budgets proceed automatically, without the need for annual congressional appropriations. The Russia investigation of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III also is unaffected since it is paid for by a permanent, dedicated funding stream. HADDAM Haddam Volunteer Fire Co. responded to 46 calls for emergency services in December: seven fire/alarms, seven motor vehicle accidents, 27 medical assists and five other issues. Crews were dispatched to Wiese Albert Road for a chimney fire Dec. 10. Inside the basement, firefighters discovered creosote burning inside a wood stoves flue damper, according to officials. The flue damper was too hot and too blocked to open, so firefighters used a dry chemical extinguish and smother the fire. Once cooled, crews were able to open the damper and knock burning creosote loose. From the rooftop, firefighters dropped chimney chains down the flue to remove more burning debris, fire officials said. The Haddam Fire Marshal instructed the homeowner not to use the wood stove again until the chimney was inspected by a professional. Deer were responsible for two motor vehicle accidents last month on Saybrook Road. A driver was transported to Middlesex Hospital with chest paints after hitting a deer Dec. 10. HVFC closed one lane of traffic during the incident. The company also responded to another car vs. deer incident Dec. 23, according to the stations Facebook page. HVFC responded to a motor vehicle accident on Brainard Hill Road involving three individuals Dec. 26. A driver had lost control of his vehicle and struck a tree head on, fire officials said. Crews evaluated all three patients on scene, and Haddam Volunteer Ambulance Service took one passenger to Middlesex Hospital. HVFC was dispatched to another motor vehicle accident on Killingworth Road near the Route 9 ramp intersection Dec. 27. All four people involved in the accident were taken to area hospitals for treatment. A driver, evading police in a high-speed chase, had exited Route 9 at Exit 9, failed to stop, and struck a vehicle traveling on Killingworth Road. That vehicle, which contained a driver and two passengers, rolled over upon impact, officials said. The man driving the evading car, now Connecticut State Police custody, was taken to Middlesex Hospital via Hunters Ambulance, officials said. According to a report issued by the CSP, the driver was reportedly traveling 89 mph in a 65 mph zone. He was arrested and charged with reckless driving, operating under suspension, failure to have minimum insurance, engaging in pursuit, evading responsibility, interfering with a police officer, reckless endangerment, possession of less than half an ounce of marijuana, second-degree assault and third-degree assault, according to police. HVFC was dispatched to the Haddam Elementary School to meet state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection personnel to investigate a bright green liquid discovered in a nearby brook Dec. 25, according to the Facebook post. Firefighters traced the substance back to a storm drain at the intersection of Saybrook Road and Christian Hill Road. They questioned a nearby homeowner, who stated that he used a non-toxic green tracer dye in his sump pump to locate a leak, officials said. Firefighters discovered his sump pump drained directly into a basin at Saybrook Road and Christian Hill Road. The scene was turned over to DEEP with no hazards present, according to the Facebook post. In the community Haddam Volunteer Fire Companys Junior Division raised $565 during a fill-the-boot event. The funds were donated to the 30th annual HKTV Holiday Telethon, which raised donations for Connecticut-based organization After the Storm. More than 130 children attended Haddam Volunteer Fire Companys annual Childrens Christmas Party on Dec. 15. Thank you to everyone who came out and visited with Santa! Membership HVFC welcomes new members interested in the role of firefighter and fire police. All training and gear are provided. For information, email membership@haddamfire.org. WASHINGTON Fighting a cold that robbed her of her voice, Rep. Jahana Hayes could be forgiven for a bout of speechlessness Thursday as she took the oath of office to become the new House member for Connecticuts 5th Congressional District. Its official, she said in a raspy, barely audible voice as she sat alone on a bench in the Speakers Lobby, just off the House floor. Hayes is unlikely to be quiet for long. With a government shutdown in its 12th day over President Donald Trumps demand for funding a U.S-Mexico border wall, the Democratic-controlled House got down to business by electing Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as Speaker of the House. Democrats, who now control the House 235-199, scheduled a series of evening votes to fund the affected government agencies through Sept. 30, and the Department of Homeland Security overseer of border protection through Feb. 8 while negotiations over the wall continue. The votes are likely to be DOA in the Republican-controlled Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has stated he will not put any measure on the floor that Trump wont sign even though the Senate passed a similar proposal on voice vote on Dec. 19. So on Day 1, Hayes found herself enmeshed in a battle of which side blinks first. Its just a reminder for me of the work that is necessary, and of what we have to get done, she said. It should not be a game. Hayes promises to be a reliable Democratic vote in a district that has been solidly Democratic since now-Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., defeated Republican incumbent Nancy Johnson in 2006. As a teacher at Waterburys John F. Kennedy High School who was Teacher of the Year in 2016, Hayes hopes to win appointment to the Education and the Workforce Committee. She sees it as a natural fit for her background in education. She asked Pelosi for the appointment in a one-on-one meeting. But so far, she hasnt heard a thing. Her second choice is the House Agriculture Committee, an important post in a district that covers virtually all of western Connecticut from Danbury to the New York and Massachusetts lines. But Thursday was more about taking it all in. While Hayes attended the House session to vote in Pelosi, her smallish office in the nearby Longworth House Office Building was packed with well wishers who traveled from Connecticut to witness the day. I think shell do fine, said 10-year-old Lemar Johnson, of Waterbury, who was there with his grandmother, Louise Lopez, and sister, Kiarah Schofield. The family knows Hayes from Christ CME Church in Waterbury and helped out in her campaign. We were there for her in the beginning and we wanted to be here at the end or, maybe, the new beginning, said Jimmy Griffin, of Waterbury, 74, who is past president of the Connecticut state chapter of the NAACP. Ive known her for years. Were like extended family. Hayes husband, Milford, a Waterbury police detective, and three sons were in Washington for the swearing in. But her daughter, Asia Clermont, was back home in Waterbury and about to deliver her first child which would make Hayes a grandmother. Over at the White House, Trump congratulated Pelosi on her regaining the job of Speaker, which she lost in 2011 after voters gave Republicans control of the House. It's a very, very great achievement, he said of one of his bitterest Democratic rivals in Washington. Hopefully, we're going to have a lot of things that we can get done together. And I think it's actually going to work out. I think it'll be a little bit different than a lot of people are thinking. But the president showed little interest in budging on his demand that Congress fund the $5 billion necessary to build the wall even though he backed off his description of it as wall. You can call it a barrier, he said. You can call it whatever you want. For Hayes, the back-and-forth comes with a price tag of its own. It should not be about peoples egos, peoples pride, she said. Americans are hurting. dan@hearstdc.com Connecticut ranks third from last nationally on United Van Lines annual study of outbound moves, with New Jersey dead bottom. In Connecticut, 62 percent of moves handled by United Van Lines were by families moving elsewhere, with job considerations preeminent in 34 percent of those cases, just ahead of retirement at 30 percent. SANDUSKY The 83rd annual Sanilac County Dairy Banquet is right around the corner. The banquet, A Celebration of Dairy, will take place Jan. 19 at the Countryside Free Methodist Church-Family Life Center in Sandusky across from Tri-County Equipment. Doors will open at 7 p.m. and serving will begin at 7:15. Appetizers will be served, followed by a prime rib dinner. The banquet takes place each year to celebrate the accomplishments of one of Sanilac Countys most important industries: The dairy industry. Sanilac County has one of the largest and most progressive dairy industries of all counties in Michigan and is an important contributor to the local economy. It's estimated the Sanilac County dairy industry generates nearly $140 million in gross revenue that is circulated through our local economy. Therefore, each year the important accomplishments of individual dairy farmers and dairy farms are honored at the Sanilac County Dairy Banquet. And, you don't want to miss Greg and BrookeAnna Peterson from the Peterson Farm Bros. Greg Peterson, from the Peterson Farm Bros, will discuss his experience advocating for agriculture with fun YouTube parody music videos. He will also discuss his experiences as a young farmer in todays agriculture. To learn more about Greg, visit https://petersonfarmbrothers.com. There will also be time to visit with colleagues, neighbors and friends. Also the winner of the Jeff Fry Award will be announced. This award is given to recognize an individual who exhibits outstanding leadership and involvement in the dairy industry in Sanilac County and who is ousting in their participation in other community, state and national activities. Tickets are $15 per person, $7 for children 10 and under if purchased in advance, or $18 per person if purchased at the door. This event is limited to 250 tickets. Tickets are available at the Michigan State University Extension Offices located at 171 Dawson St. in Sandusky or 1142 S. Van Dyke Road, Suite 200, Bad Axe or from one of the following dairy banquet committee members: Patti Shinn of Croswell; Dennis and Sara Lee of Deckerville; Dr. Bob Hassler of Sandusky, Trevor and Mary-Lynne Stone of Sandusky, Marianne Buza from MSU Extension and Andy Brown of St Clair County or any of the DHIA technicians Pam Thom, Marlin Zeiset, Duane Zimmerman, Anna Wisner, Nate Harmon and Martha Draper. BAD AXE Since 1946, the McCoy family has been in the honey business. However, it wasn't until some 72 years later, McCoy Honey decided to sell in a retail location. McCoy Honey is now offered at McDonald's Food and Family Center in Bad Axe. According to Co-Owner Brett McCoy, who runs the primarily wholesale honey business with brothers Ryan and Shawn and their father Joseph, taking their product retail was just a logical next step. "We're just looking to get our local product out to the local people," said McCoy. "We thought McDonald's Food and Family was a good local store to place it in." Last month, the product hit local shelves. As far as expanding further, McCoy said they are going to see how things go, but increased production shouldn't be a problem. The company recently built a new processing center in the Minden City industrial drive on 5th Street, that will at least double their output to around 24,000 pounds per day. McCoy said it should be open by early next year. McCoy Honey currently employs 10 individuals, aside from the sons and father. "We've been doing business in Michigan for over 70 years," McCoy said. "We're actually one of the largest bee companies in Michigan." The comments marked a surprising split with U.S. conservatives dating back to President Ronald Reagan, who saw the invasion as an attempt to spread communism and aided insurgent forces fighting Soviet troops. "The most shameless Soviet propagandist never claimed that Afghan terrorists were attacking Russia," said Barnett Rubin, an Afghanistan expert at New York University. "You can read all Soviet media in the 1980s and never find anything this ridiculous." There was ultimately a problem with extremism in Afghanistan, but it developed largely after the USSR left, and the mujahideen groups that sprang up to fight the Soviets devolved into the Taliban. On Friday, the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board ripped the president, writing, "This mockery is a slander against every ally that has supported the U.S. effort in Afghanistan with troops who fought and often died." The board called Trump's representation of the Soviet invasion "reprehensible" and "false." CEDAR LAKE ASSOCIATION WARNING An aeration system creating open water and thin ice will begin operating on Cedar Lake in Aitkin County, Idun Township, Range 24, Sections 7 and 8 in December of 2018 or at first ice. Weather conditions may cause the areas of thin ice and open water to fluctuate greatly. Stay clear of marked area! Published in the Mille Lacs Messenger November 14, 21, 2018 879127 Ad details CEDAR LAKE ASSOCIATION WARNING An aeration system creating open water and thin ice will begin operating on Cedar Lake in Aitkin County, Idun Township, Range 24, Sections 7 and 8 in December of 2018 or at first ice. Weather conditions may cause the areas of thin ice and open water to fluctuate greatly. Stay clear of marked area! Published in the Mille Lacs Messenger November 14, 21, 2018 879127 AITKIN COUNTY LOCATION AND TEST OF OPTICAL SCAN VOTING EQUIPMENT Notice is hereby given that the test of the assistive voting equipment and the optical scan voting equipment will be held in the Aitkin County Auditors Office, on the second floor of the Courthouse. The test of the equipment will be done at 9:00am on Friday, November 2nd, 2018. This test shall be done before two election judges, not of the same political party, and shall be open to the representatives of the major political parties, candidates, press and public. KIRK PEYSAR AITKIN COUNTY AUDITOR 209 Second Street NW Aitkin, MN 56431 218-927-7354 Fax: 218-927-7324 Published in the Aitkin Independent Age October 31, 2018 872004 Ad details AITKIN COUNTY LOCATION AND TEST OF OPTICAL SCAN VOTING EQUIPMENT Notice is hereby given that the test of the assistive voting equipment and the optical scan voting equipment will be held in the Aitkin County Auditors Office, on the second floor of the Courthouse. The test of the equipment will be done at 9:00am on Friday, November 2nd, 2018. This test shall be done before two election judges, not of the same political party, and shall be open to the representatives of the major political parties, candidates, press and public. KIRK PEYSAR AITKIN COUNTY AUDITOR 209 Second Street NW Aitkin, MN 56431 218-927-7354 Fax: 218-927-7324 Published in the Aitkin Independent Age October 31, 2018 872004 Paul Whelan, shown here in Iceland, was arrested in Russia on espionage charges. Whelan, 48, is a retired U.S. Marine. (Family photo) Meridian, MS (39302) Today Mainly cloudy. A few peeks of sunshine possible. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 93F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight A stray thunderstorm is possible throughout the evening. Clear to partly cloudy. Low around 70F. Winds light and variable. At the end of every year, the world gets divided into certain categories - 'The New Year, New Me' group, 'I will make new resolutions and follow them religiously' group, 'I will make resolutions but will never follow them' group, 'I will get in shape this year and stop eating junk' group, 'I will not be single this year' group and 'let's finally go to Goa in 2019 group admin' group. Pexels While we are guilty of being a part of at least one of these categories, there is something common amongst all of us - the urge to know what the new year has to offer. So, as we have officially entered 2019, here's a look at what this year has in store for each and every Zodiac sign. ARIES - March 21 - April 20 Nothing will hold you back from making even your wildest dreams come true this year. You will get multiple opportunities to show how talented and capable you are. You will be at your competitive best this year. Love might be on the cards for some, but your mood swings can create hurdles in your romantic goals. September might be a good time for people in love and your confidence and flirting skills will make your crush believe that you're the one. In terms of career, this might be a fruitful year for you. Rewards and opportunities await those who are ready to accept all kinds of challenges. You are bold, spontaneous and always follow your heart; all you need is to put those blinders on and not get distracted by anything. Getty Images TAURUS - April 21 - May 20 With Venus being your ruler, the various transits the planet makes will bring ups and downs in your life. Although it might not be a smooth sail for you throughout the year, you can expect some big surprises in the matters of love and money. Love is in the air and marriage is on the cards for some this year. Your sincerity and persistence towards work and popularity might make people jealous, but you must put your best foot forward in whatever you do. Perseverance is the key to success for you this year. Getty Images GEMINI - May 21 - June 21 No matter how calculative you are, if you're confused or unsure about something, it will benefit you if you trust your gut instincts. Stepping out of your comfort zone and depending on your inner voice can reap better results. Be it your career, love, family, health or money; all your hard work will begin to pay off this year. Spending time talking with strangers for hours about life, switching jobs or your personal style, or maybe breaking out of a relationship; this year has all sorts of unexpected things waiting to happen with you. For all the students, this year is quite crucial and you will have to work really hard to achieve your goals. Things might appear difficult, but nothing is impossible for you. Getty Images CANCER - June 22 - July 22 Cancerians can confidently say, "2019 is my year" as you will take full control of your own destiny and manage to make things work in your favor. The bad experiences from your past may have been stopping you from expressing yourself and showing to the world who you really are. But, this year things might change. You will feel more confident and chances of romantic developments for you are more likely than ever. This year will be a memorable one for you as you will be blessed with all the luxuries the world has to offer. If you are planning to change your job, you will get better career options this year. It's important for you to always think positive and look at the bright side of things. Getty Images LEO - July 23 - August 23 The new year will be the time for you to shine and excel in your career. This is the best time to make crucial movements, which you have been considering for the longest time. Like a true Leo, put your bold, fiery and confident side forward at the workplace. You will be at your creative best throughout the year and your social life too will turn for good as you continue to remain the star of your friend group. But, don't neglect your health this year. Always remind yourself that nothing is impossible for you if you set your mind to it. Getty Images VIRGO - August 24 - September 23 The year 2019 will come with its fair share of challenges for you, but so will many opportunities for you to prove your mettle to the world. Things won't be easy at all and you will have to work harder to make your dreams come true. But, all these challenges and hardships will eventually make you stronger and tougher. Your analytical approach towards life will give you an upperhand over your competitor at the work front. Getty Images LIBRA - September 24 - October 23 The new year is going to be a fabulous one for you Librans and brings with it gifts of technology and comfort for you. Your lifestyle is expected to undergo a major upgrade and you will find yourself surrounded by luxury and splendour throughout the year. Your charm, positive vibe and talent will take you places. You will not only manage to socialize better, but also have an upperhand over your competitors. However, your habit of trying to please everyone might put you in a difficult spot and you will realise that in your attempt to put others first, you end up neglecting yourself. So, try to break free from the habit of taking care of others and instead pamper yourself. At the end of it all, you will manage to strike a balance in life, just the way you like it. Getty Images SCORPIO - October 24 - November 22 The new year is going to be filled with excitement and things you have never tried before. You will manage to strike better relations with your friends and family. Listen to other people's opinion and try to adapt those changes in your life if you think it's necessary. You will be in better shape and health if you follow a proper health regime. This year will bring you opportunities to control your emotions and bring out the best in you. Try to stay positive and don't let your emotions take the steering wheel when you are making important decisions. Getty Images SAGITTARIUS - November 23 - December 21 The new year will bring you opportunities to make good investments and prosper financially from them. Your close ones will look up to you for advice and help, and you will be able to help them out. You will manage to inspire people around you and become quite popular this year. You will get support from your family and friends in the new endeavours you take up. Your optimism will come to your rescue in the new year. If you are single then this year might bring some romantic developments for you. Getty Images CAPRICORN - December 22 - January 21 The new year will come in like Miley Cyrus' 'Wrecking Ball', where multiple opportunities will be thrown your way but they will all come at a price. On the work front, you will face tough competition; but your sincerity, hard work and willpower will pave way for your success. The new year brings chances of new relationships for you and mid-year seems to be a favourable time. Your love life will reward you this year. Travel is on the cards for some. Getty Images AQUARIUS - January 22 - February 19 Aquarius is considered to be the most independent signs of all and a true leader who doesn't follow the herd. For you this year will be full of ups and downs and you will face many tough challenges. Your determination will be tested this year, but don't let any negative thought bug you. You need to relax and push yourself and you will surely overcome all the hardships with flying colours. Your talents and innovative ideas will impress the people around you at work. Try to prioritize your health this year. Getty Images PISCES - February 20 - March 20 Pisces, you have this amazing talent of reading people and this year brings with it ample opportunities to reap benefits from it. The year is going to be great for you, but there are chances of having some conflicts at home. You will be able to portray your artistic side in 2019 and your intuition will help you strike better deals in terms of business and relationship. You will be sought by your friends and family members for advice in crucial matters. Hard work is the key to your success this year and you will manage to achieve it all with your genuine efforts. Getty Images Did you know all it took was marijuana to 'find inner peace' and 'be friends with everyone'? Nope, me neither, but if the police is saying so, it must be true. Basically, Delhi Police released a Press Release about arresting two people who were trying to import marijuana from the US. Pretty standard, right? Yep, but the statement in itself is so funny that it is doing the exact opposite of what was intended. It straight up sounds like a guide to smoking good pot and is like a menu card of the different variety of weed. In a press release, @DelhiPolice have shared names of imported ganja and their effects. Contagious laugh, seeking inner peace, always there for you are some of the effects. :P pic.twitter.com/ocHYvyEHjj Hemani Bhandari (@HemaniBhandari) December 31, 2018 A very detailed (but riddled with typos) Delhi Police news release about a seizure of marijuana said to have been imported from the US. https://t.co/bWXwRS4Hk4 pic.twitter.com/aBlhwOlTnl Steve Herman (@W7VOA) January 1, 2019 The user of cannabis is also known as stoner. - a line which is a part of an official police document. You can't make this stuff up. Twitter Now comes the menu card. Police were very thorough with their investigation of this weed. In fact, they found out what each type of cannabis does. I wonder how they got such detailed information. So anyway, if you just want to laugh, you should just try 'bubba kush', but if you're looking for a deeper meaning in life and want inner peace, 'pineapple express' is the way to go! 'Alien OG' will make you laugh at your own jokes, while 'jack herer' is there to help you make friends. Even I'm confused by the last two; is it saying 'grandaddy purr' (great name, btw) will always be there for us? And, what does intimidating hot even mean? Instead of making people not smoke, this would just make anyone curious. I mean, who doesn't want inner peace? This obviously got people on Twitter talking and here's what everyone said. Asking the important question. What happens if you take Baba Kush with Alien OG? Jayasankar (@jayasankar) January 1, 2019 Or. Is the Delhi police trying to warn people abt dangers of ganja or... Ajay Singh (@Huskarl1986) January 1, 2019 This menu card is incomplete. Do they also tell you where to get them and how much it costs? EVMs Down Down !! (@Indo99P) January 1, 2019 Someone please tell me what it means. Where do you get the "Intimidating hot" stuff? Asking for a friend. Ankit Sharma (@ankit_sharmank) January 1, 2019 Looks like it. Looks like they composed the press release after tasting all that Ganja. (@SaratRouthu) January 1, 2019 Just laughing. When you are one of the most influential and the biggest families of Bollywood, nothing is ordinary for you. Even simplicity comes with a hint of posh for Anil Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor and their wonderful family. The family is currently spending some quality time in Bali and called their new year's night there only. Rhea and her rumoured beau were joined by Sonam and Anand later. There is a lot of love in this picture and we kind of feel sad for single people who called in the new year with a bottle of wine instead of having someone by their side (that includes us also, sigh!) The kids were finally joined by Anil and Sunita Kapoor as well and they all are spending some quality time together. Like the Kapoors, everyone in Bollywood has been enjoying their share of new year vacations. Kareena and Saif were in Switzerland, also Priyanka and Nick were also there with their own family. The Devgns were in Thailand, Akshay Kumar and his family flew to London, our favourite Deepveer is in New York as well. The year just began but we feel like taking a vacation already! Folks, director Karan Johar has created history. Looks like he has roped in John Cena for his upcoming movie, 'Drive', because you legit can't see anything. For those who got the joke, let's move ahead and read the story and for those who didn't, GOOGLE it. Karan Johar just shared the first teaser of his upcoming film, 'Drive' starring Sushant Singh Rajput and Jacqueline Fernandez. By the looks of the teaser, the movie will have four cars in a lead role and the two that zoomed past the screen might have Jacqueline and Sushant in it, unless they are the new-age self-driven cars. Dharma Productions There's legit nothing in the teaser, except for a black screen with the cars' headlights on. So, without further ado, let's take a look at how awesome Sushant and Jacqueline look (hypothetically) in this 23 seconds video. The teaser of 'Drive' is already driving us crazy, but it's the comment section on YouTube that is making us fall off our chairs laughing. From calling it 'Gareebo ka Fast and Furious' to demanding Salman Khan to be a part of it, people have some really hilarious reactions to the teaser. 'Drive', which is said to be an official remake of the 2011 American film of the same, is expected to release on June 28 and also stars Sapna Pabbi, Boman Irani, Pankaj Tripathi and Vikramjeet Virk in key roles. RAMAT GAN Israel Jan. 3, 2019 $45M Access to data Positioning in Silicon Valley and Israel Collaboration with strategic partners Israel Israel $130M Michal Geva Peter Fitzgerald Marty Leon Israel Middle East Israel Yitshak Kreiss Israel's Israel Israel Israel Israel Europe Israel $45 billion Israel's Data in a Centralized Healthcare System: Israel holds one of the most advanced and extensive medical data reservoirs in the world being the first to completely transition to electronic medical records over 25 years ago. Israel's 8 million citizens receive care via one of four HMOs so rather than highly siloed data across numerous providers, Israel's retains concentrated, longitudinal, digital data from cradle to grave in one system. holds one of the most advanced and extensive medical data reservoirs in the world being the first to completely transition to electronic medical records over 25 years ago. 8 million citizens receive care via one of four HMOs so rather than highly siloed data across numerous providers, retains concentrated, longitudinal, digital data from cradle to grave in one system. Cross-Sector Experience: Israeli healthcare start-ups benefit from cross-sector expertise and technologies. Increasingly, founders with non-medical backgrounds bring exceptional skill-sets in AI, machine learning, deep learning, optics, sensing and more into the healthcare vertical. Government Support: Israel has a long history of governmental support to accelerate innovation and create a business-friendly environment. The Israeli government actively encourages R&D activities through numerous incentive programs for companies and entrepreneurs in the ecosystem. Israel Israel Edmond De Rothschild McGill University /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Sheba Medical Center, Tel HaShomer and venture capital fund Triventures have formed a historic partnership to fund young doctors' breakthrough ideas to accelerate the pace of innovations and solve significant healthcare challenges.Triventures ARC, is the venture capital arm of the ARC Innovation Center, and will be managed by Triventures, a global multi-stage venture capital fund.The ARC Innovation Center is a one-of-a-kind platform fusing together startups with novel healthcare solutions, academia, patient data, industry players and investors at Sheba Medical Center.Triventures ARC is targeting afund dedicated to seed investments in data-driven transformational health solutions in areas such as personalized healthcare, accessibility and the "virtual hospital", big data and artificial intelligence, smart medical devices, lifestyle, operation management and cyber security for healthcare.Triventures ARC is unique because of:About Triventures: Triventures is a venture capital fund investing in medical devices and transformational health spanning from life sciences to lifestyle. Launched in 2010, the fund was the first to invest in digital health in. The fund is strategically located in the top two geographical clusters of innovation in the world: Silicon Valley andand reviews more than 500 venture deals per year. Withunder management to date, the fund invests in data driven innovations in genomics, cyber security for healthcare, e-commerce health services, wellness, robotics, decision support, and disruptive medical devices and diagnostics.Triventures is led by, Dr.and Netalie Nadiviand together with Co-Founder and Venture Partner, Dr., is comprised of key opinion leaders in healthcare, entrepreneurship, venturing, FDA advisory and corporate business development with decades of accumulated industry experience and relationships. Collectively, they have transitioned nearly 30 companies to 17 buyers and in 4 IPOs. Triventures has worked with hundreds of healthcare technologies around the globe from ideation, clinical and regulatory set-up, commercialization and exit. The team holds C-level advisory roles with Samsung, Livongo, Edwards Life Science, Novartis, Cardinal Health and Verb (Google) and has over 25 years advisory experience with the FDA.About Sheba Medical Center Sheba Medical Center at Tel HaShomer is the largest and most comprehensive medical center inand in fact, the entire. In incorporates six major facilities (Acute Care Hospital, Rehabilitation Hospital, Children's Hospital, Maternity Center, Cancer Center and Heart Center); a vast medical research complex and a medical education and academic campus. It employs over 9,000 health professionals. Sheba is home to numerous national health institutions such as the Center for Newborn Screening, the Center for Medical Simulation and the Center for Health Policy and Epidemiology.Sheba has been a critical hub for basic and applied medical research. Today, one-third of all clinical trials inare conducted at Sheba, focusing on the development of novel drugs, new medical technologies and cutting edge health innovation. Sheba is led by Prof., former Surgeon General of the Israel Defense Force, who has established innovation as one of Sheba's primary objectives. Dr. Eyal Zimlichman, Deputy Director General, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Innovation Officer at Sheba Medical Center, is the driving force behind the ARC platform.A New Frontier for Healthcare Innovation and InvestmentThe healthcare industry is ripe for disruption and data is shaping the future of healthcare. Data-driven solutions are developing to impact outcomes, healthcare economics and revolutionize the way in which we experience and receive care.Sheba Medical Center islargest healthcare system, and houses one of the most comprehensive data records in the world- covering 25 years of data for millions of lives. The partnership will allow start-ups to access Sheba's extensive data infrastructure, a beta-site for product development and investments from Triventures.Traditionally, start-ups seeking access to data face many barriers including finding centralized data sources, time and financial resources. Triventures ARC start-ups will have extensive access to data infrastructure and the largest medical data collection in. They will gain access to 25 years of longitudinal, patient data for millions of lives through Sheba's unique enterprise data warehouse. Streamlined, simplified access to quality data will help our start-ups expedite development processes and reach minimally viable products in record time. If in the traditional oil economy, an oil rig was needed to generate value, in today's data economy, one needs a data rig to derive and drive value Sheba offers healthcare the much-needed data rig to transform healthcare.With Triventures ARC start-ups gain a one-stop "beta site" to accelerate development. In addition to data, they gain access to resources and stakeholders such as clinicians, researchers, patients, and clinical support. Triventures ARC is designed to allow for significant acceleration of proof of concept by linking product development to medical and clinical needs in a real-time care environment.Positioning in Silicon Valley andJoining Silicon Valley,is emerging as the new global hub for healthcare innovation.is home to over 6,000 start-ups with approximately 600 added annually, has one start-up per every 1,400 people, compared to one per every 20,000 in. Over 300 multinational companies operate R&D centers. In a country that lacks natural resources,built its economy on innovation, its biggest export that accounted forin 2017.has a unique advantage in healthcare stemming from several factors including:Investment Outlook:holds over 1,400 life science companies and experienced an 81% growth over the past decade with more than 130 companies being founded every year.The data-driven transformational healthcare sector incontinues to expand with 500 active companies as of year-end 2017 (source: Startup Nation Central).Collaboration with Strategic PartnersA fundamental pillar of Triventures' strategy to date rests on close interaction with the industry. Triventures ARC combines the respective networks of Triventures and Sheba Medical Center, offering an unmatched network of industry leaders, healthcare systems and technology companies.Triventures strongly believes in the value of strategic partnerships and is proud to name among its Limited Partners industry leaders such as Medtronic, Abbott, Cardinal Health, Philips, St. Jude Medical, Johnson & Johnson, Boston Scientific, Intermountain Healthcare,, Samsung and Nikon.A fundamental pillar of Triventures' strategy to date rests on close interaction with the industry. Triventures ARC combines the respective networks of Triventures and Sheba Medical Center, offering an unmatched network of industry leaders, healthcare systems and technology companies.Sheba has developed strategic partnerships with global stakeholders such as Google, Novartis, Janssen, Philips and Deloitte. Sheba's Network of relationships with leading healthcare systems in the U.S. includes Mount Sinai, Mayo Clinic Health System, Sunnybrook Health Science Center, Stanford Health Care, Jefferson, Intermountain Healthcare,Health Center, Henry Ford Health System and Massachusetts General Hospital.SOURCE Sheba Medical Center According to a recent study, spirulina may help to reduce blood pressure. The researchers also identify the active compound that produces this benefit. Share on Pinterest Spirulina, which is available as a tablet, is widely used as a supplement. As the supplement movement shifts into top gear, researchers are examining a range of nutritional ingredients for their potential health benefits. Among this ever-growing clan of so-called superfoods is spirulina. Spirulina is the dried biomass of Spirulina platensis, a species of cyanobacteria or blue-green algae as they are more commonly known. Today, this ingredient is widely used as a supplement and added to certain foods, but it has a long history that stretches back to the Aztecs and ancient Africa. Historically, people harvested the bacteria from ponds and lakes and turned them into cakes. Because spirulina contains high levels of protein, iron, and other nutrients, it is of interest to researchers investigating food security, malnutrition, and even long-distance space travel. Spirulinas health benefits This nutrient-dense product has links with a range of health benefits. For instance, some research has shown it to have anti-inflammatory properties, help control levels of glucose and lipids in the blood, reduce the symptoms of allergic rhinitis, and even protect against some types of cancer. Although many of these claims lack adequate evidence , research into spirulinas potential health benefits is ongoing. The most recent investigation is available in the journal Hypertension. The authors, from a number of institutions across Italy, including the Vascular Physiopathology Laboratory of the I.R.C.C.S. Neuromed in Pozzilli, investigated its potential to counteract arterial hypertension. Scientists have previously noted spirulinas positive influence over blood pressure. In the current study, the scientists wanted to drill down into the details and understand exactly how it interacts with blood vessels to produce this benefit. First, they simulated the effects of digestion on spirulina, as first author Albino Carrizzo explains: [W]e reproduced what happens in the human gut after ingesting the substance. This way we have been able to isolate the peptides that would be absorbed by our body. Then, the researchers tested the digested spirulina on arteries extracted from mice. As they expected, spirulina caused relaxation of the arteries; an effect mediated by nitric oxide (NO). NO is known to play a vital role in maintaining healthy blood pressure, and for many individuals with hypertension, it is the NO mechanism that is at fault. Experiencing both abdominal pain and painful urination can be concerning. Common issues, such as urinary tract infections, can cause these symptoms. Less often, a more serious condition is responsible. The cause of abdominal pain can be difficult to isolate, as the abdomen houses most of the vital organs. Often, issues such as inflammation or infection cause pain in the area. The diagnosis of pain while urinating is usually more straightforward, as the cause usually lies somewhere in the urinary tract. In any case, it is essential to identify the cause of these types of pain. Causes in females Potential causes in females may include: Cystitis Share on Pinterest Causes of abdominal pain and painful urination can include cystitis and pelvic inflammatory disease. A person with a bladder infection, or cystitis, may experience pain in the lower abdomen and a burning sensation while urinating. Some other signs of a bladder infection include the following: a frequent, urgent need to urinate frequent urination at night foul-smelling urine urine that contains blood Bacteria most commonly cause these infections, and doctors often recommend antibiotics. Treatment is crucial to keep the infection from spreading. Interstitial cystitis Interstitial cystitis causes bladder irritation and inflammation, and it is more common in females. This condition stiffens the lining of the bladder. As the bladder fills with urine, the stiffness can lead to pain, which later eases. Interstitial cystitis can also cause urinary tract issues such as needing to urinate frequently but only passing small amounts. The underlying cause of interstitial cystitis is unclear. Treatment often begins with managing symptoms, and practicing pelvic floor exercises and stress management techniques may help. Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) PID results from an infection somewhere in the female reproductive organs, including the: uterus ovaries cervix fallopian tubes The United States Department of Health and Human Services estimate that PID affects around 5 percent of females in the country. Other symptoms may include painful sex, foul-smelling vaginal discharge, or irregular periods. Bacteria from sexually transmitted infections (STIs), such as gonorrhea and chlamydia, typically cause PID. Treatment includes antibiotics. Most cases resolve with oral antibiotics, but severe cases may require hospitalization and intravenous antibiotics. Endometrial cancer While less common than other causes, endometrial cancer can lead to pain in the abdomen and while urinating. The endometrium is the lining of the uterus. Cancerous tissues in this lining can cause symptoms such as pain and inflammation. Treatments may include radiation or chemotherapy, and some people have a partial or total hysterectomy to remove the cancerous tissue. Causes in males Potential causes in males may include: Prostatitis Share on Pinterest Causes in males can include prostatitis and epididymitis. Inflammation in the prostate, or prostatitis, may cause painful urination and pain in the lower abdomen. The inflammation may spread to areas around the prostate and cause other symptoms, such as: lower back pain a fever difficulty starting urination difficulty maintaining the urine stream Treatment depends on the underlying cause. Sometimes, prostatitis requires no treatment and clears up on its own. In other cases, the inflammation results from a bacterial infection, which a doctor can treat with antibiotics. If a doctor cannot initially identify the cause of the inflammation, they will find ways to relieve symptoms while working to diagnose the underlying issue. Epididymitis The epididymis is the tube behind the testicles that carries sperm to the urethra. Inflammation of the epididymis can result from issues such as infection or injury. Symptoms may include: pain or swelling in the testicles pain or swelling in the pelvis pain during sexual activity tenderness of the penis strange discharge from the penis Treatment typically includes antibiotics, to clear up an underlying infection, and medications for pain and inflammation. Causes in males and females Potential causes in both males and females include: Urinary tract infection (UTI) UTIs affect males and females, though they are more common in females. These infections most frequently arise in the bladder, but they can occur in any part of the urinary tract, including the: kidneys ureters urethra Females often experience pain in the pelvis, while males typically experience pain in the rectum. Other symptoms may include a more intense urge to urinate and changes in the look or smell of the urine. Bacteria are typically responsible for the infection, and treatment generally involves antibiotics. STIs Sexually active people may be at risk of contracting infections such as gonorrhea and chlamydia. These can cause a burning sensation while urinating and pain in the lower abdomen, among other symptoms. Some people also experience discharge from the urethra, though STIs often cause few visible symptoms. Genital herpes This STI also causes painful blisters that ooze fluid then scab over. Many people feel the associated pain even before the blisters appear. There is no cure for herpes, so treatment focuses on reducing outbreaks. Kidney stones Stones made up of excess minerals can cause pain as the body tries to pass them through the urinary tract. The pain may be intense, especially while urinating. In some cases, a stone can block off the urine stream completely. Treatment depends on the size and mineral content of the stones. Some medications can help break them up, making them easier to pass, while others can relieve the pain. Urethral stricture A urethral stricture occurs when the opening of the urethra narrows and restricts the flow of urine. It can cause pain in the abdomen and pain during urination. The narrowing usually results from inflammation or scar tissue in the area. This scar tissue may form after injury, surgery, or using medical devices such as catheters. A doctor may try to dilate the urethra as an initial treatment. Some cases of stricture require surgery to widen the urethra. Bladder cancer Though not as likely as many other causes, bladder cancer can result in abdominal pain and pain during urination. Bladder cancer can develop in males and females, but it is much more common in males. The American Cancer Society estimate that in 2018 there were 81,190 new bladder cancer cases in the U.S. Approximately 62,380 of these cases occurred in males. Other symptoms include: lower back pain a frequent need to urinate difficulty urinating or maintaining a steady stream blood in the urine Treatment varies, but it typically involves removing the cancerous cells and managing symptoms. When to see a doctor Share on Pinterest A person who is pregnant and has pain in the abdomen alongside pain while urinating should see a doctor right away. Pain in the abdomen and pain while urinating may be alarming, but if the symptoms are mild, a person can often wait a few days before seeing a doctor. However, people who are pregnant or who have immune system disorders should see a doctor right away. Also, people who know that they have urinary tract issues or who tend to experience these types of symptoms frequently should likewise seek medical attention without delay. Additional issues that can indicate an underlying problem include: pain in the sides or the back near the kidneys a fever or chills immune system disorders using a urinary tract device, such as a catheter Prevention It may not be possible to prevent painful urination or abdominal pain, but certain measures may help. Staying hydrated helps the body clean the urinary tract and flush out toxins from the body. Washing the hands before touching the genitals and regularly washing the genitals with a mild soap may help avoid irritation or infection. Females should wipe from front to back to prevent the spread of bacteria. Refraining from using harmful chemicals near the urethra or genitals may also help. Engaging in sexual contact only with partners who have bathed recently may prevent some health issues. Also, using protection during intercourse can help prevent STIs. Doctors carry out pulmonary function tests to check how well a persons lungs work and identify any issues. The tests are noninvasive and provide measurements, such as lung capacity, volume, and gas exchange. These measurements may indicate how well the person is breathing or how well the lungs can bring oxygen to the rest of the body. Every individual may require a different type of test, and doctors may order one or more pulmonary function tests (PFT), depending on the underlying issue. What conditions do pulmonary function tests identify? Share on Pinterest Pulmonary function tests can help a doctor diagnose respiratory conditions, such as asthma or COPD. There are many reasons for pulmonary function tests. Doctors may order PFTs to help investigate or diagnose possible health conditions including: asthma allergies chronic bronchitis emphysema or COPD lung cancer or pulmonary tumors lung fibrosis, where scar tissue appears in the lung tissue respiratory infections sarcoidosis, which occurs when inflammatory cells begin growing in the lungs scleroderma, which causes the connective tissues in the lungs to harden and become tight Doctors may also order PFTs for people who work in hazardous environments or breathe in very fine particles in their workplace. This may include: sawdust coal asbestos graphite paint Doctors may also use PFTs to monitor treatment or test the effectiveness of treatment for a chronic condition, such as asthma, bronchitis, or COPD. Doctors may also order PFTs to check a persons lung function before they have major surgery. This may be more important in people who are at increased risk, such as those with heart or lung problems and people who smoke. Most PFTs are simple and quick. The time and processes involved will vary depending on the type of test. Spirometry Spirometry is a test that measures the amount of air a person breathes in and out. Doctors may use this test when they want to know the persons lung size and the rate of airflow as they breathe. During a spirometry test, the person breathes through a tube attached to a computer. To ensure accurate results, a doctor will fit a mouthpiece and a nose clip on the person to prevent air from leaking. The person then breathes through their mouth as usual. After a few breaths, the doctor will ask the person to breathe in deeply and then expel the air as fast as possible. Lung volume tests Lung volume tests are the best way to tell how much air a persons lungs can hold. The process is similar to spirometry, where the person first breathes normally and then vigorously. The person will sit in a small, sealed booth with clear walls for the test. Doctors can very accurately measure the amount of air the lungs displace by measuring the pressure in the booth. Pulse oximetry test Share on Pinterest A pulse oximetry test involves clamping a device onto the body to measure blood oxygen levels. A pulse oximetry test measures the levels of oxygen in the blood, which can indicate how well the lungs function. There is no breathing involved. Doctors clamp a small device to an area where the skin is thinner, such as an earlobe or finger. Tiny beams of light then measure how much oxygen is in the blood. This test can help diagnose conditions, as well as determine how well certain treatments are working. Lung diffusion capacity The purpose of a lung diffusion capacity test is to see how well oxygen from the air a person breathes gets into the blood. For this test, a person sits and breathes normally through a tube. There is no need for vigorous breathing during this test. Doctors may also have the person breathe in various gases and monitor how well the body uses or gets rid of these gases. Doctors may also take a blood sample to check the levels of hemoglobin in the blood. Exercise test When doctors are trying to find the cause of specific symptoms, such as shortness of breath, they might want to know how the lungs respond to exercise. The test involves breathing into a machine while walking on a treadmill or using a standing bike. The test measures how a person responds to exercise at their own pace. What the results mean The average values change for each person. Doctors will take the results of the test and compare them to typical averages of people of a similar height, age, and sex. The American Thoracic Society state that a persons lungs grow until they reach their mid-20s when the lung function slowly starts to decline. Height and sex are the other factors. Taller people tend to have larger lungs and males tend to have larger lungs than females. Values that are abnormal in comparison to these other measurements may be a sign of an issue in the lungs. Doctors may order one or more tests to help make a diagnosis depending on the results. Individual results vary, and doctors will explain the results of each test with each person. The American Lung Association note that it is possible for a person with healthy lungs to have abnormal results. This is why doctors may run additional tests to confirm their findings before moving forward with a diagnosis. How to prepare for a PFT Share on Pinterest A doctor can provide specific advice on how to prepare for PFT tests. Preparation for a PFT may differ between individuals, but there are some general guidelines. Doctors frequently ask the person to stop taking certain medications before the test to get an accurate reading. The doctor will give each person specific instructions. Doctors may also ask the person to avoid certain foods or drinks that may make the results of a PFT inaccurate. Strenuous exercise may also open the airways and lead to an inaccurate reading. Avoid vigorous activity for at least a couple of hours before the test. Avoid eating or drinking too much before the test. A full stomach may leave less room for the lungs to expand, which could affect the results of a lung capacity test. Doctors may also ask the person to refrain from smoking or drinking alcohol before the test. People should avoid wearing tight clothing that may prevent the lungs from inhaling fully. Anyone who is taking an exercise test should wear loose fitting, comfortable clothing to take the test. Risks of the tests While the tests are generally safe and noninvasive, there are some risks. Many tests require the person to breathe in and out vigorously. This may make some people feel dizzy, and there is a risk that they may faint. Anyone feeling dizzy or lightheaded during the test should tell the person administering the test. The tests may trigger asthma attacks in some people, especially if they do not take their medication in preparation for the test. There is minimal risk of germs spreading from people using the same lung function equipment. Technicians change the mouthpieces and other equipment after each use, and the machines have filters to help kill germs. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute note that in tests that require doctors to take blood, some people may experience bleeding or infection in the area. Many of us will have enjoyed numerous glasses of wine, beer, champagne, or other alcoholic beverages over the winter holidays. Thus, in January, we may feel the need to take a break from alcohol. An alcohol-free month is the best choice we could possibly make for our health, British researchers conclude. Share on Pinterest Going without alcohol for just 1 month will really boost your well-being throughout the year, researchers find. Dry January is an initiative of the charity organization Alcohol Change United Kingdom, which encourages people to try giving up alcohol for 1 month at the start of the year. Although the charity that promotes this effort is UK-based, thousands of people around the world pledge to take part in this campaign each year. It is fairly logical to assume that giving up alcohol for 31 days can only benefit health, since drinking regularly is a major risk factor for cancer, liver disease, and cardiovascular diseases, among other issues. Now, a study by researchers from the University of Sussex in Falmer, UK, shows just how much skipping alcohol for 1 month can improve your life and concludes that these benefits are long-lasting. The research, which Dr. Richard de Visser from the University of Sussex led, found that people who took part in Dry January in 2018 reported higher energy levels and healthier body weight. They also felt less need to drink alcohol, even several months after participating in this initiative. 1 alcohol-free month boosts long-term health Dr. de Visser and team analyzed data that they collected from Dry January participants in three online surveys. A total of 2,821 people filled in a survey upon registering for the campaign at the beginning of January. In the first week of February, 1,715 participants completed a survey, and 816 participants submitted additional data in August 2018. The researchers found that giving up alcohol for a month helped the participants reduce their number of drinking days later in the year. The number decreased from an average of 4.3 days per week before taking part in Dry January to an average of 3.3 days per week afterward. Moreover, people who went teetotal for a month also got drunk a lot less frequently later on in the year. Rates of excessive drinking fell from an average of 3.4 times per month at baseline to 2.1 times per month on average. In fact, Dry January participants also learned to drink less. They went from consuming an average of 8.6 units of alcohol per drinking day at baseline to 7.1 units of alcohol per drinking day later on. The simple act of taking a month off alcohol helps people drink less in the long term; by August, people are reporting one extra dry day per week, notes Dr. de Visser. There are also considerable immediate benefits: nine in 10 people save money, seven in 10 sleep better, and three in five lose weight, he adds. Important benefits, however, are also available to those who give up alcohol for shorter periods. An alcohol-free month would be better, but even less than that can still boost a persons health, Dr. de Visser says. Interestingly, these changes in alcohol consumption have also been seen in the participants who didnt manage to stay alcohol-free for the whole month although they are a bit smaller. This shows that there are real benefits to just trying to complete Dry January, the researcher emphasizes. "The victim was kicked in the stomach by the defendant, and was complaining of pain," police stated in an affidavit. "The defendant was being escorted out of the business by management due to him battering another employee, and causing a disturbance. The defendant kicked the victim in the stomach while she was standing near the exit door." by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, January 3, 2019 Siding with Google, a federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit accusing the company of violating an Illinois biometric privacy law by compiling faceprints. U.S. District Court Judge Edmond Chang in Illinois said in a ruling issued last week that the Illinois residents who sued Google didn't suffer any concrete injury from the company's alleged faceprint practices. The legal dispute dates to 2016, when Illinois residents Lindabeth Rivera and Joseph Weiss alleged in a class-action complaint that Google violates the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act by deploying facial recognition technology on photos uploaded by users. Rivera alleged that she doesn't have a Google Photos account, but that photos of her were uploaded to the service after they were taken by someone else. Google then scanned the photos, extracted "geometric data relating to the contours of her face and the distances between her eyes, nose, and ears," and created a template, she alleged. advertisement advertisement Weiss alleged that he uploaded 21 photos of himself to his Google Photos account, and that Google used data from those photos to create a faceprint of him. The Illinois Biometric Privacy Information Act, passed in 2008, requires companies to obtain written releases from people before collecting certain biometric data, including fingerprints, voiceprints and scans of face geometry. The law provides for damages of up to $5,000 per violation. Google argued the case should be thrown out for numerous reasons, including that Weiss and Rivera didn't show how they were harmed by the alleged faceprints. Chang agreed with the company, ruling that faces are public information. Most people expose their faces to the general public every day, so ones face is even more widely public than non-biometric information like a social security number, Chang wrote in an opinion awarding Google summary judgment. Indeed, we expose our faces to the public such that no additional intrusion into our privacy is required to obtain a likeness of it. The Illinois residents essentially argued they had a strong privacy interest in their facial biometrics -- that is, the faceprints that result from the application of biometric technology to photos of their faces. But Chang rejected that theory. All that Google did was to create a face template based on otherwise public information -- plaintiffs faces, he wrote. Facebook, which also faces suit for allegedly violating the Illinois privacy law, recently failed to convince a different trial judge to dismiss the case. Facebook, like Google, argued that the people who filed suit hadn't shown that they were injured by the company's alleged faceprint collection. U.S. District Court Judge James Donato in the Northern District of California said in that matter that lawmakers in Illinois had decided that companies' collection of biometric information could cause harm. Facebook is currently appealing that decision to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, January 3, 2019 App Store revenue from services helped drive all-time record highs at Apple, setting a new record for holiday spending. The news came the day after the company revised its device forecast downward for 2019, as a result of slowing sales in China. Consumers spent more than $1.22 billion on apps and games between Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. The amount spent helped to set a new one-day record of more than $322 million. Gaming and self-care were the most popular categories of app downloads and subscriptions. Categories in the App Store, Apple Music, Cloud Services, Apple Pay and the App Stores search ad business contributed. Multiplayer games like Fortnite and PUBG were among the top downloaded games during the holidays. Productivity, Health & Fitness and Education apps are already capturing the attention of customers in the first few days of the year with 1Password, Sweat and Luminosity charting in their respective categories. advertisement advertisement A letter to investors issued Wednesday from Tim Cook, Apple chief executive officer, detailed concerns about the decline in demand for the Apple iPhone, along with upgrades, which contributes the majority of revenue. For Apple, the China market represents about 20% of sales. Cook pointed to a decline in Chinas economy in the second half of 2018, and rising trade tensions between the U.S. and China. Still, Apples share of the Chinese smartphone market began shrinking in the beginning of 2018. Apple in China ranked as the No. 3 handset maker, measured by unit sales, in 2015, according to International Data Corp. For the first three quarters of 2018, Apple ranked as the fifth-largest seller in China, according to one report. by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, January 3, 2019 Handing a victory to Airbnb and HomeAway, a federal judge blocked a New York City law that would have required the companies to disclose data about city residents who rent out their homes on the platforms. U.S. District Court Judge Paul Engelmayer in New York said in a 52-page ruling that the measure, slated to take effect in February, likely violated the platforms' Fourth Amendment rights. New York City passed the ordinance last summer as part of an ongoing attempt to crack down on illegal short-term rentals. Since 2010, it has been illegal for New York City residents to rent apartments for fewer than 30 days, unless the host is present. Despite the law, New York City is Airbnb's biggest market in the U.S. advertisement advertisement Two years ago, the city attempted to toughen penalties for violations by imposing fines of up to $7,500 on people who post ads for illegal rentals. Last summer, in yet another crackdown, New York City Council passed an ordinance requiring Airbnb, HomeAway and other platforms to turn over a host of personal data about hosts -- including not only their names, addresses, email addresses, but also information about fees collected, and the number of days they rented their homes. The city presumably planned to use this data to prosecute people who were violating the ban on short-term rentals -- although it's not clear how the city would determine whether the hosts were present at the same time as the guests. Airbnb and HomeAway quickly sued to block the measure, arguing that it was illegal for several reasons, including that it amounted to an unreasonable search and seizure of their business records. The Electronic Frontier Foundation weighed in with a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that the measure also violated New York City residents' privacy. Once their names are disclosed to the city in February 2019, after the ordinance goes into effect, there may be little that can be done to protect the individual residents who rent out their residences or rooms in their residences on home-sharing platforms in New York, the EFF wrote. These residents face grave concerns about their information being released to the city without any allegation of wrongdoing. In his decision, Engelmayer didn't directly address the law's effect on the privacy of city residents. Instead, he ruled that the measure violates the platforms' rights by requiring them to turn over their entire New York City records every month, without any prior review by judges. That type of compelled disclosure is unconstitutional, he said in a ruling issued Thursday morning. Existing Fourth Amendment law does not afford a charter for such a wholesale regulatory appropriation of a companys user database, Engelmayer wrote. He added that the same reasoning beyond the home-rental ordinance could be used to justify other sweeping data grabs. Engelmayer then offered a few chilling examples, illustrating just how far this type of forced disclosure could go. By the Citys logic, a City Council presumably could also compel ... all online auction services monthly to produce all records of sales by New York City residents, on the premise that such records could assist in finding sellers who evaded capital gain taxes on sales of collectibles, he wrote. Or, he added, the city could require all medical providers monthly to produce all patient records for care rendered in New York City, on the premise that such records could assist in finding instances in which users engaged in up-coding and other health-care fraud. by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, January 3, 2019 William Arkin, a long-time consultant with NBC News, announced that he is leaving the network because it -- like the rest of the major news media -- has become a hostage to the Presidents news cycle. January 4 is my last day at NBC News, he wrote in a memo, adding: I find myself completely out of synch with the network, being neither a day-to-day reporter nor interested in the Trump circus. Arkin, an expert on the military and national security, has worked with the network off and on since 1999. He cited harbingers leading up to his decision, especially the emergence of the social media wave, which he said made it clear to him that NBC (like the rest of the news media) could no longer keep up with the world. advertisement advertisement He continued that the current news media obsession with the White House was his final blow, noting:In our day-to-day whirlwind and hostage status as prisoners of Donald Trump, I think - like everyone else does - that we miss so much. People who dont understand the medium, or the pressures, loudly opine that its corporate control or even worse, that its partisan. Sometimes I quip in response to friends on the outside (and to government sources) that if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right. He concluded that the news media's "biggest challenge as we move forward is that we have become exhausted parents of our infant (and infantile) social media children. And because of the 'cycle,' we at NBC (and all others in the field of journalism) suffer from a really bad case of not being able to ever take a breath. We are a long way from resolving the rules of the road in this age, whether it be with regard to our personal conduct or anything related to hard news. I also dont think that we are on a straight line towards digital nirvana, that is, that all of this information will democratize and improve society. I sense that there is already smartphone and social media fatigue creeping across the land, and my guess is that nothing we currently see nothing that is snappy or chatty will solve our horrific challenges of information overload or the role (and nature) of journalism. And I am sure that once Trump leaves center stage, society will have a gigantic media hangover. Thus for NBC and for everyone else there is challenge and opportunity ahead. Id particularly like to think and write more about that. A busy medical laboratory having many patients on a regular basis encounter difficulty in keeping all the patients information organized. Thus, a LIS system comes in handy, as it helps keep all this information organized, which is vitally important for a medical lab to run smoothly. Apart from this, rising integration of LIS and Electronic Health Record (EHR) and demand for quality and precision diagnosis are majorly supplementing the market growth globally. Moreover, increasing penetration of mobile applications in healthcare solutions coupled with growing popularity of cloud-based laboratory information system testifies for the market progress that has taken place in the past few years. On the flip side, lack of skilled information technology (IT) professionals in the healthcare industry tames the flow of the progressing market. However, an array of opportunities stemming from emerging regions along with the consistently growing adoption of LIS are proof enough that the global market is en-route to brighter future prospects. Get Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/852 Laboratory Information Systems Market Key Players The key players that are involved in Global Laboratory Information Systems market are Cerner Corporation, Recent Developments, Eclipsys Corporation, LabVantage Solutions Inc, LabWare Inc, McKesson Corporation, Medical Information Technology Inc., Merge Healthcare Inc, STARLIMS Corporation, Sunquest Corporation and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Industry Updates: Nov 2014 Thermo Fisher launched a new ultracentrifuge which combines speed with safety and ergonomics, allowing researchers to easily protect samples while achieving reliable and consistent results. Sept 2014 Cerner announced a strategic agreement with Intermountain Healthcare to provide clinical governance of solutions and workflow to be proposed for the Department of Defenses Healthcare Management System Modernization (DHMSM) initiative. Aug 2014 Cerner Corporation and Siemens AG signed a definitive agreement for Cerner to acquire the assets of Siemens health information technology business unit, Siemens Health Services, for $1.3 billion in cash. As part of the agreement, Cerner and Siemens will form a strategic alliance to bring new solutions to market that combine Cerners health IT leadership and Siemens strengths in medical devices and imaging services. March 2014 LabVantage launched a new product known as LabVantage 7 Express for quality controlled smaller labs. Laboratory Information Systems Market Segments Segmentation by Applications Segmentation for Laboratory Information Systems market involves the following Applications such Clinical LIS Market, Drug Discovery LIS Market, Industrial LIS Market. Segmentation by Components Segmentation for Laboratory Information Systems market involves the following Components such as Software in LIS Market, Hardware in LIS Market, Services in LIS Market. Segmentation by Delivery Segmentation for Laboratory Information Systems market involves the following Delivery such as Web-based LIS Market, On-premise based LIS Market, Cloud-based LIS Market. Laboratory Information Systems Market Regional Analysis Geographically, the regional market is segmented into America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa. The North America dominated the global Laboratory Information Systems market. The adoption of cloud computing is expected to rise in the U.S. healthcare sector due to continuous pressure to lower cost for customized healthcare services. According to clauses of the HIPAA, the healthcare industry in the U.S. has to adopt new systems that support electronic medical records (EMR) and share data in an efficient and secure manner with other healthcare providers and government agencies. This will lead to higher adoption of cloud-based LIS, which allow laboratories to share real-time information with hospitals and patients. In terms of LIS usage, North American and Western European markets are witnessing penetration, due to early adoption of healthcare technologies. Browse Complete 83 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with Tables and Figures @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/laboratory-information-systems-market-852 The European LIS market is expected to grow moderately, driven by higher incidence rate of diseases and increasing patient awareness about new technologies. In addition, various government initiatives also helped in promoting the usage of LIS. Increasing demand for better healthcare facilities and rising need for integrated healthcare systems in the two regions are some of the key driving factors for these markets. The LIS market is expected to grow in Asia-Pacific (APAC) due to increase in the incidences of diseases. Asia and Latin America are among the fastest growing markets for LIS; rising investments from healthcare IT players and government initiatives are some of the key driving factors for LIS in these regions. Many international LIS firms have started investing in developing regions of the world, such as Asia and Latin America, in order to increase their presence in high potential markets. Major Table of Content Chapter 1. Report Prologue Chapter 2. Market Introduction 2.1 Definition 2.2 Scope of the Study 2.2.1 Research Objective 2.2.2 Assumptions 2.2.3 Limitations Chapter 3. Research Methodology 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Primary Research 3.3 Secondary Research 3.4 Market Size Estimation Chapter 4. Market Dynamics Continued. To Know More Enquire @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/enquiry/852 About Market Research Future: At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members. Contact: Market Research Future Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India +1 646 845 9312 Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.com Orthopedic Devices Market is growing steadily and expected to continue its growth near future. The Market for Orthopedic Devices was US$ 43,802.1 million in 2016 and expected to reach US$ 58,814.6 million by 2023. The Global Orthopedic Devices Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.3% during the forecast period. Get Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/3323 Global Orthopedic Devices Market Competitive Landscape Orthopedic devices market demonstrates high growth potential which is expected to attract several new entrants to the market intensifying the competition further. Manufacturers of these devices strive to develop innovative materials to develop a range of orthopedic devices with the best practices. Incorporating strategic initiatives such as acquisitions, collaboration, expansion, and partnership matured players try to gain a competitive advantage to maintain their positions in the market. They investment substantially in manufacturing & expansion programme that can help them to reduce logistics cost and increase production capacities and leveraging potential to fetch larger turnovers. Dominant Key Players: Some of the key players in this market are: DePuy Synthes Companies (US) Globus Medical, Inc. (US) Medtronic (Republic of Ireland) NuVasive, Inc. (US) Smith & Nephew plc. (UK) Stryker Corporation (US) Zimmer Inc. (US) Industry Developments: November 21, 2018 Colfax Corporation (US), a corporation involved in the manufacturing welding, air, and gas handling equipment, and medical devices announced its plans to acquire DJO Global, Inc. (US), a manufacturer of a variety of orthopedic products for rehabilitation, pain management and physical therapy for USD 3.15 BN. This significant deal is based on the diversification and favorable demographic trends for DJO. Colfax is making a big acquisition as it seeks to diversify its revenue streams, reduce cyclicality, and apply its approach to operational excellence. A leading musculoskeletal solutions company, Globus Medical Inc., has announced the launch CREO Fenestrated Screw System that is used for treating patients suffering from advanced stage tumors of the thoracolumbar spine. Medtronic Plc. has declared that the US Food and Drug Administration has offered 510k clearance of Kyphon HV-R Bone Cement for fixation of fractures of sacral vertebral body with the help of sacroplasty or vertebroplasty. Global Orthopedic Devices Market Regional Analysis Taking the Global scenario of Orthopedic Devices Market into consideration, North America was holding the highest market share of around 39.6 % in the year 2016. With the presence of major market players and advanced technologies, the market in this region is growing steadily. Europe has been considered as the second largest market and is expected to reach USD 19,467.6 Mn by the end of 2023. Asia Pacific (APAC) is expected to witness the fastest growth with CAGR of 6.2 % during the assessment period. Availability of government regulations and presence of untapped markets are sure to attract attention of global players. Moreover, Middle East and Africa can exhibit a dull growth over the forecast period due to slow implementation of latest technologies. Considering the global scenario of the market, North America was holding largest market share of 39.6% in global orthopedic devices market in 2016. Europe is second largest market and expected to reach USD 19,467.6 million by 2023. APAC is expected to grow at fastest CAGR of 6.2% during 2017-2023. On the other hand. Middle East and Africa (ME&A) Orthopedic devices market was growing lower than global average and expected to grow at steady pace. Browse Complete 110 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with 40+ Respective Tables and Figures @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/orthopedic-devices-market-3323 Global Orthopedic Devices Market Segments Globally, the orthopedic devices market has been segmented on the basis of type, application, region and end users. On the basis of type, the market can be segmented into spinal devices, consumables and disposables, trauma fixation, joint replacement, bone repair, and others. On the basis of application, the market can be segregated into trauma and extremities, foot, knee, spine, hip, spine, ankle, and others, where knee and hip applications hold the largest market share. It has been witnessed that high rate of knee and hip replacement surgeries combined with the innovations in their treatment is contributing towards the market growth of orthopedic devices. Based on end users, the market for orthopedic devices can be bifurcated into hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers and medical research centers, where hospitals hold the maximum market share. Major Table of Content Chapter 1. Report Prologue Chapter 2. Market Introduction 2.1 Definition 2.2 Scope of the Study 2.2.1 Research Objective 2.2.2 Assumptions 2.2.3 Limitations Chapter 3. Research Methodology 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Primary Research 3.3 Secondary Research 3.4 Market Size Estimation Chapter 4. Market Dynamics Continued. To Know More Enquire @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/enquiry/3323 About Market Research Future: At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members. Contact: Market Research Future Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India +1 646 845 9312 Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.com Chemical substances that improve the visibility of specific organs, tissues or blood vessel during a diagnostic imaging investigation are known as contrast agents. These substances are administered directly through veins, arteries, and joints or consumed orally. X-ray and computed tomography (CT) imaging exams makes use of iodinated and barium based contrast agents, whereas, Gadolinium-based contrast agents are preferred in MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging). These substances improve the reporting or accuracy of how internal structures of body are working and any associated abnormalities. Ultrasound scans makes use of special contrast agents called microbubbles which strongly interact with the ultrasound beam and enhances the details of heart, liver and kidney. As estimated, the contrast agent global market is expected to grow at single digit CAGR to reach $6,879.0 million by 2025. The contrast agent global market by molecule is segmented into Iodine based [Ionic (Monomeric and Dimeric), Non-Ionic (Monomeric and Dimeric)], Gadolinium-based contrast agents [Macrocyclic (Ionic and Non-Ionic), Linear (Ionic and Non-Ionic)], microbubble based contrast agent and others which include Barium, iron and dyes. Iodine-based contrast agent market held the largest market revenue in 2018 and microbubble segment is growing rapidly at double digit CAGR from 2018 to 2025 due to expansion in disease indications. Based on ionicity, the Iodine-based contrast agent is segmented into ionic and non-ionic. Non-Ionic Iodine-based contrast agent market accounted the largest share. Non-ionic iodine contrast agents are used more because of lower osmolality, they are better tolerated and another advantage is that, they appear to have less toxicity. Ionic Iodine based contrasts are further segmented by its chemical structure into monomers and dimers. Monomers market accounted for the largest share. Non-Ionic Iodine based contrasts are further segmented by its chemical structure into monomeric and dimeric. Monomerics market accounted the largest share as they are safer and tolerable when compared to ionic contrast agent and low osmolar agents do not dissociate into a particle in solution and helps in reducing the neurotoxicity. The contrast agents market by modality is segmented into X-Ray/CT, MRI and Ultrasound. X-Ray/CT market held the largest market revenue in 2018 and ultrasound segment is growing rapidly at double digit CAGR from 2018 to 2025 due to increased use in diagnostic procedures especially echocardiography, focal liver lesions and ultrasonography of urinary tract. The contrast agents market by applications is segmented into cardiovascular, cancer, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, neurology, nephrology, obstetrics & gynecology, urology and others which include neck, liver and salivary gland imaging. Cardiovascular market accounted for the largest share and is the fastest growing market from 2018 to 2025 due to increase in a number of cardiac imaging procedures using Iodine, Gadolinium and microbubble contrast agents. Contrast agents market by route of administration is segmented into intravascular, oral, rectal and others which include intraosseous, intrathecal and intravesicle. Intravascular route of administration accounted for largest share and is the fastest growing market due to increase in incidence and prevalence of cardiovascular, cancer, neurology, nephrology related conditions which require Iodine, Gadolinium and microbubble contrast agent to be administered intravascular. Contrast agents market by imaging is segmented into diagnostic and interventional imaging. Diagnostic imaging market held the largest market revenue and interventional imaging segment is growing at fast/rapidly at double digit CAGR from 2018 to 2025 due to increase in image guide procedures and increase in aging population who usually opt minimally invasive procedures. Contrast agents market based on the end-user market is segmented into hospitals, diagnostic & ambulatory surgical centers and other which include academic and research institutes. Hospitals market accounted largest share in 2018 as there is a rise in demand for the diagnosis and interventional treatment of diseases using CT or X-Ray, MRI and ultrasound imaging procedures. Diagnostic & Ambulatory surgical centers is the fastest growing segment with mid single digit CAGR from 2018 to 2025 due to increase in number of diagnostic procedures related to musculoskeletal (arthroscopy, imaging of spine), gastrointestinal (imaging of abdomen, GI tract) and obstetrics & gynecology (hysterosalpingography). Geographical wise, North America region commanded the largest revenue in 2018. Favorable reimbursement coverage and increase in incidence and prevalence of diseases conditions due to change in lifestyle, obesity has led the market growth in this region. However, Asia-Pacific region is the second leading market for contrast agents and is expected to grow at mid single CAGR from 2018 to 2025 due to increased healthcare awareness, economic growth, large patient pool and rising aged population. The contrast agent global market is a competitive market and all the existing players in this market are involved in developing new and advanced products to maintain their market shares and also acquiring companies for product expansion. Some of the key players of the contrast agent market are GE Company (GE Healthcare) (U.S.), Bayer Group (Germany), Guerbet (France), Taejoon Pharm Co. Ltd., (South Korea), Beijing Beilu Pharmaceuticals Company Limited (China), Bracco Group (Italy), Fujifilm Holding Corporation (Japan), Sanochemia Pharmazeutika AG (Austria), Dongkook Lifescience (Korea), Lantheus medical imaging (U.S.) and Fujipharma Co. Ltd (Japan). Request Sample Report at https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/3604656-contrast-agents-media-global-market-forecast-to-2025 The report provides an in-depth market analysis of the above-mentioned segments across the following regions: North America Europe Asia-Pacific Rest of the World (RoW) Table of Content 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 26 2 INTRODUCTION 31 3 MARKET ANALYSIS 46 4 CONTRAST AGENTS GLOBAL MARKET, BY MOLECULE 94 5 CONTRAST AGENTS GLOBAL MARKET, BY MODALITY 134 6 CONTRAST AGENTS GLOBAL MARKET, BY APPLICATION 142 7 CONTRAST AGENTS GLOBAL MARKET, BY ROUTE OF ADMINISTRATION 171 8 CONTRAST AGENTS GLOBAL MARKET, BY IMAGING 186 9 CONTRAST AGENT GLOBAL MARKET, BY END-USERS 195 10 REGIONAL ANALYSIS 207 11 COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE 350 12 MAJOR PLAYER PROFILES 361 About Us: Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Contact Us: NORAH TRENT sales@wiseguyreports.com Ph: +1-646-845-9349 (US) Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK) MRFR is the Leading Brand in The Research Company who Recently Published Dental Consumables Market Research Reports which includes Study of growth, Regional Analysis, Top Industry Players Formation, Major Drivers, Upcoming Trends and Forecast to 2024. Market Scenario: The Dental Consumables Market is growing pervasively mainly due to the technological advancements that took place in the dental industry. Although the integration of technology & consumables in dental practices goes back to decades, the uptake of consumables has been increasing over the past few years, and so is increasing the growth of the dental consumables market. Furthermore, factors such as the wide adoption of dental consumables along with the increasing geriatric populace, prevailing dental disorders and surgeries are driving the market growth. Get Sample Copy @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1806 Acknowledging the developments and accruals the market is enjoying currently, Market Research Future (MRFR) in its recently published study report asserts that the global dental consumables market will be valued at USD 28,345 MN by 2024, registering approximately 7 % CAGR during the forecast period (2016 2024). The rapidly growing dental treatment market is stressing on the wide uptake of advanced dental consumables which, in turn, offers lucrative opportunities to the players of the market. The proliferation of the Internet and smart connected devices acts as a tailwind influencing the market growth positively. Simultaneously, the market penetration of smartphones is a key driving force behind the market increase. Attributing to the augmented applications of these consumables in the related market to target more users for branding the solutions, products & services; uptake of dental consumables is estimated to upsurge in small and medium setups during the prognosticated period. On the other hand, these dental consumables are costlier especially in developing and underdeveloped nations which in turn, is hampering the market growth in these regions restricting the uptake of consumables. Also, the operational complexities of these consumables may restrain the growth of this market. Dental Consumables Market Segments MRFR has segmented the analysis into two key dynamics for the convenience of understanding; By Type : Dental Implants, Dental Prosthetics, Dental Restorative Materials, and Dental Regenerative Materials among others. By Regions : North America, Europe, APAC and the Rest-of-the-World. Global Dental Consumables Market Regional Analysis The European region leads the global dental consumables market with the largest share. The market growth is majorly fostered by the increasing per capita healthcare expenditures led by the resurging economy and the proliferation of healthcare sector in the region. Also, factors such as well-spread awareness among people towards oral health, especially in countries such as the UK, Germany, and Italy support market growth at a large scale. The North American region closely following the European market accounts for the second-largest market for dental consumables. The market growth attributes to the increasing digital advancement in medical technology. The growing market in the US, backed by the high healthcare expenditures especially into the dental segment majorly supports the market growth in the region. Additional factors such as the huge technological advancements and uptake is a dominant factor fostering the growth of the North American dental consumables market. The dental consumables market in the Asia Pacific region is proliferating rapidly, emerging as a promising market, globally. The burgeoning dental treatment markets, especially in India & China, backed by the vast population and the large unmet clinical needs fuel the market growth in the region. Besides, some of the APAC countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia are estimated to contribute to market growth during the review period significantly. Offering substantial growth opportunities with the increasing awareness towards new technologies in untapped markets; the Asia Pacific dental consumables market will grow with approximately 7 % CAGR during the estimated period (2016-2024). Browse Complete 110 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with 113 Respective Tables and Figures @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/dental-consumables-market-1806 Global Dental Consumables Market Competitive Analysis Highly competitive dental consumables market appears to be fragmented owing to the presence of many large and small-scale players. These players are adopting the strategic initiatives for business expansion plans in the emerging markets. Key players are focusing on optimized situational awareness to ensure their mission success. Matured players are continually seeking expansion through various strategic initiatives such as M&A activities, collaboration & innovations. Matured players invest in R&D activities increasingly. Key players possess state of the art facilities to develop cost-effective product portfolio and a stable marketing network which can help them to gain the leadership position in the market while marketers operating in the dental industry are focusing on inbound lead generation more than ever, instantiating ROI-oriented strategies that can pay off quickly. Key Players: Some of the leaders in the market include 3M, Septodont, Straumann, KERR Corporation, Henry Schein, GC orthodontics, Patterson Dental, EnvisionTEC, American Orthodontics, Dentsply Sirona, Planmeca OY, and Nobel Biocare (Part of Danaher Corporation). Industry/ Innovation /Related News: November 18, 2018 Cantel Medical Corporation (US), a leading company involved in the production and selling of medical equipment announced that it intends to acquire Omnia (Italy), a leading seller of a variety of dental surgical consumables for up to USD 31.9 MN in total consideration to expand in the European markets. Detailed Table of Contents: 1 Report Prologue 2 Market Introduction 2.1 Definition 2.2 Scope Of The Study 2.2.1 Research Objective 2.2.2 Assumptions 2.2.3 Limitations 3 Research Methodology 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Primary Research 3.3 Secondary Research 3.4 Market Size Estimation 4 Market Dynamics 4.1 Drivers 4.2 Restrains 4.3 Opportunities 4.4 Challenges 4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators 4.6 Technology Trends & Assessment 5 Demand & Supply Gap Analysis Continued! Send and Enquiry @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/enquiry/1806 About US: Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. Contact Us: Market Research Future Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India Phone: +1 646 845 9312 Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com Robert Kramer, 93, of Cochranton, passed away June 10, 2021 at Wesbury United Methodist Retirement Community. He was born June 25, 1927, in Meadville; a son of Irvin and Mabel Moyer Kramer. Robert attended Cochranton High School and then enlisted in the United States Army on September 12, 19 Thousands of the nations poorest residents many elderly or disabled live in deplorable and life-threatening conditions because Congress and the federal government have broken their promise to provide safe and sanitary public housing. Hundreds of public housing complexes where they live are rotting from neglect, unable to pass inspections by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development year after year, an InvestigateTV/Raycom Media analysis of federal data shows. The government is banking on the massive expansion of an experimental rehabilitation program to save public housing properties by privatizing more than a third of all the units. But the program has suffered from oversight woes and mismanagement. Tenants rights have been ignored or misinterpreted. And some of the most distressed properties arent being considered for the improvement program because repairs are deemed too costly. HUD admits growing pains with the new program. But overall, Its a particularly useful tool to help address $50 billion in public housing repairs, said Tom Davis, director of HUDs Office of Recapitalization. The backlog of unmet reconstruction needs is dire. Today, thousands of low-income tenants live among bugs and mice. Their plumbing leaks. Their drains are clogged. Their doors dont lock, and windows are broken. Their smoke detectors dont work, if they have them at all. Their peeling paint is laced with lead. If it breaks, its just broke, said Robert Morris, a retired school custodian who has lived at the Sunset Acres public housing complex in the small southeastern Louisiana city of Bogalusa for the past six years. InvestigateTVs six-month analysis found that hundreds of properties have been neglected for as long as a decade. The federal program designed to save them isnt fully living up to its mission. Public housing is a critical part of our countrys social safety net, said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. The federal government is not supporting it the way they ought to be. The complex where Robert Morris lives is an hour north of New Orleans. It has failed five of six HUD inspections in the past decade. Morris, 64, simply says of the apartments at Sunset Acres, Theyre not nice. Sunset Acres is among 365 public housing complexes that have failed at least half of their inspections in the past decade, the InvestigateTV/Raycom Media analysis of HUD data shows. As bad as the inspections have been, the problem is worse than that, said Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Far too many of these peoples homes fail inspections and we dont fix them. New program, new concerns Chronic underfunding for renovations by Congress has consequences: About 10,000 public housing units are lost in the U.S. each year from neglect thats left them uninhabitable. This compounds the affordable-housing crisis, where only one in four people who need help get it. On average, a household needs to earn a yearly income of nearly $25,000 to afford rent on a two-bedroom apartment on the open market, advocates say. For those living in public housing, their household income averages $14,357, HUD data shows. Since 2010, Congress has slashed the budget for public housing repairs in half. This year, HUD awarded $2.6 billion to public housing authorities for capital improvement projects. The housing authority in Morris town of Bogalusa received $718,000 to address problems at three complexes. That represents slightly more than $2,100 per unit, below the amount needed for adequate repairs. With too little money to address the pressing needs, the federal government is counting on private investors to save public housing. Rental Assistance Demonstration, or RAD, started in 2012 under the Obama administration as a modest experiment to rehab 20,000 public housing units with private investments and tax credits. Once the overhaul is complete, theyre no longer owned by the government and the rent transitions to Section 8 housing, where tenants pay 30 percent of their income and the federal government reimburses the landlord for the balance of the market-rate rent. Its been a success, said Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican and member of the Senate housing committee. The federal government keeps throwing money at the problem and getting the same results. We ought to try something different. Yet the program has skeptics. For more than a year, the Government Accounting Office, HUDs inspector general and housing advocates have raised red flags about RAD. There are questions about the true cost of construction and private investment, HUDs oversight and the impact on tenants. HUDs Davis said his office is increasing its staff of 60 by 20 percent by the end of the year, largely to address compliance-related issues. Despite the questions, Congress and HUD are charging full steam ahead, privatizing nearly 40 percent of the nations one million public housing units. The goal of the program: use private money to fix up public housing. But 45 percent of the units were added to the program without any planned expenditures for renovations and repairs, according to InvestigateTVs analysis. In Sen. Browns state of Ohio, nearly 70 percent of the complexes will turn over to private owners without money spent on rehabilitation of their rundown conditions. I dont know how you can do RAD without injecting money into the upkeep and improvement of the structure, Brown said. The private owners have got to live up to their responsibilities, and Im not sure HUD is making them do that. Kennedy also expressed concerns with the lack of investment by private developers. He plans to discuss the issue with HUD Secretary Ben Carson. HUD needs to do a better job ... in making sure the private developers do what they say, Kennedy said. If you carefully supervise it, it can work. Davis said that every RAD project must have a 20-year capital improvement plan which details when repairs will be made and how they will be paid for. Upfront construction is only part of the picture, he said. Legacy of neglect Fix for public housing underfunding raises new concerns HARRISBURG The challenge of finding the cash to pay for needed repairs of aging public hou Tekeydra Gibson waited two years for a coveted unit to open up at a public housing complex in Alexandria, Louisiana, a city in the middle of the state where more than a quarter of its 48,000 residents live in poverty. Her joy, however, sunk when she was shown to her three-bedroom apartment. The sprawling complex of four- and six-family units built in the 1970s looked as if a bomb had been dropped on the property units with caved-in roofs, others burned to the ground. I didnt even know it looked that bad until I actually got here, said the single mother of two. I was like, is this where Im moving to? Sycamore Place exemplifies whats happened since Congress slashed funding for public housing repairs and reclamation. Sycamore was neglected because there wasnt a significant amount of money flowing in ... to maintain it in good standing, said Joseph Page, executive director of the Alexandria Housing Authority, which owns and operates the complex. To see the empty units, see the trees growing through them, it makes me sad. Half of the 200 units in the complex are uninhabitable. Some are unlivable shells or a cement foundation. Those that are occupied have recurring problems with mold, broken appliances, heat that doesnt work and other issues. Basically, everything in this apartment is old, said Gibson, 20. The federal government created public housing after the Great Depression as a promise to provide for many poor Americans living in unsafe conditions or who were homeless. Today, the vast majority of the public units from high rises in big cities to duplexes in small towns are in decent condition, based on an InvestigateTV analysis of their HUD property inspection scores. Still, about 8 percent, including Sycamore Place in Louisiana, are in dire need of extensive repairs and updating. Its appalling and its unacceptable, said Yentel, head of the low-income housing coalition. People shouldnt have to live that way especially when the federal government is supporting it. HUDs inspections reveal the fragile condition of public housing complexes. The stock is old, with all of the units built between 1940 and the mid-1970s. And like any house, upkeep is necessary. But upkeep requires money. HUD inspects the complexes for structural integrity and to ensure the properties are safe for tenants. Broken windows and doors, refrigerators that dont properly cool, toilets that dont flush, insects, lead paint, mold and inoperable smoke detectors are dangers to the people who live in these units. Generally every year or two, inspectors give them a score between zero and 100. Any score below 60 means that the property has serious problems the lower the score, the worse the conditions. During the most recent inspections of public housing, nearly one in eight properties scored below 60. A complex in Hoboken, New Jersey had a score of just eight, the worst of any complex. Housing authorities are supposed to repair the deficiencies found during an inspection with money supplied by the federal government. But without adequate funding, housing authorities can only do so much. And over time, neglected repairs become increasingly expensive fixes. Too costly Sandra Stripe has lived at Boutte Estates in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana almost her entire life. And much has changed at the public housing complex east of New Orleans since she was a toddler. The toilets no longer fill with water after flushing. Water leaks from the upstairs apartments into the downstairs units. If were going to be paying this kind of money, we need to be living better, said Stripe, who pays $366 a month in rent, more than half of her monthly income of $675. In Karen Angelins ground-floor apartment, a mysterious vine grows along the ceiling of interior walls. In the winter, she relies on her stove to heat her three-bedroom apartment because the furnace is just decoration. Angelin added: Were living in the stone age. During its last inspection, the property had a score of 43. Inspectors found electrical hazards, problems with the roofs, unkempt and weedy yards, to name a few deficiencies. So when a letter arrived in the mail on Aug. 28, alerting tenants about plans to convert the complex to RAD, Angelin and other residents were hopeful that the 49-year-old complex would be rehabbed. There have been successful RAD conversions, in which old complexes become new and inviting. In Alexandria, executive director Page is as proud as a new father showing off whats now called Tranquil Place, which resembles a condo community of quaint brick units. Were no longer public housing, said Page. Were affordable housing. But RAD isnt a guarantee. HUD predicts as much as 60 percent of the nations public housing stock could work under RAD. The question becomes what to do about the rest? Some properties need too many costly repairs, making them unlikely to attract private investments. At least 200 complexes that have chronically failed inspections are not on the list for a RAD conversion. Overall, public housing largely is home to working parents, senior citizens and adults with disabilities. But without an infusion of cash from Congress, public housing stock will continue to deteriorate. We have the solutions, Yentel said. Whats missing, she added, is the political will. Jill Riepenhoff is a producer for InvestigateTV; Lee Zurik is the director of investigations for Raycom Media, parent company of InvestigateTV. Evans failed several attempts to tranquilize the lion, a 14-year-old male named Matthai. First, Evans tried to load a tranquilizer gun, but it was rendered unusable when a dart appeared to break inside of it, Griggs said. He then left for his nearby house to retrieve a blowgun. Upon returning, Evans hit the lion twice with tranquilizer darts fired from the blowgun, but "the lion showed no signs of becoming sleepy" and was "walking around in circles and growling," according to the report. Atlanta, GA (30320) Today Isolated thunderstorms during the evening. Mainly clear skies after midnight. Low 71F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight Isolated thunderstorms during the evening. Mainly clear skies after midnight. Low 71F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%. Atlanta, GA (30342) Today Variable clouds with scattered thunderstorms. High 92F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.. Tonight A stray thunderstorm is possible throughout the evening. Partly cloudy skies. Low 69F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Roswell, GA (30075) Today Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 91F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight A stray thunderstorm is possible throughout the evening. Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 68F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Atlanta, GA (30303) Today Partly cloudy with isolated thunderstorms possible. High 93F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight A stray thunderstorm is possible throughout the evening. Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low near 70F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Marietta, GA (30060) Today Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High around 90F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight A stray thunderstorm is possible throughout the evening. Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 69F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Missing McDowell County man Domonic Edward Gregory has been located unharmed, the Sheriff's Office said Thursday. ---- Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} McDowell County sheriffs deputies need the publics help locating a missing man. Domonic Edward Gregory, 26, left his Circle Drive residence at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 28. His family reported him missing the following afternoon. He was last seen wearing a black Mortal Kombat shirt, khaki pants, tan shoes and glasses. He is possibly driving a red 2010 Toyota Corolla with expired N.C. tag EKM-7164. Anyone with information concerning Gregorys whereabouts is asked to call the McDowell County Sheriffs Office at 652-2235 or the McDowell County 911 communications center at 652-4000. The ad closes by saying, Gery Chico says its time for the wealthiest to pay their fair share, a reference to a new Chico proposal to charge a 1.2 percent real estate transfer tax on homes valued at more than $1 million. Former federal prosecutor Lori Lightfoot and Daley have referenced adjusting the tax on home purchases, which is a concept that has gained some momentum among progressives on the City Council as a way to fund homelessness prevention. Chico has not said why he wants to raise the tax, which is currently 1.05 percent. The city of Marion now has a company to clean up the Drexel Heritage plant site and is hiring another firm to extend the sewer lines for the new Holiday Inn Express on N.C. 226 South. During a special meeting on Wednesday, the Marion City Council awarded contracts for both major projects. First, city officials voted unanimously to award the contract for the demolition and cleanup of the Drexel Heritage property to D.H. Griffin Companies in the amount of $1,052,995. D.H. Griffin Companies is headquartered in Greensboro and has offices in Hickory, Asheville and other cities. D.H. Griffin was the original second low bidder for this project, with an initial bid of $1,219,760. City officials negotiated with D.H. Griffin and consulted with the state of North Carolina to scale back the work so the cost could be lowered. This included eliminating the removal of the underground storage tanks on the Drexel property, which allowed the bid amount to be lowered. The underground tanks will be drained, but will remain on site until the property is developed in the future, according to City Manager Bob Boyette. Viola Caudill, 85, a resident of the Gowen Community passed away Thursday June 10, 2021 at home. A Graveside service will be held a 11:00 AM Monday June 14, 2021 in the Pavilion at Bache-Red Oak Cemetery. There will be a family and friends visitation on Sunday June 13, 2021 from 5:00pm to 7: James M. Stoddard, the Worcester man charged with having a stash of child pornography and a child-like love doll in his apartment, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. Stoddard, who was listed as a Level 1 sex offender after being convicted in 2015 of possessing sexually explicit material of a minor in Maine, was originally charged in June. During Stoddards sentencing in federal court in Worcester Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Timothy S. Hillman made a recommendation that Stoddard be placed in a prison where he can participate in sex offender treatment -- specifically FCI Allenwood in Pennsylvania. He has a very serious issue and he knows that he has to deal with that, hes been trying to do that with the extent he can while in custody," Stoddards attorney, Scott Lauer said. "He has completed a number of programs. Stoddards prison sentence will be followed by 10 years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $3,000 restitution to a victim identified in child pornography he possessed. . Authorities began investigating Stoddard in February when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a tip from Google about child pornography being uploaded on Feb. 19, according to federal court records. Worcester police, the FBI, Massachusetts State Police and Homeland Security special agents traced the upload back to an Arcadia Street apartment in Worcester. Investigators then executed a search warrant at Stoddard's apartment in April. During the search, authorities said they seized computers that contained nearly 50 images depicting child pornography. There were also thumb drives and DVDs depicting child pornography, federal records say. As the search continued, investigators discovered Stoddard had a homemade, child-like love doll and several pairs of female, child-sized undergarments. During his sentencing Stoddard spoke before the court to apologize to his friends, family and the victims. Id also like to express my sincerest condolences to anyone Ive revictimized by possessing graphic content," he said. "The world is full of tragedy, none of which is worse than child abuse. Stoddard said he also dealt with a severe addiction to prescription amphetamines for a long time. Im committed to fixing myself," he said. Fuel America, downtown Worcesters newest coffee shop and roastery, is set to open its doors Saturday. The coffeehouse is located in Mercantile Center at the corner of Front and Mercantile Streets. The 5,000-square-foot space will become the Waltham-based chains third location. Fuel America also has a store in Brighton near Boston College and in Logan International Airport. The Worcester location will serve wine and beer from Worcester-based Flying Dreams Brewing Co. Co-owner Jeff Bonasia previously told MassLive that the company was attracted to Worcester not only for its affordability, but also because of the city's up-and-coming feel. He said the cafe is hoping to attract everyone from college students to the nearby medical community. Its the whole idea of helping them fuel their journey, he said. Its all about being welcoming to the American melting pot, we embrace everyone. Fuel is located across from 110 Grill, which opened last year and a block away from Protein House, which is scheduled to open soon. Worcester has been in the midst of a renaissance of dining and development for the past few years. Brandon Chicklis, who went missing last summer before his body was found dumped in New Hampshire and his blood was discovered inside a treehouse that belonged to a former classmate, was stabbed multiple times, prosecutors said. Julia Enright, the former classmate and a friend of Chicklis', is accused of killing the Westminster man on June 23, 2017. She pleaded not guilty to a murder charge on Thursday morning. Enright, 21, was ordered held without bail at her arraignment on the murder charge in Worcester Superior Court. Enright is accused of killing Chicklis, of Westminster, in Ashburnham. Family reported Chicklis missing the next day. Chicklis' body was dumped off Route 119 in Rindge, New Hampshire, where a jogger discovered his remains on July 10, about six miles from where Chicklis car was found on June 29 in the parking lot of the Hannaford Supermarket on Route 202, also in Rindge. She lived at 171 Packard Hill Road in Ashburnham, where authorities investigating Chicklis' disappearance and death discovered blood in a treehouse. Chicklis phone was at 171 Packard Hill Road on June 23 and then was either destroyed or turned off, authorities said at Enrights arraignment in July. Police searched the property and found the treehouse, prosecutor Terry McLaughlin said. Blood was found on the stairs leading up to the treehouse, inside the treehouse and underneath the treehouse. "It was apparent that the treehouse had recently been cleaned and a new rug had been placed on the floor," documents filed in court read. "When the rug was removed, it appeared that blood had seeped down through the floorboards." At Enrights arraignment, McLaughlin told Judge Janet Kenton-Walker that the blood was not only found in the treehouse, but also in Enrights car. Enright, who was interviewed by authorities several times last summer as the investigation began, McLaughlin said, told investigators that she had a new car and Chicklis had never been inside it. The Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab determined that the blood belonged to Chicklis. Enright changed her story about the last time she saw Chicklis and the events of June 23 multiple times, McLaughlin told the court. Eventually, she told authorities that she spent most of that day with Chicklis, but that she did not see him after 3 p.m. She denied being in the treehouse with Chicklis, McLaughlin said. According to court documents, Enright told police that she and Chicklis were drinking alcohol on June 23 and said that Chicklis left to buy narcotics and never returned Enright has remained held without bail since she was first arraigned for murder at Winchendon District Court last summer. She was indicted for murder last month, moving her case to Worcester Superior Court. Chicklis and Enright both graduated from Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School in 2015, according to a list of graduates posted online. The two knew each other, according to Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early. There are reports that the two dated. Court records list Enrights occupation as a phlebotomist, which is someone who is trained to draw blood from a patient. Chicklis' death was determined to be a homicide. Court documents say he suffered numerous wounds. The New Hampshire Attorney Generals office used dental records to identify Chicklis' body. Enright is scheduled to return to court on Feb. 28. Free-agent reliever David Robertson is headed to the Phillies on a two-year, $23 million contract, according to Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. Robertsons deal includes a third-year option that can take its value to $34 million. BREAKING: David Robertson has agreed to a two-year deal with the Phillies that guarantees him at least $23 million. Hell earn $10M in 2019, $11M in 2020, with a $12M club option ($2M buyout) for 2021. Hes passed a physical and the deal is complete. Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) January 3, 2019 Robertson, who stated a desire to pitch near his Rhode Island home at the outset of free agency, was frequently mentioned as a top target for the Red Sox in their pursuit of relief pitching this winter. Though Boston was known to be unwilling to give Robertson a three-year guarantee, their reluctance to match Philadelphias reasonable bid may signal that the clubs interest was overblown. Robertson, who turns 34 in April, was also linked to the Mets, Angels, Dodgers and Yankees as a free agent. He joins Jesse Chavez (Rangers), Jeurys Familia (Mets), Joe Kelly (Dodgers) and Andrew Miller (Cardinals) as relievers to secure multi-year deals on the open market this offseason. The Phillies were rumored as a strong suitor for Craig Kimbrel, so the addition of Robertson likely takes them out of the mix for the top available closer. Kimbrels market appears to have fewer suitors than originally anticipated, with the Mets (Edwin Diaz) and Phillies (Robertson) adding relievers elsewhere and the White Sox and Braves reportedly unlikely to spend big at closer. The Red Sox are believed to remain interested in a reunion with Kimbrel, with the Robertson news increasing the chances of a reunion between the two sides. Boston has also frequently been connected to Adam Ottavino and Zach Britton, who are both still available. Robertson, who has spent nine of his 11 big-league seasons with the Yankees, posted a 3.23 ERA and 11/8 K/9 in 69.2 innings for New York last year. WASHINGTON D.C. -- Hours after officially taking her seat as one of Massachusetts' newest congresswoman, Lori Trahan lent her voice to the chorus of House Democrats calling for an end to the current federal government shutdown. The Westford Democrat, who was elected to retiring U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas' seat in November, told The Republican that while she was excited to be a part of the new 116th Congress, the funding lapse created by its GOP-led predecessor is "inexcusable." "Our first order of business - and we will have a long day today - (is) we have to reopen the government," she said in an interview. "It is inexcusable to use so many employees, hardworking men and women as a pawn in a negotiation and that's happened time and time again these last two years." Trahan noted that the federal shutdown, which is entering its second week, impacts workers across the country, including about 7,500 in Massachusetts who are either furloughed or working without pay. The timing of the shutdown -- during the holiday season -- further compounds its impact, she argued. "Think about that anxiety after Christmas: You're paying your bills, it's the end of the year and you're not getting your paycheck," she said. "It is the role of government, it is the responsibility of Congress to make sure that we do our first and foremost duty, which is to make sure the government runs." With the Democrat-led House set to vote Thursday on legislation to fund the government and end the shutdown, Trahan urged the Republican-led Senate and President Donald Trump to support such a measure. Offering that the Democrat-backed proposal doesn't include any "poison pill" language or call for anything more than restoring the government, the congresswoman is essentially the same as one that passed the Senate in December. "I think that is what the Senate needs to soul search on right now, is whether they are going to come to the table and accept the deal that they already passed - in some cases unanimously - to put people back to work and do what's right for people," she said. House Democrats reportedly plan to vote on a bipartisan package of Senate spending bills and a stopgap proposal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security at its current funding levels until early February, according to CNN. It would include $1.3 billion for border security. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, however, is not expected to take up the measure, news outlets have reported. The shutdown began late last month when funding ran out for nine Cabinet-level departments and various agencies after Congress and the White House failed to reach an agreement on a spending measure. The Associated Press noted that about 420,000 workers were deemed essential would work unpaid, while an additional 380,000 were furloughed. He maintained a lucrative outside business of filing property tax appeals for Chicagos wealthy that often conflicted with his City Council duties, forcing him to file a long financial disclosure list each year including firms from which his law firm earned money. The alderman often abstained from committee and council votes because his firm represented businesses that could be affected by the outcome even after presiding over committee hearings at which the issues were discussed. Uh-oh! It could be you, or it could be us, but there's no page here. President Donald Trump turned his focus to U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren Thursday, offering his latest criticism of the Massachusetts Democrat, who recently unveiled her 2020 presidential ambitions. The president, who has repeatedly sparred with the senator in recent years, tweeted an image depicting a fake presidential campaign logo stating "Warren, 1/2020th" -- an apparent reference to the Democrat's potential White House run, as well as her claims of Native American ancestry. Warren, who announced Monday that she had formed an exploratory committee to look at a 2020 presidential bid, has faced criticism from Trump and others over her October decision to release the results of DNA test backing up her claims of Native American heritage. The test results suggested that Warren had a Native American ancestor in her family six to 10 generations back. Trump and his supporters, who had mocked Warren's ancestry claims and referred to her as "Pocahontas," jumped on the DNA test's findings, arguing that it shows she has between 1/64 and 1/1,024 Native American genes. The president's tweet came just hours after Warren offered supporters a preview of her 2020 stump speech during a swearing-in ceremony gathering on Capitol Hill. The senator called on federal lawmakers Thursday to use the newly convened 116th Congress to pursue "structural changes" to American politics and support economic policies that ensure the government works for the people and not just wealthy. In response to the president's tweet, Warren told NBC News Thursday that she believes Trump should focus more of ending the government shutdown. "We're now in the 13th day of the shutdown, we have hundreds of thousands of federal employees not getting their paychecks and work that's not being done all around this country," she reportedly said. "Those are the issues we need to worry about, and that's where we need to focus." BOSTON -- Charlie Baker was sworn in on Thursday to a second term as Massachusetts governor. The day was filled with pomp, circumstance and celebration, with the popular Republican governor surrounded by family, friends and political allies. Baker shook hand after hand, and chatted and joked with a sea of well-wishers as he prepared to be sworn in. Baker used his inaugural address to call for the collaborative approach to government that he has stressed throughout his administration. "In this era of snapchats, tweets, Facebook and Instagram posts, putdowns and smack-downs, I'd ask you all to remember that good public policy is about perseverance and collaboration," Baker said. "Let others engage in cheap shots and low blows. Let's make our brand of politics positive and optimistic, instead of cruel and dark." Baker laid out a list of priorities for the next four years, which include updating the education funding formula, investing in core transportation infrastructure, increasing housing production and lowering health care costs. Baker arrived at the Statehouse at 10:45 a.m. and walked up a red carpet through the ceremonial main doors after a ceremony honoring Massachusetts' police officers, firefighters and National Guard members. Baker walked with his wife, Lauren Baker, and with Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito and her husband, Stephan Rodolakis. As Baker arrived, the Statehouse steps were lined with first responders, and Baker spoke to each unit. At his formal swearing-in ceremony in the House Chamber at noon, officers from the Weymouth and Yarmouth police departments and the Worcester Fire Department carried the U.S. and Massachusetts flags as a tribute to fallen police officers Sean Gannon, of Yarmouth, and Michael Chesna, of Weymouth, and firefighter Christopher Roy, of Worcester, who died in the line of duty last year. The chamber was filled with state senators and representatives, the Supreme Judicial Court justices, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, and a host of local officials. Senate President Karen Spilka, D-Ashland, administered the oath of office to Baker, as the governor's father held the Bible and Lauren Baker stood by his side. Polito's husband held the Bible as she took the oath, with their two children standing next to them. Baker enters his second term with a huge amount of political capital. He was re-elected with 67 percent of the vote in November and has repeatedly been ranked the most popular governor in America. In his inaugural speech, Baker laid out some of his plans to use his political clout. On education, Baker noted that Massachusetts continues to have a gap in achievement between urban and suburban schools. Last year, after much negotiation, lawmakers failed to reach an agreement to update the state's outdated education funding formula. Baker said he will make his own suggestions on how to update the funding formula when he releases his state budget proposal later this month. The budget will also include money for the state to partner with underperforming school districts to invest in things like professional development and after-school programs. Another area where last-minute negotiations between the House and Senate fell apart last year was in reducing health care costs and helping fiscally strapped community hospitals. Baker said he will file a health care bill later this year that would expand the use of telemedicine, address some of the issues that make it hard to access mental health care and expand the type of work certain medical professionals are allowed to do. Transportation has been a focus for Baker since 2015, when a tough winter crippled the MBTA. Baker pledged to spend $8 billion over the next five years updating MBTA infrastructure. He said moving to an automated fare collection system on the MBTA in 2020 will provide new opportunities "to think differently about fares, routes and pricing and to modernize operations to better serve customers." The governor said the state will work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in transportation, through investing in new technology and joining a regional "cap and investment" system that puts a price on transportation emissions. Some of his priorities were ideas Baker has been pushing for some time, which he was unable to complete in his first term. Baker introduced a bill last legislative session to make it easier for cities and towns to increase their housing production and create incentives for communities that build more housing. But lawmakers did not pass the bill. Baker urged lawmakers to pass legislation this year. "We shouldn't let the perfect become the enemy of the good," Baker said. Baker also urged lawmakers to pass a bill he proposed last year to change how judges decide when someone should be held as dangerous. Polito, in her address, talked about the administration's work assisting cities and towns, addressing opioid addiction and domestic violence and improving education and public safety. She hit some of the same policy themes as Baker, talking about the need to invest in education, including vocational and technical schools; build more housing; modernize transportation infrastructure; and make state infrastructure less vulnerable to climate change. "We will resist the temptations to react to the headlines coming from Washington, D.C., and won't regress to partisan bickering," Polito said. Baker attended an interfaith inaugural service Wednesday evening at Morningstar Baptist Church in Mattapan. He will hold an inaugural celebration Thursday evening at the Museum of Science in Boston. He will hold additional celebrations Friday afternoon at the Student Prince in Springfield and Friday evening at Union Station in Worcester. Baker is also visiting sites that spotlight accomplishments of his administration. On Thursday, he plans to highlight his focus on addressing opioid addiction and treatment with a visit to East Boston Neighborhood Health Center. On Wednesday, he emphasized vocational training in a visit to Whittier Technical High School in Haverhill. Baker raised $3.4 million in donations ($1.1 million since January 2018) to pay for his inauguration celebrations. Because his inaugural committee is not subject to the same campaign finance limits as a candidate's PAC, Baker was able to accept donations of up to $25,000 from individuals and corporations. The size of Baker's donations has been corrected. WASHINGTON D.C. -- U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren called on federal lawmakers Thursday to use the newly convened 116th Congress to pursue "structural changes" to American politics and support economic policies that ensure the government works for the people and not just wealthy -- themes that will likely dominate her expected 2020 presidential bid. The Massachusetts Democrat, who has formed a committee to explore a White House run, made her pitch to supporters who gathered at the U.S. Senate's Dirksen Office Building as lawmakers returned to Washington to begin the new legislative session. Offering a preview of her presidential stump speech, Warren touted her work as a member of the U.S. Senate, including her efforts to make hearing aids more affordable, help students hurt by for-profit colleges and reduce the number of opioids in circulation. The senator, however, stressed that her work is not done yet. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, live Posted by MassLive on Thursday, January 3, 2019 "Our country needs structural change, and that structural change needs to start right here in Washington," she said. Warren called for "a big anti-corruption bill" to keep money out of Washington politics, end lobbying in its current form and and force elected officials to publish their tax returns online. The senator further urged lawmakers to support "structural change in our economy" that strengthens unions, workers and consumers "so that they have the ability to negotiate to get some fairness back into the system;" and brings down costs for working families. "That's what we need to be out there fighting for," she said. Contending that there needs to be a change in politics, Warren offered that it's time for the country to pass a constitutional amendment to protect voter rights and to ensure that elections are decided by grassroots -- not wealthy donors. "It's been a lot of work to get here and it's going to be a lot of work going forward. But this is a fight that is worth it," she said. "Because ultimately the fundamental question is: Who does this government work for? Is it just going to work for the rich and the powerful, or is it going to work for everyone else? We are in this fight because we believe in a government that works for everyone, and we're going to stay in that fight until that happens." Warren, who was first sent to Congress after defeating Republican incumbent Scott Brown in 2012, won re-election over GOP challenger Geoff Diehl in November's mid-term election. The senator's victory came despite questions raised about whether she would serve her full six-year term if returned to Capitol Hill. Warren stressed Monday -- hours after announcing her presidential exploratory committee -- that while she is eyeing a 2020 White House bid, she is not turning her back on the Massachusetts voters who recently re-elected her to U.S. Senate. "I'm in the fight for all of our families. It's the same fight that drew me into elected politics to begin with," she said. "I want to see an America that works not just for some people, but an America that works for all of us." The senator later told reporters that she will travel this weekend to Des Moines, Sioux City, Storm Lake and Council Bluffs, Iowa "to get out there and talk to people about what's happening in this country." She added that she also hopes to soon visit New Hampshire -- another must-stop state for presidential contenders. SPRINGFIELD Cheryl Coakley-Rivera is officially the Hampden County Register of Deeds, and she has some new ideas for the office and plans to implement them with the employees who have worked at the registry for decades. I will definitely be working on bringing the registry out to the people in the 23 communities we serve, and I will be doing that with the employees who have worked here for years and have been doing a wonderful job, said Coakley-Rivera, who was sworn in Wednesday at the Roderick L. Ireland Courthouse in Springfield and the Statehouse in Boston. In Springfield, she was sworn in by Anthony Soto, a longtime friend, fellow Puerto Rican and retired employee in the secretary of states office. Coakley-Rivera is the first Latina to serve as a register of deeds in the state. I believe I am the first person of color to serve on a state county seat as well, she said. Coakley-Rivera was also the first Latina to serve in the Massachusetts House of Representatives after she was elected to represent the 10th Hampden District in 1998. Coakley-Rivera said she will not make any changes to the staff and will keep Kelly Cavanaugh-Kelly as the first assistant to the register of deeds. Kelly has given 34 years of her life to public service and has dedicated herself to the Registry of Deeds, and that is not going to change, she said. Coakley-Rivera won the seat in November and succeeds Donald Ashe, who served in the position for 35 years before he died last summer at age 83. She said she hopes to make several changes including offering satellite hours in all of the cities and towns the registry serves and establishing an alert system that would let a person know if someone has looked up their name in the registry database. When I ran, I said I wanted to take the registry out to the people and service the needs of the people not just when they purchase a home, she said. I want to offer workshops on reverse mortgages, life estate planning and things like how to know if your name is on the deed to your home or how to ensure your home stays with your family when you age. Coakley-Rivera said she saw a great need for such services as her father and other senior citizens started transitioning into nursing homes and ran the risk of losing their homes. You can find a lot of information on a computer, but the internet is not going to be able to answer all of your questions, and these can be complicated legal matters, she said. I want to offer satellite hours in all of the cities and towns we serve so that if you live in Palmer you know that on a certain day every month you can go to the senior center or another public building and you can get your questions answered. They pay for that service with their taxes and they deserve to have it." Ayanna Pressley was sworn in to Congress Thursday, breaking down barriers to become the first person of color to represent Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives. Pressley, who first won her seat on the Boston City Council in 2009, will represent Massachusetts Seventh Congressional district. This encompasses parts of Boston, Cambridge, Milton and all of Chelsea, Everett, Randolph, and Somerville. Pressley was with her husband Conan Harris and 10-year-old stepdaughter Cora Harris as she took her oath of office. She will occupy her personal shero Shirley Chisholms office. Chisholm was the first black woman to serve in Congress. What people want to see is that were fighting and that were fighting until the end. And that were fighting alongside them, Pressley said in an October interview with MassLive. Pressley says she plans to fight for stronger gun laws that would restrict access to guns for those who are mentally ill and for those with a history of domestic abuse. She says she will address the growing role that girls and women are playing in gun trafficking and straw purchasing for the men in their lives. She also says she will push the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study the systemic causes of gun violence. One of the things Ill be introducing is legislation to get people to consider the impact of trauma in the wake of gun violence and how it is choking at the promise of families in our communities in this Commonwealth, Pressley said. She and her team have developed a survivors bill of rights that focuses on statues for people who, like Pressley, are survivors of sexual violence. We need to revisit this in the wake of the Catholic Church and whats happened in gymnastics, Pressley said. A similar package of legislation could lend aid to surviving family members of people who died from gun violence, she said. Boston specifically has one of the worst clearance rates in the country and so its sort of a revictimization. Not only are you robbed of your loved one and perhaps you dont have access to the behavioral health supports you need to heal from that, but the perpetrator who robbed you of your loved one is never caught, she said. Pressley said she supports defunding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Medicare for All. She said she will reject corporate PAC money. Theres no way given the disparities and inequities of the seventh - a district that is disproportionately burdened by the opioid epidemic, by gun violence and by environmental injustices - that I could accept money from fossil fuel industries, from pharmaceutical companies, or from the NRA, Pressley said. Pressley says she would vote to impeach President Donald Trump and hopes to have a seat on the House Judiciary Committee which has subpoena power. Theres a lot we can push for in the way of investigations, she said. Why have these children not been reunited with their families after being separated at the border? Why is Puerto Rico still in the dark? She is also interested in joining, in no particular order, the Transportation Committee, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, the Financial Services Committee, along with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the The Congressional Black Caucus, and the House Community Health Center Caucus. Pressley challenged Rep. Mike Capuano and in a September primary defeated the progressive congressmen who had represented the area for 20 years. The 116th Congress is the most diverse in history. A record-breaking 102 women will taken seats in the House Thursday and of the those women 35 are entering Congress for the first time, according to a study by The Rutgers University Center for Women and Politics. The previous record for female representatives elected to the house was 87, according to the study. Among the other firsts Thursday: Rashida Tliab, a Democrat from Michigan, and Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, will be the first Muslim-American women ever to serve on the body. Omar will be the first Somali-American in Congress. Democrats Deb Haaland of New Mexico and Sharice Davids of Kansas mark the first Native-American women elected to Congress. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a 29-year-old Democrat from New York, will become the youngest woman to ever serve in Congress. Abby Finkenauer, a 30-year-old Democrat from Iowa, will also be one of the bodys youngest members. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker used his second-term inaugural address to renew a push for revamping the state court system's process in determining criminal "dangerousness." Baker, a moderate Republican, noted the deaths of Yarmouth Police Sergeant Sean Gannon, Weymouth Police Sergeant Michael Chesna, Auburn Police Officer Ron Tarentino and State Police Trooper Thomas Clardy. The four men were allegedly killed by people with a history of run-ins with law enforcement. "We owe it to them, to their brothers and sisters in law enforcement and to our citizens to ensure that we're doing all we can to keep dangerous people off of our streets," Baker said during a speech inside the state House chamber. The speech also touched on tackling education funding disparities and wrestling with rising health care costs. Baker pointed to criminal justice reform legislation he signed last year, which raised the threshold for a felony, required more humane conditions for inmates in solitary confinement and raised the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 12 years old from seven. The package "gives us more tools to help the men and women who'll someday return to our communities get the training, life skills and support they need to succeed upon their release," Baker said. "But our work here is not done." According to prepared remarks, Baker continued: "In deciding whether or not it makes sense to hold a dangerousness hearing, current law requires a judge to ignore any previous criminal history and to focus only on the crime before the court. Moreover, the list of crimes for which a prosecutor is allowed to make that request is quite narrow." What happens is "dangerous career criminals" are then released, according to Baker. "This sort of revolving door serves to undermine people's faith in law enforcement and the courts," Baker said. "And it's a threat to public safety." Baker filed legislation on dangerousness in September, though the bill died because lawmakers did not take it up before the end of the two-year legislative session. With his remarks on Thursday, the governor, who took the oath of office for a second four-year term, put the bill back on the agenda for the new two-year legislative session. Reporter Shira Schoenberg contributed to this report. SPRINGFIELD -- Noe Rodriguez-Santos has been sentenced to five to seven years in state prison after pleading guilty in Hampden Superior Court to charges from an armed robbery and stabbing at a Holyoke laundromat in July 2017. Rodriguez-Santos pleaded guilty Wednesday to armed robbery, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on a person over 60 years old, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury and resisting arrest. Judge Michael Callan sentenced Rodriguez-Santos, 30, of Holyoke, to the prison sentence followed by three years probation. According to Assistant District Attorney Janine Simonian, Rodriguez-Santos went into Laundromagic at 209B South St. in Holyoke on July 23, 2017, and demanded money from the owner, who was 74 years old at the time. The owner gave Rodriguez-Santos cash, but Rodriguez-Santos told the owner he wanted more. Rodriguez-Santos hit the owner in the head with a metal box, then stabbed him with a pocket knife. Rodriguez-Santos, who was represented by Joe Smith III in the case, took the owner's cellphone and cash and fled. Police tracked him to a nearby building. HOLYOKE - Days after U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren created a committee to explore a White House bid, she dubbed Holyoke City Councilor Jossie Valentin the organization's "top dog" in Massachusetts. Valentin announced on Facebook that she will keep her council seat but resign as a senior academic counselor at Holyoke Community College, a position she has held for 12 years. Valentin will serve as a senior staffer for Warren. "I'm looking forward to this new chapter and I'm extremely honored and excited about this opportunity," she said. The moment tonight in Cambridge where I was introduced by my new boss as top dog for Massachusetts. Someone pinch me please. So grateful to be a part of the Team Warren family. Lets do this! Posted by Jossie Valentin on Tuesday, January 1, 2019 In a video posted on Facebook, Warren introduced Valentin to her campaign staff and supporters and praised Valentin's work ethic. "We want everybody to know that if you got a problem go to Jossie," Warren joked. Valentin previously supported U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential bid, introducing the candidate during a campaign rally at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in February 2016. Sanders has not announced if he will run again in 2020. Former Vice President Joe Biden has yet to announce his candidacy, but he is expected to do so in the coming weeks. Biden did not run in 2016, sidelining himself after the death of his son Beau Biden, the two-term attorney general for Delaware. The Democratic field will only thicken in the next few months, with as many as 20 potential candidates. Warren plans to visit Iowa over the weekend and said she hopes to visit New Hampshire soon. The Iowa caucus, scheduled for Feb. 3, 2020, remains a crucial launchpad for candidates who seek their party's nomination. New Hampshire has the nation's first primary. Valentin first got elected to the Ward 4 City Council seat in Holyoke in 2013 and easily won re-election in her last two races. While she plans to finish her current term, Valentin has not indicated whether she will run again. According to Valentin's City Council bio, she graduated with a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Puerto Rico, followed by a master's degree in forensic psychology from American International College in Springfield. In April, the Holyoke Democratic Committee named Valentin Democrat of the Year. She told the committee during a reception held in her honor, "Dems have had some rough patches, especially since the 2016 presidential primary, but at the end of the day, we stand together as a community to fight the disaster we have witnessed every day in the White House since January of last year." Valentin added, "This change in administration has woken a lot of people up and I'm optimistic about what we can accomplish at all levels of government." Black infants are three times more likely to die in Massachusetts than white infants. Black men are the residents most likely to die as homicide victims. And blacks are more likely than whites to die at a younger age from cancer or heart disease. I think that we have a poly-dimensional crisis on our hand, said Henry Thomas, president and CEO of The Urban League of Springfield. Id definitely not shy away from using the word crisis. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health last Wednesday released its report on Massachusetts death data from 2016. The report includes stark statistics illustrating the health disparities between blacks in Massachusetts and other races. One significant measure of mortality is the premature death rate, which is based on the number of people who die before age 75. The average life expectancy in Massachusetts is 80.7 years. Blacks have the highest premature death rate in Massachusetts compared to whites, Hispanics or Asians, at 309.2 deaths before age 75 per 100,000 residents. The premature death rate statewide is 282.2 per 100,000 residents. (The numbers are adjusted for age, so they are not skewed by a population that is older or younger than the state average.) Chart by Greg Saulmon / The Republican Source: Massachusetts Department of Public Health That tells us about people who are really dying before they should be, said Abigail Averbach, director of the Office of Population Health at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Thats where we have the greatest opportunity for intervention. The report found that in 2016, the total rate of death, adjusted for age, declined for whites, Asians and Hispanics but increased among blacks. This does not mean blacks had the lowest life expectancy. White Massachusetts residents did, possibly because they had higher rates of death at a young age from opioid overdoses and from suicide. But the numbers do point to some disparities. The leading causes of death among blacks were the same as those statewide: cancer, heart disease and unintentional injury. But black and Hispanic residents were more likely to die of cancer or heart disease at a younger age than white residents. Blacks also had the highest rates of diabetes-related deaths 79.4 per 100,000 residents compared to a statewide rate of 45.2 deaths per 100,000 residents. While deaths from HIV/AIDS have been declining for years, blacks are still dying of AIDS more frequently than whites or Hispanics. Averbach said social factors like education, employment, housing, access to health care, and a reduction in smoking all contribute to health. While Massachusetts has made progress in reducing death rates from diseases, she said, We want to look at the degree to which improvements are distributed equally among all groups. Thomas said there is an issue of equity as it pertains to access to affordable health care and quality health care. Statistics show that education is correlated with good health, and Thomas noted that the quality of schools is generally worse in urban Gateway Cities, where the states black population is concentrated. He said black children are less likely to have access to quality pre-kindergarten programs, are more likely to go to public colleges and less likely to complete college due to financial pressures. Thomas said advocates need to take the data and make a stronger case for more investment in access to both health care and education for black communities. Often times, people assume the poor are going to be poor, theres not a lot we can do about that ... but there is a lot that we can do, Thomas said. Blacks were also the only race where homicide was one of the top 10 causes of death. In 2016, 46 black men were killed in homicides, making them the single largest demographic of homicide deaths. Jalil Johnson, a nurse practitioner at the Center for Human Development, a Springfield-based social service agency, has worked in marginalized communities for much of his career and has researched health disparities in minority communities. Johnson said social, cultural and historical forces are at play in determining someones health. These include education, access to quality health care, and the physical environment where someone lives. Cultural factors could include the foods people eat and their relationship to exercise. Those things are modifiable and not always measured, but they do have huge outcomes on health, Johnson said. Johnson said Massachusetts residents tend to have good access to health care. But a cultural undercurrent in the black community is a distrust of the medical system. In general, Johnson said more Americans are turning toward family, friends or online resources for medical advice, rather than doctors. But for the black community, it was only in the 1970s that the U.S. discontinued the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study, in which U.S. researchers studied poor black men with syphilis who were not informed about the purpose of the study and were not treated for the disease. That is an undercurrent thats existed for a long time that Im sure still exists to some degree, Johnson said. One particularly stark disparity in the report was in infant mortality rates, which measure how many babies die before turning one. The mortality rate for black infants was 7.9 per 1,000 live births almost three times higher than the infant mortality rate for whites, of 2.7 per 1,000 live births. Candice Belanoff, a maternal and child health epidemiologist at Boston Universitys School of Public Health, said nationally, the gap in infant mortality between white and black infants is due to preterm births. In Massachusetts, the statistics also show that disorders leading to preterm birth and low birth weight were the leading cause of infant death among all races. Belanoff said social disadvantages, such as black women having less education or lower income, cannot be fully explain the gap. When we do the analysis, things like education and income, while they do contribute something to infant mortality, they dont account for everything, Belanoff said. Many researchers point to another answer: racism. The everyday navigating the world as a person of color is known to take a physical toll, literally, on their well-being, Belanoff said. While there have been some high-profile stories about health care professionals ignoring the concerns black women have about their bodies before and after childbirth, Belanoff said by the time a woman is pregnant, racism-related stress has accumulated for years. The fact that so many women of color are showing up in distress and in worse health is not because of their experience in the hospital," Belanoff said. Its because of decades of their lives that brought them to this place. US Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday made the rounds inside the Massachusetts State House, where members of the state Legislature were sworn in for a two-year session. By her side at times was Mayor Marty Walsh, a fellow Democrat and labor organizer who spent 17 years in the building before moving to Boston City Hall in 2014. Walsh met with Warren, who has set up an exploratory committee for her nascent presidential campaign, earlier in the day at the Parkman House. The Beacon Hill mansion, next to the State House, is owned by the city and sometimes used for receptions. While Walsh has bonded with former Vice President Joe Biden, who spoke at the mayors second inaugural and appears to be weighing another White House run, Walsh said he has a great relationship with Warren. We had a nice chat today, we talked about everything in her life and whats important to me is that we can win the presidency, the general election, and you know well see what happens here, Walsh told reporters. You know, its early, theres a lot of great conversations. The senator has an incredible platform. According to the mayor, he and Warren discussed housing and environmental issues. So its good to see that in 2019, one thing Im looking forward to is this presidential election getting started because its been a tough couple of years, Walsh said. Walsh stumped for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election and campaigned in Iowa for Democrats during the 2018 election cycle. Warren is heading to Iowa this weekend. Asked whether Warren asked for his support for her presidential run, Walsh said, No, we just had a brief conversation right now. We didnt get into that yet. Were waiting to see, Im waiting to see as we move forward here. Walsh said he and Warren previously talked politics two weeks ago. She expressed her intentions to me, he said. And again, wait-and-see. The committees exploratory for a reason. To go around and have conversations and then look. Ill make some decisions, and shell make some decisions first. I mean, she has to make the official announcement and then well go from there. Asked whether hed be interested in running for her US Senate seat if she wins the White House, Walsh said, Its January 2, 2019. Lets focus on today. Im not focused on tomorrow. Hennelly initially said Thursday that Preckwinkles campaign staff never reached out to Dhanani about the refund or to request a smaller $5,600 contribution. Later, however, Preckwinkles senior adviser said the campaign emailed to ask Dhanani whether he was giving as an individual or a corporation, to determine whether the contribution was in violation of the state limits. Hennelly said the campaign got a response that Dhanani was, in fact, giving as an individual and the campaign informed him he could give a maximum of $5,600. An end is in sight for the locked out natural gas workers who, for more than six months, have rallied in the streets for what they considered fair contracts with National Grid. Union leaders say the tentative contract agreements reached Wednesday night would result in new public safety jobs and protective measures for gas workers in the years to come. USW Local 12012 President John Buonopane and USW Local 12003 President Joe Kirlyo, who have led the gas workers throughout the lockout, spoke positively of the tentative agreement struck between the unions and National Grid. Neither party has shared details of the agreement, which still needs to be ratified by union members. But union representatives say that if successful, the tentative deal will create dozens of new jobs focused on public safety," as well as provisions to protect current and future unionized gas workers. This lockout not only created significant hardships for residents, businesses and developers, its shined a spotlight on Massachusetts' natural gas system, the union leaders said in a statement. Roughly 1,250 National Grid gas employees have been locked out of work since June 25. Through regular protesting, picketing and appeals to legislators, the gas workers continued to drive home their demand: that current and future gas workers have fair and strong benefits for health-care and retirement. A number of incidents put the safety of natural gas in Massachusetts under scrutiny throughout the lockout, including the Sept. 13 disaster in the Merrimack Valley tied to Columbia Gas, the over-pressurization of gas lines in Woburn by National Grid, and other accusations of missteps by National Grid replacement workers. For a period, the Department of Public Utilities imposed a moratorium to stop National Grid from all non-emergency work. The unionized gas workers said the support of Gov. Charlie Baker and other politicians, as well as organizations like the Merrimack Valley Labor Council and North Shore Labor Council, were vital to negotiating success. SPRINGFIELD The Springfield School Committee had its first 2019 meeting on Thursday and once again voted to make longtime member Christopher Collins the vice chairman. The seven-member committee includes Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, who serves as the chairman, Collins and five other members. Along with the election of a vice chairman, the meeting focused on the creation of a special subcommittee to look at staff diversity in city schools. The special subcommittee will be led by chairwoman Maria Perez and include Denise Hurst and LaTonia Monroe Naylor. The topic of staff diversity has come up a lot in the past few years ... so its a good time to look at the demographics of the staff and ways to attract and retain people to the district, Collins said. Perez said she is excited about the opportunity to head the committee. I want to thank the vice chair for listening to and taking seriously the concerns I have about diversity in the system," Perez said. We have done a good job in recruiting teachers from Puerto Rico to teach Spanish here in the district, and hopefully we can do more. Monroe Naylor said it goes beyond hiring a diverse teaching staff. Im excited about being able to attract and retain not just educators of color but also administrators and different staff members in our district to make sure we are reflective of the population we are serving, she said. School Committee member Peter Murphy said he hopes gender will be considered as well. We dont have a lot of men in our teaching ranks, particularly in the elementary schools," Murphy said. "I think our young men need male role models as well. There are some schools that have no male teachers at all. Its great to attract teachers of color, but black men in particular is something we should look at. Hurst suggested the committee also look at how to diversify the staff beyond ethnicity and gender. Not only should we be looking at ethnicity and gender, but we should also be looking at things such as religion, the LGBTQ population and a whole host of people that come to us from a variety of walks of life, Hurst said. Sarno said there are three components to securing a diverse staff in the schools and the city. One, we need to have a face of the community that can get out and recruit. Two, there needs to be a proper career pathway so that you can move up, and three, cultural respect ... thats how we get the best and the brightest," the mayor said. Obamacare was struck down by a federal judge in Texas last month, and now a nationwide coalition of attorneys general, including Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, want to appeal that decision. In Fort Worth, Texas on Dec. 14, U.S. District Judge Reed OConnor sided with leaders from a group of Republican states who say the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. Representatives from the 20 states, led by Texas, argue the health-care law put in place by former President Barack Obama is unconstitutional. They say their states have been negatively impacted by an increase in people on state-supported insurance. OConnor agreed that the repeal of an individual penalty for not having health insurance, which goes into effect with the new tax reform law this year, meant ACA was no longer constitutional. On Thursday Healey joined a coalition of 17 attorneys general across the country to file a notice of appeal in federal court for the case Texas v. U.S. The attorneys argue that the Texas decision endangers health care coverage and funding for those covered under Obamacare, including vulnerable groups like seniors and those with preexisting conditions or disabilities. This ruling is misguided, dangerous, and will wreak havoc on the American health care system, Healey said in a statement. I am joining my colleagues across the country today in challenging this decision to protect millions of families from losing their access to critical health care services. Shortly after the Texas decision, on Dec. 18, Healey and other attorneys general filed an expedited motion to ensure Obamacare would continue to be enforced across the country. The Texas decision is expected be appealed up the judicial ladder to the Supreme Court. Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. The newly restored Massachusetts Senate chamber will double as a listening post, Senate President Karen Spilka said as she and her fellow lawmakers took the oath of office. Gov. Charlie Baker, who celebrates his second inaugural on Thursday, administered the oath to state senators and representatives on Wednesday. Senators chose Spilka, an Ashland Democrat, as their leader, while in representatives for the sixth time gave the gavel to Winthrop Democrat Robert DeLeo, the longest-serving House speaker. Baker, a Republican, won a second four-year term in November 2018, and voters sent most incumbents in the Democrat-dominated Legislature back to the State House. The three leaders - Baker, Spilka and DeLeo -- form the group thats colloquially known as the Big Three on Beacon Hill. Spilka won the Senate presidency five months ago, capping nearly a year of turmoil within the chamber after Amherst Democrat Stan Rosenberg left the 40-member body. After the oath of office was administered, Spilka on Wednesday spoke to fellow senators while inside the chamber, which underwent a $20 million renovation. As we started work on this renovation, however, we found this chamber was already filled with voices from our past that we could no longer ignore; the voices of those whoby accident or designhave been excluded from this great chamber throughout our history, Spilka said, pointing to historical figures like abolitionist Frederick Douglass and Abigail Adams, who demanded the Founding Fathers remember the ladies. Spilka pointed to two still-empty alcoves in the refurbished chamber said one will house the bust of Douglass, and the other very possibly will be one of Abigail Adams. According to prepared remarks, Spilka noted rising ocean levels, unreliable public transportation systems, disparate income levels, and the high cost of health care. Right now, increasing health care costs serve as a silent stranglehold on budgets everywhere, Spilka said. We can begin to address this by passing legislation that slows the rise of prescription drug prices and increases transparency for the consumer. She added: Collaborating with city and town governments, we can determine smart environmental changes on the local level that will help offset our transportation and housing concerns. And adequately funding our education system will be a top priority for the session, Spilka said. Studying the revamping the states commuter rail system is also on the list, she continued. As your Senate President, I am committed to making sure we invite all voices to the table, and if we find that the table just isnt big enough, we will build a bigger table, Spilka said. The voice of her father, Sydney Spilka, also compels me to action towards integrating preventative mental health into the health care system, she said. While the physical injuries he sustained during his military service were attended to, the psychological trauma he experienced never was, and this inattention to his mental health had long-term consequences for him, and for our family, just as undiagnosed or untreated mental illness has long-term consequences for many families across our Commonwealth, Spilka said. As we fight for our future, we must make the care of our mental health as routine as the care of our physical health, and end the stigma surrounding mental illness once and for all. HOPKINTON -- A man who was struck by two vehicles as he tried to run across three highway lanes to escape police remains in the hospital in critical condition. The 27-year-old Billerica resident, whose name has not been released, is eventually expected to face a variety of motor vehicle charges, said David Procopio, spokesman for the Massachusetts State Police. Police initially received a call from a motorist complaining about an erratic driver at about 6 p.m. Tuesday on Interstate-495 southbound. Shortly after a state trooper on patrol spotted the 2003 Chevrolet Tahoe in Marlboro and estimated his speed at about 100 mph, he said. He tried to pull over the driver, who sped away. The man crashed his car shortly after, ending up in the center median, Procopio said. The driver jumped out of the Tahoe and attempted to flee police by running across three lanes of northbound traffic. He was struck by a 2017 Subaru Impreza driven by a 56-year-old Medway man and then by the side mirror of a 2017 Ford Explorer driven by a 67-year-old Westford man, he said. The man was brought to the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester by ambulance and remains at that hospital, Procopio said. Two northbound lanes and one southbound lane of the highway were closed for about 3 1/2 hours, causing traffic tie-ups, he said. The Tahoe and the Impreza were towed from the scene, Procopio said. HOLYOKE -- A report of gunshots prompted the lockdown of Lawrence School Wednesday afternoon. Police Lt. James Albert told Western Mass News that a janitor at the school reported hearing gunshots in the area at about 2:50 p.m. The school was locked down as a precaution. Investigating officers found a damaged car on Sargeant Street a short time later. They also recovered multiple shells at 131 Sargeant St. No injuries were reported. Western Mass News is television partner to The Republican and MassLive.com. BOSTON Education funding is shaping up to be a top priority for the Massachusetts Legislature as lawmakers return to Beacon Hill this month. The House and Senate last year both agreed that the states education funding formula, which determines how money is distributed to Massachusetts public schools, is underfunding schools and needs to be updated. But the two bodies were unable to agree on how to do it, with talks falling apart in the final hours of the legislative session. Gov. Charlie Baker largely remained silent on the issue last year, leaving the details to lawmakers to iron out. But in his inaugural address Thursday, Baker said this year, he plans to make his own proposal, which could provide renewed momentum for lawmakers to act. Baker is expected to release the details as part of his state budget proposal, which he must give the Legislature by Jan. 23. When it comes to the difference in performance between urban and suburban school districts, we can and must do better, Baker said in his speech. The foundation formula needs to be updated, and well propose updates when our budget is filed later this month. Baker also said that making progress on education isnt just about money. He said the budget will include opportunities for the state and underperforming school districts to invest together in proven best practices like acceleration academies, professional development, after school enrichment and leadership development programs. After the speech, Education Secretary Jim Peyser said the administrations proposals will be phased in over time and will represent a significant new investment in our K-12 education system, while at the same time recognizing that how much we spend is ultimately not as important as how well we spend it. Peyser declined to say how much money the governor would invest or where that money would come from. But, he said, There will be a funding mechanism to ensure that its paid for. Both the House and the Senate last session agreed to adopt the recommendations of a Foundation Budget Review Commission relating to health care costs and special education costs. The major disagreement was how to account for recommendations relating to English language learners and low-income districts. Peyser would not discuss the governors specific approach, but he said, We will be addressing some of the issues that were raised by the Foundation Budget Review Commission in terms of allocating more resources to low-income, high-need school districts. Even before Bakers speech, lawmakers had been talking about returning to the education funding debate. In her own inaugural address on Wednesday, newly elected Senate President Karen Spilka, D-Ashland, said adequately funding education will be a top priority for the Senate. I hope that we will pass a bill to finally implement the recommendations of the Foundation Budget Review Commission as soon as we are able, because all children deserve access to a quality public education, regardless of where they live or who they are, Spilka said. House Speaker Robert DeLeo, D-Winthrop, said Thursday that education reform was one of the items already on his radar screen for the new session. DeLeo said he hopes that Baker laying out his position will help move the debate forward. Im hopeful that maybe that might make things a little bit better, to see where its at, where hes coming from on this most important subject, DeLeo said. The devil will be in the details. Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, D-Boston, who chaired the Senate Education Committee last session and is leading the Senates efforts to update the education funding formula, said, Im really glad that the governor has come into the table and is elevating the issue. But Chang-Diaz said she would have liked to see Baker give a more complete description of the scope of the problem, and she is not happy with the level at which Baker has funded education so far. However, Chang-Diaz said she is keeping an open mind and is hopeful Baker will adopt the Foundation Budget Review Commissions recommendations. The Fund Our Future Coalition, a group of students, teachers, parents and community organizers that are pushing for more education funding, accused Baker of shortchanging schools in the past. Our students cant afford another year of Bakers budget fiddling. The Legislature should reject the governors proposal and fully fund all of our local public schools and our public colleges and universities this year, the coalition said in a statement. At the same time, Brianna Aloisio, policy and advocacy manager at Stand for Children Massachusetts, an education advocacy group, praised Baker for making it a top priority to improve schools in communities that are struggling today. Governor Baker made fair school funding the top priority for his administrations second term and for that he deserves the appreciation of every parent in Massachusetts who is concerned that their children are not getting the same quality education as students in our wealthier communities, Aloisio said in a statement. CHICOPEE Police seek the publics help as they work to locate a 16-year-old female runaway who was last seen at Chicopee High School on Wednesday. Mary Ricardi left school with a male juvenile before her last class, Michael Wilk, public information officer for the department, said. She was reported as a runaway at 2:45 p.m. She may be in the Pittsfield area or Springfield. Mary is described as being 5 feet 8 inches tall, 170 pounds. with long, straight brown hair. Those with information are asked to call detectives at 413-594-1740. Ludlow - HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital of Western Massachusetts will unveil its new name and brand as part of its management Companys name change and rebranding initiative. Beginning Jan. 1, the inpatient rehabilitation hospital will be known as Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital of Western Massachusetts. It will continue to provide the same high quality, post-acute care for patients overcoming a variety of major illnesses and injuries. To celebrate the new brand, the hospital is hosting an Enbrace Encompass event on Tuesday, Jan. 8 from 5 to 7 p.m. The event will be open to the public and will take place in the hospital cafeteria, 222 State St. appetizers and other refreshments will be available to event attendees. Representative Thomas Petrolati will be speaking at the event, and hospital tours will be offered to guests. The hospital asks that guests RSVP prior to the event, which may be directed to 413-308-3300. Birmingham, Alabama-based HealthSouth Corporation launched its new name and brand on Jan. 1, 2018 and will be transitioning its 130 inpatient rehabilitation hospitals and 273 home health and hospice locations serving 36 states and Puerto Rico through 2019. All of the Companys post-acute care service locations in Massachusetts will migrate to the Encompass Health name and branding on Jan. 1, 2019. Dunkin customers may notice their morning coffees look a little different over the next few weeks. The Canton-based chain is unveiling new branded cups, doughnut boxes and napkins for the New Year. They will begin appearing in stores across the country in the coming days, and will be in all U.S. shops by the end of the month. Dunkin is also adding two new items to its menu, including a power breakfast sandwich and energy cold brew coffee. Our new look represents both our heritage and our evolution as the brand that fuels optimism and keeps America running with great coffee, donuts and more, Chief Marketing Officer Tony Weisman said in a statement. What better time than the start of a new year to bring our new look to our coffee cups and packaging, and introduce a new energy to our restaurants and our fans. The new power breakfast sandwich features a veggie egg white omelet with spinach, peppers and onions, turkey sausage and American cheese on new multigrain sandwich bread topped with seeds and rolled oats. It contains 370 calories, 20 grams of whole grains and 24 grams of protein, and will only be available for a limited time. Dunkins new energy cold brew features the brands signature cold brew coffee with a shot of espresso. The chain is also bringing back two favorites first introduced in 2018. The brown sugar chipotle bacon breakfast sandwich offers a double portion of caramelized brown sugar chipotle bacon, as well as egg and cheese served on a croissant. And for the doughnut lovers, Dunkin is bringing back the caramel chocoholic doughnut a classic chocolate doughnut frosted with caramel icing, sprinkled with semisweet chocolate curls and finished with a drive of caramel icing. Burke allegedly told one of his ward employees in October 2017 to have the companys remodeling work stopped on the pretext that the restaurant did not possess all the necessary permits for the remodeling, and obstructed the companys efforts to get a driveway permit from Chicagos Department of Transportation. Company officials flew to Chicago in December 2017 for a meeting that focused on awarding tax work to Burkes law firm. Once Burke was assured his firm would get the work, he dropped his opposition to the driveway permit, the complaint alleges. The driveway permit was issued and company completed its remodeling project but did not hire Burkes firm, according to the complaint. A man in his 60s found near Danehy Park in Cambridge with head injuries Wednesday night has died, officials said. Cambridge police arrived to the New Street side of Danehy Park in Cambridge after receiving a report of an unresponsive man. Officers found a man in his 60s with apparent head trauma, said Jeremy Warnick, a spokesman for the Cambridge police. The man was taken to a nearby hospital where he later died, Warnick confirmed. Investigators from the Middlesex District Attorneys office and Cambridge police are investigating the mans death. The mans name will be released by the district attorneys office when his next of kin has been notified, Warnick said. I dont know about you, but Im really liking 2019 so far, said the missions principal investigator, Alan Stern. Though coincidental, the timing of New Horizons encounter in the early hours of a new year is auspicious, Stern said. At a moment when humanity marks the passage of time, looking forward and thinking back, New Horizons is doing the same. At 4 billion miles from Earth, Ultima Thule is the farthest celestial body scientists have ever viewed up close; it is a door to future exploration in a region that is still almost entirely unknown. But it is also a window to the past a time capsule from the era when the planets formed, which might contain clues about how the Earth came to be. Already, scientists are analyzing early data collected just before the moment of closest approach. An image taken from half a million miles away from Ultima Thule showed a blurry bowling pin-shaped body about 20 miles across. Until New Horizonss fly-by, no person had ever seen a Kuiper belt object as anything but a pinpoint of light in the distance. By Wednesday, the scientists at APL will receive their first high-resolution images of the distant rock, revealing whether it has craters, and whether it is one long object or comprises two small bodies orbiting each other. WASHINGTON If youre trying to recall what your members of Congress accomplished in 2018, the answer is: They grew older. The 115th Congress was already one of the oldest in history when it convened at the dawn of the Trump administration average age 58 in the House, 62 in the Senate, 90 billion or so in the relativistic time scale of the online generation,in front of which Congress spent much of the year embarrassing itself. By the time the 115th hobbled into extinction at the end of 2018, artifacts from its attempts to engage the younger folk and their digital ways lay strewn across the internet like the fossil record of an obsolete species. There were the agonizing video clips from Aprils Facebook hearing, in which 68-year-old Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., attempted to ask Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg a question about data privacy, and revealed a conception of social media resembling a wad of tangled Christmas lights: Do you track devices that an individual who uses Facebook has that is connected to the device that they use for their Facebook connection, but not necessarily connected to Facebook? Im not Im not sure of the answer to that question, Zuckerberg replied, as if he could even be sure it was a question. A North Carolina man was hit by a barrage of gunfire at New Years Eve party in Martinsville and died at the scene, court documents obtained Wednesday revealed. Devontae Lee Massey, 23, of Martinsville, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Rasheem Oshea Hairston, 24, of Eden, North Carolina. Hairston was a former resident of the area. A judge appointed a public defender to represent Massey at an arraignment hearing Wednesday in Martinsville General District Court. Massey also is charged with use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, reckless handling of a firearm, shooting at an occupied dwelling and shooting a firearm in a public place, causing injury. The suspect was at a party at 313 Clift St., according to a criminal complaint filed by Sgt. Richard Ratcliffe, of the Martinsville Police Department. According to witnesses, he became agitated at the party, the complaint stated. Witnesses saw Massey who had an obvious problem with Hairston, the complaint reported with a gun. At about 1:20 a.m. Tuesday, the suspect fired his weapon from the street in front of the occupied dwelling, according to the complaint. Police said the vehicle was spotted on eastbound Grand Avenue, and, according to the police report, it went into oncoming traffic to pass a vehicle in the left lane, then continued on Grand Avenue. Police said it drove at speeds of 80 to 90 mph, at times going into oncoming traffic lanes and heading through red lights. Police said the vehicle continued to travel through River Grove, at which point Franklin Park officers ended their pursuit. Mitt Romney talks to the media after meeting with President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster Bedminster Township, N.J., in November 2016. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford Michigan's four new U.S. representatives sworn-in as members of 116th Congress Construction crews work to prepare to open the eastbound lanes of Interstate 696 leading to I-94 in Roseville on Wednesday afternoon. Warren will spend up to an additional $125,000 for poison bait boxes to combat rats along a 6-mile stretch of the construction zone in the city. MITCH HOTTS -- THE MACOMB DAILY TROY Macomb County man busted for trying to shoplift clothes from Somerset Collection Macomb County man busted for trying to shoplift clothes -- twice -- from Somerset Collection Ensure you get a print copy of the Loudoun Times-Mirror delivered weekly to your home or business! Complete online access is included with all print subscriptions purchased online. Plus, up to four other members of your household can share online access through this subscription with their own, individual linked accounts at no additional charge. (Are you a current advertiser? Ask your sales rep for our special advertiser rate code!) Lebanon is just one step away from implementing universal health care. A bill to initiate the reform has already passed the necessary parliamentary committees and only needs a final vote of approval from members of parliament before it becomes law. How the new system will be paid for, however, is still unclear. The bill itself is not new. Atef Majdalani, a former MP from the Future Movement (FM), introduced the legislation a few years ago as part of a slate of reforms. But the original text has been amended to accelerate the process of implementation, according to outgoing Minister of Health Ghassan Hasbani. The legislation calls for the creation of a standardized health care card for all Lebanese citizens. It gives all Lebanese citizens access to medical care, especially those without medical coverage, Hasbani says. There are two different parts to the new health care system put forward by the bill. The first is coverage for routine annual tests that people need regardless of what insurance they have. These tests would be tracked in a new system of biometric medical files. "This allows the attending physician to access this biometric file - with the patient's consent - and update it when necessary. adds Hasbani. The biometric files will reduce costs by eliminating duplicate medical examinations. At the same time, coverage for routine tests will allow for better preventative and early stage care. Many chronic diseases, such as diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, triglycerides, high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases... can be prevented, making it easier to avoid the complications that may arise, Hasbani explains. The second part of the new system addresses the needs of the roughly 1.8 million Lebanese who rely on the Ministry of Health for their health care coverage. In addition to the mandatory, routine examinations, it would cover 90 to 100 percent of the cost of hospital bills, depending on peoples needs, and 70 percent of the cost of outpatient medical examinations in government hospitals, which are not currently insured by the ministry, and treatment for chronic diseases. Daily medications will also be provided by the Ministry of Health, but through clinics run by civil society associations, such as the Young Womens Christian Association (YWCA). Complementing the NSSF There have been some misunderstandings and rumors about how the new system will work in parallel with the existing National Social Security Fund (NSSF). The health care card will not interfere with the NSSF, according to Hasbani, but instead is intended to be a complimentary service. The Ministry of Health can benefit from extending the scope of social groups to be covered by the NSSF because it will reduce the hospital bills paid for by the ministry, he says. A bill submitted in October by Yassine Jaber and Anouar el-Khalil, MPs from Nabih Berrys parliamentary bloc, suggests amending certain sections of the new health care law regarding the NSSF to include employers as future beneficiaries. This would allow the Ministry of Health, which currently covers these patients, to save money. As far as costs for individual Lebanese are concerned, the health care card would only require a symbolic 10,000 LL payment to open a biometric medical file. But how the system will be paid for overall is still an unanswered questions and was the subject of controversy during discussions over the bill in the finance and budget committees. Several potential financing options were eventually proposed, including an 8 percent excise tax levied on mobile phone bills. "This symbolic contribution should be able to ensure a source of income and support the current health budget, Hasbani notes. Adopting the new system is important, especially as health care costs in Lebanon continue to rise. Better early detection of disease and a higher degree of health consciousness are leading people to spend more money on health care, according to Hasbani. At the same time, drugs are becoming increasingly expensive, especially those used to treat chronic diseases such as cancer. The Ministry of Health conducted a study to see the effect of the proposed system on these rising costs. It shows that, in the long term, the health card will save between 30 percent and 40 percent on the health bill, Hasbani says. Working ahead of time But there are still obstacles to the new system being put into place. Until Lebanons new government is formed, the bill cannot be adopted into law, and the question of funding has not been fully answered. Despite these roadblocks, the Ministry of Health has already started to implement some of the measures in the bill that it already has a budget for, such as covering outpatient medical examinations. The price of these examinations has already been included in the budget allocated to every government hospital. Also, the biometric medical record system is being developed with support from the World Banks Health System Resilience Project in Lebanon, which was approved in June 2017. The $150 million, five-year project focuses on strengthening the infrastructure of government hospital and providing primary health care centers across the country with equipment. A first phase will seek to create biometric records for some 300,000 people registered at the Ministry of Social Affairs and who are considered the poorest patients, Hasbani says. "We have already started on certain measures referred to in the bill on the health card. But a law remains necessary to ensure the sustainability of the project. Ultimately, the Ministry of Health, which is already struggling with insufficient funds, will need a bigger budget to sustain the new system. Five years from now, when the World Bank project end, "there should be a budget for the card in the annual budget law," Hasbani concludes. (This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour the 17th of December 2018) It has been my honor and great privilege to serve Old Town School and its extended community for 11 years, Graves wrote in a letter to the schools staff. They have been, by far, the most challenging and deeply rewarding years of my professional life. Being director of Old Town School is a total immersion experience, and it was my good fortune to have been immersed in a collective that is the most warm, welcoming, creative and, to me, loving community that I have ever experienced. Local News, Crime, Business & Finance, Press Releases, Politics By Long Island News & PR Published: January 03 2019 District Attorneys in 29 Counties Awarded Grant Funding Through the State's "Crimes Against Revenue Program" New York, NY - January 3, 2019 - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced more than $13.5 million in grants has been awarded to 29 district attorneys' offices statewide to continue the enhancement of their investigation of state tax evasion and welfare fraud cases. The grants are made available through the state's Crimes Against Revenue Program, which is supported by proceeds from investigations and subsequent prosecutions that result in tax revenues, fines and restitution being paid to the state. "New York State has zero tolerance for theft of any kind from hardworking men and women and we will continue to do everything in our power to crack down on those who cheat the system," Governor Cuomo said. "This funding will assist prosecutors across the state protect New Yorkers and hold responsible individuals accountable." CARP, a joint initiative of the State Department of Taxation and Finance and the Division of Criminal Justice Services, targets individuals who deliberately fail to pay tax obligations, as well as those who commit Medicaid, welfare, unemployment and workers' compensation fraud. The Department of Tax and Finance serves as the program expert by providing technical assistance and helping to identify cases for investigation while the Division of Criminal Justice Services administers the grant funding. The grants fund personnel, including forensic accountants, investigators and assistant district attorneys, who work to build cases for prosecution. CARP investigations focus on the failure to pay any type of taxes, such as excise, sales, and income, by individuals, corporations or industries which can include complex financial fraud and tax evasion schemes orchestrated by major criminal enterprises. Division of Criminal Justice Services Executive Deputy Commissioner Michael C. Green said, "Since it was established in 2004, CARP has continued to provide district attorneys across the state with the funding necessary to help them investigate and prosecute these often complex and specialized cases. We are proud to be a part of these collaborative efforts to identify and prosecute these individuals who are looking to cheat the system and honest taxpayers of New York State." Department of Taxation and Finance Acting Commissioner Nonie Manion said, "CARP puts more muscle into our criminal investigations, helping us strengthen the productive partnerships we've built with local law enforcement organizations. It's an important element in the agency's vigilant and continuous effort to bring tax cheats to justice." The 29 county district attorneys' offices receiving grants announced today have been funded through the Crimes Against Revenue Program since 2016. While only those offices were eligible to apply for funding, they were not guaranteed the same amount they had previously received. The grants align with the calendar year ending in December 2019 with optional renewals for up to two additional years. New York City Bronx: $692,300 Kings (Brooklyn): $802,600 New York (Manhattan): $5,000,000 Queens: $1,491,400 Richmond (Staten Island): $256,210 Long Island Nassau County: $633,399 Suffolk: $1,605,500 Mid-Hudson Orange: $112,810 Rockland: $357,600 Ulster: $143,600 Westchester: $278,100 Capital Region Albany: $299,710 Rensselaer: $102,800 Saratoga $118,900 Schenectady: $130,000 Warren: $59,600 Washington: $36,200 Mohawk Valley Montgomery: $28,600 Oneida: $160,878 Central New York Cayuga: $80,000 Madison: $67,000 Onondaga: $111,110 Southern Tier Chemung: $64,170 Steuben: $40,400 Finger Lakes Ontario: $92,100 Monroe: $208,000 Western New York Chautauqua: $65,000 Erie: $414,100 Niagara: $68,810 The New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (www.criminaljustice.ny.gov) has a variety of responsibilities, including law enforcement training; collection and analysis of statewide crime data; maintenance of criminal history information and fingerprint files; administrative oversight of the state's DNA databank, in partnership with the New York State Police; funding and oversight of probation and community correction programs; administration of federal and state criminal justice funds; support of criminal justice-related agencies across the state; and administration of the state's Sex Offender Registry. In 1998, I published a booklet called Leitrim & Longford 1798. The launch was held in Creegans of Cloone. This is on the site where the Irish/French army rested on the eve of the Battle of Ballinamuck. That fateful Battle was fought close to the village of Ballinamuck on 8 Sept 1798. It went down in Irish history as the last great pitched battle to be fought in Ireland. Richard Hayes and Thomas Pakenham had written formal histories about 98. I acknowledged both as sources for the broad outline of the campaign, from the landing of 1,000 French soldiers, near Killala, to their surrender at Ballinamuck. I sought to look at what happened from the point of view of those local Irishmen who played a brave and vital part in that 1798 uprising. Their stories were handed down from generation to generation and so became the stuff of folklore. I tapped into that folklore and included many, many really stirring stories. In the late 18th century, a new revolutionary spirit was sweeping through America and through Europe. In Ireland, two years after the start of The French Revolution, Wolfe Tone set up the United Irishmen, an organisation devoted to bringing together Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter and they swore that they would take on the might of Britain, the never-failing source of all their woes. Ranged against them were the regular British army, yeomen who were descended from the conquering armies of a hundred years previously, and poorly trained militia groups raised by local landlords. General Cornwallis, the Viceroy of that time, led the massive British army which encircled the 1,500 strong French/Irishforce on the hill beside Ballinamuck. This was the same General who, in 1781, was forced to surrender to George Washington when the US decided that they wanted to cut loose from the clutches of Britain. The French decided that they too had enough of kings and of cruel, despotic nobles. They applied the guillotine to as many aristocratic heads as they could find. Eventually, Napoleon came to the fore. He had hoped to invade Britain, but this never happened. Ireland was regarded, by some strategists, as the way to attack Britain by the backdoor. The British authorities prepared Ireland for the inevitable. In December 1796, the British had a miraculous let-off when a large French fleet carrying 15,000 troops, under General Hoche, just failed to land in Bantry Bay. Like the Spanish Armada in 1588, the French were blown away by a massive storm. The Castle authorities in Dublin knew that a national rising was planned by the United Irishmen. Early in 1798, they arrested the leaders in Dublin and Lord Edward Fitzgerald died of wounds received while avoiding arrest. The notorious General Lake, through shooting, torturing and hanging suspects, led a policy of completely illegal repression in Leinster and Ulster. In Wexford, Fr John Murphy, a declared loyalist, horrified by the repression, rose out and led a rebel army. They were defeated and he and other leaders were executed. The mostly Presbyterian uprisings in Down and Antrim were similarly and cruelly suppressed. North Mayo was a most unlikely spot for a French landing. They soon took Killala and had a most emphatic win to take Castlebar. Hundreds of rebel volunteers gathered in to support the French. They included disenchanted landlords, former yeomen, land agitators and a group of weavers who had recently been expelled from Ulster during a pogrom. General George Blake, from Mayo, became leader of the Irish. They fought with reckless courage. The French troops were battle-hardened and they won battle after battle as they crossed eastwards through North Connacht and southwards through Co Leitrim. On hearing of the approach of several encircling British armies, The French/Irish fled from Castlebar early on 5th September and reached Ballinamuck on the 8th. It was a journey of over 100 miles. They were constantly under attack and there was little time to rest or sleep. At Cloone, they rested for a few hours, but when they were about to set out again they could not find the chains for drawing the few cannon guns they had left. Some of their cannon guns were thrown into Keeldra Lake. eneral Lake was close on their heels and Cornwallis was closing in from the Gortletteragh side. A short but very fierce battle was fought on Shanmullagh Hill, above the village of Ballinamuck. Gunner McGee was the most distinguished fighter on the Irish side. After they surrendered, the French were granted good terms and protection. The Irish were attacked and every attempt was made to slaughter them all. They fled in every direction, particularly towards the west. General Blake was captured and executed. The Irish were pursued and slaughtered wherever they went. Mass hangings took place at Ballinamuck, at Ballinalee and at Carrick-on-Shannon. There were great tales of both courage and of humanity recorded. The upshot of it all was that, post 1798, the Irish were more repressed than ever. One pleasing aspect of having written my book was that it brought many people together. I had included photos of descendants of people who had fought the good fight and escaped. Several people contacted me with additional information. One was that one of the bravest, Tom Gilheaney, was actually from Clogher, near Ballinamore and his home place is still there. Another was that the coffin for the remains of General Blake was made from the boards of a kitchen dresser, from a house beside where he was executed. At Durkins shop, in Granard, I was informed that their ancestor had come all the way from Mayo with the Irish rebels of 1798. The memory of 98 was kept alive in a hundred stirring songs. Though they were defeated, there was consolation in the bravery of their efforts. One verse states: Forgotten the black months of horror, Undaunted by gibbet and yeos, Like heroes that scorn all danger, Our forefathers gallantly rose. The now-infamous dashcam video released by court order more than a year after McDonald's October 2014 shooting showed the white officer opening fire within seconds of exiting his squad car as the black teen walked away from police with a knife in his hand. The footage contradicted reports from officers at the scene that McDonald had threatened officers with the weapon. Texas Monthly has released its 2019 Bum Steer Awards Texas' most ridiculous and idiotic endeavors and San Antonio put forth a strong showing on the dishonorable mentions list. That San Antonio man who threw a drink at a teenager in Whataburger who was wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat? And then stole the teen's hat? He made the list. The woman who led Texas troopers on a high-speed chase, crashed into a pickup, then got out of her Mercedes SUV, ran off with her baby in its car seat, and attempted to steal another car? The video of the chase was on national news and the San Antonio woman was on the list. RELATED: San Antonio listed among cities with the most cheaters again Six other locals were on the list, including a shark thief, a streaker, a judge and an alcoholic. None of San Antonio's own made the list's top four awards, however. The most (least?) prestigious award, Bum Steer of the Year, went to radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Politicians Blake Farenthold, Lupe Valdaz and Steve Stockman were named the top three runner-ups. The annual awards bestow shame and and disgrace on all who make the list, which has previously included names such as Wendy Davis and Lance Armstrong. Click through the slideshow to see which San Antonio-area Bum Steers made the list. S. M. Chavey is a breaking news and general assignment writer. Read her on our breaking news site, mySA.com and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | sarah.chavey@express-news.net | @smchavey More than three weeks after San Antonio native 35-year-old Carla Valpeoz disappeared in Peru, her family is not giving up hope. Theyve raised $25,000 for search efforts on a GoFundMe and theyve worked with local Peruvian police as well as the U.S. Embassy and FBI but theyve hit a wall, and they want answers. "We have so many people involved, so many agencies involved, and no one is able to tell us even one little clue as to where Carla went," her brother Carlos Valpeoz said. "It's almost as if she evaporated out of thin air." Carla Valpeoz was last seen the morning of Dec. 12. She has significant visual impairments that make her legally blind, but has traveled alone before and knows how to manage on her own, her brother said. Carla and Carlos Valpeoz were both born in San Antonio. They attended Bradley Middle School, then moved up north slightly and went to Blanco High School. Carla began college at Texas Tech University in 2003 and, after graduating, moved out of the Lone Star State for good. She traveled a bit, earned her masters, and settled down in Detroit, where she was a humanitarian and social activist. Despite her poor eyesight, Valpeoz was an avid traveler, according to her brother. Her recent trip to Peru was to attend a wedding and visit a friend. RELATED: Texans star DeAndre Hopkins joins celebrities pleading to bring child's killer to justice All seemed well until Dec. 13, when the friend she was supposed to meet in Lima noticed Valpeoz had missed her flight from Cusco, Valpeoz's brother said. Hoping Valpeoz had just decided to explore on her own, her friend didn't worry to much until two days later, when Valpeoz again missed her flight, this time home to Detroit on Dec. 15. Her family was notified and the search began. Because Valpeoz is a U.S. resident, search efforts have extended far beyond just local authorities. At the request of Valpeoz's father, the President of Peru supplied additional resources including the Peruvian Army, Carlos Valpeoz said. Search and rescue teams, dogs, drones, professional mountaineers and a helicopter have all joined the hunt. But the groups hit a wall early on in the investigation and haven't seen many updates since, Valpeoz said. Security footage shows Carla Valpeoz leaving a hostel in Cusco around 8:30 in the morning Dec. 12 to take a taxi to a bus stop. A bus driver told authorities Valpeoz was dropped of on her own just south of the entrance to the town of Pisac. She walked through town and was seen on area video footage heading in the direction of Pisac Archeological Park, her brother said. Park employees described brief encounters with Valpeoz, her brother said, but there has otherwise been no record of her since the video in Pisac. RELATED: Missing Houston woman found shot to death in ditch near Richland Local authorities have been concentrating their efforts at the park and seem to think Valpeoz simply got lost while hiking, her brother said, but he isn't so sure. "It's very easy to believe, if you don't know my sister, that just because she was blind that she wasn't capable of hiking," Carlos Valpeoz said. "I've hiked with her before. All her other senses are incredible heightened. She has an incredible memory. She goes so far as to count her steps so she can retrace her steps. Her mind is always working, she has an incredible sense of hearing." He and his family want authorities to investigate the possibility of criminal activity, he said, and to be more transparent about their investigation and efforts. He believes Peruvian authorities may be hesitant to suspect criminal actions because the city is such an important part of Peru tourism, but he said he's tired of waiting. "If she got lost in a mountain, if she fell off a cliff, then where is she? There have been very thorough searches of the archaeological park where she was supposedly last seen." Carlos Valpeoz said. "We've been extremely patient with this entire investigation, but as you can imagine this has been incredibly difficult. My family wants answers." S. M. Chavey is a breaking news and general assignment writer. Read her on our breaking news site, mySA.com and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | sarah.chavey@express-news.net | @smchavey A former guard at the Bexar County Jail pleaded guilty Wednesday for smuggling an ounce of methamphetamine into the lockup. Ruben Hernandez, 26, admitted he conspired with another jailer, Gabriel Robert Ortiz, 29, who had been involved in the smuggling of contraband into the jail. Both were fired in July after a sting operation that the Bexar County Sheriffs Office ran jointly with the FBI and involved the use of cooperating inmates and a benign substance made to look like methamphetamine. RELATED: All the Bexar County Sheriff Office employees arrested in 2018 During the operation, agents recorded Ortiz picking up brisket tacos and an ounce of meth in April and May. He also told one of the inmates working with the FBI that Hernandez was also willing to provide contraband. On the third delivery, Ortiz picked up the tacos and an ounce of meth from undercover agents. Ortiz snuck the tacos into the jail, and Hernandez later smuggled in the meth. They split the $2,000 paid for that third trip. In court Wednesday, Hernandez pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to deliver methamphetamine. Ortiz pleaded guilty in November to the same charge and faces sentencing in February. Hernandez faces sentencing within 90 days. Both men face up to 20 years in federal prison without parole. Guillermo Contreras covers federal court and immigration news in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | gcontreras@express-news.net | Twitter: @gmaninfedland "Protecting students is our highest priority, and the district took immediate action this fall to remove Mora from his position after learning of an abuse allegation, Passman said in a statement. Munoz, who was appointed to his seat by then-Mayor Richard M. Daley in 1993, is the citys longest-tenured Hispanic alderman. He announced in July that he would not seek re-election. At the time he said he was retiring because he was having fun writing the next chapter of my life. The following editorial appeared in Thurday's Japan News-Yomiuri: Will the Japanese economy, which is now stranded, be able to regain pace and put itself on a track toward stable growth? With problems at home and abroad, the Japanese economy faces a crucial juncture this year. The nominal gross domestic product (GDP) has increased by about 150 trillion yen over the 30 years of the Heisei era, while the ratio of registered job offers to registered job seekers, which shows the employment situation, is at a record-high level. Yet the potential growth rate, which was higher than 4 percent 30 years ago, has been hovering low, at around 1 percent, for more than five years. Economic momentum is weak. Deregulation and growth strategies will foster new industries and enhance productivity. The government must strive to help realize such a private sector-led propping-up of the economy. It is also important for private enterprises to take a hard look at the future to become more active in making capital investments. Holding the key to bolstering the economy is for large companies, in particular, to use their profits not only to make investments abroad, but also to lead the expansion in domestic investment. The current phase of economic expansion, which has been continuing since the 2nd Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was launched in December 2012, is expected to renew the postwar record length of expansion this month. Yet the basic tone of expansion is slow, with little sense of reality. It stems from sluggishness in consumer spending, which accounts for the greater part of the GDP. In order to boost consumption, continued high-level pay increases are essential. Fortunately, companies' business performance is currently brisk in general, enjoying record-high levels of profit. Companies' internal reserves have reached a record high of 450 trillion yen. Those companies with brisk performances should return part of their profits to their workers. It is also important to have the trend of pay increases be spread among small and medium-sized companies, at which 70 percent of employees work. At the same time, how non-regular workers should be promoted to regular workers can be considered a challenge. The wages of non-regular workers remain at about 75 percent of those of regular workers when they are in their early 30s, and only at around half of those in their early 50s. Under such circumstances, it would be natural for those non-regular workers to be unable to work with a sense of assurance. Companies are required to reduce the number of non-regular workers as much as possible and to make efforts to increase the number of regular workers. The nation's economy cannot be solely complacent with the rise in the ratio of job offers to job seekers. At logistics and nursing care service workplaces, the labor shortage is serious. Since the bubble economy burst, a shortage of demand has prolonged the deflationary economy for many years. But now, a labor shortage has become a drag on supply and could blunt economic growth. A growing number of companies have already gone bankrupt due to a shortage of workers. According to a Bank of Japan survey, the proportion of companies that feel they do not have enough employees has increased and reached a level on a par with that in the final days of the bubble economy. The government needs to create an environment that makes it easier for women and the elderly to work and also steadily push ahead with steps to accept more foreign workers who can hit the ground running in Japan. Consumer prices have struggled to increase, and the prospect of completely breaking free from the shackles of deflation remains out of sight. In contrast to the central banks of Europe and the United States, which have extricated themselves from quantitative easing policies, the Bank of Japan has not drawn up an exit strategy. It also is disconcerting that the government has only a limited number of measures at its disposal if the economy slows. A decline in the profitability of regional banks, one negative impact of an accommodative monetary policy, has started to emerge. The Bank of Japan needs to tenaciously manage its policies while giving consideration to domestic and international economic trends. The biggest concern for Japan's economy in 2019 is the fact that signs of a slowdown in the global economy are getting stronger. If trade friction between the United States and China intensifies further, the impact on the world's economy will grow. As an increasingly anxious mentality washed over investors, the Nikkei Stock Average briefly dipped below the 20,000 mark at the end of 2018. The situation surrounding Britain's upcoming departure from the European Union has also descended into chaos. It is impossible to dismiss the risk that the yen will gain further strength and capital will leave developing nations due to factors such as movements in U.S. monetary policy. This situation will require the government and the Bank of Japan to be even more vigilant. In October, the consumption tax rate will be hiked from 8 percent to 10 percent. A reduced tax rate system will be introduced, which will keep the rate at 8 percent for newspaper subscriptions and food and beverages, excluding alcoholic drinks and purchases for eating in at dining establishments. Snowballing social security costs mean further increases in the consumption tax rate will be unavoidable in the future. Ensuring the reduced tax rate becomes established will be essential for easing the financial pain citizens feel from the tax hike. Smoothly implementing this system is of vital importance. A range of measures to stimulate the economy will be implemented to coincide with the consumption tax increase, including offering reward points to people who make cashless settlements. The government should get creative in designing a system that will not cause confusion among consumers and retail outlets. The draft budget for fiscal 2019 became the first initial budget to top 100 trillion. Although tax revenue will increase, there has been no change to the reliance on debt, through the issuance of new government bonds, to cover one-third of the budget. Japan's long-term debt is about 1.1 quadrillion, which is double the nation's GDP. This is the worst level among major nations. The government must not slacken its efforts to ensure fiscal consolidation, through steps including social security system reform and stricter compilation of the budget. Although a new Harris County Judge and commissioner were sworn in Jan. 1, Lake Houston area legislators and officials hope to see the same focus on flood mitigation. After meeting with new Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia at the Elected Officials Breakfast Reception held on Dec. 11, chamber officials were pleased to know that his top priority is Hurricane Harvey recovery. Precinct 2 includes much of Atascocita in addition to Huffman and Crosby. Hes open to coming up to the area and really looking in-depth at what happened during and post-Harvey, what the needs are and then understanding how all that fits in with the projects within the bond referendum, said Mark Mitchell, who serves as president of the Lake Houston Area Economic Development Partnership. Shared goals Meetings to brief Garcia and new county judge Lina Hidalgo on the regions latest happenings are in the works, said Jenna Armstrong, president of the Lake Houston Area Chamber of Commerce. STAY DRY: Flash flood watch issued for Montgomery County The most important thing for Armstrong is to be able to begin and complete local projects that the chamber believes will create a sustainable solution to flooding in the Lake Houston area. Armstrong and Mitchell lobbied for the inclusion of projects, such as additional dredging along local water bodies, more detention and more gates on Lake Houston, that were approved in the $2.5 billion flood infrastructure bond in November. One of our big concerns with the election is we want people there to understand thats what our community is needing, that thats a priority, Armstrong said. The bond was approved by 86 percent of voters on the one-year anniversary of Harvey. She also noted that the projects, before they can be tackled, will have to receive final approval from the Harris County Commissioners Court. Thats something we want to make sure well see through, Armstrong said. Mitchell credited Ed Emmett, the county judge at the time, and former Precinct 2 Commissioner Jack Morman for being key figures in addressing the Lake Houston areas needs. 'I STAND WITH YOU': Keough sworn in as Montgomery County judge Mitchell said he hopes new county leadership will be able to hold the same course. Flood control and the safety of our community will always be my top priority, Hidalgo said in an email on New Years Eve. We recently held a gathering and emergency run through at the Office of Emergency Management with dozens of partners from law enforcement, to the Red Cross, and industry who come together in the event of a disaster. Regarding challenges in navigating the flooding issue, Hidalgo said that the aforementioned flood bonds funds are significant, but not enough. She added that this is a chance for her to exercise transparency, specifically about how and when the money is spent. Its hard to hold government accountable if you dont know what it does or how it works, she said. Emmett was not available to provide a comment for this story. Chance to change Garcia expressed his wish to seek fresh ideas in brewing flood-mitigation techniques. Our society has given birth to more innovative and brighter engineers that have a different perspective on this issue, and I want to bring that creativity to the table, he said. A LOOK BACK: The Courier's top 10 headlines for 2018 Garcia considered his win over two-term Republican incumbent Morman as a chance to cooperate with the community. For this particular area I want to make sure that were not playing politics with peoples homes or businesses, he said. If we dont get it right, well be putting our economy in peril. On the eve of 2018s Small Business Saturday, or Nov. 24, Armstrong said in an email that support for local small businesses is necessary since the community is still trying to return to its pre-Hurricane Harvey state. Although Garcia understood that there will be hurdles down the road, a point that Armstrong also echoed, he cited his interactions with officials seasoned and new along with past experience as Harris Countys sheriff and mayor pro-tempore as preparation for whatever is ahead. There will always be things that we will not foresee, but I feel very confident that we can deal with those issues as they come, Garcia said. Rep. Dan Huberty said in an email that he saw no issues in working with newly elected members and will meet them at the beginning of their session. In August, Huberty said that flood control and prevention will be the leading subject on his agenda for the upcoming Texas Legislative Session. He also reiterated a point made in March about illegal sand mining operations on the river being the main cause for the regions flooding. The most crucial legislative item for the State of Texas is public school finance reform, but the number one priority item for our community is flood mitigation and recovery, Huberty said. nguyen.le@chron.com Officials with the Brazoria County Sheriff's Office arrested 32 people for felony Driving While Intoxicated charges throughout the month of November, according to records from a public information request filed by the Chronicle. In Texas, a person is charged with DWI if their blood or breath alcohol concentration (BAC) is .08 or higher, according to the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT.) Pope Francis is encouraging U.S. bishops meeting near Chicago to unify as the Roman Catholic church deals with a crisis of credibility stemming from the clergy sex abuse scandal. In an eight-page letter addressed to the bishops and released to the media Thursday, Francis acknowledged that no response or approach seems adequate to the crisis that represents a grave threat to his papacy. Still, he wrote, all church leaders must reckon with parishioners pain, heal internal divisions and devise specific approaches that go beyond creating new committees or improving flow charts. I would like to draw near to you as a brother and to reflect with you on some aspects that I consider important, Francis wrote, while at the same time encouraging your prayer and the steps you are taking to combat the culture of abuse and to deal with the crisis of credibility. The pope did not specifically say he is part of the credibility crisis, but he considers himself personally engaged and involved in the rehabilitation effort. In an April letter to Chilean bishops, he admitted he made grave errors in judgment in that countrys sex abuse scandal, and invited the abuse victims he had discredited to Rome to beg their forgiveness. But there, too, he made clear that the bishops needed to repair the scandal where possible and re-establish justice. In his Christmas address, Pope Francis made an unprecedented call for priests who had abused children to turn themselves in, and vowed the church will never again hide their crimes. Francis suggested the U.S. bishops hold the weeklong retreat for prayer and spiritual reflection and dispatched the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, the official papal preacher, to lead it. The event at the Mundelein Seminary near Chicago is a prelude to a high-stakes summit of the worlds bishops at the Vatican next month to forge a comprehensive response to the crisis engulfing the church. Francis call for unity was poignant, given the stark chasm in the U.S. church between conservative and more moderate bishops, divisions that have only grown deeper since his election. After two doctrinaire-minded popes, St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, championed conservative culture warrior bishops, Francis has tended to appoint more pastorally moderate ones. Their divisions have come to the fore in particular over Francis outreach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, as well as to gays, and have sharpened as the church struggles with an explosion of abuse allegations. A blistering report released last month by the Illinois attorney general found the states dioceses have not released the names of at least 500 accused clergy. Jeff Karoub is an Associated Press writer. During the past four years, there have been 17 female homicide victims in Laredo, ranging in age from 1 to 74. They accounted for about 35 percent of the homicide victims in the city. Nationwide, about 25 percent of homicide victims are women. Men are the aggressors in nine out of 10 homicides. Among the female victims in Laredo were 1-year-old Mirene Moreno, who died at the hands of her stepfather. Three-year-old Jasleen Valdez was fatally beaten by her mother's boyfriend. Laura Tello, 28, and Jennifer Casarez, 22, and Janette Escamillar Jaramillo, 34, were each strangled to death. Tello was killed by her husband, Casarez by a friend or acquaintance. No suspects were ever named in Jaramillo's slaying. Amalia Elizabeth Perez, 38, was fatally shot by her ex-husband before he turned the gun on himself. Reyna Gonzalez Zamora, 50, was fatally shot by her boyfriend before he died by suicide in a shootout with Laredo police. Twenty-three-year-old Yolanda Martinez-Perez's husband slashed her throat. Jesusa Carrejo, 74, died from blunt force trauma after police said her son attacked her with a hammer, and Angelica Martinez, 27, was killed in the same manner by her husband. Rosa Maria Martinez, 49, was fatally injured by her boyfriend after he saw her dancing with another man, according to police. READ ALSO: Crimes that shocked Laredo in 2018 Sisters Anel and Alysson Martinez, ages 16 and 6, respectively, were fatally shot by a neighbor. Alondra Gutierrez, 19, and her boyfriend, George Rodriguez, 20, were found slain in an empty lot in north Laredo. Alexus Nicole Zepeda, 17, and her boyfriend, Andrew Michael Moreno, 18, were shot to death in a vehicle. Lesley Sanchez, 16, was killed outside a recreation center. Police said they are not aware of any relationship between Sanchez and the homicide suspect. Eloise Hodges Diaz's body was discovered following a house fire. It's unclear how she died, but police deemed her death a homicide. No suspects have been named. Now, in 2018, the slaying of five women in Webb County allegedly committed by Border Patrol agents has once again put a spotlight on the social problem that is gender violence. According to the United Nations, violence against women is defined as "any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life." RELATED: Laredo's 'triple-ax murders' detailed in new Netflix docuseries Today, one in three women have suffered physical or sexual violence. According to reports of the World Health Organization, 70 percent of women who have been murdered in the world have been killed at the hands of their partners or former partners. "Aggression and family violence continue being a common crime against women (in Webb County). This includes women who are married, who live under the common law or those who are in a dating phase," Webb County District Attorney Isidro "Chilo" Alaniz said. He said the rate of crime against women in the community has remained stable and what has happened this year could be considered isolated cases. Investigator Joe E. Baeza, spokesman for the Laredo Police Department, said domestic violence tends to be one of the most common reports that LPD receives. A study carried out in 2000 in Spain establishes how domestic violence has been considered a private phenomenon for centuries: "first a right of the husband and something normal, and then something that," unfortunately, "happened in some homes, but was part of the private life of the couples, so, therefore, there was no need to intervene." This "privacy" is one of the reasons why victims don't report aggressions against them, the study said. In Texas, of the cases that are reported, at least about twice as many incidents of domestic violence are not reported. According to the Texas Council on Family Violence, 146 women were killed by their partners in 2016. Irma Cantu, associate professor of the Department of Humanities at TAMIU, recently talked about gender violence in an interview with the Laredo Morning Times. "What's worrisome is that the United Nations Organization says that these figures are wrong because many cases are reported as accidents or suicides. That is, the crime is masked there is a kind of status quo of concealment in a heteropatriarchal system that benefits the male partner of the relationship," Cantu said. Sexual aggression This year, several Laredo sector Border Patrol agents have been accused of carrying out violent acts against women. On April 5, a Border Patrol agent was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a woman, tampering with physical evidence and official oppression. The arrest affidavit alleges that the agent, David Villarreal, 32, threatened to deport the woman before sexually assaulting her in his vehicle in front of a local Taco Palenque. Villarreal told authorities that the sex was consensual, according to the affidavit. He said the woman had become "affectionate" with him. "(She) told an officer that a federal agent threatened to deport her if she did not provide information about criminal activities," according to the affidavit. She claimed that he told her that if she did not have sex with him, he would deport her, the affidavit said. Homicides In April, a 27-year-old mother and her 1-year-old son were found slain near Father Charles McNaboe Park in northwest Laredo. Ronald Anthony Burgos-Aviles, a Border Patrol supervisory agent, reported to police that he had found the body of the woman. Assisting agents soon discovered the body of her child nearby. Investigators said Burgos-Aviles, 29, became the main suspect when they learned he had been in a romantic relationship with the woman. He was arrested and later indicted on two counts of capital murder for the deaths of Grizelda Hernandez and their son, Dominic Alexander Hernandez. Jury selection is set for June 10. In another incident, a Border Patrol agent allegedly killed four women over a 12-day period in September. Juan David Ortiz, 35, Border Patrol intel supervisor and Navy veteran, was arrested Sept. 15 after he confessed to killing them, an affidavit said. He was initially charged with four counts of murder. But when the Webb County District Attorney's Office presented the case to a grand jury Dec. 5, the murder charges were upgraded to one count of capital murder. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for both Ortiz and Burgos-Aviles. Ortiz was also indicted on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and unlawful restraint for pointing a gun at a woman in his vehicle at a local gas station. The woman, Erika Pena, escaped from his vehicle and alerted a nearby Texas trooper. About four hours later, law enforcement apprehended Ortiz after investigating the woman's claims. Up until that point, he had not been a suspect in the four slayings. Following his arrest, Ortiz told investigators that he would pick up the women off San Bernardo Avenue, drive them to a remote area outside city limits and shoot them. Law enforcement said he was not on duty at the time of the slayings but that he may have used his service weapon to kill them. The victims were identified as Melissa Ramirez, 29, Claudine Ann Luera, 42, Guiselda Alicia Cantu, 35, and 28-year-old Janelle Ortiz, a transgender woman. Impact on the community The deaths of these women and the alleged assault on Pena caused a great impact in the community. A vigil in honor of Hernandez and her son, Dominic, also served to make a call to action. "If we're going to ensure that the lives and deaths of these two beautiful souls are not in vain, we all have to do something. It is not enough to just come here, cry, light a candle and then go on with our lives," Councilman George Altgelt said at the vigil. "We will identify the warning signs, (and) we will decipher, as far as we can, how to prevent tragedies like this one." Councilwoman Nelly Vielma, a women's rights advocate and immigration attorney, said the community needs to learn from this and raise its voice. The culture here tells us not to get involved in other people's relationships. However, the community must intervene, mobilize and start talking about the taboo subject of domestic and sexual violence, she said. During the Webb County Domestic Violence Coalition's meeting in September, Angelica Hernandez, sister of Grizelda Hernandez and aunt of Dominic, spoke about the event that cut short the lives of her relatives. She remembered her sister as a beautiful, loving, selfless and strong woman who had fire in her soul. She put her children first and foremost, Hernandez said. She was also pursuing a nursing degree from TAMIU. "My sister was murdered at the hands of her son's father," Hernandez said. "She suffered more than 30 stab wounds to her face, neck, body and hands, which she raised to defend herself ... My sister fought for her life until the last breath. "The father of baby Dominic, Anthony Burgos, stabbed him in the neck, and, just to make sure that he was taking his little angel to heaven, he stabbed him in the heart." Dominic was a pure soul, a beacon of hope, an innocent child incapable of witnessing the environment that surrounded him, Hernandez said. "(Burgos-Aviles) violated the supreme civil law, and that is the right to live," Hernandez said. She added that her sister's chair at the table will always be empty at every dinner, every celebration and every holiday. "In each celebration, baby Dominic's chair will remain empty. We stay empty, missing his laughter and his voice calling for his mother," Hernandez said. The family now expects justice. Grizela Hernandez's surviving son, 7-year-old Jayden Raymond Garcia, asks for something impossible at night. "'I just want my mom and my brother to come back, please.' What do you respond to that?" Hernandez asked those at the Domestic Violence Coalition meeting. In different events, the relatives and friends of the four women killed in September joined in prayer. Karina Ramos remembered her aunt Luera affectionately. She said the family was in shock when they discovered how Luera died. "We like to remember her at her best times, when she wasn't on the streets and addicted to drugs," Ramos said. "When she was good, she was a great mother. "The biggest impact was discovering (who the suspect was). When we discovered that our aunt had been murdered, we thought it was the lowest one could reach. We had no idea who he was, but we thought he was a monster, a bad person. And (the suspect) ended up being a Border Patrol agent. It was shocking for us." Elva Ortiz, Janelle Ortiz's mother who refers to her daughter using male pronouns, said it was difficult to find out about her death. "We all lost someone, a sister, a mother. I lost a son. It is good that people have come and prayed. It has helped me to calm down a bit because I have not stopped crying," she said. She remembered Ortiz as a cheerful, sociable and friendly person who loved making friends. "He had all the qualities of a good person who you wanted to be around. He had a good personality," she said. Relatives and friends of Ramirez showed signs that read "We want justice for all the victims" and used the hashtag #JusticeForMely. "We are happy for the support of the public," Patricia Benavides, Ramirez's aunt, said. She added, "The prayer gave us some peace, but we are still destroyed ... Look at everything that is happening because of a man." Pena, the one who escaped from Juan Ortiz's vehicle, has not spoken to the media, but her aunt, Marcela Rodriguez, told Laredo Morning Times the effect that the encounter with Ortiz has had on her niece and how difficult it has been for the family. "It's been very difficult to see her," Rodriguez said. "Erika is traumatized. It's difficult to see her trauma. She does not want to eat. She wants someone to constantly accompany her. She does not want to be alone because she is afraid. She is afraid because Juan David Ortiz knows where she lives," she said. Pena had ties of friendship with the other four victims, Rodriguez said. She was close to Janelle. "We do not know what his motive was for committing this kind of horrific crime," Rodriguez said. "No matter the profession of these women, no one deserves to have their life end in this way." Rodriguez also asked that Pena be seen as a victim. "I do not want the community to only see her as a heroine," Rodriguez said. "She is also a victim who, fortunately, was able to escape from the situation." A vulnerable community Because Ortiz targeted sex workers, he focused on a vulnerable community, Alaniz, the district attorney, said. "Unfortunately, this is a community of people who are vulnerable due to alcohol, substance abuse, drug addiction or prostitution. Ortiz is the one who decided who was going to become the target," Alaniz said after Ortiz's arrest. Sex workers are less likely to report being assaulted to law enforcement due to the illegality of their profession. In Texas, prostitution is a Class B misdemeanor punishable by up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine. A person close to one of the victims, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that many women and men who work in prostitution are victims of violence, but they do not report it for fear of being arrested. "I think that no woman, whatever her profession may be, should be mistreated by a man," she said. "Out of fear or for being threatened, women never say anything." For Alaniz, this is a multifaceted social problem. "This ... problem ... requires more resources that addresses other problems such as substance abuse and the collateral problems that come along with them," he said. Response from the authorities In a previous interview on the Burgos-Aviles case, Jason D. Owens, then-Laredo sector deputy chief patrol agent, said that these were isolated incidents and not representative of the agency. Carla Provost, U.S. Border Patrol chief, traveled to Laredo following Ortiz's arrest. "These are horrible times. This individual deviated from the norm," Provost said. The men and women of the Border Patrol give their best effort every day in order to help protect the communities in which they serve, she said. "I would hate for this to tarnish the great work that those men and women do," Provost said. "I am here to support my men and women. Obviously, this had an extreme impact on them. We cannot imagine the impact this has had on the community. I am disgusted and saddened by the event that has taken place, and I offer my deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims." Alaniz echoed Provost's sentiment. "The actions of Ortiz do not reflect the work done by the men and women of the Border Patrol," Alaniz said at a news conference following Ortiz's arrest. "The brutal serial murders committed by Juan David Ortiz were an isolated case, and I hope our community never has to go through this again." For Alaniz, nothing justifies committing this type of atrocious acts. "When one takes up the position in their respective agencies, they give their promise to protect the public. Many times, these agents seem to lose their identity for their own personal reasons. However, none of these reasons justifies the atrocious acts committed," Alaniz said. When asked what needs to be done to prevent law enforcement from committing violent acts against women, Alaniz highlighted the role that each agency must play to achieve this goal. "I believe that each agency needs to implement more rigorous psychological evaluations and criminal background checks when hiring new employees," Alaniz said. "Each agency must carry out ethical training and periodically reevaluate the agents psychologically." For Alaniz, the penalties in Texas for domestic violence are fair. "I believe that the punishments are precise. Emergency restraining orders may become automatic through the operation of the law. Currently, the District Attorney's Office applies for them on behalf of the victims," he said. Alaniz said he believes that violence against women, as well as against men, will always exist, but he trusts in the implementation of programs and in society to eradicate the problem. "Implementing education and prevention programs in schools and in the community can raise the level of awareness of violence against women," he said. "As a society, we must be aware of what is going on around us and speak up when something doesn't seem right. We need to take care of ourselves and respect each other and be able to create a safer environment." Baeza, LPD spokesman, said the Police Department is committed to the highest standards of conduct, both of personnel and civilians. "(LPD) is committed to reducing these forms of domestic violence and acts of extreme violence. This includes obeying all laws, whether in service or not," he said. Baeza assured that LPD performs strict background checks on candidates applying for employment. "We make sure to hire mature, stable and emotionally healthy individuals," he said. "There is an emphasis on the availability of more educational efforts to get victims of violence and abuse out of the dark and get help for them to offer security and improve their quality of life." Baeza also spoke of collaborative efforts with the District Attorney's Office and other agencies to find new ways of effectively prosecuting domestic violence cases. For example, he said Alaniz obtained for LPD handheld cameras that officers use when responding to domestic violence reports. This video evidence from the scene can then be presented in court against the aggressor, Baeza said. He added that many times, the victims, because of pressures at home or with the family, drop the charges against their partners, making it almost impossible to prosecute the case. "With the use of the video cameras, the visible state of the victims, their emotional state and appearance, helps the prosecution prove a case to bring forth charges and to obtain the protection that the victim needs," Baeza said. Baeza urged victims to denounce any type of violence. He also urged the community to understand this problem. "Family violence is a real problem that does not know gender, educational level or socioeconomic status. The victims need to know that there is help available for them and the community needs to understand that we need its help to report any domestic violence they know is happening behind closed doors," he said. CORRECTION: This article has been updated. The original story said Amalia Elizabeth Perez was killed by her husband. In fact, he was her ex-husband. Wit - it's not just for dinner party banter anymore. In his new book, "Wit's End," journalist James Geary argues that wit is a necessary quality of mind for navigating our complicated world. "Wit is essential to making jokes and making quips, but it's also essential to all kinds of creativity," Geary says. One of the keys to wit, he says, is finding connections between seemingly disparate or even contradictory ideas. "Wit involves being alert to how things can be interrelated." Geary says being witty is within anyone's grasp. Here are some of Geary's tips for sharpening your tongue - and your mind. - Deliberately misunderstand people Our brains are so good at correctly interpreting common phrases, it happens automatically without us noticing. But if you listen closely, you'll find that language is often very vague. Exploit ambiguity for situational comedy: Next time someone struggling with a large box asks for a hand, respond by clapping. "I try not to do that one too often, because it annoys people," Geary says. - Practice making puns Puns are a great way to train your mind to make unlikely connections, Geary says. Try getting a few friends together and then take turns making puns around a particular category. For instance, if you start with "animals," you might say, "Let me otter here" or "I'm a little horse." The jokes don't have to be good, but they have to come quickly. If you hesitate, you're out. "Practicing puns has a lasting effect because it trains your brain to be staying alert to these kind of hidden correspondences - in words, but also in life," Geary says. - Quiet your inner critic A key to being witty is to let your mind play, to free-associate without judgment, Geary says. For example, when Abraham Lincoln got a letter asking him to suspend the sentence of a man who was about to be hanged, the president famously quipped, "If I don't suspend it tonight, the man will surely be suspended tomorrow." To make this joke, Lincoln had to let his mind wander to a different meaning of suspend, even though it was seemingly irrelevant to the matter at hand. "It's important not to be critical at the beginning, because that's how the ideas arise," Geary says. - Shut down humor snobs Silly wordplay abounds in all kinds of classic literature. Shakespeare's plays are full of puns and James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" is "a 600-plus-page novel made up almost entirely of macaronic (mixed-language) puns," Geary notes. So if your family complains about all your terrible new jokes, simply explain that you're working your way up to writing the great American novel. - Buy Geary's book "Read it from cover to cover. That's the most important thing," he says. "No, I'm kidding, of course. But not really." Celebrity Fan Fest, which brought star power to its 2018 event less than two months ago, has recently announced the dates of the 2019 fest. This years event has been scheduled for June 14-16 at the Freeman Coliseum, according to a tweet from the organization Thursday. Attending celebrities will be announced in the coming weeks, Celebrity Fan Fest tweeted. But so far four major movies stars have promised to attend in the new and larger venue. Denham Springs, LA (70726) Today A mix of clouds and sun. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 94F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Widely scattered showers or a thunderstorm this evening. Then partly cloudy. Low 74F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%. According to the charge, Burke tried to extort the owners of a company that operates dozens of fast-food restaurants in the Chicago area after they came to him in 2017 for help with permits for remodeling a restaurant in Burkes 14th Ward on the Southwest Side. The complaint does not name the restaurant, but sources said it was a Burger King located at 4060 S. Pulaski Road the same business that 17-year-old Laquan McDonald passed by moments before he was fatally shot by a Chicago police officer in October 2014. Some 700 years ago, before mankind began pumping carbon into the atmosphere and warming the climate, the Earth chilled in a centuries-long cooling event called the Little Ice Age. Today, new research finds, the depths of the Pacific still hold memories of this colder time. Just over a mile (2 kilometers) down, the Pacific Ocean is getting a tad cooler as waters that were last at the surface during the Little Ice Age are only just now mixing with deeper, warmer waters. This eerie echo of temperatures from a past era is important for modern climate scientists because the ocean's capacity to hold heat matters for what happens in the atmosphere and on land, said study researcher Jake Gebbie, a physical oceanographer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. "If we're going to understand climate change," Gebbie told Live Science, "it's all about trying to study where heat and carbon move around the Earth system." [The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted] Diving deep Gebbie and his colleague at Harvard University, Peter Huybers, had previously found that the deep waters of the Pacific are very old indeed. Below about 1.5 miles (2.5 km) beneath the surface, the waters of the deep Pacific last saw the surface around 1,000 years ago, the researchers reported in 2012. What this means, Gebbie said, is that you should be able to detect hints of what the past ocean surface was like by examining the ocean's deep waters. The problem is that it's hard to study the bottom half of the ocean, Gebbie said. Since 2002, an international consortium called the Argo Program has used floating instruments to measure temperature, salinity and other ocean features around the globe; those instruments, however, don't go below 1.2 miles (2 km). The last global deep survey was something called the World Ocean Circulation Experiment in the 1990s, Gebbie said. Using data from that survey, Gebbie and Huybers trained a computer model to mimic the ocean's modern-day circulation patterns. To look at historical patterns, though, they needed some real-world data for comparison's sake. Luckily, they had it in the first-ever modern oceanographic survey: That of the HMS Challenger in the mid-1870s. New life for old data The HMS Challenger was a British survey vessel that traveled 70,000 nautical miles (130,000 km) for an expedition between 1872 and 1876. The crew of the Challenger periodically dropped thermometers on ropes down to below 1.2 miles (2 km). Gebbie and Huybers had to correct this data slightly, since the pressures in the deep ocean can compress the mercury in an old-style thermometer, skewing the measurements. [In Photos: Ocean Hidden Beneath Earth's Surface] Those corrections revealed that over the last 125 years, the Atlantic Ocean has warmed at all depths, while the Pacific shows a cooling trend over the 20th century starting between 1.1 and 1.6 miles (1.8 and 2.6 km) deep, the researchers reported in the Jan. 4 issue of the journal Science. The precise amount of cooling isn't yet clear, but it is small, the researchers found, probably between 0.036 degrees and 0.144 degrees Fahrenheit (0.02 degrees and 0.08 degrees Celsius). Those numbers are preliminary, Gebbie said, and the researchers plan to take a closer look at the data to make them more precise. Still, the temperature difference between the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific makes sense, Gebbie said. The Atlantic Ocean waters mix more readily than those of the Pacific. This is partially because cold, dense waters enter the Atlantic from both the South and North polar regions, Gebbie said. These waters sink to the bottom rather quickly, forcing rapid churning. The Pacific is bigger and isn't replenished from the north at all, so its deep waters hang out near the bottom for longer. That means that old climate patterns hang out longer, too. In this case, Gebbie said, the cooling trend is caused by the mixing of old surface waters from two distinct periods. The first is the Medieval Warm Period, a balmy period between about A.D. 950 and 1250. At more than a mile (2 km) deep, waters that were at the surface during the Medieval Warm Period are now being replaced by cooler waters from the Little Ice Age. All of this is vastly overshadowed by modern-day warming, however, Gebbie said. The difference in ocean-surface temperatures from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age was about 0.72 degrees F (0.4 degrees C) over 900 years, he said. For comparison, sea-surface temperatures have gone up 1.5 degrees F (0.8 degrees C) since 1901, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data. Climate scientists centuries in the future won't be able to see any hints of the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age in Pacific data, Gebbie said; it will have all been wiped out by the effects of 20th-century warming. Nevertheless, the findings are important for today. Taking the deep ocean into account will help climate modelers develop better estimates for future climate change, Gebbie said. "If you really want to get to the bottom of longer-term climate trends, decades and longer," he said, "you can't ignore the deep ocean." Originally published on Live Science. China's Chang'e-4 lander touched down on the far side of the moon (Jan. 3 Beijing time, Jan. 2 US), and it's got some living things on board. A small "tin" in the lander contains seeds of potatoes and rockcress (Arabidopsis thaliana, a flowering plant related to cabbage and mustard, as well as a model organism for plant biology), as well as silkworm eggs. The idea, according to a report in The Telegraph earlier this year, is that the plants will support the silkworms with oxygen, and the silkworms will in turn provide the plants with necessary carbon dioxide and nutrients through their waste. The researchers will watch the plants carefully to see whether the plants successfully perform photosynthesis, and grow and bloom in the lunar environment. "We want to study the respiration of the seeds and the photosynthesis on the moon," Xie Gengxin, chief designer of the experiment, told Xinhua, a Chinese state-run news agency. [See Spectacular Lunar Mission Images in 3D (Photos)] The "biosphere" experiment was the product of a collaboration between 28 Chinese universities, led by southwest China's Chongqing University, according to Xinhua. The experiment, which is tucked inside a 1.4-pint (0.8 liters) aluminum alloy cylinder, weighs about 7 lbs. (3 kilograms) and includes dirt, nutrients and water. Sunlight will filter into the container through a "tube," and small cameras will watch the little environment. That data will beam back to Earth by means of the complicated relay system China has set up to communicate with an experiment that has no direct line of sight to Earth. "Why potato and Arabidopsis? Because the growth period of Arabidopsis is short and convenient to observe. And potato could become a major source of food for future space travelers," said Liu Hanlong, chief director of the experiment and vice president of Chongqing University, as reported by Xinhua. "Our experiment might help accumulate knowledge for building a lunar base and long-term residence on the moon." Rockcress has been grown in space before, including in one experiment on the International Space Station that showed the plants' leaves appearing to rise and fall as they detected the moon's gravity. But whether the flowering plant will flourish in the environment of the far side of the moon remains an open question. For now, though, this means that there's life in at least one other place in the solar system (even if it's only because we put it there). Originally published on Live Science. In this photo captured Oct. 10, 2018, scientist He Jiankui works at a lab in Shenzhen in southern China's Guangdong province. China's government ordered a halt to work by a medical team that claimed to have helped make the world's first gene-edited babies. A Chinese researcher who ignited controversy in 2018 after claiming to have created the first genetically edited human infants was recently spotted in Shenzhen, China. This is the first reported sighting of Jiankui He, an associate professor at the Southern University of Science and Technology of China, in weeks, The New York Times reported Dec. 28. He was photographed while on the fourth-floor balcony of an apartment building a university guesthouse and was seen talking to a woman thought to be his wife. The apartment appeared to be monitored by "a dozen unidentified men," according to The Times. [10 Amazing Things Scientists Just Did with CRISPR] He last appeared in public in November at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong, where he spoke about his research and fielded outraged queries from the global scientific community. Since then, He's whereabouts have been uncertain, though rumors suggested he was under house arrest, The Times reported. According to He, the babies twin girls named Lulu and Nana were genetically modified as embryos with a gene-editing tool called CRISPR-Cas9; He used CRISPR to snip out a gene and thereby render the infants resistant to HIV, he said in a video posted to YouTube on Nov. 25. However, scientists around the world promptly denounced He's actions as highly irresponsible and potentially harmful to the babies. Genes perform more than one function and act in concert with many other genes, and it is not yet possible to say for sure that excising a single gene can be done safely and with no future consequences for human health, Live Science previously reported. In fact, the gene that He deleted in the embryos CCR5 is known to assist in white blood cell function, Mazhar Adli, a geneticist at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, told Live Science. He may also have failed to adequately inform the babies' parents about potential risks prior to obtaining their consent to the gene editing. Following the release of the video, He's university quickly denounced his research, issuing a statement the next day stating that it was "deeply shocked" at what He had done and claiming that He had been on unpaid leave from the university since February. In the weeks after the Hong Kong conference and the launch of an investigation by the Chinese government, He's location was uncertain and university representatives denied that he was being held under house arrest on university grounds, Newsweek reported. However, He's current location is a university hotel that houses visiting scholars, according to The Times. Four guards were stationed outside the door of He's apartment, but their affiliation is unknown. Neither Shenzhen's police department nor the university responded to The Times' requests for comments, The Times reported. Original article on Live Science. Any border wall between the United States and Mexico can't be immoral, President Trump said at a Cabinet meeting yesterday (Jan. 2), because the Vatican has one, too. "When they say the walls immoral, well then you got to do something about the Vatican, because the Vatican has the biggest wall of them all," Trump said, according to The Hill. Trump made similar comments about the Vatican's wall in 2016, prompting a flurry of comments from historians explaining that while Trump's wall would, in theory, keep out migrants, the Vatican's walls were designed for entirely different purposes. [Photos: Ruins of Mysterious Wall Found in Jordan] They were built to keep out pirates. In the ninth century, Pope Leo IV announced that Vatican City needed walls to protect it from the Saracen pirates who were pillaging southern Italy. (Saracen is a term from the Middle Ages that refers to Arabs and Muslims.) After the Saracens attacked Rome and the basilicas of Old St Peter's and Saint Paul Outside the Walls in A.D. 846, Pope Leo IV ordered the construction of a 39-foot-tall (nearly 12 meters) wall around part of Vatican City, an independent city-state where the pope lives. But the imposing wall soon opened up, according to historians. "Gradually, the Muslim threat receded and many gates were opened in the walls, Thomas Noble, a papal history expert at Notre Dame University, told the news website Best Life. Other popes expanded the wall during the 1400s and 1500s, but these stretches were less about defense and more about making "a political and cultural statement" about the pope's power, Gerard Mannion, a Catholic studies professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., told The New York Times. In the 1500s, Pope Pius IV ordered the wall's grand doors closed again, to protect it not from pirates but from Roman politicians angling for more political clout and the Vatican's riches. "The problem in those later times was that political violence in Rome sometimes threatened the papacy," Noble told Best Life. Today, the Vatican's walls are an impressive sight. But they dont keep anybody out; their doors are open and metal detectors are the only obstacle between the public and St. Peters Square, according to CNN. But in medieval times, walls were commonplace. Most major cities including London, Paris and Jerusalem had them. "The walls are a fortification, there is no question, but they were a fortification built at a time when armed invasions by barbarians and other forces were happening," Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, a Catholic studies professor at Georgetown University, told The New York Times. "And that is not the same thing we are talking about with a wall between the U.S. and Mexico." Originally published on Live Science. A 2,300-year-old fortress that protected an ancient port called "Berenike" has been discovered in Egypt on the coast of the Red Sea by a Polish-American archaeological team. Constructed at a time when Egypt was ruled by the Ptolemies, a dynasty of pharaohs descended from one of Alexander the Great's generals, the fortifications are sizable. "A double line of walls protected the western part of the fortress, while a single line sufficed farther to the east and north. Square towers were built at the corners and in strategic places where sections of the walls connected," wrote archaeologists Marek Wozniakand Joanna Radkowska in an article recently published online in the journal Antiquity. [See Photos of the Red Sea Fortress in Egypt] The western part of the fort, which consists of double walls, faces inland, suggesting that the defenders were particularly concerned about an attack coming from that direction, Wozniak, of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Warsaw, told Live Science. The biggest and the most fortified part of the Berenike fortress is a complex that is about 525 feet (160 meters) long and 262 feet (80 m) wide and consists "of three large courtyards and several associated structures, forming an enclosed fortified complex of workshops and stores," wrote Wozniak and Radkowska, who is at the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The most impressive aspect of the fortress is its architecture, said Wozniak, who told Live Science that its "well-made monumental architecture covered and protected by [the] sands is amazing." Within the fortress gatehouse, archaeologists found a rock-cut well and a series of drains and pools that collected, stored and distributed both groundwater and rainwater. "The two largest pools may have had a total capacity of over 17,000 litres," Wozniak and Radkowska wrote. The fact that rainwater was drained and collected suggests that Berenike had "a more humid climate than today," they noted. On the south side of the north defensive wall, in an ancient trash dump, the archaeologists discovered terra-cotta figurines, coins and a piece of an elephant skull. Fragments of the skull of a young elephant found in an ancient trash dump located on the south side of the northern defensive wall. (Image credit: S.E. Sidebotham) "Interestingly, it seems that the administrators of [Berenike] found the fortifications unnecessary. Some of them were dismantled after a very short period of existence," Wozniak told Live Science, noting that no evidence has been found of an attack on Berenike. The Ptolemies often built fortified cities and forts near the frontiers of their kingdom, said Wozniak, adding that the Ptolemies could not be sure how local people on the frontiers would react to their presence. Ancient trade Historical records indicate that Berenike was part of a chain of ports constructed along the Red Sea to help supply war elephants to the army of the Ptolemies,Wozniak said. In 2014, genetic research revealed that the Ptolemies likely imported their elephants from Eritrea, in East Africa. After Rome took over Egypt in 30 B.C., trade expanded at Berenike and the port became a major center of commerce. From the first to sixth centuries A.D., evidence suggests commercial ties extended from Greece and Italy to South Arabia, India, the Malay Peninsula, Ethiopia and East Africa, Wozniak and Radkowska wrote. The chief directors of the Polish-American archaeological team that discovered the fortress are Steven Sidebotham, a professor of ancient history and archaeology at the University of Delaware, and Iwona Zych, the deputy director of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Warsaw. Research in the Hellenistic area (the area dating to the time of the Ptolemies) at Berenike is supported by Polish National Science Centre grant no. 2015/17/N/HS3/00163. Originally published on Live Science. Behind the phenomena of global warming and climate change lies the increase in greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. A greenhouse gas is any gaseous compound in the atmosphere that is capable of absorbing infrared radiation , thereby trapping and holding heat in the atmosphere. By increasing the heat in the atmosphere, greenhouse gases are responsible for the greenhouse effect, which ultimately leads to global warming. Related: 10 signs that Earth's climate is off the rails Solar radiation and the "greenhouse effect" Global warming isn't a recent scientific concept. The basics of the phenomenon were worked out well over a century ago by Swedish physicist and chemist Svante Arrhenius, in 1896. His paper, published in the Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science , was the first to quantify the contribution of carbon dioxide to what scientists now call the " greenhouse effect ." The greenhouse effect occurs because the sun bombards Earth with enormous amounts of radiation that strike Earth's atmosphere in the form of visible light, plus ultraviolet (UV), infrared (IR) and other types of radiation that are invisible to the human eye. UV radiation has a shorter wavelength and a higher energy level than visible light, while IR radiation has a longer wavelength and a weaker energy level. About 30% of the radiation that strikes Earth is reflected back out to space by clouds, ice and other reflective surfaces. The remaining 70% is absorbed by the oceans, the land and the atmosphere, according to NASA's Earth Observatory . As they heat up, the oceans, land and atmosphere release heat in the form of IR thermal radiation, which passes out of the atmosphere and into space. It's this equilibrium of incoming and outgoing radiation that makes the Earth habitable, with an average temperature of about 59 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius), according to NASA. Without this atmospheric equilibrium, Earth would be as cold and lifeless as its moon, or as blazing hot as Venus. The moon, which has almost no atmosphere, is about minus 243 F (minus 153 C) on its dark side. Venus, on the other hand, has a very dense atmosphere that traps solar radiation; the average temperature on Venus is about 864 F (462 C). The exchange of incoming and outgoing radiation that warms the Earth is often referred to as the greenhouse effect because an agricultural greenhouse works in much the same way. Incoming shortwave UV radiation easily passes through the glass walls of a greenhouse and is absorbed by the plants and hard surfaces inside. Weaker, longwave IR radiation, however, has difficulty passing through the glass walls and is thereby trapped inside, warming the greenhouse. How greenhouse gases cause global warming The gases in the atmosphere that absorb radiation are known as "greenhouse gases" (abbreviated as GHG) because they are largely responsible for the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect, in turn, is one of the leading causes of global warming. The most significant greenhouse gases, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), are: water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). "While oxygen (O2) is the second most abundant gas in our atmosphere, O2 does not absorb thermal infrared radiation," Michael Daley, an associate professor of environmental science at Lasell College in Massachusetts, told Live Science. Global warming and the greenhouse gases that cause it occur naturally without them, Earth's average surface temperature would be a gelid zero degrees F (minus 18 C). But the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has skyrocketed to detrimental levels in recent history. Related: Carbon dioxide soars to record breaking levels not seen in at least 800,000 years During the 20,000-year period before the Industrial Revolution, atmospheric CO2 fluctuated between about 180 parts per million (ppm) during ice ages and 280 ppm during interglacial warm periods. However, since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the 1750s, the amount of CO2 has risen nearly 50%, according to NASAs Global Climate Change portal . Today, CO2 levels stand at over 410 ppm. Fluorinated gases gases to which the element fluorine has been added are created during industrial processes and are also considered greenhouse gases. These include hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. Although they are present in the atmosphere in very small concentrations, they trap heat very effectively, making them high "global warming potential" (GWP) gases. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), once used as refrigerants and aerosol propellants until they were phased out by international agreement, are also greenhouse gases. Related: Global warming vs. solar cooling: The showdown begins in 2020 There are three factors that affect the degree to which a greenhouse gas will influence global warming: Its abundance in the atmosphere, how long it stays in the atmosphere and its GWP. For example, water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas, but carbon dioxide has a more significant impact on global warming due to its abundance in the atmosphere plus its relatively long atmospheric lifetime of 300 to 1,000 years, according to NASA. Water vapor, on the other hand, has an atmospheric lifetime of no more than 10 days, according to a 2020 study published in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. Methane is about 21 times more efficient at absorbing radiation than CO2, giving it a higher GWP rating, even though it stays in the atmosphere for only about 12 years, according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Although methane and other GHGs are capable of trapping more heat than CO2, scientists still consider carbon dioxide to be the dominant greenhouse gas because its warming effect outlives the others' effects by centuries. Sources of greenhouse gases Some greenhouse gases, such as methane, are produced through agricultural practices, in the form of livestock manure, for example. Others, like CO2, largely result from natural processes like respiration, and from the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. Another primary source of CO2 is deforestation . When trees are felled to produce goods or heat, they release the carbon that is normally stored for photosynthesis . This process releases up to 4.8 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year, according to the World Resources Institute . Forestry and other land-use practices can offset some of these greenhouse gas emissions. "Replanting helps to reduce the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as growing trees sequester carbon dioxide through photosynthesis," Daley told Live Science. "However, forests cannot sequester all of the carbon dioxide we are emitting to the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels, and a reduction in fossil fuel emissions is still necessary to avoid buildup in the atmosphere." Worldwide, the output of greenhouse gases is a source of grave concern. According to NOAAs Climate.gov , over the past 60 years, atmospheric CO2 has increased at an annual rate that's 100 times faster than previous natural increases. The last time global atmospheric CO2 amounts were this high was 3 million years ago, when temperatures were up to 5.4 degrees F (3 degrees C) higher than during the pre-industrial era. As a result of modern-day CO2-induced global warming, 2016 was the warmest year on record, with 2019 and 2020 ranking as the next warmest, respectively. In fact, the six hottest years on record have all occurred since 2015, according to the World Meteorological Organization . "The warming we observe affects atmospheric circulation, which impacts rainfall patterns globally," said Josef Werne, an associate professor in the Department of Geology and Planetary Science at the University of Pittsburgh. "This will lead to big environmental changes, and challenges, for people all across the globe." Our planet's future If current trends continue, scientists, government officials and a growing number of citizens fear that the worst effects of global warming extreme weather, rising sea levels, plant and animal extinctions, ocean acidification , major shifts in climate and unprecedented social upheaval will be inevitable. In an effort to combat GHG-induced global warming, the U.S. government created a climate action plan in 2013. And in April 2016, representatives from 73 countries signed the Paris Agreement, an international pact to combat climate change by investing in a sustainable, low-carbon future, according to the UNFCCC . Although the U.S. withdrew from the Paris Agreement in 2017, it rejoined in late-January 2021. President Biden's administration has also set a target of reducing U.S. emissions by 50-52% of 2005 levels by the year 2030. (Emissions are routinely compared to those in 2005 the year U.S. emissions of CO2 peaked at nearly 6 billion tons.) In 2020, global carbon dioxide emissions fell 6.4% (13% in the U.S. alone) the first time in decades the annual rate hasnt climbed, Nature reported . This was in part due to the decrease in fossil fuel combustion resulting from the switch to natural gas from coal , but largely because of the forced standstill in economic, social and transportation activities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic . Scientists expected the annual emissions decline to actually be larger than it was, but emissions rebounded as restrictions were lifted in some nations and activities recovered toward the end of 2020. Related: Global carbon emissions dropped an unprecedented 17% during the coronavirus lockdown and it changes nothing In order to limit global warming to the 2.7 degree F (1.5 degree C) target set by the Paris Agreement, the world still needs to cut its CO2 emissions by 7.6% for the next decade, according to the UN Environment Programme . Researchers around the world continue to work toward finding ways to lower greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate their effects. One potential solution scientists are examining is to suck some of the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and bury it underground indefinitely. Advocates argue that carbon capture and storage is technologically feasible , but market forces have prevented widespread adoption. Whether or not removing already-emitted carbon from the atmosphere is feasible, preventing future warming requires stopping the emissions of greenhouse gases. The most ambitious effort to forestall warming thus far is the 2016 Paris Agreement. This nonbinding international treaty aims to keep warming "well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius," according to the United Nations. Each signatory to the treaty agreed to set their own voluntary greenhouse gas emission limits and to make them stricter over time. Climate scientists said that the emissions limits committed under the agreement wouldn't keep warming as low as 1.5 or even 2 degrees C, but that it would be an improvement over the "business-as-usual" scenario. Additional resources Read enough news reports about Elizabeth Warrens declaration that she is running for president, and you notice certain common features, Peter Beinart writes. In its story on her announcement, The New York Times noted that Warren has become a favorite target of conservatives and that, in a recent national poll, only about 30 percent (of respondents) viewed her favorably, with 37 percent holding an unfavorable view. The Washington Post observed that Warrens claim that she was Native American has come under relentless attack from Republican opponents. It also quoted a Boston Globe editorial that called Warren a divisive figure. On CNN, the election analyst Harry Enten suggested that Warrens very liberal record, combined with the fact that Donald Trump has already gone after her has made her a you guessed it divisive figure whose favorable ratings are not that high. A year into the modern #MeToo movement and in the wake of the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford against the newest U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, current events are strikingly similar to those when VAWA originally passed. Considered landmark legislation, it became law in the aftermath of the 1991 testimony by Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings to sit on the high court. The law was also enacted in the backdrop of the so-called Year of the Woman, when a then-record number of women ran for and won congressional seats in the 1992 election. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 3) President Rodrigo Duterte is set to visit Camarines Sur on Friday following the onslaught of deadly Tropical Depression Usman. Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo confirmed this in a press briefing in Malacanang on Thursday, but did not disclose other details. "We will check on the stricken areas para malaman natin kung ano pang kailangang gawin (so we will know what else has to be done)," Panelo said, adding that the President will give aid to the victims. The storm claimed over 100 lives, mostly in the Bicol region, and in Mimaropa and Eastern Samar. A state of calamity has been declared in Albay, Camarines Sur, Sorsogon, and some towns in Oriental Mindoro. More than 300,000 persons were evacuated while damages and losses in agriculture were estimated at P816.17 million. Panelo said Duterte was saddened by the loss of lives, but stressed that government officials did all they can to prepare for heavy rains. The storm was downgraded into a low-pressure area after hitting land in Eastern Samar, but it still brought heavy rains that triggered landslides, weather bureau Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, Astronomical Services Administration said. Winter used to be a rather dormant time for dance, but in 2019 the colder months bring some of the most exciting dance events of the year. Winter is typically a time when touring companies roll through town, with spring reserved for the locals. But two home-town companies will present world premieres in February. Two extraordinary Indian dance companies, both based in Minneapolis, pay a visit this season, and two companies whove not been here in decades join a crowded dance calendar with another celebrating a milestone 50 years of Chicago tours. A COUNTY Limerick man threatened gardai with a steel bar, a shovel and a hammer, Kilmallock Court heard. Sean Rainbow, aged 20, of Knockrua, Raheenamadra, Knocklong also struck a garda patrol car causing 762 worth of damage. Rainbow pleaded guilty to three counts of producing an article capable of inflicting serious injury under Section 11 of the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act, 1990, and one charge of criminal damage. Sergeant Michelle Leahy said on March 20, 2018, Garda Jerry OConnor responded to a call from the defendants home. The defendant was outside the house when gardai arrived. He was very agitated and aggressive. He picked up a steel bar and threatened to use it. Gardai tried to calm him down. He struck the patrol car. He then started waving a shovel in a threatening manner. Gardai feared for their safety and called for more gardai. He then picked up a hammer and threatened gardai, said Sgt Leahy. The court heard that Rainbow then went into the house and jumped out of a window. Gardai pursued him and caught up with him. He threatened gardai again. He threw the hammer away before they used pepper spray. He was very aggressive on the day, said Sgt Leahy. Con Barry, solicitor for Rainbow, said his client apologies to the gardai and the court. He has paid 800 in compensation for the damage to the patrol car. He is in receipt of a disability allowance. He has ADHD which causes him to act impulsively as such. He is easily led. He was going down the wrong road with a group of friends who were a bad influence. He moved to Limerick city to get out of there. He has always got the bus from the city to Kilmallock for court. He is away from the people he was with and is getting on with his life in Limerick city. He hasnt come to the attention of gardai since the incident. He does apologise to the gardai and the court, said Mr Barry. Judge Marian OLeary handed down a four month prison sentence, suspended for two years and fined Rainbow 250. She also ordered that he do a drug awareness programme within three months. Recognaissance was fixed in the event of an appeal. FOUR men have appeared in court after they were charged in connection with a disturbance at a hotel in Limerick city during the early hours of New Years Day. The four, who are all related, were arrested at around 3.30am on Tuesday after gardai were alerted to the incident. The men were taken to Henry Street garda station and subsequently appeared before Limerick District Court after they were charged with public order offences. The defendants were granted bail and a file is being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions in relation to the matter. A condition of the mens bail is that they stay out of all licenced premises in Limerick. THE proposed theme for this years St Patricks Festival One Giant Leap has been criticised by a number of councillors who have called for the centenary of the Limerick Soviet to be part of the celebrations. Briefing members of the Metropolitan District, Sheila Deegan, arts and culture officer with Limerick City and County Council, said the theme was picked as 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. Cllr Seighin OCeallaigh said he was opposed to the proposed theme as it relates to what he claimed is fake news. He went on to describe the moon-landing as being much-disputed. The Sinn Fein councillor said the moon landing had nothing to do with Limerick and that he would prefer to allocate funding for events commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Limerick Soviet. Other councillors expressed their concern about the One Giant Leap theme with some asking how such a theme would be incorporated into the three-day festival which will include the St Patricks Day Parade, the International Band Parade and a spectacular fireworks display. Replying to the concerns, Ms Deegan said the local authority is providing support to a number of events which will take place in April to mark the centenary of the Limerick Soviet. She said the St Patricks Festival, which will cost around 285,000 to run, would not be a commemoration of the moon landing. The theme is just an idea about recognising the growth in Limerick over the past number of years, she said. Ten marching bands, eight of which are based in the United States, have already confirmed they will participate in this years International Band Parade. Depending on weather, up to 70,000 people could attend the various events which are due to take place during the St Patricks Festival. Welcome back to one of the most reliable phenomena on the internet: a news story about a viral challenge that is 1) dangerous and 2) said to be loved by teens. At the beginning of 2018, people were freaking out over the idea of the "Tide Pod Challenge," or eating Tide Pods on camera for views. The challenge started as a meme that involved joking about eating Tide Pods, which look like a cartoon dessert. And then, a few teens ate them for views, and the challenge became a weeks-long news topic. PATIENTS were so impatient with the lengthy emergency department waits at University Hospital Limerick over the Christmas period that they instead resorted to getting treated in Dublin, according to a local GP. And according to another GP, the overindulgence of food and drink was responsible for a large number of presentations at the clinic over the festive season. And while trolley numbers significantly dipped in the month of December at UHL, the hospital was still the worst affected in the country by overcrowding, according to new Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation figures. A total of 790 patients were treated on trolleys at UHL last month, proving to be the worst December for overcrowding at the hospital since records began in 2006. Adare GP, Dr Yvonne Williams said that some of her patients dreaded going to the emergency department at UHL. I had patients who travelled up to Dublin as couldn't face the ED waits. They had gone in, waited hours and left, she said. Dr Jason McMahon, of Treaty Medical Centre on the Ennis Road, said that over the Christmas period people put themselves under a lot of pressure financially and otherwise when families get together and then a lot of depression surfaces at this time of the year also as a result. He added: Overindulgence of food and drink is responsible for a good number of presentations too. A lot of other presentations come with just in case we get sick over Christmas doc!. We need a crystal ball for those. UHL had the highest rate of overcrowding in the country in 2018 and for the third year in a row. According to annual figures published by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, there were 11,437 patients treated on trolleys in the emergency department and wards at UHL in 2018. This is the first time, since records began in 2006, that a hospital has exceeded 10,000 patients in any hospital around the country. The second highest level overcrowding was at Cork University Hospital, which had 9,135 patients on trolleys, followed by University Hospital Galway with 7,452 patients. UHL also saw a massive 29% increase in trolley patients in 2018 in comparison to the previous year when there were 8,869 patients on trolleys. The lowest ever year for overcrowding at UHL was in 2007 when there were 1,367 patients on trolleys, which was an average of four patients per day. The 2018 figure reflects an average of 32 patients per day. In response, a spokesperson said: Since early December, services have remained very busy in the Emergency Department (ED) at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) with increased patient attendances and patient admissions, many of these were over 75, frail elderly patients with complex care needs. The ED at UHL is still one of the busiest in the country and the attendances to the end of December 2018 were just over 72,037 which represents a 6.2% increase on 2017. There were 1,682 attendances to the ED between 24th of December and 1st January 2019. All surge capacity is currently open to accommodate high volumes of patients requiring admission, including the new 19 bed Acute Medical Assessment Unit and the Surgical Day Ward, 11 beds. As part of our planning for the Winter period we have been promoting, through the media the use of the Local Injury Units. For the 24th December to the 1st January we have had an 18.1% increase in our attendances at St. Johns Hospital and a 9.1% increase in Nenagh hospital. UL Hospitals Group sincerely regrets that any patient has to face long waits in our Emergency Department (ED) during busy periods and any distress or inconvenience this causes to patients and their loved ones. Approximately seven in 10 patients will be assessed, treated and discharged home. Patients admitted through the ED can face long waits for a bed but continue to be treated while they wait. It is acknowledged that there is a demand and capacity mismatch and we welcome the recent funding announcement by the Minister for Health for the 60-bed build at UHL. In addition a 96-bed block has also been included in Project Ireland 2040. It is in the interests of patients and staff that these beds are provided as soon as possible and we are focused on achieving that. Until then, we will continue to progress initiatives that alleviate the pressure on the ED in UHL. In total, there were 108,227 patients on a trolley nationwide, which was described as the worst year on record. The INMO has said that its executive will meet next week to set dates for strike action. Its general secretary, Phil Ni Sheaghdha said the health service, nationally, does not have enough beds to support the population. The first salmon of the year has been caught and released ... but not in Leitrim, the fish was caught on the Lackagh River, Co Donegal at 9.25am on Tuesday, January 1. The salmon, which weighed approximately five pounds and was caught on a single barbless hook before being released into the water, was also the first salmon caught and released during International Year of the Salmon which takes place in 2019. Michael McCann was one of 22 anglers who were fishing on the Lackagh River at the time of the catch. The river is not known for producing the first salmon of the angling season. Last year the first salmon was recorded on the River Drowes in Leitrim - on January 30. They were hoping to catch the first salmon of this year too. Special initiative on the River Drowes This year, a special initiative is being taken at the River Drowes to make the International Year of the Salmon. Firstly, all anglers that are present to start their fishing season at the river will be presented with a stainless steel commemorative pin. Secondly, the angler who catches and releases the first salmon of the year from the river Drowes will be presented with the newly commissioned Conservation Cup. The angler will also be presented with a one kilogramme bar of silver worth 750. Shane Gallagher of the Drowes Salmon fishery said, 2019 is the International Year of the Salmon. To highlight the value of salmon angling to the Irish economy and the importance of conserving this precious resource, the fishery is offering a one kilo bar of silver to the angler who catches and releases the first salmon from the river Drowes in the International Year of the Salmon, 2019. Dr Ciaran Byrne, CEO of Inland Fisheries Ireland congratulated Michael McCann, on his catch which is highly coveted by anglers across the country. "We are particularly delighted that the first salmon of 2019 was caught and released in a sustainable manner in Donegal in compliance with the 2019 regulations. I would urge anglers to step up their conservation efforts and engage in catch and release angling in 2019. The New Year coincides with International Year of the Salmon which aims to raise awareness of some of the challenges facing salmon stocks across the Northern hemisphere." Salmon populations have plummeted in recent years with the number of salmon returning to Irish shores decreasing by over 70 per cent. "We look forward to promoting this global initiative in Ireland which aims to bring people together to share knowledge, raise awareness and take action on how we can ensure the resilience of salmon in Ireland and across the Northern hemisphere," he said. Inland Fisheries Ireland is also inviting the public to help protect and conserve the fisheries resource during the year by reporting incidents to its confidential hotline number 1890 34 74 24 or 1890 FISH 24. The phone line is designed to encourage the reporting of incidents of illegal fishing, water pollution and invasive species. Anglers looking for fishing information in Ireland during 2019 should visit www.fishinginireland.info for all the latest angling news and reports. For more information about Inland Fisheries Ireland, visit www.fisheriesireland.ie. St Pauls secondary school in Monasterevin took part in a visit to the European Parliament in Brussels recently, where representatives were welcomed by Mairead McGuinness, MEP. Participating in the Graduate.ie schools competition, an online competition to win a trip to the European Parliament to participate in Euroscola, the students aged between 16 to 18 from across the EU have the chance to become an MEP for a day. They debate, negotiate, amend, vote and adopt resolutions on real European issues. They visited the Parliament in Brussels before travelling to Strasbourg. MEP McGuinness explained the functioning of the EU institutions to the students, Ireland's role in the EU and current issues. A Danish home retail brand will open its first Irish store in Co. Kildare. JYSK plan to open 15 stores around Ireland in the next two years, creating 200 jobs. The first store will open at Jigginstown, Naas, in early April, 2019. Two further stores will open in Drogheda, Louth and Navan, Meath in May, and a fourth store will open in Portlaoise, Laois during the summer. JYSK is an international retail chain that sells 'everything for the home', which is owned by the original founder, Lars Larsen. The store was first opened in 1979, and today has more than 2,700 stores across 51 countries worldwide. SEE ALSO: Lawlors Hotel gets green light for a new extension A new water source is set to come on stream for Portlaoise by the middle of next year which will leave the town's supply in surplus. However, a Laois County Councillor has queried county hall on its figures because she said Irish Water recently warned people to conserve supplies. Cllr Catherine Fitzgerald raised her concerns with officials at a recent Portlaoise Municipal District meeting. She asked for an update on the water supply in Portlaoise. In reply, Mr Tom OCarroll, area engineer, water services, said Portlaoise has a current supply of 9,100m3/day. He said this is a surplus of almost 2,000m3/day available within this figure. He said the harnessing of existing non-producing boreholes in Coolbanagher was underway, with an estimated completion date of the second quarter of 2019. It will provide an extra 3,000m3/day. However, Cllr Fitzgerald said Irish Water advised Laois people to conserve water on November 8. She said this was contradicting the engineer's report. She said that the council had to make sure there was the right infrastructure in Laois to attract investment and water is a part of that. Director of services, Mr Kieran Kehoe said that Portlaoise has a huge capacity and this was just a precautionary notice from Irish Water. Its a national use, its not just Laois, said Mr Kehoe. Laois Domestic Abuse Service is among 57 organisations around the country to get funding to support victims of crime in 2019 Laois TD and the Minister for Justice and Equality, Charlie Flanagan, has that the service will get a share of the annual funding allocation of 1.712m. Minister Flanagan said the ongoing direct help being provided to victims of crime and to their families and friends by victim support services makes a hugely valuable and vital contribution to Irish society. "I warmly applaud all of the staff and volunteers in these services for their dedicated, professional and sensitive work in helping so many of our people during what is invariably a distressing and very often traumatic time in their lives. "I am, therefore, very pleased to be able to provide funding of 1.712m in 2019 to fund services to victims of crime through the scheme administered by the Victims of Crime Office in my Department," he said. Minister Flanagan said this funding is being provided alongside a programme of wider reform which the Government continues to advance in supporting victims of crime. Such reform includes the embedding of a better system-wide response for supporting victims across the criminal justice sector. The Minister also announced the commencement of the Domestic Violence Act 2018. It aims to improve the protections available to victims of domestic violence under both the civil and criminal law. One of the new protections for victims under the criminal law introduced by the Act is the creation of a new offence of coercive control. This is psychological abuse in an intimate relationship that causes fear of violence, or serious alarm or distress that has a substantial adverse impact on a persons day-to-day activities. Reflecting on some of the main provisions of the act, the Minister said domestic violence has been seen primarily as physical abuse. "The new offence of coercive control recognises that the effect of non-violent control in an intimate relationship can be as harmful to victims as physical abuse because it is an abuse of the unique trust associated with an intimate relationship. "Another important provision will ensure that an intimate relationship between victim and perpetrator must be regarded as an aggravating factor in sentencing for a wide range of offences. This new provision sends a message that society will no longer tolerate the appalling breach of trust committed by one partner against the other in an intimate context, said the Minister. A Danish home retail brand similar to IKEA is coming to Laois, as part of a major expansion to Ireland in 2019. JYSK is now seeking staff for the first four shops it will open in Ireland, in Naas, Drogheda, Navan and Portlaoise. JYSK plan to open 15 stores around Ireland in the next two years which it says will create 200 jobs. The first store will open at Jigginstown, Naas, in early April. Two further stores will open in Drogheda, Louth and Navan, Meath in May, and a fourth store will open in Portlaoise, Laois this summer. It is seeking deputy store managers and sales advisors for permanent full time jobs. It says salaries will be up to 35,000, with interview to take place in January. JYSK is an international retail chain that sells 'everything for the home', which is owned by the original founder, billionaire Lars Larsen. The store was first opened in 1979, and today has more than 2,700 stores and 23,000 employees across 51 countries worldwide. Jysks Ireland head of retail Roni Tuominen said the Irish market was a very important one, given the prominent position the retail industry holds in the country. As a company, we focus on entering a new market each year, and we are excited that 2019 is the year we bring our brand to Ireland, he said. Rathdowney school students and residents are facing an ongoing safety risk due to flooding caused by loose paving which county councillors want removed. Cllr John King said the problem had been raised with him by the principal of St Fergals secondary schools and residents who live around the school. He called for action at the Borris-in-Ossory Municipal District Meeting. That this council examine the footpaths in Rathdowney from Church St to the Conoboro bridge on the left hand side with a view to resolving flooding at the entrance to some houses due to road works and resurfacing, said his motion. He said it is grossly unfair on the residents who have to put up with flooding. There is only one way of solving this. Remove the paving and raise the earth beneath it, he said. Clr Brendan Phelan said paving fails when cars drive on them. He said he had raised this previously and suggested that funding from Irish Public Bodies be used to solve the problem. Stan Cullen, Area Engineer, said the footpath would be inspected and funding sources explored. The long wait is over to try out a section of the Slieve Bloom Bike Trails. Coillte opened a small looped section of the new cross mountain tracks just before Christmas to give people a taste of what's to come. The trail will eventually offer 100km of exciting biking tracks, varying in difficulty, from Baunreagh in Laois across to Kinnitty in Offaly. For now, the public can try a 4km section near Kinnitty village, with one 800m downward single track section not for the fainthearted. Coillte advise bikers to wear their helmets, and not to encroach on other unfinished sections, or it will delay their final surfacing. "The descent is fast in sections, so as with all MTB trails, make sure you ride within your ability and always wear a helmet" Coillte says. To access the trails which are open, drive to and park in Kinnitty village, Co. Offaly and cycle towards Kinnitty Castle/ Clonaslee. Follow blue waymarkers along the road and turn into the forest just after the GAA pitch. Sections of doubletrack will take you into the trail system with a long road climb and singletrack descent. Follow the blue waymarkers throughout. Phase 1 with 35km of tracks in Laois and Offaly is to open in mid April. Coillte had planned to finish it by last October 2018 but the project was beset by delays caused by the hot summer. Read that full story here. Coillte is building the trails in partnership with Offaly and Laois County Councils, funded by both councils and by substantial government grants. Failte Ireland has joined in support of completing the 5 million project. The trail is expected to attract thousands more tourists to the Slieve Blooms and boost income for surrounding areas. The Cine Metropolitan has since become the Teatro Metropolitan, a live music venue. But it is nonetheless a place that the Mexican film director has returned to over the course of his career. It was at this theater that he held the Mexican premiere of his 2001 film Y Tu Mama Tambien, the coming-of-age road picture that put him on the international cinematic map. Fifteen years later, he returned to shoot key scenes for Roma, the family drama inspired by his own upbringing that has earned him several Golden Globe nominations and a heap of Oscars buzz. A student at Liberty High School in Bethlehem faces firearms and related charges after allegedly bringing a 9mm handgun into the school Thursday. Police recovered the Ruger from the students backpack, city police Chief Mark DiLuzio said in a news release. It was unloaded, but there was a loaded magazine separate from the firearm also in the backpack, DiLuzio said. Investigators had not uncovered any threats toward anyone, the school or the Bethlehem Area School District, the chief said in the release. No one was injured in the incident. Police identified the student as 18-year-old Brandon Neblett, of the 700 block of 11th Avenue in West Bethlehem. He was in police custody Thursday afternoon awaiting arraignment. Police were alerted about 2 p.m. Thursday that a handgun was missing from Nebletts home, and investigators learned it may have been in in his possession, the release states. Nebletts father discovered the firearm was missing from his safe and found a bag of ammunition in his sons room, according to police. School resource officers at Liberty on Linden Street were notified immediately and located Neblett in class, DiLuzio said; the officers then found the firearm in Nebletts backpack. City police were continuing to investigate the incident, in cooperation with the Bethlehem Area School District. We are exceptionally grateful for the work of our school resource officers and the Bethlehem Police Department, the district said in a safety alert that went out to the school community, via the districts app, on its homepage and on the Twitter accounts of the Bethlehem Area School District and Superintendent Joseph Roy. School Safety Incident: Please read BASD statement and police press release regarding a school safety incident at Liberty High School today. Student and staff safety are always our highest priority. https://t.co/mBBQGDoufP @BethlehemAreaSD @BethlehemPolice Joseph Roy (@BASDSUPT) January 3, 2019 Neblett was arraigned Thursday night before District Judge Alicia Rose Zito on felony counts of receiving stolen property and firearms not to be carried without a license, in addition to misdemeanor weapon possession on school property. He was sent to Northampton County Prison in lieu of $100,000 bail and faces a preliminary hearing tentatively scheduled Jan. 18 before District Judge Roy Manwaring II. Neblett had a run-in with Bethlehem police last week, as well, court records show: He was cited Dec. 28 for unnecessary noise on the Lehigh County side of the city, where he lives. Editors note: This report was updated from its original version to include information from Nebletts arraignment. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. A Bethlehem woman is accused of abusing her infant triplets, and then injuring one of the children this past summer. Ann Henry, 51, was arraigned on 12 counts of aggravated assault and a single count of child endangerment. She is free on $75,000 unsecured bail. While court records indicate Henry is represented by the Lehigh County public defenders office, the office had not received an application from her as of Thursday afternoon. A phone number Henry, of the 400 block of Fifth Avenue in West Bethlehem, could not be found. The charges came after a grand jury investigation, prosecutors said. Henry allegedly injured the triplets, then eight weeks old, in September 2016. One infant had a broken wrist, a second infant had fractured ribs and the third had subdural hemorrhage from abusive head trauma, prosecutors said. Then, this past July, Henry allegedly assaulted the child who previously suffered head trauma. The child, who was 23 months old at the time, had a fractured tibia and petechial bruising due to lack of oxygen or blood to the brain, prosecutors allege. Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. - Senator Shehu Sani alleges that the APC-led administration has wreaked havoc on the Nigerian people - Sani says poverty has ravaged the lives of Nigerians in the last three and half years of the APC administration - The senator urges Nigerians to elect leaders who will do the bidding of the ordinary people Senator Shehu Sani has asked Nigerians to vote out the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the general elections over the alleged failure of the current administration to offer good governance. Sani in an address on Wednesday, January 2, told members of the Igbo Youth Peace and Unity Initiative that the APC government had wreaked havoc on the people. We must not deceive ourselves, we must tell ourselves the truth, the nation is sick, the state is sick. Nigerians expected a better deal than what we are having today. People who begged you three and half years ago to vote them have turned themselves to demi gods, Sani said. READ ALSO: JUST IN: Former governor of Kano dies in Germany We have seen how poverty has ravaged the lives of Nigerians in the last three and half years, we have seen the killings, the level of bloodshed and violence, we have seen the division, the hopelessness, we have seen how a governor of a state have sacked thousands of people out of their work. How on earth do we give another opportunity to a man who has no human face, who has no human heart? They want the seat of Shehu Sani in order to continue to enslave you. We are moving out of Egypt. Those people in power in Kaduna state represent the wall of Jerico that has to be pulled down, he said. I am here seeking for your votes, support and prayers that we must not allow any stooge to take over the Kaduna central senatorial seat. If the governor of this state wants to compensate his boy, he should find a job for him, but not the Kaduna central senatorial seat. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Kaduna central seat is not for sale, is not for a running dog, not for a puppy, is not for a puppet and is not for a hand bag boy. When you re-elect us into office, you are re-electing politics of principle, courage, bravery and value. You should not elect people who will go and do the bidding of their godfathers. The senator urged Nigerians to elect people who will do the bidding of the ordinary people, noting that it was unfortunate that a blessed country like Nigeria had leaders who could have identified with negative activities and evil actions. From the killings in Zamfara to Birnin Gwari, the killings in the north-east part of Nigeria and north central, of herdsmen. We have a duty to send a clear message to the leadership of the country that we can show you the way out just as the previous government was shown the way out of power," he said. Meanwhile, the speaker of the Nasarawa state House of Assembly, Ibrahim Balarabe -Abdullahi, said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would not be an alternative to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2019. Balarabe-Abdullahi stated this in Umaisha,Toto local government area of the state on Thursday, January 3, while addressing newsmen in Umuaisha, after visiting six electoral wards of his constituency. Balarabe-Abdullahi (APC-Umaisha/Ugya), therefore, urged Nigerians to vote for President Muhammadu Buhari and all other APC candidates during the upcoming general elections. The speaker said Nigerians needed Buhari more than ever before, considering his developmental strides in almost all sectors of the economy. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have upgraded to serve you better. Buhari, Atiku, Sowore, Ezekwesili? Who will win if election is held today? | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - The presidency has chided former governor Ayo Fayose over his comment on TraderMoni, an empowerment scheme of the federal government - Fayose was quoted to have recently described the scheme as a direct re-looting of the Abacha loots" - Chiding Fayose and the PDP, the presidency said any claim of re-looting of any kind is totally false and must be ignored by Nigerians The presidency has said it is mischievous, but not entirely out of character, for the immediate past governor of Ekiti state, Ayo Fayose, to attack TraderMoni. TraderMoni is an interest-free N10,000 loans given to petty traders under the federal government Social Investment Programme. The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Fayose was quoted to have recently described the TraderMoni scheme as a direct re-looting of the Abacha loots. Legit.ng gathers that the Social Investment Programme (SIP) Response Team, presidency, in a statement in Abuja on Thursday, January 3, said that the issue of TraderMoni had been addressed several times in the public space. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda It said that the disbursement of TraderMoni was transparent and direct, while the enumeration was technology-driven. The presidency said: It is infantile for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Fayose to keep rehashing outright falsehood. It is clear from their actions that Fayose and his cronies are bereft of workable ideas and do not have any clear-cut agenda for their campaigns, so they have no choice but to resort to regurgitating spurious allegations like this. Their resort to the unending generation of fake news as a campaign strategy is not shocking, coming especially from Fayose, but it is nonetheless pitiful. The presidency noted that the TraderMoni scheme was helping the lives and businesses of ordinary Nigerians like petty traders at the bottom of the economic ladder. It said that the scheme was another proof that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration was irretrievably focused on improving the lives of the common man. The presidency said that Fayose ought to be reminded that under Buhari's administration, N2.7 trillion had been spent in two budget cycles on capital projects, the highest in the nations history. It said that expenses on capital projects would not have been possible if not for the prudent management of resources and the absence of grand corruption for which his party PDP was well known. READ ALSO: Buhari meets with NANS in Abuja over ASUU strike The presidency said: This government has been able to do far more with less resources than what was obtained under past administrations, where profligacy; gross mismanagement of the countrys resources were rife. Thus, Fayoses feeble attempt to lump the Vice President or the Buhari administration into the sordid happenings under the PDP in past administration through spreading falsehood is not only mischievous, but a disrespect to hardworking Nigerians in their millions who are now enjoying the impact of the Social Investment Programmes of this administration. It must be emphasised that, for the records, the repatriated 322 million dollars is now currently being applied to support the Buhari administrations Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) scheme under the Social Investment Programmes. Part of the conditions under which the looted funds were restored to Nigeria is that the World Bank would be involved in over-sighting its disbursements, which is what is being done now. Thus, any claim of re-looting of any kind is totally false and must be ignored by Nigerians. Fayose and his ilk merely cry wolf where none exists; a shameless habit for which he is now well known. It said that currently, almost 300,000 Nigerians in 21 states were benefitting from the CCT, where they received a monthly stipend of N5,000. It said that the beneficiaries were registered in the National Social Register across these states and the process of selecting beneficiaries was transparent. The presidency said: It is based on the World Banks Community Based Targeting whereby the different communities themselves identify the beneficiaries in a transparent process that is open to review and public auditing, even by Fayose, if he chooses to be that reasonable. That the vice president is championing the scheme across the states is because of the commitment of the administration to the common man and to ensure effective implementation. It obviously appears that the PDP are riled by the impact of the TraderMoni scheme, where over 1.2 million petty traders are beneficiaries at the last count. The disbursement process of the TraderMoni loans is transparent and direct, while the enumeration is technology-driven, whereby enumerators meet traders at their business locations to get their data, which includes names, phone number and account number. The presidency explained that the process was largely tied to a phone number which also doubled as a mobile money wallet. It said that the registered phone numbers were then credited with the loan via a mobile money platform, from which the agents transferred the money to the beneficiarys bank account or give physical cash of N10,000 in cases where no account existed. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app The presidency added: The Bank of Industry facilitates the loan disbursements in partnership with third-party agents to ensure transparency, accountability and efficiency of the process. What is reassuring is that Nigerians are aware of the desperation of people like Fayose, who are rehashing old, baseless and worn-out allegations because they really have nothing to offer Nigerians, nor any shard of honour left to their names. Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that security had been beefed up in Saki town, Saki West local government area of Oyo state ahead of the visit of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to the town. Osinbajo is scheduled to visit the ancient town on Friday, January 4, in continuation of the distribution of Tradermoni, an initiative of the federal government. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better EXCLUSIVE: Be patient with President Buhari, Femi Adesina tells Nigerians | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng News - Olusegun Obasanjo has said he would be vigilant during the 2019 general elections - According to the ex-president, his job in Nigerian politics would be that of a watchman - The elder statesman described the attitude of some politicians who heat up the polity as undemocratic Former president Olusegun Obasanjo has explained that his role in the Nigerian politics and the upcoming 2019 general elections will be that of a watchman ready to raise an alarm whenever it is necessary. The former president stated this on Thursday, January 3, in Abeokuta while addressing a delegation of the Action Democratic Party (ADP), led by its presidential standard bearer, Yabaji Sani, The Sun reports. READ ALSO: No state in Nigeria is fighting corruption - Falana The Sun reports that in a statement signed by the director, media and publicity of YY Sani Presidential Campaign Organisation, Pam Ibrahim, Obasanjo urged Nigerians to engage in participatory democracy in order to vote in credible and patriotic leaders. He said: It is undemocratic, the attitude of some politicians who heat up the polity by undermining and denigrating other Nigerians through thuggery and harassment of innocent citizens. My role in Nigerian politics would be that of a watchman who is expected to be vigilant and raise an alarm whenever it is necessary." Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that Obasanjo said that former Anambra state governor and vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Peter Obi is not a saint. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app Obasanjo reportedly said this during the 2018 Ukpor Day. According to Obasanjo, Obi could not be a saint because mortals cannot be one except if the person is dead and lives in heaven. The former Nigerian leader noted that saints live in heaven and as such, saintly attributes could not be granted to mortals. However, Obasanjo said that among Nigerian politicians, Obi should be held out as an example, describing the former governor as 'a bundle of integrity'. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We keep evolving to serve our readers better. Who is a better Vice President, Osinbajo or Obi? - on Legit TV Source: Legit - Nigerian farmers have called for peace across the country during the forthcoming 2019 general elections - The farmers said it has come to their notice that without peace they cannot go to farm - The association also suggested the approval and release of agriculture budget between January and February to aid the implementation of agriculture projects The All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) has appealed to various stakeholders saddled with the responsibility of ensuring peaceful elections to increase their efforts to guarantee peace during and after the 2019 elections. The vice president of AFAN, Daniel Okafor, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday, January 3. He said that without peace during and after the elections, farmers would not be able to go to their farms. Okafor, who was speaking on farmers 2019 expectations in the agriculture sector, noted that agriculture budget and inputs should be timely distributed to farmers to boost food production in 2019. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda The vice president, who said that agriculture was time-bound, suggested the approval and release of agriculture budget between January and February to aid the implementation of agriculture projects. He said that timely implementation of agriculture projects and activities would guarantee food security in the country in 2019. What we have noticed is that without peace and harmony, human beings cannot exist and farmers cannot go to the farms. We want peaceful elections as our first expectation from the government this year. The second is the farmers-herdsmen crisis. Government should look into it because it is going to the extreme and government can do more than they are doing. Inputs should be given to farmers and distributed on time and not when the farming season is over. Agriculture budget should be timely. It should be approved by January or February to enable the timely implementation of agricultural projects. I wish the government well this year but they should not joke with agriculture, Okafor said. Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that Reverend Father Ejike Mbaka, the controversial Roman Catholic priest and spiritual director of Adoration Ministries Enugu, has asked Nigerians to support President Buhari in order to continue the war against corruption. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Mbaka made the call in his New Year prophetic message for 2019. Legit.ng gathers that the priest said a president fighting corruption deserves the peoples support. Mbaka said the reason the Catholic Church created a prayer against bribery and corruption was because it supports the anti-corruption fight; and that he was supporting Buhari to complete another four years in office in order to complete the good work he already started. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: We have updated to serve you better! Father Mbaka on Buhari, Atiku in 2019 - on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - Femi Falana has called on state governments to join in the fight against corruption - Falana said nothing can be done if the fight against corruption is left to the federal government alone - The lawwyer said its difficult in any state to ask for information with respect to public affairs Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), on Thursday, January 3, lamented what he called the negligence of state governments to join the federal government in its fight against corruption. Falana, who said this when he was featured on a show on Arise Television, said the fight cannot be limited to the federal government alone, The Cable reports. He said: "In line with section 15, subsection 5 of the constitution, the provision says the Nigerian state shall abolish corrupt practices and abuse of office. READ ALSO: Court rejects Melayes request to order police officers out of his Abuja residence That does not mean the federal government. The Nigerian state, including the federal government, state government and local government. But apart from the federal government, no state in Nigeria is fighting corruption. Thats why some of the state governments are saying they cannot pay minimum wage because they are not blocking the leakages going on. Kano state is the only state, this may interest you, has an anti-corruption commission. No other state in Nigeria. In fact, access to information is denied by all state governments in Nigeria apart from Ekiti state. Only Ekiti state government, under Fayemi, has adopted the freedom of information act. So, its difficult in any state to ask for information with respect to public affairs. So, you cant just single out the federal government fighting corruption in a country where majority of state governments are not bothered. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app So, it will not be fair to limit the fight against corruption to the federal government. As a country, Nigeria has not decided to fight corruption. Legit.ng earlier reported that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, boasted on Thursday, December 27, that it secured the conviction of no fewer than 312 Nigerians who were arrested and tried for various acts of corruption between January and December 24. The anti-graft agency, in a statement by its acting spokesman, Tony Orilade, described the record of convictions as undoubtedly a significant improvement on the 189 convictions recorded in 2017. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have upgraded to serve you better. Nigeria Latest News: Federal High Court Grants Fayose Bail | - on Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - There are indications that the presidency is making moves to resolve issues with ASUU in order to call off the long strike - President Muhammadu Buhari is said to have called a meeting to deliberate with a delegation of NANS on Thursday, January 3 - The meeting is supposed to be centred on ways to smoothen unresolved issues that led to the industrial action President Muhammadu Buhari is said to be holding a crucial meeting with national and zonal leadership of the National Association of Nigerian Students, (NANS). READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Attendees at the meeting scheduled for 11.30am include a delegation of the students body seated at the council chamber in the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Channels Television reports. Deliberations in the all-important meeting will revolve around the ongoing strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet! Earlier, Legit.ng reported that ASUU had said that it may not honour further calls by the federal government for a meeting on the way forward over the current strike by its members. The unions national president, Professor Biodun Ogunyemi, said this on the sideline of a news conference on the update of the unions struggle to salvage the countrys public universities from deterioration on Sunday, December 23, in Lagos. Legit.ng gathered that the members of the union, under the aegis of ASUU, had on November 4, embarked on what it had described as a total, comprehensive and indefinite strike. Members of the union were protesting the non implementation of agreements entered into with the federal government in 2009 and 2017, as well as funding and improved welfare for members, among other issues. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: We have upgraded to serve you better! EXCLUSIVE: Be patient with President Buhari, Femi Adesina tells Nigerians | Legit TV Source: Legit The Cable is reporting that a former governor of Kano state, Air Vice Marshal Hamza Abdullahi (rtd), has died in far away Germany. The retired AVM served as military governor of Kano state from 1984 to 1985, while President Muhammadu Buhari was military head of state. He was said to have died in Germany on Thursday, January 3, at the age of 73. The Hadejia Emirate of Jigawa, his home state, who also confirmed the news of his exit, said it is saddened by his exit, The Cable reports. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda The emirate prayed that Almighty Allah forgive him, grant him maghfira, illuminated his grave, and enter him in to janna. Abdullahi was born in Hadejia, Jigawa state and attended the Nigeria Air Force Tactical Training Wing, Kaduna in 1964. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app He was promoted air vice-marshal in October 1988 and retired from the Nigerian Air Force two months later. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We keep evolving to serve our readers better Nigerian Air Force vows to apprehend Badeh's killers | Legit TV Source: Legit - National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers has urged the federal government to quicken the inauguration of Nigerian Airline - In a communique, the group described the project as laudable and commended the FG's effort - It also called on the government to review the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authoritys policy on pilots simulation training The federal government has been urged by the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE) to quicken the operational inauguration of the Nigerian Airline. The group, in a communique issued at the end of its national executive council meeting, described the project as a laudable one and called the federal government to invest attention heavily on it despite the overt challenges, Punch reports. The secretary of the group, Ocheme Aba, in the communique, also called on the government to review the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authoritys policy on pilots simulation training. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda It said: "The urgent need to inaugurate the Nigeria Air requires no further restating. It is considered a great disservice to hesitate, or delay, this laudable project any further, considering the rich harvest of gains expected from the coming on stream of the national carrier." On the need to review the NCAA's police, the group described the situation where a pilot's certificate is vested in the airline he works as unfortunate and archaic. NAAPE said: "Besides, this situation has created a chaotic atmosphere where pilots who have been relieved of their employment through redundancy and other means by various airlines are unable to secure other employment with their pilots simulator certificate even as such certificates are current. The present policy connotes that a valid certificate may be invalidated within its validity period. This contravenes the periodic renewal policy. It also does incalculable damage to the holder, and no good to any party. PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news update Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that the federal government had reportedly suspended its planned national carrier, Nigeria Air, indefinitely. Senator Hadi Sirika, who is the minister of state for aviation, disclosed this on Wednesday, September 19, in Abuja. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) upgrades to Legit.ng to serve its readers betters What is working well and what needs improvement in Nigeria? On Legit.ng TV Source: Legit.ng According to those who knew him, Hauser was great at getting people to relax, and would begin photographing folks as soon as they got into the studio. He didnt let them overthink or get stale, said Biancalana. So many photographers shoot too much film. You didnt have that problem with Marc. You could say that were now overwhelmed by images, but that was never the case of Marc. He took thousands of photographs, but very few images. His was a very unique and timeless quality. - Minister of health, Prof Isaac Adewole, has pointed out that the doctor-patient ratio in Nigeria is not what it should be, as there are about 5,000 patients to just one doctor - No African country has met the World Health Organisation (WHO)s recommendation of one doctor to 600 patients - According to Adewole, in order to keep doctors in the country, there needs to be a re-evaluation of the reward system Prof Isaac Adewole, Nigeria's minister of health, has offered reasons why about 50 percent of the country's trained doctors are either practicing abroad, not practicing at all or are dead. In an interview with The Guardian, the minister noted that not all doctors could be specialists as the country does not have space for everybody. He urged medical doctors to develop entrepreneurial capabilities and look beyond medicine. Legit.ng gathers that he said: That is the available data, about 50 percent or a little less. But when you look at the doctor-patient ratio, it is not what I would love to see, but it does not constitute a human resource crisis as of today. My challenge as a doctor and minister is that I will like to see the distribution reprioritised. I would want to see more doctors in the rural areas and I am going to work with the ministry, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), to post doctors to rural areas, at least to local government area headquarters. Rather than post them to the Ministry of Health, teaching hospitals, let them function at general hospitals. READ ALSO: FG finally moves HQ's of aviation agencies to Abuja Then we use nurses and midwives to drive our Primary Health Care (PHC). When you look at doctor to patient ratio in Nigeria, it is about one to 5,000. In South Africa it is about 1:4,000. The only country that is far ahead of us is Egypt which is about 1:1,235. Adewole also reacted to the crisis in the resident doctors training and his earlier comment that some doctors could be farmers. He said: I have said it many times that really, I was quoted out of context and the message was lost. What I said was borne out of reality that not all doctors can be specialists because we do not have space for everybody. Currently, I made mention of one of our hospitals that interviews 800 people and has room for less than 150, which is less than 1:5. "The last time University College Hospital (UCH) did recruitment test for residents into Obstetrician and Gyneacology (O&G) department, over 200 persons applied for six positions. They set examinations for them and I think about 50 passed and yet only six of them were needed. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Despite the challenges, Adewole stated that Nigeria has the third best doctor-patient ratio of one doctor to 5,000 patients compared to 1:4,000 in public healthcare in South Africa and 1:300 in private healthcare in South Africa. He pointed out that Egypt has the best doctor-patient ratio in Africa with 1:1,235. Others are Ghana (1:14,310); Tanzania (1:20,000); Ethiopia (1:118,000); Kenya (1:16,000); and Cameroon (1:40,000). However, no African country has met the World Health Organisation (WHO)s recommendation of one doctor to 600 patients (1:600). Adewole explained why Nigeria has not met the WHO recommendation, stating: That is the ideal, but only few countries have attained that. We need more doctors. We need to change the reward system. "I just came back from India where doctors are given free accommodation. They are not only given free accommodation, the faculty staffs are paid to attend international conferences every year. We really need to look at our reward system to keep our doctors here. What we are also doing is to attract those that have gone to come back home. Not to stay for life but to impact knowledge and offer help to our people. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that Professor Usman Ahmed, the provost of the College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Federal University, Dutse, said that Nigeria needs an additional 155,000 doctors at the ratio of one doctor to 1000 people to achieve the Universal Health Coverage (UHC). The UCH aims to ensure that all people have access to the needed services of sufficient quality without exposing persons (recipients) to financial hardship. Ahmed, who is also a professor of health sciences, University of Manchester, UK stated that data from the Federal Ministry of Health showed that Nigeria had 45,000 doctors registered and practicing in Nigeria with a ratio of one doctor to 4008 people. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: We have updated to serve you better! Who should get higher salary - doctors or teachers? | Legit TV: Source: Legit - The police has deployed over 50 more officers in Senator Dino Melayes Abuja residence - The police has been laying siege to the senator's house for days and might enter the building forcefully to arrest the lawmaker who is said to be inside the house - Melaye is wanted by the police for the alleged shooting of Sergeant Danjuma Saliu while on official duties along Aiyetoro Gbede- Mopa road in Kogi state About 50 additional police officers have been deployed in Senator Dino Melayes Abuja residence, The Punch reports. This came as the Senate on Wednesday, January 2, said it had taken legal steps against the police for laying siege to Melayes home since Friday, December 28. The upper chamber expressed confidence that its action would ensure freedom for the embattled senator representing Kogi West Senatorial District at the National Assembly. The Punch reports that the police might enter the building forcefully to arrest the lawmaker who is said to be inside the house. It was gathered that many policemen were seen taking positions near the mansion. READ ALSO: Just In: Nigerian Air Force loses fighter helicopter during combat The police said Melaye is wanted for the alleged shooting of Sergeant Danjuma Saliu attached to 37 Police Mobile Force while on official duties along Aiyetoro Gbede- Mopa road in Kogi state. The police on Saturday, December 29, allegedly cut off power supply to Melayes home as part of the strategies to make him uncomfortable so that he could surrender. Jimoh Moshood, the force spokesman, stated that Melaye had repeatedly shunned several invitations asking him to report for investigation into the case of attempted culpable homicide. He said the police would not leave the lawmakers residence without arresting him. The leader of the opposition in the Senate, Senator Biodun Olujimi, said that the leadership and members of the Senate would not abandon Melaye to his fate. The minority leader alleged that the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, deliberately frustrated all efforts by the Senate to gain access to Melaye. Olujimi said: We dont want to be lawless that is why we are taking steps to see how we could handle the matter legally. The senator cannot run away, his passport has been seized by the police. Whatever it was that they want to arrest him for happened since July 2018. If he didnt run away between July and now, he cant run away. I felt very disgusted when I got to his house this morning and I discovered that there were over 12 police vans and more than 22 policemen there, seeking the arrest of one man. I wonder why they should do that when they can easily ask me as the Senate Minority Leader to produce him on a particular day and at a particular place. It is only if I failed to do so that they can issue a warrant for his arrest." READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Meanwhile, the Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has advised Melaye to end the police siege to his home by surrendering himself to the police. BMO in a statement by Niyi Akinsiju, its chairman and secretary, Cassidy Madueke, said: For starters, as a senator, Dino Melaye, swore to an oath to uphold the laws of the land, but for more than five months, he has failed to honour an invitation over the alleged shooting of an on-duty police officer, Sgt. Danjuma Saliu, by some armed men in his convoy on July 19, 2018 in Kogi state. Legit.ng previously reported that Senator Dino Melaye raised the alarm over an alleged police attempt to break into his Abuja house to forcefully arrest him. The senator representing Kogi West made the accusation on Wednesday, January 2, in a tweet on his Twitter handle. He alleged that the police were bringing in tools which would be used to forcefully gain entrance into his home and arrest him after days of laying siege to his property in Maitama area of Abuja, the nation's capital city. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have upgraded to serve you better! News Nigeria Today: What happened to Dino Melaye? - on Legit TV: Source: Legit.ng - Report of protest by 2,000 mobile policemen posted to the northeast has been refuted by the Force - The video showing the alleged protest was said to have been doctored to mislead the public - Members of the public have been asked to discountenance the video as untrue, mischievous and a fake news The Nigeria Police Force has refuted claims of protest by its personnel posted to the northeast to join the fight against Boko Haram. The police says a video widely circulated on social media, showing the alleged protest was doctored to mislead the public. The video which went viral claimed that about 2,000 mobile policemen staged a protest against their deployment. In a statement sent to Legit.ng on Wednesday, January 2, by police spokesman, DCP Jimoh Moshood, the police said the personnel have all successfully passed out from training and have been deployed more than a week ago to the front line along with the military. PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news updates Part of the statement read: The attention of the Nigeria Police Force has been drawn to a video on social media platform doctored to create an erroneous impression that 'about 2000 MOPOL undergoing training for boko haram drop their weapons in protest.' The force wishes to state that the video was mischievously doctored and circulated to mislead the public. There was no protest by any of the 2000 MOPOL undergoing special forces training in the northeast. The personnel have successfully passed out from training and have been deployed to the front line along with the military in the three states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa and are doing well in the operations. Members of the public are hereby enjoined to discountenance the video as untrue, mischievous and a fake news. Meanwhile, a recent report by Nigerian Tribune indicates that no word has been heard yet from about 40 mobile policemen posted to Baga town when the town was recaptured months back before the recent ransack by the Albarnawi faction of Boko Haram. READ ALSO: Nigerian Air Force loses fighter helicopter during combat According to the report, about 13 conventional policemen may also have been missing in action as no word or signal has been heard from them since Wednesday, December 26, when Boko Baram leader Habib and his factional group stormed the town with a bid to hold it after mounting their flag. An unnamed source within the police headquarters quoted in the report said, no word has come to them since Wednesday, about their men adding that they would rather remain optimistic about the men who went to fight side by side with the soldiers. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have updated to serve you better. Can Nigerian Soldiers really not deal with Boko Haram fighters?| Legit TV Source: Legit - There is anxiety within the Nigeria Police Force as the service term of IGP Ibrahim Idris ends on Thursday, January 3 - Rumours that President Buhari may have approved a six-month tenure extension for the IGP has continued unabated - The silence and tactical delay has attracted criticisms from opposition political parties, Civil Society Organisations and some Nigerians A report by Vanguard indicates that there is anxiety in the Nigeria Police Force over what could happen in the next 24 hours, as the service term of the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, ends on Thursday, January 3. Niger state-born Idris, the nations 19th IGP, was appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari, on March 21, 2016, to replace Solomon Arase. The 59-year-old police chief is due for retirement having enlisted in 1984, but there are speculations that his tenure could be extended by the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, as he is yet to attain the mandatory retirement age of 60 years. READ ALSO: IG Idris removes Imo commissioner of police, 3 deputies, 11 others Already, reactions have started to trail the possibility of the tenure extension, owing to the silence and what was described as the tactical delay to appoint a senior police officer to take over from Idris. One of those agitating for a new IGP, the Network on Police Reform in Nigeria, NOPRIN, urged President Buhari to resist the pressure to extend the tenure of IGP Idris and all Service Chiefs. National coordinator of NOPRIN, Okechukwu Nwaguma, said: Mr. President, please, demonstrate your sincerity and commitment to your promise of delivering free, fair and peaceful election this year by resisting the pressure to extend the term of the current IGP. Mr. President, please, avoid the temptation. Not a few Nigerians are convinced that, given recent events and conducts of the current IGP and heads of other security agencies which manifest clear partisanship, there is significant concern about the elections. The participation of the current leadership of the security agencies in overseeing the elections may gravely harm the perception of fairness and integrity of the process. PAY ATTENTION: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Already, the Action Peoples Party and the Coalition of United Political Parties have dragged President Muhammadu Buhari to court over the purported moves to extend the IGPs tenure. The president had already approved the extension of the tenures of the Chief of Defence Staff, the Chief of Army Staff, the Chief of Air Staff and the Chief of Naval Staff. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have upgraded to serve you better. Leadership of Nigeria is not meant for our forefathers| Legit TV Source: Legit.ng Whats there with women's rights in Nigeria? Like in many African countries, Nigerian women are in a very specific condition, with limited rights and a cage of restrictions that take their roots from ancient traditions and beliefs. There are still so many issues connected to the rights of women in Nigeria, and so much work to do to overcome all the existing issues. Image source: gettyimages.com Source: UGC Rights of women in Nigeria: a long way Nigerian women have gone a long way to reach at least the rights they have now but the situation is still very sad. Southern Nigerian women received a right to vote in 1958. Their northern neighbors received the same right only in 1978, after 20 years! Some northern states still live in compliance with the Sharia law which limits women in many things. Image source: gettyimages.com Source: UGC READ ALSO: Agencies responsible for the protection of women's rights in Nigeria In 2003, the number of women in the House of Representatives was 23 persons (only 6% of the general number of representatives), and the number of women in the Senate was only 4 (3%). After the elections in 2007, the numbers went to 27 (7,5%) and 9 (8%) respectively. Three years ago, the Senate declined a project of the law which would forbid any forms of discrimination against women. The law was able to protect the rights of women and make them equal with those of men in marriage, inheritance, politics and education. Some senators spoke out that such a law would go against the national cultural traditions and beliefs of Nigerians. Others thought it to be senseless to have a separate law for the rights of women while the Constitution already guarantees equal rights for men and women. Image source: gettyimages.com Source: UGC One of the senators said that in compliance with Islamic traditions, a womans inheritance can be only a half of what a man would inherit and that nobody has a right to change this way of living. Of course, many active civil organizations that defend the rights of women accepted this fact negatively and criticized such opinion of the Senator heartily. There was a curious case in 1999 when a woman tried her luck in presidential elections. She was a decent candidate but when the votes were calculated, only one person voted for her. Even those women who seemed to support her attempt and her program were afraid to vote for her and to show their faith in her in public. Another cruel tradition, which has ruined or even taken the lives of many women in Nigeria and other countries, was female genital mutilation. The official regulation against this cruel and dangerous practice was signed by Goodluck Jonathan as his last legislative action as President. This decision has been supported actively by defenders of women rights, but, sadly, not by every person in Nigeria. Image source: gettyimages.com Source: UGC READ ALSO: Women in politics in Nigeria This surgery is another part of the culture and traditions and its not that easy to change peoples view on this point. Many Nigerians still believe that a woman cant be a good wife and a devoted mother without this manipulation. Sometimes, its thought that a woman cant even find a husband if she did not undergone circumcision. Violation of womens rights in Nigeria Image source: gettyimages.com Source: UGC Nigeria is the most populated African country, which has the biggest economy on the whole continent. Still, its a country where women are not completely free yet, where little girls are being stolen by terrorist organizations and where a woman is supposed to obey and stay quiet. Nigeria is deeply patriarch and even though the Constitution forbids discrimination, the final word is always said by men while women follow them meekly. Image source: gettyimages.com Source: UGC READ ALSO: History of feminism in Nigeria Specifics of gender equality in Nigeria are visible when we come to the countryside and see that 60% of those who work in fields are females. Another issue is in the restricted access to education. 80% of women in Nigeria cant write of read. The problem is especially characteristic for the northern part of the country. Terrorist organizations often treat women as rubbish. In 2014 only, Boko Haram stole nearly 300 of girls right from their school. The explanation was: the girls must leave the school and find husbands. Only 82 of those girls are free. A part of them is still missing and the rest are considered dead. Image source: gettyimages.com Source: UGC Domestic violence is a huge problem. Of course, there is a law that forbids cruelty at home but in practice women remain unprotected because the police treats these situations as a personal matter of every separate family. As a result, women who have nowhere to go are forced to stay with their cruel husbands, are forced to put up with it, and sometimes this violence has very sad results. Today, representatives of younger generations feel much freer than their parents and they show much more respect to women and their rights. However, elder men are still very conservative and yet a lot is to be done to change their way of thinking at least a little. Reproductive rights of women in Nigeria Image source: gettyimages.com Source: UGC Its a usual thing that reproductive rights of women are violated along with their general rights. In Nigeria, women are brought up with an idea that they are going to have children. Whats more, Nigeria is a religious country and both the major religions, Christianity and Islam, dont leave women many ways to manage their reproductive rights on their own. For instance, abortions are actually illegal in any part of Nigeria and the only case when a woman can abort an unwanted pregnancy is if the pregnancy and delivery can put her own life at risk. In all other cases, she must have this child, no matter what. All this leads to the fact that women in Nigeria resort to unsafe abortions performed in many ways. Theres no need to say that such abortions are taking the lives of many women in all parts of the country. There have been many attempts of creating a movement for womens rights. One of their goals was to provide contraceptives for women who had undergone sexual violence and could fall pregnant. Image source: gettyimages.com Source: UGC Yet, all these efforts have not given any significant result, and even now a woman can terminate a pregnancy legally only in case her life is in danger. Together with the lack of access to normal effective and affordable contraceptives, unsafe abortions remain one of the most popular methods of birth control and family planning for many women in Nigeria. Its a pity that the most active fighters against womens rights issues in Nigeria are also women and that they have to face a number of obstacles in their activities exactly due to the problems they want to solve. Hopefully, this vicious circle will be broken one day and women in Nigeria will enjoy their lives, love, and careers as they want. READ ALSO: Nigerian heroes and their contributions SOURCE: pambazuka.org Source: Legit.ng Nigerias minister of defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, on Wednesday, January 2, flew into Maiduguri on President Muhammadu Buharis directives to assess situation on ground and report to him following recent attacks in Borno north. The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Dan-Ali confirmed this to newsmen after he held a two-hour crucial closed door meeting with the Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen Tukur Buratai, at the Military Command and Control Centre. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda The report said the Chief of Training and Operations, Maj-Gen Lamidi Adeosun, Principal Staff Officers at the Army headquarters and Theatre Commander, Operation Lafia Dole, Maj-Gen. Benson Akinroluyo, were attendance at the meeting. It was learnt that the senior officers in charge of the Air Force and Navy components of the operations, as well as some field commanders attended the meeting. I am here on the instruction of Mr President, to come and see the happenings in the Theatre Command of the Operation Lafia Dole. I have been briefed by the Commander and the Chief of Army Staff. I am here to know what is expected, what the president should do to make things work and I have been briefed. So, I will take home all the briefings by each and every of the commanders here, the minister said, but refused to give further details. PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news updates The report said Dan-Ali left for the Republic of Chad after the meeting where he is expected to hold a meeting with his counterpart in the country in view of recent attacks by the Boko Haram terrorists on areas bordering Chad and Nigeria. Legit.ng earlier reported that the supposed meeting venue of members of the Boko Haram around the Baga area of northern Borno state was massively invaded and destroyed by aircraft belonging to the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) as battle intensifies against terrorists in the country. The bombing of the venue was contained in a statement obtained by Legit.ng from the Nigerian Air Force on Wednesday, January 2. The short statement read: The Air Task Force (ATF) of Operation Lafiya Dole has destroyed a building being used as meeting venue by Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) fighters near Baga in northern Borno state." NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have upgraded to serve you better. Can Nigerian Soldiers really not deal with Boko Haram fighters?| Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - The CAN chairman in Keffi LGA, Nasarawa state, Rev Danladi Ndohon, has warned Christian faithful and Nigerians in general not to promote political violence - The cleric said that the forthcoming elections should not be a do-or-die affair, and also cautioned against vote buying and selling - Ndohon further urged Nigerians to be law abiding, respect constituted authorities and tolerate one another The chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in Keffi local government area of Nasarawa state, Rev Danladi Ndohon, on Wednesday, January 2, warned Christian faithful and Nigerians in general not to promote political violence. Ndohon gave the advice during the associations feast in Keffi, NAN reports. READ ALSO: Elections: We are not in the business of rigging - INEC Legit.ng gathers that the cleric, who said that the forthcoming elections should not be a do-or-die affair, also cautioned against vote buying and selling. Vote buying and selling of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) is in total violation of the constitution and those involved are not helping the country, he said. Ndohon also urged Christians and Nigerians to pray for violence-free general elections. He also urged Nigerians to live exemplary lives in order to inherit the kingdom of God. The CAN chairman further urged Nigerians to be law abiding, respect constituted authorities and tolerate one another irrespective of affiliations. In his speech, Dr Ktso Ngargbu, who is seeking to represent Nasarawa West senatorial district on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), urged Christians to elect credible leaders. Quoting from the Holy Bible, he said, "when the righteous are in power, the people rejoice, but if the wicked rule, the people suffer. Ngargbu, who was the former chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities at Nasarawa State University, Keffi, also urged the electorate to vote for politicians who would promote development in the country. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app In a related development, Legit.ng previously reported that Reverend Samson Ayokunle, the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), said the religious body had total assurance that there would not be crisis in the 2019 general elections across the country. The cleric, however, advised stakeholders to put hands on decks for the peaceful conduct of the elections. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! Election-2019: (Don't) mark your calendar - on Legit TV: Source: Legit.ng - The Zamfara state government has donated N5 million to 10 injured soldiers - The soldiers are currently receiving treatment at the Federal Medical Centre, Gusau - The soldiers were wounded in an ambush by armed bandits at Dumburum forest in Zurmi Local government area of the state The Zamfara state government on Tuesday, January 1, donated N5 million to 10 injured soldiers receiving treatment at the Federal Medical Centre, Gusau. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the soldiers were wounded in an ambush by armed bandits at Dumburum forest in Zurmi local government area of the state. The ambush, which occurred on Wednesday, December 28, resulted to casualties for both the Nigerian soldiers and their Niger Republic counterparts. Presenting the donation to the victims, on behalf of Zamfara government, Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Alhaji Sanusi Rikiji, who represented the governor, said the gesture was to support families of the soldiers. PAY ATTENTION: Access your favourite news site Legit.ng instantly in 3 simple steps I am presenting the donation of N500,000 to each of the 10 injured soldiers admitted to this hospital on behalf of Governor Abdulaziz Yari. The state government has already taken care of all the medical bills and feeding of all the affected soldiers. We have already transferred the commander of the military operation in Zurmi, Captain Danjuma to National Hospital, Abuja for further treatment, he said. Rikiji, who is the chairman of the state government Relief and Damage Assessment Committee on bandit attacks in the state, commended the efforts of military and other security agencies in the fight against bandits. He appealed to the people to pray for an end to the attacks, and support security agencies with information on security in their communities. NAN reports that Governor Yari had on Monday attended funeral prayer of five Niger Republic soldiers killed during the ambush. The governor also donated N8.5 million to the families of the deceased. PAY ATTENTION: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Meanwhile, Pastor Yohanna Buru, president of Peace Revival and Reconciliation Foundation of Nigeria, has urged the federal government to open dialogue with bandits terrorising communities in Zamfara and Kaduna states. Buru made the suggestion on Tuesday, January 1 in Kaduna at the annual New Year lunch organised by the foundation for journalists in Kaduna state. According to him, the gesture will help to end needless loss of innocent lives and destabilisation of communities due to recurring attacks. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have updated to serve you better. Nigerian Herdsmen vs Nigerian Farmers | Legit TV Source: Legit - Members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria have demonstrated that Muslims and Christians can be united for the purpose of strengthening inter-religious harmony - The movement demonstrated this by attending the 2019 new year church service in Zaria, Kaduna state - According to the group, when Muslims and Christians are united, nothing will break them apart and nothing will go against the peace of the nation Members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) on Tuesday, January 1, attended the 2019 new year church service in Zaria, Kaduna state, to strengthen inter religious harmony and enhance national cohesion. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the group attended the service at St Marys Parish Church, Samaru, Zaria, Kaduna state. Legit.ng gathers that the leader of the delegation, Professor Isa Mshelgaru of Building Department, Faculty of Environmental Design, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria, said the visit was to strengthen relationship between the two faiths. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Mshelgaru said the visit was meant to further boost the bond of relationship between the followers of the two faiths toward fostering national unity. He observed that going by the tenets of the two major religions in Nigeria, non of them preach violence, adding that they both preach peace, love, unity and joy. The group says when Muslims and Christians are united, nothing will break them apart and nothing will go against the peace of the nation. Photo credit: NAN Source: UGC The don described Christians as the closest people to Islam but lamented that Nigerians were divided by selfish politicians who hide under religion to achieve personal desires. He said: Killing one another is an imaginary life; in the actual sense it doe not exist; we are all created by one God, we must therefore, endeavour to live together in peace with one another. We should share joy, happiness and sorrow together. Our leader, Sheik Ibrahim El-Zakzaky said we should learn to live together in peace. When we are united as Nigerians, nothing will break us apart and nothing will go against the peace of the nation, not even Boko Haram nor militants or any other thing else. Responding, the parish priest, Reverend Father Michael Ibrahim-Bazai, expressed appreciation for the visit, describing it as the first of its kind. He said: We are happy to receive our brothers and sisters from Islamic faith here in our Church to celebrate with us today on 1st January 2019. It is true that sometimes we are scared of each other, this is because some of us are ignorant of the religion but we are all one. Ibrahim-Bazai stressed the need for followers of the two religions to always practise their religion according to its tenets to pave way for peaceful and harmonious relationship. He encouraged the two faiths to respect, accommodate, embrace and tolerate one another towards building a stronger society and by extension, a stronger nation. The priest lauded the frantic efforts of the movement for rescuing and providing medical treatment to some Christians during religious crises in Zaria and urged them to sustain the tempo. He sought for consideration of Christians in areas of admission quota, especially in some professional courses in ABU as well as consideration for job vacancies. The visitors were hosted to a lunch and refreshment at the church premises. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that a Muslim woman identified as Ramatu Tijani earned an applause for her kind gesture towards a pastor identified as Yohanna Buru. Tijani decorated the residence of Buru, the general overseer of Christ Evangelical Church Sabon Tasha, with Christmas trees. Speaking with newsmen in Kaduna, Tijani revealed that the decoration of the pastors house with light, wreaths, stockings and ornaments was to strengthen peaceful co-existence and a better understanding of different faiths among citizens of Nigeria. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better 2019: Whats your New Year resolution? | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - A renowned cleric, Prophet Christopher Owolabi has spoken about President Muhammadu Buhari's second term bid - Prophet Owolabi on Tuesday, January 1, predicted that President Buhari would govern Nigeria beyond 2019 - He, however, urged Nigerians to learn from their past mistakes, misdeeds and shortcoming by embracing righteousness in the new year A renowned cleric, Prophet Christopher Owolabi, on Tuesday, January 1, predicted that the tenure of the present administration under President Muhammadu Buhari would extend beyond 2019. Owolabi, general overseer Christ Apostolic Church Ori-Oke, Irapada, Omu-Aran, made the prediction during the Churchs crossover night service tagged: Seeking for Nigerias Democratic Sustenance Beyond 2019 in Omu-Aran, Kwara. News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the cleric told the gathering that the prediction was not borne out of any personal or political interest whatsoever, but Gods divine guidance and direction for the country. READ ALSO: PDP gave me the platform to achieve my policies for Benue - Ortom He also predicted a rapid socio-economic recovery for the country in the New Year, saying the leaders needed the urgent intercession of the citizens through prayers to consolidate on the gains of the governments anti-corruption fight. According to him, it is based on Gods interest in directing the affairs of the country at this critical period of its history as it is revealed to me. Owolabi said election of leaders in the country presently has gone beyond personalities or individuals but through a divine intervention. He said: No matter any act of political commission or omission, God is the one presently in control and directing the affairs of the country. Owolabi, who was known to have made many predictions as regard the nations current affairs including the emergence of Sen. Bukola Saraki as the leader of the 8th Senate, urged politicians to play according to the rules. He said: The present leadership in piloting the affairs of this great nation as was revealed to me will extend beyond 2019 and there is going to be a brighter light at the end of the tunnel socially and economically. The cleric who decried the incessant killings, kidnappings, armed robbery and backbiting that had pervaded the land, urged Nigerians to learn from their past mistakes, misdeeds and shortcoming by embracing righteousness in the New Year. Owolabi also used the opportunity to advise government to urgently formulate a clear cut policy toward stemming the negative trend associated with social media platforms, especially as it concerned the youthful age bracket. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda He said: It is very glaring that the country is dangerously heading to a halt as far as hate speech, intolerance, religious and ethnic bigotry being perpetrated through social media platform are concerned. Such needs to be treated by government as a matter of urgent national importance to move the country forward. He urged religious leaders, traditional rulers and parents in the country to use their preachings, counseling and parental advice in ensuring a reliable and productive future for the youths whom are regarded as the leaders of tomorrow. He said: The future of our nation depends largely on the readiness and preparedness of our teeming youths in terms of quality educational background, information and technological advancement in taking over the mantle of leadership. This to me should be the major preoccupation of our religious leaders, traditional rulers and parents alike. Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that the media and publicity department of the State House said it has put together a 58-minute documentary on the efforts of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration in tackling the challenges it met on the ground. Femi Adesina, the special adviser to the president on media and publicity, announced this in a statement in Abuja on Monday, December 31. According to the presidential aide, the documentary, entitled, FIRST TERM OF PRESIDENT BUHARI: IS CHANGE HERE?, gives more insight into various attempts by the administration to make Nigeria a better place. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have upgraded to serve you better. Primate Ayodele releases 2019 prophecies, says B/Haram will infiltrate the army| Legit TV: Source: Legit.ng Two Asian restaurants with impressive credentials opened exactly one day apart: Embeya, a West Loop Vietnamese restaurant made its debut Sept. 11; and Jellyfish, a Gold Coast pan-Asian opened on the 12th. They're ideal for their neighborhoods; Embeya offers chef-driven focus, and Jellyfish is such a party-ready, eye-candy spot, it ought to be wearing heels. Embeya In Vietnamese, embeya means "little one," and it's the nickname of chef and partner Thai Dang, the youngest of 10 children and still a relative pup, executive-chefwise, at 28. Abetted by partner Attila Gyulai, former director of operations at the Elysian hotel, Dang has created a restaurant that, like the chef himself, seems extraordinarily polished for its tender years. The large dining room (counting the bar area and some high-top tables, the space can seat 120) offers visual treats everywhere you look. There are the artful chandeliers that resemble sea urchins, and an elaborate ceiling sculpture that looks like a collection of frozen leaves. Seating, at wide upholstered chairs or soft-fabric banquettes, is very comfortable. Intricately carved teak panels break the space into less cavernous niches; pinpoint white spotlights mix with the amber glow from street lamps visible through two-story windows. Dang worked under Laurent Gras at L2O (Gras, back in New York these days, flew in to cook with Dang at Embeya's pre-opening pop-up dinner in July), and some of Gras' precise plate artistry is evident in Dang's work. The menu is tightly focused, so don't come here looking for upscale versions of Argyle Street standards, though there is a very good salad of cellophane-noodle-thin papaya strings tossed with crispy shallots and house-made beef jerky. Don't expect Argyle Street bargain-basement prices, either, though prices (most entrees are less than $20) are more reasonable than the surroundings suggest. My meals here have been like an uninterrupted highlight reel. Crisped sweetbreads tossed in fish sauce, with a red-chili kick; crunchy forbidden rice topped with thinly shaved pickled kohlrabi; Brussels sprouts, heavily caramelized in nuoc cham sauce. There are exotic dishes like thit heo kho, slow-cooked pork in aromatic broth along with cooked quail eggs and coconut; and familiar dishes such as garlic chicken, a simple-sounding dish that's actually very complex (the skin alone is lacquered and dried thrice, accounting for its irresistible crispness). The tamarind ribs were tasty but a bit too chewy; that's the closest thing I can come to a gripe. Desserts are appropriately fruit-focused, including the classic mango and sticky-rice dish with toasted sesame seeds (Dang prefers them to peanuts) and ribbons of roasted pineapple with coconut ice cream. But don't overlook the fruit platter; Dang brings in lychee, jackfruit, rambutan and dragonfruit, made into a beautiful composed plate or available individually. For those who dare, Dang will bring out durian, the pungent fruit whose custardy texture and funky sweetness are very much an acquired taste. Which, for what it's worth, I have acquired. Danielle Pizzutillo oversees the exceptional beverage program, which includes Belgian ales, a riesling-heavy and food-friendly wine list and some terrific craft cocktails. My favorite pours are the Tendron and Lime, a daiquirilike cocktail with young coconut accents, and the Smoke & Barrel, which improbably blends single-malt scotch, aged port and walnut bitters into something remarkably good. Service is ... getting there. Helpful and friendly for the most part, servers occasionally will drop off a dish with no explanation of what the accompanying sauces are or how best to enjoy them. This will improve with time. Embeya is the most upscale Vietnamese restaurant Chicago has seen since Le Colonial debuted and Pasteur was in its heyday. And very shortly, I predict, it will be the best Vietnamese restaurant in town. Jellyfish Joe De Vito was the guy who made Homaro Cantu's Moto and Ing restaurants happen, and now, with different partners, he has created Jellyfish, a yin-yang concept with dual menus (cooked items and sushi creations) and dual chefs (Harold Jurado and Andy Galsan, respectively) executing them. The second-floor restaurant is accessible via stairs or elevator. The surreal decor includes undulating wall art that may or may not suggest jellyfish to you, and a similarly abstract artwork of backlit Italian crystal behind the bar. Most seating takes place in a built-out enclosed atrium that overlooks Rush Street. Inside, you're bathed in a bluish light; outside, you can watch the martini-swigging neon amphibian of Hugo's Frog Bar while you peruse the menu. It certainly looks the part of a craft-cocktail nightspot, but during the dinner hours at least, Jellyfish is exceedingly calm and laid-back, a refreshing novelty in a neighborhood dominated by boisterous dining rooms. There are hits and misses among the two menus, but in general, the more you stick to nibbles, the happier you'll be. The waiters push the Rocco taco, probably because it's a guaranteed hit, a quartet of crispy wonton-shell tacos embracing hamachi, sweet radish and ponzu sauce. The steamed bao are good bets, whether stuffed with five-spice duck and peanut hoisin sauce, or with panko-crusted oysters, kimchi salad, spicy mayo and razor-thin jalapeno. Various signature rolls include two very good ones. El Topo roll, highlighted by Scottish salmon, bufala mozzarella and fried calamari, is an odd-sounding combination that works nicely, thanks to the salty-crunchy calamari; the Kiss of Fire offers the changing hues of a rainbow roll and absolutely pristine tuna, white tuna and salmon. Skewers of wagyu beef and pork shoulder are fine; the togarashi-dusted Bang Bang chicken nuggets will be better when the kitchen eases up on the salt. The entrees I tried were all disappointing. The spicy seafood noodle dish was a muddled mess; the East-West filet was smothered in a cloying garlic-soy sauce, perhaps to disguise its meager size. The portion was so skimpy on the $33 miso cod that I kept lifting pieces of baby bok choy, certain there had to be more fish. There are some very pretty, thoroughly Western desserts that are worthwhile, notably the warm brownie trio and the gorgeous leche flan. The risk-taking cocktail program, by Daniel Finnigan, is the single best reason to visit this place. Check out Finnigan's work, stick to the light bites and you'll be fine. Watch Phil Vettel's reviews weekends on WGN-Ch. 9's "News at Nine" and on CLTV. Embeya 564 W. Randolph St.; 312-612-5640 embeya.com Tribune rating: Two stars Open: Dinner Monday-Sunday - Residents of Benin have commended the federal government for ensuring availability of fuel during Christmas - They said unlike the previous years, availability of the product made the celebration stress-free for them - They enjoined the government to ensure adequate availability of fuel, always, especially during festive seasons Residents of Benin have commended the federal government for ensuring availability of fuel during Christmas celebration. The residents, who spoke in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Benin, on Wednesday, December 26, said availability of the product made the celebration stress-free for them. Legit.ng gathers that they noted that unlike the previous years, where they had to wake up very early and queue endlessly for the product, this year celebration proved to be otherwise. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda They said that apart from being a stress-free, availability of fuel also made it easier for those travelling in terms of cost of transportation. A resident, Aliu Ozioruva-Alemma, said: "You will recall that at about this time last year, Nigerians were already groaning under scarcity of fuel." He enjoined the government to ensure adequate availability of fuel, always, especially during festive seasons to enhance the ease in the supply of petroleum products that characterised this year Christmas. Another resident, Odegua Osadolor, who attributed fuel shortage to sabotage, called on Nigerians to always support the government in making life easier for the people. He also called on marketers of the petroleum products not to use festive periods to address their challenges. He said: While government should strive to address challenges of the marketers, they on their part should also bring their issues to the front burner on time. When these issues are left to linger, it is the commoners that suffer the consequences." Imuetiuan Ebo urged the federal government to ensure that fuel scarcity remains a thing of the past. PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news update Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that President Muhammadu Buhari urged all Nigerian Christians to reflect on the imagery of the humble, symbolic and divine birth of a young child thousands of years ago in Bethlehem, Judea. The president, in a letter to all Christians on Monday, December 24, said the birth of Jesus symbolised the message of hope, compassion, salvation, reconciliation, forgiveness and peace that Christ embodied and conveyed. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng upgrades to serve you better. Atiku versus Buhari: Who will win? - on Legit TV Source: Legit Prosecutors say Burke tried to extort the locations owners after they sought remodeling permits for the Archer Heights location in 2017. The complaint, filed Thursday in federal court, also alleged Burke asked one of the companys executives identified only as Individual A to attend a political fundraiser for "another politician" that same year. The executive couldn't attend because of bad weather but "felt it necessary" to donate $10,000 to the politician in order to keep Burke happy, according to the charges. Front-page Zookeeper stresses safety while working with animals Staff photo by Dan Reiland Irvine Park zookeeper Jennifer London cleans one of the cages Wednesday while the Bengal tiger sits in an adjacent pen. London stresses safety around all the animals, from the tigers to the maras. View more photos at LeaderTelegramPhotos.com. Staff photo by Dan Reiland Irvine Park zookeeper Jennifer London talks with the Bengal tigers on Wednesday before cleaning their cages. London has worked for the city for 18 years, taking care of the animals in the park. CHIPPEWA FALLS Chippewa Falls zookeeper Jennifer London entered the predatory animal building in Irvine Park on Wednesday, greeting the restless hyenas and anxious tigers. She chatted with them and prepared their meals while getting ready to let them into the exterior cages so she could clean their interior pens. While London has a friendly rapport with the animals, treating them almost like household pets, she never forgets they are dangerous. You always have to be on your toes, and aware of where youve been and what youre doing, London said. And you have to read their behavior. On Sunday, a 22-year-old zoo worker was attacked and killed by a lion at a conservation center in North Carolina. The woman, Alexandra Black, had worked at the center for 10 days. She was cleaning an animal enclosure when the attack occurred. Law enforcement shot and killed the 14-year-old lion. London has served as head zookeeper in Irvine Park for 18 years, working 80 hours a week, including every other weekend, feeding, cleaning and caring for the animals. She has a lot to do each day, but she makes sure she takes the necessary precautions with each pen. You get in a hurry, she said. Any animal is potentially dangerous. Any time an animal is afraid, it is more dangerous. The bears, tigers and hyenas are in exhibits that were constructed between 2005 and 2010. London said the back rooms, which the public never sees, were well-designed by the handler who provides the animals to the park. You always want at least one more cage than you have animals, she said. Each cage has guillotine doors and pulleys, so the animals can be moved side to side in adjoining rooms, and also sent outside, while their cage is cleaned. Everyone has a transfer cage, she explained. You try to lure them over with a piece of meat. London has a key to the back door and a different key to enter each of the animal exhibit areas. There are multiple, metal chain doors throughout the building, providing backup safety redundancies. There also is a lift-entry system that the animals cannot figure out how to open, if they were somehow able to get out of their first cage. Prior to the current pens opening, the park had a smaller building where bobcats and cougars were housed. London recalls that building as having multiple safety issues. The old small animal building, which was constructed in 1914 and rebuilt in 1962, was torn down. You cant even compare it, she said. First, (those animals) were raised, so they were looking you in the face. That building also was not lit well and had rusty, older doors. In June 2016, the new, 9,400-square-foot small animals building opened as part of a $3.9 million zoo improvement project, which houses the Capuchin monkey, lemurs, coatimundi, fishing cats, porcupines and maras. London said this new facility was well designed for safety. However, the fishing cats are predatory animals. Our cats arent trying to get at you, but you dont want to lean against the fence either, she said. The coatimundi, similar to raccoons, are also carnivores. Shes also cautious around the monkeys. The Capuchins, they are so smart, you have to watch where they are running, she said. The porcupines are slow and docile if you dont know where they are, you arent paying attention, and the maras are like rabbits they are skittish. The city budgets about $150,000 annually for the zoo. That pays for a full-time zookeeper, a part-time worker, food, vitamins, testing and other expenses. The bear exhibit, which opened in 2005, is about 5,000 square feet. The cougar display, which opened in 2008, has about 2,600 square feet and now houses two tigers. The final exhibit, which opened in 2010, is about 2,000 square feet and now houses two hyenas. Those three exhibits cost about $1.2 million and were paid for entirely through donations. Modena, January 3 - A 60-year-old Italian man tried to strangle his 30-year-old live-in male partner with a phone cord and then bashed him about the head with an ash tray at Spilamberto near Modena on Wednesday night, police said Thursday. He risks a charge of attempted murder, they said. Milan, January 3 - Andrea Bonomi's Investindustrial fund on Thursday launched a 142 million euro bid for Spanish chocolate maker Natra. A statement on Investindustrial Advisors' website said it has offered EUR142m (US$161.1m) for the Madrid-headquartered Natra's shares and convertible bonds. Investindustrial Advisors is a pan-European private-equity house that predominantly invests in medium-sized companies active in industry sectors such as industrial manufacturing, consumer, leisure and business services. Natra specialises in chocolate products for private-label brands and other food companies, as well as in cocoa derivatives. Its consumer goods division is responsible for the manufacturing of chocolate tablets, countlines, spreads and Belgian chocolates and specialities, which are targeted mainly at Europe, with Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, Spain and the UK as main markets. Natra has six production centres in Spain, Belgium, France and Canada. Naples, January 3 - A 41-year-old man with a criminal record was arrested Thursday for breaking down his wife's door with a hammer and attacking her in spite of a restraining order at Boscoreale near Naples. Rome, January 3 - The government's new universal basic income for the poor and job seekers is only aimed at Italian citizens, Deputy Premier and Labour and Industry Minister Luigi Di Maio said Thursday. Di Maio denied reports it would also go to some 250,000 immigrants who have been in Italy for at least five years. "The law, as we have always said, concerns a basic income for those that are Italian citizens", said the leader of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, which rules Italy with the anti-migrant Euroskeptic League party of Interior Minister and Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini. Di Maio said "the aim is to give (the income) to Italians and those who have been here for a long time and who have made a major contribution to our country. "So we're not talking about the five years that were in the draft of the decree, which must be changed. "The goal is to give it to Italians. "The 5-year 'long stay' qualification for foreign citizens will be changed". Gilmour said he accidentally turned in a statement of economic interest to the city clerk instead of the Kendall County clerk, as required by law. His attorney, Andrew Smith, called it a technicality, but the board ruled that the error was sufficient to remove Gilmour from the ballot. Rome, January 3 - A clash between Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and centre-left and left-leaning mayors on the minister's recent security and migrant decree continued on Thursday. As Salvini said the mayors would have to change their allegedly lenient ways regarding migrants, a new front was opened over a migrant ship that has been seeking landfall for over a week. Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris said Thursday he was ready to open his port to Sea Watch, an NGO ship that has been roaming the Mediterranean for days with 32 migrants on board. "I hope this boat comes to the port of Naples because unlike what the government says we will put into the field a rescue action and we will let it into the port," he said. He said "I will be the first to lead the rescue actions". Italian ports are closed to NGO migrant rescue ships, Salvini reiterated after de Magistris's promise. "Italian ports are closed, we have already accepted too many fake refugees, we have enriched too many migrant smugglers!," he said. "Let the leftwing mayors think of their citizens in difficulty, not about clandestine migrants". The party is over for some leftwing mayors who allegedly benefited from migrant reception business, Salvini went on to say. "With the (Democratic Party) it was chaos and clandestine migrants, with the League it is order and respect," said the leader of the anti-migrant League party. "Certain mayors look back fondly on the good old times of immigration, but for them too the party is over!". Salvini was commenting on a rebellion against his migrant-security decree by mayors including Palermo's Leoluca Orlando who say it unfairly strips some migrants of access to healthcare and other local services and allegedly ejects thousands of migrants from the system creating potential criminals. Orlando, for his part, said his perceived rebellion against Salvini's allegedly "inhuman" migrant clampdown had been "a dutiful institutional act". "Don't call me a rebel. My action is a dutiful institutional act, against a decree that authoritative men of the Church have described as inhuman", he said in press interviews. Orlando has been joined by other left-leaning mayors including de Magistris in Naples, Dario Nardella in Florence, and Federico Pizzarotti in Parma in saying they will not apply some allegedly unconstitutional norms in the decree. Orlando went on to say that he would turn to a judge to raise the issue of whether the decree complies with the Italian Constitution. He said he hoped raising the issue at a judicial level would lead to the Constitutional Court examining the decree. The other deputy premier, Salvini's ruling partner Luigi Di Maio of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, accused the mayors of indulging in "electoral spots". "It's just electioneering on the part of mayors who have to feel a bit leftwing by making a bit of noise," said Di Maio, who is also labour and industry minister. Salvini said the mayors who did not agree with him "should resign". He said "Orlando and de Magistris quit". The European Commission has been in touch with some member States to find landing spots for the 32 migrants on board NGO rescue ship Sea watch, an EC spokesman said Thursday, adding that the contacts also concerned another ship, Sea Eye. The spokesman said Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos "directly contacted member States in the last few days". He said the commissioner "is asking member States to help this joint effort to disembark those on board safely and as soon as possible". Bari mayor Antonio Decaro, head of the Italian municipalities association ANCI, on Thursday noted that Salvini in the past called for the kind of civil disobedience, on civil unions, that he is now condemning over his migrant security decree. Decaro noted that "a short while ago, before becoming minister, he himself blatantly urged mayors to disobey a State law, that on civil unions," said Decaro. "Now he is threatening mayors" for doing the same thing, said the ANCI chief. Decaro said the new rules on migrants and security placed mayors in a position of "objective difficulty" and said he did not want to feed the clash with Salvini. "The mayors are asking for dialogue, they're not partying," he said in reference to Salvini's assertion that "the party is over" for mayors and their migrant activities. Milan Mayor Giuseppe 'Beppe' Sala said "Salvini should listen to us and change the decree". The Italian partisans association ANPI said it was "with the mayors who are resisting" and said the officials were trying to defend basic rights enshrined in the Constitution. Eighty minors who are "well integrated" into life in Palermo will soon turn 18 and become illegal proving that Salvini's security and migrant decree is "inhuman and crime-creating", Orlando told ANSA Thursday. "In Palermo, in 4-5 months, 80 minors, who are studying, working and are guests of the community where they live well integrated lives will turn 18 and will therefore be illegal," he said. "This is confirmation that this security decree is inhuman and crime-creating", he said. The number of unaccompanied minors currently in the reception centre at Palermo is around 250, the city councillor for solidarity-based citizenship, Giuseppe Mattina, added. The government should call the mayors for talks instead of issuing threats against them, centre-left opposition Democratic Party (PD) leadership contender Maurizio Martina said Thursday. "The mayors who are expressing their critical position towards the Salvini decree should be listened to, not insulted," said Martina, until recently a PD caretaker leader. "They should be called to discuss (the decree), not threatened. "Because they are the first to find themselves every day with the concrete issue of citizenship and security, of rules in rights and duties". The lack of respect for the law on the part of the mayors who have refused to implement parts of the government's security and migrant decree is "unacceptable", sources at the premier's office said Thursday. "The positions of local administrators who have publicly declared they do not intend to apply a State law are unacceptable," the sources said. "Our juridical system does not give mayors the power to say whether laws are constitutional or not: not applying a law that you don't like is the same as breaking it, with all the consequent responsibilities". But the sources said they would "welcome" a meeting of the mayors' association ANCI with Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and Premier Giuseppe Conte to iron out difficulties in applying the decree. Rome, January 3 - A clash between Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and centre-left and left-leaning mayors on the minister's recent security and migrant decree continued on Thursday. As Salvini said the mayors would have to change their allegedly lenient ways regarding migrants, a new front was opened over a migrant ship that has been seeking landfall for over a week. Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris said Thursday he was ready to open his port to Sea Watch, an NGO ship that has been roaming the Mediterranean for days with 32 migrants on board. "I hope this boat comes to the port of Naples because unlike what the government says we will put into the field a rescue action and we will let it into the port," he said. He said "I will be the first to lead the rescue actions". Italian ports are closed to NGO migrant rescue ships, Salvini reiterated after de Magistris's promise. "Italian ports are closed, we have already accepted too many fake refugees, we have enriched too many migrant smugglers!," he said. "Let the leftwing mayors think of their citizens in difficulty, not about clandestine migrants". The party is over for some leftwing mayors who allegedly benefited from migrant reception business, Salvini went on to say. "With the (Democratic Party) it was chaos and clandestine migrants, with the League it is order and respect," said the leader of the anti-migrant League party. "Certain mayors look back fondly on the good old times of immigration, but for them too the party is over!". Salvini was commenting on a rebellion against his migrant-security decree by mayors including Palermo's Leoluca Orlando who say it unfairly strips some migrants of access to healthcare and other local services and allegedly ejects thousands of migrants from the system creating potential criminals. Orlando, for his part, said his perceived rebellion against Salvini's allegedly "inhuman" migrant clampdown had been "a dutiful institutional act". "Don't call me a rebel. My action is a dutiful institutional act, against a decree that authoritative men of the Church have described as inhuman", he said in press interviews. Orlando has been joined by other left-leaning mayors including de Magistris in Naples, Dario Nardella in Florence, and Federico Pizzarotti in Parma in saying they will not apply some allegedly unconstitutional norms in the decree. Orlando went on to say that he would turn to a judge to raise the issue of whether the decree complies with the Italian Constitution. He said he hoped raising the issue at a judicial level would lead to the Constitutional Court examining the decree. The other deputy premier, Salvini's ruling partner Luigi Di Maio of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, accused the mayors of indulging in "electoral spots". "It's just electioneering on the part of mayors who have to feel a bit leftwing by making a bit of noise," said Di Maio, who is also labour and industry minister. Salvini said the mayors who did not agree with him "should resign". He said "Orlando and de Magistris quit". The European Commission has been in touch with some member States to find landing spots for the 32 migrants on board NGO rescue ship Sea watch, an EC spokesman said Thursday, adding that the contacts also concerned another ship, Sea Eye. The spokesman said Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos "directly contacted member States in the last few days". He said the commissioner "is asking member States to help this joint effort to disembark those on board safely and as soon as possible". Bari mayor Antonio Decaro, head of the Italian municipalities association ANCI, on Thursday noted that Salvini in the past called for the kind of civil disobedience, on civil unions, that he is now condemning over his migrant security decree. Decaro noted that "a short while ago, before becoming minister, he himself blatantly urged mayors to disobey a State law, that on civil unions," said Decaro. "Now he is threatening mayors" for doing the same thing, said the ANCI chief. Decaro said the new rules on migrants and security placed mayors in a position of "objective difficulty" and said he did not want to feed the clash with Salvini. "The mayors are asking for dialogue, they're not partying," he said in reference to Salvini's assertion that "the party is over" for mayors and their migrant activities. Milan Mayor Giuseppe 'Beppe' Sala said "Salvini should listen to us and change the decree". The Italian partisans association ANPI said it was "with the mayors who are resisting" and said the officials were trying to defend basic rights enshrined in the Constitution. Eighty minors who are "well integrated" into life in Palermo will soon turn 18 and become illegal proving that Salvini's security and migrant decree is "inhuman and crime-creating", Orlando told ANSA Thursday. "In Palermo, in 4-5 months, 80 minors, who are studying, working and are guests of the community where they live well integrated lives will turn 18 and will therefore be illegal," he said. "This is confirmation that this security decree is inhuman and crime-creating", he said. The number of unaccompanied minors currently in the reception centre at Palermo is around 250, the city councillor for solidarity-based citizenship, Giuseppe Mattina, added. Rome, January 3 - A clash between Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and centre-left and left-leaning mayors on the minister's recent security and migrant decree continued on Thursday. As Salvini said the mayors would have to change their allegedly lenient ways regarding migrants, a new front was opened over a migrant ship that has been seeking landfall for over a week. Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris said Thursday he was ready to open his port to Sea Watch, an NGO ship that has been roaming the Mediterranean for days with 32 migrants on board. "I hope this boat comes to the port of Naples because unlike what the government says we will put into the field a rescue action and we will let it into the port," he said. He said "I will be the first to lead the rescue actions". Italian ports are closed to NGO migrant rescue ships, Salvini reiterated after de Magistris's promise. "Italian ports are closed, we have already accepted too many fake refugees, we have enriched too many migrant smugglers!," he said. "Let the leftwing mayors think of their citizens in difficulty, not about clandestine migrants". The party is over for some leftwing mayors who allegedly benefited from migrant reception business, Salvini went on to say. "With the (Democratic Party) it was chaos and clandestine migrants, with the League it is order and respect," said the leader of the anti-migrant League party. "Certain mayors look back fondly on the good old times of immigration, but for them too the party is over!". Salvini was commenting on a rebellion against his migrant-security decree by mayors including Palermo's Leoluca Orlando who say it unfairly strips some migrants of access to healthcare and other local services and allegedly ejects thousands of migrants from the system creating potential criminals. Orlando, for his part, said his perceived rebellion against Salvini's allegedly "inhuman" migrant clampdown had been "a dutiful institutional act". "Don't call me a rebel. My action is a dutiful institutional act, against a decree that authoritative men of the Church have described as inhuman", he said in press interviews. Orlando has been joined by other left-leaning mayors including de Magistris in Naples, Dario Nardella in Florence, and Federico Pizzarotti in Parma in saying they will not apply some allegedly unconstitutional norms in the decree. Orlando went on to say that he would turn to a judge to raise the issue of whether the decree complies with the Italian Constitution. He said he hoped raising the issue at a judicial level would lead to the Constitutional Court examining the decree. The other deputy premier, Salvini's ruling partner Luigi Di Maio of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, accused the mayors of indulging in "electoral spots". "It's just electioneering on the part of mayors who have to feel a bit leftwing by making a bit of noise," said Di Maio, who is also labour and industry minister. Salvini said the mayors who did not agree with him "should resign". He said "Orlando and de Magistris quit". The European Commission has been in touch with some member States to find landing spots for the 32 migrants on board NGO rescue ship Sea watch, an EC spokesman said Thursday, adding that the contacts also concerned another ship, Sea Eye. The spokesman said Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos "directly contacted member States in the last few days". He said the commissioner "is asking member States to help this joint effort to disembark those on board safely and as soon as possible". Bari mayor Antonio Decaro, head of the Italian municipalities association ANCI, on Thursday noted that Salvini in the past called for the kind of civil disobedience, on civil unions, that he is now condemning over his migrant security decree. Decaro noted that "a short while ago, before becoming minister, he himself blatantly urged mayors to disobey a State law, that on civil unions," said Decaro. "Now he is threatening mayors" for doing the same thing, said the ANCI chief. Decaro said the new rules on migrants and security placed mayors in a position of "objective difficulty" and said he did not want to feed the clash with Salvini. "The mayors are asking for dialogue, they're not partying," he said in reference to Salvini's assertion that "the party is over" for mayors and their migrant activities. Milan Mayor Giuseppe 'Beppe' Sala said "Salvini should listen to us and change the decree". The Italian partisans association ANPI said it was "with the mayors who are resisting" and said the officials were trying to defend basic rights enshrined in the Constitution. Rome, January 3 - Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said Thursday holding the Italian SuperCup final between Juventus and AC Milan in the Saudi Arabian Red Sea port city of Jeddah on January 16 was "disgusting" because of the Saudi record on denying women's rights. "That the SuperCup be played in an Islamic country where women can't go to the stadium unless they are accompanied by men is sad, it's disgusting," he said. "I won't watch that match," said Salvini, a Milan superfan. "Where are the Italian feminists, the Boldrinis?" he asked, referring to former House Speaker Laura Boldrini. In response, Lega Calcio President Gaetano Micciche said Saudi woman will be allowed to attend the final on their own in a "historic" first. The Saudi ambassador in Rome told ANSA women would be able to go to the ground on their own. Rome, January 3 - A clash between Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and centre-left and left-leaning mayors on the minister's recent security and migrant decree continued on Thursday. As Salvini said the mayors would have to change their allegedly lenient ways regarding migrants, a new front was opened over a migrant ship that has been seeking landfall for over a week. Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris said Thursday he was ready to open his port to Sea Watch, an NGO ship that has been roaming the Mediterranean for days with 32 migrants on board. "I hope this boat comes to the port of Naples because unlike what the government says we will put into the field a rescue action and we will let it into the port," he said. He said "I will be the first to lead the rescue actions". Italian ports are closed to NGO migrant rescue ships, Salvini reiterated after de Magistris's promise. "Italian ports are closed, we have already accepted too many fake refugees, we have enriched too many migrant smugglers!," he said. "Let the leftwing mayors think of their citizens in difficulty, not about clandestine migrants". The party is over for some leftwing mayors who allegedly benefited from migrant reception business, Salvini went on to say. "With the (Democratic Party) it was chaos and clandestine migrants, with the League it is order and respect," said the leader of the anti-migrant League party. "Certain mayors look back fondly on the good old times of immigration, but for them too the party is over!". Salvini was commenting on a rebellion against his migrant-security decree by mayors including Palermo's Leoluca Orlando who say it unfairly strips some migrants of access to healthcare and other local services and allegedly ejects thousands of migrants from the system creating potential criminals. Orlando, for his part, said his perceived rebellion against Salvini's allegedly "inhuman" migrant clampdown had been "a dutiful institutional act". "Don't call me a rebel. My action is a dutiful institutional act, against a decree that authoritative men of the Church have described as inhuman", he said in press interviews. Orlando has been joined by other left-leaning mayors including de Magistris in Naples, Dario Nardella in Florence, and Federico Pizzarotti in Parma in saying they will not apply some allegedly unconstitutional norms in the decree. Orlando went on to say that he would turn to a judge to raise the issue of whether the decree complies with the Italian Constitution. He said he hoped raising the issue at a judicial level would lead to the Constitutional Court examining the decree. The other deputy premier, Salvini's ruling partner Luigi Di Maio of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, accused the mayors of indulging in "electoral spots". "It's just electioneering on the part of mayors who have to feel a bit leftwing by making a bit of noise," said Di Maio, who is also labour and industry minister. Salvini said the mayors who did not agree with him "should resign". He said "Orlando and de Magistris quit". The European Commission has been in touch with some member States to find landing spots for the 32 migrants on board NGO rescue ship Sea watch, an EC spokesman said Thursday, adding that the contacts also concerned another ship, Sea Eye. The spokesman said Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos "directly contacted member States in the last few days". He said the commissioner "is asking member States to help this joint effort to disembark those on board safely and as soon as possible". Bari mayor Antonio Decaro, head of the Italian municipalities association ANCI, on Thursday noted that Salvini in the past called for the kind of civil disobedience, on civil unions, that he is now condemning over his migrant security decree. Decaro noted that "a short while ago, before becoming minister, he himself blatantly urged mayors to disobey a State law, that on civil unions," said Decaro. "Now he is threatening mayors" for doing the same thing, said the ANCI chief. Decaro said the new rules on migrants and security placed mayors in a position of "objective difficulty" and said he did not want to feed the clash with Salvini. "The mayors are asking for dialogue, they're not partying," he said in reference to Salvini's assertion that "the party is over" for mayors and their migrant activities. Genoa, January 3 - There is no risk of Carige defaulting, the former CEO and now commissioner of the Genoa-based bank, Fabio Innocenzi, said Thursday. "The bank is well capitalised and has a clear governance, so our clients can count on their Carige," he told Class CNBC. Innocenzi said Carige had had an "important" subordinated loan from the Interbank Deposit Protection Fund (FITD), "which brought us into line with the requirements and the asset obligations of the bank. "Carige is OK, the ordinary activity continues". The troubled northwestern lender was placed into extraordinary administration by the European Central Bank Wednesday after most of its board quit after Italy's 10th-biggest bank failed to secure shareholder support for a 400 million euro share issue last month. The move came as the lender seeks a partner for a merger, sources said. The administrators were named as Innocenzi, former chairman Pietro Modiano, and Rome Tor Vergata and Luiss universities' lecturer in financial law, Raffaele Lener, the ECB said. The ECB said they had been "tasked with safeguarding the stability" of the bank. Bourse regulator CONSOB suspended trading in Carige at the bank's request. The European Commission will closely monitor the situation at Carige, an EC spokesman told ANSA Wednesday. Deputy Premier and Labour and Industry Minister Luigi Di Maio repeated that pledge on Thursday. "As always we closely monitor developments in the EU banking sector, Italy included," the EC spokesman said. "We duly note the ECB's decision, in its capacity as supervisor, to name a temporary administrator for Carige" as one of the moves available thanks to banking union, he said. Italian banks have made "significant progress" in recent years, the spokesman added. The work must continue but non-performing loans (NPLs) have been substantially reduced, he said. Italy's Interbank Deposit Protection Fund (FITD) on Wednesday said Carige needed to merge with another bank to pull it out of its current crisis. FITD chief Salvatore Maccarone told ANSA the fund "backed" the ECB's move "because it will serve to carry forward the original plan, a merger with another bank". He said the failure of Carige's capital call last month "is proof that the overall governance mechanism has got stuck, and therefore this (ECB-ordered administration) is the only thing that could have been done". The ECB's move comes after years of troubles for Italian banks. Six small, regional banks have had to be rescued in recent years, with ordinary savers losing billions of euros. Big banks also got into trouble with the third-biggest and world's oldest, Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), undergoing precautionary recapitalisation after racking up too many bad loans. MPS, founded in 1472, is recovering from its crisis. Carige, founded in 1483, has 529 branches across Italy with one branch in France, in Nice. About 37.2% branches are located in its home region of Liguria. Rome, January 3 - A 28-year-old man was killed when his car hit a pack of wild boar on Italy's main A1 north-south motorway early Thursday morning, local sources said. Another 10 people were injured in the accident including five minors, the sources said. The most seriously hurt patient was taken to Bologna's Maggiore Hospital in code red. The accident happened between Lodi and Casalpusterlengo. We need to move from a generic sales model to a more specialized one, Cars.com CEO Alex Vetter said Thursday. While its a reduction in our total field force, were also augmenting and building up our inside sales efforts. To get new dealers on the platform, we think we can do it cost effectively from our call centers. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 3) President Rodrigo Duterte said he would slap the mayor of Daraga, Albay if he threatens the family of slain AKO-BICOL Party-list Rep. Rodel Batocabe or interferes in their political plans. Speaking at an event Thursday, Duterte said, "Pero 'yung sa labas, gaya nung pumunta ako ng Albay. Oo sinabi ko, p***** i** mo, 'pag merong isang... Meron man talaga tatakbo, 'yung relative, the wife, or the son. Do not kasi 'pag ginawa mo 'yan, puntahan kita dito, p***** i** mo, sampalin kita diyan sa munisipyo mo. You want to try it? Sige. Bukas nandoon ako. 'Pag hindi kita nilampaso diyan." [Translation: But when I went to Albay. I said, you son of a b***h, if you... There will be someone who will run in his place, the relative, wife, or the son. Do not - because if you do, come here, you son of a b***h, I will slap you at the municipal hall. You want to try it? Go ahead. I will be there tomorrow. See if I don't wipe the floor with you.] Former Special Assistant to the President Bong Go confirmed to CNN Philippines that the President was referring to Mayor Carlwyn Baldo. The late solon's son, Justin Batocabe, said the family is discussing who will run in the 2019 polls to substitute his father in the Daraga mayoralty race. "Under the law, only a Batocabe can substitute my father. It is certain that we will substitute him," he said. In a press briefing Thursday afternoon, Baldo denied he was the brains behind the killing of Batocabe. "I assert my innocence. Let us not forget that while I am being used as a convenient scapegoat, those who are truly responsible for the crime remain free and blameless. I am an easy target but that does not make me guilty of the crime," he said. The Philippine National Police tagged Baldo as the mastermind behind the slay. The President earlier said people should be able to vote freely and not be intimidated to favor any particular candidate in the upcoming elections. Duterte made the same appeal to the police and military, asking them to remain neutral during the elections. OKLAHOMA CITY - Police in Oklahoma City say they are looking for a man who fired a gun into a Taco Bell after he didn't get the sauce he wanted. Authorities say the confrontation happened after 1 a.m. Monday. No one was hurt, but a drive-thru window was shot out. No arrest has been made. Employees told police the man was in a vehicle at the drive-thru when he started yelling about not getting enough hot or taco sauce when he ordered. He then opened fire before going into the restaurant. Workers told police they locked themselves in a bathroom and that the man eventually left. They then called 911. Police don't have a description of the man but ask anyone with tips to contact Oklahoma City Crime Stoppers at (405)-235-7300 or https://okccrimetips.com/ . (Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) An East Missoula family is asking the community for help after starting the New Year with a major loss. 2018 was a difficult year for Casey and Jessica Cornwell. It was full of expensive medical bills, and they say they poured everything into paying them off. They chose to cut corners everywhere to pay for their deaf daughter's hearing implants - and as result, they lost almost everything. We're paying on a $9,000 bill for her cochlear implants because they stopped working, and we had to upgrade them, Jessica Cornwell said. She needed them. She can't hear anything without them. The Cornwells say they tried to cut costs by giving up their phones and moving. They kept most of their belongings in a storage unit during the process. The couple didnt realize when their autopay on the unit was declined for insufficient funds, and a certified letter from the storage unit wasnt forwarded from their old address. They went to the unit on New Years Eve, and realized all of their memories had been sold in an auction months ago. A lot of the sentimental stuff cant be replaced, Cornwell said. The furniture can all be replaced, but the pictures, the legal documents, baby blankets, things the kids have made, we cant replace those. Casey and Jessica say the unit contained birth, divorce and marriage certificates, social security cards, wedding and baby pictures, furniture and various other sentimental items. The documents will have the last name Cornwell, Maze or Clifford on them. Yeah, weve had a lot of pile-ups, Casey Cornwell said. One thing right after another. Casey and Jessica say their items were part of an auction at All Seasons RV and Mini-Storage in Florence on Oct. 31, 2018. Their former unit number was D27. They ask anyone who knows anything about their belongings to contact them at cornwell0418@gmail.com. LEBANON, Ind. (AP) - A northwestern Indiana man has been charged with felony neglect after police say a 3-year-old boy fatally shot his 4-year-old sister with the suspect's gun. Sixty-three-year-old Darrell Marberry of East Chicago was arrested last week and is being held in the Lake County Jail pending extradition to Boone County, northwest of Indianapolis. Lebanon police have said Izabella-Marie Helem was being cared for by her grandmother Nov. 29 when her brother found a handgun and shot the girl in the head. She died five days later . Police said Marberry left the handgun on the floor under a couch on the morning of the shooting. Marberry is the ex-husband of the grandmother and had been sleeping on the couch. Online court records don't list an attorney who can comment on Marberry's behalf. (Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) Great Falls has been seeing recent hotel growth over the past couple years, following the opening of the SpringHill Suites in April of 2018 and a TownPump hotel set to open in 2019. According to the Great Falls Development Authority (GFDA), the reason for the recent growth in hotels stems back to a growth in tourism. Hotels in the Great Falls area have seen a steady increase in occupancy over the past 8 months, with a 10% increase in bookings in December of 2018. However, the GFDA says this type of growth was unheard of in Great Falls until just a few years ago. The Canadian dollar affected us quite a bit. Certainly, the AG and energy markets affect our economy And I think our progress over the past few years has been because we are working together as a team, commented Brett Doney, President and CEO of GFDA. The goal from here is to keep attracting more tourists to help boost the local economy. One way youll see this type of growth is through the new TownPump hotel. Tour buses are contracted through the TownPump Company, and after the previous TownPump hotel in Great Falls was torn down, tour buses were re-directed to other cities. However, once the new TownPump hotel opens their doors, tour buses will once again make their debut. Furthermore, the GFDA is working hand-in-hand with Great Falls Tourism Agency to attract more people to visit the city. One of their newest initiatives is to change the Great Falls Tourism logo and the GFDA logo to create similar icons to show their unity. In the end, they hope to show visitors that Great Falls isnt just a one day trip, but worth an extended vacation. Kendallville, IN (46755) Today Sun and clouds mixed. High near 80F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Mostly clear. Low 54F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph. Hundreds of pornographic images involving children were seized during the arrest of a Hamden man on Monday, police said. President Donald Trump said Tuesday the government won't reopen until funding is secured for his border barrier, and he plans to go to the border in January to visit a new stretch of wall. ST. PAUL, Minn. Two late-season deer hunts are scheduled after another positive test for chronic wasting disease in southeastern Minnesota. The CWD-positive deer was taken in Houston County during the opening weekend of the 2018 3B firearms season. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources says special hunts in deer permit area 346 will be held January 25 through 27 and February 1 through 3 so samples can be collected to determine the extent of the disease in that region. All deer shot during these special hunts must be brought to a DNR-staffed check station to be tested for CWD. Adult male deer travel long distances, and we dont know the origin of this deer, so it is important to collect samples over a broad geographic area to get a better picture of CWD in this particular area, says Lou Cornicelli, DNR wildlife research manager. The Minnesota Board of Animal Health will also hold a public meeting on chronic wasting disease on January 15 from 7 to 8:30 pm at the Tau Center Rotunda at Winona State University. ROCHESTER, Minn. - Police say a pair of drug dealers are behind bars after search warrants were executed simultaneously. Police said 19-year-old Kanell Powers and Dylan Olson, 26, were both arrested and are facing fifth-degree possession of a controlled substance charges. Olson may also be facing a child endangerment charge due to a 2-year-old living at the residence. Powers was arrested at 2015 41st St. NW (The Gates) and was found with 66 grams of marijuana. Olson was arrested at 816 2nd St. NW No. 2 and was found with 343 grams of marijuana, a digital scale and 1 gram of liquid THC. The items were found near the child who lives there. CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa A Swaledale man is sentenced to federal prison for dealing methamphetamine. Chris Bruce, 46, was arrested by Mason City police in March 2018 after he was pulled over for an equipment violation. Officers said a search found a significant amount of drugs, including meth, marijuana, cocaine, and mushrooms. State charges were dismissed in August 2018 to clear the way for Bruces prosecution in Cedar Rapids Federal Court. He pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute meth and has now been sentenced to 19 years and two months behind bars, followed by eight years of supervised release. DECORAH, Iowa A man accused of causing a two-day lockdown at a northeast Iowa hospital is pleading not guilty. William Fredric Harrison Jr., 58 of Decorah, is charged with threat of terrorism and two counts of 1st degree harassment. The Winneshiek County Medical Center says it received threatening calls on November 24, 2018. The caller reportedly said he would shoot a doctor and said All of you would be dead. Authorities say an investigation by the Decorah Police Department, the Winneshiek County Sheriffs Office, and the Winneshiek County Attorneys Office identified the caller as Harrison and he was arrested on November 29, 2018. His trial is now set to begin on February 20. ROCHESTER, Minn. As congress convenes on Thursday, the grassroots organization Indivisible Rochester is hosting an event with its own way of welcoming Hagedorn to office. Along with other Indivisible chapters around the country, the group is calling the Capitol, sending letters, and posting on social media, urging Hagedorn to support the bill H.R.1. The bill addresses voting, campaign finance laws, and ethics. For example, it aims to make same day voting registration legal in every state and to require presidents to release their tax returns. Pernell Meier is with the organization and said while some of these issues dont specifically apply to the Rochester area, its important to support people who are facing these issues around the nation. Democracy is vital to the functioning of our country and we need that infrastructure, that support to make democracy as functional as it can be, she said. In an email to KIMT, Rep. Hagedorn said: As provisions of H.R. 1 are formally introduced and considered, I will review the legislation and offer my views. Specific to the Rochester chapter, the group is also asking the congressman-elect for something a little more unusual. They want him to unblock them on Twitter. The group said Hagedorn blocked many of them after the campaign was over, including Meier. She said she prides herself on respectful, political dialogue but was blocked after tweeting at Hagedorn a couple times. I was really offended by it. I thought this is...this is morally questionable that you are going to block your constituents, she said. In the same email to KIMT mentioned earlier, Hagedorn said: Our official Congressional Twitter account will likely be made active in the near future. There are plenty of avenues for constituents to formally offer their views to Members of Congress: U.S. mail, email, telephone, in person meetings, etc. Our office will not be responding to constituents via Twitter. Indivisible Rochesters event is on Thursday, January 3, from 6:30-8pm at 12 Elton Hills Dr NW, Rochester, MN. FORT DODGE, Iowa (AP) Authorities have identified a man killed after exchanging gunfire with officers in Webster County as a resident of Wall Lake. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation identified the man as 45-year-old Matthew Hurley. Hurley died Monday night after engaging in a gunfight while driving away from officers who had been called to a disturbance just outside Fort Dodge. Hurley's vehicle eventually stopped in a field, and he was found dead inside. The officers who fired at Hurley were identified as Sgt. Aaron Schmidt, of the Iowa State Patrol, and deputy Chase Goodman, of the Calhoun County sheriff's office. Investigators are still awaiting autopsy, toxicology and laboratory tests. NORA SPRINGS, Iowa - It's growing across the country, and while allowing random guests to stay in your home, condo or apartment may seem like a frightening idea, around 1,400 Iowa Airbnb hosts are embracing it, and earning some extra money. Around $9.3 million was been collected by hosts in the Hawkeye State in 2018 according to the guest hospitality company, with each host earning around $3,700 during the year. In addition, the state collected over $900,000 in home sharing tax revenue thanks to a tax agreement with Airbnb that was enacted in 2017. Karen Hutzell became interested in being a host through Airbnb as she used it on her travels, and is now the host of a building divided into apartments in Nora Springs as well as a cabin near Osage. Her guests have all been top shelf, but the company does have safeguards in place to protect against creeps. "They help you with identity verification, and you can ask for certain things before you rent to somebody... get a copy of their license, or only travelers who have reviews from other Airbnb hosts so that you know they treated the property right." And it helps provide a sense of routine and comfort for those new to the area. "I think it's maybe quiet, small town... they want to stay at and it's very affordable. And its easy access to the avenue and I think it's a convenient location if you're working in the area." Around 98,000 guests stayed at Airbnb properties in Iowa in 2018. DES MOINES, Iowa Students in Iowa will not have to pay back over $1 million in loans thanks to a 49-state settlement with a for-profit education company. Career Education Corporation (CEC) has agreed to stop trying to collect around $493.7 million owed by 179,529 students across the country. This deal comes after a five-year investigation and negotiations led by Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller and the Connecticut Attorney Generals Office. CECs practices were unfair to students as well as taxpayers who supported federal student loans that were destined to fail, says Miller. This agreement not only provides relief to former students, but also protects future students and advances our efforts to clean up the for-profit education industry. 715 Iowa students will get relief on a total of $1,424,662 in loans. CEC also agreed to pay $5 million to the states themselves, with Iowa receiving $257,142.86. ROCHESTER, Minn. If youre seeing more coyotes in town, youre not alone. According to a Facebook post by Rochesters Animal Control, the animal sightings are a growing concern. Assistant Wildlife Manager with Rochesters local Department of Natural Resource office, Ryan Tebo, also said hes seen a couple calls come in. People are seeing them in southeast Rochester off Marion Road and in the area near Rochester Country Club. Many residents, none of whom wanted to go on camera, tell KIMT theyre concerned about their pets safety. The concern may no be far off. Tebo said coyote prey on small game like rabbits, and could also go for small dogs or cats. To keep this from happening, he suggests getting rid of any pet food or garbage left outside. Is there a reason that coyote wants to be there, he said. And getting rid of those things can often alleviate the problem quickly. Making sure pets have proper vaccinations like rabies, parvo, and distemper will also keep them safe. Tebo and Rochester Animal Control tell KIMT seeing coyotes may be more common as the city expands into their habitat. theyre super, super adaptable, Tebo said. Big cities, its not uncommon to find them downtown because they find their little niches, and spots they call home and theyre still able to find food. If you see a coyote, Tebo said it will usually run away. But as coyotes become more comfortable in urban settings this might not always be the case. That's when problems can arise because they don't have that fear of humans they otherwise would, he said. When seeing a coyote, people can shout or even start to chase the coyote to scare it away. In Minnesota, coyotes are unprotected species. This means people can trap and shoot coyotes at freewill. However, many other regulations are in place like firearm permits in different cities and counties. For more on what to do when seeing a coyote, click here. ALBERT LEA, Minn. A guilty plea is entered in a brotherly dispute. Tyler Dain Christensen, 30 of Albert Lea, pleaded guilty Thursday to intentional discharge of a firearm that endangers safety. His sentencing is scheduled for March 15. Christensen was arrested on August 29, 2018. Law enforcement says there was a fight where Christensen hit his brother in the back with a shovel, then fired a rifle into the air as his brother was leaving. Police and sheriffs deputies surrounded the building where Christensen was until he surrendered without incident. MASON CITY, Iowa - It was a day of big announcements. Im happy to report that the state of the city is good and filled with promise, said Mayor Bill Schickel during his annual State of the City Address Wednesday. In the address Mayor Schickel discussed taking the citys dilapidated buildings more seriously as well as a Riverwalk along Willow Creek to rival that of the one in San Antonio but the big headliner is the announcement that construction of the new multi-purpose arena will begin no later than February. Weve finally lifted the River City Renaissance Project out of the ditch and on to the road of success, Mayor Schickel said. The project, though, still has its critics. How are you going to pay for this thing and get back the $10M from the state? said Mason City resident Max Weaver. The project stalled for four years and many in city administration believe its time to get moving. Inaction would also produce a very negative outcome, said City Administrator Aaron Burnett. It will lead the city to not be able to execute the reinvestment district grant, the $9.2 from the state, itll lead to continued dilapidation of the mall and out-migration of the folks that are still doing business in the mall. State funding for the project is dependent on the Gatehouse Capital hotel agreement that remains in limbo. If that deal doesnt move forward the city would be roughly $4M short of the money needed for the arena. The shortfall would then have to be made up with some other revenue sources and theres also tax increment financing and other revenues dedicated to other portions of the project, said Burnett. And while Burnett is concerned about the possibility, he still thinks it is time to build the long discussed arena. At some point we need to take a step forward with the project, said Burnett. Inactivity has led to a lot of doubt and a lot of difficulties. Frustrated that a suspect in the shooting death of a 7-year-old Texas girl was still on the loose, a civil rights attorney and an activist turned to social media to help police hopefully make a break in the case. Attorney S. Lee Merritt has more than 21,000 Twitter followers. More than a million people follow social justice activist Shaun King. Activism Continents and regions Crime, law enforcement and corrections Crimes against persons Criminal investigations Criminal law Criminal offenses Fugitives and manhunts Internet and WWW Law and legal system North America Shootings Social media Society Southwestern United States Technology Texas The Americas United States Misc people Shaun King Homicide The two former college classmates, who have worked on other cases, joined again to offer a reward for information leading to the arrest of a suspect in the early Sunday drive-by shooting of Jazmine Barnes in the Houston area. The reward had grown to $60,000 by Wednesday evening, King wrote on social media. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said Wednesday that authorities have had lots of tips but no breaks in the case. The gunman has been described as a bearded white man, possibly in his 40s, driving a red or maroon pickup. The victims in the shooting are black. "The information that we had was very dry, very stagnant: a white male with a beard and a red truck," Merritt, 35, said Wednesday. "After sitting with that for 24 hours, and no additional details ... nothing coming forward, we wanted to do something additional that might help to get the ball rolling." Merritt said $35,000 of the money is from his and King's private funds. Donors have contributed $25,000, Merritt said. King could not be reached on Wednesday. Merritt, who has offices in Dallas and Philadelphia, headed to Houston on Wednesday to serve as an adviser to Jazmine's family. Merritt, who represents the family of Botham Shem Jean, an accountant who was killed in his apartment by a Dallas police officer, said he had seen families in mourning after tragedy, and felt compelled to help Jazmine's family through its grief. "I have to sit with a lot of families who are going through the most tragic event that any of us can imagine. ... These people are hurting," he said. "They're dealing with the nuts and bolts of burying a loved one," he said. "So, I've been put in a position where I can help people, largely based on community recognition." Jazmine was killed when the pickup pulled up next to her family's car and a man opened fire, the Harris County Sheriff's Office said. Jazmine's mother, LaPorsha Washington, suffered a gunshot wound to her arm, authorities said. Her 6-year-old daughter suffered cuts from shattered glass, the sheriff's office said. Two teenage siblings were unharmed. The family was still in their pajamas when they made the early morning coffee run. Gonzalez has said Washington and her four daughters didn't appear to do anything to prompt the incident. The shooting was unprovoked, he said. 'Urgent. All hands on deck' Before offering the reward, Merritt said he and King used their social media platforms to solicit information to help apprehend the gunman. Two days after the shooting, King put out a tweet rallying people to help with the case. He wrote: "URGENT. ALL HANDS ON DECK. A 40 y/o white man w/ a beard in a red pickup truck pulled up on 7 y/o Jazmine Barnes and her family near a Houston @Walmart and shot and killed her and injured others. I am joining the search for her killer and have a $25,000 reward. Need him NOW." Merritt said he hopes the reward money will generate more leads. By Wednesday evening, King wrote on Twitter that he had filtered through hundreds of tips: "Mostly garbage. All well meaning. 3-4 helpful. Working with the family and local authorities. Some promising leads, but not nearly enough." Hundreds of people have donated more than $30,000 by Wednesday to GoFundMe account to help Jazmine's family pay for any expenses. 'We want to wake everyone's consciousness' King and Merritt have been friends for about 20 years, since their days at the historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta. Over the years, they worked together on several cases, including the fatal shooting of Antwon Rose II, a black teenager killed by police outside Pittsburgh in June. Merritt said the two men helped authorities identify several suspects seen on a widely shared cell phone video attacking DeAndre Harris, a black man, in a parking garage at a Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017. Four suspects were later arrested in connection with the beating, CNN affiliate WIVR reported. Three have been convicted and one is awaiting trial, according to WIVR. Harris, who was represented by Merritt, was acquitted of charges he assaulted a white protester at the rally. Gonzalez said authorities are grateful for the efforts of Merritt and King. "We want to awake everyone's consciousness to this and bring more attention to it. So, whatever the motivation may be for someone to be able to call in with that tip and get some extra money we are all for it," Gonzalez said Wednesday. In a historic first, China has landed a rover on the far side of the moon, state media announced Thursday, a huge milestone for the nation as it attempts to position itself as a leading space power. China's National Space Administration landed the rover at 10:26 a.m. Beijing time in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, the moon's largest and oldest impact crater, China Central Television reported. Asia Aviation and aerospace industry Business and industry sectors Business, economy and trade Celestial bodies and objects China Continents and regions Earth's Moon East Asia Government organizations - US NASA North America Planets and moons Space and astronomy Space exploration Space industry Spacecraft and satellites The Americas United States US federal departments and agencies US government independent agencies Government and public administration Government bodies and offices Government departments and authorities Space and aeronautics agencies Beijing Internet and WWW Social media Technology Broadcasting industry Cable and television industry Media industry It made its final descent from an elliptical orbit 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) above the moon's surface, making a "smooth" and "precise" landing, according to the general designer of the probe Chang'e 4, Sun Zezhou, who added that the spacecraft pulled off a "bull's-eye." State media reported that the rover, which China has named Yutu-2, or Jade Rabbit-2, transmitted back the world's first close-range image of the far side of the moon. The rover was named in a global poll in August. In Chinese foklore, Yutu is the white pet rabbit of Chang'e, the moon goddess after which the Chinese lunar mission is named, state media Xinhua reported. Several hours after touchdown, the rover separated from the lander on the moon's surface and began its mission. The far side of the moon is the hemisphere that never faces Earth, due to the moon's rotation. It is sometimes mistakenly referred to as the "dark side of the moon," even though it receives just as much sunlight as its Earth-facing side. The success of the mission represents a landmark in human space exploration. The area where the probe has landed faces away from Earth, meaning it is free from radio frequencies. As a result, it is not possible for a lunar rover to communicate directly with ground control. To overcome this hurdle, China launched a dedicated satellite orbiting the moon last year that will be able to relay information from the rover to Earth. "China is on the road to become a strong space nation. And this marks one of the milestone events of building a strong space nation," chief designer for the lunar mission, Wu Weiren, told China Central Television. The lunar craft lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province on December 8, entering the moon's orbit four days later, according to state media. It is hoped the lander will conduct a number of tasks, including conducting the first lunar low-frequency radio astronomy experiment, observe whether plants will grow in the low-gravity environment, and explore whether there is water or other resources at the poles. Another function of the mission is to study the interaction between solar winds and the moon surface using a new rover. "Since the far side of the moon is shielded from electromagnetic interference from the Earth, it's an ideal place to research the space environment and solar bursts, and the probe can 'listen' to the deeper reaches of the cosmos," said Tongjie Liu, deputy director of the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center for the China National Space Administration. The Chang'e 4 rover is 1.5 meters (5 feet) long and about 1 meter (3.3 feet) wide and tall, with two foldable solar panels and six wheels. "China is anxious to get into the record books with its space achievements," said Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor at the US Naval War College and an expert on China's space program. "It is highly likely that with the success of Chang'e -- and the concurrent success of the human spaceflight Shenzhou program -- the two programs will eventually be combined toward a Chinese human spaceflight program to the moon," she added. "Odds of the next voice transmission from the moon being in Mandarin are high." Thursday's official televised announcement that the probe had landed came approximately an hour after state media outlets China Daily and China Global Television Network deleted posts on social media proclaiming the mission a success, sparking widespread confusion as to whether the probe had made touchdown. No explanation was given as to why the tweets were deleted. On social media, observers speculated as to the cause of the apparent backtracking, with many wondering whether the mission had experienced a temporary upset or whether it was a simple case of state media jumping the gun ahead of the official announcement. China's last lunar rover -- named Yutu, or Jade Rabbit -- ceased operation in August 2016 after 972 days of service on the moon's surface as part of the Chang'e 3 mission. China was only the third nation to carry out a lunar landing, after the United States and Russia. The overall design of the new rover is inherited from Jade Rabbit, according to the chief designer of China's lunar probe program. "We worked hard to improve its reliability, conducting thousands of experiments to ensure its long-term operation, especially taking into consideration rocks, ravines and frictions on the Moon," Wu Weiren told state broadcaster China Central Television in August. Beijing plans to launch its first Mars probe around 2020 to carry out orbital and rover exploration, followed by a mission that would include collection of surface samples from the Red Planet. China also is aiming to have a fully operational permanent space station by 2022, as the future of the International Space Station remains in doubt due to uncertain funding and complicated politics. In comparison, despite its recent success in sending a robotic lander to Mars, the US space agency NASA has faced years of budgetary constraints. Although the Chinese government has long stressed its "peaceful motives" in space exploration, Washington increasingly views China -- along with Russia -- as a potential threat, accusing Beijing of working to bring new weapons into space and prompting President Donald Trump to announce the establishment of a US Space Force by 2020. The US Congress has barred NASA from working with China due to national security concerns. "A high percentage of space technology is (civilian-military) dual use," Johnson-Freese said. "The US sees pretty much everything China does in space -- including things the US has done in space -- as threatening." She suggested that combining military preparedness with diplomatic efforts would best deter perceived threats in space from all sides but added that "unfortunately, the US has not shown interest in diplomatic leadership regarding space security." This story has been updated to clarify the sequence in which images of the moon were taken by Chang'e 4. The late Josephine Fardey The death has occurred of Josephine Fardey (nee Brogan), Clonmore, Piltown, Kilkenny, peacefully surrounded by her loving family in the kind care of the staff at University Hospital Waterford. Beloved wife of Dominic and much loved mother of Elaine, Sheena, Emma and Colin. She will be sadly missed by her loving family, grandchildren, sisters Nora (Nonie), Catherine, brothers Jack, Jim, Paddy and Tom, extended family and friends. Reposing at her residence in Clonmore on Friday from 4pm until 8pm. Removal on Saturday to the Church of the Assumption, Piltown, arriving for 11am funeral Mass with interment afterwards in Piltown Cemetery. House private on Saturday morning. Family flowers only donations if desired to the Irish Cancer Society. Henny Scott's family and friends created a memorial on Saturday where her body is believed to have been found in Lame Deer. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 3) Brace for more controversial statements from President Rodrigo Duterte. Malacanang said Thursday the President is not changing his "style" of "dramatizing" and even making graphic statements to catch people's attention and drive his message across. "The President has been doing that even during the campaign and that has been very effective on the listeners," Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a Palace press briefing. "Klaro rin yung mensahe. Kaya sa tingin ko he will not stop from doing this kasi nakikita niyang effective, naiintindihan siya (The message is clear. So I think he will not stop form doing this because he sees it as effective, the people understand him)," Panelo added. Panelo was defending the President's December 29 speech where he supposedly recalled a teenage confession that he molested a sleeping house helper. Despite receiving flak for this statement, Panelo said Duterte will not apologize because he only made the story up to criticize the hypocrisy of the priest who allegedly abused him when he was young. "Pinakita niya lang na walang kasalanan na dapat siyang sabihin pero pinipilit siya nung pari habang siya ay ginagalaw. Kumbaga pinapakita niya yung kabastusan ng pari at ginawan niya ng kwento na ganun na lang," Panelo added. [Translation: "He just showed that he had no sin to confess but the priest forced him to say something while touching. He just showed how lewd the priest was so he made the story up."] READ: Panelo: Duterte 'made up' story of incident with house help When asked if the President could be setting a bad example for other government officials in making obscene statements in public, Panelo said, "Hindi naman mahalay yung kwento niya. Nagtatawanan nga (His story was not obscene. The audience laughed)." He said Duterte's statements become a problem only because of "ultraconservative" people and critics who are trying to discredit his leadership. He added that the the President does not mind a possible erosion of public support because of his statements, but stressed that majority of Filipinos like him this way. "Ganun din ang istilo ng ordinaryong tao e. Nagmumura, nagagalit, nagkukwento nang ganung istilo. Ganun na ganun e kaya they relate to him," Panelo said. [Translation: "That is also the style of ordinary citizens. They curse, get angry, tell stories in that style. That's why they relate to him."] The President has hogged international headlines for various statements but remains popular according to local surveys the latest of which, a Social Weather Stations poll for the last quarter of 2018, showed an improved net satisfaction rating of +60. Rights group Gabriela said the supposed incident with the house help is the latest of Duterte's "countless statements bragging about flagrantly committing crimes against women and the people." In 2018, Duterte was criticized for kissing a Filipina randomly invited on stage in South Korea, and making jokes on rape and sexual harassment. RIDDLE, Ore. Oregon State Police are trying to find the person responsible for shooting and killing a bald eagle in Douglas County. Troopers said the eagle was shot on Nov. 16 on Lower Cow Creek Road, about two miles south of Doe Creek Road and west of Riddle. They said the person left the eagle there after shooting it in the neck with a small caliber rifle. Troopers said the suspect was driving a newer red or maroon compact four-door truck, likely a Nissan Frontier. Oregon State Police is offering a reward for information leading to the suspects arrest. Anyone with information can contact Sr. Trooper Stone at 541-817-4472 or OSP dispatch at 541-440-3333. Property tax relief: As the Legislature gathers again for a new session, there will be another opportunity to deliver new property tax relief for Nebraskans. As we think about how to address high property taxes in the upcoming legislative session, it is important to focus on the fundamentals. There are three key things that matter when it comes to cutting property taxes: We have to control spending. We have to reform how property is valued for tax purposes. And we cannot tax one group of people to pay for someone elses tax relief. Right now I am preparing a budget that controls spending along with additional property tax relief. I will be unveiling my budget during my State of the State address on Jan. 15, and I look forward to working with Senators to deliver more tax relief for you. Year-round E15: In October, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and I joined President Trump in Council Bluffs for a special announcement. At the event, President Trump announced his approval of the year-round sale of E15. This is a big deal for Iowa and Nebraska, the top two ethanol-producing states in the nation. Right now, E15 can only be marketed Sept. 16 through April 30, meaning that we are missing out on peak driving months during the summer. A final rule from the Environmental Protection Agency will allow E15 to be sold all year long, and we will be encouraging the EPA to finalize this rule in time for the summer driving season. The EPA also recently approved the state of Nebraska for a pilot program to test E30. In the pilot program, we will study the use of Nebraska-grown and produced E30 in conventional vehicles owned by the state. This additional research around mileage and maintenance will help show that E30 will help consumers save money at the pump, help clean up the environment and is great for our farmers and ranchers. COLUMBUS A bookkeeper accused of stealing more than $85,000 from a Columbus business has been imprisoned. Platte County District Court records say 46-year-old Jennifer Held was sentenced last week to two to four years in prison. She'd pleaded no contest to felony theft after prosecutors dropped four related counts. The judge also ordered her to pay restitution of nearly $41,000. The records say the owner of Clarkson TV & Appliance reported that unauthorized checks were written on the company account from April 3, 2015, through March 17, 2018. The records also say Held acknowledged writing the checks, saying she needed the money for bills. seph R McCarter. The name and address of the in- corporator is Midwest Associates, Inc., 4009 6th Ave #30, Kearney, NE 68845 4. The general nature of the business to be transacted by the corporation shall be the transaction of any and all lawful business for which corporations may be incor- porated under the provisions of the Nebraska Model Business Corpo- ration Act. The life of the corpora- Klamath Falls, ORE. -- A Henley High School student received a special gift from his classmates over this holiday break. Senior Cameron Caldwell is being treated for Osteosarcoma at Doernbecher Childrens Hospital in Portland. Members of the Key Club at Henley High donated school shirts and made Cameron a special t-shirt quilt to show their support for their fellow classmate during a challenging time. Caldwell is one of four Henley Complex students currently battling cancer. The Klamath County School District says that students have really come together to show their support for those students and their families. A meal train has been set up to help Cameron's family during treatments. Click this link to help donate or sign up to provide a meal. MEDFORD, Ore. State Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum is set to visit Medford in an effort to gather feedback on the issue of hate crimes, according to a statement from the AG's office. It is appalling that hate-motivated crimes are on the increase in Oregon; this reality requires us to act. At these listening sessions we hope to create a safe place for Oregonians to share their experiences as targets of discrimination and hate motivated conduct, said Rosenblum. The AG is joined by her Task Force on Hate Crimes a group formed in May of 2018 in order to study and craft proposals on ways that state lawmakers might strengthen Oregon's laws to help prevent hate-motivated crimes. Our task force is currently working with the Oregon legislature to propose bills that would strengthen Oregons hate crime laws. There are a lot of ideas about how to address hate crimes, but I need to hear directly from the community. This approach served us well with our police profiling listening sessions which led to successful reforms, Rosenblum said. Data collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) over 2017 showed 146 reported hate crimes throughout the state of Oregon, stemming from 29 reporting law enforcement agencies. Yet reporting by OPB found that the vast majority of agencies in the state reported zero hate crimes to the FBI even when, in at least one case, those localities were known to have handled high-profile hate crime cases indicating that even when hate crimes are prosecuted, they may go underreported. AG Rosenblum will be in Medford on January 9 at the Medford Public Library [see full details below], asking that members of the public share their stories about "hate-motivated incidents" in their communities and experiences with discrimination. Community members who wish to remain anonymous can share without revealing their names, or can submit written accounts. Medford When: January 9, 2019 @ 6:00-8:00 PM Where: Medford Public Library - 205 S. Central Ave, Medford, OR 97501 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today Representative Greg Walden (R-Hood River) announced that he has nominated ten Oregon students for acceptance to the prestigious United States service academies. Waldens Service Academy Nomination Board (retired and active-duty military officers who interview potential candidates for the service academies) recommended each student based on their academic performance, extracurricular involvement, and character. I am honored to nominate these outstanding young Oregonians to Americas service academies, Walden said. Years of hard work, dedication, and commitment to character have earned these future leaders these much-deserved nominations. By pursuing a higher education at one of our countrys select service academies, these students have shown a desire to lead by example, grow intellectually, and serve the United States in uniform. I am confident that each nominee will have tremendous success in this admirable endeavor and that their futures will be bright. I also thank my Service Academy Nomination Board for recommending these young leaders. Their experience serving our country in uniform is invaluable to the nomination process, and speaks to the caliber of the students they interviewed and recommended for nominations this year. Without their guidance and understanding of what it takes to succeed at the U.S. service academies, these nominations would not be possible, said Walden. Serving on Waldens Service Academy Nomination Board are: Retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Paula Brown; Col. Smith, Jeff, Oregon Air National Guard; Lt. Col. Lee, Travis, Oregon Army National Guard; Retired U.S. Navy Commander John Howard; Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col Kirk Mickelsen. The service academies include the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado; the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York; the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland; and the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York. Final selection for admission to the service academies will be determined by officials at each respective academy this spring. The nominees from Oregon are as follows: Baker County Clay Keller, son of Douglas and Theresa Keller of Baker City, attended Baker High School -- nominated to the United States Naval Academy. Deschutes County Jackson Clough, son of James and Jill Clough of Bend, attending Summit High School -- nominated to the Unites States Air Force Academy. Benjamin Roberts, son of Andrew and Kimberly Roberts of Bend, attending Bend Senior High School -- nominated to the United States Naval Academy. Levi Schwarz, son of Janet and Douglas Schwarz of Bend, attended Bend Senior High School -- nominated to the United States Naval Academy. Jackson County Dana Jung, daughter of Dr. Tae Kyung Jung and Mikyoung Yang of Medford, attending North Medford High School -- nominated to the United States Military Academy (West Point), and United States Air Force Academy. Klamath County Brandon VanMeter, son of Stephen and Amy Johnson of Klamath Falls, attending Klamath Union High School -- nominated to the United States Naval Academy, United States Air Force Academy, and United States Military Academy (West Point). Nolan Britton, son of Robert and Bobbie Sue Britton of Klamath Falls, attending Lost River High School -- nominated to the United States Air Force Academy. Jacob Healy, son of Mike and Julie Healy of Klamath Falls, attending Mazama High School -- nominated to the United States Naval Academy. Maximillian Balakas, son of Martin Balakas and Kathleen Todd of Klamath Falls, attending Mazama High School -- nominated to United States Military Academy (West Point). Umatilla County Kirk Liscom, son of Matthew and Shelley Liscom of Pendleton, attending Pendleton High School -- nominated to the United States Naval Academy. SALEM, Ore. (AP) A state investigation released Thursday finds Oregon lawmakers didn't do enough to stop sexual harassment in the Capitol. As a result, the five-month investigation by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, known as BOLI, concludes the state Capitol is a hostile workplace, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported . In an interview with BOLI investigators, Sen. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis described feeling marginalized by how some of the state's most powerful Democrats and key legislative leaders reacted after she accused then Sen. Jeff Kruse of touching her breast and placing his hand on her thigh under a dais. Gelser told BOLI that Senate Majority Leader Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, suggested she was "grandstanding" by speaking out against Kruse. House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, reportedly told Gelser it was hard to move forward with her complaint because people in the Capitol consider Gelser unlikable and that Gelser had made the sexual harassment complaint all about her. Gelser told state investigators that Senate President Peter Courtney yelled at her in a cafe when the two were discussing harassment. Senate Republican Leader Jackie Winters, R-Salem, allegedly told Gelser she needed to "learn how to deal" with working with Kruse. House Speaker Tina Kotek disagreed with the report's characterization of her conversation with Gelser. Kotek said she has always been personally supportive of Gelser, who she said showed "tremendous courage" in coming forward to report Kruse's behavior. "The fact that she came forward is going to make the capitol a better place to work and we're going to make improvements," Kotek said. The report echoes Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian's initial complaint that top lawmakers haven't done enough to curb harassment they knew or should have known was occurring. As the complainant in the case, Avakian didn't participate in the investigation. Typically, findings like those in the new report would open the Legislature up to penalties under BOLI's regulatory process, which has seen record-setting settlements during Avakian's decade-long tenure atop the bureau. But Avakian, a Democrat like those he has accused of letting harassment fester, is about to leave office. On Monday, Labor Commissioner-elect Val Hoyle will take control of the department and will likely dictate whether the bureau seeks consequences for the Legislature. She has not said how she plans to handle the matter. At the heart of the BOLI investigation is misconduct by former Republican state Sen. Jeff Kruse, who has been found to have subjected interns, lobbyists, fellow lawmakers and legislative staff to inappropriate comments and unwelcome touching over a course of years. Courtney and Kotek earlier denied Avakian's accusations and said his investigation would have a chilling effect on others to come forward when they face harassment. MEDFORD, Ore. - In today's Health Alert, Dr. Brooks from Providence Medford Medical Center joined us and discussed Hepatitis C; including the symptoms, risks and treatments for the disease. What is hepatitis C? Hepatitis C is a disease that harms the liver. The liver is a big organ in the upper right side of the belly. A virus causes this disease. The virus is called the hepatitis C virus. It spreads from person to person through contact with blood. This can happen in a few ways, including sharing drug needles. What are the symptoms of hepatitis C? Most people with hepatitis C have no symptoms. When symptoms do occur, they can include: Feeling tired or weak Lack of hunger Nausea Muscle or joint aches Weight loss In most cases, hepatitis C lasts for many years. That can lead to liver scarring, called "cirrhosis." Many people with cirrhosis have no symptoms. When symptoms do occur, they can include: Swelling in the belly and legs, and fluid build-up in the lungs Bruising or bleeding easily Trouble taking in a full breath Feeling full in the belly Yellowing of the skin or whites of the eyes, called jaundice Confusion that can come on suddenly Coma How did I get the disease? You can catch the hepatitis C virus if you have contact with the blood of someone who is infected. This can happen if you: Share drug needles or cocaine straws Use infected needles for tattooing, acupuncture, or piercings Share toothbrushes, razors, or other things that could have blood on them Got a blood transfusion in the United States before 1990 (after that time, blood banks started testing donated blood for hepatitis C) You can catch the hepatitis C virus if you have sex with someone who is infected. But this does not happen very often. A pregnant woman who is infected can also give hepatitis C to her baby. Some people who have hepatitis C do not remember how they were infected. In the United States, many people with hepatitis C were born between 1945 and 1965. If you were born during these years, your doctor might want to test you for hepatitis C even if you did not do any of the things that put you at risk of infection. Is there a test for hepatitis C? Yes. Your doctor might order a few tests: Blood tests can show: If you have hepatitis C What type of the virus you have (there are at least 6 types) Which treatment will work best for you If you have hepatitis C, your doctor will also want to know if you have any liver scarring. Ways to check for scarring include: Blood tests Liver scan This is a type of imaging test that can show how much scarring you have. Not all doctors have access to the machine that does the scan. Biopsy For this test, a doctor puts a needle into your liver and takes out a small sample of tissue. The sample will show how bad the damage is. Most people with hepatitis C do not need this test. How is hepatitis C treated? Treatment depends on what type of hepatitis C you have. There are different medicines to treat hepatitis C. Some of them only work on certain forms of the hepatitis C virus. You will have to take a combination of 2 or more medicines based on which virus you have. Treatment usually lasts 3 months. The medicines come in pill form. Your doctor can help you decide which medicines are right for you. Is there anything I can do to protect my liver? Yes, you can: Avoid alcohol Maintain a healthy weight Get vaccinated for hepatitis A and B Get vaccinated for pneumonia, the flu, and other diseases Ask your doctor or nurse before taking any over-the-counter pain medicines (these medicines can sometimes damage the liver). Avoid marijuana What if I want to get pregnant? If you want to get pregnant, talk to your doctor or nurse first. About 1 in 20 women who have hepatitis C pass the virus on to the baby during pregnancy. That number goes up in women who are also infected with HIV. What will my life be like? Many people with hepatitis C are able to live normal lives. Treatment can cure the disease in almost all cases. If you have hepatitis C, it is still safe to: Hug, kiss, and touch other people (but you can spread the infection through sex) Share forks, spoons, cups, and food Sneeze or cough Breastfeed GRANTS PASS, Ore. High-visibility patrols for intoxicated drivers in Grants Pass throughout the month of December brought in almost an equal number of arrests and citations, according to the Grants Pass Department of Public Safety (GPDPS). "During the month of December the Grants Pass Department of Public Safety once again joined forces with other Oregon law enforcement agencies to participate in High Visibility Enforcement Operations. Patrols were increased to aggressively look for impaired drivers throughout our community," GPDPS said in a statement. In that one-month period, officers arrested 37 people for driving under the influence of intoxicants (DUII), plus 37 more citations or arrests for driving on a suspended license. Five juveniles were also cited for possession of alcohol. "The Grants Pass Department of Public Safety encourages the motoring public to plan ahead and designate a sober driver. Police also encourage citizens who witness suspected impaired drivers to contact police immediately," GPDPS said. PORTLANS, Ore. (AP) - A former substitute teacher at an elementary school near Portland has been sentenced to more than six years in prison for sexually abusing a student. 54-year-old Dale Buckendahl was sentenced Wednesday after a jury convicted him of first-degree sexual abuse last month. The abuse occurred when Buckendahl was substituting a third-grade class at Alder Elementary School in 2008. According to the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office, Buckendahl put his hand up a 9-year-old girl's skirt and touched her in a sexual manner while she was seated in a classroom with other students. The student reported the abuse to a school counselor years later. The victim gave a statement to the court, saying "no verdict or sentencing will bring me back my childhood or my innocence." The storms Friday packed an especially powerful punch in Excelsior Springs. Thousands of people were left without power so the fire department stepped in to help with a food drive for residents as many continue to clean up the mess. KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV)-- Advocates want answers Wednesday night after they say a homeless man was soaked during below freezing temps by a firefighter who put out the mans campfire. The Kansas City Missouri Fire Department is investigating after a concerned citizen filed a complaint about how the illegal burn was extinguished. The man, known as PJ, says around 2:00 oclock in the morning on New Years Day, a firefighter put out his fire and drenched him and his belongings. Look get away from the fire or you are going to get doused Im turning the hose on. Thats the warning PJ says he got before he was soaked. Due to injuries and poor circulation, PJ often relies on a cane and moves slowly. All of the sudden the hose opened up. The fire was doused I was doused, PJ told KCTV5. Tonight, a medical team from Care Beyond the Boulevard stopped to check on several of their homeless patients including PJ. Worried of course about frostbite, hypothermia, said Jaynell Assmann, Founder and Director of Care Beyond the Boulevard. She continued, we know him very well. We've done a lot to try and help him. Two nights a week they use their bus, a mobile medical center, to take medical care to the streets. This evening, nurses treated PJs feet and made sure he had dry, warm clothing. We treat them like humans which is so important to them because for so long they've been pushed away by so many people, explained Assmann. Assmann says she was disheartened to hear PJ was drenched by a fire hose. Just providing compassion and thinking about, would I do this to someone who was living in a house, questioned Assmann. A spokesperson for the fire department says they already talked to the person who filed the complaint and will be speaking with firefighters and a police officer who were there when the fire was put out. Right now, Id like to believe the initial reports we got that PD was on the scene the whole time. We asked the gentleman to move, he moved, and we extinguished the fire. We will be following up. We take this very seriously. If we find any wrong doing by our members we'll take action on that, voiced Deputy Chief Jimmy Walker, KCMO Fire Department. Several advocates are working with PJ to help find a permanent home. KCTV5 will check back in with the fire department to find out the results of their investigation. Photo: Contributed Two more Puget Sound orcas are ailing and probably will be dead by summer, according an expert on the critically endangered population of killer whales that live in the waters of the Pacific Northwest. Drone photography taken this past September showed the ailing population of orcas known as the southern residents went into the winter thinner than when the whales arrived in the San Juan Islands last summer. They also are thinner than Puget Sound's so-called northern resident population of killer whales, which have been steadily growing in population for the past 40 years in their home waters primarily in northern British Columbia and southeast Alaska, where they have access to more fish and cleaner and quieter water. The northern residents gave birth to 10 new calves last year. The Seattle Times reports Center for Whale Research founding director Ken Balcomb said photos taken of a southern resident orca known as J17 on New Year's Eve showed the 42-year-old female has so-called peanut head a misshapen head and neck caused by starvation. In addition a 27-year-old male known as K25 is failing, also from lack of sufficient food. He lost his mother, K13, in 2017 and is not successfully foraging on his own. Several southern resident whales were documented to be pregnant in September, but so far there has been no sign of babies. The southern residents have not had a successful pregnancy in three years. The southern resident population is at a 35-year low after three deaths in 2018. There are only 74 left. Losing J17 would be a blow to the southern residents because she is a female still of reproducing age, said Deborah Giles, research scientist for University of Washington Center for Conservation Biology. The coming year is not looking any easier for the southern residents in terms of their food supply. The whales mostly eat chinook salmon. Ocean conditions and poor river migration, with warm water and low flows, have hurt chinook salmon returns in the past several years. Last month, two new areas off Vancouver Island were designated as protected critical habitat for resident killer whales by the Canadian government. Fisheries and Oceans Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said at the time the decision means key foraging locations for the endangered whales are protected from destruction. The government is increasing the amount of protected habitat from about 6,400 square kilometres to roughly 10,700 square kilometres. The new protected area is intended to help recovery efforts for northern and southern resident killer whales, and covers an area off southwestern Vancouver Island. The state of Washington also recently announced US$1.1 billion in spending and a partial whale-watching ban in an attempt to help the population's recovery. The money would go toward protecting and restoring habitat for salmon, boosting production from salmon hatcheries, storm-water cleanup and quieting vessel traffic. Photo: The Canadian Press Nancy Pelosi knew this moment would come, even if others had their doubts or worked to stop her. Pelosi was elected Thursday as House speaker, the only woman who has held the office and now one of few elected officials who will be returning to it. The last time a speaker regained the gavel was more than a half-century ago. The California Democrat has spent her political career being underestimated, only to prove the naysayers wrong. In this case, it was by winning back the Democratic majority and amassing the votes for the speaker's job. "None of us is indispensable," Pelosi told The Associated Press on the campaign trail last fall, "but I do know that I'm very good at what I do." In accepting the gavel, Pelosi will give a nod to the new era of divided government with a pledge to "reach across the aisle in this chamber and across the divisions in this great nation," according to her prepared remarks. "The floor of this House must be America's Town Hall: where the people will see our debates and where their voices will be heard and affect our decisions," she says. In previewing Democratic priorities, she talks about lowering health care costs, investing in green infrastructure and "restoring integrity" to government. "We must be champions of the middle class and all those who aspire to it because the middle class is the backbone of democracy," she says. Pelosi remains a highly polarizing figure, vilified by Republicans as a San Francisco liberal and a caricature of big government. But she is also a mother of five and a grandmother of nine who has shattered glass ceilings to become one of the most powerful politicians of the 21st century. With President Donald Trump in the White House and Republicans still controlling the Senate, Pelosi's return to the speaker's office to lead a Democratic majority with its biggest freshmen class since Watergate shakes up the dynamic in Washington even beyond the new era of divided government. Pelosi has faced pressure from some incoming Democrats who have been willing to talk about the possibility of impeachment proceedings against Trump. Pelosi has called impeachment a "divisive activity," and Democrats were cautious about mentioning the "I'' word during the 2018 midterms for fear it would backfire politically. TORONTO, Jan. 3, 2019 /CNW/ - Detour Gold Corporation (TSX : DGC) ("Detour Gold" or the "Company") announces the appointment of Bill Williams as Interim Chief Executive Officer ("CEO") replacing Michael Kenyon. The Board had previously accepted Mr. Kenyon's notice of resignation on December 13, 2018. The decision to appoint Mr. Williams as Interim CEO was made in coordination with the previously announced search for a new CEO of Detour Gold under the direction of the Human Resources & Compensation Committee of the Board. Mr. Williams is a recognized professional who was elected to the Board of Detour Gold at the special meeting of shareholders held on December 13, 2018. The Board is confident that Mr. Williams will provide proven experience, expert skills and competent guidance for the Company during the transition period between now and the appointment of a new CEO. James Gowans, Chairman of Detour Gold, issued the following statement: "The Board would like to thank Bill for stepping into the role of Interim CEO as we continue with the search for a new permanent CEO. We thank Michael for his service to Detour Gold as a director over the past 10 years and as Interim CEO over the past seven months, and wish him the best in his future endeavors." About Detour Gold Detour Gold is an intermediate gold producer in Canada that holds a 100% interest in the Detour Lake mine, a long life large-scale open pit operation. Detour Gold's shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the trading symbol DGC. For further information, please contact: Laurie Gaborit, VP Investor Relations Tel: 416-304-0581 Detour Gold Corporation, Commerce Court West, 199 Bay Street, Suite 4100, P.O. Box 121, Toronto, Ontario M5L 1E2 Part of the price Supporters of President Trump keep telling us that the media are biased; theyre too negative. Maybe so. But its hard to tell for sure, its hard to see whats fair, because Trump is a really, really, terrible human being. Hes vainglorious, arrogant and ignorant. Hes racist. He has diminished America in the eyes of the world. He lies all the time. I mean, look, this isnt debatable: he lies all the time. Hed rather ride a thousand miles to tell a lie than stand still and tell the truth. How do you report on someone like that fairly? Its like asking how you can be fair to herpes. If the media said, OK, lets make sure that 50 percent of our coverage is positive, theyd have to make up stories. This is the president conservatives wanted: essentially, a dumpster fire. They got it. The majority of voters didnt want him, though, and were going to complain about him. Suck it up thats part of the price you have to pay for voting for a dumpster fire. Evan Fisher Winston-Salem Bidding politicians Photo: Contributed Dana Thomas and Sharon Fekete of Penticton Regional Hospital display a respiratory ventilator similar to a model being purchased through a $15,000 grant from TB Vets. The intensive care unit at Penticton Regional Hospital has received funding for essential respiratory equipment from the TB Vets. The TB Vets Charitable Foundation has awarded a $15,000 grant to the hospital for a new V60 ventilator also known as a Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure Ventilator. Last year the ventilator in the hospitals ICU helped 62 patients. This valuable and frequently accessed equipment is used for many patients with a wide range of respiratory and cardiac issues to help stave off invasive ventilation and intubation, said Dana Thomas, professional practice leader for Respiratory Services at PRH. This equipment can help many patients get through an acute respiratory event where they are experiencing extreme shortness of breath and need time to allow medications or therapies to work, she said. It also provides an alternative for patients who do not wish to have invasive measures taken to support their breathing. The funding from TB Vets allows the hospital to replace an older unit that was no longer repairable. The grant is just one of many the organization awards to medical teams and first responders throughout BC each year. The critical need for life-saving respiratory equipment is endless, executive director Kandys Merola said. The new equipment helps your frontline heroes save lives. The grant is separate from the South Okanagan Similkameen Medical Foundations fundraising drive to provide medical equipment for the current hospital expansion. Warren, however, is a less formidable candidate than she was a year ago. The Post reports: While the race for the Democratic nomination is only starting, even Warrens supporters acknowledge that she has lost ground in the last few months, both by her own hand and because the November midterm elections redefined Democratic success with candidates who were in many cases a generation younger. Her effort to respond to Trumps Pocahontas jabs with a DNA test was wildly perceived as a blunder, and by some in the party, offensive. As a candidate, she at times hectors rather than inspires, sounding more like an activist/law professor than a compelling leader. (Contrast her style to that of President Barack Obama, who sported a very similar resume but was a gripping speaker who assumed the role of movement leader with ease.) On foreign policy, she has a steep hill to climb to sound like a credible alternative to Trump, although foreign policy is unlikely to be the most critical issue for Democratic primary voters. As with the hordes of other possible Democratic contenders, Warrens challenge will be twofold. First, shell need to distinguish herself from the crowd. (A less cranky Sanders? A more progressive Gillibrand?) While she may drain support away from Sanders, her toughest competitor for the blue-collar populism crowd might be Brown, whose everyman style and Rust Belt roots give him an advantage over a wonkish former law professor. Second, and perhaps most critical, is the challenge of finding a voice and a message that will appeal both to Democrats hearts and heads. Certainly, primary voters want to swoon over an articulate, charismatic figure, but more than anything, they want to win. Warren will have to wow voters with passion while convincing them she can hold her own against Trump, a task made harder by her DNA flub. Jennifer Rubin (jrubinblogger@gmail.com) is a columnist for The Washington Post. Follow her on Twitter @JRubinBlogger Even with such expansions, an enormous shortage of child-care services remains, with about 20,000 children wait-listed at nursery schools as of April. In this environment, it can seem risky to have kids if you want to work. Especially if you're a working woman, since Japanese women are still expected to take on nearly all parenting (and other household) responsibilities. Despite government campaigns and policy changes, gender roles remain relatively traditional in Japan. Fathers are entitled to a full year of paid parental leave, for example, but only about 5 percent take it. When they do, they typically claim fewer than five days. And the problem persists well after that first year of a child's life. Japanese fathers whose wives work outside the home spend about as much time on housework and child care as do fathers whose wives don't work outside the home. That's generally not because two-earner couples are outsourcing all their household tasks. Finding workers willing to do low-wage housework is challenging in Japan, given widespread labor shortages and restrictive immigration policies. But again, bit by bit, the government has been trying to change that. In fact, this month the Japanese parliament passed controversial legislation allowing more immigration, in part to address precisely this issue. The issue is complicated because it involves money, power and the future of Northern Ireland. No one wants to see the restoration of a border between the North and the Republic of Ireland, which almost certainly would lead to the violence that mostly ended following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, negotiated with the help of the Clinton administration. There is a "backstop" strategy in case next week's vote goes against May. It would effectively keep the entire UK in the EU customs union for a limited period until another vote could be taken, which, the government hopes after perhaps more horse trading, would produce a positive outcome. As with the U.S. government shutdown, passions are strong on both sides when it comes to Brexit. One side fears Britain will effectively be shut out of Europe should the break occur, while the other is fed-up with Brussels dictating policies that contribute to what they see as diminished British sovereignty. May was saddled with an issue about which she was not fully, or even mainly, onboard. She has bravely (some critics say foolishly) pressed ahead anyway, saying that she is simply carrying out the wishes of a majority of voters. None of our residents have said anything to us one way or another about it, she said, adding that Clachan sees the issue as one between the city, county and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The Confederate soldiers statue is prominent on the web site for the courthouse renovation, which has a large photo showing the old courthouse as it looks from the corner of Liberty and Fourth Streets. We just own the building and not the statue, Creason said. Our use and renovation of the historic building doesnt have anything to do with the statue. Carmon said that while courthouse residents may not have said anything to building managers, there are other people who have expressed safety concerns to their city council representatives, who in turn passed them on to her. Joines said that over the last year hes been talking with the UDC, hoping to convince the group that a site in Salem Cemetery, where dozens of Confederate soldiers are buried near each other, would be a more appropriate place for the monument. Joines most recently talked to the UDC sometime after the toppling of Silent Sam in Chapel Hill. If the UDC would agree to a move, Joines said, the city would pay all the costs, including any repairs involved in reassembling the memorial. We dont think it is very costly, but we want to make sure it is done very carefully, Joines said. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. A contract dispute led to WGHP Fox 8 being taken off Spectrum cable in the Triad Wednesday evening. At about 6:30 p.m., WGHPs signal was taken off the cable service, replaced by a notice from Spectrum saying that Tribune Media, the company that owns WGHP and TV stations in 24 other markets around the country, had removed the programming. They want us to pay three times our current rate to carry the same programming, the notice said. We offered a fair price and they insist we pay them materially more than we pay any other of the 1,700 broadcast stations we carry WGHP has updated the website https://keepmystation.com/wghp/ to alert viewers to the latest developments. The site provides a FAQ and a suggestion to call a number that is redirected to Spectrum customer service. The dispute is over retransmission consent, which allows television providers such as Spectrum to carry broadcast channels in a given market. Tribune Media owns TV stations in 24 markets, including WGHP in the Triad. Spectrum is owned by Charter Communications. Howell said that, to replace Wooten, Kimbrough will select the best candidate for the county and for the sheriffs office. Were in no hurry to make that decision, but the position will be filled, she said. Howell said she had no information about when Kimbrough would make a decision on a new chief deputy. Wooten, who also has worked as a private investigator and a contractor investigator for the federal government, ran in the Democratic primary this May for sheriff. He lost, coming in second to Kimbrough. Wooten has had a varied, sometimes controversial law-enforcement career. His first job in law-enforcement was with the Winston-Salem Police Department and he also served as chief of the Town of Cooleemees police department. He worked as a deputy sheriff with the Forsyth County Sheriffs Office in 1985 and resigned from the department in 1995. His second stint with the sheriffs office started in 2003, when he worked as a corporal, a deputy sheriff and a detective. Schatzman fired Wooten in June 2010. After the firing, Wooten helped organize a group of former deputies to lobby for state law to be changed. They wanted county officials to have authority over personnel decisions that sheriffs make. The dismissal came after Boyds attorneys, Amiel Rossabi and N. Adam Spivey, filed a motion in November for a judgment on the pleadings. In the motion, Rossabi and Spivey deny that the strip club was negligent in Pegues death. But even if the company were negligent, they said, it wouldnt matter because Pegues killing was a criminal act that trumps whatever liability the company may have. Rossabi said there was no way that anyone could have predicted that Pegues would be shot by someone and because of that, the company should not be held responsible for it. Theres no joy in this because someone died, Rossabi said Wednesday about Wilsons ruling. My client has always sent his condolences to the family of Mr. Pegues, but that did not mean he was liable for it. In July, Judge Richard Gottlieb of Forsyth Superior Court set aside a $4.7 million judgment another judge had previously awarded after finding that the lawsuit was never properly served on Boyd and his company. How can I be so sure? Because weve seen this movie before, in late 2003 and early 2004, and it followed almost exactly the same plot and script. A 10-year-old boy named C.J. Eller was mauled and killed by a 400-pound tiger that his uncle kept as a pet near the Wilkes County community of Millers Creek. The boy was shoveling snow when the tiger pulled him inside its cage and mauled him to death. Less than two months later, a 14-year-old girl in Surry County named Stacy Stevens was seriously injured after being mauled by a 200-pound tiger owned by her father. She was taking photos when she was bitten in the cheek and neck. There were four tigers. She was inside a pen with one of them, said John Shelton, the director of emergency services in Surry County, in January 2004. Three of the tigers were shot by the owners, and one was shot by animal control. There were some obvious differences between the big cat attacks then and now, of course. The biggest one being that the conservator center had a license from the U.S. Department of Agriculture but no accreditation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which presumably means stricter safety and security. It is very difficult to identify early blown glassware from the 18th century because talented modern glass blowers can make good copies in the earlier styles and colors. Today, chemical analysis of the glass, along with other modern methods, can identify the source of the sand (silica) used in glass. It was discovered that many museums had 1930s Mexican copies. A bright cobalt blue-blown covered sugar bowl was sold at a Norman C. Heckler & Co. auction for $2,340. It is 6 inches high and 4 inches in diameter. It has a pontil scar. The finial on the lid is shaped like an acorn, but the best clue to its age is the engraving A.G. 1780 on the glass and the knowledge that it has been in a famous glass collection for many years. Experts think it was made in the Pittsburgh area. If you are lucky enough to find a piece of early American blown glass, look at the shape and clarity of the glass, ask about the history, and look for scratches and other marks that indicate wear. Then get a bill of sale that describes the piece and includes the probable age and history. Also, be sure there is a money-back guarantee if the piece turns out to be a fake. Most auctions do this, but online sales of unknown dealers or galleries can be dangerous, especially when you are buying old glass. The trailers were stolen either Monday or Tuesday from the parking lot of the Okanagan Landing Community Church. The trailers belong to Jacs Apollo's stepfather, Ray, a Vernon pensioner who has donated his time and trailers to helping the community. "He'd use the trailer to help people at his church. He's moved people all the way from Vancouver and he's never asked for a dime," explains Apollo. "He's the type of guy who would help anybody." Apollo shared his story with Castanet. He says that sometime on either Monday or Tuesday the lock into the backyard of the church was cut and the trailers were stolen. A smaller trailer was parked inside the larger trailer. Ray noticed the trailers were stolen after going down to the church to take down the Christmas decorations. "So yeah, not only did they steal from a pensioner but also from a church," said Apollo. "He was so upset, he was almost crying." A police report has been filed, but Apollo convinced his stepfather to allow him to share his story on social media. Reluctantly, Ray agreed. Apollo shared pictures of the larger trailer and the story of how it was stolen from the church to several community Facebook forums. "I don't think he understands the power of the internet." In less than 24-hours, his posts have been shared almost 1,000 times in places as far away as Calgary and the Peace Region the post was even shared in Sooke on Vancouver Island. The trailers combined value is somewhere in the neighbourhood of $18,000. To make matters worse, Apollo says his stepfather was in the process of renewing his insurance, so the trailers aren't covered. "If he doesn't get the trailers back, he doesn't even get insurance on it, and he has lost everything." Apollo is hoping that by sharing the story, he can hopefully help his stepfather reclaim his stolen trailers. He is asking anybody who may have seen the trailers or spotted a trailer with the license plate 5710 6D to call police immediately. "All he does is go around and help people," says Apollo. "It's just really sad to see that thieves would come in and just steal his trailer out from under him. It is the only thing he really has." The real-estate arm of Cook Out Inc. has bought another Forsyth County restaurant property, this time a former Burger King site. 2897 Reynolds Road Inc. has spent $1.15 million to purchase the property at 2897 Reynolda Road. The deal closed Friday. Photo: Pam Fraser Pam Fraser had never been on a motorcycle or anything resembling one, such as the three-wheeled Piaggio scooter her husband Benn hauled home from the dealership 10 years ago. "I thought for sure he is going to kill himself on this thing," she said. Ben, a firefighter at the time, relented, trading in the Piaggio a few months later. "The next thing you know he's buying a Can-Am Spyder," recalled Pam, 64. "Boys and their toys." Benn, 66, who gave up biking as a young man, implored her to try the trike, made by Quebec-based BRP Inc. and resembling one of the company's Ski-Doos on wheels one in the back, two wide apart in the front. "So I put on my snowmobile helmet and popped on behind him and went for a little ride," Pam said, her risk aversion honed by decades in personal insurance. "I was hooked." The roadster has rerouted their retirement. Pam and Brian have put more than 250,000 kilometres on seven Spyders over the past decade. They've trekked to trike rallies in Missouri, Tennessee and North Carolina. Last July they rode to Deadwood, S.D., notching 1,000 kilometres a day. "I wouldn't say it's a hobby; it's more of a lifestyle," said Pam, who moderates the Ontario Spyder Ryders Facebook page, which counts more than 770 members. "It gives you a sense of freedom that you don't have in a car." The retirees from Orangeville, Ont., are part of a growing wave of baby boomers who are rediscovering life on the open road aboard the motorbike's more stable cousin, the three-wheeled motorcycle. And manufacturers are scrambling to get on board, aiming to expand a mere industry sidecar into a major driver of sales while dodging licensing obstacles and derision from the hog elite. The number of three-wheeled vehicles registered in Quebec rose 60 per cent to 15,147 between 2014 and 2017, according to the Transport Ministry. Motorcycles grew 17 per cent to 185,416 in the same period. The rest of the country has been slower to adopt, but producers have their eyes on sunnier climes than Canada. Companies like BRP, Harley-Davidson Inc., Quebec-based Campagna Motors and Minnesota's Polaris Industries are looking to expand in the U.S. as well as Australia, Japan and Europe. BRP chief executive Jose Boisjoli hopes to triple global sales of three-wheelers over five years to more than $1 billion or nearly one-quarter of total company revenues in 2017 driven largely by the newly released Ryker roadster. The sporty trike chops the Spyder's starting price of US$17,000 to US$8,500 in a bid to attract younger and less wealthy riders. Ultimately, though, youth is not where it's at. The average Spyder customer is 62, Boisjoli said. "To be honest, at the beginning we were saying we should attract younger people. But lately we're saying, why? Retired people have disposable income. They have time," he said. Enthusiasts say three-wheelers offer the exhilaration of a standard motorcycle but without the physical strain that comes with it. Still, some traditionalists remain resistant, even hostile, to three-wheelers, said Jeff Maguire, an account director with a Toronto-based ad agency that focuses on power sport products. "Most motorcyclists wave to each other," he said. "I've noticed with Can-Ams, that doesn't really happen. It's not that they don't wave, but they don't get a wave back." The sentiment may be "snobbish," but having tried three-wheelers, he said he gets where it's coming from. "It took all the things you get from riding a motorcycle the freedom, the handling, the ability to lean into a corner and sucked the fun out of it," said Maguire, a third-generation biker who owns two Harleys and a 1972 Honda. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 3) House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr. made another allegation against Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno and his in-laws during a House panel hearing on Thursday. He said based on the documents obtained by the House Committee on Rules, the bidding process for the Department of Public Works and Highways' flood-control projects in the Bicol Region are merely for show. He said the winning bidders lend their license to Aremar Construction so they can work on the project. He said the winning bidder only receives a commission from Aremar, a construction company owned by Diokno's in-laws. The Camarines Sur representative showed a copy of a deposit slip, which he claimed came from a winning contractor from Bicol. It showed that P11.416 million was deposited to the Landbank account of Aremar in October 2018 as "collection for DPWH project." He alleged that Bulacan-based C.T. Leoncio Trading and Construction was one of the winning contractors used by Aremar. In 2018, it won flood-control projects despite it being a single proprietorship firm. "Sa ating kaso ngayon, lumalabas na ang C.T. Leoncio ang nanalo sa project pero ang totoong may-ari ng proyekto ay Aremar Construction," Andaya said during the first hearing into the alleged anomalies in the Department of Budget and Management. The former Budget Secretary said C.T. Leoncio bagged 36 projects worth P2.1 billion in Sorsogon and Catanduanes in 2018. "We found out that C.T. Leoncio's major partner for its Bicol projects is Aremar Construction. Five of its blue chip projects are in partnership with Aremar Construction. In fact, almost 1/3 of C.T.'s total projects in Catanduanes and Sorsogon, P550M out of P1.5B, found their way to Aremar Construction," Andaya said. The solon said he will seek the help of Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to uncover the bank transactions of C.T. Leoncio and Aremar. He also claimed it is not just C.T. Leoncio which acted as a front for Aremar, but other contractors as well. Aremar is owned by the daughter of Casiguran, Sorsogon Mayor Edwin Hamor and Sorsogon Vice Governor Ester Hamor. The vice governor's son from her previous marriage Romeo "Jojo" Sicat Jr is the husband of Diokno's daughter. "As the legal wife of Romeo Jr, Charlotte Diokno will be considered as a co-owner of what Romeo Jr. owns in Aremar Construction. Clear case of conflict of interest. The Hamor couple are in-laws of Sec. Diokno. Sa Tagalog, balae," Andaya said in the hearing held in Naga City, Camarines Sur. Based on CNN Philippines' investigation, C.T. Leoncio bagged 289 DPWH contracts in 13 regions worth almost P14 billion in the past three years alone. Of this amount, P10 billion went to 208 projects under the Duterte administration, carried out as a solo contractor or in a joint venture. The remaining P3 billion were awarded in the first half of 2016 when Diokno became Budget Secretary. Andaya also raised the "disturbing patterns" surrounding that Budget Department's allocation for flood-control projects under the DPWH. He added DPWH Secretary Mark Villar was surprised that his department's P480 billion budget suddenly ballooned to P555 billion - with an "insertion" P75 billion. "Bumabaha ng pondo mula DBM papuntang DPWH," the solon said. He said over P385 million went to the flood-control projects of Casiguran in the proposed 2019 budget that Diokno prepared. He highlighted that based on their studies, there is no threat of flooding in Casiguran in the next 25 years. "We also have reason to believe that the DBM has been allocating funds for the DPWH flood-control projects in utter disregard of existing rules and regulation," he said. Andaya continued enumerating the supposed anomalies in budget under the watch of Diokno. "Sa tatlong taon na si Secretary Diokno ang DBM ay aabot sa P332 billion ang ginagamit at gagamitin pa para sa flood-control project. Nilalagay ng DBM ang bultong pondo ng flood-control project sa lugar na hindi bahain," he said. Diokno has vehemently denied Andaya's allegations. The presidential palace has also rejected calls from House lawmakers to remove Diokno from his post. Meanwhile, C.T. Leoncio's owner denied personally knowing Diokno. Consolacion Leoncio also said she does not favor Aremar over any other company. "Hindi ko pinaboran ang Aremar Construction, nag-joint venture kami," she said during the hearing. She added that Aremar approached her liaison Francisco Clemente to go into a joint venture. The House panel is set to subpoena Clemente. CNN Philippines' Lara Tan and Xianne Arcangel contributed to this report. Della A. (Kinkade) McGuire, 85, passed away at 12:15 a.m. on Thursday, June 10th, 2021 at the Presbyterian Manor in Parsons, KS, where she had lived for almost three years. On July 28, 1953, Della married Max E. McGuire. He preceded her in death on January 21, 1999. Della is survived by her Scene Editor Billy Arnold covers arts and entertainment. He apprenticed as a sound engineer at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, Ohio before making his way to Jackson, where he has become a low-key fan of country music. Bruce Smith was the National Elk Refuge biologist from 1982 to 2004. He authored the book Life on the Rocks: A Portrait of the American Mountain Goat. Guest Shots are solely the opinion of their author. Cody Cottier covers town and state government. He grew up with a view of the Olympic Mountains, and after graduating Washington State University he traded it for a view of the Tetons. Odds are the mountains are where youll find him when not on deadline. Allie Gross covers Teton County government. Originally from the Chicago area, she joined the News&Guide in 2017 after studying politics and Spanish at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Kylie Mohr covers the education and health beats. Mohr grew up in Washington and came to Wyoming via Georgetown. She loves seeing the starry night sky again. Tom Hallberg covers a little bit of everything, from skiing to long-form feature stories. A Teton Valley, Idaho, transplant by way of Portland and Bend, Oregon, he spends his time outside work writing fiction, splitboarding and climbing. Photo: AP Saudi Arabia announced on Thursday it will seek the death penalty against five suspects in the slaying of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a killing that has seen members of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's entourage implicated in the writer's assassination. Prosecutors announced that 11 suspects in the slaying attended their first court hearing with lawyers, but the statement did not name those in court. It also did not explain why seven other suspects arrested over the Oct. 2 killing at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul did not immediately face formal charges. The kingdom previously announced 18 people had been arrested. Saudi officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The killing of Khashoggi, who wrote columns critical of Prince Mohammed, has strained the decades-long ties the kingdom enjoys with the United States. It also has added to a renewed international push to end the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The state-run Saudi Press Agency and state television gave few details about the hearing. "The Public Prosecutor demanded imposing proper punishments against the defendants and is seeking capital punishment for five of the defendants for their direct involvement in the murder," a statement from prosecutors said, without elaborating. The suspects requested copies of the indictments they faced, as well as asked for more time to prepare for their case, prosecutors said. While vague on details about the case, prosecutors made a point to express concerns about Turkey. They alleged that Turkish officials did not answer two formal requests made for evidence in the case. "To date, the Saudi Public Prosecutor has not received any response, and the Public Prosecution is still awaiting their response," the statement said. Officials in Ankara could not be immediately reached for comment. Turkish officials have previously said they shared evidence with Saudi Arabia and other nations over Khashoggi's killing. Turkey also has demanded Saudi Arabia extradite those 18 suspects to be tried there for Khashoggi's killing. Turkish security officials have kept up a slow leak of videos, photographs and morbid details surrounding Khashoggi's slaying to pressure the kingdom, as the two U.S.-allied countries vie for influence over the wider Mideast. Turkish media have published photographs of members of the crown prince's entourage at the consulate in Istanbul ahead of the slaying. Khashoggi's body, believed to have been dismembered after his killing, has yet to be found. Khashoggi, 59, entered the consulate Oct. 2 as his fiancee waited outside. But unbeknownst to him, a team of Saudi officials had flown in before his arrival and laid in wait for him. Saudi Arabia denied for weeks that Khashoggi had been killed but later changed its story and ultimately acknowledged the brutal slaying. King Salman ordered the restructuring of the country's intelligence service, but has so far shielded Prince Mohammed, his 33-year-old son who is next in line to the throne in the oil giant kingdom. Emily Mieure covers criminal justice and emergency news. She also leads the News&Guides investigative efforts. She has reported for WDRB TV in Louisville, Ky., WFIE TV in Evansville, Ind., and WEIU TV in Charleston, Ill. Photo: The Canadian Press A home in Shaughnessy, an upscale neighbourhood in Vancouver is pictured, March, 13, 2018. It was a "stunning" property in the heart of downtown Toronto, but for broker Caroline Baile it was a tough sell. That's because the home had been the site of a recent murder, a domestic dispute turned fatal. Baile would tell potential buyers about the tragic death that took place, but the property's story was already well known thanks to intense media coverage of the crime. "It was challenging to sell it," she said, not wanting to go into too much detail to protect client privacy. "So we ended up leasing it to cover carrying costs." The renters were aware of the property's history and once the media attention subsided, the property was sold. But for some people, the knowledge that a murder took place in a home is enough to make them walk away from a purchase even if it is at a steep discount in a hot market. That is, for those who are aware that something happened. While there are rules requiring disclosure of issues concerning a property such as defect like a hole in a roof or mould, for non-physical problems such as violent crime, the law largely says "caveat emptor" or buyer beware, said Alan Silverstein, an Ontario-based real estate lawyer. Quebec does have a law that requires sellers to disclose when a person has died an unnatural death on their property. But in other provinces, the guidelines are blurry. "A murder is more psychological than factual... When you get into the area of murder and suicides, natural causes, we don't have clear rules," Silverstein said. There are also differing guidelines for agents or sellers, he added. In Ontario, for example, the seller has no legal requirement to disclose a stigma such as murder and the onus is on the buyer and their realtor to find out. However, real estate agents in the province have an ethical obligation to disclose the existence of stigmas, according to the Ontario Real Estate Association. Agents are also required to tell potential buyers about these issues at the earliest possible convenience, said Barry Lebow, a Toronto realtor and expert on stigmatized properties. "You cannot disclose it at the table once there is an offer.... you don't wait until the last minute, but that happens," he said. If the agent or seller is asked a question, they cannot give a false answer, Silverstein said. The former owner of a Vancouver mansion learned this lesson after the B.C. Supreme court ordered her to return a $300,000 deposit after a sale fell through because she didn't tell the buyer about a suspected gang-related murder of her son-in-law at the front gate in 2007. Feng Yun Shao reneged on her $6.1-million offer on the 9,000-square-foot mansion in 2009 just days after forwarding the deposit. The would-be buyer asked why they were selling and was told the owner had moved back to China and her daughter had moved to a location closer to her child's school, according to court documents. Neither the owner, her daughter or the realtor told Shao about the unsolved slaying, and the judge said she was the victim of a "fraudulent misrepresentation." Still, as homes change hands over the years, a property's dark secrets don't always get passed on. "If the seller doesn't know about something, it's hard to hold them liable," Silverstein said. Also, it's unclear how far back in a property's history must be disclosed. Some jurisdictions, such as California, stipulate the seller is obligated to disclose a death on a property if it occurred within the three years prior to the sale. "We need some hard and fast rules," Silverstein said. Buyers who are uncomfortable with living in a home where a violent crime took place should do extensive research on any property that catches their eye. In addition to the obvious online address searches, potential buyers should also ask their would-be neighbours for information about the home, said Silverstein. MiMi-Sandra of Fort Worth, born 7 September 1945 in Jacksonville to Joe Selman Gore and Jeffie Gwendolyn (Lazenby) Gore. Preceded by her parents and five siblings. Survived by her husband, daughters, four siblings, nieces and nephews. Expert on Climate Change to Speak at Founders Day Convocation Naomi Oreskes Photo by Kayana Szymczak BLOOMINGTON, Ill. A leading voice on the issue of anthropogenic climate change, Naomi Oreskes, will present the keynote address at Illinois Wesleyan Universitys Founders Day Convocation on Wednesday, Jan. 16 at 11 a.m. in Presser Halls Westbrook Auditorium (1210 N. Park St., Bloomington). The event will mark the 169th anniversary of IWUs founding and is free and open to the public. Founders Day honors the 30 civic and religious leaders who came together in 1850 to establish an Institution of learning of Collegiate grade. An internationally renowned geologist, science historian, and author, Oreskes earned a doctorate degree in geological research and history of science from Stanford University. She currently serves as a professor of the history of science, and affiliated professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University. Prior to Harvard, she spent 15 years teaching at the University of California San Diego, as well as the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In addition to her work as an educator, Oreskes research focuses on the history of earth and environmental science, with a particular interest in understanding scientific consensus and dissent. She is the author of both scholarly and popular books and articles, including her 2004 article The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change, in which she analyzed nearly 1,000 scientific journals to assess the magnitude of scientific consensus around human-caused climate change. The article has been widely cited, both in the U.S. and abroad, including in the Academy-award winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, and in Ian McEwans novel, Solar. The article led Oreskes to testify in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Oreskes is also the co-author of two books with Erik M. Conway: Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco to Global warming (2010) and The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future (2014). Merchants of Doubt was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Time Book Prize, and it received the 2011 Watson-Davis Prize from the History of Science Society. Along with her scholarly work, Oreskes has written opinion pieces that have appeared in many publications, including, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and The Times (London) in addition to presenting TED Talks. In 2014, she met Pope Francis at a special Vatican meeting on climate change and sustainability, and in 2015 she wrote the introduction to the Melville House edition of the Papal Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality, Laudato Si. Oreskes talk is a co-curricular event of Illinois Wesleyans annual theme Changing Climates. Ahead of Oreskes' Founders' Day talk, the IWU community is invited to attend a screening of Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco to Global Warming on Monday, Jan. 14 at 7 p.m. in Beckman Auditorium of The Ames Library. Following Oreskes' talk on Wednesday, Jan. 16, courses associated with the annual theme, "Changing Climates," will kick off the semester by hosting a discussion at noon in the Memorial Center's Young Main Lounge. By Vi Kakares 20 Get unlimited access to all content and features at ivpressonline.com with our Full Online Access Subscription. Read our E-Edition, the digital replica of the print newspaper online, access content in exclusive sections including Family, Teen, Business, Databases, Farm and more. This option does not include daily home delivery of the Imperial Valley Press newspaper. For home delivery service, please select Premium or Premium Plus. Photo: The Canadian Press This image made available by NASA on Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019 shows the size and shape of the object Ultima Thule, about 1 billion miles beyond Pluto. The New Horizons spacecraft encountered it on Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019. A NASA spacecraft 4 billion miles from Earth yielded its first close-up pictures Wednesday of the most distant celestial object ever explored, depicting what looks like a reddish snowman. Ultima Thule, as the small, icy object has been dubbed, was found to consist of two fused-together spheres, one of them three times bigger than the other, extending about 21 miles (33 kilometres) in length. NASA's New Horizons, the spacecraft that sent back pictures of Pluto 3 1/2 years ago, swept past the ancient, mysterious object early on New Year's Day. It is 1 billion miles (1.6 billion kilometres) beyond Pluto. On Tuesday, based on early, fuzzy images taken the day before, scientists said Ultima Thule resembled a bowling pin. But when better, closer pictures arrived, a new consensus emerged Wednesday. "The bowling pin is gone. It's a snowman!" lead scientist Alan Stern informed the world from Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory , home to Mission Control in Laurel. The bowling pin image is "so 2018," joked Stern, who is with the Southwest Research Institute. The celestial body was nicknamed Ultima Thule meaning "beyond the known world" before scientists could say for sure whether it was one object or two. With the arrival of the photos, they are now calling the bigger sphere Ultima and the smaller one Thule. Thule is estimated to be 9 miles (14 kilometres) across, while Ultima is thought to be 12 miles (19 kilometres). Scientist Jeff Moore of NASA's Ames Research Center said the two spheres formed when icy, pebble-size pieces coalesced in space billions of years ago. Then the spheres spiraled closer to each other until they gently touched as slowly as parking a car here on Earth at just a mile or two per hour and stuck together. Despite the slender connection point, the two lobes are "soundly bound" together, according to Moore. Scientists have ascertained that the object takes about 15 hours to make a full rotation. If it were spinning fast say, one rotation every three or four hours the two spheres would rip apart. Stern noted that the team has received less than 1 per cent of all the data stored aboard New Horizons. It will take nearly two years to get it all. The two-lobed object is what is known as a "contact binary." It is the first contact binary NASA has ever explored. Having formed 4.5 billion years ago, when the solar system taking shape, it is also the most primitive object seen up close like this. About the size of a city, Ultima Thule has a mottled appearance and is the colour of dull brick, probably because of the effects of radiation bombarding the icy surface, with brighter and darker regions. Scientists consider Ultima Thule an exquisite time machine that should provide clues to the origins of our solar system. It's neither a comet nor an asteroid, according to Stern, but rather "a primordial planetesimal." Unlike comets and other objects that have been altered by the sun over time, Ultima Thule is in its pure, original state: It's been in the deep-freeze Kuiper Belt on the fringes of our solar system from the beginning. "This thing was born somewhere between 99 per cent and 99.9 per cent of the way back to T-zero (liftoff) in our solar system, really amazing," Stern said. He added: "We've never seen anything like this before. It's not fish or fowl. It's something that's completely different." Still, he said, when all the data comes in, "there are going to be mysteries of Ultima Thule that we can't figure out." Police release rules for protesters, officers | Board of Ed. clears up vax misinformation | IC professor, author talks about new book | BVC catches the latest at Regal | Enjoy your summer in the Finger Lakes Read Digital Edition This year is going to be fascinating because there are so many interrelated moving parts. Its not all technology. Politically, well have a battle royal in the U.S. between the U.S. president and half of the U.S. congress, which should have an adverse impact on the stock market and create a drag on spending, particularly for the U.S. government. Investigations and trials will, I expect, make 2018 look relatively benign. Then, at some point, there will be an increased focus on information accuracy and that should drive some interesting apps. But bigger changes are ahead. 5G A lot has been said about 5G, which begins rolling out early this year. The part we dont talk about is the part that will likely drive the most dramatic changes in how we do things. Im talking about low latency; this will allow us to do far more things, like gaming and productivity apps, in the cloud. This should shift preferences from device-focused performance to better batteries and better modems and focus us on cloud, rather than device, features. This will affect everything from where we work to where the power resides in PC and smartphone segments because the cloud will increasingly be king and our devices increasingly more like cable-connected TVs. I expect it will take some time for the PC and smartphone industry to fully catch on to this, but we should get some interesting 5G devices in a few months. Microsoft Virtual Desktop Building on 5G and the cloud trend in general is the Microsoft Virtual Desktop, which should get to critical mass this year. Promising a patch- and largely support-free future, this will be the biggest step toward turning desktop hardware into appliances yet. With higher security, nearly unlimited performance on demand, and a vastly improved user experience, this should take us far closer to a time when well never have to set up, update, or back up a PC again. This should push the power change from PC vendor to cloud service provider ever more aggressively but, I expect, the full impact probably wont be felt until after this year. This should massively improve the fortunes for the Always Connected PC initiatives and likely have us rethinking old initiatives like Microsofts Continuum. Intel Intel will have to finally settle on a new CEO this year and it isnt looking pretty. The board, at this writing, appears to be largely lost in what should be an easy decision but since the Intel board has only one truly qualified person on it, this has been like watching a bunch of people run with scissors in slow motion. You know it is going to end badly. You just dont know when that will happen. The fight with Qualcomm is increasingly looking to be a bad attempt for a large company to bully a smaller firm and the tide of litigation had already been turning against the effort. With the rise of AI, Intel is focused on the wrong trend, 5G, and will likely find 2019 to be a pivotal year, but in the wrong direction for them. Apple Things are going really badly for Apple at the moment. With the announcement that Apple will fall well short of financial expectations, some have the price target for the stock far below where it is now trading. Much of this is being connected to the trade war between China and the U.S. but that may be because Apple wants to distract from the adverse rulings, injunctions and boycotts in places like Germany and China. This is all distracting from the problem that Apples last true hit product was the iPad, which goes back to when Steve Jobs was still alive and connected to the company. The companys rumored move to automobiles probably wont go as well as even its execution on the Apple Watch and Home Pod. I mean, if you cant be successful in a market you know, why would you think youll be successful in a market you dont know? Apple will likely be looking for a new CEO before year end. Qualcomm Last year, Qualcomm impressively held off both Apple and Intel with a combined market cap often exceeding a trillion dollars and Qualcomm isnt even a $75B company. Even more impressive is that Qualcomm never really took the gloves off, even though it was clear early on that Intel and Apple were maneuvering to put the firm out of business. With the deployment of 5G and the various trials all over the world seeming to spin in Qualcomms favor, this firm could continue to eclipse its distracted rivals largely because it focused on getting things done and not on winning the litigation. The fact that far larger and more powerful firms had to resort to litigation rather than market forces is telling and showcases just how well Qualcomm is executing at the moment. Tesla Im going to include Tesla in this because it is headed for a bit of a wall (and it isnt having a great week). You see, power station providers have started to roll out 350 KW and 450 KW chargers tied to the CSS/SAE specification, which doesnt currently work with Teslas. Tesla Superchargers, currently the fastest in market installed in volume, are only 100 KW. Granted, there are currently no shipping cars that will take this much power. However, the Porsche Taycan, a 2020 car shipping in 2019, has sold out for the year and the buyers are mostly Tesla owners, which doesnt bode well for Tesla. Teslas power distribution network is about to go from strong asset to liability if the firm doesnt get that proprietary power stations will not work long term any more than gas stations that only worked with Fords would have worked last century. This also suggests, given that Tesla was partially modeled after Apple, that Apple should learn from Teslas mistakes before entering the electric car market, but Ill bet it wont. Wrapping Up: 2019 to Be a Year of Surprises 2019 will be a year to remember with firms like Microsoft rising again to power (currently holding a higher market cap than Apple) and long-term market leaders (talking about Apple, Tesla, and Intel) dropping largely due to bad decisions, poor execution, and lots of distractions. I have my doubts whether Facebook will even survive the year, as it seems to be a magnet for catastrophic mistakes, or at least it was in 2018. Even Google is exiting social media and FAANG stocks in general look to be a bad investment. We are only at the beginning of the year and I didnt mention yet the changes well see with companies like NVIDIA and IBM as we move to the next generation of AI. Well leave that for next week for now. Hold on to your hats, as 2019 looks to be massively disruptive. Rob Enderle is President and Principal Analyst of the Enderle Group, a forward-looking emerging technology advisory firm. With over 30 years experience in emerging technologies, he has provided regional and global companies with guidance in how to better target customer needs; create new business opportunities; anticipate technology changes; select vendors and products; and present their products in the best possible light. Rob covers the technology industry broadly. Before founding the Enderle Group, Rob was the Senior Research Fellow for Forrester Research and the Giga Information Group, and held senior positions at IBM and ROLM. Follow Rob on Twitter @enderle, on Facebook and on Google+ News Villagers Forced to Flee During Ceasefire Period Displaced locals from four villages in Namtu Township take shelter at the monastery in Mansan Village, after skirmishes between interethnic groups in northern Shan State on January 2, 2019. / Nang Kham Aye / Facebook YANGONOver 300 locals from four villages in Namtu Township, northern Shan State are taking refuge at the nearby village of Mansan due to the interethnic fighting between armed groups based in the area this week. Amid fighting which has been taking place some 16 kilometers (10 miles) away from Namtu since Dec. 31, 316 people fled to Mansan Village on Jan. 1 and 2 and they are now taking shelter at the monastery, said U Khin Maung Kyi, Mansans village administrator. The fighting broke out between troops of Restoration Council of Shan State/Shan State Army South (RCSS/SSAS) and the combined forces of Shan State Progressive Party/ Shan State Army North (SSPP/SSAN) and Taang Nationalities Liberation Army (TNLA), according to the local residents. Shan State is one of the regions covered by the Myanmar Armys four-month truce announced Dec. 22, but the residents of villages in Namtu Township are unable to enjoy safety or peace during the ceasefire period. For the past few years, they have frequently had to flee from their homes while clashes took place near their villages, returning only after the troops left. The people lack security and protection as always, said Nang Kham Aye, the Lower House lawmaker representing Namtu Township. I got calls from the people of Manwah Village where the fighting was happening on Wednesday, and they said they were hiding in their own bunkers. They have not yet arrived to a safe place, she told The Irrawaddy. Villagers from a number of other villages where a few dozen locals live in Namtu Township have not yet left their homes. RCSS spokesman Sai Meng said the brief skirmish between their troops and the alliance troops in the area did not cause any casualties. News Road Toll on Death Highway Drops in 2018 Road casualties declined on the Yangon-Mandalay Highway in 2018 from the previous year. / The Irrawaddy NAYPYITAWA total of 103 people were killed on the Yangon-Mandalay Highway last year, Highway Police said. Speeding remained the main cause of road accidents. Along with the 103 people killed, 877 were injured in 473 traffic accidents last year. Tire blowouts were another major cause of fatal road accidents, police said. The numbers of accidents and casualties declined from 2017, when 116 people died and 863 were injured in 555 road accidents. In 2016, 774 road accidents killed 170 people and injured 1,304. The majority of accidents last year involved private vehicles, most of them light trucks, police said. Since June 1 last year, drivers and passengers of private vehicles and express buses have been required to wear seatbelts while driving on the highway. Highway Police impose a fine of 50,000 kyats on drivers caught speeding, while people who fail to wear seatbelts are fined 30,000 kyats. Last year, police pulled over more than 1,000 vehicles due to occupants failure to wear seatbelts. The number of road accidents has declined since police began enforcing speed limits and seatbelt laws, said lawmaker U Than Soe Aung, a member of the Lower House Transportation, Communication and Construction Committee. It is called a highway, but its still an ordinary road. There is a need to improve the road signage and surface, he told The Irrawaddy. Every day, more than 20,000 vehicles use the some 400-mile highway, which sees around seven road accidents a day, according to police. Road signs have improved lately, said road user U Win Zaw Oo. And the presence of police patrols make me feel safe should I have a flat tire while driving late at night. But there is a need to brighten the yellow lines [separating lanes] for late-night driving. The highway, which connects commercial hub Yangon with the countrys administrative capital Naypyitaw and second-largest city Mandalay, came into service in 2009. It has been dubbed the death highway by local road users due to the high number of accidents. News Fruit Growers Losses Mount Due to Muse Border Checkpoint Closure Trucks unload fruit at the Kwa Nyo fruit brokerage in Muse. / Kwa Nyo Brokerage MANDALAYMyanmar melon exporters are suffering serious losses following authorities closure of a key border gate for fruit exports at the Mile 105 Muse border trade zone on the Myanmar-China border, traders told The Irrawaddy. According to the Muse-based border traders, the Myanmar Army (or Tatmadaw) closed the Jin San Jiao Gate on the evening of Dec. 26 for security reasons. Border traders and growers have sent a letter to authorities asking about the closure, but have had no response after one week, Ko Sai Min Thu Naing, director of the Kwa Nyo fruit brokerage in Muse, told The Irrawaddy. So far, we have not seen the government releasing a formal statement regarding this. We have sent a letter of request [for information] to the Commerce Ministry. But there has been no response, U Ko Sai Min Thu Naing said. The Irrawaddy was unable to contact the Commerce Ministry for comment about the gate closure. Demand for melons and cantaloupes is currently at its peak level, and melon growers in Shan State are worried as their next harvest is due in February. Over 1,000 trucks loaded with melons and cantaloupes transported to Muse from various parts of the country have been stranded on the Myanmar side since Dec. 27 following the closure of the gate. Fruit trucks have been using the Pansai gate, which Chinese authorities re-opened on Dec. 28. However, the 10-mile road from Muse to the Pansai gate is just 8 feet wide, and is not suitable for 12-wheeled trucks. Previously, around 500 trucks ferrying watermelons and cantaloupes traded at the Jin San Jiao gate daily. But the number has declined to around 200 now, as Chinese officials take longer to inspect Myanmars exports, Mandalay-Muse cargo transporters said. The government should in fact facilitate the smooth operation of such gates, which are important for the national economy. But it has been shut down and authorities have not explained the reason, fleet manager U Zaw Myint Oo of Saw Yan Naing Mandalay-Muse cargo transport company told The Irrawaddy. Due to the delays caused by traffic congestion at the border gate, growers losses are mounting. I feel like the government has ignored growers, though Myanmars economy is said to be based on agriculture. The government loses taxes and our losses increase daily, said Ko Sai Min Thu Naing of Kwa Nyo fruit brokerage in Muse. A fully loaded 12-wheeled truck of watermelons fetches around 7 million kyats, and the same amount of cantaloupe fetches over 10 million kyats at present market rates. Merchants complain that up to 75 percent of the fruit has spoiled due to the delays at the gate. The losses will only increase as time goes by. Some growers have taken loans from lenders to grow melons. They are having trouble repaying their loans. The growers have to shoulder the consequences alone, melon grower Ko Khaing Zaw of Mandalays TadaU Township told The Irrawaddy. Photo: The Canadian Press In this Aug. 14, 2018, file photo victims of clergy sexual abuse, or their family members, react as Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaks during a news conference at the State Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa. Over the past four months, Roman Catholic dioceses across the U.S. have released the names of more than 1,000 priests and others accused of sexually abusing children in an unprecedented public reckoning spurred at least in part by a shocking grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania, an Associated Press review has found. Nearly 50 dioceses and religious orders have publicly identified child-molesting priests in the wake of the Pennsylvania report issued in mid-August, and 55 more have announced plans to do the same over the next few months, the AP found. Together they account for more than half of the nation's 187 dioceses. The review also found that nearly 20 local, state or federal investigations, either criminal or civil, have been launched since the release of the grand jury findings. Those investigations could lead to more names and more damning accusations, as well as fines against dioceses and court-ordered safety measures. "People saw what happened in these parishes in Pennsylvania and said, 'That happened in my parish too.' They could see the immediate connection, and they are demanding the same accounting," said Tim Lennon, national president of the board of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. The recently disclosed accusations date back six or seven decades in some cases, with the oldest from the 1910s in Louisiana. Most of the priests were long ago removed from ministry. An AP examination found that more than 60 per cent are dead. In most cases, the statute of limitations for bringing criminal charges or suing has run out. Nevertheless, advocates say exposing molesters nearly two decades after the scandal first erupted in Boston in 2002 is an encouraging step, in part because it gives some victims a sense of vindication after decades of official silence or denials. Also, it could increase pressure on dioceses to set up victims' compensation funds, as the church has done in Pennsylvania already. And it could result in the removal of molesters from positions outside the church that give them access to children. "This is a milestone. We are getting closer and closer to what this ought to be, the true coming to terms that would have to be at a national level," said Joe McLean, who filed a lawsuit with other victims seeking to compel the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to release files on alleged abusers nationwide. The Pennsylvania investigation, led by state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, identified nearly 300 "predator priests" dating back seven decades and accused church leaders of covering up for the abuses, in some cases by returning priests to duty after short stays in treatment centres or reassigning them. Advocates said the report had big impact because it was the largest to date in scope, encompassing most of the state. Victims' advocates and others, including some church officials, said the report was largely responsible for the urgency now being shown by the church. Many bishops cited those findings and other scandals including the resignation over the summer of Washington Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, accused of groping an altar boy in the 1970s in their letters to their congregations. In his Christmas address last month, Pope Francis made an unprecedented call for priests who had abused children to turn themselves in and vowed the church will "never again" hide their crimes. The world's bishops will hold a summit at the Vatican next month to forge a comprehensive response to the crisis. Burma Myanmar Opens Up to Foreign Insurance Companies Traffic passes Sakura Tower with signs of international banks Oversea-Chinese Banking Co. Ltd. (OCBC) and Singapores DBS Bank displayed in downtown Yangon on October 3, 2014. / The Irrawaddy YANGON The Ministry of Planning and Finance (MOPF) announced on Wednesday that they are ready to grant permission to foreign companies wishing to operate businesses offering life and non-life insurance in Myanmar. The move comes amid efforts to accumulate the investment needed for the countrys economic development, and to develop the non-banking financial sector, according to the official statement released by the ministry. The ministry said it is now inviting expressions of interest and request for proposals from companies looking to operate here which will be assessed by Myanmars Financial Regulatory Department. The MOPF has specified that insurance companies must fall into one of two categorieslife insurance and non-life insurance entities. The ministry will allow up to three fully foreign-owned life insurance companies to operate here while life insurance companies with representative offices here are being encouraged to partner with local life insurers. Meanwhile, only companies offering non-life insurance with representative offices in Myanmar may partner with local insurance companies. No fully foreign-owned non-life insurers will be granted permission to operate in Myanmar. The local composite insurers have been mandated by the MOPF to operate as separate life insurance and non-life insurance entities paving the way for foreign entities to associate or partner with local insurers as applicable, the statement says. In 2013, the government granted 11 licenses to local insurance companies in a bid to develop the sector in Myanmar. Asia China's Xi Threatens Taiwan with Force but Also Seeks Peaceful 'Reunification' Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during an event to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the "Message to Compatriots in Taiwan" at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China on January 2, 2019. / REUTERS BEIJING/TAIPEIChina reserves the right to use force to bring Taiwan under its control but will strive to achieve peaceful reunification with the self-ruled island that has a bright future under any future Chinese rule, President Xi Jinping said on Wednesday. Taiwan is Chinas most sensitive issue and is claimed by Beijing as its sacred territory. Xi has stepped up pressure on the democratic island since Tsai Ing-wen from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party became president in 2016. Tsai rejected Xis call and instead urged China to embrace democracy. Xi has set great personal store in resolving what the Communist Party calls the Taiwan issue, holding a landmark meeting with Taiwans then-president Ma Ying-jeou in Singapore in late 2015, just before Tsai was elected. Xi spoke at Beijings Great Hall of the People on the 40th anniversary of a landmark Taiwan policy statement. He said reunification must come under a one-China principle that accepts Taiwan as part of China, anathema to supporters of Taiwan independence, adding that the one country, two systems model of autonomy, with which China governs Hong Kong, was the best way for Taiwan. China translates the word tong yi as reunification, but it can also be translated as unification, a term in English preferred by supporters of Taiwan independence who point out the Communist government has never ruled Taiwan and so it cannot be reunified. The vast majority of Taiwans people are clearly aware that Taiwan independence would lead to a grave disaster, Xi told an audience that included Taiwan business people and senior party officials. Chinese people dont attack other Chinese people. We are willing to use the greatest sincerity and expend the greatest hard work to strive for the prospect of peaceful reunification, Xi said. We do not promise to renounce the use of force and reserve the option to use all necessary measures to achieve this goal and prevent Taiwan independence, he said. This, though, was aimed at foreign forces who sought to interfere and the tiny minority of Taiwan independence forces and their activities, Xi said without elaborating in what was likely a reference to the United States, Taiwans strongest backer. Speaking to reporters, Tsai said Taiwan would never accept one country, two systems and was proud of its democratic way of life. The vast majority in Taiwan resolutely oppose one country, two systems. This is the Taiwan consensus, she said. We call on China to bravely step forward for democracy, for only by doing so can it truly understand the people of Taiwans thinking and insistence. Xi reiterated that China was willing to talk with any party in Taiwan to push the political processstalled by China since Tsai took officeas long as they accept the one China principle. Underscoring Chinas nervousness about US support in particular for Taiwan, US President Donald Trump on Monday signed into law the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, which reaffirms the US commitment to Taiwan, including arms sales. Lasting peace Xi sought to reassure people in Taiwan that there was nothing to fear from Chinese rule, even though most people there have shown no interest in being run by autocratic Beijing. After peaceful reunification, Taiwan will have lasting peace and the people will enjoy good and prosperous lives. With the great motherlands support, Taiwan compatriots welfare will be even better, their development space will be even greater, Xi said. Tsai, who says she wants to maintain the status quo with China, said on Tuesday China must use peaceful means to resolve its differences with Taiwan and respect its democratic values. Beijing has regularly sent military aircraft and ships to circle the island on drills in the past few years and has heaped pressure on the island internationally, including whittling down its few remaining diplomatic allies. Taiwan is gearing up for presidential elections in a year. Tsais party suffered stinging losses to the China-friendly Kuomintang in mayoral and local elections in November. Xi was speaking on the anniversary of the Message to Compatriots in Taiwan on Jan. 1, 1979, when China declared an end to what had been routine artillery bombardment of Taiwan-controlled offshore islands and offered to open up communication between the two sides. However, the offer was rebuffed by Taiwans then-president Chiang Ching-kuo, who in April that year came out with a three nos policy of no contact, no compromise and no negotiation with China. Chiang only relaxed that in 1987, allowing people in Taiwan to visit China for family reunions. His father, Chiang Kai-shek, fled with defeated Nationalist forces to Taiwan in December 1949 after losing a civil war to the Communists. News Analysis: Kowtowing to the Prince of Evil Then-Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt, who was at the time chief of Military Intelligence and the official No. 3 man in the ruling military junta, waves after delivering a speech at a meeting of East Asian finance ministers and officials in Yangon in April 2002. / Reuters YANGONYangon Chief Minister U Phyo Min Thein never seems to lack for ways to surprise people. He is constantly leaving observers wondering at his actions. He once said, to the ire of the military, that according to state protocol Myanmars powerful armed forces leader was no higher than a department director-general. Last year he honored a Malaysian fraudster with a certificate after the man made a donation to the Yangon government to assist its social work. And he remained silent when Yangon lawmakers questioned his governments use of portions of the citys budget for certain projects without the parliaments knowledge. On Saturday, he sprang his latest surprise. But this time it was simply embarrassing. U Phyo Min Thein paid his respects to the former military spy chief, retired General Khin Nyunt, along with other senior writers at an annual Myanmar Writers Association event. Organizers said the former general was invited as he has written nine books (including his memoirs, which were mainly an exercise in self-justification regarding his actions during his time as spy chief and prime minister), and because he is now 79 years old. The Yangon chief minister has paid a price for his actions. When pictures of the event went viral he faced an online backlash, mostly from literary and political circles, for kowtowing to someone who was known as the Prince of Evil for his brutality as Military Intelligence (MI) chief against students and activists involved in the countrys democracy movement. Interestingly, he was one of those behind the chief ministers 15-year prison term for his political activism. Ko Min Ko Naing, a prominent former student leader and a key figure in the 88 Uprising, posted a short message on his Facebook page: Never turn a murderer into someone respectful. While the note didnt mention any names, it was very clear to Myanmar people who the murderer in the message is. National League for Democracy lawmaker Daw Zin Mar Aung wrote on her Facebook page that the chief ministers action did nothing to help the national reconciliation the NLD has long advocated. Before coming to power, the Daw Aung San Suu Kyi-led NLD openly announced that it wouldnt hold grudges against anyone in the former military regime despite their involvement in the arrest, ill treatment and torture of political prisoners. Under the regime, from 1988 to 2010, the NLD was the most oppressed political party in the country. Daw Zin Mar Aung said she might be able to understand if the chief minister had somehow forgotten the scars on his back, the blows to his chin, the rolling of iron bars on his shinsall of which he sustained during his interrogations like other political prisoners during his arrest and imprisonmentwhile he was kowtowing to the former spy chief. But you [U Phyo Min Thein] should be ashamed to [disgrace] the NLD jacket and the party badge you were wearing, she said, referring to the jacketcolored in the NLDs light-orange shadeand the party logo he bore on his breast on the day. To Whom Should I Apologize? Gen. Khin Nyunt is said to have been among the key government players in a military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1988 that led to the deaths of thousands of people. When the military staged a coup in September 1988, he was the third most powerful person in the regime and the head of its intelligence unita military apparatus mainly responsible for the oppression of political dissidents. He held this position until his purge from the regime in 2004. He was given a 44-year prison sentence but this was later commuted to house arrest. He was freed in an amnesty in 2011. According to Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Myanmar), nearly 200 people died in torture chambers during MI interrogations and prisons due to ill treatment during the former military regime. Every former political prisoner who was fortunate enough to emerge from prison alive can tell you of their experience of at least one of the following: It was MI officers who raided activists homes, mostly in the middle of the night to avoid the attention of neighbors, to make arrests. Gen. Khin Nyunts subordinates held the fate of political prisoners in their hands, deciding whether they should be sent to hospitals for emergency treatment when they were seriously ill. During interrogation sessions, his staff used every torture method you could namesleep deprivation was universalwhile barking at the victim, You know what? You cant establish a country without a military and prostitutes! Even in court, if you were assertive or made complaints about the verdict, an MI officer would summon the judge to a backroom meeting and order him or her to increase the prison term by a few years. Upon their release, former political prisoners rarely escaped the MIs watchful eyes in their daily lives. Gen. Khin Nyunt himself regarded political prisoners as criminals and lawbreakers. In his eyes, then democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was untrustworthy because she was married to a foreigner. Lets say if she becomes prime minister or president, she would share state secrets or [proceedings of] cabinet meetings with her husband in bed, he told senior military officials during a lecture at the National Defense College in 1993, according to a leaked transcript of the lecture. Throughout the talk, he didnt mention Daw Aung San Suu Kyi by name, referring to her simply as that woman. During interviews after his release, the former spy chief used to say that he had simply been following orders from above, referring to Senior General Than Shwe and Vice Senior General Maung Aye, the first and second supremos of the junta. Given his powerful roles and responsibilitiesranging from head of Military Intelligence to striking peace deals with ethnic armed groups to opening multimedia classrooms in high schools and deciding who should get Myanmars equivalent of the Oscars each yearmany people saw his defense as feeble. When former political prisoners called for him to admit his and his subordinates wrongdoings, he retorted, To whom should I apologize? However, in his self-promoting 2015 memoir Lives I Have Been Through, he offered vague words of contrition to some people and their families, conceding that some mistakes may have been made, albeit with the best of intentions and in the interests of the state and the wellbeing of his fellow citizens. The term political prisoner, however, rarely appears in the 657-page volume. No Grudge, No Retaliation Undeterred by the criticism, U Phyo Min Thein told the media on Sunday that he would try to be forgiving, adding that there would be no grudges held and no retaliation against the man who once put him behind bars for 15 years. Currently, I am a chief minister and U Khin Nyunt is an ordinary citizen. Retaliation is not necessary [for me]. I want to urge [people] to have loving kindness toward every one and to keep striving for reform, he said. But the chief minister misses the point. Long before his claims on Sunday, many former political prisoners said they would not hold grudges toward those who mistreated them, saying, We can forgive, but not forget. What has upset these people is the manner in which U Phyo Min Thein paid his respects to the former spy chiefhis actions constituted the highest form of respect that one can pay as a Myanmar Buddhist, and were no different from the greeting you would offer a monk. Ko Mya Aye, an 88 Students Generation leader and former political prisoner, said the chief ministers actions were wrong, adding that he was saddened to see his fellow democracy activist kowtowing to the man who was once in charge of the MI. No one has been calling for retaliation against him [U Khin Nyunt]. I dont hate him personally, but the fact cant be denied that he used to run a bad system that ruined the whole country, he said. News AA Gathering Evidence of Tatmadaws Human Rights Abuses Recently displaced Arakanese children in northern Rakhine's Buthidaung Township. / Mra Tazaung / Facebook YANGONArakan Army (AA) spokesperson U Khine Thukha told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday that the group is gathering evidence of human rights abuses committed by Tatmadaw (Myanmar military) soldiers and violations of the Geneva Convention during the ongoing skirmishes in northern Rakhine State and Chin States Paletwa Township. The AA spokesperson pointed out that Tatmadaw columns are stationed in Buthidaung Townships Say Taung Village, camped in a Buddhist monastery situated in an actively contested area in northern Rakhine. According to him, Tatmadaw soldiers are carrying out arbitrary arrests of civilians, are shelling artillery into the village and they have used villagers as human shields in the battlefields. The AAs online information page announced on Tuesday that they have already collected some evidence connecting the Tatmadaw soldiers with human rights violations and they will submit it to the international organizations. It also urges locals and civil society groups to file complaints with the AA if the Tatmadaw soldiers target civilians in the conflict zone. On Jan. 1, a police force information Facebook page, Ye Zarni, posted information stating that while unit No. 8 of the border police and a military column were temporarily stationed in a monastery in Say Taung, Buthidaung Township, they were ambushed by 30 AA rebels and one police officer was seriously injured in the chest. After 10 minutes on fighting, the AA rebels retreated and the Tatmadaw column went after them. According to the police information page, no villagers were wounded in the fight. The post did not elaborate on whether AA fighters fired into the village or the fighting took place at the outskirts of the village. AA spokesperson U Khine Thukha explained that the fighting had, in fact, erupted in an area between Kan Pyin and Say Taung villages. Say Taung resident U Maung Tun Lin confirmed that fighting broke out near his village and some bullets struck the homes of villagers. According to his explanation, the monastery is situated on a hilltop which is close to a densely forested area with the village located the foot of the hill. Ma Nwe Ni Win, a resident of Say Taung village, said bullets had struck her home during Tuesdays fighting and that a bullet head was found inside her friends house. No villagers were wounded during the fighting. I saw some holes in my house when I get back home. No one was killed because everyone had already fled to a hillside when we heard gunfire, said Ma Nwe Ni Win. The AA spokesperson said, Whenever the Burmese military come into the village, they always station [themselves] at monasteries and schools. In fact, international laws strictly prohibit an army from encamping in such public places and religious buildings. U Khine Thukha accused the Tatmadaw of deliberately firing into Kan Pyin Village during Tuesdays clashes which caused the entire population on Kan Pyin Village to flee to neighboring villages. He said that around 20 heavy artillery shells, fired by the police and government troops stationed in Kun Taung, landed in Say Taung. Similarly, in separate battles in on Wednesday in Kyauktaw Township and Paletwa Township over the Chin State border, Tatmadaw units launched missiles towards the villages. AA information, based on firsthand accounts of displaced locals, says that some locals from Paletwas Adaung Wa Village were killed by howitzer shells on Wednesday. He urged for the international human rights organizations to look into the alleged crimes against the Rakhine community on the ground. They intentionally target civilians. It could even be said to be racially targeting the Rakhine. So my question is, what if there were Burmese villages in the conflict zone? Would they also fire shots in that way? Deliberately targeting civilians is obviously indicating the fact that, despite repeatedly citing union spirit, their actions show a lack of union spirit. As the AA and police information pages issue updates, both sides remain silent on causality numbers. Some locals claim that dozens of Tatmadaw soldiers were killed in recent clashes. When The Irrawaddy phoned a brigadier general from the militarys commander-in-chiefs office for clarification on Wednesday, he declined to comment on the matter and denied the allegations of abuses over the phone. As is the nature of fighting, there will surely be casualties. I cannot provide details, said the brigadier general. Video footage which was captured by a resident of Sin Khone Taing, a Rohingya village close to Yae Gaung Chaung and Say Taung villages, includes commentary in the Rohingya language describing the Tatmadaw troops passing through their village. Translations of the commentary says the military column briefly came into Sin Khone Taing village carrying five wounded soldiers. The video was posted to Facebook on Tuesday on the profile named Sayad Hussin alongside text stating that the soldiers said they were hungry and requested food from the Rohingya villagers. It says the military soldiers admitted that some of their troops were killed during the fighting. Last December, the Tatmadaws commander-in-chief Sen-Gen Min Aung Hlaing promised members of the Myanmar Press Council that he will ask border affairs ministers to be more open with the media. Despite this, when The Irrawaddy attempted multiple times to contact Col. Phone Tint, the Rakhine State border affairs minister, he did not answer calls. In addition, Western Commands Col. Win Zaw Oos phone was switched off during repeated attempts by The Irrawaddy to contact him. The AA has said they have no plans to reveal the number of government military causalities in order not to defend the massive offensives of the army. He declined to provide the number of government battalions and light infantries that the AA has been facing in northern Rakhine since the end of monsoon season. Although I cannot say the number of battalions, Im pretty sure that they have halted operations in northern Shan recently in order to pour [more troops] into northern Rakhine. Surprisingly, they are also bringing ordinary police and border police into the battlefield for security reasons. This is an attempt to complicate the situation. said U Khine Thukha. Based on updates from the AA, The Irrawaddy has learned that the conflict zone is broadening, as AA and government troops continue to fight in at least five townshipsRathedaung, Buthidaung, Kyauktaw, Ponnagyun and Chin States Paletwa. The AA updates have made no mention of the mine attack on Rakhine States chief ministers convoy on the Yangon-Sittwe highway in Mrauk U Township on Tuesday. According to local non-profit organizations, more than 4,000 people in four townships are currently displaced and local relief groups are giving humanitarian assistance to the IDPs (internally displaced persons). Some members of relief groups operating in Paletwa Township told The Irrawaddy that military officers are not allowing aid in the form of rice bags into the area. A Spanish court has ruled that five men sentenced to nine years in prison for sexually attacking an 18-year-old woman should remain free on bail while the Supreme Court considers appeals in the case. The Navarra provincial court said in its decision that the men have complied with bail terms set last year, following a conviction that triggered widespread outrage because judges acquitted them of gang rape. Troy Norcross says with 30bn devices set to be connected by next year, the Internet of Things and blockchain have significant opportunities to grow together in the future THERE will be some 30bn connected devices by 2020 producing a staggering five quintillion bytes of data each day, according to Tim Stack of Cisco Systems. So what are these billions of connected devices? Think about all of the smart home devices like thermostats and lighting controls, sensors built into your cars, and even simple Bluetooth devices monitoring temperature, humidity, and motion on containers. Todays solutions for managingthis growing glut of data from an ever-growing number of devices is to pullthe information into one or more large central locations. Google takes in all the data from Nest and Google Home. Amazon pulls in data from Amazon Alexa and all things connected to the Alexa-based smart home. Dozens (if not hundreds) of other smaller companies are collecting their own large data lakes of information which they are desperately trying to figure out how to monetise. But these are centralised thirdparties who may not have business interests aligned with those of us who have all of these sensors in our lives. What is needed is a decentralised system for storing, managing, and monetising the data across multiple stakeholders. Blockchain is such a solution. Todays blockchain technology solutions are simply not designed to handle this level of raw data nor the rate at which it is being produced. The bitcoin blockchain can only handle 3-7 transactions per second and the bitcoin ledger already exceeds 180GB. The current Ethereum blockchain protocol is limited to some 15-20 transactions per second. Neither of these, nor any of the other primary protocols, are fit for purpose when it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT). Luckily, there are evolutions in blockchain technology such as IOTA which are suited for this explosive growth in demand for performance and storage capacity. IOTA promises a platform to allow for machine-to-machine communication and payments without the direct involvement of any human in the process. With zero transaction fees, microtransactions become feasible across a wide range of applications. The IOTA architecture is not like most blockchain technologies. In IOTA every single device is a core part of the network and serves the functions of verifying and validating transactions across the network without needing a high processing power and without needing to hold a copy of all the data in the network. This alternative to a classic blockchain approach is called a tangle. A secondary aspect of how blockchain technology will be instrumental to the success and growth of the IoT ecosystem is that of identity. Today we have the concept of identity for individuals and companies or enterprises. IoT will require that each of those 30bn devices have their own identity which can be verified and authenticated as part of each individual transaction. Identity for an IoT device can include many things such as type of device, type of data provided, the location of the device, owner of device, and connection points, as well as much more. As part of machine-to-machine communication and payment, there will need to be logic involved in the interactions. In the early days, this will be in the form of smart contracts. As the amount of data evolves there will be the possibility for artificial intelligence (AI) to play a bigger role in the interaction between devices. There are already some AI solutions that dynamically write and publish smart contracts. As AI gets better and more data is provided, we should expect greaterinvolvement from AI and thus better performance of machine-to-machine networks. As for smart contracts, as are already in production in many Ethereum, EOS, and other smart contract capableblockchain protocols, IoT exists as part of oracle services. Oracle services connect smart contracts to the outside world in order to check and verify conditions. An example of an IoT-based oracle service might be to determine if the temperature in London exceeded 12C on a given day. Multiple sensors across the citycould collect their data and reach aconsensus as to if the condition was satisfied or not. This is a great way for IoT to engage with existing smart contracts. A real-world application for IoT on the blockchain is possible in the hotel industry. Using a series of IoT devices and smart contracts for payments hotel guests could pay for and automatically activate services within a hotel room or Airbnb apartment. Examples include paying forpremium movie channels, unlocking access to a mini-bar, and paying for high-speed internet. The hotel guest could interact with the network directly from a smartphone app and the payments could be received directly by in-room IoT devices allowing for instant access. One of the immediate areas for IoT devices to be used with blockchain technology is in the area of supply chain monitoring. Imagine every shipping container being fitted with its own onboard sensor collecting data on temperature, humidity, and motion. This data can be reported to a central hub which then adds the data to the blockchain providing real-time tracking and status of each container throughout the journey. This data can then be used to expedite customs processes, provide data tosupport supply chain insurance, and allow for both shippers and receivers to identify early on if there is a problem with a shipment and to engage appropriate contingencies. International shipping company Maersk, working with IBM HyperLedger, is already implementing some of this in their blockchain platform known as Tradelens. Using IoT devices such as fitness trackers and other health/medical devices is a high-interest area with a number of complexities, especially in the areas of data ownership, sharing, and privacy. Blockchain solutions often tout transparency as a key benefit. Great care must be taken in designing what data is stored in a blockchain and how that data is protected. Furthermore, with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), companies are rightly concerned about how data which is immutable (unable to be changed) can be compliant with the right to be forgotten. Blockchain solutions can be designed to be fully GDPR compliant with data whether that is patient data, general health data, or data used for advertising. So does blockchain suck when it comes to IoT? Not necessarily. Yes, blockchain technology is in its infancy. There are limitations on scalability, performance, and adoption. There are also a wide range of applications where blockchain adds significant value to the IoT ecosystem today. With the continuing development of new technologies, even better solutions will be available in the near future. IoT and blockchain have significant opportunities to grow together in the future. Troy Norcross, co-founder of Blockchain Rookies, is one of the speakers at the Beyond IoT2 conference on January 21 in Pairc Ui Chaoimh, Cork. He will be on a panel led by Joel Briggs from TechCrunch discussing Blockchain Sucks Nimbus centre delivers 60 internet projects a year THE Nimbus Research Centre exists within the CIT Research and Innovation ecosystem, as part of the Faculty for Engineering and Science. The primary focuses are end-to-end applications for the internet of things, ICT for sustainability, and software platforms for IoT. The centre itself was established in 2007, but Nimbus activity truly began in 2000, with researchers working out of a small room in CITs F Block. Fast forward 18 years and Nimbus is now Irelands largest dedicated research centre for IoT. The Nimbus Gateway is a self-contained unit that works exclusively on our industry projects. The centre is entirely self-funded, through national (eg, Science Foundation Ireland, Enterprise Ireland) and EU (eg, Horizon 2020, Interreg) research programmes and from industry partners. Nimbuss core research and innovation strength lies in hardware systems, embedded and cloud-based software, wireless/mobile networking, data analytics, and artificial intelligence, all targeted at the internet of things and cyber-physical systems application space. Energy management, water and environment, and smart cities and communities have been the dominant IoT themes over the past three years, with Industry 4.0 applications an emerging theme. Secondary themes with future potential include infrastructure security, tourism, agri-food, edtech, health and assisted living, and wearables. On average, it delivers 60 projects per year, with 70 projects active in collaboration with companies, from start-ups to multinationals. Nimbus took on the task of delivering an exemplar event back in January 2018, creating Beyond IoT, sponsored by SteriTrack (Matrix IT). The aim for 2019 is to capitalise on the success of the sold-out 2018 event and deliver an even bigger and better event, starting with an impressive line-up of speakers from across the Atlantic and Europe, to bring technology gurus from Silicon Valley, and other global players, to Cork. Nimbus has global ambitions and aims to bring the Beyond IoT conference oversees to the US and Asia by 2020. The event is being managed by Richard Linger, Nimbus industry director. He has over 25 years working in high-tech industries across the globe, with Deloitte, BP, Shell, and Ernst&Young, and has several start-ups under his belt. He understands the importance of bringing global technology leaders and Irish industry together to learn from each other. Beyond IoT 2, in Pairc Ui Chaoimh, offers an opportunity for multi-nationals, SMEs, start-ups, entrepreneurs, and academics to hear what international, battle-tested entrepreneurs, technologists, investors, and dedicated researchers expect from the next wave of technology innovation and investment, and to learn how their organisations can benefit. Speakers include Vitaly Golomb, managing director and global head of principal investments at IEG Investment Banking Group, who addressed the inaugural Beyond IOT, John Biggs (TechCrunch), Dave Troy (the man who saved Twitter), Jon Soberg (MS&AD Ventures), Stuart Hillston (ConCap), Helen McBreen (Atlantic Bridge) and more. The topics will include internet of things, blockchain, space, security, artificial intelligence, augmented/virtual Reality, funding, and business expansion. Clinics will provide a unique opportunity to get expert advice from field experts in technology, investment, funding avenues, entrepreneurship, and academic research. These sessions will provide invaluable advice and guidance on how attendees can facilitate investment, drive technology innovation, create collaborations, and foster new commercial relationships. Attendees will include researchers, investors, entrepreneurs, academics, start-ups, business owners, and top executives from large multinationals. The event is approved by Engineers Ireland, providing continuous professional development (CPD) in areas relevant to engineers. Start-up companies can register for free tickets. Limited number only, so book now. The event has proven to be extremely beneficial for networking and forming collaborations, particularly in industry research, where SMEs can access funding through technology gateways. To register for Beyond IoT 2, on January 21, and to book your tickets, please visit the website: http://beyond-iot2.com or find out more on https://twitter.com/BeyondIoT2019 The Irish arm of retail giant Tesco sacked a worker after she admitted taking a bottle of wine valued at less than 20 out of a store and not paying for it. The retail worker was dismissed by Tesco Ireland on March 29, 2016 arising from an incident on January 13, 2016 when she was intercepted by a security officer after she left the store at the end of her shift. She had a bottle of wine in her bag she had not paid for. She maintained that she had forgotten to pay for the wine. Now, the former Tesco employee has successfully sued for unfair dismissal at the Labour Court after the court found that the decision to dismiss her was tainted with procedural unfairness. However, the Labour Court found that she contributed substantially to her own dismissal. The Labour Court stated that her contributing a significant degree to her dismissal has been taken into account in measuring the quantum of compensation that should be awarded and has ordered Tesco Ireland to pay her 4,000. The Labour Court ruling upholds an earlier ruling made by an Adjudication Officer at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) which Tesco Ireland had appealed. In her evidence, the worker said that at around 5.45pm on January 13, 2016 she left her work station to select some items of personal shopping including two bottles of wine as she was due to finish her shift at 6pm. She stated that in the course of that activity she encountered an acquaintance who had had a bereavement and whose mother was unwell. She said that she was upset by the encounter. She stated that she put one of the bottles of wine in her bag as she did not want to drop it. The security guard then intercepted her after she left the store and she was escorted to an office where a duty manager attended and suspended her until further notice. She stated that she had made a mistake concerning the bottle of wine as a result of the upset that she had experienced when she met an acquaintance. In its submission, Tesco stated that CCTV footage clearly showed the worker removing a bottle of wine from the store without paying and that the footage showed no evidence of upset on her part following her conversation with an acquaintance in the store. The Tesco-employed security guard told the Labour Court hearing that he took the decision not to call the gardai because the bottle concerned had a value of less than 20. Tesco dismissed her for breach of its Honesty policy and its Staff Purchase policy and because the bond of trust between employee and employer had broken down. In its findings, the Labour Court noted that at no stage of the investigative or disciplinary process was she supplied with a copy of Tescos Honesty or Staff Purchase policies which she was contended to have breached. Photo: CTV News/Instagram Employees of a Vancouver restaurant hit by an infamous viral social media post last week are skeptical a rat could have ever found a way into their food. Crab Park Chowdery was trending for all the wrong reasons last week after an Instagram video showed a rat being lifted from a bowl of soup. After the video hit the web, the restaurant's off-site kitchen was shut down and working agreement with another restaurant severed, reports CTV News. The calm demeanor of the woman in the video lifting the rodent out of the bread bowl has staff suspicious. "I would freak out, everybody would. But her reaction was very calm," employee Maria Bolano told CTV "How can you act so cool when you find that in your soup?" Staff showed off their kitchen to media and explained how they dont believe a rodent could end up in the soup or make it to the customer undetected. The owner of Crab Park Chowdery, Ashton Phillips, said the incident "doesn't add up." "For us, we've done the research, we've done our investigations into it and we just don't see how it's possible," he said. He says theyve gone as far as to test the buoyancy of a rat in a bowl of chowder and even compare the size of the serving spoon in relation to the rat. with files from CTV Vancouver Taxpayers money is being used to manage and maintain two airstrips that have lain idle for a decade and cost almost 10m to build. Four years after the Government said it was disposing of airstrips at Cleggan and Inishbofin, it continues to pay private company, Bainistiocht Aerfort Teoranta (BAT), to manage the facilities, along with three aerodromes on the Aran Islands. Since 2013, the company has secured contracts worth more than 3m, including 540,585 for 2012-2013, 613,770 for 2013 to 2015 and 1.86m from October 2015 until September 2019. The Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht has also spent more than 50,000 on infrastructural works including: 15,526 on works on the shoulders of the Cleggan airstrip 36,016 on fencing work at the perimeter of Inishbofin airstrip A department spokesperson said: It is normal for state property to be managed, even while not in active use. He said only a small amount [unspecified] of the money paid to BAT went towards Cleggan and Inishbofin. In 2014, Joe McHugh, then minister with responsibility for the islands, told the Dail the Government had decided in 2013 to dispose of both airstrips, on the island of Inishbofin, and on the mainland, at Cleggan, Co Galway, in view of the economic downturn. This did not happen, and yesterday, current minister of state with responsibility for the islands, Sean Kyne, told the Irish Examiner that while he hopes the airstrips could be licensed for private use, a planning condition attached to the Cleggan airstrip poses a problem. This condition, Mr Kyne said, imposes a Public Service Obligation (PSO) on flights out of Cleggan, which, under EU regulations, would mean government subsidies. However, Mr Kyne said: There is no money to open the airstrips in terms of a PSO. He said his department had discussions before Christmas with Galway County Council seeking clarity around the PSO planning condition and that talks will resume in February. However, he could not say how the impasse might be overcome. Light aircraft owner, Brian Doyle, who is on the committee of Limerick Flying Club, said Cleggan/Inishbofin are losing considerable tourist revenue. There are hundreds of guys like me, particularly from Germany, France and the Netherlands, who tour here annually in their light aircraft and while they can land in the Aran Islands, they cant land in Cleggan/Inishbofin. They all have third-party insurance. All thats legally required is the landowners permission, which in this case is the State. But Ive been asking for years and I just get the run-around. As a taxpayer who helped fund these airstrips, I should be able to use them, he said. Airstrips born of fear for islands The airstrip at Cleggan. Pic: Jim Lee/FlyinginIreland.com The genesis of two airstrips that cost almost 10m to build, and which continue to cost the taxpayer money despite remaining idle and unlicensed, can be traced back to the late 1990s and a concern in government that non-Gaeltacht islands, such as Inishbofin, were not receiving the same attention as Gaeltacht islands. Joe Hamill, former secretary general of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, said as much to the Public Accounts Committee when questioned in January 2015 about the spend on unused airstrips in Cleggan, near Clifden, Co Galway, and Inishbofin, off the Galway coast. Mr Hamill said a report was compiled in the mid-1990s to look at island development as a whole and it became part of Government policy at the time to consider the development of island communities generally both inside and outside the Gaeltacht. A subsequent study commissioned from Cranfield University in the early years of the millennium looked at air services for islands (Aer Arann was already operating to the three Aran Islands) that would provide a service to islanders, tourists and business. Out of that study came the idea of a service between the mainland (Cleggan) and Inishbofin. The end result was two fully constructed airstrips made of tarmac and built to a standard that would take small commercial aeroplanes, Mr Hamill said. The airstrips were completed in 2009, but by then, the recession had hit. Mr Hamill explained how the Government had moved from a position of capital provision for islands in 2008 being multiples of tens of millions of euro to the current capital provision of approximately 600,000. The Government did not proceed with the final part of the planned project to finance the construction of two small terminal buildings. It was decided in the end not to do that, Mr Hamill said. In 2014, Joe McHugh, then minister of state with responsibility for the islands, told the Dail the Government had decided in 2013 to dispose of both airstrips, in view of the economic downturn. Five years after this decision was taken and 10 years after the airstrips were built, they remain in State ownership, with taxpayers money used to pay management and maintenance. The fee since 2012 for management by private company Bainistiocht Aerfort Teoranta, which includes management of three airstrips on the Aran Islands, is more than 3m. More than 51,000 has been spent on infrastructural works at Cleggan/Inishbofin. Yesterday, Sean Kyne, Fine Gael minister of state with responsibility for the islands, told the Irish Examiner his wish is for the airstrips to be licensed for private use, but a planning condition attached to Cleggan makes this problematic. According to the minister, the condition imposes a public service obligation, which, under EU rules, means Government subsidies to maintain a service deemed vital for the economic development of the region. Mr Kyne said: There is no money to open the airstrips in terms of a PSO. He said his department [Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht} had discussions before Christmas with Galway County Council seeking clarity around the PSO planning condition and that talks would resume in February. Mr Kyne was at a loss as to how this impasse could be overcome. In the meantime, there are plans to build a HSE primary care centre, following a public consultation process, at the Inishbofin site and the development of a coast guard station at the Cleggan site. As Mr Hamill said, a decade after they were built, essentially, what we have is an airstrip with security fencing. Update: 364 people are on trolleys in hospitals around the country this morning. The figure is down from 677 on the same date last year, while it is two less than yesterday. The latest figures from the INMO show that University Hospital Limerick is the most overcrowded, with 41 people waiting for a bed. It is followed by Letterkenny General Hospital and St Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny. Earlier: Sinn Fein dismisses yesterday's drop in number of people on hospital trolleys Sinn Fein has said the trolley crisis in our hospitals will only get worse this year. The party's health spokesperson Louise O'Reilly said a "radical change" in Government health policy is needed to tackle the issue. Yesterday, INMO figures showed the number of people on trolleys was down to 366 from 656 on the same day last year, a drop which the Health Minister Simon Harris called "significant." However, Deputy O'Reilly has said those figures only mask the real picture. Ms O'Reilly said: "The overall figures for 2018 are up over 9% on the figures for 2017, that's what actually really matters. "It's not just picking one day, and bear in mind the one day he picks there are 366 people on trolleys is absolutely nothing to pat himself on the back about. "I don't think it's evidence that what the Government is doing is working." Gardai objected to bail being granted yesterday to a man accused of carrying out a burglary in Cork City in the early hours. Detective Garda Daniel McEnery arrested Ricky ODonovan, aged 27, and charged him with carrying out the burglary at a house on Anglesea St, Cork, early on January 2. Det Garda McEnery said the house was occupied at the time. He said gardai were opposed to bail being granted to the accused at Cork District Court yesterday because of the seriousness of the charge. It was alleged that a downstairs window was broken for the purpose of gaining entry. It was further alleged that damage was caused to a fireplace in the house. He was located in a room at the premises. The main ground for the objection to bail is that gardai believe he will commit further serious offences if granted bail. He is addicted to heroin, it was alleged by the detective. Defence barrister, Emmet Boyle, said: Mr ODonovan oscillates between Cork Simon Community and 17 Foyle Avenue, Knocknaheeny. He would reside at 17 Foyle Avenue, keep a curfew of 9pm to 7am if necessary and sign twice a day at the local garda station and abstain from intoxicants. Would that assuage your concerns? Judge Olann Kelleher refused the bail application and remanded the accused in custody until January 9. Nurses and midwives have warned that planned strikes could still go ahead if the Government fails to heed its warnings on hospital overcrowding. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said the number of people on hospital trolleys is unacceptable, even if the figure it compiled for yesterday is lower than that from the same day last year. The Health Service Executive had claimed that as of 8am yesterday there were 236 patients awaiting admission to a hospital bed a fall of 54% compared with the same day in 2018. However, the INMOs own count put the number of people on trolleys yesterday at 366, with the unions general secretary, Phil Ni Sheaghdha, claiming the INMO count is more accurate. Ms Ni Sheaghdha told RTE radio: The HSE only count people who are actually in the emergency department and not in beds on trolleys but have been admitted to the hospital. We count those that are admitted to hospital throughout the hospital on wards, on trolleys, but again not in beds so our figure is more accurate because what were demonstrating is that the hospitals are overcrowded now, not just the emergency departments, the entire hospital is overcrowded. Minister for Health, Simon Harris, admitted that last years trolley figures are very challenging, but said HSE figures showed that from May each month, with the exception of November, had fewer people on trolleys than in the same months in 2017. But in a strongly-worded statement the INMO said 108,227 patients went without hospital beds last year a record number, marking a 9% increase on the INMOs 2017 trolley count and almost double the number it counted back in 2006. Ms Ni Sheaghdha said: Despite the Government spin, 2018 was the worst year on record for overcrowding. Negative records were set throughout the year, with over 100,000 admitted patients forced to wait on trolleys and chairs, without a proper bed. We know that this dramatically worsens outcomes for our patients. The INMO has consistently blamed low bed capacity and understaffing for the trolley crisis and the INMO executive will meet on January 7 and 8 to set dates for strikes after 95% of the unions membership voted for industrial action. Labour Party Health spokesperson, Alan Kelly, said pay equality in the health sector could be one means of retaining nurses in this country. Over the last few weeks, I met many young nurses and their parents who were home for Christmas, he said. Many of those that I spoke to want to return to Ireland in the coming year but dont plan to until the issues around new-entrants pay is sorted. Ending the two-tier pay system in our hospitals especially would go a long way to enticing more nursing graduates and young nurses into Irish hospitals. This, in turn, would ease the pressure on our wards. We know from the INMO that levels of burnout and stress among staff are on the rise due to staffing pressures in many of our hospitals. Update 4:10pm: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has vowed that no one will go hungry in the event of a no deal Brexit as he also insisted the country was very well prepared for any economic downturn. Speaking after the first Cabinet meeting of the New Year, Mr Varadkar said 45 pieces of special legislation for would be held off passing through the Dail until March if it looked like Britain would crash out of the EU. Contingency plans for a no deal were discussed by Mr Varadkar and his ministers today, including the stockpiling of medicines. He also reiterated that the backstop proposal preventing a hard border with the North was still a red line issue for Ireland. With just weeks to go before Westminster votes on the Withdrawal Agreement for Brexit, Mr Varadkar again asked Britain what kind of guarantees the country and its politicians wanted in order for the deal to get through the British parliament. But he reiterated that any guarantees or addition to the agreement could not take away from the "spirit" of it, particularly the guarantee there would be no return to a hard border in the event of a no deal. Ministers discussed some stockpiling measures today, which will include plans to take in and store extra medicines. But food in general and fuel would not need to be stockpiled, said Mr Varadkar. The only food types that might may be could packaged items, he said, singling out Marks and Spencer products. No one would go hungry, he pledged as he outlined the Cabinet meeting to reporters this afternoon. Cabinet also agreed to a joint strategy with the Bar Council and Law Society of Ireland to "flesh out" a plan to make Ireland a centre for legal services when Britain leaves the EU. Already, there has been in an increase in lawyers registering in Ireland ahead of Brexit. Separately, Mr Varadkar outlined the end of year exchequer results which show Ireland had 100m in budget surplus for 2018. This was the first time spending was ahead of schedule for a decade, he said. While the healthy financial position for the government was partially as a result of exceptional corporate tax returns, Mr Varadkar said the country was now "very well prepared" for any potential economic downturn if one hit Ireland. Earlier (3:27pm): The month of March is to be set aside in the Dail to deal with legislation for a hard Brexit. Ministers met for three hours earlier to discuss Ireland's preparedness if the UK crashes out of the EU without a deal. Around 45 pieces of legislation will be reduced to four primary pieces of legislation which will go before the Oireachtas in March, ahead of the Brexit deadline. The cabinet also discussed stockpiling medicines, working with wholesalers and buying land near ports and airports to be ready for a no-deal situation. It's also hoped Ireland could take some legal services from the UK. A seven-year-old who died of leukaemia on New Year's Eve just months after he received 10,000 birthday cards from well-wishers from all over the world has been described at his requiem mass as a "miracle child" and a " gorgeous, happy chatty little man." In a tribute to her son Fionn at St Bartholomew's Church in Kildorrery, Co Cork Eimear Doyle said the family would forever hold dear the memories of the precious time they spent with their "cheeky little monkey." "We are so so proud of you (Fionn) and how you fought so hard for so long with such bravery and courage. You still kept that gorgeous smile on your face through it all. These last seven months you have battled on. Even though no one had expected you would." Eimear said that she and her husband Jack and their two children Saoirse and Amy savoured every moment they had with Fionn. "We grabbed that time together and made wonderful memories that we will treasure forever. But how lucky are we to have had someone in our lives that made saying goodbye so hard? (We) love you Fionn." Eimear and Jack Doyle shoulder the coffin of their son Fionn after mass of the Angels at St. Bartholomews Church, Kildorrery, Co Cork. Picture Dan Linehan Eimear recited the "Invisible Cord" poem which conveys the strong links between mother and child. She said that the bond between mother and child was like a "invisible cord not seen by the eye." "I know that it is there though no one can see. The invisible cord from my child to me. The strength of this cord is hard to describe. It can't be destroyed. It cannot be denied." Kildorrery Parish Priest Fr Eamon Kelleher said that Fionn was a "little miracle." He stated that nobody could truly comprehend the depth of suffering of the family of the youngster. However, he vowed that the local community would do everything in their power to help the bereaved. "If we could bear some of your suffering, we would. You are surrounded by people who care for you, who are praying for you and who want to help you in any small way they can." Offertory gifts included a Garda badge Fionn received from local officers on the occasion of his last birthday, a Power Rangers toy, an orange notebook to represent his favourite colour, and a dog lead belonging to his beloved "Lightning." Local schoolchildren and Kildorrery Scouts provided a guard of honour as his coffin was carried from the church the church. His parents were among those who carried his Power Rangers coffin to the hearse as a local secondary student sang "Stand By Me" by Ben E King. Fionn's parents and two sisters wore orange for the requiem mass in keeping with his great affinity with the colour. Donations were made to the Children's Leukaemia Association in lieu of flowers. A cremation followed the mass. The Doyle family, Jack and Eimear, and their daughters Saoirse and Amy, release orange balloons, Fionn's favourite colour, after mass of the Angels at St. Bartholomews Church, Kildorrery, Co Cork. Picture Dan Linehan Fionn received cards from as far away as Australia and the United States last August after his mother posted on Facebook about the big party she was organising for his final birthday. . The Garda Response Unit and Garda Dog Unit were among the guests at the party at his home in Scart, Kildorrery. A convoy of Garda cars and a fire engine were also in attendance at the house to celebrate the big day. Fionn was presented with his own Garda uniform by Fermoy gardai and a medal for being a Super Hero. The youngster was diagnosed with leukaemia at the age of just 18 months. He underwent treatment and went into remission in the summer of 2016. However, he suffered a relapse six months later. A bone marrow transplant in December 2017 failed to stem the cancer. Last May, his parents were told to prepare themselves for the worst when Fionn ended up on a ventilator but his condition improved and he returned home from Dublin to North Cork. Whilst celebrating his birthday his mother Eimear said it was a day that they weren't sure they would ever see. "When Fionn came home from hospital in May after spending days on a ventilator, we were told days to weeks at most, nothing more, but today was magical - memories made that will last forever." Eimear said they received about 2,000 cards a day leading up his birthday. She added that his face "lit up" when he saw the Garda cars and the fire engine. "It was just magical and we are so grateful to everyone who made it such a special day for him and for us and gave us memories we will cherish forever. It is understood that Fionn's family decided to celebrate Christmas in early December in case his condition worsened. However, he survived the festive period. He died peacefully at his home surrounded by his family on December 31st. Residents of the Gaeltacht in west Cork were placed at risk of consuming inadequately disinfected water over an extended period last year, a report by an environmental watchdog reveals. An audit by the Environmental Protection Agency of drinking water supplied by the Ballymakeera Water Supply Scheme located near Ballyvourney (Baile Mhuirne) found that people were exposed to potentially infected water for almost five months largely due to a problem caused by poor internal communications within Irish Water. The examination by EPA inspectors found that the ultra-violet disinfection system, used to kill bacteria, at the water treatment plant in Ballymakeera was switched off on February 27 last year. The audit also found that the disinfection system used at the plant did not allow sufficient contact time for chlorine to adequately disinfect the water in the Ballymakeera water supply which provides drinking water to a population of almost 700 including Ballyvourney (Baile Mhuirne/) and Cuil Aodha. A lack of communication of the relevant information internally in Irish Water resulted in a delay in the full extent of the deficiency in the disinfection system until July 18, 2018. This put the consumers of the supply at risk from inadequately disinfected water, the EPA said. The audit acknowledges that Irish Water fast-tracked the installation of a new UV disinfection unit at the plant once it became aware of the problem. The EPA recommends that the company should conduct a full review of its procedures for identifying any inefficiency in the disinfection process of its water treatment plants. It claims such a review should also cover Irish Waters communications with the HSE and the EPA. The audit was carried out after Irish Water had informed the EPA on July 20 last year that the drinking water supply at Ballymakeera was not being adequately disinfected. It found inadequate disinfection arose when the treatment plant pumps, which pump water from a reservoir two kilometres away, were operating as the water had insufficient time to be treated with chlorine. The pumps operated for 15 hours per day. Over months following the February 27 shut-down of the UV disinfection system at Ballymakeera, supplies were only monitored for Cryptosporidium a parasite that causes gastroenteritis as staff from Irish Waters compliance division were unaware there was an issue about inadequate contact time. The realisation that consumers were potentially exposed to inadequately disinfected water only occurred when officials from the companys process optimisation and asset operations division visited the treatment plant in July as a result of the summer drought and issues with the UV unit. Although all tests were clear, Irish Water acknowledged to the EPA that the supply had been at risk from Cryptosporidium due to a problem at the source of the supply. A new UV unit installed at Ballymakeera will automatically shut down the supply to consumers if water quality drops below a certain limit. Photo: CTV News Vancouver Coastal Health says its not responsible for the death of a young boy at an unlicensed daycare in Vancouver two years ago. The health authority has filed its response to a civil lawsuit brought by the parents of 16-month-old Macallan Wayne Saini, who died at the Olive Branch Daycare after allegedly choking on an electrical cord, reports CTV News. The young boy became known after the accident as Baby Mac, and the parents' lawsuit alleged VCH should have come down on the daycare operator harder for previous infractions. Daycare operator Yasmine Saad had been investigated four times at four different addresses and was found three times to be having too many children in her care. The lawsuit claims Saad was never fined for the previous violations and Baby Macs death could have been prevented. In its response VCH said it had no knowledge Saad was operating an unlicensed daycare at the East Vancouver home until Baby Mac's death. "The Health Authority says that nothing it or its employees, officers or agents did or failed to do caused or contributed in any way to the injuries, loss, damage or expense suffered by the plaintiff, as alleged, or at all," the response says. None of the above claims have been proven in court. with files from CTV Vancouver Thousands of patients have been left without vital services after a suspected arson attack on a HSE clinic in Co Donegal. Vandals set fire to an oil tank at the centre in Buncrana which quickly spread to other parts of the building in the early hours of December 31. The local fire services responded quickly to the blaze but the building including its roof has been left in a dangerous state. Now the HSE has now been forced to cancel hundreds of scheduled appointments which are run out of the clinic. The vast range of services affected includes Speech & Language Therapy, Clinical Psychology, Paediatric Occupational Therapy, Paediatric Physiotherapy, Early Intervention Team, Adult Social Work, Ophthalmics, Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services, and Community Palliative Care. The HSE has apologised for the cancellation of the services and says it is looking for alternative locations to hold the clinics. A spokesperson says it will contact all patients regarding the rescheduling of appointments. The HSE apologises for the delay and disruption to services arising from the fire and is working to have services resumed as soon as possible, added the spokesperson. Meanwhile, Gardai are continuing to investigate the cause of the blaze which also destroyed a nearby car as it spread. A man in his 60s was used as a punch-bag by his 23-year-old son on an occasion over the Christmas holiday period, it was alleged at Cork District Court yesterday. Alex McSweeney faced a charge of breaching a safety order by assaulting his father on December 28. Detective Garda David OCallaghan objected to bail being granted because of the seriousness of the case. He said the injured party was hospitalised. Det Garda OCallaghan said Donal McSweeney received his injuries on December 28 his son Alex then fled from the family home at Cherrylawn, Blackrock, Cork. The detective said the main issue gardai had with bail being granted was the fear there would be interference with witnesses. The detective said the injured partys wife, Ann McSweeney, was present in court to give evidence on her husbands behalf. She said Alex had a problem with alcohol and substances. He is using my husband as a punch-bag. The man is in his 60s. He is after going through a lot of illness. He is not able to take anymore injuries from his son, she said. Alex McSweeney then got into the witness box and said: I swear on this Bible I wont go near the house. If I keep drinking I am going to keep ending up in this situation. I promise on this Bible I dont need alcohol in my life. Judge Olann Kelleher told McSweeney he was saying he did not need alcohol in his life since December 28, which was only a few days ago. Diarmuid Kelleher, solicitor, said the defendant was indicating he would stay away from the family home and stay off intoxicants. McSweeney said: I understand this is going to keep happening to me if I go back to live in the house. I love my family dearly. I am ashamed of myself. I am shaking like a leaf up in prison. I am really, really sorry for what I done. This is from the bottom of my heart. I wont go near the family home. Judge Kelleher noted he had been remanded in custody at a special sitting of Cork District Court over the holiday period. The judge refused bail yesterday and remanded McSweeney in custody for a fortnight. Dublin's only dedicated homeless service for women will close this year after complaints from local residents. The 40-bed Abigail Women's Centre in Finglas caters for alcoholic homeless people and is a centre for recently released prisoners. Plans have been approved to extend the tourist shop at the entrance to Blarney Castle in Cork, despite an objection over concern for the safety of visitors. An Bord Pleanala has upheld the decision of Cork County Council to allow the owner of the 15th-century castle (home of the famous Blarney Stone), Charles Colthurst, to expand the retail space of the building, which contains a visitor centre. The proposed extension will increase the existing floor space of the tourist shop by 60%, to 335sq m. The ruling had been appealed by Padraig O Buachalla, a resident of Shandon, who opposed the extension of the visitor facilities, because of the number of near misses he had witnessed between motorists and pedestrians at the corner between the castle estate and Blarney Woollen Mills. Mr O Buachalla claims that visitors to the castle face an extremely hazardous route to access the facility, due to the lack of a pedestrian crossing and proper footpaths. Consultants acting for Mr Colthurst said he shares the concern about the crossing point to the tourist shop from Blarney Woollen Mills, but said it is outside his control. An inspector with An Bord Pleanala accepted that manoeuvrability of vehicles in the area is tight, but attributes it to a historic legacy of the layout of the village. The inspector said visitors crossing a public road from Blarney Woollen Mills to Blarney Castle, in an uncontrolled manner, is not desirable. An Bord Pleanala said the development would not seriously injure the amenities of the area, or property in the vicinity. It concluded that the proposed extension is generally acceptable, in terms of traffic safety and convenience. Blarney Castle was the 12th most popular fee-paying tourist attraction in the Republic in 2017, with 450,000 visitors. In the past couple of years, the flying and operating of drones has become increasingly more popular. If you see a drone flying over your property or land, you may have concerns in respect of your privacy, and whether it could cause damage to your property. A drone is an unmanned aircraft or remotely piloted aircraft. The Small Unmanned Aircraft (Drones) and Rockets Order, 2015 (SI 563 of 2015), regulates the use of drones in Ireland. There are also aeronautical notices that apply to the use of drones only. Under the 2015 Order, all drones weighing over 1kg are to be registered with the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA). Drones below 1kg can be flown without a permit, provided they remain no more than 15 metres above ground level, and no more than 300 metres from the operator. Drones can be registered by visiting the IAAs www.iaa.ie/drones website page. In the registration process, it is required that the drone is registered via the IAAs online terrain mapping system known as ASSET. Any owners under the age of 16 need to be registered by a parent or legal guardian. There are a number of limitations for the operation of drones under the 2015 Order which include never operating a drone under the following circumstances: If it will be a hazard to another aircraft in flight. Over an assembly of people (12 persons or more). Farther than 300m from the person operating the drone. Within 30m of any person, vessel or structure not under the control of the person operating the drone. Closer than 5km from an aerodrome. In a negligent or reckless manner so as to endanger life or property of others. Over 400ft (120m) above ground level. Over urban areas. In civil or military controlled airspace. In restricted areas (for example, military installations, prisons, etc). Unless the person operating the drone has permission from the landowner for take-off and landing. If a person wishes to fly your drone outside the limits prescribed in the regulations, they must apply for a Specific Operating Permission (SOP) from the IAA, following training with one of the IAA Registered Training Facilities. In order to get a Specific Operating Permission, a person must first attend a drone safety training course and produce an operations manual that is acceptable to the IAA. In order to operate under Specific Operating Permission, a Pilot Competency Certificate is required. The IAA state that it is the responsibility of the person operating a drone to assess the area in which they intend to fly. The IAAs Asset tool can be used to establish the location of licensed aerodromes within Ireland and it is essential for the person who will operate the drone to visually inspect the area in which they intend to operate for aircraft activity. Another factor to consider when operating a drone is privacy law. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which came into effect on May 25, 2018, has an impact on the data captured by drones. The Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) previously issued guidance on the use of drones in order to comply with the GDPR. The guidance provides steps to ensure that drone users comply with the GDPR. The drone user should ensure they have the consent of the individuals whose personal data they will capture, and that they only record the personal data required to achieve the purposes intended and for which consent has been obtained. It is important too that the user has mechanisms or software in place to ensure that unintended capture of personal data is removed before further processing occurs. In respect of commercial operators, the DPC advises that a written Drone Usage Policy should be in place. If you have concerns that your legal rights have been breached due to the use of a drone, it is advisable you consult the Irish Aviation Authority, The Data Protection Commissioner or a Solicitor. Karen Walsh, from a farming background, is a solicitor practicing in Walsh & Partners, Solicitors, 17, South Mall, Cork (021-4270200), and author of Farming and the Law. Walsh & Partners also specialises in personal injury claims, conveyancing, probate and family law. Email: info@walshandpartners.ie Pre-tax profits at the company which operates the Costa Coffee chain in Ireland and a string of KFC outlets here increased by 37% to 11.44m last year, accounts show. The newly-filed accounts also show that revenues at MBCC Foods (Ireland) rose by 10% to 94.2m in the 12 months to the end of last January. A breakdown of the companys revenues show that 70m was recorded in the Republic and 24.18m "in the UK". The companys profit last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of 6.3m and property lease rentals of 8.5m. Numbers employed by MBCC, in its last financial year, increased from 1,614 to 1,710 with staff costs jumping from 22.15m to 25.6m. During the year MBCC continued its expansion by opening an additional 17 outlets. The company also opened an additional eight Costa Coffee outlets since its year-end and closed one of its KFC outlets, at the Omni Park Shopping Centre in Santry in north Co Dublin. Since the end of last January, the company acquired five new properties in Ireland to enable it to expand its operations. MBCC also said it has completed a detailed review of the business's trading activities and is confident that it has plans to continue to increase revenues and profits going forward. Last year, the business spent 155,105 on uniforms; 522,473 on waste disposal and 209,313 on security. Four directors served on the board during the year, Raju Tuli, Sundeep Tuli, Michael Conroy and Fiona Cooke. Directors pay last year increased sharply from 588,579 to 916,592. MBCC Foods acquired the Irish franchise rights for Costa Coffee, from its previous owner Whitbread, in 2005. Whitbread was, last month, cleared by the EU to sell the Costa brand to Coca-Cola. The IDA expects to attract further investment from overseas companies on the back of mounting Brexit uncertainty. Last year saw a record level of job creation by IDA-backed multinational companies in Ireland and the lowest level of job losses on record. Total employment across multinational companies in Ireland now stands at 229,057 having grown by 9% in the past 12 months. After combined job losses of 8,745, 2018 closed with a net new multinational jobs total of 14,040. The numbers mean the IDA has exceeded the targets laid out in its current five-year plan a year ahead of completion. Its next five-year targets will be outlined by the end of this year. The IDA said it has secured more than 55 investments - leading to more than 4,500 jobs - directly as a result of post-Brexit location decisions by companies. A total of 42 of the Brexit-related moves were by companies investing in Ireland for the first time. IDA chief Martin Shanahan said a Brexit "dividend" is being seen in all jobs and investment announcements and the number of first-time investors choosing Ireland as a location because of Brexit is likely to increase. "At the moment we are seeing significanat amounts of interest in Ireland because companies coming into Europe feel the UK to be less attractive as it was previously," he said. Overseas multinationals spend 19.2 billion in the Irish economy; payroll 11.7 billion; Irish materials 2.4 billion and Irish services 5.1 billion. All pic.twitter.com/KbhoxrEjjK IDA Ireland (@IDAIRELAND) January 3, 2019 The IDA said it was not aware of any Brexit-related reasoning behind last year's multinational job loss figures, emphasising the level seen was the lowest on record. Investment into Ireland by European-based companies grew by 25% last year, with investments from growth markets rising by 14% and investment from US firms increasing by 7%. The US, however, remains the IDA's key focus market and Mr Shanahan said there has been no indication of US interest in Ireland waning despite a likely correction pending in the US economy and global foreign direct investment (FDI) levels slowing. That said, he did warn of "significant downside risks" to Ireland's FDI attractiveness in the form of Brexit, global trade wars and the "extremely competitive" landscape for such investment across Europe. "It is important to remember that only ten years ago, across 2008 and 2009, Ireland lost over 35,000 FDI jobs during the global financial crisis. This is a salutary reminder that we can take nothing for granted and we need to be vigilant, particularly in relation to our competitiveness. All jobs are fought for and won against increasing international competition," Mr Shanahan said. Chelsea Powrie Every December, 97 youth aged 16-21 from around the province gather in Victoria for the annual B.C. Youth Parliament. This year, 19-year-old Penticton resident Victoria Ritchie was elected Minister of the Southern Interior, and brought with her four students from Penticton Secondary and Summerland Secondary. "We have a sitting each year, where we dress up really nice and we discuss legislation, and talk about parliamentary procedures," Ritchie said. The five-day experience took place while the real legislative assembly was off for the holidays. The group of young people spent time in the house discussing issues that matter to youth, each representing different constituencies in B.C. "So we talked about ride sharing, we talked about school curriculums," Ritchie said. "So a lot of those issues that probably don't come out as much in the regular house, or regular [legislature]." Sometimes, the issues discussed even make their way to actual ministers and members of the legislature. Minister of Agriculture Laura Popham dropped in on a session this year to learn more about a resolution regarding waste in supermarkets, and how it could be directed to shelters or food banks rather than being disposed of. "She was really passionate about learning more, she sat around for question period," Ritchie said. "Also, the private members resolutions we put forward get sent to whoever we think it applies to, the premier, organizations in B.C. or Canada, whoever we think might want to get involved." She said that although no actual legislation is passed during the youth sessions, those involved learn valuable lessons about commitment and honesty. "We're very specific about, if you commit to something, follow through with it," Ritchie said. "That's what service is about. Then you're really following through with your service and what you said you were passionate about." To find out more about the B.C. Youth Parliament and how to get involved, click here. Here's your morning bulletin. GET INFORMED ... IRELAND: Fianna Fail cannot ignore the reality that it was out of step with the public on the abortion issue if it wants to get back into power, one of its leading TDs admits. IRELAND: Cabinet will today be updated on the progress of contingency plans in place in the event of a 'no-deal' Brexit. IRELAND: Taxpayers money is being used to manage and maintain two airstrips that have lain idle for a decade and cost almost 10m to build. IRELAND: Dublin's only dedicated homeless service for women will close this year after complaints from local residents. WORLD: A Chinese spacecraft has made the first-ever landing on the far side of the moon, state media said. BUSINESS: Irish pensions fund trustees have been told to diversify and de-risk over the coming year amid the huge losses of global stock markets and falling bond yields for some European markets. SPORT: Pep Guardiola expects his Manchester City players to be on top form when they take on title rivals Liverpool at the Etihad Stadium. ... SOME DISTRACTION CULTURE: This weekends Golden Globes herald the official start of awards season for the film world. Esther McCarthy predicts wholl be making acceptance speeches over the next few weeks. SHOWBIZ: Netflix has urged fans not to take part in an online challenge inspired by its horror film Bird Box. FEATURE:This picture of a police officer stopping traffic to save a cat is wholesomeness personified. Six former employees of the Florida State Fire College have sued manufacturers of firefighting suppressants used at the training facility, saying they caused cancer or other diseases. The Ocala Star-Banner reports the lawsuit filed in federal court alleges the manufacturers were negligent and purposefully hid studies showing chemicals in the suppressants were carcinogenic and dangerous to the environment. The plaintiffs include a firefighter instructor and administrative employees who may have been exposed to hazardous chemicals through contaminated groundwater around the Ocala facility. The lawsuit says they suffered from thyroid disease, kidney disease, breast cancer and parathyroid cancer. According to the lawsuit, hundreds of firefighters, instructors and administrative employees could have been exposed to contaminants through the colleges pipes, faucets, showerheads, appliances, sinks and drinking water fountains. The lawsuit seeks damages totaling more than $5 million. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits Florida Education Universities Chemicals A Florida roofing company owner was arrested last month after allegedly attempting to defraud multiple homeowners out of more than $49,000 and working without workers compensation insurance, according to a statement from Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis. Terry Wayne LaCoste, owner of Terry W. LaCoste Weathertight Systems, Inc. and David E. Gilliland, Inc., was arrested after the Bureau of Workers Compensation Fraud received a tip from the Pinellas County Consumer Protection, Clearwater Police Department and the Pinellas County Sheriffs Office regarding complaints against LaCoste. Investigations revealed that LaCoste allegedly victimized a total of six homeowners by making them pay deposits up-front for roofing work. LaCoste either never started on the job or never finished the contracted work. In total, the victims had a financial loss of $49,447 combined. The investigation also revealed that LaCoste was working without the proper workers compensation insurance coverage. LaCoste was arrested on Dec. 18 and transported to the Pinellas County Jail without incident. He faces charges of organized scheme to defraud, theft/misappropriation of construction funds, and working without workers compensation insurance coverage. If convicted on all charges, LaCoste faces up to 15 years in prison. Fraud like this also steals work from honest businesses and drives up insurance rates for everyone, Patronis said. Remember to always verify before you buy and ensure that the contractor youre hiring is reputable and has the proper insurance coverage before allowing them to start work on your property. Source: Florida Department of Financial Services Topics Florida Workers' Compensation Fraud Homeowners Midlands Management Corp., a managing general agent, wholesale broker, program administrator and insurance services provider headquartered in Oklahoma City, has been acquired by multi-line specialty insurance carrier Safety National Casualty Corp. As a result of this transaction, Midlands Management Corp. is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Safety National and a member of the Tokio Marine Group. Safety Nationals and Midlands executive teams remain intact and the acquisition has no effect on day-to-day operations. There are no plans to make any personnel changes and Midlands headquarters will remain in Oklahoma City. Midlands Management specializes in work injury benefits, especially excess workers compensation, Texas non-subscriber and occupational accident. Safety National, a specialty insurance and reinsurance provider, has been in operation for more than 75 years. Topics Oklahoma Casualty The city of Long Beach, Calif. is soliciting help from its citizens to come up with a plan to deal with climate change. The coastal city of roughly half-a-million, which was an early adopter of the ban on plastic bags and was also quick to ban plastic straws, will hold a public workshop on Jan. 26 to discuss the proposed Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. The plan, the Long Beach Press-Telegram writes, will be a road map for how Long Beach with the help of residents and businesses can reduce the effects of global warming, an increasingly worrisome phenomenon that could be particularly devastating to coastal cities. According to the newspaper, the climate plan will likely be far-ranging, and detail incentives for energy efficiency, as well as creating insurance requirements for beachfront property owners in case their houses get destroyed during a flood. It will also look at how to upgrade Long Beachs electrical grid and other infrastructure to handle increased temperatures a response to the 2015 heatwave-caused blackout that left downtown residents without power for five days, the story states. The city says the goals of the plan are to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, prepare the community for the impacts of climate change, improve the quality of life and enhance economic vitality in Long Beach. Long Beach strives to be a more sustainable and resilient city in the face of climate change impacts such as air pollution, extreme heat, drought, coastal storm surge, and sea level rise, is the citys statement on its plan. Happy New Year My list of the three best, or most provocative, yearend climate change-related headlines are: No. 1: Extreme weather in 2018 was a raging, howling signal of climate change An article in the Washington Post on Dec. 31 notes that 2018 was definitely a hot and perilous year. Perhaps most striking were the temperature extremes, the article states. It was not the hottest year on record in terms of overall global temperature the three previous years were slightly warmer but many places around the planet set high-temperature records. Among the noteworthy events of the last year, the article notes, was the late intensification of Hurricane Michael in early October in the Gulf of Mexico. Normally, when a hurricane moves north in the gulf, it weakens somewhat, it states. But Michael exploded from a tropical depression into a major hurricane with startling speed and then strengthened all the way to landfall, when it was nearly a Category 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind-speed scale. After shredding Panama City and Tyndall Air Force Base and destroying the town of Mexico Beach, Fla., with a 16-foot storm surge, the storm remained a full-blown hurricane deep into Georgia. It concludes that natural disasters cost the world $155 billion this year, and several of them struck the U.S. particularly hard, including hurricanes Michael and Florence, as well as the California wildfires. No. 2: Galaxy May Be Littered With Dead Aliens Blindsided By Natural Climate Change Bruce Dorminey, a Forbes contributor, pondered in a Dec. 31 article reflecting on 2018 just how many alien civilizations within our part of the Milky Way galaxy might have already come and gone? That is, bitten the dust due to wholly natural climate change long after their planet had sung its last Auld Lang Syne? Dorminey writes. He explains that as stars age over billions of years, their luminosity increases and causes their habitable zones to expand outward. Thus, extraterrestrial intelligence that happened to evolve on planets at the inner edges of their solar systems habitable zones might initially blossom into technological civilizations. But as their stars luminosity increases over time, their planet would suffer a hellish, climatological holocaust, he writes. No. 3: After the events of 2018, climate change should be our biggest priority Seattle Times columnist Jon Talton wrote in a Jan. 1 article that the biggest story of 2018 was climate change. The same will be true in 2019 and every year of our future, he writes. Nothing else comes close. Why is climate change such a big story? Because it has great bearing on business and the economy. As evidence of that he cites the most destructive wildfires in California history, which the California Department of Insurance recently reported had cost more than $9 billion in insured losses, drought ranging from Europe and Australia to the American Southwest, and numerous record high temperatures. Most finally realize were on a new and dangerous trajectory, he writes. One report put the price tag on the 10 worst events of the year linked to global warming at $85 billion. In 2017, another study put the total cost at hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the United States alone. Another City on Climate Powell River in British Columbia has adopted a new Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Portfolio that targets a reduction in carbon emissions to 30 or 40 percent by 2032. In its recently announced CleanBC plan, the province upgraded its targets to 40 percent by 2030, 60 percent by 2040 and 80 percent by 2050, the Powell River Peak newspaper reports. All new buildings will be net-zero energy by 2032 and by 2040 all new cars must be zero emission. Powell River is a remote town of 13,000-plus residents spread out among its 11-square-miles. It was incorporated in 1955, but only became an official city in 2005. The paper interviews Powell River sustainability consultant Anastasia Lukyanova, who reports that in 2017 emissions from all city operated buildings, fleet and equipment, was 1,923 metric tons, costing the city $1.6 million. She told the paper theres a gap between political will and the will of the public. Unless things are in policy and actually mandated they quite often do not happen, Leishman said. Some of these plans have been sitting on the shelf until people have been bringing actions forward and forcing things to happen. Act of God The publication Slate in a recent piece argues that Climate Change Should Kill the Act of God. Also known as Force Majeure clauses, acts of God relate to events outside of human control. These acts include natural disasters like flash floods and earthquakes, and the provisions typically eliminate or limit liability for injuries and losses. These provisions are oft included in insurance policies, business contracts, and legislation like the Clean Water Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, the Slate article notes. The bottom-line of the articles argument is as follows: While specific weather events such as hurricanes or fires may seem to be acts of God, our growing knowledge of climate systems challenges any vision of weather divorced from human activity. Humans meddle with the climate, which meddles with weather, and the two cant be disentangled. In other words, its no longer correct to say weather events are uncaused or unpreventable by human activity. Human action on climate change could have prevented the cataclysmic droughts, fires, and floods that lie in wait in the near future, according to the article. The public now knows who triggers the growing spate of hurricanes, floods, and extinctions, and it is not God, the article states. Scientists have been warning the public about human-caused climate change for decades. In fact, the act of Gods obsolescence is just one symptom of a deeper disease. Our legal and intellectual frameworks have not kept pace with our understanding of the climate. Past columns: Topics USA California Catastrophe Hurricane Flood Climate Change The Vatican blocked U.S. bishops from taking measures to address the clergy sex abuse scandal because U.S. church leaders didnt discuss the legally problematic proposals with the Holy See enough beforehand, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press. The Nov. 11 letter from the Vaticans Cardinal Marc Ouellet provides the primary reason that Rome balked at the measures that were to be voted on by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at its Nov. 12-14 meeting. The blocked vote stunned abuse survivors and other Catholics who were demanding action from U.S. bishops to address clergy sex abuse and cover-up. Ouellets letter undermines the version of events provided by the conference president, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo. It could also provide fodder for questions during a spiritual retreat of U.S. bishops, dedicated to the abuse crisis, that opened Wednesday in Chicago. They may want to know why, as Ouellet noted in the letter, the draft proposals only arrived at the Vatican on Nov. 8, four days before the U.S. bishops meeting began. While the Vatican is known for its slow pace, even the speediest bureaucracy would have found it difficult to review and sign off on sensitive legal documents in that time. Considering the nature and scope of the documents being proposed by the (conference), I believe it would have been beneficial to have allowed for more time to consult with this and other congregations with competence over the ministry and discipline of bishops, Ouellet wrote to DiNardo. Such back-and-forth, he wrote, would have allowed the documents to properly mature. The main goal of the U.S. bishops fall meeting had been to approve a code of conduct for bishops and create a lay-led commission to receive complaints against them. The measures were a crisis response to the scandal over ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a once-senior American cleric who is now accused of molesting minors and adults, and new revelations of old sex abuse cases in Pennsylvania. DiNardo stunned the bishops when he opened the assembly Nov. 12 by announcing that at the insistence of the Holy See the bishops would not be voting on the measures after all. He said the Vatican wanted them to delay a vote until after Pope Francis hosts a global summit in February on preventing sex abuse by priests. While DiNardo blamed the Vatican, the letter from Ouellet suggests that the Vatican thought DiNardo had tried to pull a fast one by intentionally withholding legally problematic texts until the last minute. It is not surprising that Rome wanted a say in crafting the text, given the Holy See has exclusive authority to investigate and discipline problem bishops. While fully aware that a bishops conference enjoys a rightful autonomy to discuss and eventually approve measures that are within the conferences powers, the conferences work must always be integrated within the hierarchical structure and universal law of the church, Ouellet wrote. In a statement Tuesday to AP, DiNardo characterized the dispute as a misunderstanding. He said he assumed the Vatican would have had a chance to review and offer adjustments to the measures after the U.S. bishops approved them, not before. He insisted that U.S. bishops were not trying to appropriate Vatican powers for themselves. It is now clear there were different expectations on the bishops conferences part and Romes part that may have affected the understanding of these proposals, DiNardo said in a statement. From our perspective, they were designed to stop short of where the authority of the Holy See began. The U.S. strategy, it seems, was to avoid drawn-out negotiations before the vote so the U.S. bishops could present the Vatican with documents after the fact. Legally speaking, the U.S. bishops didnt need Vatican approval prior to the vote. But since the Holy See would have to approve the proposals afterward for them to become binding, consultation on the text was necessary and strategically wise to do so beforehand, said Nicholas Cafardi, a U.S. canon lawyer. DiNardo, in his statement to the AP, said he had shared the content and direction of the proposals with multiple Vatican offices in October and drafted the final text after encountering no opposition. We had not planned, nor had the Holy See made a request, to share the texts prior to the body of bishops having had an opportunity to amend them, he said. During a Nov. 12 press conference, DiNardo was asked when the Vatican was actually consulted about the measures. He replied the texts were finalized Oct. 30 and that the delay in finishing them might have been a problem. So its not surprising, on one level, that people would be catching their breath, perhaps even in Rome, he told reporters. DiNardo also acknowledged, when pressed by a reporter, that the texts themselves had some legal problems, though he downplayed the severity of them. In his statement to AP, DiNardo said he had told Ouellet that failing to vote on the texts would prove a great disappointment to the faithful, who were expecting their bishops to take just action. Though there were canonical precisions mentioned, the emphasis seemed to be on delaying votes and not wanting to get ahead of the (popes) February meeting of episcopal conference presidents, he said. Ouellet did indeed cite the February meeting in his letter, saying any document should incorporate the input and fruits of the college of bishops work of common discernment. But the February summit was announced Sept. 13. If that were the primary reason for Ouellets demand to scrap the U.S. vote, he could have communicated that to DiNardo a lot sooner. Instead, as the Nov. 12 deadline loomed for the start of the U.S. meeting and still no text proposals had arrived in Rome, Ouellet wrote DiNardo an initial warning on Nov. 6 not to vote. Five days later, in his Nov. 11 letter, Ouellet reaffirmed that decision after having finally read the text. That also undermined DiNardos claim to have only received the request to delay the vote the night before the meeting began Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics USA Abuse Molestation Say youre on your laptop at Starbucks, minding your own business, when an acquaintance of yours across the room isnt minding his. Unbeknownst to you, hes using the same store Wi-Fi as you to conduct a virtual invasion of your smart home: accessing your light switch app and using it to disable your homes security camera so real thieves can break in or walk in, if hes disabling the smart lock, too. And youre none the wiser until you get home and discover your homes been hacked. And burgled. This is just one scenario demonstrating one of many inherent flaws that computer scientists at the College of William and Mary discovered in internet-connected smart home devices during tests they conducted over the summer. This particular flaw allows hackers to attack a smart homes low-security device a light switch or thermostat, for instance and use that access to attack a high-security device they could not otherwise access. Its one example of whats called lateral privilege escalation, and experts warn that such smart home hacks are easier than you might think. They can lead to all kinds of potential mischief, if not outright harm, from switching off your security system to cranking up your smart oven until it overheats and burns the house down. The possibilities are limitless, said Adwait Nadkarni, lead investigator and assistant professor of computer science. There are so many devices in the home that affect your security, affect the integrity of your home. Experts say that in just two years there will be 20 billion smart home products in use. You can imagine the possible combinations of these kinds of attacks will obviously increase as well have more interconnected devices, said associate professor Denys Poshyvanyk. At this point, its hard for us to imagine what else people will do. Nadkarni and Poshyvanyk co-authored a paper on their work that theyll present at the 9th annual ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy in Dallas in March. Student co-authors include Kaushal Kafle and Sunil Manandhar and post-doctoral fellow Kevin Moran. In the paper, they lay out the potential misuses of the computer routines or portions of code that control smart home products and offer 10 key findings with serious security implications. The diversity of these products is staggering, the paper states, ranging from small physical devices with embedded computers such as smart locks and light bulbs to full-fledged appliances such as refrigerators and HVAC systems. And the risks, it states, can be rather alarming. Because many of these products are tied to the users security or privacy (e.g., door locks, cameras), it is important to understand the attack surface of such devices and platforms in order build practical defenses without sacrificing utility. For their research, Nadkarni and Poshyvanyk focused on two of the most popular smart home platforms Google Nest and Philips Hue that implement home automation routines. Routines are the interactions between smart home devices and the apps that control them. They are becoming the heart of seamless home automation. Two Routines According to the paper, there are two broad categories of routines: one that allows users to chain together a variety of devices using a third-party app interface, and one that uses a centralized data store as a sort of switchboard where devices and apps can communicate with each other over the internet. Both are intended to make smart home automation more seamless for the user, and both were found to be vulnerable, giving hackers the ability to attack all the internet-connected devices in the home. For the centralized data store platform, for instance, when you use your mobile app to communicate with a low-security device say, a light switch the device accesses your smart home using an authorization token. Anybody can steal that access token, Nadkarni said, and use it to, say, make your smart home think youre inside and turn off the security camera. The scientists insist its not that hard. You dont need any specialized education, said Poshyvanyk. You just need to know how to run certain programs. Even a high schooler could do that. They blame the vulnerabilities on consumer demand and the headlong rush to meet it. Manufacturers race to release these systems without having a good understanding of how they will be used in the wild, Poshyvanyk said. After the researchers identified the security flaws, they contacted platform vendors Google and Philips and app developer and manufacturer TP Link to report what they found. TP Link fixed the flaw in its latest Kasa Switch light dimmer app, which prevents the type of theoretical lateral attack outlined earlier. Philips is expected to roll out a fix to its platform and Google is working to address vulnerabilities. But the issue is bigger than one company its the industry overall that needs to get smarter. Were basically arguing that we need a systemic effort in terms of properly designing these systems with security in mind, Poshyvanyk said. Because these problems will get worse with time. More devices will be added. (If) theyre not thinking about designing in security in the first place, were going to be having even bigger problems down the road. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Cyber Illinois population decreased in 2018 by more than 45,100 residents, second largest statewide decline in the U.S., according to the Illinois Policy Institute. The figure is based on a U.S. Census Bureau report on national population trends, which was released in late December. The institute said the population decline, the states highest in recent history, came in the year following the passage of a record-setting, permanent income tax increase. The institute reported that more than 114,000 Illinois residents moved to other states from July 2017 to July 2018. In addition, the birthrate in the state is declining. Illinois is projected to lose one or two of its 18 seats in U.S. House of Representatives following the 2020 Census if the rate of population loss continues, the Illinois Policy Institute said. Highlights of the Census Bureau data include: Illinois population shrank by 45,100 people 114,154 Illinoisans left for other states on net Illinois loses 1 resident every 4.6 minutes to other states None of Illinois neighboring states saw population losse Illinois has had one of the most severe declines in births in recent years Since 2010, Illinois has had the worst population loss in the nation, in raw terms Illinois population loss over the last five years is equivalent to losing the entire city of Joliet, Naperville or Rockford (the third-, fourth- and fifth-largest cities in the state respectively) Over the past year, states with a progressive income tax lost 293,000 people to other states, while states with no income tax gained 339,000 residents from other states Source: Illinois Policy Institute Topics Illinois Work At Home Vintage Experts has named Dave Evans a senior vice president of business development. He works out of his home in Connecticut. His business experience includes employee benefits consulting and two decades in association management with the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America Inc. WAHVE is a contract talent agency in the insurance industry that matches retiring, experienced career professionals with a firms needs. Source: Work At Home Vintage Experts Berkley FinSecure, a Berkley Company, has announced three new senior leadership appointments. Joe Gresia has joined the company as senior vice president and chief field operations and business development officer. Gresia will assume this position effective January 1 and will be based in the companys New York City office. In this role, he will lead the companys sales team and be responsible for distribution management, business development and brand awareness on a national level. Gresia joined Berkley with Acadia Insurance in 2008 to lead its New York region through its offices in Albany and Syracuse. His insurance experience extends over thirty years. Prior to Acadia, he was with another property and casualty insurer and began his career as a commercial lines and financial institutions underwriter in NYC, later moving through leadership roles in marketing and branch management. Sean Missal has been promoted to senior vice president and chief underwriting officer. In this role, he will lead underwriting in FinSecures four business segments along with the operational staff. He will spearhead initiatives driving disciplined growth, underwriting quality, operational efficiency, product and risk appetite expansion. Missal joined Berkley in 2008 with Berkley Asset Protection. As vice president, he built out the companys Crime division. In 2015, he and the Crime team joined Berkley FinSecure as vice president and practice leader. Prior to Berkley, he served as vice president for an insurance group and manager for the Fidelity and Crime Division at another U.S. insurer. He has more than 23 years of experience in the fidelity and crime insurance market. Michael Beranek has been promoted to vice president and practice leader for Berkley Crime a division of Berkley FinSecure. In this role, he will be responsible for strategy and operational execution in the Crime division. Beranek joined Berkley in 2011 as leader of the Midwest region. He began his insurance career 28 years ago at another insurance group and has held roles underwriting and management. Missal and Beraneks appointments are effective immediately. Source: Berkley FinSecure Topics Leadership Photo: CTV News At least seven Canadians have died after getting stuck in clothing donation bins, and the latest fatality has prompted an advocate to call for the "death traps" to be immediately fixed or removed. A 34-year-old man was found lodged in a bin in West Vancouver on Sunday, the fifth person in the province to die the same way since 2015. A 32-year-old man was found dead inside a donation box in Cambridge, Ont., in November, and a man in his 20s died in a similar container in Calgary in July 2017. Prof. Ray Taheri of the school of engineering at the University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus says the death of a B.C. woman in a bin last July prompted him to get his students working on ways to retrofit the bins. He says removing up to 2,000 bins just in British Columbia would cost too much money, so the best solution would be to change their design as quickly as possible using the ideas his students have come up with. Jeremy Hunka of Union Gospel Mission in Vancouver says many homeless people depend on the bins for clothing, and others may try to use them as shelter in cold weather but they're so dangerous that charitable organizations should get rid of them and find other ways to collect donations. State insurance commissioner Dave Jones accepted the settlement earlier this week, acknowledging allegations that Wells Fargos representatives issued some 1,500 insurance policies without the consent or knowledge of Californian customers. In total, Wells Fargo had allegedly enrolled about 600,000 customers across the US to an insurance product they did not need. The company previously stopped issuing new insurance policies when the accusations first hit. A spokesperson for Wells Fargo told The Associated Press that the company has worked to make things right for its customers and to earn back their trust. The company is also in the process of repaying those customers it wrongfully charged for insurance but it has estimated that it would take until 2020 to finish repaying all those affected. Insurer Suncorp has been inundated with 24,800 claims so far in relation to the catastrophic hailstorms that lashed across Sydney, Central Coast, and the South East Queensland regions in December, with the damage costs expected to rise in the coming weeks as customers return from the holidays. Suncorp said natural hazard costs across Australia and New Zealand for the six-month period to December 31, 2018 are now expected to reach $600 million to $610 million $240 million to $250 million more than its $360 million natural hazard allowance for that period. Photo: Contributed RCMP are investigating an armed robbery where a sawed-off shotgun was allegedly pointed at the clerk. Const. Kelly Brett said on Dec. 30, 2018, just before 11 p.m., police responded to an armed robbery at a liquor store in the 1500 block of George Street in Enderby. A lone male suspect entered the location wearing a balaclava over this face and allegedly pointed a sawed-off double-barrelled shot gun at the female clerk. The male fled on a mountain bike with an un-disclosed amount of cash, said Brett. No one was injured during this incident and again the RCMP commend the clerk for following demands and not putting herself in harms way. Brett said police are actively investigating the incident and anyone with any information is asked to contact the Vernon North Okanagan RCMP at 250-545-7171. Remain anonymous by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477, or leaving a tip online. Woodbridge, VA (22192) Today A mix of clouds and sun. High 87F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Thunderstorms during the evening will give way to partly cloudy skies after midnight. Potential for severe thunderstorms. Low 64F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%. The Latest from Barchart Sign up to receive your Watchlist or Portfolio sent to you by email up to 4 times a day; available at market open, mid-day, market close or end-of-day. Premier Members can also receive the results of custom Screeners - alerting to price or trend changes during and after each trading day. Sign up for a risk-free 30-day Barchart Premier trial. Insurance fraud seems like it might be an easy thing to do. Insurance companies are often so huge, one wonders how they might not even notic... Photo: Wayne Moore - Castanet File Photo The BC Court of Appeal has upheld the three-day suspension of a liquor license for the Liquid Zoo, a nightclub in downtown Kelowna, that found itself in hot water after a patron was seen sporting gang clothing inside the bar. Last year, a Supreme Court judge upheld the original ruling, rejecting an application for a judicial review made by club owner David Habib. Justice Geoff Barrow acknowledged there was an element of unfairness in the process, and found it unreasonable to impose a maximum penalty to the nightclub, but that was overturned by the Court of Appeal in this most recent ruling. As the chambers judge correctly stated the applicable standard of review, the issue on this appeal becomes whether he applied it correctly. In my respectful opinion, he did not, stated Appeals Court Justice David Tysoe. the approach the chambers judge should have taken was to determine whether the three-day suspension of the licence fell within a range of possible, acceptable outcomes. He was not to substitute his own appreciation of the appropriate solution. Habib had tried to argue that he did not see the clothing and believed conditions only applied if a member of his staff witnessed the infraction. While testifying later at a hearing, Habib said he knew the Kingpin Crew was a motorcycle club, he did not realize at the time of the incident it was a criminal gang. Officers attending the establishment on Jan. 12, 2012 recognized several patrons as members of a motorcycle gang, one of which wore a cap with the numbers 113 on the front and Kingpin Crew MC in smaller lettering on the back. This contravened a new condition implemented by the general manager of the Liquor Control and Licensing Branch, following previous history that included gang activity and business dealings with gang members at the location. Appendixes to this particular liquor license included: Licensee must ensure that no patron or employee will be allowed entry into the establishment at any time with any apparel or jewelry of any kind with gang affiliated identification. Where any person (employee or patron or entertainer) who removes a garment inside the establishment that reveals any gang affiliated identification or support for any gang or gang activities including tattoos and all types of apparel that person will be removed immediately. According to Kelowna RCMP, the Kingpin Crew was disbanded several months ago. The gang was believed to have been fronted by Habibs brother Dale. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 3) Daraga, Albay Mayor Carlwyn Baldo on Thursday refuted the police's allegation that he is the main culprit behind the killing of AKO-BICOL Party-list Rep. Rodel Batocabe. In a press conference, Baldo maintained his innocence over the lawmaker's death, saying he is just being used as a "convenient scapegoat." "I assert my innocence. Let us not forget that while I am being used as a convenient scapegoat, those who are truly responsible for the crime remain free and blameless. I am an easy target but that does not make me guilty of the crime," he said. The mayor said he would refrain from further discussing the matter until he receives a formal copy of the complaint. "I am already being persecuted in the courts of public opinion. I am a public servant at ang gusto ko lang naman po ay magsilbi (and what I wanted is just to serve)," he said. The Philippine National Police (PNP) tagged Baldo as the mastermind in Batocabe's slay. According to one of the suspects, Baldo hired six persons to gun down Batocabe and his security on December 22, PNP Chief Oscar Albayalde said in a press briefing. The PNP said one of the six, Christopher Cabrera Naval, surrendered to the PNP Intelligence Group on December 30. Naval reportedly told the PNP that plans to assassinate Batocabe began as early as August 2018. Baldo allegedly offered them P5 million to kill Batocabe in September 2018 and gave Naval P250,000 for the team to purchase guns and motorcycles for the assassination The gun-for-hire team was composed of paramilitary personnel, and former communist rebels. A certain Henry Yuson and Rolando Armado were pinpointed as the main gunmen in the killing. Naval's accounts coincided with those of Emmanuel Judavar, another co-conspirator in the case who also reportedly backed out from the assassination attempt. Albayalde said two suspects and a witness are now in police custody. Cases of double murder and six counts of multiple frustrated murder were filed before the provincial prosecutor's office of Albay against Baldo and the members of the gun-for-hire group. "This case, we considered solved but not closed. Why? Some of the suspects are not yet arrested," Albayalde said. Justin Batocabe, son of the slain congressman, said the results of the PNP's investigation helped the family cope psychologically but their family continues to condemn the crime. "To accept that killing someone for money, for political position, that is something we will never accept," Batocabe said. Rep. Batocabe's wife Gertie previously hinted at a political motive. Justin Batocabe added the family is currently discussing who will run in the 2019 polls to substitute for the slain lawmaker. "I can confirm that there are all calls for my mother to substitute for my father," Justin Batocabe said. DILG commends PNP The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) lauded the police for identifying Baldo as the suspected brain behind Batocabe's killing, saying the same "relentless police investigation and intelligence operations" shall be applied ahead of the May elections. "Let this, therefore, serve as a stern warning against all politicians not to intimidate, harass, or do violence against their political opponents in the forthcoming elections, otherwise the DILG-PNP will run after them and ensure that justice will be served," DILG Secretary Eduardo Ano said in a statement. Ano said he had "placed the PNP on heightened alert to monitor the activities of all candidates in the forthcoming elections." According to him, cases of double murder and multiple frustrated murder have been filed against Baldo and several other suspects. The Secretary said the agency will also call for the revocation of the mayor's authority over the local police of Daraga. He assured that the DILG and PNP will "dismantle private armed groups of politicians as well as revoke the firearms licenses of those found to be violating the law" regardless of their position in the government. "The powers of incumbent local chief executives over their local police units will also be revoked should they abuse their authority or otherwise engage in violent activities," he said. CNN Philippines's Chad de Guzman and Robert Vergara contributed to this report. While actress Tanushree Dutta became the face of the #MeToo wave in the showbiz in 2018, its tides were felt across media, art, literature and political worlds. (IANS photo) After a businessman in Mumbais Mahim got six missed calls on his phone on December 2, he lost Rs 1.86 crore. In a sim swap fraud case, money from a textile merchants account was illegally transferred by unidentified people to various bank accounts across the country, police said on Wednesday. According to the complaint of the businessman, his cell phone had stopped working after some missed calls. The next morning he found that his bank account which was also linked to his mobile phone had been almost emptied during the night, the businessman told PTI. Read More: A Woman Was Cheated Out Of Rs 1 Lakh After She Called A Customer Care Number From Google Search The money was transferred from his bank account through the RTGS/NEFT by many unidentified people to 24 accounts of various banks in Delhi, West Bengal, Jharkhand and some other northern states. The bank after that managed to bring back Rs 20 lakh and was able to freeze some of the accounts. Reuters Based on the mans complaint, police lodged FIR against unidentified people under IPC sections related to cheating, impersonation, acts done by several people in furtherance of common intention and also provisions related to Information Technology Act. During the investigation it also came out that the fraudsters had managed to clone the businessmans sim card, police said. They may have got his sim cards details with the help of a malware (which is a type of computer virus). Indian parliamentary debates are nothing short of dramatic, we've all seen some serious stuff go down on the floor. From people throwing chairs at each other and now throwing paper planes at the opposition. It's akin to a scene of unruly kids at a kindergarten. ANI The Lok Sabha on Wednesday held a debate on the multi-crore Rafale fighter jet deal. Congress president Rahul Gandhi opened the debate and hit out at the BJP-led NDA government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. ALSO READ: Supreme Court Finds No Problem In Rafale Deal, Modi Govt Can Go Ahead Without Any Probe And things took a turn for the worst. #WATCH Moment when Congress MPs threw paper planes towards FM Arun Jaitley while he was speaking during #Rafaledeal debate in Lok Sabha (Source:LS TV) pic.twitter.com/4LuuBIUSPU ANI (@ANI) 2 January 2019 The Finance Minister was in the middle of a counter regarding the Rafale debate, when Congress MP Sushmita Dev, along with other leaders, threw paper planes at Jaitley. They did not stop even after Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan stood up and asked them to stop, saying "Have you not made paper planes in childhood? Why are you doing this? You demanded this discussion so you have to listen." Y r we paying such disrupters from our tax money. Sprawling bungalows they hav in the heart of Delhi n all they do is fly paper planes in Parliament. R they not accountable to any1. Y do we see even Chair so helpless . Entire sessions goes without any discussion. Such a pity harrison (@pannu5079) 2 January 2019 Vry disrespectfull to Parliament House... V all treat Parliament house as temple... Wt dramas r these @INCIndia MP doing ?? Doesn't hav any respect towards the house ?? Anjali Nataraj (@AnjaliKoundinya) 2 January 2019 The aeroplanes started flying when Jaitley was explaining why India needed the Rafale jets. According to some reports, Congress MPs defended the flying of the planes, stating that they only resorted to the act when the union minister started talking about Bofors and digressed from the actual point. The Speaker also suspended 26 AIADMK MPs for 'continuously coming to the well of the house and obstructing house proceedings'. ALSO READ: #mce_temp_url#Government Will Have To Submit Pricing Details Of Rafale Fighter Jets India Is Buying From France Donations and monetary offerings to God are not uncommon in India. People often offer generous offerings to deities believing that they will make the lord happy and be blessed. One of the richest temples in India is the famous Shirdi Saibaba temple in Maharashtra which receives the largest donations in India. Starting before Christmas and ending on the New Year day (December 22 - January 1), the temple received donations worth Rs 14.54 crore, an official said. The devotees from the country as well as abroad donated Rs 8.05 crore in the donation boxes, Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust's vice chairman Chandrashekhar Kadam told reporters on January 2. Twitter The temple trust also received Rs 6 crore through online donations, debit/credit cards, cheques, demand drafts and donation counters, he added. Gold and silver items worth Rs 19 lakh were also donated. Its not just India, devotees from 19 countries including the USA, the UK, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and China donates foreign currencies worth Rs 30.63 lakh. Apart from these the temple trust also earned Rs 3.62 crore through paid passes that were issued to the visitors and the online darshan facility provided by the temple management, Mr Kadam said. Nearly 9.5 lakh devotees from different parts of the country also visited Saibaba temple during the 11-day period. To lose your wallet while travelling by public transport is probably one of the worst nightmares because once left behind there's little or no hope to find it. But this Mumbai auto driver is changing that narrative. When he dropped a woman to a nearby local station, she hurriedly got off to catch a train and in the process left her wallet behind. The incident occurred on January 1 when the woman hurriedly alighted at Koparkhairane railway station to catch a train for her house in Dombivil, states TOI. Around 5 pm on Tuesday, Heena Bhanushali came to Koparkhair police station and informed her daughter, Bhavika, had left her purse behind in an auto. Bhanushali filed the complaint on her daughters behalf," police Suryakant Jagdale told TOI. ALSO READ: Chennai Auto Driver With Degree In Tamil Literature, Offers Free Rides To Kids & Pregnant Women The wallet had a 45-gm gold Mangalsutra in it and the driver could have done anything with it, but he chose to be honest. The driver named Prashant Parwar immediately notified an auto union head about the lost article. We definitely need more honest people like Parwar! When NASA went to the Moon for the very first time, Neil Armstrong called it a "giant leap for mankind". And that leap happened once more just yesterday, thanks to China. The country became the first to ever land a spacecraft on the dark side of the Moon. Images courtesy: Reuters For those of you somewhat confused, it's not that a portion of the Moon is dark. It's just that its rotation and revolution around our planet match to an extent that it's always pointing the same side at us. SO the "dark" side of the Moon is just the far side, rarely studied. But yesterday, China's space agency landed its Chang'e 4 ship on the Moon after months of preparations, complete with a robotic lander and a rover that launched in December. The craft descended into a crater on the far side of our planet's satellite, marking another milestone in history, and cementing China's place in the elite spaceflight club. The mission is one of many planned for China. The country had previously already landed a rover on the Moon with the Chang'e 3 mission, only the third country to ever do so after the US and Russia. Also Read: Heres Why China Is Trying To Grow Potatoes On The Far Side Of The Moon The reason no one's ever done a landing on the far side however is because of how complicated it is. After all we never see that side, so getting a lander down there safely is hard. There's no way to get radio signals to the ship without a line of sight. And we don't have spacecraft able to completely fly themselves either, so instead China figured out another solution. They launched another satellite earlier in May, which they put into synchronous orbit near the Moon. That way, the satellite is acting as a communications array to "bounce" the signal from Earth to Chang'e 4 when it goes behind the Moon. While there, the rover's first mission is to study the South Pole-Aitken basin it's landed in. Theorized to be one of the oldest craters we've ever seen up close, billions of years old, Chang'e 4 will try to confirm that. It also has numerous other instruments for a variety of data collection duties, including studying the rock composition in the area. And China will technically be doing all of this blind. If that's not impressive, we don't know what is. With the start of the new year, Tesla buyers in the US now dont have access to the full $7,500 (INR 5.3 lakh) federal tax credit for electric vehicles, but the automaker appears to have compensated by reducing the price of all its models in the US. As the federal tax credit for electric vehicles was slashed in half in the US beginning 2019, Tesla took it to itself to make sure the prices of its models do not surge abruptly. For this, the US electric car maker has announced discounts on all of its models. The $7,500 tax credit has now been halved to $3,750 (INR 2.6 lakh). To adjust the increased burden on the potential buyers, Tesla recently updated its online design studio with new prices of its models. As per it, here are the revised pricings of all the Tesla cars. Model S 75D at $76,000 (down from $78,000) [INR 53.4 lakh from INR 54.9 lakh] Model S 100D at $94,000 (down from $96,000) [INR 66.1 lakh from INR 67.5 lakh] Model X 75D at $82,000 (down from $84,000) [INR 57.7 lakh from INR 59.1 lakh] Model X 100D at $97,000 (down from $99,000) [INR 68.2 lakh from INR 69.6 lakh] Tesla Model X (Tesla) Why the price drop? As can be seen, the electric vehicles have attracted a $2,000 discount each. This looks to be a move by the US largest electric car maker to compensate for the $3,750 additional tax credit previously available to the customers. A considerable advantage that the discounts have over the previous tax credit is the fact that the discount can be availed at the time of buying the vehicles. In contrast, the tax credit available previously was adjusted at the ending of the financial year. Tesla Model S (Tesla) In addition to the half of the previous tax credit and the new discount, customers in the US will also be able to avail several state incentives linked with the zero-emission vehicles by the company. As per Tesla, such incentives can range up to a total of $4,000 (INR 2.8 lakh) more. Several experts are calling the move an attempt by the automaker to retain, or even enhance its hold in the market as well as the stock exchange. A woman journalist was allegedly assaulted by Bharatiya Janata Party workers in Thiruvananthapuram. The incident took place today while she was covering statewide protests against entry of two women devotees, in their forties, into Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala. The victim has been identified as Kairali TV camerawoman Shajila Ali Fathima. A photo of her in tears while holding the camera is making rounds on internet. Also Read: Two Women Below 50 Enter Sabarimala Temple & People Laud Them For Creating History According to Dool News, Fathim said that she was not afraid of the BJP and would continue to cover the agitations. Also Read: Sabarimala Temple Reopens After 'Purification Rituals' Following Entry Of Two Women People on the internet are praising her for showing extraordinary courage. Kandararu Rajeevaru, the chief priest of the Sabarimala temple had shut the shrine for nearly an hour after consultation with the erstwhile royal family of Pandalam, the custodians of the temple, following the entry of two women in the shrine yesterday. In two separate incidents two IndiGo Airlines flights had to make emergency landings after developing technical glitches in the recent days. In the latest incident an IndiGo flight between Delhi-Ahmedabad had to make a priority landing on Tuesday Ahmedabad after the crew noticed unusual smell. BCCL/ REPRESENTATIONAL IMAGE The pilots issued Pan Pan emergency, which in aviation terminology means that there is an alarming situation need a priority landing. An IndiGo spokesperson said: An IndiGo flight 6E 6373 operating Delhi-Ahmedabad route on January 1 made a priority landing at Ahmedabad. Inflight the crew noticed an unusual smell. There was no operational impact. On ground it was noted that it was a minor technical glitch which was rectified before the next flight. Earlier, another IndiGo flight, between Jaipur and Kolkata made an emergency landing in Kolkata due to smoke filling the cabin and cockpit of the aircraft. The pilot had made a May Day call after the smoke was detected. BCCL/ REPRESENTATIONAL IMAGE This was the second time IndiGo's Airbus A320Neo fleet reported smoke in less than a month. On December 10 there was a smoke incident on a A320Neo using Pratt & Whitney (PW) engines. PW has informed the DGCA it is modifying some engines of the Neo by lowering temperature of the combustion chamber by 40 degrees Celsius. It was possibly the first case of this kind, DGCA chief B S Bhullar had said about the December 10 incident. Want to enjoy the winter chill without the alarming pollution? Then head to Munnar hill station in Kerala. For the past couple of days, Munnar is freezing, quite literally! Across many parts of Munnar, the mercury has plunged to as low as minus three degrees, the lowest temperature recorded this season. Thin layers of frost were seen in the meadows and tea plants in Meesapulimala, Kolukkumalai, Gudarala, Kundala, Chenduvara and Kannimala in and around Munnar. Local reports also suggest that even places like Marayur and Kanthalloor have received some snow. The chilling weather conditions are likely to continue for at least the next few days. With winter in full swing, the hill station has seen an increase in tourist footfall for the past couple of weeks. Since Christmas hotels and resorts in Munnar are doing brisk business with an increase in the number of tourists. In places like Meesapulimala, known for its breathtaking sunrise view there has been an increase in the number of visitors. Other key tourist attractions like Mattupetty, Kolukkumalai Top Station are also bustling with tourists. This is a welcome sign for Munnar's tourism industry which had suffered massive damages in the floods that ravaged the state in August 2018. What was supposed to be the biggest tourist season on record for Munnar with the blooming of Neelakurinji after 12 years was almost washed away last year in the floods. But slowly but steadily the city has recovered from the floods and is back in business as usual. United States President Donald Trump has been taking a lot of heat for his recent decision of pulling out troops from Afghanistan and Syria. Both the countries are war-stricken areas that are still battling ISIS and other militant organisations. Many bureaucrats and ministers from his own party have frowned upon his decision. 50,000 Syrian refugees have been left to die while Afghanistan has been left to the Taliban. Photo: AFP Many even compared his decision with that of former President Barack Obamas decision to pull out troops prematurely from Iraq in 2011. Many called this as yet another episode of American inconsistency and unreliability. Now that India is assisting Afghanistan in its development by playing an important role, Trump has mock the nation for meeting the educational needs of its war-torn neighbour. In an inconsequential press conference, Trump brought up Indias aid as he tried his level best to defend his decision of investing less overseas. Photo: AFP/May 13, 2018, smoke rises from a building during an ongoing fight between Afghan security forces and suicide attackers at a government building in Jalalabad AFP reported that while stating that he got along with Modi, Trump said that Modi was constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan. You know what that is? Thats like five hours of what we spend, said Trump. And were supposed to say, Oh, thank you for the library. I dont know whos using it in Afghanistan, he further added. While it was not clear which project Trump was referring to, India has committed $3 billion in assistance to Afghanistan since US-led forces toppled the extremist Taliban regime after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Indias contribution includes reconstruction of an elite high school in Kabul and scholarships for a thousand Afghan students to India every year. It has even provided security and military training to a large number of citizens in both India and Afghanistan. Photo: Reuters/An Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier keeps watch at a check point on the outskirts of Kabul India has now responded to Trumps jibe. India asserted that developmental help plays a critical role in transforming a war-ravaged country, NDTV reported. Citing government sources, the statement said "India firmly believes in the critical role that developmental assistance can play in transforming human lives. Giving a firm reply on Thursday, the statement further read that Indias partnership with Afghanistan was based on specific requirements that were chalked out with the government of Afghanistan and is aimed at the welfare of the people of Afghanistan and for a tangible improvement in the lives of its people. It even added that India didnt send its army abroad except under the specific mandate of UN Peacekeeping Operations. As per local media reports,India's partnership with Afghanistan is based on five pillars, infrastructure projects, capacity building, humanitarian assistance, economic development and connectivity. India has big plans for the year 2019. The country is planning to launch 32 space missions this year. "The year 2019 promises to be challenging to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) community with 32 planned missions," its chairman K. Sivan said in a message to his employees on New Year on Tuesday, reported IANS. The missions include the much-anticipated second lunar mission, Chandrayaan-2, with a lander and rover. Also Read: 5 Reasons Why ISRO's Gaganyaan Mission Will Make All Of Us Proud BCCL The Rs 800-crore lunar mission will the 25th from the second launch pad of the space port at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, about 90km northeast of Chennai. Indias first human space mission in 2021-22, Gaganyaan, will also take off this year. Also Read: ISRO To Build 3 Rocket Sets, Crew Modules For Gaganyaan- India's First Unmanned Mission To Space On August 15, 2018, prime minister Narendra Modi announced Gaganyaan mission in his Independence Day speech. AFP The space agency is also aiming to re-instate its microwave remote sensing capability through the Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT) series and hopes to attain geo-imaging capability through Geo-Imaging Satellite (GISAT) series, said the IANS report. Marking the birth centenary of the founding father of India's space programme, Vikram Sarabhai, ISRO will host a year-long celebration from August 12, with national and international events such as fellowships, scholarships at universities. Comedian Hasan Minhaj, in a satirical tweet, reacted to Netflix pulling down an episode of The Patriot Act, for which he is the host. The episode is critical of Saudi Prince Mohammad Bin Salman and his alleged involvement in the killing of The Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Minhaj said the Saudi-led war in Yemen is the worlds largest humanitarian crisis in a tweet he wrote following massive outcry over Netflixs decision. The episode is reportedly still available in Saudi Arabia over YouTube. Clearly, the best way to stop people from watching something is to ban it, make it trend online, and then leave it up on YouTube. Lets not forget that the worlds largest humanitarian crisis is happening in Yemen right now. Please donate: https://t.co/znMP8vyJma https://t.co/t2VUDhhIdB Hasan Minhaj (@hasanminhaj) January 2, 2019 In his tweet, he also urged people to make donations towards relief. He said: Clearly, the best way to stop people from watching something is to ban it, make it trend online, and then leave it up on YouTube. Lets not forget that the worlds largest humanitarian crisis is happening in Yemen right now. After receiving criticism for taking the episode down, Netflix said in a statement: We strongly support artistic freedom worldwide and removed this episode only in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal demand from the government and to comply with local law. In the episode, Minhaj said: It took the killing of a Washington Post journalist for everyone to go, Oh, I guess hes really not a reformer. Representational Image Physical relationships with consent in a live-in relationship between partners does not amount to rape, ruled the Supreme Court. In a major ruling, the apex court said that if a man fails to marry a woman with whom he had consensual sex in a live-in relationship, the woman cannot claim being rape. Read more Here's more top news of the day: 1) India Plans To Go Big In Space This Year, To Launch 32 Space Missions Including Chandrayaan-2 BCCL "The year 2019 promises to be challenging to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) community with 32 planned missions," its chairman K. Sivan said in a message to his employees on New Year on Tuesday, reported IANS. Read more 2) Communal Violence Has Claimed 1,605 Lives In 13 Years, Shouldn't India Give Peace A Chance Now? ap/representational image India has remained a victim to communal violence and lately, such incidents have only become more frequent. Between 2004-2017, India witnessed 10,399 incidents of communal violence wherein 1,605 people were killed and 30,723 were injured. Read more 3) Hasan Minhaj Is At His Satirical Best As He Reacts To Netflix Pulling Episode On Saudi Prince Comedian Hasan Minhaj, in a satirical tweet, reacted to Netflix pulling down an episode of The Patriot Act, for which he is the host. The episode is critical of Saudi Prince Mohammad Bin Salman and his alleged involvement in the killing of The Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Read more 4) Thrashed & Abused, Yet This Female Cameraperson Fearlessly Covered Sabrimala Protests. Respect! A woman journalist was allegedly assaulted by Bharatiya Janata Party workers in Thiruvananthapuram. The incident took place today while she was covering statewide protests against entry of two women devotees, in their forties, into Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala. Read more 5) India Reiterates Importance Of Developing Afghanistan In Response To Trump's Library Jibe Photo: AFP United States President Donald Trump has been taking a lot of heat for his recent decision of pulling out troops from Afghanistan and Syria. Both the countries are war-stricken areas that are still battling ISIS and other militant organisations. Read more Remember that pain you experienced when you experienced that painful heartbreak or that emotional trauma? Well, its not just the emotional and mental pain but also physical trauma and damage that heartbreaks can cause. The effect it causes is called a broken heart syndrome. The symptoms of a broken heart syndrome include shortness of breath and chest pain. Fortunately, it like in a heart attack, it does not cause a blockage in your arteries restricting blood flow. cirugiaobesidadmarbella.com Strangely, its the bodys own immune system that could be one of the key causes for this condition. The intensity of the emotional or physical trauma can cause a response that affects the tissues of your heart. "We found that broken heart syndrome triggers a storm in the immune system which results in acute inflammation in the heart muscle. The heart muscle then spills inflammatory signals that are circulating throughout the body," said lead researcher Dana Dawson, Professor at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, as reported in IANS. kalohirek.hu Broken heart syndrome is a serious stress-induced condition which affects mainly women and can cause long-lasting damage and scarring to the heart muscle. Surprisingly, there are still large gaps in our knowledge of its underlying biology," said Professor Metin Avkiran, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation which funded the study. This study published in the journal Circulation revealed that drugs which target inflammation could possibly fix a broken heart. ingenexdigital.com "The discovery that it is accompanied by inflammation within the heart and in the rest of the body is an important step forward," Avkiran said. "We now need further research to understand if inflammation causes Takotsubo cardiomyopathy and determine if drugs that target inflammation could be the key to fixing broken hearts," Avkiran said. Since the time the trailer of The Accidental Prime Minister has been released, it has shaken the political landscape in India. Based on the book of the same name by Singh's media advisor Sanjaya Baru, the book, just like the trailer, was controversial. The movie details the political career of Dr Manmohan Singh. The film is being called anti-Congress propaganda and it has ruffled quite some feathers of the Congress. Yesterday, the trailer of the upcoming controversial film was apparently removed from YouTube. Anupam Kher, expressing his concern on the same, had blasted the platform in a tweet. Dear @YouTube!!! I am getting messages & calls that in parts of our country if you type, trailer of #TheAccidentalPrimeMinister, it is either not appearing or at 50th position. We were trending at No.1 yday. Please help. #HappyNewYear. #37millionviews https://t.co/TUu4AtaRzk pic.twitter.com/KhoZJuxmmu Anupam Kher (@AnupamPKher) January 1, 2019 Since the movies trailer had raised political temperatures in the country with Congress questioning BJPs motive behind promoting the movie and also raised objections to incorrect presentation of facts, the political party demanded a private screening before the release of the movie. On this, Anupam Kher who plays the lead role said that even though he wants Manmohan Singh to watch the movie first, he cant let Congress attend a special screening of the film. On the other hand, Anupam Khers wife, even before the release of the movie, has stated that she feels the movie should be India's official entry to Oscars this year. BJP MP, Kirron Kher: Its a pathbreaking film. People who speak of freedom of speech i.e Rahul Gandhi, must now practice what he preaches.Anupam told me people will fall in love with Manmohan Singh ji. It should be Indias official entry to the Oscars. #TheAccidentalPrimeMinister pic.twitter.com/SUduFtq0Ue ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2018 While the political debate on the movie is still on, a case has been filed against actor Anupam Kher and 14 others associated with the movie in a Bihar court for damaging the reputation of some top bureaucrats. Lawyer Sudhir Kumar Ojha has filed the case in Muzaffarpur's Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) court. The case will be heard in Sub Divisional Judicial Magistrate court on Jan 8. Twitter Ojha in his petition complained that Anupam Kher and Akshaye Khanna, who have played the role of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his press advisor Sanjaya Baru in the film, have damaged the image of both of them. "It hurt me and many others," he said. In his complaint, Ojha said others who have played the role of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra also damaged their image. He has also complained against the film director and producer. Legendary actor and a skilled dialogue writer Kader Khans death has left many shattered including his fans and people from the film fraternity who worked for him. After he passed away, a lot of people from the industry paid their last respect to the star. However, some of them, including Shatrughan Sinha, were angry at how he was neglected in the last years when he was ill. Kader Khans son Sarfaraz also spilled some bitterness while talking about how the film industry neglected him after he migrated to Canada to live with his three sons. Twitter Among others who he lashed out at was Govinda, who yesterday paid an emotional tribute to his ustaad and father-figure. Kader Khans son is, however, called him out for not checking on his father figures health even once. RIP Kader Khan Saab. He was not just my "ustaad" but a father figure to me, his midas touch and his aura made every actor he worked with a superstar. The entire film industry and my family deeply mourns this loss and we cannot express the sorrow in words.#ripkaderkhansaab pic.twitter.com/NISPM1UMs1 Govinda (@govindaahuja21) January 1, 2019 Please ask Govinda how many times he inquired about his father figure's health. Has he even bothered to call us even once after my father's passing away? This is the way our film industry has become. There are no real feelings for those who have contributed to Indian cinema when they're no longer active. The top guns may be seen getting clicked with these retired veterans. But the affection goes only as far as photographs. No more. Look at the condition in which Lalita Pawarji and Mohan Chotiji died. Luckily, my father had three sons to look after him. What about those who die with no financial and emotional support? he was quoted as saying by IANS. He added that his father would be happy to know that he passed away surrounded by his loved ones. There was a smile on my father's face when he passed away. I cherish that smile more than anything else in the world, he added. No matter how many films prove to be disasters at the box-office, Shah Rukh Khan still remains the undisputed King of Bollywood. With the amount of love and popularity that the actor has gained in years, it is impossible to imagine any of it fade away. He has an enviable fan-base and there is no limit to the love that his fans shower on him. From China to South Korea, his friends are spread all over the globe. Agencies Considering he is one of the most loved superstars, his online activity on social media is definitely monitored closely by his fans. And this is the reason how his friends started celebrating #9YearsOfSRKOnTwitter. Agencies From revisiting his first tweet which was dedicated to his close friend Karan Johar to describing why people love to follow him-his fans have given him a memorable ode on Twitter today. Read on! Agencies Here is what happened when the memory of his Twitter anniversary popped up on the timeline. 9 years back on this day, SRK joined Twitter and the rest is history. He's the most followed Indian actor! Thank you so much for connecting with us and inspiring us like always. Lots of love!https://t.co/vcz6zVw8LD#9YrsOfSRKOnTwitter pic.twitter.com/5QGWbNIsEf SRK Universe (@SRKUniverse) January 2, 2019 This Scene Has No Dailogue But This Scene Said 1000 Words Without Speaking #9YrsOfSRKOnTwitter pic.twitter.com/Bxfrxw9bO5 Javed (@JoySRKian_) January 2, 2019 SRKs 9 years On Twitter:: 9 Years. 37.1Million Followers (Most Followed Indian Actor on Twitter). 74 tweets with 10K+ Retweets. First Indian to cross 100K+ RTs. Only Indian Actor to hav 150K+ RTed Tweet. First Indian to Do Video Tweet..#9YrsOfSRKOnTwitter pic.twitter.com/Gu6v37dQH5 HARRY ZERO (@sharmahariom066) January 2, 2019 9 years of domination on twitter from a MEGASTAR & his FANS @iamsrk#9YrsOfSRKOnTwitter N (@SRK_Protector) January 2, 2019 Don't wait for a man ,who breaks your heart ... #9 years of srk on twitter pic.twitter.com/TNiwAE9qnT nawal aabed Allah (@aabed_nawal) January 2, 2019 Ever since he made a debut in Bollywood, Ranveer Singh has only seen success. Except a few misses like Gunday and Befikre, the actor has his vision in place. From choosing the right script to putting his sweat and blood into the film, we have seen Ranveer Singh transforming into stunning characters. And with every passing film, Ranveer promises to keep evolving as an actor. Basking in the success of Simmba, Ranveer said, "As an artiste, I have always wanted to entertain audiences, at the same time offering something new to them with every film, with a constant endeavour to push myself to evolve as an actor," Ranveer said in a statement. Last year, Ranveer garnered applause for essaying the role of villainous Delhi Sultan Alauddin Khilji in "Padmaavat". At the moment, his latest release has crossed the Rs 100 crore mark in 5 days and he's overwhelmed. Screengrab Ranveer's performance as the corrupt police officer Simmba, who has a moral turnaround to become the saviour of justice, has been getting positive response from critics and audiences. Rohit Shetty's "Simmba", an action-comedy drama, revolves around a corrupt police officer who eventually stands up against rapist. Also starring Sara Ali Khan, the film opened on December 28 last year. Talking about the film, Ranveer said: "I had never done this kind of out and out masala entertainer -- a kind of movie I had always wanted to do. I'm extremely grateful to the audience for the love they have showered on my performance and on the film. It is encouraging and truly humbling. It has been an absolutely incredible year for me, and the success of 'Simmba' makes it an ideal way to end the year -- on a huge, huge high." Ranveer credits the success of "Simmba" to Shetty's vision. "I want to thank Rohit Shetty for believing in me and making me his hero. Rohit's vision propelled by the collective effort of his entire team has been the sole reason behind 'Simmba' hitting the bullseye. It has been an absolute honour to work with him and his stellar team. Their large-hearted mentoring and exemplary work ethic has spurred a tremendous growth in me as a performer. The actor will next be seen in Zoya AKhtar's Gully Boy which is slated to release on 14th February, 2018. Veteran actor Kader Khan passed away on 31st December, 2018 leaving a void in the film industry. Writing screenplay, dialogues and acting, Kader Khan was a man of many talents. Twitter After his demise in Canada due to prolonged illness, the Bollywood industry expressed shock. They paid tribute to the actor on social media. But his son Sarfaraz is disappointed with the way no one reached out to him after his father's demise. Twitter During a media interaction, Sarfaraz said, "It is the way the Indian film industry has become now. There are too many fragmented camps and loyalties. The out-of-sight-out-of-mind mentality can't be helped. My father always told us, his sons, not to expect anything from anybody and we grew up with the belief that one must do what is required in life and expect nothing in return." His son even mentioned how much Khan saab missed his long time friend Amitabh Bachchan. Cineblitz "There are so many people in the film industry whom my father was close to. But the one person that my father loved the most was Bachchan saab (Amitabh Bachchan). I'd ask my father whom he missed the most from the film industry and the answer promptly would be Bachchan Saab. And I know the love was mutual. I want Bachchan saab to know that my father spoke about him till the end," he added. T 3045 - Kadar Khan passes away .. sad depressing news .. my prayers and condolences .. a brilliant stage artist a most compassionate and accomplished talent on film .. a writer of eminence ; in most of my very successful films .. a delightful company .. and a mathematician !! pic.twitter.com/l7pdv0Wdu1 Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) January 1, 2019 Big B even took to Twitter to pay condolences to his friend and guide. Akshaye Khanna is one of the best and versatile actors we have in the film industry. Till date he entertain us with different roles and outstanding acting skills. Once again, he is coming with a new film The Accidental Prime Minister where he plays the role of Sanjay Baru, a worker from Prime Minister Office under Manmohan Singh. This film is based on Indias former PM Manmohan Singh. Twitter Indiatimes met Akshaye Khanna and spoke at length with him about the film, his life and everything between. Firstly, we asked him about his preparations for Sanjay Baru in the film, to which he said, My prep was zero outside the realm of the script. The script was my preparation I just went by it, because my director was very clear. He didnt want me to meet Sanjay Baru, he didnt want me to see his videos, pictures, and not even an interaction and the reason behind is, he said, Akshaye I have to show Manmohan Singh as Manmohan Singh. I cannot play around with him, everybody knows how he walks, talks, its in our psyche, he was our Prime Minister for 10 years. Similarly, with all the real characters. He could only play around my character because Sanjay Baru is not a well-known character, nobody knows how he looks, he had his vision and I only went by it." Twitter Later, we picked his brain on the controversy around the film, how the Congress party is against the film and doesnt want them to release it, Akshaye said, We are only storytellers, I dont actively follow politics. I have no interest in it, also one really never knows what to expect when something like this film is coming for the first time. India has not experienced a film like this, so these are uncharted territories, and we should stop predicting and rather watch the film, we are just going with the flow. Twitter Akshaye Khanna who has been entertaining us since past two decades, hasnt achieved the kind of success his contemporaries like the Khans among others have achieved. Was it because he is undeserving? Not in the least. Then what went wrong? We asked Akshaye and he had the best reply for it, First thing is, every artist is given a shelf life here. They are being watched for x amount of years, and the audience is watching me even today, its been 25 years, what more can an actor ask for? I am a very fortunate person, very few people get this kind of shelf life and I still have time to go. When the audiences decide they dont want to see this particular artist, they close their chapter. Audience decides everything." Twitter "David Dhawan didnt make Varun Dhawan a star, audience did. Ranbir Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, and Shraddha Kapoor are film industry kids, but who made them a star? You guys made it. We havent made Nawazuddin Siddiqui the star in the past 6 years, the audience did. He has been made by the people, they have loved his performance and his work, so one must be very grateful for it, that they gave us so much time. Twitter He further added, And the second thing is, I am starring in the best film of the year. You might have not seen the film, but you watch it on Friday, Saturday or whenever you get time. Its a beautiful film and I am the hero of the film, isse zyaada kya chahie yaar, God has given me everything. Twitter Akshaye confesses he is a very boring person and loves to be the way he is, I dont enjoy parties. I sleep at 11 in the night. I am a very boring person, I do nothing exciting, I know people talk that I do this or that, but I am a very boring man, dont expect anything interesting from me. Twitter Well, Kudos to his honesty. Legendary actor Kader Khan took his last breath on December 31 and left the entire nation shattered. Twitter His son Sarfaraz informed the media about the great loss, My dad has left us. He passed away on December 31 at 6 pm as per Canadian time due to prolonged illness. He slipped into coma in the afternoon. He was in the hospital for 16-17 weeks. The last rites will be performed here in Canada only. We have our entire family here and we live here so we are doing it. Twitter Soon after the news of his death broke, his heartbroken fans shared their condolences. Even Bollywood stars mourned over his death. Youtube Indiatimes got in touch with Akshaye Khanna and Anupam Kher who have worked with the legendary actor. Akshaye shared his fond memory about Kader Khan. He said, I worked with him on two or three films but the maximum time I spent him was in New York while we were shooting for Aa Ab Laut Chale, he was playing a Pakistani, because it was outdoor in New York I spent a lot of time with him. I remember in the morning we used to go for a shoot in a mini van where I would sit behind him. I used to roll a paper like a needle and put it in his ears from the back very gently, like how a fly sits on our ears and there is a sensation, he would squirm a lot and I used to laugh so much." "I continued this for 3 or 4 days and then I got caught by him, he yelled at me so badly. He was a lovely guy, he was a child at heart, was a very nice and decent man, I will always have fond memories of Kader bhai. Twitter Anupam Kher who has worked with him in several films has no words to describe the loss. He is extremely saddened by his death, The problem with life is you lose people and you have to say it in one sentence what you lost and thats not possible because your experience goes beyond one event or gesture. I have spent a lot of time with him, Sooryavansham has become a national iconic film since last 4 to 5 years, all my friends keep repeating our scenes together. Also, I spent a lovely time with him during Hum, every moment with was precious, he was a great scholar. Twitter Its indeed a huge loss for the industry. remaining of Thank you for Reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Send to Email Address Your Name Your Email Address Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Email check failed, please try again Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Collaborators at each institution include faculty from diverse disciplines, as well as institutional leadership. At UNC Charlotte, partners include the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, the College of Health and Human Services, J. Murrey Atkins Library, and the University Transfer Center, which is a resource for transfer students. Faculty participants and lab resources also come from other colleges, including the Lee College of Engineering and the College of Computing and Informatics. Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R25GM128571. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. About the Collaborators UNC Charlotte is North Carolinas urban research university. With fall 2017 enrollment of more than 29,300 students, the university leverages its location in the states largest city to offer internationally competitive programs of research and creative activity, exemplary undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs, and a focused set of community engagement initiatives. No injuries were reported in a fire that ripped through a house in Salisbury Wednesday night. WBTV reported the fire happened on Mocksville Avenue. Officials with the Salisbury Fire Department said the fire was brought under control relatively quickly and the occupants were clear of the residence. The Harrisburg Fire Department made national news in 2018 when it came to the rescue in a different way and held a birthday party for a 3-year-old boy. When Jackson Reids friends canceled on his birthday party back in September 2018, his mother, Melissa Reid, called the department to ask if she could bring him to look at fire trucks. Wanting to make the day special, firefighters bought balloons, cupcakes and all three crew gathered at Harrisburg Station 3 to give Jackson a birthday he would never forget. Word about this good deed spread and news outlets from across the country reported the story. The department was also recognized for its thoughtfulness during a Harrisburg Town Council meeting. Recently, the department was recognized for the birthday party again by FireRescue1 as one of the Top 10 heartwarming firefighter stories of 2018, written by Editorial Assistant Shelbie Watts. FireRescue1 is a media company committed to providing resources and cutting edge information that help first responders stay safer, become better informed and more effectively protect their communities. The company works to keep them informed about the most current fire news and technology. Two generations ago, Concords Roman Catholic Church was a mission congregation without a resident priest. Older Concord residents still remember when their Roman Catholic neighbors moved from their chapel in the countryside to a small sanctuary at the north end of Union Street. Today, St. James the Greater is the largest and most racially diverse congregation in our community with 2,500 registered families. One-third of the members are Hispanic. Many additional Roman Catholics have not formally affiliated with the parish but count it as their church. The congregation has been growing by eight to 10 percent a year. St. James celebrates Holy Mass (Holy Communion) the most perfect form of prayer at least 14 times a week with over 2,500 in attendance. Among the seven weekend masses, the largest service is in Spanish at 12:30 p.m. on Sundays. The next largest Sunday service is a childrens service at 9:30 a.m. They also have a youth service, a contemporary service, and more. The music at every service is distinctively different. Roman Catholic St. James the Greater, the patron saint of the congregation, was one of the first twelve disciples of Jesus. A fisherman from Capernaum, James followed Jesus for three years and was the first apostle to be martyred. A closed-door meeting between US president Donald Trump and congressional leaders has led to no further progress over the partial government shutdown. Talks will resume on Friday amid an impasse over Mr Trumps demand for billions of dollars to build a wall along the US border with Mexico. In public, Mr Trump has renewed his dire warnings of rapists and other menaces at the border. However, when pressed in private by Democrats on why he would not end the shutdown, the American leader responded at one point: I would look foolish if I did that. A White House official said the president had been trying to explain that it would be foolish not to pay for border security. The new US congress will convene on Thursday with Democrats taking majority control of the House. Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said they would quickly pass legislation to re-open the government without funds for the border wall. Expand Close House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (AP) Ms Pelosi declared in an interview with NBCs Today show: Nothing for the wall. We can go through the back and forth. No. How many more times can we say no? But the White House has rejected the Democratic package, and Republicans who control the US senate are hesitant to take it up without Mr Trump on board. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell called it a total non-starter. Mr Trump said ahead of his White House session with the congressional leaders that the partial shutdown will last as long as it takes to get the funding he wants. Could be a long time, or could be quickly, Mr Trump said during lengthy public comments at a cabinet meeting, his first public appearance of the new year. Meanwhile, the shutdown has dragged on into a second week, closing some national parks and leaving hundreds of thousands of federal employees without pay. Democrats said they asked Mr Trump directly in the private meeting held in the White House Situation Room why he would not consider their package of bills. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said afterwards: I said: Mr President, give me one good reason why you should continue your shutdown. He could not give a good answer. One measure would open most of the closed government departments at funding levels already agreed to by all sides. The other would provide temporary funding for Homeland Security, through to February 8, allowing talks to continue over border security. Mr Trump had said Mexico would pay for the wall during his election campaign, but Mexico has refused. During todayas meeting between @realDonaldTrump, myself & other Democratic leaders, we asked the President to open up the government a giving him a path Republicans have supported previously. Why would he not do it? #TrumpShutdown Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) January 3, 2019 At another point on Wednesday, Mr Trump told Ms Pelosi that, as a good Catholic, she should support the wall because Vatican City has a wall, according to a congressional aide. Mr Trump has mentioned the Vaticans centuries-old fortifications before, including at the earlier Cabinet meeting. But Democrats have said they do not want medieval barriers, and Ms Pelosi has called Mr Trumps proposed wall along the US-Mexico border immoral. I remain ready and willing to work with Democrats, Mr Trump tweeted after the meeting. Lets get it done! The partial government shutdown began on December 22. Funding for the wall has been the sticking point in passing essential spending bills for several government departments. Saudi Arabia has announced it will seek the death penalty against five suspects over the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The killing has seen members of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans entourage implicated in the writers death. Prosecutors said 11 suspects attended their first court hearing with lawyers, but the statement did not name those in court. It also did not explain why seven other suspects arrested over the October 2 killing at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, did not immediately face formal charges. The kingdom previously announced 18 people had been arrested. The killing of Mr Khashoggi, who wrote columns critical of Prince Mohammed, has strained the decades-long ties the kingdom enjoys with the United States. Expand Close Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (Victoria Jones/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (Victoria Jones/PA) It has also added to a renewed international push to end the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The state-run Saudi Press Agency and state television gave few details about the hearing. The Public Prosecutor demanded imposing proper punishments against the defendants and is seeking capital punishment for five of the defendants for their direct involvement in the murder, a statement from prosecutors said. The suspects requested copies of the indictments they faced and asked for more time to prepare for their case, prosecutors said. While vague on details about the case, prosecutors made a point to express concerns about Turkey. They alleged that Turkish officials did not answer two formal requests made for evidence in the case. To date, the Saudi Public Prosecutor has not received any response, and the Public Prosecution is still awaiting their response, the statement said. Turkish officials have previously said they shared evidence with Saudi Arabia and other nations over Mr Khashoggis killing. Turkey has also demanded Saudi Arabia extradite those 18 suspects to be tried there for Mr Khashoggis killing. Turkish security officials have kept up a slow leak of videos, photographs and morbid details surrounding Mr Khashoggis killing to pressure the kingdom, as the two US-allied countries vie for influence over the wider Middle East. Turkish media have published photographs of members of the crown princes entourage at the consulate in Istanbul ahead of the killing. Mr Khashoggis body, believed to have been dismembered after his killing, has yet to be found. The 59-year-old entered the consulate on October 2 as his fiancee waited outside, but a team of Saudi officials had flown in before his arrival and laid in wait for him. Saudi Arabia denied for weeks that Mr Khashoggi had been killed but later changed its story and ultimately acknowledged the brutal killing. King Salman ordered the restructuring of the countrys intelligence service, but has so far shielded Prince Mohammed, his 33-year-old son who is next in line to the throne in the oil giant kingdom. Assuming the mantle: House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi walks into the US Capitol on the eve of her party taking control of the House. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images Democrats take control of the US House of Representatives today, ushering in two years of divided government during which Donald Trump will be remorselessly investigated for evidence of wrongdoing, while struggling to achieve his policies. As the 116th United States Congress convenes, Nancy Pelosi was expected to be sworn in as the Democratic Speaker of the House and her allies will take control of the lower chamber's committees. Those committees will launch a litany of probes into the president, his family, and his businesses, including demanding Mr Trump's tax returns. As America entered what promised to be a period of bitter political division in its legislature, Mr Trump also faced a fierce attack from a senior member of his own party. Mitt Romney said the president had "not risen to the mantle of the office", had displayed a "glaring shortfall" of character, and accused him of "abandoning allies". Mr Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, is entering the upper chamber of Congress as a Republican senator for Utah. Expand Close Donald Trump at a cabinet meeting yesterday. Photo: Getty / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Donald Trump at a cabinet meeting yesterday. Photo: Getty Democrats won control of the House in the mid-term elections in November, while Republicans retained the Senate. The first task of the new Congress will be to end a government shutdown that began before Christmas, caused by an impasse over funding for Mr Trump's proposed border wall. Hundreds of thousands of public workers have been sent home unpaid. Democrat leaders, including Ms Pelosi, were due to meet Mr Trump at the White House last night and were expected to quickly introduce a pair of spending bills aimed at reopening the government. However, they have vowed not to authorise funding for the wall. Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, chair of the Democratic caucus in the house, said they would "draw a line in the sand" and refuse to "waste millions in taxpayer dollars on a medieval border wall". Speaking ahead of the meeting, Mr Trump said the government may be shut down for a "long time" because the border was "leaking like a sieve" and "needs a wall". He would maintain the shutdown as "long as it takes" to get wall funding, he vowed, adding: "It's too important a subject to walk away from. I think the people of this country think I am right." Mr Trump also said he was open to a compromise that would involve providing legal status to young illegal immigrants known as the "Dreamers". Meanwhile, Kirstjen Nielsen, his homeland security secretary, warned "fake families" were entering the US. The upcoming Democrat legislative agenda will prioritise reducing prescription drug prices, an infrastructure bill, and campaign finance reform. It will also include banning members of Congress from serving on corporate boards. They also intend to relax a century-old ban on wearing hats in the chamber, which will allow Ilhan Omar, a new Muslim-American congresswoman from Minnesota, to wear a head scarf. Democrats said they would, in their first week, table a resolution to defend the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, after a recent Texas ruling that the healthcare system was unconstitutional. They denied suggestions that the government could grind to a halt as investigations related to Mr Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 election were pursued by committees. One retiring Republican congressman said: "He [Mr Trump] doesn't know what's about to hit him. They're going to subpoena everybody and their dog." But Congressman Jim McGovern, a Democrat, said his party would be able to "walk and chew gum" at the same time. The Democrats will also face an internal struggle as a large, mostly youthful, influx of new members of Congress pressures the leadership for more action on issues including climate change. Mr Trump, and Republicans in Congress, will seek to exploit those divisions. Mr Romney's comments indicated the president may not be able to rely on his vote in the Senate, where Republicans have a narrow majority. ( Daily Telegraph, London) Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021] President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday (Evan Vucci/AP) The partial US government shutdown persisted through a 12th day over Donald Trumps demand for billions of dollars to build a wall along the US border with Mexico. In one big change, the new Congress convenes on Thursday with Democrats taking majority control of the House, and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said outside the White House there would be rapid passage of legislation to re-open the government without funds for the border wall. But the White House has rejected that package, and Mr Trump said ahead of the session with the congressional leaders the partial shutdown will last as long as it takes to get the funding he wants. Could be a long time or could be quickly, he said during lengthy comments at a Cabinet meeting at the White House, his first public appearance of the new year. Meanwhile, the shutdown dragged through a second week, closing some parks and leaving hundreds of thousands of federal employees without pay. Democrats said they asked Mr Trump directly during Wednesdays private meeting held in the Situation Room why he would not consider their package of bills. One measure would open most of the shuttered government departments at funding levels already agreed to by all sides. The other would provide temporary funding for Homeland Security, through February 8, allowing talks to continue over border security. I said, Mr. President, Give me one good reason why you should continue your shutdown, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said afterward. He could not give a good answer. We would hope they would reconsider. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said there was no need to prolong the shutdown and he was disappointed the talks did not produce a resolution. He complained Democrats interrupted Homeland Security officials who were trying to describe a dire situation at the border. We were hopeful that we could get more of a negotiation, said Mr McCarthy. He said the leaders plan to return to the White House Friday to continue negotiations. The two sides have traded offers, but their talks broke down ahead of the holidays. On Wednesday, Mr Trump also rejected his own administrations offer to accept 2.5 billion dollars for the wall. That offer was made when Vice President Mike Pence and other top officials met with Schumer at the start of the shutdown. Instead, on Wednesday, Mr Trump repeatedly pushed for the 5.6 billion dollars he has demanded. Making his case ahead of the afternoon session with Democratic and Republican leaders, he said the current border is like a sieve and noted the tear gas flying overnight to deter arrivals. If they knew they couldnt come through, they wouldnt even start, Mr Trump said at the meeting, joined by Cabinet secretaries and top advisers, including Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Mr Trump complained he had been lonely at the White House during the holiday break, having skipped his getaway to Mar-a-Lago in Florida. He claimed his only companions were the machine gunners, referring to security personnel, and they dont wave, they dont smile. He also criticized Ms Pelosi for visiting Hawaii. At the Capitol on Wednesday, Ms Pelosi said she hoped Republicans and the White House are hearing what we have offered to end the shutdown. Mr Trump contended the Democrats see the shutdown fight as an election point as he celebrated his own first two years in office. He promised six more years of great success. The partial government shutdown began on December 22. Funding for the wall has been the sticking point in passing funding bills for several government departments. Expand Close House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, left, the House Speaker-designate, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, left, the House Speaker-designate, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) Ms Pelosi, who is expected to become speaker on Thursday, said Democrats would take action to end the Trump Shutdown by passing legislation Thursday to reopen government. We are giving the Republicans the opportunity to take yes for an answer, she wrote in a letter to colleagues. Senate Republicans have already supported this legislation, and if they reject it now, they will be fully complicit in chaos and destruction of the Presidents third shutdown of his term. But the Republican-led Senate appears unlikely to consider the Democratic funding bills. A spokesman for GOP leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans would not take action without Mr Trumps backing. Even if only symbolic, passage of the bills in the House would put fresh pressure on the president. At the same time, administration officials said Mr Trump was in no rush for a resolution to the impasse, believing he has public opinion and his base on his side. The Democratic package to end the shutdown would include one bill to temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security at current levels with 1.3 billion dollars for border security, far less than Mr Trump has said he wants for the wall through February 8 as talks continued. It would also include another measure to fund the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Housing and Urban Development and others closed by the partial shutdown. That measure would provide money through the remainder of the fiscal year, to September 30. Tragedy: A rescue worker at the site of the accident on the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark. Photo: Tim Kildeborg Jensen/Reuters A Danish passenger train hit falling cargo from a passing freight train as it crossed a bridge, killing six people and injuring 16 others. The accident was the worst in Denmark in more than 30 years. The rail operator, Danish Railways, told Denmark's TV2 that the victims were passengers on a train going from the city of Odense, on the central Danish island of Funen, to the capital of Copenhagen when the accident took place about 8am yesterday. Authorities said the trains were going past each other in opposite directions. Aerial TV footage showed one side of the passenger train had been ripped open. Photos showed that the freight train was carrying crates of beer, and the tarpaulin that covered the cargo train was torn in pieces. Police declined to comment directly on a report from TV2 that a large freight container was likely to have fallen off the cargo train. Jesper Nielsen, who was on the passenger train, told TV2 the train "was out on the bridge when there was a huge bang ... very quickly thereafter, the train braked". The accident took place on a road-and-rail bridge, part of the Storebaelt system of bridges and a tunnel that link the Danish islands of Zealand and Funen. The transport system was closed to cars overnight because of strong winds but trains could pass. Road traffic resumed yesterday with a 50kmh speed limit. Police spokesman Lars Braemhoej said that while "we do not know precisely what caused the accident", one possible cause was that cargo from the freight train fell off and hit the passenger train. He added there was "considerable damage" on the passenger train. "Ordinary Danes on their way to work or heading home from the Christmas holidays have had their lives smashed," Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said as he issued his condolences. Police urged passengers to contact relatives and tell them if they were safe and urged people not to share photos or videos of the accident. Flemming Jensen, the CEO of state-owned Danish Railways, said police and the Danish Accident Investigation Board were investigating the damages. He said the operator "will contribute everything that we can to the investigation", Bo Haaning of the Danish Accident Investigation Board was quoted as saying it could take months before the cause of the accident could be determined. Kasper Elbjoern, spokesman for the Danish brewery group Carlsberg, confirmed that a freight train transporting its cargo was involved in the accident. A$AP Bari, 27, real name Jabari Shelton, who is charged with two counts of sexual assault on July 10 2017, arrives at the Old Bailey in central London. Photo: Kirsty O'Connor/PA Wire American hip hop fashion designer ASAP Bari has been fined 4,000 and told to pay 2,500 compensation to his victim after he pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to one count of sexual assault against a woman at a hotel in east London. Expand Close A$AP Bari, 27, real name Jabari Shelton, who is charged with two counts of sexual assault on July 10 2017, arrives at the Old Bailey in central London. Photo: Kirsty O'Connor/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A$AP Bari, 27, real name Jabari Shelton, who is charged with two counts of sexual assault on July 10 2017, arrives at the Old Bailey in central London. Photo: Kirsty O'Connor/PA Wire The 27-year-old, real name Jabari Shelton, pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to one count of sexual assault after a video emerged of him attacking his victim in July, 2017. The star, from Manhattan, New York, flew to the UK on Tuesday to attend court. The defendant, who has an address in Clapton, east London, had been expected to deny two charges and face trial. Shelton was also told to pay 2,000 costs and made subject to a restraining order banning him from contacting his victim. But he pleaded guilty to one charge on Thursday. Shelton is a founding member of New York hip-hop collective ASAP Mob. Tourists use a selfie stick in front of the Louvre Pyramide in Paris (Remy de la Mauviniere/AP) The Louvre in Paris received a record 10.2 million visitors in 2018, boosted by a video clip shot by pop star Beyonce amid its paintings and sculptures. The worlds most visited museum also mentioned in a statement the success of its flagship exhibition on French master Delacroix as a reason for the record. The video of Beyonce and her husband Jay-Z, featuring the Mona Lisa and other world-famous artworks, has been viewed more than 146 million times on YouTube. Expand Close Jay-Z and Beyonce (Dennis Van Tine/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jay-Z and Beyonce (Dennis Van Tine/PA) The museum noted a significant rise in the number of foreign visitors almost three-quarters of total visitor numbers mostly from the United States, China, other European countries and Brazil. Tourism in the French capital has rebounded since 2017 after a sharp fall following terror attacks in 2015. The former Australian MP at the centre of the 'G-day Mate' scandal has said he is "happy to be stepping away" from the job. Australian minister Andrew Broad - who has since resigned from his position and has announced he won't stand at the next election - hit headlines after he made contact through a website with an Irish woman in her 20s. The political scandal has seen one minister resign and threatens to derail the government. It's understood the woman - who is from Dublin - resides in Hong Kong and Mr Broad first contacted her in September. One message from the former politician to the young woman read; "Yeah I kinda got a big job now." He also compared himself to James Bond in later texts, telling her he knew "how to ride a horse, fly a plane and f*** my woman". He talked about kissing her neck as he whispered 'G'day mate' to her. In November, it's believed the pair met for dinner in Hong Kong, where Mr Broad was reportedly attending a conference. Expand Close Resigned: Andrew Broad and wife Rachel / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Resigned: Andrew Broad and wife Rachel However, it's understood the young woman said she felt uncomfortable during the meeting, and decided to leave early. Australian media reported on text messages the woman allegedly sent Mr Broad requesting money after the date. Speaking to the Sunraysia Daily, Mr Broad said he is leaving politics to "come out the other side stronger and better". He called the scandal a "dumb mistake" and said he didn't want to remain in politics a "half-laughing stock". "The job had made me not as nice a person," he said, adding that his final speech in parliament will acknowledge his mistakes. "I think Id be lucky to have spent 10 weeks at home last year," Mr Broad told the publication. "Thats no excuse for meeting someone who wasnt my wife and having dinner with her. Im not saying it is (but) the job does have huge effects on family life. "Ive got to be honest; Im happy to be stepping away. "The job had made me not as nice a person." He also said he has prioritised family time since his departure from politics. Two women defied a centuries-old ban on entering a Hindu temple in the Indian state of Kerala yesterday, sparking rowdy protests and calls for a strike by conservative Hindu groups outraged by their visit. Police fired teargas and used water cannons to disperse a large crowd of protesters in the state capital of Thiruvananthapuram, television news channels showed. There were protests in several other cities in the state, media reported. India's Supreme Court in September ordered the authorities to lift the ban on women or girls of menstruating age from entering the Sabarimala temple, which draws millions of worshippers a year. But the temple refused to abide by the court ruling and subsequent attempts by women to visit it had been blocked by thousands of devotees supporting the ban. The Kerala state government is run by left-wing parties and it has sought to allow women into the temple - a position that has drawn the criticism of both of the main political parties, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The uproar has put the issue of religion, which can be highly contentious in India, squarely on the political agenda months before a general election, which is due by May. The possibility of more confrontations was raised by a call from an umbrella group of right-wing Hindu groups in Kerala, the Sabarimala Karma Samithi, which is supported by the BJP, for a state-wide protest strike today. Earlier, the Kerala state president of the BJP described the visit to the temple by the two women as "a conspiracy by the atheist rulers to destroy the Hindu temples". The party's state president, PS Sreedharan Pillai, told TV channels the BJP would "support the struggles against the destruction of faith by the Communists". Meghan Markle's ambition is well-documented by this stage, but as the new British royal's marriage to Prince Harry comes under further scrutiny, more figures from her past are coming forward to shed some light on her behind the scenes personality. She is painted as a driven, sometimes to the point of ruthless, fiercely independent personality who always knew she wanted to succeed in both acting and campaigning for women's rights. Having achieved both by 37, when she married Harry and became the Duchess of Sussex, her next project is focusing her efforts on a global scale. A feature documenting Markle's checkered family history in Vanity Fair was published last month, most of which focused on her relationship with her estranged father Thomas and half siblings Samantha and Thomas Jr, in a bid to illuminate some of the history informing their current - and very public - rift. But one line from a former co-star is recirculating, one which attempts to highlight her personality and the role she plays in her turbulent family life. "Meghans goal was always becoming a household name," a source said. "Shes insanely smart and poised, but very, very guarded. Shes not a person you can actually be friends with. Shes the type of person who is best friends with her stylist." Expand Close Britain's Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex arrive at St Mary Magdalene's church for the Royal Family's Christmas Day service on the Sandringham estate in eastern England, Britain, December 25, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah McKay / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Britain's Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex arrive at St Mary Magdalene's church for the Royal Family's Christmas Day service on the Sandringham estate in eastern England, Britain, December 25, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah McKay Markle's best friend is in fact, her stylist Jessica Mulroney, a Toronto-based image consultant who works with Canada's first lady Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, who is married to Ben, the son of former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, and an exceptionally well connected socialite. She is also a master of discretion, keeping Meghan and Harry's relationship secret back in 2016, with the prince hiding out in the Mulroneys home when the news leaked, and she recently joined them as the pregnant royal's personal stylist during some time during their tour of Australia, New Zealand, Tonga and Fiji. The comment was intended to highlight her famously guarded nature, which, in keeping with the larger tone of the piece, came as a result of her dysfunctional upbringing. In an earlier interview, the Suits star explained reflected on her childhood, saying: "I remember busying myself and being the president of every club. Not because I actually wanted to, but because I didnt want to eat alone at lunchtime. This overachiever mask I wore was really just the way I battled feeling displaced." Comedian Hasan Minhaj has reacted after Netlix removed an episode of his satirical show in Saudi Arabia because it was deemed offensive to the kingdoms rulers (Kathy Willens/AP) Comedian Hasan Minhaj said the Saudi-led war in Yemen is the worlds largest humanitarian crisis as Netflix was criticised for removing an episode of his satirical show following a complaint from the kingdoms rulers. Episode two of the US comics Patriot Act was pulled in Saudi Arabia after it criticised Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman over the alleged murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Mr Khashoggi, a vocal critic of the kingdoms royal family, was killed at the the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October. Expand Close Hasan Minhaj has reacted after Netflix pulled an episode of his satirical comedy show following a Saudi complaint (Brent N. Clarke/Invision/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Hasan Minhaj has reacted after Netflix pulled an episode of his satirical comedy show following a Saudi complaint (Brent N. Clarke/Invision/AP) Netflix said it took the episode down in Saudi Arabia after receiving a complaint from the kingdoms Communications and Information Technology Commission that it violated Saudi anti-cybercrime law. The episode in question is reportedly still available in Saudi Arabia on YouTube. After the incident made headlines around the world, Minhaj tweeted his reaction to the ban before urging his followers to donate to the crisis in Yemen. Clearly, the best way to stop people from watching something is to ban it, make it trend online, and then leave it up on YouTube. Letas not forget that the worldas largest humanitarian crisis is happening in Yemen right now. Please donate: https://t.co/znMP8vyJma https://t.co/t2VUDhhIdB Hasan Minhaj (@hasanminhaj) January 2, 2019 He said: Clearly, the best way to stop people from watching something is to ban it, make it trend online, and then leave it up on YouTube. Lets not forget that the worlds largest humanitarian crisis is happening in Yemen right now. Minhaj also shared a link to the International Rescue Committees relief effort in the country. After receiving criticism for taking the episode down, Netflix said in a statement: We strongly support artistic freedom worldwide and removed this episode only in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal demand from the government and to comply with local law. The offending episode featured Minhaj criticising the crown princes alleged involvement in the death of Mr Khashoggi. He said: It took the killing of a Washington Post journalist for everyone to go, Oh, I guess hes really not a reformer. Saudi Arabia has charged 11 people with the death of Mr Khashoggi, though strongly denies the crown prince ordered the killing. .@hasanminhaj of @patriotact has been a strong, honest and (funny) voice challenging Saudi Arabia + Mohammed bin Salman in the wake of #khashoggias murder. He brought awareness about Yemen. Quite outrageous that @netflix has pulled one of his episodes critical of Saudi Arabia. Karen Attiah IS IN TIME OUT (@KarenAttiah) January 1, 2019 In December, the US Senate passed a resolution saying the crown prince is responsible for the death. Karen Attiah, Mr Khashoggis editor at The Washington Post, said Netflixs decision to remove the episode was quite outrageous. The Trump presidency made a deep descent in December. The departures of Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, the appointment of senior persons of lesser experience, the abandonment of allies who fight beside us, and the president's thoughtless claim that America has long been a "sucker" in world affairs, all defined his presidency down. It is well known that Donald Trump was not my choice for the Republican presidential nomination. After he became the nominee, I hoped his campaign would refrain from resentment and name-calling. It did not. When he won the election, I hoped he would rise to the occasion. His early appointments of Rex Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, Nikki Haley, Gary Cohn, HR McMaster, Kelly and Mattis were encouraging. But, on balance, his conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions this past month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office. It is not that all of the president's policies have been misguided. He was right to align US corporate taxes with those of global competitors, to strip out excessive regulations, to crack down on China's unfair trade practices, to reform criminal justice, and to appoint conservative judges. These are policies mainstream Republicans have promoted for years. But policies and appointments are only a part of a presidency. To a great degree, a presidency shapes the public character of the nation. A president should unite and inspire to follow "our better angels". A president should demonstrate the essential qualities of honesty and integrity, and elevate the national discourse with comity and mutual respect. America has been blessed with presidents who have called on the greatness of the American spirit. With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable. And it is in this province where the incumbent's shortfall has been most glaring. The world is also watching. America has long been looked to for leadership. Economic and military strength was part of that, of course, but our enduring commitment to principled conduct in foreign relations, and to the rights of all people to freedom and equal justice, was even more esteemed. Trump's words and actions have caused dismay around the world. In a 2016 Pew Research Centre poll, 84pc of people in Germany, Britain, France, Canada and Sweden believed the American president would "do the right thing in world affairs". One year later, that number had fallen to 16pc. This comes at a very unfortunate time. Several allies in Europe are experiencing political upheaval. Several former Soviet satellite states are rethinking their commitment to democracy. Some Asian nations, such as the Philippines, lean increasingly toward China, which advances to rival our economy and our military. The alternative to US world leadership offered by China and Russia is autocratic, corrupt and brutal. The world needs American leadership, and it is in America's interest to provide it. A world led by authoritarian regimes is a world - and an America - with less prosperity, less freedom, less peace. To re-assume our leadership in world politics, we must repair failings in our politics at home. That project begins, of course, with the highest office once again acting to inspire and unite us. It includes political parties promoting policies that strengthen us rather than promote tribalism by exploiting fear and resentment. Our leaders must defend our vital institutions despite their inevitable failings: a free press, the rule of law, strong churches, and responsible corporations and unions. We must repair our fiscal foundation, setting a course to a balanced budget. We must attract the best talent to America's service and the best innovators to America's economy. America is strongest when our arms are linked with other nations. We want a unified and strong Europe, not a disintegrating union. We want stable relationships with the nations of Asia that strengthen our mutual security and prosperity. I look forward to working on these priorities with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and other senators. Furthermore, I will act as I would with any president, in or out of my party: I will support policies that I believe are in the best interest of the country and my state, and oppose those that are not. I do not intend to comment on every tweet or fault. But I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions. I remain optimistic about our future. In an innovation age, Americans excel. More importantly, noble instincts live in the hearts of Americans. The people of this great land will eschew the politics of anger and fear if they are summoned to the responsibility by leaders in homes, in churches, in schools, in businesses, in government - who raise our sights and respect the dignity of every child of God - the ideal that is the essence of America. The late Charlie Haughey did not miss a beat when he was asked how he felt about Ireland getting more than 5 back for every 1 contributed to the EU coffers. "Well, it's not half enough," he quipped, as he launched his own lavish Irish six-month EU presidency term in January 1990. Ireland has taken in something of the order of 50bn since we first joined the then-EEC in January 1973. Much of it went to the Irish agri-food business. But from the late 1980s onwards, there were also generous EU regional and social fund grants totalling over 1.2bn per year, every year, for the decade 1989-99. Too often Irish political leaders lazily sold Ireland's EU involvement to the electorate as 'free money' and the country became the trade bloc's "amiable pickpocket" infamous for extracting optimal aid levels for all sorts. Then something remarkable happened in 2014 which went almost entirely unremarked. It turns out that Ireland actually contributed 200m more than it got that year. And that trend has continued, with an expectation that Ireland will have to stump up some 400m more in the coming years as its contribution to plugging the UK post-Brexit EU budget hole of some 10bn per year. Irish people get it that EU grants, be they ever so generous and welcome, are not the central benefit of membership. It's about trade access which also generates inward investment and jobs. It's also about the great under-sold benefit of cultural and educational links. Among the many and varied downsides of Brexit, today we find another. We will have little choice, if we slide towards a situation where the UK exits the EU without a deal, but to seek immediate and significant aid from Brussels once more. Agriculture Minister Michael Creed is the last person at Leinster House that you would associate with hype. And he is talking about Ireland's need for "mega money" due to the fallout for Ireland's beef sector and the dairy industry, coupled with the potential loss of one-third of the value of Irish fishing vessels' catch in UK waters, accounting for 60pc of mackerel and 40pc of prawns. Mr Creed is also a pretty realistic judge of Ireland's chances of getting help: "I think we will get help. It's all about the level of help." He says the Government has paved the way in Brussels by putting them on notice. We are facing a pretty fraught period between now and March 29 - but if a hard Brexit happens inside the coming 12 weeks, an Irish aid application will be tabled in early April. What are the odds on that? Well, unless the UK's MPs can untangle themselves from their current deadlock, it is where we are headed. There is not a majority at Westminster for a no-deal Brexit. But neither is there one for any of the alternatives. Yet again we'll look to London from next week in hopes they can see a semblance of sense. The year just begun is one of the most difficult to predict in the 20 years I have been in the forecasting and punditry business. The other stand-out year to rival 2019 was exactly a decade ago. The world economy was going over a cliff at the beginning of 2009 following the eruption of the financial crisis a few months earlier. Ireland was particularly badly affected. The economy was in meltdown and haemorrhaging thousands of jobs every week. With Ireland and the world facing the real risk of another Great Depression, predicting 2009 was as hard as predicting the coming year. Another year that was filled with uncertainty over the past two decades was 2002. As that year dawned, the US was on a war footing, having suffered the shock of 9/11 a few months earlier. Kabul had just fallen and there was already talk in Washington of attempting to democratise the entire Middle East region as a means of uprooting Islamist terrorism, an issue which had become the US foreign policy priority above all others. With a huge range of options available to the then unrivalled superpower, predicting which factions in Washington would win the president's ear, how the "war on terror" would play out, and what its consequences would be for the world were the all-but-impossible conundrums for crystal ball gazers as 2002 started. Two other years stand out in terms of uncertainty over the past two decades: 2011 and 2012. In both cases, the future of the currency which is this week marking its 20th anniversary was in question. The mere risk of a break-up of the euro brought about recession in Europe in those years. Had the currency collapsed, so would the European economy and, in all likelihood, many of Europe's shared political institutions. Predicting the consequences of that sort of a catastrophe was, again, all but impossible. What makes 2019 different from those years of acute uncertainty is that the unpredictability is not from a single source. The US to the west and Britain to the east have usually been poles of security and stability for Ireland and wider world. In 2019, they will be sources of insecurity and uncertainty like never before in living memory. Brexit is the most immediate issue for this country. In a worst-case scenario, it will have huge economic and political ramifications for this island, and, as discussed below, the economic and political aspects could feed off each other in all sorts of unknowable ways. American President Donald Trump has not ended US democracy or crashed the economy. Nor has not started shooting wars. But he has become increasingly assertive and, most concretely for the rest of the world, he has started trade wars. The ups and downs of economic diplomacy might seem of little relevance to the lives of many readers. But as we know from the protracted discussion around Brexit, when governments propose radical changes to the invisible infrastructure that allows commerce to take place across borders, it is only a few short steps to worrying about having enough food and medicines. Trump is playing extreme hardball on trade with both the EU and China, neither of which will be as willing as Canada and Mexico were last year to give lop-sided concessions. Trump is not as idiotic as he is often portrayed, and there is no inevitability that he will insist on demands of Brussels and Beijing that lead to full-blown trade wars, but the risks are high. The US is Ireland's single largest trading partner, having overtaken Britain in recent years. No other European country is as trade-dependent on America as Ireland is. With so much uncertainty, even attempting to make predictions for the year ahead would be unwise. Instead, here is a series of questions as to how the Government and public opinion might react as events unfold under different scenarios. Before Christmas, the Confidence and Supply Agreement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail was extended to 2020. In normal times, that would have greatly reduced the chances of an election this year. But the extension of the deal happened mainly because these are anything but normal times. Much will depend on Brexit. If the British end up accepting the Irish backstop, and if a transition period begins at the end of March when Brexit is scheduled to happen, the Government will validly claim that it has achieved its objectives. Fine Gael's lead in the opinion polls should, at the very least, be maintained. If, on the other hand, the British head for a no-deal exit because they won't accept the backstop, the Government's high-risk Brexit gambit will have failed. In those circumstances, the only way of avoiding a no-deal exit might be for the Government to give in on the backstop. How would that go down with the electorate? Would backing down be seen as a pragmatic move by a Taoiseach who had done his best for Ireland, south and North? Or, on the other hand, would there be widespread opposition to any climb-down? In the latter case, Leo Varadkar could calculate that his political survival would require that he sticks to his guns even if that results in a Brexit-induced economic slump. If a no-deal exit were to happen on a green tide, how would attitudes evolve once the pain of a post-Brexit downturn began to bite? Would the Government be blamed for overplaying its hand if unemployment started to rise and an austerity budget loomed in the autumn? Or would an Irish equivalent of what the British call a "blitz spirit" take hold, as mayhem is blamed on the old enemy and the nation stands together to face privations? What of the land Border in such circumstances? The Government's current position is that it will not police the frontier with Northern Ireland in the event of a no-deal exit. As the Irish Border would be an EU external frontier, not policing it would sooner or later cause problems for the rest of the EU. Would the Taoiseach want to play hardball on that as he has thus far on Brexit? Would public opinion support taking on Brussels and Paris, particularly if the economy was already turning down? All of this could be playing out by mid-year, and takes no account of what the US president might have done by then. Where we'll be by year's end is anyone's guess. Buckle up for a turbulent 2019. I left my hard drinking days behind me, quite unintentionally, in 2015. The first time in my adult life I endured January without touching a drop of alcohol was in 2016. I was nine months pregnant with my son at the time, so abstinence was more or less enforced, rather than being a virtuous lifestyle choice. Then he was born and my close friendship with wine has never really recovered. I can count on one hand the number of times since then I've staggered home around dawn after a night out on the tiles. Until then, my drinking style had been enthusiastic binger - a few days of midweek sobriety, interspersed by two or three nights a week of excess. Like most of my friends, my 20s were measured out in mojitos and fishbowl-sized glasses of Malbec. My love for a night (or two) of excessive alcohol consumption per week was a habit I shared with about 21.1pc of the Irish population. I was one of the hoards of social drinkers. Enjoying a good time on a Friday and Saturday night. All good harmless fun. And the only real price I believed, was a sizeable dent in my bank balance and a Sunday morning sore head. There were no obvious red flags. No indication that my drinking was problematic. Or so I initially thought. Sure, I often felt anxious and emotionally jangled after a heavy night and could take half a week to get my equilibrium back. And yeah, according to Alcohol Action Ireland, the safe upper limit of alcohol consumption for women is 11 units a week and most nights out I'd have topped that as fast as you could say digestif. On especially fun nights out, I'd easily double it. All in one sitting. But I was young, and the liver has a remarkable capacity to regenerate, right? These days, I'm more inclined to cut loose with a bottle of wine in front of the television on a Friday night. It's nowhere near consumption levels of my 20s but still a binge, by official standards. (The WHO defines binge drinking as consuming more than six units of alcohol in one sitting). And yet the negative effects of alcohol still feature prominently in my life. I just pay the price in different ways. After a few drinks, I'm more likely to row with my partner. The day after, when the hangover puts me on edge, I'm less patient with my son, more likely to snap or respond badly to a meltdown. So the toxic effects seep into family life. Then there's the steady, creeping awareness of middle age around the corner and the gnawing concern about the cumulative effect of years of drinking on my health. Alcohol is directly linked to significantly increased risks of stroke, heart disease and liver disease as well as seven different types of cancer. It is thought to cause one in every 13 cases of breast cancer in the UK. Finally, there's the effect on my mental health. Even just a couple of drinks, I've noticed, leave me feeling more worried, low and on edge for days afterward. When I'm hungover, I can easily get caught in negative thinking loops and struggle to get out of them. Dry January, an initiative launched by the British Alcohol Awareness charity has become an institution in recent years. In Britain, over three million people have vowed to stay off the sauce for the whole first month of 2019. In Northern Ireland, a reported 10pc of the population is doing it. And this year, I'll be joining them. Alcohol Concern, the charity behind the Dry January campaign promises that by hopping on the bandwagon, I can expect to reap the benefits of better sleep, improved skin, improved health and even weight-loss. "If we could come up with a new health supplement or discovered a super food that had all those benefits, we'd be millionaires," they say. "But instead we aim to offer the help, advice and encouragement to let you get these benefits yourself, all for free." But while health experts unanimously agree that too much alcohol is bad for health, the benefits of giving up for one month per year are less clear, with some experts, claiming it could do more harm than good. In an article published in the British Medical Journal, lecturer on Public Health Ian Hamilton wrote that "Dry January risks sending out a binary, all or nothing, message about alcohol - that is, either participate by abstaining or carry on as you are. . . It's a subject that has been little studied." he added. Other experts disagree. New research from the University of Sussex was published this week which claimed taking a month off booze has lasting benefits. "The simple act of taking a month off alcohol helps people drink less in the long term: by August people are reporting one extra dry day per week. "There are also considerable immediate benefits: nine in 10 people save money, seven in 10 sleep better and three in five lose weight," explained the studies author, psychologist Dr Richard de Visser, who interviewed 800 participants who went dry for January 2017. "Interestingly, these changes in alcohol consumption have also been seen in the participants who didn't manage to stay alcohol-free for the whole month - although they are a bit smaller. This shows that there are real benefits to just trying to complete Dry January." The evidence is still too slight to be conclusive. But this year I'll be conducting my own little study of one, to see if re-inventing myself as a teetotaller for January can help me make the best of 2019. Leo Varadkar speaking to the media at Government buildings today TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar has revealed that there was an unexpected Budget surplus of 100m last year. It's the first Budget surplus since the economic crash, barring one year when there was a windfall from the sale of AIB shares. The announcement came after finance minister Paschal Donohoe briefed Cabinet on the latest Exchequer Returns. Mr Varadkar said the surplus came a year ahead of schedule. He said it occurred for two reasons, firstly a 250m underspend. He said this was "non-voted" expenditure and was not in any particular government Department and mainly related to debt service costs. He said the second reason was "a very big increase in the amount of tax taken from corporations". Mr Varadkar said corporation profit tax receiptes came in between 1bn and 2bn ahead of projection. He maintained that the surplus: "means that were very well-prepared for a downturn or for an economic shock if that were to affect us, much more prepared than other countries." He said the majority of European countries - including the United Kingdom - are still running deficits. Mr Varadkar said the government expect a small Budget surplus for 2019 as well. But he also warned: "Its absolutely something we cant take for granted or be complacent about. "It largely happened because of a surge in Corporation Tax receipts and were not taking them for granted. We know theyre volatile. "We know they relate to the profits of a small number of companies that have operations here in Ireland. "So in our Budgetary plans for 2019 were actually projecting a fall-off in tax-take from corporations so that if they pay the same amount in 2019 as they did in 2018 it will be a pleasant surprise." He argued that this shows "were planning ahead and being prudent". The bike rental operator has had a quiet day. It's been an uncommonly wet afternoon in Amsterdam and the tourists have left the cycling to the natives. "The summer was epic," Dirk says. "Everybody who comes here wants to cycle and experience life as a local. We had queues out the door." Airbnb, he says, has played a large part in that. "The people who typically use Airbnb will get out and about and spend money in the city. They want to live like a local, and that doesn't just mean non-hotel accommodation." But, although it has helped his business - which, at five-years-old, coincides neatly when Airbnb first started to take a grip in the city - he has misgivings about the short-term rental giant. "It's changed the neighbourhood I live in - and not for the better," he says. A lot of his city compatriots are conflicted too. Others are up in arms - and they have taken to the streets to protest. They see Airbnb as one of the key reasons why house prices have risen, rents have gone up and chi-chi food shops have replaced good-value stores. Urban planner Sito Veracruz has seen for himself the impact Airbnb has had on Amsterdam. He lives in its old centre and he notes that ever increasing numbers of properties are being rented out on short-term letting platforms, of which Airbnb is by far the most dominant. "The original idea of Airbnb was a great one," he says. "Rent a room out to a tourist and they get to have an authentic experience in another country. "The problem is, it's become far too commercialised. It's far more lucrative to rent out entire properties on Airbnb than it is to use the normal long-term lettings market." Mr Veracruz could just as easily be talking about Dublin or a tourist magnet like Dingle, both of which offer far more entire properties for let at any given day than in the regular lettings sector. According to Inside Airbnb, which tracks the platform's lettings all over the world, there were 4,896 entire homes available on Airbnb in Dublin just before Christmas. On the same day, there were just 1,496 properties on daft.ie that could be rented in the capital. It's a disparity that has seen Airbnb take a large portion of the blame for the Irish housing crisis, especially in Dublin. Amsterdam has been trying to fight the inexorable rise of Airbnb by bringing in restrictions to limit the amount of days entire properties have been rented out. From January 1 this year, it has not been permissible to rent out properties in their entirety for more than 30 days in a calendar year. As of now, Amsterdam has the toughest laws concerning short-term lettings anywhere in Europe. This year will also see Ireland attempting to bring the growth of Airbnb under control, especially in pressure points like Dublin. Anyone wishing to rent out a room will need a permit from their local council and only those who can prove that the Airbnb property is their primary residence will be able to let it in its entirety, and then for just 90 days a year. Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy has made it clear that landlords and investors will not be granted a permit and, consequently, will not be able to make their properties available on Airbnb. But if the experience of Amsterdam is anything to go by, it will not be easy for Irish authorities to limit Airbnb hosts from renting out properties in their entirety. A senior housing official at the City of Amsterdam says without enforcement, new legislation is meaningless. He does not want his name used "because this issue is so political". Having attempted to counter the growth of Airbnb for five years, he is intrigued by the Irish proposals. But he has a warning. "What we have done from the beginning is expand our enforcement," he says. "We have needed money and manpower to do that. If people feel the chance of being caught is minimal, then even the best policies are only words." The housing officer says the latest laws may limit the rise in Airbnb lettings in the city. Under the former 60-day rule, he said the platform rose by 8pc in the past year. "The growth is not as much as it was in the beginning," he says. "But it's still growing. When limited to 30 days, that growth could stop." He insists that the city council is not opposed to the original concept of Airbnb - where tourists rent a room from a host or where a host makes their entire property available on the limited occasion they are away on work or holiday. "We call our policy a 'holiday rental'," he says. "It's meant for people who go on holiday and don't want to leave their house empty. We could not foresee that it would rise so quickly." The popularity of Airbnb practically exploded in Amsterdam. In 2014, there were around 6,000 properties listed on the platform. Today, the number stands at 20,000. Shirley Nieuwland, of the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, has studied the 'Airbnb Effect' - so called because of the impact on short-term letting on residential neighbourhoods - and says it has been difficult to evaluate if the tough approach has achieved its aims or not. "The regulations are one thing," she says. "But the enforcements are mostly the problem. Even if you have very strict regulations, a lot of cities have the problem that they can't enforce them. It's really hard to find out who's following your rule and who is not. "Finding the host is very complicated. There are so many listings online. You need Airbnb on your side, but they don't share individual data. If you find the people, how are you going to prove that they did 100 nights of renting? They can say, 'It's only a friend who is staying here'. Even if you have the regulations and fines in place, it's still really hard to put it into practice." The housing official at City of Amsterdam HQ insists that it can be proved that hosts transgress. "At first our focus was on illegal hotels - basically apartment buildings that were completely let out to tourists," he says. "We issued fines of up to 20,500 per apartment, so if multiple apartments were being let out we could fine more than 100,000 - and we did. And we're catching those who are not obeying the rules when it comes to the total time they can rent their home, too. "We have an informer hotline and you can call or email our enforcement teams. That way, you have a big chance that you will have a hit." Airbnb began life in 2008 when its founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia created an ad-hoc B&B in their San Francisco loft. Airbnb was born with the launch of its website in March 2009. It soon became one of the fastest growing start-ups ever. It started to make inroads into Europe - and Ireland - in 2012. In recent years though, Airbnb has had to contend with a severe backlash. And Amsterdam's policies seem to have particularly concerned Airbnb, not least because it is aware that several other cities across the continent are studying the Dutch model with a view to adopting it to their own needs. It is thought that officials from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government paid particular attention to Amsterdam when devising its proposed policy, but a department spokesperson says the new rules are particular to Ireland and "tailored to address particular circumstances in the country". Bernard D'heygere, Airbnb's London-based director of public affairs, believes it is unfair Airbnb is having to take the blame both for the over-tourism problem in Amsterdam and the housing crisis in Dublin. He does not wish to speak specifically about the Irish situation - Airbnb declined to make anybody available to be interviewed about the company's operation in Ireland - but he says Amsterdam's new 30-day rule will not produce the desired results. "Cutting the limit of the amount of time people can share their homes by two - to 30 days - will hurt a lot of Amsterdammers and it will probably favour a lot of big hotels," he said. "Limiting the rights of Amsterdammers is not really going to solve the tourism challenges in Amsterdam. "We recently commissioned a report and we're seeing that Airbnb plays a small part in the number of guests who stay in Amsterdam - there are 18 or 19 million tourists each year, we host about 800,000." Mr D'heygere believes it is up to both councils and Airbnb to work together to ensure a fair scenario for everyone. Airbnb host Hans Omno van den Berg says the new laws which will affect him and thousands others will have no impact on cutting down tourist numbers or reducing the cost of rents in the normal housing market. "It's a witch-hunt," he says. "The council says it is worried about over-tourism in the city centre, but this old centre is always popular with tourists. "Airbnb helps to revitalise other areas and bring visitors to parts of the city they would otherwise not see. And they are spending money in those neighbourhoods." By the end of 2019, after six months of Airbnb rules have elapsed in Ireland, we will have some sense if restrictions work in places like Dublin. A security guard (45) suffered a severe injury when he was beaten over the head with a blunt object during a vicious riot that unfolded in a hotel bar in the early hours of New Year's Day. Gardai said at least 20 people were involved in the incident in a bar at the Royal Hotel on Main Street, Bray, Co Wicklow, at around 1am on Tuesday. Major damage was caused to the bar area of McGettigan's pub in the hotel as the violence flared out of control. "The place was completely smashed up - massive damage was caused to the bar area. Tables and chairs were broken up and the place was full of broken bottles," a senior source told the Irish Independent. "It is a miracle that just one person was seriously injured in this massive affray - dozens of people could have been hurt," they added. Gardai suspect that the main protagonists in the "mini-riot" were Traveller criminals who live in counties Dublin and Wicklow. Many of the suspects are understood to have been booked into the hotel on the night. Such was the seriousness of the situation that up to half a dozen Garda units rushed to the hotel on Tuesday morning and the situation quickly calmed after that. Officers only made one arrest on the night - a man in his 30s was arrested for public order offences. However, the savage melee is now being officially investigated as a "violent disorder incident" and gardai have obtained CCTV footage. This was being studied last night by gardai who plan to make multiple arrests in the coming weeks once suspects are identified. "What happened here is completely unacceptable and it was a very dangerous situation for a while," a senior source said. "Some of those who are suspected of being involved have links to some of the most prolific burglary crime gangs and gardai will be following this up," they added. It remained unclear last night what exactly was used to beat the 45-year-old security guard, who was left seriously injured after being struck on the head. He was rushed to St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin for treatment. His condition was said to be stable last night. "He is a very lucky man - he got a savage blow to the head," the source said. Despite repeated requests yesterday, no one at the hotel or its bar were available for comment. The pub was open as normal yesterday after repair work was carried out. It is not yet known what sparked the row. "Bad and all as this was, it could have been a lot worse. "There was over 20 people effectively beating each other up and smashing the place up," a senior source said. "The seriousness of the situation was reflected in the Garda response, which involved multiple units going to the scene to restore order." Vicky Phelan has described the loss of a woman who was left with terminal cervical cancer due to medical negligence as "another needless death". Limerick woman Adrienne Cullen (58), who died on Monday, has been described as a "formidable warrior" after she took on the Dutch health system. Ms Cullen settled a legal action with a hospital in the Netherlands after it lost scans which showed she had cervical cancer. She successfully took on the Dutch health system and campaigned for a 'no gagging clause' policy in medical facilities across Europe. She died at 10.15am on Monday at the Netherlands Cancer Institute. Ms Cullen was conferred with an Honorary Doctorate in Laws at University College Cork earlier this month. Her husband Peter Cluskey issued a statement about her death via Twitter. He said his lifelong partner was "appallingly treated" and it "made her a formidable warrior". He thanked all those who had been loyal and generous to Adrienne, particularly the staff of her former alma mater, UCC, where she was so warmly received at an intimate ceremony on December 10. He said his wife had a "special steel" and had made a huge difference. Also reacting online, Ms Phelan, who exposed the CervicalCheck scandal, posted a message to Mr Cluskey offering her sympathies. "I read about Adrienne's passing yesterday and was floored with sadness," Ms Phelan said. "Another needless death. I wanted to process how I felt off social media before posting anything. I am so very sorry for your loss Peter Cluskey. Adrienne was a formidable woman," she added. Professor Padraig G O'Se of UCC said Ms Cullen was "a beautiful, resilient and compassionate person". An obituary appeared on Dutch media which simply stated: "Staying silent was not an option for Adrienne Cullen." She first underwent tests in the Netherlands in 2011 after becoming ill. However, she was assured she was healthy. In 2013, a review of old pathology results found that a test for cancerous tissue which Ms Cullen had had conducted two years earlier had, in fact, been positive. By 2015, tests showed her cancer had spread and, as a result of delays, was terminal. An independent medical consultant, agreed on by both sides, concluded if the test result had not been lost, she would have had a 95pc to 98pc chance of being cured. Earlier this month in Cork she said that she empathised greatly with those affected by the CervicalCheck scandal in Ireland. She said women such as Emma Mhic Mhathuna had much of their lives stolen from them. "They have been robbed of being able to see their children's birthdays. They have been robbed of Christmas photos, of having family holidays. Of seeing their children grow up. We have all lost so many things like that. Peter [her husband] beside me here is losing me." Magical memories: Fionn Doyle (7) in a Garda car on his birthday in August. Photo: Daragh McSweeney A HEARTBROKEN mother paid tribute to her "little miracle" son who lost a five year battle with cancer on New Year's Day but whose incredible courage in fighting the illness inspired thousands worldwide. Eimear Doyle fought back tears as she told mourners today how "so, so proud" their entire family was of little Fionn (7), Ireland's youngest honorary Garda, who heroically fought cancer for five years after being diagnosed with leukaemia at just 18 months. Little Fionn made national headlines last summer when an appeal to make his seventh birthday extra special given his terminal cancer diagnosis sparked an international reaction. Eimear, her husband Jack, and daughters, Amy and Saoirse, all wore orange jumpers at Fionn's Mass of the Angels in Kildorrery, Co Cork in honour of the fact it was the little boy's favourite colour. Hundreds attended St Bartholomew's Church with special guards of honour provided by Fionn's national school classmates and Kildorrery Scouts. Fionn's white coffin was decorated with paintings of his favourite cartoon show, 'Power Rangers', and the Offertory Gifts reflected the loves of his short life - a lead for his dog, Lightning, a cherished Power Rangers toy, his beloved honorary Garda badge and a family photo. His coffin was brought into the church to the strains of 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow'. Read More Fighting back tears, Eimear thanked everyone for their support over Fionn's difficult last months - and paid a heart rending tribute to her little son. "To Fionn - I would just like to say from me, Daddy, Amy and Saoirse, we are so grateful that we got the chance to have you in our lives," she said. "Our gorgeous, happy, chatty little man - our cheeky monkey. "We are so, so proud of you - and how you fought so hard for so long with such bravery and courage. "You still kept that gorgeous smile on your face throughout it all. "These last seven months you have battled on even though no-one had expected that you would. "During that time, we grabbed life together and made wonderful memories that we will treasure forever. "We will miss you more than words can ever, ever say. But how lucky are we to have had someone in our lives that made saying goodbye so hard. "Love you Fionn." The mother-of-three received an ovation from mourners and then paused to kiss Fionn's coffin as she returned to her seat. Kildorrery Parish Priest Fr Eamon Kelleher said the entire community was deeply moved by Fionn's heroic battle against cancer. "He was a little miracle," he said. "If we could bear some of your suffering, we would," he told the family. "You are surrounded by people who care for you, who are praying for you and who want to help you in any small way they can. "But, because of your great love for Fionn, that terrible grief is yours. "You are in our prayers. Don't lose heart and don't lose faith. This little child Fionn is with the baby Jesus in Heaven. The family said they were "overwhelmed" by the outpouring of sympathy and support from Ireland and worldwide, many from people who never met Fionn but were inspired by his courage. "We are absolutely heartbroken but we are taking comfort from just how much Fionn's story has touched people." Read More The couple had celebrated Christmas complete with special presents on December 8 last amid concerns over Fionn's deteriorating condition. Fionn made headlines last year when a birthday appeal saw him receive 10,000 cards from all across the world - and the little boy was thrilled when Gardai decided to make his dream come true by giving him the force's VIP guest treatment. Fionn was given demonstrations by the Garda Regional Support Unit and the Garda Dog Unit - and given a demonstration of a Garda patrol car while wearing his own uniform. He received an honorary Garda badge. To mark the occasion, units of local fire brigades also attended with their tenders. Eimear said Fionn was thrilled at his special birthday. "His face lit up when he saw all the Garda cars and fire engines," Eimear said. Fionn was diagnosed with leukaemia when aged just 18 months but went into remission over two years ago. Tragically, his cancer had returned in early 2017. Despite a bone marrow transport later that year, his cancer steadily worsened and last year Eimear and Jack were told that Fionn's condition was now terminal. Eimear admitted that, in the end, they were hoping to spend a final Christmas with Fionn. "It was our greatest hope," she said. "It meant the absolute world to us to have Christmas Day with Fionn." Fionn's family have asked that, instead of funeral flowers, people make a donation to the Children's Leukaemia Association. Fionn is survived by his parents, Eimear and Jack, and siblings, Saoirse and Amy. Commemorations of the War of Independence need to be sensitive to tensions surrounding Brexit, Cabinet ministers have been warned. Ministers have also been told the "sensitivities across communities" in Northern Ireland of historical events surrounding Ireland's fight for independence should be taken into account when organising commemorative events. The warning comes as the Cabinet discusses the next stage of the Decade of Centenaries commemorative programme following events marking the 1916 Easter Rising, women's suffrage and the start of World War I. It is understood ministers were told: "The approach to commemorating the next period needs to take account of sensitivities across communities in Northern Ireland and continue to recognise the very different perspectives on many of these issues. "The commemorative programme over the coming years unfolds in the continued absence of agreement on operating devolved structures in Northern Ireland and against the backdrop of the ongoing Brexit negotiations." The first centenary to be remembered will be the Soloheadbeg Ambush in Tipperary on January 21, 1919, which is considered the first action of the War of Independence. Culture Minister Josepha Madigan has established an all-party consultation group to discuss how to commemorate significant events in Ireland's history. The group will consist of members of the Oireachtas and representatives from the SLDP and the Alliance Party. The Democratic Unionist Party and Ulster Unionist Party were invited to send representatives. The Government has decided on a four-strand approach to the commemorative programme for the period from 2019 to 2023. There will be a limited number of State ceremonial events which will focus on remembrance and reconciliation while acknowledging all those who lost their lives during the War of Independence and the Civil War. A historical strand will look at the key events during this period using a variety of sources of information. There will also be a community strand which will see commemorative events organised between the State and local groups based in Ireland and Northern Ireland. A creative strand will involve artists and musicians. Meanwhile, the first Cabinet meeting of the new year is set to be dominated by the increasing possibility that Britain will crash out of the EU. Ministers are to consider the Dail schedule for the coming term and emergency legislation that will be needed in the event of a no-deal Brexit. British Prime Minister Theresa May is facing an uphill battle to get the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement passed by Parliament amid opposition to the so-called backstop arrangement to avoid a hard border in Ireland. Ministers are expected to discuss the Dail schedule and the work that has started on the necessary pieces of no-deal legislation. There is concern that other Dail business will grind to a halt in the coming weeks. Some 45 pieces of emergency legislation need to be enacted including in the areas of healthcare, justice, the single electricity market and housing provision. Separately, Tanaiste Simon Coveney has said British MPs should reflect on Heather Humphreys' account of Troubles-era violence and the impact of customs and security checkpoints. The Cavan-Monaghan TD outlined to the Irish Independent why there must be no return to a hard Border. On Twitter Mr Coveney said "many in Westminster" would do well to reflect on the article to understand why the UK and Ireland "must work together through Brexit and why the backstop was agreed". Order has been restored. In as sure a sign as any that the festive cheer has well and truly dissipated, Luther is back for a fifth mini-season, stripped across four consecutive nights. Big, badass DCI John Luther (Idris Elba), Hackneys finest, has returned to his bonkers, bananas beat for the first time in three years, swaggering around a dark, scary London seemingly populated exclusively by cops, gangsters and raving psychopaths. I love Luthers swagger: head down, shoulders forward, arms thrust into pockets, legs walking in opposite directions, like theyre desperately trying to escape one anothers company. Luthers walk deserves a BAFTA of its own. Luthers overcoat is back too, and as over-tight as ever. Maybe even more so. Has it been to the dry cleaners a few too many times since Luther first barged into viewers consciousness all the way back in 2010? Expand Close Luther: DCI John Luther (Idris Elba), DS Halliday (Wunmi Mosaku) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Luther: DCI John Luther (Idris Elba), DS Halliday (Wunmi Mosaku) This would certainly account for the fact that its never buttoned up, no matter how cold the weather. Then again, Luthers overcoat wouldnt look the same buttoned-up. It wouldnt be able to flap photogenically in the breeze. Its not really an overcoat at all, you see; its a cape. Because Luther has transcended being a mere telly cop. Hes now a superhero, able to withstand the kind of punishment that would kill most men even men of his massive, seam-splitting size. Within the first 20 minutes of the New Years Day opening episode (the only one Id seen at the time of writing), Luther managed to survive being tied to a chair and tasered three times by crime boss George Cornelius (Patrick Malahide) who, you might remember, Luther chained to a radiator in the last season and his minions, then had to race against time to remove a bomb tied around the neck of an informer before it blew the poor fellas head off. Expand Close Ruth Wilson as Alice Morgan (Des Willie/BBC) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Ruth Wilson as Alice Morgan (Des Willie/BBC) And this was all before we got to the real meat of the story: a psychopath with a clown mask and LED lights sewn into his hood, whos murdering people in a variety of gruesome ways. He slits the throat of a lone passenger aboard a bus (a nerve-wracking standout scene thats likely to put you off taking the night bus forever), rips the eyes and tongue from another victim, and turns a third into a human pin cushion by hammering nails into their body. Luther has always gone in for extremes, and these were exceptionally grisly, graphic scenes, but Neil Cross appears to be trying to head off familiar accusations of misogyny by making two of the three victims men. Expect a few complaints, nonetheless. The key to the mystery is an icy psychiatrist (Hermione Norris) with cheekbones as sharp as stilettos who, in a late twist, is revealed to be tied to the killer in an unexpected way. In truth, for all the gore and deranged plots turns, this was a comparatively muted return for Luther. But a welcome last-minute appearance by Luthers nemesis/companion, the super-smart psycho Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson), whos the Hannibal Lecter to his Clarice Starling, should mean things pick up pretty quickly. Wilson is every bit as important to the series as Elba, and she was sorely missed last time around. Jodie Whittaker has been excellent in Doctor Who, yet her first season lacked a truly strong, memorable villain. The slightly extended New Years Day special delivered one: a lone Dalek, separated from its protective, weaponised metal shell and squishily attaching itself, Alien-style, to a young woman whose motor skills it needed to build a new one. This was exhilarating stuff, fast-moving, action-packed, witty (there were some clever swipes at Brexit) and satisfyingly creepy. Showrunner/writer Chris Chibnall also came up with an excellent framing story, stretching back to the Daleks arrival on earth in the 9th century. Sadly, there wont be a new series until 2020. If you think that working your way through the myriad choices on Netflix's interactive film Bandersnatch is complex, it's nothing compared to the hurdles writer Charlie Brooker and the creative team had to overcome to make the film. Bandersnatch, which sits within the same universe as Brooker's Black Mirror series, stars Fionn Whitehead as a young programmer who begins to question reality as he adapts a sprawling fantasy novel into a video game. It's set in 1984 and viewers make choices for the character on his journey, resulting in many different possible endings. As Brooker himself says, "It's very, very Black Mirror". Netflix has released two behind-the-scenes videos, the first of which features interviews with Brooker, producer Annabel Jones, and stars Whitehead, Will Poulter, and Asim Chaudhry. Brooker describes the process as "very challenging", involving "working stuff out like doing a Rubik's Cube in your head". At times, he says, he had to "get up from my desk and walk around the house, holding my head." The actors, meanwhile, speak about the difficulties they faced in remembering which versions of scenes they were doing as there were so many. The second video looks at the journey that both Netflix and the Black Mirror team took to create the title with interviews with Brooker, Todd Yellin, David Slade and Irish editor Tony Kearns, who said it was the "biggest challenge" of his editing career to date. Britain's biggest department store operator John Lewis said sales rose 4.5pc in the week ending December 29, boosted by strong demand on Christmas Eve and "a confident start to post-Christmas clearance both online and in shops". Fashion sales were up 10.7pc on the previous year, with women's cashmere and accessories performing well, the employee-owned retailer said. Christmas shoppers also spent more on beauty and well-being. John Lewis is the first retailer to update on trading at the end of a tough year for a sector that has seen a string of chains going out of business and rival department stores Debenhams and House of Fraser announcing store closures. Stores were pinning hopes on a last-minute surge in demand before Christmas and post-Christmas sales to counter poor trading in November and early December. John Lewis - Britain's biggest department stores operator - said demand was "very strong" on Christmas Eve, indicating that shoppers had delayed rather than cut spending, and customers were also looking for bargains in its clearance sale, both online and in store. Industry data had indicated that the post-Christmas sales started slowly, with the number of shoppers visiting shopping centres and retail districts dipping year-on-year the day after Christmas, traditionally one of the busiest of the year. Reuters Danish home retail brand JYSK is to create 200 jobs across Ireland over the next two years with the opening of 15 stores. The positions being created are both part and full-time roles. The first Irish store will open in Naas in April, with a further two stores opening in Drogheda and Navan in May. The group will open a fourth shop in Portlaoise this summer. Expand Close Stock Image / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Stock Image JYSK will also establish an Irish head office in Dublin early this year, where it will also fill approximately 10 roles in sales, marketing, human resources and finance over the next two years. Commenting on the opening of JYSK in Ireland, Roni Tuominen, head of retail, said: "Ireland is a very important market for us, given the prominent position the retail industry holds in the country for employment and the economy." "As a company, we focus on entering a new market each year, and we are excited that 2019 is the year we bring our brand to Ireland. We will open here with our latest concept stores and deliver exceptional quality products at great prices to Irish consumers." Founded in Denmark in 1979 by Lars Larsen, over the past four decades JYSK has expanded to 51 countries with more than 2,700 stores worldwide employing 23,000 people. The restaurant and tourism industry entered the New Year with the threat of Brexit looming and the reality of a hike in Vat rates that produced a price rise and complaints from Dublin coffee shops. With much of the country still on holiday, it was difficult to assess the impact of the rise in Vat from the temporary 9pc rate that the hospitality industry has enjoyed since July 2011 - when it was introduced to fight a deep recession - to the 13.5pc main rate. Some retailers immediately passed the rise onto consumers. The price of a cup of coffee at Dublin-based chain 3FE rose 4pc from 3.50 to 3.65, while at Insomnia, a 12-ounce Americano rose 10 cent to 2.80. "When good and bad things happen, people tend to look at the price of a cappucino," 3FE founder Colin Harmon told the Irish Independent. If people were looking at the price of a cappuccino, it was likely to be the more affluent members of society. According to research from the Department of Finance, the Vat cut cost 2.6bn in lost revenues and disproportionately benefited the better off who have higher levels of disposable discretionary income. The Vat cut had also worked. Employment levels in the sectors covered by the emergency rate surpassed their previous peak in the second half of 2014, while all other services only hit those levels in early 2016. Expand Close Irish Tourism Industry Confederation CEO Eoghan OMara Walsh / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Irish Tourism Industry Confederation CEO Eoghan OMara Walsh The tourism and accommodation industry counters that it is one of the few with a footprint throughout the country, employing 270,000 workers. Read more: With Brexit looming, which the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation and Failte Ireland say could cost as much as 390m, the Government risks sucking money out that could have been used for investment in staff and facilities, said Irish Tourism Industry Confederation CEO Eoghan O'Mara Walsh. "The Government gave no time for the sector to adjust," Mr Walsh told the Irish Independent. Given the proliferation of pricey coffee shops in the capital, the sector was at risk of a shake-out as Bord Bia warned in a recent report that city centres had reached "saturation point" for cafes. This isn't the first time however that the fate of coffee shops has become a political issue. Newly-released Cabinet documents from the State archive reveal former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald pressed for a government bailout for the Bewley's chain in 1986. Entering production: the Bricqueville wind farm in Normandy which NTR has acquired from RES Group NTR plc has attracted commitments of 229m for the NTR Renewable Energy Income Fund II. The fund is targeting 500m. It will invest in both pre-construction and operational onshore wind and solar projects across across a number of European markets. Legal & General Capital has joined as a cornerstone investor in an NTR fund for the second time. "We believe that a step-change is needed in the level of investment in renewable energy, so are pleased to be a cornerstone investor in the NTR Renewable Energy Income Fund II," John Bromley, head of clean energy strategy at Legal & General Capital, said. "Legal & General Capital will match 20pc of all funds raised, up to 100m, in the NTR fund, which is primarily focused on new-build wind and solar renewables." The world's largest international financier for renewable energy, the European Investment Bank (EIB) is also investing up to 84m equity in the fund to support NTR's long-term investment in European renewables. This represents its first ever backing for investment through an Irish Collective Asset-management Vehicle or ICAV. Meanwhile, another first close investor in the fund is the Brunel Pension Partnership, a UK local government pension scheme pool. NTR has already made the first three acquisitions for the fund, providing a combined capacity of 57MW of clean energy. These include two wind farms in France and a portfolio of nine solar projects in the UK. The fund has an active pipeline of further investments across its target European markets. A raft of stocks in Irish firms that were battered during 2018 by a market rout have been tipped as investment opportunities because of their exposure to a strong Irish economy and a prediction there won't be a hard Brexit. Bank of Ireland, forecourt retailer Applegreen, Woodie's DIY owner Grafton, and hotel operator Dalata are all among the stocks perceived by Davy Stockbrokers as offering significant value. It has based the predictions on its expectation that there won't be a hard Brexit and that the UK will remain in the European Single Market for the "foreseeable future". The Irish stock market shed about 23pc of its value last year, wiping more than 21bn from its value. Shares in Irish firms were pummelled by external factors including Brexit, but also by concerns about the underlying health of the Irish economy. Some stocks were hit by company-specific issues. They included Ryanair, which spent the bulk of 2018 dealing with labour and union issues. Its shares fell more than 28pc last year. Paddy Power Betfair also faced challenges to its business, also sending its shares 28pc lower in 2018. Davy Stockbrokers said yesterday that given the economic outlook for Ireland this year, weakness in many Irish stocks will provide "very interesting investment opportunities" in 2019. Ireland's economy is expected to grow by 4.2pc in 2019, according to the Economic and Social Research Institute. That follows expected growth of 8.2pc in 2018. A recent EY-DKM report predicted that 60,000 net new jobs will be added to the Irish economy this year. Davy expects the Irish economy to expand by 5.6pc in 2019. "We also believe that many investors have taken too pessimistic a view on Ireland's point in the cycle - specifically with respect to the outlook for the housing market and bank lending," said Davy. "A budget surplus will encourage a rise in government spending in infrastructure and perhaps more expansionary fiscal policy," it added. "Overall, the backdrop looks very favourable for companies exposed to the Irish economy - particularly in housing and consumer-related areas." It said that other stocks poised to benefit this year after being hit in 2018 include recruitment firm CPL Resources, ferry group Irish Continental, and homebuilder Glenveagh Properties. "Earnings forecasts for the Iseq fell slightly for the full year while those for the top-10 stocks, which comprise over 86pc of the index, declined only marginally," noted Davy. "Most of the fall in the market therefore was due to multiple de-rating as a consequence of the stock-specific and Brexit risks ... and in anticipation of a slowdown in the economy. We do not believe the pessimism on the domestic economy is justified," it insisted. Firefighters were called to a farm in Co Tyrone to rescue three cows from a slurry pit. Specialist crews from across the province attended the incident outside Dromore on December 28. A spokeswoman for the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) said: "Firefighters wore breathing apparatus and used rescue lines to pull the animals free from the slurry pit. "Gas monitors were used throughout the incident to continually monitor gas levels from the slurry." As well as working in midst of the toxic gasses from the slurry, the rescuers also had to cope with the hazards associated with "large animals in distress". Following the operation which took several hours, NIFRS reported no injuries to staff and the cows were successfully pulled from the pit. The IFA has called on the Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed to bring forward more detail in relation to his comments about EU aid in the event of a hard Brexit. Minister Creed told the Irish Independent the Irish Government will seek hundreds of millions of euro in special aid from Brussels if the UK crashes out of the EU without a deal. Dublin has already alerted the EU Commission that it will be lobbying for emergency aid to cope with the fallout to Irish trade, particularly for the beef, dairy and fishing sectors, Minister Creed said. IFA President Joe Healy said the Minister's plans to make Irish aid a key agenda item when the EU Farm Council meets in Luxembourg in early April, after the Brexit deadline, is the equivalent of "bolting the door after the horse is gone is too late for farmers. We need a support plan in place long before then. The situation is now urgent. He said that while the Minister has finally acknowledged that farmers are losing their shirts at current prices, "he needs to get on the pitch now and set out what exactly he will be seeking for Irish farmers". Joe Healy also said it is imperative that whatever package is introduced will support farmers and that we dont end up with aid going to factories rather than to farmers. He said the prospect of no deal before the end of March is alarming for all farmers, and especially livestock farmers who are increasingly concerned about prices and exports to our most important export market in the UK. If the UK crashes out in March, we are facing a far more serious situation and the potential wipe out of beef production in this country, he said. Minister Creed said there is a high level of awareness of Ireland's unique exposure to the UK food market. "But I think nobody wants to talk about it right now because there is still a hope and expectation that a level of sanity will prevail," Mr Creed said. The Minister added he is optimistic Ireland will succeed - but given the level of money to be sought this cannot be taken for granted. Ed Bearss will discuss the raising of the USS Cairo during an upcoming presentation at the N.C. History Center in New Bern. (Contributed photo) Developer Michael Cotter has been given the green light by An Bord Pleanala to proceed with the construction of 341 new homes on lands surrounding the British Ambassador's official residence at Leopardstown in south county Dublin. Upon completion, the proposed scheme next to Glencairn House will comprise 243 apartments arranged across six blocks, 98 houses and a childcare facility. Mr Cotter acquired the lands at Glencairn House from the British Foreign Office in the 1990s. Castdale Ltd, a subsidiary of Mr Cotter's Park Developments, secured permission for the development through the Government's Strategic Housing Development (SHD) scheme. Under the terms of this temporary 'fast-track' planning initiative, developers seeking permission for 100 residential units or more are no longer required to apply to their respective local authorities, but can instead apply directly to An Bord Pleanala. While ordinary planning applications can take up to 18 months to secure, the fast-track regulation sees determinations reduced to a maximum of six months. An examination of the planning records for the Glencairn development shows that Mr Cotter's company submitted its application on September 14 last, following several rounds of pre-planning consultation with officials from An Bord Pleanala and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Council dating back to January 2018. An Bord Pleanala granted permission for the Glencairn scheme on December 18 last subject to a number of standard conditions. Park Developments has a significant record on the delivery of housing in Dublin, with thousands of house and apartments built in estates across Cabinteely, Carrickmines, Foxrock, Sandyford and Leopardstown since the 1980s. Allies: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has been given assurances by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and and German leader Angela Merkel have pledged to "stand by" the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. It comes as the Taoiseach said Ireland will not accept any change to the deal that renders the backstop inoperable. Mr Varadkar also said the threat of a no-deal scenario was not of Ireland or the EU's making, and that he was looking to the UK to propose a viable solution. "It is up to them to make a proposal but it has to be a proposal that we can accept," he said. "It can't be a proposal that contradicts what's already in the Withdrawal Agreement. "It can't be something that renders the backstop inoperable." Mr Varadkar made the comments this evening following the Government's first Cabinet meeting of 2019. Ministers met to discuss no-deal contingency preparations in detail following the publication of the Government's action plan last month. Expand Close Theresa May has a fight on her hands to get her deal approved. Photo: REUTERS / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Theresa May has a fight on her hands to get her deal approved. Photo: REUTERS It comes as the UK's former Brexit secretary David Davis urged Prime Minister Theresa May to delay the "meaningful vote" on the deal for a second time. Read More Speaking at Government Buildings, Mr Varadkar said he had spoken with German Chancellor Angela Merkel by phone on Thursday morning at her request. The conversation, which lasted about 40 minutes, focused on securing the ratification of the deal, which is expected to be put to a vote in the House of Commons later this month. Mr Varadkar said both leaders had decided to "stand by" the agreement. "We're happy to offer reassurances and guarantees to the UK, but not reassurances and guarantees that contradict or change what was agreed back in November," he said. The Taoiseach said the Government would be continuing with its contingency planning in the event of a no-deal Brexit. About 45 pieces of legislation will need to be approved if a deal is not reached. But he said that he would not be bringing any such legislation to parliament before March as he did not want to "tie up" parliamentary proceedings with legislation that may not be needed. In its action plan in the event of a no-deal scenario, the Government warned that if an agreement is not reached it would have "severe macroeconomic, trade and sectoral impacts" on the country. The more than 130-page document aims to minimise any potential risk of disruption from additional checks. It includes the recruitment of 600 customs officer posts, as well as extra staff for the Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Agriculture. Mr Varadkar added that he had "given up speculating" on the potential outcome of Brexit. "The threat of a no-deal isn't one that Ireland is making, isn't one that the European Union is making," he said. "The threat of no deal can be taken off the table at any time by the UK Parliament either by ratifying the agreement that the 28 governments have made or by seeking the extension to Article 50 to allow more time for us to negotiate what needs to be negotiated." The Government will seek hundreds of millions of euro in special aid from Brussels if the UK crashes out of the EU without a deal. Dublin has already alerted the EU Commission that it will be lobbying for emergency aid to cope with the fallout to Irish trade, particularly for the beef, dairy and fishing sectors. With Westminster deadlocked, fears are growing that Britain will exit the EU in just 12 weeks time without a deal. However, it also comes at a time when Ireland is under increasing pressure from key EU member states, such as France and Germany, to increase taxes on multinational high-tech companies in Ireland. Agriculture Minister Michael Creed has told the Irish Independent that if, and when, a hard Brexit becomes a reality, Ireland will be making a case for major grant aid. Youre looking at hundreds of millions here. Between the beef industry and the fishing industry were talking mega-money, he said. The move for special aid would reverse a trend in which Ireland was a net contributor to EU coffers after decades of lavish farm, regional and social fund grants worth tens of billions. The Agriculture Minister said he would make Irish aid a key agenda item when EU agriculture ministers meet in Luxembourg in early April, just after the Brexit deadline of March 29 next. Expand Close Farmers at Elphin mart check out lots at the recent charolais sale. But Brexit will bring huge problems for the farming sector. Photo: Brian Farrell / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Farmers at Elphin mart check out lots at the recent charolais sale. But Brexit will bring huge problems for the farming sector. Photo: Brian Farrell "There is a high level of awareness of Ireland's unique exposure to the UK food market. But I think nobody wants to talk about it right now because there is still a hope and expectation that a level of sanity will prevail," Mr Creed said. The minister added he is optimistic Ireland will succeed - but given the level of money to be sought this cannot be taken for granted. "I think we would get help. It's all about the level of help," Mr Creed added. The Agriculture Minister, who has been attending EU meetings for the last three years, said the odds on a crash-out or no-deal Brexit had shortened dramatically in recent weeks. "In racing parlance the odds are slashed on a hard Brexit. A 'good Brexit' would not be as good as what we have right now - but a 'hard Brexit' is a beast of a different colour altogether," he warned. Mr Creed said the UK market currently takes 50pc of Irish beef amounting to 280,000 tonnes per year, it takes 80,000 tonnes of cheddar cheese, and one-third of the fish in value terms caught by Irish boats comes from UK waters. All of these would be huge losses to the Irish economy. It is as yet unclear what tariffs, if any, would apply to Irish meat and dairy products going into the UK. But even if it is tariff-free, under World Trade Organisation rules, beef produced far more cheaply in South American countries, with lower veterinary, environmental and animal welfare standards, would also have to get tariff-free market access. "At the moment Irish farmers are losing their shirts on beef netting 3.80 per kilo," he said. Mr Creed said the Brexit fallout, which saw huge drops in the value of sterling, had already hit the Irish food sector. "A hard Brexit would make that look like a teddy bears' picnic," he remarked. He said the Government will now accelerate its Brexit preparations. He added there will be no checks on farm produce along the Border with the North. But preparations are at an advanced stage to hire hundreds of plant and animal health inspectors for Dublin Port and airport as well as Rosslare Port. Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt says no government would "willingly" impose a no deal exit on its people. British Prime Minister Theresa May has sought to put pressure on the EU by preparing for a no deal Brexit as she tries to get extra concessions. But Mr Hunt appeared to suggest that no deal was not a serious prospect, as he warned against the "disruption" it would cause. He said neither a no deal Brexit nor a second referendum was desirable. "We have to remember that a no deal Brexit would cause disruption that could last some time. Even if you are someone who believes that Britain will flourish and prosper whatever that disruption might be, that is not something that any government should willingly wish on its people. "A second referendum would be also incredibly damaging in a different way... the social consequences of not going ahead and leaving the EU on the 29th of March as we have been instructed to do would be devastating." There are 340 different plans on offer from VHI, Laya and Irish Life Health. Stock Image IRELAND is ramping up preparations to ensure we have enough medicines in the event of a no deal Brexit. The Cabinet met today and discussed no deal plans for medicines, transport and legislation that will be needed, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said. Wholesalers already stockpile medicines the Taoiseach said but the Department of Health is working with the industry to ensure that there is enough of a supply if Britain crash out in March. A large number of medicines used here are manufactured here but what does come from the UK in significant numbers are generic medicines, meaning people could be facing larger bills for their prescriptions in a no deal scenario. Were going to need to make sure that they are available too but that work is very much ongoing, he said. Food shortages are not a concern as Ireland is a food exporting company Mr Varadkar said. In the unlikely event of a no deal and trade disruption the kinds of foods that would be harder to get would be pre-packaged foods, such as those of food tray things you get in Marks and Spencers, those type of products, according to the Fine Gael leader. Nobody is going to go hungry, he said. Some 45 pieces of legislation will be needed to prepare for a no deal but as much of this relates to regulations and statutory instruments it can be consolidated into around four pieces of legislation, the Taoiseach said today. It is planned to publish that legislation when it is available but it will not come before the Oireachtas until March. Asked about comments made by Agriculture Minister Michael Creed about the need to seek special aid from the EU to bolster the fishing and agriculture industry Mr Varadkar said any aid package sanction by the EU would need to be shared among countries hit by the departure, not just Ireland. He said it was not expected that Ireland would cease being a net contributor to the EU in the event of a no deal Brexit but conceded Ireland may need to receive permission to provide State-aid for industries such as agriculture and fisheries. Mr Varadkar said that he hopes any preparation for a no deal is futile. The threat of no deal is only coming from the UK, its not a threat that Ireland is making, its not a threat that the EU is making. The UK can take the threat of a no deal of the UK at any time either by ratifying the withdrawal agreement...or alternatively by seeking an extension of Article 50, he said. He also appeared to dismiss the idea of delaying the meaningful vote further, following a call from former Brexit minister David Davis who has implored Theresa May to delay the vote again, as he believes a new deal can be struck at the eleventh hour. The Taoiseach revealed he spoke for 40 minutes with German Chancellor Angela Merkel today about how the UK could be assisted in getting the withdrawal deal through parliament. While the EU is willing to offer assurances Mr Varadkar appeared to shift the responsibility for coming up with the clarifications she needs to get the deal through onto Mrs May. Once again what we both really agreed is that once again this is a problem created in London...and were really looking to them for a solution, he said. Those who create a problem must be the ones who have a responsibility to come up with a solution. We need to hear from them. Officials in the UK and Ireland will engage this week and plans for direct communication between Mrs May and Mr Varadkar over the coming weeks. Asked if it remained his position that the withdrawal agreement could not be reopened Mr Varadkar said: It is but my position all along the way has been reasonable, he said, noting that Europe made concessions on a UK-wide backstop and a review mechanism for the backstop. "All along the way weve been doing our best to assist the UK in solving the problems that it has been creating for the rest of us and we will continue to do that but there is a limitation. That legal guarantee that we wont see an emergence of a hard border on the island of Ireland really is the only red line that weve had and its not one that can change, he said. 1/1/2019, Garda crime scene investigators at Mizzoni Pizzas in Edenmore shopping centre where a shooting took place. Picture credit; Damien Eagers / INM Garda and a crime scene investigator outside Mizzoni Pizzas in Edenmore shopping centre where a shooting took place. Photo: Damien Eagers A Garda outside Mizzoni Pizzas in Edenmore shopping centre where a shooting took place. Photo: Damien Eagers A 44-year-old man who was arrested in connection with a shooting incident at a takeaway in north Dublin has been released without charge. Two men were hospitalised following the shooting at Mizzoni's in Edenmore Shopping Centre, Coolock in the early hours of New Year's Day. Gardai said investigations into the incident are continuing and said in a statement; "A file will now be prepared for the information of the Director of Public Prosecutions." Two staff members at the pizzeria, aged 38 and 28, were injured after the lone gunman entered the premises and demanded cash. Expand Expand Previous Next Close A member of An Garda Siochana at the scene of the shooting this mornin Photo: Damien Eagers Garda Detectives and crime scene investigators at Mizzoni Pizzas in Edenmore shopping centre where a shooting took place. Picture credit; Damien Eagers / INM / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A member of An Garda Siochana at the scene of the shooting this mornin Photo: Damien Eagers One received a gunshot wound to the chest and the other was shot in the abdomen. They were later removed to Beaumont Hospital. It is understood their injuries are not life-threatening. One neighbor who lives in a nearby estate and who asked not to be named said she often tried to avoid the area but that she was shocked that this could happen "especially if it was just for a couple of bob". "Its really awful that someone would come in with guns like that." Another resident said armed robberies were occurring every week in the area with locals saying other businesses had fallen victim to robberies in the past year. "Every single week you hear of somewhere being done," she said. Anyone with information - or who witnessed the incident - is urged to contact Coolock Garda Station on 01- 666 4200, the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111 or any garda station. The Irish and German leaders have pledged to stand by the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. It comes as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said Ireland will not accept any change to the deal that renders the backstop inoperable. Mr Varadkar also said the threat of a no-deal scenario was not of Ireland or the EUs making, and that he was looking to the UK to propose a viable solution. It is up to them to make a proposal but it has to be a proposal that we can accept, he said. Taoiseach @campaignforleo and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have both agreed to astand bya the #Brexit withdrawal agreement. During a 40-minute phone conversation they also discussed ano-deala contingency planning. pic.twitter.com/Pwur9mXH80 Michelle Devane (@michelledevane) January 3, 2019 It cant be a proposal that contradicts whats already in the Withdrawal Agreement. It cant be something that renders the backstop inoperable. Mr Varadkar made the comments in Dublin on Thursday following the Governments first Cabinet meeting of 2019. Ministers met to discuss no-deal contingency preparations in detail following the publication of the Governments action plan last month. It comes as the UKs former Brexit secretary David Davis urged Prime Minister Theresa May to delay the meaningful vote on the deal for a second time. Speaking at Government Buildings Mr Varadkar said he had spoken with German Chancellor Angela Merkel by phone on Thursday morning at her request. We're happy to offer reassurances and guarantees to the UK, but not reassurances and guarantees that contradict or change what was agreed back in NovemberTaoiseach Leo Varadkar The conversation, which lasted about 40 minutes, focused on securing the ratification of the deal, which is expected to be put to a vote in the House of Commons later this month. Mr Varadkar said both leaders had decided to stand by the agreement. Were happy to offer reassurances and guarantees to the UK, but not reassurances and guarantees that contradict or change what was agreed back in November, he said. The Taoiseach said the Irish Government would be continuing with its contingency planning in the event of a no-deal Brexit. About 45 pieces of legislation will need to be approved if a deal is not reached. But he said that he would not be bringing any such legislation to parliament before March as he did not want to tie up parliamentary proceedings with legislation that may not be needed. In its action plan in the event of a no-deal scenario, the Government warned that if an agreement is not reached it would have severe macroeconomic, trade and sectoral impacts on the country. The more than 130-page document aims to minimise any potential risk of disruption from additional checks. It includes the recruitment of 600 customs officer posts, as well as extra staff for the Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Agriculture. Mr Varadkar added that he had given up speculating on the potential outcome of Brexit. The threat of a no-deal isnt one that Ireland is making, isnt one that the European Union is making, he said. The threat of no deal can be taken off the table at any time by the UK Parliament either by ratifying the agreement that the 28 governments have made or by seeking the extension to Article 50 to allow more time for us to negotiate what needs to be negotiated. The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has published 49 inspection reports on residential centres for older people. PA stock image. More than 40% of care homes investigated by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) have been found to be in breach of health regulations. The HIQA published 49 inspection reports on residential centres for older people around Ireland. While inspectors found evidence of good practice and compliance with regulations and standards in 29 centres, they found evidence of non-compliance in 20 others. In these centres, the provider failed to ensure services were effectively monitored in line with regulations and standards. 49 inspection reports on nursing homes published this morning. Find out more on our website https://t.co/1NUFlgkMBI HIQA (@HIQA) January 3, 2019 Inspectors identified breaches in areas such as records, protection, staffing, training and staff development, governance and management, premises, infection control, health and social care needs, persons in charge, personal possession, residents rights and individual assessment and care plans. Beneavin Lodge in Dublin was found to be in breach of six regulations, including agency staff not receiving an induction, little activity provided for residents and poor maintenance of residents equipment. Inspectors, who made an unannounced visit earlier this year, said a number of residents and their families expressed concerns about management of staff and the regular use of agency carers to cover vacancies and absences. Families and residents said that they did not know who was responsible for managing complaints in the centreHIQA The report also said: Families reported that there was a lack of continuity of care for their relative and that they often found it difficult to obtain accurate information about the residents health and well-being from staff on duty when they visited. Family members told the inspectors that when they raised concerns about staffing and other issues, staff and managers dealt with the issue at the time but that their complaint was not fully resolved and as a result the same problems would recur again. Families and residents said that they did not know who was responsible for managing complaints in the centre. There were also concerns raised that there needed to be more activities as residents were spending long periods of time with little to do and no access to meaningful activity. Inspectors at St Itas Community Hospital in Newcastlewest, Limerick, discovered there was an infectious outbreak at the time of its inspection. They said that despite the centre being generally clean, there was evidence of inadequate infection control. The report said: While hand-hygiene audits were taking place regularly, a substantial number of staff had not received current training in infection prevention and control. At the time of inspection one unit had implemented access control protocols due to an outbreak of a healthcare-related infection. Circumstances that could contribute to compromised infection control arrangements included the continued practice of multi-task attendants undertaking duties in relation to both cleaning and personal care in the course of a shift. It also found that police vetting disclosures were not available in the designated centre while inspectors also discovered gaps in documentation on care plans. The HIQA said that of the 29 centres that complied with regulations, inspectors found that residents needs were being met and care was being delivered in line with national standards and regulations. Sajid Javids response to the relatively small numbers of asylum seekers crossing the Channel has been disproportionate (We will do everything we can to block asylum claims from Channel crossings, News, yesterday). However, his more recent statement that the individuals concerned are not genuine asylum seekers is also misguided and in my mind, clearly aimed at whipping up anti-refugee rhetoric which increasingly translates into violence by far-right extremists. Of course, not all those crossing the Channel are genuine refugees, but there is a due legal process to assess whether an asylum seeker is a refugee who should be welcomed, or an economic migrant who can be repatriated. Let us face it, migration is one of the great global challenges. We need to accept our share of refugees but we also need to work on the root cause: we need a supranational co-ordinated strategy for economic development and peace-keeping and, when appropriate, to support refugees in host countries like Turkey. The UK cannot achieve much on its own, we need to work with our EU partners. The EU, rather than being a problem, could be the solution. Giuseppe Enrico Bignardi Durham With his abhorrent remarks about asylum seekers crossing the Channel, is the current home secretary trying to out nasty Theresa May when she held that post? Or is he merely seeking votes having seen how successful racist anti-immigrant propaganda was during the referendum campaign? G Forward Stirling Is there some poetic justice in Brexit? Given my maternal Caribbean links, one major disconnect I have always had with the UK is the total lack of acknowledgement that Great Britains greatness (wealth/power/disproportionately large global influence) was almost entirely built on the most brutal exploitation of foreigners. Having studied history in the UK education system to degree level, it astounded me that the history of slavery was never once included in any module. (I am aware from my own childrens schooling that has changed). I can only watch with open-mouthed amazement as that same jingoistic, xenophobic, arrogance and racism which built the empire is now making a global mockery of Britain in form of Brexit. Whilst I abhor the self-destructive nature of Brexit and the calamity it has brought to the only country Ive ever known as home and while I weep for the futures of my children and grandchildren, I have to ask myself is there some poetic justice in all this? Amanda Baker Edinburgh Corbyn should listen to Labour voters Andrew Grice is right to suggest that Jeremy Corbyn should listen to Labour voters as well as party members (Most Labour members want a second referendum but will Corbyn listen to them?, Voices, yesterday). When Corbyn pledged to respect the result of the Brexit vote, it wasnt constructive ambiguity but rather a politically principled stand which gave effect to the undertaking by both Tory and Labour parties that the vote was decisive and final. Grice adds spurious authority to his advice to the Labour leader to abandon the current priority assigned to create the conditions for a general election by selectively quoting the results of a current YouGov poll. He is symptomatically silent on the key findings which are that while 29 per cent of individual members polled oppose Corbyns position, 47 per cent support it and one in 20 dont know. A further factor which should be taken into account is the balance of opinion untested by the YouGov poll among trade union affiliated members. This particular faction is more proletarian in composition than the individual membership and thus more accurately reflects opinion among the kind of people Labour needs to win a general election. Nick Wright Faversham Thank Grayling, I have done my duty It seems very likely that thanks to Chris Grayling we shall shortly regain our rightful place on the top plinth of world maritime powers (Grayling defends no-deal ferries contract awarded to company without any ships, News, yesterday). To emphasise the hard-won success, and newly gained power, can I suggest a change of image leaning towards our glorious past achievements on the ocean-wave? Shortly the transport secretary should respectfully wear an eye-patch akin to the much venerated Lord Nelson, attend Ramsgate harbour, place his spy-glass to the patch, and magisterially announce: I see no ferries! Britannia rules the waves, no doubt! Robert Boston Kingshill Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Saudi Arabias Netflix censorship is no surprise After spending 20 years growing up in the United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabias younger brother the actions Saudi took in criticising the second episode of Patriot Act came as no surprise (Netflix criticised for pulling comedy in Saudi Arabia, News, yesterday). Contrastingly, the ease in which Saudi officials were able to ensure the corporate giant removed the episode from their platform has raised eyebrows. Recently mega companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Google have increased their global influence, leading to debates about the significance of international boundaries. However, Saudi has flexed its muscles, showing it still retains total authority over what can be accessed inside its borders. Perhaps the US wishes it had as much power and authority over Facebook as Saudi appears to have over Netflix. Liam Benstead Address supplied When a hero lets you down, the betrayal lasts forever. Im not alone, I know, when I say that Richard Goldstone was a hero of mine a most formidable, brilliant and brave judge who finally spoke truth to power in the Middle East. And then recanted like a frightened political prisoner, with protestations of love for the nation whose war crimes he so courageously exposed. Now, after years of virtual silence, the man who confronted Israel and Hamas with their unforgivable violence after the 2008-09 Gaza war has found a defender in a little known but eloquent academic. Judge Goldstone, a Jewish South African, was denounced by Israelis and their supporters as evil and a quisling after he listed the evidence of Israels brutality against the Palestinians of Gaza (around 1,300 dead, most of them civilians), and of Hamas numerically fewer crimes (13 Israeli dead, three of them civilians, plus a number of Palestinian informer executions). Professor Daniel Terris, a Brandeis University scholar admired for his work on law and ethics, calls his new book The Trials of Richard Goldstone. Good title, but no cigar. Terris is eminently fair. Perhaps he is too fair. He treats far too gently the column that Goldstone wrote for the Washington Post, in which the judge effectively undermined the research and conclusions of his own report that he and three others wrote about the Gaza war. The book recalls how Richard Falk, a Princeton law professor and former UN rapporteur on human rights in Gaza and the West Bank, described Goldstones retraction as a personal tragedy for such a distinguished international civil servant. I think Falk was right. But the subtext of Terriss book revolves around this personal tragedy rather than the tragedy of the Palestinians, many of whom put their trust in Goldstone when he arrived in Gaza, and told him of the slaughter of their families. Wael al-Samouni, for example, personally described to Goldstone how 23 of his family members were killed by the Israeli army, pointing out their individual photographs on a wall. The pain of loss affected Goldstone deeply, Terris writes. As Wael completed the tour, neither man could contain his emotion, and the two clasped each other in a tearful embrace. So here was a Palestinian who believed in Goldstone, as did many others. Initially, some Israelis welcomed his involvement too: he was a highly admired member of South Africas Jewish community as well as an eminent lawyer and judge. Furthermore, he had been chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. In his last days at The Hague, I spoke to Goldstone at great length and asked him about the dividing line between war crimes and mass murder. I suppose Im really optimistic by nature, he said to me. Ive got absolutely no doubt at all that the overwhelming majority of people in the world, in any country, are decent, good people not evil people. There are a very small number of evil people who do so much harm Im not talking about evil leaders. Im talking about ordinary people who commit terrible crimes; otherwise decent, law-abiding people. And the basic drive is fear: fear that if they dont kill, theyll be killed or dispossessed of their country. You have to say that these people are going to kill us, these people are going to dispossess us of our homes and our land, in fact have no right to be here and are not worthy of being here anyway. When Goldstone agreed to lead the UN Gaza inquiry, 13 years later, I re-read these words. How prescient would they prove to be when he travelled to Gaza, to talk to the Palestinians? The Israelis would refuse to participate in his investigation, although individual Israelis were able to give evidence to the UN in Geneva. There was another element to our discussion at The Hague, where Goldstone had talked to me of the need for all victims to obtain justice. Its to officially acknowledge to the victims what happened to them, he said. You want society to officially acknowledge what happened to you. But what of the million and a half Armenian victims of the 1915 genocide at the hands of the Turks, I asked him? They could not now have the benefit of Mr Justice Goldstones tribunal. Well, theyve missed it, he replied immediately. The boat didnt come into their harbour. This was a hard judgement, I said. But its true, Goldstone replied. They were entitled to justice. It wasnt offered to them. So what would happen to the Palestinian victims of a far smaller mass killing in Gaza and of the fewer Israeli victims of the same conflict? Would Goldstone bring the boat into their harbour? Would they be offered justice? The Palestinians obviously believed the judge would offer them this. They knew he was Jewish and they didnt care. They had heard of his courage at the Yugoslavia trials. What they could not have known was that he would himself be referred to as evil by none other than that scourge of all brave liberals, Alan Dershowitz. And I remembered then what Goldstone also said to me in The Hague in 1996. Seeking justice, he said, was the only possible deterrent to put some curb on the terrible atrocities that have been committed over 90 wars in the last half a century if international criminal leaders know that they may be called to account, it must in a substantial manner of cases act as a sort of a deterrent. So there you had it: now, for the Palestinians and for the Israelis, their own officers/soldiers/fighters/guerrillas could today surely be arraigned in the highest courts for their actions in Gaza. Goldstones final report in 2009 said that both Israelis and Palestinians had violated the laws of war, that Israel had used disproportionate force which with the 1,300 to 13 exchange rate for death was a hardly avoidable verdict and targeted Palestinian civilians and civilian infrastructure, and used civilians as human shields. It said that Hamas and other groups deliberately targeted Israeli civilians. Their third-rate weaponry and the small number of Israeli victims did not excuse them. Then the abuse against Goldstone began, wearingly, ever more strident, hateful and personal. Without even telling his reports three co-authors, he wrote an article for the Washington Post which undermined all their work. The gist of this short essay already, if oddly, rejected by the New York Times was that later investigations by Israel (which had, of course, declined to assist the original Goldstone inquiry) indicated that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy. Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures Show all 23 1 /23 Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures A ball of fire above the building housing the Hamas-run television station al-Aqsa TV in the Gaza Strip during an Israeli air strike AFP/Getty Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures Israeli Iron Dome anti-missile systems firing toward missiles fired from the Gaza Strip near the southern city of Sderot, Israel. Israeli army report that approximately 300 missile launches were identified from the Gaza strip toward Israel. Dozens of launches were intercepted by the Iron Dome aerial defense system EPA Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures Israeli soldiers take cover near the Israel Gaza border AP Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures A bus set ablaze after it was hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip. Israel's military said it was carrying out air strikes "throughout the Gaza Strip" on Monday after rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave towards its territory AFP/Getty Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures Palestinians inspect a rubble of a destroyed internal security building of Hamas interior ministry after Israeli air strike in Gaza City EPA Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures A Palestinian girl walks up the stairs of her family house that was damaged in an Israeli air strike REUTERS Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures Fire and smoke billow following Israeli air strikes targeting Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, near the border with Egypt AFP/Getty Images Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures Missiles from Israel's Iron Dome air defence system in the south of Israel destroy incoming missiles AFP/Getty Images Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures Israeli security forces and firefighters gather near abuilding set ablaze after it was hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in the southern Israeli town of Sderot AFP/Getty Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures EPA Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures AFP/Getty Images Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures A ruble of a destroyed building of Al-Aqsa channel belonging to Hamas movement EPA Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures Israeli security forces and firefighters gather near a bus set ablaze after it was hit by a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave AFP Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures Relatives of Mohammed Ouda, killed in an Israeli air stike the previous day, mourn during his funeral in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP/Getty Images Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures Missiles from Israel's Iron Dome air defence system in the south of Israel destroy incoming missiles fired at Israel from the Palestinian enclave AFP/Getty Images Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures Israeli soldiers sit atop a Merkava tank stationed along the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip AFP/Getty Images Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures Black smoke rises as an Israeli airstrike hits a residential building in Gaza City AP Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures Palestinians look out of their house that was damaged in an Israeli air strike REUTERS Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures Palestinians hold placards and the Palestinian flag during a protest in solidarity with Gaza, in the West Bank city of Hebron EPA Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures An Israeli policeman inspects the damage in a building caused a day earlier by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon AFP/Getty Images Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures A Palestinian boy inspects the rubble of a destroyed residential building after Israeli air strike in Gaza City EPA Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures REUTERS Gaza crisis: heavy cross-border fire in pictures AP But thats not what the original report said; it said that Israel deliberately employed disproportionate and indiscriminate force in order to punish, humiliate and terrorise civilians. Which arguably constitutes a war crime. Although Goldstone largely ignored the fact, Israeli soldiers had themselves revealed that they were told, as part of a new military policy, to regard their own lives as more important than that of civilians. An Israeli cabinet minister had actually said that Israeli soldiers went wild in Gaza. It wasnt about intent. It was about the mass killing of civilians with the use of tactics which would lead inevitably and irrevocably to a bloodbath. Friends of Goldstone told me later that he had been painfully pressured by both Israel and members of his own family to recant, and was in a state of great personal distress. There was talk of how much Goldstone was influenced by Israels inquiry into the behaviour of its own soldiers one of whom, it turned out rather bizarrely, had been charged with stealing a credit card in Gaza. I was by now researching for my forthcoming book on the Middle East and wrote to Goldstone, asking if he would tell me just what happened to him in the months following his report. He replied in a message that was both kind and courteous, noting that he had read my columns with much admiration over many years, but adding that he had refused all interview requests on his Gaza report and that this remained his policy. It would be invidious, he said, to make an exception. Well, he did make an exception for Daniel Terris and rightly so. For the Goldstone tragedy deserves an entire book, not the two chapters by Fisk which he will receive in my own work. The problem is that Terris himself finds it difficult to give Goldstone the golden mea culpa which his subject would probably have liked. By stepping back from the more far-reaching conclusions of the mission, Terris writes, he revived the opportunity to consider the laws of war in all the complexity and nuance that they demanded. The Goldstone report brought to the fore the challenging questions about how best to protect civilian lives in the complex circumstances of asymmetric warfare. There is more of this guff. I doubt if Wael al-Simouni found anything very complex or asymmetric in the slaughter of his family. And the Nuremberg judges didnt need to spend their time waffling on about the complexity and nuances of the laws of war. In reality, Goldstone was harassed by the Jewish community in South Africa. He was to have been effectively barred from his grandsons bar mitzvah, a prohibition later rescinded. He was dropped from the board of governors of the Hebrew University. And his family especially his daughter Nicole, who is described in Terriss book as an ardent Zionist found themselves shunned too. Nickys emotions sometimes got the better of her, and on more than one occasion she had erupted at one or the other of her parents, Terris writes. Along with accusations that he had acted like a Nazi collaborator in excoriating the Jews of Israel, an Israeli press campaign began, based on evidence that in his native South Africa, Judge Goldstone, who had done his best to shield coloured and black citizens from the worst rigours of apartheid laws, had nonetheless supported death sentences against black defendants. He was called a hanging judge. Terris does not quite clear up these events, save for a comforting suggestion that the sentences were not carried out. Certainly Goldstone had not referred to these death sentences in press interviews or in publicity material prior to his appointment in The Hague or his position as leader of the Gaza report. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events I still feel very sorry for Goldstone. I think he was and remains a fine and good man. But I feel a lot sorrier for the Palestinian civilians who suffered so cruelly from the shells, rockets and bullets of the Israelis. For all his later distress, they endured far more than Goldstone. Public purgatory is one thing. Hell quite another. They trusted the gentle, thoughtful, legalistic and honourable man who came to Gaza to give them justice. And after giving them justice, Goldstone then took that justice away from them. Even the Obama government tried, in its lickspittle way, to bury the Goldstone report. Outrageously, so did Mahmoud Abbass so-called Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians have so often been betrayed. And now by Goldstone as well. That is indeed a tragedy. His biographer now concludes that as a judge who understood the imperfections of the law, Goldstone charted a course for the future of justice. Not for the Palestinians, he didnt. Happy New Year! Wow! 2019 is already more than 24 hours old. Did you make any New Years resolutions? Unfortunately I did, and equally unfortunateI probably have already broken a couple of them. The Apostle Paul said it well in his letter to the folks in the church at Rome, I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. (Romans 7:15). He goes on to say, For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is , in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. (Romans 7:18). Honestly, I have forgotten how many promises I have made to do better, or to be better, but only to fail after a short sprint at the goal. So, while it may be too late to keep a perfect score on our resolutions, it is not too late to find a solution to our dilemma. That is where forgiveness comes in. David, King of Israel, wrote in the Psalms, Bless the Lord, O my soul and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your sin. David was a guy that needed forgiveness, (remember the Bathsheba Scandal), and knew where to turn for forgiveness. In that Psalm, David goes on to describe God as One, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy. The good news is, that when you have blown it, (not if you have blown it), God is willing and ready to forgive. He is the God of new beginnings. But the Bible gives us a message of hope that even goes beyond forgiveness. Romans 8 follows Romans 7and in that Paul wrote, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1). We are not only fully forgiven, the shame and condemnation have been removed through Christ. In chapter 8, Paul also describes the work of Gods Spirit giving us the power to live a new and different life. The Spirit helps us in our weakness. (Romans 8:26). You and I are not perfect after we experience Gods forgiveness and the power of the Holy Spirit, but we are different! We are a new creation. I have found that the times I stumble and fumble, and wound others is when I am fully relying upon myself rather than on the Spirit. So be encouraged! Resolve to relinquish your life to the control of the Holy Spirit of Godand you will find new life. Happy New Year! The Rev. Dr. Daryl Donovan is the senior pastor at the Sanibel Community Church. A Japanese pilot delayed five flights when he was found to be over the limit before boarding, All Nippon Airways (ANA) said today. The captain was due to serve domestic flight NH 501 from Osaka Itami in central Japan to Miyazaki, a city on the southern island of Kyushu. During a pre-boarding inspection, the crew member of ANA Wings, an affiliate airline of ANA, tested positively for alcohol. As a result, the airline had to switch crew, which delayed five flights in total. The crew member admitted that he drank alcohol with his co-pilot at the hotel where they were staying, according to local newspaper The Mainichi, but claimed he hadnt had a drink in the 12 hours before the departure time. The existing regulations state that ANA crew cannot drink in the 12 hours before a flight. In November, the airline introduced guidelines surrounding alcohol consumption, saying that two units could be consumed before the 12-hour curfew, and that all crew would receive portable breathalysers to check their alcohol levels before a flight. Additionally, advanced breathalysers would be introduced at ANA hubs across the world. The airline said that it took this event seriously, and that it would implement measures to stop it happening again. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events In November, a Japanese pilot for Japan Airlines admitted to being almost 10 times over the alcohol limit shortly before a flight from Heathrow. He was subsequently jailed. In December, Japan Airlines said that a long-serving cabin crew member failed two breathalyser tests on a flight from Tokyo to Hawaii. She was found to have drunk a mini bottle of champagne that was supposed to be for premium economy passengers. China will introduce the worlds first driverless trains to run at speeds of up to 350kph on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou railway line. The automatic operation bullet trains were trialled on a section of the Beijing-Shenyang line in 2018 by the China Railway Corporation (CRC) and the system passed all safety tests. The bullet train can automatically depart, operate between stations and adjust the trains operation to meet its precise timetable after a single button is pressed, a researcher from China Academy of Railway Sciences told the Sciences and Technology Daily. A driver currently performs these operations on high-speed trains. Its thought that automatic train operation (ATO) will increasingly replace human drivers in China after it was successfully rolled out on two intercity lines in the Pearl River Delta region. These trains run at a maximum speed of 200kph; the new Fuxing trains, which debuted on the Beijing-Shanghai line in June 2017, can travel at up to 350kph. Recommended French Railways to launch driverless trains For the first 10 years of the high-speed ATO trains, an attendant will still be deployed on board to ensure nothing goes wrong. After that, the trains will be totally driverless. Experts say this should improve safety long-term. An automatic driving system could greatly improve the safety of trains which run on high-speed railways, compared with human drivers who may have sudden health problems or disregard safety precautions during driving, Sun Zhang, a railway expert and professor at Shanghai Tongji University, told the Global Times. The Beijing-Zhangjiakou line, otherwise known as the Jing-Zhang line, is a new railway currently being constructed for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, to enable easy travel between Beijing and the Winter Olympic Village in 50 minutes. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The news of the high-speed ATO trains comes after The Independent revealed that Scottish passengers could be the first in the world to experience autonomous buses. The government said in November that self-driving buses will be shuttling across the Forth Road Bridge in Scotland by 2021, carrying half a million passengers a year. The Department for Business is pumping 4.35m into a 6m project that will see five single-decker buses, each carrying 42 passengers, running on a 14-mile journey between Fife with Edinburgh Park. Take a succulent lobster and add a vanilla sauce and you have a crime passionnel against French cuisine. Other more classical Gallic flavour combinations like duck a lorange were on the menu at Auberge du Rond-Point, a white tablecloth bistro in Mamoudzou town. But as the signature dish of the 101st department of France, this curious lobster combination was as eye-catching as the sauce was cloyingly sweet. In mitigation, the department is Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, which has vanilla to burn. Near Madagascar, the island has native flora scented by clove trees, ylang-ylang bushes and wild vanilla orchids, which bestowed the sobriquet Perfume Islands upon the four islands of the Comoros archipelago (of which Mayotte is one). Such opulent aromas duly attracted 10th-century Arab spice traders who brought Islam and Arabian words still spoken in Mayottes Comoran creole. European traders followed and France colonised the islands in 1841. But in 1975, Mayotte remained alone in not wanting to break away from France as the other three islands formed the independent Union of Comoros. Perhaps reluctant to bid a fond adieu to duck a lorange, Mayotte voted to become a fully fledged French department in 2009. Recommended How Mauritius became a sustainable travel hotspot From the start, I found the tropical fusion of Indian Ocean colour and French touches enticing. Mayottes backbone is formed from extinct volcanoes, rounded, dare I say, like little chapeau de Napoleon. Bananas, pawpaw, and jackfruit flourish in flavour-filled forests while coral reefs encompass turquoise lagoons teeming with tropical fish and dolphins. This pleasing ambience was evident a few days into my week-long visit when I came to hike Mont Combani, one of the islands extinct volcanoes. I settled in at a hotel called Le Relais Forestier, where the proprietor, Nadine, from Angers in France, also taught yoga. The most pleasing time was breakfast, served on a wooden terrace with distant views through a thicket of palms towards the Indian Ocean. Not just for Nadines homemade bread and pawpaw jam but midway through this very French breakfast, a small group of lemurs arrived. Lemurs after breakfast at Le Relais Forestier (Mark Stratton) They come every morning to be fed pawpaw, said Nadine. Known locally as maki, they are a species of woolly brown lemur that were introduced from Madagascar but nobody remembers when. Having moved to the island herself, Nadine said life for her and her husband in mainland France had become stale. We took a vacation here a decade ago and loved it. Mayotte has wonderful nature and we never wanted to return home. Mayottes best mountain hike is actually further south towards Bandrele. The island has no public transport, so I travelled around using bush taxis. These are shared taxis you simply hail from the side of the road and pay a few euros per journey. Mayottes Plage Musicale (Mark Stratton) At Bandrele, it was a similar theme of another pleasant B&B run by a French woman, Lise, from Bordeaux, who had fallen in love with the island and married a local called Yannis. The view from Les Baobabs is, appropriately, a large baobab lit up like a Christmas tree by a climbing purple and white bougainvillea. At dusk, huge flying foxes swept around the backyard crashing into the nearby palms before nonchalantly suspending themselves upside down. This is the base for an excursion to climb Mont Choungui Mayottes second highest volcano. It is ridiculously steep and for an hour I pulled myself up by exposed tree roots through sweltering rainforest. But the view from the 600m summit, with views spanning southern Mayottes indented coastal inlets, filled by veneers of calamine-coloured sandy beaches, made the effort worthwhile. The best beach is Place NGoudja, 10 minutes from Choungui by taxi. The beach is backed by coconut palms and colossal baobabs with elephant-textured bark. Its also known for nesting green turtles although I couldnt stay the night to watch them. Instead I contented myself swimming, examining the tractor-width trails they plough through the soft sand when coming in to lay eggs, before retiring for a few hours to escape the heat to the beachs overpriced restaurant, which admittedly served a delicious plate of smoked marlin. Petite Terre, Mayottes sister island (Mark Stratton) I did encounter green turtles a few days later. Id made my way back northeast to Mayottes little sister island, Petite Terre, where an airport is located on rare flat ground. I settled into yet another chambre dhote, Les Couleurs, this one run by Parisians Alexandra and Laurent. When we arrived 10 years ago the islanders were listening to Celine Dion but now its French rap, said Alexandra, as we sat drinking a welcome glass of homemade pineapple rum. Marine excursion to the outer reef to see spotted dolphins (Mark Stratton) The hike to a luminous green volcanic lake called Dziani from the property in Labattoir was a wonderful experience. It led to huge cliffs scalloped by horseshoe bays cradling turtle nesting beaches. From those cliffs I saw the circular forms of large green turtles navigating towards the beaches to lay eggs at night. Mayottes nature had been so sublime I even forgave the locals for murdering the shellfish of these seas with their rather sweet vanilla sauce. Travel essentials Getting there Native Eye runs a group tour to the Comoros from 1,399 per person with a three-day add-on to Mayotte from 575. Air France flies to Mayotte via Paris from 1,062 return. The destination can easily be combined with Madagascar, a short flight away. Where to stay Le Relais Forestier, Les Baobabs and Les Couleurs. My late colleague Alan Watkins used to write an end-of-year column, adorned with an etching of him in an 18th-century wig, which he called his Almanack of predictions for the coming year. These were masterpieces of wit in mock-Swiftian style, all antique spellings and Occafionall capital letters. In his last Almanack in 2006, Watkins claimed that most of the predictions he had made the previous year hath infallibly come to pass, viz. ... that in the Month of August Master Anth. Blair, that (under God) is at the Head of Affairs, will make a Journey of the utmost Splendour and Magnificence, accompanied by a Retinue worthy of the Queen of Sheba herself, as is related in the ancient Documents... and so on. He had predicted no such thing, of course, but no one was going to go back and check. I cannot imitate the wonderful style, but any fool can make predictions and hope that, by this time next year, other people will have more important things to do than dredge up old articles to try to score petty points. So here goes. US president Donald Trump has defended his decision to withdraw troops from Syria, describing the country as sand and death. In his first public appearance in almost a week amid a government shutdown, Trump said Syria was lost long ago, and there was no reason for the US to remain there. Were talking about sand and death. Thats what were talking about. Were not talking about vast wealth. Were talking about sand and death, he said during a televised cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Mr Trump shocked allies and officials within his own administration last month when he ordered a full and rapid withdrawal of the more than 2,000 US troops currently in Syria, declaring victory in the fight against Isis. The US has been supporting Syrian Kurdish fighters in the battle against Isis since 2014 with airpower, military aid and soldiers on the ground. Together, they have recaptured swathes of land in the countrys north and east from the extremist group, reducing its territory to a string of villages in Deir Ez-Zor. But Isis remains a potent force, and defence officials had argued for a continued US presence to ensure it does not regroup. Mr Trumps announcement prompted the resignation of two top officials, Defence Secretary James Mattis and envoy for the anti-Isis coalition, Brett McGurk. Both said a quick withdrawal would leave the USs Kurdish allies in danger and imperil the fight against Isis when it is not yet done. Since the announcement, however, Mr Trump appears to have shifted his stance to allow for a slower exit. On Wednesday, he said US troops would leave slowly, but did not offer a clear timetable for the withdrawal. "We're getting out and we're getting out smart. I never said I'm getting out tomorrow," he said. We want to protect the Kurds, nevertheless. We want to protect the Kurds, but I don't want to be in Syria forever. Mr Trumps description of Syria as sand and death was met with anger from Syrians. Lina Sergie Attar, a Syrian-American author, wrote on Twitter: We are more than sand and death. Much more. Rasha Othman, also an author, said: I think Syrians have been dehumanized for too long. Sand and death not eliciting any anger from me. Indifference? Is that weird? Im Syrian. Extremist groups are trying to consolidate their control in northern Syria, attacking rival opposition fighters and putting a fragile ceasefire at risk in the process. Dozens have been killed over the past three days in fighting between al-Qaeda-linked rebels and a coalition of groups backed by Turkey. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which was once a part of al-Qaeda and still espouses the same ideology, has captured several villages in Idlib and western Aleppo. More than 40 fighters and six civilians have been killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The area in question is the last remaining holdout of opposition rebels in the country. In September last year, a long-threatened Syrian government offensive to recapture Idlib from rebels was averted after a deal was struck between Turkey and Russia. As part of that agreement, Turkey asked for more time to be able to deal with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which Damascus cited as its primary justification for the offensive. Turkey has backed a coalition of rebel groups called the National Liberation Front as a counter to the extremist group, to little avail. Following the breakout of clashes earlier this week, the NLF called for a general mobilisation against the al-Qaeda-linked fighters. Fears for 3m people in rebel-held Idlib ahead of regime offensive Show all 13 1 /13 Fears for 3m people in rebel-held Idlib ahead of regime offensive Fears for 3m people in rebel-held Idlib ahead of regime offensive A Syrian protester waves a flag of the opposition as during a protest against the regime and its ally Russia, in the rebel-held town of Maaret al-Numan in the north of Idlib province AFP/Getty Fears for 3m people in rebel-held Idlib ahead of regime offensive Syrian rebel fighters from the recently-formed "National Liberation Front" stand guard over a trench as rebels prepare defensive positions in anticipation for an upcoming government forces offensive AFP/Getty Images Fears for 3m people in rebel-held Idlib ahead of regime offensive AFP/Getty Images Fears for 3m people in rebel-held Idlib ahead of regime offensive Syrian rebel fighters pile-up sandbags AFP/Getty Images Fears for 3m people in rebel-held Idlib ahead of regime offensive AFP/Getty Images Fears for 3m people in rebel-held Idlib ahead of regime offensive A Syrian rebel fighter looks through an embrasure in a make-shift bunker AFP/Getty Images Fears for 3m people in rebel-held Idlib ahead of regime offensive AFP/Getty Images Fears for 3m people in rebel-held Idlib ahead of regime offensive Syrian rebel fighters walk through a trench AFP/Getty Images Fears for 3m people in rebel-held Idlib ahead of regime offensive A Syrian protester waves a flag of the opposition AFP/Getty Images Fears for 3m people in rebel-held Idlib ahead of regime offensive A Syrian rebel fighter stands guard over a trench AFP/Getty Images Fears for 3m people in rebel-held Idlib ahead of regime offensive AFP/Getty Images Fears for 3m people in rebel-held Idlib ahead of regime offensive AFP/Getty Images Fears for 3m people in rebel-held Idlib ahead of regime offensive AFP/Getty Images Following the latest series of attacks by HTS, indicating how willing it is to shed the blood of revolutionaries, its disregard for Sharia rulings and its gambling with the higher interests of the blessed Syrian revolution, the National Liberation Front has announced the general mobilisation of all of its forces in all free territories to repel these attacks, deter the aggressors and recover all the areas they violated, the group said in a statement on Wednesday. The move by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham came amid speculation that Turkey had reached an agreement with Russia to take action against it following the impending withdrawal of US forces from Syria. To make it more difficult for Turkey, HTS sensed an opportunity to make a power play to control one of the few critical areas in Greater Idlib that it does not have control or strong influence over, Nicholas Heras, a fellow at the Centre for a New American Security, told The Independent. HTS is trying to demonstrate to Turkey that it will not be beaten by any of the Turkish proxies in Greater Idlib and that Turkey has no quick and easy way to remove it, he added. The renewed fighting in Idlib comes as winter is creating extremely difficult conditions for the roughly 3 million displaced people living in the province. Flash flooding has forced more than 12,000 people to abandon refugee camps along the border, where tents have been washed away. Its a tragic situation for the people who were already living in dire conditions; in flimsy tents with temperatures dropping to below 0C in the evenings, said Ahmed Mahmoud, Islamic Reliefs Syria spokesman. People were already weakened by the lack of food, water and sanitation in the camps and now they are literally struggling to survive, he added. Eleven of the suspects accused in the kidnapping, murder, and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi were brought before a judge in the first criminal court of Riyadh on Thursday, Saudi state media reported. There was no independent confirmation of the claim, and no photographs released of courtroom proceedings. None of the 11 suspects were named, in accordance with what Saudis have described as legal requirements. Saudi media reported that during the hearing, the defendants requested and were granted copies of the indictment and time to respond to the accusations. The public prosecutor continues to investigate the case with the rest of the individuals in custody in relation to this crime, Saudi platform al-Arabiya reported. But doubts linger about the Saudi handling of the Khashoggi murder amid calls by human rights advocates for an independent international investigation. Those that condemned Riyadhs conduct are probably not going to take this trial as seriously as Riyadh might want not unless there is international involvement, which I doubt very much Riyadh is going to accept, said HA Hellyer, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and Royal United Services Institute in London. The high-profile slaying of the middle-aged journalist and father at the hands of a Saudi hit team from Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salmans personal entourage has brought the issue of justice and impunity within the oil-rich Arabian Peninsula dictatorship to the forefront. Recommended Netflix removes comedy after complaint from Saudi Arabia Despite Saudi claims that it was vigorously pursuing the murderers, seeking the death penalty against five of the suspects, a book by Turkish newspaper journalists claims that Salah al-Tubaigy, the Saudi coroner accused of overseeing the dismemberment of Khashoggis body, is living comfortably in a villa in the Red Sea city of Jeddah with his family while keeping a low profile. Saudi human rights activists and dissidents arrested are often named by their families or legal defenders. It remained unclear which lawyers the suspects had retained, though a statement issued by the Saudi prosecutor claimed the 11 suspects attended the hearing with their legal representatives. Saudi prosecutor general Saud al-Mojeb was handpicked for his role by the kingdoms de facto ruler, the 33-year-old crown prince, whom western intelligence agencies and the US Senate have accused of being behind the murder of the 59-year-old Khashoggi on 2 October. Mr Mojeb first said in November he was seeking the death penalty for five of the suspects, an attempt to quell global uproar over the killing, which saw the Washington Post columnist murdered in his own nations consulate in Turkey after apparently getting caught up in Prince Mohammads quest for power and drive to silence dissenting voices. 'Khashoggi Way' sign erected outside Saudi Embassy in Washington DC Three months after the murder, the Khashoggi case continues to colour Saudi Arabias international relations. This week the film-streaming service Netflix confirmed that it had pulled a stand-up comedy show by US entertainer Hasan Minhaj, a veteran of the satirical news programme The Daily Show, after pressure from Riyadh. The show was critical of Saudi Arabias role in the Khashoggi murder. It remains available outside Saudi Arabia and on YouTube. Saudi Arabias censorship of Netflix using a cyber-crime law comes as no surprise, and is further proof of a relentless crackdown on freedom of expression in the kingdom, Samah Hadid, Middle East director of campaigns at Amnesty International, said in a statement. Since Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman came to power in June 2017, many outspoken human rights defenders, activists and critics have been arbitrarily detained, or unjustly sentenced to lengthy prison terms simply for exercising their right to freedom of expression. Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Show all 7 1 /7 Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi Washington Post journalist who was critical of the Saudi regime and the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he was murdered on 2 October in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul AFP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Heir to the Saudi throne, Mohammed bin Salman has been implicated in the murder, with US officials claiming that he must have known of the plot AFP/Getty Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures 15 man hit squad Turkish police suspect these 15 men of being involved in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, issued 10 October, 8 days after the journalist disappeared EPA Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saud al-Qahtani Aide to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saud al-Qahtani is claimed to have ordered Khashoggi's murder Saud Al-Qahtani/Twitter Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb A former diplomat who often travelled with the Crown Prince, Mutreb was initially claimed to be the leader of the hit squad and is pictured here entering the Saudi consulate on the day of the murder AP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Mustafa al-Madani First implicated in the 15 CCTV photos released by the Turkish police, al-Madani was later found to have been used as a body double for Khashoggi, leaving the Saudi consulate dressed in his clothes on the day the journalist was killed CNN Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Salah bin Jamal Khashoggi (L) Son of the murdered journalist met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on 23 October EPA Earlier this week, Turkish media published surveillance camera footage showing what appeared to be the suspects in the Khashoggi murder carrying bags into the residence of the Saudi consul general to Istanbul, Mohammad al-Otaiba, on the day of the murder. The role and whereabouts of Mr Otaiba, who departed Istanbul two weeks after the murder, remain unclear. He was the official who famously gave Reuters a tour of the consulate where Khashoggi was butchered in an attempt to absolve Saudi officials. Turkey has demanded that the suspects in the killing be extradited, but Saudi officials insist the men be tried in the kingdom. On Thursday, the prosecutor general reiterated demands that Turkey hand over evidence in the case. No response has been received to date and the public prosecutors office is still waiting for an answer, the statement said. Ankara officials believe the ongoing trial is an attempt to whitewash ultimate culpability in the murder, which Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said rests with the highest echelons of power in the kingdom. Unfortunately the Saudi legal system is very opaque and I highly doubt any measures taken by their justice system will satisfy Turkish officials, Yusuf Erim, an analyst for Turkeys TRT World state television told The Independent. The two major questions of who gave the order and where is the body still remain unanswered, and possibly putting to death key suspects that may have insight into this mystery will only place more doubt on the intent of the Saudis. Last month a senior Turkish official confirmed to The Independent that he had heard audio recordings capturing the final moments of Khashoggis life as he was bound, strangled and slaughtered by a gaggle of men half his age. I dont think Riyadh has recovered from all the international condemnation that occurred as a result of this case, Mr Hellyer said. Its not just about the murder itself which is a crime of intense proportions in and of itself but also the initial attempts at covering up the crime and the role of extremely senior Saudi officials in it. The Spanish coastguard says it has rescued more than 400 migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea within the first two days of 2019. Authorities picked up 290 people from five boats attempting to make the crossing into Europe in the Alboran Sea and the Strait of Gibraltar on Wednesday. On New Years Day, 111 people had been pulled from three boats within the space of around nine hours, Spanish state broadcaster RTVE reported. The rescues in the first days of 2019 followed a year in which Spain became the main entry route by sea for migrants attempting to reach Europe. The Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid reported that more than 56,000 people made the crossing during 2018, while 769 died trying to reach the Spanish coast. However, the route across the Alboran Sea is by no means the most deadly 1,306 people were killed attempting to reach Italy or Malta through the central Mediterranean last year, according to figures from the International Organisation for Migration. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated more than 2,240 people died or went missing crossing the Mediterranean in 2018. UNHCR officials called on Monday for a safe port to be urgently found for two vessels carrying almost 50 refugees and migrants blocked from docking in both Italy and Malta. Rescue ship Sea Watch 3 has been unable to dock since picking up 32 people in the Mediterranean on 22 December, while a further 17 have been aboard the German-registered Sea Eye since 29 December. The UNHCR warned time is increasingly of the essence as sea conditions in the area continued to worsen. Decisive leadership is required, in line with fundamental values of humanity and compassion, to offer safe disembarkation and bring the 49 safely to land, said Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR special envoy for the central Mediterranean. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Negotiations on which states will subsequently receive them must come only after they are safely ashore. Meanwhile, home secretary Sajid Javid has come under fire for suggesting the British government will do everything we can to prevent migrants rescued crossing the English Channel from claiming asylum in the UK. Mr Javid also claimed many of those making the journey during a series of dinghy crossings over the Christmas period may not have been genuine asylum seekers because they had travelled from France. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty We need to send a strong message that these gangs that are preying on [migrants] and selling a false prospectus they wont succeed, he said. If you do somehow make it to the UK, we will do everything we can to make sure that you are often not successful because we need to break that link, and to break that link means we can save more lives. Mr Javids remarks have received criticism in some quarters, with shadow home secretary Diane Abbott insisting it was not for the home secretary himself to determine who is a genuine asylum seeker, while Labour MP Stella Creasy branded his comments utterly disgusting. Russia has reportedly charged a US citizen and former Marine being held over alleged espionage. Paul Whelan, 48, was detained by Russian security service agents in Moscow in late December. According to the Interfax news agency, which cites an informed source, Mr Whelan has rejected the charges. His family have protested his undoubted innocence, claiming the Iraq war veteran and security analyst was in Russia for a wedding of a fellow ex-Marine. In a statement on Twitter, his brother, David Whelan, said the family learned of his arrest from the news and were deeply concerned for his safety and well-being. On Wednesday, US Ambassador to Russia John Huntsman was granted permission to visit Mr Whelan in Lefortovo prison in Moscow. But official comment from the Trump administration has been limited, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo only offering a few words warning against inappropriate detention. Recommended US to demand return of man detained in Moscow if spy allegations false In the absence of official statements from either side, off-record briefings in the Russian media have filled some gaps though questions about their reliability prevail. Rosbalt, a St Petersburg based publication with documented links to the security services, suggested that Mr Whelan was arrested in his room in an upmarket central Moscow hotel. Referring to a source in the security services, it says the US citizen was detained five minutes after an acquaintance handed him a flash drive containing the names of serving Russian agents. Mr Whelan had employed non-standard methods for his spying, including the use of social media, Rosbalt added. He had tried to recruit this unnamed acquaintance multiple times, with the aim of obtaining information about the security services. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Mr Whelan's Lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov has refused to comment on the case, citing court restrictions, but confirmed to Russian media that he has appealed against the terms of his detention and has applied for bail. Mr Whelans future seems uncertain, and will likely depend on a political decision at the highest level. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Both Russian and American media have carried much speculation about a possible swap with Marina Butina, a Russian woman who pleaded guilty of conspiring to act as a foreign agent in America in December. The timing of Mr Whelans arrest, coming just 15 days after Butinas guilty plea has raised some suspicions about the Kremlins real motivations. But given the strained nature of US-Russia relations, a swap may well end up being Mr Whelans best card. If found guilty and more than 99 per cent of cases brought to court in Russia end this way the former Marine could face more than 10 years in prison. A senior North Korean diplomat who reportedly sought asylum in an unidentified western country went into hiding with his wife in November, South Koreas spy agency has told lawmakers in Seoul. Jo Song-gil, the acting North Korean ambassador to Italy, is believed to currently be in a safe house with his family, in what is being treated as a significant defection. If proven to be true, the defection would be a huge embarrassment for leader Kim Jong-un as he pursues diplomacy with Seoul and Washington and seeks to portray himself as a player in international geopolitics. Mr Jo has been the acting ambassador since 2017 and had asked Italian authorities for protection prior to being recalled to North Korea, according to South Korean daily newspaper Joongang Ilbo. Italy has said it has not given the 48-year-old asylum and the countrys foreign minister, Enzo Moavero Milanesi, said he had received no indication that an asylum application to stay in Rome had been made. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events South Korean lawmaker Kim Min-ki said an official from Seouls National Intelligence Service shared information about Mr Jo during a closed-door briefing. He did not say whether the spy agency revealed any information about Mr Jos current whereabouts or whether the diplomat had plans to defect to South Korea. Mr Jo is known to be a son or son-in-law of one of the highest-level officials in the Norths regime, the Joongang said, citing an unnamed North Korea expert as saying. Usually North Korean diplomats who are sent abroad are required to leave behind several family members in Pyongyang to prevent their defection. Mr Jo however moved to Rome in 2015 with his wife and children, suggesting that he is from a privileged family. North Korea has not yet commented on Mr Jos status. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty If confirmed it would be the first defection by a North Korean diplomat since 2016, when Thae Yong-ho, the deputy ambassador to London, fled to South Korea with his family. Mr Thae said he had switched sides partly to give his three children a better future after he had been ordered to return to Pyongyang. About 30,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, according to South Korean government figures. Many defectors have said they wanted to leave North Koreas harsh political system and poverty. North Korea often accuses the south of deceiving or paying people to defect, or claims that they have been kidnapped. On Tuesday, Jan. 8, the Sanibel Island Fishing Club will be holding its first meeting of the New Year. The meeting will be held in the north room of the Sanibel Island Community House, which is located at 2173 Periwinkle Way, Sanibel. While the meeting gets underway at 6:30 p.m. with a half hour social, the featured speakers will begin their presentation at 7 p.m. sharp. There is no admission charge for the event and the angling public is cordially invited to attend. Pizza and refreshments are available at a nominal charge. This months featured speakers are Michael Campbell and Leslie Haynes from the Lee County Department of Natural Resources. Leslie is the current coordinator for the entire Lee County Artificial Reef Program, which is one of the largest artificial reef programs in the United States. She will be doing a power point presentation on the status of artificial reefs in 2019 including introducing the newest reef in our local waters, The Phoenix Reef. Along with talking about what was used to create this exciting new addition to the scores of reefs already out there, Leslie will be handing out coordinates to this new location as well. Thats something all offshore anglers should have an interest in! Michael Campbell will discuss the extent of the dead zones that have occurred on some of the near shore reefs after the disastrous and relentless red tides our local waters have experienced over the past year. Michael has been working with artificial reefs in Lee County for almost ten years now and is largely responsible for the deployment of one of our largest offshore structures, the 165 foot Mohawk Veterans Memorial Reef located west, northwest of Redfish Pass in ninety feet of water. That reef was deployed in the summer of 2012 and is now one of the most productive offshore diving and fishing destinations in Southwest Florida. The Sanibel Island Fishing Club meets monthly through season and sponsors several group outings as well as lending support for various fishing related charities and organizations such as Captains for Clean Water, SCCF and the Sanibel Sea School. For information on joining the club, please contact Warren Tiegen at 239-579-0354 or attend our next meeting. The Sanibel Island Fishing club has been an active social club for more than 30 years on the island. A 16-year-old boy has been arrested after a man was stabbed to death at a Scientology centre in Australia. Police said a 24-year-old man was knifed in the neck at the complex in the Chatswood area of Sydney as the teenager was being escorted from the premises following a domestic incident. The victim, identified by authorities as a Taiwanese national, later died in hospital. A second man was also treated for a minor injury. Simon Jones, detective superintendent at New South Wales Police, told a press conference the two victims had been employees of the Scientology centre. A 16-year-old young person was asked to leave the Scientology premises here at Chatswood, he said. He was escorted from the premises and on being escorted down the driveway, a knife was produced. With that knife he stabbed who we believe to be a 24-year-old Taiwanese male in the neck and he also caused some lacerations to an older gentleman also escorting him from the premises. It would appear that the altercation or the reason that the young person had been removed from the premises was only and solely due to a domestic incident. The teenager was arrested at the scene and taken to a police station in North Sydney, where he is understood to be cooperating with the investigation. Police said the suspect initially had lawful reasons to be on the complex, but was later asked to leave by representatives of the church. Officers are now trying to contact the family of the man killed in the incident. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The victim was a beloved member of our church, a Scientology spokesperson said in a statement released to The Sydney Morning Herald. The church is providing the police with any assistance needed in their investigation. The Chatswood centre is the Asia-Pacific headquarters of Scientology and its largest complex outside of the United States. Costing an estimated A$57m (32m) to construct, the centre was opened with much fanfare by the religious groups leader, David Miscavige, in 2016. Close Thailand braces for Storm Pabuk Tropical Storm Pabuk is set to bring 40mph winds, heavy rains and dangerously high waves to a number of tourist spots on Friday, including the islands of Koh Phangan and Koh Tao. Tens of thousands of tourists have reportedly escaped popular resort islands in Thailand ahead of the first tropical storm to hit the country's southern shores in almost 30 years. Thai authorities suspended ferry services and began evacuations on Thursday as the storm bears down during the country's peak tourism season. Rain was already falling around the Gulf of Thailand and officials warned that torrential downpours, strong winds and rough seas were expected in 16 provinces when Pabuk makes landfall late on Friday. There are fears that the storm will be the worst to hit Thailand since 1989, when Typhoon Gay left more than 400 dead. Read our live coverage below Please allow a moment for the liveblog to load Tens of thousands of tourists have reportedly escaped popular resort islands in Thailand ahead of the first tropical storm to hit the countrys southern shores in almost 30 years. Tropical Storm Pabuk is set to bring 40mph winds, heavy rains and seven-metre waves to a number of tourist spots on Friday, including the islands of Koh Phangan and Koh Tao. Krikkrai Songthanee, Koh Phangan district chief, told AFP news agency: I think the islands are almost empty ... between 30,000 to 50,000 have left since the New Years Eve countdown parties. The mayor of Koh Tao, an iconic diving spot, said boats to the mainland were packed with tourists, but that several thousand guests were still on the island and likely to see out the storm. The Thai Meteorological Department warned of heavy downpours and strong winds in several provinces, including Samui, Phuket and Krabi. We expect waves as high as seven metres near the eye of the storm, the meteorological departments Phuwieng Prakammaintara told reporters. Normally in the Gulf of Thailand there are only two metre high waves. Its difficult to predict the severity of the storm so people should comply with authorities recommendations. Some hotel operators reported a few early checkouts and said they were prepared. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Bangkok Airways has cancelled all flights to and from the popular resort island of Koh Samui, potentially stranding tourists. Local media also reported that ferry services were suspended. Ampawan Taopheng, manager of Lub D Koh Samui hotel on the islands Chaweng Beach said: Since the morning we have prepared sand bunkers and we have barricaded glass windows. We have also prepared first aid kits, torches, water, food and fuel for the hotels power generator. She added that other hotel operators had made similar preparations. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Thailand-based oil and gas company PTTEP said it had suspended operations at Bongkot and Erawan, two of the countrys biggest gas fields in the Gulf of Thailand. Our immediate and urgent task is to do everything in our power to ensure safety and wellbeing of staff, the company said. Additional reporting by Reuters Violent protests have swept the southern Indian state of Kerala after two women entered one of the holiest temples in India. One person has been killed and 15 injured after clashes and schools across the state have been closed and public transport suspended. Women of menstruating age defined as between 10 and 50 had been legally barred from praying at the Sabarimala temple in Kerala since 1972, and an informal ban existed before that, until Indias Supreme Court caused outrage by lifting the ban in September 2018. The police were forced to intervene in clashes between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules India, and Communist Party workers. The BJP opposes the entry of women into one of the countrys largest Hindu pilgrimage sites, while the Communist government of Kerala is in favour of womens right to pray there. The two women who were escorted by police and dressed in black entered the gold-plated temple, which is on a hilltop in a tiger reserve, to pray early on Wednesday. Bindu Ammini, 40, and Kanaka Durga, 39, who are now in hiding and have been given police protection, entered the shrine around dawn making history by becoming the first women to do so. They were escorted by police because it is the governments constitutional responsibility to give protection to women, Pinarayi Vijayan, the states top elected official, said. He accused the BJP of sparking violence when police fired tear gas at several places to disperse stone-throwing mobs protesting against the women entering the temple. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Mr Vijayan told reporters that 39 police officers were injured while trying to control the protesters, who also damaged 79 state-run buses. Priests purified the temple after discovering the woman had visited and will keep it closed on Thursday in protest. Supporters of the BJP staged protest marches in the state as part of a strike call by Sabarimala Karma Samithi an umbrella organisation of Hindu groups. Kerala police said the man who died on Wednesday was part of a demonstration organised by Prime Minister Narendra Modis BJP not part of Keralas state government in the town of Pandalam, and was hit by stones thrown at protesters. Right-wing groups, supported by the BJP, have called for a state-wide shutdown. They were in favour of schools, colleges and businesses remaining closed as a sign of protest. Some devotees have filed a petition saying the court decision lifting the ban was an affront to the celibate deity Ayyappa. On New Years Day, tens of thousands of women, in a local government-backed initiative, formed a huge human chain called the Womens Wall across Kerala to support the demand for access to the temple. The tension between Hindu traditionalists and supporters of the Supreme Court ruling has remained high in Kerala in recent months. Thousands of Hindu devotees, many of whom were female, succeeded in stopping women from accessing the site in the weeks after the ruling. Some hurled stones at police and assaulted female journalists. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Support free-thinking journalism and subscribe to Independent Minds Thursday has seen a second day of protests across the state with additional riot police deployed. A Chinese naval ship has been spotted at sea equipped with an experimental railgun that US intelligence analysts reportedly believe could fire projectiles at seven times the speed of sound. An enormous gun turret mounted to the bow of what Australian media said was the landing ship Haiyang Shan is seen in a murky photo posted to Weibo, Chinas hugely popular social network. The vessel was the centre of speculation last year after images emerged of her in port at about the same time as several state media reports talked up Chinas advancements in electromagnetic weaponry. The non-standard turret was in place at that time, along with additional structures on the deck. The new image suggests Beijing may have beaten the US to the punch in mounting a railgun on a ship for trials at sea. While the original source of the file is not clear, ABC News reported it was taken by a defence blogger. A report by Hong Kong-based Asia Times last spring claimed sea trials were already under way. Railguns generate an electromagnetic charge to expel projectiles at velocities much faster than conventional gunpowder can achieve. US intelligence services believe rounds fired by Chinas version of the experimental cannon can reach 1.6 miles per second some 5,700mph, or above Mach 7 according to a CNBC News report from last June. Analysts believe it could be operation by 2025, the site reported. Their extraordinary speed would make the shells, designed to cause damage through sheer kinetic force, difficult to destroy in flight or evade. This is also the rationale behind the development of hypersonic cruise missiles, which could pose a serious threat to enemy ships. Another benefit of railguns would be an end to the requirement of storing dangerous explosive ammunition and propellant aboard ships. However, the weapons require huge electric power plants to function, which has proved a technological hurdle in their development. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Global Times, Chinas state-run tabloid, was quick to capitalise on international media coverage of the Weibo image, citing a naval expert as saying the railgun system had reached a mature stage after a series of tests in a report published on Thursday. The site has previously lauded the Peoples Liberation Army Navys notable achievements in testing the weapon, and claimed that scientists had developed a repeating power supply system to power it. The US also has a railgun system in development, as well as hypersonic missiles and a hypersonic projectile that is designed to be fired from existing guns. Railgun development is one aspect of Chinas recent military evolution. It has developed its own fighter jet and launched a domestically-built aircraft carrier while building up artificial islands and bases far offshore, to the consternation of its neighbours. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The US and UK have both sailed warships through the South China Sea to assert freedom of navigation rights, which Beijing has called provocative. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague has ruled there is no legal basis for Chinas maritime claims over waters hundreds of miles beyond its shores. The Global Times said Beijing planned to mount its eventual railgun system to another domestically-produced warship, the Type 055 guided missile destroyer. Reports of the railgun sighting came as China demonstrated its technological prowess by landing a probe on the far side of the moon, a first for humanity. A Chinese spacecraft has sent the first ever close-up pictures back to Earth from the far side of the moon, after also becoming the first probe to make a successful landing there. The Change-4 lunar probe touched down on Thursday, Chinas space agency said, hailing the event as a historic first in the countrys space programme. The spacecraft, launched in December, made the soft landing at 2.26am GMT and transmitted the first ever close range image of the dark side of the moon, the China National Space Administration said. The moon is tidally locked to Earth, rotating at the same rate as it orbits our planet, so its far side or dark side is never visible to us. Previous spacecraft have seen the far side, but none have landed on it. The landing lifted the mysterious veil of the far side of the moon and opened a new chapter in human lunar exploration, the agency said in a statement on its website, which included a wide-angle colour picture of a crater from the moons surface. The first surface photo of the moons far side taken by Chinas Change-4 lunar probe (EPA) The probe, which has a lander and a rover, touched down at a targeted area near the moons south pole in the Von Karman Crater after entering the moons orbit in mid-December. The tasks of the Change-4 include astronomical observation, surveying the moons terrain, landform and mineral makeup, and measuring the neutron radiation and neutral atoms to study the environment of its far side. In a tweet, Nasas administrator, Jim Bridenstine, praised China for its impressive accomplishment. Another image taken by Chinas Change-4 probe after its landing (AP) Congratulations to Chinas Change-4 team for what appears to be a successful landing on the far side of the Moon. This is a first for humanity and an impressive accomplishment! The landing is a milestone for China in its race to catch up with Russia and the US and become a major space power by 2030. Beijing plans to launch construction of its own manned space station next year. While China has insisted its ambitions are purely peaceful, the US Defence Department has accused it of pursuing activities aiming to prevent other nations from using space-based assets during a crisis. Change-4 made the first ever landing on the far side of the moon (AP) Besides its civilian ambitions, China has tested anti-satellite missiles, and the US Congress has banned Nasa from two-way cooperation with its Chinese counterpart over security concerns. As competition accelerates in space, Donald Trump seeks to create a new Space Force by 2020, as the sixth branch of the military. Recommended China lands spacecraft on far side of moon in world first But the private space race is also heating up, as numerous companies aim to commercialise space travel, such as California-based SpaceX, which has upended the industry with its low-cost reusable Falcon 9 rockets. The US is the only country to have landed humans on the moon, and Mr Trump said in 2017 he wanted to return astronauts to the lunar surface to build a foundation for an eventual Mars mission. Nasa administrators have said people could be put on Mars by as soon as the mid-2030s, with the agency having landed eight spacecraft there, the most recent in November. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty As soon as 2022, NASA expects to begin building a new space station laboratory to orbit the moon, as a pit stop for missions to distant parts of the solar system. In 2003, China became the third country to put a man in space with its own rocket after the former Soviet Union and the US, and in 2017 it said it was preparing to send a person to the moon. China completed its first lunar soft landing in 2013, but its Jade Rabbit rover began malfunctioning after several weeks. Additional reporting by Reuters A man found guilty of raping and killing 11 girls and women in China has been put to death. Gao Chengyong, 54, became known as Chinas Jack the Ripper after his 2016 arrest for the horrific mutilations he carried out on his victims between 1988 and 2002. Police said he targeted women dressed in red, whom he followed home before robbing, raping and murdering them often by cutting their throats. His youngest victim was eight years old. Authorities in the northwest city of Baiyin, Gansu province, announced Gaos execution on Weibo the Chinese social media platform similar to Twitter. Gaos first murder was in 1988 the same year his son was born. He raped and killed a 23-year-old woman, stabbing her 22 times. Her body was eventually found by her mother, but her hands and other body parts were never located, according to the Peoples Daily China. A subsequent spate of similar murders caused panic in the region and many women in Baiyin would not walk anywhere alone. In 2004, with evidence indicating the crimes were linked, but making little headway with the investigation, police offered a reward for information leading to an arrest. At the time, based on footprints, fingerprints and DNA, they said they were looking for a man aged between 33 and 40. The suspect has a sexual perversion and hates women, the police said, according to the Peoples Daily China. Hes reclusive and unsociable, but patient. But it took another 12 years before a breakthrough came. Gaos uncle was arrested early in 2016 for a minor crime and a DNA sample was taken. The sample closely matched that found by forensics teams at the murder scenes, and police determined he was a relation to the killer they had been after for 28 years. Police linked Gao with the crime and covertly collected a DNA sample which proved to be a direct match for the killer. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty He was arrested at the grocery store he ran in August 2016. Gao confessed to 11 murders in Gansu province and neighbouring Mongolia and was sentenced to death in March 2018. The court in Baiyin called his actions despicable. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Beijing News reported his wife cried when he was arrested. Two thirds of women in the American military polled for a recent survey said they had been sexually harassed or assaulted during their time in service. In total, 68 per cent of women said they had experienced gender discrimination in the military and 66 per cent said they had experienced sexual harassment or assault. Some six per cent of men said they had been harassed or assaulted, according to the poll of more than 1,000 service members which was carried out by Smithsonian magazine in conjunction with American military newspaper Stars and Stripes and the Schar School at George Mason University in Virginia. This was much higher than other recent studies of a similar nature. A study commissioned by the Defence Department found up to 27 per cent of women had experienced sexual assault or harassment while in the military. The Pentagon does not track instances of sexual harassment, its annual study released in April last year revealed reports of sexual assault in the US military increased by nearly 10 per cent in 2017 . Recommended DeVos proposes new rules on campus sexual assault The Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps all documented a rise in reported incidents, the study found. It showed that in 2017, 5,277 service members reported being sexually assaulted during their time in the military compared to 4,794 in 2016. Campaigners argue the total cited by the Pentagon is likely to be far lower than the actual number of assaults. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Elizabeth P Van Winkle, of the Department of Defence, told reporters at a briefing after the report was released that more service members than ever are making the courageous decision to report their experiences and to receive restorative care. She said: "Over the last decade, the department has made progress. While the progress weve seen provides some comfort, we neither take it for granted nor are we under any illusions that our work is done." President Donald Trump has claimed he could be the most popular person in Europe and could run for any [European] office if he wanted as he dismissed how lowly he is thought of across the continent. The comments from the White House followed an opinion piece penned Utah Republican Senator-elect Mitt Romney noting that the president has not not risen to the mantle of the office. In the piece, the 2012 Republican presidential candidate highlighted Mr Trumps low approval ratings across Europe. In a 2016 Pew Research Centre poll, 84 percent of people in Germany, Britain, France, Canada and Sweden believed the American president would do the right thing in world affairs, Mr Romney wrote. One year later, that number had fallen to 16 percent. Mr Trump rebuffed Mr Romneys concerns of the American presidents public image among allies by insisting that it was American taxpayers, not Europeans, that elected him president. Recommended Trump holds cabinet meeting with Game of Thrones sanction poster Im not elected by Europeans, Im elected by Americans by American taxpayers, Mr Trump said of the European polls. My relationship, I will tell you, with the leaders of Europe is very good, he added. A number of leaders across Europe, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron have clashed with Mr Trump over issues from immigration to climate change. However, Mr Trump made clear that he believed his populist rhetoric would play well in Europe. I could be the most popular person in Europe, Mr Trump said. I could be -- I could run for any office if I wanted to. But I dont want to. I want people to treat us fairly, and theyre not. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events I shouldnt be popular in Europe, he said. I want Europe to pay. I dont care about Europe. He added: When a country sends us 200 soldiers to Iraq, or 100 soldiers from a big country to Syria or Afghanistan, and then they tell me We sent you soldiers...thats one hundredth of the money theyre taking advantage of. Leading Democrat Nancy Pelosi has refused to rule out Donald Trump being either indicted or impeached while in office, warning the president will face a different world thanks to a new Congress. Ms Pelosi is set to become speaker of the House of Representatives as the Democrats take over the majority in that chamber and described the topic of a potential presidential indictment as an open discussion. The senior Democrat said it is possible that special counsel Robert Mueller could seek an indictment against the sitting president, despite Justice Department guidelines against such action. Mr Mueller is leading the federal investigation into Russian election meddling in the 2016 presidential election, possible collusion between Moscow and Trump campaign officials which has been inching closer to the White House in recent months. I do not think that that is conclusive, Ms Pelosi told NBCs Today show about the Justice Department guidance. I think that that is an open discussion. I think that is an open discussion in terms of the law, she added. Mr Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has repeatedly called the Mueller inquiry a witch hunt. Recommended Trump and Democrats fail to strike deal in border security meeting As for impeachment something that a number of prominent Democrat supporters have called for Ms Pelosi said that while she believed such action would not benefit the country, she would not dismiss it either. We have to wait and see what happens with the Mueller report, Ms Pelsoi said. We shouldnt be impeaching for a political reason, and we shouldnt avoid impeachment for a political reason. So well just have to see how it comes. Whatever happens in terms of indictment or impeachment, Ms Pelosi said that Mr Trump should expect much more oversight of his administration now that Democrats will control one chamber of Congress. Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Show all 23 1 /23 Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Joe Biden The former vice president - poised to be a frontrunner - has announced his run. He recently faced scrutiny for inappropriate touching of women, but was thought to deal with the criticism well AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Bernie Sanders The 2016 runner-up has announced that he will be running again in 2020 Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Hillary Clinton The 2016 Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State says she is still considering whether she will run again. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Pete Buttigieg The Indiana mayor and war veteran will be running for president. If elected, he would be the first openly LGBT+ president in American history. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Kamala Harris The former California attorney general will be running for president in 2020. Introduced to the national stage during Jeff Sessions testimony, she has endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major tax-credit for the middle class. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Elizabeth Warren The Massachusetts Senator has formally launched her bid for president in 2020. A progressive Democrat, she is a major supporter of regulating Wall Street. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Beto ORourke The former Texas congressman told Oprah Winfrey that he has been thinking about running for presidency, but stopped short of formally announcing his bid to run in 2020. AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Wayne Messam Mayor of the city of Miramar in the Miami metropolitan area, Wayne Messam has announced his bid. He intends to run on a progressive platform against the "broken" federal government. He favours gun regulations and was a signatory to a letter from some 400 mayors condemning President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord. Vice News Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Kirsten Gillibrand The New York Senator formally announced her presidential bid in January, saying that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Cory Booker The New Jersey Senator has announced that he will be running for the presidency in 2020. If he secures the nomination he said finding a female vice president would be a priority. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? John Delaney The Maryland congressman was the first to launch his bid for presidency, making the announcement in 2017. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Julian Castro The former San Antonio mayor announced his candidacy in January and said that his running has a special meaning for the Latino community in the US. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Tulsi Gabbard The Hawaii congresswoman announced her candidacy in January, but is likely to face tough questions on her past comments on LGBT+ rights and her stance on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Andrew Yang The entrepreneur has announced his presidential candidacy, and has pledged that he would introduce a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American over the age of 18. AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Marianne Williamson The author and spiritual advisor has announced her intention to run for president. She had previously run for congress as an independent in 2014 but was unsuccessful. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? John Kerry The former secretary of state has said he is still thinking about whether to run. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Michael Bloomberg The entrepreneur and former New York mayor with a net worth of around $50bn has said he will decide by the end of February whether to seek the presidency. AFP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Howard Schultz Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has not yet ruled out running for president in 2020, despite criticism that his bid could help re-elect Mr Trump by dividing the Democrat vote. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Eric Holder The former attorney general has said he will decide in the next month or so whether to run as a 2020 presidential candidate. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Eric Swalwell The California congressman said he is ready to do this and will decide before April whether to run. MSNBC Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Terry McAuliffe The former Virginia governor, who worked to elect Democratic governors during 2018 midterms, said there was a 50 per cent chance he would run. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Sherrod Brown The Ohio senator is still undecided about whether to run for president in 2020. Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Mitch Landrieu The former New Orleans mayor said he doesnt think he will run for president, but never say never. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin Speaking to USA Today as part of a number of interviews ahead of the swearing-in of the new Congress, Ms Pelosi said this different world will come as shock to the president. He was used to serving with a Republican Congress, House and Senate that was a rubber stamp to him. That wont be the case, Ms Pelosi said. Oversight of government by the Congress is our responsibility. Ms Pelosi and other Democrats have laid out a host of areas where they intend to conduct oversight or investigations. In the last few weeks top Democrats have said they plan to look into the presidents finances, his daughter Ivankas use of private email and his foreign policy decisions. On the topic of impeachment, Ms Pelosi told USA Today that she would not seek to seek grounds for the move unless its clearly bipartisan and has Republican support. The biggest issue for Congress to deal with is the partial government shutdown which has lasted nearly two weeks. It started on 22 December after Democrats refused to sanction $5bn in specific funding for a wall on the US-Mexico border that was one of his major campaign promises. Democrats have offered $1.3bn in general border security funding, and will likely push through two separate spending bills to re-open the government through the House on Thursday. However, with Republicans having control of the Senate and Mr Trump also having to sign any legislation, there is a stalemate. Mr Trump has blamed Democrats for the shutdown, with his latest tweets claiming it is related to the 2020 presidential election, which the president says Democrats cant win against him. However, Ms Pelosi has laid the blame for the stoppage at the door of the White House. This is the Trump shutdown, through and through. Thats why he has proudly taken, in his view, proudly taken ownership of it. Theres no escaping that for him, Ms Pelosi told NBC. That doesnt mean we take any joy in the fact that there is a Trump shutdown. We want government to open. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Straight after a remarkable televised stand-off with Mr Trump in the Oval Office over the budget ahead of the shutdown, Ms Pelosi met with House Democrats and reportedly dismissed Mr Trumps wall as a manhood thing. Ms Pelosi would not elaborate on what she meant when asked during her NBC interview, but said: I wish that my members had not repeated that outside the room. Editors note: Due to the government shutdown, the venue has changed for the event. It will now take place at The Community House, at 2173 Periwinkle Way, Sanibel. In partnership with WGCU Public Media, the Ding Darling Wildlife Society-Friends of the Refuge will host a free Monday, Jan. 7, sneak preview airing of The Swamp, a new national PBS documentary. The Ding Darling showing starts at 5 p.m. at The Community House, at 2173 Periwinkle Way, Sanibel. The documentary later will debut as part of American Experience programming on WGCU HD at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 15. Based in part on the book The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise by Michael Grunwald, the documentary tells the dramatic story of humanitys attempts to conquer the Florida Everglades, one of natures most mysterious and unique ecosystems. Explored through the lives of colorful and resolute characters from hucksters to politicians to unlikely activists The Swamp chronicles the repeated efforts to transform what was once identified as a vast and useless wasteland into an agricultural and urban paradise, ultimately leading to a passionate campaign to preserve Americas greatest wetland. As Florida copes today with the disastrous aftermath of mans abuse of the Everglades, The Swamp is a timely documentary of the perils of changing the course of nature for profit. The Swamp tells an epic tale of mans never-ending attempt to control nature, says American Experience executive producer Mark Samels. The story of the repeated efforts to tame the Everglades and the often deadly results of those attempts is a particularly cautionary tale in these days of increasingly violent natural disasters. Following a 30-minute preview of the two-hour documentary, attendees will have the opportunity to hear comments from Ding Darling senior biologist Jeremy Conrad and Florida Gulf Coast University aquatic ecologist Serge Thomas, Ph.D., in a panel moderated by WGCU FM news director Julie Glenn. We are happy to partner with WGCU on a project that reinforces the importance of preservation and water quality in our part of Florida, said DDWS executive director Birgie Miller. Part of our mission is to support the conservation efforts at the Refuge including land acquisition on Sanibel Island, which will benefit overall water quality by stemming more development of the type that once threatened the Everglades. The Refuge Nature Store will also remain open for the after-hours event. Profits from the store support wildlife, education, and research at the refuge. Snacks and beverages will be available by donation. Seating for the free showing is limited to 100 people on a first-come, first-seated basis. Interested attendees are urged to arrive an hour early and can save one additional seat with personal items. For more information, call 239-472-1100 ext. 4. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 2) The Philippine National Police (PNP) will investigate its ranks if they find any irregularities in the issuance of gun licenses to Iloilo 1st District Rep. Richard Garin and his father, Guimbal, Iloilo Mayor Oscar Garin who are facing charges for mauling a police officer, the police spokesman said Wednesday. "Only if we finally found out that there is violation on the issuance of licenses to the Garins. That is something that is still subject of the investigation of Firearms and Explosive Office (FEO)," PNP spokesperson, CSupt. Bong Durana told CNN Philippines' The Source in a text message. The FEO is in charge of issuing licenses to people who want to own guns and permits for them to carry these outside of their residences, Durana said. He said the father-and-son duo "may not be qualified" to own 19 firearms, 16 of which they surrendered to authorities after their gun licenses and permits to carry were revoked by Director General Oscar Albayalde, PNP chief, after the mauling. The Garins could no longer locate the remaining three guns, Durana said, but the police are investigating this claim. Representative Garin has 11 firearms under his name, but three have expired licenses, while his father, Mayor Garin, owns eight, but only three are licensed. Under Republic Act 10951 or the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act, citizens may own up to 15 registered firearms, depending on the license issued to them. Citizens may also own more than 15 registered firearms as long as they are certified gun collectors. Durana said they are also investigating if the father-and-son tandem are gun collectors, which would have allowed them to own that many firearms, which include pistols and long firearms. He also said police are working on automating gun licensing to reduce human intervention in the process. Even after the Garins have apologized for beating up Police Officer 3 Federico Macaya, President Rodrigo Duterte is still urging authorities to press charges against the two. Minnesota Democrat Representative-elect Ilhan Omar will become the first woman to wear the hijab in Congress when she takes her seat, with her party set to overturn a rule banning head coverings on the House floor. The Democrats will assume control of the House of Representatives on Thursday and the first order of congressional business is to pass a set of rules regarding House governorship. One of those rules include changing the ban on head coverings to one that excludes only non-religious headwear. As of right now, the rule on head coverings allow Ms Omar to wear her hijab inside the US Capitol building, but not on the House floor. The rule change will allow Ms Omar to wear the hijab, a practice of her Islamic faith, while she is on the House floor to either vote or make speeches. The Somali-American legislator has been outspoken about her desire to wear the hijab while she represents her district in Congress. No one puts a scarf on my head but me. Its my choiceone protected by the first amendment. And this is not the last ban Im going to work to lift, Ms Omar tweeted after she won election in November. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Typically, the majority party proposes the set of rules that will govern the House of Representatives. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Incoming House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern both supported Ms Omars request and included it in the rules packaged the party released on Tuesday night. Hats or head coverings of any kind were banned from the House floor beginning in 1837. Almost a fortnight after it began, a senior Republican leader has warned that it could take weeks to reach a deal to end a partial government shutdown after a closed door meeting between Donald Trump and the Congressional leadership in the White House Situation Room. I dont think any particular progress was made today, said Mitch McConnell, the partys Senate majority leader, although he insisted that there had been a good discussion on border security issue. He added: We talked about all aspects of it and it was a civil discussion and we are hopeful that somehow in the coming days or weeks we will be able to reach an agreement. Others were less positive about ending the stalemate which has forced hundreds of thousands of federal workers to work without pay. They will be reimbursed when an agreement is reached. Both Republican and Democrat leaders were quick to blame each other for the impasse. On our last meeting the president said I am going to shut the government down. They are now feeling the heat, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said shortly after the meeting. It is not helping the president, it is not helping the Republicans, to be the owners of this shutdown. Today we gave them an opportunity to get out of that, and open up the government as we debate border security. And to say to them because he says. Incoming Democratic speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi also suggested that Mr Trump was ignoring her partys attempts to end the showdown: Were asking the president to open up the government, she said. We are giving him a Republican path to do it. Why would he not do that? Republicans leaving the meeting noted that Mr Trump had asked for leadership to return later this week and pointed to an incident on Americas southern border when tear gas was reportedly fired at 150 migrants on New Years Day, something they said justified Mr Trumps refusal to back down from his request for $5.6bn (4.4bn) to build a border wall. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty We do have a crisis on the border right now. We had a violent mob rush yesterday we had a challenge there, said senior Republican Kevin McCarthy. The president has asked us to come back Friday, after the [House] leadership races, to try to get this all done. He also accused Mr Schumer of interrupting a briefing from Department of Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. The US government has been partially shut down since 22 December, although the White House has previously indicated that they would not force a shutdown over border wall funding. Mr Trump, who said during his last meeting with the Democratic leaders that he would take responsibility for any shutdown should it come, decided late in that week that he would not settle for less than the billions of dollars he has asked for in border wall funding. Before the meeting Mr Trump claimed that he believed the Democrats who have offered $1.3bn in funding for border security were using the shutdown for political gains. He told a cabinet meeting that the sum he was requesting for the wall was little more than a rounding error compared to the size of the US federal budget. The United States needs a physical barrier, he said. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events In an earlier tweet he again blamed his political rivals, writing: We are in a shutdown because Democrats refuse to fund border security. When Congressional leaders return to the White House later this week Democrats will be in control of the US Congress, having triumphed over their rivals in the US midterm elections. Democratic leadership has indicated that they plan on bringing forward bills to fund the government, including a separate short-term spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security so that it can be separated from broader funding issues in the US. History has been made by the 116th session of Congress as its most diverse class of members yet is sworn in. In addition to having a record-number of women sitting in Congress, there is also a series of firsts as a number of women of colour embark on their journeys as national legislators. Among them are the youngest women elected into Congress, the first woman to wear a hijab while serving Congress, the first two Muslim-Americans, the first Native-American, members of the LGBTQ community, and even a former MMA fighter. Representative-elect Ilhan Omar will be breaking a number of barriers as she is sworn-in to Congress on Thursday. The Minnesota Democrat will be the first Somali-American, one of the first Muslim women, and the first women to wear a hijab as a member of Congress with Democrats in the House of Representatives set to change the rules on headwear. Ms Omar, who immigrated to the United States as a refugee in 1995, celebrated these milestones in a emotional tweet she posted on Wednesday. 23 years ago, from a refugee camp in Kenya, my father and I arrived at an airport in Washington DC, she tweeted, attached with a photo of her and her father smiling with suitcases. Today, we return to that same airport on the eve of my swearing in as the first Somali-American in Congress. Recommended Ilhan Omar will be first Muslim woman to wear hijab in Congress Ms Omar joins Representative-elect Rashida Tlaib in becoming the first Muslim women to serving Congress. Ms Tlaib, who is of Palestinian descent, is also already making headlines.. The Michigan Democrat will be wearing a traditional Palestinian gown and will be sworn-in using former President Thomas Jeffersons copy of the Quran. Last year, Ms Tlaib generated buzz when she announced that she will be leading her own delegation of freshman members of Congress to visit the occupied West Bank. Both Ms Tlaib and Ms Omar were targets from far-right and Islamophobic groups and have been falsely accused of being associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. In an interview with the Detroit Free Press, Ms Tlaib, 42, said: My swearing in on the Quran is about me showing that the American people are made up of diverse backgrounds and we all have love of justice and freedom. It's important to me because a lot of Americans have this kind of feeling that Islam is somehow foreign to American history, she said. Muslims were there at the beginning... Some of our founding fathers knew more about Islam than some members of Congress now. Representative-elect Alexandria Ocaiso-Cortez, 29, who has already gained national attention, for her calls to end unpaid internships for congressional interns and her democratic-socialist policies, will be the youngest women ever elected to Congress. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Throughout her orientation process, the New York Democrat has been using Instagram to take people behind-the-scenes as to what goes on inside the often closed-door meetings in the US Capitol Building. She has also been using her Instagram live stories to discuss politics and take questions while she nibbles on microwavable macaroni and cheese. The Bronx Native, and former bartender, took the country by surprised when she ousted incumbent Joe Crowley in the primaries for the 14th congressional district. She has been a frequent target for both conservatives, some of which question Ms Ocasio-Cortezs impeccable fashion sense for someone who grew up working-class, and establishment Democrats, who see her as a progressive firebrand. The new Congress will also be welcoming in the first Native American women into the US Capitol building: Representatives-elect Sharice Davids and Deb Haaland. Ms Davids, a Kansas Democrat, will also be the first openly LGBTQ member serving her state. She was also a former MMA fighter. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Several states will also be seeing history take place in Washington, DC with Representative-elect Ayanna Pressley becoming the first black woman to represent Massachusetts in Congress, and Democrat Jahana Hayes being Connecticuts first black congressional representative. For Texas, Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia will be the states first Latina representatives, and in Arizona, Senator-elect Kyrsten Sinema will be the Grand Canyon states first female senator and first openly bisexual senator. The record number of women elected into Congress were a major factor in Democrats taking back control of the House of Representatives, whereas Republicans lost female representation. The historic milestones are evolving Congress to be more accurately reflective of the people it represents and its needs. For example, the new Congress will have more women with young children, and the incoming class are becoming more vocal for the US legislative branch to meet the needs of female legislators who are trying to keep afloat with their official duties and child care. It seems to be working: On Tuesday, a new child care facility exclusively for House employees opened. Close Republican congressman Ryan Costello calls Trump's an 'angry 8th grader' for 'close the border' tweet Congress has reconvened for its 116th session, with the Democrats taking majority control of the House of Representatives after their success in last Novembers midterm elections. Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi has made history by becoming speaker of the House for a second time, the first person to do so in 50 years. She is the first woman in US history to hold the office which is third in line from the presidency and on Thursday took the speaker's gavel for the second time in her life. Ms Pelosi, during her first speech behind the speaker's lectern in the 116th Congress, laid out a vision to push for progressive policies to tackle climate change issues, while protecting America's social safety net. She expressed an optimism in American democracy, while reaffirming the legislature's obligation to serve as oversight of the executive branch of government a clear threat to President Donald Trump, who has so far enjoyed Republican control of the entire government since taking office. "They called upon the beauty of our Constitution: our system of checks and balances that protects our democracy, remembering that the legislative branch is Article I: the first branch of government, co-equal to the president and judiciary," Ms Pelosi said. She continued, describing the expectations of America for it's elected representatives: "They want a Congress that delivers results for the people, opening up opportunity and lifting up their lives". The San Francisco liberal has promised her first act will be to quickly pass legislation to bring the recent government shutdown to an end without releasing funds for President Donald Trumps proposed Mexico border wall. The Republican-held Senate could block such a bill but doing so would see the GOP left accountable for the continued federal hiatus. The Senate had previously passed legislation to keep the government open without the level of border wall funding requested by Mr Trump, but that measure was not passed by the then-Republican controlled House. In response to the events on Capitol Hill, Mr Trump declared a last-minute event in the White House press briefing room that included senior members of the National Border Patrol Council, a labour union representing Border Patrol agents. That labour union lobbies heavily in Washington in favour of border security measures and immigration legislation. That even was seen as an attempt to divert attention from Ms Pelosi, and was labelled by pundits and critics as a "stunt". That group included CNN anchor Brianna Keilar. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Ms Pelosi could prove to be an effective opponent for Mr Trump as talks surrounding the government shutdown which are expected to restart on Friday continue onward. During a meeting before the shutdown itself, Ms Pelosi and her Democratic counterpart in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, managed to get the president to take responsibility for the shutdown during a televised meeting in the Oval Office. Their next meeting after that, on Wednesday, occurred behind closed doors. But, Ms Pelosi also faces a difficult task ahead as she looks to maintain a cohesive Democratic party and avoid the fracturing that was seen after the conservative Tea Party wave washed through Washington in 2010 and let establishment and centrist Republican leaders with little room to manoeuvre in the face of hard line members of their caucus. To maintain that cohesion, Ms Pelosi has promised to limit her speakership to four years in order to help usher in a younger generation of leadership in the party. Ms Pelosi has also faced pressure from the party's ascendant progressive wing, with popular candidates like New York's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez among those leading the push for causes like a transformative and ambitious Green New Deal programme that would eliminate the United States' reliance on fossil fuels but would require massive investment and political will to be made into law. Please read along for our coverage of the day's events, as they happened Bernie Sanders has denied he was aware of allegations female members of his staff were subjected to sexual harassment during his 2016 presidential campaign. The Vermont senator apologised on Wednesday to any woman who felt she was not treated appropriately, following a New York Times story on Wednesday in which multiple workers made claims about pay inequality and unwanted sexual advances inside the political operation. There is no suggestion Mr Sanders personally engaged in any impropriety, and he told CNN he had been a little bit busy running around the country during the campaign to have known of the allegations at the time. I am not going to sit here and tell you that we did everything right in terms of human resources, in terms of addressing the needs that I'm hearing from now, that women felt they were disrespected, that there was sexual harassment which was not dealt with as effectively as possible, he said. One female staffer, Giulianna Di Lauro, told The Times a campaign surrogate harassed her repeatedly ahead of the Democratic primary in Nevada in February 2016. She claimed when she reported the incident to a manager, he told her: I bet you would have liked it if he were younger, a version of events corroborated by another witness. Meanwhile, others told the newspaper the grassroots and decentralised nature of the Sanders campaign left them confused by who to turn to in the event of misconduct. I did experience sexual harassment during the campaign, and there was no one who would or could help, said Samantha Davis, a former director of operations for the campaign in Texas and New York. The allegations come at an inconvenient time for Mr Sanders, who at 77 is gearing up for a second attempt at securing the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 2020 after missing out two years ago to Hillary Clinton. He insisted his campaign had introduced new protocols during his 2018 senate re-election bid to deal with allegations made by staffers. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events We put forward the strongest set of principles in terms of mandatory training, in terms of women, if they felt harassed, having an independent firm that they can go to, he said. I think that that's kind of the gold standard of what we should be doing. Of course, if I run, we will do better next time. In the wake of the report, some Democratic activists and operatives complained about the aggressive culture during the first campaign when male staffers and supporters were sometimes labelled Bernie bros. Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Show all 15 1 /15 Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Andrew Harnik/AP Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Darren McCollester/Getty Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Mary Schwalm/Reuters Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Brian Snyder/Reuters Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Brian Snyder/Reuters Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Brian Snyder/Reuters Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Brian Snyder/Reuters Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Brian Snyder/Reuters Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Andrew Harnik/AP Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Andrew Harnik/AP Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Darren McCollester/Getty Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Andrew Harnik/AP Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Andrew Harnik/AP Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Andrew Harnik/AP Bernie Sanders campaigns with Hillary Clinton Andrew Harnik/AP I'm not the least bit surprised, National Organisation for Women president Toni Van Pelt said, adding she was forced to block Mr Sanders supporters from her social media feeds in 2016. To me, it was really clear this was the way they were running the campaign. She cast the blame for the affair on Mr Sanders, whether he had direct knowledge of misconduct or not. If he didn't know, he has no business being in office, she added. Additional reporting by AP Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said she will vote against the House rules package being proposed by Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. The 29-year-old left-wing congresswoman, viewed as a rising star in the Democratic Party, will begin her career in Washington by defying her party leadership as they launch their ambitious policy plans. Ms Ocasio-Cortez has said she will not support new guidelines tabled by her party that include a provision known as "PAYGO or pay as you go which requires new spending to be offset by cuts elsewhere or increases in revenue. Critics say the proposals will self-impose an obstacle to increased government expenditure with minimal upside, while those who support it believe it would prevent reckless spending. Tomorrow I will also vote No on the rules package, which is trying to slip in PAYGO, Ms Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. PAYGO isnt only bad economics as [US Representative] Ro Khanna explains; its also a dark political manoeuvre designed to hamstring progress on healthcare and other legalisation. We shouldnt hinder ourselves from the start. Eighteen Democrats would need to vote against the package for it not to get passed Ms Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, shocked the party when she won the June primary against Joe Crowley, a 20-year Congressman. She supported Ms Pelosi for speaker because she was 'the most progressive candidate' for the position. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Ms Ocasio-Cortez has however been at odds with party leadership and has vowed to maintain her ideological beliefs when in Washington. In November Ms Ocasio-Cortez joined a group of activists who staged in a sit-in protest at Democratic leader Nancy Pelosis congressional office. Sunrise, a progressive environmentalist movement, organised the protest to push Democrats to act more decisively on climate change now that they have control of the House of Representatives. A pregnant cow has escaped a cattle truck heading for the slaughterhouse in New Jersey to give birth to a calf. The calf, named Winter, was born on Saturday the Skylands Animal Sanctuary and Rescue in Wantage, New Jersey, said. Winters weight was not given. Shes beautiful, Mike Stura, founder of Skylands Animal Sanctuary, said about Winter. She ended up safe. Its fortunate. Winters mother, later named Brianna, escaped a cattle truck driving on Route 80 and on its way to the abattoir on Thursday around 2.40 am. The police then chased Brianna all along Route 80. According to Paterson Police Director Jerry Speziale, Brianna kicked the door of the cattle trailer wide open. She then jumped onto the highway. After Brianna was captured, the animal sanctuary took her in. She was less than 10 minutes away from that slaughterhouse when she flew out of the truck, the sanctuary wrote on its Facebook page. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Shes never had freedom, shed been impregnated about nine months ago, and had already lost her home and her family, but that wasnt enough, EVERYTHING was about to be stolen from her, her beautiful baby, and her life, the sanctuary said. New York City will officially offer residents a third gender option on birth certificates after a new law went into place on New Years Day. In addition to the options male and female, New York City residents can now choose X on their own birth certificates, if they identify as non-binary. To make the change to a non-binary gender, one must fill out a self-attestation form, which states a desire to change ones gender to reflect their true gender identity. According to The Associated Press, the new law, which passed in October, also allows parents to choose the option X for newborns. In the past, the city only allowed people who had undergone gender reassignment surgery to request birth certificate amendments. The law was later updated to require a doctors note from a medical or mental health professional, however, that requirement has also been removed under the new policy. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio first expressed his support for the new law upon signing, when he said: This new legislation will empower all New Yorkers, especially our transgender and gender non-binary residents, to have birth certificates that better reflect their identity, and it furthers the Citys commitment to defending the rights of our LGBT community, The Hill reported. And in the days leading up to the implementation of the new law, the NYC Mayors Office Twitter account reiterated the importance of the change in a tweet which read: To all trans and non-binary New Yorkers: We see you, hear you and respect you. Starting in 2019, all New Yorkers will be able to change their gender on their birth certificate to M, F or X - without a doctors note. With the new law, New York City joins California, Oregon and Washington in offering the option of a non-gendered third option on birth certificates. New Jersey will soon follow, once similar legislation goes into effect on February 1. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events For those impacted by the new law, de Blasio said: You be you. Live your truth, and know that New York City will have your back. Mexican experts say they have found the first temple of the Flayed Lord, a pre-Hispanic fertility god depicted as a skinned human corpse. Mexicos National Institute of Anthropology and History said the find was made during recent excavations of Popoloca Indian ruins in the central state of Puebla. The institute said on Wednesday that experts found two skull-like stone carvings and a stone trunk depicting the god Xipe Totec. It had an extra hand dangling off one arm, suggesting the god was wearing the skin of a sacrificial victim. Priests worshipped Xipe Totec by removing the skins of human victims and wearing them. The ritual was seen as a way to ensure fertility and regeneration. The Tehuacan archaeological site in Tehuacan, Puebla state, Mexico, where archaeologist have identified the first known temple to the Flayed Lord (Meliton Tapia Davila/INAH via AP) The Popolocas, who were later conquered by the Aztecs, built the temple at a complex known as Ndachjian-Tehuacan between 1000-1260 AD Ancient accounts of the rituals suggest victims were killed in gladiator-style combat or with arrows on one platform, then skinned on another platform. The layout of the temple at Tehuacan seems to match that description. Depictions of the god had been found before in other cultures, including the Aztecs, but not a whole temple. University of Florida archaeologist Susan Gillespie, who was not involved in the project, wrote that finding the torso fragment of a human wearing the flayed skin of a sacrificial victim in situ is perhaps the most compelling evidence of the association of this practice and related deity to a particular temple, more so to me than the two sculpted skeletal crania. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events If the Aztec sources could be relied upon, a singular temple to this deity (whatever his name in Popoloca) does not necessarily indicate that this was the place of sacrifice, Ms Gillespie added. The Aztec practice was to perform the sacrificial death in one or more places, but to ritually store the skins in another, after they had been worn by living humans for some days. So it could be that this is the temple where they were kept, making it all the more sacred. Additional reporting by AP Explore Cayo Costa Island through the documentary Mullet & Mangroves II, which shares oral histories of the early pioneer fishing families, as well as children of today. The screening of Mullet & Mangroves II will be shown Thursday, Jan. 24, at the Captiva Civic Association, 10155 Chapin Lane. The free event will be held from 5:30 to 7 p.m. This is going to be the first time the film is going to be screened on Captiva, Richard Finkel said. He said there will be some refreshments, drinks and light hors hors doeuvres, available beforehand. Its free, we just ask people to reserve a spot, Finkel said, which can be done by visiting www.friendsofcayocosta.org. Elaine McLaughlin, chairman of the Friends of Cayo Costa, said Mullet & Mangroves II, is a documentary of the pioneer fishing families. The documentary was finished almost a year ago. She said they first screened it Downtown Fort Myers at the IMAG History and Science Center. From there they negotiated with PBS in the Tampa Bay area where the documentary was aired in that market. The documentary began to air in the local market this past summer and early fall. We are trying to get it out to the local audiences because there are a lot of people that havent seen it, particularly the winter residents who are coming back, McLaughlin said, adding that they are trying to get the documentary around for people who are particularly interested in local history and nature. Mullet & Mangroves II captures the memories, the oral history of people who grew up on Cayo Costa and left the island to go to school. The documentary also showcases children visiting and experiencing the island today. If we dont capture the memories now we will lose the opportunity, McLaughlin said. We are pretty excited about the film and thrilled to have captured these memories. We did an earlier production. It was a very brief film. We wanted to expand it to make it PBS worthy, it had to be 30 minutes long. We spent all last year doing that, making it much longer and an in-depth production. The families ultimately descended from the Padilla family. She said those who speak in the documentary are branches from that family. The original Padilla family came from the Canary Islands from the Coast of Spain. They spoke Spanish exclusively, she said. There are around 10 individuals that were interviewed for the documentary. Its a great history of Cayo Costa with really great interviews of the fishing families that pioneered on the island. There are also some history of the islands that are near by, Punta Blanca where the kids went to school, Useppa Island, Boca Grande and Gasparilla Island, Finkel said. She said they are anxious to use the film to tell people about the treasures that attracted the first generation of settlers on Cayo Costa, which are still there. It was a different world even back then. The uniqueness of living on the island, growing up on the island and taking a boat to go to school. The island itself hasnt changed that much. The treasures that people enjoyed are still there for the discovery, McLaughlin said. A Mexican mayor was shot dead on his way to his first meeting just hours after being sworn in. Alejandro Aparicio Santiago was assassinated by a group of gunmen as he headed to the city hall in Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca. He was taken to hospital, where he later died. Oaxacas governor, Alejandro Murat, said he strongly condemned the attack. In a tweet after the shooting, he said a suspect was already being held in custody over the killing. Mexican mayor Alejandro Aparicio Santiago was shot dead as he headed to the city hall in Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, for his first meeting just hours after being sworn in. (Alejandro Aparicio Santiago/Twitter) I requested a thorough investigation from the attorney General and he informs me that he has already arrested the probable perpetrator, he said. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events I express my condolences to the family and the people of Tlaxiaco. According to the state prosecutors office, a drugs gang is suspected of being behind the attack, which injured four other people, including a politician in the party of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. President Obrador has campaigned to restore order to the country by ending corruption and the drug wars in Mexico. Between September 2017 and August 2018, 175 politicians were murdered in Mexico, according to security consultancy firm Etellekt. Newly installed president Jair Bolsonaro has targeted Brazils indigenous groups, descendants of slaves and the LGBT community with executive orders in the first hours of his administration. He has moved quickly after a campaign in which the far-right leader said he would radically overhaul many aspects of life in Latin Americas largest nation. Meanwhile, Sao Paulos stock market jumped 3.56 per cent to a record closing of 91,012 points as new cabinet ministers reinforced the intent to privatise state-owned companies and a Brazilian arms maker benefited from Mr Bolsonaros plans to loosen gun controls. Similar spikes in stock prices also occurred during the presidential campaign. One of the orders issued late on Tuesday, hours after Mr Bolsonaros inauguration, is likely to make it all but impossible for new lands to be identified and demarcated for indigenous communities. Areas set aside for Quilombolas, as descendants of former slaves are known, are also affected by the decision. Another order removed the concerns of the LGBT community from consideration by the new human rights ministry. In a move favourable to his allies in agribusiness, which have criticised giving large swaths of lands to the indigenous, Mr Bolsonaro transferred the responsibilities for delineating indigenous territories from the Justice Ministry to the Agriculture Ministry. The new agriculture minister, Tereza Cristina, is part of the agribusiness caucus in Brazils lower house and has opposed requests from native communities. Mr Bolsonaro, a former army captain and longtime congressman, said during his presidential campaign that he would stop making what he calls concessions to native Brazilians and Quilombolas. Less than one million people live in those places isolated from the real Brazil, he tweeted on Wednesday. They are explored and manipulated by non-profits. Together we will integrate those citizens and give value to all Brazilians. Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration Show all 20 1 /20 Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration Brazil's new President Jair Bolsonaro waves as he drives past before his swear-in ceremony Reuters Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration Supporters wait in front of the Planalto Palace, where he will take office EPA Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration Jair Bolsonaro gestures at the Congress before he is sworn AFP/Getty Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration Supporters take pictures as Brazil's new President Jair Bolsonaro drives past Reuters Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration Flanked by first lady Michelle Bolsonaro, Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro waves to the crowd, as he rides in an open car after his swearing-in ceremony AP Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration Jair Bolsonaro reacts as he drives past Reuters Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration Reuters Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration The National Congress before Brazil's President-elect Jair Bolsonaro is sworn in AFP/Getty Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration Jair Bolsonaro gestures at the Congress AFP/Getty Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration Reuters Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration AP Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration AFP/Getty Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration EPA Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration AFP/Getty Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration AFP/Getty Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration Reuters Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration Reuters Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration AFP/Getty Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration AFP/Getty Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right leader inauguration AFP/Getty The Justice Ministry previously handled demarcation of indigenous lands through the FUNAI agency, which also oversees other initiatives for indigenous groups such as health care, housing and language preservation. Mr Bolsonaros order is raising uncertainties about FUNAI by shifting it to a new ministry for family, women and human rights that is headed by an ultraconservative evangelical pastor. Observatorio do Clima, a network of 45 Brazilian civil society groups, criticised the executive orders, calling them only the first step on meeting Mr Bolsonaros campaign promises of dismantling environmental governance, stripping indigenous peoples of their rights and opening up indigenous lands for business. The attack on FUNAI goes beyond the wildest dreams of the rural caucus, who had tried for years to pass a constitutional amendment transferring the demarcation of indigenous lands from the president to Congress, the nonprofit said. Bolsonaro solved the problem by transferring them directly to farmers. The far-right leader said last year that he also wants to annul land demarcation decisions made by previous administrations, but legal experts say recent Brazilian Supreme Court rulings could block such move. New health minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta also suggested on Wednesday that there will be spending cuts in health care for the indigenous. We have figures for the general public that are much below what is spent on health care for the indigenous, he said, without providing details. In removing LGBT concerns from the responsibilities of the human rights ministry, Mr Bolsonaro did not name any agency to consider such issues. He has strongly criticised what he calls gender-based ideology, saying it is a threat to Brazils Christian values. Damares Alves, the new human rights minister, did not discuss the LGBT order in her first address on the job, but the evangelical pastor has insisted over the years that the Brazilian family is being threatened by diversity policies. On Wednesday, she said: The state is lay, but this minister is terribly Christian. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Under the new administration, "girls will be princesses and boys will be princes. There will be no more ideological indoctrination of children and teenagers in Brazil, Ms Alves added. LGBT activist Symmy Larrat said she does not expect reasonable treatment from the Bolsonaro administration. The human rights ministry discussed our concerns at a body called secretariat of promotion and defence of human rights. "That body just disappeared, just like that. We dont see any signs there will be any other government infrastructure to handle LGBT issues, she said. The newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported that Bolsonaro will later announce the closing of an agency within the Education Ministry that has been aimed at promoting diversity in public schools and universities. New foreign minister Ernesto Araujo indirectly criticised the LGBT community as being those that say they are not men and women. Also on Wednesday, the Brazilian Press Association criticised restrictions on journalists at Mr Bolsonaros inauguration. Reporters had to arrive seven hours before the events began and were forbidden to move freely in Congress and the presidential palace. Food was seized and access to bathrooms and water was limited. What was seen in different scenarios of Brasilia is incompatible with a democratic regime, the association said in a statement. "Respect to the press is one of the main indicators of nations that consider themselves civilised. Mr Bolsonaros first day in office sparked a wave of optimism in Brazils financial market. Stocks of Brazils electric-company Eletrobras soared more than 20 per cent. Arms maker Taurus, one of the main allies of the new president, jumped more than 47 per cent. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Mr Bolsonaro, a fan of US president Donald Trump, met with secretary of state Mike Pompeo to discuss joint efforts regarding the leftist administrations in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Mr Pompeo told him that Mr Trump is very pleased with the relationship that our two countries are on the precipice of beginning to develop. Hes also confident that [the relationship between the US and Brazil] will benefit the world and the set of shared values that we believe we can together advance, Mr Pompeo said before leaving Brazil for Colombia. AP The children fell ill, one by one, with cancers that few families in this suburban Indianapolis community had ever heard of. An avid swimmer struck down by glioblastoma, which grew a tumour in her brain. Four children with Ewings sarcoma, a rare bone cancer. Fifteen children with acute lymphocytic leukemia, including three cases diagnosed in the past year. As cases mounted, parents started to ask: Could it be something in the air or water? Their questions led them to an old industrial site in Franklin, the Johnson county seat, that the federal government had ordered cleaned up decades ago. Recent tests have identified a carcinogenic plume spreading underground, releasing vapours into homes. Now, families in a county that voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump are making demands of his administration that collide directly with one of his main agendas: the rolling back of health and environmental regulations. Recommended Trump administration to make it easier for factories to emit mercury On Wednesday, a group representing dozens of concerned parents called for a federal investigation by the Environmental Protection Agencys Office of Inspector General into why Franklins toxic plume of trichloroethylene, or TCE, persists. The group accuses the EPA of serious mismanagement and significant delays at the site, even after the dangers became apparent. Families across the political spectrum have spoken out against the Trump administrations drive to weaken restrictions on TCE, a colourless fluid used by as many as four-fifths of the United States' 65,000 dry cleaners, as well as about 2,200 factories and other facilities. Decades ago, it was used at the Franklin site. Twice last year, parents travelled to Washington to urge the administration to stick with stronger controls. We are done begging, said Kari Rhinehart, the mother of Emma Grace Findley, the 13-year-old swimmer who developed brain cancer and died in 2014. We are demanding the EPA finish what it started and place these restrictions on TCE and other dangerous toxins. The EPA confirmed that the chemicals were present near the Franklin site and said that fewer than 10 of 37 homes it had tested had potential air quality issues. The agency said its testing was continuing and that, if necessary, homes would be fitted with devices to clean the air. Declaring TCE carcinogenic to humans by all routes of exposure, the Obama administration had sought to restrict two of its riskiest uses, as a stain remover and as a degreaser, and had marked it for further review, potentially to ban the chemical altogether. It had also moved to strengthen cleanup rules for hundreds of sites believed to be contaminated. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty But at the urging of industry groups, the Trump administration has stalled some of those moves. In 2017 it indefinitely postponed the proposed bans on risky uses, leaving as many as 178,000 workers potentially exposed. It also scaled back a review of TCE and other chemicals. In Johnson County, a parents group co-founded by Rhinehart, If It Was Your Child, has traced at least 58 childhood cancer cases since 2008. At 21.7 cases of paediatric cancer per 100,000 children, Johnson Countys rate puts it in the 80th percentile among counties nationwide. Both the national and Indiana average are fewer than 18 paediatric cancers per 100,000 children. You dont expect to see so many cancers in a relatively small community, said Dr. Paolo Boffetta, professor in environmental medicine and public health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Even so, he stressed that there was little research linking childhood cancers to TCE. This doesnt mean an association doesnt exist, he said. But studies have not been able to confirm it. The TCE contamination has been traced to a former factory that, for years, discharged industrial wastewater into a municipal sewer. Amphenol, an electronics maker based in Wallingford, Connecticut, became responsible for the cleanup after acquiring the site, although it no longer owns the property. In June, tests by an environmental group detected the chemical in the air at two homes and in outdoor air near the site. The findings prompted more tests by local and state government officials, including one by Franklin that found levels more than 250 times state limits around a sewer near the homes. In November, the EPA identified a plume of contamination stretching beyond the site towards nearby homes. The state investigators who descended on Jennifer Clarks house in October drilled into her basement floor. They sought signs that chemicals in the ground were turning into a vapour and rising into her home. Her daughter Chelsea learned when she was 12 that she had acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. After chemotherapy, Chelsea, now 18, is in remission; she dreams of working in the beauty industry. But over the summer, the Clarks received daunting news. Tests at their home on behalf of the Franklin parents group detected TCE levels more than 18 times federal limits. Testing is tricky. Indeed, later tests showed lower levels in the house. Still, the Clarks, who live about a mile and a half from the former industrial site, remain worried. Recommended Flint families file federal lawsuit over lead poisoned children Amphenol agreed to a cleanup in 1990, installing a pump and treat system that was supposed to control the contamination. For decades Amphenol pumped out groundwater, but contamination remained. Two girls lived, several years apart, in the same Franklin apartment about a mile from the toxic site. Both developed cancer, one at age 8 and the other at 14. You cant go anywhere, or do anything, without meeting someone whos been affected, said Angela Brennan, whose daughter, Karley, was one of those girls. In 2012, the family learned that Karley had cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, a cancer affecting the skin. Later that year, 14-year-old Madison Newton was told that she had an aggressive form of pilocytic astrocytoma, which causes tumours in the brain and spinal cord. Karley, who turns 15 this week, is in remission. Madison died in 2015. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Many members of If It Was Your Child in the Franklin area play down the politics. Nevertheless, their demands come at a time when the Trump administration has weakened the rules that could prevent another Franklin. Its not a political fight for us, said Stacie Davidson, a Trump voter who co-founded the parents group with Rhinehart (who didnt vote for Trump). Davidson said, His loosening of EPA regulations, its infuriating. Davidson learned in 2014 that her stepson, Zane, who was 10 at the time, had a rare form of leukaemia. He is in remission. Still, she said, she did not regret her vote. Trumps a businessman. There are great things he can do for our country. But hes used to building high-rises for money, she said. Hes not as environmentally savvy. Our hope is that he surrounds himself with people who are more knowledgeable. New York Times The public safety commission investigating last years mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School has recommended in its preliminary report that teachers should be allowed to carry guns at school. The 15-member commission made the recommendation as a part of a 446-page report that was written in the year since the shooting, and would see volunteer educators undergo training before they could bring firearms to class. The report includes several other recommendations with most appearing aimed at hardening schools so that carrying out mass shootings at schools would be logistically much more difficult. The recommendations will now be considered by Florida's state legislature, as well as outgoing Republican Governor Rick Scott who leaves office on 8 January and his replacement, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. Proposals to arm teachers have been highly contentious in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting, where 17 people, including 14 students, were killed. President Donald Trump suggested in the aftermath of that Valentines Day massacre that he would support efforts to arm teachers, as well as other security measures. Recommended Parkland shooting response delayed because officials rewound video However, leading teachers organisations including the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association have rejected the proposals, which are often floated as potential fixes to school gun crimes when massacres occur. Those teachers groups are not alone: The National Association of School Resource Officers, an organisation that represents school-based resource officers, has also said it is not a great idea. Florida shooting in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Florida shooting in pictures Florida shooting in pictures Police arrest a suspect in connection with the shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida Reuters Florida shooting in pictures Parents wait for news after reports of a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida AP Florida shooting in pictures Anxious family members wait for news of students AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee Florida shooting in pictures Students being evacuated from the school AP Florida shooting in pictures Students being evacuated from the school Getty Florida shooting in pictures People gather waiting for word from students AP Florida shooting in pictures Parents waiting for news on their children AP Florida shooting in pictures People gather at a hotel where students were taken after the shooting Getty Florida shooting in pictures Florida Governor Rick Scott speaks to the media as he visits Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School following the shooting AFP/Getty Florida shooting in pictures Dr. Igor Nichiporenko, Medical Director Trauma, left, and Dr. Evan Boyer, Medical Director, Emergency Services, speak about treating victims and the suspect at a press conference outside Broward Health North hospital AP The commissions report recommends several measures to toughen security in schools, including the installation of bulletproof glass on all school windows by 2025, and making sure that classroom doors can be locked from the inside. As a student attending school in Florida, I am appalled that the commission that was established to make schools in our state safer is recommending teachers carry guns, Juliana Simone Carrasco, a Florida high school student and gun violence activist, said in a statement. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events I dont want my teachers to be armed, I want my elected leaders to pass policies to keep guns out of the hands of people with dangerous intentions to begin with, she added. The programme to arm teachers would be voluntary, and teachers would not be allowed to carry guns in school until they complete 132 hours of training. A woman has been charged with manslaughter in connection with a deadly "butt lift" procedure performed in her New York home, police said. Police arrested Whalesca Castillo, 44, on Wednesday morning over the death of Philadelphia woman Lesbia Ayala, 48, on 17 June. Ms Ayala died of an embolism after the police say Ms Castillo pumped silicone into her buttocks and thighs. Ms Ayala had traveled from her home in Philadelphia to Ms Castillos apartment on Seward Avenue in the Bronx for the illegal procedure. Ms Castillo had been arrested twice before, charged with providing illegal silicone injections in the Bronx to women who wanted to enhance their figures. Recommended Why Brazilian butt lifts are the deadliest type of plastic surgery One client had texted Whalesca Castillo after a procedure, complaining of leaking blood and liquid from her buttocks and legs, court documents said. Ms Castillo replied by suggesting her favourite method for stanching a wound: Buy some crazy glue and put it on. Ms Castillo pleaded guilty in September 2011 to charges related to operating a fly-by-night plastic surgery clinic without a medical license, and served a year in federal prison. Released on probation, she was caught doing silicone enhancement procedures again in March 2014 and was sent back to prison for nine months. On Wednesday morning, detectives arrested Ms Castillo again, this time on a state charge of manslaughter linked to the death of Lesbia Ayala. Ms Castillo could not be reached for comment on Wednesday because she was being held in jail pending an arraignment. Her lawyer, Robert Osuna, said he had not yet read the criminal complaint and could not comment on it. Well have to see what the charges allege, he said. Buttock enhancement surgery, known as a Brazilian butt lift, has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years, driven in part by the allure of famously curvy pop-culture figures like Beyonce, Kim Kardashian and Nicki Minaj, plastic surgeons say. Cardi B, the former exotic dancer turned hip-hop superstar, told GQ Magazine last year that she received silicone injections in her buttocks and thighs for $800 from an underground medical clinic in Queens. The injections, she said, were performed without painkillers and leaked for almost a week. In New York City, the authorities have seen a surge in illegal clinics catering to women who want to change their shapes but might not be able to afford a licensed plastic surgeon. The procedures can be fatal, as silicone injected directly into tissues in the legs can be carried by veins to the heart and lungs. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Injecting silicone for cosmetic purposes has been illegal since the 1960s because of the risk of deformities, scarring and embolisms. Surgeons today generally use fat taken from other parts of the body, or implants. In 2017, Latesha Bynum, 44, died after receiving injections inside a Gramercy Park apartment, where a cash-only plastic surgery clinic operated. The police arrested Kevin Richardson and Allison Spence in connection with her death. Mr Richardson pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, Ms Spence is awaiting trial. In 2013, 22-year-old Tamara Blaine died after receiving silicone injections at the Liberty Motel in Manhattans Meatpacking District. Tamira Mobley, a self-described beautician, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, admitting she caused Ms Blaines death. Recommended Plastic surgeons told not to perform butt lift after second woman dies Plastic surgeons report there has been a steep rise in requests for buttocks augmentation in recent years, with double-digit increases. There were 18,489 buttocks augmentations performed by licensed doctors in the United States in 2016, up 26 per cent from the year before. And there were 2,999 buttocks implants, an 18 per cent increase, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Ms Castillo, 44, was taken into custody at her home on Wednesday morning and is expected to appear at Bronx Criminal Court on Thursday. She was charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and the unauthorised practice of a profession. Court papers from Ms Castillos federal case in 2011 offer a glimpse into how her underground plastic surgery clinics functioned. She received hundreds of bottles of silicone gel shipped in the mail from the Dominican Republic, marked in Spanish as silicone for hair or for body massage. Appointments were arranged by telephone, and clients received injections at the various Bronx houses where Ms Castillo operated, court papers said. She casually disposed of medical waste, including used needles, bottles of silicone and tubes of glue, on the sidewalk. When her patients complained of pain or bleeding, Ms Castillo would discourage them from seeking medical treatment, according to a 2012 sentencing memorandum. The prosecutors found numerous photographs on Ms Castillos telephone of women on treatment tables who had received as many as a dozen shots in each buttock, placing them in constant danger of a blocked artery from loosened silicone, the memorandum said. It must be noted that the fluids are injected directly into human tissue, prosecutors wrote. Unlike silicone gel implants, which are extracted when they leak, silicone injected directly into tissue cannot be removed and therefore represents a long-term hazard. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The business was lucrative, with Ms Castillo charging $1,500 for each procedure. Federal authorities noted in the sentencing memorandum that Ms Castillo owned two vehicles, a nail salon and three Bronx properties worth a combined total of $1.4m. In 2012, Ms Castillo also pleaded guilty in state court to third-degree grand larceny for falsely claiming $30,000 in welfare benefits from the city Human Resources Administration. In short, this defendant has shown little respect for the law, the memorandum said. New York Times A former police chief has been indicted on rape and incest charges by a grand jury in Alabama. Brian Scott Martin faces felony charges of rape, sodomy, incest, and distributing an illegal substance to a minor. He is accused of raping a family member who was incapable of consent by reason of being physically helpless or mentally incapacitated. Mr Martin, who led the police force in the small city of Lipscomb, had been fired from his job in August over separate drug allegations. At the end of July police had executed a search of Mr Martin's home and found marijuana nd a bong, a later search of his patrol car led to the discovery of more cannabis and another bong. Mr Martin was then charged with with misdemeanour counts of second-degree marijuana possession and possession of drug paraphernalia, according to documents filed in St Clair County District Court. The latest indictment came as Mr Martin was arrested on 21 December following an alleged DUI in Pell City. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Court records from that incident indicated that Mr Martin blew a 0.11 in a breathalyser test, and had nearly hit a police cruiser during the incident. Mr Martin had been booked in the St Clair County Jail, but officials say that he is no longer in custody after posting $100,000 bail. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Mr Martin has responded to the rape and incest charges by telling AL.com that all of the stuff is not true. Im just going to battle it out in court. Thats all I can do, he said. Mr Martin is scheduled to appear in court on 26 February for the misdemeanour drug charges. His felony arraignment is scheduled for 16 January. An argument between two groups of youths at a courthouse in Boston led to a man being stabbed, police said. It is unclear what prompted the fight at the Suffolk Superior Court, but investigators from Massachusetts State Police said it began in the lift. As the quarrel continued, the group moved to a cafeteria on the second-floor where the stabbing took place. The victim was transferred to a nearby hospital. His injuries were not thought to be life threatening. His assailants fled before they could be arrested. Recommended Bouncer stabbed to death trying to stop Park Lane party gatecrashers Joseph Simons, a Boston defense attorney, praised the court officers and police. The officers responded quickly and efficiently and it seemed they worked as a team and made a quick dash to the elevators, he told The Boston Herald. I was thankful we have a well-staffed courthouse and professional officers able to respond to the situation. He added: It is too early to speculate what he was allegedly stabbed with, I know when you go in they check everyone the stabbing is such an anomaly so I dont think we need to speculate yet about how to change policy. Theresa Mays Northern Irish partners in government have raised the stakes in the on-going Brexit talks, saying there is no need for parts of the deal she agreed with the EU. DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds argued that the withdrawal agreement she is seeking flies in the face of the governments own commitments relating to the border between the north and the Republic. His comments came after a meeting in Downing Street, and are a blow to the prime minister as she desperately tries to convince the party and her own MPs to back her proposals. Mr Dodds whose party has vehemently opposed the so-called Irish backstop said it is becoming clearer by the day that politicians in both the Republic of Ireland and the north would not resort to building a border between their countries in any circumstances. He said: The withdrawal agreement, as currently proposed, flies in the face of the governments commitments on Northern Ireland as we leave the EU. Contrary to pro-EU spin, the backstop is not the best of both worlds. It is potentially indefinite in time, would place a barrier between us and our main trading partner in Great Britain and give enormous leverage to the European Union in the negotiations on the future relationship with the United Kingdom. He added that his party would nonetheless continue to work with the government in the interests of getting a better deal, giving some reassurance that the confidence and supply arrangement which keeps the Conservatives in power is still in place. Downing Street declined to comment on Mr Dodds comments. Jeremy Hunt insists parliament will back Brexit deal: 'The EU has agreed that the backstop is temporary and what we need them to do is define what temporary is' Under Ms Mays plan, the backstop comes into play if the UK and EU have failed to reach a deal on future relations by the end of the Brexit transition period. It would keep the whole UK in a customs union with the EU, with Britain only able to leave the arrangement with the mutual agreement of Brussels. Ms May has spent Christmas in talks with EU leaders as she seeks further concessions from Brussels to mitigate displeasure among the DUP and her own MPs at the inclusion of the Irish backstop. Her proposals are set to come back to the House of Commons for a vote in the week beginning January 14, though there have been some suggestion that it could be delayed further. Theresa May has been urged to suspend a crunch Commons vote on her Brexit deal for the second time in the hope that Brussels offers fresh concessions that can win over MPs. Ex-Brexit secretary David Davis claimed an agreement would be reached "at the eleventh hour" because the EU is worried about losing the 39bn divorce bill promised under the terms of Ms May's deal. The Brexiteer Tory MP said "time is our friend" as exit day approaches in March, arguing that "the more we prepare to leave the EU without a deal, the more likely a good deal becomes". Recommended Grayling defends Brexit ferry contract for firm with no ships MPs are due to return to Westminster next week ahead of a showdown vote on the prime minister's Brexit deal, which is scheduled to occure in the week of January 14. Ms May was forced to pull the vote in December in the face of near-certain defeat, triggering an unsuccessful no-confidence motion at the hand of her backbenchers. She is expected to launch a fresh round of diplomacy this week, reaching out to EU leaders including German chancellor Angela Merkel, Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte and European Council president Donald Tusk to secure assurances over the Irish backstop to win over her sceptical MPs. Officials have been holding talks with their counterparts in Brussels over the Christmas period, a Downing Street source said. Mr Davis, writing in The Telegraph, said: "The withdrawal agreement does not respect the referendum result. That is why the meaningful vote had to be delayed and one wonders if even the January vote will go ahead. "Attempts to frighten MPs into supporting it are unlikely to work, because voting down this substandard deal will not result in no Brexit." Urging Ms May to take her time to get a better deal, he adds: "We know that the EU is worried about the loss of the 39bn 'divorce' payment if there is no deal... so this is the moment to be hard-nosed about these issues. "The more we prepare to leave the EU without a deal, the more likely a good deal becomes. "Tory MPs must remain committed to delivering the referendum result, as repeated in our manifesto, which pledged to leave the customs union and the single market and which said that no deal is better than a bad deal. "To do otherwise would frankly throw our democracy's credibility into chaos." Ms May is facing an uphill battle to get her deal through the Commons in a fortnight's time amid opposition from both Brexit factions in the Conservative party and continued resistance from her Democratic Unionist Party allies. DUP Westminster leader Nigel Dodds was in London on Wednesday, where he reportedly held talks at Downing Street, while Tory whips are said to have made concerted efforts over Christmas to win over wavering MPs. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events German foreign office minister Niels Annen signalled that the EU was unlikely to offer further concessions to Ms May, saying there was already a "very fair offer" on the table. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The prime minister knows pretty well that of course Germany has a part in the political situation but the negotiation partner is the European Union. "We believe that there is a very fair offer on the table and I think what's very important for our conversation is whether Brexit will happen or not is not our decision to be made. "We respect whatever the British people will decide but I believe that we can already see the cooperation between UK and Germany in international affairs is very close, it's very constructive." Whitehall departments will step up warnings to the public over the threat of a no-deal Brexit ahead of the crunch Commons vote on Theresa Mays withdrawal agreement. Brexit secretary Stephen Barclay warned that a disorderly Brexit will be far more likely if MPs vote down the prime ministers deal, as he was due to chair a meeting in Westminster of junior ministers responsible for emergency planning. With less than three months until exit day, Mr Barclay also announced the government will start publishing guidance on how the public can prepare for a no-deal scenario, using radio and social media broadcasts to spread the message. Businesses have already been given more than 100 technical notices on how to prepare for crashing out of the EU without a deal, covering areas ranging from roaming charges and driving licences to pet passports. It comes after the government was mocked for spending nearly 100,000 on Facebook adverts to sell Ms Mays Brexit deal to the public only for the key vote to be delayed in December over fears of a crushing defeat. Ministers have now ramped up no-deal planning as Ms May seeks to persuade MPs that her deal is the only option to prevent a chaotic exit from the EU. The pace and intensity of the work we are doing reflects the potential scale of this disruption to people and businesses across the UK that a no-deal scenario could bring, Mr Barclay wrote in the Daily Express. The Home Office will next week be publicising guidance on new passport rules for people travelling to many European countries. These rules would mean some people have to renew their passport earlier than planned. Advice is already available online and next week the Home Office will further publicise how to renew a passport as easily as possible. The Department for Transport is sharing guidance on how we will ensure people can continue to travel to the EU in the event of no deal, and today the medicines regulator has updated guidance to ensure regulatory processes for medicines, medical devices and clinical trials are fit for purpose. And, on Tuesday, we will start a new phase in our public information campaign, using radio and social media to further raise awareness. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Pro-EU campaigners accused the government of spending taxpayers cash to distract from gaping flaws in its own deal. Labour MP Virendra Sharma, who supports pro-EU group Best for Britain, said: The government has already spent hundreds of thousands pushing its Brexit agenda on social media. Now it wants to spend more taxpayers money distracting from the gaping flaws in its own deal by warning of a no deal catastrophe. Its a bleak start to 2019, but theres still time to brighten up the new year by giving the public the final say over Brexit, with the option to stay and strengthen ourselves within Europe. A special exhibit arrived on the island at the end of December to showcase Civil Rights in the Sunshine State through Feb. 8. The Museum of Florida History developed the Civil Rights in the Sunshine State exhibit to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The history of the Civil Rights Movement in Florida is shown through pictures, graphs and narratives. Advisors on the exhibit included civil rights activists from Tallahassee, Jacksonville and other cities, as well as historians from Florida State University, the University of Florida, Florida A&M University and the Florida African American Heritage Preservation Network. Yvonne Hill of the Sanibel Community Association Circle of Community Leadership, said in 2014 she saw the exhibit in Fort Myers before it went to four other cities through Florida before going back into storage. She said she and Executive Director Teresa Riska-Hall have had many conversations that they wanted to do something for Black History month, but their schedules never linked together. This year we said lets do it. I contacted the museum and they agreed to let us borrow it, Hill said. I thought it would be a different kind of exhibit for Sanibel. The exhibit being showcased at the Sanibel Community House, 2173 Periwinkle Way, was made possible by a grant from the Florida Humanities Council and generous donations from the Circle of Community Leadership, MudBugs, Lions Club, Sanibel Congregational United Church Christ, M.F.H. Museum of Florida History, as well as numerous other individuals. The exhibit is located throughout the house. Pretty much people can take a self-guided tour. There are nice narratives that go with the pictures. they can get a good feel for the exhibit, Hill said. The exhibit includes videos of such civil rights leaders as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Patricia Stephens Due, Theodore Gibson and the Reverend C.K. Steele. On Jan. 23, a presentation, African Roots of Southern Cooking will be given by Blanchard House Museum Executive Director Dr. Martha Bireda, in conjunction with Executive Chef Jarred Harris. There will be samples available, so attendees can taste some southern food. Another presentation will be given on Feb. 4 with Dr. Anthony Dixon, professor and University Archivist Bethune-Cookman College. The Rev. Dr. John Danner, senior pastor of the Sanibel Congregational United Church of Christ will speak about his perspective on what it means to be an ally in the struggle for civil rights. Both of the events are held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. They are free and open to the public. We are hoping the whole community will turn out to se this important exhibit. Its important for everyone to know about the civil rights struggle, Hill said, adding that she encourages everyone to experience the stories of the courageous Floridians who stood up to ensure quality. Irish producers have already been hit by the fall in the value of sterling as a result of Brexit, but Mr Creed said a hard Brexit would make that look like a teddy bears picnic. The announcement comes as Irelands taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said his government was stepping up preparations for a no-deal Brexit. Ms May is seeking to secure further concessions from European leaders on the controversial issue of the Northern Ireland backstop, which dictates what should happen if there is no agreement on the future relationship between the UK and EU. However, her European counterparts have insisted there can be no renegotiation of the deal agreed late last year. Mr Varadkar said he had held a 40 minute phone call with German chancellor Angela Merkel and agreed there would be no changes to the withdrawal agreement. He said: Once again what we both really agreed is that once again this is a problem created in London... and were really looking to them for a solution. Those who create a problem must be the ones who have a responsibility to come up with a solution. We need to hear from them. The governments vision for post-Brexit farming does not provide enough protection for the environment, meaning food production is at risk, according to a farming group. Michael Goves agriculture bill is a cornerstone of his plan for a green Brexit, but campaigners say it has fallen short of providing long-term protection for UK nature. The environment secretary addressed two farming conferences in Oxford on Thursday, one focusing on traditional agriculture and the other based around a more nature-friendly approach. At both events Mr Gove laid out his plans for a system in which farmers are paid money for protecting public goods for example improving water and air quality or restoring habitats. But Martin Lines, chair of the Nature Friendly Farming Network and an arable farmer in Cambridgeshire, said he was not entirely reassured by the ministers pronouncements. Hes saying a lot but theres not enough detail, he told The Independent. We are getting public pay for public good, but for those farmers that choose not to engage with that policy, how are we going to manage the rest of that landscape? Poor farming practices need to be challenged and changed any farmer that is delivering poor practices needs help and support in changing their farming methods. The Nature Friendly Farming Network was set up a year ago in response to the devastating wildlife losses, soil depletion and water pollution linked to industrial farming in the UK. British mammals fight for survival Show all 11 1 /11 British mammals fight for survival British mammals fight for survival The Mammal Societys assessment of Britains mammal populations is the first such review in over 20 years. The results reveal winners and losers, and highlight some of the key threats facing the countrys wildlife such as habitat loss, invasive species and the spread of diseases. British mammals fight for survival Hedgehogs Populations of the much-loved insectivore may have declined by as much as 73% Richard Bowler British mammals fight for survival Greater mouse-eared bats Only one of these flying mammals has been recorded in the whole country, in a railway tunnel in West Sussex Andrew Harrington British mammals fight for survival Rabbits Despite being a common sight across the countryside, rabbits have decreased in number by nearly 10% Danni Thompson British mammals fight for survival Black Rats Though not generally considered threatened animals, black rats number have collapsed in recent years due largely to pest control measures. However their far more common cousins, the brown rats, are thriving. Tim Melling British mammals fight for survival Red Squirrels Though it is difficult to measure changes in squirrel numbers, their range has shrunk considerably due largely to the spread of squirrel pox virus by invasive grey squirrel Alistair Marsh British mammals fight for survival Wildcats There has been a marked decline in wildcat populations, with only around 200 left in Scotland Rachel Profit British mammals fight for survival Badgers Due to legal protections badgers have recovered from past persecution and the density of their setts (holes) has increased by over 100% in recent decades Phil Mumby British mammals fight for survival Otters The banning of persistent organic pesticides has had a positive population effect on otters Allan Chard British mammals fight for survival Fallow Deer The 2018 review estimates a population size of fallow deer almost three times the size of that estimated in the 1995 review a positive trend that is seen in other deer species. James Shooter British mammals fight for survival Eurasian Beavers These aquatic mammals were nearly extinct in Europe at the start of the 20th century, but their reintroduction to the UK have been largely successful Paul Scott The group thinks minimum green standards are required across the board to stop some farmers from polluting indiscriminately, something that is not currently included in the agriculture bill. If such steps are not taken, they warn environmental degradation could render future food production very difficult. Mr Lines also said the government needed to enshrine the UKs strict animal welfare and environment standards in law to govern post-Brexit trade deals. While Mr Gove and other ministers have promised these standards will not be allowed to slip when seeking deals with nations such as the US, campaigners and other MPs are concerned these promises have not been included in the agriculture bill. We really need to see it in writing we cannot rely on MPs and the public to keep an eye on those trade deals, said Mr Lines. Shadow environment secretary Sue Hayman echoed this sentiment, describing Mr Goves speech as totally meaningless considering the threat posed by post-Brexit deals. Rumours have swirled for months about lobbying by nations with lower standards to export chlorine-washed chicken and other products not allowed in the UK. Mr Gove used his speech at the Oxford Farming Conference to berate the EUs Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which he described as a bureaucratic straightjacket. Michael Gove defends lack of post-Brexit protection against chlorinated chicken in agriculture bill He said being free of these rules would allow enormous environmental progress, but said this would be threatened in the event of a no-deal Brexit. We can move to support genuine productivity enhancement and public goods like clean air, climate change mitigation or the improvement of soil, or water quality or improvements to pollinator habitats, he said. These real gains risk being undermined if we leave the EU without a deal. Concerns about post-Brexit trade, as well as a no-deal outcome, were echoed by the National Farmers Union. President Minette Batters said that with less than 90 days to go until exit day, there was still enormous uncertainty about the future of Britains food production. Britain is bracing for a cold snap which could worsen towards the end of the month, as temperatures in some places plummet as low as -10C. Forecasters have warned Britons to wrap up warm and look after vulnerable people as conditions akin to last years Beast from the East could hit in the coming weeks. Overnight on Wednesday temperatures fell as low as -10.5C in Braemar, Aberdeenshire and many woke to freezing temperatures on Thursday on what marked the coldest day this winter. The Met Office and Public Health England have issued a level two cold weather alert for most of northern and central England. The most vulnerable, including children, the elderly and those with chronic diseases, have been warned to take extra care as the cold weather could increase health risks. Forecasters have warned Britain faces an increased chance of severe weather towards the second half of January because of something known as sudden stratospheric warming, which is currently taking place over the Arctic. This raising of temperatures at high altitudes eventually led to the Beast from the East being drawn in from Siberia, battering the UK with heavy snow and ice-cold temperatures in February and March last year. The extreme weather brought the country to a virtual standstill and left 17 people dead. Those venturing out on Thursday morning experienced a very cold start to the day, which was predicted to be mostly dry with sunny spells and patchy cloud. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Temperatures were expected to reach highs of just 5C in London, 3C in Edinburgh, 6C in Cardiff and 7C in Belfast. Overnight on Thursday was forecast to bring frost and freezing fog in places with clear skies, meaning a very cold start to Friday. MeteoGroup forecaster Paul Knightley told The Independent: Until the end of the weekend the weather is pretty much stuck in a rut. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Friday will see some sunshine and over the next few days weve got some very similar weather; it will be dry and on the chilly side, particularly overnight. Towards the weekend it may turn slightly milder Saturday into Sunday. Going into Monday it may be a bit wet and windy in northern areas but nothing out of the ordinary for the time of the year. He added: It is colder than average at the moment so it is a chilly snap but compared to what cold spells can be like this is nothing. I think the further we get into January the higher the chance of some colder weather. Theres increasing risk of some colder weather developing and there could be a risk of snow but its by no means certain. A man has been charged with firearms offences by detectives investigating the fatal stabbing of a security guard at a New Years Eve party in Londons West End. Imran Mostafa Kamel was remanded in custody, charged with two offences in relation to possession of a firearm after being arrested during a probe into the death of 33-year-old Tudo Simionov during an incident in Park Lane. The action taken against the 26-year-old, of Ealing, west London, is not directly related to the murder Mr Simionov, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement. Charges related to a separate incident, which took place at the same address where the bouncer was stabbed during the early hours of New Years Day. Scotland Yard said no firearms had been discharged at the scene at any point during the evening. Recommended Bouncer stabbed to death trying to stop Park Lane party gatecrashers Mr Simionov had been working outside the event at Fountain House in an upmarket area of the capital when he was knifed as he tried to prevent gatecrashers entering the premises. The doorman had only recently moved to the UK from Romania and had been living in Ilford, east London. Mr Simionovs girlfriend, Madalina Anghel, paid tribute to him on Thursday, describing him as the one who was going to be my husband. Its hard for me to find the right words in these moments, she wrote on Facebook. The news of his unexpected death has pained us all. Doorman Mr Simionov was stabbed to death by gatecrashers (Tudor Simionov/LinkedIn) Three other people, two bouncers aged 29 and 37 and a 29-year-old woman, were also hurt in the attack, although their injuries are not thought to be life-threatening. Speaking on Wednesday, DCI Andy Partridge of the Met Police said: This shocking attack has left one man dead and three others with significant injuries. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The fact this takes place during the New Year celebrations has rightly captured a lot of attention. Whilst my team have already spoken to a number of witnesses, others are yet to be traced. It is understandable that some people may have left the scene immediately after having witnessed the attack, possibly not knowing how serious it was at the time. But now, knowing this has resulted in murder of Mr Simionov and the serious injuries inflicted upon the three other victims, they should come forward and assist the investigation. Kamel, of The Grove, Ealing, who appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court, was remanded in custody to appear in court on Thursday 31 January, the Metropolitan Police said. Additional reporting by PA The son of radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza has been charged with firearms offences by police investigating the murder of a security guard at a New Years Eve party in London. Scotland Yard said Imran Mostafa Kamel, 26, of Ealing, west London, had been charged with possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear or danger, and possession of a firearm when prohibited for life. He appeared at Londons Westminster Magistrates Court and was remanded in custody until the end of the month. Security guard Tudor Simionov, 33, was working outside the private event at Fountain House in Park Lane in Mayfair when he was attacked at about 5.30am on 1 January. He was stabbed to death as he tried to stop gatecrashers storming into a party. Recommended Bouncer stabbed to death trying to stop Park Lane party gatecrashers However, Scotland Yard said the charges against Kamel were in connection with a separate incident at the building at 5.36am that day, in which no firearm was discharged. The charges are not directly linked with Mr Simionovs death or the other people who were injured in the attack, the police spokesperson said. Two of Mr Simionovs colleagues, aged 29 and 37, were also stabbed during the fight, as was a 29-year-old woman. Their injuries are not life-threatening. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Abu Hamza is serving a life term in the US for terrorism offences. He was jailed in the UK in 2006 for inciting violence, and in 2012 was extradited to New York after a protracted legal battle. Kamels next court appearance is due on 31 January. Nasa officials have defended the name of a distant space object after questions over its link to Nazis. Ultima Thule an icy world floating in the Kuiper Belt, at the edge of our Solar System this week became the most distant object ever to be explored by humanity. Scientists have already received stunning photos back from the New Horizons spacecraft that took a look at it, and expect to make even deeper discoveries in the coming months and years. But, even while that has happened, controversy has continued to rage over the name that Nasa chose to give to that far-away target. The phrase Ultima Thule is a Latin metaphor, used historically to refer to those parts of the world so distant that they were unknown. As such, it has appeared on maps and in other places for centuries. But in addition to those older uses, the word has been used by some Nazis to refer to the mystical land where the Aryan race began. The German Thule Society was an important contributor to the Nazis, and the phrase continues to be used by some neo-Nazi and alt-right groups today. Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 1 /30 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 more commonly known as WR 124 and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago Nasa's most stunning pictures of space The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead sharing pictures of black holes Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station Nasa/Scott Kelly Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Pluto image Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called draa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region That connection was made in a Newsweek article in March, when the name was first announced, following a public competition. But that article and the sentiment behind it have been shared again over the last week, after the Nasa mission successfully surveyed Ultima Thule itself. Recommended Nasa unveil remarkable picture of the most distant world ever explored Now the Nasa mission's principal investigator, Alan Stern, has spoken out about the name and defended the decision to keep using it even after the connection became clear. "I sort of thought we might get that question," he said when reporters pressed him on the issue during a conference to discuss the first results from the flyby. "I've said it a number of times, I think New Horizons is an example one of the best examples in our time of raw exploration, and the term Ultima Thule, which is very old, many centuries old, possibly over a thousand years old, is a wonderful name for exploration," he said. "That's why we chose it. I would say that just because some bad guys once liked that term, we're not going to let them hijack it." The name is only temporary, and the object will be given a permanent one by the International Astronomical Union. That was left until the flyby was completed and the object was better known, allowing its proper name to reflect its properties. Humanity has finally landed in a place that was near but almost entirely mysterious: the far side of the moon. That world forever turned away from the Earth, and from which signals cannot be sent directly has finally been explored by a rover that dropped onto the surface. It is a breakthrough that will allow humanity to learn more about its near neighbour. But it could also serve as another part of a grand attempt by China to understand more about our Solar System, and one step onto sending humans to the Moon and deeper into our neighbourhood. The Chinese space agency was already one of three to have sent spacecraft to the Moon, alongside the US and the former Soviet Union. But the latest arrival is a breakthrough, as the first ever landing on the so-called dark side of the Moon. It is a difficult and unexplored place not only because it is shielded from us. The other side of the Moon is marked by craters and other geological disruption, making it a less smooth and simple place to drop down onto with a lander like Chang'e 4. Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 1 /30 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 more commonly known as WR 124 and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago Nasa's most stunning pictures of space The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead sharing pictures of black holes Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station Nasa/Scott Kelly Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Pluto image Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called draa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region The first photos sent back depict that surface: showing a small crater and a barren surface, lit by light from the lunar explorer itself. Those photos are just the beginning of a mission that will take years to fully understand. Recommended Chinese spacecraft sends first ever pictures taken on far side of moon In the near term, the lander is going to go on to do even more pioneering work perhaps most notably in its attempt to grow insects and plants there. As well as the more traditional sensors used to research the ground it stands on as well as the space in which it is travelling it is carrying "biosphere" of seeds and insect eggs that will be used to see whether they can hatch and grow as they depend on each other. In the longer term, China hopes it serves as part of a mission to get even more interesting forms of life onto the Moon, as part of a lunar colony that could eventually become home to humans. Chang'e 4's sensors will also allow it to reach out beyond the Moon, and understand the universe itself. The dark side of the Moon is protected from the noise of radio signals from the Earth allowing scientists to study signals from elsewhere in the universe, potentially shedding light on the origin of stars and other parts of the universe. Chinese media suggested that would be just the beginning of its explanation of the rest of the Solar System, too. "On the whole, China's space technology still lags behind the West, but with the landing on the far side of the moon, we have raced to the front," said Hou Xiyun, a professor at Nanjing University's school of astronomy and space science. He added that China has Mars, Jupiter and asteroids in its sights: "There's no doubt that our nation will go farther and farther." Chang'e 4 is named after a Chinese goddess who is said to have lived on the Moon for thousands of years. It comes after the Chang'e 3 probe, which was the first Moon landing of any kind since 1976 when it dropped onto the Moon five years ago. And it will be followed by another Chang'e probe, number 5, which will head to the Moon and then come back with samples of what it finds there. That will be the first time that samples have been returned since that same Soviet mission in 1976. The unlikely story of the state of Israel 60, sullied, surviving is intertwined with the unlikely story of Amos Oz. He is, all at once, its most distinguished novelist, its most passionate defender, and its most notorious traitor a word he uses about himself. His friend David Grossman says, Amos is the offspring of all the contradictory urges and pains within the Israeli psyche. This article announced on our front page in 2009 (Independent) To spend a day in his company to follow his story from the birth of the state to the suicide of his mother, from Zionist idealism to a broken heart is to tour the dizzying dissonances of the Jewish state as it staggers into the 21st century. Oz is sitting in the coffee shop of Josephs bookstore in Golders Green, north London, looking older and more fragile than his vigorous black-and-white authors picture. He is 70 now, his hair wispier and whiter. He greets me with a gravelly voice, and we order black coffees. It seems far away and long ago, but Oz once dreamed of bombing this city. He was once a child of what he calls the Jewish intifada the stone-throwing, death-defying Jewish rebellion against British occupation. British soldiers in Jerusalem in 2009 (Getty) He believed the state that would emerge from the rubble would be a model of justice and idealism for all mankind. If you were a child in Gaza now, Mr Oz, would you be dreaming the same dreams against Israel? I dont even have to imagine the answer to this question I know it, he says. Because I was a kid in Jerusalem in 48 when the city was besieged, shelled, starved, [and] the water supply [was] cut off. And I know the horror, and I know the despair, and I know the hopelessness, and I know the anger, and I know the frustration. He says he was not so much a child as a bundle of self-righteous arguments, a brainwashed little fanatic, a stone-throwing chauvinist. The first words I ever learnt to say in English were British, go home! Jewish rescuers among the destroyed buildings of Jerusalem in 1948 (Getty) In his novel Panther in the Basement, he writes: This is how I remember Jerusalem in that last summer of British rule. A stone city sprawling over hilly slopes. Not so much a city as isolated neighbourhoods separated by fields of thistles and rocks. British armoured cars stood at street corners with their slits almost closed, their machine guns sticking out in front like pointing fingers: You there! At the age of eight, he built an awesome rocket in the backyard of his house. His plan was to aim it at Buckingham Palace. I typed out on my fathers typewriter a letter of ultimatum addressed to His Majesty King George VI of England... Torrents of blood, soil, fire and iron intoxicated me. His favourite song a Stern Gang anthem proclaimed: We must fight until we breathe our last breath! So how did this boy, from this place, end up co-founding Peace Now, and fighting for a free Palestinian state alongside Israel? What contortions did he travel along the way, and since? And how did Israels story come to this? I. Jerusalem Dreams Amos Oz was born in Jerusalem because his parents had nowhere else to go. They were running for their lives. It was the only life raft they could find, he says. My parents, they tried to become American, they tried to become British, they tried to become Scandinavian nobody wanted them, anywhere. So, its a very common error to assume that in the 1930s, my parents went to a travel agency and inquired about a holiday resort, and they made a mistake they should have said, the French Riviera, and by mistake they said, Jerusalem. It was a city of dusty tin roofs, urban wasteland of scrap iron and thistles, [and] parched hillsides. For his parents, it was a barren shock. They were troubled refugees from Europe, who loved Europe and were kicked out by Europe, who were devoted Europeans at a time when no-one else was a European. Everyone [else] was a pan-Germanic, or pan-Slavonic, or just a Bulgarian or a British patriot. The Jews were the only European Europeans at that time and Europe kicked them out. They were labelled cosmopolitans, they were labelled ruthless intellectuals, they were labelled parasites. And they came to Jerusalem hoping to create a tiny little Europe in the heart of the Middle East a European enclave. Which they couldnt, of course. Because there was no Europe. Because their idea of Europe was no more than an idea, not a reality. The Europe of their love, the Europe they loved, did not exist, except in their own imagination. Ozs mother, Fania, was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Rovno, a city in western Ukraine. She dreamed of being an artist, and soaked herself in the works of Anton Chekhov. But by the time she went to university in Prague, the tide of antisemitism was rising fast. She got out just in time: the Nazis killed her brother, her sister-in-law and her nephew. They killed almost all her school friends. They killed the world she grew up in and then Stalin swept away anything that remained. The author in 2012 when he was again interviewed by The Independent (David Sandison) So Fania was left beached in Jerusalem, a dry, dusty city that seemed wholly alien to her. Oz says her life consisted of the introspective, melancholy menu of loneliness in a minor key... If you ever spoke about the past, something bitter and desperate would creep into her voice. His father, Arieh, was forced to leave Lithuania. He was a cultivated, well-mannered librarian, severe but also rather shy, Oz says, who believed his true destiny to be a great scholar of Hebrew literature was inexplicably thwarted. When he arrived in Jerusalem, he aligned with the Israeli right, who believed the Arabs in Palestine had to be ruthlessly fought and forced out. Fleeing the Nazi persecution of the Jews, he believed Jews had to show strength to the point of brutality, or die. He wrote propaganda for the Stern Gang, which bombed British targets and Arab civilians, and were labelled as terrorists. Still, his parents felt a sense of inferiority, and exclusion, even within Israel. We were out-of-the-way Israelis, he says. The drama took place in Galilee, in the valleys, not in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was out of the way. And my parents were cut off [from] the mainstream of the enthusiasm of the Zionist revolution. They were cut off because they were right-wingers at a time when everyone was a socialist, they were city dwellers when everybody was a toiler of the land, they were academics at a time when academics were regarded with a certain suspicion. On the night the United Nations voted to establish the State of Israel on part of British Mandate Palestine, Arieh crawled into bed with his eight-year-old son. He whispered: From now on, from the moment we have our own state, you will never be bullied just because you are a Jew. Not that. Never again. From tonight thats finished. For ever. It was the only time Oz ever saw his father cry. That is how he ended up like a child in Gaza today under siege. He remembers the war, the shelling, the siege and starvation in fragments. He lived in what felt like a dank submarine, crammed into his house with his parents and a host of other families. He slept on a mattress in the corner with his parents while the food was rationed, the windows were sandbagged, the medical supplies ran down to nothing, and the toilets overflowed with faeces because there was no water to flush them. Every few minutes, when a shell landed, the whole hill shook, and the stone-built houses shuddered, he says. There was a massive bombardment whose aim was to cause losses among the civilian population, break their spirit and bring them to submission. The writer in his homeland in 2007 (Getty) His parents were great linguists: his father spoke 11 languages, and read 17. Yet even when they were locked up together like this with nothing to do, he says: The only language they taught me was Hebrew. Maybe they feared that a knowledge of languages would expose me, too, to the blandishments of Europe, that wonderful, murderous continent. He was raised under bombardment to be a militant, scorning the British, the Arabs, and the entire Jew-hating world. His grandfather taught him: We have to beat them up so theyll come and beg us for peace. Does he feel angry when he thinks about the child he was? No I feel amused. Bitterly amused. I was a product of a militant upbringing in a militant time, in a state of war, and I grew up in a world where everything was black and white. We were white and our enemies were black. And our enemies were not just the Arabs but the rest of the world. The entire world. The Germans, Europe, Russia everybody was our enemy. We were alone in the world we were the few and the just. There was something very sweet about such a simple world, which divides into goodies and baddies, something very attractive for a child in particular, of course, and everything fell neatly into place. There seems to have been an extraordinary pressure on this only child to be everything his parents had failed to be. When his father finally had a slim work of scholarship published, he inscribed it to his 11-year-old son: To my son Amos, in the hope he might carve out a place in our literature. Both his parents were immensely inhibited, and could express little emotion beyond this burning ambition. As the news of her family and friends deaths began to filter through to Israel, Ozs mother became ill and withdrawn. She began to experience headaches that lasted for months, and required her to inhale mysterious medicines all the time. With Natalie Portman in Beverly Hills in LA in 2015 (Getty) And then, one night, once the state was born and Amos was 12-and-a-half, she walked through a Jerusalem rainstorm to her sisters flat, went to bed, and took a massive overdose. Having run for her life, she now ran to her death. Was there an element of survivors guilt in her suicide? He looks away. Possibly. I dont know. I dont know the reasons why she killed herself and I no longer make an attempt to know. I doubt it that... in most cases, when a person kills himself or herself, I doubt it that there is such a thing as one reason. There is an excuse, there is an immediate motive, but there is more than just one reason. He knows his father had an affair; he knows his mother felt lost in Jerusalem. I was very angry with her, he says. I was very angry with my father, I was very angry with myself. I blamed every one of us for the calamity, he says. He wasnt allowed to go to the funeral. The rage lasted for decades. There was not a drop of compassion in me. Nor did I miss her. I did not grieve at my mothers death. I was too hurt and angry for any other emotion to remain. It was only, he explains, when I reached the age when I could be my parents parents [that] I could look at them with a combination of compassion, humour and curiosity. He made them the subject of his masterpiece, his memoir A Tale of Love And Darkness. He never once discussed his mothers death with his father: We continued as if she had never lived. But now, through writing, he could express everything he wanted to say. It was about inviting the dead to my home, offering them a cup of coffee, and saying lets sit and talk about that which we never discussed when you were still alive. This is a highly recommended practice: invite the dead to your home from time to time, offer them a coffee and a cake, engage yourself in a good conversation with the dead, and then tell them to go away dont let them stay in my house. Drop by from time to time. Thats the proper relationship between the living and the dead. Was it having children himself that made him finally able to forgive his mother? Yes, definitely, he says with a firm nod. In what way? He is silent for a long time. This is too personal. I will not discuss that, if youll forgive me. Then he adds, to change the subject: I just became old enough to imagine them as immature people. I lost interest in the question of whose fault it is. Two years after his mother committed suicide, Amos Oz left his father and his fathers world and began his metamorphosis into a very different person. II. Courage At the age of 14, Oz has written: I killed my father and the whole of Jerusalem, changed my name, and went on my own to Kibbutz Hulda to live there over the ruins. He ran away from Jerusalem to a kibbutz and abandoned his fathers surname, Klausner, for one of his own invention. Oz means strength and it also means courage, he says now. When I left home at 14 and a half, I decided to become everything [my father] was not, and not to be anything that he was. He was a right-wing intellectual; I decided to be a left-wing socialist. He was a city dweller; I decided to become a tractor driver. He was short; I decided to become very tall. It didnt work out, but I tried I tried. So, I assumed the name Oz, because this courage and strength are what I needed most. Back in Jerusalem, nobody had asked what happened to the Arabs who had lived in Palestine. They vanished during the war; that was all. In the kibbutz, Oz began to hear whispers initially to his shock and indignation. This had been their land, and they had been driven from it, by force, by us. Could it be true? Slowly, he began to imagine the Palestinians driven from their homes, scattered in rotting refugee camps somewhere beyond Israels borders and to see their similarity to his own parents. He reached the conclusion that the clash between Israeli Jew and a Palestinian Arab is a tragedy, not a wild west movie, with good guys and bad guys. Its a tragedy, because it is a clash between right and right. The Israelis are in Israel because they have nowhere else to go. The Palestinians are in Palestine because they have nowhere else to go. This is a conflict between victims, and between people who both have a just claim to the land. A Zionist militant with Arab prisoners in 1948 (Getty) In 1967, this became a crucial insight, changing the course of Ozs life. He was conscripted and fought on the Egyptian front in the Sinai desert. I have almost never written about my experience as a soldier on the battlefield, because I tried, and I found that it is beyond my capacity to describe the battlefield, he says. The battlefield consists mostly of smells, and it is very difficult to describe smells in words very difficult indeed. There is a stench on the battlefield which doesnt come across in war movies, and in television documentaries, and it doesnt even come across in the reportage of death and devastation and destruction on the battlefields. And this particular stench, which I remember very vividly, very physically, I remember the stench this I simply cannot describe in words, and without the stench the description will be false. How did he sustain himself? When youre on the battlefield, you switch off your soul, otherwise you would die of terror you would die of fear. You switch off your soul and you act like an animal or a machine. People under fire change greatly. You know what my first response was? When I found myself under fire, and I could literally see the Egyptian soldiers it was in 67 these Egyptian soldiers on the next hill, firing mortar shells at us, and the mortar shells exploding in armies. My immediate instinct was, Call the police. These people are insane. They can see that there are people here and they are shooting at us. Maybe that was the last sane response on the battlefield: Call the police. He says, however, he did not do anything he regretted. I dont think so, no. I have done many things that I am sorry I had to do, but nothing that I am ashamed of. For me, fighting, both in 1967 and in 1973, was a last resort, because I knew very boldly that if I dont fight, and if the others dont fight... my family will be killed we will be thrown into the ocean. It was not about territories, it was not about holy places. It was about life and death. And such a war... even though that I am an old man now, I would still fight such a war. If they put me with my back against the wall, and they would say, Either you fight or your family gets killed, Ill fight. The wars to defend the settlers or the invasion of Lebanon in the 1980s are different, he says: I would rather have gone to prison than fight for them. I would have refused to fight for occupied territories. For an extra bedroom to the nation. For holy places. For resources. I would refuse to fight for anything except for life and freedom. Amid the triumphalism and the first flood of settlers, Oz was one of the first Israelis to say the land other soldiers had conquered Gaza and the West Bank should be returned to the Palestinians for a state of their own. I asked myself, How would I feel if I were a Palestinian in the West Bank and in Gaza? And, unlike most Israelis who assumed naively that the Palestinians will be happy about the Israeli occupation, because Israel will bring with it a higher standard of living, and perhaps a better legal system I immediately could imagine the anger, the frustration, the hatred, the despair of the Palestinians. So I started advocating a two-state solution. And at that time, there were very few of us. In fact, we could conduct our national assembly inside a telephone box. He was immediately dubbed a traitor. He says with a smile: I take this as a compliment. A traitor is he who changes in the eyes of those who cannot change and do not change and does not even conceive a change. All the great Jewish heroes were traitors in their time, he notes: Jonathan and Michal betrayed their father Saul; Joab and the other sons of Zeruiah, the fair Absalom, Ammon, Adonijah, son of Hagith they were all traitors, and the worst traitor of all was King David himself, David about whom we still sing the song, David King of Israel lives, lives, lives on still. And Oz was indeed betraying his fathers vision. He told his son he was crazy. Simple as that, Oz says. We had some fierce arguments about peace and about the Palestinians. My father never recognised the Palestinians as a separate national entity. He thought there is a pan-Arabic nation, and this pan-Arabic nation has a territory which is 150 times bigger than the territory of Israel. They have enough space. What do they want of us? He was a great simplifier on this issue. He retorted to his father: The drowning man clinging to his plank is allowed, by all the rules of natural, objective, universal justice, to make room for himself on the plank, even if in doing so he must push the others aside a little. Even if the others, sitting on that plank, leave him no alternative to force. But he has no natural right to push the others on that plank into the sea. What would your father think if he could hear you now? He would be very angry with me no doubt. Is this, in part, an Oedipal revolt? Oz frowns a little. There is an element of Oedipal revolt in every father-son relationship, including the relationship between me and my father. But there was one conviction he inherited from his father and has always retained. They both saw religion as an archaic dust, a bizarre leftover from a more primitive, less rational age. So when the settlers began to seize the West Bank as part of a Messianic plan to reclaim the entire biblical land of Israel, Oz saw it with horror as an attempt to push Judaism back through history, back to the Book of Joshua, to the days of the Judges, to the extreme of fanatical tribalism, brutal and closed. The tragedy is he believes that these people believe they are motivated by the best in human nature. He wrote in his novel Black Box: It is neither the selfishness nor the baseness not the cruelty in our nature that turns us into a species that destroys itself. We annihilate ourselves (and shall soon wipe out our entire species) precisely because of our higher longings, because of the theological disease. The settlers believe they are saving us, even as they drag their tribe towards hell. The Jewish people has a great talent for self-destruction, he sighs. We may be the world champions in self-destruction... [caused by] our characteristic demand for perfection, for totality, for squeezing our ideal to its last dregs or to die trying. [Look at] the history of the ancient Hebrews they were suicidal by being extremely extremist and fanatical, by not compromising with reality, by not being ready to tolerate a Roman yoke for a while in order to survive and stay in the country. We lost our country in 70AD because we were impatient and we couldnt tolerate a lasting Roman yoke. That was a gross mistake. Likewise, the settlers now seek to seize all of the historical land of Israel and in so doing, they prevent a two-state solution and could condemn Israel to a slow death. The two-state solution remains the only way out (Getty) (GETTY IMAGES) Then, suddenly, he leans forward. But let me share with you some good news, because you normally get only the bad news from the Middle East on the press and the media. The good news is that the vast majority of the Israeli Jews and the vast majority of the Palestinian Arabs know, in their heart of hearts, that at the end of the day there will be a two-state solution. They know it. Are they happy with it? They are not happy with it. Will they be dancing in the streets when the two-state solution is implemented? They will not be dancing in the streets. But they know... There is lack of bold leadership on both sides. But the two-state solution remains the only way out. He has been offering this beautiful, rational vision for 40 years now, and I have happily repeated his lines. But arent there days when he despairs? Arent there days when he agrees with Boaz, one of the characters in Black Box, who says: In the end the Jews will finish [the Palestinians] off or theyll finish each other off and therell be nothing left in this country again except the Bible and the Koran and the foxes and burned ruins? He smiles. I like Boaz a great deal I think hes quite a character. But I dont share his pessimism. I think a two-state solution is inevitable. The Israeli Jews are not going anywhere. There are five and a half million of us, and were not going anywhere we dont have anywhere to go. The Palestinian Arabs are not going anywhere, either they dont have anywhere to go. We cannot become one happy family, because we are not one with the Palestinians and we are not family and we are not happy, either. We are two unhappy families. So, its about turning the house into a semi-detached house. A two-family unit. There is simply no alternative to this. Now, this make take long or may take short. But it will happen. And then our discussion of his passionate attempt to rescue his country returns, obliquely, to the question of the mother he could not rescue. He believes the answer to the conflict the temperamental solution lies in the author she loved, even as her headaches raged and her will to live waned. At the end of a Shakespeare tragedy, the stage is strewn with dead bodies, and maybe theres some justice hovering high above. A Chekhov tragedy, on the other hand, ends with everybody disillusioned, embittered, heartbroken, disappointed, absolutely shattered, but still alive. And I want a Chekhovian resolution, not a Shakespearian one, for the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy. III. Operation Cast Lead Today, Oz lives on the edge of the Negev desert, and it strikes me he has come to resemble it his manner is dry and slow and vast, and he seems to look down on history from the perspective of thousands of years. Why is Oz capable of understanding the dark ambiguities and the need for compromise when so many of his Netanyahu- and Lieberman-voting countrymen arent? See, I get up every morning very early, I drink a cup of coffee, I sit myself by my desk, and I start imagining, What if I was him? What if I was her? Thats how I make a living: by imagining the other. I imagine the other. Thats my professional life. And my hobby, as well: I sit myself in street cafes, and when I have nothing else to do, when Im waiting for someone... He looks out over the cafe we are sitting in now, and smiles. I look at the other guests in the cafes and try to imagine their life, who they really are, what are they talking about at that faraway table? So thats what I do. Its easy for me. Its much harder for ordinary people who are not writers, who are not novelists, to imagine the other in times of war, or even in times of a family feud. In this I belong in a minority. Most people dont bother. He repeats himself, with a shake of disdain: Most people dont bother. This, he adds quickly, isnt unique to Israel. It is caused by anger, my friend. Anger. War begets anger and hatred and resentment. Very few people in Britain could pay any attention at all to the ordeal of Dresden and Leipzig. Very few people at the end of World War Two in London would pay any attention to the suffering of the innocent civilians in those cities. And yet, and yet... it seems that Oz has failed, at last, to hold himself to the high standards he has set. He initially supported Operation Cast Lead the bombardment of Gaza that killed more than 1,400 people, 40 per cent of whom were children even though he says he knows, from his own experience, that it will make the children of Gaza dream lunatic dreams of revenge. I ask him why. Hamas fired some 10,000 rockets on southern Israel, where I live. And I dont think any country in the world would simply turn the other cheek to that. I dont think England would restrain if anybody showered Yorkshire with 10,000 rockets. So, an Israeli response was understandable and acceptable, in my view. The dimensions of the response, the disproportion of the response, is something which I severely criticise. But use your own test of seeing the other side; of empathising. Using the same logic, you can ask from the Palestinian perspective what country could tolerate being violently occupied for 40 years, then having part of its territory blockaded and semi-starved, just to punish it for how it voted in a democratic election? He uncharacteristically changes the subject, and tries to blame somebody else. Well, Ill tell you something about this blockade. Gaza borders with Egypt. There was no reason why the Egyptians would not provide Gaza with whatever it needs. And there is very little reason for Israel to provide Gaza with what it needs. After all, Gaza is firing on Israel... If Egypt and the rest of the Arab world wanted to invest in Gaza and to rebuild Gaza and to raise the standard of living in Gaza, they could have done it. Yet Oz knows it is Israel that puts vast pressure on Egypt especially through the US not to do that. Israels own security services said Hamas would extend the ceasefire if Israel agreed to ease the blockade. Wouldnt that have been better? Wouldnt fewer children now be dreaming of shooting rockets at Tel Aviv? Oz for the first time in our interview seems unsure. I dont know. I think we tried. If we tried hard enough, I dont know. I really dont know. He looks down, then away. Then he says more confidently: I think in the last days before the Israeli attack on Gaza, the firing of rockets increased to about 80 rockets a day. And our casualties, and our homes destroyed, and there was the suffering of close to one million Israelis who have to live in underground shelters. No government could tolerate this. No government could simply turn the other cheek. At the International Book Festival in Budapest in 2010 (Getty) But the Palestinian side was suffering even more horribly using your logic, they, too, have a right to fight back and bomb. I could understand and justify, and justified, a limited, proportionate, measured, cautiously targeted Israeli military response not a full-scale war. You see... I said many times, and Ill say it again Im a peacenik, not a pacifist. Yes, the pacifists believe that the ultimate evil in the world is war. I believe that the ultimate evil is not war but aggression, and aggression sometimes has to be blocked by force. Hence the difference between a peacenik and a pacifist. It is another wriggle. Im not advocating pacifism Im saying this specific war was a bad idea. As if to soothe me, he says: I think there should be a thorough judicial interrogation of the occurrences in the Gaza war. The Israeli judiciary is independent and bold and I think there should be a thorough, comprehensive interrogation. He then says that in principle, Israel should negotiate with Hamas. If Hamas is ready to talk to Israel, Israel should talk to Hamas right away. Absolutely. Absolutely. Of course, we need to. Its difficult to compromise with Hamas because Hamas maintains that there should be no Israel at all. Not even I can propose as a compromise that Israel exists Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. But the moment Hamas shows the slightest inclination to recognise Israel, I would talk to it of course I would. The he surprises me with a bold prediction. I ask: can you imagine Bibi Netanyahu shaking hands with the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on the White House lawn, with Obama smiling in-between? He beams. Absolutely, yes. Absolutely, yes. Absolutely, yes. He adds: Dont swear an oath about Netanyahu not delivering the two-state solution. So far, we have seen almost every right-wing Prime Minister making surprising concessions for peace. Begin over Sinai and the peace with Egypt; Sharon in evacuating the Gaza strip; Netanyahu himself over the Hebron concessions. So, I dont know. I cannot read his mind; I am sure he does not know yet what he is going to do. But it may well be that reality will be stronger than him, that he will sense the mood of the majority of the Israeli people and surprise us. He has met Netanyahu a few times, and says: Deep down below, he strikes me as an opportunist, and thats not necessarily a bad quality under the circumstances. Oz and Netanyahu come from similar backgrounds: right-wing revisionists in a socialist country, demanding tougher, harder, crueller policies. Can you imagine a world where you ended up like him? Yes, yes, he says. Well, the question is would he end up like me? What does this support for the attack on Gaza and the initial bombing of Lebanon in 2007 suggest about Oz? Is there a desire to be an easy, unconflicted part of the tribe to belong at last? Is his empathy running out as rockets rain close to his home? In his latest, tender book, Rhyming Life and Death, a middle-aged novelist wanders the streets of Tel Aviv, feeling disconnected from his country. The character admits to a profound sadness that he is always an outsider. Do you feel this, Amos? There is a long pause. I would say yes, he says. But every follow-on question I ask to tease this out only prompts a subject-changing anecdote about something else. The loneliness of the exhausted, wavering peace campaigner is something he doesnt want to discuss. And so the boy who ran away from his suicide-scarred home at 14 to become a left-wing icon might be allowing flickers of his fathers voice to break through at last, after all this time. Amos Oz, Israeli writer, born 4 May 1939, died 28 December 2008 The chancellor, Philip Hammond, could raise 7bn in extra annual tax revenues through tweaks to the UKs wealth taxes, a new report by the Resolution Foundation published argues. The think tank says the UKs ageing population is putting pressure on public services, amounting to 36bn a year by 2030. If services such as health and social care are not to deteriorate further and the structural deficit is not to rise that will likely create pressure for higher taxes. Resolution thinks the government should look to the UKs 13 trillion of wealth, which is undertaxed relative to income, to make up a significant chunk of the shortfall. The think tank favours comprehensive structural reform of wealth levies, but it acknowledges how difficult this will be when the government lacks a parliamentary majority. Recommended The real economic gamble is sometimes too little government borrowing So it identifies five wealth taxes that could be tightened up even in the absence of such an overhaul, raising around 7bn by 2022-23. These are: Limiting entrepreneurs relief (1.6bn) Increasing council tax top band rates (1.4bn) Closing inheritance tax loopholes (0.7bn) Capping pension lump sum tax relief (2bn) Scrapping Help to Buy Individual Savings Accounts (0.9bn) Relatively large sums can be raised simply by tightening up our existing wealth taxes and subsidies, said Resolutions director Torsten Bell. That is how we protect our public services without placing all the burden of taxation on hard earned income from work. Wealth taxes have traditionally met fierce political and wider social resistance. Ed Milibands proposed mansion tax in 2015 was heavily attacked in the media. And polls show that inheritance tax is one of the most unpopular of all taxes, even among people who are unlikely to be liable for it. The chancellor is due to unveil his latest spending review in the autumn well after the UK is currently due to leave the European Union. Mr Hammond had prepared the ground for new taxes in last years October Budget, but last-minute downward revisions to borrowing forecasts by the Office for Budget Responsibility meant he was able to avoid them, while still remaining on track to meet his deficit and debt targets. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events At that time he declared the era of austerity is coming to an end. But most analysts think that higher taxes, as demands on public services grow for demographic reasons, will ultimately prove unavoidable. Adam Corlett, an analyst at the Resolution Foundation, said: Britains wealth is under taxed, and the wealth taxes we do have are in serious need of reform. Theres a strong case for scrapping council tax and inheritance tax altogether, and replacing them with proper wealth taxes that are more progressive and harder to avoid ... [but] even without comprehensive reform of our main wealth taxes, loopholes can be closed, fairness improved and billions raised to fund the needs of an ageing society without hitting the pockets or votes of the majority. In response a Treasury spokesperson said: Weve taken significant steps to ensure those with the broadest shoulders bear the greatest tax burden, including ending permanent non-dom status, reducing tax breaks for those with the largest pension pots, and reforming dividend taxes so that those with very large shareholdings pay more. And HMRCs efforts to ensure better tax compliance has meant we now have one of the lowest tax gaps in the world. An intense headwind from Brexit helped to send UK construction activity to a three-month low in December, according to the latest survey snapshot of the sector. The Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) last month came in at 52.8, down from 53.4 in November and the weakest since September. Any figure above 50 indicates growth from the previous month. Civil engineering rebounded in December, but housebuilding and commercial construction both decelerated. Subdued domestic economic conditions and an intense headwind from political uncertainty resulted in the weakest upturn in commercial work for seven months, said Tim Moore of IHS Markit, which compiles the PMI survey. With a slight rise in new orders and a softening in overall activity growth, firms continued to be affected by Brexit-related uncertainty and reluctance by clients to place orders, especially for commercial projects, said Duncan Brock of the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply. Recommended How UK businesses are preparing for Brexit Construction accounts for around 6 per cent of UK GDP. The most recent official data showed that the sector surged by 2.3 per cent in the third quarter of 2018, although this was partly catch-up growth after heavy snowfall earlier in the year hit activity. On past form, the average level of the PMI in Q4 is consistent with output merely remaining at Q3s level, said Samuel Tombs of research firm Pantheon. Research from the Construction Industry Training Board released last year suggested a third of UK construction firms are already feeling the effects of Brexit. Almost half the employers in the sector are concerned that recruitment will become harder over the next two years. According to the latest PMI survey, subdued demand conditions were the main factor behind disappointing construction output growth in December, but there were also some reports that wet weather had held back work. The annual tradition of the Womens March has become a significant global event ever since its launch in 2017. What began as a protest to the newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump has evolved into an event that champions social change. Thousands of people will be marching in solidarity with one another in this year's Women's Marches in locations including England, New Zealand and Zambia. For those of you planning on taking part in the capital of the UK, here's everything you need to know: When is it? The London Womens March 2019 is taking place on Saturday 19 January. The first official Womens March was held on 21 January 2017, on the day after Trumps inauguration as US President. The main march, which occurred in Washington, D.C., was estimated to have been attended by between 500,000 to one million people. According to political scientists, the day on which protesters across the US participated in Womens Marches was one of the largest days of protest in American history. Women's Marches also took place around the world in more than 80 countries, including England, Thailand and Peru. Close to 100,000 protesters marched along the streets of London in opposition to Trump. Where does it start? Starting at noon, those participating in the 2019 London Womens March are going to be meeting at the BBC headquarters at Portland Place in Marylebone, W1A. This years march has been named the Bread and Roses Rally, in commemoration of a speech delivered by American labour union leader Rose Schneiderman in 1911. The worker must have bread, but she must have roses too, Schneiderman said as she addressed a crowd at a womens suffrage event in Ohio. Her speech, which implored women to fight for more than simply their survival, became a defining moment in the women's labour movement. Those joining the march on 19 January are being asked to bring flowers in keeping with the theme. The exact details of the marchs route havent been revealed yet. However, there's the march will continue until 3pm and is likely to be followed by a rally at a landmark London location. For more information, you can visit the event's website here. Why is it taking place? The aim of this years Womens March is to support equality, justice and to end austerity, the organisation states on Twitter. Those leading the event also want to ensure that it continues to make an impact on the fight for gender equality far into the future. Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Show all 35 1 /35 Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures London Women's rights demonstrators hold placards and shout slogans during the Time's Up rally at Richmond Terrace, opposite Downing Street in London. Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures London The Time's Up initiative was launched at the start of January 2018 as a response to the #MeToo movement and the Harvey Weinstein scandal. AFP/Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Berlin Women's March in Berlin. EPA Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures London The Time's Up Women's March marks the one year anniversary of the first Women's March in London and in 2018 it is inspired by the Time's Up movement against sexual abuse. Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Paris Women hold a banner reading "still feminist" with the Eiffel tower in background on the Trocadero esplanade in Paris. AFP/Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures London Protesters hold up placards at the Women's March in central London. Rex Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Paris A demonstator hold signs on the Trocadero esplanade in Paris during a women's march organised as part of global protests. AFP/Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures London Chanting Times Up in the cold rain - On the anniversary of the Women's March on London. Rex Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures New York Thousands of people gather holding protest signs on Central Park West. EPA Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures New York Demonstrators take part in the Women's March in Manhattan Reuters Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Chicago A woman holds a sign during the Second Annual Womens March in Chicago AFP/Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures New York People gather near Central Park before the beginning of the Women's March in New York Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Washington Supporters gather during the Women's March in Washington AFP/Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures New York The crowd lines up near Central Park Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Chicago Demostrators attend the Second Annual Womens March in Chicago AFP/Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures New York Thousands hold signs and rally while attending the Womens March in New York Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures New York People gather near Central Park before the beginning of the Women's March in New York Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Washington People participate in the second annual Women's March in Washington Reuters Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures New York People hold signs up during the women's march Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Philadelphia Oscar Janicki, 6, participates in the Second Annual Women's March in Philadelphia Reuters Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Philadelphia Crowds gather to participate in the Second Annual Women's March in Philadelphia Reuters Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Washington People participate in the second annual Women's March in Washington Reuters Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures New York Women pose as they attend the second annual National Womens March in New York City AFP/Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Washington People participate in the second annual Women's March in Washington Reuters Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures New York People gather prior to the second annual National Womens March in New York City AFP/Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures New York People take part in the Women's March in Manhattan Reuters Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures New York People gather the second annual National Womens March AFP/Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Washington People participate in the Second Annual Women's March in Washington Reuters Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Rome A woman holds a banner reading "Womwn united will never be defeated" during Rome Resists demonstration part of the Women's March in downtown. AFP/Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Rome Italian actress Asia Argento (3rdL) attends the Rome Resists demonstration part of the Women's March in downtown Rome. AFP/Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Rome The Women's March Rome, designed to show solidarity for the protection of civil and social rights, women's rights and the environment included Italian actress Asia Argento, one of the first women to accuse US film producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault. AFP/Getty Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Zurich A US citizen holds a poster on the anniversary of the inauguration of President Trump apologising to the world on behalf of her country, in Zurich, Switzerland. A year after millions of people took to the streets across the US and countries around the world, women's marches are being held in lots of cities this weekend. EPA Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures New York People take part in the Women's March in Manhattan Reuters Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Rome A woman holds a banner reading "The rising of the women means rising of us all" during Rome Resists demonstration. AFP/Getty Images Women's March 2018 across the world: in pictures Rome A woman lifts her fist while holding a banner reading "Hear our voice" during Rome Resists demonstration. AFP/Getty Bread and Roses is the peoples protest against the untenable and pervasive effects of austerity in the UK which threatens our sustainable economic freedom, ethical values and justice, Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, lawyer and co-organiser of Womens March London, tells The Independent. From economic oppression, gender pay gap to domestic violence, women particularly bear the brunt of the terrible effects of austerity in this country. With the imminence of Brexit, we demand specific assurances from the government to end austerity. By saying Bread and Roses, we are saying its time to thrive not just survive. Accordingly, we will be bringing flowers as a symbol for change. Whos taking part? In addition to the thousands of people expected to join the Womens March, the event is also likely to draw in several high-profile figures. This year's speakers include Helen Pankhurst, women's rights activist and great-granddaughter of suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, Labour MP Dawn Butler and activist Munroe Bergdorf. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Social activist Akeela Ahmed MBE has stated that shes going to be in attendance, in addition to actor Tim Downie, who starred in Paddington and The Kings Speech. Less than a week after the release of Black Mirrors latest episode, Bandersnatch, Will Poulter has announced his decision to leave social media. The actor, who plays genius game creator Colin Ritman in Charlie Brooker's choose-your-own-adventure special, shared the message on Twitter, citing his mental health as the reason for his departure. In light of my recent experiences I am choosing to take a step back, of sorts, from Twitter, Poulter wrote. Before I do, Id like to say a heartfelt thank you to everybody who has watched Bandersnatch and for their responses (whatever they may be) to the material we created. Recommended Six ways social media negatively affects your mental health I accept all criticisms and its been a delight to learn that so many of you enjoyed what many people worked very hard to produce! The 25-year-old then went on to explain how he struggled to balance the different sides of social media platforms like Twitter, writing: As we all know there is a balance to be struck in our engagements with social media. There are positives to enjoy and inevitable negatives that are best avoided. Its a balance I have struggled with for a while now and in the interest of my mental health I feel the time has come to change my relationship with social media. He concluded the statement by thanking his fans for their support and linking to four charities he works with, including an anti-bullying campaign. I dont want to appear unappreciative of all the amazing support I have received online for which I am genuinely so grateful, nor do I want my disengagement with social media to be at the expense of any of the organisations I am lucky to work with, Poulter wrote. So I will still be posting occasionally for and with @AntiBullyingPro @leap_cc @MayMeasure and @bptcompany among others. I am privileged to have this platform. I hope that this shift to reduce my personal expression and increase the focus on issues that matter will result in a better outcome for everyone. Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best Show all 23 1 /23 Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best Click through for our ranking of every Black Mirror episode to date, including season five. Spoilers ahead Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "The Waldo Moment" Series two, episode three While supremely prescient in predicting how a pop-culture figure would one day find themselves unwittingly in a place of political power, "The Waldo Moment" lacks the bite of other episodes. The pacing is cumbersome, and the bleak ending for Daniel Rigby's failed comedian feels slightly extra. Channel 4 Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "Crocodile" Series four, episode three A new insurance company innovation allows access to peoples memories much to the dismay of Andrea Riseboroughs Mia, who witnesses an accident but has much darker things to hide. Riseborough is typically excellent, but Mias behaviour is jarringly inconsistent throughout. Netflix Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "Arkangel" Series four, episode two When an overly fearful mother (Rosemarie DeWitt) resorts to drastic measures in order to keep her daughter safe, things inevitably unravel. Quite how far they unravel is the greatest weakness of a lacklustre episode, despite being directed with vigour by Jodie Foster. Netflix Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too" Series five, episode four Casting a globally famous pop star, Miley Cyrus, as a globally famous pop star whose entire consciousness is copied over into sellable robot dolls should have been a fun idea. But the episode unfolds at a strangely plodding pace, failing to make good use of its concept and its stars. Thankfully, when the tone suddenly changes as a result of an accidental discovery at the hands of two teenage sisters, the episode becomes a fun, high-concept heist film. Netflix Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "Men Against Fire" Series three, episode five A group of soldiers are tasked with protecting a village from mutant humans known as roaches, by hunting them down and exterminating them. A typically shocking twist reveals that something even more sinister is at play, and two soldiers played by Malachi Kirby and Madeline Brewer must face the horrific moral implications of their actions. A shocking, troubling episode. Netflix Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "Hated in the Nation" Series 3, episode six The shows longest outing, after the just-released Bandersnatch, Hated in the Nation is Brookers answer to Scandi Noir dramas such as The Killing. But its murder mystery plot, involving killer drone insects, fails to reach the heights it aspires to. Netflix Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "Playtest" Series three, episode four Theres fun to be had in the augmented reality chiller Playtest, an episode following an American man (Wyatt Russell) who accepts a one-time, rather bizarre, job offer from a video game company. An often thrilling instalment, that ultimately fails to live up to its brilliant potential. Netflix Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "Nosedive" Series three, episode one A phenomenal team came together for the first Netflix-produced episode: star Bryce Dallas Howard, director Joe Wright and The Good Place creator Michael Schur. The result is expansive, expensive-looking and strangely soulless. The world it presents, however, is scarily plausible: people must rate each other from one to five at every single interaction in a bid to improve social standing. Netflix Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "Smithereens" Series five, episode one Fleabag actor Andrew Scott plays a grieving not-Uber driver who hates how people are addicted to their phones. He decides to take someone hostage and demands to speak to their boss the head of a world-conquering social media website (a fictional Mark Zuckerberg-type character played by Topher Grace). By Black Mirror's standards it feels like a thin premise, and doesn't build enough to justify a 70-minute running time. Despite a moving ending, Smithereens feels muted rather than subtle. Netflix Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "The National Anthem" Series one, episode one Could this be the most audacious first episode of any TV series? "The National Anthem" is a wonderfully twisted opener, a satirical comment on the terrifying power of social media via a grim story about a Prime Minister forced to have sex with a pig live on television. It set the Black Mirror blueprint perfectly. Channel 4 Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "Black Museum" Series 2, episode 3 Letitia Wright leads this unique episode, which irresistibly contains references to every other Black Mirror outing to date. With it's B-movie thrills and body horror sub-plot, this is the closest the series has come to a Hammer House of Horror film. Netflix Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "Shut Up and Dance" Series three, episode three This episode follows a teenage boy (Alex Lawther) who is blackmailed into committing criminal acts by a mysterious hacker. Featuring arguably the shows most distressing twist, Shut Up and Dance may not make for enjoyable television, but its a slickly-written marvel that gets under your skin. Netflix Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best Striking Vipers Series five, episode three In Striking Vipers, Anthony Mackie last seen sporting mechanical wings as Falcon in the Avengers series plays Danny, a married father trying to keep a lid on his mid-life ennui. Events take an unusual turn when he has earth-shattering, chandelier-swinging virtual sex with a college friend, Karl (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). Underpinning this futuristic story are timeless themes of fidelity, family, fantasy fulfilment and the love triangle. In a series famed for its wild visions and outre set pieces, Striking Vipers is distinctive by its meditative tone and everyday preoccupations. Netflix Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "White Bear" Series two, episode two This episode follows an amnesiac girl who wakes up in a post-apocalyptic wasteland pursued by weapon-wielding assailants; silent bystanders watch on, disturbingly recording events on their mobile phones. "White Bear" feels like a nightmare come to life, but its a gripping one, subverting your expectations every 15 minutes. Channel 4 Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "Fifteen Million Merits" Series one, episode two Every season of Black Mirror has one episode that yanks at the heartstrings, and Fifteen Million Merits was its first. The love story of a man (Daniel Kaluuya) and a woman (Jessica Brown Findlay) doomed to generate power on stationary bicycles for an unspecified amount of time, it presents a bleak outlook for the future of game shows. Brooker at his most Orwellian. Channel 4 Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "Metalhead" Series 4, episode five This take on the stalk-and-slash genre makes for Black Mirror's most intense viewing experience. The camera remains right there alongside Maxine Peakes nameless protagonist, alienated from the rest of civilisation as she's hunted by a robotic assassin for no apparent reason. Terrifying stuff. Jonathan Prime / Netflix Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "Hang the DJ" Series 2, episode 3 With its uplifting story of two lovers fighting against the odds to be with each other, "Hang the DJ" is a season four equivalent of the uplifting San Junipero. Georgina Campbell and Joe Cole offer magnetic performances as Amy and Frank, who are trapped in a Centre Parcs-style holiday resort. As the ending draws near, the episode suggests that love can triumph over the most difficult circumstances. Netflix Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "White Christmas" Series two, episode four Black Mirror went full Twilight Zone for its festive episode, an anthology treat featuring several short tales linked by what could perhaps be Brooker's most disturbing technological invention yet a device that permits you to "block" people from your life. Jon Hamm and Rafe Spall are excellent as a storytelling duo stationed at a remote outpost in the middle of a snowy wilderness. Channel 4 Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "Be Right Back" Series two, episode one Hayley Atwells performance as a grief-stricken widow in this acclaimed outing is faultless, while Domhnall Gleesons robotic recreation of her husband (like some hellish combination of the Scarlett Johanssons AI from Her and Mary Shelleys Frankenstein) joins the pantheon of great sci-fi robots. It came as no surprise that its director, Owen Harris, was brought back to direct the "San Junipero" episode a season later. Channel 4 Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "USS Callister" Series four, episode one Brooker basks in his own nerdiness in this glorious Star Trek-inspired tale thats brilliantly conceived and executed. Using the DNA of his colleagues to create virtual avatars who believe themselves to be real, Jesse Plemonss character makes for the entire seriess creepiest villain partly because of how sorry for him you feel at the beginning of the episode, before clocking his sadistic ways. Netflix Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "San Junipero" Series three, episode four Its still all too rare for a queer love story on screen to have a happy ending and rarer still for a Black Mirror episode. And yet the tender San Junipero, which sees two women fall in love in a seaside town that naturally isnt quite what it seems, is a rare instance of optimism from Brookers generally fatalistic imagination, and we cant help but love it for that. By the time Belinda Carlisle's "Heave Is a Place on Earth" plays over the end credits, you'll be doing something no other episode can make you do: smiling. Netflix Every Black Mirror episode ranked from worst to best "The Entire History of You" Series one, episode three This episode often tops the list when discussing best Black Mirror episodes, and for good reason. It was the first to put Brooker's spin on disturbed technological advancements to truly devastating effect, tracking the dissolution of a marriage (of Toby Kebbell and Jodie Whittaker) in a world where memories can be re-lived as easily as switching on a television. It's the presence of Tom Cullen's charismatic male that causes Kebbell's character to frantically pore over every part of his wife's behaviour, convincing himself she's had an affair. Where other Black Mirror episodes introduce expansive worlds, this places the action in the most relatable of settings the home and is all the more disturbing for it. Essential viewing. Channel 4 That is not the end. Consider it an alternative path. With love, Will. Although Poulter did not directly address what prompted his decision to leave social media, many have speculated it could relate to people bullying the actor over his looks in the Black Mirror episode. I cant believe that Will Poulter had to leave because of you f***ing a**holes, you kept mocking his appearance instead of focusing on the fact that he spreads awareness ,talks about mental illnesses and supports the LGBT+ community, one person commented. Another agreed, adding: I cant believe Twitter rly bullied Will Poulter for his looks and made him have to step back from social media because of it. This is disgusting. He is an amazing person and its not funny to make fun of someones appearance. Its not okay. [sic] Poulter is just the latest in a number of celebrities who have recently chosen to leave social media for the sake of their mental health. Recommended Bandersnatch has pushed back new episodes of Black Mirror Comedian Pete Davidson took a step back from social media in recent months, deleting all the photos from his account on two different occasions. He explained in July, after removing all of his images for the first time, that he had chosen to do so because the internet is an evil place. In December, he revealed that he had also been bullied online and in public for the past nine months. Star Wars actors Kellie Marie Tran and Daisy Ridley also deleted their accounts after receiving online abuse from trolls upset by the recent spate of Disney-produced movies. If you have been affected by any issues mentioned in this article, you can contact the Samaritans on 116 123 and find out more information here. Small business issues often win bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, but given the divisions in the incoming 116th Congress, advocates for companies have low expectations. Even after lawmakers deal with the partial government shutdown, a Democratic House, a Republican Senate and ongoing investigations of the Trump White House and campaign are expected to be obstacles to much small business-related work getting done. "I think 2019 is going to be a quiet year with maybe small reforms on tax things, maybe some trade legislation getting through," said Karen Kerrigan, president of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council. Company owners may see more movement in their states, said John Arensmeyer, CEO of Small Business Majority, who called governors "more aggressive than anyone" on helping small business. A look at issues that small business advocates expect to be on government agendas in 2019: Health Care Lawmakers were expected to introduce health care bills even before the federal court ruling last month that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. Since that ruling, which is expected to be appealed and could reach the Supreme Court, House Democrats have said they plan to intervene in the defense of the law. Democrats expect to introduce bills to limit the use of low-cost short-term health plans that have limited coverage and bolster the ACA's coverage of people with pre-existing conditions. Republican opposition to Democratic efforts is likely, although many GOP lawmakers voiced support for pre-existing condition coverage during their election campaigns. Small business groups want Congress to pass legislation limiting increases in health care costs -- but they're not optimistic. "To do that would be controversial," said Todd McCracken, president of the National Small Business Association. Legislation expanding the availability of association health plans, or AHPs, stalled in the 115th Congress, and could be reintroduced. These plans allow individuals like sole proprietors to band together and buy insurance. They're illegal under the ACA but the Trump administration last year issued rules making it possible for some owners to join AHPs. However, some states have laws making it difficult or impossible for their residents to join the plans, and more states might enact their own legislation. Changes in health care law are most likely to come from the states, Arensmeyer said. Taxes Legislation to simplify tax code provisions that affect small businesses languished in the last Congress and is expected to be reintroduced. Among other things, the Small Business Owners' Tax Simplification Act would make due dates for estimated tax payments the last date of calendar year quarters. It would also make it easier for owners to deduct their own health care premiums. "They're common sense reforms that are supported by both sides of the aisle," Kerrigan says. Some business groups will seek further tax code simplification because of the administrative burden taxes place on owners. But hopes aren't high. "Any material simplification is probably not going to happen with the divided Congress," said Keith Hall, president of the National Association for the Self-Employed. Trade Congress is expected to consider the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement early in 2019. The trade deal, intended to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, is opposed by Democrats who want stronger protections for U.S. workers from low-wage Mexican competition. Many U.S. small manufacturers export to Mexico and Canada and want the deal ratified. "It's bad for business, particularly for small businesses, if the agreement just went away," McCracken said. Employment Issues The Labor Department is expected to issue its new regulations on overtime -- which employees must be given overtime, and which are exempt. The Trump administration is rewriting rules written under the Obama administration and then blocked by a federal judge; those rules would have doubled the pay threshold at which workers would be exempt from overtime, to $47,476 from $23,660. An estimated 4.2 million people would have been able to begin earning OT under the rules. Kerrigan expects the rules to be issued early in the year, and predicted the threshold would be a compromise between the Obama administration version and no increase. Infrastructure Legislation to repair the nation's roadways and bridges is expected in the new Congress although the Trump administration $1.5 billion proposal announced last February foundered. McCracken says the parties remain too far apart for a bill to pass -- unless the economy provides some motivation for a compromise. "Infrastructure is one of those things that can generate a lot of activity and bolster the economy," he says. Many companies that do the actual repairing of roads and bridges are small businesses like general contractors. Internet Privacy Laws aimed at protecting consumers' privacy and personal information are expected to be pursued in state legislatures, and possibly in Congress, after California's passage last year of its Consumer Privacy Protection Act. The law, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2020, requires businesses to disclose how they use personal information and gives consumers more control over how that information is used. The prospect of businesses having to comply with 50 different laws has some members of Congress in favor of creating a national standard. "That's where you may see some bipartisanship," Kerrigan said. But McCracken said it's unlikely such a bill would pass both houses. Paid Leave Legislation is expected in more states providing for paid sick leave and family leave for employees. Twelve states and 20 cities and counties have sick leave laws, which allow employees to accrue paid time off for their illnesses or a family member's. Paid family leave, including time off to care for ill relatives, is the law only in California, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island; those states have employee and/or employer-funded insurance pools to partially replace workers' wages. Democrats in the House may also introduce family leave legislation, but it likely wouldn't survive the Senate, McCracken said. Imperial Valley News Center President Trumps Tax Cuts Have Been A Win For Small Business Washington, DC - As the co-owner of a rock climbing gym, Andrew Kratz is always reaching for even higher goals. This year he and his partners opened Triangle Rock Clubs fourth location, the first outside their home state of North Carolina, and announced plans for a fifth an expansion that got off the ground thanks in part to the tax cuts President Trump signed into law one year ago. As head of the Small Business Administration, I constantly hear from small business owners like Kratz who are investing their tax savings in their companies and their employees raising wages, providing bonuses and benefits, and creating more jobs. The unemployment rate is the lowest its been in nearly 50 years, and for the first time on record, there are more job openings than people seeking jobs. Our nations gross domestic product (GDP) is on pace to grow by more than 3 percent in 2018. And with the corporate tax rate cut from 35 percent to 21 percent, American businesses are more competitive spurring investment in America and repatriating trillions of dollars previously held overseas. Its clear from these historic results that the tax cuts are igniting economic growth. Families are seeing real savings thanks to the doubling of the child tax credit and a near-doubling of the standard deduction. Many are even seeing lower electric bills, with more than 130 utility companies pledging to pass their tax savings to their customers through lower rates. President Trumps support of small business, not just with words but with his actions, thats the difference, Kratz told me. Previous administrations would talk a big game about helping small business, but this president has done exactly that. Read the full op-ed here. As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content. When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to. After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS! OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those. The search intensified Wednesday for a gunman who killed a 7-year-old Houston-area girl as law enforcement officers combed through dozens of tips, tested ballistics and called for public help in finding the man last seen fleeing in a red pick-up truck. The slaying of young Jazmine Barnes which stunned the region and attracted nationwide attention drew questions Wednesday from local activists about whether the attack was racially motivated, with the reported white gunman targeting the black family in their car outside a Walmart just a few miles from a similar shooting 16 months earlier. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said detectives have been working around the clock since the Sunday shooting. We will not rest until we solve this case, he told reporters. Its not easy. We need help, but Im confident were heading in the right direction. We need to be very deliberate in this process, he said, because ultimately we want to make sure we get to the right person. Do you have information? Anyone with information about Jazmine's shooter is urged to call Houston Crime Stoppers at 731-222-TIPS (8477). See More Collapse Amid the furor the case has generated, national civil rights activist Shaun King offered a reward of $60,000 and Crime Stoppers of Houston offered another $5,000 for information leading to apprehension of the killer. Gonzalez said he expects to release an artists sketch of the gunman Thursday. Were going to continue to do every effort possible to make sure we bring closure to the family and also that we get this killer off our street, Gonzalez said. We dont want anyone else to be harmed in any way. Jazmine and her mother were shot, and two sisters were injured by flying shards of glass, about 6:50 a.m. Sunday when a man in a pickup truck pulled up next to their car near a Walmart in northeast Harris County. The shooter was described as a bearded white man possibly in his 40s; a red pickup can be seen in surveillance video fleeing the area. Barnes mother, LaPorsha Washington, 30, who was shot in the arm, told reporters she was taking Barnes and her three sisters a 6-year-old and two teenagers on an early morning coffee run. The truck slowed down and continued to fire as he was in front of us, Washington told ABC13. It was not fair. It was not fair. He intentionally killed my child for no reason. He didnt even know her. Barnes, described by Gonzalez as an angelic child who had told her parents she wanted to be a teacher, was struck in the head by a bullet. A similar shooting Local civil rights activist Deric Muhammad said Wednesday he believed Jazmines murder could be connected to a shooting nearby during Hurricane Harvey. During the 2017 shooting, then-21-year-old Avonta Williams was driving along Garrett Road near East Beltway 8 to check on his girlfriend in the wake of Harvey when he said he was shot by a white male in a Ford F-150 truck. Williams was struck in both legs, and his grandmother, who was also in the car with him, was shot in the hip. He drove to the Beltway at Wallisville where he called 911. Williams family claimed that detectives failed to investigate the shooting for months and have yet to make an arrest in the case. If Avonta Williams shooter had been found, would Jazmine Barnes still be alive? Muhammad said, speaking outside a Harris County Sheriffs Office substation Wednesday morning. Weve got to call it what it is. Black people are being targeted in this country. Black people are being targeted in this city. We are thoroughly convinced that the killing of Jazmine Barnes was race-related. The area where Williams was shot is several miles from where Barnes and her family were attacked. Muhammad said both shooters were white men who shot black families, and both were driving pickups though Williams shooter was believed to have been driving a gray truck. Gonzalez acknowledged Muhammads concerns, calling the slaying alarming, but said he couldnt speculate on motive while detectives investigate the case. We simply dont know, he said. It would be irresponsible for me to make that claim without fully knowing [hate] is the linkage. One phone call away On Wednesday, the family was still recovering from the violent assault, as relatives took Barnes older sisters to a doctor to have glass removed. Washington has since left the hospital. A relative said the family was still sorting out funeral arrangements. Officials said investigators have returned to the site where Jazmine was killed, speaking to business owners and looking for additional surveillance video. The sheriffs office is working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to analyze ballistics evidence left behind at the scene to see if the gun can be linked to previous shootings. They also are combing law enforcement databases and canvassing the neighborhood to try to stir up clues, especially from people who might know the shooter. Were always just one phone call away, and that could drop at any point, Gonzalez said. st.john.smith@chron.com jay.jordan@chron.com Texans star DeAndre Hopkins has pledged his next gameday check to the family of 7-year-old Jazmine Barnes to cover funeral costs and to encourage tipsters to come forward in finding her killer. Hopkins likened the smiling girl to his 5-year-old daughter as he joined the growing number of athletes and entertainers paying tribute to the slain Monahan Elementary School second grader. In a tweet Thursday, the 26-year-old wide receiver vowed to give his earnings from Saturdays AFC wild-card game against the Indianapolis Colts to the girls family. The financial boost comes as civil rights activist Shaun King upped the reward for finding Jazmines assailant to $100,000. I have a 5-year-old daughter, so that could have been anybody in that position on this team, Hopkins said. It could have been anybody who is in this city, so its just unfortunate. I felt in my heart, its only right to give back to those who are down. Man, its a tough situation for that to happen. DETAILS: Search intensifies for killer of 7-year-old Jazmine Barnes On Hopkins official Twitter account, he wrote: When I see Jazmine Barnes face, I see my own daughter. On Saturday, I will be playing in your honor, Jazmine. Under the NFL collective bargaining agreement, players make $29,000 for playing in the wild-card round. A check of that amount will go to paying for the memorial scheduled to take place Tuesday at the Green House International Church at 200 W. Greens Road. A viewing will start at 10 a.m. I hate to hear what happened, Hopkins said. The city of Houston is always supportive of me, of this team. I felt in my heart, it was only right that I give back to those that are down. KPRC-TV reported that Houston police officer Kenneth Miles and Shaquille O Neal are teaming up to help pay for Jazmines funeral expenses. Actresses Gabrielle Union, Olivia Wilde and Sophia Bush have taken to Twitter to call on the public to help catch the suspect. Union called on authorities to find the shooter: This evil monster must be stopped! The search for the man has intensified since the shooting was first reported just before dawn Sunday near a Walmart in northeast Harris County. The suspect was behind the wheel of a pickup truck and opened fire into the car carrying Jazmine, her three sisters and their mother LaPorsha Washington to the store. A sketch of the suspect released Thursday depicted him as a thin, white man with pronounced cheek bones. He is believed to be in his 30s to 40s and was last seen sporting a 5-oclock shadow, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez announced at a press conference. The vehicle he was driving was captured on surveillance footage minutes before the attack is believed to be a red or maroon four-door SUV. A rally in Jazmines honor is slated to be held noon Saturday in the Walmart parking lot at 5655 East Sam Houston Parkway. During the press conference, Gonzalez thanked King for the advocacy he and attorney Lee Merritt have done in bringing awareness to the investigation. Since Sunday, King has echoed pleas from law enforcement to find the childs killer to his more than 1 million Twitter followers. As the 116th Congress begins, the Florida delegation should unite to stop offshore drilling off the Gulf coast of Florida and must push Congress to enact legislation to make the moratorium on offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico (EGOM), eastward from the Military Mission Line (MML) at Long. 86 deg, 41 min., permanent. The MML was established by the 2006 GOMESA law to delineate the military testing area as being off limits to oil exploration. This moratorium will expire in June 2022 unless extended and it is rumored that the Department of Interior would like to permit seismic testing in this area. There is no rationale for seismic unless they expect to lease for drilling after June 2022. Our Florida economy depends on tourism and a large military presence. Any potential, however remote or speculative, for the kinds of environmental damage we have seen take place in the other areas where drilling and production have been allowed will be devastating for our economy, environment and our future in Florida. There are plenty of places marketing for tourists where there is no risk of offshore drilling and we have to compete with them. Aside from the immediate existential risk of a large, multi-million barrel spill like Deepwater Horizon, there are numerous spills going on right now throughout the middle and western Gulf. One, the Taylor spill, has been discharging oil and chemicals into the Gulf offshore of Louisiana since 2004 and has released between 1.5 to 3.5 million barrels of oil in that period. Additionally, we have a clockwise current in the near offshore Gulf, running right through one of the areas thought to have oil and gas, the Destin Dome. This current assures that any pollutants introduced into the Gulf off our north and west coasts will flow all the way down the coast across Florida Bay to the Keys. Aside from risks to our tourism-based economy, our strong military presence throughout Florida needs the east central Gulf, east of the MML (this is why it was a military demarcation in the first place) for their exclusive use for testing, free of drilling rigs, platforms and supply vessel traffic. As the May 2018 Department of Defense report Preserving Military Readiness in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico clearly shows, the military is planning to increase testing out in the EGOM in the future: (Please see the attached map.) In one of its most poignant references, the Department of Defense called the eastern Gulf of Mexico an irreplaceable national asset for combat force readiness and for accomplishing the goals of the 2018 National Defense Strategy. The MML creates a large-scale, flexible and irreplaceable training ground for our development of our leading defense technologies. The growing threat assessment of security risks in the Arabian Gulf region make this training all the more important. The report notes several times that the proximity to major military bases and its large-scale make the EGOM area a unique asset for national defense that cannot be replicated. It is important to mention the over $70 billion in economic impact Floridas military bases have on our state, according to research by the Florida Chamber of Commerce. Lastly, the people of Florida are clearly opposed to offshore drilling. The November 2018 ballot contained a ban on offshore drilling, Amendment 9, which won with over 68 percent in favor. This widespread support should indicate to the entire Florida delegation, members of both parties and both chambers, that voters are overwhelmingly against letting the moratorium expire in 2022. Floridians are well aware that all of our livelihoods depend on a pristine environment, and that offshore drilling in the Gulf threatens our futures. As 2019 begins and the 116th Congress begins, we want to ensure our constituents that we will continue to fight to permanently ban offshore drilling off our coast. Francis Rooney is the U.S. Representative for Floridas 19th congressional district. He is the Vice-Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and serves on the Committee on Education and the Workforce. He previously served as U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See under President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2008. Love & Hip Hop: Miami returns to television screens on January 2 at 8 pm. The show's network released a 6-minute-long clip to tease the upcoming season. It begins with Trina's appearance as a mentor to young female artists at Rico Loves music college. "All of us women, we have to stick together," Trina narrates. "My girl Dreezy, Molly Brazzy, and Miss Mullato, they are all super talented and I want to see them succeed." Amid all the positivity and talk of empowerment, Trina mentions the difficulties she is facing with her collaborator, Trick Daddy. The pair is set to release a joint project called T&T but the process isn't going so well. The female emcee is frustrated with Trick's lack of cooperation. She says she hasn't been able to get him in the studio for a session. He is even dodging her calls. Im doing everything, hes not showing up, says Trina. Clearly, something ain't right and things might have to get worse before a resolution can be found. That's was Trina seems to insinuate when she predicts a "war" between both rappers. The preview also includes some DM sliding drama featuring Amara La Negra, Young Hollywood, and Gunplay. View the full clip below. With the Nike Air Force 270, the Beaverton brand was looking to blend fashion and function with a chunky design that could withstand all of the elements. In October, Nike dropped the Nike Air Force 270 utility which added to the shoe's functionality by adding buckle straps, cord laces and a lockdown zipper that runs down the center of the tongue. Now that the utility version of the shoe has released, Nike is looking to drop some more colorways of the shoe and this "white, blue and black" version is one of them. The back heel of the sneaker has the AF 270's signature large air bubble except it is completely clear and has no color. Meanwhile, the midsole is dressed in royal blue which extends to the toe box, up through the sides and all the way around the heel. The upper part of the shoe is white with black laces, black straps, and a black tongue. Image via Nike According to Hypebeast, there is no word yet on when these are releasing but expect them to be coming to the market soon. We will update you with new details as soon as they become available. Comment Policy Calaveras Enterprise does not actively monitor comments. However, staff does read through to assess reader interest. When abusive or foul language is used or directed toward other commenters, those comments will be deleted. If a commenter continues to use such language, that person will be blocked from commenting. We wish to foster a community of communication and a sharing of ideas, and we truly value readers' input. Kanye West and Donald Trump still have a mutual love for each other and it doesn't look like that will change at any point in 2019. The Chicago native has been incredibly vocal about his support for Trump within the last year and the 45th president has reciprocated the praise. After Kanye announced that the MAGA hat is an official staple in his wardrobe, Trump showed Kanye West some love during the first Cabinet meeting of the year. Oliver Contreras - Pool/Getty Images Donald Trump held the first Cabinet meeting of 2019 where he discussed several pressing topics such as the government shutdown and the necessity of building a wall along the border. In the midst of all of this, Trump reported showed love to Kanye West. According to CNBC reports Q Mui, Trump referred to Yeezy as a "smart, good guy." Trump's shout-out comes a day after Kanye confirmed that he's still Team Trump. The rapper took to Twitter to reveal that he'll be wearing the MAGA hat during every performance before explaining the hat's significance to him. "One of my favorite of many things about what the Trump hat represents to me is that people cant tell me what to do because Im black," he wrote on Twitter. Aside from stanning Trump, fans have been eagerly awaiting Kanye West's upcoming project, Yandhi which has been pushed back twice already. There hasn't been any confirmation for a release date, but we'll keep you posted. Peep the cabinet full hour-long meeting below. Jordan Brand has today announced that their annual Chinese New Year collection will be arriving at select retailers in North America and on SNKRS starting February 5. The collection, consisting of an Air Jordan 12 and an Air Jordan 33, first dropped in Greater China today, January 3rd. As part of the upcoming Chinese New Year sneaker collection, Jordan designers were first drawn to the storytelling practice of ancient Chinese patchwork and quilting (also known as cae / baijiayi). For centuries, Chinese patchwork has been given to children as a symbol of prosperity, strength and appreciation. Quilt pieces are sourced from multiple families in a community, which earned the patchwork a nickname, the Hundred-families robe. Per AirJordan.com: "The design team applied this narrative method of collaged scraps to the creation of a geometric print that lines the Air Jordan XII, the Air Jordan XXXIII and collection apparel. Both shoes have a black and gold color combination with reveal elements for the print that allow it to be seen and worn in different ways a first for the Jordan Brand Chinese New Year collection. The patchwork print includes references to all 12 animals in the Chinese Zodiac, and both shoes have a remixed, digitized 23 meant to resemble 2019s Year of the Pig zodiac sign. On the apparel, the print is incorporated down the arms and legs." The men's Air Jordan 12 will retail for $250, while the AJ33 carries a $175 price tag. Richton Park DJ Eric "E-Smoove" Miller filed a lawsuit against Kanye West's record label over unreleased songs that were granted to the record company in a settlement over a decade ago. According to Chicago Sun Times, "the suit accuses Universal Music Group and its subsidiaries Def Jam Recordings and Island Records of breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, fraudulent inducement and violating the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act." In 2009, Island Def Jam told Miller they had to shelve the songs he crafted with West because they couldn't secure the rights to their samples. This reasoning is being deemed as "preposterous" in the lawsuit. Island Def Jam is a pioneering label in sample clearance and clearing samples is a routine function of releasing Kanye West albums, as well as hundreds of other releases in the Island Def Jam catalog, the suit says. Frank Micelotta/Getty Images Miller, who claims to have been the young Yeezy's mentor, is adamant about these tracks since they display the frame of mind that [Kanye] was in, one he qualifies as unique. You cant go back there, Miller said. You cant be trying to get signed, starving well, he wasnt starving because he lived a middle-class life but from an artist standpoint he was starving. Miller continues: After youve had the success and the fame and all that stuff, you can never get that energy back. According to Miller, he had met up with Kanye and former Def Jam president Jay-Z. He recalled the Roc Nation mogul saying that the demos in question were hope to all of those aspiring emcees. JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. You should upgrade or use an You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.You should upgrade or use an alternative browser Supplier News 3 January 2019 NEW YORK -- The Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) this year honored Travel Tripper with two Silver Adrian Awards for its achievements in digital marketing innovation and campaign strategy. Travel Tripper received a Silver Award in the Digital Marketing Innovation category for its Hotel E-Commerce Platform, a hotel website platform that uses buying signals and conversion-driving features to help hotels increase their direct booking contribution and raise ADR. In less than 3 years since its initial launch, Travel Tripper's Hotel E-Commerce Platform has helped more than 175 hotels drive an average increase of 75% in conversion rate and at least 50% increase in direct share. The Digital Marketing team also took home another Silver Award for strategizing and executing innovative behavioral retargeting campaigns for several independent hotels in New York and Florida. Using advanced segmentation based on web browsing behaviors, coupled with non-intrusive and personalized messaging, Travel Tripper were able to deliver date-targeted advertising impressions at an 88% lower cost over traditional display advertising campaigns, while driving up to 11:1 ROAS. Robert A. Gilbert, CHME, CHBA, president and CEO of HSMAI, congratulated the winners, "The Adrian Awards celebrate travel marketing innovators whose awesome creativity and hard work are integral not only to the success of their companies, but to the continued growth of the hospitality industry as a whole." Winning entries will be viewable in the winners' gallery on the Adrian Awards website. To learn more about the innovations that garnered these awards, click here to read about Travel Tripper's Hotel E-Commerce Platform and Digital Marketing services. About HSMAI The Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) is committed to growing business for hotels and their partners, and is the industry's leading advocate for intelligent, sustainable hotel revenue growth. The association provides hotel professionals & their partners with tools, insights, and expertise to fuel sales, inspire marketing, and optimize revenue through programs such as HSMAI ROCET, Adrian Awards, and Revenue Optimization Conference. HSMAI is an individual membership organization comprising more than 7,000 members worldwide, with 40 chapters in the Americas Region. Connect with HSMAI at www.hsmai.org. Press Release 3 January 2019 FAIRFAX, VA -- Marriott International presented Crestline Hotels & Resorts, LLC its Partnership Circle Award at the brand's recent annual 2018 MINA & Full-Service Owners Conference held in Washington, D.C. Crestline was recognized for its steadfast partnership, commitment to excellence, and overall support of Marriott's full-service brands. To qualify for this distinguished recognition award winners must exceed several performance thresholds and criteria including superior guest service and brand excellence. Advertisements Crestline currently manages 58 Marriott-branded hotels including: three full-service Marriott properties and three Westin hotels, twenty-four Courtyard by Marriott hotels, nine Residence Inns, nine SpringHill Suites, two TownePlace Suites, and eight Fairfield Inn & Suites. "We are truly honored to receive this recognition," said James Carroll, President and CEO of Crestline Hotels & Resorts. "We have a long relationship with Marriott that dates back to our company's inception nearly 20 years ago. There are only a handful of management companies that are part of this elite group and we are proud of our hardworking associates and partners who have helped us achieve this success." Crestline was also recognized with a SERVE 360 Award for the company's compassionate and ongoing community service and engagement effortsincluding disaster relief during the recent devastating storms and hurricanes. Marriott International embraces its global responsibility and unique opportunity to be a force for good. Guided by its sustainability and social impact platform, Serve 360: Doing Good in Every Direction, Marriott is committed to making a positive and sustainable impact wherever it does business. Serve 360 is organized into four priority areas: Nurture Our World, Sustain Responsible Operations, Empower Through Opportunity and Welcome All & Advance Human Rights. Crestline's recognition was attributed to their efforts towards the Nurture Our World category. In addition, the Crestline managed SpringHill Suites San Antonio Medical Center / Northwest was recognized for Renovation Excellence at Marriott's Select Brand Owner and Franchise Conference, Marriott's Connect '18, held in San Diego. Rectangle after Rectangle How the picture frame was shaped Amy Knight Powell This is about the dominance of the rectangular format in a certain tradition of picture making, a dominance that still holds today and extends well beyond the medium of painting. The book, the photographic print, the screen, and the museumwhich has tended to favor this formatall guarantee that we encounter most pictures in rectangular frames.1 Squaring the scroll. Wooden writing tablet made in Byzantine Egypt, ca. 500700 AD. Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art. A picture that comprises figure and ground requires an enclosed field. Without an enclosure, the space around its figure(s) will not necessarily read as part of the picture; enclosure is, therefore, the originary act that gives rise to the picture but also limits it. Nothing says this enclosure needs to take the shape of a rectangle, but the history of Western art, at least, makes the rectangle look like a virtually inescapable anatomical limit.2 What follows are three episodes in the longue duree of this rectangle, each a moment in which the rectangular format moves into an ascendant position over one curvilinear format or another. Episode One: The triumph of the rectilinear codexthe form of the book we still know todayover the curvilinear scroll, around the year 300.3 This is not the beginning. The rectangular format appeared sometime after cave painting, lets say, and well before the invention of the codex, in the murals, mosaics, relief sculptures, textiles, and other media of the ancient world. But with the invention of the codex, the rectangle acquired the force of a given, by virtue of the fact that codices, unlike murals, mosaics, and so on, almost universally adhere to that shape. Before there were codices, there were curvilinear scrolls and rectilinear tablets. Most scrolls were made of papyrus, though some were made of parchment, including some of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. Tablets were made of metal, clay, leather, or wood, sometimes with shallow depressions filled with wax that could be inscribed with a stylus and then smoothed again for another use. Several tablets could be strung together to form a rudimentary book. In Greco-Roman antiquity, the tablet was a humble notepad for conducting business. As the repository for scripture and literature, the scroll had all the prestige. In the sixth century, the Roman statesman Cassiodorus wrote that tablets are bits of sluggish wood, whereas the papyrus scroll is always plentiful; and it is so pliant that it can be rolled together, although it is unfolded to a great length. Its joints are seamless, its parts united.4 These sinuous structures were pulled straight in order to be read, but only ever partially and temporarily, before being rolled up again. The scroll, therefore, falls under the sign of the spiral, whose curvilinear lines go on indefinitely. By contrast, the tablet falls under the sign of the rectangle, whose straight edges intersect to form finite enclosures. The book before the book. An anachronistic depiction of the fifth-century BC prophet Ezra writing in front of a bookcase. Plate from the Codex Amiatinus, a Latin Bible produced around 700 AD at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey in Northumbria, England. In the first century, the tablet evolved into the parchment codex. The codex then became the dominant form of the book in the fourth century in the Latin West and in the following century in Byzantium, displacing the scroll, though never completely. The furniture built to store the scroll and the codex reflects their respective shapes. In a tenth-century Byzantine gospel book, John the Evangelist is shown seated at a lectern mounted on a stem shaped like a dolphin, next to which stands a capsa, a cylindrical container for scrolls. The Codex Amiatinus (anachronistically) shows Ezra writing in a codex in front of a large bookcase. The rectilinear lines of this bookcase reflect its codices, while the curvilinear lines of Johns capsa reflect its scrolls. In a twelfth-century gospel book from Constantinople, Mark is pictured writing his gospel, as if this were a process of translation from the one format into the other, and as if this translation were a matter of setting things straight.5 Gravity unfurls the scroll, straightening and cutting it into page-like segments where it falls over the lectern and again where it meets the floor. This process of rectification brings the scroll into alignment with the codex on Marks knees. Illustration from twelfth-century gospel book depicting Saint Mark the Evangelist. Courtesy Bibliotheque nationale de France. Images in codices endured an analogous process of rectification. In scrolls, text is lined up in columns with few, if any, breaks. This continuous length of text invites unframed or at least laterally open images that float across the surface of the scroll in its various states of being rolled and unrolled. By contrast, the codexs sequence of separate leaves divides the text into discrete blocks, which invite the commensurate enclosure of pictorial space.6 The fragments that survive from the Milan Iliad (ca. 500 AD) are the earliest examples of codex illustration we happen to have, though what are said to be later copies of fourth-century books suggest that codices had been illustrated at least since the format became dominant. While they had been rare in scrolls, fully framed, rectangular miniatures like those in the Milan Iliad became common in codices relatively quickly. Housed in an upper and lower register within a rectangular frame, which originally sat above a rectangular block of text, two scenes of battle between the Greeks and the Trojans are filled with soldiers carrying circular shields. Saturated with color, the repeated, curvilinear shape of these shields forms the keynote of the composition, contesting the rectilinearity of the frame.7 With the triumph of the rectilinear codex over the curvilinear scroll and the corresponding ascendance of the rectangular picture format, the picture became a binary structure of accommodation and resistance to the rectangle. The straight line was now the accommodating, and therefore unmarked, term; the curved line the resistant, marked term.8 Though every picture housed in a rectangular codex is structured this way, throughout the history of manuscript illumination, battle scenes in particular have capitalized on this arrangement. The depiction of the Battle of Hastings in the manuscript Vie de seint Auban (The Life of Saint Alban), written and illustrated by Matthew Paris almost eight centuries after the Milan Iliad, once again pits curves against straights: here, shield, head, and rump against frame and piercing lance. Struggle between curves and straights is not restricted to battle scenes like these; it unfolds in ostensibly pacific miniatures as well, just because the curve is marked in opposition to the unmarked straight. Nor does it shape only manuscript pictures that have a border like the one around the pictures in the Milan Iliad and the Vie de seint Auban. In the absence of such a border, the page itself can do all the work. Depiction of the Battle of Hastings from Matthew Pariss thirteenth-century manuscript Vie de seint Auban. Courtesy Trinity College, Dublin. And the page would keep on doing this work into the era of print, now aided and abetted by the increasingly industrialized manufacture of paper. Parchment had been produced on a relatively small scale. But in the period spanning the thirteenth through the fifteenth century, the spread of paper mills in Europe transformed the page into a mass-produced thing. The standard sizes and shapes that came with this mass production governed the format of printed material, ensuring that the page would continue to conform to the rectangle. Meanwhile, standardized paper became available to artists for drawings, including preparatory drawings for paintingsanother means by which the rectangle would maintain its hold. Episode Two: The Renaissance squares the Gothic. In the thirteenth century, most painted panels took the form of a (vertical) rectangle. This shapesometimes modified by a pointed gablegoverned the production of small as well as large paintings, including Coppo di Marcovaldos seven-and-a-half-foot-high Madonna and Child Enthroned of 1261.9 This rectangle never gave way in Byzantium, but in the Latin West it suffered an eclipse during the Gothic period, succumbing to curvilinear flights of fancy that had evolved out of the Romanesque gable. The upper edge of Fra Angelicos Cortona triptych of 1437 sprouts arches, topped with gables of concatenated curves and straights, two of which enclose tondos. These arches originally had cusps along their inner edges, and the gables extended into little floriated points called finials. These curvaceous details rotted when a well-meaning parish priest shut the altarpiece up in an airless enclosure during World War II. If you look at Fra Angelicos triptych upside-down, you can see that the heads of the figures are plugged into this elaborate frame like balls in sockets. A woodcarver would have first assembled the panels and frame of a polyptych like this as an integral whole, before giving it to the painter, who could then insert his Virgin and saints into a structure that had anticipated the curves of their heads. Gothic excrescences like these were relatively short lived. In Tuscany, the transition back to the rectangle began already in the 1430s.10 In a document of 1434, Brunelleschi specifies that altarpieces made for the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florencewhose interior he was in the process of renovatingshould take the form of a tabula quadrata et sine civoriis, which is to say, a rectangular panel without crockets.11 (Crockets are those little curved licks placed at regular intervals along the edges of many Gothic structures.) Completed a few years later for the Martelli Chapel in the Basilica of San Lorenzo, Filippo Lippis Annunciation meets Brunelleschis specifications. A simple panel like Lippis would have been painted before it was framed and could therefore be moved from frame to frame.12 Indeed, its current frame is not its original one, though it is thought to resemble it. Accordingly, the heads of these figures are not plugged in.13 Along with commissioning works in this new tabula quadrata format, patrons employed artists to bring paintings made in the old manner with finials and foliate designs up to date.14 In 1424, Fra Angelico painted a triptych of the Madonna enthroned with saints for the high altar of the church of San Domenico near Fiesole. According to the chronicle history of the church, in about 1501 [this] altarpiece was remodeled into a square format and repainted by Lorenzo di Credi.15 When he painted it, Fra Angelicos San Domenico altarpiece probably looked like his Cortona triptych. During its renovation, the finials, gables, arches, and predella were removed. The whole was extended vertically to form a rectangle. The gold ground was replaced with a landscape seen through arched openings on either side of the Virgins throne. And the altarpiece was given a new frame, which opposes the unplugged curves of the figures haloed heads with long, sovereign straights. Giotto, Coronation of the Virgin, ca. 1330, renovated 1480. Baroncelli Chapel, Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence. Scholars have built a tight historical and corresponding conceptual link between the advent of the rectangular, Renaissance frame and the advent of linear perspective. Its true that the renovation of Fra Angelicos San Domenico altarpiece entailed both, but this was usually not the case. In 1480, about a century and a half after it was made, Giottos altarpiece for the Baroncelli Chapel in Santa Croce was renovated. Its original frame was removed and discarded, along with God the Father, who had occupied the gable above the heads of the Virgin and Christ. Spandrels decorated with vermilion cherubim were added, along with a new, rectangular frame that slices right through the curves of the cusped arches. No new background in perspective was needed. To bring the painting up to date, it sufficed to change its shapeinto a rectangle. This shape became so prevalent in Italy by the end of the fifteenth century that paintings came to be called quadri, even when they were round. Episode Three: The cubist oval. In 1910, Georges Braque painted the first cubist oval, Woman with a Mandolin. Pablo Picasso immediately followed suit with his own oval painting of the same subject. Over the next three or four years, both artists used oval canvases repeatedly.16 Then the oval canvas pretty much disappeared from their work. In the case of Picasso, whose oeuvre is so vast, the absence of further experimentation along these lines is striking. The avant-garde Polish artist Wadysaw Strzeminski explained the short-lived cubist oval as a tool for intensifying the contrast between straights and curves. In his 1928 essay Unism in Painting, Strzeminski argues that, in cubist paintings on rectangular canvases, curved lines are mainly grouped near the borders of the picture [which] creates a contrast between the form of the picture and its borders. That this intensification of contrasts was intentional, he continues, is made evident by the fact that in cubist pictures painted in oval frames, straight lines abound near the edges.17 Strzeminskis analysis of cubism picks up where Kazimir Malevich, with whom he had studied, left off. Around 1925, Malevich had made charts tracking the movement of modern painting toward abstraction.18 He compared this project to a bacteriological analysis, which clarifies the cause of sickness, and framed his painterly specimens in circles, as if he were viewing them through a microscope, in which is seen magnified a certain structure of straight and curved lines.19 For each artistic disorderwhich he revalued positively as the motor of artistic evolution, as that which destroys the norm of the generally accepted order in paintingMalevich identified an essential formal element.20 For cubism, it was the sickle shape.21 Sickness and the sickle. Kazimir Malevichs chart Analysis of Connections between Forms and Lines in the Four Stages of Cubism, made in advance of a series of lectures he gave in Berlin and Warsaw in the mid-1920s. In the upper right corner of a Malevich-inspired diagram from 1928 titled Kontrast, Strzeminski illustrates his version of the sickle, which he describes as the essence of not only cubism but also the entire post-Renaissance painting tradition. Taking a long, structuralist view, he puts this whole tradition (cubism included) under the heading of a transhistorical Baroque, against whose dualistic conception, which finds its reason in the power of struggling forces, we have to oppose a conception of a picture as a reconciled and organic entity.22 For Strzeminski, like Malevich, cubism was a step in the right direction but one that did not go far enough, since it remained beholden to the compositional dynamics of the past. But whereas Malevich uses the naturalizing metaphor of bacterial infection, Strzeminski insists that the contrasts between sinuous forms and the straight edges of the canvas found everywhere in post-Renaissance painting are neither natural nor necessary. Not only are such contrasts unnecessary, he argues, they are a form of needless violence, an elaborately contrived drama of blows inflicted by lines against other lines.23 Dispensing with curves and the violence they entail would be, according to Strzeminski, a necessary step toward the creation of a painterly metaphor for a fully integrated socialist society. In practice, Strzeminskis utopian rejection of curves was both incomplete and short-lived. Unism, as a movement, was over by about 1934.24 If Strzeminski bade farewell to the cubist ovaland the contrasts that it was intended to amplifyin words, Mondrian did so in paint. Mondrian was the painter who took up the cubist oval most enthusiastically, only to become, within a relatively short time, the one who abandoned it most decisively, along with all other curvilinear elements in his paintings. Piet Mondrian, Tableau No. 3: Composition in Oval with Trees, 1913. Courtesy Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Mondrian began painting around 1888, producing one rectangular picture after anotheruntil he encountered cubism.25 In the fall of 1911, he saw early cubist paintings at an exhibition in Amsterdam; by spring of the following year, he had relocated to Paris. This encounter with cubism would move him in the direction of the orthogonal grid, but first he had to work through the oval. Mondrian never used an oval canvas, in fact, but between 1913, when he painted Tableau No. 3: Composition in Oval with Trees, and 1917, he used an oval framing device of one kind or another for every major painting.26 Cubist ovals have often been exhibited in rectangular frames. They were exhibited that way already in the 1911 exhibition in Amsterdam. Mondrians ovals painted on rectangular canvases mimic that arrangement.27 For Tableau No. 3, Mondrian drew an oval border, confined his composition within it, and painted the area around it one color. Lines and colors fade as they approach this bordera strategy he also adopted from cubism. Tableau No. 3 belongs to a series of tree studies. Sweeping curves dominate the early phase of this series, but by the time he made Tableau No. 3, Mondrians push toward the straight line was underway; the already very tense line only needed to become still more tenseuntil it became straight.28 By the end of 1913, Mondrian had given up the organic tree motif and begun a series based on the architecture of Paris, which includes Oval Composition with Colored Squares 1 of 1914. In this series, the curves within the border become steadily fewer and more tense, in accordance with the rectilinear motif, while the curvature of the oval border holds. Oriented horizontally, the oval of Composition 10 in Black and White (1915), also called Pier and Ocean, is Mondrians last. Moreover, the border is now the only curved form that remains, all the lines within it having been pulled straight. While Pier and Ocean still gestures toward a real-world motif, Composition in Line, painted a year or so later, marks Mondrians full entrance into abstraction. Here, he squares the cubist oval into a circlethe last instance of a curvilinear shape in his work. Reorienting, squaring, and then shedding the cubist oval were the final steps in his push toward the straight line and in his passage to abstraction. While it appears clear that this passage to abstraction was, in part, a matter of acceding to the straight edges of the rectilinear canvas, this is not how Mondrian himself described it. He wrote endlessly about the straight lines, perpendicular lines, and rectangles he found everywhere in the world, even in sound, but he declined to mention the shape of his own canvases. In fact, he almost never utters the word canvas in his voluminous writings. For Mondrian, the rectangle was an idea. The rectangular canvas was the elephant in Mondrians roomunspeakable in its material contingency. Only by submitting to the rectangle absolutely, as a metaphysical principle, rather than a thing, could he make it seem necessary.29 Fresco from Pompeii depicting a woman holding a set of wax tablets and a stylus, ca. 50 AD. Courtesy Museo Archeologico Nationale, Naples. It was not necessary, but it was old. Extracted from its original context at Pompeii and marked with the inventory number 9084, the often-reproduced circular fresco portrait of a woman in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples acquired its rectilinear frame long after it was painted. But the straight lines of this belated frame are not entirely inappropriate. In fact, they match the rectilinearity of the writing tablets in the womans left hand. And because this rectilinearity passed to the codex, each time this portrait is reproduced in a book, the straight edges of the frame that the museum gave it fit perfectly, while the curves of its border as well as those of the womans face, eyes, gold-threaded hair, and earrings come to blows with the rectangle of the pagein what Strzeminski would have dismissed as an utterly arbitrary pictorial drama. Strzeminskis formalism aspires to be the end of the story. Of course, its not. It leaves the rectangular format itself untouched. Rather than denaturalize the rectangularity of the canvas along with the other elements of painting, Strzeminski accepts it as a given, calling it one of the natural conditions that had already existed before the work of art was made. The terrain on which a painting arises.30 Strzeminski needs the rectangle to be an innate quality of painting, so that he has something from which every painterly composition, if it is to be an organic unity, can grow.31 This gives the rectangle both too much and too little credit: too much because it turns it into a law of nature rather than a matter of choice; too little because it underestimates its antiquity. In Strzeminskis modernist tale, the Renaissance gave birth to the rectangular picture, initiating the entirety of what he calls the Baroque tradition.32 But when Alberti wrote, First of all, on the surface on which I am going to paint, I draw a rectangle, he was simply reinstating the status quo. The rectangle was already in place, not because nature put it there, but because the process of its cultural transmission began long before Alberti put his pen to a rectangular sheet of paper. The author wishes to thank Alexander Nagel for his insightful comments on this essay. Painting may look outmoded, [but] the model of the tableau is still active. Hubert Damisch in Hubert Damisch and Stephen Bann: A Conversation, Oxford Art Journal, vol. 28, no. 2 (June 2005), p. 179. This all goes back to Meyer Schapiro, On Some Problems in the Semiotics of Visual Art: Field and Vehicle in Image-Signs, Semiotica, vol. 1, no. 3 (January 1969); and is taken up again in Hubert Damisch, The Inventor of Painting, trans. Kent Minturn and Eric Trudel, Oxford Art Journal, vol. 33, no. 3 (October 2010), pp. 301316. The standard reference here is Colin H. Roberts and T. C. Skeat, The Birth of the Codex (London: Oxford University Press, 1983). Another excellent overview is Harry Y. Gamble, The Early Christian Book, in Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995). Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus, Selected Variae, trans. S. J. B. Barnish (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1992), p. 160. The scroll, inscribed with the opening lines of the Gospel of Luke, seems to stand here for the divine word, taking the place of those texts, sometimes included in portraits of the evangelists, held above their heads by the winged man, lion, ox, and eagle. On the enclosure of pictures in codices but not scrolls, see Kurt Weitzmann, Illustrations in Roll and Codex: A Study of the Origin and Method of Text Illustration (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970) and Book Illustration of the Fourth Century: Tradition and Innovation, in Studies in Classical and Byzantine Manuscript Illumination, ed. Herbert L. Kessler (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1971); Otto Pacht, Book Illumination in the Middle Ages: An Introduction, trans. Kay Davenport (London: Harvey Miller; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 2526; Angelika Geyer, Die genese narrativer buchillustration: Der miniaturenzyklus zur Aeneis im Vergilius Vaticanus (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann Verlag, 1989). Illuminators borrowed from monumental wall painting as well as other media, such as relief sculpture, and their pictures were used as models for these in turn. The Milan Iliad is a case of evident borrowing. See Kurt Weitzmann, Book Illustration of the Fourth Century; Ernst Kitzinger, The Role of Miniature Painting in Mural Decoration, in The Place of Book Illumination in Byzantine Art, ed. Kurt Weitzmann, William C. Loerke, Ernst Kitzinger, and Hugo Buchthal (Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1975); and Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 121. Rosalind Krauss calls the curve marked and the grid unmarked in cubism in her comments following Yve-Alain Bois, The Semiology of Cubism, in Picasso and Braque: A Symposium, ed. Lynn Zelevansky(New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1992), p. 212. These are catalogued by shape in Edward Garrison, Italian Romanesque Panel Painting: An Illustrated Index (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1976). On the advent of the Renaissance pala, see From Polyptych to Pala: Some Structural Considerations, and Lorenzo Monaco, Filippo Lippi und Filippo Brunelleschi: Die erfindung der renaissancepala, in Christa Gardner von Teuffel, From Duccios Maesta to Raphaels Transfiguration: Italian Altarpieces and their Settings (London: The Pindar Press, 2005); Megan Holmes, Fra Filippo Lippi: The Carmelite Painter (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), pp. 102128; and George Bisacca, The Rise of the allantica Altarpiece Frame, The Frame Blog (18 June 2015). The latter is available at http://theframeblog.com/2015/06/18/the-rise-of-the-allantica-altarpiece-frame. Megan Holmes qualifies this chronology: However, the gold-ground polyptych persisted as a powerful alternative, even in the work of the two artists [Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo] responsible for introducing and popularizing the new formula. See her Fra Filippo Lippi, p. 121. Jeffrey Ruda, A 1434 Building Programme for San Lorenzo in Florence, The Burlington Magazine, vol. 120, no. 903 (June 1978), p. 361. On this new autonomy, see Creighton Gilbert, Peintures et menuisiers au debut de la Renaissance en Italie, Revue de lArt, no. 35 (1977). On the new formats relation to religious reform, see Alexander Nagel, Art as Gift: Liberal Art and Religious Reform in the Renaissance, in Negotiating the Gift: Pre-Modern Figurations of Exchange, ed. Gadi Algazi, Valentin Groebner, and Bernhard Jussen (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2003). These are the words of artist Neri di Bicci, who records renovating a number of such altarpieces made according to the usage of that older time. These he restored and brought back to the taste of today, that is, with pilasters on either side, and above an architrave with a frieze and a cornice. Neri di Bicci, Le ricordanze (10 marzo 145324 aprile 1475), ed. Bruno Santi (Pisa: Edizioni Marlin, 1976), pp. 382383; as translated in Cathleen Hoeniger, The Reframing of Gothic Altarpieces during the Renaissance, in The Renovation of Paintings in Tuscany, 12501500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 106. As translated in Cathleen Hoeniger, The Reframing of Gothic Altarpieces, p. 120. Harry Cooper argues that they retrieved this format from what was then considered to be the modernist dustbin of history (Rococo portraiture). See Harry Cooper, Braques Ovals, in Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, 19101912, ed. Eik Kahng (Santa Barbara, CA: Santa Barbara Museum of Art; Fort Worth, TX: Kimbell Art Museum, 2011), p. 40. He also appraises earlier accounts of the cubist oval as, for example, a way of dealing with the problem of corners. Wadysaw Strzeminski, Unism in Painting, as translated in Constructivism in Poland 19231936, ed. Ryszard Stanisawski, trans. Piotr Graff and Eva Krasinska (odz: Muzeum Sztuki w odzi, 1973), p. 90. Linda S. Boersma, On Art, Art Analysis and Art Education: The Theoretical Charts of Kazimir Malevich, in Kazimir Malevich 18781935, ed. Wim Beeren and Joop Joosten, trans. Ruth Koenig (Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum, 1988). Kazimir Malevich, An Introduction to the Theory of the Additional Element in Painting, in The World as Non-Objectivity: Unpublished Writings 192225, ed. Troels Andersen, trans. Xenia Glowacki-Prus and Edmund T. Little (Copenhagen: Borgen, 1976), pp. 166167. On Malevichs pathologizing of abstraction, see Mark A. Cheetham, Abstract Art Against Autonomy: Infection, Resistance, and Cure Since the 60s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 419. Kazimir Malevich, An Introduction to the Theory of the Additional Element in Painting, p. 150. He continues: New art is considered morbid by the larger part of learned and non-learned society and criticism, and from the point of view of new arts the situation is reversed, the majority are considered abnormal. Malevich thereby turned the morbid derangement (p. 168) associated with avant-garde art on its head. On Malevichs sickle, see Yve-Alain Bois, Semiology of Cubism, p. 182. Wadysaw Strzeminski, Unism, p. 92. Ibid., p. 90. See Yve-Alain Bois, Strzeminski and Kobro: In Search of Motivation, in Bois, Painting as Model (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1990). Joop Joosten, Mondrian: Between Cubism and Abstraction, in Piet Mondrian 18721944: Centennial Exhibition (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1971). Ibid., p. 59. This work is also known as Tableau No. 3: Composition in Oval; the Stedelijk Museum, which owns the painting, uses this title. Some cubist oval paintings have even been restretched onto rectangular frameworks. See Claire Barry and Bart J. C. Devolder, Surface and Format: Observations on the Materials, Process, and Condition of Cubist Paintings, 19101912, in Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, p. 113. Piet Mondrian, The New Plastic in Painting (1917) in The New ArtThe New Life: The Collected Writings of Piet Mondrian, ed. and trans. Harry Holtzman and Martin S. James (Boston: Hall & Co., 1986), p. 64. Translation modified. See Yve-Alain Bois, The Iconoclast, in Piet Mondrian, 18721944, ed. Angelica Zander Rudenstine (Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1995). Hubert Damisch, Leveil du regard, in Fenetre jaune cadmium, ou les dessous de la peinture (Paris: Seuil, 1984), pp. 6566: This painter who claimed to leave nothing to chance would not in fact cease to work with automatism, in the surrealist sense of the term. Starting from the blot and its avatars and starting from the tableau and the constraints that define it as such, though they appear contradictory, overlap and pose analogous problems. My translation. The quotation is from an essay co-written in 1931 by Katarzyna Kobro and Wadysaw Strzeminski, and translated as Composition of Space in Constructivism in Poland, p. 107. Wadysaw Strzeminski, Unism, p. 93. The Baroque came about when a picture ceased to be a part of a wall decoration. Ibid., p. 86. Amy Knight Powell is an associate professor of art history at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of Depositions: Scenes from the Late Medieval Church and the Modern Museum (Zone Books, 2012). She is currently working on a book titled The Whitewashed Image: Iconoclasm and Seventeenth-Century Dutch Landscapes. Alexandra Black, 22, was killed by a lion that got loose from a locked space on Sunday at the Conservators Center in Burlington, N.C. Black graduated from Indiana University in May after studying animal behavior and biology. Enter the Once Upon A Child Spring Style Sweepstakes today for the chance to WIN! Refresh your child's wardrobe! You could be the LUCKY WINNER of $200 in Store Cash! Just scan and upload a photo of your completed "news story" and you'll be entered for a chance to have your story published. Click here to find out where to get a COVID-19 vaccine or test. To find out how many local residents have been vaccinated for COVID-19, click here. Use the map to find numbers for individual counties. Find detailed statistics about COVID-19 tests, cases and deaths by county and for the state as a whole on the Indiana State Department of Health's online dashboard. Lima, OH (45805) Today Partly sunny and breezy. Stray shower possible. High 83F. Winds SW shifting to NW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Isolated shower or two this evening. Partly cloudy. Low 57F. Winds NW at 5 to 15 mph. Support local journalism Now, more than ever, the world needs trustworthy reportingbut good journalism isnt free. Please support us by making a contribution. Contribute UB awards first badge under new micro-credential programs The International Outreach badge recognized students for coursework examining public health disparities and participation in a two-week mission trip to Senegal. Students performed nearly 1,600 procedures to help treat more than 400 patients. The International Outreach badge recognized students for coursework examining public health disparities and participation in a two-week mission trip to Senegal. Students performed nearly 1,600 procedures to help treat more than 400 patients. The International Outreach badge recognized students for coursework examining public health disparities and participation in a two-week mission trip to Senegal. Students performed nearly 1,600 procedures to help treat more than 400 patients. The International Outreach badge recognized students for coursework examining public health disparities and participation in a two-week mission trip to Senegal. Students performed nearly 1,600 procedures to help treat more than 400 patients. UB piloted 10 micro-credential programs focused on workforce skills; will offer eight more in spring UB offers more types of micro-credentials than any other SUNY campus, and other universities are looking to UB as a model. BUFFALO, N.Y. The University at Buffalo has awarded seven students with the universitys first academic badge, a micro-credential that allows students to showcase their mastery of a skill in an area of interest. Smaller than a minor or certificate, a micro-credential program provides students with credit-bearing opportunities to gain relevant workforce skills without the financial and time commitments of a degree. The International Outreach badge, presented to seven students by the UB School of Dental Medicine and UB School of Nursing, is the first micro-credential awarded by UB. The program, offered in collaboration with the UB School of Public Health and Health Professions and the UB Community of Excellence for Global Health Equity, recognized students for coursework examining public health disparities and participation in a two-week mission trip to Senegal. We created micro-credential programs so that we can provide more personalized learning opportunities for students, says Anne Reed, director of the UB Office of Micro-Credentials. UB is emerging as a national leader in this new way of offering coursework. All of the programs are tied to relevant skills. The workforce has always been skill-based, but the skills that are needed are changing more rapidly than ever before. The abilities needed now may be different in two years. Micro-credentials are suited to meet that demand. A new way of learning UB piloted 10 micro-credential programs during 2018 fall semester. Subjects ranged from developing communication campaigns and applying knowledge of foreign languages in the workplace to learning to recognize child abuse and neglect in careers that require interaction with children and families. Available to undergraduate and graduate students, micro-credentials at UB are never more than 11 credits. Each program can be completed in as quickly as one semester at no additional cost beyond regular tuition rates. Non-credit bearing programs are available as well. The programs are themed around skills identified as essential by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Skills include critical thinking and problem-solving, teamwork and collaboration, intercultural fluency, leadership, professionalism, and oral and written communication. Upon completion, students receive a digital badge, a clickable, verifiable credential that houses information such as the date earned, issuing institution, program criteria and work samples. The information will live on digital credential platform Credly. Students who complete a credit-bearing micro-credential earn a notation on their academic transcript as well. Digital badges can be displayed on social media sites, such as LinkedIn, added as a link on resumes, or embedded in e-portfolios and email signatures. Coursework for micro-credentials also align with larger certificate and degree programs, allowing students to earn badges as they progress along their academic career. Micro-credentials are a major trend happening across the nation, says Reed. Our vision is to be a forerunner in rigorous and purposeful micro-credentials that are aligned with 21st-century competencies. UB offers more types of micro-credentials than any other SUNY campus, and other universities are looking to UB as a model. UB will make available eight additional micro-credential programs for the 2019 spring semester. Subjects include professional writing, communicating science to the public, ethical research and more. Skills learned across the world The International Outreach badge is one of several badges available through Addressing Public Health Disparities, a three-credit micro-credential program offered by the School of Dental Medicine and School of Nursing. The two-semester program examines the underlying reasons for health disparities in low-income countries and current global health interventions. Students are required to complete coursework through the UB School of Public Health and Health Professions and the Community of Excellence for Global Health Equity, and participate in mission trips to provide screenings, education and care to patients in need. The program provides perspective to students on what is really going on in the world, gives them an opportunity to engage their skillset and help a population that has poor access to dental and oral health care, and allows them to interact with a group of patients that they normally dont interact with, says Joseph Gambacorta, DDS, program director and assistant dean for clinical affairs in the School of Dental Medicine. A series of badges are obtainable for local, national and international health care outreach. Mission trips range from Buffalo and Knoxville, Tennessee to Sierra Leone and Haiti. The class of seven UB students to receive the International Outreach badge which included five dental students and two nursing students completed a two-week mission trip in July to Dakar, Senegal. Along with UB faculty and staff, students provided dental screenings and care, oral surgery, diabetes and blood pressure screenings, and primary care to vulnerable populations. During their time in Senegal, students performed nearly 1,600 procedures to help treat more than 400 patients. By working side-by-side, dental and nursing students also received an opportunity to learn more about each others disciplines. The skill students take away is adaptability, says Gambacorta. They learn to work interprofessionally and see how these disciplines can work collaboratively to provide patient care, and how to engage a population that is different than their own. They can then use this perspective in practice to provide care to individuals from all walks of life. More information about UBs micro-credential programs is available. Mental health system not broke but construction of it needs to be finished with proposals like ResCares Lansdale, PA (19446) Today Cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 79F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Thunderstorms this evening, then cloudy with rain likely overnight. Potential for severe thunderstorms. Low 61F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 80%. United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he wanted a great relationship with Pakistan and was looking forward to meeting the new leadership, but also said, serving as a reminder of where he and most Americans stood on ties with the one-time ally, they (Islamabad) house the enemy... take care of them. Around this time in 2018, Trump had accused Pakistan of returning only lies and deceit for the billions of dollars it received from the US as aid. The chief complaint remained the same, then and now, that Pakistan is not taking decisive action against terrorists based on its soil. Trump had suspended all security-related aid to Pakistan in an unprecedented escalation last January. We want to have a great relationship with Pakistan, but they house the enemy. They take care of the enemy, we just cant do that, Trump said, taking questions from reporters ahead of his cabinets first meeting of year, the first hour of which was aired live by news channels and publications. When we give money to Pakistan, he said, $1.3 billion. I ended that. Lot of people dont know that because they (Pakistan) havent been fair to us. The exact amount of the aid cut has evolved from nearly $2 billion, from the time of the announcement in 2017, to $1.66 billion, as conveyed by US department of defense last November. And now, the president has said, its $1.3 billion. Some Pakistan watchers say its higher than all of the above. But the president has showed a willingness to engage with the Pakistani leadership. So, I look forward to meeting with the folks from... the new leadership in Pakistan. We will be doing that in the not too distant future. But the thought of Pakistans lack of convincing courter-terrorism measures never left him. I ended $1.3 billion that we paid like it was water. We just paid it (to) Pakistan. So, I ended that. Trump has not met Imran Khan yet and there was no word on when they are likely to meet, and where. But the president did write to the Pakistan PM recently seeking more cooperation on Afghanistan, and the letter has been generally received well in Islamabad, as a sign of softening on the US side. But the Trump administration has conveyed to the Imran Khan government the primacy it places on counter-terrorism, leading to some initial irritation in Islamabad, which took the unusual step of demanding a revision of a US readout of the first phone call between Khan and US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, that said they had discussed terrorism as well. Islamabad never got the retraction, but did get the message. A 45-year-old man has been arrested in Lahore for sexually abusing at least 30 girls, mostly minors, and filming the victims after luring them either through candies or money, Pakistani officials said. The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested the child pornographer, Imdad Ali, from Lahores low-income area Badami Bagh area last week and obtained his five-day physical remand for interrogation. The investigators have detected more than 30 porn clips of minor girls from the suspects cellphone. The video clips of 30 or so girls, mostly minors, have so far been retrieved from the mobile phone of the suspect. In these clips, he appears forcing the girls into sexual acts, FIA Punjab cyber crime wing Deputy Director Chaudhry Sarfraz told PTI. He said the FIA was spurred into action after a video clip of the suspect with a child had gone viral on social media. He said it took the FIA three months to track the suspect down. We have sent the suspects mobile phone for forensic examination and booked him under the Prevention of Electronic Crime Act (Peca). The FIA has become complainant in this case on behalf of the state after none of the identified victim girls families showed willingness to file a complaint against the suspect. Sarfraz further said the suspect is not a part of any pornography ring (involved in selling material online) as he used to film his victims for his own consumption, being a pervert. The suspect, a spurious engine oil dealer, has confessed to committing the crime. He also took the team to a nearby house he owned where he would take minor girls (mostly of the nearby areas) after luring them either through candies or money. According to the cyber crime law, a child pornographer shall be punished with imprisonment for a term of up to seven years or with a fine of up to Rs 50 lakh or both. The FIA Punjab in 2017-18 has arrested four child pornographers in different areas of the province. Last year, the rape and murder of a minor girl in nearby Kasur city sparked outrage and protests across Pakistan. The 24-year-old suspect, who was involved in at least nine incidents of rape-cum-murder of minors, was given death penalty by an anti-terrorism court. PTI MZ AMS ZH AKJ AMS AMS Locally known as Burami, their forefathers hailed from Bhojpur district and were taken to Myanmar (erstwhile Burma) during the British rule in India. Members of as many as 14 families, who were born in Myanmar, later came back to India, hoping for a brighter future back home, but have since then been living in a refugee camp near Hazaribag locality within the periphery of Bettiah, the district headquarters of West Champaran district, about 220 km north of the state capital Patna. They claim they are fed up by the false promises and hence do not intend to live here any further. We came to India on a pure sense of belongingness more than four decades back, but this nation doesnt seem to have accepted us. We do not exist for the government. Or else, we would not have been reduced to scum on the earth like this, said Dhanwanti Devi, venting her anger. We came here following a call from the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. If Indiraji is no more, wasnt it the responsibility of the successive governments to fulfil the promises made to us by her. If we mean nothing to the government, it must make arrangements and send us back to Myanmar, say residents who beat a hard time to live with dignity and provide comfort to their children. Weak and frail, 76-year-old Girija Prasad Kushwahas eyes twinkled as nostalgia gripped him as he referred to his days of yore when life was smoother during his stay in Sematar in Zeyawaddi district of Burma. We owned around 100 bighas of cultivable land and had entitlement for many agriculture related facilities in Burma. We agreed to return to our home country after the Indian government assured us of providing land and protecting our identity here. However, they put us in refugee camps instead and are still making us run from pillar to post for our basic needs, said Kushwaha, who was born in Burma, in fluent Bhojpuri dialect. In the evening of his life now, Dashrath Chauhan, another Burami, claimed to have inherited about 200 bighas of land at Hasnapur in Tango district of Burma from his forefathers. Our forefathers hailed from Bhojpur district of Bihar and were forced to migrate to Burma by the British to look after their agriculture work there. Life was a lot smoother there. Many of us in the due course of time owned vast tracts of land with only exception that we could not sell them. Today, we are forced to lead a refugees life, says Chauhan. A visit to the refugee colony exposes the sufferings of the ill-fated people. Their dwellings are ramshackle and crumbling. The male members either work in the fields as labourers or pull rickshaw whereas female members work in stone crushing factories or as domestic help in well-off families. Owing to constant financial hardships, their children skip school to work to supplement familys income. Worse days are ahead for them as the Bettiah Raj officials have served notice, asking them to evict their homes as the refugee camp is built on their land. West Champaran district magistrate Dr Nilesh Ramchandra Deore said, We will study and take necessary steps if these people have valid documents in support of their claims. Avian influenza, also referred to as bird flu, has spread to one more block of Bihars Munger district, forcing authorities to order culling of over 15,000 poultry birds there on Friday. The H5N1 avian influenza in the state has so far claimed the lives of 200 birds, including seven peacocks and a khalij pheasant at the Sanjay Gandhi Biological Park, referred to as Patna zoo, which has been closed to public since December 25. Unconfirmed reports, however, put the death toll of birds in the state at over 1,000 since the outbreak of the disease in Munger on December 3. The animal husbandry department (AHD), however, refuted reports of all avian deaths to bird flu. We have been able to successfully contain the disease, which is restricted to the Patna zoo and two blocks of Munger, said state epidemiologist Dr Ragini Mishra. The animal husbandry department (AHD) on Thursday ordered culling of birds within 1 km radius of Sampatchak village in Jamalpur block of Munger district, nearly 180 kms east of Patna. This follows laboratory test reports from the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases, Bhopal, which confirmed death of a poultry bird due to H5N1 avian influenza on Wednesday. As per the AHD survey, around 15,500 birds were to be culled at Mubarak Chak village. District magistrate, Munger, Anand Sharma, however, refused to divulge the figure of poultry birds to be culled, saying the animal husbandry department had done the survey. We have decided to cull birds but are awaiting orders from the animal husbandry department. The moment we get the order then only we can give an official press release. Since the AHD has done the survey, you can talk to them directly, said Sharma. This is the second instance of bird-culling in the district. The authorities had culled 588 poultry birds at Gorho village in Asarganj block of the district between December 22 and 23, following reports of crow deaths due to bird flu. In Patna, fresh samples of faecal matter of several dead avian species found at the College of Arts and Craft, and the veterinary college, had been sent for tests to the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases, Bhopal. More than 500 samples of dead avian species, outside the Patna zoo, have been sent for laboratory tests to Bhopal. We are awaiting their results, said an AHD official requesting anonymity. Dr Mishra said the bird flu virus had not affected any human beings so far. We have sent serum and oropharyngeal swab samples for tests to the National Institute of Virology, Pune. The samples have been collected from people belonging to the risk group who came in contact with the dead birds. So far, none have tested positive, which is a good sign, said Dr Mishra. As a precautionary measure, the government had advised people to avoid chicken and poultry products, like egg. Dr Mishra, however, said the virus became inert at 70 degree Centigrade. Indian style of cooking in pressure cooker is considered to be safe. There is no risk if one partakes well cooked chicken and boiled eggs. There is no evidence of avian influenza in human beings in India so far, though the disease has been reported from 16 other countries. Experts from the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), Bareilly (UP), had visited the Patna zoo last week. A two-member team from the Lady Hardinge Medical College and the Indian Institute of Public Health, Kolkata, arrived here on Tuesday to undertake a study of the virus strain. Another six-member team from the animal husbandry ministry is expected here on January 4 to undertake a detailed study in the state and take required measures. A Central team from the health ministry is also camping at Munger. I have travelled to the Maldives, Mauritius & Seychelles but Lakshadweep is by far the most exotic destination in the world, posted Indias dashing CEO of Niti Aayog, and the man behind such successful campaigns over his long and fruitful career in the IAS as Make In India, Startup India, Incredible India and Gods Own Country. Its pristine white coral beaches, vast blue lagoons and infinite ocean home to myriad fish, turtles and playful dolphins are unparalleled, his post on social media yesterday had exulted, ending with: Totally unspoilt! Could he be unaware of the irony that with his post the group of islands in the Laccadive Sea, might not remain so unknown any longer and thus unspoilt, we asked the man who had put vast tracts of India on the international tourism and development maps, while commending him for his post. But of course, Kant had thought it through. Sustainable tourism based on carrying capacity. Only high-end should be the philosophy, his cryptic, but considered response came almost immediately. Like the Maldives? we prodded, hoping that our questioning was not interfering with the natural beauty of what most likely were salubrious beach surroundings. And would Goa, with its poor infrastructure, crowds and unplanned construction be a template on how not to go about things, we enquired. Again Kants response was instant, short but a firm expression of his vision for the island paradise: Low mass, high value, he replied, which, for us, having observed first-hand recently the success of its high value tourism fostered by the government of the Maldives for example, appeared to be an excellent plan. Kant remained silent. We hope he was sipping some delicious coconut water on a pristine beach overlooking a peaceful lagoon by then. Singh Star Power and Swag Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone at the airport. It will not be an exaggeration to say that 2018 ended and 2019 began with Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone. From their blockbuster Padmaavat to their exquisite Lake Como wedding, their perfectly coordinated ensembles, their OTT yet warm and intimate receptions back home to Singhs chart-breaking Simmba, the two slayed it. Fittingly, snaps of DeepVeer dressed in all black from head to toe embarking on their honeymoon yesterday, exuding industrial-sized swag have once more gone viral, as much for their aesthetic glam appeal, as for the tenderness they displayed. In all their post-wedding photographs the couple who had kept fans and media guessing about their relationship status till the last, have appeared hand in hand. In their newest airport outing, once again Singh who is now said to be worth more than all three Khans regarding box-office value, is seen extending a protective and loving arm around Deepika in the face of the media and public frenzy that their presence attracted. Which brings to mind the iconic American Express tagline: Film Opening day earnings within India: 20.72 crore; Film Opening day earnings outside India: 13.14 crore. Being sensitive and mindful of your wifes feelings: Priceless. Interestingly, this is not the first time Singh has impressed us. A few years ago, when he was not half the star he is, in fact a relative newbie to Bollywood, we were witness to him stealing the show from right under the noses of far more established and successful stars with his mean moves on the dance floor at a high-voltage filmy bash. Star Power and Swag, Singh has it along with Bollywoods sweetheart by his side now. Overheard: You are shaken but Rahul G is not stirred. Author, illustrator and film-maker Gautam Benegal, in response to FinMin Arun Jaitleys recent paraphrasing of the renowned political statesman Mr J Bond while trolling RaGa in Parliament recently. Onwards and Upwards Tulun Chen with Cyrus Broacha and Kunal Vijayakar. Every city has its iconic institutions, places which are a repository of a slice of its citizens choicest moments, whose closure evoke strong sentiments. And God knows Mumbai has seen its share of these with the Wayside Inn, Cafe Samovar, Strand Bookstore and Rhythm House downing their shutters in quick succession over the past few years. However, this looking at institutions through rose-tinted glasses can be carried too far and often the syndrome is chronic amongst those afflicted with a hipster luvvyness and a scant understanding of how businesses work. Which is why, when we heard that the famous Kamling Chinese eatery at Churchgate had closed on the first of January this month and there appeared to be a gathering tissue of crocodile tears as in another one bites the dust, we thought it best to speak to one of its owners, the straight-talking septuagenarian Tulun Chen, whose family we have known for decades. Yes, we have closed it till April 1 to carry out renovations, he said, eager to discourage any notions of faux nostalgia. We plan to modernise it and expand our menu to include Pan Asian food too, he said. But we are definitely going to retain Kamlings most popular dishes. Both the partners of Kamling, myself and Henry Tham are keen to hand over to our next generations, and after his completion of his MBA in Canada, my son Charles will take over the reins from me. So there you have it, a no-nonsense practical approach to growth, change and business exigencies. As for nostalgia, on our prodding Chen did concede that Kamlings clientele had included the best and brightest of the city, over the five or so decades of its existence. Sanjay Dutt, Tanuja and Kajol, Rekha and Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle are all long-time clients, he said, adding that the last two liked their meals non vegetarian and especially spicy! Even as Pipleda village panchayat in Hapur resolved to initiate steps to check cow slaughter incidents, carcasses of four cows were recovered from the forest area on the border of Bulandshahr and Aligarh districts on Tuesday morning. Cow-related incidents and violence have become a cause for concern for the authorities in west UP districts. On December 3, violence broke out in Syana area of Bulandshahr over cow slaughter incident which led to the killing of police inspector Subodh Kumar Singh. In an attempt to check incidents of cow slaughter and rumour-mongering, the members of Pipleda village panchayat in Dhaulana area of Hapur met on Monday and decided to protect cattle in the village. The panchayat, presided over by village head Haji Mansoor Ali, decided that committees would be formed to curb cow slaughter and to ensure cleanliness, better education to children and women empowerment. It is our duty to maintain harmony and brotherhood and not to indulge in any activity which may lead to tension, Ali said. The panchayat decided if any villager gets information about cow slaughter, he would immediately inform the village elders and authorities so that appropriate action can be initiated against the culprits. The villagers also decided to discourage rumour-mongering to maintain peace and brotherhood. A villager Irfan Ali said the residents would also work for women empowerment, better education and cleanliness to make Pipleda an ideal village. Meanwhile, carcasses of four cows were recovered from the forest area on the outskirts of Bhogpur village on the border of Bulandshahr and Aligarh districts on Tuesday morning. Senior superintendent of police (SSP), Bulandshahr, Prabhakar Choudhary rushed to the spot and directed the police to bury the carcasses. Police said residents of Bhogpur village spotted blood in the forest area and recovered four cow carcasses at some distance. As the village is situated on the borders of Aligarh and Bulandshahr, people from both the districts gathered at the spot. Police force from both the districts reached the spot and sought the help of villagers to defuse tension. A total of four carcasses were found in the area. Three were found from Chandaus area of Aligarh while one was recovered near Bhogpur village which falls in Bulandshahr district, the SSP said. Cases have been registered in both the districts against unidentified people and strict action will be initiated against the culprits, he said. In Meerut, Samajwadi Party leader Atul Pradhan and his supporters took out a procession taking two stray calves along to highlight the issue of stray cattle menace. Pradhan said he would enter the DMs office with stray animals to highlight the issue of widespread damage being done by stray animals across the state. SP (city) Ranvijay Singh stopped the protesters near Meerut College where they handed over charter of demands to him. Their demands included construction of shelter homes for stray animals, payment of sugarcane dues to farmers and CBI inquiry into police encounters in the state. The dispute over possession of land worth several crores, belonging to Ram Janki Temple trust in Rae Bareli, led to the death of priest Baba Prem Das, 60, whose body was found hanging from the ceiling of the main entrance of the temple. According to his supporters, the priest faced threats, monetary offers, petitions in court and several criminal cases against him while trying to free the trust property from land-grabbers. Mauni Baba, who is associated with the temple trust and lodged a report of Baba Prem Dass murder, alleged in his FIR that the trust had a dispute with the owner of Panchsheel Vidyalaya BN Maurya who had illegally occupied 11 bigha land of the trust for the college. Mauni Baba accused Maurya and his aides of murder and concealment of evidence. A local resident, Mohan (he goes by one name) said Baba Prem Das kept on running from pillar to post to get the temple trust land freed from illegal possession and stood tall against the land grabbers till his death. The district administration finally razed the college boundary wall after the protestors turned violent and alleged that officials were siding with the college owner and delaying compliance of the court order directing officials to get the temple trusts land vacated, he said. Mohan said the priest received life threats many a times and was attacked too. He was offered money and falsely implicated in criminal cases but all this did not deter him, he said. In a video recorded a month ago, Baba Prem Das had claimed that some people approached him and offered Rs 11-12 lakh to settle the issue. HT is in possession of the video. Baba Prem Das also alleged in the video that the registrar of Unchahar Shyam Babu Lal also asked him to settle the issue with the college owner when he met him to get the trust land vacated in compliance of the apex courts order dated April 12, 2018 . The priest had said attempts were made on his life on four occasions in the past but he survived. Life threats were issued to me many a times and six criminal cases, including five rape cases and one for eve-teasing, were falsely registered against me, he said in the video. A senior police official confirmed that six criminal cases had been registered against the priest in the past but they were expunged as no substantial evidence was found against him. The complainant in one of the cases had moved the court against the investigation following which a non-bailable warrant was issued against him, the officer said. Having successfully formed its government in Rajasthan, the Congress has now set its eyes on the states 25 parliamentary seats as it prepares to launch its campaign for the coming Lok Sabha elections through a kisan (farmer) rally. Senior state unit leaders said partys national president Rahul Gandhi will kick off the rally, which is likely to be held some time next week though the venue was yet to be decided. The Congress, which had drawn a blank in Rajasthan in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections (it did win two seats Ajmer and Alwar in the bypolls held in February 2018), is now confident its success in the recent assembly polls will pave the way for improved performance in April-May, too, when the next parliamentary elections are expected to be held. The party is all set for the Lok Sabha elections and will sound the poll bugle through the Kisan rally in the presence of (Rahul) Gandhi. We have started acting upon the promises we had made (before the assembly polls) and the farmers loans have been waived. The other promises too will be similarly fulfilled, said All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary and state in-charge Avinash Pande. We will also apprise the people of the partys 100-day programme. Drawing parallels with how the Congress was positioned going into the 2009 Lok Sabha elections (when it won 20 seats against the BJPs four), a Congress leader, not wanting to be named, pointed out that the party had, in the 2008 assembly polls, bagged 96 seats with nearly 37% vote share as against the BJPs 78. In the assembly polls held last month, the leader recalled, the Congress won 99 seats and polled 39.3% votes whereas the BJP bagged 73 seats with 38.8% vote share. Fulfilling the promise, the government has waived farmers loans and started the exercise to generate employment for youth. The Congress has been raising the two issues for long and will continue to work towards addressing these. Farmer across the country are in distress and the NDA should waive the entire loan to provide relief to them, the leader said. He said the partys new industrial policy will have provisions that would create job opportunities in the state. On Tuesday, chief minister Ashok Gehlot had said, When Rs 3.5 lakh crore loans of industrialists can be waived, why cannot the loans of the farmers who work in the fields to feed us be similarly waived? Focusing on farmers should be the priority of any government, be it at the state or Centre. (Rahul) Gandhi has repeatedly asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to waive the farmers loans, and until that demand is met, the Congress party will continue to raise it. Political analyst Narayan Bareth said political parties in Rajasthan generally take their performance in assembly polls into the Lok Sabha elections as well but it remains to be seen to what extent the Congress, both organisationally and through its government, can carry the same atmosphere into the upcoming parliamentary polls. The party has fulfilled its promise of loan waiver but it remains to be seen how well it is executed on the ground to achieve an impact, he said. Bareth added that the BJPs strength is not just its organisation but its cadre too, and it will be up to the Congress to match it. (Rahul) Gandhi is coming and a big meeting is lined up. This shows that the party is focusing on its organisation, but there is less time and the target is high, he said. Meanwhile, chief minister Ashok Gehlot constituted a seven-member ministerial committee headed by UDH minister Shanti Dhariwal to decide over the conditions for the eligibility and directions for crop loan waiver. Other ministers in the committee are Parsadi Lal Meena, Master Bhanwarlal Meghwal, lal Chand Kataria, Udai Lal Anjana, Bhanwar Singh Bhati and Sukhram Bishnoi. In addition to them senior officials such as advisor to CM Govind Sharma and IAS Abhay Kumar are also included in the committee. The CM has also constituted ministerial committee for redressing grievances of all contractual employees. The committee will be headed by energy minister BD Kalla, and members are Raghu Sharma, Govind Singh Dotasara, Mamta Bhupesh and Ashok Chandna. To review the decisions taken by pervious BJP government in last six months, another committee has been constituted headed by UDH minister Shanti Dhariwal, Kalla and Ramesh Chand Meena will be its members. In order to give shape to the Governors speech for the upcoming assembly sessions, a committee comprising Meghwal, Raghu Sharma and Subhash Garg has been made. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday that millions of Sikh pilgrims will be able to go to the final resting place of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak in Pakistans Kartarpur from Dera Baba Nanak in Punjabs Gurdaspur district without any hassle because of his governments efforts. For 70 years, devotees have been forced to watch the land of their guru through binoculars, the Prime Minister said while addressing a rally in Punjabs Gurdaspur. Adhering to the demand of the crores of Sikh people, the NDA government took the historic decision of building the Kartarpur corridor. Vice-president M Venkaiah Naidu had laid the foundation stone for construction of a road corridor linking Dera Baba Nanak with Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistans Kartarpur on November 26 last year. And, Pakistans Prime Minister Imran Khan broke the ground for the Kartarpur corridor on November 28 on his side. Kartarpur Sahib in Narowal district of Pakistans Punjab province is located across the Ravi River and is about four kilometres from the Dera Baba Nanak shrine. It was established by the Sikh Guru in 1522. A corridor linking Indias border district of Gurdaspur with the historic gurdwara in Pakistan had been a long-pending demand of the Sikh community. Thousands of Sikh devotees from India visit Pakistan every year to celebrate the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. Live updates here: State govt needs to be more proactive regarding central schemes, says PM The Kartarpur corridor is expected to be completed within six months. The decision to build the corridor by both the countries came ahead of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak this year. India had proposed the corridor to Pakistan around 20 years ago. PM Modi, while participating in the Gurpurab celebrations on November 23, had said that Kartarpur corridor could be a reason to connect people, adding that the incidents of 1947 should be left behind. Seventy years ago during Partition, we were separated from the holy land, it was only a matter of few kilometres. But the government that time couldnt keep the holy place in India, PM Modi said. Next year, on the anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev, festivities will be held in every state and across the world... We are making efforts to ensure that there is no obstacle in reaching the pilgrimage centre, he said. INTERVIEW | PM Modi on Ayodhya ordinance - Let judicial process be over His public rally in Gurdaspur town is a part of the BJPs campaign to hold 100 rallies ahead of the Lok Sabha elections this year. The PM said the BJP and Akali Dal are constantly working for the welfare of Gurdaspur, as he criticised the Congress for opposing the Kartarpur corridor. He also paid his tribute to late Bollywood actor and former member of Parliament from Gurdaspur Vinod Khanna. He wanted to see an advanced and prosperous Gurdaspur. We have to fulfil his dream together, he said. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday deputed observers to oversee the election of the leader of its legislature party in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, the three states it lost out to Congress in the recent assembly election. The leader of the BJP legislature parties will be appointed leader of opposition in the respective states. Home minister Rajnath Singh and BJP vice president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe will go to Madhya Pradesh; while finance minister Arun Jaitley and party vice president Avinash Rai Khanna will head to Rajasthan. Social justice minister Thawarchand Gehlot and party general secretary Anil Jain will go to Chhattisgarh. The decision was taken after a meeting of the partys parliamentary board. Delhi: Inside visuals from BJP Parliamentary Board meeting at BJP Headquarters. pic.twitter.com/hm5yWOUc3k ANI (@ANI) January 3, 2019 The BJP ruled Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh for the last 15 years each, while it won Rajasthan with a two-third majority in 2013. Chhattisgarh is the only state which, BJP leaders such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi concede, the mandate was clearly against the BJP. The Aam Aadmi Party on Wednesday said it will contest all seats in four states of Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Goa and the lone seat in the union territory of Chandigarh in the Lok Sabha elections this year. The party did not mention other states where it will field candidates. Gopal Rai, AAPs Delhi unit convener, said, There are 33 seats in total in the four states and UT of Chandigarh. AAPs candidates for these parliamentary constituencies will be announced by February 15. The party also said that it will appoint lakhs of booth-level in-charges, to be called Vijay Pramukhs, who will remain in touch with at least 10 households in their area until the voting day. It said 3.62 lakh Vijay Pramukh will be appointed in Delhi alone. The party plans to appoint 4.62 lakh such workers in Haryana as well. Each Vijay Pramukh will cover 10 households in the area under a polling booth and will be responsible for providing voting slips to the voters and bringing them to polling stations on the day of voting. They will also participate in campaigning a week before the voting day and distribute a questionnaire to voters, seeking their views on the AAP government in Delhi and Arvind Kejriwals performance as chief minister of Delhi, Rai said. The AAP had contested 432 seats across the country in 2014 general elections. It, however, managed to win only five. AAP convener and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, who will be spearheading the partys campaign, will start addressing rallies across the four states and Chandigarh this week. Kejriwal will be speaking at his first poll rally in Haryanas Charkhi Dadri on Friday, the party said. In the coming weeks, Kejriwal, along with other party leaders, will also hold training sessions for AAP volunteers from the four states and Chandigarh. On Thursday, Kejriwal will hold a meeting with block-level party workers from Punjab. For the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, Kejriwal will hold meetings with campaigners of the partys door-to-door programme. The first such meeting will be held with volunteers from south Delhi on January 10. The party is fielding its national spokesperson, Raghav Chadha, from the South Delhi seat. Atishi, who has closely worked with the Delhi governments education department, will contest from East Delhi. The party is yet to announce the candidates for the remaining five seats. Until February, the AAP chief will address three rallies in Punjab and one in Haryana. The rallies will be held at Sangrur (January 20), Anandpur Sahib (January 28) and Amritsar (February 2). He will also launch the partys door-to-door campaign in Haryana by holding meetings with office bearers of Lok Sabha seats in the state. The office bearers will conduct campaigns in each parliamentary constituency. Dissatisfied with the steps taken by the Meghalaya government to rescue 15 miners trapped in an illegal coal mine since December 13, the Supreme Court on Thursday sought details from the Centre on what steps it has initiated to expedite the rescue operations. Every minute counts for those trapped there for almost three weeks. A prompt, immediate and effective operation is needed to rescue them, a bench led by Justice AK Sikri told solicitor general Tushar Mehta who was summoned to the court after a fresh public interest litigation (PIL) came up for hearing. Mehta has to respond by Friday. Mehta said Union minister for coal, Piyush Goyal, was personally monitoring the situation and a meeting was called on Wednesday, which was attended by the Meghalaya chief minister. He added that a nodal officer was appointed and assistance from the Navy would also be requisitioned. Additional advocate general of Meghalaya, Amit Kumar , said all necessary action has been taken. We are not satisfied (with steps taken for rescue). It is a question of life and death. What has happened in the last so many days we do not know. No matter whether they [trapped persons] are all dead, some alive, few dead or all alive, they should have been taken out by now. We pray to God that they all are alive, the bench said. Unconvinced, the bench asked Mehta and Kumar as to why assistance from the Army was not taken. We read in the papers that the Army had volunteered to help. However, it was not accepted. As the Union, you should do something now..., Justice Sikri said. Mehta said the mine was located near a river, because of which water gushes in, making rescue operations difficult. He said National Disaster Response Force personnel were deployed. Justice Sikri, however, said: The 72 personnel have not been able to do much. Why cant you use water pumps that were sent to Thailand? Why cant the same be used here. The judge was referring to the rescue of 12 footballers from a flooded cave in Thailand in July last year. The rat-hole mine, atop a hillock in Meghalayas East Jaintia Hills district, was flooded when water from the nearby the Lytein river gushed into it, trapping the 15 miners. Also Read: Just want the bodies: 21 days on, families of trapped Meghalaya miners lose hope Kirloskar, Coal India pumps reach site Following the SC intervention in the steps taken to rescue the 15 trapped miners, efforts to reach the miners seem to have been expedited. The Odisha fire service installed a pump in a separate shaft to the one holding the trapped miners as these shafts are believed to be connected. A team from Kirloskar Brothers also made ready its submersible pump, which was to be inserted into the main shaft. Officials from Coal India were also working to repair their submersible pump. (with inputs from Shillong) Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan defended helping the two women in gaining entry to the Sabarimala temple as he accused the Sangh Parivar of trying to incite trouble in the state. The entry of Bindu Ammini and Kanakadurga into the temple under police protection early on Wednesday sparked violence across the state as protesters blocked roads at many places and clashed with police. (Live updates) No women between the age of 10 and 50 could enter the temple before them as devotees, who cited the celibate nature of the temples presiding deity Lord Ayyappa, protested violently in the temple complex and throughout the state. The Supreme Court had in September last year ordered the lifting of the ban on women or girls of menstruating age from entering the temple, which has refused to abide by the ruling. Vijayan said during a press conference that it was his governments constitutional obligation to help Bindu Ammini and Kanakadurga and warned that troublemakers will be dealt with sternly amid reports of widespread violence during a shutdown call given by the opposition BJP. Sabarimala Karma Samiti is also enforcing the shutdown across the state. The Sangh Parivar is trying to sabotage the Supreme Court verdict. The real devotees are not against the verdict, the chief minister said. The president of the state unit of the BJP PS Sreedharan Pillai said the party will draw the attention of the central government to the situation in Kerala. Stalinist administration in the state have trampled believers A bunch of atheists are stifling age-old customs, he said earlier. Police tightened security in the state as the shutdown turned violent in several places. At least 57 buses were destroyed and offices of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and BJP have been attacked in several areas of the state since Wednesday. The Congress-led UDF has said it will observe a protest day on Thursday. Keralas director general of police Loknath Behera has said strict action will be taken against those flouting rules during the shutdown. Behera also directed authorities to give special attention to pilgrims so that they remain unaffected by the shutdown. However, many pilgrims bound for Sabarimala temple called off their pilgrimage saying that the sanctity of the temple has been breached. Two big groups from Tamil Nadu returned in the morning. Relatives of one of the women, who entered the temple, have been moved to a safe house by the police. The Supreme Court on Thursday asked veteran Congress leader Ahmed Patel to face trial in connection with his election to the Rajya Sabha in 2017 which has been challenged by his rival BJP candidate Balwantsinh Rajput. The apex court declined to interfere with the October 26, 2018 order of the Gujarat high court which had said that Rajputs allegations required a trial. Let the trial go on, said a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice SK Kaul. Patel had challenged the high court order which had dismissed his plea questioning the maintainability of Rajputs election petition. Rajput, in his election petition, had challenged the Election Commissions decision to invalidate the votes of two rebel MLAs. Had these votes been counted, he would have defeated Patel, the BJP leader had contended. The apex court said it will hear Patels plea next month. It allowed the parties to file additional documents in the matter. In its order, the bench also said that as contesting parties have appeared, no notice need be formally issued. List the matters for final disposal in the month of February, 2019. In the meantime, the high court shall proceed with the trial of the Election Petition. Patel was declared the winner after the Election Commission invalidated the votes of rebel Congress MLAs Bholabhai Gohel and Raghavjee Patel, bringing down the number of votes needed for victory to 44 from 45. In the election petition before the high court, Rajput also alleged that Patel had taken Congress MLAs to a resort in Bengaluru before the election which amounted to bribing the voters. In October 2018, the high court for the second time declined to give relief to Patel. Earlier, on April 20, it had rejected Patels plea. Patel moved the Supreme Court against the April 20, 2018 order, contending that the poll panels decision cannot be challenged by an election petition. The apex court on September 26 asked the Gujarat HC to decide afresh a plea of Patel challenging the maintainability of a petition filed by Rajput. The HC in October dismissed Patels plea. On Thursday, senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, along with advocate Devadutt Kamat, appeared for Patel in the apex court. Senior advocates Maninder Singh and Satya Pal Jain represented Rajput and other respondents in the matter. Adroitly navigating an increasingly polarised world order and finalising key regional trade agreements with Asean and its partners, the European Union (EU) will be among key foreign policy challenges for India this year. Given its good relations with both the US and Russia, India is increasingly finding itself being courted by the two powers at multilateral organisations such as the World Trade Organization, United Nations Security Council and Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and will need to resort to deft manoeuvring, people familiar with the developments said. We will have a task navigating in international forums to ensure that we preserve our space between the efforts of the two sides to pull us in their direction. There is an expectation (by both), given our very good relations, that we will come to their side, a person said. At several of these forums, Russia is receiving issue-based support from China, with which India has been able to normalise ties following the military standoff at Doklam in 2017. This, the people cited above said, is complicating the scenario for India. This is an era not of alliances but of partnerships, and India wants to keep all its balls in the air and ensure that they dont fall, said Former ambassador Rajiv Bhatia, a distinguished fellow at Gateway House. Bhatia said China remains the fundamental strategic worry as it is perceived as an adversary in the strategic, security and defence realms, and, in this regard, the partnership with the US provides India moral comfort, while Russia enhances the strategic comfort. The people cited above also said progress on regional trade arrangements such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) with the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) states and the groupings free-trade pact partners Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China and Korea, and the Broad-based Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) with the EU will be a challenge for 2019. These are important arrangements and if we do not become part of them, certainly of RCEP, we risk losing out economically. RCEP is reaching its end game and BTIA is fairly mature as the areas of difference are down to certain core areas, the first person said. Former bureaucrat Thomas Mathew, who closely tracks such issues, said: RCEP is important for India to ensure the establishment of a rules-based institutional framework with China. This is notwithstanding the apprehension of indigenous industry, which fears the adverse impact of preferential imports from China. Mathew, a former deputy director general of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, added, Despite the fact that the EU is Indias largest trading partner, the total FDI into India from the Union constitutes only about 1% of its outflows. The BTIA will be the first comprehensive agreement that the EU will be concluding with a large emerging economy and it will open the prospects for increased trade and investments and create a win-win ecosystem for both. A shutdown called by the opposition to protest the entry of two women in their 40s into the Sabarimala temple began across Kerala on Thursday as a 55-year-old man was killed in the violence in Pathanamthitta district, which spread to many parts of the state. Police said Chandran Unnithan, an activist of Sabarimala Karma Samiti, succumbed to his injuries early on Thursday after he was injured in a stone pelting incident in Pandalam area. Samiti is an umbrella organisation of several Hindu group, which has been protesting the entry of women to the hilltop shrine. (live updates) Two CPI(M) workers have been arrested in connection with the death, officials said. Three other people, who were also injured in the stone pelting, are said to be in a critical condition. Police tightened security in the state as the shutdown by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samiti affected normal life in the state. The Congress-led UDF has said it will observe a protest day on Thursday. The president of the state unit of the BJP PS Sreedharan Pillai said the party will draw the attention of the central government to the situation in Kerala. Stalinist administration in the state have trampled believers A bunch of atheists are stifling age-old customs, he said. At least 57 buses were destroyed and offices of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and BJP have been attacked in several areas of the state since Wednesday. Read more| A dream realised: Woman who offered prayers at Sabarimala Keralas director general of police Loknath Behera has said strict action will be taken against those flouting rules during the shutdown. Behera also directed authorities to give special attention to pilgrims so that they remain unaffected by the shutdown. However, many pilgrims bound for Sabarimala temple called off their pilgrimage saying that the sanctity of the temple has been breached. Two big groups from Tamil Nadu returned in the morning. Relatives of one of the women, who entered the temple, have been moved to a safe house by the police. The entry of Bindu Ammini and Kanakadurga into the temple sparked violence across the state on Wednesday as protesters blocked roads at many places and clashed with police. Before them, no women between the age of 10 and 50 could enter the temple amid violent protests by devotees, who cited the celibate nature of the temples presiding deity Lord Ayyappa, in the temple complex and throughout the state. The Supreme Court had in September last year ordered the lifting of the ban on women or girls of menstruating age from entering the temple, which has refused to abide by the ruling. Read more| Clashes erupt, bandh call in Kerala after two women enter Sabarimala temple West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his lack of democracy in Bengal comment in an interview aired on various TV channels on January 1. Banerjee said none needs to lecture Bengal on democracy. Some people are shouting untruths. Are you trying to impart lessons in democracy to us? Bengal practices a democracy that is not followed anywhere else, Banerjee said without taking the Prime Ministers name in a speech at Ilambazar in Birbhum district. She alleged that the Centre is trying to gag people by snooping on their conversation over phones and computers. You may tell your husband to buy fish from the market and even that conversation is not out of their scanner, she said. This is the first time she responded to the Prime Ministers remark that the BJP workers are being denied democratic rights in West Bengal. What has happened in West Bengal. A political party (the BJP) is being denied a basic democratic right. Our workers are brutally killed in West Bengal, Kerala (and) Karnataka. Politics of violence has to end. All parties have to reaffirm their commitment to peaceful politics, the Prime Ministers Office had tweeted quoting Modi. On the evening of January 1, Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee had retorted, The BJP should not lecture on democracy and democratic rights. They destroyed democracy and different institutions in the country. The BJP do not have any respect for democracy and the Constitution. In her address on Thursday, Mamata Banerjee said, People live in peace here, but some are trying to malign us. How can they indulge in politicking if people live in peace? West Bengal is the most peaceful place on the earth, she said. Incidentally, on December 7 in a press conference in Delhi, the BJP president Amit Shah alleged that as many as 26 per cent of political murders that take place in the country in a year happens in West Bengal (the state that happens to accommodate about 7.5 per cent of the country population according to the 2011 census). BJP Bengal unit president Dilip Ghosh said that 38 workers of the party have been killed in West Bengal in 2018, alleging a role of the ruling party supporters in these incidents. Partha Chatterjee had brushed aside Shahs allegation as baseless. The BJP and Trinamool Congress are locked in a high-stake battle in West Bengal in the run-up to the Lok Sabha election. Amit Shah has identified West Bengal as a focus state for the Lok Sabha polls. While BJP boss Amit Shah has set his sight on at least 22 of the 42 seats in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who is trying to catalyse an anti-BJP front of regional parties, has vowed to make a clean sweep of the constituencies in the parliamentary polls later this year. Manifestation of Kerala Womens Wall relevant for whole country: CPI(M) Kerala womens wall protest is relevant for the whole country, said CPI(M) on Thursday stressing that it was within 12 hours of the human chain being formed that two women below the age of 50 entered the Sabarimala temple and prayed at the inner sanctum. SC to hear contempt plea against Sabarimala tantri for closing temple for purification The Supreme Court will hear on January 22 a contempt plea against the Sabarimala temple tantri for shutting the sanctum for purification after two women belonging to the previously prohibited age group entered the temple on January 2. BJP MP writes to Rajnath Singh seeking probe into entry of women in Sabarimala temple BJP MP V. Muraleedharan writes to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh seeking probe by national security agencies into the entry of two women in the Sabarimala Temple, reports news agency ANI. Journalists and camera persons have faced the ire of frenzied protesters Journalists and camera persons have faced the ire of frenzied protesters of the saffron outfits across Kerala while trying to cover the violence spread by them. Press meets were boycotted by media in protest The press meets called by BJP state president P S Sreedharan Pillai and Samithi leader K P Sasikala were boycotted by the media this afternoon in protest against the widespread attacks faced by them since Wednesday afternoon. Media in Kerala boycott BJP for attacks on scribes With media personnel being attacked at various districts during the 12 hour hartal by saffron outfits against entry of two women in their 40s into Sabarimala temple,the Kerala Union of Working Journalists Thursday decided to boycott BJP and Sabarimala Karma Samithi, reports PTI. Over 20 offices of ruling CPI(M) and other Left parties were attacked during protests Over 20 offices of the ruling CPI(M) and other Left parties were attacked during the protests. Kerala chief minister lashes out at BJP, RSS for violence during hartal Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan Thursday lashed out at BJP and RSS, accusing them of unleashing violence during the hartal over the Sabarimala womens entry issue, saying it was a conspiracy for political gains and would be dealt with strongly. Sabarimala panel says special police protection to women would affect rights of pilgrims A three-member panel appointed by the Kerala High Court to oversee the ongoing Sabarimala pilgrimage season has said granting special police protection to women in menstrual age to enter the Lord Ayyappa temple would adversely affect the rights and safety of other devotees. KSRTC bus services to Kerala have been resumed Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) bus services to Kerala have been resumed. Kerala governor seeks urgent law and order report from CM Kerala governor: Sought from Chief Minister an urgent law and order report on incidents of violence and destruction of private and public property in Kerala following entry of two young women in Sabarimala temple. I appeal to all sections of people to maintain calm and peace. Cases would be registered against those involved in alleged hate campaign on social media Cases would also be registered against those involved in alleged hate campaign on social media, the police added. Mobile phones of suspected persons would be confiscated : Police Mobile phones of suspected persons would be confiscated and sent for digital examination and raids would be carried out at their homes, to unearth arms, if any, the police said in a release. Kerala governor Palanisamy Sathasivam seeks report on mounting violence in the state Kerala governor Palanisamy Sathasivam seeks a report on mounting violence in the state. A photo album of the perpetrators of violence would also be prepared A photo album of the perpetrators of violence would also be prepared, the release said, adding that special teams would be set up to arrest those agitators involved in violence. The special branch would prepare the list of those indulging in violence The special branch would prepare the list of those indulging in violence and hand it over to the district police chiefs for further action, the police said in a release, reports PTI. Police launch Operation Broken Window to take action against those indulging in violent protests As the state continued to witness massive violence due to the hartal called by Hindu outfits, the police launched a special drive, Operation Broken Window to take action against those indulging in violent protests. Supreme Court declines urgent hearing on contempt plea against authorities The Supreme Court Thursday refused urgent hearing of a contempt petition moved by two women against Chief Priest of Sabarimala temple and its authorities for closing the shrine after two females of menstruating age group entered it, breaking a centuries-old tradition. 266 arrested, 344 in precautionary detention 266 persons arrested and 334 in precautionary detention in connection with the attacks during hartal called by various organisations over the Sabarimala Temple women entry, reports news agency ANI. Kerala CMs decision to allow women into temple had undermined sentiments of Ayyappa devotees: UDF convenor UDF Convenor Benny Behanan said Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayans decision to allow women of menstruating age into the temple had undermined the sentiments of the Ayyappa devotees. Hanuman Sena activists urge Union Home Ministryto take note of the incident Ten Hanuman Sena activists have urged the Union Home Ministry to take note of the incident, alleging that it had hurt the sentiments of Hindus and sought necessary action against the Kerala government. Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation suspended 25 bus services In view of the one-day hartal in Kerala over the issue, the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation suspended services to that state from here. About 25 bus services were cancelled, police said. Law & order has collapsed in Kerala: UDF The Congress-led UDF alleged that the law and order had collapsed in Kerala following the violence during a shutdown called by saffron outfits on Thursday to protest against the entry of two women of menstruating age into the Sabarimala temple. Youth Congress members protest against two womens entry into Sabarimala Temple, detained by police Youth Congress members protesting outside IG office over two women entering the Sabarimala Temple, detained by police in Kochi, reports news agency ANI. Kerala: Youth Congress members protesting outside IG office over two women entering #SabarimalaTemple, detained by police in Kochi. pic.twitter.com/Csuoojl0uz ANI (@ANI) January 3, 2019 15 members of BJP lawyers wing in Coimbatore burnt a portrait of Kerala CM Fifteen members of the Bharatiya Janata Party lawyers wing in Coimbatore burnt a portrait of Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. They raised slogans against him for failing to maintain the shrines sanctity. Hindu Makkal Katchi activists were prevented from staging protest at in Coimbatore The Hindu Makkal Katchi activists were prevented from staging the protest at a railway station in Coimbatore, the police said. 60 protesters held in Tamil Nadu over womens entry into Sabarimala Sixty workers of a Tamil Nadu-based fringe Hindu outfit were arrested in Coimbatore for trying to stage a rail-roko on Thursday in protest against the entry of two women of menstruating age group into the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, police said. AIDWA objects to purification ritual after womens entry into Sabarimala temple The All India Democratic Womens Association (AIDWA) has expressed strong objection to the purification rituals carried out by the priests after two women of menstruating age visited the Sabarimala temple, calling it demeaning as it projects women as impure and unclean, reports PTI. AIDWA objects to purification ritual The All India Democratic Womens Association has expressed strong objection to the purification rituals carried out by the priests after two women of menstruating age visited the Sabarimala temple, calling it demeaning as it projects women as impure and unclean. Over 100 media personnel attacked Around 100 media personnel, including women, have been attacked in Kerala in the last two days since protests erupted after two women prayed at the Sabarimala temple, a journalist leader said on Thursday, blaming the Sangh Parivar activists for the mayhem. Stone pelting during hartal Widespread stone pelting, blocking of vehicles and incidents of violence and vandalism Thursday marked the dawn-to-dusk hartal called by the Hindu outfits in Kerala against the entry of two women of menstruating age into the Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala, police said. The 12-hour long hartal, called by the Sabarimala Karma Samithi, an umbrella organisation of various pro-Hindutva groups, and the Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP), hit normal life in the initial hours. 4 youth Congress workers injured Four Congress workers were hit and injured by the pilot vehicle of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan when he was returning home from office for lunch on Thursday, the Congress said. Congress legislator M. Vincent said that the four party workers got injured in two different incidents. Bring ordinance to protect devotees: RSS leader RSS leader PEB Menon wants the Centre to bring an ordinance to protect believers in Sabarimala. Devotees have lost faith in state government. Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan adamant posture has led to sorry state he said. They didnt land in chopper: Vijayan Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday defended the act of two women who entered Sabarimala temple on Wednesday, saying they did not arrive in a helicopter to have darshan. These two women came just like any other pilgrim and went up the way that all pilgrims go to the temple. They never came on a helicopter to have darshan, Vijayan told the media here. He said other pilgrims made the process of darshan smooth when the two women pilgrims prayed at the temple. Cameraperson attacked Asianet cameraperson Biju was attacked by BJP workers during protest in Trivandrum over Sabarimala Temple row. 4 BJP workers stabbed Four BJP workers were stabbed in Vadanappally in Keralas Thrissur while enforcing shutdown. BJP general secretary addresses party workers BJP general secretary Shobha Surendran addressed party workers. Situation tense At many places in the Kerala the situation is getting out of control. Angry protesters are not paying any heed to their leaders. The situation has become grave in Palakkad, Kozhikode and Pandalam. CM respondible for violence: UDF convenor The chief minister is responsible for on going violence, said Congress led-UDF convenor Benny Behnan. Baton-charged in Pandalam, Kozhikode, Kasargode and Ottapalam Police baton-charged in Pandalam, Kozhikode, Kasargode and Ottapalam Karma Samiti worker died of heart attack: CM Karma Samiti worker who was injured yesterday in clash in Pandalam succumbed to his injuries. There was a clash in Pandalam last evening.Chandran Unnithan was injured and was taken to hospital, he later died in the hospital due to heart attack, said the chief minister. 38 cops among 100 injured in todays violence: CM More than 100 persons were injured in todays violence. Many party offices and houses attacked throughout the state. Among the injured are 38 cops, said the chief minister. Kanakadurga, Bindhu sought security to visit shrine: CM Kanakadurga and Bindhu, who entered Sabarimala temple, were given protection after they sought security to visit shrine, said Kerala chief minister. Priest not in position to continue his post: CM The tantri acted against the top court of the country. He is not in a position to continue in his post, the chief minister said. Shutting temple for purification, a regressive step: CM The chief minister criticised Tantri Rajeevaru Kandarau. The priests decision to shut temple to do purification rites was regressive step, he said. They are activists, they are Maoists: Congress MP Were observing black day in Kerala today. State government is challenging the sentiments of devotees of Sabarimala. With the sponsor of state government, these two young women entered the temple. They are activists, they are Maoists, said Congress MP K Suresh, according to new agency ANI. Congress MP K Suresh ( ANI Photo/Twitter ) Sabarimala Karma Samiti, BJP workers hold protest march Sabarimala Karma Samiti and BJP workers held a protest march in Pandalam. Its like calling hartal against SC order: CM Conducting hartal in name of womens entry into Sabarimala temple is like calling hartal against SC order, says CM Pinarayan Vijayan. Contempt plea moved by lawyers will be heard along with review pleas: SC The Supreme Court said contempt plea moved by lawyers group against Sabarimala authorities will be heard along with review pleas already pending before it. Kerala govt hotel attacked in Chennai, police suspect Sabarimala backlash A hotel run by the Kerala government in Tamil Nadus Chennai was attacked by unidentified people late on Wednesday night, in what police said could be a backlash by angry devotees against the entry of two women in Sabarimala temple. Widespread violence in state: CM 7 police vehicles, 79 KSRTC buses have been destroyed and 39 police personnel have been attacked so far. Most of the persons attacked were women. Women media persons were also attacked, said the chief minister, according to news agency ANI. Govt taking measures to disturb temple rituals: PGS Varma of Pandalam family Kerala government is taking measures everyday to send someone there [Sabarimala temple] to disturb its rituals. Its festival time when per day 1-2 lakh people used to come to the temple but due to governments action, it has reduced to 10-15,000, said PGS Varma, member of royal Pandalam family, according to news agency ANI. PGS Varma of Pandalam family. ( ANI Photo/Twitter ) Will deal with trouble makers sternly: CM The government will deal with trouble makers sternly, said chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. ( ANI Photo/Twitter ) Sangh parivar trying to sabotage SC verdict: CM The Sangh parivar is trying to sabotage the Supreme Court verdict. Real Lord Ayyappa devotees are not against verdict, said the chief minister. Fulfilled constitutional responsibility: CM Its governments responsibility to give protection to women. The government has fulfilled this constitutional responsibility. Sangh Parivar is trying to make Sabarimala into a clash zone, said chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan while addressing media. NK Premachandran, KC Venugopal and Suresh Kodikunnil, PK Kunhalikutty move adjournment motion NK Premachandran, KC Venugopal and Suresh Kodikunnil, PK Kunhalikutty move adjournment motion in Lok Sabha over women entering Sabarimala Temple. SC declines urgent hearing on Sabarimala SC refuses urgent hearing on contempt plea moved against Sabarimala temple authorities for closing shrine after two women entered it. It will be heard on scheduled date January 22 itself. BJP holds protest march in Kochi BJP is holding a protest march in Kochi against the entry of women in Sabarimala Temple. TDB seeks explanation from priest who closed temple for purification Travancore Devasom Board has sought explanation from tantri for closing the Sabarimala temple for purification rites after two women below 50 years of age entered the temple yesterday. Not devotees... Maoists: BJP leader V Muraleedharan,BJP: Y'day,2 women entered #SabarimalaTemple. They weren't devotees. They were Maoists. CPM with selected policemen prepared an action plan&then saw to it that the women go inside the temple. This is a planned conspiracy by Maoists in league with Kerala govt & CPM pic.twitter.com/mfZQqu35vv ANI (@ANI) January 3, 2019 2 people detained Two people have been detained by police in connection with yesterdays violence and stone pelting incident in Pandalam. Ambulances being used to help stranded passengers at Thiruvananthapuram Central Ambulances being used to help stranded passengers at Thiruvananthapuram Central as bus services are affected in the area due to the hartal called by various organisations. Will protest peacefully: state BJP president We will carry on with our agitation in a peaceful manner and abide by the law of the land, said Kerala BJP president PS Sreedharan Pillai on protests over two women entering Sabarimala temple: KSRTC stops bus service from Karnataka to Kerala Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation has stopped its bus operations to Kerala for the day in view of the hartal called by various organisations, said the KSRTC PRO. Security tightened Security has been deployed in Pathanamthitta in the view of hartal called by various organisations over two women below 50 years of age entering Sabarimala Temple. Will draw Centres attention: Kerala BJP president Kerala BJP president PS Sreedharan Pillai said, Stalinist administration in the state tramples believers. He added the party will draw the attention of the union government. A bunch of atheists stifling age old customs, he said United Democratic Front to observe black day United Democratic Front will observe black day in the state today as two women under 50 years of age entered the Sabarimala temple Wednesday. Here are visuals from Thiruvananthapuram Many devotees call off pilgrimage Many pilgrims bound for Sabarimala temple called off their pilgrimage saying that sanctity of the temple has been breached. Two big groups from Tamil Nadu returned this morning. Strict action against those flouting laws: Kerala DGP Kerala DGP Loknath Behera on Wednesday said strict action will be taken against those flouting rules of law and order during the bandh called for by some organisations over the entry of two women of menstrual age into the Sabarimala temple. Furthermore, Behera directed all concerned authorities to give special attention to pilgrims so that they remain unaffected. Relatives of one of the women who entered the temple moved to safety In response to two women entering the shrine early Wednesday, protests broke out around Kerala, the state where the shrine, the Sabarimala Temple, is located. According to local news reports, the police moved relatives of one of the women who entered the temple into a safe house. Cong led UDF to stage protest Opposition Congress led UDF will stage protest today. Bandh cripples normal life Bandh has crippled normal life in the state. At many places even private vehicles are not plying. Widespread violence reported across Kerala; 57 buses destroyed 57 buses have been destroyed. Many CPM and BJP offices attacked. Widespread violence reported from many areas of the state. Police arrest two in connection with activists death A native of Pandalam Chandran Unnithan (55) died in stone pelting. BJP said CPM workers were behind the attack. Police arrested two in connection with the death. Shutdown begins in Kerala; activist succumbs to injuries Shutdown has begun in Kerala. Security has been beefed up after intelligence report of violence. An activist of Sabarimala Karma Samiti who was injured during stone pelting succumbed to his injuries in the early hours on Thursday, said police. Ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)s parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and its affiliate, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), on Wednesday reiterated their demand for an ordinance or a law to pave the way for building a Ram temple in place of the demolished Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. I do not know what the Prime Minister [Narendra Modi] has exactly said about the issue, but we want the government to bring a law to build the Ram temple immediately. And we stand by our demand, RSS general secretary Bhaiyyaji Joshi said in Nagpur, where his organisation is headquartered. Joshis statement came a day after Modi ruled out an ordinance as long as the judicial process in the matter is not over. Let the judicial process take its own course Let the judicial process be over. After the judicial process is over, whatever be our responsibility as a government, we are ready to make all efforts, Modi told news agency Asian News International in an interview. Later in the day, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said the temple will be built in Ayodhya. In Delhi, the VHP reminded the BJP that the pledge it had made to construct the temple in its manifesto had brought it to power in 2014 and that promise should be fulfilled during Modis current tenure. In a democracy, a manifesto is a sacred document; it is a representation on which people vote for you..., said VHPs working president, Alok Kumar. He said there is no legal impediment to a legislation for the temple construction. Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said the Centre has no problem if the elections are held in Jammu and Kashmir along with national polls or even earlier. We are ready to provide complete support, he told Rajya Sabha, which approved the imposition of Presidents Rule in the state following the dissolution of the state assembly in November. Polls have to be held in the state within six months of dissolution. Rajya Sabha earlier approved the imposition of the Presidents Rule amid a war of words between the government and the Opposition, which blamed each other of the escalation in violence in the state. Singh, who moved a motion with respect to the imposition of the presidents rule, told the House the Centres offer for dialogue with separatists got no response. We are always ready for a dialogue. He said that during the governors rule that preceded that of the presidents, financial powers of the Panchayats were increased. We have strengthened democracy at the grass-roots... Earlier, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad accused the Centre of using the governors office to bring new laws and changing rules in Jammu and Kashmir. Ideally, since there is not an elected government in the state, laws and rules should not have been changed, Azad said. After four and half years, the economy of Kashmir has collapsed. Handicraft and tourism sectors are at its lowest. Unemployment in Kashmir is at its peak, and people are completely alienated, he said. Azad said when the Congress left office in 2014, there was peace and stability. Violence and militancy had disappeared, tourism and industry were flourishing. He cited rising levels of violence and added doctors and PhD students were taking to militancy. Something is seriously wrong with the functioning of the government Finance minister Arun Jaitley blamed the Congress it for much of the current ills in the state. The weak democratic institutions in Jammu and Kashmir were a product of policies followed by the Congress since the 1950s. Jaitley said the Opposition should look at the future of Jammu and Kashmir. He said the Opposition had derided the post-poll tie-up between Bharatiya Janata Party and Peoples Democratic Party to form the Mehooba Mufti-led coalition government, which fell in June. He added the same government paved way for Panchayat polls. Trinamool Congress leader Derek OBrien took a dig at the government. Parliamentary history is being created, he said. The defence minister [Nirmala Sitharaman] is sitting down in one House, while the finance minister [Jaitley ] speaks on defence. The home minister [Singh] is sitting down in this House, while the finance minister speaks on Home Affairs. There is a message. Some churning is taking place. The Congress staged a walk-out in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday to protest external affairs minister Sushma Swarajs remarks that there was no controversy in the Rafale deal except in the minds of the opposition party leaders. Replying to a supplementary question asked by Congress leader Anand Sharma seeking details of the jet fighter deal, Swaraj said the issue had already been cleared after being examined by the Supreme Court. During the question hour, Sharma wanted to know whether the government would make public the minutes of the meeting held last year between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former French president Francois Hollande on the Rafale deal. Will the government make public the minutes of the meeting that were kept because there is a controversy, and that would settle it once for all, one way or the other? he asked as a supplementary to Shiva Sena member Sanjay Rauts question on whether there was any discussion on the Rafale deal during the recent visit of French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to New Delhi. There was no discussion on the matter. On that day, the Supreme Court verdict (on Rafale deal) was pronounced. He (French minister) was very happy. He expressed joy and felt there was no need to have discussion, Swaraj said. But the debate on Rafale could not resume in the Lok Sabha due to frequent disruptions caused by the protesting members of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) resulting in the adjournment of the House. While the AIADMK members were protesting on the Cauvery issue, the TDP members continued with their demand for special category status for Andhra Pradesh. Watch: Rahul Gandhi vs Arun Jaitley: Watch how the Rafale row unfolded in LS Earlier in the day, Congress president Rahul Gandhi stepped up his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Rafale deal. So it seems our PM has fled Parliament & his own open book Rafale exam & is instead lecturing students at Lovely University in Punjab, today, Gandhi tweeted. He also urged students to ask the Prime Minister to answer the four questions posed by him. The attack came a day after he said Modi faced an open book exam on the deal in Parliament and asked if he will show up at the exam or send a proxy. After launching a scathing attack on Modi in Parliament and later at a news conference at the partys headquarters in Delhi, the Congress president had on Wednesday tweeted four questions related to the Rafale deal and demanded answers from the Prime Minister. Here are the exam questions in advance: Q1. Why 36 aircraft, instead of the 126 the IAF needed? Q2. Why 1,600 Cr instead of 560 Cr per aircraft. Q4. Why AA instead of HAL? Will he show up? Or send a proxy? Gandhi later tweeted another question, terming it as The Missing Q3! In the third question, he had asked the Prime Minister to tell why former defence minister Manohar Parrikar keeps a Rafale file in his bedroom and whats in it. The Congress also released an audio of a recorded conversation purportedly between Goa health minister Vishwajit Rane and another person whose identity had not been released. The party alleged that Rane can be heard saying that during a cabinet meeting last week former defence minister and Goa chief minister Manohar parrikar stated that he had an entire file and all documents related to the Rafale deal lying in his bedroom. While Parrikar denied having made any such reference, Rane claimed the audio was doctored. The BJP on its part has been asserting that there are no irregularities in the deal. Responding to Gandhis attack in the Lok Sabha, finance minister Arun Jaitley countered by mentioning controversial cases, including the Bofors gun purchase, the AgustaWestland chopper deal and the National Herald matter. He also said the Congress president has a legacy of speaking falsehood. In partial fulfilment of the Congress much-hyped promise of providing free smart phones to youth in Punjab, the state cabinet approved modalities for the distribution of the gadget in a phase-wise manner on Wednesday. Only students of government educational institutions would be covered in the first phase, said a government spokesperson after the cabinet meeting. Gradually, students of other schools, colleges and technical institutions would be covered. Sources added that the first batch of phones is expected to be distributed in March with Punjab Information and Communication Technology Corporation having floated the tenders. The phones will have a touch screen, camera and applications to access social media etc. In addition, one-time bundled 12 GB data and 600 local minutes talk-time (voice) with one-year validity would also be provided. Students would be required to submit a self-certification stating that they do not already have a smart phone. In its budget for 2017-18, the government had announced a scheme Mobile Phone to the Youth. The objective was to provide digital access to the youth and information regarding education, career opportunities, access to skill development and employment opportunities and basic citizen-centric services through government applications, etc. OTHER MAJOR DECISIONS Economic offenders Act to be in force The cabinet also approved republishing of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018, which has been approved by Parliament, with a view to attaching and confiscating their properties and assets. A spokesperson with the chief ministers office said, The act would empower authorities to attach and confiscate properties and assets of economic offenders, such as loan defaulters who have fled the country. Online transfer policy for teachers The Online Transfer Policy-2019 of the school education department has been approved, ensuring equal opportunity for all employees using the online method for seeking transfers. The new policy would become effective from April 1, 2019. The condition that the teachers would be compulsorily transferred after seven years of service in a particular zone/school has been removed. The earlier condition of having three-year minimum stay at one particular station before a teacher could request a transfer has been now changed to one year. However, for newly-appointed teachers, the minimum stay at one place will be three years. One-time settlement of non-compoundable building violations up to June 30, 2018 The cabinet also approved One-Time Settlement of non-compoundable violations in the case of unauthorised constructions that have come up in the state up to June 30, 2018, without compromising on fire safety and structural safety standards of buildings. The Punjab One-Time Voluntary Disclosure and Settlement of Violations of the Buildings Ordinance, 2018 for all buildings constructed in violation of the building bylaws in the municipal areas as per this cut-off date was given nod. Sub-committee to visit Israel to study water conservation A sub-committee has been formed to study ways and means to regulate the use of water in the state through conservation and management of water. The issue was taken up for an informal discussion. The sub-committee comprises cabinet ministers Navjot Singh Sidhu, Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Sukh Sarkaria and Razia Sultana. Its brief is to explore and suggest measures to tackle the critical water situation. The sub-committee members will visit Israel to study their water conservation model and examine the feasibility of its adoption in Punjab, a spokesperson said. The cabinet also entrusted the sub-committee with the task of examining objections expressed by some of the ministers on the scope and functioning of the proposed Punjab Water Regulation and Development Authority. Caption . HT Photo Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday blamed the Opposition for an unending cycle of violence in the state a day after the entry of two women in the menstruating age group into Sabarimala temple sparked protests. Protests have rocked Kerala since the Supreme Court in September ordered the lifting of a ban on women or girls of menstruating age from entering the temple. The temple authorities have refused to abide by the ruling. Thousands of devotees have since September blocked attempts of menstruating women and girls to visit the shrine, citing the celibate nature of the temples presiding deity, Lord Ayyappa. Vijayan called it the governments constitutional obligation to help the two women, Bindu Ammini and Kanakadurga, pray at the shrine. He accused the outfits associated with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)s parent organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), of trying to fan trouble. It was the governments responsibility to give protection to the women. And they were not airdropped. Both visited the shrine like any normal devotees. None of the devotees protested, he said. He threatened to deal sternly with the RSS-linked outfits for whipping up tensions in the state. Their [RSS]s north Indian strategy would not work here. People of the state [Kerala] will foil their evil designs, he said. Vijayan insisted the real devotees were not against the Supreme Court verdict lifting the ban on women or girls of menstruating age from entering the temple. Opposition Congress and the BJP held the chief minister responsible for the deteriorating law and order situation. They slammed him for allowing the two women into the shrine and hurting religious sentiments of lakhs of devotees. BJP Kerala chief, P S Sreedharan Pillai, said his party will draw the Centres attention to the situation in Kerala. The Stalinist administration in the state has trampled believers. A bunch of atheists is stifling age-old customs [barring the entry of women into the shrine], he said . Pillai accused the police of behaving in a partisan manner. Opposition Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala met governor P Sathasivam, who has sought a report from Vijayan over the violence, and sought his intervention in restoring peace. Vijayan is fully responsible for the explosive situation in the state. He will go down in the history as the most insensitive ruler of the state, he said. The Congress observed Thursday as a protest day to register its protest against the entry of women into the shrine. The Supreme Courts order had not been implemented until the two women made it to the shrine in the face of stiff resistance from a section of devotees and Hindu outfits. Thousands of women had formed a 620 km human chain or the womens wall in support of gender equality and temple access on Tuesday. The state government had backed the human chain protest. Small and medium traders will be benefitted through our policies: Modi Punjab has a huge MSME sector. Our policies will benefit small and medium traders. Need to inculcate teachings of Guru Gobind Singh: Modi Modi says GST brought transparency in tax process Request Punjab govt to complete central projects on time. We have kept religious places out of GST. Earlier, there would be up to 30% taxes on items. Now you can see the taxes you are paying: Modi State govt needs to be more proactive regarding central schemes: Modi Govt has taken up construction of food processing units, incubation centres, etc. Lakhs of youth will get jobs. More than 11 lakh women have been given free gas, 28 lakh men have been benefitted through MUDRA, 2.5 lakh through skill development. State govt needs to be more proactive regarding central schemes: Modi Earlier Ravi water was going to Pak, while Punjab was staring at scarcity: Modi Sultanpur Lodhi on way to become heritage town. Govt working to double farmers income. Despite River Ravi flowing through Punjab, farmers were desperate for water. Ravi water was going to Pakistan. Punjab and Kashmir have right over Ravi water. Our govt did not want that: Modi PM hits out at Congress over 1984 anti-Sikh riots PM Narendra Modi in Gurdaspur,Punjab: Ek parivaar ke ishaare par jin jin aaropiyon ko 'sajjan' bata kar file daba di gayi, NDA sarkar ne unko bahar nikala, SIT ka gathan kiya aur parinaam sabke saamne hai pic.twitter.com/MGNI3TfMKK ANI (@ANI) January 3, 2019 Congress cheated farmers: Modi In Karnataka, only a few farmers received loan waivers. Rest had to flee after police issued warrants against them. Congress cheated farmers: Modi Country should be alert of such people: PM Modi Congress history is about merciless killing of thousands of Sikh people, and even today they are rewarding people, who are involved in riots, with chief ministers post. The country should be alert of such people: PM Modi PM hits out at Congress PM Modi hits out at Congress, says it opposed the Kartarpur corridor. Congress has played with national security, and even today the are spreading lies to weaken the defence forces, it history only glorifies one family: PM Modi NDA govt took historic decision of making Kartarpur corridor: Modi Seeing the demand of crores of Sikh people, NDA govt took the historic decision of making the Kartarpur corridor: PM For 70 year, devotees have been forced to watch land of their guru through binoculous: Modi 70 years ago during partition, we were separated from the holy land, it was only a matter of few kilometers. but the government that time couldnt keep the holy place in India. For many year, devotees have been forced to watch the land of their guru through binoculous: PM Modi Gurudaspur is the land of Baba Nanak: PM Modi Gurdaspur is the land of Baba Nanak. Next year on the anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev, festivities will be held in every state and across the world.. we are making efforts to ensure there is no obstacle in reaching pilgrimage centre related to him: PM Modi BJP and Akali Dal are constantly working for Gurdaspur welfare: PM BJP and Akali Dal are constantly working for the welfare of Gurudaspur, says PM Modi Want to pay my tribute to Vinod Khanna again: PM Modi This is my first visit to Gudaspur after demise of Vinod Khanna. I want to pay my tribute to him again, says PM Modi. He wanted to see an advanced and prosperous Gurdaspur. We have to fulfil his dream together, says PM. Let us work for building a new India through science: PM Modi Let us work for building a new India through science. An India that is ready to meet the challenges and opportunities of present and future. An India that is bubbling with ideas, knowledge, wisdom and action. An India that is stronger, confident, prosperous and healthier, an India that is compassionate and inclusive: PM Modi PM Modi talks about Prime Ministers Research Fellowship PM says government has introduced the Prime Ministers Research Fellowship under which 1000 bright minds from the best institutions in the country will be offered direct admission in Ph.D program in IITs and IISC. PM Modi mentions Gaganyaan mission In 2022, three Indians would be sent to space in country-made spacecraft Gaganyaan, says Modi PM calls for strong research ecosystem in state universities, college Our strengths in research and development are built on the backbone of our national laboratories, central universities, IIT, IISc, TIFR & IISER. However, over 95% of our students go to state universities and colleges. A strong research ecosystem must be developed in these Universities and colleges: PM Modi I call upon the Prime Ministers Science, Technology and Innovation Council, to discuss these issues in detail and formulate an action plan in consultation with the Ministry of Human Resource Development, to boost research in our colleges and state universities: PM PMO India (@PMOIndia) January 3, 2019 Future is about convergence and connected technologies: PM PM Modi emphasizes that, Future is about convergence and connected technologies. He says India needs to increase its capacity to carry out new innovations. PM Modi says need to link Science with life of common man Need to link Science with the life of common citizens, says Modi PM hails role of Indian scientists in nation building PM says, The life and works of Indian scientists are a compelling testament of integration of deep fundamental insights with technology development and nation-building. It is through our modern temples of science that India is transforming its present and working to secure its future: PM Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan, Jai Vigyan, Jai Anusandhaan: Modi PM Modi recalls late prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayees acknowledgement of science and technology during speech at Pokhram. I believe it is now time to take one more step forward.. the slogan now becomes Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan, Jai Vigyan, Jai Anusandhaan, says PM Modi Indian Science Congress has a rich legacy: Modi Indias greatness lies in innovation.. Indian Science Congress has a rich legacy: Modi PM Modi inaugurates event PM Modi inaugurates Indian Science Congress , extends New Year greetings to audience. PM Modi has changed brain-drain to brain gain: Harsh Vardhan Union Science and Technology minister Harsh Vardhan says under Modis era Indian-origin scientists settled abroad are standing in a beeline to work in our country. He says, Modi has changed brain-drain to brain gain. PM Modi reaches Lovely Professional University PM Modi has arrived at Lovely Professional University. PM lands in Adampur PM Modi has landed at Adampur, on way to Lovely Professional University. Rahul Gandhi tweets on PMs event at LPU So it seems our PM has fled Parliament & his own open book Rafale exam & is instead lecturing students at Lovely Univ. in Punjab, today. I request the students there to, respectfully, ask him to please answer the 4 questions posed to him by me, yesterday. #RafaleScam Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 3, 2019 Tight security arrangements for public rally Over 5,000 security personnel, including National Security Guards, have been deployed for security. BJP workers from across state will reach the rally venue by buses and other means of transport. State BJP president Shwait Malik said that the rally is being held by the people of Punjab to thank the PM for development of the region Amit Shah to be present at Gurdaspur rally BJP president Amit Shah,former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, former deputy CM and SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal, Union minister Harsimrat Kaur, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, Union minister of state Vijay Sampla, Punjab BJP president Shwait Malik, BJP national vicepresident Avinash Rai Khanna, BJP national secretary Tarun Chug, Punjab BJP Lok Sabha in-charge Captain Abhimaniyu and Punjab BJP in-charge Prabhat Jha will also be present PM Modi to inaugurate Indian Science Congress (ISC)-2019 in Jalandhar PM Modi will inaugurate the Indian Science Congress at Jalandhar. The event is expected to start at 11.30 am. He will then address a rally in Gurdaspur, where he is likely to arrive at 1 pm. Erstwhile royal family of Pandalam has a strong connection with the Sabarimala temple of Kerala. An offshoot of Pandya dynasty of Kerala, the Pandalam family claims that Lord Ayyappa was one of their own. Pandalam today is a small town in the Panthanamthitta district of Kerala where the Sabarimala temple is located. With the Sabarimala temple row hitting national headlines again after two women entered the shrine early morning Wednesday, PGS Varma, a member of royal Pandalam family, has blamed the Kerala government of Pinarayi Vijayan for the controversy. Follow live updates: 266 arrested, 344 in precautionary detention in connection with attacks during strike On the issue of womens entry into the Sabarimala temple, Varma said, The Kerala government is taking measures everyday to send someone there to disturb its rituals. It is festival time when one to two lakh people used to visit the temple every day but due to government action, it has reduced to 10,000-15,000. Read more| No urgent hearing on Sabarimala, Supreme Court to hear plea on January 22 Varmas statement has come in the wake of reports that groups of pilgrims have cancelled their planned visit to the Sabarimala temple following entry of two women in the shrine. Reports said that the pilgrims cancelled their trips to the Sabarimala temple saying that the sanctity of Lord Ayyappa shrine has been breached. The Kerala government has said that it was its constitutional obligation to facilitate entry of women in the Sabarimala shrine following the Supreme Court judgment in this regard. On September 28 last year, the Supreme Court had declared a Kerala government rule that barred entry of women aged 10-50 in the Sabarimala shrine as unconstitutional. The ruling threw open the gates of the Sabarimala temple to women of all age groups. The devotees of Lord Ayyappa, the presiding deity of the Sabarimala shrine, believe that he lives there in eternal celibate state and has taken a vow to shun any contact with women. Several groups have been protesting the Supreme Court judgment allowing entry of women of all age groups in the temple. Read | Shutdown in Kerala amid violence over womens entry in Sabarimala; one killed in stone pelting The Shiv Sena attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his statement that any decision on an ordinance for the construction of Ram Mandir in Uttar Pradeshs Ayodhya can be considered only after the judicial process is over. The Sena said in an editorial in the party mouthpiece Saamana on Thursday that Prime Minister Modi spoke the truth for the first time in the last four-five years. Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena, a cantankerous ally of the BJP, has demanded an ordinance to pave the way for the temples construction in Ayodhya, arguing that the matter has been dragging in courts for decades. It has been taking on the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the Ram temple issue and is attempting to corner its ally over its poll promises. We have said in our BJP manifesto that a solution would be found to this issue under the ambit of the Constitution, the Prime Minister said when asked whether the Ram Mandir issue had been relegated as merely an emotive issue for the BJP. Let the judicial process be over. After the judicial process is over, whatever will be our responsibility as the government, we are ready to make all efforts, Modi said in an interview to a news agency. INTERVIEW | PM Modi on Ayodhya ordinance - Let judicial process be over The Sena said it was expected the Prime Minister would make some important announcement about the Ram Mandir and bring back Lord Ram from the exile. But Modi adopted a completely opposite stance, it said. The Ram Mandir issue is in the Supreme Court. A decision on an ordinance can only happen after the Supreme Court verdict is out on the case. This is the first time in the last four to five years that he has spoken the truth... The Ram temple was an election jumla and it will remain one in the next election as well, his statements have made it clear, the Sena said. The Sena said the Prime Ministers 95-minute interview was a storm in a teacup and he appeared to be in defensive mode. The interview was akin to his election speeches. The worry of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls was evident on his face and his body language. There has been a renewed pitch within the BJP as well as organisations affiliated to its ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) for expediting the process of the construction of the temple. The organisations have expressed unhappiness over the delay in resolving the matter and there have been demands to promulgate an ordinance, similar to the one issued on triple talaq, to facilitate the temples construction. The Supreme Court will hear the matter on January 4. Petitions have been filed in the top court for day-to-day hearings in the case. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday launched a scathing attack on the Congress, stating the grand old party had let the Sikh shrine, Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib, to go to Pakistan during Indias Partition. Addressing a rally in Punjabs Gurdaspur his first in the new year, Modi said the then Congress government could not keep the shrine within Indian territory seven decades ago although it is located just 3 km away from the international border at Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district. We lost the sacred place during Partition, he said. Thanks to the failure of the then government, the Indian Sikhs are forced to watch the place with the help of binocular. The then government failed to keep the sacred shrine within India, the PM said. However, keeping the sentiments of our crores of Sikh brothers in mind, the NDA government has decided to build a corridor...to Kartarpur Sahib at Dera Baba Nanak, he added. Thursdays event, called Dhanwad rally (thanksgiving rally) was organised by the BJP, along with its Punjab ally Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) . Modi spoke favourably of Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh. The PM lambasted the Congress over the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, saying the appointment of Kamal Nath as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh is the latest example of how the party has patronised the accused of the violence. I believe even those who are in junior positions in politics should not make such comments, and Prime Minister is too high a position. My polite request is that he should speak on facts and after due consideration, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, taking strong exception to Modis remarks. Today, someone has become the chief minister of a state after humbling you in the elections. You lost five states of which we won three. At least be graceful in defeat. Secondly, 30-35 years have passed since 1984. He (Kamal Nath) was not accused in any case, there were no proceedings against him in any case nor was he found guilty in any inquiry report, he said. January is usually the coldest month of a year in Delhi and northwest India. This time, however, the first 10 nights of January are likely to be warmer than the last 10 nights of December 2018, scientists from the India Meteorological Department said. The cold spell has come to an end, said BP Yadav, deputy director general of IMD. December has been unusually cold this time. A western disturbance is likely to hit Delhi over the weekend and the minimum temperature is expected to rise. The minimum temperature, which had remained below 5C in the last ten days of December in Delhi, is expected to touch 9C over the weekend in January. The average minimum temperature in Delhi in December is 8.3C, while for January it is 7.6C. The day temperature in the coming days, however, could drop to around 18C. For January, the average maximum temperature is 20.5C. Watch | Delhis air quality under severe category post New Year The IMD has forecast that the approaching western disturbance would be quite intense and could trigger light rain and thundershower over Delhi and NCR on January 5 and 6. The department is also expecting some rain over the weekend and a spell of moderate to dense fog early next week. The rain would push up moisture content of the air, which in turn could result in a moderate or dense fog on January 7 and 8, said Kuldeep Srivastava, head of the regional weather forecasting centre in Delhi. IMD scientists, however, said that it is too early to forecast whether January 2019 would be as clear (less foggy) and colder as December, 2018. Delhi encountered the least number of dense fog hours in the last 22 years in December 2018. It was also the coldest December in 13 years and the third coldest in 50 years. It would, however, be difficult to forecast whether January 2019 would behave in the same way less foggy and colder than usual. It would all depend on the western disturbances and other meteorological parameters, said Yadav. Meteorologists from IMD said that the winter temperature and fog spells in Delhi is governed primarily by western disturbances. Western disturbances can push up the night temperature, bring rain and trigger fog spells. In January, at least five to six westerly disturbances hit northwest India, said Yadav. In December, however, not a single western disturbance hit Delhi in the last fortnight as a result of which the night temperature continued to dip. In January we have already had a western disturbance hitting north India triggering snow in the hills and rain in isolated parts of Punjab and Haryana. While the second one is expected to hit Delhi around 5 6 January, a third WD could hit north India next week, said Srivastava. While the minimum temperature on Wednesday stood at 6.5 degrees Celsius, which was one degree below normal, the maximum temperature stood at 23.4 degrees Celsius, which was four degrees above normal. Uniontown, PA (15401) Today Scattered showers and thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. High 82F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Thunderstorms this evening, then skies turning partly cloudy after midnight. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. Low 56F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%. What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 814-368-3173 or email nfinnerty@oleantimesherald.com. Tim Rowland timr@herald-mail.com Now that weve thrown hundreds of thousands of federal workers out of a job right before Christmas, what else can we do for fun? Go to the National Zoo and stick knitting needles into the pandas? Its needlessly cruel. People at the federal level too incompetent to do their jobs are still getting paid. People able and willing to work are sent home. The president was raging around an empty White House over the holidays, like if the ghost of Hamlets father had Twitter. Congress is secretly enjoying the shutdown because its causing the presidents job-approval rating to sink like a stone. All over a border wall demoted to border slats, to a border fence, to a border curtain. Before its over, the president will claim victory if Congress would fund a band of armed coyotes to wander the hundreds of miles of empty desert that no self-respecting reality TV contestant could ever reach, much less any would-be immigrant. Since theyre so hot about it, we ought to give Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh an orange vest and a tactical flashlight and plop them down in the Sonoran Desert to watch for little Pablo. They wouldnt last 10 minutes, because I guarantee you they are far less worried about immigrants entering than listeners leaving. But, of course, the best and by best, I mean worst moment was the governments Marie Antoinette letter. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management tweeted sample letters to help the roughly 800,000 affected workers negotiate with creditors and mortgage companies. Who said the government wasnt helpful? Among the suggestions, the office instructed out-of-work federal employees to send a letter to their landlords with verbiage that included the possibility of trading my services to perform maintenance (e.g. painting, carpentry work) in exchange for partial rent payments. This is the cleverest thing in the world. Because if employees of the U.S. government are out painting door frames and weeding flower beds, we wont need all those Mexicans, right? Dumb like a fox. A minor problem with this suggestion is that the average apartment in Washington, D.C., rents for more than $2,000. If you go to your landlord and offer to take a job sopping up the throw-up in the stairwells from this weeks New Years Eve parties, you can expect $9 an hour. You will have to work 60 hours a week just to pay for a place to live forget food or anything. (This is when Republicans like to step in and tell the working poor they can make ends meet by forgoing cable.) The OPM came back later and said the letter was tweeted inadvertently and picked up language used from a government shutdown in 2013. Its a pretty sad commentary when you have so many government shutdowns that you get them confused. Its like were doing our best Bolivia impression. No that could be construed as an insult to Bolivia, which, as far as I know, is blessed with a government that knows how to keep itself open. It gets better. Why did the OPM inadvertently post this pathetic letter? Because, using the OPMs words, it was acting with limited resources during the furlough period. Got it. The guy who normally writes the letters telling furloughed federal employees how to scavenge the gutters in search of scraps overlooked by the pigeons is himself on furlough, so the second banana had to step in. Even Ann Coulter thinks thats heartless. Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist. Matthew Umstead matthewu@herald-mail.com Va. man charged with sex assault of young girl MARTINSBURG, W.Va. A Leesburg, Va., man is accused of sexually assaulting a young girl, according to Berkeley County (W.Va.) Magistrate Court records. Daniel Alonso Vigil, 27, of Oak View Drive, was charged with one count of first-degree sexual assault, court records said. He was being held Wednesday night at Eastern Regional Jail near Martinsburg on a $25,000 bond, according to jail records. The allegations against the defendant surfaced Dec. 26, when West Virginia State Police Trooper G.W. Merkich III responded to a Martinsburg home to investigate a complaint, court records said. In an interview Monday, the victim told authorities that the defendant had illicit sexual contact with her more than once, records said. When questioned by police, the defendant indicated that the victim wasnt telling the truth about the allegations, records said. The child is younger than 12, records said. Matthew Umstead Matthew Umstead matthewu@herald-mail.com MARTINSBURG, W.Va. A Kearneysville, W.Va., man is accused of sexually assaulting another man using a foreign object while incarcerated in August at Eastern Regional Jail near Martinsburg. Joshua Shane Tasker, 31, of Jump Place was charged with one count of first-degree sexual assault, court records said. Tasker was being held Wednesday night at Eastern Regional Jail near Martinsburg on a $100,000 bond, according to jail records. West Virginia State Police Trooper Z.S. Conner wrote in a complaint that surgery was required to remove a plastic bottle from the victim's body. Medical records also indicated that the victim had a broken nose and several marks on his face, court records said. The assault allegedly occurred during an altercation, records said. Matthew Umstead Jennifer Fitch waynesboro@herald-mail.com WAYNESBORO, Pa. Future ownership of a bridge in a new development in Washington Township, Pa., is going to be transferred to a homeowners association. R. Lee Royer of Accent Developers asked the Washington Township Supervisors on Wednesday night to take ownership of a newly built bridge in Spring Valley Estates. Under construction off Washington Township Boulevard, Spring Valley Estates will contain 63 duplexes, with 126 units, marketed to adults ages 55 and older. Royer told the supervisors that the roads and rights of way in the development eventually will be public township streets. He asked the supervisors to accept the bridge as public infrastructure as well. The bridge is built out of aluminum. Its structural plate aluminum, he said. The bridges materials are valued at about $100,000, he said. The supervisors are scheduled to vote Monday on a proposal to make the streets public, but they aired concerns about the bridge Wednesday night at a workshop meeting. Supervisor Elaine Gladhill asked why the homeowners association cant own the bridge and pay for future maintenance. You want 15,000 people in the township to pay for 125 houses? she asked. Royer emphasized that the bridge will be part of public roads such as those accepted as public infrastructure with culverts in other developments. Part of the issue was whether the homeowners association or township should set up an escrow fund for future maintenance. It seems to me the homeowners association will have more flexibility to implement something like that, said C. Stewart McCleaf, chairman of the township supervisors. While the township would have to pay prevailing-wage rates for future work, it could use revenue from Pennsylvanias fuel tax to do it, Township Manager Jeff Geesaman said. I think the thing here is dont think too much about this bridge. Think about the precedent youre setting for all future bridges, he said. The supervisors told Royer to pursue private ownership of the bridge with a homeowners association. Joyce F. Nowell jnowell@herald-mail.com GREENCASTLE, Pa. Kevin Creager believes each time he gets to engage a young person and encourage him or her to make good choices, it is a positive step for the community. So the part-time officer in the Greencastle Police Department is excited to get the T.E.A.M. (Teaching, Educating And Mentoring) school liaison program off the ground. Creager, who has acted as the departments public-relations officer for the past decade, recently attended training in the curriculum developed by Michigan State Police. Anytime we do a school program, its the connection with the students thats really important, and to get them to look at law enforcement in a different way, he said. Its especially true with the trend of people being against the police. Im pretty upfront and tell our view. I want them to understand how were feeling, what were doing and why were doing it. There are reasons for why we do things. Were not the bad guys. Were here to help them. And we hope it creates some rapport with them that they may not be able to get in any other class. Lesson subjects run the gamut from safety to the internet to drugs to the law and defensive driving for the older students. Creager plans to connect with the Greencastle-Antrim (Pa.) School District soon to offer his services to present lessons on myriad topics. He can focus the lessons to various age groups. Its set up to be quick, 30- to 40-minute lessons, said the officer, who also works as a paid firefighter in Frederick County, Md. Its very flexible, and the lessons are each geared to a different topic. Its best done in a classroom setting. Creager said he is open to providing as many lessons in the local schools as officials want. He said he will work with teachers and the school police officer to conduct the lessons. We certainly maintain a parallel relationship with the school district, and well avail ourselves to every opportunity to support both the district and our kids, Greencastle Police Chief John Phillippy said. Creager believes the program can help bridge any gaps between the students and police officers, including to promote understanding of law enforcement, as well as basic rules and responsibilities. They dont really understand what we do and how the process works, he said. Theyre getting all their information from television and video games. I just like teaching them from our perspective how things operate. Id like to get more connection with all of the students. Phillippy said that is the goal of the program. Anything that gets us involved with kids will expose us to a certain percentage of at-risk kids, he said. And if we can get involved specifically with them then, and help them to make better choices in life, thats a win. Joyce F. Nowell jnowell@herald-mail.com GREENCASTLE, Pa. Greencastle-Antrim (Pa.) High School is continuing to make strides with an already-strong Advanced Placement curriculum. For the fourth straight year, the school has been named to the annual AP District Honor Roll by The College Board. The roll recognizes school districts committed to increasing access to AP and maintaining designated scores by students on AP exams. To be included on the honor roll, the Greencastle-Antrim School District had to increase the number of students participating in AP, while also increasing or maintaining the percentage of students earning AP exam scores of 3 or higher. As part of our mission to provide opportunities for students to become lifelong learners and productive citizens, we focus on preparing students for higher education by encouraging them to schedule challenging, upper-level courses, such as AP courses, Principal Ed Rife said. Over the past seven years, our AP enrollment has continued to grow each year. We are proud that our scores have also continued to improve during this time. Greencastle-Antrim is one of 373 school districts in the United States and Canada honored by the College Board. Greencastle-Antrim students took 301 AP classes in the 2012-13 school year, compared to 512 during 2017-18. Figures for the current year werent available. This accomplishment speaks to the dedication of our instructors and the caliber of our students, Rife said. It is truly an honor to be named on the annual AP District Honor Roll for the fourth consecutive year. Greencastle-Antrim is the only school in Franklin County, Pa., to be included on the honor roll. The criteria for inclusion requires increased access/participation in the past three years, increasing or maintaining the scores earned by minority students and improved performance levels. Success in Advanced Placement is a combination of students own motivation and the opportunities educators provide for them, Trevor Packer, senior vice president of AP and instruction at the College Board, said in a news release. Im inspired by the teachers and administrators in this district who have worked to clear a path for more students of all backgrounds to earn college credit during high school. The Herald-Mail ANNAPOLIS The 2019 General Assembly wont convene until Jan. 9, but Del. William Wivell, R-Washington, already has a bill filed and awaiting legislative scrutiny. Del. Mike McKay, R-Washington/Allegany, already has filed two. Sen. Andrew Serafini, R-Washington, wins the early bird prize among Washington County legislators with eight bills filed and ready for analyzing. Most of these bills are repeats of legislation that has stalled in committee before. But if at first you dont succeed One reason frequently cited for the difficulty in recruiting correctional officers for state-run prisons has been a required polygraph test. After meeting with correctional officers in July, McKay and Wivell said theyd consider modifying that requirement. We need to look at legislation to make it (a polygraph) and/or an extensive background check, Wivell said. One of McKays bills would do that, and Wivells already signed on as a co-sponsor. The bill will be introduced when the General Assembly convenes, then assigned to the House Judiciary Committee. McKays other prefiled bill would add prison chaplains to the correctional officers retirement system. Wivell, meanwhile, has brought back a bill that failed in the final days of the 2018 legislative session. His bill would require a time limit for surface-mining companies to replace damaged water supplies for properties within a mines or quarrys zone of dewatering influence. The companies already are required to replace them, but Wivells bill sets a deadline. Last February, Wivell told the House Environmental Matters Committee that in 2017, quarry representatives refused to drill a new well for an affected property owner until it exhausted all other remedies, including the right to appeal. This resulted in substantial hardships to several residents adjoining the quarry over an extended period of time. Show me the money Of Serafinis eight prefiled bills, all but one have to do with budget and finance issues. Most of them have been offered before, though a few have been tweaked a bit, according to Serafinis aide, Sam Wallace. Heres a peek: Serafini has brought back a bill championed last year by Sen. Steve Waugh, R-Calvert/St. Marys, to exempt the sale of materials, parts, or equipment used to repair, maintain, or upgrade aircraft or the avionics systems installed on aircraft from the states sales and use tax. The bill won unanimous passage in the Senate last winter, but stalled in the House. Waugh was defeated in the 2018 Republican primary by Jack Bailey, who went on to win the seat in November. For the third year, Serafini will attempt legislation to create a work group to set funding priorities for the state budget. The Senate unanimously approved the bill in 2017, but it got nowhere in the House. In 2018, the bill died in committee. Two Serafini bills seek exemptions or modifications from prevailing wage requirements for state construction projects. One would exempt public school construction projects approved for the states Innovation Incentive Pilot Program if less than half of the money used is state money. Otherwise, the regional prevailing wage would be used. This bill applies to Harford, Prince Georges and Washington counties. The other bill would modify prevailing wage requirements to comply with regional prevailing wages and raise the proportion of state funding required to trigger the provision from 25 to 50 percent. Serafini is bringing back his bill to move the states income tax structure to a flat tax at 3.9 percent for most Marylanders and with no deductions. A second tax bill would gradually lower corporate income tax rates over three years from the current 8.25 percent to 7 percent. Hes also seeking to exempt companies with on-site health clinics from the paid-sick-leave legislation approved last year. Serafini is expanding a bill offered last year on behalf of Washington County Public Schools to amend the Student Safety and Support Act to require that when a student is placed in a facility under its jurisdiction and has been charged with a reportable offense, the Department of Juvenile Services must notify the superintendent, the supervisor of student services and the principal of the school the student will attend. This years bill also would require notification of any gang-related activity, as well. Dels. Neil Parrott and Paul Corderman, R-Washington, and Sen. George Edwards, R-Washington/Allegany/Garrett, had not prefiled any of their bills. Dan Dearth ddearth@herald-mail.com The friends of John Christopher Ramsey, a retired pastor who occasionally performed services at Trinity Lutheran Church in Hagerstown, are remembering him as a compassionate man with unwavering faith. Ramsey died Wednesday, a short time after he was struck by a pickup truck in the citys North End. Several of his close friends, including high school classmate Scarlett Michael, said the 73-year-old Ramsey wasnt religious growing up. He quit the church choir as a boy, she said, and later worked for the Social Security Administration before he gravitated toward Christianity and joined the seminary. We were shocked, Michael said about Ramseys death. Hell be really missed by everyone. ... He was sweet. He was very sincere. He was very compassionate. Ramsey was a longtime Lutheran minister in Pennsylvania before he retired and moved back to Hagerstown, where he served at Trinity Lutheran as a pastor in residence and filled in whenever needed. The Rev. David Eisenhuth, Trinity Lutherans current pastor, said Ramseys friends, who knew him as Chris, were worried about his safety. Ramsey could barely see and often took walks alone after his wife, Pat, recently died. He was feeling more and more challenged by (his eyesight), Eisenhuth said. He still went out on his own. I was worried that something like this might happen. Hagerstown police said Ramsey darted in front of a Ford F-250 pickup at about 12:20 p.m. Wednesday as the vehicle was turning left onto Northern Avenue from Oak Hill Avenue. Ramsey was taken to Meritus Medical Center and transferred to Doeys House, where he later died. Doeys House is a hospice facility east of Hagerstown. Eisenhuth said Ramsey lived on Oak Hill Avenue. The two were part of a large group that would meet for breakfast on Friday mornings at the Pennsylvania Dutch Market in Long Meadow Shopping Center. Friends drove Ramsey to the market, Eisenhuth said, so he wouldnt have to dodge traffic along Northern Avenue. Eisenhuth said despite Ramseys poor eyesight, he liked to go to the movies. This week we were going to see Aquaman, Eisenhuth said. Unfortunately, that isnt going to happen. Trinity Lutheran member Virginia Doarnberger said Ramsey was a great confidant for anyone he met. She said his faith, candor and kindness were unquestionable. He never had perfect eyesight, but he does now, Doarnberger said. Hes going to be terribly missed. Ramseys funeral arrangements are pending. Staff reports The Herald-Mail The Washington County Department of Social Services recently hosted a delegation from Singapores Ministry of Social and Family Development to observe and learn about the Trauma Systems Therapy model for addressing the needs of vulnerable foster youths. WCDSS child welfare therapeutic staff, child welfare administrators and Singapore ministry officials were involved in the meeting. The therapy is implemented for foster youths and their foster families or caregivers, providing healthy and productive pathways for overcoming traumatic experiences. During the visit, ministry officials presented WCDSS Director Michael Piercy with a collection of Singapore stamps. In return, WCDSS staff provided each official with a Washington County flag. Washington County is the most recent location to implement Trauma Systems Therapy for foster youths, and is currently the only public child welfare jurisdiction in the nation that utilizes that approach with foster children and foster parents. The therapy provides evidence-based services and interventions with children and families who have experienced traumatic events and addresses the individuals emotional needs, as well as the social environment in which they live. Dan Dearth dan.dearth@herald-mail.com Authorities have released the name of a tractor-trailer driver whose body was found in a fiery crash Thursday morning on Interstate 70 near Hagerstown. Samuel Reese of New Galilee, Pa., was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash, according to a news release from Maryland State Police. The crash occurred shortly before 6:45 a.m. under the U.S. 40 bridges that run over I-70 east. Troopers said Reese was driving a 2007 Freightliner tractor-trailer when traffic slowed at the 32-mile marker. Reese applied the truck's brakes, which caused the vehicle to veer into the merging lane. The truck then struck the bridge abutment and burst into flames. A 2012 Honda Civic being driven by Deborah Flores and a 1993 Chevrolet S-10 being driven by Dennie Stitely were traveling directly behind the Freightliner. Police said the Honda and the Chevrolet collided while attempting to avoid the crash. Flores and Stitely, both of Hagerstown, were uninjured. Flores said at the scene that she was merging onto I-70 eastbound when she heard the tractor-trailer's brakes screech. The truck then crashed into a concrete barrier on the side of the highway. "He skid in front of me and hit the wall and then there was fire," she said. Flores also noted traffic had slowed at the time of the crash. Funkstown Volunteer Fire Co. Chief Eric Fraley said firefighters were called at 6:51 a.m. and, after arriving moments later, found the tractor-trailer engulfed in flames. Fraley said rescuers couldn't tell if the driver was alive when they arrived because the flames were too heavy. It took firefighters about 15 minutes to bring the fire under control. Maryland State Police Lt. Joe George, commander of the Hagerstown Barrack, said the tractor-trailer appeared to be made for hauling concrete, but the trailer seemed to be empty at the time of the crash. The Maryland State Highway Administration determined there was no damage to the U.S. 40 bridges. Police said neither alcohol nor drugs appeared to be a factor. The interstate remained closed until noon. Anyone who witnessed the crash may call state police at 301-766-3800. Report Child Abuse If you are in danger or have an emergency, please call 911. If you suspect child abuse or neglect, please call the Division of Child and Family Services 24-hour intake line at (855) 323-3237. Utah law requires any person who has reason to believe that a child has been subjected to abuse, neglect, or dependency to immediately notify the nearest office of Child and Family Services, a peace officer, or a law enforcement agency. Abuse, neglect, or dependency of a child can be physical, emotional, or sexual. Source: The Division of Child and Family Services BORDERLAND BEAT The Most Extensive and Reliable Source of Information Related to the Mexican Drugs Cartels. You will not find this level of coverage anywhere else, join us! Send information, pictures or videos, you remain 100% anonymous. Envia fotos, videos, notas, enlaces o informacion todo 100% Anonimo. General Mail Box: borderlandbeat@gmail.com Want to be a contributor or citizen reporter for Borderland Beat? We love to have you in our team, send us an email! WARNING: Posts may contain strong violent material, discretion is advised. COMMENTS: We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email customercare@heraldandnews.com for help creating one. Daithi ODonnabhain said the community was in shock A teenage girl has died after a car accident only metres from her home as she headed to New Year's Eve celebrations. Roisin O'Donovan (16) became the first road traffic fatal- ity of 2019, suffering serious head injuries after being hit by a car while walking on Main Street in Ballincollig, Co Cork. Only hours earlier, the Road Safety Authority had indicated that 2018 had the lowest rate of road traffic deaths for nearly half-a-century. Railings The accident happened shortly before 8pm on New Year's Eve as the teenager was walking to meet friends to celebrate the arrival of 2019. It happened a few metres from traffic lights in the busy Cork town. It is understood that Roisin, having been hit by a car, may have struck her head on metal railings by the crossing when she fell. Paramedics and a local GP were at the scene, not far from a Tesco outlet, and within minutes the teenager was rushed to Cork University Hospital (CUH). Despite desperate efforts to stabilise her condition, she was pronounced dead at CUH on Tuesday night, having been on a life-support machine for several hours. She is from the Muskerry Estate area and was a transition year student at Ballincollig Community College. Roisin had been excited about an impending school trip to France in a few weeks' time. Local councillors Daithi O'Donnabhain and Derry Canty said the entire community was in shock. "It has cast a dark shadow over the entire new year for everyone in Ballincollig. It's a terrible tragedy," Mr Canty said. "I don't know the teenager myself but I know her family who are all from the Ballincollig area. "They are a lovely family and my deepest sympathies go out to them." Mr O'Donnabhain said it was a very upsetting start to 2019 for everyone locally. "Your heart goes out to this poor family," he said. "Everyone in the area is very upset for them. I heard locally that she was either going to her grandparents' house or coming from it when the accident happened. It's absolutely heartbreaking." Ballincollig parish priest Fr George O'Mahony said the prayers of the entire community were for the teenager's grieving family. A couple who lost their only child in Ireland's worst fire tragedy have said they are still upset they were not allowed to see their daughter's body. Caroline McHugh, from Artane, Dublin, was 17 when she died in the blaze that killed 48 young people at the Stardust nightclub in 1981. A chatty and smart teenager, Caroline sang in local choirs and held down two jobs after leaving the prestigious Loreto College in Dublin city. Devastated Her parents, Maurice and Phyllis, had travelled to Manchester for a wedding, leaving Caroline with family friends so she could attend the Valentine's Day dance in Artane. "When we first got the news, a family member told us there had been a fire and Caroline was missing," Mr McHugh said. "As we were on our way to Liverpool Airport we phoned home and Phyllis's uncle told us straight, 'Caroline's dead and she's in the morgue'. "We were completely devastated. I can't explain what it's like losing a child, it's an empty feeling. You feel empty. "When we got to the morgue they told us they couldn't identify her. "A policeman said, 'We've remains here and we think it's your daughter, but she has no hair and her legs are missing'." Mrs McHugh added: "There was a nun there. She told us we weren't to go in, so nobody saw their children. She was very cold, and we were in bits. "She stood there dismissing us, it was crazy. We were standing in a freezing morgue hallway and these people are saying you can't see your child." Examiners used a damaged tooth to identify Caroline, before giving her parents her watch, chain and a melted comb cut out of her jeans in a plastic bag. "Even at the time, it felt rushed, swept under the carpet," Mrs McHugh said. Locked Investigations into the fire showed that a number of escape routes from the dance hall were blocked as emergency doors were locked with chains. Concerns have also been raised about the investigation of the scene, after politicians and media were allowed to walk through the building just days after the fire. The families of victims petitioned the Attorney General last month for a new inquest into the tragedy. "The Government has a lot to answer for," Mrs McHugh said. "We were told nothing about the fire even in the days after." The couple said that in the aftermath of the fire they came home one evening to find then Taoiseach Charlie Haughey in their living room, offering his sympathies, before the family asked him to leave. "We were told what funeral home to use and graveyard to bury Caroline in," Mrs McHugh added. "She's buried in Sutton, it's not near where we live. We were grieving so much we just did what we were told." The couple, who are both 79, said they had watched nieces and nephews grow up without Caroline. "You never get over it. It's the anniversary on Valentine's Day, then her birthday, then our birthdays, it never stops," Mr McHugh said. "Unfortunately we never had any other children, so we missed out on a lot really," Mrs McHugh added. "She was a very good girl, a good child. We never had any trouble with her. We didn't have her that long, just 17 years." Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has suggested that carbon tax receipts could be used to deliver hikes in child benefit. The Government has signalled that increases in carbon tax are on the cards in the coming years in a bid to switch people away from fossil fuels as Ireland struggles to meet its targets to cut CO2 emissions. The failure to increase carbon tax in the most recent Budget was roundly criticised by the Opposition and environmentalists. Carbon tax applies to petrol, diesel, solid fuels and natural gas among other forms of fossil-fuel based energy sources, and the rate is 20 per tonne. Mr Varadkar said that as it stood carbon tax wouldn't be increased for 2019. He said any changes to the tax would not apply until 2020 unless they were to take effect on the night of the Budget, but that would be a decision made closer to the time. Last November, communications and climate action minister Richard Bruton said increasing carbon tax would have a "strong role" to play in encouraging a move away from high-carbon patterns of living. "Carbon tax is there for a reason: it's an environmental tax designed to change behaviour," Mr Varadkar said in a round-table interview. "It's not designed to take money out of your pocket. That's why I'm very much of the view that the money raised from carbon tax from households should be given back to households." He said there were two potential models for doing that. The first was giving everyone a 'carbon cheque' in the post to compensate them for the cost of the tax. The Taoiseach said people who used a lot of carbon wouldn't benefit as much as those with low-carbon lifestyles. Welfare He said the other option being considered was to compensate people through the tax and welfare system. Mr Varadkar suggested this could include "an increase in child benefit funded by the carbon tax or an increase in tax credits and welfare". He added that he would like to secure all-party consensus on the issue. The Government is developing proposals on carbon tax in the first two months of this year. Paramedics desperately tried to save the life of a man whose Dublin home became engulfed in smoke on New Year's Day. In what is being described as a tragic accident, the man in his 60s died after a small fire broke out at his apartment in Benburb Street. Firefighters and paramedics from Phibsborough and North Strand rushed to the scene at about 9pm and broke down the man's front door. Advanced life support was provided in the lobby of the apartment block, but nothing could be done to save his life. The man was taken to the Mater Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. "Our thoughts are with the man's family, friends and neighbours at this difficult time. The cause of the fire is under investigation," a Dublin Fire Brigade spokesman said. Residents living in the Collins Square apartments expressed their shock. Alarm One neighbour told the Herald that he evacuated after the fire alarm rang out. "At first, I thought there was nothing to worry about as the fire alarm often goes off whenever someone smokes or cooks, but I left anyway because you just never know," he said. "When I got outside, I knew it was serious as firefighters and paramedics rushed into one of the buildings. "There wasn't any visible fire or smoke from the man's apartment, but when I returned home, I could see from my balcony that the ambulance crew were trying to resuscitate him in the lobby. "They must have been there for at least 20 minutes and it seemed they did everything they could for him, but unfortunately, the smoke must have caused catastrophic damage." Another neighbour said that he was very surprised to hear that someone had died in a fire that was largely unnoticed by many residents. "I saw the smoke all right, but it did not seem too serious at all," he said. "When I found out that someone had died, I was in total shock. "My heart goes out to this man's family and loved ones." The McGettigans bar in the respected Royal Hotel saw a mini-riot erupt with up to 20 people involved A security guard was beaten over the head during a vicious riot in a hotel bar during the early hours of New Year's Day. Gardai said at least 20 people were involved in the shocking brawl that broke out at the respected Royal Hotel on Main Street in Bray, at around 1am on Tuesday. Major damage was also caused to the bar area of McGettigan's pub in the hotel as the violence flared out of all control. "The place was completely smashed up. Tables and chairs were broken up and the place was full of broken bottles," a senior source told the Herald. Massive "It is a miracle that just one person was seriously injured in this massive affray - dozens of people could have been hurt," the source added. The Herald can disclose that gardai suspect that the main protagonists in the "mini-riot" were Traveller criminals who live in Shankill in South Dublin as well as Bray, Co Wicklow. Such was the seriousness of the situation that up to half a dozen garda units rushed to the hotel to calm the situation. Officers only made one arrest on the night - a man in his 30s, arrested for public order offences. However, the savage melee is now being officially investigated as a "violent disorder incident" and gardai have obtained CCTV of the riot. This was being studied by gardai last night who hope it will lead to arrests in the coming weeks. "What happened here is completely unacceptable and it was a very dangerous situation for a while," a senior source said. "Some of those who are suspected of being involved have links to some of the most prolific burglary crime gangs and gardai will be following this up," the source added. It remained unclear last night what exactly was used to beat the 45-year-old security guard, who was seriously injured after being struck on the head with a blunt object. He was rushed to St Vincent's Hospital in South Dublin for treatment, where his condition was said to be stable last night. "He is a very lucky man - he got a savage blow to the head," the source pointed out. Despite repeated requests yesterday, no one at the hotel or its bar was available for comment. Repair The pub was back running as normal yesterday after repair work was carried out at the popular Bray boozer. It is understood that some of those involved had been at a concert by popular Irish tribute band Abbaesque in the venue before the vicious mayhem. It is not known what sparked the brutal row, but sources said at last three separate extended Traveller families from Bray and South Dublin were present when it all kicked off. "Bad and all as this was, it could have been a lot worse. There were over 20 people effectively beating each other up and smashing the place up," a senior source said. "The seriousness of the situation was reflected in the garda response, which involved multiple units going to the scene to restore order," the source added. Free access for current print subscribers As a home delivery subscriber, you get free unlimited digital access to premium content on HenryHerald.com, including local news, local sports, obituaries, legal notices, local features, and the e-edition. All you need is your print subscription account number and your last name. Don't know your subscription number? Email access@henryherald.com with your delivery address. Activate your account now. Working Canadians have the equivalent of about three full workdays (23 hours of work) to catch up on for a week of holidays. Younger employees aged between 18 and 34, on the other hand, must work 32.1 hours in the pre- and post-holiday season to offset their time off. Indeed, the time-off tax is alive and well across Canada, ADP Canada said. [Its] concerning to see that for many, vacation time can be as much [of] a curse as it is a blessing, said Hendrik Steenkamp, director of HR advisory at ADP Canada. Employees should not be penalized with late nights and early mornings for taking their earned vacation. A Senate panel voted Wednesday to give themselves and their colleagues a big increase in their allowance and do it as soon as possible. You voted: We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Submit Michigan City, IN (46360) Today Lots of sunshine. High 71F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Mostly clear. Low 58F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Haiti - Bahamas : 16 Haitian boat-people intercepted East of South Beach On Tuesday, January 1 around 1 am, Royal Bahamas Defense Force (RBDF) officers intercepted 16 illegal Haitian migrants on the coast east of South Beach. The RBDF, the police and immigration officers later found a wooden boat in shallow water about a quarter of a mile off the coast. The authorities said they did not know at the moment how many migrants were initially on the boat, saying that searches for other possible illegal Haitian migrants were continuing in the area. Note that this is the second group of Haitian migrants intercepted by the RBDF in less than a week, after the arrest of 124 illegal Haitian migrants (107 men and 17 women) on December 30, 2018 in a 20-foot sailboat sailing, about twenty kilometers south of New Providence. These illegal migrants were handed over to the immigration officials for questioning. The majority of them, with the exception of minors are now waiting for their repatriation to Haiti. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23953-haiti-bahamas-89-haitian-boat-people-intercepted-southwest-of-eleuthera.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23661-haiti-politic-fruitful-conversation-between-president-moise-and-the-prime-minister-of-the-bahamas.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23364-haiti-bahamas-70-haitian-boat-people-intercepted-off-long-island.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23141-haiti-bahamas-76-haitian-boat-people-intercepted-at-sea.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-23124-icihaiti-bahamas-114-haitians-repatriated-at-the-cost-of-$40-000.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23112-haiti-social-interception-of-87-haitian-migrants-off-the-bahamas.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-22417-haiti-flash-tens-of-thousands-of-haitians-threatened-with-deportation-in-the-bahamas.html SL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Day of the ancestors : President Jovenel Moise salutes the memory of the Fathers of the Fatherland Wednesday, at the Champ de Mars, President Jovenel Moise accompanied by his wife Martine, Prime Minister Jean Henry Ceant and members of the Government, went to the Museum of Haitian National Pantheon (MUPANAH), to deposit the traditional floral offering to the occasion of the day of the ancestors and salutes the memory of the Fathers of the Fatherland. "To rebuild itself, the Nation needs to honor the memory of its Heroes, those who have given their all they all for it. These are models for present and future generations. Our ancestors fought with strength and courage and led a fierce fight to free an oppressed people, a people bruised by slavery, the day of the ancestors is an opportunity to think of them," reminded the Head of State. HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - FLASH : Members of the diaspora file a complaint against the Government of Hait ! On December 24, 2018, a class action was filed and registered at the Eastern District District Court in Manhattan, NY, by Marcel Denis, a lawyer of Haitian origin, of the Denis Law Group, PLLC. Representing Haitian plaintiffs Odilon S. Celestin, Widmir Romelien, Alexander Goldie Lamothe, Vincent Marazita, against the accused Michel Joseph Martelly, Jocelerme Privert, Jovenel Moise, Western Union, Caribbean Air Mail inc., Unitransfert USA inc., Digicel-Haiti, Natcom SA and the Government of Haiti, for violation of US federal laws as well as those of the States of New York, Florida and California. The plaintiffs dispute the levies on phone minutes and money transfers, to finance in Haiti the National Fund for Education (FNE). Recall that the FNE was created under the Presidency Martelly in May 2011 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-3034-haiti-education-launch-of-the-national-fund-for-education-fne-by-martelly-update-1h03pm.html currently financed by the diaspora by a phone fee of US $ 0.05 on each incoming minute and a charge of US $ 1.50, on incoming and outgoing funds transfers, which are collected by the Central Bank (BRH) has been ratified by both Chambers of Parliaments in August 2012 by the Chamber of Deputies https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-6379-haiti-education-the-fne-becomes-progressively-legal.html and in July 2017 by the Senate https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21412-haiti-politics-after-5-years-of-blocking-the-senate-votes-the-law-on-the-fne.html This 54-page class action contains 12 counts : Violation of general business law, according to the laws of New York in force (deceptive acts and practices); Violation of New York State Business Law (False Advertising); Violation of Florida law on unfair and deceptive marketing practices; Civil theft under Florida law; Violation of California State legislation on the operation of businesses and professions; Unfair competition under the California State Code of Professional and Business Law; Violation of the California State Law on Consumer Litigation; False statements intentionally made in violation of New York law; False statements intentionally made under the laws of Florida; Conspiracy to defraud Haitian consumers through remittances from the diaspora; Unjustified enrichment; Misrepresentation of the use to be made of additional fees collected from transfer houses and phone companies. Download the complaint for all the details (PDF) : https://www.haitilibre.com/docs/case-1-18-cv-0734.pdf See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26238-haiti-education-7-years-after-its-launch-the-national-education-fund-has-a-dg.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25587-haiti-diaspora-7-years-later-the-brh-finally-reveals-the-details-of-taxes-collected-on-transfers.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21412-haiti-politics-after-5-years-of-blocking-the-senate-votes-the-law-on-the-fne.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-14374-icihaiti-education-fne-$112-million-in-tariff-surplus.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-13049-haiti-education-a-lot-of-money-in-the-fne.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-6379-haiti-education-the-fne-becomes-progressively-legal.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-3034-haiti-education-launch-of-the-national-fund-for-education-fne-by-martelly-update-1h03pm.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-3027-haiti-education-the-tax-on-money-transfers-comes-into-force-on-june-1-2011.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-2993-haiti-education-it-s-not-a-tax-but-a-surcharge-on-the-tariff.html HL/ HaitiLibre JACKSON COUNTY, Miss. -- Land has been secured in Jackson County after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history caused significant damage to the ecosystem along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. According to the Conservation Fund, the Grand Bay Land Acquisition and Habitat Management Project funded through the Mississippi Trustee Implementation Groups Natural Resource Damage Assessment monies will expand the permanent protection of critical ecosystems along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, helping to partially restore injuries caused by the oil spill. A key component of our overall restoration planning after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has included the conservation of habitat for the benefit of the people who recreate there and the wildlife that live there, said Gov. Phil Bryant. Im pleased we have been able to secure this area that will expand the lands that are already being conserved. The trustees for the MS TIG allocated $6 million for the acquisition of up to 8,000 acres and for habitat management up to 17,500 acres in the Grand Bay Land Acquisition and Habitat Management Project. The U.S. Department of the Interior and Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) are co-implementing trustees of the project. Over 1,500 acres of essential coastal wildlife habitat at the Grand Bay National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) and the Grand Bay Savanna Coastal Preserve in Jackson County was acquired under the authority of the Mississippi Secretary of State with assistance from The Conservation Fund and will be managed by the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (DMR) in accordance with the project. The acquisition of the land will provide protection for the environment and will improve the management and public access of both coastal wetlands and adjacent upland areas and secures habitat for threatened and endangered species. Our restoration efforts are integrated for the overall improvement of our natural resources just as the natural resources are dependent on one another, said Gary Rikard, Executive Director of the MDEQ. Land acquisition and conservation of habitat to improve the Gulf Coasts ecosystem has long been integral to the states restoration efforts, and this land acquisition will complement many of our other projects. In addition to partially restoring injuries to birds and wetlands, coastal and nearshore habitats, this acreage will also provide expanded access for hunting, fishing, paddling, wildlife watching, and other important coastal recreation-related tourism opportunities, while increasing the contiguous protected landscape to approximately 25,000 acres across Mississippi and Alabama. Today, Apple released an open letter to investors revising its guidance for Q1 of this year. The guidance is the information a company provides as a way to predict its future earnings. This is a rare occurrence, especially for a company with a status as grand as Apple. Essentially, Apple is lowering its guidance (expected revenue) for the first quarter of 2019 from (previously) between $89 billion and $93 billion down to $84 billion. This is compared to Apples reported $88.3 billion in revenue for Q1 of 2018. The full letter can be found at the Source link below but here is the key takeaway regarding weaker iPhone sales. iPhone XS and XS Max starting at $999 and $1,099 Lower than anticipated iPhone revenue, primarily in Greater China, accounts for all of our revenue shortfall to our guidance and for much more than our entire year-over-year revenue decline. In fact, categories outside of iPhone (Services, Mac, iPad, wearables/Home/Accessories) combined to grow almost 19 percent year-over-year. While Greater China and other emerging markets accounted for the vast majority of the year-over-year iPhone revenue decline, in some developed markets, iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be. While macroeconomic challenges in some markets were a key contributor to this trend, we believe there are other factors broadly impacting our iPhone performance, including consumers adapting to a world with fewer carrier subsidies, US dollar strength-related price increases, and some customers taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements. iPhone XR starting at $749 Of course, there are so many factors that affect sales for a company with a world-wide presence such as Apple. However, the one factor that Apple failed to mention was the iPhones price points. Apple even cited the significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements as a factor. Apple acknowledges that the Chinese market was the biggest factor in its need to revise its guidance. Aside from the cited signs of Chinas economy beginning to decline, Apple is facing much fiercer competition in the Chinese market from other big Chinese players like Huawei, Oppo, vivo, and Xiaomi. Besides, with much higher price points, the Chinese consumer preferred to spend a fraction of the cost of a new iPhone on something more affordable. Its not all bad, however. Even though Apples iPhone sales arent doing as well as previous years, it still shows promise in its ever-increasing revenue sources outside of the iPhone. Apple cites all-time record revenues from Services, Wearables, and Mac. Which includes Apple Music and iCloud, the increasing popularity of the Apple Watch, and Apples computer business. Apple Watch Series 4 starting at $399 Services generated over $10.8 billion in revenue during the quarter, growing to a new quarterly record in every geographic segment, and we are on track to achieve our goal of doubling the size of this business from 2016 to 2020. Wearables grew by almost 50 percent year-over-year, as Apple Watch and AirPods were wildly popular among holiday shoppers; launches of MacBook Air and Mac mini powered the Mac to year-over-year revenue growth and the launch of the new iPad Pro drove iPad to year-over-year double-digit revenue growth. Apple is sure feeling the heat of 2018 as it gears into 2019. For its iPhone business, Apple needs a new approach now that it exhausted its strategy of slowly knocking up the average price of the iPhone over the years. The market is fighting back and Apple needs a new strategy for the iPhone business in 2019. Source Tougher firearms laws, particularly safe weapon storage as well as bans on ghost and 3-D printed guns, will be the top priority of Bridgeport state Rep. Steve Stafstrom, when he takes over the powerful judiciary committee next week. Stafstrom, named incoming co-chairman of the law-writing panel, said he plans to quickly reintroduce legislation that would prohibit the untraceable ghost guns and 3-D printed guns. Theres also been a lot of interest from advocates as well as members of the legislature on safe storage laws, and making sure it covers unloaded as well as loaded guns, Stafstrom said Thursday. He has also previously worked on failed legislation that would have required open-carry permit holders to show their permit when requested by a police officer. Stafstrom will co-chair the committee alongside state Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven. Stafstrom, a Bridgeport-based civil litigation attorney, will bring the bulk of the legal experience to the team, as Winfield, a union employee and former electrical construction manager, is not a lawyer. Without a Republican co-chairman after the previous two-year 18-18 tie in the Senate, Democrats will have a freer hand to push legislation. Stafstrom said hed also like to continue the criminal justice reforms started under Gov. Dannel P. Malloys administration. He listed immigration policies, penalties for minor misdemeanors, the legalization of marijuana and creating more business-friendly statutes as other priorities for the Judiciary Committee, which has a hand in nearly every law considered by the legislature. Generally speaking we need to make sure that, as a Judiciary Committee, we need to make sure we are respecting the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law, Stafstrom said. Weve seen out of Washington the last few years a president and even some legislators that have been hostile to the independence of the judiciary. We have an obligation to understand the limits and the role of the legislative branch. In recent years proposals on ghost guns assembled in parts that cannot be traced and 3-D printed weapons have failed, although last year a law was approved to ban so-called bump stocks that give semi-automatic rifles the ability to shoot faster. Stafstrom isnt the only Bridgeport representative that will take on a leadership position in the new legislature. Ezequiel Santiago, who like the entire delegation is a Democrat, will lead the Banking Committee. Rep. Andre Baker will be vice chair of the Planning and Development Committee. Rep. Chris Rosario and Rep. Jack Hennessy will both serve as deputy speakers, and Rep. Charlie Stallworth will continue as a deputy majority leader. One of the kind of knocks on the Bridgeport delegation historically is that the delegation hasnt really worked well together, and legislators havent stuck around long enough to get into leadership positions, Stafstrom said. He said the current delegation works well together and has pushed for each other to move into leadership positions. Stafstrom said. That bore itself out in the announcements ... As a house delegation we were certainly pleased in making sure Bridgeport has a seat at the table with some major committee appointments, he said. Stafstrom, who was first elected in a 2015 special election, has previously served as vice chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and played a leading role in passing new laws that combat human trafficking through stronger penalties, training and awareness; and increasing transparency in law enforcement. Stafstrom has also been an advocate for property tax reform, education accessibility, a Bridgeport casino and improving economic development in the states cities. The House leadership on other key committees will stay the same with Rep. Toni Walker, D-New Haven, maintaining her place at the helm of the Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, continuing to lead the Finance, Revenue and Bonding committee. Those committees handle all matters related to the budget, which will dominate the discussion in the upcoming legislative session. kkrasselt@hearstmediact.com; 203-842-2563; @kaitlynkrasselt I was spot on in predicting more Positive Train Control delays (Dec. 31 Jim Cameron column, Conn. transportation predictions for 2019.) That stated, how Jim Cameron and the newspaper push to have these outrageously delayed Positive Train Controls to be implemented? What is the plan? Would your please describe the plan to the taxpayers and passengers of Metro-North. This would actually be helpful commentary. No movement in infrastructure investment by the Trump Administration is stated. Why is Trump to blame for the deplorable Third World infrastructure throughout the State of Connecticut? Connecticut bankrupt itself a long time before 2016 when Donald Trump was elected. Was Trump responsible for the deaths of those who were unfortunate enough to be on the Mianus River Bridge when it collapsed in 1983? When the Department of Transportation heard the multiple complaints about the declining bridge was President Trump around to ignore the complaints as the DOT ignored them? Lamonts selection of Joseph Giulietti, former president of Metro-North, as his new commissioner is a brilliant move. Nobody else better understands the challenges of fixing our railroads. Surely this is stated in jest! Metro-North has now degraded into a Third World operation. It has not completed very basic safety controls, it is always tardy, the right of way is filthy with litter and debris and the infrastructure is dated, unsightly and crumbling. Giulietti was president of Metro-North while all of this was happening. This is truly very sad commentary by Jim Cameron. He has an opportunity to do the right thing for Connecticut yet for some reason he is silent. Support local journalism We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story. EDEN MillerCoors has sold its 1,365-acre facility in Eden to 770 Ventures LLC, a corporation that shares the same address as D.H. Griffin a Greensboro based demolition and site development specialist, according to property records filed with the Rockingham County Register of Deeds office. According to a North Carolina Specialty Warranty Deed filed listing excise tax and county revenue stamps, the transfer of property comes at a total of $2.75 million. MillerCoors purchased the property from Miller Brewing Company in July 2008 for $53,598,000, according to Rockingham County GIS records. In September 2015, the company announced the year-long process to close its Eden facility after 37 years. News of the closure came as a shock to local officials, with more than 500 employees losing their jobs during the transition. MillerCoors officials cited the need to optimize their brewery footprint and streamline operations for its breweries as a main source for the closure. They also stated that a drop in demand for its products as a factor in the decision to shut down Rockingham Countys third-largest private employer. Safer is not the same as safe, King said. Nicotine is a prime ingredient in these devices. Studies show nicotine is more addictive than heroin and cocaine. And theres a growing body of evidence that nicotine can harm the developing adolescent brain. Nicotine from vapes can lead to hyperactivity, depression and anxiety in adolescents. It can affect memory and impair learning. Its tough for a teenager to stop vaping, and most dont even want to try. Using nicotine as an adolescent can make a person more prone to other addictions later. The rapid spread of teenage vaping led the FDA in 2018 to crack down on enforcement of often-ignored laws banning sales of vapes to those under 18. The FDA also has proposed new rules for where vapes can be sold and for verifying ages of online customers. And it is pressuring e-cigarette companies such as the highly popular Juul to tone down their marketing. Why not go ahead and impose tough regulations on those hotly marketed products clearly targeted at teens? There are an increasing number of protections in place for consumers things like the ability to opt in and opt out, or needing consent to use their data, she said. Employees, however, have less control over how their employers use their data. Yet plenty of data is at risk. Beyond social security numbers and bank account information from direct deposits, data like what movies you watched in a hotel room on a business trip (charged to a corporate credit card) or what vacation days you took could reveal other personal tastes or even religious information to outside parties. Bergman predicts more pressure for employers to provide some of the same options to their workers that customers have, such as being able to request access to information that companies have about them. I think what theyll start to demand is that employers specify a certain duty of care when it comes to dealing with their data, Bergman said. I think it will become part of their marketing pitch, in the same way benefits packages are, as employers start to disclose how they treat employers data, too, and use that as an indicator of the moral and ethical fabric of the company. OFFICE DESIGN: The office phone booth will become a workplace staple. Whelan's brother told NPR on Thursday that he family didn't know about bad-conduct discharge until this week. David Whelan dismissed Paul's conviction as a "relatively innocuous sort of thing," and said that he wasn't surprised his brother concealed details from the family, because "it is not unreasonable for people to put out their best self." He's traveled to Russia several times He's no stranger to the country. When Whelan was in the military in 2006, he used his two weeks' leave to visit Russia. A 2007 online Marine Corps article says he spent the leave "experiencing the post-Soviet era of Moscow and St. Petersburg." A photo shows him standing across the Moscow River from the Kremlin. He likes to travel around the world and has also visited countries such as India and Iceland, his brother said. "He has friends in Russia, so that would be an extra draw, people he's met on social media, but I don't know that Russia was a particular place of return for him," David Whelan said. He was attending a wedding, his family says In 1868, Japans Meiji Restoration re-established the authority of the emperor and heralded the fall of the military rulers known as shoguns; the upheaval paved the way for Japans drive toward becoming a modern power. In 1938, the March of Dimes campaign to fight polio was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who himself had been afflicted with the disease. In 1967, Jack Ruby, the man who shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, died in a Dallas hospital. In 1977, Apple Computer was incorporated in Cupertino, California, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Mike Makkula Jr. In 1993, President George H.W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed the START II missile-reduction treaty in Moscow. (However, the agreement ultimately fell apart.) In 2013, students from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, reconvened at a different building in the town of Monroe about three weeks after the massacre that had claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six educators. For other highlights from this date, see On This Day in the gallery area of greensboro.com. You can search the News & Record Historical Archive at greensboro.com/archive. The next Lunch with the League of Women Voters meeting will be Jan. 15 at the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, 607 N. Greene St. in Greensboro. Jennifer Bremer, a LWV-NC board member and leader of the league's fair elections action team, will speak about Un-rigging NC's Voting Maps in the 2019-2020 Legislative Session. Bremer will speak to meeting the challenge of redistricting reform now in time for the 2021 redrawing. She will provide a brief overview of the White Paper Study on gerrymandering and brief listeners on the next steps through the Fair Districts NC initiative. GREENSBORO Starting today, youll see kids at the bus stop earlier as Guilford County Schools begins each day five minutes earlier. The five makeup minutes are added to each school day through the end of the school year. Its a way to help meet state instruction-time requirements despite days missed because of bad weather, district administrators say. Superintendent Sharon Contreras announced the change back in October, following early-in-the-year school cancellations for Tropical Storms Florence and Michael. Since then, the district racked up another five days out of school for a December snow storm. Schools on the traditional calendar will have students in school for makeup days on Jan. 18, Feb. 18, March 28 and June 10. They have already used one makeup day on Nov. 1. Of the five makeup days, two cover days missed for Michael, and three cover days missed in the December storm. The district chose not to make up the two days missed for Florence after the state passed a bill that gave some flexibility for school districts to drop Florence makeup days. One day without the internet doesnt seem like that big of a deal until it happens to you. Last Thursday, as my coworkers and I tried to go about getting our work done, we quickly realized just how much we rely on the internet to do our jobs. Just simple things such as typing up the community calendar, getting a graphic for an ad or obtaining information via email, all require the use of a working internet connection. Even while typing up this column, I realized I need the internet to look up more detailed information about the nation-wide CenturyLink issue, which has caused our problems.... The sixth penny improvement tax is almost certain be on the 2020 ballot. Both cities, as well as the countys outlying towns, will need infrastructure improvements beyond what they can provide from their budgets. For Green River specifically, the city will need to start securing funding for its wastewater treatment plant and the improvement projects tax would make for an excellent source to receive some of that money. Beyond improvements, one idea that has come to our attention is the possibility of using the tax to fund economic development efforts within the county. This is something... I had the chance to visit Japan last month. The only thought Ive had on my mind since returning is how much Id like to venture away and see world. Ive always been fascinated with Japan. Its culture, its history, its myths and traditions. I cant even remember when this fascination first took hold of me. Maybe it was watching old Godzilla movies late at night with my mother. Perhaps it was having played video games for so long, that the more Japanese-influenced titles took hold on me. All I know is for as long as I can remember, Ive been aware of this other country where everyt... Plans hung on a peg board at Rocky Mountain Supply show the upcoming changes to the building. The business has been a local institution for about 80 years. After a fire gutted this mobile home Dec. 22, a hollowed out shell is all that remains at 700 Schultz No. 36. Not much remains of a trailer that burnt on Dec. 22. All that is left is a hollowed out shell, which once was the home to a family of five. The cause of the fire is still undetermined and the investigation is ongoing, Green River assistant fire chief Austin Rider said. Around noon on Dec. 22, the Green River Fire Department was dispatched to 700 Schultz No. 36 for a mobile home fire. Rider said firefighters arrived within 3 minutes from receiving the call, but the damage had been done. The older-style mobile home was completely engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived. "We made sure th... Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email circulation@skagitpublishing.com for help creating one. NAPPANEE [mdash] Daniel F. Chupp, 89 of Nappanee, Indiana, died at 9:46 a.m. Thursday, June 10, 2021 at Goshen General Hospital. Cremation will take place and a memorial service will be held at a later date. Concise letters 250 words or fewer on topics of local interest will receive first consideration for publication. All letters are subject to editing for language and clarity. Mailing Address: Letters to the Editor, The Register & Bee, 700 Monument St., Danville, VA 24541 Letters submitted by mail must include the writer's name, signature, address and a daytime phone number. Fax: (434) 799-0595 Email: letters@registerbee.com Or submit a letter via our online form: Submit a letter An attorney with a Halifax-based law firm accepted a contract to serve as legal counsel with the Pittsylvania County Department of Social Services. Though the agreements term was set to commence on Tuesday, Pittsylvania County Department of Social Services new director Chris Spain didnt start in his position until Wednesday. Spain signed the retainer with attorney Matt Evans of Gravitt Law Group PLC on his first day. According to the agreement, the first term is set to end one year from Tuesday with the ability to be renewed with written agreement from both the parties each year for four year periods. On Wednesday, Evans said the firm was excited to start working with the countys department of social services. Before hiring Evans, the department was represented by attorneys Tim Fisk and Les Adams of the Chatham-based Adams, Elmore & Fisk for four years. Their most recent term was set to end on July 31. Four law firms Gravitt Law Group, Adams, Elmore & Fisk, Clement & Wheatley and Lee Hendricks Turpin PC responded to a request for qualifications sent out by the social services board of directors in October. The firms qualifications and proposals underwent two rounds of review. We want to make sure we have connections to where people live as opposed to just at commercial areas, Ragsdale said. Currently, the trails most prominent entry points are at the Crossing at the Dan, Anglers Park, Dan Daniel Memorial Park and from the parking lot behind Biscuitville on Riverside Drive. There also is access from other areas, including Ballou Park/Memorial Drive. Tina Emerson and Ronald Crabb said they had no problem with the possible expansion. Though they live where trail extensions would likely not reach, they believe the increased accessibility would be of benefit. It would be good for a lot of people if it were expanded into a lot of neighborhoods, Emerson said as they finished up a walk on the trail. Marie-Louise Crane uses the trail about the three times a week and also was in favor of the expansion. Accessibility is going to be enhanced, Crane said. Its a huge asset for Danville. If implemented, the increased trail access could include installation of sidewalks or bike lanes, Ragsdale said. Xem them ... Tin bai cuoi cung Khong con du lieu e load Several staffers told the committee that Garretts wife would berate staff, often using profanity and other harsh language, for failing to prioritize her needs over their regular official duties. In one text message to the congressmans chief of staff, Flanna Garrett wrote: NONE of what I asked to be done with the phone was done. Not a f****** thing. I am going to sit down with some of your staff and tell them how f****** disrespectful and STUPIDLY shortsighted they are for completely disregarding every thing [sic] I asked them to do. Garrett failed to place any limits on his wifes interactions with staff, leaving them feeling disparaged and bullied, the committee report states. Two witnesses also told investigators that Garrett had inquired about buying marijuana and had used marijuana with staffers. When asked about those claims, Garrett denied he ever did so, telling investigators, I prosecuted for the better part of a decade. If I wanted to buy marijuana, I could have it for you right quick like. When Fitzgerald learned that he was going to be arrested for this offense, the summary states, he said he was going to kill [the juvenile]. Fitzgerald entered an Alford plea on Nov. 20 which acknowledged that the prosecution had enough evidence to convict him, but without admitting his guilt. He filed a motion to change his plea almost exactly a month after entering it, but he withdrew the motion. Danville Chief Deputy Commonwealths Attorney Petra Haskins said Judge James Reynolds, who also presided over the trial, handed a life sentence down to Fitzgerald but suspended all but 45 years. We have prosecuted several of these types of cases over the years, she wrote in an email. And, we have at least one more pending. Sexual intercourse with a child under 13 is considered rape in Virginia, according to state law. Though Fitzgerald and the juvenile both consented, their tryst was still criminal. The Danville Police learned that a 13 year old had a baby, Haskins wrote. They investigated the case and appropriate charges were brought. Generally, there is no law against juveniles misrepresenting their ages, defense attorney Eric Cronin said. The child is not held liable. MIKE SPRINGER/Staff file photo/Special $10 commuter rail weekend fares resume this Saturday, Jan. 5, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and operating partner Keolis Commuter Services have announced. This special weekend fare may be used across all zones and all lines, according to the MBTA. Chris Christo/AP photo/Convicted child rapist Wayne Chapman appears for his arraignment on June 6 in Ayer. Chapman, who was set to be released from custody after two experts concluded he was no longer "sexually dangerous" remains locked up after he was arrested in June for indecent exposure and lewd acts, authorities said. You asked. We listened. Your daily crossword, Sudoku and dozens of other puzzles are now available online. Play them or print them here. Play now Mexico to Erect the World's Tallest Statue of Jesus Christ What will be the world's tallest statue of Jesus Christ is set to start construction in Mexico early this year. The project will dwarf the current record holder - the Cristo de la Concordia, in Bolivia, which stands just over 40 meters tall - by nearly twice its height. Cristo de la Paz (Christ of Peace) will stretch towards the sky, towering at 77 meters over the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, one of the most dangerous states in the nation. The project was imagined and organized by Eduardo Verastegui Cordoba, a Mexican actor who is native to Tamaulipas. Mexico News Daily reports that Verastegui said the purpose of the project is to leave a legacy of peace for the state in which he was born. The statue will show Christ's arms outspread, as if offering a supportive hug. The construction will be conducted by Fernando Romero, whose firm designed the Mexico City airport, atop an expansive esplanade large enough to accommodate 10,000 people. Developers hope to turn the area into a thriving hot spot for pilgrims and tourists, who will be able to take advantage of the many facilities and services to come, including a church, restaurants, stores, a convention center, a shelter for pilgrims, a hotel, an amphitheater, a handicrafts market, funicular and cable car stations and a residential area. Verastegui said he planned to travel to Rome to present his project to Pope Francis. While no details have been released in reference to the cost or funding of the project, the Catholic Church said construction should commence in early 2019. Promoters of the statue were quoted saying that the Christ of Peace would represent "a message of faith, love, hope and peace." Chinese President Calls for Peaceful Reunification with Self-Ruled Taiwan By VOA News January 02, 2019 Chinese President Xi Jinping say the self-governed island of Taiwan should abandon any thoughts of independence and accept that is part of the mainland. President Xi reaffirmed his nation's long-standing policy towards Taiwan in a speech Wednesday marking the 40th anniversary of a landmark speech, "Message to Compatriots in Taiwan," that eventually led to diplomatic relations between the rivals. Xi said Beijing is open to creating a vast "space for peaceful reunification" with Taipei, which would occur under a "one country, two systems" framework. But he warned that China will not allow room for any sort of "separatist activities," and repeated its vow to use military action in order to achieve reunification. Xi's speech was delivered a day after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said China must accept Taiwan's status as a self-ruled island. In a New Year's Day address from her office, President Tsai said China had to "respect the insistence of 23 million people for freedom and democracy," and for both sides to face the reality that there are fundamental differences between their "values and lifestyles" and political systems. Relations between Beijing and Taipei have been strained since Tsai, the leader of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, took office in 2016 and refused to accept the concept of China and Taiwan joined together as "one China." Beijing has since mounted an aggressive posture towards Taipei, such as carrying out numerous military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, blocking Taipei's participation in international organizations, and persuading several nations to switch diplomatic relations from Taiwan to China. China and Taiwan split after the 1949 civil war when Chaing Kai-shek's Nationalist forces were driven off the mainland by Mao Zedong's Communists and sought refuge on Taiwan. Respect or Use of Force? China-Taiwan Divide Seen Getting Deeper By Ralph Jennings January 02, 2019 Chinese President Xi Jinping told Taiwan Wednesday it's time for the two sides to unify and didn't rule out using force to make that happen. A day earlier, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen told China to respect her government's existence and the democratic resolve of her self-ruled island's people. Tsai rejects Beijing's claim that both sides fall under one flag. The conflicting speeches, timed one day apart, indicate the division between the two old rivals over unification and the lack of a channel to discuss differences. If acted on, they will extend or worsen 70 years of strained relations, analysts believe. "With the current situation between China and Taiwan, I don't think there is that foundation of trust for any kind of in-depth discussion of debate on these issues," said Raymond Wu, managing director of Taipei-based political risk consultancy e-telligence, referring to Tsai's ideas. "The key is whether there is that foundation of trust. That needs to be first established." China and Taiwan have been ruled separately since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists lost to Mao Zedong's Communists. The fleeing Nationalists re-based their government in Taiwan, but the more militarily powerful China insists that the two sides must eventually unite, by force if necessary. Stern words from Beijing President Xi thundered against past efforts in Taiwan to become legally independent of China and said the two sides should pursue a "one country-two systems" model of unification that his government applied to Hong Kong in 1997. China said that year it had given the former British local autonomy. "Peaceful unification and 'one country, two systems' are the best methods of realizing unification between the two sides," Xi said as cited by China's official Xinhua News Agency. This course, he said, "gives ample consideration to Taiwan's actual situation and will help Taiwan's long-term peace and stability after unification." The president suggested more exchanges and did not rule out use of force if needed to fight Taiwan independence. "We want to make our biggest effort to achieve peaceful unification because this method is most beneficial, but we don't give up the use of weapons," Xi said. His speech marked the 40th anniversary of the statement from the standing committee of China's National People's Congress calling for unification with Taiwan. Taiwan leader demands respect Taiwan's president demanded in a New Year's speech that China recognize her government and respect the resolve of the island's 23 million people. "Here I want to appeal to China that it must see correctly the existence of the Republic of China, Taiwan, must respect the 23 million Taiwanese people's resolve for freedom and democracy and must handle existing agreements equitably and peacefully," Tsai Ing-wen said. "It must also be that only organizations authorized by the two governments can sit down for talks." These "musts," she said, form the "most basic and most key foundation for the positive development of relations between Taiwan and China." The president, elected in 2016, rejects Beijing's dialogue condition that both sides talk as parts of one "China" and on Tuesday warned local officials against exchanges with Beijing based on "vague prerequisites." China has responded to her rejection by flying military aircraft near the island, squelching Taiwanese foreign diplomacy and scaling back Taiwan-bound group tourism. Fallout from speeches This week's speeches could deepen the China-Taiwan gap if Xi pushes ahead or Taiwanese opposition party figures engage him against Tsai's will, scholars say. Most Taiwanese say in polls they oppose Xi's goal of unification, and the Communist leadership doesn't recognize the autonomy of Taiwan. "The demands for unification on the one-China principle violates the will of the Taiwanese people," said Michael Tsai, chairman of the Institute for Taiwan Defense and Strategic Studies. "We have freedom, democracy and human rights, so how can we be one country, two systems?" he asked. "It's impossible. Hong Kong is a great example. Since Hong Kong was returned to China, its freedom and democracy have faced a lot of limitations." Use of force against Taiwan would hurt China by inciting a response from Japan and the United States, Michael Tsai added. Further eroding the chance of dialogue, the Taiwan president probably spoke Tuesday to deter Taiwan's opposition party mayors and magistrates from holding their own talks, said Shane Lee, political scientist with Chang Jung Christian University in Taiwan. The opposition Nationalist Party, whose candidates won 15 of 22 local seats in the November midterm elections, takes a more Beijing-friendly view than the ruling party. "I think she doesn't want the local officials to have private connections with Xi Jinping or any other PRC officials," Lee said. "I think she thinks that that's not only immoral but almost illegal." Taiwan 'Will Never Accept' One Country, Two Systems Deal With China - President Sputnik News 23:00 02.01.2019 In response to Chinese President Xi Jinping's speech earlier on Wednesday, in which he reiterated that China would "make no promise to renounce the use of force" in eventually unifying both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen has herself dug in, saying Taiwan "will never accept the concept of 'one country, two systems.'" Tsai spoke at Taiwan's Presidential Office in Taipei Wednesday, after Xi spoke in Beijing's Great Hall of the People to commemorate the 40th anniversary of "Message to Compatriots in Taiwan," a policy document issued on the day the US and China established formal diplomatic relations that proposed dialogue and exchanges between the two countries, not military confrontation. Washington and Beijing established ties only after the US broke its formal ties to Taiwan. To this day, the US has no official embassy in Taipei, and the unofficial American Institute in Taiwan performs consular services. Though Xi insisted that "it's a legal fact that both sides of the Strait belong to one China, and cannot be changed by anyone or any force," his speech was to some degree conciliatory, calling for discussion and increased economic cooperation. Tsai, however, was not moved. "The majority of Taiwanese are staunchly opposed to the concept [of one country, two systems]. That is the 'consensus of Taiwan,'" she said, the Taipei Times reports. Much friction stems from the idea of "consensus" in Taiwan-China affairs Tsai's government has bucked a trend of decades by refusing to ratify what is called the "1992 Consensus," an agreement between China and Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) that there is indeed "one China" that spans the Taiwan Strait, though both sides may have their own ideas of how it should be governed. Tsai is a member of the Democratic Progressive Party. Tsai also slammed Xi for inviting political parties and other groups and individuals in Taiwan to discuss cross-strait issues, saying that negotiations between China and Taiwan must be done government to government, as between two equal states. China must recognize the existence of the Republic of China (Taiwan's formal name) and negotiate with its government, and respect the democracy its people have created, she said. Sputnik In stern warning, China's President Xi says independence will bring profound disaster to Taiwan Iran Press TV Wed Jan 2, 2019 05:35AM Chinese President Xi Jinping says Taiwan "will be and must be reunified" with mainland China, warning that independence will spell "profound disaster" for the self-ruled island. Speaking at Beijing's Great Hall of the People on the 40th anniversary of a key Taiwan policy statement, the Chinese president said, "Taiwan's independence would only bring profound disaster to Taiwan." The Chinese president also said the use of force would remain an option to bring Taiwan back under Chinese control. "We are willing to create broad space for peaceful reunification, but will leave no room for any form of separatist activities," Xi said. "We make no promise to renounce the use of force and reserve the option of taking all necessary means." The Chinese president also said Beijing would permit "no external interference" over the issue, which he said was an internal affair. China claims sovereignty over Taiwan, and almost all world countries recognize that sovereignty under a policy known as "One China." The United States, while formally recognizing Chinese sovereignty over the island, remains a close ally of Taipei, provides weapons to it, and maintains a de facto embassy in Taiwan. The Chinese government has constantly warned Washington against any kind of relations with Taipei, whose own ties with Beijing have been deteriorating since two years ago, when Tsai Ing-wen was elected "president" and began challenging the "One China" principle. Tsai has said she will boost "security" in the face of what she has described as Chinese pressure to assert sovereignty over Taiwan. Ahead of Xi's speech, she used her New Year's Day address to bring up what she called threats from China and urged Beijing "to face squarely the reality of the existence of the Republic of China on Taiwan," referring to the island's formal name. Tsai said that China "must respect the insistence of 23 million people on freedom and democracy, and must use peaceful, on parity means to handle our differences." She also accused China of interfering in the island's political and social development, which she described as her government's "biggest challenge at the moment." Taiwan and the mainland separated amid a civil war in 1949. Beijing has vowed to bring the island under its control by force if necessary. Highlights of Xi's speech at Taiwan message anniversary event People's Daily Online (Chinadaily.com.cn) 11:33, January 02, 2019 President Xi Jinping delivered a speech at a gathering held Wednesday in Beijing to commemorate the 40th anniversary of issuing Message to Compatriots in Taiwan. Here are highlights of President Xi's speech: Resolving Taiwan question, complete reunification a historic task Since 1949, the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Chinese government and the Chinese people have always unwaveringly taken resolving the Taiwan question to realize China's complete reunification as a historic task, President Xi Jinping said. Breakthroughs in cross-Straits relations over 70 years Over the 70 years, estrangement between the mainland and Taiwan was ended in line with the common will of compatriots across the Straits, and Taiwan compatriots have made great contributions to the reform and opening-up in the mainland, said Xi. During the seven decades, the mainland and Taiwan reached the 1992 Consensus based on the one-China principle, and the political exchanges across the Straits have reached new heights, Xi said. Over the 70 years, the basic principles of "peaceful reunification" and "one country, two systems" were established, and the basic policy of upholding "one country, two systems" and advancing the national reunification was laid out, according to Xi. He continued that more and more countries and peoples have understood and supported the cause of the reunification of China over the 70 years. Furthermore, over the 70 years, a series of major victories in the battles against "Taiwan independence" and separatists have been achieved, Xi said. Cross-Straits reunification an irresistible trend The historical and legal facts, that Taiwan is part of China and the two sides across Taiwan Straits belong to one and the same China, can never be altered by anyone or any force, said Xi. The fact that compatriots across the Straits are all Chinese who share natural kinship and national identity can never be changed by anyone or any force, Xi added. The peaceful and stable development of cross-Straits situations and the progress of cross-Straits relations are the tide of the time that can never be stopped by anyone or any force, said Xi. China must be, will be reunified "It is a historical conclusion drawn over the 70 years of the development of cross-Straits relations, and a must for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation in the new era," he said. He called on Chinese people across the Taiwan Straits as well as at home and abroad to work together for the Chinese nation's greater good and go with the tide of history, to jointly push forward the peaceful development of the cross-Strait relations and advance the process toward the peaceful reunification of China. Taiwan question will definitely end with national rejuvenation The Taiwan question originated from national weakness and disorder, and will definitely end with national rejuvenation, Xi said. The Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits should make joint efforts to seek national reunification, Xi said. The future of Taiwan lies in national reunification and the wellbeing of Taiwan compatriots is linked to national rejuvenation, Xi said. "Peaceful development of cross-Straits relations is the correct road to maintaining cross-Straits peace, promoting cross-Straits common development, and benefiting compatriots on both sides of the Straits." Peaceful development of cross-Straits relations should be pushed forward, maintained and shared by compatriots on both sides of the Strait, he said. Taiwan-U.S. ties at best in 40 years: Taiwan's U.S. representative ROC Central News Agency 2019/01/02 11:57:17 Washington, Jan. 1 (CNA) Taiwan-U.S. relations are at their best since Washington cut formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979, Taiwan's representative to the United States Stanley Kao () said Tuesday, and he was confident the strong ties would continue in 2019. But when asked about reports of President Tsai Ing-wen's () intention to visit Washington this year, Kao said he had no knowledge of any such plans. Kao made the comments while talking about the current state of Taiwan-U.S. relations after a national flag raising ceremony to celebrate New Year's Day that drew 600 overseas Taiwanese in the Washington metropolitan area. Taiwan suffered a major diplomatic setback 40 years ago on Jan. 1 when the U.S. severed official relations, Kao said, but on the same day this year, "we have so many reasons to be happy and proud." Through joint efforts, Taiwan and the U.S. achieved a lot in furthering positive bilateral relations in 2018, including increased support for Taiwan in the U.S. Congress, Kao said. The Congress passed the Taiwan Travel Act, which encourages mutual visits by high-ranking Taiwanese and American officials, and the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, which includes provisions to help Taiwan strengthen its defense capabilities, Kao said. In addition, U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday signed into law the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA) of 2018, which includes a section reaffirming the U.S. commitment to Taiwan, particularly regarding arms sales, according to Kao. Through these bills, the U.S. reaffirmed the irreplaceable partnerships between the two countries on the economy and trade, science and technology, and national defense and security, Kao said. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the enactment of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which provides the legal basis for the unofficial relationship between the U.S. and Taiwan, Kao said, and he expected the TRA, the Taiwan Travel Act and the ARIA to shape the framework that strengthens Taiwan-U.S. ties over the next 40 years. (By Chiang Chin-yeh and Evelyn Kao) Enditem/ls Taiwan will never accept 'one country, two systems' scheme: Tsai ROC Central News Agency 2019/01/02 21:06:19 Taipei, Jan. 2 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen () said Wednesday that she has never accepted the so-called "1992 consensus" and will never do so because it is tantamount to the "one China, two systems" formula devised by China to bring Taiwan under its control. Speaking at a news conference, Tsai stated categorically that since assuming office in May 2016, she has rejected the "1992 consensus," the goal of which is Taiwan's unification with China. 'We have never accepted the '1992 consensus.' The fundamental reason is because the '1992 consensus' as defined by Beijing is in fact the 'one China principle' and 'one China, two systems' formula," Tsai said. "Taiwan will never accept the 'one China, two systems' formula, and the vast majority of Taiwan's people are firmly opposed to the approach designed by Beijing," she said, noting that a speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping () earlier in the day proved that "Taiwan's misgivings are correct." The "1992 consensus" refers to a verbal agreement reached in 1992 between the then Kuomintang (KMT) government of Taiwan and Chinese communist officials that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge there is only "one China," with each side free to interpret what "China" means. Earlier Wednesday, Xi said in a speech commemorating the 40th anniversary of the "Message to Compatriots in Taiwan" that Taiwan "must and will be" united with China based on the "1992 consensus" under the "one China principle." Xi said China is willing to talk with any party in Taiwan to push forward the political process as long as it accepts the "one China principle." However, he reiterated "we will not renounce the use of force or give up the option to use all necessary measures" to serve that end and crack down on Taiwan independence. Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said Xi's attempt to put pressure on Taiwan through Beijing's "one China principle" and the "1992 consensus" highlights China's ignorance of the fact that Taiwan is a globally recognized democracy, that Taiwan's people refuse to accept the "one country, two systems" approach and have the right to determine their own future. MOFA urged the international community to maintain its support for Taiwan and help it to continue to serve as a beacon in the Asia-Pacific region. "We look forward to working with the international community to jointly safeguard our shared common values and establish an international order based on freedom, democracy and respect for human rights," it said. Meanwhile, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said Taiwan will not accept an offer to talk with an authoritarian regime that is determined to stamp out Taiwan's sovereignty. The MAC also urged China not to misjudge the situation and take any unilateral action as Taiwan is prepared to safeguard its dignity and sovereignty. The implementation of the "one country, two systems" policy in Hong Kong has deprived its people of freedom and the rule of law -- something the people of Taiwan will never accept, the MAC said. (By Wen Kuei-hsiang and Flor Wang) Enditem/AW Trump: US Wants to Protect Kurds in Syria Even After Troops Withdrawal Sputnik News 21:30 02.01.2019(updated 22:09 02.01.2019) In December, Trump declared victory over Daesh while White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders later said that the United States had started to withdraw its troops from the country, adding that this development did not signal the end of the US-led coalition's campaign in Syria. US President Donald Trump has announced Wednesday that he wants to protect US-backed Kurdish militants in Syria even as the US troops gradually pull out from the country. He also said that the United States would get out from Syria "over a period of time", claiming that he never gave a four-month timetable for this withdrawal. Meanwhile, about 400 Syrian Kurdish YPG militants left Manbij in 30 vehicles since 1 January after reaching an agreement with Damascus to withdraw from the area, according to the Syrian Defence Ministry. The Syrian army declared on 28 December that its troops had entered Manbij after receiving an appeal from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) to take control over the city amid Turkey's plans to conduct a military operation there. On Saturday, the Kremlin confirmed that Damascus had indeed regained control over the territory. Ankara has been opposing the presence of Kurdish militia in Syria's northern regions, claiming that the militants posed a threat to Turkey's security. In January, Turkey even launched a military operation in city of Afrin against the US-backed YPG, which is regarded by Turkey as an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organization by Ankara. Damascus, in turn, called the operation an aggression. On 19 December, US President Donald Trump announced victory over Daesh* in Syria, adding that the fight against the terrorist group was the only reason the United States remained in the Arab country. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders later said that the United States had started to withdraw its troops from the country, but that the victory over the Daesh did not signal the end of the US-led coalition's campaign in Syria. *Daesh, also known as ISIS/ISIL, is a terrorist group outlawed in Russia Sputnik Kurdish fighters withdraw from Manbij: Syria Iran Press TV Wed Jan 2, 2019 06:19PM Syria says hundreds of US-backed Kurdish fighters have withdrawn from the city of Manbij near the border with Turkey to take position to the east of the Euphrates. The Syrian Defense Ministry announced Wednesday that "approximately 400 Kurdish fighters" had left the border town, days after Kurdish groups appealed to the government of President Bashar al-Assad to support them against a possible Turkish offensive. Their departure was in line with an agreement "for the return of normal life to the area of northern Syria," the ministry said in a statement. The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) had confirmed earlier that they were evacuating the town, which they seized from the Daesh terrorist group in 2016. An online video published by the Syrian ministry showed dozens of vehicles carrying armed fighters, some of whom waved flags of the YPG and its female counterpart, the YPJ. It was not clear how many fighters would remain in Manbij. Last week, the YPG asked Damascus to deploy troops to the key city following US President Donald Trump's decision to pull American forces out of Syria. Trump said in late December that Turkey would take on Washington's military responsibilities in Syria. Turkey has already launched an incursion into northern Syria to push back against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which regularly clashes with Turkish forces in the Kurdish-dominated southeast of Turkey. Ankara views YPG as the Syrian branch of the PKK. The YPG is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which has close military cooperation with the US. Trump's decision to leave Syria exposes the Kurdish group to possible Turkish attacks. Turkish military forces have held an area bordering Manbij since 2016. Ankara has repeatedly demanded that the YPG leave the region and retreat to the east bank of the Euphrates. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said recently that his country's military forces will have no business in Manbij once YPG leaves. For the first time in years, the Syrian Army entered Manbij last week, pledging to establish "full security for all Syrian citizens and others present in the area." Iranians can 'do whatever they want' in Syria, Trump says Iran Press TV Wed Jan 2, 2019 09:12PM US President Donald Trump says Iranians can "do whatever they want" in Syria, dodging a question about when the US would withdraw from the war ravaged country. "Iran is pulling people out of Syria, but they can frankly do whatever they want there," the US president said. Asked about the timeline of the US withdrawal from Syria, he refused to give a direct answer. "I don't know, somebody said four months but I didn't say that either," Trump said. "We want to protect the Kurds but I don't want to be in Syria forever. It's sand and it's death." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly asked Trump to prolong the withdrawal process to four months. "We don't want Syria. Obama gave up Syria years ago when he didn't violate the red line. I did when I shot 59 missiles but that was a long time later. And when President Obama decided not to violate his statement that never cross the red line and then they did and he didn't do anything about it." Trump's decision to end the US military presence in Syria and scale it back in Afghanistan, made him further isolated as it led to resignation of General James Mattis as the United States Secretary of Defense. Mattis reportedly failed to convince Trump that the US military presence in Syria is associated with maintaining critical alliances and partnerships. The Republican president has tried to appear steadfast in his Syria policy despite disagreement from politicians within his own party and Pentagon officials. In secret, behind locked gates, our Nation's Oldest City dumped a landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir), while emitting sewage in our rivers and salt marsh. Organized citizens exposed and defeated pollution, racism and cronyism. We elected a new Mayor. We're transforming our City -- advanced citizenship. Ask questions. Make disclosures. Demand answers. Be involved. Expect democracy. Report and expose corruption. Smile! Help enact a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore. We shall overcome! National Antidoping Agencies Urge WADA To Act Now On Russia's Missed Deadline By RFE/RL January 02, 2019 Sixteen national antidoping organizations (NADOs) have called on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to take immediate action following Russia's failure to meet a December 31 deadline to hand over data from its antidoping laboratory. "NADO leaders now call on WADA to acknowledge the gravity of this missed deadline and call for an immediate review and recommendation" from the international antidoping watchdog's Compliance and Review Committee (CRC), said a January 2 statement supported by the NADOs of the United States and 15 other countries. "After more than three years of review, indecision and compromise in response to the worst doping scandal in the history of sport, the time has come to demonstrate that no individual [or] nation is exempt from compliance with the World Anti-Doping Code," the statement said. The call comes the day after WADA President Craig Reedie said he was "bitterly disappointed" that the year-end deadline was missed by Russian officials. He said the CRC will meet on January 14 to review the situation and make a recommendation on how RUSADA's failure should be handled. But the NADO statement said: "The importance of this situation does not warrant providing a further two weeks for Russia to comply." "With the interest of clean sport hanging in the balance, WADA must call for CRC to convene and consider this matter without further delay," it added. RUSADA was stripped of its accreditation in 2015 after a WADA-commissioned report found evidence of widespread state-sponsored doping in Russian track and field and other sports. The Russian agency was conditionally reinstated in September, a move that was widely criticized by members of the antidoping movement. If RUSADA loses its accreditation again it could lead to Russian athletes being kept from participating in the next Olympic Games and the continuation of the ban on the country's track-and-field athletes from participating in international competitions. There are signs of disagreements within Russia over the issue. Moscow missed the December 31 deadline despite repeated pleas from the head of RUSADA, Yury Ganus, who asked President Vladimir Putin for help in getting the data -- which is reportedly in the hands of the federal Investigative Committee -- released to WADA. With reporting by AFP and dpa Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/national -antidoping-agencies-urge-wada-to-act-now-on-russia-s- missed-deadline/29688256.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Russia to expand Iskander arsenal in 2019, test 200 new weapons Iran Press TV Wed Jan 2, 2019 06:21PM The Russian military is slated to expand its arsenal of Iskander-M nuclear-capable missiles in 2019, one of the nearly 200 new weapons that Moscow continues to develop under its new state armament program. "In 2019, the process of reequipping the missile troops of the Russian Ground Forces with the Iskander-M missile systems will be completed. In accordance with the state defense order, the manufacturer will hand a unit of the Iskander-M systems over to the Western Military District," the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. Capable of hitting targets 500 kilometers away, the precision-guided missile can be used against multiple-launch rocket systems, long-range artillery guns, command posts and communications centers. The Iskander-M missiles are designed to perform special maneuvers at extreme speeds and release decoys to bypass all existing missile defense systems, according to the Russian defense ministry. Russia has already deployed Iskander-M missile batteries in its Western Military District as a response to the NATO military alliance's US-led buildup in the Baltic States -- Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. Besides the cutting-edge missiles, Russia is preparing to test about 200 new types of weapons at the Kapustin Yar range in the southern Astrakhan Region. "In 2019, about 200 new types of weapons are planned to be tested, which is commensurate with the 2018 number and half as many as in 2017," the statement said According to the ministry, Russia has been steadily increasing the number of weapons tests at the site over the past two years. "As steps are being taken to implement the state rearmament program, the range of tested items will expand in the two years to come," the Russian defense ministry said. Launched in 2018, the state armament program seeks to improve defenses around critical military facilities while developing new weapons and military gear, including intelligence equipment, precision weapons guidance systems as well as hypersonic and supersonic weapons. Russia holds major drills in south Meanwhile, thousands of Russian military forces staged a major anti-terrorism drill in the country's Southern Military District on Tuesday. "Among participants in the drills were around 5,000 servicemen, around 1,500 units of military equipment, including aircraft from the 4th Army of the Russian Air Force, ships from the Black Sea Fleet and Caspian Flotilla," said a press release by the Russian defense ministry. The drills explored tactics on countering illegal crossings into military territories. Russian marines and warships from the Black Sea Fleet and Caspian Flotilla also exercised countering terrorists and evacuating civilian personnel. The Russian military forces' ability to respond to radiation, chemical and biological attacks were also evaluated. China starts constructing 'most advanced' warship for Pakistan: Report Iran Press TV Wed Jan 2, 2019 02:34PM China has started building an advanced warship that would be delivered to Pakistan as part of a major arms deal between the two neighboring countries, state media says. The official China Daily newspaper quoted the China State Shipbuilding Corporation one of the country's largest state-owned defense contractors that the construction of the ship had started in the Hudong-Zhonghua shipyard in Shanghai. The ship is a version of the Chinese Navy's most advanced guided missile frigate, the paper said, without specifying its type. It will be equipped with modern detection and weapon systems and will be capable of anti-ship, anti-submarine and air defense operations, according to the China State Shipbuilding Corporation. According to the Pakistan Navy, the ship's class is Type 054AP, which means it is based on the Type 054A of the People's Liberation Army Navy. In December 2018, the Pakistan Navy said that once constructed, the warship will be one of the largest and technologically advanced platforms of Pakistan's Navy and strengthen the country's capability to respond to future challenges, maintain peace and stability and the balance of power in the Indian Ocean region. It will also support the Pakistani Navy's initiative of securing sea lanes for international shipping by patrolling distant waters, it said in a statement on its twitter account. The Type 054A ship has a loaded displacement of 4,000 metric tonnes and is equipped with advanced radars and missiles. A researcher at the People's Liberation Navy Army said that Pakistan had been previously using Western radars on its ships constructed by Chinese shipbuilders as it believed that Western naval technologies were better than Chinese. "But it seems that all weapons and radars on the new ship will be Chinese products, which reflects our progress in the industry and the Pakistani Navy' s confidence in our technology and capability," Cao Weidong said. The warship will be China's largest and most powerful vessel export, Cao added. China is the largest supplier of weapons to Pakistan. India to Deport 2nd Batch of Rohingyas Kept in Assam Detention Camp - Reports Sputnik News 17:33 02.01.2019(updated 17:34 02.01.2019) Indian authorities are now taking steps to identify Rohingyas by collecting their biometric data and will detain them so that they may be deported to Myanmar in batches. New Delhi (Sputnik) India has decided to deport five Rohingyas to Myanmar, the second batch of Rohingyas living in detention camps in Assam, a state in India's northeast. They will be handed over to Myanmar authorities at Moreh, in the Tengnoupal district of Manipur later this week. "They are on their way," Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, Assam's additional director general of police (border) told Hindustan Times, confirming the repatriation of the five Rohingyas who are considered illegal immigrants and national security threat by the Indian government. In October 2018, India had handed over seven Rohingya Muslims to Myanmar after the Union Home Ministry ordered state authorities to identify and deport the illegal immigrants. India's Ministry of Home Affairs on 1 January informed the nation's parliament that at least 478 Rohingyas have been apprehended so far by India's Border Security Force since 2015. Sputnik Former IDF Intel Chief Wanted to Assassinate Syrian President Assad Report Sputnik News 11:38 02.01.2019(updated 13:50 02.01.2019) However, Aviv Kochavi's proposal was reportedly rejected by the Israeli military, which preferred to concentrate on curbing Tehran's alleged entrenchment in the country as well as the transfer of advanced weaponry to the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah. Major General Aviv Kochavi, incoming Chief of Staff for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), once planned to have Syrian President Bashar Assad killed for his support for Hezbollah, according to the UK-based Saudi newspaper Elaph as reported by the Jerusalem Post. Elaph quoted an unnamed senior Israeli official as saying that when serving as the IFD's Director of Military Intelligence, Kovachi was in favour of toppling Assad, even if it meant resorting to assassination. Whereas Kochavi backed the idea of ousting the Assad regime, which "would bring calamities to Israel from Iran and Hezbollah", Mossad head Yossi Cohen "wanted an address in Syria", according to the official. The Jewish state moved to focus on preventing what it sees as Tehran's entrenchment in the country by targeting Iranian and Hezbollah assets, "while making sure [Israel] inflicts minimal damage to the Damascus regime", the official pointed out. Israel has been conducting airstrikes on Syrian territory, claiming to be attacking Iranian military objects and convoys with weaponry. Tel Aviv insists that Tehran is transferring arms to Hezbollah, which the latter uses against Israel, through the Arab Republic. Iran, in turn, has denied maintaining any military presence in Syria apart from its military advisors, who were requested by Damascus. Both Tehran and the Syrian government have repeatedly denounced Israeli air raids. Israel-Hezbollah Tensions In early December, the IDF launched Operation Northern Shield, and over the three-week course of the military operation, Israeli forces located four tunnels under the country's northern border. Israel believes that Hezbollah used the aforementioned tunnels to smuggle militants and weapons. Israel and Hezbollah last clashed in 2006, with Israeli forces invading Lebanon after the Shia militant group kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. The conflict, which lasted 34 days and claimed the lives of over 1,300 people, was halted by a UN-brokered ceasefire. Lebanese-Israeli relations have remained poor for many decades, with tensions escalating recently amid Tel Aviv's suspicions that Hezbollah was being used by Iran to wage a proxy war on Israel. Sputnik Pompeo, Netanyahu Fail to Bridge Gap on Israel-Croatia F-16 Deal - Reports Sputnik News 21:24 02.01.2019(updated 21:27 02.01.2019) Earlier, the Trump administration accused Israel of breaking the terms of the US-Israeli F-16 fighter jet contract after Tel Aviv attempted to sell Zagreb a batch of 12 of its used F-16s equipped with custom Israeli-made electronic systems. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to come to an agreement on the proposed $500 million F-16 deal between Israel and Croatia, a senior Israeli diplomatic source said, Axios reports. The matter "is stuck in deep bureaucracy," the official said after confirming that the issue had been broached at the meeting between Pompeo and Netanyahu in Brasilia on Tuesday. The official went on to add that the F-16 deal was the "only issue that is still under discussion" following the meeting. The US blocked Israel from selling its modified F-16s to Croatia, demanding that they be returned to their original factory state. Croatia, meanwhile, has insisted that it receive the "Israeli version" of the plane, rather than its 'stock' configuration, and has threatened to cancel the deal if the electronics are not included. Under the terms of the original deal with Lockheed Martin, Tel Aviv and Washington had agreed that the US would have to approve any resale of the aircraft to a third party. Last month, Zagreb denied that the deal had been blocked, insisting that it has been given a green light. However, last week, Axios reported that outgoing US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis personally blocked the sale, despite a telephone call appeal by Prime Minister Netanyahu. Despite the F-16 deal setback, the Israeli official said that Tel Aviv got "almost everything it asked for," in the Pompeo-Netanyahu meeting, with the secretary of state granting Israel "seven out of eight" requests. "The prime minister left the meeting with the impression that Israel has great influence in certain areas, and that Israel and the US are advancing various ideas with respect to Syria that will help Israel," the official said. Ahead of Tuesday's meeting, Netanahu said he and Pompeo would discuss ways to "intensifyintelligence and operational cooperation in Syria and elsewhere to block Iranian aggression in the Middle East." Pompeo, for his part, assured Israel that President Trump's recent decision to pull US troops out of Syria "in no way changes anything that this administration is working on alongside Israel." *A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries. Sputnik Iran firms in talks to develop South Pars oil layer Iran Press TV Wed Jan 2, 2019 01:53PM Iran is in talks with several domestic companies to extract more oil from South Pars after foreign companies abandoned the plan in the face of US sanctions, ISNA news agency reported on Wednesday. South Pars is the world's largest gas field, but it also has significant oil reserves which Iran shares with Qatar across from the Persian Gulf. According to Managing Director of Pars Oil and Gas Company Mohammad Meshkinfam, almost 25,000 barrels a day of oil are currently extracted from South Pars oil layers. Qatar, in comparison, produces 300,000 barrels a day. Iran's development of the South Pars oil layers is still at the pilot phase, but the country sees positive prospects for 150,000 barrels per day of recovery in the currently producing reservoir. Officials have said the development of the layers is a complex process requiring integrated development. "We are looking for a competent contractor who can make a commitment on production. Iranian companies are interested in getting money and digging wells. We are looking for cumulative production," former deputy head of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Gholamreza Manouchehri has said. The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) was in talks with Denmark's Maersk Group for the second phase development of the South Pars oil layer. "Using modern technologies and horizontal drilling in view of the heaviness of the oil at the South Pars layer are the most important development scenarios for this oil field which is shared with Qatar," Manouchehri said in October 2016. Only a few international companies are in possession of such technologies, with the Danish company considered to be a "powerful" candidate for the development of the South Pars oil layer, Manuchehri said. However, French oil major Total's acquisition of Maersk's oil and gas business in a $7.45 billion deal cancelled out Iran's plans. Total, which had signed a contract to develop phase 11 of South Pars gas field, withdrew after the US imposed sanctions on Iran last year. On Wednesday, ISNA quoted Meshkinfam as saying that several Iranian companies are negotiating to take over the development of the South Pars oil layers. "Since Maersk merged into Total, we stopped negotiations with the company due to the presence of Total on the Qatari side. At present, we are negotiating with some Iranian companies to develop the layers, with the negotiations being confidential," he said. Iran's defensive budget up by 21% next year: Defense Min. IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Jan 2, IRNA -- If the sources of budget are met, Iran's defensive budget is expected to rise by 21% in the next Iranian calendar year of 1398 (to start on March 21, 2019), Minister of Defense Brigadier General Amir Hatami said on Wednesday. Speaking to reporters, Hatami said the resources for next year's defensive budget have been defined in two layers, and once the resources are met, a significant growth is expected in the country's defensive budget. He said that one layer of the budget bill be to the ceiling of 4,070,000 billion rials in the country's general budget, and the other layer will be allocated if a major portion of government resources is met. The minister added that he had provided today's cabinet session with a report on progress in defensive projects, particularly those in missile field, which were welcomed by President Hassan Rouhani and other cabinet ministers. 9341**1420 Rouhani: Iran not hesitating to empower defense capabilities IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Jan 2, IRNA -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called the progress in the military field as positive while emphasizing Tehran's determination to boost its defensive capabilities. 'The Defense Minister has rendered a very good report on progress in medium-range, long-range, air-to-air and sea-to-sea missiles as well as UAVs with great work in these fields,' President Rouhani said. 'One of the important goals of previous and current governments is to strengthen the defensive power, and all the figures show that the government has been forerunner in comparison to the previous governments,' Rouhani said, noting that 'we have no doubt in the strengthening and enhancement of our country's own defense capabilities'. The president called for the full enjoyment of opportunities on the country's path to development, but also emphasized. 'Using opportunities does not mean, of course, that we pin our hopes on others.' "We should take advantage of all opportunities and there is good progress in this regard," Rouhani noted. 9455**2050 Indian Government Justifies Higher Cost of Locally-Developed Su-30s Sputnik News 18:00 02.01.2019 Disagreeing with the opposition's interpretation of an audit report that found that Su-30 fighter jets supplied to the Indian Air Force by the local firm HAL are costlier that those supplied by the Russian OEM, the India government has clarified that the version being locally manufactured have been modified for enhanced operational capability. New Delhi (Sputnik) India's defence ministry has listed several reasons for the higher costs of the Su-30 fighter jets supplied to the Indian Air Force (IAF) from the local production line, in comparison to those supplied directly by the original Russian manufacturer. Subhash Bhamre, India's Minister of State for Defence, said on Wednesday that the foremost reason for the higher cost is that the specifications of the Russian SU-30 and indigenously manufactured SU-30MKI are not the same; hence, a one to one comparison of cost may not be appropriate. State-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is currently producing the Su-30MKI at a flyaway cost of around $62 million per aircraft, which is around $22 million higher than the Su-30 jet supplied by Russia. "Additional modifications are incorporated in the indigenous Su-30MKI to enhance the operational capability and to suit Indian Air Force (IAF) requirements. Owing to the low volume of production of the Indian SU-30 MKI as compared to the Russian SU-30, economies of scale come into play," Minister Subhash Bhamre argued while replying to a query raised by a fellow parliamentarian. Bhamre added that being a Transfer of Technology (ToT) programme, the total cost also involves payment of license fee to the Russian side. HAL imports raw materials and proprietary components from Russian firms and assembles them at its production facility in Nasik. HAL is presently assembling the last 23 Su-30MKI on order from the Ministry of Defence. "Import of raw materials and proprietary components from Russia involves dependency on Russian Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) for the offered kit costs, which are not proportionate with the kit contents," Bhamre added. The twin-seater, twin-engine Su-30MKI, developed by Russian aircraft maker Sukhoi and license-built in India, constitutes the backbone of the IAF. While the first 50 Su-30 aircraft were built in Russia, over 200 fighter jets were assembled in India. The Indian defence ministry has also argued that indigenous manufacturing will create advanced skill sets in the country, a step towards self-reliance. "Indigenous manufacturing will result in a lower life cycle cost and reduced dependency on OEM on repair and maintenance and faster turn-around time and quick support to IAF bases," Minister Bhamre further added. Last year, HAL had offered to produce 40 additional Su-30MKI for the IAF at much a much lower court, but India turned down the offer. "Since the facilities are indigenously established, future production supplies are likely to be cheaper if a new order for bulk production is placed on HAL," Bhamre concluded. Sputnik Kim's New Year Address Signals He's Willing to Deal or Walk Away By Steve Miller January 02, 2019 Sitting in a leather chair, wearing a western-style suit, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made his annual address to the nation January 1. He announced he was ready to meet U.S. President Donald Trump anytime to continue talks on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, but warned Pyongyang may take a "new path" if U.S. sanctions and pressure against the country continue. Evan Rees, Asia-Pacific analysts with Stratfor, noted the change in optics for Kim's 2019 address. "It was a lot more intimate. It was more presidential. It made him seem more like a normal leader," said Rees. "There was something for everyone in Kim's speech," added Bruce Klinger, Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia with the Heritage Foundation, in an email to VOA. There were "enough positive statements to affirm in some minds that the North Korean leader is a force for peace on the peninsula and that Washington must offer yet more concessions to maintain diplomatic momentum," said Klinger. "But as is characteristic of the North Korean regime," he said, "Kim blamed others for the diplomatic impasse, imposed heavy conditions on his seemingly constructive offers, and threatened to 'seek a new path to protect the sovereignty of the country and the nation's best interests.' In short, Kim extended an olive branch, but with very sharp thorns." Denuclearization talks Rees called the "most important thing to take away" from this year's address was Kim's announcement that North Korea would "neither make and test nuclear weapons any longer nor use and proliferate them." "The production of nuclear devices was in many ways the big takeaway from the speech last year," Rees said, who called that commitment "an expression of the willingness to continue the [diplomatic] outreach" to move the process forward. South Korea's presidential office said Kim's speech reflected his wish for the further development of inter-Korean ties and better North Korea-United States relations. "Chairman Kim's firm commitment is expected to have a positive effect on resolving the Korean Peninsula issue smoothly in the new year," said Presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom. However, Klinger notes this year's address revisited several reoccurring themes. Kim "reiterated Pyongyang's lengthy list of demands an end to all allied military exercises, a prohibition on any deployment of U.S. strategic weapons platforms to the peninsula as well as South Korean purchases of U.S. weapons, reduction of international sanctions, and a peace treaty to replace the Korean War armistice," he wrote. Furthermore, Klinger said, "North Korea did not offer any new denuclearization gestures, such as a data declaration of its nuclear and missile programs as the U.S. has demanded. More ominously, Kim signaled that Pyongyang was losing its patience on garnering benefits and issued a veiled threat of unspecified repercussions if Washington failed to comply with regime demands for 'reciprocal gestures.'" Rees's analysis coincides with Klinger's in that if the U.S. doesn't make concessions to North Korea, it "might have to shift back into it's more belligerent tone." It was a statement Rees called a "sort of dire warning that things can go another way." "But as you get into the actual brass tacks, and you move towards another Trump-Kim summit, there's gonna be a lot of pressure on U.S. officials to try to pin North Korea down and move them more towards the U.S. position. That's something North Korea has signaled it's not willing to do," he said. Inter-Korean relations Kim Jong Un's address highlighted a positive message to his domestic audience, according to Kim Dong-yub, Director of Research at the Institute for Far East Studies at Kyungnam University." "He stressed the positive, hopeful future, and despite the limitations and sanctions, [Kim] tried to unite the people," said Kim Dong-yub. Peace was the "fundamental" message in this year's address says Jung Dae-jin, a research professor with the Ajou Institute of Unification. Kim Jong Un gave the current inter-Korean state of affairs positive marks, but attempted to use the improved relationship as a way to reduce the sanctions imposed on North Korea. "Under the U.S. sanctions, it is not possible to resume operations at Kaesong," said Jung, referring to the jointly operated industrial complex that's been shuttered since 2016 under the previous Park Geun-hye administration. During his New Year's Day address, the North Korean leader spent the majority of his time addressing the economy, calling for economic expansion. Jung theorizes North Korea may ask the United States to lift the sanctions on the industrial complex as part of the requisite "corresponding actions" Pyongyang is looking for Washington to move denuclearization talks forward and continue the economic prospects for the peninsula promoted through the three inter-Korean summits in 2018. "Kim has placed North Korea on the moral high ground and placed both the blame and the onus for future steps on Washington's doorstep," wrote Klinger, "The message to Trump is to come to another summit if he wants to salvage his claimed denuclearization success, but be prepared to deal." Lee Ju-hyun contributed to this report. Trump Says He Expects to Meet Again Soon With North Korea's Kim By VOA News January 02, 2019 U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday he received a "great letter" from Kim Jong Un and will likely meet with the North Korean leader in the near future. "We really established a very good relationship," Trump said at a White House Cabinet meeting. "We'll probably have another meeting." Trump's comments came one day after Kim warned the current goodwill with the U.S. could end if Washington continues to impose sanctions to force his government to denuclearize. In his annual New Year's Day address, Kim said it was his "firm will" that North Korea will no longer produce or test nuclear weapons, or "use or spread" its arsenal. Kim added he was prepared to hold another meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump this year. But he said his country may have to follow another path unless Washington takes "corresponding measures." Kim called on the U.S. and South Korea to end all joint military drills. Kim and Trump signed a vaguely worded agreement during their historic summit in Singapore last June, but further negotiations have stalled in part over Pyongyang's opposition to Washington's call for complete denuclearization prior to granting any concessions. North Korea is also demanding that the U.S. and South Korea first issue a peace declaration to formally end hostilities and replace the armistice that has been in effect since the Korean War ended in 1953. Critics worry a peace declaration could undermine the justification for the U.S. military presence in South Korea. Despite Kim's warning, South Korea's Unification Ministry welcomed his address, saying it reflected Kim's commitment toward complete denuclearization and lasting peace on the Korean peninsula, and the continued improvement of inter-Korean relations. Tuesday's speech was delivered exactly one year after Kim announced his willingness to send a contingent of North Korean athletes to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea the following month. The speech set off a series of diplomatic breakthroughs, including three summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and the meeting with President Trump. 'North Korea Will Not Make, Test Nuclear Weapons': Trump Ready to Meet Kim Sputnik News 06:16 02.01.2019(updated 08:59 02.01.2019) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said Tuesday that he was ready to denuclearise the country and continue dialogue with Washington and Seoul to resolve the tensions on the Korean Peninsula. US President Donald Trump reiterated Wednesday his readiness to meet Kim Jong-un after the latter said in his New Year address to the nation that he wanted to improve relations with the United States. Trump and Kim met last year in Singapore. The North Korean leader secured Washington's commitment to suspend US-South Korean drills in exchange for its promise to denuclearise. The long-standing tensions on the Korean Peninsula started to ease after North Korea expressed its willingness to denuclearise, and held summits with the South Korean and US presidents. At the summit on April 27, the two Koreas agreed to halt all hostile acts against each other, while during the third meeting in September the sides agreed to suspend artillery drills near the inter-Korean border and remove all guard posts from the demilitarised zone. The future nuclear talks, however, have been stalled, with Pyongyang insisting on immediate sanctions relief after Washington announced it had sanctioned three top North Korean officials. Donald Trump has been reportedly considering a second summit with North Korea's supreme leader to speed up the stalling denuclearisation. Trump's national security adviser John Bolton has said the meeting could take place in January or February. Sputnik 'We Will Set That Up': Trump to Meet With Kim in 'Not Too Distant Future' Sputnik News 23:41 02.01.2019 WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US President Donald Trump said during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that he has received a letter from North Korea's Chairman Kim Jong-un and will likely have another summit with him in the foreseeable future. "I got a great letter from Kim Jong Un this letter is a great letter," Trump said. "I look forward to our meeting with Chairman Kim. We will set that up. We will be setting that up in not too distant future." Kim in his New Year address on Tuesday said that he was ready to denuclearize the country and continue dialogue with Washington and Seoul to resolve the tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Trump and Kim met last year in Singapore. The North Korean leader secured Washington's commitment to suspend US-South Korean drills in exchange for its promise to denuclearize. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in December that Washington plans to revive the stalled denuclearization talks with North Korea and hopes for a meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jon-un at the beginning of 2019. Donald Trump has been considering a second summit with Kim to speed up the stalling denuclearization. Trump's National Security Advisor John Bolton said the summit could take place in January or February. Sputnik Castro castigates US for 'return to confrontation' with Cuba Iran Press TV Wed Jan 2, 2019 08:07AM Cuba's Communist Party leader Raul Castro has slammed the administration of US President Donald Trump for resorting back to hostile policies toward the Caribbean nation as well as meddling in Latin America. "Once again, the North American government is taking on the path of confrontation with Cuba," Castro said during an address marking the 60th anniversary of Cuba's revolution in the southeastern city of Santiago de Cuba on Tuesday. Raul's late brother and leader of the revolution Fidel Castro proclaimed victory in the city against a US-backed dictator in 1959. The remains of Fidel and another revolutionary figure are buried in a cemetery there. "Increasingly, high-ranking officials of this [US] administration are... trying to blame Cuba for all the region's ills," Castro said, insisting that regional woes rather stemmed from "ruthless neoliberal policies." The speech by Castro, who quit as president last April but remains the chief of Communist Party until 2021, was part of a formal ceremony in the cemetery where the ashes of Fidel Castro and those of independence hero Jose Marti are buried. The development came after Trump's hawkish National Security Adviser John Bolton declared in November 2018 that Washington would adopt a tougher approach against Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, calling them a "troika of tyranny." The three Latin American governments are socialist and face US opposition and pressure. The former administration of US president Barack Obama had normalized relations with Cuba. The Trump White House has partially rolled back ties. The 87-year old Raul Castro further said that Cuba had proven throughout the six decades after its revolution that it could not be intimidated by foreign threats. Instead, he stressed, it remained open to a peaceful and respectful coexistence. He said the country's real battle in the new year was an economic one, reiterating remarks made in late December at the national assembly by his successor, President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who announced rising austerity for the fourth year running in 2019 in the face of a cash crunch. "We need first of all to reduce all non-necessary expenses and to save more," Castro emphasized. A series of external shocks such as a declining aid from economically-troubled Venezuela and devastation wrought by hurricanes have affected Cuban growth, which remains sluggish at best. The events marking the anniversary of Cuba's revolution coincided with the inauguration of Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, a development that indicates a move to the right in a region that has long struggled against US military influence and economic dominance. Castro, however, underlined that the Cuban revolution is on a secure footing thanks to the transition to a competent younger generation of leaders such as the 58-year old Diaz-Canel. "It is opportune to express the fact that the Cuban Communist Party decidedly backs the words and actions of Diaz-Canel since he took office," he added. "The revolution has not aged, it remains young." Raul and Fidel Castro led popular Cuban militia forces in 1959 to topple a US-backed dictator and establish a socialist government on the doorstep of the United States, setting the scene for decades of Cold War hostility. China's medium-sized stealth fighter jet FC-31 may be deployed on future aircraft carriers: sources People's Daily Online (Global Times) 09:22, January 02, 2019 China's future aircraft carriers will see stealth warplanes on their decks, likely the medium-sized fighter jet FC-31, said Chinese military experts as the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is procuring stealth parts for China's aircraft carrier-based fighter jet manufacturer. Shenyang Aircraft Design Institute is in need of an integral unit for photoelectric target acquisition that is stealth capable, according to a notice the PLA weapon and equipment procurement website weain.mil.cn released on Thursday. The notice also said that the unit must be able to operate against naval targets and capable of monitoring humidity. Judging from the stated requirements and previous rumors, Chinese military observers said that the parts mentioned in the procurement are very likely to be used on China's new aircraft carrier-based stealth fighter jets although the notice did not specify how the parts will be used. Having already designed China's current aircraft carrier-borne fighter jet J-15, Shenyang Aircraft Design Institute is developing a new carrier-based warplane based on the FC-31, a Chinese military insider, who asked not to be named, told the Global Times. The FC-31 is a fourth generation medium-sized stealth fighter jet originally intended for export. Chinese military experts said that the PLA procurement notice suggests the FC-31 is no longer export-oriented, and is destined for domestic military service. The FC-31 made its public debut flight at Airshow China 2014in Zhuhai, South China's Guangdong Province, but went relatively quiet after that. Multiple changes and upgrades are being made to the FC-31 allowing it to be used on an aircraft carrier, the insider said. China's third aircraft carrier, which was confirmed to be under construction by the Xinhua News Agency in November and is widely expected to be equipped with an electromagnetic catapult, will use the stealth fighter jet, predicted Wang Yunfei, a naval expert and retired PLA Navy officer. The single-seat, twin-engine fighter jet will greatly expand Chinese aircraft carrier battle groups' capabilities just as China's most advanced stealth fighter jet the J-20 did for the PLA Air Force, the anonymous insider said. "Only a fourth generation fighter jet can stand up against another fourth generation fighter in an engagement without being at a significant disadvantage," he said. The US-made fourth generation fighter jet F-35B and F-35C are capable of operating on aircraft carriers, and Japan is planning to upgrade its Izumo-class helicopter destroyers into aircraft carriers, equipping them with imported F-35Bs. Australia Facing Scrutiny Over Decision to Strip Citizenship of Suspected Terrorist By VOA News January 02, 2019 Australia's government is facing questions over its decision to strip a suspected Australian-born Islamic militant of his citizenship, after it was revealed he might not be a dual citizen of Fiji. Neil Prakash, who has been jailed in Turkey since 2016 when he was arrested trying to enter from Syria with false documents, is accused of recruiting Australians to join the Islamic State terrorist group. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton announced late last month that the Melbourne native was the 12th Australian dual national to lose his Australian citizenship due to being associated with terrorists. Prakash was believed to hold Fijian citizenship because his father is Fijian. But Nemani Vuniwaqa, Fiji's director of immigration, told the Fiji Sun newspaper that Prakash has never applied for citizenship there. Australian law allows the government to strip someone of their citizenship only if that person is a dual citizen. Dutton says the decision to revoke Prakash's citizenship was made after consultation with several other government agencies. Trump Pushes Anew for Wall Funding in Shutdown Dispute By Ken Bredemeier, Chris Hannas January 02, 2019 U.S. President Donald Trump pushed again Wednesday for taxpayer funding of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, even as he claimed without evidence that Mexico is already paying for it through a new trade deal and that much of the barrier has been built. "Walls work," Trump said at a Cabinet meeting, with a poster of himself lying on the table in front of him. Trump contended, without citing specifics, that 30-35 million people are in the United States illegally. "Our southern border is like a sieve," he said. "We need barriers." Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen, on a video feed, told the president and other Cabinet members that "fake families" have been entering the United States in an effort to remain in the country. Later, Trump is set to meet with congressional leaders about his demand for wall funding in a dispute that has closed a quarter of U.S. government operations for 12 days. The U.S. leader blamed the shutdown on opposition Democrats because of their refusal to honor his demand for wall funding, although last month Trump said he would be "proud" to "own" the partial government closure in a dispute over border security. The U.S. leader invited top Republicans and Democrats to the White House for what it called a "border security briefing," talks occurring the day before opposition Democrats take control of the House of Representatives for the second two years of Trump's presidency. Trump contended on Twitter, "Mexico is paying for the Wall through the new USMCA Trade Deal," even though Congress has yet to ratify it and the pact has not taken effect. He also said, "Much of the Wall has already been fully renovated or built," although Congress has never approved wall funding, even as repairs have been made to existing fencing. "We have done a lot of work. $5.6 Billion Dollars that House has approved is very little in comparison to the benefits of National Security. Quick payback!" The shutdown has forced closure of most operations at several government agencies, with 800,000 government workers either told to stay home or continue to work without pay until the stalemate is resolved. Tourists in Washington are seeing new effects of the impasse. The Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo are now closed until a deal is reached. The National Gallery of Art will be closed starting Thursday. The White House meeting is Trump's first with key Democratic lawmakers since mid-December. Proposed legislation As Democrats assume control of the House on Thursday, Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi says she plans votes on legislation that would fund all of the shuttered agencies through the end of September, with the exception of only extending funding at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees border security, through Feb. 8. The proposed legislation does not include the $5 billion in funding for the wall that Trump is demanding in any spending measure he signs. Democrats have previously offered $1.3 billion in funding for other border security measures instead. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement late Tuesday that the Democratic plan is a "non-starter" and "fails to secure the border and puts the needs of other countries above the needs of our own citizens." Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer have rejected Trump's wall plan as "expensive and ineffective" and say Trump has yet to put forth a plan that has a chance to pass both the House and Senate. Ahead of the White House meeting, Trump and Pelosi traded comments Tuesday on Twitter. "Border Security and the Wall 'thing' and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker! Let's make a deal?" Trump said. Pelosi responded that Trump "has given Democrats a great opportunity to show how we will govern responsibly & quickly to pass our plan to end the irresponsible #TrumpShutdown." Before the shutdown went into effect, the Senate passed a stopgap funding bill that would have funded the now-closed government operations through Feb. 8 without the wall funding. The House passed its own bill that included wall funding. Pelosi said in a letter to colleagues Tuesday that lawmakers in the Senate should now support the new Democratic plan after their earlier approval of stopgap funding, and that if they reject it, then they would be "fully complicit in chaos and destruction" caused by the ongoing shutdown. India Expects US to Extradite Mumbai Attack Conspirator - Minister Sputnik News 18:30 02.01.2019 Tahawwur Hussain Rana, alias David Headley, an American citizen of Pakistani origin convicted in the 26 November Mumbai terror attacks, is presently locked up in a US federal prison. New Delhi (Sputnik) Indian authorities are expecting to soon get hold of David Headley after the US expressed commitment to cooperate with India in punishing the culprits of the 26 November 2008 Mumbai terror attack. In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, lower house of Parliament, India's deputy foreign minister General (Retd) V K Singh said the government is engaged with the US administration to bring back the 26/11 attack culprits under the provisions of the India-US extradition treaty of 1997. "A National Investigation Agency (NIA) team visited the US on 13-15 December 2018 to discuss the matter with the American authorities," Minister of State for External Affairs General (Retd) V K Singh informed Parliament on Wednesday. The minister also said that during the 2+2 dialogue in September last year, both India and the US agreed to put pressure on Pakistan to take credible action against the culprits of Uri, Pathankot and Mumbai terror attacks. Pakistani-American David Headley is the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai terror attack which took place on 26 November 2008, in which 166 people including 28 foreigners from 10 countries were killed. David Headley has been kept at a federal prison in the US since 2016. In 2016, David Headley appeared before a Mumbai court via a video conference in which he explained how the Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba used him to plot a terror attack in India's financial capital Mumbai. Sputnik UK police probe Manchester stabbing as 'terrorist' attack Iran Press TV Wed Jan 2, 2019 03:20AM British police are conducting a "terrorist investigation" into a triple stabbing attack at a Manchester railway station on New Year's Eve, the city's top officer says. "We are treating this as a terrorist investigation which is being led by counter-terrorism officers with support from Greater Manchester police," said Greater Manchester police chief constable, Ian Hopkins, at a news conference on Tuesday, referring to the stabbing of three people including a police officer at Manchester Victoria station on Monday evening. "They were working through the night to piece together the details of what happened and to identify the man who was arrested," he added. Hopkins said counter-terrorism officers have arrested a 25-year-old man who remains in custody under Britain's mental health act and that they are searching an address near the city center "which is believed to be where the man had most recently been living". During the attack, a woman suffered injuries to her face and abdomen and a man was wounded in the abdomen, while a British Transport Police officer sustained a stab wound to the shoulder. Local witnesses had heard the man shouting Daesh-inspired slogans at the time of the attack. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack. British Prime Minister Theresa May praised emergency services for their "courageous response" in swiftly tackling the suspect. "My thoughts are with those who were injured in the suspected terrorist attack in Manchester last night," she wrote on Twitter. Britain is on its second level of security alert following three terrorist attacks last year. The country is specifically at a risk of attacks by nationals who have returned home from engagements in militant activity in the Middle East. Taliban Tunnel Bomb Hits Afghan Army Base By Ayaz Gul January 02, 2019 Taliban insurgents have detonated a powerful bomb near a major military base in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province, killing at least five soldiers and wounding six others. The attack happened Tuesday night in the volatile Maiwand district, where Taliban rebels dug a two-kilometer tunnel into the Afghan National Army base and planted the explosives. A security official requesting anonymity confirmed the details to VOA on Wednesday. A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, claimed its "tactical explosion flattened" the army base and killed at least 40 security forces, though insurgent claims are often inflated. Insider attack in Herat Separately, a local soldier turned his gun Wednesday morning on fellow Afghan and Italian forces at a military base in western Herat province, injuring an Afghan security personnel, the regional corps commander told VOA. Foreign forces escaped unhurt and Afghan security forces swiftly shot dead the assailant, said Gen. Noorulalh Qadari while giving details of the insider attack. No one took credit for the shooting in Herat, which borders Iran, but the Taliban routinely claims assailants are insurgents who have infiltrated Afghan forces' to carry out such attacks. Italy is part of the NATO-led Resolute Support non-combat mission training and advising Afghan forces. Violence continues in 2019 On Tuesday, Afghan officials confirmed the killing of at least 27 government forces in coordinated Taliban raids in the northern provinces of Sar-e-Pol and Balkh. The attack in Sayyad district of Sar-e-Pol was the deadliest and it was orchestrated to allow the Taliban to take control of the oil wells in the village of Qashqari, a provincial government spokesman told VOA. Zabihullah Amani said Afghan security forces repulsed the insurgent offensive but lost 21 personnel in the process while another 23 were wounded. Taliban fighters also assaulted a security outpost in the Chimtal district of neighboring Balkh, killing six Afghan forces and injuring many more. Officials said the opposition group briefly overran the facility and took away all the weapons as well as related equipment stored there. Afghan peace efforts The Taliban appears to be maintaining battlefield pressure on embattled Afghan forces into 2019 to try to strengthen its bargaining position if and when negotiations begin to end the 17-year-old war, say analysts. The insurgent group stepped up its diplomatic outreach toward the end of 2018 to regional countries and opened direct talks with the United States to discuss ways to end the conflict. Taliban and U.S. negotiators plan to meet again soon but neither side has until now revealed when. The Taliban has ignored repeated calls from neighboring and regional countries to engage in a political dialogue with the government in Kabul to negotiate an end to decades of hostilities in Afghanistan. Attack on UN compound in Somalia may be 'violation of international humanitarian law' 2 January 2019 - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned Tuesday's attacks against the UN compound in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, saying that intentionally attacking UN personnel may constitute "a violation of international humanitarian law." Seven mortars landed inside the compound, injuring two UN staff members and one contractor. None of the injuries is life-threatening. Mr. Guterres wished the injured a speedy recovery and urged the Somali authorities to "investigate the attacks and swiftly bring those responsible to justice." The Secretary-General reaffirmed that "such acts will not diminish the strong resolve of the United Nations to continue supporting the people and Government of Somalia in their efforts to build peace and stability in the country." Meanwhile, Nicholas Haysom, his Special Representative in the country and head of the Assistance Mission UNSOM, condemned the attack "in the strongest possible terms." Al-Shabaab has reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack. Deploring the "unwarranted act of aggression against our personnel," Mr. Haysom stressed that "no political agenda can be served through violence that deliberately targets staff members of international organizations who are supporting the consolidation of peace and the strengthening of governing institutions in Somalia." Hours later, news media reported that the Somali Government declared Mr. Haysom persona non-grata and asked him to leave the country, saying that he violated international diplomatic norms by interfering in the State's national sovereignty. The unfolding news reports detailed that on Monday, the UN diplomat wrote the Somali government a letter asking it, among other things, to explain the legal basis for arresting Mukhtar Robow, the former al-Shabab deputy leader who was the main challenger in the South West State elections for regional presidency. 'Indian Spy Quadcopter' Shot Down at Border - Pakistan Military Sputnik News 18:20 02.01.2019 While claiming that an Indian spy drone was spotted inside its territory and shot down on Tuesday, Pakistan has informed that at least four such UAVs were detected and brought down within the last year. The Indian Army, however, has dismissed the claims as "plain propaganda". New Delhi (Sputnik) Pakistan's army claims to to have shot down an "Indian spy quadcopter" flying over the Pakistani side of the Line of Control (the de facto border) on Tuesday. The tweet put out by Major General Asif Ghafoor, the director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations on Tuesday, was strongly refuted by INdia on Wednesday. "Pakistan Army troops shot down Indian Spy Quadcopter in Bagh Sector along Line of Control. Not even a quadcopter will be allowed to cross LOC, In Shaa Allah," Major General Asif Ghafoor had tweeted. Meanwhile, Indian Army officials dismissed the claim as baseless propaganda. "No such incident took place and it's plain propaganda", an Indian Army official who did wish to be named told Sputnik. Meanwhile, media reports suggest that the drone which the Pakistani army claims to have shot is not a Military Grade Drone, noting that such drones are easily available online. India and Pakistan have been engaged in bitter standoff at both the military and the diplomatic level for many weeks. On Monday, the Indian Army claimed that at least two Pakistani soldiers were killed while attempting to strike an Indian Army post in Naugam sector. The Indian Army suspects that the intruders came with the intention of carrying out a major attack on the eve of the New Year. Sputnik UN Investigating Expulsion of Ambassador From Somalia - Spokesman Sputnik News 21:48 02.01.2019 UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) The United Nations is looking into the expulsion of UN Special Representative for Somalia Nicholas Haysom from Mogadishu, UN Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq said in a press briefing on Wednesday. "We are looking into the matter, we are trying to get the various details corroborated, and we are going to see based on that what further steps are needed," Haq told reporters. The comment followed Tuesday's demand by the Somali government for the envoy to leave after the country's Foreign Ministry accused him of meddling in the country's sovereign affairs and "blatantly violating protocols." Haysom has held the post of UN special envoy for Somalia since September 2018. The spokesman went on saying that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the armed attacks against UN personnel in Somalia and urges local authorities to investigate the latest incident and bring those responsible to justice. The statement referred to Tuesday's attack, when gunmen fired mortar bombs into a UN compound in Mogadishu, wounding two UN staff members. Sputnik France Concerned With Mass Murders in Mali After Almost 40 Killed - Ministry Sputnik News 21:50 02.01.2019 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The French Foreign Ministry expressed concern on Wednesday over the situation in Mali, where almost 40 civilians were killed by attackers in the central Mopti region, which neighbors Burkina Faso. "France is concerned at the increase in murders and serious crime perpetrated against civilians in central Mali over the last few months, which reached a new peak yesterday, with dozens of fatalities France calls for a strong response on the part of the Malian authorities in order to ensure that these crimes are immediately investigated and that their perpetrators are prosecuted and punished," the French Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a statement. Bamako must ensure the disarmament of all militant groups, the ministry noted. The ministry's comments follow Tuesday media reports citing Malian authorities, that armed men have killed 37 Fulani civilians in a night raid. This is yet another case of clashes between the Dogon hunters and the largely nomadic Fula ethnic group. Mali currently suffers from chronic instability and simmering ethnic conflicts. There are about 20 ethnic groups, some members of which are reportedly affiliated with global terrorist organizations. At the same time, violence rocks neighbouring Burkina Faso, where at least 13 people were killed in an armed attack, media reported earlier in the day. Sputnik Trump's New Pentagon Chief Recuses Himself From Matters Involving Boeing Sputnik News 22:59 02.01.2019(updated 23:01 02.01.2019) Acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan recused himself from "participating in matters in which the Boeing Company is a party" as long as he remains in the Cabinet post, a spokesman told reporters Wednesday. A spokesman for Shanahan said the acting secretary "has recused himself for the duration of his service" at the Defense Department "from participating in matters in which the Boeing Company is a party," reports Defense News. Shanahan spent 31 years of his career with the Chicago-headquartered defense contractor before being appointed deputy secretary of defense in July 2017. Shanahan's nomination to deputy secretary required a Senate hearing that ultimately forced him to recuse himself from matters involving Boeing in the deputy role as well. Lt. Col. Joe Buccino, a spokesman for the deputy secretary at the time, told Bloomberg Government on December 21, 2018, that "the Department's legal advisors have a screening process to ensure that Boeing-related issues are not routed to Mr. Shanahan. While the details of the Department's FY2020 budget request remain pre-decisional, the screening process was in place throughout the budget review to ensure that any DoD programmatic decisions impacting Boeing were neither made nor influenced by Mr. Shanahan." Shanahan became acting secretary of defense on Monday, when retired General James Mattis concluded his final day as defense secretary. Shanahan's achievements in the private sector include helping to get Boeing's 787 Dreamliner into production and leading the company's Missile Defense Systems and Rotocraft System divisions, according to the Defense Department. The Pentagon is to submit a budget request to Congress on February 4. The Pentagon and Washington have attracted some criticism from watchdog groups who say there is a revolving door between the Defense Department and the private sector. For instance, when Mattis was head of US Central Command, he advocated for the military to buy blood-testing products from Theranos, the board of directors of which he later became a member. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) found 645 instances of retired senior officials, members of Congress and senior legislative staff becoming lobbyists, board members or executives at Boeing or other major contracting firms over the past decade, according to a November report. The American defense establishment is "skewed by undue influence" as a result of public officials gaining favor with private companies in hopes of landing a high-paying position there down the road, the report said. "Many of the instances do, however, show the revolving door spinning out of control due to ethics laws that are insufficient to protect the public interest," Mandy Smithberger, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at POGO, wrote in the report. Sputnik Pakistan Shoots Down Indian 'Spy Drone' Over Disputed Kashmir January 02, 2019 Pakistan's military claims it has shot down a second Indian "spy drone" in two days flying in Pakistani airspace over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. In a statement, Major General Asif Ghafoor, an army spokesman, said Pakistani troops downed the drone on January 2 along the Line of Control that divides the Pakistani and Indian-controlled portions of Kashmir. Ghafoor tweeted a photo purportedly showing the wreckage, but did not provide further details. Pakistan's military also reported shooting down an Indian drone on January 1. There has been no comment from New Delhi. Kashmir is split between Pakistan and India, both of which claim the territory in its entirety and have fought two wars over it since their independence from British rule in 1947. Based on reporting by AP and Dawn Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/pakistan -shoots-down-indian-spy-drone-over- disputed-kashmir/29688483.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Trump Gives No Timetable For Syria Withdrawal, Vows To Protect Kurdish Fighters By RFE/RL January 02, 2019 U.S. President Donald Trump has said U.S. forces will withdraw from Syria "over a period of time," insisting he wants to protect U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters battling the Islamic State (IS) extremist group. Trump did not provide a timetable for the planned withdrawal of roughly 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria, which he announced last month against the advice of many top security advisers and reportedly without consulting lawmakers or U.S. allies involved in operations against IS militants. During a Cabinet meeting at the White House in front of reporters on January 2, Trump said he had never discussed a reported four-month timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. In recent days, Trump has backed down from a rushed pullout and said that the withdrawal would be gradual. "We're slowly sending our troops back home to be with their families, while at the same time fighting Isis [Islamic State] remnants," he said on Twitter on December 31. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters that Trump was committed to making sure Turkey did not clash with the U.S.-backed Kurdish YPG forces once U.S. troops leave Syria. Graham also said Trump had assured Ankara that it would have a buffer zone inside Syria to help protect its own interests. Ankara sees the YPG as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkey and has vowed to crush it. U.S. commanders planning the military withdrawal have recommended that YPG fighters battling IS militants be permitted to keep U.S.-supplied weapons, according to U.S. officials. That proposal would likely anger Turkey, where Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, is expected to visit for talks this week. With reporting by Reuters and AP Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-gives-no -timetable-for-syria-withdrawal-vows-to-protect- kurdish-fighters/29688495.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Somalia expels top UN envoy over 'meddlesome' approach Iran Press TV Wed Jan 2, 2019 10:26AM Somalia's UN-backed government has expelled the top United Nations envoy to the war-ravaged country, accusing him of meddling in its internal affairs after he challenged recent actions of UN-paid Somali police forces. In a late Tuesday statement, the East African nation's Foreign Affairs Ministry announced that the UN secretary-general's special representative to Somalia, Nicholas Haysom, "is not required and cannot work in this country," in effect declaring him persona non grata. "The decision comes after he openly breached the appropriate conduct of the UN office in Somalia," it said. The move came after Haysom expressed concerns in a December 30 letter to the interior security minister over "the alleged involvement of UN-supported Somali security forces in the arrest of Mukhtar Robow on December 13, the deaths of 15 civilians... on December 13, 14, and 15... and the arrest of approximately 300 people involved in the demonstrations on December 13, 14, and 15." Robow, according to press reports, is a former member of the notorious al-Shabaab militant group who publicly renounced violence and recognized federal authority in 2017. The government, however, blocked his bid to become a regional leader in the country in an election last month. Haysom had asked the minister in the letter to explain the legal basis for Robow's detention, also questioning the ministry's probe into the circumstances of the killings during protests in the southern city of Baidoa following Robow's arrest. The UN envoy also reminded the top security official that the world body understood that most of those arrested by Somali forces had been children. Somalia's Internal Security Ministry said Robow had been arrested on the suspicion that he had brought militants and arms back to Baidoa, the capital of the South West region, where he is running for president. His detention triggered clashes between pro-Robow militiamen and Somali government forces. Ethiopian security forces, who are part of an African Union peacekeeping contingent in Somalia, were also involved in the violence. The letter by the UN representative also contained an annexed joint letter from the European Union, Germany, and Britain announcing the suspension of their support to the police in South West State due to their conduct during last month's election. Haysom further detailed the UN financial support for the Somali police force as well as the South West regional police, which includes the payment of stipends to the police. The UN mission in the highly-impoverished African country did not immediately react to the recent development. The UN remains a major backer of Somalia's government, which also enjoys the support of Western countries. Somalia is still plagued by the aftereffects of a civil war in 1991, when warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other. Israel OKed construction plans for over 10,000 settler units in 2018: PLO Iran Press TV Wed Jan 2, 2019 02:20PM The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) says Israeli officials approved plans for the construction of more than 10,000 homes in the West Bank last year, heedless of the international outcry against the Tel Aviv regime's land expropriation and settlement expansion policies in the occupied Palestinian territories. The organization, in a report published on Wednesday, said Israeli authorities gave the green light for 10,298 new units, of which 2,600 were built in East Jerusalem al-Quds. The report added that Israeli authorities approved a new settlement called the Amihai settlement near the West Bank city of Nablus, along with a new neighborhood in the Gush Etzion settlement near Bethlehem, situated about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) south of Jerusalem al-Quds. Israeli officials confiscated 3,439 dunams (3.439 square kilometers) of private Palestinian land in the West Bank, including 1,182 dunams (1.182 square kilometers) in the strategic Jordan Valley. The report further noted that Israeli forces uprooted some 7,600 olive, palm and almond trees in the West Bank last year. It also stated that Israeli authorities demolished 538 homes and structures in 2018, while issuing demolition orders for another 460 structures. The demolitions, the report highlighted, resulted in the displacement of some 1,300 Palestinians, including 225 children. Israeli settlement construction activities surged in Trump era Meanwhile, the anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now says figures, gathered from official Israeli sources, show an increase in the construction of settler units in 2018 and a sharp spike in planning for future construction. It added that the trend has only deepened Palestinian mistrust in the administration of US President Donald Trump as it says it is preparing to roll out a so-called peace plan. Less than a month before Trump took office, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2334, calling on Israel to "immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem" al-Quds. About 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds. Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital. The last round of Israeli-Palestinian talks collapsed in 2014. Among the major sticking points in those negotiations was Israel's continued settlement expansion on Palestinian territories. Trump backtracked on Washington's support for a "two-state solution" earlier this year, saying he would support any solution favored by both sides. "Looking at two-state or one-state, I like the one that both parties like. I'm very happy with the one both parties like. I can live with either one," the US president said during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on February 15. Five soldiers killed in Taliban bomb attack on army outpost Iran Press TV Wed Jan 2, 2019 02:40PM Five Afghan soldiers have been killed in a bomb explosion carried out by Taliban militants in a tunnel below an army outpost in southern Afghanistan. Police spokesman Mohammad Ashraf Watandost said on Wednesday that six soldiers were also injured in the attack on Tuesday in Maiwand district in the southern province of Kandahar. Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, claimed that militants had destroyed a large arms cache, leaving 35 soldiers killed and injured. Separately, Afghan border security forces on Wednesday foiled an attack on Italian military advisers at a paramilitary base in Herat Province in the west of the country. Noorullah Qadri, the commander of 207 Zafar military corps, said two assailants who had infiltrated the border security forces tried to kill the Italians. "The Italian nationals escaped uninjured. One attacker was gunned down immediately and the other was arrested," he added. The Italian forces are part of the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission, purportedly engaged in training and advising local Afghan troops battling Taliban militants in four western provinces. Italy has 895 troops attached to Resolute Support. The attacks come few days after the Taliban militant group rejected a call by the Afghan government for formal peace talks next month in Saudi Arabia. A Taliban leader announced on Sunday that the group's representatives would meet US officials in the Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah for the fifth round of talks within the next few days but not the representatives of the Afghan government. This is while the government of President Ashraf Ghani says the talks should be "Afghan-led and Afghan-owned," insisting on continued efforts to establish a direct line of diplomatic communication with the Taliban. The Taliban's five-year rule over at least three quarters of Afghanistan came to an end with a US-led invasion in 2001; but 17 years on, the militant group continues to be active on much of Afghan soil. The Taliban have strengthened their grip over the past three years, with the government in Kabul controlling just 56 percent of the country, down from 72 percent in 2015, a recent US government report showed. USS South Dakota to be Commissioned Feb. 2 Navy News Service Story Number: NNS190102-04 Release Date: 1/2/2019 2:30:00 PM From Commander, Submarine Force Atlantic Public Affairs NORFOLK (NNS) -- The Navy's newest fast-attack submarine, USS South Dakota (SSN 790), will be commissioned at Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton, Connecticut, Feb. 2, 2019, as the seventeenth Virginia-class submarine to join the fleet. Deanie Dempsey, wife of retired Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, who served as the 18th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is the ship's sponsor. After spending several decades of service in support of just the Army, Deanie became a champion for all of the services in her role as the chairman's spouse. She remains actively engaged in countless activities in support of military families and participates in dozens of private and charitable organizations in support of military spouses and their families. Designed to operate in both coastal and deep-ocean environments, South Dakota will present leadership with a broad and unique range of capabilities, including anti-submarine warfare; antisurface ship warfare; strike warfare; special operation forces (SOF) support; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; irregular warfare; and mine warfare missions. South Dakota is a part of the Virginia-class' Block III contract, in which the Navy redesigned approximately 20 percent of the ship to reduce acquisition costs. South Dakota features a redesigned bow, which replaces 12 individual Vertical Launch System (VLS) tubes with two large-diameter Virginia Payload Tubes (VPTs) each capable of launching six Tomahawk cruise missiles, among other design changes that reduced the submarines' acquisition cost while maintaining their outstanding warfighting capabilities. South Dakota has special features to support SOF, including a reconfigurable torpedo room which can accommodate a large number of SOF and all their equipment for prolonged deployments and future off-board payloads. Also, in Virginia-class SSNs, traditional periscopes have been replaced by two photonics masts that host visible and infrared digital cameras atop telescoping arms. Through the extensive use of modular construction, open architecture, and commercial off-the-shelf components, the Virginia class is designed to remain at the cutting edge for its entire operational life through the rapid introduction of new systems and payloads. South Dakota will be the third U.S. Navy ship, and first submarine, to be commissioned bearing the name "South Dakota." The first USS South Dakota (ACR9/CA 9) was a Pennsylvania-class armored cruiser and launched in 1904. Assigned to the Armored Cruiser Squadron, Pacific Fleet, South Dakota cruised off the west coast of the United States through August 1908. She was then sent on a cruise to Samoa and later operated in Central and South American Waters. She returned home in 1912 and was placed in reserve at Puget Sound Navy Yard. The second USS South Dakota (BB 57) was commissioned March 1942 and assigned to Task Force 16 centered on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV 6). South Dakota conducted blockade operations against Japanese forces approaching Guadalcanal, where they engaged Japanese carrier forces in the Battle of Santa Cruz. She saw action in the Battle of Savo Island, Battle of Philippine Sea, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and other Japanese strongholds earning 13 battle stars. USS Porter Arrives in Turkey Navy News Service Story Number: NNS190102-02 Release Date: 1/2/2019 9:12:00 AM By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class James Turner, AKSAZ, TURKEY (NNS) -- The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78) arrives in Aksaz, Turkey for a regular scheduled port visit on its sixth forward-deployed naval forces patrol in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations, Jan. 1, 2019. The ship's patrol is a demonstration of the U.S. Navy's continued commitment to strengthening strategic partnerships in the European and African region. "The crew has been working very hard and this is a great opportunity for them to experience the cultural rich cities of Aksaz and Marmaris," said Cmdr. Craig Trent, commanding officer of Porter. "What a great way to start the new year! We are looking forward to the hospitality and everything the cities have to offer." While on patrol, Porter will conduct naval operations in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations in support of U.S. national security interests in Europe. U.S. 6th Fleet, headquartered in Naples, Italy, conducts the full spectrum of joint and naval operations, often in concert with allied, joint, and interagency partners, in order to advance U.S. national interests and security and stability in Europe and Africa. Chung-Hoon Sailors Combine Forces for Maritime Security Operations Training Navy News Service Story Number: NNS190102-01 Release Date: 1/2/2019 7:58:00 AM By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Logan C. Kellums, Carrier Strike Group 3 Public Affairs GULF OF ADEN (NNS) -- U.S. Navy Sailors aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon (DDG 93) recently completed training for maritime security operations in the Gulf of Aden during the month of December. Chung-Hoon's latest round of drills was a combined forces effort. U.S. Coast Guardsmen and U.S. Army Soldiers came aboard as instructors to help teach new techniques and tactics. "Training's going excellent," said U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Enforcement Specialist 1st Class Michael Walden, from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. "They're very willing to learn. They're actually grasping a lot." The instructors agreed that the different military branches need to be able to connect to and rely on each other in global areas of operations, no matter where. "Clearly, the Army is more of a ground force," said U.S. Army Sgt. First Class Alan Bland, who came out to Chung-Hoon from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. "However, we are trying to build networks, in and around the AOR (area of responsibility), from the sea, for the land." Bland added that he was happy with the effort shown by Chung-Hoon's maritime security team. "We've been training with them the last couple days and I'm impressed with what I've seen so far," said Bland. "They're motivated and willing to get the job done which is something I can appreciate." The training involved everything from boarding a vessel to close-quarters combat and survival. "We've done medical training, and we've also gone over boarding procedures regarding specific vessels that they will encounter out here," said Walden. "Medical [training] is very important as it can save your life during a boarding." Members of Chung-Hoon's maritime operations team said that the training had been very helpful in making them get better. "We've really picked up the pace on training," said U.S. Navy Boatswain's Mate 3rd Class Conor Diebel, from Winter Park, Florida. "We're finally getting to really feel like a team because it's been a while since we've had really good training like this." Chung-Hoon is deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations in support of naval operations to ensure maritime stability and security in the Central Region, connecting the Mediterranean and the Pacific through the western Indian Ocean and three strategic choke points. UN paying no attention to implementation of Swedish Peace Agreement IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Jan 2, IRNA -- Al-Hudaydah Council of Yemen on Wednesday criticized the United Nations' performance in implementing Sweden Peace Agreement in Al- Hudaydah city, announcing that the United Nations was not paying attention to the implementation of the agreement and in case of failure the organization will be responsible. According to the al-Masirah news network, the local council of al-Hudaydah on Wednesday examined the latest developments regarding the delayed implementation of the Swedish Peace Agreement. Members of the council stated that only seven days had been left to the deadline set for the final implementation of the agreement, stating that the United Nations had no binding to implement the Swedish peace agreement. In case of failure to implement the agreement the United Nations is responsible as the guarantor of the implementation of this agreement. 9455**1420 Russia Grants Consular Access to Retired Marine Held on Spy Charges By VOA News January 02, 2019 Russia has allowed consular access to a retired U.S. Marine who has been detained on espionage charges, the country's foreign ministry said Wednesday. Access was granted just hours after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he expected an explanation about why the American was arrested and demanded his release if the detention is not appropriate. On Monday, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officials said the American, who has been identified as 48-year-old Paul Whelan, had been detained Dec. 28 "while carrying out an act of espionage," and a criminal probe has been ordered. They provided no further details, but Russia's state-run TASS news agency said Whelan faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Whelan is employed as director of global security at BorgWarner, an American automotive parts supplier. Whelan's family learned of his arrest only after it was reported by Russian state news outlets, prompting the family to contact congressional representatives and U.S. diplomats. "We are deeply concerned for his safety and well-being," the family said. "His innocence is undoubted and we trust that his rights will be respected." Whelan's arrest coincides with several spy scandals that have exacerbated tensions between Russia and the West, including the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain. Russian citizen Maria Butina was convicted in the U.S. recently for acting as an illegal foreign agent. Butina pleaded guilty to acting under the direction of a Russian official to establish relationships with influential Americans. News of Whelan's detention came less than 24 hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a New Year's greeting to U.S. President Donald Trump in which he said Moscow is amenable to a continuing dialogue with Washington on a range of topics. In 2016, Izvestia, a Kremlin-aligned news outlet, reported there were 13 U.S. citizens in Russian jails at the time. The Kremlin has not since published any details on other Americans currently in Russian detention. Pete Cobus in Moscow contributed to this report. Moscow Grants Washington Consular Access to US Citizen Suspected of Espionage Sputnik News 15:05 02.01.2019(updated 18:54 02.01.2019) On 31 December, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) detained Paul Whelan, accusing him of espionage and launching a criminal case against him. Moscow has granted the US consular access to Paul Whelan, an American citizen suspected of espionage, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. Shortly before that, US State Secretary Mike Pompeo said that the US demanded the immediate return of the detained Paul Whelan if his detention 'is not appropriate'. The official noted that currently, Washington is seeking an explanation of why he was arrested. "With respect to Mr. Whelan, who's being held, we are hopeful within the next hours we will get consular access to see him and get a chance to learn more," Pompeo said. "We've made clear to the Russians our expectation that we will learn more about the charges, come to understand what it is he's been accused of, and if the detention is not appropriate, we will demand his immediate return." Whelan's Arrest Reporting about the Whelan's arrest, the Russian Security Service (FSB) announced that Whelan had been arrested on December 28 during a "spy action in Moscow" and a criminal investigation over possible espionage had been launched. The article, according to which the criminal case was initiated, allows for punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of 10 to 20 years. Commenting on the issue, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated that the US Embassy had been notified of the detention of its citizen in accordance with consular convention. This was also confirmed by a representative of the US State Department, who said that the Russian Foreign Ministry has officially notified the US of the detention of an American citizen in Moscow. Paul's twin brother David Whelan claimed in his interview to CNN that he was not guilty and said he travelled to Moscow to attend a wedding ceremony. According to David, Paul was a retired marine who served several tours in Iraq. As Washington Post reported, that in 2008 Paul Whelan was dismissed from the US Marine Corps for misbehaviour, after being convicted of several counts of larceny. Sputnik U.S. Demands Explanation From Russia Over Arrest Of Ex-Marine On Spying Charges By RFE/RL January 02, 2019 The United States is seeking an explanation for why Russia arrested a retired U.S. Marine on spying charges in Moscow and will demand his immediate return if it determines his detention is inappropriate, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said. The U.S. State Department said U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman visited Paul Whelan at a detention facility in Moscow on January 2 and spoke by phone with his family. The United States had expressed concern through diplomatic channels over delayed access to Whelan, a department spokesman said in a statement. "We've made clear to the Russians our expectation that we will learn more about the charges, come to understand what it is he's been accused of and if the detention is not appropriate, we will demand his immediate return," Pompeo said during a visit to Brazil on January 2. Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on December 31 that it had arrested an American, later identified as Paul Whelan, who it said was caught red-handed carrying out an act of espionage. Whelan, 48, is a former U.S. Marine who lives in the state of Michigan and is director of global security at BorgWarner, a U.S.-based supplier of automotive parts and components. In a statement obtained by RFE/RL on January 1, Whelan's family denied he was a spy and said he was in Moscow to attend a wedding. The family said Whelan was last heard from on December 28. Russian officials have given no details of Whelan's alleged involvement in espionage. He could face between 10 to 20 years in prison if tried and convicted. The announcement of Whelan's detainment came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow remains open to dialogue with Washington in a New Year's greeting to U.S. President Donald Trump. Relations between Washington and Moscow are badly strained over issues including Russia's role in wars in Syria and eastern Ukraine, its alleged meddling in elections in the United States and elsewhere, and the poisoning of a double agent in Britain. The detention of Whelan comes weeks after Russian Maria Butina pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to acting as an agent for the Kremlin. The Kremlin has denied that Butina is a Russian agent and has organized a social-media campaign to secure her release. In the past, Russia has sometimes arrested foreigners with the aim of trading prisoners with other countries. With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/u-s-seeking-access -to-ex-marine-arrested-in-russia-on-spying -charges/29688082.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Shutdown just another brick in the wall of a dysfunctional presidency Gillette, WY (82718) Today Windy with a mix of clouds and sun. Hot. High around 95F. Winds SE at 20 to 30 mph.. Tonight Mostly clear and windy. Low 64F. Winds SE at 20 to 30 mph. Georgia being a Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2018 named as one of the major events of the year by Federica Mogherini - GeorgianJournal Gazette photographer Anthony Wahl uses a DJI Phantom 4 Pro to capture images and videos from aloft. Wahl has been Part 107 certified with the Federal Aviation Administration since 2016 for commercial use of a drone, including journalism. Certification requires passing a test covering basic knowledge of airspace and aeronautics. The Gazette also has met with law enforcement agencies in Rock County to discuss our drone policy and best practices. Federal regulations prohibit: Commercial use of UAVs weighing more than 55 pounds Drone flight above 400 feet in most cases Night flight Flights over people not involved in the operation of the drone Reckless or careless operation Flight in restricted airspace without permission (airspace restrictions vary based on size and location of an airport) Flight beyond the operators visual line of sight If you have any questions, call the photo desk at 608-755-8233 or email photo@gazettextra.com. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} This case is going to be complex, prosecutor Richard Wijers said. The next hearing in the case was scheduled for Feb. 5. A grand jury had previously declined to press charges in the summer of 2016. After the hearing, when asked why the matter had been taken to a grand jury again, Wijers declined to answer much, citing the ongoing criminal case. He stated that the statute of limitations had not expired. The criminal case comes on the heels of a settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit, a filing that sought more than $114 million, against Mayfield and his employer, Pape Machinery, for the death of Nightingale. The settlement was made official on Oct. 15, and though it was approved as necessary by Judge Fay Stetz-Waters, no significant details about the terms were made public. The wrongful death lawsuit had been scheduled for a 14-day jury trial starting New Years Eve, but that was cancelled with the agreement between the parties. Tamara Lea Nightingale, Neil Nightingales widow, filed the lawsuit in February 2017. She claimed that Mayfield was piloting a Pape Machinery utility rig and speeding and scrolling through Facebook on a smartphone when the wreck occurred. Court paperwork filed by the Nightingale estates attorneys in May states that Mayfield was on his way to work in Tangent when he was scrolling through the Facebook Messenger application on his Pape Machinery cellular phone to find a phone number. He was planning to pick up a friends son and give him a ride to Tangent. Kyle Odegard can be reached at kyle.odegard@lee.net, 541-812-6077 or via Twitter @KyleOdegard. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. February 11, 1948 December 26, 2018 Larry was born to Darrell and Emma Woodward in 1948 and was raised in Salem, Oregon, with his five siblings. In 1968, he married the love of his life, Carol, and they started their family with the birth of their daughter, Laura, while he served our country at Travis Air Force Base. Following his completion of service, they returned to Oregon, where he completed college and began his career at CH2M Hill. They welcomed their son, Ryan, in 1975 and settled in Corvallis for the next 30 years. Larry cherished time with family. His children recall growing up with frequent trips to visit grandparents, hosting parties with aunts, uncles and cousins and vacationing to visit family far away. After his retirement, family became a hobby as he passionately researched his genealogy and built and maintained an extensive family tree. Larry also enjoyed traveling. His most recent trip was to Croatia to celebrate 50 years of marriage with Carol and their very best friends, Larry and Becky Plum. Larry was saddened by the loss of his father; his brother, David; and his son-in-law, Reid. Galveston, TX (77553) Today Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 93F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy. Low around 80F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. The federal Ashanti Alert Act, introduced by Rep. Scott Taylor, R-Virginia Beach, requires the Department of Justice to establish a national communications network, to be known as the Ashanti Alert communications network, to assist regional and local search efforts for certain missing adults. Taylor hailed the enactment of his bill a year after it was introduced in the House. Out of this dark tragedy, light & hope will come for families across country in 2019, he tweeted. That is certainly the hope, although after 20 years, researchers found that AMBER Alerts had limited value in saving the lives of abducted children. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, AMBER Alerts were responsible for the successful recovery of 934 children as of Oct. 12, 2018. But in many cases, alerts are not issued because they do not meet all of the programs strict guidelines: The case has to involve an abduction of a child under 18 who is believed to be in imminent danger of physical injury or death; theres enough information such a description of the abductor or a license plate numberto share with the public; and the childs name and other critical data have been entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) system. THE First Law of Holes warns: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Unfortunately, Congress and the Trump administration continue to dig taxpayers deeper, as misguided reactions to the trade war have combined to increase the deficit, dampen economic growth and harm the environment. Throughout 2018, many new tariff or retaliatory action announcements dealt farm country a blowincluding those actions aimed at our allies. Tariffs on steel and aluminum increased the cost of equipment, repairs and infrastructure construction. As the trade war dragged on, China responded with tariffs on commodities like soybeans, corn and pork. Soybeans have been particularly affected due to their short shelf life, limited storage options, and the fact that China was the number-one marketby a long shotpurchasing a quarter of the U.S. crop. Instead of reversing course or taking other action to restore trade relations and stabilize the markets that U.S. products need, policymakers and government officials have pushed through plans to buy off farmers with little thought for the real cost or long-term effect. The Stafford Sheriff's Office has identified a person of interest in connection with a bank robbery in the county Wednesday afternoon, but no arrest had been made as of Thursday night, authorities said. Sheriff's spokeswoman Amanda Vicinanzo said the robbery occurred at the PNC Bank at 550 Celebrate Virginia Parkway. The bank is inside a Giant grocery store in the southern part of Stafford. A bank teller told a responding deputy that the robber approached the counter about 1:42 p.m. and pulled out a firearm. He then demanded money and the teller gave him an undisclosed amount. The robber then left the store and drove away in a silver Ford Taurus with a taillight out on the passenger's side. He was described as a black male wearing a tan jacket and a black hooded sweatshirt and carrying a black handbag. Just short of two hours after the robbery, a deputy found a vehicle matching the description given by witnesses in the area of 20 Warrenton Road. The vehicle was seized. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the Sheriff's Office at 540/658-4400. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Jack North, who owns Mayhurst Inn with his wife, Pat, said that they began listing rooms at the 158-year-old plantation manor house on Airbnb two years ago. On one hand, he said, the platform was killing the real bed and breakfast business. On the other, it charges them only 3 percent per booking. Expedia, another online booking site they use, charges 18 percent. Most customers find the inn through the internet, and about 5 percent of its customers make reservations through Airbnb, North said. They pay a lodging tax in addition to the room rental, just like other inn guests. Its a fee not all Airbnb properties charge because they arent licensed. Mayhurst is required to because it is a licensed bed and breakfast. North said that he worked with the state to allow localities to license Airbnbs. What we would like is a level playing field, he said. If we have to be licensed, they should be licensed. If we have to be inspected, they should be inspected. If we have to pay taxes, they should have to pay taxes. Fredericksburg began requiring residents who list their homes on Airbnb to get a special-use permit in 2016 unless they are able to operate by right. They also have to register and pay a 6 percent lodging tax, just like bed-and-breakfasts and hotels. Keep the conversation about local news & events going by joining us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Recent updates from The News-Post and also from News-Post staff members are compiled below. TARRYTOWN, N.Y. (AP) The road to this years Westminster Kennel Club dog show passed through a pandemic and a major change of date and venue. The road also proved dangerous for one of the nations best known dog handlers. His wife and fellow star handler said Saturday that Bill McFadden wa EASLEY, SC (FOX Carolina)- The Easley Police Department says that is searching for a man they say was involved a hit and run incident that took place on June 3, according to a post from Easley PD on their official Facebook page. At least five candidates, betting that Jumaane Williams run for New York City public advocate will succeed, are already running for the New York City Council seat held by Williams. District 45 covers the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Flatbush, East Flatbush, Flatlands, Midwood and Canarsie. Williams, a Democrat, has represented the district since 2010. His first bid for higher office, a challenge in the Democratic primary this year to Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, ultimately failed, but he came impressively close, outperforming his informal running mates Cynthia Nixon and Zephyr Teachout while raising his name recognition. Now hes a frontrunner in the citywide Feb. 26 special election to replace Letitia James as public advocate. If Williams wins, his City Council seat would be filled in a special election later this year, in a date that would be set by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Candidates to replace Williams include Farah Louis, Williams longtime deputy chief of staff; Monique Chandler-Waterman, founder and executive director of the social service nonprofit East Flatbush Village; Xamayla Rose, a campaign consultant who used to work for former Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz; Louis Cespedes, an architect who got 9 percent of the vote against Williams in 2017; and Anthony Alexis. If Williams were to win in February, Louis would seem to be an early favorite to replace him, said Jerry Krase, professor emeritus at Brooklyn College and a historian of the borough. Given his popularity and the amount of coverage hes getting, his deputy would have the in on the district, Krase told City & State. But Krase said any election would likely come down to who wins the support of the Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club. Brooklyn Democratic Party boss Frank Seddio is a member, and Williams has a longstanding relationship with the club. Its probably the best organized and best supported club in the borough, Krase said. All five candidates for District 45 have registered campaign committees with the state Board of Elections. Most of the 51 City Council seats dont have any declared candidates yet, as it is still three years away from the expected September 2021 primary election. Apart from Williams seat, only district 11 in the northwest Bronx has more than a single declared candidate. There, Eric Dinowitz and Daniel Padernacht are both hoping to succeed City Councilman Andrew Cohen in 2021. Of course, Williams opponents for public advocate would say his would-be successors are getting ahead of themselves. More than two-dozen candidates, including heavy-hitters such as former City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and Assemblyman Michael Blake, have entered the public advocate race. HAZEL PARK, Mich. (WXYZ) -- A Michigan man has been charged in United States District Court for allegedly putting GPS devices under his ex-girlfriend's vehicle. According to a federal order of detention, Shawn Kelly Thomason was charged with stalking in the Minnesota federal court. They are asking that he be detained because of a danger to the community and a flight risk. The federal order said that Thomason traveled across state lines on Dec. 6, 2018, for the purpose of "placing the victim under surveillance with the intent to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate her." According to the feds, Thomason allegedly traveled from Hazel Park to Mankato, Minn. to put a GPS tracker on his ex's car. Inside his rental vehicle, feds say there were many items that included bags designed to block cell signals, a loaded handgun and ammunition. MOBILE, Ala. -- If you are one of the thousands of Virginia College students left with questions after the school suddenly closed, there is a meeting happening today you may want to attend. The Alabama Career Center system is hosting an emergency information session today for at 2 p.m. for students and employees. It will be at the Mobile Career Center at 515 Springhill Plaza Court. MOBILE, Ala. -- JetBlue Airways has firmed up an order for 60 A220-300 aircraft, the larger model of the new A220 series planes to be built in Mobile, according to an Airbus news release. And low-cost carrier startup U.S. airline code-named Moxy has signed a firm order with Airbus to purchase 60 A220-300 aircraft, Airbus announced as well. Airbus will produce the A220-300 aircraft at a new U.S. assembly facility in Mobile, Alabama. Construction of the plant, to be located adjacent to the existing Airbus A320 assembly facility, will begin later this month. As we approach our 20th anniversary, the impressive range and economics of the highly efficient A220, combined with the outstanding performance of our existing fleet of Airbus A321 and restyled A320 aircraft, will help ensure we deliver the best onboard experience to customers and meet our long-term financial targets as we continue disciplined growth into the future, said JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes for the news release. JetBlues existing Airbus fleet includes 193 A320 and A321ceo aircraft in operation, with an additional 85 A321neo aircraft on order. JetBlue has proven there is no contradiction between economic efficiency and a high quality product, said Christian Scherer, Airbus' chief commercial officer, in the news release. Their endorsement of the A220 proves this aircraft meets those two criteria better than any alternative in its segment. Thank you JetBlue and congratulations on this big milestone in your growth. Moxy is the new airline venture led by David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue Airways. In addition to JetBlue, Neeleman also founded Azul Brazilian Airlines and is the controlling investor in the revitalization of TAP Air Portugal. Plans for Moxy, a low-cost airline, were unveiled at the Farnborough International Air Show in July. The A220-300 is the right airplane for a new airline that will be focused on passenger service and satisfaction, said Neeleman, in an Airbus news release. With a low cost of operation and spacious cabin, the A220 will allow us to provide passengers with lower fares and a high quality, comfortable flying experience. The A220s ability to operate profitably in thin, underserved markets across a broad spectrum of ranges is unique. Moxy has its sights set on the future, so I cant think of a better aircraft to put into their fleet than the A220, said Airbus' Scherer. Airbus says the A220 is the only aircraft purpose built for the 100-150 seat market. The company says the plane boasts "unbeatable fuel efficiency and true widebody comfort in a single-aisle aircraft." The airplane makers says the A220 brings together state-of-the-art aerodynamics, advanced materials and Pratt & Whitneys latest-generation PW1500G geared turbofan engines to offer at least 20 percent lower fuel burn per seat compared to previous generation aircraft. With a range of up to 3,200 nm (5020 km), the A220 offers the performance of larger single-aisle aircraft, Airbus says. With an order book of more than 500 aircraft to date, the A220 has all the credentials to win the lions share of the 100- to 150-seat aircraft market estimated to represent at least 7,000 aircraft over the next 20 years, according to Airbus. Saving on taxes is a priority for most taxpayers, especially at the beginning of the year as tax season starts to ramp up. With tax reform having become law effective as of the beginning of 2018, most taxpayers are hoping to see some big changes that will result in tax savings when they file their returns in the late winter or early spring. Even though tax reform will have a measurable impact on the taxes you pay on your 2018 tax return, it didn't fundamentally change many of the biggest tax breaks that taxpayers have gotten for decades. Below, we'll look at the five tax breaks that produce the largest overall savings for the American public at large, and explain what, if any, impact tax reform had in boosting the amount you can expect to save come tax time. 1. Exclusion of employer-provided health insurance Millions of workers get health insurance benefits from their employers. In most cases, employees have to pay a certain portion of the cost of their health insurance, but their employers often end up picking up a sizable part of the overall tab. Despite the obvious value of employer-provided health insurance benefits, employees don't have to pay income tax on the amount that employers pay toward their coverage. Because most workers never see the actual amount their employers pay for insurance, it's easy to ignore just how valuable that tax break is. But the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that this tax benefit will produce $854 billion in savings for taxpayers during the five years ending in 2021, more than any other tax break. Given the trends toward costlier healthcare costs, that number's likely to go up in the years to come. 2. Lower tax rates on dividends and long-term capital gains Investors know that they can get preferential treatment for income from dividends as well as capital gains on investments held for longer than a year. The current tax rates of 0%, 15%, and 20% apply to that type of income, and they didn't change as a result of tax reform. If anything, the reform measure slightly lowered the value of this tax break, as the rates on ordinary income were reduced, decreasing the difference between the two. Even so, investors get a sizable subsidy from this tax provision. The Joint Committee estimates that the tax break will result in $649 billion less in revenue for the federal government than if it imposed regular taxes on dividends and long-term capital gains. Some lawmakers have proposed changes to capital gains tax laws that would produce even more savings for taxpayers, but those measures aren't likely to gain much traction now that neither major political party has complete control of Congress. 3. Exclusion of contributions to employer-sponsored retirement plans Many employers offer 401(k) plans or similar retirement plans to their employees. These plans give workers the chance to shelter huge amounts of money from current taxation -- up to $19,000 in 2019 for those who are younger than 50 or $25,000 for those 50 or older. Although withdrawals are then subject to tax in retirement, the government gives up the immediate tax revenue it would normally collect on those contributions, along with the income the money generates along the way. Not everyone contributes to 401(k) plans, and those who do rarely reach the maximum. Nevertheless, when you add up everything that American taxpayers save in their retirement plans, it ends up costing the government an estimated $624 billion over five years. 401(k)s are popular, making them an unlikely target for cuts in the near future. 4. Expanded child tax credits The child tax credit is one of the simplest tax provisions, and it was given a huge boost by tax reform. As of 2018, those with qualifying children 16 or younger can claim a $2,000 tax credit per child. That's double the $1,000 amount that prevailed in 2017 and earlier. Moreover, income limitations have been increased substantially for 2018 and beyond, making a wider range of taxpayers eligible to take the credit. The child tax credit is estimated to cost $526 billion over five years, showing the extent to which taxpayers have come to rely on the provision. Given its recent expansion, it's unlikely that lawmakers would reverse course and seek to reduce the child tax credit. 5. Exclusion of contributions and gains in pension plans Finally, some workers are still fortunate enough to have employers who offer them traditional pension plans. These plans, also known as defined benefit plans, pay out monthly income in retirement based on various factors including earnings, length of service, and age at retirement. Although recipients typically pay taxes on their pension income once they receive it after they retire, they don't have to count the contributions that employers make on their behalf during their careers in their income at that time. The federal government expects to forgo about $470 billion in potential tax revenue as a result of the exclusion of pension contributions and gains from taxable income. Nevertheless, given how unready many people are to manage their retirement on their own, many see subsidizing pensions as a worthwhile goal to encourage companies to keep them rather than giving them up in favor of 401(k) plans that put the onus on workers to save. Be smart with your taxes You'll find it interesting to look at your taxes this year and see how they differ from past years, but the odds are good that many of these tax breaks will play a vital role in keeping your tax bill down. Keep an eye on how much these provisions save you and your family, and it'll help you better appreciate how to structure your finances to take maximum advantage of the tax breaks at your disposal. Yes, I have been vaccinated Not yet, but I plan to get vaccinated No, I don't want to get vaccinated Vote View Results Authorities are still unsure about what could have caused the Denmark train accident on a bridge, that has killed eight and injured 16 others. Copenhagen: Two more bodies have been found in the wreckage of a crashed train on a Danish bridge, raising the death toll to eight in Denmark's deadliest train accident in 30 years, police said on Thursday. Police say three women and five men were killed in the Denmark train accident on Wednesday morning, and four of them have been identified. Sixteen others were injured. All of the dead and injured were on a high-speed passenger train travelling on the Storebaelt system of bridges and a tunnel that link the central Danish islands of Zealand and Funen. Authorities are investigating if cargo fell off a freight train and smashed into the passenger train as the two travelled in opposite directions on the bridge. The Danish Accident Investigation Board has also said that strong gusts could be a factor. At the time of the accident, the 18-kilometre (11.2-mile) Storebaelt link was closed to road traffic because of high winds but trains could still drive across. Police said in a statement on Thursday that the latest bodies were only found after the wreckage was pulled away from the crash site to a remote area near the town of Nyborg on Funen island. They said the damage to the passenger train "was so extensive it has hard to properly get into the most damaged area" while it was still on the bridge but added they are certain that no more bodies are inside. Divers also searched the seabed under the bridge overnight, looking for train wreckage and for more clues to explain the deadly accident. Aerial TV footage and photos showed the front side of the passenger train ripped open. One container seemed to be missing from a flat wagon on the cargo train and a freight tarpaulin was torn into pieces. Lars Braemhoej, a senior police official, has said investigators believe one possible cause of the "considerable damage" on the passenger train was that it may have been hit by cargo that detached from the freight train. He said authorities still "do not know precisely what caused the accident." Since the wrecked passenger train was pulled away from the bridge, rail crossings over the Storebaelt link resumed on Thursday from west to east. Train crossings in the other direction were expected to restart later in the day. Saudi Arabia had twice submitted formal requests for evidence from Turkey - where Khashoggi was murdered inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate on 2 October. Riyadh: Saudi Arabia's attorney general sought the death penalty for five of 11 defendants charged with the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi as their high-profile trial opened in Riyadh on Thursday. "All 11 accused were present with their lawyers at the first session of the trial," the attorney general said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. Saudi Arabia had twice submitted formal requests for evidence from Turkey - where Khashoggi was murdered inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate on 2 October - but had received no response, the statement added. The names of the defendants have not been officially released. Five top officials in Saudi Arabia - including royal court insider Saud al-Qahtani - were sacked over the Khashoggi murder, but there is no proof they are among those charged. Khashoggi, a contributor to The Washington Post, was murdered in what Riyadh called a "rogue" operation, tipping the kingdom into one of its worst diplomatic crises. "The 59-year-old Saudi insider-turned-critic was strangled and his body cut into pieces by a team of 15 Saudis sent to Istanbul for the killing," according to Turkish officials. There have been reports that his remains, which have never been found, were dissolved in acid. The defence team on Thursday requested a copy of the chargesheet and a time frame within which to review the charges. "The prosecution agreed to both requests," SPA said. No date has been set for the next hearing. Calls for 'credible' probe The Khashoggi murder shocked the world at a time when Saudi Arabia and its de-facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, were pushing an aggressive public relations campaign to rebrand the ultraconservative kingdom as a modern state. Among Prince Mohammed's strongest allies is US President Donald Trump, who now faces increased pressure to approve measures against Saudi Arabia. The US has slapped sanctions on 17 Saudis in connection with the Khashoggi murder. France and Canada have also imposed sanctions on Saudis. The US Central Intelligence Agency has reportedly concluded that Prince Mohammed very likely ordered Khashoggi's murder. A bipartisan resolution approved by the US Senate in December held the crown prince responsible for the killing. But in November the Saudi attorney general ruled out any involvement by the young crown prince, whose reformist credentials abroad have been seriously tarnished by the murder. The United Nations and human rights groups have called for an independent investigation into Khashoggi's killing. "Given the possible involvement of Saudi authorities in Khashoggi's murder and the lack of independence of Saudi Arabia's criminal justice system, the impartiality of any investigation and trial would be in question," Samah Hadid, a Middle East director at Amnesty International, told AFP on Thursday. "This is why a UN-led and independent investigation is needed into the murder." It was unclear whether Qahtani and Ahmad al-Assiri, two senior aides to Prince Mohammed initially implicated in Khashoggi's murder, were among those on trial. Saudi officials said in November that Qahtani - who has not spoken publicly since then - had been banned from travel pending the investigation but authorities have refused to disclose his whereabouts. "It is clear that elements from high levels of the Saudi state were involved in Khashoggi's murder," HA Hellyer, senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told AFP. "There is an immense amount of international interest in this trial, but also a lot of suspicion about whether those ultimately responsible for the crime will be held to account." Ankara, which has pledged repeatedly to allow nobody to escape justice in the case, has sought the extradition of the suspects in Saudi custody to stand trial in Turkey. But its requests have been repeatedly rebuffed by Riyadh. The Khashoggi affair has given rare leverage to the kingdom's rivals, not only Turkey and its ally Qatar, with which Saudi Arabia broke off all relations 18 months ago, but also arch rival Iran. (Reuters) - Former Brexit minister David Davis said in an opinion essay published on Wednesday that UK Prime Minister Theresa May should delay the vote on her Brexit deal for leaving the European Union. 'The more we prepare to leave the EU without a deal, the more likely a good deal becomes,' Davis said in an opinion piece in the Telegraph newspaper. He wrote that the EU is worried about losing the 39 billion pounds divorce payment that would come with a Brexit deal. (Reuters) - Former Brexit minister David Davis said in an opinion essay published on Wednesday that UK Prime Minister Theresa May should delay the vote on her Brexit deal for leaving the European Union. "The more we prepare to leave the EU without a deal, the more likely a good deal becomes," Davis said in an opinion piece in the Telegraph newspaper. He wrote that the EU is worried about losing the 39 billion pounds divorce payment that would come with a Brexit deal. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie Adler) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Patrick Shanahan was thrust into the spotlight during his debut as acting U.S. defence secretary on Wednesday, sitting next to President Donald Trump as he publicly disparaged Shanahan's predecessor, lampooned the war in Afghanistan and called Syria a land of 'sand' and 'death.' The former Boeing executive officially took office during the New Year's holiday on Tuesday, issuing a statement saying that he looked 'forward to working with President Trump to carry out his vision.' Trump's vision for the second half of his four-year term in office came into view on Wednesday as he spoke exhaustively during a cabinet meeting about America's wars, and his displeasure with them By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Patrick Shanahan was thrust into the spotlight during his debut as acting U.S. defence secretary on Wednesday, sitting next to President Donald Trump as he publicly disparaged Shanahan's predecessor, lampooned the war in Afghanistan and called Syria a land of "sand" and "death." The former Boeing executive officially took office during the New Year's holiday on Tuesday, issuing a statement saying that he looked "forward to working with President Trump to carry out his vision." Trump's vision for the second half of his four-year term in office came into view on Wednesday as he spoke exhaustively during a cabinet meeting about America's wars, and his displeasure with them. Shanahan sat silently at Trump's side, often expressionless, as television cameras rolled. Trump suggested that former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis - who abruptly resigned last month over policy differences with Trump - had been essentially fired and that Mattis had failed in Afghanistan, where Taliban insurgents are becoming increasingly confident of ending the 17-year-old war on terms favourable to them. "I'm not happy with what he's done in Afghanistan and I shouldn't be happy," Trump said. The remarks put Shanahan in a difficult position from the start of what could be a long tenure at the Pentagon, where many staff were loyal to Mattis. Trump has suggested Shanahan could be acting as defense secretary for an extended period of time. Several candidates previously seen as potential successors to Mattis have recently indicated they don't want the job. Mattis' public resignation could also make Senate confirmation perilous for any hand-picked successor. Mattis implicitly criticized Trump in his resignation letter for failing to value allies who fight alongside the United States, including in places like Syria. Even Shanahan had been handpicked by Mattis for the job and held him in high regard, officials say. As deputy, he often had to fill in for Mattis in meetings, including with members of the cabinet. One reason Mattis resigned was Trump's surprise decision to order the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria. Although Trump has declared victory there, critics warn Islamic State still has a toehold in Syria and could stage a comeback if U.S. forces depart. Trump said during the cabinet meeting that Islamic State militants should be combated by nations in the region, including U.S. adversary Iran. "It's sand and it's death," he said. Shanahan has yet to detail his thoughts on the way forward in Syria, where the Pentagon is planning a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops over the coming months. He has also not comment on planning for a dramatic drawdown in Afghanistan. CHINA, CHINA, CHINA In one of his first meetings of the day, Shanahan told civilian leaders of the U.S. military to focus on "China, China, China," even as America fights militants in Syria and Afghanistan, a U.S. defense official said. The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not elaborate on Shanahan's views on China or what other guidance he gave during the meeting. Other officials have described Shanahan as an advocate of the Pentagon's toughening stance towards Beijing. The 2018 National Defense Strategy https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf, which Shanahan helped develop, branded China as a strategic competitor. "While we're focussed on ongoing operations, acting Secretary Shanahan told the team to remember China, China, China," the official said. Relations between the worlds two largest economies have plumbed new depths under Trump, with a trade war and disagreements over Taiwan and the South China Sea. Shanahan, best known for his focus on internal Pentagon reform and his private-sector experience, had spent three decades at Boeing and was general manager for the 787 Dreamliner passenger jet before he joined the Pentagon last year. During Shanahan's tense Senate confirmation hearing, the committee's then-chairman, John McCain, voiced deep concern about giving the deputy job to an executive from one of the five corporations accounting for the lion's share of U.S. defense spending. "I have to have confidence that the fox is not going to be put back into the henhouse," said McCain, who died in August. (Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; additional reporting by David Alexander; Editing by David Gregorio and James Dalgleish) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. India has responded to Trump's claims about the library project in Afghanistan, and said: 'In Afghanistan, India plays a significant role as a development partner. This partnership is built on the specific needs and requirements worked out with the Government of Afghanistan.' US president Donald Trump took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a "library" in Afghanistan, saying it is of no use in the war-torn country as he criticised India and others for not doing enough for the nation's security. In his first Cabinet meeting of the year on Wednesday, Trump asked India, Russia, Pakistan and other neighbouring countries to take responsibility for Afghanistan's security as he defended his push for the US to invest less overseas. Trump referred to Modi as an example of how world leaders are talking about their contributions that were nowhere near the "billions of dollars" the US was spending. Trump referred to his friendly relations with Modi, but appeared critical of a "library" funded by India in Afghanistan. It was unclear to which "library" project Trump was referring to. India has been actively involved in reconstruction efforts in war-ravaged Afghanistan. It has committed about $3 billion in assistance to Afghanistan since US-led forces toppled the Taliban regime after the September 11, 2001 attacks. "I could give you an example where I get along very well with India and Prime Minister Modi. But he is constantly telling me, he built a library in Afghanistan. Library! That's like five hours of what we spend (in Afghanistan)," Trump told his cabinet colleagues. "And he (Modi) tells me. He is very smart. We are supposed to say, oh thank you for the library. Don't know who's using it (the library) in Afghanistan. But it's one of those things. I don't like being taken advantage of," he said. "I say this, India. (I have) great relationship with Prime Minister Modi. He is a great gentleman and a great man and he's done a fantastic job. He has brought the country together," he said. Trump drew a comparison between the expenses being borne by the US and other countries in the Afghan peace efforts. Stating that "massively wealthy countries" were using the US to subsidise their own forces, he said, "A country sends us 200 soldiers to Iraq or sends us 100 soldiers from a big country to Syria or to Afghanistan and then they tell me 100 times, 'Oh, we sent you soldiers, we sent you soldiers'." "Why is not Russia there (in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban)? Why isn't India there? Why isn't Pakistan there? Why are we (US) there? We are 6,000 miles away. But I don't mind. We want to help our people. We want to help other nations," Trump told reporters in response to a question. India has been favouring an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process to bring peace and stability in that country. Afghan president Ashraf Ghani had visited India last year and held wide-ranging talks with Modi on ways to further boost bilateral cooperation. Modi reiterated India's support to an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled peace and reconciliation process that would enable Afghanistan to continue as a peaceful, inclusive and democratic nation and emerge as an economically vibrant country. Responding to a question, Trump said he wants India to be involved in Afghanistan. Asked if India's role in Afghanistan was going to be security related, Trump said, I think India should be involved in Afghanistan. I mean I'll give you an example. You can talk about our generals. I gave our generals all of the money they wanted, they didn't do such a great job in Afghanistan. They've been fighting in Afghanistan for 19 years." Trump last month moved to cut by half the 14,000-strong force in Afghanistan, calling for less spending overseas. Alluding in Wednesday's remarks to the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Trump said: "Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan." Without going into details, Trump asserted that he is going to do work out something good in Afghanistan. "We are going to do something that's right. We are talking to the Taliban, we are talking to a lot of different people," he said. ANI reported that India responded to Trump's claims, and said: "In Afghanistan, India plays a significant role as a development partner. This partnership is built on the specific needs and requirements worked out with the Government of Afghanistan." Bangladesh's ruling Awami League returned to power for a third consecutive term. Sheikh Hasina is all set to become the Prime Minister of Bangladesh for the fourth time After the change of power in the Maldives, 2018 ended with one more positive development for Narendra Modi government's neighbourhood policy. Bangladesh's ruling Awami League returned to power for a third consecutive term. Sheikh Hasina is all set to become the Prime Minister of Bangladesh for the fourth time. It is no surprise that Modi was the first foreign leader to congratulate Hasina. The General Election results have reflected a one-sided show of strength, almost as if there was no political party other than the Awami League in the contest. The party's main rival, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), participated in the election with its leader Khaleda Zia in prison and despite the non-fulfilment of its major demand of the dissolution of the current Parliament before the polls. The Hasina government has received brickbats for silencing free-thinking intellectuals. None of the killers of liberal bloggers have been arrested either. Rules governing the Internet have been modified in order to limit freedom of speech. However, the change Hasina has been presiding over seems better for ordinary Bangladeshis. Although she is often accused of running an authoritarian government, her regime has implemented policies that have spurred economic growth and provided political stability. Known for her hardline approach to religious extremism, Hasina has paid particular attention to empowering women. She has received international praise for sheltering more than 7,50,000 Rohingya refugees who were forced out of Myanmar. Due to impressive socio-economic policies, the Opposition parties struggled to offer any cohesive economic vision during the electoral campaign. Although they attacked official corruption and promised double-digit growth, there were no details about how this would be achieved. Critics termed the lofty promises contained in their manifesto as too good to be believed. Therefore despite the challenge to the Awami League by the Opposition alliance, there will be no change as far as the outcome is concerned. The Hasina regime is here to stay for another five years. But Hasina's grand electoral triumph has not been without blemish. The outcome has prompted the BNP-led Opposition alliance to demand scrapping the polls amid calls for a fresh election. However, the observers from India, SAARC and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have endorsed these elections. It may be noted further that the BNP-led alliance had boycotted the 2014 parliamentary vote, alleging that free elections were not possible under the Hasina government. The new Bangladeshi Parliament will be almost without representation of the Opposition parties. What really makes any government truly democratic and participatory in nature is the presence of a strong Opposition in the Parliament. The virtual absence of the BNP in the Parliament does not augur well for Bangladesh, which requires the further institutionalisation of ademocratic ethos and institutions. The monolithic one-party system is ultimately corrosive for the overall health of any democracy, more so of a developing country like Bangladesh, as it leads to the curtailment of civil liberties and leads to political institutions being subjugated by the all-powerful executive and the denial of the freedom of the press. It would be such a huge tragedy if Hasina gets projected as a dictator immediately after one of the spectacular electoral victories she has achieved for the Awami League. However, Opposition leaders are unlikely to sit idly amidst this one-sided victory, the margin of which seems suspiciously mammoth. They are expected to step up their demands for holding fresh elections under a caretaker administration in order to avoid the repeat of 'electoral malpractices'. Otherwise, they face political oblivion during the next five years. The BNP's decision to boycott the oath-taking ceremony of the newly-elected parliamentarians is clearly intended to put pressure on the Hasina regime to accede to the Opposition demands. It is beyond belief that a political party or a coalition, however strong or broad-based, could actually win more than 90 percent of the parliamentary seats. This seems to have led the United States and European Union to ask the Bangladesh authorities to pay heed to the Opposition's demands. The US State Department, in a statement, has noted "with concern credible reports of harassment, intimidation, and violence in the pre-election period that made it difficult for many Opposition candidates and their supporters to meet, hold rallies, and campaign freely. We are also concerned that election-day irregularities prevented some people from voting, which undermined faith in the electoral process. We strongly encourage all parties to refrain from violence and request the Election Commission work constructively with all sides to address claims of irregularities". The European Union, while praising the "mobilisation of voters and the participation of the Opposition in the elections for the first time in 10 years", has also has asked Bangladesh to investigate election-related irregularities. In a statement, it said that "violence has marred the election day, and significant obstacles to a level playing field remained in place throughout the process and have tainted the electoral campaign and the vote. The relevant national authorities should now ensure a proper examination of allegations of irregularities and commit to full transparency in their resolution". It would be difficult for the Hasina government to deflect the mounting international pressure to investigate the Opposition's allegations. The BNP's desperation to re-enter mainstream politics can be understood by the fact that the party has been out of power since 2006 and out of Parliament since 2014. However, the BNP and its allies simply don't have the organisational wherewithal to mobilise the masses in protests. This is something the Hasina government knows too well. Still, huge disenchantment within the Opposition parties may force their cadres to adopt desperate measures, raising the possibility of protests turning violent. Moreover, given the uneasy state of affairs, neither the emboldened ruling party nor the enfeebled Opposition alliance seems ready to reconcile. However, any contemptuous attitude towards the Opposition leaders and repressive measures towards their legitimate demands would be tantamount to the removal of the last vestige of justice and democracy from a country whose founding was meant to symbolise these very virtues. India would do well to advise Hasina that her response should not lead to a situation where the Bangladeshi people start losing faith in democracy. Winner-takes-all politics would only undermine her great achievements on the development and education fronts, while overshadowing the successes her government has achieved in reducing poverty. Although the BNP in recent years has attempted to remove India's misgivings, the return to power of the BNP would have been a matter of concern for New Delhi as the party has often been sympathetic to Islamist extremist elements and anti-India groups. One cannot forget so easily that Bangladesh's relations with India had reached their lowest point during the BNP's rule when the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) was a coalition partner in the government. A majority of Bangladeshis were not happy when the war criminals of the 1971 genocide were enjoying power. It was this popular sentiment against collaborators that led people to support the War Crimes Tribunal and the execution of many JeI leaders. There are several media reports of Pakistan's ISI having increased points of contact with its political allies in Bangladesh just before the recent elections, and also some reports of BNP leaders having sought Chinese intervention in the elections through the ISI. India and Bangladesh have improved relations in recent years to the extent that Dhaka may well be projected as New Delhi's closest regional partner. Bangladesh is critical as far as India's security as well as 'Act East' policy is concerned. Various militant groups active in India's North East used to exploit the porous India-Bangladesh border and take shelter in Bangladesh. But the Hasina government has ensured that these militant groups are denied any safe haven in Bangladesh, which has led to more trust between New Delhi and Dhaka. Thus, the outcome in favour of Awami League has undeniably been a matter of great satisfaction for New Delhi. According to India's Ministry of External Affairs, Modi's conversation with Hasina was very cordial during which the Indian prime minister "reiterated the priority India attaches to Bangladesh as a neighbour, a close partner for regional development, security and cooperation, and a central pillar in India's 'Neighbourhood First' policy". India-Bangladesh relations are likely to improve further due to policy continuity that the Hasina government will ensure. The success of sub-regional groupings like BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) and the BBIN (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal) Initiative greatly depends on Bangladesh's participation. Formed in 1997, BIMSTEC remained dormant till 2016 when the Modi government began to make a strong pitch for its revival. Not surprisingly, India has become a staunch promoter of BIMSTEC, particularly on issues of connectivity, people-to-people contact and increased regional investment. According to a reliable estimate, coastal shipping has the potential to make cargo movement between ports in India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand much cheaper than the present sea movement. Dhaka's participation in these sub-regional groupings opens huge potential for Bangladeshi exports. A huge market in Bangladesh, which is set to emerge soon as a middle-income country, can be a bonanza for Indian investors. New Delhi has granted Dhaka the highest concessional Line of Credit almost amounting to $8 billion. Interestingly, a tripartite MoU for cooperation in the construction of the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant has been signed between India, Bangladesh and Russia. Although New Delhi has liberalised the visa regime for Bangladeshi tourists visiting India, more steps need to be taken to enhance people-to-people contact. Fulfilment of various promises made to Bangladesh should be New Delhis priority. The Teesta water-sharing deserves attention of Indian policymakers as its finalisation would earn more goodwill for India in Bangladesh. However, India's room to manoeuver is not unlimited, despite what many in New Delhi would like to believe. China has been expanding its reach in Bangladesh that continues to witness a phenomenal surge in Chinese investments in all sectors of economy. Although Hasina has always given extraordinary significance in forging a strong and robust partnership with India, she has been extremely careful to maintain good relations with China as well. For Dhaka, economic and military aid from Beijing is indispensable for Bangladesh's infrastructural development and for meeting its defense requirements respectively. Hasina will continue to balance Bangladesh's relations with India and China. It remains to be seen how China allays India's apprehensions due to its growing footprint in Bangladesh. If India, Bangladesh and China agree on how to achieve regional cooperation, it will also help advance the so-called 'Wuhan' consensus. Bangladesh continues to be the brightest spot for the Modi government's neighbourhood policy despite attempts by pro-Pakistan jihadist groups and the ISI-sponsored elements to derail flourishing bilateral ties. While India enjoys immense goodwill in Bangladesh due to its role in its creation, theirs is a complex relationship due to salience of the issue of illegal migration in India's domestic political debates. It is therefore imperative for the Modi government that this sensitive issue is not exploited for short-term electoral gains during the forthcoming parliamentary elections. Moreover, Indias Act East policy presupposes a stable, secular and friendly Bangladesh which will play a key role in the development of India's North East. Police in China hunted Gao for 28 years until one of his relatives committed a crime and underwent DNA testing in 2015, which led to his arrest in August 2016 Beijing: A Chinese serial killer and rapist, dubbed 'Jack the Ripper' and convicted of murdering 11 women, was executed on Thursday following a court verdict sentencing him to death. Gao Chengyong, 53, was sentenced to death at the Baiyin Intermediate People's Court in Gansu province in March 2018, about 30 years after his first killing. Gao has been executed on Thursday morning, state-run China Daily reported. He faced multiple charges of homicide, rape, robbery and mutilation of corpses committed between 1988 and 2002. The court found him guilty of killing the victims to cover up robbery and rape in Baiyin, Gansu and Baotou, Inner Mongolia. Gao confessed to his crimes in the court and said he would not file an appeal, official media reported. Chinese Police hunted Gao for 28 years until one of his relatives committed a crime and underwent DNA testing in 2015, which led to his arrest in August 2016, a previous report by state-run Xinhua news agency said. Dubbed "Jack the Ripper" by Chinese media, Gao, a married father of two, followed his victims home before robbing, raping and murdering them. He cut their throats and mutilated their bodies. The original Jack the Ripper was a serial killer who was active largely in the impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The unidentified serial killer is widely believed to have murdered many women. Four more bodies were found by emergency workers at the site of the Russian apartment building collapse which is suspected to have been caused by gas leak. Moscow: The death toll in the collapse of a Russian apartment building has risen to 37 after more bodies were discovered by crews searching the huge pile of concrete rubble. The State news agency TASS cited an emergencies ministry official on Thursday as having said that four people who lived in the collapsed section of the building in Magnitogorsk remain unaccounted for. The Russia apartment building collapse on Monday followed an explosion that officials say was most probably caused by a gas leak. An 11-month-old boy was extracted from the wreckage alive on Tuesday and was flown to Moscow for treatment of injuries, including frostbite. Nighttime temperatures in the city which lies 1,400 kilometres (870 miles) southeast of Moscow. have fallen to about minus 20 Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit). Sunderarajan Padmanabhan Prime Minister Narendra Modi today called upon the scientific community to connect with people and commit themselves to address problems ranging from affordable healthcare and housing to clean air, water, energy and agricultural productivity. Inaugurating the 106th session of the Indian Science Congress here, he said that the pursuit of science is fulfilled through achievement of two objectives generation of profound or disruptive knowledge and use of such knowledge for socio-economic good. "As we boost our discovery science system, we must also focus on innovation and startups, he said. In this context, the PM recalled that the government had launched the Atal Innovation Mission to promote innovation among scientists. More technology business incubators have been established in the last four years than the forty years before that. He drew attention to recent developments in cutting-edge areas like big data analysis, artificial intelligence and blockchain and said these technologies need to be utilised especially to help farmers with relatively small farm holdings. Scientists need to work to promote ease of living for the people, he said. He also announced that the government had allocated Rs 3600 crore for the national mission on cyber-physical systems. "The pursuit of science is fulfilled through achievement of two objectives generation of profound or disruptive knowledge and use of such knowledge for socio-economic good." The Prime Minister urged scientists to work for time-bound solutions for drought management in low rainfall areas, early warning systems for natural disasters, tackling of malnutrition and diseases like encephalitis that affect children, besides cybersecurity and cleaner energy and drinking water. Mr Modi emphasised the need for creation of stronger pathways for better commercialisation of research and development outputs of scientific institutions and a research system that fused arts and humanities and social sciences with science and technology. He drew the attention recently launched Prime Ministers Research Fellows Scheme under which 1000 bright minds from the best institutions in the country are being offered direct admission to PhD programmes in Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science. Minister for science and technology Dr Harsh Vardhan paid tributes to the contributions made by Hargobind Khorana, Birbal Sahni, Kalpana Chawla and other scientists from Punjab. The Congress, with the theme of Future India: Science and Technology, will feature a range of plenary sessions, invited talks as well as special sessions for women scientists and school children. The participants include three Nobel laureates and top science policy makers, administrators and scientists. Sunderarajan Padmanabhan Prime Minister Narendra Modi today called upon the scientific community to connect with people and commit themselves to address problems ranging from affordable healthcare and housing to clean air, water, energy and agricultural productivity. Inaugurating the 106th session of the India Science Congress here, he said, the pursuit of science is fulfilled through achievement of two objectives - generation of profound or disruptive knowledge and use of such knowledge for socio-economic good. As we boost our discovery science system, we must also focus on innovation and startups. In this context, he recalled that the government had launched the Atal Innovation Mission to promote innovation among scientists. More technology business incubators have been established in the last four years than the forty years before that. He drew attention to recent developments in cutting-edge areas like big data analysis, artificial intelligence and blockchain and said these technologies need to be utilised especially to help farmers with relatively small farm holdings. Scientists need to work to promote ease of living for the people, he said. He also announced that the government had allocated Rs 3600 crore for the national mission on cyber-physical systems. The Prime Minister urged scientists to work for time-bound solutions for drought management in low rainfall areas, early warning systems for natural disasters, tackling of malnutrition and diseases like encephalitis that affect children, besides cybersecurity and cleaner energy and drinking water. Mr Modi emphasised the need for creation of stronger pathways for better commercialisation of research and development outputs of scientific institutions and a research system that fused arts and humanities and social sciences with science and technology. He drew the attention recently launched Prime Ministers Research Fellows Scheme under which 1000 bright minds from the best institutions in the country are being offered direct admission to PhD programmes in Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science. Minister for science and technology Dr Harsh Vardhan paid tributes to the contributions made by Hargobind Khorana, Birbal Sahni, Kalpana Chawla and other scientists from Punjab. The Congress, with the theme of Future India: Science and Technology, will feature a range of plenary sessions, invited talks as well as special sessions for women scientists and school children. The participants include three Nobel laureates and top science policy makers, administrators and scientists. tech2 News Staff Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the 106th Indian Science Congress today, 3 January, at Lovely Professional University in Jalandhar, Punjab. Modi is expected to address an audience of close to 30,000 including scientists, researchers and students at the event. The five-day-long congress, which ends 7 January 2019, will involve over a hundred conferences and events of significance to both science and technology. The theme for the Congress this year is 'Future India Science and Technology'. Who are the big names attending the event? Many Union Cabinet ministers, including Science &Technology Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan and Textile Minister Smriti Irani, Nobel laureates, eminent scientists from different countries are expected to attend the event. Eminent scientists from DRDO, ISRO, DST, AIIMS and UGC, as well as prominent academics from US, UK, India and others are expected to be part of the sessions. Nobel laureates participating in the ISC events include German-American biochemist Professor Thomas Sudoph, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2013 for his contributions towards vesicle trafficking, Israeli biochemist and Nobel laureate in Chemistry Prof Avram Hershko, and British-born physicist Frederick Duncan Michael Haldane who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2016 What is the aim of the event? Through the event, the organisers at the Indian Science Congress Association and Lovely Professional University hope to stimulate scientific research efforts and raise scientific temper among the researchers and students in attendance. "The government's aim is to deliver the benefits of science and technology to the last man in the society. Scientists being a pivot should put their heart and soul into finding new solutions to the problems facing the nation and improve the quality of life of common man," Science and Technology Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said in his message. Key events at the India Science Congress Childrens' Science Congress The Children's Science Congress one of the four key events in the Indian Science Congress (ISC), with the aim of raising the bar of research and innovation in science in our country. The event provides a platform for students between 10 and 17 years of age to showcase their research and projects. The event will also play host to talks by renowned scientists, workshops to give the students hands-on experience and competitions like an exhibition and quizzes to strengthen intellect and the spirit of scientific enquiry in students. The Childrens' Science Congress will run from 4-6 January. Science Communicators' Meet The Science communicators meet is an annual event held at the Science Congress to discuss and promote effective strategies to communicate science to a diverse audience. It brings academics, journalists, activists, filmmakers, scientists and other communicators from all over the world to meet, deliberate and exchange their views on how to develop science communication. The aim of the Science Communicators Meet is to bring together different interest groups in the field of science promotion and communication. The Science Communicators' Meet will run from 5-6 January. Women's Science Congress The 106th Indian Science Congress is also organising a Womens Science Congress to showcase contributions of women to science, technology and society, according to the event page. Renowned women scientists, leaders and decision makers from government, academia and industry will be delivering talks and participating in panel discussions during the event. The Women's Science Congress will run from 5-6 January. Infosys Foundation ISCA Travel Award The ISCA has instituted the "Infosys Foundation ISCA Travel Award" that annually awards five school-going students a travel allowance, local stay, and a plaque for attending the Indian Science Congress. Apart from this, five other deserving students will be funded for attending the Science Congress from the sales of an ISCA publication "Shaping of Indian Science". The selected students will be awarded by a committee of LPU faculty based on a write-up on the topic, "What developments in science during the last two years have influenced him/her and why?". The winners of the award were announced on 15 December, and will be awarded on 4 January. Modi and the solar-powered bus prototype PM Modi is expected to ride on a prototype of a driverless solar-powered bus to the inauguration venue at the 106th Indian Science Congress, according to a release. Students of different departments at LPU have designed and built the driverless solar-powered bus. The first prototype of the bus will be used to ferry Modi to the venue of the Indian Science Congress at the campus tomorrow. Once launched at a commercial scale, the bus may be used at airports, industrial complexes and educational institutions, the statement said, and had been designed keeping Indian conditions and the vehicle's cost Rs 6 lakh cost in mind. With an engine that is both battery- and solar-powered, the bus' running cost is negligible, the statement said. tech2 News Staff Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off the annual, five-day Indian Science Congress with an inauguration speech earlier today. He addressed a gathering of close to 20,000 researchers, scientists and students at the Lovely Professional University in Jalandhar, Punjab, the venue of this years' 106th edition of the Congress. LIVE from ground zero: People giving a warm welcome to PM @narendramodi and other dignitaries arriving at the stage for 106th Indian Science Congress. #ThinkBIG #ISC2019 pic.twitter.com/BY1AaGMzyH PIB India (@PIB_India) January 3, 2019 Back in Delhi, it looked like someone was missing the PM in action. So it seems our PM has fled Parliament & his own open book Rafale exam & is instead lecturing students at Lovely Univ. in Punjab, today. I request the students there to, respectfully, ask him to please answer the 4 questions posed to him by me, yesterday. #RafaleScam Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 3, 2019 Rahul Gandhi took a jibe at the PM for having bunked the Rafale exam in parliament today and underscored the Indian Science Congress in the process. If only the event he was running off to wasn't an important, international, annual event that shapes science & tech policy, and education, Mr Gandhi. If only. The General President of the Indian Science Congress Association, Dr Manoj Kumar Chakrabarti opened the inauguration speeches by introducing the senior members of the ISCA, Union Minister for Science and Technology Dr Harsh Vardhan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Dr Chakrabarthi invited the Union minister for Science and Technology, Dr Harsh Vardhan, to address the young and eager audience. Living in the "Golden Period" for SciTech Dr Harsh Vardhan shared that India is currently enjoying the "Golden period" in Indian science under PM Modi's guidance. "With all the advancements we have seen in the different areas of science today, it is clear that we are comparable to the best in the world," Dr Vardhan said. "All the missions and initiatives that have been seen under his leadership are a result of planning, of which the science and technology community is a crucial part. I would like to thank each one of you all the members of the scientific community in India for carrying us through all the progress we have seen under the Hon'ble Prime Minister." Brain drain to 'brain gain' Modi opened his speech wishing everyone a happy new year and said that it was a good time to look back at India's legacy in science and technology. "The Indian Science Congress has a rich legacy.... and we continue to learn from their commitment and dedication," the PM said, speaking of scientists who began their stellar careers in India. "Birbal Sahani, Hargobind Khorana, Kalpana Chawla...We have contributed in a big way to scientific knowledge across the world." Modi also recalled former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayees acknowledgement of science and technology during his speech at Pokhran. "It is now time to take a step forward.. the slogan now becomes Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan, Jai Vigyan, Jai Anusandhaan, said Modi. Pioneering SciTech in India More incubators have been established in the last 4 years for startups than the 40 years that came before that, according to Modi, speaking about the massive boost in innovative science and tech startups in recent years. "Industry must now help startups with mentorship and guidance...Bringing big data, AI and blockchain to solve India's biggest challenges healthcare, agriculture and developmental needs can only be done by our innovative scientists and engineers." This is an important goal for India's immediate future, Modi said. Space and Satellites "By 2022, the mission to send three Indians to space is underway,' Modi said proudly. "ISRO has tested the crew module and escape system. I have no doubt that our scientists will bring success to the mission, and at the planned time," the PM said, speaking of the Gaganyaan mission. SciTech education needs to be redefined The vast majority of students in the country go to state universities, where the quality of research really needs to improve. This is something the HRD Ministry and we are addressing, the PM said. I call upon the Prime Ministers Science, Technology and Innovation Council, to discuss these issues in detail and formulate an action plan in consultation with the Ministry of Human Resource Development, to boost research in our colleges and state universities: PM PMO India (@PMOIndia) January 3, 2019 A new vision India needs a new and ambitious plan for the road ahead. This is the prime objective of the PM's Science Technology and Innovation Council (PM-STIAC). The PM-STIAC will call on scientist, engineers, innovators, educators and other professionals to advise on how we can meet our ambitions for a new future and a new India. "With vivid imaginations and consistent effort, the forces of the universe can be made to work for an inspired mind. How do we fire up the minds of the Indian youth who are the minds of cutting-edge research?" asked Modi as he closed his inauguration address quoting Dr A P J Abdul Kalam. "India is teeming with a new generation of creative and confident minds...The government is committed to providing them with an enabling environment," Modi concluded. Find latest and upcoming tech gadgets online on Tech2 Gadgets. Get technology news, gadgets reviews & ratings. Popular gadgets including laptop, tablet and mobile specifications, features, prices, comparison. LIVE UPDATES from the 106th Indian Science Congress 2019 Prime Minister Modi's address: ISC inauguration closes with Modi's vision for New India PM Modi closes inaugural speech quoting A P J Abdul Kalam PM Modi discusses India's place among top 5 in SciTech research globally, a new SciTech future for a new India. PM Modi opens ISC 2019 with paying homage to India's rich scientific heritage. Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks to audience at LPU. Union Minister for Science and Technology Dr Harsh Vardhan addresses the audience at the ISC 2019. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will soon kick off the 106th Indian Science Congress today with his opening address at the Lovely Professional University in Jalandhar, Punjab at 11.30 am. In the audience will be a gather of roughly 30,000 including Indian and international scientists and researchers and students from across the country,according to the event page. Below are the highlights from PM Modi's inaugural address this year. The five-day-long Congress, which ends 7 January 2019, will involve over a hundred conferences and events of significance to both science and technology. Here's more about the 106th edition of the Indian Science Congress starting today. tech2 News Staff Looks like Xiaomi's popular budget sub-brand Redmi has finally grown up enough to leave the comfort of parent Xiaomi's home. Redmi will now be an independent brand and the split is scheduled for 10 January in China. The announcement was made by Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun who explained that the brands were splitting up to help each focus individually on its brand and so increase growth. As per the report by Gizmochina, Xiaomi's Mi brand focuses more on higher-end devices while the Redmi lineup is focused on the budget segment. Xiaomi's third brand, called Pocofone, is aimed at the budget flagship segment that OnePlus appears to have abandoned, and although it is in its nascent stages as of now, Poco does hold immense potential in markets such as India. The same is true for the Redmi brand, whose Note lineup has become one of the most popular smartphone series in the country. At the moment, Xiaomi and Redmi are blurred into one big brand in the minds of most consumers. A split might help establish the brand's identity. Another issue is that Xiaomi's Mi brand doesn't have much of an identity here either. It also doesn't help that premium Mi phones like the Mi 8 have never made their way to India. It was only recently that Oppo established a separate Realme brand that would compete in the budget smartphone space. As for the phone launch on 10 January, we can hazard a guess that it will be a device which comes with a new 48 MP sensor as the number 48 is mentioned prominently in the promo poster. That number could refer to anything though. Stay tuned for more updates. Phoolka took to Twitter to announce his resignation. He said that even though he handed over his resignation to Arvind Kejriwal, but the Chief Minister of Delhi asked him not to. Advocate HS Phoolka resigned from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) late on Thursday, ANI reported. Phoolka took to Twitter to announce his resignation. He said that even though he handed over his resignation to Arvind Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Delhi asked him not to. I have resigned from AAP & handed over resignation to Kejriwal ji today. Though he asked me not to resign but I insisted. Will be briefing media tomorrow at 4pm at Press Club, Raisina Rd, New Delhi to explain the Reason of leaving AAP & my further plans. H S Phoolka (@hsphoolka) January 3, 2019 The senior advocate of Delhi High Court will brief the media on Thursday at Press Club in New Delhi to explain the resignation and discuss his future plans. Phoolka had resigned as a legislator from the Punjab Assembly in October, expressing unhappiness over the state government's alleged "failure" to initiate action against former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and retired DGP Sumedh Singh Saini in sacrilege incidents. He had then visited the Election Commission office in Delhi where he had told reporters, "More than 45 days have passed since ministers of the Congress government promised in the Vidhan Sabha action against Parkash Singh Badal and the then director general of police Sumedh Singh Saini. But no action has come about so far. This is a betrayal for the people of Punjab." Earlier in July, Phoolka had mentioned quitting the AAP if it joined hands with the Congress. He had made it clear that any understanding with Congress would amount to giving a clean chit to the alleged "perpetrators" of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. "I shall be the first person to quit the Aam Aadmi Party if and when it joins hands with the Congress (either) in a direct or indirect manner," said Phoolka in Ludhiana. His statement had come after Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh supported senior party leader P Chidambaram's views on the need for a broad-based alliance with other Opposition parties at the meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) at Delhi on Sunday. Phoolka blamed the Congress for the violence that took place in the aftermath of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination. With inputs from PTI Mehbooba Mufti said while the police did not want to indulge in such acts, the directions were seemed to be coming from somewhere in this regard. Srinagar: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti Thursday said Governor Satya Pal Malik should issue directions to security forces not to harass the families of the militants while fighting terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. "Our police is a disciplined force. The Governor should issue clear cut directions that families of militants should not be harassed," Mehbooba told reporters after visiting family of a slain militant in Shopian district of south Kashmir. The former chief minister said while the police did not want to indulge in such acts, the directions were seemed to be coming from somewhere in this regard. "The fight against militancy should not involve the families of the militants and general public. They (families of militants) should not be harassed," Mehbooba said. "I am sure that police does not want to do it, but the directions are coming from somewhere that families of militants are being harassed. The brothers, sisters or parents (of terrorists) should not be harassed," she said. Mehbooba said during her tenure as the chief minister, she had directed the police and security forces that the fight against terrorism should not involve harassing the families of militants. "Fighting the militants is a separate issue ... when I was the chief minister, at Manigam (Police Training Institute), I gave directions to the police and security forces that while you fight militancy, the families of militants should not be harassed," she said. This was Mehbooba's second visit to the family of militants. Earlier, she had visited a similar family in Pulwama district. National Conference (NC) leader Omar Abdullah hit out at the PDP president saying she was trying to "rehabilitate a badly damaged reputation". "The architect of 'Operation All-out' and the overseer of the operations that killed hundreds of militants since 2015 is now going from one militant home to the next trying to rehabilitate a badly damaged reputation," Omar wrote on Twitter. "She used militants by sanctioning their deaths to appease the BJP and now she uses dead militants to try to appease the voter. Just how gullible does she think people are?" the former chief minister added. BJP, the former ally of PDP, was quick to dismiss Mehbooba's visits as a "political gimmick" and sought to remind her of the remarks she made as chief minister during a press conference at the peak of 2016 agitation following killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani and his two associates. "It was Mehbooba who earlier made a statement like were they (youth who were killed in 2016 agitation) out to buy toffee or milk. Her visits now to the families of slain militants is a political gimmick," BJP leader Ashok Koul said. Several social media users have also dismissed the PDP chief's outreach campaign as political opportunism with an eye on coming elections. A Facebook user posted the video clips of Mehbooba's press conference in 2016 as well as the latest comments on harassment of militant families with the title "a very good example of a chameleon." The BJP had challenged the 21 December order of a division bench of the Calcutta High Court which had set aside the order of a single judge allowing the Rath Yatra New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday agreed to hear on 8 January a plea by the BJP against a Calcutta High Court order not allowing the party to undertake Rath Yatra in West Bengal. The matter was mentioned for urgent hearing before a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul which agreed to hear it next week. The apex court initially said it would hear the matter on 7 January 7 but some lawyers urged it to fix the plea for hearing on 8 January. "List the matter on 8 January 8 before the appropriate bench as per the roster," the bench said. The BJP's West Bengal unit has approached the apex court seeking permission to hold the campaign 'Save Democracy Rally', which would cover 42 parliamentary constituencies in the state ahead of general elections to be held this year. It has challenged the 21 December 21 order of a division bench of the high court which had set aside the order of a single judge allowing the yatra or procession. In its plea, the BJP has said that their fundamental right to hold a peaceful yatra cannot be withheld. The party had planned to launch the yatra from three districts of the state. The high court's division bench had earlier sent the case back to a single judge to hear it afresh and also to consider the intelligence inputs by state agencies. The order of the division bench had come after hearing an appeal moved by the West Bengal government challenging the order of the single judge. The rallies, according to the original schedule, were supposed to be flagged off by BJP president Amit Shah from Bengal's Cooch Behar district on 7 December last year, Kakdwip in South 24 Parganas on 9 December and from Tarapith temple in Birbhum on 14 December. In the plea filed in the top court, the BJP's West Bengal unit has contended that authorities cannot abridge their right and they have a duty to facilitate them in exercising their democratic right. The plea has alleged that the state government was repeatedly "attacking" the fundamental right of citizens due to which different petitions were filed challenging the activities of the state government in denying permission to different organisations and the top court has allowed the citizens to organise their events. It has claimed that earlier also, permission was denied several times at the last moment to "harass the BJP" which later moved the high court and that the party "is facing such political vendetta since 2014 in West Bengal". Rahul ostensibly loves news conferences and claims that fielding questions from the media is fun: understandable when one is largely spared scrutiny and tough questions. Congress president Rahul Gandhi never fails to mention how he, unlike Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is not scared of taking questions from the media in press conferences. Rahul has a point here. While Modi has appeared for media interviews but not a single press conference during his tenure as prime minister, Rahul ostensibly loves news conferences and claims that fielding questions from the media is fun: understandable when one is largely spared scrutiny and tough questions. For all the access that media enjoys vis-a-vis Rahul, it has shown a strange reluctance so far to fact-check the Congress presidents claims and hold him accountable for his words. This trend was visible even on Wednesday when Rahul appeared for a news conference in the evening and repeated the same set of claims that had been rebutted by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley earlier that day in Parliament. Whats more, Rahuls comments to the media on the controversial audio tape which the Congress party claims is the recorded conversation of Goa health minister Vishwajit Rane revealing details of secret Rafale files stored in Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikars bedroom appeared inconsistent with facts and the turn of events that played out on the floor of the House. The Congress president has asked four questions to Modi on the Rafale deal through Twitter. Here are five questions the media should have asked or Rahul during the press conference: 1. Why didnt Rahul take up Arun Jaitleys challenge on the audiotape if he is convinced that the clip is authentic? During the press conference, Rahul said he had read part of the transcript and the tape is authentic. The Congress president had refused to certify the veracity of the tape in Parliament when his attempts to play it in Lok Sabha met with resistance from the treasury benches. Speaker Sumitra Mahajan urged Rahul to give it in writing that the clip is authentic before allowing it to be played inside Parliament in accordance with House rules. Faced with the challenge, Rahul backtracked. He also didnt read the transcript after insisting on doing so. At the press conference, however, Rahul claimed the Speaker disallowed him from playing it, therefore the question of authentication doesnt arise. Rahul Gandhi: I asked the Lok Sabha Speaker can I play the tape, Speaker refused to allow me to play it, so there was no question of authenticity of the tape there. Congress has already played it. Also, there might be other tapes as well #RafaleDeal pic.twitter.com/b91QeTgpZ0 ANI (@ANI) January 2, 2019 According to Jaitley, Rahul wants to rely on a tape that is false and fabricated. Let him authenticate it, place it on the table of the House and open himself for an action of priviledge. Jaitley said Rahul must take responsibility and face expulsion from the House under a privilege motion if the tape is found to be false. The finance minister dared the Congress president to place the document in Parliament if he is sure of its authenticity. Neither did Rahul take up Jaitleys challenge, nor did he backtrack from his claim. Though the entire sequence was captured on camera and aired to millions on TV, the media didnt pursue this line of questioning. 2. Where did Rahul get the figure of Rs 30,000 crore worth of offsets to Anil Ambanis company? Rahul Gandhi: Reality yahi hai ki 30,000 crore Anil Ambani ko diya gaya hai, aur Chowkidaar chor hai #RafaleDeal pic.twitter.com/NqUCnnqzHN ANI (@ANI) January 2, 2019 The facts of Rafale have been discussed threadbare over countless forums. A Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi dismissed PILs seeking a court-monitored probe, saying it has no objections to any part of the deal. On the offset clauses, the judgment stated: We do not find any substantial material on record to show that this is a case of commercial favouritism to any party by the Indian Government. The offset clause as laid out during the UPA rule on defence purchases from foreign companies requires Dassault to make purchases in India for 50 percent of the contract value. Therefore, if the total value of the deal is worth Rs 58,000 crore, half of that amount comes to around Rs 29,000 crore. Now, since Anil Ambanis Reliance Defence is one among around 120 offset partners for the deal, their total business share wont exceed 3 percent of the total Rs 29,000 crore Rafale offset contract. That means a sum less than Rs 1,000 crore. Jaitley told Parliament on Wednesday that it wont be more than Rs 800 crore. Apart from the Supreme Court, which went over these details, media reports too have corroborated the governments figures. #Rafale offsets break-up for dummies: @RahulGandhi. Note the figures. Memorise them. Write them down in a notebook 200 times. Will help. Infographic via @SandeepUnnithan @IndiaToday pic.twitter.com/i1WpnY8m7W Minhaz Merchant (@MinhazMerchant) January 2, 2019 If that is the case, how does Rahul justify his charge? It is strange that given the easy availability of these figures in public domain, the media didnt hold the Congress president accountable for his words. 3. What is the basis of Rahul's contention that the PM is a thief when Supreme Court has given a clean chit to Rafale deal? On three contentious issues raised by the Congress and made into subject of the petitions against the government, the Supreme Court cleared the deal. The CJI-headed Bench, also comprising justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph, found no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar deal, observed that there was no substantial evidence of commercial favouritism to any private entity on the issue of offset partner and found no merit in claims that there was huge escalation of costs. In conclusion, the judgment stated: In view of our findings on all the three aspects, and having heard the matter in detail, we find no reason for any intervention by this court on the sensitive issue of purchase of 36 defence aircrafts by the Indian government. Perception of individuals cannot be the basis of a fishing and roving enquiry by this court, especially in such matters. We, thus, dismiss all the writ petitions, leaving it to the parties to bear their own costs. Given the finality of this judgment, it is unclear on what basis the Congress president is accusing the prime minister of dishonesty and stealing. If he has clinching proof of Modis wrongdoing, it is strange that this evidence (or evidences) have not been brought to the notice of the court or made available in public domain. Once again, the media has failed to highlight the anomaly between Rahuls claims and facts. 4. How may a Joint Parliamentary Committee reveal truth when Supreme Court judgment finds no reason for intervention or probe? After shifting goalposts several times on Rafale deal, Congress and Opposition parties have finally settled on demanding for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe. The political ploy behind Congress demand is understandable and the party cannot be faulted for trying to pile on the pressure on the NDA. The legitimate question that should have been asked of Rahul Gandhi during the press conference, is that how will a JPC subject to political partisanship conduct a fair probe into a deal that has been cleared by none less than the Supreme Court? Even if we disregard Jaitleys arguments that JPC in Bofors sought to whitewash the scandal instead of finding the truth the fact remains that the panel whose political neutrality is suspect may end up fanning the Rafale debate instead of bringing us any closer to resolution. Political gamesmanship is a poor basis for constitution of a JPC that will undermine the primacy and authority of the Supreme Court. It may be a slippery slope. 5. Why did Rahul Gandhi call a scribe a pliable journalist during a press conference? Does it amount to intimidation of the press? During Wednesdays news conference, while referring to ANI editor Smita Prakash who conducted the prime minister's interview on Tuesday Rahul used the words pliable journalist. He said: You saw the prime ministers interview yesterday matlab pliable journalist, woh question bhi kar rahi thi, pradhan mantri ka answer bi de rahi thi, side mein (she was asking questions as well as providing answers on the side). Earlier in the Parliament, Rahul called the interview staged. The journalist called Rahuls attempt to ridicule her work a cheap shot. Dear Mr Rahul Gandhi, cheap shot at your press conference to attack me. I was asking questions not answering. You want to attack Mr Modi, go ahead but downright absurd to ridicule me. Not expected of a president of the oldest political party in the country. Smita Prakash (@smitaprakash) January 2, 2019 Jaitley has criticised the Congress president for trying to intimidate an independent editor and called him the grandson of Emergency dictator (a reference to Indira Gandhi) who displayed his real DNA. He also called for a response from the Editors Guild. The real problem, however, goes deeper. When political leaders, especially those occupying high positions in public office or party, openly display their disrespect for journalists, that has a deleterious effect on the morale of the media. It also makes journalists vulnerable to attacks from party affiliates and trolls on social media. Rahul may have his opinions on the Modi interview, but his disparaging comments can be construed as an attack on the independence of the Fourth Estate. He, however, didnt face any scrutiny from the media while making the comment. Rahul has been hammering away at one curious point for some time and he did so again on Wednesday: That is the prime ministers studied reluctance to engage. Whenever Modi communicates, it is in a medium social media, interviews, public rallies that does not allow for interaction. The current Lok Sabha session seems to be pointing in the direction of the political momentum of the country and it does appear that events are not moving the way that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would want them to. Countering Prime Minister Narendra Modi's interview to ANI on New Year's day, in which he tried to portray the Opposition as an excrescence on the body politic, Congress president Rahul Gandhi did a decent job of putting the government in the dock over the Rafale deal. Its taken a lot of time for the Opposition leader to get up to speed, but with fresh winds swelling the Congress partys sails after the last years Assembly election results, Rahul's performance as a national counterpoint is showing considerable improvement. And that is why the ruling party found itself isolated when Rahul tore into the government benches over the details of the Rafale deal. Rahul's most telling point in Wednesdays debate was the absence of the prime minister during a debate that has come to represent a host of seminal issues. Modi found the time on 1 January to give a friendly interview, yet, as Rahul pointed out, he could not accommodate his schedule to be present in the Lok Sabha. Instead, he left it to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is not even a member of the Lower House, to take the flak. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, a Lok Sabha member who was in the House, should have fielded questions since the Rafale deal comes under her territory. But she did not participate in the debate. Rahul has been hammering away at one curious point for some time and he did so again on Wednesday: That is the prime ministers studied reluctance to engage. Whenever Modi communicates, it is in a medium social media, interviews, public rallies that does not allow for interaction. He speaks, others listen. Thus, Rahul's dare for a one-to-one debate is moot. It is unlikely that Modi will take it up because he revels in public oratory and not pointed debate. They should engage him, however. That became plain during the Lok Sabha debate. As members of the public, we are not privy to the details of the Rafale deal, because the Supreme Court received them in a sealed cover, satisfied its conscience and exonerated the government of wrongdoing. Conscience? Since when did the judiciary started dealing in matters relating to inner faith? Are we next going to hear that the judicial spirit has been appeased and tiresome legal/juridical processes need not be allowed to run their unwonted course? When Rahul raised questions about the deal and demanded a probe by a joint parliamentary committee, which of necessity would make the details of the deal public, all that Jaitley could do was cite the Supreme Courts absolution of the government, and accuse the Congress of corruption. The BJP in its 38-plus years of existence has not showed undue reverence for the judiciary. Yet, it now cites the Supreme Courts untroubled conscience to repel demands for a JPC probe. Once Rahul got the demand going, others, whom the BJP would normally counts as friends, also did some of the running. The Shiv Sena, still formally an ally, made the telling point. If we are an honest government, a party MP asked, why are we running away from a JPC probe? Others have made the same point. The BJP seeks to hide behind the argument that details about pricing and technology cannot be revealed in the national interest, but fails to mention that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) is already privy to the pricing details and that Parliaments public accounts committee will by established procedure examine them sooner rather than later. Echoing Rahul's allegations of corruption the Shiv Sena and BJD weighed in on several inexplicable, or at the very least as yet unexplained, phenomena. The former asked, not unreasonably, why the defence minister was not part of the delegation that went to France to finalise the deal, though Anil Ambani was in the entourage. And, of course, no one has yet been able to explain why, or how, a company just incorporated and with zero experience of aircraft manufacture (even of parts) bagged a lucrative offset contract. A BJD member accused Jaitley of cherry-picking facts to give the impression that the deal was clean. He demanded a white paper and warned that questionable defence deals would scar the National Democratic Alliance just as it had scarred the Congress. But uppermost in the minds of taxpayers will be Modis response. Will he respond to Rahul's challenge, because the accusations and controversies are directly about him, or will he retreat behind barricaded walls of monologue? 'Shah gave this message at a meeting with Maharashtra BJP MPs in Delhi on Wednesday,' said an MP who was present. Mumbai: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah has reportedly asked the party's Maharashtra MPs to be prepared to contest the ensuing Lok Sabha 2019 elections alone in the state. "Shah gave this message at a meeting with Maharashtra BJP MPs in Delhi on Wednesday," said an MP who was present. "Shah asked us to prepare for the possibility of contesting elections alone in the state if needed," the MP said. "The BJP president told us that efforts are on to have an alliance with the Sena, but if that did not materialise, we should be prepared to fight the polls alone," he said. BJP is in alliance with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and at the Centre. The Sena has been critical of BJP and its leaders have spoken of contesting the Lok Sabha elections alone. Targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Shiv Sena on Thursday wondered when would the Ram temple be constructed in Ayodhya if not during the tenure of the BJP-led government. Shiv Sena has also backed the Opposition's demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe in the Rafale fighter aircraft purchase deal. "Shah said that if need be, we should be prepared to contest all 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra," the MP said. A senior Maharashtra BJP leader told PTI that Shah was "very clear" in telling the party MPs from the state to "be prepared for going it alone" in case no tie-up happens with the Shiv Sena. Narendra Modi was addressing BJP workers from Kakinada, Narsapuram, Visakhapatnam, Machilipatnam, and Vizianagaram Lok Sabha constituencies through video conferencing as part of the 'Mera Booth Sabse Mazboot' initiative to strengthen the party organisation at the grassroots level ahead of the Lok Sabha polls next year. Amaravati: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday tore into the Chandrababu Naidu government, accusing it of indulging in scams and making friends with a "wicked" Congress, while reaffirming his government's commitment to the welfare of Andhra Pradesh. He blasted the ruling Telugu Desam Party for not remaining committed to its own ideology and spreading "blatant lies" against the Centre. Modi was addressing BJP workers from Kakinada, Narsapuram, Visakhapatnam, Machilipatnam, and Vizianagaram Lok Sabha constituencies through video conferencing as part of the "Mera Booth Sabse Mazboot" initiative to strengthen the party organisation at the grassroots level ahead of the Lok Sabha polls next year. "Late NT Rama Rao, who founded the TDP to promote the interests of Telugu people and to safeguard Telugu pride, always addressed Congress as 'dushta' (wicked). "And today, those in power are treating it as 'dost' (friend) Congress. Do they want to say that NTR was wrong?" Modi said, launching a scathing attack on Naidu. The TDP was part of the BJP-led NDA till a few months ago but walked out of the alliance over the Centre's refusal to grant special category status to Andhra Pradesh. He said everyone saw what happened to the "grand alliance" in Telangana in the recent assembly elections. The TDP had forged a four-party alliance with the Congress, CPM and the Telangana Jana Samithi for the polls. "They were totally rejected by the people. The same is going to happen in AP," the prime minister said. When party workers from Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram referred to the "mischievous campaign" against the Centre by the Naidu government, Modi noted that truth was the biggest weapon that could dispel such falsehood. "When lies are spread all around...government machinery completely misused to spread falsehood...then the biggest weapon will only be truth. Truth, truth and only truth can defeat the tsunami of lies," Modi asserted. "I am aware of what is going on in AP. I understand your pain. Do you expect the (TDP) government to go and tell people that they have not been able to fulfil any of their promises? They will naturally blame Modi," he said. Had the TDP government done some work, it could have talked about it. But since it had nothing to show to the people, it only spoke "lies and indulged in scams", the prime minister said, lashing out at the former alliance partner. Listing out what his government had done for the state in the last four years, the prime minister said close to Rs 20,000 crore was released as resource gap and revenue deficit funding. He said if the state government claimed it did not receive the money, then into whose pockets it had gone. Over Rs 1,000 crore was released for the development of seven backward districts but the state government was not able to provide utilization certificates on time, he claimed, wanting to know why the funds were not utilized for the welfare of people. The Polavaram irrigation scheme, he said, was declared a national project with 100 per cent central government funding. "We have so far released around Rs 7,000 crore for Polavaram. The state government was keen to be the executor of the work. We also accepted that. If CAG reports are to be believed, the state government has turned out to be inefficient in execution. Why are they not able to execute this project properly," he said. The prime minister said at least 10 educational institutions of national importance like AIIMS, IIT, IIM, NIT, IIIT, Indian Institute of Petroleum and Energy, Indian Institute of Science and Research, Central University and Tribal University were sanctioned and started in Andhra Pradesh. No state in the history of India ever got as many institutions as Andhra Pradesh had in the last four years, he said, adding no previous central government did so much for the state. "It does not matter what propaganda is spread against us. Our commitment to the people of AP is unshakeable. It becomes even stronger when such lies are spread," Modi asserted, and asked party workers to convince people about how those in power in the state were spreading "blatant lies." Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday accused the Congress of protecting those involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Gurdaspur: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday accused the Congress of protecting those involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, saying such leaders were even rewarded with the chief minister's post. The jibe, apparently directed at Kamal Nath, the new Madhya Pradesh chief minister, came during a rally where he also charged the Opposition party with deceiving farmers with loan waiver promises. Kamal Nath has in the past denied such allegations over the riots, saying he had nothing to do with them. The planned corridor between a gurdwara in Gurdaspur and a Sikh shrine in Kartarpur, just a few kilometres across the border with Pakistan, also figured in the address. Modi said the entire country had waited for justice for the past 35 years and wanted Congress leaders to be punished for it. Even today, this demand is there, he said. He alleged that files on such culprits were kept under wraps on the suggestion of one family, an apparent reference to the Gandhis. In an indirect reference to the recent conviction of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in one riot-related case, Modi added, The NDA government pulled out such files, set up the SIT (special investigation team) and now the results are before you. Modi also attacked the Congress for charging him with corruption in the Rafale deal with France for 36 military aircraft, saying the party was spreading lies to weaken the defence forces. He said the country needed to be wary of the Congress, claiming its history had been the glorification of one family. He said it was made up of people, who even today oppose the raising of Vande Mataram and Bharat Mata ki Jai slogans, whose history is of the massacre of thousands of Sikhs in cold blood, and those who even today reward the riot accused with the chair of the chief minister." Modi accused the national leaders at the time of Partition of failing to ensure that Kartarpur, where the founder of Sikhism spent his final years, did not go to Pakistan. For seven decades, devotees could get a glimpse of the historic gurdwara only through binoculars, he said. He said the NDA government took the historic decision to build the Kartarpur corridor, which will link Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur to Kartarpur Sahib. Without taking names, Modi took a dig at Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, who went against Chief Minister Amarinder Singh's advice and traveled to Pakistan for the groundbreaking ceremony of the planned corridor. He said the Congress leaders gave an opportunity to Pakistan through that trip. He hit out at the Congress for playing politics of lies and deceit on farm loan waivers. The Congress fooled the people for decades with the slogan of Garibi Hatao' (remove poverty) and now it is deceiving the country in the name of loan waivers, he said. The prime minister claimed this happened in Punjab as well, saying the Congress government in the state had waived only a small portion of the loans. Modi made similar claims about the Congress promises before the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and the recent Assembly elections in Karnataka. Arrest warrants are being issued against farmers for not paying back loans in Karnataka, he claimed. He said while the Congress governments had delayed the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission report, the BJP government at the Centre had implemented its recommendations on minimum support prices (MSP). Those who failed to find a solution to the farmers' woes for decades and kept delaying the decision on MSP, are now again throwing dust in the eyes of farmers with their false promises, he said. Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal and Union minister Harsimrat Kaur attended the rally, held by the BJP and the SAD to thank the prime minister for the development of the region. If Congress concedes to JD(S) demands, it will be a win-win situation for Gowda. But what the Congress doesn't want is to get caught in a lose-lose scenario in the Lok Sabha polls Two questions crop up in Karnataka with excruciating regularity. First, who is the state's real chief minister? Second, how long will the coalition government of the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) last? The two questions, spin-offs of each other, are once again being asked, as the power struggle within each party and between the two has reached new lows seven months after they came together to keep the BJP out of power. Fighting over crumbs of power is not uncommon in India's democracy, but what you see in Karnataka now is of a brazen kind that stirs up visions of vultures hovering over carcasses. Even 10 days after a long-delayed cabinet expansion, the coalition is still reeling under tantrums thrown by those who were not made ministers. As if petty squabbles over power-sharing aren't bad enough, a tug-of-war has already erupted over seat-sharing for the upcoming Lok Sabha election. All this only makes the coalition look like a clumsy zombie that lumbers along, ready to fall under its own weight at any time. The coming together of the Congress and JD(S), which was trumpeted earlier as a precursor to Opposition unity to fight the BJP nationally, is increasingly turning out to be an example of what a mahagathbandhan should not be. To start at the beginning, who is Karnataka's real chief minister? It's HD Kumaraswamy, silly. But that's the question many in both the JD(S) and Congress ask. Many think it's Kuamraswamy's elder brother and public works minister HD Revanna, who is the de facto chief minister. Revanna either takes key decisions or decides on the auspicious time when these should be taken or executed. Kumaraswamy and Revanna are sons of former prime minister HD Deve Gowda who, some claim, is the "super chief minister" above all. That isn't the end of it. JD(S) leaders are now accusing Congress honcho Siddaramaiah of "acting like" the chief minister. Many in the Congress, in fact, seem to think that it's Siddaramaiah, chief minister for five years till the May 2018 Assembly election, who calls all the shots in the party in Karnataka. With a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, Siddaramaiah hotly denies it, saying that it's only the wishes of the "high command" that he obeys. The "high command" is sometimes made to sound like a godlike, shapeless collective entity consisting of unnamed mystic characters, and it's sometimes personified as Rahul Gandhi. But the mention of it shuts Congress mouths, only till the question is raised once again about Siddaramaiah's real role in the affairs of the party as well as the coalition. For the record, Siddaramaiah is the head of a "coordination committee" comprising leaders of the two parties with the job of ensuring the coalitions smooth functioning. In reality, he is more than that. That was more than evident from the 22 December cabinet expansion which saw at least four of his nominees among the eight ministers inducted. Siddaramaiah once called himself a trouble-shooter, though he is often accused being a trouble-maker. The fight for plum departments that followed turned so bitter that it was only a week later and only at Rahul's intervention that the party was able to finally decide on portfolios. But replacing municipal administration minister Ramesh Jarkiholi with his elder brother Satish Jarkiholi has left wide open a rift in the party that may even lead to a few desertions, even if it doesnt result in the fall of the government. And divesting deputy chief minister G Parameshwara, a dalit, of the home portfolio and giving it to MB Patil, a Lingayat, has left many utterly discontented and frustrated. Horrors of seat-sharing Even as the party continues to reel under the repercussions of all this nobody yet knows what turn this may take, Gowda has sprung a nasty surprise on Congress over sharing Lok Sabha seats. The state has 28 Lok Sabha seats, of which JD(S) won only two in 2014. BJP won 17 and Congress, nine. But talks haven't begun over sharing seats. There is not even any talk on when to begin the talks. But that hasn't stopped Gowda from declaring that the JD(S) will contest 12 seats, while the Congress is willing to spare five. What matters more, however, is not how many seats but which ones. The JD(S) wants to take most of the seats in the Old Mysuru region where Gowda's Vokkaliga caste is dominant, but the Congress will insist on keeping most of these seats, where it either won or came in second in 2014. If JD(S) gets most of the Old Mysuru seats, the Congress can only get a bulk of its share from the rest of the state. In Old Mysuru, JD(S) can benefit from Congress vote banks. But in return, Congress can get little support from JD(S) elsewhere. If Congress concedes to JD(S) demands, it will be a win-win situation for Gowda. But what the Congress doesn't want is to get caught in a lose-lose scenario in the Lok Sabha polls. Rahul's advisors may have told him that running Congress is like walking the tightrope. But they may have forgotten to add that, if he didn't balance himself right, he could easily slip and fall to depths from which it's tough to rise. At the same time, the mess in Congress-JD(S) camp doesn't automatically translate into jubilation for BJP, which must first focus on setting its own divided house in order. Meanwhile, 156 of Karnataka's 176 taluks have been officially declared to be drought-hit with the northeastern monsoon failing the state to the extent of 49 percent rainfall deficit. But farmers can wait or even perish, as parties juggle their election arithmetic and indulge in ding-dong battles over loan waivers. The author tweets @sprasadindia Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Thursday attacked the BJP, accusing it of destabilising the government in Jammu and Kashmir. New Delhi: Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Thursday attacked the BJP, accusing it of destabilising the government in Jammu and Kashmir and trying to break National Conference (NC), PDP and Congress in the state. Initiating the debate on resolution to impose President's Rule in Jammu and Kashmir in Rajya Sabha, Azad said: "You made the government with fanfare in Jammu and Kashmir but BJP withdrew from it." "Why didn't you conduct elections? You took four months and tried to break Congress, NC and whosoever (PDP) did development in Kashmir. The moment you came to know that government cannot be formed, you dissolved the Assembly," he said. Azad further said: "We are secular forces. We want to have Kashmir with India. You withdrew security in the state and made them soft target (for militants)." He, however, supported the resolution moved by Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday, to approve proclamation issued by the president on 19 December, 2018 under Article 356 of the Constitution of India in relation to Jammu and Kashmir. The resolution has already been passed by the Lok Sabha on 28 December, 2018. Azad also pointed out that since Jammu and Kashmir governor has legislative and executive power, the governor brought 55 amendments in different law in such a sensitive state. He held BJP responsible for what he said was "100 percent alienation" in the state, alleging the government has brought this in the culture of state administration on how many Hindu or Muslim officials are appointed by them. He said there were maximum number of ceasefire violations during the last four years and a large number of people as well as animals were killed due to shelling. "We had given you a Kashmir which was known for communal harmony and development. But it not the same," he said. Azad also accused government of not creating enough employment opportunities in the state and said this led to youth who were trained as doctors, engineers and PhD holders, to join militancy. Replying to Azad's accusations, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said if the Congress leaders want to become statesmen, they have to get out of blame game. He also said the Congress cannot get away with its responsibility regarding the situation of alienation in the state because "stone pelting incident came to light in your golden era only." He also said: "You ruled the state and now you say that people are alienated". Jaitley said: "When history will decide which point of view Shyama Prasad Mukherjee or Jawaharlal Nehru was right, then you will have problem." Speaking on the debate, Derek O'Brien (TMC) attacked the BJP, saying, "Nationalism is not the copyright of one party...you pretend to be nationalist...ultra-nationalist...then heal Kashmir" and said that in actuality, it may be "anti-national". He said the government should not turn Kashmir into a "hell" from being a "paradise" and said the institutions in the country were being ruined one after the other be it "CBI, RBI, Parliament or its panels". He said there was a tendency to leave out Ladakh and Leh in discussions on Jammu and Kashmir. He sought an assurance from the government that elections in the state will be held either now or with Lok Sabha elections. He also took a jibe at the government, saying it was a peculiar situation where despite defence minister's presence in Lok Sabha, finance minister "replied" on defence issues and here in Rajya Sabha, despite home minister's presence, finance minister was speaking on Home Ministry issues. Ram Gopal Yadav (SP) said government should refrain from the propaganda of "surgical strike" and keep country's interest paramount. A Navaneethakrisnan (AIADMK) demanded that the presidential proclamation should be revoked at the earliest. Anubhav Mohanty (BJD) said parties should rise above petty party politics. TK Rangarajan (CPM) wanted to know whether the government was ordering any inquiry into the death of civilians in the state in the last three years by a sitting Supreme Court judge. Manoj Kumar Jha (RJD) said of late, the definition of patriotism was being changed and wondered if NSA would take political decisions. D Raja (CPI) said imposition of Article 356 was unconstitutional on part of the Centre and should have been invoked in extraordinary circumstances. Rakesh Sinha (BJP), MM Fayaz (J&K PDP) and Majid Memon (NCP), TKS Elangovan (DMK) and Sanjay Singh (AAP) also spoke. Rajnath Singh was replying to a debate on a statutory resolution for promulgation of President's Rule in Jammu and Kashmir where the Assembly was dissolved on 21 November. New Delhi: The government on Thursday said it is ready to hold Assembly polls in the centrally-ruled Jammu and Kashmir along with the upcoming Lok Sabha polls if the Election Commission (EC) so desires. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh also said in the Rajya Sabha that it is ready to accept any suggestion from any party for restoring peace in the militancy-hit state. He was replying to a debate on a statutory resolution for promulgation of President's Rule in the state where the Assembly was dissolved on 21 November. The resolution, which has already been passed by the Lok Sabha, was later approved by the House, endorsing the decision taken on 20 December. Singh said restoration of peace and normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir is linked to the integrity of the country and the government is working in this direction. Regarding the timing of the Assembly elections, he said conducting polls is the responsibility of the Election Commission and not that of the government. "From our side, there is no objection (to holding of elections). Whatsoever number of forces the Election Commission wants, we are ready to give," the Home Minister said. Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad specifically asked whether the government would, on its own, recommend to the Election Commission to hold the Assembly elections along with the Lok Sabha polls which are due in a few months. In his response, Singh said, "if the Election Commission wants, we have no objection". The Home Minister said he keeps asking senior leaders of the state, including Azad, as to what should be done to restore peace in the militancy-hit state. "For restoring peace in Jammu and Kashmir, I am ready to accept all suggestions," he said. "Tell me one, two, three, four, five suggestions, we are ready to implement," he told the members. He said it is not that the government wants the current situation to continue in Jammu and Kashmir. "To say that we are responsible for the current situation will not be fair," the minister said. Amit Shah gave this message at a meeting with Maharashtra BJP MPs in Delhi on Wednesday, said an MP who was present. Mumbai: BJP president Amit Shah has reportedly asked the party's Maharashtra MPs to be prepared to contest the ensuing elections alone in the state. Shah gave this message at a meeting with Maharashtra BJP MPs in Delhi on Wednesday, said an MP who was present. "Shah asked us to prepare for the possibility of contesting elections alone in the state if needed," the MP said. "The BJP president told us that efforts are on to have an alliance with the Sena but if that did not materialise, we should be prepared to fight the polls alone," he said. BJP is in alliance with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and at the Centre. The Sena has been critical of BJP and its leaders have spoken of contesting the Lok Sabha elections alone. Targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Shiv Sena on Thursday wondered when would the Ram temple be constructed in Ayodhya if not during the tenure of the BJP-led government. Shiv Sena has also backed the Opposition's demand for a JPC probe in the Rafale fighter aircraft purchase deal. "Shah said that if need be, we should be prepared to contest all 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra," the MP said. A senior Maharashtra BJP leader told PTI that Shah was "very clear" in telling the party MPs from the state to "be prepared for going it alone" in case no tie-up happens with the Shiv Sena. A section of AAP leaders and workers from Punjab raised concern over the possibility of an alliance with Congress for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. New Delhi: A section of AAP leaders and workers from Punjab raised concern over the possibility of an alliance with Congress for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls at a meeting with party's national convener Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday. In the four-hour meeting of the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) held at Kejriwal's residence in New Delhi, the party's Punjab unit expressed reservations about joining hands with the Rahul Gandhi-led party. AAP is the main Opposition in Punjab where the government is headed by the Congress. Senior AAP leader Gopal Rai told reporters that the PAC will consider the opinion of party leaders and workers from Punjab, Haryana and Delhi in a meeting after 15 January, and take a decision on alliances as per the existing situation. AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said, "As of now, we have no alliance with any party. We are not saying anything on the future plans of the party." The National Council of AAP had in its meeting last week decided to contest all 33 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Goa and Chandigarh. The party, however, is still undecided over any pre-poll alliance with the Congress or the 'mahagathbandhan' of various non-BJP parties. "In the meeting with Kejriwal, some persons pointed out AAP was the main opposition in Punjab where Congress is the ruling party, which has failed to fulfil its promises, so it will be difficult to contest the elections (with Congress)," Rai said. The meeting was attended by around 800 AAP office-bearers, party MLAs and MPs from Punjab. The Haryana party unit will meet Kejriwal on Friday followed by the party's Delhi representatives. Such meetings will continue till 15 January. Rai said Punjab AAP unit's core committee has been asked to shortlist the names of candidates on all the seats and send the same to the PAC for a final decision. The party has already announced its candidates on five seats in the state. The booth-level organisation in Punjab will be strengthened under the stewardship of block in-charges till January 30. Afterwards, a door-to-door campaign will be launched to reach out to the voters, the AAP leader said. An agitation against high power tariff in the northern state has also been planned by the AAP, Rai added. The Supreme Court on Thursday pulled up the Meghalaya government over the plight of the 15 miners who have been trapped in a rat hole coal mine since 13 December. The bench expressed its displeasure over the inadequate steps taken by the state to rescue the workers in the flooded quarry. The Supreme Court on Thursday pulled up the Meghalaya government over the plight of the 15 miners who have been trapped in a rat hole coal mine since 13 December. A bench of justices AK Sikri and Abdul Nazeer expressed its displeasure over the inadequate steps taken by the state to rescue the workers in the flooded quarry, The Leaflet reported. "We are not satisfied. It is a question of life and death," the judges said. "No matter whether they are all dead, some alive, few dead or all alive, they should be taken out. We pray to God they are alive." The 15 miners have been trapped in a 370-feet deep illegal mine in Lumthari village since 13 December, when water from the nearby Lytein river flooded the quarry. Though three helmets have been retrieved, at least seven of the miners' families have already given up hope of the miners being rescued alive. They have requested the government to retrieve the bodies to conduct the last rites. The Supreme Court has asked the Meghalaya government to spell out the measures it is taking to rescue the miners and whether the state is collaborating with the Centre in its operations. The bench also asked petitioner Aditya N Prasad, who had sought urgent steps to recuse the trapped workers, to call a law officer of the Centre so appropriate order can be taken immediately. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta was asked to appraise the court on Friday about the Centre's current actions and steps it plans to take in future to rescue the miners, Bar and Bench reported. While senior advocate Anand Grover submitted to the court that there is no coordination among the agencies roped in to rescue the labourers, the Meghalaya government told the court that it is, in fact, working with the Centre to rescue them. "The state is taking steps to rescue the trapped miners. As many as 72 NDRF personnel, 14 navy personnel and Coal India personnel have been working since 14 December," ANI quoted state government officials as saying. In response, the Supreme Court asked: "Then why are they not successful?" The matter of the miners trapped in the rat hole mine in the East Jaintia Hills was mentioned for urgent listing on Wednesday before a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice SK Kaul. This was after navy divers, on Monday, successfully entered the inundated rat hole coal mine in Meghalaya as part of their rescue operations. A 15-member diving team of the navy from Vishakhapatnam had arrived in Meghalaya on Saturday to help with the operation. Rat hole mining involves digging pits ranging from 5 to 100 metres deep vertically into the ground, mostly on a hillside, like a narrow well, to reach the coal seam. These pits are so narrow that only one miner can enter at a time. With inputs from PTI Taking cognisance of the issue, the Supreme Court bench headed by Justice AK Sikri directed Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath led BJP government to take requisite actions in order to provide mental healthcare and treatment at the earliest. People with psychological disorders shackled like cattle, their feet tied with iron chains and padlocked for days, months and years this is the sight at a dirty shed in Uttar Pradesh's Badaun where men and women, young and old, suffering from mental illnesses are kept and abused. The heart-wrenching incident came to light after a lawyer, a resident of South Delhi filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking the enforcement and protection of civil, political and fundamental rights of an underprivileged and deprived section of society. Advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal believes that "chaining and restraining, confining of persons with mental illness in Faith-Based Mental Asylum shows that there is a huge gap in providing mental health and treatment to the needy in our country." "Persons with mental illness are subjected to high level of discrimination because of States and Union Territories have failed to break the stigma, whether religious, social, political, associated with persons with mental illness," adds Bansal. Taking cognisance of the issue, the Supreme Court bench headed by Justice AK Sikri directed Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath led BJP government to take requisite actions in order to provide mental healthcare and treatment at the earliest. "It is a matter of serious concern and is against the provision of rights of a person under Article 21 of the Constitution. The dignity of such persons can't be compromised," said the bench. According to Article 21, every person with mental illness shall not only have a right to live with dignity but shall be protected from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. In India, the World Health Organisation estimates 2,443 disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) per 100,000 population are lost a year, while the age-adjusted suicide rate per 100,000 population is 21.1. The economic loss due to mental health conditions in India has been pegged at 1.03 trillion of 2019 US dollars for the period 2012-2030. Mental health workforce in India (per 100,000 population) include psychiatrists (0.3), nurses (0.12), psychologists (0.07) and social workers (0.07). On a closer look, along with India, another country-Indonesia too is struggling to end human shackling. In 2016, Human Rights Watch exposed shackling of as many as 18,000 psychosocially disable people. The administration has taken a vow to curb such menace by raising awareness and providing medical health services to the needy. However, at present, more than 12,800 people are still shackled-to beds, cement blocks, or in animal pens. Yogi Adityanath told the DMs to ensure that farmers and others do not face any problems due to stray cattle. The district magistrates should impose fines on those who come to the shelters to claim their cows after abandoning them. Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has given all district magistrate about a week to ensure stray cattle across the state are shifted to cow shelters, officials said. The directions were given at a video conference on Wednesday night with all District Magistrates, amid reports that stray cattle were destroying crops. In parts of the state, farmers have reportedly herded stray cattle into places like government schools to save their crops. "Adityanath directed strict action against owners of stray cattle and those locking up the animals in government buildings," an official said. He has asked that stray animals, including cattle, should be sent to shelters by 10 January. The directive follows a recent state government decision to levy a 0.5 percent cow welfare cess on some public sector undertakings to help construct and maintain more cow shelters. "Stray cattle sometimes become a reason for road accidents in urban areas. They also destroy crops in rural areas and can create law and order issues. All DMs should therefore take necessary action so that such issues do not happen," Adityanath said during the video conference. Wednesday night's meeting was also attended by Chief Secretary Anup Chandra Pandey and other top officials. The chief minister told the DMs to ensure that farmers and others do not face any problems due to stray cattle. The district magistrates should impose fines on those who come to the shelters to claim their cows after abandoning them. He said the authorities should ensure proper fencing at cow shelters and see that arrangements for feeding and veterinary care are in place. He said help from traders, businessmen and people's representatives should be sought in running 'kanji houses', the shelters were cows are currently kept. Adityanath has held a series of meetings after angry farmers locked stray cows in government buildings in some other parts of the state. Recently, people in at least two villages in Aligarh and Firozabad districts rounded up stray cattle and herded them into government schools, refusing to let classes run until the administration did something about the animals. The Adityanath government has cracked down on illegal slaughterhouses in the state and tasked the police to prevent cow slaughter. The chief minister said the funds allotted for cow welfare Rs 60 crore in 2017-18 and Rs 95 crore in 2018-19 should be used effectively. The state government had on Tuesday decided to introduce an additional levy of 0.5 percent as cow welfare cess on eight profit-making public sector infrastructure companies to fund the construction and maintenance of cow shelters. The cess will also apply on travel on some expressways where motorists already pay a toll. "The new cow shelters will be opened in all villages, panchayats, municipalities, nagar panchayats and municipal corporations," officials said. The shelters will have a capacity to hold at least 1,000 animals, they said. The Kerala Tourism Development Corporation-run facility on the arterial Greams Road was attacked on Wednesday night, a police official said, adding that a probe was on. Chennai: A Kerala government-run hotel in Chennai was attacked on Wednesday night by unidentified persons in suspected backlash over two women of menstruating age entering the Sabarimala temple in the neighbouring state. The Kerala Tourism Development Corporation-run facility on the arterial Greams Road was attacked on Wednesday night, a police official said, adding that a probe was on. According to initial inputs, the outer glass panes in the hotel, including those at a security kiosk, were damaged in the attack, he said. "As soon as we got a call, the local strength (of personnel under Thousand Lights jurisdiction) was rushed there," the official said. Though the attack was suspected to be a fallout of two women entering the Sabarimala temple in neighbouring Kerala, the official said since the probe was at a "very preliminary stage" nothing could be confirmed as of now. Further details are awaited. The hartal, which began at 6 am, has been called by Sabarimala Karma Samithi, an umbrella organisation of various pro-Hindutva groups, spearheading protests against the Supreme Court's 28 September verdict, and Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP). Thiruvananthapuram: A dawn-to-dusk 12-hour hartal called by Hindu outfits began Thursday morning in protest against the entry of two women of menstruating age into the Sabarimala temple of Lord Ayyappa. As per initial reports, auto-rickshaws and two-wheelers were plying at the railway station in the state capital and various other places. But in Kozhikode, protesters blocked vehicles and burnt tyres in the morning. The hartal, which began at 6 am, has been called by Sabarimala Karma Samithi, an umbrella organisation of various pro-Hindutva groups, spearheading protests against the Supreme Court's 28 September verdict, and Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP). The BJP is supporting the shutdown while the Congress-led UDF is observing a "black day" on Thursday. Two women, Kanakadurga (44) and Bindu (42), created history be stepping into the hallowed precincts guarded by police, three months after the Supreme Court's historic judgement lifting the ban on entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its "eternally celibate" deity. As the news spread like wildfire from the hill shrine, protests erupted at several places, with Hindu right-wing activists blocking highways and forcing the closure of shops and markets. BJP and CPM workers clashed in front of the Secretariat for over five hours Wednesday as police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse them. A 55-year-old man, who was seriously injured in stone throwing at Pandalam, died late Wednesday night. Merchants' organisations have said they would not cooperate with the hartal and keep shops and business establishments open. Meanwhile, state DGP Loknath Behara has warned of strict action against those indulging in violence during the hartal. Various universities, including Kerala, Mahatma Gandhi, Calicut and Kannur have postponed their examinations scheduled for Thursday. Kerala witnessed widespread stone pelting, blocking of vehicles and incidents of violence and vandalism on Thursday as the Hindu outfits called for a dawn-to-dusk hartal in the state against the entry of two women of menstruating age into the Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala. Kerala witnessed widespread stone pelting, blocking of vehicles and incidents of violence and vandalism on Thursday as the Hindu outfits called for a dawn-to-dusk hartal in the state against the entry of two women of menstruating age into the Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala. The 12-hour-long hartal, called by the Sabarimala Karma Samithi, an umbrella organisation of various pro-Hindutva groups, and the Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP), hit normal life in the initial hours. Reportedly, four BJP workers were stabbed in Thrissur and one of them succumbed to his injuries. A 55-year-old man, who was seriously injured in stone pelting at Pandalam, had died late on Wednesday night, police said. Two Congress workers were also injured after a vehicle in Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's cavalcade hit them. Youth Congress workers had tried to show black flags to the chief minister when the accident took place. State-run KSRTC buses, which were pelted with stones during the violence on Wednesday by anti-women entry agitators, kept away from roads in many districts. Adding to the woes of the public, the number of autorickshaws plying was very low. A large number of passengers, including women and children, were seen stranded at bus stands and railway stations across the state. A 64-year old woman, Pathumma from Wayanad who came for treatment at the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC), collapsed and died at the railway station here in the morning, following which her relatives alleged that a delay in getting ambulance service resulted in her death. Shops and hotels remained closed in the state capital. However, defying the hartal call, several merchants opened shops in SM Street, a major traders' hub in Kozhikode, Kochi and Kollam under police security. The merchants' organisations had said they would not extend support to the hartal and keep shops and business establishments open. Television channels aired visuals of protesters forcibly downing shutters of shops in various districts since the hartal began at 6 am. The protesters burnt tyres and placed granite blocks on roads to check vehicle transport in Kozhikode, Palakkad and Kollam. The local party offices of the ruling CPM were pelted with stones in Ernakulam and Malappuram districts, police said. A library managed by the Left party in Palakkad was vandalised by protesters. Autorickshaws and private buses suffered damage during stone pelting in Kannur and Kozhikode, the police said. Besides buses, police patrol vehicles were also attacked in some places. The BJP is supporting the shutdown while the Congress-led UDF is observing a "black day" on Thursday. A large number of protesters were arrested in various districts in connection with the violent incidents but the police is yet to divulge the total number of people arrested across the state. At least 22 people were arrested in Malappuram and 12 in Kannur in connection with violence Wednesday night and this morning, police said. Meanwhile, the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala witnessed a heavy rush of devotees despite the hartal and roadblocks in the morning, shrine sources said. Two women, Kanakadurga (44) and Bindu (42), had created history on Wednesday by entering the shrine guarded by police three months after the Supreme Court's historic judgement lifting the ban on entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its "eternally celibate" deity. As the news spread like wildfire from the hill shrine, protests erupted at several places, with Hindu right-wing activists blocking highways and forcing a closure of shops and markets. BJP and CPM workers clashed in front of the Secretariat here for over five hours on Wednesday as police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse them. State DGP Loknath Behara warned of strict action against those indulging in violence during the hartal. Various universities including the Kerala, Mahatma Gandhi, Calicut and Kannur ones have postponed their examinations scheduled for Thursday. However, at a press conference, Vijayan said that the state government was bound to implement the Supreme Court order lifting the ban on women's entry into Sabarimala temple. "It is the government's responsibility to protect women. The state government has fulfilled its responsibility. The RSS and BJP are turning Sabarimala into a warzone. People of Kerala are not against women entering the temple. The state government now has been forced to intervene in order to prevent any clash. We will take strict actions against any protester seen taking part in violence," he said. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, while clarifying his party's stand on the issue, said: "We are in favour of women's empowerment but it is a matter of faith. The Congress' stand is clear. We are criticising the state government on the needlessly provocative actions at a time when the pilgrimage season was going on peacefully. And at the same time, we're criticising the BJP for its acts of violence, vandalism, and destruction. We believe that reducing a sanctified place to a stage for political theatre is a shameful act by both parties. We stand with the believers. " Meanwhile, the Kerala Police has said that it will investigate the attacks on mediapersons across the state and probe if it was part of a conspiracy. According to The Indian Express, Behera said in a press release, that the district police heads have been instructed to create special teams to investigate the cases. The IB has also been alerted to gather intelligence on the same. With inputs from PTI Both Bindu and Kanakadurga, who left the Sabarimala shrine immediately after the darshan are unable to return home due to the state-wide protests. Even as women activists are showering praises on Bindu Ammini and Kanakadurga, the two women who entered the Sabarimala Lord Ayyappa temple on 2 January, for the courage they displayed in defying the right-wing outfits opposing the entry of menstruating women in the temple, they unable to respond to the adulation. Both Bindu and Kanakadurga, who left the hill shrine immediately after the darshan are unable to return home due to the statewide protests mounted by the pro-Hindutva outfits. The two are now believed to be holed up in a secret location under police protection. They had planned to convene a press conference on Wednesday to share their experience with the media. However, the police forced them to cancel the meet on security grounds. The cops later took the two, who hail from north Kerala, to an undisclosed destination through another route. According to sources, their current whereabouts are not even known to their family members. KV Hariharan, Bindu's husband, said that he was not even able to communicate with his wife as she is not allowed to use her mobile phone. It wont be possible for her to communicate with anybody or return home until the protests subside. I dont think the protests will end soon, he added. The police are not revealing any details about the two women since most women who attempted to enter the temple earlier faced the wrath of the protesters and the houses of many of them had come under attack even after they abandoned their move to visit the temple. Bindus house at Koyilandy in Kozhikode district and Kanakadurgas house at Thattakam in Malappuram district too had witnessed similar protests when they made an aborted attempt to enter the temple on the eve of Christmas. The protesters had thronged their houses after news about their entry in the temple came out on Wednesday, and staged sit-in protests there. More than 100 police personnel have been deployed at the houses of the two women to foil possible attacks. A senior officer at Kozhikode said that they were maintaining a close vigil at the houses and their surrounding areas. The officer, who did not want to be identified, said that the situation was not safe now for the women to return to their homes. The protests are likely to continue for a long time if the widespread violence reported from across the state during the hartal is any indication. Though the government had stepped up security and made elaborate arrangements to ensure normalcy in the state, the hartal supporters went on a rampage attacking shops, vehicles, mediapersons and political party offices in several parts of the state. However, the journey of Bindu and Kanakadurga to Sabarimala was trouble-free as it was meticulously planned and executed by a four-member team of men with the help of a special police force. According to a report in The Times of India, the team, which included a psychologist, had prepared the ground for the visit after careful observation of the area, movement of the devotees and protesters, crowd temperament and the sleeping time of devotees. The Thrissur-based team accompanied Bindu and Kanakadurga to Sabarimala. Escorted by 20 to 30 policemen in civil uniform, the six left from an undisclosed location to Sabarimala around midnight on 1 January. They reached Pamba at 2 am on Wednesday and entered the shrine after a two-hour trek. Quoting a member of the team, The Times of India's report said that the police had taken them through the back gate, where there were no protesters at that time. Bindu and Kanakadurga had approached the team for support after they were forced to abandon their first attempt on 24 December. The team gave them the go-ahead after conducting four trials. The two had also gained an idea about the route to Sabarimala and the response of the devotees and protesters present there during their first visit. Kanakadurga said that they had faced a mob of protesters the last time as they had announced their visit. Moreover, they had covered their faces this time to escape close attention. The police escorted the women in plain clothes. The two trekked their way to the hilltop along with other devotees without being noticed as the devotees weren't expecting women to climb up the temple premises in the wee hours. The BJP and the Congress-led opposition United Democratic Front (UDF), which have been opposing the entry of the menstruating women in Sabarimala, refused to accept the entry of the two women in the hill shrine as a mark of the faith. UDF convenor Benny Behnan said that the visit of Bindu and Kanakadurga to Sabarimala on Wednesday was an "operation sponsored by the Left Democratic Front government". The two women came camouflaged in darkness and the police gave them protection. The two were Left activists, who were taken to Sabarimala to further the ruling fronts agenda. Their visit will not help women in exercising the right granted to them by the 28 September Supreme Court verdict which opened the doors of the temple to young women, he said. Meanwhile, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan denied that the state government had given any special consideration to the two women. "They were not airdropped to Sabarimala but went as normal devotees. Kanakadurga and Bindu were given protection after they sought security to visit the shrine," he told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday. Vijayan pointed out that none of the devotees raised any protest against the visit of the women. "The BJP and the Sangh Parivar launched the protests for their political gains. They launched the protests several hours after the reports about the womens visit to Sabarimala appeared in the media, the chief minister said. Vijayan also said that the BJP and the Sangh Parivar were unleashing violence in the name of protests as part of their move to create communal conflicts in the state and gain political mileage from it. Asserting that his government will not allow anybody to take the law into their hands, Vijayan said that the government will continue to provide protection to any woman who comes forward to visit the Sabarimala temple. Women activists have termed the entry of the two women aged below 50 years in Sabarimala as a historic moment that will inspire women to fight the gender discrimination meted out to them in the society. Advocate Asha Unnithan said that the two wouldn't have been able to enter the temple had they not shown the courage to defy the protesters. The fact that they were supported by the police or that they entered the temple during darkness was immaterial. This does not reduce the importance of the act. The support extended to them by the government is not a favour, but their right. Bindu and Kanakadurga have succeeded in upholding the values of the Constitution. This is a historic moment in the history of Kerala, the activist said. K Ajitha, activist and Anweshi, a womens organisation based in Kozhikode, said that the two had upheld the honour of Malayali women. I am glad that the women who finally entered the temple are from Kerala. This has quashed the notion that women are weak, she added. Bindu, a 42-year-old lecturer in the School of Legal Studies in Kannur University and 44-year-old Kanaka Durga who works in the Civil Supplies Department in Malappuram unobtrusively entered the Sabarimala temple at 3.30 am on 2 January. Bindu, a 42-year-old lecturer in the School of Legal Studies in Kannur University and 44-year-old Kanaka Durga who works in the Civil Supplies Department in Malappuram unobtrusively entered the Sabarimala temple at 3.30 am on 2 January. They walked in with other devotees, their faces uncovered, clad in black and carrying the irumuddi kettu on their heads. They did not sneak in stealthily as their opponents alleged. They were neither foreigners, nor activists nor feminists (all words of insult in todays charged atmosphere). They were regular Malayali women who said they had observed all the rituals just like their male counterparts who accompanied them. They entered and left peacefully protected by a group of unobtrusive policemen. The other pilgrims did not even realise a historic step had been taken. Yes, it was a historic step. It was not the first time ever that women in the prohibited age group had entered the sanctum sanctorum of the Sabarimala temple and probably not the last. What made their entry unique was the fact that they were the first to enter the temple after the Supreme Court verdict was passed and hence they had the backing of law behind them. Will this first step be the harbinger of something bigger? Will women now be able to enter the temple and pray if they wish to without being questioned about their age, their menstrual cycles, their political affiliations, their activism or their stand on womens issues? Will they, just like their menfolk, be able to walk into the temple without being harangued, threatened and insulted? This first step might be historic, but the battle has just begun. When the temple priests came to know about this event, they closed the temple down and purified the sanctum sanctorum for an hour before they threw open the doors again. The same sanctorum which activist Rahul Easwar had famously declared, some time ago, that he and his followers would protect by urinating and spilling blood near the sacred 18 steps to prevent impure women from entering. He forgot then perhaps that the unclean menstrual blood of women had given him and his band of boys life The archaic tradition of purification is as offensive as it is prevalent. In Kerala, even a century ago, lower caste mortals were not allowed to walk on the same roads or even be seen by a high caste Brahmin. Brahmins polluted by their sight or touch would have to purify themselves. Across most castes and communities menstruating women were considered impure. Any contact with them would require purification. In Kerala, reform came in a big way thanks to far-sighted individuals like Sri Narayana Guru, spiritual leader of the Ezhavas and EMS Namboodiripad, Chief Minister of the first democratically elected Communist government. They fought retrograde forces to give dignity to the oppressed. Side by side, women in Kerala had also over decades fought for many rights including the right to cover their breasts. In 1936 the historic Temple Entry Proclamation was issued by Maharaja Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma who threw the temple doors open to Avarnas who were hitherto prevented from entering. But the road leading to this event was not smooth. In 1924, during the famous Vaikkom Satyagraha, Ezhavas led by Sri Narayana Guru and his disciple Kumaran Asan had demanded the right for Avarnas to walk on public roads. This revolt was centered around the famous Shiva temple in Vaikkom where the roads surrounding the temple were barred to Avarnas. When Sri Narayana guru himself was prevented from entering the road one day before the start of the Satyagraha, the editorial of the Malayala Manorama said, If a venerable sage like Sree Narayana Guru and his disciple Mahakavi Kumaran Asan were driven away from the road around the temple by a drunken upper caste buffoon in the name of caste, can their people take it lying down? If they rise up in revolt can any authority stop them by force? So Kerala does, in fact, have a history of taking action and throwing out hurtful traditions. But once more the path is not smooth. On 1 January 2019, a Vanitha Madhil (womens wall) was created by five million-strong women from across the state. They said they were not focusing on the temple entry issue but were supporting a Renaissance movement to prevent Kerala from being pushed back into the Dark Ages. A few days before that an Ayyappa Jyoti event was organised by the Karma Samithi and the Nair Service Society where thousands of women from across the state lit lamps along the highways crisscrossing the state in support of the temple entry ban. These were the willing to wait women who did not want to go against tradition. The Sabarimala entry issue has certainly thrown up some strange bedfellows and even stranger situations. It has made the usually suave supporter of womens rights Shashi Tharoor turn into a supporter of an irrational tradition even at the cost of being accused of defying the Supreme Court. It has got Rahul Gandhi and Amit Shah fighting over the same voters' constituency because they think they see bigger political gains in supporting the ban on womens entry into the temple. It has made people who have not observed a single ritual or tradition in their lives suddenly become all sanctimonious when it comes to permitting women into the hilltop shrine. It has made the Communist parties plunge into temple politics. It has pitted the right to pray women against the right to wait women. A young school teacher who said she believed it was her right to enter the Sabarimala temple unquestioned said, I know many men who have no bhakti at all and who do not observe any of the rituals entering the temple without being questioned. Why do I not have the same rights? I should be able to go when I wish and no one has the right to ask me any personal questions. On a side event of the Vanitha Madhil, women artists created another wall of powerful paintings. One of them, painted by Sreeja, an executive member of the Lalithkala Academy was a striking figure of a dark woman with a glowing uterus. She said she believed a womans uterus was the home of the next generation and should be viewed as the epitome of purity. Will these loud and clear messages reach the ears of the people who matter? Many battles have been fought and won in the past many archaic traditions have been shed by the wayside. Will this one also be shed? Or will there be more court cases... more street battles. All in the name of a god, who according to the myth retreated to the hilltop shrine to find peace. Alongside the triple talaq bill, Rajya Sabha will also take up for consideration and passing the National Council for Technical Education (NCTE) Amendment Bill 2018, and Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Amendment Bill 2018, the Appropriation (No 6) Bill 2018. New Delhi: The Rajya Sabha will take up the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill '18, popularly known as triple talaq Bill, on Thursday for consideration and passing. The Bill criminalises the practice of instant triple talaq with a provision of 3 years' imprisonment to the husband. The Upper House could not discuss the Bill on Wednesday due to repeated adjournments following the ruckus created by opposition members over the Bill and the Centre's approval to Karnataka's Mekedattu dam on Cauvery river. The Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on 27 December, 2018, with 245 votes in favour and 11 against the Bill. The opposition parties want the Bill to be sent to the Select Committee of Parliament for further vetting, a demand rejected by the Centre. According to the list of business, the Upper House will also take up for consideration and passing the National Council for Technical Education (NCTE) Amendment Bill 2018, and Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Amendment Bill 2018, and the Appropriation (No 6) Bill 2018. Union Shipping and Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari will also make a statement on the Mekedattu project of Karnataka. AIADMK leader and Deputy Lok Sabha Speaker M Thambi Durai has said the Centre's nod to Mekedattu project is the BJP's electoral ploy. The winter session of Parliament, which began on 11 December, will conclude on 8 January. Delhi Journalist Association (DJA), an affiliate of National Union of Journalists described Rahul Gandhi's comments as 'unwarranted and unbecoming of a senior leader of a national political party.' New Delhi: Journalist organisations on Thursday criticised Congress president Rahul Gandhi for describing the Group Editor of ANI as "pliable" over her wide-ranging interview with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying it lowers the "dignity of discourse" and "amounts to shooting the messenger". Delhi Journalist Association (DJA), an affiliate of National Union of Journalists, asked the Congress party to "express regret" and "apologise" in keeping with its "long and brilliant past". In a statement issued in Delhi, the DJA said, "badmouthing a journalist simply because she conducted an interview with a rival political leader is in poor taste and amounts to shooting the messenger." It described Gandhi's comments made on Wednesday as "unwarranted and unbecoming of a senior leader of a national political party." The Press Club of India, Indian Women's Press Corps and Press Association issued a joint statement separately, saying the media expects "restraint from political class" at large while commenting on them. "We the undersigned organizations express concern over the gradual decline in nature of political discourse, more so in a highly polarized political environment," the three organisations said. "Terms like 'presstitute' used by a former union minister and more recently 'pliable' by the president of a political party for the media are inappropriate and lower the dignity of discourse in general," they added. These organisations urged all sections of civil society including sections of political leadership cutting across all political parties to be temperate in their criticism towards each other as well as towards the Indian media. "While journalists are expected of neutrality, we, as media, too expect restraint from political class at large while commenting on them especially when the political atmosphere is getting charged in view of the coming general elections in the country," the joint statement said. They also expressed deep concern over the continued incarceration of Manipur journalist Kishorechand Wangkhem under the National Security Act for his social media post criticising members of the ruling party at the state and centre. "We reiterate our demand that the charges against Mr Wangkhem be dropped, more so after he was exonerated earlier by a court that did not find anything seditious in his remarks," they added. The DJA said it was "not amused at use of adjective 'pliable' by Indian National Congress President Rahul Gandhi for the ANI interviewer who conducted a wide-ranging and long interview with Prime Minister Narendra Modi." It said it is "of the opinion that journalists have a professional responsibility to seek information, ask questions and get answers. "All journalists everywhere know that making your interview subject uneasy is not the best strategy and turning an interview into interrogation or inquisition may dry the information channels and thus become counter-productive," the statement said. The DJA said that many Congress stalwarts were journalists and they knew media ethics. "We expect the party to reiterate its respect for the freedom and dignity of the press," said the statement. By performing the 'purification' process at Sabarimala, the temple priests reduced the two women to the abolished status of 'untouchables', implying that they had contaminated the shrine in some way. Two women made history on Wednesday when they entered the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala in Kerala. Guarded by the police, 44-year-old Kanakadurga and 42-year-old Bindu offered prayers at the shrine three months after the Supreme Court lifted the ban on the entry of women of menstruating age inside the temple. To break the centuries-old tradition, the two women wore black veils and entered the temple in the early morning darkness. They had began their trek to the hill shrine at midnight and got their darshan around 3.45 am, after which temple authorities shut the shrine to perform a "purification" ritual for an hour. Although the temple officials had been vehemently opposing the 28 September verdict of the Supreme Court, their move to "purify" the temple after the two women offered their prayers at the shrine strongly undermines Justice DY Chandrachud's observations in the verdict, comparing the practice of barring women from entering the temple to untouchabilty, which is abolished in India under Article 17 of the Constitution. "The social exclusion of women, based on menstrual status, is a form of untouchability, which is anthaema to constitutional values. Notions of 'purity' and 'pollution', which stigmatise individuals, have no place in a constitutional order," Chandrachud had observed. "To treat women as children of a lesser god is to blink at the Constitution itself." "Religion cannot be cover to deny women the right to worship... Exclusion of women because she menstruates is utterly unconstitutional," he had observed, adding that the prohibition on women was due to "non-religious reasons". Justice Chandrachud's observation that "notions of 'purity' and 'pollution'...have no place in a constitutional order" applies in this context as the "purification" ritual that temple priests performed at Sabarimala prima facie is a blatant violation of this order. "Purifying" the temple would imply that by entering the Lord Ayyappa shrine and offering prayers to their god, the women had defiled the shrine and necessitating the "purification" process. This is akin to the treatment meted out to those deemed "untouchables". For instance, cases where water bodies would be "purified" if an "untouchable" ventured into it. The latest development in Sabarimala is reminiscent of this old practice of ostracising those the society deemed untouchable. By performing the "purification" ritual, the priests reduced the two women to the same abolished status of untouchables. The Chief Justice Dipak Misra-headed Constitution bench had observed in the 4:1 ruling that patriarchy in religion cannot "trump over" devotion. It had also rejected the vehement submissions of the Travancore Devaswom Board, which runs the temple, and ruled that the devotees of Lord Ayyappa are "exclusively Hindus" and do not constitute a "separate religious denomination". Senior advocate Indira Jaising, in a submission in the case in the Supreme Court, had also said: "The practice of exclusion based on menstruation constitutes a form of untouchability and is prohibited by Article 17 of the Constitution." Amicus Curiae Raju Ramachandran had also observed that the "prohibition against untouchability in Article 17 extends to the denial of entry to women between the age group of 10 and 50", which further emphasises the glaring violation this "purification" process was, stigmatising the two women. As news of the two women entering Sabarimala spread, Sangh Parivar outfits took to the streets across Kerala, blocking traffic, burning tyres on main roads and stoning buses. In Thiruvananthapuram, the police used water canons and tear gas to disperse clashing CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist) and Sangh Parivar activists. Protests were also reported from Kochi, Palghat, Kozhikode and Kasargode. Moreover, Sabarimala Karma Samithi activists vowed not to rest till Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was ousted from office and called a dawn-to-dusk shutdown on Thursday, while CPI appeared to disapprove of the two women of menstruating age group entering the Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala "secretly", saying they should have done it "openly". While political parties either spoke out for or against the historic development at Sabarimala, and religious outfits staged protests against it, no group spoke up or even questioned the "purification" ritual that reduced the two women to being deemed as untouchables who had contaminated the Sabarimala temple. Instead, Nair Service Society general-secretary Sukumaran Nair thanked the temple priests for closing the temple for the "purification" ritual, in turn lauding the violation of Justice Chandrachud's order. Earlier attempts to stop women's entry On 22 January, the top court is slated to hear review petitions seeking a recall of its judgment. Even though it has refused to stay its verdict till then, several attempts have been made to thwart the entry of women inside Sabarimala since the 28 September ruling. Since the temple opened for monthly prayers in October for the first time since the verdict was pronounced, hardline Ayyappa devotees have foiled the attempts of around a dozen women seeking to enter the shrine. In November, social activist and leader of Bhumata Brigade Trupti Desai's bid was also stalled after she had announced that she would try to enter the temple with a group of women. Protesters, including BJP workers, had held a standoff for over 12 hours at the Kochi airport and vowed to not let Desai proceed to the shrine. The police later asked the activist to return to Pune. Furthermore, a human chain of protesters had forced an 11-member group of devotees from Tamil Nadu to retreat. The team was part of a 40-member group from different states, including Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Karnataka and Kerala, and their attempt to reach the temple was organised by Manithi, a Chennai-based womens organisation. Desai who had led the campaign for women to be allowed to offer prayers in Maharashtra's Shani Shingnapur temple, Haji Ali Dargah, Mahalakshmi temple and the Trimbakeshwar Shiva temple hailed the courage of the two women who entered Sabarimala on Wednesday. "This is a big victory for our agitation. A victory of equality... This is a good beginning for women in the new year," Desai said. There is no data on exactly when girls and women of reproductive age were forbidden from offering prayers at Sabarimala, but according to a 19th-Century British survey, the ban was in place even 200 years ago. The informal restriction got legal ratification and acceptance following a Kerala High Court judgment in 1991. On 5 April, 1991, the court had upheld the ban on women's entry inside Sabarimala, observing that the restriction was in place since time immemorial and was not discriminatory under the Constitution. With inputs from agencies The bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 18 July this year and was referred to the committee on 10 August for scrutiny. New Delhi: A parliamentary panel on Thursday suggested strengthening of penal provisions in the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Bill with a view to protect the interest of gullible investors. The bill proposes to ban deposit takers from promoting, operating, issuing advertisements or accepting deposits in any unregulated deposit scheme. The bill also recommends deterrent punishment for promoting or operating an unregulated deposit taking scheme and also stringent punishment for fraudulent default in repayment to depositors. The committee, in its report tabled in Parliament, has recommended "that all the offences under this Bill should be made cognisable and non-bailable and the same should be clearly mentioned in the bill". The 31-member panel is headed by senior Congress leader M Veerappa Moily. The bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 18 July this year and was referred to the committee on 10 August for scrutiny. While appreciating the larger object and the spirit of the proposed legislation, the committee has expressed apprehension that the bill may end up leaving unfettered discretion upon enforcement authorities at the ground level where large number of gullible people depend on small short-term credit or deposits for their various needs. "The Committee, thus, desire that such ambiguities should be cleared to prevent harassment and misuse," the report said. The panel also said that strangely only one case of Collective Investment Scheme (CIS) has been registered with market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) so far under the SEBI (CIS) Regulations, 1999, "clearly indicating" total lack of monitoring on the part of the market regulator of such scheme. "The committee would therefore expect SEBI to review their guidelines/ norms, which will be more prudent and realistic for proper registration of schemes," it said. Otherwise, the regulation of CIS by the SEBI will be rendered meaningless. The panel expect the regulator to play a more pro-active role in this regard for better regulation of CIS as well as strict enforcement and stringent action against operators/promoters of unregulated or illicit schemes. Replying to a query on the Ram mandir issue with just a few months left for the Lok Sabha polls, the schedule of which will bring in force the Model Code of Conduct, Bhagwat said, 'Only a temple will come up in Ayodhya.' Nagpur: Rashtriya Swayamsevat Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat Wednesday asserted that only a Ram temple will be constructed in Ayodhya. His comments came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggested that any decision on an ordinance on the Ram temple could only be taken after the completion of the judicial process, but stressed that the Centre was ready to make all efforts to fulfil its responsibility. Earlier in the day, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) said Hindus could not wait "till eternity" for the court's decision on the Ram temple and asserted that the only way forward was to enact a legislation for its construction. Replying to a query on the Ram mandir issue with just a few months left for the Lok Sabha polls, the schedule of which will bring in force the Model Code of Conduct, Bhagwat said, "Only a temple will come up in Ayodhya." "We have faith in Lord Ram. It does not take time for time to change," he said. The RSS chief was speaking to the media after attending a programme in Nagpur. He said the saffron organisation stood by the statement given by its general secretary, Bhaiyyaji Joshi, on the temple issue. Joshi had Tuesday said the general public and also those in power wanted that a Ram temple be built at the disputed site in the holy town of Uttar Pradesh. Earlier, speaking at a function organised by the Sevasadan Shikshan Sanstha, Bhagwat emphasised on need-based and the practical form of education. "There is no dispute that the education policy should change and the change should be from the basics," he said. "It has been said that a new education policy has been introduced, but there is no time for its implementation. Its implementation would depend on what happens next," Bhagwat added. Five years after the NDA came to power, its the BJP's image that has become larger and is tarnishing the Narendra Modi brand. The prime ministers recent interview with ANI which marked the launch of the poll season was unusual enough to make most people watch at least parts of it. The trouble was that it was 90 minutes long, which meant that for a whole generation accustomed to communicating in 280 characters, it was simply unwatchable. Thats a pity. For the interviewee did have something to say. The gargantuan interview covered all issues, including the Ram Mandir, corruption, farmers woes and even the Rafale deal. At one point, Modi very reasonably asks why middlemen are involved at all. At another point, he is almost emotional on the tension involving the surgical strike, while he appeals for better understanding of the costs of demonetisation. Then is the expected presentation of data to measure success. Modi is vibrant in speech. In cold hard text, the interview is simply not strong enough because too many issues were crammed together. But then thats the problem with the BJPs strategic communication. Its caught between the cleft of modern technology and actual message delivery. This is surprising to say the least. Brand Modi won a landslide victory with his team using all social platforms, sometimes responding in real time, to deliver a message of change and vibrancy. As marketing experts noted, Narendra Modi brought the BJP out of obscurity and irrelevance in much the same way that the IMac and IPod brought Apple centre stage. Modi the brand won the landslide victory. The party itself was only a vehicle. Ironically, five years later, its the partys image that has become larger and is tarnishing the Modi brand. The BJP and its ideologues have managed to get more public space than the man who won the war. In short, the core messaging that is being put across emanates from the party thus the Ram Mandir rallies, the cow slaughter issue, vigilantism and the increasingly anti-minority debate that is spilling virulently onto Twitter. It is not that the BJP or its affiliates, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh or the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, were doing anything different from the past. They just had a far larger platform than before, which meant that they were prime media material. The prime minister was not. As The Washington Post noted, on most issues that came up on national television as different from issues of national importance he was silent. While it is entirely true that a prime minister cannot be expected to comment on every subject, the fact remains that his media managers erred in not reinforcing the earlier image of a strong man who could crack the whip when required. In common with much of the world, Indians love a tough no-nonsense strongman who may veer dangerously close to being a dictator. When he is seen as caving in to the mob, the glitter fades irretrievably. But Modi does speak, and often. His Twitter account seems to have thousands upon thousands of followers, even ruling out the bots and fakes. Whoever manages his account, keeps it updated, even if not madly interesting. The weekly Mann ki Baat launched on 3 October, 2014 had undoubtedly generated a lot of interest in a country where prime ministers are rarely seen or heard. It also generated some Rs 5 crore for All India Radio annually. Covering 92 percent of Indias territory, and nearly 100 percent of the population, it is the ideal vehicle for a direct outreach to all corners of India, and to the lowest strata. The merchants, traders, vegetable vendors and tobacco sellers are all certain to have a small radio blaring somewhere. It isnt clear how many actually listen, but a survey by the AIR did show that listeners were (unsurprisingly) maximum in Gujarat, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. The lowest were in the south, particularly in Andhra Pradesh. Thats unsurprising too. That level of pure Hindi is probably unintelligible on the other side of the Vindhyas. One way of reducing the mismatch is to simplify the Hindi and the subjects introduced. AIR should try to make it less of a lecture and more of a fireside conversation. Also, given that it may have lost its novelty somewhat, also shift it to a major event class, rather than a weekly monologue. Then, there are websites like 'My Gov which is meant to showcase the governments achievements and also take in suggestions from the public. Any attempt to register on this site and submit a suggestion is exhausting. The larger transforming India website is impressive in terms of statistics that, however, have no link that will give them a measure of believability. A link to the source of these statistics would be useful for anyone wanting details on, for instance, the complete electrification of India that Modi referred to in his interview. That is quite an achievement. The point is that the data should be freely available. The Niti Aayog website is better, with its links to various data sites and a bank of good information and presentations. What would be really useful is readily available infographics with embedded data on health, specific assistance to farmers and even perhaps data on the benefits of demonetisation that was supposed to bring money into the white economy. The prime minister in his interview had the figures on his fingertips. The rest of the nation doesnt. It therefore relies on vague stories and fake news. Underlying all of this is the fact that Modi is an outstanding speaker, especially when compared to his predecessor. The fact that the old magic still works was recently apparent in his address at Port Blair, which showcased his ability to sway a crowd that probably understood only half of what he said. But his powerful presence was clearly not enough to sway the recent elections, where the BJP lost heavily. Moreover there is the issue of over exposure. The reliance on one man to deliver pretty much the same type of speeches mostly anti-Congress statements was a bad choice. The prime minister is meant for bigger things. A certain mystique is likely to be beneficial this time round. In the final analysis, the BJP has to realise that technology alone cannot deliver a message. Neither can the media blitz that accompanied a new leader in elections five years ago be replicated. The prime minister himself can hardly keep mouthing statistics of growth. For one, they are likely to be disbelieved. For another, theyre difficult to deliver in fulsome language to an audience already suffering from a surfeit of electioneering. Certainly, the prime minister must continue to do what he does best, which is to talk directly to his audience. But then, there is a limit to even his energy. The alternative is to use others to spread his message. Not the jaded ministers of his cabinet, but the youngest and brightest of his karyakartas, and as many local leaders as possible to strengthen a base that is likely to be eroded by his own partys affiliates. Target audiences need easily understood and well-structured facts about the real and many achievements of this government that directly affected their lives in a particular district or state. Keep it simple in substance. Voters are far from being fools. As the AIR survey indicated, it was the real issues like Beti Padhao that got them hooked. Cursing the Congress is already passe and the interview probably underscored that. The matter was mentioned for urgent listing before a Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice SK Kaul and advocate ML Sharma. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday said it will hear a PIL challenging the government's notification authorising 10 central agencies to intercept, monitor and decrypt any computer system, "as and when required". The matter was mentioned for urgent listing before a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice SK Kaul and advocate ML Sharma. "We will see. As and when required we will list the matter," the bench told Sharma. The 10 agencies notified under the new Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) order are the Intelligence Bureau, Narcotics Control Bureau, Enforcement Directorate, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (for Income Tax Department), Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Central Bureau of Investigation, National Investigation Agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, Directorate of Signal Intelligence (in service areas of J-K, North East and Assam) and Delhi Police commissioner. The Uttar Pradesh government has allocated Rs 4,300 crore for Kumbh in 2019, as compared to just Rs 1,214 crore in 2013. Sages, vairaghis, and yogis of different sects have come together to celebrate this years Kumbh, but all is not copacetic. Juna Akhara, the largest sect in terms of the number of saints, has decided to take action against the chiefs (mahants) accused of immoral activities. At least five such mahants have been sacked. A high-powered committee of seers will decide on their fate after four of them submitted a written apology. On the other hand, the Kumbh administration has decided not to allot land to the ascetics facing criminal cases, in order to avoid any controversy. The national spokesperson of the Juna Akhara, Mahant Vidyanand Saraswati, said a saint fondly called Golden Baba was facing 32 criminal cases, including murder and kidnapping. He has been sacked from the akhara, and others will be taken into the fold after the committee is satisfied with their justifications. However, sometimes, our role is undermined due to politics. Even when we take action, the saints facing criminal charges are able to garner support from the government machinery. This patronage should stop, Mahant Saraswati said. Baba Rampuri from Ujjain said that the Kumbh is a place where devotees conceive of god, have a deeper and evolutionary experience of their existence, and that is why saints must keep themselves far away from any activities that may be seen as some kind of aggression. He said that the aim of the Kumbh is to spread the fragrance of Indian spiritualism across the world, and the ethos should not be compromised at any cost. Naga Baba Giri, an ascetic smeared in ashes from head to toe, said that the Kumbh is a mystery and can only be decoded by those who believe in the teachings of ancient scriptures and spiritual masters. Kumbh teaches us the significance of spiritual bliss, Baba Giri said. Juna Akhara has also set up tents for women mystics, who will camp for two months in Kumbh. Uma Giri, who set up the first tent, said that the "sant samaj" is happy with the arrangements, but the administration on the ground should be more proactive to address any concerns raised by them. As of now, the "Sanyasini Juna Akhara" at the Kumbh, where over 500 women saints are expected to gather, is facing problems in terms of infrastructure. Just a kilometre away from the akaharas, the government, for the first time in the history of the Kumbh, is building 5,000 premium tents for NRIs and foreigners. This area will also have craft villages and will witness rituals from the Vedic period which will continue for the next 55 days. Satendra, who is setting up the Indraprastham tent city, said that the idea is to enable the foreign pilgrims to transcend time, and experience the rich Vedic heritage of India. He said that the tent city will be an amalgamation of various Vedic rituals in the form of "Somyagam", a devotional musical fest and Vedic seminars. In February, representatives from 192 countries will make a trip to Kumbh. There will be more than 30 thematic gates based on ancient scriptures and over 200 cultural programmes for pilgrims. An art village on the riverside focusing on the countrys diverse culture will be an added attraction. The state government has already completed 671 schemes in Prayagraj. The government has allocated Rs 4,300 crore for Kumbh in 2019, as compared to just Rs 1,214 crore in 2013. More than 264 road construction work projects have been undertaken by the state government and a third party monitoring mechanism has been institutionalised to ensure transparency. Sanjay Rai, Deputy Director, Information said that Kumbh is the biggest temporary city of the world because of the sheer number of people living in it, and the massive infrastructure. Besides, we have 40,700 thousand LED lights in the Kumbh city and more than 500 shuttle buses for pilgrims. We have also created public accommodation with a capacity of 20,000 beds. There will be a control and command centre costing at least Rs 247 crore. The Kumbh in 2013 had only 34,000 toilets, while this year, we have 1.22 lakh toilets, 20,000 dustbins and 15,000 sanitation workers, Dr. Rai said. Amit Katiyar, nodal officer for the water and sewage systems at Kumbh, said that the government has already set up 5,000 stand posts with the help of an 800-kilometre water pipe line that will also be connected to 200 water ATMs. Katiyar said that a dedicated team for drainage and sewerage has been able to construct 850 kilometre-long drains, and waste materials will be recycled at two plants outside of the city. More than 32 hospitals, including a 100-bed central hospital, air and river ambulances will cater to the health needs of saints and pilgrims. The central hospital is already functional and more than 10,000 patients, including tourists, have received treatment. Kumbh will have more than 2,000 doctors, including two dozen dental surgeons. The doctors and para-medical staff is being trained to deal with injuries due to stampedes, drowning and fires. Dr SP Singh, chief medical superintendent of the Central Hospital at Kumbh, said a separate medical team will also provide Ayurvedic and Homeopathic treatment for patients. A pathology lab has also been set up so that the patients are not required to travel to the private labs in the city for medical tests. We have set up an intensive care unit in the central hospital, Singh added. If you're wondering why what women wore at the Kerala Women's Wall is important, you must know that what women wear is a major political attraction, regardless of the significance of the event. On 26 December, right-wing Hindu groups in Kerala organised an event called Ayyappa Jyothi in anticipation of the ambitious "Women's Wall", or "Vanitha Mathil" protest against patriarchy, which the LDF government had scheduled for 1 January. Thousands of people turned up with lamps and chanted praises of Lord Ayyappa at the event. As always, I am filled with admiration for anyone who can get middle- or upper-middle-class people out of their homes for anything. So you know, congratulations to all parties concerned for engaging in excellent photo-op warfare. I did have mild nausea when I saw some of the media coverage though. It was as though the pages had been designed by the ghost of painter Raja Ravi Varma. The lamp-lit "adarsh nari" or "adarsh baby" photographs at dusk was even captioned on the front page of the Bangalore edition of Malayala Manorama the way Ravi Varma would have: "Waiting for Papa while defending Hindu Pride with a Serene Smile." The genuinely pretty photographs seamlessly fit into a certain kind of upper-caste Hindu pop culture that Kerala sees plenty of on television and cinema old grandma addresses her granddaughters as "kutty" in a trembling, long-suffering voice, as kutty, clad in a starched sari, prepares to go to office to support the crumbling tharavad (ancestral home); savarna culture as Malayali Culture; as gentility; as normal. The appearance of two good-girl actors from the 1980s, Jalaja and Menaka, at this protest only added a little more to the feels. It was what my good Malayali friend likes to call "Dignikutty", and what my good Punjabi friend likes to call "performing politics as a matrimonial ad". Very few of those Ayyappa Jyothi photos would have been out of place on a matrimonial site. Luckily, my tiny home state, even in these genteel times, continues to have lots of bloody-minded, non-genteel instincts. So on 1 January, when the Vanita Mathil rose, it looked like a group of anything but suitable girls. In all, 50 lakh women are said to have turned up to form a chain stretching 620 kilometres. What women wore at this event were working clothes. Saris. Salwars. Since the wall was the coming together of many organisations, a lot of photos included women in uniform saris. Nurses in white. Nuns in Habits. Women in Hijabs. Actor Rima Kallingal in a white sleeveless top and dark pants. Many wielded umbrellas, caps and dupattas on their heads to deal with the afternoon sun. Small girls in their best, voluminous frocks and kannmashi-lined sceptical gazes in the afternoon. A sari-wearing woman striding forward with her fist in the air and a baby at her hip, never mind the government's mumbling that children should not be brought to the wall. In the Malayalam equivalent of "as if": pinnale! Now, if you are wondering why I am talking about what women wore at a major political event as though I was an E!News reporter at the red carpet, you must know that what women wear is a major political attraction. Major anti-caste struggles in Kerala were borne out of women's protests about humiliation via clothing. In Vaikom Basheer's best-known novel Mathilagal (walls), Basheer and Narayani are madly in love but always separated by the wall of their adjoining prisons. Now those walls were literal, but some bricks in our metaphorical gender prisons are clothes, folks. When women's clothes and bodies cease to be political, we won't have to line up in the afternoon Kerala sun to mark our humanity. And prime ministers won't try to sound deep and knowledgeable about gender equality versus tradition. You know who agrees with me about the significance of women's clothes? Shefali Vaidya, a confident woman you'd know about only if you are on Twitter. On 2 January, two young women entered Sabarimala, a full three months after the Supreme Court gave the green signal, and a day after the Chief Minister of Kerala demonstrated the Malayali buy-in with the Women's Wall. Promptly came the temple priests wanting to faint, rise and wash everything with Dettol because everything was now so dirty, I will arise and go live in Innisfree. Shefali Vaidya was concerned but cautious because she suspected that the two women were burqa-clad heretics, not disrespectful Hindu women bent on sacrilege. (Once, not so long ago, Pakistani security expert Zaid Hamid, engaged in sartorial political analysis like me and Shef, was convinced that 26/11 was carried out by Sikh RAW agents identified as Amar Singh and Hiralal because Ajmal Kasab, aka Amar Singh, wore an orange thread on his wrist.) Friends and foes had to reassure Shefali that the black clothes the two women were wearing were not burqas, just the black gear that is worn to Sabarimala. Images of actual burqa-clad women at the Women's Wall were a major source of moral fibre and roughage for online critics. Hijabi women were frequently mocked for having the gall to protest patriarchy when they were wearing "garbage bags" or "dressed like penguins". The troll gold-standard emoji of laughing-till-tears was very much on display. The photo of a hijabi woman holding up a poster against Brahmanical patriarchy was particularly highlighted as fodder of comedy and unintended irony. Now who is to explain at length that the metaphor of Brahmanical patriarchy is an affliction that affects women in every religious community? If only in the last two decades, we had watched 300 Malayalam/Hindi television shows of women in hijabs leaving their house to support the family, then perhaps it would be clearer that the "Noble Feminist with a Mind of Her Own" is not limited to the white Trivandrum sari and the heirs of Menaka and Jalaja. In case you worried that the trolls were only going after Muslim women, not to worry. There were plenty of equal opportunity attacks against Christian women. The presence of groups from churches and nuns triggered lots of darkly-knowing conversations about rice-bag converts, paedophiles and rapist priests, meaning that Christian women from whichever denomination should not publicly protest anything until every Christian denomination has been cleansed of every last sexual predator (not just Jalandhar diocese Bishop Francis Mulakkal), presumably like the way the tantri is cleansing Sabarimala right now. Not to be repetitive or anything, but pinnale! Also, this is the time to discuss Sister Lucy. If you say Sister Who, come on! Sister Lucy Kalapura. She has been a vocal supporter of the nuns battling Bishop Mulakkal and has faced a lot of criticism, abuse and institutional reprimands for her clarity. Yesterday, Sister Lucy wrote a Facebook post in support of the Women's Wall. In the accompanying photo, Sister Lucy, who is usually seen in a habit, was wearing a green salwar kameez, or as Malayalis like to call this favourite ensemble, a churidar. She took time to address that important detail. Her clothes. She said, "I am travelling. For convenience, I am wearing a common Indian outfit. I don't want any priests to see my clothes and wrinkle their brows, or beat their chests, or go running to our superiors. After all, priests can wear anything they want, unlike nuns, who decorate the altar with flowers, or sweep and swab or wash clothes, for whom plain clothes are banned." Hey sister, go sister, soul sister, go sister, churidar sister, wall sister. Or as the aforementioned Punjabi friend translated: Tum chup raho/chanta laga. The Editors Guild of India on Thursday said it believes journalists should claim no immunity from healthy and civilised criticism, but at the same time their labelling has emerged as a 'favourite tactic' on the part of the establishment to discredit, delegitimise and intimidate them. New Delhi: The Editors Guild of India on Thursday said it believes journalists should claim no immunity from healthy and civilised criticism, but at the same time their labelling has emerged as a "favourite tactic" on the part of the establishment to discredit, delegitimise and intimidate them. "We have seen our political class use this for some time now. In the recent past, top BJP leaders, as well as those of AAP, have used unambiguously abusive expressions such as 'presstitute', news-traders, 'bazaaru' (saleable commodities) or 'dalals' (pimps) for journalists," the Guild said in a statement. It said it has "noted with concern" the words used by Congress President Rahul Gandhi in his criticism of the journalist who interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday. The Editors Guild of India has issued a statement. pic.twitter.com/XJ8OAylXxx Editors Guild of India (@IndEditorsGuild) January 3, 2019 The statement was issued after much debate among the Guild's executive committee members. Some of the members were opposed to the issuance of such a statement maintaining that Gandhi's remarks did not tantamount to attack on freedom of expression or a threat. Earlier on Thursday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley tweeted: "The Grandson of the 'Emergency dictator' displays his real DNA attacks and intimidates an independent Editor." "Why are the pseudo-liberals silent? Waiting for the Editors guild's response," he said. The Guild statement also talked about "reprehensible strategy to throttle media freedoms" through ploys such as boycotts, denial of access and lately government accreditation. "This must be reversed. Journalists, we believe, will continue to deal with these with their usual thick skins and not let these tactics intimidate them. The Guild, as an apex, non-partisan institution, however, takes strong exception to this tendency and calls for its halt," it said. In this column, Mridula Ramesh considers the past, through five pieces of data, the present political context, and three important events in the coming year that are central to climate change and India. Happy New Year! Just kidding this is a climate change column: of course, Im going to rain on your parade! In this piece I want to consider the past, through five pieces of data, the present political context, and three important events in the coming year that are central to climate change and India. Lets start with the data: The Data #1: The world has warmed by about 1C in the past century, with the warming accelerating in the past few decades. #2: 97 percent of climate scientists agree that humans are responsible for the recent warming of the Earth. #3: India is the most vulnerable country to climate change. India is vulnerable because it is relatively poor, quite hot, quite dry, and has a large group of people working in agriculture. Why is agriculture important, you may ask. Agriculture is fully exposed to the elements, and thus unprotected from the talons of the elements. Moreover, over half of Indias farms are rainfed, meaning they do not have the insurance of irrigation against delayed or absent rains. Add to this, the large numbers of small and marginal farmers who have neither the financial wherewithal nor market access to cope with the increased volatility that comes with a warmer climate, and you begin to understand the extent of this vulnerability. In 2018, a leading multinational bank ranked countries on their relative vulnerability, as a product of their exposure to climate risks, their sensitivity to those climate risks, and their ability to respond. India ranked the most vulnerable country to climate change. #4: In 2018, global CO 2 emissions were estimated to have risen by about 2.7 percent. Thanks to climate inertia, even if we were to considerably slow down emissions, or even stop them, the warming and all the associated effects would continue for some time. This is because it takes hundreds to thousands of years for all the CO 2 we put up in the air to be removed. Until then, some part of the warming effect will continue. Some might say, well, then, India, as a large carbon emitter should do more. There are multiple perspectives on this. If we consider historical emissions, which, given several greenhouse gases have atmospheric lifetimes of centuries seems an appropriate approach, Indias emission share appears tiny. Then, of course, is the equal right to pollute wherein we look at carbon emissions on a per capita basis. Here again, Indias responsibility to emission cuts is diluted given her per capita CO2 emissions are just under a 10th of Americas and about 1/4th of Chinas per capita CO2 emissions. A different aspect to consider is that Indian electricitys (coal plants and all) sectoral share was about 2 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2013. In other words, too small to be interesting from the point of stopping global emissions. Fascinatingly and more relevantly, capacity additions in India from renewable energy handily overtook capacity additions from conventional sources (thermal/gas/nuclear) in FY18. Hmmm. #5: Given Indias peculiar vulnerability to climate change, less-interesting role in emissions and climate inertia, adapting to a warmer climate assumes paramount importance (incidentally, many of those adaptive actions result in lower emissions). Climate change changes the hydrological or water cycle, making it rain on fewer days, more intensely, and makes wet regions wetter and dry regions drier. Now consider that India is already water scarce asking about 1/5th of the worlds population to survive on 1/33rd of the worlds water. Moreover, Indias water supply is highly seasonal, which makes storage important. But we have neglected our water storage for decades both above the ground and below. Given this data, what decisions follow? One clear decision is to manage our relatively scarce, spatially variable,seasonal water a heck of a lot better. Nice to say in theory. In practice, who should take these decisions? The Democratic Context Most people I speak to say, the government. But this decision-maker comes with its own issues. The reality is that India is a democracy and a raucous one at that. Which means policy makers typically do what will make them get re-elected. Which, hard as it is to believe, is the decisions they believe people want so much that they, the people, will reward them, the politicians, with a vote. As I have written before, voters tend to have a short-term outlook, which bodes ill for longer- term, management-type policy decisions. Moreover, decisions like pricing water require the outlay of large amounts of political capital, which means political incentives need to be compelling. Are they? Not quite. Take the case of Telangana. In early 2018, the TRS government started favouring populist measures free electricity for farmers, free apartments etc. over resilience-building measures like tank (water storage) rejuvenation. They won emphatically. Contrast this with the case of Madhya Pradesh: the winning party promised farm loan waivers, while the losing party systematically developed farmer and water resilience. Madhya Pradesh is one of the few states in India where farmers are charged for electricity, and the erstwhile government held out against farm loan waivers. Now, put yourself in the shoes of our political masters writing their manifesto for 2019 elections what would you do if your job was to win? Give free electricity to farmers, or ask for a water price? Waive loans, or revive tanks? Pretty easy answer, isnt it? Decision Making in the Year Ahead 2019 promises to be an interesting year. There are three events, in particular, I would like to focus on: Event#1: A potential El Nino. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the US released a report on 31 December 2018 stating that sea surface temperatures are above average across most of the Pacific Ocean and that El Nino is expected to form and continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2018-19 (~90 percent chance) and through spring (~60 percent chance). The report also states that most models expect El Nino to persist through summer of 2019. This is bad news for India. The last full fledged El Nino was in 2015 with the murderous heatwaves, failed monsoons and droughts in a large number of districts in India. Still, early days yet, and we will need to watch this space closely on how this unfolds. Event#2: The general elections. The 2019 election is shaping up to be a cracker. If, as I think is likely, farm loan waivers feature prominently in political manifestos, you will know that perceptual populism has won over any form of resilience-building. Why do I use the word perceptual? For one, farm loan waivers do precious little for the greater number of small and marginal farmers whose loans originate in the informal sector. Moreover, if the El Nino begins to manifest in earnest around March, any unhappiness from the effects of the El Nino heat waves/water shortages etc. are likely to translate into votes against the incumbent. Event #3: Non-performing assets and financial tightening: More than 10 years have passed since the global economic slowdown. Avalanches of liquidity have slammed into financial markets across the world. These flows are now being pulled back. Going forward, money is likely to be tight. Loans and projects that could have otherwise muddled along, will now become hard to classify as business-as-usual. Coal assets so unsavoury from a climate perspective become important to salvage from a financial-health perspective. Caught between a slowly warming climate and a fast disintegrating financial system, its not rocket science to guess how policy makers will act. Farm loan waivers, which dont help the climate cause, will further weaken the financial health of India. The Decision Making From the past data, it is clear what decisions need to be taken its a no-brainer, really. Manage your water and build farmer resilience. But the democratic context determines who will need to take these decisions. The political realities of India, and the looming general elections, make it highly unlikely that our central or state political leaders will take that class of decisions in the coming year. It must be said that really bad El Nino will muddy the waters. If an El Nino occurs and we have a fractured government with little political manoeuvring space at the centre, we could see short-term, populist measures that appear to help (like farm loan waivers) but denude resilience. After all, a weak coalition government cannot afford to squander expensive political capital on unpopular resilience-building measures. However, if an El Nino materialises when we have a strong central government, we could see necessary resilience-building policies. In either case, the first few months of a new government are the time to build in longer term measures such as water pricing, universal water metering and agricultural market restructuring. Personally, I find that climate change adaptation works best at hyperlocal levels with decisions being taken by we, the people, by the government and the private sector working in conjunction. Why? At the local level, voter incentives tend more aligned, making it is easier for the government to act, because citizens are potentially more willing to stomach short-term unpleasantness such as metering and paying for water. The private sector (with hopefully longer timelines) can augment government capacity more effectively at smaller locations such as districts and cities both through NGOs with deep community ties, and corporates with employee bases and CSR budgets. For instance, a bad drought may bring together a gifted civil servant, funds from a local corporate and an NGO working with farmers to craft policies on farmer support. Or, the residents of an apartment complex, like what is happening in Bengaluru, could plonk down the investment for a sewage treatment plant, and start metering their usage, not because of regulation, but because tanker water is too dear. We saw the political decision making on climate change is a PhD thesis on the art of compromise. How do we ask developed world politicians to get their electorate to cut emissions? How do we ask Indian politicians to implement longer term measures to build water resilience? The answer is, I believe, to go local. The writer is the founder of the Sundaram Climate Institute, cleantech angel investor and author of The Climate Solution - India's Climate Crisis and What We Can Do About It published by Hachette. Follow her work on her website; on Twitter; or write to her at cc@climaction.net. The Bajarang Dal said it will always stand by Yogesh Raj as the Uttar Pradesh Police had 'wrongly framed' him in the Bulandshahr violence case. Bulandshahar: The Uttar Pradesh Police on Thursday said they had arrested one of the key accused in the Bulandshahr violence case, Bajrang Dal district convenor Yogesh Raj, on Wednesday night. While the Bulandshahr Police claimed to have arrested Raj around 11.30 pm on Wednesday after conducting a raid following a tip off, a top Bajrang Dal leader said he wanted to surrender before the police. Moreover, the right-wing group's Uttar Pradesh convenor, Balraj Doonger, also said Raj had been in constant touch with members of the Bajrang Dal and the top brass of the group, who had helped him escape the clutches of the police. The police claimed that Raj was arrested from a tea point near Brahmanand College after the Station House Officer of BB Nagar, Subhash Singh, received a tip that he was going to travel to Bulandshahr from Khurja, around 15 kilometres from the district headquarters. Singh then headed to the spot with a team and arrested the accused. On 3 December, police inspector Subodh Kumar Singh and civilian Sumit Kumar were killed in the mob violence that broke out in Bulandshahr's Mahaw village in the Siyana area after cattle carcasses were found strewn outside a village. An FIR was registered against Raj, along with 27 other named accused and 50 to 60 unnamed accused, at the Siyana Police Station on 4 December. Raj has been charged with murder, rioting, armed with a deadly weapon, sedition and assaulting a public servant to deter him from discharging his duty under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code. The Bajrang Dal, however, maintains that he was innocent. "From the very first day, I have been saying that Raj is a member of the Bajrang Dal, and we will try our best to get justice for him. He has been framed wrongly by the police, and if he had surrendered earlier, then Prashant Natt, the man who actually murdered Inspector Subodh Singh, would have never been arrested," Doonger said. Talking about Raj's whereabouts since the violence on 3 December, Doonger said he had gone into hiding. The senior Bajrang Dal leader said Raj had spent most of his time in Haridwar and the remaining at different places, including Poorvanchal in East Uttar Pradesh, "hiding from the police". While Doonger refused to comment when asked about who had been accompanying Raj all this while, he claimed Raj had returned to Bulandshahr with the intention to surrender, but the police arrested him before he could. "Earlier, we were of the view that Raj should surrender, but then we decided that the real culprit would never be caught if he had surrendered then. We asked him to surrender many times in the past, but he was adamant about staying away from the police. Later, we understood this point, when the police changed the name of the main accused for the third time. They had earlier named Raj, then Jeetu Fauji, and then Prashant Natt. The Bajarang Dal will always stand by Raj and get him acquitted from court," Doonger added. On 27 December, the Uttar Pradesh Police arrested Prashant Natt, who had allegedly shot the inspector dead after he was attacked with an axe by another. They arrested five others on 18 December for their alleged roles in the mob violence and the cow slaughter case. The author is a Lucknow-based freelance writer and member of 101Reporters.com The sarpanch of Bhima Koregaon did not deny the conspiracy behind the violence on 1 January, 2018, which many believe was a pre-planned attack on Dalit pilgrims by upper caste mobs. Sangita Kamble, the sarpanch, was responding to the question about the fraudulent letter typed on the village letterhead for the taluka police station of Shikrapur ahead of the occasion. The sarpanch of Bhima Koregaon did not deny the conspiracy behind the violence on 1 January, 2018, which many believe was a pre-planned attack on Dalit pilgrims by upper caste mobs. Sangita Kamble, the sarpanch, was responding to the question about the fraudulent letter typed on the village letterhead for the taluka police station of Shikrapur ahead of the occasion. She claimed to have no experience then, having just taken over. Every year, on 1 January, tens of thousands of Dalits across Maharashtra gather at the war memorial of Bhima Koregaon 40 kilometres from Pune. It commemorates the historic victory of the British army, which had a significant Dalit contingent, over the Peshwas. 2018 was the 200th anniversary of the battle. Therefore, it was an even larger crowd, which was allegedly assaulted by right-wing groups. On 30 December, 2017, the Bhima Koregaon Gram Panchayat, on its letterhead, submitted a letter to Shikrapur police station, which read, "To avoid law and order situation because of what happened at Sambhaji Maharajs memorial in Vadhu, the Gram Panchayat and the entire village has decided to observe a bandh on 1 January, 2018. We request you to take the appropriate decision and cooperate with us." The letter had signatures of Kamble and the clerk, Sagar Gawhane. About four kilometres from Bhima Koregaon, the village of Vadhu had been gripped with caste tensions over a historical dispute in the last week of December last year. Vadhu has a memorial of Shivajis son, Sambhaji. Credible historical accounts suggest that he was cremated by a Dalit man called Govind Gaikwad after Aurangzeb killed him. On 29 December, Gaikwads statue, which stands right across Sambhajis memorial, was vandalised, triggering caste animosities. The Pune rural police had taken cognisance of the developments. "The call to observe a bandh in Bhima Koregaon despite fears that law and order situation might deteriorate was odd, when Vadhu itself had not called for a bandh on 1 January," said Rahul Dambale, activist with the Republican Morcha, based in Pune. On 4 October, 2018, the tricky nature of the bandh in Bhima Koregaon came to light after Firstpost reported the testimony of the clerk to the inquiry commission appointed by the state to investigate the violence. He testified that the letter was backdated, and the village was not consulted as it claims. In his affidavit, Gawhane, said he typed the letter because Ganesh Phadtare, an infamous Maratha leader and also a former deputy Sarpanch of Bhima Koregaon, asked him to do so. On the morning of 31 December, Phadtare called and asked me to come to the Gram Panchayat office urgently, the affidavit reads. When I reached the office, Phadtare and his karyakartas were already there. He asked me to type a letter that called for the bandh in the village." A year later, Kamble did not deny the claims of the clerk when this reporter met her at the gram panchayat office in Bhima Koregaon. I had just been elected as a Sarpanch on 19 December, 2017 to be accurate," she apologetically said. "I had no experience. I am not even educated." Gawhane's testimony even states that Phadtare called the Village Development Officer, Rajendra Satras, after he resisted typing up the misleading letter. Satras told Gawhane to do 'what Phadtare said'. He typed the letter with Phadtare named as the initiator, and one Yogesh Gawhane as the endorser. Yogesh, however, was not in the village at the time. When Gawhane pointed it out to Phadtare, he said, It is none of your business. Phadtare further asked him to mark the letter with the previous date because 31 December was a Sunday. No such decision to shut the village was taken on 30 December by the Gram Panchayat or the villagers, Gawhane's afiidavit reads. Gram Panchayats proceeding book also has no note of it. Kamble did not answer how she ended up signing the letter. "Please understand that my situation is vulnerable, she said. I sell vegetables to make my ends meet. My husband works as a driver. The village made me Sarpanch, and it is an honour for me to be given the chance to serve people." Bhima Koregaon gram panchayat is reserved for Schedule Caste. However, whispers on the ground say the sarpanch works under tremendous pressures from the influential upper caste men in the village, and it is highly likely that Kamble signed the letter in duress. Shops and eateries in the village were shut on the day of the bandh because it would have caused inconvenience to the pilgrims who had travelled to mark the bicentenary on 1 January. Victims of the riots claim that was the precise idea of the bandh: cause inconvenience if Dalits obeyed, or more likely, wreck havoc if they resisted. Victims of the 2018 violence have consistently asked how did so many stones turn up in the area where the pilgrims had gathered. Another resident of Bhima Koregaon, Mangal Kamble, in her affidavit, has said she had no clue about the bandh, corroborating Sagars claim of no unilateral decision or a meeting with villagers to keep the village shut due to frictions in Vadhu. Mangals testimony to the inquiry commission explains how her eatery was burnt because she made arrangements of tea, snacks and lunch for those who had travelled to be part of the gathering. "On 31 December, 2017, my son Ram was decorating the premises in front of our shop. At 11.30 pm, member of Gram Sabha, Ganesh Phadtare arrived with two others," she has written, "They said we have called for a bandh. Take down the decorations you have put up to welcome 'your people' and keep your shop closed tomorrow. My son declined to obey the orders and continued to work. Phadtare abused and threatened us that night. The next morning, when the visitors were having tea and snacks, a mob of 20 barged in and started beating us up, in which I was severely injured. My guests were forced to leave. The shop and the mandap we had installed were also destroyed. I was taken to a hospital in Hadapsar for primary treatment. On 2 January, when I came back to pay the person who had made decoration arrangements, a mob of 2,000 vandalised and burnt our house and shop at 11 am. We incurred losses of around Rs five lakh." Victims asked why the police have found it so difficult to find out on whose behest Phadtare had been conspiring. The Pune rural police have arrested over 100 people, acting on 23 FIRs, but because of the failure of the police to file the charge sheet even after a year, most of them are out on bail roaming around in the village. Including Phadtare, who, after being released was arrested again for half murder, and got bail for that too. As preventive measure ahead of the procession on 1 January 2019, Phadtare had been asked to leave the village, and not come back until the rally concludes. He is currently in Goa, and is likely to return on January 5. Lakhan Kamble, Mangals son, said the police have failed the victims, because they do not feel safe in Bhima Koregaon. "The police agreed to lodge our FIR in November, 11 months after the violence, he said. That too after activists pressured them. We have named Phadtare in our statements and affidavits, and he knows it. We could be in trouble once he gets back." A month after a police inspector and a civilian were killed in mob violence in Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr, the state police on Wednesday arrested Yogesh Raj, A court in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday remanded Bajrang Dal leader Yogesh Raj to 14 days' judicial custody. Earlier, Raj was produced before a chief judicial magistrate court in Bulandshahr after his arrest. A month after a police inspector and a civilian were killed in mob violence in Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr, the state police on Wednesday arrested Raj, one of the main accused in the case. He was arrested from Khurja, around 16 kilometres from Bulandshahr, late on Wednesday on charges of instigating a mob, rioting, vandalism and disturbing public order. Inspector Subodh Kumar Singh and civilian Sumit Kumar were killed on 3 December in the mob violence that broke out in Bulandshahr's Siyana area after cattle carcasses were found strewn outside a village. According a press release, the police received intelligence on the night on 2 January that Raj was planning to come to Bulandshahr. He was said to have been arrested at 11.30 p.m. Twenty-seven people, including Raj, were named in the FIR, while 50 to 60 unidentified people were booked under Indian Penal Code sections 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house, etc), 307 (attempt to murder), 302 (murder), 124A (sedition), 147, 148, 149 (related to rioting), 332, 33, 353 (related to voluntary assault on public servant to obstruct them from performing their duty), 336 (act endangering life or personal safety of others). They were also booked for destroying public property, among others. On 5 December, two days since the violence, a purported video of Raj surfaced on social media in which he had claimed innocence and said he was sure of being cleared of all accusations. However, his statements on the sequence of events on 3 December in the purported video were contrary to what he had stated in the complaint for cow slaughter, based on which an FIR was registered against seven people, including two minors, of Nayabans village. With inputs from PTI and Mohammad Nadeem/101Reporters Last week, British authorities informed India that Modi was living in the UK Diamond merchant Nirav Modi, who is wanted in connection with Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case, is reportedly planning to apply for asylum in the United Kingdom, a media report said. Last week, British authorities informed India that Modi was living in the UK. Replying to a question, Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh told Rajya Sabha that National Central Bureau of Manchester conveyed to Indian agencies that their investigations have led to the location of Nirav Modi in the UK. "In August 2018, the government sent two requests, one from the CBI and the other from the Enforcement Directorate, to the authorities of the UK seeking the extradition of Nirav Modi to India," Singh said. He said the requests are presently under the consideration of the authorities concerned of the UK. In June, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had written to several European countries seeking help in tracing Nirav Modi. Nirav Modi is wanted in connection with Punjab National Bank fraud case. A multi-agency probe is already underway into the fraud, which was mainly perpetrated by way of fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoUs). The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) is yet to submit its investigation report to the government on Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi with regard to multi-crore scam. Modi and Choksi are the alleged kingpins behind the Rs 13,000 crore fraud at Punjab National Bank. --With inputs from PTI Unlike retail, FDI (foreign direct investment) restrictions are not applied on the restaurant sector or food service aggregators. After retailers and traders complained of unfair practices by e-commerce companies to the Competition Commission of India (CCI), it is the turn of small restaurateurs. They allege that deep discounts offered by food aggregators are hurting their business. Over 500 small restaurants have in an online petition to the CCI and the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) alleged the "misuse of dominant position by food delivery companies including Swiggy, Zomato, Uber Eats and FoodPanda," according to a report in the Economic Times. The complaint against food aggregators include deep discounting, in-house kitchens and internal sourcing, which is wiping out small and medium enterprises, the petition said. Both Zomato and Swiggy denied the allegations, the report said. Rahul Singh, president, National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), which represents over 5,000 brands said: Unlike retail, FDI (foreign direct investment) restrictions are not applied on the restaurant sector or food service aggregators. As an association, we have a round table discussion next week with all four major food delivery aggregators to address deep discounting and the cloud kitchen issue, which is adversely affecting the restaurant industry. Last month, app-based platforms earned the ire of Kerala Hotels and Restaurant Association (KHRA). In December, the Kochi unit of KHRA decided to observe a token strike for 10 days on account of high commissions charged by food aggregators which made the business unviable for the restaurants. The KHRA commissioned a study on the merits of food aggregators, according to a report in the Financial Express. The study revealed that the association would harm dining out in the long run. Currently, food delivery companies operate only in Kochi and Thiruvanathapuram and are set to launch operations in Kozhikode soon, the report said. Meanwhile, the reach and demand for food delivery has been on the rise. Foodtech is among the fastest growing Internet industries in India. The online food delivery market comprising aggregators and internet kitchens had a 30 percent jump in handling of daily order in the first quarter of 2018 when compared with the last quarter. In the first three months of 2018, the number of orders handled by leading food delivery companies was an average 600,000, against 460,000 orders in the October-December quarter of 2017. The growth for average order handling in the last quarter of 2017 was 15 percent. The data includes companies operating in both the cloud kitchen model and the restaurant aggregator model. Around 1,000 deals were signed by Indian startups in 2018 with areas like e-commerce, fintech, sustainability and renewable energy New Delhi: Indian startups are estimated to have raised $38.3 billion in funding in 2018, behind only the US and China, a report by Yostartups said Thursday. Flipkart's $16 billion deal with American retailer Walmart accounted for the biggest piece of the pie, followed by Swiggy raising about $1.3 billion over three deals, and OYO picking up $1 billion in 2018, the report said. Other big funding deals included those by Paytm Mall ($895 million), ReNew Power ($495 million), Byju's ($422 million) and Zomato ($410 million). Around 1,000 deals were signed by Indian startups in 2018 with areas like e-commerce, fintech, sustainability and renewable energy, transportation and logistics, health and wellness, and travel and tourism attracting the highest investments, it added. "There has been a meteoric rise of startup funding for Indian startups. Asia has emerged as a key contender for startups globally, beating the Americas and Europe. In 2018, startups in Asia raised $172 billion, compared to $162.9 billion in Americas and $46.2 billion in Europe," Yostartups CEO Jappreet Sethi said. Globally, about 14,300 funding deals were struck by startups in 2018, raising over $400 billion, an increase of more than 23 per cent from the previous year, the report said. It added that over 3,700 seed funding deals (totalling $6.9 billion) were struck, while 7,357 venture funding deals ranging from series A to Series I were signed in 2018 to raise $217.9 billion. With the merger, Bank of Baroda will become the third largest bank after State Bank of India and ICICI Bank. New Delhi: Paving the way for the first ever-three way merger of public sector lenders, the Cabinet on Wednesday approved amalgamation of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with Bank of Baroda that would create the countrys third-largest lender. The boards of the three banks have also cleared the share-swap ratio for the proposed amalgamation. With the merger, BoB will become the third largest bank after State Bank of India and ICICI Bank. Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said there would be no retrenchment of employees and that their services conditions would also not be affected post-merger. "There will be no impact on the service conditions of the employees and there will be no retrenchment following the merger," Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters about decisions taken by the Union Cabinet. The merger has been designed to make BoB as merged entity, a globally competitive lender, Prasad added. He also said that the amalgamation would help create a strong globally competitive bank with economies of scale and enable realisation of wide-ranging synergies. The amalgamation would be the first-ever three-way consolidation of banks in India, with a combined business of Rs 14.82 lakh crore, making it the third largest bank after SBI and ICICI Bank. The merger would also create the second largest public sector bank. Post this merger, the number of PSU banks will come down to 18. Leveraging of networks, low-cost deposits and subsidiaries of the three banks has the potential of yielding significant synergies, Prasad said. As per the Scheme of Amalgamation announced by Bank of Baroda, shareholders of Vijaya Bank would get 402 equity shares of BoB for every 1,000 shares held in the bank. In the case of Dena Bank, the shareholders would get 110 shares of BoB for every 1,000 shares owned in the bank. The scheme would come into force on 1 April 2019. It would position the consolidated entity for substantial rise in customer base, market reach, operational efficiency, wider bouquet of products and services, and improved access for customers, he added. The Scheme of Amalgamation would be laid before the Parliament for 30 days for the perusal of the members. Sources said the scheme would be laid before the Parliament before the end of the Winter Session, which is to end on 8 January. In September 2018, the Alternative Mechanism headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley gave in-principle approval for the merger of the three banks with a view to creating a global-sized lender. Last year, Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar said employees of the merged entity would enjoy best of service conditions and no employees would face a service condition which is in any way adverse in nature. The brand identity would also be protected. Kumar had also said that the individual strengths of the three banks would translate into advantages in terms of market reach, operational efficiencies and the ability to support a wider offering of product and services. The government has already committed capital support for the merged entity, which is projected to have a net NPA ratio of 5.71 percent. This would be much lower than that the average ratio of 12.13 per cent for public sector banks. Provision Coverage Ratio (PCR) would be better at 67.5 percent against the average of 63.7 percent. For the merged entity, the cost to income ratio would be 48.94 percent whereas the average for public sector lenders is 53.92 percent. Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) at 12.25 percent would be significantly above the regulatory norm of 10.87 percent. The amalgamated banks would have access to a wider talent pool and a large database that may be leveraged through analytics for competitive advantage in a rapidly digitalising banking context, Prasad said. --With PTI inputs This is a merger of two healthy banks with one weak, capital-starved, NPA-ridden candidate and it is easy to see who stands to gain the most Both Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank shares were down on Thursday morning after the Cabinet approved the three-way merger of these banks with Bank of Baroda (BoB), the bigger and better bank in the group. Why did Dena, Vijaya investors give a thumbs down to the merger? The reason is that, contrary to expectations, the swap ratio announced didnt meet the expected numbers. As per swap ratio announced, for every 1000 shares of Dena Bank, a shareholder will get 110 shares of BoB. Similarly, Vijaya Bank shareholders will get 402 shares of BoB for every 1000 shares. The investors were hoping for a better deal and hammered the shares pushing Dena Bank to an intra-day low of Rs 14.40 (down 20 percent) and Vijay to Rs 47.25 (down 7.44 percent). The merger will be effective on 1 April. Thats about investors. But, what does this merger means for these three entities and the banking sector as a whole? The government-dominated, inefficient, NPA-ridden Indian banking system was indeed stepping into a consolidation phase. There were too many weaker candidates, mainly government-banks, that couldnt fend for self. There was a promise by Narendra Modi-government to exit from these institutions. Privatisation was keenly awaited. This would have facilitated more private participation and strengthening of the banking sector. But, what has happened, instead, is bundling together a couple of weak banks with a relatively well-run and strong bank. The end result will be a big drag for the stronger one (BoB) by forcing it to bail out the weaker ones. This wasnt the idea, to begin with. Take this particular case. Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank the three-way merger is actually an unofficial bailout package for bad loan-ridden Dena Bank, which is one of the most struggling lenders in the sector. The other two Bank of Baroda and Vijaya Bank have relatively healthier balance sheets. Dena Bank is already under Prompt Corrective Action (PAC) of the Reserve Bank of India on account of high bad loans and negative return on assets. Its NPA levels are the highest among all Indian banks. As on 30 September, Dena Bank's Gross Non-Performing Assets (GNPAs) stood at 23.64 percent, which makes it the fourth highest NPA-ridden bank among State-run lenders. Being under PAC, the bank has restrictions on lending and fresh recruitment. Due to high provisions, Dena Bank's first half of FY19 marked a loss of Rs 1,138 crore as compared with a loss of Rs 318 crore in the corresponding period last year. Following the merger, Dena Banks chances of survival are better, since it will be part of the bigger entity that has more bargaining power to grab a bigger share of government capital. In one step, the bank is escaping the spotlight. Bank financials in Rs crore Bank of Baroda Dena Bank Vijaya Bank Total Deposits (30 Sep 2018) 606,973 101,260 167,628 875,861 Advances (30 Sep 2018) 433,549 59,400 126,284 619,233 Total assets (30 Sep 2018) 741,434 114,620 188,179 1,044,233 Total income (FY18) 50,306 10,096 14,190 74,592 Net profit (FY18) -2,432 -1,923 727 -3,628 Gross NPAs (30 Sep 2018) 55,121 16,140 7,557 78,819 Net NPAs (30 Sep 2018) 21,059 6,902 4,810 32,772 Market cap (3 January 2019) 31,958 3,276 6,234 41,468 Gross NPAs in % (30 Sep 2018) 11.78 23.64 5.86 Capital Adequacy Ratio(%) -Basel-III (30 Sep 2018) 11.88 10.10 13.56 Compared to Dena, Bank of Baroda is a turnaround bank that has been improving its performance rapidly. Its gross NPA levels are in lower double digits (11.78 percent as on 30 September 2018) and the bank posted a profit of Rs 954 crore in April-September 2018, which was 70 percent higher compared to year ago period. In 2015, the government had effected certain top-level management changes in Bank of Baroda by bringing in private sector candidates and this appears to have helped its fortunes. Similarly, Vijaya Bank too is a relatively better performing bank in the PSU lot; it showed a decline in the April-September 2018 profit figures on account of higher provisions, but if one looks at interest income growth and asset quality, the bank is much better than its peers. Gross NPAs, at end of second quarter, stood lower at 5.86 percent against 6.19 percent in the previous quarter. Its net NPAs too declined to 3.81 percent from 4.10 percent on a quarter-on-quarter basis. Dena Bank has a capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of 10.1 percent not far from the minimum required level while Vijaya and Bank of Baroda have 13.56 and 11.88 percent CAR respectively as of 30 September 2018. The combined gross NPA of Dena and Vijaya banks in absolute numbers will be Rs 23,697 crore thatll go to BoBs books, while the total deposits BoB will get from the two banks post-merger will be Rs 2.69 lakh crore. To sum up, this is a merger of two healthy banks with one weak, capital-starved, NPA-ridden candidate and it is easy to see who stands to gain the most. The healthier duo will have to absorb the NPA shocks and capital needs of the target entity. Having said that, from a reform-perspective, consolidation among State-run banks gives the industry certain benefits. It helps to create large-sized banks that can then work to build enough muscle mass to compete in a global banking industry presently dominated by large-sized lenders. With a Rs 10 lakh crore asset size, the post-merger Bank of Baroda-Vijaya Bank-Dena Bank entity will still not be a match for the top global banks (even SBI is not big enough to be among the top banks on the global list), but India is slowly creating large-sized banks. Through a series of mergers, perhaps the country will have five or six large banks that can be groomed to compete in the global market. This makes sense now because RBI has started giving permits to a number of small banks that can focus on expanding small-scale banking activities in rural areas. In any case, it did not make sense to control the ownership of so many banks in an ambitious economy. There has been no progress on the privatisation of State-run banks which would have been the ideal case to bring in private talent and money. The IDBI Bank-LIC deal can be hardly called a privatisation move since LIC is technically a government-run entity. Thus, with not enough political will and scope for privatisation of these banks, consolidation seems to be the only way to keep the momentum going for banking sector reforms. But there is an important question the government will need to answer when it goes ahead with the PSB consolidation drive: Does the merger help to solve the NPA problem of State-run banks and suppress the insatiable capital hunger of these banks, especially the weaker ones? The post-merger Bank of Baroda-Vijaya Bank-Dena Bank entity will have a total gross NPAs of Rs 78,819 crore, which as a percentage of total advances stand at around 13 percent. How will the merger help in addressing this problem? What is happening here is only the process of bundling of a few small problems into a bigger one. The work culture and management inefficiencies that led these banks to the present situation, and the onus on the government to feed capital to these banks all remain the same. Had it been a sell-off instead of a merger among PSBs, fresh private money would have come in and more efficient management would have been accountable for efficient use of that money. This is something former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan had pointed out in 2015 . Rajan's main points were that the merger of two (or more) unhealthy banks in the financial system will create an unhealthy entity that would lead to the creation of a bigger problem in the economy. Secondly, even in the case of the merger of an unhealthy bank with a large healthy bank, the merger would bring problems to the acquiring bank. Thirdly, in the event of a merger of a weak bank with a strong bank, the acquirer will have to deal with the cultural problems that arise out of the merger, besides dealing with the primary challenge the bad loan pile in the weak bank, thereby creating difficulties for the strong bank. The point is that if consolidation is the way ahead for the government, it will have to invest equally in a management revamp and find out-of-the-box solutions to address the NPA problem, beyond the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code resolution. If the fundamental problems are not addressed, consolidation will end up as unannounced bailout packages for zombie banks. (This is an updated piece on the three-way bank merger first appeared on Firstpost on 18 September. Kishor Kadam contributed data) Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 3, 2019) - Silver One Resources Inc. (TSXV: SVE) (OTC Pink: SLVRF) (FSE: BRK1) ("Silver One" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has increased its previously announce private placement financing (see news release dated December 27, 2018) from 3,066,667 units of the Company ("Units") to 4,108,333 Units at a price of C$0.15 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to C$616,250 Each Unit will continue to consist of one common share ("Share") in the capital of the Company and one-half of one share purchase warrant (each whole warrant being a "Warrant" of the Company). Each whole Warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one share at an exercise price of C$0.20 per share for a period of three years from the date of the issue of the Warrants. Closing of the Private Placement is subject to acceptance by the TSXV. The Company may issue share purchase warrants to certain finders equal to 5%. The securities issued in connection with the Private Placement will be subject to a hold period of 4 months from the date of issuance, in accordance with applicable securities laws. The net proceeds from the Private Placement are expected to be used to conduct drilling on the Penasco Quemado project in Mexico and for working capital. About Silver One Silver One is focused on the exploration and development of quality silver projects. The Company holds an option to acquire a 100%-interest in its flagship project, the past-producing Candelaria Mine located in Nevada. Potential reprocessing of silver from the historic leach pads at Candelaria provides an opportunity for possible near-term production. Additional opportunities lie in previously identified high-grade silver intercepts down-dip and potentially increasing the substantive silver mineralization along-strike from the two past-producing open pits. The Company has staked 636 lode claims and entered into a Lease/Purchase Agreement to acquire five patented claims on its Cherokee project located in Lincoln County, Nevada, host to multiple silver-copper-gold vein systems, traced to date for over 11 km along-strike. In addition, the Company also holds a 100% interest in three significant silver assets located in Mexico - Penasco Quemado, Sonora; La Frazada, Nayarit; and Pluton, Durango, acquired from First Mining Gold, one of the Company's largest shareholders. For more information, please contact: Silver One Resources Inc. Monica Hamm - VP, Investor Relations Phone: 604-974-5274 Mobile: 778-389-9928 Email: mhamm@silverone.com Forward-Looking Statements Information set forth in this news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions as of the date of this news release. These statements reflect management's current estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations. They are not guarantees of future performance. Silver One cautions that all forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain, and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many of which are beyond Silver One's control. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to Silver One's limited operating history, ability to obtain sufficient financing to carry out its exploration and development objectives on the Candelaria Project, obtaining the necessary permits to carry out its activities and the need to comply with environmental and governmental regulations. Accordingly, actual and future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, Silver One undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information. NEITHER TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 3, 2019) - Seahawk Ventures Inc. (CSE: SHV) ("Seahawk") is pleased to announce that it has closed the Private Placement as announced on November 5, 2018 (see news release) and raised gross proceeds of $912,240.00. Seahawk issued 350,750 shares in the Placement for $0.32 per share, and 2,000,000 shares on a flow-through basis at a price of $0.40 per share. We look forward to an exciting year ahead with the company having made significant progress in a very short period of time and will be anticipating the commencement of its work program in early 2019. About Seahawk Ventures Inc. Seahawk Ventures Inc. is a publicly traded Canadian resource exploration company trading in Canada (CSE: SHV), the U.S. (OTC Pink: SEHKF) and Germany (FSE: 7SR). Seahawk is now the 2nd largest land owner in the Urban-Barry Greenstone Belt in the Abitibi sub province of mining friendly Quebec, Canada, with 100% ownership of several mineral properties. For more information please contact Seahawk Ventures Inc. Giovanni Gasbarro, CEO and Director at 1-604-939-1848 Mitchell E. Lavery, P.Geo. President and Director at 1-613-298-1596 Neither the Canadian Stock Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Stock Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. THIS NEWS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES During JP Morgan Healthcare Conference San Francisco, January 7-9, 2019 Regulatory News: OSE Immunotherapeutics (ISIN: FR0012127173; Mnemo: OSE) (Paris:OSE), today announced that Alexis Peyroles, CEO, will present an overview of the Company's business and will be available to participate in one-on-one meetings with investors at the Biotech Showcase to be held Jan. 7-9, 2019, in San Francisco. The details of OSE Immunotherapeutics' presentation are as follows: Event: Biotech Showcase 2019 Conference Date: Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019 Time: 11:00 a.m. PST Location: Yosemite C (Ballroom level), Hilton San Francisco Union Square 333 O'Farrell Street The presentation will be webcast live and is accessible for 3 months: https://event.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1226626&tp_key=ac6dc1c6be ABOUT OSE Immunotherapeutics OSE Immunotherapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing and partnering therapies to control the immune system for immuno-oncology and autoimmmune diseases. The company has a diversified first-in-class clinical portfolio consisting of several scientific and technological platforms including neoepitopes and agonist or antagonist monoclonal antibodies, all ideally positioned to fight cancer and autoimmune diseases. The most advanced therapeutic-candidate, Tedopi, is a proprietary combination of 10 neo-epitopes aimed at stimulating T-lymphocytes and is currently in Phase 3 development in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after checkpoint inhibitor failure (anti PD-1 and anti PD-L1) and in Phase 2 testing in pancreatic cancer in combination with checkpoint inhibitor Opdivo. FR104 (an anti-CD28 mAb) has successfully completed Phase 1 testing and has potential to treat autoimmune diseases. In April 2018, Boehringer Ingelheim and OSE signed a global license and collaboration agreement to develop preclinical checkpoint inhibitor OSE-172 (anti-SIRPa monoclonal antibody) in multiple cancer indications. OSE-127 (monoclonal antibody targeting the CD127 receptor, the alpha chain of the interleukin-7 receptor) is partnered with Servier under an option agreement up to the completion of a Phase 2 clinical trial planned in autoimmune bowel diseases; in parallel, Servier plans a development in the Sjogren syndrome. OSE-127 is currently under Phase 1 clinical trial. Click and follow us on Twitter and Linkedln Forward-looking statements This press release contains express or implied information and statements that might be deemed forward-looking information and statements in respect of OSE Immunotherapeutics. They do not constitute historical facts. These information and statements include financial projections that are based upon certain assumptions and assessments made by OSE Immunotherapeutics' management in light of its experience and its perception of historical trends, current economic and industry conditions, expected future developments and other factors they believe to be appropriate. These forward-looking statements include statements typically using conditional and containing verbs such as "expect", "anticipate", "believe", "target", "plan", or "estimate", their declensions and conjugations and words of similar import. Although the OSE Immunotherapeutics management believes that the forward-looking statements and information are reasonable, the OSE Immunotherapeutics' shareholders and other investors are cautioned that the completion of such expectations is by nature subject to various risks, known or not, and uncertainties which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of OSE Immunotherapeutics. These risks could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed in or implied or projected by the forward-looking statements. These risks include those discussed or identified in the public filings made by OSE Immunotherapeutics with the AMF. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. This press release includes only summary information and should be read with the OSE Immunotherapeutics Reference Document filed with the AMF on 26 April 2018, including the annual financial report for the fiscal year 2017, available on the OSE Immunotherapeutics' website. Other than as required by applicable law, OSE Immunotherapeutics issues this press release at the date hereof and does not undertake any obligation to update or revise the forward-looking information or statements. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005056/en/ Contacts: OSE Immunotherapeutics Sylvie Detry Sylvie.detry@ose-immuno.com +33 143 297 857 French Media: FP2COM Florence Portejoie fportejoie@fp2com.fr +33 607 768 283 U.S. Media: LifeSci Public Relations Darren Opland, Ph.D. Darren@lifescipublicrelations.com +1 646 627-8387 U.S. and European Investors Chris Maggos chris@lifesciadvisors.com +41 79 367 6254 Boxwood continues to build upon its track record in the franchising industry within the middle market RICHMOND, VA / ACCESSWIRE / January 3, 2019 / Boxwood Partners, LLC is pleased to announce the sale of AdvantaClean Systems, Inc. (the "Company" or "AdvantaClean") to Home Franchise Concepts ("HFC"). Boxwood Partners acted as the exclusive advisor to AdvantaClean with respect to this transaction. The transaction was led by Managing Partner J. Patrick Galleher and Director Brian Alas. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in 1994, AdvantaClean specializes in mold remediation, water damage restoration, moisture control, radon mitigation and air duct cleaning. The Huntersville, N.C. based company operates more than 230 franchised territories in 37 states. "AdvantaClean is a perfect fit with the HFC family and expands our mission of being a whole-home-solution provider with a growing suite of best-in-class home products and services," said Shirin Behzadi, CEO of Irvine, Calif.-based Home Franchise Concepts. "Just like local Budget Blinds, Tailored Living and Concrete Craft business owners, AdvantaClean franchisees are trusted, local experts in their communities, offering innovative solutions to help turn their customers' houses into a home." Behzadi also noted that AdvantaClean shares a number of similarities with HFC and its brand family, including common core values, a focus on giving back, and a high profile among veterans and the military. AdvantaClean becomes the fourth Home Franchise Concepts home-related brand, joining Budget Blinds, Tailored Living and Concrete Craft as the top-rated franchised brand in its category. AdvantaClean was founded by Jeff Dudan in Florida to help homeowners impacted by Hurricane Andrew. President Matt Phillips is a U.S. Army veteran and serves on the board of VetFran, a veteran franchising initiative of the International Franchise Association. "We are delighted to join forces with the experts at HFC to expand our collective ability to positively impact homeowners across North America,"said Phillips. Jeff Dudan and team were pleased with the transaction as they commented, "HFC has been extremely professional, timely, and empathetic to the various obstacles that can hinder the later stages of a transaction." Dudan continued, "I would also like to thank the Boxwood team for their crucial role in helping us identify the right partner for AdvantaClean going forward and I commend them for their help throughout every step of the process." About Boxwood Partners Boxwood Partners, LLC (www.boxwoodpartnersllc.com), is a boutique investment bank based in Richmond, Virginia. Boxwood Partners combines a unique blend of senior-level transaction advisory, business operating experience, and proven process execution skills to give its clients a distinct advantage in the market. The firm's extensive relationships within the global capital and buyer communities (including U.S. and international private equity groups, corporations, and lenders) and other important transaction-related service providers such as consultants, attorneys, and accountants, ensure that the firm's clients receive the attention, service, and results they deserve. About AdvantaClean: Headquartered in Huntersville, N.C., AdvantaClean is the leading national franchised provider of light environmental services in the country. Founded in 1994, the Company began as a contracting business handling cleanup and repairs in Florida before eventually evolving the franchise business model based in North Carolina. The Company currently ranks 85th on Entrepreneur Magazine's fastest-growing-franchises list, and is among Franchise Business Review's Top 50 in franchisee-satisfaction ratings. In 2013-14, USA Today and the International Franchise Association recognized AdvantaClean as a Top Franchise for Military Veterans. Today, more than 230 AdvantaClean franchised territories operate in 37 states. About Home Franchise Concepts: Home Franchise Concepts (HFC) is the top-selling family of direct-to-consumer brands in the home-related goods and services space, one of the world's largest franchise businesses and a recognized leader in franchisee-franchisor relationships. HFC's three brands including Budget Blinds, Tailored Living and Concrete Craft are consistently rated at the top of their categories and supported by nearly 1,500 franchise territories in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Contact: J. Patrick Galleher Phone: (804) 343-3441 Email: pgalleher@boxwoodpartnersllc.com SOURCE: Boxwood Partners, LLC View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/531779/Boxwood-Partners-Advises-Advantaclean-on-its-Acquisition-by-Home-Franchise-Concepts Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 3, 2019) - Argo Gold Inc. (CSE: ARQ) ("Argo Gold" or the "Company") announces that Judy Baker has tendered her resignation as Director, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company due to personal reasons. Mr. Chris Irwin has been appointed Interim President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company until such time as the Company appoints Ms. Baker's successor. Management and the board of directors would like to thank Ms. Baker for her years of service and considerable contributions to the Company and wish her well in her future endeavours. About Argo Gold Inc. Argo Gold is listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the ticker ARQ. Argo Gold is focused on gold exploration projects central and northwestern Ontario. All of Argo Gold's projects are 100% owned and have indications of economic viability. Argo Gold's website is www.argogold.ca. For more information please contact: Chris Irwin Interim President & CEO (416) 361-2516 cirwin@irwinlowy.com NEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATIONS SERVICES PROVIDER HAVE REVIEWED OR ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. Forward-looking Information Cautionary Statement Except for statements of historic fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements including, but not limited to delays or uncertainties with regulatory approvals, including that of the CSE. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additional information identifying risks and uncertainties that could affect financial results is contained in the Company's filings with Canadian securities regulators, which filings are available at www.sedar.com. TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / January 3, 2019 / Tsodilo Resources Limited (TSX Venture Exchange: TSD) ("Tsodilo" or the "Company") reports that in terms of the Stock Option Plan of the Company and a policy adopted by the board of directors in September 2002, 250,000 stock options were granted to officers and senior employees on January 2, 2019, at CDN $0.28 per common share. These options are valid for five years and vest in four equal installments on January 2, 2019, July 2, 2019, January 2, 2020 and July 2, 2020. About Tsodilo Resources Limited Tsodilo Resources Limited is an international diamond and metals exploration company engaged in the search for economic diamond and metal deposits at its Bosoto (Pty) Limited ("Bosoto") and Gcwihaba Resources (Pty) Limited ("Gcwihaba") projects in Botswana and its Idada 361 (Pty) Limited ("Idada") project in Barberton, South Africa. The Company has a 100% stake in Bosoto (Pty) Ltd. which holds the BK16 kimberlite project in the Orapa Kimberlite Field (OKF) in Botswana and the PL216/2017 diamond prospection license also in the OKF. The Company has a 100% stake in its Gcwihaba project area consisting of seven metal (base, precious, platinum group, and rare earth) prospecting licenses all located in the North-West district of Botswana. Additionally, Tsodilo has a 70% stake in Idada Trading 361 (Pty) Limited which holds the gold and silver exploration license in the Barberton area of South Africa. Tsodilo manages the exploration of the Gcwihaba, Bosoto and Idada projects. This press release may contain forward-looking statements. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future (including, without limitation, statements pertaining to the use of proceeds, the impact of strategic partnerships and statements that describe the Company's future plans, objectives or goals) are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements reflect the current expectations or beliefs of the Company based on information currently available to the Company. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements, and even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on the Company. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, changes in equity markets, changes in general economic conditions, market volatility, political developments in Botswana and surrounding countries, changes to regulations affecting the Company's activities, uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future, exploration and development risks, the uncertainties involved in interpreting exploration results and the other risks involved in the mineral exploration business. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements and, even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on, the Company. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, uncertainties relating to availability and cost of funds, timing and content of work programs, results of exploration activities, interpretation of drilling results and other geological data, risks relating to variations in the diamond grade and kimberlite lithologies; variations in rates of recovery and breakage; estimates of grade and quality of diamonds, variations in diamond valuations and future diamond prices; the state of world diamond markets, reliability of mineral property titles, changes to regulations affecting the Company's activities, delays in obtaining or failure to obtain required project approvals, operational and infrastructure risk and other risks involved in the diamond exploration and development business. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such statements due to their inherent uncertainty. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. This news release may contain assumptions, estimates, and other forward-looking statements regarding future events. Such forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties and are subject to factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control, which may cause actual results or performance to differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: James M. Bruchs Dr. Mike de Wit Head Office Website Chairman and Chief Executive Officer President and Chief Operating Officer Telephone +1 416 572 2033 http://www.TsodiloResources.com JBruchs@TsodiloResources.com MdeWit@TsodiloResources.com Facsimile + 1 416 987 4369 SOURCE: Tsodilo Resources Limited View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/531776/Tsodilo-Resources-Limited-Grant-of-Stock-Options The global drain cleaner market is expected to post a CAGR of close to 5% during the period 2018-2022, according to the latest market research report by Technavio This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005388/en/ Technavio predicts the global drain cleaner market to post a CAGR of close to 5% by 2022. (Graphic: Business Wire) A key factor driving the growth of the market is rising online sales. The revenue generated by the global drain cleaner market through online distribution channels has been growing gradually. In developed regions like the Americas and Europe, the online distribution network attained a significant growth momentum in 2017. Therefore, players in the US, the UK, Germany, France, and Italy will generate huge sales through online distribution channels by the end of the forecast period. In developing regions, with the growing adoption of smartphones and internet penetration, the sales of drain cleaners are expected to gain momentum through e-commerce sites and expand exponentially during the forecast period. This market research report on the global drain cleaner market 2018-2022 also provides an analysis of the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook during the forecast period. Technavio classifies an emerging trend as a major factor that has the potential to significantly impact the market and contribute to its growth or decline. This report is available at a USD 1,000 discount for a limited time only: View market snapshot before purchasing In this report, Technavio highlights the growing adoption of omnichannel retailing as one of the key emerging trends in the global drain cleaner market: Global drain cleaner market: Growing adoption of omnichannel retailing The adoption of the omnichannel strategy is an emerging trend in the global drain cleaner market. To expand customer base and increase revenue, vendors are integrating their offline-online presence by implementing omnichannel strategy in their respective business models. Evolving customer shopping patterns, changing online purchasing behavior, and the growing number of digitally driven customers, particularly the millennial population, are some of the factors encouraging vendors to shift toward online retailing. Product improvement, appropriate channels of distribution, effective advertising, and aggressive pricing strategies are essential factors that affect the promotion of products among end-users. Owing to busy schedules, consumers prefer to shop online rather than at physical stores for convenience. Factors such as rising internet penetration and adoption of digital products such as tablets, smartphones, and laptops have boosted online sales. "Consumers today are more engaged in social networking and blogs to educate themselves about various products. Social media is a boon for any industry as it provides a platform to actively engage with consumers. Vendors, therefore, prefer to use social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, to increase awareness and promote their products." says a senior analyst at Technavio for research on cosmetics and toiletry. Global drain cleaner market: Segmentation analysis This market research report segments the global drain cleaner market by product type (liquid and gel, and others) and geographical regions (APAC, EMEA, and the Americas). The EMEA led the market in 2017 with a market share close to 41% of the market share, followed by APAC and Americas respectively. However, during the forecast period, the APAC region is expected to register the highest incremental growth, followed by the Americas. Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report such as the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. Some of the key topics covered in the report include: Market Landscape Market ecosystem Market characteristics Market segmentation analysis Market Sizing Market definition Market size and forecast Five Forces Analysis Market Segmentation Geographical Segmentation Regional comparison Key leading countries Market Drivers Market Challenges Market Trends Vendor Landscape Vendors covered Vendor classification Market positioning of vendors Competitive scenario About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005388/en/ Contacts: Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 www.technavio.com VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 3, 2019 / EastWest Bioscience (the "Company" or "EastWest") (TSX-V: EAST) announces the appointment of an exceptional team of retail advisors effective January 1, 2019, an active retail advisory board (the "Advisory") to help with the next stage development of EastWest's retail model, product development, and the recently acquired Sangster's Health Centres ("Sangster's"). The board will work with the management of EastWest and Sangster's to add strategic strength to Sangster's management and the Company's product development and distribution. The Advisory has experience including franchise development, corporate and franchise finance, retail management for both brick and mortar stores and on-line platforms, as well as top-tier Canadian consumer markets experience. The Advisory will be instrumental in developing the critical infrastructure, personnel and management resources to take the iconic Sangster's brand to a new level of Sangster's Health Superstores. The long-term vision for Sangster's is the development of proposed medical clinics. These are intended to pave the way for Sangster's to license and sell pharmaceutical products as well as participate in the medical marijuana market with primarily CBD-infused products. Although the board may be expanded in the future, the current Advisory is expected to include Steve Langford, Helen Langford, and Thomas Kim, each with strong but unique retail and multi-branch store experience. Steve Langford: Mr. Langford has worked in the large chain food and consumer retail business for most of his career. A few highlights of his career include in senior management of the Loblaw Companies from 1986 to 1993 where he managed teams of management and was responsible for the procurement of over $1 billion worth of goods for five different store brand lines. He was also a key strategist behind the development Loblaw's President's Choice and No Name Products brands. In 1996 he became President and CEO of BC Hothouse Foods, a large greenhouse, where he expanded broker networks, negotiated new business globally and grew sales 140% to $150 million in just 2 years. In 2003, he joined Prism Income Fund as chief purchasing officer, responsible for supply chain and merchandising for 400 KFC and 100 Taco Bell restaurants in Canada. In 2008, he became Prizm's President and revamped operations to focus on profitability and guest experience developing new products, market promotions and media plans. Helen Langford: Ms. Lanford has worked in large chain food and restaurant chains for over 20 years including senior management at Boston Pizza, which has over 300 locations in Canada, USA and Mexico. She is a multi-faceted senior executive experienced in leading organizations and delivering value added change to meet new consumer/customer demands. She has extensive experience in contract negotiation, supply chain management, quality assurance, new product development and commercialization within the food and foodservice industries. Thomas D. Kim: Mr. Kim has 22-years experience as senior management within Canadian wealth management companies as well as key entrepreneurial experience within his family business of multiple retail store operations in diverse sectors. The family operations include convenience and grocery stores, retail gasoline stations, Canada's largest Dairy Queen franchise, as well as real estate investment, development and management with over 200 total employees. Mr. Kim is a wealth company manager with deep multi-branch experience including positions at: ScotiaMacleod (1995) as a President's Council status investment advisor; TD Waterhouse (1998) as top recruiter and outstanding manager, promoted to SVP and Regional Manager where he led 15 branch managers in growing the Western Canadian markets, and then Regional Manager in Toronto; Blackmont Capital (2004) as EVP and National Sales Manager where he recruited over 50 advisors and managed over 200, managing over $10 billion in assets over 13 branches across Canada; CIBC Gundy (2011) as VP and Branch Manager of Bay Street Toronto branch where he led the turnaround of the 40+ advisors and their teams, and oversaw a corporate rebranding and renovation; and, Canaccord Genuity (2016 to present) as a Managing Director responsible for Advisory Services for business analytics, reporting and compensation, as well as overseeing Toronto's private client office. EastWest Future Plans EastWest will continue to develop its Superstores concept and plans to convert its corporate stores into Sangster's Super Centres. This Superstore concept anticipates the integration of health products stores and pharmacies into clinical models designed to take advantage of the expected changes of sales and distribution of CBD health products. EastWest is also pursuing other major acquisitions that will further expand EastWest's revenues and distribution footprint and will be updating markets and shareholders with additional revenue streams as part of its vertically integrated model. About EastWest BioScience Group EastWest Bioscience is a seed-to-sale organization that offers world class manufacturing and premium hemp-based consumer goods. Since it was founded in 2016, EastWest continues to grow as a high-quality producer, manufacturer and distributor of multiple lines of premium hemp products. EastWest is strategically positioned in mainstream consumer markets with wholistic natural products and has developed distribution channels into mainstream stores and markets in Canada. The Company has a Health Canada licensed, GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) certified manufacturing facility and produces premium brands offering natural products for a preventive care lifestyle. EastWest consumer product lines are divided into four distinct brands: 1) Natural Advancement - natural biopharmaceutical health supplements; 2) Earth's Menu - all-natural hemp superfoods; 3) Natural Pet Science - pet food and pet supplements; and 4) Chanvre Hemp - all-natural health and beauty products. The organization will continue to focus on ongoing development of innovative, hemp-based consumer products through advanced science with clean, natural ingredients to complement its current product offerings. About Sangster's Health Centres Sangster's Health Centres occupies a distinguished position in the Canadian natural health products and natural health industry in Canada. Founded in 1971, Sangster's stores and people have been providing their customers knowledge and hundreds of product remedies for the safe, natural prevention and treatment of disease and ailments for almost 50 years. Sangster's has introduced and developed over 200 exclusive Sangster's products (vitamins, mineral, herbs, proteins, natural body care and organic foods) putting the Sangster's name and branded products into thousands of Canadian households. Today, Sangster's continues to grow as a national brand name with franchise stores located across Canada. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS EASTWEST BIOSCIENCE GROUP "Rodney Gelineau" Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Director For further information, please visit www.eastwestbioscience.com or contact EastWest Bioscience Investor Relations at 1-647-394-7383 or email us at investors@eastwestscience.com. This press release is not an offer of securities for sale in the United States. The securities described in this press release have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons (as defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended) absent registration or an exemption from registration. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdiction where such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful. NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION: This news release includes certain "forward-looking statements" under applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the terms and conditions of the Acquisition. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon several estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to: general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; and delay or failure to receive board, shareholder or regulatory approvals. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Corporation disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. SOURCE: EastWest Bioscience View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/531752/EastWest-Bioscience-Appoints-High-Profile-Retail-Management-Advisory-Team DENVER, CO / ACCESSWIRE / January 3, 2019 / International Cannabrands Inc. (CSE: JUJU) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that Julian Marley JuJu Royal, our Rastafarian influenced lifestyle brand, has signed a new distribution agreement with Northern Lights Distribution ("Northern Lights") (see www.NLDistribution.com). Northern Lights is a rapidly growing legal cannabis distribution business with a substantial footprint of approximately 200 dispensaries in California. Northern Lights is licensed for both medical and adult-use recreational distribution and is interested in the Company's compelling brand acquisition strategy and, in particular, its JuJu Royal brand. Northern Lights provides full security, transportation, testing and distribution/sales. "We are extremely excited to have come to terms with Northern Lights and to have them as one of our distribution partners in California. The California market is growing substantially and JuJu Royal has made it a priority to partner with leading and innovative distributors. Northern Lights will materially expand our footprint and support our aggressive growth plans for 2019," shared Travis Belcher, President JuJu Royal. "ICI is thrilled to add Northern Lights as a partner and to have them as a driving force supporting our California growth goals. I have known the owners of Northern Lights for years and am confident that they will be a vital addition to our valued partner network," added Steve Gormley, CEO, International Cannabrands Inc. About International Cannabrands (ICI) The Company's business model is to generate revenue from cannabis cultivation, brands ranging from flower to edibles and from THC to CBD, oil extraction, ancillary products and apparel in the United States. ICI markets products with THC content where that practice has been legalized at the state level through either medicinal or full recreational use. ICI also markets products containing CBD in the US and internationally. ICI's strategy centers on acquiring micro brands, distribution and specific manufacturing/cultivation companies in the cannabis space. ICI has acquired the exclusive rights to Julian Marley's JuJu Royal brand. The Company believes as the legal cannabis market evolves, high-quality, unique products will increasingly capture market share and provide a valuable platform for growth. About JuJu Royal Julian Marley conveys his message of legalization, freedom, and love through the JuJu Royal brand, a line of naturally produced medicinal herbs. Our vision is to realize the opportunity to become one of the largest brands in the Marijuana industry. The synergy between the Rastafarian culture, music, natural products and an "Irie" experience is a powerful foundation for our business. JuJu's strategy is to develop and grow a complete cannabis line based on an international appeal to a millennial lifestyle seeking a luxurious and premium experience. JuJu will capitalize on the unparalleled opportunity to position itself with unique, innovative, high quality brands that meet and exceed our customer's expectations. More information about the brand and various products can be obtained at www.jujuroyal.net. International Cannabrands Contact: Steve Gormley Chief Executive Officer 1045 Lincoln Street, #106 Denver, Colorado 80203 Ph: (323) 828-4321 or steve.gormley@intlcannabrands.com Media Inquiries: media@jujuroyal.net NEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER HAS REVIEWED OR ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. Disclaimer concerning Forward-looking Statements Certain statements included herein constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the expected benefit from the distribution agreement with Northern Lights. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management at this time, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. Investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additional risks and uncertainties regarding the Company are described in its publicly-available disclosure documents filed by the Company on SEDAR (www.sedar.com). The forward-looking statements contained in this news release represent the Company's expectations as of the date of this news release, or as of the date they are otherwise stated to be made, and subsequent events may cause these expectations to change. Except as required by law, the Company does not intend, and undertakes no obligation, to update any forward-looking statements to reflect, in particular, new information or future events. SOURCE: International Cannabrands Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/531749/International-Cannabrands-Signs-Additional-California-Distribution-Deal Funding Will Support Global Clinical Program Ablative Solutions, Inc., a company pioneering new approaches for the treatment of hypertension, today announced the first close of its $77 million Series D funding round. The round was led by new investor Gilde Healthcare and co-led by existing investor BioStar Ventures and an undisclosed new strategic corporate investor. Existing investors including Michigan Accelerator Fund, Novus Biotechnology and other individual investors also participated the Series D funding round. Funds from the round will be used to complete clinical trials in support of U.S. and European regulatory submissions for the company's minimally invasive renal denervation technology designed to help reduce blood pressure for people with uncontrolled hypertension, while taking antihypertensive medication. Ablative Solutions' alcohol-mediated renal denervation procedure is performed using the investigational Peregrine System Kit, which is engineered to target nerves known to influence the body's regulation of blood pressure. The Peregrine Kit delivers dehydrated alcohol in small doses directly to the space outside of the renal artery to block the overactive signaling of the sympathetic nerves. This targeted treatment is designed to be performed in a rapid, straightforward procedure with minimal pain or discomfort for the patient. "BioStar Ventures focuses on transformational health care investments, and we believe Ablative Solutions fits that model perfectly. We are enthusiastic about the company's innovative approach to treating high blood pressure, a serious condition that impacts more than one billion people worldwide," said Michael Fulton, M.D., senior managing director of BioStar Ventures, an investor in the company since its Series A round in 2012. "Ablative Solutions' patented technology enables a streamlined procedure that has the potential to become an important adjunctive therapy to improve difficult-to-control blood pressure." Drug therapy and lifestyle changes are the most common treatments for hypertension. Medication non-adherence remains a serious and underappreciated limitation of drug therapy.1,2 More than half of those treated do not achieve their target blood pressure,3,4highlighting the need for improved therapeutic options. "Hypertension creates a significant burden on the healthcare system, increasing the risk of serious cardiovascular events and stroke," said Gilde Healthcare's Geoff Pardo. "We see tremendous potential for Ablative Solutions' approach and believe the team has a solid plan for building the clinical data through the TARGET BP clinical program." "We have been supported the past few years by an amazing team of clinicians who, along with our very hard-working team, are committed to making this treatment available to patients," said Ablative Solutions' CEO and CMO Tim Fischell, M.D. "We are excited to have the support of this thoughtful and high-powered group of investors, which will allow the company to complete the studies required to seek regulatory approvals in Europe and in the United States." About the Peregrine System Kit The Peregrine System Kit is currently being studied to evaluate safety and efficacy when used in the treatment of patients with uncontrolled hypertension in conjunction with antihypertensive medications. It is also being studied in a proof-of-concept trial in Europe to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the product when used to treat patients not taking antihypertensive medications. It is an investigational product not currently approved in the United States or in Europe. Its use is limited to investigational use in clinical trials. About the Peregrine System Infusion Catheter The Peregrine System Infusion Catheter has 510(k) clearance for the infusion of diagnostic and therapeutic agents into the perivascular area of the peripheral vasculature. The Peregrine System Infusion Catheter is CE marked for the infusion of a neurolytic agent to achieve a reduction in systemic blood pressure in hypertensive patients. The Peregrine Catheter is not commercially available in the United States or Europe. About Ablative Solutions Ablative Solutions, Inc., based in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and San Jose, California, was founded in 2011 with a vision to address the unmet need of hypertension. Ablative Solutions' approach targets the overactive sympathetic nervous system, which may play a role in hypertension, heart failure, kidney disease, metabolic syndrome and sleep apnea.1, 2 The Peregrine System Kit is currently being investigated as a treatment for hypertension in conjunction with antihypertensive medications. For more information visit www.ablativesolutions.com. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction. __________________________ 1 Berra et al, Evaluation of Adherence Should Become an Integral Part of Assessment of Patients With Apparently Treatment-Resistant Hypertension Hypertension. 2016;68:297-306. DOI: 10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.116.07464. 2 Azizi et al, Adherence to antihypertensive treatment and the Blood Pressure-lowering effects of renal Denervation in the renal Denervation for hypertension (Denerhtn) trial, Circulation. 2016;134:847-857. DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.116.022922. 3 CDC, https://www.cdc.gov/bloodpressure. 4 Williams et al, 2018 ESC/ESH Guidelines for the management of arterial hypertension, European Heart Journal (2018), 1-98 doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehy339. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005240/en/ Contacts: Sierra Smith Health+Commerce 480-540-4296 sierra@healthandcommerce.com Acquisition enhances company's Earned Media Management vision with modern social marketing capabilities CHICAGO, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Cision (NYSE: CISN) today announced it has acquired Falcon.io, a leading social media company with offices in New York, Copenhagen, Sofia, Berlin, Melbourne and Budapest. Falcon.io provides brands with insights into their content strategy and the management of global comprehensive social media marketing programmes through engagement, publishing, listening and measurement. The addition of Falcon.io further solidifies Cision's market leadership in driving the future of Earned Media Management, moving beyond the tactical nature of PR point solutions. While Falcon.io will continue to be offered as a stand-alone social media platform for marketers, advertisers, and customer experience professionals, it will also be integrated with the Cision Communications Cloud to expand social media capabilities to earned media and communications professionals. Integrating Falcon.io into the Cision Comms Cloud platform will enable marketing and communications professionals to fully integrate their campaigns across owned, earned and paid media. With the addition of these social media capabilities, Cision further demonstrates its commitment to be a true, end-to-end provider of earned media management solutions. "Falcon.io is an industry leader in Europe and fast-emerging in the U.S. for social media marketing. By adding their social marketing solutions to the Cision portfolio, we are finally allowing industry professionals to execute sophisticated social media campaigns across paid, owned, and earned media that spans the entire customer journey," said Kevin Akeroyd, Cision CEO. "Falcon.io will round out our vision for holistic Earned Media Management that includes not only engagement on broadcast, print, and open web/mobile media channels, but social media as well." "Social media is core to today's customer experience, with nearly 2.5 billion users. At Falcon.io, we take pride in providing world-class brands with our leading social media marketing solution," said Ulrik Bo Larsen, Falcon.io founder and CEO. "Cision's Earned Media Management vision and leading comms technology makes it a perfect fit for Falcon.io and our customers. Together, we will provide our customers with an unparalleled, complete communications solution." Falcon.io's social media marketing capabilities will be immediately available to Cision customers. To learn more about the Cision Comms Cloud click here. About Cision Cision Ltd. (NYSE: CISN ) is a leading global provider of earned media software and services to public relations and marketing communications professionals. Cision's software allows users to identify key influencers, craft and distribute strategic content, and measure meaningful impact. Cision has over 4,000 employees with offices in 19 countries throughout the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. For more information about its award-winning products and services, including the Cision Communications Cloud, visit www.cision.com and follow Cision on Twitter @Cision. Media Contacts: U.S. Laura Roman Director of Corporate Communications, Cision cisionpr@cision.com Europe Allan Edwards Kaizo for Cision Cision@kaizo.co.uk Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/803735/Cision_Falcon_io_Acquisition.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/467136/cision_logo.jpg LONDON, January 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Binary.com, the premier platform for online trading, was awarded 'Best Trading Platform in Asia - 2018' at this year's Global Brands Magazine Awards. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/709695/Global_Brands_Magazine_Logo.jpg ) Binary.com is renowned for its unparalleled trading services over the last 18 years, setting the benchmark as the pioneer in online trading. What sets Binary.com apart is its powerful yet easy-to-use online trading platform, enabling anyone to learn and start trading. Binary.com is the brainchild of CEO Jean-Yves Sireau, drawing from his years of expertise in software engineering and financial derivatives. In typical Silicon Valley style, Jean-Yves built the origins of Binary.com in his Hong Kong apartment between 1997 and 1999, sparking off a market revolution two decades on. Since its inception, Binary.com has proven to be resilient and innovative in continually improving its platform, introducing new products, and serving the needs of its clients. Binary.com also provides learning materials in the form of step-by-step guides, webinar videos, daily reports, and more, all of which are available on its website at no extra charge. This relentless focus on the customer is an integral part of Binary's success. Jean-Yves said, "At Binary.com, weoffer the best trading experience to our clients,by combining great, user-centric design with the latest trading technology. With all the support provided, we make it easy for new traders to get started quickly and learn about trading and the risks involved." Besides offering trading services on its website, Binary.com also provides its front-end application programming interfaces (APIs) for developers to build their own trading platforms, backed by its robust pricing technology. Binary.com takes pride in its achievements and continues to be the leading name in the Asian online trading industry. With a determination to grow, Binary.com is looking forward to new milestones in the New Year. About Binary.com Binary.com is a part of the Binary Group, a group of companies licensed and regulated by various financial authorities. With over 1 million registered accounts worldwide, Binary.com handles an average of 30 transactions per second, 1 million transactions, and 500 new account sign-ups daily. Come to Binary.com and get started with a free virtual account today. About Global Brands Magazine Global Brands Magazine is the one of the world's best branding publication. The magazine provides the reader with up- to date news, reviews, polls on brands across the globe. The Magazine is head-quartered in England. For more information please visit http://www.globalbrandsmagazine.com About Global Brands Awards: Global Brands Awards was established with the aim of honouring excellence in performance and rewarding companies across different sectors. The awards honour companies who have performed extraordinarily well in the field of finance, education, hospitality, lifestyle, automobiles and technology. The 2018 Brand Awards will be presented at the Banyan Tree Hotel in Macau on the 25th of January 2019. Follow us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/globalbrandsmagazine or hashtag us on Twitter @globalbrandsmag globalbrandsmag Fusion's future growth strategy is based on innovation and continued acquisitions that will allow it to scale SANTA CLARA, California, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Based on its recent analysis of the North American hosted Internet Protocol (IP) telephony and Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes Fusion with the 2018 North American Growth Excellence Leadership Award. The company has complemented its compelling cloud services portfolio with a highly effective acquisition strategy to earn itself a place of eminence in the North American market. Fusion's single-source cloud services portfolio is delivered over its own proprietary software platform and comprises cloud storage/computing, connectivity, and cloud communications solutions. Fusion ably addresses the market need for a single provider that can meet customer demand for service reliability, technology interoperability, and provider accountability. "Fusion's advanced platform enables it to manage the end-to-end customer experience of its vast installed base by leveraging an integrated cloud services portfolio. This integrated platform approach resonates strongly with businesses looking for a trusted partner to help them move multiple solutions to the cloud," said Elka Popova, Vice President. "Fusion's innovation is backed by a strong M&A strategy aimed at gaining scale, as well as a wider service and technology portfolio. Starting with only 40 employees and $2 million in cloud service revenue in 2011, it now has more than 1,100 employees and is approaching $575 million in total annual revenue." Over the last six years, Fusion has successfully closed 10 acquisitions to position itself as a cloud, connectivity, and communications services powerhouse for businesses looking for a one-stop shop to deliver everything a company needs to benefit from the cloud. The large-scale migration of business workloads to the cloud is accelerating multi-services sales, which helps Fusion support a more diverse customer base. Notably, the company has developed its own strategically positioned and fully integrated proprietary cloud communications and contact center platform which enables cost efficiencies, greater flexibility and increased speed-to-market to innovate in response to market trends. Fusion's advanced IP enables the company to customize and rapidly deploy highly specialized customer solutions to meet the rigorous requirements of key verticals and large enterprises. "Fusions' diversified cloud and connectivity services portfolio, consisting of hosted IP telephony, UCaaS, connectivity, end-user devices as well as switches, routers and other required network elements, simplifies the purchase process and facilitates budgeting," noted Popova. "With 28 points of presence (POPs) and multiple data centers throughout the US and Canada, and a strong focus on redundancy and quality of service (QoS), Fusion delivers a high-quality of experience (QoE) to its business customers." Each year, Frost & Sullivan bestows this award upon the company that demonstrates excellence in growth and customer value. It recognizes the superiority of the product/service as well as the overall customer, purchase, ownership, and service experience offered, which has resulted in the recipient company seeing above-market growth and greater share of wallet. The award lauds the growth, diversification, and sustainability strategies of the company. Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry. About Fusion Fusion, a leading provider of integrated cloud solutions to small, medium and large businesses, is the industry's Single Source for the Cloud. Fusion's advanced, proprietary cloud service platform enables the integration of leading edge solutions in the cloud, including cloud communications, contact center, cloud connectivity and cloud computing. Fusion's innovative, yet proven cloud solutions lower our customers' cost of ownership, and deliver new levels of security, flexibility, scalability and speed of deployment. For more information, please visit www.fusionconnect.com. Contact: Brian Coyne 212-201-2404 bcoyne@fusionconnect.com About Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Contact us: Start the discussion . Contact: Estefany Ariza 210.477.8469 estefany.ariza@frost.com Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/803628/Fusion_Award.jpg Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. January 2019 AEDAS Homes (https://www.aedashomes.com/), a leading developer in Spain's new real estate cycle, has further consolidated visibility on its Business Plan in recent months and improved on its expected targets. The company has now secured 98% of the construction permits needed for the 1,986 homes in its 2020 delivery target, a figure that reinforces visibility on the business for the coming years. To further guarantee this delivery objective, the homebuilder has made plans to deliver an additional number of homes in 2020, totaling up to 2,219 units. The company will reach its run rate phase in 2022 when it will start delivering3,000 homes annually. From July to October 2018, the homebuilder accelerated its ramp-up phase by putting 992 new homes on the market, with a GDV of 317 million. Since it began operating in 2017, AEDAS Homes has launched a total of 3,982 units, with a GDV equivalent to 1.46 billion. According to CEO David Martinez, "these achievements enable us to provide our shareholders and investors with an excellentlevel of visibility in the coming months, while at the same time demonstrating the company's operating capacity during a real estate cycle that still has a good deal of room for growth." About AEDAS Homes The developer AEDAS Homes became a listed company on October 20, 2017, in Madrid, with a market capitalization of over 1.5 billion. AEDAS is an industry leader at the national level and plays an important role in the new cycle of the Spanish real estate sector, which must be marked by professionalism and an adherence to rigorous standards. AEDAS Homes has the highest-quality land bank in Spain, according to analysts, since most of this land is classified as ready-to-build. The company has a portfolio with more than 1.5 million square meters to build over 14,500 homes in the nation's key markets and their surrounding areas (both in terms of real estate and finance): the Center, Catalonia, the East and Balearic Islands, Andalusia and Costa del Sol. AEDAS Homes permissions (http://hugin.info/176480/R/2230366/876349.pdf) This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: AEDAS Homes S.A.U. via Globenewswire Licence provides Confo Therapeutics with exclusive access to 'Megabody' Technology for High Resolution Cryo-Electron Microscopy evaluation of G-Protein Coupled Receptors, strengthening its drug discovery engine Confo Therapeutics secures exclusive, worldwide license to new proprietary Megabody technology for GPCRs Megabody scaffold extends the utility of Confo bodies to cryo-EM, without affecting their conformation selectivity Two Megabody publications in this week's issue of Nature reveal unprecedented high-resolution structure of the GABA A receptor 1, 2 Confo Therapeutics, an emerging drug discovery company, today announces that it has entered into an agreement with VIB, a life sciences research institute in Flanders, Belgium, for an exclusive, worldwide license to VIB's 'Megabody' technology. Megabodies are novel antigen-binding chimeric proteins which are ideally suited for three-dimensional structural analysis of proteins via high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). The Megabody technology enabled an international team of scientists, including Confo Therapeutics' founder, Prof Jan Steyaert of the VIB-VUB Center for Structural Biology, to produce high resolution cryo-EM structures of the native human GABA A receptor in complex with common drugs for the first time published in this week's Nature, see full references below. 1, 2 Under the license agreement, Confo Therapeutics will apply the Megabody technology to its proprietary Confo bodies to further improve their use in 3D structure determination of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). The Megabody scaffold adds more mass and structural features to Confobodies, while retaining their ability to stabilize GPCRs in the particular conformation of interest for drug discovery. Commenting on the deal, Dr Cedric Ververken, Confo Therapeutics' CEO, said: "The Megabody technology will be a valuable addition to our Confo technology and gives us an outstanding toolbox for GPCR structure-based drug discovery. We congratulate Jan for the success of this novel technology and are grateful to VIB for entrusting its use to Confo Therapeutics." Dr Christel Menet, CSO, added: "We were impressed by the high-resolution cryo-EM structures of the GABA A receptor presented by our scientific advisor Dr Radu Aricescu (MRC-LMB, Cambridge, UK) in collaboration with Dr Jan Steyaert (VIB-VUB) in the recent Nature publications. The unprecedented quality of the cryo-EM structure of the GABA A receptor, made possible by using the Megabody technology, revealed the receptor in its proper pentameric conformation for the first time, while also providing new information on the binding sites and mode of action of high value drugs including alprazolam (Xanax) and diazepam (Valium). We look forward to deploying this same technique to our GPCRs to accelerate our drug discovery process." Prof Jan Steyaert, commented, "Our Megabody technology enables cryo-EM studies on targets that were intractable through other methods, and it has also been validated as a next generation crystallization chaperone for visualizing 3D structures of drug targets for structure-based design. This licensing agreement will allow Confo Therapeutics to further strengthen its work on GPCRs, and will boost its drug discovery engine." End Nature Publication References: 1 Simonas Masiulis, Rooma Desai, Tomasz Uchanski, Itziar Serna Martin, Duncan Laverty, Dimple Karia, Tomas Malinauskas, Jasenko Zivanov, Els Pardon, Abhay Kotecha, Jan Steyaert, Keith W. Miller A. Radu Aricescu, GABAA receptor signalling mechanisms revealed by structural pharmacology, Nature 2019, Advance online publication date: 2nd January 2019 (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0832-5) 2 Duncan Laverty, Rooma Desai, Tomasz Uchanski, Simonas Masiulis, Wojciech J. Stec, Tomas Malinauskas, Jasenko Zivanov, Els Pardon, Jan Steyaert, Keith W. Miller A. Radu Aricescu, Cryo-EM structure of the human a1b3g2 GABAA receptor in a lipid bilayer, Nature 2019, Advance online publication date: 2nd January 2019 (DOI: 10.138/s41586-018-0833-4) For more information please contact: About Confo Therapeutics Confo Therapeutics is a VUB-VIB spin-off co-founded in 2015 by VIB and Capricorn Venture Partners with the support of MINTS, PMV, QBIC and V-Bio Ventures. The Company is building a portfolio of first-in-class programs based on its proprietary Confo technology which makes use of antibody fragments or "Confobodies" to stabilize G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) in a particular conformation of interest as a superior starting point for drug discovery. GPCRs are attractive drug targets in the treatment of many different conditions, playing an essential part in numerous life processes and influencing diseases. In addition to developing its own pipeline, Confo Therapeutics is entering into revenue-generating drug discovery partnerships with select pharma companies, on GPCR targets which do not compete with its internal projects. The Company has ongoing collaborations with Lundbeck and Roche. More info: www.confotherapeutics.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005258/en/ Contacts: Confo Therapeutics Dr Cedric Ververken, CEO + 32 (0)9 261 0670 info@confotherapeutics.com For English-speaking and International Media: Instinctif Partners for Confo Therapeutics Dr Christelle Kerouedan, Sue Charles + 44 (0)20 7457 2020 confotherapeutics@instinctif.com For Belgian Media: Turnstone Communications for Confo Therapeutics Dr. Ann Van Gysel, Bjorn Debusschere +32 9 218 71 97 ann.vangysel@turnstone.be Technavio analysts forecast the global sinter plant market to grow at a CAGR of close to 4% during the forecast period, according to their latest market research report. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190102005688/en/ Technavio has published a new market research report on the global sinter plant market from 2018-2022. (Graphic: Business Wire) The improving share of coastal areas in global steel production is one of the major trends being witnessed in the global sinter plant market 2018-2022. With the growing concerns of inland pollution, the steel mills are shifting from inland to coastal areas. This can be attributed to the high wind speeds encountered in coastal areas that can diffuse emission from a steel plant quicker than low wind speeds encountered in inland areas. For instance, Jiangsu and Hebei provinces are encouraging steel producers to move to coastal areas in order to decrease smog during winters in and around Shanghai and Beijing. Coastal sites can also reduce the cost of logistics as they facilitate material handling. This report is available at a USD 1,000 discount for a limited time only: View market snapshot before purchasing According to Technavio analysts, one of the key factors contributing to the growth of the global sinter plant market is the improvement in sinter technology: Global sinter plant market: Improvement in sinter technology Blast furnace accounts for most of the energy consumed by an integrated steel plant. Technological advancements in sinter technology help in producing sinter with better qualities, which eventually minimizes energy consumption in a blast furnace. For instance, vendors in the market started offering sinter plant that can provide sinter material that has high permeability and homogeneity. This enhances the efficiency of heat transferred between sinter or burden material and hot gases. Such advances in technology are expected to positively impact the growth of the global sinter plant market during the forecast period. According to a senior analyst at Technavio, "The electricity conversion factors of power plants have improved significantly owing to the latest power generation technologies. This, coupled with the enhanced efficiency of consumer devices and a large increase in power generation, has led to most of the steel producing countries having surplus electric power. The adequate availability of electricity and improved power supply infrastructure is fueling the growth of the market." Global sinter plant market: Segmentation analysis The global sinter plant market research report provides market segmentation by product (material handling, mixing, and granulation system, sinter machine, waste gas recirculation system, and sinter cooler and screening system), and by region (the Americas, EMEA, and APAC). It provides an in-depth analysis of the prominent factors influencing the market, including drivers, opportunities, trends, and industry-specific challenges. The APAC region held the largest share of the market in 2017, followed by EMEA and the Americas respectively. The APAC region will continue to dominate the global market with the highest incremental growth during the forecast period. Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report such as the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. Some of the key topics covered in the report include: Market Landscape Market ecosystem Market characteristics Market segmentation analysis Market Sizing Market definition Market size and forecast Five Forces Analysis Market Segmentation Geographical Segmentation Regional comparison Key leading countries Market Drivers Market Challenges Market Trends Vendor Landscape Vendors covered Vendor classification Market positioning of vendors Competitive scenario About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190102005688/en/ Contacts: Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 www.technavio.com Dow Jones received a payment from EQS/DGAP to publish this press release. EQS Group-News: ADC Therapeutics SA / Key word(s): Change of Personnel ADC Therapeutics to Appoint Peter Hug, Ph.D., to Board of Directors 2019-01-03 / 07:00 *ADC Therapeutics to Appoint Peter Hug, Ph.D., to Board of Directors* *Lausanne, Switzerland, January 3, 2019* - ADC Therapeutics, an oncology drug discovery and development company that specializes in the development of proprietary antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), today announced that Peter Hug, Ph.D., will be appointed to its board of directors. Dr. Hug is a 35-year veteran of Roche. Dr. Peter B. Corr, Chairman of the Board of ADC Therapeutics, said, "Peter's breadth of global commercial and leadership experience from his long tenure at Roche will enhance our efforts as we continue progressing our pipeline of pyrrolobenzodiazepine-based ADCs through the clinic. His commercial expertise will be particularly valuable as we get closer to submitting our first Biologics License Application for ADCT-402 (loncastuximab tesirine), which is currently being evaluated in a pivotal Phase II clinical trial in patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. We are thrilled to welcome Peter to our board of directors and look forward to his contributions." Dr. Hug held positions of increasing responsibility at Roche from 1983 until his retirement at the end of 2018. He most recently served as Head of Roche Pharma EEMEA Region, which comprises Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia, Turkey, Middle East and Africa. Previously, he was Head of Pharma Region Europe, during which time he led a successful transformation of its European commercial operations. Prior to that, Dr. Hug served as Executive Vice President of Roche Pharma Partnering, a role in which he was responsible for licensing, strategic alliances and mergers and acquisitions. In earlier management roles within Roche, he was involved with multiple product launches, including hematology and oncology therapies. Dr. Hug is a graduate of the University of Basel, Switzerland. Dr. Hug said, "I'm delighted to join ADC Therapeutics' Board of Directors as the company advances multiple clinical-stage programs with its potent ADCs in both hematological and solid tumor cancers. I look forward to working with the board and leadership team to drive continued progress and ultimately bring important new cancer therapies to patients." *About ADC Therapeutics* ADC Therapeutics SA is an oncology drug discovery and development company that specializes in the development of proprietary antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) targeting major hematological malignancies and solid tumors. The Company's ADCs are highly targeted biopharmaceutical drugs that combine monoclonal antibodies specific to surface antigens present on particular tumor cells with a novel class of highly potent pyrrolobenzodiazepine (PBD)-based warheads via a chemical linker. The Company has five PBD-based ADCs in ongoing clinical trials in the USA and Europe, and a deep pipeline of other preclinical ADCs in development. ADC Therapeutics has world-class partners, including AstraZeneca and its global biologics research and development arm, MedImmune. The Company is based in Lausanne (Biopole), Switzerland and has operations in London, San Francisco and New Jersey. For more information, visit www.adctherapeutics.com [1]. *Investors Contact * Dr. Chris Martin Chief Executive Officer Chris.martin@adctherapeutics.com Tel.: +41 (0) 21 653 0200 *EU Media Contact * Alexandre Muller Dynamics Group amu@dynamicsgroup.ch Tel: +41 (0) 43 268 3231 *USA Media Contact* Tony Plohoros 6 Degrees tplohoros@6degreespr.com Tel.: +1 908-591-2839 Additional features: Document: http://n.eqs.com/c/fncls.ssp?u=DQIJHVFDJM [2] Document title: ADCT_PR_Peter Hug_3.1.2019 End of Corporate News 763067 2019-01-03 1: https://link.cockpit.eqs.com/cgi-bin/fncls.ssp?fn=redirect&url=e12250e180da67b229beb6f1376b5e1d&application_id=763067&site_id=vwd&application_name=news 2: https://link.cockpit.eqs.com/cgi-bin/fncls.ssp?fn=redirect&url=14ddb4d0ba882b500465ee119875c472&application_id=763067&site_id=vwd&application_name=news (END) Dow Jones Newswires January 03, 2019 01:00 ET (06:00 GMT) Regulatory News: Genkyotex (Euronext Paris Brussels: FR00011790542 GKTX) (Paris:GKTX) (Brussels:GKTX) a biopharmaceutical company and the leader in NOX therapies, announces its schedule for the publication of financial information in 2019. January 24, 2019 Extraordinary Shareholders' Meeting in Paris, France January 31, 2019 Business Cash Position Update 4th Quarter 2018 February 28, 2019 2018 Annual Results April 25, 2019 Business Cash Position Update 1st Quarter 2019 June 13, 2019 Annual General Meeting in Paris, France July 25, 2019 Business Cash Position Update 2nd Quarter 2019 September 19, 2019 2019 Half-Year Results October 24, 2019 Business Cash Position Update 3rd Quarter 2019 This financial calendar is for indicative purposes only and Genkyotex could change its publication dates if deemed necessary. Each publication will be released after Euronext market closing. About Genkyotex Genkyotex is the leading biopharmaceutical company in NOX therapies, listed on the Euronext Paris and Euronext Brussels markets. A leader in NOX therapies, its unique therapeutic approach is based on a selective inhibition of NOX enzymes that amplify multiple disease processes such as fibrosis, inflammation, pain processing, cancer development, and neurodegeneration. Genkyotex's platform enables the identification of orally available small-molecules that selectively inhibit specific NOX enzymes. Genkyotex is developing a pipeline of first-in-class product candidates targeting one or multiple NOX enzymes. The lead product candidate, GKT831, a NOX1 and NOX4 inhibitor is evaluated in a phase II clinical trial in primary biliary cholangitis (PBC, a fibrotic orphan disease) and in an investigator-initiated Phase II clinical trial in Type 1 Diabetes and Kidney Disease (DKD). A grant from the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) of $8.9 million was awarded to Professor Victor Thannickal at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to fund a multi-year research program evaluating the role of NOX enzymes in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a chronic lung disease that results in fibrosis of the lungs, the core component of the program will be to conduct a Phase 2 trial with the GKT831 in patients with IPF. This product candidate may also be active in other fibrotic indications. Its second product candidate, GKT771, is a NOX1 inhibitor targeting multiple pathways in angiogenesis, pain processing, and inflammation, currently undergoing preclinical testing. Genkyotex also has a versatile platform well-suited to the development of various immunotherapies (Vaxiclase). A partnership covering the use of Vaxiclase as an antigen per se (GTL003) has been established with Serum Institute of India Private Ltd (Serum Institute), the world's largest producer of vaccine doses, for the development by Serum Institute of cellular multivalent combination vaccines against a variety of infectious diseases. This partnership could generate approximately 150 million in future revenues for Genkyotex, before royalties on sales. For further information, please go towww.genkyotex.com Disclaimer This press release may contain forward-looking statements by the company with respect to its objectives. Such statements are based upon the current beliefs, estimates and expectations of Genkyotex's management and are subject to risks and uncertainties such as the company's ability to implement its chosen strategy, customer market trends, changes in technologies and in the company's competitive environment, changes in regulations, clinical or industrial risks and all risks linked to the company's growth. These factors as well as other risks and uncertainties may prevent the company from achieving the objectives outlined in the press release and actual results may differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements, due to various factors. Without being exhaustive, such factors include uncertainties involved in the development of Genkyotex's products, which may not succeed, or in the delivery of Genkyotex's products marketing authorizations by the relevant regulatory authorities and, in general, any factor that could affects Genkyotex's capacity to commercialize the products it develops. No guarantee is given on forward-looking statements which are subject to a number of risks, notably those described in the registration document (document de reference) registered by the French Markets Authority (the AMF) on 27 April 2018 under number R.18-037, and those linked to changes in economic conditions, the financial markets, or the markets on which Genkyotex is present. Genkyotex products are currently used for clinical trials only and are not otherwise available for distribution or sale. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190102005263/en/ Contacts: INVESTORS NewCap Dusan Oresansky, Tristan Roquet Montegon and Emmanuel Huynh +33 1 44 71 94 92 genkyotex@newcap.eu MEDIA NewCap Nicolas Merigeau, Arthur Rouille +33 1 44 71 00 15 genkyotex@newcap.eu US LifeSci Advisors, LLC Brian Ritchie +1-212-915-2578 britchie@lifesciadvisors.com DOHA, Qatar, January 2, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Aspiring entrepreneurs to benefit from exclusive partnershipbetween QSTP and the European Innovation Academy Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP), a member of Qatar Foundation Research, Development and Innovation (QF RDI), and the European Innovation Academy (EIA), launched the second edition of their Arab Innovation Academy (AIA) today. AIA brings together more than 160 aspiring "techpreneurs" from Qatar, MENA, and representatives from India and Russia - the most recent Year of Culture countries; an exchange program that aims to convey Qatar to an international audience. (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/803472/QSTP_Arab_Innovation_Academy.jpg ) (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/803473/QSTP_Arab_Innovation_Academy.jpg ) In addition to having over 80 students from Qatar representing 26 different countries, AIA delegates and participants hail from numerous other countries, including Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, Turkey, Oman, and Yemen. AIA, the first and largest entrepreneurship program of its kind in the region, is a strategic and exclusive partnership powered by QSTP and the European Innovation Academy (EIA), the world's largest extreme entrepreneurship program. This unique program is aimed at equipping entrepreneurs in the Arab region and global community with the skillset to build their start-up in just 10 days. During the AIA, participants are introduced to an accelerated mode of experiential learning, including how to develop and launch new tech ventures in a real marketplace, with genuine customer feedback. The opening of the AIA was attended by Yosouf Abdulrahman Saleh, Executive Director, QSTP, and Alar Kolk, President, EIA. Speaking at the event, Saleh remarked, "Here, at QSTP, the initiatives we have taken and the projects we are engaged in revolve around our commitment to the process of research, development, and innovation. With leading programs like AIA, we encourage our talented youth to take the next step and propel their ideas to the stage of practical implementation. "We aim to develop an innovative mind-set among our talented youth to nurture an unprecedented and competitive environment in the MENA region. More importantly, we believe that investment in our region's talent pool is the key to achieving long-term economic sustainability and prosperity." Alar Kolk, President, EIA, said: "The Google founders were from Stanford and the Facebook founders from Harvard. The next game-changing companies will come from students' dreams to make the world a better place. Our mantra for the Arab students is that the greatest danger for most of you is not that your aim is too high, but that it is too low, and you reach it. Be the change you want to see in the world. Make the dream true: the next Snapchats, Fornites, and Spotifys will come from the Arab world." As part of this hands-on and groundbreaking initiative, participants will be introduced to cutting-edge methods and tools related to the entrepreneurship journey, from team formation and ideation to pitching venture capitalists and angel investors, tactics that are accredited by leading global universities, and endorsed by QSTP, Google, and Amadeus. AIA also offers participants access to an extensive global network of prominent experts, mentors, and speakers from premiere organizations in the fields of tech entrepreneurship and innovation. Rick Rasmussen, Chief of Chief Mentors, Industry Fellow and Faculty Member at University of California, Berkeley, commented: "The whole idea behind the Arab Innovation Academy is to develop the mindset of how to become an entrepreneur, as well as provide the tools that are needed to take an idea from conception to implementation. Students are at the most creative stages of their lives and we are trying to provide them an entrepreneurship school in a setting that doesn't depend on lectures and case studies and text books. We teach how to build companies by doing; everybody rolls up their sleeves and builds companies from scratch." Commenting on the significance of the program, Dr. Richard O'Kennedy, Vice President, QF RDI, said: "AIA was a huge success last year, and I am delighted to observe the overwhelming response the program has received this year as well. Such programs help us identify talented Arab youth who have a drive to find innovative tech-based solutions to the shared challenges this region is facing, and become an integrated component of the rapidly developing entrepreneurship ecosystem and knowledge economy in Qatar." The program also acts as a bridge for young "techpreneurs" in Qatar to become extended members of EIA's global network, and benefit from a valuable mentorship and support system that includes industry experts at the heart of its foundation. The first edition of AIA accepted more than 100 participants from 11 countries to come together and develop their techpreneurial ideas. This year, AIA selected more than 160 participants from a pool of over 900 applicants, to have an enriching experience of learning from 25 speakers and 37 mentors and investors, all representing 30 different nationalities, for its second edition in Doha. The first day of the AIA saw alumni from the previous edition share their valuable experiences with the 2019 cohort in a moderated panel discussion. The budding entrepreneurs will also benefit from sessions offered by speakers from Silicon Valley and the University of California, Berkley, all with the intention of driving the collective entrepreneurial sparks of our of youth from Qatar, the region, and beyond. For more information on the Arab Innovation Academy, please visit: aia.inacademy.eu Qatar Science & Technology Park Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP), a member of Qatar Foundation Research, Development and Innovation (QF RDI), is a Free Zone, accelerator, and incubator for tech-product development in Qatar. The park fosters an innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Qatar that works to accelerate commercialization of market-ready technologies to realize Qatar's national diversification drive. QSTP's focus ranges across four overarching themes, comprising Energy, Environment, Health Sciences, and Information & Communication Technologies, in line with the Qatar National Research Strategy announced in 2012. Located in Qatar Foundation's Education City, QSTP has access to the vital resources of a cluster of leading research universities. Members of QSTP's Free Zone include SMEs, international corporations, and research institutions. They are collectively committed to investing in new technology development programs, creating intellectual property, enhancing technology management skills, and developing innovative new products. QSTP supports QF RDI's economic and human development objectives for Qatar and is increasingly recognized as an international hub for applied research, innovation, incubation, and entrepreneurship. For more information, please visit the QSTP website at http://www.qstp.org.qa Qatar Foundation Research, Development and Innovation (QF RDI) The Qatar Foundation Research, Development, and Innovation (QF RDI) division's role is to play an integral part in identifying and addressing challenges and opportunities across ICT, energy, environment, healthcare, and agribusiness, in alignment with Qatar's national RDI strategy and priorities. QF RDI is at the forefront of Qatar's innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, accelerating economic development through supporting the commercialization of market-ready technologies and facilitating the creation of new high-tech products and services. QF RDI is responsible for translating Qatar's national RDI strategy into specific initiatives and actions for Qatar Foundation's (QF) RDI entities. It also directs their efforts in relation to economic value creation, knowledge transfer, and the establishment of mutually-beneficial national and international RDI partnerships. To ensure these efforts deliver maximum impact, the QF Vice President for Research, Development, and Innovation plans, coordinates, and oversees all RDI-related activities across QF. Qatar Foundation - Unlocking Human Potential Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF) is a non-profit organization that supports Qatar on its journey to becoming a diversified and sustainable economy. QF strives to serve the people of Qatar and beyond by providing specialized programs across its innovation-focused ecosystem of education, science and research, and community development. QF was founded in 1995 by His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Father Amir, and Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, who shared the vision to provide Qatar with quality education. Today, QF's world-class education system offers lifelong learning opportunities to community members as young as six months through to doctoral level, enabling graduates to thrive in a global environment and contribute to the nation's development. QF is also creating a multidisciplinary innovation hub in Qatar, where homegrown researchers are working to address local and global challenges. By promoting a culture of lifelong learning and fostering social engagement through programs that embody Qatari culture, QF is committed to empowering the local community and contributing to a better world for all. For a complete list of QF's initiatives and projects, visit www.qf.org.qa European Innovation Academy The European Innovation Academy is a non-profit educational institution recognized for excellence in tech entrepreneurship and methodology designed and developed together with the representatives of the Silicon Valley universities and companies UC Berkeley, Stanford University, Google and Amadeus. For further information visit http://www.inacademy.eu WALTHAM-ON-THE-WOLDS and LIVERPOOL, England, January 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Study of over 50,000 dogs across 12 breeds shows link between a dog's weight and expected lifespan Research reinforces need for pets to keep a healthy bodyweight throughout their lives New research from the University of Liverpool and Mars Petcare's WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition revealed overweight dogs are more likely to have shorter lives than those at ideal body weights. Results from the study showed the lifespan of overweight dogs was up to two and a half years shorter when compared to dogs with a healthy body weight[1]. The study was conducted retrospectively over two decades and published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/748187/MARS_Petcare_Logo.jpg ) Using data provided by Banfield Pet Hospital, the study examined more than 50,000 dogs across 12 of the most popular dog breeds. The correlation between being overweight and reduced lifespan was seen in all breeds, although the magnitude of the reduction differed, ranging from between five months for male German Shepherds to two years and six months for male Yorkshire Terriers. It is estimated that over a quarter of households (26%) in the UK and nearly half in the US (47.6%) own a dog[2],[3]. This research is important because pet owners may be unaware of the serious health implications of dogs carrying extra weight. Pet obesity is steadily on the rise, with latest figures estimating one in three dogs and cats in the US is overweight[4]. Although the study did not examine the reasons behind the extra weight, feeding habits are thought to play a role in pet obesity. According to a recent Better Cities For Pets survey[5], more than half (54%) of cat and dog owners always or often give their pet food if they beg for it, and nearly a quarter (22%) of cat and dog owners sometimes overfeed their pet to keep them happy. Study co-author and Professor of Small Animal Medicine at the University of Liverpool Alex German said, "Owners are often unaware that their dog is overweight, and many may not realise the impact that it can have on health. What they may not know is that, if their beloved pet is too heavy, they are more likely to suffer from other problems such as joint disease, breathing issues, and certain types of cancer, as well as having a poorer quality of life. These health and wellbeing issues can significantly impact how long they live." "For many owners, giving food, particularly tasty table scraps and tidbits, is the way we show affection for our pets. Being careful about what you feed your dog could go a long way to keeping them in good shape and enabling them to be around for many years to come." Worryingly, it is estimated that only one in five pet owners measure how much food they are giving their pet, with four in five (87%) always or often simply estimating the amount of food they think their pet needs at each serving. At Banfield Pet Hospital, we're passionate about sharing the data and insights gleaned from the eight million annual pet visits to our more than 1,000 hospitals - to advance not only the veterinary profession but also pet health," said Daniel Aja, DVM, Chief Medical Officer, Banfield Pet Hospital. "As the largest general veterinary practice in the world, we have the tools to enable studies like this one, as well as our own publications like the annual State of Pet Health and Veterinary Emerging Topics reports." About the Study The University of Liverpool and WALTHAM study was a retrospective, observational cohort study, that leveraged demographic, geographic and clinical data from dogs that received care at BANFIELD Pet Hospitals in North America between April 1994 and September 2015. Data was gathered from 50,787 dogs across 12 of the most popular US family breeds: Dachshund, German Shepherd, Golden Retriever, Labrador Retriever, American Cocker Spaniel, Beagle, Boxer, Chihuahua, Pit Bull Terrier, Pomeranian, Shih Tzu, and Yorkshire Terrier. For each breed, the lifespan of dogs whose owners reported them to be overweight and those in optimal body condition was compared. As the largest general-veterinary practice in the world, Banfield has more than 1,000 hospitals across the United States and Puerto Rico comprised of veterinary teams who are committed to providing high-quality veterinary care for more than three million pets annually. The data extracted for this study included demographic (breed, sex, neuter status and date of birth) and geographic (latitude and longitude of the owner's postcode) variables, plus data collected during in-clinic visits (date of visit, bodyweight and if available body condition), and date of death. Pedigree status and date of birth are both owner-reported parameters and were not verified by veterinary staff. About healthy weight management When it comes to healthy weight management prevention is better than a cure, and to prevent obesity, you need to spot it early. There are a few simple things you can do to make sure your dog maintains a healthy weight,1) speak to your vet about your dog's ideal body weight - they can advise you on feeding amounts as they change from pups through to old age, 2) ensure they get enough exercise - this will depend on their size and breed type, 3) skip the table scraps - not all human food is safe for pets and some can even be deadly and 4) weigh your dog regularly - even slight increases in weight can have a big impact on their health. About the University of Liverpool Since 1881, The University of Liverpool has worked for the advancement of learning and ennoblement of life. Associated with nine Nobel Laureates, the University of Liverpool is recognised for its high-quality teaching and research. Our research collaborations extend worldwide and address many of the grand challenges facing mankind today. The University of Liverpool is also home to the Royal Canin Weight Management Clinic. Established in 2005, the clinic is the first specialist weight loss clinic for pets anywhere in the world. About Mars Petcare Mars Petcare is a diverse and growing business with 75,000 Associates across 50+ countries dedicated to one purpose: A BETTER WORLD FOR PETS. With 75 years of experience, our portfolio of almost 50 brands serves the health and nutrition needs of the world's pets - including brands PEDIGREE, WHISKAS, ROYAL CANIN, NUTRO, GREENIES, SHEBA, CESAR, IAMS and EUKANUBA as well as The WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition which has advanced research in the nutrition and health of pets for over 50 years. Mars Petcare is also a leading veterinary health provider through a network of over 2,000 pet hospitals including BANFIELD, BLUEPEARL, PET PARTNERS, VCA and Linnaeus. We're also active in innovation and technology for pets, with WISDOM PANEL genetic health screening and DNA testing for dogs, the WHISTLE GPS dog tracker, and LEAP VENTURE STUDIO accelerator and COMPANION FUND programs that drive innovation and disruption in the pet care industry. As a family business and guided by our principles, we are privileged with the flexibility to fight for what we believe in - and we choose to fight for: A BETTER WORLD FOR PETS. For more information about Mars Petcare, please visit http://www.mars-petcare.com. References: German, A. Association between life span and body condition in neutered client-owned dogs. Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine December 2018 . Available here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jvim.15367 PFMA Pet Population 2018. Available via: https://www.pfma.org.uk/pet-population-2018 . Last accessed: 18 August 2018 . APPA Pet Industry Market Size & Ownership Statistics. Available via: https://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp . Last accessed 19 October 2018 . Banfield State of Pet Health report 2017. Available via: https://www.banfield.com/state-of-pet-health/obesity . Last accessed: 18 October 2018 . Better Cities for Pets. Weight Management: Keeping our pets healthy survey 2018. Available via: https://www.bettercitiesforpets.com/2018/02/22/survey-weighs-pet-obesity-crisis/. Last accessed 18 August 2018 . To organise media interviews or more information please contact: Ishtar Schneider Edelman London Ishtar.Schneider@Edelman.com +44-7921-409-603 +44-020-3047-2347 BERLIN, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently, at the second Edge Computing Forum (ECF), a cooperation agreement was signed between Huawei, Analog Devices, ARM, Bombardier, B&R Automation, Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS), German Edge Cloud (GEC), German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), HARTING IT, IBM, Intel, KUKA, National Instruments, Renesas Electronics, Schneider Electric, Software AG, Spirent, and TTTech. The agreement stipulates that they will jointly establish the Edge Computing Consortium Europe (ECCE) with the aim of providing a comprehensive edge computing industry cooperation platform for enterprises and organizations in the fields of smart manufacturing, operators, and enterprise IoT. Such an approach will ultimately deepen the digital transformation of the industry and jointly promote the prosperity of the edge computing industry through industrial coordination, open innovation, demonstration, and promotion. Edge computing is a bridge that connects the physical and digital worlds. Specifically, it is a distributed open platform that works at the edge of the network (close to things or the source of data), integrating core capabilities of the network, computing and storage devices, and applications. It provides edge intelligence services to meet key requirements of the industry regarding digital agility, connectivity, real-time services, data optimization, application intelligence, security, and privacy protection. According to the predictions of an analyst firm, the amount of data processed at the edge will continue to grow rapidly, with 75% of enterprise-generated data being created and processed outside data centers or the cloud by 2025, up from less than 20% today. The purpose of ECCE is to help small, medium-sized, and large enterprises in Europe and the rest of the world adopt related technologies, with a particular focus on the augmentation of Operational Technologies (OT) with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Its mission is to drive the adoption of the Edge Computing paradigm within manufacturing and other industrial markets. It will emphasize utilizing and contributing to existing solutions, standards, and initiatives to ensure that industrial needs and requirements are optimally addressed in member products. Therefore, goals of this initiative include the specification of a Reference Architecture Model for Edge Computing (ECCE RAMEC), the development of reference technology stacks (ECCE edge nodes), the identification of gaps and recommendation of best practices by evaluating approaches within multiple scenarios (ECCE Pathfinders), as well as the synchronization with related initiatives/standardization organizations and the promotion of the results. Partner Quotes "Edge computing is fundamental to Analog Devices' core business. We enable our customers to interpret the world around us by intelligently bridging the physical and digital with unmatched technologies that sense, measure, power, connect and interpret. Analog Devices is participating in the ECCE because it provides a vision for unlocking the power of the Industrial Internet with a standards-based approach to interoperable, deterministic communication." -- Brendan O'Dowd, Industrial Automation, Analog Devices, U.S. "As we move to a world with a trillion connected devices, the magnitude of data is growing significantly and the Arm Neoverse ecosystem is uniquely positioned to deliver on the diverse set of compute requirements of the infrastructure. From the edge to the core datacenter, ecosystem collaboration in relevant industry initiatives, such as the ECCE, are fundamental to supporting the performance, security, and scalability required." -- Mohamed Awad, Vice President of Marketing, Infrastructure Line of Business, ARM, U.K. "Edge Computing is a key technology aspect of cyber-physical systems in the data-driven era. Bombardier's interests drive the company concern for appropriate standardization. As a global company, Bombardier is used to actuating with local ecosystem partners that can support the ECCE digital initiative to deploy a worldwide footprint. Bombardier will ensure the ECCE strategic advisory board produces an appropriate global vision and key requirements." -- Dr. Yannick Fourastier, Head of Industry Digital Transformation, Bombardier, Germany "We are fully convinced that edge computing will be essential for the factory of the future. Processing of data at the proximity of data sources will ideally complement IoT solutions based on public clouds. B&R is committed to quickly extending our edge portfolio and providing a full-scale edge offering based on OPC UA and TSN to the market. The ECCE is helping to align our activities with a rich ecosystem of valuable partners, which helps to accelerate adoption and drive innovation." -- Stefan Schonegger, Vice President of Product Strategy and Innovation, B&R, Germany "The German Edge Cloud and Rittal, as early promoters of the edge cloud computing paradigm for the industrial sector, actively support the planned Edge Computing Consortium Europe. Edge computing is a key enabling technology for the digital transformation of the industrial sector and vital for Germany's and Europe's future competitive position, especially in areas like industrial AI, which require edge computing. The proposed best practice approach of the ECCE will help guide companies in adopting edge computing in a hands-on manner." -- Sebastian Ritz, CEO of German Edge Cloud (a Friedhelm Loh Group company), Germany "Edge computing is an important foundation for the Industrial Internet and a key technology for a digital, networked, and intelligent society. Huawei will work with many European and worldwide enterprises, as well as related industries and standardization organizations, to actively promote the establishment of the ECCE for promoting not only edge computing technologies and standards, but also outstanding industrial achievements, as well as for working together to promote the prosperous development of edge computing in Europe." -- Liu Shaowei, Vice President of Edge Computing Consortium and President of Huawei's network R&D department "Europe is driving the innovation of major 5G industrial vertical domains, such as the manufacturing and automotive industries. The availability of high performance, reliable, and open edge computing platforms represents a key foundation for the establishment of a rich ecosystem for edge computing based industry solutions. This new European edge initiative will fill the gap between existing industry initiatives and will enable German and European industrial partners to meet their business requirements enabled by edge computing in a faster and more economical way." -- Prof. Dr. Thomas Magedanz, Director of Software-based Networks, Fraunhofer Institute FOKUS, Germany "The paradigm of edge computing is taking shape at an increasing rate. However, our current industrial production has specific requirements as we have to deal with brownfield applications as well as existing real-time controllers and supervisory computers. In order for edge computing to be widely adopted in industry, a common reference model based on existing solutions such as the Plattform Industrie 4.0 RAMI or the SmartFactory-KL reference architecture is the necessary basis. The DFKI, with its application partner SmartFactory-KL, supports the ECCE as an industry-driven initiative to create a common understanding and architecture for edge computing." -- Prof. Dr. Martin Ruskowski, Head of Innovative Factory Systems (IFS), German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH), Germany "IIoT is the future of efficient industrial manufacturing. The possibilities of today's computing are incredible. However, cloud alone is not the answer to all questions. Without the edge and edge computing, there is no data for condition monitoring and preventive maintenance. HARTING believes in the idea of edge computing. We have set up a hybrid edge/cloud architecture in our own connector production facilities. Data becomes "smart data" right at the edge." -- Dr. Jan Regtmeier, Director of Product Management, HARTING IT GmbH & Co KG, Germany "For KUKA, the edge will play an important role as it is pushed from two sides. First, the cloud is decentralizing to the edge. This is because the classic cloud has various disadvantages for IIoT, such as being "too far away" and having high latency, low bandwidth, high transportation costs, etc. Second, tasks that come from the devices will be centralized at the edge. Such tasks include data filtering, preprocessing and concentration that is system-related rather than component-related, or common programming and configuration of several devices such as robots controlled by an edge cloud controller." -- Reinhold Stammeier, Chief Digital Officer, KUKA, Germany "A core capability of the National Instruments platform has always been open and interoperable connectivity with products from other vendors. We are proud of the role we are playing in general and by participating in the ECCE in particular to make OPC over TSN a premier offering for synchronized, deterministic communication; assuring that our customer can create interoperable test, measurement, and control systems." -- Rahman Jamal, Global Technology & Marketing Director, National Instruments, US "Renesas sees strong demand for edge computing equipment in the factory floor in order to further accelerate the implementation of digitization of the manufacturing industry. Industrie 4.0, IIoT, and other initiatives already provide comprehensive operating models and testbeds for new technologies such as TSN and OPC UA. An initiative to specifically consider a role of edge computing under these operating models is required and necessary to position edge application properly and make equipment easy to integrate into brownfield and greenfield." -- Niels Trapp, Global Head of Marketing, Industrial Automation, Renesas Electronics, Japan "EcoStruxure is providing all means for edge computing to provide additional capabilities including the ability to predict problems before a fault occurs. Traditionally, machine learning runs exclusively on the cloud, but that isn't good enough for many IoT scenarios as there are a number of advantages or even constraints requiring the application to execute as close as possible to the field events. Whilst most industrial controllers that exist in the market are reactive, their evolution is to become proactive and capable of including predictive analytics at the edge." -- Fabrice Jadot, Chief Technology Officer, SchneiderElectric, France "We couldn't be more excited to join the Edge Computing Consortium Europe. This initiative is an outstanding exchange platform of leading IoT players who will influence the future of edge computing and set common standards for all. As a market leader in Industrial IoT solutions, with our Cumulocity IoT platform, Software AG views our participation in this Consortium to be a critical step in creating a shared knowledge base of ideas, a collaborative approach to exchange best practices from many successful engagements, and also an ecosystem of forward-looking IoT leaders who will increase the value and practical use of edge computing - making it ready for prime time." -- Frank Schiewer, SVP of Alliance & Channel, Software AG "TTTech is very pleased to join the ECCE initiative. As a company, we are actively engaged in developing edge computing solutions that are shaping the convergence of IT and industry. We believe that a standard approach to edge computing and fog/cloud architectures is crucial to truly delivering on the promise of Industrial IoT." -- Wolfgang Leindecker, Vice President of TTTech Computertechnik AG, Austria The ECCE welcomes more industry partners who are committed to digital transformation. For more information, please visit the ECCE homepage: https://ecconsortium.eu. About Huawei Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. With integrated solutions across four key domains - telecom networks, IT, smart devices, and cloud services - we are committed to bringing digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world. Huawei's end-to-end portfolio of products, solutions and services are both competitive and secure. Through open collaboration with ecosystem partners, we create lasting value for our customers, working to empower people, enrich home life, and inspire innovation in organizations of all shapes and sizes. At Huawei, innovation focuses on customer needs. We invest heavily in basic research, concentrating on technological breakthroughs that drive the world forward. We have more than 180,000 employees, and we operate in more than 170 countries and regions. Founded in 1987, Huawei is a private company fully owned by its employees. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/802725/Huawei_ECCE.jpg (1) Performance results are presented on a gross and net-of-fees basis. Net returns reflect the deduction of, among other expenses, management fees, brokerage commissions, administrative fees, and accrued and/or crystallized performance fees, if any, and include the reinvestment of all dividends, interest, and capital gains. Net returns reflect the performance of the Company's Public Shares. Depending on the timing of an individual investor's specific investment, net performance for an individual investor may vary from the net performance as stated herein. Gross returns reflect the performance of the Company's shares in the aggregate and are presented before the deduction of management fees and performance fees, if any. In May 2018, the Company purchased and cancelled 22,271,714 Public Shares pursuant to the tender offer announced on April 25, 2018 (the "Tender Offer"). The positive impact on performance of the Tender Offer is reflected herein. Performance data and other information contained herein are estimated and unaudited. Net performance is a geometrically linked, time-weighted calculation. (2) Reflects the number of positions in issuers in which the Company has previously publicly disclosed an investment, which occurs after the Company has completed its accumulation. Cash, cash equivalents, direct or indirect currency or other hedges and income/expense items are excluded. Multiple financial instruments (for example, common stock and derivatives on common stock) associated with one (1) issuer count as one (1) position. A position that is included in the number of positions will be removed from the table only if the investment becomes 0.0% of the portfolio. (3) For the purpose of determining the equity and debt exposures, investments are valued as follows: (a) equity or debt is valued at market value, (b) options referencing equity or debt are valued at market value, (c) long call options and short put options (or vice-versa, short call options and long put options) held on the same underlying issuer and with the same strike and same expiry are grouped together and treated as synthetic equity positions, and are valued at the market value of the equivalent long equity position (or vice-versa, the equivalent short equity position), and (d) swaps or forwards referencing equity or debt are valued at the market value of the notional equity or debt underlying the swaps or forwards. Whether a position is deemed to be long or short is determined by whether an investment has positive or negative exposure to price increases or decreases. For example, long puts are deemed to be short exposure. (4) Includes all issuer equity, debt, and derivatives related to issuer equity and debt, and associated currency hedges. Cash, cash equivalents, direct or indirect currency or other hedges and income/expense items are excluded. The market values of associated currency hedges are included as part of the associated investment. In the event that there is a change in market cap category with respect to any non-publicly disclosed position, this information is not updated until such position is publicly disclosed. (5) Portfolio composition is reflective of the publicly disclosed portfolio positions as of the date of this report. A position in an issuer is only assigned to a sector once it has been publicly disclosed. (6) "Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. AUM" equals the assets under management of Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. Any performance fees crystallized as of the end of the year will be reflected in the following period's AUM. (7) "Total Strategy AUM" equals the aggregate assets under management of Pershing Square, L.P., Pershing Square International, Ltd., Pershing Square II, L.P. and Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (collectively, the "Core Funds"). Redemptions effective as of the end of any period (including redemptions attributable to crystallized performance fees/allocations, if any) will be reflected in the following period's AUM. (8) "Total Firm AUM" is the aggregate of Total Strategy AUM and the assets under management of Pershing Square VI Master, L.P. which operates as a co-investment vehicle investing primarily in securities of (or otherwise seeking to be exposed to the value of securities issued by) Automatic Data Processing, Inc. ("PSVI") without double counting investments by any Core Fund in PSVI. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 2, 2019) - PORTOFINO RESOURCES INC. (TSXV: POR) ("Portofino" or the "Company") has received TSX Venture Exchange approval to consolidate the Company's issued and outstanding share capital and the common shares will commence trading on a post-consolidation basis on January 4, 2019. The Company's name and trading symbol will remain the same. The consolidation will be based on 1 post-consolidation common share for every 4 pre-consolidation common shares. The Company currently has 51,963,500 shares outstanding and will result in 12,990,875 post consolidation shares outstanding. The number of stock options, warrants and related exercise prices will also be adjusted in accordance with the consolidation ratio. The Company's new CUSIP number is 73689L207 and the new ISIN number is CA73689L2075. A Letter of Transmittal will be mailed to shareholders holding physical certificates by the Company's transfer agent (TSX Trust Company), advising that the consolidation has taken effect and shareholders should surrender their existing (pre-consolidation) common share certificates, for new (post-consolidation) common share certificates. No fractional common shares of the Company shall be issued in connection with the consolidation and the number of common shares to be received by a shareholder shall be rounded down to the nearest whole number of common shares. In 2018, the Company completed a successful surface sampling program on the Hombre Muerto West, Argentina lithium brine project that tested 18 sites within the 1804-hectare claim blocks and returned brine assays up of 1,031mg/L lithium. (News Release dated July 10-18). The Company intends to follow-up these high-grade surface samples with a geophysical survey and a drilling program. The Hombre Muerto West project is located within the world-class, Salar del Hombre Muerto, where FMC Lithium is currently producing lithium carbonate and Galaxy Resources is developing its Sal de Vida project. Pursuant to an agreement with the claim-owner of the Rio-Grande Sur, Argentina lithium project, the Company was required to make a property payment of US$26,000 by December 26th, 2018, to maintain an interest in the project. Portofino has determined not to make this payment and the agreement has been terminated. About Portofino Resources Inc. Portofino is a Vancouver-based Canadian company focused on acquiring, exploring and developing mineral resource projects in the Americas. The Company maintains an interest in several prospective lithium salar properties in Catamarca, Argentina. On Behalf of the Board, "David G. Tafel" Chief Executive Officer For Further Information Contact: David Tafel CEO, Director 604-683-1991 Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward looking statements concerning future operations of Portofino Resources Inc. (the "Company"). All forward- looking statements concerning the Company's future plans and operations, including management's assessment of the Company's project expectations or beliefs may be subject to certain assumptions, risks and uncertainties beyond the Company's control. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and that actual performance and exploration and financial results may differ materially from any estimates or projections. Priceless! In this truly priceless photo, Simbu can be seen bonding with his good friend Trisha. The two stars worked together in the much-loved Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa and grabbed plenty of attention because of their chemistry. Too Cool! Simbu can be seen chilling with Venkat Prabhu in his cool photo. He seems to be in a relaxed mood and can seen giving us some major party goals. Venkat Prabhu and STR's chemistry is pretty top-notch. Karthi Has A Good Time The noted actor Karthi too attended the bash and chilled like a boss. Here he can be seen hanging out with STR. 2018 was a good year for the actor. He received rave reviews for his performance in Kadaikutty Singam. This year, Karthi will be seen in Dev. The film also has his Theeran co-star Rakul Preet in the lead and it is touted to be a action-thriller. In Good Company! Simbu can be seen in good company in this stunning click. The young man seems to have enjoyed the bash to the fullest and made the most of it. We are sure this pic will make young men feel a bit envious of STR. A Busy Year For STR Interestingly, STR had a decent 2017. He received praise for his performance in Chekka Chivanta Vaanam and got his career back on track. At present, he has Vantha Rajavathaan Varuven in his kitty. In it, he will be seen alongside Megha Aakash, Ramya Krishnan and Prabhu. Will Shivanna's Film Beat KGF? During the I Love You trailer launch, when Shivarajkumar was asked about his forthcoming film he said, he is planning on doing a dream movie with director R Chandru, for which they have already started preparing. He further added that this movie like KFG will turn the entire nation around and look! It's A Mythological Story The actor further explained that his next movie will not be titled Badshah. He said, as the title has already been used in both Bollywood and Kollywood, they want to come up with a new title. Shivanna's next is going to be a mythology based cinema. The Credit Goes To The Directors Yash fans wouldn't shy away from admitting to the fact that he is one of the main reasons for the success of KGF. However, Shivarajkumar took a moment to give credit to the director for creating a masterpiece. He said, it's the effort and talent of directors for decades that has helped the Kannada indutry achive its reputation and success. He used the platform to remember directors such as Puttana Kanagal, Yograj Bhatt, Neel Prashanth and more. He's Greatful To His Fans Though, Dr Rajkumar was a legend, the actor said only a few such as his father, Amitabh Bachchan, Rajaniant and Mohan Lal can become such iconic figures. But, he's grateful to his fans for still wanting to see him perform on-screen and showering all the love. Around 8 am today, the officials from Income Tax department arrived at the residence of several Sandalwood actors and producers as a part of a raid. Around 6 offcials are currently conducting the interrogation. Actors Sudeep, Shivarajkumar, Puneeth Rajkumar, Yash are among some of the celebrities who have been targeted in today's raid. According to the latest Flimibeat Kannada reports, the offcials who are present at the producer Rockline Venkatesh's house, have acquired nearly 2 kgs of gold and 20 kgs of silver. Venkatesh, who is the producer of Puneeth's next film Nata Sarvabhouma has been questioned about the humongous budget of the movie. Apparently, he's been asked to produce documents for all of his assests found within his residence and the other properties he owns. The IT offcials have been reportedly looking into his bank statements and checking transactions carried out in the last three years. Venkatesh owns acres of land in Peenya, Banagalore. He is also the owner of Rockline Mall present in the same area. News portals are reporting that the raid was carried out based on speculations regarding black money accumulated within the industry. It has been said that the filmmakers and investors are investing their black money on movies to make it white, and avoiding taxation. Actor Sudeep, who is also one of the victims of the raid, issued his first statement only a few minutes ago. Addressing the same he told media that he has no clue why his residence was raided and that he wasn't even home when the officials arrived. MOST READ : Fans Furious With Shivarajkumar For Not Mentioning Yash For KGF's Success! Is He Jealous? We need to wait and watch what the other actors have to say about coming under the radar of the Income Tax department. Watch the space for more latest updates. Hrithik Roshan's Family Movie Night Hrithik Roshan and his ex-wife had a movie night with their kids today. Hrithik looked handsome as always. He was sporting a casual look, wearing a black t-shirt, denims, a black hat and sneakers. Hrithik and Sussanne, although divorced, remain good friends and maintain a healthy family atmosphere for their children, making sure they celebrate events and go for outings together. The family recently returned from a trip to London. Sussanne Khan Rocking A Casual-Cool Look Sussanne Khan almost always dons a casual cool look whenever she is spotted out running errands or simply going to the movies. It suits her very well. For the movie night with her ex-husband Hrithik, and their kids Hrehaan and Hridhaan, Sussanne was wearing a khaki green top and blue denims. Donning The Cheer Of Yellow In Winter Dhadak actor Ishaan Khattar was snapped at a cafe in Bandra today. He smiled his cute smile for the cameras. The young star was looking cool in a yellow hoodie , blue denims, and red sneakers. On the work front, there are reports going around that Ishaan might star in the Telugu hit Geet Govindam's remake in Bollywood. Jacqueline's Chic Airport Look Actress Jacqueline Fernandez was snapped at the airport looking chic as ever. Jacqueline was wearing a grey top and khaki green cigarette pants. She teamed this up with a black blazer and black slip on shoes. Kader Khan's Son Exposed The Harsh Reality Of The Film Industry He told IANS, "It is the way the Indian film industry has become now. There are too many fragmented camps and loyalties. The out-of-sight-out-of-mind mentality can't be helped. "My father always told us, his sons, not to expect anything from anybody and we grew up with the belief that one must do what is required in life and expect nothing in return." Govinda's Instagram Post On Kader Khan's demise, Govinda who worked with him on many super-hit movies took to Instagram and wrote, "RIP Kader Khan Saab.He was not just my "ustaad" but a father figure to me, his midas touch and his aura made every actor he worked with a superstar. The entire film industry and my family deeply mourns this loss and we cannot express the sorrow in words. I pray to God that may his soul rest in peace.' Kader Khan's Son Had A Sharp Reaction To Govinda's 'Father-Figure' Comment "Please ask Govinda how many times he inquired about his father figure's health. Has he even bothered to call us even once after my father's passing away? This is the way our film industry has become," he told IANS. 'There Are No Real Feelings' "There are no real feelings for those who have contributed to Indian cinema when they're no longer active. The top guns may be seen getting clicked with these retired veterans. But the affection goes only as far as photographs. No more. Look at the condition in which Lalita Pawarji and Mohan Chotiji died. "Luckily, my father had three sons to look after him. What about those who die with no financial and emotional support?," Sarfaraz further added. Are You Listening Big B? Sarfaraz revealed, "There are so many people in the film industry whom my father was close to. But the one person that my father loved the most was Bachchan saab (Amitabh Bachchan). I'd ask my father whom he missed the most from the film industry and the answer promptly would be Bachchan saab. And I know the love was mutual. I want him to know that my father spoke about him till the end." There Was A Smile On Kader Khan's Face When He Passed Away "There was a smile on my father's face when he passed away. I cherish that smile more than anything else in the world. My father's final years were very painful for him. He suffered from a degenerative disease that left him completely without the will to do anything. He got the best possible medical care here in Toronto." His Family Intends To Carry His Legacy Forward "My father has contributed so much to Hindi cinema. We intend to honour his memory in a substantial and relevant way. At the moment we're all mourning his going. But I can assure his fans all over the world that we won't let the film industry forget him," Sarfaraz signed off. 1. Gully Boy Starring Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt in the lead, this Zoya Akhtar directorial has got us super excited. The film stars Ranveer Singh as a rapper in the film and its for the first time we will see him romancing Alia. Just today films lead stars and makers released a new poster of Singh, which said, Apna Time Aayega. The film is slated for Category Select Category Apparel/Garments Textiles Fashion Technical Textiles Information Technology E-commerce Retail Corporate Association Press Release SubCategory Select Sub-Category Gov. Jim Justice, somewhat belatedly, has come around to admit that the states vaccination effort has hit a wall and that, at its current pace, we will not reach herd immunity anytime soon. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike. We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve. The NFU has said food standards must be protected when the UK leaves the EU and that the Government must ensure Britain has a 'robust supply' of safe food. NFU President Minette Batters urged the Government on Thursday (3 January) to ensure that Britain has a supply of 'safe, traceable and affordable' food following Brexit. Speaking at the Oxford Farming Conference, Mrs Batters said it is time for the Government to make decisions on Brexit to ensure the nation avoids a no deal. Defra Secretary Michael Gove used the conference to highlight how leaving the European Union provides British farmers with a 'world of opportunity'. But Mrs Batters said the Government must also recognise the importance of British farming to the nation by ensuring the Agriculture Bill has food production at its heart. The NFU has maintained that a no-deal Brexit could be catastrophic for Britain, as the impacts for the farming industry could be 'wide-ranging'. For example, Britain could face disruption as a result of being prevented from exporting agricultural products to the EU. The UK would need to be re-approved by the EU as an exporter and there are no guarantees this would be in place by March 29. The lamb industry could be particularly impacted, as 31% of its produce was exported to the EU in 2017. In a no deal scenario, exports to the EU from the UK could face the same tariffs as goods entering the EU from other third countries. For agricultural products, these are particularly high. For example, fresh beef and lamb could effectively face tariffs of 65% and 46% respectively. The NFU says the impact for food producers could be 'detrimental', increasing costs for the business. Even if the UK is approved as an exporter to the EU, essential imports could be disrupted and severe delays at ports may be seen. This includes veterinary medicines, fertilisers, feed and machinery parts. For example, over 90% of animal vaccines and medicines are imported to the UK. In order to avoid food price rises as a result of a no-deal Brexit, the NFU said the Government could unilaterally lower import tariffs which cannot be done on a country-by-country basis. This could open up the UK market to products that are not produced to the high standards of food safety, animal welfare and environmental protection that British farmers adhere to. Mrs Batters told the event: There have been enough warm words and comfort to us as farmers but now is time for decisions from the government about how it will secure the nations food supply. We are less than 90 days away from Brexit and there is still enormous uncertainty about the future and how domestic food production fits into that. When I speak to people about food, they do recognise the importance of our sector; to our economy, to our environment and to our food security. Food is one of the fundamentals of life. Its importance cannot be understated. A government that fails to deliver a Brexit that gets this right will fail us all. She added: We are world leaders in food safety, traceability, environmental protection and animal welfare. It is clear that British people feel proud of the food we produce and what better way for a government to support that than by backing British food and farming. It is crucial that Government engages with our industry to deliver a sustainable, competitive and profitable British farming sector for generations to come, Mrs Batters said. Farmers have been told to take extra steps to ensure a good level of security after over 200 lambs were stolen from a farm in Dorset. Around 210 Texel, Charollais and Beltex cross lambs have been stolen from a field near Beaminster. The lambs were wearing ear tags with the flock number UK347813. They all have white faces. A spokesman for Dorset Police Rural Crime Team said: Farmers and smallholders please remember to keep the gates to your livestock locked and make sure that the hinges are capped to prevent gates being lifted off the hinges. Block up unused gateways with tree trunks, old machinery or other heavy objects. Consider fitting wildlife or trail cameras to fields where livestock are present to detect vehicle or person movement. Fit gate alarms which can be linked to a mobile phone. Consider fitting early warning intervention alarms that will link to your phone. Consider using livestock tracing systems. Last year, over 270 sheep were stolen overnight near Bridgwater, Somerset in what the police described as a huge loss for the farmer. Based on claims data, NFU Mutual estimate rural crime cost the UK 44.5m in 2017. With an increase of 13.4% on the previous year, rural crime is rising at its fastest rate since 2010. If anyone has any information about the theft or the whereabouts of these sheep please contact Dorset Police on 101, or via email 101@dorset.pnn.police.uk quoting occurrence number 55180204397. An environmental farming group have called on the Government to prevent a minority of farmers who ignore the environmental impact of their farming methods. The Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN), which total 2,050 members, are calling for the Agriculture Bill to set minimum standards. It says a minority of farmers ignore the environmental impact of their farming methods, which would threaten long-term food security. The NFFN are also calling for the Government to publish a report every five years on progress towards meeting priorities and targets. Targets - including air quality, water quality and soil health - will act as an incentive to those that are currently failing to deliver public goods and make British agriculture a world exemplar of sustainable and nature-friendly farming, the group says. Martin Lines, Chair of the Nature Friendly Farming Network, says: It is the Secretary of States duty to establish an independent regulator before its too late. We can only guarantee long term food security by protecting and managing the natural assets which enable food production. If the Government does not amend the Bill to include minimum standards - and put a stop to the environmental degradation caused by intensive farming - British farmers will be in danger of losing their livelihoods. Since the launch of the NFFN one year ago, the network has established itself as a political voice for farmers who want to deliver nature-friendly farming methods. Farm businesses are seizing the initiative when it comes to tackling the challenge of poor mainstream broadband connections by investing in their own private high-speed networks. With digital technology now playing a central role in peoples lives, farmers are increasingly finding that it is necessary to be proactive in addressing the problem of slow connections. The Universal Services Obligation (USO) means that by 2020 everyone across the UK should have a right to a high-speed broadband connection, but it is unclear how network providers can deliver this within the proposed time-scale. However, according to land and property specialists Strutt & Parker, broadband speeds in many rural areas are likely to remain sub-standard despite a commitment to the USO of a minimum download speed of 10 megabits per second. Stuart Gray, from the land management team at Strutt & Parker, said: In the past, the costs of installing a private broadband network may have looked unviable. But the importance now placed on good connectivity, with growing numbers of people working from home, means that attracting tenants is difficult without being able to offer a reliable broadband service. Mr Gray added: At a time when many businesses are looking forward to the year ahead and considering ways to improve performance and protect and enhance non-agricultural revenues, the time may be right to consider investment in super-fast broadband. Each of the options have their own pros and cons and not all may be available for a particular use or location. But the good news is that in most instances there are practical solutions to the problem, some of which may attract grant funding, he said. Alternatives to mainstream connectivity include: A leased fibre connection to the premises (FTTP) which involves installing a physical fibre connection from the mainstream network across private land. Satellite broadband which operates by sending and receiving a signal to a satellite rather than using the underground copper/fibre network. Over-the-air solutions such as Fixed Wireless Access networks which use specific frequencies of the radio spectrum to transmit signals. SALEM, Ohio Although theyd rather have free trade and market access, farmers say the $12 billion in commodity assistance being offered by President Donald Trump is worth applying for, in a year of high yields and low prices. Known as the Market Facilitation Program, the program compensates farmers who grew various crops including corn, soybeans and wheat, and for livestock, including dairy for price losses due to the trade war of 2018, and retaliatory tariffs that China enacted on U.S. farm goods. Farmers can receive $1.65 per bushel of soybeans, 14 cents per bushel of wheat, 1 cent per bushel of corn, 12 cents per 100 pounds of milk, and $8 per head of hogs. Sorghum, almonds, cotton and cherries are also included, and the program also sets aside funds for developing new foreign markets, and purchasing more than two dozen select products, including fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, meat and dairy. The deadline to apply is Jan. 15, and the deadline to certify production is May 1. There is a cap of $125,000 per producer, for livestock claims, and the same amount for crop claims. Is it enough? But even with the help, farmers question whether it will be enough to cover their losses, and for how long. Its really not even going to come close to making up for the damage that the market has experienced, said John Torres, director of government and industry affairs for the Ohio Corn and Wheat Growers Association. Whats going to be most beneficial to farmers is resuming national trade, he said. Ron Elliott, a dairy and crop farmer from Knox County, said that assistance does help, but that the program is basically a way of compensating for the market potential that the government disrupted. Id much rather get my income from the marketplace, he said. Elliott and his brother, Bob, milk about 130 head on a farm thats been in the family since the early 1800s. He said farmers will have to do some paperwork, but that depending on the size of their operation and what they grow, its going to be worth the effort. Reason for hope In November, the U.S. and China agreed to a 90-day truce over their trade dispute, halting new tariffs that were planned to go into effect Jan. 1, and vowing to work out a new trade agreement by April. But with the details of that agreement still vague, farmers are not convinced theyll get back what was lost. Even if the tariffs go away entirely, farmers and commodity leaders are unsure the U.S. will regain its share of the world market. Kirk Merritt, executive director of the Ohio Soybean Association, told farmers at the annual Grain Farmer Symposium, Dec. 18, that he hopes they take advantage of the trade aid, and that hes optimistic the Chinese market will come back but perhaps not as strong as before. Were optimistic that (talks) will lead to some renewal of that market, but I think its probably safe to assume its never going to be what it was, Merritt said. Ultimately, the U.S. may need to build up additional markets to make up for what wont be there with China, even if China comes back, he added. The U.S. has made progress on agreements with other nations, including South Korea, through a revised U.S. Korea Free Trade Agreement, and through a new agreement with Canada and Mexico, that replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement. Restoring trade There is also strong interest in restoring trade with Japan, one of the key Pacific nations that was included in the Trans-Pacific partnership, which was negotiated before Trump took office, and which he pulled the U.S. away from in 2017. Trump noted his angst for unfair trade policies during his campaign, arguing that China and other countries were taking advantage of the U.S. through poorly written free trade agreements. But the tariffs hit the wallets of one of his strongest campaign supporters farmers and rural America. Economists with Ohio State University estimated this summer that the tariffs could cost crop farmers more than half their income, if they continue, and that theyve already cost the U.S. most of its soybean exports to China, which last year bought more than $1.8 billion of Ohio soybeans alone. Political support While the situation has tested farmers patience, and cost them money, many still say they support the president and believe his approach to trade will work in the end. I think hes a decent president and I think in the end we will be OK, said Charles L. Kettering, an Ashland County farmer. I think all hes trying to do is make this country better. David Eichelberger, also an Ashland County grain farmer, said he thinks the president is doing the right thing with trade, but the Chinese, in turn, are hanging it over our heads. He said the aid package will help, but at the same time, its kind of a Band-Aid compared to what farmers are losing in the marketplace. Katie Hill, the Farm Service Agency director in Knox County, said farmers have been trickling into the FSA office throughout the fall, as they finish harvest. She said its important they keep the deadlines in mind, and keep good records of their yield, just as they should do for any FSA program. Significant payments Although the compensation differs widely among the commodities, Hill said soybean farmers are seeing some significant payments, because that crop is compensated the most. Any addition they (farmers) can get this year is going to help them with the low commodity prices, Hill said. The National Corn Growers Association has argued that the compensation to corn farmers should be higher, estimating that corn farmers lost 44 cents per bushel to tariffs, compared to the 1 cent compensation being offered. Related coverage: Second round of trade mitigation payments announced (Dec. 18, 2018) The economy for dairy farmers is certainly not very affirming at the moment and hasnt been for several months. Well, actually this has been the case for the past three years and immediate improvement is not in sight. Thus, several farms in the U.S., including Ohio, have gone out of business, especially a high level of exits in 2018. A little spirit lift has occurred with the Market Facilitation Program and passage of the new farm bill, but major improvements are needed in the marketplace before ease is found in the dairy industry. On the other side of the farm scene, meticulous management is going to be needed to push through the tough economy. We just experienced the annual holiday whereby we are told that the jolly old guy is checking his list, checking it twice. It is suggested that you check this list twice or more for determining where some efficiencies can be made on the production side. 1) Lactating cows. Maximize income over feed costs. What are your feed costs per hundredweight of milk? Generally, feed costs per hundredweight should be about 30 percent of milk price. However, given the low milk price, most farms have feed costs above this benchmark, often nearing 50 percent. There may be opportunities for increasing milk price through higher fat and protein and lower somatic cell counts (SCC), but it must also be kept in mind that lower feed costs will not always increase income over feed costs because of the potential decrease in milk production. 2) Optimize reproduction. Target for a pregnancy rate of 24 percent or higher. 3) Optimize health. This item is very broad and can imply improving cow comfort and reducing disease. Improving cow comfort will not only improve the effective state of the cow but improve her health and milk production. Facility ventilation may be a factor to address to reduce respiratory disease. Most diseases in lactating cows occur at or shortly after calving, so a general benchmark for most metabolic diseases is less than 5 percent. Within the first 60 days in milk, death rate should be less than 2 percent and involuntary cull rate less than 6 percent. Achieving a SCC for the herd of less than 200,000 cells/mL improves cow heath, reduces treatment costs, and increases milk yield. Dry cows: The average dry period should be between 45 to 60 days. Cows with extended days dry need to be checked for pregnancy and possibly even culled. Reducing days dry to 45 to 50 days can be worthwhile as long as your facility will support additional cows in milk above the typical 85 percent of the herd, plenty of forage is available for the milking herd, and cows are producing sufficient milk toward the end of their lactation to be paying for above the variable costs of milk production. Calf improvement: 1) Optimize health. The two major diseases for calves are pneumonia and scours, which most commonly occur within the first two months of life. Careful management of the feeding and housing program are essential to minimize these two diseases. 2) Feed to optimize rate of gain for calving at 22 to 24 months of age. This means than a rate of gain between 1.75 and 2.0 should be targeted. 3) Feed costs. Feed costs do become quite important given that you are keeping that animal on the farm for almost two years before they calve. Feed costs typically account for about 50 percent of the cost of raising heifers. Also, farmers should closely assess their heifer-to-cow ratio; a ratio of 0.85 to 1 heifer per cow will be sufficient for typical replacements rates on dairy farms. Excess heifer calves should be sold within the first two-to-three months of age. These are just a few key areas to check in an attempt to reduce costs of production and improve animal performance. Its not an all-inclusive list, but these items are very important for remaining profitable during the upcoming months when tight margins are going to remain. Maybe you want to add others, develop your own list. Set goals, discuss them with farm employees, and frequently assess if you are accomplishing your goals. Managing these goals during the year can result in an improved financial standing. by Mike Maher | Thu, Jan 3rd 1:33pm EST Free-agent reliever David Robertson has agreed to a two-year deal with the Philadelphia Phillies, according to a report from MLB.com's Mark Feinsand. According to Feinsand, hell "earn $10M in 2019, $11M in 2020, with a $12M club option ($2M buyout) for 2021." (Mark Feinsand on Twitter) Fairfieldsuntimes.com ("Company" or "we" or "us" or "our") respects the privacy of its users ("user" or "you") that use our website located at fairfieldsuntimes.com, including other media forms, media channels, mobile website or mobile application related or connected thereto (collectively, the "Website"). The following Company privacy policy ("Privacy Policy") is designed to inform you, as a user of the Website, about the types of information that Company may gather about or collect from you in connection with your use of the Website. It also is intended to explain the conditions under which Company uses and discloses that information, and your rights in relation to that information. Changes to this Privacy Policy are discussed at the end of this document. Each time you use the Website, however, the current version of this Privacy Policy will apply. Accordingly, each time you use the Website you should check the date of this Privacy Policy (which appears at the beginning of this document) and review any changes since the last time you used the Website. The Website is hosted in the United States of America and is subject to U.S. state and federal law. If you are accessing our Website from other jurisdictions, please be advised that you are transferring your personal information to us in the United States, and by using our Website, you consent to that transfer and use of your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You also agree to abide by the applicable laws of applicable states and U.S. federal law concerning your use of the Website and your agreements with us. Any persons accessing our Website from any jurisdiction with laws or regulations governing the use of the Internet, including personal data collection, use and disclosure, different from those of the jurisdictions mentioned above may only use the Website in a manner lawful in their jurisdiction. If your use of the Website would be unlawful in your jurisdiction, please do not use the Website. BY USING OR ACCESSING THE WEBSITE, YOU ARE ACCEPTING THE PRACTICES DESCRIBED IN THIS PRIVACY POLICY. GATHERING, USE AND DISCLOSURE OF NON-PERSONALLY-IDENTIFYING INFORMATION Users of the Website Generally "Non-Personally-Identifying Information" is information that, without the aid of additional information, cannot be directly associated with a specific person. "Personally-Identifying Information," by contrast, is information such as a name or email address that, without more, can be directly associated with a specific person. Like most website operators, Company gathers from users of the Website Non-Personally-Identifying Information of the sort that Web browsers, depending on their settings, may make available. That information includes the user's Internet Protocol (IP) address, operating system, browser type and the locations of the websites the user views right before arriving at, while navigating and immediately after leaving the Website. Although such information is not Personally-Identifying Information, it may be possible for Company to determine from an IP address a user's Internet service provider and the geographic location of the visitor's point of connectivity as well as other statistical usage data. Company analyzes Non-Personally-Identifying Information gathered from users of the Website to help Company better understand how the Website is being used. By identifying patterns and trends in usage, Company is able to better design the Website to improve users' experiences, both in terms of content and ease of use. From time to time, Company may also release the Non-Personally-Identifying Information gathered from Website users in the aggregate, such as by publishing a report on trends in the usage of the Website. Web Cookies A "Web Cookie" is a string of information which assigns you a unique identification that a website stores on a user's computer, and that the user's browser provides to the website each time the user submits a query to the website. We use cookies on the Website to keep track of services you have used, to record registration information regarding your login name and password, to record your user preferences, to keep you logged into the Website and to facilitate purchase procedures. Company also uses Web Cookies to track the pages that users visit during each Website session, both to help Company improve users' experiences and to help Company understand how the Website is being used. As with other Non-Personally-Identifying Information gathered from users of the Website, Company analyzes and discloses in aggregated form information gathered using Web Cookies, so as to help Company, its partners and others better understand how the Website is being used. COMPANY USERS WHO DO NOT WISH TO HAVE WEB COOKIES PLACED ON THEIR COMPUTERS SHOULD SET THEIR BROWSERS TO REFUSE WEB COOKIES BEFORE ACCESSING THE WEBSITE, WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT CERTAIN FEATURES OF THE WEBSITE MAY NOT FUNCTION PROPERLY WITHOUT THE AID OF WEB COOKIES. WEBSITE USERS WHO REFUSE WEB COOKIES ASSUME ALL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY RESULTING LOSS OF FUNCTIONALITY. Third-Party Advertisers We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit the Website. These companies may use information (not including any Personally-Identifying Information) about your visits to the Website and other websites that are contained in Web Cookies in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. Using a tool created by the Network Advertising Initiative, you can opt out of several third-party ad servers' and networks' Web Cookies simultaneously. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, please follow the following links: http://networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp, http://preferences-mgr.truste.com/, or http://www.aboutads.info/choices/. Please contact us if you would like to know the identity of the third-party advertising companies we are currently using to serve ads. We may allow advertisers to choose the characteristics of users who will see their advertisements, and we may use any of the Non-Personally Identifying Information we have collected (including information you may have decided not to show to other users, such as your birth year or other sensitive personal information or preferences) to select the appropriate audience for those advertisements. We do not identify you to the advertiser. Web Beacons A "Web Beacon" is an object that is embedded in a web page or email that is usually invisible to the user and allows website operators to check whether a user has viewed a particular web page or an email. Company may use Web Beacons on the Website and in emails to count users who have visited particular pages, viewed emails and to deliver co-branded services. Web Beacons are not used to access users' Personally-Identifying Information. They are a technique Company may use to compile aggregated statistics about Website usage. Web Beacons collect only a limited set of information, including a Web Cookie number, time and date of a page or email view and a description of the page or email on which the Web Beacon resides. You may not decline Web Beacons. However, they can be rendered ineffective by declining all Web Cookies or modifying your browser setting to notify you each time a Web Cookie is tendered, permitting you to accept or decline Web Cookies on an individual basis. Analytics We may use third-party vendors, including Google, who use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick cookie) together to inform, optimize and serve ads based on your past activity on the Website, including Google Analytics for Display Advertising. The information collected may be used to, among other things, analyze and track data, determine the popularity of certain content and better understand online activity. If you do not want any information to be collected and used by Google Analytics, you can install an opt-out in your web browser (https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/) and/or opt out from Google Analytics for Display Advertising or the Google Display Network by using Google's Ads Settings (www.google.com/settings/ads). Aggregated and Non-Personally-Identifying Information We may share aggregated and Non-Personally Identifying Information we collect under any of the above circumstances. We may also share it with third parties and our affiliate companies to develop and deliver targeted advertising on the Website and on websites of third parties. We may combine Non-Personally Identifying Information we collect with additional Non-Personally Identifying Information collected from other sources. We also may share aggregated information with third parties, including advisors, advertisers and investors, for the purpose of conducting general business analysis. For example, we may tell our advertisers the number of visitors to the Website and the most popular features or services accessed. This information does not contain any Personally-Identifying Information and may be used to develop website content and services that we hope you and other users will find of interest and to target content and advertising. SOCIAL MEDIA We may provide you the option to connect your account on the Website to your account on some social networking sites for the purpose of logging in, uploading information or enabling certain features on the Website. When logging in using your social network credentials, we may collect the Personally-Identifying Information you have made publicly available on the social networking site, such as your name, profile picture, cover photo, username, gender, friends network, age range, locale, friend list and any other information you have made public. Once connected, other users may also be able to see information about your social network, such as the size of your network and your friends, including common friends. By connecting your account on the Website to your account on any social networking site, you hereby consent to the continuous release of information about you to us. We will not send any of your account information to the connected social networking site without first disclosing that to you. Each social network may further allow you to set privacy controls around your information on their system, and our collection of information will always follow such controls and permissions. This feature is subject to continuous change and improvement by us and each social networking site involved, and therefore the available features and shared information are subject to change without notice to you. We may use hyperlinks on the Website which will redirect you to a social network if you click on the respective link. However, when you click on a social plug-in, such as Facebook's "Like" button, Twitter's "tweet" button or the Google+, that particular social network's plugin will be activated and your browser will directly connect to that provider's servers. If you do not use these buttons, none of your data will be sent to the respective social network's plugin provider. So for example, when you click on the Facebook's "Like" button on the Website, Facebook will receive your IP address, the browser version and screen resolution, and the operating system of the device you have used to access the Website. Settings regarding privacy protection can be found on the websites of these social networks and are not within our control. COLLECTION, USE AND DISCLOSURE OF PERSONALLY-IDENTIFYING INFORMATION Website Registration As defined above, Personally-Identifying Information is information that can be directly associated with a specific person. Company may collect a range of Personally-Identifying Information from and about Website users. Much of the Personally-Identifying Information collected by Company about users is information provided by users themselves when (1) registering for our service, (2) logging in with social network credentials, (3) participating in polls, contests, surveys or other features of our service, or responding to offers or advertisements, (4) communicating with us, (5) creating a public profile or (6) signing up to receive newsletters. That information may include each user's name, address, email address and telephone number, and, if you transact business with us, financial information such as your payment method (valid credit card number, type, expiration date or other financial information). We also may request information about your interests and activities, your gender, age, date of birth, username, hometown and other demographic or relevant information as determined by Company from time to time. Users of the Website are under no obligation to provide Company with Personally-Identifying Information of any kind, with the caveat that a user's refusal to do so may prevent the user from using certain Website features. BY REGISTERING WITH OR USING THE WEBSITE, YOU CONSENT TO THE USE AND DISCLOSURE OF YOUR PERSONALLY-IDENTIFYING INFORMATION AS DESCRIBED IN THIS "COLLECTION, USE AND DISCLOSURE OF PERSONALLY-IDENTIFYING INFORMATION" SECTION. Online Postings Certain Personally-Identifying Information collected from users may be disclosed as a matter of course as a result of your use of the Website. We may provide areas on the Website where you can post reviews and other information relating to your activities on the Website. Such postings are governed by our Terms of Use. In addition, such postings may appear on other websites or when searches are executed on the subject of your posting. Also, whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information on publicly-viewable web pages, that information will be publicly available and can be collected and used by others. For example, if you post your email address, you may receive unsolicited messages. We cannot control who reads your posting or what other users may do with the information you voluntarily post, so we encourage you to exercise discretion and caution with respect to your personal information. USERS ASSUME ALL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY LOSS OF PRIVACY OR OTHER HARM RESULTING FROM THEIR VOLUNTARY DISCLOSURE OF PERSONALLY IDENTIFYING INFORMATION. Company Communications We may occasionally use your name and email address to send you notifications regarding new services offered by the Website that we think you may find valuable. We may also send you service-related announcements from time to time through the general operation of the service. Generally, you may opt out of such emails at the time of registration or through your account settings, though we reserve the right to send you notices about your account, such as service announcements and administrative messages, even if you opt out of all voluntary email notifications. Company Disclosures Company will disclose Personally-Identifying Information under the following circumstances: By Law or to Protect Rights. When we believe disclosure is appropriate, we may disclose Personally-Identifying Information in connection with efforts to investigate, prevent or take other action regarding illegal activity, suspected fraud or other wrongdoing; to protect and defend the rights, property or safety of Company, our users, our employees or others; to comply with applicable law or cooperate with law enforcement; to enforce our Terms of Use or other agreements or policies, in response to a subpoena or similar investigative demand, a court order or a request for cooperation from a law enforcement or other government agency; to establish or exercise our legal rights; to defend against legal claims; or as otherwise required by law. In such cases, we may raise or waive any legal objection or right available to us. Marketing Communications. Unless users opt-out from receiving Company marketing materials upon registration, Company may email users about products and services that Company believes may be of interest to them. If you wish to opt-out of receiving marketing materials from Company, you may do so by following the unsubscribe link in the email communications, by going to your account settings (if applicable) or contacting us using the contact information below. Third-Party Marketing Communications. Unless users opt-out from receiving marketing materials upon registration, Company may provide users' email information to third parties, so that those third parties may directly contact them about additional products and services. To cease having your email information provided to third parties, you may do so by going to your account settings (if applicable) or contacting us using the contact information below. Even after opting-out, you may continue to receive marketing emails from third parties to whom Company already has provided your email information. You will be responsible for directly contacting such third parties to request cessation of further marketing emails. Third-Party Service Providers. We may share your Personally-Identifying Information, which may include your name and contact information (including email address) with our authorized service providers that perform certain services on our behalf. These services may include fulfilling orders, providing customer service and marketing assistance, performing business and sales analysis, supporting the Website's functionality and supporting contests, sweepstakes, surveys and other features offered through the Website. We may also share your name, contact information and credit card information with our authorized service providers who process credit card payments. These service providers may have access to personal information needed to perform their functions but are not permitted to share or use such information for any other purpose. Business Transfers; Bankruptcy. Company reserves the right to transfer all Personally-Identifying Information in its possession to a successor organization in the event of a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy or other sale of all or a portion of Company's assets. Other than to the extent ordered by a bankruptcy or other court, the use and disclosure of all transferred Personally-Identifying Information will be subject to this Privacy Policy, or to a new privacy policy if you are given notice of that new privacy policy and are given an opportunity to affirmatively opt-out of it. Personally-Identifying Information submitted or collected after a transfer, however, may be subject to a new privacy policy adopted by the successor organization. Changing Personally-Identifying Information; Account Termination You may at any time review or change your Personally-Identifying Information by going to your account settings (if applicable) or contacting us using the contact information below. Upon your request, we will deactivate or delete your account and contact information from our active databases. Such information will be deactivated or deleted as soon as practicable based on your account activity and accordance with our deactivation policy and applicable law. To make this request, either go to your account settings (if applicable) or contact us as provided below. We will retain in our files some Personally-Identifying Information to prevent fraud, to troubleshoot problems, to assist with any investigations, to enforce our Terms of Use and to comply with legal requirements as is permitted by law. Therefore, you should not expect that all your Personally-Identifying Information will be completely removed from our databases in response to your requests. Additionally, we keep a history of changed information to investigate suspected fraud with your account. General Use Company uses the Personally-Identifying Information in the file we maintain about you, and other information we obtain from your current and past activities on the Website (1) to deliver the products and services that you have requested; (2) to manage your account and provide you with customer support; (3) to communicate with you by email, postal mail, telephone and/or mobile devices about products or services that may be of interest to you either from us, our affiliate companies or other third parties; (4) to develop and display content and advertising tailored to your interests on the Website and other sites; (5) to resolve disputes and troubleshoot problems; (6) to measure consumer interest in our services; (7) to inform you of updates; (8) to customize your experience; (9) to detect and protect us against error, fraud and other criminal activity; (10) to enforce our Terms of Use; and (11) to do as otherwise described to you at the time of collection. At times, we may look across multiple users to identify problems. In particular, we may examine your Personally-Identifying Information to identify users using multiple user IDs or aliases. We may compare and review your Personally-Identifying Information for accuracy and to detect errors and omissions. We may use financial information or payment method to process payment for any purchases made on the Website, enroll you in the discount, rebate, and other programs in which you elect to participate, to protect against or identify possible fraudulent transactions and otherwise as needed to manage our business. COLLECTION AND USE OF INFORMATION BY THIRD PARTIES GENERALLY Company contractually prohibits its contractors, affiliates, vendors and suppliers from disclosing Personally-Identifying Information received from Company, other than in accordance with this Privacy Policy. However, third parties are under no obligation to comply with this Privacy Policy with respect to Personally-Identifying Information that users provide directly to those third parties, or that those third parties collect for themselves. These third parties include advertisers, providers of games, utilities, widgets and a variety of other third-party applications accessible through the Website. Company neither owns nor controls the third-party websites and applications accessible through the Website. Thus, this Privacy Policy does not apply to information provided to or gathered by the third parties that operate them. Before visiting a third party, or using a third-party application, whether by means of a link on the Website, directly through the Website or otherwise, and before providing any Personally-Identifying Information to any such third party, users should inform themselves of the privacy policies and practices (if any) of the third party responsible for that website or application, and should take those steps necessary to, in those users' discretion, protect their privacy. SECURITY We take the security of your Personally-Identifying Information seriously and use reasonable electronic, personnel and physical measures to protect it from loss, theft, alteration or misuse. However, please be advised that even the best security measures cannot fully eliminate all risks. We cannot guarantee that only authorized persons will view your information. We are not responsible for third-party circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures. We are dedicated to protecting all information on the Website as is necessary. However, you are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your Personally-Identifying Information by keeping your password confidential. You should change your password immediately if you believe someone has gained unauthorized access to it or your account. If you lose control of your account, you should notify us immediately. PRIVACY POLICY CHANGES Company may, in its sole discretion, change this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any and all changes to Company's Privacy Policy will be reflected on this page and the date new versions are posted will be stated at the top of this Privacy Policy. Unless stated otherwise, our current Privacy Policy applies to all information that we have about you and your account. Users should regularly check this page for any changes to this Privacy Policy. Company will always post new versions of the Privacy Policy on the Website. However, Company may, as determined in its discretion, decide to notify users of changes made to this Privacy Policy via email or otherwise. Accordingly, it is important that users always maintain and update their contact information. CHILDREN The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA") protects the online privacy of children under 13 years of age. We do not knowingly collect or maintain Personally-Identifying Information from anyone under the age of 13, unless or except as permitted by law. Any person who provides Personally-Identifying Information through the Website represents to us that he or she is 13 years of age or older. If we learn that Personally-Identifying Information has been collected from a user under 13 years of age on or through the Website, then we will take the appropriate steps to cause this information to be deleted. If you are the parent or legal guardian of a child under 13 who has become a member of the Website or has otherwise transferred Personally-Identifying Information to the Website, please contact Company using our contact information below to have that child's account terminated and information deleted. CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS California Civil Code Section 1798.83, also known as the "Shine The Light" law, permits our users who are California residents to request and obtain from us, once a year and free of charge, information about the Personally-Identifying Information (if any) we disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes in the preceding calendar year. If applicable, this information would include a list of the categories of the Personally-Identifying Information that was shared and the names and addresses of all third parties with which we shared Personally-Identifying Information in the immediately preceding calendar year. If you are a California resident and would like to make such a request, please submit your request in writing to our privacy officer as listed below. DO-NOT-TRACK POLICY Most web browsers and some mobile operating systems include a Do-Not-Track ("DNT") feature or setting you can activate to signal your privacy preference not to have data about your online browsing activities monitored and collected. Because there is not yet a common understanding of how to interpret the DNT signal, the Website currently does not respond to DNT browser signals or mechanisms. CONTACT If you have any questions regarding our Privacy Policy, please contact our Privacy Officer at: Fairfieldsuntimes.com Attn: Privacy Officer P.O. Box 578 Fairfield, MT 59436 Email: publisher@fairfieldsuntimes.com Phone: 406-467-2334 Walker & Dunlop, Inc., through its subsidiaries, originates, sells, and services a range of multifamily and other commercial real estate financing products and services for owners and developers of real estate in the United States. The company offers first mortgage, second trust, supplemental, construction, mezzanine, preferred equity, small-balance, and bridge/interim loans. It also provides multifamily finance for manufactured housing communities, student housing, affordable housing, and senior housing properties under the Fannie Mae's DUS program; and construction and permanent loans to developers and owners of multifamily housing, affordable housing, senior housing, and healthcare facilities. In addition, the company acts as an intermediary in the placement of commercial real estate debt between institutional sources of capital, including life insurance companies, investment banks, commercial banks, pension funds, CMBS conduits, and other institutional investors, as well as owners of various types of commercial real estate. Further, it advises on capital structure; develops the financing package; facilitates negotiations between its client and institutional sources of capital; coordinates due diligence; and assists in closing the transaction. Additionally, the company offers property sales brokerage, underwriting and risk management, and servicing and asset management services. Walker & Dunlop, Inc. was founded in 1937 and is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland. Read More Ad Resource Stock Digest New this week - 1,561 interested Could This Be the Biggest US Gold Discovery in Years? See how this tiny, unknown gold company secured a prime land package right next door to the worlds two largest gold producers in Nevadas famed Carlin Trend where 84 Million gold ounces have already been extracted. Best of all, investors can still get in well below US$0.50 per share. Ad Legacy Research New this week - 3,402 interested [URGENT] MAJOR BUY ALERT Since 2016, Teeka Tiwari has trumped the stock market. His investment recommendations have each averaged 281%. Thats 17 times the S&P. And 112 times the average investor, according to JPMorgan! However, one investment Teeka just uncovered could top them all It involves former President Biden, billions of dollars, several large banks, and a super-rich family. As well as a MAJOR potential upgrade to our credit cards. Teeka, who ended up correctly picking the last investment of the decade, is declaring this his top pick for the 2020s. Teledyne Technologies Incorporated provides instrumentation, digital imaging, aerospace and defense electronics, and engineered systems in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and internationally. The company's Instrumentation segment offers monitoring and control instruments for marine, environmental, industrial, and other applications, as well as electronic test and measurement equipment; and power and communications connectivity devices for distributed instrumentation systems and sensor networks deployed in mission critical and harsh environments. Its Digital Imaging segment provides image sensors and digital cameras for use in industrial, scientific, academic research, and medical applications; and hardware and software for image processing and automatic data collection in industrial, academic research, and medical applications, as well as manufacturing services for micro electro-mechanical systems. This segment also offers light detection and ranging systems; focal plane arrays, sensors, and subsystems; and geospatial software products. The company's Aerospace and Defense Electronics segment provides electronic components and subsystems, as well as communications products, such as defense electronics; environment interconnects; data acquisition and communications equipment for aircraft; components and subsystems for wireless and satellite communications; and general aviation batteries. Its Engineered Systems segment offers systems engineering and integration, technology development, and manufacturing solutions for defense, space, environmental, and energy applications; and designs and manufactures electrochemical energy systems and electronics for military applications. The company markets and sells its products and services through sales forces, third-party distributors, and commissioned sales representatives. Teledyne Technologies Incorporated was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California. Read More Some people binge watch Netflix Huluor HBO shows. And some people turn their downtime into cash. James made $2,275 in just 19 minutesall thanks to something called The 15 Minute Workday. The average trade makes 12% in just 5 days (factoring winners and losers) which is out of this world. Vulcan Materials Company produces and supplies construction aggregate primarily in the United States. It operates through four segments: Aggregates, Asphalt, Concrete, and Calcium. The Aggregates segment provides crushed stones, sand and gravel, sand, and other aggregates; and related products and services that are applied in construction and maintenance of highways, streets, and other public works, as well as in the construction of housing and commercial, industrial, and other nonresidential facilities. The Asphalt Mix segment offers asphalt mix in Alabama, Arizona, California, New Mexico, Tennessee, and Texas, as well as engages in the asphalt construction paving activity in Alabama, Tennessee, and Texas. The Concrete segment provides ready-mixed concrete in Maryland, Texas and Virginia, and Washington D.C. The Calcium segment mines, produces, and sells calcium products for the animal feed, plastics, and water treatment industries. The company was formerly known as Virginia Holdco, Inc. and changed its name to Vulcan Materials Company. Vulcan Materials Company was founded in 1909 and is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. Read More Big Rock Brewery Inc. produces, markets, and distributes craft beers, ciders, and ready-to-drink beverages primarily in Canada. The company operates through two segments, Wholesale and Retail. It offers a selection of beer, ciders, and RTD beverages under the Big Rock, Tree Brewing, Rock Creek Cider, Dukes Cider, AGD, Shaftbury, Bow Valley, and Cottage Springs brands. The company also provides apparel and accessories, including jackets, headwear, sweaters, glassware, belt buckles, and coolers. It sells its products to provincial liquor boards, grocery chains, on-premise and contract manufacturing customers; and through premises owned and/or operated by the Corporation, Big Rock's website, and third-party delivery services. Big Rock Brewery Inc. was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Read More Yara International ASA provides environmental and industrial solutions in Norway and internationally. It operates through three segments: Sales & Marketing, New Business, and Production. The Sales & Marketing segment offers nitrogen-based fertilizers, including urea, urea ammonium nitrate, calcium ammonium nitrate, ammonium nitrate, calcium nitrate, and compound fertilizers that contain plant nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, as well as foliar and fertigation solutions through micronutrients. It also offers urea and phosphates used as raw materials for feed products in both agriculture and aquaculture; and ammonia, urea, and nitric acid used as input factors for a large range of products and applications. This segment sells its products to distributors, as well as directly to farmers and co-operatives. The New Business segment focuses on developing, commercializing, and scaling up of profitable businesses; and delivers equipment and services to store or handle products. It also provides solution of reagents, technology, and service for NOx abatement for industrial plants, and transport at land and sea. The Production segment produces ammonia, fertilizers, and industrial products. It is also involved in the operation of phosphate mines; trade and shipping of ammonia; and sale of fertilizers; as well as provides logistics services. The company provides its products under the YaraBela, YaraLiva, YaraMila, YaraTera, YaraVera, and YaraVita brands. The company was founded in 1905 and is headquartered in Oslo, Norway. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Sysco: 2234829 Alberta ULC, 2234842 Alberta ULC, A. M. Briggs Inc., A.M. Briggs, Almacen Fiscal Frionet Caldera S.A., Almacen Fiscal Frionet Limon S.A., Appert's Foodservice, Arnotts (Fruit) Limited, Asian Foods, Bahamas Food Holdings Limited, Bahamas Food Services Limited, Brake Bros, Brake Bros Foodservice Ireland Limited, Brake Bros. Foodservice Limited, Brake Bros. Holding I Limited, Brake Bros. Ltd., Brakes Foodservice NI Limited, Buchy Food Service, Buckhead Beef Co., Buckhead Meat & Seafood of Houston Inc., Buckhead Meat Company, Buckhead Meat Midwest Inc., Buckhead Meat of Dallas Inc., Buckhead Meat of Denver Inc., Buckhead Meat of San Antonio LP, Buzztable Inc., CAKE Corporation, Central Seafood Co., Christys Wine & Spirits Limited, Clafra Aktiebolag, Colorado Boxed Beef Co - Specialty meat-cutting division, Corporacion Frionet Sociedad Anonima, Crossgar Foodservice, Crossgar Foodservice Limited, Crown I Enterprises Inc., Cucina Acquisitions (UK) Limited, Cucina Finance (UK) Limited, Cucina French Holdings Limited, Cucina Fresh Finance Limited, Cucina Fresh Investments Limited, Cucina Lux Investments Limited, Curleys Quality Foods Limited (Third Party), Davigel Belgilux S.A., Davigel Espana S.A., Desert Meats & Provisions, Distagro, Doerle Food Service, Doughtie's Foods Inc., Dust Bowl City LLC, Eko Fagel Fisk o mittemellan AB, Enclave Insurance Company, Enclave Parkway Association Inc., Enclave Properties LLC, European Imports, European Imports Inc., Figg Inc., Freedman Meats, Freedman Meats Inc., Freedman-KB Inc., Fresh Direct (UK) Limited, Fresh Direct Group Limited, Fresh Direct Limited, Fresh Holdings Limited, FreshPoint, FreshPoint Arizona Inc., FreshPoint Atlanta Inc., FreshPoint California Inc., FreshPoint Central California Inc., FreshPoint Central Florida Inc., FreshPoint Connecticut LLC, FreshPoint Dallas Inc., FreshPoint Denver Inc., FreshPoint Hawaii LLC, FreshPoint Inc., FreshPoint Las Vegas Inc., FreshPoint North Carolina Inc., FreshPoint North Florida Inc., FreshPoint Oklahoma City LLC, FreshPoint Pompano Real Estate LLC, FreshPoint Puerto Rico LLC, FreshPoint San Francisco Inc., FreshPoint South Florida Inc., FreshPoint South Texas Inc., FreshPoint Southern California Inc., FreshPoint Tomato LLC, FreshPoint Vancouver Ltd., Freshfayre Limited, Fruktservice i Helsingborg AB, GHS Classic Drinks Limited, Gilchrist & Soames Inc., Gilchrist & Soames UK Limited, Guest Packaging LLC, Guest Supply, Guest Supply Asia Limited, Guest Supply Singapore Pte. Ltd., International Food Group, Isakssons Frukt & Gront AB, J & M Wholesale Meats, J. Kings Food Service Professionals, J. Kings Food Service Professionals Inc., Kent Frozen Foods, Les Ateliers Du Gout, Liquid Assets Limited, M&J Seafood Holdings Limited, M&J Seafood Limited, Manchester Mills LLC, Mayca Autoservicio S.A., Mayca Distribuidores S.A., Menigo Foodservice AB, Mitshim Etatu Supply LP, Newport Meat Company, Newport Meat Northern California Inc., Newport Meat Pacific Northwest Inc., Newport Meat Southern California Inc., Newport Meat of Nevada Inc., North Star Holding Corporation, North Star Seafood, North Star Seafood Acquisition Corporation, North Star Seafood LLC, PFS de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Palisades Ranch Inc., Pallas Foods, Pallas Foods Farm Fresh Unlimited Company, Pallas Foods Unlimited Company, Pauleys Produce Limited, Promotora del Servicios S.A. de C.V., Restaurangakdemien AB, Restaurant of Tomorrow Inc., Rohan Viandes Elaboration SAS, SMS Bermuda Holdings, SMS GPC International Limited, SMS GPC International Resources Limited, SMS Global Holdings S.a.r.l., SMS International Resources Ireland Unlimited Company, SMS Lux Holdings LLC, SOTF LLC, SYY Netherlands C.V., SYY Panama S. de R.L., Serca Foodservice, Servicestyckarna I Johannes AB, Servicios Ameriserve S.A. de C.V., Shenzhen Guest Supply Trading Co. Limited, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) Bianchi Montegut, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) De Boiseau, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) De Garcelles, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) J.D. Lanjouan, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) Le Dauphin, Specialty Meat Holdings LLC, Stockflag Limited, Stockholms Fiskauktion AB, Supplies on the Fly, Sysco Albany LLC, Sysco Asian Foods Inc., Sysco Atlanta LLC, Sysco Autoservicio S.A., Sysco Baltimore LLC, Sysco Baraboo LLC, Sysco Bermuda Partners L.P., Sysco Boston LLC, Sysco Canada Holdings S.a.r.l., Sysco Canada Inc., Sysco Central Alabama LLC, Sysco Central California Inc., Sysco Central Florida Inc., Sysco Central Illinois Inc., Sysco Central Pennsylvania LLC, Sysco Charlotte LLC, Sysco Chicago Inc., Sysco Cincinnati LLC, Sysco Cleveland Inc., Sysco Columbia LLC, Sysco Connecticut LLC, Sysco Corporation, Sysco Corporation Director's Deferred Compensation Plan Trust, Sysco Corporation Employee's 401(k) Plan Trust, Sysco Corporation Executive Deferred Compensation Plan Trust, Sysco Corporation Good Government Committee Inc., Sysco Corporation Retirement Trust, Sysco Corporation Supplemental Executive Retirement Trust, Sysco Corporation Supplemental Unemployment Benefits Plan Trust, Sysco Detroit LLC, Sysco Disaster Relief Foundation Inc., Sysco EI VI S. s.r.l., Sysco EU II S.a.r.l., Sysco EU III S.a.r.l., Sysco EU IV Capital Unlimited Company, Sysco EU IV S. s.r.l.., Sysco EU V S. s.r.l., Sysco Eastern Maryland LLC, Sysco Eastern Wisconsin LLC, Sysco Foundation Inc., Sysco France Holding SAS, Sysco France SAS, Sysco George Town II LLC, Sysco George Town Limited S. s.r.l.., Sysco Global Finance LLC, Sysco Global Finance LLP, Sysco Global Holdings B.V., Sysco Global Resources LLC, Sysco Global Services LLC, Sysco Grand Cayman Company, Sysco Grand Cayman II Company, Sysco Grand Cayman III Company, Sysco Grand Rapids LLC, Sysco Guernsey Limited, Sysco Guest Supply Canada Inc., Sysco Guest Supply Europe Goods Wholesalers LLC, Sysco Guest Supply Europe Limited, Sysco Guest Supply LLC, Sysco Gulf Coast LLC, Sysco Hampton Roads Inc., Sysco Hawaii Inc., Sysco Holdings II LLC, Sysco Holdings LLC, Sysco Indianapolis LLC, Sysco International Food Group Inc., Sysco International Inc., Sysco Iowa Inc., Sysco Jackson LLC, Sysco Jacksonville Inc., Sysco Kansas City Inc., Sysco Knoxville LLC, Sysco Labs Europe Limited, Sysco Labs Pvt. Ltd., Sysco Leasing LLC, Sysco Lincoln Inc., Sysco Lincoln Transportation Company Inc., Sysco Long Island LLC, Sysco Los Angeles Inc., Sysco Louisville Inc., Sysco Memphis LLC, Sysco Merchandising and Supply Chain Services Canada Inc., Sysco Merchandising and Supply Chain Services Inc., Sysco Metro New York LLC, Sysco Minnesota Inc., Sysco Montana Inc., Sysco Nashville LLC, Sysco Netherlands Partners LLC, Sysco North Central Florida Inc., Sysco North Dakota Inc., Sysco Northern New England Inc., Sysco Philadelphia LLC, Sysco Pittsburgh LLC, Sysco Portland Inc., Sysco Raleigh LLC, Sysco Resources Services LLC, Sysco Riverside Inc., Sysco Sacramento Inc., Sysco San Diego Inc., Sysco San Francisco Inc., Sysco Seattle Inc., Sysco South Florida Inc., Sysco Southeast Florida LLC, Sysco Spain Holdings SLU, Sysco Spokane Inc., Sysco St. Louis LLC, Sysco Syracuse LLC, Sysco Technologies Cayman Ltd., Sysco Technologies LLC, Sysco UK Holdings Limited, Sysco UK Limited, Sysco UK Partners LLP, Sysco USA I Inc., Sysco USA II LLC, Sysco USA III LLC, Sysco Ventura Inc., Sysco Ventures Inc., Sysco Virginia LLC, Sysco West Coast Florida Inc., Sysco Western Minnesota Inc., The SYGMA Network Inc., Upsys, Victua SAS, Walker Foods Inc., Waugh Foods, and Wild Harvest Limited. Some people binge watch Netflix Huluor HBO shows. And some people turn their downtime into cash. James made $2,275 in just 19 minutesall thanks to something called The 15 Minute Workday. The average trade makes 12% in just 5 days (factoring winners and losers) which is out of this world. Mr. Amazing Loans Corporation, a consumer finance company, provides unsecured online consumer loans to individuals in the United States. It offers loans for debt consolidation, medical expenses, home improvements, auto repairs, purchases, and discretionary spending. The company provides its loans to residents under the Mr. Amazing Loans brand name through its mramazingloans.com Website in 20 states, including Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The company was formerly known as IEG Holdings Corporation. Mr. Amazing Loans Corporation was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada. Read More FAIRFIELD More than a month after the town and Julian Enterprises withdrew their civil lawsuits against each other to enter into an arbitration agreement, town officials are now getting updates on the ongoing litigation. The case has not been settled yet, town attorney Stanton Lesser said after the Jan. 2 selectmen meeting that included an executive session. We do come to the Board of Selectmen and they have the right to settle cases and the claims pursued. Not commenting on pending litigation is part of legal strategy and the arbitration agreement was a change of forum, he added. The town filed a civil lawsuit against Julian in May 2017 and sought $3 million in damages, claiming the company did not fulfill the terms of a three-year contract that called for the reduction of a pile of road construction debris. Julian Enterprises filed its own lawsuit against the town claiming defamation shortly thereafter, but both suits were withdrawn in mid-November. News of the arbitration agreement came as a surprise to some of the selectmen and Board of Finance members, the latter demanding answers from First Selectman Mike Tetreau and Lesser. In December, a town official expressed concern that article 9 of the town charter may have been violated since the selectmen were not notified of the arbitration agreement. Article 9.3.C states that the town attorney shall prosecute or defend, appeal from or defend appeals from, and make settlements of, litigation and claims, as the Board of Selectmen direct. Now, it appears some of those answers have been given. I want to thank the attorneys for giving us an update. The update was warranted, Selectman Ed Bateson said at the Jan. 2 meeting. As you know, (First Selectman Mike Tetreau), I was upset that this matter didnt come before the board. The attorneys provided a lot of insight as to whats going in with the case and I appreciate it and its something I want to consider for the next couple of weeks. According to public court documents, the arbitration hearing between the town, Julian and the arbitrator, Judge Elaine Gordon, will take place Feb. 13-15 at the offices of Cohen and Wolf, P.C. in Bridgeport. The hearing will be private. (The town attorneys) definitely gave us a lot to think about, Selectman Chris Tymniak said after the executive session. It was a good update. Other boards have also inquired about the status of the lawsuit. The Board of Finance at their Nov. 27 meeting requested that Tetreau and Lesser attend their Dec. 4 meeting. At the December meeting, however, Chief Fiscal Officer Robert Mayer said he had misunderstood the boards request and had not informed Lesser that his presence had been warranted. Lesser said he would attend the Board of Finances Jan. 8 meeting. The Fairfield Citizen filed a Freedom of Information Act with the town Dec. 31 this week, requesting more information on the fill pile and the pending lawsuit. The arbitration agreement filed with the court states the parties agree that the decision is final and binding and reviewable under only limited circumstances by statute. humberto.juarez @hearstmediact.com As we ring in the new year, the Fairfield Economic Development Commission looks back on a very productive 2018 which included the launch of a new business-oriented website, the initiation of a buy local campaign and Fairfield being named by the Yankee Institute as Connecticuts most business friendly town, among many highlights. Roughly a year ago, the EDC completed work on a long-range economic development plan aimed at supporting the towns existing business base, creating opportunities for new business investment and growing the commercial component of the towns grand list. One of the action steps identified in the plan was to update the Fairfield EDCs website as part of a broader marketing campaign to attract new business investment. Launched in June, the new mobile responsive website, choosefairfieldct.com, provides key statistics about Fairfield, as well as video testimonials from local business leaders discussing the quality and depth of the talent pool, relationships to local universities and what it means to operate a business in Fairfield. In the months since, volunteers and staff working with the Commission helped identify a target list of companies in the NYC-metro area and craft an initial marketing pitch to these businesses. Recognizing that business attraction efforts can best be accomplished at scale, the Fairfield EDC continues to work collaboratively with its counterparts in the neighboring communities of Greenwich, Stamford, Norwalk and Westport as part of the Fairfield County 5 initiative. This past year, the group held its latest business outreach event in the city with an after-hours networking meet and greet targeting tech-oriented start-ups. At the event, the 100+ guests had an opportunity to mingle with venture capitalists, angel investors, growth services groups and IP consultants while sampling beverages from Connecticut craft breweries and learning more about what Connecticut has to offer. Town leaders and staff from the five towns continue to meet regularly, and look forward to working with the incoming administration in Hartford to build upon these efforts. Several projects that are central to the commissions efforts to grow the tax base attained significant milestones this year. In the fall, Benchmark Senior Living celebrated the opening of Sturges Ridge of Fairfield, an 88-unit assisted living residential community. Two more such facilities being developed by Maplewood and Sunrise Senior Living in the Southport and Stratfield sections of Fairfield, respectively are rapidly nearing completion. Meanwhile, in the area surrounding Fairfield Metro, the Trademark II development is advancing, after garnering approval from the Town Planning & Zoning Commission this past year. Collectively, these four projects represent a capital investment of nearly $100 million, while providing additional housing opportunities, including for those requiring specialized care. While efforts to attract new business investment are important, the commissions focus remains on the roughly 3,000 businesses that presently call Fairfield home. In the fall, the commission unveiled a new, town-wide Buy Local campaign aimed at building public awareness around the importance of supporting local businesses, not just during the all-important holiday shopping season, but throughout the year. The commission continues to devote resources to its business retention efforts, meeting regularly with business leaders to better understand how it can help provide an environment in which companies can flourish and grow. All of these efforts culminated in Fairfield being recognized as the most business friendly community in the State by the Yankee Institute for Public Policy, a non-profit think tank based in Hartford. Analyzing reams of data and replicating the methodology used by other organizations to evaluate economic performance among states, the Yankee Institute cited Fairfields economic vitality and transportation infrastructure along with its two universities as key strengths. While the commission reflects with pride on what it accomplished this past year, it also recognizes that there remains much work to be done. The EDC looks forward to working with the Fairfield Chamber of Commerce and the community at large on an even more prosperous 2019. Mark Barnhart is the Director of Community & Economic Development for the Town of Fairfield, and is the Treasurer of the Connecticut Economic Development Association (CEDAS). STAMFORD The Planning Board had a reflective moment this week as it weighed a proposal to change city plans to facilitate another high rise in the South End, a neighborhood with a housing density now rivaling downtown. We have to think about what are we doing to the neighborhood, board Chairwoman Theresa Dell said. Are we taking away the neighborhood feel of the South End? Is that what were determining for the South End ... a high rise, transient community. After a decade of erecting apartment towers in the South End, Building and Land Technology was in front of the board with a change for land outside its Harbor Point development, a $3.5 billion overhaul of abandoned industrial land. The request, likely the first of a few more to come BLT has at least one other block of development in the neighborhood prompted the Planning Board to question the boards vision for the neighborhood since the decade-long building boom is now bleeding into the old South End. In short, BLT wants more building with higher housing densities. Neighbors want less. On Tuesday night, the Planning Board struck down the middle, allowing for more density, but reducing the number of units allowed on one site by around a third. BLT eventually hopes to built some 670 units on the block between Walter Wheeler Drive and Woodland Avenue, split between three buildings ranging in height from five to 22 stories and others next door. To do so, BLT needed the Planning Board to extend the mixed-use category of the citys Master Plan map to the north, allowing high rises outside of the Harbor Point district, which houses towers and urban-style high rises closer to the water. BLT will later need a new zone written into the city regulations to make such a building a reality, so this will next go to the Zoning Board, which is already mulling another BLT pitch to allow for a 365,000-square-foot office addition to the Charter Communications headquarters being built near the train station. The proposal stoked fear in neighbors concerned they were being surrounded by high rises and riled two business owners who shared the block with BLT. Although there was no public comment, nearly a dozen citizens attended the meeting. Carmine Tomas, whose family owns two buildings on the block, and Bob Katchko, whose construction company operates from there, listened as the planning board deliberated. Both followed along, occasionally rolling eyes as the fate of their block was decided. One part of the proposal that particularly drew their ire was the city requesting a density change for their property on the block. Were small businesses, Katchko said quietly. I grew up here ... they just want to steamroll us, theyll sell each building, clear $100 million and when it all goes to Section 8, to co-op city, theyre long gone. Were still here. We live here. Tomas was also unhappy with the city and a developer revamping his block, and questioned whether any change would cost him more in taxes if it made the land more valuable. The Planning Board decided to allow more density on the block, but limited BLT to two thirds of its request, cutting the number of units the developer can build. The board changed the northern half of the block to a high-density housing category instead of urban mixed use. Ted Ferrarone, BLTs chief operating officer, said it was too early to say what the change means for the proposed building. Were working through it, were trying to be sensitive to everybodys desires, he said. barry.lytton@stamfordadvocate.com; 203-964-2263; @bglytton Felon Carlos Uresti has sold his defunct law firms San Antonio office building. The former Democratic state senator, who last year was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for defrauding investors in a San Antonio oil-field services company, recently sold the building at 924 McCullough to Hill Country Real Holdings for an undisclosed price. San Antonio-based Hill Country shares an address and some of the same officers as Clark Construction of Texas, a family-owned road construction company. A call to the company was not returned. Mikal Watts, an attorney for Uresti, confirmed the office building was sold but had no other details. OnExpressNews.com: Uresti settles SEC charges that he misled FourWinds investors On Monday, two weeks after the sale closed, signage bearing Urestis name was removed from the building. Some of the proceeds from the building sale will be used to pay part of the $6.3 million restitution Uresti and five other individuals were ordered to pay to the victims of the fraud involving a now-defunct company called FourWinds Logistics. A jury convicted Uresti, 55, of 11 felonies, including wire fraud, securities fraud and acting as an unregistered securities broker, in February. Uresti is awaiting sentencing next month in an unrelated public corruption case out of Reeves County in West Texas. He pleaded guilty to a single bribery conspiracy charge, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. As part of his plea, he agreed to drop the appeal of his conviction and sentence in the FourWinds case. Following Urestis conviction, prosecutors obtained a restraining order to prevent him and those close to him from disposing of assets that could be used to pay FourWinds victims. U.S. District Judge David Ezra in October partially lifted the restraining order so that Uresti could sell the office building. Uresti and prosecutors had asked the judge for permission to sell the property, furniture and equipment. The building has about 4,300 square feet of office space, according to the Bexar County Appraisal Districts website. The parties agree that the offer and its conditions are reasonable, and would ensure a significant return for the benefit of the victims in this case, Uresti and prosecutors said in the motion. The court filing had no information on the buyer or the price. In September, Ezra granted a similar request so Uresti could sell his residence at 15530 Spur Clip in Helotes. The 8,064-square-foot estate, which features six bedrooms and eight bathrooms, remains listed on Realtor.com for $1.5 million, however. Uresti in April surrendered his license to practice law in lieu of disciplinary action by the State Bar of Texas. His law office building, site of a February 2017 raid by federal agents as part of their FourWinds investigation, was subsequently listed for sale. A June court filing by Uresti and the government indicated that he had received a $1 million offer for the building, furniture and equipment from a party identified as Hema Viswanathan. The offer was later reduced to about $978,000, and the deal subsequently fell through. The Bexar County Appraisal District has assessed the real estate at about $540,000. Uresti bought the property in 2007. The sale to Hill Country Real Holdings was completed despite pending litigation over a loan on the building. JPMorgan Chase Bank had sued Uresti and his one-time law firm to collect more than $325,000 on a loan they allegedly failed to pay back. Uresti personally guaranteed the note, the suit said. OnExpressNews.com: Jury acquits Uresti co-defendent in bribery case Federal prosecutors intervened in the lawsuit, seeking to foreclose on a lien they placed on the property in July. They wanted to sell the property, with proceeds going to pay down the $6.3 million in restitution owed to the FourWinds investors. Chase asked the court in November to dismiss the action by federal prosecutors, saying they were not entitled to foreclose on the lien or sell the property. Greg Hassell, a Chase spokesman, said the amount owed to Chase was paid as a result of the buildings sale. The bank is in the process of filing a lien release, he said. The U.S. attorneys office did not respond to a request for comment. Who sets the rules for government shutdowns? This is so unfair to so many people, when it really is the failure of our politicians to agree on important issues. This is how it should really work: 1. Government employees and contractors should not be impacted in any way. Business as usual for all of them. 2. All politicians pay and benefits stop when the shutdown begins and should not resume until there is an agreement on the issue. This includes the president. 3. There should be no time off during the shutdown and no back pay or delayed benefits after it ends. Maybe this would keep the politicians focused on working together for a change and actually do what they were voted into office to do serve the people they represent. Bill Klaus, Windcrest Coals demise? Re: Breathe easier: CPS closing Dirty Deely, front page, Sunday: If the closing of a coal-fired plant here in the middle of Texas is a sign of coals demise, then what might one make of the more than 1,600 coal plants planned or under construction in at least 62 countries around the world? Im skeptical that the use of fossil fuels is the cause of man-made global warming. I do believe the planet is warming, perhaps due to human activity. Consider the trillions of trees all around the world and how many have disappeared. Man-made urban sprawl creating heated islands, and so on. The Paris climate control goals are destined for failure. President Donald Trump pulling the U.S. out out of the accord makes sense. And, by the way, having Al Gore and Gov. Moonbeam I mean Jerry Brown and other leftists as the faces of global warming politicizes the effort. And so the whole thing becomes deniers vs. Kool-Aid drinkers. To those who had to endure years living in the shadow of dirty, filthy, cloudy, smelly Deely, you can finally put away your surgical masks. Leo Q. Gomez I want to consider what has changed in the Trump presidency since February, when I wrote a column describing our demagogic chief executive as tamed. Back then the Trump tamers were his fellow Republicans. Back then you could make a list of the wilder Trump campaign promises (or threats) and note how few had actually been implemented or pursued. Back then you could look at Donald Trumps economic agenda and his foreign policy and see something influenced more by Paul Ryan and James Mattis than by the presidents distinctive impulses. Since then, the Trump world that I described has been deconstructed, piece by piece. The normalizing figures have departed or been unceremoniously dumped whisk, H.R. McMaster and Gary Cohn; goodbye, Jeff Sessions and John Kelly and their provisional replacements have more of the island-of-misfit-toys feel that characterized Trumps inner circle in the 2016 campaign. Meanwhile, there has been more and more overt Trumpishness in the administrations policy moves the trade warring, the end of the Iran deal, the performative cruelty and performative militarization at the border, the made-for-reality-TV deal-making with North Korea, the presidents strange fanboy encounter with Vladimir Putin. Both trends, the personnel and the political, reached a crescendo this Christmas season, with the sudden pullout from Syria, the equally sudden departure of James Mattis, the presidents war with the Federal Reserve amid a tumbling stock market, and now a government shutdown over the Trumpiest sticking point of all, the fabled border wall. So here we are, with Trump finally unbound, just as everyone who once opposed him had feared. Except that Trump unbound is also Trump hemmed in no longer steered by Mattis or guided by Ryan, but opposed directly by a Democratic House armed with subpoena power and prepared for political war. And Trump unbound is also Trump alone, his electoral mystique gone with the midterms and Senate Republicans more inclined to distance themselves. So the president is at once more dangerous and less so, more unconstrained and yet easier to balk, more liberated and more isolated. And to save myself the embarrassment of future mea culpas, I wont make predictions but just offer scenarios for how this combination might shape the next exciting year of Trump. The first possibility, and to my mind the least likely, is a return to (relative) normalcy. In this scenario Trump reacts to indicators he understands, the jittery stock market above all, by containing his impulses a little more, finding (somewhere) a new set of establishment hands to guide him, making the necessary deals with House Democrats, and hunkering down to survive what the Mueller investigation has to throw at him. There is a grind of subpoenas and scandals, but Republicans stick with Trump; there is zero policy progress and a basic Democratic advantage but no dramatic change. The second possibility is one Elizabeth Drew, the chronicler of Watergate, has sketched a march to impeachment and perhaps Trumps resignation, in which the presidents erratic behavior, the chaos it sows in markets and U.S. alliances, and Republican self-interest end up in a mutually reinforcing dynamic, and after a devastating Mueller report, perhaps, key Senate Republicans finally deem the president too great a burden to the party or too great a danger to the country to continue in his office. I find this scenario less likely than does Drew, but more likely than the return to normalcy. However it coexists with a third possibility that might be termed the Trump Vindicated scenario, in which Trump unbound turns out to be no more unpopular than the tamed-by-the-establishment version, his preferred policies prove less destabilizing than all the wise men fear, and we get a 2019 in which Trump flails around but his approval ratings actually go up. This possibility is, I think, a somewhat underrated one, because some (not all!) of Trumps Trumpiest ideas are either more sensible or more popular than the establishment alternative. Paul Ryans agenda dragged down Trumps approval ratings, not the other way around, and the Kim Jong Un summit was as popular as anything hes done. But for Trump to be vindicated this way, he would need his erratic governing style to avoid meeting a crisis large enough to make White House incompetence matter on a catastrophic scale. So the final possibility worth considering as 2019 dawns is the same one that informed my opposition to Trump two years ago. Its that the equivalent of 9/11 or the financial crisis will come along and things will get very, very dark before theres even time to read the full text of the 25th Amendment. Stay frosty out there, Mike Pence. Our best hope may be the weather. For a long time, many people thought that it was a mistake to use the weather as evidence of climate change. Weather patterns contain a lot of randomness. Even as the Earth warms and extreme weather becomes more common, some years are colder and calmer than others. If you argue that climate change is causing some weather trend, a climate denier may respond by making grand claims about a recent snowfall. And yet the weather still has one big advantage over every other argument about the urgency of climate change: We experience the weather. We see it and feel it. It is not a complex data series in an academic study or government report. Its not a measurement of sea level or ice depth in a place youve never been. Its right in front of you. And although weather patterns do have a lot of randomness, they are indeed changing. Thats the thing about climate change: It changes the climate. Amid everything else going on, dont lose sight of what was the most important story of 2018. I know there was a lot of competition for that title, like President Donald Trump and Robert Mueller. But nothing else measures up to the rising toll and enormous dangers of climate change. I worry that our children and grandchildren will one day ask us, bitterly, why we spent so much time distracted by lesser matters. The story of climate change in 2018 was complicated overwhelmingly bad, yet with two reasons for hope. The bad and the good were connected, too: Thanks to the changing weather, more Americans seem to be waking up to the problem. Ill start with the alarming parts of the story. The past year is on pace to be the Earths fourth warmest on record, and the five warmest years have all occurred since 2010. This warming is now starting to cause a lot of damage. In 2018, heat waves killed people in Montreal, Karachi, Tokyo and elsewhere. Extreme rain battered North Carolina and the Indian state of Kerala. The Horn of Africa suffered from drought. Large swaths of the American West burned. When I was in Portland, Ore., this summer, the air quality from nearby wildfires was among the worst in the world. It would have been healthier to be breathing outdoors in Beijing or Mumbai. Amid all of this destruction, Trumps climate agenda consists of making the problem worse. His administration is filled with former corporate lobbyists, and they have been changing federal policy to make it easier for companies to pollute. These officials like to talk about free enterprise and scientific uncertainty, but their real motive is usually money. Sometimes, they dont even wait to return to industry jobs. Both Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke, two now-departed pro-pollution Cabinet secretaries, engaged in on-the-job corruption. I often want to ask these officials: Deep down, do you really believe that future generations of your own family will be immune from climate changes damage? Or have you chosen not to think very much about them? As for the two main reasons for hope: The first is that the Trump administration is an outlier. Most major governments are trying to slow climate change. So are many states in this country, as well as some big companies and nonprofit groups. This global coalition is the reason that the recent climate summit in Poland yielded much more, as Nat Keohane of the Environmental Defense Fund said, than many of us had thought might be possible. The second reason for hope is public opinion. No, it isnt changing nearly as rapidly as I wish. Yet it is changing, and the weather seems to be a factor. The growing number of extreme events wildfires, storms, floods and so on are hard to ignore. Only 40 percent of Americans called the quality of environment good or excellent in a Gallup Poll this year, the lowest level in almost a decade. And 61 percent said the environment was getting worse. In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 66 percent of Americans said they wanted to see action to combat climate change. Some polls even suggest that Republican voters are becoming anxious about the situation. The politics of climate change remains devilishly hard, especially because so many people around the world feel frustrated about their living standards. Frances gilet jaune protests, after all, were sparked by a proposed energy tax. Compared with day-to-day life, the effects of climate change have long felt distant, almost theoretical. But now those effects are becoming real, and they are terrifying. To anyone who worries about making a case for climate action based on the weather, I would simply ask: Do you have a better idea? A San Antonio police officer was injured and an "active shooter" was killed Thursday the second officer-involved shooting in the Alamo City in under 24 hours. The violent shootout was initiated at about 8:45 a.m. when the suspect, who has not been identified, began randomly shooting near Southcross Boulevard and Pleasanton Road. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox "It was clearly a grave danger to the community," said San Antonio Police Chief William McManus. "What you had out hereand I don't use this phrase lightlybut it was pretty much an active shooter in an open venue." The suspect moved south on Pleasanton Road, continuously shooting, until he encountered a man on a bike and focused the gunfire on him. "There are shell casings up and down the street here for blocks," McManus said. The cyclist moved behind a nearby VIA bus for cover and was not injured in the shooting. Three passengers were inside the bus. They were not injured and the bus was not hit by gunfire, McManus said. Three San Antonio police officers were in the vicinity of the shooting and responded to the scene in about one minute, according to McManus. As soon as the officer arrived on scene, the suspect started shooting at them. A bullet pierced one of the officer's windshield, sending glass shards into his eye. Two other police officers rushed in on the suspect and opened fire, striking him at least once in the upper torso. "It was important that he was stopped quickly because of the potential for someone else to be shot, and the officers displayed a lot of courage by closing the distance on him to try to bring this to and end, and they put themselves in danger by doing so," McManus said. Paramedics took the suspect to a local hospital in critical condition. He was later pronounced dead. The medical examiner's office has not notified the suspect's next of kin and cannot yet release his identity. RELATED: Man killed by San Antonio police after allegedly using stun gun on officers while being detained The injured officer was also treated for his injuries and is expected to recover. McManus said the two officers who opened fire on the suspect have more than 20 years of experience. As is routine in officer-involved shootings, they will be placed on administrative duty until the Bexar County District Attorney's Office reviews the case. The bicyclist at whom the suspect shot fled the scene and has not been located. The shootout was the second officer-involved shooting in San Antonio in under 24 hours. On Wednesday, police were involved in the first shooting of 2019 near Austin Highway and Perrin Creek. In that case, police shot a man after he allegedly stole an officer's stun gun and used it on him. The suspect was also allegedly reaching for his knife when he was shot multiple times. He died on the scene. "There are dangers out here that exist every single day for the police officers that patrol the streets, the potential for anything happening like this, it comes from nowhere, just like it did this morning," McManus said. Staff writer Fares Sabawi contributed to this report. Caleb Downs covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | cdowns@mysa.com|@CalebJDowns A man San Antonio police were attempting to detain Wednesday was fatally shot after he allegedly shocked one officer with his own stun gun and reached for a knife. The man, who police said was in his 30s, was shot multiple times at about 2:15 p.m. on the access road of Loop 410 and Interstate 35, SAPD Chief William McManus said. The incident began when a caller reported to police that the man was pulling the license plate off a vehicle that appeared to have stalled on a grassy, wooded area off the highway. When officers arrived, they saw the man continuing to remove the license plates from a Cadillac XTS. OnExpressNews.com: Brisket tacos with a side of 'meth' snagged jailers, plea deals show The officers suspected that the vehicle may have been stolen, McManus said. They also noticed that the mans behavior was consistent with someone under the influence of some substance, officials said. They questioned the individual. They felt it necessary to handcuff him for their own safety, McManus said. As they attempted to detain the man, he began resisting, police said. One officer tried using a stun gun on the man, but it did not subdue him. The stun guns can be fired in two modes including probe mode, and stun mode. Officials said the device was being used at close range in stun mode, according to their preliminary investigation. During the struggle, the man wrestled away the stun gun and began using it on the officer, police said. As he was tasing him, he also reached into his pocket, McManus said. The second officer fired multiple shots at the suspect, killing him at the scene, police said. The suspect did have a knife in his pocket. We assume thats what he was reaching for when he was shot, McManus said. OnExpressNews.com: Uresti sells former San Antonio law office building The officers were not injured during the incident, police said. Police said they do not have positive identification of the man, but McManus said one detective recognized him as a serial burglar in the area. Late Wednesday, the Bexar County Medical Examiners Office had yet to confirm his identity. Investigators later confirmed that the Cadillac had been reported stolen. McManus said the vehicle was trashed. Both officers involved in the incident will be placed on administrative duty while the investigation is ongoing. Police did not identify the officers Wednesday. The last fatal officer-involved shooting occurred Nov. 7 at Commerce and Navarro downtown. In that incident, officers responding to a reported gun disturbance approached a man in his 20s, who became aggressive. Officers attempted to subdue the suspect with a stun gun, but the effort failed, officials said. The suspect then allegedly pulled out a handgun and shot at the officers who returned fire, fatally striking him. A 320-unit apartment project planned for San Pedro Creek which is expected to be exempt from more than $1 million per year in property taxes won unanimous approval Wednesday from the citys Historic Design and Review Commission. The $56 million complex, to be developed by the Cleveland-based NRP Group, will feature five buildings, a dog park and several parking lots, according to documents filed with the commission. The complex would be the latest in a series of big developments along the creek as the west end of San Antonios downtown sees renewed interest. San Antonio and Bexar County officials have spent $175 million to rehabilitate the creek. Local developer Weston Urban built the 23-floor Frost Tower on the creek and has snatched up several acres along its path, and the city plans to spend more than $9 million to redevelop the nearby Alameda Theater for Texas Public Radios headquarters. NRP gained conceptual approval from the commission for its site plan on Sept. 5. HDRC commissioners on Wednesday granted approval for facade arrangements and construction materials. The San Antonio Housing Trust Public Facility Corp., a nonprofit run by five City Council members that aims to create affordable housing, received an application from NRP to partner on the complexs construction, according to its May agenda. The city nonprofit has been using a complex deal structure allowed under state law to encourage affordable housing in partnerships with NRP and other developers. Under these deals, the city nonprofit buys the land the complexes are built on, so the developers dont have to pay property taxes and sales taxes on purchases made for their construction. The nonprofit also takes a small ownership stake in the complexes. In return, developers agree to rent half the units to tenants making up to 80 percent or, in some cases, 60 percent of San Antonios median household income, which is about $49,000. The nonprofit and NRP are currently negotiating to see how many units may be set aside for households making 60 percent of the areas median income before the nonprofits board meeting Jan. 23, said Jim Plummer, an attorney for the city nonprofit who has also done legal work for NRP. On average, each complex built with the nonprofits help will deprive the city of about $15 million in property taxes over the long-term, Plummer told the Express-News last year. The Express-News previously reported the NRP project, known as San Pedro Creek Lofts, would be exempt from about $1.6 million in taxes per year, or $9,931 for each of its 160 income-restricted units. An NRP spokeswoman and John Kenny, executive director of the San Antonio Housing Trust, did not return emails requesting comment. Ryan Reed, a design manager for NRP, said at Wednesdays meeting that the developer expects to begin construction on the project this summer but did not provide additional details. San Antonio officials have been grappling with how to solve the citys affordable housing shortage. Outgoing City Manager Sheryl Sculley set aside $25 million for affordable housing programs in the citys current budget. In August, Mayor Ron Nirenbergs Housing Policy Task Force laid out five strategies to address affordable housing, including an increase in city funds flowing to such projects. In addition, City Council voted last month to overhaul two city housing incentive programs that drew criticism for subsidizing market-rate housing downtown while failing to attract enough affordable residential units. Those programs stemmed from former Mayor Julian Castros Decade of Downtown initiative to redevelop the urban core. Commissioners on Wednesday also gave conceptual approval to six townhomes that will house about 24 residential units at 335 Trail St. off of Mulberry Avenue and U.S. 281 north of downtown. The proposed complex, to be developed by Austin-based MNO Partners, has drawn opposition from residents of the River Road neighborhood and must come before the commission later this year for approval. Joshua Fechter is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering real estate, economic development and philanthropy. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jfechter@express-news.net | Twitter: @JFreports A national directory of Medicare insurance agencies has been launched by the American Association for Medicare Supplement Insurance. "Increasing inquiries from insurance agents seeking to sell various Medicare insurance solutions prompted the creation of the directory," explained Jesse Slome, director of the American Association for Medicare Supplement Insurance (AAMSI). "There was a need for a single resource where agents could find and connect with field marketing organizations and general agencies that support, train and appoint agents." The Association is hosting the Medicare insurance agency directory on it's website where access is available to all insurance professionals at no charge. "Our growing organization does not have a dues-paying membership," Slome noted. The Association produces the national Medigap industry conference as well as maintains a national online directory of agents who market Medicare Supplement insurance along with other agent-oriented benefits including low-cost Errors and Omissions insurance. "We are pleased to support the many Medicare agencies who seek to add to the number of agents and brokers they work with," Slome explained. "The Association's website serves as a portal for information for both agents and consumers and the number of visitors has been steadily increasing." The American Association for Medicare Supplement Insurance is an advocacy organization that supports insurance professionals who market Medicare insurance products. The organization is based in Los Angeles, CA. To learn more visit the organization's website at www.medicaresupp.org. From: American Evaluation Association (AEA) For Immediate Release: Dateline: Washington , DC Thursday, January 3, 2019 Matan BenYishay, Program Evaluation Manager, and Allison Guarino, Quality Improvement Coordinator, at AIDS Action Committee, the public health division of Fenway Health in Boston. We are sharing a lesson from our low-threshold Drug-User Health Program called Access. Among other services, this program trains and distributes Naloxone to People Who Use Drugs (PWUD) to reverse opioid overdoses. Last year, we found that people trained reversed 376 overdoses, a 50 percent increase from the prior year, and wanted to evaluate what made that increase possible. Access has served many PWUD at our Cambridge office for years. However, our data showed that the program was seeing mostly white clients; by not taking an intersectional approach we were failing to address health disparities for communities of color and non-English-speaking communities. Therefore, just before the start of the program year, the organization decided to open another program outpost with bilingual staff at our Roxbury location, which is home to large Spanish-speaking communities and communities of color. A little background: when a client returns to refill their Naloxone, program staff ask them if they used their previous dose to reverse an overdose. If so, staff ask the zip code where the overdose took place. By analyzing the location data for these program years, we found that branching services out beyond our traditional, saturated locations in Cambridge yielded major positive outcomes. While overdose reversals still increased in the communities the program had served for a while, we saw the largest increases in overdose reversals in the neighborhoods around Roxbury. (The number of monolingual and bilingual Spanish-speakers the program trained and distributed Naloxone to also increased four-fold.) We shared this insight with program staff using a 3D map tour. This not only validated the hard, life-saving work of the program staff; it also helped them see the value of the data they were collecting. While staff of this program have had buy-in for data collection for some time, presenting their data in this new way helped them see the difference it made in entire communities. Lessons Learned: Tracking the location where outcomes occur outside of your organizations doors can link your outputs to their outcomes. This is especially helpful when you bring services to a new location. Cool Trick: Microsoft Excel has a tool called 3D Maps that you can use with any geo-coded data, including zip codes (built into Excel 2016 or 365; free add-in in 2013). You can create Map Tours that you can view in Excel or share as videos. We link an example video below. You may need to click download in order to view the videos. Low-res version for mobile: High-res version for fast internet: The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Internal Evaluation (IE) Topical Interest Group Week. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our IE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the About AEA The American Evaluation Association is an international professional association and the largest in its field. Evaluation involves assessing the strengths and weaknesses of programs, policies, personnel, products and organizations to improve their effectiveness. AEAs mission is to improve evaluation practices and methods worldwide, to increase evaluation use, promote evaluation as a profession and support the contribution of evaluation to the generation of theory and knowledge about effective human action. For more information about AEA, visit www.eval.org. Hello! We are, Program Evaluation Manager, and, Quality Improvement Coordinator, at AIDS Action Committee, the public health division of Fenway Health in Boston. We are sharing a lesson from our low-threshold Drug-User Health Program called Access. Among other services, this program trains and distributes Naloxone to People Who Use Drugs (PWUD) to reverse opioid overdoses. Last year, we found that people trained reversed 376 overdoses, a 50 percent increase from the prior year, and wanted to evaluate what made that increase possible.Access has served many PWUD at our Cambridge office for years. However, our data showed that the program was seeing mostly white clients; by not taking an intersectional approach we were failing to address health disparities for communities of color and non-English-speaking communities. Therefore, just before the start of the program year, the organization decided to open another program outpost with bilingual staff at our Roxbury location, which is home to large Spanish-speaking communities and communities of color.A little background: when a client returns to refill their Naloxone, program staff ask them if they used their previous dose to reverse an overdose. If so, staff ask the zip code where the overdose took place. By analyzing the location data for these program years, we found that branching services out beyond our traditional, saturated locations in Cambridge yielded major positive outcomes. While overdose reversals still increased in the communities the program had served for a while, we saw the largest increases in overdose reversals in the neighborhoods around Roxbury. (The number of monolingual and bilingual Spanish-speakers the program trained and distributed Naloxone to also increased four-fold.)We shared this insight with program staff using a 3D map tour. This not only validated the hard, life-saving work of the program staff; it also helped them see the value of the data they were collecting. While staff of this program have had buy-in for data collection for some time, presenting their data in this new way helped them see the difference it made in entire communities.Tracking the location where outcomes occur outside of your organizations doors can link your outputs to their outcomes. This is especially helpful when you bring services to a new location.Microsoft Excel has a tool called 3D Maps that you can use with any geo-coded data, including zip codes (built into Excel 2016 or 365; free add-in in 2013). You can create Map Tours that you can view in Excel or share as videos. We link an example video below. You may need to click download in order to view the videos.Low-res version for mobile: https://1drv.ms/v/s!Aga7IgJ5QXxl0MIvUC8esu3_Avzssg High-res version for fast internet: https://1drv.ms/v/s!Aga7IgJ5QXxl0MIu8tYyixJ9lUbmpA The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Internal Evaluation (IE) Topical Interest Group Week. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our IE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. Wednesday, January 2, 2019 The Herman Trend Alert January 2, 2019 2019 Workforce-Workplace Forecast Every year, The Herman Group issues its annual forecast. This Herman Trend Alert is intended to provide employers with insights about what to expect in the coming years, so that they may position themselves for success. 2019 is going to be even more challenging for employers than was 2018. The continuing labor shortages will present employers with more perplexing issues. Employers will need to be even more creative and innovative to hire the talent they need. We expect to see a number of developments in the way employers recruit and retain talent. 1. Focus on the critical role of the "employee experience," especially for candidates. We have deliberately made this trend first because it is the most important. From the first exposure to the organization to the last day of employee tenure, experiences are "everything" or in the words of our author Joyce Gioia, Experience Rules. In fact, that is the title of her new book. (Indie Books, 2019) That means that each and every experience afforded to prospective or current associates must be designed to be as close to optimal as possible---whether augmented with technology or not. 2. One size does not fit all. When it comes to these experiences, value propositions, and benefits, one size does not fit all. What works depends on the values and attitudes of the particular employee. This fact will present a challenge for employers, but not an insurmountable one. 3. It's more important than ever to be the Employer of Choice. With worker shortages in almost every field and very low unemployment rates, especially throughout the US, employers not recognized as good places to work will not only lose out on top talent but may also not be able to find any people to fill their vacant positions. Employers of Choice offer employee-centered environments in which workers feel valued and fulfilled. (For more information about being recognized as an Employer of Choice, visit here.) 4. Recruiting from within will grow. Employers are finally using technology to keep track of people's talents and abilities and identify the talent that they need moving into the future. Internal recruiting has several benefits: first, employers won't lose valuable intellectual capital, second, it helps in the front-line recruiting process when people can see the career pathing available, and third, it means a continuity of internal and external customer service. 5. More work will be done remotely. Flex-time and flex-place are among the most desired benefits for employees. Increasing labor shortages will mean increasing demand for these types of flexibility. 6. New initiatives to teach skills to candidates. In a new version of "grow-your-own," some employers are identifying candidates with interests in particular career paths but lacking the requisite core skills. These companies are allowing would-be employees to learn these skills prior to joining the firm. By the time they qualify to be members of the team, these workers have already demonstrated the valuable skills of tenacity and focus. 7. Due to lack of full-time skilled workers, companies will continue to use contingent workers. Without the ability to fill positions with qualified staff, companies will find that they must hire part-time, temporary, seasonal, or contract workers to fill in the gaps. These shortages will also translate into increased opportunities for older workers who want or need to keep working. 8. Advancing technology will support even more Big Data in HR. Big Data will be harnessed to find economies everywhere in the enterprise. However, the HR function will be engineered with data to a degree we have never seen before. 9. AI will continue to support more HR functions. No one is excited about interacting with software or machines---if they realize it. However, some AI has become so good that we do not even realize we are communicating with a machine. When that level is achieved, people---both internal and external to the organization will approve. Whether we are making appointments or just getting information, we appreciate that we do not have to wait for a person to be available. At the same time, when we do need to speak with a human, we definitely do not appreciate the endless loops of decision trees that prevent us from resolving issues. 10. Sexual harassment claims will continue to grow. Not surprisingly, the Me-Too Movement emboldened women to file sexual harassment claims---many of which were long overdue. We believe the new confidence employees feel will inform a new normal. Women employees will no longer tolerate any level of sexual harassment. 11. Smart employers will adopt a holistic focus on the whole employee. They will understand that it is to their benefit to take care of emotional, physical, professional, and financial needs. It is when they demonstrate this comprehensive caring that employees truly feel taken care of. All kinds of wellness programs, including mobile aps like PTX Therapy and Best Money Moves will help employers to address "the whole employee". In 2019, the winning organizations are the ones that are able to capitalize on these trends and use them to successfully compete. These enlightened organizations will invest in their people and processes, as well as technology to win the war for talent. Special thanks to Debby Carreau and Entrepreneur.com, Trish McFarlane, Ben Eubanks, and George LaRoque, writing for the HR Federation, and the Young Entrepreneur Council, writing for Inc. Magazine. ********* So my wife (Japanese) and I (British) have finally collected together all of the documents necessary to apply for her spouse visa. We have been married for 5 years. I was just wondering what kind of file/folder you think we should put them in? I am aware that if the documents aren't arranged in an easy to access way, they may be rearranged, I am also aware that they may send some unneeded documents back to us without looking at them. I am guessing maybe using plastic wallets to hold every 2 pages back to front may not be the best idea for this reason, and definitely not clumping all of the pages together. We could really use your guidance as not to annoy the person looking through our documentation. Thank you very much. Pound Sterling Slides Amid Global Risk Aversion Despite Upbeat PMI The Pound Sterling (GBP) struggled throughout Wednesdays session against a basket of peers despite a distinct lack of negative high impact economic news or news of a Brexit nature as Parliament remains in recess until next week. A slide throughout the session gave way to a significant downwards spike late on Wednesday, seeing the GBP depreciate 1%+ against peers before recovering a majority of the losses but remaining down for the day. Depreciating across the board, the Pound Sterling acted in distinct contrast to the one data release of the day, namely the manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) which printed an above forecast increase to 54.2 with new domestic and export order inflows increasing and a solid increase in stocks of purchases. Rob Dobson, Director of IHS Markit, which compiles the survey commented December saw the UK PMI rise to a six-month high, following short-term boosts to inventory holdings and inflows of new business as companies stepped up their preparations for a potentially disruptive Brexit. Going on he added Though the overall index figure was higher than last month, this should be viewed with some scepticism. Whilst the road to Brexit remains mired in the mud of indecision and disagreement, there is likely to be some correction in the sector this year as Brexit buffer stocks are depleted and overall output could fall. In line with this, chief economist at WorldFirst, Jeremy Thomson-Cook commented in response to the release Despite this increase in demand, confidence remains weak as everyone knows that these increased supplies of raw materials, constituent parts and finished goods will eventually run out and supply chain disruption will hurt businesses later down the line. Regarding Brexit, RBCs chief currency strategist, Adam Cole, wrote to clients Very little has moved in the Brexit saga over the holiday period (parliament has been in recess for the last two weeks and does not return until next Monday). GBP (looked at against a basket of USD and EUR) remains in the middle of the narrow range that has held since mid-December, PM May faces an uphill struggle in the weeks ahead as MPs debate the current withdrawal agreement ahead of a rescheduled meaningful vote expected in the week commencing 14th January. According to sources, support for PM Mays withdrawal agreement is rising which could lend support to the Pound and volatility is expected to remain high as the route ahead makes itself apparent. Eurozone PMIs Hamper the Euro Hinting at Economic Stangnation Wednesdays session saw the Euro (EUR) slide against a majority of peers amid a suite of Eurozone PMI releases. While increasing slightly, the Italian PMI remained in contraction territory, printing 49.2 as falling new orders contributed to a continued deterioration of manufacturing performance. Supplementary commentary from Andrew Harker, associate director at IHS Markit said, December PMI data completed a worrying end to the year for Italian manufacturers, with firms continuing to struggle to secure new business. This is in marked contrast to the start of 2018 when the sector was experiencing strong growth. Moreover, with business confidence at a six-year low, there appears little sense of optimism that the current soft patch will come to an end in the near future." The Spanish PMI slumped past forecasts to 51.1 representing the softest pace of growth in the manufacturing sector since August of 2016. Economics Director at IHS Markit commented The manufacturing sector ended 2018 on a rather muted note, adding the downward trend was exacerbated by rising economic and political instabilities, especially in relation to global tariffs, with a final projection that growth will remain stuck in a soft-patch during the early part of 2019. French, German and Euro-wide PMIs all delivered on forecast, with the French PMI continuing to indicate manufacturing sector contraction amidst growing concerns of economic stagnation in the bloc. The Euro (EUR) picked up in Thursdays session, partially recouping losses against peer currencies but faces an uphill struggle as markets remain thin in the wake of festive period holidays. US Dollar On the Back Foot as Government Shutdown Continues The US Dollar (USD) slid into the year on a muted footing despite robust gains throughout 2018, low liquidity trading conditions made for erratic price action in Wednesdays session, particularly versus the Canadian Dollar (CAD) in which the USDCAD exchange rate ricocheted between $1.3569 and $1.3665. In a session marked distinctly by risk aversion as Apple Inc. issued a revenue warning in response to declining iPhone sales in China, investors fled the USD for safe-haven assets, benefitting the Japanese Yen (JPY) particularly. On the data front, the US Final PMI did little to boost investor confidence, slipping to a 15 month low of 53.8 amid a weaker rise in new business and the joint softest sector expansion since September of 2017. Commenting, chief business economist at IHS Markit, Chris Williamson said "Manufacturers reported a weakened pace of expansion at the end of 2018, and grew less upbeat about prospects for 2019. Output and order books grew at the slowest rates for over a year and optimism about the outlook slumped to its gloomiest for over two years, adding that companies have become increasingly cautious about spending amid rising uncertainty about the outlook. The partial government shutdown continues in the US despite a conciliatory tone from President Donald Trump who tweeted he is ready and willing to work with Democrats on a bill which would secure funds for federal departments and also, he hopes, include funding for a border wall between the US and Mexico. Wednesdays meeting however yielded little progress with Democrats standing by their offer of $1.3B for border security, considerably less than the $5B sought by the President. Commenting on the shutdown, a White House official said This is going to go on for a while. Australian Dollar Decimated in Flash Crash as Investors Seek Safe-Haven Assets Wednesday saw the Australian Dollar (AUD) suffer some of its worst intraday performance ever amid thin markets and the triggering of automated trades which sent it slumping to multi-year lows versus a host of major peers. Above: Australian Dollar Japanese Yen (AUDJPY) Exchange Rate Head of FX strategy at National Australian Bank, Ray Attrill, described the sharp, sudden depreciation in the AUD as a flash crash as the AUD plummeted 5% against the Japanese Yen (JPY) and 4% versus the US Dollar (USD). Attrill attributed the dramatic price action to thin markets, commenting The fact that over half the move down in both these pairs (AUDJPY & AUDUSD) has since been retraced is testimony to todays moves being first and foremost a liquidity event. Alternative theories included a reaction to the sharp spike in risk-aversion as the Australian Dollar is often considered a gauge of risk appetite or a response to weaker than forecast Chinese manufacturing PMI data, which fell into contraction territory at 49.7. The lack of a resolution in the continued US-China trade war continues to weigh on the AUD with Attrill commenting These talks need to yield agreement to a reasonably comprehensive deal as a minimum prerequisite for a recovery in global risk asset sentiment and a stronger Australian dollar, adding If so, wed expect Aussie dollar to be trading back reasonably comfortably above 0.70 before Q1 is out. New Zealand Dollar Slumps but Recovers Amid Upbeat GDT Likewise, the New Zealand Dollar (NZD) suffered a similar flash crash late in Wednesdays session although the drop was not as pronounced and the NZD largely recovered the losses into Thursdays session. The NZD was partially insulated on the GDT price index release which saw the change in the average price of dairy products sold at auction increase 2.8%, the fastest pace of price growth since February 2018. Canadian Dollar Loses Out to Yen, Oil Recovers Marginally The Canadian Dollar (CAD) had a mixed session on Wednesday, appreciating versus the Pound Sterling (GBP), Euro (EUR), and Antipodean currencies (AUD & NZD) while a volatile range dominated the USDCAD pair and the Loonie lost out substantially versus the Japanese Yen (JPY) with the Canadian Dollar Japanese Yen (CADJPY) exchange rate at one point declining by 3.8%+. Domestic economic data took a back seat to global risk aversion as investors panicked. The manufacturing PMI release saw activity slow in the sector, printing 53.6, down from 54.9. President and CEO at the Supply Chain Management Association (SCMA) commented December data signalled a loss of momentum for manufacturers at the end of the year, with stagnating export sales and softer energy sector demand the key factors behind an overall slowdown in production growth, adding that global trade tensions has led to greater risk aversion among clients with business confidence dropping to its lowest level in almost 3 years. Elsewhere, the price of oil saw an upside break to a weekly high during Wednesdays session, reacting $56/barrel before settling back down to $54 into Thursdays session. Despite the marginal gains, the price remains almost 40% lower than the 2018 peak and continues to weigh on the Loonie. STERLING UPDATE: The Pound Sterling to US Dollar exchange rates have recovered some of yesterdays losses and is currently trading within the region of $1.2562. The Pound (GBP) posted broad-based losses on Wednesday despite the release of stronger-than-expected UK Markit Manufacturing PMI figures for December, which came in at 54.2 against last months 52.5. While the headline figure was positive, the report indicated that Brexit stockpiling had temporarily inflated the figures. The Pound also came under pressure as a result of increasing political uncertainty, after a survey showed that 72% of Labour loyalists are in favour of a second-referendum, despite the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn insisting that Brexit must go ahead. The US Dollar (USD), meanwhile, was buoyed by demand for safe-haven currencies and shrugged off the impact of the US Markit Manufacturing PMI, which showed a decrease to 53.8 its lowest point since September 2017 against last months 55.3. However, the US Dollar has since given up some of its gains as the partial government shutdown in the US continues. US President Donald Trump and congressional leaders further failed to resolve the issue over funding for the Mexican border wall yesterday, leaving the US in a state of political gridlock. Pound US Dollar (GBP/USD) Exchange Rate Climbs Despite Weak Construction Data The Pound (GBP) has managed to claw back some of yesterdays losses against the US Dollar despite rising concerns over Prime Minister Theresa Mays withdrawal agreement, with the Former Secretary of State on Brexit, David Davis, commenting: The Withdrawal Agreement does not respect the referendum result. That is why the meaningful vote had to be delayed and one wonders if even the January vote will go ahead. Pound investors have remained generally cautious ahead of 9 January, when MPs are set to return to debate the Brexit deal, however with signs that the vote on the deal could be further delayed, concerns over no-deal Brexit are denting confidence in Sterling. The Pound (GBP) was also dented today by the publication of the UK PMI Construction data for December, which showed a worse-than-expected decrease to 52.8 against last months 53.4. USD/GBP Exchange Rate to Fall if US Economy Shows Signs of Slowing Down? The US Dollar may be affected by todays slew of US data releases. If the US ISM manufacturing PMI and US construction spending figures impress, USD could return to a dominant position. However, any USD gains may be capped by concerns that the US economy could be affected by the global economic slowdown. Maurice Obstfeld, the International Monetary Funds outgoing chief, commented: For the rest of the world there seems to be some air coming out of the balloon. That will come back and also affect the U.S. GBP/USD Forecast: Pound Recoup losses on Services PMI? Tomorrow will see the publication of the UK Mortgage Approvals figures for November which are expected to decrease. However, the UKs Services PMI is expected to show improvement. As the UKs services sector accounts for over 70% of total UK economic output, the report could give the Pound a lift before the weekend. USD traders, meanwhile, will be paying close attention to tomorrows slew of important US data releases, with particular attention being on Nonfarm Payrolls for December. Impressive jobs data would be USD-positive. The number of single male Magellanic penguins is rising at this breeding colony. Here's why. Like most of their stout-bodied, flippered kin, Magellanic penguins spend much of their lives in the ocean. From late autumn through winter and into spring in the Southern Hemisphere, these South American penguins swim off the coast of southern Brazil, Uruguay and northern Argentina in search of anchovies, sardines and squid. But as spring turns to summer, they swim thousands of miles south and congregate in big coastal colonies. There, males and females pair off, breed and attempt to rear one or two newly hatched chicks. One of the largest breeding colonies for Magellanic penguins is at Punta Tombo in Argentina, where University of Washington biology professor P. Dee Boersma and her team at the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels have studied the penguins since 1982. They have documented a population decline at Punta Tombo of more than 40 percent since 1987, along with a rising male-to-female ratio, and have spent years trying to pinpoint its cause. In a paper published Jan. 2 in the journal Ecological Applications, Boersma and UW postdoctoral researcher Natasha Gownaris report that juvenile females are more likely to die at sea, which has caused a skewed sex ratio of nearly three males to every female, as well as population decline. Their study incorporated more than 30 years of population data collected by UW researchers -- including banding and studying individual penguins -- into models of population dynamics. Boersma and Gownaris' models show that juveniles have much lower survival rates than adults in all years, a common phenomenon in seabirds. In addition, among both juveniles and adults, females are less likely to survive than males, but this sex bias is much larger among juveniles. Adult females seem to fare worst in years when overall survival is low, suggesting they are more vulnerable than males to disruptions in the food supply during the nonbreeding season. "From a conservation standpoint, this study shows us how important it is to try to protect the places where these penguins feed throughout the year, both in the breeding season and the nonbreeding season," said Gownaris. "It all comes down to food for this species." This study relied on year-to-year surveys of penguins that had been fitted with stainless-steel bands marked with a unique five-digit number. Between 1983 and 2010, Boersma and her team banded 44,374 chicks at Punta Tombo, tracking generations of Magellanic penguin families. Only 3,296 of these individuals survived and were seen again at the colony. In 57 percent of cases, researchers also noted the sex of the individual -- no easy task in a species where males and females look so much alike. Each Southern Hemisphere summer, which corresponds to winter in the Northern Hemisphere, researchers noted which individuals returned to Punta Tombo, and gathered information such as body condition and breeding success. The 3,296 penguins that returned are a small fraction of the hundreds of thousands who came to Punta Tombo over the three-decade survey period. But information about the banded birds helped Gownaris and Boersma learn about the entire population. Gownaris compared the results from her models of banded birds to annual survey data collected throughout the colony. These comparisons allowed her to see whether trends in the banded birds were also seen in the larger population. One of these trends is an increasingly skewed sex ratio and more single male penguins. "Two decades ago, there were about 1.5 adult male Magellanic penguins for every adult female at Punta Tombo," said Gownaris. "Today, it's approaching three males for every female." Both the survey data and population models indicated that adult sex ratios were skewed because fewer females than males returned to the colony each spring for the breeding season. The surveys of banded penguins showed an average return rate for juvenile males of just 17 percent, and 12 percent for juvenile females. Gownaris' models of the whole population indicated that male juveniles had an average return rate about 33.3 percentage points higher than females. Adult Magellanic penguins had much higher return rates than juveniles, and though females still lagged behind males, the gap was not as large as in juveniles. About 89 percent of adult males returned each year, as did 85 percent of females. Though this may seem like a small difference, the bias in survival accumulates over time. By the time a cohort of penguins reaches age 25, there are about six males for every female. Other groups have analyzed Magellanic penguin corpses that washed up off the coast of southern Brazil in winter. Their studies also indicate that females are more likely to die of starvation than males -- especially juvenile females. Though male and female Magellanic penguins look similar, males are about 17 percent larger, and have longer and thicker bills. This may give males a significant advantage when foraging for food in the ocean -- especially when oceanographic conditions make finding food in the winter more difficult, as the team showed in a paper published in August. Using population models, Gownaris showed that the higher mortality of females at Punta Tombo contributed to skewed sex ratios and consequent population declines at the site from 1990 to 2010. This contribution was much greater than that of variation in chick survival. The data also suggest that, due to the skewed sex ratio, the population may be declining faster than suggested by the population surveys that are typically used to calculate population trends in the colony. "It makes sense that the worsening sex ratio is responsible for so much of the population decline at Punta Tombo based on what we know about penguin behavior," said Gownaris. "Magellanic penguins are serially monogamous -- with one male pairing with one female each breeding season -- and both parents working together to rear the chicks. So, having fewer females means you have fewer pairings each year overall." Gownaris wants to survey other Magellanic penguin breeding colonies along the coast to see if they show similarly skewed sex ratios. She and Boersma hope that this information will help new conservation efforts. "Over the years, this team has helped preserve the land and waters around breeding colonies like Punta Tombo," said Gownaris. "But now we're starting to understand that, to help Magellanic penguins, you have to protect waters where they feed in winter, which are thousands of miles north from Punta Tombo." ### The research was funded by the Wildlife Conservation Society; the ExxonMobil Foundation; the Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation; the Disney Conservation Fund; the National Geographic Society; the Chase Foundation; the Cunningham Foundation; the CGMK Foundation; the Offield Family Foundation; the Peach Foundation; the Thorne Foundation; the Tortuga Foundation; the W.K. Kellogg Foundation; the UW Wadsworth Endowed Chair in Conservation Science; and Friends of the Penguins. For more information, contact Gownaris at 206-616-4054 or ngowna@uw.edu. DOI: 10.1002/eap.1826 Link to full release with images: https:/ / www. washington. edu/ news/ 2019/ 01/ 02/ single-male-magellanic-penguins/ Most evolutionary biologists distinguish one species from another based on reproductivity: members of different species either won't or can't mate with one another, or, if they do, the resulting offspring are often sterile, unviable, or suffer some other sort of reduced fitness. For most of the 20th century, scientists believed that this reproductive incompatibility evolved gradually between species as a by-product of adapting to different ecological circumstances: if two species were geographically isolated, they would adapt differences based on their environment. New research conducted at the University of Rochester, in collaboration with the University of Nebraska, shows, however, that there are more factors at play--specifically the presence of selfish genes called meiotic drive elements, whose flow among species may dictate whether two species converge or diverge. In a new paper published in the journal eLife, the researchers show that sex chromosomes evolve to be genetically incompatible between species faster than the rest of the genetic chromosomes and reveal the factors at play in this incompatibility. When two members of a species mate and exchange genetic material, this is known as gene flow. When two members of different species mate, however, gene flow is reduced. "Genes from one species simply can't talk to genes from the other species," says Daven Presgraves, a dean's professor of biology at Rochester. Though the genes may work fine on their own genetic background, when they are moved into the genetic background of another species, they have negative effects. "All of the gene copies in you and me work in the human genome. But if we were to take a gene out of you and stick it in a macaw parrot, they haven't seen this sequence before and it might not work together with the other genes. That would compromise some sort of function like fertility." This is what happened when Presgraves and members of his lab crossed two different species of fruit flies, one from Madagascar and the other from the island of Mauritius. When the two species were crossed, their female hybrid offspring were fertile, but the hybrid male offspring were completely sterile. "One of the steps on the way to complete reproductive isolation is that the XY sex becomes sterile first in that gradual build-up of incompatibility," Presgraves says. In the case of fruit flies, as in human beings, the XY sex is male. Chromosomes are divided into two types: allosomes, or sex chromosomes, and autosomes, or body chromosomes. Genetic traits linked to an organism's sex are passed on through the sex chromosomes. The rest of the genetic hereditary information is passed on through the autosomes. When the researchers mapped the factors that cause hybrid males to become sterile, they found that there were many more incompatibility factors on the X allosome compared to the autosomes. This means that sex chromosomes become functionally different between species much faster than non-sex chromosomes, Presgraves says. "There's a lot more exchange going on between the autosomes than on the X." But what is it that makes sex chromosomes accumulate genetic incompatibility faster than the rest of the genome? The researchers found that a class of "selfish genes" called meiotic drive elements are responsible for making sex chromosomes genetically incompatible at a faster rate. In general, selfish genes are parasites of the genome--they propagate themselves at the expense of other genes. Meiotic drive elements in particular sabotage the rules of typical inheritance: in normal Mendelian inheritance, a gene is transmitted to half the offspring. Meiotic drive elements, however, manipulate reproduction so they can transmit themselves to more than their fair share of the genome. In hybrid male fruit flies, meiotic drive elements usually kill any sperm that don't carry them, leaving only (or mostly) sperm that do carry the meiotic drive elements. "This could be because multiple meiotic drive elements from both parental species are unsuppressed in hybrids, and their combined action causes sterility," says Colin Meiklejohn, a former postdoctoral student in Presgraves's lab. In a twist, however, the researchers also found that if meiotic drive elements are able to experience gene flow, they can also help bring species together. During early speciation, when two different species are just beginning to break away from one another, reproductive incompatibility can be incomplete and "leaky"--some part of the genome may still be compatible and exchangeable. "If two populations are leaky and there is opportunity for gene flow, a selfish gene can leak over into the other population and spread there," Presgraves says. If the species interbreeds and this selfish gene is able to be passed down, instead of becoming incompatible, "that part of the genome will become perfectly exchangeable. In some cases a selfish gene will basically erase the build-up of incompatibilities for a part of the genome." That is, meiotic drive elements can cause incompatibilities between species if they do not experience gene flow, or they can cause a convergence of the species, if they species does experience gene flow. A major factor in determining whether or not a species is compatible hinges on whether or not there is gene flow between the species, Presgraves says. "Species--even ones that are geographically isolated--are much leakier than we thought." ### Researchers from the University of Missouri and University of Essex in the United Kingdom say a new way of measuring gender inequality is fairer to both men and women, and presents a simplified but more accurate picture of peoples' well-being than previous calculations. The new Basic Index of Gender Inequality (BIGI) focuses on three factors - educational opportunities, healthy life expectancy and overall life satisfaction. "We calculated BIGI scores for 134 nations, representing 6.8 billion people," said David Geary, Curators Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences in the MU College of Arts and Science about the study, published today in PLOS ONE, one of the world's leading peer-reviewed journals focused on science and medicine. "Surprisingly, our new measure indicated that men are, on average, more disadvantaged than women in 91 countries compared with a relative disadvantage for women in 43 countries. We sought to correct the bias toward women's issues in existing measures and at the same time develop a simple measure that is useful in any country in the world, regardless of their level of economic development." Using the BIGI measure, the researchers found the most developed countries in the world come closest to achieving gender equality, albeit with a slight advantage for women. In the least developed countries, women nearly always fall behind men -- largely because they have fewer opportunities to get a good education. The picture is more mixed in countries with medium-levels of development, with nearly the same number of countries where women fall behind as countries where men fall behind. The men's disadvantage is largely due to a shorter healthy lifespan. Until now the Global Gender Gap Index, introduced in 2006, had been one of the most established and well-used measures of national gender inequality, used by academics and policy makers across the world. But Stoet and Geary argue that it does not measure issues where men are at a disadvantage, such as harsher punishments for the same crime, compulsory military service and more occupational deaths. The complexity of the Global Gender Gap Index also means it is sometimes difficult to distinguish whether gender differences are the result of inequality or personal preference. "No existing measure of gender inequality fully captures the hardships that are disproportionately experienced by men and so they do not fully capture the extent to which any nation is promoting the well-being of all its citizens," said Gijsbert Stoet, professor of psychology at University of Essex. "The BIGI provides a much simpler way of tackling gender inequality and it focuses on aspects of life that are directly relevant to all people." Researchers say that when BIGI is included along with other existing models of gender equality, it provides additional information, presenting a fuller picture of gender equality that can be used by policymakers to introduce changes to improve the quality of life for both men and women. "Internationally, improvements in gender parity may be reached by focusing on education in the least developed nations and by focusing on preventative health care in medium and highly developed nations," Stoet said. "With the BIGI, we are focusing on issues that are important to all women and men in any nation, regardless of level of economic and political development, and by including factors that can disadvantage men as well as women," Geary said. "Current equality measures are generally biased to highlight women's issues and thus are not really measures of gender equality." ### The study, "A simplified approach to measuring national gender inequality," was published in PLOS ONE. With their small size, stubby faces and wide-set eyes, bulldogs, French bulldogs and Boston terriers are among the most popular of domestic dog breeds. Now researchers at the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine have found the genetic basis for these dogs' appearance, and linked it to a rare inherited syndrome in humans. Bulldogs, French bulldogs and Boston terriers aren't the only dogs with short, wide heads, but they do share another feature not found in other breeds: a short, kinked tail or "screwtail," said Professor Danika Bannasch, Department of Population Health and Reproduction in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. These three breeds all lack the vertebrae that make up the tail bone, she said. The researchers sequenced the whole genome -- the entire DNA sequence -- of 100 dogs, including 10 from screwtail breeds. All the participating dogs were privately owned pets seen at the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, whose owners agreed to participate. Graduate students Tamer Mansour and Katherine Lucot, with C. Titus Brown, associate professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Genome Center, searched through the DNA sequences to find changes associated with screwtail breeds. From more than 12 million individual differences they were able to identify one mutation, in a gene called DISHEVELLED 2 or DVL2. This variant was found in 100 percent of the bulldogs and French bulldogs sampled, and was very common in Boston terriers. This kind of whole genome comparison is relatively new, Bannasch said. "Normally, we would have first had to identify a region DNA and work from there," she said. "We could look at breed-specific traits, but not as well as we can now." Link to Robinow syndrome Professor Henry Ho at the UC Davis School of Medicine studies similar genes in humans. Mutations in the related DVL1 and DVL3 genes are known to cause Robinow syndrome, a rare inherited disorder in humans characterized by strikingly similar anatomical changes -- a short, wide "babyface," short limbs and spinal deformities. In addition, Robinow patients and the screwtail breeds also share other disease traits, such as cleft palate. In both humans and dogs, DVL genes are part of a signaling pathway called WNT involved in development of the skeleton and nervous system, among other things, said Peter Dickinson, professor of surgical and radiological sciences at the School of Veterinary Medicine. By characterizing the screwtail DVL2 protein product, Sara Konopelski, a graduate student the Ho lab, pinpointed a key biochemical step in the WNT pathway that is disrupted by the mutation. This finding further suggests that a common molecular defect is responsible for the distinct appearances of both Robinow patients and screwtail dog breeds. The DVL2 screwtail mutation is so common in these breeds, and so closely tied to the breed appearance, that it would be difficult to remove it by breeding, Dickinson said. Other genes are known to contribute to short, wide "brachycephalic" heads in dogs, and there are likely multiple genes that contribute both to appearance and to chronic health problems in these breeds. Understanding a common mutation in popular dog breeds may, however, give more insight into the rare Robinow syndrome in humans. Only a few hundred cases have been documented since the syndrome was identified in 1969. "It's a very rare human disease but very common in dogs, so that could be a model for the human syndrome," Bannasch said. ### The work is published Jan. 1 in the journal PLOS Genetics. Additional authors are: Beverly K. Sturges, Karen L. Vernau, Sara M. Thomasy, Frank J. M. Verstraete, Eric G. Johnson, Daniel York, Robert B. Rebhun, Joshua A. Stern, Sophie Doring, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine; and Shannon Choi, UC Davis School of Medicine. Advances in artificial intelligence have created new threats to the privacy of people's health data, a new University of California, Berkeley, study shows. Led by UC Berkeley engineer Anil Aswani, the study suggests current laws and regulations are nowhere near sufficient to keep an individual's health status private in the face of AI development. The research was published Dec. 21 in the JAMA Network Open journal. The findings show that by using artificial intelligence, it is possible to identify individuals by learning daily patterns in step data, such as that collected by activity trackers, smartwatches and smartphones, and correlating it to demographic data. The mining of two years' worth of data covering more than 15,000 Americans led to the conclusion that the privacy standards associated with 1996's HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) legislation need to be revisited and reworked. "We wanted to use NHANES (the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) to look at privacy questions because this data is representative of the diverse population in the U.S.," said Aswani. "The results point out a major problem. If you strip all the identifying information, it doesn't protect you as much as you'd think. Someone else can come back and put it all back together if they have the right kind of information." "In principle, you could imagine Facebook gathering step data from the app on your smartphone, then buying health care data from another company and matching the two," he added. "Now they would have health care data that's matched to names, and they could either start selling advertising based on that or they could sell the data to others." According to Aswani, the problem isn't with the devices, but with how the information the devices capture can be misused and potentially sold on the open market. "I'm not saying we should abandon these devices," he said. "But we need to be very careful about how we are using this data. We need to protect the information. If we can do that, it's a net positive." Though the study specifically looked at step data, the results suggest a broader threat to the privacy of health data. "HIPAA regulations make your health care private, but they don't cover as much as you think," Aswani said. "Many groups, like tech companies, are not covered by HIPAA, and only very specific pieces of information are not allowed to be shared by current HIPAA rules. There are companies buying health data. It's supposed to be anonymous data, but their whole business model is to find a way to attach names to this data and sell it." Aswani said advances in AI make it easier for companies to gain access to health data, the temptation for companies to use it in illegal or unethical ways will increase. Employers, mortgage lenders, credit card companies and others could potentially use AI to discriminate based on pregnancy or disability status, for instance. "Ideally, what I'd like to see from this are new regulations or rules that protect health data," he said. "But there is actually a big push to even weaken the regulations right now. For instance, the rule-making group for HIPAA has requested comments on increasing data sharing. The risk is that if people are not aware of what's happening, the rules we have will be weakened. And the fact is the risks of us losing control of our privacy when it comes to health care are actually increasing and not decreasing." ### Co-authors of the study are Liangyuan Na of MIT; Cong Yang and Chi-Cheng Lo of UC Berkeley; Fangyuan Zhao of Tsinghua University in China; and Yoshimi Fukuoka of UCSF. Melting ice sheets release tons of methane into the atmosphere, study finds The Greenland Ice Sheet emits tons of methane according to a new study, showing that subglacial biological activity impacts the atmosphere far more than previously thought. An international team of researchers led by the University of Bristol camped for three months next to the Greenland Ice Sheet, sampling the meltwater that runs off a large catchment (> 600 km2) of the Ice Sheet during the summer months. As reported in Nature, using novel sensors to measure methane in meltwater runoff in real time, they observed that methane was continuously exported from beneath the ice. They calculated that at least six tons of methane was transported to their measuring site from this portion of the Ice Sheet alone, roughly the equivalent of the methane released by up to 100 cows. Professor Jemma Wadham, Director of Bristol's Cabot Institute for the Environment, who led the investigation, said: "A key finding is that much of the methane produced beneath the ice likely escapes the Greenland Ice Sheet in large, fast flowing rivers before it can be oxidized to CO2, a typical fate for methane gas which normally reduces its greenhouse warming potency." Methane gas (CH4) is the third most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere after water vapour and carbon dioxide (CO2). Although, present in lower concentrations that CO2, methane is approximately 20-28 times more potent. Therefore smaller quantities have the potential to cause disproportionate impacts on atmospheric temperatures. Most of the Earth's methane is produced by microorganisms that convert organic matter to CH4 in the absence of oxygen, mostly in wetlands and on agricultural land, for instance in the stomachs of cows and rice paddies. The remainder comes from fossil fuels like natural gas. While some methane had been detected previously in Greenland ice cores and in an Antarctic Subglacial Lake, this is the first time that meltwaters produced in spring and summer in large ice sheet catchments have been reported to continuously flush out methane from the ice sheet bed to the atmosphere. Lead author, Guillaume Lamarche-Gagnon, from Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences, said: "What is also striking is the fact that we've found unequivocal evidence of a widespread subglacial microbial system. Whilst we knew that methane-producing microbes likely were important in subglacial environments, how important and widespread they truly were was debatable. Now we clearly see that active microorganisms, living under kilometres of ice, are not only surviving, but likely impacting other parts of the Earth system. This subglacial methane is essentially a biomarker for life in these isolated habitats." Most studies on Arctic methane sources focus on permafrost, because these frozen soils tend to hold large reserves of organic carbon that could be converted to methane when they thaw due to climate warming. This latest study shows that ice sheet beds, which hold large reserves of carbon, liquid water, microorganisms and very little oxygen - the ideal conditions for creating methane gas - are also atmospheric methane sources. Co-researcher Dr Elizabeth Bagshaw from Cardiff University added: "The new sensor technologies that we used give us a window into this previously unseen part of the glacial environment. Continuous measurement of meltwater enables us to improve our understanding of how these fascinating systems work and how they impact the rest of the planet." With Antarctica holding the largest ice mass on the planet, researchers say their findings make a case for turning the spotlight to the south. Mr Lamarche-Gagnon added: "Several orders of magnitude more methane has been hypothesized to be capped beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet than beneath Arctic ice-masses. Like we did in Greenland, it's time to put more robust numbers on the theory." ### This study was a collaboration between Bristol University, Charles University (Czechia), the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, Newcastle University, the University of Toronto (Canada), the Universite Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), Cardiff University (UK), and Kongsberg Maritime Contros (Germany). It was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), with additional funds from the Leverhulme Trust, the Czech Science Foundation, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Fond de Recherche Nature et Technologies du Quebec (Canada). Paper: 'Greenland melt drives continuous export of methane from the ice sheet bed' by Guillaume Lamarche-Gagnon, Jemma L. Wadham, et al. Nature, Doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0800-0 by Li Ruohan An author from northern China reveals how the Vatican and Chinese Church are reliving the experience of the Church in France during the Revolution and the Napoleonic empire. The comparison is startlingly apt in the details: restructuring of the dioceses; state power over the Church; (purely formal) recognition of the Pope; total control of religious activities; elimination of bishops and "non-sworn" priests (or underground). Beijing (AsiaNews) - The agreement between China and the Holy See is very similar to the one signed between Napoleon and Pius VII. The startlingly apt comparison is fitting in many aspects: the restructuring of the dioceses; power over the Church; recognition (only formal) of the Pope; total control of religious activities; elimination of bishops and "non-sworn" priests (or underground). The author, Li Ruohan (a pseudonym) is a scholar from northern China. The original title of the essay is "What is illegal has become legal". On December 12th I saw the images of the Holy See special envoy, Archbishop Claudio M. Celli, at the Diaoyuetai, the state hotel for illustrious guests. He was accompanied by two Chinese bishops with whom he appeared to be on friendly terms. A pleasant image was presented to the world. It was reputed to have been the start of the demanding process to reach an agreement between the Holy See and China. A reason to rejoice and for congratulations. Archbishop Celli contributed greatly to this. Only he was unable to remain a few more days, to go to Nanjing and attend the ceremony to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the "independent" election and ordination of the first Chinese bishops. He could have shared his experience with the bishops and heard the speeches of the authorities. What a pity! According to press releases, the Pope granted seven bishops jurisdiction over the administration of dioceses by officially nominating them as ordinary bishops; of the two clandestine bishops, one was asked to withdraw, the other to become auxiliary. This is one of the results of the agreement, which has not yet been made public. Like Napoleon Seeing such results one cannot help but think of the Concordat between the State and the Church of France signed by Napoleon in 1801. To understand this Concordat, we need to remember the situation at that time. In 1789 the French revolution broke out. After revolutionaries seized power, the Catholic Church became their first target. Whether Girondins or Jacobins, they pursued a policy of ferocious persecution against the Church. The Church of France was subjected to a terrible trial. On 12 July 1790 the revolutionary party promulgated the civil constitution of the clergy, the nucleus of which was a new subdivision of the French dioceses. Before the revolution, France had 134 dioceses. The revolutionaries law aimed to unify the dioceses. First of all, the dioceses would be divided according to the boundaries of the administrative regions of the State, reducing them to 51. Secondly, the bishops would be chosen and ordained autonomously. France would have a primate; all the other bishops of France would receive their faculties from the primate. The bishops would be elected by the priests of the diocese. The choice would be made by the priests and some local representatives; even the laity would participate in the election. Third, the primate bishop of France would be proposed by the government, without pontifical appointment. Fourth and very important, all the clergy of France, including bishops and priests, would have to swear an oath, called the "oath of loyalty". Only after having sworn this oath, would French clergy be allowed to fulfill their public ministry. Those who refused to swear would be judged illegal, not recognized by the French State, considered enemies of the revolution and punishable under the law. At that time France had 131 bishops out of 134 dioceses. The bishop's seat was vacant in three diocese. Only four of the 131 bishops signed. Of these four, two returned to secular life, including Talleyrand, who was then placed at the head of the Church by the French revolutionary government and several times proceeded to administer sacraments. Less than a third of the 100,000 French priests took the oath; two thirds refused to swear. These became the group of non-sworn priests. French Catholics began not to attend churches and refused to receive the sacraments from the hands of sworn priests. The priests who had refused to swear retreated to the countryside of France, where they secretly celebrated mass and administered the sacraments in the homes of the faithful, constituting the group of the non-sworn priests of France. Two Churches For some time two churches existed in France: one formed by the sworn priests who served in public churches; the other by priests who ministered largely in the countryside and even in houses in the city. The non-sworn priests celebrated in secrecy and were called illegal. The revolutionaries started hunting the priests who refused to swear. Many were jailed and many others put to death by revolutionaries. Those who know the history of the Church know of the martyrs of that time. This radical and fanatical policy of persecution failed to eliminate the Church, but eventually caused division. On 9 November 1799 Napoleon led a military coup and created a government of which he was the head. In politics he was a pragmatist. "In France - he says - I govern people: I am Catholic. In Egypt where I dominated, I was a Muslim. If I were to rule the Holy Land and Jerusalem, I would rebuild the temple of Solomon to make the Jews happy. " To resolve the dispute with the Church, Napoleon initiated talks with the Holy See. At that time, the Pope, Pius VII, appointed Cardinal Consalvi, who was Secretary of State, in charge of the negotiations. After half a year of negotiations between the two parties, a concordat between State and Church was signed in Paris on 15 July 1801. In the Concordat the French government recognizes the Roman Catholic Church as the religion of the majority of the French people. The Catholic Church has an inseparable relationship with the history of the French people. In French history it has played an irreplaceable role. It is therefore right that there is freedom to practice and believe. This point is apparently commendable and appears aimed at restoring the freedom of the Church of France. But later the government asked the Holy See to make a new division of the dioceses. At the time of the revolution the 134 dioceses of France were forcibly divided, but the Holy See never recognized the unilateral actions of the French government. However, in the Concordat signed by Napoleon, the Holy See is forced to make concessions, to again divide the dioceses of France, making them correspond to the administrative regions, and to found new ones. The 134 original dioceses are reduced to 60, including 10 archdioceses. All the bishops of France, both those who in the past swore the oath and those who refused to swear, had to resign. The head of the French state, that is, Napoleon, has the power to propose bishops, but the power to bestow jurisdiction is left to the Pope. Regarding the selection of candidates, the most widespread criterion is that they are politically reliable. All the clergy of France, bishops and priests, must take an oath of loyalty to the state. The Church also must renounce the assets confiscated at the time of the revolution. As compensation for the losses, the French government took the maintenance of the clergy upon itself, giving them a subsidy. Moreover the bishops would be obliged to collaborate with the local authorities, in order to proceed with the division between dioceses and parishes. Promises never kept The Concordat of 1801 apparently implements the normalization of relations between the French government and the Holy See, and results the Church of France enjoying a long period of peace. But this peace came at the expense of large concessions and many losses suffered by the Church. After the signing of the Concordat, at the time of publication in France, Napoleon arbitrarily adds 77 articles. These 77 articles were added completely unilaterally by the French government, without any further agreement with the Holy See. Among the articles: the meetings between Pope and bishops must be approved by the French government. Even important Roman documents, papal encyclicals, motu proprios, some doctrinal or moral texts must be approved by government before being issued in France. Seminary professors and the laity must obey the provisions of Gallicanism of those years. The French Church is only permitted to make use of doctrinal texts approved by the French government for the formation of the laity. The bishops cannot hold meetings without the prior approval of the French government. According to the model of the past, the papal nuncios had the right to visit the dioceses; the representative of the Pope had the right to travel to understand the local situation, also to ensure a close collaboration between the Holy See and the local bishops. However, in one of the added articles, it is clearly established that if the papal nuncio travels within France, he must obtain government permission. In these articles, especially those added, we can see that the rights that the Church had enjoyed in the past were trampled on, and that the Church mourned. But at that time the church was eager to improve the relationship with the French nation, and rebuild the previous diplomatic relations. Large concessions were made in haste; moreover, even though a nuncio was sent, he could no longer play the same role as in the past; on the contrary he was manipulated by the French government, which added many clauses which for the Church were not acceptable. A particularly difficult point: how to deal with the bishops who had been faithful to the Church and the Pope during the period of persecution? What to do with them? At the time of the revolution and of the ferocious persecution, these bishops with their obstinate resistance did not betray the faith and remained faithful to the Holy See. Although the suffering had passed, the experience was still fresh in their hearts. How then deal with this group of bishops who have not sworn? Intimidating the Pope, Napoleon demanded that this problem be resolved as soon as possible. First of all he promised that he would not appoint bishops who at the time of the revolution had sworn and had been bishops of the official Church. In return, he demands the Holy See act. The Holy See had to decide about those bishops who had not belonged to the official Church. In permitting official and non-official bishops of that time resign, the Holy See and the French government agreed to elect new bishops. In exchange for Napoleon's concessions, the Holy See moved swiftly against the group of unofficial bishops. Many bishops reluctantly expressed their obedience to the decision of the Holy See and withdraw. Ironically, the bishops appointed by Napoleon were all prominent people in the official Church of the past. It must be said that at the time, the idea that it was necessary to break with the Pope and to support the republican government and the men of the revolutionary government was encouraged. Very quickly Napoleons promises to the Holy See proved themselves to be empty words. One of the consequences of the Concordat was that those who were illegal became legal; those who were legal stood aside. After the signing of the Concordat, the Holy See did not get the results it expected. Furthermore, the Concordat did not die with Napoleon. On the contrary: it was continued by the governments of France, both the monarchy and the republican governments, until the beginning of the 20th century. Caught in the midst of enormous turbulence and upheavals, the Church of France has paid a heavy price. To the present day Looking at the current agreement between the Holy See and China, is the Holy See certain that it is not simply repeating past mistakes, indeed tragedies? Although the Concordat between France and the Church explicitly recognized the Pope as supreme authority of the Church, however, the state did what it wanted. The current agreement between China and the Holy See does not say anything about the authority of the Pope. (Of course, with the exception of some foreign experts who have special functions, they can write anything on their own, they're different from ordinary people and they do not see things the way people see them). Instead, it is necessary to clearly look at the declarations of the Patriotic Association and the College of Bishops, and the message of the meeting in Nanjing that says: "The Chinese Catholic Church does not accept control or support from foreign religious organizations; it does not allow foreign forces to intervene and interfere in Church affairs in China. It is necessary to maintain the principles of autonomy ["independence"] and self-management. 'Let these principles become the firm consensus of all clergy and laity. That at any moment and in any circumstance it does not waver. In promoting the synicization of religion, autonomy and self-management are the foundations of the peace and stability of the Chinese Catholic Church. "Are these statements sufficiently clear? Did the important members of the Holy See actually see them? Christmas has passed, with celebrations of various kinds throughout the land of China. The agreement is like a small Christmas gift. We sincerely hope that the tragedies of the past will not be relived. In the darkness before dawn we hope to see the star that leads to hope and that will make us meet the Savior, because time, history, glory and power belong to Him! Forever, Amen! HOUSTON -- (Jan. 3, 2019) -- Rice University physicists have created the world's first laser-cooled neutral plasma, completing a 20-year quest that sets the stage for simulators that re-create exotic states of matter found inside Jupiter and white dwarf stars. The findings are detailed this week in the journal Science and involve new techniques for laser cooling clouds of rapidly expanding plasma to temperatures about 50 times colder than deep space. "We don't know the practical payoff yet, but every time physicists have laser cooled a new kind of thing, it has opened a whole world of possibilities," said lead scientist Tom Killian, professor of physics and astronomy at Rice. "Nobody predicted that laser cooling atoms and ions would lead to the world's most accurate clocks or breakthroughs in quantum computing. We do this because it's a frontier." Killian and graduate students Tom Langin and Grant Gorman used 10 lasers of varying wavelengths to create and cool the neutral plasma. They started by vaporizing strontium metal and using one set of intersecting laser beams to trap and cool a puff of strontium atoms about the size of a child's fingertip. Next, they ionized the ultracold gas with a 10-nanosecond blast from a pulsed laser. By stripping one electron from each atom, the pulse converted the gas to a plasma of ions and electrons. Energy from the ionizing blast causes the newly formed plasma to expand rapidly and dissipate in less than one thousandth of a second. This week's key finding is that the expanding ions can be cooled with another set of lasers after the plasma is created. Killian, Langin and Gorman describe their techniques in the new paper, clearing the way for their lab and others to make even colder plasmas that behave in strange, unexplained ways. Plasma is an electrically conductive mix of electrons and ions. It is one of four fundamental states of matter; but unlike solids, liquids and gases, which are familiar in daily life, plasmas tend to occur in very hot places like the surface of the sun or a lightning bolt. By studying ultracold plasmas, Killian's team hopes to answer fundamental questions about how matter behaves under extreme conditions of high density and low temperature. To make its plasmas, the group starts with laser cooling, a method for trapping and slowing particles with intersecting laser beams. The less energy an atom or ion has, the colder it is, and the slower it moves about randomly. Laser cooling was developed in the 1990s to slow atoms until they are almost motionless, or just a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero. "If an atom or ion is moving, and I have a laser beam opposing its motion, as it scatters photons from the beam it gets momentum kicks that slow it," Killian said. "The trick is to make sure that light is always scattered from a laser that opposes the particle's motion. If you do that, the particle slows and slows and slows." During a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Bethesda, Md., in 1999, Killian pioneered the ionization method for creating neutral plasma from a laser-cooled gas. When he joined Rice's faculty the following year, he started a quest for a way to make the plasmas even colder. One motivation was to achieve "strong coupling," a phenomenon that happens naturally in plasmas only in exotic places like white dwarf stars and the center of Jupiter. "We can't study strongly coupled plasmas in places where they naturally occur," Killian said. "Laser cooling neutral plasmas allows us to make strongly coupled plasmas in a lab, so that we can study their properties" "In strongly coupled plasmas, there is more energy in the electrical interactions between particles than in the kinetic energy of their random motion," Killian said. "We mostly focus on the ions, which feel each other, and rearrange themselves in response to their neighbors' positions. That's what strong coupling means." Because the ions have positive electric charges, they repel one another through the same force that makes your hair stand up straight if it gets charged with static electricity. "Strongly coupled ions can't be near one another, so they try to find equilibrium, an arrangement where the repulsion from all of their neighbors is balanced," he said. "This can lead to strange phenomena like liquid or even solid plasmas, which are far outside our normal experience." In normal, weakly coupled plasmas, these repulsive forces only have a small influence on ion motion because they're far outweighed by the effects of kinetic energy, or heat. "Repulsive forces are normally like a whisper at a rock concert," Killian said. "They're drowned out by all the kinetic noise in the system." In the center of Jupiter or a white dwarf star, however, intense gravity squeezes ions together so closely that repulsive forces, which grow much stronger at shorter distances, win out. Even though the temperature is quite high, ions become strongly coupled. Killian's team creates plasmas that are orders of magnitude lower in density than those inside planets or dead stars, but by lowering the temperature they raise the ratio of electric-to-kinetic energies. At temperatures as low as one-tenth of a Kelvin above absolute zero, Killian's team has seen repulsive forces take over. "Laser cooling is well developed in gases of neutral atoms, for example, but the challenges are very different in plasmas," he said. "We are just at the beginning of exploring the implications of strong coupling in ultracold plasmas," Killian said. "For example, it changes the way that heat and ions diffuse through the plasma. We can study those processes now. I hope this will improve our models of exotic, strongly coupled astrophysical plasmas, but I am sure we will also make discoveries that we haven't dreamt of yet. This is the way science works." The research was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Department of Energy's Office of Science. ### VIDEO is available at: https:/ / youtu. be/ kB767cjUpQs?DESCRIPTION: Rice University physicist Tom Killian cannot go to the center of Jupiter or white dwarf stars, where ions can form strange crystalline plasmas. But in July, Killian's lab achieved a 20-year quest to make the first laser-cooled neutral plasma, which might let him study the same phenomenon in the lab. High-resolution IMAGES are available for download at: http://news. rice. edu/ files/ 2018/ 07/ 0702_PLASMA-exp-02-lg-29p357y. jpg?CAPTION: Rice University physicists reported the first laser-cooled neutral plasma, a breakthrough that could lead to simulators for exotic states of matter that occur at the center of Jupiter or white dwarf stars. (Photo by Brandon Martin/Rice University) http://news. rice. edu/ files/ 2018/ 07/ 0702_PLASMA-tl-12-lg-pie246. jpg?CAPTION: Rice University graduate student Tom Langin makes an adjustment to an experiment that uses 10 lasers of varying wavelengths to laser-cool ions in a neutral plasma. (Photo by Brandon Martin/Rice University) http://news. rice. edu/ files/ 2018/ 07/ 0702_PLASMA-exp-10-lg-1xb3wkh. jpg?CAPTION: To laser cool a neutral plasma, Rice University physicists start by vaporizing billions of strontium atoms, which are then laser cooled, ionized and laser cooled again by another set of lasers. (Photo by Brandon Martin/Rice University) http://news. rice. edu/ files/ 2018/ 07/ 0702_PLASMA-tl-16-lg-1q7sfu5. jpg?CAPTION: Rice University graduate student Tom Langin works at the laser table where beams of various wavelengths were used to make the world's first laser-cooled neutral plasma. (Photo by Brandon Martin/Rice University) The DOI of the Science paper is: 10.1126/science.aat3158 Related research from Rice: Dressing atoms in an ultracold soup -- Feb. 28, 2018?https:/ / news. rice. edu/ 2018/ 02/ 28/ dressing-atoms-in-an-ultracold-soup/ Rice ties in race for atomic-scale breakthrough -- Nov. 17, 2009?https:/ / news. rice. edu/ 2009/ 11/ 17/ rice-ties-in-race-for-atomic-scale-breakthrough/ Making plasmas in the deepest of deep freezes -- May 11, 2007?https:/ / news. rice. edu/ 2007/ 05/ 11/ making-plasmas-in-the-deepest-of-deep-freezes-2/ Killian earns prestigious Packard Fellowship -- Oct. 17, 2002?https:/ / news. rice. edu/ 2002/ 10/ 17/ killian-earns-prestigious-packard-fellowship/ This release can be found online at news.rice.edu. Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews. A jagged little protein appears to be key to how cancer stem cells differentiate and enable metastasis, according to researchers at Rice University and the Duke University School of Medicine. Rice scientists who have formed several theories on how cancer grows and spreads connected the dots for a more complete picture of tumor mechanics. At the center, they found JAG1, a ligand, or small protein, that interacts with a signaling pathway critical to regulating the fate of cells. Their new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences backed by experiments at Duke shows how and why some cells differentiate within tumors and how they spread. The researchers led by members of Rice's Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP) extended their models of hybrid epithelial-mesenchymal cancer stem cells that have the ability to not only resist chemotherapy but also band together in small groups and metastasize. Epithelial cells form tissues that line the outer surfaces of organs. Mesenchymal cells are motile cells that are normally involved in such processes as wound repair. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is the process by which epithelial cells become migratory mesenchymal cells. Cancer hijacks this process and becomes most aggressive by stopping it in the middle to form the metastasizing hybrids. The Rice team had already published theories on how cancer stem cells communicate with each other and the outside world by taking control of the notch signaling pathway involved in extracellular signaling, wound healing and embryonic development. In those studies, they discovered how ligands that activate the pathway go rogue to hold migrating cancer cells together and help them attach to connective tissues at new locations. The new work pulls all those hard-won discoveries together into a cohesive picture, with JAG1 as the prime suspect and inflammatory proteins in a supporting role. The Rice researchers led by physicists Jose Onuchic and Herbert Levine also described for the first time how inflammatory proteins, including the cytokine interleukin 6, amplify signals between notch and jagged proteins that support hybrid epithelial-mesenchymal stem cells. "We have a model of EMT, a model of stemness, a model of cancer metabolism and a model of notch-delta," Onuchic said. "In a real system, all these models are coupled. And in this particular case, we show that under stress, jagged's involved in all of them. "The notch-delta pathway creates communication between cells, but things become problematic when the receptor is jagged instead of delta," he said. "We already knew JAG1 was paramount for cells to assume this (hybrid) state where they can send and receive signals and coordinate with other cells to migrate together," said Federico Bocci, co-lead author of the paper and a graduate student at Rice. "And we also knew these molecules correlate to the proliferation potential of cells. "Together, they give us the whole picture of why we believe jagged is a crucial mediator of epithelial-mesenchymal heterogeneity of cells in the tissue and an important player in this metastatic escape," he said. The team at Duke led by Gayathri Devi, an associate professor in surgery and pathology and program director of the Duke Inflammatory Breast Cancer Consortium, saw evidence of heterogeneity in lab experiments on highly aggressive, inflammatory breast cancer cells. "This heterogeneity remains a major roadblock to any clinical advances, because no 'magic bullet' can eradicate all types of cells in a tumor," she said. "Thus after most therapies, a few cells are left unharmed, a scenario that can lead to tumor relapse." Duke graduate student Larisa Gearhart-Serna, co-lead author of the paper, used a novel tumor organoid model of inflammatory breast cancer cells that is enriched with cancer stem cells developed previously in Devi's lab to show that reducing the presence of JAG1 affected the cancer stem-like properties and capacity to proliferate. The work could lead to therapies that track down and destroy those cells. "JAG1 may play crucial roles in regulating this heterogeneity, and inhibiting its levels can significantly curb tumor formation," Devi said. "We are now using these patient-derived tumor organoid models to identify druggable targets in the notch signaling pathway." Bocci said mesenchymal stem cells tend to remain near a tumor's periphery, where they are exposed to the surrounding environment, particularly the suspect inflammatory proteins. Cells in the tumor's interior tend to spread out and become hybrids that are harder for drugs to destroy. "This also highlights the role of jagged as a crucial mediator, connecting all these different axes of tumor progression," Bocci said. Onuchic noted jagged ligands are important to the body's inflammatory system, so reducing their numbers carries risks of its own. "We have learned that when bad things happen and cells are under stress, there's high levels of jagged in the neighborhood," he said. "Any therapy that comes from this work will be related to controlling the level of jagged, but you cannot completely get rid of it because it has beneficial functions." Levine suggested jagged could serve as a target for new diagnostic tools. "There's another aspect to what this work helps us do, and that's to judge whether a tumor is aggressive enough to treat," he said. "There's a lot of literature based on measuring tumors to understand the chances of a person getting a metastatic disease. If we can identify features like jagged that help tell us if a tumor is really aggressive, this will also be an important result." Co-authors of the paper are lab analyst Mariana Ribeiro of Duke; Rice alumni Marcelo Boareto of ETH Zurich and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and Mohit Kumar Jolly, an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Science; and the late Eshel Ben-Jacob, who was a senior investigator at the CTBP. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program Breakthrough Award, the Duke School of Medicine Bridge Research Fund, the Hasselman Fellowship at Rice, the Gulf Coast Consortia, the Computational Cancer Biology Training Program through the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas and the Sao Paulo Research Foundation. ### Read the abstract at http://www. pnas. org/ cgi/ doi/ 10. 1073/ pnas. 1815345116 . This news release can be found online at https:/ / news. rice. edu/ 2019/ 01/ 03/ cancer-cells-steer-a-jagged-path/ Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews. Related materials: Cancer cells coordinate to form roving clusters: http://news. rice. edu/ 2016/ 05/ 19/ cancer-cells-coordinate-to-form-roving-clusters-2/ How cancer turns good cells to the dark side: http://news. rice. edu/ 2015/ 01/ 26/ how-cancer-turns-good-cells-to-the-dark-side/ Jose Onuchic bio: https:/ / chemistry. rice. edu/ people/ jose-onuchic Herbert Levine bio: https:/ / bioengineering. rice. edu/ herbert-levine Gayathri Devi lab: https:/ / surgery. duke. edu/ divisions/ surgical-sciences/ research/ research-laboratories/ cell-death-laboratory Duke Cancer Institute: http://dukecancerinstitute. org/ donors/ your-gifts-at-work/ rare-and-dangerous Center for Theoretical Biological Physics: https:/ / ctbp. rice. edu Wiess School of Natural Sciences: https:/ / naturalsciences. rice. edu Video: https:/ / youtu. be/ hIDEgQy7KeE Video produced by Federico Bocci/Rice University A new treefrog species was discovered during a two-week expedition to a remote tabletop mountain at Cordillera del Condor, a largely unexplored range in the eastern Andes. "To reach the tabletop, we walked two days along a steep terrain. Then, between sweat and exhaustion, we arrived to the tabletop where we found a dwarf forest. The rivers had blackwater and the frogs were sitting along them, on branches of brown shrubs similar in color to the frogs' own. The frogs were difficult to find, because they blended with their background," Alex Achig, one of the field biologists who discovered the new species comments on the hardships of the expedition. Curiously, the frog has an extraordinary, enlarged claw-like structure located at the base of the thumb. Its function is unknown, but it could be that it is used either as a defence against predators or as a weapon in fights between competing males. Having conducted analyses of genetic and morphologic data, scientists Santiago R. Ron, Marcel Caminer, Andrea Varela, and Diego Almeida from the Catholic University of Ecuador concluded that the frog represented a previously unknown species. It was recently described in the open-access journal ZooKeys. The species name, Hyloscirtus hillisi, honors Dr. David Hillis, a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, who discovered three closely related frog species in the same genus in the 1980s, while conducting a series of field trips to the Andes of southern Ecuador. Throughout his career, Dr. Hillis has made significant contributions to the knowledge of Andean amphibians and reptiles. Despite being newly described, Hyloscirtus hillisi is already at risk of extinction. It has a small distribution range near a large-scale mining operation carried out by a Chinese company. Habitat destruction in the region has been recently documented by the NGO Amazon Conservation. ### Original source: CORVALLIS, Ore. - Scientists have published a novel method for counting Pacific salmon - analyzing DNA from the slime the fish leave behind in their spawning streams. The study, funded by The National Geographic Society, is published in the journal Molecular Ecology Resources. "When we analyzed the environmental DNA sloughed into water from salmon tissues including mucus and skin cells, we got very accurate counts," said Taal Levi, an ecologist at Oregon State University and lead author on the study. "This is a major first step for more informed salmon management decisions because it opens up the possibility to affordably monitor many more streams than the few that are currently monitored." Pacific salmon are a keystone resource in the Pacific Northwest, with an economic impact of well over $500 million each year in Alaska alone. Currently, spawning salmon are counted at just a few streams due to the reliance on human counters, or in rare cases, sonar. Five species of Pacific salmon - pink, chum, sockeye, coho, and chinook - are distributed through more than 6,000 streams in southeast Alaska alone. More than 1,000 of those streams host spawning salmon. Salmon are anadromous: They migrate from home streams to the ocean as juveniles, and return a few years later as adults to spawn. Anadromous fish such as salmon provide a straightforward scenario for testing whether environmental DNA (eDNA) can be used to count fish, because large numbers of salmon release their DNA as they pass a fixed sampling point, either as they swim up a river or stream as inbound adults or swim downstream as outbound juveniles. In many rivers and streams, including the majority of freshwater systems in Alaska, adult salmon returning to spawn are poorly monitored, as are fry and smolt production resulting from spawning salmon. For the study, researchers collected water samples in 2015 and 2016 near the Auke Creek research weir, nearly 16 kilometers north of Juneau. Weirs consist of a series of closely spaced bars across an entire stream to prevent the passage of salmon, except through a single, narrow gate over which a human observer tallies and identifies salmon as they file through. The Auke Creek weir, cooperatively operated by the National Marine Fisheries Service, in collaboration with the University of Alaska and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, is known as one of the most accurate fish counters in the world, Levi said. From those samples they passed 1 liter of water through simple filters to collect DNA floating in the water, and then quantified the amount of sockeye and coho salmon DNA present on each filter at Levi's OSU lab. Because the concentration of eDNA in stream water results from both the amount of DNA shed by fish and the flow of water, the product of eDNA concentration and streamflow can be used to calculate absolute quantities of eDNA, Levi said. Once they amplified the eDNA, the researchers compared those figures with the daily census of sockeye and coho salmon carried out at the Auke Creek research weir, to determine whether the eDNA accurately predicted the number and species of fish that passed through the weir. "We take extracted DNA and we quantify the amount of DNA that belongs to coho salmon or sockeye salmon. The counts derived from eDNA were remarkably similar both for returning adult salmon and out-migrating juveniles" Levi said. "Using just one variable - stream flow - combined with the amount of DNA that derived from coho and sockeye salmon - our statistical model did a good job of predicting all the peaks of eDNA, giving us an idea of when, and how many, fish passed through," Levi said. "Now we can get a lot of information from many streams. Having a lot of information that isn't 100 percent accurate may be better for management decisions than having really accurate counts for only four of 6,000 streams, particularly since we have very little data from anywhere on the number of out-migrating juveniles produced by each salmon stream." Using eDNA to count salmon could help agencies save money. The annual cost of a weir is approximately $80,000, not including installation or major maintenance. The cost of each water sample analysis, as used in this research, is $35. This spring, the researchers plan to test OSU-developed automatic water samplers in a dozen streams in southeastern Alaska. ### Levi is an assistant professor in OSU's Department of Fisheries and Wildlife in the College of Agricultural Sciences. Chunyan Yang of the Kunming Institute of Zoology Chinese Academy of Sciences was a co-corresponding author on the study. The research team also included Jennifer Allen, a faculty research assistant in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State; Donovan Bell, John Joyce, Joshua Russell and Scott Vulstek of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Auke Bay Laboratories; David Tallmon, of the University of Alaska Southeast; and Douglas Yu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and University of East Anglia. Cells along the brain's cavities are equipped with tiny hair-like protrusions called cilia. Cilia are still poorly understood, but we know a few things about what can happen if they are not doing their job. People with ciliary defects can develop neurological conditions like hydrocephalus and scoliosis. New research from the Yaksi group at Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) shows that cilia are essential for the brain to develop normally. An article just published in Current Biology gives us more insight into how cilia work and why they are so important to our brains. The human brain has four fluid-filled cavities called ventricles, all of which are interconnected. The ventricles are filled with cerebrospinal fluid, which is also produced here. The cerebrospinal fluid is in constant motion, but the movement varies depending on what we are doing. "Several theories exist, but for many years this circulation of fluid has been recognized as supplying nutrients to the brain, while also removing waste products," says senior researcher Nathalie Jurisch-Yaksi at NTNU's Kavli Institute. "The cerebrospinal fluid flow also contributes to transmitting molecular signals across the brain," says Emre Yaksi, a professor at the Kavli Institute. It would not be possible to conduct this kind of research on humans, due to ethical and practical reasons. Hence, the research group has chosen to do their research on zebrafish larvae. Zebrafish larvae are ideal for this type of research. They are vertebrates just like humans, and can often tell us something about how the human brain develops and works. On a practical note, zebrafish are transparent during their larval stage. This means that it is possible to investigate the brain development and functioning of zebrafish in astonishing detail, without any intervention and without causing them any pain. "We could even investigate each individual cell and cilia," says PhD candidate and co-author Christa Ringers. The Yaksi group researchers found that groups of cells with cilia are organized in different zones of the ventricles, which together create a stable, directional flow of the fluid. Heartbeat pulsations and body movements also affect the circulation of cerebrospinal fluid, but the movements of the cilia appear to provide a stable fluid flow within individual ventricles. This flow is local, so it is largely limited to each of the ventricles. But at the same time it seems that the compartmentalized flow is necessary to keep the ducts between the different cavities open. "If we stop the cilia's motion, the ducts close," says Jurisch-Yaksi. The fluid flow in each ventricle and the exchange of fluid between the different ventricles depend on whether we are at rest or moving. "We found surprisingly little exchange of fluid between the ventricles as long as the fish were at rest, even though the heartbeat pulsations caused some flow between them," says PhD candidate Emilie Willoch Olstad, who is the first author of the article in Current Biology. But all this changes when we move. Locomotion leads to a great degree of fluid exchange between the different ventricles. Cilia fall into one of two main groups, motile or non-motile, also called primary cilia. The Yaksi groups examined motile cilia. Unlike most other cilia in the human body that contribute to the transfer of fluids - such as the brush-like respiratory cilia that protect the lung - the Kavli researchers found that the cilia along the brain ventricles of the developing zebrafish brain have a propeller-like motion, much like the tail of sperm. The cilia may also indirectly contribute to keeping the brain young and healthy. New nerve cells are born near the wall of the fluid-filled brain ventricles. From here, they migrate to different areas of the brain. The differentiation of these new born cells was suggested to be influenced by nutrients and molecular signals that are distributed by the flow of the cerebrospinal fluid near the ventricular walls. In zebrafish, the birth of new neurons, also called neurogenesis, happens not only in the developing brain, but also in adult fish. Recent studies revealed that this kind of adult neurogenesis also happens in humans. Studying the dynamic movements of fluids is extremely complicated and requires a multidisciplinary approach. Mathematicians, engineers and physicists are among those who can help understand how cilia movement occurs and generates flow. The Yaksi group at the Kavli Institute is eager to collaborate with engineers who can help develop better analytical tools and computer models to study fluid circulation in the brain. They are actively looking for people and collaborators with the right skills. And their research is far from over. The next step is to see if it is possible to influence the brain functioning of the zebrafish by manipulating the cilia and vice versa. For example, how would the neural activity, or even circadian rhythms, change when cilia mediated flow is perturbed? The zebrafish are usually far more active during the day than at night. Would altering the cerebrospinal fluid flow change the way fish perceive and respond to their environment during different times of the day? These are the next questions the researchers plan to address. ### 02 January 2019: ERADA Technology Alliance Ltd (ERADA), pioneers of innovative, rapid diagnostic solutions for early detection of infectious diseases, have announced the imminent launch of a world first diagnostic saliva test for malaria. The saliva-based diagnostic tool, to be marketed by ERADA as a Saliva-based Malaria Asymptomatic and Asexual Rapid Test (SMAART) for subclinical infection, is set to transform malaria detection worldwide in the fight against one of the globe's most deadly diseases. Malaria, globally kills an estimated 435,000 each year, mostly children under the age of five, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa. 1 The SMAART detection tool is the invention of leading, U.S based, researchers in the field of malaria diagnostics whose study is published worldwide today, January 2 in the international journal, Science Translational Medicine ERADA's innovative solution is easy- to-use, as it includes a simple device for standardized collection of saliva that can be implemented in the community by health care professionals, teachers and parents; contrasting with invasive blood tests, which must be administered by trained clinicians. Other drawbacks to blood tests include cultural 'blood taboos' existing in many countries whilst, furthermore, skin-prick tests are often stressful for children and parents. Existing tests using blood may be invariably less reliable because subclinical infections with malaria-carrying parasites can be missed, leading some patients to come down with the disease, without knowing they have already been infected. ERADA's SMAART-1, easy-to-use saliva test, leads to early detection, treatment and prevention of the disease as well as reducing further transmission of malaria. ERADA's SMAART saliva test detects a unique biomarker from female parasites circulating in an infected human who is asymptomatic, but is carrying the parasite and likely to come down with malaria within a week. Early, subclinical detection of malaria is crucial to malaria eradication because individuals who carry the parasite without exhibiting symptoms, known as carriers, are the reservoir that leads to infection of mosquitoes and transmission of the disease. Detecting the presence of the parasite before symptoms appear can save lives because malaria visible disease only erupts a couple of days after the mosquito bite. The SMAART detection tool works by detecting a novel biomarker for Plasmodium falciparum parasites. In some areas of the world, the parasites have acquired a mutation and are therefore no longer detected by current blood-based tests. But ERADA's saliva test detects an essential protein the parasite needs for survival, which should avoid the problem of influence from the mutation and keep the test effective long-term. "As someone who has suffered from malaria, I know first-hand that if the parasite had been detected early, I could have been treated and cured before the symptoms of the disease made me unwell," Dr Benji Pretorius, ERADA's founder and Managing Director says." Dr Pretorius continues, "As a practicing clinician myself and following my personal experience of this debilitating disease, I was spurred on to work with my colleague Dr Richard Schmidt in our small community, Musina, in South Africa, together with a global team of scientists." Dr Pretorius continues, "Our vision is to bring to market ERADA's SMAART diagnostic tool as quickly as possible in the belief that it will go on to save literally millions of lives in the future." The World Health Organization's recently published World Malaria Report 2018 reinforces the message that the world is currently behind 2020 milestones of the WHO Global Technical Strategy for Malaria 2016-2030. 1 Reduction in malaria cases has stalled and of particular concern is the report's finding that, in 2017, there were an estimated 3.5 million more cases of malaria in the 10 highest burden African countries. 1,3 "The introduction of SMAART is going to play a major part in achieving effective diagnostic testing and surveillance; as well as prevention and treatment of this disease, and therefore will be a major catalyst in meeting the WHO's 2030 target to reduce malaria incidence and mortality by 90% ," Dr Pretorius says. 2 ### Research and development of this new saliva test was assisted with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2014. This was augmented by the technical expertise of Maryland Innovation Initiative and the Dinglasan Malaria laboratory. This world-first patented technology is licensed exclusively to ERADA Technology Alliance Ltd by Johns Hopkins University and ERADA will bring this innovative diagnostic tool to market in partnership with the Dinglasan Malaria Laboratory based at the University of Florida, U.S; Oasis Diagnostics Corporation, a U.S based oral diagnostic testing company; Fusion Antibodies in the UK and Synergyworx International Holdings, an international investee company with strong humanitarian health interests in Africa. FOR EDITORS: For more information, contact Joanna Scott at pressoffice@eradatechnology.com or +44 (0) 1242 262 977 or +44 (0) 7879 486070 For further information: http://www. eradatechnology. com References 1. World malaria report. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2018: Available at https:/ / www. who. int/ malaria/ publications/ world-malaria-report-2018/ en/ 2. Global Technical Strategy for Malaria, 2016-2030. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2015: Available at https:/ / www. who. int/ malaria/ publications/ atoz/ 9789241564991/ en/ 3. https:/ / www. who. int/ news-room/ detail/ 19-11-2018-who-and-partners-launch-new-country-led-response-to-put-stalled-malaria-control-efforts-back-on-track About ERADA Technology Alliance Ltd (ERADA) ERADA Technology Alliance Ltd (ERADA), was founded by Dr Benji Pretorius and Dr Richard Schmidt, located in Musina, South Africa, and pioneers of innovative, rapid diagnostic solutions for early detection of infectious diseases, including malaria. Dr Pretorius, the company's Managing Director, himself an experienced medical practitioner, is an expert in the field of malaria management and has a long track record of working in the pharmaceutical, health, wellness and fitness industry. ERADA collaborates with the following partners: Dinglasan Malaria Laboratory was established in 2009 as part of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute prior to its transfer to the University of Florida's Emerging Pathogens Institute in 2016. The lab leverages multi-omics approaches to discover, validate and eventually develop enabling technologies focused on malaria elimination and eradication. Oasis Diagnostics Corporation was founded in 2002 to address a growing need for non-invasive saliva based technology for rapid testing, sample collection, and molecular diagnostics [DNA, RNA and proteins] in the Life Sciences and Diagnostics areas. The Company is dedicated to meeting the need for more effective screening tools, which may be applied to the early detection of diseases and medical disorders, utilizing non-invasive test specimens, particularly oral fluids (saliva). Fusion Antibodies is a Contract Research Organisation (CRO) established in 2001 and located in Northern Ireland, UK. Its mission is to enable biopharmaceutical and diagnostic companies to develop innovative products in a timely and cost-effective manner for the benefit of the global healthcare industry. Synergyworx International Holdings offer funding to African Countries through the implementation process provided by way of the Synergyworx International Holdings, Project Financial Development Management (PFDM) Consultancy mechanism. Malaria Facts and Figures Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. It is preventable and curable In 2017, there were an estimated 219 million cases of malaria in 90 countries Malaria deaths reached 435 000 in 2017. The WHO African Region carries a disproportionately high share of the global malaria burden. In 2017, the region was home to 92% of malaria cases and 93% of malaria deaths Children aged under 5 years are the most vulnerable group affected by malaria. In 2017, they accounted for 61% (266 000) of all malaria deaths worldwide. https:/ / www. who. int/ en/ news-room/ fact-sheets/ detail/ malaria On the Cumberland Plateau in eastern Kentucky, surface coal mining is destroying ridgelines and mountaintops, and along with them, the habitat of a surprisingly gentle reptile species - the timber rattlesnake. "Timber rattlesnakes may be the most docile, calm animals of their size in eastern US forests," Thomas Maigret, a researcher from the University of Kentucky, said. "On several occasions, I've witnessed spiders using a rattlesnake as an anchor for a web. Females, especially, move very infrequently, and pose almost no threat to a careful human." Unfortunately for the timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) and other species in this region - both plant and animal - surface coal mining requires complete removal of mature forest cover and the upper soil layers. This means that soil is scraped away, rocks disturbed and dug out, plants and trees removed, or the ridgetop landscape flattened and made more uniform to reach the coal buried in the earth. This alteration eliminates many diverse, unique places for animals to live and hibernate. The central Appalachia region spans eastern Kentucky, northeastern Tennessee, southwest Virginia, and southern West Virginia and is one of the most diverse non-tropical ecosystems in the world with thousands of plant and animal species, many that are only found there. Maigret and his colleagues tracked timber rattlesnakes in a study published today in the Ecological Society of America's journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. The researchers implanted radio transmitters in snakes of the Cumberland Plateau and tracked their movements until they retreated to hibernation sites in the fall. The data gathered provided a roadmap for identifying other potential hibernating sites, or "hibernacula," across the study area. "Snakes of the eastern U.S. vary in their hibernacula selection behavior, and for many species not much is known about hibernacula preferences," Maigret explained. "For example, many aquatic snakes prefer damp hibernacula near the streams where they reside during the summer. But for other species, any warm, protected crevice they can fit into seems to suffice." By analyzing remote-sensing and satellite imagery, mining maps, and permit data from the USGS and other sources, the researchers were then able to determine how mining might affect a wide range of hibernation sites. They found that because timber rattlesnakes tend to hibernate in the same places that make ideal mines, surface mining disproportionately alters or eliminates their preferred habitat. "Other species with habitat preferences similar to timber rattlesnakes - including some snakes - may also be affected disproportionately by mining. On the other hand," Maigret said, "species associated with middle or lower slopes will not be affected by mining to the same extent." In other words, the mining operations here are selecting against timber rattlesnake habitat, effectively cutting into the region's biodiversity. The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 does not require mining companies to reforest the area to the original mountaintop landscape after mining has wrapped up. The law does dictate that the "approximate original contours" of a site be re-established, in an attempt to not leave the area uninhabitable by the species that once lived there. However, it is rare for forests and biodiversity to fully recover from mining-related disturbances, to the detriment of many animals and their habitats. Is the damage done to mountain-tops irreversible? While researchers are actively improving the ability to restore habitats on reclaimed mine lands, surface mining acts as an eraser of unique ecosystems, creating a uniform landscape where there once were diverse habitat options. In the Cumberland Plateau, mining leaves conservation and management efforts very little to work with even after an operation restores the approximate original mountaintop landscape. Still, Maigret is optimistic about the future of restoring mined areas for the docile rattlesnakes. "Coal mining in central Appalachia has serious economic headwinds," he stated, "and may never return to the rates of surface mining of the late 20th century. Timber rattlesnakes are resilient, and their ability to adapt to previous landscape changes - including massive deforestation in the 19th and early 20th century - should not be underestimated." ### Journal Article Maigret T.A., Cox J.J., and Yang J. 2019. Persistent geophysical effects of mining threaten ridgetop biota of Appalachian forests. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. DOI: 10.1002/fee.1992 Authors Thomas A. Maigret, Department of Biology, Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Kentucky John J. Cox and Jian Yang, Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Kentucky Author Contact Thomas A Maigret (thomas.maigret@uky.edu) Philadelphia, January 3, 2019- Psychiatric disorders share common alterations of functional connectivity between three core brain networks involved in cognition, according to a meta-analysis published in Biological Psychiatry. The network alterations were localized in brain regions underlying general cognitive performance. The study suggests that the alterations in these networks contribute to the cognitive dysfunction present in multiple psychiatric disorders. The alterations in functional connectivity, which emerged from a meta-analysis of 242 functional brain imaging studies in people with a variety of psychiatric disorders, were found in the three large-scale networks considered to be particularly important for complex cognition--the default mode network; frontoparietal network; and the salience network. Further, analysis of 363 structural brain imaging studies revealed reduced gray matter that was confined to the altered networks, tightly linking structural and functional alterations. Importantly, the study provides the first evidence from a meta-analysis of common functional connectivity alterations in neurocognitive networks across psychiatric disorders. "This new knowledge calls for studying brain-based diagnostic biomarkers of psychiatric disorders that are beyond traditional diagnostic boundaries," said senior author Yong He, PhD, Beijing Normal University, China. Although psychiatric illnesses are considered to be distinct disorders, cognitive dysfunction appears in most of them. This overlap of symptoms across psychiatric disorders has been a major challenge to precisely categorize patients. Although enormous progress has been made in characterizing the neural correlates of diagnoses and symptoms over the past 25 years, neuroimaging biomarkers have yet to contribute to the psychiatric diagnostic process. "Dr. He and colleagues provide an important clue as to why neuroimaging diagnostic biomarkers have made limited progress," said John Krystal, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry. "This finding pushes us to rethink the potential role of neuroimaging in the diagnostic process." The shared neurocognitive network alterations suggest that neuroimaging may be providing a measure of symptom-related pathology not directly related to the disease process. This could pose a problem, as the study of psychiatric disorders--which are defined by collections of symptoms--is primarily limited to the study of behaviors. It is possible that disease-specific elements of biology exist, but the similarity between disorders in this study indicate that greater efforts may be needed to adjust for common elements of pathology in the search for "disease-specific" biomarkers. ### Notes for editors The article is "Common Dysfunction of Large-Scale Neurocognitive Networks across Psychiatric Disorders," by Zhiqiang Sha, Tor Wager, Andrea Mechelli, and Yong He (https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 1016/ j. biopsych. 2018. 11. 011 ). It appears in Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier. Copies of this paper are available to credentialed journalists upon request; please contact Rhiannon Bugno at Biol.Psych@sobp.org or +1 214 648 0880. Journalists wishing to interview the authors may contact Yong He at yong.he@bnu.edu.cn or +86 8 5880 2036. The authors' affiliations and disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available in the article. John H. Krystal, MD, is Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine, Chief of Psychiatry at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and a research psychiatrist at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. His disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available here. About Biological Psychiatry Biological Psychiatry is the official journal of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, whose purpose is to promote excellence in scientific research and education in fields that investigate the nature, causes, mechanisms and treatments of disorders of thought, emotion, or behavior. In accord with this mission, this peer-reviewed, rapid-publication, international journal publishes both basic and clinical contributions from all disciplines and research areas relevant to the pathophysiology and treatment of major psychiatric disorders. The journal publishes novel results of original research which represent an important new lead or significant impact on the field, particularly those addressing genetic and environmental risk factors, neural circuitry and neurochemistry, and important new therapeutic approaches. Reviews and commentaries that focus on topics of current research and interest are also encouraged. Biological Psychiatry is one of the most selective and highly cited journals in the field of psychiatric neuroscience. It is ranked 6th out of 142 Psychiatry titles and 9th out of 261 Neurosciences titles in the Journal Citations Reports published by Clarivate Analytics. The 2017 Impact Factor score for Biological Psychiatry is 11.982. http://www. sobp. org/ journal About Elsevier Elsevier is a global information analytics business that helps institutions and professionals advance healthcare, open science and improve performance for the benefit of humanity. Elsevier provides digital solutions and tools in the areas of strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support and professional education, including ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, ClinicalKey and Sherpath. Elsevier publishes over 2,500 digitized journals, including The Lancet and Cell, more than 38,000 e-book titles and many iconic reference works, including Gray's Anatomy. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a global provider of information and analytics for professionals and business customers across industries. http://www. elsevier. com Media contact Rhiannon Bugno, Editorial Office Biological Psychiatry +1 214 648 0880 Biol.Psych@sobp.org (Boston)--During the Stone Age ancestral humans lived with a variety of animal species along what was an area of wetlands in the middle of the Jordanian desert. The site, in the town of Azraq Basin, has been excavated and has revealed an abundance of tools and animal bones from up to 250,000 years ago, leading to better understanding of how ancestral humans have adapted to this changing environment. James Pokines, PhD, associate professor of forensic anthropology at Boston University School of Medicine, was a leader of the excavation with a team from the Azraq Marshes Archaeological and Paleoecological Project. The team discovered bone and tooth specimens belonging to wild ancestors of modern-day camels and elephants, as well as horse, rhinoceros, antelope and wild cattle species, among others. Poor preservation of small and less dense bones has resulted in limited conclusions about smaller species of animals that may have inhabited the area during this time. Prior research in the site revealed evidence of butchery, with blood proteins from multiple species appearing on Stone Age tools. "The periphery of the wetlands where large animals drank and grazed would have presented excellent hunting opportunities for ancestral humans. Humans may have also faced their own challenges from other predatory competitors such as lions and hyenas roaming the area," said Pokines, corresponding author of the study. The team's discovery adds important background to a growing picture of land use over time in Azraq Basin. "There are many portions of the globe that we still know so little about in terms of how ancestral humans lived and evolved there and how they adapted to that environment ... we hope to understand how different populations of ancestral humans adapted to this changing, arid environment throughout the Stone Age." The excavation efforts were the outcome of a successful collaboration with Jordanian authorities and according to the researchers has paved the way for future excavations in the region. ### Researchers from the University of Victoria, BC, Canada; University of Wollongong, Australia, and Oklahoma State University also contributed to these findings. These findings appear in the journal Quaternary Research. Funding for this study was provided by an Insight Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. A new Tel Aviv University study finds that microplastics -- tiny pieces of plastic ingested by aquatic life -- are present in solitary ascidians all along the Israeli coastline. Ascidians are sac-like marine invertebrate filter feeders. The research also confirmed the presence of plastic additives, i.e. "plasticizers," in ascidians. Plasticizers are substances added to plastics to increase their flexibility, transparency, durability and longevity. The research was led by Prof. Noa Shenkar of the School of Zoology at TAU's Faculty of Life Sciences and The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History and published in the January 2019 issue of Marine Pollution Bulletin. The study was conducted in collaboration with Prof. Dror Avisar, Head of the Water Research Center at TAU's Faculty of Exact Sciences, and Aviv Kaplan, a postgraduate student in Prof. Avisar's TAU laboratory. "This is the first study that examines plastic additive contamination in marine organisms in the Eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea," says Gal Vered, co-author of the study and a PhD student in Prof. Shenkar's laboratory at TAU. "Solitary ascidians are highly efficient filter feeders and are excellent examples of the state of pollution that affects many other marine organisms. Our findings are extremely disturbing. Even in protected beaches, there was evidence of microplastics and plastic additives in ascidians. In fact, at every sampling site, we discovered varying levels of these pollutants." "This is a direct result of human use of plastic," Prof. Shenkar says. "It may seem that plastic bags and bulky plastic products that we notice floating in the sea are the major problem. But a more important cause for concern is the fragmentation of these products into small particles that are then ingested by many organisms and reach even the deepest zones in the ocean." The researchers developed a novel method for testing for additives in marine life. "Our new chemical analysis method can be used on a variety of soft-tissue marine organisms," Prof. Shenkar continues. "We can now extract phthalates, an additive that's used primarily to soften polyvinyl chloride, from organism tissues without contracting any background contamination from the laboratory equipment itself, which also has plastic components. This was a big challenge because the laboratory is actually a highly plastic 'contaminated' environment." Some 350 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide every year, and the number is rising. The research suggests that if plastic is found in ascidians, it is probably present in other sea creatures. The researchers are currently preparing their results for policymakers interested in preventing further damage to Israel's coastline. They are also continuing to investigate the extent and effect of plastic pollution on the coral reef of Eilat. "By communicating our results to the public, we hope to further enhance public awareness of the actions everyone can take to beat plastic pollution," Prof. Shenkar concludes. ### American Friends of Tel Aviv University supports Israel's most influential, comprehensive and sought-after center of higher learning, Tel Aviv University (TAU). TAU is recognized and celebrated internationally for creating an innovative, entrepreneurial culture on campus that generates inventions, startups and economic development in Israel. TAU is ranked ninth in the world, and first in Israel, for producing start-up founders of billion-dollar companies, an achievement that surpassed several Ivy League universities. To date, 2,500 US patents have been filed by Tel Aviv University researchers -- ranking TAU #1 in Israel, #10 outside of the US and #43 in the world. Jo, 48, asked for protection last month and is now "held in a safe place". He was head of the North Korean delegation since September 2017, when Italy expelled Ambassador Mun Jong-nam for the sixth nuclear test in the North. Rome (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Jo Song-gil, North Korean ambassador to Rome, has applied to the Italian authorities for asylum for himself and his family, in an attempt to desert towards an unidentified Western country. South Korean media reported the news today, citing diplomatic sources. Jo, 48, asked for protection last month and is now "protected in a safe place". If confirmed, his would be the first desertion of a North Korean diplomat since 2016, when London deputy-Ambassador Thae Yong-ho fled to Seoul with his wife and son. Jo was the head of the North Korean delegation in Rome since September 2017, when Rome expelled Ambassador Mun Jong-nam after the sixth nuclear test in the North. The Jo family lived in Rome since 2015 without close relatives in Pyongyang. This is a privilege granted only to the upper echelons of North Korean power, because Pyongyang is used to use the families of officials as a deterrent to desertions. According to Seoul media, Jo is "the son or son-in-law of one of the highest exponents of the regime". US wants to keep protecting YPG terrorists Trump said on Wednesday the United States would get out of Syria slowly over a period of time and would protect the US-backed YPG terrorists in the country as Washington draws down troops. US President Donald Trump did not provide a timetable for the planned military exit from Syria, which he announced last month against the advice of top national security aides and without consulting lawmakers or US allies participating in anti-Islamic State operations. "WE ARE GETTING OUT SMART" During a Cabinet meeting at the White House in front of reporters, Trump said he had never set a reported four-month timetable for the withdrawal of 2,000 American troops stationed in Syria amid a battle against Islamic State militants. Were getting out and were getting out smart, Trump said. I never said Im getting out tomorrow. He declined to be specific about how long troops would remain in Syria. In recent days, Trump appeared to back off from any hasty pullout and stressed that the operation would be slow. Were slowly sending our troops back home to be with their families, while at the same time-fighting Daesh remnants, he said on Twitter on Monday. "WE WANT TO PROTECT KURDS NEVERTHELESS" US commanders planning the US withdrawal are recommending that YPG terrorists battling Daesh be allowed to keep US-supplied weapons, according to US officials. Trump said he was not happy that the Kurds were selling oil to Iran, but that he wanted to protect them either way. I didnt like the fact that theyre selling the small (amount of) oil that they have to Iran, and we asked them not to sell it to Iran... Were not thrilled about that. OK? Im not happy about it at all, he said. We want to protect the Kurds, nevertheless. We want to protect the Kurds, but I dont want to be in Syria forever. Its sand. And its death. Syria operations will be continued, says Macron The fight against Daesh in Syria is not over, French President Emmanuel Macron told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in a phone call on Wednesday. France has earlier revealed its intention to remain in Syrian regions liberated from Daesh following US President Donald Trumps announcement. On Dec. 23, Macron had expressed his disappointment with his American counterparts decision to withdraw troops from Syria. Macron said in a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin that the fight against terrorism is Frances top priority in Syria, the Elysee Palace said in a press release on Wednesday. "THIS FIGHT IS NOT OVER" "The president of the French republic recalled that the fight against terrorism was Frances top priority in Syria so as to eradicate Daesh terrorist group and counteract any resurgence of terrorism in the region," the statement said. It added that "this fight has not yet been over and will be continued on the ground by the international coalition." The press release says that "the president of the republic underlined that France has been adherent more than ever to a political solution to the Syria crisis in line with Resolution 2254 of the United Nations Security Council, the only possible way of stability and protection for the civilian population and for the world." "He pointed out in this context that the concerned states should take full responsibility to ensure a reliable constitutional process along with free and fair elections monitored by the UN," it says. 1st trial session in Khashoggi murder case held Riyadh Saudi Public Prosecution has demanded death sentences for five of 11 defendants. The first trial session of suspects in the Jamal Khashoggi murder case was held Thursday in the Saudi capital Riyadh. A criminal court in Riyadh held the trial session for 11 defendants, local media reported, citing a statement issued by the Saudi Public Prosecution. The Public Prosecution has demanded the death sentence for five defendants. Khashoggi, an occasional contributor to The Washington Post, went missing after entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. After producing various contradictory explanations, Riyadh acknowledged that he was killed inside the consulate building, blaming the act on a botched rendition operation. I was born near Denver, later moved to Selah, Washington and then attended the University of Kansas, graduating in May 2017. Prior to Enid News, I interned with the Yakima-Herald Republic and wrote arts and features for the University Daily Kansan. Follow Ryan Miller | area reporter Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today The Service celebrating and honoring the life of Thomas "Tommy" Crawford, 74, of Enid are pending under the direction of Brown-Cummings Funeral Home. Condolences and special memories may be made to the family online at WWW.Brown-Cummings.Com I am a retired Naval Officer and small business owner, outside of my work at the News & Eagle. My wife Tammy and I enjoy serving together at church and attending Gaslight and ESO. We have two daughters, three dogs and little free time. Follow James Neal | Religion/Health Reporter Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today Hong Kong (AsiaNews) - Msgr Michael Yeung Ming-Cheung, bishop of Hong Kong, died this morning at the age of 73. He was hospitalized at Canossa Hospital on December 27th. Yesterday he was taken to intensive care and received a visit from various personalities of the diocese, including Cardinals Joseph Zen and John Tong. Some social media had already spread the news of his death last night. But this morning the diocese issued a statement in which it was said that Msgr. Yeung had had liver problems due to cirrhosis, that his condition had deteriorated yesterday, but that "at present his condition remains stable". And it was added that "It is the wish of Bishop Michael Yeung that there are no visitors, no flowers", adding an invitation to the faithful to pray for him. In the past few years, Msgr. Yeung had battled cancer. Auxiliary Bishop of Hong Kong since 2014, he had been made ordinary of the diocese by Pope Francis in August 2017, to succeed Card. Tong. Bishop Yeung was born in Shanghai on December 1, 1945 into a Catholic family and arrived in Hong Kong when he was four years old. He worked in an import-export company before entering the Hong Kong seminary at the age of 26. He was ordained a priest on 10 June 1978. He completed studies in communications (Syracuse, USA) and in philosophy and education (Harvard, USA). Since August 2003 he had been head of the Caritas of the territory and vicar general since 2009. Rather phlegmatic in his relations with China - above all on the question of relations between Beijing and the Vatican he was unstinting in demanding respect for Hong Kong under the "one nation, two systems" principle, which guarantees the territory a wide autonomy. With a strong personality, considered by many to be too coarse, Msgr. Yeung has always had the situation of young people in the territory at heart, penalized by unemployment, the costs of housing, the lack of democracy. In one of the last interviews given to AsiaNews, he said: " "Our young people are victims of economic development, they are very frustrated because they demand more justice and more freedom. Yet they are impatient, they seek immediate gratification. But you cannot plant a tree in the morning and catch the fruits in the evening. It is urgent to reach out and be close to young people to help them discern, to help them in their daily lives so that they understand and live the call of Jesus. It is necessary to help them to mature in a spirit that gives them the strength to go forward". Last June, during the ad limina visit to the Vatican, he had asked Pope Francis to be able to resign as a bishop soon to devote himself to his commitment with Caritas, whom he loved so much. The diocese of Hong Kong has an auxiliary bishop in the person of Msgr. Joseph Ha Chi-shing, already regional superior of the Franciscan Order of the Friars Minor of Hong Kong. Mrs. Alberta Hamley Griffin, 97, of Athens, Alabama, died Wednesday, June 9, 2021, at Athens Health and Rehab. A Graveside Service will be 1:30 p.m. Sunday in Copeland Cemetery with Keith Griffin officiating. No visitation is planned. Spry Funeral Home in Athens is directing the services. Mr The bridge at the intersection of Old Highway 20 and Mooresville Road has been closed to thru traffic since December 2015. Work is now underway to replace the bridge, and officials anticipate it will be open by the end of October. Mexico City, Jan 3 (epa-efe).- An Aeromexico passenger jet was evacuated Thursday after its tires caught fire while landing in the western Mexican city of Guadalajara, the airline reported. "During the landing of flight AM120 MEX-GDL, operating with Boeing 737-800 equipment, smoke appeared (from) the landing gear (and was) brought under control by airport personnel. The 151 passengers on board and the crew were disembarked and they are fine," said the Mexican airline on Twitter. The company said that all "safety protocols" were executed after the incident and work is progressing to "restore normality to operations as soon as possible." On social media, several of the plane's passengers posted images showing how the tires were reduced to half their original size during the landing. "I think this could have been deadly," Ximea Alba said on Twitter. Another passenger uploaded a video where - from inside the aircraft - a hose can be seen spraying the tires and the plane's exterior with water to cool them down. Stay up to date on COVID-19 Get Breaking News Sign up now to get our FREE breaking news coverage delivered right to your inbox. Sponsored By: St Anthony's Hospital The head of Iranian diplomacy invokes "peace for all earth". And prays that no innocent man, woman or child should lose their life. President Rouhani emphasizes the role of Iranian Christians for the development of the country. Armenian Bishop: We need more knowledge of the country in the West. Teheran (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif - author of the historic agreement on nuclear power (the JCPO) of 2015 disavowed by Trump wishes for "peace" in the new year's message of good wishes for the new year for all earth". Addressing the citizens and world leaders, the head of diplomacy in Tehran hopes for a common action against "terrorism, war and hunger in the year 2019". In a post relaunched on twitter, Zardari claims to hope "in a happy, healthy and peaceful New Year". The Iranian leader also says he is praying that no innocent man, woman or child should lose their life because of hunger, conflict or terrorism. Previously it was President Hassan Rouhani himself who addressed a message of good wishes to world leaders and Iranian Christians for the beginning of 2019, saying he was confident that the world could grow "in wellbeing and prosperity" through a collective effort. On the occasion of the New Year, he then met the relatives of the Armenian Iranian martyr Alfred Gabri and war veteran Hasou Keshish Danilian. The head of state thanked the Iranian Armenian community for its contribution with a view to maintaining national security. "Today - said Rouhani - they are ready for further sacrifices and this is truly admirable". He then stressed that Muslims consider Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary as sacred figures and has exalted the Armenians - the most important religious minority in the country - for what was done during the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the war with Iraq between 1980 and 1988. In Iran there are between 300,000 and 500,000 Christians, mostly Armenians, Assyrians and Chaldeans. Christians have representatives in Parliament (Majlis) who enjoy the same rights and representativeness of their Muslim colleagues. Yesterday, Bishop Sipan Kashjian, leader of the Armenians in Isfahan and southern Iran, recalled the religious freedom enjoyed by Christians in the country. "In spite of Western propaganda - he said - the faithful of different religions enjoy complete freedom of worship and can practice freely and independently". "I hope the new year - he concluded - can bring more knowledge and awareness in the world on Iran". As its name suggests, the Dr. William W. Henderson Inclusion School in Bostons Dorchester neighborhood was founded with the goal of fully embracing students with disabilities and their families. You can see that philosophy at work when you walk through the doorliterally. Unlike many schools, the Henderson doesnt require parents to drop off their children at the school entrance. Usually schools make that request so they can efficiently get the kids to their classrooms. But Henderson parents are welcome to take their children right in to the building each daynot just on opening dayand to chat with staff along the way. If they want to walk their student to class, they can come in and feel better and trust that their student is going to be well taken care of, said Patricia Lampron, the principal of the 900-student school, which serves students in pre-K through 12th grade. Thats the beginning of building relationships. You get to know people, and we begin to build partnerships that way. Strong partnerships between schools and parents of students with disabilities go beyond creating a pleasant atmosphere. A strong parent-school bond contributes to student success, research has shown. And in the case of students with disabilities, schools and parents are mandated to work together to draft a students individualized education program. But all too often, that relationship is easily strained. Parents worry that their needs or requests are ignored, and school staff members feel that parent demands are unreasonable. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, parents have the right to legal remedies if they disagree with a school decision. And, though schools win the vast majority of such disputes, even the threat of such an action can leave both parties on edge. Establishing Trust Leslie S. Margolis, a managing attorney for Disability Rights Maryland, said that most parents shes worked with have appropriate expectations. The vast majority of parents that Ive come across know their children very well, Margolis said. They want the services that the law requires. They want staff that cares about their kids. Theyre not expecting their kids to be rocket scientists, unless their kids have potential and want to be rocket scientists. Academic standards have gotten more rigorous over the decades, and with that has come a higher set of goals for students with disabilities, Margolis said. But when parents are told that their children dont need certain accommodations or when theyve had the same IEP for years on end, thats when they end up thinking theres something wrong here. You have to do better for my kid. There are some steps school leaders can take that create the foundation for a future success, however. Amy Gailunas, the director of the lower campus at the Henderson School, said parents often arrive at the school having gone through a bruising mediation process with the district just to get their students enrolled in the school, which has a lengthy waiting list. The first step is to establish trust and collaboration, she said. One of our tenets is, we dont want experts, we want problem-solvers, Gailunas said. A parent has equal voice to a teacher, to a paraprofessional, to a speech and language therapist. Everyone has an important perspective. Source: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act At Henderson, every classroom includes both a general educator and a special educator. Each has 24 students19 students are in general education or have mild to moderate disabilities, such as dyslexia or speech and language impairments. Five students are classified as having significant disabilities that manifest in many different ways. Because there are so many different needs in each class, we kind of respond to the need of the population, Gailunas said. We dont have a wait to fail model. If you need rules-based phonics, like Wilson Reading System or Orton-Gillingham"two educational methods commonly used to for children with dyslexia"well give it to you because you need it. Another facet of the Henderson schools inclusion philosophy is that all needed therapies are given in the regular classroom. That means therapists travel to the classrooms, rather than pulling the students out to a separate location. The school nurse even visits classrooms to feed students who require feeding tubes. The class has to adjust to meet the needs of the child, Gailunas said. Sometimes the parents worry that classroom-based therapy wont be as intensive as their child needs. In such cases, we say, Why dont you come in and lay eyes on it, and see what it looks like? That takes care of a lot of arguments before it gets to the IEP table. And sometimes, a change meant to accommodate a specific child can spread throughout the building. Gailunas told a story about one high-performing classroom where the teachers had abandoned whole-class instruction because two young children with Down syndrome were easily distracted during large-group lessons. The outcomes for all the children in that classroom were so positive that Hendersons lower grades have all set aside whole-class instruction in favor of smaller group and individual work. Eliminate Unequal Dynamics Henderson School used a creative approach with parent Carolyn Kain. Her daughter Mary, now 19, enrolled at age 4 with disabilities including an intellectual impairment and cerebral palsy. Kain fought to have her daughter enrolled at the school, and has since been deeply involved in special education advocacy, including serving as the chairwoman of Boston Public Schools Special Education Parent Advisory Council. Rather than closing ranks, the school opened itself to her. I went to school with her the first six months, full time, said Kain. I knew that no one would know her or her needs. Kain said that first year, I was basically an extra [paraprofessional] in the classroom. But that connection with school staff helped them get to know her daughter as a person, and to be aware of her familys expectations for her. Other schools may not be able to immediately implement the philosophy and practice that Henderson has used for nearly three decades. (The school, once a typical neighborhood school, was converted to an inclusion program in 1989.) But Margolis, the Maryland advocate, said some small shifts in perspective can help build a stronger relationship. For example, she said, during some IEP meetings all the staff members are addressed by their professional titles or their last names. In contrast, parents are just called Mom or Dad. It sets up this absolutely unequal dynamic, that youre not really a member of the team, were the professionals and we know best, Margolis said. Failing to explain acronyms, assessments, and other materials can also lead to problems, Margolis said. Those conversations take time, but its not a short process to really look at how you individualize an education for a child. More Money Needed Kurt Hulett, a former principal in Virginia and Texas who is now an educational consultant, said that schools are constrained by a lack of resources. But, he added, they dont help themselves by not looking for creative ways to solve problems. I dont know if you can legislate common sense and creative thinking, but thats where we need to move, said Hulett, who manages a website called the Center for Special Education Advocacy. He also said school officials can sometimes worry too much if a parent brings an advocate or attorney to such meetings, without keeping in mind that school staff often outnumber parents. You dont want to be arguing over this, Hulett said. Principal, stand up, shake their hand, let them know youre not frustrated and angry that they brought one person to your 12. In the bigger picture, Kain, the Henderson parent, said that Congress needs to put more money into the IDEA. Theyre asking local school districts to foot the bill for the majority of the costs. The needs are rising, and its continuing to put more of a strain on local resources. That strain can lead to conflicts. But children who arent supported in their education will often go on to be dependent on the government later in life, Kain said. Shirking the spending now is backwards thinking, she said. Let's start the new year off with a look at what's happening with Cannabis, a food politics topic because of its edibles. First, the legal status The word is that the market for Cannabis productsincluding edibles and drinkablesconstitutes a "21st century gold rush," despite their illegal regulatory status in the U.S. Illegal? Here's what the the FDA says: 12, Can products that contain THC or cannabidiol (CBD) be sold as dietary supplements? A. No. 13, Is it legal, in interstate commerce, to sell a food to which THC or CBD has been added? A. No As for the status of Cannabis in Canada, the details are here. Cannabis became legal in October, with some amusing results, here. And then, there's the question of Cannabis-infused beer, of all things: Molson Coors: Cannabis beverages could be a $3bn market in Canada: Molson Coors says its well placed to take a "meaningful share" of the cannabis beverage market in Canada when it opens up in the fall of 2019, eyeing the size of a substantial prize Read Cannabis-brewed craft beer: Province Brands of Canada and Lost Craft Beer partner ahead of product launch: Province Brands of Canada and Ontario brewery Lost Craft Beer are partnering to create beer brewed from cannabis instead of barley Read Cannabis-infused beer gets lots of attention, but craft brewers are worried about the competition. "The iPhone is a bigger threat to craft beer than cannabis!" Brewers Association: While some brewers are concerned that cannabis could emerge as a competitor to beer, the Brewers Association has not seen any evidence that it's a huge threat to the craft beer sector. In fact, it believes cannabis could open up new innovation opportunities for the industry Read What About Research on the Effects of THC? It's been difficult to do it because of restrictions on illegal substances, but because the Farm Bill took hemp off the list, observers are hopeful that research possibilities will open up. In the meantime, some research is ongoing. For example: Cannabis increases appetite but whether it causes weight gain is still uncertain. We will be hearing a lot more about this topic, I predict. Stay tuned. Happy new year, stoned or not. If you're interested in submitting a Letter to the Editor, click here. Submit Prisons chief said 'Nawaz has been asked to maintain his room' to serve out seven-year 'rigorous' imprisonment handed down to him. Sharif has been serving a seven-year jail term in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills graft case and being a former prime minister, he is entitled to better facilities including an orderly. (Photo: File) Islamabad: Pakistan's jailed former premier Nawaz Sharif will maintain his prison room on his own as the Punjab province government refused to provide him a prisoner who could serve as his orderly, according to a media report. Sharif has been serving a seven-year jail term in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills graft case and being a former prime minister, he is entitled to better facilities including an orderly. Punjab's Inspector General of Prisons Shahid Saleem Beg said on Wednesday that Punjab government decided that it could not provide a prisoner to Sharif who could serve as his orderly, the Dawn reported. The prisons chief said "Nawaz Sharif has been asked to maintain his room" to serve out the seven-year "rigorous" imprisonment handed down to him in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills/Hill Metal Establishment reference. The prisons chief said Sharif's case was highly sensitive and he could not be allowed to go outside his barracks in the prison. He said Sharif's "rigour had been kept within his barracks". However, he later clarified that Sharif had not been put to any rigour, adding that the jail manual allowed elderly inmates certain concessions on that count. "Any issue related to Nawaz Sharif in jail could bring a bad name to Pakistan," Beg said. An anti-corruption court in Pakistan on December 24 sentenced the ousted premier to seven years in jail in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills graft case but acquitted him in the Flagship Investments case, concluding a series of three court cases against the Sharif family in the high-profile Panama Papers case. Where are the best places to shop? Who gives the best haircut? Who cooks the best burger? Join our readers in selecting the "Best of Windham." Make your picks! Readers Survey As our valued readers, we want to hear from you. Please take a moment to fill out the survey below. - Thank you, Eastern Arizona Courier Click Here The attack on December 2, 2015, killed 14 people and injured 22 others The court said that the attack was not the direct result of the companies alleged providing of resources to Islamic State. A federal judge has dismissed lawsuits seeking to hold Facebook, Google and Twitter liable to victims of the December 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California for letting Islamic State flourish on their social media platforms. In a decision late Monday, US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler in San Francisco said the attack, which killed 14 people and injured 22 others, was not the direct result of the companies alleged providing of resources to Islamic State. A contrary conclusion poses boundless litigation risk and is not tenable given how interconnected communication services are with modern economic and social life, the judge wrote. Beeler also found no liability for aiding and abetting terrorism under the 2016 Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), finding allegations only that the companies were generally aware that Islamic State used their services. The plaintiffs included victims and relatives of victims of the Dec. 2, 2015 attack at a government building by Syed Farook, 28, a US-born son of Pakistani immigrants, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 29, a native of Pakistan. Authorities have said the couple was inspired by Islamist militants. Both died soon after the attack in a police shootout. Islamic State said Farook and Malik were two of its followers. Beeler dismissed the lawsuits with prejudice, meaning they cannot be filed again, citing other courts rejections of similar claims in other cases. Federal law gives internet companies broad immunity from liability for content posted by users. Keith Altman, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, on Wednesday said the decision was not a surprise, and that issues including the impact of JASTA and what constitutes direct liability should be addressed at the appellate level. Facebook, Google and Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Google is a unit of Alphabet Inc. Altman plans on Jan. 15 to ask the federal appeals court in Cincinnati to revive a similar lawsuit against the three companies over the June 2016 shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which killed 49 people. The shooter, New York-born Omar Mateen, who was later killed by police, had pledged allegiance to Islamic States leader. The cases are Clayborn et al v Twitter Inc et al, US District Court, Northern District of California, No. 17-06894; and Megalla et al v Twitter et al in the same court, No. 18-00543. The first anniversary of the tragic death of Japanese national Yosuke Sasaki will be marked by a wreath-laying ceremony and a mass in Dundalk this morning. 24-year-old Yosuke was tragically killed in a knife attack as he walked home via the Avenue Road following a shift at National Pen on January 3 last year. A wreath-laying ceremony will take place close to the scene where the attack took place on the Avenue Road which will be followed by an anniversary mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral Dundalk at 10am this morning. Management and staff at National Pen and a representative from the Japanese Embassy have also been invited to attend the event. All are welcome to attend. Yosuke hailed from the Japanese city of Ebina-shi and worked in National Pen manning the phones for service calls for the Japanese market. They told us they are releasing the body but have not told us a cause of death, Crisy said. My brother received a call from a crime unit in Georgia, so that tells you something. He is so devastated. We would love to know what happened. Im afraid what will happen (with the investigation). Hes not some boy from some nearby prep school. He had a very rough lifestyle. Our family has tried to help him for many years. Its the most painful thing. We are also still trying to find out any details we can. Other than knowing he was likely killed and dumped in the lake, we are still in the dark. We need answers and none of us live in the area. We all loved Kaylab. Hyperbole is nothing new in Washington, D.C., or in politics in general, for that matter. Politicians routinely characterize situations to suit their ends, and the escalation of such revisionism has deepened the divide among Americans of differing philosophies. One politicians take on the government shutdown takes the discussion into the realm of the absurd. Unfortunately, that congressman represents a district of Alabama in the U.S. House. In a recent interview, U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks made a tremendous leap to suggest Democratic congressional leaders have American blood on their hands because they havent provided funding for the presidents proposed wall along the border of the United States and Mexico. "It's a very tough position that the Democrats have put us in. One the one hand, you've got thousands of Americans who are dead each year because the Democrats' refusal to secure our borders. Those Americans are dying either because they've been murdered by illegal aliens, vehicular homicides by illegal aliens, or the illegal narcotics that are shipped into our country by illegal aliens and their drug cartels with the drug overdoses that are in the tens of thousands of lost American lives per year," said Brooks in a Washington Post report. Houston-Henry County District Attorney Pat Jones is considering bringing former district attorney Doug Valeska back into the prosecutors office. Jones told the Dothan Eagle Wednesday that he has been in contact with Valeska. I have spoken with Doug, Jones said. If he is interested, my intentions are to bring him back to help with the Southeast Alabama Child Advocacy Center with seminars or cases involving elder abuse. I think we could use him, and we need good people. Valeska served five terms as district attorney of Houston and Henry counties. His prosecutions resulted in numerous capital murder convictions. During his tenure, he helped start several programs including the Southeast Alabama Child Advocacy Center and Wiregrass Angel House. The Child Advocacy Center assists children believed to be victims of crime. The Angel House provides many types of assistance to crime victims and provides ongoing assistance to the family members of homicide victims. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Valeska retired from his position as district attorney in January 2017. In October 2015, the Alabama Ethics Commission ruled he committed two minor violations of the Alabama Ethics Law. The new political party founded by former Sin Fein TD Peadar Toibin will hold a public meeting in Donegal next week. The Meath West TD resigned as a member of Sinn Fein in November. He had been suspended from the party for six months after voting against abortion legislation. In a statement he said the All Ireland Movement would hold it's first public meeting in the Clanree Hotel in Letterkenny on January 8 at 7.30pm. Mr Toibin said the new party has had an avalanche of support in the first four weeks of its existence with 1,400 people signed up as members and eight elected representatives declared as members. He said it has 20 new cumann throughout the country and aims to have 100 Cumann before the end of February. "Our party is a 32 county party that seeks to unite the people of Ireland north and south. We seek to crowbar Economic Justice to the top of the agenda despite a political establishment that is happier to talk about the culture wars. "Ireland is turning into a city-state. Dublin is an outlier in European terms with regards the size of the population and economic activity in comparison to the rest of the country. Rudderless spatial development is empting rural Ireland west of the Bann, in the border region and the western seaboard. Demand must be met by infrastructure on the east coast for sure but new infrastructure must stimulate population growth on the west coast. Brave decisions must be made to build a small number of urban counterbalances on the west coast". "All of the necessary economic and social supports must be provided to mothers and families to ensure that they know that they can raise their children in confidence. We need to be pro-life for the whole life. Shockingly in the Dail FF, FG, SF and the Labour party are in lockstep in opposition to a range of simple humanitarian amendments such as pain relief for the unborn child and a ban on abortion on the basis of disability. FG TDs say that abortion survival is a fairy story. FF TDs state that abortion regret is Makey Uppy. People cannot tell the difference between Lisa Chambers, Ruth Coppinger or Louise O'Reilly anymore. "People are seriously frustrated with the political establishment. They are angry with a political system that sees politicians continuously say one thing and do another, where politicians are more loyal to the political parties than the citizens that they serve, they are frustrated that so few will stand against the prevailing winds of the establishment. Respectful opposition is not the enemy. Indeed it is a critical part of functioning democracy. Indeed if you silence a large minority, you push them to the margins. If you push them to the margins they will vote for people on the margins too. This is what has happened in the US, Britain and now in France. One of the engines of this political uniformity is the party system that punishes those who question the prevailing winds of the day and interprets blind conformity as loyalty." A Belleek-based councillor has urged to anyone with information relating to a Christmas tree being cut down and a car being vandalised in the village to contact PSNI officers. The tree was cut down after 3am on the morning of December 26. The incident involving the car took place on Friday, December 28 at 6pm on Main Street, Belleek. The community took to social media and voiced their concern in relation to the Christmas tree incident on social media. The local SDLP councillor, John Coyle described the act as ridiculous. "It can only be described as an immature. The Christmas tree was the focal point for the community during the festive period. It really did dampen the spirit of the community." He said that the electric wire connecting the lights on the Christmas tree was also cut: "Whoever did this could have electrocuted themselves as well. We have no idea why someone would do this." The councillor said that he couldn't be certain that the two acts of vandalism were related. He said: "Somebody could have done that when they were intoxicated." He urged anyone with any information to call the PSNI. A competition which helps to engage people with important global issues could see the winners on a trip to the beautiful island of Greece. The ActionAid Speech Writing Competition 2019, which is now in its fifth year, aims to engage young people aged 14-17 with global issues, gender equality and sustainable development, and challenges them to use their voice to create positive change. Eight young people will be shortlisted to deliver their speech at the prestigious national final in Dublins Royal Irish Academy on March 20. The prize for the top two winners is a trip to Greece, where they will have a unique opportunity to see ActionAids work first hand and learn about how they themselves can make meaningful change. The CEO ActionAid Ireland, Siobhan McGee said: "The competition is an exciting way for young people to voice their opinion on issues that matter to them, whilst developing their public speaking skills and confidence. Each year the number of entries continues to grow and we hope that this year is no exception. The quality of entries from Donegal has been consistently high and I would strongly encourage all young people to enter." ActionAid is committed to providing long term support to the most marginalised women and their children in some of the poorest communities across the world, so they can live a life free of violence and discrimination. The competition is funded by Irish Aid. For further details and how to enter please visit https://actionaid.ie/speech- writing-competition, call 01 8787 911 or email info@actionaid.ie. January 18 marks is the final date for entries to the ActionAid Speech Writing Competition 2019. A larger than usual number of people converged on Gaoth Dobhair for this years Scoil Gheimhridh which took place last weekend and came to a close on New Year's Day. This year in its 25th year, formerly Scoil Gheimhridh Frankie Kennedy, this is the fifth year under the new organisers, Comharchumann Forbartha Ghaoth Dobhair. The main aim of the Scoil Gheimhridh is to pass on through sharing knowledge and nurturing talent, the joys of traditional Irish music with special emphasis of songs and music from the Donegal Gaeltacht. Dermy Diamond officially opening Scoil Gheimhridh Ghaoth Dobhair The Scoil Gheimhridh was officially launched in Teach Hiudai Beag, Bunbeg last Thursday evening. Long term friend of the Scoil Gheimhridh, Professor Dermy Diamond was given the honours to perform the official opening. He is recognized internationally for his work in science as director of the National Centre for Sensor Research at Dublin City University. He was recently a recipient of an honorary Doctor of Letters for his services to science and traditional music. Born and raised in Belfast, Dermy is a traditional musician who has a great grasp of Donegal fiddle music. His diverse repertoire and style continues to be influential and inspirational within the traditional music community. Among those present at the opening ceremony were: Lukas, Ilenia, Silvia and Jennifer from Switzerland while James travelled all the way from South Africa. This is his twentieth year for Toru Kumagai from Japan to attend the Scoil Gheimhridh. Also there were: Patsy Ryab from England, Jonny Giordano from the United States and James Forbes Birnie from Scotland. Speaking at the launch Professor Diamond said this event is very important to a place like Gaoth Dobhair. It attracts people to the area which is known as a haven for traditional music with stunning landscape and a great place to live in. He said his father came to Rann na Feirste eighty years ago to learn Irish. His parents had been coming to the area for many years and they spent their honeymoon here in 1950. Harold Juengst and Caitlin Ui Dhuibhir He learned the banjo and guitar and said he has fond memories of playing at sessions at Teach Hiudai Beag where the late Francie Mooney was a regular. In 1970 he and a few of his mates formed a band called Buachailli and said Francie Mooney was their hero. He added that Francie would welcome musicians to join him and his family members at the sessions. He said he had fond memories The master of ceremony was Donal O Cnaimhsi, Oifigeach Pleanala Teanga do cheantar, Gaoth Dobhair, Anagaire, Rann na Feirsde and Loch an Iuir. Cathal O Gallchoir, Manager of An Chrannog, Derrybeg also spoke and he paid tribute to everyone who helped and co-operated with them in organizing the Scoil Gheimhriadh. He thanked Conor Byrne for drawing up the programme for the Scoil Gheimhridh. He also thanked all their sponsors. He said it was gratifying to see familiar faces at the Scoil Gheimhridh and added he hoped that they enjoy the event. Donal and Eibhlin Ni Chnaimhsi, Sue Johnston, William Hewitt and Ann Marie Collins The task is horribly difficult as cross-cutting interests intervene to tweak and change the shape the elegant simplicity of the idea. The consensus among political parties, in opposition to each other or in partnerships, is that democracy is in danger. The content of the danger varies on the perspective. To BSP supremo Mayawati, the false cases against innocent dalit and Scheduled Caste protesters in the farmers agitations in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh that contributed to the democratic uprising against the BJP governments is a measure of the crisis. To Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it is Mamata Banerjees ban on the rathyatra to save democracy that is the measure of the problem. As the champions of democracy prepare to defend the spirit of the endangered idea in the 2019 elections, the content as well as the interpretation of the spirit of democracy will go through multiple revisions. With as many critics as there are parties, the intensity of the confrontation is likely to be greater than ever before, as the polity is divided between those who seek a mandate to change the basic character of the diverse, secular institutions and system and those who defend the Constitution and its commitment to tolerance and accommodation of differences. The parallel dynamic is regional parties working collaboratively to defeat the absolutely undemocratic desire of a homogenised polity and society that threatens the very existence of these representatives of fragments of interests that constitute the republic is a plan; it has made some progress, but it needs to be taken off the drawing board and implemented in every state and constituency. The task is horribly difficult as cross-cutting interests intervene to tweak and change the shape the elegant simplicity of the idea. The difficulties are beginning to surface. The Congress is being called out by Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav, who is allegedly miffed at being left out in Madhya Pradesh, on its commitments to the idea of Opposition unity on the one hand and the right to dissent on the other. The move is a complicated manoeuvre in measuring the Congress and cautioning it against taking any political party for granted. The exercise of regional parties weighing up each other and the Congress as a partner in the race to defeat the BJP and undo the design of a homogenised and unified India under the Sangh Parivars reign is just beginning. The bypolls in Uttar Pradesh where the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party combined to humiliate Yogi Adityanath and the Sangh Parivar was a small-scale pilot of a complex experiment in the politics of regional parties and national behemoths. While the SP-BSP partnership will probably endure as it has the capacity to overcome the entirely expected crises over seat-sharing closer to the election date, the relationship with the Congress is still in the making. In other states, like West Bengal, there is little chance that the Trinamul Congress will sacrifice and compromise to accommodate any other party under the formula floated by TMC boss Mamata Banerjee of one candidate-one constituency as she goes into an election where the BJP is presenting itself as the challenger. For the Trinamul Congress, no other party can mobilise as well as it can against the BJP. Effectively, this will overturn the formula, because there is only a slim chance that the Congress will withdraw itself from a serious contest for seats and the CPI(M)-led Left Front is too implacable an enemy of the Trinamul Congress to leave it all to Ms Banerjee. Enmities of the past and the present will certainly influence the shape and size of the idea of a Federal Front. It will also influence the relationship of the federating units with the Congress. The regional parties were born as anti-Congress formations, representing caste, region and local interests and aspirations. By identifying the BJP as the common enemy and uniting against it is a powerful glue to keep the idea going. Making it robust and durable is a different matter. The Federal Front is not a chaotic mix of parties cooked up as an inedible mess. Nor is the Federal Front a coalition in the sense in which coalitions were brokered before 2004. This is a new dynamic, and has yet to shape itself. There are leaders currently exuding bonhomie by exchanging visits and the optics of collaboration, like N. Chandrababu Naidu and K. Chandrashekar Rao. There are preparations afoot for grand-standing as a collective on Kolkatas Brigade Parade Ground on January 19. The choice of place is significant as it was also the location of a similar show of anti-Congress regional (including then powerful CPI-M under Jyoti Basu) party unity. It has resonance; but it has not acquired the substance that would make it a coalition. Without a structured coalition, the post-poll scenario becomes difficult to imagine. Perhaps no coalition in the old-fashioned sense is possible and the idea of the Federal Front, where each party negotiates with its competitor to defeat the BJP, is the sort of open-ended partnership that Indian politics has thrown up as an alternative way of maximising its strength by pooling together. But something is needed in terms of a formulation to make the act of establishing an anti-BJP front a working model. The Federal Front is a name, and it has yet to be formally launched. No matter how many times Mamata Banerjee, N. Chandrababu Naidu and others iterate a Federal Front and Rahul Gandhi talks about a Mahagatbandhan, nothing has been established as yet. It is still an impromptu reaction to the BJPs overweening ambitions of one party-one country desire and the hangover of anti-Congress politics. The January 19 Brigade Parade Ground rally may put more substance into it. It may also trigger contention, as parties like the Trinamul Congress demand that its current domination of West Bengals parliamentary seats be extended with the support of other parties. The crux of the matter is that every regional party wants enough seats in Parliament to make its position better when bargains are struck over cutting up the pie, if the BJP is defeated. As the regional party with the most number of seats, Ms Banerjee will not give up an inch of the advantage she has in national politics. The same is true for all the regional leaders, for whom a role in national politics is a necessary part of the dynamics of dominating the politics within their states. Isro plans 32 space missions, including Chandrayaan-2, in 2019 India plans to launch 32 space missions, including its second lunar mission Chandrayaan-2, to land on the moon with lander and rover, in 2019, Isro chairman K Sivan has said. The Rs800-crore lunar mission will be the 25th from the second launch pad of the spaceport at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, about 90 km northeast of Chennai. The year 2019 promises to be much more challenging to the Isro community with 32 planned missions (14 launch vehicle, 17 satellite and 1 technology demonstration mission). This includes the most complex Chandrayaan-2, which will be the 25th mission from SLP, and the development flights of SSLV," Sivan said in a message to Isro employees on the New Year on Tuesday. Gaganyaan activities will go in full steam to accomplish the various development and qualification milestones, he said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi`s announcement of Gaganyaan on August 15 last year has allowed the space agency to fulfill its dream of undertaking a human spaceflight programme, Sivan said. The pad abort test held on July 5, 2018 to test the escape system of the crew module has given Isro confidence to pursue the human space mission, he added. Isro is also aiming to re-instate our microwave remote sensing capability through the RISAT series and attain operational geo-imaging capability through the GISAT series. It is planned to progressively improve the payload capability of GSLV and its variants. The country will meet the high throughput bandwidth requirement of Digital India and also in-flight connectivity with the launch of GSAT-20. On the application side, crop production estimation will be enhanced to cover 10 additional crops and also provide vital inputs for water and energy security, Sivan said. "It is planned to improve the payload capability of Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) and its variants," he added. Isro is organising a yearlong celebration commencing 12 August 2019, which is the birth centenary of the founding father of Indian space programme, Vikram A Sarabhai. Isro will also host of national and international events such as the establishment of Department Chairs/Fellowships/Visiting scholarship in universities, which were connected with Dr Sarabhai during his formative years. Recounting the year gone by, Sivan said 2018 had many firsts for ISRO, which undertook 16 missions, of which seven were accomplished in 35 days. "The national confidence in Isro is reflected in the highest ever allocation of about Rs30,000-crore for 23 new and continuation programmes in a single year," Sivan said. Among the space agency`s achievements in 2018 were launch of the heaviest satellite GSAT-29 (3,423 kg) on November 14 and building the heaviest communication satellite GSAT-11 (5,854 kg), launched on December 5 onboard the Arianespace space agency`s rocket from French Guiana on the north Atlantic coast of South America. ISRO has received approval for the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV), along with a dedicated launch pad, and is working on reusable launch vehicle development, Sivan noted. "The approval of 30 Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and 10 GSLV Mk-III operational flights, along with development of semicryogenic stage, uprated cryogenic stage and all-electric spacecraft propulsion will accelerate ISRO towards new capabilities, Sivan added. The space agency has been working on national programmes for the socio-economic security and sustainable development, including that of national geo-spatial energy information system, enhanced earth observational capabilities, real-time disaster management like during floods in Kerala and northeastern states last year. ISRO has also tied up with the ministry of home affairs to provide technical support for establishing an integrated control room for emergency management, Sivan stated. The space agency is working to step up its launch capacity through a second vehicle assembly building for the second launch pad, which has been completed and is constructing a PSLV integration facility for the first launch pad. Sensex ends over 370 points lower, Nifty below 10,700; metals, auto decline Market at Close: Equities are closing the session with cuts of over a percent on both indices. The Nifty ended below 10,700, while the Sensex ended nearly 400 points lower. Amid an all-round sell-off among sectors, financials, automobiles, and metals bled, while investors also dumped in the midcaps space. All of this added to the volatility on the market. At the close of market hours, the Sensex was down 377.81 points or 1.05% at 35513.71, and the Nifty lower by 120.20 points or 1.11% at 10672.30. The market breadth was negative as 962 shares advanced, against a decline of 1,588 shares, while 151 shares were unchanged. Asian Paints, HUL, and Bharti Infratel were the top gainers, while ONGC, M&M, IOC and Eicher Motors lost the most. Mahindra Lifespace Developers signs agreement with Maharashtra Govt: Deep Mangal Developers, wholly owned subsidiary has signed a non-binding State Support Agreement with the Government of Maharashtra for the development of a world-class tourist destination in Murud in district Raigad. MARKET UPDATE: Equity benchmarks have continued to trade lower, with the Sensex falling 200 points. The Nifty is well below 10,750-mark as well. The Sensex is down 195.78 points or 0.55% at 35695.74, and the Nifty down 70.80 points or 0.66% at 10721.70. The market breadth is negative as 893 shares advanced, against a decline of 1,218 shares, while 129 shares were unchanged. Mahindra & Mahindra: Financial Services plans to raise up to Rs 3,500 crore through public issue of non-convertible debentures (NCDs). The company plans to undertake a public issue of NCDs for an amount aggregating up to Rs 500 crore (base issue size), opening on January 04, 2019. The issue will close on January 25. It will have an option to retain oversubscription up to to Rs 3,000 crore aggregating up to Rs 3,500 crore (tranche I issue). Market opens: Equities have begun the day on a flat note, with the Nifty trading below 10,800. The Sensex is up 28.52 points or 0.08% at 35920.04, while the Nifty is down 2.20 points or 0.02% at 10790.30. The market breadth is negative as 268 shares advanced, against a decline of 139 shares, while 31 shares were unchanged. Wipro, Sun Pharma, Coal India and Titan are the top gainers, while ONGC, TCS, and HPCL lost the most. Among sectors, there is a flat trend across all names. Pain is visible among infrastructure and metals. Rupee opens: The Indian rupee opened at 70.29 per dollar on Thursday versus 70.17 yesterday. Rupee fell for the second successive session following broad strength in the greenback and after global crude oil prices rallied after plunging in the past few sessions. On the domestic front, no major economic data is expected to be released but from the US market participants will be keeping an eye on the employment and manufacturing PMI to gauge a view for the greenback, said Motilal Oswal. Market at pre-open: Equities are likely to see lower start on Thursday, with the Nifty trading around 10,750-mark. The Sensex is up 8.73 points or 0.02% at 35900.25, and the Nifty down 41.60 points or 0.39% at 10750.90. The Indian rupee has opened weak at 70.29 per dollar. Asian markets ends lower: Shares in Asia fell on Thursday and US stock futures dropped sharply after Apple Inc cut its revenue forecast due in part to weaker sales in China, adding to concerns about the slowing global economy. Sea grass saves beaches and money Sea grass beds are so effective in protecting tropical beaches from erosion, that they can reduce the need for regular, expensive beach nourishments that are used now. In a recent article in the journal BioScience, biologists and engineers from The Netherlands and Mexico describe experiments and field observations around the Caribbean Sea. "A foreshore with both healthy sea grass beds as well as calcifying algae, is a resilient and sustainable option in coastal defense", says lead author Rebecca James, PhD-candidate at the University of Groningen and the Royal Dutch Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), The Netherlands. "Because of erosion, the economic value of Caribbean beaches literally drains into the sea." Increasing erosion with climate change The authors looked at beaches of the Caribbean Sea, where almost a quarter of the Gross Domestic Product is earned in tourism, mainly around the beaches. "With the increase of coastal development, the natural flow of water and sand is disrupted, natural ecosystems are damaged, and many tropical beaches have already disappeared into the sea," co-author Rodolfo Silva, professor of Coastal Engineering at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma of Mexico says. "Until now, expensive coastal engineering efforts, such as repeated beach nourishments and concrete walls to protect the coast, have been made to combat erosion. Rising sea-level and increasing storms will only increase the loss of these important beaches." To find out to what extent sea grass beds are able to hold sand and sediment on the beach foreshores, James and professor Tjeerd Bouma (NIOZ and Utrecht University), conducted a simple but telling experiment. With a portable and adjustable field flume to regulate water motion in a Caribbean bay, they observed when particles on the sea bed started moving. "We showed that sea grass beds were extremely effective at holding sediment in place", James says. "Especially in combination with calcifying algae that "create their own sand", a foreshore with healthy seagrass appeared a sustainable way of combating erosion." More seagrass, less erosion Along the coastline of the Mexican peninsula of Yucatan, the team put their theory to the test. "By looking at beaches with and without protection of healthy sea grass beds, we showed that the amount of erosion was strongly linked to the amount of vegetation: more sea grass, meant less erosion", co-author dr. Brigitta van Tussenbroek of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma in Mexico says. "At beaches where sea grass beds were destroyed, the researchers saw a sudden strong increase in erosion, resulting in an immediate need of expensive beach nourishments. Both NGO's and engineering industry welcome these novel insights. "To date, sea grass beds are too often regarded as a nuisance, rather than a valuable asset for preserving touristically valuable coastlines. This study could change this perspective completely", Bas Roels of World Wildlife Fund Netherlands says. "The study opens opportunities for developing new tropical-beach protection schemes, in which ecology is integrated in engineering solutions", adds Mark van Koningsveld, professor at the Delft University of Technology and working for the international marine contractor Van Oord. According to co-author Johan Stapel of the Caribbean Netherlands Science Institute (CSNI) on St. Eustatius this will require a multilateral approach in conservation and restoration, as seagrass faces increasing pressure from various sources of pollution and invasive species. "Fortunately, NIOZ has a strong tradition in successfully restoring all kinds of coastal vegetation from seagrass to mangroves", Bouma concludes. Trump refuses to budge on border wall demand US President Donald Trump has refused to back out of his demand for $5.6 billon funding for what he calls the beautiful southern wall that would effectively keep illegal Mexican immigrants out of the country. Trump, who on Wednesday met top Democratic lawmakers like Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat who is to take over as speaker of the House today, and the Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, also warned that the US government shutdown could last a 'long time' if the two sides failed to reach an agreement over border wall with Mexico. But a meeting which took place one day ahead of a Democrat takeover of the House of Representatives, failed to hammer out an agreement that would end a partial government shutdown as Trump showed no signs of backing away from his insistence on the wall funding. While Democrats said they would support the bills that will open up government, the President refused to give a good reason to continue his shutdown. There were no indications of any progress had been made in resolving the impasse, said Schumer. Republican Kevin McCarthy, who will be minority leader in the next House, said Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress would return to the White House on Friday for more talks. "This doesn't need to go on very much longer," McCarthy said. But Trump said he was prepared to hold out "as long as it takes" to secure the money he is seeking for the border wall. "This is national security we're talking about," he said at a cabinet meeting ahead of the meeting with Pelosi, Schumer and top Republicans. "It's too important a subject to walk away from. "I think the people of this country think I am right," Trump said, adding that it "could be a long time" before the government reopens. The standoff has left hundreds of thousands of federal employees out of job during the Christmas and New Year days and they are unlikely to be back on job until a deal is reached. Trump claims that much of the Wall has already been renovated or built and that Mexico would pay for the wall through the new trade deal between the two countries. Republicans lost 40 seats and their majority in the House in the November midterm elections but they retained control of the Senate by a slim margin. Merchant exporters to benefit from Interest Equalisation Scheme for export credit The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has given its approval to the proposal of the Department of Commerce for including merchant exporters under the Interest Equalisation Scheme (IES) for pre- and post-shipment rupee export credit. Accordingly, they will be allowed interest equalisation rate of 3 per cent on such credit for export of products covered under 416 tariff lines identified under the scheme. These products are largely in MSME/labour-intensive sectors such as agriculture, textiles, leather, handicraft, machinery, etc. The decision will enable exporters to get benefits of around Rs600 crore on interest equalisation, for the remaining period of the scheme. Inclusion of merchant exporters in the scheme is expected to make them more competitive, encouraging them to exports more products manufactured by MSMEs thereby increasing the country's exports. Additional exports by them will increase production by MSME giving a fillip to employment generation as MSME are generally in the employment intensive sectors. The present scheme introduced on 1 April 2015 for a five-year period, provides interest equalisation rate of 3 per cent on pre- and post-shipment rupee credit to all manufacturing exporters exporting identified 416 four digit tariff lines and 5 per cent on all merchandise products manufactured and exported by MSMEs. Merchant exporters were hitherto not covered under the scheme. Exporting community has been persistently demanding inclusion of the merchant exporters also in the ongoing scheme. Merchant exporters play an important role in finding overseas markets, getting export orders, communicating to MSME manufacturers the current preferences, trends and demand for products in international export markets. Merchant exporters also play a pivotal role in exports of MSME manufacturers as MSME manufacturers export significant quantity of products through merchant exporters. High cost of credit equally impact their competitiveness also as they factor the high interest costs in their export costing. Subscriber content preview POCATELLO, Idaho (AP) An anonymous landowner has donated 0.26 square miles of mule deer winter range in Pocatello to a local land trust. The Idaho State Journal reports the donation to the Sage Brush Steppe Land Trust ends previous plans of converting the property into a subdivision. . . . Lear Corporation designs, develops, engineers, manufactures, assembles, and supplies automotive seating, and electrical distribution systems and related components for automotive original equipment manufacturers in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. Its Seating segment offers seat systems, seat subsystems, key seat components, seat trim covers, seat mechanisms, seat foams, and headrests, as well as surface materials, such as leather and fabric for automobiles and light trucks, compact cars, pick-up trucks, and sport utility vehicles. The company's E-Systems segment provides electrical distribution and connection systems that route electrical signals and networks, and manage electrical power within the vehicle for various powertrains, such as traditional internal combustion engine architectures, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and battery electric architectures. This segment's products comprise wire harnesses, terminals and connectors, engineered components, and junction boxes; electronic system products, including body domain control modules, smart and passive junction boxes, gateway and communication modules, integrated power modules, and high voltage battery management systems. It also offers software and connected services comprising Xevo Market, an in-vehicle commerce and service platform that connects customers with the brands and services by delivering sales offers through vehicle touch screens and vehicle-branded mobile applications; and software and services for the cloud, vehicles, and mobile devices that enable consumer e-commerce, multi-media applications, and enterprise services. In addition, this segment provides cybersecurity software; advanced vehicle positioning for automated and autonomous driving applications; and short-range communication and cellular protocols for vehicle connectivity. It offers its products and services under the XEVO, GUILFORD, EAGLE OTTAWA, ConfigurE+TM, INTUTM, LEAR CONNEXUSTM, EXOTM, JOURNEYWARE, ProTec, SMART JUNCTION BOXTM, STRUCSURETM, AVENTINO, and TeXstyleTM brands. Lear Corporation was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Southfield, Michigan. Read More Joshi was speaking with media persons Wednesday evening after attending a college function in Nagp Nagpur: Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) chief Dr Mohan Bhagwat Wednesday night asserted that the Ram Mandir was a certainty and appealed people to have full faith in Lord Rama. Talking to reporters informally on the sidelines of a programme, Bhagwat said that the RSS stand was crystal clear and the Mandir would be built in Ayodhya. Mr Bhagwat was reacting to Prime Minister Narendra Modis statement during an interview that the government was waiting for all legal proceedings. When pointed out that the BJP-led government had little time left before the general elections and imposition of the code of conduct, Bhagwat said time could be changed without elaborating further. When his attention was drawn to a statement made by the RSS general secretary that RSS was firm on the government ordinance, Bhagwat said that both shared the same view. He was general secretary while Bhagwat was the sarsanghchalaka. The RSS on Tuesday night rejected the PMs suggestion that an ordinance to build the Ram Mandir would arise only after the Supreme Court, which was hearing the matter, delivered its verdict. After the RSSs reaction, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) also joined the fountainhead of the sangh parivar and demanded that a law be enacted or ordinance be promulgated to enable the speedy construction of a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. The RSS general secretary, Suresh (Bhaiyyaji) Joshi said on Tuesday night that his organisation wanted that the government should introduce a law to construct the temple, immediately. Joshi was speaking with media persons Wednesday evening after attending a college function in Nagpur. Reacting to an interview of the PM where the PM said that the ordinance on the Ram Mandir could arise only after legal process got over and the SC gave its verdict, Joshi said that he did not know what the PM had said exactly about the issue but the RSS wanted that the government bring a law to build the Ram temple immediately. We stand by our decision, he added. Key Highlights: Juno captured new images of Io, Jupiter's most volcanic moon Moon Europa provides unique lighting condition New images of Jupiters fourth-largest moon Io have been captured by NASAs Juno spacecraft on its seventeenth flyby of the giant gas-filled planet. On December 21, a team of scientists at the Southwest Research Institute's Space Science and Engineering Division trained four of Junos cameras on Io for an hour to view its polar regions and active eruptions. Junos imaging system consists of JunoCam, the Stellar Reference Unit (SRU), the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM), and the Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVS). Volcanic plume seen before Io went behind Jupiter We knew we were breaking new ground with a multi-spectral campaign to view Io's polar region, but no one expected we would get so lucky as to see an active volcanic plume shooting material off the moon's surface, commented Scott Bolton, Principal Investigator and Associate Vice President of the institutes Space Science and Engineering Division. This is quite a New Year's present showing us that Juno has the ability to clearly see plumes. According to the press release sent out by the Southwest Research Institute, JunoCam captured the first images of Io on December 21 between 12:00 PM and 12:20 PM UTC (5:30 PM and 5:50 PM IST) before the moon passed behind Jupiter and into complete darkness at 12:40 PM UTC (6:10 PM IST). But then the sunlight reflecting off Jupiters other moon, Europa, helped to light up Io and its plumes. Taken through Juno's Stellar Referencing Unit (SRU) with soft lighting from Europa This soft moonlight from Europa gave Juno a chance to capture images of Io in a unique lighting condition. As a low-light camera designed to track the stars, the SRU can only observe Io under very dimly lit conditions. Dec. 21 gave us a unique opportunity to observe Ios volcanic activity with the SRU using only Europas moonlight as our lightbulb, said Heidi Becker, Lead of Junos Radiation Monitoring Investigation at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The newly captured images can help the institute study Jupiters interactions with its moons and how phenomena like Ios volcanic activity happen. Inline image courtesy: NASA Related Read: NASA's spacecraft's New Year plans are literally out of this world Highlights: China's lunar probe Chang'e-4 has landed on the far side of the moon Chang'e-4 is the first space probe ever to land on this unexplored side of the moon Communication with the probe happens with the help of relay satellite Queqiao Its a historic day in the world of space exploration for us all. Chinas lunar probe, Change-4, has landed safely on the dark side of the moon, a side that has been until today completely unexplored by humanity. China Xinhua News tweeted the first images of the lunar surface released by the China National Space Administration. In the images, we can see the lunar probes landing site right after it completed descent at 7:56 AM IST (10:26 AM Beijing time). The first images of the far the side of the moon were sent back by Change-4 with the help of Queqiao, a relay satellite that was put in place by the China National Space Administration back in May 2018. Queqiao is an essential element in Change-4s mission because direct communication with the far side of the moon is not possible. As part of the mission there are two more microsatellites, Longjiang-1 and Longjiang-2, which make relayed communications possible. Change-4 has landed at the planned landing site of Von Karman, a 180-kilometre-wide crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin. Change-4s payload includes a lander, which consists of a landing camera (LCAM), a terrain camera (TCAM), and a low-frequency spectrometre (LFS) among other equipment. The payload also includes a rover, which contains a panoramic camera (PCAM) and a lunar penetrating radar (LPR) among other equipment. The lander is also carrying a sealed 3-kilogramme-heavy biosphere, which consists of seeds and insect larvae to test whether they will hatch and grow together in synergy. Change-4 is on the far side of the moon for a reason; its mission includes measuring lunar surface temperature over the course of its mission, measuring chemical compositions of lunar rocks and soils, carrying out low-frequency radio astronomical observation and research, studying cosmic rays, and observing solar corona. Change-4 was launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan on a Long March-3B rocket on December 7. Good luck out there, little rover. Inline images courtesy: China National Space Administration Cover image courtesy: AP Related Read: China to land on the dark side of the moon: Report Highlights: Xiaomi is launching a Redmi phone with 48MP camera It could be Redmi Pro 2 or Redmi 7 Redmi could become an independent brand Last month, a report claimed that Xiaomi is all geared up to launch a Redmi phone with a 48MP rear camera and a punch hole display. Fast forward to January, the Chinese company has now confirmed the report saying that the launch event will be on January 10. Except the date, Xiaomi did not delve out any other information about the upcoming device. There are conflicting reports which claim that the phone will either be the Xiaomi Redmi Pro 2 or the the Redmi 7. The companu has teased an image which has Redmi written on it, alongside the date and time of the launch. A shadow in the image reads 48, possible implying the 48MP camera setup on the device. According to a previous report, the 48MP sensor could be a part of the triple camera setup on the back panel of the phone. Apart from this, this Redmi phone could have a punch-hole in the display to incorporate the selfie camera. Just like the Samsung Galaxy A8s and Honor View 20, this Redmi smarrtphone is expected to have an LCD panel. Interestingly, the Google translation of the Chinese Weibo post made by the company reads, New independent brand, Redmi conference. January 10, open the door!. We cannot confirm the development so this has to be taken with a pinch of salt, however it's possible that Redmi could become an independent brand altogether. As far as the Xiaomi Redmi Pro 2 and the Redmi 7 are concerned, both phones have made an appearance in leaks. The Xiaomi Redmi 7 series have allegedly received 3C certification and have been listed on TENAA. The Redmi Pro 2 was allegedly leaked two weeks ago. Xiaomi Redmi 7 series A report claimed that three models - M1901F7E, M1901F7T and M1901F7C - have received the 3C certification and are listed on the website with a 10W charger. The unidentified models of these smartphones were dubbed the Redmi 7, Redmi 7A and Redmi 7 Pro. Another device with model number M1901F9T was also spotted on TENAA showing a smartphone with a waterdrop-shaped notch on a 5.84-inch display. This was later found out to be Xiaomi Mi Play that was launched in China just before Christmas. Xiaomi Redmi Pro 2 In December, Xiaomi President Lin Bin had shared an image of a phone with a 48MP camera. Rumours said that the phone could be the Redmi Pro 2 and powered by the Snapdragon 675 chipset. The Snapdragon 675 was announced in October and is considered a powerful mid-range mobile platform. More importantly though, the Snapdragon 675 has support for capturing 48MP images. Related Read: Smartphones expected to appear in 2019 Highlights: Govt looking to penalise apps and websites spreading fake news. Platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, Google, Twitter could be in trouble. Govt also looking to shut off public access to apps and websites that can't control fake news. Fake News has been a big problem since the past two years and with each passing year, more and more fake stories are being circulated on the web through popular social media platforms. Last year, tech companies like Facebook and Google each deployed various AI and machine learning-based mechanisms to combat the spread of fake news on their platforms. WhatsApp also introduced forwarded labels on the platform and started a bunch of public awareness campaigns to stop the spread of fake news on the messaging app. However, all these efforts have not been able to completely sift out fake news from the social media ecosystem. Taking a hard stand against the problems of fake news and child pornography, the Indian government is reportedly planning to amend IT laws in the country to shut down any app or website responsible for spreading false stories or child pornography. Times of India reports that the amendments in the IT Act sought by the centre asks for provisions to both penalise and take down apps and websites that are unable to control fake news and child porn. We need accountability and power to heavily penalise the companies in case of violations, or refusal to cooperate, a senior govt spokesperson told TOI. The impact of this amendment could see WhatsApp, Facebook, Google, Snapchat, Telegram and Twitter face some tough penalties in India. The news comes just weeks after the Ministry of Home Affairs invoked Section 69(1) of the Information Technology Act to order 10 central agencies to monitor, intercept and decrypt information generated, transmitted or stored in any computer in India. The central agencies ordered to monitor computer data include the Intelligence Bureau, Narcotics Control Bureau, Enforcement Directorate, Central Board of Direct Taxes, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Central Bureau of Investigation, National Investigation Agency, R&AW, Directorate of Signal Intelligence (in J&K, North-East, Assam) and Commissioner of Police, Delhi. Related Read: The evolution of fake news Kader Khans Last Interview Surfaces Online, The Actor Talked About Never Getting A Padma Shri As the news of actor-writer Kader Khans death came in, his fans dug up an old interview on Twitter in which he spoke about never having received a Padma award in his life. It was perhaps his last interview as he promoted his film Dimag Ka Dahi and the actor was not in good health. During the interview, Khan had acknowledged his fans and Bollywood colleagues who had proposed his name for a Padma Shri award a year ago. If the government feels that I have done good work, it will honour me. Its peoples love that they are demanding it for me, Khan had said then. However, speaking in 2016, he said after knowing the names of the awardees, its good that I did not get one. The ever-versatile actor also hinted that flattering the movers and shakers could be one of the reasons behind his colleagues getting the honour. On being told the names of the industry colleagues who had won Padma awards, he had said, ... its good that they did not give me a Padma Shri. I have neither flattered anyone in my life, nor will I ever. I dont want these awards if they have been given to people (in the industry) who got it this time. Kader Khan had added, An award is a no big thing, but its importance lies in the people it has been conferred upon. Earlier, there was a certain honesty in these awards but its not the same case now. People have now forgotten to respect others and have become way too selfish. I would think that I was not as capable as those who were chosen for the Padma awards this year. I, however, thank all those who proposed my name for it. Khan had also urged his Bollywood colleagues from indulging in politics. I would like to urge all the actors to return from the politics. Laut aao, politics tumhari manzil nahi hai (Come back, politics is not your destination). It is only breaking you. Bollywood actor-director-writer-comedian and a Quranic scholar, Khan died after a prolonged illness at a hospital in Toronto in Canada. He is survived by his wife Hajra, son Sarfaraz, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren. His last rites will be held in a Toronto cemetery later in the day. PROVO Researchers say a newly published study authored by experts at BYU and University of Utah represents a breakthrough in how to more adequately examine the brain activity of autistic youth who have low cognitive abilities. The study, published late last month in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Molecular Autism, used MRI technology to examine the connectivity of different regions of the brains of 54 people between 7 and 17 years old. Seventeen of those subjects were defined as both being autistic and having "low verbal and cognitive performance," with a median IQ score of 54. Obtaining MRI imaging from such a group represents the filling in of "a critical gap in our understanding of brain function across the autism spectrum," researchers said in a written summary of the study. "They've been neglected in research they've been really neglected. Especially in brain imaging research," Mikle South, senior author on the study and professor of psychology and neuroscience at BYU, told the Deseret News. "We've shown that it is possible to study this group of kids and get them more involved, where they've just been left out before." That is because such a population generally has a strong reluctance to the unique experience of getting an MRI scan, for which recipients are asked to stay motionless, according to South. In the study, participants were given several ways of reducing their anxiety, researchers said. That included allowing them to bring MRI-safe comfort items such as a stuffed animal with them during the scan; having their parent role-play to them beforehand what getting a scan looks like and maintain physical touch with them during the procedure; not requiring them to change into medical scrubs; and providing headphones through which researchers could communicate with them. All but four of those with low cognitive ability were able to satisfactorily complete the MRI scan process, the study's results say. The researchers who worked on the project are eager to "let other groups know that with patience and hard work, more (scientists) make this work," South said. More-robust brain imaging research of autistic youth with low cognitive and verbal skills could eventually allow medical professionals to provide "more specific and helpful support" and "maximize (those young people's) potential for what their skills are, and also provide support (in their areas) of biggest weakness," he said. "We can ameliorate or moderate some of the downsides these kids face, the challenges these kids face, to allow their strengths to manifest themselves more clearly," South said. Twenty other autistic youth who were examined were considered to have "high verbal and cognitive performance," and had a similar IQ to that of 19 "neurotypical" children and teenagers not on the autism spectrum who also received an MRI scan. Overall, the study set out to examine any differences among the three groups in "functional connectivity patterns" of various parts of the brain. Researchers found that generally speaking, "participants with the lowest IQ have higher connectivity across a broad range" of linkages in the brain, and that "this finding of general overconnectivity may represent overall poor differentiation and segmentation of brain regions." "It may be that lower verbal ability and IQ are associated with (a brain's) overall greater global synchrony and fewer task-specific activations," the study concludes. However, the researchers also caution in their findings that "extensive variability exists" in the field's overall body of research as to "whether there is increased or decreased connectivity in autism" specifically, and that much of that uncertainty "is likely related to the heterogeneity of individuals with autism." South hopes further research on the topic aided by improvements in examining those with autism who also have low cognitive and verbal abilities will help the medical field "to view autism more holistically, rather than trying to track down one symptom or another." "When we're just looking at behavior, we make guesses about how these behaviors are related to each other. And when we look at the brain, we may see that rather than being separate pieces, they're all related to this pattern of brain activity," he said. Naidu said one section is saying that the Chairman hasnt done enough to smoothly conduct proceedings in the House. New Delhi: Upset over assertions that the Rajya Sabha Chaiman was not doing anything to bring the Upper House of Parliament to order for conduct of proceedings, Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday said that he had on several occasions spoken to members to break the deadlock. Also, taking objection to an interview given by a member where it was said that the chair wasnt doing enough as only handful of members rush to the Well and hold the House to ransom, Mr Naidu he had not only spoken to agitating members more than 10 times but also taken up the matter with several leaders of the House and some members individually. The Upper House did not transact much business in the Winter Session of Parliament as proceedings on most days have been adjourned because of disruptions, particularly by AIADMK members who are protesting against a proposed dam on Cauvery river. When the House met for the day, Mr Naidu appealed to all sections to allow the House to function as only three working days were left and important bills, statutory resolution and ordinances are pending approval. I would like everyone to understand that we are not sending a positive message, he said, noting that the House has not been able to conduct much work. Mr Naidu said that he felt sad about the Wednesday order when AIADMK members were suspended for the day but they continued their protest in the Well, forcing adjournment of proceedings for the day. Mr Naidu said one section is saying that the Chairman hasnt done enough to smoothly conduct proceedings in the House. He said that it is also being said that there is a plan in these disruptions and the subsequent adjournment of proceedings to stall discussion on issues. Plan by whom, he asked. After Mr Naidus appeal for a smooth functioning of the House, proceedings went smoothly. However, AIADMK members staged a walkout after they were disallowed from raising the issue of planned construction of Mekedatu dam on Cauvery river in Karnataka. Later, during the Zero Hour, Congresss Viplove Thakur raised the issue of 37 students committing suicides in the Navodaya Vidyalayas in last 10 years to which the HRD minister Prakash Javadekar said the government has constituted a committee to look into reasons and was also working on appointing counsellors in each of the schools. In a separate mention, TMCs Sukhendu Sekhar Ray demanded withdrawal of the Union governments recent notification authorising 10 central agencies to intercept and monitor any computer system, saying the move may turn India into a police state. SALT LAKE CITY A southern Utah man faces aggravated assault charges after allegedly firing several shots at a truck driving through a camping area to scare its occupants away. No one was injured. Daniel Trent Patterson, 32, of Hurricane, was charged Wednesday in 5th District Court in St. George with four counts of aggravated assault, a third-degree felony, court documents state. According to an affidavit, Patterson called police and reported that a truck had almost hit an RV and another vehicle in the Hurricane and Warner Valley area prompting him to shoot at it. "The reporting person, Daniel Patterson said he feared for his safety as well as his girlfriend's. Daniel said the truck was heading in his direction and when it was about 150 feet away, he fired several warning shots," police said. "As the vehicle turned away from him he fired several more shots hitting the back of the truck. He said he intended on only hitting the body of the truck to let them know to leave him alone. He then fired several more shots hitting the truck as it passed by," according to the affidavit. Police said Patterson told them the truck stopped, he saw movement in it, and "he thought they were possibly grabbing for a weapon so he fired again wanting to put as many rounds into the back of their truck in hopes that would scare them off and make them leave faster," the affidavit states. Patterson told police he didn't see how many people were in the truck, nor did he see weapons in it, court documents state. The four people who were inside the truck told police they drove past the RV to get to a road behind it on the way to hunt rabbits in the valley. According to the affidavit, the area where the RV was parked has "multiple dirt roads, entrances and exits" and is often used for camping and staging. As they were returning to the area, they saw Patterson get out of his truck and begin shooting in their direction, the affidavit states. Police said the truck sped up and made it to the main road. After passing the RV and Patterson, the driver slowed down to shift gears, according to the affidavit. "At that the guy stopped shooting and reloaded his gun and started shooting again. They said the guy then got into his truck and chased after them until they got a ways away from him," police wrote. Investigators said there were up to three bullet holes around the truck, including one "only inches away from the glass where the rear passenger was seated." "Based on statements, evidence collected and the location of the RV in relation to the vehicle and where the shots were fired, it was determined that Daniel was not in imminent danger and was not justified in using deadly force," police said. SALT LAKE CITY Members of the Utah Air Quality Board greeted the new year Wednesday by voting on a pollution control plan intended to bring areas of the Wasatch Front into compliance with federal clean air standards. Industrial upgrades are conservatively estimated to cost $100 million and impact places like Hill Air Force Base, the University of Utah, refineries, Kennecott and more. The approval came after more than a year's worth of work by Utah Division of Air Quality staff to model controls for industry using "best available control technology," impacting close to two dozen polluting sources. The plan targets those industries that annually release 70 tons or more of PM2.5, or fine particulate pollution 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair. A new plan was required after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reclassified Utah's nonattainment areas from "moderate" to "severe" in May 2017 after the areas failed to meet the 24-hour standard. Those areas are Utah, Salt Lake, Davis, Weber and portions of Box Elder and Tooele counties, which experience high pollution spikes in inversions that exceed standards set by the federal Clean Air Act. Under the adopted plan, Kennecott will be required to abandon its coal-fired power plant and use natural gas, not just in the winter but during the summer months, which the company said will add costs and is not applicable to the PM2.5 plan. "There's a long history of EPA allowing for seasonal controls," argued Jacob Santini, an attorney for Rio Tinto's Kennecott, detailing the company's concerns. The company had already agreed to cease unit operations during the winter when the area is vulnerable to inversions, but those controls will now be in place throughout the year. Joro Walker, an attorney with Western Resource Advocates, said afterward the new state requirement involving Kennecott was the right move. "Obviously we are very happy about the fact that Kennecott will be required to burn natural gas at its power plant year around. That is a signficant benefit for the valley." But Walker, joined by advocates from HEAL Utah and the Sierra Club, said the plan could have gone further and did not require enough emission reductions from industry. Jessica Reimer, policy associate for HEAL Utah, said she does not believe the plan will result in attainment with federal clean air standards, which the state has a December deadline to meet. "Though political hurdles need to be addressed, there are stricter emissions standards that Utah can adopt to help reduce both on-road and non-road emissions, two sources that are difficult to control, yet significantly contribute to overall emissions," her written comments to the board said. The organization also expressed disappointment that an earlier provision to require annual stack testing instead of every three years had been removed. Division Director Bryce Bird said the frequency of the required testing depends on the "variability" of the operations. For some industries, the annual stack testing does not add any extra environmental benefit, but for others more periodic testing is appropriate. Bird also added that he believes the modeling, plus the weight of additional evidence used in development of the plan, will demonstrate compliance with clean air standards. "We think the plan does actually result in attaining the standard in 2019," he said. Contributing: Michael Anderson DRAPER A squad of Utah soldiers is deploying to aid in the fight against digital warfare. A team of 18 Utah National Guard members from the 174th Cyber Protection unit is scheduled to deploy to Fort Meade, Maryland, to conduct cyber protection operations as Task Force Echo III. The soldiers participated in a deployment ceremony Wednesday morning. The task force will travel to Fort Meade this week where it will conduct in-processing and initial training prior to federalization on Feb. 2. "Our mission is to engineer, install, operate, and maintain critical network infrastructure for U.S. Army Cyber Command," said Capt. Kylie Boyle, the senior officer in charge of the Utah team. "This (cyber) environment is dynamically evolving," he said. "Being able to take everything we have been training for these last three years and operationalize it into something that will actually be used to protect critical infrastructure is very exciting." The task force is made up of soldiers from a dozen states working collectively under the 126th Cyber Battalion based in Massachusetts. The task force will be deployed for 400 days, which is longer than the normal one year or less that most units deploy for, explained Utah National Guard public affairs specialist Sgt. Nathaniel Free. The extended deployment helps to maintain continuity and stability within the highly technical cyber teams, he said. "Basically, they are going to be protecting the United States on the cyber front," Free said. "These soldiers have been training for the past three years in preparation for this deployment. They are excited to finally put that training to use to protect the American people." He said while Fort Meade may not be a battlefield in the Middle East, this deployment is just as important because they will be defending U.S. soil. The team will be supporting defense efforts currently underway in Afghanistan that focus on targets on the U.S. mainland, Free noted. "This is part three of an ongoing mission task force, where our soldiers will be actively defending the U.S. from cyberattack," he said. Boyle said this deployment will be different from previous travel assignments due to "the geography of it." "It's the first time we're truly able to do something in the cyber realm where we are working remotely," he said. "Having been in the military now for 15 years, you are seeing that evolution of always being forward deployed to hostile theaters. Now we have the ability to work within the states." He is "very optimistic" about the deployment due to the strong multistate team. "The past three years I've been associated with U.S. Cyber Command as well as prior to that I was with U.S. Special Operations," Boyle explained. "To see the importance of the infrastructure, the network connectivity and how potentially vulnerable it can be that's really the driving force and what makes this (assignment) fun." "And it changes, it does develop and becomes more complex exponentially," he added. "Land-based warfare doesn't necessarily do that, but at the end of the day (we're) still working toward that same overarching goal." He said the challenges on this assignment are going to be many of the same things soldiers deal with when they are deployed overseas. "Hopefully, the power doesn't go out," he said. "We've got good backup generators." Speaking about how this deployment might be different for families at home, he said the relative proximity will help alleviate some of the pressure. "Honestly its good and bad because they know in all honesty dad is only six hours away on a plane trip," Boyle said. "But it's nice and with FaceTime you're able to connect a lot. They'll come out when they can and I'll fly home when I can." Generally, however, this assignment presents many of the same issues overseas duties do. "Making sure things are good with the families back home. Ensuring you're trying to take care of all of your soldiers while you are there," he said. "I don't see it being different than any other deployment in that facet." Boyle has spent two of the past three years away on deployment, as well as many more hours studying and training when at home in Utah, which has been difficult on his family. "On top of all of that, to be gone for another year, that's when the little ones cling on a little bit more. They're tired of dad's trips," he said. "It's been full spectrum. We still have soldier tasks we have to accomplish but at the end of the day, we spend roughly 20 hours a week at minimum with our noses in books." "Task Force Echo I and II built and got things up and running, and we (Task Force Echo III) will be the team that first uses it to its full potential," Boyle said. "I've never had more fun in a position than I am having right now doing cyber." As many Utahns know, I came up during the Great Depression, living in a ramshackle house built with recycled lumber from the local scrapyard. My parents gave us everything they had, but we still had next to nothing. Only in a nation like ours could someone like me the scrappy son of a simple steelworker grow up to become a United States senator. This country gave me the opportunity to escape the poverty of my youth. And so, in return, I have made it my lifes mission to expand opportunity for others. Looking back on more than four decades of public service, I can confidently say that I have accomplished that goal. Utahns know that I have always been a fighter, fighting specifically for those who could not fight for themselves. But every good fighter knows when to hang up the gloves. And for me, that time has come. Today will be my last day in the United States Senate. Its impossible to distill in just a few words my feelings in this moment. But one is of overwhelming appreciation to the people of Utah. So let my final words as your senator be words of gratitude: Thank you, Utah. Thank you for putting your trust in me over these 42 years. And thank you for the opportunity to serve. Over the last several weeks, I have reflected at length on my service to our state. Much has changed over the course of my Senate tenure, but one thing has remained constant throughout: my unyielding commitment to give a voice to all Utahns and ensure that your views are being represented here in Congress. My foremost duty has always been to work for the betterment of the Beehive State. Thats why, when you first sent me to Washington so many years ago, I determined to make casework the cornerstone of my public service. I represent over 3 million people in the United States Senate, but my most fulfilling work has always been on behalf of individual Utahns. Ensuring justice for Josh Holt and bringing him home to his family is but one example among thousands more. Indeed, the most meaningful experiences of my life have been meeting with Utahns one on one to help them resolve their individual concerns. These unique constituent cases include securing dozens of visas for clergy, service volunteers and missionaries across multiple religious organizations; improving language-immersion programs in our public schools; helping refugee Boy Scouts in their efforts to improve Utahs communities; and working with families of veterans to ensure that our heroes get the recognition they deserve. With help from the good people of Utah, we have changed not only our state but our nation for the better. Just look at what we have achieved in the last two years alone. We have overseen some of the most consequential judicial confirmations of the last decade, in addition to passing a number of historic bills. Each legislative victory won was a joint effort drafted by me under constant guidance from people like you. In that sense, the legacy I leave behind is not mine but ours. And our accomplishments are almost too many to count. With your help, I have participated in the confirmation of over half of all federal judges who have ever served, including every current member of the United States Supreme Court. I have likewise passed more bills into law than any legislator alive today, including some of the most significant reforms of modern times. These include the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Childrens Health Insurance Program and the Hatch-Waxman Act, just to name a few. Thank you, sincerely, for your unwavering support throughout. Because without you, none of this would have been possible. So let me conclude by saying, again, how profoundly grateful I am to the people of Utah. To serve you here in the Senate has been the privilege of a lifetime. Although my term has drawn to a close, the next chapter in my service is just beginning and I am eager to continue working with you in the years to come. SALT LAKE CITY Abby Huntsman revealed Wednesday that she is pregnant with twins. What happened: The daughter of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. announced Wednesday that she and her husband were expecting twins, which was a surprise to them both, USA Today reports. Huntsman, who joined The View back in August, already has a daughter Isabel Grace, who is 13 months old. Huntsman told People magazine she doesnt have any relatives who are twins. She said they did not use fertility treatment for conception. Still, she felt surprised. I knew something was different this time, Huntsman told People. I was actually worried that something was wrong with this pregnancy because I felt sick immediately. I was sick with Isabel, but not until about eight weeks, so I was worried something might have been wrong. She told People that Capn Crunch and Cool Ranch Doritos" are her two biggest cravings. BIG NEWS! Our @HuntsmanAbby is expecting ... TWINS! We couldn't be more thrilled for her and her husband Jeffery and their 13-month-old daughter Isabel Grace on their growing family! https://t.co/AjMBy0ZOw4 pic.twitter.com/bTrrugH52k The View (@TheView) January 2, 2019 Husband reaction: She said her husband fell to the floor in shock over the news. I think he saw two sacs in there and I could see it on his face. He turned white, and then when the doctor told us, he fell. Another doctor had to come in, and they were wiping him down with towels and giving him sugar, Huntsman said. I was sitting there with my feet still in the straps. Im like, This is ridiculous. Im the one that has to physically do this." Support: Huntsman said her View co-host Meghan McCain has been supportive through the pregnancy, according to USA Today. Meghan is one of my best friends, so she was one of the first people I called after I left the doctor, and I was really just overwhelmed, Huntsman said. She was so thrilled because her grandmas a twin, it runs in her family, so she has sent me books about twins. Shes like, My mom always wanted me to have twins, so shes really helped me mentally get through it. Flashback: Huntsman spoke to the Deseret News in 2018 about how she balances work and family. WASHINGTON Since the day he became Congressman-elect, Ben McAdams has been in the sights of the GOP and conservative PACs. In 2020, they want his seat. After the 116th Congress is sworn in Thursday, every statement and vote by McAdams and others like him will be scrutinized to make the case that these incoming Democrats represent their party, which will control the House for the first time in about a decade, and not their conservative constituents in historically Republican districts that Democrats captured in November's midterm elections. It means McAdams from Utah and new lawmakers from Oklahoma, South Carolina, Georgia, New Mexico and other Republican leaning districts lost to Democrats in the 2018 mid-terms must balance their conservative districts against the agenda of a new Democrat-controlled House, seek for relevancy as low-ranking House members, and do it while the national Republican machine revs up to take back their seats even before theyve cast a single vote. For these incoming freshmen House Democrats representing Republican leaning districts, one bad vote on an important policy issue could be the difference between winning and losing in 2020, warned J.T. Mastranadi, political director for Citizens United, which lends campaign support to conservatives who support President Donald Trumps agenda. McAdams doesn't appear to mind having a bull's-eye on his back after he narrowly ousted two-term incumbent Rep. Mia Love in Utah's largely conservative 4th Congressional District. He responds by confidently outlining his strategy to win a second term by focusing on the needs of a district where more than 80 percent identify as Republican or unaffiliated, while building bridges with colleagues in Washington who lean left or right of his views. I think the majority of people really are looking for folks who put the interest of their constituents and interest of the country above interest in party. Former Congressman Jim Matheson To navigate what one former Utah congressman described as "political no man's land," McAdams is taking advice from former Congressman Jim Matheson, who served seven terms as Utah's lone Democrat in Congress, surviving two unsuccessful attempts by Utah Republicans to gerrymander him out of office before he stepped away from electoral politics in 2014. "I talk to him a couple times a week right now," said McAdams, sitting at a conference table last month strewn with papers from packing up the Salt Lake County mayor's office, where he served since 2013. The counsel has been from the personal (put your family first when you are home) to the political (put the interests of the people in your district before the party and politics). While the advice may sound trite, it's key to building an independent brand and immunity to partisan attacks, according to one scholar on Congress. "It's actually pretty straightforward ... and that is always do the right thing for your constituents," Matheson said. "It's the politics I was raised on and I think it's the politics people are looking for today. ... I think the majority of people really are looking for folks who put the interest of their constituents and interest of the country above interest in party." 2020 is now Utah's 4th Congressional District is among several House seats that election observers said shouldn't have been lost by Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections, based on their political makeup. Others are Oklahoma's 5th District (Democrat Kendra Horn defeated Republican incumbent Steve Russell), South Carolina's 1st District (Democrat Joe Cunningham beat Republican Katie Arrington, who had defeated the GOP incumbent in a primary), Georgia's 6th District (Democrat Lucy McBath beat incumbent Republican Karen Handel), and New Mexico's 2nd District (Democrat Xochitl Torres Small captured this open seat that was held by a Republican who ran for governor.) McAdams represents a district that is just 15 percent Democrat, according to state data, and the Cook Political Report gave it an R+13 partisan voting index, meaning its residents historically vote 13 percent more Republican than the rest of the country. Those numbers have conservative groups both inside and outside of Utah already sizing up candidates to win the district back in 2020. "The recruiting process of a GOP candidate to take on McAdams began the morning after he was officially declared the winner of the 4th Congressional District," said a source who was recruited to run but declined and asked not to be identified. "There will be significant money spent over the next two years in an effort to recruit the right candidate to retake the seat in 2020." Citizens United, one of the most influential PACs involved in recruiting and supporting the election campaigns of conservative candidates, may be among those outside groups. Citizens United Political Victory Fund will continue to support change agents from around the country who want to shake up the status quo in Washington and fight for common sense conservative reforms, Mastranadi said. Utah GOP Chairman Rob Anderson said the party has begun its search. "I heard a few names but I don't think they want those to be public, yet. But we are actively recruiting." In response to a request to explain its strategy to take back seats like Utah's 4th District, National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Jack Pandol issued this statement: Ben McAdams is a liberal, pro-abortion Democrat. Once Utahns start seeing him vote that way, Ben will seal his own fate as a one-term congressman. His office responded: "Ben McAdams is a bipartisan problem-solver who puts the people of Utah first, ahead of party or politics. That's how he has governed and will represent Utah's 4th District." McAdams' first test to prove his independence will be his vote this month for party leadership. During the campaign, he promised to vote for someone other than House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for speaker. He said he met privately with Pelosi during orientation in November and told her he thought it was time for new party leadership and he would not vote for her. "It was a pleasant conversation. And she said, 'Well, there's still time to change your mind,'" McAdams said, adding he will keep that promise to voters even though no one is running against the party's longtime House leader who served as speaker from 2007-2011. That conversation took place before Pelosi appeared to have secured the votes to be elected speaker, which would render McAdams vote against her as symbolic. But his no vote may be, counterintuitively, necessary for Democrats to hold on to their majority after 2020, some congressional watchers said. "Now that she knows she has her votes she is going to quite sensibly and without malice release a certain number of Democrats to vote against her because she doesn't want to lose these districts, either. She would much prefer McAdams be there," said Matt Glassman, a senior fellow and political science professor at Georgetown University's Government Affairs Institute. He explained that leadership works with members in swing districts to allow them to vote against the party's agenda, speak out against leadership and secure committee assignments that serve their constituents. "The party doesn't love it ... but (political) parties are nothing if they're not realists and they don't want to lose these seats," Glassman said. If you represent a district that is ideologically distinct from you, you can't screw up on the nonpartisan stuff. Matt Glassman, a senior fellow and political science professor at Georgetown University's Government Affairs Institute Matheson, who repeatedly voted against Obamacare, said he had a different experience when he went against the party mainstream during his 14-year run. He didn't sense leadership needed to accommodate him. "I was just real straightforward and upfront about what I was going to do," he said. "I think that developed a level of respect quite frankly on both sides of the aisle in Congress, whether it was Republican leadership or Democratic leadership." Priority one But calculated political maneuvering is not the most important priority for a first-term member of Congress. Instead, it's the nonpartisan, day-to-day "constituent case work" that will ultimately win voters over come election day, members of both parties agree. Locating a Social Security check, resolving questions about veterans benefits or expediting a passport application don't generate headlines, but helping constituents navigate the federal bureaucracy is key to building a following that has nothing to do with ideology, Glassman explained. "If you represent a district that is ideologically distinct from you, you can't screw up on the nonpartisan stuff," he said. For politicians in McAdams' position, Glassman said, getting constituent services in order will do more to establish themselves as someone who cares more about the people he represents than his party, which will fend off challengers in the next election. He sees Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who famously shot a hole in a climate change bill with a rifle in a campaign ad, as the model. He comfortably won relection in November in a state that overwhelmingly voted for Trump in 2016. "Voters aren't thinking I'm voting for a Democrat, they're thinking I'm voting for Joe Manchin. This guy is my guy in Washington," Glassman said. Anderson, of the Utah GOP, contends that while the main reason for losing the 4th District was "couch Republicans" in Utah County who didn't vote, the big takeaway from feedback after November's election is to find a challenger who values "constituent interface." While traditional town halls have backfired as public spectacles for some elected officials in the recent past, Anderson said he believes they are necessary to let constituents know you can handle tough questions, listen to their concerns and relate to voters. "You've got (Rep. John Curtis) in District 3 holding three or four town halls when he's back home and people love him for it," Anderson said of the first-term Republican and former Provo mayor. McAdams said as a local government leader who needed to partner with federal agencies he knows firsthand the importance of a responsive congressional delegation. He said the need is the main reason he decided to run for Congress rather than finish out his mayoral term or run for governor in 2020, which many expected. "I think there's a untapped role of being a convener on state and local issues of federal agencies that have a key to unlock some of our challenges here," he said. He said as mayor it was common to run into a "brick wall" in getting federal agencies to respond to requests. McAdams praised retiring Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch's staff as a model in handling constituent requests, but wouldn't single out any of the current delegation, whom he now has to work with, for not representing Salt Lake County. "I hope to play a role to be more actively engaged on local issues, whether it's trying to address some of our transportation challenges around the air quality issues or just making the federal government more accessible to solving local issues," he said. Making his mark Past first-term members of Congress from Utah haven't made recent history, but there have been a couple of notable freshmen. In 1995, Enid Mickelsen (then known as Enid Greene Waldholtz) was the first frosh to be appointed to the prestigious House Rules Committee since the 1920s and was the second member to become a mother while serving. After his appearance on Comedy Central's Colbert Report in 2009, Jason Chaffetz became a go-to lawmaker for cable-TV news outlets in his first year. He now works for Fox News after resigning in 2017 less than a year into his fifth term. There are no indications McAdams will make a big splash in his first term. While he anticipates the possibility of voting on politically charged issues such as health care, immigration or possibly impeachment of Trump, he said his main focus will be on addressing issues in his home district. A securities lawyer who took coursework in engineering before changing his major to political science, McAdams has requested to sit on either the Transportation and Infrastructure, Financial Services, Science, Space and Technology, or Energy and Commerce committees. He said he has built a reputation as a consensus builder and he has good relationships from his time as mayor with other members of the delegation. His office is down the hall from Republican Reps. Rob Bishop and Curtis. He said he has joined the Blue Dog Democrats and New Democrats caucuses, which champion fiscal responsibility, strong national defense and economic growth. And he will work on building relationships with people who lean left or right of his centrist approach to governing. "As a Democrat in Utah, I had to build bridges and friendships with people on the Republican side," he said. "But some of that now is going to have to be finding common ground with people to the left of me." He said in his sit-down with Pelosi, he described the need for a bipartisan investment in transportation infrastructure, which he said was sorely needed in the fast-growing, primarily suburban 4th District. "It's going to take some time to build the relationships and have the seniority to actually lead on major piece of legislation," he acknowledged. "I think immediately I can jump in and have a role bringing solutions to bear in the district where there are already federal resources available." Here is more of our continuing coverage of the Dec. 24, 2014, wreck that killed 5-year-old Moriah Modisette and the final plea bargain that pu Paswan had also supported the Supreme Court ruling allowing the enjtry of women of all ages into the Sabarimala temple. New Delhi: After the JD(U), another BJP ally, the Lok Janashakti Party, on Thursday opposed an ordinance on the Ram Mandir issue, saying that the Supreme Courts decision on the matter should be final. Ram Vilas Paswan, Union consumer affairs minister and Lok Janshakti Party president, told the media that his stand has been consistent and he would not support any ordinance on the Ram Temple. Whatever judgment the Supreme Court gives on the Ram Temple issue should be accepted by everyone, be it Hindu, Muslim or any other community. Our stand has been consistent. When the PM said we will wait for the SC judgment, then all ifs and buts should end, he said. It may be recalled that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said on Tuesday that the government would not take any decision on the issue till the judicial process was over. Sangh Parivar affiliates like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad have been demanding an ordinance to pave the way for the temples construction in Ayodhya. The LJP is the second major ally of the BJP to oppose an ordinance. The first red flag was raised by Bihar chief minister and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar, who recently said the contentious issue should be resolved either through a court judgment or by mutual agreement among the different groups. Mr Paswan had also supported the Supreme Court ruling allowing the enjtry of women of all ages into the Sabarimala temple. featured opinion Pa. Supreme Court gets it right on pregnant moms, drugs Stephen F. Gambescia is a Havertown resident and author of the book, Every Child No Matter How Many is Special. editorial In Pa. a woman's place is now in House - & Senate NEIL A. SHEEHAN - DIGITAL FIRST MEDIA At the dais Wednesday night, from left to right, were Wallingford-Swarthmore Superintendent Lisa Palmer, district Solicitor Kyle Berman, Strath Haven Principal Kristopher Brown, Nether Providence Police Chief David Splain, state NAACP President Joan Duvall-Flynn and NAACP Media Branch President James Mason. RJD insiders said that the party was planning to field one of Tejashwi Yadavs closest aides Bhai Virendra from Patliputra constituency. Patna: RJD chief Lalu Yadavs elder son Tej Pratap on Thursday created a flutter in the grand alliance by declaring that his elder sister Misa Bharti would be contesting from Patliputra Lok Sabha constituency. More than the political temperature it was a wave of shock and surprise for the entire Lalu clan when he publicly made the announcement while his party is yet to come out with an official announcement regarding seat allocations. Its the people of Patliputra who want my elder sister Misa Bharti to contest from Patliputra constituency. I have decided to campaign for my sister and I am not bothered about others who have problems with my decision, Tej Pratap Yadav said on the sidelines of Janata Darbar on Thursday in Patna. Misa Bharti had contested from Patliputra Lok Sabha constituency in 2014 general elections but lost to Ram Kripal Yadav, who after leaving the RJD had joined the BJP. RJD insiders said that the party was planning to field one of Tejashwi Yadavs closest aides Bhai Virendra from Patliputra constituency. Bhai Virendra is RJD spokesperson and sitting MLA from Maner constituency. His announcement is likely to create rumbl-ings within the RJD as Tejashwi Yadav was keen on fielding Bhai Virendra from Patlip-utra constituency, a senior grand alliance leader aware of the iss-ue told this newspaper. Political analysts said that the statement is an indication that Tej Pratap is no longer in a mood to hand over the reins of the party to his younger brother Tejashwi Yadav and wants to be consulted by leaders during important party decisions including ticket distribution to candidates. RJD insiders, however, downplayed the statement made by Tej Pratap and said that Seat sharing issue will be resolved without any hassle after January 14 following auspicious Makar Sankranti. The dissent in the RJD has been brewing since Lalu Yadav handed over reins of the party to his younger son Tejashwi Yadav after he was convicted and jailed in the fodder scam. While launching his Janata Darbar on December 24 Tej Pratap had said that he would not shy away from assuming the leadership of the party if given a chance. Sources said Tej Pratap Yadav wants to be consulted by party leaders while taking a decision on the issue seat distribution for 2019 general elections. Readers can write to Michelle Singletary c/o The Washington Post, 1301 K St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20071. Her email address is michelle.singletary@washpost.com. Follow her on Twitter (@SingletaryM) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/MichelleSingletary). Comments and questions are welcome, but due to the volume of mail, personal responses may not be possible. Please also note comments or questions may be used in a future column, with the writer's name, unless a specific request to do otherwise is indicated. As US President Donald Trump rattles the Afghan security matrix by threatening to halve the number of American troops in that country, leaving a vacuum that the Pakistan-backed Taliban are already readying to step into, Indias efforts must be to ensure that Pakistan does not get a backdoor entry into this vital strategic space. Fridays talks between national security adviser Ajit Doval and Afghan NSA Hamdullah Mohib, ahead of a long-overdue visit to Delhi by Mr Trumps pointsman on Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad early next week, are thus of huge import. India must place its concerns, front and centre, over the growing prospects of a Taliban blowback, and the danger it poses to its many development projects, including hospitals, highways, dams and the schools and scholarships it offers Afghan students. Even the notional library (err... Parliament) that Mr Trump now scoffs at! India has consistently resisted US pressure to put boots on the ground, preferring to invest in training and equipping the Afghan security forces. As new dates in July are announced for the presidential elections, Delhi, which has backed both former Presidents, Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani, cant but ensure a friendly, legitimate government is in place in Kabul. And therein lies the problem. As part of his brief to ensure a safe exit of US troops, Mr Khalilzad has not only held unprecedented talks with the Taliban, who have refused to meet Mr Ghanis representatives, he also offered the Taliban a power-sharing arrangement in any future setup. If pressured to back the US move, India must know its soft power will amount to nothing in the face of what is effectively a hard-nosed Pakistan-Taliban takeover. Vijayawada: The Jana Sena has ruled out a poll alliance with the ruling Telugu Desam and the opposition YSR Congress. Jana Sena founder president K. Pawan Kalyan said on Thursday that his party would contest all 175 Assembly seats in AP in the 2019 Assembly elections without allying with either party. Rumours had been circulating for some time about the Jana Sena joining hands with the TD and AP Chief Minister and TD supremo N. Chandrababu Naidu had even wondered what was wrong in such an alliance. In the past four days, the news spread fast about a TD-JS alliance. Mr Pawan on Thursday rejected these rumours and affirmed that the JS will contest all 175 seats and there would be a poll alliance with the Communist parties only. Interacting with JS activists in the state in Vijayawada on Thursday, Mr Pawan advised them not to fall prey to the false campaign launched by the ruling and Opposition parties against the JS. A campaign is going on against the JS, which is aimed at creating confusion among the party workers. The Opposition camp is talking about the Jana Senas seat-sharing with the ruling party, while the leaders of the ruling party too are trying to destabilise us by speaking about the possible poll alliance. Please do not go by the propaganda, he said. Mr Pawan said the JS would field candidates from all 175 Assembly constituencies in the general election scheduled for this year. He stated that except with the Left parties, the JS was not going to forge alliance with any other political party. Referring to the 2014 general election, he said that the JS extended its support to the TD and the BJP then to ensure stability for Telugu people. Now, we are going to strike a balance by fielding our candidates from all the 175 seats in the Assembly elections. Top priority will be accorded to women and youth and our aim is to invite more and more youngsters into politics, he said. Mr Pawan further advised the cadre not to go by the possible namedropping by the district-level leaders of the ruling and opposition parties, who might claim that they have already held discussions with the JS about seat sharing. He said, We are contesting the elections alone and our aim is to protect the interests of the future generations. Conde-mn the false propaganda and take this message to the grass-root level. Hyderabad: All India Congress Committee spokesperson Dasoju Sravan on Friday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should consider the fate of the BJP in Telangana state Assembly elections before talking about the failure of Prajakutami. He said, Mr Modi should realise that the BJP has been almost wiped out in the Assembly elections. Mr Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah have cheated the candidates of their own party by entering into a secret deal with the TRS. The BJP candidates lost their deposit in 105 seats. Mr Sravan also slammed the centre over Rafale deal. The Congress has released an audio clip of Goa health minister Vishwajit Pratap Singh Rane wherein he claimed that former defence minister and current Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar had all files pertaining to Rafale in his bedroom. Instead of facing a probe, the PM is trying to hush up a defence scam of over `40,000 crore. Thiruvananthapuram: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on Thursday that if Sabarimala tantri Kandararu Rajeevaru cannot comply with the Supreme Court verdict allowing the entry of young women in the temple, he should better quit. The chief minister told reporters that the tantris decision to shut the temple following the entry of two women was strange. If he cannot abide by the apex court verdict then it would be better for him to excuse himself from the temple duties, he said. The tantri had stated that he cannot implement the SC verdict. Can he take such a stand? Can any citizen of this country take such a position against the Supreme Court? Anyone who sticks to such a stand will have to quit his position, he said. The Devaswom Board president had said that he had not given consent to the tantri to close the temple. The tantri had not sought his permission . We have made it clear that the government is constitutionally bound to comply with the SC verdict. We are with the believers and we will provide all facilities for the devotees to have a peaceful darshan at Sabarimala, he said. On the post-womens wall activities, he said he had spoken to SNDP general secretary Vellapally Natesan and KPMS general secretary Punnala Sreekumar on the future course of action. A meeting of all organisations linked to the Renaissance Protection Committee will be held soon to draw up a detailed plan to carry forward the activities for upholding he values of renaissance, he said. Meanwhile Travancore Devaswom Board commissioner N. Vasu said that tantri Kandararu Rajeevarus decision to shut down the sannidhanam for purification ceremony amounts to contempt of the Supreme Court order. However, there were differences in the board on whether an explanation has been sought from the tantri; member K.P. Sankaradas said the tantri has been asked to give an explanation while president A. Padmakumar called it baseless. While Padmakumar took a cautious stand against the Sabarimala tantri Kandararu Rajeevaru and priest V.N. Vasudevan Namboodiri, board member Sankaradas said that stringent action will be taken against them. On Wednesday, the dup had taken a stand to close the temple for an hour and initiated purification rituals when two women in the 40s entered the Sabarimala. Thiruvananthapuram: Hindutva activists and Left workers fought pitched battles across the state, hurling crude bombs at police pickets, pelting stones, setting vehicles ablaze, damaging public property and party offices, leaving a bloody trail of destruction as the day-long hartal called by the Sabarimala Karma Samiti ended in the evening. The mayhem left cores of police and party workers injured. The worst-hit was Palakkad, adjoining Coimbatore, and Neyyattinkara, Neduma-ngadu and Malayinkeezhu in Thiruvannathapuram. The police arrested 745 party workers besides taking 628 suspects into preventive custody. More than 20 party offices of the ruling LDF bore the brunt of the Rightwing fury. As the state plunged into chaos, Governor P. Sathasivam sought an urgent report from Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on the disturbances. Most government offices remained almost closed as schools and colleges had a forced holiday on the day of reopening after Christmas vacation. Sabarimala Karma Samiti activist Chandran Unnithan, 55, in Pandalam, succumbed to injuries in attack by pro-Left cadre, debunking the Chief Ministers claim that he had died of cardiac arrest. Nine people were suspected and police arrested two CPM workers. KSRTC managing director Tomin Thachankary said 100 KSRTC vehicles were destroyed in the attacks. He organised a convoy of the damaged buses along the arterial MG Road to drive home the message. The spate of violence started with the BJP attack on the CPI office in Palakkad, which was in violation of an understanding the BJP leaders were able to hammer out with the cadre as they threatened to vandalise the CPM office. In Thrissur, three BJP activists were stabbed during a scuffle with workers of the Social Democratic Party of India, the political wing of Popular Front of India, a militant Islamic outfit. The incident occurred as hartal-mongers tried to shutter a restaurant by force. In Nedumangad, BJP workers blasted a country bomb at the police station. The main Opposition Congress separately observed a black day to protest the entry of the women into Sabarimala temple. Singh said the Centre would provide whatever security forces the poll panel wanted for the electoral process in Jammu and Kashmir. New Delhi: Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said the government will have no objection in holding elections in Jammu and Kashmir along with general elections slated later this year if the Election Commission of India so desired. Replying to the debate on the statutory resolution on imposition of Presidents Rule in the state, Mr Singh said the Centre would provide whatever security forces the poll panel wanted for the electoral process in Jammu and Kashmir. The resolution was passed by a voice vote. The state was last month placed under Presidents Rule, six months after the BJP pulled out of the Mehbooba Mufti-led government and the state was put under Governors Rule. After 1996, this is the first time the Central rule has been imposed in the militancy-hit state. If Election Commission wants (to hold elections in state along with general elections), our government will have no objection, Mr Singh said. He said there would be no obstruction from the Centre for holding elections in the state. We are willing to provide whatever security force the Election Commission wants for holding elections there, he added. Rejecting the Opposition criticism that BJPs unnatural alliance with the PDP had alienated population, he reeled out statistics to drive home the development without appeasement agenda of his party. There was no conspiracy not to allow any other party to form the government, he said in response to the Opposition charge that the governor did not allow the National Congress, PDP and Congress to form an alternate government. Hyderabad: Terror suspects whose names figure on the Intelligence radar are said to have invested in the Heera group. Hyderabad Central Crime Station police, investigating the Heera group fraud, have secured the names of 10-15 suspects from central security agencies in this regard. The police suspect that the Heera group of Ms Nowhera Shaikh received foreign funds from those who are on the radar of Intelligence agencies for active involvement in criminal activities. Inputs from central agencies confirmed the apprehensions. Names of 10-15 suspects surfaced during the probe. They are linked to extremist activities, as indicated in information shared by some central agencies, detective department deputy commissioner of police Avinash Mohanty said. The suspects are located in various parts of the country. The police concerned are being asked to share details of the suspects. Questioning the suspects about the investments might help the probe. Interpreting the enormous data on investors, investments and credits to their bank accounts remains the biggest challenge. Assistance of agencies like Serious Fraud Investigation Office, Central Bureau of Investigation and the states Crime Investigation Department has been sought, the DCP said. Some people with meagre incomes had invested huge amounts. Such investors have to be questioned. In reply to a query, the DCP said, Money collected by the Heera group amounts to over `5,700 crore. It has been deposited in around 170 bank accounts. Banks have been asked to give transaction details of the companys bank accounts. Andhra Pradesh CID on Thursday produced Heera group owner Ms Shaik before a court on a prisoner transit warrant at Chittoor. All these cases are business-motivated. Many people do not like me doing business and there will be enemies in every business, Ms Shaikh said in reply to a query. I have not committed a fraud of even Rs 1 lakh. For the last 15 years, all investors are receiving the promised money and I will fight this legally. Guwahati: The Supreme Court on Thursday rapped the Meghalaya government over its inability to rescue 15 people who are trapped in a mine for over three weeks in a rathole mine of Jaintia hills since December 13. The Supreme Court bench comprising Justices A.K. Sikri and S. Abdul Nazeer said, We pray that all people trapped in mines are alive. They should have been rescued by now. We are not satisfied with the action taken by state government. The court also asked the Meghalaya government as to why it was not successful in rescuing these people. It is a question of life and death for the trapped miners. For people trapped in mine in Meghalaya every minute counts, the top court said. No matter whether they (trapped persons) are all dead, some alive, few dead or all alive, they should have been taken out by now. We pray to God that they all are alive, the Supreme Court said. The court also directed the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to file its response by Friday on steps it intends to take to rescue the miners. Effective steps need to be taken on urgent basis to save the lives of miners, the court said while hearing a PIL filed by advocate Aditya N. Prasad. The counsel, appearing for the state, told the court that they have taken adequate steps in the rescue operation and the Centre was also lending support to them. Senior advocate Grover, appearing for petitioner Aditya N. Prasad, told the bench that an adjoining mine was connected with river and the authorities were using only 25 horsepower pumps to flush out the water. He said KBL had sent 100 horsepower water pumps during the rescue operation in Thailand last year. The state government in its reply to the apex court said that 72 NDRF personnel, 14 Navy personnel and Coal India personnel are working since December 14 to rescue the trapped miners. The PIL filed by advocate Aditya N Prasad had sought a direction to the Centre and other authorities concerned to prepare a standard operating procedure (SOP) for rescue operations in mines and other similar conditions. The plea, filed through advocate Astha Sharma, sought directions to the Centre and the state to utilise the services of the technical wing of the Indian Armed Forces the Indian Army, Indian Navy and Indian Air Force in the operation immediately to rescue the 15 miners. The rat-hole mine, atop a hillock fully covered with trees in East Jaintia Hills district, was flooded when water from the nearby Lytein river gushed into it, trapping the miners. Meanwhile, Odisha Fire Service and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) resumed rescue operations at the rat-hole mine in East Jaintia Hills on Thursday by installing second high-power pump in the adjoining mine which is 500 meter from the main shaft where 15 miners are trapped. Hyderabad: Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday assured that the Centre would examine increasing the strength of judges in the Telangana High Court. The law minister was replying to a question from TRS MP Vinod Kumar in Parliament with regard to fullfilling the vacancies in the Telangana High Court. Mr Prasad said that as per the procedure, the Centre would take appropriate steps to increase the number of judges in the High Court. Earlier, the Mr Prasad, while replying to a question from Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, said that it was up to the High Courts in the states to take steps to fill up vacant posts in subordinate courts. Mr. Owaisi asked the minister whether the Centre had been contemplating any Centralised mechanism for filling up vacancies in subordinate courts across the country. Mr. Prasad replied that the Centre was proposing a centralised recruitment system for filling up the posts of additional district judges. He said that through this, the Centre was planning to select law students from National Law Schools for the posts of additional district judges. The NGT quashed a government of Tamil Nadu order sealing the copper smelter shut, holding that it was "non-sustainable" and "unjustified". Chennai: Government rejected the application of Sterlite copper for a Consent to Operate (CTO) its plant even though the National Green Tribunal had allowed for its reopening. The government and The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board have filed an appeal against the NGT's verdict in the Supreme Court. Shambhu Kallolikar, principal secretary & chairman, TNPCB, wrote to the associate vice-president of Sterlite Copper on Wednesday conveying the decision not to consider the request saying- "you are informed that the Tamil Nadu government and TNPCB have filed the appeal before the Supreme Court on January 2. Hence, your request for the issue of Authorisation under Hazardous Wastes Rules maintenance cannot be considered." The NGT quashed a government of Tamil Nadu order sealing the copper smelter shut, holding that it was "non-sustainable" and "unjustified". Following this, the Vedanta group company on December 20 said it had sought permission from TNPCB to open its plant. Saravana Bhavan, established by P Rajagopal in 1981, has its outlets in 20 countries including the US, the UK, France and Australia. (Photo: Facebook | @hsbindiaa) Chennai: Four popular restaurant chains in Chennai, including the world-famous Saravana Bhavan, were raided by the Income Tax Department over alleged tax evasion on Thursday morning. Searches are being conducted at 32 locations, including the residences and offices of the directors of Saravana Bhavan, Hot Breads, the Anjappar group and Grand Sweets, media reports said. These hotels serve some of the best south Indian delicacies, including cakes, pastries and sweets that are even shipped abroad, news agency PTI quoted a senior official as saying. The officials added that the department is looking into allegations of suppression of income by these groups by various means and hence decided to conduct searches and obtain further evidence. The daily operations of these restaurants were not affected by the raids. Of the four restaurant chains, Saravana Bhavan, established by P Rajagopal in 1981, is the most well-known. It has its outlets in 20 countries including the US, the UK, France and Australia. Anjappar was established in 1964 and offers South Indian cuisine, particularly focusing on Chettinad-style preparations, at 70 outlets. Established in 1982 by G Natarajan, The Grand Sweets & Snacks has become a big name in the industry. Bakery chain Hot Breads was started by M Mahadevan, a former Assistant Professor at Madras University, and has branches in Tamil Nadu and neighbouring Puducherry. The restaurant chains are yet to respond to the tax raids. Meanwhile, reports also suggest that the raids will continue till Friday evening. During a debate in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, Rahul Gandhi said the Prime Minister lacks 'guts' and accused him of 'hiding in room'. (Photo: File | INC Twitter) Mumbai: Congress president Rahul Gandhi continued his offensive against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and accused him of fleeing parliament instead of participating in a debate over the Rafale jet deal. Taking to Twitter, Rahul said that PM Modi fled to Lovely University in Punjab to address the students instead of attending parliament session. He further requested the students to ask the Prime Minister to answer the four questions posed by him on Wednesday. So it seems our PM has fled Parliament & his own open book Rafale exam & is instead lecturing students at Lovely Univ. in Punjab, today. I request the students there to, respectfully, ask him to please answer the 4 questions posed to him by me, yesterday. #RafaleScam Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 3, 2019 During a debate in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, Rahul said the Prime Minister lacks guts and accused him of hiding in room. Later, he also put up a set of four questions to PM Modi saying, Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces an open book exam on the Rafale deal in Parliament on Thursday. He further wondered if PM Modi will show up at the exam or send a proxy in an apparent reference to Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman who will counter opposition charges as the debate resumes today. The Missing Q3! I had held back Q3 because Madam Speaker had said, no talking about the Goa tape! But the missing Q3 has become as controversial as Rafale:) So on popular demand: Q3. Modi Ji, please tell us why Parrikar Ji keeps a Rafale file in his bedroom & whats in it? https://t.co/6WdiN487HJ Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 2, 2019 Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who led the governments counter to Congress chiefs allegation yesterday, accused Gandhi of having a legacy of lying and repeating falsehood and alleged that conspirators of past defence scams are now raising fingers at others. The Congress had made tall promises to farmers on loan waiver, but later deceived them, he said at a rally here. (Photo: ANI | Twitter) Gurdaspur: In a sharp attack on the Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday raked up the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and asked the people of the country, especially Punjab, to remain "cautious" about the party over the killings of the Sikhs and for making Kamal Nath, an alleged accused, Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. Addressing a public meeting at Gurdaspur, days after convicted former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar surrendered in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case in a Delhi court, Prime Minister Modi also said that it was due to the efforts of the BJP that the victims' kin were getting justice after all these years. "The whole country, including Punjab, should remain cautious of those who have a history of killing thousands of innocent Sikhs and award the Chief Minister's post to culprits of the riots till today," Prime Minister Modi said, attacking the choice of Kamal Nath as CM, as he was allegedly involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The Delhi High Court convicted and awarded life imprisonment to Congress leader Sajjan Kumar for his involvement in the 1984 Sikh riots, which occurred in the national capital after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He surrendered to the court on December 31. The choice of Kamal Nath as Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh has been widely criticised by BJP and Sikh leaders. Praising the efforts of BJP in delivering justice to the victims' kin of 1984 Sikh riots, Prime Minister said; "It was BJP who formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) in the case and opened files, which were hidden on the signal of one family (Congress) by declaring the culprits as "Sajjan" (good people)." The Prime Minister further stressed on the Kartarpur Corridor and said that the BJP and Akali Dal were together making continued efforts towards the development of Punjab, including the recent success of building the Kartarpur corridor -- a road linking Dera Baba Nanak with Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan's Kartarpur. He announced that the Centre has decided to organise worldwide celebrations on the 550th anniversary of Guru Nanak. Slamming Punjab cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu for his recent two visits to Pakistan that triggered a controversy and Punjab Chief Minister himself wasn't happy with Sidhu's visit, the Prime Minister said: "The whole nation has witnessed how Congress leaders gave a chance to Pakistan to speak against India as these leaders did not even pay heed to their own Punjab Chief Minister's direction." He also launched a scathing attack on the Congress' first family for "playing with nation's security and spreading lies' to weaken the strength of the army, and for scrapping the previous BJP Madhya Pradesh government's decision of reciting the national song Vande Mataram". The Prime Minister said, "The family who has been playing with nation's security and spreading lies to weaken the army's strength is protesting against Bharat Mata and national song Vande Mataram." The newly-elected Congress government in Madhya Pradesh had decided to do away with the 14-year-old norm of reciting 'Vande Matram' on the first day of every month in the state secretariat, which was started by the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). However, the Congress government on Thursday in a U-turn announced that the national song will be back, but with the added feature of a police band. Praising the land of Gurdaspur for inspiring the whole nation, Prime Minister stated: "The land of Gurdaspur has set an example for the country, society and humanity," and added that Gurdaspur will produce new energy to fulfil the resolution made for developing a New India by 2022. Talking about the initiative of the NDA government towards people of the state, Prime Minister asserted: "We're working for children's education, employment for youth and to provide proper irrigation facilities to farmers. We've also facilitated irrigation and soil health cards and right product prices to farmers. It was assured under the Kisan Sampada Yoja that the crop of farmers doesn't go waste." "Our government is building AIIMS in Bathinda, it has provided free gas cylinders to 11 lakh women in Punjab and youths were given a total loan of Rs 28 lakh," he added. Highlighting schemes meant for youths and girls, the Prime Minister said: "1.5 lakh youngsters were given training under Skill India Mission and various districts of Punjab have witnessed increasing numbers of our daughters in schools." The Prime Minister concluded his speech by appealing to Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to complete the projects on time, which were meant for the progress of the state's citizen. Meanwhile, on Tuesday night Yuvaraj was found lying in a pool of blood near a temple at Murugesan street at Irumbuliyur. CHENNAI: Two youngsters were killed in a drunken brawl during the New Year celebration in two different incidents at Tambaram and Minjur. The deceased identified as S Yuvaraj (20) a resident of Irumbuliyur near East Tambaram was the son of Siva, a local Congress functionary. Yuvaraj was pursuing polytechnic second year, said sources. According to the police, on the early hours of Tuesday, Yuvaraj and his friends were celebrating New Year boozing in the locality when an argument broke out between Yuvaraj and another gang in the same locality. However, the residents sorted the issue and dispersed the crowd. Meanwhile, on Tuesday night Yuvaraj was found lying in a pool of blood near a temple at Murugesan street at Irumbuliyur. He was rushed to the Chromepet government hospital where he was declared dead on arrival. Hunt is on for the murderers. Inspector Vijayaragavan said Yuvarajs father Siva runs many businesses like real estate, marriage hall and shopping complex. Some rivals in the business had planned this murder. Meanwhile, on Wednesday police arrested four men in connection with the murder. The arrested men were identified as S Mani (25), M Lenin Billa (27), N Raji (25) and A Mukesh (24) from Peerkankaranai. Similarly, a 25-year-old man was murdered in Minjur on Wednesday. The deceased identified as M Viji (25) a resident of Vannipakkam near Minjur was working in a private company. On Monday midnight he had gone to Munichampedu village to celebrate New Year with his friends. During the celebration, his friends picked an argument with a few others from Anuppampattu and the argument ended in a fight when Viji was assaulted by the gang. He was rushed to the Stanley Government Hospital where he succumbed to injuries on Wednesday morning. Minjur police registered a case and arrested Palani, Kaviyamathan, Karthik, Saranraj, Arun, Udhayakumar and Deepak all from Chinna Colony. Modi talked about 'people's front' (comprising Congress, TDP and others) losing in Telangana Assembly polls but what about BJP which has been decimated, Dasoju said. (Photo: File) Hyderabad: It is the "joke of 2019" when Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he does not know about the federal front of regional parties being attempted by Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, AICC spokesperson Sravan Dasoju claimed here Thursday. Dasoju, who has been appointed as the spokesperson for AICC two days ago, wondered how can Modi say (in a media interview) that he does not know about the non-Congress, non-BJP front proposed by Rao when the latter was going around the country to promote the initiative. "Both together (after) reaching a tacit understanding, to weaken Congress, by confusing parties who are pro-Congress and to move them away from UPA, Modi and KCR are conspiring," Dasoju told reporters. Modi talked about 'people's front' (comprising Congress, TDP and others) losing in Telangana Assembly polls but what about BJP which has been decimated, he said. "I don't understand whether shame is there or not. I am sorry to use such a language against the Prime Minister. But then, he says people's front lost. What happened to your party? BJP is decimated here," he said. It is a "funny" situation with Modi feeling happy about people's front losing in Telangana by forgetting as to why people rejected BJP, he said. Out of total 119 Assembly seats, BJP lost security deposit in 105 constituencies. Congress has not lost much as it won 19 seats now compared to 22 segments it won in 2014, he said. Noting that "a blind tiger in a forest eats its own cubs", Dasoju claimed that Modi, in a similar fashion, has sacrificed his own BJP MLAs before KCR and then talked about hurting Congress in Telangana. Alleging that the NDA government was trying to evade answers on the Rafale deal, Dasoju said the government should accept the demand for a JPC probe into the issue if it has any morals. India had inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September last year for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore, nearly one- and-half years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the proposal during a visit to Paris. The delivery of the jets is scheduled to begin from September, 2019. The Congress has raised several questions about the deal including the rates, and accused the government of compromising national interest and security while promoting "crony capitalism" and causing a loss to the public exchequer. Shillong: The multi-agency operations to rescue the miners in Meghalaya failed to make any headway on Thursday, with efforts to pump the water out of the mine not yielding any result. The divers of the Navy and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were not able to resume the search operation for the 15 trapped miners as they could not go inside due to the high water level. Asked if the divers would take another chance later in the day, operation spokesperson R Susngi told PTI that they would wait, but there was a remote chance of the water level reducing so soon. The 15 miners remain trapped in the 370-foot-deep illegal rat-hole coal mine in Lumthari village of East Jaintia Hills district since December 13 after water from a nearby river gushed in. The operation to rescue them entered the 22nd day on Thursday. Fire Service personnel from Odisha resumed work at 10 am and it was found that the water level has risen again, a day after full-day pumping resulted in it receding by 16 inches, Susngi said. One more pump will be put to use at the mine on Thursday and another would will be installed at an abandoned mine, about 100 metres away, he said. Meanwhile, the high-powered submersible pump from Coal India is yet to begin work, three days after it arrived at the site. Preparation is still going on to get the pump operational, Susngi said. The spokesperson had said divers would resume operation once the water level at the main shaft decreases to about 100 feet from its current level of over 160 feet. Authorities said there were at least 90 abandoned mine shafts in the area and they were full of water. Rescuers believe that these nearby mines might be interconnected and draining out water in these mines could help in reducing the water level in the main shaft. At 10:45 am on first working day of every month, a police band will play tunes that encourage patriotic feelings during their march. The first working day of Madhya Pradesh government will begin with the recitation of National Anthem and National Song, Chief Minister Kamal Nath has confirmed. (Photo: File | ANI) Bhopal: The first working day of Madhya Pradesh government will begin with the recitation of National Anthem and National Song, Chief Minister Kamal Nath has confirmed. "On the first working day of every month, police band will play the tunes that encourage patriotic feelings during their march from Shaurya Smarak to Vallabh Bhawan in Bhopal. On arrival at the Bhawan, National Anthem and Vande Mataram will be sung," Kamal Nath said on Thursday. On Tuesday, the newly formed Congress government in the state under the leadership Chief Minister Kamal Nath had decided to discontinue the tradition of reciting 'Vande Mataram' on the first working day of every month. The chief minister had said that reciting the national song cannot validate one's patriotism. "In a very attractive way, in Bhopal with the participation of police band and common citizens, Vande Mataram would be sung on the first working day of every month at 10:45 in the morning. The police band would play the notes that will invoke nationalism and will march from Shaurya Smarak to Vallabh Bhawan," stated the official Twitter handle of MP government 'jansamparkMP' earlier. The previous BJP government had introduced the practice of reciting 'Vande Mataram' on the first working day of every month. Former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has said that BJP legislators will sing 'Vande Mataram' in front of 'Vallabh Bhawan' in Bhopal on January 7. "Chief Minister Kamal Nath must tell the nation on whose instruction he stopped the tradition of singing Vande Mataram," former Chief Minister Chouhan said. Three BJP workers injured at Vadanappally in Thrissur district during clashes with Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) workers. (Photo: ANI) Thiruvananthapuram: A day after two women of menstrual age entered the Sabarimala temple, a dawn-to-dusk hartal has been called by Hindu outfits. The hartal, which began at 6 am, has been called by Sabarimala Karma Samithi, an umbrella organisation of various pro-Hindutva groups, and Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP). The BJP is supporting the shutdown while the Congress-led UDF is observing a "black day" on Thursday. Two women from Kerala, Bindu (42) and Kanakadurga (44) entered the temple premises and offered prayers around 3:45 am on Wednesday. As the news spread, protests broke out across the state with right-wing activists blocking highways and forcing the closure of shops and markets. A group of women jumped a barricade and came close to the CMs office in the state capital, but were overpowered. Many government buses and vehicles were damaged and mediapersons were also attacked. Here are the LIVE updates of dawn-to-dusk shutdown in Kerala today: 05:10 pm: Youth Congress members protesting outside IG office over two women entering Sabarimala temple, detained by police in Kochi. (Photo: ANI/Twitter) 03:14 pm: All India Democratic Women's Association expresses strong objection to the purification rituals carried out by the priests after two women of menstruating age visited the Sabarimala temple, calling it "demeaning" as it projects women as "impure" and "unclean". 02:46 pm: Three BJP workers injured at Vadanappally in Thrissur district during clashes with Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) workers. 02:13 pm: 60 workers of Hindu Makkal Katchi activists arrested for trying to stage a 'rail-roko' in Coimbatore. 01:50 pm: 15 members of the Bharatiya Janata Party lawyers' wing burn a portrait of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Coimbatore. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 01:14 pm: Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation suspended services to Kerala state from Coimbatore. About 25 bus services have been cancelled, say police. 12:58 pm: Asianet cameraperson Biju attacked by BJP workers during protest over Sabarimala Temple issue in Thiruvananthapuram. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 12:13 pm: Some Youth Congress workers were injured when they were hit by the pilot vehicle of the chief minister's convoy while they attempted to show black flags to Vijayan. 12:01 pm: Congress MP K Suresh says, We are observing 'black day' in Kerala today. The state government is challenging the sentiments of devotees of Sabarimala. With the sponsor of state government, these two young women entered the temple. They are activists, they are Maoists. 11:45 am: Sabarimala Karma Samiti and BJP workers hold a protest march in Pandalam over the issue of entry of women in Sabarimala Temple. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 11:31 am: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan says, "Kanakadurga and Bindu were given protection after they sought security to visit the shrine. They were not airdropped. They visited shrine like normal devotees. None of the devotees protested." 11:28 am: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan informs that during protests 7 police vehicles and 79 KSRTC buses have been damaged. 39 police personnel have also been attacked. Most of the persons attacked were women. Women media persons were also attacked, he added. 11:25 am: Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan says, It's the government's responsibility to give protection to women. The government has fulfilled this constitutional responsibility. Sangh Parivar is trying to make Sabarimala into a clash zone. 11:18 am: P G S Varma, member of royal Pandalam family says, Kerala government is taking measures every day to send someone there to disturb its rituals. It's festival time when per day 1 to 2 lakh people used to come to temple but due to government action, it has reduced to 10,000 to 15,000. 11:07 am: Supreme Court refuses to give an urgent hearing to a mentioning by lawyer, P V Dinesh, seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against the Sabarimala Temple priest for purification of temple premises after entry of two women on Wednesday. SC fixes the matter for hearing on January 22. 11:05 am: Two people have been arrested and two detained for attacking a Special Branch Women Police personnel on duty in rural area of Ernakulam district last night. 10:52 am: BJP holds a protest march in Kochi against the entry of women in Sabarimala Temple. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 10:23 am: BJPs V Muraleedharan, says, Yesterday (Wednesday) 2 women entered Sabarimala Temple. They weren't devotees. They were Maoists. CPM with selected policemen prepared an action plan and then saw to it that the women go inside the temple. This is a planned conspiracy by Maoists in league with Kerala government and CPM. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 10:12 am: Two people have been detained by police in connection with yesterday's violence and stone pelting incident in Pandalam over two women's entry in Sabarimala temple. 10:05 am: Ambulances being used to help stranded passengers at Thiruvananthapuram Central as bus services are affected in the area due to hartal called by various organisations. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 09:57 am: On protests over Sabarimala women entry issue, BJP Kerala president P S Sreedharan Pillai says, We will carry on with our agitation in a peaceful manner and abide by the law of the land. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 08:49 am: Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation has stopped its bus operations to Kerala for the day in view of the hartal called by various organisations, informed KSRTC PRO. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 08:15 am: Security deployed in Pathanamthitta in the view of hartal called by various organisations over Sabarimala Temple women entry issue. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 07:51 am: United Democratic Front to observe 'black day' in the state. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 07:45 am: A 55-year-old Sabarimala Karma Samiti worker who was injured yesterday in a clash between CPI(M) and BJP workers, in Pandalam, has succumbed to his injuries; Police investigation is underway. (With inputs from agencies) The lorry, which was also heading to Medchal was in front of Venkat and when the driver applied brakes to slow down, Venkat rammed his car and sustained injuries. (Representational Image) Hyderabad: A 63-year-old man was killed after he rammed his car behind a lorry when the vehicle applied sudden brakes to slow down on Tuesday. According to the police, the victim was identified as K. Venkat Reddy, 63. He was heading towards Medchal and was crossing Shamirpet, when the incident occurred. The lorry, which was also heading to Medchal was in front of Venkat and when the driver applied brakes to slow down, Venkat rammed his car and sustained injuries. He was then rushed to a private hospital in an ambulance, where the doctors declared him brought dead said the Police Inspector of Shamirpet, B. Naveen Reddy. Based on a complaint, a case was booked under section 304-A (death by negligence) of IPC and the dead body was shifted for postmortem examination in Gandhi morgue. Departures at Delhis Indira Gandhi International airport were put on hold this morning as fog and cold wave condition continue to grip national capital. (Representational Image | PTI) New Delhi: Departures at Delhis Indira Gandhi International airport were put on hold for two hours this morning as fog and cold wave condition continue to grip the national capital. Flights did not take off from the airport between 7:30 am to 9:30 am Thursday morning and eight flights were diverted due to bad weather and fog conditions. However, arrivals operated as usual during the period. "Departures were put on hold from 7:30 am to around 9:30 am because of low visibility due to fog. In this two hour period, arrivals were operating as usual. The departures resumed at around 9:30 am when the visibility became better," news agency PTI quoted a source as saying. "Total eight flights were diverted from Delhi airport between 7.30 am and 9.30 am. Most of these diversions happened due to pilot non-compliance," the source added. Flight carrier Jet Airways also tweeted about the weather update, saying their flights to and from Delhi have been affected. #9Wupdate: Due to adverse weather conditions (fog) at #Delhi airport, our flights to and from Delhi have been affected. For real-time flight status follow: https://t.co/aT3wpZexyr pic.twitter.com/CVEJVUN6TC Jet Airways (@jetairways) January 3, 2019 Around 12 trains coming in and departing from Delhi were also delayed due to bad weather. The list of delayed trains includes Purushottam Express, Brahmaputra Express., Farakka Express, Poorva Express, informed CPRO of Northern Railways. The Chief Minister said that the two women who visited Sabarimala early Wednesday morning were not airdropped, but went as normal devotees. (Photo: File) Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan Thursday lashed out at BJP and RSS, accusing them of unleashing violence during the hartal over the Sabarimala women's entry issue, saying it was a 'conspiracy for political gains' and would be dealt with strongly. Two women in their 40s had defied threats from saffron outfits and offered prayers at the temple early on January 2. The Chief Minister said that the two women who visited Sabarimala early Wednesday morning were not airdropped, but went as normal devotees. "The women were given protection after they sought security to visit the shrine. They were not airdropped. They visited the shrine like normal devotees. None of the devotees protested," Vijayan told reporters here. He also said that devotees at the temple never had any issue with women visiting the shrine and all the violence that started hours after their visit was a "conspiracy for political gain by the RSS". The Chief Minister also said that observing a hartal in the name of women's entry into the shrine was like calling a hartal against the Supreme Court order. Coming down heavily on the chief priest's action of closing the shrine for a purification ceremony, Vijayan said that this was against the Supreme Court order. "Such things are to be decided by the Devaswom Board. The action was not only a violation of the Supreme Court verdict, but also against the rules of the Board," he added. Vijayan laughed off the casteist remarks made against him by various BJP party members and leaders, including state vice-president M Sivarajan and said they had been doing it for a long time. "They keep reminding me of my caste. They tell me that I belong to a particular caste. In the Chaturvarnya system, a person belonging to a particular community should do only a particular job. I have said this many times. My father was a toddy tapper. My brothers were also doing the same. They (BJP) expect me to follow my family's footsteps. But times have changed," Vijayan said, adding that "a new era has come and they will have to understand it." Vijayan has been facing casteist remarks ever since his government took a stern stand over the entry of women into Sabarimala following the apex court decision of September 28. During the initial protests against the states decision to implement the top court order, a local lady in her 50s had used a derogatory term to denote Vijayan's caste and a video of it went viral. She later shot a video, apologising to the Chief Minister. A few days ago, 'Janmabhoomi' a BJP mouthpiece, carried a cartoon making fun of Vijayan by referring to his caste of traditional toddy-tappers and implying that he was unfit for the job. Following a strong backlash from various quarters, the daily sacked the cartoonist. On Wednesday, Sivarajan, while speaking to the media, had said that it would have been better if Vijayan went back to toddy tapping instead of being the Chief Minister. The state has been witnessing widespread violence after two women of the traditionally barred age group visited the shrine early Wednesday. A total of 79 state transport corporation buses were damaged in stone-pelting. Many media personnel, including women, were attacked and 31 policemen were injured. CPI(M) party offices were also attacked at many places. Right wing parties and a section of devotees under the aegis of Sabarimala Karma Samiti have been protesting against the September 28 verdict of the apex court, allowing women of all ages into the hill shrine of Lord Ayyappa. Following the entry of the two women, the Samiti, had called for a dawn-to-dusk hartal, which was being supported by the BJP. Yelahanka traffic police, who rushed to the spot, shifted the body to a hospital for postmortem and registered a case. Bengaluru: A 68-year-old man was knocked down by a speeding car on Doddaballapura main road on Tuesday evening. The deceased has been identified as Shivamadayya. He hails from Kanakpura taluk and had come to the city to visit his daughter. The accident happened around 6 pm while he along with his friend was crossing the road near CRPF Gate and the car driver sped away. Yelahanka traffic police, who rushed to the spot, shifted the body to a hospital for postmortem and registered a case. The police have obtained footages for the CCTV cameras installed near the accident spot and are examining it. Bajrang Dal leader Yogesh Raj, who is the main accused in the Bulandshahr mob violence in which a police officer was killed last month, was arrested on Thursday. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) New Delhi: Bajrang Dal leader Yogesh Raj, who is the main accused in the Bulandshahr mob violence in which a police officer was killed last month, was arrested on Thursday. Yogesh Raj was absconding since violence broke out in Uttar Pradeshs Bulandshahr over alleged cow slaughter. In a video released last month, the local Bajrang Dal leader claimed innocence and that he was not present at the site where the violence had erupted. Yogesh Raj is accused of inciting mob violence on December 3 after cow carcasses were recovered from a forest near Mahaw village. His arrest comes two days after the police arrested another key accused Kalua in the case. Kalua had confessed that he attacked police inspector Subodh Kumar Singh with an axe after the cop stopped him from felling a tree to block the road. On December 27, Prashant Natt -- the man who allegedly shot the inspector -- was arrested by the police. With Yogesh Rajs arrest, the number of those taken into custody in connection with the crime is 31 so far. The violence had erupted after cow carcasses were found near Mahaw village in Bulandshahr district. As the police reached the spot, angry mobs attacked the cops who later fired in the air. Two persons were also injured in police firing one of whom, Sumit, died later. The police clashed with people who had blocked a road in Syana while protesting against illegal animal slaughter. The protesters torched the Chingarwathi police outpost and set several vehicles, including a police van, on fire and pelted stones at the cops. Mozilla on Thursday warned that the proposed amendments in the Information Technology Act 2000 for social media and internet firms by the government are a blunt and disproportionate fix to the problem of harmful online content, which will lead to over-censorship and chill free expression. New Delhi: Mozilla on Thursday warned that the proposed amendments in the Information Technology Act 2000 for social media and internet firms by the government are a blunt and disproportionate fix to the problem of harmful online content, which will lead to over-censorship and chill free expression. The proactive obligation on services to remove unlawful content will inevitably lead to over-censorship and chill free expression, it said. Mozilla said that automated and machine-learning solutions should not be encouraged as a silver bullet to fight against harmful content on the internet. Requiring services to decrypt encrypted data, weakens overall security and contradicts the principles of data minimisation, endorsed in Ministry of Electronics and Information Technologys draft data protection bill, it said. Mozilla said that Indian government proposed sweeping changes to the legal protections for intermediaries, affect every internet company today. It said that intermediary liability protections have been fundamental to the growth of the internet. This, it pointed out ensures that companies generally have no obligations to actively censor and limited liability for illegal activities and postings of their users until they know about it. In India, the landmark Shreya Singhal judgement had clarified in 2015 that companies would only be expected to remove content when directed by a court order to do so," said Mozilla. It said that new rules proposed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) turn this logic on its head. They propose that all intermediaries, ranging from social media and e-commerce platforms to internet service providers, be required to proactively remove unlawful user content, or else face liability for content on their platform, it said. They also propose a sharp blow to end-to-end encryption technologies, used to secure most popular messaging, banking, and e-commerce apps today, by requiring services to make available information about the creators or senders of content to government agencies for surveillance purposes, it said. Mozilla said that it recognise that harmful content online from hate speech and misinformation to terrorist content undermines the overall health of the internet and stifles its empowering potential. Hyderabad: After GMR Infra failed to fulfil its obligations by December 31, Malaysia Airports Holding Berhad (MAHB), on Wednesday, said that it has terminated the Share Purchasing Agreement (SPA) with the infra major for selling its 11 per cent stake. In February 2018, GMR Infrastructure had said that its subsidiary GMR Airports (GAL) had entered into an agreement with MAHB and its subsidiary to acquire 11 per cent of the stake that the Malaysian firm is holding in GMR Hyderabad International Airport, for $76 million. The Board of Directors of MAHB wishes to announce that the SPA has been automatically terminated due to failure of the purchaser to complete their obligation in accordance with the terms of the SPA by 31 December 2018. Therefore, MAHB and MAHB (Mauritius) Private Limited shall remain as shareholders of GHIAL accordingly, MAHB said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday. GHIAL is a special purpose vehicle that manages the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport here. Besides MAHB, GAL currently holds 63 per cent stake and the remaining in the company is held by Airports Authority of India (13 per cent) and the Telangana government (13 per cent). GMR Infrastructure shares, which were trading at Rs 16 apiece on the BSE at 10 am, closed at Rs 15.65, down 30 paise or 1.88 per cent. The proposal also dovetails into Unique Identification Authority of India's (UIDAI) ongoing plans to offer more services online. New Delhi: The UIDAI is mulling allowing Common Service Centres (CSCs) to provide non-biometric assistance for Aadhaar enrolment and updation services, including helping public in filling online forms, according to a government source. Village-level Entrepreneurs or VLEs, who run CSCs, have been asking the government to allow them to restart Aadhaar enrolment and updation services, after UIDAI restricted these centres and private operators from doing so to ensure security and safety of biometric data of 120 crore Aadhaar holders. A person familiar with the ongoing deliberations at the Aadhaar-issuing body said allowing CSCs to carry out public assistance services for filling online Aadhaar forms for enrolment and updation activities, without involving any biometrics, is under consideration. This service could be particularly helpful to users in rural areas or those not familiar with the online system, and CSCs can be allowed to charge a small fee for offering the assistance, the official said. A final decision is yet to be taken on the matter. The proposal also dovetails into Unique Identification Authority of India's (UIDAI) ongoing plans to offer more services online. The government had earlier promised to look into CSC's appeal that they be allowed to carry out Aadhaar-related work such as enrolment and updation of services. IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, while addressing VLEs at an event in November, had said the government will make all efforts to look for a solution to the ongoing imbroglio. VLEs have been unhappy with UIDAI's decision to stop Aaddhar services, contending that they had invested money in purchasing equipment and in training manpower for Aadhaar-related work. Making a strong pitch on behalf of these centres, CSC Chief Dinesh Tyagi had earlier said Aadhaar has helped people in rural India get an identity, and that the 12-digit identifier should be allowed to remain the 'aadhaar' or foundation for CSCs as well. CSCs act as access points for delivery of digital services and there are nearly three lakh such centres operating across the country today. Apart from delivering essential government and public utility services, this flagship rural outreach program also delivers a range of social welfare schemes, financial services, education and skill development courses, healthcare, agriculture services and digital literacy. Here are some factors that you can keep in mind to ensure your motor insurance claims are not rejected by the car insurance company. Seeing the first dent or scratch on your car can be heart-breaking, especially if it was caused due to someone elses fault. But whats more disappointing is when your car insurance claim is rejected by your car insurance company. Now, you may think you have done everything right while filing the motor insurance claim with the car insurance company, but your car insurance provider has reason to believe otherwise. Believe it or not, car insurance companies do not like to reject motor insurance claims without a reason. Buying a great car insurance policy is the first step, but to make the most of the car insurance policy you purchased, you need to ensure that you file your motor insurance claims carefully. If car insurance claims are filed correctly, you could get the entire amount from your car insurance provider. Here are some factors that you can keep in mind to ensure your motor insurance claims are not rejected by the car insurance company. 1) Check Car Insurance Policy Status Are you sure your car insurance policy was valid at the time the accident took place? If the event took place even a few hours after your policy lapsed, the claim will not be approved by the insurance company. Always ensure your policy is renewed on time to prevent rejections of claims. 2) Have A Valid Driving Licence The first requirement for processing a motor insurance claim is that at the time of the accident the vehicle needs to be driven by a valid and effective driving licence holder. If your driving licence was not valid at the time of the accident, or if you did not have one, your car insurance company will not honour your request for claims. 3) Follow Road Safety Rules And Regulations Your claim will be rejected if you were driving under the influence of banned substances such as drugs, liquor etc. 4) Do Not Make Repairs Without Informing The Motor Insurance Provider Assume your car met with an accident and you got it fixed without informing your car insurance company. Later, you raised a request with your insurance provider to claim the amount spent towards repairs. However, this was rejected by your insurer. Are you wondering why? As the car insurance provider was not informed about the accident and the subsequent damage to your vehicle, they could not verify the authenticity of your claim due to which your claim was rejected. In situations such as this, always inform your motor insurance provider first, as they will send a surveyor to inspect the extent of the damage to your vehicle after which your vehicle can be sent for repairs. 5) Inform Car Insurance Provider About Modifications When buying a motor insurance policy, always inform your insurance provider of any alteration/modification you may have carried out in your car, for instance, installation of CNG or LPG kit. Your claim settlement may be impacted if any major alteration carried out in your car is not endorsed in your policy document. 6) Transfer Policy To Your Name When you buy a used car, one of the first steps you need to do is to transfer the insurance policy in your name within 14 days of the purchase. If you forget to transfer the car insurance policy within the stipulated time to your name, your claim may be rejected as you have no insurable interest in it. 7) Always Provide Honest Responses In Your Claims Form Providing fraudulent/false information in your claims form is one of the top reasons your request for reimbursement can be rejected. For instance, if someone else beside the policyholder was behind the wheel, the insurance company should be notified about this. Moreover, do not modify your responses based on the assumption that your insurance company might not want to know minor details. Withholding information could be considered as good as providing wrong information. While buying a car insurance is the first step towards keeping you and your car safe, just having an insurance policy is not enough. You should also aim to follow all the road safety rules and regulations and be a responsible driver. Authored article by Vijay Sinha, MD & CEO of COCO by DHFL General Insurance Searches are being conducted at homes, offices of directors of Saravana Bhavan, Hot Breads, Anjappar group and Grand Sweets. Saravana Bhavan, established by P Rajagopal in 1981, has its outlets in 20 countries including the US, the UK, France and Australia. (Photo: Facebook | @hsbindiaa) Chennai: Four popular restaurant chains in Chennai, including the world-famous Saravana Bhavan, were raided by the Income Tax Department over alleged tax evasion on Thursday morning. Searches are being conducted at 32 locations, including the residences and offices of the directors of Saravana Bhavan, Hot Breads, the Anjappar group and Grand Sweets, media reports said. These hotels serve some of the best south Indian delicacies, including cakes, pastries and sweets that are even shipped abroad, news agency PTI quoted a senior official as saying. The officials added that the department is looking into allegations of suppression of income by these groups by various means and hence decided to conduct searches and obtain further evidence. The daily operations of these restaurants were not affected by the raids. Of the four restaurant chains, Saravana Bhavan, established by P Rajagopal in 1981, is the most well-known. It has its outlets in 20 countries including the US, the UK, France and Australia. Anjappar was established in 1964 and offers South Indian cuisine, particularly focusing on Chettinad-style preparations, at 70 outlets. Established in 1982 by G Natarajan, The Grand Sweets & Snacks has become a big name in the industry. Bakery chain Hot Breads was started by M Mahadevan, a former Assistant Professor at Madras University, and has branches in Tamil Nadu and neighbouring Puducherry. The restaurant chains are yet to respond to the tax raids. Meanwhile, reports also suggest that the raids will continue till Friday evening. * The 4th International Competition of Cartoons Aleksandar Klas 2017, Serbia: All cartoonists whose cartoons are selected in the catalog and the exhibition will receive a free copy of the catalog ( Regulation ). * International Cartoon Contest in Memory of Cartoonist Prof. Atila Ozer 2016, Turkey: The selected cartoons will be published in a catalog. These will be sent at no cost to the participants whose works are : The selected cartoons will be published in a catalog. These will be sent at no cost to the participants whose works are exhibited and published ( Regulation ). Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription and are still unable to access our content, please link your digital account to your print subscription If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. 3 1 of 3 / Greenwich Police Department Show More Show Less 2 of 3 / Greenwich Police Department Show More Show Less 3 of 3 GREENWICH Two suspects have been arrested in connection with a theft of three expensive handbags from Saks last July, police said. Greenwich police issued warrants for the arrests of two suspects accused of taking part in the theft of $7,000 in merchandise from the Greenwich Avenue store on July 31. Authorities were notified that they were being held in custody in Pennsylvania. HAMDEN A 28-year-old Milford police officer has been charged in a pedestrians death on Dixwell Avenue last summer. Hamden police charged Courtney Bothwell, of North Haven, with negligent homicide with a motor vehicle, failure to exercise due care to avoid colliding with a pedestrian and distracted driving. Police indicated in the charges that the distracted driving charge was not related to cellphone usage. Bothwell is listed as a patrol officer first class on the Milford Police Departments staff roster. A website for CrossFit HCC indicated she is also a Level 1 CrossFit certified trainer. In July, Officer Bothwell, who is a Milford police officer, was involved in a motor vehicle accident in Hamden while off duty, said a statement from the Milford Police Department. Mike DeVito, the Milford police spokesman, said there will be an administrative investigation to see if any Milford Police Department policies were violated. When any Milford police officer is involved in an off-duty incident an administrative investigation is launched to determine if any of our department policies were violated, DeVito said. Hamden police said the investigation into the July 20, 2018, crash showed that 50-year-old Kristin Wilcyznski, of North Haven, was crossing the street as Bothwell was driving south on Dixwell Avenue, merging onto Old Dixwell Avenue, according to Capt. Ronald Smith. Wilcyznski was hit by a motor vehicle being driven by Bothwell. Wilcyznski was taken to Yale New Haven Hospital, where she died shortly after. Hamden Police Officer Kevin Hall conducted an extensive investigation, Smith said, which led to an arrest warrant application for Bothwell. The court approved the warrant and she was arrested and charged Wednesday. Bothwell, who was released on a written promise to appear, is scheduled to appear in Meriden Superior Court on Jan. 14. After the accident, community members came together to raise money for the Wilczynski family. More than $20,000 was raised through a crowdfunding campaign. Wilczynski was married and had three children. Staff writer Tara ONeill contributed to this report. The matter was mentioned for urgent hearing before bench comprising CJI Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul which agreed to hear it. The rallies, according to the original schedule, were supposed to be flagged off by BJP president Amit Shah from Bengal's Cooch Behar district on December 7, Kakdwip in South 24 Parganas on December 9 and from Tarapith temple in Birbhum on December 14. (Photo: File) New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday agreed to hear on January 7 the West Bengal BJP's plea against a Calcutta High Court order not allowing its Rath Yatra in the state. The matter was mentioned for urgent hearing before a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul which agreed to hear it on January 7. The party had approached the apex court seeking permission to hold the campaign 'Save Democracy Rally', which would cover 42 parliamentary constituencies in the state ahead of the 2019 general elections. It had challenged the December 21 order of a division bench of the high court which had set aside the order of a single judge allowing the yatra. In the plea, the BJP had said that their fundamental right to hold a peaceful yatra cannot be withheld. The party had planned to launch the yatra from three districts of the state. The high court's division bench had earlier sent the case back to the single judge to hear it afresh and also to consider intelligence inputs by state agencies. The order of the division bench had come after hearing an appeal moved by the West Bengal government challenging the order of the single judge. The rallies, according to the original schedule, were supposed to be flagged off by BJP president Amit Shah from Bengal's Cooch Behar district on December 7, Kakdwip in South 24 Parganas on December 9 and from Tarapith temple in Birbhum on December 14. In the plea filed in the apex court, the BJP's West Bengal unit had contended that authorities cannot abridge their right and they have a duty to facilitate them in exercising their democratic right. The plea had alleged that the state government was repeatedly "attacking" the fundamental right of citizens due to which different petitions were filed challenging the activities of the state government in denying permission to different organisations and the top court has allowed the citizens to organise their events. It had claimed that earlier also, permission was denied several times at the last moment to "harass the BJP" which later moved the high court and that the party "is facing such political vendetta since 2014 in West Bengal". HARTFORD Members of the Criminal Justice Policy Advisory Commission (CJPAC) held their final meeting last week and took time to reflect on what many said were monumental, positive changes to the system they helped manage. While the Malloy administration certainly has its critics, one of the of pluses of his eight-year tenure as governor that even some of his naysayers give him credit for is the sharp decrease in the number of prisoners. At last weeks meeting, outgoing Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and members of CJPAC took a few bows for that accomplishment while acknowledging there is still much work left to do for Gov.-elect Ned Lamont and his administration. Outgoing Under Secretary for Criminal Justice Policy and Planning Michael P. Lawlor referred to the most recent statewide crime trends report that showed overall reported crime in 2017 in Connecticut was the lowest in 50 years. The report, which is based on the most recent 2017 data, said there were 71,883 index crimes, which are crimes involving victims, i.e. murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson. The highest year for those type of crimes was 1990, the report said, when 177,068 occurred. The total number of statewide arrests for all crimes dropped by 41 percent between 2009, when statewide arrests peaked at 138,719, and 2017, when there were 81,408 arrests - a drop of 7.5 percent from 2016. By analyzing recent trends, the criminal justice policy and planning office is projecting that there will likely be about 6 percent fewer arrests when all statistics are compiled for 2018 than there were in 2017. The report said that since Malloy took office in 2011, statistics show that the overall crime in the state has declined 19 percent, including a 19 percent decline in violent crimes. Addressing members of CJPAC, Malloy said the group got amazing things done. He added: When it comes to criminal justice reform and prison reform Connecticut is the leading state in the nation. He said the state has been successful in shutting down the high school to prison pipeline during his tenure in office. Lawlor, who was thanked by his fellow CJPAC members for his tireless efforts in tackling criminal justice issues, said he sometimes reflects back to his days as a state legislator in the 1980s when bringing up the issue of criminal justice was radioactive. Lawlor, who will be teaching criminal justice as a tenured professor at the University of New Haven, even brought an old campaign slide he used when running in East Haven for the state legislature in the 80s which had a photo of a campaign pamphlet which said: Mike Lawlor is making sure they do the time, with a picture of a prisoner in handcuffs. Times have really changed, Lawlor said, referring to the fact that President Donald Trump recently signed into law the First Step Act, an act which enacts prison and sentencing reforms, giving judges more leeway in sentencing, retroactively applying earlier sentencing reforms and paving the road for earlier pre-release custody for certain inmates. The First Step Act had bipartisan support, a rarity these days in Washington. Lawlor said the federal law is very similar to what Gov. Malloy led the way on in Connecticut. CJPAC was established under Public Act 06-193 . It held its first meeting in February of 2011. It was formerly the Prison and Jail Overcrowding Commission. Members of CJPAC heaped praise on Lawlor for his stewardship of the committees work the past eight years. Your ability to bring everybody together to work collaboratively, was one of your biggest strengths, Judge Patrick L. Carroll told Lawlor. The news wasnt all rosy at CJPACs last meeting as Lawlor and outgoing Corrections Commissioner Scott Semple said the incoming administration will be saddled with the ongoing problem of too many imprisoned being granted special parole. The legislature in 2016 approved legislation designed to re-focus use of special parole sentences on high risk, violent and sexual offenders. The measure was suppose to address the overuse of special parole sentences on non-violent offenders, while allowing parole officers to focus their attention on the highest risk offenders. But Lawlor and Semple said the problem is far from fixed. While many of members, besides Lawlor will be leaving their work as the new administration takes over January 9, the members said the mission of reducing crime, reducing prison population and reducing spending will continue. Members said Lamont has made a good first step by nominating nominating Rollin Cook to be his Department of Corrections Commissioner, replacing outgoing Semple. Cook most recently served as the executive director of the Utah Department of Corrections. Cook will begin serving as the Commissioner-designate when Lamont is inaugurated. His nomination will be sent to the General Assembly for its advice and consent. Rollin Cook is a national expert and a leader in his field, and brings to this role experience as both a correctional officer and as an executive manager, said Lamont. Semple, also a member of CJPAC, said Lamont couldnt have made a better choice to replace him. Semple said he has worked with Cook in the past and hes highly respected on a national level. I am very, very pleased that Rollin has agreed to come here, Semple said. He was highly recruited around the country. Hes probably the best candidate in the country. Lamont has expressed an interest in carrying on many of Malloys criminal justice reforms. The top court questioned the state government about the steps taken to rescue the miners. Multiple teams, from the NDRF, Navy and firefighters, are on the ground, trying to make reach the miners. (Photo: AFP) New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed dissatisfaction with the rescue operations of 15 miners who are trapped in an illegal flooded coal mine in East Jaintia Hills since December 13, 2018. The court said that "prompt, immediate and effective" operation was required. The top court questioned the state government about the steps taken to rescue the miners. The court said, We're not satisfied with rescue operations. No matter whether they are all dead, some alive, few dead or all alive, they should be taken out. We pray to God they are alive. "For people who are trapped there, every minute counts," the bench said. Meghalaya government earlier told the court that the state is taking steps to rescue the trapped miners. 72 NDRF personnel, 14 Navy personnel and Coal India personnel are working since December 14. Supreme Court asked, Then, why are they not successful? The Supreme Court was hearing a petition requesting for urgent steps to rescue miners who have been trapped inside the mine. The operation to rescue 15 people, trapped in a 320-foot-deep illegal "rat-hole" mine has made little progress since it began. Multiple teams, from the NDRF, Navy and firefighters, are on the ground, trying to make reach the miners. (With PTI inputs) It is 'funny' situation with PM feeling happy about people's front losing in T'gana by forgetting as why people rejected BJP, Dasoju said. Modi talked about 'people's front' (comprising Congress, TDP and others) losing in Telangana Assembly polls but what about BJP which has been decimated, Dasoju said. (Photo: File) Hyderabad: It is the "joke of 2019" when Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he does not know about the federal front of regional parties being attempted by Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, AICC spokesperson Sravan Dasoju claimed here Thursday. Dasoju, who has been appointed as the spokesperson for AICC two days ago, wondered how can Modi say (in a media interview) that he does not know about the non-Congress, non-BJP front proposed by Rao when the latter was going around the country to promote the initiative. "Both together (after) reaching a tacit understanding, to weaken Congress, by confusing parties who are pro-Congress and to move them away from UPA, Modi and KCR are conspiring" Dasoju told reporters. Modi talked about 'people's front' (comprising Congress, TDP and others) losing in Telangana Assembly polls but what about BJP which has been decimated, he said. "I don't understand whether shame is there or not. I am sorry to use such a language against the Prime Minister. But then, he says people's front lost. What happened to your party? BJP is decimated here," he said. It is a "funny" situation with Modi feeling happy about people's front losing in Telangana by forgetting as to why people rejected BJP, he said. Out of total 119 Assembly seats, BJP lost security deposit in 105 constituencies. Congress has not lost much as it won 19 seats now compared to 22 segments it won in 2014, he said. Noting that "a blind tiger in a forest eats its own cubs", Dasoju claimed that Modi, in a similar fashion, has sacrificed his own BJP MLAs before KCR and then talked about hurting Congress in Telangana. Alleging that the NDA government was trying to evade answers on the Rafale deal, Dasoju said the government should accept the demand for a JPC probe into the issue if it has any morals. India had inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September last year for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore, nearly one- and-half years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the proposal during a visit to Paris. The delivery of the jets is scheduled to begin from September, 2019. The Congress has raised several questions about the deal including the rates, and accused the government of compromising national interest and security while promoting "crony capitalism" and causing a loss to the public exchequer. Sena said if Ram temple not be built before 2019, it will be like betraying people, for which BJP and RSS would have to apologise to them. The Sena, an ally of the BJP at the Centre and in Maharashtra, slammed PM Modi for his comment in a recent interview, broadcast by several TV channels, that any government action on the temple construction can happen only after the judicial process is over. (Photo: File) Mumbai: In a sharp attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Shiv Sena on Thursday said it wondered when the Ram temple could be constructed in Ayodhya if not during the tenure of the current BJP-led majority government. It said if the Ram temple cannot be built before 2019 (polls), it will be like betraying people of the country, for which the BJP and the RSS would have to apologise to them. The Sena, an ally of the BJP at the Centre and in Maharashtra, slammed PM Modi for his comment in a recent interview, broadcast by several TV channels, that any government action on the temple construction can happen only after the judicial process is over. "He (Modi) came to power in the name of Ram, however, according to him, Lord Ram is not bigger than law (RPT Lord Ram is not bigger than law). The question now is if the temple cannot be constructed in the majority government, when will it ever be," the Sena asked in an editorial in party mouthpiece 'Saamana'. The Modi government got a magnificent statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel constructed in Gujarat, but the prime minister did not show the courage of 'sardar' over the Ram temple issue, it said, asserting that this would be recorded in the pages of history. The agitation for the Ram temple began in 1991-92 and hundreds of 'kar sevaks' lost their lives, it noted. "Who did this massacre and why? While hundreds of Hindu kar sevaks died, the subsequent (Mumbai) bomb blasts led to the killing of hundreds of people from both sides (Hindu and Muslim communities). If the Supreme Court had to take the decision, why this massacre and bloodshed?" it asked. The Uddhav Thackeray-led party further sought to know whether the BJP and the RSS were ready to take the responsibility for those killings and bloodshed. "The way the Congress had to apologise for the massacre of Sikhs (after the anti-Sikh riots in 1984), we have to understand the sentiments of those who demand an apology (from the BJP) for the massacre of Hindus," it said. Further attacking PM Modi over his interview in which he defended his government's decision of demonetisation in 2016, the Marathi daily said if note ban was not a shock and people had been warned a year before it was done, "who exactly were those people"? "Those who lost their lives standing in bank queues and those who lost employment, were they not citizens?" it further asked. Addressing DMs through VC, UP CM said they should ensure that farmers and residents do not face any problems due to stray cattle. 'Those leaving their cattle on roads should be dealt with strictly and fine should be imposed on them when they come to take their cattle from such centres,' the chief minister said. (Photo: File) Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has directed all the district magistrates to ensure that stray animals, including cattle, are transported to 'Gau Sanrakshan Kendras' by January 10, an official said Thursday. Addressing the district magistrates (DMs) through video conferencing on Wednesday night, Adityanath said they should ensure that farmers and residents do not face any problems due to stray cattle. Kanji Houses in every district would be renamed 'Gau Sanrakshan Kendras'. "Those leaving their cattle on roads should be dealt with strictly and fine should be imposed on them when they come to take their cattle from such centres," the chief minister said. Adityanath said help from traders, businessmen and people's representatives should be sought in running these 'Gau Sanrakshan Kendras'. The state government has been under some pressure from farmers protesting over stray cattle destroying their crops. Over the past week, people in at least two villages in western UP's Aligarh and Firozabad districts rounded up stray cattle and locked them up in government schools, refusing to let classes run until the administration did something about the animals. Flights did not take off from airport between 7:30 am to 9:30 am Thursday morning; 8 flights were diverted due to bad weather. Departures at Delhis Indira Gandhi International airport were put on hold this morning as fog and cold wave condition continue to grip national capital. (Representational Image | PTI) New Delhi: Departures at Delhis Indira Gandhi International airport were put on hold for two hours this morning as fog and cold wave condition continue to grip the national capital. Flights did not take off from the airport between 7:30 am to 9:30 am Thursday morning and eight flights were diverted due to bad weather and fog conditions. However, arrivals operated as usual during the period. "Departures were put on hold from 7:30 am to around 9:30 am because of low visibility due to fog. In this two hour period, arrivals were operating as usual. The departures resumed at around 9:30 am when the visibility became better," news agency PTI quoted a source as saying. "Total eight flights were diverted from Delhi airport between 7.30 am and 9.30 am. Most of these diversions happened due to pilot non-compliance," the source added. Flight carrier Jet Airways also tweeted about the weather update, saying their flights to and from Delhi have been affected. #9Wupdate: Due to adverse weather conditions (fog) at #Delhi airport, our flights to and from Delhi have been affected. For real-time flight status follow: https://t.co/aT3wpZexyr pic.twitter.com/CVEJVUN6TC Jet Airways (@jetairways) January 3, 2019 Around 12 trains coming in and departing from Delhi were also delayed due to bad weather. The list of delayed trains includes Purushottam Express, Brahmaputra Express., Farakka Express, Poorva Express, informed CPRO of Northern Railways. You have permission to edit this collection. Edit Close Additionally, both those departments will have better policies governing salary increases, as soon as they implement planned pay scales based on officers experience. Charlottesville, meanwhile, is increasing its minimum wage to $15 per hour, but that will not affect police salaries enough to bring them in line with those of UVa or Albemarle. City officers also want to be able to take their police vehicles home with them. Chief Brackney says a great majority receive take-home vehicles, although not every officer does. Having police vehicles accessible while off duty means that officers can be mobilized immediately and get to emergencies more quickly. Having them visible in the communities where officers live means that neighbors can feel more secure about their safety, knowing that an officer is nearby. However, Charlottesville misses out on some portion of those benefits because many officers cant afford to live in the city. If Republicans have a lick of sense, they are alarmed by a recent sign of intelligent life in the other party. The sign is the election by Democrats in the House of Representatives of Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In November she won a fourth term by 24 percentage points, the largest margin of any Democrat running in a district Donald Trump carried in 2016. Her task as chair, which is to cement the Democrats' House majority in 2020, involves this arithmetic: In the next Congress, 31 Democrats will represent districts Trump carried. In 2018, 40 Democrats flipped districts from red to blue 41, if the Democrat wins the North Carolina race clouded by allegations of vote fraud. Twenty-two Democrats won by 5 percentage points or less. Twenty-three lost by 5 points or less. Democrats have noticed that Bustos prospers in a mostly rural district that extends along the Mississippi from the Wisconsin border to a portion of Peoria. Sixty percent of the district's residents live in towns with populations of 1,000 or fewer, 85 percent are in towns of 5,000 or fewer. In November, she won all of her district's 14 counties, 11 of which are entirely rural. Raju Singh was booked under relevant sections of IPC and Arms Act, police said, adding that he has five other cases registered against him. New Delhi: The Delhi Police arrested former Bihar MLA Raju Singh, his wife and two others Thursday in connection with a celebratory firing incident during a New Year's Eve party at the ex-legislator's farmhouse here, in which a woman was killed. The former MLA and his driver Hari Singh, who had fled Delhi after the incident, were arrested Thursday after being detained from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh a day before. Raju Singh's wife Renu Singh and Raminder Singh, who worked for the leader, were arrested for allegedly destroying evidence, police said. Renu Singh is a former member of the Bihar legislative council. Raju Singh had unsuccessfully contested the 2015 Assembly election in Bihar on a BJP ticket. The police have added IPC Section 302, which pertains to punishment for murder, and punishable with a maximum term of life imprisonment or death sentence, to the FIR after Archana Gupta, who was hit by bullets, succumbed to injuries on Thursday. A pistol and a rifle were seized from the car in which Raju Singh fled from the spot after the incident, Special Commissioner of Police, Law and Order (South), R P Upadhyay said. "We have arrested Raju Singh and Hari Singh in connection with the incident. They will be produced in a city court later in the day. Police will seek their remand for seven days," he said. During questioning, the former MLA's wife was evasive, sources said. After their arrest, Raju Singh and Hari Singh were taken to AIIMS for medical examination before their production in the court, Vijay Kumar, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South), said. Forensic test was also done on the accused to ascertain who fired the shots, police said. The mortuary is also situated in the same building. Adequate security arrangements were made at the hospital when the accused were taken there. Reports claimed that the accused met the victim's family members. The police, however, said they were not allowed to meet the victim's family at the hospital. The woman's post-mortem is currently underway at AIIMS, hospital sources said. Police had earlier seized two rifles and 800 bullets from Raju Singh's farm house in south Delhi's Vasant Kunj area. In his complaint to police, Archana Gupta's husband had said that they were at the farm house on Monday night to celebrate the New Year along with friends and around midnight, two-three rounds were fired by Raju Singh. Immediately, he noticed that his wife had fallen down and was bleeding. The police were informed and a medicolegal case was registered, a hospital spokesperson said. Raju Singh was booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act, police said, adding that he has five other cases registered against him. The farm house is owned by Raju Singh's mother where he lives with his family. Singh's two brothers also live with their families in the farm house, police added. New Delhi: A woman, who was wounded in celebratory firing during a New Year's Eve party at former Bihar MLA Raju Singh's farm house here, succumbed to injuries even as the legislator and his driver were arrested Thursday, police said. A hospital source said Archana Gupta succumbed to injuries on Thursday. Police have now added IPC Section 302, which pertains to punishment for murder, and punishable with a maximum term of life imprisonment or death sentence, to the FIR, police said. A pistol and a rifle were seized from the car in which Raju Singh fled from the spot after the incident, Special Commissioner of Police, Law and Order (South), R P Upadhyay said. "We have arrested Raju Singh and Hari Singh in connection with the incident. They will be produced in a city court later in the day. Police will seek their remand for seven days," he said. Upadhyay said the woman who was injured during the incident succumbed to injuries. The former MLA's wife is also being questioned in connection with the case. Raju Singh and Hari Singh were taken to AIIMS for medical examination before their production in the court, Vijay Kumar, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South), said. Forensic test was also done on the accused to ascertain who fired the shots, police said. The mortuary is also situated in the same building. The accused were taken to the hospital with adequate police staff. Reports claimed that the accused met the victim's family members. The police, however, said they were not allowed to meet the victim's family at the hospital. The woman's post-mortem is currently underway at AIIMS, hospital sources said. On Wednesday, the accused were detained in Uttar Pradesh's Gorakhpur city. Police had earlier seized two rifles and 800 bullets from Raju Singh's farm house in south Delhi's Vasant Kunj area. In his complaint to police, Archana Gupta's husband had said that they were at the farm house on Monday night to celebrate the New Year along with friends and around midnight, two-three rounds were fired by Raju Singh. Immediately, he noticed that his wife had fallen down and was bleeding. The Delhi Police was informed and a medicolegal case was registered, a hospital spokesperson said. Raju Singh was booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act, police said, adding that he has five other cases registered against him. His wife is a former member of the Bihar legislative council, they said. Raju Singh contested the 2015 Assembly election in Bihar on a BJP ticket. The farm house is owned by Raju Singh's mother where he lives with his family. Singh's two brothers also live with their families in the farm house, police added. Reports that Garrett had asked or required staff members to perform personal errands for him and his wife surfaced in May. Soon after, Garrett announced via a tearful video that he would not be seeking re-election, citing a battle with alcoholism. The House Office of Congressional Ethics began investigating the claims in June, requesting documentation from Garrett, his wife and several current and former staffers. The committee determined that Garrett had improperly had staff perform personal errands, which either constituted improper uses of staff time, or improper gifts, if staff performed the tasks on their own time without compensation. It was apparent from the evidence gathered by the committee that Representative Garrett did not understand or appreciate the limits on when and how he could call upon his congressional staff to assist him with respect to tasks that were not in direct support of his official representational duties, a statement from the ethics committee reads. According to the release, the committee conducted an expedited investigation due to Garretts impending departure. The refusal to cooperate by Garrett and his wife and staffers held up the investigation, according to the release. Customers whose clothes were caught in the closure of Browns Dry Cleaners last week can claim their items beginning Monday, according to the stores owner. Cary Jackson said clothing in the companys four stores will be available beginning at 8 a.m. Monday. Jackson shuttered the four Browns Dry Cleaners locations on Christmas Eve due to financial issues exacerbated by a nationally faltering market. He recently paid employees who were owed checks and finished organizing the return of clothing to customers. Its very hard to make the decision to close because I grew up in the business. My grandfather started Browns, and my uncle bought it from him, and I bought it from my uncle in 2014, Jackson said. Jackson said he kept the family business going as long as he could but realized it was not sustainable. 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(Photo: File) New Delhi: As many as 19 members of the AIADMK and TDP were suspended on Thursday for four days by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan for repeatedly disrupting proceedings of the House. The development came a day after 24 AIADMK members were suspended for the next five consecutive sittings for protesting and creating ruckus continuously in the House over the Cauvery issue. As soon as the Zero Hour commenced at noon on Thursday, AIADMK and TDP members trooped in the Well, raising slogans and carrying banners demanding stalling of a dam on river Cauvery and special state status to Andhra Pradesh respectively. The AIADMK members flung papers towards the chair several times. Amid the ruckus, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Narendra Singh Tomar appealed to the agitating MPs to return to their seats. However, protests by the unrelenting members of the two Southern parties continued. At this, the Speaker initially warned that she would be forced to name the unruly members and take action against them. "I warn you, I will take you names. You have come to the Well and are persistently creating trouble," she said. As the members refused to budge, the Speaker suspended 12 TDP MPs and seven AIADMK members under Rule 374(A) of Lok Sabha proceedings for the next four sitting of the House. Among the suspended MPs were former Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju (TDP), Thota Narasimham (TDP) and Renuka Butta (unattached) who had won on a YSR Congress ticket. The suspended members will not be able to take part in proceedings for the rest of the winter session, which concludes on January 8. "You are wilfully obstructing the proceedings of the House. I am, therefore, constrained to name you and suspend you for four consecutive days," Mahajan said. The Speaker subsequently adjourned the House till 2 pm after conducting business for nearly 15 minutes during the Zero Hour. The AIADMK has 37 members in the House. Fortune Brands Home & Security, Inc. provides home and security products for residential home repair, remodeling, new construction, and security applications. It operates in three segments: Plumbing, Outdoors & Security, and Cabinets. The Plumbing segment manufactures, assembles, and sells faucets, accessories, kitchen sinks, and waste disposals in the United States, China, Canada, Mexico, Southeast Asia, Europe, and South America directly through its own sales force, as well as through independent manufacturers' representatives to wholesalers, home centers, mass merchandisers, and industrial distributors. The Outdoors & Security segment offers fiberglass and steel entry door systems under the Therma-Tru brand; storm, screen, and security doors under the Larson brand; composite decking and railing under the Fiberon brand; and urethane millwork under the Fypon brand. This segment also manufactures, sources, and distributes locks, safety and security devices, and electronic security products under the Master Lock and American Lock brands; and fire resistant safes, security containers, and commercial cabinets under the SentrySafe brand. It serves home centers, hardware and other retailers, millwork building products and wholesale distributors, specialty dealers, and remodeling and renovation markets, as well as locksmiths, industrial and institutional users, and original equipment manufacturers in the United States, Canada, Europe, Central America, Japan, and Australia. The Cabinets segment manufactures custom, semi-custom, and stock cabinetry, as well as vanities for the kitchen, bath, and other parts of the home directly to kitchen and bath dealers, home centers, wholesalers, and builders in North America under the Aristokraft, Diamond Now, Mid-Continent, Homecrest, Kitchen Craft, Omega, EVE, Diamond Reflections, Diamond, Kemper, Schrock, Starmark, Ultracraft, and Mantra brands. The company was incorporated in 1988 and is headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois. Read More Man Who Picked Tesla, Bitcoin Makes Next Pick of the Decade" (Ad) Picking the right investment of the decade can transform your life Today, the Wall Street legend who picked the last investment of the decade months (even years) before his peers will finally reveal his new #1 pick for the 2020s. Its not 5G, artificial intelligence, EVs, or clean energy. The answer will surprise you. Click To See This #1 Pick. 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Ltd., P&G K.K., P&G Northeast Asia Pte. Ltd., P&G Prestige Godo Kaisha, P&G Prestige Service GmbH, P&G South African Trading (Pty.) Ltd., PGT Health Care (Zhejiang) Limited, PGT Healthcare LLP, PPI ZAO, PT Procter & Gamble Home Products Indonesia, PT Procter & Gamble Operations Indonesia, Phase II Holdings Corporation, Procter & Gamble (Chengdu) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Sales Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (East Africa) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Egypt) Manufacturing Company, Procter & Gamble (Enterprise Fund) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Consumer Products Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Enterprise Management Service Company Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Health & Beauty Care) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Jiangsu) Ltd. China, Procter & Gamble (L&CP) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Procter & Gamble (Manufacturing) Ireland Limited, Procter & Gamble (Shanghai) International Trade Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Acquisition GmbH, Procter & Gamble Administration GmbH, Procter & Gamble Algeria EURL, Procter & Gamble Amazon Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Amiens S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Argentina SRL, Procter & Gamble Asia Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Australia Proprietary Limited, Procter & Gamble Azerbaijan Services LLC, Procter & Gamble Bangladesh Private Ltd., Procter & Gamble Blois S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Brazil Holdings B.V., Procter & Gamble Bulgaria EOOD, Procter & Gamble Business Services Canada Company, Procter & Gamble Canada Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Chile , Procter & Gamble Chile Limitada, Procter & Gamble Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Commercial LLC, Procter & Gamble Commercial de Cuba S.A., Procter & Gamble Czech Republic s.r.o., Procter & Gamble DS Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Danmark ApS, Procter & Gamble Detergent (Beijing) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Deuttschland GmbH, Procter & Gamble Distributing (Philippines) Inc., Procter & Gamble Distributing New Zealand Limited, Procter & Gamble Distribution Company (Europe) BVBA, Procter & Gamble Distribution S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Eastern Europe, Procter & Gamble Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Procter & Gamble Egypt, Procter & Gamble Egypt Distribution, Procter & Gamble Egypt Holding, Procter & Gamble Egypt Supplies, Procter & Gamble Energy Company LLC, Procter & Gamble Espana, Procter & Gamble Europe SA, Procter & Gamble Export Operations SARL, Procter & Gamble Exportadora e Importadora Ltda., Procter & Gamble Exports, Procter & Gamble Fabricacao e Comercio Ltda., Procter & Gamble Far East, Procter & Gamble Finance (U.K.) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Holding Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Management S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Financial Investments LLP, Procter & Gamble Financial Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Financial Services S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Finland OY, Procter & Gamble France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH, Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH & Co. Operations oHG, Procter & Gamble GmbH, Procter & Gamble Grundstucks-und Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, Procter & Gamble Gulf FZE, Procter & Gamble Hair Care, Procter & Gamble Hellas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Holding (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Holding France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Holding GmbH, Procter & Gamble Holding S.r.l., Procter & Gamble Holdings (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Home Products Private Limited, Procter & Gamble Hong Kong Limited, Procter & Gamble Hungary Wholesale Trading Partnership (KKT), Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care Limited, Procter & Gamble Inc., Procter & Gamble India Holdings, Procter & Gamble Indochina Limited Company, Procter & Gamble Industrial - 2012 C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Industrial S.C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Costa Rica, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Guatemala, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Panama, Procter & Gamble International Operations Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble International Operations SA, Procter & Gamble International Operations SA-ROHQ, Procter & Gamble International S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Investment Company (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Investment GmbH, Procter & Gamble Italia, Procter & Gamble Japan K.K., Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan Distribution LLP, Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan LLP, Procter & Gamble Korea, Procter & Gamble Korea S&D Co., Procter & Gamble Lanka Private Ltd. Sri Lanka, Procter & Gamble Leasing LLC, Procter & Gamble Levant S.A.L., Procter & Gamble Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Belgium N.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Berlin GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Marketing Romania SRL, Procter & Gamble Marketing and Services doo, Procter & Gamble Maroc SA, Procter & Gamble Mataro, Procter & Gamble Mexico Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Mexico Inc., Procter & Gamble Middle East FZE, Procter & Gamble Nederland B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Investments B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Services B.V., Procter & Gamble Nigeria Limited, Procter & Gamble Nordic, Procter & Gamble Norge AS, Procter & Gamble Operations Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Overseas India B.V., Procter & Gamble Overseas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Pakistan (Private) Limited, Procter & Gamble Partnership LLP, Procter & Gamble Peru S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals France SAS, Procter & Gamble Philippines, Procter & Gamble Polska Sp. z o.o, Procter & Gamble Portugal - Produtos De Consumo, Procter & Gamble Product Supply (U.K.) Limited U.K., Procter & Gamble Production GmbH, Procter & Gamble Productions, Procter & Gamble Productos de Consumo, Procter & Gamble RHD, Procter & Gamble RSC Regional Service Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Retail Services BVBA, Procter & Gamble S.r.l., Procter & Gamble SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Satis ve Dagitim Ltd. Sti., Procter & Gamble Seine S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Procter & Gamble Services (Switzerland) SA, Procter & Gamble Services Company N.V., Procter & Gamble Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Share Incentive Plan Trustee Ltd., Procter & Gamble South America Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Spol. s.r.o. (Ltd.), Procter & Gamble Sports and Social Club Ltd., Procter & Gamble Sverige AB, Procter & Gamble Switzerland SARL, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Limited, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Sales Company Limited, Procter & Gamble Technical Centres Limited, Procter & Gamble Technology (Beijing) Co., Procter & Gamble Trading (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Tuketim Mallari Sanayii A.S., Procter & Gamble UK, Procter & Gamble UK Group Holdings Ltd, Procter & Gamble UK Parent Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Universal Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Verwaltungs GmbH, Procter & Gamble Vietnam, Procter & Gamble d.o.o. za trgovinu, Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.C.A., Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.R.L., Procter & Gamble do Brasil S/A, Procter & Gamble do Brazil, Procter & Gamble do Nordeste S/A, Procter & Gamble-Rakona s.r.o., Progam Realty & Development Corporation, Redmond Products, Richardson-Vicks Real Estate Inc., Richardson-Vicks do Brasil Quimica e Farmaceutica Ltda, Riverfront Music Publishing Co., Rosemount LLC, SPD Development Company Limited, SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics GmbH, Scannon S.A.S., Series Acquisition B.V., Shulton, Surfac S.R.L., Sycamore Productions, TAOS - FL, TAOS Retail, Tambrands Inc., Temple Trees Impex & Investment Private Limited, The Art of Shaving - FL, The Dover Wipes Company, The Gillette Company, The Gillette Company LLC, The Gillette co., The Procter & Gamble Distributing LLC, The Procter & Gamble GBS Company, The Procter & Gamble Global Finance Company, The Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Company, The Procter & Gamble Paper Products Company, The Procter & Gamble U.S. Business Services Company, This is L., US CD LLC, Vidal Sassoon (Shanghai) Academy, Vidal Sassoon Co., WEBA Betriebsrenten-Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Walker & Company Brands, and iMFLUX Inc.. The following companies are subsidiares of MetLife: 1001 PROPERTIES LLC, 10700 WILSHIRE LLC, 1075 PEACHTREE LLC, 1201 TAB MANAGER LLC, 1320 GP LLC, 1320 OWNER LP, 1320 VENTURE LLC, 1900 MCKINNEY PROPERTIES LP, 1925 WJC OWNER LLC, 23RD STREET INVESTMENTS INC., 334 MADISON EURO INVESTMENTS INC., 500 GRANT STREET ASSOCIATES LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, 500 GRANT STREET GP LLC, 6104 HOLLYWOOD LLC, 85 BROAD STREET MEZZANINE LLC, AFP GENESIS ADMINISTRADORA DE FONDOS Y FIDECOMISOS S.A., AGENVITA S.R.L., ALICO EUROPEAN HOLDINGS LIMITED, ALICO HELLAS SINGLE MEMBER LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY, ALICO OPERATIONS LLC, ALPHA PROPERTIES INC., ALTERNATIVE FUELS I LLC, AMERICAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, ASHTON JUDICIARY SQUARE LLC, American Life Insurance Company, BEST MARKET S.A., BETA PROPERTIES INC., BORDERLAND INVESTMENTS LIMITED, BOULEVARD RESIDENTIAL LLC, BRIGHTHOUSE HOLDINGS LLC, BRIGHTHOUSE REINSURANCE COMPANY OF DELAWARE, BRIGHTHOUSE SECURITIES LLC, BRIGHTHOUSE SERVICES LLC, BUFORD LOGISTICS CENTER LLC, Brighthouse Financial, CC HOLDCO MANAGER LLC, CHESTNUT FLATS WIND LLC, CITYPOINT HOLDINGS II LIMITED, COMMUNICATION ONE KABUSHIKI KAISHA, COMPANIA INVERSORA METLIFE S.A., CONVENT STATION EURO INVESTMENTS FOUR COMPANY, CORPORATE REAL ESTATE HOLDINGS LLC, COVA LIFE MANAGEMENT COMPANY, DANIEL/METLIFE MIDTOWN ATLANTA MASTER LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY, DELAWARE AMERICAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, DELTA PROPERTIES JAPAN INC., ECONOMY FIRE & CASUALTY COMPANY, ECONOMY PREFERRED INSURANCE COMPANY, ECONOMY PREMIER ASSURANCE COMPANY, EL CONQUISTADOR MAH II LLC, ENTERPRISE GENERAL INSURANCE AGENCY INC., ENTRECAP REAL ESTATE II LLC, EPSILON PROPERTIES JAPAN INC., EURO CL INVESTMENTS LLC, EURO TI INVESTMENTS LLC, EURO TL INVESTMENTS LLC, EXCELENCIA OPERATIVA Y TECNOLOGICA S.A de C.V., FEDERAL FLOOD CERTIFICATION LLC, FIRST AMERICAN HUNGARIAN INSURANCE AGENCY LIMITED, FIRST METLIFE INVESTORS INSURANCE COMPANY, FUNDACION METLIFE MEXICO A.C., GALIC HOLDINGS LLC, GENERAL AMERICAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, GLOBAL PROPERTIES INC., GREATER SANDHILL I LLC, General American Life Insurance Company, Grand Bank N.A., HASKELL EAST VILLAGE LLC, HEADLAND PROPERTIES ASSOCIATES, HEADLAND-PACIFIC PALISADES LLC, HOUSING FUND MANAGER LLC, HPZ ASSETS LLC, HYATT LEGAL PLANS INC., HYATT LEGAL PLANS OF FLORIDA INC., INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT HOLDING COMPANY LIMITED, INTERNATIONAL TECHNICAL AND ADVISORY SERVICES LIMITED, INVERSIONES METLIFE HOLDCO DOS LIMITADA, INVERSIONES METLIFE HOLDCO TRES LIMITADA, IRIS PROPERTIES INC., JOINT STOCK COMPANY METLIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, KAPPA PROPERTIES JAPAN INC., LAR VIVIENDA XVII S. DE R.L. DE C.V., LEGAGROUP S.A., LEGAL CHILE S.A., LHC HOLDINGS (US) LLC, LHCW HOLDINGS (US) LLC, LHCW HOTEL HOLDING (2002) LLC, LHCW HOTEL HOLDING LLC, LHCW HOTEL OPERATING COMPANY (2002) LLC, LONG ISLAND SOLAR FARM LLC, Logan Circle Partners, MANSELL OFFICE LLC, MANSELL RETAIL LLC, MARKETPLACE RESIDENCES LLC, MCP VOA HOLDINGS LLC, MCP VOA I & III LLC, MCP VOA II LLC, MCPP OWNERS LLC, MET CANADA SOLAR ULC, MET0 SIEFORE S.A. de C.V., MET1 SIEFORE S.A. de C.V., MET2 SIEFORE S.A. de C.V., MET3 SIEFORE BASICA S.A. de C.V., MET4 SIEFORE S.A. de C.V., META SIEFORE ADICIONAL S.A. de C.V., METLIFE 1007 STEWART LLC, METLIFE 1201 TAB MEMBER LLC, METLIFE 425 MKT MEMBER LLC, METLIFE 555 12TH MEMBER LLC, METLIFE ADMINISTRADORA DE FUNDOS MULTIPATROCINADOS LTDA., METLIFE ADVISERS LLC, METLIFE AFORE S.A. DE C.V., METLIFE ALTERNATIVES GP LLC, METLIFE ASIA HOLDING COMPANY PTE. LTD., METLIFE ASIA LIMITED, METLIFE ASSET MANAGEMENT CORP., METLIFE AUTO & HOME INSURANCE AGENCY INC., METLIFE CABO HILTON MEMBER LLC, METLIFE CAMINO RAMON MEMBER LLC, METLIFE CANADIAN PROPERTY VENTURES LLC, METLIFE CAPITAL CREDIT L.P., METLIFE CAPITAL LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, METLIFE CAPITAL TRUST IV, METLIFE CAPITAL TRUST X, METLIFE CB W/A LLC, METLIFE CC MEMBER LLC, METLIFE CHILE ADMINISTRADORA DE MUTUOS HIPOTECARIOS S.A., METLIFE CHILE INVERSIONES LIMITADA, METLIFE CHILE SEGUROS DE VIDA S.A., METLIFE CHILE SEGUROS GENERALES S.A., METLIFE COLOMBIA SEGUROS de VIDA S.A., METLIFE COMMERCIAL MORTGAGE INCOME FUND GP LLC, METLIFE CONSQUARE MEMBER LLC, METLIFE CONSUMER SERVICES INC., METLIFE CORE PROPERTY FUND GP LLC, METLIFE CREDIT CORP., METLIFE EMEKLILIK VE HAYAT A.S., METLIFE EU HOLDING COMPANY LIMITED, METLIFE EUROPE INSURANCE d.a.c., METLIFE EUROPE SERVICES LIMITED, METLIFE EUROPE d.a.c., METLIFE EUROPEAN HOLDINGS LLC., METLIFE FINANCIAL SERVICES CO. LTD, METLIFE FM HOTEL MEMBER LLC, METLIFE FUNDING INC, METLIFE GENERAL INSURANCE LIMITED, METLIFE GLOBAL BENEFITS LTD., METLIFE GLOBAL HOLDING COMPANY I GmbH (SWISS I), METLIFE GLOBAL HOLDING COMPANY II GmbH (SWISS II), METLIFE GLOBAL HOLDINGS CORPORATION S.A. De C.V., METLIFE GLOBAL INC., METLIFE GLOBAL OPERATIONS SUPPORT CENTER PRIVATE LIMITED, METLIFE GROUP INC., METLIFE HCMJV 1 GP LLC, METLIFE HEALTH PLANS INC., METLIFE HOLDINGS INC., METLIFE HOME LOANS LLC, METLIFE INNOVATION CENTRE LIMITED, METLIFE INNOVATION CENTRE PTE. LTD., METLIFE INSURANCE AND INVESTMENT TRUST, METLIFE INSURANCE BROKERAGE INC., METLIFE INSURANCE COMPANY USA, METLIFE INSURANCE K.K., METLIFE INSURANCE LIMITED, METLIFE INSURANCE LIMITED, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL HF PARTNERS LP, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS LLC, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL LIMITED LLC, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL PE FUND I LP, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL PE FUND II LP, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL PE FUND III LP, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL PE FUND IV LP, METLIFE INVESTMENT ADVISORS LLC, METLIFE INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT HOLDINGS (IRELAND) LIMITED, METLIFE INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT LIMITED, METLIFE INVESTMENTS ASIA LIMITED, METLIFE INVESTMENTS LIMITED, METLIFE INVESTMENTS PTY LIMITED, METLIFE INVESTMENTS SECURITIES LLC, METLIFE INVESTORS DISTRIBUTION COMPANY, METLIFE INVESTORS GROUP LLC, METLIFE IRELAND HOLDINGS ONE LIMITED, METLIFE IRELAND TREASURY D.A.C., METLIFE LATIN AMERICA ASESORIAS E INVERSIONES LIMITADA, METLIFE LHH MEMBER LLC, METLIFE LIFE INSURANCE S.A., METLIFE LIMITED, METLIFE LOAN ASSET MANAGEMENT LLC, METLIFE MALL VENTURES LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, METLIFE MAS S.A. DE C.V., METLIFE MEXICO HOLDINGS S. DE R.L. DE C.V., METLIFE MEXICO S.A., METLIFE MEXICO SERVICIOS S.A. DE C.V., METLIFE OBSMEMBER LLC, METLIFE OFC MEMBER LLC, METLIFE ONTARIO STREET MEMBR LLC, METLIFE PARK TOWER MEMBER LLC, METLIFE PENSION TRUSTEES LIMITED, METLIFE PENSIONES MEXICO S.A., METLIFE PLANOS ODONTOLOGICOS LTDA., METLIFE POWSZECHNE TOWARTZYSTWO EMERYTALNE S.A., METLIFE PRIVATE EQUITY HOLDINGS LLC, METLIFE PROPERTIES VENTURES LLC, METLIFE PROPERTY VENTURES CANADA ULC, METLIFE RC SF MEMBER LLC, METLIFE REINSURANCE COMPANY OF BERMUDA LTD., METLIFE REINSURANCE COMPANY OF CHARLESTON, METLIFE REINSURANCE COMPANY OF DELAWARE, METLIFE REINSURANCE COMPANY OF SOUTH CAROLINA, METLIFE REINSURANCE COMPANY OF VERMONT, METLIFE RENEWABLES HOLDING LLC, METLIFE RETIREMENT SERVICES LLC, METLIFE SAENGMYOUNG INSURANCE COMPANY LTD., METLIFE SEGUROS DE RETIRO S.A., METLIFE SEGUROS S.A., METLIFE SEGUROS S.A., METLIFE SEGUROS S.A. (ARGENTINA), METLIFE SERVICES AND SOLUTIONS LLC, METLIFE SERVICES CYPRUS LIMITED, METLIFE SERVICES EAST PRIVATE LIMITED, METLIFE SERVICES EEIG, METLIFE SERVICES EOOD, METLIFE SERVICES SOCIEDAD LIMITADA, METLIFE SERVICES SP Z.O.O, METLIFE SERVICIOS S.A., METLIFE SK S.R.O., METLIFE SLOVAKIA S.R.O., METLIFE SOLUTIONS PTE. LTD., METLIFE SOLUTIONS S.A.S., METLIFE SP HOLDINGS LLC, METLIFE STANDBY I LLC, METLIFE THR INVESTOR LLC, METLIFE TOWARZYSTWO FUNDUSZY INWESTYCYJNYCH S.A., METLIFE TOWARZYSTWO UBEZPIECZEN NA ZYCIE I REASEKURACJI S.A., METLIFE TOWER RESOURCES GROUP INC., METLIFE TREAT TOWERS MEMBER LLC, METLIFE USA ASSIGNMENT COMPANY, METLIFE WORLDWIDE HOLDINGS LLC, METROPOLITAN CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, METROPOLITAN CONNECTICUT PROPERTIES VENTURES LLC, METROPOLITAN DIRECT PROPERTY AND CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, METROPOLITAN GENERAL INSURANCE COMPANY, METROPOLITAN GLOBAL MANAGEMENT LLC., METROPOLITAN GROUP PROPERTY AND CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF HONG KONG LIMITED, METROPOLITAN LIFE SEGUROS E PREVIDENCIA PRIVADA S.A., METROPOLITAN LIFE SOCIETATE de ADMINISTRARE a UNUI FOND de PENSII ADMINISTRAT PRIVAT S.A., METROPOLITAN LLOYDS INC., METROPOLITAN PROPERTY AND CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, METROPOLITAN TOWER LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, METROPOLITAN TOWER REALTY COMPANY INC., MEX DF PROPERTIES LLC, MIDTOWN HEIGHTS LLC, MIM PROPERTY MANAGEMENT LLC, MISSOURI REINSURANCE INC., ML 1065 HOTEL LLC, ML BRIDGESIDE APARTMENTS LLC, ML CAPACITACION COMERCIAL S.A. DE C.V., ML DOLPHIN GP LLC, ML DOLPHIN MEZZ LLC, ML MILILANI MEMBER LLC, ML NEW RIVER VILLAGE III LLC, ML NORTH BRAND MEMBER LLC, ML SOUTHMORE LLC, ML SWAN GP LLC, ML SWAN MEZZ LLC, ML TERRACES LLC, ML-AI METLIFE MEMBER 1 LLC, ML-AI METLIFE MEMBER 2 LLC, ML-AI METLIFE MEMBER 3 LLC, MLA COMERCIAL S.A. DE C.V., MLA SERVICIOS S.A. DE C.V., MLIC ASSET HOLDINGS II LLC, MLIC ASSET HOLDINGS LLC, MLIC CB HOLDINGS LLC, MM GLOBAL OPERATIONS SUPPORT CENTER S.A. DE C.V., MSV IRVINE PROPERTY LLC, MTC FUND I LLC, MTC FUND II LLC, MTC FUND III LLC, MTL LEASING LLC, NATILOPORTEM HOLDINGS LLC, NEW ENGLAND LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, NEWBURY INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED, OCONEE GOLF COMPANY LLC, OCONEE HOTEL COMPANY LLC, OCONEE LAND COMPANY LLC, OCONEE LAND DEVELOPMENT COMPANY LLC, OCONEE MARINA COMPANY LLC, OMI MLIC INVESTMENTS LIMITED, ONE FINANCIAL PLACE CORPORATION, PARA-MET PLAZA ASSOCIATES, PARK TOWER JV MEMBER LLC, PARK TOWER REIT INC., PARK TWENTY THREE INVESTMENTS COMPANY, PJSC METLIFE, PLAZA DRIVE PROPERTIES LLC, PREFCO DIX-HUIT LLC, PREFCO FOURTEEN LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, PREFCO IX REALTY LLC, PREFCO TEN LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, PREFCO TWENTY LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, PREFCO VINGT LLC, PREFCO X HOLDINGS LLC, PREFCO XIV HOLDINGS LLC, PROVIDA INTERNACIONAL S.A., RIVERWAY RESIDENTIAL LP, SAFEGUARD HEALTH ENTERPRISES INC., SAFEGUARD HEALTH PLANS INC., SAFEGUARD HEALTH PLANS INC., SAFEHEALTH LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, SANDPIPER COVE ASSOCIATES II LLC, SANDPIPER COVE ASSOCIATES LLC, ST. JAMES FLEET INVESTMENTS TWO LIMITED, Safeguard Health Enterprises, Security First Group Inc., THE BUILDING AT 575 FIFTH AVENUE MEZZANINE LLC, THE BUILDING AT 575 FIFTH RETAIL HOLDING LLC, THE BUILDING AT 575 FIFTH RETAIL OWNER, THE DIRECT CALL CENTRE PTY LIMITED, THE PROSPECT COMPANY, TIC EUROPEAN REAL ESTATE LP LLC, TLA HOLDINGS II LLC, TLA HOLDINGS III LLC, TLA HOLDINGS LLC, TRANSMOUNTAIN LAND & LIVESTOCK COMPANY, VIRIDIAN MIRACLE MILE LLC, Versant Health, WFP 1000 HOLDING COMPANY GP LLC, WHITE OAK ROYALTY COMPANY, and ZAO MASTER D. Some people binge watch Netflix Huluor HBO shows. And some people turn their downtime into cash. James made $2,275 in just 19 minutesall thanks to something called The 15 Minute Workday. The average trade makes 12% in just 5 days (factoring winners and losers) which is out of this world. Moelis Australia Limited, together with its subsidiaries, provides various financial services. It operates through two segments, Asset Management, and Corporate Advisory and Equities. The Asset Management segment offers asset, fund, and investment management services to domestic and foreign high net worth and institutional investors. The Corporate Advisory and Equities segment offers strategic and financial advisory services related to mergers and acquisitions; equity capital markets; debt capital markets; and restructuring and recapitalizations, as well as provides underwriting and institutional stockbroking services. It also provides securities research, sales, and trading execution services to institutional and high net worth clients. The company was founded in 2009 and is based in Sydney, Australia. Read More KAR Auction Services, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides used vehicle auctions and related vehicle remarketing services for the automotive industry in the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. The company operates through two segments, ADESA Auctions and AFC. The ADESA Auctions segment offers whole car auctions and related services to the vehicle remarketing industry through online auctions and auction facilities. It also provides value-added services, such as auction related, transportation, reconditioning, inspection, title and repossession administration and remarketing, vehicle research, and analytical services, as well as data as a service. This segment sells its products and services through vehicle manufacturers, fleet companies, rental car companies, finance companies, and others. As of December 31, 2020, this segment had a network of 74 whole car auction facilities in North America. The AFC segment offers floorplan financing, a short-term inventory-secured financing to independent used vehicle dealers; and sells vehicle service contracts. The company provides wheel repair and hail catastrophe response services. It serves vehicle manufacturers, vehicle rental companies, financial institutions, commercial fleets and fleet management companies, and dealer customers. The company was formerly known as KAR Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to KAR Auction Services, Inc. in November 2009. KAR Auction Services, Inc. was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Carmel, Indiana. Read More Ad Resource Stock Digest New this week - 1,558 interested Could This Be the Biggest US Gold Discovery in Years? See how this tiny, unknown gold company secured a prime land package right next door to the worlds two largest gold producers in Nevadas famed Carlin Trend where 84 Million gold ounces have already been extracted. Best of all, investors can still get in well below US$0.50 per share. The following companies are subsidiares of Sealed Air: AFP (Shanghai) Limited, AFP Inc. (Branch), AFPTOH LTD, Aconcagua Distribuciones SRL, Air Ride Pallets Hong Kong Limited, Austin Foam Plastics Inc., Auto-C LLC, Automated Packaging Systems, B+ Equipment, B+ Equipment SAS, Beacon Holdings LLC, Biosphere Industries, BluPack (New Zealand), Blue Dot Packaging Pty Ltd., CPI Packaging Inc., CPI Packaging Systems Inc., Cactus (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., Cactus Shanghai Trading Co. Ltd., Ciras C.V., Ciras C.V. - Luxembourg Branch, Ciras C.V. Luxembourg Branch, Cleanwise Inc., Cryovac (Malaysia) SDN. BHD, Cryovac (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Cryovac Brasil Ltda., Cryovac Chile Holdings LLC, Cryovac Holdings II LLC, Cryovac Inc., Cryovac International Holdings Inc., Cryovac LLC, Cryovac Leasing Corporation, Cryovac Londrina Ltda., Cryovac Packaging Portugal - Embalagens Ltda., Cryovac Packaging Portugal Embalagens Ltda, Cryovac Sweden AB, Cryovac-Sealed Air de Costa Rica S.R.L., DELTAPLAM Embalagens Industria e Comercio, Deltaplam Embalagens Industria e Comercio Ltda, Diversey, Diversey Australia Pty. Ltd., Diversey Austria Trading GmbH, Diversey B.V., Diversey Belgium BVBA, Diversey Brasil Industria Quimica Ltda., Diversey Canada Inc., Diversey Centroamerica S.A., Diversey Danmark ApS, Diversey Hungary Acting Off-shore Capital Management Limited Liability Company, Diversey J Trustee Limited, Diversey Trustee Limited, Diversey Ceska republika s.r.o. clen koncernu Diversey, Entapack Pty. Ltd., Fagerdala (Chengdu) Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Chengdu) Packing Co. Ltd. (Chongqing Branch), Fagerdala (Chongqing) Packaging Co. Ltd. (Branch), Fagerdala (Huiyang) Packaging Co. Ltd, Fagerdala (Huiyang) Packaging Co. Ltd. (Branch), Fagerdala (Shanghai) Foams Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Shanghai) Polymer Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Shenzhen) Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Suzhou) Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Suzhou) Packing Co. Ltd. (Hefei Branch), Fagerdala (Thailand) Limited, Fagerdala (Xiamen) Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala Leamchabung Limited, Fagerdala Leamchabung Ltd., Fagerdala Malaysia Sdn Bhd., Fagerdala Mexico S.A. de C.V., Fagerdala Mexico S.A. de C.V. (Chihuahua Branch), Fagerdala Mexico Supply Chain S.A. de C.V., Fagerdala Packaging Inc. (Indiana), Fagerdala Shanghai Foams Co. Ltd., Fagerdala Singapore Pte Ltd, Fagerdala Singapore Pte Ltd (Branch), Fagerdala Singapore Pte. Limited, Fagerdala Singapore Pte. Limited (Taiwan Branch), Fagerdala Singapore Pte. Ltd., Fagerdala Suzhou Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala Suzhou Packaging Co. Ltd. (Hefei Branch), Fagerdala Thailand Ltd., GEIE VES, Getpacking.com GmbH, Indonesian Rep Office of Sealed Air Hong Kong Limited, Invertol S. de R.L. de C.V., JCS Sealed Air Kaustik, JSC Sealed Air Kaustik, Kevothermal LLC, Kevothermal LLC, Kevothermal Limited, Nelipak Holdings, Pack-Tiger GmbH, Packaging C.V., ProAseptic Technologies S.L., Producembal - Producao de Embalagens Ltda., Proxy Biomedical Ltd., Reflectix Inc., SLD Air Packaging Paketleme Malzemeleri Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Saddle Brook Insurance Company, Sealed Air (Asia) Holdings B.V., Sealed Air (Barbados) S.R.L., Sealed Air (Canada) Co./CIE, Sealed Air (Canada) Holdings B.V., Sealed Air (China) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air (China) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air (China) Limited, Sealed Air (China) Ltd., Sealed Air (India) Limited, Sealed Air (Israel) Ltd., Sealed Air (Korea) Limited, Sealed Air (Latin America) Holdings II LLC, Sealed Air (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Sealed Air (New Zealand), Sealed Air (Philippines) Inc., Sealed Air (Singapore) Pte. Limited, Sealed Air (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Sealed Air (Thailand) Limited, Sealed Air (Ukraine) Limited, Sealed Air Africa (Proprietary) Limited, Sealed Air Africa (Pty.) Limited, Sealed Air Americas Manufacturing S. de R. L. de C. V., Sealed Air Argentina S.A., Sealed Air Australia (Holdings) Pty. Limited, Sealed Air Australia Pty Ltd., Sealed Air Australia Pty. Limited, Sealed Air B.V., Sealed Air Belgium N.V., Sealed Air Central America S.A., Sealed Air Chile S.P.A., Sealed Air Colombia Ltda., Sealed Air Corporation (US), Sealed Air Denmark A/S, Sealed Air Embalagens Ltda., Sealed Air Europe Holdings C.V., Sealed Air Europe Holdings LP, Sealed Air Finance B.V., Sealed Air Finance II LLC, Sealed Air Finance II LLC (Sucursal Mexico), Sealed Air Finance Ireland Unlimited Company, Sealed Air Finance Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Finance Luxembourg S.a.r.l. Luxembourg (L) Root Finance Branch, Sealed Air Finance Luxembourg S.a.r.l. US Finance Branch, Sealed Air Funding Corporation, Sealed Air Funding LLC, Sealed Air General Trading LLC, Sealed Air Global Holdings C.V., Sealed Air Global Holdings I C.V., Sealed Air Global Holdings I LLC, Sealed Air GmbH, Sealed Air Hellas S.A., Sealed Air Holding France S.A.S., Sealed Air Holding France SAS, Sealed Air HoldingS I LLC, Sealed Air Holdings (New Zealand) Pty. Ltd., Sealed Air Holdings I C.V., Sealed Air Holdings LLC, Sealed Air Holdings South Africa Proprietary Limited, Sealed Air Hong Kong (Jakarta Indonesia Branch), Sealed Air Hong Kong Limited, Sealed Air Hungary Ltd., Sealed Air International Holdings LLC, Sealed Air International Holdings LLC , Sealed Air Investment and Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air Investment and Management Co. Ltd., Sealed Air Japan G.K., Sealed Air Korea Limited, Sealed Air LLC, Sealed Air Limited, Sealed Air Luxembourg (I) S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Luxembourg (II) S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Management Holding Verwaltungs GmbH, Sealed Air Multiflex GmbH, Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) I B.V., Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) II B.V., Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) II B.V. - Deutsche Zweigniederlassung, Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) II B.V. - Deutsche Zweigniederlassung, Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) III B.V., Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) III B.V., Sealed Air Netherlands Holdings V B.V., Sealed Air Nevada Holdings Limited, Sealed Air Norge AS, Sealed Air OY, Sealed Air Packaging (India) Private Limited, Sealed Air Packaging (Shanghai) Co. Limited, Sealed Air Packaging (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air Packaging LLC, Sealed Air Packaging Materials (India) LLP, Sealed Air Packaging Materials (India) LLP, Sealed Air Packaging S.L.U., Sealed Air Paketleme Malzemeleri Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Sealed Air Peru S.A.C., Sealed Air Polska Sp. Zoo, Sealed Air Pty Limited, Sealed Air S.A S., Sealed Air S.A.S., Sealed Air S.r.l., Sealed Air South Africa (Pty.) Ltd., Sealed Air Svenska AB, Sealed Air Taiwan Limited, Sealed Air US Holdings (Thailand) LLC, Sealed Air Uruguay S.A., Sealed Air Venezuela Corporation, Sealed Air Verpackungen GmbH, Sealed Air de Mexico Operations S. de R.L. de C.V., Sealed Air de Venezuela S.A., Sealed Air s.r.o., Shanklin Corp, Shanklin Corporation, Soinpar Industrial Ltda., TART s.r.o., TART s.r.o. Joint Venture, TTS-Ciptec, TXAFP Asia Pacific Ltd., TXAFP GP LLC, TempTrip LLC, Trigon Industries, and Vietnamese Rep Office of Sealed Air Hong Kong Limited. Finish this article for as low as $1 when you purchase a day pass. Just click the sign up button to purchase. If you are already a subscriber, just click log in to continue reading. Six Tech Stocks That Could Double (Ad) 5G blockchain electric vehicles There are enough tech opportunities out there to make your head spin! But which ones should you own for the coming tech boom? Louis Navellier the analyst who found Microsoft at .38 cents just released a new report detailing six tech stocks to own today. Dont miss your chance to get his latest picks ticker symbol and all completely free of charge. Click here to get your free report today. Webster Financial Corporation operates as the bank holding company for Webster Bank, National Association that provides a range of banking, investment, and financial services to individuals, families, and businesses in the United States. It operates through three segments: Commercial Banking, HSA Bank, and Community Banking. The Commercial Banking segment provides lending, deposit, and cash management services to middle market companies; and commercial and industrial lending and leasing, commercial real estate lending, equipment financing, and asset-based lending, as well as treasury and payment services. This segment also offers asset management, financial planning and trust services, and deposit and loan products for high net worth clients, not-for-profit organizations, and business clients. The HSA Bank segment offers health savings accounts, health reimbursement accounts, flexible spending accounts, and other financial solutions to employers for the benefit of their employees and individuals. The Community Banking segment offers deposit and fee-based services, residential mortgages, home equity lines or loans, unsecured consumer loans, and credit cards to consumers, as well as investment and securities-related services, including brokerage and investment advice through a strategic partnership with LPL Financial Holdings Inc. This segment also provides credit, deposit, and cash flow management products to businesses and professional service firms. The company also offers online and mobile banking services. As of February 12, 2021, it operated 155 banking centers and 297 ATMs. Webster Financial Corporation was founded in 1935 and is headquartered in Waterbury, Connecticut. Read More Greif, Inc. produces and sells industrial packaging products and services worldwide. It operates through four segments: Rigid Industrial Packaging & Services; Paper Packaging & Services; Flexible Products & Services; and Land Management. The Rigid Industrial Packaging & Services segment offers rigid industrial packaging products, including steel, fiber, and plastic drums; rigid intermediate bulk containers; closure systems for industrial packaging products; transit protection products; water bottles, and remanufactured and reconditioned industrial containers; and services, such as container life cycle management, filling, logistics, warehousing, and other packaging services. This segment sells its products to customers in the chemicals, paints and pigments, food and beverage, petroleum, industrial coatings, agricultural, pharmaceutical and minerals, and other industries. The Paper Packaging & Services segment provides containerboards, corrugated sheets, corrugated containers, and other corrugated and specialty products to customers in the packaging, automotive, food, and building products markets. This segment's corrugated container products are used to ship various products, such as home appliances, small machinery, grocery products, automotive components, books, and furniture, as well as various other applications. The Flexible Products & Services segment offers flexible intermediate bulk containers comprising polypropylene-based woven fabric, as well as related services to the agricultural, food, and other industries. The Land Management segment engages in harvesting and regeneration of timber properties; and sale of timberland and special use land. As of October 31, 2020, this segment owned approximately 244,000 acres of timber property in the southeastern United States. The company was formerly known as Greif Bros. Corporation and changed its name to Greif, Inc. in 2001. Greif, Inc. was founded in 1877 and is based in Delaware, Ohio. Read More They May Soon Discover One of the Biggest Gold Strikes! (Ad) Meet the junior explorer drilling on a gold project that has a potential 1M ounce vein! Continue Reading CNO Financial Group, Inc., through its subsidiaries, develops, markets, and administers health insurance, annuity, individual life insurance, and other insurance products for senior and middle-income markets in the United States. It offers Medicare supplement, supplemental health, and long-term care insurance policies; life insurance; and annuities, as well as Medicare advantage plans to individuals through phone, online, mail, and face-to-face. The company also focuses on worksite and group sales for businesses, associations, and other membership groups by interacting with customers at their place of employment. In addition, it provides fixed index annuities; fixed interest annuities, including fixed rate single and flexible premium deferred annuities; single premium immediate annuities; supplemental health products, such as specified disease, accident, and hospital indemnity products; and long-term care plans primarily to retirees and older self-employed individuals in the middle-income market. Further, the company offers universal life and other interest-sensitive life products; and traditional life policies that include whole life, graded benefit life, term life, and single premium whole life products, as well as graded benefit life insurance products. CNO Financial Group, Inc. markets its products under the Bankers Life, Washington National, and Colonial Penn brand names. The company sells its products through agents, independent producers, and direct marketing. CNO Financial Group, Inc. was founded in 1979 and is headquartered in Carmel, Indiana. Read More Oshkosh Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets specialty vehicles and vehicle bodies worldwide. The company's Access Equipment segment provides aerial work platforms and telehandlers for use in various construction, industrial, institutional, and general maintenance applications. This segment also offers rental fleet loans and leases, and floor plan and retail financing through third-party funding arrangements; towing and recovery equipment; carriers and wreckers; equipment installation services; and chassis and service parts sales. Its Defense segment provides heavy, medium, and light tactical wheeled vehicles and related services for the department of defense. The company's Fire & Emergency segment offers custom and commercial firefighting vehicles and equipment; and commercial fire apparatus and emergency vehicles, such as pumpers, aerial platform, ladder and tiller trucks, tankers, rescue vehicles, wild land rough terrain response vehicles, mobile command and control centers, bomb squad vehicles, hazardous materials control vehicles, and other emergency response vehicles. This segment also provides aircraft rescue and firefighting, snow removal, and broadcast vehicles, as well as command trucks, and military simulator shelters and trailers. Its Commercial segment offers front-and rear-discharge concrete mixers for the concrete ready-mix industry; refuse collection vehicles and related components to commercial and municipal waste haulers; and field service vehicles and truck-mounted cranes for the construction, equipment dealer, building supply, utility, tire service, railroad, and mining industries. Oshkosh Corporation provides its products through direct sales representatives, dealers, and distributors. The company was formerly known as Oshkosh Truck Corporation and changed its name to Oshkosh Corporation in February 2008. Oshkosh Corporation was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Read More Since 2016, Teeka Tiwari has trumped the stock market. His investment recommendations have each averaged 281%. Thats 17 times the S&P. And 112 times the average investor, according to JPMorgan! However, one investment Teeka just uncovered could top them all It involves former President Biden, billions of dollars, several large banks, and a super-rich family. As well as a MAJOR potential upgrade to our credit cards. Teeka, who ended up correctly picking the last investment of the decade, is declaring this his top pick for the 2020s. Buckeye Partners, L.P. owns and operates liquid petroleum products pipelines in the United States and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Domestic Pipelines & Terminals, Global Marine Terminals, and Merchant Services. The Domestic Pipelines & Terminals segment transports liquid petroleum products, including gasoline, jet fuel, and various distillates. This segment also provides crude oil services, including train loading/unloading, storage, and throughput; and turn-key operations and maintenance, asset development, and construction services for third-party pipeline, terminal, and energy assets, as well as operates and/or maintains third-party pipelines. It owns and operates approximately 6,000 miles of pipeline located primarily in the northeastern and upper midwestern portions of the United States, and services 100 delivery locations; 110 active terminals that provide bulk storage and throughput services with aggregate storage capacity of 55 million barrels; and 2 underground propane storage caverns. The Global Marine Terminals segment provides marine accessible bulk storage and blending, rail and truck rack loading/unloading, and petroleum processing services located primarily in the East Coast and Gulf Coast regions of the United States, as well as in the Caribbean. This segment owns and operates seven liquid petroleum products and crude oil terminals. The Merchant Services segment is involved in the wholesale distribution of refined petroleum products, including gasoline, natural gas liquids, propane, ethanol, and biodiesel, as well as petroleum distillates, such as heating oil, diesel fuel, kerosene, and fuel oil. This segment also provides fuel oil supply, butane, and distribution services. Buckeye GP LLC serves as the general partner of the company. Buckeye Partners, L.P. was founded in 1886 and is based in Houston, Texas. Read More Brunswick Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets recreation products worldwide. It operates through Propulsion; Parts & Accessories; and Boat segments. The Propulsion segment provides outboard, sterndrive, and inboard engines for independent boat builders and governments through marine dealers and distributors, specialty marine retailers, and marine service centers; and propulsion-related controls, rigging, and propellers to original equipment manufacturers and aftermarket retailers, distributors, and distribution businesses. This segment offers its products under the Mercury Marine, Mercury, Mercury MerCruiser, Mariner, Mercury Racing, and Mercury Diesel brands. The Parts & Accessories segment provides engine parts and consumables, electrical products, boat parts and systems, engine oils and lubricants, marine electronics and control systems, instruments, trolling motors, fuel systems, and electrical systems, as well as specialty vehicle, mobile, and transportation aftermarket products for aftermarket retailers, distributors, and distribution businesses, as well for as for the original equipment manufacturers in marine and non-marine markets; and supplies parts and accessories through the distribution business. This segment offers its products under the under the Mercury, Mercury Precision Parts, Quicksilver, and Seachoice brands. The Boat segment provides Sea Ray sport boats and cruisers; Bayliner sport cruisers and runabouts; Boston Whaler fiberglass offshore boats; Lund fiberglass fishing boats; Crestliner, Cypress Cay, Harris, Lowe, Lund, and Princecraft aluminum fishing, utility, pontoon, and deck boats; Heyday tow/wake boats; and Thunder Jet heavy-gauge aluminum boats, as well as shared access boat club and dealer services to the marine industry through dealers and distributors. Brunswick Corporation was founded in 1845 and is headquartered in Mettawa, Illinois. Read More Bristol-Myers Squibb Company discovers, develops, licenses, manufactures, and markets biopharmaceutical products worldwide. The company offers products in hematology, oncology, cardiovascular, and immunology therapeutic classes. Its products include Revlimid, an oral immunomodulatory drug for the treatment of multiple myeloma; Opdivo for anti-cancer indications; Eliquis, an oral inhibitor indicated for the reduction in risk of stroke/systemic embolism in NVAF, and for the treatment of DVT/PE; and Orencia for adult patients with active RA and psoriatic arthritis, as well as reducing signs and symptoms in pediatric patients with active polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis. The company also provides Sprycel for the treatment of Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia; Yervoy for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma; Abraxane, a solvent-free protein-bound chemotherapy product; mpliciti for the treatment of multiple myeloma; and Reblozyl for the treatment of anemia in adult patients with beta thalassemia. In addition, it offers Onureg for the continued treatment of adult patients with AML; Zeposia to treat relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis; Vidaza for the treatment of myelodysplastic syndrome subtypes; Baraclude, an oral antiviral agent for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B; and Breyanzi, a CD19-directed genetically modified autologous T cell immunotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma. The company sells products to wholesalers, distributors, pharmacies, retailers, hospitals, clinics, and government agencies. It has collaboration agreements with Pfizer, Inc.; Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.; Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.; Nektar Therapeutics; AVEO Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Huyabio; and DarwinHealth, Inc. The company was formerly known as Bristol-Myers Company. Bristol-Myers Squibb Company was founded in 1887 and is headquartered in New York, New York. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Accenture: 2nd Road, 2nd Road Pty Ltd., ?What If!, ?What If! China Holdings Ltd, ?What If! Holdings Limited, ?What If! Innovation Singapore Holdings Pte, ?What If! Limited, ?What If! Shanghai Co. Ltd, ?What If! USA LLC, ACN Consulting Co Ltd, AD Dialeto Agencia de Publicidade SA, AD.Dialeto (Digital Agency acquired by Accenture), AGS Business and Technology Services Limited, ASM Research Inc., ASM Research LLC, ATAN, Accenture (Beijing) Mobile Technology Co Ltd, Accenture (Botswana) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (China) Co Ltd, Accenture (Shenzhen) Technology Co. Ltd., Accenture (South Africa) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (South Africa) Pty Limited, Accenture (UK) Ltd, Accenture 2 Business Process Services S.A., Accenture 2 LLC, Accenture A/S, Accenture AB, Accenture AG, Accenture AS, Accenture Africa Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Holding B.V., Accenture Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Azerbaijan Ltd, Accenture BPM Operations Support Services S.A., Accenture BPM S.C.R.L., Accenture BV, Accenture Branch Holdings B.V., Accenture Bulgaria EOOD, Accenture Business Services for Utilities Inc, Accenture Business Services of British Columbia Limited Partnership, Accenture Business and Technology Services LLC, Accenture C.A, Accenture CAS GmbH, Accenture Canada Holdings Inc., Accenture Capital DAC, Accenture Capital Inc, Accenture Central Europe B.V., Accenture Chile Asesorias y Servicios Ltda, Accenture Cloud Services GmbH, Accenture Cloud Software Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions LLC, Accenture Cloud Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd., Accenture Communications Infrastructure Solutions Ltd, Accenture Company Ltd, Accenture Consulting Services Ltd Tanzania, Accenture Consultores de Gestao S.A., Accenture Consultoria de Industria e Consumo Ltda, Accenture Consultoria de Recursos Naturais Ltda, Accenture Credit Services LLC, Accenture Customer Services Distribution SAS, Accenture Customer Services Limited, Accenture Danismanlik Limited Sirketi, Accenture Defined Benefit Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Defined Contribution Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Delivery Poland sp. z o.o., Accenture Dienstleistungen GmbH, Accenture Digital France Holdings SA, Accenture Digital Holdings GmbH, Accenture East Africa Limited, Accenture Ecuador S.A., Accenture Egypt LLC, Accenture Enterprise Development (Shanghai) Co Ltd., Accenture Federal Services LLC, Accenture Finance (Gibraltar) III Ltd, Accenture Finance GmbH, Accenture Finance GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II GmbH, Accenture Finance II GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II Ltd, Accenture Finance Limited, Accenture Finance and Accounting BPO Services S.p.A., Accenture Finance and Accounting Services Srl, Accenture Flex LLC, Accenture GP LLC, Accenture Ghana Limited, Accenture Global Holdings Ltd., Accenture Global Services Ltd, Accenture Global Solutions Ltd, Accenture GmbH, Accenture HR Services Ltd, Accenture HR Services S.p.A., Accenture Healthcare Processing Inc., Accenture Holding GmbH, Accenture Holding GmbH & Co. KG, Accenture Holding GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Holdings (Iberia) S.L., Accenture Holdings B.V., Accenture Holdings France SAS, Accenture Holdings plc, Accenture Hungary Holdings Kft, Accenture Inc, Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company (Accenture Endustriyel Yazylym Cozumleri Limited irketi), Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company (Accenture Endustriyel Yazlm Cozumleri Limited Sirketi), Accenture Industrial Software Solutions Kft, Accenture Industrial Software Solutions SA, Accenture Insurance Services LLC, Accenture Insurance Services SAS, Accenture Insurance Services SpA, Accenture International BV, Accenture International Capital SCA, Accenture International LLC, Accenture International Limited, Accenture International Sarl, Accenture Japan Ltd, Accenture Korea BV, Accenture LLC, Accenture LLP, Accenture Lanka (Private) Ltd, Accenture Limited, Accenture Ltd, Accenture Ltda, Accenture Maghreb S.a.r.l., Accenture Managed Services SRL, Accenture Managed Services SpA, Accenture Management GmbH, Accenture Middle East B.V, Accenture Middle East BV, Accenture Minority I BV, Accenture Minority III Ltd, Accenture Mozambique Limitada, Accenture Mzansi (Pty) Ltd, Accenture NV/SA, Accenture NZ Limited, Accenture Newco LLC, Accenture Nova Scotia Unlimited Liability Co., Accenture OOO, Accenture Operations Sp. z o.o., Accenture Outsourcing SRL, Accenture Outsourcing Services, Accenture Outsourcing Services S.A., Accenture Oy, Accenture Panama Inc, Accenture Participations BV, Accenture Participations II Limited, Accenture Peru S.R.L, Accenture Peru S.R.L., Accenture Post Trade Processing SAS, Accenture Post-Trade Processing Limited, Accenture Process Ltd, Accenture Product Lifecycle Services, Accenture Properties, Accenture Pte Ltd, Accenture Puerto Rico LLC, Accenture S.A., Accenture S.C., Accenture S.L., Accenture S.R.L., Accenture SAS, Accenture SG Services Pte Ltd, Accenture SRL, Accenture Saudi Arabia Limited, Accenture Sendirian Berhad, Accenture Service Center SRL, Accenture Services (Mauritius) Ltd, Accenture Services AB, Accenture Services AG, Accenture Services AS, Accenture Services GmbH, Accenture Services Ltd, Accenture Services Morocco SA, Accenture Services Oy, Accenture Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Services S.r.l., Accenture Services SRL, Accenture Services Sp. z o.o., Accenture Services Sp. z.o.o., Accenture Services and Technology Srl, Accenture Services fur Kreditinstitute GmbH, Accenture Services s.r.o., Accenture Servicos Administrativos Ltda, Accenture Servicos de Suporte de Negocios Ltda, Accenture Solutions Co Ltd, Accenture Solutions Private Limited, Accenture Solutions Pte Ltd, Accenture Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Solutions Sdn Bhd, Accenture Sp. z o.o., Accenture Sp. z.o.o., Accenture SpA, Accenture State Healthcare Services LLC, Accenture Sub II Inc., Accenture Sub Inc, Accenture Sub LLC, Accenture Systems Integration Limited, Accenture Sarl, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag KFT, Accenture Technologia, Accenture Technologia Consultoria e Outsourcing S.A., Accenture Technology Infrastructure Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions (Dalian) Co Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions (HK) Co. Ltd., Accenture Technology Solutions (Thailand) Co. Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas S.A., Accenture Technology Solutions GmbH, Accenture Technology Solutions Oy, Accenture Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions S.A. de C.V., Accenture Technology Solutions SAS, Accenture Technology Solutions SRL, Accenture Technology Solutions Sdn. Bhd., Accenture Technology Solutions Slovakia s.r.o., Accenture Technology Ventures BV, Accenture Technology Ventures S.P.R.L., Accenture Uruguay SRL, Accenture Vietnam Co., Accenture Vietnam Co. LTD, Accenture Zambia Limited, Accenture do Brasil Limitada, Accenture plc, Accenture s.r.o., Acceria, Acquity Customer Insight Limited, Acquity Group, Adaptly LLC, Adaptly UK Limited, AddVal Technology, Adqptly, Advantium Inc., Agave Consultants Limited, Agilex Technologies Inc., Allen International, Allen International Consulting Group Ltd, Alnova Technologies Corporation S.L., AlphaBeta Advisors, Altima, Altima Asia Ltd., Altima SAS, Altitude, Altitude LLC, Analytics 8 LP, Analytics 8 Pty Ltd, Analytics8, Aorui Advertising (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Apis, Appaloosa Technology SAS, Arca, Ariba - BPO, Arismore, Aspiro Solutions (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Avanade, Avanade (Guangzhou) Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd., Avanade (Thailand) Co Ltd, Avanade Asia Pte Ltd, Avanade Australia Pty Ltd, Avanade Belgium SPRL, Avanade Canada Inc., Avanade Denmark A/S, Avanade Denmark ApS, Avanade Deutschland GmbH, Avanade Europe Holdings Ltd, Avanade Europe Services Ltd, Avanade Federal Services LLC, Avanade Finland Oy, Avanade France SAS, Avanade GZ Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd. (SH), Avanade Guangzhou, Avanade Holdings LLC, Avanade Hong Kong Ltd, Avanade International Corporation, Avanade Ireland Limited, Avanade Italy SRL, Avanade KK, Avanade Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avanade Netherlands BV, Avanade Norway AS, Avanade Poland Sp. z o.o., Avanade Poland Sp. z.o.o., Avanade Schweiz GmbH, Avanade South Africa, Avanade South Africa Pty Ltd, Avanade Spain SL, Avanade Sweden AB, Avanade UK Ltd, Avanade do Brasil Limitada, Avanade Osterreich GmbH, AvantBiz Consulting Limited, Avenai, Axia Ltd., BABCN LLC, BCT Solutions, BCT Solutions Pty Ltd, BPO Servicos Administrativos Ltda, BRIDGE Energy Group, Beacon Consulting Group Inc., Beijing Genesis Interactive Technology Co. Ltd., Boomerang Pharmaceutical Communications, Boomerang Pharmaceuticals Communications Ireland Limited, Bow & Arrow, Brand Learning, Brand Learning Group Limited, Brand Learning LLC, Brand Learning Ltd, Brand Learning Partners Limited, Brand Learning Pte Limited, Bridge Energy Group LLC, Brightstep AB, Byte Prophecy, CAS, CRMWaypoint, CadenceQuest Inc., Capable Marketer Limited, Capgemini - North American health practice, Capital Consultancy Services Inc., Certus Solutions Consulting Services Ltd, Certus Solutions Ltd, ChangeTrack Research Pty Ltd., Chaotic Moon Studios, Chengdu Mensa Advertising Co. Ltd., Cimation, Cimation UK Limited, Cirruseo, Cirruseo SAS, Clarity Insights, Clearhead, Clearhead Group, Clearhead Group LLC, ClientHouse GmbH, Cloud Sherpas, Cloud Sherpas (GA) LLC, Cloud Sherpas (SN) (PTE.) Limited, Cloud Sherpas New Zealand Ltd., Cloud Talent Limited, Cloudsherpas, Cloudsherpas Inc., Codagenic Pty. Ltd., Computer Research and Telecommunications LLC, Concrete Desenvolvimento de Sistemas Ltda., Concrete Solutions, Concrete Solutions Ltda., Context Information Security, Coritel S.A., Corliant Inc., CreativeDrive, CustomerWorks Europe SL, Cutting Edge Solutions Ltd, D5 Global Holdings LLC, DAZ Systems Inc, DAZ Systems LLC, DAZSI Systems (India) Pvt. Ltd., DMA Solutions Limited, Davies Consulting, DayNine Consulting, DayNine Consulting (Australia) PTY LTD, DayNine Consulting (Deutschland) GmbH, DayNine Consulting (New Zealand) Limited, DayNine Consulting France SAS, DayNine Consulting Japan K.K., DayNine Consulting LLC, Declarative Holdings, Declarative Holdings LLC, Defense Point Security, Deja vu Security, Design Strategy and Research de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Designaffairs LLC, Digiplug S.A.S., Digiplug SAS, Digital Consulting & Software Services LLC, Droga5, Droga5 LLC, Droga5 Studios LLC, Droga5 UK Ltd., Duck Creek Technologies, Duck Creek Technologies LLC, Deja Vu Security LLC, ESR Labs, Elcurator SAS, Enaxis Consulting, Enaxis Consulting L.P., End-to-End Analytics, Energuia Web, Energuia Web S.A., Energy Management Brokers Ltd., Energy Quote Private Ltd., EnergyQuote JHA, EnergyQuote JHA Ltd., EnergyQuote Trading Ltd., Enimbos, Enkitec, Enterprise System Partners, Enterprise System Partners B.V. , Enterprise System Partners Bilisim Danismanlik Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Enterprise System Partners Global Corporation, Enterprise System Partners Limited, Enterprise System Partners PR LLC, Enterprise System Partners S.A.S., Epylon, Evopro Group, Exactside Limited, Fairway Technologies Inc, Fairway Technologies LLC, Filmproduction ApS, First Annapolis Consulting, First Annapolis Consulting Inc., First Annapolis Consulting LLC, First Annapolis International, Fjord, Focus Group Europe, Focus Group Europe Limited, Formicary, Formicary Holdings Limited, Formicary Limited, FusionX, FutureMove Automotive, Gapso Servicos de Informatica Ltda., Genfour, Genfour Limited, George Group Consulting L.P., Gestalt LLC, Gestion Altima Canada Inc., Global Public Firm S.L., GlobalView SAS, GoodFilm GmbH Filmproduktion Stuttgart, H.B. Maynard and Co. Inc., Hagberg Consulting Group, Hangzhou Aiyunzhe Technology Co. Ltd., Happen, Hjaltelin Stahl, Hjaltelin Stahl K/S, Hytracc Consulting AS, Hytracc Consulting Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Hytracc Consulting UK Limited, Hytracc Holding AS, I-Faber S.p.A., IBB Consulting, IMJ Corp, IMJ Corporation, INCAD, INSITUM, IT One Company Limited, ITBS Servicios Bancarios de Tecnologia de la Informacion SL, Icon Integration, Imagine Broadband (USA) Ltd, Imagine Broadband USA LLC, Imaginea Inc, Industrie&Co, Infoman AG, Infoman Schweiz AG, Informatica de Euskadi S.L., Infusion Development Inc., Infusion Development UK Limited, InfusionDev LLC, Innoveer Solutions India Pvt Ltd, Insitum Consultoria Argentina SRL, Insitum Consultoria Brasil LTDA, Insitum Consultoria Colombia SAS, Insitum Consultoria Europa SL, Insitum Consultoria Peru SAC, Insitum Consultoria S.A. de C.V., Intrepid, Intrigo Systems Inc, Intrigo Systems India Pvt. Limited, Intrigo Systems LLC, Inventor Advertisement (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inventor Technology Limited, InvestTech, Investtech Systems Consulting LLC, Javelin Group, Javelin Group (Bulgaria) EOOD, Javelin Group Limited (UK), Javelin Group SASU, K Comms Group Limited, KCS.net AG, KCS.net AG West, KCS.net Deutschland GmbH, KCS.net Holding AG, KCS.net Osterreich GmbH, Kaper Communications Limited, Karma Communications Debtco Limited, Karma Communications Group Limited, Karma Communications Holdings Limited, Karmarama, Karmarama Comms Limited, Karmarama Limited, Knowledge Rules Inc., Knowledgent, Knowledgent Group LLC, Kogentix, Kogentix LLC, Kogentix Ltd, Kogentix Singapore Pte. Ltd, Kogentix Technologies Private Limited, Kolle Rebbe, Kolle Rebbe GmbH, Kream Comms Limited, Kunstmaan, Kunstmaan NV, Kurt Salmon, Kurt Salmon Canada LTD, Kurt Salmon UKI, Kurt Salmon UKI Ltd., Kurt Salmon US LLC, LINKBYNET, LabAnswer, LabAnswer Government, LemonXL Limited, Logistics Market Place Limited (UK), Loud & Clear Creative Pty Ltd, MAXIM Systems Inc., MCG US Holdings LLC, Mackevision CG Technology and Service (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Mackevision Corporation, Mackevision Japan Co. Ltd., Mackevision Korea Ltd, Mackevision Medien Design, Mackevision Medien Design GmbH, Mackevision Singapore Pte. Ltd., Mackevision UK Ltd, Maglan, Maglan Information Defense Technologies Research Ltd., Maihiro, Matter, Matter Llc, Maud Corp Pty Limited, Maxamine International, Media Audits Ltd., Media Hive, Mediasenz Pty Ltd., Meredith Specialty LLC, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing Corporation, Meridian Informed Purchasing Ltd., Mindtribe, Mindtribe Product Engineering LLC, MobGen, MobGen Technology S.L, Moonrise NV, Mortgage Cadence, Mortgage Cadence an Accenture Company, Most Champion Ltd, Mudano, N3 LLC, NBS Marketing Inc., NYTEC, Nanjing Demeng Advertising Co. Ltd., Nashco Consulting, NaviSys Inc., Neo Metrics Analytics S.L., Neo Metrics Chile, Neo Metrics Chile S.A., New Content, New Content Chile SpA, New Content Editora e Produtora Ltda., New Energy Aborda, New Energy Associates Ltd, New Energy Group, New Energy S.r.l., NewsPage, NewsPage (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, NewsPage China Ltd., NewsPage Pte Ltd, Nice Agency Limited, Northstream, Northstream AB, Northstream Holding AB, OCTO Technology, OPS Rules Management Consultants, Octagon Research Solutions Inc., Octo Technology LTDA, Octo Technology Pty Ltd, Octo Technology SA, Octo Technology SPRL, Octoman SAS, Odgaard ApS, Olikka, Operaciones Accenture S.A. de C.V., OpusLine, Orbium, Orbium Consulting Ltd, Orbium GmbH, Orbium Holding AG, Orbium Inc., Orbium International AG, Orbium International sp. z o.o., Orbium Licences AG, Orbium Limited, Orbium Pte. Ltd., Orbium Pty Ltd, Orbium Services sp. z o.o., Orbium Sarl, Origin Digital, PCO Innovation, PCO Innovation Canada Inc., PCO Innovation EURL, PIXO PUNCH Limited, PLM Systems S.r.l, POC Holdings, PRION GmbH, PT Accenture, PT Asta Catur Indra, PT Kogentix Teknologi Indonesia, Pach Invest SARL, Pach Invest SAS, PacificLink Group, PacificLink iMedia Ltd., Paja Finanssipalvelut Oy, Parker Fitzgerald Inc, Parker Fitzgerald Inc., Parker Fitzgerald International Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Limited, Parker Fitzgerald PTY Ltd, Parker Fitzgerald Services Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Solutions Limited, Partners Technology Mexico Holdings BV, Pecaso Ltd., Pegasus Production K/S, Perseroan Terbatas. Accenture, Phase One Consulting Group, Pillar Technology, Pollux, Pragsis Bidoop, Pragsis Bidoop UK Ltd, Pragsis Technologies S.L, PrimeQ, PrimeQ Australia Pty Ltd, PrimeQ Ltd, PrimeQ NZ Pty Ltd, Procurian Germany GmbH, Procurian Inc., Procurian International I LLC, Procurian International II LLC, Procurian LLC, Procurian Singapore Pte. Ltd., Procurian Switzerland GmbH, Procurian USA LLC, Proquire LLC, PureApps Ltd., Qi Jie Beijing Information Technologies Co Ltd, Radiant Services, Radiant Services LLC, Random Walk Computing Inc., Reactive Media Limited, Reactive Media Pty Ltd., Real Protect, Realworld OO Systems Ltd., Redcore, Redcore (Asia) Pte Ltd, Redcore (India) Private Limited (India), Redcore (New Zealand) Limited, Redcore Group Holdings Pty Ltd, Redcore Pty Ltd, Renacentis IT Services, Revolutionary Security, RiskControl, Rothco, Rothco Holdings Designated Activity Company, Rothco Unlimited Company, S.C. EnergyQuote S.r.l., S3 TV Technology Limited, S3 TV Technology Ltd., SALT Solutions GmbH, SEC Servizi, SEC Servizi S.p.A., SOPIA Corp., Sagacious Consultants, Sagacious Consultants LLC, Sanchez Capital Services Pvt Ltd, Schlumberger Business Consulting, Seabury Airline Planning Group, Seabury Aviation & Aerospace (UK) Limited, Seabury Aviation & Aerospace Asia (Hong Kong) Limited, Seabury Aviation Consulting LLC, Seabury Cargo Advisory B.V., Seabury Consulting, Seabury Corporate Advisors LLC, Seabury Human Capital LLC, Seabury Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Seabury Structured Finance LLC, Search Technologies BPO, Search Technologies BPO Inc., Search Technologies GmbH, Search Technologies International LLC, Search Technologies LATAM, Search Technologies LATAM S.A., Search Technologies LLC, Search Technologies Limited, Sente Partners LLC, Sentelis, Servicios Tecnicos de Programacion Accenture S.C., Shackleton, Shackleton Barcelona S.L., Shackleton Chile S.A., Shackleton Madrid S.L., Shackleton S.A., Shanghai Baiyue Advertising Co. Ltd., Shun Zhe Technology Development Co. Ltd., Silveo, Simian Pty Limited, SinnerSchrader AG, SinnerSchrader Commerce GmbH, SinnerSchrader Content GmbH, SinnerSchrader Deutschland GmbH, SinnerSchrader Praha s.r.o., SinnerSchrader Swipe GmbH, Sinnerschrader, Sistemes Consulting S.L., Solutions IQ, Solutions IQ LLC, SolutionsIQ, SolutionsIQ India Consulting Services Private Limited, Storm Digital, Storm Digital B.V., Structure Consulting Group, Structure Consulting Group LLC, Sutter Mills, Systor AG, TQuila Limited (UK), Tadata Creative Unlimited Company, Tara Insurance DAC, Tara Risk DAC, TargetST8, TargetST8 Consulting LLC, Tech - Avanade Portugal Unipessoal Lda, Tecnilogica Ecosistemas S.A., Tecnilogica Ltd., Tecnilogica, The Brand Learning Partners Limited, The Callisto Integration Corporation, The Monkeys, The Monkeys Pty Limited, The Myrtle Group, Total Logistics, Total Logistics Supply Chain Consultants Limited, Tquila, Troop Studios Pty Ltd, VanBerlo, Verax Solutions, Verax Solutions Corporation, Vertical Retail Consulting (Shanghai) Ltd., Vertical Retail Consulting Hong Kong, Vertical Retail Consulting Hong Kong Ltd., Vertical Retail Consulting Ltd., Vivere Brasil Servicos e Solucoes SA, Vivere Brasil Solucoes De Credito Ltda., Weblinc Pty Ltd, Wire Stone, Wire Stone LLC, Wire Stone Sarl, Wolox, Yesler, Zag, Zenta, Zenta Global Philippines, Zenta Global Philippines Inc., Zenta Mortgage Services LLC, Zenta Recoveries Inc, Zenta US Holdings Inc., Zielpuls, Zielpuls (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zielpuls GmbH, avVenta, designaffairs, designaffairs Business Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., designaffairs GmbH, designaffairs group China Co. Ltd., dgroup, i4C Analytics, iDefense, and solid-serVision.com GmbH. Learn how to beat the pros (Ad) Hedge funds and billionaires have pushed around Main Street investors for long enough. In honor of this radical shiftI'm going to make my most popular manual "5 Secret Trading Strategies to Win Every Day in the Market" available for FREE for anyone who wants it. Click here to download your copy 5 hours ago | June 14th | 2021 8:51 AM Is influencer marketing really going to die in the next few years? "Influencer Marketing Will Die in 2023!" they made headlines earlier this year. Some worried and others celebrating the end of a trend, which, although it has brought consumers closer to brands, has also made certain lifestyles see unattainable. However, no publication really explained what the possible decline of an industry with millions of followers around the world is happening. 4 hours ago | June 14th | 2021 8:51 AM Is influencer marketing really going to die in the next few years? "Influencer Marketing Will Die in 2023!" they made headlines earlier this year. Some worried and others celebrating the end of a trend, which, although it has brought consumers closer to brands, has also made certain lifestyles see unattainable. However, no publication really explained what the possible decline of an industry with millions of followers around the world is happening. Stryker Corporation operates as a medical technology company. The company operates through three segments: Orthopaedics, MedSurg, and Neurotechnology and Spine. The Orthopaedics segment provides implants for use in hip and knee joint replacements, and trauma and extremities surgeries. The MedSurg segment offers surgical equipment and surgical navigation systems, endoscopic and communications systems, patient handling, emergency medical equipment and intensive care disposable products, reprocessed and remanufactured medical devices, and other medical device products that are used in various medical specialties. The Neurotechnology and Spine segment provides neurotechnology products, which include products used for minimally invasive endovascular techniques; products for brain and open skull based surgical procedures; orthobiologic and biosurgery products, such as synthetic bone grafts and vertebral augmentation products; and minimally invasive products for the treatment of acute ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke. This segment also offers spinal implant products comprising cervical, thoracolumbar, and interbody systems that are used in spinal injury, deformity, and degenerative therapies. The company sells its products to doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare facilities through company-owned subsidiaries and branches, as well as third-party dealers and distributors in approximately 75 countries. Stryker Corporation was founded in 1941 and is headquartered in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Read More Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI Germany ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI Germany ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys. View MarketBeat's top stock picks here. The following companies are subsidiares of Abbott Laboratories: 3A Nutrition (Vietnam) Company Limited, ABON Biopharm (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd., AGA Medical Belgium, AGA Medical Corporation, AGA Medical Holdings Inc., ALR Holdings, AML Medical LLC, APK Advanced Medical Technologies LLC, ATS Bermuda Holdings Limited, ATS Laboratories Inc., Abbott, Abbott (Jiaxing) Nutrition Co. Ltd., Abbott (UK) Finance Limited, Abbott (UK) Holdings Limited, Abbott AG, Abbott Asia Holdings Limited, Abbott Asia Investments Limited, Abbott Australasia Holdings Limited, Abbott Australasia Pty Ltd, Abbott B.V., Abbott Bahamas Overseas Businesses Corporation, Abbott Belgian Investments, Abbott Bermuda Holding Ltd., Abbott Biologicals B.V., Abbott Biologicals LLC, Abbott Bulgaria Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Capital India Limited, Abbott Cardiovascular Inc., Abbott Cardiovascular Systems Inc., Abbott Delaware LLC, Abbott Diabetes Care Inc., Abbott Diabetes Care Limited, Abbott Diabetes Care Sales Corporation, Abbott Diagnostics GmbH, Abbott Diagnostics International Ltd., Abbott Diagnostics Technologies AS, Abbott Doral Investments S.L., Abbott Equity Holdings Unlimited, Abbott Equity Investments LLC, Abbott Established Products Holdings (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Finance Company SA, Abbott Financial Holdings SRL, Abbott France S.A.S., Abbott Fund Tanzania Limited, Abbott Gesellschaft m.b.H., Abbott GmbH & Co. KG, Abbott Health Products LLC, Abbott Healthcare (Puerto Rico) Ltd., Abbott Healthcare B.V., Abbott Healthcare Costa Rica S.A., Abbott Healthcare LLC, Abbott Healthcare Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Healthcare Private Limited, Abbott Healthcare Products B.V., Abbott Healthcare Products Ltd, Abbott Holding (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding GmbH, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited Luxembourg S.C.S., Abbott Holdings B.V., Abbott Holdings LLC, Abbott Holdings Limited, Abbott Holdings Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Hungary Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Iberian Investments (2) Limited, Abbott Iberian Investments Limited, Abbott India Limited, Abbott Informatics Asia Pacific Limited, Abbott Informatics Canada Inc, Abbott Informatics Corporation, Abbott Informatics Europe Limited, Abbott Informatics France, Abbott Informatics Germany GmbH, Abbott Informatics Netherlands B.V., Abbott Informatics Singapore Pte. Limited, Abbott Informatics Spain S.A., Abbott Informatics Technologies Ltd, Abbott International Corporation, Abbott International Enterprises Ltd., Abbott International Holdings Limited, Abbott International LLC, Abbott International Luxembourg S.ar.l., Abbott Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Ireland, Abbott Ireland Financing Designated Activity Company, Abbott Ireland Limited, Abbott Japan Co. Ltd., Abbott Kazakhstan Limited Liability Partnership, Abbott Knoll Investments B.V., Abbott Korea Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Bangladesh) Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco (Dos) SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Abbott Laboratories (Mozambique) Limitada, Abbott Laboratories (Pakistan) Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Philippines), Abbott Laboratories (Puerto Rico) Incorporated, Abbott Laboratories (Singapore) Private Limited, Abbott Laboratories A/S, Abbott Laboratories Argentina Sociedad Anonima, Abbott Laboratories B.V., Abbott Laboratories C.A., Abbott Laboratories Finance B.V., Abbott Laboratories GmbH, Abbott Laboratories Inc., Abbott Laboratories International LLC, Abbott Laboratories Ireland Limited, Abbott Laboratories Limited, Abbott Laboratories Limited - Laboratoires Abbott Limitee, Abbott Laboratories NZ Limited, Abbott Laboratories Pacific Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Laboratories Products B.V., Abbott Laboratories Residential Development Fund Inc., Abbott Laboratories S.A., Abbott Laboratories SA, Abbott Laboratories Services Corp., Abbott Laboratories Slovakia s.r.o., Abbott Laboratories South Africa (Pty) Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Trustee Company Limited, Abbott Laboratories Uruguay S.A., Abbott Laboratories Vascular Enterprises, Abbott Laboratories d.o.o., Abbott Laboratories de Chile Limitada, Abbott Laboratories de Colombia S.A., Abbott Laboratories de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Abbott Laboratories druzba za farmacijo in diagnostiko d.o.o., Abbott Laboratories s.r.o., Abbott Laboratories(Hellas) Societe Anonyme, Abbott Laboratorios S.A., Abbott Laboratorios S.A., Abbott Laboratorios del Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Abbott Laboratuarlari Ithalat Ihracat ve Ticaret Ltd.Sti, Abbott Laboratorios Lda, Abbott Laboratorios do Brasil Ltda., Abbott Limited Egypt LLC, Abbott Logistics B.V., Abbott Management GmbH, Abbott Management LLC, Abbott Manufacturing Singapore Private Limited, Abbott Mature Products International Unlimited Company, Abbott Mature Products Management Limited, Abbott Medical (Hong Kong) Limited, Abbott Medical (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Abbott Medical (Portugal) Distribuicao de Produtos Medicos Lda, Abbott Medical (Schweiz) AG, Abbott Medical (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Australia Pty. Ltd., Abbott Medical Austria Ges.m.b.H., Abbott Medical Balkan d.o.o. Beograd (Novi Beograd), Abbott Medical Belgium, Abbott Medical Canada Inc./ Medicale Abbott Canada Inc., Abbott Medical Danmark A/S, Abbott Medical Devices Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Espana S.A., Abbott Medical Estonia OU, Abbott Medical Finland Oy, Abbott Medical France SAS, Abbott Medical GmbH, Abbott Medical Hellas Limited Liability Trading Company, Abbott Medical Ireland Limited, Abbott Medical Italia S.p.A., Abbott Medical Japan Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Korea Limited, Abbott Medical Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Medical Laboratories LTD, Abbott Medical Nederland B.V., Abbott Medical New Zealand Limited, Abbott Medical Norway AS, Abbott Medical Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Medical Sweden AB, Abbott Medical Taiwan Co., Abbott Medical U.K. Limited, Abbott Medical spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Middle East S.A.R.L., Abbott Molecular Inc., Abbott Morocco SARL, Abbott Nederland C.V., Abbott Nederland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Netherlands Investments B.V., Abbott Norge AS, Abbott Nutrition Limited, Abbott Nutrition Manufacturing Inc., Abbott Operations Singapore Pte. Ltd., Abbott Operations Uruguay S.R.L., Abbott Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Overseas Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Overseas S.A., Abbott Oy, Abbott Point of Care Canada Limited, Abbott Point of Care Inc., Abbott Poland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Procurement LLC, Abbott Products (Philippines) Inc., Abbott Products (Spain) S.L., Abbott Products Algerie EURL, Abbott Products B.V., Abbott Products Distribution SAS, Abbott Products Egypt LLC, Abbott Products Limited, Abbott Products Limited Liability Company, Abbott Products Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Products Operations AG, Abbott Products Operations LLC, Abbott Products Romania S.R.L., Abbott Products Tunisie S.A.R.L., Abbott Products Unlimited Company, Abbott Resources Inc., Abbott Resources International Inc., Abbott S.r.l., Abbott Saudi Arabia Trading Company, Abbott Scandinavia Aktiebolag, Abbott Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, Abbott South Africa Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Strategic Opportunities Limited, Abbott Trading Company Inc., Abbott Universal LLC, Abbott Vascular Devices (2) Limited, Abbott Vascular Devices Limited, Abbott Vascular Inc., Abbott Vascular Instruments Deutschland GmbH, Abbott Vascular International, Abbott Vascular Japan Co. Ltd, Abbott Vascular Limitada, Abbott Vascular Netherlands B.V., Abbott Vascular Solutions Inc., Abbott Ventures Inc., Abbott West Indies Limited, Abbott drustvo sa ogranicenom odgovornoscu za trgovinu i usluge, Advanced Neuromodulation Systems Inc., Alere, Alere (Shanghai) Diagnostics Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Healthcare Management Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Medical Sales Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Technology Co. Ltd., Alere A/S, Alere AB, Alere AS, Alere AS Holdings Limited, Alere BBI Holdings Limited, Alere Bangladesh Limited, Alere China Co. Ltd., Alere Colombia S.A., Alere Connect LLC, Alere Connected Health Limited, Alere Connected Health Ltd., Alere Diagnostics GmbH, Alere DoA Holding GmbH, Alere GmbH, Alere GmbH (Austria), Alere GmbH (Germany), Alere HK Holdings Ltd., Alere Health B.V., Alere Health BVBA, Alere Health Corp., Alere Health Sdn Bhd, Alere Health Services B.V., Alere Healthcare (Pty) Limited, Alere Healthcare Connections Limited, Alere Healthcare Inc., Alere Healthcare Nigeria Limited, Alere Healthcare S.L., Alere Holdco Inc., Alere Holding GmbH, Alere Holdings Bermuda Limited, Alere Holdings Pty Limited, Alere Home Monitoring Inc., Alere Inc., Alere Informatics Inc., Alere International Holding Corp., Alere International Limited, Alere Lda, Alere Limited, Alere Limited (New Zealand), Alere Medical BVBA, Alere Medical Co. Ltd., Alere Medical Pakistan (Private) Limited, Alere Medical Private Limited, Alere North America LLC, Alere Oy Ab, Alere Philippines Inc., Alere Phoenix ACQ Inc., Alere Pte Ltd, Alere S.A., Alere S.r.l., Alere S/A, Alere SAS, Alere San Diego Inc., Alere Scarborough Inc., Alere Spain S.L., Alere Switzerland GmbH, Alere Technologies GmbH, Alere Technologies Holdings Limited, Alere Technologies Limited, Alere Toxicology AB, Alere Toxicology Inc., Alere Toxicology S.r.l., Alere Toxicology Services Inc., Alere Toxicology plc, Alere UK Holdings Limited, Alere UK Subco Limited, Alere ULC, Alere US Holdings LLC, Alere s.r.o., Alisoc Investment & Co, Amedica Biotech Inc., Ameditech Inc., American Generics S.A.S., American Medical Supplies Inc., American Pharmacist Inc., Antares S.A., Apica Cardiovascular Limited, Aquagestion Capacitacion S.A., Aquagestion S.A., Arriva Medical LLC, Arriva Medical Philippines Inc., Arvis Investments Limited, Atlas Farmaceutica S.A., Avee Laboratories Inc., Axis-Shield AD III AS, Axis-Shield AD IV AS, Axis-Shield AS, Axis-Shield Diagnostics Limited, Axis-Shield Ltd., BBI Animal Health Limited, BBI Diagnostics Group 2 Public Limited Company, Banco de Vida S.A., Bioabsorbable Vascular Solutions Inc., Bioalgae S.A., Biohealth LLC, Biosite Incorporated, Bosque Bonito S.A., Branan Medical Corporation, Brandex Europe C.V., British Colloids Limited, CFR Chile S.A., CFR Interamericas EL Salvador Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, CFR Interamericas Nicaragua Sociedad Anonima, CFR Interamericas Panama S.A., CFR Pharmaceuticals, California Property Holdings III LLC, CardioMEMS LLC, Caripharm Inc., Cephea Valve Technologies, Cephea Valve Technologies Inc., Colibri Medical Aktiebolag, Comercializadora y Distribuidora CFR Interamericas Honduras S.A., Concateno South Limited, Concateno UK Limited, Consorcio Tecnologico en Biomedicina Clinico-Molecular S.A., Continuum Services LLC, Cozart Limited, Dextech S.A., Diagnostik Nord GmbH, Distribuciones Uquifa S.A.S., Domesco Medical Import-Export Joint-Stock Corporation, Duphar International Research B.V., Endocardial Solutions, Epocal (US) Inc, Esprit de Vie S.A., European Chemicals & Co, European Drug Testing Service EDTS AB, European Services S.A., Evalve Inc., Evalve International Inc., FARMINDUSTRIA S.A., Fada Pharma Paraguay Sociedad Anonima, Fadapharma del Ecuador S.A., Farmaceutica Mont Blanc S.L., Farmacologia Em Aquicultura Veterinaria Ltda., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV Ecuador S.A., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV S.A., Fernwood Investment S.A., First Check Diagnostics LLC, Focus Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Forensics Limited, Forestcreek Overseas S.A., Fournier Pharma Corp., Fournier Pharma GmbH, Fournier Pharmaceuticals Limited, Framed B.V., Gabmed GmbH, Garden Hills LLC, Global Analytical Development LLC, Globapharm & CO LP, Glomed Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Golnorth Investments S.A., Gynocare Limited, Gynopharm Sociedad Anonima, Gynopharm de Centroamerica S.A., Gynopharm de Venezuela C.A., Hi-Tronics Designs Inc., IDEV Technologies Inc., IG Innovations Limited, IMTC Finance B.V., IMTC Holdings B.V., IMTC Technologies Inc., Ibis Biosciences LLC, Igloo Zone Chile S.A., Igloo Zone S.L., Inmobiliaria Naknek S.A.C., Innovacon Inc., Instant Tech Subsidiary Acquisition Inc., Instant Technologies Inc., Instituto de Criopreservacion de Chile S.A., Integrated Vascular Systems Inc., Inverness Canadian Acquisition Corporation, Inverness Medical (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Australia Pty Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Hong Kong Limited, Inverness Medical Innovations SK LLC, Inverness Medical Investments LLC, Inverness Medical LLC, Inverness Medical Shimla Private Limited, Inversiones K2 SpA, Inversiones Komodo S.R.L., Ionian Technologies LLC, Irvine Biomedical Inc., Kalila Medical, Kangshenyunga S.A., Knoll UK Investments Unlimited, LLC VeroInPharm, Laboratoires Fournier S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano Lafrancol S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano del Ecuador S.A., Laboratorio Internacional Argentino S.A., Laboratorio Synthesis S.A.S., Laboratorios Lafi Limitada, Laboratorios Naturmedik S.A.S., Laboratorios Pauly Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Laboratorios Recalcine S.A., Laboratorios Transpharm S.A., Laboratory Specialists of America Inc., Lafrancol Dominicana S.A.S., Lafrancol Guatemala S.A. Sociedad Anonima, Lafrancol Internacional S.A.S, Lafrancol Peru S.R.L, Lake Forest Investments LLC, Lightlab Imaging Inc., Limited Liability Company Abbott Laboratories, Limited Liability Company Abbott Ukraine, Limited Liability Company VEROPHARM, Lung Fung Hong (China) Limited, Mansbridge Pharmaceuticals Limited, MediGuide LLC, MediGuide Ltd., Medscreen Holdings Limited, Metropolitana Farmaceutica S.A., Midwest Properties LLC, Murex Argentina S.A., Murex Biotech Limited, Murex Biotech South Africa, Murex Diagnostics Inc., Murex Diagnostics International Inc., Natural Supplement Association LLC, Negocios Denia Sociedad Anonima, Neosalud S.A.C., Nether Pharma N.P. C.V., NeuroTherm LLC, Normann Pharma-Handels GmbH, North Shore Properties Inc., Novamedi S.A., Novasalud.com S.A., Nutravida S.A., OJSC Voronezhkhimpharm, Omnilab Iberia Sociedad Limitada, OptiMedica, Orgenics France SAS, Orgenics International Holdings B.V., Orgenics Ltd., PBM-Selfcare LLC, PDD II LLC, PDD LLC, PT Alere Health, PT. Abbott Indonesia, PT. Abbott Products Indonesia, Pacesetter Inc., Pantech (RF) (PTY) LTD, Pembrooke Occupational Health Inc., Penagos S.A., Pharma International Sociedad Anonima, Pharmaceutical Technologies (Pharmatech) S.A., Pharmatech Boliviana S.A., Polygon Labs S.A., Quality Assured Services Inc., RF Medical Holdings LLC, RTL Holdings Inc., Ramses Business Corp., Recben Xenerics Farmaceutica Limitada, Redwood Toxicology Laboratory Inc., Rich Horizons International Limited, SC VEROPHARM, SJ Medical Mexico S de R.L. de C.V., SJM International Inc., SJM Thunder Holding Company, SPDH Inc., Saboya Enterprises Corporation, Salviac Limited, Scanax AS, Sealing Solutions Inc., Selfcare Technology Inc., Shandong Abbott Dairy Product Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Medical Devices Science and Technology Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Shanghai Si Fa Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Sinensix & Co., Spinal Modulation LLC, St. Jude Medical, St. Jude Medical AB, St. Jude Medical ATG Inc., St. Jude Medical Argentina S.A., St. Jude Medical Asia Pacific Holdings GK, St. Jude Medical Atrial Fibrillation Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Brasil Ltda., St. Jude Medical Business Services Inc., St. Jude Medical Cardiology Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Colombia Ltda., St. Jude Medical Coordination Center, St. Jude Medical Costa Rica Limitada, St. Jude Medical Europe Inc., St. Jude Medical Export Ges.m.b.H., St. Jude Medical GVA Sarl, St. Jude Medical Holdings B.V., St. Jude Medical India Private Limited, St. Jude Medical International Holding, St. Jude Medical LLC, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings II, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings NT, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings SMI S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings TC S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Mexico Business Services S. de R.L. de C.V., St. Jude Medical Middle East DMCC, St. Jude Medical Operations (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., St. Jude Medical Puerto Rico LLC, St. Jude Medical S.C. Inc., St. Jude Medical Systems AB, St. Jude Medical Turkey Medikal Urunler Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Standard Diagnostics Inc., Standing Stone LLC, Swan-Myers Incorporated, TC1 LLC, Tendyne Holdings Inc., Tendyne Medical Inc., Thoratec Delaware LLC, Thoratec Europe Limited, Thoratec LLC, Thoratec Switzerland GmbH, Tobal Products Incorporated, Topera GmbH in Liquidation, Topera Inc., Tremora S.A., Tuenir S.A., TwistDx, UAB Abbott Laboratories, UAB Abbott Medical Lithuania, Union-Madison Realty Company Inc., Unipath Limited (dba Alere International/aka Cranfield), Unipath Management Limited, Unipath Pension Trustee Limited, Veropharm, Veropharm Limited Liability Partnership, Vida Cell Inversiones S.A., Vida Cell S.A., Vivalsol, W&R Pharma Handels GmbH, Western Pharmaceuticals S.A., X Technologies Inc., Yissum Holding Limited, ZonePerfect Nutrition Company, eScreen Canada ULC, eScreen Inc., ( ), and Abbott Laboratories Baltics. 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(Ad) See how this tiny, unknown gold company secured a prime land package right next door to the worlds two largest gold producers in Nevadas famed Carlin Trend where 84 Million gold ounces have already been extracted. Best of all, investors can still get in well below US$0.50 per share. Details Here. Wall Street Legend Who Picked Bitcoin in 2016 Shares #1 Pick for the 2020s (Ad) Picking the right investment of the decade can transform your life Microsoft in the 80sAmazon in the 90sApple in the 2000sBitcoin in 2016... Any one of these could have made you a millionaire many times over. Today, the Wall Street legend who picked the last investment of the decade The answer will surprise you. Vedanta Star Limited, a subsidiary of Vedanta, has planned to come up with another big new steel unit in Jharkhand. Under the brownfield project a 4.5 MT steel unit is proposed to come up at Bokaro, officials informed. The Chairman of Vedanta Resonance Anil Agarwal recently announced that with an estimated investment of 3-4 billion USD the new unit will come up on the recently acquired land of Electro Steel Limited (ESL) at Bokaro. We have about 2,200 acres of acquired land at Bokaro and get full support from the State government. Notably, Vedanta took the full control of debt-ridden Electrosteel Plant (ESL) at Siyaljori in Bokaro in June this year. Presently this unit is 1.5 million tonnes steel plant, designed and built by the Chinese steel major Laiwu Steel Group Limited (LSGL) based on Blast Furnace (BF)-Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF)-Billet Caster and Hot Rolling Route and will produce 1.2 MTPA of long steel products, comprising 0.5 MTPA of 5.5-12.0 mm diameter wire rods in coil form and 0.7 MTPA of reinforcement bars in straight lengths and bundled in the range of 8-32 mm and plain rounds up to 60 mm diameter. The plant has a 0.33 MTPA DI pipe production facility in the same complex with hot metal from the blast furnaces. The plant will also have production facilities for 0.27 MTPA of commercial billets and 0.40 MTPA of pig iron. This is the first Greenfield project with Chinese technology started its production at the end of 2011. Now, Vedanta is on move to increase the production capacity of the present ESL unit from 1.5 MT to 2.5 MT for which company will invest 300 million US dollars, he said. The Delhi Police on Wednesday detained former Janta Dal (United) MLA Raju Singh and his driver cum bodyguard Hari Singh from Kushi Nagar in Uttar Pradesh for firing a gun in the air during a New Year Eves party on Sunday which left a woman guest critically injured. Police said that they have also recovered a pistol from his possession. Former Bihar MLA had injured a woman identified as Archana Gupta, an architect, after he allegedly fired a bullet during celebrations at his farm house on Sunday around 8:45 pm in Vasant Kunj area of South Delhi. They will reach Delhi by Thursday morning. The woman is still undergoing treatment in Fortis hospital. She was hit with a bullet in her head, said the senior police official Vikas Gupta, husband of the victim told police that they were at Singhs farmhouse, Rose Farms, in Mandi village in Fatehpur Beri for a party. He was once Singhs partner in a now defunct pharmaceutical company. Gupta now own a realty business in Gautam Nagar and had retained their contact with Singh, said the senior police official On the New Year eve as the party progressed towards the countdown to 2019, Raju dancing in an inebriated state procured a rifle and started firing in the air. After a couple of shots, Archana suddenly collapsed and her husband called for help and took his wife to hospital, said the senior police official adding that they were informed by hospital regarding the incident, said the senior police official At the farm house where incident occurred had been cleaned and the used cartridges removed from the spot before the police had reached. The households in the house in their statement to police have claimed that the former MLA was not in city on that day, said a senior police official. A case of attempt to murder and destruction of evidence has been registered. The statements of eyewitnesses, including Vikas, were recorded, said the senior police official. Rose Farms is apparently owned by Singhs mother, though the former MLA stays there with his family and his two siblings. Police are reported to have found two rifles and 800 rounds of ammunition in the house. Singh had contested elections from Sahebganj in Bihar. Eminent trade union leader Santosh Kumar Pattnaik sent 10 volunteers to conduct rescue operation at Kendrapada boat mishap site and distributed dry foods and fruits among injured victims admitted to the Kujang hospital. Pattnaik thanked Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for announcing Government assistance and police and district administration for timely support. Notably, 10 persons died and many were injured, all belonged to Hasina village under Kujang block, as a boat capsized in the Mahanadi river at Nipania village in Kendrapada district on Wednesday evening. BJP leader Sampad Swain and Congress leader Bapi Sarkhel with their supporters separately blocked the Cuttack-Paradip road near Hasina village, demanding arrest of the boat owner and the boatman. With talks proving inconclusive, the strike of the field employees of 108 ambulance service continued on the second consecutive day on Thursday. After failure of the talks convened to end the logjam, the GVK- EMRI 108 ambulance service management issued orders to the striking employees to join their duties before 8 pm on Friday failing which they would be terminated. In an effort to persuade the striking workers to get back to their work, the representatives of the association of field workers of the service were invited for talks by the director general ( DG) medical health and family welfare department Dr T C Pant on Thursday afternoon. However, the meeting held at state secretariat and attended by additional secretary Arunendra Chauhan and state head of GVK -EMRI 108 service Manish Tinku failed to thaw the ice. After the meeting, Tinku issued orders, asking the striking workers to return to their duties before 8 pm on Friday. He later told The Pioneer that those who fail to turn up would be terminated with immediate effect. Tinku added that the company has started a recruitment drive and the new employees would be ready to discharge their duties within a weeks time. Meanwhile, the strike continued to affect the state health services for the second consecutive day on Thursday. In different districts, the chief medical officers ( CMO) provided some drivers to the service while some drivers from Uttar Pradesh were also called to make the fleet operational. In spite of these efforts, just 50 percent of the ambulances was operational on the roads on the day. More than 700 field workers of the service which is considered most vital for saving lives of patients have been on strike since Wednesday. The workers are annoyed over the decision to cut salary in connection with the mass leave they had undertaken in August last. Besides, they are demanding timely payment of salaries and allowances aside from their basic salary being fixed as per the labour laws. They also want the ambulance workers not be unnecessarily transferred and a committee be constituted to look into their problems. Four unidentified criminals committed loot and escaped with Rs 1.4 lakh from an employee of private finance company under Balidih police station at Bokaro. According to the police, four criminals riding on two motorbikes snatched the bag carrying cash from Satrughan Pandey an employee of Bharat finance Company near Dharampura Village near Jainamore in Bokaro. I was on the way to my office after collecting cash from the lenders, suddenly four bike born criminals snatched the bag carrying cash. Later taking me on gunpoint the criminals also looted my mobile phone and my bikes key and escaped, said Pandey. A case has been registered and we are investigating into the matter, OC of Balidih police station. Congress leaders in Amethi will give party president Rahul Gandhi a grand welcome during his two-day visit to his parliamentary constituency beginning from Friday. Interestingly, Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani is also visiting Amethi on Friday and it may result in a showdown between the leaders of the two parties to dominate the proceedings. Rahul Gandhis Amethi visit comes at a time when the party is bolstered with victory in three states in the recent state elections. The Congress president is scheduled to attend programmes in Amethi on January 4 and 5. Sources confirmed that Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani will be participating in a blanket distribution programme organised by Raghavram Sewa Sansthan on January 4. Irani has been active in Amethi even after being the runner-up in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Amethi Congress district president Chandrakant Dubey said, We have planned a grand welcome to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi as it will be his maiden visit to Amethi after the Congress victories in three important states and also the first of this year. Congress MLC and leader of the party in the UP Legislative Council, Deepak Singh, said that they would welcome the party president right from the Chaudhary Charan Singh Airport at Amausi in Lucknow till he reached Amethi. Singh said the party would also celebrate the New Year with the people of Amethi. In Lucknow, Congress state president Raj Babbar will be present along with other senior leaders to welcome Rahul. A meeting was held at UP Congress Committee office in Lucknow to discuss the welcome plan for the party president. It may be mentioned that the Bharatiya Janata Party had made a strong push for Amethi in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, fielding Smriti Irani against Rahul Gandhi. Irani lost the electoral battle but continued to make regular visits to the constituency. The skirmishes between the Congress and the BJP in Amethi have been open. Last year, posters depicting Rahul Gandhi as Lord Rama slaying Prime Minister Narendra Modi, portrayed as ten-headed Ravana, had appeared in Amethi. Later, a new set of posters were seen in Amethi which welcomed the missing Amethi MP, who, the posters said, had ignored health, education and development of Amethi. The poster had a grim looking Rahul Gandhi and said it was from the development deprived people of Amethi. Tata Steel has invited President Ramnath Kovind to release stamp on Jamshedpur. The year 2019 marks 100 years of naming of the steel city Jamshedpur. CEO and managing director of Tata Steel T.V. Narendran extended his warm wishes to the people after a formal cake cutting ceremony on Tuesday to usher in 2019 at the lawns of Centre for Excellence on Tuesday. Year 2019 is a significant year as on January 2 steel city will complete 100 years of getting its name as Jamshedpur. Moreover, the Tata Workers' Union will also celebrate its centenary this year, said Narendran. Steel city was renamed Jamshedpur from Sakchi in the year 1919. It got the name from its late founder Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata. He informed to mark occasion Tata Steel has written a letter to the President of India Ramnath Kovind inviting the latter in Jamshedpur for releasing a postage stamp to mark the occasion. Narendran said that the corporate major was committed to develop Jamshedpur as one of the best industrial towns. Describing steel city has a 'City of institutions' he said that they always make efforts to strike a balance between corporates and institutions. He also cited examples of community participation which makes the steel city an attractive, vibrant and a better place to live in. They will continue to work on development projects. On the sidelines of the cake cutting function Narendran said that they are also working on smart city and Greater Jamshedpur project. Referring to a query Narendran said that the production of hot metal at the Jamshedpur plant has reached 11 MTPA from the earlier 10 MTPA and that they are exploring the pros and cons of further expansion. Exactly a 100 years ago (January 2, 1919), Lord Chelmsford , who served as Governor General and Viceroy of India (1916 - 1921) said I can hardly imagine what we should have done during these four years (of the First World war) if the Tata Company had not been able to gift us steel rails which have been provided for us , not only for Mesopotamia but for Egypt, Palestine and East Africa, and I have come to express my thanksIt is hard to imagine that 10 years ago, this place was scrub and jungle ; and here, we have now, this place set up with all its foundries and its workshops and its population of 40,000 to 50,000 people. This great enterprise has been due to the prescience, imagination of the late Jamsetji Tata. This place will see a change in its name and will no longer be known as Sakchi, but will be identified with the name of its founder, bearing down through the ages the name of the late Jamsetji Tata. Hereafter, this place will be known by the name of Jamshedpur. Haryana BJP election committee has appointed Agriculture Minister OP Dhankar and national secretary Sudha Yadav as supervisors to decide the partys candidate for Jind bypolls. The election will be held on January 28. The BJP state election committee which met on Thursday under Chief Minister Manohar Lal in New Delhi decided to appoint OP Dhankar and Sudha Yadav as supervisors who will visit Jind and meet the party workers to take feedback on shortlisted candidates. The duo will then submit their report to the party election committee for finalization of the candidate. On the other hand, the Indian National Lok Dal has decided to announce its candidate on January 9. Congress will also soon meet to decide over its candidate. The newly-formed Jannayak Janta party, which is breakaway faction of INLD will also contest the bypolls while Aam Aadmi party has announced not to contest it. A two-time INLD MLA from Jind, Hari Chand Midha had died in August 2018 leading to bypoll in the Assembly constituency. As per the EC schedule, the last date of nominations is January 10 and scrutiny of nominations will be held on January 11. A delegation of transgenders called on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday seeking his support on the changes proposed by the Central Government after a private members bill moved by DMK Member of Parliament Tiruchi Siva was passed in the Rajya Sabha in 2015. This became the first private members bill to be passed in the upper House of the Parliament in 45 years. The Chief Minister assured the delegation that the Delhi government and the Aam Aadmi Party share their concerns on The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill 2016, currently pending in the Lok Sabha. After the passage of this bill in the Rajya Sabha, the Union Cabinet proposed a series of changes in the bill, currently pending in the Lok Sabha. These changes have been opposed by the transgender community. The delegation also informed the Chief Minister that the changes made by the Centre defeat the basic purpose of the bill. They also objected the definition of the transgenders mentioned in the Governments draft. Accusing the Congress of being soft towards terrorists, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said the grand old party had misused government machinery to falsely implicate the then Gujarat Home Minister, Amit Shah, in the controversial Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case in 2005 and it should apologise to the nation for this act. Yogi said the Congress had played with the security of the country by playing in the hands of anti-national elements. The recent verdict of the special CBI court clearly states how Congress leaders like Sonia Gandhi and the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were instrumental in implicating Amit Shah though earlier the Bombay High Court had freed him in the same case, Yogi said. Addressing a hurriedly called press conference here on Wednesday, Yogi Adityanath said the Congress, which was instrumental in the anti-Sikh riots, had done everything to hit the countrys security by supporting the anti-national forces. Shah had to struggle for years for no fault of his. He was jailed and his family was harassed. Various allegations were levelled against him but now the judiciary has cleared his name from this controversy. Earlier, the Supreme Court had given a clean chit to Amit Shah, the Chief Minister said and asked the Congress to apologise to the nation for using CBI for its political agenda. Recently, a special court of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had said that there was no evidence against Amit Shah in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case. The encounter took place in Gujarat on November 23, 2005. The Gujarat police had then claimed that Sohrabuddin had come to kill Narendra Modi who was the Chief Minister of Gujarat at that time. Yogi said the Congress had conspired to crush its political opponent by misusing power and administration. The Congress party continued to crush justice and the Constitution to end its political competitors by abusing its administrative powers during the United Progressive Alliance days, Yogi said. Chief Minister Raghubar Das on Tuesday said agriculture and rural development will be focus areas for the Government in the year 2019. He said the New Year will witness the emergence of a new Jharkhand. He shared Extending his warm wishes for the New Year, Das in his press meet organised at Sidhgora Sone Mandap said the New Year will growth in various sectors including health, education, infrastructure development, agriculture, rural development, social welfare, power and traffic policing. He also sought suggestions for development of all sectors and improvement in schemes. The CM said, Jharkhand government has taken a pledge to create a state free of crime and corruption. New avenues of development will be opened in the year ahead. The rate of development will increase manifold. Numerous schemes will be started for the needy and poor people. Agriculture and rural development departments would also start many schemes. We are committed to empowerment of women and improvement in basic civic amenities including drinking water and electricity supply to all households. More roads would be built and traffic woes of people would be eliminated forever. Das said extremism was breathing its last in the state. He said the people were the real masters of democracy and that it was the duty of the government to provide protection to them. In the last four years, the government has been able to control Left-sponsored extremism to a great extent. The police machinery is striving to end the menace. Wherever violence is visible, it will be controlled soon, he said. The CM said the state had seen considerable decline in organized crime. Hardcore criminals are being successfully prosecuted, he said. The CM said development is the panacea to all problems of the state. Security is related to development and Jharkhand is raring to become the top state of the country, he said. Das said the government would implement those schemes that were going to benefit the maximum number of people. The annual budget would be presented on 22nd January. Government will launch Mukhyamantri Krishi Ashirwad Yojana under which Rs 5000 would be transferred directly to the bank accounts of farmers having less than an acre of land. Around 20 lakh farmers will be benefitted from this scheme. This will make the PMs dream of doubling farmers income true by 2022, he said. The CM said the government will set up processing plants to sell local products to Patanjali with whom a Memorandum of Understanding will soon be entered. By 2022, farmers income will go up four times. On January 6, 36 women of Jharkhand will go to Israel to learn modern farming techniques, he said. In order to empower women, the CM said, Mukhyamantri Sukanya Yojana will be passed in the Cabinet meeting on January 3. As many as 27 lakh women will be benefitted by this scheme. Dehradun police have arrested two Bangladeshis who were allegedly living in the city illegally on the basis of forged documents. A team comprising the local intelligence unit ( LIU) and Patel Nagar police while undertaking an identification drive nabbed Nazrul Islam living in Majra area and Shahful Hassan living in Mehuwala Mafi near Shimla Bypass for illegally residing in the country. The in-charge Patel Nagar police station Surya Bhushan Negi said that both of them have admitted that they, Bangladeshi citizens, were illegally living in India. They are said to have told police during interrogation that they were natives of Bagerhat district of Bangladesh. The police team recovered fake Voter ID card, Aadhar card and driving license. Further investigation is underway. Extending support to the demand of Vishwa Hindu Parishads (VHP) for the enactment of a legislation in the Winter Session of the Parliament commencing from December 11 for construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya, the VHP district unit here organised a massive rally and a Hindu Samillani. Addressing the meeting, the VHP speakers and other RSS affiliates urged the Centre to respect the sentiment of a majority of Hindus by facilitating the construction of a temple at the earliest. With the Supreme Court taking its own time to pronounce a verdict on the Ram temple case, they strongly pleaded with the Narendra Modi Government to bring an ordinance for the temple construction. It is the responsibility of an elected Government to honour the sentiment of the people. The Modi Government at the Centre has been ignoring the majoritys demand for a temple at Ayodhya for a long time. After waiting so long to realise their dream of having a temple at the birthplace of Lord Ram, the people have started losing patience, said senior VHP leader and member of the central advisory board of the VHP Mahamandeleswar Akhileswarananda Giri Maharaj. Expressing his displeasure over the delay in construction oftemple, the VHP leader from Jabalpur said those who are in the corridor of power in New Delhi had assured to build a Ram temple. However, they have failed to keep their promise. The time has come to take a decision failing which the people of the country will give them a befitting reply, he said, while addressing the rally. While denizens at large from the undivided Koraput district gather at the stadium and raised slogan to build the temple as soon as possible. While working secretary of VHPs Odisha unit Saroj Pradhan presided, district president Babu Bhai Bajrangi, vice president Nabakrushna Ratha, working president Tejeswar Panda and secretary Kamlakanta Biswal were present. Nishad Party leader Arjun Kashyap blamed Bharatiya Janata Party for the death of a constable in stone pelting in Ghazipur on December 29 last year, saying his party workers did not pelt stones at the policemen and it was the handiwork of some BJP leaders. Kashyap, while admitting that his party supporters might have resorted to stone pelting, denied that they attacked the policemen. BJP, which is in power, is behind the incident. Its partymen are the main culprits, he said. The Nishad Party leader also accused Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of not fulfilling the demands of the Nishad community. Even Yogiji promised to fulfil the demands of Nishad community but nothing has been done. There is no one in Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha to raise our demands. We will keep protesting till we get reservation for our community, Kashyap said. Constable Suresh Vats was returning from a public meeting addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Ghazipur on December 29 when he was hit by a stone thrown by someone among a protesting mob. According to Ghazipur police, Suresh Vats, 48, from Karimuddinpur police station was hit on the head by a stone when he went to end a traffic jam caused by the protests. He later succumbed to his injuries. Two other local residents were also injured in the stone pelting. Ghazipurs Superintendent of Police Yashveer Singh had said the protesters were workers of Rashtriya Nishad Party who were prevented by the administration and the police from going to the rally venue. An FIR was registered against 32 named and 60 unnamed people. A few of them have been arrested in connection with the violence. For the first time after Diwali, deteriorating air quality in Delhi plunged to Severe Plus Category on January 3, prompting the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) to order a 24-hours ban on the entry of trucks into the national Capital. The entry of trucks to Delhi would be disallowed from 11 pm on Friday to 11 pm on Saturday. According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data, the overall Air Quality Index (AQI) in the city reached 443, with Chandni Chowk and Dhirpur area recording it at 571 and 533 respectively. Thirty areas in Delhi recorded severe air quality, while three gauged very poor air quality, it said. Also, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Gurgaon and Noida recorded severe air quality. The overall PM2.5 level in Delhi was recorded at 272, while the PM10 level was at 489, the CPCB said. An AQI between 100 and 200 comes under moderate category, 201 and 300 is considered poor, 301 and 400 very poor, while that between 401 and 500 is severe. The System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR), a unit of Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), issued health advisory on Thursday. In all probability, the AQI is expected to go up further within severe range until tomorrow (Friday) afternoon. Relief is expected only if sufficient amount of rainfall occurs. A little shower only aggravates the situation, the advisory stated. According to experts, even healthy people find it hard to breathe when air quality level is in the severe category and doctors advise physical activity to be kept at a minimum. In a health advisory, it asked city residents not to rely on common dust masks for protection. The agency has advised people to avoid all outdoor activities, including taking walks. If the room has windows, close them. If the air conditioner provides a fresh air intake option then choose it, avoid burning anything such as wood, candle or even an incense, it said. SAFAR has also recommended frequent wet mopping and using masks known as N-95 or P-100 respirators for outdoor activities.Do not rely on dust masks for protection, the advisory stated. In a letter to the chief secretaries of Delhi and the neighbouring States of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, EPCA chief Bhure Lal directed them to stop the entry of truck traffic into Delhi (except essential commodities) during the period. The decision comes in view of the severe air quality of the national capital. This would be a second time this season that a ban on the entry of trucks would be imposed. Earlier, it was done between November 1-November 12 when the deterioration of air quality was observed. The SAFAR said the winter pre-shower condition which introduces huge amount of moisture with dense fog is responsible for a peak in the current pollution scenario. Foggy weather hit flight services severely at Indira Gandhi International Airport. As per the DIAL officials, departures were put on hold from 7.30 am to 9.30 am due to low visibility conditions. Prime Minister Narendra Modis flight to Jalandhar was delayed too. A purported audio clip of a Goa Minister speaking about Chief Minister Manohar Parrikars alleged claim of papers and files on the Rafale fighter jets contract lying in his bedroom led to a political slugfest between Congress and BJP after Parliament resumed for the first day of the New Year on Wednesday. While Congress led by party chief Rahul Gandhi claimed that the tape was genuine, the BJP alleged the tape was doctored, false and fabricated. Sparks flew between Congress and the Centre with Rahul making an attempt in the Lok Sabha to play the unverified audio tape purportedly of Minister Vishwajit Rane telling an unidentified person regarding the alleged claim by Parrikar at a Cabinet meeting. Rahul alleged that Parrikar is blackmailing Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Goa Minister is saying clearly that Parrikarji said in a Cabinet meeting that he has a complete file on Rafale deal with all details and therefore he cant be disturbed. There may be other such audio tapes, Rahul said at a Press conference. Now Parrikar says all details are in his bedroom. Truth cant be kept hidden. The more you try to hide the truth, new facts will come out, Rahul said. What Parrikar is doing is threatening the PM and blackmailing him in a way. We have been raising this for a long time. Question is what information is there in Parrikars bedroom and what files are there and what could be the impact on Narendra Modi, Rahul further alleged. Demanding answers from the Prime Minister on Parrikars purported claim, Rahul asked if this was the reason why a JPC probe was not being ordered. He said the entire country wants Modi to answer these questions. He also dared Modi to have a one-on-one debate of just 20 minutes on the Rafale matter. Earlier, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala came out with the conversation purportedly between Rane and another person. Rane purportedly can be heard saying that during a Goa Cabinet meeting last week Parrikar stated he had an entire file and all documents relating to the Rafale deal lying in his bedroom, Surjewala claimed, playing the conversation for the media outside Parliament. Surjewala quoted Rane as saying, The Chief Minister made a very interesting statement, that I have all the information of Rafale in my bedroom....That means he is holding them to ransom. He said it is in my bedroom here only in my flat, each and every document on Rafale. There was no confirmation on whether it was the voice of Rane in the audio. The identity of the other person was also not ascertained. In Panjim, Rane said he has asked Parrikar for a police inquiry into the matter to bring to book the accused behind the audio purportedly featuring him. Todays voice note which is being circulated and talked about is absolutely absurd and illogical, he said. In a letter to Amit Shah, Rane said he never had any conversation with anyone on the Rafale issue and that the purported audio clip is a doctored one. Rane is a former Congress leader who joined the BJP after 2017 Assembly polls and was made a Minister. On his part, Parrikar termed the audio clip cited by the Congress on the Rafale deal as a desperate attempt to fabricate facts after the Supreme Court exposed the lies of the Opposition party. No such discussion as cited in the audio clip ever came up during the Cabinet or any other meeting, said Parrikar, who was the Defence Minister when India and France signed a deal for the purchase of fighter aircraft from France. Opposition Congress in Goa demanded that the CBI raid the private residence of Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar to find about a file on the Rafale deal. It also demanded that Parrikar and his Cabinet colleagues should undergo the lie detector test. As tempers ran high in the Lok Sabha, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the tape is false and fabricated, asking the Congress president if he can authenticate it. While Jaitley asserted that Rahul Gandhi may have to face privilege motion and even expulsion in case the tape turns out to be fabricated, the Congress chief in a Press conference claimed that the said audio were authenticate and that there might be many such tapes. The Congress earlier in the day demanded answers from Modi on Parrikars purported claim and asked if this was the reason why a JPC probe was not being ordered. A 32-member delegation of Indian lawyers is on a visit to Pakistan where they met Lahore High Court Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Shamim on Thursday. The delegation also met Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) president Noor Samand Khan, secretary Hassan Warraich and other senior lawyers who gave them a warm welcome. On the occasion, the Indian delegation led by Punjab and Haryana Bar Council chairman Partap Singh said, "We are very happy to visit Pakistan and have found Pakistanis quite different from the general impression created". He stressed that both countries need to come together for peace to flourish. According to a statement issued by the LHC office, Singh congratualted Justice Shamim over taking oath as new chief justice. Shamim briefed the delegation about the court and its regional benches. The judicial systems as well as the common laws of both countries were also discussed. The bar representatives said relations between both countries should be strengthened for an atmosphere of peace to promote people-to-people contacts. The Indian delegation arrived here via the Wagah border on Wednesday to attend functions hosted by Pakistan's Punjab Bar Council (PbBC). Heather Nauert, the Fox News anchor and now the state department spokesperson, is expected to face tough questions during her confirmation hearing next month as she prepares to appear before the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the position of US Ambassador to the UN. Nauert, 48, would replace Indian American Nikki Haley as the Permanent Representatives of the United States to the UN if she is confirmed by the Senate. President Donald Trump nominated Nauert for the top diplomatic position in the UN last month, weeks after Haley announced her resignation. But unlike Haley, who was given a Cabinet ranking in which capacity she was a key member of the Trumps national security team and attended Cabinet meetings at the White House, Nauert has not been bestowed with the same ranks. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has not announced a date for Nauerts confirmation hearing. But it is expected sometime next month. The ruling Republican Party enjoys a majority in the Upper Chamber of the Congress, but Senators from the opposition Democratic party have already said that they have questions over her qualification as the top US diplomat to the United Nations. In the past, the position has been held by some of the top American political leaders and diplomats including former president George H W Bush. Ill be happy to hear why she thinks shes qualified, said Senator Bob Menendez, Ranking Member at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She has no foreign policy experience that I can deduce, and being a spokesperson is different than being the chief diplomat of the United States at a world body like the UN, Menendez said. Nauert is currently the state department spokesperson, a position which she has served successfully for more than year and half. As the spokesperson, she has been impressive with her diplomatic acumen, which probably was instrumental in Trump picking her for the UN. Many of her supporters argued shes more than qualified for the role, noting her practice in messaging the administrations foreign policy for nearly two years under Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and now his successor, Mike Pompeo. Republican Senator Marco Rubio said he looks forward to meeting her ahead of the confirmation hearing. If youre the right person with the right level of intellect and understanding, then she can do the job. I just havent met her, so I cant render a judgment. I have nothing against her, I just havent met her, the Senator from Florida said. In a report, Politico said Nauert has no diplomatic experience aside from her year and a half as state department spokesperson, a job she got with little background in global affairs. But under the Trump administration, unusual pathways to top positions have become typical. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and Energy Secretary Rick Perry both assumed posts overseeing agencies they admittedly knew little about. And theres a team of supporters both in and out of the government working to convince lawmakers and the public that Nauert will be up to the task once her nomination is officially submitted to the Senate next year. But according to Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Nauert is very well-informed about any issue senators are likely to ask about, but what shes not experienced in is the political give-and-take shell need to negotiate compromises at the UN. A liberator, a poet, a writer, a social reformer and a teacher, Savitribai Phule, was all this and much more. In her lifetime, Savitribai published four books, opened several schools for Dalit and OBCs, including girls, and also set up a night school for labourers. She opened homes for destitute women and orphaned children, worked for the welfare of widows, even organised widow remarriages and started the Mahila Seva Mandal in 1852. Savitribai Phule could well be called India's first feminist. (Source: India Today) Lots of books have been written in Marathi about Savitribai Phules works and her extraordinary courage in providing education to Dalit girls at a time when the education of so-called Shudra and Atishudra (OBC and Dalit) women was prohibited but Phule took on the might of the dominant Brahminical forces which opposed her efforts to educate Dalit girls. She, along with her husband Jyotirao Phule, campaigned tirelessly in this direction. However, Savitribais contribution and her exemplary public life have been obscured, due to both casteist and sexist neglect. Born in 1931, at Naigaon in Satara district, Savitribai was way ahead of her times. She was the first women who linked patriarchy to caste. Married at the young age of nine years to Jyotirao Phule, who was all of 13 then, Savitribai got her first education from her husband who started teaching her, despite the strong opposition he faced from his father. Jyotirao belonged to the Mali community and the family was traditionally not supposed to get educated. Even Jyotirao Phule faced severe opposition when he was getting educated. Not only did Jyotirao get educated though, but he also educated his wife and encouraged her to educate other women. Savitribai got trained as a teacher in Ahmednagar in 1847 when she was just 16 years old. She and Jyotirao started a school for downtrodden girls a year later in 1848 in Pune. By 1949, they had established schools in Pune, Satara and Ahmednagar, despite huge opposition from the dominant castes, especially Brahmins for teaching the marginalised, particularly women. Brahmin youth threw cow dung at Savitrabai when she walked to her school and she was almost ready to give up but Jyotirao kept encouraging her. He asked Savitribai to carry another sari with her, so that she could change into it after reaching school. Savitribai would thus walk to school in an old sari and on reaching, she would change into clean clothes. The slinging of cow dung at Savitribai, however, stopped one day when she finally slapped a Brahmin youth after getting fed up with the constant abuse and name-calling flung at her. The Phule couple still paid a heavy price for their social service. Jyotiraos father asked him to move out due to pressure from Brahmins in the area. Though Savitribai was not asked to leave, she decided to follow her husband and both moved out of their family home. Savitribai Phule chose to stand by her husband Jyotirao when he was asked to leave his home by his father. (Source: India Today) By 1952, they had opened five schools and Savitribais efforts were finally recognised when she was awarded the Model Teachers Award the same year. The couple was felicitated by the Department of Education for their pioneering educational work on November 16, 1854. The Phules entirely believed that every woman, man and child had the right to education and they spent their lives towards this endeavour. Savitribais first collection of poetry, Kavya Phule, was published in 1954. Her poems are simple and the themes are about nature, education and the caste system. She exhorted people to break the shackles of caste-based slavery. Some of her poems encouraged people to focus on learning English as a way to overcome caste oppression. Her poem, 'Go, Get Education', translated into English from Marathi (taken from the book, The Forgotten Liberator: The Life and Struggle of Savitribai Phule, shows how she was trying to get people from the OBC and Dalit communities to get educated, so they could fight and overcome oppression and caste bias. Be self-reliant, be industrious Work gather wisdom and riches. All gets lost without knowledge We become animals without wisdom. Sit idle no more, go get education End misery of the oppressed and forsaken. Youve got a golden chance to learn So learn and break the chains of caste. Throw away the Brahmans scriptures fast. Her second collection of poetry, Bavan Kashi Subodh Ratnakar (The Ocean of Pure Gems), was published in 1891. In 1856, Savitribai edited the speeches of Jyotirao Phule and in 1892, her own speeches and songs were compiled and published. Among her other achievements were establishing a night school for workers and peasants in 1855. She also convinced barbers to not agree to shave the heads of widows and organised a barbers boycott. With cases of child marriages being rampant back then, many child brides and adolescent girls became widows early in life. Such widows were defenceless against sexual exploitation by male members of their husbands family. Such women were often ostracised if they conceived after forced intercourse. Savitribai was deeply moved by the terrible fate of child brides, who often became young widows. (Source: Reuters/Photo for representation) So, the couple set up a home for the welfare of unwed mothers and their offspring in 1853. Jyotirao Phule set up the Satyashodhak Samaj on September 24, 1873, and Savitribai stood along with her husband in questioning Brahminical hegemony. She headed the womens unit of Satyashodhak Samaj and organised a marriage without any Brahman priest on December 25, 1873. The childless couple adopted the son of a Brahmin widow, who was a close friend of Savitribai. Together, the Phules were actively involved in famine relief and started 52 boarding schools for the welfare of children who were orphaned during famines. When Jyotirao Phule died on November 28, 1890, Savitribai lit her husbands funeral pyre. Such a defiance of patriarchy was unheard of back then. She also took over the leadership of the Satyashodhak Samaj and worked tirelessly during the famine of 1896. She successfully lobbied the government to undertake relief measures as well. In 1897, when an epidemic swept Pune, Savitribai personally took care of the sick, but in doing so, she herself was afflicted with plague. She died on March 10, 1897. Her adopted son Yashwant officiated her funeral. Savitribai refused to let the disadvantages of caste, gender and class bog her down she stood tall along with her husband, blazing a trail way ahead of her times. Its unfortunate that Savitribai, despite her many awesome achievements and path-breaking reforms, has failed to find an adequate place in the history of modern India. Also read: Why we need to know the story of Savitribai Phule, India's first feminist The first week of every new year is an important part of Indias science calendar. The year for Indian science begins with an annual session of the Indian Science Congress a mega exposition of science and technology. Often it is called a ritual or even a mela, but there is no denying that it is a unique event and the largest of its kind. The Science Congress brings on one platform policymakers, top science bureaucrats, leading scientists including Nobel laureates, university teachers, and a host of students from different streams of science as well as school children. Traditionally, the Congress is inaugurated by the Prime Minister every year. There is no other event of this nature and scale. Science Congress is truly all-encompassing. It needs to be preserved and nurtured. Any attempts to dilute the importance of science congress should be rebuffed. At the same time, there is a need to reform the Science Congress. Over the years, it has become too unwieldy and sometimes even lacks seriousness in the conduct of business. In its current format, a series of plenary talks are organised. These are delivered by leading scientists and policymakers. In parallel, sessions in over a dozen scientific disciplines are held where scientists mostly from universities and science colleges present papers. There is a need to reform the Science Congress. (Photo: PTI) It is this format of the Congress that needs to be reformed, to make it more meaningful and serious. The expo which highlights achievements of agencies like Indian Space Research Organisation and Defence Research and Development Organisation also attract large crowds, mostly young people. While plenary talks and discussions are well-designed and well-attended, the sectoral sessions are generally of poor quality and hardly attract any audiences. There is no reason why a paper presented in a sectoral session of the Congress should not have the same quality as any other scientific meeting. It is critical to encourage teachers and students from science colleges across the country to talk about their work, but quality should not be compromised. The Science Congress could also be used by policymakers and science bureaucracy to come face to face with present and future scientific workers. They should hold open houses on focused issues such as funding of research, scholarship opportunities, training and employment schemes, innovation incubator promotion, problems of women scientists etc and listen to young and aspiring scientists on problems they face in teaching and research. It is critical to engage every section of the scientific talent pool and not remain restricted to top rungs. This way we will be able to nurture new talent and enlarge the pool. A lot of young people including school and college students feel inspired by listening to top scientists and their achievements, but are left confused on how to fulfil their dreams. Science Congress should develop mechanisms for engaging with such people, perhaps through information kiosks, counselling sessions and so on. The Indian Science Congress was designed to be a bridge between science and society. Hopefully, new ideas and new energy will be injected at its session being held in Jalandhar this week to make it the flagship event of science in India once again. (Courtesy of Mail Today) Also read: Why India urgently needs a cybersecurity law Senator Elizabeth Warren has taken the first major step towards launching a widely anticipated campaign for the presidency. No matter what our differences, most of us want the same thing, the 69-year-old Massachusetts Democrat said in a video that highlights her familys history in Oklahoma. To be able to work hard, play by the same set of rules and take care of the people we love. Thats what Im fighting for and thats why today Im launching an exploratory committee for president. Every person in America should be able to work hard, play by the same set of rules, & take care of themselves & the people they love. Thats what Im fighting for, & thats why Im launching an exploratory committee for president. I need you with me: https://t.co/BNl2I1m8OX pic.twitter.com/uXXtp94EvY Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) December 31, 2018 Mrs Warren burst onto the national scene a decade ago during the financial crisis with calls for greater consumer protections. She quickly became one of the partys more prominent liberals even as she sometimes fought with Obama administration officials over their response to the market turmoil. Now, as a likely presidential contender, she is making an appeal to the partys base. Her video notes the economic challenges facing people of colour along with images of a womens march and Mrs Warrens participation at an LGBT event. In an email to supporters, Mrs Warren said she would more formally announce a campaign plan early in 2019. Mrs Warren is the most prominent Democrat yet to make a move towards a presidential bid and has long been a favourite target of US President Donald Trump. Donald Trump regularly takes aim at Mrs Warren (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) In mid-December, former Obama housing chief Julian Castro also announced a presidential exploratory committee, which legally allows potential candidates to begin raising money. Outgoing Maryland representative John Delaney is the only Democrat so far to have formally announced a presidential campaign. But that is likely to change quickly in the new year as other leading Democrats take steps towards White House runs. Mrs Warren enters a Democratic field that is shaping up as the most crowded in decades, with many of her Senate colleagues openly weighing their own campaigns, as well as governors, mayors and other prominent citizens. One of her most significant competitors could be senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who is eyeing another presidential run harnessing the same populist rhetoric. She must also move past a widely panned October release of a DNA test meant to bolster her claim to Native American heritage. Thank you to the Cherokee Nation for revealing that Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to as Pocahontas, is a complete and total Fraud! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2018 The move was intended to rebut Mr Trumps taunts of Mrs Warren as Pocahontas. Instead, her use of a genetic test to prove ethnicity spurred controversy that seemed to blunt any argument she sought to make. There was no direct mention of it in the video released on Monday. Mrs Warren has the benefit of higher name recognition than many others in the Democratic mix for 2020, thanks to her years as a prominent critic of Wall Street who originally conceived of what became the governments Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She now faces an arduous battle to raise money and capture Democratic primary voters attention before Iowa casts its first vote in more than a year. She has an advantage in the 12.5 million US dollars left over from her 2018 re-election campaign that she could use for a presidential run. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - U.S. immigration authorities say they had no contact with a Mexican national suspected of killing a California police officer until the man was arrested last week. The killing rekindled a national debate over sanctuary policies and prompted President Trump to call for tougher border security. The disclosure by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement calls into question contentions that suspect Gustavo Perez Arriaga had benefited from policies that forbid local police from cooperating with immigration officials. The agency emailed a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday saying it had placed its first immigration detainer on 33-year-old Perez Arriaga after the Dec. 26 killing. Perez Arriaga, who was in the country illegally and had previous arrests, was taken into custody Friday on suspicion of killing Newman police Cpl. Ronil Singh, 33. The arrest followed a two-day manhunt. Perez Arriaga is expected to face murder charges that will be filed before his arraignment on Wednesday, said John Goold, a spokesman for the Stanislaus County district attorney's office. This booking photo provided by the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department shows Gustavo Perez Arriaga. Perez Arriaga, suspected of gunning down a California policeman, was in the U.S. illegally and was captured while planning to flee to his native Mexico, Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson announced, Friday, Dec. 28, 2018, as he all but blamed the state's sanctuary law for the officer's death. (Courtesy of Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department via AP) It could not be immediately determined if he had an attorney. Authorities have charged seven other people with aiding Perez Arriaga after the killing. Sheriff Adam Christianson, who led the investigation, blamed California's sanctuary law for preventing local authorities from reporting Perez Arriaga to U.S. immigration officials for deportation after two previous drunken driving arrests. The sheriff also said Perez Arriaga had gang affiliations. A spokesman for Gov. Jerry Brown said Friday that police could have informed federal authorities. if the suspect was a known gang member. Singh was also an immigrant who came from Fiji to pursue his dream of becoming a police officer, authorities said. Singh had a 5-month-old son and joined the 12-officer Newman police force in 2011. Funeral and viewing services for Singh are scheduled for Friday and Saturday. ___ Information from: San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday took the first major step toward launching a widely anticipated campaign for the presidency, hoping her reputation as a populist fighter can help her navigate a Democratic field that could include nearly two dozen candidates. "No matter what our differences, most of us want the same thing," the 69-year-old Massachusetts Democrat said in a video that highlights her family's history in Oklahoma. "To be able to work hard, play by the same set of rules and take care of the people we love. That's what I'm fighting for and that's why today I'm launching an exploratory committee for president." Warren burst onto the national scene a decade ago during the financial crisis with calls for greater consumer protections. She quickly became one of the party's more prominent liberals even as she sometimes fought with Obama administration officials over their response to the market turmoil. Now, as a likely presidential contender, she is making an appeal to the party's base. Her video notes the economic challenges facing people of color along with images of a women's march and Warren's participation at an LGBT event. In an email to supporters, Warren said she'd more formally announce a campaign plan early in 2019. Warren is the most prominent Democrat yet to make a move toward a presidential bid and has long been a favorite target of President Donald Trump. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks beside her husband Bruce Mann, left, outside their home, Monday, Dec. 31, 2018, in Cambridge, Mass., where she confirmed that she is launching an exploratory committee to run for president. Warren on Monday took the first major step toward launching a widely anticipated campaign for the presidency, hoping her reputation as a populist fighter can help her navigate a Democratic field that could include nearly two dozen candidates. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes) In mid-December, former Obama housing chief Julian Castro also announced a presidential exploratory committee, which legally allows potential candidates to begin raising money. Outgoing Maryland Rep. John Delaney is the only Democrat so far to have formally announced a presidential campaign. But that's likely to change quickly in the new year as other leading Democrats take steps toward White House runs. Warren enters a Democratic field that's shaping up as the most crowded in decades, with many of her Senate colleagues openly weighing their own campaigns, as well as governors, mayors and other prominent citizens. One of her most significant competitors could be Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who is eyeing another presidential run harnessing the same populist rhetoric. She must also move past a widely panned October release of a DNA test meant to bolster her claim to Native American heritage. The move was intended to rebut Trump's taunts of Warren as "Pocahontas." Instead, her use of a genetic test to prove ethnicity spurred controversy that seemed to blunt any argument she sought to make. There was no direct mention of it in the video released Monday. Speaking to reporters Monday outside her Cambridge, Massachusetts, home, Warren largely danced around a question on whether she wishes she had handled the DNA test release any differently. "I have put it all out there. It's there for anyone to see," Warren said. "But at the end of the day ... this election going forward is going to be about the tens of millions of families across this country who work hard, who play to the rules and who just time after time take one body blow after another." Warren has the benefit of higher name recognition than many others in the Democratic mix for 2020, thanks to her years as a prominent critic of Wall Street who originally conceived of what became the government's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She now faces an arduous battle to raise money and capture Democratic primary voters' attention before Iowa casts its first vote in more than a year. She has an advantage in the $12.5 million left over from her 2018 re-election campaign that she could use for a presidential run. Warren's campaign is likely to revolve around the same theme she's woven into speeches and policy proposals in recent years: battling special interests, paying mind to the nexus between racial and economic inequities. "I run for office because I'm grateful down to my toes for the opportunities that were given to me, and I'm determined that we will give those same opportunities to not just some of our kids but to all of our kids," Warren said. ___ Associated Press writers Juana Summers in Washington, Alanna Durkin Richer in Cambridge, Mass., and Steve LeBlanc in Boston contributed to this report. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks beside her husband Bruce Mann, left, outside their home, Monday, Dec. 31, 2018, in Cambridge, Mass., where she confirmed that she is launching an exploratory committee to run for president. Warren on Monday took the first major step toward launching a widely anticipated campaign for the presidency, hoping her reputation as a populist fighter can help her navigate a Democratic field that could include nearly two dozen candidates. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes) Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., steps outside her home with her husband Bruce Mann and their retriever Bailey, Monday, Dec. 31, 2018, in Cambridge, Mass., where she confirmed that she is launching an exploratory committee to run for president. Warren on Monday took the first major step toward launching a widely anticipated campaign for the presidency, hoping her reputation as a populist fighter can help her navigate a Democratic field that could include nearly two dozen candidates. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes) Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks outside her home, Monday, Dec. 31, 2018, in Cambridge, Mass. Warren on Monday took the first major step toward launching a widely anticipated campaign for the presidency, hoping her reputation as a populist fighter can help her navigate a Democratic field that could include nearly two dozen candidates. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes) Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks outside her home, Monday, Dec. 31, 2018, in Cambridge, Mass. Warren on Monday took the first major step toward launching a widely anticipated campaign for the presidency, hoping her reputation as a populist fighter can help her navigate a Democratic field that could include nearly two dozen candidates. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes) Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., loads her retriever Bailey into her vehicle after speaking outside her home, Monday, Dec. 31, 2018, in Cambridge, Mass. Warren on Monday took the first major step toward launching a widely anticipated campaign for the presidency, hoping her reputation as a populist fighter can help her navigate a Democratic field that could include nearly two dozen candidates. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes) VATICAN CITY (AP) - The Vatican spokesman, Greg Burke, and his deputy resigned abruptly Monday amid an overhaul of the Vatican's communications operations and a crisis period in Pope Francis' papacy. The departures of Burke and his deputy, Paloma Garcia Ovejero, signaled that the problems associated with Francis' reform of the Vatican bureaucracy had come to a head, and at a very bad time: The pope is struggling to address a global sex abuse and cover-up scandal that threatens his own legacy. Francis nevertheless accepted the resignations, which take effect Tuesday, the Vatican said in a statement. He named a longtime member of the Vatican's communications operations, Alessandro Gisotti, as an interim replacement for Burke. "At this time of transition in Vatican communications, we think it's best the Holy Father is completely free to assemble a new team," Burke tweeted. "New Year, New Adventures." Burke stressed that he and Garcia prayed about the decision "for months and we're very much at peace with it." Both thanked the pope. "One stage is ending. Thank you for these two and a half years," Garcia tweeted. FILE - In this Monday, July 11, 2016 filer, Pope Francis greets Paloma Garcia Ovejero, right, and Greg Burke at the Vatican. The Vatican spokesman, Greg Burke, and his deputy resigned suddenly Monday, Dec. 31, 2018 amid an overhaul of the Vatican's communications operations that coincides with a troubled period in Pope Francis' papacy. In a tweet, Burke said he and his deputy, Paloma Garcia Ovejero, had resigned effective Jan. 1. (L'Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP) The pope recently overhauled the Vatican's media operations for the second time by ousting the longtime editor of the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, and naming a new director of editorial content for all Vatican media, Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli. Burke's statement on Twitter that the immediate resignations were months in the making suggested they were not over the recent appointments but a reflection of more deep-seated institutional problems. The resignations appeared to take the new team by surprise, though the job of Vatican spokesman is notoriously difficult given the feudal nature of the Vatican, its reflexive tendency toward secrecy and the occasional skepticism of journalists. The head of Vatican communications, Paolo Ruffini, said he respected Burke and Garcia's decision. He praised their professionalism and said he had full confidence in Gisotti, who was a longtime journalist with Vatican Radio and more recently worked as the Vatican's head of social media. "The year ahead is full of important appointments that will require maximum communications efforts," Ruffini said in a statement. The comment might have referred to a high-stakes summit on preventing clergy sex abuse that Francis convened for February, as well as the pope's foreign trips planned for 2019: Panama, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bulgaria and Macedonia in the first half of the year, and rumored trips to Madagascar and Japan in the second half. Francis still faces continued fallout from the clergy abuse scandal, in Chile, the United States and beyond. The next year will likely see the outcome of a canonical investigation of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who has been accused of sexually abusing minors and adult seminarians in the United States, as well as the results of the Vatican's investigation of McCarrick's rise through church ranks. Longtime Vatican watcher Rocco Palmo tweeted that the standard rule in crisis communications is "you don't leave in the middle of the storm but ride it out. "To lose both the Vatican's top press hands (both quite devout) in mid-scandal appears to signal that something has become professionally untenable," Palmo tweeted. Burke was a Fox TV correspondent in Rome when he was hired as a communications adviser for the Vatican's secretariat of state in 2012. At the time, the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI had suffered a series of communications blunders, and it was thought that Burke could provide guidance. In 2015, Burke was named deputy spokesman under the Rev. Federico Lombardi, an Italian Jesuit. When Lombardi retired in 2016, Burke became main spokesman and was joined by Garcia, the first woman to ever hold the position of deputy. Garcia had been the Vatican correspondent for the Cadena Cope, the Spanish broadcaster. The two had internationalized the media operations, organizing unofficial briefings with visiting prelates, providing background information and streamlining communications with journalists during foreign trips. FILE - In this Sunday, Aug. 26, 2018 file photo, Pope Francis, flanked by Vatican spokesperson Greg Burke, listens to a journalist's question during a press conference aboard of the flight to Rome at the end of his two-day visit to Ireland. The Vatican spokesman, Greg Burke, and his deputy resigned suddenly Monday, Dec. 31, 2018 amid an overhaul of the Vatican's communications operations that coincides with a troubled period in Pope Francis' papacy. In a tweet, Burke said he and his deputy, Paloma Garcia Ovejero, had resigned effective Jan. 1. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, Pool) OXON HILL, Md. (AP) - Authorities in Maryland say three young children were killed and their parents critically injured when the family was rear-ended by a suspected drunken driver. Prince George's County police said in a statement Monday that Alexander and Rosalie Mejia, both 5, and 1-year-old Isaac Mejia of Falls Church, Virginia, were killed on impact Sunday. Police say their parents were in critical but stable condition. Two more vehicles were involved in the chain-reaction crash at an intersection, leaving another driver with minor injuries. Police say a pickup truck came to rest atop the family's sedan and there's no sign of skid marks before point of impact. The truck's driver was taken into custody for sobriety testing and released. Police say any charges will be determined with the state's attorney's office. Ethiopian Foreign Minister Workneh Gebeyehu greets his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi as he arrived in Addis Ababa at the start of a four-nation Africa tour Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi played down concern over Africa's debts with Beijing on Thursday as he arrived in Ethiopia at the start of a four-nation Africa tour. China has funnelled cash and loans into infrastructure projects across the continent, where many African leaders consider Beijing's terms a better deal that than those offered by bilateral Western nations. Wang initially sidestepped concerns -- often made by Western nations -- about whether the debt repayments were sustainable. "Generally, debt in Africa has been a protracted issue left from history," Wang said. "It didnt come up today, still less is it caused by China." China is the single largest bilateral financier of infrastructure in Africa, exceeding the combined total of the African Development Bank (ADB), the European Union, International Finance Corporation, the World Bank and the Group of Eight (G8) countries. "We know that in terms of financing, some African countries have encountered difficulties," Wang added, speaking on the first leg of a tour that will also include The Gambia, Senegal and Burkina Faso. "China attaches great importance to that, as Africa's good friend and brother. We're always ready to extend a good hand when African countries need it." Chinese foreign investment and construction between 2005 and 2018 totalled $298 billion in sub-Sahara Africa, according to data compiled by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative research organisation. Both Wang and his Ethiopian counterpart, Foreign Minister Workneh Gebeyehu, spoke warmly of ties between their nations - and dismissed a suggestion that relations had cooled since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power last year with a sweeping reformist agenda. "The reform process in Ethiopia - we believe it will further strengthen our ties with China," Workneh said. "China will continue to be Ethiopias strategic partner," he added. Former Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeou was sentenced to four months in prison last year by the high court for violating the communication security and surveillance act Taiwan's top court Thursday ordered a new trial of former president Ma Ying-jeou, revoking his conviction in a political leaks case, one of a raft of lawsuits brought against him since he stepped down in 2016. Ma was sentenced to four months in prison last year by the high court for violating the communication security and surveillance act, overturning a previous not guilty verdict from a lower court. Ma's Beijing-friendly Kuomintang (KMT) party held power from 2008 to 2016, before it was trounced by Tsai Ing-wen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). While still in office Ma was protected by political immunity. But since he stepped down as leader in May 2016, the 68-year-old has been hit with a string of corruption and other allegations. Last year's high court ruling was his first conviction, which Ma appealed. "The original judgment did not state and clarify the essential facts about whether Ma had committed the crime," the supreme court said in its statement revoking the original ruling and ordering a retrial. The high court had found Ma guilty of breaching the personal data protection act and of "using his presidential power not for executing presidential legal duties". It said Ma had attempted to damage the "character and rights" of opposition lawmaker Ker Chien-ming when he leaked confidential information about an ongoing probe associated with Ker. The probe revolved around information gained from surveillance on Ker which implicated the then parliamentary speaker, a rival of Ma, in influence peddling. Investigators had been accused of tapping Ker's phone to acquire the information. The leaks controversy sparked a political storm in 2013 and saw two top officials resign, while thousands of protesters took to the streets to demand Ma step down. The DPP, then in opposition, compared the probe to the Watergate scandal in the United States. Gabon's President Ali Bongo, pictured in July 2018, has not been back to his country since he fell ill in Saudi Arabia more than two months ago Gabon's President Ali Bongo on Monday addressed his compatriots for the first time since suffering a stroke on October 24, in a New Year's message recorded in Morocco and distributed via social and traditional media. "It is true that I have been through a difficult period, as sometimes happens in life," he said in a video recorded in Rabat, where the president has been recuperating since end-November. The 59-year-old leader has not been home to Gabon since he fell ill in Saudi Arabia more than two months ago. A lack of official news sparked fevered speculation that he was incapacitated or even dead. A single photograph of Bongo and two videos without sound were published in the two months after his stroke, further fuelling rumours about his health. Speaking straight to the camera in the new video, Bongo elocutes his message seemingly effortlessly, even as his head and hands display slight movement. Seated at a table, the president's lower body is not shown. "Today, as you can see, I am better and I am preparing to meet you again soon," Bongo said in the video. Presidency spokesman Ike Ngouoni told AFP: "This speech is proof that President Ali Bongo is fully recovered. His health problems are now behind him." The Bongo family has governed the oil-rich equatorial African nation for five decades. The incumbent replaced his father, who died in 2009. Three opposition party leaders have called for an independent medical team to see Bongo in Rabat to assess whether he is able to perform his presidential duties. Bongo was narrowly re-elected in 2016 following a presidential poll marred by deadly violence and allegations of fraud. Chad's President Idriss Deby has said that legislative and local elections will be held in the first half of 2019 Chad's President Idriss Deby said Monday that repeatedly postponed legislative and local elections in the central African state will be held in the first half of 2019. It will be the poor, oil-rich state's first legislative elections since 2011. The vote had originally been scheduled for 2015, but due to delays, the sitting parliament's mandate was extended by a constitutional law. "The year 2019 will be marked by the holding of legislative and local elections," Deby, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1990, said in his New Year's address. However, opposition leader Saleh Kebzabo said it was not up to the president to decide the date of the vote -- that was the responsibility of the national election commission (CENI). "Idriss Deby has also not spoken about constantly-violated freedoms or of a desire to improve electoral transparency," Kebzabo told AFP. The president has requested 30 billion CFA francs (45.7 million euros, $52 million) from the international community to help pay for the elections. During a visit to Chad on December 23, French President Emmanuel Macron promised funds to help the vote go ahead. The support of Chad's allies is "indispensable in this new electoral process, which requires significant financial and logistical resources," Deby said in his address. He is hoping for an end to the country's financial crisis, which was caused mainly by the slide in the price of crude oil in 2014-2015. "The coming year will be pivotal in the battle to structurally transform our economy," Deby added. Despite its oil resources, the country's population is among the poorest in the world. US Senator Elizabeth Warren -- seen here on midterm election day 2018 addressing the crowd at a celebration in Boston -- is a fierce critic of Donald Trump, and is now likely running to unseat him in 2020 Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren -- an outspoken critic of Wall Street and nemesis of Donald Trump -- on Monday entered the 2020 race for the White House. The 69-year-old progressive announced she was launching an exploratory committee for president, becoming the first major candidate in what is set to be an extraordinarily crowded Democratic primary, united by a singular focus on unseating the Republican Trump. The move will help her raise funds and hire more staff early in the campaign cycle -- an effort in which she already leads most other potential Democratic candidates. "America's middle class is under attack," said a video message from Warren, who has represented Massachusetts in the Senate since 2013. "Politicians look the other way while big insurance companies deny patients life-saving coverage, while big banks rip off consumers, and while big oil companies destroy this planet." That, she said, is why she is launching her exploratory committee. - Going on the 'offense' - At election rallies like this one in Wisconsin, President Donald Trump has mocked Elizabeth Warren's claim to be part Native American A former Harvard law professor, Warren has been a vocal advocate of consumer and workers' rights. But Americans may know her best for her frequent sparring with Trump -- which has had mixed results. Warren's criticism of Trump's trade policies, erosion of consumer protections, and openness to authoritarian regimes has drawn his attention, and his disdain. At his election-style rallies Trump took to mocking her claim to have some Native American heritage by dubbing her "Pocahontas," a derisive reference to the 17th-century Native American who lived in what is now Virginia. When Trump offered to donate $1 million to Warren's favorite charity if she took a test proving "you're an Indian," she eventually did so, hoping to put an end to his ridicule. Instead, he seemed to relish the fact that the test showed her with only a sliver of Native American heritage. - 'Nevertheless, she persisted' - Demonstrators like these, inspired by Elizabeth Warren's determined opposition, protested in February 2017 against the nomination of Jeff Sessions as US attorney general But another encounter with a powerful male politician gave Warren a place in political folklore. After she clashed in 2017 on the Senate floor with top Republican Mitch McConnell over the nomination of Jeff Sessions as attorney general and would not be quieted, his phrase "Nevertheless, she persisted" was quickly adopted by feminists -- and turned into T-shirts and bumper stickers. As talk of a possible run for the presidency grew, Warren has worked to build her foreign-policy credentials, taking a seat on the Armed Services Committee. In a speech in November, she called for a reduced military budget and a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Her domestic policies are reliably liberal: She is staunchly pro-choice on abortion, supports gun control, and has urged Democrats to go on "offense" to expand health care coverage for Americans. But her bread-and-butter issue has been the defense of ordinary Americans against abuses by those with wealth and power. "How did we get here? Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie, and they enlisted politicians to cut them a fatter slice," she said in her video. - Humble childhood - Former US housing secretary Julian Castro, seen here at an October 2017 clean-energy event, is among the handful of Democrats to have launched exploratory committees ahead of the 2020 presidential election While Warren has gotten an early start, the road to the Democratic nomination will be long and arduous, with as many as three dozen party members weighing possible bids. Among those who have already declared their intention to run are Julian Castro, a former housing secretary in Barack Obama's administration, John Delaney, a Maryland congressman, and Richard Ojeda, a former army paratrooper who is currently a state senator in West Virginia. But Warren stands out for having already built the framework of a serious campaign, with a staff of more than 70 people working in several key states, and $12.5 million left in her coffers from her successful re-election effort. Warren grew up in the Central Plains state of Oklahoma, in a family she said lived "on the ragged edge of the middle class." To help with finances after her father suffered a heart attack, she started at age 13 waiting tables in a restaurant -- part of a childhood she said gives her a visceral connection to ordinary Americans. A chance to relax on holiday is golden, but what trumps even that is watching your child discover new places and make new friends. During our week-long adventure in Egypt, my nine-year-old daughter Emmeline bonded tightly with the British, American and Australian kids in our tour group. They played cards until late on night trains, tried local delicacies in souks, giggled on camels as they bumped over Saharan sand dunes, and acted out the parts of pharaohs and queens in mini-plays at the Pyramids of Giza and the Valley of the Kings. They've learned how different Anglo cultures say different words, of course, while us mums have delighted in spending a week with other fun, hard-working and inspiring solo parents. I feel excited to have discovered Intrepid Travel's Solo Parent trips. Life as a single parent isn't easy and in a cruel twist, it can even be hard to have a holiday. Travelling by yourself with little ones can be intimidating. With holidays geared around two adults and two children, you're often paying for an adult you don't have, while feeling lonely on packages or in resorts geared towards nuclear families. It's as if the travel industry just can't be bothered to evolve. It's a mistake. Around one in six families in Australia today have just one parent; in the US and the UK, the figure jumps to around one in four. Intrepid Travel, with a strong focus on family travel, is one operator that has taken notice of the trend. The Melbourne-based operator launched its Solo Parent trips this year, in response to solid market demand - and is delighted with the uptake. "We started getting enquiries from solo parents in the US, the UK and Australia so I started to research this," says Dyan Mckie, head of family travel at Intrepid, and a single mother herself. "I discovered there was almost nothing in the market targeting solo parent families." She started to look at the feedback from solo parents on Intrepid's family trips. "They really valued their child having other children to talk to and play with, and them having adults to talk to, but often this is hard when you're surrounded by couples," she says. "I also came across single parent Facebook groups where people were always asking about tour operators doing single parent travel. "It all fell into place for me," says Mckie. "I realised that this genre of travel has legs." This year Intrepid ran six solo parent trips, to Vietnam, Thailand, India, Morocco, Egypt and Costa Rica; in 2019 they have 33 departures on offer, which are already selling well. "It will be a big year, and we're looking to expand to more destinations in 2020," says Mckie. Whether or not you take a tour or travel independently, here are Mckie's tips for solo parent travellers: PLAN Sit down with your child and brainstorm interests and activities that you may like to do on holiday. This will help you decide on a destination that's right for both of you. FLY EASY You're not a backpacker anymore; the cheapest flight isn't always the best. Once you've decided on a destination, research flight times. "Try and avoid layovers where possible, which can be tiring for your child," says Mckie. "And aim to arrive at your destination at a decent hour for him or her." QUALITY OVER QUANTITY Don't pack too much in. "If you're going for two weeks, stick to one country, maximum two," says Mckie. "Spend at least two nights in each place so you get to see it, you aren't constantly travelling and unpacking, and you get that downtime together." LOOK AFTER YOURSELF If you're travelling independently, you're the tour leader, the planner and the organiser. Don't expect too much - of yourself or your child. An organised tour, which allows you to arrive and explore without having to navigate all the finer details of travel, may be a great option. SEEK OUT COMPANY "As much as we love our children, we love talking to other adults," says Mckie. "And for a child it's nice to experience a place with other children." A tour is a great way to go, because it offers you and your child ready-made playmates and gives your child exposure to children from other places. If you're not on a tour, spend time at the hotel pool or in family-friendly restaurants to create opportunities for meeting other families. BE ADVENTUROUS Flop and drop holidays are an enticing option for tired parents, but Mckie believes they're also a wasted opportunity. "At a young age we can expose children to different cultures, religions and people, and help them to become global citizens," she says. Many parents, particularly solo parents, are put off by exotic places. "They worry if they are safe, whether their child will like the food, whether he or she will get sick," says Mckie. "But while they are valid concerns, they shouldn't stop you from exploring far-flung destinations." TAKE TIME TOGETHER Travelling alone with your child can be a huge confidence boost for many solo parents - and also offer an incredible bonding experience. At home life whizzes by so fast, often not allowing much time for connection. "On holiday you can sit and talk and get to know each other a little bit more," says Mckie. "You'll always share the memories of travel." IF YOU GO GETTING THERE: Emirates and Qantas fly from most Australian state capitals to Cairo via Dubai. STAYING AND PLAYING THERE: Intrepid Travel's Egypt Family Holiday for Solo Parents trip starts and ends in Cairo. The nine-day trip costs from $1,560 per person twin-share and the minimum age for children on this trip is five years old. A discount of 10 per cent applies on this trip to children 17 years and under at time of travel. Intrepid offers small group adventures on more than 1000 itineraries worldwide. For more, visit www.intrepidtravel.com EastEnders confirmed there are three things that never go well in Walford: weddings, Christmas, and weddings at Christmas. God loves a trier, they say but the residents of Albert Square really need to take the hint and stop trying to make these successful, enjoyable, or even just very boring passing without a fatality. Waiting a few days to get married over New Year doesnt work either. Dramatic scenes: EastEnders confirmed there are three things that never go well in Walford: weddings, Christmas, and weddings at Christmas It doesnt count for a start. If the decorations are up, its still Christmas or at least the Christmas holidays. If anything, weddings over New Year are worse as Janine & Barry, Mick & Linda, and Jack & Ronnie can testify. Their efforts were put in the shade though when Mel and Ray broke the record for the Worst New Year Wedding and set a Personal Best for Least Happy Couple. The list of incidents the bride and groom ticked off on their wedding day included: being arrested for bigamy, pepper-spraying a policeman, abducting a teenager, attempted murder, and an actual murder. There were other incidents even EastEnders weddings hadnt had before. A body was buried in the woods for example and then arose from the grave. This was Ray Kelly: the Irish Steve Owen, kidnapper, bent cop, bigamist, bridegroom, and eventually deceased. Dramatic: Their efforts were put in the shade though when Mel and Ray broke the record for the Worst New Year Wedding and set a Personal Best for Least Happy Couple Dramatic: Their efforts were put in the shade though when Mel and Ray broke the record for the Worst New Year Wedding and set a Personal Best for Least Happy Couple He began the day as Mels fiance and ended it as her husband (albeit a dead one), having strangled her (twice), married her, and been shot by her son in the mean time. Mel & Rays Big Day was certainly deranged. It had started with Mels scheme to humiliate Ray and got madder. The soaps New Years Day special had seen Tamsin Outhwaite going cross-eyed when Ray tried to strangle his bride-to-be with her wedding veil, leaving her for dead, marrying her anyway, before being arrested for bigamy: mission accomplished for the Mel, Nicola, and Maddie (the three Mrs Kellys). Thursdays double episode upped the ante though. The lessons we learnt included: *Walfords police really are clueless Despite being hand-cuffed, Ray escaped from the police car taking him away from the church by feigning illness, pepper-spraying one officer in the face, threatening the other, leaving them locked up in the vehicle, free to stroll back to Mels house and abduct her son Hunter. Crash: Mel crashing into a tree as he chased them smashing the windows, reversing into him, and declaring shed killed him *Turning up for a night-time rendezvous in the woods with your sons kidnapper still wearing a flowing white wedding dress isnt ideal Do you think thats funny?! cried Mel when she heard Here Comes The Bride echoing round the forest when Ray told her to meet him. To be fair, the speaker on his mobile phone was impressively loud, if not an actual technological breakthrough. Her attire proved useful when she used the veil to tie Rays hands less so running through the woods though. *Neither Mel nor Ray were the criminal masterminds they and the scriptwriters made out Mel has always been portrayed as a brilliant, manipulative, schemer particularly since her return to Walford when she was the first of the many villains looking for Ciara Maguires money to work out Ben Mitchell had it, and now here. But Mel compounded her error of not changing her outfit by falling hook, line, and sinker for Rays claim that a mate had helped him escape and then taken Unter somewhere safe. Do you really think I escaped all on my own? Eerie: Mel then buried him in the woods (using a conveniently placed shovel), only for Ray to come back from the dead, grabbing her leg as he scrambled out of the grave Well it was hard to credit. Mel believed it though, when he appeared to arrange Hunters return but had been speaking to Dominos Pizza all along. Something in you is broken Ray. Very, very, broken. Well she should know. *An EastEnders special is never over til its over Inevitably the chaos increased (or descended) to another level as Mel and Unter tried to make their escape in Rays car. The litany of potential endings included: Mel crashing into a tree as he chased them smashing the windows, reversing into him, and declaring shed killed him. Good, her son pouted. Mel then buried him in the woods (using a conveniently placed shovel), only for Ray to come back from the dead, grabbing her leg as he scrambled out of the grave, and have a second go at strangling her, before finally being shot by a figure emerging from the shadows: Unter - the latest of Walfords many murderers. With less than two months until the 91st Oscars telecast on February 24, and no host named for the telecast yet, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is considering drastic alternatives. There had previously been rumors that the Academy was considering using multiple hosts, with Deadline reporting Thursday that this is an option once again, as is using no host at all. Neither the Academy nor producers Donna Gigliotti and Glenn Weiss have commented on the hosting vacancy, and haven't even officially confirmed that previous host Kevin Hart has bowed out. Who hosts the Oscars: The Academy is considering either no host, or multiple hosts after Kevin Hart backed out when insensitive tweets came to light Hart was announced as the 91st Oscars host in early December, but it only lasted for just a few days before he announced he was stepping down. The comedian revealed in an Instagram video that the Academy asked Hart to apologize for insensitive tweets from 2009 and 2010, and he refused. 'The reason that I passed is I've addressed it several times,' Hart said. 'That's not the first time this has come up. I've addressed it. I've spoken on it.' Vacant host: Hart was announced as the 91st Oscars host in early December, but it only lasted for just a few days before he announced he was stepping down 'I've said where the rights and wrongs were. I've said who I am now versus who I was then. I've done it,' the comedian said. Since then, there hasn't been any word from the Academy, with Deadline reporting that their, 'highly reliable sources' indicating that no one in Hollywood is interested in hosting, after the, 'Hart debacle.' Producers are reportedly trying to put together a 'lineup of multiple hosts,' perhaps a 'quartet of major names, or even more.' Who will take the stage: Since then, there hasn't been any word from the Academy, with Deadline reporting that their, 'highly reliable sources' indicating that no one in Hollywood is interested in hosting, after the, 'Hart debacle' There have been multiple hosts in the past, as recently as 2011 with the ill-fated pairing of Anne Hathaway and James Franco, and 2010 with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. In fact, there was a three-year stretch between 1969 and 1979 where the number of hosts kept increasing. The 1969 show, considered by many to be among the best in Oscar history, featured 10 hosts, dubbed 'friends of Oscar,' while the 1970 show had 16 hosts and 1971 had 33 hosts. Hosting controversy: There have been multiple hosts in the past, as recently as 2011 with the ill-fated pairing of Anne Hathaway and James Franco, and 2010 with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin The possibility of no host has also been floated, and if there isn't a host announced by next Monday, it will mark the longest wait for a hosting announcement. Next Monday (January 7) is also the date when voting for nominations begins, with the Oscar nominations announced Tuesday, January 22. The 91st Oscars will be held Sunday, February 24 from the Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood and Highland Center in Los Angeles. She blossomed into a celebrity on The Real Housewives of New York City back in 2008. But Bethenny Frankel was once just a young girl who loved to hit the skating rink on Saturdays and Sundays. The 48-year-old television personality shared a throwback photo of herself at Hot Skates Roller Rink in Lynbrook, New York, where she had her 'first kiss.' Throwback: Bethenny Frankel was once just a young girl who loved to hit the skating rink on Saturdays and Sundays In the photo, Frankel donned a sequin-covered black, green, and purple top with a shiny black skirt. She had a light purple boa wrapped around her neck and her brunette locks were filled with feathers. The now entrepreneur donned white roller skates in the picture, and sported gold hoop earrings. No makeup: The 48-year-old television personality shared a throwback photo of herself at Hot Skates Roller Rink, where she had her 'first kiss' 'I spent all day every single Saturday and Sunday at Hot Skates Roller Rink for much of my childhood,' Frankel began her caption. Adding, 'I was literally there when John Lennon got shot and had my first kiss to Marc Rosenbloom there in 6th grade.' The photo follows her post from Wednesday where she shared an image of herself in Mexico. South of the border: The photo follows her post from Wednesday where she shared an image of herself in Mexico Frankel has been enjoying a number of tropical vacation recently, starting with one to the Domincan Republic with new boyfriend Paul Bernon, then heading to Mexico for the new year. In an image she shared from Mexico, she showed off her taut stomach in matching top and skirt, and captioned the photo, '#nomakeupmexico.' The two-part white ensemble featured colorful stripes and fell off both shoulders of the The Real Housewives of New York City star. She has jetted to Dubai to kick-start her new year with her 14-month-old daughter Sunday. And Ferne McCann looked every inch the doting mum as she treated the tot to a trip to the sand dunes on Wednesday. The former TOWIE star, 28, who showcased her incredible physique in a crop top and pinstripe skirt took to Instagram to share snaps from their adventure. Adventure: Ferne McCann looked every inch the doting mum as she treated the tot to a trip to the sand dunes during their Dubai break on Wednesday Inspired by the desert, Ferne matched her attire accordingly as she slipped into as criss-cross style cream crop top and striped skirt with a thigh-high split and rope detailing. Little Sunday meanwhile sported a ruffle yellow dress and looked enchanted by the mounds of sand. Capturing the special moment, Ferne captioned the post: 'Sunny one so true...I love you. I promise you have to take a trip to the sand dunes if youre in Dubai. I have been to Dubai so many times & never been. It was breathtaking & so lovely going with my little munch.' Sweet: The former TOWIE star, 28, who showcased her incredible physique in a crop top and pinstripe skirt took to Instagram to share snaps from their adventure Magical: Capturing the special moment, Ferne captioned the post: 'Sunny one so true...I love you. I promise you have to take a trip to the sand dunes if youre in Dubai. Ferne has been littering her Instagram page with an array of bikini-clad snaps from her time away, shortly after releasing her own fitness DVD. Her trip abroad comes as Ferne has revealed she's ready to start opening herself up to the possibility of dating once again, almost two years after being left heartbroken. In April 2017, the former TOWIE star was pregnant with boyfriend Arthur Collins' baby when he injured 14 people by hurling acid on revellers at an east London nightclub bringing an abrupt end to their relationship ahead of his resulting prison sentence. Having a blast: Ferne has been littering her Instagram page with an array of bikini-clad snaps from her time away, shortly after releasing her own fitness DVD And as Ferne raises their daughter Sunday alone, the TV personality who has recently been linked to a mystery 'older confidante' and Love Island's Charlie Brake has stated that she's ready for romance. 'For so long I've been saying I don't have the time, she told The Sun. 'I've always thought that this comes first, or that comes first, and couldn't imagine how I would have fitted dating into my busy life. My priority is my daughter Sunday and I have to work to provide for her, but she's a year old now and life is moving on. My friends are getting married and I'm a bridesmaid at my sister's wedding. Sunny getaway: Her trip abroad comes as Ferne has revealed she's ready to start opening herself up to the possibility of dating once again 'I'm at that stage of my life, so I am more open to dating now. That's my New Year's resolution.' Ferne has often spoken of the struggles she has faced being a single mother. She told Closer magazine last year: 'While I was pregnant, I knew I was going to be a single mum, but it didn't hit me until I actually had Sunday. 'That was tough to deal with realising I really was totally on my own. I don't have another person to confer with. His television show Barry has been one of the breakout hits of 2018, taking home multiple Primetime Emmy Awards, including his win for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series; and is currently nominated for three Golden Globes. But Bill Hader knows success comes with a price, and for the 40-year-old actor that means he hasn't been able to see much of his family. The Saturday Night Live alum broke down in tears during an interview with Variety, revealing, 'I think I saw my kids a total of five days all summer.' Awards season: His television show Barry has been one the breakout hits of 2018, taking home multiple Primetime Emmy Awards, including his win for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series; and is currently nominated for three Golden Globes Breaking down: 'Congrats, it's the first interview I've ever cried in,' laughed Hader to his interviewer later in the conversation Hader has three daughters, Hannah, 9; Harper, 6; and Hayley, 4, with his now ex-wife writer-director Maggie Carey. The former couple separated in 2017, and only reached a divorce settlement this past March - just weeks before Barry aired its first episode. As his homelife fell apart, Hader's career was reaching its highest peak yet, with the work becoming almost non-stop. He finished the first season of Barry, then shot scenes for his role in the upcoming horror flick It: Chapter Two, and then went straight into the writers' room for Barry Season 2. 'It was terrible. So I'm going, 'Next summer I'm taking off. And I'm going to spend every day with them,' remarked the star as his emotions welled up. Pitfalls: Bill Hader knows success comes with a price, and for the 40-year-old actor that means he hasn't been able to see much of his family The Saturday Night Live alum broke down in tears during an interview with Variety, revealing, 'I think I saw my kids a total of five days all summer' 'It's this weird thing where when you're in this industry, you don't have time to be with them, and it's really, really difficult,' he explained. 'I'm getting emotional right now talking about it.' 'Congrats, it's the first interview I've ever cried in,' laughed Hader to his interviewer later in the conversation. Challenges: Hader hasn't had an easy time with success and it always weighed on his relationships Hader hasn't had an easy time with success and it always weighed on his relationships. He broke into the industry in 2005, after being cast on Saturday Night Live, but that came with its own set of difficulties, 'When I was on SNL, I was a bit of a basket case,' he explained. 'It could not have been easy on my wife at the time. I was so consumed with work and anxiety.' He suffered panic attacks and migraines onstage and off. 'Sometimes I felt like people thought, "Oh, hes just wanting attention or something." It was like, "No, man, Im legit. Im freaking out right now.' Pressing forward: He broke into the industry in 2005, after being cast on Saturday Night Live, but that came with its own set of difficulties, When I was on SNL, I was a bit of a basket case, he explained At the upcoming 76th Golden Globe Awards, Barry is up for Best Television Series Musical or Comedy, Best Performance in a Television Series Musical or Comedy (Hader), and Best Support Actor (Henry Winkler). Hader finds himself in nominated along with some Hollywood's biggest names, including Sacha Baron Cohen (Who Is America?), Jim Carrey (Kidding), Michael Douglas (The Kominsky Method), and Donald Glover (Atlanta). The Golden Globes airs live at 8 pm ET / 5 pm PT on NBC. Sandra Oh and Andy Samberg will host the ceremony. Upcoming awards: Hader finds himself in nominated along with some Hollywood's biggest names, including Sacha Baron Cohen (Who Is America?), Jim Carrey (Kidding), Michael Douglas (The Kominsky Method), and Donald Glover (Atlanta) She is the daughter of movie stars Sean Penn and Robin Wright. And on Thursday, Dylan Penn was spotted sharing a steamy kiss with a mystery man during a holiday to Oahu, Hawaii. The 27-year-old actress and model flaunted her incredible figure in a blue and white striped bikini during her beach outing with her beau. In the moment: Dylan Penn was spotted sharing a steamy kiss with a mystery man during a holiday to Oahu, Hawaii Her younger brother Hopper Penn, 25, was also on hand for the family holiday to their dad's beachfront home on the island. It is not clear who the mystery man sharing a kiss with Dylan on the beach is. Hours later, Dylan shared a snap to her Instagram while posing with her brother and CAA agent Cade Hudson - who she tagged in the image. The trio were posing on the North Shore in Oahu with the sun in the background; their faces were not clear in the shadowed snap. Wow: The 27-year-old actress and model flaunted her incredible figure in a blue and white striped bikini during her beach outing with her mystery beau Interesting: Hours later, Dylan shared a snap to her Instagram while posing with her brother and CAA agent Cade Hudson - who she tagged in the image Dylan captioned it: '"Only get my silhouette"' to which Cade responded in the comments with two heart emojis. She was seen attending Cade's birthday party at the Palm restaurant in Beverly Hills in January 2016; other guests at his bash included Gwyneth Paltrow, dad Sean, Kate Hudson, Paris Hilton, Emma Roberts, Amanda Seyfried and Bella Thorne. The stunner was previously linked to Dara Shei, 32. Dylan and Dara were seen together in July 2018 during a holiday to Ibiza, Spain; he is currently in Bali, as seen on his Instagram account on Thursday. For her Hawaiian getaway, Dylan wowed in her patterned number; she showcased her formed in a blue, black and white striped triangle top with coordinating bottoms. Natural beauty: For her Hawaiian getaway, Dylan wowed in her patterned number; she showcased her formed in a blue, black and white striped triangle top with coordinating bottoms; pictured with an adorable pup She added layers of necklaces with a bracelet and ring to round out her ensemble; the blonde beauty pulled her hair up into a messy bun. Dylan was seen with an adorable cream colored pup on the beach. Hopper was spotted rocking black and white board shorts with a mustache. Dylan and Hopper's dad Sean has a beachfront home on the island of Oahu; he purchased the residence, which sits on half an acre, with Robin in 2007. Low key: Hopper was spotted rocking black and white board shorts with a mustache Sean, 58, and Robin, 52, were married on April 27, 1996; they welcomed Dylan on April 13, 1991 and Hopper on August 6, 1993. The duo filed for divorce in 2007 but reconciled; in April 2009 Sean filed for legal separation but one month later, they reconciled again. In August 2009, Robin filed for divorce and they finalized it on July 22, 2010. Robin married Saint Laurent executive Clement Giraudet in August 2018 during a ceremony in La Roche-sur-le-Buis, France. Sean and his girlfriend Leila George, 26, were seen frolicking in August 2018 near his beachfront Hawaii home. With Disney severing ties with Johnny Depp from its Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, the move will reportedly save them a whopping $90 million. It was reported first by DailyMailTV in October that Depp would not appear in the sixth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which was confirmed in December. A new report from Forbes claims that Depp's reported salary on the last Pirates movie, 2017's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, was $90 million, which he would have likely received on a sixth Pirates movie. Saving money: Disney's firing of Johnny Depp from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is reportedly saving the studio a whopping $90 million The new report also claims that Depp likely had a heavy involvement in the scripting process, even going so far as describing Depp as a 'writing partner.' Depp was not given a writing credit on Dead Men Tell No Tales, with Jeff Nathanson getting sole screenwriting credit, based on a story he co-wrote with Terry Rossio. While Depp's involvement with the script has not been confirmed, Dead Men Tell No Tales was easily the lowest-grossing entry in this blockbuster franchise. Writing partner?: The new report also claims that Depp likely had a heavy involvement in the scripting process, even going so far as describing Depp as a 'writing partner.' Dead Men Tell No Tales earned a franchise-low $172.5 million domestic, from a $230 million budget. Its $794.9 million worldwide haul was the second worst, behind the first installment, 2003's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl ($654.3 million) Now Disney has brought in brand new writers, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Zombieland, Deadpool, Deadpool 2) in hopes of revitalizing the franchise. Sinking Pirates: Dead Men Tell No Tales earned a franchise-low $172.5 million domestic, from a $230 million budget After the initial report of Johnny Depp being removed from the Pirates franchise in October, Disney production president Sean Bailey confirmed Depp's exit. 'We want to bring in a new energy and vitality,' Bailey said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in December. 'I love the [Pirates] movies, but part of the reason Paul and Rhett are so interesting is that we want to give it a kick in the pants,' Bailey added. 'And that's what I've tasked them with.' Depp under fire: After the initial report of Johnny Depp being removed from the Pirates franchise in October, Disney production president Sean Bailey confirmed Depp's exit Depp has come under fire for his alleged abuse of ex-wife Amber Heard, and even though he may not play Jack Sparrow on the big screen again, he donned the costume just recently. Depp donned the now-iconic pirate costume to visit children at the Curie Institute hospital in Paris, just after the Christmas holiday. He stars as LAPD detective Russell Poole in City of Lies, based on the true story of the LAPD's investigation into Notorious B.I.G.'s death, but that movie was pulled from the release schedule in August and it has no release date yet. They have received critical acclaim for their roles on the big screen. And Emily Blunt, Claire Foy and Saoirse Ronan starred in an empowering photoshoot for W Magazine to celebrate how their standout performances have broken stereotypes for female roles. The Mary Poppins Returns actress, 35, held hands with fellow Golden Globe nominee Claire, 34, on the front cover, as she discussed how 'daunting' it was to take on the iconic nanny. Golden Globe nominees: Emily Blunt and Claire Foy starred in an empowering photoshoot for W Magazine to celebrate their standout performances in Mary Poppins Returns and First Man 'The hardest thing about playing Mary Poppins was learning how to dance, one day, youre handed a hat and a cane, and I was like, "Oh, my God",' she said. 'And, also, the initial idea of taking on a character that iconic was daunting, but once I got over my fears, it was deliciously fun. Dressed in a polka dot Burberry dress with a Peter pan collar, Emily, who has been nominated for best actress in the musical category for the Golden Globes, looked back on her first red carpet look, which was for her 2004 film, My Summer Of Love. Leading lady: Saoirse Ronan was recognised by the publication for her roles as as Mary Stuart in period drama Mary Queen of Scots and On Chesil Beach Opting for a bright yellow dress, the British beauty said she was 'far too tanned' and always 'laughs of how sweaty she looked'. However the star showed how has fashion had progressed in the monochrome photoshoot, taken by photographer Tim Walker. Emily reprised the iconic role 54 years after Julie Andrews first stepped into the character, however the actress said she refused to watch the original movie ahead of her performance. Irish beauty: Saoirse has been named among the presenters at the Golden Globe Awards, which will take place on Sunday in Beverly Hills The original film received 13 Oscar nominations, winning five including Best Actress for Julie. The Devil Wears Prada star was concerned her acting instincts would be impaired if she were to watch Julie's performance, and therefore delved into the PL Travers books instead. Claire has also been recognised for her starring role in First Man, where she portrays Janet Armstrong, wife of Neil (played by Ryan Gosling). Mary Poppins Returns: Emily reprised the iconic role 54 years after Julie Andrews first stepped into the character Dressed in a Burberry cape and Falconiere bonnet, the Crown star described how anxious she would feel before the cameras start rolling. 'I get nervous before filming, its a gradual process of trying to work yourself up to being brave enough to be on set,' she said. 'You always worry that everyones going to say, Ooh, weve made a terrible, terrible mistake. Breakthrough: Claire has also been recognised for her starring role in First Man, where she portrays Janet Armstrong, wife of Neil (played by Ryan Gosling) Saoirse Ronan was recognised by the publication for her roles as as Mary Stuart in period drama Mary Queen of Scots and On Chesil Beach, where she played Florence Ponting. Speaking about her regal role as the charismatic royal, she said: 'This is the first time Ive played any queen or monarch. 'Mary had to hold herself in a certain way when she was presenting herself at court, but when she was on her own, in her intimate quarters, she was quite different. I began to feel like a bit of a boss- a boss queen. Saoirse has been named among the presenters at the Golden Globe Awards, which will take place on Sunday in Beverly Hills. Advertisement She kicked off the new year in style as she's been soaking up the sun on the golden shores of the Caribbean with her loved ones. And Jerry Hall, 62, continued to lap up the scenic atmosphere as she joined her husband and media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 87, for an idyllic swim in Barbados on Thursday afternoon. The iconic model commanded attention as she exhibited her youthful-looking appearance during her day out, rocking a clingy blue swimsuit, embellished with pink floral patterns throughout. Sun-soaked: Jerry Hall, 62, continued to lap up the scenic atmosphere as she joined her husband Rupert Murdoch, 87, for an idyllic swim in Barbados on Thursday afternoon Injecting a hint of her signature glamorous style into her beach look, the Cluedo star sported her 20-carat diamond engagement ring, believed to be worth 2.4million, and protected her eyes against the sun in black square-framed sunglasses. Jerry displayed her naturally radiant complexion as she went make-up free for her outing, and wore her glossy golden tresses in loose waves. Meanwhile, Rupert kept in theme with the relaxed environment as he opted for comfort in a loose-fitting white tee, paired with light pink shorts. Helping hand: The media mogul looked every inch the doting partner as he helped the actress out of the water after their leisurely swim Wow-factor! The iconic model commanded attention as she exhibited her youthful-looking appearance during her day out, rocking a clingy blue swimsuit, embellished with pink floral patterns throughout Smitten: The couple put on a loved-up display as they strolled along the balmy beach hand-in-hand All in the details: Injecting a hint of her signature glamorous style into her beach look, the Cluedo star protected her eyes against the sun in black square-framed sunglasses The couple put on a loved-up display as they strolled along the balmy beach hand-in-hand throughout their outing. Appearing in high spirits, the famous pair grinned from ear-to-ear as they engaged in a cosy conversation during their swim. The West End star displayed her fancy skills in the large body of water as she performed an impressive backstroke while Rupert followed her lead during their time in Barbados at the start of the new year. Having fun: Appearing in high spirits, the famous pair grinned from ear-to-ear as they engaged in a cosy conversation during their swim Look what I can do! The West End star displayed her fancy skills in the large body of water as she performed an impressive backstroke Follow my lead: Jerry enjoyed her dip in the clear blue ocean while Rupert followed her lead during their time in Barbados at the start of the new year The look of love: The Texan and her Australian-born husband gazed adoringly at each other while chatting up a storm in between their swim Off they go: They kicked off the new year in style as they've been soaking up the sun on the golden shores of the Caribbean with their loved ones Jerry and her Australian-born husband gazed adoringly at each other while chatting up a storm in between their swim. Texan Jerry famously revealed back in 2014 that she has many vices and doesn't follow any particular health regime. The former supermodel admitted in an interview with Good Housekeeping magazine: 'I smoke, I drink, I like wine, I love sun tanning, I drink coffee. I am doing all sorts of things I shouldn't do.' Look at her go! Texan Jerry famously revealed back in 2014 that she has many vices and doesn't follow any particular health regime Candid: The former supermodel admitted in an interview with Good Housekeeping magazine : 'I smoke, I drink, I like wine, I love sun tanning, I drink coffee. I am doing all sorts of things I shouldn't do' Impressive: She insisted that her good looks are natural and that her face remains untouched by Botox, saying: 'I am very against it. I think it looks silly people with mean-looking eyebrows' Candid: The beauty added that she feels even less pressure about her looks as she gets older, explaining: 'I think you feel less stressed at my age. You are not so bothered everything is water off a duck's back. It is something that happens with age; I am not bothered about anything. What will happen will happen' True love: Jerry and Rupert married in an intimate ceremony in London in March 2016, following a whirlwind five-month romance. They later embarked on a honeymoon in France She insisted that her good looks are natural and that her face remains untouched by Botox, saying: 'I am very against it. I think it looks silly people with mean-looking eyebrows.' The candid beauty added that she feels even less pressure about her looks as she gets older, explaining: 'I think you feel less stressed at my age. You are not so bothered everything is water off a duck's back. It is something that happens with age; I am not bothered about anything. What will happen will happen.' Jerry and Rupert married in an intimate ceremony in London in March 2016, following a whirlwind five-month romance. They later embarked on a honeymoon in France. Helping hand: They shared a warm embrace as they helped each other reach land after their time in the ocean In good company: The couple were joined by her pet dogs, who also took a dip in the ocean during their family day out Casual: Rupert appeared deep in thought as he strolled along the sandy shores of the island with his pet dog Romance: His marriage to Jerry is the fourth for Murdoch and the first for Hall, who held an unofficial marriage-like ceremony in 1990, in Bali, Indonesia with Mick Jagger Father-of-four: The businessman has six children from three former marriages: James, 45, Lachlan, 46, Elisabeth, 49, Prudence, 60, Grace Helen, 17, and Chloe, 15 The businessman has six children from three former marriages: James, 45, Lachlan, 46, Elisabeth, 49, Prudence, 60, Grace Helen, 17, and Chloe, 15. From her previous relationship with Mick Jagger, Jerry has four children: sons Gabriel, 20, and James, 32, and daughters Georgia May, 26, and Elizabeth Jagger, 44. His marriage to Jerry is the fourth for Murdoch and the first for Hall, who held an unofficial marriage-like ceremony in 1990, in Bali, Indonesia with Jagger. Break: Following their swim, Jerry puffed on a cigarette as they chatted to their friends Cooling off: Rupert appeared to squeeze out the water from his white tee before reclining on a beach chair Style savvy: Later that day, the blonde wrapped a red floral towel around her slender waist She's never been accused of having a shortage of style. And Margot Robbie certainly made that clear in her latest appearance in W Magazine. The I, Tonya actress, 28, did double duty for the Best Performance Issue, first covering the magazine opposite the overwhelmingly charming Michael B. Jordan while also putting on a show in a wild, pink look inside the publication. It takes two! Margot Robbie and Michael B Jordan looked charming as they shared the cover of W Magazine's Performance Issue together Pretty in pink: While Margot looked lovely on her cover, she took a more daring approach inside the mag, rocking an edgy bubble pink outfit styled by Sara Moonves For Margot's cover, which was shot by veteran fashion photographer Tim Walker, she got up-close-and-personal to Black Panther looker Michael B. Jordan. Donning a cozy Chanel cardigan with a sky-hi beehive hairdo, the Aussie actress looked like she was in her element. The handsome Mr. Jordan hunched over her shoulder while offering up his world-class smile. While Margot looked lovely on her cover, she took a more daring approach inside the mag, rocking an edgy bubblegum pink outfit styled by Sara Moonves. Her fashion-forward ensemble consisted of a blush-colored Giu Giu turtleneck and a PVC coat open to reveal magenta Vex Clothing tights worn with a flamingo-hued headscarf, pointed white Mary-Jane Manolo Blahnik heels, and ivory dinner opera gloves from Urstadt Swan. Dot's the ticket! Saorsie Ronan simply stunned in a billowing off-the-shoulder polka dot number from Celine by Hedi Slimane on her cover Mod about you! Inside the magazine the Lady Bird actress took a retro turn in a mod, monochrome and checked minidress Little black dress: Nicole Kidman was a vision of elegance wearing Armani Prive with a moody black veil The fashionista told the magazine about her very first stroll down the red carpet. 'I was 18. The Australian equivalent of the Emmys is called the Logies, and I was nominated. It was my big moment, the biggest thing that had happened to me. 'So I went all out on the dress: It was very short at the front, long at the back, lots of layers, bright colors, and shiny fabric. It was, like, orange, black, orange, blackwith a big bow at the back. I had stipple-looking hair, and I was very tan. 'It wasa look. I dont regret it, because I was 18 and having fun. I can dress boring for the rest of my life.' The magazine was full of actors surrounded by awards-season buzz. Rami Malek embraced Eddie Redmayne as they both gazed into the camera on their cover. Undressed: Lakeith Stanfield showed off his style wearing a white suit without a shirt to reveal a trio of chains and his bare chest Steamy: Mahershala Ali and Amy Adams had clear chemistry while the True Detective actor held the silver screen actress tight as she donned an elegant silver Givenchy gown On Saorsie Ronan's cover, the Lady Bird beauty simply stunned in a billowing off-the-shoulder polka dot number from Celine by Hedi Slimane. Inside she took a retro turn in a mod, monochrome and checked Balenciaga minidress. Nicole Kidman was a vision of elegance wearing Armani Prive with a moody black veil. Claire Foy and Emily Blunt looked darling in dueling dots and girly bows from Burberry. Bows and arrows! Claire Foy and Emily Blunt looked darling in dueling dots and girly bows Kiss off: The If Beale Street Could Talk stand-out also appeared in a tiny black polo Saint Laurent dress while scaling stair made up of red lipstick prints Star power: KiKi Layne was chic in a silky lilac look while a bespectacled Jonah Hill wrapped his arm around her Mahershala Ali and Amy Adams had clear chemistry while the True Detective actor held the silver screen actress tight as she donned an elegant silver Givency gown with fringe galore. Rami Malek embraced Eddie Redmayne as they both gazed into the camera on their cover. KiKi Layne was chic in a silky lilac look from Prada while a bespectacled Jonah Hill wrapped his arm around her. The If Beale Street Could Talk stand-out also appeared in a tiny black Saint Laurent polo dress trimmed with rhinestones while scaling stair made up of red lipstick prints. Lakeith Stanfield showed off his style wearing a white Maison Margiela suit without a shirt to reveal a trio of chains and his bare chest. Taking charge: Regina King looked powerful in a large hat with sunglasses and a bold black and white Givenchy garment Regina King looked powerful in a large hat with sunglasses and a bold black and white Givenchy garment. Timotee Chalamet displayed his envy-inducing locks while peering over a white counter wearing a crisp, collared Charvet shirt. Another photo showed him in a striking striped top with a skinny leather tie. Fellow hunk Noah Centineo, who rocketed to fame with his Netflix hit To All The Boys I've Love Before, appeared shirtless in his photo. W's Magazine's latest issue is on newsstands now. White hot: Timotee Chalamet displayed his envy-inducing locks while peering over a white counter wearing a crisp, collared shirt No shirt, no problem: Fellow hunk Noah Centineo, who rocketed to fame with his Netflix hit To All The Boys I've Love Before, appeared shirtless in his photo She has her own hit fashion line. And NeNe Leakes showed off her sartorial sensibilities on Wednesday night as she stepped out in Miami. The 51-year-old television personality looked ready for a pajama party in a sleepwear inspired outfit. Time for a pajama party!: NeNe Leakes turned sleepwear into street-wear on Wednesday night as she dined out at Novikov in Miami The outfit consisted of a think top that she buttoned in the middle and matching pants. She looked to be wearing nothing underneath while stepping through the warm Magic City night. Her long blonde tresses were straight and blew back over her shoulders, and a big smile stretched across her face. She wore fur-topped sandals and accessorized with small earring and a variety of rings, and carried a yellow, snakeskin clutch in one hand. Fashionista: The 51-year-old television personality flaunted her cleavage in a glimmering pink ensemble It's been a month since Nene and her husband Gregg Leakes received devastating news about his battle against colon cancer. During an episode of Real Housewives of Atlanta, he learned from a phone call from his doctor's office that his tests showed he was still positive with 'circulating tumor cells.' 'My faith went through the roof,' he said sadly after the call, in which his physician's assistant told him they strongly recommend chemotherapy. Magic City: The outfit consisted of a think top that she buttoned in the middle and matching pants A previous episode showed Greggmaking the emotional decision not to have chemotherapy in earlier stages of the battle. The physician's assistant Rebecca warned over the phone about the results. 'Even a small number of tumor cells have the ability to replicate and turn into a large number,' she told them. She has jetted out to the very place where her Geordie Shore co-star Ricci Guarnaccio proposed to her during a Cancun MTV special seven years ago. But Vicky Pattison, 31, insisted she had 'zero January blues' when the bikini-clad star took to Instagram on Wednesday to share a snap from a sun lounger, in Mexico. The reality star showed no signs of heartache following her split from her love rat ex John Noble as she put the focus on her phenomenal figure in a bronze knitted bikini. She Shore looks fabulous! Vicky Pattison slayed in a bronze knitted bikini in Mexico as she insisted she has 'ZERO January blues' after returning to where Ricci Guarnaccio proposed With a dazzling reality star television from her Geordie Shore antics to her Ex On The Beach days, Vicky plumped out her pout for the camera with a nude lipstick. The former Geordie Shore star ensured eyes paid attention to her cleavage as she accessorised with two golden pendants which hung just above her breasts. Despite returning the scene where an old love proposed to her, Vicky didn't let it get her down as she assured her fans she had 'zero January blues'. She wrote in the caption: 'Zero January blues right here... #TheAdamsons2019 Returning to the scene: Vicky Pattison has returned to Mexico seven years after her Geordie Shore co-star Ricci Guarnaccio proposed to her during a Cancun special 'Arrived late last night and didnt have a chance to explore but Im looking forward to going on a little adventure round my beautiful @tuiuk resort today! From what Ive seen so far its stunning.' Vicky arrived in Mexico on Wednesday ahead of her sister Laura's sun-soaked nuptials, as she continues to recover from the 'heartache and humiliation' of her second fiance John's alleged infidelity two months ago. Far from the pain of her recent break-up being potent enough, her family holiday will also bring back memories of the 2012 proposal, which saw her then-beau pop the question via sky-writing prior to their extremely acrimonious break-up. Heartache: The 31-year-old reality star touched down on Wednesday ahead of her sister Laura's sun-soaked nuptials, as she continues to recover from the 'heartache and humilation' of her second fiance John Noble's alleged infidelity two months ago Yearning: Far from the pain of her recent break-up being potent enough, her family holiday will also bring back memories of the 2012 proposal, which saw her then-beau pop the question via sky-writing - prior to their extremely acrimonious break-up Vicky bravely shirked her love woes to jet to Mexico to see her younger sister Laura tie the knot just two months after her fiance John was explosively caught getting up close to a bevy of beauties during a lads' trip to Dubai. As she documented her trip through the airport and on to the plane, the former Geordie Shore star revealed she was saying 'goodbye to selfish and w**k people' to see her sister tie the knot. And while she is clearly reflective of her romance with John, being in Mexico will undoubtedly dredge up memories of her romance with Ricci - which ended explosively with claims of abuse in the relationship. During 2012's Geordie Shore: Chaos In Cancun special, Ricci and Vicky's love, whose romance was famously tempestuous throughout the series, culminated in his lavish poolside proposal which saw her read the question paraded through the sky. Acrimonious split: Ricci and Vicky were frequently seen locking horns in jealousy-induced rows (pictured in 2012) Happy days: After the scene, Vicky said: 'Im not the girl who gets proposed to by the man of her dreams, and all of a sudden I am that girl and Im so, so happy' (the couple, pictured in 2012 with co-star Holly Hagan) After the scene, she said: 'Im not the girl who gets proposed to by the man of her dreams, and all of a sudden I am that girl and Im so, so happy.' The relationship was however ill-fated as their split came a year later and led to shocking abuse allegations from Ricci. Ricci explosively claimed after the romance: I was totally in love with her but our relationship was even more volatile than Geordie Shore viewers saw on screen. After five or six months together we started fighting. We were famous for our massive rows and we were both as bad as each other. But the fights got worse and worse. When Vicky and I were together we became completely unrecognisable. Hotel rooms would get smashed up... Heartache: After the scene, she said: 'Im not the girl who gets proposed to by the man of her dreams, and all of a sudden I am that girl and Im so, so happy' Hot stuff! Sources revealed: 'Vicky and John are officially over. She is concentrating on her busy work schedule and surrounding herself with positivity, friends and family' 'It always seemed to be when alcohol was involved. We continued having heated arguments. She slapped me many times during our relationship. I have no idea how often it happened 20, 30, 40 times maybe... And I didnt tell anyone. I just wanted to pretend that our relationship was OK. I felt totally ashamed and embarrassed. But I never once retaliated and hit her back. Ever. Vicky responded to his allegations in Now Magazine, as she said at the time: All Ill say on this matter is that there are two sides to every story. I dont intend to go down the same route as my ex-partner and try to embarrass him. I feel sorry for him as hes clearly bitter since his dismissal from both Geordie Shore and my life. I hope his ridiculous notion of events has brought him solace. Happy days: Vicky will no doubt be feeling reflective as she jets to her sister's ceremony which comes shortly after she was left heartbroken by John (pictured with her sister and mum Carol) Taking to Instagram on Wednesday evening UK time, she shared a host of videos from her boozy first night in Mexico prior to her sister's wedding. In November, Vicky officially split from John, two weeks after he was caught getting close to a bevy of women on a lads' holiday. Insiders revealed to MailOnline, as it was revealed that the star decided to part ways with her beau after admitting she was 'heartbroken and humiliated'. Pain: Vicky told Now: All Ill say on this matter is that there are two sides to every story. I dont intend to go down the same route as my ex-partner and try to embarrass him' (pictured in 2012) Heartbroken: She split from John amid reports of infidelity during his lads' trip to Dubai She was said to be 'concentrating on her busy work schedule' while trying to stay positive in the midst of the drama. Sources revealed: 'Vicky and John are officially over. She is concentrating on her busy work schedule and surrounding herself with positivity, friends and family... 'Its been a difficult couple of weeks but she is moving on with her life and looking forward to the future. Lindsay Lohan was spotted looking happy and healthy in the new year as she stepped out for a stroll on Wednesday. The ginger haired beauty was all smiles, bundled up in New York City as cameras snapped photos of the former child star. On Thursday, the 32-year-old actress shared an epic nude throwback photo from her 2011 spread in Playboy. So chic: Lindsay Lohan was spotted covered up in New York on Wednesday and later shared a nude throwback photo on social media from an old Playboy spread Walking down the streets of Manhattan, Lindsay smirked for the paparazzi dressed in all black. The Parent Trap star rocked chunky black sneakers, black jeans and a long double breasted black pea coat. A sheer black turtleneck peaked up above the neckline. LiLo, who's been back to her natural red tresses, kept her long hair down and shiny. She donned a dark pair of Louis Vuitton aviator sunglasses and carried a shopping bag as she wandered around the SoHo area of the borough. Noir: The 32-year-old looked sophisticated in an all-back ensemble with her vibrant red hair New year: The star is starting off 2019 in a great way as it was reported by The Blast that she paid off $100,000 in back taxes The Mean Girls actress treated her 7.1 million Instagram followers to a NSFW #tbt post this week. Hearkening back to her days posing for Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine, Lindsay revived a black and white photo from the pictorial. In the shot, which she shared on social media, the star is shot from the side as she carefully bends on all fours, covering her nipples with her arm wearing only a pair of stilettos. Wearing a vintage styled voluminous blonde wig, Lindsey peered at the camera with a sultry gaze. At home: The Mean Girls star was in her home state of New York to ring in the New Year alongside her mom Dina Accessories: Her simple look was offset by a bold embellished black leather cross body bag Lindsay's 10 page feature in the iconic men's magazine was an homage to her idol Marilyn Monroe. At the time, the photos were leaked before the glossy hit news stands and Hefner was forced to release it early. She captioned the photo with just hashtags: '#ysl #thankyounext #playboy' While the starlet was looking back in time on social media, she is moving forward in other parts of her life. Throwback: In 2011, Lindsay posed for a highly anticipated 10 page spread in Playboy. She shared a black and white image from the shoot on Thursday on social media Lindsay reportedly paid off a $100,000 tax lien that had been looming over her head before the end of the year, according to The Blast. And, the star is getting back into the public eye after spending years away from the camera and living in Europe. She can currently be seen acting opposite Harry Potter star Rupert Grint in Sick Note, a drama on Netflix UK. New show: The ginger haired beauty's new reality show, Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club, debuted New Year's Day on MTV Plus, the very first episode of Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club, her new reality show, aired on New Year's Day. Lindsay was scarcely seen in the pilot, except to deliver her no-nonsense approach to running her exclusive resort on the Greek island of Mykonos. 'I won't have any drama at my clubs,' she insisted of her potential employee hosts. Jennifer Lawrence and her boyfriend Cooke Maroney are starting to get very serious, and they have already moved in with each other after just six months together. 'Things between them are very serious,' a source told US Weekly about the 28 year old Red Sparrow star and the 33 year old art gallerist. 'They definitely appear to be in it for the long haul,' the anonymous insider added. Heating up: Jennifer Lawrence is getting serious with her boyfriend Cooke Maroney, having moved in together after just six months The couple first started seeing each other in June, after Maroney was introduced to Lawrence by her best friend Laura Simpson. 'Cooke plays very coy when speaking about her to his friends and colleagues, a source told US Weekly in June. 'He is clearly smitten about her.' Lawrence was previously dating her mother! director Darren Aronofsky, who were together from September 2016 to October 2017. Happy couple: The couple first started seeing each other in June, after Maroney was introduced to Lawrence by her best friend Laura Simpson Before Aronofsky, Lawrence was engaged in a secret relationship with Coldplay's Chris Martin from September 2014 to August 2015. She also dated her X-Men co-star Nicholas Hoult from 2010 to 2014, revealing in an interview with Marc Maron in February that she's still good friends with all of her exes. 'I have a theory. I think its because Im blunt,' the actress said. 'I dont think that you can have any sort of bad relationship with anybody if youre just blunt.' Dating history: Before Aronofsky, Lawrence was engaged in a secret relationship with Coldplay's Chris Martin from September 2014 to August 2015 'Everybody always knows how you feel at all times and theres no lying, its just honesty. Everybodys a good guy to each other,' Lawrence admitted. 'All my boyfriends have been wonderful Every time I go through a breakup, its not like my heart isnt broken,' she added. 'They just never did anything to like, devastate me. They were just good people,' Lawrence concluded. Happy holidays: The actress also recently continued her annual holiday tradition of visiting a children's hospital in her home state of Kentucky Lawrence will return as Raven/Mystique in the new X-Men film Dark Phoenix, which hits theaters on June 7. She will next star in Bad Blood, a biopic where she plays businesswoman Elizabeth Holmes, who was once the youngest self-made billionaire before her fall from grace. The actress also recently continued her annual holiday tradition of visiting a children's hospital in her home state of Kentucky. It has rounded off an incredibly successful year for streaming site Netflix thanks to its 'gripping' stalker storyline. And fans of You, starring Penn Badgley and Elizabeth Lail, will be delighted to learn that the second series is officially in the works, and was commissioned before the first series had even premiered. While the release date for the second series has yet to be confirmed, invested viewers of the show, which is based on Caroline Kepnes' bestselling novel, have pondered over a slew of theories which could potentially unfold. Success: Fans of You, starring Penn Badgley, will be delighted to learn that the second series is officially in the works, and was commissioned before the first series had even premiered You, which was first released on Lifetime in the US and later Netflix internationally, drove fans wild after it was released on Wednesday, as they gushed about the 'absolutely gripping' show. The drama follows Joe Goldberg, played by Penn, a stalker who uses social media to manipulate student Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth) into falling in love him. The first season culminated in Joe murdering aspiring novelist Beck, with Dr Nicky being framed for her murder. The second series, which will drop in autumn 2019, is set to continue following Joe as he attempts to find love yet again. Plot: The drama follows Joe Goldberg, played by Penn, a stalker who uses social media to manipulate student Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth) into falling in love him 'He will start killing people too': Viewers have pondered the fate of Paco - Joe's former neighbour - who saw him murder his step-dad Ron and hold Beck in his basement Speaking of the series, co-creator Sera Gamble previously told Vanity Fair: Theres a lot of great material in the second book that were gonna do, starting with being in Los Angeles.' Viewers have pondered the fate of Paco - Joe's former neighbour - who saw him murder his step-dad Ron and hold Beck in his basement. Many viewers think that Paco may start 'killing people too' and 'become a liability.' 'I mean this show is full of WTF moments but how could he do this to Paco? This kid is going to have mental issues all his life! Why????? #YouNetflix.' 'Why do I have a feeling Paco will start killing people as well #YOUnetflix.' 'Paco at some point would be the next Joe Goldsberg. Hmm? You think so? #YOUNetflix.' 'I have a feeling Paco will become a liability in the future. #YOUNetflix.' Theory: Fans also seem to think that something will happen from Dr.Nicky's side (played by John Stamos R), as he recorded all of Joe and Beck's sessions when they came in for therapy Fans also seem to think that something major will happen from Dr.Nicky's side, as he recorded all of Joe and Beck's sessions when they came in for therapy. A fan on Reddit noted: 'Dr. Nicky would have to be an absolute MORON to not see the parallels in their stories. 'It wouldnt take long for him to put the dots together, and I do think Dr. Nicky is smart enough to take Joe on [sic].' Also what about the jar of urine Joe left behind in his efforts to stalk Beck and Peach? Probably the most damning evidence of Joe's stalking ways, is the arrival of his ex-girlfriend Candace Stone, who viewers assumed was dead. Interesting...: Also what about the jar of urine Joe left behind in his efforts to stalk Beck and Peach (played by Shay Mitchell)? 'Why is she alive?' Probably the most damning evidence of Joe's stalking ways, is the arrival of his ex-girlfriend Candace Stone, who viewers assumed was dead 'I just watched #YouNetflix WHAT THE F***?? Most of all, CANDACE IS ALIVE??? Damn it netflix how dare you leave me like this 4:30 in the morning!!!.' 'Ok so, is Candace actually alive or was he just hallucinating again? theories please.' 'Joe I was reluctantly rooting for you psychopath!! You freaked me out at first but I eventually started to understand you, why didnt you finish what you started? Why is Candace alive??!?!!! #YouNetflix.' Will Candace give away Joe's evil secret? Viewers will have to wait until autumn 2019 for the second series. It's a paradise set in the beautiful Maldives. On Thursday Gwyneth Paltrow shared a snap of her and husband Brad Falchuk on a deck as they said goodbye to the luxurious Soneva Jani resort where they welcomed the New Year. The Iron Man actress, 46, and her writer-producer husband, 47, were dressed alike in white T-shirts and denim shorts as they posed surrounded by the azure blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Pure paradise: On Thursday Gwyneth Paltrow shared a snap of her and husband Brad Falchuk on a deck as they said goodbye to the luxurious Soneva Jani resort in the Maldives where they welcomedin the New Year Gwyneth captioned the snap: 'Farewell to these beautiful atolls of peace #maldives #sonevajani.' The Maldives comprises 1,192 islands peppered across the Indian Ocean, just below India and Sri Lanka. Soneva Jani is located in the Medhufaru lagoon in the Noonu Atoll and comprises five islands, the largest of which is Medhufaru. Meanwhile, it seems that Gwyneth doesn't drop the clean-living lifestyle she espouses in her Goop brand when she's on vacation. 'Goopyevenonvacation: ' On Wednesday, Brad, 47, shared this Instagram snap captioned, 'My wife doesnt order a drink she orders a bar' referring to her Goop clean lifestyle brand On Wednesday Brad shared a snap of the star standing next to a tray laden with fruit, juices and ice as she concocted a beverage. He wryly captioned it: 'My wife doesnt order a drink she orders a bar. @gwynethpaltrow #goopyevenonvacation.' The couple, who married in September, appeared to be enjoying their vacation without her children Apple, 14, and Moses, 12, whom she shares with her ex, Coldplay rocker Chris Martin. And there was no sign of Brad's kids, Brody and Isabella, who he shares with his ex-wife, TV writer Suzanne Bukinik. Luxury vacation: The Soneva Jani resort is located in the azure blue Medhufaru lagoon in the Noonu Atoll and comprises five islands with water and island villas The Oscar winner and Martin called it quits back in 2014 after more than a decade of marriage. Gwyneth talked candidly about co-parenting with Chris in an interview with BlogHer in 2015. 'I'm very, very lucky that I have a partner who's willing to do it with me in a really collaborative way,' she said. 'I'm really for Chris and he's really for me and our children are our priority.' She and her husband spent the new year at their home in Donegal, Ireland. But Sarah Jessica Parker arrived in Los Angeles on Wednesday night, ready to tackle the new year. The 53-year-old actress cut a chic figure in a long beige Gerard Darel coat as she stepped through the Los Angeles International Airport. Chic: Sarah Jessica Parker arrives back to Los Angeles on Wednesday night, ready to tackle the new year Underneath the knee-length duster, she sported a pink cardigan on top of a button-up grey dress. She did her best to keep cozy and comfortable while tracing through the chill City of Angels air in fuzzy forest green, heeled boots. Despite it being dark out, the Sex in the City star covered her eyes in oversized dark sunglasses. Sarah seemed to be arriving to the airport without husband Matthew Broderick, 56, and even carried her own grey bag out to the busy street. Solo: The 53-year-old actress cut a chic figure in a long beige Gerard Darel coat as she stepped through the Los Angeles International Airport Back to real life: Underneath the knee-length duster, she sported a pink cardigan on top of a button-up grey dress Sarah spent the New Year's holiday at her family's home in Ireland, and shared a beautiful video of the land and the sea from the area. The camera pans up from a stone tucked into the weeds, slowly revealing the lush, grass-covered Irish landscape with the ocean seemingly steps away. On another post shared on New Year's Eve, The First Wives Club actress captioned a photo of party supplies, 'Happy new year from a remote but beautiful land far away where wifi often eludes us but 2019 will not.' Adding, 'Best to one and all in this coming year for good health, adventure, time with loved ones, patience, humor, perseverance, joy, good love and good loving. X, SJ.' Lush: Sarah spent the New Year's holiday at her family's home in Ireland, and shared a beautiful video of the land and the see from the area Sarah's husband's family owns the northwest Ireland home, which 'was bought by Broderick family more than 40 years ago,' according to the Independent. The couple married in May of 1997 during a ceremony in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Their first child, James, was born in 2002, and they had twin daughters, Marion and Tabitha, in June 2009. GMA Day host Sarah Haines' family is about to get bigger, with the 41-year-old expecting her third child with husband Max Shifrin. The new child will join the couple's oldest, two and a half year old son Alec, and one year old daughter Grace, with Haines' rep confirming the pregnancy to People. 'We just figured out our one-on-one defense and now we have to move to a zone,' Haines said in a statement to People. 'Max and I are super excited while also being terrified! We are so grateful.' Welcoming a third: GMA Day host Sara Haines is expecting her third child with husband Max Shifrin Haines, 41, married Shifrin in November 2014, before welcoming Alec in March 2016, with daughter Grace turning 1 just before Christmas. The mother of two has been sharing plenty of pics of her growing family on social media, including a shot from Christmas with Sarah kissing Grace and Max holding Alec. 'Merry merry Christmas from the Haines/Shifrin!!,' Haines said on Christmas Day. 'Seeing our little family with my #Haines family (the originals + my niece & nephews) has my cup running over.' Sara and Grace: Her latest Instagram shot was taken Saturday, with Haines and Grace spending a rather chilly day at a park in New York City Her latest Instagram shot was taken Saturday, with Haines and Grace spending a rather chilly day at a park in New York City. 'It seems so long ago that I thought a park was fun even when it was cold out,' Haines said. 'And yet here we are...brrrrrrr! @maxshifrin.' She also shared a fun snap from her birthday in September, where Sara wasn't and her kids weren't looking at the camera. Haines family: She also shared a fun snap from her birthday in September, where Sara wasn't and her kids weren't looking at the camera 'We just cant seem to get a family shot when even half of us are looking at the camera - ha! @maxshifrin #Alec #Sandra,' Haines captioned the September snap. The Iowa native started her career in the NBC Page Program, which lead to her first job in television as a production coordinator for NBC's Today Show in 2002. Her hard work paid off as she was named the show's fourth hour contributing correspondent in 2009. Happy couple: Haines, 41, married Shifrin in November 2014, before welcoming Alec in March 2016, with daughter Grace turning 1 just before Christmas Haines left Today in 2013 to become an ABC News correspondent and a pop news anchor for Good Morning America weekend editions. She was named a permanent co-host of ABC's The View in 2016, before being named as host of GMA Day with Michael Strahan in July. GMA Day launched in September, taking over the third hour of Good Morning America, airing at 1 PM ET daily. Teams of top celebrities will join the Golden Globes at this weekend's ceremony. And now the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced the complete list of presenters who will be doling out the honors on Sunday. Among the talents giving out the gold at the Sunday January 6 ceremony: actresses Halle Berry and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Giving out the gold! The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has announced its full list of presenters, which includes actresses Halle Berry and Catherine Zeta-Jones Also joining the action: Chadwick Boseman, Kaley Cuoco, Justin Hartley, Michael B. Jordan, Mike Myers. Prior honorees like Jamie Lee Curtis, Dick Van Dyke, Harrison Ford, Sterling K. Brown, and Taraji P. Henson will also present. Also among the presenters: Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Felicity Huffman, Allison Janney, William H. Macy, Chrissy Metz, Lupita Nyong'o, Gary Oldman, Jim Parsons, Sam Rockwell, Saoirse Ronan, Octavia Spencer, Ben Stiller and Lena Waithe. More talent: Chadwick Boseman (above), Kaley Cuoco, Justin Hartley, Michael B. Jordan, and Mike Myers will also join the action Presenting: Jessica Chastain and Sam Rockwell are set to present statuettes at the annual award show No stranger to the ceremony: Prior honorees like Jamie Lee Curtis, Dick Van Dyke (above November 2018), Harrison Ford, Sterling K. Brown and Taraji P. Henson will also present. The show will be hosted by Andy Samberg, 40, and Sandra Oh, 47, who have just five days together to prepare to for this year's Golden Globes, after being locked in to helm the show in December. The duo opened up about their new co-hosting duties by posing together on the cover of The Hollywood Reporter, with Andy looking dapper in a brown bomber jacket, shirt, and pants - while Sandra glammed things up in a dazzling white and silver jumpsuit and a pair of large white Alison Lou hoop earrings. In an interview with the publication the Grey's Anatomy alum exclaimed, 'Just the fact that I'm f***ing up there is crazy-pants in a great way.' 'I think people are ready and could use a little smile,' Samberg said. 'Everyone is depressed, and maybe that's as good a reason as any that everyone could use a little time to laugh and celebrate. Viewers can expect some zany moments between the two who describe themselves as 'f***in' co-dependent soul mates.' Hosts with the most: The show will be hosted by Andy Samberg, 40, and Sandra Oh, 47, who have just five days together to prepare to for this year's Golden Globes, after being locked in to helm the show in December One thing people shouldn't expect is Trump bashing. Since the former Apprentice host moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Hollywood award show hosts and winners have taken shots at the President but this year will be a bit different. 'I don't think I could do that,' Oh told her co-host when he brought up going down the political road as hosts. And, as for talking about Donald Trump, the Grey's Anatomy star said she's 'not interested.' First time: Oh and Samberg seemed an unlikely choice for the Globes, which effectively serves as the kick-off to awards season. They weren't previously friends and they haven't acted together on any projects Oh and Samberg seemed an unlikely choice for the Globes, which effectively serves as the kick-off to awards season. They weren't previously friends and they haven't acted together on any projects. However, the pair showcased their potential for award show chemistry as they presented together at the 2018 Emmy Awards. Samberg has taken home two Golden Globes in his own right for Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Sandra took home a Golden Globe in 2006 for her role as Dr. Cristina Yang in the still running ABC drama, Grey's Anatomy. She's a nominee this year for lead actress in a television drama for her critically acclaimed role in the BBC show Killing Eve. One's a household name who starred on the latest series of Love Island and the other is a model and stylist, famed for dating Chris Brown. But Kaz Crossley, 24, noted that she and Karrueche Tran, 30, look rather similar to one another when she shared a snap of them together on Instagram on Thursday. The picture location was tagged as Miami Beach, Florida, where Kaz has been holidaying with boyfriend Josh Denzel, 26. How do they know each other? Love Island's Kaz Crossley shared an Instagram picture with Karrueche Tran in Miami on Thursday and captioned it 'twinning' It's also clear to see from the snap that the girls are right across the street from Baoli Miami restaurant and nightclub, a celebrity hotspot. Kaz simply captioned the snap with the word, 'twinning'. Fans couldn't help but agree, writing things like: 'Thats it. I always knew you looked like someone, just couldn't put my finger on it.. #puretwins.' Something to say: Fans couldn't believe how similar the girls look to one another #Madtingggg twinsss.' 'Been comparing you to her before you even met her please.' A spokesperson for the star told MailOnline: 'It was totally unplanned but Josh and Kaz bumped into a mutual friend on the beach and he was with Karrueche. 'They then happened to see Karrueche again when Josh and Kaz went for lunch the next day.' While away, Kaz has been sharing pictures of herself wearing a stunning neon orange bikini as she hits the beach with Josh. The couple have been enjoying a fun-filled trip, recently travelling to Miami's Biscayne Island to bring in the New Year in their typically glamorous fashion. Holiday buddies: Kaz is currently in a relationship with her Love Island beau Josh Denzel and he has travelled out to Miami with her Sweet: The pair have been sharing loved up snaps of one another on social media since jetting out Their trip comes as Kaz discussed her beau's snub from Love Island: The Christmas Reunion as she pointed out that producers failed to mention his whereabouts, after he missed the special episode due to his filming commitments in Los Angeles. Speaking to Heat Magazine, the make-up artist also weighed in on the episode as she said there was too much emphasis on the break-ups rather than the true essence of the ITV2 show where she met her beau in July. Josh and Kaz made it to the final during the summer series, finishing in third place so fans were left baffled when Josh failed to appear during the Love Island Christmas Reunion in December. She's set to return to the small screen after saying goodbye to Big Brother. And The Voice host Emma Willis, 42, looked nothing short of sensational as she joined glamorous judge Jennifer Hudson, 37, at the launch of the new series of the TV talent show at the W Hotel in London on Thursday afternoon. The TV presenter was dressed to impress, turning heads in an eye-catching plunging pink velvet blazer and matching suit pants. Stylish duo: The Voice host Emma Willis, 42, (L) looked sensational as she joined judge Jennifer Hudson, 37, (R) at the launch of the new series at the W Hotel in London on Thursday The mother-of-three looked in high spirits as she posed on the red carpet, adding height to her frame in a pair of shimmering silver heels. Emma kept the accessories to a minimum for a less is more look. She paired her outfit with a gold necklace and styled her blonde locks into her trademark quiff. Joining her were the judges, Jennifer Hudson, 37, will.i.am, 43, Olly Murs, 34, and Sir Tom Jones, 78. Star panel: Jennifer and Emma joined judges (L-R) Sir Tom Jones, 78, will.i.am, 43, and Olly Murs, 34, at the launch of the new season of the TV talent show Pretty in pink: The TV presenter was dressed to impress, turning heads in an eye-catching plunging pink velvet blazer and matching suit pants Work it: The mother-of-three looked in high spirits as she posed on the red carpet, adding height to her frame in a pair of shimmering silver heels Effortlessly glamorous: She paired her outfit with a gold necklace and styled her blonde locks into her trademark quiff Dreamgirls star Jennifer turned up the style stakes in a black, long-sleeved mini-dress with a polka dot design. The former American Idol finalist looked stunning in a v-necklace with a black lace detail. She completed the look with a pair of black heels with a ribbon detail and styled her locks into an updo. Striking several poses on the red carpet with Emma and her fellow judges, Jennifer stood out with a striking red lip. Going dotty: Dreamgirls star Jennifer turned up the style stakes in a black, long-sleeved mini-dress with a polka dot design Pose: The former American Idol finalist looked stunning in a v-necklace with a black lace detail Turning heads: She completed the look with a pair of black heels with a ribbon detail and styled her locks into an up-do will.i.am went for a block colour look, wearing a black blazer and matching tracksuit bottoms, pairing them with a bright orange shirt and a yellow cap. He added to the look with fluorescent green trainers and matching socks. Olly opted for a black suit with a dash detail on his blazer and showed off his sense of style with his footwear, donning multi-coloured trainers, while Welsh-born icon Tom donned a deep purple suit with a matching shirt with gold-detailing. For the first time ever this series, The Voice is allowing trios to audition, rather than limiting acts to solo performers or duets. Judge: will.i.am went for a block colour look, wearing a black blazer and matching tracksuit bottoms, pairing them with a bright orange shirt and a yellow cap Close pals: will.i.am and Jennifer looked in good spirits as they put on an animated display and larked around on the red carpet Back in business: Olly opted for a black suit with a dash detail on his blazer and showed off his sense of style with his footwear Emma and husband Matt Willis renewed their wedding vows last July in a romantic bash in Rushton Hall in Northamptonshire. Britain's Got More Talent host Stephen Mulhern officiated the star-studded ceremony. The guest list included Rochelle and Marvin Humes, Stacey Solomon and Joe Swash, as well as Tom and Giovanna Fletcher. The pair have three children together, Isabelle, nine, Ace, six, and Trixie, two. Emma said goodbye to Big Brother in 2018 when the show had its last series on Channel 5. Joking around: Will added to the look with fluorescent green trainers and matching socks Dapper: Welsh-born icon Sir Tom Jones donned a deep purple suit with a matching shirt with gold-detailing Hitting the right notes: The panel put on an animated performance Putting on a show: Will.I.Am and Olly appeared in the element as they showed off their musical talent Dancing shoes: The Heart Skips A Beat hitmaker pulled a few of his signature dance moves Powerhouse: Jennifer stole the shower with her impressive vocal chords Speaking to The Sun, the Birmingham native admitted she doesn't have any work yet booked for the summer and is looking at what to do next. She said: 'Yeah, reality is kind of kicking in now. I read interviews with some people who say: Oh, Im in talks for something, but I cant say anything, and I think: Why dont you just say no?! 'So no, theres nothing. I like to be busy, and its a long period of time that I dont have anything booked in for right now three months over the summer. 'I think its hard at the minute. There are a lot of shows that are well-established and dont need anyone else. Everyone wants that new show, but where does it come from? The Voice returns to TV on Saturday, January 5 at 8pm on ITV. Back together: The Voice returns to TV on Saturday, January 5 at 8pm on ITV She's known for her dazzling displays on-screen and at high-profile events. But on Tuesday Isla Fisher was worlds away from the red carpet, when she met a new four-legged fan. The 42-year-old was spending the day out on a farm where she shared a celery stick with a cow. Moo-ve over! Isla Fisher 'fights' a cow for piece of celery as they both cling to the vegetable in their mouths Taking to Instagram the stunner shared a picture of herself holding the vegetable in her mouth while the cow took a bite. 'I got in a very aggressive fight today, over a stick of celery. May the best cow win,' she captioned the adorable picture. It's been an eventful week for the Arrested Development star after she revealed that she had dyed her iconic locks blonde. The Australian actress looked almost unrecognisable when she unveiled a thick mane of blonde hair on Instagram on Monday. 'Go blonde or go home': Actress Isla Fisher, 42, underwent the ultimate transformation by colouring her firey red tresses to welcome the New Year The mother-of-three first cut a sultry figure in the close-up snap, shooting the camera a half smile while flaunting her new luscious locks. 'Go blonde in '19 or go home,' Isla captioned the snap. Born to Scottish parents, the actress is known for her beautiful flame-red hair. Glam: 'This period in my life convinced me that gentleman do NOT necessarily prefer blondes': Isla said of her previous time as a blonde In the past, the Hollywood actress has dyed her hair blonde for roles, including in 2002, when she played Mary Jane in Scooby Doo. Taking to Instagram to share a throwback, Isla appeared to be less than impressed with changing her beautiful mane previously. 'This period in my life convinced me that gentleman do NOT necessarily prefer blondes,' she captioned the throwback snap in June last year. Isla is married to husband Sacha Baron Cohen, 47, with the couple sharing three children, daughters Olive, 11, and Elula, eight, and son Montgomery, three. PR maven Roxy Jacenko and KIIS FM's Jackie 'O' Henderson were forced to escape an unexpected 'cyclone' during their luxurious holiday in Fiji. And on Thursday, it seemed all was okay after the blonde beauties landed safety back on home soil with their children, along with Roxy's husband Oliver Curtis. The entourage were all smiles as they exited Sydney's busy international terminal. Scroll down for video They're back! Roxy Jacenko (left) and Jackie 'O' Henderson (right) land safely back in Sydney... after escaping an unexpected cyclone in Fiji Sporting a huge grin, Roxy, 39, showed off her post-holiday glow wearing a Saint Laurent designed red and white striped T-shirt paired with a denim skirt and white sneakers. The mother-of-two went makeup-free, showing off her flawless complexion. She left her platinum blonde hair swept back from her face in a low bun. Jackie, 43, looked casually glamorous wearing a paisley-print dress with a low-cut neckline. Friends in high places! On Thursday, it seemed all was okay after the blonde beauties landed safety back on home soil with their children, along with Roxy's husband Oliver Curtis Post-holiday glow: The entourage were all smiles as they exited Sydney's busy international terminal Relaxed: Jackie, 43, looked casually glamorous wearing a paisley-print dress with a low-cut neckline while she exited with daughter Kitty, seven, (pictured) She accessorised with a grey cardigan that hung over her shoulders and finished her chic look with a statement Chanel bag and tan slides. The radio host kept her medium-length blonde tresses in high ponytail, leaving her makeup fresh and dewy, adding a soft nude lip gloss. At one point, adorable little Pixie and Kitty, both seven, were seen exiting the building holding hands while wearing similar summer dresses. So chic: Sporting a huge grin, Roxy, 39, showed off her post-holiday glow wearing a Saint Laurent designed red and white striped T-shirt paired with a denim skirt and white sneakers They're twins! At one point, adorable little Pixie and Kitty, both seven, (pictured) were seen exiting the building holding hands while wearing similar summer dresses Sleepy: Roxy's son, Hunter, four, was carried by his mother before they made their way into an awaiting car Roxy's son, Hunter, four, was carried by his mother before they made their way into an awaiting car. In one photo, Hunter couldn't wipe the smile off his face after he gave a knuckle bump to an awaiting paparazzi. Olivier was later seen exiting the terminal trollying out the families' suitcases wearing a white T-shirt and matching shorts, giving a cheeky grin to the camera. Flawless: The mother-of-two went makeup-free showing off her flawless complexion, leaving her platinum blonde hair swept back from her face in a low bun while carrying little Hunter, four That's cheeky! In one frame, Roxy decided to poke her tongue out at the awaiting photographers Here he is! Olivier was later seen exiting the terminal trollying out the families' suitcases wearing a white T-shirt and matching shorts, giving a cheeky grin to the camera It comes after the entourage narrowly managed to escape an unexpected 'cyclone' while on their holiday. Taking to Instagram, Roxy, captured the moment in a video, which was taken at Malolo Lailai moments before the disaster. The video showed a bright blue helicopter hurriedly escaping the island while another hovered in the sky behind. Lucky: The group landed safety back on home soil with their children, along with Roxy's husband Oliver Curtis Making fast friends: In one photo, Hunter couldn't wipe the smile off his face after he gave knuckles to an awaiting paparazzi Home time! It comes after the entourage narrowly managed to escape an unexpected 'cyclone' while on their holiday 'Cyclone coming in fast and we are the last out,' Roxy wrote alongside the post. 'Just in the nick of time @jackieo_official,' she added, tagging '@kokomoislandfiji' and '@sixsensesfiji'. According to ACCU Weather, the tropical cyclone is set to bring flooding, damaging winds and heavy rain in some parts of Fiji throughout the week. Ready to open port to Sea Watch - Naples major says NGOs appeal to EU member states to take in the migrants aboard (ANSAmed) - NAPLES, JANUARY 3 - Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris said Thursday he was ready to open his port to Sea Watch, an NGO ship that has been roaming the Mediterranean for days with 32 migrants on board. "I hope this boat comes to the port of Naples because unlike what the government says we will put into the field a rescue action and we will let it into the port," he said. He said "I will be the first to lead the rescue actions". The European Commission has been in touch with some member States to find landing spots for the 32 migrants on board NGO rescue ship Sea watch, an EC spokesman said Thursday, adding that the contacts also concerned another ship, Sea Eye. The spokesman said Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos "directly contacted member States in the last few days". He said the commissioner "asks member States to help this joint effort to disembark those on board safely and as soon as possible". Some 18 NGOs including Save The Children, Amnesty International, Emergency and Doctors Without Borders appealed to EU member states to take in the 49 migrants aboard the two vessels on Thursday. (ANSAmed). Teachersespecially those of English or the artsrely on famous works of literature, music, and film in their classes, copying and repurposing them to analyze with students. But often, embedding these works in curricula to share with other teachers or making them available to students can raise questions about copyright: How much of an original movie or poem can a teacher include, and how widely can resources made with these materials be distributed? As of Jan. 1, thousands of works are newly exempt from these questions. At the beginning of 2019, anything that was originally copyrighted in 1923 passed into the public domainmeaning that anyone can use and reprint it, free of charge and without permission. Teachers can now post the full text of Robert Frosts poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening online for students to access, or organize a community screening of Cecil B. DeMilles classic film The Ten Commandmentsboth originally published in 1923without having to worry that they might be in violation of copyright law. Books by Edith Wharton, P.G. Wodehouse, e.e. cummings, and Virginia Woolf have also cleared the end of their copyright terms, as have two violin sonatas by Bela Bartok. Why has it taken almost 100 years for these copyrights to expire? In 1999, Congress passed the Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended protections for rights holders for 20 years . That created a two-decade gap between the works of 1922which passed into the public domain in 1998, before the law was passedand those of 1923. In the meantime, the rise of online lesson sharing sites has raised thorny copyright issues for teachers. As I wrote recently, some teachers on the lesson marketplace Teachers Pay Teachers are profiting from materials adapted or taken wholesale from other educators . Many teachers may not realize that repurposing another educators work for sale on that site could violate the creators rights, or that theyre generally infringing copyright by pulling a photo or image from the internet that they dont have permission to use. Of course, even before books, movies, and musical compositions passed into the public domain, teachers looking to reprint and distribute them in part could have claimed fair usean exception to copyright law that allows excerpts of protected material to be used for criticism, research, journalism, or teaching without permission or payment. But what counts as fair use is decided in court, and educators could still have faced legal challengesespecially if they distributed or sold their work to other teachers. See also: Copyright Confusion Is Shortchanging Our Students (Opinion) And having these works in the public domain doesnt just permit sharingit also enables access. These materials can now be digitized and archived online for free, so teachers and schools wont necessarily need to buy them in order to use them in class. Looking for these books, poems, and movies to use in your classroom? Duke Universitys Center for the Study of the Public Domain has listed (and linked to copies of) some of the most well-known titles . And the digital library HathiTrust has compiled over 50,000 works that are now freely available. Photo: Poet Robert Frost shown in 1924. AP She's the Sudanese-Australian model who has strutted on runways across the globe. And it appears all of her hard work has paid off, as Adut Akech Bior has been named the world's number one model. Topping supermodels Gigi and Bella Hadid, the 19-year-old took the industry's vote by storm for Models.com Industry Awards. Move over, Gigi! Adut Akech was named the number one model in the world by models.com Industry Awards, beating supermodel Hadid sisters. Pictured in 2018 attending The Fashion Awards Meanwhile, Gigi Hadid, 23, scored the reader's choice vote for the female model of the year. Industry's vote runner up was British model Adwoa Aboah, 26, while the reader's choice runner up was Bella Hadid, 22. The feat comes after Adut opened up about her harrowing struggle with anxiety and depression. Votes: Meanwhile, Gigi Hadid, 23, scored the reader's choice vote for the female model of the year. Pictured in NYC in December, 2018 Adut, who launched her modelling career aged 16, admitted on Tuesday that she cried every morning and night in 2018. Taking to Instagram on New Year's Day, the supermodel said that despite her successful career she 'suffered from really bad depression and anxiety'. In a lengthy post, she explained that she is learning to 'handle' her mental illness, but nonetheless feels overwhelmed sometimes. Close! Industry's vote runner up was British model Adwoa Aboah, 26, (left) while the reader's choice runner up was Bella Hadid, 22 (right) 'I'm learning to handle it better now but it's a daily struggle and not every day is a ''good'' day,' the beauty confessed. 'Every single day of my life in 2018 was a challenge, filled with some serious obstacles to overcome. 'I would wake up every morning crying but put the biggest smile on my face and tried my hardest to push through the day pretending I was fine, then I'd come home and cry some more and go to sleep.' 'Every single day of my life in 2018 was a challenge, filled with some serious obstacles to overcome': Adut, who launched her modelling career aged 16, opened up about her harrowing struggle with anxiety and depression on Tuesday Adut, who is fronting this season's Coach campaign, was born in a refugee camp in South Sudan and arrived in Adelaide when she was just seven-years-old. In July 2018, Adut was chosen by creative director Karl Lagerfeld to be the first black Chanel bride in over a decade at Couture Week. The last black Chanel bride was the British-Sudanese model Alex Wek in 2004. 'I'm learning to handle it better now but it's a daily struggle and not every day is a ''good'' day,' the beauty confessed in a post on Instagram. Pictured in August, 2018, showcasing designs by Bec and Bridge Swim during the David Jones Spring Summer 18 Collections Cynthia Erivo, Jessie Buckley, Barry Keoghan, Lakeith Stanfield and Letitia Wright have been announced as the nominees for the BAFTA EE Rising Star award. Announced by presenter Edith Bowman at the BAFTA Headquarters in London on Thursday, the talented five have been recognised for their 'outstanding talent on the big screen in the past year and captured the imagination of both the public and film industry.' The winner will be announced at the EE British Academy Film Awards on 10 February and will join the ranks of previous winners Kristen Stewart, Tom Hardy and James McAvoy. Ones to watch! Cynthia Erivo (pictured), Jessie Buckley, Barry Keoghan, Lakeith Stanfield and Letitia Wright have been announced as the nominees for the BAFTA EE Rising Star award With an exceptional twelve months in the movie industry, the difficult task of whittling down the talent was left to the respected jury of Rosamund Pike, Richard Madden, Ray Panthaki, film critic Anna Smith, producer Georgina Lowe, casting directors Leo Davis and Lucy Bevan and film broadcaster Edith. Cynthia, 31, couldn't contain her pride as she attended the nominee announcement, where she gushed: 'Im ever grateful to BAFTA and the jury panel for nominating me for the 2019 EE Rising Star Award. It means the world to me to be acknowledged by the community that, for most of my life, Ive known as home. 'Thank you for this incredible honour,' the actress continued after starring alongside Viola Davis and Michelle Rodriguez in Widows, and Chris Hemsworth, and Jon Hamm in Bad Times at the El Royale this year. Shortlist: Announced by presenter Edith Bowman at the BAFTA Headquarters in London on Thursday, the talented five have been recognised for their 'outstanding talent on the big screen in the past year' Honour: Beaming for delight as she posed away at the nominee announcement, Cynthia (L) joins Irish star Jessie Buckley (R - Pictured December 2018) on the shortlist Here come the boys! Dunkirk star Barry (L) and American actor Lakeith (R) - both pictured September 2018 - have also been recognised Rounding things off: Guyanese-born British actress Letitia's body of work this year has earned her a coveted nomination Cynthia's on-screen talents stem from her Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award-winning stage work, and she is best known for her role of Celie in the 2015 Broadway revival of The Color Purple. Proving to be a difficult year for the public to vote on the EE Rising Star award, Cynthia will be rivalled by Jessie Buckley. Jessie, 29, has already been recognised for her upcoming credentials in the business, as she was named as a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit in 2017. The Ireland native first rose to prominence after playing Anne Egermann in the West End revival of Stephen Sondheims A Little Night Music. 'It means the world to me to be acknowledged': Cynthia, 31, couldn't contain her pride as she attended the nominee announcement Big moment: Cynthia continued to marvel at the incredible honour' as she posed alongside Amanda Berry (R- BAFTA CEO) and Edith Glamorous: Cynthia stunned in a form-fitting yellow and black printed dress for the announcement L-R: Amanda Berry, Cynthia, Edith and Magda Lojszczyk Amazing! The actress continued after starring alongside Viola Davis in Widows (pictured), and Chris Hemsworth, and Jon Hamm, in Bad Times at the El Royale this year Her turn as Moll in the 2017 crime drama Beast won her critical acclaim, and her latest flick Wild Rose, in which she plays a Glaswegian musician who dreams of becoming a Nashville star, was premiered to a standing ovation at the Toronto International Film Festival. Speaking of the honour, Jessie admitted: 'I would like to thank both BAFTA and the jury from the bottom of my heart for putting me forward for the 2019 EE Rising Star Award its a huge honour and a fantastic category to be nominated for, especially as the winner is decided by film fans at home.' Commenting on his nomination, Barry Keoghan, admitted: 'I want to thank BAFTA and of course the jury for this incredible honour. Its really exciting to be put forward for the EE Rising Star Award. 'Over the years, I have watched so many actors and actresses that I admire be nominated in this category, so to think that Im now on that list is an amazing feeling,' he concluded. Talented: Proving to be a difficult year for the public to vote on the award, Cynthia will be rivalled by Jessie, whose turn as Moll in the 2017 crime drama Beast won her critical acclaim Impressive: Buckley's latest flick Wild Rose, in which she plays a Glaswegian musician who dreams of becoming a Nashville star, was premiered to a standing ovation at the Toronto International Film Festival Speaking of the honour, Jessie admitted: 'I would like to thank both BAFTA and the jury from the bottom of my heart for putting me forward for the 2019 EE Rising Star Award' The 26-year-old is another recipient of early critical acclaim for his body of work, which began after Rebecca Dalys Mammal premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2016. Holding his own against Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman, Barry has also starred in Yorgas Lanthimos The Killing Of A Sacred Deer, and of course, Christopher Nolans Dunkirk alongside Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance and Harry Styles. Meanwhile, Lakeith Stanfield's work in the dark comedy Sorry To Bother You and 2017's Get Out alongside last year's EE BAFTA Rising star winner Daniel Kaluuya, has earned him the recognition of being the only American on the list. Success: Barry Keoghan is another recipient of critical acclaim for his body of work, and has starred in Christopher Nolans Dunkirk alongside Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance and Harry Styles Commenting on his nomination, Barry admitted: 'Over the years, I have watched so many actors and actresses that I admire be nominated in this category. It's an amazing feeling' Lakeith Stanfield's work in the dark comedy Sorry To Bother You has earned him the recognition of being the only American on the list Following in his footsteps? Lakeith also starred in 2017's Get Out alongside last year's EE BAFTA Rising star winner Daniel Kaluuya 'Such a pleasure!' Stanfield, who has also starred in Crown Heights actor and Straight Outta Compton, enthused about the nomination The Crown Heights actor and Straight Outta Compton actor enthused: 'On behalf of the entire Sorry To Bother You team, thank you BAFTA. It is an honour and a pleasure to be considered.' Finally, Letitia Wright, 25, has seen monumental, worldwide success this year thanks to her turn as Shuri in Marvels Black Panther. With quite the impressive acting CV to date, Wright has also lent her skills to Netflixs Black Mirror in 2017, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in A Limited Series or Movie. Currently she is starring in The Convert at The Young Vic Theatre in London and will soon be seen in the Mike Cahill's Hold Back The Stars, alongside 2016 EE BAFTA Rising star winner, John Boyega. Upon learning of her nomination, Leitia admitted: 'Its an incredible feeling to be chosen by BAFTA and the jury as a candidate for the EE Rising Star Award. 'It means a lot that my work has been recognised, especially in the country Ive grown up in, and that I get to share this recognition with so many talented actors.' Going global: Finally, Letitia Wright, 25, has seen monumental, worldwide success this year thanks to her turn as Shuri in Marvels Black Panther Credentials: Wright also starred in Netflixs Black Mirror, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in A Limited Series or Movie Upon learning of her nomination, Leitia admitted: 'It means a lot that my work has been recognised, especially in the country Ive grown up in, and that I get to share this recognition with so many talented actors' The winner will be taking over the crown from Daniel Kaluuya, who was recognised for Jordan Peele's Get Out, and subsequently starred in major Hollywood movies, Black Panther and Widows. Other winners in previous years have seen astronomical success, such as Krisn Stewart, who was in the midst of her Twilight years when she picked up the gong in 2010. Another famous and talented recipient of the award is Tom Hardy, who took over from Kristen in 2011. Voting is now open to the public, and you can cast your vote at ee.co.uk/BAFTA. The winner will be announced at the EE British Academy Film Awards on Sunday 10 February 2019. As the shock of Sam Burgess' split from wife Phoebe Burgess continues to reverberate, a growing divide appears to be gathering among other family members. On Christmas Day, Joanna Burgess posted a family photo to Instagram, showing her, Sam, George and Luke Burgess and other friends and family enjoying lunch at a restaurant in Watson's Bay, Sydney. With Phoebe absent from the gathering, Joanna captioned the photo, 'Chrissy crew', alongside the eyebrow-raising hashtag, 'Best One Yet'. Scroll down for video Sam Burgess' family's subtle Instagram swipe: How the NRL star's sister-in-law appeared to take a dig at Phoebe in a family Christmas photo - saying it was 'the best one yet' after she didn't attend Fans were left wondering if the hashtag was a swipe at Phoebe, or simply an innocent comment about a joyful family gathering. It comes after Daily Mail Australia revealed that Phoebe had unfollowed Joanna and George Burgess on Instagram on Thursday. Shortly after the article was published, Joanna likewise unfollowed Phoebe. Meanwhile, reports surfaced on Friday describing Phoebe and Sam's marriage split as 'pretty messy'. Cutting ties? It comes after Daily Mail Australia revealed that Phoebe (pictured with estranged husband Sam) had unfollowed Joanna and George Burgess on Instagram on Thursday. Shortly after the article was published, Joanna likewise unfollowed Phoebe A close friend of the former couple told The Daily Telegraph that 'things have been bad for a while'. The insider explained that the break-up was particularly hard on Phoebe as Sam's mother Julie was standing by her son. 'It would have been hard for Phoebe because Julie would have completely stuck by Sam... and there's talk she didn't offer Phoebe much support,' they claimed. It's over! It was revealed on Thursday that Sam and Phoebe separated before Christmas, just weeks after the birth of their second child. Pictured on September 28, 2016 in Sydney It was revealed on Thursday that Sam, 30, and Phoebe, 29, separated shortly before Christmas, just weeks after the birth of their second child. Fans have been rallying behind the glamorous journalist on Instagram after news of the split made headlines. 'I'm very sorry to hear what has happened. Sending all of my love during this difficult time,' one person commented. Other comments included: 'My heart is breaking for you' and 'You're doing an awesome job as a mum to a toddler and a newborn and you've got this.' On Thursday, Sam disabled comments on some of his Instagram photos where he was pictured with Phoebe due to trolling. Support: Fans have been rallying behind the glamorous journalist on Instagram after news of the split made headlines. Pictured: Sam and Phoebe on February 11, 2016 in Sydney Sam and Phoebe first met at an Avicii concert in Sydney in January 2014. They kept their fledgling relationship a secret for eight months, before making their debut as a couple at the Dally M Awards in Sydney in September that year. Their relationship progressed quickly and just a month later, in October 2014, Phoebe relocated to England to support her boyfriend after he signed with a rugby union team in Bath, Somerset. By June 2015, they were engaged following a romantic holiday in Greece. The couple returned to Sydney in November 2015, after Sam re-signed with the South Sydney Rabbitohs, and they married a month later in December 2015 at Phoebe's parents' home in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. In January 2017, the couple welcomed their first child, a daughter named Poppy Alice, who will soon turn two. Their second child, son William 'Billy' Mark, was born only last month. Hard times: Despite welcoming their son Billy just last month, there's no denying 2018 was a difficult year for the couple But despite what should have been one of the happiest times of their lives, a difficult few months clearly took a toll on the couple. Sam and Phoebe started 2018 with what appeared to be a fairytale marriage. In a May 2018 interview with Stellar magazine, Phoebe praised her husband, calling him quite simply 'a good man'. Fairytale romance: Sam and Phoebe married in December 2015 at Phoebe's parents' home in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales 'The moment he had a daughter, he had this amazing new appreciation for the other 50 per cent of the population,' she said. 'He doesn't skirt his responsibilities as a father. He never takes off and goes out with the boys instead of being a dad. 'He always makes the right choice - which I've never bullied him to do! He's just a good man. And it's sexy.' However, he was involved in an NRL 'sexting' scandal in September 2018 when it emerged his verified Facebook account was used to solicit a nude video chat with a 23-year-old woman in May. He was later cleared of any wrongdoing following an investigation by the South Sydney Rabbitohs NRL team. He also clarified on Twitter at the time, 'I have not sexted anyone'. James Norton has confirmed that his family will be making a cameo in his final series of Grantchester. The 33-year-old actor told What's On TV he finally convinced bosses to write in his dad, mum and two aunts to appear as extras in an outdoor fete scene after they had been 'begging him' for years. James will make his final appearance as Reverend Sidney Chambers in Grantchesters coming fourth series, handing over the lead mantle to Tom Brittney as Reverend Will Davenport. Surprise: James Norton has confirmed that his family will be making a cameo in his final series of Grantchester He revealed: 'Yes, in fact this is a bit embarrassing: we've got a scene where there's a big outdoor fete and not only is my dad coming, but my mum and my two aunts as well! 'They've been begging me the whole time, ''Please can we?'' So my Aunt Bridget and Aunt Alison are going to be people visiting the fete.' James also admitted that while he had some 'absurd' ideas for how his character would be departing the show, he's sure there will some kind of romantic drama involved. 'I don't think it's a surprise that Sidney finds himself entangled in a complicated romantic mess again.' Funny: The actor told What's on TV that his dad Hugh, mum Lavinia and two of his aunts are set to cameo in an outdoor fete scene (above with sister Jessica second left in 2015) Knack hand: James' retired dad Hugh is no stranger to making cameo appearances in any of his films, including War and Peace (above) Period role: Hugh has also made a brief appearance in Lady Chatterley's lover in a non-speaking role Big part: His mum Lavinia also made her acting debut in a recent of Grantchester, also alongside Hugh Of course James' retired dad Hugh is no stranger to making cameos in his series, including War And Peace, Lady Chatterley's Lover and Death Comes to Pemberley. But this will be the first time James is joined by some of his extended family, as he prepares to say goodbye to one of his well-loved roles. Speaking about it on BBC Radio 2 in 2017, he explained: 'They stand on the sidelines bemused and very supportive, but have no idea what's going on. 'My dad is recently retired from working as a lecturer at a college near Hull, and it's a really great way for him and my mum to see the world. 'So my dad comes and dresses up as these mad characters, and my mum sits of the sidelines and just laughs at him. And they love it.' Departing: It comes as James is set to say goodbye to his role as Reverend Sidney Chambers this series, with Tom Brittany as Reverend Will Davenport taking over (left) James will saying goodbye to his role in Grantchester when the show returns later this year, as Tom Brittney will make his debut Reverend Will Davenport. It has also been heavily rumoured that he will be taking over the role of James Bond from Daniel Craig, though he recently laughed off the claims. He told Weekend: 'It's such an enormous, iconic role and it would be a life-changing decision. So I don't know. 'But if I were offered it I'd have to see where I was at that point in time.' Grantchester returns on Friday 11th January at 9pm on ITV. Elizabeth Hurley proved her son Damian is the spitting image of her on Thursday, after he took to Instagram to post a snap while soaking up the sun in India. The 16-year-old showed he had the same defined features and long tresses as the stunning actress, who looked equally stunning in a busty selfie of her own. Elizabeth and Damian have been enjoying some mother-son time as they rang in 2019 in Mumbai, India, and the actress has been posting all manner of snaps as she showed off her amazing bikini body. Cool: Elizabeth Hurley proved her son Damian is the spitting image of her on Thursday, after he took to Instagram to post a snap while soaking up the sun in India In his post, Damian could be seen relaxing by the pool with his brown bobbed locks hanging loosely, turning the tables for once as Liz was presumably the photographer. The aspiring actor also posted a short GIF to his Instagram page, tucking his dark hair behind his ears as he pouted into the lens. Just hours later, Elizabeth took to her own Instagram to post a busy selfie, sparkling in a plunging black dress as she enjoyed another night in Bombay. She wrote in the caption: 'More #BombayNights #India.' Pose and pout: The aspiring actor, 16, also posted a short GIF to his Instagram page, tucking his dark hair behind his ears as he pouted into the lens Model behaviour: The teenager proved the apple certainly doesn't fall far from the tree when it comes to the Hurley looks as he smouldered in front of the lens Jaw-dropping: Damian's post came as Elizabeth, 53, also took to Instagram to post an extremely busty selfie on Thursday Liz has been regularly posting on social media as she documented her Indian break with her son, and has also been stunning fans with an array of skimpy bikini snaps. And as she marked the end of 2018, the star showed off her breathtaking curves in a plunging purple sequinned gown, while Damian donned traditional Indian dress for the New Year's Eve bash. Damian, who has six godfathers including actor Hugh Grant and Sir Elton John and his partner David Furnish, is often rubbing shoulders with his mum's celebrity pals, as she insists she has an 'open house' policy in order for her son to meet her friends. Dressed to impress: Liz has been regularly posting on social media as she documented her Indian break with her son, as they both rang in 2019 in Bombay Revealing: Elizabeth has previously confessed that she often ropes Damian into taking photographs of her - including her bikini-clad snaps Elizabeth has previously confessed that she often ropes Damian into taking photographs of her - including her bikini-clad snaps she posts to social media - but ridiculed claims made suggesting she takes him on holiday to purposely play photographer. Speaking of their relationship, she told You: 'Damian is a great photographer, and he instinctively knows what younger people want to see, but thats all. 'Our downtime together is usually spent watching something scary on Netflix or Vikings on Amazon Prime.' 'By default we spend a lot of time together and we are utterly comfortable in each other's company.' Elizabeth also dismissed claims that her only son was 'embarrassed' by his mother and 'wanted her to cover up a bit more', given the nature of her racy snaps, branding them 'absolutely rubbish'. PETA has responded to Tiffany Haddish's protest plans to 'wear fur everyday' until 'the police stop killing black people'. The animal rights organisation commented on Tiffany's Instagram post from earlier this week which saw the actress and comedian reveal 'I'm about to start protesting.' The actress, 39, received a fur vest as a gift from a fan, and took to social media in an Instagram video to thank them while revealing she would wear it to make a statement. Making a statement: PETA has responded to Tiffany Haddish's protest plans to 'wear fur everyday' until 'the police stop killing black people' She said: 'I'm about to start protesting. I'ma wear fur every day until they stop killing black people.' 'When the police stop killing black people, I'll stop wearing fur. Sorry PETA, don't be mad at me, be mad at the police.' The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals organisation has hit out at the idea, replying in the comments: 'We love you, Tiffany, and as an animal rights organisation, we advocate for and believe in kindness towards all, including animals. 'We hope that you choose to protest in a different way that doesn't harm any humans or any animals, but is kind to all <3.' Protest: The actress received a fur vest as a gift from a fan, and took to social media in an Instagram video to thank them while revealing she would wear it to make a statement Earlier this week Tiffany hit the headlines after her disastrous stand up set at Miami's James L. Knight Center on New Year's Eve. Haddish, 38, on Wednesday chat with TMZ in her native Los Angeles, admitted she 'might have went a little bit overboard' with the performance after working at a breakneck pace throughout 2018. 'I've worked almost every single day last year,' Haddish 'I've only been home a grand total of 40 days,' The Last O.G. star explained. 'I've slept in my bed a grand total of 28 days the whole year. I worked all the way up until New Year's.' The latest: Earlier this week Tiffany hit the headlines after her disastrous stand up set at Miami's James L. Knight Center on New Year's Eve In the botched gig, fans walked out as Haddish admitted that things had gone off the rails, telling the crowd at one point, 'This is weird for me; now, this is going to be on TMZ or whatever.' She told the outlet Wednesday, 'So I get out to Miami and I want to celebrate all this prosperity, this greatness and I might have went a little bit overboard.' The Uncle Drew star noted that her job is not an easy one, challenging her detractors to see if they could achieve what she has in her career: 'I think people should get onstage and try it themselves, at least 10 times and let's see where you end up.' Haddish noted two of her big hit films - Night School and Girls Trip - in defending her talent. It happens: In the botched gig, fans walked out as Haddish admitted that things had gone off the rails 'Let's see if you end up in two movies that make No. 1 comedies over $100 million worldwide in two years. Let's see if you can do that cause it's a lot of work to get to where I'm at. It ain't easy.' The If Loving You Is Wrong actress didn't seem to hold any grudge against South Florida in the wake of the lambasted performance, and said she walks away from the disappointment all the wiser. 'I learned that Miami is a really dope city and I probably shouldn't turn up before work lesson learned, lesson learned,' Haddish said. 'It was a great experience, I learned from it. I'm gonna try my best for it to not happen again, but it might.' Haddish named an impressive list of her comedic colleagues who reached out with support in the wake of the highly-publicized incident, including Dave Chappelle, Kathy Griffin, Sarah Silverman, Kevin Hart, Amy Schumer and Sinbad. 'They all reached out yesterday,' she said. 'I got all these great phone calls.' Advertisement Netflix's latest scary movie, Bird Box has become a cult hit and the owner of the home where Sandra Bullock took refuge has become a tourist attraction. Fans are flocking, (excuse the pun), to the home in Monrovia, which is about 20 miles northeast of Los Angeles, to take photos outside. According to TMZ, the owner was paid $12k for exterior shots of her home to be taken and it's where several key characters hide out from an evil force. Would you dare visit? The Bird Box home becomes a tourist attraction as fans have flocked to the scene of the zombie-style thriller Netflix movie, which is located in Monrovia, which is situated about 20 miles northeast of Los Angeles Walk the walk: The stone steps feature during a particularly tense moment in the movie, which has already been viewed by 45M subscriber accounts The stone staircase is rather distinctive in design, as is the cobbled stone wall and wooden canopy. In the movie, Bullock plays post-apocalyptic survivor Malorie Hayes escorting two children to a safe compound after mass hysteria led to murders and suicides of most of the population. Talking to TMZ, the owner said: 'A handful of visitors have been showing up to take photos at the house every day, including Christmas Day, since the movie was released on December 13. Heroine: Oscar winner Sandra Bullock plays post-apocalyptic survivor Malorie Hayes escorting two children to a safe compound after mass hysteria led to murders and suicides of most of the population Birds eye view: The real-life owner of the home was paid $12k for exterior shots to be taken and it's where several key characters hide out from an evil force 'Everyone who has stopped by to snap a pic of the Bird Box house has been very polite, and some have even knocked on the door to ask for permission.' But she did admit she has not seen the movie and doesn't even have a Netflix account. That may well be a wise decision considering what happens at the home in the film. She told TMZ: 'Everyone who has stopped by to snap a pic of the Bird Box house has been very polite, and some have even knocked on the door to ask for permission.' Don't blame you: The homeowner admitted she had not even seen the movie and doesn't even have a Netflix account Without giving too much away, in the movie, the windows are covered up to protect the residents from the evil forces outside and they have to wear blindfolds to shield their eyes. So if the homeowner HAD watched it, she might not feel too happy about opening the curtains each morning. TMZ write that the home has been used in three other movies in the last 20 years, but she couldn't remember which. Netflix announced on Friday that 45M subscriber accounts have already streamed Susanne Bier's zombie-style thriller. She is often spotted parading her figure in a series of bikinis in Tenerife. So it's no surprise a bikini-clad Frankie Essex looked right at home when she sipped on a glass of wine in Tenerife, Spain on Wednesday. Joey Essex's older sister, 31, looked amazing as she presented her curves in a sunshine yellow bikini during her magnificent getaway. Frankie Essex exhibits her curves in a sunshine yellow bikini as she laps up the rays in Tenerife Its skimpy design drew attention to Frankie's rounded bottom when she explored the entirety of her picture-perfect hotel. Known for her glamorous image, the beauty went for a more natural look as she bundled her mane into a scruffy bun and defined her features with soft make-up. With temperatures in Tenerife reaching highs of 21 degrees in January, the bikini-clad former TOWIE star topped up her bronze tan under the baking hot sunshine. On the move: Its skimpy design drew attention to Frankie's rounded bottom when she explored the entirety of her picture-perfect hotel Boozy break: The blonde was the picture of blissful happiness as she sipped on a glass of wine while holidaying in Tenerife, Spain Frankie kicked off the new year with a cool glass of white wine when she made the most of the winter sun-soaked break. Stretched out on the sun lounger with her eyes closed, The Only Way Is Essex alumni enjoyed some well deserved me-time. Frankie's holiday comes amid recent reports the reality star plans to get 'back into shape' in the new year ahead. Flying solo: Stretched out on the sun lounger with her eyes closed, The Only Way Is Essex alumni enjoyed some well deserved me-time It's hot! With temperatures in Tenerife reaching highs of 21 degrees in January, the bikini-clad former TOWIE star topped up her bronze tan under the baking hot sunshine Wine o'clock: Frankie kicked off the new year with a cool glass of white wine when she made the most of the winter sun-soaked break In mid-December, it came to light that the reality star had put on two stone in weight after she suffered a knee injury in the past year. A friend of the star's told The Sun: 'Frankie had a terrible year of not being able to exercise due to a knee injury. 'She still can't exercise and is the biggest she has ever been. She's put on 2 stone. It's really getting her down but she has the all clear now and is determined to get back into great shape in 2019.' What a view! The golden-haired reality star surveyed her idyllic surroundings when she walked around by the poolside Calm for the cameras: Known for her glamorous image, Frankie went for a more natural look as she bundled her mane into a scruffy bun and defined her features with soft make-up Big plans: Frankie's holiday comes amid recent reports the reality star desires to get 'back into shape' in the new year ahead MailOnline previously contacted Frankie's representatives for comment. In November 2017, Frankie admitted she felt 'better' when she embarked on a fitness journey and subsequently lost two stone. She told MailOnline at the time: 'I've had a year and a half of being sad and depressed and not even wanting to leave the house at times. Terrible news: In mid-December, it came to light that the reality star had put on two stone in weight after she suffered a knee injury in the past year It's that time of year! She is often spotted parading her figure in a series of bikinis in Spain Candid: So it's no surprise a bikini-clad Frankie looked right at home when she enjoyed her glorious getaway in Tenerife 'Burning calories and getting a sweat on, it just releases the endorphins and it makes you feel better.' While she's never shy of the cameras, Frankie confessed she didn't go to the gym for ages because she found it 'a bit scary'. 'Sometimes I think the gym's a bit scary,' she said. 'I didn't go for ages, it's a bit intimidating. Especially being on TV, I felt like everyone was looking at me anyway, and I was bigger and I felt fat. 'Now I talk to all the men about their regimes and we all kind of copy each other's routines.' History: In November 2017, Frankie admitted she felt 'better' when she embarked on a fitness journey and subsequently lost two stone Dallas star Patrick Duffy looked worlds away from his oil baron character Bobby Ewing, as he made his first appearance in sitcom American Housewife in December. The actor, 69, sported long white hair which he had pulled back into a tight ponytail, while he looked grisly with a close-cropped beard, in stark contrast to his role in the 1970s TV classic. Patrick appeared in the ABC series as lead character Katie Otto's dad for the festive-themed episode titled Saving Christmas. Stark contrast: Dallas star Patrick Duffy, 69, looked worlds away from his oil baron character Bobby Ewing as he sported long hair and a beard in American Housewife in December Patrick donned a comfy red patterned sweater, while he covered up in a blue and white puffy jacket for the perfect dad look. The episode saw his character Marty surprise his daughter (Katy Mixon) for Christmas, but the mother-of-three was determined to keep her long-separated parents from meeting. While he only made a guest appearance on the show, since Patrick plays Katie's dad it could be possible for the character to return once more. Transformation: The actor (L) donned a comfy red patterned sweater and a blue and white puffy jacket, in stark contrast to his look in the 1970s TV classic (R) The series follows Katie as she struggles to deal with the arrogant housewives and privileged children who live in her new hometown of Westport, Conneticut. Following her daily life, it also looks at the way she raises her kids: daughter Taylor, son Oliver, and youngest daughter Anna-Kat. Katie also often asks for advice from her friends Doris, a strict parent, and Angela, a divorced lesbian mother, on how to deal with motherhood and her new home. New role: The episode saw his character Marty surprise his daughter Katie (L) for Christmas, but the mother-of-three is just determined to keep her long-separated parents from meeting Patrick became a household name of the silver screen with his role as Texan Bobby in the 1978 show, which, at 357 episodes, remains one of the longest prime time dramas in American TV history. Bobby, unlike his ruthless older brother J.R. (Larry Hagman), was a reluctant oil baron who was keen to do the right thing and play fair. His do-gooder nature almost always put Bobby at loggerheads with his sibling, while the fact their father favoured him also got under his brother's skin. The actor returned to Dallas in a sequel series of the same name, which focused on a new generation of the Ewing family and was released from 2012 to 2014 before it was cancelled after three seasons due to declining ratings. She recently thanked ex-beau Lee Wilkinson in a 2018 reflection post. And Scarlett Moffatt couldn't contain her giggles on Thursday as she touched down in London's Heathrow Airport, going makeup free to fly home after spending the New Year in Hong Kong. The 28-year-old I'm A Celebrity star cut a casual figure in all-black as she remained in good spirits despite a lengthy flight home, laughing with her pals as they strolled through the terminal. Beaming: Scarlett Moffatt was in good spirits as she went makeup free touching down in London's Heathrow on Thursday morning, after spending New Year's in Hong Kong Bundled up against the chilly January climes, Scarlett was putting on a casual display in a black leather jacket and hoodie as she arrived back in the capital. Showing off her flawless complexion, the ex-Gogglebox star donned barely a scrap of makeup for the almost 12-hour flight, with her brunette tresses styled into simple braided plats. Pushing her monogrammed luggage through the airport, Scarlett was seen laughing along with her male pals as they touched down in the early hours. Low-key: The 28-year-old I'm A Celebrity star cut a casual figure in all-black with her brunette tresses tied into practical braids as she strolled through the capital Loving it: Pushing her monogrammed luggage, Scarlett was seen laughing with her jovial male pals as she returned to the UK after an almost 12-hour flight Flawless: Showing off her amazing natural complexion, Scarlett went makeup free for the flight During her New Year's break, Scarlett took the time to reflect on an eventful year in a candid social media post, taking inspiration from Ariana Grande's latest hit as she spoke about her ex Lee. She also hit back at cruel trolls, admitting that their opinions are 'genuinely irrelevant to her life'. She said: 'Starting the new year off in Hong Kong with my besties I feel on top of the world (oh and in the words of Ariana Grande Im so **in thankful for my ex, thank you next) #newyear #love #friends #family #hongkong #2019.' Open: It came after Scarlett took to Instagram reflect on an eventful 2018, and even paid homage to ex-boyfriend Lee Wilkinson by referencing an Ariana Grande song Funny: The star said in her post: '(oh and in the words of Ariana Grande Im so **in thankful for my ex, thank you next)' Truthful: Scarlett also hit back at social media trolls, admitting that their opinions are 'genuinely irrelevant to her life' Scarlett split from Lee for the first time in April after a whirlwind romance, and she took to social media to hit out at the 'cheating pathological liar' and posted a cryptic message referencing Henry VIII - who had six wives. She said: 'Just always seem to choose cheating pathological liars... I just choose lying cheats its a skill.' She added: 'For anyone that needs this right now, I just want to say if somebody feels you're not enough for them then that isn't a reflection on you, that's a reflection on them... Unless you're Henry VIII, then one girl's normally enough.' At ease: Scarlett battled the chilly January climes by sporting a cosy hoodie and leather jacket combo, teamed with cosy tracksuit bottoms and trainers Loving it: During her Hong Kong break, Scarlett posted a video of the spectacular fireworks as she rang in 2019, along with a day at the country's Disneyworld Good mood: The star has been enjoying some time off after jetting to Australia to present I'm A Celebrity: Extra Camp Yet after parting ways for the first time in April, Scarlett sparked claims of a reconciliation the next month when she hid her Facebook relationship status, after changing it to 'single' following her split from Lee. However, the two soon split again after she is reported to have dumped Lee when his ex-girlfriend of two years, Sam Irving, claimed he had sent her pleading messages while he was still with Scarlett. According to The Mirror, Lee's ex alleged that she was still seeing him in January, a month after he went public with his romance with Scarlett. A representative for Scarlett declined to comment when approached by MailOnline at the time. 'Iran can do what they want in Syria'-Trump surprises Israel (ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, JANUARY 3 - US President Donald Trump has surprised Israel by stating that, as far as he is concerned, Iran can do whatever they want in Syria. Speaking with reporters at the White House, Trump said that ''Iran is pulling people out of Syria, but they can frankly do whatever they want there''. His statement was on the front page of a number of Israeli newspapers on Thursday. An Israeli government official told Yediot Ahronot he was ''astonished''. ''Trump is simply not an expert on what is going on in Syria and Iran's efforts to deepen its presence''. Two days ago, during a visit to Brazil, Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu discussed the situation in Syria with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The agenda of talks, he said, included intelligence and military cooperation in Syria and elsewhere and adequate measures to stem Iran's ''aggressiveness in the Middle East'', which he defined as a ''common target''. (ANSAmed) The McCartney family have descended on St. Barts for their annual festive break away to catch the warming rays of winter sun. And Paul McCartney, 76, closely followed his wife Nancy Shevell, 59, as they were joined by his granddaughter and Stella's daughter Bailey, 12, on Wednesday. The musician yawned as he endured a tiring day of shopping under the blazing sunshine with his swimsuit-clad ladylove. She Loves You: Paul McCartney, 76, and swimsuit-clad Nancy Shevell, 59, enjoyed a sunny stroll with granddaughter Bailey during enviable St.Barts getaway on Wednesday Nancy displayed her phenomenal age-defying figure in a navy costume, only covering up with a semi-sheer shirt-style dress. The rocker's wife was the picture of summer as she wore a Panama hat with a striped ribbon and tan framed sunglasses to the sun at bay. In complete holiday mode, the American beauty sauntered out into the streets in colourful sandals which were flat and perfect for exploring the picturesque area. Aside from her husband, Nancy kept a keen eye on fashion designer Stella McCartney's daughter Bailey and she put an affectionate hand on her shoulder. Close bond: Aside from her husband, Nancy kept a keen eye on fashion designer Stella McCartney's daughter Bailey and she put an affectionate hand on her shoulder Stella, 47, is one of Paul's five children, four of whom he shares with his first late wife Linda Eastman. Paul adopted Linda's daughter Heather, 56, and the pair then went onto have three of their own biological children: Stella, 49-year-old Mary and 41-year-old James. The musician and dad-of-five shares his fifth child Beatrice, 15, with his second wife Heather Mills, 50. Embracing her maternal side! Aside from her husband, Nancy kept a keen eye on fashion designer Stella McCartney's daughter Bailey and she put an affectionate hand on her shoulder I Saw Her Standing There! Nancy displayed her phenomenal age-defying figure in a navy costume, only covering up with a semi-sheer shirt-style dress Paul and Heather were married in 2002 and welcomed their girl the following year but they were separated by April 2006 and they were divorced in March 2008. The Beatles icon went onto tie the knot for a third time with Nancy, whom he has been happily married to since 2011. Every year the couple enjoy taking a trip to the glorious St.Barts over the festive season for some winter sun in the red hot Caribbean. All You Need Is Love: The Beatles icon went onto tie the knot for a third time with Nancy, whom he has been happily married to since 2011 Here Comes The Sun: Every year the couple enjoy taking a trip to the glorious St.Barts over the festive season for some winter sun in the red hot Caribbean I Want To Hold Your Hand! The musician chatted away to his swimsuit-clad ladylove under the blazing sunshine Paul shared his positive thoughts and hopes for the year ahead with his Twitter followers when he wished them all the best. He penned on Twitter: 'I hope everyone has a really brilliant New Year, with all the fab things theyve hoped for coming true. 'And I hope things work out on all the political fronts that we get more peace than ever, people look after each other and we have a good time! #HappyNewYear.' She's long been an advocate for sharing unretouched photos and promoting body confidence. And British model Iskra Lawrence continued her inspirational stance in a blissful Instagram post on Wednesday as she looked forward to the new year. The beauty shared a series of stunning shots of herself laughing and posing in a hot pink bikini as she declared 'every body is beautiful.' Stunning: Iskra Lawrence wowed in a hot pink bikini as she looked forward to the new year in a happy Instagram post on Wednesday Iskra, 28, looked gorgeous in her bright two piece as she posed in a sunny spot, flaunting her tanned curves. Rose-tinted sunnies and huge hoop earrings added a touch of glam, as the blonde laughed for the camera. The caption read: 'More smiles and sunshine in 2019' alongside the hashtag: '#everyBODYisbeautiful.' Strike a pose: The beauty shared a series of stunning shots of herself laughing and posing in a hot pink bikini as she declared 'every body is beautiful' The influential model has long been an advocate for posting photos on social media and other platforms without the use of Photoshop or other digital enhancements. Not only does she refuse to have her photographs enhanced, but she actively calls out body shamers on social media. Iskra's smile may also be due to her blossoming new romance, after she was seen with her boyfriend Phillip for an outing in Las Vegas on Saturday, the same city where she celebrated New Year's Eve. Iskra was first spotted with Phillip at the start of December, where she was seen walking hand-in-hand with him in between her busy photoshoot schedule. Say cheese: Rose-tinted sunnies and huge hoop earrings added a touch of glam, as the blonde laughed for the camera The beauty was born in Worcestershire, England and she was accepted into the National Youth Theatre at the young age of 15. She was also a competitive swimmer on the national level at the same age. Iskra also appeared in the 2017 documentary Straight Curve that focused on body image and presented a TEDx talk entitled Ending the Pursuit of Perfection at the University of Nevada in 2017. The multi-talented star is a global role model for Aerie, American Eagle's lingerie line, and she made her New York Fashion Week debut in 2016 for Chromat. Vicky Pattison has returned to Mexico seven years after her Geordie Shore co-star Ricci Guarnaccio proposed to her during a Cancun MTV special. The 31-year-old reality star touched down on Wednesday ahead of her sister Laura's sun-soaked nuptials, as she continues to recover from the 'heartache and humiliation' of her second fiance John Noble's alleged infidelity two months ago. Far from the pain of her recent break-up being potent enough, her family holiday will also bring back memories of the 2012 proposal, which saw her then-beau pop the question via sky-writing - prior to their extremely acrimonious break-up. Returning to the scene: Vicky Pattison has returned to Mexico seven years after her Geordie Shore co-star Ricci Guarnaccio proposed to her during a Cancun special Vicky bravely shirked her love woes to jet to Mexico to see her younger sister Laura tie the knot just two months after her fiance John was explosively caught getting up close to a bevy of beauties during a lads' trip to Dubai. As she documented her trip through the airport and on to the plane, the former Geordie Shore star revealed she was saying 'goodbye to selfish and w**k people' to see her sister tie the knot. And while she is clearly reflective of her romance with John, being in Mexico will undoubtedly dredge up memories of her romance with Ricci - which ended explosively with claims of abuse in the relationship. During 2012's Geordie Shore: Chaos In Cancun special, Ricci and Vicky's love, whose romance was famously tempestuous throughout the series, culminated in his lavish poolside proposal which saw her read the question paraded through the sky. Heartache: The 31-year-old reality star touched down on Wednesday ahead of her sister Laura's sun-soaked nuptials, as she continues to recover from the 'heartache and humilation' of her second fiance John Noble's alleged infidelity two months ago Yearning: Far from the pain of her recent break-up being potent enough, her family holiday will also bring back memories of the 2012 proposal, which saw her then-beau pop the question via sky-writing - prior to their extremely acrimonious break-up Acrimonious split: Ricci and Vicky were frequently seen locking horns in jealousy-induced rows (pictured in 2012) After the scene, she said: 'Im not the girl who gets proposed to by the man of her dreams, and all of a sudden I am that girl and Im so, so happy.' The relationship was however ill-fated as their split came a year later and led to shocking abuse allegations from Ricci. Ricci explosively claimed after the romance: I was totally in love with her but our relationship was even more volatile than Geordie Shore viewers saw on screen. After five or six months together we started fighting. We were famous for our massive rows and we were both as bad as each other. But the fights got worse and worse. When Vicky and I were together we became completely unrecognisable. Hotel rooms would get smashed up... Happy days: After the scene, Vicky said: 'Im not the girl who gets proposed to by the man of her dreams, and all of a sudden I am that girl and Im so, so happy' (the couple, pictured in 2012 with co-star Holly Hagan) Heartache: After the scene, she said: 'Im not the girl who gets proposed to by the man of her dreams, and all of a sudden I am that girl and Im so, so happy' Hot stuff! Sources revealed: 'Vicky and John are officially over. She is concentrating on her busy work schedule and surrounding herself with positivity, friends and family' 'It always seemed to be when alcohol was involved. We continued having heated arguments. She slapped me many times during our relationship. I have no idea how often it happened 20, 30, 40 times maybe... And I didnt tell anyone. I just wanted to pretend that our relationship was OK. I felt totally ashamed and embarrassed. But I never once retaliated and hit her back. Ever. Vicky responded to his allegations in Now Magazine, as she said at the time: All Ill say on this matter is that there are two sides to every story. I dont intend to go down the same route as my ex-partner and try to embarrass him. I feel sorry for him as hes clearly bitter since his dismissal from both Geordie Shore and my life. I hope his ridiculous notion of events has brought him solace. Taking to Instagram on Wednesday evening UK time, she shared a host of videos from her boozy first night in Mexico prior to her sister's wedding. Happy days: Vicky will no doubt be feeling reflective as she jets to her sister's ceremony which comes shortly after she was left heartbroken by John (pictured with her sister and mum Carol) Pain: Vicky told Now: All Ill say on this matter is that there are two sides to every story. I dont intend to go down the same route as my ex-partner and try to embarrass him' (pictured in 2012) Heartbroken: She split from John amid reports of infidelity during his lads' trip to Dubai Out on the town: Taking to Instagram on Wednesday evening UK time, she shared a host of videos from her boozy first night in Mexico prior to her sister's wedding In November, Vicky officially split from John, two weeks after he was caught getting close to a bevy of women on a lads' holiday. Insiders revealed to MailOnline, as it was revealed that the star decided to part ways with her beau after admitting she was 'heartbroken and humiliated'. She was said to be 'concentrating on her busy work schedule' while trying to stay positive in the midst of the drama. Sources revealed: 'Vicky and John are officially over. She is concentrating on her busy work schedule and surrounding herself with positivity, friends and family... 'Its been a difficult couple of weeks but she is moving on with her life and looking forward to the future. Rugby league star Sam Burgess split from his glamorous wife Phoebe just weeks after the birth of their second child, it was revealed on Thursday. And in a sign of the darkening mood around the couple, Phoebe has unfollowed Sam's brother George Burgess and his wife Joanna on Instagram. While Phoebe is no longer following the couple as of Thursday, it is unclear how long ago she made the social media move. Scroll down for video Deepening divide? Phoebe Burgess (right) has unfollowed her brother-in-law George Burgess and his wife Joanna on Instagram after splitting with husband Sam (left) NRL star George, 26, married Joanna, 28, in December 2016 in Noosa, Queensland. Sam and Phoebe called time on their three-year marriage less than a month after welcoming their second child. Despite the new addition to their family, there's no denying 2018 was a difficult year for the couple, with Sam, 30, finding himself at the centre of a sexting scandal in September. Social shock: And in a sign of the darkening mood, Phoebe has unfollowed Sam's brother George and his wife Joanna (pictured) on Instagram. Phoebe's Instagram followers made the discovery on Thursday Sam and Phoebe, 29, first met at an Avicii concert in Sydney in January 2014. They kept their fledgling relationship a secret for eight months, before making their debut as a couple at the Dally M Awards in Sydney in September that year. Their relationship progressed quickly and just a month later, in October 2014, Phoebe relocated to England to support her boyfriend after he signed with a rugby union team in Bath, Somerset. Unfollowed: NRL star George (far right), 26, married Joanna, 28, in December 2016 in Noosa, Queensland. He is pictured here with Sam (second from left) and friends Moving on: Sam and Phoebe Burgess' romance began at an Avicii concert and survived numerous obstacles before their split just weeks after welcoming a baby boy. Pictured together on February 11, 2016 in Sydney By June 2015, they were engaged following a romantic holiday in Greece. The couple returned to Sydney in November 2015, after Sam re-signed with the South Sydney Rabbitohs, and they married a month later in December 2015 at Phoebe's parents' home in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. In January 2017, the couple welcomed their first child, a daughter named Poppy Alice, who will soon turn two. Hard times: Despite welcoming their son Billy just last month, there's no denying 2018 was a difficult year for the couple Fairytale romance: They married in December 2015 at Phoebe's parents' home in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales Their second child, son William 'Billy' Mark, was born only last month. But despite what should have been one of the happiest times of their lives, a difficult few months clearly took a toll on the couple. Sam and Phoebe started 2018 with what appeared to be a fairytale marriage. Love at first sight! Sam and Phoebe (pictured with their daughter Poppy) met at an Avicii concert in Sydney back in January 2014 Secret romance: They kept their fledgling relationship a secret for eight months before making their debut as a couple at the Dally M Awards in Sydney in September that year In a May 2018 interview with Stellar Magazine, Phoebe praised her husband, calling him quite simply 'a good man'. 'The moment he had a daughter, he had this amazing new appreciation for the other 50 per cent of the population,' she said. 'He doesn't skirt his responsibilities as a father. He never takes off and goes out with the boys instead of being a dad. He always makes the right choice - which I've never bullied him to do! He's just a good man. And it's sexy.' Seemingly perfect: Sam and Phoebe started 2018 with what appeared to be a fairytale marriage. Pictured on their wedding day These may have been famous last words, because by September, Sam was at the centre of a sexting scandal - but he was ultimately cleared of any involvement. Speaking at a press conference that same month, Sam admitted the allegations against him had taken their toll on his family. 'I'm not angry. What hurts me the most is seeing my wife upset about what's out there,' he said at the time. She kissed a girl and she liked it. But Katy Perry didn't seem to mind kissing a boy either, namely Orlando Bloom, in Aspen on Wednesday. The pair were seen sharing a smooch as they enjoyed yet another day on the slopes in the exclusive Colorado ski town. I kissed a boy: Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom shared a smooch as they enjoyed another day on the slopes of Aspen on Wednesday Katy, 34, looked hot in a shiny black ski-suit with fur-lined hood, adding a chic touch with a cross-body purse and shades. Orlando, 41, rocked green and black snowboarding trousers and a navy jacket and goggles. The duo made sure to wear protection for their romantic encounter, both donning helmets before their kiss. The couple made up just two of the famous faces to hit the famed snow haunt for the holidays, although they have hung around longer than most. She's got snow style: Katy, 34, looked hot in a shiny black ski-suit with fur-lined hood, adding a chic touch with a cross-body purse and shades Kurt Russel, Goldoie Hawn and Kate Hudson, Kim Kardashian, Scott Disick and Sophia Richie, Paris Hilton, Rebel Wilson and Diplo were all spotted over Christmas hanging out in the ski resort town. Katy and Orlando have been dating since 2016 when they were spotted getting flirty at a Golden Globes afterparty. They announced their split a year later in February 2017 but were officially back on in early 2018 after spending some time together in the Maldives. Katy called Orlando 'a great anchor' to Footwear News, saying: 'For some reason, I attract people who are really real and call me out on stuff when Im being cuckoo.' Katy was married to comedian Russell Brand from 2010 to 2012; Orlando was married to model Miranda Kerr from 2010 to 2013. On/off: Katy and Orlando have been dating since 2016, splitting in 2017 and rekindling in 2018 She's been hitting the slopes and partying with her celebrity pals in Aspen, Colorado. And on Wednesday, Paris Hilton, 37, arrived back in Los Angeles following her vacation. The hotel heiress flew into the Van Nuys airport in LA's suburbs on a private jet. Home again: Paris Hilton, 37, arrived back in Los Angeles on Wednesday following her vacation in Aspen, Colorado, arriving at the Van Nuys airport in LA's suburbs on a private jet Paris was still dressed for the piste in a pair of black snow boots. She wore baggy black pants tucked into the boots and a black zipper jacket studded with white stars and stripes. The celebrity DJ added a sparkly silver and black beanie pulled down over her blonde hair and a pair of large sunglasses. She carried a bag over one shoulder and her cell phone in one hand. Stylish: She was still dressed for the piste in a pair of black snow boots. She wore baggy black pants tucked into the boots and a black zipper jacket studded with white stars and stripes Jet setter: The celebrity DJ and hotel heiress added a sparkly silver and black beanie pulled down over her blonde hair and a pair of large sunglasses The former Simple Life reality star has moved on quickly from her failed engagement to actor Chris Zylka. Zylka went down on one knee a year ago as the couple rang in 2018 in Aspen. After calling it quits, Paris has refused to give back her $2 million diamond engagement ring claiming Zylka wasn't the one who paid for it and that it was given to him 'for free.' Allison Janney was snapped with her mother Macy grabbing lunch in Studio City, California on Wednesday at the eatery Joans on Third. The Boston native, 59, wore a dark zip-up hooded sweatshirt with blue camouflage sweats and sandals. The veteran performer rounded out her ensemble with a grey hat, sunglasses and a large black leather purse. Scroll below for video Out and about: Allison Janney, 59, was snapped with her mother Macy grabbing lunch in Studio City, California on Wednesday at the eatery Joans on Third Janney on Wednesday took to Instagram with a collage of her top nine posts of the year. They included multiple shots from last year's Academy Awards, including one in which she held the Oscar she won last year for I, Tonya alongside the giant Oscar statue; and one with her co-stars in The Help, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer. 'A little late but......Still cant believe how crazy of a year 2018 was,' Janney wrote. 'Looking forward to 2019! #BestNine #BestNine2018 #happynewyear.' Janney, who appears on the well-rated CBS comedy Mom, is negotiating alongside co-star Anna Faris with production studio Warner Bros. TV for a raise to their salaries, Deadline reported last month. On the move: The veteran performer rounded out her ensemble with a grey hat, sunglasses and a large black leather purse Banner year: Janney in 2018 collected the Academy Award for I, Tonya The show is currently in its sixth season, and both actresses have not been signed yet for season seven. CBS is hoping to extend the show at least another season with The Big Bang Theory coming to a close, the outlet reported. Both Janney and Faris are seeking major raises, as they're reportedly making less than $200,000 per episode on the Chuck Lorre series. Mom returns to CBS January 10 at 9/8c. Negotiation table: Janney is negotiating alongside Mom co-star Anna Faris with production studio Warner Bros. TV for a raise to their salaries for the CBS series Big things ahead: 2019 should be another fruitful year for the accomplished actress The Real Housewives of New York City alum Kelly Killoren Bensimon put on quite a sideshow in her white swimsuit while splashing in the Miami Beach surf on Wednesday. There was not an inch to pinch on the 50-year-old self-described 'tanorexic' who flaunted considerable sideboob in her plunging one piece tied with a bow. The reality star-turned-Warburg Realtor's bathing suit featured ruffle detailing on the halter straps, which crisscrossed over her back. Cleavage: The Real Housewives of New York City alum Kelly Killoren Bensimon put on quite a sideshow in her white swimsuit while splashing in the Miami Beach surf on Wednesday Flirty: There was not an inch to pinch on the 50-year-old self-described 'tanorexic' who flaunted considerable sideboob in her plunging one piece tied with a bow Bensimon wore her brunette waves down and she wore make-up on her bronzed complexion for her sandy stroll in the Florida sunshine. Kelly accessorized her scantily-clad attire with a silver necklace, bracelet, and statement ring. The Illinois-born beauty is said to maintain her fit 5ft10in figure by running daily, which 'restores' her energy. After getting wet and wild, the Columbia University grad put on a lacy white romper, aviator shades, and toted a big blue bag back to her Miami abode. Barefoot: The reality star-turned-Warburg Realtor's bathing suit featured ruffle detailing on the halter straps, which crisscrossed over her back Surgically enhanced: Bensimon wore her brunette waves down and she wore make-up on her bronzed complexion for her sandy stroll in the Florida sunshine Beach bling: Kelly accessorized her scantily-clad attire with a silver necklace, bracelet, and statement ring Shore thing: The Illinois-born beauty is said to maintain her fit 5ft10in figure by running daily, which 'restores' her energy Cover up: After getting wet and wild, the Columbia University grad put on a lacy white romper, aviator shades, and toted a big blue bag back to her Miami abode Bensimon celebrated New Year's Eve with her two daughters - 21-year-old Sea Louise attending the University of Mississippi and 19-year-old Thadeus Ann attending Trinity College in Hartford. 'Dear 2018 - We made it! My kids are all in college...and I'm officially an empty nester,' Kelly - who boasts 421K social media followers - wrote on Instagram Sunday. 'With more time on my hands, I am able to work differently - smarter. When my kids were home, I'd work as fast as I could so I could be a full time working/stay at home mom. 'We wish you all a happy, happy, happy new year!' Bensimon celebrated New Year's Eve with her two daughters - 21-year-old Sea Louise (L) attending the University of Mississippi and 19-year-old Thadeus Ann (R) attending Trinity College in Hartford Daddy: Both college students' father is 74-year-old French photographer Gilles Bensimon, who divorced the Good Bones actress in 2007 after a decade of marriage (pictured June 5) 'It was complicated, but the effort was worth it. Now, with more free time on my hands, I've been focused on being my own architect and structuring a life plan - not just living to work.' The Soulgani collaborator added: 'Thank you 2018 for opening your doors to me to some of the most amazing real estate experiences in New York City, the Hamptons, and Miami. I can't wait to show you more of what I love: new development, innovative commercial real estate, and homes like you have never seen. This is our year, keep watching.' Both college students' father is 74-year-old French photographer Gilles Bensimon, who divorced the Good Bones actress in 2007 after a decade of marriage. Sam and Phoebe Burgess have called time on their three-year marriage, less than a month after welcoming their second child. Despite the new addition to their family, there's no denying 2018 was a difficult year for the couple, with Sam, 30, finding himself at the centre of a sexting scandal in September. Sam and Phoebe, 29, first met at an Avicii concert in Sydney back in January 2014. They kept their fledgling relationship a secret for eight months, before making their debut as a couple at the Dally M Awards in Sydney in September that year. The rise and fall of NRL's golden couple: How Sam and Phoebe Burgess' romance began at an Avicii concert and survived numerous obstacles before their split just weeks after welcoming a baby boy. Pictured together on February 11, 2016 in Sydney Their relationship progressed quickly and just a month later, in October 2014, Phoebe relocated to England to support her boyfriend after he signed with a rugby union team in Bath, Somerset. By June 2015, they were engaged following a romantic holiday in Greece. The couple returned to Sydney in November 2015, after Sam re-signed with the South Sydney Rabbitohs, and they married a month later in December 2015 at Phoebe's parents' home in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. In January 2017, the couple welcomed their first child, a daughter named Poppy Alice, who will soon turn two. Hard times: Despite welcoming their son Billy just last month, there's no denying 2018 was a difficult year for the couple Fairytale romance: They married in December 2015 at Phoebe's parents' home in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales Their second child, son William 'Billy' Mark, was born only last month. But despite what should have been one of the happiest times of their lives, a difficult few months clearly took a toll on the couple. Sam and Phoebe started 2018 with what appeared to be a fairytale marriage. In a May 2018 interview with Stellar Magazine, Phoebe praised her husband, calling him quite simply 'a good man'. Love at first sight! Sam and Phoebe (pictured with their daughter Poppy) met at an Avicii concert in Sydney back in January 2014 Secret romance: They kept their fledgling relationship a secret for eight months, before making their debut as a couple at the Dally M Awards in Sydney in September that year 'The moment he had a daughter, he had this amazing new appreciation for the other 50 per cent of the population,' she said. 'He doesn't skirt his responsibilities as a father. He never takes off and goes out with the boys instead of being a dad. He always makes the right choice - which I've never bullied him to do! He's just a good man. And it's sexy.' These may have been famous last words, because by September, Sam was at the centre of a sexting scandal - but he was ultimately cleared of any involvement. Speaking at a press conference that same month, Sam admitted the allegations against him had taken their toll on his family. Seemingly perfect: Sam and Phoebe started 2018 with what appeared to be a fairytale marriage. Pictured on their wedding day Making a move: Their relationship progressed quickly, with Phoebe relocating to England to support her boyfriend after he signed with a rugby union team in Bath, Somerset in late 2014 'I'm not angry. What hurts me the most is seeing my wife upset about what's out there,' he said at the time. Phoebe - who had announced her second pregnancy in June 2018 - kept a dignified silence throughout the affair, but appeared to be supporting her husband behind the scenes. Taking to Instagram in the days following the scandal, the pregnant WAG shared a photo of herself playing on a picnic blanket beside her daughter Poppy. Sam's shadow could be seen standing over them. Rough patch: Speaking at a press conference following his sexting scandal in September 2018, Sam confessed the allegations against him had taken a toll on his family Staying strong: Phoebe - who had announced her second pregnancy in June 2018 - kept a dignified silence throughout the scandal, but appeared to be privately supporting her husband 'Moments in the sun with our babies,' she captioned the image. As the months progressed, Sam made fewer and fewer appearances on Phoebe's Instagram account. Her last post with him was on December 11, following the birth of their son Billy. 'William "Billy" Mark Burgess. Born 9th December 2018, 4.22kg. Welcome to our world, little big man, our hearts are so full,' she captioned the photo. Phased out: As the months progressed following the sexting scandal, Sam made fewer and fewer appearances on Phoebe's Instagram account Prior to that, Sam featured in a photo on November 3, when the couple had attended a friend's wedding together. Sam shared a similar photo with Phoebe on November 2, but he hasn't posted to Instagram since then. Their once seemingly perfect relationship appears to have ended as swiftly as it began. Rugby league's golden couple Sam and Phoebe Burgess split shortly before Christmas, just three months after the South Sydney Rabbitohs star was cleared of any involvement in an NRL 'sexting' affair. In the immediate aftermath of the scandal in September 2018, Phoebe, who was then pregnant with her second child, pulled out of a public appearance but was otherwise publicly supportive of her husband in the weeks that followed. Despite the athlete being cleared of any wrongdoing relating to the 'sexting' affair, it appears the past few months have nonetheless proved difficult for the couple, culminating in their recent break-up. Was the NRL 'sexting' affair the beginning of the end? Rugby league's golden couple Sam and Phoebe Burgess split just three months after the Rabbitohs star was cleared in a high-profile scandal. Pictured at a press conference on September 18, 2018 in Sydney It's over! Despite the athlete being cleared of any wrongdoing relating to the 'sexting' affair, it appears the past few months have nonetheless proved difficult for the couple, culminating in their recent break-up. Pictured: Sam and Phoebe Burgess in happier times Following the marriage split last month, premiership winner Sam was spotted leaving his family home on Wednesday carrying several overnight bags. It has been 15 weeks since a South Sydney Rabbitohs internal investigation into the 'sexting' scandal cleared Sam of any misconduct, contract breach or violation of the club's code of conduct. Sam was originally identified as the player at the centre of the affair after it emerged his Facebook account was used to solicit a nude video chat with a 23-year-old woman in May 2018. 'I have not sexted anyone': It has been 15 weeks since a South Sydney Rabbitohs internal investigation into the 'sexting' scandal cleared Sam of any misconduct, contract breach or violation of the club's code of conduct. Pictured on September 18, 2018 in Sydney 'What hurts me the most is seeing my wife upset': In the immediate aftermath of the scandal in September 2018, Phoebe, who was then pregnant with her second child, pulled out of a public appearance but was otherwise publicly supportive of her husband in the weeks that followed Leaked screenshots from the chat showed a man exposing himself and another man with his pants down. It was never confirmed who the men in the footage were, but the social media account was verified in Sam's name. Just hours after the scandal came to light, Phoebe, who was then 26 weeks pregnant, pulled out of an appearance at Randwick Racecourse. She was expected to appear as an ambassador for Colgate toothpaste. What went wrong? While Phoebe did not speak publicly about the incident specifically, she expressed support for her husband via social media Burgess's rugby-playing brothers both stood by him during the controversy. While his wife Phoebe did not speak publicly about the incident specifically, she expressed support for her husband via social media. During the scandal, the Rabbitohs star thanked his family for helping him through a 'tricky few days', before adding: 'Fortunately, I've got a strong wife'. 'What hurts me the most is seeing my wife upset,' he said at the time. That's odd! Sam and Phoebe's third wedding anniversary was on December 28, but it appears neither of them marked the occasion on social media. Pictured on their wedding day The Englishman met journalist Phoebe at a concert for the late Swedish musician Avicii in early 2014, debuted their relationship that year at the Dally M Awards and married in 2015. Sam and Phoebe's third wedding anniversary was on December 28 and Sam turned 30 on December 14. Unusually, neither milestone was marked on social media Phoebe. Rumours of a split emerged last week after a social media post from Sam's sister-in-law Joanna Burgess suggested Phoebe had spent Christmas away from Sam. Where was Phoebe? Rumours of a split emerged last week after a social media post from Sams sister-in-law Joanna Burgess suggested Phoebe had spent Christmas away from Sam Phoebe is believed to be holed-up in the $3.8million marital home with her mother Sarah Hooke, pregnant sister Jemima Fairbanks and her husband Gene. Sam was seen arriving at the property in his Bentley at 4.40pm on Wednesday and leaving about half an hour later carrying three full overnight bags. Phoebe's mother Sarah arrived at the house with a large suitcase at about 8pm. The couple share two children - newborn son William 'Billy' Mark Burgess and daughter, Poppy Alice, who is almost two. Daily Mail Australia has contacted the couple's separate agents for comment. FBI delegation in Ankara for meetings on Gulen Turkey repeats extradition request after new US investigations (ANSAmed) - ISTANBUL, JANUARY 3 - A US delegation including FBI agents arrived in Ankara on Thursday for meetings with officials from the Turkish foreign ministry, interior ministry, and justice ministry. The meetings will focus on investigations currently underway in the US into the network of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claims Gulen, who is self-exiled in Pennsylvania, orchestrated the failed coup attempt in Turkey in 2016. The meetings, which will also take place on Friday, will focus on Turkey's repeated requests for the US to extradite Gulen, especially in light of developments in FBI investigations into various members of Gulen's organisation for suspected money laundering and visa irregularities. Turkey is targeting above all Gulen's lucrative network of educational institutions in the US, according to Anadolu news agency.(ANSAmed). Jennifer Aydin will not have her children be called 'spoiled'. On the latest episode of The Real Housewives Of New Jersey, Jennifer discovered Jackie Goldschneider wrote an article about parenting in a local newspaper regarding the question 'Does giving too many gifts create spoiled children?'. And although Jackie does not name anyone in the publication, Jennifer believed it was loaded with 'judgment' after a visit to her ostentatious home and she felt 'betrayed'. Bad parenting: On the latest episode of The Real Housewives Of New Jersey, Jennifer Aydin discovered Jackie Goldschneider wrote an article about parenting Jennifer said in the confessionals that she is 'pissed' and 'not backing down' and eager to 'rip [Jackie] a new one.' 'You are not Carrie Bradshaw, okay?' Jennifer argued. 'You are not like, "Oh, I couldn't help but wonder, could I write this article without seeming like a pompous, judgmental a**hole?"' However, when the two ladies meet at Melissa Gorga's son's First Communion party, there were little fireworks. Loaded: And although Jackie does not name anyone in the publication, Jennifer believed it was loaded with 'judgment' after a visit to her ostentatious home and she felt 'betrayed' Not having it! Jennifer said in the confessionals that she is 'pissed' and 'not backing down' and eager to 'rip [Jackie] a new one' Jackie first approached Jennifer at the celebration to dish on her current feud with Teresa Guidice, not knowing that Jennifer had her own bone to pick. 'So when we walked in, I felt bad because I'm in such a weird place with Teresa,' began Jackie. 'I feel like it's just awkward. I said something to her that she took offense to that I did not mean to be offensive. I'm also not gonna go grovel and be like, "I f--ked up. I'm sorry."' The shade: 'You are not Carrie Bradshaw, okay?' Jennifer argued Family affair: However, when the two ladies meet at Melissa Gorga's son's First Communion party, there were little fireworks Jennifer seemed uninterested and quickly changed the subject to her hurt feelings about the article. 'Do you feel that certain things should be off limits, like husbands and children? Would you agree with that?' she asked Jackie who replied: 'Yes.' "Then why would you write an article that references to my kids being spoiled?" Jennifer asked a surprised Jackie. Bro it out: Frank Catania and Joe Gorga talked about the wedding 'Did I say anything untrue?' Jackie asked. 'I felt there was a lot of judgment there,' Jennifer protested. 'I didnt write your name, I didnt say one negative thing about your children, I didnt even say anything negative about you,' Jackie replied. More feuds: However, Jackie then made it a point to address her situation with Teresa and asked the bodybuilder if they could meet at a later date to discuss it The tete-a-tete was put on hold as the party was swinging into full gear. However, Jackie then made it a point to address her situation with Teresa and asked the bodybuilder if they could meet at a later date to discuss it. 'She's f--king delusional!' Teresa said. 'If Jackie thinks that this is gonna be a nice sit-down, she's got another thing coming." Not personal: 'I didnt write your name, I didnt say one negative thing about your children, I didnt even say anything negative about you,' Jackie replied Retail therapy: Jennifer went to look at wedding gowns for a family member in the beginning of the episode Earlier in the episode, Teresa takes her daughter Melania to the recording studio to express herself better as the 12-year-old is dealing with her father being in prison. The precocious darling gets helps from the music executives as they lay down a track where she raps and sings. And Melissa and Jackie met for lunch and discuss the wedding of Danielle Staub and her husband Marty Caffrey. Curled up: Margaret was preparing for the shindig as she got all the hot gossip Rap therapy: Earlier in the episode, Teresa takes her daughter Melania to the recording studio to express herself better as the 12-year-old is dealing with her father being in prison Then they discuss Jackie's fight with Teresa and decided they should make up and move forward. 'She's going to treat me with more respect moving forward' Jackie said in confessional. RHONJ will return next Sunday on Bravo. Ronnie Ortiz-Magro is not staring the year off on a good note. Authorities in Las Vegas have named the Jersey Shore star, 33, as a person of interest in investigating a burglary at the home of his child's mother Jen Harley, TMZ reports. The reality star and his on-again, off-again girlfriend, 31, who share eight-month-old daughter Ariana Sky, clashed at a New Year's Eve party when Harley spilled a drink on Ortiz-Magro's shoes, leading him to abruptly leave, police sources told the outlet. Unhappy new year: Ronnie Ortiz-Magro, 33, was named as a person of interest by investigators in a burglary at the Las Vegas home of his child's mother Jen Harley Harley, who lives at a separate residence from Ortiz-Magro, returned to a home to find significant damage to the property inside, as a flat-screen TV, glass-framed photos and a vase were broken by an intruder, police sources told the outlet. Harley told authorities she thinks Ortiz-Magro was behind the break-in, sources told TMZ, noting that there is no evidence or witness accounts that place Ortiz-Magro at the scene. Ortiz-Magro is not a suspect in the incident, but investigators are hoping to talk to him, sources told the outlet. The spat between Harley and Ortiz-Magro began at 2:15 a.m., with authorities reaching her home at 3:32 a.m., sources told TMZ. Toxic relationship? The shaky start to the year for Harley and the Jersey Shore star comes after a number of public clashes the two had throughout 2018 Adorable: Ortiz-Magro posted a picture of his daughter Ariana Tuesday. He later liked a response to the picture that read: 'She is amazing. Hope she doesn't grow up to act like her mother' An insider told Us Weekly of the couple: 'They're currently broken up. But it's the same story every time: They are together, they fight, they break up and then get back together. 'They fight - a lot. They have a very volatile relationship. It's either great or the total opposite.' Ortiz-Magro, who scrubbed his social media of references to Harley, posted a picture of his daughter Ariana Tuesday. He liked a response to the picture that read: 'She is amazing. Hope she doesn't grow up to act like her mother.' The shaky start to the year comes after a number of public clashes the two had throughout 2018, including one in June in which Harley was arrested in connection with domestic battery in Las Vegas after she allegedly dragged Ortiz-Magro with her vehicle as he tried to get out while his body was snared in a safety belt. They've endured a turbulent relationship, and things appeared tense between Jake Ellis and Megan Marx during a New Year's Day cruise on Sydney Harbour. The Bachelor in Paradise stars were caught in the middle of a seemingly heated discussion as they leaned against a railing on the boat. Megan, 29, seemed to be giving her on-again-off-again boyfriend a stern talking to during the private conversation. Heated exchange: They've endured a turbulent relationship, and things appeared tense between Jake Ellis and Megan Marx during a New Year's Day cruise on Sydney Harbour Both clutching ice cold beverages, Jake, 32, simply stared at his girlfriend during the conversation. After meeting on the first season of Bachelor in Paradise, Megan and Jake have had an occasionally strained relationship, which saw them briefly split in August 2018. They got back together at the end of November, with Megan confirming their reconciliation on Instagram. 'I have a pile of love letters in the drawer next to my bed. They're all from Jake and most of them I didn't deserve,' she wrote at the time. On and off: After meeting on the first season of Bachelor in Paradise, Megan, 29, and Jake, 32, have had a tumultuous relationship, which saw them briefly split in August Bad day? Later posing for photos inside, Megan and Jake looked much more composed 'I spent the course of our relationship with one foot in and one foot out, and the letters are pleas to remind me what we had, what I'd be giving up if I ran. I did run though, eventually.' She added: 'I'm not saying I didn't have some reasons to run, because relationships aren't perfect, but I am saying that I found someone that took responsibility, fought relentlessly for me, and has taken time to know me, and love me.' The couple were on board the Hamptons Sydney, which is described on its website as 'the most unique, boutique floating event space to hit Sydney Harbour'. Later posing for photos inside the party, Megan and Jake looked much more composed. White hot: Other celebrities who spent New Year's Day on board the floating venue included Love Island Australia star Shelby Bilby (right) who looked stylish in a white summer dress Party people: The 25-year-old was seen mingling with Megan and various other guests Other celebrities who spent New Year's Day on board the floating venue included Love Island Australia star Shelby Bilby, who looked stylish in a white summer dress. The 25-year-old was seen mingling with Megan and various other guests. Also in attendance was former Bachelor star Cassandra Wood, who stuck close to her best friend, DJ Tori Levett. Girls' day out: Also in attendance was former Bachelor star Cassandra Wood (right), who stuck close to her best friend, DJ Tori Levett (left) Cheers! The 24-year-old Home and Away extra stepped out in white trousers and a cropped white tank top The 24-year-old Home and Away extra stepped out in white trousers and a cropped white tank top. Property valuer Sophie Tieman, 25, was also on board the party boat. The former Bachelor finalist wore a red and white print dress, and was seen cosying up to rugby player Harry Jones. She's best known for her role on TV series Pretty Little Liars. And on Wednesday, Lucy Hale stopped by a LA grocery store to pick up some supplies. The actress, 29, was fully made up for her supermarket run, wearing black eye-liner and mascara, blusher and pink lip color. Retail outing: She's best known for her role on TV series Pretty Little Liars. And on Wednesday, Lucy Hale stopped by a LA grocery store to pick up some supplies She wore her dark blonde hair tied back from her face and accessorized with gold earrings. Lucy was dressed in a black zipper jacket and skintight black leggings with white piping. She stepped out in black trainers and sported a pair of gold-framed sunglasses. As she exited the store with her purchases in a shopping cart, she handed a sandwich and a beverage to a man panhandling outside. Coordinated ensemble: Lucy, 29, was dressed in a black zipper jacket and skintight black leggings with white piping Picked up groceries: The Pretty Little Liars alum wore her dark blonde hair tied back from her face and accessorized with gold earrings. She also sported a pair of gold-framed sunglasses The Tennessee native starred last year in the CW comedy-drama series Life Sentence, but it was canceled after just one season. In November, it was announced that she has been cast in a planned movie version of the television series Fantasy Island, that aired from 1977 to 1984. The project reunites her with her Truth Or Dare director Jeff Wadlow who is helming the film as well as writing the script. Lucy will play one of the guests at a mysterious island where people can live out their fantasies for a price. She joins Michael Pena, who will play Mr. Roarke, a role originated by Ricardo Montalban in the television series, and Maggie Q. Good deed: As she exited the store with her purchases in a shopping cart, the actress handed a sandwich and a beverage to a man panhandling outside New Year's Eve holds special significance for Law & Order: SVU actor Ice T and his wife Coco Austin, who celebrated their 18th anniversary and rang in 2019 at LA hotspot Nightingale Plaza. Technically, the 60-year-old gangsta rap icon has only been wed to the 39-year-old buxom model since January 2002 as she divorced her first husband Mike Williams in 2001 after two years of marriage. The Grammy winner (born Tracy Marrow) gushed on Twitter: 'Still deep in love. Beautiful baby girl! Zero complaints!' 'Still deep in love. Zero complaints!' New Year's Eve holds special significance for Law & Order: SVU actor Ice T and his wife Coco Austin, who celebrated their 18th anniversary and rang in 2019 at LA hotspot Nightingale Plaza 'It gets better and better': Technically, the 60-year-old gangsta rap icon has only been wed to the 39-year-old buxom model since January 2002 as she divorced her first husband Mike Williams in 2001 after two years of marriage (pictured in 2001) And the Cocolicious designer responded: 'Happy Anniversary to my baby boy! 18 years have come and gone so fast and to think it gets better and better. Thank you for a terrific 2018. You mean so much to me I'm lucky to have you by my side.' Austin slipped her curvaceous 5ft2in hourglass figure into a sheer backless catsuit as she bonded with 43-year-old stepdaughter LeTesha (whose mother was Ice's high school sweetheart Adrienne). Coco (born Nicole) shared several snaps of the end-of-the-year festivities alongside purple-haired sister Kristy Austin with her 14.1M social media followers. The Tarzana-born, Albuquerque-raised stunner's sibling is a mother-of-four and certified yoga teacher registered with Yoga Alliance. Family reunion: Austin slipped her curvaceous 5ft2in hourglass figure into a sheer backless catsuit as she bonded with 43-year-old stepdaughter LeTesha (L, whose mother was Ice's high school sweetheart Adrienne) Sisters: Coco shared several snaps of the end-of-the-year festivities alongside purple-haired sister Kristy Austin (L) with her 14.1M social media followers 'Glad my sister could make it!' The Tarzana-born, Albuquerque-raised stunner's sibling is a mother-of-four and certified yoga teacher registered with Yoga Alliance The former Celebrity Family Feud contestants also partied the night away with their friends Shannon Harley and Seth Rose. While dining in Beverly Hills, Ice T made sure to invite his 27-year-old son Trace 'Ice' Marrow Jr. (with ex Darlene Ortiz) to Mastro's Steakhouse where he bonded with his half-sister Chanel Nicole. Despite little Chanel being three years old, Austin was still breastfeeding their dimpled princess as recent as October 24 in New Jersey. 'Excited to see what the New Year will bring!' The former Celebrity Family Feud contestants also partied the night away with their friends Shannon Harley (R) 'Sitting nicely with "brother!"' While dining in Beverly Hills, Ice T made sure to invite his 27-year-old son Trace 'Ice' Marrow Jr. (L, with ex Darlene Ortiz) to Mastro's Steakhouse where he bonded with his half-sister Chanel Nicole (R) 'Chanel doesn't breastfeed, but she wants the boob sometimes,' the Body Count frontman defended to People on Halloween. 'It's a moment where it'll calm [her] down. But when people say, "Oh, Coco's still breastfeeding." It's not that. Chanel's drinking everything in the refrigerator right now.' Ice T and Coco - who don't employ nannies - are not planning on having anymore children. 'She wants the boob sometimes': Despite little Chanel being 3, Austin was still breastfeeding their dimpled princess as recent as October 24 in New Jersey (pictured August 25) The Grammy winner told People on Halloween: 'It'll calm [her] down. But when people say, "Oh, Coco's still breastfeeding." It's not that. Chanel's drinking everything in the refrigerator right now' (pictured May 28) 'She was always one and done': Ice T and Coco - who don't employ nannies - are not planning on having anymore children (pictured Monday night) 'She was always one and done,' the News & Documentary Emmy-nominated producer explained. 'She said, "I just want one. I'm going to spoil it to death." And I'm like, "Cool." She wanted a girl, she got the girl. She's got a ton of nieces and nephews and she's happy.' Ice T resumes his role as NYPD Detective Odafin 'Fin' Tutuola in the 20th season of Law & Order: SVU, which resumes January 10 on NBC. Luther fans were left stunned after they watched the detective enjoy a steamy romp with Alice Morgan on Wednesday night. In the flashback scene, psychopath Alice (Ruth Wilson) seduced DCI Luther (Idris Elba) in the Sussex beach house where he was at the start of series four - presumably placing their rendezvous before then. Alice made her dramatic return to Luther in episode one, when she banged on his door and said 'Wotcher.' Shocked: Luther fans were left stunned after they watched the detective enjoy a steamy romp with Alice Morgan on Wednesday night In the risque scenes, Alice asked the DCI if he felt 'aroused' as she climbed on top of him and passionately kissed him. Viewers were left gobsmacked by the romp, with dozens taking to Twitter to comment on the steamy sex session. One wrote: 'AAAAHHHH After all this time the scene I really needed in my life!,' while another added: 'Loving the return of #Alice in #luther.' Another fan chimed: 'THEY GOT IT ON'. Love-struck: In the flashback scene, psychopath Alice (Ruth Wilson) seduced DCI Luther (Idris Elba) in the Sussex beach house where he was at the start of series four Racy: In the risque scenes, Alice asked the DCI if he felt 'aroused' as she climbed on top of him and passionately kissed him Alice made her return after five years, with viewers previously believing the character supposedly 'died' off-screen when she was drowned by Megan. After turning up on her love interests doorstep at the end of episode one, the second installment opened two years ago when Alice was selling diamonds in Europe, which belonged to London criminal mastermind George Cornelius. After a car crash and being double-crossed, Alice is unable to tell apart broken glass and the priceless diamonds and so fakes her own death and harbours a grudge to kidnap one of George's sons to give her the money she is owed. Ruth's character has had a complicated relationship with Luther in past episodes. They initially met when Alice's parents had been murdered, but it turned out she was a psychopathic genius. Surprised: Viewers were left gobsmacked by the romp, with dozens taking to Twitter to comment on the steamy sex session Great response: One wrote: 'AAAAHHHH After all this time the scene I really needed in my life!,' while another added: 'Loving the return of #Alice in #luther' The actress told the Metro last month that she couldn't wait to get back in the role of Alice. She said: Ive missed Alice as everyone else has. 'Shes really fun character to play and I get to do some action in this season. 'I get to kill a few more people and have some great scenes with Idris. Its an action packed series. Alice is back with a vengeance. Shes funnier than ever, shes more lethal than ever and she and Luther get up to some dastardly things. Lauren Newton has just become a mother for the fifth time after welcoming a baby girl on Thursday. The 38-year-old daughter of Australian TV royalty Bert and Patti Newton took to Instagram to announce the latest addition to her family. 'Then there were five! Welcome to our beautiful Perla Dolly Newton Welsh. We are all thrilled and she really is a doll,' she wrote. Bert and Patti's baby joy! The TV legends' daughter Lauren Newton has welcomed her FIFTH child with husband Matt Welsh - and they've given her a very unique name. The newborn baby is pictured with her older siblings Lauren shared a sweet photo of Perla with her older siblings, who all looked thrilled to meet their baby sister. In addition to Perla, Lauren is also mother to sons Sam, 11, and Monty, two, and daughters Eva, nine, and Lola, six, with her husband-of-13-years, former Olympic swimmer Matt Welsh, 42. Lauren announced her pregnancy on Instagram in July, sharing a photo of her children alongside the caption: 'Can't believe this gorgeous four will become five at the end of the year!' Exciting times: Lauren Newton (right) announced her pregnancy on Instagram in July, writing: 'I can't believe this gorgeous four will become five at the end of the year!' Doting father: Perla Dolly Newton Welsh is the fifth child for Lauren and her husband-of-13-years, former Olympic swimmer Matt Welsh (pictured) 'It will be busy but wonderful. I am lucky to have some great little helpers!' she added. Following her initial announcement, Lauren regularly kept her Instagram followers updated as her pregnancy progressed. 'Counting down the days. I've been told it's a big baby. It's probably all the Milo I've been having!' she wrote just before Christmas. In a 2016 interview with the Herald Sun, Lauren's 80-year-old dad Bert spoke warmly about life as a grandfather. 'They have made this one of the happiest times of my life': In a 2016 interview with the Herald Sun, Lauren's 80-year-old dad Bert spoke warmly about life as a grandfather So much love: Bert revealed that he and wife Patti, 73, make a point of seeing their daughter and grandchildren every day Bert revealed that he and wife Patti, 73, make a point of seeing their daughter and grandchildren every day. 'They wouldn't realise it at the moment, but they have made this one of the happiest times of my life,' he said of his grandchildren. 'There is that old saying, "The wonderful thing about being a grandfather, or grandparent, is that you give the kids back". 'But in the case of Patti and myself, we don't want to.' She's busy on the promotional trail as she promotes her new biopic On The Basis Of Sex, in which she portrays feminist icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And Felicity Jones has posed for a breathtaking new cover shoot for Marie Claire UK's February issue, going high fashion as she models an array of elegant gowns. In the accompanying interview, the 35-year-old Birmingham native reveals that her new husband Charles Guard is as much as committed feminist as she is. Breathtaking: Felicity Jones has posed for a breathtaking new cover shoot for Marie Claire UK 's February issue, going high fashion as she models an array of elegant gowns Felicity, who tied the knot with the film director over the summer, told the magazine: 'I believe that to be a feminist doesnt mean you have to do it all on your own; the partnership, the sharing, that makes it so much easier. 'But you have to be on the same side. You have to be with a man who is also a feminist.' She also shared her views on the idea that women who are ambitious or assertive should embrace as hard-as-nails persona in order to achieve their goals. Big biopic: The screen star is busy on the promotional trail as she promotes her new biopic On The Basis Of Sex, in which she portrays feminist icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg 'I think we get driven into boxes, like the idea that if you are an ambitious woman you have to be mean in order to be heard,' she said. I dont like that attitude. 'That, I think, is the challenge of our generation: to challenge this idea that to be heard and to have an opinion, you are somehow frightening. It is basically this fear of women, isnt it? And this fear of change.' Felicity is starring opposite Armie Hammer in the Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic, playing a young version of the lawyer who struggled for equal rights to become a US Supreme Court Justice. Armie takes on the role of Ruth's husband Marty. And Felicity spoke to Marie Claire about the small physical details she had to pay attention to, in order to convincingly emulate the now 85-year-old. Committed: In the accompanying interview, the Birmingham native reveals that her new husband Charles Guard is as much as committed feminist as she is. Pictured in December 2018 Icon: In her new film, Felicity plays a younger version of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a lawyer who struggled for equal rights to become a US Supreme Court Justice She said: 'I had my teeth capped to get the shape of Ruths teeth. I have very English teeth, and she has very [straight] American teeth, so to make that change was helpful. And wearing contact lenses so my eyes were more like hers.' Admitting that she sometimes gets enveloped by the characters that she portrays, she said: 'I cant help but be focused. 'I admire those characters that fly a bit too close to the sun. And I feel the set is a sacred place. When you walk on to it, I like to be in character as much as possible.' To read the feature in full, see the February issue of Marie Claire, out Thursday. Also available as a digital edition through Apple Newsstand. It's all in the details: Felicity spoke to Marie Claire about the small physical details she had to pay attention to, in order to convincingly emulate the now 85-year-old Overturning a century of gender discrimination, the inspiring On The Basis Of Sex was released in the US on Christmas Day to tie in perfectly with 2018's Year of the Woman and Justice Ginsburg's 25th anniversary on the Supreme Court. Speaking about the film, which will be rolled out internationally in February, Felicity revealed that Ruth, herself, has watched it and the pair have been emailing since, before sharing an insight into the great work Ruth has done over the years. The actress told US chat show host Jimmy Fallon: 'We've been emailing about it. She signs off RBG. The film is about how men and women become equal. Wed: She married her movie director beau of three years, Charles Guard, over the summer 'She was not only fighting for women but fighting for men who were put into certain roles because of their gender - gender stereotypes. It was actually her husband who brought her the case. He was an expert in tax law and it was a case to do with tax. 'They managed to argue for the rights of this man, who was caring for his mother, that he should have a tax rebate because the law said that he shouldn't because he was a man and men don't look after their parents - which is absolute nonsense. 'They argued against this law and managed to get this changed and it later enabled greater equality in society - that's what she has done her entire life, she just doesn't stop fighting.' Felicity also spoke of her recent wedding - she married her movie director boyfriend of three years, Charles Guard, over the summer. Romantic occasion: Felicity and Charles tied the knot at Sudeley Castle, near Winchcombe, Gloucestershire in June, with the star opting to wear a 'budget' dress The duo tied the knot at Sudeley Castle, near Winchcombe, Gloucestershire in June, with the star opting to wear a 'budget' dress. Their big celebration had an impressive guest list, with A-list celebs including the bride's The Theory of Everything co-star Eddie Redmayne, 36, and Tom Hanks, 61. Out: To read the feature in full, see the February issue of Marie Claire, out Thursday She revealed: 'At the time I was getting ready for [the wedding], I was shooting a film called The Aeronauts, with Eddie Redmayne which is coming out at the end of next year, and it was about two hot air balloonists. 'We thought we'd go in Tom Cruise's footsteps and try and do our own stunts for the film, so as I was getting ready for the wedding, I was learning all the stunts for the film. 'So I'd be going from doing dress fittings and obsessing about flowers and the next minute falling out of a hot air balloon and almost killing myself.' Host Jimmy Fallon asked if she was left 'bruised' from her stunt efforts, with Felicity referring to her dress as she joked: 'Well yeah, hence the long sleeves.' The newlyweds have mostly managed to keep out of the public eye since they began dating three years ago. The movie director popped the question in May 2017 after just two years of dating. Charles is best known for the 2009 horror film The Uninvited, which he co-directed with his brother, Thomas Guard. Ferne McCann has revealed that she's ready to start opening herself up to the possibility of dating once again, almost two years after being left heartbroken. In April 2017, the former TOWIE star was pregnant with boyfriend Arthur Collins' baby when he injured 14 people by hurling acid on revellers at an east London nightclub bringing an abrupt end to their relationship ahead of his resulting prison sentence. And as 28-year-old Ferne raises their now 14-month-old daughter Sunday alone, the TV personality who has recently been linked to a mystery 'older confidante' and Love Island's Charlie Brake has stated that she's ready for romance. Ready for romance: Ferne McCann has revealed that she's ready to start opening herself up to the possibility of dating once again, almost two years after being left heartbroken 'For so long I've been saying I don't have the time, she told The Sun of her romantic life. 'I've always thought that this comes first, or that comes first, and couldn't imagine how I would have fitted dating into my busy life. 'My priority is my daughter Sunday and I have to work to provide for her, but she's a year old now and life is moving on. My friends are getting married and I'm a bridesmaid at my sister's wedding. 'I'm at that stage of my life, so I am more open to dating now. That's my New Year's resolution.' Split: In April 2017, the former TOWIE star was pregnant with boyfriend Arthur Collins' baby when he injured 14 people by hurling acid on revellers at an east London nightclub Ferne, who is currently enjoying a sunny break in Dubai with her sole offspring, has often spoken of the struggles she has faced being a single mother. She told Closer magazine last year: 'While I was pregnant, I knew I was going to be a single mum, but it didn't hit me until I actually had Sunday. 'That was tough to deal with realising I really was totally on my own. I don't have another person to confer with. Going it alone: Former TOWIE star Ferne raises their now 14-month-old daughter Sunday alone as her ex serves out his prison sentence Sunny getaway: She is currently enjoying a sun-soaked break in Dubai with her sole offspring 'I don't have another person to discuss my day-to-day decisions with like choosing what food she has. It's tough.' Ferne has been filming for the follow-up series to her documentary series First Time Mum. The ITVBe show which captures her adapting to her life as a mother and gives fans an insight into her home life with Sunday. The reality star has also made several appearances on Sam and Billie Faiers: The Mummy Diaries, most recently starring in the episode filmed during Billie's hen do in Ibiza. Working hard: Ferne welcomed daughter Sunday in November 2017 and has been adjusting to life as a single parent ever since. Pictured in December 2018 He's one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, known for his films including Wolverine, X-Men and The Greatest Showman. And Hugh Jackman has revealed the moment he realised he was destined to become an actor. Speaking to Deadline, the 50-year-old said that shortly after getting a degree in journalism, he knew he had to pursue acting instead. 'That's fate smacking you over the head!' Hugh Jackman has recalled the moment he realised he was destined to become an actor 'There was a key moment when I was 23. I was living with five other students and the moment I walked into that house - they were acting students - I was like, "I've just wasted three years," Hugh said. He apparently clicked with the theatrical crowd and decided to enrol in acting school, while keeping it a secret from his father. Hugh auditioned for a one-year course at the Actors' Centre in Sydney and received an acceptance letter that said he needed to pay $3,500 before starting the course. 'I thought, "I don't have $3,500, I can't ask my father, he's just helped me through college," so I tore it up and put it in the waste bin. And the very next day I got a check from my father's mother's will for $3,500 - exactly,' he said. Changing careers: The 50-year-old said that after getting a degree in journalism, he knew he had to pursue acting instead 'That's fate smacking you over the head!' he concluded. Hugh started his career in local television. He landed a regular role in the ABC drama Corelli in 1995, starring opposite his future wife Deborra-Lee Furness. The couple married in April 1996 at a ceremony in Melbourne. They share two adopted children: Oscar, 18, and Ava, 13. Meant to be! Hugh started his career in local television. He landed a regular role in the ABC drama Corelli in 1995, starring opposite his future wife Deborra-Lee Furness (left) He has since gone on to star in some of the world's highest grossing films, including the X-Men franchise, Les Miserables and The Greatest Showman. The actor won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Jean Valjean in 2013 and has been nominated for a slew of other awards including an Emmy. Meanwhile, Hugh is set to embark on a world tour performing songs from various films and Broadway musicals, called The Man. The Music. The Show. ANSAmed - Today's events in the Mediterranean (ANSAmed) - ROME, JANUARY 3 - These are some of the main events scheduled for today in the Euro-Mediterranean area: ANKARA - Visit by a US delegation for meetings with officials of the Turkish foreign ministry, interior ministry, and justice ministry regarding ongoing US investigations into the networks of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen. (ANSAmed). He just wrapped his hosting gig on CNN's New Year's Eve Special. And Andy Cohen took some time to relax to welcome in 2019 as he shared a snap on Instagram from Jamaica on Wednesday. The 50-year-old Bravo host posed next to RHONJ Teresa Giudice as he captioned the snap: 'Stepped on the beach, ran right into Tre, & need you to please caption this pic!' Bravo buddies! Andy Cohen took some time to relax to welcome in 2019 as he shared a snap with RHONJ Teresa Giudice from Jamaica on Wednesday Daring to impress, Andy flaunted his muscular frame in a skimpy swimsuit as Teresa rocked a plunging graphic one. Teresa enjoyed a New Year's break with her daughters and father at the all-inclusive Moon Palace Jamaica resort in Ocho Rios. Andy left for the beach break right after spending a cold and rainy New Year's Eve in Times Square. But rather than caption the picture, fans took the opportunity to express their concerns over the reality star's deep tan, urging Teresa to use sunblock and warning her about the dangers of skin cancer. Meanwhile, it was revealed that Andy is expecting a baby boy. The Watch What Happens Live host made the gender reveal as he co-hosted CNN's New Year's Eve special with Anderson Cooper on Monday. 'Its a boy and I cant wait to meet this boy,' said the Bravo presenter. Teresa squeezed in some family time with her daughters and her father over the new years break at the Moon Palace resort in Jamaica where her daughters swam with dolphins Family affair: Teresa posed with her daughter Audriana at the luxurious Moon Palace resort Gender reveal: Andy [L] revealed he's expecting a baby boy during CNN's NYE special on Monday. Seen here with co-host Anderson Cooper Later, the radio host admitted, 'I never thought it would be possible as a gay man to grow up and have a family.' 'And here we are in 2018/2019 and anything is possible.' The gender revelation comes after Cohen revealed during an episode of What Happens Live that he was going to be a dad for the first time. A source told Us on Friday that the talk-show host was 'well under way with preparations for the baby to arrive'. 'Most of his close friends and staff at WWHL had known for a few weeks now,' a source told People, 'But he kept the secret from the wider group - including some Bravo executives there and the Housewives who were on his show.' Her clan: Teresa Giudice plans to visit Joe with their four daughters, Gia, 17, Gabriella, 14, Milania, 12, and Audriana, 9. Seen on Sunday On Monday, Teresa had to head to prison to visit her husband Joe along with their four kids: Gia, 17, Gabriella, 14, Milania, 12, and Audriana, 9. He is serving out a three year prison sentence after being charged with fraud; and after he is released in March he will likely be deported to Italy. Teresa completed her own 11-month prison sentence in 2015. The Giudices both pleaded guilty to 41 counts of fraud in 2014. She once revealed that on her cheat days, 'the first thing that I crave, I'll eat.' And supermodel Hailey Baldwin clearly had a hankering for Wahlburgers when she was spotted stepping out in Los Angeles this week. The 22-year-old wife of Justin Bieber modeled a Chicago Bulls bomber jacket and a chic knit turtleneck as she picked up some takeaway from the restaurant. Indulgences: Supermodel Hailey Baldwin clearly had a hankering for Wahlburgers when she was spotted stepping out in Los Angeles this week Hailey got engaged to Justin over the summer in the Bahamas and reportedly had an impromptu courthouse marriage to him in New York in September. They rang in New Year's in Hawaii before she was seen stopping off at a California outpost of Wahlburgers, which was co-founded by film star Mark Wahlberg. When he was younger, Mark was famously an underwear model for Calvin Klein, a job that was taken on many years later by Justin. The older man revealed on Conan nearly two years ago that Justin, 'a very nice young man,' had sent his own underwear ads to Mark. Only the best: The 22-year-old wife of Justin Bieber modeled a Chicago Bulls bomber jacket and a chic knit turtleneck as she picked up some takeaway from the restaurant 'I was like: "You don't send a guy pictures like this of you in your underwear,"' said Mark, though he called Justin 'a friend of mine.' Hailey told Elle in 2016: 'A cheat day for me, the first thing that I crave, I'll eat. That's my rule. So if I wake up and I want pancakes, I'm gonna eat pancakes.' The niece of Alec Baldwin shared: 'If I want a cheeseburger for lunch or for dinner, I'm gonna eat it. If I want fries, I'm gonna eat the fries.' Though she clearly has a soft spot for Wahlburgers, she told the magazine her top burger choice was another place: 'I love J.G. Melon. It is so good.' Trio: Hailey recently shared a New Year's Instagram snap of herself celebrating the holiday with a couple of pals - Kelia Termini, a surfer and model, and Laura Lentz, wife of Carl Lentz On Wednesday, Justin was spotted stepping out for a stroll in Los Angeles - but the 'grace' tattoo over his right eyebrow had vanished. Celeb tattoo artist John Boy had posted a photo of Justin's 'grace' ink to Instagram on New Year's Day with a heartwarming message for 2019. Another body artist, Bang Bang, ne Keith McCurdy, dished to Page Six in November that he had applied couple's tattoos to Justin and Hailey. Hunks: When he was younger, Mark (left) was famously an underwear model for Calvin Klein, a job that was taken on many years later by Justin (right) 'They each got a tattoo. Justins tattoo is on his face, and I havent seen any photos of it - so hes doing a good job of laying low,' said Keith in November. 'Its really thin and delicate. And [its] also not a traditional couples tattoo . . . I dont want to give away what it is until press gets a hold of it.' Hailey recently shared a New Year's Instagram snap of herself celebrating the holiday with a couple of pals - Kelia Termini, a surfer and model, and Laura Lentz, the wife of Justin and Hailey's Hillsong church pastor Carl Lentz. She has been enjoying a tropical vacation with new boyfriend Paul Bernon. And Bethenny Frankel still looked to be enjoying her getaway on Wednesday as she posted a photo of herself in Mexico to her Instagram. The 48-year-old television personality showed off her taut stomach in matching top and skirt, and captioned the photo, '#nomakeupmexico.' No makeup: Bethenny Frankel still looked to be enjoying her getaway on Wednesday as she posted a photo of herself in Mexico to her Instagram The two-part white ensemble featured colorful stripes and fell off both of the The Real Housewives of New York City star. She accessorized with a variety of bracelets, a simple pendant necklace, triangular earrings, and a gold watch. Bethenny tucked her dark tresses behind her ears, letting them cascade freely across her shoulders. Seeing stars: The 48-year-old television personality showed off her taut stomach in matching top and skirt, and captioned the photo, '#nomakeupmexico' On Tuesday, Bethenny wished her followers a 'Happy New Year' with a shimmering bikini shot. In the photo she posted to her Instagram, she flaunts her cleavage and shows off her figure in a tiny, colorful bikini. She wore a see-through, star-covered dress over top and carried a large turquoise purse in one hand. New love: Last week, Bethenny bid farewell to the Dominican Republic in an Instagram post that featured new beau Paul Bernon Last week, Bethenny bid farewell to the Dominican Republic in an Instagram post that featured new beau Paul Bernon. Earlier this month, she nearly died after suffering severe an allergic reaction to fish. The Real Housewives Of New York City star told fans about the health scare that left her hospitalized on social media. 'I have a rare fish allergy. Sunday, I had soup, itched & was unconscious for 15 mins then to ER & ICU for 2 days w BP of 60/40,' Frankel tweeted. 'I couldn't talk, see, thought I had a stroke & dying & told if 5 mins later I'd be dead. 911 & EPI saved me. I'll never not carry an #epipen.' She credited Paul while replying to a comment on that post with saving her life. Director Kevin Smith is put his best foot forward to start 2019 on a productive note, teasing a 'pre-pre-production meeting' for his Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. While it's unclear when filming will actually begin, the 48-year-old director shared a photo of himself and producer Jordan Monsanto at their WeWork office. 'Spent the first day of 2019 having a #JayAndSilentBobReboot pre-pre-production meeting at our holiday-roomy @WeWork office!,' Smith said. Back to work: Kevin Smith teases a pre-pre-production meeting on his upcoming Jay and Silent Bob Reboot He added that the Jay to his Silent Bob, Jay Mewes, took the photo, 'to both mark the moment and to document that we were the only dopes in Hollywood working on the holiday.' Smith first teased Jay and Silent Bob Reboot in February 2017, when he took to his Instagram to share the cover page to the script, which he said he had, 'the time of my life' writing. The film is essentially a sequel to Smith's 2001 comedy Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, where the title characters journey from New Jersey to Hollywood to stop a movie based on the Bluntman & Chronic comic book that is based on their likeness. Sequel: The film is essentially a sequel to Smith's 2001 comedy Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, where the title characters journey from New Jersey to Hollywood to stop a movie based on the Bluntman & Chronic comic book that is based on their likeness Jay and Silent Bob Reboot follows Jay (Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) as they go on yet another journey to Hollywood to stop the reboot of the Bluntman and Chronic movie. 'It's a tongue-in-cheek, silly-a** satire that pokes fun at the movie business's recent re-do obsession, featuring an all-star cast of cameos and familiar faces,' Smith said on Instagram last February. He also added that the folks at Miramax, where he made Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, were 'into it,' and he had hoped to start filming in the summer of 2017, but that never happened. Bike ride: Aside from Mewes and Smith himself, no other cast members have been announced at this time Smith also added on his Fatman on Batman podcast in May that Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is, 'a movie that makes fun of sequels and remakes and reboots while being all three at the same time.' He added, 'We have a completely different script, but I used the script of Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back to build the script to Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. So there a van in it with three girls in it.' Aside from Mewes and Smith himself, no other cast members have been announced at this time. Jay and Silent Bob and Ben: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back featured an all-star cast that also included Ben Affleck, although it seems unlikely he will return Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back featured an all-star cast that also included Ben Affleck, although it seems unlikely he will return. Smith opened up in November, responding to a fan who wondered why Smith and Affleck weren't close anymore, revealing, 'If I had to guess? It's because one of us has a big mouth and told too many candid stories that sometimes weren't his to tell, and the other one is Ben.' Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back also starred Eliza Dushku, Ali Larter, Will Ferrell, Jason Lee, Judd Nelson, Tracy Morgan and Chris Rock. She's a star of TNT's hit series Claws, which is set in Palmetto, Florida. But Karrueche Tran found herself a little further to the southeast on Wednesday as she hit the waves in Miami. The 30-year-old actress showed off her curves in a tiny black-and-white polka dot bikini while with boyfriend Victor Cruz, 32. Stunner: Karrueche Tran found herself a little further to the southeast on Wednesday as she hit the waves in Miami The skimpy two-piece left little to the imagination, and highlighted Tran's toned physique. She let her long dark tresses fall freely across her back as she splashed about the water with her beau. The 3-Headed Shark Attack star accessorized with various necklaces, large hoop earrings, and a gold watch. Victor, meanwhile, sported black swim trunks and had a large gold chain around his neck. Happy as a clam: The 30-year-old actress showed off her curves in a tiny black-and-white polka dot bikini while with boyfriend Victor Cruz, 32 Happy couple: Victor, meanwhile, sported black swim trunks and had a large gold chain around his neck Beauty: The skimpy two-piece left little to the imagination, and highlighted Tran's toned physique Gorgeous: She let her long dark tresses fall freely across her back as she splashed about the water with her beau Karrueche has been dating the athlete for about a year, starting their romance in December 2017. Victor won the Super Bowl in 2012 with the Giants over the New England Patriots and was cut by the Chicago Bears last September. Since retiring in August, Victor has worked as an analyst for ESPN. The pair made their relationship public just months after she was granted a five-year restraining order against her ex-boyfriend Chris Brown. Fun in the sun: Karrueche has been dating the athlete for about a year, starting their romance in December 2017 All smiles: The pair made their relationship public just months after she was granted a five-year restraining order against her ex-boyfriend Chris Brown Going strong: Victor won the Super Bowl in 2012 with the Giants over the New England Patriots and was cut by the Chicago Bears last September 'He's so sweet, like a really nice guy, he's genuinely kind and it's so refreshing to be with such a kind, great guy,' she told Us Weekly in a May interview. 'And it doesn't hurt that his body is bangin'!' she cheekily added. Tran added: 'It's so refreshing and different for me to be around his good-hearted energy. We mesh so well, we laugh all the time and have such a great time together.' Tran will reprise her role as stripper-turned-manicurist Virginia Loc in the third season of Claws, which premieres next June on TNT. Retired life: Since retiring in August, Victor has worked as an analyst for ESPN Sweethearts: 'He's so sweet, like a really nice guy, he's genuinely kind and it's so refreshing to be with such a kind, great guy,' she told Us Weekly in a May interview Jimmy Bartel has opened up about the domestic abuse he witnessed as a child. Speaking to WHO magazine on Thursday, the former AFL star explained how he 'watched his mother crawling away from the abusive hands of his father' when he was just four years old. The 35-year-old is now working with the Alannah and Madeline Foundation, a charitable organisation which helps protect children from violence. 'There are still women and children dying': Jimmy Bartel (pictured) opens up about the shocking domestic abuse he watched his mother 'endure' from his father 'When you still turn on the news or the radio or you pick up a newspaper there are still women and children dying,' said Jimmy. 'That's the thing, they're dying at the hands of people who claim to be their loved ones.' Jimmy then said domestic violence victims should confide in 'someone [they] can trust', as the worst thing a person can do is 'remain in silence'. Raising awareness: During an interview with Who on Thursday, the AFL star explained how he 'watched his mother crawling away from the abusive hands of his father' while four-years-old. Pictured: Jimmy with wife Nadia Bartel in Melbourne in February 2017 During an interview with The Herald Sun in 2016, Jimmy went into further detail on one of the shocking incidents he witnessed. 'I remember Mum being on the floor in the hallway; he had repeatedly hit her, and she was trying to crawl away from him,' admitted Jimmy. 'I remember Olivia [his eldest sister] trying to push him away from Mum, and he physically threw her against the wall, like a rag doll, which is hard to comprehend.' Jimmy said his other sister hid under the bed and he soon was 'thrown' as he tried to stand between his parents, before his father 'belted' his mother again. 'That was a major turning point in my life,' Jimmy said. Decades later, Jimmy is now a proud father himself and admitted starting his own family 'triggered his passion' to help others. The sportsman has two children with wife Nadia Bartel, sons Aston, three, and Henley, who was born in October. Delta Air Lines has been named as the worlds most on-time major airline for the second year in a row. The U.S carrier tops the 2018 ranking, produced by aviation data firm FlightGlobal, with 86.09 per cent of its flights arriving on time a 0.19 per cent improvement on 2017. In second place is Qatar Airways on 85.88 per cent and following closely in third is KLM (85.04 per cent). Delta Air Lines has been named as the worlds most on-time major airline for the second year in a row For the first time in the 10-year history of the On-Time Performance Awards, the low-cost carrier category has been jointly won by Brazils Azul and Iberia Express. They both recorded an average of 86.47 per cent of flights on-time in 2018. The rest of the top 10 major airline ranking is made up of ANA (84.2 per cent), Aeroflot (82.98 per cent), Alitalia (82.27 per cent), Emirates (82 per cent), United Airlines (80.75 per cent), American Airlines (80.28 per cent) and SAS (78.69 per cent). The rest of the top 10 low-cost carrier ranking comprises Spirit Airlines (82.04 per cent), IndiGo (81.1 per cent), Air Asia.com (80.97 per cent), Sky (79.81 per cent), Gol (79.47 per cent), Southwest Airlines (79.35 per cent), Allegiant (77.71 per cent) and Flybe (77.34 per cent). For the first time in the 10-year history of the On-Time Performance Awards, the low-cost carrier category has been jointly won by Brazils Azul and Iberia Express The passenger experience is fast becoming a key improvement area for airlines and being on-time is a critical contributor to that experience, said Christopher Flook, CEO of FlightGlobal. The airlines topping the rankings should be immensely proud of this accolade for enabling the millions of passengers that fly with them each year to arrive at their destination on-time. The OPS Awards rankings are determined from the analysis of more than 120,000 operated flights per day, along with real-time flight status, departure and arrival data curated from over 600 global sources. A flight is considered on-time if the aircraft arrives at the gate within 14 minutes and 59 seconds (less than 15 minutes) of the scheduled arrival time. Tourism chiefs in Lithuania's capital have come under fire for a sexualised advertising campaign to promote the city as the Pope prepares to visit next month. The campaign for Vilnius features a woman lying on what looks like a bed sheet printed with a map of Europe. Her hand grips Lithuania in a way that suggests sexual pleasure. The text above her reads: 'Vilnius, the G-spot of Europe. Nobody knows where it is, but when you find it, it's amazing.' Tourism chiefs in Lithuania's capital have come under fire for this sexualised advertising campaign to promote the city The campaign has been criticised by the Catholic Church and comes as Pope Francis prepares to visit the country next month. His tour of Baltic countries is supposed to start in Lithuania, where Catholics are the religious majority. Lithuanian priests expressed concerns that the ad used 'women's sexuality for advertising' and gave 'wrong ideas' about Vilnius, a city with a population of 540,000. The government had earlier originally asked Vilnius officials to postpone the ad's launch until after the papal visit. And even though Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis said he does not find the campaign, set to be launched on Thursday in London and Berlin, offensive to standards of public decency, he acknowledged its timing was 'rather weird'. 'I think it's a strange advertising choice, but I believe it does not cross the line in a democratic country,' Mr Skvernelis told Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT. The city of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. The government had earlier originally asked Vilnius officials to postpone the ad's launch until after the papal visit 'As to the timing, we are speaking about a very important visit to Lithuania,' the prime minister added, referring to the pope's visit. 'So perhaps these steps should have been co-ordinated, but that's the decision of Vilnius.' However, Inga Romanovskiene, the manager of the Go Vilnius tourism agency behind the campaign, called the pope's visit 'a very important event but said the city also wants to attract new visitors'. She explained: 'When it comes to attracting the modern tourist we're dealing with a very high level of competition with other European cities and countries investing heavily in destination marketing. 'The young creatives who came up with "Vilnius; the G-spot of Europe" presented an extremely engaging idea to drive interest in the city. Pope Francis, pictured, is scheduled to visit Lithuania in September during a tour of the mainly Catholic Baltic nations 'Go Vilnius looks forward to welcoming new international visitors to Vilnius and continuing to promote the city's best tourism attractions and experiences.' The controversial campaign concept was created by Lithuanian advertising students who sought to draw international attention to Vilnius and its potential as an alternative European city-break destination. One of the campaign's student creators, Jurgis Ramanauskas, added: 'Few people know where Vilnius really is, but when they arrive they fall in love with the city. 'This insight came from our conversations with international visitors, and we formulated the idea that Vilnius is synonymous with the G-spot theory nobody knows where it is, but, when it is discovered, everyone is very pleased!' The FBI is trialing Amazon's controversial facial recognition tech, Rekognition, as a new method to catch criminals. It began working with the agency in early 2018, according to Nextgov. Rekognition is expected to help speed up the FBI's process of going through video surveillance footage that's collected during investigations. Scroll down for video The FBI is trialing Amazon's controversial facial recognition tech, Rekognition, as a new method to catch criminals. It reportedly began working with the agency in early 2018 The technology could prove to be especially helpful during time-sensitive counterterrorism investigations. Nextgov pointed to the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, wherein FBI agents had to sift through huge amounts of data from cellphones and surveillance footage. 'We had agents and analysts, eight per shift, working 24/7 for three weeks going through the video footage of everywhere Stephen Paddock was the month leading up to him coming and doing the shooting,' Christine Halvorsen, FBI Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism, said at Amazon Web Services' re:Invent Conference, according to Nextgov. Halvorsen added that Rekognition would have been able to parse through data from the Las Vegas shooting in just 24 hours vs. the weeks it took via human labor. While there, Halvorsen also detailed how the FBI is using Amazon's cloud services to aid in counterterrorism investigations. It's not the only government contract Amazon holds. Rekognition is expected to help speed up the FBI's process of going through video surveillance footage that's collected during investigations, especially counterrorism efforts Amazon Web Services also counts the Department of Defense and the CIA as its customers, while Rekognition is believed to be used within several law enforcement agencies around the country, including the city of Orlando. The tech giant has repeatedly drawn the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other privacy advocates over the tool. First released in 2016, Amazon has since been selling it on the cheap to several police departments around the US, listing the Washington County Sheriff's Office in Oregon as one of several customers. The ACLU and other organizations are now calling on Amazon to stop marketing the product to law enforcement, saying they could use the technology to 'easily build a system to automate the identification and tracking of anyone'. Amazon offers the technology to law enforcement for just $6 (4.50) to $12 (9) a month. So far, the Washington County Sheriff's Office in Oregon and the city of Orlando are customers HOW DOES AMAZON'S CONTROVERSIAL RECKOGNITION TECHNOLOGY WORK? Amazon Rekognition gives software applications the power to detect objects, scenes and faces within images. It was built with computer vision, which lets AI programs analyse still and video images. AI systems rely on artificial neural networks, which try to simulate the way the brain works in order to learn. They can be trained to recognise patterns in information - including speech, text data, or visual images. Rekognition uses deep learning neural network models to analyse billions of images daily. Updates since it was created even allow the technology to guess a person's age. In November 2017, its creators announced that Rekognition can now detect and recognise text in images, perform real-time face recognition across tens of millions of faces and detect up to 100 faces in challenging crowded photos. Advertisement Police appear to be using Rekognition to check photographs of unidentified suspects against a database of mug shots from the county jail. But privacy advocates have been concerned about expanding the use of facial recognition to body cameras worn by officers or safety and traffic cameras that monitor public areas, allowing police to identify and track people in real time. Amazon offers the technology to law enforcement for just $6 (4.50) to $12 (9) a month. Deputies in Oregon had been using Rekognition about 20 times per day - for example, to identify burglary suspects in store surveillance footage. In September, the agency adopted policies governing its use, noting that officers in the field can use real-time face recognition to identify suspects who are unwilling or unable to provide their own ID, or if someone's life is in danger. Advertisement Rolls-Royce has revealed plans for a record breaking elecrtic plane capable orf reaching 300mph. Called Accel, the firm hopes it will take to the skies next year to claim a world record. The current record for an all-electric plane, set by Siemens in 2017, is 210 mph - which the Accel could smash. Scroll down for video The electric plane will utilize three 750R lightweight e-motors developed by Rolls-Royce Partly funded by the British government, it will draw on Formula E electric racing car expertise ACCEL STATS ACCEL will utilise three 750R lightweight e-motors The propeller is driven by three high power density electric motors designed and manufactured by YASA in the UK. Compared to a conventional plane, the propeller blades spin at a far lower RPM to deliver a much more stable and far quieter ride. Combined they'll continuously deliver more than 500 horsepower for the record run. Advertisement Scheduled to take to the skies over Great Britain in 2020, the aircraft will reach a speed of 300 mph and quite likely more making it the fastest all-electric plane in history. The project is part of a Rolls-Royce initiative called ACCEL short for 'Accelerating the Electrification of Flight'intended to boost sales of electric planes - powered by Tolls-Royce engines. The firm says it will 'pioneer a third wave of aviation'. 'This plane will be powered by a state-of-the-art electrical system and the most powerful battery ever built for flight,' said Matheu Parr, the ACCEL Project Manager for Rolls-Royce. 'In the year ahead, we're going to demonstrate its abilities in demanding test environments before going for gold in 2020 from a landing strip on the Welsh coastline.' The project will be based at Gloucestershire airport outside of Cheltenham. Engineers, designers, and data specialists from Roll-Royce are working with electric motor and controller manufacturer YASA and the aviation start-up Electroflight to create the single-seater prop-plane. Partly funded by the British government, it will draw on Formula E expertise. The team say the biggest challenge will be the battery. They'll need to build an immense battery that's powerful enough to beat a series of speed and performance records, light enough to fly, and stable enough not to overheat. 'We're monitoring more than 20,000 data points per second, measuring battery voltage, temperature, and overall health of the powertrain, which is responsible for powering the propellers and generating thrust. 'We've already drawn a series of insights from the unique design and integration challenges,' says Parr. 'And we're gaining the knowhow to not only pioneer the field of electric-powered, zero-emissions aviation but to lead it. 'At this point, our confidence is sky high.' Engineers, designers, and data specialists from Roll-Royce are working with electric motor and controller manufacturer YASA and the aviation start-up Electroflight to create the single-seater prop-plane ACCEL will utilise three 750R lightweight e-motors The propeller is driven by three high power density electric motors designed and manufactured by YASA in the UK. Compared to a conventional plane, the propeller blades spin at a far lower RPM to deliver a much more stable and far quieter ride, Rolls-Royce says. Combined they'll continuously deliver more than 500 horsepower for the record run. West Bank: army clears settlement, demonstrators wounded Peace Now calls for a probe on 'collusions' (ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, JANUARY 3 - Israeli border guard units on Thursday cleared dozens of settlers from the illegal outpost of Amona (near Ramallah, in the West Bank) at the end of violent clashes in which six officers and three demonstrators were wounded. Military radio reported that demonstrators hurled stones and iron bars at the officers and threw oil over a nearby street. Some settlers also blocked traffic near the nearby settlement of Ofra. The left-wing opposition has harshly criticized the violent behavior used by settlers, including right-wing MP Bezalel Smotrich. Labor leader Avi Gabbai said ''that group of extremists is used to steer the government the way it wants and see Benyamin Netanyahu surrender to each one of its request''. Peace Now also called for a probe on ''collusions'' between demonstrators and public agencies which, according to the movement, could have financed their activities. (ANSAmed). To Apple investors: Today we are revising our guidance for Apple's fiscal 2019 first quarter, which ended on December 29. We now expect the following: We expect the number of shares used in computing diluted EPS to be approximately 4.77 billion. Based on these estimates, our revenue will be lower than our original guidance for the quarter, with other items remaining broadly in line with our guidance. While it will be a number of weeks before we complete and report our final results, we wanted to get some preliminary information to you now. Our final results may differ somewhat from these preliminary estimates. When we discussed our Q1 guidance with you about 60 days ago, we knew the first quarter would be impacted by both macroeconomic and Apple-specific factors. Based on our best estimates of how these would play out, we predicted that we would report slight revenue growth year-over-year for the quarter. As you may recall, we discussed four factors: First, we knew the different timing of our iPhone launches would affect our year-over-year compares. Our top models, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, shipped in Q4'18 placing the channel fill and early sales in that quarter, whereas last year iPhone X shipped in Q1'18, placing the channel fill and early sales in the December quarter. We knew this would create a difficult compare for Q1'19, and this played out broadly in line with our expectations. Second, we knew the strong US dollar would create foreign exchange headwinds and forecasted this would reduce our revenue growth by about 200 basis points as compared to the previous year. This also played out broadly in line with our expectations. Third, we knew we had an unprecedented number of new products to ramp during the quarter and predicted that supply constraints would gate our sales of certain products during Q1. Again, this also played out broadly in line with our expectations. Sales of Apple Watch Series 4 and iPad Pro were constrained much or all of the quarter. AirPods and MacBook Air were also constrained. Fourth, we expected economic weakness in some emerging markets. This turned out to have a significantly greater impact than we had projected. In addition, these and other factors resulted in fewer iPhone upgrades than we had anticipated. These last two points have led us to reduce our revenue guidance. I'd like to go a bit deeper on both. Emerging Market Challenges While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China. In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad. China's economy began to slow in the second half of 2018. The government-reported GDP growth during the September quarter was the second lowest in the last 25 years. We believe the economic environment in China has been further impacted by rising trade tensions with the United States. As the climate of mounting uncertainty weighed on financial markets, the effects appeared to reach consumers as well, with traffic to our retail stores and our channel partners in China declining as the quarter progressed. And market data has shown that the contraction in Greater China's smartphone market has been particularly sharp. Despite these challenges, we believe that our business in China has a bright future. The iOS developer community in China is among the most innovative, creative and vibrant in the world. Our products enjoy a strong following among customers, with a very high level of engagement and satisfaction. Our results in China include a new record for Services revenue, and our installed base of devices grew over the last year. We are proud to participate in the Chinese marketplace. iPhone Lower than anticipated iPhone revenue, primarily in Greater China, accounts for all of our revenue shortfall to our guidance and for much more than our entire year-over-year revenue decline. In fact, categories outside of iPhone (Services, Mac, iPad, Wearables/Home/Accessories) combined to grow almost 19 percent year-over-year. While Greater China and other emerging markets accounted for the vast majority of the year-over-year iPhone revenue decline, in some developed markets, iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be. While macroeconomic challenges in some markets were a key contributor to this trend, we believe there are other factors broadly impacting our iPhone performance, including consumers adapting to a world with fewer carrier subsidies, US dollar strength-related price increases, and some customers taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements. Many Positive Results in the December Quarter While it's disappointing to revise our guidance, our performance in many areas showed remarkable strength in spite of these challenges. Our installed base of active devices hit a new all-time highgrowing by more than 100 million units in 12 months. There are more Apple devices being used than ever before, and it's a testament to the ongoing loyalty, satisfaction and engagement of our customers. Also, as I mentioned earlier, revenue outside of our iPhone business grew by almost 19 percent year-over-year, including all-time record revenue from Services, Wearables and Mac. Our non-iPhone businesses have less exposure to emerging markets, and the vast majority of Services revenue is related to the size of the installed base, not current period sales. Services generated over $10.8 billion in revenue during the quarter, growing to a new quarterly record in every geographic segment, and we are on track to achieve our goal of doubling the size of this business from 2016 to 2020. Wearables grew by almost 50 percent year-over-year, as Apple Watch and AirPods were wildly popular among holiday shoppers; launches of MacBook Air and Mac mini powered the Mac to year-over-year revenue growth and the launch of the new iPad Pro drove iPad to year-over-year double-digit revenue growth. We also expect to set all-time revenue records in several developed countries, including the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Korea. And, while we saw challenges in some emerging markets, others set records, including Mexico, Poland, Malaysia and Vietnam. Finally, we also expect to report a new all-time record for Apple's earnings per share. Looking Ahead Our profitability and cash flow generation are strong, and we expect to exit the quarter with approximately $130 billion in net cash. As we have stated before, we plan to become net-cash neutral over time. As we exit a challenging quarter, we are as confident as ever in the fundamental strength of our business. We manage Apple for the long term, and Apple has always used periods of adversity to re-examine our approach, to take advantage of our culture of flexibility, adaptability and creativity, and to emerge better as a result. Most importantly, we are confident and excited about our pipeline of future products and services. Apple innovates like no other company on earth, and we are not taking our foot off the gas. We can't change macroeconomic conditions, but we are undertaking and accelerating other initiatives to improve our results. One such initiative is making it simple to trade in a phone in our stores, finance the purchase over time, and get help transferring data from the current to the new phone. This is not only great for the environment, it is great for the customer, as their existing phone acts as a subsidy for their new phone, and it is great for developers, as it can help grow our installed base. This is one of a number of steps we are taking to respond. We can make these adjustments because Apple's strength is in our resilience, the talent and creativity of our team, and the deeply held passion for the work we do every day. Expectations are high for Apple because they should be. We are committed to exceeding those expectations every day. That has always been the Apple way, and it always will be. Tim Scientists have found the first evidence of an elusive effect known as dark matter heating in a breakthrough that could provide new clues on the nature of one of the most mysterious substances in the universe. A new study suggests dark matter, the invisible material that makes up about 27 percent of all matter, can be heated up and moved around by processes that occur within galaxies. As new stars form, the resulting winds push aside gas and dust, removing mass from the center of the galaxy and with it, much of the gravitational pull that holds dark matter in. Scroll down for video Scientists have found the first evidence of an elusive effect known as dark matter heating in a breakthrough that could provide new clues on the nature of one of the most mysterious substances in the universe. Artist's impression The study, published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, examined nearby dwarf galaxies to investigate possible evidence of dark matter at the center. Researchers from the University of Surrey, Carnegie Mellon University, and ETH Zurich measured dark matter at the center of 16 dwarf galaxies based on its gravitational effects on the surrounding material. And, they found that galaxies that had long ceased star formation had a higher concentration of dark matter at the center. We found a truly remarkable relationship between the amount of dark matter at the centres of these tiny dwarfs, and the amount of star formation they have experienced over their lives, says Professor Justin Read, lead author of the study and Head of the Department of Physics at the University of Surrey. A new study suggests dark matter, the invisible material that makes up about 27 percent of all matter, can be heated up and moved around by processes that occur within galaxies The dark matter at the centres of star-forming dwarfs appears to have been heated up and pushed out. The findings support the idea that older galaxies demonstrate less dark matter heating. Younger galaxies, on the other hand, drive the effect as they churn out stars and help dark matter gain the energy needed to move from the center. Dark matter: The mysterious substance that makes up 85% of the universe that scientists cannot confirm Dark matter is a hypothetical substance said to make up roughly 85 per cent of the universe. The enigmatic material is invisible because it does not reflect light, and has never been directly observed by scientists. Astronomers know it to be out there because of its gravitational effects on known matter. The European Space Agency says: 'Shine a torch in a completely dark room, and you will see only what the torch illuminates. Dark matter is a hypothetical substance said to make up roughly 27 per cent of the universe. It is thought to be the gravitational 'glue' that holds the galaxies together (artist's impression) 'That does not mean that the room around you does not exist. 'Similarly we know dark matter exists but have never observed it directly.' The material is thought to be the gravitational 'glue' that holds the galaxies together. Calculations show that many galaxies would be torn apart instead of rotating if they weren't held together by a large amount of dark matter. Just five per cent the observable universe consists of known matter such as atoms and subatomic particles. Advertisement This new understanding could help to further constrain dark matter models, suggesting that density of the material in a given galaxy is linked to star formation. This study may be the smoking gun evidence that takes us a step closer to understanding what dark matter is, says Professor Matthew Walker, a co-author from Carnegie Mellon University. Our finding that it can be heated up and moved around helps to motivate searches for a dark matter particle. The skeleton of a 'muscular' woman who lived 5,900 years ago and had bulging forearms has been discovered in what is now Nicaragua. Archaeologists say the rare discovery is the oldest known burial in Lower Central America. The ancient human remains were buried in a shell mound 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) below the ground's surface with her legs flexed towards her stomach. According to scientists, the adult woman had 'strongly developed musculature of the forearm, possibly from rowing or similar activities'. The analysis showed pronounced marking and ridges on the bone, indicating strong muscles. Scroll down for video The ancient human remains were buried in a shell mound 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) below the grounds surface with her legs flexed towards her stomach. Top: The excavated burial of the ancient remains and below, an illustration of how she was buried HOW WAS THE WOMAN BURIED? The woman was uncovered in a grave 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) below the grounds surface with her legs flexed towards her stomach. The base of the pit was lined with small basalt clasts of less than 100mm, deposited over a 100mm-thick layer of charcoal-rich sediment The burial ritual most probably involved depositing the body into a prepared shallow pit. The subsequent collapse of the legs outside of the shallow pit might indicate some form of covering of the body, or possible desiccation prior to decomposition. Source: Antiquity Advertisement Tropical places like Nicaragua don't usually preserve human remains well but scientists believe that the shell mound under which the woman was buried reduced the acidity of the soil. Mirjana Roksandic, a professor of anthropology at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, told LiveScience: 'Ancient people created shell mounds for a number of reasons, including to bury their dead or to mark the landscape.' Professor Roksandic and her team had originally been studying the ancient people of Cuba but got a tip from an anthropologist that they should investigate the area, known as the Angi spot in Monkey Point, southern Nicaragua. 'I was delighted and went there right away to visit the site and examine the burial,' Professor Roksandic added. The spot was originally excavated in the 1970s but the female remains weren't found until recently. After anthropologists located the skeleton, they got permission from the indigenous communities to continue their work. A map of Nicaragua, where the ancient woman's remains were found. Main Picture: A zoomed-in image of Monkey Point which shows the Angi site. Top left: a general map of Nicaragua and bottom left, Monkey Point, the site of the archaeological dig According to scientists, the adult woman had 'strongly developed musculature of the forearm, possibly from rowing or similar activities'. Shown here, markings on her bones indicate that the woman was muscular The excavated burial of the ancient remains and right, a drawing of the layers and how the shells and body were buried. Tropical places like Nicaragua don't usually preserve human remains well but scientists believe that the shell mound under which the woman was buried reduced the acidity of the soil The woman was uncovered in an oval pit on her back with both her arms by her side and her legs tucked in towards her stomach. An analysis of her body revealed that she was between the age of 25 and 40 and despite her muscular physique, had a small stature at 4 feet, 11 inches (150 cms) tall. The study notes that even today, the population of the area are adept rowers, using an example of one woman rowing up to four hours a day to visit family. Professor Roksandic says that little is known about the ancient indigenous cultures of lower central America and that further study of the site is necessary. Ancient people who bury the dead among shell mounds are often fishers, gatherers and horticulturalists, according to Professor Roksandic. She said that it is not possible to ascertain the reason why the burial took place there or the particular significance of this woman. The study concluded that the individual demonstrates the importance of the site for understanding the early history of lowland Central America and the urgent need for its protection and further evaluation. The research was published in journal Antiquity. Playing music, listening to directions or ordering a takeaway while you commute home from work could soon be a reality thanks to a new 'smart bike'. The Cybic Legend, being unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next week, comes equipped with Amazon's Alexa digital assistant. The bike, which will be launched alongside an electric version, features a control mounted on the handlebars that lets riders access its internet connected features. That includes performance data, personalised light settings, theft tracking, a security lock, an alarm and a music player. Scroll down for video Playing music, listening to directions or ordering a takeaway while you commute home from work could soon be a reality thanks to a new 'smart bike'. The Cybic Legend (pictured), being unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week, comes equipped with Amazon's Alexa digital assistant WHAT IS CES? The Consumer Electronics Show is an annual technology convention that takes place in Las Vegas. The show typically takes place in early January. It attracts hundreds of thousands of attendees from all over the world, as well as thousands of tech firms, startups and entrepreneurs. Companies show off their latest innovations, ranging from the latest robots, autonomous vehicles and smart assistant-equipped gadgets. Advertisement 'Adding Alexa functionality expands the notion of "Alexa On The Go", where Alexa is available anywhere where the bike is,' said David Kumar, principal product manager at Alexa Voice Services. 'The combination of Alexa and Cybic enables riders to enjoy a great range of innovative, integrated bike features without their hands ever having to leave the safety of the handle bars.' Alexa has gradually made its way on to a number of unexpected devices, including a microwave and even a revival of Noughties novelty Big Mouth Billy Bass. Halfords will be first to stock the new bike range in the UK and Ireland from the summer, with three years of Vodafone 3G data included to make use of the smart features. 'We've seen innovations in alternative commuting go from strength to strength and after electric bikes we predict that the next big trend for commuters will be smart bikes,' said Halfords' Andy Whitehall. 'The Cybic contains all the features you love about Alexa, but now in a bike, and we are delighted to be the first to offer this to UK customers when it launches in the summer 2019. 'The technology will help cyclists with many things including getting traffic updates, getting turn-by-turn directions, personalised light settings, playing music and much more.' Details of the US availability of the bike have not yet been released, but its appearance at CES suggests it should be available in the coming months. The bike - which will be alongside an electric version - features a control mounted on the handlebars that lets riders access its internet connected features. That includes performance data, personalised light settings, theft tracking, a security lock, an alarm and a music player CES will attract some of the world's biggest technology companies when it kicks off, running from January 8th to January 11th. Rollup TVs, 5G phones, lifelike robots and smart assistants are expected to take centre stage at this year's show. The annual convention will see the likes of Sony, Samsung, LG and others announce new gadgets. Topics such as artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles and 5G connectivity are expected to be prominent at the event. The four-day exhibition is a key date in the industry calendar and is set to be attended by more than 180,000 people. Visitors will be able to glimpse the latest technology from more than 4,500 companies appearing at the conference. A new species of treefrog has been discovered in a remote and largely unexplored area of the eastern Andes. The frog has an extraordinary claw-like thumb which scientists say could be used as a weapon against predators and competing males. Field biologists made the discovery during a two week expedition to a remote flat-topped mountain at Cordillera del Condor on the border of Peru. A new species of treefrog (pictured) has been discovered in a remote and largely unexplored area of the eastern Andes. The frog has an extraordinary claw-like thumb which scientists speculate could be used as a weapon against predators and competing males The team walked for two days along steep terrain before they came across the dwarf forest, where the species were living. Footage from the forest shows the frog, which is a dark brown colour with orange flecks, blending into the rocks and the black streams of water. Its unusual claw-like structure can be seen protruding from the base of its thumb, known as a prepollex. The Ecuadorean Andes region is said to be be one of the richest areas for biodiversity in the world. Alex Achig, one of the field biologists who discovered the new species said that the frogs were difficult to spot as they blended in so well. The team examined six specimensone adult female, three adult males and two juvenile femalesconducting DNA tests and comparing them to similar species. Field biologists made the discovery during a two week expedition to a remote flat-topped mountain at Cordillera del Condor on the border of Peru. The team walked for two days along steep terrain before they came across the dwarf forest, where the species were living Footage from the forest shows the frog, which is a dark grey colour, blending into the rocks and the black streams of water. Its unusual claw-like structure can be seen protruding from the base of its thumb, known as a prepollex Field biologists made the discovery during a two week expedition to a remote flat-topped mountain at Cordillera del Condor on the border of Peru Having conducted analysis of genetic and morphologic data, scientists from the Catholic University of Ecuador concluded that the frog was not a known species. The species was named Hyloscirtus hillisi, in honour of Dr David Hillis, a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Dr Hillis discovered three closely related frog species in the same genus in the 1980s, while conducting a series of field trips to the Andes of southern Ecuador. Despite Hyloscirtus hillisi being newly found, the species is at risk of extinction due to habitat destruction in the region, which is in close vicinity to a Chinese mining operation. The full findings were published in the journal ZooKeys. Despite the Hyloscirtus hillisi being newly found, the species is at risk of extinction due to habitat destruction in the region, which happens to be in close vicinity to a Chinese mining operation Europeans who lived between 640 and 660 AD swapped to trading silver rather than gold coins as a currency because it was more useful for smaller commercial exchanges. That's the finding of a core analysis from ice in the Swiss Alps that revealed large quantities of lead, a by-product of silver mining dating back to the period. Researchers had previously thought that the change happened at least twenty five years later, between the years 675 and 680 AD. But the ice core drilling, which provides a year-by-year record of environmental conditions, showed a 'huge spike' in lead levels in 660 AD. Scroll down for video Europeans who lived between 640 and 660 AD swapped to trading silver rather than gold as a currency because it was more useful for smaller commercial exchanges. The team say that the change contributed to the rise in economies in towns like London (stock image) This suggests that there was a wholesale change to silver currency, according to the study, conducted by the University of London. The data could explain the rise in powerful cities in Europe - including London - as the switch boosted economic growth as the coins had a lower face value. The research also shows that the currency switch happened before the arrival of port towns, suggesting that the new currency may have helped them to develop. It is widely known by historians that north-west and central Europe largely abandoned gold coins for silver ones during the 7th Century. 'Numismatists had dated it on the basis of coinage', Dr Christopher Loveluck of the University of Nottingham, told New Scientist. Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, paper money, and related objects. Dr Loveluck, who led the team, analysed an ice core drilled from the Colle Gnifetti glacier in the Swiss Alps. The team tracked when lead appeared in the record, which end up on ice after being the tiny particles are carried by wind after the process of extracting the silver. Dr Loveluck said that there were two spikes that appeared. Researchers have found that Europeans used silver rather than gold as a currency in 660AD according to ice core data. Pictured: the ice-core drilling site, under a dome tent, on Colle Gnifetti, in the Swiss-Italian Alps 'The first is in 640, when numismatists had already picked out that the gold coinage had been adulterated by a lot of silver,' he added. But instead of a change occurring between 675 or 680, they found the big spike in lead levels in 660, suggesting that the change happened during that time. 'It takes the total shift to silver back about 20 to 25 years,' Dr Loveluck said. The team noted that the findings may seem like a minor change, but it means the history now makes more sense. Following the collapse of the western Roman Empire, large port towns began appearing in the late 600s, after the currency switch. 'Major port towns like London, under the old chronology, were only starting to use silver coinage at a point when they were already developed,' said Dr Loveluck. 'What were they doing before that?' Dr Loveluck concluded that the switch implies that the new currency helped to drive the rise of these towns. The team noted that there is no definitive answer as to why or when the switch happened but hypothesise that it was easier to exchange. 'A gold coin might buy you three or four cows, but you might not want that, you might want something smaller,' said Dr Loveluck. 'A silver coin is more useful.' The findings were published in the journal Antiquity. The HMS Mersey has begun patrolling the English Channel for illegal migrants as Britain steps up its response to the migrant crisis. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson confirmed on Thursday night the HMS Mersey had been deployed to the channel to assist with policing the waters between Britain and France. Williamson and Home Secretary Sajid Javid were said to be wrangling on Wednesday over who will foot the 20,000 a day cost of deploying HMS Mersey on patrol. Mr Javid, touted by some as a possible future Tory leader, has faced days of criticism over what has been seen as a botched response to the crisis. HMS Mersey, a naval patrol vessel, left Portsmouth today and is expected to take up duties off the Kent coast Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson (pictured) announced on Thursday the HMS Mersey had been deployed to assist with operations in the English Channel Sajid Javid speaks to the media after meeting British Border Force staff in Dover on Wednesday After the ship's deployment, Mr Javid said: 'My focus continues to be on protecting the UK border and preventing loss of life in the Channel. For these reasons, the Government has decided to deploy a navy vessel, HMS Mersey, to support our existing efforts. 'This will be an interim measure while the two Border Force cutters I have redeployed from abroad make their way back to UK waters. 'It is vital that we are working on all fronts to tackle this ongoing situation and I am grateful to Border Force and other agencies for the tireless work they have done in response to this activity.' Two Border Force cutters - HMC Valiant and HMC Protector - due to return from the Mediterranean to join patrols are still in Greece, according to the Marine Traffic ship tracker online. At least 139 migrants were caught crossing from France to Britain over Christmas, and 239 have reached the UK since November. The Home Secretary was ridiculed after he classified the crisis as a 'major incident' on Friday while remaining on a family safari holiday 6,000 miles away in South Africa. When he returned to Whitehall on Monday, he ordered the return of two Border Force cutters from the Mediterranean but resisted the offer of military assistance from Mr Williamson, who is seen as a potential leadership rival. HMS Mersey, a naval patrol vessel, is expected to take up duties off the Kent coast today. It will provide cover while the Border Force patrol boats return from the Mediterranean, which could take as long as a fortnight. Royal Navy sailors will also be sent to help man the civilian vessels when they eventually get back so they can operate around the clock. The RAF will provide aerial surveillance to track boats trying to make the crossing, although it is not yet clear what form this could take. Home Office and MoD sources tried to play down the apparent spat about who will foot the bill for the military operation. Discussions are said to be 'continuing', but one official said: 'It is a process.' HMS Mersey (pictured), a naval patrol vessel, will set off from Portsmouth this morning to be stationed off the Kent coast HMC Seeker was still in port in Gibraltar yesterday amid fears it could take weeks for it to return to the Channel Mr Javid used a visit to Dover yesterday to vow tough action on the cross-Channel migrants. He questioned whether many attempting the crossing were 'genuine' asylum seekers and suggested they should try to claim refuge in France instead. The Home Secretary's decision to finally call in the Navy and RAF may be seen by some as an attempt to burnish his Tory leadership credentials. But by only moving yesterday, he may also risk accusations that he is acting too late. There have been no known migrant arrivals on Britain's shores since New Year's Eve, although this is thought to be partly because of poor sea conditions deterring further attempts. Meanwhile, the two civilian ships that are supposed to be coming back from the Mediterranean were still sitting in their ports last night - more than 48 hours after Mr Javid ordered their return. HMC Seeker was photographed yesterday moored inside a Gibraltar harbour with no obvious signs of its crew preparing it for departure. Meanwhile, HMC Protector remained moored in Mytilini harbour on the Greek island of Lesbos. As well as deploying cutters, the Home Secretary has promised that 'covert' action would be taken on the other side of the Channel Both ships have been taking part in Operation Frontex, which is tackling the migration flows from North Africa and the Middle East to Italy, Greece and Spain. The Home Office refused to say when they would be sailing or when they would reach the English Channel, citing 'operational reasons'. Only one of the five Border Force cutters - specialist boats which are capable of rescuing several migrant boats at the same time - has been working in the Straits of Dover. Charlie Elphicke, the Tory MP for Dover, last night expressed his concern over the delays in the return of the ships. He said: 'I've been making the case for the Border Force vessels to come back from the Mediterranean to take back control of our borders. 'It's important to know when they will be arriving back in British waters and I hope that the Home Office will clarify the position as soon as possible. There have been no known migrant arrivals on Britain's shores since New Year's Eve 'It's difficult to understand why they might still be Mediterranean ports and hopefully they will be come back to British waters as soon as possible.' As well as deploying cutters, the Home Secretary has promised that 'covert' action would be taken on the other side of the Channel to disrupt smuggling rings as part of improved cooperation with French authorities. Any migrant picked up in English waters will, at least initially, be brought to the UK to have their asylum claim heard. Under international maritime law, the Channel is divided in half for search and rescue operations. If migrants are picked up in the UK half, then they are usually taken to Britain. But if they are picked up on the French side, then they are usually taken to France. The cutters, which each have a crew of around 16, are capable of reaching speeds of about 26 knots. However their respective journeys to the Channel from the Mediterranean are likely to be slowed by poor weather in the Atlantic. Theresa May left Britain naked after scrapping aerial surveillance designed to stop migrants crossing the Channel, a former security minister has claimed. Baroness Neville-Jones yesterday shifted the blame for the migrant crisis on to the Prime Minister as two vessels ordered to patrol the British coastline still remained in the Mediterranean. She said she warned Mrs May in 2016, when she was home secretary, that cancelling a 4million surveillance contract with aviation services firm Cobham was a risk to border security. Delayed: HMC Valiant was still moored in Greece yesterday Her comments came amid a deepening row over the Channel migrant crisis, which has seen boatloads of asylum seekers try to make it to the UK from France. The row descended deeper into farce yesterday amid claims Home Secretary Sajid Javid and Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson are in disagreement over who should pay for Royal Navy patrols. Sajid Javid last night backed down and agreed that the Home Office would foot the 20,000-a-day bill for the Navy patrol ship HMS Mersey, which was sent from Portsmouth Harbour yesterday. The HMS Tyne, a second river-class Royal Navy patrol vessel, also left the harbour. Of Mrs Mays decision to ditch round-the-clock surveillance, Baroness Neville-Jones told BBC Radio 4 yesterday: It was the wrong decision then and it has left us more naked than we otherwise would have been. Cancelling it has lessened our level of protection. In a U-turn on Wednesday, Mr Javid wrote to Mr Williamson to ask for aerial surveillance, a military patrol vessel and dozens of sailors. Baroness Neville-Jones yesterday shifted the blame for the migrant crisis on to the Prime Minister (stock image) The 4m spy plane was owned by Cobham but was axed a few years ago He had previously ignored offers of military help and announced two Border Force cutters, HMC Valiant and HMC Protector, would return from tasks in the Mediterranean. However, according to the Marine Traffic online tracker, both remained in ports in Greece yesterday. Only one of five Border Force cutters, the 138ft HMC Vigilant, has been working the Straits of Dover. An MoD spokesman said it was working with the Home Office to establish which requirements could be fulfilled by defence assets. Two men were last night being questioned by detectives over the surge in migrants trying to cross the Channel and enter Britain. The 33-year-old Iranian and 24-year-old Briton were held in Salford, Greater Manchester, on Wednesday evening on suspicion of arranging the illegal movement of migrants. Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd (pictured) could be anywhere in the world after officials failed to confiscate his passport, police admitted last night Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd could be anywhere in the world after officials failed to confiscate his passport, police admitted last night. Scotland Yard said officers had no idea where the fugitive was hiding but feared he had fled abroad. Shepherd is on the run from a six-year prison sentence for drunkenly killing his date Charlotte Brown, 24, while showing off in his ageing speedboat. Now the reckless womaniser is mocking the law by mounting an appeal against his conviction despite absconding from justice. To add insult to injury, he is using taxpayers money to fund his lawyers through legal aid. Last night, police said they feared the 31-year-old was being shielded by friends and that he might have access to phones and bank accounts they did not know about. And despite Shepherd being in touch with his London solicitors, detectives said there was no tangible trace of him. The Metropolitan Police insisted the National Crime Agency was working to track him down, but revealed his passport was not seized before he disappeared. A CPS spokesman could not explain yesterday why prosecutors or police had not applied to confiscate his documents while he was awaiting trial. Shepherd was sentenced in his absence after being found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence by an Old Bailey jury last July. Undated handout photo issued by the Metropolitan Police of the speedboat owned by Web designer Shepherd who has been found guilty of killing his date, Charlotte Brown He has now been granted the right to appeal both conviction and sentence because case law has established that fugitives can still appeal. Amid growing fury at the injustice to his victim and her grieving family, the Daily Mail is offering a 25,000 reward to flush him out of his hiding place. Shepherds lawyers have issued a robust defence of their role representing a man on the run from justice, and insisted they had no idea where he was hiding. Among yesterdays developments: A senior detective appealed to the fugitives friends and associates to do the right thing; Shepherd, originally from Exeter, killed Miss Brown (pictured) after flipping his cheap speedboat on the Thames Prosecutors confirmed Shepherd may escape prosecution for grievous bodily harm after glassing a stranger in a Devon pub; Outrage continued to grow over his legal aid, with a former Solicitor General branding it beyond cynical; The killers lawyers said it would be negligent to dump Shepherd as a client just because he had absconded. Shepherd, originally from Exeter, killed Miss Brown after flipping his cheap speedboat on the Thames. He had bought it online a few months earlier to pull women. He has not served a single day in prison after disappearing three months ahead of his trial. The self-confessed coward told his lawyers, Tuckers Solicitors, he did not have the guts to face the grieving family of his victim. Despite laughing at the law, he sparked fury by directing them to appeal against both his conviction and sentence. Shepherd was granted the right to appeal on the basis of European case law, which states fleeing justice is no bar to an appeal. Incredibly, the legal aid authorities agreed to fund the move with public money. So far Shepherd has been awarded 93,292 in legal aid, of which 50,642 went to his solicitors. Tuckers said that, of this sum, it had received 27,000, with the rest going on VAT and payments to expert witnesses. The solicitor who represented Shepherd, senior partner Richard Egan, has been described as a real heavyweight by respected legal guide Chambers. He has previously represented a client accused of links to the 9/11 terror attacks, as well as a mother who suffocated her three disabled children. Last night Detective Chief Inspector Mick Norman, from the Met, said: Shepherd is subject to an international arrest warrant. However since he failed to appear in court for his trial there has been no tangible trace of him. The family of Miss Brown (left to right) father Graham Brown, sister Katie and mother Roz Wicken arriving arriving at the Old Bailey, London, for the manslaughter trial of Shepherd (pictured July 2018) There have been a number of rumours that he is being harboured abroad by friends but we have no evidence this is the case. There has been no movement on his bank accounts or phone. However this is only in respect of the accounts we are aware of. He may well be using the accounts of friends or associates to evade arrest and extradition. The Met continues to work closely with the CPS and also the NCA to track, trace and arrest Shepherd. We would also appeal to Mr Shepherds friends and associates who may be assisting him to do the right thing and share any information they have. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: Shepherds passport was not seized by the police or the court as he was on court bail and fully complying with bail conditions up to the time of the trial when he failed to appear. A CPS spokesman said it is not known why prosecutors or police did not apply to confiscate Shepherds passport at court or following his arrest. Miss Browns devastated father Graham yesterday described the manhunt for her killer as a continuation of the torture. He said: It doesnt give you a lot of faith in the legal system, its disgraceful really. The fact that he can do this and that its supported by legal aid is mind-boggling, the audacity of it all. How can somebody who is a fugitive from justice launch an appeal? Its just outrageous. Separately, Shepherd is highly likely to escape prosecution for glassing a drinker in a Devon pub in March. He failed to appear before magistrates in Newton Abbot in June and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. A CPS spokesman said the pub attack case was finalised in September, meaning he is unlikely to face prosecution. Shepherds family were in hiding yesterday as fury grew over his continued freedom and legal antics. Tuckers Solicitors said: We are criminal defence solicitors and have an important role in the criminal justice system to represent those accused of criminal offences. That professionalism and duty does not go away because of the perceived morally dubious actions of any particular client. The court was fully aware that we would act in his absence. We would be negligent and in breach of our professional duties were we not to proceed because the client had absconded. Tuckers said it had done 95 per cent of the legal aid work by the time Shepherd absconded. President Trump made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room on Thursday afternoon to plug his border wall, before posting a bizarre Game of Thrones meme on Instagram. It was his first appearance behind the podium, that other presidents have used for press conferences, in the nearly two years since he took office. Surrounded by border agents, including prolific Fox News guest Brandon Judd, he insisted his wall was necessary for national security. 'You can call it a barrier. You can call it whatever you want. But essentially, we need protection in our country,' Trump declared. 'We're going to make it good. The people of our country want it.' He left after roughly ten minutes without taking questions from reporters, despite the fact that the gathering had been billed as a 'briefing' with White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders. Trump then posted a meme showing his face and the words 'The Wall is Coming'. The font is the same used in HBO's Game of Thrones and the words are a play on the quote 'Winter is coming' from the show. President Trump made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room on Thursday afternoon to plug his border wall Surrounded by border agents, some of whom also spoke, he insisted his wall was necessary for national security He left after roughly five minutes without taking questions from gathered reporters Trump then posted a meme showing his face and the words 'The Wall is Coming' Trump congratulated Nancy Pelosi on her election as speaker in the remarks, as well, that stole attention from Capitol Hill, where a new class of lawmakers had just been inaugurated. Democrats plan to pass legislation to reopen the government this evening in one of their first acts. The bill that funds most closed areas through the end of the fiscal year are all but certain to receive approval in the House of Representatives, where Democrats are now in the majority. Only the Department of Homeland Security is left out of a megabus bill that Democrats are teeing up for a vote. It is addressed in a companion bill that would keep it operating until Feb. 8. Trump did not comment on the bills that his White House has called a 'non-starter' in his Brady Press Briefing Room. A statement of administration policy said Thursday as Trump was speaking that he would not sign the DHS legislation, even if they passed, because it does not fund his border wall. He said from the podium that he hoped that he and Pelosi would have a great working relationship, however, as she reprises her role as leader of the House. 'I just want to start off by congratulating Nancy Pelosi on being elected speaker of the House. It's a very, very great achievement, and hopefully we're going to work together, and we're going to get lots of things done, like infrastructure and so much more,' he said. 'I know they want to do that very badly. So do I.' He declared: 'So hopefully we're going to have a lot of things that we can get done together, and I think it's actually going to work out. I think it will be a little bit different than a lot of people are thinking. So I congratulate Nancy. Tremendous, tremendous achievement.' Trump said from the podium that he hoped that he and Pelosi would have a great working relationship, however, as she reprises her role as leader of the House President Trump hosted Pelosi and other congressional leaders at the White House on Wednesday afternoon and invited them back for more talks on Friday morning. Pelosi said in an interview that aired Thursday that he would 'get nothing for the wall' and 'no amount of persuasion' from Trump would change her mind. It wasn't clear on Thursday what exactly the president planned to offer her in exchange for the wall money that Democrats have steadfastly refused to provide. He has demanded $5.7 billion for the wall that he says can be made of steel slats. Trump's stop through the briefing room was a complete surprise after the White House made an overhead announcement that Sanders would be briefing in five minutes. She came out nearly half an hour later with the members of the National Border Patrol Council, who fanned out behind the podium behind her. 'Good afternoon. I'll give a few of my friends a minute to get in. Thank you all for coming on short notice. And certainly, Happy New Year. Welcome back,' she said. 'It's good to be back. 'We're gonna kick 2019 off just slightly differently, and I'd like to welcome a very special guest, for an appearance here in the briefing room, our very great president, Donald J. Trump,' Sanders told a shocked room of reporters. Camera shutters clicked furiously as the president walked in and said, 'Hello everybody. This is a beautiful place. I haven't seen it.' 'Happy New Year. Happy New Year, everybody,' he said, responding to a reporter in the room who had welcomed him with the same phrase. Another journalist told Trump, 'You're welcome here anytime, Mr. President.' To which he said, 'Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Thank you.' Trump explained the border council members are 'extremely supportive of what we're doing on the border' and declared them patriots. Referring to a dramatic video he had released an hour earlier of immigrants flooding the border, he said, 'You see what's just been put out on social media, where thousands of people are rushing the border. 'Having drones and various other form of sensors, they're all fine, but they're not going to stop the problems that this country has.' Continuing he said, 'We've never had more people wanting to come to the United States. And that has to do with the economy and it has to do with a lot of other things. We're doing great as a country. But the better we do, the more people want to come in.' Trump also claimed in the brief remarks that he has received an outpouring of support for refusing to budge on the border wall that he said has buoyed him up during the 13-day border security showdown with Democrats. 'I have never had so much support, as I have in the last week, over my stance for border security, for border control and for, frankly, the wall or the barrier,' he contended. 'I have never had anything like it in terms of calls coming in, in terms of people writing in and tweeting, and doing whatever they have to do.' He insisted, 'I have never had this much support. And we've done some things that, as you know, have been very popular.' Tunisia: five alleged jihadists killed in anti-terror op (ANSAmed) - TUNIS, JANUARY 3 - Tunisian special forces early on Thursday killed five alleged terrorists in an anti-terror operation in Selma, in the province of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia's interior ministry reports in a statement. The ministry said two alleged jihadists blew themselves up and added it would provide further details about the operation in a subsequent statement. According to local media, National Guard officers at dawn launched an operation inside a home used by the suspected terrorists as a hiding place, according to the intelligence services. The governor of Sidi Bouzid, Anis Dhifallah, stressed in an interview to radio Mosaique fm that the operation is part of a fight against terrorist cells in the regions where extremists are most active. ''Information provided by intelligence sources enabled security forces to ascertain the presence of militant extremists in a home in the city of al Shamali, in Jelma. He added that ''the operation confirms that our security forces are at the highest level of preparation in the fight against terrorism''. According to initial reports by local media, during the operation two alleged jihadists blew themselves up in an attempt to block the officers while three others were shot dead in a shootout with security officials. A National Guard official was shot in the leg and treated at a nearby hospital. (ANSAmed). Jack Shepherd absconded during his trial for the killing of Charlotte Brown (pictured) For his appalling crime, the only place Jack Shepherd should be is behind bars. He is a callous individual, who not only destroyed the life of a young woman through gross negligence while showing off to her in his speedboat, but then compounded his lethal offence by failing to tell his rescuers she was in the water. He further displayed his cowardice when he absconded during his trial for the killing of Charlotte Brown. The six-year jail sentence imposed in his absence was hardly a tough punishment, given that Shepherd would almost certainly be automatically released halfway through his term. But shamefully, he has been unwilling to take responsibility for his actions and remains on the run. The fact is that he should be in jail not mocking this countrys justice system by cynically giving it the run-around from a bolthole perhaps Spain or even Georgia with the British authorities having not a clue where he is. What makes his conduct even more outrageous is that, from this unknown hiding place, Shepherd is appealing his conviction for manslaughter. How utterly perverse that a criminal who felt unable to face his first trial is now demanding a second. Just as shockingly, this ridiculous claim is being funded by legal aid, which means that British taxpayers are being forced to bankroll the antics of this fugitive. As a barrister, I know that legal aid was never meant to be used in this way. It was devised as a tool to achieve justice for those who could not normally afford the cost of legal advice. It was not meant to be a way of making a mockery of the law and exploiting the publics goodwill. The six-year jail sentence imposed in his absence was hardly a tough punishment, given that Shepherd would almost certainly be automatically released halfway through his term Indeed, the Shepherd saga risks bringing the British legal system into disrepute. That is why, as a believer in the vital need to uphold the laws integrity, I welcome the Mails campaign to help end this farce and bring Shepherd to justice. Of course, legal aid must remain an essential element of the system, just like the presumption of innocence and the right to due process. It is a basic principle that every defendant, no matter what their background or financial means, no matter how serious their crimes, is entitled to effective legal representation. Without such help, there is a severe risk of miscarriages of justice, arbitrary punishment and authoritarian rule. Shepherd leaving the Old Bailey in London However, many people understandably are appalled by the fact that Shepherd is still entitled to legal aid despite being on the run from his trial. The financial support during his trial meant that there was still a defence team to make a case, so the trial could proceed and a verdict be reached. For the truth is that without the legally-aided trial, even in Shepherds absence, he would not have been convicted of manslaughter and Charlotte Browns family would have been denied justice. But legal aid to fund an appeal by someone on the run is a different matter. I believe there is no duty at all for the State to assist someone who is a fugitive of justice. Shepherd is no longer the defendant, facing charges. He is now a convicted criminal. If he wants his appeal to be heard and be subsidised by taxpayers he must show himself. Anything else is a grotesque pantomime. Whats more, such a disgraceful use of legal aid comes at a time when there is less available. As a result, more and more people do not qualify for legal aid because of the level of their disposable income, and either have to pay their own legal representation or are forced to represent themselves in court. And then, if acquitted, these peoples fees are only reimbursed at legal aid rates something described as an innocence tax and which has led acquitted defendants to have to sell their homes and empty their savings. Undated handout photo issued by the Metropolitan Police of the speedboat owned by Web designer Shepherd who was found guilty of killing his date There are two other deeply disturbing aspects of this case. The first is the fact that Shepherd was given bail before his Old Bailey trial which made it easy for him to abscond. Secondly, people will not understand why his lawyers have not helped the police track him down, even though they must have been in contact with him while organising his appeal. His lawyers cite client confidentiality to justify this. Of course, client confidentiality is another vital pillar of our justice system, designed, like the right to a jury trial, to prevent abuses. But is it right that it should be applied indiscriminately? There must be exceptions, especially when a convicted client is wilfully evading justice. I happily offer a solution to a scandal such as this. A stay could be put on proceedings if an appellant refuses to appear. No presence would equal no action, and, as a result, no legal aid or invocation of European human rights. With such a reform, the public would no longer have to put up with fiascos such as the case of Jack Shepherd. In the meantime, it can only be hoped that the Mails campaign will prevail and justice can be achieved for Charlotte Browns family. Laura Perrins is a former criminal defence barrister and co-editor of co-editor of Conservative Woman website. A new travel warning update was issued by the State Department asking travelers to China to 'exercise increased caution.' The US is specifically pointing 'to arbitrary enforcement of local laws as well as special restrictions on dual U.S.-Chinese nationals' by using 'exit bans' to restrict US citizens from leaving the country, sometimes even for years. The Level 2 advisory is concerned with the possibility of China luring Chinese nationals and US citizens of Chinese descent to enter China in order 'to participate in Chinese government investigations' and 'aid Chinese authorities in resolving civil disputes in favor of Chinese parties.' According to the warning, US citizens subject to the exit bans rarely know of the restriction until the moment they attempt to leave, and such citizens have been harassed, threatened and detained without access to consular services. According to the State Department, US citizens only become aware of the 'exit bans' when they attempt to depart China The updated advisory warns of China using 'exit bans' coercively to restrict US citizens from leaving the country The United States State Department maintained its previous guidance that Americans traveling to China should 'exercise increased caution' and stopped short of discouraging visits For 'US-Chinese citizens and US citizens of Chinese heritage', travelers may receive 'additional scrutiny and harassment', and may also be prevented from receiving consular services from the US Embassy. The State Department advises anyone traveling to China, to enter the country on a U.S. passport with a valid Chinese visa and keep it on their person. If arrested or detained, US travelers should ask police or prison officials immediately to notify the US Embassy or the nearest consulate. China last month detained two Canadians, a former diplomat and a businessman, on charges of activities that 'endanger China's security.' Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver on an American warrant accusing her of a scheme to sell US equipment to Iran in violation of sanctions law The State Department issues a numbered advisory level to guide US citizens in terms of traveling abroad The move was widely seen as retaliation after Canada arrested an executive of telecom giant Huawei at the request of the United States, which said she violated Washington's sanctions on Iran. China last year appeared to hit back at the US travel advice by issuing its own guidance to Chinese coming to the United States, warning of the risk of mass shootings and the high cost of health care. Despite rising political friction, the two countries remain among the top sources of visitors to each other, with China by far the largest provider of foreign students to the United States. A Level 1 advisory asks the 'Exercise of Normal Precautions.' Level 3 on the advisor rankings is 'Reconsider Travel' and the highest Level 4, 'Do Not Travel,' is reserved for nations in chaos like Yemen or Syria, or adversarial nations to the US like Iran or North Korea. A Georgia mother is demanding answers after she says her five-year-old daughter was savagely beaten by a 12-year-old girl on board a school bus. Aubrey Corley on December 4 shared heart-breaking photos on her Facebook page depicting her cherubic daughter covered in bruises and scratches. Corley wrote in a status update accompanying the images that the five-year-old was riding the school bus from Hubbard Elementary School earlier that day when she was assaulted by a 12-year-old girl and a nine-year-old autistic boy. Aubrey Corley's five-year-old daughter returned home from school on December 4 covered in bruises and scratches, after a 12-year-old girl allegedly attacked her on the school bus The little girl told her mom the 12-year-old grabbed her by the throat and told her to 'stop breathing' The Georgia girl was allegedly hit with a book bag and poked in the buttocks during the 45-minute ordeal Corley claimed that the bus driver tried to leave right after dropping off her battered daughter at the bus stop, but Corley demanded that he explain what had happened to her child. He causally said she had been slapped and he was going to write them up and move her to a different sit and then he drove off, the mom wrote. Corley questioned the bus driver's conduct, writing that if the students on the bus were out of control, it was his responsibility to make them stop tormenting her daughter. It is his job to safely take and return my child back home in the same condition she left in, the mother-of-one concluded. The mom-of-one said a nine-year-old autistic boy also took part in the attack on her daughter Speaking to the station 13WMAZ this week, Corley said that when she asked her daughter about the injuries to her face and arms, the girl said that the 12-year-old assailant grabbed her by the throat and told her to 'stop breathing,' The older girl also allegedly grabbed the kindergartner's hair and slammed her head against the bus wall, struck her with a book bag and poked her buttocks. The 12-year-old's younger brother also allegedly took part in the abuse. The Monroe County Sheriffs Office said juvenile counts have been filed against the 12-year-old, who has not been identified The little girl did not suffer serious injuries as a result of the bullying According to Monroe County Reporter, in addition to the charges, the girl has been suspended from school, while her autistic brother has been reassigned to a special-education classroom and school bus. The assault on Corley's daughter was captured on the school bus's surveillance camera, and the mother said she was told by the lead investigator on the case who reviewed the footage that the 45-minute ride home was 'complete terror and torture' for her little girl. A professor who previously worked at the University of Florida is suing the institution after they investigated him for sexual misconduct. Kelly A Jordan, 38, claims in a complaint filed last month in Alachua County that he was preparing the leave the school for a far more esteemed and lucrative offer at another university back in 2016 when he was alerted that he would be placed on administrative leave pending a Title IX investigation. That is when Jordan claims he told the school that he would resign from the program if it was agreed that the investigation into any claims of sexual misconduct would be dropped and there would be no release of any Title IX report. Jordan finished out the year and stepped down in May, at which time the Title IX report into his alleged behaviors was released to the complainant. That is when he claims to have gone from courting a number of offers from prestigious schools to finding himself out-of-work. Jordan was an employee of the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, where faculty is prohibited from sleeping with students. Kelly Jordan claims that the University of Florida released details of his alleged sexual misconduct with a student to derail his career. His wife also worked at the school Jordan was an employee of the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, where faculty is prohibited from sleeping with students The Gainesville Sun was the first to report on Jordan's lawsuit, and also obtained a copy of the 75-page Title IX report. The student said that the two began having a physical relationship in the Fall of 2015 after going to a bar and doing shots, and by the next year had sex. This all happened while Jordan was still married to wife, who was a fellow employee at the school's College of Engineering. The report also claims that Jordan was briefly with another faculty member and made advances towards another student. Both his affair and marriage were over by the end of 2016, and he was ordered to pay his wife $50,000 in addition to $1,000 in monthly alimony according to records obtained by DailyMail.com. Jordan had been making $161,568. That was no problem for Jordan, who said he was being actively recruited by top universities thanks to his millions in funding and the grad students he would take with him when he left the University of Florida. He claims that is why the school launched the sham investigation, with the hopes of derailing his career so they could keep his research money and students. Jordan is now out-of-work and says he cannot find any employment, losing millions because of an investigation he was told would not be released if he resigned. He is seeking a jury trial. NYPD officers have detained the man who threw a violent fit over a bagel sandwich at a Brooklyn deli. Police arrested 24-year-old Edilberto Burgos at his Bed-Stuy apartment on Thursday, more than a month after he assaulted a store clerk at a Bushwick deli on November 25. He was charged with assault and menacing, officers said to the New York Post. Burgos was previously arrested for petit larceny in February 2015. In February 2012, he was also arrested for being in possession of a loaded firearm. Police arrested 24-year-old Edilberto Burgos at his Bed-Stuy apartment on Thursday, more than a month after he assaulted a store clerk at a Bushwick deli on November 25 In footage from the November altercation, the man can be heard demanding 'a cinnamon toasted raisin bagel with bacon, egg and cheese, right f***ing now' as he pounds on the counter glass. Worker Sanjay Patel, 28, told NBC New York that the customer lost it after being asked to wait 'five to 10 minutes' because he had a couple of orders stacked up. In the 30-second clip, the man shouts: 'Make my s*** right now, you're f***ing up boy, you're really f***ed up.' But when Sanjay tried to calm the man down, it only enraged him further. 'I don't wanna listen,' he shouts, 'make my s*** right now!' He then pelted Sanjay with a bag of bread before the footage cuts out. The deli worker said the customer also threw a tablet computer and metal stand that he uses to take orders at his head, along with a shopping basket. The man threw a computer tablet and hand basket at the deli worker before fleeing without his breakfast Sanjay said the man also threatened to come back and shoot him. He eventually called the cops, at which point the customer left and jumped into a car outside, without ever getting his breakfast. When police and ambulance workers arrived Sanjay was taken to hospital to be treated for bruising and swelling where the objects hit him. 'When I sleep, nighttime, I still dream it,' he said. Over the past four months, Roman Catholic dioceses across the U.S. have released the names of more than 1,000 priests and others accused of sexually abusing children in an unprecedented public reckoning spurred at least in part by a shocking grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania, an Associated Press review has found. Nearly 50 dioceses and religious orders have publicly identified child-molesting priests in the wake of the Pennsylvania report issued in mid-August, and 55 more have announced plans to do the same over the next few months, the AP found. Together they account for more than half of the nation's 187 dioceses. The review also found that nearly 20 local, state or federal investigations, either criminal or civil, have been launched since the release of the grand jury findings. Those investigations could lead to more names and more damning accusations, as well as fines against dioceses and court-ordered safety measures. More than 1,000 priests and others accused of sexually abusing children have been named following a Pennsylvania grand jury investigation. In December, Pope Francis (pictured) vowed the church will 'never again' hide accused priest's crimes 'People saw what happened in these parishes in Pennsylvania and said, 'That happened in my parish too.' They could see the immediate connection, and they are demanding the same accounting,' said Tim Lennon, national president of the board of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. The recently disclosed accusations date back six or seven decades in some cases, with the oldest from the 1910s in Louisiana. Most of the priests were long ago removed from ministry. An AP examination found that more than 60 percent are dead. In most cases, the statute of limitations for bringing criminal charges or suing has run out. Nevertheless, advocates say exposing molesters nearly two decades after the scandal first erupted in Boston in 2002 is an encouraging step, in part because it gives some victims a sense of vindication after decades of official silence or denials. Also, it could increase pressure on dioceses to set up victims' compensation funds, as the church has done in Pennsylvania already. And it could result in the removal of molesters from positions outside the church that give them access to children. 'This is a milestone. We are getting closer and closer to what this ought to be, the true coming to terms that would have to be at a national level,' said Joe McLean, who filed a lawsuit with other victims seeking to compel the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to release files on alleged abusers nationwide. The Pennsylvania investigation, led by state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, identified nearly 300 'predator priests' dating back seven decades and accused church leaders of covering up for the abuses, in some cases by returning priests to duty after short stays in treatment centers or reassigning them. Advocates said the report had big impact because it was the largest to date in scope, encompassing most of the state. The grand jury investigation was led by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro and identified nearly 300 'predator priests' dating back seven decades Victims of clergy sexual abuse and their family members cried as Shapiro discussed the investigation findings during a news conference in August 2018 Victims' advocates and others, including some church officials, said the report was largely responsible for the urgency now being shown by the church. Many bishops cited those findings and other scandals including the resignation over the summer of Washington Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, accused of groping an altar boy in the 1970s in their letters to their congregations. The biggest list of names has come from the Jesuits West Province, a religious order that encompasses nine Western states. It identified 111 priests. The New Orleans Archdiocese and the Diocese of Syracuse, New York, named 61 and 57 respectively. The Great Falls-Billings, Montana, Diocese disclosed 47 names, including those of a few nuns, while the Los Angeles Archdiocese reported more than 50 from the past decade or so. Some dioceses, like Peoria, Illinois, released only names with no information on the allegations or the church's response. Others detailed such things as parish assignments, numbers and dates of allegations including an Omaha priest with 20 to 35 accusations against him and attempts at treatment, restriction and punishment. And more names could be coming in places where attorneys general have launched statewide investigations such as New Jersey, New York, Nebraska, Florida and Delaware, or in cities like Houston or Cheyenne, Wyoming, where local prosecutors are looking into individual priests. In his Christmas address last month, Pope Francis made an unprecedented call for priests who had abused children to turn themselves in and vowed the church will 'never again' hide their crimes. The world's bishops will hold a summit at the Vatican next month to forge a comprehensive response to the crisis. Washington Archbishop Theodore McCarrick (in 2005) resigned over the summer after being accused of groping an altar boy in the 1970s Pope Francis (right) accepted the resignation of Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, DC, after he was accused in the Pennsylvania report of mishandling some allegations of abuse against priests and others while bishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006 The U.S. bishops adopted new reporting procedures and other reforms after the furor in Boston but held off on any further measures recently at the direction of the Vatican. The bishops are holding a retreat outside Chicago starting Wednesday for 'prayer and reflection' upon the scandal. Messages left by the AP seeking comment from conference officials were not returned. In the 16 years between the Boston scandal and the Pennsylvania investigation, only about 30 dioceses around the country had released lists of priests they deemed credibly accused of abuse. Most of those dioceses came clean because they were forced to do so by lawsuits or bankruptcy filings. Some dioceses declined to name any deceased priests, since they could not defend themselves, and some would not identify any clergy members at all. Now, 13 dioceses have hired outside consultants including FBI agents and former judges to review their files, and dioceses that had previously been secretive are coordinating to release statewide lists in such places as Texas and New Jersey. Bishop Anthony B. Taylor of the Little Rock Diocese in Arkansas disclosed the names of 12 priests in September and announced the hiring of a consultant to review diocesan files. 'The Pennsylvania grand jury report kind of helped us firm up our decision to move forward with what we were doing. It affected the timing rather than the decision,' Taylor said. In October, the pope accepted the resignation of Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, D.C., after he was accused in the report of mishandling some allegations of abuse against priests and others while bishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006. The report is also credited with spurring an uptick in victims contacting support networks or law enforcement. Pennsylvania's clergy abuse hotline has received more than 1,400 new allegations since August, and Lennon said there has been a dramatic increase in victims reaching out to SNAP. While praising the release of names, many experts said the lists are often incomplete. Terence McKiernan, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, which has tracked abuse for more than a decade, said many dioceses have left off names of known abusers his group has published in its online database. 'It's not enough,' Pennsylvania's Shapiro agreed. 'I do not believe that the church is capable of policing itself though. They need outside forces, ideally law enforcement, to hold them accountable.' Shapiro said he has spoken to 45 other attorneys general since his report, and 14 have publicly acknowledged some form of investigation. Other investigations have become public because of dioceses acknowledging subpoenas, reporters documenting raids or state agencies advertising victim hotlines. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan printed a copy of the Pennsylvania report the day it came out. In mid-December, she issued a blistering preliminary report saying a review of church files showed dioceses in Illinois had withheld the names of at least 500 clergy accused of sexually abusing children. 'It was obvious that this type of concealment, this type of unresolved action in Pennsylvania, that we were going to find the same thing in Illinois,' Madigan said. Some 22,000 minors illegally crossed the Southern U.S. border in December, a number that government officials say bolsters the argument for building the president's promised border wall. Of those 22,000 minors, roughly 5,000 were unaccompanied by a parent or guardian. 'Vulnerable populations are embarking on the dangerous journey north in record numbers putting themselves and minors in harm's way,' said Katie Waldman, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security. Central American migrants cross the US-Mexico border fence from Tijuana to San Diego County as seen from Tijuana on December 27, 2018 In addition, more than 15,000 unaccompanied minors crossed the border in the first three months of federal fiscal year 2019 which began October 1, 2018. U.S. officials are calling the situation a humanitarian crisis, noting that there has been significant demand for medical treatment by immigrants, often related to the long journey they made to reach the border. Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, which represents migrant children, said the problem was being exacerbated by U.S. immigration policies introduced under the Trump administration. 'This is a humanitarian crisis that largely involves people fleeing extreme violence in Central America which means this is a refugee movement,' Young told DailyMail.com 'And the government's approach to treat this as a law enforcement challenge instead of a humanitarian challenge is the wrong approach.' Waldman disagreed, saying the numbers are further indication that a border wall is needed, and criticized current immigration laws and a federal court that has ruled against the administration on several key cases. 'The lack of a physical barrier coupled with major loopholes from badly written laws and a terrible ruling from the Ninth Circuit act (as) a magnet for family units and unaccompanied alien children,' Waldman said. The Ninth Circuit Court has been a thorn in Trump's side on immigration issues, striking down his original travel ban for Muslim countries, and more recently issuing a temporary restraining order against the administration's plan to refuse the right to apply for asylum to immigrants who cross the border illegally. Trump has also sought to end the Ninth Circuit's Flores Settlement Agreement a decades-long legal deal that provides minimum standards for caring for immigrant children in U.S. custody. A migrant child sleeps while he is carried by family alongside fellow migrants who traveled from Central America with the intention of crossing into the U.S. from Tijuana, Mexico on December 14, 2018 In the last week of December alone, Customs and Border Protection referred 451 migrant for medical treatment, including 129 children under the age of five; 88 who were aged 6-14; and 42 between ages 15-17, officials said. 'Congress must act to fund the border wall, amend the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protections Reauthorization Act, and terminate the Ninth Circuit's Flores Settlement Agreement to stop the cycle of illegal immigration,' Waldman said. Several migrant children have died while in U.S. custody incidences that government officials have blamed on the condition the children were in when they arrived in this country. 'The tragic results of children losing their lives is also a reflection of the fact that this crisis is self-created,' Young said. ' The administration has adopted a policy of pushing people back into Mexico, living in substandard conditions and requiring them to wait several weeks or months ... Sadly we shouldn't be surprised that children are dying as a result.' A cafe owner has revealed details of the sobering conversation his wife had with the bank moments after he was scammed out of thousands of dollars. Peter Dufty, who owns Caffe Republic on the Gold Coast, was originally scammed out of $2,250 by a pair of tradesmen who used quick fingers and convincing acting to claim they had been accidentally overcharged on their bill and receive a refund on a separate card. Mr Dufty said at the time that he was contacted by his staff who needed a special PIN to process the refund, as the cunning customer was taking a fake call from his wife after being charged much more than his $25 bill. While the customer's distressed wife was likely a fake, Mr Dufty's was not, he told A Current Affair. Scroll down for video Cafe owner Peter Dufty (pictured) told Daily Mail Australia the tradesman played the role of the wronged customer extremely well 'By the time we've processed the refund, he's run to the ATM and withdrawn the cash, and that's when Westpac has rung my wife and said, 'you guys have been scammed',' he said. One of the two tradesmen, who have not been caught, changed the amount of his coffee and cake order while entering his PIN - changing the $25 order to $2,250 - which he charged to a card he had earlier stolen. He then asked for a refund, but sneakily charged the refund to another card, allowing him to walk away with the $2,250 in his account. HOW THE SCAM WORKS The conman asks to buy something, but insists he hold the EFTPOS. They then insert a stolen card and change the charge so they stolen card pays over the odds for the goods. The scammer pretends they were accidentally charged the large amount asks for a refund. They quickly slip in their own card and are refunded the large sum to their own account. They later withdraw the stolen money. Advertisement For Mr Dufty, the stolen money represented a week's worth of profits - but now he has had to pay double that, as the cafe owner said he's been forced to also refund the owner of the stolen credit card. 'The owner of the stolen credit card can claim that first purchase back, and also we've paid him,' he said. When describing the incident to Daily Mail Australia late last year, Mr Dufty said the man 'insisted' on holding the EFTPOS machine for security reasons. 'He managed to quickly remove the card, redo the transaction as if we were entering it from a phone call... and then hands it back to us,' he said Mr Dufty said when the cashier realised the man had been incorrectly charged and told him, he allegedly 'lost it and acted surprised and demanded a refund'. 'The guys contact me for the merchant PIN required to process the refund. As per usual in the industry we do everything to keep the customer happy,' he said. 'Once I confirmed the PIN, the staff refunded the amount to what turned out to be a different card and then he went and withdrew the cash from an ATM.' Mr Dufty said it was only when the bank called two hours later and spoke to his wife that they realised they had been swindled by the crooks. Queensland Police Senior Sergent Laurie Shevlin has urged people to take caution, saying it is 'quite a unique crime' that hasn't been seen before on the Gold Coast. 'If you are aware or become a victim or witness to any offence similar to this, please contact Crime Stoppers,' Mr Shevlin said. Mr Dufty said while they are yet to be reimbursed for the theft, the ordeal has taught them to avoid refunding customers more than $20. A spokeswoman for Queensland Police told Daily Mail Australia on Friday the investigation is still underway, and no charges have been laid. Anyone can start a fire. But what do you do when that fire is raging out of control? Thats the question at the heart of Channel 4s new drama, Brexit: The Uncivil War, in which I appear. Or rather, the actor Rory Kinnear plays my part for me. The film is based, in part, on my book, Unleashing Demons, about my role as Director of Politics and Communications at Downing Street under David Cameron during the EU referendum campaign. My job was to help the Prime Minister persuade the public of the merits of staying in the EU the battle for hearts and minds if you like. My opposite number in the Brexit camp was Dominic Cummings, a little known yet highly controversial figure in Tory circles who had been an adviser to Michael Gove and is played in the TV version by Benedict Cumberbatch. Benedict Cumberbatch playing Brexit guru Dominic Cummings in the striking political thriller The film is a dramatised version of the clash between us. Cummings, a mercurial and intelligent strategist, stoking the fire of Brexit behind the scenes, with Gove, alongside Boris Johnson, as the public face of the official campaign; me, doing all I can to dampen the flames and get people to focus elsewhere. Cumberbatch says he took the Cummings role because of James Grahams script, but there is no doubt that the master strategist behind Brexit also provides a fascinating character for any actor. Witnessing him in action before the referendum campaign, it was clear Cummings was highly effective at being divisive. It was he who characterised the educational establishment as the blob and wound up anyone and everyone with his vicious, mischievous and of course anonymous outpourings on Twitter. At that time, he was clearly behind a series of briefings against David Cameron. So much so that he and Michael Gove were invited into Number 10 and asked if there was anything he wanted to get off his chest. Cummings, it turned out, wasnt so willing to criticise the Prime Minister to his face, and my memory of the meeting was of him meekly praising Cameron. Afterwards we wondered where the reckless rebel of folklore had been. After all, this was someone who reportedly used to sign himself into Whitehall meetings under the name Osama bin Laden. At the time, my view of Cummings was summed up by quoting that scene from Monty Pythons Life Of Brian, Hes not the Messiah, hes just a naughty boy. The line was changed in the TV version to, Hes not the Messiah. Hes just a f****** a*****le. So how accurate was the rest of the drama? The charts the story of the clash of political campaigners, with Cummings directing the Leave campaign and Oliver directing the Remain side From the moment the film was announced, critics of Brexit were worried that having an international superstar like Benedict Cumberbatch playing Cummings would give the man more credence than he deserved. They feared Cummings would be lionised, rather than held to account. At first, I worried too. Surely a star of Cumberbatchs calibre would create sympathy for a man who should be confronted with tough questions. And the fact is that, having delivered the Brexit vote, Cummings disappeared in a puff of smoke. After setting the fire going, he steadfastly avoided media interviews and refused to appear in front of a Parliamentary committee to answer difficult questions about data use and dodgy claims during his campaign. Most of my fears were allayed, however, when I visited the film set and saw that Cumberbatch was almost unrecognisable, having shaved his head to create Cummings unmistakably sparse thatch and bald forehead. He has not glamorised Cummings, just sort of inhabited him. The first half of James Grahams sophisticated and thoughtful script is devoted to exploring Cummings, the Machiavellian guru who can connect with, and prey on, peoples fears. He is shown running rings around the likes of Brexiter Tory MP Bernard Jenkin, whose cack-handed attempt to get Cummings fired from the official Leave campaign blew up in his face. But if the first half of the film pays heed to Cummings undoubted intelligence, and can be seen as the case for his defence, the second is the case for the prosecution. Johnson and Gove are shown at one point looking perplexed and perturbed as Cummings dances manically in front of his notorious campaign red bus on which he had slapped the deeply misleading message: We send the EU 350 million a week. Lets fund our NHS instead. Vote Leave. James Graham, who wrote Brexit : The Uncivil War, said Cumberbatch wanted to play Dominic Cummings with sympathy and understanding At this point, the Remain campaign comes into sharp focus, trying to defend an unsatisfactory status quo and complex realities, from immigration to the European Court of Justice, in the face of simple claims that Utopia is just around the corner, if only we can leave the dastardly EU. It shows how Cummings sets about systematically and carelessly unleashing the demons of David Camerons nightmares. As for the scenes in which I am portrayed, I watched through splayed fingers, groaning as I saw that Rory Kinnear had captured my mannerisms and tics as I tried to have some time with my children while taking a conference call with David Cameron and Peter Mandelson. Kinnear also captured my sense of despair as I watched anti-Brexit campaigner Bob Geldof flicking V signs at Nigel Farage as they barracked each other during their notorious River Thames confrontation at Westminster, when rival pro-Remain and pro-Brexit flotillas clashed. Is this what weve come to? I asked. The film shows how the murder of the kind, brave and thoughtful Labour MP Jo Cox stopped the campaign short. A moment to reflect about what things are really worth. I suspect how you judge Brexit: The Uncivil War will depend on whether you are Remain, Leave or simply uncertain. Its extremely well written, acted, directed and produced. If I have one small criticism, it is that the film focuses too much on the exploitation of data as the reason Leave won, suggesting it was simply clinical brilliance that triumphed, rather than the cynical calculation of Cummings and his team, who were too willing to ride in the slipstream of Nigel Farage as he threw out raw, red meat to his supporters with exaggerated and irresponsible claims. It could also have done more to acknowledge that many of the 17.4 million who voted Leave did so out of anger at Brussels arrogance and the billions being paid to the EU. The drama is at its best when it shows Dominic Cummings as a master of disruption and destruction, who struggles to make things work long-term. More than two-and-a-half years after the EU referendum, were nowhere near the Brexit Utopia he and the Leave campaign promised. Cummings, pictured here with Boris Johnson and Michael Gove ran the Vote Leave campaign At the end of the TV version, Dominic and I meet for a drink. He tells me the hard truth that a new type of politics is coming, One that you cant control. I ask him, Whats your edge? What has he found to make things any better? He doesnt have an answer. That meeting never happened. But writer James Graham invents it legitimately in my view as a means of summing up the clash of two very different world views: Me believing the world is complex, muddy and requires compromise; Cummings the absolutist who demands creative destruction. In that make-believe conversation, I make the case for a kinder, gentler politics and my fear that it has been lost. Thats exactly what I feel having been through the madness, bitterness and bloodshed of the referendum and its aftermath. I hope the film will serve as a warning that the political class needs to sober up - and focus more on what unites, than what divides us. Respect is due on both sides. And it is my belief that the only way through the current chaos is for Parliament to find a cross-party common ground that finally allows us to move on. As for me and Dominic, Im more than happy to make that drink a reality. Talk it over. Make the peace and help put out that fire once and for all. So how about it, Dominic? The drinks on me. Brexit: The Uncivil War is on Channel 4 at 9pm on Monday, January 7. Katie Rough's mother has posted a heartfelt tribute to the murdered youngster of her last Christmas alive. Alison Rough posted the moving snap on her Facebook account which shows Katie opening presents on Christmas day - just two weeks before she was smothered and her throat was slit while playing in a field near her family home. In a caption accompanying the picture, Alison Rough wrote: 'This was her very last Christmas. Scroll down for video Alison Rough posted a picture of daughter Katie opening presents on Christmas Day just two weeks before she was killed in January 2017 Alison Rough (right) and John Rough (left) embrace as hundreds turned out at a local primary school to release balloons in Katie's honour 'We spoilt her rotten. I'm so glad we did. I could never say no to her xxx.' Katie was found with severe lacerations to her neck and chest on a playing field in York in January 2017 and did not respond to frantic attempts to revive her. Her 15-year-old killer, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was ordered to be detained for a minimum of five years by a judge at Leeds Crown Court in November 2017. The defendant, who admitted manslaughter due to diminished responsibility, was seen clutching a soft toy as she appeared by video-link. Katie was smothered and then stabbed to death by a 15-year-old murderer while playing in a field near her home in York Her 15-year-old killer, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was ordered to be detained for a minimum of five years in November 2017 Katie's family looked on from the jury box. They said afterward that their lives had been 'torn apart on a day when we lost our daughter' and their home 'feels very empty'. Sentencing the teenage killer, Mr Justice Soole said: 'The level of danger to the public is high. In the circumstances of your continuing silence, the critical question is whether there is any reliable estimate as to how long that danger will continue. 'All the experts are hampered by your silence.' The judge told the teenager that 'what precisely' happened on the field 'is known only to you'. He said: 'Further and most disturbing evidence points to this being planned and based on delusional thoughts.' The judge told the court: 'The utter tragedy and devastation of all this needs no emphasis.' MADRID - The labor market in Spain continued to recover in 2018 with 210,484 less unemployed workers registered by employment services - down 6.2% on an annual basis - according to data released by the labor ministry on Thursday. Overall, 3,202,297 were registered as jobless in 2018, the lowest number since 2008, the ministry said. According to the data, during the month of December the number of unemployed workers decreased by 50,570 people compared to the previous month (-1,5%), mainly thanks to the services sector, which registered 45,874 new hires. An additional 564,000 people had social security in 2018 (+3,06% on an annual basis) with the total number exceeding 19 million workers for the first time since the end of 2007. A thief has been filmed swallowing a diamond ring in a bizarre attempt to steal it without the jeweller noticing. The woman, who police have named by her initials M.A., was caught on CCTV using a bottle of water to wash the five-stone diamond ring down her throat. M.A had asked Istanbul jeweller Mehmet Erdogan to remove the ring from the locked glass case so she could get a closer look. M.A. is seen allegedly putting the ring in her mouth as jeweller Mehmet Erdogan is on the phone She appears to wash the five-stone diamond ring down with a gulp of water right in front of Mr Erdogan She reportedly first tried slipping the ring in her pocket but Mr Erdogan noticed it was missing and asked if she had taken it. She then took out a bottle of water from her bag, slipped the ring into her mouth and then washed it down with a drink. Mr Erdogan, realising the ring was still missing, checked the CCTV footage and called the police while she was still in the shop. Police took the woman to hospital where an x-confirmed the ring was in her stomach. Irish Ian Campbell (pictured) is seen at Marmaris State Hospital in Turkey after allegedly downing a 2.5 carat diamond ring M.A. was later taken to a police station where she was charged with theft. She was released on bail even though the ring was still inside her. Cops say the woman will either have to return the ring to the shop, once nature takes its course, or pay for it. She will also face a fine or jail sentence. In October, Irish tourist Ian Campbell, 54, was arrested after he allegedly swallowed a 30,000 diamond ring in a shop in the south-western Turkish resort of Marmaris. For-profit college company Career Education Corporation has agreed to clear nearly $500million in debt for 179,000 students across the US A for-profit college company has agreed to clear nearly $500million in debt incurred by former students as part of a settlement with 48 states and Washington DC. The deal will wipe out debt for 179,000 students across the US. Career Education Corporation announced the deal on Wednesday, agreeing to forgo efforts to collect on approximately $493.6million from old accounts. The debts were incurred during the last 30 years by students at more than 100 campuses in participating states. The deal was made with all states except California, which is negotiating with the company separately, and New York, which previously reached a deal with CEC. State attorney generals across the US began investigating the company in 2014 following allegations that it misled prospective students to get them to enroll. CEC announced the deal on Wednesday, agreeing to forgo efforts to collect on approximately $493.6 million of old accounts. Pictured is American InterContinental University, a campus owned by CEC in Schaumburg, Illinois It was found that CEC misled students about the total cost of attendance as well as job placement rates. It also did not disclose that some campuses' programs were not accredited. The company also counted graduates who had only worked temporarily, or had to take work in fields unrelated to their studies, as successfully-placed graduates, according to The Seattle Times. Students in some schools, including in Washington, also revealed CEC had falsely told them that credits would easily transfer to other schools. 'This agreement not only provides relief to former students but also protects future students and advances our efforts to clean up the for-profit education industry,' Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller to KCRG. 'CEC's practices were unfair to students as well as taxpayers who supported federal student loans that were destined to fail.' Despite reaching the agreement, the CEC has 'expressly denied any allegations of wrongdoing or liability', a spokesman for the for-profit college company said in a press release. 'The resolution of this open inquiry is an important milestone for the Company that coincides with the completion last month of a multi-year process of teaching out and closing our transitional campuses,' Todd Nelson, Chief Executive Officer, said in a statement. CEC now enrolls about 34,000 students at its two chains, Colorado Technical University (pictured) and American InterContinental University 'We have remained steadfast in our belief that we can work with the attorneys general to demonstrate the quality of our institutions and our commitment to students.' Schools currently or formerly operated by CEC include American InterContinental University, Briarcliffe College, Brooks Institute, Collins College, Colorado Technical University, International Academy of Design & Technology, Le Cordon Bleu, Missouri College, and Sanford-Brown Colleges and Institutes. The agreement will apply to students who took courses both online and on campus. CEC now enrolls about 34,000 students at its two chains, Colorado Technical University and American InterContinental University. It has agreed to adopt a number of changes to its recruiting and enrollment process, including providing a single-sheet disclosure that lists each program's expected costs, job placement rate, and the median earnings of graduates. CEC also can no longer enroll students in programs that lack the accreditation required for jobs in their chosen fields. 'Our future students will receive additional informational resources on important policies, academic program information and financial aid information during the enrollment process, and an enhanced refund policy,' Nelson said. CEC will also work with a third-party administrator over the next three years who will provide 'ongoing oversight and review' of the required changes. An Ohio man and woman arrested last month in a terrorism investigation have been indicted on additional charges related to allegedly obtaining guns and explosives for a domestic terror attack that was never carried out Vincent Armstrong and Elizabeth Lecron, both 23, now face several conspiracy charges, including conspiracy to transport or receive an explosive with intent to kill or injure, federal prosecutors said on Thursday. Authorities in court documents have said the Toledo couple had talked about taking part in violent attacks on public places and had bomb-making supplies and weapons inside their home. Investigators said the couple traveled to Colorado last August to see the site of the Columbine High School massacre, where two students killed 12 classmates and a teacher in 1999. They also said Lecron had been exchanging letters with Dylann Roof, a white supremacist sentenced to death in the killings of nine black worshippers in a racist attack at a South Carolina church, and had a social media account dedicated to praising the mass murderer. Vincent Armstrong (left) and Elizabeth Lecron (right), both 23 and from Toledo, Ohio, have been indicted on additional charges related to allegedly obtaining guns and explosives for a domestic terror attack that was never carried out Armstrong's attorney said on Thursday that she had just received the new indictment and could not comment until she fully reviewed the charges. A message seeking comment was left for Lecron's attorney. Lecron and Armstrong were also indicted on charges of conspiracy to use a destructive device during a violent crime and conspiracy to use firearms during a violent crime. Both were arrested in early December following a six-month investigation. They have been in custody since their arrests. Armstrong was originally charged with making false statements while Lecron was charged with transporting explosives after investigators said she bought hundreds of screws and black powder. 'According to the allegations in the indictment, this pair obtained firearms and components to make explosives as part of a plot to kill and maim others,' Justin Herdman, the U.S. attorney for northern Ohio, said. Investigators have said they found journal entries in which the pair discussed an attack. Lecron wrote about a mass killing at a bar along with an attack at a livestock farm where she had worked, according to court documents. The filings also said Armstrong had a duffel bag in his car filled with ammunition, a tactical vest, a trench coat and a T-shirt that said 'society failed us.' Authorities in court documents have said the Toledo couple had talked about taking part in violent attacks on public places and had bomb-making supplies and weapons inside their home. Armstrong is pictured in a photo shared to social media Investigators said the couple traveled to Colorado last August to see the site of the Columbine High School massacre, where two students killed 12 classmates and a teacher in 1999. Lecron is pictured in a photo shared to social media They also said Lecron had been exchanging letters with Dylann Roof (right), a white supremacist sentenced to death in the killings of nine black worshippers in a racist attack at a South Carolina church, and had a social media account dedicated to praising the mass murderer. Armstrong is pictured in a photo shared to social media Also found in the couple's home were an AK-47, a shotgun, multiple handguns and large amounts of ammunition, according to the FBI. Lecron had been known to post photos and comments on social media glorifying mass murders, a criminal complaint in the case said. Lebron had a Tumblr account that was banned due to posting of offensive content, according to the Toledo Blade. Lecron then started a new profile, under the username 'CharlestonChurchMiracle' where she continued to post similar content, officials said. During communication with undercover FBI agents and confidential sources in August, Lecron stated she and Armstrong had a plan to commit an 'upscale mass murder' at a Toledo bar. FBI officials have declined to name the bar, but said that Lecron said she knew it only had two ways in or out, which she said could be a tactical advantage when authorities arrived. 'These arrests should send a sobering message to everyone that there is no city, large or small, that is immune to these types of hate-filled attacks,' Toledo police Chief George Kral said in a news release. 'I am incredibly proud of the response by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Toledo Police Department, and members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. This is yet another example of a well-coordinated, local/federal law enforcement partnership. Toledo is a safer city because of the dedication of these hardworking law enforcement professionals.' Advertisement Thousands of keen petrol-heads have descended on the nation's capital for the annual Summernats festival. Billed as Australia's 'biggest horsepower party', this year's event began in Canberra on Thursday as motor enthusiasts braved searing 37C heat. Created in 1988, Summernats features more than 2,500 modified cars being exhibited against a backdrop of burnt rubber and rock and roll to a crowd of about 100,000 people. Thousands of keen petrol-heads have descended on the nation's capital for the annual Summernats festival Billed as Australia's 'biggest horsepower party', this year's event began in Canberra on Thursday Motor enthusiasts braved 37C heat at the Summernats car festival being held in Canberra this weekend More than 120 cars are expected to take part in a world record attempt for the most simultaneous burnouts at the festival on Friday The festival is hoping to clinch back the record which is now held by Saudi Arabia, after its national day activities in 2017 saw 119 cars burn out at the same time More than 120 cars are expected to take part in a world record attempt for the most simultaneous burnouts at the festival on Friday. The festival is hoping to clinch back the record which is now held by Saudi Arabia, after its national day activities in 2017 saw 119 cars burn out at the same time. The record was first set at Summernats in 2013 with 69 cars burning rubber. Summernats spokesman Jos Roder says the cars will be set up 'nose to bumper' at Canberra's Exhibition Park on Friday ahead of the attempt. Summernats spokesman Jos Roder says the cars will be set up 'nose to bumper' at Canberra's Exhibition Park on Friday ahead of the burnout attempt The event had to open one hour early on its first day on Thursday as there were so many car lovers waiting outside the gates More than 100,000 people are expected to pass through the gates over the course of Summernats, which runs until Sunday Friday is expected to reach a top of 37 degrees, before possible rain on Saturday with 35, cooling slightly to 28 on Sunday The festival features four days of 'high-octane, extreme auto action' held in Canberra in January The festival will feature show cars, spectacular burnouts, concerts, driving events and an exhibition and trade show The event had to open one hour early on its first day on Thursday as there were so many car lovers waiting outside the gates. 'That's always a good sign for the opening day of a festival,' Mr Roder told AAP. More than 100,000 people are expected to pass through the gates over the course of Summernats, which runs until Sunday. There are more than 5000 entrants at this year's festival. Friday is expected to reach a top of 37 degrees, before possible rain on Saturday with 35, cooling slightly to 28 on Sunday. Thousands of car enthusiasts have flocked to Australia's capital city to celebrate the annual Summernats festival on the weekend A refitted car is exhibited at Exhibition Park during the Summernats car festival being held in Canberra in early January Michael Birdsong, 30, was arrested on New Year's Day after exposing himself to a mother of five girls and the woman's sister A Tennessee man was arrested for the 25th time on Tuesday after he exposed himself to KFC customers and laughed while masturbating in front of them. Michael Birdsong, 30, was taken into custody on New Year's Day in Memphis after law enforcement chased him down in a pursuit that ended in the bathroom of a Wendy's restaurant. The sick male came to the attention of a horrified mother who noticed his antics when she pulled into the parking lot of the fried chicken brand's ranch on Poplar near Danny Thomas road. 'I looked up and it was this man that was exposing himself, ejaculating constantly,' a tearful Lakisha Tate told WREG. 'When he saw us looking, that's when he really started playing with himself and laughing.' Accompanied by her sister, Tate didn't find the incident funny at all. Luckily the Memphis Police Department arrived in time to arrest Birdsong who tried to flee when he realized Tate had notified the authorities. 'He almost got hit by, like, four or five cars, but MPD did a great job. They were on his butt,' Tate said. 'I have five daughters and just to know that things like that happen, it was really terrifying.' Birdsong didn't give law enforcement, or other fast food customers, an easy time though because he brought his trouble to a Wendy's bathroom next. The 'terrifying' incident occurred in a Memphis, Tennessee KFC parking lot on Tuesday Lakisha Tate saw the serial flasher as she and her sister waited for their food. She said when she turned a corner she saw the man 'ejaculating constantly' and he laughed He barricaded himself inside in an attempt to evade arrest but his body weight was not enough to keep officers on the other side of the door. The New Year's Day incident was the 25th arrest for Birdsong since 2007 and his last indecent exposure conviction was as recent as 2017. That same year he was let off after being accused of exposing himself to multiple women then hitting a man on the head with a metal pipe, due to lack of evidence. Much of his trouble with the police over the past 12 years has centered around trespassing. This week he was charged with criminal trespass, disorderly conduct, evading arrest, indecent exposure and obstruction of a highway or passageway. Birdsong was put on two $600 bonds and told to appear in court Thursday. A woman missing with her three-year-old child since July has been urged to see sense by the child's father who today begged her to let their son have a 'normal childhood' not a life 'on the run'. Ellie Yarrow-Sanders, 26, from Basildon, has not used her bank accounts or mobile since disappearing with Olly Sheridan six months ago, according to the youngster's father, Patrick Sheridan. Mr Sheridan, 45, has today renewed his appeal for information about their whereabouts and Essex Police are also searching for them. He said: 'I hope that Ellie sees sense and comes forward so that this can be sorted out and Olly can have a normal childhood, not living on the run. Ellie Yarrow-Sanders, 26, has not used her bank accounts or mobile since disappearing with Olly Sheridan six months ago - the boy's father Patrick (right with his son) today begged them to come out of hiding Olly, who is at the centre of a family court dispute between his estranged parents, disappeared with his mother just a few weeks before she was due to give evidence in a 'critical' family court hearing over his future 'My boy needs both of his parents in his life and not to live a life undercover, hidden away from his family and the rest of the world.' He said Christmas was 'unbearable', adding: 'Please, if any members of the public who might have seen Olly or have any information, call the police.' Olly is at the centre of a family court dispute between his estranged parents. Ellie disappeared just before she was due to give evidence. At a new hearing yesterday staff at Mr Sheridan's law firm Irwin Mitchell renewed appeals for help finding Olly and his mother and said the situation was becoming 'increasingly serious'. Lawyer Jenna Lucas: 'Ellie has gone underground since abducting Olly. She has not used her bank accounts or mobile phone since she and Olly disappeared in July.' She added: 'The situation for Olly Sheridan is increasingly serious.' Miss Yarrow-Sanders's mother travelled to Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, at around the time Olly vanished. Ellie disappeared just before she was due to give evidence in custody proceedings Miss Yarrow-Sanders's mother travelled to Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, at around the time Olly vanished and has not been seen since A judge raised the alarm in December and urged anyone with information to come forward and also lifted a ban on naming mother and son in the hope they will be traced. Mr Justice Williams, who had overseen a hearing in the Family Division of the High Court in London, said he was gravely concerned. Family court hearings have been staged in private and journalists had been barred from identifying any involved family members, who come from the Basildon area of Essex. But Mr Justice Williams said he was lifting the identity bar in the hope that publicity would help find Olly and Miss Yarrow-Sanders. He said they could be named and photographs published. Essex Police are also searching and have urged anyone with information to get in touch. A Southern California house where police say a couple tortured or abused most of their 13 children, sold for $310,360 on Wednesday. Dubbed the filthy 'House of Horrors', the Riverside County property went for approximately $40,000 less than the appraisal price of $353,138, after 40 bids. The foreclosure auction began at $177,255 Saturday and later that day had reached more than $198,000. But the alleged crimes of David and Louise Turpin were not mentioned in documents attached to the four-bedroom property listing. Scroll down for videos The house in Perris, located about 70 miles east of Los Angeles, where authorities say David and Louise Turpin shackled their children to furniture, sold for $310,360 on Wednesday In January, police arrested David and Louise Turpin after one of their 13 children escaped from the family's home and called 911 A spokesman for Hudson and Marshall told The Press-Enterprise on the first day of the auction that the auctioneer company had become aware of the allegations and was working with the seller to get information. They had said they planned to add details in the description so that the buyer knows what is alleged to have happened inside. It's not known whether the unidentified buyer had details when it sold at 2pm PST Wednesday in the foreclosure auction held on behalf of an undisclosed lender. Real estate laws in the state only require the declaration of deaths in the past three years and a disclosure of exposure to a controlled substance. The home had been foreclosed on in November. Authorities say David, 57, and Louise Turpin, 50, shackled their children to furniture, fed them moldy pie, whipped them with a belt, and choked them for watching a Justin Bieber video at the house in Perris, located about 70 miles east of Los Angeles. The house is located on 160 Muir Woods Road in Perris, California The home, which foreclosed in November, was appraised as having a value of $353,138 The bidding reached in excess of $198,000 late on Saturday, the same day the auction opened The auction was conducted online on behalf of an unnamed lender. The property measures 2,386 square feet and has three bathrooms. It was listed in fair condition and everything inside the property was said to be working. At the time of the couple's arrest, detectives described the home of the couple - whose children range from two to 29 years old - as filthy and smelly. Scott Beloian, a local realtor, previously said he believes that agents have an ethical obligation to disclose such information to prospective buyers. 'Weve always been, if you have to ask the question, should I disclose, you should err on the side of probably so,' Beloian said. Beloian said that real estate agents could be sued if a home buyer later discovers that something untoward took place inside a recently purchased property. The Turpin couple has pleaded not guilty to torture, child abuse, and perjury charges that could carry a life sentence 'I would like to think that the seller is going to disclose to the buyer what happened in the [Turpin] house,' he said. If the bidding does not reach an undisclosed reserve price - the minimum that a seller would accept - it won't be sold. The Turpin couple has pleaded not guilty to torture, child abuse, and perjury charges that could carry a life sentence. They were arrested in January when a daughter escaped from the family's home and called 911. The couple remains in custody, and the house was foreclosed in November. Investigators say some of the children had stunted growth and wasted muscles and described being beaten, starved and put in cages. In June, those present inside a Riverside, California courtroom gasped when prosecutors showed photos of two of Louise and David Turpin's daughters that their 17-year-old sister had snapped with an old cellphone before fleeing in January. Investigators say some of the children had stunted growth and wasted muscles and described being beaten, starved and put in cages The images featured two pale, malnourished girls, ages 11 and 14, shackled to bunk beds inside their family's filthy home. Each is being held on $12million bail and could face up to life in prison if convicted. The couple was arrested in January after their teenage daughter, who had spent two years planning an escape, climbed out a window. By the time police arrived at the house, the two shackled sisters had been hastily released from their chains, but a 22-year-old son remained restrained. The young man said he and his siblings had been suspected of stealing food and being disrespectful, Riverside County sheriff's Detective Thomas Salisbury said during a court hearing in June. The man said he had been tied up with ropes at first but later, after learning to wriggle free, restrained with increasingly larger chains on and off over six years. Sheriff's deputy Daniel Brown said one daughter told him that she knew her sister had contacted police when she heard a knock at the door and saw flashing lights outside the window. The Turpin couple has pleaded not guilty to torture, child abuse, and perjury charges that could carry a life sentence 'She said she was finally going to become free,' Brown said. Senior investigators with the county district attorney's office testified that doctors and medical records showed some of the children were severely malnourished and had muscle wasting, with some adult children being 32lbs underweight. The 11-year-old girl who had been shackled to her bed had stunted growth from malnourishment and her arms were the size of an infant's, investigator Patrick Morris said. In her 20-minute 911 call, the girl who escaped told the dispatcher: 'We don't really do school. I haven't finished first grade.' The girl told sheriff's Deputy Manuel Campos that she hadn't bathed in a year and that she didn't know the date or the month, he testified. About two years earliere, the mother found out the girl had been watching a Justin Bieber video on a cellphone borrowed from her sister, and started choking her and asked, 'do you want to die?' Campos said. The girl said she didn't want to die, but she feared she was about to as the choking continued. 'Yes you do, yes you do, you do, you want to die,' the mother said, according to Campos. 'You want to die and go to hell.' There was no breakfast, and lunch and dinner had been combined into one meal that included peanut butter and bologna sandwiches, a frozen burrito and chips. The girl said she recently had started refusing the peanut butter sandwiches 'because she starts to gag and starts to throw up,' Campos testified. The teen, who said she hadnt finished first grade, had difficulty pronouncing some words and spoke like a much younger child. The girl planned her escape for two years and was terrified as she climbed out a window to freedom, according to Campos' testimony. 'She couldnt even dial 911 because she was so scared that she was shaking,' he said. The couple has been accused of administering beatings and neglecting their children, who had at most just a few years of schooling. David and Louise Turpin are seen above in a California courtroom in June She didnt know the neighborhood and had to read her address to the dispatcher off a piece of paper. The kids were rarely allowed outside, though they went out on Halloween and traveled as a family to Disneyland and Las Vegas, they said. 'Sometimes I wake up and I cant breathe because of how dirty the house is,' the girl told the woman dispatcher. She said she hadnt bathed in a year and Campos observed dirt caked on her skin and a stink from being unbathed. The girl referred to her parents as 'mother' and 'father' because she said it was 'more like the Bible days,' he said. She reported that her father pulled down her pants and put her on his clothed lap in a recliner chair in the TV room when she was 12. She said she didnt like it and pulled up her pants, and that he told her not tell anyone, Campos said. The children spent most of their time locked in their rooms except for limited meals or using the bathroom. If they didnt obey strict rules, they were slapped in the face or had their hair pulled, the girl told Campos. The eldest son in the family told authorities discipline in the home included beatings with the leather or buckle end of a belt, said Wade Walsvick, senior investigator for the Riverside County district attorneys office. Years earlier, when the family lived in Texas, he said the beatings involved 'a switch, the paddle and the oar' and the siblings were sometimes placed in cages. The touching bond between a mother and her 10-year-old daughter who were killed in a horror double electrocution has been revealed. Juanita Bendel, 39, and her 'little cowgirl' Ava were spending New Year's Eve together at their property in Tumoulin, near Cairns in far north Queensland, when tragedy struck. The pair were killed after receiving a massive electric shock after attaching a charger to a semi-trailer, which had already been attached to an electric fence to keep horses out. Ray and Rosanne Bendel, Juanita's parents, issued a heartbreaking statement on Thursday. Juanita Bendel (left) and her daughter spent their final moments picking vegetables together on their family farm, before both were tragically shocked to death by a live wire Ava Collins, 10, (pictured) and her mother were electrocuted on a rural cattle property, possibly while fixing a cable to a semi-trailer 'Juanita loved country life and animals,' they said. 'Ava also loved country life and always by her mother's side. Please check to make sure that all sheds and houses have throw-out safety switches.' Juanita Bendel's husband Mitchell Cole, who is Ava's father, returned home at about lunchtime to find the couple's second eldest daughter in hysterics, before making the grim discovery. 'The husband has found them, he had come back for the farm for lunch; he too received a sizeable shock,' Superintendent Geoff Sheldon told The Cairns Post. 'He began to give CPR... paramedics tried to resuscitate both mother and child but efforts were negative.' Both Ms Bendel, who ran a childcare centre at nearby Ravenshoe, and her daughter were pronounced dead at the scene. The pair had spent New Year's Day together at their property in Tumoulin, near Cairns in Far North Queensland Supt Sheldon said the tragedy had rocked the tight-knit community of less than 800 people. 'It is just a family tragedy but it is such a broader thing than that,' he said. 'Everybody in the community knew them, came to help at a time of crisis and they have all been horrendously affected by this.' Tablelands Regional Council Mayor Joe Paronella said the deaths came as an 'awful shock' to the community. 'It's a tragedy and very sad loss. It just highlights how careful we have to be at all times,' Cr Paronella told the Cairns Post. Daily Mail Australia understands Ava attended the Catholic St Teresa's Primary School in Ravenshoe and was the eldest of three girls. The married mother lived with her family on a cattle and horse property she owned with her husband. Ava's four-year-old sister Hannah suffered minor injuries from the electrified setup as she went outside to look for them. Their neighbour Mark Toohey, who arrived at the scene soon after tragedy struck, was distraught at losing those next door to him. He described the child who lost her life as 'an active little cowgirl'. 'The family's grieving, we're all grieving, I was on site,' he told Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday. 'The chances of this happening are so remote. That's what makes it especially tragic.' Ava was remembered for being a cowgirl, and poses as one with friends at the Brahman 50th anniversary Cairns Show Local councillor Annette Haydon knew the family personally and was shocked by their sudden death. 'Juanita always had the biggest smile on her face. She was always happy to talk to you. These are terrible circumstances,' she told the Courier Mail. Juanita's aunty, Roseanne Bendel, told the publication the tragedy was 'beyond comprehension'. 'I can't even think at the moment. They are just a wonderful family and we're just all so devastated... [Ava] was a beautiful little 10-year-old,' she said. Workplace Health and Safety is investigating the incident and police are preparing a report for the Coroner. A black Florida teen has hired a prominent civil rights lawyer after the College Board accused her of cheating on her SAT test when she managed to raise her score by 330 points. Kamilah Campbell first took the standardized test in March and scored a 900, ultimately deciding that she needed to do better. The 18-year-old student - who has a 3.1 GPA and aspires to go to Florida State University to study dance - decided to study, see tutors and even took a free online SAT prep program in order to boost her score. Kamilah Campbell first took the standardized test in March and scored a 900, ultimately deciding that she needed to do better The 18-year-old student - who has a 3.1 GPA and aspires to go to Florida State University to study dance - decided to study, see tutors and took a free online SAT prep program By October, Campbell took the test again and scored a 1230 but her excitement was short lived, as the testing company claimed her scores were invalid. 'They tell you that you need to practice and work and study to do better but then when you do better they question it,' she said, according to CBS News. The Educational Testing Service, who facilitates the test, sent a letter to Campbell claiming that there was 'substantial evidence' that the scores were invalid. 'Our preliminary concerns are based on substantial agreement between your answers on one or more scored sections of the test and those of other test takers,' they added, CNN reports. 'The anomalies noted above raise concerns about the validity of your scores.' By October, Campbell took the test again and scored a 1230 but her excitement was short lived, as the testing company claimed her scores were invalid According to Zach Goldberg, a spokesman for the College Board, 'the letter never references score gains as a reason for her scores being under review' (stock) 'Because it improved for over 300 points, so they're saying I improved basically too much and that's skeptical for them,' Campbell added. 'They are not looking at it as if, "Maybe she focused and dedicated herself to passing this test."' Campbell couldn't apply to the school of her dreams as a result of her scores being held. She has missed the deadline to apply for SAT score-based scholarships as well. According to Prep Scholar, the average SAT score at the university is a 1260. The school technically has a February 1 deadline. Alums from FSU have rallied behind Campbell and have tapped Ben Crump, a prominent lawyer and graduate from the school, to represent the young woman 'She stayed up late nights, she stayed up early mornings, studying. She received extra tutoring because she set a goal in her head she wanted to reach and she accomplished that goal. She deserves to be honored,' the student's mother, Shirley Campbell, explained to WPLG 10. Alums from FSU have rallied behind Campbell and have tapped Ben Crump, a prominent lawyer and graduate from the school, to represent the young woman. Crump is working to ensure that his client can get her scores from the College Board in time to apply for the Florida State dance program. During a Wednesday news conference, Crump declared that the company had two weeks to respond. According to Zach Goldberg, a spokesman for the College Board, said that the process typically takes four to six weeks. ETS develops and administers the SAT and other programs on behalf of the College Board. Goldberg did make note that 'the letter never references score gains as a reason for her scores being under review.' 'She stayed up late nights, she stayed up early mornings, studying. She received extra tutoring because she set a goal in her head she wanted to reach and she accomplished that goal. She deserves to be honored,' the student's mother, Shirley Campbell, explained During a Wednesday news conference, Crump declared that the company had two weeks to respond. Goldberg claimed that they typically respond in four to six weeks Campbell and her lawyer are now taking part in a 'consistent, established procedure to assess the validity of scores,' Goldberg said. He added that they will have 'the opportunity to provide relevant information, which is used to help make determinations about the validity of the test scores following a complete investigation.' Daisy Gonzalez-Diego, a superintendent at the Miami-Dade district where Campbell attends school, has also asked that the 'disturbing' situation be handled quickly by the testing company. 'Although this is a test administered by a private entity, and not M-DCPS, we feel a moral obligation to intervene,' she said. And while the whole experience has been disheartening for the teen, she remains undeterred. 'I am proud of myself and I need my scores released,' she declared. A man with alleged gang ties was arrested at the scene of a vehicle crash in South Lake Tahoe, California, while armed, drunk and in possession of meth. Victor Alfonso Ramos Eucendo, 33, was found by police in South Lake Tahoe after he crashed into a parked car and a bear-proof container on Monday with his Chevy Silverado, according to the Tahoe Daily Tribune. The police also say that Ramos Eucendo admitted to having ties to the notorious MS-13 gang from his time living in Central America and is currently a member of the Surenos street gang. The South Lake Tahoe Police said Ramos Eucendo had a Norinco Mak-90 semi-automatic rifle, a Chinese variation of the more well-known Russian AK-47. Victor Alfonso Ramos Eucendo, 33, (left) had in his possession the Norinco Mak-90 (right) rifle along with a separate high-capacity magazine with 30 rounds and a quantity of meth Along with the high-capacity rifle was another loaded 30-round magazine and an unspecified quantity of meth. He apparently had crashed on his way to meet another drug dealer to confront him about a conflict over a different, earlier vehicle crash. It was unclear specifically who he was going to confront with the semi-automatic rifle, or how he had such a weapon in his possession. Ramos Eucendo was booked on charges of illegal possession of an assault weapon, carrying a loaded firearm in a vehicle, DUI and possession of a controlled substance. Police will request that a possession of a high capacity magazine charge be added at his arraignment, the Tahoe Daily Tribune reports. (ANSA) - Rome, January 3 - A North Korean diplomat working in Italy disappeared a few days before the end of his spell as charge d'affaires in November, South Korean intelligence services told their parliament on Thursday. Jo Song-il started work at the North Korean embassy in Italy on October 9, 2017, and was due to end his stint on November 20 last year, when he allegedly disappeared with his wife. The South Korean press said he had been under the protection of the Italian government since the beginning of December and had made an asylum request to "an unspecified Western country". Italian foreign ministry sources told ANSA: "No asylum request by a North Korean functionary has been made, to our knowledge". photo: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un The Department of Justice is investigating whether President Donald Trump's former Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, lied to Department of Interior investigators in what could be a potential criminal violation, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. The Post, citing three people familiar with the matter, said the former Cabinet official was the center of two probes by his department's inspector general: one involving his real estate transactions in Montana and another over his role in a review of a Connecticut casino project proposed by Native American tribes. Zinke left the administration on Wednesday but had made no public mention of the ethics investigations upon his departure from Interior, which oversees Americas vast public lands. Trump did not give a reason for the departure when he announced it last month. The Department of Justice is investigating whether President Donald Trump's former Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, lied to Department of Interior investigators, according to a report The people familiar with the matter said Interior investigators had referred the matter to the Department of Justice after coming to believe that Zinke had lied to them about his dealings, according to the Post. Representatives for Zinke could not be immediately reached for comment on the Post report. He complained in his resignation letter about 'vicious and politically motivated attacks' that he called in 'unfortunate distraction.' A spokesman for Zinke told the Post that the former secretary had not been contacted by the Justice Department, the Post said. Zinke had voluntarily been interviewed by Interior investigators regarding the casino, he also told the Post. Zinke left facing a raft of investigations, and a new Democratic House armed with subpoena power Zinke didn't mention the probe when he announced his resignation 'As a general matter, the department doesnt confirm or deny the existence of any ongoing investigation,' Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said. The Post, citing people familiar with the matter, said Justice Department officials have not decided yet whether to charge Zinke. Zinke, a former Navy Seal and U.S. congressman, had served as Interior secretary since early 2017 but had faced investigations into his use of security details, chartered flights and a real estate deal in his home state of Montana. Trump had said in November he would look at the allegations. An unlicensed New York City beautician who has been charged with manslaughter after a woman died following a botched butt lift has previously served two prison terms for unlicensed silicone injections. Whalesca Castillo, 44, was charged on Wednesday with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the June 17 death of her patient Lesbia Ayala. Authorities said the Philadelphia woman had an embolism when Castillo injected silicone into her buttocks and thighs at the illegal cosmetic surgery clinic run out of her Bronx home. Police were called to Castillo's home and found Ayala in cardiac arrest. Unlicensed New York beautician Whalesca Castillo, 44, (left in custody and right) was charged on Wednesday with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the June death of a patient Ayala was rushed to hospital where she was pronounced dead. Her death was ruled a homicide by the medical examiner. Castillo, who was charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and unauthorized practice of a profession, was scheduled to appear in court on Thursday. Her attorney, Robert Osuna, would not comment on the charges. Castillo had previously pleaded guilty in September 2011 to federal charges related to performing plastic surgery without a medical license, the New York Times reports. After being released on probation she was caught doing unlicensed injections again in 2014 and sent back to prison. Court papers from her earlier arrests show Castillo charged $1,500 for each procedure. According to the court filings, Castillo discouraged patients from seeking medical treatment when they experienced pain or bleeding after their procedures. Philadelphia woman, Lesbia Ayala, (pictured above) died on June 17 after going into cardiac arrest when she had silicone injected into her buttocks and thighs Castillo had previously pleaded guilty in September 2011 (above) to federal charges related to performing plastic surgery without a medical license One client texted Castillo complaining of leaking blood and liquid from her buttocks and legs, court documents said. Castillo replied: 'Buy some crazy glue and put it on.' Buttocks enhancement surgery, known as the 'Brazilian butt lift,' has become increasingly popular in recent years thanks in part to the visibility of well-endowed stars like Kim Kardashian and Nicki Minaj. Liquid silicone injections are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for cosmetic surgery, but unlicensed silicone injections can be a cheap alternative to approved procedures involving fat transfer or silicone gel implants. Experts say that even the FDA-approved fat-transfer procedure for butt enhancement is more dangerous than other cosmetic surgeries. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons estimates that the Brazilian butt lift has a death rate as high as one in 3,000 patients. The society says 20,300 of the procedures were performed in 2017. The number of butt lifts has more than doubled in the past five years, the society says. Reliable numbers for unlicensed silicone butt injections are difficult to ascertain, but deaths linked to the procedure have been reported in locations including Atlanta and Capitol Heights, Maryland. A Louis Vuitton sales assistant and her two sisters have been jailed after stealing more than 230,000 in a tax-free shopping scam. Yuan Ting Yue, who worked at Selfridges in Manchester city centre, while her sisters Yuan Yee Yue and Yuan Ling Yue worked in duty free shops at Manchester Airport, abused a tax scheme which allowed them to claim fake rebates. The three of them abused a scheme which allows international travellers to claim VAT refunds on goods bought into the UK, claiming fake rebates for luxury bags and designer clothes. Yuan Ling Yue, 29 and Yuan Yee Yue, 32, were both sentenced to 15 months Yuan Ting copied passport details from legitimate tax reclaim forms of tourists who shopped at Selfridges. The identities of the travellers were used to complete fake claim forms for non-existent purchases of luxury bags,shoes and wallets worth thousands, which she and her two sisters would post at Manchester Airport. The three sisters, who lived in Swinton, put a number of different family members' names on the bank details so the repayments were made to them. Between June 2016 and February 2017, they made 239,794 and then attempted to claim another 83,455. Their scheme fell apart when the UK Border Force investigated when they saw repeated claims were made with the same bank account numbers, but with different names and passport details. HMRC officers raided the sisters' home and found a laptop which contained a spreadsheet with details of family bank accounts and how much money had been repaid. Payments were made to at least nine relatives, including the sisters' mother, father, brother and two cousins. All three sisters admitted tax fraud and were sentenced at Manchester Crown Court. Yuan Ting Yue, 27, was setenced to two years and six months behind bars at Manchester Crown Court Yuan Ting, 27, was sentenced to two years and six months, while Yuan Yee, 32, and Yuan Ling, 29, were both sentenced to 15 months. Paul Maybury, assistant director of HMRC's fraud investigation unit, said: 'This was a careful and calculated attempt to steal from the public purse. 'Yuan Ting cynically exploited her position of trust to steal passport details for her fraudulent claims. 'Yuan Yee and Yuan Ling were fully complicit in the deception with vast amounts of cash placed in their own bank accounts. 'VAT fraud takes funding from our public services. 'The money stolen by the sisters could have been used to pay for the salaries of 14 qualified nurses for a year.' The Retail Export Scheme means travellers buying goods worth more than 30 in the UK, who take them outside the EU, can claim a VAT refund. A cargo ship carrying 3,500 brand new Nissan cars is still adrift in the Pacific ocean after a fire onboard. Five crewmembers are missing presumed dead, and the other 16 were forced to evacuate after the New Year's Day blaze - leaving The Sincerity Ace, a 650-foot car carrier, drifting 2,000 miles northwest of Hawaii. The ship, which had been carrying the cars from Japan to Honolulu, is now in danger of sinking. A picture posted on Twitter showed the The Sincerity Ace, a 650-foot car carrier, still on fire after the New Year's Day blaze It is currently out of helicopter range, with the nearest rescue ships days away from reaching it. As the fire began, the US Coast Guard activated the AMVER (Automated Mutual-Assistance Vessel Rescue) alert system to call for help evacuating the crew from private vessels in the area. Despite the fact it had already drifted out of its shipping lane, five cargo ships came to the rescue and manage to save 16 of the crew. Aerial searches were launched in the last two days to try and find the missing five crewmembers. The Drive reported that the five missing people ended up in the sea after problems with their lifeboat. Four of them were later spotted floating unresponsive amid 15-foot seasthe ad-hoc rescuers were unable to save themwhile the fifth remains missing after the Coast Guard suspended its search on Wednesday night. The cargo ship (pictured) was built in 2009 and was en route from Japan to Honolulu, Hawaii when the fire started 'We are thankful for the assistance the crews of these merchant vessels have given us during this event, significantly reducing possible response time,' Lt. Duane Zitta at the Coast Guard Joint Rescue Coordination Center said. 'Their quick actions provided for the rescue of 16 members of the crew who would otherwise still be in the water and are continuing to aid us.' Built in 2009, The Sincerity Ace is equipped to carry 6,400 cars. It's owned by a Japanese company called Shoei Kisen Kaisha, which has already dispatched salvage tugs to the scene. It's not clear whether they'll reach the stricken ship before it sinks. The company is also working to arrange transportation for the scattered survivors to return home. Nissan confirmed that the ship was carrying about 3,500 of its vehicles, adding that its thoughts 'are with the crew members as well as the safety of the rescue teams.' A Kentucky special education teacher has been accused of hosting a raucous New Years party where more than a dozen teens were smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol. Lindsey Lewis, 36, was arrested early Tuesday morning and charged with 14 counts of engaging in a unlawful transaction with a minor. Jefferson County Public Schools spokeswoman Renee Murphy said Lewis has taught at Phoenix School of Discovery in Lyndon since 2016. Kentucky school teacher Lindsey Lewis, 36 (left and right), was arrested in the early hours of January 1 and was charged with 14 counts of engaging in a unlawful transaction with a minor Police were called to Lewis' home (pictured) on Boaz Lane in Mount Washington by her neighbors complaining about teenagers at her party The neighbors accused Lewis' underage guests of tearing up their property pulling in and out of the driveway (pictured) According to an arrest report cited by WDRB, police officers were dispatched to Lewis' home on Boaz Lane in Mount Washington just before 1am after neighbors called complaining about 'teenagers at a party next door' who 'tore up' their property pulling in and out of the driveway. Police said Lewis, who has two daughters of her own, told officers she was the adult in charge. At least 40 people were inside the residence, of whom 14 were minors. The report alleges that responding officers could smell marijuana and spotted several cans and bottles of alcoholic beverages scattered around the house. Police said Lewis, who has two daughters, made alcohol and pot accessible to 14 juveniles According to police, multiple underage guests admitted to drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana at the end-of-the-year celebration. Police said Lewis 'knowingly hosted a party' where children younger than 18 were exposed to alcohol and pot. School district spokesperson Renee Murphy told WDRB that Lewis will be reassigned. Advertisement Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was sworn in as a congresswoman by the Speaker she has pledged to rebel against after a day of selfies on the floor of the House of Representatives. The socialist hugged Nancy Pelosi at a ceremonial swearing-in also attended by her mother Blanca, brother Gabriel, and boyfriend Riley Roberts, despite saying she would not vote for the speaker's rules which impose a fiscal straitjacket on the Democrats. Earlier she had been just a few rows back from the Democratic party leader, and the New York politician, 29, was a source of attention by fellow lawmakers on a day of warm greetings, new acquaintances, and grip-and-grins. Clad all in white - a probable tribute to the color of the campaign for female suffrage, but also making her easy to spot - she showed she was one of the stars of the new Congress. Although she toppled a powerful New York Democrat, Rep. Joe Crowley, to take his Queens and the Bronx district, New York 14, Ocasio-Cortez had warm greetings from senior lawmakers who were eager to establish contact with the most famous new famous face in Congress and a rival power center to leadership. As lawmakers mingled before the 116th Congress organized, the 29-year-old lawmaker snapped a selfie with a group of fellow Democrats, including Jahan Harris of Connecticut, Jan Schakowski of Illinois, Ann McLane Kuster, of New Hampshire, and others. House rules do not prohibit photographs on the floor or the use of iPhones, unless they 'impair decorum'. Then she took a selfie with an expanded group that included Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee and others. Greeting: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hugged Nancy Pelosi before the new Democratic speaker ceremonially swore in the New York congresswoman Meet mom: Nancy Pelosi shook hands with Blanca Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's mom Reason to smile: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was sworn in on a copy of the Bible held by her mom and with her brother Gabriel beside her Meet the family: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez brought members of her family for the ceremony including her boyfriend Riley Roberts, a web developer (second right), her brother Gabriel (fourth from right) and her mom Blanca, who held the Bible or her Selfie time: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the freshman Democrat representing New York's 14th Congressional District, takes a selfie with Barbara Lee, from California and Ann McLane Kuster, from New Hampshire Now on my iPhone: California's Barbara Lee gets a selfie with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the freshman socialist Democrat from New York, and Ann McLane Kuster, from new Hampshire My turn: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used an iPhone with extra battery power as she and Sheila Jackson Lee posed together Meet the new boss: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Barbara Lee , Jahana Hayes, Lauren Underwood, and Sheila Jackson Lee turn round to watch Nancy Pelosi enter the House chamber - on her way to becoming Speaker Taking the oath: Alexandra Ocaiso-Cortez stood with Jahana Hayes on one side and an empty seat on the other as members of Congress pledged allegiance Hand-in-hand: Jahana Hayes, who represents the fifth district of Connecticut held hands with Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez during prayers after taking the oath Meet the star: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez mingles with other Democrats on the floor of the House as Nancy Pelosi gets ready to become speaker And here's how they came out: Ocasio-Cortex retweeted Barbara Lee's selection of some of the selfies She repeatedly smiled both for the camera and for the new members she must work with now that she joined a body with the power to investigate President Trump, but not necessarily the votes to push through left-leaning policies that he would veto. In a sign of camaraderie with another new lawmaker, she and Harris each repeatedly adjusted each other's hair in preparation for the big event. Then another lawmaker took his own photo of the expanded group. For a different perspective, Ocasio-Cortez extended her arm, and held out a cell phone to get a shot of herself and Harris with the dais in the background. She also got a snap with Jackson-Lee, known for her impassioned late night floor speeches during 'special orders' while her party served in the minority. After one set of photos, Kuster could be seen looking at her phone while other participants looked over her shoulder, in what could have been a moment of curating or sharing the fresh images. In between the snaps, a parade of new and senior members came to greet the most prominent member of the freshman class of the 116th Congress. One lawmaker introduced her to his baby. Seasoned legislators including Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), whose husband was a powerhouse for generations, also came by to sit next to her and exchange words with the politician who toppled powerful Rep. Joe Crowley, who had a political machine in Queens and a seat at the leadership table in Washington. She wore a white suit in a gesture female members sometimes make as a tribute to the fight for women's right to vote. She wasn't the only lawmaker to make use of cell phone photos on the floor. Pelosi, who as the incoming speaker drafted the new Rules package that Ocasio-Cortez said she won't vote for, also posed for a selfie with another lawmaker, then grinned for other cell phone shots. It will now fall to Pelosi to enforce decorum and other rules as she sees fit. Pelosi, who on Wednesday night got serenaded by crooner Tony Bennett at a party at the Italian embassy, wore a bright red dress and was her own center of attention. A series of lawmakers came to greet her and get photos. Pelosi stood for applause when she was introduced by New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who has joined his party's leadership. Greeting: Rep. John Lewis shook hands with Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez Meet the neighbor: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez greets Adrian Espaillat, who represents the 13th district of New York, which adjoins her 14th district. He is the first former undocumented immigrant in Congress Nice to meet you: Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez greets another member of Congress as she prepares for her first act as a member of the House of Representatives Say hi: Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez greets a baby on the floor of the House of Representatives. Families are welcomed during the opening session Fun time: The hard work is about to begin for members of Congress but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members of the Democratic caucus were happy to enjoy the opening On their feet: Lauren Underwood, Jahana Hayes and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the chamber as Nancy Pelosi waits to become speaker Rebellion planned: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was following her upbeat entrance to the House by voting against Nancy Pelosi's rules package which will stop unfunded spending Ocasio-Cortez objects to the pay-go measure that requires all new spending be offset Ocasio-Cortez is beginning her congressional career with a rebellion against incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Ocasio-Cortez announced on Wednesday she was voting 'no' on the House rules package Democrats' will present when they take power on Thursday. The rules package is one of the first votes the House will take under Pelosi's reign. It would be highly irregular and quite dramatic if it's voted down given the majority in power makes the rules of the House and members vote for it as a matter of form. Eighteen Democrats would need to vote against the package on Thursday to sink it - a move that would be seen as a significant set back to Pelosi's tenure as speaker. Ocasio-Cortez has pushed to her mark on the Democratic agenda even before she has taken the oath of office and has not shied away from challenging Pelosi's leadership. She and fellow progressive Rep. Ro Khanna oppose the 'pay-go' measure in the rules package that requires all new spending to be offset with either budget cuts or tax increases. Supporters argue pay-go keeps the federal deficit in check. But liberals typically oppose pay-go rules as it makes it more difficult to pass a progressive agenda - such as universal healthcare, tuition-free public college, and going green initiatives. The pay-go measure can be waived on legislation. The incoming freshman lawmaker explained she opposes pay-go because 'we shouldn't hinder ourselves from the start.' Khanna tweeted his opposition to the measure first. 'I will be voting NO on the Rules package with #paygo. It is terrible economics. The austerians were wrong about the Great Recession and Great Depression. At some point, politicians need to learn from mistakes and read economic history,' the California Democrat wrote Wednesday. Ocasio-Cortez retweeted his tweet with her own comment: 'Tomorrow I will also vote No on the rules package, which is trying to slip in #PAYGO. PAYGO isn't only bad economics, as @RoKhanna explains; it's also a dark political maneuver designed to hamstring progress on healthcare+other leg. We shouldn't hinder ourselves from the start.' She has also slammed Democrats for failing to take up her proposed special climate change committee called the Green New Deal because it was deemed 'too controversial.' In a twitter thread on Monday she blasted members of her own party on the matter. William Batchelor was arrested after he received oral sex in the middle of Manchester Victoria station A 47-year-old commuter who was caught having sex with another passenger on a busy railway station concourse was jailed today while his companion is on the run. William Batchelor was arrested after he received oral sex in the middle of Manchester Victoria station as other travellers rushed around them to catch their trains. During the encounter, which happened at around 4pm, a policewoman attempted to intervene and requested that they stop. However they decided to ignore the WPC and even accused her of 'abusing her power', before later being detained by police back up. It emerged Batchelor and his female lover, were both drunk at the time and were waiting to catch a tram in the run up to the incident on November 27 last year. Batchelor, from Lees, near Oldham was jailed for 15 weeks after pleading guilty to outraging public decency. His female companion who was not named is on the run after failing to attend at an earlier hearing. Batchelor was jailed for 15 weeks after he pleaded guilty to outraging public decency Prosecutor Robin Lynch said: 'At 4pm he was in a busy railway station, at Manchester Victoria. 'An officer saw him and a female by a memorial, and at the time she was grabbing his penis, so she began to walk towards them to warn them about the acts as there were people and children around. 'Before she reached them, she then bent down and began to perform oral sex on the defendant. 'The officer shouted at them to stop and they became verbally abusive to her, and said she was lying in what she saw. They said she was abusing her power, so she stayed with them until they were arrested. He added that they had both been drinking at the time and although he had a number of previous convictions, none of them were related to the matter. During the encounter, which happened at around 4pm, a policewoman attempted to intervene and requested that they stop at the station (pictured) Batchelor was due in court last month but was rearrested on Wednesday after he failed to attend. Defending lawyer Richard Goddall said: 'He has pleaded guilty. He committed an act of a sexual nature in a public place. 'He has nothing of a similar nature in his convictions. He accepts in full his part in this. 'He is a single man living alone and has not worked for some time, he is using universal credit. He forgot about the previous court date and apologises for this.' But sentencing District Judge John Temperley told Batchelor: 'You committed an act of outraging public indecency when there were members of the public going about their daily business. 'You and the co-accused were committing a serious sexual offence in full public view and didn't respond when told to stop. You then became verbally abusive to the officer, and both of you were in drink which is a aggravating feature. Custody is inevitable for this offence.' Donald Trump needled Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday for claiming she is of Native American heritage. He shared a parody 'Warren 2020' sign that said 'Warren 1/2020th' on his Twitter account. A DNA test the Democratic senator released in October found that she's between 1/64 and 1/1024 American Indian. Donald Trump needled Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday for claiming she is of Native American heritage A DNA test the Democratic senator, seen on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, released in October found that she's between 1/64 and 1/1024 American Indian Trump often refers to his the potential rival as 'Pocahontas' and mocked the progressive senator's announcement that she's exploring a run with biting remarks about background and mental health Warren giddily released the results but conceded last month that she is 'not a person of color' in a tacit acknowledgement that prior claims about her alleged Native American heritage were overblown. She is working hard to overcome the misstep before other possible challengers make up their minds about entering the 2020 race. Already, she has competition from ex-San Antonio mayor Julian Castro, who is teasing a 'special announcement' next weekend in his hometown. He formed his exploratory committee last month. Warren took her first public step toward challenging Trump on Monday, when she launched a presidential exploratory committee after conspicuously changing her Twitter handle from one that plugs her Massachusetts roots to a user name that's more generic. She dodged questions from reporters about Trump and her DNA test as she gave her first news conference. 'I'm in this fight because I understand what's happening to working families,' she said outside her home near Boston, standing alongside her husband, Bruce Mann. Trump often refers to his the potential rival as 'Pocahontas' and mocked the progressive senator's announcement that she's exploring a run with biting remarks about her heritage and her mental health. 'She did very badly in proving that she was of Indian heritage. That didn't work out too well. I think you have more than she does, and maybe I do too and I have nothing,' the president told two Fox News hosts in an interview on Monday. But he also said in the interview that aired as part of Fox's New Year's Eve special that he hopes she runs for higher office. 'We'll see how she does,' he said. 'I wish her well. I hope she does well. I'd love to run against her.' He suggested that she's a weak candidate, however, as he said of her ability to win: 'Well, I dont know, youd have to ask her psychiatrist.' Warren has had a rough start to her presidential bid all around. Her attempt to show that she is social media savvy on New Year's Eve has been mercilessly made fun of. She cracked a cold one during an Instagram live video and took a swig out of it as she spoke to fans from her kitchen alongside her husband. 'I'm here in my kitchen, uh, and um, I thought maybe we'd just take some questions and I'd see what I can do,' Warren said in the video. 'Hold on a second I'm gonna get me a beer,' she said, stepping out of frame. In Boston on Wednesday she revealed that she drinks Michelob Ultra, calling it the 'club soda of beers' as she spoke to reporters. Warren's mantra has been that she wants to make changes to the federal government that currently 'works great for the wealthy and the well-connected' but leaves millions of other Americans out in the cold. 'This is a moment in America where people really want to get the focus back on the points that touch their lives, about things like student loans and what it costs to get a prescription filled,' Warren said in remarks at the Massachusetts statehouse. Here for a day or two: Elizabeth Warren was on Capitol Hill Wednesday but said she would be on her way to Iowa, the first in the nation caucus, once she was sworn in Simply connect: Elizabeth Warren swigged a beer on a live Q&A on New Year's Day after announcing her move on a presidential run in a video mocked as a cringe-inducing attempt to copy the social media success of Beto O'Rourke and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez She hopes to get back on message this week with a visit to Iowa, the state that votes first every presidential election cycle. Warren told reporters Wednesday that she's looking to have a 'conversation' with Iowa voters during the weekend trip that will take place amid a partial government shutdown barring a deal on Friday. Hillary Clinton in 2016 launched a similar 'listening tour' that took her to early states. She not surprisingly said after it had concluded that she was putting her name on the ballot for the Democratic nomination, which she ultimately obtained after Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders gave her a run for her money. Clinton beat Sanders by a razor-thin margin in Iowa, and Warren has already begun snapping up operatives in anticipation of an equally challenging contest. The Associated Press reports that Warren has already hired Sanders' 2016 caucus manager in Iowa, Brendan Summers, for her unannounced bid for president. Iowa's caucuses will not be held for another 13 months in February of 2020. The first Democratic presidential debate is this June, however. Amber Heard claims that Johnny Depp had an alter ego they both referred to as 'the monster' during the time she alleges they were in an abusive relationship. The 32-year-old actress made the claims as part of a 471-page deposition referring to their 2015-2017 marriage, the details of which have not been made public until now in a story from The Hollywood Reporter. While the screen star has claimed Depp, 55, left her battered and bruised after throwing a phone in her face and delivering blows to her at their California home, a transcript shows the actor has argued Heard was in fact the abusive one. Amber Heard claims Johnny Depp had an abusive alter ego named 'the monster' She alleges he hit her in the face with a phone during their two-year marriage The actress made the claims as part of a 471-page divorce deposition. However police claim they never witnessed injuries after responding to a call Heard told Depp's attorney Blair Berk on August 13, 2016 during a divorce deposition: 'Johnny and I refer to his other personality, the part of him that is present when he beats me up we call that the monster and have called [that] the monster for many years,' she stated. 'I was petrified of the monster.' It came after Heard claimed that in May 2016 her then-husband threw a phone 'as hard as he could' which hit her in the face. Heard alleges she screamed after he grabbed her by her hair during an incident where the actor is said to have 'broke a lot of glass things that left glass on the floor'. But Depp has claimed Heard was 'aggressive and violent' and hit him in the face because he was later to her birthday celebration in April 2016. He states photographic evidence and witness statements will support his story in a forthcoming February 22 hearing in his defamation lawsuit against The Sun newspaper. It was reported Heard wanted to testify in the case but due to a disclosure agreement she will not be allowed to and her divorce deposition will have to used instead. Documents detail a different story from the May incident three years ago where Depp alleges he brought two security guards with him to the apartment because he 'was concerned about what Ms. Heard might do'. He admitted throwing a phone but insisted it didn't hit her and claimed when security entered the apartment after hearing Heard shouting at him, she began crying. Heard's friend Raquel Pennington maintains that during the phone-throwing incident at their Los Angeles property, she witnessed bruises on Heard's face Depp's legal team has noted that 'hardcopy photographs were put in evidence, but neither the original images nor the associated metadata were produced' to prove timings. He has claimed the damage caused to items in the apartment and the Aquaman star's face, was done after the fact and not by him. Officer Melissa Saenz's July 18, 2016 deposition, added that there were no broken items in the penthouse when she visited and Officer Tyler Hadden had a similar testimony. Suing the publication for a story about Heard and Depp's alleged abusive relationship, the Pirates of the Caribbean star's legal representative added that Heard's December Washington Post op-ed was also an example of her 'abuse of the #metoo movement'. Titled 'I spoke up against sexual violence and faced our cultures wrath. That has to change' Adam Waldman said in her column she 'masquerades as victim rather than abuser'. Heard's lawyer said they are seeking punitive damages for Depp's claims she was violent but Depp's lawyer said the filing was withdrawn It's an extension of what he told THR in October: 'Ms. Heard repeatedly violently attacked and severely injured Mr. Depp, and then faked abuse allegations against him.' In her earlier divorce testimony Heard said she 'did her best' to protect herself again spouse when asked if she had ever struck him. Heard's lawyer Eric George denied that she was abusive and stated she is seeking punitive damages for his claims. Depp's lawyer, however told THR the arbitration complaint from Heard's side had been withdrawn. 'Mr. Depps ongoing defamation and violation of the parties confidentiality agreement is already the subject of a pending arbitration. We wont dignify his comments with any further response,' George said in a statement to the publication. Heard's friend Raquel Pennington maintains that during the phone-throwing incident at their Los Angeles property, she witnessed bruises on Heard's face and saw Depp 'swinging around' a magnum of wine which he allegedly used knock items off a counter, law enforcement had a conflicting account. Pennington has argued she has 'dozens of photos' of Heard's bruises during their friendship and from this particular incident but an LAPD officer insists she never witnessed marks on the actress when she responded to the call. Pennington has disagreed with the accounts from police and argued they saw everything she referred to and even offered to 'arrest him right now'. Advertisement An Albanian soldier, a Romanian shepherd, a Greek Orthodox priest. These are just some of the immigrants who were photographed at Ellis Island, the gateway in New York City for 12 million immigrants as they prepared to start a new life in America between 1892 and 1954. Their striking portraits were captured by Augustus Sherman, an amateur photographer who worked as the Chief Registry Clerk at Ellis Island from 1892 to 1925. Sherman took more than 200 pictures of immigrants during his three-decade career. The photographer often encouraged the newcomers to open their suitcases and put on their national costumes or folk dress, capturing the incredible diversity of people who had landed in America. Sherman's stunning pictures have since been brought to life in full color thanks to Tom Marshall from PhotograFix. 'These photos were taken over one hundred years ago now, and what a colorful place the world was, and still is,' Marshall said. 'For me, these photos hint at America's history as a melting pot of all creeds, colors, and nationalities.' Slide me These two children arriving at Ellis Island from Finland in 1910. They are most likely siblings and they were photographed wearing the traditional dress favored by Scandinavian countries at the time. The young girl can be seen wearing a love-heart necklace. Tom Marshall from PhotograFix, who colorized the images, said the colors for this photo were mostly 'guesswork' Slide me This Italian woman was wearing a traditional headdress when she arrived at Ellis Island in 1910. 'These photos were taken over one hundred years ago now, and what a colorful place the world was, and still is,' Marshall said Slide me A Romanian piper was photographed playing his instrument when he arrived on Ellis Island in 1910. These striking portraits were captured by Augustus Sherman, who worked as the Chief Registry Clerk at Ellis Island from 1892 to 1925 Slide me This Hindu boy was photographed wearing elaborate robes and an embroidered cap when he arrived in the US in 1911. Sherman often encouraged immigrants to open their suitcases and put on their national costumes or folk dress Slide me A man from Algeria was photographed wearing a traditional striped robe and a kufiya, which is a square of fabric folded into a triangle and held upon the head by a circlet of camel hair. A gold ring was visible on his right hand. He was pictured smoking a cigarette as he posed for the shot, which was taken in 1910 Slide me Reverend Joseph Vasilon, a Greek Orthodox Priest, was photographed wearing a traditional outfit after he arrived Slide me This man has since been identified as 57-year-old Peter Mayer, who arrived at Ellis Island from Denmark before he was photographed by Sherman Ellis Island was the gateway in New York City for 12 million immigrants passing through to start a new life in America between 1892 and 1954 North Koreas ambassador to Italy waits an age before defecting At what point did North Koreas man in Rome decide to stay in gods own county indefinitely? Id wager its about a microsecond after the diminuative nutjob Kim Jong-un told him hes to be posted toItaly, land of the dolche vita, manbags worn with confidence and food thats been exported to every Western high street. News that North Koreas man in Rome, one Jo Song-gil (but you can call me Toni) may have defected is shocking only for the uncertainty. Why may? You might not flee a Stalinist dictatorship for Hull or Texas. But when Italy beckons you run. Mr Jo, 48, was despatched to Rome in October 2017 when Italy expelled the previous ambassador in protest over North Korean nuclear testing. His tenure in Italy ended in November about the time of his vanishing. South Koreas Joongang Ilbo newspaper claims Mr Jo is seeking asylum in an unidentified western country . Italy is keeping him in a safe place her no-one will find him like Romes branch of Greggs the bakers. The Times: If he is plotting to defect, Mr Jo will be following in the footsteps of Thae Yong- ho, a former deputy ambassador at the North Korean embassy in London who claimed asylum in South Korea in 2016, claiming he wanted his sons to avoid a miserable life in North Korea. Pyongyang described him as human scum and accused him of embezzlement and child rape. A public shaming or profiteroles? No contest. Bring on the mad dogs! Anorak Posted: 3rd, January 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians Comment | TrackBack | Permalink Parker J. Haire, 21, a Michigan State University student was found dead in freezing waters after he called for help on January 1 A Michigan State University student who went missing in the early hours of New Year's Day was found dead in the waist deep, freezing cold waters of Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron. Parker J. Haire, 21, called 911 for help on Tuesday morning explaining that he was cold, wet and somewhere near a factory, Mlive reports. After the call disconnected, first responders mobilized in the area plotted from Haire's phone call, but were unable to find anything until a Michigan Sugar Co. worker reported Haire's jeep stuck in the mud near the company property. Authorities also search in an area of Tuscola County where Haire was believed to have attended a party the previous night or early morning. Haire would not be found until Wednesday morning when deputies on an airboat spotted the missing man's body stuck in the shallow waters of Sebewaing River Point in the bay. The marshy coastal area (left) that Parker Haire was found was covered in phragmites an invasive weed like the ones seen in this file photo (right) 'Typically in conditions of such, a human being is not able to survive over one hour when in cold water,' Huron County Sheriff Kelly J. Hanson said. The water temperatures were estimated to be just above freezing while air temperatures were in the teens and mid-20s on the nights Haire was lost. 'This was over two miles from where the victim's vehicle was found yesterday locked and stuck in the mud at Bay Shore Camp,' Sheriff Hanson added. It was unclear what exact route the young man had walked, or why he had gone in the direction that would lead to his death. The 21-year-old Haire from Cass City, Michigan, was a junior at Michigan State University, and was believed to have been attending a party before he disappeared on New Year's Day Despite the below-freezing temperatures, Parker Haire had not even been dressed for the winter weather when he walked into the waters around Lake Huron Haire had somehow ended up on the ice around Saginaw Bay and apparently had kept walking until he reached a point where the ice could no longer support his weight. He sank into a marshy area of phragmites, an invasive species of tall grass that Sheriff Hanson says hid Haire from the view of search parties. The college student had also not been dressed properly for cold weather. 'The family wishes to extend a sincere thank you to the many volunteers who offered support or gave assistance throughout this tragic ordeal,' according to the sheriff. Advertisement A retired couple who offered the chance to win their 500,000 four-bedroom home and swimming pool with a 10 raffle ticket have had to close the competition with 'sincere regret and upset'. Robert and Avril Smith announced last year that they were hoping to sell 60,000 of the 10 tickets giving the public a chance to win their home in Grosmont, North Yorkshire. The winner was due to be drawn on Thursday, but Mr and Mrs Smith said they are 'back to square one' after being told by the Gambling Commission that it was not a legal prize competition. Robert and Avril Smith (pictured outside their home in North Yorkshire) have been told that they are not allowed to raffle off their property after the Gambling Commission told the couple that their competition was not legal, forcing them to cancel the fundraising effort The couple have spoken of their regret at having to cancel a fundraiser for Cancer Research after gambling laws intervened to scupper their charity effort (pictured: the interior of the property's lobby) The house - which boasts this huge swimming pool - was put on the market by the couple in the hope that Avril Smith could help raise money to fight cancer, a disease that she has battled herself The Gambling Commission says that the raffle off the house (which features this spacious bedroom) was not in line with gaming legislation What are the rules on raffling a home? Lotteries cannot be held for commercial gain or profit, so home-owners considering raffling off their house would need to run the raffle to benefit a charity or other not-for-profit cause. Those who want to keep the money gained for themselves must either hold a free prize draw or add a competition element to the raffle. Competitors should have to prove their skill, knowledge or judgment in order to win the top prize. Many people get around this by asking an incredibly simple question such as 'what style of property is this house: A Victorian, B Tudor or C Georgian' when people pay for their raffle ticket. It is also important to have watertight terms and conditions, such as a setting a minimum number of tickets in order for the raffle to go ahead (like the Rosses have done). Although getting a house for the cost of a coffee is a great deal, the winner will still have to pay stamp duty on the house based on the open market value (in some cases) - and also bear in mind any maintenance costs or other upkeep charges where apartment blocks are concerned. Advertisement In a post on the website set up by the couple to administer the competition, they said: 'It is with sincere regret and upset that this competition has to close. 'The Gambling Commission has deemed the competition a potential lottery and not a legal prize competition. 'We understand the disappointment to you all and can only apologise sincerely as well as offer a full refund.' Last year, Mr and Mrs Smith said the home has an outdoor heated pool, log cabin, orangery and hot tub, but they wanted to move closer to their son in Harrogate. They also hoped to raise up to 60,000 for Cancer Research UK through the sale. Mrs Smith battled cancer 10 years ago and the couple also lost their daughter three years ago. Her husband said on the website: 'As you will have seen, my wife and I have been through a lot over the last three years and it was hoped that this would give us the break we need. 'Unfortunately, we are back to square one.' The couple said the decision by the commission was contrary to the legal advice they had been given. They said the house is open to offers in the normal way and ticket refunds can be claimed through the website. They placed the house on the market two years ago and had serious interest from potential buyers - but Robert had to undergo surgery on his hip and knee and the couple took it off the market. Their son Matthew came up with the idea of raffling off the property having seen similar enterprises before. The pair tragically lost their daughter Rachel in November 2015 from Sudden Adult Death Syndrome - which has had a 'devastating effect' on their lives. Avril, who is currently in remission after suffering from cancer, had the idea to donate 10% of the money raised to Cancer Research UK - which could raise a whopping 60,000. The couple have been forced to ditch their fundraising plan after the Gambling Commission told them that the raffle was not legal (pictured: the property's sitting room) The property in North Yorkshire was intended by its owners to help raise money for Cancer Research, but the plan has been scuppered by the Gambling Commission Two individuals who have worked with the Idaho woman that is being investigated for disposing of Kelsey Berreth's cell phone say that she and Patrick Frazee had been in a romantic relationship for months. ABC News reported on Monday that a 32-year-old nurse was a person of interest in the case and believed to have possibly disposed of Berreth's phone in Idaho in the days after she was last seen alive. The woman, whose identity is not being revealed as she has not yet been charged with a crime, could also be the person who had been plotting with Frazee about killing Berreth should the investigation prove she did in fact dispose of the cell. DailyMail.com spoke with two people who know the nurse professionally, and they both said that they had been told that Frazee was having an affair with the woman. The woman was divorced from her husband a few years back, they explained, and had met Frazee at a rodeo. Frazee was in court again on Thursday for a custody hearing, during which time a judge ruled that Kelsey's parents would continue to have temporary custody of the child. The Berreths appeared via phone rather than have to appear in person and sit just a few feet away from the man accused of killing their daughter and the woman trying to strip them of custody. Scroll down for video New details: Patrick Frazee and the woman who is under investigation for possibly disposing of Kelsey Berreth's cell phone were having an affair claim sources (Frazee above last week leaving court) Farm man: Two people who have worked with the 32-year-old nurse said she met Frazee at a rodeo and began seeing him sometime after her divorce in 2016 (Frazee above tending to donkeys) Neither of those individuals knew exactly when the relationship started, but they believed it could have been as early as 2016 - prior to the birth of Frazee's daughter with Kelsey Berreth. One of the the people DailyMail.com spoke with also said that the nurse was in Colorado around Thanksgiving. That would explain how Frazee was able to get the cell phone to Idaho while never leaving the state. It was reported last week that police in Idaho who are working with authorities in Colorado appeared to have discovered the missing mom's cell phone. The Twin Falls Police Department revealed that officers from the force played a role in the investigation by obtaining search warrants and examining evidence in the case. Berreth's cell phone pinged off a tower in Gooding, Idaho, on November 25, three days after she went missing and around the same time her employer received a text stating that she would not be in for work that week. The location it pinged is about 800 miles from where Berreth was last seen. The nurse's identity is being withheld because she has not been charged. The affair revelation comes three days after Patrick Frazee was formally indicted on murder charges in the case, though no other arrests have been made at this time. The complaint that was filed in the case did state however that Frazee had plotted the murder of Berreth with at least one other individual in the three months before she went missing. Authorities have yet to discover a body or any of Berreth's remains at this time, but prosecutors said on Monday that there investigation has yielded enough evidence to suggest the two ways in which the 29-year-old mother was killed by her fiance. Stand by your man: Sheila Frazee (above in black) at a custody hearing on Thursday Plot: Frazee never once left the state in the 11 days between the time that Berreth was last seen alive and her mother first reported her missing Frazee will be back in court on Friday for what is expected to be a four-hour hearing on motions in his upcoming murder trial. And on Thursday he may also be making an appearance at the Teller County Courthouse due to a motion filed by his mother last week requesting custody of her son's daughter Kaylee. Custody of the 14-month-old baby was granted to the parents of Berreth last week after officials announced that they believed the missing mom, 29, was dead. That same day her fiance, Frazee, was charged with her murder. The custody ruling was only a temporary one however, after Sheila Frazee filed a motion declaring she wanted parental rights to the infant. A Temporary Emergency Custody Order was made by the Teller County Department of Human Services on December 27 that placed Kaylee in the temporary physical custody of her maternal grandparents while granting legal custody to TCDHS. That was the agreement prior to that time in the days after Frazee was arrested, but there was an unexpected change when Sheila filed a motion to intervene. She has remained a staunch defender of her son through this all, despite not speaking publicly once. The mother-of-three is at all of her son's hearings, filed the custody motion and for the past 20 years has lived alone with Frazee on her 35-acre ranch. And she was even detained when he was arrested, but never charged or accused of being involved in the death of Berreth. Frazee had been plotting the murder for close to three months, according to court documents that were filed on Monday. The three counts of Solicitation to Commit Murder in the First Degree all state that 'between and including September l, 2018 and November 1,2018, Patrick Frazee unlawfully and feloniously commanded, induced, entreated, or otherwise attempted to persuade another person to commit the felony of murder in the first degree.' That would have been just a few months after Berreth purchased a home in Woodland Park for her and infant daughter Kaylee. She spent $184,900 on a two-bedroom property about 15 miles away from the ranch where Frazee lived with his mother despite the fact that the two were engaged. That home is where authorities believe Berreth was murdered on or around November 22. Berreth was last seen at a Safeway store in Woodland Park on Thanksgiving. Niger claims to have killed more than 280 Boko Haram terrorists after the group seized towns and military bases in neighbouring Nigeria last month. The country's defence ministry said 200 militants have been killed in airstrikes since December 28, while another 87 have been killed by ground troops. Niger has yet to suffer any casualties of its own, according to the ministry. Niger said 200 extremists were killed in airstrikes in neighbouring Nigeria while another 87 were killed by ground troops (pictured, a damaged village seized by Boko Haram) Boko Haram - an Islamic extremist group - seized several towns including the commercial outpost of Baga near the borders with Cameroon, Chad, and Niger on December 28. Troops at a multinational joint taskforce base were also forced into a 'tactical retreat', Nigeria said. Those who fled the violence in Baga told the BBC that extremists had raised flags in the town and hosted morning prayers the following day. Extremists who identified as being from Islamic State's West Africa Province, a former part of Boko Haram which splintered off, joined in the prayers. Terrorists also seized control of tanks, boats and a large cache of weapons during the raid. Niger launched the attack on December 28 after Boko Haram seized several villages and a joint military base in Nigeria's north east (pictured, a village damaged by the terror group in Nigeria) The attack came after Nigeria warned in November about what it called an 'extremist resurgence' fueled by the new use of drones. Niger's defense minister last month said he feared Boko Haram would launch renewed attacks from January, when the Komadougou-Yobe river which usually prevents border incursions begins to recede. Nigeria's President Muhammdu Buhari will also be seeking a second term in office at elections in February, prompting the militants into action. Buhari came to power in 2015, partly on a promise to defeat Boko Haram. A 40-year-old Dominican man has been forced to undergo emergency surgery after a can of air fresher ended up stuck in his rectum. The man's wife told medical staff that she had inserted the Glade air freshener can into her husband during intercourse at his request. The unnamed man was rushed to the Francisco Moscoso Puello Hospital in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic for immediate surgery. Painful: An x-ray image shows the can of air freshener stuck inside the man's anal cavity Local media reported that the surgery took around two hours and that the man is set to make a full recovery. Surgery: The 40-year-old man's wife told hospital staff that she had inserted the Glade air freshener, pictured having been removed during surgery, into his rectum during sex A hospital spokesperson told local media that the man is in a stable condition after the operation. They also said that similar cases are not uncommon, but typically involve sex toys. However, the spokesperson added that people have also been admitted with trapped wooden and plastic objects in their rectum, as well as vegetables such as eggplants. A doctor told local media that it is important to talk about the cause of such incidents if admitted to a hospital, even if it could cause embarrassment. Health advisers said that introducing objects into the body for sexual gratification is a potentially dangerous practice that could affect health and long-term sex life. Such experiments with unsafe items can cause haemorrhaging, intestinal damage or other injuries. Amber Michelle Parker, 37, was arrested in Mexia in central Texas on Wednesday on a human trafficking charge A Texas teacher has been arrested after she allegedly tried to sell an underage female relative for sex to multiple men in Morocco. Amber Michelle Parker, 37, was arrested in Mexia in central Texas on Wednesday on a human trafficking charge. She has been accused of conspiring to lure the child to Morocco so she could sell her for sex to various men. Parker, who is an eighth-grade reading teacher at Mexia Junior High, had allegedly posted photos online of the girl wearing lingerie and exposing her breasts to attract men. Authorities said she advertised the girl as being a virgin. Parker traveled to Morocco alone in December and was arrested when she returned to Texas on New Year's Day. The victim was taken safely out of state by her father while Parker was in Morocco. It is not clear the exact relationship between Parker and the girl. Authorities had started investigating Parker after receiving a tip about her alleged intentions. She has been accused of conspiring to lure the underage female relative to Morocco so she could sell her for sex to various men Parker, who is an eighth-grade reading teacher at Mexia Junior High, was placed on administrative leave immediately after her arrest 'She was online talking to multiple guys in Morocco trying to get it setup where she could take her with her over there to them,' Freestone County Sheriff J. Shipley told KBTX. Detectives have since obtained search warrants for Parker's electronic devices. McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara, who helped with the investigation, said it was 'sickening' to think Parker would stoop that low. 'It's a very low-down thing,' he said. 'It's the worst of the worst when you prostitute your own relative, that's as low as you get.' The Mexia Independent School District placed Parker on administrative leave immediately after learning about the allegations. 'Student safety is Mexia ISD's No. 1 priority,' Mexia ISD Superintendent Lyle DuBus said. 'We take these allegations seriously and we will be working closely with our partners in law enforcement. The district continues to monitor the situation and feels no students at Mexia Junior High were ever at risk.' Parker remained at Freestone County Jail on Wednesday night. Celebrities are sounding off hoping to find any leads to the killer of a a seven-year-old Houston girl who was gunned down seemingly at random while sitting in the car with her family on Sunday. They join a mass effort spearheaded by Harris County Sheriff's Office and activist like Shaun King, looking for justice in the death of Jazmine Barnes. Jazmine was killed after someone in a red, four-door pickup truck pulled up next to her family's vehicle at a Houston Walmart and opened fire. Gabrielle Union asserted: 'Find him! This evil monster must be stopped!' Celebrities and athletes join a mass effort spearheaded by the Sheriff's Office and activist like Shaun King, looking for justice in the death of Jazmine Barnes. She was shot and killed while sitting in a car with her family on Sunday by a bearded white man driving a red truck Gabrielle Union asserted: 'Find him! This evil monster must be stopped!' The sentiment was shared by actress Olivia Wilde, who added: 'Please help find this murderer if you can' The sentiment was shared by actress Olivia Wilde, who added: 'Please help find this murderer if you can.' 'Jazmine Barnes. Seven. A little girl, her small body shattered by gunfire. Her murderer will be found. Justice will also include us interrogating, challenging and transforming the climate and culture which created the murderer,' said Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. Actress Tika Sumpter said: 'This baby. Jesus. Please spread the word. #JazmineBarnes.' 'The mother of #JazmineBarnes on the fatal shooting of her 7-year old daughter,' shared Ava DuVernay, along with a video of the girl's sobbing mother. 'Jazmine Barnes. Seven. A little girl, her small body shattered by gunfire. Her murderer will be found. Justice will also include us interrogating, challenging and transforming the climate and culture which created the murderer,' said Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr Actress Tika Sumpter said: 'This baby. Jesus. Please spread the word. #JazmineBarnes' 'The mother of #JazmineBarnes on the fatal shooting of her 7-year old daughter,' shared Ava DuVernay, along with a video of the girl's sobbing mother. 'Killer pulled up to the family in his red truck and fired shots directly into their car. Jazmine died at the scene. Dec 30. Houston. Murderer is a white male, 40s and is still at large. #SayHerName.' 'Killer pulled up to the family in his red truck and fired shots directly into their car. Jazmine died at the scene. Dec 30. Houston. Murderer is a white male, 40s and is still at large. #SayHerName.' 'As any parent knows, this is your worst nightmare. When these atrocities happen we label them as random acts of violence, but are they? Are they a mental health issue? Are they a lack of common sense gun laws? I think theyre all of the above,' said Padma Lakshmi. 'I cannot imagine what her family is feeling right now but I do know that as a community we cant let this crime go unsolved and unpunished.' Shaun King, along with civil rights attorney Lee Merrit, helped establish a reward for information pertaining to the arrest of Jazmine's killer. They were able to get $75,000 but have since raised $25,000 more. Deandre Hopkins, wide receiver for the Houston Texans, also offered his playoff check to cover the girl's funeral. A Justice for Jazmine rally is scheduled to take place on Saturday at the Walmart on East Beltway. The rally will begin at noon. A viewing is planned for the little girl at 10am on January 8 at the Green House International Church. A public funeral will take place on that same Tuesday, starting at noon. 'As any parent knows, this is your worst nightmare. When these atrocities happen we label them as random acts of violence, but are they? Are they a mental health issue? Are they a lack of common sense gun laws? I think theyre all of the above,' said Padma Lakshmi. 'I cannot imagine what her family is feeling right now but I do know that as a community we cant let this crime go unsolved and unpunished' Shaun King, along with civil rights attorney Lee Merrit, created a reward for information pertaining to the arrest of Jazmine's killer. They were able to get $75,000 but have since raised $25,000 more Deandre Hopkins, wide receiver for the Houston Texans, also offered his playoff check to cover the girl's funeral In remembrance of Jazmine and others in the area, those in attendance can fly purple balloons after the ceremony. 'We will not rest until we solve this case,' Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told reporters on Wednesday. 'Its not easy. We need help, but Im confident were heading in the right direction.' Authorities in Texas continue to investigate what prompted the weekend shooting that killed Jazmine after activists on Wednesday claimed the incident was racially motivated. Gonzalez said during a news conference that the investigation into the death Sunday of Jazmine Barnes is focused on collecting evidence and developing leads. A determination on motive will come later. Authorities in Texas continue to investigate what prompted a weekend shooting that killed Jazmine after activists on Wednesday claimed the incident was racially motivated Jazmine died at the scene and her mother, LaPorsha Washington, suffered a gunshot wound to the arm 'We're not tone deaf to some of the concerns in our community where this could be potentially race related,' Gonzalez said, explaining that road rage could be another consideration. But he added that he doesn't want speculation on a possible motive to limit the scope of an investigation that has one primary aim: finding the shooter. The sheriff added that investigators are 'not ruling anything out.' Authorities are searching for a white, bearded man who was driving a red, four-door pickup captured on surveillance video shortly before the shooting in the eastern outskirts of Houston. Jazmine died at the scene and her mother, LaPorsha Washington, suffered a gunshot wound to the arm. 'We will not rest until we solve this case,' Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told reporters on Wednesday. 'Its not easy. We need help, but Im confident were heading in the right direction.' The driver of the pickup pulled alongside Washington's car and fired inside, authorities have said. Houston activists earlier Wednesday held a news conference, saying they believed the attack was racially motivated and pointed to an unsolved incident in the area in 2017 in which a suspect described as white shot into a vehicle carrying at least two black people. 'Black people are being targeted in this country. Black people are being targeted in this county. Black people are being targeted in this city,' activist Deric Muhammad said. 'So we are thoroughly convinced that the killing of Jazmine Barnes was race related.' Gonzalez said his office is revisiting the 2017 case as part of the investigation into Jazmine's death. He has described Sunday's shooting as 'totally unprovoked' and asked people who live nearby to review their surveillance videos. Christopher Cevilla, father of 7-year-old Jazmine Barnes, speaks during a news conference on Monday in Houston The shooter pulled alongside the mother's car (pictured) and fired into it, killing the girl. The mother managed to flee the scene in her car and came to rest on a highway median Lee Merritt, a national civil rights attorney with an office in Dallas, and New-York-based activist and writer Shaun King have offered a $50,000 reward for a tip that leads to an arrest. A distraught Washington earlier told KTRK-TV from her hospital bed that the gunman sped up after firing into her car, only to pull in front and slow down before firing again. 'He intentionally killed my child for no reason,' she said. 'He didn't even know her, he didn't know who she was.' Gonzalez said the shooting occurred on a service road as the family was heading to a store. Jazmine's father, Christopher Cevilla, said his daughter was a loving and caring girl who was 'very smart in school.' The Sheldon Independent School District said in a statement that Jazmine was a second-grader at Monahan Elementary in Houston. The district said additional counselors will be at the school when students return on Tuesday. The district asked parents to tell their children about Jazmine's death. Anyone with information about the suspect is urged to call Houston CrimeStoppers anonymously at 713-222-8477 for a potential cash reward. The owners of a newly opened Puerto Rican restaurant in Miami have been ordered to remove a mural of Puerto Rico's flag. Latin American celebrity Julian Gil and Puerto Rican-born chef Jose Mendin joined forces to open La Placita, a new eatery which debuted its menu to tourists and area residents on New Year's Day. The business partners were not aware they were required to submit an application through the Miami Modern [MiMo] district's historic board and city planning department to seek permission to paint over the building's white exterior. Local home and business owners in the Miami Modern [MiMo] district were angered by the presence of the Puerto Rican flag. The city and the Historic and Environmental Preservation Board have notified Gil and Mendin that they have 30 days to paint over the mural that cost them $25,000. A Change.org petition has registered over 80,000 signatures supporting the mural. The owners of a Puerto Rican restaurant in Miami have been given 30 days to paint over a mural of the Caribbean island's flag because it is not in compliance with the local historic board's building guidelines Latin American television star Julian Gil and celebrity chef Jose Mendin partnered up to open La Placita, a Puerto Rican restaurant located in Miami Modern district Hector Hernandez (left) was commissioned by Gil, a fellow Puerto Rican, to complete a mural of the Puerto Rican flag at the building that houses the television star's new restaurant, La Placita Famed Puerto Rican-born artist Hector Hernandez created a number of projects throughout 2018 as the island battled to get back on its feet following the destruction caused by Hurricane Maria. Hernandez, who goes by his artistic moniker Hector PR, worked on a series of murals called '78 Pueblos and Banderas' ['78 Towns and Flags'] in which he used his skills to paint the flag in each of the Caribbean island's 78 municipalities. Gil, who was born in Puerto Rico and carved out a named for himself on television, commissioned the talented Hernandez to add some life to the building's white exterior. Hernandez took limited breaks and completed the mural dubbed 'Plantando Bandera' [Staking Your Flag'] last Thursday. Gil posted a Facebook video in Spanish on Wednesday in which he said it was his desire to have the first Puerto Rican flag mural to be located in Miami. 'We want to represent Puerto Rico. Just as we've done on the island, that's what we want to do here in Miami,' Hernandez chimed in. However, Gil and Mendin never got the final OK from the board that oversees the MiMo Biscayne Boulevard Historic District, which so happens to be the only district in Miami that has been awarded a historic designation. Hernandez (left) and Gil (right) stand in front of La Placita before it's exterior was painted over The Puerto Rican artist commissioned a series of works in 2018 and painted the Puerto Rican flag in each of the island's 78 municipalities to lift the spirit of a nation that was battered by Hurricane Maria in 2017 Hernandez (left) and Gil (right) pose near one of the famous artist's murals in Puerto Rico According to the board's guidelines, home and business owners have to adhere to a set palette of paint colors. Alisa Cepeda, who owns a home in the district and serves as president of the volunteer MiMo Biscayne Association, a community group of home and business owners, is determined to maintain MiMo's historical standards. 'I'm a huge fan of murals, and street art is awesome. but there's a place for that and this is not a place for that,' Cepeda told the Miami Herald. The building that houses La Placita was built in 2009. The restaurant's CEO Joey Cancel said the building was not listed nor confirmed as historical. If La Placita's owners go ahead and present their idea, it most likely won't be addressed until March, the Miami Herald reported. Cancel told the paper that it could run them over $25,000 to proceed with the case at the City Commission if the historic board shoots down their mural. 'We don't want to break the law because we're not above the law,' Cancel said. 'What I hope is that there can be a middle ground, something that works for everyone.' Lisa Wright, 37, concealed 30 grams of cannabis and 25 buprenorphine 'subutex' tablets in her underwear to smuggle them into prison A mother of-three who used her bra to smuggled drug with a prison value of 5,000 into a jail in Salford walked out of court today having been given a suspended sentence. Hotel housekeeper Lisa Wright, 37, wept as the judge told her she had avoided an immediate prison term. Ms Wright concealed 30 grams (1oz) of cannabis and 25 buprenorphine 'subutex' tablets in her underwear after being told her boyfriend - inmate Wayne Duckworth who is serving nine years for aggravated burglary - would be stabbed if she failed to make the delivery. But she was arrested when she was seen nervously biting her nails with her legs shaking after she passed through security at privately run Forest Bank prison in Salford, Greater Manchester on March 20 last year. Staff at the Category B Jail watched on CCTV as she met another inmate in the visiting area and attempted to hide the package under a napkin on the table. The drugs were seized and valued: the opioid-addiction tablets were thought to be worth up to 2250 in prison, and the cannabis 2770. Outside prison the cannabis would have a street value of only 240. It emerged Wright, from Westhoughton near Bolton had received a message warning her that partner Wayne Duckworth, 36, a convicted armed robber would be 'stabbed up' if she refused to ferry the drugs into jail. Ms Wright was told that unless she agreed to smuggle in the drugs, her boyfriend Wayne Duckworth (pictured) who is serving nine years for aggravated burglary in a different prison, would be 'stabbed up' Duckworth, a joiner, is currently serving nine years in jail at Berwyn Jail in Wrexham for aggravated burglary after he was jailed in 2015 over an armed hold-up at the home of an elderly couple. At Manchester Crown Court today, Wright pleaded guilty to two counts of conveying a prohibited list A item into prison. She was given a six month jail term suspended for a year after a judge heard she was the sole carer of two of her three children. It is not known whether any action was taken against Forest Bank inmate Steven Livesey who had intended to take delivery of the contraband. Prosecutor Zoe Dawson said: 'The defendant attended HMP Forest Bank to visit Steven Livesey. 'When she attended she was noticed in the visitors hall sat opposite him and acting suspiciously. She was given a six month jail term suspended for a year after a judge heard she was the sole carer of two of her three children. 'She was seen on CCTV putting an item underneath a napkin on the table. Prison staff escorted her out of the hall and the item was examined. 'The item was a wrap of clingfilm and inside there was 27.9 grams of cannabis and 25 tablets of buprenorphine which is a class C drug. She was also found in possession of cigarette papers and three packs of brown tobacco. 'The items were valued and the buprenorphine was valued between 1250 and 2250. The cannabis valued at between 1385 and 2770. Items can be sold in prisons for an escalated price. 'When she was interviewed in July she stated that the reason for her attendance at the prison was that she was told if she did not, her partner Wayne Duckworth would be beat up. 'Her partner was serving a nine year sentence for aggravated burglary at HMP Berwyn. 'She stated that someone had messaged her threatening her to do it. They said they would get Wayne 'stabbed up'. 'She said that many years ago her partner had been in Forest Bank and that she did not know the prisoner in any capacity. She confirmed she was aware the items we prohibited but not aware of the contents specifically. 'She said she brought the items in in her bra and got through after being searched by security.' In mitigation Wright's lawyer Dan Gaskell said: 'Threats were made not only to cause harm to her long-term partner but also to her and her family. 'It is not clear how she came to be targeted. It may well be that Mr Livesey knew Miss Wright through her partner and knew how to put pressure on her. The judge said normally smuggling contraband into prison would result in an immediate custodial sentence 'She was essentially terrified about carrying out the act and terrified of what would happen if she did not. She was seen on camera biting her nails and shaking her legs. 'She is of good character and works hard to support her family and three children. 'She is the sole carer of her two young children and she also provides support for her father who is critically ill in hospital. This was an offence committed in very strange circumstances.' Sentencing, the judge, Mr Recorder Geoffrey Lowe told Wright: 'The circulation of drugs of these types in prison undermines its purpose and there is a profit to be made by somebody at some point. 'People such as yourself should be deterred from trying to commit these types of offences. 'You were detected by prison officers as you were behaving in a nervous manner. You were willingly involved in this but you told police how you had pressure put on you. Ms Wright's legs were shaking and she was biting her nails, prior to trying to pass the drugs under the table to an inmate 'You have blemishes on your record but only one. You have a good testimonial from the head housekeeper at your place of employment and I have considered that your father is critically ill in Manchester Royal Infirmary. 'People must understand and that if they try to take items into prison the starting point will be an immediate custodial sentence. But you are the sole carer for two young children and that is a factor in determining whether your sentence can be suspended. 'I hope you have learnt your lesson.' Last August Forest Bank, run by Sodexo, was revealed to have the highest number of drugs seizures from inmates in England and Wales for the third year running. Staff detected 537 packages of drugs in the year ending March 2018, according to the figures, up 10.7 per cent on the previous year. Psychoactive drugs - which includes synthetic cannabis drugs like Spice - were the most commonly recovered contraband, representing 203 of the seizures at the jail. A further 140 of the recorded confiscations were cannabis. A total of 498 banned mobile phones were also recovered last year. The jail opened in 2000 and was home to an average of 1,443 prisoners last year. President Donald Trump is accusing Democrats of harassing him with probes and opposing his border wall merely to provide themselves with a platform to unseat him in the next election. He made the charge in a Thursday morning tweet that served as his opening take on the commotion on Capitol Hill, where his party was about to lose its grip on the House as Democrats were on the verge of gaining new authority to launch investigations. The Republican president claimed: 'The Shutdown is only because of the 2020 Presidential Election. The Democrats know they cant win based on all of the achievements of Trump, so they are going all out on the desperately needed Wall and Border Security - and Presidential Harassment. For them, strictly politics!' President Donald Trump is accusing Democrats of harassing him with probes and opposing his border wall merely to provide themselves with a platform to unseat him in the next election When Congress changes hands this afternoon, Democrats will have newly appropriated powers to probe the Trump administration. They have already begun to demand information from the White House and other entities within the administration they want to investigate. Republicans still hold a majority of seats in the Senate, making impeachment an unlikely scenario. House Democrats will be able to cause some pain for Trump, however, and headaches for his lawyers. They're hoping they can assist the special counsel in digging up enough bad information that they can force a Department of Justice rule change that allows a sitting president to be indicted. Incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said in an interview broadcast Thursday that she opposes arbitrarily impeaching Donald Trump as a partisan exercise, but warned that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe could result in a presidential indictment. 'We have to wait and see what happens with the Mueller report. We shouldn't be impeaching for a political reason, and we shouldn't avoid impeachment for a political reason,' Pelosi said on the 'TODAY' show. She believes Mueller could indict Trump despite longstanding Justice Department policy that prevents it: 'I think that is an open discussion in terms of the law.' The DOJ has taken the position since 2000, guided by its Office of Legal Counsel, that sitting presidents should not be indicted even after prosecutors have exhausted every other legal option. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on the 'TODAY' show that indicting a sitting president is something for 'open discussion' President Donald Trump is insulated from criminal indictment by a Justice Department policy from 2000 that's not binding under federal law Special Counsel Robert Mueller could ask for an indictment of Trump, who runs the Justice Department that employes him The framers of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress alone the power to punish the nation's commander-in-chief for misconduct through the impeachment process. The Justice Department itself is a Cabinet agency that answers to the White House. And '[t]he indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions,' according to the guidance the DOJ follows. Pelosi's said Wednesday, however: 'I do not think that that is conclusive. No, I do not.' Senior adviser to the president Kellyanne Conway told reporters at the White House after the Pelosi interview aired that the prospect of impeachment 'doesn't concern the president' and the Democratic leader who will have to defend her majority again in two years should watch her step. 'I think it's unfortunate that you have an incoming speaker already talking about indictments and impeachment when this president's talking about border security and infrastructure,' she said. The president is also warring against Democrats over funding for his border wall. He is demanding a ballpark figure of $5.6 billion for the barrier and refusing to relent on a government shutdown until they give it to him. Because of the fight, a quarter of the government remained shuttered coming back from New Year's holiday. State, Transportation, Homeland Security and other federal agencies been closed since the Saturday before Christmas. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham is counseling President Trump to stand firm in his fight for a border barrier and warned Wednesday evening that capitulation would be the end of the first-term executive's presidency A border patrol office inside his vehicle guards the border fence at the U.S. side of San Diego, California, as seen from Tijuana, Mexico, on Wednesday. Trump wants to replace fencing like this will a steel slat barrier Graham has the president's ear and visited the White House over the weekend, when the president remained in Washington. Trump is not going to budge on the border wall, he said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham counseled President Trump Wednesday evening on 'Hannity' to stand firm in his fight for a border barrier and warned that capitulation would be the end of the first-term executive's presidency. Appearing on Fox News on Wednesday evening, Graham declared: 'If he gives in now, thats the end of 2019 in terms of him being an effective president. 'Thats the probably the end of his presidency. Donald Trump has made a promise to the American people. Hes going to secure our border,' the senior senator said. Retreating on Trump's signature campaign promise would damage the Republican Party as a while, Graham advised colleagues on Capitol Hill who believe their leader should concede the issue to Democrats. 'Thats the end of us if we give in on this issue as Republicans,' he asserted. Graham has the president's ear and visited the White House over the weekend, when the president remained in Washington to share in the pain of the government shutdown rather than party at his Palm Beach mansion with family and friends. He told Fox that he doesn't believe the president is going to budge on his border security demands. 'Hes not going to sign a bill that doesnt have money for the wall. I can tell you exactly how this is going to end. The president is going to challenge Democrats to compromise and if they continue to say no, theyre going to pay the price with the American people,' he asserted. Conway similarly said on Thursday morning that Trump will only sign 'something that truly secures the border' and a bill that Democrats plan to pass today as their first act in Congress does not do that. 'It doesn't reopen the government for homeland security,' she claimed. One bill funds closed areas of the government through the end of the current fiscal year. Its companion appropriates money to the Department of Homeland Security only until Feb. 8. Democrats and their Republican counterparts came to the White House at the president's invitation on Wednesday afternoon for a border security briefing and negotiation in the Situation Room. The two sides left conversation angrily pointing the finger at one another for the partial government closure. Conway claimed that Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were 'very rude and dismissive' during the briefing conducted by the Homeland Security Secretary via satellite. 'That was really poor form, but the president has graciously invited them back here tomorrow,' she said of the president's request that lawmakers return on Friday. She said the shutdown cannot end with Democrats are 'harrumphing their way in the Situation Room' as she contended they were on Wednesday. 'I hope that they'll get serious about negotiating,' she concluded. Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway similarly said on Thursday morning that Trump will only sign 'something that truly secures the border' and a bill that Democrats plan to pass today as their first act in Congress does not do that Democratic leaders left the White House on Wednesday unconvinced by the president's arguments that a border wall is necessary for national security. They left a briefing on the border early, Republican leaders revealed, and interrupted and argued with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. The meeting ended at an impasse, with the president inviting attendees back Friday for more talks after leadership elections have taken place. His White House believes that Pelosi will be more amenable to giving him the funds once she's formally elected speaker. Speaking to NBC News, Pelosi said that will not be the case. 'We can go through the back and forth,' she said in an interview that aired on Thursday morning. 'No. How many more times can we say no? Nothing for the wall.' 'There is no amount of persuasion he can do to say to us, "We want you to do something that is not effective, that costs billions of dollars." That sends the wrong message about who we are as a country,' she contended. Schumer urged the president during a White House press conference to reconsider his own position on bills to reopen the government. 'At our last meeting the president said, I am going to shut the government down. They are now feeling the heat. It is not helping the president, it is not helping the Republicans to be the owners of this shutdown,' he said. 'Today we gave them an opportunity to get out of that and open up the government as we debate border security, and to say to them, because he says he won't sign it, and use the government as hostage, and just give in, the American people don't want that, that's bad for our country.' The White House says a pair of bills that Democrats are backing that would end the shutdown are a 'non-starter' because they do not fund the border wall. Incoming House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer said they would move forward with them, anyway. 'Because that is our responsibility, as a co-equal branch of government,' he said. 'We want the president to open up government. We are giving him a Republican path to do that. Why would he not do it?' he asked. Democratic leaders left a White House meeting on Wednesday unconvinced by the president's arguments that a border wall is necessary for national security Democrats have proposed legislation that would fund every closed area through the end of the current fiscal year, except the Homeland Security department. Before she could gavel in the new legislative session, the White House deemed the strategy dead-on-arrival, indicating in a late-night statement that Trump is resolved to keep the government closed until Congress appropriates money for his border wall. 'The Pelosi plan is a non-starter because it does not fund our homeland security or keep American families safe from human trafficking, drugs, and crime,' White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said. Democrats and Republicans continued to be at odds on Wednesday after their White House briefing. Incoming House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy came out of the Situation Room and over to a group of reporter to bash Pelosi and Schumer. He said that Trump had invited them back on Friday 'after the leadership races' because it was 'a concern for some people to be able to get through' in a jab at Pelosi. 'I was a little disappointed with, I would say some on the other said,' McCarthy said. 'Once the secretary started, they, the, Sen. Schumer, interrupted her, and they really didn't want to hear it. And they challenged some of the points the secretary made.' Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that her caucus is not going to appropriate money to Trump's border wall. 'No. How many more times can we say no? Nothing for the wall,' she said in an interivew McCarthy said Democrats wanted to go on with their bill, and did not want to hear the briefing. Still, he said he believed they could 'come to an agreement quite quickly' to reopen the government, as soon as Pelosi is elected. President Trump affirmed in an evening tweet that he wants to continue talks with Democrats to reopen the government. 'I remain ready and willing to work with Democrats to pass a bill that secures our borders, supports the agents and officers on the ground, and keeps America Safe. Lets get it done!' he said. A second message argued that his border wall is the only way to secure the nation's southern border. 'Sadly, there can be no REAL Border Security without the Wall!' he said. Trump had insisted at a Cabinet meeting earlier in the day that Democrats have 'their eye on 2020' and that's why they're refusing to approve border wall funding. Trump said in his first convening of his Cabinet of 2019 that the border is 'like a sieve' and the 'United States needs a physical barrier' to prevent as illegal immigrants from coming in. 'We are in a shutdown, because Democrats refuse to fund border security,' he contended. Conway said Thursday as she spoke to reporters that Trump shouldn't be faulted for the breakdown in talks, because he is at least open to a conversation. 'But this president, give him his due, he's willing to have him here,' she said. Trump told Democrats in a meeting last month that he would be 'proud to oversee' a shutdown but has since blamed the two-week closure on the opposing party. 'He doesn't own this shutdown any longer,' Conway insisted. House Republicans passed a bill before the end of the last Congress, she argued, that provided roughly $5.7 bill all at once for the president's border wall. She said that it was the Senate, which has also passed a bill that Trump says he won't sign, that needs to do its job. The Senate is run by Republicans but their majority is too slim to pass legislation without the help of seven Democrats after today's inaugurations. How to make money from immigration without a boat Who makes money from jailing asylum seekers? Of the UKs 10 immigration removal facilities just one is run by Her Majestys Prison and Probation Service. G4S, Mitie, Serco and US-owned GEO Group operate the other nine. So there must be money in it, right? The Governments Contracts Finder site reveals the value of contracts when they were awarded but not all figures are shown. But by way of an example, in 2018 Mitie secured a 10-year deal worth 525m to escort immigration detainees on removal flights to detainees home countries and manage airport holding rooms, reporting centres and two short term holding facilities. Mitie declared itself delighted at the deal. The Daily Beast looks at how outsourcing immigration to private companies in the US pays: In 2018 alone, for-profit immigration detention was a nearly $1 billion industry underwritten by taxpayers and beset by problems that include suicide, minimal oversight, and what immigration advocates say uncomfortably resembles slave labor. Of course, thats not to say no problems existed when the state ran immigration centres. Its useful to ask why the service was outsourced in the fist place. But profit margins seem very generous. In 2017, the Guardian noted a 20.7% profit margin at Brook House in 2016. Brook House at Londons Gatwick Airport is run by G4S. The same company runs Tinsley House, also in Gatwick. The margin was a whopping 41.5%. The Beast adds: Expanding the number of immigrants rounded up into jails isnt just policy; its big business. Yesicas employer and jailer, the private prisons giant GEO Group, expects its earnings to grow to $2.3 billion this year. Like other private prison companies, it made large donations to President Trumps campaign and inaugural. GEO is involved in prison design and electronic tracking: Pinning down the size and scope of the immigration prison industry is obscured by government secrecy. But the Daily Beast combed through ICE budget submissions and other public records to compile as comprehensive a list as possible of what for-profit prisons charge taxpayers to lock up a growing population, and how many people those facilities detain on average. The result: For 19 privately owned or operated detention centers for which The Daily Beast could find recent pricing data, ICE paid an estimated $807 million in fiscal year 2018. Those 19 prisons hold 18,000 peoplemeaning that for-profit prisons currently lock up about 41 percent of the 44,000 people detained by ICE. But thats not a comprehensive total, and the true figures are likely significantly higher. Prison pays. Why shouldnt it? Profits are not guaranteed. In 2015, profit margins for operators in the UK fells to between 5 and 7 per cent. Richard Garside, director at the charity Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, takes a view: If the state is going to detain someone, it should be under the auspices of state agencies, not the private sector. Cynics would argue that Governments grew tired of botching immigration on their own so seduced private firms into the mess. The profits are compensation for reputation damage. Anorak Posted: 3rd, January 2019 | In: Key Posts, Money, News Comment | TrackBack | Permalink A man posing as a pastor has been caught smuggling drugs into a North Carolina jail by hiding them in a Bible. James A Morman III, 28, visited the Scotland County jail on December 31 in the guise of a minister where he's believed to have delivered drugs to inmate Bryson Brown. The Scotland County Detective Division that says a search of the Bible he toted revealed Suboxone strips inside. Suboxone is made of narcotics buprenorphine and naloxone and used as opioid maintenance therapy for someone addicted to opiates. James Morman III, 28, (left) visited the Scotland County jail on December 31 disguised as a pastor. He delivered drugs concealed in a bible to inmate Bryson Brown, 28 An undercover investigation was conducted in the jail which lead to the discovery. After Mormon's disguise was busted, authorities conducted a sweep of the entire detention facility, and a number of illegal substances and contraband were located. 'Just when you think you have heard and seen it all. A person shows up tonight at the Scotland County Detention Center impersonating a Pastor to visit a inmate. In his bible he had concealed narcotics,' Scotland County Sheriff Ralph Kersey wrote on Facebook. 'Yes you can visit and also stay for awhile,' he added. Morman and Brown have been charged with felony possession of a controlled substance within a prison or detention facility and felony delivery of a controlled substance to an inmate. Authorities say additional charges are expected. It's unclear whether Morman had visited the jail before with other drug-filled Bibles. Brown was originally in jail after being convicted of breaking and entering and larceny in 2011, according to records. Carnival Cruise Line is dropping its complimentary room service, offering a variety of nifty options for just a few dollars for travelers looking for a little grub while out on the high seas. Carnival is implementing an a la carte style stateroom service menu that will begin in mid-January 2019, according to the company's website release. The items will range from $2 to $6 and will be sold from 6am to 10pm. Scroll down for video Carnival is implementing an a la carte style stateroom service menu that will begin in mid-January 2019 Some of the items included: Greek Salad, Chicken Caesar Salad, Portabella and Veggie Bun, Grilled Cheese, Bacon and Tomato Sandwich, Roast Turkey Wrap, Dark Chocolate Walnut Brownies, Doughnut Sandwich and Banana Split. The cruise line is still offering their complimentary Continental Breakfast from 5am to 10am. However, 'On the last morning of the cruise, room service is not available; guests will have the option of enjoying breakfast at the Lido restaurant or in the main dining room.' The release added: 'In addition to food items, beverages from the bar may be ordered through room service including liquor and wine by the bottle, which is limited to two bottles per day and must be consumed in the guest's stateroom. The items will range from $2 to $6 and will be sold from 10pm to 6am Some of the items included: Greek Salad, Chicken Caesar Salad, Portabella and Veggie Bun, Grilled Cheese, Bacon and Tomato Sandwich, Roast Turkey Wrap, Dark Chocolate Walnut Brownies, Doughnut Sandwich and Banana Split Passengers are still expected to tip for their eating experiences. Just at the end of last year, Carnival announced that it would be building the first roller coaster on a ship. The attraction, called Bolt: Ultimate Sea Coaster, is set to be built on Carnival Cruise Line's new Mardi Gras liner and will stretch for nearly 800 feet, reach speeds of up to 40mph and contain plenty of twists and turns. Bolt, which is being built by Munich-based Maurer Rides, will be an all-electric roller coaster that allows two riders in a motorcycle-like vehicle to race along a track 187 feet above sea level. It will also enable guests to experience the sea in an exciting new way with breathtaking 360-degree views. Alyssa Marie Martinez, 17, stole a Grand Rapids police SUV on New Year's Day, she's pictured in court on Wednesday A Michigan teen faces up to five years in prison for taking a police SUV on a New Years Day joyride. Alyssa Marie Martinez, 17, is charged with two felonies that include unlawful driving of an automobile and malicious destruction of property for vandalizing another vehicle before taking the police cruiser for a spin. Grand Rapids police say Martinez was with several other people when a fight broken out around 4.30am. The group fled in a minivan that was stopped by officers a block away. The driver, 19-year-old man Gidalthi Reyes-Macias, was chased by officers on foot, caught nearby and charged with aggravated assault, driving with a suspended license and failure to obey. Martinez then hopped into the unattended police SUV and drove away. Grand Rapids police said in a news release that Martinez is seen 'getting into the cruiser and driving away with the overhead lights still activated. 'As she pulls away, she collided into the minivan, causing significant damage to both, yet leaving the cruiser still drivable.' She drove for a mile, running stop signs and damaging the cruiser The teen is charged with two felonies that hold a five-year prison sentence, the damage to the police SUV is pictured Dash cam footage shows the 2014 Ford Explorer going down the road for about a mile. Gidalthi Reyes-Macias, 19, drove a minivan fleeing from the cops that Martinez was in Martinez ran several stop signs and exceeded 50mph before stopping the SUV, the news release says. Officers used GPS to locate the cruiser a few minutes later and spotted Martinez walking nearby. Martinez made her first appearance in court Wednesday in Grand Rapids where she was arraigned on a misdemeanor count of resisting police, in addition to her two felony charges. During her arraignment, Martinez offered to explain what happened but Grand Rapids District Court Judge Jennifer Faber stopped her and advised that she speak with her attorney, according to WZZN. Judge Faber set her bond at $20,000 and ordered that if she is released on bond, Martinez stick to an 8pm to 7am curfew. The teen, who just turned 17 last month, has run into trouble with the law and is currently on probation for two juvenile court cases, including misdemeanor assault and battery. She explained to the judge she is not attending school, but has a job at a fast food restaurant. A Russian historian claims to have solved the 200-year-old mystery of where Napoleon's troops hid 80 tonnes of gold on their retreat from Moscow in 1812. Viacheslav Ryzhkov claims the French Emperor ordered decoys to be sent to a fictional burial site 40 miles from the actual location. Ryzhkov says the famed 'Napoleon Lake', Semlevo, in the Smolensk region was a fraud, while the real loot was carted off to Lake Bolshaya Rutavech near his hometown of Rudnya. It was Napoleon himself who accompanied the real bounty and ordered decoy convoys to be sent towards Lake Semlevo to distract Alexander I's forces. Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte's humiliating retreat from Moscow in 1812 during bitter winter weather which claimed the lives of many of his troops Viacheslav Ryzhkov alleges Lake Bolshaya Rutavech (pictured) is the real location of Napoleon's 80 tonnes of gold and jewels looted from Moscow A map showing Ryzhkov's hometown of Rudnya close to the Belarus border where he alleges the treasure is buried to the west of Smolensk where a member of Napoleon's staff had claimed the loot was thrown into Lake Semlevo after the war The historian told the Rabochy Put newspaper he believes unfounded rumours were deliberately disseminated by Napoleon's men to hide the true location of the treasure close to the Belorussian border. The French Emperor had the treasure brought close to the historian's hometown of Rudnya where it was thrown into Lake Bolshaya Rutavech, the Russian paper reports. The historian claims Napoleon had some of the treasure melted into ingots before it was packed off on 400 wagons accompanied by 500 cavalry and 250 members of Napoleon's elite Old Guard. Ryzhkov told Rabochy Put that the Emperor himself went with the treasure to oversee its complicated burial. A platform was built out into the centre of the lake and the bounty was buried at the bottom of the water. Ryzhkov claims that due to the elaborate way in which the loot was hidden advanced technology and experts will be needed to salvage the gold. He also said that studies of the water in the 1980s noted a high concentration of silver particles. The myth of the stolen treasure dates back to the Grand Armee's embarrassing retreat from Moscow when they were said to have carried off gold and jewels from the city. The story goes that during their retreat through bitter December cold the Russian troops decided to bury the load. Lake Semlevo in the Smolensk region has been thought to contain Napoleon's loot ever since the 19th century, but Ryzhkov says this is a fraud According to a member of Napoleon's staff, Philippe-Paul de Segur, the loot was hidden in Lake Semlevo in the Smolensk region in western Russia. Scottish novelist Sir Walter Scott added further fuel to the rumour when he mentioned the treasure in his 1825 biography, 'The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte.' Historians and archaeologists have scoured the area of Lake Semlevo ever since and the legend has been bolstered by huge troves of weapons and ammunition that have been uncovered around the lake. The Russian paper reported that the Soviet's made extensive efforts to retrieve the treasure in the 1960s and 1970s to no avail. But according to the Moskovskij Komsomolets paper, Vladimir Poryvaev who has hunted the treasure for years says Ryzhkov's story is absurd. He cited the idea of 400 wagons as particularly outlandish, saying this 'secret' convoy would have stretched for miles. Poryvaev also mocks the idea asking what scuba gear Napoleon's men had for their complex underwater burial at the the bottom of an icy lake in the middle of winter. A newly-qualified policeman caught twice the drink-drive limit after his work Christmas party has been allowed to keep his licence after a judge took pity on him. Andrew Pearce, a British Transport Police officer, lost his job and saw his promising career end in disgrace when he was caught behind the wheel intoxicated. However District Judge Timothy Pattinson opted to show leniency on Pearce in light of the already significant punishment by allowing him to retain his driving licence. Andrew Pearce, a British Transport Police officer, lost his job and saw his promising career end in disgrace when he was caught behind the wheel intoxicated. However District Judge Timothy Pattinson at Basingstoke Magistrates' opted to show leniency on Pearce in light of the already significant punishment by allowing him to retain his driving licence Basingstoke Magistrates' Court heard the 31-year-old was found sitting in his car at a train station with his headlights on and using the heater to clear frost from the windscreen as he prepared to drive home in the early hours of December 13. Pearce was breathalysed by officers from Hampshire Police and found to have 61 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath - the legal limit is 35mg. Judge Pattinson was told that when Pearce was arrested by officers he told them he was a British Transport policeman. The judge heard that Pearce, who had just finished his training as a policeman, faced a gross misconduct hearing following the offence but resigned before the panel sat. The court heard that he resigned from his new career before it had even begun, after being told no-one had ever kept their job after being charged with such an offence. Pearce, of Fleet, Hampshire, admitted a charge of drink-driving and confessed to the judge his regret and told how the costly decision to resign had affected him. Standing in the dock and representing himself, he said: 'I fully admit it. What the prosecutor said was correct. 'In terms of the offence it has had quite a big impact already - I'm not working for British Transport Police anymore due to what has happened. 'It was going to a misconduct hearing and I was advised no-one has kept their job after something like this, so I resigned. 'I have waited until today to start looking for something else so hopefully I can look for work that is dependent on keeping my licence. 'I cannot receive benefits as I admitted I resigned before a misconduct hearing, so I couldn't go on Jobseeker's Allowance for six months - but I have started looking for work.' Pearce's future job prospects were handed a lifeline as he narrowly kept his licence, when Pattinson handed Pearce with 10 penalty points on his licence instead. Judge Pattinson said: 'It must be said there was a clear intention to drive here, which is a big factor for the court. 'I will give you credit for your guilty plea. Quite frankly, this has destroyed your career for you. But I do take into account the personal mitigation here. 'You had just completed your training and you have thrown your career down the drain. I am going to step back from an immediate disqualification. 'You have been very, very close to immediate disqualification but I am just persuaded not to.' He fined Pearce 120 and ordered him to pay 30 court costs. Advertisement The Big Apple in the 1970s and 80s is far from the city that millions call home today. Crime was at its peak and the streets, along with the New York City subway system, were notoriously dangerous. Rocketing crime rates saw more than 250 felonies committed every week on trains, making the transit system the most dangerous in the world. Urban decay was such, that the majority of subway cars were tagged with graffiti - both inside and out. It became the mission of gang members and artists to cover every inch of subway cars with tags, turf markings or stencils. The graffiti remained for years until city officials began to tackle crime and make improvements to the subway system by introducing new subway cars. Photographer Meryl Meisler lived in New York City during the 1970s and 80s and captured hundreds of images during these decades detailing her experiences. Among her catalog of photographs are ones she took while riding the subway and buses around the citys boroughs. New York City during the 1970s and 80s is a far cry from the place millions call home today. Crime was at its peak and the streets along with the New York City subway system were known as being dark and dangerous. Renowned photographer Meryl Meisler captured hundreds of images during the 1970s and 80s showcasing her experience riding graffiti-filled subway cars while living in the Big Apple. Pictured above is an image of an elderly woman playing the accordion while on a subway train in January 1979 One of the many captivating images Meisler captured is the image above, which she took in June 1979 showing two men standing in between two graffiti-covered train cars - something that is against the law now in New York City as it is considered highly dangerous It became the mission of gang members and artists to cover every inch of subway cars with numerous tags, turf markings or stencils. Meisler captured the image above showing a man sharply dressed to head out for an evening in the late 1970s Speaking to DailyMail.com, Meisler, who is a New York native, said that despite the danger of riding the subway during this high-crime time, she said that she was lucky to never experience a bad incident on the train. I liked the trains and still like trains. I never had any incidents where I felt unsafe, she said. But then again Ive always been a safety minded person, I would never sit in an empty car. Ive always been safety conscious and have gotten on the trains all hours of the night. The trains got me to where I needed to go. And I know Im lucky, I never had a bad incident. Meisler shared that for her, public transport has always been very interesting to be among other people. You get real slices of life in New York City at any given moment, she said. The tagging in the 70s and 80s was artistic and I could appreciate that. Meisler shared that for her the method of transportation has always been very interesting to be among other people. Pictured above is a man with scratches on his face standing on a train platform in the late 1970s Skyrocketing crime rates saw more than 250 felonies being committed every week on trains, making the transit system the most dangerous in the world. Pictured above is an image Meisler captured in June 1978 showing a variety of passengers riding the subway With the expansion of urban decay within New York City, the majority of subway cars were also tagged with graffiti both inside and outside by street artists and gang members using spray paint. Pictured above is a young man Meisler said was returning from his graduation ceremony in June 1979 while inside of a subway car tagged with graffiti and no air conditioning Of the image Meisler captured above in Mach 1978, she said: 'The woman just in profile, her beautiful lipstick and her hair slicked back just so and her glasses, she looks magnificent and I also liked the light coming through on the subway, it was perfect' Speaking to DailyMail.com, Meisler, who is a New York native, said that despite the threat of danger while riding the subway during this high-crime time period, she said that she was lucky to never experience a bad incident on the train. She captured the image above showing three friends together on the train in June 1978 Meisler said, The tagging in the 70s and 80s was artistic and I could appreciate that. Pictured above are two women eating some type of wood while enjoying their train ride in a graffiti filled train car in May 1978 One of the captivating images Meisler captured during one of her many subway trips in June 1979 shows two men riding the subway, standing between two graffiti-covered train cars - something that is considered against the law now in New York City as it is considered highly dangerous. 'They were stopped there and the train wasn't moving. I was on the outside on the platform and I just snapped their picture,' Meisler said of how she captured that image. 'But it's very dangerous. I dont encourage anyone to ride in between the trains or ride above them because you can easily kill yourself accidentally.' Another intriguing image Meisler captured shows the side profile of a young woman sporting sunglasses with her hair slicked back. 'The woman just in profile, her beautiful lipstick and her hair slicked back just so and her glasses, she looks magnificent and I also liked the light coming through on the subway, it was perfect,' Meisler recalled of the March 1978 image. Meisler also snapped an unassuming photo of a young male with his back towards her camera as he held a graduation gown in June 1979 while inside a graffiti covered train car. 'There he was running back from his graduation and he tended to be by himself,' Meilser recounted of snapping the image of the young man. 'He should have been really proud and the windows on the train were open because there may not have been any air conditioner running. I also liked that one because you could see the subway conductor behind the door. I think that's very interesting, but I thought he was beautiful.' Meisler also captured the sweet image above showing a young woman holding her baby while riding the bus in New York City. Meisler said: You get real slices of life in New York City at any given moment The acclaimed photographer also captured the image above of the two women riding a Midtown bus in New York City in February 1978. Meisler is the author of A Tale of Two Cities: Disco Era Bushwick , which includes disco images and accounts from historians, educators and Disco Divas. She is also the author of Purgatory & Paradise: Sassy 70s Suburbia & the City , which includes photos from Fire Island, Studio 54 and the Lower East Side Meisler is the author of A Tale of Two Cities: Disco Era Bushwick, which includes disco images and accounts from historians, educators and Disco Divas. She is also the author of Purgatory & Paradise: Sassy 70s Suburbia & the City, which includes photos from Fire Island, Studio 54 and the Lower East Side. A Michigan man has been charged with murdering and dismembering a 31-year-old woman, whose butchered remains were found at the suspect's home a month ago. Jared Chance, 29, was originally charged with mutilation of a dead body and concealing the death of a person, after police found the remains of 31-year-old Ashley Young outside the suspect's second-floor apartment in Grand Rapids. The woman's torso was discovered by a neighbor in the basement of the rental house in the 900 block of Franklin Street SE. Scroll down for video Jared Chance, 29 (left), has been charged with open murder and tampering with evidence in the death of Ashley Young, 31 (right), whose cut-up body was found at his home Chance's neighbor led by a 'strange smell' found blood and a woman's torso in their shared basement in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on December 2 Young, from Oshtemo Township, had traveled to Grand Rapids and was last seen alive on November 29 at Mulligans Pub, allegedly in Chance's company. On Tuesday, Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker charged Chance with additional counts of open murder and tampering with evidence in connection to Young's death. The suspect was scheduled to be arraigned on the new charges on Thursday, reported Holland Sentinel. Investigators have not released Young's cause and manner of death, and they have not commented on a possible motive behind the killing. The exact nature of the relationship between Young and Chance is unclear, but the two were friends on Facebook. Chance, pictured in court in early December, was originally charged with mutilation of a dead body and concealing the death of a person Jared's parents, James (left) and Barbara Chance (right), were charged with accessory after the fact to the mutilation charge and lying to police James Chance, who is a retired cop from Illinois, and his wife both denied any wrongdoing During a jailhouse interview in mid-December, before he was charged with murder, Jared Chance apologized to Young's mother, Kristine, but said, 'I don't know what to say or do.' After a WOOD-TV reporter pressed him to shed light on what had happened to Young, Chance said, 'I can't do this right now.' He then abruptly ended the interview and returned back to his cell. Chance's father, retired Illinois police sergeant James Chance, and his mother, Barbara Chance, were both charged last month with accessory after the fact to the mutilation charge and lying to police. They have denied any wrongdoing. James, 76, and his 63-year-old wife are currently out on bond. According to an affidavit cited by mlive.com, on December 1, Jared's parents learned that their son had 'cut Ashley Young's body into multiple pieces and hid some of these pieces,' but they failed to report the woman's death and mutilation. Jared was arrested the next day, after a 'strange smell' led his downstairs neighbor to their shared basement, where he discovered blood leaking from a tarp. The elder Chance's attorney claimed that his client took his son to the Grand Rapids Police Department on December 1, but the cops turned them away and told them to contact police in Kalamazoo County. During a jailhouse interview in mid-December, before he was charged with murder, Jared Chance apologized to Young's mother Young had traveled to Grand Rapids in late November and was last seen at a bar with Chance on November 29. Police believe he killed her the next day, then cut up her body Court documents allege that the parents dropped their son off at his home and made no further attempt to contact the authorities about Young's death. Jared Chance has a prior criminal record, which includes convictions for resisting and obstructing police in 2011, and possession of methadone and Oxycodone in 2016. A longtime family friend described Young to Fox 17 as being violent and angry in his teenage years, when he was known to bully and pick on other kids. The no deal ferry firm that was handed a 13.8million Government contract despite owning no ships copied its terms and conditions from a takeaway shop, it was claimed today. Seaborne Freight's website includes a long run of small print that featured a section about 'placing an order' that placed an obligation on a customer to check their 'meal'. The clause has already been deleted from the company's website but not before the firm and the Government were ridiculed by Labour MPs. Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has already been lashed for signing off the deal - prompting him to claim the Government is 'supporting new businesses'. Seaborne chief executive Ben Sharp - a former submarine officer in the Royal Navy - insisted on Monday his company would be ready to run the service if needed. The no deal ferry firm that was handed a 13.8million Government contract despite owning no ships copied its terms and conditions from a takeaway shop, it was claimed today (pictured is Tom Watson highlighting the gaffe) Transport Secretary Chris Grayling (pictured yesterday in London) has already been lashed for signing off the deal - prompting him to claim the Government is 'supporting new businesses' The 13.8million deal is to provide a twice daily lorry ferry service between Ramsgate, Kent, and Belgium in a no deal Brexit that causes delays at Dover. Who is behind the no deal Brexit ferry firm? Ben Sharp, chief executive - a former submariner who served 10 years in the Royal Navy before setting up a series of shipping firms. Glenn Dudley, director and chief operating officer - the ex-freight sales and marketing manager for My Ferry Link, which operated two cross-Channel ferries. Jean-Michel Copyans, director - ex-cargo director at My Ferry Link. Advertisement Seaborne owns no ferries and has never run a cross-Channel service but insists it will be ready to deliver on the contract if called upon in the spring. The firm's website read: 'It is the responsibility of the customer to thoroughly check the supplied goods before agreeing to pay for any meal/order.' It also said: 'Delivery charges are calculated per order and based on [delivery details here].' In another section, the terms read: 'Users are prohibited from making false orders through our website.' It added: 'Seaborne Freight (UK) Limited reserves the right to seek compensation through legal action for any losses incurred as the result of hoax delivery requests and will prosecute to the full extent of the law.' Labour deputy Tom Watson spotted the glaring error in Seaborne Freight's published terms and conditions. He tweeted: 'Seaborne Freight. No ships, no trading history and website T&Cs copied and pasted from a takeaway delivery site...' Ilford MP Mike Gapes posted: 'Well. Well. Fish and Chips, Curry, Chinese, Kebab or Pizza. Seaborne Freight certainly have plans to Take Away our money.' And Bristol North West MP Darren Jones added: 'Hilarious. Government Hard Brexit start-up champion Seaborne Freight Limited reserves the right to sue you if you order a hoax pizza.' Labour MP and Best for Britain supporter Tonia Antoniazzi said: 'This is beyond a joke. 'It's not just that the government have panic-hired a firm with no ships to conduct ferry services. Jean-Michel Copyans (file image), the former cargo director at My Ferry Link, is among the directors of the new firm Seaborne Freight The contract is one of several signed by ministers as a contingency plan in case no deal leaves the main Dover-Calais route (file) in chaos 'That firm has literally nothing prepared to suggests the 13.8m handed over to them is a sound investment. 'The whole thing looks like a scam website. I can't think of a worse way to show the world we're ready for Brexit.' A Department for Transport spokesman said: 'Before any contract was signed, due diligence on Seaborne Freight was carried out both by senior officials at the Department for Transport, and highly reputable independent third party organisations with significant experience and expertise into Seaborne's financial, technical and legal underpinning. 'This section of the terms and conditions on the company's website was put up in error. This has now been rectified.' A spokesman for Seaborne Freight told the Standard: 'Seaborne Freight (UK) Limited (SFL) is currently making preparations across its business for re-introducing the Ramsgate to Ostend Ferry service and has been working on the project for the past two years. 'Naturally these preparations include ongoing updates to its pre-launch website, including T&Cs.' The gaffe emerged as ministers launched a no-deal Brexit publicity blitz ahead of the crunch Commons vote on Theresa May's deal due in two weeks time. Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay today said Whitehall departments and the health regulator will begin publishing guidance on how the public can get ready. The information campaign, which will also see broadcasts on radio and social media, comes after the Government sought to advise businesses on how they might best prepare for no deal. With the showdown in Parliament set for the week beginning January 14, an advertising campaign will warn over 'disruption' to travel and medicine if the UK crashes out of the bloc in March. Advice will include renewing passports earlier than planned - likely to ensure they have at least six months validity during any no deal disruption. Meanwhile, Environment Secretary Michael Gove warned if Britain leaves without a deal 'turbulence would be considerable' and have a 'grim' impact on farmers. Ministers are launching a no-deal Brexit publicity blitz ahead of the crunch Commons vote on Theresa May's deal as the PM arrives back in Downing Street for the first time this year (pictured) Mrs May has the Christmas break calling round EU counterparts including Angela Merkel and Spain's Pedro Sanchez pleading for legal guarantees that the Irish border 'backstop' cannot last indefinitely. But at the same time the government is stepping up contingency plans for leaving without any agreement in three months' time. In a speech to the Oxford Farming Conference today, Mr Gove said Britain would 'flourish' in time if it left without a deal - but that it would cause short term disruption. What tariffs could be imposed on UK food after a no deal Brexit? Michael Gove warned today if there is a no deal Brexit, food exported from Britain to the EU could be subject to charges as it crosses the border. The tarrifs could be: Beef 65 per cent Lamb 46 per cent Whole milk 70 per cent Poultry 14 per cent Advertisement He said: 'It would hit worst small farmers and small food producers.' The Environment Secretary said tariffs, border checks, potential delays for recognition of organic products and labour pressures would all add to costs for food producers. 'Nobody can be blithe or blase about the real impacts on food producers in this country of leaving without the deal,' he told the conference. Mr Gove said it was a 'grim and inescapable fact' that no deal would mean 40 per cent or worse tariffs on meat exporters. He said even if a further fall in the pound boosts exports, it would also fuel inflation at home - hitting farms harder still. Mr Barclay said that no deal will be 'far more likely' if MPs reject the Mrs May's package in the vote, due to be held in the week beginning January 14. 'The pace and intensity of the work we are doing reflects the potential scale of this disruption to people and businesses across the UK that a no-deal scenario could bring,' Mr Barclay wrote in the Daily Express. 'The Home Office will next week be publicising guidance on new passport rules for people travelling to many European countries. Meanwhile, Environment Secretary Michael Gove (pictured today at the Oxford Farming Conference) warned if Britain leaves without a deal 'turbulence would be considerable' Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay today said Whitehall departments and the health regulator will begin publishing guidance on how the public can get ready 'These rules would mean some people have to renew their passport earlier than planned. Advice is already available online and next week the Home Office will further publicise how to renew a passport as easily as possible. What are the no deal Brexit plans which have been enacted? Here are the emergency no deal plans which have been activated: Some 3,500 troops are on standby for no deal Brexit Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said the troops could be used by any department as needed - but that no specific requests had yet been made for them. Ministers will book space on ferries to ensure critical supplies, such as medicines, can get in if there are long queues at the borders Families are to to be given advice on how to prepare for a no deal Brexit Up to 10,000 lorries could be parked in Kent if no deal causes delays at the ports The Kent authorities have warned that the gridlock could mean pupils miss school and exams, while bodies could pile up Advertisement 'The Department for Transport is sharing guidance on how we will ensure people can continue to travel to the EU in the event of no deal, and today the medicines regulator has updated guidance to ensure regulatory processes for medicines, medical devices and clinical trials are fit for purpose. 'And, on Tuesday, we will start a new phase in our public information campaign, using radio and social media to further raise awareness.' Despite Downing Street's hopes, there is little sign that the Christmas break has changed the minds of more than 100 Tory MPs pledged to vote against the EU deal. Ex-Brexit Secretary David Davis today urged Mrs May to pull the vote again. It was already delayed from last month when the premier admitted she faced a catastrophic defeat. Mr Davis said the EU would back down on Ireland at the 'eleventh hour' because it is reluctant to make concessions but does want its 39billion divorce payment. Mr Davis, in a column for the Daily Telegraph, said: 'The Withdrawal Agreement does not respect the referendum result. 'That is why the meaningful vote had to be delayed and one wonders if even the January vote will go ahead. 'Attempts to frighten MPs into supporting it are unlikely to work, because voting down this substandard deal will not result in no Brexit.' Elsewhere, one senior Tory MP told MailOnline that winning over the DUP, the Northern Irish party propping up the Tories in Parliament, was crucial. The brazen moment a thief wearing a hoodie and thongs threatens a driver with what appears to be a screwdriver has been captured on video. In the footage from December, the man can be seen walking up to the car parked at a car wash on the Gold Coast and looking in the driver's window before the owner returns. The man then appears to lunge at the owner with a metal object that appears to be a screwdriver, before demanding he hand over his keys. The brazen moment a thief wearing a hoodie and thongs threatens a driver with what appears to be a screwdriver has been captured on video (pictured) The driver then runs to safety and the thief looks through an open window of the car before fleeing with a mobile phone to a nearby red sedan. 'We're very lucky in this case, and the victim is lucky, that it didn't escalate any further and his actions probably assisted in ensuring that didn't happen,' Queensland Police's Dane Sheraton told 9News. Police are asking the public for help and have urged anyone who may be able to identify the man in the video to contact them. A former US Army sergeant, labeled one of the best interrogators by his commander when he conscientiously objected from the Iraq War, was inspired to leave the Abu Ghraib prison Saddam Hussein once used for torture and executions because of the words of a young jihadist. Joshua Casteel, wrote in a letter to his mother that while interrogating a Saudi Arabian man, he was forced to question his values as the extremist attempted to convert him to Islam. It ended with him 'thanking God for this enemy'. His October 2004 musings, revealed 14 years later in January 2019's Smithsonian magazine, show how the evangelical Christian, nicknamed the Priest, came to making his controversial decision to return to the United States. Joshua Casteel wrote in a letter to his mother that a young jihadist from Saudi Arabia inspired his decision to conscientiously object from the Iraq War in 2004 Through trying to convert his to Islam, the 'enemy' helped his see some of the errors in his personal evangelical Christian ways. Pictured with Sinead Cussack at the Human Rights Watch Gala in London in June 2006 'I was dumbstruck,' he wrote in a letter to his mother Kristi Casteel. 'I left praising Christ, and thanking God for this enemy.' Casteel whose father was an Army captain and grandfather fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam came face-to-face with the man in the interrogation room who admitted he might kill him if he had the chance. But instead of finding a reason to want to torture him, 24-year-old Casteel was faced with difficult questions to answer about himself when the tables were turned on him. After probing the man about why he wanted to seek vengeance on America and chose violence to express his opposition, he threw the same question back at him: 'Why did you come to Iraq to kill?' He told in the letters how the Middle Eastern man said: 'You claim to be a Christian and yet you don't follow Christ to pray for those who persecute you, or pray for your enemies. Your Lord, our prophet Isa, tells you to turn the other cheek, to love those who hate you. Why do you not do this?' Casteel's writing reveals how he saw the man as someone genuinely cared about him, so he abandoned all training of what interrogators are trained to do and confided in the man. Taking himself off interrogation duties, he even prayed he would get to meet the man in future, telling his mother: 'The Gospel came out of his mouth unwittingly, while trying to convert me to Islam. It was beautiful.' Casteel penned: 'What is terrifying is that this jihadist genuinely wanted my conversion and I felt him actually care for me, desire for my good. 'I confessed to him my sins, and asked him to look at his own. I'm certain that this interrogation was not 'doctrinal' by Army standards. Pardon my bluntness, but to hell with the Army and their 'doctrines.' Today was a moment when life mattered!' The US Army Sergeant was praised by his commander for being one of the best interrogators due to his sympathetic style. Pictured in Iowa in February 2007 acting in a play he wrote But letters and journals reveal how he battled with making sense of using violence and killing innocent people to protect the US. Pictured in Iowa February 2007 acting in a play he wrote Two weeks later he gave up on his hope of bringing moral order to the interrogation room, which he had decided upon when his deployment to Iraq came in May 2004, six weeks after a torture scandal emerged. His father found it difficult to understand why Casteel had chosen to abandon the Army, as did some of his religious mentors. He had earlier written to his parents about how his soft approach to interrogation was favored by those 'higher up', noting how he'd received special recognition for what he regarded as simply showing respect. The confidence boost not only encouraged his work in the Army but also what he would go on to do once he left. 'To that end, empathy and understanding go a long way,' he wrote to his parents about interrogating. 'In many ways, I have no other recourse but to identify with these people.' Casteel even brought a prisoner to tears because instead of making him feel like he was evil, he told him: 'You are not a criminal, you are not a terrorist.' Prior to his conscientious objection he admitted that every day he wondered if he had reached 'breaking point' as nothing turned up in the search for weapons of mass destruction. Mother, Kristi Casteel, often saw Jesus Christ in her son who died in 2012 due to lung cancer, believed to be connected to fumes from burning pits in Iraq The former US Army interrogator's mother talks during the People's Hearing, on the lasting impact of the Iraq War in March 2014, two years after he passed away Despite learning he had Stage 4 lung cancer years later and passing away in 2012, he felt his emotional suffering in Iraq and physical suffering in the time afterward was a privilege in a similar way Jesus Christ was able to be crucified for the sake of the world's sins. 'I feel a sense of relief that I get to share in the suffering of the Iraqi people,' The Smithsonian reports he told his friends and family. 'Because the Americans burned toxins in their fields and on their earth. In a certain sense it's an opportunity to climb up on the cross with them.' He noted in a journal, shared by his mother, that she once told him: 'I think you're going to follow in the footsteps of Christ.' At the time a young boy who got his first gun - a 22-caliber rifle with a long-range scope - at 11 years old, displayed US Army posters on his childhood bedroom wall and generally equated a love of the country with a love of God, replied: 'Me too.' But Casteel who was accepted to seminary school before his deployment to Iraq could not predict he would later travel the globe speaking to audiences about how the world should put down their weapons. For his mother Kristi, it was only a matter of time before her son realized Iraq was not for him took to spreading the word of God through peace. 'We identified with Mary and Jesusit just seemed to naturally evolve,' she told The Smithsonian about her late son. 'People mentioned his likeness to Christ again and again.' The American doctor who will give Jews the wrong medicine Dr Lara Kollab, 27, reportedly says she will purposely give all the Jews the wrong meds. Dr Lara Kollab, 27, a former resident at The Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, allegedly wrote: Allah will kill the Jews. The Jerusalem Post says she referred to Jews as dogs. Knowing how much the British love dogs, this news should upset Daily Mail readers tuning into Sarah Malms rehash of a Jerusalem Post story based on an investigation by the Canary Mission, a website, which documents people and groups that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses. The sources say that in January 2012, Dr Kollab wrote was her account hacked? ill purposely give all the yahood the wrong meds And in August 2013: May Allah take back [end the lives] of the Jews so we stop being forced to go to those unclean ones. The Cleveland Clinic has issued a statement: This individual was employed as a supervised resident at our hospital from July to September 2018. She is no longer working at Cleveland Clinic. In no way do these beliefs reflect those of our organization. We fully embrace diversity, inclusion and a culture of safety and respect across our entire health system. NBC says Kollab was fired as a first-year resident in September after the clinic was made aware of her social media posts. As for Kollab, the Times of Israel says she hasnt issued a response to the reports about her. Having been publicly shamed, what should she do? To have your entire life evaluated by a few tweets and the internet is unenviable. Has punishment already been meted out? Anorak Posted: 3rd, January 2019 | In: Key Posts, News Comment | TrackBack | Permalink When the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, voted last week not to rehear a case in which a panel had struck down a California school districts policy inviting clergy members or others to lead prayers before its school board meetings, there were quite a few voices in dissent. And they may have been aiming their message not so much at their colleagues as at the U.S. Supreme Court. Six members of the court formally dissented from the full courts decision not to rehear the case of Freedom From Religion Foundation v. Chino Valley Unified School District . They said the unanimous three-judge panel was wrong when it struck down the districts school board prayer policy last July . Those dissenting judges, plus one more active judge, also signed on to an opinion by a senior circuit judge that also would have upheld the districts policy. (The senior judge, Diarmuid F. OScannlain, noted that as a semi-retired member of the court, he did not have a formal vote in the rehearing request, but he could still participate in the discussion.) For most of the nations federal appeals circuits, a vote of six or seven active judges would be enough to grant rehearing. But on the 9th Circuit, which covers nine Western states and has 23 active judges, it takes a majority of those active judges12 votesto rehear a case. The panel held in July that the Chino Valley districts policy, which calls for clergy members with congregations within the district to lead prayers, violates the First Amendments prohibition against government establishment of religion. Unlike a session of Congress or a state legislature, or a meeting of a town board, the Chino Valley Board meetings function as extensions of the educational experience of the districts public schools, the 9th Circuit panel said . The presence of large numbers of children and adolescents, in a setting under the control of public-school authorities, is inconsonant with the legislative-prayer tradition. The school board of the 28,000-student district in Southern California sought the rehearing from the full 9th Circuit, which was denied on Dec. 26. Writing the dissent for himself and five other active members of the 9th Circuit, Judge Ryan D. Nelson said the boards policy did not conflict with Town of Greece v. Galloway , a 2014 Supreme Court decision that upheld prayers at a town council meeting. Nelson said the establishment clause legal test relied upon by the panel (the three-part test from the 1971 case Lemon v. Kurtzman ) had perhaps been replaced by Town of Greece and other recent high court rulings. OScannlain, in his opinion, stressed his disagreement with the panels view that the presence of students at school board meetings separated such sessions from the traditional legislative meeting. The panels opinion is dripping with unrestrained urgency to insulate public school students from any hint of exposure to religion even outside the classroom, OScannlain wrote. Plainly, the establishment clause does not require such extreme measures. He also stressed that the now-undisturbed panel decision creates a fresh circuit split over the constitutionality of school board prayers, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, in New Orleans, having upheld in 2017 a Texas districts policy of having students lead prayers. Although there are notable differences in the two districts policies, they share a common setting of a school board meeting, OScannlain said. While neither OScannlain nor Nelson explicitly suggested that the Supreme Court resolve the circuit split, that seemed to be the message being sent between the lines. South Africa's former president Jacob Zuma has been accused of wasting taxpayer money to fund his new music album. Zuma will head to the recording studio in 2019 to tape an album of 'struggle songs' that he sang during his days as a revolutionary fighting white minority rule. But political opponents say using taxpayer money to fund the project makes no sense and vowed to fight it 'tooth and nail'. Jacob Zuma, the former president of South Africa, is set to record an album of 'struggle songs' from his days as a revolutionary fighting against white minority rule Zuma is well known for his baritone singing voice and often sung and danced with supporters at his political rallies. He is particularly known for the song Awuleth Umshini Wami, which means Bring Me My Machine Gun and will be included on the album. Zwakele Mncwango, leader of the opposition DA political party in Zuma's home state of KwaZulu-Natal, told local site eNCA: 'We're for promoting of culture and heritage. 'Our problem is when the municipality is wasting money on a former president who is trying his luck on the music industry, while we have upcoming artists who need assistance.' Councillor Nicole Graham said that DA will 'fight this matter tooth and nail'. She added: 'It is impossible that any rational person would believe that a corrupt and disgraced former president singing ANC struggle songs holds any benefit to the people of eThekwini. 'This is about factional battles within the ANC party, with his supporters attempting to give him a continued platform after his fall.' But Zuma's opponents say funding the project with taxpayer money makes no sense and is a desperate bid to keep him relevant after he was ousted from office last year Thembinkosi Ngcobo, who runs the parks and recreation department in the eThekwini district, told the BBC that he came up with the idea while trying to preserve the struggle songs for posterity. He said: 'We were looking at artists and trying to revive these types of songs. It was very difficult. 'We tried to find any archived material that had video clips or any voice clips. But we could not find anything in the museums.' At that point, they realised Mr Zuma was often heard singing the songs. 'He has the talent and understands the history and emotion behind the music,' Mr Ngcobo said. 'He was singing the songs in the 80s and 90s and even before. Most of the young people in the ANC do not even know them.' Zuma was kicked out of office and replaced with deputy Cyril Ramaphosa in February 2018 amid a raft of corruption allegations. He is now facing the prospect of a trial on charges of racketeering, corruption, money laundering and fraud, all of which carry heavy sentences. China today became the first country in human history to put a spacecraft onto the far side of the moon. And a video has emerged showing a team of engineers monitoring and controlling the lunar-exploring mission back on Earth. These space experts are seen working diligently at China's Deep-space Control Station in far-flung Jiamusi near the Russian border; while a large banner is hung above them urging them to remain faithful to the Communist Party. 'Satellites listen to me, I listen to the Party,' the red banner reads. Scroll down for video Engineers at the Jiamusi Deep-space Control Station receive a confirmation of the successful landing of Chang'e 4. The spacecraft sofe-landed on the far side of the moon earlier today The young controllers flash V-signs to celebrate the historic moment after the moon landing. A red banner place above their office has the slogan: 'Satellites listen to me. I listen to the Party' Lunar explorer Chang'e-4 touched down in the Aitken basin's Von Karman crater at 10.26am local time (2.26am GMT), Chinese state media reported. This is the first time on human history that a spacecraft has landed on the other side of the moon and the Chang'e 4 also transmitted back to Earth a never-before-seen image of the unexplored surface. The space mission has been closely monitored by controllers at the Jiamusi Deep-space Control Station. A never-before-seen 'close range' image taken by the Chinese spacecraft Chang'e-4 of the surface of the far side of the moon. It appears to take on a reddish hue in some of the images released by China, seemingly an effect of the lights used by the probe This is one of the first ever close-up images taken of the dark side of the moon which never faces towards Earth. This region is vastly unexplored and unknown compared to the side of the moon we can see and have visited with the Apollo and subsequent NASA missions The Chang'e-4 (artist's impression pictured), entered lunar orbit earlier this week, and will soon be the first ever rover to land on the far side of the lunar surface. A lander will help guide the spacecraft to the dark side of the moon The footage released by People's Daily onto Chinese social media platforms show the engineers staring at the monitor screens before the landing and applauding after receiving a confirmation from Beijing to congratulate them on the success. They then say to the camera at once: 'Chang'e 4, you have me!' Jiamusi Deep-space Control Station, in China's far east side in Heilongjiang Province, is powered by a group of young and patriotic engineers. It is one of the two deep-space control stations in China. The other one is located in Kashgar in China's far-west side in Xinjiang Province near the border of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. There have been numerous landings on the moon as a result of the 20th century space race between the US and the USSR - including the famed Apollo 11 mission which saw Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans on the moon. After Luna 24 landed on August 18 the next lunar landing was the Chinese mission Chang'e-3 on December 14 2013. Chang'e-4 is the first spacecraft to land on the far side of the moon Beijing is pouring billions into the military-run programme, with hopes of having a crewed space station by 2022, and of eventually sending humans to the moon. Emotional space technicians celebrate the landing at the Beijing Aerospace Control Centre The Beijing Aerospace Control Centre looks on anxiously as the lunar rover begins its approach to the surface The Jiamusi station, coded 'Lin Hai' or 'a sea of forest' by the Chinese authorities, has Asia's largest and most advanced deep-space satellite. The 66-metre-wide (216-foot-wide) dish can receive signals from as far as 400 million kilometres (248 miles) away in space - enough to cover the farthest distance between Earth and the Mars, according to China's Xinhua News Agency. Engineers at the Jiamusi station have been tasked to track and control China's Queqiao relay satellite Queqiao. They team also need to correct Queqiao operational behaviour if necessary. The relay satellite which will allow the probe to communicate with engineers in Beijing is called Queqiao and had to fly to a Earth-Moon point in orbit around 80,000 km away from the moon's surface (pictured) Queqiao was launched into space on May 21 last year to facilitate the Chang'e 4 mission. What is Queqiao relay satellite? Queqiao, or Magpie Bridge, is a key piece of equipment in the Chang'e 4 lunar-exploring effort. As the spacecraft will be operating on the dark side of the moon, communications between the probe and Earth face unprecedented challenges. Before the launch of Queqiao in May last year, no communications satellite had existed to relay signals from that part of space back to Earth. Queqiao is now stationed in operational orbit around the second Lagrangian (L2) point of the earth-moon system about 40,000 miles beyond the moon. It faces the back of the moon and Earth at the same time, which means it can send the findings by Chang'e 4 back to China. It is the primary form of communication between Earth and the spacecraft. Advertisement The station's director Han Lei told China's Liberation Army Newspaper that his team look after the satellite as if it was their child since its launch. He said no effort was spared and no mistakes would be allowed. The Jiamusi engineers were also tasked to correct the orbit of the Chang'e 4 during its flight as well as to control its speed as the spacecraft approached the surface of the moon. Furthermore, the team played a key part in adjusting the positions of Chang'e 4 during the last moments before its soft landing. 'Within the last 720 seconds of the soft landing when the power [of Cheng'e 4] drops, we will experience seven stages in which we need to adjust its position continuously. We can not afford to lose a single second or make a single mistake,' Yue Shilei, one engineer from the Jiamusi station, told China Central Television Station on December 7, one day before the launch of Cheng'e 4. Chang'e-4 has been described as 'hugely ambitious' and heralded as a sign of China's growing intentions to rival the space exploration prowess of the US, Russia and the EU. The country plans to explore Mars in the second quarter of 2020 and eventually put people on the moon on a Chinese lunar base, said leading Chinese scientist Ouyang Ziyuan during a talk last year. While stationed on the moon, China's Chang'e-4 will attempt to recce the famous Von Karman crater in the Aitken basin, the largest impact crater in the entire solar system at eight miles (13 kilometres) deep and 1,600 miles (2,500 kilometres) in diameter. Models of Chang'e-4 reveal how the probe on the far side of the moon will look (pictured). The large solar panels and protective gold foil will power and protect the probe from the extreme radiation in space China's Chang'e-4 probe (model pictured) is a major achievement for Chinese space exploration. It will study the chemical composition of the soil and also look at how potato and Arabidopsis seeds will cope on the lunar surface It will also be tasked with carrying out mineral and radiation tests, presenting scientists with the first-ever chance to examine materials from the far side of the moon. WHY IS THE FAR SIDE OF THE MOON KNOWN AS THE 'DARK SIDE'? The far side of the moon - colloquially known as the dark side - actually gets as much light as the near side but always faces away from Earth. Less than a fifth of the opposite half of the moon is ever visible and it wasn't until 1959 until we received images of what it looked like when the Soviet Luna 3 spacecraft returned snapped the mysterious region. In 1968, astronauts aboard the Apollo 8 spacecraft were the first humans to set eyes on the far side in person as they orbited the moon. Since then, several missions by NASA and other space agencies have imaged the lunar far side. That includes NASAs Deep Impact spacecraft, which imaged the far side from a distance of 31 million miles (49m km) in 2008. This relatively unexplored region is mountainous and rugged, making a successful landing much harder to achieve. Professor of astrophysics at the University of Nottingham, Christopher Conselice, said the far side is much more rugged and has less volcanic activity than the side we see from Earth. Advertisement The far side of the moon - colloquially known as the dark side - actually gets as much light as the near side but always faces away from Earth. This relatively unexplored region is mountainous and rugged, making a successful landing much harder to achieve. It appears to take on a reddish hue in some of the images released by China, seemingly an effect of the lights used by the probe. The pioneering landing demonstrates China's growing ambitions to rival the US as a space power, with Beijing hoping to send another probe next year that will retrieve samples and bring them back to Earth. Beijing is pouring billions into the military-run programme, with hopes of having a crewed space station by 2022, and of eventually sending humans to the moon. The Chang'e-4 lunar probe mission - named after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology - launched last December from the southwestern Xichang launch centre. It is the second Chinese probe to land on the moon, following the Yutu rover mission in 2013. The probe entered orbit on Sunday 'to prepare for the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon', the China National Space Administration said. The moon is tidally locked to Earth, rotating at the same rate that it orbits our planet, so the far side - or the 'dark side' - is never visible from Earth. Previous spacecraft have seen the far side of the moon, but none has landed on it. Eileen McBrien (pictured) was jailed for six years after forcing a child to perform a sex act on her A paedophile who forced a girl under the age of 10 to perform a sex act on her has been jailed. Pervert Eileen McBrien, 62, has been sentenced to six years in prison after luring the youngster into a property. She was found guilty of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity following a trial at Manchester Crown Court. Her young victim was brave enough to report the attack to her mother in August 2017 just weeks after the attack, Mirror Online reports. But McBrien from Ancoats, Manchester, denied the trial, at the conclusion of which investigating officer Sergeant Laura Halley described the case as 'harrowing'. 'By pleading not guilty, McBrien made the young victim relive her ordeal through the trial and caused further trauma,' she said. McBrien was jailed at Manchester Crown Court (pictured) after forcing a child to perform a sex act on her 'The family and victim have been through an extremely difficult time and hopefully this sentence will bring them some closure and allow them to move on with their lives.' McBrien must sign the sex offenders register and is also subject to a sexual harm prevention order for the rest of her life. Dutch and German authorities are warning prospective treasure hunters to stay away from 270 shipping containers lost at sea by a cargo ship as some are carrying hazardous materials. The Panama-registered MSC Zoe shed the containers, containing mostly toys, IKEA furniture and car parts while battling a storm off the Wadden Islands, an archipelago off the northwestern Dutch coast. Despite warnings, locals on the Wadden islands have been seen recovering toys and goods - including flat-screen TVs - from broken containers which have turned up on their beaches. Treasure hunt: A person carries a flat-screen television set as others inspect a cargo container after it washed up on a beach in Terschelling, Netherlands Risky business: Volunteers are seen cleaning up the coastline on the Dutch Wadden islands where everything from toys to TVs and fridges have washed up Authorities in Germany and the Netherlands are searching for up to 270 shipping containers lost at sea by cargo ship MSC Zoe caught in a storm The ship lost at least 270 containers, including four holding potentially dangerous substances, the Dutch and German coastguards said Wednesday The Dutch coastguard tweeted that three of the containers contained, in powder form, highly flammable, potentially dangerous organic peroxides used in making plastics which can cause irritation if breathed in. German coastguard sources said they had located one container holding organic peroxide among six containers that reached the country's coastline. They also warned the public not to touch the containers if found, but to call police or the fire brigade. The Dutch coastguard added they did not have information about the content of cargo beyond that of the 20 or so containers which washed up on the Wadden islands, also known as the Frisian islands. MSC Zoe, one of the world's largest cargo ships, was caught in a storm heading to the northern German port of Bremerhaven All at sea: Some of the more than 250 containers lost by the ship Locals on the Wadden islands have been seen recovering toys and goods - including flat-screen TVs - from broken containers which have turned up on their beaches. No treasure: What appears to be a broken kitchen appliance has washed up on the shore A Dutch coastguard plane was due to undertake a new search on Thursday morning while strong winds were hampering the MSC Zoe's own attempts to carry out an inventory. The mayor of Terschelling island, where some of the cargo washed ashore, told Dutch broadcaster NOS that he expected it would take several days to clear the beach of stray items from the containers. The 2015-built MSC Zoe, which was headed to the northern German port of Bremerhaven, is one of the world's largest container vessels at 1,300 feet long and 194ft wide. A North Carolina family's cars were vandalized with derogatory language and a swastika in an apparent hate crime stemming from an interracial relationship between two teens. The Wayne County Sheriff's Office said Wednesday that on December 27, a white family's minivan was found spray-painted with a swastika and several racial slurs, while another one of their vehicles was set on fire. The sheriff's office believes the family, which lives in Goldsboro, North Carolina, was targeted because their 14-year-old daughter, Brianna, was in a relationship with a black teen. Scroll down for video A North Carolina family woke up on December 27 to discover that their two cars had been vandalized in an apparent hate crime while they were sleeping The family believes they were targeted with the derogatory and racist graffiti because their 14-year-old daughter, Brianna, was dating a black teen that she had met at church Brianna, 14, was away in Florida at the time when the vandalism occurred. Her mother said that she had been received threatening messages on social media in the past The girl's mother, Amanda Miller, told news outlets the couple met in church. She said they've since amicably broken up, and the boy's parents have been supportive following the vandalism. The damage was apparently done overnight, while the family was asleep in the home. 'You're sitting there thinking, "Oh god, what's next? Are these people going to come back?"' mom Amanda Miller told CBS 17. The phrases 'n***er lovin w***e,' 'burn in hell,' 'b***h w***e' and 'w***e slut' were among those spray-painted in black on the gold-colored minivan. 'I think anybody that has that much anger and write something like that and damage someone else's property -- they're capable of doing bodily harm to somebody else,' Amanda told ABC11. A swastika was among the hateful graffiti that had been spray-painted on the family minivan Mom Amanda Miller said that people driving by the vandalized cars now stare at the family The vandals also set the family's second car on fire, damaging it so much that it is now totaled Mom Amanda Miller said that she fears for her daughter's life and is concerned about what could happen next if the vandals escalate their behavior Brianna, who is a high school freshman, was apparently away visiting family in Florida when the incident occurred and has not yet seen the damage in person. Amanda said her daughter previously dated a black student in middle school, and has received threatening messages on social media. Amanda told CBS 17 that Brianna has 'always kind of had people starring at her and telling her its not the way it should be. We just kind of tell her, unfortunately, this is the world we live in.' Still, Amanda said, 'you never expect that they're going to go to this extreme.' Amanda has set up a GoFundMe page to help raise money to buy a new car to replace the one that was totaled when it was set on fire. The family apparently cannot afford to now make three car payments, especially when one of the cars is no longer usable. Amanda wrote that the family had already made four payments on the fire-damaged car, but because they did not have gap insurance, the family now has a 'shortfall' of about $7,000 that their insurance won't cover. In addition to that, 'The profanity that was written on my car has caused many cars to drive by and stare at my family,' Amanda wrote, adding that 'It makes me very uncomfortable to be there. I fear for my daughters life because I never thought someone could have this much hate for a 14 year old girl and if they are brave enough to do this what is next.' The family is looking to raise $10,000 to cover their car shortfall, as well as to install cameras around the property. Investigators are expected to interview Brianna when she's back in North Carolina and look through her social media accounts and school connections for clues about who is responsible for the vandalism and to determine whether it's safe for her to return to school. The sheriff's offices said that it will share its findings with the State Bureau of Investigation. Irish agriculture minister Michael Creed said it would take 'mega money' to ease the impact of a no-deal Brexit Ireland will demand hundreds of millions of euros in aid from the EU if the UK crashes out of the bloc, the country's agriculture minister warned today. Michael Creed said it would take 'mega money' to ease the impact of a no-deal Brexit - with beef, dairy and fishing among the most vulnerable sectors. The warning came as Brussels again appeared to dismiss Theresa May's plea for fresh concessions to help her get the Brexit package through the Commons later this month. An EU commission spokeswoman also said there were no plans for any further negotiations with the UK - despite the PM insisting talks are ongoing. The latest standoff has sent the chances of a no-deal Brexit spiralling, as Mrs May looks down the barrel of near-certain defeat in the Parliamentary showdown due in the week beginning January 14. Killing off the plan could throw the government into chaos, with the UK set to crash out of the bloc by default at the end of March unless politicians can agree another course. Irish PM Leo Varadkar is seen as having been one of the main obstacles to sealing a deal, after he insisted on a 'backstop' to guarantee no hard border with Northern Ireland. The DUP has condemned the proposals because they risk splitting the UK, while Brexiteers say it will prevent the country striking trade deals elsewhere. However, the intervention by Mr Creed today underlines the threat of disruption Ireland faces if there is no Brexit deal. Speaking about the need for support from the EU in the event of no deal, he told the Irish Independent: 'You're looking at hundreds of millions here. 'Between the beef industry and the fishing industry we're talking mega-money.' Nearly 80 per cent of Irish exporters deliver products to Britain, according to 2016 government figures. The country is also considered a vital 'land bridge' to the European continent. Theresa May (pictured in Downing Street today) is looking down the barrel of near-certain defeat in the Parliamentary showdown due in the week beginning January 14 'There is a high level of awareness of Ireland's unique exposure to the UK food market,' Mr Creed said. 'I think nobody wants to talk about it right now because there is still a hope and expectation that a level of sanity will prevail.' But, he added: 'In racing parlance the odds are slashed on a hard Brexit.' If Britain crashes out of the European Union on March 29, Creed said he hoped an EU grant would be approved at a Luxembourg summit of EU farming ministers in April. Dublin outlined its no deal contingency plans before the Christmas break. They include schemes for port overhauls, a fund for Brexit-specific tax staff and talks to preserve the island's integrated electricity network. Up to 45 pieces of emergency legislation would be required. Irish PM Leo Varadkar is seen as having been one of the main obstacles to sealing a deal, after he insisted on a 'backstop' to guarantee no hard border with Northern Ireland At a press conference in Brussels this morning Mina Andreeva, deputy chief spokeswoman for the European Commission, was asked what talks would be held with the UK before the Commons vote. She said: 'We have said many times the deal that is on the table is the best and only deal possible. 'And the EU27 leaders confirmed on December 13 in their conclusions that it will not be renegotiated.' Ms Andreeva said the EU side have 'started the ratification process' on the terms in the Withdrawal Agreement, and confirmed Brussels is ready to start preparations on a new trade deal 'immediately after the signature' on the deal from the UK Government. She added: 'For now no further meetings are foreseen between the commission's negotiators and the UK negotiators as the negotiations have indeed been concluded.' Psychotherapist Maria Lindholm-Ventola may now face disciplinary action after admitting bombarding her ex with abuse A university psychotherapist bombarded her doctor ex with insulting messages after they split-up, breaking a court order banning her from contacting him. Maria Lindholm-Ventola, 45, a lecturer and former course director at London South Bank University, lost custody of the child she had with psychiatrist Dr Emad Farrag. This prompted her to repeatedly message Dr Farrag, who has taken their child abroad, via email and WhatsApp, calling him a 'pompous f***.' Lindholm-Ventola, of Plumstead, south-east London, pleaded guilty to breaching a non-molestation order made by East London Family Court between September 18 and December 17, 2017. Lindholm-Ventola, who is also a registered Mental Health Nurse, advertises her work by saying she allows patients to 'let go of any past experiences that may hinder your progress and to explore ways in which you can begin to work towards the future you always wanted'. A charge of sending indecent and offensive messages to Dr Farrag, causing distress or anxiety, was withdrawn by the prosecution. Lindholm-Ventola was brought before Bromley Magistrates Court over the messages Prosecutor Ms Jennifer Gatland told Bromley Magistrates Court: 'The complainant Dr Farrag is the ex-partner of the defendant, who took out a non-molestation order. 'It has a number of conditions, one of which is not to threaten the victim or go within one hundred metres of him and not abuse him. 'Doctor Farrag says he started receiving numerous abusive messages via email and WhatsApp in September, 2017.' The insults included: 'Taking the p***,' 'P*** off,' 'F*** off,' 'Lay off the dope,' and referred to Dr Farrag and his new girlfriend as 'a pair of f***s.' Lindholm-Ventola is a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and her areas of expertise include obsessions, anger management, stress, relationships and family therapy. She was questioned by police when the messages took a more sinister turn with one reading: 'People die all the time.' It is Finnish-born Lindholm-Ventola's first conviction and she may now face disciplinary proceedings from the UK Nursing and Midwifery Council. She was conditionally discharged for two years and a restraining order was made prohibiting contact with Dr Farrag. Lindholm-Ventola must also pay 85 costs and a 20 victim surcharge. A woman is lucky to be alive after being pulled unresponsive from the surf at a popular beach. The woman, 38, was found unconscious in the water at Silver Sands beach, near Aldinga Beach, 40km south of Adelaide, at 7.40pm on Thursday, The Advertiser reported. In a stroke of amazing luck, a number of off duty Ambulance paramedics were at the same beach enjoying a day off. The group quickly leapt to action, dragging her from the water before performing CPR. A woman is lucky to be alive after being pulled unresponsive from the surf at a the popular Silver Sands Beach near Aldgina Beach (file photo) They continued to perform CPR until an emergency helicopter arrived on the scene. At 9pm she was transported to the Flinders Medical Centre for further treatment, where she is now recovering. She has already began to breath for herself and her heartbeat has returned to a normal level, the publication reported. Her rescue was complicated by heavy numbers of holiday makers on the beach, including one which suffered a seizure at the same time she was being rescued. The woman's near drowning came just one week after a student form Nepal drowned at Glenelg Beach, 40km north of Aldinga Beach. An adorable three-year-old boy who likes to dress up as a monk has been melting hearts online across China. With a shaved head, a beaming smile and a clumsy walk, Chen Zhaoyu from Wenling city in east China's Zhejiang province has been gaining fans by the hundreds on social media. While he is still an amateur at best, the child's mother is planning to send him to a Buddhist monastery to become a disciple. Three-year-old Chen Zhaoyu, from Wenling city in east China's Zhejiang province, who likes to dress up as a monk has been melting hearts online across the country While he is still an amateur at best, Chen's mother is planning to send him to a Buddhist monastery to become a disciple Yan Yiping, 35, told MailOnline she dressed her son as a monk based on her favourite cartoon character, Ikkyu, from the famous 1980s Japanese anime 'Ikkyu-san'. The cartoon series follows a child monk in Japan who relied on his wit to solve various problems during his stay at the Ankokuji Temple. At the time, Chinese mainland television translated and broadcast around 100 episodes, which were a huge hit among children. 'Ikkyu-san is a large part of my childhood memory,' Yan told MailOnline. 'Ikkyu was my hero, I adored him.' Yan Yiping, 35, told MailOnline she dressed her son Chen Zhaoyu (left) as a monk based on her favourite cartoon character, Ikkyu (right), from the famous 1980s Japanese anime 'Ikkyu-san' As for the videos of the little modern-day monk, Chen is often seen wearing grey or white robes, a string of prayer beads and round sunglasses as he goes about his daily life The boy's mother, as well as his pet squirrel and rabbit, act as his co-stars from time to time As for the videos of the little modern-day monk, Chen is often seen wearing grey or white robes, a string of prayer beads and round sunglasses as he goes about his daily life. His mother, as well as his pet squirrel and rabbit, act as his co-stars from time to time. Dubbed the 'cutest monk' by his fans, Chen currently has more than 320,000 followers on popular short video site Kuaishou, where his videos are being viewed by the thousands. 'I never expected my son to be famous. I just thought it would be fun to dress him as a monk, take videos for him and share it with my friends,' Yan said, who also has an eight-year-old son. Dubbed the 'cutest monk' by his fans, Chen currently has more than 320,000 followers on popular short video site Kuaishou, where his videos are being viewed by the thousands Chen's mother is planning to send him to a local Buddhist monastery to become a disciple 'I never expected my son to be famous. I just thought it would be fun to dress him as a monk, take videos for him and share it with my friends,' Yan said, who also has an eight-year-old son Yan said she has been shaving her son's hair every month over the past year to maintain the image of her little star. 'He's quite popular among the abbots and other disciples in our local temples now,' she said. 'Every time we visit the temples a lot of people would come and take pictures with him.' 'We hope that one of the abbots at the Tianhuang Temple will accept my son as a disciple. If so, I think he would be the youngest disciple at the monastery!' she added. The death of Lord Haw-Haw On this day 1946, William Brooke Joyce (24 April 1906 3 January 1946) was hanged. Lord Haw-Haw, as he was known, was the last person to be executed for treason in the United Kingdom. On the cold and damp morning of 3 January 1946, a large but orderly crowd had formed outside the grim Victorian prison in Wandsworth, the main gates of which arent more than a stones throw from the more salubrious surroundings of Wandsworth Common in south London. Some people had come to protest at what they considered an unjust conviction; others, albeit a handful, came to demonstrate about the use of capital punishment; while some, rather morbidly, wanted to be as close as they could to what came to be the last execution of a person convicted of high treason in Britain. About 500 miles away, as the crow flies, at Joyces old school called St Ignatius, in Galway, a mass was taking place. The consecration of the Eucharist was timed for exactly the moment that Joyce was due to be executed. In the end the planned timing was in vain. It was at one minute to nine, an hour later than initially planned, when the governor of Wandsworth prison entered the condemned mans cell to inform him that his time had come. William Joyce had woken early that morning. He washed, but didnt shave, and changed from his prison clothes into the blue serge suit he had been wearing at the time of his arrest in Germany. He refused any breakfast but he drank a cup of tea. For the last few months Joyce had actually been eating relatively well and while in prison his weight had increased substantially. When he was first brought to Wandsworth in the autumn he weighed 135 pounds (61 kg) but was now 151 pounds (68.5 kg). This wasnt incidental information at the time; the weight gain was of more than passing interest to Albert Pierrepoint, the man who was to be his executioner. The weight of every prisoner for whose death he would be ultimately responsible, he carefully noted in a leather-covered diary or ledger. It carried the details of all the executions for which he had been responsible and contained the dates, ages, heights, weights and, most importantly, the drop for each hanging. Part of the hangmans craft was to calculate the exact length of rope required to instantly kill the condemned man or woman. If the rope was too long, the criminal would be decapitated; too short, and it would be an agonising death of several minutes by strangulation. Pierrepoints calculations were worked out from grim advice given in an official 1913 government document called the Table of Drops. It had been put together after a series of failed hangings at the end of the nineteenth century, including those of John Babbacombe Lee, also known, not surprisingly, as the man they couldnt hang. Lee survived three attempts to hang him at Exeter Prison in 1885 after which the Home Secretary commuted his death sentence. He was released twenty-two years later in 1905 and died in the USA in 1945. A committee, chaired by Lord Aberdare, was formed in 1886 to discover and report on the most effective manner of hanging, the results of which were published three years later. After a few more unfortunate incidents, a significantly revised edition of the Table of Drops was published in 1913. In 1917, as a twelve-year-old, and twenty-eight years before he came face to face with William Joyce in the cell at Wandsworth, Albert Pierrepoint had been asked at school to compose an essay about his future ambitions. He wrote: I would like to be public executioner as my Dad is, because it needs a steady man who is good with his hands like my Dad and my Uncle Tom and I shall be the same. Young Albert had only found out about his fathers macabre profession the year before, although he didnt know that, after carrying out 107 executions, he had been dismissed from his post seven years previously after arriving drunk at Chelmsford prison to carry out a hanging. Alberts Uncle Tom, however, went on to work as a hangman for thirty-seven years before his eventual retirement in 1946 after a dispute over compensation for a cancelled hanging. When Albert Pierrepoint met Lord Haw-Haw, Albeit Rather Briefly Flashbak and Beautiful Idiots and Brilliant Lunatics by Rob Baker Anorak Posted: 3rd, January 2019 | In: Key Posts, News Comment | TrackBack | Permalink Jury selection is set to begin in the trial of an Uber driver charged with murdering six strangers in southwestern Michigan three years ago after he claimed the devil was controlling him via the ride-sharing app. Jason Dalton, 48, is accused of shooting eight people in three locations in the Kalamazoo area in February 2016 while he was picking up passengers for Uber. Police said Dalton had claimed a 'devil figure' on Uber's app was controlling him on the night of the shootings and that it had ordered him to kill. Jason Dalton, 48, is accused of shooting dead six people in three locations in Michigan's Kalamazoo area in February 2016 while he was picking up passengers for Uber Dalton is charged with murder and attempted murder. Prospective jurors are reporting to court on Thursday to begin the selection process. Trial testimony could start as early as Monday. The trial was initially delayed while Dalton's attorney tried to suppress some statements made to police. The Michigan appeals court agreed that some cannot be used because a detective continued questioning him after Dalton 'invoked both his rights to counsel and to remain silent'. Police said he shot six people outside an apartment building, a restaurant and a car dealership in between driving for Uber Dalton has been found competent to stand trial, but he has made bizarre outbursts at past court appearances. He was dragged out of a courtroom by deputies during a 2016 court appearance when he started screaming while one of his surviving victims was giving her testimony. Police said he shot six people outside an apartment building, a restaurant and a car dealership in between driving for Uber. Two victims, including 15-year-old Abbie Kopf, survived the shootings. Kopf suffered a fractured skull after being shot in the head and underwent surgery to have a plastic plate inserted. The teenager's recovery was deemed remarkable given doctors were preparing to harvest her organs when she was injured. Sisters-in-law Mary Jo Nye, 60, (left) and Mary Lou Nye, 63, (right) were killed during the shooting spree in a Cracker Barrel parking lot Tyler Smith (right) and his father Rich were killed in the parking lot of the Seelye Kiacar dealership while they were looking at cars Barbara Hawthorne (left), 68, and Dorothy Brown (right), 70, were also killed in the parking lot of Cracker Barrel Dog owners are being told to be extra careful when taking their beloved pets out for a walk, with colder temperatures triggering a disease that could be deadly to their canine companions. Known as Cutaneous and Renal Glomerular Vasculopathy, but more commonly referred to as Alabama Rot, the flesh-eating bug thrives in cold weather and damages dogs blood vessels, which can induce kidney failure within days. According to Vets4Pets, only 30 per cent of dogs survive the diagnosis. The disease was first detected in the UK in 2012 and since then 200 dogs have been killed by it. A quarter of those deaths came in 2018 alone, according to the Alabama Rot Research Fund. Dog owners are told to keep pets away from muddy areas and wash them after every walk According to the Sunday Times, the disease has been spreading across Britain, with clusters of cases being recorded in the New Forest, areas of London and Manchester. Although the origins of the disease are still unknown, muddy areas have been posited as key areas of infection. Many of the infected dogs had been walked in muddy fields and woodlands, Fiona Macdonald, a New Forest vet, told the Sunday Times. It is thought that the disease is contracted by the dogs through the paws and legs. Symptoms of Alabama Rot include lesions, patches of red skin or sores that cannot be explained. They are usually found on the paws or legs, but can also appear on the heads, faces and lower body. They can be open or look like ulcers. Other signs include loss of appetite, tiredness, vomiting and diarrhea. Caroline Kisko, Kennel Club Secretary said: 'Although the disease is very rare, affecting an extremely low percentage of dogs in the UK, the condition is very serious and potentially life-threatening. 'It is therefore vital that owners understand and recognise the warning signs, especially as time plays a significant part in successfully treating the disease.' She stressed that these symptoms may not necessarily indicate its Alabama Rot, but acting quickly and speaking to a vet to determine what is wrong is the best course of action to protect your pets health. Breeds that have been affected include Labradors, English Springer Spaniels, Cocker Spaniels, Border Collies, Flat-coated Retrievers, Whippets and Hungarian Vizlas. Macdonald said that any dogs that have ventured into muddy ground should be hosed down with cold water after every walk. They wont like it, but it might save them. A boyfriend shouted 'no one else will have you' before killing his girlfriend, another man and himself in a New Year's Day house fire, it was claimed today. Police are said to believe the two victims may have been stabbed - and their chief suspect also died in the blaze at the 350,000 property in Kirton, Lincolnshire. Billy Hicks, 24, has been named today by former colleagues as one of the three killed, according to The Sun. Billy Hicks, 24, has been named today by former colleagues as one of the three killed in the New Year's Day blaze Natalie Hall, 21, is thought to have escaped after jumping from a top floor bedroom and only suffered a leg injury A forensic investigator at the scene yesterday after the devastating fire in Kirton, Lincolnshire Rachel Braim, a Police Community Support Officer is also thought to have escaped the blaze Detectives were thought to be investigating the theory that a love triangle could have triggered the bloodshed before the blaze took hold from about 3am. The home was owned by former pub chef Paul Edmunds and his wife Donna, both 54. They are said to have moved to Ilfracombe in Devon last year to run a hotel. But a source told the Daily Mail that police are investigating whether a suspect found dead in the house was involved in a love triangle with two other victims. Lincolnshire Police confirmed a 27-year-old woman and two men aged 24 and 32 had died. They are yet to be formally identified and no arrests have been made. One source named Fabio, 18, whose friend's relative knew the woman victim, claimed the fire was started by a boyfriend 'furious that he had been cheated on'. Detectives were thought to be investigating the theory that a love triangle could have triggered the bloodshed before the blaze took hold from about 3am. Pictured: Billy Hicks The fire at the 350,000 property (above) is being treated as a 'domestic related' murder He said: 'I've heard the guy found out he had been cheated on and went into the house with a jerry can of fuel which he set light to. 'There was a New Year's party going on and it was after most people had left that all hell broke loose. He told his girl: 'No one else will ever have you. I'll make sure of that'.' Fabio added that a house guest who jumped to safety told police and a few neighbours about the 'relationship crisis.' He said: 'The guy who started the fire was absolutely mad when he found out hid girlfriend had cheated on him with someone he knew.' One survivor, Natalie Hall, 21, is thought to have escaped after jumping from a top floor bedroom and only suffered a leg injury. A witness told The Sun: 'We helped and she kept going on about this ex she said was a complete psycho.' She later wrote on Facebook: 'I am fine, just a few minor injuries on my legs from where I jumped out of my bedroom window. 'I am very lucky to be alive which is more than I can say for my wonderful friends who were taken away that night. My condolences to their families.' Friends have also already started fundraising for those involved in the fire as investigators comb through the wreckage of the home. Police launched the investigation following the huge fire at the house (pictured yesterday) Another survivor was Rachel Braim, whose friends set up a JustGiving page and said she was 'obviously traumatised and has lost all personal possessions'. One friend said: 'Rachel was able to get a housemate and eventually herself to safety. Despite her efforts, three died in the fire.' Rachel Braim, a Police Community Support Officer, is also thought to have survived the fire. Talking about Miss Hall's escape, neighbour Lewis McGarry said: 'She jumped out of the top window to escape the fire and hurt her foot and may have even broken as she landed. 'She was in a lot of distress pain and me and my friend were trying to console her.' The three victims in the blaze at the detached home (pictured yesterday) were 24, 27 and 32 He called the emergency services before running to the ferociously burning house two doors away and described the heat as 'so hot and intense'. He said: 'It was impossible to get into the house. The fire was massive and it was shocking - and we could hear voices screaming 'help me.' ' Lewis had just got back home from a New Year's Eve celebration when he heard 'a massive bang' at about 3.15am and felt the house shake. He said: 'I thought something had fallen down upstairs so did my mum but when I pulled back the blinds I saw a cloud of smoke and a reflection in the house opposite of huge flames. Two people taken to hospital after the fire at the house (pictured yesterday) were discharged 'I called the emergency services then ran to the scene. I didn't panic but stayed calm. I'm used to dealing with beach incidents from my work as a RNLI lifeguard. 'I was with a friend and we could hear the screams of people trapped inside. Then we saw this woman on the ground outside who told us she had jumped and been screaming for her life. 'She told us something significant that had happened before the fire but police have told us not to repeat it. 'I didn't know the woman, I think she lived in the rented house with room mates. Police launched a domestic-related murder probe after the fire at the home (above, yesterday) 'She looked as if she had been our earlier because she was still wearing a black skirt and top and has three glow sticks hanging from her neck. 'The police were there within five minutes and fire brigade a few minutes after wards. I don't think it's quite hit me yet what happened. It's horrendous. 'We couldn't stay in our house that night because we were told it may not be safe but it's since been checked.' Witness John Holland, who lives opposite the property, said: 'I could see flames shooting through the roof. There was a lady in the downstairs window. The destroyed house is pictured in the most recent Google Street Village image from 2009 'Me and this other chap, we rushed over to the front door. I picked up a brick and we smashed the plate glass in the porch. We dragged her through and out.' Lincolnshire Police Superintendent Di Coulson said: 'There is one suspect and we believe that suspect died within the property.' She added there had been a relationship between two of the parties involved and 'the incident we believe is as a result of an issue with that relationship'. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham is counseling President Trump to stand firm in his fight for a border barrier and warned Wednesday evening that capitulation would be the end of the first-term executive's presidency. Appearing on Fox News on Wednesday evening, Graham declared: 'If he gives in now, thats the end of 2019 in terms of him being an effective president. 'Thats the probably the end of his presidency. Donald Trump has made a promise to the American people. Hes going to secure our border,' the senior senator said. Retreating on Trump's signature campaign promise would damage the Republican Party as a while, Graham advised colleagues on Capitol Hill who believe their leader should concede the issue to Democrats. 'Thats the end of us if we give in on this issue as Republicans,' he asserted. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham is counseling President Trump to stand firm in his fight for a border barrier and warned Wednesday evening that capitulation would be the end of the first-term executive's presidency A border patrol office inside his vehicle guards the border fence at the U.S. side of San Diego, California, as seen from Tijuana, Mexico, on Wednesday. Trump wants to replace fencing like this will a steel slat barrier Graham has the president's ear and visited the White House over the weekend, when the president remained in Washington. Trump is not going to budge on the border wall, he said Graham has the president's ear and visited the White House over the weekend, when the president remained in Washington to share in the pain of the government shutdown rather than party at his Palm Beach mansion with family and friends. He told Fox that he doesn't believe the president is going to budge on his border security demands. 'Hes not going to sign a bill that doesnt have money for the wall. I can tell you exactly how this is going to end. The president is going to challenge Democrats to compromise and if they continue to say no, theyre going to pay the price with the American people,' he asserted. Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway similarly said on Thursday morning that Trump will only sign 'something that truly secures the border' and a bill that Democrats plan to pass today as their first act in Congress does not do that. 'It doesn't reopen the government for homeland security,' she claimed. One bill funds closed areas of the government through the end of the current fiscal year. Its companion appropriates money to the Department of Homeland Security only until Feb. 8. Democrats and their Republican counterparts came to the White House at the president's invitation on Wednesday afternoon for a border security briefing and negotiation in the Situation Room. The two sides left conversation angrily pointing the finger at one another for the partial government closure. Conway claimed that soon-to-be House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were 'very rude and dismissive' during the briefing conducted by the Homeland Security Secretary via satellite. 'That was really poor form, but the president has graciously invited them back here tomorrow,' she said of the president's request that lawmakers return on Friday. She said the shutdown cannot end with Democrats are 'harrumphing their way in the Situation Room' as she contended they were on Wednesday. 'I hope that they'll get serious about negotiating,' she concluded. Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway similarly said on Thursday morning that Trump will only sign 'something that truly secures the border' and a bill that Democrats plan to pass today as their first act in Congress does not do that Democratic leaders left the White House on Wednesday unconvinced by the president's arguments that a border wall is necessary for national security. They left a briefing on the border early, Republican leaders revealed, and interrupted and argued with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. The meeting ended at an impasse, with the president inviting attendees back Friday for more talks after leadership elections have taken place. His White House believes that Pelosi will be more amenable to giving him the funds once she's formally elected speaker. Speaking to NBC News, Pelosi said that will not be the case. 'We can go through the back and forth,' she said in an interview that aired on Thursday morning. 'No. How many more times can we say no? Nothing for the wall.' 'There is no amount of persuasion he can do to say to us, "We want you to do something that is not effective, that costs billions of dollars." That sends the wrong message about who we are as a country,' she contended. Schumer urged the president during a White House press conference to reconsider his own position on bills to reopen the government. 'At our last meeting the president said, I am going to shut the government down. They are now feeling the heat. It is not helping the president, it is not helping the Republicans to be the owners of this shutdown,' he said. 'Today we gave them an opportunity to get out of that and open up the government as we debate border security, and to say to them, because he says he won't sign it, and use the government as hostage, and just give in, the American people don't want that, that's bad for our country.' The White House says a pair of bills that Democrats are backing that would end the shutdown are a 'non-starter' because they do not fund the border wall. Incoming House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer said they would move forward with them, anyway. 'Because that is our responsibility, as a co-equal branch of government,' he said. 'We want the president to open up government. We are giving him a Republican path to do that. Why would he not do it?' he asked. Democratic leaders left a White House meeting on Wednesday unconvinced by the president's arguments that a border wall is necessary for national security Democrats have proposed legislation that would fund every closed area through the end of the current fiscal year, except the Homeland Security department. A bill that Pelosi, the expected speaker of the House, will put on the floor Thursday extends funding for DHS until Feb. 8, providing Trump and the new Congress with an opportunity to continue talks while the government hums along. Before she could gavel in the new legislative session, the White House deemed the strategy dead-on-arrival, indicating in a late-night statement that Trump is resolved to keep the government closed until Congress appropriates money for his border wall. 'The Pelosi plan is a non-starter because it does not fund our homeland security or keep American families safe from human trafficking, drugs, and crime,' White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said. Democrats and Republicans continued to be at odds on Wednesday after their White House briefing. Incoming House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy came out of the Situation Room and over to a group of reporter to bash Pelosi and Schumer. He said that Trump had invited them back on Friday 'after the leadership races' because it was 'a concern for some people to be able to get through' in a jab at Pelosi. 'I was a little disappointed with, I would say some on the other said,' McCarthy said. 'Once the secretary started, they, the, Sen. Schumer, interrupted her, and they really didn't want to hear it. And they challenged some of the points the secretary made.' Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that her caucus is not going to appropriate money to Trump's border wall. 'No. How many more times can we say no? Nothing for the wall,' she said in an interivew McCarthy said Democrats wanted to go on with their bill, and did not want to hear the briefing. Still, he said he believed they could 'come to an agreement quite quickly' to reopen the government, as soon as Pelosi is elected. President Trump affirmed in an evening tweet that he wants to continue talks with Democrats to reopen the government. 'I remain ready and willing to work with Democrats to pass a bill that secures our borders, supports the agents and officers on the ground, and keeps America Safe. Lets get it done!' he said. A second message argued that his border wall is the only way to secure the nation's southern border. 'Sadly, there can be no REAL Border Security without the Wall!' he said. Trump had insisted at a Cabinet meeting earlier in the day that Democrats have 'their eye on 2020' and that's why they're refusing to approve border wall funding. Trump said in his first convening of his Cabinet of 2019 that the border is 'like a sieve' and the 'United States needs a physical barrier' to prevent as illegal immigrants from coming in. 'We are in a shutdown, because Democrats refuse to fund border security,' he contended. Conway said Thursday as she spoke to reporters that Trump shouldn't be faulted for the breakdown in talks, because he is at least open to a conversation. 'But this president, give him his due, he's willing to have him here,' she said. Trump told Democrats in a meeting last month that he would be 'proud to oversee' a shutdown but has since blamed the two-week closure on the opposing party. 'He doesn't own this shutdown any longer,' Conway insisted. House Republicans passed a bill before the end of the last Congress, she argued, that provided roughly $5.7 bill all at once for the president's border wall. She said that it was the Senate, which has also passed a bill that Trump says he won't sign, that needs to do its job. The Senate is run by Republicans but their majority is too slim to pass legislation without the help of seven Democrats after today's inaugurations. A Russian woman who was murdered by an ex-special services soldier was tricked into giving her killer a lift thanks to a fake profile on a car-sharing app. The body of Irina Akhmatova, 29, was discovered in a forest after convicted rapist Vitaly Chikirev, 39, led police to her remains when he confessed to her murder. Akhmatova, a married mother-of-one who ran two Burger King restaurants in Moscow, had agreed to give Chikirev a lift through an app called BlaBlaCar. Murdered: Irina Akhmatova, 29, picked up convicted rapist and former serviceman Vitaly Chikirev via a ride-sharing app in Moscow Vitaly Chikirev, 39, pictured while still serving in the Russian army, led police to Akhmatova's remains when he confessed to her murder Chikirev admitted in a police video to callously killing the mother-of-one, but evaded questioning on whether he had raped her before strangling her. He used a false profile on BlaBlaCar to fool Akhmatova into giving him a lift to her home city Tula where she lived with her husband and eight-year-old daughter. The victim often used the carpooling app to pick up riders to keep her company on the 115mile drive from Moscow to Tula. Akhmatova had been missing one week when Chikirev - previously jailed for a brutal sex attack - was detained and later confessed on camera to killing her. Police suspect the woman was raped before she was killed, say reports. Tragedy: Akhmatova is pictured with her husband Dmitry and their daughter Chikirev admitted in a police video to callously killing the mother-of-one, but evaded questioning on whether he had raped her before strangling her Akhmatova had been missing one week when Chikirev - previously jailed for a brutal sex attack - was detained and later confessed on camera to killing her The man intended to steal then sell her Audi 4 car and rob her of money and jewellery but in the event dumped the car and made away with just 100 from her purse. In law enforcement footage, the handcuffed suspect told his police interrogator he had been detained for the 'murder' of 'some girl' whose name he did not know, saying he was guilty and wanted to repent. He told police where to find the body. Akhmatova, director to two Burger King restaurants in the Russian capital, was married with an eight-year-old daughter. Her Audi 4 was located covered in snow in a supermarket car park in Yaroslavl 170 miles in the opposite direction from Moscow. The suspect had abandoned his plan to sell it when he heard there was a massive search underway for his victim. After killing her he stole around 100 from her purse, say police. The mother-of-one often used ride-sharing apps to avoid going on long drives alone Irina Akhmatova's Audi 4 was located covered in snow in a supermarket car park in Yaroslavl Its number plates had been removed and the car was removed by police for forensic tests The man had set up multiple bogus profiles - male as well as female - on BlaBlaCar's service aimed at taking lifts with a view to rob, say reports. He had booked all the available places in his victim's car using various aliases. Akhmatova could not have known that the man she picked up on the outskirts of Moscow had several previous convictions for rape and armed robbery. Chikirev is divorced and is believed to have had four children by three women. He recently posted on social media that he is looking for 'a new wife with a good income aged 18 to 27, at least 170cm (5ft6in) tall, breast cup size not less than B, who takes care of herself'. His message went on: 'I don't smoke or drink alcohol, I know how to inspire a woman to earn money. 'I am preparing myself for marriage! 'I promise love, sex, care, comfort and inspiration. 'What I want from you only to support a family.' The message told women not to reply if they were 'poor, live with your mother, don't have your own apartment, are fat or old, can't find a man, or feminist or lesbian'. A female friend said he was a 'good man' and refused to believe he could be a killer. BlaBlaCar said they were in touch with law enforcement and the woman's family. A 13-year-old boy who defied his mother by staying up late to watch Netflix is credited with saving his family from the fire that destroyed their Delaware home. A fire broke out Wednesday around 1am while Angela Marie Borden's son Damir was still awake watching Netflix. Borden said in a Facebook post that her son was able to wake the rest of the family up to escape the blaze. 'I don't know where we (would) be if he listened and went to sleep,' Borden said. Damir, 13, was up late watching Netflix when a fire broke out in his Delaware home A fire broke out at a Delware home Wednesday around 1am, destroying the mobile home Borden said the mobile home's breaker box was pulling in too much power, causing a spark in an outlet which ignited the blaze. 'Our house is gone, but we are still standing,' she said. Two dogs died in the fire, and two other dogs are still missing. The family is now searching for the white dog and reddish brown dog. The Red Cross has given the family around $600 for a hotel room and clothing, but donations are still being accepted. His mother Angela Marie Borden said: 'I don't know where we would be if he listened' Borden said her son was up watching Netflix at the time of the fire against her wishes Good Will Fire Company posted photos of the blaze to Facebook, saying that Engine 18 was operating at the residential fire in Minquadale. 'Engine 22-3 arrived with fire showing from a house trailer,' the fire company said. 'Engine 18 arrived as the third due engine but was reassigned to make the primary search.' Donations for the family can be dropped off at First State Towing at 424 Old Airport Road in New Castle. He woke the family up and everyone was able to escape the blaze, save two dogs A group of black farmers from Mississippi and Tennessee are returning to federal court for a hearing on their lawsuit claiming a seed company sold them faulty soybean seeds because of their race. U.S. District Judge John Fowlkes could rule Thursday for calls to dismiss lawsuits filed by Stine Seed Co. and its salesman Kevin Cooper. They've called the allegations irresponsible. Stine Seed Co. has denied accusations that its salesman sold thousands of dollars' worth of defective seeds to the farmers because they are black. Cooper, in a separate filing, also denies allegations of racism. Soybean farmers David Allen Hall and Tyrone Grayer had high hopes when a farm-show salesman told them the seeds. Tyrone Grayer, left, and David Allen Hall inspect a soybean plant at their farm. Hall and Grayer are among a group of black farmers who are suing Stine Seed Co. Stine Seed Co. has denied accusations that a salesman sold defective seeds to the farmers because they are black, and have asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed But as the plants began to grow, Hall, Grayer and other black farmers who bought certified seeds from Stine Seed salesman Kevin Cooper in 2017 noticed that they were shorter and less uniform than plants from other seeds. A bad yield followed. Thomas Burrell, president of the Black Farmers and Agriculturists Association, acknowledges that Cooper and others who represented Stine did not make overtly racist comments. 'Your not calling me the n-word or another word doesn't mean that you're not racist,' said Burrell, a plaintiff in the case. 'It's what you did. You singled out certain individuals and you sold them seeds you would not sell your white customers.' The farmers allege the seeds were much less productive than expected and the salesman misled them with claims of good yields from soybean plants grown in fertile Mississippi Delta fields. David Allen Hall, shown, bluntly compared the seed product he received to a 'jackass' not a 'thoroughbred horse' like Secretariat David Allen Hall, left, and Tyrone Grayer noticed that their Stine soybean plants were shorter and less uniform than plants from other seeds 'I was disappointed because we bought certified seeds,' said Hall. 'If you contract for a thoroughbred horse, you want Secretariat to be born. Not a jackass.' The suit claims the good seeds the farmers thought they had bought from Stine were replaced by inferior seeds before delivery. The farmers have gleaned evidence that the seeds they bought were bad. Their lawsuit says the farmers sent the seeds to be tested at Mississippi State University. A report from the university's seed testing laboratory said the seeds 'showed rotten molded seed.' The US Army is overhauling its recruitment strategy and seeking to fill its huge enlistment hole by appealing to left-leaning people in liberal cities. The Army fell 6,500 soldiers short of its nationwide enlistment goal for the fiscal year to September 30, The New York Times said in a new report. It was the first time since 2005 it had missed its target, recruiting 70,000 of the required 76,500, according to Fox News. Desperately in need of a new strategy, bosses have decided to make a 180 degree U-turn when it comes to the profile for target recruits. The US Army is overhauling its recruitment strategy and seeking to boost enrollment in liberal cities after missing its target for the last fiscal year Where they once focused on conservative youths in red states, the new targets are residents of 22 large liberal cities, including Seattle, San Francisco and Chicago, where the number of recruits relative to their populations is far lower than average. Major General Frank Muth, the head of Army Recruiting Command, told the New York Times that the army wants to go to Boston, Pittsburgh and Kansas City. 'These are places with a large number of youth who just don't know what the military is about,' he said. The unlikely approach requires a brand new sales pitch, one that is tailored to cities where job opportunities are abundant and wages are high. Recruiters need to be seen to offer something unique and exciting to compete with the technology industries and well-paid professions. So while Army leaders used to downplay combat and emphasize the training and educational benefits of signing up, they now want to sell the job on opportunities for travel and adventure, according the the Times. 'You want to do a gap year? Come do your gap year in the Army,' the Times quoted Major General Muth as saying. The army will emphasize travel and adventure opportunities and market the army to young people wanting a 'gap year' experience By emphasizing that the Army offers a chance to see the world, its leaders believe they have a good chance of luring young people who might be put off at the thought of spending their working lives in a corporate cubicle. Traditionally, the US Army has had strong recruitment success in a particular belt of the South, which stretches from Virginia to Texas, where military service is often a family tradition. In some of these areas almost three times as many people enlist as in other regions of the country. In the metropolitan cities of the Northeast, West Coast and Midwest however, the anti-war message is stronger and family ties to the military are less common. David R. Segal, a recruitment adviser to the army, told the Times that in the past the army's strategy when things got tough was to redouble their efforts in areas where they know they can succeed. But now, with unemployment at its lowest in 50-years and job competition extremely high, they have decided to change tack completely. They will start by marketing on Facebook, Instagram and Amazon's gaming platform Twitch to reach the digitally-native generation. They will also use travelling exhibits that showcase different branches of the army, like engineering, computing and healthcare, the Times reported. The Army traditionally gets most of its recruits from a particular southern belt of the country, where rates of enrollment are as much as three times higher than in other areas They will also be offering sweeter enlistment deals and retention bonuses, and will loosen medical standards on certain conditions like asthma and attention deficit disorders. Whether it will work remains to be seen, but some believe it will take more than a flashy new marketing strategy to get the new target demographic onside. Emma Moore, who studies Army recruiting at the Center for a New American Security, told the Times that the make up of the army needs to better reflect those they want to sign up. 'Coders, engineers, women there are a lot of people out there that the Army could use that don't see themselves as having a place,' she said. Manchester Knife Attack: Allah off the hook in Co-op terror stabbing Now we get to know why the BBC and Sun chose to tell us where the man who allegedly knifed three people in Manchester on New Years Eve and his family pray. It seemed an odd fact to include in a crime report. but today the BBC declares: Manchester stabbings: Suspects family offers prayers for victims. Granted the BBC doesnt tell us where the mans family pray, but we can assume its most often in a house of prayer rather than in the potting shed or bath. The mans family say their thoughts and prayers are with the three victims. As for their relative, well, hes been detained under the Mental Health Act. A Greater Manchester Police spokesman says, There is nothing to suggest the involvement of other people in this attack, but confirming this remains a main priority for the investigation. The BBC adds: People detained under the Mental Health Act need urgent treatment and are at risk of harm to themselves or others. Police officers can take someone who they believe is in need of immediate care or control to a place of safety (a hospital or, sometimes, a police station) and detain them under Section 136 of the act The detained person is then assessed by an approved mental health professional and a doctor and can be held for up to 72 hours during which time a decision will be made as to whether further detention (of up to six months) under the act is necessary Detention under the act means someone can be medically treated against their will, but protects them from being questioned by police, as they are deemed unfit for interview. So mental illness might have been the driver? The Sun suggested something else, editorialising the mans alleged cry from Allah, as heard by an eyewitness, to Allahu Akbar, as heard by no-one. Meanwhile in Manchester today: A teenage boy and two men were taken to hospital with stab wounds following a stabbing close to The Co-op headquarters. Police were called to reports of men making threats to use a firearm, on Dantzic Street, near to the NOMA building, just before 7pm on Tuesday night One eyewitness said: Just driven through what felt like a war zone 20 off police vans, 10 ambulances at least. Just behind the NOMA building. Where the men pray has not been revealed. Anorak Posted: 2nd, January 2019 | In: Key Posts, News Comment | TrackBack | Permalink A mother and son who helped launder more than 750,000 after it was stolen by a fraudster posing as a rich businessman have been jailed for a total of almost seven years. Sandy Kaur, 47, and university drop-out Aaron Sanghera, 26, allowed their company AV Traders to be used to funnel money offshore though a network of bank accounts. It was part of a complex fraud in which corrupt bank employees identified dormant account holding large sums, then changed contact details on those accounts and forged ID documents to match the new details. Finally imposters walked into the bank armed with the forged documents, to request transfers from 'their' accounts. Four men were jailed for a total of 20 years for their role in the fraud in 2017 but the case of Kaur and her son required a retrial. Sandy Kaur (right) and her son Aaron Sanghera (left) were jailed for nearly seven years betwen them for their role in the fraud In August 2013 an imposter walked into a branch of Lloyds in Kings Cross and asked to make a transfer of 420,000. Bogus paperwork about the purchase of a property in France was presented to back up the request, along with a fake driving licence in the name of customer Peter Weibel. He was working with the crooked bank clerks who had identified Mr Weibels account as one worth plundering. A few days after the transfer was approved the man returned asking for another payment of just over 330,000, the Old Bailey heard. The cash was moved through a network of bank accounts before 390,709.33 was paid into AV Traders in eight transactions spread over five days. Judge Anuja Dhir QC told the pair: I heard the way which you as a team operated and I am truly satisfied that this was a joint enterprise. You are both equally culpable of committing these offences. You were trusted by those planning the fraud to launder the proceeds and you did. The court heard Kaur had laundered 27,000 in a previous scam in 2011. The judge gave Sanghera two years nine months, and his mother four years. He cited the man's diabetes as a reason for leniency. Sanghera sat shaking his head as the judge sentenced his mother, and then let out a loud groan when he heard he would be going to jail too. He told the court if anything happens to his insulin device in prison he will go into coma within three hours. Gang planned to steal from dormant bank accounts Today Sandy Kaur, 47, and her son Aaron Sanghera, 26, were jailed for allowing their company AV Traders to be used to funnel money taken from bank accounts fraudulently. It follows the sentencing in July 2017 of four former bank employees for a total of 20 years for their involvement in the complex scam. The insiders scoured the computer system for dormant accounts holding large sums of money and passed the details to the criminal gang. They also ordered new bank cards and altered phone numbers and addresses so that imposters could pose as the customers and set up transfers of hundreds of thousands of pounds at a time. The money was then laundered through a series of bogus companies before being moved offshore to prevent it being recovered. One victim lost more than 750,000 after a unknown man used a fake driving licence in his name to set up two transfers over three days. Another customer with 3 million in the bank only escaped becoming a victim when another member of staff became suspicious and rang him up to check. The bulk of the cash was washed by bespoke money launderer Eddie Lakes, 42, and his accomplice Kushveer Raulia, 26, through a complicated network of fake companies and accounts with the help of Parvez Hussain, 50. Lakes, of Brentford, was jailed for five years for his role in the crime; Raulia, of Hayes, was jailed for seven years; Hussain was jailed for six years. Advertisement Paul Cavin, prosecuting, said: Where the funds went after that we do not know. Of course, it is extremely important to not fix the son with the sins of his mother - unless the evidence justifies such a conclusion. However we say that the evidence and the application of common sense will show that they were both in on this. A bank account controlled by her received some of the proceeds of those frauds.' He explained Aaron Sanghera was named as the company account holder at Metro bank, and that he set it up. Only Sanghera could authorise transactions on the account, and his mobile phone number would be called by the bank if they had any queries. He could not have been unaware, Mr Cavin said, of his mother's previous fraud conviction because she was jailed. Sanghera, of Chigwell in east London, denied the charge but was convicted of converting criminal property between 31 July 2013 and 13 August 2013. The case went to this retrial after a jury last year convicted Kaur but failed to reach a verdict against her son. They were sentenced together today. The fraud was spotted by Lloyds Bank who referred the case to the Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU). All the victims have since been refunded. Glyn Whittick, Temporary Detective Chief Inspector of the Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit, said today (thurs): This was a highly organised gang that used corrupt bank staff to target customers and then launder the stolen frauds through business accounts. This sentencing shows that both the criminal gangs directly responsible for fraud and those who assist them will be tracked down and punished. In particular, this sends a strong message that setting up an account and allowing it to be used by fraudsters is a serious crime that can result in a lengthy prison sentence. A South Carolina woman was arrested after throwing bleach into her boyfriend's eyes during a New Year's Day argument, authorities said. Barbara Davis, 56, of Duncan, South Carolina, told deputies she was cleaning while arguing with her boyfriend, 54, on January 1 when he dared her to throw the bleach at him, according to The State. Davis told Spartanburg County Sheriff's deputies that she had been holding the bleach while walking back and forth through her home at the time of the incident. Barbara Davis, 56, was arrested on New Year's Day after she allegedly threw bleach into her boyfriend's eyes during an argument while she was cleaning Police found bleach stains on the couch in home in this Duncan, South Carolina, neighborhood She said her boyfriend, who is not being named, saw her with the bleach bottle in hand and that he dared her to throw it at him before standing up. Davis, according to the police report, said that thought he was going to attack her, so she threw the bleach at him 'in fear for her own safety.' The man told deputies he had lost his vision, but he refused medical treatment multiple times. The report said deputies found bleach stains in the living room of the home and on a sofa. Davis was charged with second-degree domestic violence, a misdemeanor charge which is punishable by up to three years in prison, according to South Carolina law. Incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said in an interview broadcast Thursday that she opposes arbitrarily impeaching Donald Trump as a partisan exercise, but warned that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe could result in a presidential indictment. 'We have to wait and see what happens with the Mueller report. We shouldn't be impeaching for a political reason, and we shouldn't avoid impeachment for a political reason,' Pelosi said on the 'TODAY' show. She believes Mueller could indict Trump despite longstanding Justice Department policy that prevents it: 'I think that is an open discussion in terms of the law.' The DOJ has taken the position since 2000, guided by its Office of Legal Counsel, that sitting presidents should not be indicted even after prosecutors have exhausted every other legal option. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on the 'TODAY' show that indicting a sitting president is something for 'open discussion' President Donald Trump is insulated from criminal indictment by a Justice Department policy from 2000 that's not binding under federal law Special Counsel Robert Mueller could ask for an indictment of Trump, who runs the Justice Department that employes him The framers of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress alone the power to punish the nation's commander-in-chief for misconduct through the impeachment process. The Justice Department itself is a Cabinet agency that answers to the White House. And '[t]he indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions,' according to the guidance the DOJ follows. Pelosi's said Wednesday: 'I do not think that that is conclusive. No I do not.' That statement leaves open the possibility that the House of Representatives won't take action to impeach Trump, instead tossing the political hot potato back in Mueller's direction. But Pelosi isn't ruling out impeachment either. Pelosi said she's not ruling out an impeachment proceeding, although she wouldn't take that path 'for political reasons' Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway told reporters of Pelosi: 'It doesn't surprise me that she would be so partisan and political on day one' 'Let's just see what Mueller does,' she said. 'That's not the law.' Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway told reporters at the White House after the Pelosi interview aired that her view 'doesn't concern the president.' 'It doesn't surprise me that she would be so partisan and political on day one,' Conway said. 'I think it's unfortunate that you have an incoming speaker already talking about indictments and impeachment when this president's talking about border security and infrastructure.' Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani told CNN in May 2018 that Mueller's team had acknowledged their power has limits. 'All they get to do is write a report, Giuliani said then. 'They cant indict. At least they acknowledged that to us after some battling.' Pelosi will be elected speaker on Thursday afternoon, returning to the position she held from 2001 to 2011. Her reprise of that role is the first such return to power since Rep. Sam Rayburn held the post three separate times in the 1040s, 1059s and 1960s. Mr Greenwood (pictured wearing his Scots Guard uniform in 1941) has lived to 100 despite smoking a pipe all of his life A World War II veteran reported dead 76 years ago only to break free from his fascist captors has lived to celebrate his 100th birthday. Tom Greenwood was assumed to have died when he was captured behind enemy lines in June 1942 while serving as an engineer in North Africa. The great-grandfather-of-two revealed his parents even received a telegram saying he had been killed in action. But he was actually being held as a prisoner of war in the Italian-run Suani Ben Adem camp in Northern Tripoli. He endured several other camps in Italy and Austria throughout the war. Mr Greenwood would have died had he not traded his watch for a hospital place after contracting malaria. A blood transfusion from a Canadian soldier which saved his life. He was later part of an uprising at Markt Pongau camp, Austria, when inmates took over prior to its liberation by the American army following the end of the war. He was eventually flown home to begin his recuperation before being discharged from the army in 1946. Tom Greenwood (pictured, surrounded by three generations of his family) marked his 100th birthday despite being reported dead 76 years ago The father-of-two Tom marked his centenary with a party at Brookfield Care Home in Shipley, West Yorkshire, on Saturday, with three generations of his family. His daughter, Sheila Donaldson, 64, a retired IT Specialist, said: 'I did ask him the other day about the secret to his long life, and he said it was to "keep breathing". 'Until a few years ago he would keep himself fit by walking and cutting logs for his fire with a chainsaw. He loved his cars and drove until he was 97. This is the telegram that was sent to Mr Greenwood's family clarifying that he had been taken a prisoner of war and was not dead This is the original telegram sent to Mr Greenwood's parents, which wrongly stated that he had been killed in action 'He has smoked a pipe all his life. He wasn't a big drinker but in later years he liked a whisky and dry ginger every evening before he went to bed.' The ex-serviceman was born on December 29, 1918, in nearby Wilsden as the only child of William and Lily Greenwood. He left school aged 14 to start work as a motor mechanic in Bradford Moor. Tom Greenwood - pictured on his wedding day in 1945 to wife Marjorie - has celebrated his centenary He education by attending Bradford Technical College four-nights a week to gain his engineering qualifications until the outbreak of the war. His skills were immediately recognised and the then 20-year-old was transferred into the Ordnance Corps. He was attached to the Scots Guards which formed part of the 22nd Armoured Brigade of Infantry, whose role was to sabotage the enemy's supply lines and ports. Early in 1942, there was a push by the Axis and Tom's unit found themselves trapped behind enemy lines near El Alamein with limited food and ammunition. He was captured on June 13, 1942, but a telegram was sent to his parents saying he had been killed in action. The Axis forces would be forced out of Africa in November that year as the Allies won the Second Battle of El Alamein, ending Nazi General Erwin Rommel's advance. His fiance Marjorie Hartley never believed he was dead and Tom's parents then received a telegram on August 26, 1942, saying that he was actually a prisoner of war. Who were the inmates of Markt Pongau? Markt Pongau - also known as Stalag XVIII C - held as many as 30,000 inmates at a time. The Wehrmacht built the camp in 1941 in north-west Austria, near Salzburg. Most prisoners were from France and the Soviet Union. Inmates were forced to perform forced labour in factories as well as undertake agricultural work. The site was split into two camps - one of which was solely for the Russians, who endured horrific conditions. The inmates of the second were treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention. Executions, starvation, freezing and illness epidemics were the main causes of death. Almost all of those who died in the camp were Soviet, despite inmates coming from a total of nine nations. In total about 4,000 Soviets died in the camp. Advertisement 'Dad spoke very little about the war when he came home unless prompted by a TV programme,' said his son Dave Greenwood, 66, a retired journalist. 'I remember he told me he and his fellow prisoners were given the job of rebuilding the dam at Marburg. 'They would load cement into one side of a train then take it out of the other side and throw it over the dam, just to delay the project. 'At the same time, they were being bombed by allied aircraft who were trying to further destroy the dam and the river bridges. 'He also mentioned that, when in one of the camps, they were adjacent to a camp containing Russian prisoners who were treated far worse than British POWs. 'Whenever one of the Russian prisoners died, the rest would try to keep it secret for as long as possible so they could continue to draw their rations..' Following the war, Tom married his sweetheart Marjorie. She sadly passed away in 2000. Tom went on to work at the family garage Greenwood Bros (CB) Ltd, which he ran from 1953 until its closure in 1980. He then continued working as a private hire driver. He is a dedicated Rotarian and has been a member for 52 years. His other passions include fell walking in the Yorkshire Dales. A picture of one of the suspects who allegedly broke into the Four Peaks Amethyst Mine in Arizona in a raid last August Two men stole amethyst worth up to $20,000 from a mine in Arizona, police have revealed. The two thieves broke into the Four Peaks Amethyst Mine, in the Tonto National Forest near Phoenix. They 'caused damage to the mine' and left with a five-gallon bucket of the semi-precious stone, police said. Police in Maricopa County are appealing for help in tracking down the suspects after they struck on August 16 last year. They are accused of stealing amethyst worth between $15,000 and $20,000 during the raid. A picture released by police shows one of the men getting into a car with a license plate of GYO65 described as a 'possible partial Arizona plate'. The car was a black Toyota Tundra with damage on the drivers side door and front quarter panel. It also had a plastic trim around the rear tailgate handle, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. The thieves were both white men believed to be aged between 25 and 30. One was between 5'10" and 6' while the other was around 5'6". Anyone with information is urged to contact MCSO at (602) 876-TIPS (8477) and refer to case number IR18024483. According to the mine's website, Arizona Amethyst is mined on the western slopes of the Mazatzal Mountain Range. The mine has been open since the 1900s but Native Americans in the area had earlier used amethyst in arrow heads, according to the firm. The two thieves broke into the Four Peaks Amethyst Mine, in the Tonto National Forest (pictured) near Phoenix This is the horrifying moment a helicopter suddenly spins out of control and crash lands killing a pedestrian instantly - as the pilot and passengers escape with minor injuries. The dramatic video was taken by tourist Vivian Carolina Cataldo, 34, who was inside the helicopter when it crashed. She had been on a panoramic tour of the town of Ubatuba, a popular beach resort in the southeastern Brazilian state of Sao Paulo. In the video taken from inside the helicopter, the aircraft can be seen taking off and Ms Cataldo films the scenery with her husband, Paulo Thiago Alves, 38 As the aircraft makes its way across the bay an alarm can be heard sounding and the helicopter suddenly begins dropping to the ground In the video taken from inside the helicopter, the aircraft can be seen taking off and Ms Cataldo films the scenery with her husband, Paulo Thiago Alves, 38, sat at the front of the helicopter next to the pilot. As the aircraft makes its way across the bay an alarm can be heard sounding and the helicopter suddenly begins dropping to the ground. The pilot can do nothing to stop the helicopter, a Robinson R44 Raven II, crashing towards the ground and the impact can be heard as more alarms sound after the collision. The helicopter crashed into pedestrian Alessandro Correia Leite, 42, who died at the scene. The pilot and his passengers - who are a married couple from the town of Bauru in the state of Sao Paulo - all escaped the wreck with only minor injuries. Alessandro Correia Leite, 42, was killed in the city of Ubatuba on New Year's Day when a helicopter crashed on top of him (pictured, medics try to save him) Mr Leite (pictured) had just left his father's house after having coffee when the helicopter fell from the sky and crushed him Police said the aircraft had just taken off and was in the first minute of flight when it began losing altitude. Video taken from the scene shows the wreckage of the helicopter in the street, and paramedics trying to save Mr Leite. Father Antonio Correa Leite Neto told G1 that he had been having coffee with his son just moments before he died. 'I had just had coffee with him. He left and I stayed in the bedroom lying down,' he said. 'I heard the noise and shouted at my other boy. It was normal helicopter noise, but at the same time there was a different noise. 'I left screaming for my son to "call the fireman for the person lying there".' The helicopter was taking a married couple on a panoramic beach tour when it fell from the sky a minute after takeoff and landed on Mr Leite The pilot and his passengers escaped the accident with only minor injuries. The cause of the crash is under investigation It was only when he got closer to the crash site that Mr Leite Neto realised that it was his son who had been injured. Local politician Bruno Aragao said he had spoken with the female occupant of the plane and that she had seen a light come on before the craft started falling. The crash remains under investigation and police have not given any indication of what caused it. The helicopter tour was organised by Helicon who said they regretted the incident and added they would help support the family of the victim. The couple inside the helicopter at the time of the crash have now both been discharged from hospital. Two men fell 100ft to their deaths from a bridge within moments of each other in the early hours of Saturday morning. The two men were not known to each other, and it is not thought they made a suicide pact to jump from the Humber Bridge - which links Hessle in East Yorkshire to Barton in North Lincolnshire - into the estuary below at the same time. Police have not released the name of either man but one is feared to be a missing grandfather from Grimsby, in his 40s, and the other Sam Conlin, 24, from Hull. Sam Conlin, 24, (pictured) from Hull, is feared dead after his father identified him as one of two men who jumped from the Humber Bridge in the early hours of Saturday morning Mr Conlin had been depressed and the cameras of the Humber Bridge Board, which watches the mile-and-a-half long suspension bridge, recorded him walking onto the bridge from the northern end shortly before 4am. His father Ian said: 'We know it was Sam on the bridge, it was definitely him because they got him on camera. 'The police were tracking him, but then another man, an older man, stopped his car further up the bridge and jumped off - and they had to deal with that. 'When they turned the camera back round, Sam was not on the bridge.' The cameras had been switched to monitor an incident at the other end of he bridge's long span. A man had driven onto the bridge, got out of his car and walked to the railing. Humberside police arrived at 3.50am and spoke to the man. In a statement released this afternoon the force said: 'despite their best efforts, our officers were unable to stop him from falling'. Police believe the timing and location of the two incidents was coincidental. Both cases are still being treated as missing persons cases but Mr Conlin, 55, is convinced his son is dead. He said 'There is no doubt that Sam is dead after jumping from the Humber Bridge. Obviously, the police cannot confirm it until they find his body.' Ian Conlin said his son had been fighting depression for years and had insecurities about his looks, but had only recently opened up about his mental health problems to his family. The young man left a note saying he 'couldn't go on' following a secret eight year-long mental health battle. His father said 'We will never know why Sam took his own life. 'The note, which was addressed to the family, said 'I know it's going to hurt you forever, but I just cannot go on any longer.' 'We only found out that he was struggling with mental health three months ago, but we never thought he was suicidal.' Humberside Police released this photo of Sam Conlin, 24, whom they are still treating as a missing person The two men are feared dead after falling from the Humber Bridge, which links Hessle in East Yorkshire to Barton in North Lincolnshire Mr Conlin went on: 'I just want to say if other young people are reading this and feeling suicidal or depressed then speak or talk to your parents - talk to anyone. They will help you get through whatever it is you are going through. 'We just feel like Sam didn't even give us a chance for us to help him, but it might not be too late for someone else.' Paying moving tribute to his son, the 55-year-old said: 'Sam was just an unbelievable and lovable person. By the comments online, it just proves how well-loved and well-liked Sam was and how we, as a family, were so, so proud of him. 'He was our everything, he was just brilliant and a fantastic son - but this will stick with us forever, every day I will think about it.' The family said Sam had 'acted like nothing was wrong' and had paid for his parents to go to London and enjoy a West End show as their Christmas present. He had joined the pair in the capital a week before Christmas, and just hours before falling to his death he stopped in on them for tea, saying he was 'looking forward to being with his friends'. Ian Conlin said he thought Sam had thought out and planned to take his own life. Humberside Police confirmed the missing man from Grimsby was last seen on the south side of the Humber Bridge shortly before 4am on Saturday, the same time Mr Conlin said his son was being monitored on camera. A spokesman said 'Shortly before 4am on Saturday, our officers attended to a concern for safety at the south side of the Humber Bridge following reports that a man in his 40s from Grimsby had entered the water. 'Search teams were deployed to search the river and area however the man has not been located. The man's next of kin has been informed and will be supported by specially-trained officers.' No name or photograph of the older man has been released by police, who have not issued an appeal in is missing persons case. Police have confirmed the two cases are still being treated as missing persons inquires and no bodies have been found despite extensive searches which involved the Coastguard helicopter based at Humberside Airport, Humber Rescue, police and coastguard officers. For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, or see samaritans.org for details. Abu Hamza's son is the suspect held in connection with the murder of a doorman outside an alleged sex party in Mayfair on New Year's Eve, MailOnline can exclusively reveal today. Imran Mostafa Kamel, 26, whose radical preacher father was extradited to the US in 2012, was arrested after Tudor Simionov was knifed in the chest when violence erupted in central London at 5.30am on Wednesday. Mr Simionov fought off up to nine men seconds before being stabbed to death outside 80 Park Lane - where a private 2,000-a-table gathering allegedly organised by Lord Edward Davenport was going on. Kamel appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court this afternoon charged with possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear or danger - but remains a suspect in the murder on January 1. MailOnline can reveal Kamel's father is Abu Hamza, 60, the former imam of the Finsbury Park mosque whose radical views brought him to the attention of the authorities and saw him expelled from Britain six years ago after a long legal battle. Hamza was found guilty of terror offences in both the UK and US, where he is serving a life sentence at a high-security prison. Mr Simionov moved to the UK with his girlfriend Madalina Anghel for a better life two months ago and the couple believed 2019 would be the year they married and started a family. She told friends today she is taking his body home to Romania for burial and said: 'On New Year's Eve my boyfriend and future husband Tudor was stabbed in the heart at work. The loss is impossible. His unexpected death has shocked us all.' Imran Mostafa Kamel (pictured left), 26, the son of Abu Hamza (right), 60, was arrested last night on suspicion of murdering bouncer Tudor Simionov on Park Lane. He has since been charged with gun possession. Hamza is serving a life sentence in the US for terror offences Romanian Tudor (pictured with his girlfriend Madalina) died trying to stop gatecrashers from entering the private bash in Mayfair. The couple only came to the UK two months ago Forensics teams were today still working on the party venue (pictured) in central London Kamel, who lives in Ealing, west London, appeared in the dock at Westminster Magistrates' Court today and spoke only to confirm his name at the brief hearing. Matthew Barraclough, prosecuting, told District Judge Michael Snow the case was too serious to be heard in the lower courts and must be moved to the Old Bailey. Kamel was remanded in custody at Wandsworth Prison. He will make his next court appearance on January 31. Tudor Simionov, pictured working just hours before he was stabbed to death outside a private New Year's party at the Fountain House on Park Lane A Metropolitan police spokesman said the firearms offences were not directly connected to the death of 33-year-old Tudor or others hurt in the Park Lane brawl. The 60-year-old is currently languishing for life in a 'supermax' prison in Colorado, where he has complained about the inhuman and degrading conditions. Tudor and Madalina moved to the UK from Romania in October - and he was only working on New Year's Eve as a favour. In footage of the fracas Mr Simionov is seen pushing the men away and throwing punches as the gang try to storm the luxury apartment block overlooking Hyde Park - but the Snapchat film ends before he was knifed in the chest. Footage from after the stabbing shows the mob having vases thrown at them from the foyer with one of the attackers getting smashed in the head and fleeing from the blood-stained doorstep. The doorman was fatally stabbed as he guarded the 5,000-a-week rental property, described as Britain's most exclusive student pad and previously linked to swingers' parties. He was stabbed protecting wealthy clients at a flamboyant party run by disgraced self-styled aristocrat Lord 'Fast Eddie' Davenport, it has been claimed. The peer, known for his opulent sex parties, was seen helping with the payments on the door at the exclusive late night 'after-party' when thugs tried to storm their way into the Park Lane venue where Arab princes, tycoons and revellers were celebrating. Tudor Simionov, 33, is shown in the centre of the screen wearing a white shirt and black tie fighting off gatecrashers trying to get into the Mayfair townhouse he was guarding A source told MailOnline: 'It was a wild party. You name it, it was available.' Doorman Tudor Simionov was killed after being knifed in the chest and the party hostess was also seriously injured when violence erupted at about 5.30am. Self-styled Lord Davenport, 53, a disgraced former friend to the stars who made his name running Gatecrasher balls for public school pupils, was given an eight-year jail term in September 2011 for a 4.5million fraud. Convicted fraudster Eddie Davenport (pictured) organised the event and took payment from high-spirited revellers where a bouncer was stabbed to death But he was released from prison after three years as an act of mercy when he convinced judges he was gravely ill with kidney problems - but he is clearly enjoying life as a free man. An employee at the New Year's Eve party said Eddie Davenport organised the event and took payment from high-spirited revellers. The member of staff, who asked not to be named, told MailOnline: 'Eddie organised the party. He was the one who handled payment. 'He was the one with the card machine and collecting cash. For example, five males were charged 2,000, three males were 800 and I think one male single entry was 100. Prices weren't fixed, they went up and down. Davenport worked with two other chaps and a Chinese lady.' A neighbour said that there were 'girls dressed in sexy outfits and lingerie coming in and out' all night and told The Sun: 'It looked like a sex themed event'. A second source well placed inside the London party scene said: 'The party at 80 Park Lane was organized by Lord Davenport. 'Fast Eddie had got a lot in a lot of brass [high-class prostitutes] and he had a lot of his friends and old clients there. 'It was all going well until the bad element turned up. The hostess told the door staff not to let them in and then it all kicked off. Lord Edward Davenport uploaded a picture onto his Instagram with two staff from Thai Airways, and said he was 'heading to London and ready to party' Lord Davenport (pictured right) uploaded a picture to his Instagram of him and some friends at a Halloween after party Police officers and forensic Staff in Park Lane, Mayfair after bouncer Tudor Simionov was killed after being knifed in the chest 'One of the doorman got stabbed and died and the hostess got slashed. It's absolutely tragic he is a young lad you had not been in London for long.' A neighbour told The Sun: 'Before the stabbing there were girls dressed in sexy outfits and lingerie coming in and out. 'It looked like a sex-themed event high heels, corsets and so on.' Club promoter Tommy Mack also said Davenport was involved in the party and said there were many affluent guests who spent thousands to secure a table. 'Fast Eddie [Davenport] is a great guy and runs the best parties. He organised the New Year's Eve party in Park Lane. It was a private party but word got out and the bad element turned up. 'It's absolutely terrible what happened to the doorman. 'There were a lot of Eddie's friends and clients there Arab princes, people with money, that kind of thing. There were some lovely girls there and they had paid thousands to book a table at the party and they did not want thugs ruining their night.' Last night Davenport 's lawyer maintained his client did not organise the party, take any money from clients or pay anyone to promote the party. But he admitted he did not know if his client was there: 'I am awaiting instructions from Mr Davenport as to whether he was at the party or not.' Lord 'Fast Eddie' Davenport, uploaded a picture of him on Mount Street in Mayfair in December, close to Park Lane The bouncer, who only came to the UK two months ago, was punching and pushing away the mob trying to raid the Park Lane party he was protecting Footage uncovered by MailOnline after the attack also shows the mob having vases and lamps thrown at them from the foyer with one of the attackers getting smashed in the head and fleeing from the blood-stained doorstep Tudor's girlfriend Madalina posted a picture of them flying to the UK on October 20 with the hashtag #goodbyeRomania and said today tehy moved to the UK for a better life Club promoter Leroy Rose, 25, fought to save Mr Simionov's life but said he only survived around a minute after being stabbed in the chest. The Romanian fitness fanatic fought off nine men single-handed before he was murdered in the early hours of New Year's Eve He told the Standard: 'I saw him come back inside. He was in a suit and it was covered in blood. He didn't have a protective vest or anything. I saw blood coming from his chest. 'I pulled him into the back and grabbed a towel and held the wound. He never said a word, he was in a shock. He only survived for a minute. He was stabbed in the middle of the chest. He is a hero, he died trying to save his colleagues. He beat up about nine guys by himself.' Two of the bouncers, along with a woman who worked at the venue booking tables, were also stabbed. Mr Rose said: 'It is a place where high end clients come, people with a lot of money. 'It's usually people who we know and the venue know are coming. The people outside were trying to enter but they weren't allowed in. 'The owner is a very rich man, he is in the public eye. The place works by paying a fee to buy a table.' Tudor Simionov (left) was stabbed to death on another night of bloodshed in London and had planned to start a family with his heartbroken girlfriend Madalina (right) Mr Simionov died on the Park Lane pavement where a police cordon and screen remains today Blood remains on the floor on arguably London's most exclusive road left during one of two New Year murders in London so far The house (pictured) features views of Hyde Park, glass floors, its own 24-hour concierge and a roof terrace. It is one of the world's most expensive student houses, costing 5,000 a week to rent How self-styled Lord and convicted fraudster 'Fast Eddie' Davenport became infamous for throwing sex-and-booze Gatecrasher Balls for young aristocrats in the 1980s Eddie Davenport made a fortune in the 1980s running hedonistic Gatecrasher Balls The self-styled 'Lord' Davenport first came to public notice for organising the hedonistic Gatecrasher Balls frequented by wealthy teenagers, before making a fortune in property deals. He was a friend to the stars and photographed with Mick Jagger, Paris Hilton, Victoria Beckham, Sarah Ferguson and Hugh Grant at various parties. His 30million home, a mansion in Londons West End, was the former Sierra Leone High Commission and was used as a location for the Oscar-winning film The Kings Speech. The con artist, born Edward Ormus Sharington Davenport, was jailed after he promised millions of pounds to investors which never materialised after he had pocketed the administration fees and advance payments. Princess Dianas wedding dress designer Elizabeth Emanuel lost the life savings she invested with Davenport. But he was released from prison after three years as an act of mercy when he convinced judges he was gravely ill is clearly enjoying life as a free man. In 2014 he was pictured handcuffed to a prison guard in hospital after undergoing a second kidney transplant. He said at the time: I know Im fighting a death sentence. I feel like an old man shuffling around, chained to a prison officer even when I want to go to the bathroom. 'I cant even wear my own silk pyjamas I have to wear the hospital ones. The truth is I feel shaky. I know Im at deaths door'. Fast Eddie was jailed in 2011 (left) for ripping off friends and relesased after three years (right) after convincing a judge he was gravely ill In 2016 it emerged he was organising parties again but his lawyer has denied that he ran the New Year's Eve event where a bouncer was stabbed to death But after his release his health appears to have improved and he started organising parties again in 2016. Davenport's fall from grace is a far cry from his days at the heart of the London party scene in the 1980s. His black-tie Gatecrasher Balls, aimed at wealthy public school teenagers, quickly became synonymous with drunkenness and debauchery and helped him make his fortune. But it also led to his first fraud conviction and nine months in jail. Despite the setback, Davenport never lost his love of taking risks even though it repeatedly landed him in trouble. In 1998, he and two other men were charged with running up an 18,000 bill at the luxury Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland during a five-day New Year party while posing as aristocrats. They denied the claims and charges were later dropped. A year later, he bought the lease of the Sierra Leone High Commission building in Central London for just 50,000 while the country was embroiled in civil war. But in May 2011 Davenport was given eight years for his part in a 4.5 million fraud, where the judge described him as the plot's 'ringmaster'. Advertisement Mr Rose said the bouncer had actually been placed inside the venue to monitor security but left to help his colleagues by the door after a group of nine or more thugs tried to make their way in. He said: 'There was a fight outside and he came out to help. The security guards were getting beaten up and he went out to help them. 'He helped those guys but he had only been out there for about 30 seconds when he was stabbed in the middle of the chest.. 'I saw him come back inside. I saw him bleeding and I said 'come here, come here' and I took him into the bathroom. Blood was left on a lantern outside the block while a lamp was overturned in the foyer where Mr Simionov fought off at least nine men The guard was trying to stop a group of gatecrashers from entering a private bash in the 12.5million Mayfair townhouse (pictured) when he was knifed 'His suit was covered in blood and it was coming out of his chest. He wasn't wearing a protective vest. 'I grabbed a towel and held the wound. He never said a word to me. I think he was in shock. He only survived for about a minute. 'He died in front of me with his eyes open, staring at me. 'I then went into the hallway and everything was smashed. They had managed to kick down the door. There were other people on the floor stabbed. There was blood all over the floor.' Of the Romanian-born security guard, Mr Rose said: 'He was a nice guy. The nicest one of of all the security guards there. 'He is a hero, he died trying to save his colleagues. He took on nine of them.' A 26-year-old man has since been arrested on suspicion of murder and is currently in custody at a central London police station. Katarina Petran, 36, a close friend of Mr Simionov's girlfriend, said the doorman only decided to work after being offered more than double pay. 'He was being paid 400 to work on New Year's Eve, which is more than double what he earned as a doorman in the west end. 'Madalina didn't want him to initially work but he said they needed the money and it was too good to turn down as they had plans to start a family and needed it.' Mr Simionov told her that the event was organised by a well known promoter and that tables cost between 1500 to 2000. 'Tudor started working for clubs and exclusive parties almost immediately after arriving in London. He also had a lot of experience as a doorman in his native Bucharest. He was also a keep fit fanatic.' Mr Simionov was an accomplished boxer and rower and at one stage he had ambitions to row for Romania but gave them up to work after losing his father in his early 20s. He also lost his mother earlier this year. He was a devout Christian who regularly attended church. Miss Petran said that Madalina is planning to take his body back to Romania for a traditional Orthodox funeral. The Park Lane attack was filmed by witnesses outside the luxury three-bedroom home. The house features views of Hyde Park, glass floors, its own 24-hour concierge and a roof terrace. It is one of the world's most expensive student houses, costing 5,000 a week to rent. It is understood to have been used for swingers' parties in the past. Detective Chief Inspector Andy Partridge said: 'It appears the deceased and the two injured males were working as security staff for the party. 'They were attacked by a group of males who were outside trying to enter. The female was also attacked as she assisted the security staff in closing the front door. 'This shocking incident happened just hours into a New Year, the area was particularly busy with people out celebrating and making their way home.' A young autistic boy has launched a successful business after failing to find employment. Clay Lewis, 16, spent two years searching for an after-school job. The frustrated Brisbane schoolboy eventually gave up his mission and created his own cleaning business instead. Clay Lewis, 16, spent two years searching for an after-school job (pictured) The frustrated Brisbane schoolboy eventually gave up his mission and created his own cleaning business instead The business has since boomed, and he's had to employ three people to keep up with demand. The racing enthusiast charges $10 to clean out one bin and uses non-toxic, biodegradable products. His mum, Laura Lewis, said she wanted her son to learn the importance of worth ethic and encouraged him to give it ago. 'Sadly some people only see a disability rather than focus on ability. My husband, Warren, and I have learned not to put limitations on Clay because he always without fail exceeds them. 'I knew what he could do and where he needed support.' The job is far from glamorous, with plenty of maggots to be found, but it certainly pays well. When Clay finishes high school he plans to take a trip to Dubai to watch Formula One racing. Jason Mikel, who is charged with trying to kidnap 9-year-old girl at a Harry Potter attraction at Universal Resort Orlando in Florida A would-be kidnapper who tried to abduct a 9-year-old girl from a Harry Potter theme park in Florida was detained after tripping over in front of the Hogwarts Express. Orlando Police said 23-year-old Jason Mikel of Minook, Illinois, approached the young girl on Sunday around 3.45pm in a locker room for the Forbidden Journey ride. The girl told officers that a man had grabbed her shoulders and told her to go outside because her mother was waiting there, WFTV reported. She was then overheard telling him 'Mommy was over here', before breaking away and running to rejoin her mother. The girl's shaken mother said that her daughter was only out of sight for a moment, according to WFTV. Tourists pose for photographs in front of the Hogwarts Express train at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, where Jason Mikel was detained after falling over while trying to run from park employees Mikel fled the Forbidden Journey area and was chased by park employees to the Hogwarts Express where he was detained by a police sergeant on duty at the Universal park. He appeared in court Monday facing charges of battery, attempted kidnapping and marijuana possession, according to the arrest affidavit. A judge told to file another report with 24 hours after Mikel's defense attorney claimed police did not have enough evidence to charge him with kidnapping. A woman from South Carolina filmed a strange object hovering in the sky in Kiawah Island, South Carolina - an area known for possible paranormal activity. Debra Thompson posted a five-minute clip on YouTube, saying: 'I'm not a nut'. Filmed on Christmas Eve, the footage shows a red disc-like object hovering in the sky as Debra narrates. 'What the hell is that?...It looks like fire in the sky,' she says in the video. 'That's so weird. It just seems like it's observing....I don't think it's some kid's toy and I know it's not an airplane.' Debra said she also called the local airport who reportedly saw 'nothing on the radar.' The UFO hovered around in the sky above Debra's home on Kiawah Island, South Carolina Kiawah Island is just off the South Carolina coast, about 25 miles south of Charleston, and it is not the first time something peculiar has been sighted there. Debra said: 'This place seems to gravitate a lot toward UFO sightings and inter dimensional sightings that I've experienced. 'I'm not a nut, I just happen to love the night skies and if you look you will see many beautiful things out there.' The website UFO-Hunters.com said that 'UFOs' have been reported at least twice before off Kiawah Island since 2009. This included a 2012 report in which the object was described as 'a very red round light,' quite like Debra's experience. A mystery UFO-like object that washed up on a beach on adjoining Seabrook Island left residents mystified in October. The large cylindrical object on Seabrook was described as being soft and feeling like foam The large cylindrical object, described as being soft and feeling like foam, was found by Lowcountry Marine Mammal Network who are usually deployed to deal with animals struggling on the shoreline. After finding the large object on Seabrook Island, they posted the image to Facebook, saying: 'Look at this mysterious object that washed ashore on Seabrook Island today! What do you think it is?' Naturally, the open-ended question led to many theories, some grounded, some more out of this world. The most likely explanation is that it was a dredge pipe float or part of a buoy. Philip Folk said the mystery object looked like a satellite part with Alicia Silva saying it may be The Death Star from Star Wars. It washed up on Seabrook Island and officials with the city of nearby Charleston came out to investigate the object before taking it away. Kathy Kinslow May said: 'There was something similar on Kiawah too!' Kiawah Island is separated only by a narrow river from Seabrook. Seabrook Island is only separated from Kiawah (to the right of Seabrook) by a narrow river Kathy Kinslow added: 'I wish Id taken a pic. No one could figure out what it was. We finally thought it must have been part of a marine buoy.' Sandy Behrens had a more outlandish theory, she said: 'Aliens! It does look like something from Cape Canaveral. I remember seeing something similar in St. Lucia.' Military munitions are known to have been dumped in coastal waters around the Maritimes in Nova Scotia, Canada. These may have floated down the coast all the way to South Carolina. After only a year in business, startup Luckin Coffee said Thursday it will open 2,500 stores this year to overtake Starbucks and become China's largest coffee chain. The company said it plans to have more than 4,500 stores in China by the end of 2019, taking it past the US coffee giant, which has more than 3,600 stores across the country. China is Starbucks' second biggest market after the United States. Luckin has challenged the Seattle-based coffee chain's dominance in the country by appealing to tech-savvy youth who prefer to order coffee using their smartphones and have it delivered. Startup Luckin Coffee plans to have more than 4,500 stores in China by the end of 2019, taking it past Starbucks. It has been relying on heavy discounts to poach young customers in China It is also relying on heavy discounts to poach consumers, a tactic used by other homegrown startups such as Didi-Chuxing, a ride-hailing service that dislodged Uber in the world's second-biggest economy. 'What we want at the moment is scale and speed,' Luckin's chief marketing officer, Yang Fei, told reporters on Thursday in Beijing. 'There's no point talking about profit,' he said, adding that the company will continue to offer subsidies to attract customers over the next few years. Luckin's caffeine-fuelled expansion is in stark contrast to Starbucks, which opened its first China store in 1999 and has spent two decades reaching its current store count. Luckin has challenged the Seattle-based coffee chain's dominance in the country by appealing to tech-savvy youth who prefer to order coffee using their smartphones and have it delivered A Starbucks Coffee cafe in Chongqing, China. The US chain opened its first China store in 1999 and has spent two decades reaching its current store count at more than 3,600 The US chain, which spearheaded the growth of a coffee culture in China, started to see competition rise from smaller peers over the last 18 months, though Luckin has stood out as the most aggressive competitor. But Luckin's rise has not come cheaply. The firm recorded a loss of 800 million yuan (US$116.34 million, 92.3 million) last year, which its chief marketing officer said was in line with expectations as it pushed to expand. Luckin, backed by Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte Ltd and China International Capital Corp Ltd, opened more than 2,000 locations in the last year, gaining a valuation of US$2.2 billion (1.7 billion) after raising US$200 million (143 million) in a funding round last month. China's thirst for coffee has increased in recent years - a trend fuelled by young people who have studied or worked abroad. In 2017, China's coffee shop sales reached some 30 billion yuan (around US$ 4.4 billion, 3.5 billion), and are expected to reach 1 trillion yuan (115 billion) by 2025, according to consultancy firm Qianzhan. Two men have been caught on dashcam footage brawling in the middle of traffic on a Sydney street as a group of men watch from the sidewalk. The footage shows two men throwing punches at each other on Victoria Road in Ryde. At one point one of the men falls onto the road and in to the path of oncoming traffic, before scrambling to the side of the road. Two men have been caught on dashcam footage brawling in the middle of traffic on a Sydney street as a group of men watch from the sidewalk While he is on the ground, the second man repeatedly kicks him in the side. He then gets up and attempts to swing a punch in defence but misses his mark. Footage shows a group of three men watching the brawl as it unfolds. NSW Police have said they are aware of the incident and are 'conducting inquiries into the matter.' The EU today insisted Brexit negotiations are over - despite Theresa May pleading for more concessions to help get her deal through the Commons. Brussels said no more talks were planned as the two sides had 'concluded' a deal, again stressing that the package would not be reopened. The hard line from Jean-Claude Juncker's commission comes as the PM launches another desperate scramble to persuade fellow leaders to break the deadlock. Mrs May is understood to have spoken twice to German Chancellor Angela Merkel since Christmas, with a raft of other calls to leaders including Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez and Dutch Premier Mark Rutte having taken place or being planned. Mrs May is also expected to speak to EU Council President Donald Tusk as she battles to turn around huge opposition to her Brexit deal. One senior Tory MP told MailOnline that securing changes that can win over the DUP, the Northern Irish party propping up the Tories in Parliament, is crucial. But DUP Westminster leader Nigel Dodds sounded a negative note and demanded Brussels give ground after meeting Mrs May in Downing Street this afternoon. Condemning the Irish border 'backstop', he said: ''Brussels must now demonstrate that if it truly cares about Northern Ireland, then erecting a new east-west barrier should be no more palatable than having any new north-south barriers.' The comments underline that Mrs May will need dramatic changes to the backstop in the divorce deal if it is to stand a chance of getting through the House. Critics say it creates a divide between Northern Ireland and Great Britain and risks leaving the UK trapped in a customs union indefinitely with no UK-EU trade deal. If the 10 Ulster MPs come on board, dozens of Tory rebels would likely follow - dramatically raising Mrs May's hopes of an improbable victory in two weeks. The party's Westminster leader Nigel Dodds was in Downing Street for talks yesterday - but warned the Irish border backstop remained unacceptable. The hard line from Jean-Claude Juncker's (pictured) commission comes as the PM launches another desperate scramble to persuade fellow leaders to break the deadlock The Prime Minister (pictured today arriving at Downing Street) is understood to have spoken twice to German Chancellor Angela Merkel since Christmas, with other calls planned Theresa May is scrambling to persuade EU leaders for fresh Brexit concessions as her MPs warned the support of 'the DUP is the key' (pictured is DUP Westminster leader Nigel Dodds last month) Mrs May's hopes continue to look bleak ahead of the vote, due in the week beginning January 14. Brexiteer sources told the Telegraph today 'no one is changing their minds about this deal because the deal itself remains the same'. And at a press conference in Brussels this Mina Andreeva, deputy chief spokeswoman for the European Commission, even poured cold water on the idea there will be more talks before the Commons vote. She said: 'We have said many times the deal that is on the table is the best and only deal possible. What is in the Brexit deal? The Brexit divorce deal contains a raft of agreements and compromises - many of which are bitterly opposed by Eurosceptic rebels. It includes: A two year transition period from March 29, 2019, where most rules stay the same A 39billion divorce payment Bilateral protections for EU citizen in the UK and Britons living in Europe A backstop to keep open the Irish border if a final trade deal cannot be negotiated before the end of transition Promises to negotiate a final trade deal as soon as possible in line with a 'political declaration' on what it should look like Advertisement 'And the EU27 leaders confirmed on December 13 in their conclusions that it will not be renegotiated.' Ms Andreeva said the EU side have 'started the ratification process' on the terms in the Withdrawal Agreement, and confirmed Brussels is ready to start preparations on a new trade deal 'immediately after the signature' on the deal from the UK Government. She added: 'For now no further meetings are foreseen between the commission's negotiators and the UK negotiators as the negotiations have indeed been concluded.' Ex-Brexit Secretary David Davis urged her to delay the showdown for a second time today to avoid defeat. Mr Davis said the EU would back down on Ireland at the 'eleventh hour' because it is reluctant to make concessions but does want its 39billion divorce payment. The EU has previously dismissed the idea of reopening the Withdrawal Agreement painstakingly put together over two years of negotiations. The bloc also insists there cannot be a time limit on the controversial Irish backstop - although both sides say it should be temporary and fall away once a wider trade pact is sealed. The vote, which was delayed at the last minute in December, is currently scheduled for the week beginning January 14. But MPs will return to Westminster on Monday January 7 and a debate on her deal is expected to start mid-way through the week, most likely on Wednesday. Mr Davis, in a column for the Daily Telegraph, said: 'The Withdrawal Agreement does not respect the referendum result. Mrs May has already spoken to German Chancellor Angela Merkel (pictured on Sunday) twice in nine days over the Christmas break The PM has also called Spain's PM Pedro Sanchez (file) over the Christmas period as part of another round of diplomatic talks 'That is why the meaningful vote had to be delayed and one wonders if even the January vote will go ahead. 'Attempts to frighten MPs into supporting it are unlikely to work, because voting down this substandard deal will not result in no Brexit.' Urging Mrs May to take her time to get a better deal, he adds: 'We know that the EU is worried about the loss of the 39 billion 'divorce' payment if there is no deal... so this is the moment to be hard-nosed about these issues. 'The more we prepare to leave the EU without a deal, the more likely a good deal becomes. 'Tory MPs must remain committed to delivering the referendum result, as repeated in our manifesto, which pledged to leave the Customs Union and the Single Market and which said that no deal is better than a bad deal. 'To do otherwise would frankly throw our democracy's credibility into chaos.' Meanwhile the current Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay is convening a meeting on Thursday of ministers to discuss the latest preparations for a no-deal Brexit. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, speaking in Singapore, said cancelling Brexit through a second EU referendum would have 'devastating' social consequences, while a no-deal exit would cause economic disruption. He predicted the Government would 'find a way' of getting the 585-page withdrawal agreement approved by Parliament. Ex-Brexit Secretary David Davis (file) urged her to delay the showdown for a second time today to avoid defeat American rapper A$AP Bari will have to pay 8,500 ($11,500) after he admitted sexual assault for slapping a woman on the bottom in a hotel room. The 27-year-old, whose real name is Jabari Shelton, told the woman to 'suck my d***' in an incident which was filmed by another man and posted online. A British judge told Shelton he has a 'very unpleasant attitude towards women' today, after the footage was played at London's Old Bailey courthouse. Shelton's lawyer complained about the 'toxic' publicity the case had attracted, before the rapper was fined 4,000 ($5,000) by the court, ordered to pay his victim 2,500 ($3,500) in compensation and told to stump up 2,000 ($3,000) to cover the legal costs of the case. A$AP Bari has admitted sexual assault over an attack on a woman in east London in 2017. He wore a white balaclava when he arrived at London's Old Bailey court today Bari was arrested at Heathrow Airport after footage of the assault at The Curtain hotel in Shoreditch, east London, emerged in 2017. The clip, filmed on a mobile phone and shown in court, shows Bari flinging back a duvet cover to reveal the naked woman and slapping her bottom as she walked to the bathroom. He tells her: 'B****, you f*** my assistant now suck my d***.' She can be heard pleading with him: 'No, no stop, stop it, get off. Can you stop, Bari, honestly.' Bari's friend Kanye West has supported him since the allegations emerged, insisting: 'There's no way I would have the number 1 record in the world without this man here.' In court in London today, prosecutor James Lofthouse said Bari met the woman at the Wireless Festival at Finsbury Park. 'He walked up to her and propositioned her and she refused, and that was that,' said Mr Lofthouse. The following day she met a mutual friend, Bari's assistant, at the east London hotel and they went to bed together. The woman said she was woken at around 4.30am and Bari then came into the bedroom, the court heard A video posted online and shown in court today shows Bari slapping the woman's bottom Bari, pictured in 2017, is a founding member of A$AP Mob and head of fashion label VLONE The prosecutor said of the incident: 'He seemed to react to her being in bed with their mutual friend and lifted the duvet up. 'She moved towards the bathroom and he slapped her as she did.' Police attended and the woman denied she had been sexually assaulted but was concerned the incident had been filmed and may end up being circulated in the internet. A$AP Bari, real name Jabari Shelton, arrived at court in a white ski mask and large jacket She did not press charges at the time but made a formal complaint when the footage emerged three or four days later. Fining Bari today, Judge Zoe Smith QC told him: 'This incident has exposed a very unpleasant attitude towards women. There is never any excuse to be so abusive and humiliating towards a female.' Bari denied he saw the woman at the Wireless Festival and said the first time he knew she was in London was when he found her in his assistant's bed in their hotel room. A probation officer who interviewed Bari ahead of his sentencing told the court: 'Mr Shelton [Bari] said he was very angry at the time of the incident. A lot of his anger was directed at his assistant, who he felt should be packing his clothing.' Gideon Cammerman QC, defending, said it was agreed with the prosecution that the footage was posted online by someone who had 'some sort of animus' against him. 'It wasn't him. It was someone who wanted to harm him,' said Mr Cammerman. 'Nobody, least of all Mr Shelton, takes any pride watching that video and he did endeavour to apologise for what he had done.' The incident unfolded at the Curtain hotel in Shoreditch, east London, the court heard What is sexual assault under UK law? Sexual assault in Britain is defined as 'when a person is coerced or physically forced to engage against their will, or when a person touches another person sexually without their consent.' The prosecution authority's definition continues: 'Touching can be done with any part of the body or with an object.' The most serious cases can lead to prison sentences of up to 10 years, but crimes considered to be at the lower end of the scale are often dealt with by community orders or fines. Advertisement Bari's lawyer said the negative coverage Bari received after the clip was posted online had been very damaging to his reputation and career. 'In the current climate, publicity of this sort is toxic,' he said. Speaking at an earlier hearing, defence lawyer Mr Cammerman had insisted the rapper was 'extremely keen' to contest the charge. He told the court: 'This is made up for the purpose of improving the chance of success in a civil action in the United States for $1million. 'The complainant filed it two days before she made her witness statement to the Metropolitan police in the UK. 'What was on the video was an alleged slap to the bottom.' This is the remarkable moment firefighters had to rescue a horse after it got trapped inside a WWII pillbox. The animal had wandered inside the gun emplacement on New Year's Eve and was unable to get out again. Staff from the East Leake Fire Station in Nottinghamshire were called out to rescue the horse, called Eve, after its owner struggled to free it from the bunker. Pictures tweeted by Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service show the horse's nose poking through the sun slot in the bunker Getting through the tiny entrance did not seem any problem when going in for the horse, but proved impossible to get out Staff from the East Leake Fire Station in Nottinghamshire were called out to rescue the horse, called Eve, after its owner struggled to free it from the bunker Rescuers spent 90 minutes chipping away the bricks to widen the entrance of the building in the field in Gotham, Nottinghamshire, before coaxing Eve out with treats. Pictures tweeted by Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service show the horse's nose poking through the sun slot in the bunker. A spokesman said: 'Getting through the tiny entrance did not seem any problem when going in, but proved impossible to get out. 'With the help of firefighters from Beeston, Highfields station Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service was able to make the entrance nearly ten inches bigger to allow her to be coaxed out with some tasty morsels and an apple. 'Eve is now reunited with her pals in the field.' Rescuers spent 90 minutes chipping away the bricks to widen the entrance of the building in the field in Gotham, Nottinghamshire, before coaxing Eve out with treats Eve has now been reunited with her pals in the field - and her owner is securing the building to keep inquisitive horses at bay in future Eve's owner is now securing the building to keep inquisitive horses at bay in future. The pillbox was one of hundreds built across the UK in 1940 to defend against any possible enemy invasion. The bunkers were nicknamed pillboxes on account of the slits built into the side of the buildings which resembled letter slots on pillar boxes. The North Korean ambassador to Italy has gone into hiding with his wife in a possible defection which would shame Kim Jong-un on the world stage. South Korean intelligence officers told legislators in Seoul on Thursday that Jo Song Gil went into hiding with his wife in November before his term in Italy ended. The Italian Foreign Ministry confirmed the envoy had not sought asylum nor had his wife. The gate to the North Korean embassy in Rome on Thursday after the South Korean intelligence service told lawmakers the ambassador had disappeared A view of the sign outside the closed gates to the embassy in Rome where Jo Song Gil had previously been the resident ambassador before he went into hiding with his wife It wasn't immediately clear if the diplomat might have sought asylum from another country's embassy or consulate in Italy. Ministry officials spoke to the press under strict anonymity rules around such delicate matters. South Korean government minister Kim Min-ki said an official from Seoul's National Intelligence Service (NIS) shared the information during a closed-door briefing. Kim said the NIS official said that Jo and his wife left the official residence in early November, weeks before his term was to end in late November. Kim said he couldn't confirm whether the NIS official revealed whether Jo and his wife were accompanied by any children. The NIS earlier said it couldn't confirm a South Korean media report that Jo was under the protection of the Italian government as he seeks asylum in a Western nation. Kim said the NIS said it has not been contacted by Jo. North Korea has not yet commented on Jo's status. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering his annual address to mark the New Year The flag of North Korea waves inside the compound of the North Korean embassy in Rome on Thursday A high-profile defection by one of North Korea's elite would be a huge embarrassment for leader Kim Jong-un after a year in which he has sought to portray himself as a big player on the world stage. He has pursued diplomacy with Seoul and Washington, including meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump. The last public defection took place in 2016 when the deputy ambassador in London, Thae Yong-ho, fled to South Korea with his wife and children. About 30,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. The story of how black soldiers from America brought jazz over to Europe for the first time has been retold a hundred years after they held their first concert in France. The 369th Infantry was one of the four African American regiments sent from the racially segregated US to fight under French command during the Great War. Nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters, the unit became famous for its fighting exploits, spending 191 days in the trenches, more than any other American unit. However the regiment was not old relied upon for its fighting ability, but also the morale-boosting effects of its marching band. Fighting alongside allies on the Western Front, they introduced the until-then unknown music called jazz to British, French and other European audiences. Lt James Reese Europe (left) and members of his 369th Infantry Regiment jazz band upon their return to the United States from Europe on February 12, 1919 Left to right. Front row: Ed Williams, Herbert Taylor, Leon Fraitor, Ralph Hawkins. Back row: Sergeant H.D. Prinas, Sergeant Dan Strorms, Joe Williams, Alfred Hanley, Caporal T.W. Taylor. The nine men are pictured in France in 1919 James Reese Europe and his Harlem Hellfighters perform at the American Red Cross Hospital Number 5 in 1918 in Paris, France James Reese Europe, an accomplished ragtime and jazz bandleader, was believed to be the first African American officer to lead troops in a wartime attack when he formed the 369th. The officer, who was the leading figure in black music in New York during the 1910s, put together a 40-strong band which included 'some of the best of the time'. When they were not fighting at the front, they played to entertain the troops and locals. In February and March 1918, Europe and his band travelled over 2,000 miles in France, performing for military audiences as well as French civilians. It was during this time that the band gave what is said to have been the first jazz concert on European soil, in the northwestern French city of Nantes. 'When the band had finished and the people were roaring with laughter, their faces wreathed in smiles, I was forced to say that this is just what France needed at this critical moment,' wrote one of the band members, Noble Sissle, in his memoirs. Members of the 369th Infantry Regiment band under the direction of Lt James Reese Europe, circa 1918 The unit (shown in New York, February 1919) became famous for its fighting exploits, spending 191 days in the trenches, more than any other American unit France awarded the Legion d'Honneur to 171 members of the regiment for liberating the village of Sechault, where a monument to them now stands After that night at Nantes's Theatre Graslin, Europe would never sound the same again. It 'turned France upside down', according to local press reports from the time. 'The 'Jazz germ' had hit them,' Sissle wrote, 'and it seemed to find the vital spot.' The 369th Infantry received the Croix de Guerre French military decoration for bravery. France also awarded the Legion d'Honneur to 171 members of the regiment for liberating the village of Sechault, where a monument to them now stands. Lieutenant Europe composed one of his best-known tunes, 'One Patrol in No Man's Land', while lying injured in hospital. He returned from the war a hero, only to die months later in May 1919 at the age of 39, stabbed in the neck by one of his bandmates. But the officer's death coincided with the rise of three great musical stars; Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet. The jazz age had begun. In February and March 1918, Europe and his band travelled over 2,000 miles in France, performing for military audiences as well as French civilians A British-born Muslim convert said 'I spit at Britain' in an ISIS allegiance video as he plotted to slaughter shoppers in a 'ram attack' outside Oxford Street's Disney store. Lewis Ludlow, a former Royal Mail worker from the upmarket Kent town of Rochester, became radicalised after converting to Islam and attending the poppy-burning rallies of hate preacher Anjem Choudary. The 27-year-old then tried to join a new ISIS group in the Philippines, but was stopped from travelling and so began hatching plans for an attack in London. He plotted a vehicle attack on Oxford Street or Madame Tussauds while, at the same time, meeting officials from the deradicalisation programme Prevent. The convert had been offered three different courses of deradicalisation since he first came to the group's attention in 2008, but repeatedly failed to show up. Investigators then found a torn-up letter setting out his vehicle attack plot, and a video in which he said: 'I pledge allegiance to Islamic State and it's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi... I want nothing from Britain and I spit at this country.' British Muslim convert Lewis Ludlow, who plotted a terror attack in London after being stopped from travelling to the Philippines Police recovered torn-up scraps of a letter Ludlow had written, setting out his plans An investigation revealed he was preparing to drive a van into shoppers on Oxford Street or near tourist hotspot Madame Tussauds. Prosecutor Mark Dawson told an earlier hearing: 'This was a plot to cause mass fatalities using a vehicle in Oxford Street targeting among other places the Disney store or pedestrians in and around Oxford Street at its busiest times. 'In one of his notes he talks of causing upwards of 100 fatalities.' Ludlow was under surveillance when he was observed at an internet cafe on Portland Street in London's West End on March 16this year where he researched 'busy shopping centres.' He wrote notes on his planned attack, including: 'Long road with no bollards or barriers preventing a van mounting the pavement.' Ludlow admitted charges of preparing acts of terrorism and funding terror and was sentenced today. He was once attracted to the far-Right and expressed admiration for Hitler - but turned to Islam after his aunt was ill and soon became radicalised. The 27-year-old, who has autism, told the court he felt accepted by Choudary and his gang after being bullied at school. Surveillance footage showed Ludlow with the letter in a notebook at an internet cafe Chilling photos found on his phone were taken during reconnaissance trips to Oxford Street He also had photos of queues outside Madame Tussaud's while considering possible targets Convert plotted attack while meeting de-radicalisation group Prevent Ludlow had been offered three different courses of de-radicalisation, a court has heard. He had attended a series of 17 meetings of the Prevent de-radicalisation programme beginning on October 20 2017 and attended one on the day he conducted his surveillance in Oxford Street. In December 2008, he start 'community mentoring' at a local mosque. In July 2010 a Prevent 'engagement' decision was taken to use a local imam as a mentor but Ludlow failed to engage, despite several attempts. The following month there was a decision to use a Home Office approved mentor but, despite several attempts, Ludlow still failed to attend meetings. On October 25 2010 Ludlow was the subject of an intelligence report which said he had been 'supporting extremist propaganda' and in December his Prevent file was closed due to 'lack of consent.' Nevertheless, there was a second referral to Prevent on June 13 2012, when police visited his mother. However, records showed that Ludlow failed to respond to calls to arrange meetings throughout 2012 and 2013. On April 5 2013, he was discharged from Prevent for a second time due to lack of engagement and referred to the police's 'Pursue' team. A third attempt to engage with him was made in October 2017 when he accepted a visit by a Home Office intervention provider. However, he then referred the matter to his solicitor, who contacted police saying he did not want any further contact. He was served with a travel ban and collected by a Prevent police officer from Heathrow in February 2018 when a search warrant was executed at his address. In February 2018, a Prevent officer contacted Ludlow's lawyer saying engagement could 'still be productive' but there was no further involvement of Prevent after March. Advertisement On March 21 surveillance teams recovered a number of torn up notes from the bins at Ludlow's address which suggested that he was actively involved in preparing for a terrorist attack in London using a van. The notes read: 'Potential attack sites: Madame Tussads (sic), Oxford street - busiest time between 11 - 12, particularly Fridays - St Paul's Cathedral.' He had also listed the addressed for a temples of the rival shia Muslim sect in Forest Gate and Streatham, adding: 'Further locations scouted for the kil.' A second note went into detail about his 'lone wolf' attack: 'Crowded London Areas: Oxford Street long road with no bollards or barriers preventing a van mounting the pavement. 'Busiest time is between 11am 12pm with Saturday being the busiest day. 'Wolf should either use a ram attack or use the truck to maximise death. It is a busy street, it is ideal for an attack. It is expected nearly 100 could be killed in the attack.' Prosecutor Mark Heywood QC said there was evidence the defendant wanted to recruit a second attacker as he did not have a driver's licence and was 'scared' of crashing. On April 13 last year, Ludlow's mobile phone was retrieved from a storm drain and found to have videos of the defendant swearing allegiance to IS and evidence of 'hostile reconnaissance'. In a video message Ludlow said his allegiance was to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS and added: 'May his name strike terror into your hearts.' He went on: 'I am the Eagle and I pledge allegiance to Dawlatul Islam [ISIS]. 'I have grew up amongst you filthy [word unclear] I learnt your culture, your ways of life and your disgusting debauchery. I reject all of this. 'I am amongst you as someone who has given dawah [proselytising] for many years and as one who has studied the deen [religion] of Islam. 'There is nothing between us except animosity and hatred. We love death as much as you love life so therefore, my allegiance is to Islamic State. 'I have nothing for this country of Britain. I spit on your citizenship, your passport, you can go to hell with that. 'So be ready, for we too are waiting. Signed off, The Eagle'.' Ludlow had been sending encrypted messages to an ISIS contact in the Philippines called Abu Yaqeen. He was also in contact with Junaid Hussain, a British ISIS fighter in Syria. Ludlow had first come to the attention of police in 2010 while attending rallies of the banned group known as al-Muhajiroun, led by the radical preacher Anjem Choudary Radicalised postman 'had mental health problems and autism' Ludlow's lawyer insisted he was 'a vulnerable man by reason of his mental health difficulties, his autism and his associated depression'. Ludlow appeared in court wearing black and a green taqiyah skull cap. He told the court he was home-schooled for two years after leaving mainstream education when he was 14 because of severe bullying. He said: 'I was bullied almost everyday for nine years physically and psychological by the teachers and everyone.' 'I thought everybody hated me and it would be better if I was dead. I told my mum I wanted to throw myself under a car.' When Ludlow's close aunt died, he found comfort in the Muslim community, the court heard. He came into contact with al-Muhajiroun on PalTalk, a chatroom, saying they seemed 'friendly' and 'nice' and asked him to come along to a demonstration. 'They said I was funny and interesting.' After two years taking part in demonstrations with the group the relationship soured after he was accused of being a spy. Advertisement The court heard today that, in June 2015, Ludlow had discussed with Hussain doing something before travelling abroad and mentioned his job at Royal Mail. He wrote: 'At my job at a Royal Mail warehouse we had a book that mentions how staff look out for suspicious items like bombs. 'I'm thinking should I find this info out more as Royal Mail rarely check items. It is perfect to send something lethal through.' Hussain told him it was a 'good idea' and Ludlow promised to 'look into it'. Ludlow said he read about Hussain in the newspaper, and couldn't believe how serious a figure he was. 'I told him I was on the same wavelength as him because at the time I was in awe of his fame.' That year he was arrested and ISISI material was recovered from Ludlow's phone but no further action was taken. Giving evidence, Ludlow, who converted to Islam at 16, told how he dropped out of school after he was bullied for nine years. He said: 'I was a loner. I was on my own and it was sad. People would say they found me too strange. It was really depressing. I felt everyone hated me and I thought I would be better off dead.' Ludlow said he found details about Anjem Choudary's group online and was invited to demonstrations. At first it was 'friendly' and he was seen as 'funny' but after two years things turned sour and he was suspected of being a spy, he said. Police sealed off his house in Rochester, Kent in May after he tried to travel to south-east Asia Ludlow told the court how MI5 tried to recruit him as a 'spy' a year before he hatched his terror plot. The defendant, who claimed benefits for eight years, had met a member of the security services near his family home in Rochester in March 2017, it was claimed. During the meeting, an officer told him he 'could be useful to us' and offered him 50, Ludlow said, adding: 'I thought, "Are they asking me to be a spy?"' Afterwards, Ludlow said he was 'harassed' over the phone, adding: 'It seemed to me they wanted me to entrap people.' Ludlow faces jail when he is sentenced in the coming days. A near unprecedented Wall Street warning by Apple over poor iPhone sales caused the FTSE 100 to fall suddenly today. The tech giant's value plunged by $55billion (44billion) in minutes yesterday as it was revealed revenues from new handsets, iPads and Mac computers all faltered in China. The bad news triggered a new sell off of UK shares on the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250, with stocks in luxury brands such as Burberry, which has huge Chinese sales, falling sharply. The contagion then spread to all major European markets as experts predicted reduced growth in China over the coming year. Apple shocked the business world last night after predicting poorer than expected sales over the Christmas period, sending its own shares and those of rivals Amazon and Microsoft downwards. The FTSE 100 and all other European markets fell today as Apple share in the US plunged over poor sales for the Christmas period Chinese consumers (pictured in Beijig today) are buying fewer iPhones and plumping for cheaper rivals such as Samsung and Huawei Asian markets tumbled and there was a 'flash crash' in currencies as Apple's bad news sparked panic that a global economic slowdown has started CEO Tim Cook's letter to investors downgrading sales by $5billion over the past three months spooked Wall Street because the festive period is traditionally the tech giant's busiest time of the year. He cited economic weakness in China, which accounts for 20 per cent of its global sales, as one of the primary reasons for 'fewer iPhone upgrades' while Mac computer and iPad sales also fell. The market panicked and Apple shares were briefly halted as Mr Cook made his announcement that the quarter's revenues would be $84billion instead of $89billion - a five per cent fall and the firm's quarterly decline since 2016. Stocks then slid 7.5 per cent to $146.23 - wiping $55billion (44billion) off its value in minutes. APPLE'S GUIDANCE BY THE NUMBERS Apple's revised guidance for the fiscal 2019 first quarter includes: Revenue of approximately $84billion - down $5billion Gross margin of approximately 38 percent Operating expenses of approximately $8.7 billion Other income/(expense) of approximately $550 million Tax rate of approximately 16.5 percent Advertisement Experts said today that the poor sales suggest the lure of the iPhone could be waning and the Silicon Valley company will focus on making more cash from its services including iTunes, the App Store, iCloud and Apple Pay. Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives said consumers are going for cheaper Samsung and Huawei handsets, adding: 'This is Apple's darkest day during the Cook era. No one expected China to just fall off a cliff like this'. While President Donald Trump's trade war with China isn't helping Apple and other U.S. technology companies, Ives believes Apple miscalculated by continuing to roll out high-priced phones in China, creating an opening for rivals with less costly alternatives that still worked well. The price gap is one reason Huawei surpassed Apple in smartphone sales from April through September last year to seize the No. 2 spot behind industry leader Samsung, according to the research firm International Data Corp. 'The question now is will Apple change its strategy or stick to its hubris,' Ives said. To help boost iPhone sales, Cook said Apple will expand its financing plans and build upon its recent efforts to make it easier to trade in older models at its stores. Tim Cook, pictured at an iPad launch in October last year, has written to investors warning of a disappointing sales in iPhones, iPads and Macs In a letter to investors, CEO Tim Cook outlined why Apple was forced to lower its projected revenue to $84 billion - down from a range of $89 billion to $93 billion it called out in its previous earnings release in November. Cook cited economic weakness in China as one of the primary reasons behind the iPhone slowdown. Other factors impacting the revised guidance were difficult comparisons due to Apple's latest smartphone launches, as well as supply constraints, according to Cook. The stock's plunge managed to wipe $55 billion off of Apple's value, based on the company's market cap at the end of Tuesday trading. The revised guidance is a rare move for Apple, one that it hasn't made since more than a decade ago in 2002, experts noted. A Darwin woman has died within 24 hours of contracting the uncommon but deadly meningococcal disease. The woman who was in her 30s passed away on New Year's Eve, NT News reported. The death has prompted the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) Darwin director Vicki Krause to warn people about the illness. Last month, Queenslander Phoebe O'Connell, 18, (pictured) was left fighting for her life in Brisbane's Mater Private Hospital after she was diagnosed with meningococcal Y Baby Lilliana (pictured with mother Elisha Robinson) was just eight months old when she contracted meningococcal while on a family holiday in Thailand The death has prompted the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) Darwin director Vicki Krause to warn people about the illness. Dr Krause told NT News the disease was 'very uncommon' but 'very serious'. 'It can progress to very serious and even death in a very short span of time,' she said. According to Dr Krause, testing was being carried out to identify the strain of the disease the woman died from, adding that the W strain is the most common in the Northern Territory. The doctor stressed the importance of going to see a doctor the minute someone starts to feel unwell. 'As soon as you get to the doctor, the sooner you get your antibiotics, the better the prognosis,' she told the publication. Those who were in contact with the woman prior to her death have been administered antibiotics. The University of Queensland student presented to the hospital after bouts of vomiting, diarrhoea and a severe headache (pictured: Pheobe O'Connell) Last month, Queenslander Phoebe O'Connell, 18, was left fighting for her life in Brisbane's Mater Private Hospital after she was diagnosed with meningococcal Y. Her current condition is not known. What is meningococcal disease? Meningococcal disease is an acute bacterial infection often transmitted from the throat or nose that infects the rest of the body There are five main strains of the disease, with B and W the most prevalant 10 per cent die from the disease, while another 20 per cent are left permanent disabilities Symptoms of the disease include: - Fever - Nausea or vomiting - Lack of energy - Tiredness or drowsiness - Confusion - Disorientation an dizziness - Sore throat Advertisement The University of Queensland student presented to the hospital after bouts of vomiting, diarrhoea and a severe headache. The disease has been on the rise in Queensland in the last three years. In 2015, 28 people were diagnosed. Another young Queenslander Zoe McGinty died of the W strain last year, just hours after falling ill. Her mother Kirsten McGinty has since advocated for free vaccines to be accessible to all Australians, with the support of her late daughter's boyfriend Simon Taylor. 'I have remained in constant contact with Zoe's family, and I 100 per cent believe in what Kirsten is trying to do,' Mr Taylor told Daily Mail Australia earlier this year. 'Vaccines should be free for all strains and all ages so no one else has to go through the grief we have all been through. Not only has this disease taken Zoe away from me, it has also robbed Zoe of everything she wanted to accomplish in her life.' Baby Lilliana was just eight-months-old when she contracted meningococcal while on a family holiday in Thailand. Doctors initially feared Lilliana Sheridan's legs would have too be amputated. She underwent a gruelling two-hour operation in order to save them, during which doctors at Bangkok's Samitivej Hospital cut away rotten skin. Doctors initially feared Lilliana Sheridan's legs would have too be amputated Doctors initially feared Lilliana Sheridan's legs would have too be amputated (pictured: Lilliana with father Jai Sheridan) Meningococcal disease is an acute bacterial infection often transmitted from the throat or nose that infects the rest of the body. There are five main strains of the disease, with B and W the most prevalent. Symptoms include fever, nausea or vomiting, lack of energy, tiredness or drowsiness, confusion or disorientation, dizziness and a sore throat. Although most make a full recovery, 10 per cent die from the disease, while another 20 per cent are left permanent disabilities, according to Meningococcal Australia. Advertisement This mischievous lion cub just can't wait to be king as he wrestles with his father, jumping on his back and swiping at his face - and isn't phased when the gigantic beast bares his vicious teeth. Adorable footage captured at Etosha National Park in Namibia shows the young lion sparring with his father who is lying on the ground taking some rest. The plucky cub continues to launch swipes at this father even despite the fierce lion showing his teeth and shaking his head. Adorable photographs captured at Etosha National Park in Namibia shows the young lion sparring with his father (pictured) who is lying on the ground taking some rest The plucky cub continues to launch swipes at this father even despite the fierce lion showing his teeth and shaking his head Jason Kandume, a photographer from northern Namibi, captured video footage of the remarkable scene in November - which also shows the young cub wrestling with some dirt next to his mother. Mr Kandume - who captured the footage at a watering hole - said: 'The male lion went to drink first and when it finished, the cub started running towards his dad. It was climbing over him and jumping on his back. One of the females was constantly following the cub. 'I always try to respect nature and wildlife. I don't disturb or chase them. I see people using drones in the parks which I think is wrong. 'If you're using a drone then you can't get shots like this where the animals are playing freely and don't feel threatened.' Mr Kandume also captured fascinating photographs of the young lion cub roaming the vast stretches of Namibia alongside his mother and father - who both look like they have been kept awake by the mischievous youngster for days. One image shows the mischievous young cub climbing over its much larger father before being told off while another picture appears to show the female lion telling the dad to discipline his son. Jason Kandume captured fascinating photographs of the young lion cub roaming the vast stretches of Namibia alongside his mother and father (pictured) - who both look like they have been kept awake by the mischievous youngster for days Mr Kandume chose to go to the park in November as it is not long after lions have their babies. He had originally been at a water hole to photograph some rhinos - but heard some lions roaring and knew they would not be too far from the area. He eventually discovered a lion cub with its mother (pictured) and father Mr Kandume, who likes to highlight the importance of not disturbing the animals when trying to photograph them, said: 'I didn't know that I would find a family of lions the morning I captured these images, but I suspected I would find some lions. 'I was at the waterhole to photograph some rhinos the night before when I heard some lions roaring, so I knew they wouldn't be too far from the area. 'I wasn't surprised that we found the family because that's one of the reasons I chose to go to the park at that time of year, in November, because it's not long after the lions have their babies. 'Lions are easy to find as long as you have some knowledge of their behaviour. They're known to be active at night, early morning and late afternoon. So I prefer to get up early to get some shots which will showcase their behaviour. 'Timing is everything with lions because they can sleep for up to 20 hours per day. They spend most of their time sleeping in the shade during the day, especially in summer. 'If they are part of a large pride, they like to stay near waterholes because they can easily find meals there. Active hunting mostly starts at dusk or dawn.' Mr Kandume captured these images at Etosha National Park in Namibia - one of the most popular parks for wildlife photographers and tourists keen to get an authentic safari experience Etosha - where Mr Kandume captured the images - is one of the top wildlife destinations worldwide, attracting many wildlife photographers and it's one of the most popular parks for wildlife photographers and tourists keen to get an authentic safari experience. 'As a frequent wildlife tour guide, I drive my clients straight to the waterhole as soon as the park gates open, telling them that I suspect there will be lions nearby,' Mr Kandume said. 'There was one cub, two females, one large male and two young males that day.' Comedian Hasan Minhaj has mocked Saudi Arabian authorities for forcing an episode of his Netflix show to be pulled, claiming more people will watch it thanks to the controversy. The episode of his Patriot Act show lashed the regime over the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Netflix removed the episode of the satirical show in Saudi Arabia after the Kingdom's authorities complained it breached their cybercrime law. Minhaj Tweeted his response: 'Clearly, the best way to stop people from watching something is to ban it, make it trend online, and then leave it up on YouTube.' The streaming giant has taken down the episode of 'Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj' (pictured) in Saudi Arabia Hasan Minhaj Tweeted his response to the news, saying: 'Clearly, the best way to stop people from watching something is to ban it, make it trend online, and then leave it up on YouTube' Karen Attiah, Khashoggi's editor at the Washington Post, tweeted Tuesday that Netflix's action was 'quite outrageous' The episode can still be seen in other parts of the world - and in Saudi Arabia on YouTube. Minhaj added, in another critique of the regime, 'Lets not forget that the worlds largest humanitarian crisis is happening in Yemen right now,' and asked his followers to donate to the International Rescue Committee. In the episode which was pulled by the streaming giant, Minhaj - an American-born Muslim of Indian descent - specifically criticized Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and was also critical of the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen. It was taken down after the kingdom's Communications and Information Technology Commission said it violates a cybercrime law, as reported by The Financial Times. Karen Attiah, Khashoggi's editor at the Washington Post, tweeted Tuesday that Netflix's action was 'quite outrageous.' Others took to Twitter also expressing their dismay and vowing to get rid of the streaming giant from their homes. The US Senate in December approved two symbolic resolutions blaming the prince for the killing, after intelligence reports pointed in that direction, and urging an end to US participation in the Yemen conflict. Netflix had defended its decision, saying, 'We strongly support artistic freedom worldwide and only removed this episode in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal request - and to comply with local law' People took to Twitter to express their outrage over the streaming giant dropping the episode But the Financial Times said Netflix had defended its decision, saying, 'We strongly support artistic freedom worldwide and only removed this episode in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal request - and to comply with local law.' Online platforms and tech companies have been facing increasing scrutiny and growing public skepticism amid controversies about data sharing and the steady erosion of privacy. Samah Hadid, Amnesty International's Middle East Campaigns Director, said: 'Saudi Arabia's censorship of Netflix using a cyber-crime law comes as no surprise and is further proof of a relentless crackdown on freedom of expression in the Kingdom. 'Since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman came to power in June 2017, many outspoken human rights defenders, activists and critics have been arbitrarily detained or unjustly sentenced to lengthy prison terms simply for exercising their right to freedom of expression. 'The authorities have previously used anti cyber-crime laws to silence dissidents, creating an environment of fear for those who dare to speak up in Saudi Arabia. 'By bowing to the Saudi Arabian authorities' demands, Netflix is in danger of facilitating the Kingdom's zero-tolerance policy on freedom of expression and assisting the authorities in denying people's right to freely access information.' The NGO Reporters Without Borders in October ranked Saudi Arabia as 169th out of 180 countries for press freedom, adding that 'it will very probably fall even lower in the 2019 index because of the gravity of the violence and abuses of all kinds against journalists.' The 33-year-old Minhaj has seen his profile rise steadily. His routines combine personal history and pointed political commentary wrapped in edgy topical humor. In 2014 he became senior correspondent on Comedy Central's popular 'The Daily Show,' and in 2017 he was the featured speaker at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. 'Patriot Act' debuted in October 2018. A nail salon worker was hit and killed by a car driven by a customer she tried to stop driving off without paying for her manicure. Mother-of-three Nhu Ngoc Quynh Nguyen, 51, was run over on Saturday by a woman who tried to drive away from the salon in Las Vegas when her credit card was declined. The woman tried to escape without paying for the $35 manicure at Crystal Nails & Spa around a mile and a half from the Las Vegas Strip. Las Vegas police are searching for the attacker and are investigating the crime as a murder. Mother-of-three Nhu Ngoc Quynh Nguyen (pictured), 51, was run over on Saturday by a woman who tried to drive away from the salon in Las Vegas when her credit card was declined The attacker went to her car, telling salon workers she would come back to pay another way but then tried to drive away, according to police Lt. Ray Spencer. The manicurist ran in front of the car to try to stop the woman from driving off but was hit by the vehicle, police said. Her partner Sonny Chung told the Las Vegas Review-Journal: 'My wife ran out and tried to stop her, and then she rolled forward. 'She kept pushing the gas, and my wife fell off, and she kept pushing more, and she dragged her from here to over there. 'I tried to hold the car back, but I'm not Superman.' The woman drove away and the manicurist was taken to a hospital, where she later died. The suspect was in a rental car that had been stolen three weeks ago, which was found abandoned at a nearby apartment complex. The unnamed attacker tried to escape without paying for the $35 manicure at Crystal Nails & Spa (pictured) around a mile and a half from the Las Vegas Strip Ms Nguyen's family paid tribute on a fundraising page, saying: 'We miss her very much and will always hold her dear in our hearts and memories. 'She would never buy anything for herself. Any gifts that she received would be passed to her daughters, rather than keeping it for herself. 'She never asked for anything in return, besides more grandchildren. Every penny that she had accumulated always go towards her family.' Ms Nguyen had been working 12 to 14-hour days to send her daughters to college and look after her family, her family said. The Clark County Coroner's Office said the cause of death was multiple blunt force injuries. The victim's friends have raised $20,000 for her family on the online fundraising page. France's Yellow Vest anti-government protest crisis threatened to explode into further rioting today following the dramatic arrest of one of its leaders. Dozens of riot police took Eric Drouet into custody on Wednesday night as he tried to lay flowers and light candles in memory of 10 people killed during eight weeks of demonstrations. Dramatic video posted on social media showed Drouet surrounded by armed officers in helmets and with their visors down as they bundled the shocked but peaceful militant into a van. Eric Drouet, a prominent figure among the Yellow Vest protesters, was arrested by dozens of riot police in Paris on Wednesday night Drouet was bundled into a police van while attempting to lay flowers and light candles for 10 protesters killed during eight weeks of demonstrations Yellow Vest leaders described Drouet's arrest as 'oil on the fire' and predicted more unrest on Saturday, their traditional day of protest (pictured, protesters on New Year's Day) On Thursday he was still in custody at an unidentified secure police station in central Paris following his apprehension close to the Champs Elysee. Drouet was first arrested in December, at the height of rioting by the anti-government Yellow Vests, who are named after their high-visibility jackets. He was on bail while awaiting trial for 'carrying a prohibited category D weapon', but now has to prepare his case in a cell. This immediately led to accusations that President Emmanuel Macron had ordered a 'political arrest' to stop him stirring up further demonstrations. Jean-Luc Melenchon, the left-wing MP and former minister, tweeted: 'Eric Drouet arrested again, why? 'Abuse of power. A politicised police targeting and harassing the leaders of the Yellow Vest movement'. Now the nationwide Yellow Vests movement has threatened further trouble on Saturday their traditional protest day. The Yellow Vests brought weeks of unrest to Paris last year but quietened down following a series of concessions by Macron and the Strasbourg terror attack (pictured on New Year's Day) Drouet was arrested once before in December (pictured) for carrying a banned weapon and was awaiting trial when he was arrested for a second time on Wednesday Yellow Vest marches - named for high-vis jackets required in working-class jobs in France - began over fuel duty rises but have ballooned to include general anger at the ruling 'elite' Marches have been demanding that Emmanuel Macron, who is increasingly seen as a President for the rich, leave office 'It's oil on the fire,' said Benjamin Gauchy, another Yellow Vests leader, who added that 'public opinion will be shocked.' The movement, which started off opposing fuel price rises, has caused millions of pounds worth of damages during weeks of rioting, including to many shops on the Champs Elysee, and to the Arc de Triomphe itself. Mr Macron has offered them concessions, including scrapping green taxes on petrol and diesel, but their protests have continued into 2019. The majority of Yellow Vests killed have been those blockading roundabouts, where accidents have become common. The independent Mr Macron, leader of his own Republic On The Move party, won the French presidential election by a landslide in May 2017, but he is now dubbed the 'President of the Rich' by many, and his approval rating is at rock bottom. A widowed mother claims she has been shunned by friends and family members because she began dating just eight weeks after her husband died. Natalie Drury lost husband Tim Madeley, 50, on New Year's Day 2015, following a battle with brain cancer. Eight weeks later, the 42-year-old nursery cook went on her first date since he died. Although it didn't progress into a relationship, Natalie - now happily remarried to Paul Drury - claims the criticism she still faces is devastating. Despite receiving support from most of her family, she claims some relatives, friends and colleagues shunned her. Natalie Drury (pictured, left, marrying first husband Tim) says that after remarrying to Paul (right) she still faces criticism four years on from her first partner's death Two years later when she joined Plenty of Fish, she says many friends told her it was still too soon. Now happily married for the second time, Natalie is speaking out about love after bereavement to encourage others to stop being so judgemental. Natalie, from Stalybridge, Greater Manchester, said: 'When Tim took ill in the August, they told me pretty early on what the outcome was going to be. 'I did my grieving in those four months while he was still here. I knew what was coming and I had to stay strong for our son Oliver. Mrs Drury claims that she was shamed by friends, family and colleagues after her first husband (pictured in hospital, with their son, Oliver) passed away 'When the time came it was a release and when you lose someone, you lose your friends. 'When Tim died, my friends didn't call because they didn't know what to say, so they didn't say anything at all. I was in shock and so lonely. 'Eventually I got to the point where I did want to go out and so I went on a date with a local man. 'It didn't go anywhere but it caused people to say I had disrespected my husband. 'I had every respect for him - but I knew he was never coming back. Mrs Drury says that she believes her son, Oliver (pictured) has also been able to enjoy life more since she remarried Paul 'I couldn't sit alone in my house crying. I went out and enjoyed myself for a few weeks. 'People avoid you when a loved one dies. Soon after Tim passed away I was walking down the street and people would cross over because they didn't know what to say. You do feel isolated. 'If you haven't been through it you can never understand. [Finding love again] doesn't mean I've no respect for Tim. Some people were judgemental, especially at work. I had got a job after he passed. 'People would say "it's only been two years" but I'd say "exactly - do you want me to sit on the sofa wearing black and never go out?" People are so quick to judge. It's not right.' In the summer prior to his death, Tim and Natalie had been on holiday to Spain with their four-year-old son Oliver. The couple were away for a week but days into the trip, Natalie noticed her husband was 'behaving really weird' and had been acting 'daft'. A desperate Natalie called her father saying she wanted to come home and when the family returned to the UK, Tim visited the doctors. 'We went on holiday in 2014 to Spain which is when Tim started behaving really weird,' she said. 'He'd be walking with his head on the side or if I gave him his lunch on a plate, he'd looked at me and tip it all on the floor. We'd gone over there because he'd agree to do some work on a villa. 'As the week went on, he hadn't done any painting and was just behaving really daft. I began to notice something wasn't right. 'When we got back, I took him straight to the doctors and they thought he'd had a stroke. He went into hospital that night and he was soon diagnosed with a brain tumour. 'The specialists said that because we'd been on holiday the air pressure on the plane had accelerated the tumour. Natalie has now happily remarried to Paul (both are pictured on their wedding day) after she found love again following her first husband's death 'He went to The Christie in Manchester but there was nothing they could do. They gave him chemotherapy but it wasn't doing anything at all. 'I did mourn. From getting the brain tumour, each of the words that came out Tim's mouth you couldn't take seriously. It was like talking to an older person with dementia. He wanted me to be happy and move on.' That December, Natalie scrambled around to afford Christmas presents for Oliver as her husband lay in his hospice bed. During what should have been a happy time of year, she agonised over how to tell her little boy that his dad might not make it through the month. Natalie (pictured, left at her first wedding and, right, with first husband Tim) says that people should resist being so judgmental 'It was horrendous, especially during that Christmas,' she said. 'I was trying to keep things jolly for Oliver but I was struggling for money. 'Sadly Tim was soon transferred to a hospice. He couldn't speak or move around. It was just terrible. 'Oliver understood what was happening. He asked me "is my daddy going to die?". 'I could have lied and said no. But I sat him down and explained in terms a four-year-old would be able to understand. 'Tim had been the breadwinner and I'd been at home with Oliver, so people rallied round us to make sure he got some Christmas presents. 'Tim survived through Christmas but the week later he went downhill. On New Year's Day 2015 he passed away.' Suffering with the crippling loneliness and grief, Natalie decided to begin dating again just eight weeks later. However when her first dates didn't come to anything, she focused on helping her son Oliver come to terms with losing his father. By 2016, Natalie decided to get out there once again and started dating again. 'I joined Plenty of Fish and that's where I met Paul,' she said. 'It was a happy ending. Paul is a lovely man and from the start I told him the whole story. 'I explained I had a son and he might be sensitive to the situation, but Oliver took to him straight away. It just progressed from there and soon it became our new normal. 'When we got married it was really sweet. At the wedding reception looked up at us and said 'can I play out?' He ran over to Paul and said 'Daddy, can we play out?'. 'Oliver still talks about Tim. He has his watch and we speak about him everyday - night and day. 'Oliver is now eight years old. A lot of people, especially family, we don't speak to. 'Tim had older children - he was 14 years older than me. He had five, including Oliver. 'I'm still in contact with two of them now. They were really supportive from the beginning and came to my wedding in the evening.' When Natalie got a new job as a nursery cook, colleagues also questioned how quickly she had found a new partner. But she believes Oliver was helped by seeing her smile again. 'I just feel like [those that criticised me about starting to date again] need to take a step back and think. God forbid if they were in that position. You just can't say that. 'I did join Plenty of Fish but I didn't go out looking for love. I still post about him. I posted on Facebook on New Year's Day last year "it's been nearly three years since you passed and I hope that you're looking down on me on my wedding day". 'I got a lot of comments - none to my face. My family were so supportive. The teachers got concerned about Oliver and he had to take a teddy into school for six months. He communicated through the teddy. I think it's helped Oliver to see his mum happy again.' A suicidal man whose life was saved by a radio DJ when he called a national radio show has opened up about his battle with mental health issues and alcoholism after seeing a dead body on the tracks. Chris was slumped in a doorway in Plymouth when he called TalkRADIO host Iain Lee, who kept him on the phone for 30 minutes as he waited for emergency services to arrive. The 50-year-old, who lives in south east Cornwall, has said he still can't see a way to escape his demons. The former London Underground worker revealed he has struggled since seeing a lifeless body on the train tracks when he worked as a station manager in the West End. On The Late Night Alternative Show with Iain Lee last night Chris said he had tried to take his own life three times in the three years he has lived in Cornwall. He said: 'I saw that person on the track lying in front of the train completely lifeless It had such a detrimental affect on me that I just started drinking heavily. I was drinking a bottle of vodka a day.' He believes he would have been sectioned if he was still living in London, but that Cornwall Council doesn't have the resources to look after him. He said: 'To be honest I know I need help but Cornwall Council is so severely stretched for cash that while ordinarily in London you are committed or sectioned in Cornwall they send you home, they send their little treatment team round for three days and you are left alone to fight your demons. 'And I am fighting my demons and I can see any way out of that other than suicide. 'I am just going to be a drain on society, I am going to be a drain on everybody.' Last night speaking to Mr Lee on air again, this time in Cornwall with a carer present, he described the incident in London that had first caused his mental health breakdown. 'I was witness to a person under a train,' he said. 'That person was around mid 20s or early 30s which is the age of my eldest son. 'I saw that person on the track lying in front of the train completely lifeless That was the first time I had ever been involved in anything like that. 'It had such a detrimental affect on me that I just started drinking heavily. I was drinking a bottle of vodka a day.' He was eventually dismissed by London Underground and his marriage broke down and he moved to Cornwall. He says his biggest fear is not being able to see his 11-year-old daughter again. Mr Lee was praised for his compassion when Chris called on December 19 during a segment about mental health. He continued talking to him on air for 30 minutes after he called to say he had taken an overdose. Chris said he was 'lying in the street, dying' in Plymouth, Devon. Lee, who starred in last year's I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here, kept him talking and was able to get a description of where he was, while his producer Kath contacted emergency services. Footage shows the moment Iain Lee took a call from a man who had taken an overdose The talkRadio host alerted the emergency services who were able to save the man's life Iain, 45, who hosts a show called Late Night Alternative between 10pm and 1am, tweeted after the incident on Wednesday: 'Tonight we took a call from a man who had taken an overdose. He was lying in a street in Plymouth, dying. 'We managed to keep him online, get a description of what he looked like and was wearing, work out where he was and send an ambulance and police to him. Kept him on the phone for 30 minutes while he got harder to understand. The presenter has since spoken out about the 'horrible' experience 'Long periods of silence where I thought he'd died. f**k, that was intense and upsetting. 'Thanks for your kind words. I really hope he makes it.' Speaking about the 'horrible' experience, the radio and TV star added: 'He phoned up, he was on the line for a while; we were dealing with someone else in a distressing situation at the time. 'He (Chris) was on the phone and I couldn't understand what he was saying. We get some calls from people with Parkinson's Disease, with MS, different things. 'So to get a call where you can't understand someone, it's not uncommon for us. 'Quite early on, I said; 'I can't understand you mate.' And he said, 'I have taken an overdose.' Iain said he feared the man would die on air because there were prolonged periods of silence during the half hour call 'I was able to establish, his speech wasn't because of Parkinson's, it was the induced thing.' Iain said he feared Chris would die on air because there were prolonged periods of silence during the 30 minute call. But he managed to retrieve his name, age and location, which was outside a nightclub. Iain added: 'I have been suicidal in the past - I have never taken it as far as he did. He was in such a terrible state. 'I just kept him talking. Initially, he said he didn't know where he was, what was going on, he just said, he wanted to die. 'I managed to get enough (detail) from him...he kept talking about a nightclub and then we established he was right opposite the nightclub. 'It was very confusing. I kept him talking for probably half an hour. I thought he had died because he would go silent for five or 10 minutes. It was horrible.' Iain Lee (pictured) kept the caller talking on talkRADIO while his producer contacted emergency services The radio host took to Twitter to talk about the call-in and urge others to seek help Devon and Cornwall Police's Inspector Kevin Morley tweeted to thank Iain for what he had done. He added: 'My officers that attended and are now dealing with the caller. This is a very typical call for us sadly and December is a hard month for many. 'We will do our best to direct him to long term support. We all have a role to play in supporting those that are struggling.' Iain has previously been open about his own battles with mental health and depression, revealing he once 'felt suicidal.' After the incident people took to social media to praise the DJ for his actions. Russian media claimed retired US Marine Paul Whelan (pictured) was in possession of 'secret information' The American ambassador to Russia has met with a former US Marine who was arrested last week in Russia and is being held on suspicion of spying. Ambassador Jon Huntsman met Michigan resident Paul Whelan, 48, on Wednesday at Lefortovo Detention Facility in Moscow following his December 28 arrest at the Metropol Hotel, also in the Russian capital. Huntsman said he offered support and assistance to Whelan, and later spoke to the man's family by phone, but he would not discuss the case in detail. The ambassador also said the U.S. complained to the Russian government about the length of time it took them to grant consular access to Whelan. Whelan's family have maintained his innocence and Kremlin experts have speculated that the arrest was a bogus attempt to create leverage against America in the case of Maria Butina, a Russian woman who pleaded guilty in the U.S. to acting as an illegal foreign agent just two weeks ago. However it also emerged that Whelan has had a previous brush with the law, as the Marine Corps on Wednesday released details of his service record. The 48-year-old served in the Marine Corps Reserves from 1994 to 2008 and was convicted of larceny in a special court-martial in January 2008. US Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman (left) met Michigan resident Paul Whelan, 48, (right) on Wednesday, following Whelan's December 28 arrest at the Metropol Hotel in Moscow on charges of spying The Marine Corps said the court-martial conviction was based on 'several charges related to larceny.' CNN, citing military court documents, reported that Whelan also used another's social security number and wrote bad checks. Whelan attained the rank of staff sergeant in December 2004 after the first of two deployments in Iraq. He was an administrative clerk and administrative chief but was given a bad-conduct discharge in December 2008 at the rank of private. When he was first detained, Whelan's family said in a statement that his brother David posted on Twitter: 'We are deeply concerned for his safety and well-being. His innocence is undoubted and we trust that his rights will be respected.' The American government is now seeking answers about Whelan's detention, which Russian media claim was because he received a database of employees of a 'secret' Russian agency. Local news outlets report that despite saying he was in Russia to have 'fun', Whelan 'shunned pretty Russian women' and instead made contacts with men who might have access to confidential information. Whelan visited Russia regularly, and his brother says he was there for a wedding when he was arrested Whelan, a resident of Michigan, was arrested on December 28 at the Metropol Hotel in Moscow (pictured) Rosbalt news service, which has close links to the security services, stated that corporate security executive Whelan was 'caught red-handed immediately after receiving a media with information containing state secrets. Minutes after receiving a flash drive full of 'secret information' in his hotel room, armed Federal Security Service (FSB) operatives moved in to detain him, reported Rosbalt. Also yesterday US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the government has requested more information from Russia 'and if the detention is not appropriate, we will demand his immediate return,' he said. Whelan was in Moscow to attend a wedding when he disappeared, his brother David Whelan said Tuesday. He arrived December 22 and was scheduled to stay through Sunday. The Russian spying charges carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years. Alain Malcolm took his own life in October Alain Malcolm took his own life in October after going to meet what he thought was a 14-year-old boy in Connecticut. The 20-year-old was instead met by one of dozens of highly active vigilante groups that use social media and dating apps to lure people with a decoy profile of an underage person. In this instance, the group in question was 'POPSquad' - an acronym for 'Prey on Predators'. They met Malcolm in nearby Bristol, CT and recorded the sting, uploading it to Facebook, their 126th such incident in two years. On their website in the listings of all the suspected paedophiles they have snared, POPSquad skip from 125 to 127, not listing the Alain Malcolm incident. When the so-called vigilantes confronted Malcom - a well respected young man locally - he is heard in the sting video saying: 'I have nothing to live for,' while looking down at the ground, according to NBC. He is berated by the recorder and then drove 30 minutes back to his parents house where he hanged himself. Police in the UK also ordered a crackdown in the practice of these groups last year after a string of suicides after vigilante stings. It was reported by The Times that the groups had 'little or no consideration' for the safeguarding requirements of victims of the suspected paedophiles they outed. A grab from the POPSquad website, showing a list of people they met after posing as children One such example in the UK was when the body of Nigel Sheratt, 47, was found at a house in Cannock, Staffordshire, in August, just two days after he was stopped by members of vigilante group 'Soul Survivors' while in his car. POPSquad is described on its website as a 'local movement out of Connecticut that strives to help protect children from online predators both by catching these predators, and also raising community awareness.' It was the subject of an episode of Crime Watch Daily, as well as several local news articles where the members work under aliases, such as 'Icognito' AKA Shane Erdmann, the man who started the group. In his locality of Litchfield County, Alain Malcolm was named as one of 40 leaders under 40. He also started a business aged 16 as well as being involved in student government and Model United Nations. POPSquad is described on its website as a 'local movement out of Connecticut that strives to help protect children from online predators He was snared using Tinder, a dating app. But it is Facebook where most suspected paedophiles tend to be caught and that is where the video from the day of Alain's death was shared by Erdmann. People who saw the video said that the 31-year-old Erdmann followed Alain to his car asking: 'Your family is going to see this. How do you feel?' Erdmann is currently on probation for an unrelated 2016 felony drug conviction. Shane Erdmann AKA Incognito with Chris Hansen during the episode of Crime Watch Daily On the subject of whether the practice violates Facebook codes a spokesman for the social media giant told NBC: 'We want people to use Facebook and our products to raise awareness about threats to public safety, including those who may pose harm to children. 'However, we do not want people to use Facebook to facilitate vigilante violence. That's why we have policies against threatening real-world harm and to protect people's privacy if they are being publicly shamed. 'We will remove content that violates these policies when it is reported.' In his locality of Litchfield County, Alain Malcolm was named as one of 40 leaders under 40 POPSquad removed the video in under 24 hours but vowed to continue their work 'without hesitation' while local police in Torrington, Malcolm's home town, said an investigation is ongoing. Jeff Allovio, a former FBI special agent with 30 year's experience, said the activity of these vigilante groups can actually hamper criminal investigations against the subjects. 'They were doing things that can lead to potential entrapment issues, further would cause the case to not move forward and be prosecuted,' Allovio told News4SanAntonio. Members of POPSquad with the man in the middle believed to be Incognito AKA Erdmann POPSquad members , according to the hat, Incognito AKA Jason Erdmann is in the foreground 'I've had some cases where information is brought forward and people who develop the information, private citizens, didn't want to testify which means we have no witness,' he added. The issue of 'Livestreaming' the catches on Facebook has also arisen, with concerns over the public taking justice into their own hands. Raz Hunter - a pseudonym - is a UK-based vigilante, she said: 'It's a tricky question. I recognize publicly exposing predators means people could take the law into their own hands. 'But still, there's a lot of value in it without exposure, others a target has preyed on may not come forward.' A teenager has been arrested after a man died when his throat was slashed outside the Church of Scientology's Australian headquarters. The 16-year-old allegedly brought a 25cm kitchen knife with him when he went to see his mother at the complex in Chatswood, Sydney's north shore, on Thursday afternoon. One man died and another was injured after the teenager was asked to leave the premises following a fight between the boy and his mother earlier in the day. 'He's had a spin-out and they have tried to move him away to safety,' a member of the church, who did not wish to be named, told The Daily Telegraph. A teenager has been arrested after a fatal stabbing at the Church of Scientology Australian headquarters Police are seen outside the Church of Scientology's Australasian headquarters at Chatswood, on Sydney's north shore, on Thursday afternoon Emergency services were called to the sprawling complex about 12.30pm on Thursday following reports of a stabbing The teenager had been stopped from trying to see his mother, who was inside the facility at the time, the person said. A 24-year-old man, who police believe is of Taiwanese descent, had his throat slashed. He was rushed to Royal North Shore Hospital just after 12.30pm in a critical condition, but later died. A second man, who suffered cuts to his arms and hands, remains in the same hospital in a stable condition. Both men were employees at the Australasian headquarters. New South Wales Ambulance Acting Deputy Commissioner Tony Gately said one of the men had suffered a 'traumatic injury' The 16-year-old boy was arrested at the scene and taken to the police station for questioning. The teenagers' mother is believed to be a member of the controversial church. 'At this stage... it would appear the altercation or the reason the young person has been removed from the premises is... related to a domestic incident that occurred yesterday,' North Shore Police Area Command Detective Chief Inspector Simon Jones said. In a statement, the Church of Scientology said: 'This very unfortunate matter is in the hands of the police. We cannot make any further comment beyond the fact that the victim was a beloved member of our Church. 'The Church is providing the police with any assistance needed in their investigation.' Police block-off the entrance to the complex, described by the Church of Scientology as its 'biggest spiritual centre outside the United States' The Australasian headquarters at Chatswood were opened in September 2016. Pictured, police at the scene on Thursday afternoon One man died in hospital from his injuries, while the other man remains in a stable condition A 16-year-old boy has been arrested and is assisting police with inquiries. Pictured, police at the scene on Thursday afternoon The sprawling Chatswood complex is described by the Church of Scientology as its 'biggest spiritual centre outside the United States'. The site - which borders the Lane Cove national park - was snapped-up for about $37 million by the secretive group, who outlaid another $20 million in renovations and construction. The Church of Scientology opened its Australasian headquarters - built on the bones of the former National Acoustics Laboratory - in September 2016. Facilities include 60 'auditing' or spiritual counselling rooms - where technology called 'e-meters' are used, a chapel, grand auditorium, production studio and an office devoted to L. Ron Hubbard. A promising youth footballer has appeared in court after a brutal attack which saw a woman allegedly punched repeatedly in the head outside a club on New Year's Day. Andrew Akingbaje, 23, of Brixton, South London, was charged following violence that flared outside Lotus nightclub in Clapham four hours into 2019. He was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm and appeared in custody at Camberwell Green Magistrates' Court today. Andrew Akingbaje (pictured leaving Camberwell Green Magistrates' Court today, left; and as a promising young footballer, right) was charged following the violence on New Year's Day The alleged victim was youth justice student Krystal Mission (pictured), 21, who told MailOnline she felt pain 'everywhere' after the attack with her arms, legs and face swollen Violence flared outside Lotus nightclub in Clapham just four hours into 2019 on New Year's Day Akingbaje was also charged with two counts of assault by beating against two other women alleged to have taken place during the same incident. At court, magistrate David Armitage told him: 'You have pleaded not guilty to this matter, the bench have declined jurisdiction. You are on conditional bail and must live at the address you gave us with an 8pm to 6am curfew.' The violence happened outside the club, which had hosted an event called 'Galaxy Gala 2019 - New Year's Eve at Lotus', with tickets costing up to 40. The alleged victim was youth justice student Krystal Mission, 21, who told MailOnline she felt pain 'everywhere' after the attack with her arms, legs and face swollen. Her friend Tanya Matangaidze posted a video of the attack on Twitter in the early hours of New Year's Day and said she was 'in shock' at what had happened. The club had hosted an event called 'Galaxy Gala 2019' with tickets costing up to 40 each The violence happened outside the club in South West London at about 4am on New Year's Day The violence was one of several separate incidents in London on New Year's Day, which also saw a bouncer for a party at a Mayfair townhouse stabbed to death. In a night of bloodshed, a woman in her early thirties was also killed at a home in Camberwell, south London, in an unrelated stabbing at 4.20am. The two unrelated murders followed London's deadliest year in a decade, which saw 134 killings recorded by Scotland Yard, including 24 victims aged up to 19. Also on New Year's Day a young woman was shot in east London at 5am. The victim, said to be in her 20s, was blasted in the leg at Visions Video Bar in Hackney. And police had to rescue a young mother after a man allegedly attacked her and her baby with a 2ft sword at a New Year's Eve party at 5am in a flat in Walsall. Ministers are launching a no-deal Brexit publicity blitz ahead of the crunch Commons vote on Theresa May's deal due in two weeks time. Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay today said Whitehall departments and the health regulator will begin publishing guidance on how the public can get ready. The information campaign, which will also see broadcasts on radio and social media, comes after the Government sought to advise businesses on how they might best prepare for no deal. With the showdown in Parliament set for the week beginning January 14, an advertising campaign will warn over 'disruption' to travel and medicine if the UK crashes out of the bloc in March. Advice will include renewing passports earlier than planned - likely to ensure they have at least six months validity during any no deal disruption. Meanwhile, Environment Secretary Michael Gove warned if Britain leaves without a deal 'turbulence would be considerable' and have a 'grim' impact on farmers. The drive comes as the PM mounts a frantic last-ditch bid to wring concessions out of the EU that could win over MPs. Ministers are launching a no-deal Brexit publicity blitz ahead of the crunch Commons vote on Theresa May's deal as the PM arrives back in Downing Street for the first time this year (pictured) Mrs May has the Christmas break calling round EU counterparts including Angela Merkel and Spain's Pedro Sanchez pleading for legal guarantees that the Irish border 'backstop' cannot last indefinitely. But at the same time the government is stepping up contingency plans for leaving without any agreement in three months' time. In a speech to the Oxford Farming Conference today, Mr Gove said Britain would 'flourish' in time if it left without a deal - but that it would cause short term disruption. He said: 'It would hit worst small farmers and small food producers.' The Environment Secretary said tariffs, border checks, potential delays for recognition of organic products and labour pressures would all add to costs for food producers. What tariffs could be imposed on UK food after a no deal Brexit? Michael Gove warned today if there is a no deal Brexit, food exported from Britain to the EU could be subject to charges as it crosses the border. The tarrifs could be: Beef 65 per cent Lamb 46 per cent Whole milk 70 per cent Poultry 14 per cent Advertisement 'Nobody can be blithe or blase about the real impacts on food producers in this country of leaving without the deal,' he told the conference. Mr Gove said it was a 'grim and inescapable fact' that no deal would mean 40 per cent or worse tariffs on meat exporters. He said even if a further fall in the pound boosts exports, it would also fuel inflation at home - hitting farms harder still. Mr Barclay said that no deal will be 'far more likely' if MPs reject the Mrs May's package in the vote, due to be held in the week beginning January 14. 'The pace and intensity of the work we are doing reflects the potential scale of this disruption to people and businesses across the UK that a no-deal scenario could bring,' Mr Barclay wrote in the Daily Express. 'The Home Office will next week be publicising guidance on new passport rules for people travelling to many European countries. Meanwhile, Environment Secretary Michael Gove (pictured today at the Oxford Farming Conference) warned if Britain leaves without a deal 'turbulence would be considerable' Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay today said Whitehall departments and the health regulator will begin publishing guidance on how the public can get ready 'These rules would mean some people have to renew their passport earlier than planned. Advice is already available online and next week the Home Office will further publicise how to renew a passport as easily as possible. What are the no deal Brexit plans which have been enacted? Here are the emergency no deal plans which have been activated: Some 3,500 troops are on standby for no deal Brexit Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said the troops could be used by any department as needed - but that no specific requests had yet been made for them. Ministers will book space on ferries to ensure critical supplies, such as medicines, can get in if there are long queues at the borders Families are to to be given advice on how to prepare for a no deal Brexit Up to 10,000 lorries could be parked in Kent if no deal causes delays at the ports The Kent authorities have warned that the gridlock could mean pupils miss school and exams, while bodies could pile up Advertisement 'The Department for Transport is sharing guidance on how we will ensure people can continue to travel to the EU in the event of no deal, and today the medicines regulator has updated guidance to ensure regulatory processes for medicines, medical devices and clinical trials are fit for purpose. 'And, on Tuesday, we will start a new phase in our public information campaign, using radio and social media to further raise awareness.' Despite Downing Street's hopes, there is little sign that the Christmas break has changed the minds of more than 100 Tory MPs pledged to vote against the EU deal. Ex-Brexit Secretary David Davis today urged Mrs May to pull the vote again. It was already delayed from last month when the premier admitted she faced a catastrophic defeat. Mr Davis said the EU would back down on Ireland at the 'eleventh hour' because it is reluctant to make concessions but does want its 39billion divorce payment. Mr Davis, in a column for the Daily Telegraph, said: 'The Withdrawal Agreement does not respect the referendum result. 'That is why the meaningful vote had to be delayed and one wonders if even the January vote will go ahead. 'Attempts to frighten MPs into supporting it are unlikely to work, because voting down this substandard deal will not result in no Brexit.' Elsewhere, one senior Tory MP told MailOnline that winning over the DUP, the Northern Irish party propping up the Tories in Parliament, was crucial. Mrs May will need dramatic changes to the Irish border backstop in the divorce deal. Critics say it creates a divide between Northern Ireland and Great Britain and risks leaving the UK trapped in a customs union indefinitely with no UK-EU trade deal. If the 10 Ulster MPs come on board, dozens of Tory rebels would likely follow - dramatically raising Mrs May's hopes of an improbable victory in two weeks. The party's Westminster leader Nigel Dodds was in Downing Street for talks yesterday - but warned the Irish border backstop remained unacceptable. Democrats are preparing a bill that would force presidential nominees to release 10 years of their tax returns, it is claimed. President Trump broke with decades of precedent when running for the White House in 2016 by refusing to disclose his own tax returns. House Democrats are expected to introduce the new bill in one of their first pieces of legislation as they take over the majority today, CNN reports. Donald Trump, pictured yesterday at the White House, has refused to release his personal tax returns but Democrats could force them into the public domain with new legislation The proposals would force candidates for President and Vice President to release the documents after they are nominated, it is reported. Voters could then view the candidates' tax returns on the Federal Election Commission's website. If passed, the bill would force President Trump to release his returns ahead of the 2020 election. However the proposal is unlikely to become law while Republicans control the Senate and the White House. Democrat Richard Neal, who is taking over as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, will face pressure from his party to request Trump's tax returns. A rule in the Internal Revenue Code allows the committee chairman to request any taxpayer's returns from the Treasury Department. Democrat Richard Neal (pictured), who is taking over as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee which could introduce a bill to request presidential tax returns Democrats would however still face a legal fight to publish the documents even if they obtained them using the 1924 rule. The new chairman has also said his committee will hold hearings on the $1.5 trillion tax cut passed by Republicans last year. Trump has said he will not release his tax returns while he is under audit by the Internal Revenue Service. Tax returns of previous Presidents including Barack Obama and George W. Bush were published on the White House website. The search for the second black box from the Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX jet that crashed into the Java Sea in October has ended, the airline said today. The crash, the world's first of a Boeing Co 737 MAX jet and the deadliest of 2018, killed all 189 people on board. Contact with flight JT610 was lost 13 minutes after it took off from the capital Jakarta heading north to the tin-mining town of Pangkal Pinang. Recovery mission: An Indonesian National Transportation Safety Commission (KNKT) official examines a recovered turbine engine from the Lion Air flight JT610 in Jakarta in November The main wreckage and cockpit voice recorder, one of two so-called black boxes, were not recovered in an initial search. Lion Air said in December that it was funding a 38billion rupiah (2.1million) search using the offshore supply ship MPV Everest in what was seen as a rare test of global norms regarding search independence, as such costs are typically paid by governments. Danang Mandala, the spokesman for Lion Air Group, told Reuters that the search using the ship had ended on Saturday. A spokesman for the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Commission (KNKT), however, said on Thursday the agency would to start its own search for the black box as soon as feasible. The CVR is likely to hold vital clues that could give investigators insight into the actions of the pilots. Heartbreaking: Families of passengers of Lion Air flight JT610 stand as they look at the recovered belongings of the passengers at Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta in October The KNKT spokesman said negotiations with the Indonesian navy were under way to use a navy ship to relaunch the search for the second black box as soon as possible. 'It might be as soon as next week. It won't be as fancy as the (Lion-subsidized) MPV Everest but will be equipped with a CVR detector and we already have a remote-operated vehicle,' the spokesman said. The clock is ticking in the hunt for acoustic pings coming from the L3 Technologies Inc cockpit voice recorder fitted to the jet. It has a 90-day beacon, the manufacturers online brochure shows. The family of the Indonesian co-pilot of the flight filed a wrongful death lawsuit on Friday against Boeing in Chicago, adding to litigation piling up against the manufacturer in its hometown. A woman holds a picture of a relative, one of the 189 people killed in a Lion Air plane crash, during a rally held in Jakarta last month, calling for Lion Air and Indonesian President Joko Widodo to ensure all remains are recovered A preliminary report by KNKT focused on airline maintenance and training and the response of a Boeing anti-stall system to a recently replaced sensor but did not give a cause for the crash. The lawsuit alleges that the Lion Air-operated Boeing 737 MAX 8 was unreasonably dangerous because its sensors provided inconsistent information to both the pilots and the aircraft. At least two other lawsuits have been filed against Boeing in Chicago by the victims. The families of victims were not immediately reachable for comment. A groom has been left with multiple injuries and a hefty insurance bill after a wedding day hazing ritual turned torturous. Ai Guangtao, 24, from southern China, suffered a fractured skull after being struck by a car as he fled from a terrifying ritual led by his friends in the lead up to his wedding. Wedding hazing Chinese tradition aimed at getting rid of evil spirits, but the tradition has been spiraling out of control in recent years with a number of violent incidents reported. A groom has been left with multiple injuries and a hefty insurance bill after a wedding day hazing ritual turned torturous (pictured) Ai Guangtao, 24, from southern China, suffered a fractured skull after being struck by a car as he fled from terrifying ritual put on by his friends in the lead up to his wedding (pictured) Mr Guangtao clambered over the barrier to the motorway to escape his 'tormentors' and was hit by an oncoming vehicle (pictured are his injuries) As part of the tradition, Mr Guangtao friends' tied him to a power pole and hit him with bamboo. He had ink, eggs and beer thrown over him. 'I was so tortured on my wedding day that I got angry. They chased me, and I could barely see anything because there was ink all over (me),' he told South China Morning Post. 'Somehow, I ran to the motorway even after that one of them was still chasing me.' Mr Guangtao clambered over the barrier to the motorway to escape his 'tormentors' and was hit by an oncoming vehicle. As part of the tradition, Mr Guangtao friends' tied him to a power pole and hit him with bamboo. He had ink, eggs and beer thrown over him (pictured) His wedding was called off as he had to be rushed to hospital where he spent a number of weeks recovering. Mr Guangtao and his wife were legally married prior to the ceremony His wedding ceremony was called off as he had to be rushed to hospital, where he spent a number of weeks recovering. But Mr Guangtao and his wife were legally married prior to the ceremony. However, as police believe Mr Guangtao was responsible for the crash, he now owes 30,000 yuan (AUD $6,200) in damages to the driver's insurance company. His friends have raised 6,000 yuan (AUD $1,200) to cover medical bills. A furious mother has slammed her local convenience store for not letting her pay in 50 cent pieces. This week, Amy Dee attempted to pay for a few essential groceries, including bread and milk, which came to a total of $10, using the leftover change. After she was refused service at On The Run petrol station in Salisbury, South Australia, the disgruntled woman took to Facebook to vent her anger. A furious mother has slammed her local convenience store for not letting her pay in 50 cent pieces (pictured: OTR Salisbury service station) Ms Dee described how the cashier refused to take the pile of 50 cent coins she handed over. The mother took to Facebook to vent her anger, saying: 'I was the only car there, so they weren't busy at all with customers, my 11 month old was getting cranky cause he is tired and I was refused service cause the man serving wouldn't accept my change.' 'So much for convenience shopping.' However the service station replied claiming it was well within its legal right to refuse the tender, citing the Reserve Bank of Australia's policy on coin payment However, the service station replied claiming it was well within its legal right to refuse the tender, citing the Reserve Bank of Australia's policy on coin payment. According to Section 16 of the Currency Act 1965, if someone wants to pay a merchant with 50 cent coins, they can only pay up to a value of $5. Salisbury Drive Thru added: 'We apologise that this was not better explained to you in store today and we will be sure to follow up with the store and Team Member.' A service station in Australia is selling petrol for less than $1 a litre for the first time in more than two years. Metro Petroleum at Lurnea, in south-west Sydney, has been retailing unleaded for just 99.9 cents a litre. CommSec economist Ryan Felsman told Daily Mail Australia this was the first time a Sydney service station had sold petrol for less than $1 a litre since August 2016. A service station in Australia is selling petrol for less than $1 a litre for the first time in more than two years (pictured is Metro Petroleum at Lurnea in Sydney's south-west) Australia's average petrol price hasn't been sold for less than a gold coin since February 2005, when unleaded was selling for 98.90 cents a litre. As recently as October, average unleaded prices across the country had climbed to 159.3 cents a litre, the dearest since July 2008, but they have since fallen sharply following a 40 per cent plunge in the price of crude oil. Across Sydney's south-west on Thursday, unleaded was selling for 108 cents a litre, from Condell Park and Yagoona, Motor Mouth pricing data showed. In Melbourne's western suburbs, unleaded was selling for slightly more at 109.9 cents a litre from Footscray to Altona. Metro Petroleum at Lurnea (pictured), in south-west Sydney, has been retailing unleaded for just 99.9 cents a litre Petrol prices in Australia's biggest cities are selling at the cheapest price in 15 months, following the fall in crude oil prices. Sydney's average is now 115.9 cents a litre compared with Melbourne's 117.3 cents a litre and Brisbane's 116.7 cents a litre. The global Brent price of crude oil has fallen by 40 per cent since early October to $US52.20 a barrel, which equates to 75.25 Australian dollars with the local currency having this week fallen close to 70 US cents for the first time in almost three years. The New Jersey schoolboy who died from a suspected allergic reaction to the smell of fish being cooked by his gran used his final words to tell his father he loved him. Little Camron Jean-Pierre gave dad Steven two kisses after falling ill at the family home in New York as the desperate parent tried to save his son on New Year's Day. Fighting back tears Steven said the pair had traveled from New Jersey to Brooklyn to spend the day with Camron's grandma, who was said to have been cooking cod. The smell is said to have quickly overwhelmed the youngster and his family tried to revive him using his portable nebulizer. Camron Jean-Pierre died from a suspected allergic reaction to the smell of fish being cooked by his gran on New Year's Day HOW FISH ALLERGIES CAN BE DEADLY The Food Allergy Research & Education say that finned fish is one of the most common food allergies. They say it can cause severe and potentially life-threatening allergic reactions and is one of the eight major allergens that must be listed on packaged foods sold in the U.S. Dr. Purvi Parikh, an allergist with NYU Langone Health, told Fox8 that inhaling certain foods can cause an allergic reaction for some but it is less common than touching. Advertisement Camron is understood to have used the machine for his asthma and was known to have an allergy to fish, The Daily News reports. Steven said: 'It just so happens they was cooking it when we came in. We knew he had an allergy but usually he don't get nothing that severe. 'I [tried] to give him the machine that usually works but it didn't take, and then I just called the ambulance. 'He told me, "Daddy, I love you. I love you." He gave me two kisses. He kept telling me, "I'm not able to breathe." Steven carried out CPR on his son before Camron was rushed to Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center but medics were unable to save him. He told The New York Post: 'That was my prince, man. He was my everything.' Camron's gran is understood to have been cooking cod when he arrived at her Brooklyn home He was rushed to Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center but could not be saved Neighbours said Camron was a 'very respectful child', calling his death 'shocking'. The Medical Examiner will determine his official cause of death but police have said he had some type of reaction to the seafood. A sailor girl has shared her joy after discovering her missing yacht has resurfaced nine years after she abandoned it at sea. Abby Sunderland, now 25 years old, said her heart 'skipped a beat' when she discovered her boat, Wild Eyes, had reemerged just off the Kangaroo Island, in South Australia. 'Seeing Wild Eyes on the news was very emotional. My heart skipped a beat,' Ms Sunderland, from California, said in a statement. Abby Sunderland (pictured) has spoken of her joy at discovering her missing boat has reemerged 'It brought back many memories good and not so good but it was neat to see it after so long,' she added. Ms Sunderland had been attempting to set an around-the-world sailing record when she was forced to abandon her boat due to equipment faults and bad weather. Since then the boat has been aimlessly roaming the sea since 2010, but despite the odds the ghost boat has managed to stay afloat for almost a decade. Speaking of the boat's wreckage, which was discovered on New Year's Eve, Ms Sunderland said: 'It looked a little creepy but thats to be expected after so long. 'I always knew the boat was high quality and very safe, so it doesn't really surprise me that it's still floating,' she added. Ms Sunderland's father also noted that as amazing as it would be to reunite with Wild Eyes one last time, he insisted the family had moved on. Speaking to ABC News he said: 'It's incredible to be put back in that time, when this was such a big, massive part of our lives, almost the world stood still waiting to hear if Abigail had been rescued - it could have gone differently. 'Abigail survived due to the heroic rescue attempt. Now she is a mother of three, soon to be four, happily married,' he added. Abby's 2010 attempt to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world was unsuccessful after she encountered high winds and multiple knockdowns in a remote area of the Indian Ocean. high winds and multiple knockdowns in a remote area of the Indian Ocean unfortunately stopped Ms Sunderland's world record attempt Ms Sunderland first set sail from California on January 23, 2010, but was forced to stop down the coast in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico She was rescued by French and Australian authorities, which cost an estimated $300,000. The young girl first set sail from California on January 23, 2010, but was forced to stop down the coast in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, because of problems generating enough solar power. After repairs to Wild Eyes, she set sail again in February 2010, taking three months to reach Cape Town where she stopped for more repairs. During the trip from Mexico to South Africa, she became the youngest ever sailor to pass Cape Horn - the southernmost tip of South America. On June 10, 2010, as Abby headed through the Indian Ocean north east of the Kerguelen Islands, her yacht was struck by wild winds, forcing her to trigger two emergency beacons after her satellite phone failed. More than 4,700 miles (7,600km) from the west coast of Australia, the young sailor spent a night alone at sea in her stricken boat before the Australian Maritime Safety Authority could reach her in a Qantas search plane. She was rescued on June 12 by a French fishing ship before being taken to Reunion Island, a French island off the east coast of Madagascar, so she could be flown home. Her ordeal was later turned into a film and Abby also went on to write a book about her experience, with both released in 2011. On Wednesday, Rhys Howard (pictured) was heard by terrified neighbours screaming 'why don't you die?' - sparking a police emergency The father who ignited a three-car police raid in a quiet suburban street after he was heard screaming 'why don't you die?' at a spider has admitted he killed it with a nappy. Rhys Howard's blood-curdling screams were so loud his scared neighbours frantically called the police thinking a violent murder was occurring. The 30-year-old father-of-two, who carries a serious disdain for the eight-legged creatures, has recalled the moment a police squad stormed his Perth home early on Wednesday morning. 'I was out in the backyard with my daughter and my partner Kara answered the door to the police. They seemed really concerned,' Mr Howard told Daily Mail Australia. 'They said they had recorded reports of a toddler crying and someone yelling 'why don't you die'. 'Kara laughed and said that that was my partner Rhys, he was killing a spider.' The spider that created the police emergency was either a 'white tail or huntsman around the size of a ten cent piece (pictured) However, once police arrived at his Wanneroo property, his partner Kara Chook, (pictured left with Mr Howard right) relieved them by saying that it had just been his partner 'killing a spider' Though Mr Howard doesn't exactly suffer from arachnophobia, his partner Kara, who calls herself 'the man of the house' usually does the killing. But since she was in the shower at the time, Mr Howard mustered up the courage to take on the critter himself. 'The thought of it being loose in the house and not knowing where it was gave me the adrenaline to kill it,' he said. Police told Daily Mail Australia they dispatched three units to his address due to the 'severity of the call'. 'They came out the back and Kara said to me 'you're in trouble!' I was thinking 'oh god what have I done why are there police here'.' Three police units were dispatched to the Wanneroo property, with the screenshot (pictured) taken after police visited the home and realised the mishap, has since gone viral around the country Mr Howard revealed to Daily Mail Australia that his partner Ms Chook (pictured together) 'usually does the killing', but she was in the shower during the incident 'They then had a grin on their face and asked 'did you get it?'. 'I was like 'get what?' and they said 'the spider'. That's when I tired red and started laughing and apologising. 'I get that I can be a little over the top.' When asked about the spider that started the frenzy, Mr Howard said it was either a 'white tail or a huntsman around the size of a ten cent piece' and revealed how it met its end with an unlikely weapon. 'We are toilet training our daughter at the moment so I was looking for a shoe or something to kill it with and the only thing I could find was a nappy,' he said. 'So I picked it up and repeatedly mashed it with the nappy and was screaming 'why won't you die!'. 'I was also yelling at my daughter to stay in the playroom and to not come near me so it probably did sound terrifying to someone walking by.' The pair are thankful for the worried neighbour who contacted the police, so much that they have reached out to a community Facebook page but have yet to get into contact with them When asked if they had contacted their worried neighbours after the incident, he said they still have no idea who they are. 'We posted in the Edgewater Facebook page asking who it was and wanted to thank them for calling the police,' he said. 'It is nice to live in a suburb with friendly neighbours looking out for my family.' Wanneroo police also praised the worried neighbour for their quick thinking and despite the frantic drive to their home, were relieved at what they found. 'Obviously it was the preferred outcome,' Senior Sergeant Simon Hazell told Daily Mail Australia. A judge who told a blind alleged rape victim that she was at fault could lose his job. Magistrate Richard Pithouse told the woman she had 'put herself in that position' at a hearing on October 24 2018. The conduct of Mr Pithouse was referred to the Judicial Commission of Victoria by attorney-general Jill Hennessy and the commission said the complaint would be 'carefully considered'. 'While the investigation is ongoing, it is not appropriate for the commission to make any further comment,' it said in a statement on Wednesday. Controversial magistrate Richard Pithouse, who told a blind victim of alleged rape that she was at fault, could lose his job Mr Pithouse suggested the alleged victim had 'buyer's remorse' after she claimed she was raped by a man she met after a night of drinking at Melbourne's Crown Casino in 2017. He used the adage 'you can't profit from your own malfeasance' to describe the woman's situation, The Herald Sun reported. The comments came during a hearing which was to determine whether the woman should receive financial aid as a result of her being a victim of crime. The woman said she woke up after the March 11 alleged attack in the man's Yarraville home with vague memories of him assaulting her while she began to drunkenly pass out. She then called a crisis hotline and reported it to police before calling a doctor, and stayed in her clothes so she could be properly examined for forensic evidence. After the woman's lawyer disagreed with the judge's words, Mr Pithouse said that this was the purpose of the hearing but the woman 'might have to reconsider her opinion - it's part of life.' Controversial magistrate Richard Pithouse told the woman, who's legally blind, that she had 'put herself in that position' after she claimed she was raped by a man she met after a night of drinking at Melbourne's Crown Casino last year (stock image) The woman complained about Mr Pithouse to the Judical Commission, claiming he victim-blamed her. 'He pretty much said I provoked what happened,' she said. The woman went on to say that this was the very reason she was reluctant to report the crime. 'I'd been out drinking alone and left with a man. I knew society's tendency to victim-blame,' she continued. 'He pretty much said I provoked what happened,' the woman said after complaining about Mr Pithouse to the Judicial Commission (stock image) There is no indication when the investigation into Mr Pithouse will be finished. The commission has the ability to dismiss any complaint or refer it to an investigative panel if deemed serious enough. When referred to a panel and deemed true, a removal from office on grounds of misbehaviour could be warranted. If it's less serious it can be handed to a relevant head of jurisdiction with recommendations. A range of complaints can be considered by the commission. This can include lengthy delays when giving judgments, improper courtroom conduct, health issues that would affect a judicial officer or their ability to perform duties. Mr Pithouse's statements came after a series of controversies in recent years. In 2017, he told a victim of domestic violence that she wanted to be assaulted after failing to report it to the police straight away. In another case, he ordered a charged violent criminal to pay a $250 fine to the RSPCA instead of being sentenced. The woman's case did not proceed to a criminal trial, but she was encouraged to take her case to the Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal, which handle applications for financial aid. A Florida man has been arrested on attempted felony murder charges after he allegedly shot his wife and her parents on New Year's Day after he found what was believed to be an intimate video of his wife and his best friend together. Police said the holiday shooting happened shortly before 5pm at a family home in Melbourne. William Brian Stillwell, 39, allegedly shot his wife, Mona Stillwell, her mother and her father in the legs and hips after he found cellphone video that apparently showed his wife cheating on him with one of his friends. All three victims were transported to the hospital with injuries, but will survive, authorities said. Scroll down for video William Brian Stillwell, (left) 39, allegedly shot his wife, Mona Stillwell, (right) and her parents Tuesday during a domestic dispute Stillwell (pictured with his wife) allegedly found an intimate video of his wife and best friend together Mona Stillwell's parents were also shot. They are pictured above on Facebook Two couple's two young children were inside the home at the time of the shooting, but were not injured. The five-year-old twins were heard in a 911 call begging their father not to shoot their mother, according to WESH 2. The mother is heart in the clip shouting out to one of her kids: 'Get out and run, baby, run!' Melbourne Police Department Lt. Shawn Eising said in a statement that the kids 'were able to escape the home and run to a neighbor who was able to provide them security and some level of comfort.' Three family dogs also escaped from the home. One of them is still missing. Two couple's two young children were inside the home at the time of the shooting, but were not injured Stillwell was taken into custody Tuesday and booked to jail. He has been charged with felony attempted murder, armed burglary, child abuse and concealing a firearm. On Tuesday, Mona Stillwell changed her Facebook profile photo from a photo herself next to her husband to a photo showing only their twin children. The Stillwell family is from Satellite Beach. Stillwell was taken into custody Tuesday and booked to jail on $10,000 bond. He is pictured in court Wednesday A serial killer dubbed China's 'Jack the Ripper' who raped and murdered 11 female victims - the youngest aged just eight - has been executed today. Gao Chengyong, 54, slaughtered women and girls in China's Gansu and Inner Mongolia regions between 1988 and 2002, sexually assaulting his victims before cutting their throats and removing their reproductive organs. After evading justice for 30 years, he was found guilty of rape, murder and dishonouring corpses by a court in the northwest city of Baiyin, Gansu province in March last year, and sentenced to death. Killer: Gao Chengyong, 54, robbed, raped and murdered 11 women and girls between 1988 and 2002 in Gansu and Inner Mongolia regions in China. The court which handed him the death sentence announced today that the it had been carried out after approval from China's supreme court. Gao targeted young women wearing red and followed them home, often cutting their throats and mutilating their bodies, according to state media reports. The youngest victim was eight years old. Some victims had their reproductive organs removed, the Beijing Youth Daily said when Gao was arrested in 2016. 'To satisfy his perverted desire to dishonour and sully corpses, many of his female victims' corpses were damaged and violated,' the court said on Weibo when he was convicted. Gao targeted young women wearing red and followed them home, often cutting their throats and mutilating their bodies 'The motives of the defendant's crimes were despicable, his methods extremely cruel, the nature of the acts vile and the details of the crimes serious.' Police had been hunting Gao for years. 'The suspect has a sexual perversion and hates women,' police said in 2004 when they linked the crimes for the first time and offered a reward of 200,000 yuan (23,175) for information leading to an arrest. 'He's reclusive and unsociable, but patient,' according to the police profiling at the time. A lead in the case came when police collected and tested the DNA of one of Gao's relatives over a separate minor crime, the China Daily had reported. Police concluded the killer they had been hunting for 28 years was a relation, and Gao's DNA matched the murderer's. The original Jack the Ripper was a serial killer active in east London in the late Victorian era, who is widely believed to have murdered five women, mutilating several of them. Those killings have never been solved. Advertisement Confetti burst into the air and pop stars crooned when the Church of Scientology's Australian headquarters opened its doors about two-and-a-half years ago. But the $57 million facility, hailed as a 'perfectly perfect beacon of freedom' during its 2016 ribbon cutting, was marred with blood, death and tragedy on Thursday afternoon. A 24-year-old worshipper was fatally stabbed in the neck on the religious centre's sprawling grounds near Chatswood, on Sydney's north shore. The young man was rushed to Royal North Shore in a critical condition just after 12.30pm but later died at Royal North Shore Hospital. Police hauled bags of evidence out of the grounds of the Church of Scientology's regional headquarters, at Chatswood, on Sydney's lower north shore, on Thursday afternoon Several officers stood guard outside the premises, blocking off entrances to the three acre, $57 million facility with police tape The site was described as 'perfectly perfect' upon its opening in 2016 but there was a decidedly morbid feel to acreage on Thursday (file photo) The entrance to the Church headquarters on Sydney's lower north shore, pictured prior to becoming a crime scene The building's 'great auditorium'. A photo of the religion's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, can be seen mounted on the wall, far right The disturbing incident unfolded after a 'domestic incident' led to a boy being removed from the premises on Wednesday. The incident was unrelated to the Church, police said. It's thought the 16-year-old had a family member who attended the centre and was at the facility on Thursday. A young Scientologist, who asked not to be identified, told the Australian Associated Press his mother was inside the facility and he'd been stopped from entering to see her. 'I came down when the first (media) camera crew showed up but I was told it wasn't a huge deal,' he told AAP. 'It's a huge building, a lot of people come from around Asia to study here,' he said. 'It offers a lot of services other (Scientology properties) don't.' The Church's construction of its headquarters in Chatswood was controversial. Local residents were concerned that the site's opening would make the bush area too busy. The facility is the Church's 'biggest spiritual facility outside the United States'. The facility contains dozens of course rooms where followers can study and receive spiritual counselling using the organisation's 'e-meter' technology The building contains an office for L. Ron Hubbard - a 'permanent' tribute to the science fiction author who founded the religion decades ago Green and gold confetti fell from the sky as Scientology followers celebrated the facility's opening in 2016 - with pop star Kate Ceberano also performing David Miscavige, the leader of the Church of Scientology, said the site was 'perfectly perfect' when he opened the facility (pictured) The organisation purchasing the site for $37 million and plunging a further $20 million into renovations and reconstruction. The secretive group hoped followers from Taiwan, Indonesia, New Zealand and part of Asia would be able to worship at the centre, the former site of the National Acoustics Laboratory. Facilities include 60 'auditing' or spiritual counselling rooms - where technology called 'e-meters' are used; a chapel, grand auditorium, production studio and an office devoted to L. Ron Hubbard. Police investigations into today's stabbing continue. An American woman who was living her dream of teaching abroad in Thailand fell ill with an autoimmune disease that left her paralyzed in a hospital. Caroline Bradner, 22, a recent college graduate from Henrico County, Virginia, developed Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) just before Christmas, according to a GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign. Bradners illness prompted her family and friends back home in Virginia to raise money for the substantial costs of repatriating her to America and pursuing treatment and rehabilitation. The initial goal of the campaign was to raise $70,000, but after it went viral the public responded with donations totaling more than $74,000. Caroline Bradner, 22, an American woman who was living her dream of teaching abroad in Thailand, fell ill and has been left paralyzed in a hospital. She is seen above with Thai medical personnel in this undated file photo Bradner, 22, a recent college graduate from Henrico County, Virginia, fell ill with Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) just before Christmas, according to a GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign When she was first admitted to the hospital in Thailand, doctors initially thought she had multiple sclerosis The family said that Bradner woke up on December 22 in her apartment in southern Thailand unable to move. After she was admitted into the hospital, doctors ran blood tests and thought she might be suffering from multiple sclerosis. So she received medication and was sent home. Over the course of the next two days, however, her condition deteriorated. What started as muscle weakness in her abdomen, worsened into paralysis over the course of two days, according to the GoFundMe page. Initially, the insurance company refused the familys request to provide Bradner with transportation home. But after Bradners case generated an outpouring of public sympathy, the insurance company agreed to bring her stateside. The family now says that all of the family raised on GoFundMe will go toward medical and rehabilitation costs. Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) occurs when the body's immune system attacks its nervous system. It affects around one in 100,000 people in the U.K. and U.S. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that it affects between 3,000 and 6,000 people every year. Bradney has been teaching English in the Thai village of Surat Thani, which is not far from the island of Phuket Bradners illness prompted her family and friends back home in Virginia to raise money for the substantial costs of repatriating her to America and pursuing treatment and rehabilitation Symptoms usually start with a tingling sensation in the leg, which may spread to the arms and upper body. In severe cases, the person can become paralyzed. The condition can be life-threatening if it affects a person's breathing, blood pressure or heart rate. GBS' cause is unknown, but it usually occurs after a viral infection. Treatment focuses on restoring the nervous system. After Bradner finished her undergrad at the University of Mississippi, she waited tables and saved money to pursue her dream of teaching English in Thailand. She has that tenacious spirit, her dad, Jim Bradner, told WTVR-TV. Bradner's father, Jim Bradner, says his daughter has fallen in love with her Thai students, whom she teaches English She has that tenacious spirit, her dad, Jim Bradner, said. That she wants to go out there and try something new. It was inspiring to me that she wanted to do this. But, it was scary too because shes exactly on the other side of the globe' That she wants to go out there and try something new. It was inspiring to me that she wanted to do this. But, it was scary too because shes exactly on the other side of the globe. She applied to teach through a program called Xplore Asia. She has been living in Surat Thani, a small village not far from Phuket, since October. Jim Bradner said his daughter was in no hurry to come home after she fell in love with the children she taught. Despite the severity of her illness, Caroline Bradner was seen in photos on GoFundMe smiling and laughing with doctors. Shes scared because she cant move, Pierce Bradner, her sister, said. But, she is really strong and really brave. Shes a great person, the best sister. A close friend and neighbor of the family in Virginia, Lori Horton, is a registered nurse. She told the family that Carolines paralysis could be reversed, though she warned it could take months - perhaps years - of rehabilitation. Horton said: The key to healing has a psychological component that you cant replace by being so far away. This is very stressful for mom and Caroline to be so far away. Carolines physical condition is complicating plans to bring her back to America. Doctors are not allowing her to take a regular commercial flight because of her fragile physical state. The family has raised more than $74,000 which will go toward medical and rehabilitation. The travel insurance company that issued Caroline's policy has agreed to pay for her return to America The only option is for Caroline to be accompanied by a nurse and her mother. Theres also the distance. Thailand is some 9,000 miles away from home - which is translated into 26 hours of flight time. The logistics that need to be arranged are quite costly, which is why the family has asked for public donations. The hospital there has put out bids to get us costs and we should know something in the next two to three days, Jim Bradner said. A woman accused of brutally stabbing and bashing a 92-year-old pensioner has been identified as Hanny Papanicolaou. The 35-year-old, who police believe was working as a cleaner at the elderly woman's home in Sydney's inner west, has been charged with attempted murder. Emergency crews rushed to the home in Ashbury when a personal panic alarm was activated at about 10.45am on Wednesday. A woman accused of brutally stabbing and bashing a 92-year-old pensioner has been identified as Hanny Papanicolaou (pictured) They discovered the woman bleeding heavily from her scalp and abdomen, police said. She was taken to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in a serious condition and underwent emergency surgery for face and body injuries, plus several stab wounds. She is now in an induced coma and will require further surgery, Superintendent David Johnson said on Thursday. The woman was heard moaning by a neighbour who came to her aid. Emergency crews rushed to the home in Ashbury when a personal panic alarm was activated at about 10.45am on Wednesday The accused was later arrested after a vehicle stop on Griffin Parade, Illawong, in the city's south. She was taken to Sutherland Hospital with an ankle injury and was due to appear at Parramatta Bail Court on Thursday. As she prepared to face court following her discharge from hospital on Thursday afternoon, her husband was playing with her children in the backyard of the couple's townhouse, which they purchased in May 2015. When approached by Daily Mail Australia for comment on the charges, Mr Papanicolaou looked tired and overwhelmed, and said: 'No thank you'. Neighbours said they knew the family, particularly the husband, and had seen him and the children in common areas of the complex, but were not able to say much about the accused. One man said he believed the couple had students living with them. The 35-year-old (pictured), who police believe was working as a cleaner at the elderly woman's home in Sydney's inner west, has been charged with attempted murder On Thursday, police set up several crime scenes around the victim's home, a number of items were seized for forensic testing. 'I think the injuries are very serious and I think that everyone is very concerned about the condition of this elderly lady,' Supt Johnson said. 'Whilst the injuries I understand are survivable, given the elderly age and the frailty of the victim, I suppose it will be in the next days and weeks we will no doubt have a greater indication of whether she will pull through or not. 'Of course we are all hoping and praying that that is the case.' Supt Johnson said it's unclear what the attacker's motive was but described it as a one-off incident. The younger woman had been employed by the victim for about 12 months. The girlfriend of a U.S. Marine who was shot and killed on Tuesday morning while on duty at the Marine barracks in the nation's capital posted a heartbreaking social media post the day before pining for her boyfriend to come home. 'Ready to have you home again,' Ali Undeberg wrote on Facebook under a new profile photo Monday showing her and Riley Kuznia. Undeberg, Kuznia's high school sweetheart, punctuated the short sentence with a heart emoji. She then updated that image after learning of the tragedy, writing: 'God wanted you home first.' On Wednesday, she wrote on Facebook: 'I will never stop loving you Ri.' The Marine Corps and Metropolitan Police both identified the fatality as Kuznia on Wednesday, waiting until 24 hours after the victim's family was notified to release his name, as is standard practice. A spokesperson for DC Metropolitan Police tells DailyMail.com that the incident is being looked into as a death investigation. Heartbreaking: Just hours before Riley Kuznia's death was announced, his girlfriend, Ali Undeberg, posted a photo of the two and wrote 'ready to have you home again' (couple above) After news broke of his death, she later edited it to read: 'God wanted you home first' 'I will never stop loving you Ri' she posted in Facebook on Wednesday Kuznia, 20, of Karlstad, Minnesota was fatally shot just after 5am on Tuesday morning by a fellow US Marine at the Barracks in Washington DC (Kuznia and his mother above) Courtesy of WJLA The Public Incident Report filed by the responding officer on Tuesday reveals that officials responded to the scene just after 5am in the morning after getting the call that a Marine had discharged his weapon and wounded Kuznia. He was rushed by ambulance to Washington Hospital Center according to the report, where life-saving measures were performed. Those measures ultimately failed, and the Minnesota native was pronounced dead at 5:59am. Markelle Kuznia, who is the mother of the 20-year-old veteran, also confirmed the news in a heartbreaking Facebook post. 'With broken hearts we lost a loving son, cherished brother and dedicated Marine,' he wrote. 'We appreciate everyones thoughts and prayer during this difficult time! Please use his Facebook account to share all the amazing memories you shared with this goofy kid. Semper fidelis!' Gone too soon: A spokesperson for DC Metropolitan Police tells DailyMail.com that the incident is being treated as a death investigation (Kuznia above) Loved one: The incident occurred during a shift change and Kuznia was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead at 5:59am (Kuznia and girlfriend Ali Undeberg) Remarkable woman: The victim's mother posted a poignant message on her Facebook page The young man always dreamed of serving his country said his mother, and had joined up with the Marines right after his graduation. It was a big change for the boy from Karlstad, Minnesota, a community with a population of just 800 people. In addition to his mother and girlfriend, Riley also had three siblings back home - two sisters and a brother. A 21-year-old US soldier who flew from Colorado to Indiana and allegedly killed his wife, dumped her body in a trash can and then fled to Thailand, is now wanted for military desertion, authorities say. Prosecutors in Indiana filed murder charges Wednesday against Peter Van Bawi Lian for the death of Khuang Par, 27, whose body was found in an Indianapolis trash bin on December 23. Indianapolis police say Lian is on active duty with the U.S. Army. Police say he flew on December 22 from Fort Carson in Colorado Springs to Indianapolis, where Par had moved to be with family after Lian was arrested in November on charges of assaulting her. Lian is also from Indianapolis and his parents still live there. Flight records show Lian took a flight on the morning his wife's body was found to Hong Kong. He then flew to Bangkok, Thailand, on Christmas Eve. The Indianapolis Star reports Lian was due back at Fort Carson on December 26 but didn't return. Army officials declared him absent without leave (AWOL), and issued a military desertion warrant on December 26. Peter Van Bawi Lian, left, who flew from Colorado to Indiana and allegedly killed his wife Khuang Par, right, then fled to Thailand, is now wanted for military desertion Khuang Par's body was found inside a garbage dumpster at the Country Club apartments in Indianapolis, Indiana, on December 23 Lian allegedly choked his wife in a domestic dispute when they lived together at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Colorado Khuang Par, 27, shown, had moved in with her parents in Indianapolis after Lian's assault Par was allegedly a victim of domestic abuse in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Lian had reportedly choked his wife yelling, 'I'm going to kill you,' in their native Burmese, according to the Indianapolis Star. He was arrested on second-degree assault and menacing charges after the incident. The following month, Par's body was found by a homeless woman who saw a suitcase as she placed a bag in a dumpster at the Country Club apartment complex. She told police she had reached inside and felt what she thought was a body. The woman notified a man who lives nearby, and he called 911 after seeing the partially unzipped suitcase with the body of Khuang Par. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police investigate the dumpster that had contained the suitcase with Khuang Par's body A pair of escaped sex offenders are on the run from police, with one spotted in public after removing his GPS tracker. Christopher Empey removed his court-ordered GPS tracking bracelet in late November at Mansfield, north-east of Melbourne. In December, the yellow Suzuki motorbike he'd been riding was sold to a buyer in Nowra, on the New South Wales south coast where the 46-year-old was also caught on CCTV. Christopher Empey (pictured) removed his court-ordered GPS tracking bracelet in late November at Mansfield, north-east of Melbourne Detectives on Thursday said Empey appeared unshaven in CCTV footage (pictured) and is possibly injured, and urged anyone who spots him to call triple zero immediately Fellow sex offender Maurice Collie, 26, is also being hunted by police in Victoria. Victorian Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Paterson held a press conference on Thursday outlining the details behind the men's offences. 'Mr Collie has a number of convictions for sex offences, drug offences and dishonesty offences,' he told reporters. 'Mr Collie first offended in 2014 and in 2016 where he was convicted of sexual penetration of a child under 16.' 'The victim in relation to that matter was 15 years of age. And in 2017 he committed a further offence of a sexual assault on a child who was 11 years old and he was convicted in June 2018 (for) that offence.' Collie failed to contact police upon his release from custody and notify them of his current address. He was last seen in the Melbourne CBD on December 22 and contacted his family by phone on Christmas Day. Detectives on Thursday said Empey appeared unshaven in the CCTV footage and is possibly injured, and urged anyone who spots him to call triple zero immediately. Fellow sex offender Maurice Collie, 26, (pictured) is also being hunted by police in Victoria who hold concerns for the safety of the community due to his extensive offending including the sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl and an 11-year-old girl Tasmanian business manager Empey was 31 when he was convicted and jailed for 12 years for the violent rape of a woman he danced and drank with at a company awards night in Melbourne. Empey pleaded guilty to one count of rape and one of intentionally causing serious injury in 2003. 'Mr Empey was convicted back in 2002 of a very violent rape against an adult victim, it was a particularly horrific and violent offence,' Assistant Commissioner Peterson said. His victim was admitted to hospital with facial fractures, a partly amputated right ear, brain damage and serious vaginal and anal injuries following the attack and rape in the stairwell of a Southbank apartment on July 27, 2002. During sentencing, Justice Bernard Teague described Empey's actions as 'the acts of a monster' and 'seriously bad examples of very serious crimes', The Age reported. He was released on parole in 2015 and in July he was placed on the Sex Offenders Register. The 46-year-old is required to wear a GPS bracelet as part of his obligations under the Serious Offenders Act. Collie is believed to be hiding in Frankston, an outer-suburb of Melbourne. He has a number of tattoos, including an outline of an eagle on his upper back, a scorpion on his left leg and a hand holding a heart and dagger on his right arm. Collie has previously used an assumed identity while avoiding police. Assistant Commissioner Peterson said police held concerns for the safety of the community and warned against approaching either offender. 'Mr Collie has a long criminal history for a variety of offences and we have general concern for the community at large or other people that may come into contact with him,' he said. A scientologist has been stabbed to death outside the church's Australasian headquarters. The 24-year-old man, who police believe is of Taiwanese descent, was stabbed in the neck at the complex in Chatswood, Sydney's north shore, on Thursday afternoon. He was rushed to Royal North Shore Hospital just after 12.30pm in a critical condition but later died. Police are seen outside the Church of Scientology's Australasian headquarters at Chatswood, on Sydney's north shore, on Thursday afternoon Emergency services were called to the sprawling complex about 12.30pm on Thursday following reports of a stabbing New South Wales Ambulance Acting Deputy Commissioner Tony Gately said one of the men had suffered a 'traumatic injury' A second man who was stabbed remains in the same hospital in a stable condition. Both men were employees at the Australasian headquarters. A 16-year-old boy has been arrested and is assisting police with inquiries. The teenager, who was being escorted from the premises by the two men at the time, is believed to have family who are members of the Church of Scientology. 'At this stage... it would appear the altercation or the reason the young person has been removed from the premises is... related to a domestic incident that occurred yesterday,' North Shore Police Area Command Detective Chief Inspector Simon Jones said. In a statement, the Church of Scientology said: 'This very unfortunate matter is in the hands of the police. We cannot make any further comment beyond the fact that the victim was a beloved member of our Church. 'The Church is providing the police with any assistance needed in their investigation.' Police block-off the entrance to the complex, described by the Church of Scientology as its 'biggest spiritual centre outside the United States' The Australasian headquarters at Chatswood were opened in September 2016. Pictured, police at the scene on Thursday afternoon One man died in hospital from his injuries, while the other man remains in a stable condition A 16-year-old boy has been arrested and is assisting police with inquiries. Pictured, police at the scene on Thursday afternoon The sprawling Chatswood complex is described by the Church of Scientology as its 'biggest spiritual centre outside the United States'. The site - which borders the Lane Cove national park - was snapped-up for about $37 million by the secretive group, who outlaid another $20 million in renovations and construction. The Church of Scientology opened its Australasian headquarters - built on the bones of the former National Acoustics Laboratory - in September 2016. Facilities include 60 'auditing' or spiritual counselling rooms - where technology called 'e-meters' are used, a chapel, grand auditorium, production studio and an office devoted to L. Ron Hubbard. Brian Whitehurst, 30, was arrested on Sunday by Town of Palm Beach police for trespassing at President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, after authorities said he refused to leave A Florida man was arrested for trespassing outside of President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort and refusing to leave, according to authorities. Brian Whitehurst, 30, allegedly pulled up to the Trump property and told Secret Service Agent Tim Donohue he needed to talk to the president about 'his $6.3 trillion,' court documents showed. It's unclear what he was referring to. The incident occurred on Sunday afternoon. Donohue and a Mar-a-Lago security official told Whitehurst he had to leave, but he refused, saying he had a reservation. Town of Palm Beach police arrested Whitehurst. He was booked on a misdemeanor trespassing charge and subsequently released. He has no listed phone number. Whitehurst allegedly pulled up to the Trump property and told Secret Service Agent Tim Donohue he needed to talk to President Donald Trump (pictured) about 'his $6.3 trillion' Trump had been expected at Mar-a-Lago, but remained in Washington because of the government shutdown. Whitehurt's arraignment on the misdemeanor of trespassing by failing to leave property under order by its owner has been scheduled for January 22. He is to appear before Judge Ted Booras at 8.30am. What appears to be the world's first naval rail gun - a hypersonic weapon capable of firing projectiles at five times the speed of sound - has been pictured on a Chinese naval warship at sea. A hazy photo, posted by defence blogger Haohan-Red Shark emerged on Chinese social media last week, claims to show the tank landing ship Haiyang Shan at sea with what looks like an electromagnetic railgun (EMRG) mounted on its bow. The same Type 072II Yuting-class tank landing ship was pictured with the same weapon atop the bow in a port at an unknown location last March. The latest development in warfare technology means China is the first to develop a electromagnetic weapon, despite the US dedicating millions of dollars and more than a decade to its own railgun program. This photo of naval warship Haiyang Shan at sea claims China has beaten the world in becoming the first to develop an electromagnetic railgun, the future of warfare technology An US intelligence report found that China's weapon would be able to strike 200km (125miles) away with a projectile velocity of 2.5km (1.55miles)per second greater than Mach 7, the ABC reported. Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Dr Malcolm Davis believes the most recent development will transform naval warfare and spark a 'hemispheric battle space'. 'This would see belligerents able to strike at each other at distances ranging in the hundreds of kilometres,' Dr Davis told the ABC. 'This would fundamentally change the nature of engagements as you could have adversaries being able to make precise strikes from afar for much less money.' Photos of the electromagnetic railgun on board the Peoples Liberation Army Navy tank Haiyang Shan (pictured) first emerged on Twitter in early 2018, but this is the first time it has been seen at sea The hypersonic superweapon (pictured on board) has the capacity to fire projectiles hundreds of kilometres away at more than five times the speed of sound HOW DOES THE RAILGUN REACH SUCH HIGH SPEEDS? Railguns use electricity instead of gunpowder to accelerate a projectile at six or seven times the speed of sound. Using an electromagnetic force known as the Lorenz Force, the gun accelerates a projectile between two rails that conduct electricity, before launching it at ferocious speed. The technology uses electromagnets to send its projectiles hurtling off at thousands of miles per hour. The force generated can be adjusted, depending on the range of the target This means the railgun can fire further than conventional guns and maintain enough kinetic energy to inflict tremendous damage. Tests have shown that the weapons can fire a shell weighing 10kg at up to 5,400mph over 100 miles - with such force and accuracy it penetrates three concrete walls or six half-inch thick steel plates. The video below shows tests of BAE's model. Advertisement Dr Davis told 9 News the weapon would give China an advantage over US naval forces. 'If China were to introduce this as an operational capability within the PLA Navy - perhaps on a future Chinese warship - it could be a game changer,' he said. The Haiyang Shan is part of China's East Sea Fleet. It's not the first time photos of the hypersonic superweapon on the Peoples Liberation Army Navy tank have emerged. Leaked photos of the railgun on top the landing ship docked at a Wuchang shipyard in China's central Hubei province first emerged almost a year ago by Twitter user Dafeng Cao. An US intelligence report found that China's weapon would be able to strike 200kilometres (125miles) away The Haiyang Shan (pictured) is part of China's East Sea Fleet The social media post claimed is a translation of an analysis from the most well-known former PLAN officer, the EM gun is a formal project approved by PLAN, with a 5-6 year timeline. The Chinese military later confirmed it was working on the new weapons. 'Long time no see, the railgun test ship is spotted undergoing sea trials these days,' Dafeng Cao posted after the latest photos of the weapon at sea emerged. Electromagnetic railguns have been described by the US Navy as a true warfighter game changer. The missile is fired using kinetic energy, which eliminates the risks associated with keeping explosives on a ship. A rugby league star has been charged with allegedly punching a cab driver. Wests Tigers player Michael Chee Kam, 26, and an 18-year-old man are accused of punching the driver through a car window during a night out in Bondi in Sydney's eastern suburbs. Chee-Kam, 26, was standing on the street about 10.30pm on December 30 when a ride share driver reportedly beeped at him to get him to move. Wests Tigers player Michael Chee Kam (pictured with wife Alex), 26, and an 18-year-old man are accused of punching the driver through a car window Chee-Kam, 26, was standing on the street about 10.30pm on December 30 when a ride share driver reportedly beeped at him to get him to move The two men allegedly punched the driver through an open car-door window. The ride share driver flagged down a passing police car, and a taxi containing Chee-Kam and the other man was later stopped. Chee Kam and the 18-year-old man were both arrested and served a Field Court Attendance notice for assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and common assault. Both men will appear at Waverley Local Court on February 5. The ride share driver flagged down a passing police car, and a taxi containing Chee-Kam and the other man was later stopped The National Rugby League is aware of the charges against Chee Kam but a spokesman said it 'wouldn't be appropriate to comment further'. Chee Kam married his wife Alex earlier in 2018, and on Tuesday he posted a series of photos to Instagram remembering the year as an 'absolute treasure'. 'I'll cherish this year for the rest of my life,' he posted alongside the photos. Originally from Auckland, New Zealand, Chee Kam has played for the Manly Sea Eagles as well as the Tigers in the NRL, and made his international debut for Samoa last season. Soldiers from the Royal Engineers are the biggest drug offenders in the armed forces - it has been revealed. More than 80 soldiers from the corps were said to have failed a drugs test in the course of 2017, 20 more than the Royal Logistics Corps which came second on the list with 60 shamed troops. In third place was the Royal Regiment of Artillery, which had 50 drug offenders and fourth was the Royal Armoured Corps with 40 - according to figures released by the Sun. The Royal Engineers (pictured) were the worst performing unit in the drugs tests, with 80 soldiers being found positive in 2017 Prince Harry's former regiment, the Household Cavalry involved in a drug scandal in March, had ten troopers failing drugs tests in 2017. The Ministry of Defence has not yet released its figures for drug offences this year, but the Household Cavalry is expected to perform even worse. Meanwhile, the five regiments of foot guards who guard the Queen outside Buckingham Palace had a total of 30 drugs tests failures. Across all the armed forces, including the Army, Navy and RAF, 770 individuals registered positive for 830 drugs. Although many of the failed tests were due to Class A substances, more than 30 instances involved the use of steroids. Army recruits found to have taken banned substances are asked to leave and banned from rejoining in most cases. 2019 started with the wrong kind of bang for one good Samaritan who accidentally shot himself in the head with a spear gun on New Year's Day. The incident occurred at around 3.30am on January 1, when a 26-year-old male returned to a home on Alec Cameron Drive, Queensland with a loaded weapon. At this location, the 30-year-old Cape Town man allegedly tried to intervene as the weapon bearer argued with and threatened another male at the residence. A 30-year-old man accidentally shot himself with a spear gun while trying to break up a fight Negotiations did not go according to plan for the peacemaker, and the loaded weapon accidentally discharged as he attempted to take control of it. As a result, a spear first struck the floor and then ricocheted into his right temple, before exiting at the rear of his skull. The injured man was taken to Cooktown Hospital and later flown to Cairns for further treatment. Queensland police has confirmed the incident, with Cooktown detectives charging a Hope Vale man with being publicly armed and intention to cause fear. Following the incident, detectives from Cooktown Police Station charged a Hope Vale man He is scheduled to appear at the Cooktown Magistrates Court on January 9. A 32-year-old nurse from Twin Falls, Idaho is being investigated for her possible role in the Kelsey Berreth case. ABC News reports that multiple sources have confirmed that police believe the woman may have disposed of Berreth's phone. It was reported last week that police in Idaho who are working with authorities in Colorado appeared to have discovered the missing mom's cell phone. The Twin Falls Police Department revealed that officers from the force played a role in the investigation by obtaining search warrants and examining evidence in the case. Berreth's cell phone pinged off a tower in Gooding, Idaho, on November 25, three days after she went missing and around the same time her employer received a text stating that she would not be in for work that week. The location it pinged is about 800 miles from where Berreth was last seen. The nurse's identity is being withheld because she has not been charged. This comes two days after Patrick Frazee was formally indicted on murder charges in the case, though no other arrests have been made at this time. Patrick Frazee leaves the Teller County District Court in Cripple Creek on Monday Custody of the 14-month-old baby was granted to the parents of Kelsey Berreth last week (Kelsey with her mother and daughter Kaylee) The complaint that was filed in the case did state however that Frazee had plotted the murder of Berreth with at least one other individual in the three months before she went missing. Authorities have yet to discover a body or any of Berreth's remains at this time, but prosecutors said on Monday that there investigation has yielded enough evidence to suggest the two ways in which the 29-year-old mother was killed by her fiance. Frazee will be back in court on Friday for what is expected to be a four-hour hearing on motions in his upcoming murder trial. And on Thursday he may also be making an appearance at the Teller County Courthouse due to a motion filed by his mother last week requesting custody of her son's daughter Kaylee. Custody of the 14-month-old baby was granted to the parents of Berreth last week after officials announced that they believed the missing mom, 29, was dead. That same day her fiance, Frazee, was charged with her murder. The custody ruling was only a temporary one however, after Sheila Frazee filed a motion declaring she wanted parental rights to the infant. It was a shocking development in the case and one the Berreths have yet to comment on, despite the fact that they will now come face-to-face with Frazee just two days after he was indicted for their daughter's murder. And he will be joined by his mother, who like her son never once reported the victim missing - despite the fact that Frazee and Kaylee were with her for the 11 days between when Berreth was last seen and her own mother notified authorities. Berreth was last seen at a Safeway store in Woodland Park on Thanksgiving. Sheila Frazee (pictured right) filed a motion declaring she wanted parental rights to the infant A Temporary Emergency Custody Order was made by the Teller County Department of Human Services on December 27 that placed Kaylee in the temporary physical custody of her maternal grandparents while granting legal custody to TCDHS. That was the agreement prior to that time in the days after Frazee was arrested, but there was a unexpected change when Sheila filed a motion to intervene. She has remained a staunch defender of her son through this all, despite not speaking publicly once. She is at all his hearings, filed this motion and for the past 20 years has lived alone with Frazee on her 35-acre ranch. And she was even detained when he was arrested, but never charged or accused of being involved in the death of Berreth. Sheila Frazee is a divorced mother-of-four and a registered nurse. Frazee had been plotting the murder for close to three months, according to court documents that were filed on Monday. The three counts of Solicitation to Commit Murder in the First Degree all state that 'between and including September l, 2018 and November 1,2018, Patrick Frazee unlawfully and feloniously commanded, induced, entreated, or otherwise attempted to persuade another person to commit the felony of murder in the first degree.' That would have been just a few months after Berreth purchased a home in Woodland Park for her and infant daughter Kaylee. She spent $184,900 on a two-bedroom property about 15 miles away from the ranch where Frazee lived with his mother despite the fact that the two were engaged. That home is where authorities believe Berreth was murdered on or around November 22. Sheila Frazee was even detained (right) when he was arrested, but never charged or accused of being involved in the death of Berreth A family member claimed soon after Berreth went missing that she had split with Frazee on the day she was last seen, but that has never been confirmed by investigators. Prosecutors also revealed on Monday that there are two theories regarding how Berreth was murdered around Thanksgiving, including that she may have been killed as a result of a robbery. There was little else revealed about the case however, with prosecutors stating that it is important to keep much of the information they have obtained under wraps for the sake of the ongoing investigation. Frazee said nothing during the proceedings. He is being held at Teller County Jail without bond. The prosecution argued at the hearing that the arrest warrant in the case must remain sealed as well, stating that publication of the details could 'seriously jeopardize the physical safety of potential witnesses in this investigation.' Last image: Kelsey Berreth was last seen at a supermarket on Thanksgiving with her daughter Kaylee, 1, (above) but Frazee previously told authorities he saw his fiancee later that day Frazee and his lawyers will see that warrant for the first time on Monday afternoon, and may after that decide to enter a plea in the case. Berreth's family was not in the courtroom on Monday. Court documents show that Frazee will be fighting the charge of first degree murder as he has asked that all evidence in the case be turned over to his legal team and filed a motion asking to limit pretrial publicity. Police have yet to find the body or any remains of Berreth. Theresa May has been urged to delay the 'meaningful vote' on her Brexit deal for a second time. Former Brexit secretary David Davis has speculated the vote could be put off if Mrs May looks likely to lose it. He also thinks a deal will be reached with the EU 'in the eleventh hour' because the EU is worried about losing the 39 billion 'divorce payment' that would come with a no deal Brexit. Former Brexit secretary David Davis (pictured) has speculated the vote could be put off if Mrs May looks likely to lose it His comments come as the Prime Minister prepares to meet EU leaders this week to seek further 'clarifications' in a bid to persuade sceptical MPs to back her deal. Mrs May has been engaged in another frantic round of diplomacy over the Christmas period as she tries to wring more concessions out of Brussels that could help her get the deal through Parliament. Mrs May has already rang German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the second time in nine days and has also spoken to Spain PM Pedro Sanchez, as reported by The Sun. But the EU has previously dismissed the idea of reopening the Withdrawal Agreement painstakingly put together over two years of negotiations. Theresa May will continue speaking to EU leaders this week including German chancellor Angela Merkel, Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte and European Council president Donald Tusk in an attempt to break the deadlock The bloc also insists there cannot be a time limit on the controversial Irish backstop - although both sides say it should be temporary and fall away once a wider trade pact is sealed. Mrs May will continue speaking to EU leaders including German chancellor Angela Merkel, Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte and European Council president Donald Tusk in an attempt to break the deadlock, the Financial Times has reported. The vote, which was delayed at the last minute in December, is currently scheduled for the week beginning January 14. But MPs will return to Westminster on Monday January 7 and a debate on her deal is expected to start mid-way through the week, most likely on Wednesday. Mr Davis, in a column for the Daily Telegraph, said: 'The Withdrawal Agreement does not respect the referendum result. Mrs May has already rang German Chancellor Angela Merkel (pictured) for the second time in nine days 'That is why the meaningful vote had to be delayed and one wonders if even the January vote will go ahead. 'Attempts to frighten MPs into supporting it are unlikely to work, because voting down this substandard deal will not result in no Brexit.' Urging Mrs May to take her time to get a better deal, he adds: 'We know that the EU is worried about the loss of the 39 billion 'divorce' payment if there is no deal... so this is the moment to be hard-nosed about these issues. 'The more we prepare to leave the EU without a deal, the more likely a good deal becomes. 'Tory MPs must remain committed to delivering the referendum result, as repeated in our manifesto, which pledged to leave the Customs Union and the Single Market and which said that no deal is better than a bad deal. 'To do otherwise would frankly throw our democracy's credibility into chaos.' Theresa May has also called Spain's PM Pedro Sanchez over the Christmas period as part of another round of diplomatic talks Meanwhile the current Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay is reported to be convening a meeting on Thursday of ministers to discuss the latest preparations for a no-deal Brexit. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, speaking in Singapore, said cancelling Brexit through a second EU referendum would have 'devastating' social consequences, while a no-deal exit would cause economic disruption. He predicted the Government would 'find a way' of getting the 585-page withdrawal agreement approved by Parliament. Two women have come forward to allege that they suffered sexual abuse at the hands of nuns, including one nun who allegedly plied her victim with alcohol and drugs while teaching her how to have sex. Trish Cahill said she was 15 years old when she reported alleged abuse by her uncle, a priest, to Sister Eileen Shaw at a convent in New Jersey. Cahill told Shaw that her uncle abused her when she was just five years old, according to CBS News. I would have done anything for her, Cahill said. I would have died for her. She gave me everything that was lacking that I didn't even know I was lacking. Trish Cahill (above) says she suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her uncle, who was a priest, and a nun Cahill alleges that the abuse took place after she confided in Sister Eileen Shaw (above) of the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth in central New Jersey Cahill says that when she complained about the abuse, the congregation paid her $70,000 as part of an out-of-court settlement Cahill is seen above in an undated file photo. She says the alleged abuse has resulted in post-traumatic stress as well as drug and alcohol addiction I was so broken. She filled in all those pieces. Cahill said she was subjected to a process of grooming by Shaw. In abuse cases, grooming is when the alleged abuser befriends the victim and advances the relationship for the purpose of eventually engaging in sexual conduct. Cahill alleges that Shaw plied her with drugs and alcohol while showing her how to have sex with a woman. After Cahill reported Shaw to the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth in central New Jersey in 1994, the congregation paid her a $70,000 out-of-court settlement. They had canon lawyers on retainer just for people like me, Cahill said of the settlement. Shut her up, pacify her, tell her you love her and you'll pray for her, and send her on her way. Mary Dispenza, a former nun from a different congregation, says that a superior touched her inappropriately Cahill said that she spent a great deal of time with Shaw. I'm with my friends during the day, Cahill said. And I'm with this pedophile nun on the evenings and on the weekends, and in the summer. The congregation put out a statement, saying: The case was investigated immediately when it was reported in 1994 and a settlement was reached that was mutually agreed on by all parties. We believe that the Sisters of Charity acted in a responsible manner. Shaw would not comment on the allegations. Even after the alleged abuse took place, Cahill continued to see Shaw well into her adulthood. Shaw was removed from her position as a grade school principal, but she is believed to still serve as a nun to this day. While she has been restricted from her outside ministry, she still receives food and housing from the congregation. Cahill said she feels motivated to speak out now more than two decades after signing the settlement. That this is the beginning of many, many times more that I get to speak and I get to educate, and I get to, possibly, prevent this from happening to anyone ever again, Cahill said. Since the alleged abuse, Cahill said shes been suffering from post-traumatic stress as well as drug and alcohol abuse. The Sisters of Charity said it is willing to meet with her to provide additional assistance. Last month, Pope Francis urged predator priests who have sexually abused minors to turn themselves in, making one of his strongest comments ever on the crisis sweeping the Roman Catholic Church Mary Dispenza, a former nun from a different congregation, says that a superior touched her inappropriately. I knelt down right next to her and she kissed me all over softly, my face and I want to say, Oh but it wasn't bad, but it was, she said. And I've carried it with me until today. Dispenza shared her story after she joined the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP). She said that several women have contacted SNAP to report alleged abuse by nuns. The allegations are just the latest public relations crisis for the Roman Catholic Church, which has been accused of systematically covering up rampant sexual abuse by priests against young congregants. Illinois state attorney general said last month her office identified child sexual abuse accusations against at least 500 Catholic priests or clergy members not publicly named by the church, and that many of those cases were not properly investigated. Last year, a probe by the attorney general of Pennsylvania that found Catholic priests in that state had sexually abused thousands of children over a 70-year period, crimes that were systematically covered up by bishops. Last month, Pope Francis urged predator priests who have sexually abused minors to turn themselves in, making one of his strongest comments ever on the crisis sweeping the Roman Catholic Church. He spoke two months before a summit on the sexual abuse crisis that will be attended by the heads of some 110 national Catholic bishops conferences and dozens of experts and leaders of religious orders in the Vatican. The fiance of missing Sarah Wellgreen has made a heartbreaking appeal for her to be 'given back' to him and her children. Neil James, 45, appealed for the mother of five's return just days after she would have celebrated her 47th birthday on December 14. Sarah went missing from her home in New Ash Green, Kent, on October 9 and has not been seen since, despite huge searches by police and volunteers. A fundraising campaign has been set up for her children which has raised 2,500, and Mr James pleaded for more donations on Wednesday to help them through a 'terrible time'. Scroll down for video Neil James (right) posted an emotional New Year's appeal for the return of Sarah Wellgreen (right) who has been missing since October 9 Sarah's former partner Ben Lacomba (pictured) appeared in court last month charged with her murder Her former partner Ben Lacomba, 38, appeared in Maidstone Crown Court in Kent on December 21 charged with her murder. In the Facebook post, Mr James, said: 'Happy New Year everyone and let's hope that it brings everything we want in personal goals and career aspirations. 'The reason for this post is to hopefully help reach the target set on the GoFundme page and help Sarah Jane Wellgreen' s family and most importantly her children through this terrible time and with luck, Sarah will be given back to us and Sarah's children. 'How can we help: if everyone could share this post to your friends and if they also do the same then maybe, just maybe we could get to 50,000 people and if everyone just donated 1 (the cost of a chocolate bar) then we could all get there for them. Police are seen at Ben Lacomba's home in New Ash Green, in Kent, as he appeared in court last month charged with the murder of Sarah Wellgreen Police removed a red taxi from outside the home which the pair shared until she went missing 'Thank you for your continued support.' Sarah has not been in contact with any of her friends or family since the day she went missing and significantly, missed the 13th birthday of one of her sons. She also failed to contact her family on her 47th birthday earlier this month. Her son, Lewis Burdett, 22, wrote an emotional post online on the day. He wrote: 'I just wanted to to say happy birthday to the most amazing woman I have ever known, my mum Sarah Wellgreen. 'We all miss you so much, all of our family will still be celebrating your special day and we always will. 'We all love you so much mum and wish you were here to spend this day with us.' Police have been searching local woodland and rivers for clues in the investigation Ben Lacomba appeared at the crown court via TV link last month from North Kent police station in Northfleet. He could be seen sitting at a desk and wearing a dark top. He spoke only to state his date of birth and British nationality, and to correct the court clerk on the pronunciation of his surname. Prosecutor Martin Yale said Miss Wellgreen's body had not yet been found. Judge Philip Statman fixed Lacomba's trial to start on June 18. It is expected to last up to three weeks and may be heard by a High Court judge. Lacomba was remanded in custody until a plea and trial preparation hearing on January 18. A bail application made by defence counsel David Sadeh was refused but Judge Statman said a further bail hearing could be heard at a later stage. President Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed he is 'ready and willing' to work with Democrats to end the partial government shutdown as both sides remain at an impasse after a briefing at the White House. 'Important meeting today on Border Security with Republican and Democrat Leaders in Congress. Both parties must work together to pass a Funding Bill that protects this Nation and its people this is the first and most important duty of government...,' Trump tweeted Wednesday evening. He added: '...I remain ready and willing to work with Democrats to pass a bill that secures our borders, supports the agents and officers on the ground, and keeps America Safe. Let's get it done!' President Donald Trump claimed he is 'ready and willing' to work with Democrats to end the partial government shutdown Trump tweeted his willingness to work with Democrats as both sides remain at an impasse Trump and Congressional leaders met at the White House on Wednesday Congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle emerged from a meeting at the White House earlier in the day with no details on how or when the shutdown may end. The president invited everyone back on Friday to reconvene. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell admitted no progress was made as the shut down hit day 12. And, he conceded, it could continue for 'weeks.' 'We had a good discussion. Obviously the border security issue - I don't think any particular progress was made today. But we talked about all aspects of it and it was a civil discussion. And we're hopeful that somehow in the coming days and weeks we'll be able to reach an agreement,' he told reporters upon returning to the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon. The impasse remains at funding for Trump's wall on the almost 2,000 mile U.S.-Mexico border. Democrats are holding firm in their position that they will not give Trump the $5 billion he needs to build it. 'We can go through the back and forth,' incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi told NBC News. 'No. How many more times can we say no? Nothing for the wall.' The blame game has begun. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy put the ball in Democrats' court. 'We never did get through the complete briefing,' McCarthy said at the White House after the event, which was led by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. 'I was a little disappointed with some on the other side. Once the secretary started, Senator Schumer interrupted her and they really didn't want to hear it.' And he told reporters at the Capitol no negotiations were held during their sit down at the White House. 'They were pretty much on script,' he said of Democrats. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer shot the blame right back. 'At our last meeting the president said, I am going to shut the government down. They are now feeling the heat. It is not helping the president, it is not helping the Republicans to be the owners of this shutdown,' he said. The president is holding firm too. In his remarks during a Cabinet meeting before he sat down with Congressional leaders, Trump refused to say whether he would sign a government funding bill if he received less than his $5 billion request to fund his border wall. 'Could we do it for a little bit less? It's so insignificant compared to what we're talking about. You know, I've heard numbers as high as $275 billion we lose on illegal immigration,' Trump said. 'The $5 billion approved by the House is such a small amount compared to the level of the problem.' There had been reports the White House had come down $2.5 billion and would accept legislation with that number. But Trump shot that down. House Democrats on Thursday - led by incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi (center) with Steny Hoyer (left) and Chuck Schumer (right) at the White House - will introduce two bills to reopen the government The blame game has begun with House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (left) with Steve Scalise (right) blaming Democrats 'No, not $2.5 (billion), no. We're asking for $5.6 (billion) and somebody said $2.5 (billion),' he said. Democrats are holding fast to their own position - the $1.3 billion they've allocated. That is the position all have been in since the shut down started on Dec. 21. Negotiations went no where during the holidays and Wednesday's meeting with the first time the main players were all in one room since the shut down began. The lawmakers who attended the meeting included Pelosi, incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, McCarthy, and incoming House Minority Whip Steve Scalise. Those attending from the Senate include Schumer, McConnell, incoming Senate Majority Whip John Thune, and Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin. The White House says a pair of bills that Democrats are backing that would end the shutdown are a 'non-starter' because they do not fund the border wall. The two-part plan from House Democrats would fund the Department of Homeland Security until Feb. 8 and fund all other closed departments - such as Justice, Interior, Transportation, Commerce and Agriculture - for the rest of the fiscal year through Sept. 30. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said no progress was made and the shut down could last weeks Nancy Pelosi will become Speaker of the House on Thursday when she pushes a plan to reopen the government They will bring those bills up for a vote on Thursday when they take control of the House and hope passage in the lower chamber will pressure the Senate to follow suit. An estimated 380,000 federal employees in those departments have been furloughed and another 420,000 will have to work without pay. The clock is ticking to Jan. 11 - the first pay period for those workers that will encompass the entire time period of the shutdown. The Democrats' proposal would allow the debate over wall funding to continue without tying the rest of the government to it. Wall money is appropriated through the Department of Homeland Security. The six bills to fund the other departments have bipartisan support in both chambers but have been held up over the dispute over funding Trump's wall. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that the chamber wouldn't take up legislation without public support from the president. 'It's simple: The Senate is not going to send something to the President that he won't sign,' said Don Stewart, a spokesman for McConnell. The partial government shutdown began December 22 after Trump bowed to conservative demands that he fight to make good on his pledge to build the wall. He pushed House Republicans to vote on the matter before they lost control of the lower chamber. And while it passed in the House it failed in the Senate where Republicans don't have enough votes to pass it without Democratic support. A Russian couple has been caring for a happy and uniquely tame mountain lion they purchased at a zoo in 2016. Alexandr Dmitriev frequently posts viral photos and videos of the three-year-old wild cat named Messi to his social media accounts and YouTube channel, I_am_puma. Dmitriev, who is married, said he bought the cougar, born in October 2015, when he was a year old. The owner said the mountain lion is trained four times a week, and is 'unique,' 'very gentle' and 'does not bite'. The wild cat lives with the family in an apartment, uses the toilet twice a day and only consumes meat, the owner said on YouTube. Scroll down for videos This man has become an online sensation for posting content of a uniquely tame mountain lion he purchased at a zoo Alexandr Dmitriev purchased this puma named Messi when he was a year old The man is seen greeting the mountain lion as he walks into his apartment The owner said the mountain lion is trained four times a week and is 'unique,' 'very gentle' and 'does not bite' Dmitriev added that Messi 'does not spoil the furniture and plays without claws.' 'He likes when he is stroked and loves to talk,' he said. Dmitriev said their other cat - a Sphynx - does not like the puma and beats him with his paws and hisses at him. While the arrangement seems to be successful for this family, they are advising others against doing the same. 'We sincerely do not recommend getting puma at home. It is very dangerous! Messi is unique, do not repeat it,' he added. Dmitriev added that Messi 'does not spoil the furniture and plays without claws' While the arrangement seems to have been successful for this family, they are advising others against doing the same Messi's Instagram page has attracted over 538k followers and the YouTube channel, well over 155k subscribers. Dmitriev could not be immediately reached by DailyMail.com for comment Wednesday night. The Law Library of Congress states that in Russia, 'keeping species listed as rare or endangered in captivity and their release back into the wild requires the permission of federal authorities in charge of environmental protection. 'All subspecies of big cats that live in Russia are included in a government-approved list of animals and plants recognized as rare or endangered.' Messi's Instagram page has attracted over 538k followers and the YouTube channel, well over 155k subscribers A porn star has denied trying to hire a hitman to kill an enemy after she was arrested at a Washington airport returning from a vacation to Hawaii. Katrina L. Danforth, 31, is charged with five counts of using interstate commerce in the 'commission of murder for hire'. But Danforth, who makes films under the name Lynn Pleasant and is from Post Falls in Idaho, entered a plea of not guilty to the five counts during a ten minute court hearing today. She appeared at an Idaho federal court in Coeur d' Alene and spoke via a video link with a judge based in Boise. At times Danforth was seen laughing with her attorneys during the hearing, KHQ reports. Danforth will remain in custody at an Idaho jail until her trial at the beginning of March. Katrina L. Danforth, from Post Falls, pictured, has pleaded not guilty to five counts of using interstate commerce in the 'commission of murder for hire' Danforth, who makes films under the name Lynn Pleasant, will remain in custody at an Idaho jail until her trial at the beginning of March The adult film star, who makes films under the name Lynn Pleasant, appeared an Idaho federal court today where she was 'seen laughing with her attorneys' Danforth allegedly used a phone and mail in an attempt to hire someone to kill a victim identified in court papers only as 'R.H.' In an interview with KHQ06 the adult film actress said she was 'shocked' by the arrest after a vacation to Hawaii. She also told people to 'stand by' and 'follow' her story as the case goes forward. Danforth said: 'It was really early in the morning so I was mainly tired from my flight. I was shocked but didn't want to freak out. 'I would say stand by and see what happens. Find out what goes on and how it goes.' Danforth was arrested at Spokane International Airport after eight days in Hawaii. Four of the charges are connected to her alleged use of a telephone and one count relates to her alleged use of the mail. Court records show she allegedly made calls offering people money to kill a person with the initials R.H on October 20, November 9, twice on November 10 and once on November 19. Danforth faces 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count Four of the charges are connected to her alleged use of a telephone and one count relates to her alleged use of the mail Danforth was arrested in December at Spokane International Airport after eight days in Hawaii As Lynn Pleasant, Danforth boasts on her Twitter page to have won the best part time amateur model gong at the Adult Webcam Awards in 2015. She is said to have appeared in adult films from 2005 and regularly posts about her work online. Assistant U.S. Attorney Traci Whelan previously said that the alleged target, who lives in Idaho, was not harmed. Whelan said she couldn't go into more detail about the alleged victim because of their safety and added that the person could soon be moving. Danforth, who has no prior felony convictions, faces 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count. Presenter Cathy Newman says her family suffered when she was subjected to vile online abuse. The 44-year-old revealed that a mocked-up pornographic image of her was seen online by her daughter Scarlett, 14. Miss Newman was targeted by supporters of controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson after they clashed on gender equality on Channel 4 News. Cathy Newman (pictured above) says her family suffered when she was subjected to vile online abuse Miss Newman was targeted by supporters of controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson (pictured above) after they clashed on gender equality on Channel 4 News She told The Pool website: 'His army of online followers, many hailing from the 'alt-Right', went into attack mode, calling me [abusive names], threatening to execute me.' Lack of regulation on social media means women 'are obliged to tolerate appalling misogynistic vilification', she said. Australia is set to blister through more intense heat with two major cities expected to stretch above the 40C mark. Summer has already proved unrelenting for most of the nation - with no indication of the heat disappearing anytime soon. But Victoria and South Australia are forecast to deal with the brunt of the scorching conditions ahead of the weekend as temperatures climb above 40C. The Bureau of Meteorology has warned that Victoria is tipped to reach as high as 46C on Friday. Australia is set to blister through more intense heat with two major cities expected to stretch above the 40C mark The Bureau of Meteorology has warned that Victoria is tipped to reach over 40C on Friday 'Temperatures 44 to 46 deg in the north, 40 -42 in the south,' the Bureau said on Twitter. 'A gusty southwest change late Friday leading to a cooler weekend.' Weatherzone meteorologist Lachlan Maher said Melbourne, which recorded 28C on Thursday, was forecast to reach 42C on Friday 'largely because of the strong northerly winds'. 'A strong northwesterly wind present over much of the western parts of the state (Victoria) and that will help bring in some hot air mass from a low pressure trough that's extending from the interior,' Mr Maher said. If Melbourne reaches the forecast, it will be the warmest day in three years - when it got to 42.2C in 2016 'Just picking at random, Horsham is expected to get to 44C up from 37C today (Thursday) and Melbourne is forecast to get to 42C.' Bendigo is also forecast for 44C and Echuca, Swan Hill, Kerang and Mildura are all anticipated to reach 46C. 'In terms of Melbourne, it's not going to be that temperature for long. It does look to cool rapidly in the afternoon.' If Melbourne reaches the forecast, it will be the warmest day in three years - when it got to 42.2C in 2016. Mr Maher said most of Victoria would experience low to mid 40s with the exception of the south west where sea breeze throughout the day will prevent excessive temperatures. There is a fire ban across the state on Friday. 'Friday 4 January 2019 has been declared a day of TOTAL FIRE BAN for the whole State of Victoria,' Vic Emergency said on Twitter. South Australia is also battling the high temperatures ahead of a slightly colder spell. 'Adelaide is expected to get to 41C today (Thursday), slightly cooler tomorrow with tops of 35C,' Mr Maher said. Weatherzone meteorologist Lachlan Maher said Melbourne, which recorded 28C on Thursday, was forecast to reach 42C on Friday (pictured: beachgoers at St Kilda Beach in Melbourne) There is a fire ban across the state on Friday, Vic Emergency warned (pictured) A southwesterly change will lead to a cooler weekend for Victoria following intense heat, the Bureau said Teenagers jump from the Henley Beach Jetty during a hot day in Adelaide on Thursday 'That hot air mass is moving away from South Australia into Victoria.' 'In the wake of it moving away from South Australia it's followed by some southwesterly winds which brings relief to the coasterly cities.' Mr Maher said parts of inland South Australia will still be quite warm and Roxby Downs is forecast for 46C. Sydney is also feeling the burden of the heat as the harbour city is enduring a prolonged period of heat. 'Since the 28th of December temperatures have been at their lowest 4C above average,' Mr Maher said. Kite-surfers were seen at Port Melbourne beach in Melbourne on Thursday making the most of the scorching days Port Melbourne beach in Melbourne provided an ideal backdrop for the adrenaline junkies Make the most of it: 'In terms of Melbourne, it's not going to be that temperature for long. It does look to cool rapidly in the afternoon' South Australia is also battling the high temperatures ahead of a slight cold change Temperatures soared across South Australia on Thursday, climbing close to 50C Mr Maher said parts of inland South Australia will still be quite warm and Roxby Downs is forecast for 46C In the wake of it moving away from South Australia it's followed by some southwesterly winds which brings relief to the coasterly cities,' Mr Maher said 'Roughly a week we've had above average temperatures.' 'We can expect 31C on Friday and 33C on Saturday in the city. It will be warmer out west with Penrith at 39C both days.' Parts of Tasmania are also expected to nudge the 40C mark on Friday. The Bureau has forecast 36C for Hobart and Campania and Brighton in the state's southeast are expected to soar to 39C. A total fire ban has also been declared for the east half of Tasmania on Friday. There is a cool change anticipated to bring relief on Saturday. Queensland is keeping a watchful eye over the latest tropical cyclone. There were fears in Far North Queensland that Cyclone Penny, which devastated areas around Cooktown with heavy rainfall and howling winds of more than 125km/h, could re-form. 'Adelaide is expected to get to 41C today (Thursday), slightly cooler tomorrow with tops of 35C,' Mr Maher said Sydney is also feeling the burden of the heat as the harbour city is enduring a prolonged period of heat (pictured: Bondi Beach) 'Since the 28th of December temperatures have been at their lowest 4C above average,' Mr Maher said (pictured: Sydneysiders at Balmoral Beach) Penny crossed the cape and headed out to sea after losing cyclone status, but was expected to gather enough water and wind while over the ocean to become a category 2 cyclone. Brisbane stays at 30C or 31C for the whole next week with the occasional smattering of rain, but mostly a bit of cloud just hanging around. Perth is pinned to experience its usual, hot summer weather, going from 25C on Friday to 30C on Saturday and 35C on Sunday where it will stay in to next week. Canberra is expected to reach 37C on Friday and 35C on Saturday before dropping to 28C for Sunday. Darwin is forecast for 33C over the weekend with the possibility of storms. A talented young music producer has died following a tragic diving accident on New Years Day. Charlie Young, who was an avid free diver and a fan of swimming with sharks, was killed along the Rockingham Wreck Trail, in Western Australia. The 26-year-old was found unresponsive offshore while he was diving alongside a female friend. Scroll down for video Charlie Young was killed in a diving accident at Rockingham Beach, in Western Australia Mr Young was taken to Rockingham General Hospital, and despite attempts by medical staffers at to revive him, he sadly passed away shortly after. Mr Young, who was the eldest of three sons, was passionate about marine conservation and often took to his social media pages to raise awareness for endangered sharks. Just a few days before he passed away, Mr Young posted a short video clip to his Instagram page of him diving with scalloped hammerhead sharks. Alongside the video, he passionately spoke of how the sharks are listed as endangered and urged his followers to care more about sharks. Not expecting to win awards with my shaky footage and iMovie skills but if I can help one person care more about sharks, it's worth it, Mr Young signed off his post. Mr Young was a keen free diver and was passionate about marine conservation Just a few days before he passed away, Mr Young went diving with Scalloped Hammerhead sharks Since his death, tributes have been pouring in from friends who describe Mr Young as a beautiful soul and a bright light who would be truly missed. Natalie Anne wrote: I cant believe this news. Another beautiful soul gone way too soon. Charlie helped me create and release my very first song. I couldnt have done it without you Charlie. Another friend added: This is terrible, he was a wonderful person and a wonderful soul. This is beyond tragic. A huge loss. Crank Recording, where Mr Young worked alongside some of the biggest names in the music business as a producer, paid tribute to him with a statement on the company Facebook page. As a music producer Mr Young worked with some of the biggest names in music, including Kelly Clarkson Charlie Young died yesterday on January 1st. Way too soon to be taken. This is such a tragic loss for his family and friends. His warm and positive vibes will truly be missed. Charlie was at Rockingham enjoying another of his passions, free-diving, and got into trouble, it read. A report is being prepared for the Coroner. The Trump administration has located funding to reopen the historic clock tower that tops the president's luxury hotel despite the government shutdown. The public maintains access to the clock and bell tower of the Old Post Office despite the Trump Organization's 60-year lease with the government to run a hotel inside the historic building. It continues to be an attraction for hotel guests and residents alike, and is normally open for free tours throughout the week. But the tower was shuttered Dec. 22 at the beginning of the partial government shutdown due to a lapse in funding that shuttered National Parks across the country, which operates it. LET IT RING! The Trump Administration has located funding to allow the bell tower atop President Trump's luxury Washington, D.C. hotel to reopen despite the government shutdown. The tower is operated by the National Park Service The Trump Organization runs the hotel under a 60-year-lease The GSA located funds to keep the tower open, E&E News reported It as just one of many cites closing amid a standoff that has led the National Zoo in Washington and Smithsonian buildings to close their doors to the public. Now, another federal entity, the General Service Agency, has stepped in with funds to reopen the tower, E&E News reported. The funds will cover a void in National Park Service Funding. It was one of many of several agencies that furloughed employees and lost funding amid a government standoff centered on President Trump's demand for $5 billion for a border wall. Trash has been piling up during the shut down All 19 Smithsonian museums are closed The Smithsonian Museums - all 19 of them - and National Zoo have been closed The agency is the same one that inked the long-term lease with the Trump Organization. Trump regularly praised the agency during his 2016 campaign even when he was calling for dramatic changes at other departments. Other National Park Service entities have made efforts to remain open to the public in some capacity either by allowing state governments to provide funding, accepting help from volunteers, and simply leaving checkpoints unmanned. But in the case of the tower, some amount of funding was required to keep it open. It is set to open Friday, according to the report. In another twist, the bells inside the tower, known as the Congress Bells, are set to ring Thursday night to usher in the 116th Congress, where a new Democratic House is set to investigate Trump. The bells were a gift to Congress from the Ditchley Foundation, according to the Washington Ringing Society, whose members carry out the English change ringing at both the iconic D.C. landmark building and the National Cathedral. The group is set to to ring the bells at 7:00 pm Thursday. The former executive editor of The New York Times acknowledges in her forthcoming book that the paper of record produced 'unmistakably anti-Trump' political coverage because it was good for business. Jill Abramson writes in 'Merchants of Truth' that the resulting slant in the Times' news stories is undermining its credibility even as its audience grows by leaps and bounds. The Fox News Channel published the first snippets from Abramson's book on Wednesday. President Donald Trump has called the Manhattan institution 'the failing New York Times' and classified it as a leader of the 'fake news' movement he loves to hate. Still, the paper added 600,000 digital subscribers in the first six months of his presidency by aligning itself against the new administration, bringing that audience past the 2 million mark. Jill Abramson, the Times' first female executive editor before her 2014 firing, claims her successor has sacrificed the paper's objectivity, running opinionated anti-Trump stories as 'news' because it's good for business President Donald Trump has called the paper 'the failing New York Times' and classified it as a leader of the 'fake news' movement he loves to hate 'Given its mostly liberal audience, there was an implicit financial reward for the Times in running lots of Trump stories, almost all of them negative: they drove big traffic numbers and, despite the blip of cancellations after the election, inflated subscription orders to levels no one anticipated,' Abramson writes. But 'the more anti-Trump the Times was perceived to be, the more it was mistrusted for being biased.' Abramson's ouster from the Times in 2014 followed a dispute with her eventual successor Dean Baquet over a high-level personnel decision that weakened his position. Baquet, she now says, is presiding over an erosion of the Times' standards as America's most enduring newspaper brand embraces the label of an 'opposition party' arrayed against Republicans. 'Though Baquet said publicly he didn't want the Times to be the opposition party, his news pages were unmistakably anti-Trump,' Abramson writes, lumping The Washington Post into the same category. 'Some headlines contained raw opinion, as did some of the stories that were labeled as news analysis.' Abramson's book 'Merchants of Truth' takes shots at the paper where whe worked until her successor forced her out when she hired a new executive and slotted him in at the same level Abramson is a strident liberal herself. She argued in February 2018 for the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, claiming that he lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his 1991 confirmation hearings about still-unproven sexual harassment allegations. She calls Trump's 'fake news' rebranding a 'cheap way of trying to undermine the credibility of the Timess reporting as something to be accepted as truth only by liberals in urban, cosmopolitan areas.' Baquet, too, has said Trumps attacks on the press corps are 'out of control.' Abramson suggests in 'Merchants of Truth' that most of the Times' veterans tried to maintain their objectivity, but attributes some of the Times' leftward evolution to millennials on the paper's editorial staff. 'The more "woke" staff thought that urgent times called for urgent measures; the dangers of Trumps presidency obviated the old standards,' she writes. By Guest Blogger Sasha Jones Test-based retention in 8th grade increases the likelihood of criminal conviction by age 25, according to a new study. The study focused on Louisiana students who were held back in 8th grade between 1998-1999 through 2000-2001 because they just scored just below the cutoff on tests designed to determine whether they were ready for promotion to 9th grade. Their outcomes were compared with those for similarly low-performing students in the same state who were promoted to 9th grade during the same time period. By doing so, the authors of the study hope to eliminate external socioeconomic factors that could led to similar effects. The findings were shared December 2018 in a working paper posted by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The only difference between the kids right below the threshold and the kids above is that the kid below scored one point below the kids right above, Michael Lovenheim, co-author and associate professor of Cornell Universitys department of policy analysis and management, said. If a student is retained in 8th grade, the likelihood of being convicted for a violent crime by the age of 25 increases by 1.05 percentage pointsa 58.44 percent increase relative to the mean for this group of students. Nevertheless, there is little effect on juvenile crime, and a non-statistically significant increase in the likelihood of being convicted of any crime. Almost all the convictions for a violent crime are for assault or robbery, with very few murder convictions in the sample. The study suggests that retention leads to a decline in high school peer quality and educational attainment. This may result in weaker noncognitive skills, such as self-control, and worsen a students job prospects, which ultimately could lead to violent criminal behavior in adulthood. Nonviolent crimes, such as property and drug crimes, may not see similar results since the perpetrators do not tend to exhibit the same lack of self-control, according to Lovenheim. Louisianas school choice policy contributes to such declines because students who are retained may subsequently attend high schools associated with worse academic outcomes, according to the authors. The study also found that retention increases the number of days students are absent three years later by 1.97 percentage points and the number of disciplinary incidents by 1.1 percentage points; and retained students are 7.17 percentage points more likely than their nonretained peers to drop out of high school. Although several factors may affect Louisianas results, including its retention and school choice policy, Lovenheim said that all school districts with similar policies should consider the potential implications. Currently, 16 states and many school districts incorporate similar end-of-the-year promotional exams. We have to think strongly about whether the benefits of these policies outweigh the costs, Lovenheim said. If you enact a grade-retention policy in 8th grade, like Louisiana has, and dont do anything else to support the kids who are retained, then these are the effects that you [may experience]. The study claims that violent crimes have had a social cost of between $2.6 million and $18.4 million statewide, based on the additional number of crimes committed per the cohorts of 8th graders examined. Photo courtesy of Getty A female McDonald's employee who courageously fought back against a homeless man who grabbed and yanked her across a counter has been identified. Yasmine James, has received an abundance of love and support online from friends and strangers alike after a video went viral showing Daniel Taylor, 40, as he lunged at her then nearly dragged her across the counter Monday at the St. Petersburg, Florida McDonald's she works at. Kinie Biandudi, one of the witnesses who filmed the shocking altercation and shared it on Facebook, posted an update on the matter Wednesday afternoon. Biandudi said: 'The employee was not fired! This really did happen last night for all those asking me... it all started because he wanted a straw!!!' The witness added that the employee, who is seen in the video throwing punches at the man to defend herself in the New Year's Eve attack, used to to be a boxer. The perpetrator has been charged with two counts of simple battery for the shocking altercation that he initiated. In the video that went viral, Taylor grabs James by her shirt collar and nearly drags her across the counter. But she soon resists - pulls him back, then frantically punches him in retaliation. Scroll down for video Yasmine James, pictured left and right on Facebook, a Florida McDonald's employee and former boxer, was victim Monday to a physical attack by a transient man The video shows homeless man Daniel Taylor, 40, as he lungs at James then nearly drags her across the counter Monday at the St. Petersburg, Florida McDonald's she works at James fights back after the homeless man grabbed her and nearly dragged her across the counter People in the background are heard as they ask for the police as the woman pummels the man and demands that he 'stops playing with her.' Taylor, from West Virginia, has been charged with two counts of simple battery for the shocking altercation A coworker appears to try to pull the woman off the man but her grip is tight. He rushes over to Taylor and manages to separate the two. The irate employee also screams obscenities at her assailant. At that moment, the manager comes over to 'assess' the situation and asks the customer what was wrong with his order. As the woman calms herself down and looked for her phone, a battered Taylor screams: 'I want her a** fired.' The employee was not fired. Taylor, however, was detained New Year's Day and booked to the Pinellas County Jail. He is charged with two counts of simple battery. As James calms herself down and looked for her phone, a battered Taylor screams: 'I want her a** fired' The shocking altercation brought on by the middle-aged man was said to have started over a straw But the woman quickly retorted: 'No, you're going to jail!' Taylor then asserts that he was simply asking a question before adding 'b***h' as the clip comes to an end. The transient was detained on New Year's Day and booked at the Pinellas County jail, according to court documents. Taylor - who is between 5'7" and 5"8 and approximately 160lbs - is being held on a $1,000 bond and was also found to have owed a $11 commissary charge, jail records have indicated. The West Virginia native was instructed to stay away from the victim and the eatery. On Facebook Tuesday, a woman believed to be Taylor's mother posted that her son had been 'homeless for sometime' and 'hasn't been able to find a job.' McDonald's could not be reached for comment on the matter. The West Virginia native (right) was instructed to stay away from the victim (left) and the eatery Rogelio Tapia, 26, was arrested after he allegedly used a piece of fruit as a weapon to attack a cashier at QuikTrip early Tuesday morning in Des Moines A Des Moines, Iowa man allegedly assaulted a convenience store clerk with a banana in a case that police initially believed was not real. Rogelio Tapia, 26, was arrested and charged with assault and other crimes after he allegedly used a piece of fruit as a weapon to attack a cashier at QuikTrip early Tuesday morning. Tapia was charged with assault on persons in certain occupations, simple assault, interference with official acts and third-degree criminal mischief, KCCI-TV reported. At approximately 3am on New Years Day, police received a report from a store clerk who claimed they were being chased around the store by Tapia. The clerk alleged that Tapia threw items at them, including a banana. A police report claimed that Tapia caused $1,000 in damages to the store. The Des Moines Police Department posted a meme on its Facebook page which expressed its disbelief that someone would actually use a banana as a weapon Tapia was charged with assault on persons in certain occupations, simple assault, interference with official acts and third-degree criminal mischief. The above image is a stock photo of a banana The Des Moines Police Department posted a meme on its Facebook page which expressed its disbelief that someone would actually use a banana as a weapon. That face you make when youre sent to help a man being assaulted with a banana, the meme read. It included a photo of two police officers - presumably the officers who responded to the report. The DMPD said on New Years Day it received more than 270 phone calls about incidents. A man who was found naked and disoriented and later charged with the brutal slaying of a woman was released from a mental hospital just a day before the alleged stabbing attack. Cara Hales, 30, was found dead after suffering serious injuries at her home in Munster in southern Perth on Friday. Jessie de Beaux, 23, was located by police near the scene running naked through bush, and he was later charged with her murder. De Beaux left Graylands Hospital in Mount Claremont in the city's west on Thursday - just a day before Ms Hales was allegedly murdered. Cara Hales (pictured), 30, was found dead after suffering serious injuries at her home in Munster in southern Perth on Friday Jessie de Beaux (pictured), 23, was located by police near the scene naked and disorientated, and he was later charged with her murder De Beaux left Graylands Hospital (pictured) in Mount Claremont in the city's west on Thursday - just a day before Ms Hales was allegedly murdered He was a voluntary patient at the mental health facility and it is unclear how long he was there for or why he left, the West Australian reported. A review of patient release procedures has been ordered by mental health authorities in the wake of Ms Hales's death. De Beaux allegedly forced his way inside Ms Hales's home in broad daylight before stabbing her. Ms Hales's housemate discovered the horrific scene after the alleged stabbing and called emergency services about 12.10pm on Friday. Two hours later, police found de Beaux naked, disoriented and running through bush near Ms Hales's home. North Metropolitan Health Service chief executive Robyn Lawrence said a 'thorough psychological assessment' is undertaken before patients are granted leave. 'All patients who have been appropriately clinically assessed as suitable for hospital discharge have the right to transition and reintegrate back into the community,' she said. Ms Hales's (pictured) housemate discovered the horrific scene after the alleged stabbing and called emergency services about 12.10pm on Friday Dr Lawrence said the North Metropolitan Health Service mental health team was assisting police. Investigators have been told that Mr de Beaux was knocking off the doors of other homes near Ms Hales's residence asking for work. They have also appealed for anyone with dash-mounted camera footage of Henderson Road and surrounding areas around the time of the alleged killing to come forward. Ms Hales's devastated friend Cameron Douglas said he was feeling 'shocked' and 'angry' after learning of her death. 'Shocked, angry but most of all just sad to know you were taken from this earth. You were truly one of a kind. Much (love),' he posted to Facebook. Ms Hales's cousin Kym Smith said 'words can't describe how I'm feeling at the moment' while sharing her own tribute. De Beaux appeared in Perth Magistrates Court on Sunday charged with murder and appeared dishevelled, Nine Newsreported. De Beaux (pictured) allegedly forced his way inside Ms Hales's home in broad daylight before stabbing her Detective Senior Sergeant Sean Wright said there was no evidence that Ms Hales knew De Beaux. 'At this point in time we have not identified any link between the victim and the man,' he said. An autopsy is expected to be carried out this week, and forensic police investigated her semi-rural property. Neighbours reportedly found Ms Hales inside her home and were confronted by a 'gruesome' scene after hearing a commotion. Ms Hales is understood to have recently returned to live in Perth after residing in a different part of Australia. De Beaux will next face court in January 2019. Daily Mail Australia has contacted the WA North Metropolitan Health Service for comment. Shocking footage of a violent and unprovoked attack on two young girls was filmed by the attackers and circulated on social media. The footage, which was captured by a friend of the attackers, shows the moment the two girls were bashed as they got off a bus in Cairns, Queensland, on New Year's Eve. The girls are seen being followed down Lake Street by three girls and when the victims began to cross the road to get away from the thugs, all three pounce. One girl is seen dragging another by the hair along the road while the other delivers several punches to the head of the other victim. The horrific video circulated before making its way to one victim's father, Richard Hodge, who then uploaded it himself, the Cairns Post reports. Mr Hodge expressed his shock about the attack and that it was filmed and posted as if to gloat about the incident. 'Got to love it when your daughter and her friend are walking in town and some little c*** bashed (her) and filmed it and posted it,' his caption to the video read. The violent attack, which appeared to be unprovoked, was captured by one of the attackers friends and uploaded to social media on New Years Eve Mr Hodge revealed that it was the first time his daughter had been allowed out alone on New Year's Eve and that she had been excited about being out in the city to celebrate the new year. Despite the severity of the attack, Mr Hodge claimed 'the girls are okay, just a bit bruised'. The attackers identified themselves through Instagram profiles leading into the assault. Queensland Police confirmed to Daily Mail Australia on Thursday that one of the attackers has been charged and multiple others are being investigated. Socialist activists in Sydney released an image of Chan Han Choi (above), who is facing charges of allegedly assisting North Korea A hospital worker and alleged 'loyal agent of North Korea' in Australia has broken his silence from prison with an extraordinary message slamming 'unjust and unfair' actions against North Korea. Chan Han Choi, 60, from Eastwood, in Sydney's north-west, is the first person in the Australian history to be charged under the country's 1995 Weapons of Mass Destruction Act. Choi is in custody at Sydney's high security Long Bay prison, after Federal Police accused him of trying to broker missile and coal deals for North Korea which could have raised millions of dollars for the isolated nation. With the help of socialist activists, Choi has managed to release a message from behind bars, blasting 'unjust and unfair' UN sanctions on North Korea and being deprived of his 'rights' in prison. In one of two recorded phone conversations - where prison announcements can clearly be heard in the background - Choi identifies himself, said he had been 'declined' basic human rights throughout his 'incarceration' and thanked his supporters. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is pictured. Police allege Chan Han Choi was allegedly trying to raise money for Jong-un's regime A North Korean rocket lifting off in August 2017. Police claim 'I, Chan Han Choi, would like to express my appreciation and sincere gratitude for all the support I have received...,' he said, through stilted English. 'I honestly believe that every human being deserve basic human rights and I have been declined of those right through my incarceration. 'I strongly believe that the United Nations economic sanctions imposed on North Korea are both unjust and unfair,' he said. He made a series of other claims about the sinking of a South Korean submarine and issues with his previous lawyers and prison, including having to speak English on phone calls. New South Wales prisoners are rarely heard from publicly after entering into custody. Mainstream media interviews require written permission from the Department of Justice. (Corrective Services NSW declined to comment.) 'He's very defiant,' said Praba Balasubramaniam, a spokesman for the Trotskyist platform group, who held a protest calling for Choi to be freed last September. Mr Balasubramaniam's group released Mr Choi's photograph in a statement saying: '(He) is being imprisoned by the Australian regime for his support for socialistic North Korea. 'He wants people to see this image to combat the Australian regime and media's drive to dehumanise him.' Choi was arrested at his red-brick suburban apartment in December 2017 and was marched to a waiting police car by Federal officers. A rally was held in Sydney's west calling for authorities to release Chan Han Choi Choi is pictured upon his arrest at his home in Eastwood, in Sydney's north west, on December 17, 2017 'This man was acting as a loyal agent for North Korea who believed he was acting to serve some higher patriotic purpose,' AFP national manager of organised crime and cyber Neil Gaughan told reporters at the time. Then, Mr Gaughan said the AFP would be alleging in court that Choi was 'brokering the sale of missile componentry and technical expertise from North Korea to other international entities. 'We believe this man participated in discussions about the sale of missile componentry from North Korea to other entities abroad as another attempt to raise revenue for the government of North Korea. 'The missile componentry assisted in the guidance of ballistic missiles.' Choi - his face blurred by police - was led away in handcuffs. He has been remanded in custody while he awaits trial Neighbours variously described Choi to media as a 'nice guy', a 'cat lover' and a church-goer. Choi has a wife and a son who has worked in the information technology industry. It is understood engineering-related companies were registered in Choi's name. Choi has been charged with eight offences, including contravening a sanction law and providing services for a WMD program. Choi has been refused bail since his arrest. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges late last year and was committed to stand trial in the District Court later this month. Choi's lawyer was approached for comment. What would an old-style sergeant major say? After telling soldiers it was all right to cry, the Army is now seeking recruits from the snowflake generation. Its new poster campaign appeals to computer game geeks and selfie addicts. The adverts, unveiled today, are inspired by the famous First World War poster featuring a pointing Lord Kitchener and the slogan Your country needs you. Part of a 1.5million recruitment campaign for 2019, they show six soldiers with labels of modern stereotypes, such as phone zombies and class clowns above the slogan Your Army needs you. The new campaign is aiming to appeal to the Millennials, who have also been dubbed as 'snowflakes' Lord Kitchener (pictured above) on the original recruiting poster for the First World War The aim is to sign up millennials with compassion, self-belief and focus to boost falling numbers and widen the base of Britains 79,000-strong Army. The campaign is a follow-up to last years 1.6million recruitment drive that featured adverts saying it was fine for soldiers to cry, pray and show emotion. It resulted in applications to be a regular soldier hitting a five-year high. The new radio, TV and online adverts seek to reassure potential recruits that their perceived weaknesses are seen as strengths by the Army. Selfie-takers are lauded as self-confident, phone zombies as having focus and the Me Generation for their self-belief. New radio, TV and online adverts (featured above) seek to reassure potential recruits their perceived weaknesses are seen as strengths by the Army Army recruitment chief Major General Paul Nanson said: The Army sees people differently and we are proud to look beyond the stereotypes and spot the potential in young people. We understand the drive they have to succeed. Colonel Ben Wilde, assistant head of Army recruiting, told Soldier Magazine: They have a level of technical know-how that my generation generally does not possess. People embarking on their professional life often do not just want a job they want to do something that matters. An Interpol red notice has been issued for Filipino national Maria Kathrina Katleen Maligro Mountney (pictured), who is working in Sydney A Filipino woman working in Sydney is wanted by authorities in her homeland after she allegedly tried to murder her young daughter twice. An Interpol red notice has been issued for Maria Kathrina Katleen Maligro Mountney, who also goes by the names of Maria Cabrera and Maria Catton. The 31-year-old was charged with two counts of attempted parricide in the Philippines in 2016, while she was in Australia. The charges come after her former husband and daughter filed affidavits with local police, where they claimed she tried to kill the young girl on two occasions. Ms Mountney allegedly threatened to throw her daughter off a bridge and also said she was going to kill her while holding a butcher's knife to her stomach, according to police charge sheets seen by The Sydney Morning Herald. She also allegedly 'physically tortured' the girl and yelled at her 'on a daily basis', police documents state. Ms Mountney's former husband, Shaun Mountney, alleged she physically abused the girl and her sister. Ms Mountney was charged with two counts of attempted parricide in the Philippines in 2016 'Maria hit our eldest daughter in the head most days in Australia, and started hitting her sister, five, in the head a few months before we left her,' Mr Mountney told The Sydney Morning Herald. Affidavits detailing Ms Mountney's alleged violence have also been prepared by Mr Mountney's mother and daughters from another relationship. Ms Mountney, who is reportedly working in a Sydney medical centre, has not been arrested. In a now deleted Facebook post, she wrote she cries 'every single day missing my children thinking of them every single day'. An Interpol red notice is not an arrest warrant but a way to communicate information between international authorities. This horrifying Snapchat footage shows two Georgia teens playing with guns just moments before one aged 15 accidentally kills his 17-year-old friend before shooting himself dead. Devin Hodges, 15, was with three other boys in a 'cramped shed' in Lawrenceville when the handgun went off by mistake, fatally wounding Chad Carless. The pair, who are both believed to have gone to Discovery High School, were seen in a clip sent to their friends on social media the same evening, pointing guns at the camera. Hodges and the two other boys are thought to have called the emergency services but Chad could not be saved. Devin then turned the gun on himself as police officers pulled up on New Year's Eve. Both boys are seen playing with a gun in the moments leading up to the fatal shootings before Chad Carless, pictured left, is accidentally killed by his friend Devin Hodges, pictured right Gwinnett police said: 'After multiple interviews with witnesses, detectives learned one of the males, Hodges, was showing the group a handgun when he accidentally fired a shot. ' The shot struck his friend, Carless, sitting next to him in the cramped shed. Carless succumbed to his injuries before help could arrive. 'As officers were arriving on scene, Hodges was seen running between two homes, where he then took his own life with the handgun. 'Our thoughts are with the families of both these young men.' Devin is understood to have turned the gun on himself as officers pulled up on New Year's Eve Chad, pictured, could not be saved after he was accidentally shot by his friend Devin Gwinnett police issued this statement following the deaths and later identified the two boys Four boys were thought to have been in a 'cramped shed' in Lawrenceville when the handgun went off by mistake killing Chad The police investigation is ongoing and it is not known where Hodges got the gun. Bralen Bennett, 15, went to school with the two boys and said he is 'angry' that guns have claimed the lives of his two friends. He was sent the Snapchat before falling asleep and waking on New Year's Day to find out both teens were dead. His mom Rhonda told DailyMail.Com: 'It's is very sad. My son took classes with them and he received this video just moments before the tragedy.' For confidential support call the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255 Texas investigators vow they won't rest until they find the man who fatally shot a seven-year-old black girl in a drive-by shooting inside a parking lot on Sunday. 'We will not rest until we solve this case,' Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told reporters on Wednesday. 'Its not easy. We need help, but Im confident were heading in the right direction.' Authorities in Texas continue to investigate what prompted a weekend shooting that killed Jazmine Barnes after activists on Wednesday claimed the incident was racially motivated. Gonzalez said during a news conference that the investigation into the death Sunday of Jazmine Barnes is focused on collecting evidence and developing leads. A determination on motive will come later. Authorities in Texas continue to investigate what prompted a weekend shooting that killed Jazmine Barnes after activists on Wednesday claimed the incident was racially motivated 'We're not tone deaf to some of the concerns in our community where this could be potentially race related,' Gonzalez said, explaining that road rage could be another consideration. But he added that he doesn't want speculation on a possible motive to limit the scope of an investigation that has one primary aim: finding the shooter. The sheriff added that investigators are 'not ruling anything out.' Authorities are searching for a white, bearded man who was driving a red, four-door pickup captured on surveillance video shortly before the shooting in the eastern outskirts of Houston. Jazmine died at the scene and her mother, LaPorsha Washington, suffered a gunshot wound to the arm. 'We will not rest until we solve this case,' Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told reporters on Wednesday. 'Its not easy. We need help, but Im confident were heading in the right direction.' The driver of the pickup pulled alongside Washington's car and fired inside, authorities have said. Houston activists earlier Wednesday held a news conference, saying they believed the attack was racially motivated and pointed to an unsolved incident in the area in 2017 in which a suspect described as white shot into a vehicle carrying at least two black people. 'Black people are being targeted in this country. Black people are being targeted in this county. Black people are being targeted in this city,' activist Deric Muhammad said. 'So we are thoroughly convinced that the killing of Jazmine Barnes was race related.' Gonzalez said his office is revisiting the 2017 case as part of the investigation into Jazmine's death. He has described Sunday's shooting as 'totally unprovoked' and asked people who live nearby to review their surveillance videos. Christopher Cevilla, father of 7-year-old Jazmine Barnes, speaks during a news conference on Monday in Houston The shooter pulled alongside the mother's car (pictured) and fired into it, killing the girl. The mother managed to flee the scene in her car and came to rest on a highway median Lee Merritt, a national civil rights attorney with an office in Dallas, and New-York-based activist and writer Shaun King have offered a $50,000 reward for a tip that leads to an arrest. A distraught Washington earlier told KTRK-TV from her hospital bed that the gunman sped up after firing into her car, only to pull in front and slow down before firing again. 'He intentionally killed my child for no reason,' she said. 'He didn't even know her, he didn't know who she was.' Gonzalez said the shooting occurred on a service road as the family was heading to a store. Jazmine's father, Christopher Cevilla, said his daughter was a loving and caring girl who was 'very smart in school.' The Sheldon Independent School District said in a statement that Jazmine was a second-grader at Monahan Elementary in Houston. The district said additional counselors will be at the school when students return on Tuesday. The district asked parents to tell their children about Jazmine's death. Anyone with information about the suspect is urged to call Houston CrimeStoppers anonymously at 713-222-8477 for a potential cash reward. A Labour MP has vowed defiance after Commons officials moved a bust of Oliver Cromwell and installed a tamper alarm to stop him turning it to face the wall. The historic statue of the Lord Protector was relocated from its prime spot outside the Members' Tea Room for 'health and safety' reasons after the year-long campaign by veteran backbencher Stephen Pound. One senior Labour MP accused Mr Pound of behaving like 'a total pr***' - but other politicians said the Commons authorities had 'panicked' and overreacted to his protest. Mr Pound told MailOnline he had still not given up on getting rid of the 'butcher' - blamed in some quarters for ethnic cleansing of Catholics in Ireland - but complained that the bust had now been placed near his office at Westminster. 'Somebody's got a sense of humour,' he said. The historic statue of the Lord Protector was relocated from its prime spot outside the members' tea room for 'health and safety' reasons The bust of the Lord Protector was repeatedly turned around by a prankster to face the wall Cromwell was a Roundhead leader against the Royalists in the 17th Century English Civil War, and became Lord Protector - effectively monarch and PM combined - after the execution of King Charles in 1649. His reputation is controversial, with some praising his efforts to unite and modernise the country, while others accuse him of slaughtering Catholics in Ireland. The bust, thought to be the only statue of Cromwell on the parliamentary estate, had been positioned in a stairwell beside the Members' Team Room. But in the Autumn of 2017 the House authorities were forced to intervene when it was repeatedly turned to face the wall. The artwork was cordoned off with a sign saying: 'Fragile please do not touch.' They have also appealed for help in catching the prankster. However, the meddling persisted, and a few months ago the bust was shifted to 1 Parliament Street - near Mr Pound's office. Mr Pound said he had been 'dobbed in' by colleagues. 'The butcher turned up on my doorstep.' The MP said he still hoped to get the bust removed from Parliament altogether. 'I am in negotiations with the authorities. His butcher stare gets me every morning when I come in,' he said. 'They have put a tremble alarm on it.' He added: 'I don't know about health and safety, but he had better watch out for his health and safety.' Mr Pound said a 'complicating factor' was that Jeremy Corbyn did not share his hatred of Cromwell. A senior Labour MP told MailOnline of Mr Pound: 'He is being a total prick.' But Tory MP Ian Liddell-Grainger said the authorities had been far too sensitive. Stephen Pound said he had been 'dobbed in' by colleagues over the protest, but still hoped to have the bust removed from Parliament 'The whole thing is stupid. They panic about the smallest thing. It is crazy,' he said. 'It could have cost thousands of pounds.' Commons sources suggested the cost of moving the bust and installing an alarm had been 'minimal'. A House spokesman said: 'In common with museums and galleries, individuals on the Parliamentary Estate are asked not to touch any statues, paintings or other works of art on display, due to the risk of damage to the artworks. 'Anyone found to be doing so will be reminded of the rules.' The mysterious Bardsey Island has a population of just four. This tiny community is accessible only by boat from a small fishing village in north west Wales. But centuries ago, the scrap of land just two miles from the Llyn Peninsula was one of the most significant religious sites in Britain. The 1.5 mile-long island was a Christian pilgrimage site in the Middle Ages - when three visits to Bardsey were said to equal one to Rome. Bardsey Island, two miles from the Llyn Peninsula in north west Wales, is accessible only by boat from a small fishing village The island was once home to a community of 2,500 monks but now has a population of just four Some even believe it to be the final resting place of the legendary King Arthur. But despite its dwindling population, Bardsey has traces of civilisation dating back 12,000 years to the Neolithic Period. The island, Ynys Enlli, is said to have become an important religious hub in the sixth century when Einon, the King of Llyn, invited the Breton St Cadfan to Bardsey. Together, they built St Mary's Abbey - where a community of 2,500 monks lived throughout the seventh century. The 1.5 mile-long island was a Christian pilgrimage site in the Middle Ages - when three visits to Bardsey were said to equal one to Rome Bardsey Island (viewed here from the Llyn Peninsula) has traces of civilisation dating back 12,000 years to the Neolithic Period It is believed many of them indicated they wanted to be buried on Bardsey, which is perhaps the reason the land is known in folklore as the 'island of 20,000 saints.' This tale is honoured in a chapel graveyard, where an inscription reads: 'Respect the remains of 20,000 saints buried near this spot.' It may seem a stretch that such a huge population is hidden beneath an island just 1.5 miles long, but locals believe you can dig anywhere on Bardsey and find a body. In fact, in an excavation near to the modern-day chapel in the 1990s, archeologists unearthed 25 medieval graves. The island, Ynys Enlli, is said to have become an important religious hub in the sixth century (pictured, Bardsey Lighthouse) One of the bodies was found with a 10th century coin in its mouth, the BBC reported. St Mary's Abbey flourished until 1537 - when it was destroyed by Henry VIII in his Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. All that's left of the building and its 13th century Augustinian counterpart is an eight-metre stone tower in Bardsey Chapel's graveyard. It is perhaps unsurprising that this island, with its rich, illustrious history, is the source of many of Snowdonia's myths and legends. A community of 2,500 monks lived at St Mary's Abbey throughout the seventh century. The remains the church can be found in Bardsey Chapel's graveyard (pictured) St Mary's Abbey flourished until 1537 - when it was destroyed by Henry VIII in his Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries Some believe it to be the final resting place of King Arthur - though it is one of dozens of rumoured locations. Others claim the wizard Merlin sleeps in a 'magical glass castle' on the island with the 'thirteen treasures of Britain'. It is here, authors Chris Barber and David Pykitt say, that he 'lies in enchanted sleep awaiting the return of Arthur'. It has even been suggested that Bardsey is the legendary Isle of Avalon - where King Arthur was taken to be healed of his wounds after the Battle of Camlann. To the monastery of St Mary's, no less. Some even believe the island to be the final resting place of King Arthur - though it is one of dozens of rumoured locations Bardsey was owned by Lord Newborough until 1979, when the Bardsey Island Trust took over guardianship of the land A community thrived on the island until the 19th century, when a population remained selling lobsters and oysters caught in the Irish Sea. But by 1841, the population had fallen to just 90, and it plummeted further to 17 in 1961. The island's school, opened in a former chapel in 1919, closed in 1953, and in 2003 the year-round community reached its current population of four. Bardsey was owned by Lord Newborough until 1979, when the Bardsey Island Trust took over guardianship of its cliffs stacked with seabirds and waters filled with dolphins and seals. But the island's dwindling population doesn't make the island any less extraordinary than when it was as a place of pilgrimage in the medieval era. Bardsey today is home to more than 30 species of bird, 200 grey seals, 310 Welsh mountain sheep and around 30 cattle Two families, who run the bird observatory, the island's only farm, and act as island manager, make up the year-round inhabitants It is home to more than 30 species of bird, alongside its 200 resident grey seals, 310 Welsh mountain sheep, sea anemones and crabs. A bird observatory was even established in 1953 to give visitors the opportunity to view chiffchaffs, goldcrests and wheatears as they passed through on their way to wintering grounds. Two families, who run the bird observatory, the island's only farm, and act as island manager, make up the year-round inhabitants. Artists and writers visit Bardsey throughout the year - and visitors are invited to spend a week in one of five farmhouses, lofts, and cottages. Artists and writers visit Bardsey throughout the year - and tourists are invited to spend a week in one of five farmhouses, lofts, and cottages The island has no mobile phone signal, paved roads, and it isn't connected to an electricity grid The island isn't quite as isolated as it may first seem, as it does have internet access, and uses solar panels to generate enough electricity to power a fridge and lighting. There's even a back-up generator and an oil-powered oven. Bardsey Island today is far from its past as one of Britain's most significant religious sites. But whether its the island's wildlife, history, or its apparent connection to King Arthur - something about Bardsey has encouraged visitors to make the trip across the Irish Sea for centuries. Brexit looms over everyone's financial future as politicians wrangle over how - or even still whether - to exit the European Union. For pensioners and people saving for old age, the most immediate impact of Brexit will be on their investments if that is how they are funding retirement. Markets are in turmoil for many reasons as we enter 2019, and further volatility is anticipated around the March departure date from the EU. We look at what might happen and which pension savers could be most affected below. Pensions in 2019: Government has stuck to its 'triple lock' pledge and will hike the state pension to 168.60 a week in April State pension age changes have started kicking in for men as well as women, with everyone reaching their 65th birthday now facing a delay before getting their payments. But the Government has so far stuck to its 'triple lock' pledge guaranteeing the elderly an annual state pension increase of at least 2.5 per cent. The auto-enrolment initiative has seen continued success, despite concerns that a hike in minimum compulsory contributions last spring could cause a wave of opt-outs from work pension schemes. This failed to materialise, and has allayed concerns about the effect of a further mandatory increase in contributions pending this April. As Brexit dominates the political scene, the Government has still failed to bring forward a promised social care plan that replaces its much-panned idea to introduce a 100,000 'floor' on personal contributions. However, in December it did announce some long-anticipated measures to 'nudge' the self-employed to provide for retirement, and finally gave a start date of 9 January for a ban on pension cold calling to combat scammers. We delve into some of these issues and others in greater depth below. It's worth finding out more about such pension matters and how they might alter your plans for old age. Here's what you need to know. Brace for investment volatility - but UK market could ultimately triumph in year of Brexit The present turmoil in the financial markets - and further likely volatility around the Brexit date - will impact many pension savers, though to different degrees according to your age and where your savings are stashed. What does 2019 have in store for investors? Watch our interview on how to shield yourself from Brexit - and some markets tipped to prosper Younger people who are still investing for retirement can afford to take a more relaxed view of the current turbulence, even if there is a truly disastrous crash in 2019. When you are slowly drip feeding money into pension investments month by month, big market falls are a useful opportunity to buy stocks on the cheap, then benefit from the recovery that will turn up long before you retire. The pension savers most vulnerable to market strife are retirees who invested their pots in income drawdown schemes after the pension freedom reforms in 2015. Markets have been mostly buoyant since then, which may have lulled some into a false sense of security about investment risk - particularly those who were not active or interested investors while building savings during their working years. A market upset could unfortunately provide a practical lesson to many on managing their retirement investments through a crisis. It is not a good idea to simply carry on as normal in such times. This is because people who continue to draw an income from falling investments will fall into a nasty trap known as 'pound cost ravaging'. It basically means that when markets fall you suffer the triple whammy of falling capital value of the fund, further depletion due to the income you are taking out, and a drop in future income. How to protect your retirement income in troubled times Find out the ways to dodge the 'pound cost ravaging' trap here. This poses a problem every time markets take a tumble, but is especially dangerous at the start of retirement because investors can rack up big losses and never make them up again if they aren't careful. We look at ways to avoid the worst fallout from this here. Pension experts say people should be sent warning letters if they are at risk of running out of money in retirement. At present, only one firm does this automatically, but regulators and the Government might be forced to act if many people's pots take a severe hit in a market downturn. So far, concern is being voiced about people taking too little risk with their pension investments, by going into income drawdown and sticking their entire pots in safe but often costly cash funds, but priorities could soon change in a more adverse financial climate. Meanwhile, those lucky enough to be already drawing a final salary pension get guaranteed payouts and can ignore any market gyrations, as can those who bought an annuity offering similarly guaranteed payments for life. Anyone with a final salary pension who is yet to retire should also be fine, as long as the employer meant to fund it doesn't go out of business. Even then, the Pension Protection Fund will save most of your money. Of course, the present market ructions might soon subside. Many pundits think the UK market is undervalued and might be heading for big gains in the year of Brexit. State pension increase due but retirees turning 65 must wait longer for payouts The flat rate state pension will rise to 168.60 a week and the basic rate to 129.20 a week in April. But both men and women reaching their 65th birthday from December 2018 on will have to wait longer to claim their state pensions. The latest changes affect people born from 6 December 1953 onwards, and you can check your state retirement date using our guide here or on the Government's timetable here. Previous hikes to women's state pension age from 60 to 65 have already sparked controversy as many have faced financial hardship while they wait longer than they expected to draw the state pension. Campaigners say they agree with equalising women's and men's pension ages, but not how the changes were dramatically speeded up by ex-Chancellor George Osborne or the lack of warning to those affected. Delays to the state pension are unpopular, according a survey by Age UK which showed 58 per cent of people feel negative about the changes while only 7 per cent feel positive. How much is the state pension? The basic state pension is currently 125.95 a week, and will rise to 129.20 next April. It is topped up by additional state pension entitlements - S2P and Serps - accrued during working years. The two-tier state system has changed for people retiring since 6 April 2016, when it was replaced by a new 'flat rate' state pension. This is currently worth 164.35 a week, and will rise to 168.60 in April. People who have contracted out of S2P and Serps over the years and retire after April 2016 get less than the full new state pension. Workers likely to shoulder new compulsory auto enrolment rise Millions of workers auto-enrolled into pensions saw deductions from their wages triple last April, and even more money will be diverted from their pay from this spring. The response of workers was closely monitored, as a widespread revolt could have undermined the so far successful auto enrolment experiment into nudging workers to provide for their own retirement, unless they actively choose not to participate. But the Government recently reported that the opt out rate did not change in April and June this year, when workers' minimum compulsory contribution was hiked from 0.8 per cent of eligible earnings to 2.4 per cent. This bodes well for the next increase in the minimum contribution to 4 per cent of 'band earnings' - the portion of people's wages that falls under the auto enrolment rules, currently between 6,032 and 46,350 a year and due to change to between 6,136 and 50,000 in April. Free top-ups from employers plus Government tax relief (for all except some low earners - see below) mean that millions of workers will soon see at least 8 per cent of their 'band earnings' put aside for retirement in future. 'While employees will see this reduce their take-home pay, its really important that people keep saving,' says Steven Cameron, pensions director at Aegon. 'Otherwise, they lose out on valuable employer contributions and are likely to find they have an inadequate pension when they come to retire.' Who pays what? How pension contributions stack up under auto-enrolment schemes (Source: The Pensions Advisory Service) Auto enrolment: Opt out rate did not change in April and June after rise in minimum contribution level Government under pressure to fix 'cruel' tax quirk hitting pensions of low paid A swelling number of low paid people are being deprived of Government pension tax top-ups routinely received by the better off, a scandal we have repeatedly highlighted since last spring. This tax quirk is variously dubbed 'cruel', 'indefensible' and an 'injustice' by campaigners and industry experts. Yet nothing has been done so far to fix this for poorly paid people, who are missing out on Government pension cash that relatively speaking they will be in sorer need of in retirement than higher earning workers. Give dukes and dustmen the same pension boost Ex-shadow minister Gregg McClymont warns the Government to play fair on top-ups here. That's never mind the unfairness of penalising the worst off workers while the rich get their full whack of pension cash. Former shadow pensions minister Gregg McClymont drove this point home when he told politicians they must give dukes and dustmen the same pension boost. The tone of the Government's statements has shifted, albeit marginally, since This is Money started reporting on the issue. 'We recognise the differences in the way tax relief is delivered. Both approaches have advantages,' it said in April. 'The Government is looking at the opportunities provided by the move to a modern digital tax system to tackle any differences of treatment in provision of tax relief for pensions,' was its response in December. That came as it emerged the number affected is set to rise from 1.22million low paid people missing out on Government pension cash to more than 1.8million due to tax changes from April. A business source tells This is Money that because the issue was ducked in the last Budget - despite an alliance of two ex-Pensions Ministers, industry experts, a leading charity and the TUC urging action on Chancellor Philip Hammond - it's likely nothing can now be done to sort this out until the next Budget in the Autumn. Ros Altmann, who has spearheaded the campaign to get low paid people the same tax top-up as richer workers, has vowed to keep fighting until she and a growing band of supporters win this battle. Tax quirk: Low paid people, mostly women workers, are being deprived of Government pension tax top-ups received by the better off Will new top regulator be an 'enforcer' who averts next BHS or Carillion pension disaster? Rising numbers of people continue to abandon guaranteed and typically generous final salary pensions, despite safeguards erected by watchdogs. Savers are being offered gigantic sums - often worth vastly more than the current size of their final salary pensions - by employers keen to clear expensive obligations off their books. Whether this is a sensible idea will rest on your individual circumstances. Pension firm Aegon explained what questions you should ask yourself if you are tempted to do this, before forking out for professional help. It is compulsory to pay for financial advice before transferring a final salary, also known as defined benefit, pension worth 30,000-plus. The Financial Conduct Authority has told financial advisers to improve the help they give savers after uncovering widespread failings, which at worst could be leaving them at risk of moving pensions to scam schemes. Final salary pensions: Some savers are being offered gigantic sums by employers keen to clear expensive obligations off their books But a decision over 'no transfer, no fee' offers to savers, which critics say cause conflicts of interest, was postponed for now. Meanwhile, in the wake of the BHS debacle, employers are still being accused of dumping responsibility for staff pensions on the lifeboat Pension Protection Fund. A new boss has just been appointed to The Pensions Regulator, after the watchdog under his predecessor was decried as 'feeble' and 'chronically passive' by MPs probing the collapse of Carillion. Charles Counsell, currently chief executive of the Money Advice Service, will take over in April and is described as 'a delivery-focused leader' with 'energy, determination and passion' by TPR. Alison Brown, pensions specialist at professional services firm Herbert Smith Freehills, expects a tougher regulatory environment in future. Just prior to Counsell's appointment, she anticipated an 'enforcer' being given the role. 'Following criticism in the wake of the failures of BHS and Carillion, the Pensions Regulator has signalled its intention to adopt a tougher approach to pensions regulation,' she says. 'Scheme sponsors will need to adjust to a new regulatory climate.' Brown expects employers to continue 'de-risking legacy liabilities', after 2018 saw records broken in the pensions buy-out market, where insurers are being paid huge sums to take over firms' final salary pension obligations. Consolidation, or mergers of final salary schemes into 'superfunds', is also on the cards. The Pensions Regulator has pledged to thoroughly vet any future superfunds 'to ensure any risks are identified, assessed and mitigated'. 'So TPR can scrutinise superfunds ahead of legislation they will need to be satisfied the superfund: has a viable business model; is financially sustainable; is well governed; has a high probability of being able to pay members benefits as they fall due,' it said. Child benefit campaign: An innocent paperwork blunder after giving birth shouldn't cost parents tens of thousands of pounds in old age Government urged to stop docking parents' state pension over innocent child benefit errors This is Money is campaigning against the unfairness of parents ending up with smaller state pensions because they failed to fill in a child benefit form or made innocent paperwork errors. Have you lost state pension by not signing up for child benefits or filling form in wrong? If this has happened to you, contact tanya.jefferies@thisismoney.co.uk and tell us your story. We have called on the Government to address this after hearing from many parents who stand to lose tens of thousands of pounds in old age due to losing valuable credits towards their state pension. When they try to correct their child benefit record, they discover the Government will only backdate credits by three months, or get entangled in nightmare red tape disputes with HMRC. This is Money is calling on the Government to 1) give parents back all the state pension credits they are entitled to in full; 2) review the feasibility of parents signing up when registering a birth not through the child benefit system; and 3) do more to help parents penalised for putting the 'wrong' partner's name down on the form. Former Pensions Minister Steve Webb has launched a petition to fight the 'growing injustice' of parents - mostly mums - facing a reduced state pension in old age. It can be found here. Britain's economy found itself stuck in a 'weak holding pattern' by the end of last year, a survey by the British Chambers of Research suggests. 'Stagnating levels of growth and business confidence as a result of heightened Brexit uncertainty and other economic pressures', the BCC said. The survey of 6,000 companies employing around one million people revealed that domestic sales and order levels are down, while recruitment difficulties, particularly in the manufacturing sector, 'stand near record highs' and price pressures continue. Stagnating: Britain's economy found itself stuck in a 'weak holding pattern' by the end of last year, the BCC said The gloomy summary comes a day after the Markit/CIPS UK manufacturing purchasing managers' index showed a reading of 54.2 last month, higher than the 53.6 recorded in November, and a six-month high. Four fifths of employers in manufacturing, and almost as many in the service sector, reported difficulties in finding the right workers, the BCC said. For the manufacturing sector, this is the worst level seen since 1989. A large number of manufacturers told the BCC they expect to have to continue raising prices. The proportion of services firms saying sales were improving had dropped to a two year low. Cashflow continues to be a concern for both the manufacturing and service sectors, with the balance of firms reporting improved cash flow 'remaining weak.' With Brexit looming, the BCC said: 'As Westminster prepares to return from recess, the leading business group is calling on all political parties to find a way forward and ensure that the UK does not face a messy and disorderly exit from the EU. 'Avoiding a chaotic Brexit would bolster business confidence and investment, and give businesses some much-need clarity on trading conditions in the near-term.' Suren Thiru, head of economics at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: 'Our latest survey suggests that UK economic conditions were worryingly subdued in the final quarter of 2018, with a number of key indicators continuing to weaken under the weight of persistent Brexit uncertainty and rising cost pressures. 'Domestic activity in the dominant services sector weakened for the second successive quarter, with consumer-facing firms particularly downbeat amid subdued household spending levels and tightening cashflow. 'The manufacturing sector had an underwhelming three months, with significant cost pressures and moderating global demand weighing on activity in the sector.' Dr Adam Marshall, director general of the BCC, said: 'The UK economy is in stasis. While it's not contracting, it's not growing robustly either. Focus: The BCC said Theresa May and all politicians need to do their utmost to avoid a 'messy and disorderly exit from the EU' 'Throughout much of 2018, UK businesses were subjected to a barrage of political noise and drama, so it's no surprise to see firms report muted domestic demand and investment. 'In this new year, the government must demonstrate that it is ready to act to turbo-charge business confidence. 'With little clarity on the trading conditions they'll face in just two months' time, companies are understandably holding back on spending and making big decisions about their futures. 'The government's absolute priority now must be to provide clarity on conditions in the near term and avoid a messy and disorderly Brexit. Business communities won't forgive politicians who allow this to happen, by default or otherwise. 'Brexit is hoovering up all of government's attention and resources, but it's far from the only cause of uncertainty. 'Given the magnitude of the recruitment difficulties faced by firms clear across the UK, business concerns about the government's recent blueprint for future immigration rules must be taken seriously and companies must be able to access skills at all levels without heavy costs or bureaucracy.' The FTSE 100 index is down 0.49 per cent or 31.84 points to 6,702.39 on Thursday morning. The new year has started with a bang for London-listed Ophir Energy. While the UKs stock market swung wildly, paring early losses to close marginally higher, oil and gas exploration business Ophir leapt after confirming a potential buyer was sniffing around. The company told investors that it was in talks with Indonesian energy business Medco, which is considering making a cash offer to acquire the whole firm. Ophir did not give any indication of how much Medco plans to stump up, and the Indonesian firm now has until January 28 to either make a formal bid or step away from the deal. Ophir Energy told investors that it was in talks with Indonesian energy business Medco, which is considering making a cash offer to acquire the whole firm But the announcement did boost Ophirs shares by 28.9 per cent, or 10.3p, to 46p, adding almost 73million to the minnows market value. Before the announcement, Ophir was trading at 252million, making it around a third of the size of Jakarta-listed Medco. If the deal materialises, said Angus Rodger, research director at consultancy Wood Mackenzie, it would create a south-east Asian powerhouse in the sector. Meanwhile investors in the FTSE 100 hoping for a positive start to the New Year were left feeling flat after 2019s first day of trading. The blue-chip index of Britains biggest listed companies recovered some of its sharp early losses to end the day up 0.1 per cent, or 6.1 points, at 6734.23 points. Stock Watch - Matomy Media Troubled online advertising business Matomy Media jumped on announcing a shake-up to allow it to repay worried bondholders. It plans to raise 6million to 8million from shareholders, to buy the remaining 10 per cent of subsidiary Team Internet and help pay back 24million of bonds. Matomy also said it had received two offers for Team Internet, but that it believed it could get a better price if it decided to sell the business. Shares shot up by 36.4 per cent, or 2p, to 7.5p. It was weighed down by heavyweight miners, which were smarting from data which showed that Chinas manufacturing activity had contracted in December for the first time in 19 months. Metal and coal miners are particularly susceptible to any weakness in Chinas manufacturing sector because the country imports so many raw materials. Glencore led the decline, falling 3 per cent, or 8.85p, to 282.5p, while Anglo American was down 2.1 per cent, or 37.4p, at 1710.4p. The FTSE 250 eked out higher gains, ending up 0.5 per cent, or 84.65 points, at 17,586.7 points. Stobart Group, Southend Airports owner, appeared to be putting a torrid year behind it as it became the indexs highest riser. Analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald said that an unrelated deal over the Christmas break, in which Frances Vinci bought a stake in Gatwick Airport, valuing the flight hub at 2.9billion, highlighted the attractiveness of Stobarts own airport assets. Shares climbed 6.5 per cent, or 9.4p, to 153.8p. Last year, the firm was embroiled in a row between its former chief executive Andrew Tinkler and its current management. Tinkler, who had been fired, attempted to oust chairman Iain Ferguson and reinstate him with Edinburgh Woollen Mill owner Philip Day, saying Ferguson was taking the company in the wrong direction. The ensuing legal action between the parties weighed on Stobarts shares, and a High Court judgment is still in the pipeline. Energean Oil and Gas was also a strong gainer. The company, trading on the stock exchange for less than a year, said it had signed an agreement to sell around 5.5bn cubic metres of gas to new Israeli power station IPM Beer Tuvia. The gas will be supplied over an initial 19-year period, from Energeans Karish and Tanin project which is due to produce its first gas in 2021. The deal is expected to rake 708million, and shares rose 4.3 per cent, or 26.7p, to 655p. At the smaller end of the oil and gas sector, Amerisur impressed investors with strong drilling results. The South America-focused company announced an oil discovery in Colombia. Yesterday, it said initial testing showed the well was flowing at over 4,500 barrels per day above expectations. Shares jumped 15.2 per cent, or 2.34p, to 17.7p. Economics is not known as the gloomy science for nothing. The Financial Times annual survey of 80 top forecasters suggests that Brexit uncertainty will stunt investment and growth in 2019 even if there is an orderly UK departure from the EU. Read into the survey closely and what actually is being predicted is that UK output will come in close to the 2018 figure of 1.5 per cent in the current year. That may be well below Trump tax cut-fuelled US growth. But at the tail end of a long UK economic upswing it would be no mean achievement given the stuttering eurozone recovery. Britain's creative industries, from gaming to JK Rowling and Stormzy (pictured), have been the fastest-growing sector since the financial crisis The latest purchasing managers index shows UK manufacturing hit a six-month high in December. The popular explanation for this is that companies are stockpiling in preparation for a no-deal Brexit. Instead of sitting around doing nothing, manufacturers are looking over the March 29 cliff and making sensible decisions. Many of the bigger companies spoken to in recent weeks, such the nations biggest exporter Rolls-Royce, are making long-term strategic decisions including a big investment in next-generation turbines for aircraft. Amid the headline gloom it is worth reflecting on what is going well for the UK. The last year ended with record numbers in employment, real wages rising, unemployment at 4 per cent, its lowest in four decades, and increasing numbers of workers shifting from the gig economy into permanent work. To read the headlines from the High Street one might think all is falling apart. We will learn more of that from Next today. But it is illustrative to note that John Lewis sales climbed 4.5pc in Christmas week and although shop sales may be suffering at Next, it is the retailer most protected by its efficient online sales. Structural changes are causing great damage. The unfair assault on traditional shops by Amazon and online players, which escape upward-only rent reviews and most high street business rates, is hurting. But that doesnt necessarily mean that consumer spending, which takes many forms, is really suffering. What we need to cherish is that so much about the UK is doing well. Our creative industries, from gaming to JK Rowling and Stormzy, have been the fastest-growing sector since the financial crisis. Barely a day passes without encouraging developments from our science-based industries. Glaxos development of the first vaccine for shingles Shingrix has been so successful it cannot produce enough to meet demand. Astrazeneca is the fastest-growing pharma company in China and a pioneer in immunology drugs for cancer. Economists may be fretting about Brexit and its impact on their modelling. The message from the real world of creating wealth and jobs is much more encouraging. Tax terriers HMRC has been successful in clamping down on tax avoidance and aggressive tax planning as comedian Jimmy Carr and the new chief executive of BT Philip Jansen might testify. Since 2010 it has raked in 185billion which otherwise would not have been paid. Indeed, as the Resolution Foundation thinktank points out, there is still much more to go for if, for instance, the Chancellor were to limit entrepreneurs relief where three-quarters of the 3.9billion tax breaks go to 5,000 people. Or it could clamp down on inheritance tax loopholes. If authorities kept their focus on the biggest avoiders, such as Silicon Valley giants, there would be fewer complaints. But when HMRC turns its guns on the Christmas club and sensible shoes for employees at Iceland you want to scream foul. Iceland is in hot water because the requirement that workers wear the right shoes means some buy them off their own bat and that takes their average income below the national living wage. HMRC wants Iceland to repair the damage. That HMRC spends time on such piffle cannot be what Spreadsheet Phil wants. Italian job The first banking casualty of 2019, surprise, surprise, is in Italy. The European Central Bank is calling in administrators at Genoa-based Carige which failed to persuade key investors to pump 360million of equity into the failing 22.5billion institution. Italian banks still hold at least 238billion of bad loans a decade after the financial crisis.It could be another very rocky year there. Seeking Royal approval: Donald Trump will be attending the world economic forum in Davos Donald Trump's permanently put-upon press spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders says the president will travel to Davos for this month's World Economic Forum, as he did last year. Also attending the self-important Alpine jamboree is Prince William, who avoided meeting Trump during his summer visit to the UK, not unintentionally if the Kensington Palace 'on dit' is to be believed. Trump remains desperate for the regal imprimatur. Weaselly courtiers may need to be at their deftest if diplomatic fall-out is to be averted. Dick Cheney biopic Vice, starring sensitive Welshman Christian Bale as the controversial ex-Halliburton boss and US vice-president, is dismissed as a dud by the Hollywood press. But they reserve praise for habitual cockney scene-stealer Eddie Marsan's performance as Paul Wolfowitz, the ex-World Bank president. Wolfowitz, 75, has been lampooned before. He appeared in the opening montage of Michael Moore's OTT polemic, Fahrenheit 9/11, gormlessly lubricating his hair with saliva before a TV interview. Whitbread chief, and all-round good egg, Alison Brittain received a CBE in the New Year's honours but her feline chairman, City grand formaggio Adam Crozier, remains noticeably gongless. One would have thought Crozier's turnaround job at Royal Mail warranted a 'K'. Or did the Scotsman's ruthless cost cutting some 60,000 jobs were scrapped on his watch rattle crockery in the Royal household? Cryptic ex-Unilever boss, Netherlands-born Paul Polman, pays tribute to his successor Alan Jope, who started in his new role yesterday, tweeting: 'Glad to have you as the new leader. Unilever is blessed with leaders like you. Onwards, upwards.' What's Dutch for 'pass the sickbag'? Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has decreed that Iceland staff should be compensated for any shoes they have bought for work after the frozen food firm offered guidance that 'suitable shoes' should be worn on the job. Is this already the most depressing business story of 2019? Love to know what our brave Iraq veterans who forked out for their own body armour due to the inadequacy of the MoD-provided kit make of it all. HUMOUR THE NEW YORKER ENCYLOPEDIA OF CARTOONS Edited by Bob Mankoff (Thames & Hudson 75) Back in the long-distant days, before the arrival of the internet and Twitter with their seemingly inexhaustible supply of people and animals falling over or into things, what was it that most made us laugh? Gather round, children: we called them cartoons. They appeared in things called newspapers and magazines. And of the latter, none has a greater legacy of the cartoonists art than the New Yorker. In Britain there was Punch, but that long ago closed (its brilliant cartoon editor Michael Heath escaped to the Mail On Sunday and The Spectator). And however unpatriotic it might be to say it, Punchs cartoons were never as consistently brilliant. Or perhaps the fact that the New Yorker is in almost every other respect a very serious magazine is what makes its cartoons stand out: in the middle of a 20,000-word article about the threat of climate change, a dazzling shaft of wit is such a welcome relief and reward. Bob Mankoff who was the cartoon editor of the New Yorker for 20 years shares the publications best cartoons in a two volume encyclopedia Now you can have all the reward without the hard work. It comes in the form of an encyclopaedia of the best cartoons to appear in the New Yorker since its first publication in 1925. If you think the word encyclopaedia is too grand for such content, know that this is a monumental (and monumentally heavy) two volumes of over 1,500 pages, arranged by subject matter in alphabetical order. It is a labour of love by Bob Mankoff, cartoon editor of the New Yorker for 20 years (1997-2017), a contributor for over 40, and one of whose own cartoons (from 1993) is the most quoted ever to appear in the magazine. It shows a man in an office, holding the phone while looking through his diary, saying: No, Thursdays out. How about never is never good for you? This sardonic, urban humour is the distinctive New Yorker brand, a true reflection of the city in which it is rooted. And that predominantly Jewish tradition can be very dark. For example, one from 1989, showing a man with a briefcase, trying to force his way through a crowd surrounding an inert body. He tells them: Let me through. Im a lawyer. Blacker still (since New York was for so long the centre of the Mafias commercial activities), there is a 2005 cartoon showing a cute little girl holding the hand of her sinister-looking father, and saying: Daddy, can I have a pony killed? But the subject matter covered in these volumes is universal, not local. None more so than the way in which they capture with piercing precision the unchang-ing and eternally puzzling human condition (relationships, ageing, dying). They start right at the beginning with Adam and Eve gags. My favourite of these shows a somewhat debauched Adam saying to a Brigitte Bardot-ish Eve (while being chased out of Paradise by an angry-looking God): Just for the record, I knew you were naked before I ate the apple. Are cartoons fact checked? 16 Number of New Yorker fact checkers, who even check cartoons Advertisement As this is an encyclopaedia, Adultery follows immediately after Adam and Eve, and we have an unshaven man in a bar saying to his drinking companion: What I dont, like, get is how, she, like, figured out I was, like, having an affair with, like, the babysitter. This cartoon, by Danny Shanahan, dates from 2001. One of the startling aspects of these volumes is just how quickly the cartoonists spot an emerging trend, and satirise it. Nowadays, we all know this is the way that young adults, like, talk. But in 2001? Alternatively, perhaps this is just the proof that trends and indeed entire industries develop first on the New Yorkers side of the Atlantic, and wash across to Blighty years later. For example, another Shanahan cartoon has a man in a bookshop saying to the woman at the till: No cafe latte? And you call yourself a bookstore? This was published in 1994. I think anyone in England reading that edition of the New Yorker a quarter of a century ago would simply not have understood the joke. Now, we do. Ageing, however, never ages. For example, a 1989 cartoon by Robert Weber in which a balding man of mature years looks into a mirror with an expression on his face which I can describe only as half-wistful, half-hopeful, and tells his wife: If I were a dog Id be only nine years old. This might or might not have been an inspiration (he is a genius who requires no precedent) for the British cartoonist Matt. THE NEW YORKER ENCYLOPEDIA OF CARTOONS Edited by Bob Mankoff (Thames & Hudson 75) For my 50th birthday he sent me a cartoon of two dogs looking just like the ones we then had. One says to the other: I just cant believe that Dominic is 350 years old. But there is no rule that says that cartoons about ageing not to mention dying have to be funny. Some of the best are as bleak as the truth can be. For example, one of Mankoffs and he chooses more of his own than any other cartoonists work shows a very elderly couple on a porch, the man telling his wife: No, I dont want to live forever, but I damn sure dont want to be dead forever, either. The human predicament, in a sentence. A developing theme in these volumes is the way humanity itself is or fears that it is being superseded by computers. The earliest example dates from 1958. I am most familiar with it, since my stepfather, the philosopher Sir Alfred Ayer, bought the original: it hung outside the loo in the house he shared with my mother. It shows a vast computer (they all were, in those days); two scientists are scrutinising the tape that has emerged from it. One, looking startled, tells his colleague: Ill be damned. It says: Cogito, ergo sum. I remember that I always smiled when I saw it no matter how familiar it became. That is the joy of the greatest cartoons. The joke never wears thin. So neither will these volumes. A 58-year-old woman has tested positive for hepatitis B after being unwittingly exposed to the virus at a surgical facility in New Jersey. The unidentified patient is the first to come forward and file a claim against the center, which says up to 3,778 people may have been exposed to HIV, hepatitis, and other blood-borne pathogens. Her claim comes a week after health officials said sterilization issues plagued HealthPlus Surgery Center in Saddle Brook, New Jersey, between January 1 and September 7, 2018. According to a state report, poor drug storage methods, an outdated infection control plan and unacceptable sterilization practices were rife. Filing a claim in her home borough of Brooklyn today, the woman's lawyers accuses HealthPlus of 'recklessly and negligently' failing to follow sterilization and other procedures. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO Patients at a surgical center in Saddle Brook, New Jersey, may have been exposed to hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV The lawsuit, which seeks class action status, asks for unspecified damages. The New Jersey Department of Health last week sent letters to almost 4,000 patients urging them to get tested at 'out of an abundance of caution.' One patient, Kristin Debenedictis, told Pix 11: 'I was just so upset. Nobody wants to get news like that. HIV is, like, extremely scary. My friend, you know, he died of AIDS. It's horrible.' 'I needed to be checked for HIV and hepatitis,' the letter said. The letterhead showed that it was from HealthPlus Surgery. 'I started crying. I was just so upset. Nobody wants to get news like that.' Two employees have since been fired, officials said. And now, there's a lawsuit - likely the first of many. The legal action, brought in US district court in Brooklyn, accuses HealthPlus of 'recklessly and negligently' failing to follow sterilization and other procedures. The lawsuit, which seeks class action status, asks for unspecified damages. Patients who underwent procedures at HealthPlus Surgery Center in Saddle Brook, NJ, were sent letters urging them to be checked Attorney Marc Held, whose firm joined with the woman's firm in filing the lawsuit, said in an email that she received her positive test results earlier this week, after having had shoulder surgery at HealthPlus last year. HealthPlus attorney Mark Manigan said state health officials still must conduct a 'comprehensive analysis' to determine, among other things, if the positive test result reflects a pre-existing condition. 'To our knowledge, no infection has been linked to exposure at HealthPlus and definitive results may be weeks or months away,' Manigan said in an emailed statement. HealthPlus notified the patients last month that 'lapses in infection control in sterilization/cleaning instruments and the injection of medications' may have exposed them to the diseases, and offered to reimburse them for the cost of testing. Another former patient filed a lawsuit in a New Jersey state court last Friday alleging that HealthPlus engaged in 'wanton misconduct on a continuing basis' by exposing patients to dangerous pathogens. The parents of a pair of formerly conjoined twins - once attached at the skull - say one has been making strides while the other struggles. Jadon and Anais McDonald, three, were separated two years ago at The Children's Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City in a 27-hour surgery. Recovery has been easier for Jadon, who is learning to read, talks and moves around with a walker, while Anais is confined to a wheelchair and has undergone a multitude of health problems including eczema and seizures. But parents Christian and Nicole told CNN that they made the right decision to separate the twins, whom would have otherwise certainly died if left attached. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO Formerly conjoined twins Jadon (left) and Anais McDonald (right), three, were separated two years ago at The Children's Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City Jadon (with mom Nicole) is learning to read, talks and moves around with a walker Anais is confined to a wheelchair and struggles to speak and move The twins were born in September 2015 near Chicago, Illinois, and were known as craniopagus twins, meaning they were joined at the skull Conjoined twins occur in approximately one in 200,000 live births, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. Around 70 percent of conjoined twins are female and the majority are stillborn. Twins joined at the skull - known as craniopagus - are the least common type and account for just two percent of all cases. Around 40 percent of craniopagus twins are stillborn and, of those that survive, approximately one-third die within 24 hours of being born. Past studies have shown that if the twins are still alive, they face an 80 percent risk of dying by age two if they are not separated. Nicole and Christian, who also have a five-year-old son named Aza, were faced with an impossible choice: separate the boys and face a lifetime of risks or refuse the surgery and likely watch them die. Christian told CNN that he and his wife made the right decision. 'If that's what the boys needed, then that's what we were going to do,' he said. 'We were going to give them their best shot, and we feel like we did that. We feel like our faith and our belief definitely carried us through.' The boys were born via Cesarean section in September 2015 near Chicago, Illinois. Just five months later, they traveled to Montefiore Hospital in New York to have one of the world's most esteemed surgeons perform the incredibly rare operation to separate them. Pictured: Anais, left, and Jadon After the twins arrived at the hospital in February, the four-stage separation procedure was planned, in-part, by using 3-D printing technology to map the boys' anatomy The operation, which took place over October 13 and 14, 2016, cost a cool $2.5million and lasted an incredible 27 hours They were joined at the crown and shared a five-to-seven centimeter section of brain tissue. Just five months later, the McDonalds traveled to Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, New York, to have one of the world's most esteemed surgeons perform the incredibly rare operation to separate their heads. After the twins arrived at the hospital in February, the four-stage separation procedure was planned, in-part, by using 3-D printing technology to map the boys' anatomy. The operation, which took place over October 13 and 14, 2016, cost a cool $2.5million and lasted an incredible 27 hours. The 40-person surgical team was led in part by Dr James Goodrich, who specializes in separating craniopagus twins. Two months later, in December, Jadon and Anais were transferred to Blythedale Children's Hospital in Westchester Country to begin rehabilitation. In September, the family - missing their Midwestern roots - moved to Knox, Indiana. The boys have had quite different experiences post-surgery. Jadon has learned to speak and even walks, albeit with the help of a walker. The 40-person surgical team was led in part by Dr James Goodrich (left, with Nicole and the twins), who specializes in separating craniopagus twins Even though Anais has struggled with several health problems, including eczema and seizures, his parents say he is the most medically sound he has ever been. Pictured: Anais, left with Nicole, and Jado, right Anais, however, cannot walk and gets around in a specially designed wheelchair and has trouble speaking. He also developed eczema so severe that Nicole told CNN his ankles and legs resembled 'raw meat'. Additionally, Anais suffered from up to 15 seizures a day that would turn him blue. 'I thought I was losing him forever, and I was devastated,' Nicole said. 'What was hard was to see that he was on the same path as Jadon, and then something happened - lots of things happened - to pull him out of that race for a minute.' However, Nicole said Anais is currently the most medically stable he has ever been. Once hooked up to a ventilator, he recently had his tonsils removed which allowed him to breathe on his own. He also can now lift his own head and has begun picking up objects and playing with toys. Nicole and Christian told CNN that the experience has made them closer than ever before. 'I think we're getting stronger and better every day. I mean I guess they say you know, sometimes difficult circumstances,' Christian said. 'You go through the fire, you come out stronger on the other side and I think that's definitely true for us. It's definitely made us better as a couple.' Rising suicide rates and depression in US teens and young adults have prompted researchers to ask a provocative question: Could the same devices that some people blame for contributing to tech-age angst also be used to detect it? The idea has sparked a race to develop apps that warn of impending mental health crises. Call it smartphone psychiatry or child psychology 2.0. Studies have linked heavy smartphone use with worsening teen mental health. But as teens scroll through Instagram and Snapchat, tap out texts or watch YouTube videos, they also leave digital footprints that might offer clues to their psychological well-being. Changes in typing speed, voice tone, word choice and how often kids stay home could signal trouble, according to preliminary studies. There might be as many as 1,000 smartphone 'biomarkers' for depression, said Dr. Thomas Insel, former head of the National Institute of Mental Health and now a leader in the smartphone psychiatry movement. Researchers are testing experimental apps that use artificial intelligence to try to predict depression episodes or potential self-harm. Laurel Foster of San Francisco is among teens involved in Stanford University research testing whether smartphones can be used to help detect depression and potential self-harm (AP Photo/Haven Daley) SMART PHONES MAY HELP PREDICT DEPRESSION - BUT IT'S 'A LITTLE CREEPY' 'We are tracking the equivalent of a heartbeat for the human brain,' said Dr Alex Leow, an app developer and associate professor of psychiatry and bioengineering at the University of Illinois' Chicago campus. At least, that's the goal. There are technical and ethical kinks to work out - including privacy issues and making sure kids grant permission to be monitored so closely. Developers say proven, commercially available mood-detecting apps are likely years - but not decades - away. 'People often feel that these things are creepy,' because of the tech industry's surreptitious tracking of online habits for commercial purposes, said University of Oregon psychologist Nick Allen. Using smartphones as mental illness detectors would require informed consent from users to install an app, 'and they could withdraw permission at any time,' said Allen, one of the creators of an app that is being tested on young people who have attempted suicide. 'The biggest hurdle at the moment,' Allen said, 'is to learn about what's the signal and what's the noise - what is in this enormous amount of data that people accumulate on their phones that is indicative of a mental health crisis.' Depression affects about three million US teens, and rates have climbed in the past decade. Last year, 13 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds had depression, up from eight percent in 2010, US government data show. One in 10 college-aged Americans is affected. Suicide has risen to the second leading cause of death for ages 10 to 34. Rates among teen girls doubled from 2007 to 2015, climbing to five per 100,000. And among boys, rates jumped 30 percent, to 14 in 100,000. A recent study suggested a parallel rise in smartphone use has likely contributed. People with mental illness typically get treatment 'when they're in crisis and very late in the course of an illness. We want to have a method to identify the earliest signs,' in an objective way, Insel said. If smartphones prove to be accurate mood predictors, developers say the ultimate goal would be to use them to offer real-time help, perhaps with automated text messages and links to help lines, or digital alerts to parents, doctors or first responders. Facebook is already doing just that with what it calls 'proactive detection.' Last year, after a live-streamed suicide, Facebook trained its AI systems to flag certain words or phrases in online posts that could indicate imminent self-harm. Friends' comments expressing concern about the user's well-being are part of the equation. 'In the last year, we've helped first responders quickly reach around 3,500 people globally who needed help,' Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in November. Facebook has not disclosed outcomes of those cases. ONGOING RESEARCH ON TEENS, SMART PHONE DATA AND DEPRESSION RISKS A Stanford University study involving about 200 teens, including kids at risk for depression because of bullying, family circumstances or other life stresses. As part of the research, teens who have been tracked since grade school get an experimental phone app that surveys them three times daily for two weeks with questions about their mood. Researchers are combining those answers with passive smartphone data, including how active or sedentary kids are, to identify any changes that might be linked with future depression. Study participant Laurel Foster, 15, acknowledges feeling stress over academics and 'the usual' teen friendship pressures and says depression is rampant at her San Francisco high school. She said using the smartphone app felt a bit like being spied on, but with so many online sites already tracking users' habits 'one more isn't really a big difference.' 'I feel like it's good to actually find out what is stressing you,' Laurel said, endorsing the idea of using smartphones to try to answer that question. At the University of California, Los Angeles, as part of a broader effort to battle campus depression launched in 2017, researchers are offering online counseling and an experimental phone app to students who show signs of at least mild depression on a screening test. About 250 freshmen agreed to use the app in the first year. Personal sensing data collected from the app is being analyzed to see how it correlates with any worsening or improvement in depression symptoms seen in internet therapy. Laurel Foster looks at Instagram in San Francisco. App developers say as teens scroll through Instagram and Snapchat, tap out texts, or hole up in their rooms watching YouTube, they're leaving enormous digital footprints that may offer clues to their psyches (AP Photo/Haven Daley) Sophomore Alyssa Lizarraga, who had the app on her phone for about six months, said it was 'a little like the Big Brother thing. Half of me felt that way. The other half felt like I hope it will be useful.' Lizarraga, 19, has had depression since high school in Whittier, California. She has worried that she's 'addicted' to her phone and spends a lot of time on social media sites. 'People need to see the best side of me' there, she said, and comparing herself with others online sometimes gets her down. But using smartphones in a positive way for mental health might help nudge people to seek early treatment, if they could see how their phone use showed signs of depression, she said. At the University of Illinois' Chicago campus, researchers studying depression and mania in bipolar disorder are using crowd-sourcing to test their experimental phone app. Anyone can download the free app, and nearly 2,000 have so far, agreeing to let the researchers continuously track things such as typing speed, number of keystrokes and use of spellcheck. Participants include healthy people, and their data will help researchers zero in on changes in phone use that may signal onset of mood problems, said Leow, the psychiatry and bioengineering expert who helped develop it. The study is for ages 18 and up, but if proven to work, the technology could be used in kids too, Leow said. Mindstrong, a Palo Alto, California, tech health company co-founded by Insel, the former NIH official, is testing a 'digital phenotyping' app in several studies. Insel thinks the technology has promise to transform psychiatry, but that the most important question is whether it can be used to improve patient health. Verily, a tech health arm of Google parent company Alphabet, is developing a similar app but declined to elaborate beyond a statement from its mental health leader, Menachem Fromer. He cited two key goals: making predictions about someone's mental health and their symptoms and 'discovering new sub-types of disease that may inform treatment decisions.' ___ This story has been corrected to fix company's name to Mindstrong, not Mindspring, and to fix agency name to National Institute of Mental Health, not Mental Illness. ___ Online: Follow AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner at @LindseyTanner . ___ The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Hospitals in the UK will be hit by 'mayhem' this weekend as temperatures are set to plummet, a leading doctor has warned. Dr Nick Scriven, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, has cautioned the pending cold snap, combined with a flu outbreak and staffing setbacks, will lead to 'severe difficulties' in an 'already stretched' NHS. The Halifax Hospital consultant added A&E units are full, with the problem only set to get worse over the coming weeks. Hospitals in the UK will be hit by 'mayhem' this weekend as temperatures are set to plummet, Dr Nick Scriven, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, has warned (stock) 'Influenza is here and is already impacting the NHS and, with colder weather starting to set in, this will further stress already stretched services,' Dr Scriven told The Guardian. 'I and many colleagues across the country are anticipating mayhem this weekend as temperatures drop, but it will come as no surprise to us.' A cold weather alert has been issued for the Midlands and northern England, with overnight frosts and falling temperatures predicted. According to the UK Met Office, there is a 60 per cent chance severe cold weather will last until January 5. Bitter cold temperatures alongside harsh winds are thought to make it feel as chilly as -10C (14F) in some areas. This, combined with low staffing levels, is set to cause 'profound problems'. Skeleton staffing of social care services over the festive period has meant patients who were medically fit to leave had not been able to get home from hospital,' Dr Scriven said. 'The capacity problems this will cause will be profound.' NHS England has 103,000 vacancies - including 10,000 unfilled doctor, and 42,000 vacant nursing, spots - official statistics reveal. Almost 40,000 patients have also been forced to wait at least half-an-hour for an ambulance crew this winter alone due to A&E units being overstretched. Of which, 32,422 waited between 30 and 60 minutes before being handed over to A&E staff, while 7,004 waited more than an hour. Overstretched A&E departments were even forced to divert patients to nearby hospitals 87 times in the four weeks ending last Sunday. This is 15 more than the 72 diversions in the first four weeks of winter last year, which was at the time considered a 'crisis'. Dr Nick Scriven (pictured), who is also a consultant at Halifax Hospital, has warned the pending cold snap, combined with a flu outbreak and staffing setbacks, will lead to 'severe difficulties' in a 'stretched' NHS, with his colleagues already experiencing difficulties Tracy Bullock, chief executive of the Mid Cheshire hospitals trust, even said the usual winter pressure has not kicked in yet but the service is 'braced' for it. The NHS is said to be preparing for winter by adding extra beds and expanding its A&E units. A spokesman said: Thanks to the hard work and preparation of NHS staff, the health service is performing better this winter than last, with people being seen more quickly in emergency departments, fewer ambulance delays, evening and weekend GP appointments across the country and more people able to leave hospital and get home sooner, all of which is good for patients and makes best use of NHS resources. But Jonathan Ashworth, Labours shadow health secretary, added: The New Year performance statistics reveal an NHS under considerable strain this winter after years of financial squeeze, chronic staff shortages and swingeing cuts to social care provision. Thanks to the efforts of NHS staff who again have shown extraordinary effort, professionalism, leadership and dedication, services are not quite as bad at this point as last year. But lets be under no illusion: hospitals remain dangerously overcrowded, nearly 40,000 patients have had to wait in backed up ambulances so far this winter, while 54,000 sick patients endured waits of over four hours in November and 12 hour breaches more than doubled compared with last November. This is still unacceptably far from the standards expected, adding up to a winter of misery for patients and their families. A husband has slammed a hospital after it cancelled his cancer-stricken wife's life-saving surgery three times. Derek Lewthwaite, 65, claims his wife Jane Lewthwaite, 64 - who was diagnosed with mouth cancer two months ago - is in a race against time while she waits for a critical operation. However, a shortage of beds and theatre time at the Royal Preston Hospital means Mrs Lewthwaite's life-saving procedure was pushed back multiple times last month, her husband said. Mrs Lewthwaite, of Blackpool, has had to have her morphine dose doubled while she suffers 'unimaginable pain' that leaves her unable to sleep. With doctors warning surgery is Mrs Lewthwaite's only hope of survival, her husband claims he can already 'smell death on her breath'. Derek Lewthwaite (right) has slammed Royal Preston Hospital after they cancelled his cancer-stricken wife Jane Lewthwaite's life-saving operation three times. Pictured together left during happier times, he claims he can 'smell death on her breath' as she suffers 'unimaginable pain' Mrs Lewthwaite was scheduled to be operated on three times at the Royal Preston Hospital, however, the couple were told each procedure was postponed due to a lack of beds and theatre time. The medical director of the hospital's trust has since apologised 'Every cancellation increases the chance of the cancer spreading,' Mr Lewthwaite said. 'She's got a big droop [on her face] and a lump growing in the side of her face. 'You can smell the death on her breath and it's horrendous. Breath fresheners have no impact on it.' Severe and frequent halitosis is a common symptom of mouth cancer. Mrs Lewthwaite was diagnosed six-to-eight weeks ago, with medics at the Royal Preston warning 'the only cure was an operation and reconstructive surgery - having her jaw reconstructed,' her husband said. Following surgery, the couple were told she would undergo radiotherapy, which would give her a 50 per cent chance of a long-term cure. The operation was initially scheduled for December 5, but was later cancelled, with the couple being told there was no intensive care bed available. It was then booked for December 12, with Mrs Lewthwaite been admitted, prepared and even marked with pencil to show where the surgery was required. By this time, Mr Lewthwaite claims his wife's morphine dose had doubled as she struggled to cope with the pain. But the procedure was cancelled again due to there being no bed. The couple's hopes were raised yet once more when the hospital contacted them on December 23 to say a surgeon might be available on Christmas Eve. But they were devastated to have the operation cancelled yet again due to lack of a space in the hospital's operating theatre. 'I was promised a telephone call between Christmas and New Year, but by 3pm on Friday, December 28, I had heard nothing from them so made some calls and was told it was being dealt with in another department,' a frustrated Mr Lewthwaite said. January 7 is now being suggested as another possible date. 'My wife has lost a stone in weight, she can't sleep, the pain is unimaginable,' Mr Lewthwaite said. 'Her morphine has been doubled.' He is appealing to hospital bosses to step in and find a solution. 'Nobody will talk to me,' he said. 'Nobody will be helpful.' Mr Lewthwaite claims he has been advised to take his complaints to the hospital's patient advice and liaison service but said: 'I want to make the hospital respond.' Gerry Skailes, medical director of Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: 'We sincerely apologise to Mrs Lewthwaite for postponing her operation. 'We recognise that postponing operations causes anxiety and disruption for our patients and their families, so we work hard to ensure all scheduled procedures go ahead as planned. 'However, when there is a significant increase in the number of patients who need emergency surgery, unfortunately sometimes we need to postpone some planned procedures, particularly if a critical care bed is needed but none is available. 'We are planning to expand our critical care unit to increase capacity for the future, which should address this issue. 'We do all we can to reschedule all postponed operations as quickly as possible, and closely monitor patients involved.' A transgender woman said she is regularly reduced to tears because the NHS is keeping her waiting for laser hair removal surgery. Jessica Samson, 39, has to shave twice a day while she continues her more than six month wait for the permanent procedure. She was approved for the treatment in July as the final stage of her gender reassignment but progress is slow, she said. The NHS needs to 'realise they are mucking around with people's lives', according to the frustrated IT customer service worker. After a complaint in December, Miss Sampson has now been offered a consultation appointment but worries her case is the 'tip of the iceberg'. The NHS has faced criticism in the past for the range of service it offers transgender people, and recent growth in demand has piled pressure on clinics. Jessica Samson, 39, said the NHS is 'mucking around with people's lives' because of a delay to her laser hair removal surgery, for which she has been waiting for more than six months Miss Sampson claims she has had to endure months of frustration as she has emailed various NHS departments to try and get the process moving. 'As it stands, something that should've taken two months is currently taking six,' she said. 'And there is absolutely no sign of it making any further progress. 'It is difficult to explain why this is a big issue to anyone who hasn't had trans-thoughts, but I've been on hormones long enough for my body to start changing. 'But I still grow a beard every day and I have to shave twice a day to maintain some sort of normal lifestyle.' Formerly a man, Miss Sampson, from Salisbury, is trying to get the surgery in her home city through a commissioning team in Bristol. She said her letters went unanswered for months and, after five months of waiting without an update, she filed a formal complaint against the health service. 'I've had my head in my hands crying so many times about this,' she said. 'They need to realise they are mucking around with people's lives. 'I'm not trying to access a niche department, this is a major department that should be able to receive funding. 'Is it really that hard? I get things go wrong, we're only human, mistakes get made, things get ignored, but I don't think I've ever had a genuine apology, no one has tried to take ownership and get it sorted.' Following her complaint, Miss Sampson said she received an email saying the process had not been chased up, despite already being delayed by several months. In the NHS's own guidance it says facial hair removal is an 'essential part of gender reassignment' and should be one of the first stages of the process. A document from 2013 said: 'It is recommended that facial hair removal should commence prior to social gender role transition, as the beard must grow to visible lengths to be removed.' WHAT IS GENDER DYSPHORIA? Gender dysphoria is a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress because there is a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity. Its exact cause is unclear and was initially thought to be psychological. But more recent research suggests it may be the result of abnormal development when a baby is in the womb, possibly due to genetic or hormonal factors. The first signs of the condition can appear at an early age through a child refusing to wear clothes typical to their gender, or refusing to take part in boys or girls activities. For most children this behaviour will pass but, for those with gender dysphoria, it often persists into adolescence and adulthood. Treatment can range from simply living as the gender they identify with to taking hormones and having surgery to change their sex to match their gender identity. A survey by the Equality and Human Rights Commission of 10,000 people found that about one per cent of the population experienced issues with their gender identity to some extent. If you think you or your child may have gender dysphoria, consult your GP who may refer you to a specialist gender identity clinic, or contact support group Mermaids via mermaidsuk.org.uk. Advertisement Miss Samson said: 'Honestly, I broke down crying when I read that email, because I actually thought the hospital were working for me but were being blocked by a higher authority, and I then suddenly discovered that actually they're not doing what they need to do.' Miss Samson has since had a consultation for the surgery arranged at Salisbury District Hospital. A spokesman for Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust said: 'We're sorry to hear about Ms Samson's experience. 'As soon as we received confirmation of funding for this service for her, treatment was immediately arranged.' Miss Samson added: 'As far as I see it and can prove with emails and paper trails, a department basically didn't exist or had been moved but nobody told anybody. 'I feel like this is the tip of the iceberg. 'I can't speak for other areas of the NHS, because from what I can tell the country is broken down into different geographical areas. 'If other areas manage these issues better, then fine but who knows.' Although specialist NHS gender clinics have come under pressure from growing demand in recent years, a health chief last year opened the door for more transgender treatments. Dr James Palmer said the NHS may provide facial hair removal, breast reduction, and even reverse gender reassignment surgeries. There has been an explosion in the number of children seeking a sex swap, Dr Palmer said, which may accelerate if plans to expand publicly funded operations go ahead. Dr Palmer told the Westminster Social Policy Forum that referrals for gender dysphoria have increased by around 240 per cent over the last five year period. Miss Samson added: 'Attention and acceptance has grown exponentially over the few years and to train a specialist doctor takes many years, so the specialist doctors may not be ready yet. 'So the delay in getting treatment through a gender identity clinic I totally understand and accept, I think that's regrettable but it's a case of demand outstripping capability. 'You could throw money at it and it wouldn't make a difference because the specialists aren't there. 'I accept it. I don't like it, but I accept that's how it is.' An NHS England spokesman said: 'NHS England does not comment on individual cases, and any patient complaint received is handled through a formal process.' The Netflix film Bird Box should have had a trigger warning, an expert has claimed after internet users were offended by its portrayal of mental health issues. Watched on 45million accounts in its first week, the film features a blindfolded Sandra Bullock running away from monsters which drive people to suicide. While most people kill themselves when they look at the monsters, those with mental illnesses become evil and join the quest to destroy humankind. People online claim the film 'villainised' those with mental health problems and handled a sensitive subject with 'flagrant carelessness'. And experts say filmmakers have a responsibility to portray mental health issues realistically to help reduce stigma. Bird Box stars Sandra Bullock as a mother who, blindfolded, tries to get herself and her children away from monsters which will drive them to suicide if they look directly at them Mental health doctor and University of Central Florida lecturer, Dr Shainna Ali, admitted the film could have had trigger warnings. 'Bird Box has received criticism for perpetuating negative portrayals of individuals living with mental health concerns, specifically those who are hospitalized,' she wrote for Psychology Today. Dr Ali said: 'Hollywood has a long history of stereotyping mental health. Unfortunately, it isnt novel to see mental health depicted in a poor light.' In the film, people with existing mental health problems turn evil and murderous when they see the monsters. Whereas people who don't already have mental health problems are driven insane and promptly kill themselves. Viewers warned online they were more upset than expected at the scenes of suicide, but also disturbed that people who were mentally unwell were portrayed as villains. One particularly intense criticism on the website Mashable read: 'Bird Box joins a long-standing tradition of mass media perpetuating the myth that people with mental illness are dangerously deranged villains of ultra-violence, rather than the reality that they're actually more likely to be victims of violence.' The writer, Jess Joho added: 'The villainization of people with mental illness in Hollywood is far from new.' And she said: 'A lack of awareness does not excuse the harm caused by Bird Box's flagrant carelessness in handling extremely sensitive subject matter.' Scottish actor David Paisley, who has been in Casualty and Holby City, said the film was enjoyable but 'demonises' people with mental health problems Twitter user @RamCity said: 'One day we're gonna talk about how #BirdBox weponized mental Illness and contributes to the phobia of people with mental illness' [sic] Dr Ali said although the film had an R rating, which warns about sex, swearing, violence and drugs, there are no specific warnings for mental health elements. She wrote: 'There's no harm in trigger warnings'. And she added: 'Adults are not immune to being affected by triggering themes... 'The current classification could benefit from specifiers pertaining to mental health trigger warnings for themes such as anxiety, trauma, self-harm, and suicidality.' Many others weighed in on the debate on Twitter, with Scottish actor David Paisley saying the film 'demonised' people with mental health problems. And Twitter user @RamCity added: 'One day we're gonna talk about how #BirdBox weponized mental Illness and contributes to the phobia of people with mental illness' [sic]. Psychologist and behavioural expert, Dr Aria, said it is important for filmmakers to contribute to positive portrayals of mental health problems. He told MailOnline: 'Hollywood has a long history of portraying stereotypes of mental illnesses. 'Characters with mental disorders are frequently segregated as different from the rest of the "normal" cast. 'However, the concept of mental illness is not black and white. 'Studies show that the public often fail to recognise mental health problems, with mental disorders remaining undiagnosed. 'The film and television industry have a powerful impact on the collective beliefs of a society. Film producers and directors therefore play an important role in correctly depicting a realistic and inclusive picture of mental health. 'Rather than deepening the divide between "us" and "them", which can lead to negative judgements, devaluation and stigma of someone experiencing a mental illness, future films would do well to highlight the fluid and changing nature of mental health and illness, with symptoms often arising at different stages of all of our lives.' The head of news at UK mental health charity Mind, Aimee Gee agreed and added: 'The media play an important role in shaping our understanding of mental health and it is vital that films and television programmes take care and are responsible in their portrayals. 'Suicide in particular is a serious and sensitive issue and its important that on-screen depictions are not too explicit or detailed as this can lead to imitative behaviours. 'Its also very helpful if media outlets can signpost to sources of support where possible.' A woman who was left with a 'bulbous, pointy and red nose' after buying a homeopathic treatment online finally has the nose she has always wanted after going under the knife. Kelly, whose surname and age are unknown, dissolved part of her nose when she used the controversial homeopathic remedy black salve to treat her skin cancer. After unsuccessful forehead flap surgery - involves transferring skin with its own blood supply from the forehead to the nose while a wound heals - Kelly was devastated by the 'bulky' results. While she hoped surgeons Dr Terry Dubrow and Dr Paul Nassif - stars of the hit E! reality show Botched - would perform just a 'quick revisional thing', Kelly was warned the medics had no choice but to rebuild her nose from scratch. Thankfully the procedure was a success, with Kelly having the 'Matt Damon nose' she has always dreamed of. Kelly, whose surname is unknown, was left with a 'bulbous, pointy and red nose' (left) after unsuccessful surgery to repair damage caused by a homeopathic remedy she used to treat her skin cancer. After visiting the Botched surgeons, she finally has the nose of her dreams (right) Kelly bought the remedy black salve online, which she applied to cancerous lesions on the tip of her nose. Supporters claim it separates damaged and healthy tissue, but there is no evidence supporting this, with users often being left with a dark scab and dead skin(pictured) Black salve has been banned in the US since the late 1950s and in Australia only since 2012. There are no reports of it ever being used in the UK. Outdoor enthusiast Kelly accidentally destroyed her nose and nasal passages after she attempted to self-treat her basal cell skin cancer. Speaking on the hit E! show, Dr Paul Nassif said: 'Some homeopathic medicines work when the instructions are followed. But I always recommend seeing a medical professional.' When examining Kelly, Dr Nassif admitted her nose was 'bulky' but added the 'good news is that is something I can hopefully play with'. 'I think what I have to do is I have to remove everything. Kinda deconstruct everything and try to rebuild it and that's what I'm really good at.' Despite having doubts, Kelly immediately said she was 'in'. Not only did Dr Nassif reconstruct Kelly's nose, he also brought in a pigmentation specialist to treat her scarring. 'Having made the decision to have the full reconstructive surgery, I do feel like it was the best decision I could've made and I feel like I do trust myself again,' Kelly said. 'I think this is as good and as close to a Matt Damon nose as I could've asked.' Kelly wanted to get 'as close to a Matt Damon nose as she could'. The Martian star is pictured on November 29 at the world premiere of Mary Poppins Returns at The Dolby Theatre in LA Black salve dissolved the tip of Kelly's nose (pictured). Although the ingredients in the remedy vary, it often contains zinc chloride, which is corrosive to metals To repair the damage, Kelly had forehead flap surgery, which involves transferring skin with its own blood supply from the forehead to the nose while a wound heals (pictured after) The surgery was unsuccessful (pictured after), with her being left with 'bulky' results Although she hoped Botched stars Dr Terry Dubrow and Dr Paul Nassif would perform a 'quick revisional thing', she quickly learned they had to rebuild her former nose (left) from scratch. Although daunting, Kelly is thrilled that she finally has a 'Matt Damon nose' (right) A schoolboy rushed to hospital on Christmas Day has been in a coma for the past nine days after testing positive for swine flu. Robert Brennan, 14, remains seriously ill on a specialist critical care unit after initially being taken to hospital with a suspected kidney infection. His mother, Mel Brennan, 40, rushed him to hospital on Christmas morning after watching his health deteriorate from December 21 when he went to bed with 'a cold'. Medics feared the worst and put him in a medically-induced coma after diagnosing him with severe pneumonia and sepsis, and later in the evening, swine flu. His desperate family, of Alsager, Cheshire, whose Christmas presents are still under the tree, said he will be severely brain damaged, if he survives. Robert Brennan, 14, remains seriously ill on a specialist critical care unit after initially being taken to hospital with a suspected kidney infection and later testing 'positive for swine flu' Members of his local community have been raising funds to cover the costs of the house bills the family have missed while being away. Ms Brennan has been at her son's bedside at Alder Hey Childrens Hospital in Liverpool from the moment he was admitted. She said: 'No parent should ever have to be told to prepare for the worst when it comes to their children. It's very scary.' The mother-of-two said the teenager, a pupil at Alsager School, first went to bed with a cold on Friday, December 21 after completing a work placement at Crewe's South Cheshire College. 'I gave him cold and flu tablets and by the Saturday and the Sunday he had started with back pain,' Ms Brennan said. 'By Christmas Eve night his breathing was slowly becoming rapid and by Christmas morning I knew he wasn't right and an ambulance took him to Leighton Hospital with a suspected kidney infection. 'He was quickly diagnosed with severe pneumonia and sepsis, put in a medically-induced coma and it was felt he would have better care at Alder Hey. 'We arrived at Alder Hey at 7.45pm on Christmas Day and he was put onto the critical care unit where he also tested positive for swine flu. He is now on a machine and fighting for his life. Robert, of Alsager, Cheshire, will be severely damaged if he survives. He has been in a coma for nine days since he was taken into hospital on Christmas morning by his mother WHAT IS SWINE FLU? Swine flu was the popular name for flu caused by a relatively new type of flu virus responsible for a global flu outbreak in 2009. The scientific name for the swine flu virus is A/H1N1pdm09 sometimes shortened to 'H1N1'. It is now just a normal type of seasonal flu and is included in the annual flu vaccine. The virus was first identified in Mexico in April 2009. It became known as swine flu because it's similar to flu viruses that affect pigs. The symptoms are the same as normal flu and usually go within a week or so. Those with underlying health problems are at higher risk of serious illness. Source: NHS Advertisement 'He has small bleeds on the brain as the infection is extremely severe and has spread. He will have brain damage if he pulls through.' Swine flu is the H1N1 strain of flu - and children face a higher risk of catching it because of their weaker immune system. It was responsible for a major global pandemic in 2009, killing nearly 300,000 people across the world after striking around 60 countries. Friends and family have rushed to the aid of Ms Brennan, who also lives with her younger son, seven-year-old Oliver, partner John Lockett and his three children. An online appeal, set up by family friend Carrie Dempsey, has already raised more than 3,000 to try to cover the cost of bills and day-to-day living expenses. Ms Dempsey, 39, said: 'Robert is still in a coma and Mel has been at the hospital every day. But while she is in that heartbreaking bubble, life still goes on, the postman still puts bills through the door and rent has to be paid. 'I set up the GoFundMe page because I just thought I would try to get extra help with bills and I thought we would get between 200 and 500 - but it has so far raised more than 3,000. 'Now we want to fund-raise because they are going to need things when he comes out - and they have completely missed Christmas. 'Robert's little brother hasn't seen his mum since Christmas morning because she has been at the hospital, and Robert's presents are still lying unopened under the tree. It is heartbreaking.' Another family friend, Lorraine Standring, has started a Support Robert Brennan's Family Facebook group. The mother-of-three, of Alsager, said: 'We're trying to fund-raise like mad for the family because we've now been told that when he comes around there will be some brain damage. 'It got to the point at one stage where we thought he might not make it through the night. We want to support them with the costs. 'He is Queen mad so we are trying to hold a charity gig for him to get the fund-raiser going after the GoFundMe hit 3,000 in its first 48 hours. 'Everyone has been so kind and generous, they've even been donating food for the family's cats.' Ms Brennan said: 'The fund-raising appeal has been overwhelming and I am going through a roller-coaster of emotions. We can't get our heads around the level of love and support there is out there for Robert. I couldn't have got through it all without John, family and friends.' To support Robert and his family visit the GoFundMe page here. Smoking shisha 'significantly increases' the risk of diabetes and obesity and is worse than a whole packet of cigarettes, a study has found. People who inhaled the sweet-smelling fumes of 'hookah' smoke were more likely to be fat and have type 2 diabetes in comparison to those who didn't. The tabletop pipes have grown in popularity in recent years, with up to a fifth of young people using them as well as famous footballers and celebrities. But they can lead to illnesses not associated with cigarettes, such as obesity, metabolic syndrome, dyslipidemia or diabetes. The negative effects are said to be the equivalent or worse than smoking a pack of cigarettes, experts at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School warned. Smoking shisha (pictured, world champion sprinter Usain Bolt in October) could be as bad or worse than an entire packet of cigarettes despite its reputation for being healthier, experts say Hookah pipes have grown in popularity in recent years, particularly among young people, and influential celebrities are often pictured using them (pictured, the rapper Drake) The results of the study, which involved academics at a university in Iran, were published in Diabetology and Metabolic Syndrome. Shisha is a leisure activity, hailing from the Middle East. It is often considered to be a more 'healthy' alternative to smoking. The habit is usually a social activity and famous people are often snapped doing it, ranging from footballers and their partners to musicians. World champion sprinter Usain Bolt and Manchester City striker Sergio Aguero have both been pictured smoking shisha. And musicians including Drake, Katy Perry and Kylie Minogue have all been pictured using a hookah in recent years. Research by the British Medical Journal has also suggested around half of teenage smoking is hookah use instead of cigarettes, with one in 10 using the devices. While shisha may not contain many of the carcinogenic additives in cigarettes, mounting evidence suggests the water pipe tobacco is still not safe. Singer Katy Perry is pictured smoking shisha, which can cause people to become obese and develop type 2 diabetes, according to a study of more than 10,000 Iranians Experts don't know why shisha smoke (pictured, Kylie Minogue smoking a hookah) can be so damaging to the body but they believe it causes swelling in sensitive tissues in the body The research involved 9,840 participants - a mixture of smokers, non-smokers, ex-smokers, cigarette smokers and hookah smokers. The participants, from Iran, took a questionnaire which investigated their smoking history, cardiovascular risk factors and anxiety and depression. This was then measured against their biochemical results, analysed by taking blood tests. Debate over how harmful vaping is leads to confusion E-cigarettes have the potential to benefit some people, by helping them quit smoking. But scientists still have a lot to learn about whether e-cigarettes are truly effective for quitting smoking and what the long-term risks are. Nicotine is already known to be highly addictive and harm adolescent brain development, which continues into the early to mid-20s. E-cigarettes produce an aerosol by heating a liquid that usually contains nicotine. Aerosol is inhaled into the lungs and can contain potentially harmful substances, including heavy metals like lead, volatile organic compounds, and cancer-causing agents. US health officials, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are investigating an outbreak of e-cigarette or vaping, product use associated lung injury (EVALI). The mystery illness has swept across the states. Officials have identified Vitamin E acetate as a chemical of concern. THC is present in most of the fluid samples collected from the lungs of ill people, and most patients report a history of using THC-containing e-cigarette, or vaping, products. 'Popcorn lung' is the nickname for bronchiolitis obliterans, a condition which damages the smallest airways in the lungs and has been linked to people with vaping-related breathing problems. However, theres no good evidence that e-cigarettes could cause the lung condition, according to Cancer Research UK. The flavourings in electronic cigarettes may damage blood vessels in the same way as heart disease, according to research published in June 2018. The chemicals used to give the vapour flavours, such as cinnamon, strawberry and banana, can cause inflammation in cells in the arteries, veins and heart. They cause the body to react in a way that mimics the early signs of heart disease, heart attacks or strokes, the study by Boston University found. Other recent studies have also suggested smoking e-cigarettes could cause DNA mutations which lead to cancer, and enable pneumonia-causing bacteria to stick to the lungs easier. Researchers at New York University subjected human bladder and lung cells to e-cigarette vapor, which is marketed as being healthier than tobacco. They found the cells mutated and became cancerous much faster than expected and mice exposed to the vapour also suffered significant DNA damage. In another study, scientists at Queen Mary University, London, found vaping makes users more likely to catch pneumonia just like smoking tobacco or breathing in traffic fumes. The vapour from e-cigarettes helps bacteria which cause the condition to stick to the cells that line the airways, they said. The effect occurs with traditional cigarette smoke and those who are exposed to air pollution high in particulates from vehicle exhausts. An April 20202 study found vaping damages the arteries and blood vessel function much like smoking traditional cigarettes. The team studied measures of blood vessel function in e-cigarette and dual users who had been using e-cigarettes for at least three months. All e-cigarette users were former cigarette smokers. Advertisement 'Obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes and dyslipidemia were positively associated with hookah smoking while negatively associated with cigarette smoking,' the authors wrote. 'In contrast with the public belief that hookah eliminates the toxicity of tobacco in comparison with cigarettes, we found that the adverse effects of hookah smoking could be even greater than cigarette.' Professor Gordon Ferns, of Brighton and Sussex Medical School, told The Telegraph: 'A single session of hookah smoking may be equivalent to more than a packet of cigarettes, and the inhaled toxic compounds may be even greater. 'It is unclear why hookah smoking is associated with obesity and diabetes. 'It is possible that the toxins in the smoke stimulate an inflammatory response that causes tissues to become resistant to the effects of the hormone insulin, that regulates glucose in the blood. 'However, it is also possible that hookah smoking is associated with other social behaviours that lead to weight gain. 'There is now good evidence that hookah smoking is not harmless. 'The risks of hookah smoking with respect to some types of cancer is well established, and the evidence for an association with cardiovascular disease is growing.' The ancient form of smoking, also called narghile, waterpipe, or hubble bubble smoking, uses charcoal-heated tobacco or non-tobacco based shisha smoke which is passed through water before inhalation. It is often seen as less toxic compared to cigarettes, alongside e-cigarettes and vaping. The sweet flavours available make shisha smoking desirable, especially the young people - around half of smoking that teenagers do are is in this way. Hookah smokers can spend long periods of time in lounges and bars inhaling the fumes. A typical hookah session lasting one hour involves 200 puffs, which results in 90,000 milliliters of smoke being inhaled. Smoking a cigarette involves 20 puffs, resulting in 500 600 milliliters of smoke being inhaled, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A ticket erased with a defensive driving class is not reported to insurance companies, meaning they cannot use the citation as an excuse to jack up a premium. A former Army cadet has released shocking images of her enormous 5lb (2.3kg) hernia, which would slap against her thighs until they bruised. Tanya Evans, 28, of Swansea, lived in agony for years after the mysterious growth appeared out of the blue one day in October 2014. Despite being barely able to walk, Ms Evans postponed surgery to focus on starting a family with her fiance Mark Jenkins, 31, with baby Josie arriving in December 2016. After months of delays, Ms Evans finally had her bowel removed last April, which was pushing through her abdominal wall and causing her hernia. She also had her rectum and anus taken out after they became irreparably damaged. Although free of the hernia, Ms Evans still battles pain every day and even relies on her fiance to shower her. Tanya Evans lived with a 5lb (2.3kg) hernia that would slap against her thighs until they bruised for years. Although removed, the mother (pictured after with her two-year-old daughter Josie) battles daily pain, cannot lift her toddler up and even relies on her fiance to help her shower Ms Evans had to have a stoma bag (pictured left coming out of her hernia) after she suffered a severe bowel obstruction in 2014. Due to the risk surgery to remove the growth may affect her fertility, she put off the operation until last year. Her abdomen is seen right after the operation Speaking of life now, Ms Evans said: 'I still struggle every day with the simplest of tasks. 'Mark has to help me shower and I can barely lift anything. That means I can't pick Josie up for a cuddle, which is heartbreaking. 'She's too young to understand, so she thinks it's because she's been naughty. The physical side of things has been hard, but the mental has been absolute torture.' The ordeal first began in 2014 when Ms Evans was rushed to hospital with a severe bowel obstruction, which caused her skin to turn yellow and even made her vomit her faeces. 'I was vomiting up something black, which tasted disgusting,' she said. 'Medics tested it and told me it was faeces. I was absolutely terrified.' Forced to have an ileostomy - where the small bowel is diverted through an opening in the abdomen - Ms Evans was left with a stoma bag but remained confident she would recover. But just one day later, an inguinal hernia appeared after her bowel pushed through a weakness in her abdominal wall. Ms Evans 'felt like she was dying' while she waited for surgery on her hernia (seen left), which was continuously delayed due to a 'lack of beds'. When she eventually had the surgery - which was scheduled for August 2017 - last April, she went from a size 20 to a slim 10 (seen right) WHAT IS AN INGUINAL HERNIA? An inguinal hernia occurs when fatty tissue or part of the bowel pokes into the groin at the top of the inner thigh via a weakness on the muscle or surrounding tissue wall. It is the most common type of hernia and can appear as a swelling or lump in the groin, which may be painful. They affect around 27 per cent of men and three per cent of women in the US and the UK at some point in their lives, a 2008 BMJ study found. Men are more likely to suffer, with the risk increasing with age. This is because the abdominal muscles get weaker over time. Inguinal hernias have also been associated with straining on the toilet, carrying heavy loads and having a persistent cough. Untreated, they can cause obstruction to the bowel or strangulation - where blood supply to a section of the colon gets cut off. Surgery pushes the buldge back into place and strengthens the weakness in the abdominal wall, however, hernias can reappear. Source: NHS Choices Advertisement 'At first, I was reassured it could be easily sorted out but then I also began to bleed from my bottom,' Ms Evans said. Tests revealed she was suffering from diversion colitis - inflammation of the bowel - which can occur as a complication of surgery. After receiving painkillers and even steroid enemas to calm the inflammation, Ms Evans faced another setback when she was warned surgery to remove her hernia could cause fertility issues. And, if her womb was also affected, a hysterectomy may also be necessary. Due to there being a waiting list for Ms Evans to have the procedure, doctors agreed she should try for a baby while she could. 'Mark and I tried and tried, and I cried at every negative test,' she said. 'I started to fear it would never happen for us, but then, we conceived. 'Josie was born on December 22 2016, three weeks early, weighing 7lb 6oz. She had to be delivered via Caesarean, due to the hernia, but she was happy and healthy.' After recovering from childbirth, Ms Evans met with a team of medics and her surgery was pencilled in for August 2017. 'But then August came and went, then September, then October,' she said. 'I was told there were no beds available, which I understand happens, but what was I supposed to do? I felt like I was dying. Ms Evans (pictured left after the ordeal) says life is 'very different now', with her having to be careful not to fall and split her stitches. Although she has learned to accept her stoma bag (seen right), she hopes to have a 'tummy tuck' to remove excess skin stretched by the hernia 'Then, at the end of the year, I discovered the surgeon who was meant to be doing my operation was retiring, so no longer available. I was terrified I'd be back at square one, on another wait list to see another doctor. 'I contacted the patient liaison department and they kept asking what they could do to help. But all anyone could do was wait for a cancellation to come up. So, I fought and fought.' And as she waited, Ms Evan's hernia continued to grow, until it eventually reached 5lb. 'It affected everything I did and put so much pressure on my body,' she said. 'Sitting down hurt, standing up hurt everything. 'It even bruised my legs where it'd bang against my thigh. At its worst, it would twist and strangulate, where the blood supply to the intestines and abdominal tissues gets cut off.' Eventually, in April last year, Ms Evans went under the knife. While she did not require a hysterectomy, surgeons had to remove her bowel, rectum and anus, which had been damaged by a prolapse. Ms Evans' daily pain means she cannot pick up daughter Josie for a cuddle, which she calls 'heartbreaking', with the youngster assuming it must be because she has been naughty 'Apparently, where the strangulated hernia had cut off the blood supply, my bowel was just completely dead, and the tissue was virtually disintegrated,' Ms Evans said. 'Once they saw the damage that'd been going on inside, medics couldn't believe I'd been walking around. It's not that I have a high pain threshold, though. I've just become used to the pain, which is very sad.' When she first came round, Ms Evans - who went from a size 20 to a slim size 10 - could not bear to look at her scar, which she compared to a shark bite. Although she has come to terms with the blemish, and her stoma, she hopes to one day have a 'tummy tuck' to remove the excess skin that stretched over her hernia. 'When people hear tummy tuck, they assume it's because I want to look good,' Ms Evans said. 'But it's actually because I have been left with saggy skin that can hang down and make my bag leak. 'Life is very different for me now. I have to be incredibly careful just moving around, as one awkward fall could split my stitching and hospitalise me. I still sit on an air cushion every day, too, as sitting down without is simply too painful. 'I don't want anybody else to go through this, so I am urging others out there to keep pushing and fighting for help if they need it.' Jo Davies, assistant service group manager, Surgical Specialties for Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board, which covers Swansea, said: 'In line with other health boards in Wales, we continue to experience significant challenges in providing routine/urgent elective surgery. 'We are taking ongoing action to reduce the length of time patients are waiting for surgery. This includes the appointment of new consultant surgeons, the outsourcing of appropriate patients to private hospitals, and additional theatre sessions. 'Waiting lists are also reviewed weekly to ensure patients with the highest clinical needs are given priority. Ms Evans did not meet the clinical criteria for outsourcing and required an inpatient bed in one of our hospitals. 'However, as always, we have to give priority to patients with life/limb-threatening conditions, cancer and trauma patients. 'Unfortunately as a result of this we were unable to offer Ms Evans an earlier date, though we are very pleased her surgery went ahead earlier this year.' He was, understandably, heartbroken after cancer robbed him of his 'inspirational' wife and mother of his twin sons, Kate Gross, on Christmas Day 2014. But instead of withering away in grief, Cambridge University engineering graduate Billy Boyle poured his entire heart into saving thousands from the disease. The widower co-founded a firm in hope of revolutionising cancer diagnosis. And now they have developed a breathalyser test that may do just that. A major medical trial of the firm's pioneering device - involving 1,500 patients over two years is now being launched. Doctors say it could save thousands of lives each year and may eventually replace current screening programmes within a decade. Cambridge University engineering graduate Billy Boyle poured his entire heart into saving thousands from the disease following the death of his wife Kate Gross (pictured with her, and their sons Oscar and Isaac) In her short life, Mrs Gross, who read English at Oxford University, had a successful career as an adviser to both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. She was even awarded an OBE in 2014 - the year she died - for her charity work in Africa, helping governments turn into democracies. Mrs Gross only discovered she had colon cancer, a disease that kills 16,000 people each year in the UK, in October 2012, following stomach pain on a work trip. She flew home from California and went straight to hospital, where doctor spotted a tumour and warned the cancer had spread to her liver. Her slim odds of survival were raised the next year, after undergoing a successful operation to remove the cancer from her liver. But, in a devastating turn of events, the disease returned and had spread to her bones. A major trial of the technolog (pictured) involving 1,500 patients over two years is now being launched The technique relies on a pioneering device that can detect chemicals given off by cancerous tumours HOW DOES THE BREATHALYSER WORK? Owlstone Medical's test works by spotting waste products given off by cancer cells, which are known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These find their way into a patients breath through the bloodstream, in a similar way to alcohol. In the trial being carried out at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, patients will be asked to breathe into the device for ten minutes. It will collect the airborne molecules before they are sent to a laboratory for analysis. Patients can expect to have their results within a few days, rather than the two weeks it typically takes for a biopsy. Scientists also believe different cancers will cause recognisable alterations in the VOCs, allowing them to determine the chemical signatures for each. Advertisement Chemotherapy failed to help her during her fight and by late 2014 it was revealed the drugs had stopped working. She passed away aged 36, on Christmas Day. In Mr Boyle's biography on Owlstone Medical - the firm he co-founded in hope of helping others, he blamed a 'late diagnosis' for his wife's death. It later emerged an exploratory examination in 2007 had not been sufficiently thorough and failed to reveal a pre-cancerous polyp. During her battle, she kept a poignant blog about her illness. It was later turned into a book, Late Fragments, which became a bestseller. In her final post, she revealed how she was preparing to enjoy her last Christmas with her family. Mrs Gross died just minutes before her twin sons Oscar and Isaac, then five, asked if it was time for them to open their stocking, her mother Jean once revealed. Because of the experience of my wife and my family, we saw the devastation that cancer brings to families, Mr Boyle told Sky News in February 2015. Owlstone Medical's test works by spotting waste products given off by cancer cells, which are known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Pictured is Billy Boyle During Mrs Gross' battle, she kept a poignant blog about her illness. It was later turned into a book, Late Fragments, which became a bestseller You develop technologies for a reason. Sometimes its for monetary gain. Other times its to make a difference. 'And I think we have a real opportunity to try and improve the lives of patients. When my wife was sick, we talked about what motivated her, what motivates me. 'Knowing the conversations I had with her about how we can develop technology for the benefit of others is something that makes me walk into the office every day. It puts an extra spring in my step. Owlstone Medical's test works by spotting waste products given off by cancer cells, which are known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These find their way into a patients breath through the bloodstream, in a similar way to alcohol. In the trial being carried out at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, patients will be asked to breathe into the device for ten minutes. It will collect the airborne molecules before they are sent to a laboratory for analysis. Patients can expect to have their results within a few days, rather than the two weeks it typically takes for a biopsy. Scientists also believe different cancers will cause recognisable alterations in the VOCs, allowing them to determine the chemical signatures for each. The widely-held idea that human aging slows after 90 may be wrong, a new study warns. For decades, it has largely been taken as a given that, while other animals steadily age over time, human cells start to break down at a slower rate in later life. The theory is based on a handful of studies showing mortality rates are the same or lower for over 90s as they are for people aged 80 to 90. But in a controversial new paper, Saul Newman, an evolutionary biologist at the Australian National University, lays out how the data used in many of those studies could be wrong due to errors in the way it was collected. Above all, he argues, most studies on the so-called 'aging plateau' are based on centenarians born in the late 1800s and early 1900s, which raises many potential pitfalls. First, more than a third of the world's births were not properly recorded as recently as 2006, let alone in the early 1900s. Second, something unique affected that generation: they were teenagers when the First World War struck - a time when, demographers believe, hundreds of thousands fudged their age so they could fight for their country. Even a few years shaved or added either side could skew population data, he says. Studies on depression era people suggest mortality is lower for over 90s than is it for people aged 80 to 90. But an Australian researcher explains poor birth record collection - or age fudging - affects that The paper has unsurprisingly stoked up some fierce debate. Kenneth Wachter, a University of California, Berkeley demographer who used population data to argue that the aging plateau does exist, slammed Newman's analysis as 'imply[ing] wildly implausibly high rates of misreporting at extreme ages.' COULD WE LIVE FOREVER? Though aging is one of our biggest fascinations, it remains poorly understood. We still can't quite work out why the body degrades as it does. The whole debate kicked off in 1825, when British mathematician Benjamin Gompertz questioned whether death was inevitable. It's tempting, the idea that aging might not plod along the predictable path we think it does. But almost two centuries later, the debate is still a murky ping pong game of unproven theories. There is evidence - both from population data and chemical studies on human cells and lab animals - that aging slows down. But many studies, like Newman's, show that those studies can be easily explained by kinks in the data. Wachter's study, published in June 2018, was tipped as one of the most persuasive arguments to date that the plateau exists - driving him to say that humans seem to be evolving towards an indefinite lifespan. His study on almost 4,000 Italians, who are required by law to give annual updates about their wellbeing, found that both 105-year-olds and 110-year-olds had the same risk of dying within the next two years. He puts it down to natural development. 'What do we have in common with flies and worms?' he asked. 'One thing at least: We are all products of evolution.' However, there were some clear holes in the data - primarily that it was from one nation and only covered seven years of life. If the plateau does exist, it gives a glimmer of hope to the myriad of Silicon Valley start-ups trying to crack immortality. One Australian geneticist and Harvard Medical School professor, David Sinclair, believes there is no limit on human lifespan, and that humans will one day be able to achieve immortality. He found in his research that a coenzyme called NAD+, which is abundant in young humans, helps to preserve cells. In one study on mice, Sinclair showed that he could reverse some aging markers by boosting their levels of NAD+. As such, he has started taking his own cocktail of the enzyme - and feeding it to his entire family - which he believes could allow him to live until at least 150 years old. ALL SMOKE AND NO FIRE? Newman's paper, published in PLoS Biology, makes the simple case that mortality plateaus are 'dubious' and there is 'no explanation' for them. As far as he could tell, reviewing the data, '[a]ging does not 'stop' in old age,' he told LiveScience. 'Your biological machinery will get relentlessly worse from puberty until death,' he said. To his critics, Newman says that there is no definitive way to prove one way or another without accurate data on humans globally. Until then, we won't be able to properly understand how we age or how we are evolving. The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is at risk of spreading out of the country as refugees flee to Uganda. Hundreds of people have crossed the border from the afflicted north-east of the DRC following a presidential election on Sunday. Around one million people were prevented from voting because of the risk of spreading the deadly virus. Violence and protests broke out as a result and people are now heading to Uganda for safety, but risk taking Ebola with them, experts fear. The concerns add to those about the virus being transmitted by people travelling during the busy Christmas and New Year period. DRC's current outbreak is the second worst in history, killing at least 361 people since it began in August and the death toll is accelerating. A presidential election on Sunday caused protests across the Democratic Republic of the Congo (pictured, protestors in Kinshasa, the country's capital). In the north-east province of North Kivu, where the Ebola outbreak is raging, people have fled to Uganda to escape violence A Red Cross official yesterday raised concerns about the disease spreading into Uganda, which has been unaffected so far. And the World Health Organization is urging a vaccine manufacturer to make more in a bid to try and control the spread. Some Congolese people have been forced back to their home country after refusing medical tests at the Ugandan border, the Red Cross reported. The refugee influx started on Monday and dozens of people have been arriving at a time, said Irene Nakasiita, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Uganda. Ebola aid centres were attacked during protests before the election and now the country's internet has been cut off, further affecting response efforts. Violence has escalated since the election, experts said, prompting people to leave their homes and some to flee to Uganda to get out of danger. Online access has been restricted to stop people speculating about election results on social media. But DRC's health ministry said 'technical problems' caused a delay in sending out its daily update on the Ebola outbreak. Fears of the outbreak spreading are not new countries bordering the DRC, including Uganda, are already on high alert, as health experts said the virus moves closer every day. Officials last month warned thousands would travel across the border to visit family and buy food during the festive period, potentially taking the virus with them. At least 361 people are believed to have died in the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo an unusual number of children were dying of the virus last autumn, when experts realised they were contracting it when visiting medical centres A woman cries next to the coffin of a child who is believed to have died of Ebola in Beni, North Kivu the outbreak there is expected to last at least another six months Unrest and violence has made the current Ebola outbreak difficult to control because people have attacked and kidnapped health workers and others have fled their homes, making it difficult to track the spread of the virus (pictured, police officers guard a polling station in the capital of Kinshasa, which has so far remained untouched by Ebola) 'The next month, over Christmas and New Year, will be critical to what happens to this outbreak,' Dr Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, told MailOnline in December. Around 600 cases have been reported in the Ebola outbreak, and deaths have been increasing in recent months. Approximately a third of all people who have died 125 of the 361 did so between November 24 and December 28. The outbreak has been difficult to control because of armed violence and community protests. And the violence has increased 'in intensity and frequency,' the head of the WHO said on Wednesday. Ebola (pictured) is a virus spread through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, and can still spread after death And yet 'there is reason to be hopeful' the outbreak will be brought under control as soon as possible, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. Some of the Ebola cases in this outbreak have been reported close to the heavily traveled border with Uganda. For months, Ugandan officials have been screening everyone passing through official border posts. The Ebola virus is spread through direct contact with the fluids of an infected person. More than 50,000 people have received an experimental vaccine. Dr Ghebreyesus said there were enough doses of the vaccine available 'but at the same time we have already requested the supplier to produce more.' There were separate concerns about the virus spreading when 24 patients last week escaped from a medical centre. Two dozen potentially contagious people broke out of a centre in Beni, in the north-east of the African country, when it was attacked by protestors. The patients who escaped were being held in a camp with suspected Ebola but hadn't yet been confirmed. Demonstrators attacked the camp after elections planned for Sunday, December 23, were postponed because of fears of violence and the Ebola outbreak. 'Of 24 patients, 17 had tested negative (for Ebola) once. They had to be tested a second time before being discharged,' a spokeswoman for DRC's health ministry said last week. 'Four of them went home. Three other suspected cases were in too serious a case to flee.' But some of the demonstrators went into contaminated zones of the camp, according to one aid worker, adding more potential for the spread of the virus. Deadly nerve agents like sarin gas could be rendered harmless by a vaccine believed to protect people for up to a month. Nerve agents can kill within minutes, with sarin used to attack thousands of people in Syria in 2013 and novichok being used to target former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury last year. Now scientists have created an injection which destroys nerve agents in the bloodstream before they can take effect. The chemical weapons block signals between nerves and organs, causing muscles to fail. Victims suffer seizures, brain damage and rapidly suffocate from being unable to clear their lungs. Pictured: The Russian agents who accused of using novichok to target former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury last year However guinea pigs given the vaccine were exposed to sarin seven times without suffering any symptoms. Scientists used a protein called OPH which is produced by the E.coli bug and turns nerve agents into harmless substances in the blood. Normally lasting only a few hours, the protein was 'hidden' in a nanocapsule which stops the immune system from detecting and destroying it. The vaccine protected against nerve agents for eight days in the guinea pigs. In soldiers and emergency workers at risk from nerve agents in war zones, scientists hope it could protect them for up to a month. After 60 years of research on blocking the chemical weapons, this is the longest-lasting vaccine found so far. It could be trialled on humans in five years' time. Dr Shaoyi Jiang, a co-author of the research from said: 'Nerve agents threaten both soldiers and civilians in warzones while OP poisoning remains a major medical issue for public health.' He added: 'Tests in guinea pigs demonstrated successful long-term protection against nerve agent exposure for one week after a single injection. 'Since modified proteins can last in humans several-fold longer, it is hoped that the protection time window will prove to be several weeks to a month in people.' Nerve agents were first devised by the Germans during World War II but never used during the conflict. Sarin was released by a Japanese doomsday cult onto the Tokyo subway in 1995, and a new generation of more deadly nerve agents include VX, used to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un's half-brother, and novichok, which was used in the Salisbury attack. Nerve agents can kill within minutes, with sarin used to attack thousands of people in Syria Victims of nerve agent attacks are currently given antidotes which save their lives but often fail to prevent seizures and permanent brain damage. A better solution is the protein OPH, which breaks the chemical bonds of nerve agents, turning them into harmless substances in the bloodstream before they can strike. When OPH was put into a 'nanocapsule', to stop it being cleared from the blood by the immune system, guinea pigs given injections of sarin every 24 hours for eight days were almost completely protected. Instead of suffering the expected breathing problems and seizures from the nerve agents, they had no medical problems. In a group of six guinea pigs, none suffered any symptoms until after seven exposures to sarin. The same organophosphates found in nerve agents are also used in pesticides and kill 200,000 people a year in developing countries from poisoning. Scientists found a single injection of their vaccine protected rats from organophosphates for almost a week. The enzyme was found to last around 60 times longer in a polymer nanocapsule, which is around a 2,500th the size of a human hair and can be injected. It normally would vaccinate someone for only a few hours. Researchers, whose work is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, now hope their vaccine could work from between a few weeks to a month in people, although more research is needed in monkeys. It could also be given to victims of nerve agents after they have been exposed. The vaccine has not yet been tested on newer 'V-type' nerve agents, such as VX and novichok. But it works better than a previous type of vaccine, using a protein found in the human body, which destroys nerve agents but is inactivated in the process. They are unlikely style twins but Kylie Jenner and the Duchess of Sussex have stepped out in the same garment. During her visit to Wellington, New Zealand, as part of the royal tour in October, Meghan wore a short white tuxedo dress by local sustainability-focused designer Maggie Marilyn. And on Monday night - New Year's Eve - Kylie rang in the 2019 with beau, Travis Scott, wearing the same double-breasted mini. Fashion royalty? They are unlikely style twins but Kylie Jenner and the Duchess of Sussex have stepped out in the same white tuxedo dress, albeit styling the design very differently Embracing a range of designers from the countries she visited, the Maggie Marilyn design was one of many chic looks Meghan donned on the tour with Prince Harry. Leap Of Faith Puff-Sleeve Cotton Blazer Dress by Maggie Marilyn, originally retailed for $645 and is currently on sale for $316 In order to ensure that the dress was as best suited to her style as possible, the former Suits star actually had the polished dress altered, removing the sleeves from the piece. Kylie also chose to change up the design in order to fit her personal aesthetic. Unlike Meghan, the reality star-turned-beauty mogul retained the dress's original sleeves but the hem appears to be cut a lot shorter than Meghan's. The cotton-twill 'Leap of Faith' Blazer Dress originally retailed for $645 at Bergdorf Goodman, however it has since been reduced to just $316 in the sale. Interestingly, this is not the first time that Meghan and the Kardashians have been connected. Kylie and Meghan's unlikely twinning moment acutally comes not long after Kylie's sister Kim opened up about her desire to become friends with the Duchess of Sussex. Made in New Zealand: Embracing a range of designers from the countries she visited, the dress was one of many chic looks Meghan donned on the tour with Prince Harry Date night: On Monday night, Kylie rang in the new year with beau, Travis Scott, wearing the double-breasted mini dress Poll Who wore it best - Kylie or Meghan? Meghan Kylie Who wore it best - Kylie or Meghan? Meghan 901 votes Kylie 616 votes Now share your opinion The reality TV mogul is reportedly researching diamond baby jewelry and designer onesies to send to pregnant Meghan in the hopes of forging a bond with the former actress and soon-to-be mother-of-one. A source told Radar: 'The royal baby's a perfect time for her to remind Meghan and Harry that she and Kanye are sincere, thoughtful people and she's looking to stand out from all the other celebrities with something truly impressive. 'She's been researching everything from diamond baby jewellery to crystal nursery decor and designer onesies. 'Kim is convinced she and Meghan will be best friends one day. 'It's very much a long-term project and she's chipping away to impress her when the opportunities arise.' Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? A widow who never dyed her hair and rarely wore makeup proudly showed off her glamorous new look after undergoing a dramatic ambush makeover following the loss of her husband of 35 years. Debbie Reimer, 58, from Yakima, Washington, has been mourning her late husband for the past four years. When she was plucked from the crowd in the Today show plaza on Thursday, she revealed she wanted a new look to mark the new time in her life. The school bus driver and grandmother-of-six told Today fashion expert Jill Martin that she was ready to start her living her life again. Scroll down for video Beautiful before and after: Debbie Reimer, 58, from Yakima, Washington, received a stunning ambush makeover on the Today show Thursday Mourning: The school bus driver and grandmother-of-six lost her husband four years ago after 35 years of marriage 'I'm ready for a new me to find out who I am now without my husband,' she said, choking up as she insisted: 'I need to start.' It was an emotional moment that prompted Jill to reach over and give Debbie a big hug before the show's glam squad worked their magic. Debbie, who was joined by her sister-in-law Rita and her nephew David, looked incredible when she strutted on stage in a maroon motorcycle jacket and heels. 'Oh my God,' David said before throwing his hand over his chest. Emotional moment: Today fashion expert gave Debbie a hug after she said it was time for her to start living her life again Amazed: Debbie was joined by her sister-in-law Rita and her nephew David. Her jaw-dropping transformation left them speechless The grandmother was just as thrilled when she turned around and checked out her new look in the mirror for the first time. 'Oh my God! This is me? I look gorgeous!' she gushed. Debbie wavy auburn locks were dyed a flattering shade of copper, cut into a chic long bob with bangs, and straightened. While her hair looked amazing, celebrity hairstylist Louis Licari admitted that she was hesitant about changing up her 'do. Loving it: 'Oh my God! This is me? I look gorgeous!' she gushed when she looked in the mirror Then and wow! Before her makeover, Debbie had never colored her hair and rarely wore makeup. Celebrity hairstylist Louis Licari was happy to turn her into a true redhead 'First of all, you have to know that when I got her in the chair, she said, "I don't know if I want to color my hair. I don't know if I want to cut it." I'm so glad it worked like this,' he explained. Louis noted that Debbie was born a red hair, and he was happy to bring her back to being a true redhead. Jill, meanwhile, chose a jacket and bootcut jeans for Debbie because she wanted her to have all the basics for her fresh start. 'I'm speechless, and it's very hard for me to be speechless,' her nephew said of her stunning transformation. Simply stunning: Breast cancer survivor Maureen Whelan, 54, from Syracuse, New York, also received an ambush makeover on Thursday morning's show Making memories: Maureen and her husband, Dan, were celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary in the city Maureen Whelan, 54, from Syracuse, New York, also received an ambush makeover on Thursday morning's show while celebrating her 20th wedding anniversary in the city with her husband, Dan. Dan made sure to make it an extra special day by helping her make signs and flagging down the glam squad in the Today show plaza to ensure she got picked for a makeover. 'She deserves this for sure,' he said. 'She has been through an awful lot 13 years a breast cancer survivor. 'We've got a lovely daughter at home. She's done a great job with her, and I think she just deserves this opportunity,' he added. New look: Maureen's hair was cut into a flattering bob and given golden highlights The two were going to see Cher in concert later that night, and she was excited to get a brand new look ahead of the show. Maureen was all smiles when she stepped on stage, and Dan was thrilled with her stunning new look. 'Wow! Look at that. Happy anniversary to me,' he said. The mom couldn't resist running her fingers through her hair as she looked at herself in the mirror for the first time following her makeover. Maryann Campo cut Maureen's hair into a flattering bob, while Louis warmed up her color and added natural-looking highlights. To complete her new look, Jill dressed her in a hunter green blazer, skinny jeans, metallic heels, and a beaded statement necklace. This week saw many of us return to our desks following the festive break, however, for these spoiled teens their out of offices remain permanently switched on. The Rich Kids of Instagram have taken to their social media accounts to share the envy-inducing snaps from their winter getaways. While we return to the daily grind these affluent youngsters are enjoying drinks by the pool and first class airport lounges all captured in smug selfies. The heiresses, entrepreneurs and offspring of the rich and famous from around the world want for nothing as they pose for snaps on their destination holidays. One pampered jet-setter could be seen enjoying a dip in a hot tub which boasts a few of an aquarium. Meanwhile one couple were joined by some rather unusual breakfast guests in the form of giraffes on their safari holiday. Heiresses, entrepreneurs and offspring of the rich and famous from around the world have shared snaps from their envy-inducing holidays on Instagram, including this woman who paid a visit to Exuma's infamous Pig Beach in the Bahamas Australian couple Phil and Sophie posed for a breakfast snap in Ubud, Bali just a few days ago Diana Chernyak from Russia posed by an on deck hot tub while on holiday in La Maddalena These two Swiss pals were sure to travel to Ibiza in style on board their own private jet Swiss Zhara Nilsson enjoys her morning coffee with a view at the Armani Hotel in Dubai Chryseis Tan was joined by an unusual breakfast guest in the form of two giraffes while on holiday in Kenya No need to wrap up when in Beverly Hills as this Nicolette Gray proves in this shot Lori Hoxha kicks back in a private jet as she heads off for a bit of winter sun Travel blogger Marine aka Miss Everywhere balances precariously on a balcony as she looks out to sea on the Raja Ampart islands Influencer Caro enjoys a dip in the hot tub at the Atlantis Palm in Dubai with a pal Nastya Rose headed to Ibiza on a private jet with her pals and a bottle of fizz for company Graffiti artist Alec Monopoly touches down in Mexico with girlfriend Alexa Dellanos Brett captioned this photo 'smells like $26 million in here' as he enjoyed a glass of champagne while hitting the skies Veronika Orchid touches down in Monte Carlo in her own private helicopter For Congress' incoming representative from Minnesota, merely landing at the airport in Washington, D.C. ahead of her swearing-in ceremony was particularly poignant. That's because 23 years ago, Ilhan Omar who is, as of Thursday, the first Somali-American representative in Congress, as well as the first to wear a hijab on the floor of the House of Representatives arrived at that very same airport with her father, as refugees fleeing the 1991 Somali Civil War. On January 2, the 37-year-old returned to the airport once again, beaming as she and her father wheeled their suitcases from baggage claim the day before her history-making swearing-in ceremony. Full circle: Ilhan Omar, who was sworn into Congress today, is pictured arriving at the airport in D.C. with her father Land of opportunity: The 37-year-old landed there for the first time 23 years ago as a refugee Omar shared the touching photo on Twitter on Wednesday. In the snap, she beams proudly, with one hand on her luggage and the other on her dad's back, Meanwhile, her dad is the picture of pride, wearing a pin from his daughter's campaign on his jacket. She wrote: '23 years ago, from a refugee camp in Kenya, my father and I arrived at an airport in Washington DC. Today, we return to that same airport on the eve of my swearing in as the first Somali-American in Congress.' On Thursday less than 24 hours later after snapping the now-viral photo Omar made history as she took her seat in the House of Representatives wearing a hijab, becoming one of the first two Muslim women to enter Congress, and the first person to wear a religious head covering in Congress. Democrats were set to formally end the ban on religious head coverings on the House floor on Thursday afternoon as part of a package of rules to govern the House. That package changes the ban on head coverings to exclude 'non-religious headdress.' That means Omar will be allowed to don her hijab when she's on the House floor to vote and give speeches during normal sessions. Omar, who appeared to beam with pride as she entered Congress on Thursday, represents the fifth district of Minnesota, which includes all of Minneapolis and some of its suburbs. American dream: She was just 14 when she came to the US and became a citizen at 17 (pictured with her husband and kids) Proud pops: Her father wrote a caption for the airport photo on Instagram, recalling coming to the US in 1995 History: On Thursday, Omar took her seat in the House of Representatives wearing a hijab, becoming the first woman to do so and the first person to wear a religious head covering in Congress Making friends: Omar was pictured holding fellow Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell's young baby as she mingled with members of the Democratic caucus New meets old: The Minnesota Democrat sat beside Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who chaired the Democratic National Committee before the 2016 election Mingling time: New congresswoman Omar chatted with other members of Congress and their children Omar and her family traveled a rough road before coming to the US in 1995. In 1991, when civil war broke out in their home country of Somalia, they fled to safety in neighboring Kenya. They spent four years in a refugee camp there, during which time they applied to be resettled as refugees in the US. Their application was accepted, and in 1995 they moved to Arlington, Virginia before moving again to Minneapolis later, in 1997. Omar's dad, Nur Mohamed, reflected on that time on Instagram, adding his own words to his daughter's post. 'Hey, Ilhans dad here,' he wrote. 'Twenty three years ago, my family and I arrived at an airport in Washington DC. We were newly arrived refugees in this country, from a refugee camp in Kenya. 'I had heard about the promise of America, prosperity for all and hope for a better tomorrow. 'I could never have dreamed that twenty three years later I would return to the same airport with my daughter Ilhan by my side, the day before she is to be sworn in as the first Somali-American elected to the United States Congress. 'You, of course, can imagine how emotional this is and why I am incredibly proud of her. 'Its an honor to have her represent me and our family is so humbled that Ilhan has the opportunity to serve in our democracy. I wish Ilhan's grandfather could be here to witness this historic moment. He will be here in spirit as Ilhan will place her hand on his Koran for the ceremonial swearing in. Feel-good! The photo Omar shared, and her story about being in that airport as a refugee, has quickly gone viral on social media Omar and her family had spent years in a refugee camp in Kenya before coming to the US 'This is the nation I want to be a part of, the nation that says anyone can be a part of it, the nation that puts out a hand to help instead of stop,' wrote one Twitter user Yes! The photo made many on social media feel happy and hopeful 'Tomorrow, members of Ilhan's team will be covering the events of the day. We all hope you will follow along and share in our excitement for what the New Year will bring. As Ilhan would say, forward together.' Her late grandfather certainly had a hand in Omar's interest in politics. Just 14 at the time they moved to the US, Omar learned English quickly and would translate for grandfather when he attended political caucus meetings. 'It was a free process and it wasnt like the one he was exposed to,' she told The Guardian. 'In America you could be involved in a political party and you didnt have to be a member of a specific class.' Bitten by the political bug, Omar went on to become a citizen in 2000, and worked on several political campaigns before launching her own, for the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2016. She won, becoming the first Somali American legislator and in 2018 she ran again, for the US House of Representatives. Rising up: They were thrilled to see Omar achieving success after coming over with so little 'This is everything good about us as a country,' wrote one woman Agreed: Jay Nordlinger, an editor for The National Review, wrote encouragement for the 'classically American' story despite noting that they likely had different politics Fighting for: A US Air Force veteran tweeted, 'This is what they call the American dream!' Seeing her story come full circle on Wednesday as she left the airport in D.C., Twitter users applauded her and expressed pride in the example she made. 'This is everything good about us as a country. There are other things too but this one is especially good,' wrote one. 'I'm crying and if you're reading this, you should be too,' wrote another. 'This is the nation I want to be a part of, the nation that says anyone can be a part of it, the nation that puts out a hand to help instead of stop, the nation that says e pluribus unum and not no vacancies,' tweeted a third. Jay Nordlinger, an editor for The National Review, tweeted: 'I don't know what this woman's politics are (although I bet they're different from mine) -- but I know this is classically American. Long may it be.' 'This is what America can and should represent: opportunities for those fleeing oppression, poverty, and persecution. You are the embodiment of what it means to be American,' someone else chimed in. And a US Air Force veteran tweeted, 'This is what they call the American dream!' The estranged wife of Prince Philip's godson Ashley Hicks has broken her silence to give her first interview since their split. American fashionista Kata de Solis, 37, tied the knot with interior designer Mr Hicks, 55, in a 2015 ceremony that was dubbed society's first ever 'Instagram wedding' as the couple had met through the site. They welcomed son Caspian in January 2018. However by September - weeks after Kata announced she was pregnant with their second child - there were reports the marriage had broken down and rumours of a relationship between Mr Hicks and a close family friend subsequently emerged. Estranged: American fashionista Kata de Solis, 37, has spoken for the first time since her split from husband David Hicks, 55, pictured together, whom she married in 2015 Baby on the way: Mrs Hicks revealed she continues to enjoy a close relationship with her husband's family, even holidaying with her sister-in-law in the Bahamas. Pictured, Mrs Hicks with son Caspian on Harbour Island in a photo shared on her Instagram account this week Close relationship: Mrs Hicks in white on her wedding day with sister-in-law India Hicks, left, mother-in-law Lady Pamela Hicks and designer Christian Louboutin. Mrs Hicks and her son Caspian still live on Lady Pamela's family estate in the Oxfordshire countryside Mr and Mrs Hicks remain apart today, although not divorced, and still little is known about the circumstances of their split. While legal restrictions prevent Mrs Hicks from speaking in depth about her marriage, she told Tatler that she continues to enjoy a close relationship with her husband's family, even living with her mother-in-law Lady Pamela Hicks, 89, on her Oxfordshire estate. 'We're so lucky to live right next door to Lady Pamela,' Mrs Hicks said. 'She's the best grandmother, she's so wonderful and maternal, and I hope she can give him some good lessons in being a good little English boy.' Whirlwind romance: Mr Hicks, the son of late designer David Hicks married Kata at his family home, pictured. Their romance had taken no time to blossom the lovebirds got engaged just one month after meeting on the photo-sharing website Instagram In another nod to the firm bonds that remain, Mrs Hicks allowed Lady Pamela to name her unborn son. 'His name will be Horatio,' Mrs Hicks revealed. 'But Lady Pamela has also decided his nickname should be Dickie after her father [Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Prince Philip's uncle].' Mr Hicks, the son of late designer David Hicks married Kata at his family home. Their romance had taken no time to blossom the lovebirds got engaged just one month after meeting on the photo-sharing website. Vibrant: Mr and Mrs Hicks were introduced online by illustrator Donald Robertson, who was also best man. For the reception, the bride wore bunny ears, pictured, and the groom donned a fancy-dress chickens head Family ties: The nuptials were attended by Hickss daughters from his first marriage to designer Allegra Angelica and Ambrosia. There was another novel rite of ceremony when Angelica pushed the brides face into the cake, pictured All in good fun: This photo of a seemingly unhappy bride with cake on her face circulated after the ceremony but Mrs Hicks insists it was simply a bit of fun They were introduced online by illustrator Donald Robertson, who was also best man. For the reception, the bride wore bunny ears and the groom donned a fancy-dress chickens head. See the full feature in the February issue of Tatler available via digital download and newsstands now The nuptials were attended by Hickss daughters from his first marriage to designer Allegra Angelica and Ambrosia his mother, Lady Pamela Hicks, bridesmaid to the Queen, and sister India, a bridesmaid at Lady Dianas wedding in 1981. There was another novel rite of ceremony when Angelica pushed the brides face into the cake. The couple continued to live out their short married life via Instagram. Two weeks after Caspian was born his parents created an online account for the tot and shared his christening on the web. Mrs Hicks has done the same with Dickie - bagging the Instagram handle @DickieHicks. The businesswoman, who spent her career in Paris and New York working for the likes of Chanel and Bottega Veneta, spent part of the festive season in the Bahamas with sister-in-law India Hicks. Tribute: Lady Pamela Hicks, right in 1960, named her unborn grandson Horatio but he will be known as 'Dickie', the same name given to her late father Earl Mountbatten of Burma, centre, uncle of the Duke of Edinburgh. Pictured, Mountbatten with daughters Lady Patricia Brabourne, left, and Lady Pamela Hicks at a memorial for Countess Mountbatten in 1960 See the full feature in the February issue of Tatler available via digital download and newsstands now. Crown Princess Mary of Denmark relied on an old favourite when it came to her outfit choice on Thursday. The 46-year-old arrived at the New Year's reception for the diplomatic corps in an elegant dove grey dress with lace detailing, the exact same outfit she had worn to that very event two years earlier. However, Mary looked just as stunning today as she had in 2017 as she accompanied her husband Crown Prince Frederik, 50, to the annual event at Christiansborg palace in Copenhagen. The Australian-born royal stayed true to her signature stylish yet conservative style with softly pulled back hair and a pair of pearl earrings earrings, which were the only accessory she had changed up today. 2019: Crown Princess Mary of Denmark dazzled in a dove-grey ballgown today as she joined her husband Crown Prince Frederik for the New Year's Diplomatic Reception 2017: The Australian-born royal had worn exactly the same ensemble to the same even just two years earlier with the only difference being her choice in earrings The New Year's Diplomatic Reception is an annual event held in honour of the members of the diplomatic corps. As is custom on ceremonial occasions Mary could be seen wearing a blue sash representing her Order of the Elephant. The Order is Denmarks oldest and most distinguished royal order of chivalry, and can be dated back to 1460. Meanwhile Frederik, 50, looked dapper in full ceremonial dress complete with his traditional blue sash displaying his medals. The couple joined Queen Margrethe of Denmark who looked festive in a blue silk dress with a fur trim which she has also worn in previous years Both Mary and Frederik could be seen wearing a blue sash representing her Order of the Elephant They joined Queen Margrethe of Denmark on Thursday who looked festive in a blue silk dress with a fur trim - the same as she had worn the year before. The 78-year-old monarch welcomed members of the diplomatic corps, ambassadors and other prominent guests to their traditional New Year reception. Guests were welcomed by members of the royal guard dressed in full uniform and bear skins. The 78-year-old monarch welcomed members of the diplomatic corps, ambassadors and other prominent guests to their traditional New Year reception The Icelandic ambassador to Denmark Benedikt Jonssonand his wife Adalheidur Oskarsdottir looked delighted to meet the queen A brightly dressed Tsholofelo Lefifi, the South African Ambassador to Denmark was all smiles as she greeted the monarch Just three days in to 2019 it has already proven a busy week for the Danish royals who celebrated the New Year at a ball at Christian VII's Palace in Amalienborg on January 1. This traditional New Year's Eve ball began in 1693 when Christian VII gave the Elephant Order statues to the Danish Ordinances on January 1. While it used to be an exclusive celebration for kings and knights of the day, the circle later extended to include royal ladies, the cabinet's leadership and selected institutions closely related to the empire. Just three days in to 2019 it has already proven a busy week for the Danish royals who celebrated the New Year at a ball at Christian VII's Palace in Amalienborg on January 1 This traditional New Year's Eve ball began in 1693 when Christian VII gave the Elephant Order statues to the Danish Ordinances on January 1 It has since become a way for the reigning Queen to give a New Year's address to her family and close associates. The week prior Princess Mary unveiled her towering Christmas tree which replaced standard fairy lights with candles on the branches. It is believed the candles were only lit on Christmas Eve, when the Crown Princess and her family are seated for dinner. Danny: Where did you go and what was the vibe? 97 & Social, vibe was friendly and we had a good chat but not much more than that. Ah, so did the date meet your expectations? What were you hoping to get out of it? To be honest, I don't know what I was expecting, I went into it with an open mind and signed up because thought it would be fun! I enjoyed the dated but I don't think we were that compatible. We had a good chat though. A shame you weren't compatible! Were there any particularly memorable or awkward moments? How did you end it? It was more of a political discussion than clashing... I feel like the initial meeting was awkward because I'm not used to meeting someone not even knowing their name but past that it was fine. We went to get food and then went home. I had a flight to Poland at 7am so didn't want to stay out. Yeah, blind dates can be kind of daunting! Brave doing it before a flight too. Did you find that you clashed political views or anything? Yeah a little bit, We were both interested in politics so we started talking about it and found that we had quite different views. I think the fact that we were both into politics meant that we talked about it but it was more of a discussion than clashing if you know what I mean! I guess politics can always be a tricky one to talk about with someone you don't know. Would you say you were attracted to her? Would you introduce her to your friends? At the start yeah sure, but when we started talking it was clear we didn't really connect on some of the things we feel strongly about but she was a nice lass. As far as introducing her to my friends, my friends followed me to the pub to be pricks, but she was sound so I would! Just because we disagreed on a few things, it doesn't take away from the fact I thought she was a nice person and was easy to talk to. I think we both saw there was just nothing romantic there, though. Sophia: What was your first impression of him? Not bad, he seemed to be dressed fairly well and was friendly. I don't think I was attracted to him but was open to see what he was like. Where did you decide to go from there? We met at 97 & Social and then we both got a pint and sat down outside and chatted. We both had friends that had also been on these blind dates so we spoke about that and just some basic things about ourselves. We moved inside and got another drink and it became clear we weren't suited to one another. He's a Tory and anti-feminist! He also said all he wanted was to get a job, get married and have kids and told me he was very traditional. Oh dear! Did you try to explain your views to him? I really don't like to talk politics when I've just met someone and stayed as calm as I could and I tried to educate him on his rather misogynist views. He called feminism 'toxic' which allowed women to behave as 'slags'. I found this very insulting and I was actually very offended. I want to say it was a matter of ignorance and I don't think he is a bad person but his views certainly are not okay by any stretch. What did you do from there, then? Well, this all came to light mostly on the walk to MM Flame and to be honest I needed the falafel wrap! We were walking and I stopped and said I wasn't really enjoying myself and was going home. We were standing outside my friend's house and I just said it was mine so that I could escape. So I'm guessing you will not be meeting again? He was a Tory and an anti-feminist We definitely won't be meeting again. I was shocked at his archaic, sexiest views. I think it was pretty awful but he messaged me saying he had a pretty good time which I found confusing! If he were an alcoholic beverage, what would you say he would be? Probably a pina colada: unsophisticated and a bit embarrassing. Actually substitute 'a bit' for really... A British mother-of-two has revealed how moving to the US caused her to balloon in size because of the huge portions sizes. Originally from Bristol Emma Passe, 35, began piling on the weight after moving to Portland in Oregon when she was just 18. Describing how her weight soared to 294lbs (21 stone), Emma explained: 'Portions of food are served on massive plates and could easily feed a few people at once. 'All drinks have free refills and the calories in one meal can easily exceed anyone's daily allowance. After developing pre-diabetes and breathing difficulties, she took up exercise and has now dropped 154lbs (11 stone) to become a body builder. Mother-of-two Emma Passe, 35, from Bristol, blames huge American portions for her weight soaring to 294lbs (pictured) after moving to Oregon aged 18 Emma, pictured showing off her slimmed down figure after losing 154lbs, documents her fitness journey online having discovered a love for weight lifting and the gym. She also has a scar following a recent tummy tuck to reduce the 2lbs of loose skin she was left with 'I really started getting "curvy" as a teenager, and I remember my grandmother poking the bottom of my belly when I was in a bikini on holiday,' said Emma. 'I was probably about 14 at the time and already it was being noted that I was getting podgy. 'Over the years the lack of activity combined with American food and portion sizes caused me to gain weight steadily as time went on,' said Emma 'The real weight gain into obesity ramped up when I moved to the United States in 2002. At 22, I had my daughter and then at 27 I had my son. 'Over the years the lack of activity combined with American food and portion sizes caused me to gain weight steadily as time went on.' With a job as an account executive that required a lot of travel, Emma was regularly eating on the go and at corporate dinners. She soon found herself tipping the scales at almost 300lbs (21st 4lbs) and wearing a size 22 (UK 26). 'A number of years working a corporate job, requiring a lot of travel by plane and car, led to an unhealthy regime,' she said. 'My career has kept me very busy - I spent a lot of time driving or flying and eating at restaurants on the go. I didn't work out and I didn't watch my portions, so gradually the weight continued to pile on.' By 2015, Emma suffered from uncontrollable body acne, high cholesterol, pre-diabetes and had to sleep with a special machine to keep her breathing at night. She would get out of breath just tying her shoelaces, and her declining health left her deeply concerned about what other people thought of her. By April 2015, she had high cholesterol and was pre-diabetic, and she had such severe sleep apnoea that she had to sleep with a machine at night just to keep breathing When Emma first went to the gym, she joined a chain that promised 'no judgement' so that she felt comfortable exercising - and has since discovered a love of feeling and getting strong Emma, pictured left before losing weight, and right after, had a job that involved lots of corporate dining and socializing - often including gourmet dinners and fast food 'At my doctor's appointment in April 2015, my lab work showed high cholesterol and I was pre-diabetic. I had such severe sleep apnoea that I had to sleep with a CPAP machine at night just to keep breathing. 'I had uncontrollable body acne that was resistant to treatment, and frequent bouts of anxiety. 'I felt heavy and tired all the time. Bending forward to tie my shoes or even put shoes on left me breathless. I was hyper-aware of how I looked and constantly worried about sweating or getting out of breath in front of people. 'I remember I took a work trip to Washington DC and I took the stairs up to the offices on Capitol Hill, and by the time I got to the top, which took me a while, I was covered in a sheen and I could barely breathe. I felt so embarrassed in front of my colleagues. 'I would go for walks with my kids, but nothing more than that. Work has always kept me so busy that I always had an excuse as to why I couldn't get in any real exercise. 'I was morbidly obese and at the age of 30 I was hearing suggestions of lifelong cholesterol medication. I was scared and overwhelmed, but I wanted to be healthy and try to cure myself before embarking on a lifetime of medication. 'I couldn't imagine having to take medication for the rest of my life. I felt totally defeated and worried for the future. The idea of taking a pill to control something that was within my power to change really prompted a big shift in my mind. Having discovered her passion for body-building, Emma has gained a newfound confidence and feels inspired by women who lift weights while still embodying femininity Emma wants to remain in good bikini shape in 2019. She now keeps her figure trim with a combination of weights and cardio, which makes her feel strong After just one month of embarking on her new fitness regime, Emma lost 15lbs which motivated her to continue with her plan. Several years on and she's fitter than ever 'I wanted to look and feel good, and I knew I wasn't willing to take a lifetime of medication at my age. The fear of having to be on medication for the rest of her life made Emma realise that she could still change her health. She began working out at a gym, promising no judgement to gym-goers, and in her first month lost 15lbs which spurred her on to keep going. 'When I first went to the gym, I stuck to the weight machines which had instructions on them and did cardio for half an hour after. Initially I joined Planet Fitness, a gym which markets their facilities with a promise of no judgement. 'I stayed in that gym for about a year until my capabilities outgrew what they had available,' explained Emma who now shares her journey on her @the_busy_bodybuilder account on Instagram. 'In the first month I lost 15 pounds and I was so surprised. I knew most of it was that initial water weight, but I considered what would happen if I did that month after month, again and again.' Emma loved the gym once she started, as it made her even more determined to keep losing weight and find out how to improve her life. Having halved her weight, she's now 145lbs (10st 5lb) and wears a size 6 (UK size 10). 'I found a love for fitness and an obsession with weight lifting. I found the combination of weights and cardio was magic for me and it made me feel strong,' said Emma. Since embarking on her fitness journey, Emma has halved her weight, and now wears a size 6 Emma is now a regular gym-goer and posts pictures of her fitness journey and newly toned physique on her Instagram account called @the_busy_bodybuilder 'A woman who can power lift is a powerful thing. I went to the gym almost every day, most days at four am before work or before my kids were up. 'There's something very rewarding about sore muscles and the breathless walk out of the gym, knowing that you did something great for your body and your life. 'A woman who can lift heavy iron and still embody femininity is compelling. I am inspired by strong women who fuel their body with strategic exercise and good food. 'I used to eat anything I wanted without much regard. Nowadays I track macronutrients and try to focus on foods high in protein, moderate fats, and low carb. I stay away from rice and any empty white carbs. 'Weight loss to this degree is such a double-edged sword though. While I am very happy with what I have achieved and even happier in this new lifestyle where I can prioritise my health, I still fight body image issues from a lifetime of obesity. 'I'm not sure that will ever go away, and I think that's simply human nature. We are programmed to find the negatives in and around ourselves, so you really have to be ready to battle out those thoughts. 'My message has always been consistent on all social media: "nothing worth having ever comes easy." 'Sometimes we're all so consumed with being parents, or spouses, or employees, we never make the time for ourselves in the same way, but none of us want to sacrifice our health and shorten our lives because we're too afraid to be a little selfish.' 'I recently had 2lbs of loose skin removed from my stomach that was left after such a big weight loss, and now that I am mostly recovered, I plan to keep power-lifting, eating intuitively, and being in the best bikini shape possible in 2019. But mostly, I want to find a balance in my life so I can maintain what I've worked so hard for, and still enjoy food, friends, and a glass of wine.' Retailer Fashion Nova has come under fire for an apparent Photoshop fail that left a model's crotch area looking rather unusual. The American retailer is currently promoting a see-through lace two-piece featuring an eye-wateringly high cut thong bodysuit and bell bottom trousers. In one shot the model can be seen wearing both parts of the Lace Lace Baby Pant Set together, but in another she's wearing just the bodysuit, which leaves little to the imagination. However, eagle-eyed shoppers have also slammed the company for its bad editing claiming that some bizarre Photshopping has taken place on the model's bikini line. Social media users have accused US retailer Fashion Nova of 'Photoshopping' the crotch area in an image of a model in a lace bodysuit, leaving her body looking rather bizarre The American retailer has been slammed for its bad 'editing' on the imagery of the Lace Lace Baby Pant Set Social media users have slammed the brand for editing the images of the model wearing the raunchy two piece A separate social media user shared her views on the image and admitted she thought the 'pantie part' was edited The area seems overly blurred compared with the rest of her skin and has a very distinct, and unnatural, contour at the top of the leg and crotch area. The ensemble leaves little to the imagination as the bodysuit is a high cut, thong style, which exposes a lot of flesh Fashion Nova, which was revealed as the most Googled fashion brand of 2018, shared a photograph of the entire look on its Instagram account, and was quickly flooded with criticism. 'That bikini line photoshopped like a mug', vented one. Another shared: 'The pantie part is photo shopped or at least it looks [like it].' A separate user added: 'Her bikini line looks like it was edited on PicsArt.' 'Yall know better with this photoshop!' wrote another. Some even demanded that the person responsible for editing the image should be fired from the company, with one commenting: 'Whoever photoshopped this photo, fire them.' Another noted the sizing of the bodysuit in relation to the model's body was not at all realistic. They commented: 'My vagina would not fit in this.' Some people even voiced concerns that the incredibly severe cut of the lace bodysuit would actually cause infections, noting that the style would enable bacteria to spread. Another social media user commented on Fashion Nova's Instagram account airing their views on the image as they felt the image had definitely been tampered with 'Fire them': Commenters were quick to call out Fashion Nova for the alleged Photoshopping, with some accusing the brand of editing previous imagery too The image also prompted a string of people to criticize the garment itself, with some branding it inappropriate, too small and revealing Others believed the garment was so poorly designed that women might actually get infections from the high cut 'Yall want us to get yeast infections I see,' one person noted. Another individual wrote: 'She should've worn a large though ... poor crotch couldn't stand a chance.' Fashion Nova's two piece is made of stretchy material, nylon and spandex, and is described as being 'unlined' on the site. The co-ord retails for $44.99 (35.76), for the complete set. Despite the criticism of its imagery and its designs, Fashion Nova, which also ships to the UK, has proven to be incredibly successful over the past year. In November, the brand launched a collaboration with Cardi B - an 82-piece clothing line that sold out in just a few hours. The designs have also had backing from Kylie Jenner, who worked with the brand on a number of sponsored Instagram posts in which she modeled pieces from Fashion Nova's collection. Her ex James Middleton has been putting on a steamy display with his new girlfriend on holiday in St Barts, but it seems that Donna Air is equally loved up. The 39-year-old shared a snap of her and her beau Ben Carrington on Instagram on Thursday alongside a gushing caption. She wrote: '1 Year + 1 week ago today. #mountains #snowbunny #mylove @benjamincarrington :) ' The photo sees the couple snuggled up together at a ski resort and is the first photo that Donna has shared of Ben on her account. Donna Air shared a snap of her and boyfriend Ben Carrington on Instagram today for the first time, as her ex James Middleton is pictured with a new love interest on holiday in St Barts Donna accompanied the sweet snap taken at a ski resort with a gushing caption She has previously posted a video of her boyfriend on her account but he could not be seen on camera. Donna first stepped out with the property developer in March last year, just a few weeks after confirming the end of her five-year romance with James Middleton. The actress also shared a flurry of throw back snaps ranging between 2003 and 2011 asking followers if she should keep the outfits she was wearing. Snaps included photos from David Furnish and Elton John's stag do as well as the Elle Style Awards and a film premiere. James is currently on holiday in St Barts with the Middleton and Matthews families accompanied by a new mystery girlfriend Donna Air and James Middleton dated for fiver years before splitting in 2017 Her posts come as her ex boyfriend of five years James Middleton has been pictured enjoying a romantic holiday in St Barts with a new girlfriend. James and the mystery woman have been photographed sharing kisses on the beach during their post-festive break. The Duchess of Cambridge's younger brother is holidaying with his sister Pippa and husband James Matthews and their new baby Arthur, as well as his parents Carole and Michael Middleton. While James' girlfriend's identity is not yet known, James' decision to introduce her to his parents will fuel speculation that their fledgling romance is the real deal. The actress also shared a series of throw-back shots with her followers including this snap of she Trinny Woodall and Camilla Al Fayed The snaps range between 2003 and 2011 asking followers if she should keep the outfits she was wearing. Pictured at David Furnish and Elton John's stag do (left) and the 2011 Elle Style Awards (right) Among the outfits she was questioning was a Dolce and Gabbana coat worn in San Lorenzo with Patrick Cox and David Furnish (seen together above) Also on the holiday is Spencer Matthews and his wife Vogue Williams and David and Jane Matthews who, moved to St Barts in September 1995 after purchasing Eden Rock from local adventurer Remy de Haenen. This is the first girlfriend that James has had since splitting from Donna last year. The blonde told The Mail on Sunday: 'James and I are no longer an item. We parted ways in December but remain the very best of friends and always will be. In January, James was seen in the audience of ITV reality show Dancing On Ice cheering Donna, on as she made her debut with partner Mark Hanretty. Donna also shares daughter Freya with Damian Aspinall - the heir of a casino and wildlife park who she dated for six years. A mother has revealed how she fell in love with the once-anonymous sperm donor who fathered her daughters when they met for the first time 11 years later. Jessica Share, 42, now lives with Aaron Long, 52, in Seattle, having tracked him down years after he anonymously donated sperm to her and her-then wife, enabling them to have their daughter Alice and a second little girl. Jessica Share, who now lives with her daughter's father in a shared house with their daughter, Alice, 11 When Alice was 11, she took a DNA test, which identified her Aaron as her father, so Jessica tracked him down on social media and, when the two came face to face for the first time, the attraction was instant, something Jessica believes is down to their two children bonding them together. 'When heterosexual people meet and date and get married, they often look with devotion at one another and think it would be wonderful to have little people who look like both of them,' she told the BBC. 'I'd already spent a decade with those little people. I spent my first date with Aaron relaying their lives to him. I already knew him and knew he was just like these people I love more than anyone else in the world.' Jessica Share, 42, revealed in documenary Forty Dollars A Pop that she fell in love with the anonymous sperm donor who fathered her two children, after tracking him down years later Before meeting Jessica, Aaron had donated sperm 'twice a week for about a year', and estimates he may have as many as 67 children around the world. 'Back in 1994, I was between things in my life and didn't know what I was doing,' he explained of his decision to start donating sperm, an experience that was detailed in documentary Forty Dollars a Pop, a film charting Aaron's attempts to bond with some of the children he has fathered. 'At some point I saw an ad [that said,] "Sell your sperm! Make money!"' he added. In 2005, years after Aaron began donating his sperm, Jessica and her then-wife chose to use an anonymous donor in order to have two children - and they picked a man who listed himself as a writer and a musician. Jessica, who also features in the documentary, alongside Aaron and several of his children, joked that they also picked his sperm because it was 'cheaper', explaining that sperm donors who boast graduate degrees tend to be more expensive to use. 'This sperm bank has PHD sperm which costs more [and] regular sperm. Aaron was in the cheapy sperm,' she said. When Jessica's marriage ended ten years later she was devastated, especially as her second daughter born with the same donor went to live with her ex-wife. Aaron (far right) and Jessica (far left) feature in the documentary together, along with their daughter Alice (second from left), and several of Aaron's other children (pictured center) Alice, now 13, continued to live with Jessica, however when she was 11, she grew curious about the identity of her biological father, and asked her grandmother for a DNA test for Christmas. Using the results - and the help of social media - Jessica was able to narrow down her search for Alice's father, using the knowledge she had from the original sperm donation. It wasn't long before she discovered photos of his school portraits and realized that the similarity to her daughter was unmistakable. After exchanging messages, including Aaron's 50-page family history, Jessica then discovered he had seven other children in the Seattle area who had been conceived using sperm donation. Aaron was eager to get to know as many of his children as possible, so he planned a 'Meet My Kids' party and invited all of his kids, as well as friends, housemates and ex-girlfriends in order for the group to meet. It was then that Jessica met the father of her child for the first time. Aaron (center left) wants to meet as many of his children as possible, and thus far has formed relationships with Jessica's daughter Alice (right), as well as Bryce (left) and Madi (center right) Alice, now 13, was eager to find out more about her biological father and asked her grandma for a DNA testing kit for Christmas, which eventually led to her reunion with Aaron At first the pair became close friends, but after her relationship with her boyfriend - also called Aaron ended - Jessica realized how much she had in common with the father of her children. And she insists that there's more to why she loves him than the common bond of having a child together. 'He is thoughtful, persistent, and academically-minded. He is enchanted by words. He is empathetic, versed in stories about people and the strange things they sometimes do,' she said. 'He doesn't much care what's expected of him. He often plays his own music. To his own drum. Sometimes in a turban. The family now live in a shared house in Seattle, with Aaron's mother, who suffers from Alzheimer's, and his biological daughter Madi who also features in the documentary. Grace Kelly's granddaughter Charlotte Casiraghi has called off her engagement to Dimitri Rassam just four months after the couple welcomed their first child. The 32-year-old mother-of-two gave birth to a baby boy at her grandmother's namesake hospital, the Princess Grace Hospital, in October but now, just months later, the parents have parted ways. News of the split was reported in Hola! on Wednesday, with sources 'close to Charlotte and Dimitri' confirming that the royal and her film producer fiance have called off their wedding. Charlotte Casiraghi has reportedly called off her engagement to Dimitri Rassam just four months after welcoming their first child together. The couple is pictured together in March MailOnline has contacted Palais Princier De Monaco for a comment. Charlotte reportedly met Dimitri, a 37-year-old film producer, in Paris shortly after the breakdown of her relationship with Italian filmmaker Lamberto Sanfelice. When they met, Dimitri already had a daughter, now six, with his ex-wife, Russian model Masha Novoselova, whom he divorced in 2016. Charlotte, pictured in May last year, and Dimitri were first linked in 2017 and their engagement was confirmed in March 2018 Hola! reported the couple were engaged in early March before they confirmed the speculation with a glittering appearance at the Rose Ball - their first official event as a couple. According to People, Charlotte and Dimitri then welcomed a baby boy weighing 7lbs 2oz on October 23. According to the magazine, the couple named their son Balthazar. As the couple never married the baby will not join the Monegasque line of succession despite his mother being eleventh in line to the throne. The arrival made Charlotte's mother Princess Caroline a grandmother for the seventh time, and the baby boy was the third new arrival for the Monaco royals in 2018. Charlotte's brother Andrea and Tatiana Santo welcomed their third child Max Rainier in April, and just one month later Beatrice Borromeo and her partner Pierre Casiraghi welcomed their second child Francesco Carlo Albert. This is Charlotte's second child as she already has a five-year-old son, Raphael, with her ex-boyfriend, Gad Elmaleh. She gave birth to Raphael in December 2013; he is also not eligible to join the line of succession because Charlotte and Gad did not marry before separating in 2016. According to reports Charlotte, pictured in June 2018, welcomed her baby boy weighing 7lbs 2oz in October, with sources claiming the couple named him Balthazar The baby was the third new arrival for the Monaco royals in 2018. Andrea Casiraghi and Tatiana Santo (left) welcomed their third child Max Rainier in April and just one month later Beatrice Borromeo and her partner Pierre Casiraghi (right) welcomed their second child Meghan Markle's best friend Jessica Mulroney 'kept an eye' on Kate Middleton's style - but made a 'conscious effort' not to be accused of copying when helping the royal. After joining the firm in May, Meghan's Hollywood fashion inevitably had to change to fit in with the more demure choices expected of her as a duchess. Turning to her best friend and stylist Jessica, who lives in Canada, the Duchess of Sussex worked on rebuilding her wardrobe. The pair knew comparisons with the Duchess of Cambridge were inevitable and so aimed to give Meghan her own unique brand - but Jessica 'certainly kept an eye on Kate's style because she hasn't put a foot wrong', a royal insider told Elle. Jessica also described Kate as a 'great role model' for Meghan as they set about overhauling her glitzy wardrobe for more royal-appropriate clothing. Meghan Markle's best friend and stylist Jessica Mulroney, pictured together in 2016, has made a 'conscious effort' to not be accused of copying Kate Middleton - but looked to the royal as a 'great role model' for the duchess The pair knew comparisons with the Duchess of Cambridge (pictured with Meghan at Sandringham on Christmas Day) were inevitable and so aimed to give Meghan her own unique brand - but Jessica 'certainly kept an eye on Kate's style because she hasn't put a foot wrong' As Meghan gears up to take on more royal engagements, with the Queen being expected to handover some of her patronages this year, more and more focus will be placed on her fashion choices - something she's very aware of. The royal insider told Elle that Meghan is keen to ensure her work wardrobe is not too 'trend-conscious'. 'Meghan is still new to this and aware everyone still watching her and wants to be respectful and doesn't want her style to take away from the very important work she's doing.' Although many have drawn comparisons between the two, the designers favoured by both duchesses are very different. The duchesses have different go-to designers - with Meghan favouring brands such as Aquazzura and her wedding dress designer Givenchy, who she wore on her first solo engagement at the at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in September (pictured) Both duchesses honour local designers while on tour, with Kate wearing Polish designer Gosia Baczynska while visiting the country in 2017 (left), and Meghan choosing Australian designer Martin Grant while in Australia in October last year (right) The Duchess of Cambridge also wears her wedding dress designer, wowing in a pink Alexander McQueen dress at Princess Eugenie's wedding Kate's go-to designers include Stella McCartney, Burberry, Mulberry, and her wedding dress creator Alexander McQueen. In contrast, Meghan chooses Aquazzura, Strathberry, Safiyaa, and her own wedding dress designer Givenchy. And while Meghan turns to Jessica for her fashion advice, Kate instead relies on PA Natasha Archer to coordinate her wardrobe. Both Kate and Meghan honour local designers while on tour - with Meghan choosing Australian designers such as Martin Grant in October, and Kate wearing Polish designer Gosia Baczynska while visiting the country in 2017. The stars of SAS: Who Dares Wins have blasted the Government's decision to allow women to serve on the Special Forces frontline. Instructor Jason 'Foxy' Fox, a former Royal Marine, claimed the move has the potential to disrupt the finely tuned relationships that are vital to keeping soldiers alive. 'If certain dynamics affect peoples ability to operate, then that means people are going to die,' he told the Sun. Chief instructor Ant Middleton added: 'Favouritism starts forming when there are mixed teams. Its nothing sexual but I do think it affects the overall goal... Put through their paces: Female recruits will feature for the first time on SAS: Who Dares Wins, which returns to Channel 4 on Sunday. Pictured left to right, recruits Cameron, Sharissa, Nathaniel, Kat, Stacy, Vicki, Mark, Julie, Rick, Nadine, Sam, Tracey, in the Andes, Chile Determined: Recruit Vicki, a 40-year-old business owner and fitness instructor from the South-East, is among those convinced that women have what it takes to serve on the SAS frontline Critical: Chief instructor Ant, second from left, and his team Jason 'Foxy' Fox, left, Ollie, second from left and Billy, claim it was a 'sudden' and 'harsh' decision 'Its almost like the MoD have gone, "We are doing our bit and ticking a box". I dont think they have really thought about it. 'Maybe they should start working with a whole female special forces team before mixing the teams.' The pair have spoken out ahead of the return of the Channel 4 show on Sunday night, which will see female recruits put through their paces alongside male recruits for the first time. The 25-strong group - 13 men and 12 women - will endure a punishing course in the Andes Mountains in Central Chile that is designed to replicate the one undertaken by SAS hopefuls. Ready for a challenge: Security guard Tracey, 34, from North West England, admitted the gruelling training course was 'much more' difficult than she had expected Pioneer: Kat, 33, a professional fighter from Hampshire, joined the 25-strong group in Chile Equal: Police officer Laura, 25, from Hertfordshire, insists men and women are just as capable of training to the same level, no matter what the field or environment The recruits will eat, sleep and wash together no allowances will be made for gender as their mental and physical strength is tested to the limits. It is the first time Middleton and his staff have trained women and the test reveals potentially vital information about the effect their addition to the service will have. Among the women are Vicki, a 40-year-old business owner and fitness instructor, and police officer Laura, 25, both of whom believe gender does not play a part in their ability to train. However Middleton insists women need to 'earn their place' in the SAS. Unforgiving: The recruits will eat, sleep and wash together no allowances will be made for gender as their mental and physical strength is tested to the limits. Pictured, left to right: Vicki, Sharissa, Rick (back), Nathaniel (middle), Milo (front), Julie (back), Mark (front), James, Tracey (back), Laura (front), Saranya, Louise (back), Stacy (front), Kat, Rich, Michael (back), James (front), Lou, Cameron, Sam, Hannah, Petra, Nadine He added: 'If you are going to change the dynamics of a team or organisation, it has to be for the better and not to prove a point.' While women have for many years given exemplary service, including in combat-facing roles, females were unable to serve in ground close combat roles until the ban was lifted in 2016. The Royal Armoured Corps was the first ground close combat branch to open its doors in November 2016 to female soldiers and officers, followed by the RAF Regiment in September 2017. Since November 2016 the Army has about 35 women either serving or being trained to join the Royal Armoured Corps, with a number of personnel already being deployed in their new role to Estonia and Oman. In October last year it was announced women would be able to serve in all roles in the military, including the SAS. New recruits start basic training in April. SAS: Who Dares Wins returns to Channel 4 on Sunday at 9pm. The holiday season tends to make even the most dedicated healthy eaters and gym-goers fall off the bandwagon. But if you're looking to recommit to your body in 2019, Australian nutritionist Jessica Sepel has some keen ideas about how a three-step cleanse may help in that department. She's a huge believer in the detox process and believes it has the power to give the detoxer 'glowing skin, a cleansed liver, restored energy, deeper sleep and weight balance'. On her website, Miss Sepel argues that our bodies need a break from caffeine and alcohol and believes that three to five days is the optimal time to refrain from these stimulants. But if you're looking to recommit to your body in 2019, Australian nutritionist Jessica Sepel (pictured) has some keen ideas about how a three-step cleanse may help in that department Step one: Clean up your diet To start with Miss Sepel recommends the detoxer cuts out caffeine, alcohol, cow's dairy, soy milk, refined sugar and sweeteners, wheat, gluten, red meat and trans fats. The latter is usually found in processed and deep-fried foods. 'Instead opt for seasonal veggies (lots of leafy greens), fresh fruit (berries and green apples are best), gluten-free grains (such as quinoa, brown rice, buckwheat), nuts, seeds, high-quality fish, organic eggs and chicken,' she said. 'Also try cooking with coconut oil or extra-virgin olive oil.' To start with Miss Sepel recommends the detoxer cuts out caffeine, alcohol, cow's dairy, soy milk, refined sugar and sweeteners, wheat, gluten, red meat and trans fats 'Instead opt for seasonal veggies (lots of leafy greens), fresh fruit (berries and green apples are best), gluten-free grains (such as quinoa, brown rice, buckwheat), nuts, seeds, high-quality fish, organic eggs and chicken,' she said Step two: Create healthy lifestyle habits There are seven habits Miss Sepel lists as key for living a more nutritious and wholesome lifestyle, and this is the time to start them. What healthy habits should you start to embrace in the new year? Get sweating: Get your blood and lymphatic system flowing to accelerate the release of toxins. Try and exercise for at least 30 minutes each day. Hydrate: Aim to drink two to three litres of filtered water a day to help your kidneys flush out toxins. Herbal teas are also great for increasing fluid intake and assisting the cleansing process. Use herbs and spices: They help to add flavour to your meals, plus they assist the body with detoxification. My detox faves are turmeric, cinnamon, nutmeg and cayenne pepper. Commit to eight hours of sleep: Good-quality shut-eye allows our bodies to heal and regenerate new cells, which is so important when you're cleansing. Practise emotional self-care: When we cleanse, our bodies flush out toxins and sometimes this can cause certain emotions to rise. It's common to feel more sensitive, maybe a little more vulnerable so make sure you set aside time for you. See a naturopath: The can help you to make up some cleansing herb tonics. Take vitamins: I recommend supplementing under the guidance of a medical practitioner. For cleansing, I recommend a liver formula that contains a mix of herbs and nutrients to help flush your system. I also like to use a brassica sprout powder, a fibre blend in powder or capsule form and magnesium citrate/glycinate at night. Advertisement Step three: Detox your environment It's not just the products you're ingesting that you need to be mindful of but also the environment you surround yourself with. 'Make a point of looking at the contents of your cleaning products and switch to organic options,' Miss Sepel said. In fact, she recommends buying organic wherever possible or washing and peeling your fruit and veggies to remove pesticides. It's not just the products you're ingesting that you need to be mindful of but also the environment you surround yourself with 'Use paper bags to store food, mason jars instead of plastic containers and don't heat foods in plastic. Invest in a good quality water filter and use a stainless steel bottle instead of plastic,' she continued. 'Try switching to natural skin and hair products or even make your own. Don't use fake tan, use an aluminium-free deodorant and use natural sanitary products.' Bill Gates is the tech nerd who pioneered home computers, built up a $600 billion software firm on the back of this and was named the worlds richest man for 16 years. The Microsoft founder is no slouch when it comes to philanthropy either. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which he founded with his wife in 1994, has cut polio cases by 99 per cent worldwide and revitalised the international push for scientific solutions to global health problems. One of these solutions is better access to contraception for the 220 million women in developing countries lacking the information and the means to control their fertility. It is a long-term goal of the foundation to reduce the annual 90 million unintended pregnancies and 50 million abortions worldwide. In 2012, the foundation set the ambitious aim of providing contraception for 120 million more women and girls by 2020, but now the target is slipping from reach. John Naish examined the latest scientific projects aspiring to offer men the choice of using contraception (file image) To keep the hope alive, the organisation is upping its contribution to the project by a quarter, providing an extra 95 million and some of that money is being invested in creating a safe and effective male contraceptive pill. This is a challenge that, for decades, has confounded some of the best scientific minds in the world. So far, their efforts have come to nothing, because where contraception is concerned, Mother Nature stubbornly thumbs her nose at sexual equality. While women have access to a range of contraceptives from barrier methods (female condoms, diaphragms, caps) to hormonal solutions (the Pill, injections, rings, patches, implants) and devices such as the coil men still have only one safe method: the condom, which has been around since the mid-17th century. The other time-honoured tactic is coitus interruptus, or the withdrawal technique, although it is so ineffective, statistically it hardly counts. Studies suggest a failure rate of up to 28 per cent, compared with about 0.3 per cent for the Pill. So a gap in the market exists, and thats where the male pill comes in. But will Gatess money 730,000 of which will go initially to the University of Dundee and all the other vast funds committed to the pursuit of this Holy Grail of contraception ever deliver? One thing is for certain: its going to take an awful lot of faith. Not only faith in science but faith in men, too. For even if scientists are successful, critics argue, it will never be practicable. The solution, if it does arrive, may be technological, rather than pharmaceutical. Incredible as this sounds, it could involve a switch implanted in the body to turn sperm ducts on and off. One possible solution for male contraception could be a switch implanted in the body to turn sperm ducts on and off (file image) However, the odds of finding a male contraceptive are stacked against Gates, if history is anything to go by. Two fears have long dogged the project. The first is the belief men simply wont take a contraceptive pill, perhaps out of fear that it would diminish their masculinity or harm their fertility or a stubborn belief that birth control is a womans responsibility. The other is that women would never fully trust men who said: Relax, Darling, Im on the Pill. The Gates Foundation seems to have put its faith in evidence from a recent study in the scientific journal Human Reproduction, which suggests that both fears are unfounded. When Edinburgh University researchers asked more than 1,800 men worldwide whether they would use a male contraceptive pill, up to 83 per cent said yes. And when 1,800 women were asked if they would trust their partners to use a male pill, more than two-thirds declared they would rely on this method. Others, however, treat such survey evidence with great caution. What people tell researchers they are prepared to do in a hypothetical situation is often very different from what they would do in real life. And regardless of human behaviour, there are still huge scientific obstacles which even the wonders of modern pharmaceutics have failed to beat for 50 years. Scientists began testing a male pill in the Fifties however their work was abandoned due to side effects including heart palpitations, sweating, nausea and vomiting (file image) Stopping men producing viable sperm might sound simple when set against miracles of modern medicine such as heart-lung transplants, stem-cell therapies and test-tube babies. However, it is very difficult indeed to achieve. In evolutionary terms, priority No. 1 for males of any species is to spread their genes by reproducing as often as possible. And most men make 1,000 sperm every second and release 250 million during orgasm. Women, by contrast, produce only one or two eggs a month. Shutting down the male reproductive system without causing damaging effects on bodies and brains has so far proved impossible. Scientists first tried to create a male pill in the Fifties before the female version was invented. Initially, it seemed all too easy. Pharmacologists at the now-defunct American company Sterling Drug had invented a drug to eliminate parasite infections, and trials showed that it made male laboratory rats temporarily infertile. Would it do the same for men? What do women think about the idea of a male contraception? In a UK survey, 25 per cent of women said they were open to the idea of male contraception, but would continue to use their own for double the protection' Advertisement Researchers tested the compound, called WIN 18,446, on prisoners at the Oregon State Penitentiary. (In those days, there were no medical ethics committees to stop this.) Within three months, sperm counts had plummeted. And when the inmates stopped taking the drug, their sperm production rebounded. Whats more, there seemed no harmful side-effects. Until, that is, some of the jailbirds partied on bootleg whisky. They became violently ill with heart palpitations, sweating, nausea and vomiting. The mix of the drug with alcohol proved so dangerous, the researchers abandoned their work. Perils stemming from side-effects such as this are made all the more serious by the fact that men, with their long reproductive lifespans, may need birth-control pills for decades longer than women. The failure of the Oregon study established a pattern that was repeated over the decades each new drug heralded as the new dawn of contraception was later found to have side-effects. The bitter joke among researchers is that for the past five decades, the male contraceptive has always remained only five years away. And so, the saga continues. A recent test for a drug that men could possibly use as contraception had side effects including depression and muscle pain (file image) One of the most promising recent possibilities is a drug that combines a synthetic version of the male hormone testosterone with progestin a hormone involved in pregnancy and used in birth-control pills for women. In tests, the combination was found to inhibit sperm production in male lab animals. But in 2016, a World Health Organisation trial involving men had to be halted prematurely despite success in making men temporarily infertile because of yet more worrying side-effects. Nearly a fifth of those taking part reported emotional problems, such as depression. Others suffered muscle pain and skin disorders. Yet the volunteers were reluctant to stop taking the drug because, due to the synthetic testosterone, it had intensified their sex-drives. Despite the mental problems and pain, more than three-quarters of the men said they were happy to continue with the trial. A new drug, however, may not be the answer. With every passing year, it gets harder to win official approval for new formulations because of the publics understandable concerns about side-effects. Experts are united in thinking that the female contraceptive pill would never pass todays more stringent drug-safety requirements not least because it can raise womens risk of blood clots and high blood pressure. This is one reason why the Gates Foundation has selected the research programme at the University of Dundee. Scientists there are trawling through tens of thousands of existing drugs many of which may have safety approval already to see if any can inhibit sperm production as a by-product of their principle, or intended, use. Many experts believe the female contraceptive pill wouldn't pass today's drug-safety requirements because of it's ability to increase blood pressure (file image) But many drugs that have met safety requirements still dont make it to pharmacy shelves. At the end of two years, we will have very good information if there are drugs currently on the market or in the pipeline that could be tweaked for contraception, says Christopher Barratt, professor of reproductive medicine at the University of Dundee. Meanwhile, other scientists are still trying to develop a new formula. The U.S. National Institutes of Healths Contraceptive Development Programme is about to trial a gel containing testosterone and progesterone that is rubbed regularly into mens backs and shoulders. The hope is that, by delivering the drug through the skin, it will have a slower release into the body and might not trigger side-effects. Other scientists are trying to create a male pill from a lethal poison used by African hunters. Ouabain is a toxic extract from African plants that rapidly causes cardiac arrest but it can also inhibit the mobility of human sperm. In January, the researchers reported in the Journal Of Medicinal Chemistry that a synthetic version of ouabain worked on sperm but did not damage the heart. Again, however, this has yet to be safety-tested on men. The hopes for any of these approaches remain slim and not only because of the history of previous failures. It takes about 12 years to take a new drug to market. On the way, 90 per cent fail safety and effectiveness tests. Meanwhile, the world is moving away from hormonal contraceptive pills. Experts believe men are fearful of having a vasectomy because they would be unable to start a family with a new partner if desired (file image) Official figures indicate that over the past decade, womens use of the Pill in the UK and the U.S. has dropped steadily in favour of more mechanical, non-hormonal methods perhaps as a reflection of wider trends towards clean drug-free lifestyles. NHS England figures released this year showed that 39 per cent of women in 2017 chose to have a long-acting, reversible contraceptive fitted, such as the copper coil. This compared with just 21 per cent visiting NHS clinics in 2007. So what about other options for men that do not involve drugs? A new form of vasectomy which conventionally involves cutting or tying the vas deferens, tubes that carry sperm from the testes to the ejaculatory ducts is one option. The operation was first performed in the 1820s, but only became widely available during and after World War II. Over the past decade, vasectomies have fallen from favour in the UK with the number of operations carried out dropping by more than 60 per cent. Experts think that men are put off by fears that a vasectomy is painful or will damage their sex drive or that if their current relationship broke up, they would be unable to start a family with a new partner. Surgical vase- ctomy reversal has a high success rate, but now scientists in India and Germany are developing vasectomies that do not require surgery. Professor Sujoy Guha, a biomedical engineer at the Indian Institute of Technology, has pioneered a system that involves injecting a chemical gel into the vas deferens to block sperm, rather than cutting or tying the tubes. The vasectomy can be reversed with an injection that breaks down the gel. Professor Guha claims that his trials have succeeded in about 540 Indian men for up to 13 years, and that the method will be widely available within the next two years. Meanwhile, in Germany, Clemens Bimek, a professor of urology, has developed an electronic valve that can be implanted in sperm ducts and opened and closed with a switch less than 2cm long. Implanted in the testes, it involves a 30-minute procedure under local anaesthetic. Such an invention would have sounded outlandish a decade ago. But it is now in sync with a technology-obsessed world where men (and women) want to keep chemicals out of their bodies and keep their options open when it comes to their own fertility. Although a male pill remains at least a decade away, it may be that the contraceptive switch which brings a new meaning to the phrase being turned on is the best option yet. With the 2019 school year right around the corner many parents will soon be busy buying school supplies. Often they have to fork out lots of cash to cover all of their children's needs but Aldi Australia has luckily announced a budget back to school essentials sale. They will be selling everything from backpacks to leather school shoes and stationery. This is all part of their Special Buys range, that go on sale Wednesday 9 January - with products that are as cheap as 49 cents. With the 2019 school year right around the corner many parents will soon be busy buying school supplies STATIONERY The affordable chain store is selling a variety of stationery products to make the school year that much easier. They have every aspect covered, from a 24 pack of coloured markers for $1.69 and coloured pencils for the same price to a four pack of glue sticks for $1.99 and a scientific calculator for $6.99. There are also a variety of exercise books and scrapbooks ranging from 65 cents to 99 cents. Parents can also buy a super affordable 49 cent pencil case that allows children to put their name on it. For kids that love to create they are selling a 24 pack of coloured markers and coloured pencils for $1.69 Parents can also buy a super affordable 49 cent pencil case that allows children to put their name on as well There are also a variety of exercise books and scrapbooks ranging from 65 cents to 99 cents and a scientific calculator for $6.99 For those children that want their stationery to be coordinated Aldi has released a separate stationery set so that this can be possible. The light blue range features a cartoon tiger that is on each individual product. Still proving to be affordable, customers can choose from products such as a 'fashion pencil case' for $3.99 and a 2019 diary for $4.99. For those parents that want to help their children get ahead there is also a range of workbooks to choose from that all cost $6.99. The titles include a Beginning Reading Giant Workbook and Spelling Giant Workbook. For those children that want their stationery to be coordinated Aldi has released a separate stationery set so that this can be possible Still proving to be affordable, customers can choose from products such as a 'fashion pencil case' for $3.99 LUNCH STORAGE Once stationery is taken care of lunchboxes and drink bottles should be on the agenda. Aldi is selling sandwich containers and a variety of snack containers for just $1.79. They are also selling Sistema lunchboxes, which is a popular brand among online parenting Facebook groups, for $5.99. For sweltering days when food and drinks need to be kept cool parents can also purchase freezer bricks for $1.99. Aldi is selling sandwich containers and a variety of snack containers for $1.79 Aldi is selling an insulated drink bottle that keeps cold beverages icy for 24 hours and warm drinks hot for 12 hours for $6.99 SHOES, BAGS AND ACCESSORIES The affordable prices aren't over yet as there is also a range of shoes, bags and accessories to snap up. The chain store is selling Mary Jane leather shoes, lace up shoes and double strap leather shoes - all for $14.99. Customers can also buy a pair of black or white leather joggers for $17.99. If shoes are all sorted there are two backpacks, one for $14.99 and the other for $19.99, $2.99 assorted hair accessories and a five pack of school socks for $3.99. The Special Buys back to school range is available in-store and online while stocks last from Wednesday 9 January The chain store is selling Mary Jane leather shoes, lace up shoes and double strap leather shoes all for $14.99 Ivanka Trump looked somber as she attended a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday the 12th day of the partial government shutdown. The 37-year-old first daughter donned an $890 Oscar de la Renta sweater featuring an illusion pearl necklace as she returned to work on the same day her father, President Donald Trump, warned that the government may not fully reopen any time soon. Ivanka may have been dressed to the nines for the meeting with Congressional leaders, but she had a grim expression on her face as she sat with her hands crossed over the notebook that was on her lap. Back to work: Ivanka, 37, attended a Cabinet meeting with Congressional leaders at the White House on Wednesday, the 12th day of the partial government shutdown Look of they day: The first daughter donned an $890 Oscar de la Renta sweater featuring an illusion pearl necklace The White House senior adviser paired her black turtleneck sweater with black dress pants. Aside from the pearl detailing at the neck of her sweater, it was an otherwise somber look. Ivanka's long blond hair was worn loose around her shoulders, and she had on minimal jewelry. She sported a platinum band on her right hand and a red string bracelet on her left wrist. Although she hasn't spoken about the purpose of the string, it does bear a resemblance to the type of red string that Kabbalah practitioners wear to ward off the 'evil eye.' During the Cabinet meeting, which included Democratic Leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, the president refused to say whether he would sign a government funding bill if he received less than his $5 billion request to fund his border wall. 'I think the people of the country think I'm right,' Trump said on the 12th day of the shutdown, adding it will last 'as long as it takes.' Feeling the heat? Ivanka had a grim expression on her face during the meeting Impasse: Ivanka's father, President Donald Trump, refused to say whether he would sign a government funding bill if he received less than his $5 billion request to fund his border wall The ripple effects of the partial government shutdown continue to spread, as the Smithsonian Museums all 19 of them and National Zoo have been closed. 'Could we do it for a little bit less? It's so insignificant compared to what we're talking about. You know, I've heard numbers as high as $275 billion we lose on illegal immigration,' Trump said. 'The $5 billion approved by the House is such a small amount compared to the level of the problem.' There had been reports the White House had come down $2.5 billion and would accept legislation with that number. But Trump shot that down. 'No, not $2.5 [billion], no. We're asking for $5.6 [billion] and somebody said $2.5 [billion],' he said. Democrats are holding fast to their own position the $1.3 billion they've allocated. Out of office: Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, ran in the new year with their children at her father's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida Under fire: Ivanka and Jared were photographed on vacation over the holiday while the federal government was partially shut down Sweating it out: DailyMail.com photographers snapped pictures of Ivanka jogging around the grounds of the estate alongside a Secret Service agent, who was working without a paycheck House Democrats are hitting back with a two-part plan that would fund the Department of Homeland Security until Feb. 8 and fund all other closed departments such as Justice, Interior, Transportation, Commerce and Agriculture for the rest of the fiscal year through Sept. 30. They will bring those bills up for a vote on Thursday when Democrats take control of the House, and there is hope that passage in the lower chamber will pressure the Senate to follow suit. An estimated 380,000 federal employees in those departments have been furloughed and another 420,000 will have to work without pay. The clock is ticking to Jan. 11 the first pay period for those workers that will encompass the entire time period of the shutdown. The Democrats' proposal would allow the debate over wall funding to continue without tying the rest of the government to it. Wall money is appropriated through the Department of Homeland Security. The six bills to fund the other departments have bipartisan support in both chambers but have been held up over the dispute over funding Trump's wall. The Smithsonian is funded under the Department of the Interior, the same as the National Park Service. Oozing with sarcasm: The Twitter responses to the images were scathing. 'Nepotism is so much fun, tweeted one person Hard to imagine: Tommy Vietor, a former Obama administration official, couldn't resist commenting on Ivanka's vacation during the shutdown Making points: Twitter users pointed out that the first daughter's Secret Service agents were working without paychecks Question: Rachel Lynn Bell wanted to know what Ivanka does as a White House senior adviser Mercilessly mocking: Richard Green sarcastically tweeted that 'shutdown vacations are the best' Keeping it real: Walter Shaub, an attorney specializing in government ethics, broke down what it really meant for Ivanka and Jared to be traveling during the shutdown Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, have already come under fire for enjoying a vacation at her father's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, over the holiday. The couple, who are both senior advisers to the president and are technically considered federal employees, were seen out and about on Christmas Day while the federal government was partially shut down. DailyMail.com photographers snapped pictures of Ivanka jogging around the grounds of the estate alongside a Secret Service agent. Hours later, she and Jared, 37, were seen taking a leisurely stroll. Twitter users were angered by the images of them taking a relaxing vacation in the Florida sun while some 400,000 federal employees were forced to continue working through the holiday season without being paid during the shutdown. Nepotism is so much fun, tweeted one person, while another added: 'Because when you're only playing government, you can take a break anytime you want.' 'Hard to imagine the top advisors to any other president going on vacation during a government shutdown,' tweeted Tommy Vietor, a former Obama administration official. Despite the backlash, Ivanka and Jared got all dolled up to attend the resort's annual New Year's Eve bash with their eldest children, Arabella, seven, and Joseph, five. Meet the woman who transforms relationships and sex lives through ancient tantric healing that focuses on bringing clients' attention to their hearts rather than their orgasms. Tantra practitioner, Chantelle Raven, 41, from Perth, Australia, trained as a lawyer but gave this up when she discovered the healing Buddhist and Hindu art of tantra after she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2001. 'Unlike other spiritual traditions, Tantra does not exclude sexuality from its teachings, however it is not just about sex,' she said. 'Tantra teaches us that sexuality is beautiful and that through sexuality we can connect more deeply to ourselves and to our spirit.' Tantra practitioner, Chantelle Raven, 41, from Perth, Australia, trained as a lawyer but gave this up when she discovered the healing Buddhist and Hindu art of tantra Tantric sex is an ancient practice that means, 'the weaving and expansion of energy'. It's a slow form of sex that increases intimacy and creates a mind-body connection. Realising this was her true calling, Chantelle decided to specialise in sacred-sexuality tantra healing and has since been transforming people's relationships by allowing them to reconnect with their heart and how to feel. Through Chantelle's work, she enables couples to connect with their conscious sexuality during sex which focuses on the meeting of minds, merging of hearts, and body dance whereas unconscious sexuality purely focuses on the physical desire for an orgasm. Chantelle explained that sexual healing is just one part of tantra which teaches people to love every part of themselves. 'Unlike other spiritual traditions, Tantra does not exclude sexuality from its teachings, however it is not just about sex,' she said Tantric sex is an ancient practice that means, 'the weaving and expansion of energy', it's a slow form of sex that increases intimacy and creates a mind-body connection 'Tantra is a way of life that is fully embodied. It does not exclude any part of the human experience and is a tradition which teaches its true seekers to love and accept all of themselves, including their sexuality,' she said. 'I transform people's relationships by teaching them how to feel, connect with themselves, take responsibility for their own lives, communicate from the heart, live from love not from the fear of the mind and to trust the wisdom of their bodies. I transform people's relationships by teaching them how to feel 'I also help them to release trauma and de-armour blocks in the subtle body, bring more awareness to the relationship between the inner and outer masculine and awaken the deeper feminine in women's work.' Realising this was her true calling, she decided to specialise in sacred-sexuality tantra healing and has since been transforming people's relationships by allowing them to reconnect with their heart and how to feel She explained that tantra is not just limited to sacred sexuality healing. This part of the work helps people to feel and understand that orgasmic energy and sexual energy is a healing modality that brings people into the here and now. 'It teaches people that sexuality is okay, that the primal-self is okay and that it is safe to let go of the fear, guilt and shame we have around our bodies and our pleasure,' she said. 'It helps people to open to more pleasure by including the whole body, not just the genitals - the heart, energy and consciousness.' Chantelle explained that sexual healing is just one part of tantra which teaches people to love every part of themselves 'Tantra is a way of life that is fully embodied. It does not exclude any part of the human experience and is a tradition which teaches its true seekers to love and accept all of themselves, including their sexuality,' she said She explained that tantra is not just limited to sacred sexuality healing as this part of the work helps people to feel and understand that orgasmic energy and sexual energy can be healing Over the years Chantelle said she has discovered that most people have a disconnect between their heart and their physical, sexual needs. It is her job to help to bring this connection back so that people can connect their heart with their sexual energy. 'Conscious sexuality has the heart at its centre. [It is] is a beautiful meeting of minds, merging of hearts and a body dance. Unconscious sexuality has the goal of pleasure-organs' orgasm at its centre. ,' she said. 'Unconscious sexuality is a physical experience that gives us a temporary high at best and a robotic formula at worst where the only thing that matters is for both people to have an orgasm.' Over the years Chantelle said she has discovered that most people have a disconnect between their heart and their physical, sexual needs Chantelle runs Eliyah Tantra School which has love at its centre and is a place where people can connect with each other. The school runs retreats, courses and private sessions. She explained that clients have told her that her sessions have improved their love lives. 'Clients share how their communication is a lot better and that they can actually talk from their vulnerability and listen with reflection rather than deflection,' she said. 'Their sex lives improve because their lovemaking becomes longer, deeper, more intimate and more pleasurable.' Chantelle runs Eliyah Tantra School which has love at its centre and is a place where people can connect with each other The tantra practitioner said her clients' often reflect on what a difference it makes to simply look into each other's eyes and slow everything down and breathe deeper, so they are deeply embodied and present during lovemaking. 'Women are often surprised at how open a man becomes when she is more receptive, surrendered and sensual,' she said. 'Men are often surprised at how open a woman becomes when she is given the chance to communicate and share her feelings, fears and desires. 'At the moment Eliyah Tantra School is a formless temple where people have access to teachings that will transform their lives so that they are the Creator of their human experience.' 'Clients share how their communication is a lot better and that they can actually talk from their vulnerability and listen with reflection rather than deflection,' she said 'Our plans for the future are that Eliyah's temple takes form and we have a base that people can come to and experience a community living in harmony and joy on land,' the 41-year-old continued. 'This community will have love at its centre and teach through the way we live singing together, dancing together, eating wholesome food together, practicing together - connecting to each other and to Spirit through the ordinary in a very extraordinary way.' Chantelle had some final words of advice to those who are curious about exploring tantra as a way to improve their love life. 'Women are often surprised at how open a man becomes when she is more receptive, surrendered and sensual,' she said 'Men are often surprised at how open a woman becomes when she is given the chance to communicate and share her feelings, fears and desires,' she added 'Lots of people are in awe, very curious and gob smacked at the level of love and intimacy we can experience as humans,' she said. 'Others completely misunderstand the work and are afraid of the so-called 'darker' aspects of Tantra sexuality, intimacy, the emotional body. 'There is a lot of judgement but there is also a lot of admiration. The most important thing for me is to trust my own integrity. If I can do that, the rest just works itself out and a lot of people who initially judge the work become my greatest students. 'I think it's healthy to question things, as long as there is also a willingness to actually find the truth. The most common comment is, "oh my Goodness, I can't believe we are never taught this in school, my life and relationships would have been totally different".' Theres one word that makes Corbynistas giddy with rage and requires them to grip a firm object such as a sturdy table to steady themselves: Singapore. Of course, there are loads of other countries they dont like: the United States and Israel are not much loved in the best Corbynista circles. Some of them arent particularly keen on Britain, either. But, for some reason, the tiny state of Singapore really gets their goat. Whenever Brexiteers look admiringly at the dynamic former British colony, Jeremy Corbyn is apt to dismiss it witheringly as a bargain basement economy. Shortly before Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt touched down yesterday in Singapore on an official visit, his Labour opposite number, Emily Thornberry, let fly with even more vitriol than her leader habitually displays. Theres one word that makes Corbynistas giddy with rage and requires them to grip a firm object such as a sturdy table to steady themselves: Singapore Anticipating warm words soon to be uttered by Mr Hunt, Ms Thornberry waxed indignant. The Foreign Secretary was besmirch[ing] our values by singing the praises of a country like Singapore, where basic freedoms of peaceful assembly, free speech and even sexuality are not respected but criminalised. There is a little truth in what she says. Singapore is not yet a fully fledged democracy, as Mr Hunt conceded yesterday morning in an interview on Radio 4s Today programme. Homosexual acts between men are illegal under legislation inherited from the British colonialists, though there are precious few prosecutions. Singapore is not a good place to be gay. But the same could be said of most countries in Asia and Africa, about which Labour seldom complains. I cant recall Ms Thornberry criticising India before its Supreme Court recently jettisoned anti-gay legislation very similar to what remains on the statute book in Singapore. And when it comes to human rights, Jeremy Corbyn has enthusiastically embraced socialist Venezuela (an inspiration, hes called it), whose recent record is infinitely worse than Singapores. Shortly before Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt touched down yesterday in Singapore on an official visit, his Labour opposite number, Emily Thornberry, let fly with even more vitriol than her leader habitually displays Indeed, Amnesty International describes the arbitrary detention of hundreds of people in Venezuela and cites many reports of torture. It also mentions the mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of refugees. There is nothing remotely comparable in its much milder review of Singapore. In short, the Labour leader and shadow foreign secretary are perfectly happy to tolerate the excesses of regimes far worse than Singapore and, where there is an ideological affinity, ignore them altogether. Why? Why is it that Corbynistas recoil at the idea that post-Brexit Britain might have something to learn from this small nation of five-and-a-half million souls, which has transformed itself in the space of 50 years from a poor Third World backwater into a country with the third highest standard of living in the world? The answer, I suggest, is that the phenomenal economic success of Singapore challenges their deepest beliefs and calls into question the ruinous programme of economic upheaval they plan to unleash on us. Singapore has become rich through free market economics based on the rule of law, which, in addition to the English language, was the best thing that the British colonialists bequeathed. The country has flourished through low taxes. By some measures, it is on a per capita basis twice as wealthy as the UK. The low unemployment rate of 2 per cent effectively means there is work for anyone who wants it. In short, the Labour leader and shadow foreign secretary are perfectly happy to tolerate the excesses of regimes far worse than Singapore and, where there is an ideological affinity, ignore them altogether. Why? Instead of a welfare state (which exists only at a pretty basic level), the government has introduced compulsory saving, which currently stands at 20 per cent of salary for those under 50, topped up at a rate of 16 per cent by employers. If you get sick or are made redundant, or when you get old, you will in most cases be expected to look after yourselves, though the state will step in to help those who cant. However, the government is not in any sense laissez-faire. The most startling area of intervention is to be found in state schools, which knowledgeable authorities believe produce the best-educated teenagers on Earth. According to the respected educational organisation Pisa, in 2018 Singapore was ranked the No 1 country for mathematics, science and reading for 15-year-olds. Poor old Britain, the former colonial master, came in at 23rd. Isnt this an incredible achievement for a country that was dirt-poor when it achieved independence in 1963 as part of the Federation of Malaysia, from which it was ejected in 1965 to make its way in the world under the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew, with almost no natural resources and limited human capital? Naturally, despite its enormous achievements, there are still some poor people in Singapore. But so are there in Britain. In fact, I would bet that, proportionately, there are fewer there than here. If the brains of Mr Corbyn and his sidekicks John McDonnell and Emily Thornberry had not been pickled in the disastrous socialist experiments of the Sixties and Seventies, they would have the nous to look at Singapore and learn something. Needless to say, Im not suggesting we follow the country in every respect. Its anti-gay legislation is repellent, though a recent poll suggested a shift in public opinion towards liberalisation and many observers expect there to be change. And, although I deprecate the habit of spitting chewing gum on to the pavement, a stiff fine such as would be imposed in Singapore for this disgusting habit hardly seems the British way. On the other hand, we might pick up a few tricks from the Singaporean government, which subsidises restaurants so that it is cheaper for diners to take the healthier option. We certainly appear to have a greater obesity problem. And there are other attractions I have not mentioned, not least one of the lowest crime rates in the world. Might it be that our former colonial subjects have something to teach us here, too? Above all, our politicians not just Labour should ask themselves whether lower rates of income and corporation tax, as well as a much improved education system, might boost economic growth in Britain as they have done so dramatically in Singapore. I realise we are very different people with different histories, but cant we learn something from them? Surely its clear that the country is about as far as is possible from Corbyns bargain basement economy. Of course, I can see that, to a large extent, Jeremy Hunt is parading himself in Southeast Asia for domestic consumption as a born-again Brexiteer with not unrealistic hopes of sooner or later finding himself in No 10. He is right, though, when he says Britain can learn lessons from Singapore. I dont know whether he truly believes this, or whether he is simply trying to please Tories back home. On the whole, I am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. The real lesson we can learn is not to borrow this or that policy, though there are clearly some we should adopt. It is rather that, whatever version of Brexit is eventually delivered, Britain will prosper if it shows one-quarter of the optimism, self-belief and enterprise of a tiny country half a century ago. Unless, that is, Corbyn, McDonnell and Emily Thornberry end up ruling the roost. In that case, Venezuela, not Singapore, will be our lodestar and calamity our only friend. How often have you dashed off an email, only to re-read it months or years later and shake your head in disbelief that youd ever written it? Or posted your thoughts on social media about a topical issue, only to have an entirely different opinion after mulling it over a little longer? Our brains are highly sophisticated computers, constantly assessing and re-assessing the data we feed in and influenced, of course, by the physiological and emotional reactions of our bodies. We change our minds all the time as a result, so our digital histories are littered with things we no longer believe and express feelings we no longer have. But now this has taken on a horrifying new dimension. To put it starkly, one Facebook post might be enough to bring about your death. Stock pic But now this has taken on a horrifying new dimension. To put it starkly, one Facebook post might be enough to bring about your death. Yes, its like something out of a dystopian novel. But its all the more chilling because it is true and is actually being recommended by the medical establishment. This week the British Medical Association, no less, released guidance recommending that the relatives of patients who are so ill they cannot make a decision for themselves, and who have no prospect of recovery, should trawl through those patients Twitter, Facebook and Instagram posts or emails for references to death, to help reach a decision on whether to withdraw treatment or switch off life support. This guidance which quite frankly appals me follows a test case last October in which a High Court judge ruled that a 74-year-old woman in a coma could have her feeding tubes removed. He made his decision because, in an email to her daughter written in 2013, the woman had referred to her own father who had suffered with dementia before his death. I am still haunted by how he ended up... she wrote. Get the pillow ready if I get that way! Love Mum. This guidance which quite frankly appals me follows a test case last October in which a High Court judge ruled that a 74-year-old woman in a coma could have her feeding tubes removed. Stock pic The unnamed woman was known to be a heavy drinker and is thought to have watched a documentary about dementia just before she sent the email. The judge decided, however, that her comment was not a throwaway remark. Now, I have no ideological objection to treatment being withdrawn from seriously ill patients who will never get better and cannot communicate their wishes. I believe the job of a doctor is to alleviate suffering, not extend life unquestioningly. And there are certain situations suffering chronic pain that cannot be managed and with no hope of reprieve, or being completely paralysed, for example when I would not want to live and indeed would consider it cruel of others to proactively extend my life in any way. But I have made my feelings clear to my family and loved ones on this issue, and I trust that if they had to decide on switching off my ventilator or removing feeding tubes, they know me well enough to make the right judgment call. What I wouldnt want is some doctor deciding to flip the switch or pull a tube because of something Id once written in an email. We are all prone to hyperbole, exaggeration and overstatement for effect. Im sure weve all said or written, at one time or another, that Id rather die than do such and such . . . Of course we didnt actually mean it. We change our minds all the time as a result, so our digital histories are littered with things we no longer believe and express feelings we no longer have. Stock pic Yet how might this be interpreted if I were on a ventilator? Could some humourless tick-box medic fail to grasp the way it was intended and instead assume this was my laissez-faire attitude to life and therefore evidence I wanted to die? The BMAs guidelines are particularly worrying because, following a Supreme Court ruling in July last year, doctors are able to withdraw feeding tubes (known as clinically assisted nutrition and hydration or CANH) without having to seek approval from a judge, as they once did. They must consult with families, but in reality it means even more of these complex ethical decisions are now essentially in the hands of medics. There are already several options for those of us who feel strongly about end-of-life decisions. We can make a Living Will that outlines what we do and dont want to happen in the event of us being incapacitated, and there are various organisations and websites to help us document our wishes. Or we can appoint a health and welfare attorney who has the power to order doctors to end a life in certain circumstances. However, most of us dont consider these options or make the most of the information resources because we never really think well be affected until we are. And isnt that the whole point? Few of us ever give serious consideration to what we would want our families to do if we became incapable of deciding for ourselves whether we wanted to live or die. So how on earth can some careless posts taken out of context on social media, or flippant emails, possibly be assumed to be real reflections of what we think or feel in a specific, complex life-and-death situation? The BMAs official position is that it is opposed to all forms of assisted dying, but I would argue that these new guidelines suggest this is changing. Stock pic In the course of my medical career, I have found that families and loved ones are, even allowing for their grief, very good at knowing what their partners or relatives would or wouldnt want. Even if end-of-life care was never explicitly discussed, they have a sense of the person and I have always trusted this. Now I worry that in the event of a disagreement between relatives and/or the medical profession, old posts or emails as the BMA is advising might be dug out as evidence of someones wishes when they are nothing of the sort. It is utterly perverse that while we are incredibly wary of assisted dying in this country precisely because of the risk of abuse of vulnerable people, these guidelines have been produced without any seeming awareness of how they might also be misused in certain situations. I am a member of the BMA it is supposedly the trade union for the medical profession and is there to defend the interests of doctors. But I think the organisation has lost the plot. Now its leaders prefer to weigh in on all manner of public health debates and ethical and social policy, not least because they know they will generate headlines in doing so. The BMA has become a platform for a particular kind of pernicious Left-wing and progressive mindset by people who are using the union to push forward their own political ideologies and their own version of medical ethics and that, I believe, includes a heavily pro-euthanasia stance. The BMAs official position is that it is opposed to all forms of assisted dying, but I would argue that these new guidelines suggest this is changing. After the 2018 Supreme Court ruling, confidential BMA draft guidance was leaked suggesting that doctors should be able to end the lives not only of patients who are in a minimally conscious (vegetative) state, but also patients with dementia or other degenerative disease if they cant feed themselves. This is euthanasia by stealth. Many of my colleagues feel the same. The new guidelines are yet another horrifying step in that direction. @ChescoCourtNews on Twitter Michael P. Rellahan has been a staff reporter and editor at the Daily Local News since 1982. He has covered all kinds of news over the years but is now assigned to report on court and legal news, as well as Chester County government news and politics. Sunbury, PA (17801) Today Partly cloudy with a slight chance of thunderstorms. High 84F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm this evening, then some lingering showers still possible overnight. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. Low 57F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%. U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado, standing foreground with hand raised, poses for a ceremonial swearing-in photo on Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Holding the Bible for the Rhinebeck Democrat is his wife, Lacey Schwartz, as their two young sons smile for the camera. In the red dress is newly elected Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Jill Nolin/CNHI Javier Diaz, Mexico's consul general in Atlanta, and Tom Rawlings, the interim director of the state Division of Family and Children Services, sign an agreement Wednesday at the consulate's office in Atlanta. The Daily American Starting this weekend, the pockets of Pennsylvania Turnpike travelers will be picked even further. At 12:01 a.m. Sunday, tolls will increase 6 percent for cash, E-ZPass and toll-by-plate users. The most common increase will be 10 cents to $1.40 for E-ZPass travelers and 20 cents to $2.30 for cash customers, according to a press release from the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. Someone paying cash to drive a passenger car across the entire 359-mile length of the turnpike will pay $58.30, up from $55. The tolls are higher for larger vehicles. The increase is just one of several since 2009. Parts of our roadway are 78 years old, and we owe it to customers, who pay a premium to travel, to invest in our road and make it safer, smoother and wider, commission CEO Mark Compton said in the release. This year about 84 percent of our $552 million capital budget is focused on renewing, rebuilding and widening our highway which carried more than 200 million vehicles last year. Multiple people at the turnpikes Somerset rest stop had opinions about the increase. A woman who identified herself only as Cindy from Pittsburgh said that officials should look at their budget before raising tolls. Before they would start doing that, Id wish theyd look where the waste is, she said. I just wish theyd be more like it was their money. Virginia truck driver Charles Hampton said he travels the turnpike about every two weeks for his employer, J.B. Hunt. Hampton said the toll rate doesnt affect him much because his employer picks up the tab. I dont have to pay out of pocket, he said, so it dont matter to me. Cleveland truck driver Rick Neige said he uses the toll road two to three times a month. Neige said he tries to avoid the turnpike, also known as Interstate 76, when possible. 76? I stay away from it as much as I can, he said. Because the tolls are already expensive. Its like $100 from Pittsburgh to Philly. Its ridiculous. Kentucky truck driver Ron Covington said he drives the turnpike about once a month. Covington said that in his experience, Pennsylvanias toll road is about triple the cost of other states. Its crazy, because its already expensive enough, he said of the planned increase. I understand it, too, because of the amount of work theyre doing. But theyre making a lot of money. In the press release, the increases are partly blamed on the states Act 44 of 2007, which mandates that the commission supply the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation with $450 million annually. In a telephone interview, state Rep. Carl Walker Metzgar, R-Somerset Township, who was not yet in office when the act passed, said that he does not support the increase. I think its patently unfair that anyone who is using the turnpike in Somerset County be paying to subsidize mass transit in Philadelphia, Metzgar said. I dont think throwing more money at the issue is the solution. He added that increased tolls can also have an effect on local infrastructure. It puts a greater burden on our secondary roadways, he said, because trucks are avoiding the turnpike. MATTHEW TOTH mtoth@dailyamerican.com As the Pennsylvania Farm Show gets ready to kick off this weekend, Somerset County residents have helped to create one of its newest exhibits. Farm Show officials asked several local residents around Thanksgiving to make 24 awnings for the Farmers Market at this years show. Connie Marteeny said the staff provided patterns for the awnings, but it seemed like a daunting task in the beginning. I was overwhelmed when I saw over 75 yards of material laying in my basement that needed to be sewn, she said. Betty Lou Svonavec said Farm Show staff were looking for an old fashioned market look, and six people worked for two weeks on duck cloth fabrics to make the awnings. Some of the special stylings, like the trim, required volunteers to do research on sites such as YouTube to make the designs. We would go there and work for hours, she said. We took the one awning (state officials) had and made a pattern off of it. Vivian Kimmel said it was a group effort, with each worker focused on individual tasks to produce the multicolored awnings ahead of schedule. We cut, pressed, sewed and pressed again, and thats how it worked out, she said. While Farm Show staff members created the wooden portions of the displays, state officials said the residents really made the project their own and ran with it. They took our ideas and put it into a practical sense, said Heidi Svonavec, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture assistant executive director. She is Betty Lou Svonavecs daughter. The Farmers Market, which will be located in the complexs Main Hall, is a new exhibit. The market will allow visitors to purchase a variety of state and local produce, including cheese, vegetables, honey and maple products. Were trying to gain more interest and more awareness of farmers markets throughout the state, Heidi Svonavec said. Just trying to push the idea of local foods, where your food comes from and impacting your local economy in the agriculture industry. The Farm Show is now in its 103rd year, and is the largest agricultural exhibition in the state. The show features 12,000 competitive exhibits, which include more than 5,200 animal competitions and 300 commercial exhibitors. The show starts Saturday and runs until Jan. 12 at the Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg. We have a lot of new and exciting things happening at the 2019 Farm Show, and we are looking forward to sharing that with everyone, Heidi Svonavec said. The county residents are planning to take a trip Monday to see the fruits of their labor up close. Betty Lou Svonavec said the group plans to just take it all in. Some locals get to show their handiwork at the Farm Show, and we were happy to do it, she said. Staff reports The Daily American Allegany College of Maryland invites new students to register now for spring semester 2019. Full-term courses for the spring semester begin Jan. 14, at all locations. ACMs Somerset Education Site will offer four, three-credit courses for its spring semester 2019. The Monday/Wednesday/Friday courses include: 11:00 to 11:50 a.m., Philosophy/Psychology 1999 Thanatos: Death/Dying; 12:00 to 12:50 p.m., Sociology 101 Intro to Sociology; 1:00 to 1:50 p.m., Speech 101 Speech Communication; and 2:00 to 2:00 p.m., Psychology 203 Human Growth and Development. Students may preview the full spring semester schedule at allegany.edu/coursecatalog. The college will host a general information session and tour of its Cumberland campus beginning at 9 a.m.Saturday, in its Continuing Education Building Room 8. Prospective students considering enrolling at the Cumberland campus are encouraged to attend. To sign up, call 301-784-5005 or email infocenter@allegany.edu. -30- Assassin Series gotten serious income from self-publishing. There are few things as fulfilling as writing a book to share information with others. That is why many famous persons, at later stages of their lives, get their biographies written. However, in this time and age, one doesnt need to be famous or extremely lucky to get their book published. Print on demand,has revolutionized how the publishing industry works and now many have published,gotten famous andlike Mark Dawson , self-publishing author of the John Miltongotten serious income from self-publishing. Agora Publishing is making this possible by offering a self-publishing platform for creative professionals. There are many advantages for taking this approach and below are the top three reasons: Complete control Traditional publishing houses operate by carefully picking who best fits their publishing plans at the time. That means getting many interested authors to send them manuscripts. Then slowly sifting through it all, to emerge with a selected few or the single right author to work with. This alone can take months and create many anxious days for authors. Once that is done the lucky author(s) signs off the rights for their book and the disappointed authors try the next publisher. As for self-publishing,all authors get the chance to publish and all authors retain all publishing rights. This means they control the content, the financial risk; product updates and anything else that pertains to product managementunlike when offset printing. Does this compromise on quality? No it doesnt. Self-publishing authors now have access to affordable freelance editors and designers to equally match up the output to that of contemporary publishers. Quick to set-up Self-publishing is based on online platforms that allow authors to quickly select the design of their book, the pricing and the distribution channels at the mere click of a button. In other words, an author can set up their book for publishing and make it almost instantly available. On the other hand, traditional publishers will take authors through a very rigorous process of selection, contracting, editing, designing, market scheduling and book stockingwhich is expensive and can take days or even years, depending on the publishers modus operandi. Obviously, this often ensures only quality material is released but it delays the publishing break-even point. Remember, this only ensured quality which self-publishers can ensure too. Reach a wider audience Self-publishing platforms are a godsend to authors when it comes to outreach and profit. Because the author retains all rights, they dictate their books distribution channels (audio, paper back, ebook), marketing channels, and price. This determines how far the book sales will reach. Traditional publishers, on their part, will not be so keen to nit-pick all the details above. They simply dont have the time for social media and followers etc. They have other projects on their slates that will provide them with busy schedules and a steady income flow. Yet, when it comes to sharing the profits and rewards, it is shared between themselves and the author. Are you an author in Ottawa area looking to have your manuscript published into a book? Are you stuck and frustrated that traditional publishers will not take on your project? Or are you looking to self-publish to fast track your publishing? Then visit Agora Booksthe non-profit organization domiciled Canada and started in 1997. AgoraPublishing.com caters for writers by helping them self-publish. This opportunity is not just limited to writers in Ottawa but also writers, students and professionals all over the world who want their work published. Church briefs run every Thursday in the Life section of the Daily Journal. Any briefs received after 5 p.m. Monday will run the following week if the event still is relevant. Briefs should be emailed to life@daily-journal.com. Send us your pets! If chosen, your pet will be featured in the Wednesday Life section and you will be mailed a Daily Journal T-shirt. Submit your pet Soon, the holidays will have come and gone, and we will be left with a new year full of resolutions and fresh goals to achieve. As leaders, regardless of position or number of employees, we should ask the question of ourselves, How can I live better and lead more effectively in the new year? Im a big fan of author Stephen Coveys concepts of personal leadership and the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. When I first heard him speak, I was struck by the power and simplicity of his words and how they rang true especially with leaders who felt inadequate both in their personal and professional lives. The appeal of his message was in the wisdom of principle-based leadership that seemed to resonate with just about everyone. I loved the way that Coveys seven habits were separated into two sections, three for individual, get yourself together habits and three for interpersonal behavior or team habits and then the seventh being just the self-improvement habit he called, sharpen the saw. The book has sold 25 million copies in 40 languages worldwide and remains one of the best-selling nonfiction business books in history. U.S. President Bill Clinton invited Covey to Camp David to counsel him on how to integrate the book into his presidency. Of course, the seven habits in the Covey framework are all so much easier said than done. At Michigan Credit Union League and CU Solutions Group, we give all of our new employees the 7 Habits book as a sort of personal leadership and personal happiness bible. And we structure mid-year and year-end recognitions around these concepts. Im proud and honored at the holiday season to give our employees a $100 pay it forward gift card. Its amazing to see how they take a small gesture and multiply it to make an impact on so many lives. This year, six of our staff took their gift cards and, along with a special Christmas card, and delivered them on a chilly Sunday evening to the home of 5-year-old Lily Bowen, a little girl diagnosed witha type of nerve cancer called neuroblastoma. After a well-child visit, the family received the devastating cancer diagnosis that gives her a 50% chance of survival and requires a 5-day chemo treatment every 21 days. Our caring staff paid forward their holiday gift cards and surely made an impact that night by showing love and support to Lilly and her family. During this same weekend, our credit union community heard of the sad and untimely passing of Adam Kearns, VP of Business Development with the Ohio Credit Union League. Adam was an incredible young man with a big heart and passion for doing good. He left behind a loving wife Katie and two adorable young children. His death, just one week before Christmas reminds us all of the importance of holding our loved ones close and the need to make an impact every day of our lives. These are just two stark reminders of how we should all have a sense of urgency for doing good and showing love and compassion within our sphere of influence. Covey taught that people want to find happiness and betterment in the way that they live, love, learn and leave a legacy. What a great framework for understanding what drives our happiness and success! As a New Year approaches, for me as a leader, I find myself introspective about how I need to improve in these areas and strengthen my seven habits. A few weeks ago, I was so moved by the eulogies given at the funeral service for President George H.W. Bush. Watching his son, George W. Bush, a former president himself, well up with emotion as he honored his dad with the spoken word was so moving and poignant as four other presidents listened on the front row. President Bush referenced his fathers inaugural address and challenged all of us to lead in kinder, gentler ways espoused by these words: My friends, we are not the sum of our possessions. They are not the measure of our lives. In our hearts we know what matters. We cannot hope only to leave our children a bigger car, a bigger bank account. We must hope to give them a sense of what it means to be a loyal friend; a loving parent; a citizen who leaves his home, his neighborhood and town better than he found it. And what do we want the men and women who work with us to say when were no longer there: That we were more driven to succeed than anyone around us? Or that we stopped to ask if a sick child had gotten better and stayed a moment there to trade a word of friendship? I believe that managing our perspective every day is the secret to happiness and leadership success. There will always be reasons to be hard on ourselves or to feel inadequate. And we will always be flawed. But finding joy in life despite our shortcomings and negative experiences comes from altering our perspective to a more positive, humble and service-oriented tone, just as President Bush so eloquently encouraged. This great credit union movement gives leaders at all levels the opportunity to make an impact on peoples lives by working together with the people helping people philosophy that is the hallmark of credit unions. So, my four big new years resolutions for how I live, love, learn and leave a legacy are these: 1. Live Better: I want to live with a greater sense of urgency for making a difference in the lives of my family, friends, work colleagues and even the occasional stranger whose life I can impact. 2. Love Better: I need to repair damaged family relationships by being the one to reach out. I also dont want to take for granted my family and loved ones. I can show them and express to them my love in words and actions. And I can love my colleagues and staff by listening and leading with greater compassion and respect. 3. Learn Better: I need to be entertained more by reading and watching non-fiction vs. fiction. I need to be more open to learning from my partner, my family, employees and colleagues in exercising the humility to realize that Im not supposed to be the one with all the answers. Listening and learning from those closest to me will make me a better person and a better leader. 4. Leave the Right Legacy: I want to double down on doing the right thing rather than the politically expedient thing in my work and with my family. In my work life, principle-based leadership, better listening, improved collaboration, and belief in the team will be my focus. In my personal life, I want to treat my partner and children more like friends and never as projects. Seeking first to understand, then to be understood is the habit I most need to foster and improve. As leaders, we always need to remember that there is a long line of people who could do our jobs as well as, or better than we do them. Leadership is a stewardship and a privilege that we should never take for granted. Good luck with your important new years resolutions for improving the way you live, love, learn and leave a legacy. Im looking forward to working toward mine. Happy holidays and a happy new year! CUNA President/CEO Jim Nussle told Bloomberg that the 116th Congress would be able to work across party lines for key credit union issues. Nussle, along with CUNA Chief Advocacy Officer Ryan Donovan, spoke to Bloomberg about the need for federal data protection legislation and other topics. Nussle, a former member of Congress representing Iowa, said he data security should be at the top of lawmakers to-do list, noting, that has possibly the best likelihood to move. Donovan said any data protection bill should put the same kind of protection and remediation requirements on merchants that financial institutions already face. When that payments system is secure from all angles, well see the number of data breaches decreases, Donovan said. ANSONIA When Connecticut Magazines January 2019 edition recently hit newsstands, it was no surprise to many that Crave Restaurant once again had topped a best of list. In business downtown since 2007 at 102 Main St., Crave has nabbed the magazines Readers Choice award for Best Latin American restaurant in Connecticut for a fifth time. For owner Libby Meissner, being recognized again by readers is a wonderful way to kick off the New Year. I found out when one of my regular guests texted me and congratulated me, said Meissner. Of course I was beside myself to have this honor awarded once again. Meissner attributes Craves success story to her team of employees, which she affectionately calls her tribe members. I feel our team of employees that we have is an integral part of our success, Meissner said. They care for our guests and want to offer them rockstar service. Consistency and quality in product, of course, are a must. Readers selected Crave from numerous culinary options around the state, according to a news release from City Hall. Craves eclectic menu offers something for everyone craving something a little different and with a Latin twist, from their Grits Con Queso Y Puerco (cheddar cheese grits with pulled pork) to its Camarones Diablo (tiger shrimp with Cajun spices). Meissner said in addition to Craves unique menu, ambience and warmth is the final key ingredient to having a successful business. Crave offers live music every night, and since 2015 Crave has undergone two major expansions including doubling its indoor dining capacity, adding a piano lounge and opening a large, seasonal outdoor deck. City Economic Development Director Sheila OMalley was not surprised Crave made the cut again. Libby Meissner and Crave are certainly worthy of distinction and definitely deserving of the award, said OMalley. The owner and the restaurant have made Ansonia their home, recently expanding to include an outdoor patio for dining. Their success is Ansonias success. Crave has helped put Ansonia on the map as a dining destination. We now have restaurant row, in part because of the success of Crave. Our hats off to Libby for making Crave and Ansonia the place to be. Connecticut Magazine is a Hearst publication. jean.sos@snet.net WASHINGTON Sen. Chris Murphys online look-back at 2018 didnt have much on weighty topics like his measure to halt U.S. assistance to Saudi Arabias war in Yemen. But it did include a recitation of 210,000 calls, emails and letters answered, the Red Sox series victory, 130 town halls and listening sessions, and two tweets with my favorite boy band. Wait, what? You might have missed it during a busy December, but Murphy offered moral support to famous 90s boy band 98 Degrees after their idling tour buses were kicked out of the Stop & Shop parking lot on Main Avenue in Norwalk. The nearby boutiquey (and ironically named) Hotel Zero Degrees didnt have room to park the buses. Complaints from shoppers got them booted off the property, kind of a bringdown for a group of 40-somethings seeking to recreate their 90s magic. Murphy, who at 45 is about the same age as most of the band members, saw the story in the Norwalk Hour and tweeted: Honestly, this is unacceptable. Whenever 98 Degrees comes to Connecticut they should be treated like the kings they indisputably are. Im sorry Nick. Please come back soon. Nick is Nick Lachey, the bands front man who went on to be a reality TV star in Newlyweds with his then wife, Jessica Simpson. Lachey invited Murphy backstage for tea after their show at the Ridgefield Playhouse. But though he may be an unabashed fan of Lachey (at least his first solo album), Murphy couldnt break away from busy times in Washington to be there. On the high road Rep. Jim Himes offered up some New Years resolutions for 2019. First, obligatory restatement of obvious (if you live in 4th Congressional District): I represent you. That means whatever reservations he has about President Donald Trump theres plenty Himes promises to search for common ground on highways, railways, airports and, who knows, health care? But that doesnt mean Trump gets a free pass from Himes on his many assaults on the press, womens rights, an independent judiciary and, heck, basic human decency. Democrats who now control Congress dont get a free pass either. I have heard the calls to climb into the mud with the president and his attack dogs, Himes said. I get it. But temptation notwithstanding, I know that the way out of our national crisis lies in the insistent and universally felt (if oft-ignored) notion that we are better than this, he said. Nice balance if you can strike it, I guess. Hard lesson learned Elizabeth Estys online coda for her six years on Capitol Hill was a call for more young, sincere activists to run for office. Filmed in leafy season outside a row of Capitol Hill townhouses, Esty tells prospective office-holders America needs you. But there was something vaguely prophetic about Esty saying: Do not worry about whether you know enough. You do and what you dont know, youll learn. Esty was no slouch in the policy department, coming to Washington in early 2013 after Yale law and sojourns on the Cheshire Town Council and the Connecticut General Assembly. But she was less sharp when it came to knowing what was going on under her own office roof. Observers and admirers alike can only wonder how she missed years worth of clues that her chief of staff was abusive not just to one subordinate with whom he had an intimate relationship, but many other Esty staffers as well. Failure to blow the whistle early on her chief of staff, Tony Baker, ultimately cost Esty an otherwise promising political future. She chose not to run for the seat that on Thursday gets occupied by Jahana Hayes, Waterburys own 2016 teacher of the year. Its unknown at this point whether Esty will reappear in public life. To be sure, comebacks are made successfully by those guilty of much more grievous errors in judgment than Esty. Or will she simply remain the answer to a future CT Politics trivia quiz? dan@hearstdc.com Crime has dropped in Connecticut over the eight years of Dannel P. Malloys governorship. Its also dropped in New York City, nearly every city nationwide and in the country as a whole. Its still a record worth noting as the governor prepares to leave office next week, with the most recent statewide crime trends showing overall reported crime in 2017 was the states lowest in 50 years. After peaking in 1990, crime has continued a long decline in the state, mirroring nationwide trends. The drop continued during the Malloy years, with overall crime in the state down 19 percent since he took office in 2011, including a 19 percent decline in violent crimes. The degree to which the governor is responsible is up for debate, as is the case for any broad trend. But if the leader of state government takes the blame for a sluggish economy, then a measure of credit must be awarded when positive numbers are reported, as well. Skeptics point out that factors such as longer prison terms and mandatory minimum sentences, the kind of policies Malloy has fought, should get more credit. But studies have indicated that such tough on crime measures usually have a only a modest effect on crime rates, to say nothing of the devastation they can cause in communities hit hardest by the measures. Malloy and Mike Lawlor, Connecticuts outgoing criminal justice policy leader, took a different approach, emphasizing cutting the prison population along with costs by way of prison and sentencing reforms and allowing judges more sentencing leeway, among other measures. Such an approach has now reached the federal level, with the president signing recently the bipartisan First Step Act that includes many Connecticut policies. The governor has proven a national leader on this issue, and deserves credit. Its also true that some acts that were illegal 25 years ago are not grounds for an arrest today, including some drug offenses. The decline in murder rates has in some corners been credited to better emergency care, which allows victims who might have died to instead go into the statistics as merely injured. Theres a measure of truth in all these factors, but none are sufficient to explain the crime drop in full. In fact, experts in the field have puzzled for years over why crime is generally lower today than it was in the 1960s, to say nothing of the early 90s. At the same time, many people dont feel safer. As crime hits record lows, public opinion polls show that many people believe its still rising, and that the streets have never been more dangerous. Its hard to know what would convince them otherwise, what with fear a consistently effective political cudgel. No one is arguing the system is fixed, or that whatever progress weve achieved isnt vulnerable to changing trends. Still, the numbers are down. Connecticut is safer than it was eight years ago, and the governor and his policies deserve credit. Oxford, Conn. January 3rd, 2019 LIFT Aviation, a renowned provider of pilot gear and accessories, is supporting the D-Day Squadron through steep discounts of its products, particularly pilot kneeboards. This gear will prove extremely valuable to the pilots and crews ferrying C-47s and DC-3s across the North Atlantic via the original Blue Spruce route used to move aircraft to European front-line service during the Second World War. The goal of this effort is for the D-Day Squadron to meet with its European counterpart, Daks over Normandy to forge an aerial fleet that will cross the English Channel, flying over Normandy on June 5th 2019. The D-Day Squadron, which part of the Tunison Foundation, will also participate in multiple events on June 2nd-5th at Duxford Airfield in the United Kingdom and from June 5th-9th at Caen-Carpiquet Airport in Normandy, France. Joining other aviation leaders such as Flight Safety International and AOPA, LIFT Aviations support is another example of the rolling enthusiasm that continues to build in the aviation community at the start of 2019, looking forward to the 75th anniversary of the Normandy invasion this June. When all of us heard about the Daks Over Normandy commemorative flight in honor of the 75th year anniversary of D-Day, we knew we had to be involved, declared Todd Lentz, Senior Vice President of LIFT Aviation. We were eager to get involved with the D-Day Squadron and help however we could. Both myself and LIFT Aviation are excited and honored to be involved in such an amazing tribute. We are amazed that another organization has unveiled a unique way to support the D-Day Squadron, stated Moreno Aguiari, Executive Director of the D-Day Squadron. We are thrilled by the generous offer from LIFT Aviation and we look forward to putting their pilot-designed, pilot-tested products to extensive work during our flight to Normandy. Be sure to keep up with the latest news as additional leaders in aviation join the D-Day Squadron mission to honor the few remaining D-Day participants and salute the historic effort that defined their generation. About the D-Day Squadron The D-Day Squadron is the part of the Tunison Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. In June 2019, the D-Day Squadron will lead an American fleet of historic, restored C-47 World War II military aircraft in Daks Over Normandy, a flyover of more than 30 international aircraft to drop 250 paratroopers over the original 1944 drop zones in Normandy commemorating the 75th anniversary of D-Day. The event will honor the citizen soldiers of the War, whose bravery led the Allies to the liberation of France, and then to an end of the devastating War in Europe. The Squadrons education program takes the compelling story of the citizen soldier to audiences at airshows and events off the flight line to honor these brave Americans and ensure their memory and significance is appreciated for generations to come. The groups efforts are funded through the generous tax-deductible contribution of their supporters. Learn more at DDaySquadron.org. About LIFT Aviation A lack of innovation in the aviation marketplace led to the creation of LIFT Aviation with a goal of bringing aviation safety to the 21st century. With new proven technologies and a real passion for flying, we continue to bring only the best in aviation gear for pilots of all levels. Before any product we develop goes out in the market, it is fully field tested. Our in-house and external flight-testing team is made up of dozens of military and GA pilots. These are the aviators who truly expect the most out of their gear. We are not looking to build just good products, were looking to build only the most reliable and comfortable products and accessories so pilots can fly with safety and peace of mind. Learn more at https://liftaviationusa.com/. Comedian Louis C.K. is stirring controversy for an apparently recent standup routine that mocks survivors of last years deadly high school shooting in Parkland, Fla., and the student activism that followed. They testify in front of Congress, these kids? ... What are you doing? the comedian says during his unidentified appearance, based on audio posted on Twitter on Dec. 30 by comedy writer Jack Allison . Youre young, you should be crazy, you should be unhinged, not in a suit saying, Im here to tell you ... F--- you, C.K. said in the routine. C.K., continuing in his trademark in-your-face style, says the students didnt suddenly become interesting because they had survived a mass shooting. Youre not interesting cause you went to a high school where kids got shot, C.K. continues, as audience members laugh heartily. Why does that mean I have to listen to you? How does that make you interesting? You didnt get shot. You pushed some fat kid in the way, and now I got to listen to you talking? C.K. has been testing the waters for a public return for months after The New York Times in November 2017 published a story about five women, mostly aspiring comics, alleged that C.K. had either asked them to watch him masturbate or forced them to watch while he did so. C.K. acknowledged that the allegations were true, and while he face no legal consequences, his career immediately suffered as a film was shelved and TV networks dropped their affiliations with him. Aalayah Eastmond, who was a junior at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland last Feb. 14 when a gunman killed 17 students and adults, and who testified about the incident before Congress , criticized C.K. in a Dec. 31 tweet that referenced the comedians sex-abuse scandal. Hey Louis CK - since you like making fun of me and other Parkland survivors behind closed doors, Im right here if you want to talk. Just try to keep it in your pants, ok? wrote Eastmond, who is a senior at Stoneman Douglas high this year. Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was killed in the Parkland incident, tweeted , To anyone who knows Louis CK, please deliver this message for me. My daughter was killed in the Parkland shooting. My son ran from the bullets. My wife and I deal with loss everyday. Why dont you come to my house and try out your new pathetic jokes? In the audio clip of C.K.'s set posted online, the comedian also mocks young people who use gender neutral pronouns such as they/them. C.K., who years ago did routines criticizing the Common Core State Standards, appears to have received some support for his willingness to address controversial topics from a fellow comedian, the British comic Ricky Gervais. Please stop saying You cant joke about anything anymore. You can. Gervais tweeted on Dec. 31 . You can joke about whatever you like, Gervais said, added in the obscenity-laden tweet. And some people wont like it and they will tell you they dont like it. And then its up to you whether to stand by the material, he said. But on ABCs talkfest The View on Wednesday, comedian and regular panel member Joy Behar, who often strongly defends edgy material by comics, said she was troubled by the C.K. clip. Hes out there ... punching down, she said. There are so many targets to punch up to. Theres Trump. ... Theres a million things to go after. Why would you pick kids who are suffering because of gun violence. Pick the NRA. ... Dont go after the victim. Someone as brilliant as Louis C.K. should know better, Behar said. Below is an ABC Good Morning America report from Wednesday morning. WASHINGTON - The Justice Department's public integrity section is examining whether newly departed Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lied to his agency's inspector general investigators, according to three people familiar with the matter, a potential criminal violation that would exacerbate Zinke's legal woes. Zinke, who left the Trump administration Wednesday, was facing two inspector general inquiries tied to his real estate dealings in his home state of Montana and his involvement in reviewing a proposed casino project by Native American tribes in Connecticut. In the course of that work, inspector general investigators came to believe Zinke had lied to them, and they referred the matter to the Justice Department to consider whether any laws were violated, the people familiar with the matter said. The department's public integrity section has since been exploring the case, the people familiar with the matter said. The extent of its work is unclear, though the inspector general had questioned witnesses in an apparent attempt to scrutinize Zinke's account, one of the people said. A spokesman for Zinke said Zinke voluntarily participated in two inspector general interviews about the Connecticut tribal matter and "to the best of his knowledge answered all questions truthfully." The spokesman said Zinke had not been contacted by the Justice Department and that disclosures about the matter violated inspector general and Justice Department protocols. On Wednesday, Zinke wrote a farewell letter to staff and posted a handwritten note on Twitter/ Neither mentioned the ethics allegations that prompted his departure. "When I was a Boy Scout, I was taught to leave the campsite better than I found it," he wrote Interior's 70,000 employees. "I am confident that over the last 2 years, we have done that together for our public lands and the Department of the Interior." A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. The Justice Department's interest in the matter is significant, signaling prosecutors felt Zinke's account was suspect and warranted further scrutiny. Department officials have not yet decided, though, whether he should face charges, people familiar with the matter said. The crime of making false statements can be difficult to prove because it requires investigators to show a person "knowingly and willfully" lied, rather than simply misstated a fact. Zinke's resignation, too, could make him a less appealing target for prosecutors. Several former Trump advisers have pleaded guilty to lying to investigators or to Congress, including his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen and a former campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos. Zinke, who submitted his resignation last month, had faced intense pressure to step down because of the probes into his conduct, though President Donald Trump had soured on him for other reasons, too, according to a person familiar with the matter. In particular, this person said, Trump was upset Zinke would not challenge Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., in last year's election and over how Zinke handled the administration's plan to expand offshore drilling. Last January, Zinke flew to Florida and, without consulting the White House, announced in a news conference with then-Gov. Rick Scott, R-Fla., that Interior would exempt the state from offshore drilling. The move raised ethics questions along with an outcry from other governors whose coastal states were affected by the plan. It was not clear precisely what Zinke is thought to have lied about, but people familiar with the matter said it was not about a land deal Zinke struck with the chairman of oil services giant Halliburton in his hometown of Whitefish, Montana. Interior's inspector general has been probing that as a possible conflict of interest. The inspector general has also been exploring Zinke's involvement in a dispute over a bid from two Native American tribes to operate a casino in East Windsor, Conn. The feud over the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes' quest to jointly operate a gambling facility has sparked intense lobbying, since the outcome affects the flow of hundreds of millions in annual gaming revenue. The tribes allege Zinke succumbed to political pressure in not granting their application. The two tribes sought federal approval to run the commercial casino off reservation land as part of an agreement with Connecticut officials, which required an amended agreement to ensure the new operation would provide 25 percent of its slot machine revenue to the state. MGM Resorts International objected because the casino would compete with its gaming complex 12 miles away in Springfield, Massachusetts, and could jeopardize its chances of opening a casino in Connecticut. Interior officials - including career staff and even some Trump appointees - had been poised to approve the agreement last summer, according to interviews with current and former employees and documents released under the Freedom of Information Act. Ultimately, though, the department refused to sign off on the Mashantucket Pequot's proposal, sparking a lawsuit from the tribe and the state of Connecticut. In September, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras dismissed the tribe's initial claim. The Mohegan tribe withdrew from the litigation after Interior acknowledged the validity of its gaming agreement in June. But the tribe - which was nearly wiped out four centuries ago by the English - has continued to press its case. It sought to amend its claim in October, arguing in court documents Interior staff had "prepared draft approval letters" on Oct. 8, 2017, but then informed the tribes a week later it would take no action on the petition, stymieing the project. The tribe charged that "the Department ultimately buckled under undue political pressure" from two Republican members of Congress from Nevada, Sen. Dean Heller and Rep. Mark Amodei." Neither Heller, who has since left the Senate, having lost his reelection bid last year, nor Amodei, could be immediately reached for comment. The same filing alleges "Senator Heller directly pressured Secretary Zinke to do what was necessary to stop the Tribes' joint venture casino project during a private dinner at a steakhouse in Las Vegas, on or about July 30, 2017." Zinke's official calendar shows he was in Las Vegas that day before catching a late-night flight back to Washington, but it does not list his activities there. With Zinke gone, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is trying to get his successor to approve changes to the tribal-state compact, so the East Windsor casino can proceed. Connecticut state lawmakers are also considering new legislation that would eliminate the requirement that the tribes receive approval from Interior before moving ahead with the casino. HAMDEN A town resident and North Branford police officer was arrested after he allegedly was found in possession of more than 1,000 images and videos of child pornography, according to the Hamden Police Department. Anthony DeLuise, 58, of 168 Sebec St. , was arrested Monday at police headquarters and charged with first-degree possession of child pornography, Sgt. Anthony Diaz said in a release. Hamden and Connecticut State Police began the investigation in Jan. 2018 that resulted in DeLuises arrest, Diaz said. A search and seizure warrant was executed at his home in July 2018, at which time officers seized multiple storage media devices, including computers. Upon examining these items, 1,424 still image and movie files of suspected child pornography were found, Diaz said in the release. A warrant for DeLuises arrest was then requested and obtained, Diaz said. Deuise is free on a court-ordered $25,000 bond and scheduled to appear in Superior Court in Meriden Jan. 8, Diaz said. Deluise has been absent from his position as a police officer in North Branford since Feb. 14, 2018, according to a release from Acting Police Chief James Lovelace. The North Branford Police Department has been made aware of the investigation and subsequent arrest of Mr. DeLuise, Lovelace said in the statement. NBPD has taken all necessary steps to ensure that both public safety and the departments operations are not compromised, Lovelace said, also in the statement, The charges against Mr. DeLuise are disturbing and troublesome, however, they are the actions of a single person and do not reflect the behavior of the dedicated men and women of the NBPD. An internal affairs investigation pertaining to the allegations of malfesance has been set into motion, Lovelace said. william.lambert@hearstmediact.com. The Yankee Air Museums Republic F-84F Thunderstreak Restoration by Barry Levine The Yankee Air Museum has recently completed the restoration of their Republic F-84F-35-GK Thunderstreak. The 2nd generation jet fighter was built under license at General Motors Fisher Body Division in Kansas City, Missouri and the USAF took delivery of her in January, 1955 as serial number 51-9501. Her service history is roughly as follows USAF 2849th ABW Hill AFB, Utah USAF 508th SFW Turner AFB, Georgia 1956: USAF 4080th SRW Turner AFB, Georgia 1956-57: USAF 3600th CCTW Luke AFB, Arizona 1958: USAF 1607th Air Transport Wing Dover AFB, Delaware 1958: Pennsylvania ANG 147th FS Greater Pittsburgh Airport, Pennsylvania 1958: Michigan ANG 107th TRS -Detroit-Wayne Major Airport, Michigan 1959-61: Ohio ANG 164th FS Mansfield, Ohio 1961-62: Ohio ANG 166th FS Lockbourne AFB, Ohio 1962-64: USAF 366th TFW Chaumont AB, France 1964-70: Indiana ANG 113th FS Hulman Field, Terra Haute, Indiana Michigan ANG 191st FIS Detroit-Wayne Major Airport, Michigan As can be seen above, 51-9501 received assignments to a wide range of bases, including a deployment to Etain Air Base, France during November 1961 (as part of Operation Tack Hammer, the US response to the Berlin crisis that year). Following her military service the Thunderstreak became an instructional airframe with Western Michigan University as part of their aviation training program. Interestingly, the university reserved the civil registration N5001 for the Thunderstreak in August, 1970, but cancelled it the following year in November. 51-9501 is therefore one of only a handful of F-84s ever to make it onto the civil registry, although it is unlikely she ever flew in civilian hands. The museum obtained the F-84F in 1985. Restoration began in 2016, with the end goal of painting the Thunderstreak in a USAF Thunderbirds aerial demonstration team livery. Previously, the fighter-bomber had been in a Vietnam War-era camo scheme. The Thunderbirds only flew F-84Fs during their 1954-1955 display season, so the museums restored F-84F would therefore feature in a permanent Thunderbirds exhibit from this time period. Museum volunteer Bob Catalano was the project manager for this effort. Repainting this aircraft was very involved. It included stripping off the old paint, sanding the metal, and repairing metal panels to ensure the aircraft was in pristine external condition. The restoration team painted the fuselage and the top and bottom of both wings over the course of four months. It was a labor-intensive process, especially due to the extensive masking required to ensure that only the areas needing paint received it. Once the base livery was completed, the next step involved painting the specialized markings on the aircraft using masks created for the various insignia and USAF decalcomania to ensure as accurate a rendition of the 1954-55 Thunderbirds scheme. Again, the paint team draped the aircraft to avoid any accidental over-spray. Museum volunteers completed the restoration in 2018, including painting on the star & bar insignia, which with its three different colors was a significant small project. One of the last steps involved recreating the Thunderbird logo and the extensive set of flag decals, showing the Latin American countries where the Thunderbirds appeared during their 1954-55 international tour. The aircraft was then prepped and polished and moved into final position within the museums Thunderbird exhibit, which opened the day before the Thunder Over Michigan Air Show in August, 2018. The Museum actually opened the exhibit while the present-day USAF Thunderbirds team was on-site for the annual Pilot Meet-n-Greet. Many air show visitors enjoyed meeting the Thunderbird pilots, having the opportunity to also obtain autographs and photos of the aircrew at this popular event. Project Manager Catalano noted: What made this project special, was that this was the first time that a major restoration was performed entirely in house by museum volunteers. In the past, outside contractors were brought in to paint aircraft. This time, Paul Cook, a retired professional painter and museum volunteer, painted the aircraft along with support from other museum volunteers. We have had other aircraft painted in the past, but this was a completely volunteer driven endeavor with great results. Mercifully, the Berlin crisis did not become a shooting war and, to the best of our knowledge, no F-84Fs saw combat while serving in the U.S. Air Force. F-84s were a bridge from first generation jet fighters, such as the P-80 Shooting Star, to the early supersonic jets like the F-100 Super Sabre. The Yankee Air Museum is proud to showcase this aircraft, the types link to the Thunderbirds, and the dedicated work of our volunteer team. For further information please contact Dave Callanan, Outreach Services Director, 734-483-4030, ext. #233, Dave.Callanan@yankeeairmuseum.org Many thanks indeed to Barry Levine for writing this article and to Dave Callanan for providing us with it! BRIDGEPORT - The son of West Havens mayor, awaiting trial on charges that he embezzled more than $80,000 from a Trumbull restaurant, was charged Thursday with stealing from its sister restaurant in Stratford. Stephen Rossi, 34, of Aircraft Road, West Haven, the son of Mayor Nancy Rossi, was charged with first-degree larceny, first-degree computer crime and criminal impersonation. During the arraignment hearing, Rossi, dressed in a striped polo shirt, his hands cuffed behind him, listened as his lawyer, Matt Popilowski argued for a lenient bond. Assistant States Attorney Felicia Valentino argued that Rossi should be held on a high bond because he now has two larceny cases but Popilowski countered that the latest charges came before the pending case. The conduct in this case was going on simultaneously with the events of the other case, Superior Court Judge Tracy Lee Dayton retorted. He was looting it instead of managing it. But the judge gave Rossi credit for turning himself in and ordered him released on a promise to appear. Rossi is currently free on a $50,000 bond for his first arrest. He faces the same charges. Rossi had been manager of the Sitting Duck restaurants in Trumbull and Stratford. Police said they received a complaint from William da Silva, co-owner of the two restaurants that Rossi had been embezzling from the restaurants. An audit determined that between Nov. 1, 2015, and April 21, 2018, Rossi had taken cash from sales at the Trumbull restaurant and had inflated inventory at the restaurants, pocketing the difference, police said. They said the loss totaled $80,511.56. Police said they reviewed the video surveillance footage from inside the Trumbull restaurant which they said showed Rossi counting cash in the office of the restaurant and putting some in his pocket. Detectives later recorded a conversation between Rossi and da Silva in which police said da Silva accused Rossi of stealing money. How do we fix this without it blowing up completely, police said Rossi asked da Silva, volunteering to repay the money in payments. Police said a subsequent audit of the Stratford restaurant determined that Rossi had used the restaurants computer system to steal $21,236 by voiding cash sales and pocketing the money. Contributed Photo / Long Hill Volunteer Fire Department TRUMBULL The towns Long Hill Volunteer Fire Co. 1 warned residents Wednesday that a group of scammers are requesting donations and pretending theyre from the fire company. Long Hill said the scam calls were actively happening as of Wednesday morning and that various residents have received calls from people posing as members of the Long Hill department, asking for monetary donations. MILFORD A one-time teacher of the year award-winner in Shelton allegedly took a teen he was mentoring on walks in the woods outside school and molested the boy, according to a warrant for his arrest. The former educator, 77-year-old David Munson, was arrested last April on charges of first-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and his lawyer has vowed to take the case to trial. An arrest warrant in the case detailing the charges against Munson, who retired as a teacher in 1999, was made public Wednesday at Superior Court. The sexual assaults allegedly occurred between September 2005 and August 2007, but didnt come to light until October 2017, when a 25-year-old man complained anonymously to the Rape Crisis Center of Milford that he had been sexually assaulted in Shelton years before. Shelton police Detective Sergeant Matthew Kunkel and Detective Richard Bango met with the man, who told them that when he was a 13-year-old student at Shelton Intermediate School, his mother was having health problems, which resulted in him not speaking to others. So the school assigned him a mentor to meet with weekly Munson, then a retired teacher. In September 2005, the man told police, Munson took him on a walk in the woods and walking trails across the street from the school and molested him. The man estimated Munson molested him in the woods outside the school 18 times, until he stopped going to school altogether and was admitted to a psychiatric ward in 2007, where he was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder, social phobia, and anxiety. The man said he met with Munson years later two more times at local restaurants. On one of the occasions, he said Munson sat next to him in a booth and grabbed him under the table several times, after which the man pushed Munsons hands away. He also showed police several emails from Munson including an emoji symbol of a man blowing a heart kiss. During an interview with police, the warrant says Munson denied molesting the boy or sending him e-mails with suggestive emojis in them. The warrant says Munson told police hed be willing to take a polygraph test, but when detectives tried to set up an appointment for later that month, his lawyer declined on his behalf. Detectives also spoke with three other students mentored by Munson, none of whom alleged he touched them inappropriately. Munson appeared in Superior Court Wednesday for the sixth time, where prosecutor Amy Bepko asked Judge Peter Brown to continue the case so she could provide discovery materials to Munsons lawyer and consult with another prosecutor who had been handling the matter. Munson, who has posted a $100,000 bond in the case, is scheduled to return to court Feb. 6. James "PA" Smith, 85, was born on Oct. 4, 1935, to Otis T. and Dora Mae Tudor Smith in Fentress County, and passed away on June 12, 2021. He was a farmer by trade and loved spending time with his family, especially his grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchild. He was a m To enjoy our website, you'll need to enable JavaScript in your web browser. Please click here to learn how. Editors note: This second in a two-part series looks at specific ingredients of concern due to reported adverse effectsalthough, notably, not necessarily from typical cosmetic exposure routes or levels. Part I, from the July/August 2018 edition, reviewed the regulatory status of cosmetics, adverse event reporting and studies attempting to link cosmetics with contact dermatitis. Together, the two aim to identify public concerns in order to inform product developers and improve user experiences. Continued from Part I Regarding exposure to some cosmetic ingredients, studies have shown possible adverse health outcomes including malignancy, neurotoxicity and reproductive and developmental toxicity. Besides consumers, cosmetologists who come into frequent contact with these materials could particularly be at risk. In fact, more than 1 million cosmetologists have licenses in the U.S.several million do worldwideand most are female and of reproductive age. Common specialties in cosmetology include hairdressers and nail technicians, and these professionals contact a variety of possible allergens on a daily basis. Of particular concern are ingredients in hair dyes and nail polish. Log in or Subscribe for FREE to read the full story. Nitrosamine is the primary ingredient in hair dye and requires bioactivation, thereby allowing for potentially adverse effects at locations other than the initial exposure site.1 Nitrosamine also has shown mutagenicity in vitro and carcinogenic properties in vivo. For example, in 1975, Ames et al.2 designed a bacterial test for detecting chemical mutagens, by which nitrosamine tested positive. 4-Nitroquinoline-N-oxide was plated onto petri dishes with specially constructed mutants of Salmonella typhimurium, and with histidine, it reverted the mutant strains back to wild type. This suggested the mutagenicity of nitrosamine in vitro. Later, in 1981, Sontag3 showed the carcinogenic properties of nitrosamine in vivo. Eleven substituted benzenediamines were tested in rats and mice, of which four induced significant incidences of tumors in both rats and mice. However, while nitrosamine may have tested carcinogenic in animal studies, there remains inadequate evidence to determine carcinogenicity in humans.4 For nail technicians, nail polish is the primary source of chemical exposure, as such products include toluene, plasticizers (i.e., dibutyl phthalate) and formaldehyde. Hairdressing and Health Risks Notably, hairdressers and nail technicians typically share a workspace and, at times, perform some of the same tasks. This overlap in space and roles could therefore increase occupational chemical exposures for both groups. While some studies have indicated an association between hairdressing and health risks, others have not. In 2004, Nohynek et al.5 conducted a review that showed no correlation between occupational exposure to hair dyes and carcinogenic or other health outcomes. This review, however, focused on acute toxicity and health effects of hair dyes and not on potential long-term outcomes of exposure. Similarly, in 2006, Hougaard et al.6 found that hairdressers and the general public exhibited comparable rates of infertility. On the other hand, in 2009, Ronda et al.7 identified an increased risk for subfertility and menstrual disorders among female hairdressers in comparison with female office workers and shop assistant controls. Harling et al.8 later performed a meta-analysis of 42 studies, which showed an increased and statistically significant risk for bladder cancer among hairdressers, especially those who held the job for more than 10 years. Formaldehyde Regarding risks, formaldehyde provides more definitive data. According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), formaldehyde is considered a human carcinogen. Duong et al.9 conducted a meta-analysis of 18 human studies to understand the relationship between maternal formaldehyde exposure and adverse reproductive and development effects. Results revealed an increased risk of spontaneous abortion in formaldehyde-exposed women. An evaluation of animal studies presented similar findings: positive associations between formaldehyde exposure and reproductive toxicity, particularly in males. However, although a positive relationship was found, mechanisms underlying apparent formaldehyde-induced reproductive and development toxicities are unclear. Hairdressers and nail technicians contact a variety of possible allergens on a daily basis. Toluene The effects of toluene, a commonly used organic solvent, have been studied extensively. Toluene inhalation during pregnancy has been shown to lead to growth restriction, congenital malformations, developmental delay and premature delivery.10 In one study, wherein male rats inhaled 4,000-6,000 ppm toluene for 2 hr each day for one month, rats with higher toluene concentration exposure showed significantly reduced sperm count, motility, quality and penetration, as well as increased rates of abnormal sperm morphology.11 When pregnant rats were exposed to toluene once per day from gestation days 6 through 19, results revealed a 15% reduction in cell numbers of the offspring's forebrains. There also were reductions in neocortical myelination.12 These findings are comparable to developmental delays such as mental retardation, language impairment and hyperactivity found in children with early toluene exposure. Moreover, a decreased birth weight and small size for gestational age at birth are the mostly common reported outcomes of occupational solvent exposure during pregnancy.13 Parabens Although a recent review by the Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR) reaffirms that parabens in cosmetics are safe as used,14 these preservatives have been the subject of scrutiny due to alleged endocrine-disrupting activities reported in vitro and in vivo.15-17 Studies have suggested their connection with male infertility in animals, as well as human breast cancer cells, as shown in vitro.18 In 2013, Wrobel and Gregoraszczuk19 furthered the association between parabens and breast carcinogenesis by showing the capability of parabens to stimulate the proliferation of human beast cancer cells via increased estradiol secretion and aromatase activity. Regulatory Considerations Continued research into the effects of cosmetic and skin care ingredients, such as those described, is crucial. First, to ensure consumer safety, and also because findings such as those citedregardless of the protocols relevancehave led some manufacturers to discontinue using these ingredients in cosmetics.20 This effectively perpetuates a precautionary approach and decreases the number of effective options available to product developers. Considering the current state of cosmetic ingredient concerns, several questions are worth considering. Should there be more regulation? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) relies heavily on the cosmetic industry to self-regulate in order to assure consumer safety. While the FDA takes strides such as establishing labeling provisions and reviewing cosmetic ingredients, the group, along with the CIR and Research Institute for Fragrance Materials (RIFM), does not have the jurisdiction to remove products from the market. In relation, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, of California, established the Personal Care Products Safety Act (PCPSA), which seeks to give the FDA authority to recall unsafe cosmetics, impose mandatory adverse event reporting for manufacturers, and propose an annual safety review of five ingredients.21 Regardless, the current regulations and legislations in place are guidelines at best. Should systems be in place to report adverse effects? Currently, the cosmetic industry relies on the public and physicians to alert the FDA about problematic products through its reporting system, the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) Adverse Event Reporting System (CAERS). A gradual increase in adverse event reports has been noted in recent years, to which Linda Katz, director of the FDAs Office of Cosmetics and Colors, attributes the FDAs outreach to raise awareness among consumers and health care professionals. The American Contact Dermatitis Society has the Contact Allergen Management Program, a database of thousands of cosmetics and personal care products. Within this system, after a patient has been patch-tested and the allergen pinpointed, the offending agent is entered to generate a list for the patients use in order to avoid given triggers. Although the CIR has reaffirmed the safety of parabens, they have been the subject of scrutiny due to alleged endocrine-disrupting activity. Should there be an independent review board? In 1976, the CIR was founded to serve as an independent ingredient safety review board. Similar to RIFM and other boards, it provides scientific findings and guidance, but lacks jurisdiction. The FDA continues to monitor the cosmetic industry from a more indirect approach, conducting and directing reviews of ingredients and advising companies with potentially dangerous ingredients in their products.22 In the meantime, cosmetic-related incidents of atopic contact dermatitis (ACD) continue to occur, and the long-term effects of cosmetics remain unknown. In 1979, Menkart23 suggested that an adverse reaction to cosmetics occurs approximately once every 13.3 years per person. More recently, another review found the pooled prevalence rate of ACD to cosmetics in seven different studies to be 9.8%.24 Do we need more testing? Then again, one might wonder, with additional review boards and oversight, would this decrease cosmetic-related ACD incidence and prevalence? This calls market pretests and efficacy into question, too. Should pretesting be a requirement to market? Are there measures of efficacy for cosmetics? Should products be rated on efficacy similar to sunscreens, which are classified by a sun protection factor (SPF)? The Good News The good news is, the science behind safety and efficacy claims for cosmetics is substantial. So while strategies toward cosmetovigilance are recommended, most cosmetic consumers can feel confident in products properly planned and executed.25-34 References Holly, E. A., Bracci, P. M., Hong, M. K., Mueller, B. A. & Preston-Martin, S. (2002). West Coast study of childhood brain tumors and maternal use of hair-coloring products, Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology 16(3), 226-235. Ames, B. N., McCann, J. & Yamasaki, E. (1975). Methods for detecting carcinogens and mutagens with the Salmonella/mammalian-microsome mutagenicity test, Mutat Res 31(6), 347-364. Sontag, J. M. (1981). Carcinogenicity of substituted-benzenediamines (phenylenediamines) in rats and mice, J Natl Cancer Inst 66(3), 591-602. La Vecchia, C. & Tavani, A. (1995). Epidemiological evidence on hair dyes and the risk of cancer in humans, Eur J Cancer Prev 4(1), 31-43. Nohynek, G. J., Fautz, R., Benech-Kieffer, F. & Toutain, H. (2004). Toxicity and human health risk of hair dyes, Food Chem Toxicol 42(4), 517-543. Hougaard, K. S., Hannerz, H., Bonde, J. P., Feveile, H. & Burr, H. (2006). The risk of infertility among hairdressers. Five-year follow-up of female hairdressers in a Danish national registry, Hum Reprod 21(12), 3122-3126. Ronda, E., Garcia, A. M., Sanchez-Paya, J. & Moen, B. E. (2009). Menstrual disorders and subfertility in Spanish hairdressers, Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol 147(1), 61-64. Harling, M., Schablon, A., Schedlbauer, G., Dulon, M. & Nienhaus, A. (2010). Bladder cancer among hairdressers: A meta-analysis, Occup Environ Med 67(5), 351-358. Duong, A., Steinmaus, C., McHale, C. M., Vaughan, C. P. & Zhang, L. (2011). Reproductive and developmental toxicity of formaldehyde: A systematic review, Mutat Res 728(3), 118-138. Hannigan, J. H. & Bowen, S. E. (2010). Reproductive toxicology and teratology of abused toluene, Syst Biol Reprod Med 56(2), 184-200. Ono, A., Kawashima, K., Sekita, K., Hirose, A., Ogawa, Y., Saito, M., et al. (1999). Toluene inhalation induced epididymal sperm dysfunction in rats, Toxicology 139(3), 193-205 Gospe, S. M., Jr. & Zhou, S. S. (1998). Toluene abuse embryopathy: Longitudinal neurodevelopmental effects of prenatal exposure to toluene in rats, Reprod Toxicol 12(2), 119-126. Ahmed, P. & Jaakkola, J. J. (2007). Exposure to organic solvents and adverse pregnancy outcomes, Hum Reprod 22(10), 2751-2757 Heldreth, B. (Dec 4, 2018). CIR conclusion: Parabens are safe, Cosm & Toil 133(10), 18, 19 & DE10-12. Boberg, J., Taxvig, C., Christiansen, S. & Hass, U. (2010). Possible endocrine disrupting effects of parabens and their metabolites, Reprod Toxicol 30(2), 301-312. Crinnion, W. J. (2010). Toxic effects of the easily avoidable phthalates and parabens, Altern Med Rev 15(3), 190-196. Park, C. J., Nah, W. H., Lee, J. E., Oh, Y. S. & Gye, M. C. (2012). Butyl paraben-induced changes in DNA methylation in rat epididymal spermatozoa, Andrologia 44 suppl 1, 187-193. Khanna, S. & Darbre, P. D. (2013). Parabens enable suspension growth of MCF-10A immortalized, non-transformed human breast epithelial cells, J Appl Toxicol 33(5), 378-382. Wrobel, A. & Gregoraszczuk, E. L. (2013). Effects of single and repeated in vitro exposure of three forms of parabens, methyl-, butyl- and propylparabens on the proliferation and estradiol secretion in MCF-7 and MCF-10A cells, Pharmacol Rep 65(2), 484-493. Konduracka, E., Krzemieniecki, K. & Gajos, G. (2014). Relationship between everyday use cosmetics and female breast cancer, Pol Arch Med Wewn 124(5), 264-269. Kwa, M., Welty, L. J. & Xu, S. (2017). Adverse events reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for cosmetics and personal care products, JAMA Intern Med 177(8), 1202-1204. Merrill, R. (2004). FDA regulatory requirements as Tort standards, J.L. & POLY 12 (1), 552-53. Menkart, J. (1979). An analysis of adverse reactions to cosmetic, Cutis 24(6), 599-662. Biebl, K. A. & Warshaw, E. M. (2006). Allergic contact dermatitis to cosmetics, Dermatol Clin 24(2), 215-232. Baran, R. & Maibach, H. I. (eds) (2017). Textbook of Cosmetic Dermatology, Fifth Edition, Boca Raton, FL USA: CRC Press. Barel, A. O., Paye, M. & Maibach, H. I. (eds) (2014). Handbook of Cosmetic Science and Technology, Fourth Edition, Boca Raton, FL U.S.: CRC Press. Berardesca, E., Elsner, P., Wilhelm, K.-P., &, Maibach, H. I. (eds) (1995). Bioengineering of the Skin: Methods and Instrumentation, Boca Raton, FL U.S.: CRC Press. Elsner, P., Berardesca, E. & Maibach, H. I. (eds) (1994). Bioengineering of the Skin: Water and the Stratum Corneum, Boca Raton, FL U.S.: CRC Press. Elsner, P., Berardesca, E., Wilhelm, K.-P. & Maibach, H. I. (eds) (2002). Bioengineering of the Skin: Skin Biomechanics, Boca Raton, FL U.S.: CRC Press. Fluhr, J., Elsner, P., Berardesca, E. & Maibach, H.I. (eds) (2004). Bioengineering of the Skin. Water and the Stratum Corneum, Second Edition, Boca Raton, FL U.S.: CRC Press. Wilhelm, K.-P., Elsner, P., Berardesca, E. & Maibach, H. I. (eds) (2007). Bioengineering of the Skin: Skin Imaging & Analysis, Second Edition, New York: Informa. Wilhelm, K.-P., Elsner, P., Berardesca, E. & Maibach, H. I. (eds) (1996). Bioengineering of the skin: Skin Surface Imaging and Analysis, Boca Raton, FL U.S.: CRC Press. Shai, A., Maibach, H. I. & Baran, R. (eds) (2009). Handbook of Cosmetic Skin Care, Second Edition, Boca Raton, FL U.S.: CRC Press. Sivamani, R. K., Jagdeo, J. R., Elsner, P. & Maibach, H. I. (eds) (2016). Cosmeceuticals and Active Cosmetics, Third Edition, Boca Raton, FL U.S.: CRC Press. Parilee King, 93 of Corsicana passed away Monday morning, June 14, 2021 at Legacy West. She was born November 11, 1927. Visitation will be Friday, June 18th from 9 a.m. - 10 a.m. at Griffin-Roughton Funeral Home Chapel with funeral service following at 10 a.m. Burial will be at Oakwood Cemet We are analyzing the site. Please wait a few seconds.. 100% Website voatibetan.com uses latest and advanced technologies. It supports HTTPS and GZIP compression. The main html page has a size of 80402 bytes (78.52 kb uncompressed) and 15852 bytes (15.48 kb compressed). This CoolSocial report was updated on 2021-04-19, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. CONWAY Anyone is welcome to attend the Living with Loss Support Group and can start at any time. All groups meet from 5:30pm - 7:30pm at the Speculation has abounded in recent days that some Conservative voices might not have been wholly without vested interest in hyping up the crisis of illegal immigrants crossing the Channel. After all, the Home Secretary has managed to position himself in second place in the next Tory leader stakes, and a headline-grabbing problem in UK border control while he is on holiday might, cynics suggest, threaten to take the shine off him to the gratification of some of his rivals. Maybe those theories are true, maybe they arent. Either way, complaining about such under-hand tactics or, worse, complaining about the medias keen interest in the story, regardless of its source would hardly be productive for Sajid Javid. Instead, he has sought to do what any successful politician would in the circumstances: get a lid on the issue as fast as possible, and try to turn it to his advantage. So it was that yesterday found the Home Secretary on the waterfront at Dover, in front of a television camera: Hes right, of course. Those fleeing murderous tyrants in Iran or Syria take large risks for good reasons. We should do our best to help defend their lives and liberty. Indeed, the UK has rightly done a huge amount to aid refugees in the Middle East including granting asylum to some of the most vulnerable people, transported to this country directly from camps in the region. One has to question the motivation to flee for asylum from France to this country, however. For all the disruption of the gilets jaunes protests against Emmanuel Macrons plans for punitive green taxes, our neighbour remains a prosperous and largely liberal country. There is no sign that those claiming asylum in the coastal towns of Kent are doing so because of their status as oppressed French diesel drivers. Admittedly, it is not always so simple as insisting refugees must stop in the first country they reach. Someone leaving Iran to avoid persecution for their race, sexuality or political beliefs might well have good reason not to feel safe in various neighbouring countries. It isnt hard to see why many Kurds are not keen on seeking asylum in Turkey, for example. But there are a lot of safe countries between here and Turkey. The awkward truth is that there is not always a clear distinction between refugees and economic migrants and the two statuses can, and do, mingle as a journey progresses. Many people travel extremely long distances and take huge risks simply out of desperation, knowing that the alternative is death. Some aim to reach this country in particular for reasons consistent with their suffering in their land of origin their religion, for example, or because they place particular faith in our rule of law. But some who begin their journeys in search of refuge also choose their destinations with economic considerations in mind, rather than stop in the first safe country as Javid suggests. Why wouldnt you try your best to go somewhere that you believe to offer a good chance of a decent job? Or where you already speak the language? In any circumstance, people will always aim for the best possible outcome for themselves. Thats human nature. Its also human nature that criminals are eternally ready to innovate in order to profit from the misery of others. The people-smuggling industry which flourished in the Mediterranean appears to have identified a new market opportunity in those seeking to cross the Channel. Those Labour MPs and refugee campaigners who are frothing furiously at Javids comments are doubly wrong. For a start, if they think their comments are harming him they are mistaken being under fire for a firm stance against illegal immigration across the Channel is not a bad place for a Conservative Home Secretary to find himself. If anything, their outrage aids him in reversing the reputational damage which the crisis threatened in the first place. More importantly, Javids critics seem to be speaking from a dangerous position of theory rather than practice. We already know what happens when politicians, no matter how well-intentioned, recklessly encourage refugees and other migrants to hand all their belongings to criminal gangs in order to risk their lives in perilous sea crossings. Angela Merkel sent just such an inviting message on the EUs behalf, and tens of thousands of people then died in the Mediterranean and the Aegean. Had Germany taken the same approach to aiding Syrian refugees as the UK did, focused on results rather than appearances, the outcome might have been very different. John Downer is a Director of High Speed Rail Industry Leaders (HSRIL), a group of companies and organisations which is committed to supporting the successful delivery of a world-class high speed rail network in Britain. Every few months and more often recently comes the call to scrap HS2 and spend the money on something else. And weve had it again this week on these very pages, reiterating previous suggestions that the Midlands and the North would be better served by investment in regional transport links. But, however tempting it might be to spend the budget of a few billions per year on something else, there is little more the Government could do to jeopardise the economic prospects of cities like Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, and Leeds than scrap a project which is so fundamental to their future economic development. For the most important thing to understand about HS2 is that it is not just a railway. It is an economic regeneration project (and the most important economic regeneration project in Britain for decades) which is catalysing a whole host of other investments in its wake. What holds Britain back today is not the connections from big cities to London, but poor connections between the other big cities. Services between cities like Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, and Newcastle are slow, unreliable, and overcrowded and HS2 is absolutely integral to tackling this. Remember your visit to Birmingham for the Party Conference in October? The cranes and building works were everywhere. Just outside the conference centre you saw the new headquarters of HSBC. Around the corner PwC is building their Midlands base, their biggest single investment outside London. In Leeds, you have major new investment from Burberry and a whole South Bank regeneration for which HS2 is intrinsic. There are similar stories in Manchester and Liverpool too. And then ask the city leaders, from all political parties, how important HS2 is to triggering that investment, and unanimously they will tell you it is vital. Indeed, the project has no greater champion than Andy Street, Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands. HS2 is about giving our great cities of the Midlands and the North the springboard to be the economic powerhouses of the future. Put harshly, without HS2, Britain has no strategy to grow our regional economies and no industrial strategy worthy of the name. For HS2 trains wont just reach those cities where the new line is being built. They will link into the rest of the network too, meaning that the services will reach 8 of the 10 biggest cities in Britain, reaching places like Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh that are far from the construction of the line itself. Thats not to say the other transport investment people call for isnt needed too. It is. And the Government is to be supported in the priority they are attaching to the Northern Powerhouse Rail project to improve east/west links across the north. But far from being an alternative to local transport investment, HS2 is a pre-requisite for it to be successful. To take one specific example, the West Coast Mainline is presently jam-packed. Passenger numbers on the route have more than doubled since it was last upgraded just 15 years ago, and there is simply no space to add new trains whether for commuters and inter-city travellers or for more freight off the motorways and onto rail. Building HS2 will move the inter-city traffic onto the new line, freeing up capacity for vital local, regional, and commuter services, so passengers in places like Milton Keynes and Coventry will benefit from HS2 as it will improve their commutes into London and Birmingham respectively. More widely still, the benefit of HS2 supply chain contracts are already being felt across the UK. Nus Ghani MP, the HS2 Minister, is hosting an event in Parliament next week to meet HS2 suppliers, and they come from far-and-wide, not just from the line of route. Already more than 2000 companies have worked on HS2. There are archaeologists from Bristol, ecological experts from Cardiff, and earth-moving contractors from Buckinghamshire. There are already two suppliers in Northern Ireland, 25 in Scotland and 65 in the South West. HS2 is a truly national project with truly national benefits, and those benefits will only grow over the coming years. For these businesses, the costs of cancelling HS2 right now would be enormous. Over 7,000 people are working on the project already, and that will become tens of thousands over the next couple of years, with 70 per cent of those jobs outside London. Cancelling it now would literally mean filling-in the freshly dug holes in Birmingham and Euston, and laying off all the apprentices working on site. Is that a serious proposition? All things considered, HS2 is about joining Britain back together again, after a number of years when our divisions have been more prominent than our unity. It is essential for the UK, and even more vital still for the Midlands and the North which stand to gain the most. The project is underway. The train has started its journey. Lets makes sure it reaches its destination and that taxpayers wring every last ounce of benefit from it. Alex King formerly worked in Parliament for the Policy Research Unit, and is now a public affairs consultant. When Sir Charles Napier, a 19th Century British general, gained control of the province of Sindh in south eastern Pakistan, he supposedly sent a message back to London consisting of just one word to relay his triumph: Peccavi, or I have sinned. Although likely apocryphal, the story now serves to demonstrate how some on the Remain side of the Brexit campaign have come to view those who voted Leave as sinners who are not only unrepentant, but who all along were simply aiming to realise a long dampened desire, to re-stake Britains claim to imperial power and splendour. The thinking goes that the Brexit vote was the last charge of a group of people who have not yet reconciled themselves to the end of empire, and who refuse to acknowledge that Britain is just an insignificant archipelago at the northern tip of Europe. These are the people who close their ears when they hear mention of the word Suez, who are still upset that we didnt send gunboats into Hong Kong harbour in 1997, and view Trident as the political equivalent of Viagra. They refuse to admit that Britain is a declining force in world affairs, and indulge in mad dreams that it can once again rule the world. Dreams of a glorious past that could be lived again have blinded them to the bleak reality, that Britains heyday as a world power is over and never coming back. This line of thinking has come to the fore in recent weeks, as commentators seek to explain why those who voted leave could still possibly want to leave the EU even after theyve been warned about the apparent damage it will do. Ryan Heath believes that Brexit is the story of a proud former imperial power undergoing a mid-life crisis and a way for Britain to feel big again, while Gary Younge thinks that An image was conjured of Britain striding out of the EU in top hat and tailstowards a glorious past. Fintan OToole was even more explicit, writing that a crucial reason for Brexit was the idea of the UKs vertiginous fall from heart of Empire to occupied colony. These ideas have been present in British politics for many years. Each time Britain suffers a failure of any kind on the international stage, the same quote from Dean Acheson, President Trumans Secretary of State, is gleefully trotted out, that Britain has lost an empire and not found a role. A large chunk of Remainers believe that the people in charge of Brexit sold implicit visions of Britain striding the world stage again, and people who for it voted swallowed it whole. What we are seeing, according to this analysis, is nothing less than the forlorn hope of a fallen empire. In his article, Younge goes on to quote what Kristian Jensen, the Danish finance minister, said last year, that There are two kinds of European nationsThere are small nations and there are countries that have not yet realised they are small nations, and notes that This is Britains most public and painful reckoning with its size and influence in its post-colonial state. O Toole reckons that in the imperial imagination, there are only two states: dominant and submissive, coloniser and colonised. When you have a post-colonial hammer, it turns out everything is an imperial nail. Such ideas are patronising and wholly unpersuasive to anyone who actually voted Leave. A pitch that tells all those who voted Leave for a better future that all they wanted was to replay Britannias greatest hits is unlikely to be much of a goer. But, most importantly, theyre also wrong. The last throw of the dice to try and cling on as an imperial power was in fact the decision to join the EEC, the EUs forerunner. Even as the wind of change was blowing through Africa, Harold Macmillan was advocating Britains membership of the EEC as a way of ensuring unity in the pursuit of strength in the struggle for freedom. As Macmillan said when announcing the Governments intention to join the EEC in 1961, This is a political as well as an economic issue. Although the Treaty of Rome is concerned with economic matters it has an important political objective, namely, to promote unity and stability in Europe which is so essential a factor in the struggle for freedom and progress throughout the world. The hope was that through the EEC, Britain would become greater than the sum of its parts, and continue playing its natural role as a global superpower, the leading actor in a theatre of nations. Acheson himself, in the same speech at West Point in 1962 where he questioned Britains future, said that our application to join the Common Market was a decisive turning point for modern Europe, and that a successful application would mean a step forward of vast importance will have been taken towards increasing European strength. This is the strange contradiction at the heart of the latest attempts to see empire at the heart of everything Britain does. Leaving the EU is apparently an attempt to relive such heady days, yet we would be leaving the very institution we joined to prolong our imperial adventure, while being consistently told that doing so would deprive us of weight and influence. The thinking seems to be that Britains futile attempt to increase its power by striking out alone is laughable, anachronistic and the product of imperial fantasy, but dont worry, if you stay in the EU you can still do it properly (and morally) as part of a group of former empire builders! When it comes to imperial ambition, apparently only teamwork makes the dream work. It is also quite galling to be accused of seeking a return to empire by proponents of an institution that consistently seeks all the trappings of empire, whether that is a national anthem, a star spangled banner, or greater common defence capabilities (read: an army). This is not the time or the place to conduct an in depth analysis of precisely what motivated millions of Leave voters to decide to vote to leave the EU. Some will indeed have voted for it out of a misplaced notion of the UKs place in the world, or because they believe Britain needs a more global outlook. Others will have voted for it for the very opposite reason, out of a desire to stop the world and be left alone. But tired and complacent ideas suggesting it was for one last imperial jolly need to be consigned to the dustbin of Brexit analyses. Dorothy B. Hamand, 88, of Georgetown, passed away at 11:30am, Monday, May 10, 2021, at OSF Sacred Heart Medical Center, Danville. She was born on September 13, 1932, in Rockville, Indiana the daughter of Emanuel and Rose {Milikin} Gubser, both deceased. She was married to Maynard Hamand on N The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission form Foreign capital attraction to see new forms: expert Updated: 09:59 - 03/01/2019 A foreign-invested company in Hai Duong Province. Transnational corporations are now looking for new types of investment such as franchising and licensing, which influence the management of host-country firms without owning stakes in those businesses__Photo: VNA Vietnam needs to learn about new forms of investment to raise appropriate policies for attracting foreign money, according to chairman of the Vietnam Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises Nguyen Mai.Mai said non-equity modes of investment (NEMs) would be an increasingly important form for attracting foreign capital in Vietnam.Several Vietnamese firms already attracted foreign investment via NEMs, he said, adding that Vingroups production of VinFast cars and Vsmart smartphones were clear examples, in which VinGroup cooperated with foreign companies to make the products.According to United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), NEMs or new forms of investment include contract manufacturing, services outsourcing, contract farming, franchising, licensing, management contracts and other types of contractual relationships.These are co-ordinated activities in trans-national corporations global value chains and influence the management of host-country firms without owning an equity stake in those firms.Mai said NEMs are becoming increasingly important in many countries which were in the process of transforming from low to high-added value supply chains.He cited an estimate of UNCTAD that NEMs of international production generated over US$2 trillion in sales in 2010, much of it in developing countries.Foreign investors were increasingly paying attention to NEMs when they invested abroad, Mai said, adding that NEMs would generate bigger benefits to receiving countries because the new forms of investment enabled producers in host countries to integrate into the global value chain.It is necessary for Vietnam to get updated about new forms of investment by transnational corporations to raise amendments and adjustments to foreign capital policies to attract high-quality capital inflow, Mai said.The draft strategy and orientations of attracting new-generation foreign investment for 2018-30 period published in March last year points out that NEMs were becoming increasingly popular in recent years, requiring amendments to Vietnams foreign investment attracting policies.The draft said new forms of investment would enable Vietnam to take part in the global value chain.Direct investment and NEMs would not eliminate each other, the draft said, adding that transnational corporations would participate in the host markets through NEMs first then decide to buy equity through the foundation of subsidiaries or venture companies later.Policies now should focus on not only attracting foreign direct investment but also NEMs, the draft said. In addition, policies must be developed with appropriateness to the development of the global value chains together with enhancing Vietnams production capacity and competitiveness.According to Mai, merger and acquisition (M&A) was also an important form for attracting foreign capital.Mai said if investors took part in corporate governance after M&A, the capital should be regarded as direct investment.Vietnam was also seeing a busy M&A market as the country was speeding up the privatization of State-owned enterprises and targeting to attract foreign investors in the process, he said.Statistics of the Ministry of Planning and Investment showed that foreign investors registered to pump a total of USD 35.46 billion into Vietnam last year, in which USD 9.9 billion was for capital contribution and buying states, a rise of nearly 160 percent over the previous year.- Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. SHOWS February 22, 2021 10.00 am Bazaar Corporate Radar Bazaar Corporate Radar is your window into the minds of top CEOs, Boardrooms, global economists, fund managers and sector analysts. If it?s making news, you?ll find it on Bazaar Corporate Radar. India and Mauritius are giving finishing touches to a landmark free trade agreement (FTA), which is aimed at liberalising norms to boost two-way commerce and investments, said sources familiar with the matter. India is seeing this deal as a gateway to African countries for its products and a deal could be sealed in the next few weeks, sources told CNBC-TV18. In an FTA, two trading partners cut or eliminate duties on majority of goods besides liberalising norms to promote services trade and boost investments. According to experts, India may not get a substantial benefit in the goods sector as Mauritius is a small market, but services sectors such as IT and tourism hold huge potential to enhance economic ties. Interestingly, Mauritius is also holding negotiations for a similar pact with China, with which India has a huge trade deficit. The trade gap was $63 billion in 2017-18. The island nation is the top source of foreign direct investment (FDI) into India. In 2017-18, India received $15.94 billion as compared to $15.73 billion in the previous financial year. The bilateral trade between the countries increased to $1.1 billion in 2017-18 from $900 million in 2016-17. India exports petroleum products, pharmaceuticals, cereals, cotton and electrical machinery, among others, to Mauritius. The island nation exports to New Delhi include iron and steel, pearls and precious/semi-precious stones. US President Donald Trump wants to protect Kurds in Syria, even as he pulls American forces out of the country. Were talking about sand and death. Thats what were talking about. Were not talking about vast wealth. Were talking about sand and death, is how Trump described Syria when taking questions from the media after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, explaining his decision to withdraw US forces. He denied there was a set timeline for the withdrawal, saying it would be over a period of time. I never said Im getting out tomorrow. I said were pulling our soldiers outBut were getting out very powerfully, Rudaw quoted him as saying. They will not, however, abandon the Kurds, he added, reasoning that the Kurdish forces fight better when they have US fire power backing them up. They fight better when we fight with them, he said of the Kurdish forces. You know, when we send 30 F-18s in front of them, they fight much better than they do when we dont. And youve seen whats happened. But we want to protect the Kurds, nevertheless, we want to protect the Kurds. The U.S. State Department on Thursday updated its travel warning about China, urging Americans to "exercise increased caution" in the country "due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws as well as special restrictions on dual U.S.-Chinese nationals." The State Department's "Level 2" warning, which was first issued last year, noted that Chinese authorities have "exit bans" to prevent U.S. citizens from leaving China, sometimes "for years." The updated warning notes that the bans are used "coercively" to "lure" people back to China from abroad, a point that was not mentioned when the warning was first issued. The bans are also used compel Americans to participate in Chinese government investigations and to help Chinese authorities resolve civil disputes "in favor of Chinese parties," the warning says. "In most cases, U.S. citizens only become aware of the exit ban when they attempt to depart China, and there is no method to find out how long the ban may continue. U.S. citizens under exit bans have been harassed and threatened," the warning said. A dog is seen on the lap of its owner in a plane in Chiba, Japan on January 27, 2017. United Airlines will no longer accept emotional-support kittens and puppies under four months of age and will ban emotional-support animals outright on long flights as it tries to crack down on soiled cabins and biting incidents that have harmed passengers and crew. The Chicago-based airline joins rival Delta Air Lines in tightening its rules. Delta took the lead in banning young puppies and kittens last month. Airlines have been tightening restrictions after a surge in emotional-support animals on flights. Passengers in recent years have brought animals other than dogs and cats including a turkey, a pig and a duck on board as emotional-support animals. United last year denied boarding to a passenger traveling with a peacock as an emotional-support animal. Support and service animals fly free of charge and without a carrier under the 1986 Air Carrier Access Act. But passengers and crew members have complained about animal allergies, dirtied cabins and aggression from the animals. A sign declares the National Archive is closed due to a partial federal government shutdown in Washington, December 22, 2018. If you're a federal employee, you probably rang in the New Year worrying about whether you will get paid. That is because a partial government shutdown started at midnight on Dec. 22. As of Jan. 3, the closure reached the 13-day mark. The longest government shutdown lasted 21 days, under President Bill Clinton. Approximately 800,000 federal workers are currently in financial limbo as politicians in Washington struggle to come to an agreement on U.S. border protections. If you live in certain states, your chances of being one of those employees working without pay or furloughed are greater. That is according to a new study from personal finance website WalletHub, which ranked all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Saudi Arabian prosecutors will seek the death penalty for five of the 11 suspects detained over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi state news agency SPA reported on Thursday, as a Saudi court held a first hearing on the case. Saudi Arabia said it also sent new letters to the Turkish public prosecutor asking for "any evidence connected to this case", which has rattled the Saudi royal court and damaged the reputation of 33-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Khashoggi was close to the royal circles before becoming a critic of Prince Mohammed and began writing for the Washington Post and speaking to international media about Saudi politics when he moved to the United States last year. Saudi officials have rejected accusations that the crown prince ordered his murder in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, in which Khashoggi's body was dismembered, removed from the building and handed over to an unidentified "local cooperator". The whereabouts of Khashoggi's remains are still unknown, but a Turkish television channel on Monday showed men carrying suitcases purportedly containing the remains into the residence of the Saudi consul general in Istanbul. "The initial hearing for the 11 individuals indicted by the Public Prosecution in the case of the murder of citizen Jamal Khashoggi was held today ... in the Criminal Court of Riyadh," a statement from the Saudi prosecutor carried by SPA said. The prosecutor's office said it was seeking the death penalty for five individuals of the 11 indicted. Ten other suspects were still under investigation. SPA added that the defendants' lawyers attended the hearing and the court approved a request from the 11 who asked for more time to prepare their defence. It did not give details on the next hearing. The statement said the kingdom was still waiting for responses to requests for information sent to Turkish officials. Last week, Saudi King Salman put Ibrahim al-Assaf, a veteran former finance minister, in charge of foreign affairs, in an effort to improve the kingdom's image after the crisis caused by the killing. Assaf replaced Adel al-Jubeir, and experts in Saudi politics said the move reflected a perception that Jubeir was tainted by having served as Riyadh's chief global defender during the Khashoggi affair. Robert Lighthizer, U.S. trade representative, speaks on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, as President Donald Trump and Steven Mnuchin look on, in the Rose Garden of the White House, Oct. 1, 2018. Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images As a 36-year-old deputy trade representative in the Reagan administration, Robert Lighthizer worried his counterparts in the Soviet Union didn't take him seriously. During negotiations over a long-term grain deal, the Soviets didn't "accept the fact that I was the person who was going to conduct the talks," he told The New York Times in an interview for a 1984 article. "But there came a point where it was clear they did.'' Flash forward more than three decades. After establishing his bona fides as a trade hard-liner over the years, Lighthizer's role negotiating with America's top economic rival in this case, China was again being challenged. This time, however, it was by people on his own team, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Just hours after Lighthizer, now 71, said that he would be leading the U.S. negotiating efforts with China, Mnuchin and Larry Kudlow, the head of the National Economic Council, said that, in fact, President Donald Trump himself would be leading the talks. As the U.S. and China, the world's two largest economies, race to meet a March 2 deadline to reach a trade deal, the ideological divide between the White House's two trade camps, led by Lighthizer and Mnuchin, has taken on a new significance. Trump tweet Putting further pressure on those fault lines is a tumbling stock market, which analysts have attributed in part to global growth concerns prompted by Trump's trade war. On one side is Lighthizer, who, along with Peter Navarro, the director of the National Trade Council, has staked out a stance that is largely indifferent to the stock market. The former international lawyer, who leads the agency responsible for crafting trade deals, has long accused China of rigging agreements unfairly in its favor. He has called March 2 a "hard deadline" and said that after that date, tariffs will increase on the country if no deal is reached. When Trump wavers in his resolve, Lighthizer brandishes a single-page document that he carries around with him that contains a list of failed trade talks with China, The New York Times reported this month, citing administration officials. While other officials have their eye on the stock market, Lighthizer has his eye on that history. On the other side is the Treasury secretary, Mnuchin, who in attempts to reassure investors has taken a different tack. Mnuchin opposes a long-lasting trade war and has issued public statements seeking to calm the markets. After Trump met with Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires late last year, Mnuchin helped craft the president's post-summit messaging, according to the Times. Mnuchin is a former Goldman Sachs banker who said shortly after taking on his new role that he saw the stock market as the administration's "report card." He has been accused by China skeptics of taking a soft stance on trade negotiations with the country. "I have never met a Goldman Sachs banker who wanted to get tough on China," Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, told Mnuchin during his confirmation hearings in 2017. Market turmoil persists While Lighthizer is deeply, ideologically committed to reining in alleged Chinese abuses, Mnuchin's background in finance has given him a more transactional mindset, said Dan Ikenson, the director of the Cato Institute's Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies. "Lighthizer would see some pain in the U.S. economy as a necessary evil, just like the D-Day invasion," said Ikenson, who has known Lighthizer for years and once debated him. "I do believe that Trump is probably more inclined to listen to Mnuchin when he is thinking about the stock market and the economy for his election," Ikenson said. "But he is more inclined to listen to Lighthizer if he is thinking about the long term and being tough on China and reining them in." Trump tweet 2 On Dec. 3, two days after the meeting with Xi, Trump called the meeting "extraordinary" and said that relations with the country "have taken a BIG leap forward! Very good things will happen." Also that day, on CNBC, Mnuchin called the meeting a "breakthrough moment" and suggested that a deal would be forthcoming. "The president is not concerned about where the stock market is on any one given day and isn't going to be focused on that, although I will tell you he does watch the stock market," Mnuchin said. Since the meeting, the markets have continued to tumble. U.S. equities suffered their worst December since the Great Depression last month, losing nearly $3 trillion in value and locking in 2018 as the worst year for markets in a decade. While the president has not pulled back from his hard stance on China, his focus on the market puts him at odds with Lighthizer, who, unlike both Trump and Mnuchin, generally avoids discussing equities in relation to trade talks. On Thursday, the president called the market collapse a "glitch" and projected a turnaround once a trade deal was reached. "It's going to go up once we settle trade issues and a couple of other things happen," Trump said. "It's got a long way to go." Breaking point Kevin Hassett, economic advisor to President Donald Trump, said Thursday that the slowing Chinese economy could hurt the earnings and revenue of U.S. corporations doing business there. "There are a heck of a lot of U.S. companies that have a lot of sales in China that are basically going to be watching their earnings be downgraded ... until we get a deal with China," Hassett said on CNN. "It's not going to be just Apple." Hassett's comments on CNN, and similar remarks to reporters outside the White House Thursday, came as Apple shares were getting slammed after CEO Tim Cook acknowledged a slowdown in fiscal first-quarter sales, in an investor letter released late Wednesday. Cook said, in a subsequent CNBC interview, that "trade tensions between the United States and China put additional pressure on their economy." Hasan Minhaj took to Twitter to make a satirical response to Netflix's decision to pull an episode of his show "Patriot Act" in Saudi Arabia. "Clearly, the best way to stop people from watching something is to ban it, make it trend online, and then leave it up on YouTube," the U.S. comedian said in a Twitter post Wednesday. Tweet An episode of the show blasting Saudi Arabia over the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the country's role in the Yemen civil war was taken down by Netflix last week. The U.S. streaming giant removed it after the Saudi government made a legal request, alleging the content violated anti-cybercrime rules. Article 6 of Saudi Arabia's anti-cybercrime law prohibits the "production, preparation, transmission, or storage of material impinging on public order, religious values, public morals, and privacy" on the internet. Netflix maintains the decision was taken following a "valid legal request" from the Kingdom to remove the episode. It stressed that its position was consistent with how other U.S.-based firms operate. The episode can still be viewed in Saudi Arabia via YouTube. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), addresses the media outside of her home after announcing she formed an exploratory committee for a 2020 Presidential run on December 31, 2018 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She also said billionaires running for president should not self-fund their campaigns. The commitment to shut down the fund comes after Warren told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Wednesday that she believes candidates running for the party's nomination should avoid funding their campaigns through PACs. "We are in process of winding down Action Fund," Orthman said in an email. Warren, a liberal from Massachusetts, is closing her joint fundraising committee, the Elizabeth Warren Action Fund, as she explores a run for the White House, according to her chief spokeswoman, Kristen Orthman. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is following her own advice to fellow Democrats about rejecting money from political action committees to help fund their campaigns in the 2020 presidential election. "I just mean that people should not be self-funding and they should not be funded from PACs from other billionaires," Warren said, urging candidates to use the primary process to get in touch with grassroots voters and activists. "Get out there, trust your message." Her call for billionaires not to self-fund campaign operations follows CNBC's reporting that Democratic donor and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg was prepared to spend more than $100 million on his own campaign organization if he were to run in 2020. Tom Steyer, a liberal billionaire from California, is also considering a run for president and will travel to the caucus and primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada early this year. The Iowa caucuses kick off the election season a year from now, but candidates are expected to announce their bids over the next several weeks. Democratic presidential candidates will start debating each other later this year. Others who are considering running include former Vice President Joe Biden, Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, and Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker. Tweet: The move by Warren to close her joint fundraising committee is significant in two ways. On one hand, it means that Warren is likely limiting her ability to turn to big donors to help bolster her campaign if she were to officially jump into the race. The committee raised $4.9 million during Warren's 2018 Senate re-election campaign, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. It transferred $3.6 million to Warren's official campaign for Senate, which ended up raising $25 million and finished with $12.5 million on hand. The PAC's top donors ranged from investment bankers to attorneys across the United States. Henry Goldberg, chairman of investment and asset management firm Artery Capital Group, donated $15,400 in August, according to a Federal Election Commission filing. Employees at class action and civil litigation law firm Berger Montague combined to give $35,800. However, Warren's attempt to distance herself from the PAC is the latest example of her trying to appeal to the liberal, small-donor base of the Democratic Party, which historically has been against candidates turning to megadonors to influence their campaigns. The issue was a major factor in one of the most-watched races of 2018. In deep-red Texas, O'Rourke made a point of shunning corporate donations and outside money as he nearly upset GOP Sen. Ted Cruz. O'Rourke still broke fundraising records as he raised more than $80 million during the campaign. A large chunk of that sum $36 million came from small donors, or people who gave $200 or less. During the 2016 election, liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont followed through with his promise of not accepting contributions from corporations. Part of his platform was focused on campaign finance reform. While Sanders did win a number of state primaries, he ended up losing the nomination to Hillary Clinton. If Sanders runs in 2020, he will be following the same pledge he made the last time around. Apple, under severe pressure after cutting its fiscal first-quarter revenue guidance, could eventually bottom out at $120 per share or about 16 percent lower than Thursday's open, CNBC's Jim Cramer predicted. However, Cramer, whose charitable trust owns shares of Apple, said Thursday on "Squawk on the Street" that he likes the stock over the long term. He's also long warned investors against selling Apple's stock. Shares of Apple plunged 8.8 percent to $143.98 at Thursday's open on Wall Street after issuing a rare sales warning late Wednesday. The stock had closed before the news at $157.92. The U.S. tech giant blamed longer upgrade cycles and headwinds in China for lower-than-expected iPhone sales. It now expects fiscal first-quarter revenue to be as much as $9 billion lower than previous projections. Wall Street analysts, who had been peppering Apple's stock with downgrades in recent months, have been concerned the company would suffer declines in iPhone unit sales over the next couple of years. The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Iran on Thursday to cease all nuclear-related activities after Tehran announced plans for three rocket launches in coming months, The National reports. While Irans defence ministry said it planned to launch Space Launch Vehicles (SLVs), these incorporate technology that is virtually identical to that used in ballistic missiles, including in intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), Mr Pompeo said in a statement. The United States has continuously cautioned that ballistic missile and SLV launches by the Iranian regime have a destabilising effect on the region and beyond, Mr Pompeo said, adding that an ICBM with a range of 10,000 kilometres could reach the US. Overpriced iPhones, anemic innovation and market saturation forced Apple on the first trading day of the year to take a bite out of its revenue guidance, analysts and investors told CNBC on Thursday. After cutting fiscal first-quarter guidance by about 8 percent on Wednesday, CEO Tim Cook heaped much of the blame on China's economy and Sino-U.S. trade relations in a preliminary disclosure. Apple bull Gene Munster, who predicts the tech giant will be a top performer in the so-called FAANG group, said the cut is not because of competition or a shift in consumer needs. "This is caused by some issues around economics and some mistakes the company's made around aggressively pricing their phones," the Loup Ventures founder said on "Squawk Box." "They jumped the price [of iPhones] by 23 percent this fall." Apple reduced its revenue estimates, from as much as $93 billion to $84 billion, along with gross margin. The decrease was driven, among other factors, by weaker-than-expected iPhone sales in emerging markets with a shortfall coming "primarily in greater China," Cook said in an interview with CNBC's Josh Lipton on Wednesday. But AlphaOne Capital Partners' Dan Niles, who turned sour on the stock last May, told CNBC on Thursday that many of the challenges Cook pointed to were already known halfway through 2018. He scolded Apple for having the "wrong strategy" in raising iPhone prices in emerging markets, including Brazil, Russia and India. "Part of the issue here is that Apple's not acknowledging the real problems that they have," Niles said later on "Squawk Box." Brian Schwartz Sen. Elizabeth Warren is closing her joint fundraising committee as she urges fellow Democratic candidates for president to reject money from political action committees. The commitment to shut down the committee comes after Warren told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that she believes people running for the party's nomination in 2020 should avoid funding their campaigns through PACs. Warren also called on billionaires who might run for president, such as Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, to avoid self-funding their campaigns. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is following her own advice to fellow Democrats about rejecting money from political action committees to help fund their campaigns in the 2020 presidential election. Warren, a liberal from Massachusetts, is closing her joint fundraising committee, the Elizabeth Warren Action Fund as she explores a run for the White House, according to her chief spokeswoman, Kristen Orthman. "We are in process of winding down Action Fund," Orthman said in an email. The commitment to shut down the fund comes after Warren told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Wednesday that she believes candidates running for the party's nomination should avoid funding their campaigns through PACs. She also said billionaires running for president should not self-fund their campaigns. "I just mean that people should not be self-funding and they should not be funded from PACs from other billionaires," Warren said, urging candidates to use the primary process to get in touch with grassroots voters and activists. "Get out there, trust your message." Her call for billionaires not to self-fund campaign operations follows CNBC's reporting that Democratic donor and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg was prepared to spend over $100 million on his own campaign organization if he were to run in 2020. Tom Steyer, a liberal billionaire from California, is also considering a run for president and will travel to the early caucus and primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada early this year. The Iowa Caucuses kick off the election season a year from now, but candidates are expected to announce their bids over the next several weeks. Democratic presidential candidates will start debating each other later this year. Others who are considering running include former Vice President Joe Biden, Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, and Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker. The move by Warren to close her joint fundraising committee is significant in two ways. On one hand, it means that Warren is likely limiting her ability to turn to big donors to help bolster her campaign if she were to officially jump into the race. The committee raised $4.9 million during Warren's 2018 Senate re-election campaign, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. It transferred $3.6 million to Warren's official campaign for Senate, which ended up raising $25 million and finished with $12.5 million on hand. The PAC's top donors ranged from investment bankers to attorneys across the United States. Henry Goldberg, chairman of investment and asset management firm Artery Capital Group LLC, donated $15,400 in August, according to a Federal Election Commission filing. Employees at class action and civil litigation law firm Berger Montague combined to give $35,800. However, Warren's attempt to distance herself from the PAC is the latest example of her attempt to appeal to the liberal, small-donor base of the Democratic Party, which historically has been against candidates turning to megadonors to influence their campaigns. The issue was a major factor in one of the most-watched races of 2018. In deep-red Texas, O'Rourke made a point of shunning corporate donations and outside money as he nearly upset GOP Sen. Ted Cruz. O'Rourke still broke fundraising records as he raised over $80 million during the campaign. A large chunk of that sum $36 million came from small donors, or people who gave $200 or less. During the 2016 election, liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont followed through with his promise of not accepting contributions from corporations. Part of his platform was focused on campaign finance reform. While Sanders did win a number of state primaries, he ended up losing the nomination to Hillary Clinton. If he runs in 2020, he will be following the same pledge he made the last time around. About CNBC: With CNBC in the U.S., CNBC in Asia Pacific, CNBC in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and CNBC World, CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news and provides real-time financial market coverage and business information 410 million homes worldwide, including more than 90 million households in the United States and Canada. 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Geopolitical tensions took their toll as Chinese purchases of U.S. firms plummeted by 94.6 percent, falling to a value of $3 billion from a record $55.3 billion in 2016, according to research released by Mergermarket on Thursday. China instead turned its attention to Europe, the data suggested, as Chinese M&A bids in the region soared by 81.7 percent to $60.4 billion. Elsewhere, the number of cross-border M&A deals fell by 6.6 percent. After steadily rising for close to a decade, the total number of deals struck globally fell to 19,232 from 19,974. While the number of deals fell, individual deals rose in value, with the average deal size reaching its second highest value on record at $385 million and total M&A value rising 11.5 percent to $3.53 trillion. Jonathan Klonowski, Mergermarket's EMEA research editor, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Wednesday that he expected geopolitical tensions to continue impacting the number of deals finalized in 2019. "If you look at the protectionist activities of governments, they are going to make these large deals harder to complete," he said. "The majority of (the spending) increase we saw this year was domestic activity rather than cross-border activity, so that defensive domestic consolidation is possibly what we'll see more of in the coming year." Canaccord Genuity upgraded Google-parent Alphabet to buy from hold, calling it the most defensive stock among the "FANG" names. The company's revenue should grow 15 percent to 20 percent for the next two to three years, which "coupled with abating gross margin pressure and continued share buybacks," should lead to more than 15 percent annual growth rate between 2020 and 2022, according to Canaccord. "Competitive risk from Amazon's advertising business is likely manageable, and we view Google as the most defensive of the FANG stocks given the steady performance and reasonable valuation," Canaccord's analyst Maria Ripps said in a note on Thursday. Canaccord also increased its 12-month price target for Alphabet to $1,250 from $1,140, which would represent a 22 percent gain from its Thursday's close at $1,023. Shares of Alphabet lost about 3 percent in 2018 while the fell 6 percent. The FANG stocks had a stellar first half of 2018 but saw their shares tumble during the past three months. Facebook shares have fallen 13 percent. Amazon shares also have fallen more than 20 percent since the company reached a $1 trillion valuation earlier this year. Netflix shares are down 30 percent in three months on concerns about slowing subscriber growth. Bristol-Myers Squibb is buying cancer drugmaker Celgene in a cash and stock deal valued at $74 billion, the companies announced Thursday. Under the agreement, Celgene shareholders will receive one Bristol-Myers Squibb share and $50 in cash for each share held, or $102.43 per share, a premium of 53.7 percent to Celgene's Wednesday close. Shares of Celgene surged 28 percent in midmorning trading, to near $85 per share, while shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb fell 11 percent. "Together with Celgene, we are creating an innovative biopharma leader, with leading franchises and a deep and broad pipeline that will drive sustainable growth and deliver new options for patients across a range of serious diseases," Bristol-Myers Squibb Chairman and CEO Giovanni Caforio said in a press release. Wall Street analysts see the deal as a big win for Celgene. The company was set to lose patent protection by 2022 for Revlimid, its top-selling multiple myeloma drug, concerning investors. The stock has fallen more than 37 percent over the past year. Early last year, Celgene agreed to buy the rest of Juno Therapeutics it didn't already own for about $9 billion in cash to gain access to Juno's pipeline of cancer drugs. The company has been working on an experimental new gene therapy called CAR T-cell therapy taking a patient's own immune cells, called T cells, genetically manipulating them to attack specific proteins on cancer, and infusing them back into the patient. CAR T-cell therapy is a highly competitive and potentially lucrative area of biotechnology. BMO Capital Markets analyst Alex Arfaei said Thursday the proposed acquisition seems expensive; however, it probably addresses a major strategic priority for New York-based Bristol, which has had several R&D setbacks in the past few years. New Jersey-based Celgene has also "been under significant pressure given concerns about Revlimid," he said in a note to clients. Buying Celgene gives Bristol more cancer drugs at a time when its immuno-oncology portfolio struggles to keep up with rival Merck's. But there's skepticism about the deal's price tag. The boards of directors of both companies approved the deal, which is expected to close in the third quarter. The combined company will have nine products with more than $1 billion in annual sales and significant potential for growth in oncology, immunology and inflammation and cardiovascular disease. The deal is expected to realize $2.5 billion in synergies by 2022. The two companies have been talking since Sept. 2018, when Bristol approached Celgene. Bristol-Myers Squibb shareholders will own approximately 69 percent of the company, and Celgene shareholders are expected to own 31 percent. Caforio will continue to serve as chairman and CEO of the company. Two members from Celgene's board will be added to the board of Bristol-Myers Squibb. CNBC's David Faber and Angelica Lavito contributed to this report. Jair Bolsonaro, far-right lawmaker and presidential candidate for the Social Liberal Party (PSL), gives thumbs up to supporters during the second round of the presidential elections, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on October 28, 2018. Brazil's freshly appointed president has taken to Twitter to announce plans to privatize 12 airports and 4 sea ports. Right-wing nationalist Jair Bolsonaro was sworn in as Brazil's president on Tuesday, promising in his inauguration speech to "create a new virtuous cycle to open markets" and "carry out important structural reforms." Bolsonaro's election campaign included promises to transition parts of Brazil's economy away from state-run enterprises to more private sector operations, and a tweet on Thursday appeared to underline a commitment to that ideology. The president claimed that privatizing airports and ports would raise initial investments of 7 billion reais ($1.85 bn). https://twitter.com/jairbolsonaro/status/1080768981986934784 Prior to his inauguration, the new leader slammed Brazil's economy as being weighed down by "hundreds of bureaucratic governing bodies", claiming his government would aim to "untangle the mess." It is forecast the state sell-off will gather pace with more than 250 billion reais worth of assets potentially set to go on the block. The unemployment rate in Brazil declined to 11.6 percent in the three months to November of 2018 from 12.1 percent in the three months to August. It is the lowest jobless rate since the three months to July 2016, but still way above a record low of 6.2 percent in December of 2013. Brazil recorded a government budget deficit equal to 7.8 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (gdp) in 2017 and reducing public debt is seen as another one of Bolsonaro's biggest challenges. One key test will be whether the new president can gather enough political support to take on the reform of Brazil's hugely expensive state pension obligations. The 63-year-old is Brazil's first far-right president since the country ended rule by military dictatorship in 1985. One in three of his cabinet are former army officers, many of who have openly praised the country's 1964-1985 military regime. In only three months, Apple has lost $452 billion in market capitalization, including tens of billions on Thursday as the tech giant's stock sank further. Apple shares have fallen by 39.1 percent since Oct. 3, when the stock hit a 52-week high of $233.47 a share. With its market cap down to about $674 billion, those losses are larger than individual value of 496 members of the S&P 500 including Facebook and J.P. Morgan. Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Berkshire Hathaway are the only S&P 500 members with larger market caps than Apple's loss since its recent high. To put the Apple market value plunge in context, $446 billion is: more than double the size of Wells Fargo more than three times the size of McDonald's more than five times the size of Costco more than 10 times the size of Raytheon Apple gave a sudden warning to investors on Wednesday afternoon, lowering its fiscal first-quarter revenue guidance. Wall Street reacted, with one analyst saying this will represent Apple's "biggest miss in years" and another saying the company's announcement "raises more questions than answers." Apple CEO Tim Cook's letter to investors blamed a variety of factors for the guidance cut, including declining iPhone revenue and China's weakening economy. Apple stock closed Thursday trading down 10 percent at $142.19 a share. CNBC's Chris Hayes contributed to this report. WATCH: Apple's problems more serious than macroeconomic An economic slowdown in China may have a "chilling effect" on many companies that do business in the country, an analyst told CNBC on Thursday. On Wednesday, iPhone maker Apple slashed first-quarter guidance on revenue, partly blaming the revision on a weakening economy in China and lower-than-expected iPhone revenue "primarily in Greater China." The region represents about 15 percent of Apple's revenue, according to analysts. "China has been an engine of growth for many global companies over the last couple of decades and that may be coming to an end," Gil Luria, director of research at D.A. Davidson & Co, said. "The trade conflict may make this trend worse for companies doing business in China, but it is not appearing to be the only cause for the slowdown." Beijing is caught up in an ongoing trade war with Washington and experts have warned about potential ramifications. Recent economic data out of China have been soft: Factory activity in December across small, medium and large enterprises slowed, sparking concerns about Asia's largest economy. China's GDP growth, meanwhile, has fallen to its slowest pace in more than two decades. The government has said it is cracking down on debt and trying to re-balance its economy to be more consumption driven, so some slowdown had been anticipated. Against that backdrop, not all foreign tech companies doing business in China would be affected as much as the iPhone maker, several analysts told CNBC. For example, Apple's big smartphone rival, Samsung Electronics, likely would not take a major hit from a Chinese economic slowdown due to its limited exposure in the country. "Apple is somewhat unique in the large level of presence it has in China versus many other American tech companies/brands, so I'm not sure that what happens to Apple will apply to all tech companies, or all American companies," Bob O'Donnell, president and chief analyst at Technalysis Research, told CNBC by email. That said, he added, businesses are set to be "much more sensitive to China-specific results" and will watch developments in the country more closely. Activist hedge fund manager Dan Loeb is another all star that struggled big time in 2018. His firm Third Point lost about 6 percent in December alone, bringing its yearly loss to about 11 percent, according to figures obtained by CNBC's Leslie Picker. Loeb is not alone in losing big money last year. Billionaire manager David Einhorn had a tougher year, with his main hedge fund losing 34 percent in 2018, the worst performance since Einhorn started the firm in 1996. The stock market, stirred by the trade conflicts and worries on a slowing economy, ended 2018 with the down 6 percent. Prior to 2018, Loeb had nearly doubled the S&P 500s return for more than two decades. His main hedge fund returned 18.1 percent in 2017, while many of his peers significantly underperformed the market. The fund gained 6.1 percent in 2017. Third Point has a roughly 7 percent stake in Campbell Soup, which Loeb had been lobbying to add five directors to Campbell's board. The company and Third Point reached a deal to add two of Loeb's nominees to the board and allow the hedge fund to give input on its CEO search. CNBC's Leslie Picker contributed reporting. Some major banks are offering assistance to help customers who are affected by the government shutdown. Congress and President Donald Trump have been at a standoff over funding for a border wall. In all, about 800,000 federal employees are expected to be furloughed or working without pay. Affected workers are already grappling with incoming bills. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management's verified Twitter account posted sample letters for federal workers to use with landlords and creditors as they seek relief for payments. Tweet Several banks have stepped up to provide federal employees with help through existing consumer assistance programs. Wells Fargo said it will consider reversing overdraft fees for customers whose income has been disrupted due to the shutdown. Further, mortgage, loan and credit consumers may qualify for forbearance or other payment assistance programs. What exactly consumers can qualify for will depend on their individual circumstances, said Tom Goyda, a spokesman for Wells Fargo. Click here for more information on the bank's program. Bank of America has also offered some help for affected clients. "Our Client Assistance Program is available and designed to help clients experiencing financial hardship," said spokesman Lawrence Grayson. The relief that consumers can receive will depend on the particulars of their situations, but may include fee waivers, loan modifications and more, he said. Consumers can call the bank's assistance line at (844) 219-0690. Chase, the consumer banking arm of JPMorgan Chase & Co., said it would assist clients affected by the shutdown, encouraging them to call its special care line at 1-888-356-0023. Citi has also said that it's offering assistance for clients facing hardship. Click here for a list of federal agencies and their contingency plans amid the shutdown. Here's how federal workers can shore up their finances and get through any lean times ahead. U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized U.S. generals for not defeating the Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan after 19 years of involvement, Voice of America reports. Speaking to reporters at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, Trump said the generals were given "all the money they wanted" and "didn't do such a great job in Afghanistan." The president questioned justification for the expense in a country thousands of miles away from the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping leave a business leaders event at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9, 2017. Nicolas Asfouri | AFP | Getty Images Apple slashed its revenue forecast on Wednesday amid trade tensions between the U.S. and China, but it's not the first company to signal trade impacts. In a letter to investors, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company saw lower-than-expected sales primarily in China. Cook told CNBC's Josh Lipton that the trade dispute with the U.S. is exacerbating economic issues in China. "It's clear that the economy began to slow there in the second half and I believe the trade tensions between the United States and China put additional pressure on their economy," Cook said Wednesday. Apple shed 7 percent postmarket. Shares of semiconductor stocks fell after the announcement. Industrial giant Caterpillar, which draws a substantial amount of business from the Asia Pacific region, also saw its shares fall 3 percent in after-hours trade. The tech executive's comments come amid ongoing trade disputes between the Washington and Beijing governments. While the two countries temporarily agreed in early December to pause tariff escalations, headlines about the ongoing negotiations have continued to send jitters through the market. Prior to that agreement, China and the U.S. had gone back and forth threatening to implement tariffs on billions of dollars worth of imports. U.S. stock futures fell late Wednesday following Cook's letter. Many business leaders have said an extended U.S.-China trade war would negatively impact business, or at the very least reduce visibility. Apple previously sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer saying President Donald Trump's proposed tariffs on China would affect a number of its products, increasing costs for consumers. "It is difficult to see how tariffs that hurt U.S. companies and U.S. consumers will advance the Government's objectives with respect to China's technology policies," Apple said in the September letter. "We hope, instead, that you will reconsider these measures and work to find other, more effective solutions that leave the U.S. economy and U.S. consumer stronger and healthier than ever before." In December, FedEx CEO Frederick Smith said "most of the issues that we're dealing with today are induced by bad political choices." He listed China as one of the company's global concerns. Alibaba founder Jack Ma previously said the frictions could last for two decades and would be "a mess" for all parties involved. Dell CEO Michael Dell told CNBC in July that the U.S. and China face a "mutually assured destruction" if trade relations collapse, adding that "no one will win" a trade war. General Motors mentioned uncertainty around China in the bleak picture of the global economy described in talking points distributed to managers in October as the automaker offered buyouts to 17,700 employees. "We cannot afford to wait and see what happens in the industry, or with China, or in international trade or currency, to then react," the severance document said. "Even if macro-economic factors are partially to blame, continuing to lower guidance to Wall Street is not an option." But not every company is pessimistic about its future in China. Banks have entered 2019 in good spirits. The KBE bank ETF rallied more than 1 percent on Wednesday, a good start after closing out 2018 with its worst losses in seven years. While the rest of the group rallies, Dick Bove of Rafferty Capital Markets has a warning on one industry leader. "I don't want to touch Goldman Sachs," Bove said on CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Wednesday. "People really don't understand what the issue is concerning Goldman Sachs. It's that they were involved in this huge scandal related to Malaysia. It's the fact that their compliance operations internally seem to have broken down." Goldman Sachs has been wrapped up in a scandal involving Malaysian state investment fund 1MDB, for which the bank had orchestrated three bond deals in 2012 and 2013 that raised $6.5 billion. The 1MDB fund has been mired in impropriety involving allegations of corruption and money laundering. The Malaysian government has since asked Goldman for $7.5 billion in reparations. A Goldman Sachs spokesman did not immediately return an after-hours message left by CNBC on Thursday. The firm has denied wrongdoing, and accuses members of the former Malaysian government and 1MDB of lying to the firm about the use of proceeds from the transactions. Bove says Goldman's involvement with the scandal-ridden fund either uncovers ineptitude at the top of the company or a failure of its systems. "In order for some entity to give $6 billion over three issuances, the highest level of the company must agree to it," Bove said. "The net effect is that the company cannot say that they did not approve this at every level. But then what they can say is we were victimized and if you were victimized it's because your systems are no good." That Catch-22 will lead to a regulatory hangover that could weigh on Goldman Sachs for years and cost them millions, says Bove. "The Fed comes in and it says, 'OK, what we need to do is take a look at all of your internal systems everything from human resources, all the way out to risk management,'" Bove said. "It costs tens of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars to do that. And it takes two to three years because it isn't a simple run-through." As for the rest of financials, Bove says heavy losses in 2018 have made for more attractive valuations."I don't think anyone could make a case that bank stocks are expensive and I definitely don't think that they can make the case that there is some weakness that's going to show up from operating earnings," he said. However, Bove remains in wait-and-see mode until he can dig into the major banks' loan portfolios when they report in coming weeks. Citigroup, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley kick off the reporting season with their earnings reports in the week beginning Jan. 14. "I pledge that this Congress will be transparent, bipartisan and unifying; that we will seek to reach across the aisle in this Chamber and across the divisions across our nation," Pelosi said. Following the vote, Pelosi took the speaker's gavel from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, holding it up to House members and smiling before delivering remarks. She promised to "stand our ground where we can, but always extend the hand of friendship." Pelosi, the first woman to serve as speaker, takes the post again on the 13 th day of a partial government shutdown, amid a spat with Trump over whether to fund his proposed border wall. On immigration, health care and other issues, she has pledged to claw back against the president and the GOP. But she has promised to find areas to work with Republicans potentially on updating infrastructure and lowering drug prices. The California Democrat received 220 votes out of a possible 430. After numerous Democrats pledged to oppose Pelosi, only 15 members of the party voted against the representative on the House floor following her efforts to quash the opposition. After the vote was announced Thursday, Pelosi embraced colleagues as Democrats stood and applauded. Pelosi, 78, starts her second stint leading the House after eight years of Republicans controlling the chamber. She will lead a Democratic majority at a time when the party has to decide when and how forcefully to challenge President Donald Trump and the GOP-held Senate. The new Democratic-held House voted Nancy Pelosi its speaker on Thursday, vaulting the representative back to the pinnacle of her power at a critical moment for her party. House Speaker-delegate Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) raises the gavel after being elected as House Speaker as the U.S. House of Representatives meets for the start of the 116th Congress inside the House Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 3, 2019. Later in the day, Trump congratulated Pelosi and said "hopefully we're going to have a lot of things that we can get done together." He cited infrastructure as an area in which they can cooperate. To reclaim the speaker's gavel, Pelosi navigated 2018 midterm elections in which she took a drubbing from Republicans and even many Democrats. After her party gained a net 40 GOP-held seats in November, she struck a series of deals to hold off rebellion within her party. Some Democrats who called for new leadership ended up opposing Pelosi for speaker, but she secured enough votes to lead the House again. Democrats plan a flurry of activity with their new 235-199 majority in the House. They aim to pass bills Thursday night to reopen the nine unfunded U.S. departments, though the Senate has pledged not to take up the proposals as Trump threatens to veto them. Democrats also plan to quickly pass a sweeping anti-corruption bill, among other largely symbolic measures meant to set a tone for their majority. In her remarks, Pelosi outlined several areas on which Democrats want to focus: shielding the Affordable Care Act and Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits addressing climate change cutting drug prices overhauling U.S. infrastructure strengthening gun background checks ending discrimination against LGBTQ Americans protecting young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Pelosi has stressed that she wants to focus first on noncontroversial measures with broad public support. She said the "overdue" proposals to boost background checks, strengthen LGBTQ protections and shield so-called Dreamers "have bipartisan support in this body." Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., nominated Pelosi for speaker on Thursday afternoon to loud applause from House Democrats and polite clapping from even some Republicans. The representative said "Nancy Pelosi is just getting started." In introducing Pelosi, McCarthy called her an "experienced leader," a "fighter for her causes" and a "true trailblazer." He said a period of divided government "no excuse for gridlock and inaction." However, he said "Republicans will always choose personal freedom over government control." After holding off opposition both from the GOP and within her party, Pelosi faces new challenges in the nearly two years before the November 2020 presidential election. Democrats want to challenge Trump's policies and investigate what they call corruption in his administration. But they do not want to go too far and alienate the independent and moderate voters who they may need to win the presidency or keep the House in the next election. Democratic leaders have pledged to go after Trump's tax returns and probe his personal businesses, among a bevy of other potential investigations. However, they see pushing for the president's impeachment as one way to drive voters back toward Trump. In an interview with NBC's "TODAY" that aired Thursday morning, Pelosi said Democrats would wait to see the conclusion of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation before deciding whether to impeach Trump. "We shouldn't be impeaching for a political reason, and we shouldn't avoid impeachment for a political reason," she said. Pelosi has represented the San Francisco-area for more than 30 years. She has led House Democrats for more than 16 of those years. Her first stint as speaker came lasted from 2007 to 2011, when she oversaw the House's response to the 2008 financial crisis and spearheaded the chamber's passage of the Affordable Care Act. Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. There are over 36,000 McDonald's locations all over the planet, and the chain is on every continent except Antarctica. In South America alone, there are over 1,400 stores. But there is one Latin American country that flat out rejected Big Macs and McNuggets: Bolivia. Watch this video to find out why the American fast food chain had to pull back from the Bolivian market after five years. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, speaks on a mobile phone during an interview in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, June 25, 2008. Futures prices tanked soon after CEO Tim Cook announced Wednesday afternoon that Apple is lowering its fiscal first-quarter guidance , blaming a range of variety of factors including a weakening economy in China and lower-than-expected iPhone revenue. Berkshire owns 252.5 million shares of Apple , which at the market close on Wednesday were trading at $157.92 per share, according to FactSet. When the market closed, Buffett 's position was worth $39.87 billion. With Apple's 9 percent drop in early trading Thursday, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is looking to lose more than $3.8 billion on its position in the tech company. Warren Buffett lost some serious money on Thursday ... at least on paper. By Thursday morning, the stock fallen about 9 percent or about $15 per share. The drop brings Berkshire's holdings to about $36.1 billion, and a $3.76 billion loss. In the first quarter of 2018, Buffett's Berkshire bought 75 million shares of Apple. That added to an existing 165.3 million shares Berkshire already owned at the end of 2017. He told CNBC at the time that he clearly likes Apple, and "we buy them to hold." "We bought about 5 percent of the company. I'd love to own 100 percent of it. ... We like very much the economics of their activities. We like very much the management and the way they think," Buffett told CNBC's "Squawk Box." Berkshire did not return a call for comment. Buffett first announced Berkshire was buying Apple in February 2017 despite his usual aversion to tech stocks. On Feb. 1, 2017, Apple's shares were around $129 so the Oracle of Omaha is likely still in the green on the first portion of stock he bought. But Berkshire added to that stake significantly the last two years at likely higher prices. Berkshire's other major bets aren't holding up much better. In the financial sector Bank of America, which makes up 11 percent of Berkshire's portfolio, is down 17 percent year over year while Wells Fargo is down 24 percent. Those are the holding company's two largest positions behind Apple. J.P. Morgan meanwhile, which makes up 1.9 percent of the portfolio, is down roughly 9.5 percent in the same period. Coca Cola, Berkshire's fourth largest position at 10 percent of the portfolio is in positive territory, up 2.5 percent over the last 12 months while American Express is down 4 percent. Saudi prosecutors will seek the death penalty for at least five people in the slaying of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, ABC News reported citing the kingdom's state media on Thursday as 11 suspects attended their first court hearing. The state-run Saudi Press Agency and state television gave few details about the hearing and did not name the suspects. However, a statement from prosecutors said the suspects attended the hearing with their lawyers. The statement also said that prosecutors sent a request to Turkey for evidence that Ankara has collected over the Oct. 2 slaying of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. "No response has been received to date and the Public Prosecutor's Office is still waiting for an answer," the statement said. Officials in Turkey could not be immediately reached for comment. Turkish officials have previously said they shared evidence with Saudi Arabia and other nations over Khashoggi's killing. Khashoggi had written columns critical of Saudi Arabia's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The kingdom initially denied Khashoggi was killed, but changed its story and acknowledged his slaying weeks later. The Trump administration might not have had much luck trying to expand school choice from Washington, but that doesnt mean conservatives inside the Beltway are done trying. Last month, the Heritage Foundation proposed redirecting $1.2 billion in federal funds for 21st Century Community Learning Centers, which supports after-school programs, to new education savings accounts, which would be made available to military families seeking new schooling options. The conservative think tank, which supports school choice but is generally leery of federally directed choice programs, also highlighted two other programs it thinks could be good candidates for this general idea: Education Innovation and Research grants, and Title IV, Part A of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which aims to fund programs creating safe schools and well-rounded students. Education savings accounts allow parents and guardians to use money for a wide variety of expenses, from tuition and transportation to tutoring and online courses. Learn how ESAs differ from other school choice programs here . The brief from Lindsey Burke, Jonathan Butcher, and Jude Schwalbach states that lawmakers left unfinished business from the last Congress, and should redirect federal spending from failing education programs to help K-12 students from military families. They highlight 2005 research reporting that the after-school programs were either ineffective or had a negative impact on student behavior, as well as a Government Accountability Office review showing no consistent improvement for program participants, although advocates for the after-school centers have a different research story to tell . They also state that Impact Aid remains a promising path forward for this idea. What does unfinished business mean? Well, if this idea sounds roughly familiar, thats because last year, Heritage also pushed lawmakers to repurpose education spending on other programs into education savings accounts for children connected to the armed forces. That idea found a vehicle in a bill authored by Rep. Jim Banks , R-Ind., who sought to fund these ESAs with money from Impact Aid, a $1.2 billion program that provides support to districts where the tax base is affected by federal activities such as military bases. However, the Trump administration ultimately signalled that it didnt support this idea , and the legislation from Banks came up short. And if the proposal had a tough time in the 115th Congress, the new 116th Congress and its Democrat-led House might be even less receptive to this idea. Its also worth highlighting that last year, lawmakers provided relatively small funding increases in fiscal 2019 for all four of the programs Heritage mentions. The administration has itself previously tried to cut or repurpose funding for all of these programs. So the chances of Heritage getting what its looking for might be pretty slim this Congress. But dont be surprised if a GOP lawmaker drops a bill with a proposal along these lines in 2019 or 2020. Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 . And follow the Andrew Ujifusa half of Politics K-12 @AndrewUjifusa. Beachwood, OH (44122) Today Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 72F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 59F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Beachwood, OH (44122) Today A mix of clouds and sun. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 73F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 59F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Al Saud have expressed their condolences to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian people and families of the victims of a deadly residential building collapse in the city of Magnitogorsk, Sputnik reported citing local media. The king and the crown prince extended their condolences in two separate telegrams, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency. They also wished a speedy recovery to those injured in the incident. The Russian State Duma urged the United States parliamentarians to resume bilateral dialogue, Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, said. According to him, relations between Moscow and Washington remain one of the most important factors for world stability and security. "Despite recent Russophobic hysteria in the United States, we attach great importance to mutual cooperation and are committed to dialogue with our partners," Interfax quoted him as saying. Based on this, I want to once again mention proposals to resume inter-parliamentary cooperation and send corresponding letter of congratulations to new chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives as soon as he is elected, Slutsky said. In addition, Slutsky recalled that in the summer of 2018, American delegation visited the Russian Federation, and contacts were partially resumed. That's why this time we are counting on more constructive reaction from American side, politician stressed. On July 3, 2018, the US parliamentary delegation paid a visit to Russia. During this visit, members of delegation visited St. Petersburg and Moscow. Imagine you are a Jewish doctor in a Nazi concentration camp. About 100 of your fellow inmates suffer from diabetes and you only have a limited supply of insulin, with no guarantee of more on the way. Do you give each patient the same amount regardless of individual need, knowing all of them will likely die within a month? Or do you reserve your supply for those with a greater chance of survival, meaning that those with severe diabetes will die much sooner as a result? Or imagine you are the Greek Jewish teenager from Salonika whos picked up enough German from polishing the boots of the Nazi officers occupying your city that when you are eventually deported to Auschwitz, your linguistic abilities land you a low-level clerical job, instead of a spot in the gas chamber. In the camp administrative office, you have access to the index-card system that assigns each prisoner to a different slave-labor brigade most of which involves punishing physical work in the freezing outdoors, with the risk of frostbite, pneumonia, beatings or even execution for those deemed by the guards to be slacking off. One of your fellow prisoners, who is near death, begs you to sneak his card into the box of a different brigade, one with lighter duties. As long as your Nazi overlords dont catch you, its in your power to do that. But if you decide to help your friend, then you have to switch his card out with that of another person from the same brigade, and then that person spends his or her days facing snow, ice and death from starvation. What do you do? And, come to think of it, how on earth did you end up in this position? The above documented examples are what many Holocaust scholars and educators like to describe as choiceless choices appalling moral dilemmas faced by a people that were systematically dehumanized by the Nazi regime, and who knew they faced death at any second. They formed part of an intense, enriching four days that I spent with a small group of other writers and journalists at Yad Vashem, Israels official Holocaust commemoration museum, memorial and institute that was established in 1953 through a law passed by the Knesset. We were there to study and discuss many aspects of the Holocaust from choiceless choices to archive management to Holocaust art but we did so from a starting point that the way we teach younger generations about the Nazi attempt to destroy the Jews of Europe and North Africa is changing radically. Holocaust survivors have all reached advanced ages, meaning there wont be any in-person testimonies to listen to within a few years (even if we are left with their accounts captured on video, holograms or other forms of visual reproduction.) Since 1945, countless other genocides have wreaked havoc in the Balkans, much of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, while a few of those occurring before the Herero nation slaughtered by German colonists in southern Africa, the Armenians annihilated by Turkey to this day remain under-recognized. Is the Holocaust, it is often asked, any more important than these other demonstrations of inhumanity in the world? And theres more, much more. In countries like Lithuania and Ukraine, wartime collaborators with the Nazis are now being lionized as anti-Communist heroes. The Israeli government walks along an undignified diplomatic tightrope with these states, having to balance present-day bilateral relations with guardianship of the Holocausts truths. Elsewhere, some Holocaust-commemoration activities are so fixated with a universalist approach that basic facts about the Jewish character of the genocide like the young diarist Anne Frank having been Jewish, and being deported because she was Jewish are buried in a bid to be meaningful to everyone. Meanwhile, in Western Europe and the United States, social protest movements, like the yellow vests in France and the Womens March in America, have been penetrated by Holocaust-deniers, anti-Semitic conspiracy-mongers and advocates of Israels elimination. And thats not to mention those who dont deny the Holocaust, but who do delight in invoking the Nazis as a metaphor for Israeli policies towards the Palestinians or go the whole hog by check out the French comedian Dieudonne Mbala Mbala making fun of it in front of receptive crowds in theaters. In the recent past, perhaps the key Holocaust debate was why the Allied powers did so little to stop it. During our groups exchange with Avner Shalev, the chair of Yad Vashem who pioneered its renewal over the last two decades, he related the story of guiding former President George W. Bush around the institutes impressive museum. When they reached the exhibit about President Franklin D. Roosevelts response to the Holocaust, Bush turned to his then national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, and asked: Why didnt FDR bomb the camps? He should have. But that burning question has been superseded by an even more vexing one: Why should we seek to educate about the Holocaust in a world where the phrase Never Again sounds farcical to many people? There are many answers, and to my mind, there are three key ones. First, there are still some survivors of the Holocaust. I think specifically Albert de Leeuw and 150 other former child laborers in the Amsterdam ghetto, who have still not received proper compensation from the German government, and who continue fighting for that recognition in the twilight of their lives. To abandon them now would be shameful. Second, however much people believe politics has changed with the rise of populism on left and right in the last several years, the Holocaust remains a truly foundational moment of our era and the source of many of the international institutions that, for good or ill, manage international relations today. Look back and you will see that the Holocaust changed a good deal more than we realize. For example, how we look at art and music, or our relationship with technology and our agonizing about inclusiveness in our society. As we prepare in 2019 to mark the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, expect much more reflection on all that. Thirdly, if we are to teach our children the basic facts of the Holocaust, they can be boiled down like this: 6 million Jews died because they were dehumanized for being Jews. Many of them resisted, in a variety of ways. And far too many were faced with the choiceless choices that symbolize the reality of the Holocaust. Ben Cohen, senior editor of TheTower.org & The Tower Magazine, writes a weekly column for JNS.org on Jewish affairs and Middle Eastern politics from New York. To read more of Cohens columns, visit cjn.org/cohen. Beachwood, OH (44122) Today Sun and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 72F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 59F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. In early 2019, Japan announced it would withdraw from the moratorium on commercial whaling set by the International Whaling Commission in 1986. Whaling is a long-standing tradition in countries like Japan, Norway and Iceland, and proponents of Japan's decision point out the country will now limit hunting to its own waters. Meanwhile, some countries and environmental groups mourn Japan's decision, maintaining that whale species still need protection. What do you think? PERSPECTIVES The international ban on commercial whaling hasn't stopped Japan from hunting whales. The country participates in hunting season annually, claiming that the whales are used for scientific research. By now openly defying the international ban on commercial whaling, Japan will at least limit its hunting to its own waters. According to The Guardian's Justin McCurry and Matthew Weaver: Plus, many people see the ban on commercial whaling as an implementation of Western values on an international level: Japan's decision comes as a disappointment to much of the international community. According to the New York Times' Daniel Victor, Australia's government is "extremely disappointed" with Japan's announcement. Victor reports: The U.K. environment secretary, Michael Gove, shares the sentiment: Extremely disappointed to hear that Japan has decided to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission to resume commercial whaling. The UK is strongly opposed to commercial whaling and will continue to fight for the protection and welfare of these majestic mammals. Michael Gove (@michaelgove) December 26, 2018 Victor continues by pointing out that, for Japan, commercial whaling is more than an economic stimulus, it's a long-standing tradition. Although demand for whale meat has declined sharply in Japan, the country maintains publicly that the tradition lives on. The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports that according to the Japanese government: But given the Japanese population's declining interest in whale meat, many are wondering why the country is pushing so hard to maintain a tradition that is no longer lucrative. The BBC's Wingfield-Hayes discovered that it might not be-at least not for long. During a private conversation with a high-ranking member of the Japanese government, Wingfield-Hayes explained why he believed resuming commercial whaling was illogical, the official replied: According to Sakuma, the pride of some government officials is more important to Japan than the survival of various whale species. The Tylt is focused on debates and conversations around news, current events and pop culture. We provide our community with the opportunity to share their opinions and vote on topics that matter most to them. We actively engage the community and present meaningful data on the debates and conversations as they progress. The Tylt is a place where your opinion counts, literally. The Tylt is an Advance Local Media, LLC property. Join us on Twitter @TheTylt, on Instagram @TheTylt or on Facebook, we'd love to hear what you have to say. WASHINGTON, D.C. - California Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi was easily elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday after a weeks-long campaign to win over a group of critics who initially said they wouldnt vote for her. But that didnt stop a few members of Congress who were disenchanted with Pelosi (who got 220 votes) and Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California (who got 192) votes from casting protest votes for someone else. Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Champaign County - who had unsuccessfully challenged McCarthy for the top Republican leadership job - came in third in the race for speaker, with five votes. Although Jordan voted for McCarthy on the House floor, Republicans Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Jody Hice of Georgia and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania cast ballots for Jordan. Warrensville Heights Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge - who had contemplated making her own run for House Speaker - voted for Pelosi on the House floor, but got a vote for Speaker from Oregon Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader. Illinois Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos got the most protest votes of any Democrat: four. Pelosi won Fudges support by agreeing to re-establish a House Administration subcommittee on elections that Fudge will chair. A statement from Pelosi said Fudgessubcommittee will expose and confront disenfranchisement and strengthen fair elections across America. She also won backing from Niles Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan - who ran against Pelosi for House Democratic Leader two years ago - after she agreed to transition out of her leadership role by the end of the next Congress or the one after that if she doesnt gets two thirds support from House Democrats. Ryan said the deal was needed to ensure the rise of a new generation of Democratic leaders. Looking forward As Capitol Letter headed into 2019, cleveland.coms Andrew Tobias asked Republican Gov.-elect Mike DeWine and the other incoming GOP statewide elected officials what their main priorities will be when they take office this month. Heres what they said: Mike DeWine: DeWine said the first priority of his administration will be Ohios children. This will mean a focus on early-childhood education, reducing infant mortality, improving foster care, lead-paint removal and other issues. If we cant get that right, you cant get anything right. So were going to focus a lot on these kids who are growing up in very difficult circumstances through no fault of their own, he said. Another priority, DeWine said, will be fighting drug addiction, including placing drug counselors in every Ohio school. Finally, DeWine said his administration will focus on helping train Ohios workforce for available jobs, whether its preparing high-school students or helping people mid-career. As for a timeline, DeWine pointed to his upcoming state budget proposal, due in March. Youll see in that budget a real emphasis on children, youll see in that budget a real emphasis on early-childhood education, he said. What about Medicaid? DeWine: I think the work requirements is something were going to move on. As for his proposal to incorporate wellness components into Medicaid, DeWine said: "This will certainly come up as we re-negotiate contracts with the managed care companies, and that will be fairly early on in the administration. The heartbeat bill? Ohio lawmakers last week couldnt muster enough votes to override Gov. John Kasichs veto of the heartbeat bill, which would ban abortions when a fetal heartbeat can be detected. But supporters hope to revive the bill this year and get it to DeWines desk. DeWine, who was interviewed before last weeks lame-duck proceedings, said generally: Whether were looking at the priorities of our administration or specific items, people can get a pretty good idea of where I am from what I said during the campaign. DeWine said in April 2018 that he would have signed the previous heartbeat bill that Kasich vetoed during the lame-duck session in December 2016. Medical marijuana? We are inheriting this, and it will be our job to follow the law and continue this rollout. What else? Ive got to hold a few surprises back. What will incoming Lt. Gov. Jon Husted do? The quick answer is a lot. Hes going to be involved in every major decision we make. So his role will be more general purpose? Yes, but certainly with emphasis on how we re-invent government and make it more user-friendly, economic development and job training is another area. Incoming Attorney General Dave Yost: In an email, Yost said his top priority will be the opioid epidemic and the related resurgence of methamphetamine. He said drug addiction is an economic issue, as well as a moral issue that is destroying individual lives and tearing apart families and communities. Over and over again, I hear stories of families driven to the brink of bankruptcy by the addiction of a loved one. Newborns who carry their mothers addiction are stretching local health and foster-care resources to the breaking point. A family thats lost someone to an overdose will carry that weight the rest of their lives, he said. Incoming Secretary of State Frank LaRose: LaRose said that he wants to focus on injecting more civility into the national conversation around elections issues. I want to be intentional about creating a tone of civility around elections and get away from some of the partisanship, he said. Theres too much rhetoric and hyperbole from both the right and the left on elections issues. Youll hear on the right, this exaggeration that theres somehow widespread voter fraud, and that its systemic and therefore you cant trust the results. Thats not true. But likewise, youll hear the same sort of hyperbole On the left, its There is widespread, systemic voter suppression. And thats also not true. LaRose said both problems exist, but are blown out of proportion for political reasons. The reason why its important to call that out is that the net result is that it makes people less confident, and it makes people not trust that elections and self-government matters or works, he said. Incoming Auditor Keith Faber: Fabers top priority will be to improve customer service of state government while saving taxpayer dollars, said spokeswoman Allie Dumski. One of the first projects of the administration will be to conduct a performance audit of the Auditors office to ensure the office is working at maximum efficiency and providing quality customer service to Ohioans, she said. Incoming Treasurer Robert Sprague: Sprague said besides attending to the day-to-day functions of the treasurers office, a main priority will be to roll out a pilot of the social-impact bond program he discussed during the campaign. This would entail attracting investors to fund a program aimed at reducing addiction relapse rates. The investors would be repaid if the program meets its measurable goals, he said. We think we can raise a lot. We think theres a growing interest. We would be on the cutting edge of this nationwide, and we could raise a lot of private-sector dollars to have an impact on things like heroin addiction in the state, he said. Capitol Letter is a daily briefing providing succinct, timely information for those who care deeply about the decisions made by state government. If you do not already subscribe, you can sign up here to get Capitol Letter in your email box each weekday for free. COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ailing Ohioans awaiting medical marijuana relief can circle Jan. 15 on their calendars -- the latest estimate of when product will be on shelves. Representatives from the states only fully licensed medical marijuana dispensary and testing lab each said Jan. 15 was around the time they expected to be up and running. Ohios medical marijuana program was supposed to be fully operational Sept. 8. Twenty-one conditions can qualify someone for medical marijuana -- from cancer to a spinal cord disease or injury. Were targeting the week of the 15th for the store in Wintersville," said Jason Erkes, spokesman for Cresco Labs' CY+ Wintersville Dispensary, in Jefferson County near Steubenville. But everything has to line up. Specifically, a testing lab must be ready. State law requires random tests of medical marijuana for purity and pesticides. The only lab to clear its final inspection with the state and receive a certificate of operation is North Coast Testing Laboratories LLC in Streetsboro in Portage County. The company is in the process of validating," or verifying that its various pieces of equipment can precisely test cannabis, North Coasts Joe Moorhead said. North Coast is validating its equipment with recently harvested Ohio marijuana, he said. Our drop-dead date looks like itll be Jan. 15, Moorhead said. Flower first Patients and caregivers will only be able to get flower, or bud, on the first days of medical marijuana sales. It will be a gradual rollout where there will be a limited supply of flower at first," said Erkes of CY+ in Wintersville. Erkes said that he expects CY+ to sell flower from just a few cultivators who have product ready, including Cresco Labs' 40,000-square-foot grow facility in Yellow Springs and from Buckeye Relief LLC in Eastlake. Buckeye Relief spokeswoman Leslie Brandon said the company has completed two harvests and is ready for testing. State law prohibits patients from smoking medical marijuana but they can vape the flower. More flower will be available in time, as more cultivators harvest their product, Erkes said. Eventually, patients will see processed marijuana products on the shelves -- patches, creams, ointments, soft drinks and other edibles, among the other forms of medical marijuana allowed in Ohio. None of the companies with provisional processing licenses have yet received a certificate of operation from the state. The Ohio General Assembly passed the law legalizing medical marijuana in 2016 and the program was supposed to be fully operational Sept. 8, but its running four months behind schedule due to delays in awarding licenses, litigation and Gov. John Kasichs lack of interest in the program. Marijuana registry growing In the four weeks since Ohios Patient and Caregiver Registry went live, doctors have recommended 4,964 people to use marijuana or to give the drug to someone else. Of those, 3,575 people have activated their medical marijuana e-cards, according to state data released Monday. Ohio law requires patients under age 18 have a caregiver, such as one or both parents. Caregivers can also be helpful to patients in hospice or who are elderly or disabled. Caregivers are allowed to possess and administer cannabis only to the patient. The state must deny applications from caregivers who are registered sex offenders, are in the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities online abuser registry, among other databases. CLEVELAND, Ohio The rules for claiming tax deductions and itemizing have changed. So has the amount of income tax withheld from paychecks. But if you call the Internal Revenue Service with questions, youll get no help, because of the partial government shutdown. If President Donald Trump and Congress cant resolve their differences soon, Northeast Ohio CPAs said it could be a problem for the coming tax season. Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in December 2017. But this year will be the first time taxpayers use new forms, which will ask different questions, said Russell Raimer, a CPA who also teaches finance and accounting at Cleveland State University. When people see this, there are going to be significant questions, Raimer said. People are going to try to get information from the Service. Technically, the (tax) season starts Jan. 29. Thats when your W-2s have to be out. The changes in withholding rates from paychecks could lead to a surprise tax bill for some people, he said, who may be unaware that some previous tax benefits are gone. Large CPA firms such as H&R Block are working to get their systems up-to-date, Raimer said. If I have questions, as a preparer, I cant call up the IRS because theres no one at the other end of the line right now," he said. Due to the partial shutdown, only about one in eight IRS employees is working. Interestingly, the agency can accept tax payments but cannot give out refunds during the shutdown, according to the Wall Street Journal. If the shutdown persists for another week or two, then were in different territory, said Josh Messina, a tax partner at the CPA firm of Cohen and Co., with headquarters in Cleveland. In addition to answering income tax questions, the IRS has other functions that are being affected by the shutdown, including audits of people and companies. Yesterday I got a call from one of my clients, and we have an ongoing audit," Messina said. They called to check the status of it. The agent in December said, ' Give me a couple weeks.' Messina said he dialed the agents phone number and got a voicemail message saying that the auditor is not in, due to the shutdown. Messina said he likely wont hear back from the agent the moment he returns to work. Being out for extended period, his work will pile up," he said. CNBC reported this week about an Ohio-based tax examiner for the IRS who identified himself as Leo, saying without a paycheck it will be a stretch to get insulin, for which he must pay $200 out-of-pocket. I have to save every penny right now, said Leo, who used his middle name because was not authorized to talk to the media. Leo said his plan was to not buy the insulin for now. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The University of Akron will become the second site in the so-called Ohio Cyber Range, the states effort to advance cybersecurity education and research. The range allows for cybersecurity testing as well as training to best handle online security threats. Cybersecurity facilities provide hands-on training for students and others, including military personnel. The first part of the range was set up at the University of Cincinnati. This new site of the Ohio Cyber Range will bring range services closer to the residents of Northeast Ohio and provide access to new learning tools for cybersecurity, Maj. Gen. Mark Bartman, Ohio adjutant general, said in a news release. With the Ohio Cyber Range and other innovative initiatives, Ohio can be a model for the rest of the country in cybersecurity. The designation means the University of Akron will receive a $1.18 million state grant to add more servers, storage and programming to the universitys cybersecurity facilities. UA launched its cybersecurity track in the fall in 2017. It is the only program in the United States to offer cryptology, or the study of computer codes, at an undergraduate level. In May of this year, UA received $200,000 from the Timken Foundation to create a new cybersecurity testing lab. The 2,000 square-foot space includes 30 workstations and a control station. The university also declared in August that cybersecurity is an area of opportunity and that officials plan to hire professors in that field. STRONGSVILLE, Ohio -- After maintenance worker Robert Schwerman stole almost $70,000 in school property, the Strongsville City School District established a new internal fraud hotline and inventoried all of the districts assets. The district also updated how it tracks those items and the process for approving process requests, according to a new report from state auditor David Yosts office. Schwerman, who pleaded guilty to theft in office and tampering with records, bought items he said he needed for the schools and brought them home for five years, according to previous cleveland.com reporting. He was sentenced in October to nine months in prison. An investigation found 78 stolen items, including a John Deere utility vehicle valued at more than $23,600 and a $9,600 zero-turn lawn mower, according to the auditors office. Of the items that were stolen: 41 were sold at public auction for $16,918 -- about $31,000 less than what they cost. 27 were left behind because they were too large to move or attached to the property. They cost about $11,000. 10 were returned and used by the district at a reduced value. A full copy of the auditors report can be found here. The schools recouped the cost of all of the stolen items. Schwermans direct supervisor also no longer works for the district, Strongsville schools spokesman Dan Foust wrote in an email. Superintendent Cameron Ryba was concerned in October that the theft would destroy residents' trust in the district, he told cleveland.com. The district was asking for its first tax increase since 2007. The 7.9-mill tax, which would pay for operating costs including teacher salaries, failed by 62 to 32 percent in November. This article has been updated with additional information from Strongsville City School District. Britain is resigned to Syrian President Bashar al Assad remaining in power and Russia gaining a new sphere of influence in the region, the foreign secretary has signalled, Sky News reports. But, speaking exclusively to Sky News, Jeremy Hunt cautioned that Moscow has also taken on responsibility for securing peace in the country because of its support for the regime. It is the first time a British minister has spoken so frankly about the reality on the ground in Syria, as Assad's forces strengthen their grip on power after regaining areas seized in a rebel uprising - supported by the UK and its allies - that began in 2011. NILES, Ohio A male suspect who was involved in an altercation with police officers Wednesday afternoon outside a municipal court was shot and killed after being tracked down at a nearby apartment complex, according to reports. Police have not said why two officers opened fire on the unidentified suspect, who was shot in his car near the Royal Mall Apartments in Niles, according to WKBN Channel 27. The Vindicator reports a security officer at Niles Municipal Court attempted to arrest the suspect in the halls of the courthouse when it was discovered there was a warrant for his arrest. The man ran from the officer and then tried to strike him with his vehicle outside the courthouse, according to the Vindicator. Police used a license plate number to track to the suspect to the Royal Mall Apartments and found the man there, WFMH Channel 21 reports. The mans car crashed into another vehicle at the apartment complex, police say. Niles police Capt. John Marshall tells the Vindicator that something happened that led the officers to open fire, but police have not released details. Witnesses tell WKBN they heard five to six shots fired. Another witness tells the Vindicator that officers could be heard yelling at the suspect to put his hands up and not move. The two officers involved in the shooting have been placed on leave. The incident is being investigated by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. To comment on this story, visit the crime and courts comments page. COLUMBUS, Ohio A man who asked his neighbors to stop firing guns during a New Years celebration ended up getting shot and police now have a suspect in custody. Matthew Martin, 29, is being held on a $750,000 bond on a charge of felonious assault, according to 10tv.com. Columbus police say they were called to a home just after midnight Tuesday. When they arrived, the victim had suffered a broken collarbone because of a gunshot. The victims brother tells WCMH Channel 4 that he and his 8-year-old niece were huddled on the floor of their home because a bullet came through a bedroom wall. The victim was in the house when he was wounded by the bullet, ABC 6 reports. I mean this is only an inch away from her head, William Rogers tells WCMH. It would have killed her for no reason. ... I dont even understand it. It drives me nuts. Police called a SWAT unit to the scene and detained several people. Police did not say if anyone else will face charges. To comment on this story, visit the crime and courts comments page. CLEVELAND, Ohio A Cuyahoga County Jail corrections officer faces discipline after being accused of threatening an inmate who interviewed with a U.S. Marshals-led team investigating conditions at the beleaguered jail. Brandon Smith, a corrections officer who is part of the jails Special Response Team, nicknamed The Men in Black because of the paramilitary gear they wear in the jail, threatened an inmate, called him a snitch and shoved him, according to disciplinary records obtained by cleveland.com. The documents say Smith, who has been a corrections officers since October 2013,faces a range of punishments up to firing after his Jan. 10 disciplinary hearing. Smith denied calling the inmate a snitch in interviews with investigators, according to the documents. A phone and email message sent to the Ohio Police Benevolent Association, the union that represents Cuyahoga Countys corrections officers, were not returned. He remains on active duty, Cuyahoga County spokeswoman Mary Louise Madigan said. Madigan initially said the county had no disciplinary records existed for the case. Once told by a reporter that the records existed, Madigan later said they did exist, but that the countys law department would have to approve the files for release. The county provided a redacted copy of the records after cleveland.com published the story. The U.S. Marshals in their report released in November after seven of eight jail inmates died said the SRT team frequently threatened, harassed and intimidated inmates and used excessive force while forcing inmates out of their cells. The marshals report described a chilling scene where members of the specialized team escorted inmates to interviews with the U.S marshals investigators, and officers threatened and intimidated the prisoners and called them snitches. The intimidation was so pervasive that guards bullied inmates in full view of the marshals' investigators. The behavior concerned investigators, prompting them to request that 10 inmates get released from the jail for fear of SRT members retaliation, and the legitimate fear of detainee/inmate safety. The incident involving Smith happened about 6:40 a.m. on Nov. 1, the records say. The inmate a 29-year-old suspected member of the Lakeshore Boys gang who is charged with aggravated murder asked for a nurse to test his blood-sugar, the records say. Surveillance footage showed Smith let the inmate out of his cell, according to the documents. The inmate walked to the medical cart, got his blood sugar checked and began talking with someone off camera, the records say. A witness told investigators that the inmate asked Smith if he could call his attorney and Smith told him that he couldnt because he was busy that day, the records say. The inmate told Smith: You cant deny me from talking to my lawyer, according to the records. Smith replied: Man shut up. You are a snitch anyway, the records say. Smith walked up to the inmate, grabbed him and shoved him into a glass wall. Smith tried to handcuff the inmate, but stopped and pushed him as other SRT officers arrived to help, according to the documents. The inmate told investigators that Smith had repeatedly called him a snitch after he interviewed with an outside agency that was here this week, according to the records. The marshals conducted their investigation Oct. 30 through Nov.1. Smith told investigators that the inmate had been disrespectful from the moment he woke him up to take a shower, the records say. Smith and several other corrections officers told investigators that inmate threatened Smith after he refused to allow him to call his attorney. He said he pushed the inmate against the wall after the inmate took an aggressive stance, according to the records. Smith never reported shoving the inmate, but admitted to it in an interview with investigators, according to the documents. In a written statement, he said he didnt believe he needed to report the push, because he didnt believe it rose to the level of a use-of-force that needed special documentation. The inmate was not hurt during the incident. The inmate eventually got an insulin shot and was taken back to his cell. Smith has no discipline in the last three years, according to the records. AKRON, Ohio A man wanted in connection with an incident in which a child accidentally was shot in the stomach by another child was arrested Wednesday, authorities say. Randy Fitzgerald, 33, of Akron, was taken into custody by officers from Boston Heights, Macedonia and the Summit County Sheriffs Office during a traffic stop on Ohio 8 in Macedonia, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. Fitzgerald is accused of leaving three children, ages 8, 9 and 14, alone in a home on the 1200 block of Marcy Street in Akron on May 20. Police say the children found a loaded gun believed to belong to Fitzgerald and it was fired, wounding one of the kids in the stomach. The child was not mortally wounded, authorities say. A search of the home revealed two more handguns, drugs and body armor, according to U.S. marshals. Fitzgerald was wanted on a charge of weapons under disability. To comment on this story, visit the crime and courts comments page. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Two Cleveland men are accused of knocking two other men unconscious during fight outside a bar in the citys Old Brooklyn neighborhood. Michael D. Hobbs, 35, and Joseph L. Cole, 30, are each charged with felonious assault in the Dec. 23 incident outside the Pearl Road Tavern on Pearl Road near Brooklyn Avenue, according to court records. Hobbs demanded a preliminary hearing during his arraignment last week in Cleveland Municipal Court. The preliminary hearing is scheduled Jan. 11, court records say. Cole is not in custody but a warrant has been issued for his arrest. A 30-year-old man and a 29-year-old man were both knocked unconscious during the attack. The 30-year-old man suffered a broken orbital socket on his face and a broken bone in his left hand, while the 30-year-old man had abrasions and swelling on his forehead, court records say. The two victims were outside the bar and jokingly play-fighting, but one of the attackers thought they were serious. The victims went back inside the bar for a moment, then left the bar, according to a police report. The victims were walking to their car when the attackers jumped them. The 29-year-old victim was punched in the face and fell to the ground. The 30-year-old victim tried to help, but he was also punched in the face. He fell to the ground, and several attackers repeatedly kicked him until he lost consciousness, the police report says. Two of the victims friends also tried to help them, and were also punched in the face, the police report says. One of the friends had a bruise on her left check, while the other friend had no visible injuries. An ambulance took the 30-year-old and 29-year-old victims to MetroHealth for treatment. Neither police reports nor court records say how Hobbs and Cole were identified as suspects in the assault. Coles criminal history includes prior convictions for robbery and felonious assault, according to Cuyahoga County court records. In 2008, he was sentenced to nine years in prison after pleading guilty to aggravated robbery, felonious assault and aggravated menacing. He was released from the Lebanon Correctional Institution on July 13, 2018, according to Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction records. Hobbs has previously been convicted of drug possession and attempted felonious assault, court records say. To comment on this story, visit Thursdays crime and courts comments page. CLEVELAND, Ohio A Boy Scouts of America employee was indicted on federal sex charges Thursday, following his arrest in November on accusations that he secretly filmed underage boys changing in locker rooms and bathrooms. Thomas Close, 39, is charged with two counts of exploitation of children, receipt and distribution of child pornography and possession of child pornography. Federal prosecutors say Close, who lives in the small city of Shelby near Mansfield, recorded children changing at the YMCA in Sandusky, a Boy Scout camp near Oberlin and in his own bathroom when he had children over to swim in a pool in his backyard. The indictment says Close filmed pornography with two minor victims in 2011 and 2012. He faces a minimum of 15 years in federal prison if convicted. Jeff Lazarus, Closes federal public defender, declined comment. Close, who was associated with Troop 406 in Richland County and is also known as Aqua Joe, admitted to filming boys changing between 2011 and this year with a spy watch and a video recorder. He also said he had downloaded child pornography since he was 16 years old, and that his sexual preference was for boys between the ages of six and 16, according to an affidavit written by an agent from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations. He has been in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service since his Nov. 1 arrest. Agents said they were led to Close after investigators received a tip in May about online child porn videos that may have been filmed in Sandusky. That tip led them to the YMCA there and to the Boy Scouts, the affidavit says. Officials at the Boy Scouts Lake Erie Council in Cleveland confirmed that some of the videos were shot in teepees at the Firelands Scout Reservation in Wakeman, five miles west of Oberlin. Scouts sometimes change clothes in the teepees, court records show. Since all the photos appeared to pertain to boys changing before and after swimming, a director provided agents with a June 2017 report about a complaint against Close made by a den leader. The director told Close that he would be fired if it happened again, according to the affidavit. Marc Ryan, scout executive and CEO of the Boy Scouts Lake Erie Council, said in a statement on the day Close was arrested that the organization was disturbed to learn about the allegations and that the Boy Scouts will continue to cooperate with authorities. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Dan Polster. Close will be arraigned on Monday. If you would like to comment on this story, please visit Thursdays crime and courts comments section. CLEVELAND, Ohio The United Auto Workers labor union filed suit against General Motors accusing the car manufacturer of violating an agreement by using temporary workers at a plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana instead of laid-off employees from the plant in Ohios Mahoning Valley. The lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Youngstown says a collective bargaining agreement between GM and the union requires the company to provide opportunities to certain laid-off employees and other workers with seniority to relocate to other plants around the country. The company is using temporary workers at the plant, even though there are about 1,000 laid-off workers nationwide eligible for transfer under the agreement, the lawsuit says. Of that pool, 690 were laid off from the plant in Lordstown, and many have applied for jobs at the Indiana facility, the suit says. The union wants a federal judge to order GM to stop using temporary employees and transfer eligible laid-off and current employees to the Fort Wayne assembly plant. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Benita Pearson. The lawsuit comes after GM announced in November that it plans to cut 14,000 jobs in North America and to shutter the Lordstown plant as it ends production of the Chevrolet Cruze. The plant employs 1,400 workers. The Lordstown plant has been a major economic driver for the region for years and was met with dismay from residents and Ohio politicians. GM spokeswoman Kim Carpenter said in an email that the company started the process late last year to bring about 50 employees of the Lordstown plant to replace temporary workers in Fort Wayne, and that about 35 Lordstown employees will be in place by the end of this month. We have ongoing discussions with the UAW regarding our staffing needs in Ft. Wayne, but have no further comments on the lawsuit, Carpenter said. The agreement allows the company to use temporary workers with the unions approval. The union on May 31 approved GMs request to use temporary employees in Fort Wayne through Aug. 31 to help support the launch of a new pickup truck, according to the lawsuit. GM then asked the union to extend the approval until Feb. 28 of this year. The union instead agreed to allow the company to continue using temporary employees until Dec. 31, provided GM included a plan to replace temporary employees with those covered by the contract, the suit states. GM presented the union with a plan on Oct. 31, though the plan said it would not stop using temps until May 2019. The union then told the company it would only agree to use the temporary employees until the end of November, according to the suit. Regardless, GM still uses the temporary workers in Fort Wayne, the union claims. Click here to read the lawsuit on a mobile device. Grace Louise Archer, age 90, a resident of Aurora, Colorado, a former resident of Chillicothe, Missouri, passed away on Wednesday, June 2, 2021, at Shalom Park, Aurora, Colorado. Grace was born the daughter of Maurice P. Martin, Sr., and Margaret (O'Connor) Martin on October 10, 1930, in Chi Utah Highway Patrol officials said Monday they didnt make any arrests under a lowered DUI threshold in the first 24 hours after the law took effect. Eight DUI arrests were made, but all were over the old threshold of 0.08 percent blood-alcohol limit, Highway Patrol Col. Michael Rapich said. The new threshold is 0.05 percent, the lowest in the United States. The National Transportation Safety Board supports the new limit, saying it would save lives if adopted nationwide. But critics worry it will punish responsible drinkers, hurt Utahs tourism industry and amplify the states alcohol-unfriendly reputation. Salt Lake Police and Unified Police, two of the biggest agencies covering the metro area, didnt have any reports of DUI arrests made so far under the lowered threshold either. Rapich says he hopes the law spurs people to make plans before they drink so they can avoid driving. There are a ton of options out there that dont involve driving yourself home, he said. For Utah lawmakers, the change is a safety measure aimed at encouraging people not to drive at all if theyve been drinking. The change was easily approved in 2017 by the Legislature, which is mostly Mormon and mostly Republican, and signed into law by Gov. Gary Herbert, also a Republican and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The religion teaches its members to abstain from drinking alcohol. Rapich said troopers arent doing anything different and continue to target impaired drivers rather than trying to find drinkers who cross the new threshold. We dont target 0.05, 0.06, 0.077, Rapich said. We go out and actively look for opportunities to interdict impaired drivers. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko expressed his condolences to the head of the Russian state Vladimir Putin in connection with the explosion in a residential building in Magnitogorsk. On Monday, December 31, in Magnitogorsk, as a result of an explosion of household gas, one of the entrances of a ten-story apartment building collapsed. The Emergency Ministry completed a rescue operation today. The bodies of 39 people were found in the rubble. According to the Belarusian leader, the country followed the search and rescue operations at the explosion site with anxiety and tension. This misfortune, which happened on the eve of the New Year, did not leave Belarusians indifferent and we all take our hats off in memory of the victims of the terrible tragedy, Lukashenko said. Last year, Microsoft Corp.s Azure security team detected suspicious activity in the cloud computing usage of a large retailer: One of the companys administrators, who usually logs on from New York, was trying to gain entry from Romania. And no, the admin wasnt on vacation. A hacker had broken in. Microsoft quickly alerted its customer, and the attack was foiled before the intruder got too far. Chalk one up to a new generation of artificially intelligent software that adapts to hackers constantly evolving tactics. Microsoft, Alphabet Inc.s Google, Amazon.com Inc. and various startups are moving away from solely using older rules-based technology designed to respond to specific kinds of intrusion and deploying machine-learning algorithms that crunch massive amounts of data on logins, behavior and previous attacks to ferret out and stop hackers. Machine learning is a very powerful technique for securityits dynamic, while rules-based systems are very rigid, says Dawn Song, a professor at the University of California at Berkeleys Artificial Intelligence Research Lab. Its a very manual intensive process to change them, whereas machine learning is automated, dynamic and you can retrain it easily. Hackers are themselves famously adaptable, of course, so they too could harness machine learning to create fresh mischief and overwhelm the new defenses. For example, they could figure out how companies train their systems and use the data to evade or corrupt the algorithms. The big cloud services companies are painfully aware that the foe is a moving target but argue that the new technology will help tilt the balance in favor of the good guys. We will see an improved ability to identify threats earlier in the attack cycle and thereby reduce the total amount of damage and more quickly restore systems to a desirable state, says Amazon Chief Information Security Officer Stephen Schmidt. He acknowledges that its impossible to stop all intrusions but says his industry will get incrementally better at protecting systems and make it incrementally harder for attackers. Before machine learning, security teams used blunter instruments. For example, if someone based at headquarters tried to log in from an unfamiliar locale, they were barred entry. Or spam emails featuring various misspellings of the word Viagra were blocked. Such systems often work. But they also flag lots of legitimate usersas anyone prevented from using their credit card while on vacation knows. A Microsoft system designed to protect customers from fake logins had a 2.8 percent rate of false positives, according to Azure Chief Technology Officer Mark Russinovich. That might not sound like much but was deemed unacceptable since Microsofts larger customers can generate billions of logins. To do a better job of figuring out who is legit and who isnt, Microsoft technology learns from the data of each company using it, customizing security to that clients typical online behavior and history. Since rolling out the service, the company has managed to bring down the false positive rate to 000.1 percent. This is the system that outed the intruder in Romania. Training these security algorithms falls to people like Ram Shankar Siva Kumar, a Microsoft manager who goes by the title of Data Cowboy. Siva Kumar joined Microsoft six years ago from Carnegie Mellon after accepting a second-round interview because his sister was a fan of Greys Anatomy, the medical drama set in Seattle. He manages a team of about 18 engineers who develop the machine learning algorithms and then make sure theyre smart and fast enough to thwart hackers and work seamlessly with the software systems of companies paying big bucks for Microsoft cloud services. Siva Kumar is one of the people who gets the call when the algorithms detect an attack. He has been woken in the middle of the night, only to discover that Microsofts in-house red team of hackers were responsible. (They bought him cake to compensate for lost sleep.) The challenge is daunting. Millions of people log into Googles Gmail each day alone. The amount of data we need to look at to make sure whether this is you or an impostor keeps growing at a rate that is too large for humans to write rules one by one, says Mark Risher, a product management director who helps prevent attacks on Googles customers. Google now checks for security breaches even after a user has logged in, which comes in handy to nab hackers who initially look like real users. With machine learning able to analyze many different pieces of data, catching unauthorized logins is no longer a matter of a single yes or no. Rather, Google monitors various aspects of behavior throughout a users session. Someone who looks legit initially may later exhibit signs they are not who they say they are, letting Googles software boot them out with enough time to prevent further damage. Besides using machine learning to secure their own networks and cloud services, Amazon and Microsoft are providing the technology to customers. Amazons GuardDuty monitors customers systems for malicious or unauthorized activity. Many times the service discovers employees doing things they shouldntsuch as putting Bitcoin mining software on their work PCs. Dutch insurance company NN Group NV uses Microsofts Advanced Threat Protection to manage access to its 27,000 workers and close partners, while keeping everyone else out. Earlier this year, Wilco Jansen, the companys manager of workplace services, showed employees a new feature in Microsofts Office cloud software that blocks so-called CxO spamming, whereby spammers pose as a senior executive and instruct the receiver to transfer funds or share personal information. Ninety minutes after the demonstration, the security operations center called to report that someone had tried that exact attack on NN Groups CEO. We were like oh, this feature could already have prevented this from happening,' Jansen says. We need to be on constant alert, and these tools help us see things that we cannot manually follow. Machine learning security systems dont work in all instances, particularly when there is insufficient data to train them. And researchers and companies worry constantly that they can be exploited by hackers. For example, they could mimic users activity to foil algorithms that screen for typical behavior. Or hackers could tamper with the data used to train the algorithms and warp it for their own endsso-called poisoning. Thats why its so important for companies to keep their algorithmic criteria secret and change the formulas regularly, says Battista Biggio, a professor at the University of Cagliaris Pattern Recognition and Applications Lab in Sardinia, Italy. So far, these threats feature more in research papers than real life. But thats likely to change As Biggio wrote in a paper last year: Security is an arms race, and the security of machine learning and pattern recognition systems is not an exception. Copyright 2021 Bloomberg. One insurance company State Farm has referred to dog bites as a serious public health problem. Last year alone, one carrier paid $90 million in claims on roughly 3,500 dog bite incidents. According to the Insurance Information Institute, dog bites and other dog-related injuries accounted for an astonishing one-third (1/3) of all homeowners liability claim dollars paid out in 2017, costing almost $700 million. This isnt chump change any more, and subrogation professionals need to take a serious look at pursuing subrogation in even some of the smaller dog bite cases although most dog bite cases arent all that small, as it turns out. According to the Insurance Information Institute, the average cost per claim nationally has risen more than 90 percent from 2003 to 2017, due to increased medical costs as well as the size of settlements, judgments and jury awards given to plaintiffs. In 2015, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicated approximately 4.5 million dog bites occur each year in the United States. Nearly 1 out of 5 bites becomes infected. And in virtually every case, there is subrogation potential which needs to be looked into. The subrogation professional must be familiar with the various dog bite laws found in each state and be able to apply that law to the facts in first party dog bite claims with potential subrogation. Dog bite law is a unique combination of city and county ordinances, state statutory law, state case law, and common law. The law varies from state to state. Generally, if the dog owner knows that the dog has exhibited a tendency or intention to someday bite a person, liability can attach. This is known as scienter (knowledge or knowing) and is referred to as the One Bite Rule. Most states hold a dog owner responsible for negligence that results in any injury caused by a dog. This can take the form of general negligence or negligence per se (violation of a statute). Sometimes, the liability depends on whether the dog bite occurred on the owners premises or off premises. Some states apply the doctrine of premises liability when the victim is harmed on the dog owners property. Premises liability is a specific area of law that governs liability involving owners of property and landlords. Other states base liability on statutes which create liability in the absence of scienter, negligence or intentional behavior. These are referred to as statutory strict liability states and vary from state to state. They sometimes hold the owner liability automatically if their dog bites somebody. In strict liability states, the dog does not get one free bite as they do in states which adhere to the one bite rule. Still other states complicate matters by mixing and matching their laws. Some of these complicated dog bite statutes impose strict liability under limited circumstances or for limited types of losses, while relying more heavily on the One Bite Rule. The states having statutes which incorporate the one-bite rule are referred to as mixed dog bite law states or simply mixed states. For example, New York imposes strict liability only for a bite victims medical bills. To recover other elements of damages, he has to meet one of the other burdens discussed above. States often provide certain exceptions to liability, including if the victim is a trespasser, veterinarian, was committing a felony, assumed the risk, or if the dog was provoked by physical abuse or was a police dog. Matthiesen, Wickert & Lehrer, S.C. handles subrogation claims in all 50 states for both health insurance and workers compensation cases the two most likely insurance lines for dog bite subrogation. To assist our clients in understanding the law they must subrogate under, we have compiled a chart which provides a quick overview of the dog bite in all 50 states. Windshield Centers Opens New Location in Wisconsin Windshield Centers, a provider of in-shop and mobile auto glass repair, replacement and recalibration services, has opened a new location in Madison, Wisconsin. The Madison service center represents its third location and is a part of the companys overall growth strategy, which includes additional expansion in the state over the next 18 months. Windshield Centers is owned and operated by TruRoad, which provides on-demand, on-site auto glass repair and replacement and ADAS recalibration services. TruRoad operates regional brands including Harmon Auto Glass, JN Phillips Auto Glass and Techna Glass. W. R. Berkley Corporation Announces Senior Executive Appointments W. R. Berkley Corporation announced the appointment of Philip S. Welt as executive vice president and general counsel. In addition, Joseph L. Sullivan and Michael J. Maloney have each been appointed as executive vice presidents with oversight responsibility for certain of the Companys operating units. The appointments are effective immediately. Welt joined W. R. Berkley Corporation in 2004 as vice president senior counsel and was named executive vice president with oversight responsibility for certain of the Companys operating units in 2011. Prior to joining the Company, he was an assistant general counsel mergers and acquisitions at a major international insurer and a corporate associate with the New York law offices of Davis Polk & Wardwell. He is also a certified public accountant and was a senior manager at the accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche. Sullivan most recently served as president of Berkley Re America, an office he held since the Company combined its U.S. broker market facultative and treaty reinsurance units in 2015. He has nearly 25 years of experience in property and casualty insurance and reinsurance, with a particular emphasis on the casualty market. He joined Berkley as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Facultative ReSources in 2010, having previously held senior management positions with a number of reinsurance companies, and was named president in 2012. Robert C. Hewitt, executive vice president with oversight for the Companys reinsurance operating units, has been named interim president of Berkley Re America. Maloney joins the Company from a leading global insurer, where he most recently served as executive vice president and chief underwriting officer for North American financial lines, including all major professional liability and management liability coverages. Travelers to Become Exclusive Provider of U.S. Auto Insurance Claim Management for Lyft The Travelers Companies, Inc. announced that, effective Feb. 1, 2019, it will become the exclusive provider of U.S. auto insurance claim services for Lyft, a ridesharing company. At last Thursdays high tide, a tiny tugboat named Bonnie pulled a red barge through Great Egg Harbor Bay, N.J. It headed to Beesleys Point 2 miles away to be filled with up to 300 tons of rock before returning to Shooting Island, an eroding wetland within eyesight of Ocean Citys back bay. As shore towns grapple with how to mitigate flooding, some are turning their attention away from building hard, concrete structures, such as seawalls, and toward restoring more natural barriers. Officials say some of these natural barriers, which have been slowly disappearing for years, can be rebuilt as a buffer against storm surges. The small, bayside islands, or islets, dot larger barrier islands across Atlantic and Cape May counties. Ocean Citys once-150-acre Shooting Island is the largest such endeavor in South Jersey. The city is restoring what was once a dredge material site by stocking it with oyster habitats and placing a rock wall around a portion of it. The island could be gone by 2100 if nothing is done, the city says. These bay islands are a first defense against flooding, said Junetta Dix, environmental director of Act Engineers Inc., the firm tasked with developing a long-term dredging plan. If its flooding in your back door and you have hard wood floors, it comes straight across. But if you have big, deep shag carpets, in this case its vegetation and rocks, then it hits that and it slows down and it dissipates. Work began last week on the $2.75 million project, funded partially by a $2.6 million federal grant. A crew of construction workers in hard hats were continuing to install 2,700 feet of rock sill along the islands west side on last week, even as pieces of the marsh fell off. Once thats complete, they will place 1,450 feet of open concrete blocks that lock together on the shoreline for oyster habitats. Plants may be added during another phase of the project if the city applies for and receives dredging permits, which takes years. Using bay islands for flood mitigation is a budding concept in New Jersey. Its also been done in the Chesapeake Bay area. For years, officials in Margate and Ventnor have been eyeing Shelter Island off Ventnor as a way to protect the vulnerable back bay. In 2014, the cities hired the Coastal Research Center to study the island. In the center of the marshland is a giant hole. Shelter Islands center was dug out in the 1920s to 27-foot water depths to build Ventnor Heights. Researchers with the CRC estimated that 900,000 cubic yards of sediment would be needed to fill that hole, bring the island to one-foot of elevation and restore 47 acres of marsh. Then, the hope is that it could act as a buffer against boat wake action and noreasters. Everyone is taking a new look at (flood mitigation) said Jim Rutala, Ventnors grant writer. Our greatest exposure is no longer the ocean front. Its the back bays. Even as the concept gains momentum, its not without controversy. Some have pushed back against the idea of altering natural habitats with dredge spoils, while others have reservations about the high cost of such projects amid a lack of empirical evidence that they mitigate flooding. It makes no financial sense to me and we strongly suspect based on our research that (the Shooting Island project) may actually exacerbate flooding, Suzanne Hornick, board member of Ocean City organization Fairness in Taxes, said of the restoration being done in Ocean City. Donna Moore, who chairs the groups environmental committee, is concerned that the rock sill placed on the Shooting Islands northwestern side will prevent water from draining back into the bay from the streets after noreasters. Other similar projects have been successful though, said USACE Project Manager Monica Chasten. Mordecai Island off Beach Haven was restored in 2015 without flood mitigation in mind. The Army Corps of Engineers placed dredge spoils on the 45-acre salt marsh, initially as a way to reuse the silt removed from the bottom of nearby bodies of water and stop erosion. But after its completion, Chasten said, nearby landowners noticed a difference in wave action in the bay. You can see the waves breaking further out, Chasten said. Its like a speed bump. Right now, the Army Corps only has anecdotes to justify such undertakings. Over the next year, Chasten said, the Army Corps will collect data on the impact that restoring Mordecai Island had on reducing wave action, and later look at whether the project actually protects residential properties from flooding. All of these projects are still learning activities, Chasten said. There has to be that realization out of the gate. But its a simple no-brainer. We build these islands, and they break waves. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. It was a Friday afternoon in my Journalism 101 class at the University of Tampa, and we were talking about Jim Acosta again. Specifically, I brought up a tweet from the CNN White House corresponent, in which he wrote that President Trump seemed fired up and ready for combat. In person he sounds depressed and despondent. Trump was tweeting like hes fired up and ready for combat. In person he sounds depressed and despondent. Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 7, 2018 The question for the class: Did that sound like news reporting? Or something else? The answer was resounding, and illustrates an increasing divide between professional political journalists and the students who may seek to become them. In my class, at least, student journalists are disappointed by what they see as a lack of neutrality in political reporting, particularly on social media and particularly from some of the reporters who cover Trump for the biggest news organizations in the country. They had serious reservations about Acostas approach, but also saw him as a stand-in for a wider problem in political media. ICYMI: Student uncovers decades of sexual misconduct allegations against professor Sign up for CJR 's daily email When youre being attacked by someone of such authority as the president, its hard to bite your tongue, Mallory Culhane, a sophomore from northern Virginia who sat in the back row of the class, said. But being in this profession, its just something that you have to do. To be clear, my students fervently support the medias tenacious reporting on the Trump administration. They also applaud reporters aggressive face-to-face questioning of the president. And most of them find Trumps anti-media rhetoric both appalling and dangerous. Romelo Wilson, a sophomore from New York City who sat in the back row near Culhane, summed up the excitement student journalists feel in the current political and cultural climate. Journalists are increasing my passion for the field because I personally love to challenge those who feel as if theyre untouchable, he said. Thats exactly the job of a journalistto hold those with authority accountable for their actions. However, many of these same students believe journalists too often take the digital bait when it comes to social media taunts by the commander-in-chief. Tatiana Torres, a first-year student from Puerto Rico, could not hide her disgust regarding the Acosta tweet and others like it. Tweeting something like that is basically drinking poison and hoping the other person dies, she said. I find it disappointing and pointless. Of course, as my students acknowledge, not all news outlets claim to be nonpartisan. For such outlets, gleeful Trump-bashing might be expected and even excused. But for outlets that claim neutrality, my students have a clear expectation: all headlines and articles in the news section, as well as all social media feeds of all news reporters, should strive for neutrality. Our job is to write news and keep it neutral, therefore you should be neutral on social media, Travis Politakis, a first-year student from Houston, said. It is almost like that rule where you are not really supposed to tell people who you voted for. If you keep it neutral, you will avoid arguments and will become more credible, because people would not be able to tell bias. After the semester ended, Politakis and I continued our conversation at a nearby coffee shop. At the time, CNN was giving prominence to three stories on its home page: Bomb threats emailed to multiple locations, read one headline. Strasbourg attacker killed by police, read another. The only headline containing all caps was a negative one about Trump: National Enquirer deal is a BIG problem for Trump. That sticks out to me because the word BIG is in all caps and it tends to sound like a more liberal point of view, Politakis told me. The fact that it is in all caps makes me feel like there is an emergency and a drastic change is about to happen in the country, impacting the way we live our lives. To Politakis, the all-caps anti-Trump headline seemed at odds with CNNs statement of journalistic integrity, which we discussed in class: Much of popular journalism today comes with a political or ideological slant: it aims to win people to a point of view, not necessarily to an understanding of the facts, the statement says: CNN does not try to appeal to a specific point of view or political constituency. Whatever their politics, few of my students view CNN as neutral. The conservative-leaning students see medias inability to hide its animosity toward Trump as unprofessional. Bashing the president, sometimes even going out of their way to do so at times, is giving a bad rep to journalists across the nation, Matthew Polek, a first-year student from Connecticut, said. I believe Trump should be held to very high standardshe is the presidentbut I am not a fan of the amount of attack he receives from the media, especially CNN. As our classroom conversation continued, there was a hint of what the future of news reportingincluding headlines, articles, and social media feedsmight look like. Unlike most of todays reporters, tomorrows will have grown up with constant trolling on social media. Many of them have learned to tune it out. Malaysia Alford, a first-year student from outside of Tampa, has high regard forand high expectations ofthe news media. I think Jim Acostas actions at the conference made him the embodiment of what it means to be courageous, Alford said. But for her, that didnt excuse the opinionated tweets. I would not take to Twitter or any social media platform to poke at the president. With Trump in office, I hold the media to a higher standard. We have to be the bigger people. ICYMI: A student journalist asked her school for records of harassment complaints against teachers. She ended up uncovering a big story. Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today David R. Wheeler , assistant professor of journalism at The University of Tampa, has written for CNN, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Follow him on Twitter @WheelerWorkshop. As it is the German tendency to have a single noun for specific, even obscure concepts, there is a word for the relationship between a journalistic outfit and its readership. Leserbindung, the bond between reader and journalist, is the value that Der Spiegel, the German weekly news magazine, now finds itself desperately trying to salvage. The week before Christmas, Der Spiegel announced that it had a dishonest reporter in its midst. The week prior, the magazines editors became aware that one of its star reporters, Claas Relotius, 33, had fabricated award-winning stories about Turkey, Syria, Guantanamo, the US, and elsewhere. We are deeply sorry about what has happened. We have a large readership which can now be forgiven for wondering if Der Spiegel should still be trusted, write Steffan Klusmann and Dirk Kurbjuweit, the editor in chief and the deputy editor in chief, respectively. As MEEDIA, the German media oversight publication, writes, The damage that Claas Relotius has done to the Spiegel brand cannot yet be measured. Relotiuss deception came to light after he had worked for the magazine for some seven years, publishing close to 60 stories. In late 2018, he was assigned to co-author a story with Juan Moreno, a freelancer for Der Spiegel, that was published in November as Jaegers Border. The idea was to offer a dual account of the migrants making their way toward the Mexico-US border and the vigilante militants poised to receive them. Moreno quickly became suspicious: Relotius said he preferred to work alone; that his protagonist, a member of a militia known to refuse journalists, consented to have Relotius cover his violent, even criminal behavior, only to shy away from being photographed. Moreno spoke to Relotius, raising the possibility that Relotius had been lied to by his source, not imagining that Relotius had fabricated his work. Relotius ignored him and, in mid-November, as the story was about to go to press, Moreno relayed his concerns to his editors, who initially waved them away. Soon thereafter, Moreno, who was on assignment in Las Vegas, surreptitiously traveled to Arizona to meet Relotiuss supposed sources and found that they had never spoken to him. Only then were Morenos accusations taken seriously. ICYMI: How a problematic NYT article shows how newsrooms are out of touch with the communities they cover As his editors have since discovered, Relotiuss fabrications were brazen, extensive, and methodical. He registered false email addresses and Facebook accounts from invented sources to share with editors and fact-checkers. After being frustrated in his attempts to speak to Colin Kaepernick, Relotius falsely reported that he spoke on the phone with the players parents. He visited Fergus Falls, Minnesota, to write about a small town that had voted for Trump. He spent 38 days there and delivered a portrait of a community populated with individuals who either didnt exist or who had names, medical conditions, or jobs that were invented. He fabricated a profile of a woman who traveled around the US witnessing death-row executions. In Konigskinder, one of his most decorated stories, he wrote of orphan siblings in Turkey, Ahmed and Alin, who had been displaced from Syria. Ahmed, Relotius wrote, had seen his father shot by a firing squad and buried his mother by hand. In reality, Ahmeds father had disappeared but wasnt shot; his mother is alive and works in a furniture store; and Alin, if she exists, is not his sister. As an editor and section head, your first reaction when receiving stories like this is to be pleased, not suspicious. Sign up for CJR 's daily email Critics hold Der Spiegel accountable: had the magazine not developed such an appetite for literary reportagethe Spiegel style the magazine is known forRelotius might not have gotten away with his lies. Hans-Peter Siebenhaar, the media reporter for the Handelsblatt, writes that the scandal offers the chance to clean house of the stereotyped stories that aim only for popularity with the target audience. Alexander Clarkson, a lecturer for German and European studies at Kings College London, argued in a tweet that Relotiuss stories might have been harder to fabricate if they had challenged rather than confirmed readers and editors prejudices: A media culture that too easily falls back on rhetorical tropes and stylistic devices that build on entrenched social prejudices . . . will inevitably be vulnerable to literary fraudsters skilled at producing florid copy that confirms readers expectations. Clarkson tells me, If its a tradition of your magazine to make complex facts and developments accessible to a wide, mass audience, then the bias of your editors will be to cut away the structural stuff and focus on the personal-level, engaging, emotive stuff that will allow readers to connect with what youre trying to discuss. Relotius wrote in typical Spiegel style: descriptive, colorful, even purple prose that emphasizes the emotional over the factual, often going so far as to imagine a protagonists interior world. He included unusually perfect details, like the Tom Petty song (I Wont Back Down) that played in an embattled abortion clinic and the lyrics of the song a young Syrian refugee sang as she walked through a city in Turkey. In Konigskinder, he wrote that the story is so lively and truthful, its as though only children could have written it. (Its a bold move to suggest, within an invented story, that its so good it could only have been fabricated.) Relotiuss flare for a quasi-literary style might have led his editors to push him harder to demonstrate the factual basis for his stories, but instead it did the opposite. As Spiegel editor Ullrich Fichtner writes in a lengthy announcement of the scandal, As an editor and section head, your first reaction when receiving stories like this is to be pleased, not suspicious. You are more interested in evaluating the story based on criteria such as craftsmanship, dramaturgy, and harmonious linguistic images than on whether its actually true. Clarksons criticismthat editors value emotional resonance over veracityis borne out again in the manner in which Der Spiegel decided to publicize the scandal. In more than 6,000 words, Fichtner recreated the tense, emotional moments that led to Relotiuss downfall. (Fichtner, along with another editor, Matthias Geyer, has since been suspended pending further investigation. Fichtner, who discovered Relotius and is seen as one of his champions, was slated to become the magazines new editor in chief on January 1; Geyer is the editor of the Society section where Relotiuss reportage was often featured.) Fichtners decision to dramatizein Spiegel stylewhat for the magazine were grave events was criticized for being tone deaf. Giovanni di Lorenzo, the editor in chief of Die Zeit, another weekly newspaper and one of Der Spiegels rivals, called Fichtners article unconvincing. Because beautiful writing, exciting writing, was also a part of what Relotius is accused of. TRENDING: Politico slammed on social media over Elizabeth Warren article Two days after Fichtners account was published, Der Spiegel published, in its first print issue after the news broke, a 23-page section devoted to the scandal. Within the section, Der Spiegel acknowledges criticism of Fichtners piecesince its publication, they write, Fichtners has, for some, become part of the storybut then, oddly, the editors do it again. This time, Clemens Hoges, a longtime journalist and former editor in chief at the magazine, contributes 2,300 words under the heading A Nightmare, likening Relotiuss machinations to a perfect storm. He describes, in dramatic fashion, a group of editors huddled around a computer as an IT specialist opens Relotiuss email account. What follows is a tick-tock of how Relotiuss deception came to light. Hoges writes that, because so many have accused Relotius of prettifying his stories, its necessary for the explanation not to be about beauty, but exclusively about the precision of the facts. But does it do damage to offer them in well-written form? Hogess lack of insight, like Fichtners, seems to disqualify him from claiming objectivity. Nevertheless, he is one of the three people appointed to a special commission to review the magazines handling of Relotiuss work. This is where Spiegels deepest betrayal of its readers can be found: in claiming a robust fact-checking system that, when scrutinized, avoids any adversarial relationship between fact-checker and reporter. In addition to Der Spiegel, Relotius had written for other German publications, including Die Zeit, the Suddeutsche Zeitung, and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. He won numerous awards, including Germanys Reporter of the Year prize in 2018 and CNNs Journalist of the Year in 2014. His youth recalls Jayson Blair, the twenty-seven-year-old New York Times reporter who resigned in 2003 after fabricating dozens of articles, while his awards bring to mind Janet Cooke, the Washington Post journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981. Here, too, there is a whiff of Der Spiegel capitalizing on the the intrigue, with Fichtner referring to Relotius as one of Der Spiegels best writers and a journalistic idol of his generation. As Craig Silverman wrote in this publication in 2010, Der Spiegels fact-checking and research department, called Dokumentation, is likely the worlds largest, with 60 full-time staff. Axel Pult, then the deputy director of Dokumentation, describes the department as the source of Der Spiegels Leserbindung. Given this extensive fact-checking apparatus, how was Relotius able to deceive his readers and his colleagues for so long? Der Spiegel editors write that the magazine did not check facts as thoroughly as its own statutes stipulate. The editorial staff and research and fact-checking department relied too heavily on the reporters presumed credibility. In Hogess accounting, he argues that Dokumentation has its limits: Dokumentation can verify a lot, but what a source told a reporter or what a man in the desert did one night is difficult to completely verify. Editors accepted Relotiuss excuses when he told them he had forgotten or misplaced recordings or notes. There were public figures in Relotiuss stories who could have been reached for verification, but this is not standard procedure: The Wall Street Journal, quoting a Spiegel spokesman, reported that Der Spiegels fact-checking process does not include contacting any subjects of articles. This is where Spiegels deepest betrayal of its readers can be found: in claiming a robust fact-checking system that, when scrutinized, avoids any adversarial relationship between fact-checker and reporter. What will Spiegel do going forward to repair its trust with readers? Steffan Klusmann, the editor in chief, has said that a thorough investigation of Relotiuss stories will likely take months. In the meantime, Klusmann has made clear that Der Spiegel, which still has a magazine to run, wont be offering information on every falsehood investigators uncover. (The editors did announce, however, that they will be pressing charges against Relotius related to his fraudulent handling of donations from readers meant to benefit his sources.) Based on letters from readers printed in the magazines special section, many still trust the publication, and Der Spiegel stands by its belief that reporters require freedom and trust to do their jobs. The most likely change may be Spiegel style. In last weeks special section, di Lorenzo was interviewed by two Spiegel editors. He criticized what he called the cult of beautiful writing. He concluded, Its often the very soberly narrated that are the most moving. ICYMI: The tweet that derailed a news cycle Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Anna Altman is a writer and editor in Washington, DC. As the Michael Bloomberg era comes to an end, what it will be remembered for remains as yet unclear. Bloombergs multi-term predecessors in City Hall were outsize figures: Ed Koch (197889) was known for his humor and self-promotion and for saving New York from bankruptcy (see The Last Sane Liberal, Winter 2012). Rudy Giuliani (19942001) was known for his pugnacious style, his successful anticrime crusade, and his achievement in making New York livable again. But after 12 years as mayor, Bloomberg is noted more for his less significant side projectshis national antigun advocacy and his efforts to crack down on smoking and unhealthy foodthan for his major policies, which, in areas such as public safety and welfare reform, were unarguably impressive. The departing mayor plans to devote some time to his new consultancy, which will attempt to do for other cities what he did for New York. But New Yorkers can be forgiven if they lack a clear picture of Bloombergism as a governing philosophy, if such a thing even exists. What does the Bloomberg legacy add up to? The early biography of New Yorks first billionaire mayor is by now well known. Born in Bostonan electoral liability for any Gotham politicianBloomberg attended Johns Hopkins and then Harvard Business School. Landing on Wall Street, he became a general partner at Salomon Brothers until the company bought him out for $10 million in 1981. With that money, he created Bloomberg L.P., a financial information firm that soon became an empire, today worth $31 billion. In his late fifties, Bloomberg launched his second career: politics. He was first elected mayor in 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11. Bloombergs campaignhis introductory foray into the public arenawas marked by an opportunism that would characterize his approach to politics. Until the race began, Bloomberg was a Democrat, if not a particularly partisan one. But in a city in which Democrats hold a five-to-one advantage in voter registration, Democratic primaries are invariably crowded, with candidates often seeking an edge by championing particular racial or ethnic groups. In the 1977 primary, for example, heavyweights Mario Cuomo, Ed Koch, and Bella Abzug all sought to unseat Abe Beame, the incumbent mayor, with each appealing to different constituencies. Entering a Democratic primary in New York is an uncertain business. Bloomberg saw a far easier route through the sparse Republican field. In other political contexts, Bloombergs social liberalism and pro-gun-control stance might have proved insurmountable obstacles to claiming the GOP mantle. But New York Republicans have always been more socially liberal than the national party, and the self-financing candidate won the nomination. The general election was another matter. New York City seemed poised for a Democratic mayor after two terms of Giulianis strong but often contentious leadership. The media and liberal interest groups had grown relentless in their criticism of the administration, and voters started to agree. In June 2001, polls showed Mark Green, who would emerge as the Democratic challenger, leading Bloomberg by more than 40 points. The September 11 terrorist attacks changed this dynamic, bringing security back as a defining issue and reminding New Yorkers of a time, not too long before, when the city seemed out of control. The attacks also restored Giulianis approval ratings, as his courageous leadership rallied the city. The mayors subsequent endorsement of Bloomberg thus proved much more meaningful than it would have earlier in the race: Time called the endorsement magic. Polling expert Ken Goldstein contends that the Bloomberg ads featuring Giuliani, which ran near the end of the campaign, were crucial to the candidates overcoming of his early deficit. Bloomberg pulled even with Green one day after the Giuliani ads started to run. No one would have seen those effective ads, though, if Bloomberg hadnt had the funds to get them on the air again and again. Fortunately for him, moneya second transformative force in the 2001 racewasnt an issue. Bloomberg spent as much as $70 million on the campaign, dwarfing the Green camps $15 million or so. Bloombergs television ads outnumbered his rivals 6,500 to 2,500, but that was only part of the advantage. Toward the end of the race, noted the New York Timess Adam Nagourney, Bloomberg was ubiquitous: on television and radio, in mailboxes, on Web sites. Mr. Bloomberg even mailed videotapes, in which he appealed for votes, to households across New York. As the Democrats spokesman, Joseph DePlasco, told the Times, We spent more money than you should spend in a mayoral election, but we couldnt compete. This isnt like comparing apples and oranges; its like apples and watermelons. In an earlier period, Koch had attained ubiquity by going after every available microphoneon radio, TV, the movies, even on Broadway; Bloomberg managed a similar feat with his checkbook. Bloombergs prodigious spending helped him get reelected twice. During his 2005 campaign, which culminated with a 20-point victory over Fernando Ferrer, his wealth allowed him, for example, to spend over $10 million compiling an extensive delineation of New Yorkers into new categories, such as FANS (fearful and anxious New Yorkers), Middle Middles (middle-class moderates of all races), and Cultural Liberals, and then target these voters with tailored messages. Reporter Jim Rutenberg drily observed of the lists: It is unclear whether another city candidate would ever be able to afford to replicate Mr. Bloombergs effort. In his final campaign, in 2009, Bloomberg beat his Democratic opponent, Bill Thompson, using similar expensive methods, after winning an extension of the citys term-limit law to let him run for a third term. (Not long after he was safely back in office, the two-term limit was reinstated, suggesting that Bloomberg objected not so much to the limit as to having it imposed on him.) This time, the margin of victory proved much narrowerjust five points. All told, Bloomberg wound up spending about $245 million of his own money on his three campaignsa staggering sum but barely denting his overall wealth. Bloombergs money was useful to him politically in ways that went beyond campaign season. He sometimes extended personal donations to city organizations facing budget restrictions. When Bloomberg cut the budgets of cultural institutions to help close a budget gap, observed Chris Smith in New York, he quietly reached into his own pocket to make up some of the difference. The mayors personal giving flowed disproportionately to New York Citybased institutions. Five hundred-plus of the twelve hundred-plus recipients of the Mayors personal largesse are based in the city, reported Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker. Spreading so much money around doubtless helped shield the mayor from criticism. Yet chance and money alone cant explain how Bloomberg was mayor for 12 years. After all, he leaves office with about half of New Yorkers approving of his stewardship of the cityand only a small percentage saying that he did a lousy job. But what, exactly, is it that they liked? A quick survey of the mayors major initiatives shows some significant successes but also some misstepsand considerable ideological ambiguity. The ambiguity was already evident in the composition of the mayors high-priced, all-star political teamBloombergs Golden Army, the New York Observer dubbed them. The heterogeneous group included media guru David Garth, who had worked for mayors on both sides of the political aisle; Frank Luntz, the pollster of the 1994 Republican revolution; Democratic pollster Doug Schoen; GOP lawyer Lawrence Mandelker; and liberal Barnard professor Ester Fuchs. One wonders whether all these people could have amiably conversed at a cocktail party, let alone worked together to advance one mans political interests. The mayors policy aides were equally diverse politically, ranging from Clinton Justice Department official Joel Klein, who came on board to run the vast New York City public schools system, to former George Pataki appointee Robert Doar, who joined the mayors team in 2007 as commissioner of the Human Resources Administration. Bloomberg looked to talent and technocratic brainpower, not ideology, in his major personnel choices. Damon Winter/The New York Times/Redux One undisputed Bloomberg policy success has been maintaining law and order. Back in 1990, the number of murders in New York City reached an all-time high of 2,245, prompting many observers to wonder if the city was even governable. The proactive crime-fighting revolution brought by Mayor Giuliani and once-and-future New York Police Department commissioner William Bratton swiftly reduced killings in the city, and other felonies, too, bringing the city back from the edge of disaster and making it a symbol of urban success. But crime reduction continued under Mayor Bloomberg and his police chief, Ray Kelly, even as the NYPD developed top-notch counterterror capabilities in the aftermath of 9/11, had its ranks slimmed due to budget constraints, and faced ongoing litigation over its stop-question-and-sometimes-frisk policies. Murders fell to 414 in 2012, making New York the safest big city in Americaa remarkable achievement that Mayor Bloomberg can call partly his own. As with crime, Bloombergs welfare policies built on the Giuliani successes and even expanded on them. By cracking down on fraud, instituting ambitious workfare programs, and transforming the welfare bureaucracy to emphasize getting jobs for recipients instead of just checks, Giuliani cut the citys 1-million-strong welfare rolls by more than half. Though he faced a tougher economy and a smaller but more chronic welfare population, Bloomberg pledged to continue the work-first policies. We will not allow our city to recede to a culture of dependency, the new mayor said, and he proved true to his word. Bloomberg vetoed several city council efforts to weaken work requirements, and he offered new reforms. His 2005 WeCare initiative devoted individualized attention to welfare recipients struggling with substance abuse, emotional problems, or other difficultieswith the emphasis, again, on helping people join the workforce. Under Bloomberg, the citys welfare rolls dropped another 20 percent. At the same time, Bloomberg showed a willingness to combine the work emphasis with more generous government efforts to fight poverty. In 2006, the mayor rolled out an aggressive citywide antipoverty program built around the new Center for Economic Opportunity, which received more than half of its $100 million initial funding from the city. The CEO launched a battery of new initiativesthe Office of Financial Empowerment, SaveUSA, CUNY ASAP, Jobs-Plus, and the Young Mens Initiative, among othersall designed, in one way or another, to fight the cycle of poverty in New York City and build human capital and improve financial security. Whether these efforts will deliver positive long-term results remains to be seen. From a political standpoint, though, Bloombergs social-welfare record had something for everybody. As the New York City Coalition Against Hungers Joel Berger described the mayors approach in 2005: Its brilliant the way he has convinced Giuliani conservatives that he hasnt changed the policy, and the way he has convinced liberals he has. Bloombergs education record was mixed. He and Joel Klein unquestionably pursued lots of innovation. The New York Timess Fernando Santos recently summed up the array of reforms: giving principals more power over their budgets, making teacher tenure harder to obtain and, in the face of intense protest, closing more than 100 schools and opening scores of charter schools in poor and middle-class enclaves. The accountability-based, competition-driven school reforms of the Bloomberg era resulted in a better-run school system and at least some progress on student achievement. High school graduation rates are up substantially (though so, too, is the percentage of students entering the City University of New York requiring remediation), and state tests show city kids closing the gap with students in the rest of New York. A pilot program introduced by Klein, implementing the content-rich Core Knowledge curriculum, showed particular promise, and will now be expanded to more city schools. The mayors reputation as a school reformer suffered a blow in 2011, though, after a report by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)considered the nations report cardrevealed that New York City eighth-graders had made negligible gains in math and reading achievement since 2003. A mere 24 percent scored at NAEP proficiency in math; an identical 24 percent read at NAEP proficiency level. The 2013 NAEP tests showed much the same. And even if some gains have been made, at what cost? The schools budget doubled under Bloomberg, from $12 billion to $24 billioneasily the biggest short-term increase in education spending by any city in American history. The mayor also made a mistake when he hired Cathie Black, a friend and former publishing executive, to replace the outgoing Klein as schools chancellor in 2010. Nobody would say that Black wasnt smart in the technocratic way Bloomberg admires, but she had no education credentials, and her appointment proved an ongoing disaster of public gaffes, including a birth-control joke that offended a group of parents and appearing to mock another group of parents opposed to the closing of their childrens school. She resigned after just three months. New Yorks economy under Bloomberg was also a mixture of good and not so good. Gotham enjoyed a development boom on Mayor Bloombergs watch, encouraged in part by smart rezoning of approximately 40 percent of the city. Eight of the tallest buildings in the city arose during Bloombergs tenure. The average cost of a New York apartment soared from $382,000 to $825,000good news for property owners and the real-estate industry, if not for buyers. The city also recovered more rapidly from the post-2008 downturn than has the country as a whole, thanks partly to generous federal bailout funds for Wall Street and artificially easy credit, courtesy of the Federal Reserve. By 2011, New York had regained all the jobs it lost after the financial crisis, and it has added another 100,000 since then; the national economy, by contrast, remains 4 million jobs below its prerecession peak. The citys Independent Budget Office projects that, if the current momentum is maintained, the local economy will exceed 4 million jobs in 2014, the first time that figure has been surpassed. But city taxes remain extremely high, even by American big-city standards, and Bloombergs 18.5 percent property-tax increase in 2002 made things worse. In fact, since Bloomberg took office, Gotham tax collections have doubled, growing about twice as rapidly as the citys economic output (see Overburdened, Special Issue 2013). With competition among states and cities for investment getting ever more intense, New York can ill afford such business-discouraging levies. Unfortunately, reducing that tax burden isnt going to be easy. While Bloomberg was often called the businessman mayor with an eye on the bottom line, city spending jumped 55 percent during his 12 years in office (a big portion of it going to the schools and public-sector worker pensions), and the debt doubled. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Bloombergs mayoralty was his belief that government should push people to make healthier choices. From bans on smoking in bars (and just about everywhere else) and on trans fats in restaurants to requirements for fast-food chains to post calorie counts to his (ultimately unsuccessful) effort to outlaw Big Gulp sodas, Bloombergs nanny-city tendencies were frequently on display, and just as often derided. Indeed, when people outside New York hear the name Bloomberg, this is often the first thing that comes to mind, right before they think of his advocacy for gun control far beyond his mayoral jurisdiction. Still, as he hands over management of New York City to his successor, Bill de Blasio, the first Democratic mayor in two decades, Bloomberg can look to his overall record and credibly claim it as a mostly positive one. He may have had detractors on both sides of the political aislebut he had fans on both sides, too, reflecting the fact that both those on the right and on the left could cite Bloomberg policies they applauded and those they deplored. As for Bloombergism, Mayor Bloomberg was sui generis: there is unlikely to be another ideologically malleable, tough-on-crime, pro-welfare-and-education-reform, somewhat financially irresponsible, autocratically intrusive, technocratic billionaire mayor of New York any time soon. After a few years of a progressive de Blasio administration, though, New Yorkers may be missing Mayor Bloomberg a great deal. Top Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images The Iranian Foreign Ministry's spokesman, Bahram Qassemi, extended his condolences to the Russian government and people over the deadly collapse of a residential building in the Russian city of Magnitogorsk, the ministry said, UrduPoint reported. "Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi has sent a message of condolence after a blast in a building in central Russia left tens of people dead and injured. In the message on Wednesday, the spokesman expressed deep regret over the incident in Magnitogorsk and extended sympathy to the government and nation of Russia as well as the families of the victims of this tragic incident," the Foreign Ministry said in a press release. About eight years ago, then-16-year-old Abby Sunderland attempted to become the youngest person to sail around the world solo. Four months into her record-setting voyage, Sunderland was rescued by Australian authorities after rough winds dismasted her 40-foot vessel. Authorities left the sloop, named "Wild Eyes," in the waters of the Indian Ocean some 2,000 miles west of Australia. ALSO READ: They only dated for 6 months, then they quit their jobs to travel on a catamaran Just as 2018 came to an end, "Wild Eyes" made headlines once again, almost a decade since its captain's ill-fated voyage. According to South Australian police, the vessel was found off the coast of Kangaroo Island on New Year's Eve. A tuna-spotting plane noticed the yellow sloop while scouting fish. A police helicopter and two commercial fishing vessels investigated the wreck, which was floating upside down and covered in barnacles, and later determined it was "Wild Eyes," authorities said. MORE SAILING NEWS: Carnival cruises into SF Sunderland, a native of Thousand Oaks, Calif., abandoned her attempts to circumnavigate the globe solo in a sailboat after her rescue. She revealed in 2011 that she was taking flying lessons and planned to fly around the world. In May 2010, then-16-year-old Jessica Watson, of Australia, became the youngest person to sail around the world solo. She completed the 22,000-nautical-mile voyage two days before her 17th birthday having disembarked from Sydney Harbor seven months earlier. Read Michelle Robertson's latest stories and send her news tips at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com. Start receiving breaking news emails on wildfires, civil emergencies, riots, national breaking news, Amber Alerts, weather emergencies, and other critical events with the SFGATE breaking news email. Click here to make sure you get the news. Pakistan has urged Iran to explain in-writing its interpretation of sanctions that resulted in a massive delay in completion of the mega Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project, DAWN.com reported. The government has taken up the issue in a recent meeting with the Iranian petroleum ministrys advisers held in Islamabad. During the meeting, we have asked them to give us a detailed clarity over their interpretation of the sanctions under which they claim that the restrictions dont affect completion of the project, Inter State Gas System (ISGS) Managing Director Mr Mobeen Saulat told Dawn. As far as we understand, we cannot move ahead on the project due to sanctions imposed on Iran. But they (Iranian petroleum ministry advisers) have their own interpretation of the sanctions. So we have engaged them in the process to understand the [sanctions] interpretation of each other, the ISGS official said. That is why we have told them that we need a detailed clarity in writing from them in this regard, as we cannot go ahead with the project with their verbal interpretation. They have agreed to provide us a detailed reply, the MD added. The official said as soon as the government received explanation from Iran [over sanctions regime] it would study and evaluate the same in depth. And if it finds the same justified, it may be in a position to resolve the issue. Since it is a very important project in view of 750MMCFD natural gas provision to Pakistan, the government wants to resolve this issue by understanding interpretation of the sanctions, he said. China became the first country to land a probe on the far side of the moon Wednesday night -- an achievement that comes as more and more countries plan missions to the lunar surface in the 50 years since U.S. astronauts first set foot there. The country's Chang'e-4 lunar probe, which contains both a lander and a rover, touched down at about 8:15 p.m. Wednesday, Chinese state run media XinhuaNet confirmed later that night. The probe was launched in early December and follows China's Chang'e-3 mission, which landed on the near side of the moon in December 2013. Shortly after the landing was confirmed, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted his well wishes to the country for a monumental achievement. "Congratulations to China's Chang'e-4 team for what appears to be a successful landing on the far side of the Moon," Bridenstine tweeted. "This is a first for humanity and an impressive accomplishment!" The United States is the only country that has left human footprints on the moon, first achieved with the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969. The other two countries to land spacecraft on the moon are the Soviet Union in September 1959 and China in 2013. But more and more countries are entering the fray. Israel plans to land a probe on the moon in February and India is gearing up to launch its second moon mission. Landing on the far side of the moon has never been achieved before because it is difficult to transmit radio signals to the spacecraft without a direct line of sight from Earth. China overcame that problem by launching a lunar satellite in May that sits near the moon and enables communication between the spacecraft and Earth. China plans to study the topography and mineralogy of the far side of the moon, as well as do an astronomical study of the surface. NASA, meanwhile, is shifting its focus at the direction of President Donald Trump to returning to the moon for the first time since 1972 as a stepping stone for a mission to Mars. Trump's $19.9 billion NASA budget proposal for the coming fiscal year tasks NASA with launching the first flight without a crew for Orion the spacecraft meant to take humans to Mars by 2022. A mission to orbit the moon would follow in 2023. Additionally, Trump's proposal would allow the agency to begin working on the foundation of a Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway. In his budget message, Trump said the gateway would "give us a strategic presence in the lunar vicinity that will drive our activity with commercial and international partners and help us further explore the moon and its resources and translate that experience toward human missions to Mars." Trump's proposed budget still must be approved by Congress, though NASA is among the agencies affected by the current government shutdown. Alex Stuckey writes about NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey. Hundreds of Houstonians landed in jail over the long holiday weekend for DWI and celebratory gunfire, police say. Between Dec. 26 and Jan. 1, law enforcement arrested 347 people for driving while intoxicated and intoxication assault, according to Harris County District Attorney's Office Vehicular Crimes Chief Sean Teare. Two Houston teenagers faced off in a Greater Fondren-area home, pointing loaded guns at each other in what was meant to be part of an internet fad "challenge," according to court records. Instead, the game left one of them dead. The family of the dead teen, Christian Estes-Johnson, doesn't believe that's what happened, instead contending that the fatal shooting was intentional. They're angered that the accused gunman, Mohamad Alajil, only faces a manslaughter charge. "Manslaughter is a slap in the face," said Pearla Estes, Christian's mother. "My son doesn't play a gun game." FIRST PERSON ESSAYS: 'I was shot. By a stranger. For no reason' a journalist tells the story only for subscribers at HoustonChronicle.com Alajil, who was 17 at the time, is accused of recklessly killing Estes-Johnson on Dec. 11. Prosecutors allege that Alajil killed Estes-Johnson while playing the No Lackin Challenge, pointing a loaded gun at his head and pulling the trigger. Estes-Johnsons family contends that the shooting was part of a robbery and murder. Estes said when Alajil fled, her sons pockets were turned inside out. Police have not responded to requests for comment. Estes-Johnson, 19, died at 11:45 p.m. at his home in the 5300 block of Ivyknoll. A witness who was in the bedroom at the time told police that Estes-Johnson and Alajil were playing the game, which involves pointing loaded weapons at each other but not actually firing. The word lackin means being without a gun, according to Urban Dictionary, indicating that the point of the game is to show that you're armed and ready. Estes-Johnson allegedly pointed an AR-15 at Alajil, and Alajil stretched out his arm to point a semi-automatic pistol at Estes-Johnson, the witness told police. Alajil pulled the trigger, and a gunshot hit Estes-Johnson, killing him. Alajil dropped the pistol and began to run out of the house, according to court records. Two of Estes-Johnsons brothers tried but werent able to stop him. The witness called police later that morning and gave a statement. OPINION: An NRA lifer gives his solutions for gun violence only for subscribers on HoustonChronicle.com Original police reports detailed a different account of the afternoon. Police said at the time that Estes-Johnson was inside his bedroom arguing with two other men when a gunshot was heard. One of Estes-Johnsons family members went into the room and saw the teen was dead, police said after the shooting. The family member then struggled with the two men, who eventually fled the scene. Police later went to Alajils apartment, and he said that there was a fight that ended with him shooting in self-defense. After they mentioned the first witnesss account of the No Lackin challenge, he changed his story and said that was the truth, according to court records. The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences has not released whether it has ruled the death a homicide or accidental death. Alajil and Estes-Johnson were close friends, and Pearla Estes had effectively opened her home to the now-accused killer, sister Shrya Estes-Johnson said. He was just another family member, she said. Thats why we were very, very shocked. That was Christians best friend, his brother. Estes-Johnson was a twin, and a great older and younger brother, his sister said. He previously played varsity football and basketball for Sharpstown High School, the school said on Facebook. He wanted to enlist in the U.S. Army, and he was an active member of Young Life, a Christian organization, Shyra Estes-Johnson said. "He was very happy every day," she said. "I mean, everybody loved him." At the time of the shooting, Alajil was out on $50,000 bond for a charge of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon on Sept. 17, according to court records. Prosecutors requested bond of at least $100,000 in the manslaughter case, citing the fact that Alajil was on bond at the time of the incident. It is clear that the defendant presents a grave danger to the community, prosecutor Teresa Cannady said. Estes-Johnsons sister said she regrets that Alajil was out on bond in the first place. If he was put away, this would never have happened, she said. Public defender Genesis Draper, with the Harris County Public Defenders Office, requested $30,000 bond in the case, mentioning other deaths that have been caused by the game. Even if the facts are to be believed as is, this is a terrible and unfortunate situation, Draper said. It is not the first of its kind; that particular game has caused similar outcomes across the country. I would say its a little bit different than an outright intentional act. A judge set bond at $250,000 for Alajil, a Syrian citizen who is now 18 years old. He's due back in court on Friday. NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. Al Reinert, the former Houston Chronicle crime reporter who brought poetic images of space to audiences with the documentary film For All Mankind, and co-wrote the film Apollo 13, died due to complications of cancer on the early morning of New Years Eve in his home of Wimberley. He was 71. He is survived by his wife, the actress Lisa Hart Carroll, who is best known for her role as Patsy in the film Terms of Endearment. Reinert started off on the crime beat for the Chronicle, then covered NASA in the 1970s, when he discovered his fascination for space. For All Mankind, which he directed and produced in 1989, used archival footage to present a luminous, human view of NASAs Apollo program. He spoke to the heart, Carroll said Wednesday. He had a sense of poetry in telling a story. The films combination of ambient music, imagery and raw emotion garnered Reinert a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1990. While being interviewed in 2015 for a Houston Chronicle story, Reinert said he didnt want For All Mankind to be a traditional documentary with talking heads. Tom Hanks told me its not a documentary, he said. He said its an art film. And in a way hes right. I didnt know any better at the time. Id seen films with astronauts talking, and they just didnt do anything for me. Reinert wanted to interview astronauts about a mission that wasnt recent, so that they had time to reflect on their experiences. Think about a long drive, he said. Youre checking your speed, your gas, traffic, all these things around you. When you get back weeks later, then you really can process and articulate what you thought about the Grand Canyon. In 1996, Reinert was nominated for a second Oscar for co-penning the screenplay for Apollo 13. He wrote the film with William Broyles Jr., who he met while writing for Texas Monthly. He also co-wrote the 2001 film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, did uncredited work with Armageddon and worked on an unproduced James Cameron film about Mars. Carroll said Reinert was a humble man, but received fan letters from major filmmakers and writers expressing their gratitude for his contributions. She recalled a recent letter from film director Damien Chazelle telling Reinert that he had the entire crew of First Man Chazelles 2018 film about Neil Armstrong watch For All Mankind for inspiration. Reinert kept his declining health to himself as he quietly chipped away at his latest project, a yet-to-be finished documentary about the International Space Station called Above It All. A webpage for the film describes its subject as the model for a hopeful human future. Carroll said she hopes the film will one day be released. Though his subjects have also included Michael Morton a man wrongly jailed for nearly 25 years and naturalist John James Audubon, Reinert had a special gift in telling stories about space. It took Al Reinert to show what happened emotionally, spiritually to these men and what it was like to leave this earth, she said. But despite his success, Reinert never fit into Hollywood culture, choosing instead to live in a small home in the woods in Texas. He didnt dance to the normal beat, said Carroll. He was an oddball. He was a T-shirt and jeans guy. He lived like he wanted to live. The date for a service has yet to be determined. wchen@chron.com A Brenham man is behind bars after allegedly leading police on a chase with his toddler inside his car. Deputies with the Harris County Precinct 5 Constable's Office tried to pull over Corey Thomas, 31, in the 1500 block of West Sam Houston Parkway North around 3:45 p.m. Monday. Gov. Greg Abbott blasted Texas largest school district with a Twitter missive Thursday, calling Houston ISDs leadership a disaster that deserves to be replaced as punishment for failing children. The rare condemnation from Abbott follows months of criticism heaped on Houston ISDs school board, which has endured embarrassing displays of personal acrimony and a secretive effort to oust Interim Superintendent Grenita Lathan. Abbott had not spoken publicly about Houstons turmoil until his 43-word tweet, posted from his official account in the early afternoon. What a joke. HISD leadership is a disaster, read the tweet. Their self-centered ineptitude has failed the children they are supposed to educate. If ever there was a school board that needs to be taken over and reformed, its HISD. Their students & parents deserve change. The comments come as Houston faces potentially major sanctions either a state takeover of its locally elected school board or forced campus closures if four chronically low-performing schools do not all meet state academic standards this year. Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, who is appointed by Abbott, strongly has suggested he would replace Houstons school board before closing schools and Abbotts tweet further reinforces such speculation. Houston trustees have been roundly panned in recent months for their behavior during heated board meetings, leading to calls for state intervention from some community members and political leaders. Last April, two people were arrested following a scuffle with district police after Board President Rhonda Skillern-Jones ordered the audience removed from a raucous board meeting in which trustees contemplated surrendering control of 10 campuses to a charter school network. In October, trustees lobbed personal attacks and claims of racism minutes before five board members abruptly voted to replace Lathan, giving their four fellow trustees no advance notice of their intentions. Trustees later reinstated Lathan after her chosen replacement, former Houston superintendent Abelardo Saavedra, backed out because he deemed the board dysfunctional. Critics of Houstons school board also point to its failure to remedy academic failings at several of the districts lowest-performing campuses, all of which serve children in high-poverty neighborhoods. Kashmere High School, on the citys northeast side, has failed to meet state academic standards for nine consecutive years, the longest streak in Texas. Houston Trustee Sue Deigaard said Abbotts tweet reflects an all-too-common sentiment among many exasperated community members. I think anybody on the outside looking in probably shares this thought, Deigaard said. It is within our power as a board to stave off state takeover, but we are going to have to earn it. I do believe we can if we get our act together as a board and truly focus on governance. It was not immediately clear why Abbott weighed in on Houstons turbulence Thursday, during a relatively calm stretch in the district. Abbott aides did not respond to a written list of questions submitted by the Houston Chronicle following the tweet. The Texas Legislature reconvenes for its 140-day session next week, with school finance reform identified as a top priority. However, Houstons governance issues are unlikely to impact efforts to overhaul the states school funding methods. State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, plans to push legislation that would require at-large elections for some Houston trustees all board members currently are elected from single-member districts but there has not yet been a groundswell of support for the proposal. Abbotts post linked to a commentary authored by three community members and printed in the Chronicle that criticized Houston Mayor Sylvester Turners efforts to partner with the school district to operate several long-struggling campuses. Turners administration created a nonprofit designed to run schools in Houston, but trustees voted last month against seeking such partnerships with outside organizations. Such partnerships could allow Houston schools to stave off sanctions for two years. The authors of the commentary Sarah Becker, co-founder of HISD Parent Advocates; Travis McGee, a community leader and activist for We The People; and Kandice Webber, founding member of Houston Rising also argued for taking legal action against the Texas Education Agency to prevent a state takeover of Houstons board of trustees. Some Houston school board members have admitted to some governance missteps, as well as eroding trust between district leadership and the local community. However, they have argued that Houston remains in a relatively strong academic position. The district scored an 84 out of 100, equivalent to a B rating, under the states new academic accountability system, besting Dallas, Fort Worth, Aldine and several other large school districts. Houston also cut its number of schools failing to meet state academic standards from 58 in 2015 to 21 in 2018. In addition, Houston trustees have not been accused of engaging in major financial or legal misconduct to date, which has led to state takeover of school boards in other Texas districts. To overturn the whole apple cart is really doing a disservice to all those kids in HISD, said Dax Gonzalez, a spokesman for the Texas Association of School Boards. What we would say is: work on more targeted reforms for those campuses that are struggling. A Houston ISD spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The district remains on winter break. Turner declined through a spokeswoman to comment on Abbotts tweet. Two people died and one was injured as a result of a fight that took place in the village of Tianeti. According to available information, the quarrel began in the house of one of the deceased, and then continued in the courtyard. One of the participants of the fight was hospitalized with a gunshot wound. Currently, the representatives of law enforcement services are working at the emergency site. A criminal case has been opened under the article premeditated murder under aggravating circumstances, Sputnik Georgia reports. The robber, who attacked a resident of Dagestan Khasavyurt with a knife, is wanted by the law enforcement officers of the republic, the republican Ministry of Internal Affairs reports. According to the victim, an unknown person got into her house, stabbed her with a knife, and disappeared taking away her jewelry. The identity of the suspect has been established. He is a resident of Khasavyurt, born in 1995. The measures are being taken to arrest him, the law enforcement agency reports. Over half of school graduates of 2018 were able to enroll in Russian universities for free, Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Kotyukov, said. According to him, total number of thise admitted to universities compared to 2017 increased by about 6 thousand people and amounted to 1.148 million people. This number includes bachelor, masters, and specialty programs. In the framework of our state program, 528 thousand people are now studying for free, which is 12.5 thousand higher compared to last years numbers. We can say with confidence that the issue of accessibility of higher education still exists, even if situation is improving. If we compare current figures to number of school graduates, only 57% enroll in universities. It's a fairly high number, he said. According to him, increase can be seen in almost all forms of education - bachelor degree, masters degree, now matter if it's full-time or part-time education. Average score of the Unified State Exam (USE) in 2018 was 69.1 points. "The gap between admission in the framework of the state exam and paid admission still exists, and that's why we must think of additional measures to minimize this gap. Education must have more or less comparable conditions in order to ensure equal opportunities and employment conditions after graduation," Kotyukov said. Speaking of popular specialties, he said: In 2018, the most popular one was fundamental medicine, economics and management, as well as nursing. These are the three main specialties, although it must be understood that today students have opportunity to choose up to five universities to enroll to before making final decision. There's low interest in agriculture, forestry and fishery, musical art, physical education and sport. That's why there's still a lot of work to do. Taking into account this data, we can say that quantitative parameters of the current system show positive dynamics, while quality indicators are also somewhat positive, the minister concluded. Meanwhile, rector of the Higher School of Economics (HSE) Yaroslav Kuzminov said that while summing up results of admission campaign, analysts studied not only results of leading universities and largest branches, like they did before, but all branches and all non-state universities. He noted that non-state universities are getting closer and closer to state universities. Kuzminov stressed that monitoring doesn't include universities of art and universities of law enforcement agencies: "We focus only on those universities that mainly accept students based on the results of the Unified State Exam and olympiads. It's hard to compile data on other universities, as well as compare quality of talent of people who play on violin and those who are admitted to acting and other arts universities." "What should be highlighted is that we see gradual increase in number of those students who pay for studying in universities," Kuzminov admitted. A look inside James Hardens Thirteen restaurant in Houston A look at the inside of James Harden's restaurant and some of the food. The 10 best dishes at Houston's newest restaurants All created at restaurants that opened in the most challenging of years, the 10 dishes below top... A tragic story first covered by mySA.com of a San Antonio woman who survived more than 15 years of sexual abuse by her adoptive parents was the subject of a recent People magazine article. The victim, Abigail Alvarado, was sexually assaulted by her uncle and adoptive father, Eusebio Castillo, countless times, leading to the birth of three children who were raised to believe their mother was their sister. As forecasters predict heavy rainfall for the Houston area tonight, local law enforcement agencies are preparing high-water vehicles and reminding residents to stay inside if possible. Houston will be under a flash flood watch until noon Thursday with up to three inches of rainfall possible throughout the city. RELATED: Flooding possible for Houston area with rain in the forecast through Thursday More rain could fall in low lying areas. With ground already saturated from recent rainfall, residents should be especially mindful of runoff from rivers, creeks and bayous, the weather service said. Another 1.2 inches of rain is expected to fall before midnight. "In anticipation of additional rain this evening and heavy rain overnight, all HFD High Water Assets are ready for deployment," the Houston Fire Department said in a tweet. Their rescue fleet includes nine high-water vehicles, 18 evacuation boats, nine rescue boats and three drones. The Harris County Precinct 4 Constable's Office also said they're ready with high-water assets if necessary, including rescue boats, five-ton trucks and a Hummer. "Drive safely and avoid being out tonight if possible," the office said. Another half inch of rainfall is expected before noon Thursday. Morning commuters should check the Houston TranStar map to check for high-water locations on highways. Another map from the city's Office of Emergency Management identifies which roads would be barricaded during a heavy flood. Click through the gallery above to see some of those barricaded locations. Julian Gill is a digital reporter in Houston. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, houstonchronicle.com. | julian.gill@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message The mother of a young girl killed days ago in northeast Harris County in an apparently random attack called Thursday for the shooter to turn himself in. The call came as law enforcement authorities are searching feverishly for the gunman who killed 7-year-old Jazmine Barnes. "Do the right thing," LaPorsha Washington, Barnes' mother, told reporters Thursday at a relative's home. "I know you're hurting just as much as we're hurting." Barnes was driving with her four daughters early Sunday morning when police say a man in a red pickup truck drove up next to them in north Harris County and unleashed a hail of bullets on the family. Barnes was killed; Washington was struck in the arm; and two of her other daughters were injured by flying shards of glass. RELATED: Detectives release sketch, surveillance video in 7 year-old Jazmine Barnes' murder The killing stunned Harris County and quickly gained nationwide attention. "We haven't even mourned yet," said Washington. "So it's a lot for us." In a news conference in west Harris County, Washington spoke to reporters, along with Barnes' father, Chris Cevilla, and Barnes' older sister, Alxis Dilbert. Washington said she believed the attack was a hate crime, and provided new details about the early morning incident and shared more stories about her young daughter. "We're missing a piece to our puzzle," Washington said. Washington, 30, said she believed the shooter would turn himself in. "It's going to have to be him. It's going to be him," she said. "His conscience is finally going to get to him. After seeing my daughter's face going across TV so many times, he's going to turn himself in." She recalled Jazmine as a vivacious and assertive daughter who liked to climb into her lap as they were driving to try to learn. Jazmine also liked to boss her younger sister around, said she wanted to be a teacher, and loved to eat, Washington and Alxis said. "She liked everything," Alxis said. She would miss her smile. Washington said the attack -- which happened near a northeast Harris County Walmart -- happened so fast she didn't even have a chance to see what happened. "It was that quick. I didn't even see him. I didn't see the truck," she said. "I didn't see anything but shattered glass and bullets coming towards my car." "He emptied out his gun," Washington said. "I know that for a fact." Alxis said recalled seeing the car next to them at a stop light. The vehicle then dropped behind them and came up on the other side, before the gunman started firing. "That man looked right into my car. He looked into my car. ... look in and think about what he was going to do," Washington said. 1988 SLAYING: Suspect in murder-for-hire plot dies of mad cow disease At the news conference, Alxis also provided new details about the gunman who killed her sister. "He was white and blue eyes," Alxis said. "I couldn't see his hair, nothing like that." The 15-year-old said she believed the gunman had been wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, and had gaunt cheeks, with possible stubble - a different description than has been widely reported in previous days. Washington said she believed it was a hate crime. "I don't know if he's out here sick. He's taking innocent lives, and it's not fair, it's not right." St. John Barned-Smith covers public safety and major breaking news for the Houston Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Send tips to st.john.smith@chron.com. NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi -- Ocean Springs aldermen thought they had pulled off quite the coup by luring former mayor's executive assistant Anne Pitre back to City Hall. Pitre had served for two years as former mayor Connie Moran's assistant before leaving for the same position in Pascagoula in February 2014. Her knowledge of Ocean Springs city government made her the ideal candidate. So the board approved her hiring at its Dec. 18 meeting, with a salary of $34,000. Her first day on the job was Dec. 19. One week later, on Dec. 26, she resigned to accept a position as the marketing manager for the Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. Her resignation is effective Friday. "I was really excited about being back (in Ocean Springs)," Pitre said Thursday. "I had been looking for a job for a while and had interviewed for a few things. This was something I had interviewed for before I accepted the offer from Ocean Springs." Pitre said she had not heard anything on the Hancock County job and thus had assumed they had selected another candidate. "They apparently made her an offer she couldn't refuse," said Mayor Shea Dobson, "so she did what she thought was best for her." Pitre served as Moran's assistant from January 2012 until February 2014. She served in the same role in Pascagoula until May of 2016. She has also worked in public relations at the Beau Rivage Resort from January 2017 until March 2018. During 2018, she earned her MBA in Economic Development from the University of Southern Mississippi. She said the Hancock County job is "something more in my field and the pay was enough to get me to turn my head." Alderman Rob Blackman said he understood Pitre's decision to take a higher paying job, but wished she would have mentioned the other position during her discussions with Ocean Springs officials. "We were hoping it would be a long-term relationship because of her past history with the City," he said. "It came as quite a surprise that within a week she turned in her resignation. "I would have liked to have known on the front end she might have another option. We could have perhaps delayed the hiring and let the Hancock County situation play itself out. We would have been more than willing to work with her. It's regretful the way it turned out, but it is what it is." Pitre said discussions of other possible jobs didn't come up in the interview process. "I didn't necessarily tell them I had interviewed for several things," she said. "We were focused on my fit for the job here, my qualifications and why I would be interested in coming back." In any event, Pitre's quick departure has Dobson back conducting interviews with other candidates. He said he's got someone helping out in his office on an interim basis. "I have two interviews Friday and I've already done some others," he said. "We'll see who we like and we'll make the hire." New venues, public art unveilings, more diversity and increased media attention marked the visual arts scene in North Houston and the greater Conroe area in 2018. Below are some of the years highlights. New Venues The official opening on April 20 of the Glade Gallery, Glade Cultural Center and Glade Arts Foundation at 2000 Woodlands Parkway, brought a first ever museum-like art venue to The Woodlands in a beautiful building separated from the noise of Market Street by a forest of trees and a small lake. Designed to serve as a cluster of international and local art, arts and cultural education, by its two founders Dragos Tapu and Andy Bauman, the new space, which is an outgrowth of the former Glade Gallery on Waterway Avenue in The Woodlands, has sponsored an ambitious program of activities in less than a year. Since opening, the Glade has displayed the art of iconic Texas artists such as sculptor and painter, David Adickes and sculptor Larry Ludtke as well as such area emerging artists as Devin Nelson, Alice Palmer, and Suzanne Seiler. A first-ever US exhibit of sculpture and painting by Natiq Al Alousi provided an opportunity to better understand the ancient civilization of Iraq while also appreciating the skill of one of its most celebrated contemporary artists. Similarly glimpses of other cultures were offered by exhibits of Scottish-born artist Annette Palmer and Chinese painter Fan Jin. With well-known area art teacher and watercolorist Cynthia Reid as their Education Director, the Glade Cultural Center has begun offering some outstanding art classes by such accomplished artists as Houston sculptor Lori Betz and award-winning abstract artist and art teacher, Susan Best. The Glade Cultural Centers efforts to showcase the performing arts has included many local musicians, some from local symphonies, and culminated in a years end multi-disciplined Enchanted Evening which has invited audiences of all ages to move through an interactive indoor-outdoor installation as they encountered an enchanting world of lights and sounds. See more about the Glade Gallery and Glade Cultural Center at www.gladeculturalcenter.com. Golda Sam and Company Art Studio: Golda Rader, who was named the artist Legend in the 2018 Rising Stars and Legends event hosted by the Greater Conroe Area Arts Alliance, partnered with her award-winning artist daughter Samantha Hollis, to open in August the Golda Sam and Company Art Studio at 515 Lilly Boulevard in downtown Conroe. In addition to showcasing the artwork of Golda and Samantha and offering an Inspiration Room, the new art space has been offering a full schedule of weekly art classes and weekend workshops on topics ranging from oil, acrylic, watercolor and mixed media painting, fused glass, wood sculpture and jewelry-making. Learn more about ongoing activities at Facebook, by visiting the new venue or by calling at 713-825-6692. The Studio: In March, a professional photographic space called The Studio opened at 25420 Kuykendahl Road, Suite D600, The Woodlands. The Studio offers a range of basic and advanced classes and workshops, including video and other emerging technologies, as well as professional photography services for corporations and the community. The Studio also offers rental space for area photographers. See more online at www.thestudiomthw.com. Mark C. Clapham Gallery: On April 14, the Heritage Museum of Montgomery County formally opened Gallery IV and named it the Mark C. Clapham Art Gallery. The Gallery consists of a comprehensive collection of paintings, drawing and sculptures that represent the life work of the renowned Texas painter and sculptor, Mark C. Clapham, who made Conroe his home for almost forty years, prior to his death in January 2012. Clapham wanted the contents of his studio and artwork not previously sold or donated, to be available for public view at the Heritage Museum of Montgomery County. See more online at the Museums website, www.heritagemuseum.us/exibits/#G4p. Public Art Hughes Landing/sculpture: The public was invited in late July to view the unveiling by the Howard Hughes Corporation in The Woodlands of a stainless steel and acrylic lacquer sculpture titled Acrobatica, by world-renowned artist Rafael Barrios in Hughes Landing (the sixth in their collection of public art) and the unveiling by the Woodlands Arts Council of six new art benches also in the Hughes Landing area. The six new pieces bring the total of art benches organized by the Arts Council to twenty. The titles, artists, and locations of the six new benches are: Unmasked Symbiosis by Gaston Carrio, at One Hughes Landing; Proud Souls also by Gaston Carrio, at The Woodlands Waterway across from Riva Row Boat House; Quercus by artist Owen Dixon at Restaurant Row at Hughes Landing The Woodlands Wind-O by STEREOTANK, at Restaurant Row at Hughes Landing Boardwalk; Resolute by Paul Reimer, at Hughes Landing adjacent to Lakes Edge Boat House and Why Sit When You Can Play by The Urban Conga, at Waterway Square on The Woodlands Waterway. For more about all twenty art benches, visit the website, www.thewoodlandsartcouncil.org/community/publicart. Houston Methodist Hospital: Heron Spring, consisting of three Great Blue Herons, 1.5 life-size and cast in stainless steel by iconic Texas sculptor Edd Hayes, were installed in July at the Houston Methodist Hospital in The Woodlands. More entries and more diversity The third annual National Invitational Art Competition, hosted by the Conroe Art League, which ended with an awards celebration on March 24 attended by a crowd that spilled onto the streets of downtown Conroe, brought in more entries than ever, with twice as many finalists as in previous years. Entries came from across Texas and a host of other US states. Seventeen of the finalists for 2018 came from Cleveland, Conroe, Magnolia, Montgomery, Spring, Tomball, Willis and The Woodlands. Diversity of media was evident amongst the winners. Houston artist Silvia Pinto Souza won Best of Show for her mixed media painting titled Silver Palm. Layl McDill of Minneapolis, Minnesota won 2nd Place for her ceramic piece titled Rainbowdelic Teapot and Theresa Shields of Jenkintown, Pennsylvania won 3rd Place for her fabric art creation called Interior Fig. First Honorable Mention awards went to artists from outside Texas and included: Lisa Ambrose of Greenville, Michigan; Richard Greene of Los Angeles, California and Paul Malinowski of Littleton, Colorado. Honorable Mention awards went to seven finalists from Texas, including: Cleveland artist Clark Nunn; Wendy Lane of Conroe; Longview artist Sam Edwards; Hawkins artist Tonja Grant; McKinney artist Carolyn Funk; Eldorado artist Kevin Stanford and Witchita Falls artist Elizabeth Yarosz-Ash as well as Rosanne Coty of Grand Rapids, Michigan; Sachiko Furuya of Honolulu, Hawaii; Cheryl Eggleston of Plantation, Florida and Mary Constantine of Las Cruces, New Mexico. Increased media attention Not only has there been more attention by local print and electronic media about the areas visual artists and art organizations in 2018, thanks to the efforts of my colleagues, art maven and founder of Art Feel Nikole Kerner Bobley, my editor Sondra Hernandez, Houston Chronicle staff writer Jane Stueckermann and many others, but also an increase in coverage by print and electronic media groups outside the state. Following are a few examples. The work of internationally recognized colored pencil artist Jesse Lane of The Woodlands, has perhaps garnered the most media attention over the past year, being showcased in such publications as: Professional Artists Magazine; American Art Collector; International Artists Magazine; Drawing 2018 and The Guide Artists Magazine, which followed a year of similarly broad coverage in a series of art magazines and other media. The extreme realism work of Willis wildlife artist George Ann Johnson has been featured numerous times over the year in Southwest Art magazine. In 2018 the watercolor paintings of Magnolia artist Robbie Fitzpatrick were featured in Southwest Art, American Art Collector and Western Art Collector magazines. The paintings of Conroe impressionist and en plein air artist Fran Ellisor were also featured this year in Southwest Art magazine. Maggie Gutierrez may be reached at ggutmarina@aol.com. 3 1 of 3 courtesy of West Houston Medical Center Show More Show Less 2 of 3 courtesy of Memorial Hermann Hospital Show More Show Less 3 of 3 As partygoers closed out the night with fireworks and festivities preparing their New Years resolutions, tiny bundles of joy opened their eyes for the first time in their lives. At Memorial Hermann Katy, Andrew Ellis Jr. was born to Keri Taylor five minutes after midnight weighing 5 pounds, 11 ounces and measuring 18.25 inches long. Police charged a 17-year-old Friendswood girl with assault, family violence and criminal mischief after a disturbance Dec. 17 in the 200 block of Live Oak Lane. She allegedly bit her boyfriend and punched and kicked the walls of the residence. Bond was set at $2,000. In other reports from the Friendswood Police Department, the holiday season saw drug-related arrests and DUI charges, and a handgun found in a fitness center went unclaimed. Assault A Friendswood man, 36, was charged with assault, family violence after a disturbance Dec. 21 in the 300 block of West Castle Harbour Drive, police said. Officers approached the home and discovered the suspect allegedly had assaulted his wife, according to the report. As they verified the safety of children in the home, officers reportedly learned the suspect had left. A little more than an hour later, an officer checking the residence noticed the suspects truck in the driveway, police said. Police found the suspect in the bedroom allegedly intoxicated and took him into custody, according to the report. Police also filed an emergency protective order. TEEN CHARGED: Houston teen faces manslaughter charges in gunplay-related shooting death Burglary A purse was stolen from inside an apartment Dec. 20 at Village on the Park, 400 E. Parkwood Ave., police said. Credit cards in the purse were used to make several unauthorized purchases, according to the report. Officers responding to a burglar alarm Dec. 23 at Sherwin Williams, 607 S. Friendswood Drive, arrived to find the side door unsecured, police said. The officers contacted a store manager and an employee responded to the scene, according to the report. Valuables inside the store were intact, and no money was missing, police said. Found property A gun was discovered Dec. 22 in a community locker in the mens dressing room at 24 Hour Fitness, 130 W. Parkwood Ave., police said. Not reported stolen, the gun was placed in evidence at the Friendswood Police Department. Narcotics Police charged a 21-year-old Angleton man and 22-year-old Clute woman with possession of drug paraphernalia after a traffic stop for expired registration Dec. 17 in the 1300 block of West Parkwood Avenue. The officer reportedly found an open container of alcohol behind the passenger seat as well as marijuana during a vehicle search. PRESERVING HISTORY: Friendswood society safeguards city's heritage A Pasadena man, 30, was charged with possession of a controlled substance after a traffic stop for expired registration Dec. 22 in the 2900 block of West Bay Area Boulevard, police said. The officer reportedly found a bag of marijuana under the front seat during a vehicle search and a bag of cocaine in the mans pocket. The man also had cocaine in his wallet, according to the report. Police charged a 19-year-old Friendswood man with possession of drug paraphernalia after a traffic stop for an insurance violation Dec. 22 in the 3900 block of Laura Leigh Lane. He did not have a drivers license and was in possession of marijuana, police said. Driving while intoxicated A League City man, 30, faces charges for DWI and possession of a controlled substance after he allegedly made a wide, unsignaled turn Dec. 21 onto West Parkwood Avenue, police said. He failed a field sobriety test and consented to a breath test, according to the report. At the jail, he allegedly was found in possession of a bag of cocaine. Police charged a Houston man, 22, with DWI after an officer allegedly found him seat-belted and asleep in his vehicle Dec. 22 in the 2000 block of West Parkwood Avenue. The officer also noted several open cans of beer in plain view, police said. The driver failed a field sobriety test and agreed to a breath test, according to the report. Police charged a Friendswood woman, 45, with DWI and failure to stop and give information after a collision involving vehicle damage Dec. 22 on Whispering Pines Avenue at South Friendwood Drive. Bond was set at $2,500. Police charged a Dickinson man, 61, with DWI Dec. 22 in the 100 block of West Parkwood Avenue. Bond was set at $1,500. A 20-year-old Friendswood man was charged with DWI on Dec. 23 in the 100 block of Eagles Cove, police said. Bond was set at $1,000. A LOOK BACK: Year in Friendswood highlighted by plans for drainage, EMS funding Public intoxication Police charged a Friendswood man, 37, with public intoxication Dec. 18 in the 3100 block of Richard Lane. An officer patrolling the area noticed the man standing by a disabled vehicle with heavy front-end damage and four flat tires, police said. The man allegedly had hit some curbs. Traffic Police charged a Houston man, 43, with driving while license invalid, no insurance and possession of drug paraphernalia after a traffic stop Dec. 17 in the 2800 block of West Bay Area Boulevard. The officer reportedly found marijuana in the vehicles center console during a search. A Webster man, 30, was charged with expired drivers license, no insurance and possession of drug paraphernalia after a traffic stop for speeding Dec. 18 in the 3000 block of West Bay Area Boulevard, police said. The officer reportedly found marijuana under the drivers seat and a glass pipe in the console during a vehicle search. Police charged the passenger, a 26-year-old Friendswood woman, with public intoxication. Police charged Houston man, 26, with driving while license invalid after an accident Dec. 22 in the 16200 block of Barcelona Drive. An Alvin man, 28, was charged with driving while license invalid and possession of drug paraphernalia after a traffic stop for an insurance violation Dec. 22 in the 2800 block of West Bay Area Boulevard, police said. The officer reportedly found him in possession of a marijuana grinder and residue. Other Police charged a Houston man, 25, with failure to identify and violation of a protective order after a traffic stop Dec. 20 in the 2700 block of FM 528. He did not have a drivers license, and the officer heard the passenger call him by a name that differed from what he provided, according to the report. The passenger consented to a search of her purse, where the officer reportedly found the mans drivers license. A computer check showed the driver had an active protective order and was not supposed to have contact with the passenger, police said. The piece: Toothbrush The artist: Ernesto Marenco Where: In his show The True History of the Objects, through Jan. 12 at Gray Contemporary Why: Surrealism feels so of the moment now, reflecting a chaotic world where true is false and false is true and up is down and down is up, depending on your politics; and nothing is what it seems. So why not a toothbrush whose bristles are made of teeth, a Magic stone to remember forgetting or a moon hanging inside a bird cage? Ernesto Marencos small, quirky objects are direct descendants of works by Max Ernst, Joseph Cornell and Rene Magritte not just that twisted but also that expertly executed, in virtually any material he chooses to transform. But their dark humor may have been inevitable. Marencos family jokingly called him Baby Death because he was was born in Mexico City on Nov. 1 All Saints Day, in the midst of the Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, celebrations. The macabre came naturally to him, along with a feel for magic realism and poetry. His father, Ernesto Mejia Sanchez, was a well-known Nicaraguan poet, author and professor. Marenco remembers stealing a blue marble during a game with friends as a kid because it felt like something special in his pocket something magical, even. Although he has tinkered with object-making since he was an adolescent, he didnt take well to formal art and craft schooling, eventually earning a degree in museology and art conservation. Marenco first came to Houston in 2000 to create an art car for the Orange Show, but fell in love with the city and a woman, the artist Amanda Fulk, who became his wife and partner. Their company, Marenco Art Restoration, consumes much of his time, he said. We work on very, very old paintings. Its a big responsibility. But Marenco has also continued to retreat to his studio, often showing internationally and receiving more than 20 commissions to create art for Latin American book jackets. The 50 or so pieces on view at Gray Contemporary are only about half of a major survey show that traveled to two important museums in Mexico in 2018, curated by his friend Santiago Espinosa de los Monteros. They represent three series produced over the past 35 years; one of impossible or absurd objects, another he calls The Business of Fate and one called Olympics of Pain. How could such a master stay hidden so long in Houston? Marenco had a successful show about 15 years ago in a back room at Volker Eiseles Montrose gallery, Rudolph Blume/Artscan, but has been largely invisible since. (He will have another show there in March.) I take my time, the artist said. He doesnt live to show; he lives to create, and he doesnt create until he has something important to say. Marenco considers each of his objects a visual poem or short story. Each harbors a narrative sprung from his wild imagination. With Incubus, for example, he envisioned a leathery testicle in a birds next as a cocoon for a devil to craft The Incubus nest. You dont have to ponder some of Marencos works long to imagine your own, horrific narrative. Sandals of the Mary Magdalena and Time-Out both look like torture devices with spikes that would impale skin. The birds of Mrs. Daria have hung themselves in their cage. But what is going on with the red childs shoes, the bloody liquid and the ball in a porcelain tub? (Its partly a reference to a ball that kept returning to a girl in Guillermo del Toros early horror film Cronos, for which Marenco did some conceptual special effects work.) Some people think my artwork is creepy, Marenco said cheerfully. But Im a very good guy. Its just a form, like literature. Its not my intent to scare or shock. Really, the most shocking thing is that he isnt better known. But that may finally be coming. Marenco has a residency this year in Turin, Italy; museums are calling; and he has a big commission in the works. molly.glentzer@chron.com The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded its first contract in a $326 million project to deepen and widen the Corpus Christi Ship Channel. Officials with the Corps awarded a $92 million contract to Illinois-based Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company, port officials confirmed on Thursday afternoon. Dredging crews are expected to begin work out in the Gulf of Mexico just east of Port Aransas and continue through the entrance of the ship channel to Harbor Island. Great Lakes is expected to begin the work in March or April and be finished within one year. VLCC Size Me: Moda Midstream loads first supertanker at Port of Corpus Christi facility The $326 million dredging project project involves deepening the entire ship channel from 45 to 54 feet and widening it from 400 to 520 feet. The Port of CCorpus hristi Authority has pledged to provide $100 million of its own money toward the project, leaving the remaining $226 million to be paid by the federal government over the next few years. Once completed in 2022, the channel will be able to support two-way traffic of supertankers capable of carrying up to two million barrels of crude oil and refined products per shipment. The dredging contract comes at a time when supertankers have been tested by various port customers. It also comes at a time the Port of Corpus Christi and its tenant Trafigura are seeking federal approval to build what could become rival crude oil export terminals to support a class of supertankers known as Very Large Crude Carriers, or VLCCs. "This is yet another great milestone for the Port of Corpus Christi as we bring certainty to our customers that we will have the deepest ship draft along the U.S. Gulf Coast," Port of Corpus Christi CEO Sean Strawbridge told the Houston Chronicle. "That will give our customers confidence that the Port of Corpus Christi is the preferred gateway for American energy to our allies and trading partners around the world." A Tale of Two Export Terminals: Port of Corpus Christi vs Trafigura Filmmaker and teacher Michelle Robinson dreams of someday thanking Hollywood for a prize from her peers in the television and film industry. But this year, Hollywood is thanking her, for serving on a committee that chose television show nominees for the 25th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, which will be presented Jan. 27 in a live broadcast on both TNT and TBS. Getting to be one of the nominators is very random, said the Hitchcock resident, explaining that she was one of 2,500 members of SAG-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists whose names were drawn last spring to be on the 2018 nominating panel for the groups TV awards. This year happened to be my turn, said Robinson, who teaches film acting at Houston Community College. She also directs stage productions at Clear Creek Community Theatre in Nassau Bay, including last falls Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders. Movie and TV nominations, which were announced last month, will be voted on by Robinson and the other 120,000-plus guild members. As a member of the nominating committee, Robinson viewed submissions from a plethora of shows that ran on major networks, cable, premium channels and streaming services. They had a ton of really strong actors and actresses in all the categories this year, she said. The writing was strong, as was the directing and cinematography. Its a good crowd of shows this year. I am proud to be in the union and have the chance to vote on these shows. Among her favorites were The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (starring Rachel Brosnahan) and The Kominsky Method (starring Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin) on Netflix; Elisabeth Moss in The Handmaids Tale on Hulu; Antonio Banderas in Genius: Picasso on the National Geographic Channel; and Patricia Arquette in Escape at Dannemora on Showtime. Serving on the nominating panel compelled Robinson to view a wide selection of material. This month, she and fellow SAG-AFTRA members will be inundated with DVDs and special opportunities to screen online the groups finalists in movie categories. A Star is Born, starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, leads the pack, with The Favourite, Black Panther and Green Book also making strong showings. As a filmmaker herself, Robinson hopes to begin production this year of a movie, The Bridge, in which she will play a homeless woman. The script was written by Kevin Bui, a former Houstonian who now works as a screenwriter in Los Angeles. The Chicago native moved to Texas with her family when she was 10 years old. She graduated from Hitchcock High School in 1978. An English teacher started a theater group, and that is how I got my start, when she selected me to be in a play, she said. I dont know the name of it, but I played the other woman. Robinson earned an associate degree in music and theater at College of the Mainland before getting both bachelor and masters degrees in humanities, specializing in acting and directing, at the University of Houston. She was president of the Houston region of American Federation of Television and Radio Artists when the 75-year-old union merged with SAG in 2012. Robinson is married Paul Lucas, and they have three children, ranging in age from 14 to 25. Don Maines is a freelance writer who can be reached at donmaines@att.net Are you ready to escape the hectic pace of the Bay Area but reluctant to give up that cushy salary of yours? There's no need to flee to Austin or even Sacramento. Your dream job may have just opened up in the middle of the San Pablo Bay. East Brother Light Station which sits on the small island just north of the RichmondSan Rafael Bridge now operates as an inn, and after April, there will be nobody to run it. The current operators, Che Rodgers and Jillian Meeker, will be handing over the keys to the 1874 lighthouse turned bed and breakfast to the right couple. Applicants should be prepared to do everything it takes to keep the place running, including ferrying the guests to the .7 acre outpost on the water. "The successful candidates will be a couple, one of whom must possess a Coast Guard commercial boat operator's license," the not-for-profit which operates the location wrote in a press release. "They will operate the five-room inn, serving both dinner and breakfast, as well as providing ferry service for guests and all other tasks from chef to maid. High quality culinary experience and capability will be a critical qualification. The inn is open four days a week, and the island is also available for day use and special events. The new keepers will start in mid-April 2019, allowing two weeks for training." ALSO: Fog catcher and beer historian - Jobs you'll only find in the Bay Area As The Chronicle reported when the job opened up a decade ago, the island is now on the state and federal lists of historic places. In 1980, a group of preservationists won permission to renovate the lighthouse and take over its maintenance. The group was led by Oakland mechanical engineer Walter Fanning, whose grandparents had been lighthouse keepers on East Brother decades earlier. The inn is open four days a week and hosts a number of special events. The couple will be paid around $130,000 annually, and provided room and board on the island, according to East Brother Lighthouse Inc., which operates the Coast Guard-owned island. Richmond Mayor Tom Butt is also president of the non-profit. He says the salary is a revenue split which incentives the operators to keep the inn fully occupied. "If they work hard to market and book the inn and operate efficiently, there is potentially more income for them. Over the last couple of years, the innkeepers income has been about $130,000. It is split between them. The corporation's share is used for insurance, maintenance, capital improvements, etc. We also have lots of volunteers who do maintenance and management," said Butt. The portion of the revenue that is not spent on the operation of the inn goes to the the upkeep of the lighthouse and other island structures. Anyone interested in applying should confirm that valid Coast Guard license and then download the application here. "We typically receive about a dozen qualified applicants (with USCG licenses). We get a lot more unqualified applicants," said Butt. Beep beep. Olivier Girouard, the artist behind downtowns Loop public art installation which closes Sunday likens his interactive zoetropes to a modernized version of the railroad handcar Wile E. Coyote used to pursue the Road Runner, cranking a lever to pass through mine tunnels in pursuit of his nemesis in Looney Tunes. The seven illuminated spheres, about 6 feet in diameter, that line Avenida Houston in front of George R. Brown Convention Center are stationary, but Girouard said users will enjoy the sensation of motion once they step inside. Each structure allows two people to sit and face one another, pushing a lever back and forth to power drawings on a cylindrical loop on the interior and exterior of the sphere. Seemingly animated, the illustrations speed up based on how fast the user cranks the lever. Same goes for the corresponding music, which quickens with force. The images depict classic fairy tales, including Jack and the Beanstalk, Alice Through the Looking-Glass and Puss in Boots. Girouard called the art installation, which originated in his home of Montreal before its current U.S. tour, futuristic, comparing the technology to animated GIFs on the internet. Theyre dreamlike, he said. You have the impression it might be a time-traveling machine. A former composer, Girouard experimented with computerized acoustics and electronic synthesizers to create the gusts of breath the wolf uses to blow down houses in The Three Little Pigs and the foreboding music that grows louder as the whales mouth opens in Pinocchio. While Loops moving pictures will not frighten children, Girouard said they will entertain adult spectators. Loop When: 8 a.m.-11 p.m., through Monday Where: George R. Brown Convention Center, 1001 Avenida de las Americas (between Rusk and Polk) Details: Free; avenidahouston.com See More Collapse We wanted Pinocchio to really be in danger, he said. Loops whimsical stories harken back to the early days of cinema, said Christine West, cultural programs manager for Houston First Corp. The public art is designed to open up a sense of wonder for visitors of all ages, she said. Katie Riedinger admits she didnt recognize the fairy tale she saw inside the sphere she visited with her daughters, Trin, 9, Hope, 10, and Faith, 12. Faith immediately identified the story as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Riedinger said the family, frequent visitors to adjacent Discovery Green, chose to experience Loop at night, an atmosphere her children found exciting. Its a very creative way for them to experience art, she said. I love the fact that you had to work out and you had to be active. They enjoyed working together to watch the story. There was a line outside the sphere, but they did not want to leave, she said. They were sort of mesmerized by it. Allison Bagley is a Houston-based writer. Making your January detox evenings at home more tolerable, Netflix is ringing in the new year with a lineup of 38 new original films and series, all set to hit the streaming service on various dates throughout January, according to Yahoo News. Detox: 8 things that happen when you stop drinking alcohol The roster of first-party series and flicks includes the third -- and final -- season of "A Series of Unfortunate Events," "Grace and Frankie," and the second half of the final season of "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt." While it has yet to be confirmed, the final season of Marvel's "The Punisher" will likely be released in January as well. Secret Netflix codes: The key to unlocking movies galore Beefing up the lineup even more, Netflix is adding a number of third-party titles to its catalog, including The Departed, The Dark Knight, Pulp Fiction, I Know What You Did Last Summer and all four Indiana Jones movies. Scroll through the photos above to see the 38 new original films and series heading to Netflix this month. For a full list of all films scheduled to hit Netflix in January, click here. Marcy de Luna is a digital reporter specializing in social media, the famous, and food. You can follow her on Twitter @MarcydeLuna and Facebook @MarcydeLuna. Read her stories on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com. | Marcy.deLuna@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message The owners of the new Mastrantos restaurant in the Heights say they are first and foremost a neighborhood restaurant. But when was the last time you found a neighborhood restaurant that makes its own pasta with a dedicated pasta program, bakes its own flavored croissants, and imports its flour coffee, olive oil and tomatoes? Welcome to Mastrantos, a smart-looking new restaurant (the owners also designed the clean, open space) at 927 Studewood. Described as a restaurant with globally-inspired cuisine, Mastrantos has been years in the making by husband and wife team of Xavier and Mari Godoy who gave up their corporate careers in oil and gas and human resources, respectively, to be first-time restaurateurs. Mastrantos, named for a flowering plant in the verbena family (Mari Godoy, a native of Venezuela, calls its flowers the "Venezuelan bluebonnet), opened recently in a new building with generous windows that allows plenty of light into a space the Godoys say is dedicated to transparency. Transparency, in fact, is one of the "pillars" of their restaurant concept that features an open kitchen with no walls or windows between the chef and diner, and a glass box space called the Dough Lab where fresh pasta and pastries are made daily. This open concept allows diners in any part of the restaurant to see the work of executive chef Tony Castillo, who joins the team from seven years at Tiny Boxwoods, where he was executive chef, and pastry chef Eliu Palacios, who is making fresh pasta in his glass-walled enclosure, including squid ink spaghetti. VICTORIAN'S BARBECUE: Listen to pitmaster Joey Victorian about opening his first barbecue joint The Godoys' path to opening Mastrantos was an unusual one, and lengthy. Xavier, born in Spain, grew up in Venezuela where he met the Venezuela-born Mari. They moved to Houston in 2010 (both graduated from Texas colleges) and started a family while working corporate jobs. Food, however, was a shared passion and trips to Italy and Spain only fueled their culinary spark. Soon they were making pasta and Venezuelan-style breads at home for family and friends. That project turned into a cash flow and by 2016 they committed themselves to opening a modest coffee and pastry shop. But construction delays caused them to miss their 2017 target. That delay, however, gave them time to expand the concept to include pastas, vegetable dishes and more breakfast options, Xavier said. "Combined with Tony's background, it took on a broader perspective," Xavier said. Mastrantos menu (the restaurant is open for breakfast and dinner; no lunch service) shows a dedication to global cuisine embracing European, Latin and Asian flavors. For example: squid ink pasta, an Italian specialty, is bathed in a Thai coconut curry with crushed almonds; grilled salmon rests on a barley tabbouleh with a Peruvian chile beurre blanc; and espresso-rubbed tri-tip comes with a buttered yucca, mustard cream and a balsamic glaze. Other dishes (Mastrantos wants diners to share everything) include a red snapper crudo with leche de tigre and a snapper skin chicharron; beets, persimmons and sweet gorgonzola dressed in Spanish olive oil and sprinkled with "beet dirt" (dehydrated beet pulp); grilled carrots on a carrot hummus dusted with za'atar; beet-dyed agnolotti filled with purple potato on a gorgonzola and butter sauce flavored with sage; assorted tomatoes with labneh and pesto; and Bolognese sauce on rustic casarecce pasta. For dessert Palacios has created an almond cake with passion fruit mousse and a chocolate, hazelnut and espresso cake tricked out with gold leaf. The restaurant's wine list is brief with three whites, four reds and one rose nearly all available by the glass. The bottle prices range from $40 to $72. The partners see the dinner service as a family-style "tapas experience" where diners interact with each other and the restaurant team. They welcome conversation and a focus on the act of dining instead of interaction with a mobile phone. The Godoys briefly considered offering a dining discount for guests who checked their cell phone at the door. But they soon realized that in this social media age, shared images of their food and restaurant would help spread the word. Mastrantos' breakfast service is just as interesting as its dinner menu. The Dough Lab is baking up cachitos, which the Godoys are likening to Venezuelan kolaches, filled with ham and cheese, bacon and cream cheese and mushrooms and chipotle peppers. The cachitos will get even more of a global spin in coming weeks with Korean, Mexican and Indian fillings. The house-baked croissants are filled with passion fruit, chocolate, pear, and apple. And there are daily loaves of sweet breads such as carrot and banana. Breakfast tacos, whole grain toasts with spreads, grain bowls and arepas are also on the menu. But even the area, a Venezuelan staple, gets a bit of a spin: the grilled corn cake is split and filled with scrambled eggs, avocado and a Venezuelan-inspired cilantro salsa. The Godoys admit that Mastrantos is probably a bit ambitious for fledgling restaurateurs. But they believe in their tenets of transparency, global flavors and a "balance" that includes not just what's on the plate but the very design of the open space. "In the end we are doers and fighters," said a determined Mari. "We love what we're doing ; we like good quality from top to bottom." Mastrantos, 927 Studewood, Suite 100, 346-227-8458; mastrantos.com. Open for breakfast Tuesday through Friday from 7 to 11 a.m.; 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Dinner service is 5 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Closed Monday. Greg Morago writes about food for the Houston Chronicle. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter. Send him news tips at greg.morago@chron.com. Hear him on our BBQ State of Mind podcast to learn about Houston and Texas barbecue culture. The movement of a large container ship shut down two-way traffic along the Houston Ship Channel and delayed a crude-carrying vessel for 18 hours, according to a letter from the Coalition for a Fair and Open Port. The coalition, made up of companies including Enterprise Products, Targa Resources Corp. and Kinder Morgan, wants to cap the number of 1,100-foot-plus container ships that come to Houston. It fears accommodating these ships could cause traffic jams on the Houston Ship Channel and ultimately hinder the shale boom. Full Story: Energy companies fret Houston Ship Channel traffic That's because the Houston Pilots, tasked with guiding vessels in and out of the Houston Ship Channel, have enacted safety measures that only allow moving these large container vessels during the day. The Ship Channel's typical two-way traffic is also reduced to just one-way traffic when moving them. So on Dec. 24, the afternoon departure of the 1,105-foot Pusan C container ship shut down in-bound traffic. That meant the Seletar Spirit carrying crude, which can also only move during daylight hours, had to wait until the following day to enter the Houston Ship Channel, according to a letter the coalition sent Wednesday to the Board of Pilot Commissioners for the Ports of Harris County. "As the recent traffic has demonstrated," the coalition said in its letter, "the impact from these very large container vessels is significant, and the time for action is now." The coalition has submitted a resolution to the Pilot Board requesting that no more than one of these especially large container ships enter Houston each week. And that the ships be limited to one trip each day. Tight squeeze: Supersized crude carrier calls on Texas City port In a statement, Port Houston said a working group has been created by Janiece Longoria, chair of the Pilot Board and the Port Commission of the Port of Houston Authority. The coalition, Houston Pilots and other industry stakeholders are part of the working group, and port officials are "continuing to work with the working group." Erik Eriksson, chief legal officer for Port Houston, previously told the Chronicle that the pilots have historically put measures in place while they got more comfortable with vessels. So when pilots have enough experience with the larger container ships, Eriksson said, they could potentially take another look at the safety measures and ease them. Samaritan's Purse to open Ebola treatment centre in DRC Christian aid charity Samaritan's Purse is to open a treatment centre in the Democratic Republic of Congo to help battle an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus there. Now in its seventh month, the outbreak has been described as the second worst ever, with the World Health Organization warning that fighting around the disease hotspots of Beni and Butembo risks undoing progress in combating it. Of the 608 people thought to have been infected, 368 have died, and there has been a sharp upsurge in the number of cases during the last few weeks. Tension and rioting around DRC's presidential election has seen treatment centres hit and vaccination and tracing programmes affected. Samaritan's Purse has maintained a presence in the country for the last eight years. It has constructed five isolation centres and provided infection protection and control training for 15 local health centres. The new 20-bed treatment centre, which can be expanded to 60 beds if needed, was flown out to the DRC in November. A 21-member disaster assistance response team left for the DRC on December 26 and additional staff have since arrived in the country, Samaritan's Purse said. Megan Vitek, its international health unit programme manager, said Samaritan's Purse had been working in the northeast region of the DRC months before the first Ebola cases on community awareness campaigns and that teams were helping to educate people on Ebola symptoms and control. 'The Lord put us there months before for a reason to be able to love and care for this community in the midst of a deadly epidemic,' she said. 'Please pray for our team as they work tirelessly to set up this treatment centre and fight this disease with every patient they touch.' Methodist ANC chaplain faces protests over leaked recording of crude comments about women ministers The Methodist Chaplain-General of South Africa's ruling African National Congress has been withdrawn from officiating at the party's celebrations on January 8 and is facing discipline from his church after coarse comments about women were recorded and leaked online. Rev Dr Vukile Mehana was recorded discussing the robing of men by women with Methodist church member Raymond Sibanga, referencing Rev Nompithizelo Sibhidia. Sibanga said he had asked him whether it was appropriate for female ministers to robe members of the Methodist Young Men's Guild, a mission organisation, as part of their commissioning, and had recorded him without his knowledge. The issue has been seriously debated in the church as part of a continuing discussion about the role of women. In the recording, Mehana can be heard saying: 'Leave the books but what would you say being touched in your chest by women? That is what I am asking. What are these men's wives saying when this big-breasted woman is fondling men's' chests?' According to Mehana, men who had been ordained by a woman should be 'recalled' so that a man could 'reaffirm' them. "I'm an African theologist. I don't care whether you call it patriarchy, or you call it gender insensitive, or whatever rubbish you want to call it. There's no man that has ever been fondled [ordained] by a woman.' Voetsek! ['Get lost!] This should not be allowed in the church,' Mehana told Sibanga. His comments were condemned by the South African Council of Churches, whose general secretary Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana said that Mehana's views on women in the church were 'misplaced'. 'For him to disparage women ministers to the extent of referencing women's breasts, is absolutely disgusting and must be condemned unequivocally,' said Mpumlwana. The Methodist Church of Southern Africa said it 'noted with dismay the blatant disrespect and portrayal of women who are characterised in a dismissive, humiliating and degrading caricature'. 'The objectifying of the anatomy of women and its link to culture and religion is not only unacceptable, but also equally distasteful,' it said. The ANC Women's League also condemned the comments made by Mehana and urged the various companies on whose boards he sits to consider the 'reputational risk' of continuing to employ him. It urged that Mehana be 'stripped of his responsibilities within the Methodist Church pending the outcomes of the internal processes'. Mehana has apologised for his remarks, saying: 'In retrospect, the comments I made were derogatory and demeaning to all women in ministry. I regret making such utterances and respectfully retract them.' He apologised particularly to Sibhidia, saying: 'I am deeply sorry that her good name has been sullied undeservedly.' Sibanga said: 'The audio was not randomly and intentionally sent to tarnish the name of Rev Mehana nor of female ministers of our church, but it was sent responding to a question on robing of YMG members. I profusely and unconditionally apologise.' Blame game: Democrats, Trump in shutdown standoff In their first action in control of the US House of Representatives, Democrats plan to adopt a bill on Thursday to end a federal shutdown without funding a Mexican border wall, trying to firmly fasten blame for the 13-day-old closure on President Donald Trump and his Republicans. Passage of the bill by the new Democratic majority was expected to occur shortly after Nancy Pelosi is elected speaker of the House, returning the liberal from San Francisco to one of Washington's most powerful posts for a second time. But Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday his chamber, still in Republican hands, would not vote on the legislation, calling it a 'political sideshow' and 'total nonstarter'. 'We're asking the president to open up government,' Pelosi told reporters outside the White House on Wednesday after another unproductive meeting with Trump on the matter. 'We have given the Republicans a chance to take yes for an answer.' The Democrats' shutdown-halting bill closely resembles one that won overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate, which Democratic leaders say will put the onus on Republicans to accept it or clearly own the shutdown. Trump's demand for $5 billion (3.99 billion) in funding for a wall along the US-Mexico border triggered the shutdown affecting about a quarter of the federal government and 800,000 federal workers. McConnell said previously that Senate Republicans would not approve a spending measure Trump does not support. The Senate leader has been largely absent from discussions over the shutdown, deferring to the White House after Trump surprised him by rejecting his prior attempts to keep the government open without funding the wall. The House proposal, which would fund most of the government through September and provide another month to negotiate wall funding, will more likely be a starting point for further negotiations in the new divided government. Congressional leaders said they would return to the White House on Friday to resume talks with Trump, a sign that the government is likely to remain closed for the rest of the week. Funding for about a quarter of the federal government expired on December 22, closing 'non-essential' operations at agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security, Energy and Commerce. National parks have closed campgrounds for fear that toilets will overflow. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees are working without pay. The immigration courts, already overburdened, are largely shuttered. While the first 12 days of the shutdown crept by quietly during the holiday season, Thursday will mark the changing of power in the House, in which the Democrats won a majority of seats in November's elections, and a new dynamic, with Pelosi again central to moving any legislation through Congress. Mass grave of 34 Ethiopian Christians executed by ISIS found in Libya Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Libyan authorities have announced that a mass grave containing the remains of 34 Christians murdered by the Islamic State in 2015 has been found. The interior ministrys Criminal Investigation Department revealed that the bodies of 34 Ethiopian Christians were found on what drone images show is a farm near the coastal city of Sirte, according to Reuters. Sirte was controlled by the Islamic States Libyan offshoot in 2015 but the terror group was later pushed out of the city by United Nations-backed forces in 2016. In April 2015, however, the Islamic State released a video showing two groups of Ethiopian Christians in Orange jumpsuits being killed on a Libyan beach. One group was shot to death while the others were beheaded. The murdered Christians were in Libya looking for jobs as migrant workers. In the 30-minute video, the Islamic State warned the nation of the cross that more killings were to come in revenge for the shed [of] Muslim blood. The Libyan government said that the discovered bodies will be repatriated to Ethiopia after domestic and international legal procedures are completed. A video released showing the killings of the Ethiopian Christians led to tens of thousands of Ethiopians attending a rally in the capital of Addis Ababa to condemn the Islamic States violence. The mass murder of the Ethiopians came just about two months after the Islamic State beheaded 21 Coptic Christian migrant workers from Egypt on a Libyan beach. That mass killing was also broadcast in a propaganda video produced by the terrorist groups media arm. The mass grave containing the bodies of the 21 Coptic Christians was found in Sirte by Libyas Interior Ministry in October 2017. According to the government, the bodies were found with their heads decapitated and hands bound behind the backs. The Islamic State, which was has held territory in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt, quickly became known worldwide through its appalling execution videos. In 2014, the group released a video showing the beheading of American journalist James Foley and threatened to kill another American journalist, Steven Sotloff, if then President Barack Obama didnt halt airstrikes against the Islamic State. Sotloff was beheaded in September 2014 and the Islamic State also released the video of his beheading. Other execution videos released by the Islamic State include one in which a victim was run over with a military tank, and another where several victims are hogtied and slaughtered in a slaughterhouse. Other videos showed victims being burned to death. The Islamic State has largely been pushed out of its territories in Iraq and Syria. However, the Islamic State is still active in Libya. The Islamic State took credit for a Christmas Day attack on a Libyan foreign ministry office in Tripoli that left three dead and 10 injured. The terrorist group also claimed responsibility for an attack on a Christmas market in Germany last month where one of its "soldiers" killed five people and injured 12 others. According to the Daily Mail, Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Sayalah called on the international community to lift a U.N. arms embargo imposed since 2011. We need weapons to combat terrorism, Sayalah said. The Libyan people are fighting terrorism on behalf of the world. Libya is being run by the interim Government of National Accord, which was formed by a United Nations-led initiative signed in December 2015. Unrest in Libya has caused the delay of a much anticipated presidential election that was supposed to take place in December. Former President Obama has said that his decision in 2011 to authorize a military intervention in Libya that led to the execution of Muammar al-Qaddafi and the destabilization of the country was his worst mistake as president. Extremists stone Christians in India, claim victory for Hindu goddess Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Dozens of Christians were stoned and slashed over Christmas at the hands of radical Hindus in India who objected to their worship. The Religious Liberty Commission of the Evangelical Fellowship of India shared with Morning Star News that there were at least 18 incidents reported over the Christmas season. In one of the attacks, on Dec. 23 in Kowad village, Kolhapur District in Maharashtra state, 20 or so masked men beat seven Christians so severely they were transported to a hospital where they are in intensive care. The Hindu radicals, who were wielding swords, knives, iron rods, glass bottles, stones and other sharp objects, attacked churchgoers during a service at New Life Fellowship Church. They chanted Jai Bhawani, Jai Shivaji, declaring victory for the Hindu goddess Bhawani and warrior king Shivaji. They barged into the worship hall and began to throw big stones and empty beer bottles at the worshipers, said Milton Norenj, coordinator of the New Life Fellowship Jadhinglaj. Pastor Bhimsen Ganpati Chavan said that some 40 people were attending the service when the attack began. As soon as they entered, they began to shoot empty beer bottles and stones at the congregation, Chavan explained. As they stepped forward, they attacked us with swords, iron rods and knives mercilessly, men and women alike. Swati Chavan, the pastors wife, was one of the injured. I was hit by an iron rod on my hand and received a head injury, she said. They hit my back repeatedly with their fists, which caused swelling. I had to undergo a head scan to rule out clotting. The 18 cases the RLC reported on over Christmas were all characterized by police being pressured by Hindu extremists to harass believers with legal problems. Nehemiah Christie of the legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom-Indias Tamil Nadu, explained that "they want to create communal disharmony for their own political advantage." Christie said that the disruption of Christmas processions, services, carols and programs is specifically set up to create disharmony and polarize people. In another case, a mob of 30 men from the youth wing of Hindu extremist Vishwa Hindu Parishad stopped four buses carrying 200 school children to a Christmas program in Haridwar, Uttarakhand state. The children were Hindus and were being taken to watch a Christmas program. Their teacher, Sandeep Kashyap, was arrested under the accusation that he was planning on forcefully converting them to Christianity, something which he denied. Attacks on Christians intensified throughout rural areas in India in 2018, often stemming from accusations by Hindu community leaders that churches and pastors are carrying out forced conversions. Children have also been targeted. Pastor Selva Raj of Amathur village in Indias Tamil Nadu revealed that a mob of 300 Hindu radicals disrupted a Sunday school class in November in an attempt to stop the children from attending. They took away the Bible storybooks and some song and activity books from the children and tore them into pieces, Raj revealed. They scared the children away by telling them that they will be beaten up if they are seen in the church premises ever again. Shibu Thomas, head of Persecution Relief from Kerala state, told Morning Star News in its latest report that religious freedom is being denied to minorities in the Hindu-majority country. The secular fabric of India and Indian democracy is being shredded every day, Thomas said. It might take several years to eliminate the hatred that has been injected in the society based on religion, polarizing communities. 40 Catholic missionaries killed in 2018; new deadliest continent for priests revealed Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Forty Catholic missionaries were killed around the world in 2018, the Vaticans news agency has reported, with Africa becoming the new deadliest continent for clergy. Fides News Agency said that the 40 deaths are almost double the 23 number from 2017. Thirty-five priests were killed last year, along with one seminarian and four lay people. While for eight straight years Latin America was the deadliest region for clergy, Africa took over the mantle in 2018, seeing 19 priests, one seminarian and one lay woman killed in the year. Many Missionaries have lost their lives during attempted hold-ups and robberies, ferociously committed, in impoverished, degraded social contexts, where violence is the rule of life, the authority of the state was lacking or weakened by corruption and compromises, or where religion is used for other ends, Fides said. Everywhere priests, religious, and laymen share the same daily life as the common people, bringing them the evangelical witness of love and service for all, as a sign of hope and peace, trying to alleviate the suffering of the weak and raising their voices in defense of their trampled rights, denouncing evil and injustice, it added. Even in danger of their own safety, at the request of civil authorities or their own superiors, the Missionaries remained at their posts, aware of the risks which they were running, in order to remain true to the duties they bore. Over the course of 2018, a number of non-clergy Protestant missionary deaths also made headline news, most notably the killing of 26-year-old Oral Roberts University graduate John Chau. Chau, who studied for years to bring the Gospel to isolated tribespeople on North Sentinel Island near India, was killed by arrows on the island in November. Chau's killing sparked debate on the proper ways of carrying out contemporary missionary work, though All Nations, the missionary group that trained Chau, hailed his character. Pam Arlund, a member of the International Leadership Team at All Nations, told The Christian Post that the American was one of the greatest learners I have ever had the pleasure of working with. He read about one book every three days, about missions, reading books that I would recommend to him. His family also called him someone who "loved God" and wanted to help "those in need." The unrest and clashes in Cameroon meanwhile led to the death of Indiana missionary Charles Wesco in October. Wesco, who had only moved into the region with his family earlier that month, was shot by bullets and died in front of his wife and son. Rebecca Wesco, the missionary's mother, said that she believes her son is in Heaven. "[W]e don't have any shadow of a doubt," the mother said at the time. "He had sins, but he had asked God to forgive him, and he really truly wanted to love God more than his very life." Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment In a year-end op-ed piece for the New York Times, Katherine Stewart alleges that, The Christian nationalist movement today is authoritarian, paranoid and patriarchal at its core. They arent fighting a culture war. Theyre making a direct attack on democracy itself. Such claims are as ludicrous as they are misleading. According to Stewart, when evangelicals like Lance Wallnau compare Trump to King Cyrus in the Bible, they are actually wanting Trump to be a king. Indeed, she claims that, in Mr. Trump, they have found a man who does not merely serve their cause, but also satisfies their craving for a certain kind of political leadership. Evangelicals, whom she slyly characterizes as Christian nationalists, want a king, not a president. They want someone to impose their views on the nation. They are theocratic, not democratic. Thats why Trump is their man. She writes, I have attended dozens of Christian nationalist conferences and events over the past two years. And while I have heard plenty of comments casting doubt on the more questionable aspects of Mr. Trumps character, the gist of the proceedings almost always comes down to the belief that he is a miracle sent straight from heaven to bring the nation back to the Lord. I have also learned that resistance to Mr. Trump is tantamount to resistance to God. Lets analyze these claims one at a time, as factually and as dispassionately as possible. First, with regard to the Cyrus comparison, I can say without equivocation that those using the analogy did not use it with reference to Trump ruling over the nation like a king. As evangelical Americans, we trace our roots back to those who overthrew British rule. We reject a king over America just as much as we reject attempting to set up a theocracy where religious leaders rule the land by fiat and force. The Cyrus analogy had to do with the unlikelihood of someone like Trump being president, just as it was unlikely that God would use someone like Cyrus (an idol-worshiping, non-Israelite), to restore the Jewish exiles from Babylon. Wallnau even read Isaiah 45 to Trump at a gathering of evangelicals during the primaries, including these words: For the sake of My servant Jacob, Israel My chosen one, I call you by name, I hail you by title, though you have not known Me (Isa 45:4). In other words, God was raising up Donald Trump, a non-evangelical, non-Christian, to help America and, in particular, to help evangelicals. It had nothing to do with him reigning as a king. Second, these evangelicals are not paranoid. We are fighting a very real battle for our liberties. We are standing up for the rights of our children. Even Time Magazine published an article on June 29, 2016 titled, Regular Christians Are No Longer Welcome in American Culture. And already in 2003, David Limbaugh could write the book, Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christians. Theres a reason I have urged fellow-evangelicals to rise up and speak up in 2019. (For a fair, academic evaluation, see George Yancey and David A. Williamson, So Many Christians, So Few Lions: Is There Christianophobia in the United States?) Third, we evangelicals are fighting a culture war. We are not fighting democracy itself. To the contrary, we believe the democratic principles of our country are being undermined by radical ideologues who have a very different vision for America. We see a rise in mobocracy, not democracy. We see a push towards socialism, which will destroy the democracy. We see an anti-Constitutional, even anti-American vision from the radical left that is destructive, and we see Trump opposing that. For good reason Tom Gilson has started the new year writing about, Leftist Totalitarianism: Your Freedom of Conscience Under State Control. For good reason, Dennis Prager has warned about where the left wants to bring us in 2019. It is the radical left that is attacking Democracy. Evangelicals are trying to protect it. Fourth, it is downright disingenuous to speak of American evangelicals as Christian nationalists, with all the ugly connotations such a term stirs up. I dont know a single evangelical leader who would use such a term, nor do I know any who would prefer being labeled as such. (I can only speak of those I know.) The truth be told, Stewart could just as well label liberal and progressive Christians as Christian nationalists, since they too speak about what is right for America, they too believe that their candidates would do the best job for America, and they too claim to be following the principles of Jesus. Fifth, these evangelical leaders are not standing up for patriarchy. They are resisting radical feminism, which ultimately hurts women more than anyone. They are pushing back against the Shout Your Abortion movement, against the war on the unborn. They are pro-woman and pro-family. Sixth, virtually all evangelical leaders I know wish that Trump would not call people dogs, that he would not be so nasty and demeaning in his tweets. They like the fact that he fights back. They like the fact that he takes on the media. But they often groan over the way he does it, and I can say with confidence that quite a few evangelical leaders have urged him to reconsider some of his methodology, even if their words fall on deaf ears. But, as one black evangelical said during the primaries (this was quoted to me by a colleague), Im not voting for his morality or his spirituality. Im voting for his constitutionality. Seventh, Stewart forgets that most of us voted for Trump because we were voting against Hillary. He was not the first choice for most of us. And yes, given the circumstances, we do believe he was elected with Gods help. But since he has been elected, the Hillary-type forces (by which I mean the liberal media, the Democratic Party, and the leftist agenda) have only become more extreme. More anti-Christian. More anti-democracy. More anti-freedom. Should we now hope that Trump is removed so that these forces come to power? And would the resistance to Mike Pence be any less intense? In reality, Stewart has things upside down, since it is really the radical left that wants to take over the nation and rob us of our liberties. And evangelicals see Trump, with all his massive flaws and blemishes, fighting against this hostile takeover. And for that we are glad. Whats so unchristian about that? Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Africas most populous country is Nigeria, with a population that today numbers 200 million and that is on track by 2050 to be larger than Americas. Nigeria is also poised to become its continents biggest problem. Terrorists associated with Boko Haram and Fulani militants are slaughtering, enslaving, expelling and otherwise persecuting a growing number of Nigerian Christians. Some Muslims have also been killed. Nigerias government has not been successful in preventing such horrors, and these traumatic effects are rippling throughout that nation and neighboring states in the Lake Chad region. Unless something is done at once, Nigeria may implode, prompting incalculable suffering for its people and the prospect of many millions of them fleeing, posing what rock star Bono has warned would be an existential threat to Europe. Fortunately, something can be done to help stave off such a disaster if President Donald Trump adopts a model used successfully by one of his predecessors to deal with a similar crisis in another African nation. In 2001, George W. Bush appointed former Sen. John Danforth to be Americas Special Envoy for Sudan. A respected veteran legislator, Amb. Danforth successfully forged a unified and robust policy among often fractious U.S. government agencies, including the National Security Council, the Departments of State and Defense, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the International Religious Freedom Commission, the U.S. mission to the United Nations and the intelligence community. The ambassador then proved a formidable advocate with the Sudanese government and international community on behalf of the Christians and other minorities Khartoum was relentlessly attacking in the south, the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile region. Thanks in part to his efforts, South Sudan ultimately gained its independence from Sudana notable achievement, even if violence continues to be a problem on both sides of the new border. A U.S. Special Envoy is now urgently needed for Nigeria and the Lake Chad region. With each passing day, the Christianswho make up roughly half of Nigerias population, especially those in the northern and central regions of the countryand others are in mortal peril. Unfortunately, much of the West has responded to this unfolding disaster with indifference. Four years ago, world leaders and many individuals responded to the kidnapping of the Chibok girls with #bringbackourgirls. With the approaching fifth anniversary of that outrage in April, just under half of the girls are still in captivity and the world is silent. The silence has only emboldened the perpetrators of such crimes. Indeed, the unprovoked murder of at least 15,000 Nigerian Christians and the destruction of 900 of their churches reflects a deliberate, genocidal campaign, one characterized by the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, as aimed at rendering most immediately the north of Nigeria free of Christians. Such ambitions have precipitated the following, among other ominous developments, making the appointment of a Special Envoy like John Danforth for Nigeria and its neighboring region not merely desirable, but imperative: In the Lake Chad region, there are estimated to be 2.2 million refugees displaced by the violence in Nigeria that is now impacting Cameroon, Chad and Niger as well. The attacks that killed American military personnel in Niger last year were the result of al-Qaeda operatives radicalizing members of Nigerias Fulani. Today, such terrorist groups are also arming them, as well as Boko Haram. The U.S. government's Famine Early Warning System has warned that Nigeria constitutes one of the planets largest food insecurity crises. In addition to the millions of Nigerians experiencing a food emergency, the people of Chad and Niger are facing a similar disaster. In 2017, more Nigerians than any other nationality crossed the Mediterranean illegally to Europe. An estimated 15,000 Nigerian women and girls are victims of human trafficking in Italy alone. If the violence in Nigeria results in the implosion of that populous nation, it is certain that the refugee flows that have rocked the European continent to date will pale by comparison. To his credit, President Trump has personally addressed his concerns about this crisis with Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari. But Americas vital interests require action as well. The place to start is with the proven technique of appointing a Special Envoy capable of forging the unified and sound American policies required if a full-on catastrophe in Nigeria is to be avoidedand then advancing them effectively with its government. Frank Wolf represented the 10th District of Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1981 to 2015. Tony P. Hall represented the 3rd District of Ohio in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1979 to 2003 and served as the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Agencies for Food and Agriculture from 2002 to 2006. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment If Van Jones, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Kim Kardashian all agree on a bill, its probably not a good idea. Republicans and Democrats came together to pass the FIRST STEP Act into law this month, which will allow felons early release. Its being touted as a criminal justice system overhaul, to let nonviolent offenders out of prison for good behavior. But as Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who graduated from Harvard Law School, observed, there are almost no low-level, non-violent offenders in federal prison. If they are in prison for low-level convictions, its because they were allowed to plea down to a lesser charge. If they are serving a long-term sentence for a drug-related crime, it is because they have a lengthy criminal history that includes violent crime. They are serving a mandatory minimum due to their criminal history. The law will trigger the immediate release of an estimated 4,000 federal offenders out of the 180,000 currently incarcerated. This is twice as many prisoners as those whose sentences were selectively commuted by President Obama. That number will greatly increase over time. The Bureau of Prisons and Congressional Budget Office estimates roughly 53,000 prisoners could be released over the next 10 years. That is almost one third of the prisoners in federal prison! This misguided bill would allow violent offenders out early for merely doing what they were already doing in prison engage in vaguely defined productive activities. This includes playing softball and watching movies, according to the Bureau of Prisons. The bill excludes some violent crimes from eligibility for early release, but not all of them. Some of the dozens of dangerous offenses that are eligible include drug-related robberies involving assault with a dangerous weapon, using a deadly weapon to assault a law-enforcement officer, assault resulting in substantial bodily injury to a spouse or child and violent carjacking resulting in serious bodily injury. The bill gives judges more discretion to ignore mandatory minimums for criminals with prior records. How does giving activist judges more power to ignore sentencing laws and lengthy criminal histories help anything? Instead they can pretend theyre merely sentencing a felon for drug crimes, keep that fake mantra going. The National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys is concerned that the bill is modeled after successful state criminal justice reforms. As many as 77 percent of state inmates are rearrested within five years of release. In contrast, only 24 percent of federal inmates are rearrested in that time period. How have those state reforms been a success? Kardashian has made it her mission to get felons released early from prison who are serving long sentences for drug related offenses. She convinced President Trump to grant clemency to Alice Marie Johnson, a woman serving a life sentence for a nonviolent drug conviction. The indictment described Johnson as a leader in a multi-million dollar cocaine ring. But what is the whole story? What was her criminal background before that, were there violent crimes? It is highly unlikely the reason she was sentenced to life in prison was due to the drug charges alone. But the media wont report the full story and much of her criminal history is withheld from the public by law. Her incomplete story is now the poster child for this law. How did this flawed bill get passed? It was misdescribed. Letting low-level nonviolent offenders shave a few years off of long sentences sounds reasonable. No one wants to go on record sounding like they oppose that. And its difficult to prove the bill is flawed, because so much of a felons criminal history is unavailable to the public. Only the prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys and law enforcement agents who deal with felons every day know the real story behind these types of felons (even the judges arent necessarily allowed access to their full criminal records). And they are overwhelmingly against the bill. Several of these national law enforcement agencies submitted letters to Congress warning that the bill will endanger public safety. The legislation will not reduce future crime. It will not make our communities safer. Sen. Cotton says the way to remedy injustices in the system is to allow the president to choose who to pardon or provide clemency. Not allow thousands of felons out indiscriminately. These types of things go in cycles. After violent crime inevitably starts sharply increasing, Congress will change the laws again to impose tougher penalties. But by then it will have been too late. How many innocent people will have to die first? Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Jonathan Sandys, the great-grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, died December 29 in a London hospital, of chronic lung disease. Sandys forged new ground in Churchill studies by exploring in depth his great-grandfathers faith, in God and Churchill, a book Jonathan and I co-authored. Jonathan leaves behind his wife, Sara, and two young children. He also leaves the world a volume that shows how God works through people who had been tossed on historys trash heaps, marked as failures by the haughty establishments of their day, and, as the front cover reads, How the great leaders sense of divine destiny changed his troubled world and offers hope for ours. Failures, rejections, and comebacks constituted the story of Winston Churchill, and, on a smallerbut no less painfulscale, of Churchills great-grandson, Jonathan Sandys. Jonathan never knew his great-grandfather personally, Churchill having died a decade prior to Jonathans birth. However, Jonathan said that from childhood, my sense of identity was framed in part by the knowledge that I was descended from one of historys great heroes. Jonathan Sandys life in some ways paralleled Churchills. His great-grandfather struggled with bouts of depression so deeply and so frequently that Churchill gave it a nameBlack Dog. Jonathan would know such emotional despair at times. Yet, as I can attest, like Winston Churchill, Jonathan Sandys refused to allow his black dog periods to trap him in its tight jaws. Jonathan also struggled in school, as his great-grandfather before him. Winstons own father scorned the boy as hopeless as a scholar. Jonathan did not have to bear such mockery from his own parents, but dyslexia hampered his capacities as a student. This is remarkable to me, who spent a year in constant interaction with Jonathan in the writing of God and Churchill. He was determined to both write himself and review what I had written with meticulous attention, though reading was an immense challenge. I saw the pluck and determination that, on a much larger scale, had enabled his great-grandfather to keep standing and leading Britain to victory when, in 1940, defeat seemed almost certain. Despite the dyslexia, Jonathan said, I became a self-taught historian, consuming all the books I could find about Churchill and his era. That research brought Jonathan to the realization that though he was arguably the greatest leader of the twentieth century, he was only a man, not a godno better or worse than any of us. Jonathan found that someone as great as Winston Churchill had faced personal challenges similar to my owndifficulty in school, rejection, and an early reputation as a failure. Surprisingly, the discovery of Winston Churchills humanity gave Jonathan a new view of his own identity and purpose. When I realized that I could not rest my identity in someone who was just as much a frail human being as I was, I decided to step out of his shadow and embrace my own identity. In 2005 Jonathan embarked on a public speaking career, focusing on his great-grandfather. He wanted to write as well as speak. Jonathan prayed, asking God to show him a topic of focus neglected by the vast Churchill literature, something unique he could share with audiences. I decided I must explore more deeply great-Grandpapas personal faith. Jonathan had previously concluded that Churchills references to Deity and Christianity were merely political platitudes. Yet his research told Jonathan otherwise. Jonathan went to Sir Martin Gilbert, the official Churchill historianand the greatestto test Jonathans conclusions that there was much more there than had been covered. Gilbert encouraged me to press on, and said there was loads of information on the topic that others had not considered in depth. Martin made me promise the same promise that was exacted from him in the 1950s that if Im going to write about my great-grandfather, then I must stick to the letter of the law when it comes to history; I must not embellish anything; I must tell the absolute truth about Churchill, warts and all. Reviewers of God and Churchill have positively acknowledged the honesty with which we wrote the book. Jonathans own determination to not overstate Churchills Christianity tempered my pastoral predisposition to show Churchill as an enthusiastic evangelical. Churchill was a Christian in his worldview, respect for the Bible, and sense of Gods presence and guidance personally, but an evangelical as currently understood, he was not. Yet, in a sense Churchill led his great-grandson to the Lord. As Jonathan studied Churchills faith, he decided to settle his own commitment to Christ. I was privileged to baptize Jonathan at Houstons Second Baptist Church on a stormy spring Saturday night in 2015. A year earlier, Jonathan and I had met for the first time in Houston, where he resided as the base for his American speaking tours. A mutual friend had told Jonathan of my own interest in Churchill, and that I had had a career in journalism, government and church ministry, and could perhaps understand the spirituality of a political leader. Thus was born God and Churchill, which was published in 2015 by Tyndale House in the United States and SPCK in the United Kingdom. And thus also was fulfilled an important part of the destiny of the man who loved to call Sir Winston Churchill, Great-Grandpapa. James Humes, noted historian and presidential speechwriter for Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and H.W. Bush, and who also knew Winston Churchill personally, summed it up well: I have known four generations of the Churchill family. Jonathan Sandys has both the vision and the voice to carry forth the legacy of his great-grandfather and is well worthy to offer this account of Churchills life and faith. God and Churchill has earned a place next to the greatest books ever written on the master statesman. Mission accomplished, Jonathan. -End- Wallace Henley is senior associate pastor at Houston's Second Baptist Church, and Chair of Belhaven University's Master of Ministry Leadership degree. He is a former White House and Congressional aide, and co-author of "God and Churchill", with Winston Churchill's great-grandson, Jonathan Sandys. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment What does it look like when people set aside their quest for personal health, happiness and satisfaction in favor of a cross? I'm going to venture an answer to that question by way of an example of selfless service that captured my imagination a few years ago. I should add, however, that I don't know if any of the people I'm about to describe are confessing followers of Jesus. But I do know this: their brave and selfless actions provided a moving illustration of what living faith looks like. The time is September 2014. The world has grown increasingly worried about an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus when a young man named Thomas Eric Duncan arrives in Dallas, Texas from an Ebola hotspot: the country of Liberia in West Africa. Shortly after arriving in the United States, Mr. Duncan falls ill and is taken to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. Not long after that, he is diagnosed with the highly contagious and nearly always fatal hemorrhagic fever: Ebola has landed on American soil. Do you remember the fear and uncertainty of that time when Ebola moved from being a terrible blight in some exotic overseas locale to one that had arrived on our proverbial doorstep? Those dark months in the fall of 2014 are seared into my memory because it felt for a time like we were living out the plot of a Hollywood disaster movie. So now, let's shift our attention back to the literal Ground Zero of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. Once Ebola had arrived, imagine how terrifying it would have been to go into work as an employee of that hospital. Every door handle, every railing, every elevator button, every breath of air could be concealing a deadly virus that would bring about a tortured, agonizing death in a matter of days. If I was on the payroll at Texas Health Presbyterian, I'd probably look for a reasonany reasonnot to come into work. Why? I'll be honest: I'm a coward. I'm afraid of suffering and I definitely don't want to die. Long story short: I didn't sign up for this. Here's the thing that still humbles and amazes me: despite the enormous risk to themselves, all the staff of the hospitaldoctors, nurses, support staff, all of themreadily volunteered to provide care to Mr. Duncan. And what did that commitment look like? Just consider the job profile for the front line nurses. Day after day they dressed in double gloved hazmat suits. You need to understand that this was a stifling uniform that left them soaking in sweat within minutes. Uncomfortable though it may have been, it was essential protection against the deadly virus. Next, they would enter the quarantined area where Duncan was being housed, a nightmarish twilight zone stranded between death and the land of the living. Once there, the nurses would set to work, hydrating Duncan, comforting him, and changing his clothes. As you can imagine, the scene was a living hell: Duncan emitted copious amounts of diarrhea, projectile vomiting, blood and all of it was toxic hazardous waste. The minute they entered the room those caregivers were placing their very lives at risk. And yet, the nurses would still work 16 to 18 hour days taking turns on two hour shifts in their full hazmat gear, and all to care for one desperately ill man. A couple months after Duncan passed away, "60 Minutes" did a story which featured interviews with some of these extraordinary caregivers. One of these brave individuals, a man named John, shared his recollections of caring for Duncan. He recalled: "we held his hand and talked to him and comforted him because his family couldn't be there." As I watched John recalling his time serving Duncan, I found myself amazed by his compassion in the midst of the worst horrors. He continued, "He was glad someone wasn't afraid to take care of him. And we weren't." Two nursesNina Pham and Amber Vinsoncontracted Ebola as a result of treating Mr. Duncan. Both eventually recovered. Wow. Well I'll tell you this: I would have been afraid. In our culture soldiers, police officers, and firefighters receive well-deserved credit for their courage in meeting the call of duty. By contrast, one doesn't typically use the words "brave" and "nurse" in the same sentence. But the nurses of Texas Health Presbyterian are some of the bravest people I've ever seen. Despite the heroic efforts of his caregivers, Duncan continued to decline until he was hooked up to a respirator, heavily sedated, with tears streaking down his cheeks. Against this heartbreaking backdrop, John describes his final moments with Duncan: "And I grabbed a tissue and I wiped his eyes and I said, 'You're going to be okay. You just get the rest that you need. You let us do the rest for you.' And it wasn't 15 minutes later I couldn't find a pulse. And I lost him. And it was the worst day of my life. This man that we cared for, that fought just as hard with us, lost his fight. And his family couldn't be there. And we were the last three people to see him alive. And I was the last one to leave the room. And I held him in my arms. He was alone." As John shares these recollections, tears begin to roll down his face and his voice shakes. The emotions are clearly still raw. And when he says that was the worst day of his life, I believe him. To be sure, had I been there, I might also have said it was the worst day of my life, but for very different reasons. I would've considered it my worst day because I'd have to risk my life while suffering in a stifling hazmat suit cramped in a room with a dying man and vats stuffed with towels and cloths infected with toxic diarrhea and vomit. By contrast, it was the worst day of John's life because he lost a patient he had cared for and loved, a man who tragically suffered greatly and died alone. There's a big difference between John and me, that's for sure. I don't know if John's a Christian, but I know which one of us looks more like Jesus. Dr. Randal Rauser is Professor of Historical Theology at Taylor Seminary in Edmonton, Alberta, where he has taught since 2003. He blogs at randalrauser.com and lectures widely on issues of theology, Christian worldview, and apologetics. This article is drawn from Randal's most recent book, What's So Confusing About Grace? Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Stephens College, Americas second oldest womens college, has recently issued an email in which it announces changes to its admissions policies. Beginning in the fall of 2019 the formerly all-female institution will begin allowing transgenders to enroll. Men who are transitioning to female will have the same status and privileges as naturally born females; however, females who are transitioning to males will have to pack their bags and leave at the end of the semester. The college will help them transition to another institution. The college explains its new policies: [Stephens] will also admit and enroll students who were not born female, but who identify and live as women; those students will need to provide legal documentation that they are legally women or that they are transitioning to female. Because the College has expanded its definition of womanhood to include both sex and gender, it is logically consistent that it also acknowledges both sex and gender in its definition of manhood. As a result, the College will stop admitting and enrolling students who were born female but who now identify as men or who are transitioning from female to male. The College will also continue to admit and enroll students who were born female but who identify as non-binary, meaning students who experience their gender identity as falling outside the categories of man and woman. The College will no longer admit or enroll students who identify as non-binary but who are transitioning to male. In case the average person is confused, the college goes on to explain its new policies: The worlds understanding of and definition of womanhood is changing. Stephens is evolving just as it always has to ensure that it continues to provide the extraordinary experience of a Stephens College education to all women who will seek and benefit from it. The key to understanding the changes Stephens College is advocating lies in its view of itself (and the human race) as evolving just as it always has. It appears we are all to be committed to Hegelianism now, with a bow to Lamarckian evolutionary ideology. The ever-evolving human race, having once self-transitioned from chimps to Neanderthals and upright Cro-Magnons is now transitioning past its binary form of male and female into a new type of being. Transgenders are the prototypes of the newly evolved human. The key to the transition to a new form of human being or even a post-human being is the triumph of will, which through a dialectical internal process develops a more sophisticated view that transcends older, less developed views of ones self and of humanity. Internal dialectic reaches a synthesis that is infallible, needing no outside ideas such as the primitive religious concept of human beings made by and reflecting the image of God. Apparently, we humans no longer require the identification of either male or female as assigned by a Creator. We are on our own to define ourselves or to allow others to define us. As Hegel himself put it, nothing extraneous is introduced. Dialectics is the principle through which along immanent coherence and necessity enter into the content of science. In other words, we can on our own rise above the finite, including the finitude of the material body as male and female, to the universal. We can become more than human. We can become post-human, avoiding entirely all the messy and unnecessary particulars of the human race such as sex consigned at conception. To put it yet another way, the idea is that we humans can, by an act of will synthesize the cacophony within us into a single voice that speaks to who we really are; there is, in other words, an inner principle of self-derivation that enables us to be anything we choose to be. The dialogue within ones self is the defining factor in assessing ones identity, including whether or not one is male or female. We humans are, in other words, always coming to be through pure knowledge of ourselves. Each person is self-originated. In turn, the newly identified organisms who were formerly known as male and female can collaborate with other organisms to move the human race along to a pre-determined destiny, known by some as post-human existence. Humanity as it has been traditionally defined for millennia can be transcended by the evolutionary process and/or by technological advances. For the powers that be at Stephens College, the idea appears to be it is time to evolve itself out of existence as a college for women, since The worlds understanding of and definition of womanhood is changing. In other words, an institution formerly devoted to the education of women has evolved past the ideas that once animated the founding of womens colleges; namely, that women are as entitled to and able to benefit from as rigorous an education as men. In place of the idea that was basic for the foundation of the college is the idea that there is no such real thing as a woman. Instead, the college has committed itself to erasing even the very idea of woman. Women do not exist as women any longer, as the human race has evolved past all that nonsense. It follows that any men and women seeing distinctions between male and female are possessed of a singularly backward mentality resisting evolutionary progress; and that the unease felt by less advanced life forms such as you and me should be dismissed; resistance eradicated and the unbelieving eliminated from participation in the brave new world. In the meantime, the enlightened who see past the material forms the human race presently possesses will ensure progress toward the indeterminate but surely more blessed future by converting by persuasion or force those who are reluctant to give up their womanhood or manhood. A new language will evolve in which the binary distinctions of humanity will no longer be mentioned; books, plays and poems that celebrate the romance between the sexes will be banned; children will be taught the joys of devaluing their own sex; and sex between men and women denigrated as abnormal, along with the terms mother and father. Last, resisters will be cordoned off into private preserves or sent to re-education camps designed to convert them to the newly evolved ideology. For yes, we are in the territory occupied by believers in a brave new world characterized by the elimination of all binary distinctions in the name of equality. We have seen the results of similar ideological insanities. Now, we are seeing the Hydra grow a new head, one that finds its deathly impetus from the same ideological sources that have brought and are still bringing so much suffering and death to men and women alike. We are seeing those who believe in the self-transcendence of human beings, their nature and their history heedlessly but deliberately destroy both religion and science because they are convinced they have evolved ahead of the rest of the human race and deserve to determine who will be fit for the new society and who will not. Allied with the ideologues who believe in a post-human world free of the distinctions of sex are those who believe in the technological transformation or bypassing of the human race by the development of technology. Man will be bypassed and or surpassed by supra-human machines who think faster, calculate at enormous rates and by virtue of their technological advancement will eliminate the need for human beings entirely. The visions and dreams of sci-fi will become reality. Against the revolutionaries who call for equality, but who are by their beliefs revealed to be nihilists who actually hate the human race, men and women alike, stand some who resist. Among them are Christians who believe the Genesis creation account. That majestic account, which states God created the human race as male and female, defines and reflects observable reality. The ideology that seeks to distort and supplant that reality, and which is intent on seizing control of higher education, government and even the Church, is insanity itself. In the end, both men and women have a vested interest in confronting an evil ideology, which if allowed to play out in real time and history, seeks to eliminate the reality of what it means to be human, male and female alike. --Fay Voshell holds a M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, which awarded her its prize for excellence in systematic theology. Her thoughts have appeared in numerous online publications. She may be reached at fvoshell@yahoo.com Pro-choice activist tells kids: abortion is 'part of Gods plan,' like dentist appointment Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The co-founder of the #ShoutYourAbortion movement was featured on a popular YouTube channel for children telling kids that abortions are part of Gods plan and that they are much like going to the dentist. Abortion activist Amelia Bonow fielded questions from children of various ages when she participated in an episode of Kids Meet, a program run by the Seattle-based HiHo Kids. Bonow was the star of an episode called Kids Meet Someone Who Has Had an Abortion. In the episode, a child talking with Bonow in a one-on-one setting tells her that he wrote a paper on abortion in the fifth grade in which he surmised that abortion was acceptable as long as the person getting the abortion was not being reckless. Bonow smirked at the thought of a potential restriction to abortion and questioned the kids belief. I dont know. I just dont agree, she said. Do we want people to just have all those babies? As the kid shakes his head to indicate no, Bonow asks the child what should be done with all the babies that are being born instead of aborted. He answered with adoption. But that response was not to the liking of Bonow. I feel like if I am forced to create life, I have lost the right to my own life, responded Bonow. I should be the one to decide if my body creates a life. Even if you are giving a kid up for adoption, you still like have a kid out there somewhere. Bonow questioned if the child was religious. When he said that he believed in God, she asked what he thinks is Gods view on abortion. The child reasoned that God supports abortion because there are plenty of other babies being born into the world. The boy then asked Bonow what she believes God thinks about abortion. I think it is all part of Gods plan, she stated. In another scene, Bonow is shown talking with two girls. One of them asks her: what exactly do you do to have an abortion? Bonow explained: You go to the doctor and they put this little straw inside of your cervix, and then inside of your uterus and they just suck the pregnancy out. It was like a crappy dentist appointment or something. It was just like, blah a body thing that was kind of uncomfortable but then it was over and I felt really just grateful that I wasnt pregnant anymore. In another scene, Bonow is shown talking with a boy and a girl on when life begins. Bonow explained that she believes that life begins at birth, while the teen boy goes on to compare a human fetus to a sea cucumber. It is not thinking, it is just living. It is like your arm is not capable of complex thought. Neither is a baby inside your womb, the boy says. Bonow followed up by stating, I like your take. In the video, Bonow admits that she had unprotected sex and aborted her child because she did not want to have a baby. She was asked if there ever was a point she was considering not getting an abortion. No. For me it was like an instant feeling. I was like, I am pregnant and I am having an abortion, she said. Bonow was also asked if she has ever been attacked by pro-life people. She went on to criticize the pro-life effort and implied that the only people looking to restrict abortion are white males who want to control womens bodies. She went on to accuse some pro-lifers of not caring about life once the baby is born, saying that they want to deprive people of access to healthcare. Yes, but I dont call them pro-life. I call them anti-choice. Because who would disagree with that statement [of] being pro-life, Bonow said, adding that the pro-life mantra is just propaganda. Those guys arent pro-life. I am pro-life, she quipped. Contrary to Bonow's assertion, several of the prominent pro-life advocacy groups lobbying for restriction to abortion are led by females, such as Susan B. Anthony List, Concerned Women for America, March for Life and National Right to Life. The Christian Post reached out to SBA List for a reaction to Bonows comments. A response could not be received by press time. The video received several negative reactions from users on Twitter, with some accusing it being indoctrination. One user who claimed to support a right to abortion worried that Bonow and the #ShoutYourAbortion campaign are advertising abortion as a form of birth control. Kris Williams, a pro-life reformed rapper turned YouTube commentator, responded to Bonows segment. In his own YouTube video, Williams played the Kids Meet clip and refuted many of the claims Bonow makes in the video. God is not pleased with the killing of children, Williams said. I dont know what she means by part of Gods plan as if he commanded it to happen or if He is OK with what happened. She would have to define that a little more. But no, God is not OK with your murdering your child. God is pretty clear in the law with what He thinks about murder. Williams and refuted Bonows use of the phrase suck the pregnancy out. She is making it seem like there is some kind of nebulous thing going on and we really dont know what happened, said Williams. You suck the pregnancy out? No, you suck the child that you are pregnant with. Williams accused Bonow of playing down to the childrens ignorance on the issue. The child in the womb is still a child. The fetus in the womb, what do you think it is? It is a child. It is developing, he said. After you are born you are still developing. So the argument is if you are still developing, you are not really human. If that is the case, you might not be really human until you are 30. You are still developing. Earlier this year, Bonow was featured in Oprah Winfreys O Magazine in an article she wrote titled How One Woman Became an Activist With the Hashtag #ShoutYourAbortion. While Bonow has launched a movement of women praising their abortions in an attempt to destigmatize the act, there are countless women who have opened up about their regrets of having an abortion over the last several years through a movement called Silent No More. Although women who shout their abortions are being heralded by left-leaning media outlets, those outlets have largely turned a blind eye to women who regret their abortions. "It's my experience that most of these liberal magazines won't give us the voice," said Silent No More cofounder Janet Morana in an interview with CP earlier this year. "We'd love to have it. Can we have some equal time? Can we have a fair and honest debate? Can I bring a few women who can talk about the physical damage and you can bring a few who think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, and let's have an open and honest conversation? But they don't want to do that. Facebook apologizes to Franklin Graham for temporary ban Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Facebook apologized to Rev. Franklin Graham for temporarily banning his page over a 2016 post about transgender bathroom use and Bruce Springsteen. Graham posted on Friday that his page was banned for 24 hours last week for a 2016 post about a North Carolina debate over HB 2, a "bathroom bill" regarding transgender bathroom use. Graham had criticized rock star Bruce Springsteen for canceling a concert in North Carolina over the bill at the time. "Bruce Springsteen, a long-time gay rights activist, has canceled his North Carolina concert. He says the NC law #HB2 to prevent men from being able to use women's restrooms and locker rooms is going "backwards instead of forwards." Well, to be honest, we need to go back! Back to God. Back to respecting and honoring His commands. Back to common sense. Mr. Springsteen, a nation embracing sin and bowing at the feet of godless secularism and political correctness is not progress. Im thankful North Carolina has a governor, Pat McCrory, and a lieutenant governor, Dan Forest, and legislators who put the safety of our women and children first! HB2 protects the safety and privacy of women and children and preserves the human rights of millions of faith-based citizens of this state," the post read. Sunday morning, Graham posted a screenshot of an apology he was sent from Facebook. "It looks like we made a mistake and removed something you posted on Facebook that didn't go against our Community standards. We want to apologize and let you know that we've restored your content and removed any blocks on your account related to this incorrect action," the message said. Facebook also made a statement to Fox News, saying, A Page admin for Franklin Grahams Facebook Page did receive a 24-hour feature block after we removed a post for violating our hate speech policies. Upon re-reviewing this content, we identified that the post does not violate our hate speech policy and has been restored. With the screenshot, Graham thanked Facebook for the apology. "Thank you to Facebook for the apology, the admission that my April 9, 2016 post didnt go against your Community Standards, and the corrective action taken," he wrote. Graham is a popular figure among evangelicals and is the son of famed late evangelist Billy Graham. He's also president of Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. His Facebook page has over 7.4 million followers. Graham appeared on Fox News' "Fox and Friends" Sunday morning to talk about Facebook's apology. While thanking Facebook for its reversal, he added, "the problem with Facebook is ... if you disagree with their position on sexual orientation then you can be classified as hate speech or that you're a racist, and this is a problem." Thursday, The New York Times took a critical look at how Facebook monitors its content. Facebook has 15,000 moderators, "largely unskilled workers," the article said, and every other Tuesday, several dozen Facebook employees, "mostly young engineers and lawyers," gather to review the company guidelines. The moderators are mostly in distant locations, like Morocco and the Philippines, and some rely upon Google translate. "The closely held rules are extensive, and they make the company a far more powerful arbiter of global speech than has been publicly recognized or acknowledged by the company itself," The New York Times wrote. An unnamed whistleblower at Facebook who "feared that the company was exercising too much power" provided The New York Times with over 1,400 pages from Facebook's internal rulebooks. Those pages "consist of dozens of unorganized PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets." The hate speech guidelines consist of "200 jargon-filled, head-spinning pages." The New York Times concluded, "An examination of the files revealed numerous gaps, biases and outright errors. As Facebook employees grope for the right answers, they have allowed extremist language to flourish in some countries while censoring mainstream speech in others." Facebook posted a response Friday, arguing the story "couldn't be further from the truth." "What the Times refers to as a gathering 'over breakfast' among 'young engineers and lawyers' is, in fact, a global forum held every two weeks where we discuss potential changes to our policies. It includes experts from around the world with deep knowledge of relevant laws, online safety, counter-terrorism, operations, public policy, communications, product, and diversity. Yes, lawyers and engineers are present, but so are human rights experts, people who have studied hate and extremist organizations, former law enforcement and other public servants, and academics," Facebook added in part. Jerry Falwells justification for supporting Trump called disaster for the church Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. is receiving criticism for his most recent statements of support for President Donald Trump, which included saying that Christian ethics shouldn't apply to public policy. Falwell has been a longtime supporter of President Trump, being one of the first major evangelical leaders to endorse the Republican candidate in Jan. 2016. In an interview with The Washington Post that was published Tuesday, Falwell justified his support for Trump in part by stating that he did not believe Christians should vote for people who want to apply Jesus teachings to government. Jesus never told Caesar how to run Rome. He went out of his way to say that's the earthly kingdom, I'm about the heavenly kingdom and I'm here to teach you how to treat others, how to help others, but when it comes to serving your country, you render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, said Falwell. It's a distortion of the teaching of Christ to say Jesus taught love and forgiveness and therefore the United States as a nation should be loving and forgiving, and just hand over everything we have to every other part of the world. That's not what Jesus taught. Falwell also derided Americans living in poverty. "Why have Americans been able to do more to help people in need around the world than any other country in history? Its because of free enterprise, freedom, ingenuity, entrepreneurism and wealth. A poor person never gave anyone a job. A poor person never gave anybody charity, not of any real volume. Its just common sense to me," he said. When asked, "Is there anything President Trump could do that would endanger that support from you or other evangelical leaders?" Falwell simply answered, "no." After the questioner commented on the shortness of Falwell's answer, he continued, I know that [Trump] only wants what's best for this country, and I know anything he does, it may not be ideologically conservative, but it's going to be what's best for this country, and I can't imagine him doing anything that's not good for the country. Falwell's remarks are being widely condemned across the political spectrum. Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume responded on Twitter to Falwell's critique of poor people. "Falwell is such a disappointing man. Does he not remember the impoverished woman in Luke 21, who gave a pittance, leading Jesus to say she had given more than the rich because she gave all she had?" Hume wrote. Regarding the whole interview, former Republican Congressman Reid Ribble wrote, "This says more about the state of evangelicalism than the Presidency. Being 'good' is fundamental to leadership. So if I agree with the policy it doesnt matter how it is achieved? The end justifies the means? Wow." In a series of tweets posted on Tuesday, author and Southern Baptist minister Alan Cross said Falwells reasoning was the SAME approach German Lutherans took as Hitler rose to power. If you want to know how the German Lutheran church comprising 80-90% of all Germans collapsed into subversion to tyranny, Falwell lays it out the blueprint perfectly, tweeted Cross. Hitler advocated for positive Christianity rather than a prophetic Christianity. Support the state as it advances its own interests and the state will leave you alone. Except, the state demands loyalty. Falwells position is disaster for the church in a democratic republic. Cross went on to state that while he did not consider Trump to be Adolf Hitler or Falwell to be a Nazi, he did believe that Falwell lays the groundwork for church capitulation to the state, adding that Falwell should be vigorously critiqued. Tyler Huckabee, editor at the Christian magazine Relevant, argued in a series of posts to Twitter that Falwells statements contradict the statement of mission and purpose of his own institution. According to Falwell's interview, Christians should be one way personally but another way politically. According to what he's saying here, Christian ethics are all well and good for individuals, but bad for politics, explained Huckabee. Falwell's dad coined the phrase: If it's Christian, it ought to be better. The idea is that the sort of Christian education Liberty provides will be useful in any field, because Christian praxis will lead to superior work. Falwell Jr. isn't convinced, apparently. Michael Wear, chief strategist for The AND Campaign, commented that the media should stop focusing on Falwell as a representative of evangelicalism. "One thing I no longer want to hear in 2019 is that charlatans like Jeffress and Falwell represent evangelicals until 'someone else will speak up.' There are others speaking and your insistence on focusing on fools suggests you get more pleasure from tearing down than building up," he wrote. For his part, Falwell retweeted a post by preacher and ministries head Rick Amato, defending the Liberty leader's interview remarks. The civil message of Falwell Jr. in this article should become the basic teaching on good citizenship and patriotism in every Protestant, Catholic and Jewish school in America. Lets keep the founding fathers doctrine of separation of Church and State, stated Amato. Samaritans Purse sends help as Ebola DRC outbreak becomes second deadliest in history Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Samaritans Purse is preparing to open a treatment center in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as the Ebola outbreak has now become the second deadliest in history. According to CNN, 368 deaths have been reported in the outbreak that began on Aug. 1 and another 609 patients are suspected to have been infected. The virus, one of the deadliest in the world, which causes severe headache and hemorrhaging, has a case fatality rate of close to 60 percent. "At this point people are, feeling very low, theyre very scared. They dont know whether or not they will make it," said Adele Bong, who is part of Samaritan's Purse. "What makes the difference is someone whos there loving on you, caring for you, just showing the love of Christ. That could be the difference between life and death." Samaritans Purse, the Christian relief group headed by evangelist Franklin Graham, announced on Tuesday that its 20-bed treatment center in the northeast DRC will provide "expert and compassionate clinical care for patients suffering with the deadly virus." The organization, which assists with disasters around the world, sent a 21-member disaster assistance response team to the African country, where it has operated for eight years, on Dec. 26. Megan Vitek, program manager for the international health unit, noted that the team in DRC is also helping with community awareness campaigns to educate people about the warning signs of Ebola. The Lord put us there months before for a reason to be able to love and care for this community in the midst of a deadly epidemic, Vitek said. Please pray for our team as they work tirelessly to set up this treatment center and fight this disease with every patient they touch. Samaritans Purse noted that it has learned from the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, which was the deadliest in history and killed over 11,300 people. Members from its 2014 response team helped train the new DCR team members at the group's facilities in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. In addition to the virus outbreak in North Kivu province, long-term conflicts there complicate matters further. Fifty armed groups have been carrying out violence that has displaced more than a million people, CNN reported. The World Health Organization and Samaritan's Purse warned that this rebel movement and prolonged insecurity are impeding progress and allowing Ebola, along with other dangerous diseases, such as malaria, to spread more quickly. U.N. childrens agency UNICEF noted that thousands of children are trapped in armed groups or subjected to sexual violence. The crisis is growing increasingly desperate and resources are at breaking point, said UNICEF Emergencies Director Manuel Fontaine, according to Reuters. Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, argued that the mounting crisis in DRC was one of the most forgotten ones of 2018. The brutality of the conflict is shocking, the national and international neglect outrageous, Egeland argued. I visited Congo this year and have seldom witnessed such a gap between needs and assistance. Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next. Laos crackdown on Christians: Christianity is religion of Europeans and Americans' Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Authorities in the Asian nation of Laos cracked down on worshiping Christians this Christmas season. Several Christians were arrested on the days before and after Christmas in separate incidents that took place in the countrys southern Savannakhet province. Most recently, as many as seven Christians were reportedly arrested while worshipping at a Christmas church service in the Nakanong Village. According to the Human Rights Watcher for Lao Religious Freedom, a group of nine police officers raided the Nakanong Village Christmas service around 6 p.m. last Saturday and initially arrested three church leaders. The church leaders were taken to the Phin district police headquarters. The police later returned to the village about two hours later and arrested four more Christians, who were also taken to the Phin police headquarters. The arrested Christians were reportedly detained for illegally gathering for worship without the governments permission. Around 10 p.m., according to the human rights group, police officers again returned to the village church and destroyed the stage and churchs sound system. The police cut off power to the church and confiscated three cell phones. Radio Free Asia (RFA) reports that the seven Christians arrested on Dec. 29 were freed and allowed to go home on Wednesday. Earlier in December, RFA reported that five other Christians were arrested by authorities in the Non Soung village of the Phin district. The arrests were made after a group of Christians in one village invited a pastor from a neighboring village to organize a Christmas celebration, according to a local resident. The source, who spoke to RFA on the condition of anonymity, stated that the Christians were arrested for breaching rules designed specifically to restrict Christianity in the Phin district. Early last week, as Christians in the Non Soung village of Phin district, were preparing for Christmas celebrations, a Christian pastor from another village in the same district came to help organize the festivities, the source explained. A couple of days later, district security guards arrested five Christians four from Non Soung village and the pastor who had come from the other village nearby. The source said that regulations allow Christians to only hold and participate in Christmas celebrations in their own village. A district official refused to comment on the case but told RFA that Christian celebrations in the district are subject to various government controls. In general, Christians are still restricted in this district, the official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said. They are not allowed to teach from the Bible or to spread their religion to others because Christianity is the religion of the Europeans and Americans. Hostility toward Christianity is not just confined to the Phin district or the Savannakhet province. The nation ranks as the 20th worst nation in the world when it comes to Christian persecution, according to Open Doors USAs 2018 World Watch List. Christians comprise about 3 percent of the population in Laos. According to the persecution watchdog group, much of the persecution against Christians in Laos originates from communist authorities, local leaders and their immediate communities and families. Due to the tight grip of the Communist Party in this Southeast Asian country, religion is seen as a hostile element, an Open Doors fact sheet explains. Christianity, in particular, is considered a Western influence and especially dangerous. The government has recently made efforts to increase the monitoring of illegal house churches with the help of registered churches, resulting in the arrest and detention of Christian believers. The Central European Christian news agency BosNewsLife reports that the detentions of the Christians this Christmas season come despite attempts at Western-style reforms being made in other areas of the country throughout the last several years. In November, four other Lao Christians, including a 78-year-old grandmother, were arrested and held for about a week in Savannakhet provinces Vilabouly district. They too were detained for holding worship services without the permission of authorities. House Democrats seek to restore abortion group funding on first day of new Congress Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The newly sworn-in Democrat-led House of Representatives plans to vote Thursday on a spending bill to end the federal government shutdown that includes a provision to provide funding to Planned Parenthood and other abortion groups. Pro-life groups and prominent conservatives are speaking out against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats for slipping language into the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2019 that would among other things restore federal funding to overseas organizations that provide and promote abortion. Such funding was stripped from organizations like International Planned Parenthood by one of President Donald Trumps first acts as president when he expanded what was known as the Mexico City Policy preventing foreign aid dollars from being used to fund organizations that perform abortions overseas. Trumps policy is called Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance and forces NGOs to agree as a condition of receiving federal funding that they will not perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning. Abortion advocates lambasted the move and labeled it a global gag rule. But on the first day of the new Congress, the Pelosi-led House are trying to repeal that provision. According to the Washington Examiner, the spending bill will also increase funding by $5 million for the United Nations Population Fund, which has been criticized by pro-life organizations and the Trump State Department who say that the entity participates in a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization." On day one of the new Congress, Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats are already trying to foist a radical pro-abortion agenda on the nation, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the national pro-life grassroots organization Susan B. Anthony List said in a statement. A strong majority of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion. Acting on the clearly expressed will of the American people, President Trump and his administration have taken a bold stand for life by stopping billions of dollars in foreign aid from being used to push abortion overseas. Dannenfelser said that the House spending bill would again make taxpayers complicit in the exportation of abortion and destruction of countless unborn children around the world. This is unconscionable and we oppose the bill in the strongest terms, she said. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a former presidential candidate, slammed the House bill in a statement posted to his website. He assured that such a bill has no chance of actually becoming law. Apparently, Democrats in their first day as the House majority intend on pushing divisive, pro-abortion policies that would allow taxpayer dollars to flow to international organizations that promote and perform abortions, Rubio stressed. This is nothing more than far-left wing theater as these policies have no chance of passing the Senate or being signed by the President. Rubio vowed to ensure that the bill is defeated. Pro-lifers and conservatives were elated when Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy in 2017 and many viewed it as a fulfillment of part of his campaign promise to advance pro-life policies. According to the Christian conservative advocacy group Family Research Council, the House will vote on two spending bills Thursday. The second is a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government running until Feb. 8. As the federal government has been in a partial shut down for 12 days over Trumps desire to build a border wall, the House spending bill does not include funding for the wall. Although the Democrats have the votes to pass the legislation, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has vowed to block the bill in the Senate. The legislation that House Democrats are reportedly planning to introduce would not be a serious contribution to these negotiations. It isnt comprehensive. It ignores the needs of border security, McConnell said in a statement. Its exactly the kind of proposal youd expect if the incoming House Democrats were choosing to stage a political sideshow rather than do the hard work of helping to govern the country. A total non-starter. Will these new Democrats come to Washington ready to roll up their sleeves, work together, and make laws? McConnell asked. Or are they going to waste time on partisan show votes that will do nothing to move the country forward? Thats the question: Political performance art or responsible governance? Well get an early signal in the next few days. Franklin Graham on 'Facing Darkness': I Questioned God After Ebola Outbreak Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Executive Producer of "Facing Darkness," Franklin Graham says he questioned God after Dr. Kent Brantly was infected with Ebola while serving for Samaritan's Purse in West Africa. "Facing Darkness" hits theaters for one night only on March 30 and tells the true story of two American aid workers in West Africa stricken with the deadly Ebola virus and the race against time to get them home and treated. Samaritan's Purse President Franklin Graham says Ebola caught international attention when American workers Dr. Brantly and nurse Nancy Writebol became infected. "To be honest when I first heard that Dr. Brantly had been infected, I didn't even know how to pray. At first, I just kept saying, 'God why? Why, [he's a] young doctor, such a great guy, why?'" Graham told The Christian Post. "We had no clue how we were going to get him out of there and had no clue what to do. But we began to pray that God would show us what to do and we began to call every person that we knew," he said. "We called the State Department, the people in Washington, the Department of Defense. I mean everybody that we had a contact with, we began to call and as a result of it God began to open up doors." The well-known evangelist said as he made the calls to help his Samaritan's Purse workers, he saw firsthand how God made a way out of an impossible situation. "You could see God's hand at work through this entire film," Graham testified. "It's a documentary of God's faithfulness and [shows that] God is a good God, He's a loving God [and] He cares for us." The Ebola outbreak first surfaced in March 2014 and infected more than 28,000 people in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Brantly and Writebol found themselves at ELWA Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, in the middle of the outbreak and wound up catching the disease themselves. By June of that year it was all over the news as a raging epidemic and it was the bravery of the missionaries that helped bring international attention to the killer virus. "Dr. Brantly, his life, God used that to wake America up and as a result there are tens of thousands of Liberians and people from Guinea and Sierra Leone that are alive today because America and the rest of the world woke up," Graham said. "God used Dr. Brantly and Nancy Writebol to draw attention to a crisis that was killing people by the hundreds and killing them by the thousands. The world was not paying attention until they got sick." Overall, 11,000 lives succumbed to the disease before Ebola was under control. The 64-year-old evangelist, who is president of Samaritan's Purse, shared what he tells people when they ask why God allows things like this to happen. "With the question, 'Why does God allow bad things to happen?' that's a question every generation has struggled with and I don't have answers for that," Graham said. "All I know is that God made us and that He created us. Because one man sinned, we now live in a fallen world and that's what we're dealing with a sin sick world." Fortunately, however, he celebrated the fact that the story doesn't end there. Graham went on to share that the Good News is the remedy. "That's why God sent His son Jesus Christ into this world. That's why He took our sins and He died on the cross and He was buried for our sins. God raised Him to life and He can come into every heart and He can change every person that's willing to believe in the name of Jesus Christ," the president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association stated. Graham credited the hope of the Gospel message for inspiring his team at Samaritan's Purse to go to Africa. They went with the belief that Jesus is the great physician and used their knowledge in medicine as a tool to show God's love to the people in Liberia. "Dr. Brantly was there serving as a missionary in a hospital and his sole purpose was to tell the men and women that they served, about a God that loves them and cares for them," he revealed. The missionaries faced other challenges when in Liberia. Complicating the situation was years of civil war and the people of Liberia had very little trust for anyone in authority, going so far as to blame the aid workers for spreading the disease. Hospitals and people were attacked. Yet the Samaritan's Purse team continued to serve. "When Ebola came we were not prepared for that. We were not there to fight Ebola; none of my staff were. But when Ebola came, we stopped everything that we were doing to focus on trying to save the lives of those that were infected," Graham said. The North Carolina native called "Facing Darkness" a "testimony" to God's faithfulness. "He does hear prayer and answers prayer. Not only did Dr. Brantly survive, Nancy survived and we have others in this film who survived, who are giving a living testimony to God's goodness," he highlighted. Graham believes the movie has the appeal to reach both Christians and non-Christians alike because of the effect Ebola had on the world. "We want this film to not only reflect what happened at that time but to show that God answers prayer and that God will answer the prayer of any person that is willing to trust in the name of His son, Jesus Christ. If you just pray for God's help and His mercy, God answers prayer," he emphasized. Liberia is now declared Ebola free because of a shift in culture that helped stop the spread of the disease. Samaritan's Purse was behind the massive public health education program that reached 1.5 million people. "Facing Darkness" will not only tell the story of Brantly and Writebol, it will also show what happens when people choose compassion over fear in service to others. The Arthur Rasco film will premiere in select U.S. movie theaters for one night through Fathom Events on March 30. For more information, visit FacingDarknessMovie.com Does God still audibly speak to people? So. Baptist head weighs in Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear has recently tackled the question of whether God still speaks to people audibly as described in the Bible. In a video posted by The Gospel Coalition, Greear discussed the question by noting that he has never been comfortable putting God in a lot of boxes that He doesnt put himself in. I dont know of anywhere in the Bible that says, no, He will absolutely never speak audibly again to man on the earth, explained Greear. I will say that the Bible does indicate that the way that His Spirit speaks is obviously through the Scriptures, in these last days, God has spoken to us through His Son and this includes the writing of the Bible. Modern believers shouldnt expect were going to hear from God the way the apostles did, he said, adding that the Bible has ambiguity about how God spoke to the early church. In Acts the Holy Spirit shows up 59 different times in the Book of Acts, and 36 of the 59 He is speaking. Now, whats a little frustrating for me about this is that it never exactly tells us how He speaks, he continued. It doesnt say. And I think that ambiguity is intentional because God does not want us to have the assurance that He is saying things that arent written in the Bible because more havoc has been reaped of the church following the words God just told me than probably any other phrase in Christian history. Despite the ambiguity, Greear explained that he believed it was clear that God still speaks, but noted that this includes the Bible and that with the Bible, Christians dont need additional voices or things like that. Pastor Tim Challies of Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto, Ontario, also made similar comments in a blog last summer titled How God Speaks To Us Today. Challies noted that the Bible was a key way that God still spoke to people in the modern day, saying that God can guide us in many ways but today the Son speaks to us through his Spirit in the Bible, adding that God does not promise that he will speak in any other way. In other words, we can all expect and believe that God will speak to us through the Bible. But he does not promise to speak in the ways he has spoken before, or in new ways, wrote Challies. Of all the ways we may hope or long for him to speak, he promises only that he will guide us by his Son, through the Spirit in the Bible. Dead Sea, River Jordan where Jesus was baptized, shrinking fast in disaster,' experts say Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Bodies of water mentioned in the Bible, including the Dead Sea, the Sea of Galilee, and the River Jordan, where Jesus Christ was baptized, are shrinking fast in a looming disaster, experts say. Sky News reported that the Dead Sea in particular is seeing its water levels decline faster than ever before, losing as much as five feet each year. Scientists are fearing that it may only be reduced to a tiny pool by the middle of the century. "Its a lesson to everyone: don't mess with nature because nature will always win and we will always lose," said Ofir Katz, an ecologist at the Dead Sea and Arava Science Center. "If we keep taking fresh water from nature, from the Sea of Galilee, or from the Euphrates for example, or the Nile, we will eventually ruin the local environment. "We need to take care of nature or else we all sink with it." The River Jordan, once strong, has now been reduced to a trickle, scientists added in a warning of an "environmental disaster in slow motion." The shrinkage has been blamed in part on the expanding population in the region and the need for water, as well as on factories mining minerals by evaporating the water. Environmentalist Gidon Bromberg from Eco Peace said that the "demise of the Dead Sea is a reflection of the unsustainability of our water resources region-wide." Bromberg called for joint work on desalination plants to counter the problem. "Manufacture more water in the Mediterranean, produce renewable energy in the desert areas and create healthy interdependencies amongst us Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians first. Or we're going to see potentially more conflict rising out of these increasingly scarce water resources," he said. The Dead Sea and the areas around it have been the site of some of the most important finds in Biblical archaeology, such as the world-famous Dead Sea Scrolls. The fragments, which contain manuscripts of some of the earliest Biblical writings, are believed to have been hidden in 11 or potentially 12 caves somewhere in 68 BCE in order to protect them from Roman soldiers. They were found in a series of discoveries between 1947 and 1956, with close to 900 fragments written on animal skin and papyrus in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and subjected to analysis by researchers for decades. In November, scientists suggested that a "superheated blast from the skies" destroyed cities near the Dead Sea 3,700 years ago, alluding to the destruction of Sodom, as described in the Bible. Archaeologist Phillip Silvia of Trinity Southwest University in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said at the time that unearthed minerals were found to have instantly crystallized at high temperatures at what used to be cities and farming settlements north of the Dead Sea. Researchers said that something resembling a meteor destroyed communities in a 15-mile-wide circular plain, with the people of the region not returning for 600 to 700 years following the cataclysmic event. Christian magistrate wins right to appeal firing; judge says intolerant views should be respected Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A 72-year-old Christian magistrate who served over 20 years on the bench but was let go from his job for voicing his beliefs about same-sex adoption has won the right to appeal his termination. Last month, Judge Katherine Tucker moved to allow former magistrate Richard Page from Kent to appeal his removal by judiciary heads for suggesting that children up for adoption are better off in a home with both a mother and a father. Pages trouble began in 2014 when he dissented with two of his colleagues when considering a same-sex couple looking to adopt. After expressing his belief that children are better of in a household with a mother and a father, he was reported by other magistrates for his actions. Page was even forced to attend re-education training, according to the Christian Legal Centre, which is supporting Pages legal battle. In 2015, Page was interviewed by BBC and he explained why he dissented in the case. He stated that it was his responsibility as a magistrate to do what I considered best for the child. Following his interview, an investigation was launched by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office's disciplinary panel, which recommended that Page be removed from his position because reasonable people would conclude that [he] would be biased and prejudiced against single-sex adopters. Page was officially removed from office in February 2016. According to the Christian Legal Centre, Judge Tucker reasoned in her ruling in favor of Page that judges are allowed to hold even intolerant views and others should respect that. However, the judge also questioned what limits there should be to how judges can express their views without jeopardizing the partiality in the court system. Because of the ruling, Pages case can proceed to an employment appeal tribunal in south London. "I am amazed that it has taken so long to get this far, Page said in a statement following the ruling. It is vital that we maintain the true independence and impartiality of the judiciary and that ordinary people like me are not excluded from it." Page was represented by Paul Diamond, a prominent European human rights lawyer, who has taken on several other high profile U.K. religious freedom cases in the past. Diamond argued that the decisions made by the Justice Secretary Michael Gove and Chief Justice of England and Wales Lord John Thomas to terminate Page from the bench discriminated against his deeply-held religious beliefs. According to the Christian Legal Centre, Diamond argued that Pages statements were within the bounds of his judicial responsibility. "This is an important moment, shining a light on how justice is done in our country. Even the top judges in the land should not be beyond proper scrutiny and we are glad to see Richard's claim go forward, Andrea Minichiello Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said in a statement. "It was always disproportionate to remove a kind-hearted and long-serving public servant like Richard from his position simply because of the way that he expressed his beliefs. Page was also let go from his position as non-executive director at the Kent and Medway National Health Service Trust following his remarks to BBC. The Trust reasoned that Page "undermined" the confidence of staff. Page also sued the NHS Trust. In July 2018, Page won the right to appeal a 2017 ruling in favor of the NHS trust. Bullet narrowly misses pastor during watch night service; congregants erupt in worship Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Congregants at the Ramp Church of Texas in Fort Worth erupted in praise shortly after learning their founder and pastor, Evan D. Risher narrowly escaped being shot by a stray bullet while ministering from the pulpit on New Years Eve. Risher, who recently celebrated his birthday, told NBC DFW that at about 11:40 p.m. on Monday while he and his congregants were busy welcoming 2019 with worship he heard something that sounded almost like a whirlwind" coming from the ceiling of his new church. The congregants were left in confusion as the pastors armed security guards ran to his aid and rushed him off the stage. "When they rushed me off the stage and checked the premises they found this bullet on the stage," Risher explained. It was a .40 caliber bullet that ripped through the roof of the church and landed about two feet away from where the pastor was before the commotion began. "It hit right here about two feet behind where I was and about two feet in front of our drummer," the Liberty University graduate said. Police were called in to investigate but they were unable to say where exactly the bullet came from. According to NBC DFW, however, police responded to 63 shots fired calls overnight which many suspect may have been gunfire celebrating 2019. The experience has left the pastor both shaken and grateful. I was speechless. I was scared. It shook me, but it didnt break me," Risher told the news outlet. "There has to be another way to have fun, to bring in the New Year." In an Instagram post with video footage from the incident, Risher noted that he was just one step away from moving into the area where the bullet landed when it entered the church. Looking at the footage, I thought the bullet went behind my head but if you look closely...I was actually one step away from walking into the space where the bullet actually landed. Thank you Jesus! In tears man...thats crazy! he wrote, adding in another post, The devil lost again. Lord, thank you for allowing me to see another year. Risher also noted that at the time of the incident, he was worried his congregants would be too scared to continue worshiping after the disruption but they stood their ground. "I was really worried my congregation would be scared and would leave. Instead, it's like the church went up into a celebration of life, Risher told WFAA 8. And part of the reason the congregants carried on was because Risher continued preaching after the incident with the bullet in his hand, inspiring deeper worship among the approximately 300 people who were in attendance. "It's kind of ironic to call a moment like this a special moment," said Risher, who has decided to keep the bullet that could have taken his life in his office. Whenever Im ever having a day where Im feeling ungrateful, Im going to remember the value of life, he added. Where to go in 2019: Three places with history, old churches and rich culture Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment With another year in the books now is the time to start planning travel for 2019. If youre like me and enjoy history, culture and exploring old churches then you will want to go to the following three places in 2019: 3. San Juan, Puerto Rico Puerto Rico is back. Beyond the sandy beaches and perfect tropical weather, the island discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1493 has centuries of Spanish and American history. Beyond the quaint streetscape of Old San Juan are impressive colonial-era forts and a cathedral that serves as the final resting place of explorer Juan Ponce de Leon. 2. Matera, Italy Matera is one of those Italian cities you have never heard of, unless your family comes from there. Yet this small city (population about 60,000) is on the map as one of the 2019 European Capitals of Culture. Getting there isnt easy, but those who make the journey will discover 8,000 years of local history and a rich culture that includes the excellent food and wine one expects of Italy. Dont forget to explore the old caves and the Duomo di Matera, the citys 13th century cathedral. Whatever you do make you sure you arent a tourist, as the mayor doesnt want tourists to come. 1. Jamestown, Virginia Next year is the 400th anniversary of the first representative assembly in the New World. This tradition of self-government, based on ancient English liberties, would gradually spread to the other colonies in the ensuing decades. Numerous events and other special programming will be held throughout the year in and around Historic Jamestowne, which is about three hours by car from Washington, D.C. Spires and Crosses, a travel column exclusive to The Christian Post, is published every week. Follow @dennislennox on Twitter and Instagram. 'This Is Us' star Chrissy Metz is unapologetic about her faith; doesn't care if it's uncool Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment WINNIPEG Actress Chrissy Metz, popular for her work on the hit NBC show This Is Us and the star of the upcoming Christian film Breakthrough, shared that she is unashamed about her faith in God, although it may be considered uncool. "Breakthrough" tells the miraculous real-life account of Joyce and John Smith, a mother and son who rely on the power of prayer and the Holy Spirit during one of life's most tragic moments. Metz plays the role of Joyce. Marcel Ruiz (One Day at a Time) portrays her son, John, who fights for his life in a hospital bed before God answers the desperate mothers prayer. When I was given the gift of even reading the script, I was so moved by it, because we're all looking for something greater than ourselves, and we're all trying to figure it out, and do the best we can in the process, Metz told The Christian Post during a set visit in Winnipeg. I've had some hardships myself, obviously, not to this degree but things that were really trying. And the only thing that sort of kept me going was my faith. The actress acknowledged that faith goes hand and hand with surrender to God. Metz believes Joyce Smith's prayers were answered once she gave all her cares to God. Sometimes it's that complete surrender, where we see that miracles happen. Its so moving, she said. The Florida native recalled going to church as a little girl all on her own. During our sit down interview with her, she went on to share the importance of having someone greater to cling to in this day and age. "We all have to have a foundation, Metz maintained. "A house isn't built properly without a foundation, and whether that's your faith, or whatever you believe in, you have to believe in something. There's times where you really feel like, it's never going to get better, you're down and out and we get in our heads and we build this fear around something that the only person, or the only thing that can subside that, is our faith in God. I know that from a personal plight of my life, she added. The 38-year-old believes that that premise is true for everyone regardless of our differences. It is hard I think, now, to just be really vocal about your faith, or what you believe in because people want to think it's not cool, but I'm like, I don't care! I have to do what I have to do for me, and I know that the only person that shows up for me time and time again, is God, and is that higher power that's greater than myself. So I have to honor that. Not because I have to, because I want to, even though people might think it's the uncool thing to do. For me, there's no question about it, Metz testified. Before now, the actress has never really shared openly about her faith and as an emerging star in Hollywood, it certainly isnt the most popular thing to do. However, she did not hold back her views. I know it can be a challenge because the whole problem is that we all want to fit in, we want to be liked and validated, she explained. So when we're different, we feel it, but I think that when people are strong in their convictions, it can really persuade people to think differently just as the movies going to do. There's no question that something miraculous happened, nobody can explain how our why. And so what it's going to do, much like This Is Us, is open up people's hearts and their minds to something different, and a different perspective, Metz continued. The 20th Century Fox and Devon Franklin film, released its first trailer in December and garnered nearly 40 million views in just days, already influencing people just as Metz resolved it would. "When Joyce Smith's adopted son John falls through an icy Missouri lake, all hope looks lost. Even though John lies lifeless for more than an hour, his mother refuses to lose faith and prays for a miracle. To the astonishment of everyone present, her prayers are answered as John's heart suddenly begins to beat again, defying every expert, every case history, and every scientific prediction. Mere days after the accident, he walks out of the hospital under his own power, completely healed," the movie's synopsis reads. In her own book,This Is Me, Metz opens up about her difficult upbringing and how she defied the odds to be where she is today. When asked what parts of Breakthrough" really impacted her, she suggested there was so much to chose from. In the script Joyce and Brian (Father) aren't always on the same page because Brian can't quite deal with the really difficult situation at hand but with that Joyce's [faith] never faltered and she continues to believe, just as people believed in me when I didn't believe in myself, Metz stated. You have to have somebody to believe in something, somebody to hold on to that and I think it's so inspiring in the way that just when you think you can't, and everybody else's against you that God is for you and that's all that you need. Metz admires that Joyce was strong enough to still believe, which eventually brought the family together. I think it's just amazing because it's hard, it's hard to be that one person standing alone or you feeling that you're alone but there's so much to take away, she concluded. Obviously Marcel, who plays John, coming back and ministering to Tommy Shine, who's the MT. All of those things are just life-changing. Joining Metz in the cast is Topher Grace, who's best known for his role in the comedy series "That '70s Show." He plays Pastor Jason Noble who helps the grieving family through the ordeal. The cast also includes Josh Lucas as Brian Smith, Mike Colter as Tommy Shine, and hip-hop artist Lecrae. "Breakthrough" was directed by of veteran TV director Roxann Dawson ("House of Cards," "Scandal," "The Americans," and "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.). DeVon Franklin ("Miracles from Heaven") produced the film and was determined to retell the Smiths' story just as it happened. The 20th Century Fox movie is based on Joyce Smith's book The Impossible and was adapted for the screen by Grant Nieporte ("Seven Pounds"). "Breakthrough" will be released April 17, 2019. Urbana 2018: Students warned against spreading 'tainted Gospel' Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Thousands of students attending the popular Urbana Missions Conference in St. Louis were warned against spreading a tainted Gospel. Were at a missions conference. Were learning what it takes to follow Jesus as we carry the Good News about this new government and this new king and this new economy to others, said Scott Bessenecker, director of missions at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, at Urbana over the weekend. Should we not first divest ourselves of Babylon? Otherwise, we end up bringing a Babylon-tainted Gospel to the world like blankets with smallpox given to our indigenous neighbors. Were offering an infected Gospel laced with racism, hyper-individualism, patriarchy, environmental abuse, greed, consumerism. Preaching from Revelation 18, Bessenecker contended that Christians today are supporting a modern-day Babylon that represses, exploits and marginalizes people through their consumerism and love of stuff, among other things. The missions director admitted his own guilt, noting that he realized some of the funds in his retirement portfolio went toward energy companies that paid governments in Syria and Sudan for drilling rights. And these governments were using these funds to commit genocide in order to secure those oil fields, he noted. My retirement was funding genocide, he acknowledged. I was invested in Babylon. The purchases many Christians make, including the latest smartphones and clothing, support an economy that thrives on cheap labor, produces enormous wealth for a few and plunders the earths resources, he continued. Rather than being salt and light in this world, as Jesus exhorted, Christians have become part of the world, living off of the profits of empire. While Christians are quick to distance themselves from bad Christians involved in sex scandals, apartheid and greed, they need to acknowledge the subtly different shades of those very same sins that are resident in us. What if we are the bad Christians? he asked. As Revelation states, the time had come for someone to spell out the danger of Gods people investing in Babylons political and economic machinery so they did not take part in her sins or share in her plagues, Bessenecker said. Christians need to not only withdraw their allegiance from Babylon but they also need to exorcise Babylon out of themselves, he exhorted. Referencing the Gospel of Mark, Bessenecker noted that Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell everything he owns and give the money to the poor and then follow Him. "Before he could be a disciple, before he could be a missionary, the rich young ruler had to divest of Babylon," the director said. You and I need to be exorcised of the Babylonian worldview occupying our witness before we witness to others. That means, learning the grace of contentment with a simple lifestyle, Bessenecker noted. That means, championing the marginalized, the incarcerated, the asylum seekers and the poor. That means addressing abuse and patriarchy in the church. Urbana Student Missions Conference is InterVarsity's triennial event where tens of thousands of college students and others are encouraged to seek Gods voice and join the global missions movement in spreading the Gospel. This year's event took place on Dec. 27 and concluded Monday. Welcome Guest! You are here: Home Business & Economy Rs 2000 note being used for hoarding, Govt realizes now; Stops its printing The opposition had ever since the launch of Rs. 2000 currency notes in 2016 warned the Modi government that it will have the opposite effect New Delhi: Two years after its shock launch and after repeated warnings, the government has finally realised that the high denomination currency notes are used for hoarding and tax evasion. Therefore, the government has not only decided to gradually phase out the Rs. 2,000 currency notes from circulation but has also asked the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to stop printing new 2,000 denomination notes. The Rs 2,000 note was introduced in November 2016 after demonetisation or a ban on the use of 500 and 1000 currency notes. The Narendra Modi government announced demonetisation to flush out black money, hoarding, tax evasion and money laundering. The opposition had ever since the launch of Rs. 2000 currency notes in 2016 warned the Modi government that it will have the opposite effect. The government has finally realized this now. According to The Print, the decision to stop printing new 2000 currency notes has been taken on the back of suspicion in the government that the currency note was being used for hoarding, tax evasion and money laundering. As of March 2018, the total value of the currency in circulation was Rs 18.03 trillion, of which Rs 6.73 trillion, or 37 per cent, was in Rs 2,000 notes, and Rs 7.73 trillion, approximately 43 per cent, in Rs 500 notes. The remaining was in the lower denominations. Speculations that Rs 2000 currency notes will be discontinued and phased out from circulation had also surfaced in July 2017. In the same month, reports also suggested that the RBI had stopped printing new 2000 currency notes. Back in December 2016 , RSS ideologue S. Gurumurthy had said that the Rs 2,000 currency note was a "stopgap arrangement" to tide over the cash crunch after demonetisation, and it would ultimately be withdrawn by the government, albeit gradually. For all the latest News, Opinions and Views, download ummid.com App . Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic. Reading through the Bible in one year in 2019? Pastors weigh in Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Pastors and theologians are weighing in about daily devotions as many consider reading through the entire Bible with the start of 2019. In response to a question from a podcast listener who has never read the entire Bible before asking for recommendations about Bible-reading plans, theologian John Piper offered that it is important to consider the process and not lose the substance while striving toward a read-through goal. "Reading through the Bible in a year involves about four or five chapters a day. If you think you have to remember all you read while youre reading those four or five chapters, this will feel absolutely overwhelming and pointless," he said in a Monday post on Desiring God. Even if readers forget most of what they just read, Gods Word lodges itself in the mind and heart in incomprehensible ways, he said. The so-called forgotten language, the forgotten paragraphs, the forgotten words, the forgotten stories, the forgotten points are becoming a repository from which the Holy Spirit can draw out things you do not even know are there, " Piper explained. "When you walk away from your Bible reading in the morning, dont fret that you cant recite an outline of every paragraph you read," he said, urging them to instead write down an encouraging sentence from Scripture and meditate on it throughout the day every day. "Those sentences accumulated 365 of them is an amazing power and stockpile of truth over time." Piper recommends the Discipleship Journal Reading Plan, because it has the reader engage the Bible in four different places, the plan allots reading portions of Scripture for 25 days of the month so readers have catch-up time at the end if needed. Pastor Ronnie Floyd, who leads Cross Church in Arkansas encourages churches to do a 1-year Bible reading plan. As they have done for several years, he is leading his congregation through 21 days of focused prayer. "Think about it this way: What could God do with your life if you focused on your spiritual life for 21 days in a row? What could God do with your church if your regular attenders pray specifically for your church for 21 days in a row? What could God do with our nation if we pray specifically along with thousands of other believers at other churches who are also praying?" he stressed. While the church is providing a plan for his congregants, "the goal is to encourage your people to read the Word of God on a daily basis, even if they choose a different plan." "The important thing is to encourage them from the pulpit, and even read the same plan so you can discuss where you are and what the Lord is saying through [it]." What will become of Syria's Christians? Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Dear brothers and sisters in the US: The U.S. has been the one force that saved our people from ISIS. We are proud that we can say that we as Syriac-Assyrian Christians have fought side by side with the US. Our Syriac Military Council has been part of every battle against ISIS in North-East Syria. The reality is that we could not have won and protect our people without the US forces. Now Turkey wants to destroy all of us. 100,000 Syriac and other Christians will be killed or driven away if Turkey invades. Turkish jihadists hunted down the Christians and Yazidis of Afrin in Northwest Syria. They will do the same again but at a much wider scale. The very same Turkish jihadists are standing ready and are waiting for the US to leave so that they can kill us and destroy our communities and Churches. This disaster against our people will happen while the U.S. Army will be standing by in Iraq at a few hours driving distance. Basically, the U.S. Army will be looking on at a very short distance while Turkish-backed jihadists commit exactly the same crimes as ISIS. Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/voice/open-letter-from-syria-christians-to-us-christians-do-not-allow-turkey-to-destroy-us.htm The valedictorian of Fuller Theological Seminarys School of Intercultural Studies had been incarcerated longer than many of her fellow graduates had been alive. I got a standing ovation at graduation, said Linda Barkman, who graduated last year at the age of 65 and was imprisoned for 30 of those years. I was shocked. It was not what I expected from my past. In 1979, Barkmans live-in boyfriend murdered her two-year-old daughter. Barkman was found guilty of felony child endangermentfor living with her violent boyfriendas well as second-degree murder. When the California Supreme Court set that verdict aside and she was retried, the prosecution successfully argued for implied malice, meaning she should have known what the boyfriend could do to her toddler. There was no battered woman syndrome defense, said Barkman. I was a 26-year-old, really confused, scared woman who made some really bad decisions. It cost my two-year-old her life. Barkman lost custody of her other daughter and then began her decades long sentence. While incarcerated, she rekindled her faith in Christ, began ministering to her fellow inmates, earned her undergraduate degree in psychology, and left prison just five credits short of a masters in the theology. Today, she has her PhD in intercultural studies. Her dissertation explores the gap in communication between women in prison and the volunteers who minister to them. Barkman spoke recently with Christianity Today about the trauma of losing her daughter, what makes prison a pretty good seminary, and the women who inspired her while she was incarcerated. Tell us about your faith background. I grew up unchurched. I came to Christ when my oldest daughter was a babe in arms, but it didnt work very well. I was going to a church where, when they found out that I was living with a man I wasnt married to, I was told by the associate pastors wife that she could no longer teach Bible study in my home because she couldnt enter the home of a sinner. That pushed me away. I was already pregnant with my second child at that point. I ended up leaving him because he was an abusive alcoholic and drug abuser, but I found somebody worse than him. One day, I asked God to do whatever he needed to do to make things right in my life, because I just knew how wrong everything was and how miserable I was. At the end of that day, the man I was living with beat my two-year-old daughter to death. Not only did you lose your daughter, but you were also suddenly going to prison. How did you handle all of the trauma hitting you at the same time? I wanted to die, and God said, No, youre not allowed to die. I was so angry at God. I remember screaming out to him, You say you can make a new creation out of me, so you have to turn me into somebody I can live with. I dont know what part is good, what part is not. All I know is everybody who has ever loved me or been loved by me is now hurt, and I just dont know what to do. After that, God started showing me that he could use me if I would let him, if I would stop fighting. It took a long time. I began to see Jesus and his love and mercy in the day-by-day things. Not long after I got to prison, I started helping with church services in the psychiatric unit. For 28 of the 30 years I was incarcerated, I was the lay pastor for that prison unit. Prison is a pretty good seminary in a lot of ways. One of the women I interviewed for my dissertation told me, I had a 27-year retreat. People dont understand it, but you do. Jesus was with me every single day of those 27 years. Article continues below How did you find your first Christian community while incarcerated? The very first time you go to church, it might be just to get out of your cell. But oh my gosh, it is the place where youre accepted. At the California Institute for Women, or CIW, if you want to spend your life in the prisons church, if youre new and vulnerable, the old-timers that have been there will take you under their wing and disciple you. Ive met women who were released on parole but then came back to CIW. They werent happy to come back to prison, but they were so excited to come back to our church. Theres a strong sense of community, a sisterhood. In prison church, services are seven days a week, two or three times a day. Theres always someone within 100 feet who understands all of your issues and problems and is willing to pray with you. Tell me about some of the transformative relationships you made while incarcerated. In my early years, I met Marge. She and I were best friends and ministry partners for 20 years before she died in prison, basically from poor medical care. When she died, we had a service for her that was so big they had to use the auditorium. Then there was Martina from Oaxaca, Mexicoan indigenous person. I tutored her in English, and when my roommate paroled, I asked permission for Martina to move into my room. We were roommates for 13 years. By the time I paroled, she had a high school diploma in English with an A average. While she was in prison, she was one of the matriarchs of the Spanish-speaking Christian community. Now that shes [out of prison and living] in Tijuana, she is involved in two different churches. My husband and I go to visit her once a month. The last two months that we went, we were guest preachers in churches that shes affiliated with. She does things like take burritos to the poor people living under the bridge at the border. Who first gave you your first leadership experience? Gerald Fortier was an amazing African American Baptist chaplain who had this habit of bursting into song and expecting me to figure out what key he was singing in, so that I could play music for him [on the guitar]. He helped grow me up in the Lord and made me an elder in that church. I had credibility with all of the chaplains after that. Prison church is really run by outside volunteers. The chaplains job is more to take care of death notices and emergencies and also to do the paperwork that brings in the volunteers. So during the years when there were no volunteers for the psychiatric unit, I did all the preaching. Matthew 25:36 reads, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. Why did you write an essay arguing this verse was an incomplete theology for prison ministry? In Christs day, prisons were full of political prisoners and paupers. If you committed a crime, you were either flogged or executed but you werent imprisoned. So Jesus is saying this for John the Baptist and others like him. Showing hospitality to those people is important, but in todays context, hospitality is not what a guilty criminal needs. Hospitality means that I come to your table as a guest and I am always a guest. By contrast, integration means that I come to your family as a guest and I become family. Youre not going to offer integration to prisoners unless you really believe in redemptionthat Jesus died for every single person. It doesnt mean that everybody accepts redemption and becomes redeemed, but you have to believe that it is a possibility for each and every person in prison. I can say this because I had a co-defendant. The man who killed my daughter died in prison in 2009. I am the mother of the victim, and I had to come to grips with how I felt about him. People ask, What if you meet him in heaven? How will you feel? Well, I pray that he is redeemed. If I meet him in heaven, it means that he is a new creation transformed into the image of Christ and not what Satan and the world and evil turned him into. Article continues below Battered woman syndrome was not recognized when you first went to jail. How did you wrestle with that? When I got to prison, I was labeled a baby killer. I bought the jurys decision, saying that I was Amys mother and I did not protect her. How was I not guilty? The first person who ever told me I was a battered woman was a woman in a death penalty case who, after 17 years, was totally exonerated. But I didnt believe her. I still wrestle with it. When Fuller President Mark Labberton introduced me to the 4,000 people at commencement as somebody who unjustly spent 30 years in prison, I didnt know how to cope. I struggle. Im in therapy. I have post-traumatic stress disorder from prison issues. I dont know if I can believe in redemption for myself. But David was a murderer, and Saul consented to Stephens stoning, and Joseph spent a lot of time in prison. God has a special place for prisoners and can use us because of our brokenness. How do you pray for the people that you minister to in prison? We know that knowing Christ in prison makes us freer than many people walking the streets who dont know Jesus. So I pray for the strength to know that, every moment that he allows me to minister in prison is an opportunity to love to those that he loves. How did you meet your husband? I met him in a seminary classroom. Hes a Mennonite, a pacifist. Hes just a marvel. He once answered a pastors question, What do you really want to be in life? with the answer, a pastors husband. He says his ministry is to drive the car. That means he drives the car in Tijuana traffic and takes me where I need to go and puts me back together. He is an amazing, brilliant, kind, caring man who sees his calling as having waited til he was 62 to meet the woman of his life. We both recently got our PhDs, so now we are both Dr. Barkman. Women's College in Missouri Redefines Womanhood, Welcomes Transgender Women Share Tweet Stephens College in Missouri announced recently that the traditionally all-female school would allow transgender women to enroll starting in the fall of 2019. According to The Christian Post, men who are transitioning to females will be allowed to attend the college, but any women transitioning to males will have to leave the school. Because the College has expanded its definition of womanhood to include both sex and gender, it is logically consistent that it also acknowledges both sex and gender in its definition of manhood, the college said in a statement. As a result, the College will stop admitting and enrolling students who were born female but who now identify as men or who are transitioning from female to male. The College will also continue to admit and enroll students who were born female but who identify as non-binary, meaning students who experience their gender identity as falling outside the categories of man and woman. Students will have to provide legal documentation that they live and identify as a woman. According to Inside Higher Ed, the college has been reviewing the policy change since 2014. Stephens College is the second oldest all-women college in the U.S. The oldest women-only college is Salem College in North Carolina. Photo courtesy: Unsplash/Cecilie Johnsen Jerry Falwell, Jr. Tells Evangelicals Not to Choose the President Based on Their 'Personal Behavior' Share Tweet I dont think you can choose a president based on their personal behavior, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr. said of President Trump in an interview with the Washington Post on Tuesday. In the interview, the Christian University president was asked if he felt that it was hypocritical for evangelical leaders to support a political leader who has done things like lie, commit adultery and condone violence. Simply put, Falwell said no. He told the interviewer, Joe Heim, When Jesus said were all sinners, he really meant all of us, everybody. I dont think you can choose a president based on their personal behavior because even if you choose the one that you think is the most decent lets say you decide Mitt Romney. Nobody could be a more decent human being, better family man. But there might be things that hes done that we just dont know about. He continued, So you dont choose a president based on how good they are; you choose a president based on what their policies are. Thats why I dont think its hypocritical. The interviewer pressed Falwell further, inquiring about some of the criticisms hes faced because of his outspoken support for the President. Heim asked Falwell if he disagreed with his fellow evangelists who have criticized him for not demanding a higher moral and ethical standard from the leader of the free world. According to the interview, Falwell said, It may be immoral for them not to support him. Media-ite reports that the University President then used minority employment statistics as his defense for why it would be immoral to not support President Trump. He said, Hes got African American employment to record highs, Hispanic employment to record highs. They need to look at what the president did for the poor. Falwell concluded the interview by noting that many of his critics have since changed their minds. He said, Some of the most prominent evangelicals in the country have said, Jerry, we thought you were crazy, but now we understand. Photo courtesy: Getty Images/Alex Wong/Staff Looking ahead: The issues of 2019 Christian Post Contributor | 03 January, 2019 by John Stonestreet And Roberto Rivera From all of us at BreakPoint and the Colson Center, Happy New Year! Here are some issues and trends to watch for this coming year. Well, 2018 is in the rear-view mirror, but the issues and challenges it brought are still very much with us. Though the last thing you might want to hear about on New Year's Day is that not much has changed, it's kind of true. Especially for Christians who are serious about understanding and engaging the culture, here are four issues that merit special attention. The first is the ongoing and intensifying conflict between LGBT rights and religious freedom, especially here in the U.S. Even as I write this, U.S. Senator Mike Lee is holding up the re-nomination of Chai Feldblum to head the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Lee's reason is simple: Feldblum has been crystal clear that, in her mind, there's not a single scenario where religious freedom should prevail over LGBT rights. Even if Feldblum's nomination fails, Jack Phillips still faces new charges of discrimination by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, and rumor has it that Nancy Pelosi may push forward the Equality Act in the House this year. And that's just the beginning. In fact, 2019 might be the year Christians ought to get serious about developing that "theology of getting fired." That is, it's time for us to decide when losing our jobs and livelihoods for refusing to go along with the new sexual orthodoxy is exactly what Jesus expects of us. And as challenging as things are at home, the story abroad is orders of magnitude worse. This is the second trend to watch for in 2019. China has declared war on both its Christian and Muslim populations. As of this writing, it's not clear when, if ever, Asia Bibi will be allowed to leave Pakistan, even as Islamist radicals continue to hunt her and her family down. And thousands of Nigerian Christians have been slaughtered by Muslim herdsmen. These are just a few examples why 2018, like 2017 and 2016 before it, is the worst year on record for religious persecution around the world. Another area of culture that bears close watching, and needs a lot of clarity and prayer, has to do with bioethics. The recent news out of China about a researcher using CRISPR gene-editing to genetically modify embryos prior to implantation has raised alarms, although, as I recently told you, no one should be surprised. Human beings find the temptation to "play god" irresistible. And we're currently on a new chapter in the onward march of our "Culture of Death." I'm talking about physician-assisted suicide, which is now legal in seven states and the District of Columbia. Currently, there's a campaign to add Maine to that list. Fourth and finally, and because of all of these other things already mentioned, we'll face the challenge of needing to clarify where our loyalties ultimately lie, especially when it comes to politics. Of course, on many issues, Christians align much better with one side than with the other. Even so, Christians do not ultimately belong to the right or the left. The beginning of a New Year is a great time to clarify in our minds that ultimately we belong to a "Who" not a "what." Read more from "Looking ahead: The issues of 2019" on The Christian Post. Francis Chan identifies powerful key to improving one's prayer life Christian Post Contributor | 03 January, 2019 by Leah MarieAnn Klett Francis Chan has said that humility coming before God with a proper understanding of His greatness is the key to improving one's prayer life and developing a deeper, more intimate relationship with God. In a recent video posted on The Gospel Coalition website, Chan, author ofCrazy Love and founder of We Are Church, responded to the question: "What's one practical thing I could do to improve my prayer life?" "Be humble. Seek humility. Humble yourself," he responded, advising believers to "think about that scene in Revelation 4 and 5," where the Apostle John saw a blinding vision of part of the celestial kingdom. "Do I dare approach that throne?" Chan continued. "And yet now Scripture says I can. Who am I to come before that throne?" The pastor pointed out that the Scriptures say, "We do not know how to pray as we ought," (Romans 8:26); therefore, the "Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." "Our response of humility should sound something like this: 'I'm coming before Him? The King? I don't even know what to say, but He says that I can pray in the Spirit, and the Spirit is going to intercede for me and through me. And, oh God, this is insane. OK, I'm going to come before you. I'm going to need the Holy Spirit. God give me the words to say,'" Chan continued. Unfortunately, most people don't understand what an honor it is to come before the throne of God, the pastor lamented, adding: "Instead, I hear people that almost act like they're doing God a favor by showing up to a service." "We're so used to people begging you to show up for a prayer meeting," he charged. "So when they finally attend, everyone is patting them on the back, and they end up feeling pretty good about themselves. We can't approach the throne like that." "We must come humbly before God's throne," he concluded. "Just think to yourself, 'Are you kidding me that I get to do this right now? Unreal. I'm about to come before him in prayer!'" A 2017 survey from the Barna Research Group found that American adults who pray with regularity do so with varying motivations, the most common being to offer "gratitude and thanksgiving" (62 percent). An equally popular prayer incentive is the "needs of their family and community" (61 percent), followed by "personal guidance in crisis" (49 percent). Chan often addresses the subject of prayer and stresses the importance of maintaining a posture of humility when coming before God. Previously, he warned that too many Christians today are praying the wrong way, focusing on themselves rather than on God's mission. When approaching God in prayer, don't just go and start talking, Chan advised; rather, come silently, come slowly, and be careful. Read more about prayer on The Christian Post. Doctors speak out: Lupron and the 'diabolical' push to sterilize, gender-transition confused kids Christian Post Reporter | 03 January, 2019 by Brandon Showalter Pediatric endocrinologists whose voices are being stifled are sounding the alarm about a "diabolical" push to put children confused about their bodies on puberty suppressants and hormone blockers like Lupron to change their physical sex. According to Drs. Paul Hruz, Michael Laidlaw and Quentin Van Meter, all of whom spoke recently with The Christian Post, Lupron a hormonal agent that's employed to fight prostate cancer in men and is sometimes used to treat sex offenders is now being injected into children who suffer from gender dysphoria. The drug has never been green-lighted by the FDA for that purpose, nor have there been any peer-reviewed studies done on the drug's long-term physical and psychological side effects on children. Lupron and synthetic hormones are ravaging their developing bodies, altering their psyches, and putting them on a pathway to permanent sterilization, these doctors say. Many of the long-term repercussions will not be felt for years. At present, endocrinologists who refuse to back these experimental treatments struggle to be published, and many in the medical field remain unaware of what is going on in dozens of transgender clinics at children's hospitals across the nation. Pushing 'pause' on puberty? To many people, the sheer fact that gender has been medicalized with high-powered drugs is nothing short of horrifying, and they wonder how this can be legal or allowed to happen. "It's not unusual, actually, in pediatrics to prescribe a drug off label. However, whenever a physician does that they are taking on significant risk because if something goes wrong without the evidence they are liable," Hruz, who is an associate professor of pediatrics and endocrinology at Washington University of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, told CP, when asked how it was possible that a high-powered drug like Lupron could even be given to a dysphoric child given the lack of governmental approval for that purpose. "There's just a lot we don't know about this form of intervention. It's often claimed that medical blockade of puberty allows a child more time to sort out issues of their gender identity, that it alleviates dysphoria in affected children, and that it makes it easier if and when they choose to go on and get other treatments, namely [sex change] surgery. It's also claimed that it's completely safe and reversible." But among the many problems with that approach is that a normal developmental process is interrupted. Even if the hormone treatment is stopped after administering it for a few years and the normal signals for puberty resume, it's impossible to go back in time, he explained. As a class of medications, hormone blockers like Lupron are indeed approved for and are used in children to treat precocious puberty where kids go through puberty at an abnormally early age. It's given to children to delay the pubertal signals so that they, among other reasons, are not socially pressured into acting their pubertal age or subjected to hormonal drives that they are not prepared to handle. But when used to suppress the normally-timed pubertal processes the drug actually causes a pathological condition. "So on its face value, what [transgender activists] are saying is really contradictory from what we know about normal development," Hruz said. Clear evidence exists that the drug influences bone density, he continued. During adolescence and teenage years, youth accumulate bone mass, which is important for the rest of one's life. "And there is conflicting information about how much of that bone density can be gained back" after going off the drug. Strong ideological influences driving this entire paradigm cannot be ignored, he said, when asked how this is happening, especially given that most people expect doctors to govern their practices based solely on medical science. The first ideological error many make is trying to redefine what "sex" actually is, Hruz said. "In much of the discussion, people have lost sight of what sex is in relation to reproduction and that is the only way you can make these claims about someone being born in the wrong body or make assertions about sex being 'assigned' at birth. It's not assigned, it's recognized," he maintained. The vast majority of the children who are being put on these puberty blockers have normally functioning sex organs. Physicians prescribing this kind of treatment are doing so under the understanding that it's benefiting patients but are simply not looking at the evidence, he said, and they are willing to dismiss the evidence when contrary to the prevailing politically correct narrative. Overwhelming evidence exists that the vast majority of affected children will spontaneously realign their gender identity with biological sex when left alone, Hruz said of the relevant medical literature on the subject. And if they do realign they're not going to be tethered to the medical establishment for the rest of their lives because their bodies are not dependent on the chemicals. "The reality is that there is no long-term data about treating children, and the only data that we have in adults indicates that medical interventions to align the appearance of the body to a transgendered identity does not fix the problem," he said. The manipulation of infertile kids What's often said in public opinion forums and even within some medical circles is that despite the risks, it's better, necessary even, that children receive this controversial medical treatment rather than wind up dead by suicide. Worse still, if parents express hesitation or opposition, activists and some physicians will hint at or tell them they will be guilty of "medical neglect," Hruz noted, but that's patently untrue. "[Parents] need to continue to love their children. They need to continue to affirm their human dignity. Yet they shouldn't have to jettison biological reality to be able to put what they're being told into practice, in terms of disrupting normally timed puberty." He added that the largest studies that have been done in post-transition adults continue to show rates of death by suicide that are markedly above the background population. "We need to be very objective, thoughtful. We can't close the door on what I would say are alternative hypotheses, other ways we might be able to address this very real and concerning problem. And the dialogue has shifted really far away from that," Hruz said. How Lupron works The first well-documented case report of a puberty blocker like Lupron (a similar medication called triptorelin which has an identical mechanism of action) being used in a young patient with gender confusion was published out of Holland in 1998 where a pediatric endocrinologist, working together with a psychiatrist, decided to use the medication on a 13-year-old girl suffering from gender dysphoria, according to Dr. Michael Laidlaw, a Rocklin, California-based board certified physician who specializes in endocrinology and diabetes. The rationale was that the patient should have the drug because the effects of going through puberty would be too traumatic to endure and that "pausing" those signals in the brain would give the person time to adjust and then later decide whether to move toward surgical transition. When puberty is initiated in the human body, the hypothalamus increases its pulsatile release of gonadotropin-releasing hormone. This, in turn, triggers the pituitary to release LH and FSH hormones into the bloodstream. These hormones then affect the gonads and cause the release of testosterone from the testicles of boys or estrogen from the ovaries of girls. These same LH/FSH hormonal signals from the pituitary are released in adults to maintain testosterone or estrogen levels. Lupron, also known as Leuprolide, blocks the release of LH/FSH, thereby stopping testosterone from being produced and released from the testes or estrogen from the ovaries. It is used to treat prostate cancer because testosterone will grow prostate tissue, including prostate cancer tissue. The therapeutic idea is that when the hormone is decreased to a very low or undetectable level, cancer growth is prevented. The drug is also used to treat endometriosis in women by lowering estrogen levels through the same pituitary mechanism. Intimidation games Being from Rocklin, Laidlaw got a swift education into the world of transgender medicine when an area charter school read the I am Jazz transgender children's book and reportedly facilitated a gender transition ceremony for one of the 5-year-olds during class, traumatizing other students, as CP previously reported. The school put out a statement disputing that this happened. "The awareness of what is going on today, even within the medical community, has been very low," he explained, speaking of his own journey. Behind the push toward this particular medical paradigm is a highly politicized group called the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, an organization that has effectively overhauled the entire conversation. "What they did very cleverly was get involved with the largest global professional organization representing the field of endocrinology, called the Endocrine Society," of which Laidlaw is a member, he said. "The Endocrine Society put out guidelines for everything to do with gender affirmative therapy from medications to surgical treatments for adults and children in 2009 and then revised them in 2017." Pro-transition recommendations were given the group's formal stamp of approval. Laidlaw knew of no organized opposition to the change. Other medical groups have since published similar guidelines, lending further professional-sounding credence to them. Thus, when someone sees that a prominent group like the Endocrine Society or the American Academy of Pediatrics has endorsed this they think it's fine when it's not, he pointed out, but these professional organizations have been co-opted by WPATH and other radical activists. "And then there is the fear factor, of course, where physicians who are leery about this treatment are afraid to say anything because maybe they work for say [health care provider] Kaiser. I have been told by a Kaiser doctor: 'Well, I can't say anything about this or I may lose my job. I have a family to feed.'" "There have been few physicians willing to stand up and say, 'We need to question this, there is something wrong here. Why are we using cancer drugs on kids without cancer and stopping normal puberty?" he said. Read more from "Doctors speak out: Lupron and the 'diabolical' push to sterilize, gender-transition confused kids" on The Christian Post. Bolsonaro vows to fight gender ideology as Brazil's president, talks 'God's protection' with Trump Christian Post Contributor | 03 January, 2019 by Stoyan Zaimov Jair Bolsonaro, the new president of Brazil, vowed to fight gender ideology in schools and protect the country's "Judeo-Christian tradition" in his presidential address. Bolsonaro celebrated in the capital of Brasilia with a motorcade procession, and declared that the country has now been "liberated from socialism and political correctness." Bolsonaro and his vice president, retired Gen. Hamilton Mourao, took the oath of office on Tuesday. He also promised to combat the "ideology of gender" teaching in schools, AFP reported, as well as to "respect our Judeo-Christian tradition." "I call on all congressmen to help me rescue Brazil from corruption, criminality and ideological submission," the new president urged. Bolsonaro earned praise from U.S. President Donald Trump, who congratulated him on Twitter by writing that "the U.S.A. is with you." Bolsonaro in turn thanked Trump, adding that "under Gods protection, we shall bring prosperity and progress to our people!" Bolsonaro has stirred much controversy for his conservative stances on social issues, and has often been described as a "far-right politician" by international news media. Publications like Sky News have said that he has made "divisive rhetoric and derogatory remarks about women, gay people and the country's black population." Along with his support for loosening gun laws and allowing police to use more force, he has been dubbed the "Trump of the Tropics." Still, Bolsonaro has earned the support of both Catholics and evangelicals in South America's most populous country, and has often pointed to his Christian faith as his inspiration. After surviving an assassination attempt on the campaign trail, he credited God for saving his life. He has vowed to govern "following the Bible and the constitution." BreakingIsraelNews further noted that he met with several pro-Israel faith leaders from the U.S. back in December, part of his promise to strengthen Brazil's ties with the U.S. and Israel. "We are very thankful for the opportunity to stand with President-elect Bolsonaro in solidarity with him. People of faith in the U.S. are very aware of his role in the new political scenario in South America and are praying vigorously for his health and the prosperity of the nation," said Jim Garlow, former senior pastor of Skyline Church in California. His wife, Rosemary, added that the "evangelical Christians of America are honored to visit Brazil and to stand with the elected government at this crucial moment." Read more about Jair Bolsonaro on The Christian Post. Australia: Critics blast 'explore' gender kids dress up program as 'indocrination' Christian Post Reporter | 03 January, 2019 by Brandon Showalter A new school curriculum in Western Australia is being developed to encourage children to "explore" gender, an effort some say amounts to ideological indoctrination. Both male and female students in year three in at least 10 schools in Western Australia will be given "a range of dress ups and toys" in an effort to explore gender roles and break down stereotypes, reports say. The program is also intended to teach children about ethnic and religious garments such as the burka, which is worn by women who practice the Islamic faith. Critics maintain that the initiative is designed to sow confusion in impressionable young minds. "It will indoctrinate children with the idea that they can choose to be a boy or a girl," said Peter Abetz of the Australian Christian Lobby, in an interview with 9News Perth. "Why do boys need to get dressed up in girls' clothing? Let's get real about education and not trying to indoctrinate children with this gender ideology," he said. A spokesperson from the Western Australia Department of Education would neither confirm nor deny to the Daily Mail on Wednesday whether dressing up will be part of the 2019 gender education program, stating that the "curriculum is still being developed." Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison is among the critics. "I don't want the values of others being imposed on my children in my school and I don't think that should be happening in a public school or a private school," he said in a recent radio interview. His remarks come amid growing concerns that gender identity ideology has become entrenched in the education system in the past three years as the number of children wanting to change their sex has reportedly surged 236 percent. In September, a report emerged where teachers were being trained to identify potential transgender students under the guise of "professional standards development." "It involves teachers learning to identify key phrases such as I feel different, I'm androgynous and I'm born with two spirits, indicating transgender leanings in students as young as 5," the Daily Telegraph (Australia) explained. Morrison said at the time: "We do not need 'gender whisperers' in our schools. Let kids be kids." Meanwhile, proponents insist that the new program in Western Australia which is called "Respect Relationships" is important in order to implement cultural change in attitudes and about family and domestic violence. "By introducing respectful relationships in schools, we can continue to implement cultural changes in attitudes toward family and domestic violence," said Simone McGurk, the minister for prevention of family and domestic violence, adding that "early intervention" is "critical" in stopping it. For students in year nine the curriculum outlines teachers discussing with students different types of sexual relationships including "hooking up," the "bootie call," "friends with benefits," and the "one night stand," 9 News Perth reported. "A year nine resource suggests teachers ask groups of students to decide whether they regard various activities including sexting, rubbing nipples, touching genitals and anal sex as 'sex' or 'not sex,'" according to a Saturday report from Perth Now. Read more about gender on The Christian Post. Step one: Contact the candidate to receive permission to nominate them for an award. Ask if anyone else is nominating them for an Indigenous Award of Excellence. Each candidate may only be nominated once per year. Past recipients are not eligible to win again. Step two: Download and complete the PDF for the award for which you are submitting a nomination. If you experience any problems, please contact indigenous.engagement@umanitoba.ca. Please provide specific examples that describe how the nominees contributions relate to the criteria. Please provide details that demonstrate the impact the candidate has made. You may use point form. The selection committee will only consider information that is included in the nomination package, so please complete your nomination in full and in alignment with the awards criteria. Step three: You may attach up to two one-page letters of support from other support staff, faculty, students, or community supporters to accompany the nomination. It is helpful to share the criteria for the award with those providing the letters so that their examples are informed by the criteria. These letters offer an opportunity to show the contributions of the nominee from different perspectives. The impact of the letter is not weighed by the status of the individual providing the letter, but more on their ability to speak about the contributions the nominee has made. Step four: Email your completed PDF and support letters to indigenous.engagement@umanitoba.ca. A few days ago, Professor Liu Ping from the Department of Religious Studies of the School of Philosophy of Fudan University in Shanghai held a lecture on Bible translation in Shandong Theology Academy. The attendees included teachers and students from the academy, and the Director of the Shandong Christian Association, Pastor Wang Mengkun. Professor Liu Ping began the lecture entitled "From the Bible in China to the Bible that belongs to China: Eight Major Events Of Bible Translation In China And Bible Sinicization" with the introduction of Christianity into China, according to the official website of Shandong China Christian Council." He talked about Chinese Bible translation of different eras and listed different versions of translated bibles such as the Roman/Chinese Catholic Chinese Bible, the Protestant Bible translation, the Harmonized Edition, the Protestant Mandarin translation, and other different Chinese dialect versions - almost 100 in all. The professor also analyzed the translation of the Nestorian scriptures; the Torah of the Jews in Kaifeng city; the Scotch translation of scriptures from the Yuan Dynasty; the Basset version, the Robert Morrison version and the Marsman version; the Harmonized Edition; and the Sage Translation, a translation from the Orthodox Church. By examining the gains and losses made by these translated Bibles, Liu explored the progress of sinicization of the Bible. Professor Liu felt that, through the efforts of missionaries and local Chinese, many translations and editions of the Bible have appeared. He also believed that Bible translation in China, itself, is a process of exchange and communication between the Chinese civilization and the Judaeo-Christian civilization. It is the fruit of mutual understanding and learning between the two civilizations. Among these different Bible versions, the "Harmonized Edition" and " the Sage Translation " are the greatest and the most outstanding results. In order to promote the sinicization of Christianity, the Shandong Christian Council set up a platform named "Qilu Forum", to expand and enrich the views and minds of teachers and students of the seminary. This lecture was the thirteenth in the series of Qilu Theological Forums. Release International has warned that the persecution of Christians worldwide is set to rise in 2019. The charity has welcomed a review of Christian persecution ordered by Britain's foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt and led by the Bishop of Truro, Philip Mounstephen. Its chief executive Paul Robinson said there was a 'worrying upward trend' in persecution and backed calls for the UK to do more to 'support the suffering church worldwide'. Release said its partners support the view that persecution is rising and have warned the trend will continue into 2019. Among the countries it names as of particular concern for 2019 are Nigeria, India and China. ChinaReutersChina's President Xi Jinping has launched a crackdown on religion.In Nigeria Fulani militants are set to continue devastating attacks against Christians in the north and centre of the country. In the first six months of 2018 alone, they killed up to 6,000 people and drove 50,000 from their homes. A Release partner said: 'The escalation in killing is very clear. There is a deliberate plan to destroy and take over the predominantly Christian communities in the region.' In China there has been a sharp increase in government opposition to religion, including Christianity. Tough new rules, which came into effect in 2018, have banned children and young people from church meetings. In some areas, house churches unwilling to come under state control have split down in order to survive. China has been continuing a policy of removing Christian symbols and closing churches. Increasingly, they are targeting the larger unregistered house churches. A Release partner believes they have been emboldened to close these higher profile churches by the lack of opposition from the West. 'The government wants to reduce Christianity to just a minor activity by unimportant older people,' the partner said. Up to a million Uighur Muslims are believed to be detained in Chinese 're-education' camps. In India, attacks against Christians by Hindu nationalists are on the rise. Violent mobs have broken up prayer meetings, several states have passed laws prohibiting so-called forced conversion (effectively outlawing all evangelism), and pastors have been attacked. Other countries of specific concern for 2019 include North Korea, Eritrea and Pakistan, where Christian Asia Bibi is still not free to leave, despite being acquitted of blasphemy. Courtesy of Christian Today For the most part, Meghan Markle spends her days working as a member of the royal family. That said, her duties to the queen arent the only way she spends her time. What does Meghan Markle do every day? Keep reading for an inside look at the Duchess of Sussexs daily routine. Meghan Markles daily routine Meghan Markles daily routine changes every day. However, she tends to stick to a routine in the mornings (her favorite time of day) in order to stay on track with the days agenda. From what time she wakes up to the errands she runs, read on to find out what Meghan Markle does every day. Shes a morning person As a member of the royal family, Meghan Markle is one busy woman. How does she get it all done? For one, she is a morning person and starts her days as early as 4:30 a.m. The Duchess of Sussex likes to spend some alone time before sunrise, and typically begins her day with a yoga practice. The avid yogi also swears by meditation. She emails her staff at 5:00 a.m. After her yoga sesh, Meghan Markle fires off some emails to staff as early as 5:00 a.m. before getting ready for the day. With so much on her calendar, its likely she needs to communicate with staff first thing in the morning to keep everything running smoothly. She listens to music Meghan Markle is infamous to avoiding caffeine when she can. To help her wake up, the duchess reportedly has a special wake up playlist, with songs from the Jackson 5 and Ingrid Michaelson in the loop. She exercises In addition to her yoga practice, Meghan Markle likes to stay active in a variety of ways. The Duchess of Sussex prefers running for her mental health and has been spotted jogging around the Kensington Palace Green weekly. She starts her days off with a healthy breakfast Food is important to Meghan Markle and she always has nourishment in mind. With that said, the duchess starts her days with a healthy breakfast usually either an acai bowl (one of her favorites!), oatmeal, or an omelet if she feels like indulging more than usual. She attends royal engagements A large part of Meghan Markles job is to attend royal engagements on behalf of the queen. That includes anything from luncheons to meetings with world leaders to State Dinners and more. The Duchess of Sussex also has her own initiatives that she works with, like the Grenfell Tower community kitchen. She works on her home renovation With everything going on in her day-to-day life, Meghan Markle has a big life change to focus on. Not only will she welcome her first child in early spring, but she will also soon move to the countryside, too! Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are currently renovating a 10-bedroom estate home on the ground of Windsor, so the duchess is likely busy planning, selecting furniture, and meeting with designers to get everything ready for the big move. She shops for groceries Meghan Markle is just like us in that she shops for her own groceries. The duchess has reportedly been spotted shopping for health items at Whole Foods, as well as M&S, a London-based store. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! Swedish musician Avicii was someone who topped the Google searches in 2018, but not for the best of reasons. The young DJ died by suicide in April 2018, and he left behind a lot of questions, millions of devastated fans, and a vast fortune. Now we know his parents are going to inherit Aviciis fortune, estimated at $25 million, and we know why. Who was Avicii? Avicii, whose real name was Tim Bergling, was a Swedish DJ who was born in 1989. He stormed into the music industry when he was only 18 years old. Soon after that, he was touring the world playing live DJ sets and recording with some of the biggest names in the industry. Eventually, he earned up to $500,000 per appearance, according to Celebrity Net Worth. The website pegs his fortune at $50 million, and roughly half of that was cash holdings. How did he die? Avicii battled addiction and health problems most of his adult life. Anxiety stemming from performing, pancreatitis from excessive drinking to cope with his anxiety, and gallbladder and appendix surgery in 2014 preceded his tragic death by suicide in April 2018. He was vacationing in Muscat, Oman when he died by suicide. His death happened just hours before his brother arrived in Oman in an attempt to bring him back to Sweden, according to People. Why his parents will inherit his fortune As we mentioned earlier, Avicii had roughly $25 million in cash assets at the time of his death. The entirety of Aviciis fortune will be handed over to his parents, according to Swedish Tax Agency records and CNN reports. Avicii didnt leave a will, wasnt married, and he didnt have any children when he died. That means his parents are his legal heirs, according to Swedish laws. They will receive his entire fortune after Aviciis debts are paid off. How did he make his money? The peak of Aviciis career was short but very lucrative. He began touring the world in 2010, had a breakout year in 2013 when his debut album came out, and he was one of the highest paid DJs in the world that year. Avicii made $7 million in 2012, but he reportedly earned $20 million the following year. However, playing hundreds of shows around the world every year was hectic and exhausting, and it took a toll on him. The demands of performing live and the years of doing so got to be too much. How to get help: In the U.S., call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Or text HOME to 741-741 to connect with a trained crisis counselor at the free Crisis Text Line. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! Tennessee Governor-elect Bill Lee announced six appointments to his cabinet for the Department of Childrens Services, the Department of Corrections, the Department of Economic and Community Development, the Department of Labor & Workforce Development, the Department of Revenue and the Division of TennCare. The six individuals joining our cabinet represent each of our Grand Divisions and bring vast experience in their respective areas, said Governor-elect Lee. I am excited to work with this group and look forward to building solutions for our state. The Governor-elect named the following appointments on Thursday: Jennifer Nichols Department of Childrens Services Tony Parker Department of Corrections Bob Rolfe Department of Economic and Community Development Dr. Jeff McCord Department of Labor & Workforce Development David Gerregano Department of Revenue Gabe Roberts Division of TennCare Jennifer Nichols, of Shelby County, currently serves as the chief homicide prosecutor in the Shelby County District Attorneys Office. Previously, Ms. Nichols served the Criminal Court Judge of Division 10 in the 30th Judicial District. In addition to her service as the Shelby County Deputy District Attorney, Ms. Nichols served as the chief prosecutor of the Special Victims Unit where she handled child homicides, child physical abuse, child sexual abuse, elder abuse and other special projects. In her capacity as chief prosecutor over the Special Victims Unit, Ms. Nichols met daily and worked closely with Department of Children's Services staff. Tony Parker, of Obion County, currently serves as the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Corrections. With more than 35 years of experience in the field of corrections, Mr. Parker previously served as the assistant commissioner of Prisons where he was responsible for the oversight of the departments security operations as well as offender management. He is nationally recognized for his research regarding de-radicalization of prisons and was recently elected president-elect of the American Correctional Association. Bob Rolfe, of Davidson County, currently serves as the commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. During his tenure at ECD, Mr. Rolfe worked to land the Amazon expansion, a $230 million investment to Tennessee that is slated to create 5,000 jobs and is considered the single-largest jobs announcement in Tennessee history. He is the former chairman and CEO of Medical Reimbursements of America, Inc. and the co-founder of West End Holdings. From 2005 to 2011, he was chairman and CEO of MyOfficeProducts, Inc. Mr. Rolfe spent the first 18 years of his career as an investment banker at J.C. Bradford and Co. Dr. Jeff McCord, of Sullivan County, currently serves as the vice president for Economic and Workforce Development at Northeast State Community College. Dr. McCord leads Workforce Solutions, a workforce development program that includes the development of registered apprenticeship programs and the Regional Center for Advanced Manufacturing (RCAM), a technical career academy. In addition to organizational leadership for the Adult Education programming for the First Development District, he also serves as the lead administrator for the nationally recognized Kingsport Academic Village. Dr. McCord has over 20 years of business and industry experience including a number of leadership positions and specific experience related to organizational effectiveness and corporate education. David Gerregano, of Jackson County, currently serves as the Commissioner of the Department of Revenue. A 20-year veteran of the department, Mr. Gerregano has helped oversee various revenue functions, including the Audit Division, Enforcement and Taxpayer Services. Since starting with the department in 1997 as tax counsel, he has held multiple legal and legislative positions such as administrative hearing officer, general counsel and assistant commissioner. Mr. Gerregano currently serves on the Federation of Tax Administrators Board of Trustees and previously served as president of the Southeastern Association of Tax Administrators. Gabe Roberts, of Davidson County, currently serves as the Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of TennCare. Previously, he served as General Counsel. During his tenure at TennCare, Mr. Roberts was instrumental in the design and implementation of many of the agencys initiatives including the Tennessee Health Care Innovation Initiative, the Employment and Community First Choices program, and the agencys strategy to combat the opiate epidemic in Tennessee. Before joining TennCare, he practiced law at the Nashville law firm Sherrard, Roe, Voigt & Harbison where his focus was corporate and business law. On Nov. 7, the transition unveiled a new website - transition.billlee.com. The site includes detailed information about the governor-elects policy priorities, a section where Tennesseans can submit their resumes to potentially join his team, and most importantly, a section where Tennesseans can share their ideas with the Governor-elect and his team. A joint investigation by special agents with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury has led to the indictment of the Johnson County Board of Education Transportation supervisor. In May 2018, at the request of 1st District Attorney General Ken Baldwin, TBI special agents began investigating allegations of theft involving Barry Lawrence Bishop, 57. During the course of the investigation, agents developed information that between January 2015 and May 2017, Bishop used his position as the transportation supervisor for the school system to perform skills testing for commercial drivers license applicants. The investigation further revealed that Bishop collected nearly $50,000 in fees associated with the testing but failed to give the funds to the Johnson County Trustee. The Johnson County Grand Jury returned an indictment on Thursday charging Bishop with one count of theft over $10,000. He was arrested and booked into the Johnson County Jail on a $15,000 bond. Senators Johnny Isakson and David Perdue applauded the Senate confirmation of Michael C. Yeager of Moreland, Ga., as U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Georgia on Wednesday. Sheriff Yeager has decades of experience in many facets of law enforcement, and his wisdom and expertise in the field will serve him well as U.S. Marshal, said Senator Isakson. The Senate has made a wise decision, and I congratulate Sheriff Yeager on his new role and thank him for his service. Georgia is home to some of the most impressive law enforcement officers in the nation, said Senator Perdue.President Trump made an excellent choice in selecting Sheriff Michael Yeager for U.S. Marshal. Congratulations to Sheriff Yeager on his confirmation. I know he will continue to serve Georgia and the nation well. Mr. Yeager has served as the sheriff of Coweta County, Ga., since his election to the position in 1993. He has nearly four decades of law enforcement experience, beginning as a patrolman with the Newnan Police Department in 1980. He is the current chairman of the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council, serves on the board of the Georgia Department of Community Supervision and serves as a member of the states Immigration Enforcement Review Board. He is an active member and past president of the Georgia Sheriffs Association and a past president of the Georgia Sheriffs Youth Homes. Mr. Yeager currently serves as president of the Constitutional Officers Association of Georgia, which includes all current sheriffs, probate judges, tax commissioners and superior/state court clerks of Georgia. In 2006, Mr. Yeager received both the Georgia Sheriff of the Year Award and the Governors Public Safety Award for Outstanding Contribution to Profession. Mr. Yeager was nominated by President Trump on June 7, 2018. Jan. 7, The Perfect 2019 Planner 6 to 7:30 p.m. The Chattery at Chattanooga WorkSpace: 302 W. 6th St., Ste. 3L In this class, you'll learn how to set up the six most important pages in your journal so you can walk out of class ready to begin a more productive and organized life. Register at the chattery.org. $22 Jan. 8, Hixson Chamber Council Community Coffee 8 to 9 a.m. Lane Funeral Home: 601 Ashland Terrace Join the Hixson Council for their monthly Council Coffee. No cost. Jan. 9, 2019 Economic Outlook Breakfast 7:30 to 9 a.m. Chattanooga Convention Center: 1150 Carter St. The Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce is proud to announce the Economic Outlook Breakfast featuring keynote speaker Raphael Bostic, President, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Jan. 9, MidTown Chamber Council Meeting 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Spare Time Chattanooga: 5518 Brainerd Rd. Speaker: Chattanooga Police Chief David Roddy & Jewish Cultural Center $12 Jan. 10, Reality Check at Red Bank High School 7:30 to 11 a.m. Red Bank High School: 640 Morrison Springs Rd. Reality Check teaches ninth graders budgeting and emphasizes the connection between education and income by allowing students to role play as heads of household on a budget. Community volunteers are needed to assist with this event. To volunteer for this Chattanooga Chamber career readiness program, please contact Cathy Humble at 423.763.4321 or chumble@chattanoogachamber.com. Jan. 10, Nonprofit Board Service: How is the Health of Your Board? 9 a.m. to Noon United Way: 630 Market St. Facilitated by Laura McCann, Venture Forward If you ask the Executive Directors of some of our strongest nonprofits, What is your secret sauce?, the answer is usually a strong board. Executive Directors, Board Chairs and Board Members should attend this class to learn the legal duties associated with board service, the roles of a Board Member vs. Staff Member and ways Board Members can be more engaged in the organization. Register at ventureforwardnow.org. Venture Forward Members: $50 Non-Members: $75 Jan. 10, Ribbon Cutting for Connected Chiropractic 10 to 10:30 a.m. Skyline Chiropractic: 1829 Gunbarrel Rd., Ste. 107 Join the Chattanooga Chamber for a ribbon cutting event for Connected Chiropractic. Jan. 10, Southside Chamber Council Meeting 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. green|spaces: 63 E. Main St. Speaker: Julia Bursch, River City Co., Southside Parking Update $12 Jan. 10, East Brainerd Off the Clock 5 to 7 p.m. Splitz Alley: 6241 Perimeter Dr. Join the East Brainerd Council for their monthly Off the Clock mixer at Splitz Alley, held the second Thursday of each month. No cost. Enjoy complimentary light appetizers as well as bowling. Jan. 10, YPC Secret After Hours 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. London Calling: 715 Cherry St. Come meet and mingle with some fellow young professionals. Come down to Cherry Street, find the phone booth and enter code 1776 into the telephone to get in. No cost. Jan. 11, Excel at Excel: Intermediate Excel Training 9 to 10:30 a.m. The Edney, Floor Five: 1100 Market St. Attend this session to learn about formatting spreadsheets, PivotTables, Vlookups, splitting cells, creating drop down lists, forecasting and other advanced features of Microsoft Excel. Register at the chattery.org. $28 Jan. 11, LCAA Lunch & Learn 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute: 175 Baylor School Rd. Join LCAA for lunch and a tour of the Tennessee Aquarium's Conservation Institute located on the campus of Baylor School. Learn how the TNACI educates the general public on freshwater issues, helps to train the next generation of freshwater scientists and advocates for freshwater conservation in our community and beyond. Call 423.756.2121 for info. LCAA Members: $12 Non-Members: $16 Jan. 11, Ribbon Cutting for Skyline Chiropractic 3 to 3:30 p.m. Skyline Chiropractic: 1919 Gunbarrel Rd., Ste. 141 Join the Chattanooga Chamber for a ribbon cutting event for Skyline Chiropractic. The Philippines Department of Tourism is looking to promote its cultural heritage within the Middle East to entice holidaymakers to not only enjoy the natural beauty that the Philippines has to offer, but also engage with its numerous communities for authentic experiences. The initiative will see the Department of Tourism (DOT) reach out to the Middle Easts outbound travel industry to create and promote holiday packages that include numerous cultural activities, such as visits to local tribal villages, so that tourists can experience first-hand the great diversity of culture that the Philippines offers through each local communitys heritage, folklore, traditions, culinary heritage and traditional crafts. The experiences will provide visitors with not only the opportunity to visit such communities, but also allow them to immerse themselves in the local customs with a focus on authenticity and preserving the rich cultural heritage. The Philippines is home to 7,107 islands, and more than 175 ethnolinguistic groups, spread out throughout the Philippines. As such, no matter where one chooses to visit in the Philippines, there are opportunities to experience a cultural tour to communities still practising a traditional way of life. Many of the tribes continue a seafaring existence and express their culture through beautifully woven cloth and elaborate traditional costumes that they continue to wear today. One such tribe is the Badjao, which resides in the islands of Sulu, located next to Mindanao in the South. As well as thriving from a life off the sea, they are renowned for their artistically-woven cloth and colourful sails. The majority of the Badjaos practice Islam and continue to perform traditional songs and dance. Another trip, the Igorots are comprised of many tribes that reside in the Cordillera mountain ranges. They are known to be rice-cultivators. In fact, the Ifugaos, a variety of the Igorot tribe, built the Banaue Rice Terraces, one of the most famous historical and architectural attractions in the Philippines. The Lumad is a term used to refer to the tribes comprising the eastern parts of Mindanao. They are known for tribal music that makes use of unique instruments they have constructed from local materials. Another popular holiday destination for international visitors is the island of Palawan, which is home to a number of tribes. Palawan is one of the regions in the Philippines that has not completely embraced urbanism, thus making it an excellent destination not only for cultural experiences, but also for visiting pristine sea and landscapes through the many eco-friendly resorts that have developed there. Not far from the major city of Davao in Mindanao is the island of Samal which can be visited as a day excursion, where one can visit the tribal village of Tagbaobo. Here visitors are able to join the tribe and share in a local feast of locally caught seafood and traditional sweets. Local children also perform traditional dances and through a guide, can hear of local traditions and folklore that has been passed down through the generations. Cultural activities can naturally be combined with tours and activities that highlight the Philippines natural landscape and include among others snorkelling in pristine waters, zip lining through jungle forests and the tasting of many local fruits that has made the Philippines famous worldwide. - TradeArabia News Service Michelle Rigsby, a fourth-grade teacher at Allen Elementary, received an I Am Hamilton t-shirt for her work with the children in her class and pitching in to take extra duty at school for co-workers. The district presents the special shirts to individuals for "efforts that positively impact Hamilton County Schools and the children we serve."In the past few months, Allen Elementary has had several teachers out sick or taking care of family members. Mrs. Rigsby had stepped-up and volunteered to take extra duties at the school, helping with the car rider line or anything that needs to be done at the school.All of our teachers have pitched in to help, but Mrs.Rigsby has really made herself available and taken on extra duty with a smile, said Chris Tillett, principal at Allen Elementary.Mrs. Rigsby's students were also eager to agree that their teacher is the best as they cheered the shirt presentation.I am Hamilton spotlights the contributions of alumni, teachers, parents, students, support workers and community members providing opportunities for children in the classrooms of Hamilton County Schools. "Better opportunities for children today mean a brighter future filled with possibilities for our graduates, their families, and the community," officials said. Lately I've seen a fair amount of criticism of the President's National Security Strategy by retired generals and admirals. Let me throw in my two cents worth. First, I know a little something about generals and admirals. I was one of them for 13 of my 39 years of active military service. Indeed, I personally know most of the ones who are currently expressing themselves regarding Presidential leadership. For starters, please understand that since World War II America has pretty much been at war -- continuously. There have been at least 25 wars in which we've participated since WWII. Call them what you will, but to a young sergeant, war is war. Some of these wars have been repeats so the real number approaches 30. Many are so-called "small" conflicts -- again tell that to a young sergeant under fire -- but several have been major including Korea, Vietnam, the 1st Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan. If you add CIA operations where the military has been surreptitiously involved, the total number is closer to 40. In just over 70 years we've been actively engaged in up to 40 overseas wars where American service members have been engaged and American wealth has been expended. That's more than one war every two years. Do we really have that many enemies? What's going on here? And, the cost of these wars has been in multiples of trillions of dollars -- dollars that might otherwise have been put into better future military readiness, infrastructure, lower taxes, social programs, or into a balanced budget. In short, near continuous wars have been maiming and killing our youth and draining our wealth pretty much continuously since World War II. For all this, today we have an indescribable $21 trillion national debt. And Americans are riding into space on Russian rockets and returning to earth in Kazakhstan -- Kazakhstan! We've sure come a long way since being able to land astronauts on the moon in 1969 and bringing space shuttles home to landings at Cape Kennedy. Meanwhile we have military missions in over 70 countries worldwide. That's over a third of all the countries on Earth. In all this one thing is 100 percent for sure -- all of our senior military leaders, including me, were "born and raised" with a deployed expeditionary conflict mindset where America as the world's "policeman" was the right thing to do. We were all nurtured in the globalist belief that in the post WWII world era it was America's responsibility and indeed duty to police the planet and make everything safe for democracy. For example, I spent 14 years deployed overseas, 10 of those as a general. Out there I was "born and raised" to go forth and present America as the global policeman. And, I did my job. Looking back, all this resembles what the Roman generals were taught to do by the Roman Empire. Go out into the vast empire and establish Roman rule and law, make friends and allies, and where you run into issues bring military force to bear to solve the problem. That's what the Romans did and we've been doing pretty much the same thing for the last 70 years plus years. When a retired general or admiral argues that President Trump is an inward looking nationalist and is turning away from our valued international friends and allies, these military leaders do so from the perspective of globalists. That's who they are and what they know. They have international colleagues and they are invested in the theory that by bringing influence and military power to bear worldwide (just like their Roman predecessors) our so-called global "friends" will help us police the world. Sounds great, doesn't it. But, after all the money and blood, has it worked? Does it work? When President Trump says that this globalist strategy is actually bankrupting America while killing and maiming our youth, many of the retired generals and admirals are repulsed because most are invested in an expeditionary globalist mentality. Trump just doesn't understand, they say. My sense is that President Trump understands much more than we are willing to admit. It's time for America to re-think our globalist military strategy. While we do have some crucial allies that we must stick with, we need to have an America first nationalist reawakening, bring many of our troops home (What are we doing in Syria? Good grief!), and reinvest in our country while building military readiness for the future. We've got to stop bleeding our youth and bankrupting our budget. Last, don't believe everything the retired generals and admirals tell you. Indeed they are great patriots; but, they all have their own agendas. And don't forget that Lincoln properly fired McClellan and Truman properly fired MacArthur, both generals who the public initially thought could do no wrong. And, of course, Obama removed General Mattis from CENTCOM, and fired Generals McKiernan and McChrystal from their commands in Afghanistan. President's hire and fire senior military leaders. It's the way things work in our democracy. President Trump can and should do the same thing when his generals and admirals do not align with his strategic perspectives. Americans elected President Trump to serve as our commander-in-chief. They didn't vote for some howling retired general who was fired by a previous President. B. B. Bell General, US Army (Retired) * * * General Bell should be commended for his frank remarks regarding future American military policy. I hope Marsha Blackburn is listening. His comments clearly outline where we are and how we got there. His credentials for making those points should never be questioned, especially by people who think because they watched Combat, MASH or Saving Private Ryan, they are experts on the topic of military science. Whether or not the politicians on the left or their subjective media allies and Trump haters want to admit it, America is in a transition phase. We have had these before: after the War of 1812 with the opening of westward expansion, in the period after the Civil War with the telephone, steam engine and an explosion of industry and again with the Twentieth Century inventions and assembly line manufacturing. During these eras, our foreign and military policies changed as we changed and the presidents who understood this led us through those changes. Now with international borders shifting every decade, radical religious fanaticism, third rate nations with nuclear weapons and tyrants standing in line to be the next Ghengis Khan, we can no longer adhere to military or political policies of the 1920s. Donald Trump, an outsider, understands that better than the cadre at the War College or the elitists in the Harvard Scholar Society. Elizabeth Warren is so out of her league its pathetic. The world is facing challenges unseen before and shes touting her DNA test. Why? Because her focus, first and foremost, is identity politics. Politics! Joe Biden is fantasizing about being President at 80 years old. John Kerry, in between jetting between his many homes, his yacht and his ketchup factory, is also fantasizing about running. Beto ORourke is just laughable in thinking he can use his similarity to JFK to spin his way into the White House like he has spun his way through life up to now. And whats worse, there are people who actually think these characters know what they are doing. This is because they can tell you who won on American Idol and what undisciplined football player lost on the Masked Singer, but have no idea about foreign policy or how our government works. And thats how Ocasio-Cortez can be voting on federal laws in Congress next week. Ugh! Ralph Miller The State of Tennessees Department of Health has awarded funding to Cempa Community Care formerly known as Chattanooga Cares to kickstart a new program, Cempa Talks, a faith-based symposium and youth ambassador program designed to help alleviate the health disparities of HIV and STIs among the African American and Latino minority populations across urban Chattanooga. "Cempa Community Care has been an integral healthcare entity in the Chattanooga community for thirty-two years, providing constant outreach, education and testing," officials said. "Cempas Prevention and Outreach Department is dedicated to education, prevention and support services for those impacted by HIV, STIs and other ailments when so few people fully understand the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of these maladies. Cempa currently offers prevention education in Hamilton County High Schools as well as in many of the surrounding area's colleges and universities. Cempas Prevention and Outreach Team has been recognized on a state and national level for its education and prevention efforts."An issue Cempa is working hard to resolve is the fact that minority communities are still disproportionately impacted by HIV and STIs. African Americans represent 12 to 13 percent of the nations population, and yet that demographic accounts for over 44 percent of all HIV diagnoses. In Tennessee alone, African Americans account for 16 percent of the population and 56 percent of all HIV diagnoses."According to the State of Tennessee Department of Health, over 55 percent of people living with HIV in Chattanooga are African Americans, many of whom live in underserved areas, such as the citys urban core."Combining education and testing is imperative to reduce the spread of HIV and STI infections among the minority populations in the inner city. Through this faith-based health disparities initiative, Cempa Community Cares Prevention and Outreach Department will offer Cempa Talks through an interactive and innovative approach by teaming with Chattanoogas urban faith-based communities and churches. Cempa Talks is designed to educate the community about imperative HIV and STI facts, explaining the vast benefits of getting tested and dispelling any misunderstandings around HIV and STIs. Additionally, by establishing an ambassador program among faith-based leaders and area youth, Cempa will promote peer-to-peer education that will facilitate the spread of greater knowledge about HIV and STIs."Cempa Talks will be launched at faith-based houses of worship, ministries and youth groups across urban Chattanooga. A youth ambassador program for peer HIV and STI education will be established to train youth leaders to provide peer-to-peer support and education.Cempa Community Care is actively engaged with minority communities, schools and civic organizations. In collaboration with its partners, Cempas Prevention and Outreach Department will engage African Americans and Latino minorities that face health disparities through education and testing. Cempas strong partnership with the Southeast Tennessee Health Consortium will allow the Prevention and Outreach Department to broaden HIV and STI testing among Chattanoogas minority populations." With various disparities existing across the state of Tennessee, the Tennessee Department of Healths Office of Minority Health and Disparities Elimination work to ensure that we are intentional in our efforts to address those with the greatest need, says Monique Anthony, director of Office of Minority Health and Disparities Elimination at the Tennessee Department of Health. To protect, promote and improve the health and prosperity of people in Tennessee is our mission. It is our goal to empower communities to support optimal health for all and to eliminate disparities for racial, ethnic and under-served populations. The OMHDE Community and Faith-Based Health Disparities grant is one strategy to build the capacity of our partners and ensure their voices are heard. Cempa is also collaborating with the Hamilton County Health Department about how to best reach the individuals that are most in need. For many years Chattanooga-Hamilton County Health Department has partnered with Cempa (formerly Chattanooga CARES) to provide expanded STI testing for the community, says Bill Ulmer, director of Community Health Services of the Hamilton County Health Department. Our health department fully supports Cempa Community Cares programs to reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted infections, help eliminate disparities among those contracting these diseases, and provide enhanced education to our community. Cempa Community Care will partner with Chattanoogas Health and Wellness Council to host the Cempa Talks kick-off meeting on Jan. 26 from 10 a.m.-noon. All church leaders are invited to attend this event, located at the Cempa offices, 1042 E. Third St., Chattanooga, Tn. 37403. To learn more about the kick-off meeting or Cempa Talks, contact LaDarius Price, Community Outreach manager, at 423-648-9920, or lprice@cempa.org. The upcoming Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW) will witness significant growth in the number of participating countries and visitors, by a rate exceeding 250 per cent over the past 10 years, a media report said. The event will be held under the patronage of Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, from January 12 to 19, reported state news agency Wam. The events participation rate increased annually since its launch in 2008 until it became a major annual eight-day event. Wam will report on the current edition of the event, which will be hosted by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, Masdar, under the theme Industry Convergence: Accelerating Sustainable Development. The week will promote eight key pillars that explore how industries are responding to the digital transformation underway in the global economy, which in turn is giving rise to new opportunities to address global sustainability challenges. The activities will begin with the general assembly meeting of the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena), which will be attended by presidents of countries, ministers, high-level figures from member countries, and monitoring organisations from around the world. The two-day Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum will also take place, which is the first gathering of governments and leaders of relevant sectors, who will draft this years world energy agenda to respond to the latest developments in the energy sector. The opening ceremony will be held on January 14 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (Adnec) and will be attended by over 4,000 guests. The inaugural ceremony will include the Zayed Sustainability Prize. The event will witness - for the first time - the 'Future Summit', which will join policymakers, heads of sectors, academics and innovators to discuss how to create a sustainable future. It will also host the 'Abu Dhabi Sustainable Finance Forum', which is the first event of its kind in Abu Dhabi. The event will also host the World Future Energy Summit, which will include specialist companies that will present their latest technologies. It will also involve speakers and experts in the areas of energy, water, transport and green buildings, and will include an exhibition that will feature the participation of over 850 companies from 40 countries. There will be a Women in Sustainability, Environment and Renewable Energy Forum' (WiSER), which will aim to inspire and empower women and enable them to play an effective role in facing global sustainability challenges. The week will witness the launch of many important initiatives, including Reinforcing Awareness Through Art, which is a unique art exhibition that will showcase local and international artworks inspired by the United Nations Development Goals. The annual two-day event concludes with "The Festival at Masdar City," whose previous edition was attended by over 8,000 visitors. The Special Economic Zone Authority in Duqm (Sezad) has signed an agreement with Dhofar Fisheries and Food Industries Company for land to develop a factory for fish packaging and caning. The RO10-million ($26 million) project will also produce fish oil, said an Oman News Agency report. The usufruct agreement was signed on behalf of Sezad by Yahya bin Said Al-Jabri, chairman of the Sezad, and Dhofar Fisheries and Food Industries Company chairman Mahdy Mohamed Hassan Hosny. Sezad has allocated a plot of land at the Fishery Industries Zone in Duqm for this project. The project will have a total annual production capacity of around 30,000 tons. It is anticipated to produce around 2 million cartons of sardine fish with a total marketing value of about RO11 million; about 500,000 carton of tuna with a value of RO7 million; and about 5000 tons of crushed fish with a total value of RO2.2 million. The project is expected to come on stream in the second quarter of 2020, creating around 150 job opportunities, the report said. Vietnam demand up 10% in 11M18 ICR Newsroom By 03 January 2019 Cement consumption in Vietnam remained largely stable in November 2018 when compared with the previous year at 5.675Mt, according to the Vietnam National Cement Association (VNCA). Of this total 1.955Mt was sold by the VICEM Group with an additional 1.62Mt through the companys joint ventures. Other cement producers sold 2.1Mt in November, representing a four per cent YoY drop. MoM total domestic sales fell by four per cent with VICEM Group companies noting a six per cent drop and its joint ventures a three per cent fall. Other cement producers reported a two per cent decrease in domestic dispatches. Exports in November increased by 15 per cent YoY to 2.774Mt, of which 0.929Mt were cement and 1.846Mt clinker. While clinker export volumes slipped by five per cent, cement exports noted a 94 per cent surge YoY. When compared with October 2018, total exports fell by three per cent but while clinker volumes slipped by five per cent, cement exports increased by two per cent. Key export destinations for clinker were China and Bangladesh with smaller volumes to the Philippines and Taiwan. The Philippines was the main export market for Vietnamese cement, followed by some distance by China, Malaysia, Taiwan. January-November 2018 In the first 11 months of 2018, cement demand in Vietnam reached 59,098Mt, up 10 per cent YoY. Total exports surged by 62 per cent to 29.475Mt, complementing domestic sales by Vietnamese cement companies, which produced 88,574Mt of cement in the 11M18 (+23 per cent YoY). Published under GAC, a global provider of logistics and marine services, has been appointed as international freight forwarding partner of Wild Water Group, a temperature-controlled storage and distribution company in South Wales. The Wild Water Group serves the food &drink sector, which has been identified by the Welsh Government as a key economic driver of the regional economy. In 2017, exports from Wales in the sector grew 20 per cent, compared to a 9.5 per cent increase for the UK as a whole over the same period. Under the alliance agreement, from this month, GAC will provide a range of freight forwarding services and draw on its international reach, resources and experience to help the Wild Water Group pursue international import and export opportunities for its customers. As part of its expansion plan, the Wild Water Group has boosted its operation with the purchase of a 130, 000 sq ft storage and distribution facility in Aberbargoed, with the support of the Welsh Government. The next logical step was to align ourselves with a leading worldwide logistics company with the expertise to complement our long term business objectives, said Wild Water Group managing director Ken Rattenbury. GAC has that pedigree and we are excited to have signed a deal with such a prestigious global company. As one of the UKs many food consolidators, the Wild Water Group is no stranger to the complexities of freight forwarding as they already pack containers for customers and export them as far afield as Japan and New Zealand, or across the channel to Europe for countries such as Spain. A key player in the Welsh food sector, it wanted to form an alliance with an established partner to give customers across its five subsidiaries a bespoke service. That partner is GAC, a statement said. The alliance opens up close associations with major airline carriers such as Qatar Airways, who have already seen the potential of Cardiff International airport as a major passenger and freight hub. It also gives the Wild Water Group the opportunity to link up with other cold store operators worldwide with whom they could negotiate reciprocal trade agreements. Peter Orange, GACs Group marketing manager Logistics, said: The combination of Wild Water Groups local infrastructure, the GAC Groups global reach and the specialist knowledge of GAC UKs Time Critical Services arm is a recipe for success. Clients benefit from longstanding, strong alliances with major air and ocean carriers as well as access to our global multimodal network and associated cost savings. And our Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) accreditation confirms we have what it takes to provide fast, efficient customs and documentary support. The partnership will provide end-to-end cold chain services around the clock, initially focusing on the Middle East, where GAC has been active for more than 60 years and boasts extensive logistics resources including ambient and cold chain warehouses. TradeArabia News Service Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription, or activate your access, to continue reading. Al Gharra International for Real Estate Development Company, an affiliate of Saudi's Knowledge Economic City (KEC) has signed an agreement with Saudi Railways Organization (SRO) for the transfer of land towards construction of a Haramain Rail station in Madinah. The 450-km network connects Makkah and Madinah with in between stations at Jeddah, King Abdul Aziz International Airport, and King Abdullah Economic City. The Haraman Rail, the regions first high-speed electric train, can carry 60 million passengers a year with a fleet of 35 trains containing 417 seats each. As per the deal, KEC and Al Gharra will hand over the 103,412 sq m land plot located on King Abdul Aziz Road to state-owned SRO, said the company in a statement to the Saudi bourse Tadawul. KEC will also set up various projects on the two land plots surrounding the rail station to provide services to train passengers and pilgrims, it added.-TradeArabia News Service JACKSON COUNTY, Mississippi -- A Florida man was killed New Year's Eve when he lost control of his truck and veered into oncoming traffic on Interstate 10 in Jackson County near Ocean Springs. According to the Mississippi Highway Patrol, the accident occurred about 7 p.m. on Dec. 31. A 2017 Dodge Ram was traveling westbound on I-10 when the driver lost control, the vehicle overturned and rolled into the eastbound lanes. The truck crashed into the driver's side of an eastbound Ford F-150 and then into the front of an eastbound 2017 Ford Escape. The driver of the Dodge, identified as 33-year-old Michael Clifford Bowie of Pensacola, Fla., was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the Ford Escape was transported to Ocean Springs Hospital with what were described as moderate injuries. The driver of the F-150 was uninjured. All three drivers were wearing seatbelts at the time of the accident. The accident remains under investigation. What has Brian Kemp been up to since winning the state's gubernatorial election? Photo: The Canadian Press A highway loops around a tailings pond at the Syncrude facility near Fort McMurray. Syncrude has pleaded guilty and been fined more than $2.7 million in the deaths of 31 great blue herons at one of its oilsands mines north of Fort McMurray. An agreed statement of facts says Syncrude has admitted that an abandoned sump pond in which the birds were found didn't have deterrents to keep waterfowl from landing on it, even though the pond met criteria for being high risk. "For a three-month period between May and August of 2015, the external sump met the formal criteria ... and presented features making it attractive to birds and other animals," the statement says. "However, the external sump was not identified in the (pond) list produced by Syncrude for the purposes of monitoring ... nor was it addressed pursuant to the (waterfowl protection plan)." The pond at Syncrude's Mildred Lake mine was at one time more than a kilometre long, 400 metres wide and eight metres deep. Although it had been partially drained and was dry in some years, Syncrude had been unable to completely remediate the pond and it continued to hold liquids, solids and bitumen. The statement says the birds weren't found until a contract employee stumbled upon them while looking for a shortcut from one part of the site to another. "The monitor saw a great blue heron in the sump lying down," it says. "(Syncrude staff) recovered the live oiled heron and discovered 30 more heron carcasses." Staff also found a heron rookery with 26 nests about 300 metres away as well as evidence that other animals had been in the area. "Agreeing to pay a significant fine reflects the depth of our remorse about this incident," said Syncrude spokesman Will Gibson. "Our top priority was understanding what was the cause of this incident." Fencing and bird deterrents were installed immediately and all ponds have since been brought under Syncrude's plan to keep wildlife away from toxic materials at its mine, says the statement. The sump pond has been completely drained at a cost of $16 million. Provincial environmental charges accounted for $975,000 of the total penalty. Of that, $950,000 is to go into a fund administered by the Alberta Energy Regulator and earmarked for projects that increase wildlife habitat or reclaim land. The rest of the penalty, nearly $1.8 million, resulted from federal charges under the Migratory Birds Act. That money will go to the Environmental Damages Fund, a federally administered conservation fund. Do you have an athlete in mind that contributes to the team or sport, holds sportsmanship and team spirit, has epic playmaker moments and/or in general makes the the sports fun? If yes, please make your nominations for our edition of Athlete Spotlight. CLICK TO NOMINATE Emirates Post has announced enhancement of its services so apartment residents can receive post at their doorstep. Emirates Posts MyHome services, available before exclusively to residents of a villa, which enabled mail delivery to ones home either once or twice a week based on subscription package, is now available to residents living in apartments as well. Obaid Mohammed Al Qatami, acting chief commercial officer at Emirates Post Group, said: At Emirates Post, we are constantly looking to strengthen our user experience and bring efficiencies into the postal service sector by delivering happiness, convenience and anticipating the future needs of our customers. By investing in our outbound and inbound postal and logistical solutions, we will continue to provide value-added services that will support individuals as well as the operational needs of businesses. We aim to provide convenient solutions that improve quality of life with the introduction of MyHome service to our customers across the Emirates allowing them to receive post at their doorstep and offering an extended subscription renewal of up to three years, and we encourage all our customers to maximize on this opportunity, he added. He further explained that the MyHome service delivers all postal items to residences once a week for an annual fee of Dh750, and if the customer wants the option of sending and receiving post twice a week, they should choose the MyHome Plus service for an additional Dh500 annual fee. Companies can also opt to have their post picked-up and delivered directly to the registered office location by subscribing to Ezimail. There are three options: Gold allowing for six weekly pick-ups and deliveries, Silver allowing for three and Bronze offering one weekly mail pick-up and delivery. Companies can also customise P.O. Box rental services to optimize their complete mail operations. Emirates Post provides domestic and international door-to-door courier services offering premium and express options at competitive prices. Customers can customise their mail receipt preferences when renewing P O Box subscriptions. In case of upgrading to the MyHome service, - VAT and any customs charges may be paid in cash at the time of delivery and one will be able to keep the same P O Box number for the villa or apartment, Emirates Post said. The leading postal and express delivery provider in the region also announced an extended renewal option of up to three years for Post Office Box subscriptions. Subscriptions can be renewed and upgraded starting from January 1 to February 28 online via the website (www.epg.gov.ae), the mobile application or by visiting any Emirates Post offices, it said. TradeArabia News Service remaining of Thank you for reading! This is your last free article before you will be asked to subscribe. Already have a paid subscription? Sign in news, latest-news The ACT government saw Labor's expected victory at the 2007 federal election as a chance to finally roll back the National Capital Authority's planning powers, previously confidential internal documents have shown. Then chief minister Jon Stanhope wrote to then shadow finance minister Lindsay Tanner in September 2007, ahead of Labor's election victory in November that year, to advocate for one system of planning in Canberra, ACT cabinet documents released under the 10-year rule show. Mr Stanhope wrote that should Labor win the federal election, they should re-examine the role of the authority, which then had control over large parts of the ACT. He said the ACT could not alter a sign on its own assembly building without approval from the authority, and there was a need to remove duplication in the system. "Confusion is caused in the community because in some areas the Commonwealth has planning jurisdiction but the ACT has the land administration function," Mr Stanhope wrote. "While further analysis would, in my view, be required to develop an appropriate model, there should be only one planning ordinance for the ACT (i.e. a single planning system), administered by the NCA where it has jurisdiction andby the [ACT Planning and Land Authority] in the remainder." Mr Stanhope said the dual planning system led to situations where both the National Capital Plan and the Territory Plan had to be amended to allow mobile homes in an area where caravan parks were already permitted. Long studies for the new residential development of Molonglo and parallel amendments had delayed the release of housing in Molonglo to address housing shortages, he wrote. Labor had long accused the authority of using its planning powers to run interference for the benefit of the ACT and federal Liberal parties. The party went to the 2001 ACT election and won on the promise that it would build the Gungahlin Drive extension to the west of the Australian Institute of Sport. But this policy was overturned by the authority, which supported the Liberal Party position of having the road to the east of the institute. However the agency strenuously rejected the claim in an interview with The Canberra Times in January 2008, saying history would prove they made the right decision on the Gungahlin Drive extension. Former ACT Labor senator Kate Lundy had revived calls for one planning agency in March 2007. Ms Lundy, who was federal shadow local government minister at the time, said the ACT was mature enough to take on a wider role, instead of having duplication planning on territory land. This would avoid planning stoushes which have raged on issues such as the Gungahlin Drive Extension and the amount of housing for Pierces Creek, she said. Bob McMullan and Annette Ellis had also called for the erosion of the agency's power in the decade leading up to 2008. The ACT government also made a submission to a federal parliamentary inquiry in 2004 to advocate for a "one plan" system, responsibility for which would largely reside with the territory, documents from 2008 marked cabinet-in-confidence show. However the ACT stressed there would still be a role for the authority in promoting Canberra as Australia's capital city. "It is not proposed that there be any reduction in funding for the events/promotions aspects of the NCA- more that enhanced cooperation between the NCA and ACT Government on these events/promotions be highlighted as an appropriate way forward. It should be noted that the NCA has not had significant funding to achieve this goal and that this lack of resources can limit the NCA's ability to promote its message outside of Canberra," the 2004 submission said. However in February 2008 the federal government cut $46 million from the authority, leaving it with 40 per cent fewer staff and forcing it to shelve projects such as the duplication of Constitution Avenue that were well into the planning stages. A review of the dual planning system was announced December 2008. The National Capital Authority ultimately ceded control of large parts of Canberra to the ACT government in 2016, although it has retained jurisdiction over the Parliamentary Triangle and approach routes like the Barton Highway and main avenues such as Northbourne Avenue. The federal Coalition government signed off on a proposal to scrap the authority's control over the Molonglo and Murrumbidgee River corridors, Namadgi National Park and the Tuggeranong Valley, a barrow pushed by ACT Liberal Senator Zed Seselja, who wanted residential development to the west of the Tuggeranong town centre, across the Murrumbidgee River. Mr Stanhope said on Wednesday he still believes the National Capital Authority is "appallingly under-funded" although it had lifted its game in recent years when it came to maintenance along the Lake Burley Griffin foreshore. He also said it was appropriate for the Commonwealth to retain some control over the ACT as it would "force them to accept responsibility for and appropriately fund the national capital". /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/49a9761a-a76c-402f-b1d4-954b70403cb7/r0_101_2000_1231_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg news, latest-news At the Atlas cafe in Gunghalin, you will be told politely that no straw is available for your milkshake. You may choose to get grumpy and walk out - and a few do - or you may accept a freshly cleaned stainless-steel straw. Or you may just drink the drink out of the glass like lots of people do anyway. Proprietor Tristan Morthorpe says there's been no noticeable effect on trade since his ban on single-use straws. Some have objected but he thinks others are drawn to the place because of its policy. It has had no impact on cost. The cafe saves a few dollars a week by not buying batches of plastic straws but, on the other hand, there is a cost to the steel substitutes of about $20 for a pack of eight, and they have to be cleaned with a pipe cleaner every time they're used and that's a time consuming chore. "A few people get offended but most people are positive about it," he said. "They say, 'it's such a good idea'." ACT Assembly member and Labor backbencher Suzanne Orr thinks it's such a good idea she wants the territory government to make public events such as festivals in the ACT plastic free and to be much more active in reducing the use of plastics that can't be reused or recycled. She spent a "plastic free month", which meant taking her own coffee cup with her or just staying put in the cafe and drinking out of its mugs at tables. Her point is that if you keep your own cup, you save 365 plastic cups a year. "It's not been a hard change," she said. She either takes her own lunch or eats it where she buys it - no take-away in plastic. "I try to identify places that use cardboard instead and I bring my own food from home." But the calculation isn't as simple as you might think, according to one of the country's experts on the economics of materials. Dr Trevor Thornton who lectures at Deakin University in Melbourne said it was a complex issue. Plastic stickers on apples, for example, might help supermarkets track them and so cut transport costs - and transport generates global-warming carbon dioxide. A good answer might be a Melbourne company's idea of replacing the plastic labels with ones made of a bio-degradable material. Another company is developing ways of lasering brand markers on to oranges and avocados. Steel for straws has a carbon footprint - it is manufactured - so exactly how beneficial it is to make the switch from plastic to steel depends on how many times the steel straw is re-used. And plastic wrapping prevents the bruising or rotting of fruit. You might, for example, go into the supermarket and see cucumbers wrapped in plastic and think, "why on earth have they done that?" But plastic keeps food fresh for longer and so diminishes waste. Cut back on the plastic excessively and food then rots. The plastics and food industries, under intense pressure to cut the amount of plastic shoppers see, have been researching new materials and methods. There is now, for example, "modified atmosphere packaging", which inserts chemicals into bags to slow rotting or allow a little more air in. As the American Chemicals Council puts it on its pro-plastics website: "special types of plastic bags enable 'modified atmosphere packaging' that does just that: regulate levels of various molecules in the packaging to keep your arugula, sliced carrots, and apple slices from going bad real quickly". "For example, [modified atmosphere packaging] can double shelf life of mixed greens from four days or less to up to eight days." Dr Thornton believes more pressure should be put on shops to sell smaller portions. He cites packages of corns on the cob that come in threes. "We should be saying, 'if I just want one corn-cob, why are they selling me three'?" This tendency to bulk package encourages us to over-purchase and throw away the excess, he believes. Why not, instead, sell more vegetables loose so people can choose the quantity. His advice is only buy what you need. The public should be much better educated in how to store food, he said. Better storage means less waste. Is there a danger of "virtue signalling" by the abstainers from plastic - of people doing something not because it offers so much real benefit but because it shows them in a good light? Dr Thornton thinks there is, but he would rather criticise people who are doing nothing about a problem than those who are doing a little, albeit for mixed motives. He sees the complexity but says that doesn't mean we shouldn't cut the wasteful use of plastic. It is a pollutant that clogs waterways (and birds' stomachs). Avoidance of waste is his mantra. He himself carries around a steel straw and a brush to clean it out if he has, for example, a smoothie. Plastic has its uses - but waste is always waste, is the gist of his view. He thinks a lot more could be done to get attitudes to change. It's not a short-term thing, he thinks. Getting seat-belts accepted, for example, required long-term campaigning. Maybe there is too much plastic in fridges and rivers and parks. But the experts say it still has its uses - and its limitations. Obituaries are premature. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/00a1821c-c83e-468b-9c83-99838ac8887e/r0_221_4256_2626_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg The first-ever high school innovation challenge in Dubai, known as the HGEM Innovation Challenge (HIC), a sprint-like event in which multi-disciplinary teams collaborate to create solutions to prompts under a time constraint, will take place from March 14 to 16. The event is organized by the Harvard Undergraduate Global Education Movement (HGEM), a recognized student organization at Harvard College, and in partnership with Harvard Club of the UAE, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) in Dubai, and the Ismaili Centre Dubai. HIC will target important regional issues including public health, education, and sustainability as UAE high school students explore ways to continue the rapid innovation in the region. Specifically, the mission of HIC is to: 1. Explore innovative solutions and formulate strategies to address regional challenges across the UAE. The 2019 event centers on three key issues: Public Health: challenging diabetes &obesity and addressing mental health. Education: tackling issues around education quality, student satisfaction, and education distribution. Sustainability: addressing techniques to improve on metropolitan infrastructure, energy costs, water use, and city congestion. 2. Provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate their intellectual creativity in a results-driven competition 3. Promote collaboration among youth leaders across diverse academic backgrounds The event will be a true celebration of social innovation and entrepreneurship, bringing together the UAEs brightest students. A total of 100 participants will be selected through a competitive online application based on academic accomplishments and leadership potential. Interested students and faculty are invited to apply by January 30. Participants will be grouped into teams and tasked with designing, creating, and presenting solutions to address the regional topics in a competitive learning environment. The event will invite speakers and thought leaders from leading universities and organizations in the region to present on the three event themes as well as Harvard College students to lead workshops and debates for the conference. Selected teams will showcase their projects in a final round pitch competition followed by an award ceremony. TradeArabia News Service Become A Subscriber A subscription opens up access to all our online content, including: our interactive E-Edition, a full archive of modern stories, exclusive and expanded online offerings, photo galleries from Caledonian-Record journalists, video reports from our media partners, extensive international, national and regional reporting by the Associated Press, and a wide variety of feature content. St. Johnsbury, VT (05819) Today Cloudy. High 69F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Thunderstorms early, then variable clouds overnight with still a chance of showers. Low 58F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%. The Local Enterprise Office Dublin City has awarded 6,174,969 to 944 start-ups and SMEs since its formation in April 2014. The figures were released yesterday to encourage entrepreneurs, start-ups and SMEs to avail of the supports provided by the Office during 2019. The companies supported by the Local Enterprise Office for Dublin City range from tech start-ups and food producers to craft businesses and design studios. Companies supported over the past four years include: Coroflo: A device that records how much milk a baby is receiving when being breast-fed. The company received a Feasibility Study Grant from Local Enterprise Office Dublin City to fund their first prototype, allowing them to test and enhance their core technology. They went on to raise 650,000 from investors in 2017, and drew praise from Richard Branson after winning the Dublin Virgin Media Business Voom Tour mini-pitch competition. They expect to bring their product to market in coming months, and are preparing to launch in the UK this year. Manley: Manley was founded by Irish fashion and jewellery designer, Emma Manley. It is now one of Ireland's leading contemporary fashion labels, and is currently stocked in Arnotts, Powerscourt Townhouse and Kildare Village, amongst others. A champion of Irish design, Emma Manley recently launched a three-month pop-up in Dundrum, showcasing a host of Irish designers. Meltdown Cafe: A Temple Bar-based cafe that specialises in gourmet toasted cheese sandwiches. Founder Maeve O'Malley, won the 2018 'Rising Star' Award at the Local Enterprise Offices 2018 Women in Business Network Awards. Speaking yesterday, Head of Enterprise and Economic Development at Local Enterprise Office Dublin City, Greg Swift said, "A New Year is a time for action, and there may be lots of budding and existing entrepreneurs out there, hatching plans for growth in the months to come. Our message to them is to avail of the supports we offer at the Local Enterprise Office. The work we do promotes job creation in Dublin City year-round. Just last month, for example, we awarded almost 240,000 to 14 businesses, supporting 25 jobs." Source: www.businessworld.ie It was announced today that Danish global home retail brand, JYSK, will open 15 stores across Ireland in the next two years, creating more than 200 jobs. The first Irish store will open in Naas, Co. Kildare in April 2019, with two further stores opening in Drogheda, Co. Louth and Navan, Co. Meath in May, and a fourth store opening in Portlaoise, Co. Laois opening during summer 2019. JYSK will open an Irish head office in Dublin early in 2019 and will also fill approximately 10 roles in sales, marketing, human resources and finance over the next two years. Today, JYSK looks to fill deputy store manager and sales assistant positions for its first four retail stores in Naas, Navan, Drogheda and Portlaoise. There are full time and part time positions available JYSK was founded in Denmark in 1979 by Lars Larsen and over the past four decades JYSK has expanded to 51 countries with more than 2,700 stores worldwide employing 23,000 people. Speaking this week, Head of retail at JYSK, Roni Tuominen said, "Ireland is a very important market for us, given the prominent position the retail industry holds in the country for employment and the economy. As a company, we focus on entering a new market each year, and we are excited that 2019 is the year we bring our brand to Ireland. We will open here with our latest concept stores and deliver exceptional quality products at great prices to Irish consumers." Source: www.businessworld.ie The Standing Committee on Finance has asked the Reserve Bank of India and the Centre to form a committee, which will examine the central bank's alleged lacks of regulatory powers to ontrol bad loans in public sector banks. Headed by senior Congress leader Veerappa Moily, the parliamentary panel has asked the RBI and the government to report their findings within three months. Another report on actions taken based on these findings will follow within four months. The panel tasked the upcoming committee to probe the RBI's regulatory powers to ascertain whether the government or the central bank is capable of preventing bad loans in state-owned banks. In its report regarding bad loans presented on Thursday, the Moily-led parliamentary panel expressed its displeasure at the RBI's claim that it lacks powers to check non-performing assets (NPA) in public sector banks. The standing committee on finance also raised questions on what the RBI has done with its existing powers. ALSO READ:RBI's MSME restructuring scheme a lesser evil for banks than taking them to bankruptcy "RBI has been complaining against lack of power to regulate Public sector banks, while it seems that even the existing powers have not been effectively enforced by the central bank," the standing committee on finance said in its reports. The parliamentary panel expressed its dismay at the flurry of loan-related bank frauds despite the RBI-appointed members present on the boards of public sector banks. The committee also said that the frequency of bank frauds increased during the year 2017-18 despite the audit mechanism put in place by the RBI. In its latest report, the panel said that the total funds involved in bank frauds increased to Rs 32,040 crore during 2017-18, as compared to Rs 23,930 crore in 2016-17. ALSO READ:RBI Vs Govt in 2018: A 'husband-wife' relation that turned stormy ALSO READ:Bank frauds rise over 72% to Rs 41,167 crore in 2017-18, says RBI report ALSO READ:Banks recover Rs 40,400 crore from defaulters in FY18: RBI The troubled Jet Airways, which has been grappling with financial woes for a while now and recently defaulted on its bank loans for the first time, may need to introduce big changes to survive. Analysts tracking the aviation sector told Mint that the current promoters of the airline, Naresh Goyal and his family, who own a 51% stake, may have to give up management control if they want to raise capital. According to the sources, Jet Airways needs to raise at least $250-300 million immediately to pay off its dues to lenders and other vendors. The cash-strapped airline reported its third consecutive quarterly losses for the quarter ending September, and has been scrambling for funds to tide over a liquidity crisis. Despite delaying salaries and vendor payments to service its debt on time, Jet Airways' deteriorating cash situation reportedly left it with no option but to default on repayment. The past year saw the aviation sector take a beating courtesy intense pricing competition, a weak rupee and high fuel costs. Post the airline's announcement of the default to the stock exchanges, its shares plummeted nearly 7% yesterday and rating agency ICRA cut the long-term rating on loans and bonds issued by Jet Airways from C to D. "This rating downgrade considers the delay by the Company in the payment of interest and principal installment due on 31 December, 2018 due to cash flow mismatches and delays in the implementation of proposed liquidity initiatives by the Company," Jet Airways said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday. Although Goyal is in talks with Tata Sons as well as Jet stakeholder Etihad Airways to navigate the current crisis, the buzz is that the negotiations are not making much headway because both require Goyal to cede control, partially or completely. Jet Airways has, furthermore, failed to monetize its stake in Jet Privilege as planned. "Jet Airways' promoters need to urgently recapitalise the airline and infuse equity, possibly from Etihad or somewhere else," Dhiraj Mathur, partner, leader-aerospace and defence, PwC India, told the daily. "The promoters may possibly have to give up control of the airline [in their bid to recapitalize their airline]." Analysts explain that the much-needed fundraising will also depend on the airline's books as lenders undertake a forensic audit into its accounts. The other scenario reportedly involves the lenders converting debt into equity. "Jet Airways would need Rs 3,600 crore to repair its balance sheet, finance its fleet and fund its operations to achieve break-even or profitability," aviation consultant Mark Martin, chief executive of Dubai-based Martin Consulting LLC, told the daily. "With oil expected to drop to $40 a barrel, it is the right time to raise money from the market, especially when Jet Airways has one of the largest and most established networks in South Asia." Besides, the airline can't afford to dither on deciding its future course of action. As per the latest RBI regulations, following its recent loan default, Jet Airways' lenders get 180 days to work out a resolution plan. Edited by Sushmita Choudhury Agarwal Also read: Jet Airways stock plunges over 5% as airline defaults on loan repayment to banks Also read: Jet Airways delays debt payment to banks, including SBI Also read: IndiGo flight filled with smoke, makes priority landing in Ahmedabad Podcast: RBI introduces loan restructuring scheme for MSMEs Loading the player... Reliance Jio adds 1 crore new users in October; inches closer to Vodafone-Idea, Airtel Only two operators, Reliance Jio and state-run BSNL, gained new subscribers in October, leading to a marginal growth in overall telecom user base to 119.2 crore, according to the Trai data. Reliance Jio and BSNL jointly added over 1.08 crore new mobile phone customers, while rest of the operators -- Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtlel, Tata Teleservices, MTNL and Reliance Communications -- lost more than 1.01 crore customers. Uber India revenue grows manifold to Rs 21.5 crore in FY18 US-based cab-hailing platform Uber saw its revenue growing manifold from India business to Rs 21.5 crore in the fiscal ended March 2018, according to documents filed with the corporate affairs ministry. The company, which competes with rival Ola in India and other international markets, had posted a total revenue of Rs 1.04 crore in 2016-17. Cabinet approves merger of Vijaya Bank, Dena Bank with Bank of Baroda The Union Cabinet on Tuesday approved the merger of Vijaya Bank, Dena Bank with Bank of Baroda. Following the merger of these state-owned banks, BoB will become the third largest bank in India after the State Bank of India and HDFC Bank in terms of assets. Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the merger will allow the combined entity under BoB more lending power. BoB will now have a global competitive identity, he added. Bharti AXA Life uses 'WhatsApp' to deliver policy, renewal premium Private sector insurer Bharti AXA Life Insurance Wednesday said it has started delivering policies and renewal premium receipt to customers via instant messaging platform WhatsApp. It is a part of its alternative service option to the policy holders. Bharti AXA Life Insurance is one of the first few life insurers to provide its customers with the option of policy contract, renewal premium receipts and claim intimation through WhatsApp, it said. RBI's MSME restructuring scheme a lesser evil for banks than taking them to bankruptcy The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which was under tremendous pressure from a few government-nominated directors for a relief to MSMEs, has introduced a one-time restructuring scheme for loans aggregating Rs 25 crore. The scheme is like ever-greening of loans as the RBI had earlier scrapped the entire restructuring scheme. By introducing a selective restructuring scheme for MSMEs, the RBI is now encouraging the postponement of a stressed problem. Without such a relief, these MSMEs would have landed at the bankruptcy court Govt approves Rs 600 cr subsidy sops to merchant exporters The government Wednesday decided to provide 3 per cent interest subsidy to merchant exporters, entailing an expenditure of Rs 600 crore, to enhance liquidity with a view to boosting outbound shipments. The decision was taken by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs. These products are largely in MSME/labour-intensive sectors such as agriculture, textiles, leather, handicraft and machinery. It is expected to make exporters more competitive, encourage them to export more products manufactured by MSMEs. Facebook messenger testing dark mode in some countries Facebook's messenger app has started testing 'dark mode' in select countries. In May last year, the social media giant had announced a major design change in its messenger app, including the dark mode. After several delays, it seems the company has finally started testing the new dark mode in several countries. The new mode would also make the messenger more battery-friendly, especially on the devices with AMOLED displays. The New Year started on a good note for the CEO of Ayushman Bharat mission, Indu Bhushan. On 2nd January, the government in a Cabinet meeting dissolved the National Health Agency that had been created to implement the scheme, and upgraded it to an authority-National Health Authority. According to Bhushan, this was done to give it greater autonomy and more powers. In his first interview after the executive order and the end of the first 100 days of the scheme, he lists out the achievements so far of the scheme launched in September, 2018 and the challenges that the scheme will need to deal with in 2019. In February last year, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, while presenting the general budget 2018-19 in Parliament announced the Ayushman Bharat scheme, a national health protection scheme to cover over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries), providing coverage of up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation. Here are excerpts from the interview. Business Today: How has converting NHA into an authority made a difference? Is it as an executive order? Indu Bhushan: This gives greater autonomy and more power to implement the scheme. This will ensure faster decision-making. Earlier, there were several levels of decision-makers- there was a governing board, a council and the ministry. Now, our mandate has been very clearly specified. There is only one board (with representation from state governments and with two domain experts from fields such as insurance, economics, public health) and we directly report to the minister and this will help in faster decision-making. In the short term, it is through an executive order but in due course, it will have to be taken to the Parliament through a bill but in the meantime, we can rely on the executive order to work. This is how many other agencies like the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) were established initially through an executive order and later confirmed through a Parliamentary act. ALSO READ:Ayushman Bharat scheme averaged 5,000 claims per day in first 100 days BT: How do you look back at 2018 and what are your expectations in 2019? Bhushan: The year 2018 was tremendous for us as we could roll out Ayushman Bharat although some people were sceptical earlier whether it could be done in such a short time. Not only could was it rolled out, the initial momentum as also been really well without any glitches in terms of IT or in any basic design of the scheme. There are off course challenges when you come to a scheme like this with its scale and ambition. In 2019, we hope to deepen the scheme and hope that that the three remaining states that have not yet joined - Delhi, Telangana and Odisha - will also come on board. We would like them to join largely for the portability issues because Delhi is a major centre for health, especially for tertiary care and so is Hyderabad. And, Odisha is a large state with lot of Oriya people outside of the state. If the three states also join, then it will truly be one nation, one scheme. (By portability, he means, if you are a patient from say Bihar, you need not be restricted to getting treated only there and you could get the treatment in any part of the country. In short, the benefits are portable). BT: But then, given the scale and nature of the scheme and the various issues involved in rolling it out, what do you see as the major challenges? Bhushan: There are several challenges that we see. One challenge is to see ensure fraud and abuse can be minimised and ideally prevented, all together. (Read: these could be either over diagnosis by hospitals or over charging by them and these could be sorted out by software and alert systems). The other challenge is about the quality of services. How to maintain and ensure quality of services because it is not only about numbers? In the health field, it is often also difficult to quantify quality because of the asymmetric information--the provider has much more information than the patient that come from the poorest 40 per cent strata of our society. Also ensuring that they get the quality care, which is due to them. The other challenge is ensuring that we get the best of the private sector, to be part of the scheme. There is a concern about prices and the contract package rates among some hospitals and bringing them on board and encouraging them to also expand beyond the metropolitan regions, will be another challenge. But then, once you start the scheme and have the momentum going, all these issues will be tacked one by one. ALSO READ:Insurance industry goes on tech drive to attract more customers BT: These are early days perhaps but still what do you see as Ayushman Bharat's achievements so far and what you would want to build on? Bhushan: We have a long way to go but then getting 33 states and union territories on board out of a total of 36 has not been a small achievement. Second achievement is the national portability that has been made possible. Close to 2000 people have benefited so far from this. This not a small achievement because take the example of China. It has a scheme running for 12 years but they still do not have a national portability. There are logistic challenges as to who pays and how does one identify the beneficiary and the IT needed for it. All has to be in place and we could get to that with four months of planning. Plus, in terms of patients who have benefited overall from the scheme, it is 7 lakh since the launch of the scheme last September 23rd and more than 16,000 hospitals have been empanelled so far. My personal goal is to get to 25,000 of them by the end of this year. After having a virtual war of words with Prime Minister Imran Khan over financial aid to Pakistan recently, US President Donald Trump on Wednesday took potshots at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, mocking India's construction efforts in war-ravaged Afghanistan. The US President, during a press conference at a cabinet meeting, suggested India's funding of a library in Afghanistan was of no use. Trump said while he got along well with PM Modi, he didn't like Modi "constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan." Comparing the US assistance work with India's humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan, Trump said the amount, which India might have spent on that library, was five hours of work the US does in the country. "You know what that is? That's like five hours of what we spend. And we're supposed to say, 'Oh, thank you for the library.' I don't know who's using it in Afghanistan," Trump added. However, it was not clear about what particular project the US President was talking about when he referred to PM Modi. Also read: Donald Trump's America imposes 'toughest ever' sanctions on Iran Notwithstanding Trump's remarks, India has carried out several developmental works in the country, which also riled the neighbouring country of Pakistan. As per international news agency AFP, India has committed $3 billion in assistance to Afghanistan since the US-led forces toppled the extremist Taliban regime after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Apart from providing assistance in several road projects and humanitarian works, the Indian government also offers scholarships to as many as 1,000 Afghan students each year to India. India also financed the building of the Afghan parliament. Reports suggest the US, under Trump's policy of spending less overseas, last month had decided to pull back around 7,000 of its total 14,000 military personnel in the war-torn country. Edited by Manoj Sharma Also read: 'India will soon find out my decision': Donald Trump on US sanctions for defence deal with Russia Also read: Donald Trump will not attend India's Republic Day celebrations; here's why Also read: Passengers bypass Modi, Goyal; write to Donald Trump for train halt at Palam station After a heated debate in Parliament on Wednesday, followed by a press conference questioning the Rafale deal, Congress President Rahul Gandhi took his war of words against the Modi government to the social media. Tomorrow, the PM faces an Open Book #RafaleDeal Exam in Parliament," Gandhi tweeted 12 hours ago, and questioned whether Modi would "show up? Or send a proxy?" He then proceeded to list the questions that would be posed. But a close look at the above tweet showed that Gandhi had got his numbering wrong. The sequence was missing the third question and the Twitterati noticed the mistake. In fact, Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was among the first to call him out on it. "A student who fails in the classroom boasts and challenges from outside," she tweeted. Tomorrow, the PM faces an Open Book #RafaleDeal Exam in Parliament. Here are the exam questions in advance: Q1. Why 36 aircraft, instead of the 126 the IAF needed? Q2. Why 1,600 Cr instead of 560 Cr per aircraft. Q4. Why AA instead of HAL? Will he show up? Or send a proxy? - Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 2, 2019 Undaunted, the Congress President jumped back in the fray with a subsequent tweet on "The Missing Q3" a few hours later. Gandhi said he had held back the question as the Lok Sabha speaker had said he could not talk about the Goa tape. The Missing Q3! I had held back Q3 because Madam Speaker had said, "no talking about the Goa tape"! But the missing Q3 has become as controversial as Rafale:) So on popular demand: Q3. Modi Ji, please tell us why Parrikar Ji keeps a Rafale file in his bedroom & what's in it? https://t.co/6WdiN487HJ - Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 2, 2019 During the debate in the Lok Sabha, Gandhi had unsuccessfully sought the speaker's permission to play an audio clip in which Goa minister Vishwajit Rane purportedly told someone that Goa Chief Minister and former defence minister Manohar Parrikar had told his cabinet during a meeting that he had documents related to the Rafale deal 'in his bedroom'. The Congress chief alleged that Parrikar was "blackmailing" Modi with a file on the Rs 58,000-crore fighter jets deal. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was quick to dismiss the tape was "false and fabricated" during the debate, and had asked Gandhi if he could authenticate it. He might have to face a privilege motion and even expulsion if it turned out to be fabricated, the BJP leader had added. Also read: Rafale deal row: Rahul Gandhi demands JPC; poses questions to PM Modi Amid the ensuing uproar, which caused a brief adjournment of the House proceedings, Gandhi said he would not play it and authenticate it, prompting Jaitley to say that he was "scared" as he knew it was false. "This man [Gandhi] lies and lies repeatedly," he added. According to NDTV, during the Lok Sabha debate, Gandhi had targeted Sitharaman, accusing her of "hiding" behind the protesting AIADMK members. She is expected to reply to the debate today. The Congress party has accused the Modi government of several irregularities in the Rafale deal, from corruption and compromising national interest to causing a loss to the exchequer while promoting "crony capitalism" and benefiting Anil Ambani's company. The Centre as well as Dassault Aviation, the French company that makes the Rafale jets, have denied all allegations. Also watch: The world according to Congress President Rahul Gandhi Sushmita Choudhury Agarwal with PTI inputs Congress President Rahul Gandhi continued his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, saying instead of answering his questions, the PM had fled to Lovely Professional University (LPU) in Punjab. Rahul was referring to four questions he had posed to the PM on the controversial Rafale deal on Wednesday. "So it seems our Prime Minister has fled Parliament and his own open book Rafale exam and is instead lecturing students at Lovely University in Punjab, today. I request the students there to, respectfully, ask him to please answer the four questions posed to him by me yesterday," Gandhi tweeted. So it seems our PM has fled Parliament & his own open book Rafale exam & is instead lecturing students at Lovely Univ. in Punjab, today. I request the students there to, respectfully, ask him to please answer the 4 questions posed to him by me, yesterday. #RafaleScam - Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 3, 2019 PM Modi is on a day-long visit to Punjab where he will participate in the 106th Indian Science Congress (ISC). He is also expected to address a public rally in Gurdaspur, Punjab, on Thursday. Rahul Gandhi's constant attacks on the BJP government over the Rafale deal seems to have riled the senior BJP leaders, including Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who criticised the Congress President saying "even a fool will not compare prices of a simple flyaway Aircraft with a weaponised Jet". He was referring to the Gandhi speech in Parliament on Wednesday. Sharpening the attack, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday called Gandhi the grandson of the "Emergency dictator" for intimidating an independent editor of a news organisation. "The Grandson of the 'Emergency dictator' displays his real DNA - attacks and intimidates an independent Editor," Jaitley said in a tweet on Thursday. Jaitley was referring to a press conference Rahul Gandhi held on Wednesday, in which he referred to the PM's recent interview with an ANI editor, saying "...matlab (I mean) pliable journalist, woh question bhi de rahi thi, side mei (she was asking questions as well as giving answers)." Jaitley asked why "liberal people" were silent when a national political party chief was attacking a journalist for doing her job. Jaitley also sought a response from the Editors' Guild on the issue. "Why are the pseudo-liberals silent? Waiting for the Editors guild's response," said Jaitley. After a heated debate in Parliament on Wednesday, followed by a press conference questioning the Rafale deal, Rahul had asked four questions to the PM. "Tomorrow, the PM faces an Open Book #RafaleDeal Exam in Parliament. Here are the exam questions in advance: Q1. Why 36 aircraft, instead of the 126 the IAF needed? Q2. Why 1,600 Cr instead of 560 Cr per aircraft. Q4. Why AA instead of HAL? Will he show up? Or send a proxy?," he tweeted. But a close look at the above tweet showed that Gandhi had got his numbering wrong. The sequence was missing the third question and the Twitterati noticed the mistake. Undaunted, the Congress President jumped back in the fray with a subsequent tweet on "The Missing Q3" a few hours later. Gandhi said he had held back the question as the Lok Sabha speaker had said he could not talk about the Goa tape. "...Q3. Modi Ji, please tell us why Parrikar Ji keeps a Rafale file in his bedroom & what's in it?" he asked. Edited by Manoj Sharma Also read: Arun Jaitley calls Rahul Gandhi grandson of 'Emergency dictator' for 'intimidating' journalist Also read: Rahul Gandhi questions govt on Rafale deal, Arun Jaitley responds strongly Also read: Rafale deal row: Rahul Gandhi demands JPC; poses questions to PM Modi Political heat over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's New Year interview is refusing to die down, with both the Congress and the BJP slugging it out in the parliament as well as outside. After Rahul Gandhi's scathing attack on PM Modi on the issue of Rafale deal in Parliament on Wednesday, he held a press conference in which he said the Modi interview with news agency ANI was "staged". He also added the interview was conducted by a "pliable journalist". Sharpening the attack, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday called Rahul Gandhi the grandson of the "Emergency dictator" for intimidating an independent editor of a news organisation. "The Grandson of the 'Emergency dictator' displays his real DNA - attacks and intimidates an independent Editor," Jaitley said in a tweet on Thursday. The Grandson of the 'Emergency dictator' displays his real DNA - attacks and intimidates an independent Editor. - Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) January 3, 2019 He also criticised the "liberal people" for remaining silent when a national political party chief was attacking a journalist for doing her job. Jaitley also sought a response from the Editors' Guild on the issue. "Why are the pseudo liberals silent? Waiting for the Editors guild's response," said Jaitley. During a press conference on Wednesday, Rahul had said: "He (Modi) does not have the guts to come and sit in front of you. And I am coming here... you can ask me any question...I come here once in seven-ten days... and you saw the Prime Minister's interview yesterday...matlab (I mean) pliable journalist, woh question bhi de rahi thi, side mei (she was asking questions as well as giving answers)." He had asked in Parliament that "why the Prime Minister can speak for one-and-a-half hour in a staged interview and not answer the fundamental questions on Rafale." The Congress party chief also spoke about the audio tape, which allegedly has the voice of Goa health minister Vishwajit Rane. The tape recounts an alleged statement by Goa Chief Minister and former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar during a Cabinet meeting. Parrikar allegedly said that he had documents related to the Rafale deal 'in his bedroom'. Also read: Rahul Gandhi questions govt on Rafale deal, Arun Jaitley responds strongly "Goa CM Manohar Parrikar is blackmailing the Prime Minister with the confidential documents he allegedly holds on the Rafale deal," Gandhi said. Meanwhile, Jaitley has also been attacking Rahul for raising the issue to gain political benefit. "How much does he know? When will he know?" Jaitley asked on Wednesday, explaining that "even in the offer made to the UPA government, there were two different prices one of the flyaway aircraft and the offer of the weaponised aircraft." Edited by Manoj Sharma Also read: Modi govt to announce Rs 4,000 per acre direct transfer, crop loan at 0% in two-fold farm relief; to cost Centre Rs 2.3 lakh crore Also read: Rahul Gandhi's open book exam challenge to PM Modi on Rafale controversy Weak global cues, nervousness ahead of the start of third quarter corporate earnings and selling in metals, auto, IT and financial counters triggered another 1 per cent decline in the domestic stocks on Thursday. Equities on Wednesday, too, shed around 1 per cent. The S&P BSE Sensex lost 378 points or 1.05 per cent to settle at 35,514 with HCL Tech (up 0.50 per cent) being the top gainer and ONGC (down 3.59 per cent) the worst laggard. HDFC, Reliance Industries (RIL), Larsen & Toubro and HDFC Bank contributed the most to the index's fall while Bajaj Auto, Asian Paints and Hindustan Unilever advanced the most. Out of 2,726 companies traded on BSE, 957 advanced and 1,619 declined while 150 stocks remained unchanged. On NSE, the broader Nifty50 index slipped below 10,700 level to close at 10,672, down 120 points or 1 per cent. Out of 50 components, 42 ended in the red and just eight in the green. As many as 41 securities hit 52-week lows on NSE. The list included names such as Bharat Forge, Hinduja Ventures, and Lux Industries. On the contrary, four stocks hit their 52-week high. Sectorally, metal stocks cracked the most followed by media, auto and IT stocks. The Nifty Metal index slipped 68 points or 2.25 per cent to settle at 2,960.40, with all the 15 constituents declining. JSPL, Hindalco and Tata Steel fell between 3-7 per cent. In the broader market, The S&P BSE MidCap index lost 156 points or 1 per cent to settle at 15,076 while the S&P BSE SmallCap index closed at 14,573, down 86 points or 0.58 per cent. BUZZING STOCKS Shares of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank tanked up to 20% on the BSE on Thursday following an unfavorable share-swap ratio on their merger with Bank of Baroda. Dena Bank plunged 20% to Rs14.40 on the BSE. The stock was trading close to its 52-week low of Rs 13.75 touched on July 16, 2018, in intra-day trade The rise of automation has so far had a negligible impact on jobs at a global scale, the World Bank chief economist said, despite common gloomy predictions that humans are set to be replaced by machines. While advanced economies have shed industrial jobs over the last two decades, the rise of the same sector in East Asia has more than compensated for the loss, according to an annual report published by the Washington-based international financial institution. This fear that robots have eliminated jobs -- this fear is not supported by the evidence so far, the World ... A parliamentary panel on Thursday asked the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to ease its rules on capital requirements for banks so that they can increase lending. "Such stringent norms stipulated by the RBI for our banks ... is unrealistic and unwarranted," said a report tabled in parliament by the Parliamentary Committee on Finance. The report comes after the government and some of the board members of the RBI have put pressure on the central bank to relax capital requirements for banks as they seek to boost credit and economic growth. Former RBI governor Urjit ... (Reuters) - Shares of state-run Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank plunged on Thursday after the federal cabinet approved their merger with Bank of Baroda late on Wednesday, in an attempt to clean up the country's banking system.Under the merger plan, Bank of Baroda said it would issue 110 shares of 2 rupees each for every 1,000 shares of Dena Bank worth 10 rupees each, while Vijaya Bank's shareholders would get 402 Bank of Baroda shares of 2 rupees each for every 1,000 shares of 10 rupees each.Morgan Stanley said the swap ratio for the merger implies a discount of about 27 percent to Dena Bank's ... BERLIN (Reuters) - Britain's impending departure from the European Union poses a big risk, but domestic demand is still fueling growth in the German economy, Europe's largest, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said in an interview published on Thursday.Altmaier said Brexit, global trade conflicts and changes in automotive industry approvals had slowed economic growth in the second half of 2018, but Germany's gross domestic product still looked set to enter its tenth year of expansion in 2019."The order books of industry and the trades are full," Altmaier told the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper. ... A sharp drop in Chinese economic growth will hit the profits of U.S. firms but sales by Apple Inc and other American companies should recover once Washington strikes a trade deal with Beijing, a senior White House adviser said on Thursday. "If we have a successful negotiation with China, then Apple's sales and everybody else's sales will recover," White House Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Kevin Hassett said in an interview with CNN. Hassett said Asian economies including that of China have been slowing quite a bit since last spring and that ... By Tim HepherPARIS (Reuters) - Airbus narrowed a sales gap against U.S. rival Boeing by finalising orders for 120 of the former Bombardier CSeries jet, but shares in Europe's top planemaker fell as doubts surfaced over a target for overall 2018 deliveries.Airbus, which took over the loss-making CSeries last July and rebranded it the A220, said on Thursday it had finalised deals to sell 60 each of the jets to U.S.-based JetBlue and to Moxy, a U.S. start-up backed by JetBlue founder David Neeleman.But shares in the European company fell as Airbus prepared a keenly awaited delivery tally for ... Former South African president Jacob Zuma's plan to record an album of apartheid-era struggle songs sparked off a political row Thursday as opposition politicians slammed the project as a taxpayer-funded waste of money. Zuma, ousted from power last year amid multiple fraud scandals, is famed for his rich baritone singing voice and regularly bursts into song at ruling ANC party rallies and public events. He plans to record the album in front of a live audience in April and to release it later in the year, with his trademark song "Awuleth' Umshini Wami" ("Bring Me My Machine Gun") set to be on the playlist. The song is one of many tunes that played a central role in the decades-long struggle against white-minority rule and which are still sung at protests in South Africa today. "These songs remind us of where we came from and how our country was forged," said Thembinkosi Ngcobo, head of recreation and culture at the Ethekwini local municipality, which will fund the album. "The worst thing that we could do would be to forgot our past," Ngcobo told AFP. "We chased president Zuma for three months and, when he heard about our plan, he was more excited than us about it." Ngcobo said Zuma would not be paid or receive any profits from the album, and was giving his time for free to "preserve and disseminate of our liberation heritage". Ethekwini municipality, which includes the coastal city of Durban, is in Zuma's home province of KwaZulu Natal -- a hotbed of the corruption scandals that beset his rule as president and finally led to his ousting. "The album itself is not an issue at all -- except that it will be funded by public money and we have no idea how much," local opposition councillor Nicole Graham, from the Democratic Alliance party, told AFP. "This is about factional battles within the ANC party, with his supporters attempting to give him a continued platform after his fall. "The DA will fight this matter tooth and nail in the interests of all who prioritise service delivery over " Zuma, 76, came to power in 2009 and was ousted by ANC lawmakers early last year after a fierce battle for control of the party. The former president, who is thought to have little personal wealth, is battling to quash criminal charges against him over a $2.5-billion corruption case linked to a 1990s arms deal. He also faces allegations of fostering widespread corruption while in power. Ngcobo said Zuma's singing was a key part of his political image. "It was one reason for his popularity. It projects him as an informal, friendly and accessible person," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi unit of Youth Congress Thursday staged a protest near Parliament House, demanding the Modi government's response to a tape allegedly connected to the Rafale deal. Congress president Rahul Gandhi had tried to play the audio tape of purported conversation between a Goa minister and a person in the Lok Sabha but was denied permission by the Speaker on Wednesday. "The government owes a reply to the people on Rafale deal but it is hiding by not allowing contents of the tape from becoming public," said Indian Youth Congress spokesperson Amrish Ranjan Pandey. The protesters led by Delhi Youth Congress president Vikas Chikkara were stopped by police on Raisina Road, while marching towards Parliament House. The Youth Congress activists also demanded a joint parliamentary committee probe into the Rafale fighter aircraft deal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A worker was killed when a factory wall collapsed on him in Palghar district of Maharashtra, a police official said Thursday. The incident took place at a private company's gypsum factory site at Nare village in Wada taluka on Wednesday after a JCB machine deployed there accidentally hit the wall, he said. The debris of the collapsed wall fell on Santosh Patil, 38, who was working in the premises, killing him on the spot, he said. Later, Patil's relatives and other villagers blocked the Bhiwandi-Wada road. They refused to take the body and demanded that the company management be booked for negligence and pay compensation for the worker's death, he said. They also ransacked the company's office and damaged the security guard's cabin, the official said. After the Wada police intervened, the company management agreed to pay the compensation, he said. The police later registered a case of accidental death, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Women abandoned by their Non-Resident Indian husbands Thursday called on the government to immediately table the bill in Parliament for stern action against men deserting their wives. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had on November 28 last year said the government was planning to bring a bill in the winter session of Parliament as part of its efforts to check the menace of NRI husbands abandoning their wives. Addressing a press conference, the women urged the government to take concrete steps to deal with the issue. "I have been suffering for the last 20 years and I want justice. The government needs to pay attention to us. They should table the bill," a woman said. Another said there needs to be a mechanism in place between Indian and other countries so that the accused husband could not escape the clutches of the law. On November 13 last year, the Supreme Court had sought response from the Centre on a plea seeking mandatory arrest of NRIs deserting their wives and harassing them for dowry. A group of women, allegedly deserted by their NRI husbands and subjected to dowry harassment, had moved the apex court seeking relief including mandatory arrest of their estranged spouses and consular help in fighting cases in foreign land. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The World Health Organization (WHO) Director General has praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Health Minister J P Nadda for their visionary leadership which helped around seven lakh people avail benefits of the healthcare scheme in the first 100 days of its launch. "In its first 100 days, #India's ambitious #AyushmanBharat scheme has provided free care for almost 700,000 people. I applaud Prime Minister @narendramodi and Health Minister @JPNadda for their visionary leadership for #HealthForAll (sic), " Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted. ? He had earlier also praised the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, which aims to provide insurance cover of Rs five lakh per annum to 50 crore poor people by calling it a "great commitment". The ambitious healthcare scheme, touted as the world's largest, aims to benefit more than 10 crore poor families in the country. On January 1, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had termed the government's flagship scheme a 'game changer' in healthcare and said on an average 5,000 claims are being settled every day since its rollout on September 23, 2018. The total number of hospitals covered by this scheme is 16,000 and increasing steadily. More than 50 per cent of the implementing hospitals are in the private sector. Jaitley said in the first 100 days, 6.85 lakh patients have been provided hospital treatment and 5.1 lakh claims have availed of the scheme, for which payment has been released. Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September launched the scheme. All states and union territories, barring Delhi, Telangana and Odisha, have signed agreements with the health ministry for implementing the scheme. After watching her enact a scene during the screen test for "1942: A Love Story", director Vidhu Vinod Chopra dismissed Manisha Koirala as a "terrible actress" but in no mood to give up, she requested him for a second chance the next day and the rest is history. A gritty Manisha came the next day and after her performance, Chopra remained silent for long, as if in a daze. And then he said the words that were music to Manisha's ears: "If this is the heart and soul that you promise to put into each scene of my movie, I will sign you up instead of Madhuri Dixit. Manisha, yesterday, you were at zero. You are at a hundred today." Manisha recalls this episode in her memoir "Healed: How Cancer Gave Me a New Life". "I remember my screen test for '1942: A Love Story'. Veteran filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra had called me to do a scene. But to my disappointment, at the end of it he remarked: 'Manisha, you were shit. You're a terrible actress.' "This was not acceptable to me. The warrior woman inside me had been challenged. I requested him to give me twenty-four hours to come back for a second chance. Back home, I practised my lines passionately, over and over again, until my mother became distressed at my state," she writes. "What are you doing to yourself? It's okay if you don't get this movie. Don't kill yourself over it," her mother told her. The next day, Manisha says, she poured her soul into her performance and subsequently got signed for the movie. Manisha, who won a tough battle against ovarian cancer, talks in her book her treatment in the US, the care provided by the oncologists there and how she rebuilt her life once she returned home. Born into the prominent Koirala family in Nepal, Manisha made her Bollywood debut with "Saudagar" in 1991 and went on to act in films like "1942: A Love Story", "Akele Hum Akele Tum", "Bombay", "Khamoshi: The Musical", "Dil Se", "Mann", "Lajja" and "Company". She took a break from acting in 2012 and returned five years later with the coming-of-age drama "Dear Maya", Netflix's "Lust Stories" and biographical drama "Sanju". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) How does one define art? A painting on the wall or a sculpture in the park, often with a rider -- 'Do not touch. Please admire from a distance'. But it's all changing. The distance between a work of art and its admirer is increasingly collapsing as art walks into people's lives discreetly in the guise of objects of daily use, making itself increasingly functional. The trend that picked up pace in 2018 is all set to continue this year as well, say members of the art fraternity. Art is now about not just seeing but also for touching, feeling, sitting on it, wearing it, and even storing in it. According to Sundeep Kumar, CEO of Craft Bton, making art functional helps break the prevalent elitist notions about art, making it more accessible to people. "Bringing art and aesthetics into people's everyday lives is definitely preferable to confining it to just dcor. If you appreciate beautiful things then you would seek beauty in everything," Kumar told PTI. Mexican artist Alan Saga's pair of spice jars made out of cement, as part of Dalmia Bharat Group's Craft Beton collection, is a unique example of functional art. Inspired from the age old tradition of storing spices and condiments, the jars are shaped like sacks familiar from local spice markets across Asia. The collection which attempts to instil beauty and design into an array of utilitarian products, has everything from handbags, clutches, lamps -- floor, table and wall, cushioned stools, book shelves, jewellery, bathroom essentials and more, all made out of cement. Also part of the collection is "Audrey" by Iti Tyagi. The centre table made out of cement shows how the dull, grey raw material often visible in sacks at construction sites, is capable of falling like a drape. With a pair of leather boots visible from just beneath the hemline of the cemented table cover, this work of functional art has a vintage Parisian edge to it. While the trend saw resurgence in 2018, functional art is not new, particularly in India, a country where historically even windows have been embellished with carvings or lattice works. The reason behind this revival, expected to continue in the years to come, Kumar said, can be attributed to the growing income of people who are now wanting to "satisfy their higher order needs". They demand more of an object than just functionality, and more of art than just beauty. "People have always enjoyed beautiful things. With greater prosperity and exposure, more and more Indians are recognising that there is more to products than mere function," he said. Leading auctions in the country last year gave a pointer towards this peaking interest and the desire to spend on art that is functional. The sales, besides fetching impressive numbers for classical, modern and contemporary art, also sold furniture and jewellery for whopping prices. At Sotheby's maiden India auction, 'Boundless: India', two 'Butterfly stools' by Japanese industrial designer Sori Yanagi from Indian architect B V Doshi's collection sold for Rs 2,50,000, exponentially higher than the estimated price of Rs 40,000-60,000. A periodical book case by Swiss architect Pierre Jeanneret from a private collection in India with a lower estimate of Rs 20,00,000, sold for Rs 22,50,000. At Saffronart's Fine Jewels sale in October, a gamut of traditional and contemporary jewellery pieces, including earrings, chokers, rings, bangles, 'baju bandh' (arm ornament) and maang tikka, went under the hammer. An exquisite pair of Gemset 'Chandbali' earrings with a lower estimate of Rs 4,00,000, sold for Rs 4,60,000. A period spinel and diamond necklace fetched Rs 14,03,460, a seven strand pearl necklace sold for Rs 4,02,500, and a period colourless sapphire 'Bajubandh' sold for Rs 5,75,460. Saffronart's annual Design Sale, too, indicated a strong interest in furniture that blends tasteful aesthetics with functionality. A carved cabinet, an art deco display cabinet, and armchair sold for Rs 36,000, Rs 81,600 and Rs 1,44,000 respectively. That the shift is likely to continue in 2019, is evident with Saffronart returning with its biennial jewellery conference in 2019, and likely with another edition of its Design Sale, which was a huge success in 2018, achieving a total sale value of Rs 85 lakh. Mumbai-based auction house Astaguru is also scheduled to host (dates yet to be announced) a 'Watch Auction' and a 'Jewellery and Silver Auction'. Handicrafts curator Jaya Jaitly has been instrumental in bringing art into the day-to-day lives of people through the Dastkari Haat Samiti that celebrates Indian art, crafts and textiles. She has long been bringing Kashmiri papier mache art onto steel tiffin carriers, wooden takhtis, jewellery and more. "Whether it is for celebration, prayer, or for more mundane utilitarian objects for dressing or kitchen, no crafted art in India is purely decorative or meaningless and abstract," she said. Most recently, the Samiti created eight beautifully artistic rickshaws as prototypes in Varanasi, trays and trunks in Madhubani and Gond art, as well as clocks out of Kashmiri wall plates. In the new year, Jaitly will continue making art useful with the 33rd edition of Dastkari Haat Crafts Bazaar that will feature a range of Gujarati Vankar shawls, Banarasi textiles, inlay furniture, papier mache, carpets, durries, home decor accessories and organic products. So, you no longer have to spend a fortune to own a piece of art. Art is all around you. All you have to do is stop, spot and appreciate. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US on Thursday warned Iran against activating Space Launch Vehicles (SLVs) in the coming months, saying that such a move would be against the UN Security Council's resolution. Recently, Iran's Ministry of Defence announced plans to launch three SLVs soon. "Such actions would once again demonstrate Iran's defiance of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2231, which calls upon the Iranian regime not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said. "This action includes launching SLVs, which incorporate technology that is virtually identical to that used in ballistic missiles, including in intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)," he said noting that an ICBM with a range of 10,000 kms could reach the US. The Iranian regime has launched ballistic missiles numerous times since UNSCR 2231 was adopted and continues to do so, Pompeo alleged. On December 1, the Iranian regime test-fired a medium range ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple warheads, and the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force later said Iran tests 40 to 50 ballistic missiles every year, he said. Pompeo said the US has continuously cautioned that ballistic missile and SLV launches by Iran have a destabilising effect on the region and beyond. France, Germany, the UK and many other nations have also expressed deep concern. "The Iranian regime is the world's foremost state sponsor of terror and has proliferated missiles and related technology to its proxies around the Middle East, further flouting UNSCR 2231," he said. "The United States will not stand by and watch the Iranian regime's destructive policies place international stability and security at risk. We advise the regime to reconsider these provocative launches and cease all activities related to ballistic missiles in order to avoid deeper economic and diplomatic isolation," Pompeo said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel on Thursday termed as "completely unacceptable" US President Donald Trump's 'library' jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and asked the government to remind America of India's assistance to Afghanistan. Trump took a jibe at Modi for funding a "library" in Afghanistan, saying it is of no use in the war-torn country. He also criticised India and others for not doing enough for the land-locked nation's security. Reacting to Trump's dig, Patel said: "Tenor and tone of the US president describing the Prime Minister of India is not in good taste and is completely unacceptable." "Hope our government responds firmly and reminds America that since 2004, India has built extensive roads, dams in Afghanistan and pledged over USD 3 billion in assistance," he tweeted. Though the US has been pressing India to send troops to Afghanistan, a demand repeatedly rejected by India, this is the first time the US administration has publicly mocked India's developmental works in the strife-torn country. In his first Cabinet meeting of the year on Wednesday, President Trump asked India, Russia, Pakistan and other neighbouring countries to take responsibility for the security of Afghanistan, where he has ordered a troop reduction on an unspecified timetable. Trump in his comments to his Cabinet colleagues referred to Prime Minister Modi as an example of how world leaders are talking about their contributions that were nowhere near the "billions of dollars" the US was spending. In his remarks, Trump said: "I could give you an example where I get along very well with India and Prime Minister Modi. But he is constantly telling me, he built a library in Afghanistan. Library! That's like five hours of what we spend (in Afghanistan)." "And he (Modi) tells me. He is very smart. We are supposed to say, oh thank you for the library. Don't know who's using it (the library) in Afghanistan. But it's one of those things. I don't like being taken advantage of," he said. "I say this, India. (I have) great relationship with Prime Minister Modi. He is a great gentleman and a great man and he's done a fantastic job. He has brought the country together," Trump said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress on Thursday termed as "completely unacceptable" US President Donald Trump's 'library' jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and asked the government to remind America of India's assistance to Afghanistan. Trump took a jibe at Modi for funding a "library" in Afghanistan, saying it is of no use in the war-torn country. He also criticised India and others for not doing enough for the land-locked nation's security. Reacting to Trump's jibe, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel said: "Tenor and tone of the US president describing the Prime Minister of India is not in good taste and is completely unacceptable." "Hope our government responds firmly and reminds America that since 2004, India has built extensive roads, dams in Afghanistan and pledged over USD 3 billion in assistance," he tweeted. Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said India does not need sermons from the US on Afghanistan. "Dear Mr. Trump, Stop mocking India's PM. India doesn't need sermons from the US on Afghanistan," he tweeted. "Under Dr Manmohan Singh, India helped build Afghan National Assembly. Humanitarian needs to strategic economic partnership, we are one with our Afghani brothers & sisters," he said. Though the US has been pressing India to send troops to Afghanistan, a demand repeatedly rejected by India, this is the first time the US administration has publicly mocked India's developmental works in the strife-torn country. In his first Cabinet meeting of the year on Wednesday, President Trump asked India, Russia, Pakistan and other neighbouring countries to take responsibility for the security of Afghanistan, where he has ordered a troop reduction on an unspecified timetable. Trump in his comments to his Cabinet colleagues referred to Prime Minister Modi as an example of how world leaders are talking about their contributions that were nowhere near the "billions of dollars" the US was spending. In his remarks, Trump said: "I could give you an example where I get along very well with India and Prime Minister Modi. But he is constantly telling me, he built a library in Afghanistan. Library! That's like five hours of what we spend (in Afghanistan)." "And he (Modi) tells me. He is very smart. We are supposed to say, oh thank you for the library. Don't know who's using it (the library) in Afghanistan. But it's one of those things. I don't like being taken advantage of," he said. "I say this, India. (I have) great relationship with Prime Minister Modi. He is a great gentleman and a great man and he's done a fantastic job. He has brought the country together," Trump said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States on Thursday demanded that the Democratic Republic of Congo release "accurate" election results, warning of sanctions on anyone who undermines the fledgling democracy. "On December 30, millions of Congolese went peacefully to the polls. Now is the time for (authorities) to affirm that these votes were not cast in vain by ensuring the accurate reporting of election results," State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said in a statement. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now. Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market. In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender. India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex. Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted. But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted? Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner. If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems. I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now. I want more variation in masturbation I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own. If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end. What is sex toys for Indian? Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation. It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms. They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable. Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner. The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner. It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past. In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping. Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order. In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing. Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome. Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own. But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance. More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around. Sextoy situation in India Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years. In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India. Mumbai Kolkata Bangalore Delhi Chennai Hyderabad These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India. In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well. If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too. If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it. What are Sextoys for beginner? Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms. Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy. I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion. I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy. If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma. Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it. Advantages of using sextoy for Indians There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways. Can have stimulating sex Can develop new sexual zones If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern. However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways. You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation. Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever. There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure. This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it. When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems. It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms). For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles [Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou... Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India. Sextoy for beginner men in India So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners. For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men! The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men Masturbator Cock rings Love Doll Sex Lubricants Toys for the prostate Lets check each one in detail. Masturbator The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products. It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands. Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands. They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.) Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much. Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! ! Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa SEXToys India PR (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018 Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood. If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here Really pleasant male masturbation and how to do it Are you in a rut with your daily masturbation routine? I'm going to show you five ways men masturbate that you might ... [For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien... Cock Ring A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis. It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow. It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber. In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection. Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction. It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it. Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time. Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function. Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy. You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect. [Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat... Love Doll Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex. There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women. Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price. The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true. You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste. There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice. You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls. If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to... Sex lubricants Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules. It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution. Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse. There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent. Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent. If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here. What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many... Toys for the Prostate Another sextoy for men is prostate toys. The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line. Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men. Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men. What is the prostate? The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm. You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus. By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms. Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.) The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation. Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure. sextoy for beinner women in India The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy. The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy. Vibrator. Dildo Electric Masserger Lets check out what each one is in detail. If you want to check out womens toys, click here. [BEST25]Sex Toys for Women in IndiaThat Can Help You Have an Orgasm There are many women who pretend to feel orgasm during sex. But don't worry, you don't have to pretend to feel orgasm... Vibrators A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator. Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy. It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy. Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women. For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators. Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex. Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself. This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual. Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men. When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons. Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most... Dildo A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis. It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass. A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it. They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well. It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device. A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo. Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands. For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis. This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one. To learn more about dildo, please click here. What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th... Electric Masserger A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores. It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low. Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels. Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation. It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure. For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm. It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out. If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager? To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here. What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th... How to choose a sextoy for Indian Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one. Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points: Does the size fit you (the partner)? Does the size fit you (your partner)? Is the environment able to produce sound without problems? Price range First of all, the choice of size is quite important. Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women. For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage. Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems. Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise. If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level. Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it. Finally, there is the price range. The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest. Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy. Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy? I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance. For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics. If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out. How to buy sextoys in India The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping. For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below. Sextoy is one of them. Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping. SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India. They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry. Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card. To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy. ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal. Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on. Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture. Cautions for Indians using sextoy When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind Keep sex toys clean Watch out for electrical leakage Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone. Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there. It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case. In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness. Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful. If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it. You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly. Summary What did you think? In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India. The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future. As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values. However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health. If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try? Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women. I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it. The Delhi Assembly witnessed uproar over a recent controversial resolution on former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, leading to the suspension of three Opposition MLAs for the day and adjournment of proceedings for 15 minutes. BJP MLA Manjinder Singh Sirsa, who was marshalled out of the House when he came into the Well, alleged that he was manhandled and his turban was allegedly forcefully removed during the adjournment in the House. As the House proceedings began, Sirsa moved a notice for the "removal of Speaker Ram Niwas Goel" over alleged "changes in recent resolution" moved by a ruling party MLA demanding stripping former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi of Bharat Ratna. Following the request, Goel said that he cannot accept it as such a notice has to be given 14 days in advance. When the Speaker turned down the Opposition's request, Sirsa came into the Well, prompting Goel to order the BJP legislator to be marshalled out. The Speaker then suspended Opposition Leader Vijender Gupta, Sirsa and BJP MLA Jagdish Pradhan for the day from House proceedings. Thereafter, Goel adjourned the House for 15 minutes. Talking to reporters outside the House, Gupta and Sirsa alleged that the "content of resolution was changed" as the ruling party wants to forge alliance with the Congress in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The BJP MLAs strongly protested against deletion of the demand asking the Centre to take back Bharat Ratna from Rajiv Gandhi from the proposal approved by the House in the last meeting. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Turkey's president has reaffirmed support for Iraq's reconstruction following the end of the fight against the Islamic State group and said the two countries would deepen cooperation against terror groups. Speaking at a joint conference with Iraq's newly elected president Thursday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would help Iraq rebuild areas harmed by the conflict and support the country's infrastructure and development projects. Turkey is uneasy over the outlawed Kurdish rebels' presence in northern Iraq. Baghdad, meanwhile, is concerned by Turkish military offensives against the rebels on its territory. Iraq's President Barham Salih welcomed a Turkish decision to send special envoy to Iraq to discuss water shortages in the country, partly blamed on Turkey which has stopped up the Tigris and Euphrates rivers as it builds dams. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two alleged jihadists blew themselves up Thursday during an early morning raid by Tunisian security forces on a house in the central region of Sidi Bouzid, the interior ministry said. Acting on a tip off, "police units raided a house in the Jelma area... and two terrorists blew themselves up with explosive belts", national security spokesman Walid Hkima told AFP. A police officer was wounded during a heavy exchange of fire between the two sides, he added, without specifying how many people were holed up in the house. The interior ministry said the two suspects were "among the most dangerous terrorists" wanted by police since December 12. They belonged to an offshoot of Jund al-Khilafa -- an affiliate of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group -- it said. The ministry said they planned to commit "spectacular terrorist acts targeting patrols and security posts". Five explosive devices, three hunting rifles, mobile phones and a large sum of money were seized in the raid, it added. The raid was led by Tunisia's National Unit for the Investigation of Terrorist Crimes, said Hkima. Since the 2011 ouster of long-time dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, jihadist attacks have regularly targeted Tunisia's security forces. On October 29, a 30-year-old woman blew herself up on the capital's busy upmarket Avenue Habib Gourguiba, wounding 26 people. Tunisia has been under a state of emergency since a bloody spate of attacks rocked the capital and the coastal resort city of Sousse in 2015. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President Donald Trump took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a "library" in Afghanistan, saying it is of no use in the war-torn country as he criticised India and others for not doing enough for the nation's security. In his first Cabinet meeting of the year on Wednesday, Trump asked India, Russia, Pakistan and other neighbouring countries to take responsibility for Afghanistan's security as he defended his push for the US to invest less overseas. Trump reffered to Prime Minister Modi as an example of how world leaders are talking about their contributions that were nowhere near the "billions of dollars" the US was spending. Trump referred to his friendly terms with Modi, but appeared critical of a "library" funded by India in Afghanistan. It was unclear to which "library" project Trump was referring to. India has been actively involved in reconstruction efforts in war-ravaged Afghanistan. It has committed about USD 3 billion in assistance to Afghanistan since US-led forces toppled the Taliban regime after the September 11, 2001 attacks. "I could give you an example where I get along very well with India and Prime Minister Modi. But he is constantly telling me, he built a library in Afghanistan. Library! That's like five hours of what we spend (in Afghanistan)," Trump told his cabinet colleagues, "And he (Modi) tells me. He is very smart. We are supposed to say, oh thank you for the library. Don't know who's using it (the library) in Afghanistan. But it's one of those things. I don't like being taken advantage of," he said. I say this, India. (I have) great relationship with Prime Minister Modi. He is a great gentleman and a great man and he's done a fantastic job. He has brought the country together, he said. Trump drew a comparison between the expenses being borne by the US and other countries in the Afghan peace efforts. Stating that "massively wealthy countries" were using the US to subsidise their own forces, he said, "A country sends us 200 soldiers to Iraq or sends us 100 soldiers from a big country to Syria or to Afghanistan and then they tell me 100 times, 'Oh, we sent you soldiers, we sent you soldiers'." "Why is not Russia there (in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban)? Why isn't India there? Why isn't Pakistan there? Why are we (US) there? We are 6,000 miles away. But I don't mind. We want to help our people. We want to help other nations," Trump told reporters in response to a question. India has been favouring an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process to bring peace and stability in that country. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had visted India last year and held wide-ranging talks with Modi on ways to further boost bilateral cooperation. Prime Minister Modi reiterated India's support to an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled peace and reconciliation process that would enable Afghanistan to continue as a peaceful, inclusive and democratic nation and emerge as an economically vibrant country. Responding to a question, Trump said he wants India to be involved in Afghanistan. Asked if India's role in Afghanistan was going to be security related, Trump said, I think India should be involved in Afghanistan. I mean I'll give you an example. You can talk about our generals. I gave our generals all of the money they wanted, they didn't do such a great job in Afghanistan. They've been fighting in Afghanistan for 19 years." Trump last month moved to cut by half the 14,000-strong force in Afghanistan, calling for less spending overseas. Alluding in Wednesday's remarks to the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Trump said: "Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan." Without going into details, Trump asserted that he is going to do work out something good in Afghanistan. We are going to do something that's right. We are talking to the Taliban, we are talking to a lot of different people, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan on Thursday said President Donald Trump's remarks that US wants a 'great relationship' with Islamabad signals a departure from his stance taken at the beginning of 2018. Trump, on January 1, 2018, had lashed out Pakistan for not doing enough in the war on terror and also stopped the USD 1.3 billion in military aid to its former ally. "We look forward to positive engagement with the US at the leadership level," Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal told reporters in his weekly media briefing. In his first comments in 2019, Trump said the US wants a "great relationship" with Pakistan but cannot do so as the country "houses enemies". He also said he looks forward to meeting with the new leadership in Pakistan. To a question on the US' decision to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, he said the US troops should be part of a peace process with a view to ensure that there is no power vacuum in Afghanistan. "It is Pakistan's genuine desire that peace returns to Afghanistan as it will allow the return of Afghan refugees from Pakistan and beginning of an era of prosperity and normalcy in the region," he said. The FO said Pakistan always made positive efforts for peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan and recently a trilateral dialogue involving Pakistan, Afghanistan and China was held in Kabul. He said the Afghan Taliban have reportedly refused to enter into direct negotiations with the Afghan government. Pakistan will continue its outreach to regional countries and important international partners for mutually beneficial cooperation and to advance the peace and reconciliation process, he said. "It is important that Afghanistan does not let any country, terrorist group or individual to use its territory against Pakistan," he said. Welcoming the victory of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the general elections, he said Pakistan-Bangladesh relations should move forward in line with the 1974 tripartite agreement. "We welcome the newly elected government in Bangladesh and hope and expect that it would help take the bilateral relationship away from the irritants that it has faced in the recent times," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Friends, relatives and acquaintances of architect and author Archana Gupta recalled her as a warm person with a passion for academic pursuits, whose life and career was cut short as she died Thursday after sustaining a bullet injury at a New Year' Eve party here. Archana, 42, was on life support at the Fortis hospital in Vasant Kunj where she was brought in an extremely critical condition on the intervening night of December 31 and January 1. Friends and others who knew her expressed shock over the "bizarre incident". She was cremated at the Nigambodh Ghat here in the evening. "She was a remarkable person, very professional in all her ventures, from being an architect to a teacher; and from conservation to urban design. She was also a true friend. It feels terrible, as she had late December celebrated her birthday. I am shocked," Ratish Nanda, conservation architect and friend, told PTI. Nanda, CEO, Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), India, said he was looking forward to meet her this weekend, but instead, "I am mourning her loss". "Her beautiful life cut short," he rued. The architect was wounded in celebratory firing during the party at former Bihar MLA Raju Singh's farm house in Vasant Kunj. The Delhi Police arrested former Bihar MLA Raju Singh, his wife and two others Thursday in connection with the incident during the New Year's Eve party at the ex-legislator's farmhouse here. In an act of benevolence in the hour of grief, the family of Archana donated her kidneys, the hospital said. Anshuman Gupta, her classmate from TVB School of Habitat Studies (now University School of Planning & Architecture at the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University), said, "She was a brilliant academician, with a passion for architecture, and loved by her students". Archana and Anshuman had co-authored a book -- 'Celebrating Public Spaces of India' in which she talked about "seeing Indian cities from an Indian perspective". "The common notion, drawn from western perspective is that Indian cities are dirty, crowded and chaotic. But, her view point was that if one sees them with an Indian context, it's actually the vibrancy of our cities. Her loss has cut short her promising career in architecture," he told PTI. Puneet Gupta, a relative of Archana, was in a state of shock after attending her funeral. The grieving family member was inconsolable, saying, "Her memories are weighing on my mind and I feel very tormented". Aishwarya Tipnis, another city-based conservation architect, recalled her as a very warm and congenial person. "I had met her couple of times, on account of work. There was a workshop in which she had invited me as a speaker, and then she and her students had also visited havelis in old Delhi. Though my interaction was purely professional, she came off as a very warm human being," she said. Anshuman said the Council of Architecture, Thursday also issued a condolence message in her memory. "The Council pays its tributes to her and appreciates her immense contribution to the architecture profession," the message read. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Jharkhand Disom Party (JDP), tribal outfit, on Thursday said it would support the BJP in five tribal-dominated Eastern region states if the Narendra Modi government grant recognition to Sarna dharma of the adivasis before the approaching Lok Sabha polls. Sarna Dharma is centred around the worship of nature. The JDP made the decision at a meeting of its central committee leaders, party president Salkhan Murmu, a former MP, said in a statement. "We will urge the Union government to recognise tribals Sarna dharma and provide a separate code and column in the census. In return we would support the BJP in five tribal-dominated states of Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha and Jharkhand in the 2019 parliamentary poll," Murmu said. Murmu on Wednesday had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to announce recognition of Sarna Dharma as a fundamental right during his visit to Jharkhand and Odisha on Saturday. He was a former BJP MP who later formed the JDP. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A group of traders Thursday held a protest at Jantar Mantar seeking halt on the process of sealing of shops in the city. The sealing of shops in Delhi, allegedly violating norms, has been undertaken by civic bodies on the instruction of a Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee. "The traders of Delhi feel disturbed and perturbed as the ongoing sealing in Delhi has affected their businesses," said CAIT's national Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal. The protest was held under the umbrella of Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), during which traders raised slogans and also burnt an effigy of the 'monitoring committee'. The CAIT has demanded the government take firm steps to protect Delhi traders from the sealing drive. It reiterated that a bill should be brought in the current session of Parliament or an ordinance be promulgated soon after the session is over with a cut-off date. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The best bang for your buck! This option enables you to purchase online 24/7 access and receive the Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday print edition at no additional cost * Print edition only available in our carrier delivery area. Allow up to 72 hours for delivery of your print edition to begin. Print edition not available for Day Pass option. The Tamil Nadu Assembly Thursday adopted condolence resolutions for former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee, ex-Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and former DMK chief M Karunanidhi. The ruling AIADMK, especially was generous in its praise of the late Karunanidhi, against whom the party came into existence in 1972. The House also condoled the victims of November 16 Gaja cyclone that devastated, among others, Nagapattinam and Thanjavur districts. Condolence resolutions for Vajpayee, former Tamil Nadu Governor Bhishma Narayan Singh and Chatterjee besides some others were placed before the House by Speaker P Dhanapal. Deputy Chief Minister and Leader of the House, O Panneerselvam, moved condolence resolutions for Karunanidhi and AIADMK MLA AK Bose, who had passed away in August last. Chief Minister K Palaniswami hailed Vajpayee for having served "efficiently" as an MP, before becoming the first Prime Minister from BJP. Moving the resolution for Karunanidhi, Panneerselvam hailed Karunanidhi for his grit and determination, besides pointing to his "multi-faceted personality" by virtue of donning various roles including that of a writer and orator. He had achieved a lot in the Tamil cinema industry by his writings and had impressive oratorical skills, he said. He recalled the friendship between AIADMK founder, the late Chief Minister MG Ramachandran and Karunanidhi, and said this had transcended political differences. Though Ramachandran and Jayalalithaa "had differences of opinion with Kalaignar M Karunanidhi, both leaders had great love for him," he added. His demise is a "great loss for all of us," and an "irreparable one" for the DMK, he said. In the condolence resolution moved by him, the House expressed "shock and grief" over the death of Karunanidhi, a five-time chief minister, and expressed sympathies and condolences with his son and Leader of Opposition, MK Stalin, and DMK workers. Referring to Karunanidhi as 'Kalaignar', as he was addressed fondly by his supporters and respectfully by other political leaders, Palaniswami recalled the DMK veteran's 13-time unbeaten stint as MLA, besides his early entry into as a teen. "He had the distinction of being the chief minister of Tamil Nadu for five times.. he created social awareness through his writings in cinema," he said. The DMK leader had left his mark both in state and national politics, Palaniswami said adding in the past the AIADMK had welcomed schemes launched by Karunanidhi in public interest. Karunanidhi was a simple and affable man and had the distinction of having "seen" all Prime Ministers of independent India, right from the late Jawaharlal Nehru to the incumbent Narendra Modi, he said. Recalling his earlier visit to the hospital where Karunanidhi was admitted to prior to his August 7 demise, Palaniswami said he had hoped that the former would return in good health and resume public service. "His demise came as a shock to us," he added. DMK Deputy Leader Durai Murugan spoke on the resolution on behalf of his party and paid rich tributes to his leader, while recalling Karunanidhi's contributions to the Tamil language, the state and its people. KR Ramasamy (Congress) and the lone IUML member AM Abubacker also spoke on the resolution. The respective resolutions were later adopted after the members observed two minutes' silence. Obituary references were also made for former members who had passed away recently. Meanwhile, Stalin thanked Dhanapal, Palaniswami and Panneerselvam for the resolution soon after the House was adjourned for the day following the obituary references. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Scientists have developed a tiny, implantable device that has potential to help people with bladder problems bypass the need for medication or electronic stimulators. The device, developed by researchers from Washington University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Northwestern University in the US, can detect overactivity in the bladder and then use light from tiny, biointegrated LEDs to tamp down the urge to urinate. The team found that the device works in laboratory rats, and suggests that it may help people who suffer incontinence or frequently feel the need to urinate. Overactive bladder, pain, burning and a frequent need to urinate are common and distressing problems. For about 30 years, many with severe bladder problems have been treated with stimulators that send an electric current to the nerve that controls the bladder. Such implants improve incontinence and overactive bladder, but they also can disrupt normal nerve signalling to other organs. "There definitely is benefit to that sort of nerve stimulation," said Robert W Gereau IV, a professor at Washington University. "But there also are some off-target side effects that result from a lack of specificity with those older devices," said Gereau. During a minor surgical procedure, they implant a soft, stretchy belt-like device around the bladder. As the bladder fills and empties, the belt expands and contracts. The researchers also inject proteins called opsins into the animals' bladders. The opsins are carried by a virus that binds to nerve cells in the bladder, making those cells sensitive to light signals. This allows the researchers to use optogenetics -- the use of light to control cell behaviour in living tissue -- to activate those cells. Using blue-tooth communication to signal an external hand-held device, the scientists can read information in real time and, using a simple algorithm, detect when the bladder is full, when the animal has emptied its bladder, and when bladder emptying is occurring too frequently. "When the bladder is emptying too often, the external device sends a signal that activates micro-LEDs on the bladder band device, and the lights then shine on sensory neurons in the bladder. This reduces the activity of the sensory neurons and restores normal bladder function," Gereau said. The researchers believe a similar strategy could work in people. Devices for people likely would be larger than the ones used in rats, and could be implanted without surgery, using catheters to place them through the urethra into the bladder. "This example brings together the key elements of an autonomous, implantable system that can operate in synchrony with the body to improve health: a precision biophysical sensor of organ activity; a noninvasive means to modulate that activity; a soft, battery-free module for wireless communication and control; and data analytics algorithms for closed-loop operation," said John A Rogers, a professor at Northwestern University. Closed-loop operation essentially means the device delivers the therapy only when it detects a problem. When the behaviour is normalised, the micro-LEDs are turned off, and therapy can be discontinued. Researcher expect to test similar devices in larger animals. The researchers also believe the strategy could be used in other parts of the body -- treating chronic pain, for example, or using light to stimulate cells in the pancreas to secrete insulin. One hurdle, however, involves the viruses used to get light-sensitive proteins to bind to cells in organs. "We don't yet know whether we can achieve stable expression of the opsins using the viral approach and, more importantly, whether this will be safe over the long term," Gereau said. "That issue needs to be tested in preclinical models and early clinical trials to make sure the strategy is completely safe," they said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With the arrest of a dozen persons, the Thane police on Thursday claimed to have solved at least five cases of theft at godowns in Shil-Daighar area. Divisional Police Commissioner D S Swami said the arrested persons belonged to two different gangs. Several cases of break-in at godowns had been reported in Shil-Daighar area over the last two months, he said, adding that the culprits stole goods such as xerox machines, metal sheets and boxes of cereals. A police team led by senior inspector Mangesh Sawant cracked these cases by arresting twelve persons in the last two weeks, he said. The police also seized stolen goods and two tempos worth a total of over Rs 30 lakh and were on the look-out for two more accused, he said. Of the arrested men, Amit Jethalal Darda, Maheshbhai Pragjibai Thakkar, Kush Keshavji Gada, Zulfikar Yusuf Shaikh, and Chandrakant Tokharji Chedda allegedly belonged to one gang. Asif Iqubal Shaikh, Mitesh Anakaprasad Rajbhar, Mohammad Amin Sikandar Shaikh, Prakash Dharmaraj Chowdhary, Vinodkumar Chedilal Jaiswal, Suraj Jabbar Kevat and Shabaan Ali Akhtar Ali Khan were members of another gang, Swami said. Maheshbhai Thakkar and Shabaan Ali Akhtar Ali Khan were "receivers" who allegedly disposed of stolen goods. Both the gangs first did recce of the godowns to be targeted and then went to the spot at night in tempos and broke in. Some of the arrested men were also involved in theft of oil from tankers, Swami said, adding that further probe was on. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US scientists say that they have successfully launched a telescope from Antarctica that analyses X-rays arriving from distant neutron stars, black holes and other exotic celestial bodies. The X-Calibur instrument, launched by Washington University in the US from the McMurdo Station in Antarctica, is carried aloft on a helium balloon intended to reach an altitude of 130,000 feet. At this height, X-Calibur will travel at nearly four times the cruising altitude of commercial airliners, and above 99 per cent of the Earth's atmosphere. "Our prime observation target will be Vela X-1, a neutron star in binary orbit with a supergiant star," said Henric Krawczynski, a professor at Washington University. The team hopes to gain new insights into how neutron stars and black holes in a binary orbit with stars grow by gobbling up stellar matter. Neutron stars are objects of very small radius (typically 30 km) and very high density, composed predominantly of closely packed neutrons. Neutron stars are thought to form by the gravitational collapse of the remnant of a massive star after a supernova explosion, provided that the star is insufficiently massive to produce a black hole. Researchers will combine observations from the balloon-borne X-Calibur with simultaneous measurements from three existing, space-based satellites. "The results from these different observatories will be combined to constrain the physical conditions close to the neutron star, and thus to use Vela X-1 as a laboratory to test the behavior of matter and magnetic fields in truly extreme conditions," Krawczynski said. X-Calibur will need to spend at least eight days aloft to gather enough data for scientists to consider it a success. During this time, the balloon is expected to make a single revolution around the Antarctic continent. If conditions permit, X-Calibur may be flown for additional days. X-Calibur is designed to measure the polarisation -- or, roughly, the orientation of the electric field -- of incoming X-rays from binary systems. Researchers hope to use the Vela X-1 observations to reveal how neutron stars accelerate particles to high energies. The observations furthermore will test two of the most important theories in modern physics under extreme conditions: quantum electrodynamics and general relativity. Quantum electrodynamics predicts that the quantum vacuum close to magnetised neutron stars exhibits birefringent propertiesthat is, it affects X-rays in a similar way as birefringent crystals such as sapphires or quartz affect optical light. The theory of general relativity describes the trajectories of the X-rays close to the neutron stars where the extreme mass of the neutron stars almost curves spacetime into a knot. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 17-year-old girl died after falling from the roof of a three-storey school building in the northern part of the city, police said. The girl, a Class 11 student of Arya Kanya Mahavidyalaya in Bidhan Sarani, suffered serious injuries after she fell from the roof around 3 pm on Wednesday, they said. She later died at the state-run Medical College around 9 pm, an officer of Amherst street police station said. Police have lodged a case of unnatural death, and are talking to the school authorities and the girl's guardians for further investigation, the officer said. Officials of the Hindi-medium higher secondary school for girls refused to comment on the incident, but maintained that it adheres to all safety aspects of students in the institution. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) - US President Donald Trump on Wednesday offered a rather stark take on the situation in war-wracked Syria, summing it up in two words -- "sand and death" -- while remaining vague about the timing of the withdrawal of US troops. "So Syria was lost long ago. It was lost long ago. And besides that, I don't want -- we're talking about sand and death. That's what we're talking about," Trump said during a cabinet meeting. "We're not talking about vast wealth. We're talking about sand and death." On when US forces would leave Syria, Trump said: "I don't want to be in Syria forever." But after saying troops would come home right away, and that the Islamic State group was defeated, he didn't give any specific timetable. "I never said we are getting out overnight," Trump said. "Oh, we're withdrawing," he added, saying only that it would happen "over a period of time." On Monday, the Republican president said the United States was "slowly sending" troops home -- a markedly different tone than he used in his initial announcement of a withdrawal on December 19. "Our boys, our young women, our men -- they're all coming back and they're coming back now," he said in a video message that day. The United States has about 2,000 troops -- most of them special forces -- deployed in northern Syria to fight IS and reinforce anti-jihadist forces. Top-ranking US military officials had repeatedly warned against a hasty retreat from Syria, which they say could leave the door open in Syria to allies of President Bashar al-Assad -- notably Russia and Iran. Trump's defense secretary Jim Mattis resigned over the decision to leave Syria, as did the administration's special envoy to the anti-IS coalition, Brett McGurk. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a bid to augment regional connectivity across the country, S?piceJet Thursday announced the launch of 12 non-stop flights and frequencies from January 20. "With the new flights, passengers from Dehradun, Jammu, Jaipur, Amritsar, Varanasi, Madurai and Vijayawada can now easily travel to a host of other cities," the no-frills airline said in a statement. "SpiceJet will be the first Indian carrier to introduce daily direct flights on the Dehradun-Jammu, Dehradun-Jaipur and Dehradun-Amritsar routes," it said. The airline has also enhanced frequencies on the Jaipur-Varanasi (2nd frequency), Chennai-Madurai (4th frequency) and Hyderabad-Vijayawada (3rd frequency) sectors. The flights on all the routes are daily, except on the Chennai-Madurai route, where the flights will not operate on Tuesdays. SpiceJet will deploy its fleet of Bombardier Q400 aircraft on all these routes, the statement added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Aviation regulator DGCA has sought explanation from SpiceJet after a purported video showed passengers indulging in New Year revelry onboard a flight to Amristar from Goa, a source said. The incident happened on December 31 when the flight SG 282 was "cruising" at 35,000 feet. The source said such activities while flying could be a violation of flight safety norms. To check whether there has been any violations, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has sought explanation from the crew of that flight, the source added. A SpiceJet spokesperson said at no point in time was any safety aspect compromised, and all necessary Standard Operating Procedures (SoPs) were followed. "Two enthusiastic passengers onboard the SpiceJet Goa-Amritsar flight on the night of December 31-January 1 shot a video of other passengers shaking hands and giving each other hi-five as part of New Year revelry. There was also music playing in the background," said the source. When the video came to the notice of the DGCA, it called the operating crew for an explanation. A senior DGCA official said it has received the airline's response also and is "looking into it". In a detailed statement, the SpiceJet spokesperson said the video circulating on social media has not been shot by the airline crew. "Also the video footage has been edited and music added in the background at a later stage," he added. According to the statement, to celebrate New Year festivities, SpiceJet had offered a complimentary brownie to all passengers on all flights that were to arrive just around midnight of December 31. "We had also announced a New Year greeting on all flights wishing our passengers a Happy New Year. "On one specific flight, in addition to the above, during cruise, after completion of service, and prior to seat belt sign coming on, we got some of our cabin crew to wear light props like colourful wigs, pompoms, etc for a few minutes and wished all passengers greetings, while walking through the aisle," it said. The airline also said its crew immediately requested passengers to be seated and also ensured the same. "Soon after, the captain put on the seat belt sign, and appropriate announcements were immediately made by the crew and all passengers took their seats," it added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US would pull out its troops from slowly over a period of time and will protect its Kurdish allies, President has said, summing up the situation in the war-torn country as "sand and death". President Trump did not give a timetable for the planned military exit from Last month, he surprised the world by announcing that he was pulling back American troops from Syria, resulting in the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis in protest. Trump argues that there is no need for the US troops in as they have accomplished their primary job of defeating the ISIS. "I never said I'm getting out tomorrow. I said we are pulling our soldiers out and they will be pulled back and Syria and we are getting out of Syria. Yes, absolutely. But we are getting out very powerfully," Trump told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday. "I don't know somebody said four months but I didn't say that either. I'm getting out, we are getting out of Syria," he said when asked about the timetable for the exit. "Syria was lost long ago, it was lost long ago. And besides that we're talking about sand and death, that's what we're talking about. We are not talking about vast wealth. We are talking about sand and death," he said. The US has some 2,000 troops in Syria, which will gradually return from this war-ravaged country. Earlier, on his first visit to US troops stationed in Iraq, Trump defended his decision to pull American troops out of war-torn Syria, saying the US cannot be the "world's policeman". "We don't want Syria, Obama gave up Syria years ago when he didn't violate the red line. I did when I shot 59 missiles in but that was a long time later and when President Obama decided not to violate his statement that never crossed the red line and then they did and he didn't do anything about it," he said. Trump said he will protect the US-backed Kurdish fighters. "Now the Kurds it's very interesting Turkey doesn't like them, other people do. I didn't like the fact that they are selling the small oil that they do have to Iran and we asked them not to sell it to Iran but the Kurds, our partners, are selling oil to Iran. We are not thrilled about that, I'm not happy about it at all," he said. "At the same time, they fight better when we fight with them. You know when we send 30 F-18's in front of them they fight much better than they do when we don't and you've seen what's happened. But we want to protect the Kurds nevertheless we want to protect the Kurds but I don't want to be in Syria forever. It's sand and it's death," the US president said. Trump has criticised previous administrations for sending and keeping US troops abroad, and has made bringing troops home part of his signature "America First" policy as he eyes a re-election bid in 2020. "When we kill ISIS - if we don't, know everyone says then they'll come to our country. Well, that's possibly true a very small percentage but you know where else they are going? To Iran who hates ISIS more than we do. They are going to Russia who hates ISIS more than we do," he noted. "We are killing and then I read when we pull out Russia's thrilled. Russia is not happy. You know why they're not happy? Because they like it when we're killing ISIS because we are killing them for them and we are killing them for Assad and we are killing ISIS also for Iran," he said. Trump told his Cabinet colleagues that Syria was in a mess when he took over. "When I took over Syria, Syria was a mess. It was riddled riddled with ISIS. And now everybody says it's down to 1 per cent of the land and sometimes you could even see a less 1 per cent," he said. "That place was a mess, it was terrible. But we also have to have other countries fighting ISIS. You know, we're helping by doing this. People say Russia and Iran, we are helping them. Everything we do over there helps them. They don't see us leave because we are knocking out ISIS. Let them fight ISIS too. We're spending all of this money. I want to spend money in our country but we've had a tremendous success in Syria," Trump said. Last year's finalists Gilles Simon and Kevin Anderson set up a semifinal clash against each other after recording contrasting victories in the quarterfinals of the Tata Open Maharashtra, here Thursday. Defending champion Simon had to work hard to tame Benoit Paire as he came from behind to beat fifth seed 3-6 7-6(2) 64 in an all-French clash. Paire at one stage was serving for the match but got broken, allowing the fellow Frenchman to stretch the match to the decisive third set. An early break handed Simon advantage even as Paire had four opportunities to break back in the sixth game but fluffed all chances. Simon's effortless hitting, deft touch and variation in pace has stood out in his run this far. The break remained with Simon and he served out the match at love in the 10th game with a forehand winner after two hours and 19 minutes. Top-seed and world number six Anderson did not struggle much in taking out seventh-seed Jaume Munar from Spain 6-3 6-3 as he fired 14 aces to stroll past his rival. Belgium's Steve Darcis sprung a surprise with a 7-5 6-2 victory over fourth-seed Malek Jaziri while 39-year-old Ivo Karlovic advanced after beating World No. 95 Ernests Gulbis 7-6(5), 7-6(5). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Texas Legislature wrapped up this years lawmaking session on Sunday. Although members of the House and Senate touted wins for both Republicans and Democrats, tensions are rising between the legislative bodies amid criticism from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. What would you grade this years legislative session? You voted: Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader HS Phoolka, who has fought the legal battle for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots victims, resigned from the party Thursday. The move comes amid speculation over possibility of an alliance between the Congress and the AAP for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. In a tweet, Phoolka said he will explain reason behind the move in a press briefing in Delhi Friday. "I have resigned from AAP & handed over resignation to Kejriwal ji today. Though he asked me not to resign but I insisted. Will be briefing media tomorrow at 4pm at Press Club, Raisina Rd, New Delhi to explain the Reason of leaving AAP & my further plans," he wrote on Twitter. The AAP has not denied alliance prospects with the Congress, saying its political affairs committee will take a call after considering opinion of its leaders and workers from Delhi, Punjab and Haryana. Former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar was recently convicted in an anti-Sikh riot case by the Delhi High Court, where Phoolka represented the victims. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The is scheduled to take up on Friday a batch of petitions for hearing in the Ram Janmabhoomi- title dispute case. The matter is listed before a bench comprising and Justice S K Kaul. It is likely to constitute a three-judge bench for hearing as many as 14 appeals filed against the 2010 judgement, delivered in four civil suits, that the 2.77-acre land be partitioned equally among the three parties -- the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla. The apex court on October 29 had fixed the matter in the first week of January before an "appropriate bench", which will decide the schedule of hearing. Later, an application was moved for according an urgent hearing by advancing the date, but the top court had refused the plea, saying it had already passed an order on October 29 relating to the hearing on the matter. The plea for early hearing was moved by the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha (ABHM) which is one of the respondents in the appeal filed by legal heirs of M Siddiq, one of the original litigants in the case. A three-judge bench of the top court had on September 27, by 2:1 majority, refused to refer to a five-judge constitution bench the issue of reconsideration of the observations in its 1994 judgement that a mosque was not integral to Islam. The matter had arisen during the hearing of the land dispute. Various Hindutava organisations have been demanding an ordinance on early construction of at the disputed site. The hearing on Friday assumes importance as Prime Minister on Tuesday suggested any decision on an ordinance on in can happen only after the completion of the judicial process. Modi's comments came amidst heightened demands by Hindutava organisations, including the RSS, for an ordinance for an early construction of the temple. "Let the judicial process take its own course. Don't weigh it in political terms. Let the judicial process be over. After the judicial process is over, whatever be our responsibility as government, we are ready to make all efforts," the Prime Minister said during an interview, broadcast by several TV channels. The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear on January 8 Tamil Nadu's appeal against the NGT order to reopen Vedanta Ltd's Sterlite copper plant at Tuticorin. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul said the case will be heard next week. Senior advocate C A Sundaram, appearing for Vedanta, said Tamil Nadu has filed an appeal against the NGT order so the case be heard urgently as they are facing problems with storage of sulphuric acid in the plant. Tamil Nadu had moved the apex court on Wednesday against the NGT verdict that set aside the state government order to close the plant at Tuticorin. At least 13 people were killed and several injured on May 22 last year when police opened fire on a large crowd of people protesting against environment pollution being allegedly caused by the plant. The plea, filed through advocate M Yogesh Kanna, had said that the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has "erroneously" set aside various orders passed by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) last year with regard to the Sterlite plant. It had said that the tribunal had consequentially directed the TNPCB to pass fresh orders of renewal of consent and issue authorisation to handle hazardous substances to the Vedanta Limited. "The final impugned judgment and order dated December 15, 2018 is liable to be set aside by this Court as the Tribunal failed to consider the data, document and evidence furnished by TNPCB to prove that the respondent no.1 (Vedanta) herein had irreversibly polluted the ground water in and around Thoothukudi District," the petition had said while seeking a stay on the NGT verdict. It had held that non furnishing of ground water analysis report is a "technical breach and is trivial in nature", the plea said. "The said finding of the Tribunal shows non-application of mind as the appellants (TN and others) herein have furnished sufficient evidence to show that the respondent no.1 had polluted the ground water and therefore the respondent herein had not furnished the ground water analysis report," it had added. The state government further said that it had raised various contentions before the committee appointed by the NGT but the committee failed to consider those contentions as well as documents while preparing its report. On December 15, the NGT had set aside the Tamil Nadu government order for closure of the Sterlite copper plant, saying it was "non sustainable" and "unjustified". It had asked the TNPCB to pass a fresh order of renewal of consent and authorisation to handle hazardous substances, subject to appropriate conditions for protection of environment in accordance with law within three weeks. The NGT had allowed the appeal of the company challenging the plant's closure. The green panel said the company should spend within three years Rs 100 crore on welfare of inhabitants of the area as it had offered to do. It also suggested that the company take steps for safeguarding the environment, like creating a dedicated website where the stakeholders can lodge their environment-related grievances. The Tamil Nadu government had, on May 28, ordered the state pollution control board to seal and "permanently" close the mining group's copper plant following violent protests over pollution concerns. In April, the TNPCB had rejected Sterlite's plea to renew the 'Consent To Operate' certification, saying the company had not complied with the stipulated conditions. The tribunal had earlier set up an independent committee to look into the allegations of environmental pollution by Vedanta-owned Sterlite copper factory. The committee, headed by former Meghalaya High Court Chief Justice Tarun Agrawal, had said that no notice or opportunity of hearing was given to Vedanta before the closure of the plant. On August 9, the tribunal had allowed Vedanta to enter the administrative unit inside its Sterlite copper plant at Tuticorin. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court said Thursday it will hear "as and when required" a PIL challenging the government's notification authorising 10 central agencies to intercept, monitor and decrypt any computer system. The matter was mentioned for urgent listing before a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul. The petitioner, advocate Manohar Lal Sharma, said his PIL should be heard urgently. However, the bench told Sharma, "We will see. As and when required we will list the matter." According to the government's December 20 notification, 10 central probe and snoop agencies are now empowered under the Information Technology (IT) Act for computer interception and analysis, Ministry of Home Affairs officials had said. The 10 agencies notified under the new order are the Intelligence Bureau, Narcotics Control Bureau, Enforcement Directorate, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (for Income Tax Department), Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Central Bureau of Investigation, National Investigation Agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, Directorate of Signal Intelligence (in service areas of J-K, North East and Assam) and Delhi Police commissioner. In his petition, Sharma had termed the notification as "illegal, unconstitutional and ultra vires to the law". He had also sought to prohibit the agencies from initiating any criminal proceedings, enquiry or investigation against anybody under the provisions of the IT Act based on the notification. The plea had claimed that the notification was issued "to find political opponent, thinker and speaker to control entire country under dictatorship to win coming general election under an undisclosed emergency as well as slavery which cannot be permitted within the Constitution of India". It had alleged that the Ministry of Home Affairs' "blanket surveillance order must be tested against fundamental right to privacy". As per the notification, the state has the right to access every communication, computer and mobile and "to use it to protect political interest and object of the present executive political party", the petition had alleged. The government's move authorising the 10 central agencies to intercept information from any computer had set off a political storm with the opposition accusing the Centre of trying to create a "surveillance state". However, the central government had said the rules for intercepting and monitoring computer data were framed in 2009 when the Congress-led UPA was in power and its new order only notified the designated authority which can carry out such action. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Thursday revived the government's case in National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) against India seeking damages of Rs 640 crore on charges of unfair trade practices, false labelling and misleading advertisements. A bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud said the report from CFTRI (Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysuru), where the testing of the noodle samples was conducted, will form the basis for the proceedings. The top court had earlier stayed the proceedings before the after had challenged it. The Consumer Affairs Ministry had in 2015 filed a complaint against India before the using a provision for the first time in the nearly three-decade-old Consumer Protection Act. It had filed a complaint against Nestle for causing harm to Indian consumers by allegedly indulging in unfair trade practices and false labelling related to the noodles product. It was for the first time that the government had taken action under Section 12-1-D of the Consumer Protection Act, under which both the Centre and states have powers to file complaints. In the petition filed before the NCDRC, the ministry had charged that has mislead consumers claiming that its noodle was healthy -- "Taste bhi healthy bhi". Nestle had to withdraw its instant noodles brand Maggi from the market over allegations of high lead content and presence of MSG (monosodium glutamate). The food safety regulator FSSAI had banned Maggi noodles after it found excess level of lead in samples, terming it as "unsafe and hazardous" for human consumption. FSSAI had also said Nestle violated labelling regulations on taste enhancer 'MSG' and ordered the company to submit a compliance report on its orders. The Supreme Court Thursday suggested that the Centre re-look a provision of the Income Tax Act which says that a disabled dependant would get annuity or lumpsum payment only upon the death of the insurance policy holder. A bench headed by Justice A K Sikri asked the Centre to take into consideration all the aspects, including those where a disabled dependent might need payment on annuity or lumpsum basis even during the lifetime of the parents or guardians, and "explore the possibility of making suitable amendments" to section 80 DD of the I-Tax Act. "The Legislature has provided the condition that amount/ annuity under the policy is to be released only after the death of the person assured. This is the legislative mandate. There is no challenge to this provision. The prayer is that section 80DD of the Act be suitably amended," the bench noted in its verdict. "This Court cannot give a direction to the Parliament to amend or make a statutory provision in a specified manner," said the bench, also comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan and S A Nazeer. The court delivered the judgement on a plea by Ravi Agrawal, who is a differently-abled person and had said that he filed the petition in the interest of handicapped children whose parents have taken 'Jeevan Aadhar Policy' from the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) for livelihood of their kids. Agrawal said he was aggrieved by an I-T Department circular of January 24, 2008 which stated that no benefit could be paid to the disabled dependant till the life assured survives. In its verdict, the bench observed that petitioner may be justified in pointing out that there could be harsh cases where handicapped dependents may need payment on annuity or lumpsum basis even during lifetime of their parents/guardians. "Even when he/she has paid full premium, the handicapped person is not able to receive any annuity only because the parent/guardian of such handicapped person is still alive. There may be many other such situations," the bench noted. It also observed that there could be situations when it would be difficult for a parent or guardian to take care of the medical needs of their disabled child. "For example, where guardian has become very old but is still alive, though he is not able to earn any longer or he may be a person who was in service and has retired from the said service and is not having any source of income. In such cases, it may be difficult for such a parent/guardian to take care of the medical needs of his/her disabled child," the bench observed. "In the aforesaid circumstances, we dispose of this writ petition by urging upon respondent No.1 (Centre) to have a relook into this provision by taking into consideration all the aspects....and explore the possibility of making suitable amendments," the bench said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The famous Saibaba temple at Shirdi in Maharashtra received donations worth Rs 14.54 crore over the 11-day period starting before Christmas and ending on the New Year day, an official said. The devotees, from the country as well as abroad, donated Rs 8.05 crore in donation boxes kept in the temple premises between December 22, 2018 and January 1, 2019, Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust's vice chairman Chandrashekhar Kadam told reporters here Wednesday. The temple trust also received Rs 6 crore through online donations, debit/credit cards, cheques, demand drafts and at its donation counters, he said. Gold and silver items worth Rs 19 lakh were also donated, he said. In addition to this, devotees from 19 countries, including USA, the UK, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and China, donated foreign currencies worth Rs 30.63 lakh. Apart from these donations, the temple trust earned Rs 3.62 crore through paid passes issued to visitors and the online darshan facility provided by the temple management, Kadam said. Nearly 9.5 devotees from different parts of the country and abroad visited the Saibaba temple, located at Shirdi town in Ahmednagar district, during the 11-day period, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A three-member panel appointed by the Kerala High Court to oversee the ongoing Sabarimala pilgrimage season has said granting special police protection to women in menstrual age to enter the Lord Ayyappa temple would adversely affect the rights and safety of other devotees. In a report submitted in the high court Thursday, the committee referred to the incidents when police escorted 11 women activists of Manithi, a Chennai-based outfit, to Sabarimala on December 23 and two women on the next day and said this contributed to the long queue of pilgrims from the base camp at Pampa up to the place of hold up. The December 25 report also said because of the incidents, devotees, including women and children, had to wait for hours together for getting darshan. "The stand off/impasse with the attempted entry of these women in the age group of 10 to 50 years continued for more than three hours and during that period there was restriction of inflow and outflow of devotees. "We are of the opinion that granting of special protection to individuals would adversely affect the rights of other pilgrims, who are also entitled to have darshan at the Sannidhanam (main temple) without any hardship that may occur because of the commotion that may arise in the course of escorting such women pilgrims," the report said. The panel said the possible disturbances en route to Sannidhanam would seriously affect the safety of other pilgrims besides increasing their anxiety. "In this connection it must be noted that the route from Pambato Sannidhanam is through dense forests on both sides of which are deep ravines where there is risk of innocent pilgrims falling down and suffering injury or even death," it said. This risk was likely to increase further especially during the Makaravilakku season (which commenced on December 30) when the inflow of pilgrims may reach beyond 1.5 lakhs per day, the panel said in its report. The three-member panel, comprising retired judges P R Raman and S Sirijagan and senior IPS officer A Hemachandran, was appointed by the high court in November last year to oversee the pilgrimage to the Sabarimala temple in the backdrop of violent protests against entry of women in 10-50 age group. Incidentally, after several failed attempts since October after the Supreme Court lifted the ban on entry of women in menstrual age, two young women escorted by police offered prayers in the early hours of Wednesday, triggering statewide protests. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) Thursday said farm Loan waiver alone will not be enough to mitigate farmers woes and steps should be taken to ensure that they get remunerative prices for their produce. "Neither the Naredra Modi government at the Centre nor the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government is addressing the issue of farmers indebtedness and non-remunerative prices that they have been facing," AIKS president Ashok Dhawale said while addressing a seminar here. AIKS is the farmers' wing of the CPI(M). Farmers have two fundamental demands -- complete loan waiver and remunerative prices -- so that they do not fall into debt again, he said. Loan waiver must be the first step but it cannot be the final step. The implementation of Swaminathan Commission must be done so that they do not get into debt once again. Both these things should be done together, he said. The West Bengal government, with an eye on Lok Sabha elections, have announced few schemes for the farmers, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal Thursday demanded that former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's name should be included in cases related to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The former Punjab deputy chief minister alleged that accounts of witnesses had made it clear that Rajiv Gandhi was "behind" the riots. "Rajiv Gandhi's name should be included in the cases registered in connection with the 1984 riots. Rajiv's name should also be removed from all awards and institutions," he said addressing a gathering in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi here. "Recent developments as well as accounts of witnesses has made it clear that Rajiv Gandhi was behind the 1984 riots," Badal claimed. The Congress has consistently denied its leadership's role in the riots. The NDA government established a Special Investigation Team to probe the 1984 riot cases. There have been convictions in the matter, he said. The BJP-led NDA government at the Centre has resolved several pending issues of the Sikh community, Badal added. Targeting Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, the SAD leader alleged that he has gone back on his promise of complete farm loan waiver and betrayed the farmers of Punjab. Like the loan waiver in Punjab, those promised by Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh is also a "hoax", Badal alleged. Prime Minister Modi has not only fast-tracked development and infrastructure projects in Punjab, but also resolved long pending issues of the Sikh community, he said. Badal said be it investments on creating a world-class road network or building new airports, sanctioning an IIM at Amritsar and AIIMS at Bathinda or releasing funds for the Shahpur Kandi dam, the NDA government has always kept Punjab first. This is unlike of previous Congress governments which have always discriminated against Punjab and its people, he alleged. If Punjab has got something it is only at the hands of non-Congress governments at the Centre," Badal said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Union Minister Smriti Irani are all set to take the political hotbed of Amethi by storm with both the leaders descending here on Friday. The duo had contested the last Lok Sabha elections from here, a contest won by the Congress chief, and are likely to lock horns once again in the upcoming general election. While Rahul will be in Amethi on January 4 and 5, Irani, a vocal critic of the Gandhi scion, will begin her daylong visit to the Gandhi bastion on Friday. The Congress chief will meet the people of his constituency, attend public and party reception, hold 'corner meetings' in Salon and visit Pareshdepur, Naseerabad, Paraiya Namaksar and Gauriganj areas on Friday. He will also take part in the oath-taking ceremony of the Gauriganj Zila Adhivakta Sangh and inaugurate the Adhivakta Bhawan, built from the MPLAD funds. On Saturday, he will travel to Musafirkhana tehsil, Jagdishpur and Tiloyi, where he will meet the family members of late Shiv Pratap Singh, veteran Congress leader who died last week after a prolonged illness, before reaching Lucknow for his onward journey to Delhi. Irani, on the other hand, will attend a programme organised by Raghav Sewa Sansthan during which blankets and financial assistance will be extended to needy people and a foundation stone for a school will also be laid. Though the Union textiles minister was trounced by the Gandhi scion in 2014 election, she maintained her contact with the constituency, nurturing it and visiting it frequently. Irani continued to cultivate Amethi during these years, dropping enough hints that she will once again contest against Rahul Gandhi in the polls. Interestingly, this will be the first visit by the Congress president to his constituency after his party tasted victory in the recent Assembly elections which, many believe, has rejuvenated the party cadre as well as its leaders. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Majority of the deaths during the single largest murder campaign of the 1940s Holocaust, called Operation Reinhard, occurred during a single three-month period, a new study has found. The study, published in the journal Science Advances, indicate that the murder rate during Operation Reinhard has previously been greatly underestimated. It also provides new insights into the profound efficiency of Nazi death camps and the systematic manner in which Jewish communities were murdered. During the Nazi-German campaign to eradicate Jews during the second World War, a great portion of the Holocaust killings occurred during Operation Reinhard, which lasted from 1942 to 1943. However, detailed records of the killings were largely destroyed by the Nazis, making it difficult to investigate how quickly the genocide was carried out. Deutsche Reichsbahn, the German National Railway, played a critical role in transporting millions of Jewish victims to the death camps, and the "special trains" that transported the victims were kept on strict time schedules. Yitzhak Arad, an Israeli historian specialising in the Holocaust, compiled Reichsban data on 480 train deportations from 393 Polish towns and ghettos to three key death camps -- Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka -- during Operation Reinhard and estimated the number of victims on each transport. Here, using Arad's data, Lewi Stone estimated the rate at which the Nazis killed Jews during Operation Reinhard, showing that most of the murders occurred in only three months - August, September and October 1942. Of the 1.7 million victims of Operation Reinhard, 1.32 million (78 per cent) were murdered during these three months, or about 15,000 murders per day, every day. The finding implies that roughly 25 per cent of all Holocaust victims were murdered during these three months of Operation Reinhard in 1942. Compared to the 1994 Rwanda genocide, which has been suggested as the most intense genocide of the 20th century, the murder rate during Operation Reinhard was 83 per cent higher, according to Stone. Stone estimated that the Nazi's murder campaign could have continued at this pace had there had been more victims living in Germain-occupied Poland, and instead the murder rate tapered off in November 1942 as a result of there being essentially no one left to kill, Stone said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Government's plan to change IT rules for and other platforms is a "blunt and disproportionate" fix to the problem of harmful online content and would lead to over-censorship, technology firm Mozilla has warned. Mozilla, the not-for-profit entity behind web browser Firefox, which has been advocating data protection and privacy rights, has also argued that automated and machine-learning solutions should not be encouraged as a silver bullet to fight against harmful content on the internet. It has also asserted that any regulatory intervention to this "complex issue" must be preceded by a wide-ranging and participatory discussion process. "MeitY's (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) proposals turn online companies into censors and undermine encryption," Mozilla said in a statement on Thursday. The comments come after the government last month disclosed plans to amend the IT rules wherein platforms and messaging apps will be required to deploy tools to "identify" and curb unlawful content as well as follow stricter due diligence practices. Some experts have cautioned that the planned amendments, that also mandate traceability of "unlawful content", could invade personal privacy and free speech. "The new rules proposed by MeitY are blunt and disproportionate solutions to the problem of harmful content online," Mozilla said. It added: "They also propose a sharp blow to end-to-end encryption technologies, used to secure most popular messaging, banking, and e-commerce apps today, by requiring services to make available information about the creators or senders of content to government agencies for surveillance purposes". Mozilla said it recognises that harmful content online from hate speech and misinformation to terrorist content undermined the overall health of the internet and stifles its empowering potential. "However, regulation of speech online necessarily calls into play numerous fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Indian constitution," the statement added. This is a delicate and critical balance and not the one that should be approached with hurried policy proposals, it said. Any proactive obligation on platforms to remove "unlawful" content will inevitably lead to over-censorship and chill free expression, it said and added that mandating services to decrypt encrypted data, weakens overall security and contradicts the principles of data minimisation. The proposed changes, it alleged, are arbitrary and disproportionately harm smaller players. "Disproportionate operational obligations, like mandatorily incorporating in India, are likely to spur market exit and deter market entry for small and medium enterprises," it added. Commenting on the issue, Amba Kak, Mozilla's public policy advisor noted that "whittling down intermediary liability protection and undermining end-to-end encryption are blunt and disproportionate tools that fail to strike the right balance". Underlining the need to find ways for holding platforms to higher standards of responsibility, Kak said any regulatory intervention should be preceded by a wide-ranging and participatory consultation process. BJP president Amit Shah has reportedly asked the party's Maharashtra MPs to be prepared to contest the ensuing elections alone in the state. Shah gave this message at a meeting with Maharashtra BJP MPs in Delhi Wednesday, said an MP who was present. "Shah asked us to prepare for the possibility of contesting elections alone in the state if needed," the MP said. "The BJP president told us that efforts are on to have an alliance with the Sena but if that did not materialise, we should be prepared to fight the polls alone," he said. BJP is in alliance with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and at the Centre. The Sena has been critical of BJP and its leaders have spoken of contesting the Lok Sabha elections alone. Targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Shiv Sena on Thursday wondered when would the Ram temple be constructed in Ayodhya if not during the tenure of the BJP-led government. Shiv Sena has also backed the opposition's demand for a JPC probe in the Rafale fighter aircraft purchase deal. "Shah said that if need be, we should be prepared to contest all 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra," the MP said. A senior Maharashtra BJP leader told PTI that Shah was "very clear" in telling the party MPs from the state to "be prepared for going it alone" in case no tie-up happens with the Shiv Sena. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Six officials were injured when a group of locals attacked a police team which went to a village in Uttar Pradesh's Ballia district to recover illegal arms, police said Thursday. The incident happened Wednesday when a Special Operations Group of the UP Police went to Dadar village to find illegal arms. The frenzied locals threw stones at the officials, indulged in arson and attacked them, leaving six injured. Team leader Vineet Rai was also injured in the violence, police said. A case has been registered against six persons and seven unnamed ones in Sikanderpur police station. Police said they have arrested three of the accused. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi is slated to launch on Saturday a basket of central government projects in Odisha worth more than Rs 4500. The projects will be inaugurated during Modi's visit to Baripada in Mayurbhanj district, officials said Thursday. This is his second visit to the eastern state in less than a fortnight. He had unveiled a slew of projects here and addressed a BJP rally near Khurda on December 24. The projects to be dedicated to the nation in Baripada include four laning of the Rs 828.36 crore 43.2 km Rimuli-Koida section of NH 215, four laning of 104.2 km of Singara-Binjabahal section of NH-6 at a project cost of Rs 1,313 crore, four laning of 53.2 km of Koida-Rajmunda Section of NH-215 at a project cost of Rs 1,176.4 crore, the officials said. The prime minister would also dedicate the Balasore-Haldia-Durgapur section of Paradip-Haldia-Durgapur LPG Pipeline of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, they said. The 513 km Balasore-Haldia-Durgapur section, being built at a cost of Rs 1,080 crore is part of the Paradip-Haldia-Durgapur LPG pipeline which is the first LPG pipeline laid by IOCL in Eastern India. The 670 km Paradip-Haldia-Durgapur line has been built at a cost of Rs 1,330 crore and will ensure uninterrupted supply to Odisha and neighboring states, they said. Railway projects to be launched include flagging of the second passenger train from Tatanagar to Badampahar. The Tatanagar-Badampahar railway line was laid in 1911 and only one train ran on the route. A second passenger train will now be flagged off on this historic line to benefit people of Badampahar who will now have rail-linkage to Howrah and Mumbai via Tatanagar for six days a week. Electrification of the line has also been sanctioned in 2018-19, officials said. Modi will also dedicate the doubling of Naranpur-Basantpur and Chillikidara-Sagadapata line to the nation. The doubling of 11.3 KM Chillikidara-Sagadapata line and 9 KM Naranpur-Basantpur line will connect the mineral rich area of Keonjhar and Jajpur districts in Odisha and generate industrial revenue. The prime minister will also dedicate to the nation the multi modal logistics park (MMLP) at Balasore built at a cost of Rs 25 Crore which will have custom facilitation centre for export/import. It will have a custom bonded area of 38325 sqm, one full length rail line, two warehouses and road weigh bridge, the officials said. Modi is slated to inaugurate conservation and development works for Rasikaray Temple and the excavated structure at the ancient fort of Haripurgarh, which was the 14th century stronghold of the Bhanja Dynasty of Mayurbhanj, the officials said. Enhanced tourist facilities like drinking water, stone benches, sanitation and security facilities would boost tourism at Haripurgarh and add another feather to the rich bouquet of heritage tourism in Odisha, they said. In addition, passport sewa kendras will be inaugurated at post offices in Bhadrak, Cuttack, Jajpur, Aska, Keonjhar and Dhenkanal. Currently people have to go to the regional passport office at Bhubaneswar, the officials added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said Thursday Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement that a decision on an ordinance on the Ram temple in Ayodhya can happen only after the completion of the judicial process is a matter of "utmost concern". He also said the Sangh Parivar has been claiming that religious sites of minority communities such as that of the Babri Masjid belonged to Hindus. "At this point, the prime minister's statement causes utmost concern to the secular minds of the country. "His statement that an ordinance on the Ram temple will be considered after the Supreme Court verdict, should be read together.All these points fingers to the moves against secularism of the country," Vijayan told reporters here. The prime minister during a recent interview, broadcast by several TV channels, had said, "Let the judicial process take its own course. Don't weigh it in political terms. Let the judicial process be over." "After the judicial process is over, whatever be our responsibility as the government, we are ready to make all efforts," Modi had said. Modi's comments had come amidst heightened demands by Hindutava organisations, including the RSS, for an ordinance to allow the temple construction. Vijayan also lashed out at the Sabarimala Karma Samiti and said their attitude that beliefs were more important than the Constitutional values would only help the Sangh Parivar's agenda in various matters, including the Babri Masjid. "They are saying that matters related to beliefs are more important than the Supreme Court order and the Constitutional values. "This attitude will only help the Sangh Parivar's agenda in various matters including Babri Masjid," the chief minister said. Vijayan's comments came on a day when the Samiti has been observing a state-wide strike, with the support of BJP, protesting against the successful entry of two women of the barred age group into the Sabarimala temple. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP ally and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan Thursday opposed an ordinance on the Ram temple issue and asserted that the Supreme Court's decision on the matter should be final. "Whatever judgement the Supreme Court gives on the Ram temple issue should be accepted by everyone, be it Hindu, Muslim or any other community. Our stand has been consistent. When the PM said that we will wait for the SC judgement, then all ifs and buts should end," the Lok Janshakti Party president told reporters. Asked if he would support an ordinance on the issue, Paswan said his stand has been consistent and that he would not support it. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said Tuesday that the government would not take any decision on the issue till the judicial process is over. Hindutva groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has been demanding an ordinance to pave way for the temple's construction in Ayodhya. The LJP is the second major ally of the BJP to oppose an ordinance. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had recently said that the contentious issue should be resolved either through a court judgement or mutual agreement among different groups. The Ram temple title case is in the apex court. Paswan also supported the Supreme Court judgement allowing women's entry into the Sabarimala temple. The LJP is against any gender discrimination, he said. The Dalit leader said the BJP may have protested against the implementation of the court's order but the Union government has not interfered in the matter. "The SC has given its judgement and now two women have even entered the temple. Is the government stopping them from entering the temple? "There should be no discrimination in the name of gender. Women are going to space, then why can't they enter a temple," he said. Paswan added that political parties have different views on issues. He also asked Congress president Rahul Gandhi to make his stand clear on these issues, saying that the Congress chief seems to be confused. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Parents take note! Having a sense of control over your professional life may help boost the health of your children, a study suggests. "If you can decide how you are going to do your job, rather than having that imposed on you, it is better for children," said Christiane Spitzmueller, a professor at the University of Houston in the US. The good news, she said, is that there are things organisations can do to provide employees with that sense of control. The researchers collected data from both parents and children in Lagos, Nigeria, targeting one group of low-income families and a second group of more affluent families. In the study published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, teenage children from both groups were surveyed at their schools and asked to assess their own health. While the low-income group included people living in dire poverty, Spitzmueller noted that their responses did not differ markedly from those of the wealthier group. "Economic resources were not as much of a buffer as we would have thought," she said. Instead, feelings of autonomy in the workplace accounted for the difference between families where the parents' work-family conflicts played out in health problems for the children and those whose children fared better. The researchers looked at so-called "self-regulatory resources," or the amount of self-control parents bring to parenting, including the ability to act in a more reflective manner. "If a parent has too many stressors, it reduces your self-control," Spitzmueller said. Parental self-control was linked to better health outcomes for children. In other words, how we parent when we experience high levels of stress is probably fundamentally different from how we parent when we are coping well. "At lower levels of job autonomy," the researchers said, "employees likely have to rely more on self-regulatory resources to compensate for the impact of limited control over one's job on one's personal life. "At higher levels of job autonomy, freedom and more decision-making opportunities are likely to motivate the person to engage; however, self-regulatory resources would be less needed," they said. The impact was most pronounced when job demands are high and job autonomy is low, and Spitzmueller said that allows for potential interventions and policies to address the issue. Some are relatively simple, including teaching parents to take a few minutes to recharge before plunging from the workplace into parenthood. Practicing mindfulness, she said, can allow parents to "replenish their resources. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) John Locke is well-known as a philosopher. Perhaps less well-known, though, are the religious convictions that underlie many of his ideas. Alejandro Chafuen, Actons Managing Director, International, recently published an article in Forbes describing the influence of Lockes Christianity on his views of the human person. Lockes Christianity also shows in his scriptural commentaries and his thoughts on the birth of the Savior. Over the course of the last five years, I have been devoting my Christmas article to authors or topics that touch upon the birth of Jesus of Nazareth and are relevant to the free society and a free economy. This Christmas, I focus on John Locke (1632-1704), one of the most celebrated champions of human liberty. Although he studied Christianity for most of his life John Locke wrote his two major books on the topic during his last decade. George Santayana (1863-1952), the noted philosopher, started a lecture by saying that a good portrait of Locke should be painted in the manner of the Dutch masters, in a sunny interior, scrupulously furnished with all the implements of domestic comforts and philosophical enquiry: the Holy Bible open majestically before him, and beside it that other revelationthe terrestrial globe. Victor Nuovo, who edited a book of most of Lockes writings on religion, wrote that no other philosopher except Aristotle has had such an impact on the common mind. Nuovo concluded that a careful reading of his theological writings shows that he viewed the world in terms of biblical sacred history that began with the angelic rebellion and would end with the Last Judgement. John Locke spent his life trying to understand the human person and spent several decades, especially the last one of his life, trying to better understand Christianity. He did not just study religion; he also lived it. When he was no longer able to go to church, he thought it proper to receive the sacrament at home. His biographers state that he spent his time in acts of piety and devotion, exhorting those at his bedside that this life should only be regarded as a preparation for a better one. Read the entire piece here. Photo: Alejandro Chafuen. Pakistan on Thursday abolished the long-standing facility of on-arrival visas for Afghan nationals, authorities said, citing security risks amid a spike in terror attacks. Earlier, Afghan nationals were being granted a 30-day visa on arrival at the entry points but now they will be required to apply for a visa from Pakistani missions in Afghanistan, Federal Investigation Agency's Director Immigration Ismatullah Junejo was quoted as saying by the Express Tribune. The Immigration Wing of the FIA cited increased security risks from the western border as a reason for the move. Furthermore, the government also restricted the movement of Afghan nationals in Pakistan and stopped issuance of visas at airports and border crossing points. Once issued a visa, the Afghan nationals will be allowed entry into Pakistan. Upon entry, they will be asked to fill out details including the time period and place of stay. The details will be forwarded to security agencies for verification, the report said. Once the details are verified, the Afghan nationals will be issued residence and travel permits, the report added. Pakistan has the largest refugee population in the world, according to the United Nations. Most of these refugees 2.7 million to be precise are Afghan nationals who fled their country due to war, violence and ensuing economic turmoil. The UN surveys estimate that 60 per cent of the Afghan refugee population is Pakistan-born. Citizens from 24 countries are now issued on-arrival' visas in Pakistan. They include citizens from Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Belgium, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Norway, New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Thailand, Spain, and Singapore, immigration officials said. Last month, the Pakistan Army said that the fencing of a substantial portion of the over 2,600-km-long Afghan border has been completed and the rest will be finished by the end of the 2019. Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan have long been saying that militants in both countries cross the porous border for terror attacks. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday left on a two-day visit to Turkey at the invitation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Khan is accompanied by a high-level delegation comprising Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Finance Minister Asad Umar, Planning Minister Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtyar and others, Radio Pakistan reported. During the visit, he will meet the Turkish president and discuss the entire spectrum of bilateral relations as well as the regional and international situation. The prime minister will also address traders and businessmen. The visit will help explore new avenues of cooperation and collaboration between the two countries, particularly in economic, trade and commercial relations. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A senior Pakistani journalist said on Thursday that he got a notice from Twitter over a recent tweet seeking probe in high-profile murders that the microblogging site branded as "violation" of local laws. Mubashir Zaidi of Dawn TV channel in a tweet asked about probe into murders of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police officer, Tahir Dawar, and Mutahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader Ali Raza Abidi. "What happened to the inquiry of Tahir Dawar?" he had tweeted. "The cold blooded murder of #AliRazaAbidi will also remain unresolved like many before him," Zaidi tweeted. Abidi was shot dead outside his residence in Karachi on December 25, while Superintendent of Police (SP) Dawar was kidnapped from Islamabad on October 26 and his tortured body was found in Afghanistan a month later. Twitter said it got a complaint that the tweet was a violation of Pakistan's law but it did not identify the complainant. "I have received an email from @Twitter telling me that my below mentioned tweet is in violation of Pakistani law according to a complaint it received against me from Pakistan. No idea who is the complainant and how it violates Pakistani law?" Zaidi tweeted. Though, Twitter clarified that its notice was a legal one but it left the journalist and Twitterati community in confusion. Zaidi said he was "appalled" due to the complainant and reaction by Twitter. The complaint against Zaidi came amidst rising concerns about increasing media censorship in Pakistan. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Singapore-headquartered OxfordCaps Thursday said it aims to expand its presence in cities like Indore, Pune and Bengaluru from May onwards as it looks to cash in on the growing opportunity in the student housing segment in India. OxfordCaps' platform allows university students to book ready-to-move-in student accommodation in Singapore and India (Delhi-NCR and Dehradun). The company is also looking at cities like Chennai, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Kolkata and Coimbatore to expand its presence, a statement said. "Keeping in mind the price-sensitive Indian students and their parents, we will be launching a new vertical - OxfordCaps Dorms by May 2019. There is a big section of the market which falls in the bracket of Rs 8,000-10,000 room rent per month, which we shall target and cater to without compromising on the quality of the living experience," OxfordCaps Founder and COO Priyanka Gera said. According to a Jones Lang La salle (JLL) 2018report, there are approximately 34 million students in higher institutions and these students relocate to a different city for higher However, only 10 per cent of these students manage to get accommodation provided by the university. The unmet demand for student housing remains as high as 3060 per cent across the top Indian states, as per the report. The students are then forced to choose from options like PGs, apartments, etc. In India, the concept of student housing is still at a formative stage. However, since the last one year, the market has been warming up to the whole idea and witnessing the growing scope of this as an important asset class, OxfordCaps Founder and CEO Annu Talreja said. "Before the beginning of the new academic session, we aim to have our properties in the prominent hubs across seven more cities of the country with a target to acquire more than 10,000 beds," Talreja added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least one person died and 10 remained missing after a Taiwan cargo ship sank off the coast of Zhejiang province on the Chinese mainland early Wednesday, local maritime rescue authorities. The cargo ship, with 15 people on board, sank at around 4:30 am (2030 GMT) Wednesday around 90 nautical miles (167 kilometres) off the coast of Yuhuan of Zhejiang's Taizhou city, according to the provincial maritime search and rescue centre. Five people have been rescued so far, with one dead, state run Xinhua agency reported on Thursday. The 80-meter-long ship named "London" departed from the city of Kaohsiung with 14 Myanmar crew members and one from Taiwan. The local emergency response centre has sent ships to search for the missing. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Odisha will participate as a partner state in the upcoming mega international food and beverage show 'Indus Food 2019', according to state MSME Minister Prafulla Samal. Presiding over the preparatory meeting held here Thursday, Samal said the event is a platform to promote India as a strong exporter of food and beverage products to the world. The Indus Food meet is a mega international food exposition organized at India Exposition Mart, Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh on January 14 and 15. The event is organized jointly by Trade Promotion Council of India (TPCI) and Department of Commerce. Samal added that in its second edition, the event would be hosting over 600 prominent global buyers in the Food & Beverage industry from over 60 countries. "The main aim of this event is to have these buyers on board to increase their presence apart from sourcing new products from India, meet suppliers and develop new business relations with Indian exhibitors. It would be a great opportunity for the agri-exporters of Odisha to showcase our products to the prominent buyers of the world, Samal said. Additional Chief Secretary, MSME, L N Gupta said that as a "partner state", Odisha will be setting up its own pavilion with 30 exhibitors showcasing various processed food items of Odisha like spices, cashew, confectionery items, processed agro food and others. He said the Directorate of Horticulture and Agricultural Promotion & Investment Corporation of Odisha Limited (APICOL) along with local industry will showcase the processed agro food items as well as spices that are produced in the state. Gupta said a seminar on "Potential and prospects of Food Processing Industry in Odisha" is also being organized during the inaugural ceremony on January 14. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Baripada visit on January 5, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Thursday said Odisha was among the top states in the country in terms of creation of irrigation potential. Patnaik was referring to media reports on Modi's speech at Khurda public meeting on December 24 where the prime minister criticised the state government for not being able to create irrigation potential in 10 lakh hectare additional land as promised by the ruling BJD during the 2014 elections. In his speech, Modi had said that the state government could create additional irrigation potential in only 22,000 hectare while the ruling party had promised 10 lakh hectare of additional land within five years. "I am happy to share that since 2014, Odisha has created an additional irrigation potential of 7.8 lakh hectare and we are on course to surpass the 10 lakh hectare target that my government has set for itself," Patnaik wrote in the letter to Modi. From 2014, Rs 26,889 crore has been spent in the irrigation and water sector with contribution of Rs 1,211 crore, which is 4.5 per cent, from the Government of India contribution through PMKGY (AIBP), Patnaik pointed out adding that in the current year a record Rs 10,196 crore has been provided by the state. Patnaik also said that the prime minister will be happy to know that with the state's programme, 46 Mega Lift Irrigation projects with ayacut 54,472 hectare, 53,576 deep bore well with ayacut 2,67,880 hectare, 5,837 community lift points with aaycut 1,29,764 hectare, 8,335 check dams with aaycut 97,694 hectare have been created and farmers are getting water from these projects. "The detailed information on creation of irrigation potential from April 2014 to November 2018 is also available on our website," Patnaik said in the letter. Patnaik said: "Odisha is amongst the top states in the country in investment on irrigation as well as creation of irrigation potential." The chief minister also sought the prime minister's support for Odisha and its people. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg will pay a three-day visit to India next week during which she will hold talks with her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on a host of issues with an aim expand the multi-faceted bilateral partnership. Solberg, who will arrive in India on January 7, will deliver the inaugural address at the Raisina Dialogue and address India-Norway Business Summit during her visit, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement. She will also call on President Ram Nath Kovind and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, besides holding talks with Prime Minister Modi. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will also call on Solberg during her India visit. The upcoming visit of Prime Minister Solberg will provide an opportunity to the two sides to review the progress in bilateral cooperation and discuss ways to further expand the multi-faceted partnership in areas of common interest, the MEA said in a statement. "India and Norway enjoy close and multi-faceted ties. Economic and technical cooperation are important facets of our bilateral relation. More than 100 Norwegian companies have invested in India in areas such as ship-building, petroleum related services, hydropower, clean energy and IT services," it said. Several major Indian companies are also present in Norway. India and Norway have shared interest in sustainable use of ocean resources for growth of the two countries' economies, the statement said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US has urged its viewers to refrain from undertaking #BirdboxChallenge. The challenge, which dares people to complete everyday tasks while blindfolded is inspired from the Sandra Bullock-starrer horror feature. It started trending on social media after the film released on the streaming giant's platform on December 13. Taking note of the viral trend, issued a warning to the viewers, asking them to indulge in such a practice. "Can't believe I have to say this, but: PLEASE DO NOT HURT YOURSELVES WITH THIS We don't know how this started, and we appreciate the love, but Boy and Girl have just one wish for 2019 and it is that you not end up in the hospital due to memes," the US arm of the streaming giant tweeted. has claimed that over 45 million of its subscribers watched "Bird Box" within the seven days of its release. The film follows Mallory (Bullock), who flees with her two kids, named Boy and Girl, in search of a safe haven, a "sanctuary." The three characters wear blindfolds while navigating through the rapids, the forest, and other treacherous terrain. Nepal's USD 209.6-million Airbus deal, the largest ever in the country's aviation history, is turning out to be one of the biggest corruption scandals in the country as a parliamentary committee indicted a top minister and some senior bureaucrats of graft in the deal. Nepal's Civil Aviation Minister Rabindra Adhikari and top-level bureaucrats have been accused by the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament of misappropriating at least Rs 435 crore while procuring the two Airbus A-330 jets for national flag carrier Nepal Airlines Corporation. The sub-committee led by Nepali Congress lawmaker Rajan KC submitted a 58-page probe report to Public Accounts Commitee on Wednesday, implicating officials at the highest levels who were in charge at the Civil Aviation Ministry during the procurement process. The report, prepared after a three-week long investigation, has charged Civil Aviation Minister Adhikari and former ministers -- Jivan Bahadur Shahi and Jitendra Dev -- with shying away with their responsibilities to stop the deal. The report has categorically termed NAC Managing Director Sugat Ratna Kansakar as the main accused of the scandal and recommended for his immediate suspension along with two sitting secretaries, Prem Kumar Rai and Krishna Prasad Devkota and former secretary Shankar Prasad Adhikari who had acted as NAC chairman during their tenure as tourism secretary. Shahi has been accused of sending the commitment fee to purchase the jet through a ministerial-level decision. In his statement to the investigation panel, he had denied having direct involvement in the NAC jet procurement process. Former minister Dev has been accused of making the first payment to HiFly X Ireland, the supplier of the jets, during his tenure. Minister Adhikari has been charged with negligence as he was found to have sent the final installment of payment to Portuguese leasing company HiFly. Contrary to his earlier promise of a detailed investigation into the case, he had carried out only a minor in-house investigation. The NAC has not given us the bill of sale of the two jets. We suspect that the irregularities' amount could go further up if the bill of sale is calculated, Rajan told the lawmakers. It needs a further investigation on the amount released to HiFly X by NAC and the amount paid by HiFly to the aircraft manufacturer Airbus. There were no details on the discount received by the NAC during the purchase of the jets, he said, adding, We have asked PAC to get the payment details from the Airbus through the Foreign Ministry. The sub-committee has questioned the motive of the NAC and HiFly Portugal for forming a special purpose vehicle--Hi Fly X Ireland--to specifically look into the procurement process. The committee has termed Hi Fly X as a fictitious company and has suspected massive financial irregularities in the deal. While advance payment was released to the Portugal-based HiFly Transporte Aeroes, rest of the payment was released to Ireland based company, the report said. It has also pointed out the mismatch in manufacturer's serial numbers assigned to NAC jets. Initially, the numbers 1840 and 1842 were issued to NAC. Airbus later assigned 1845 and 1854 after receiving the commitment fee. However, at the Airbus' manufacturing plant in Toulouse, France, the aircraft serial numbers were 1872 and 1878. The 1845 and 1854 that NAC had claimed to be its own actually belong to Tibet Airlines and Spain's Iberia Airline respectively, the report explained. As per Clause 236(1) of NAC financial bylaw, the national carrier is required to invite proposals only from the aircraft manufacturers to purchase brand new aircraft. However, it went with Clause 236 (2) of the bylaw which allows the NAC to procure an old plane from a leasing agency, banker or airline operator besides manufacturers. The sub-committee report states that NAC had signed a USD 209.6-million contract for two A330-200 jets with the United States-based AAR Corp in April 2017, ignoring the rate suggested by its sub-committee. The report said that the sub-committee had suggested that each jet would cost USD 93,047,434 (after adjusting 2.76 percent of price escalation rate) based on the 2016 sales price list. This ignorance has incurred USD 23.6 million losses in the deal involving two jets, it said. Specifications like maximum takeoff weight was revised downward to 230 tonnes from proposed 242 tonnes as specified in the bid documents, the report pointed out. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) North Korea's top diplomat in Italy has gone into hiding, a Seoul lawmaker told reporters after a closed-door meeting with South Korean intelligence officials on Thursday. "Acting ambassador Jo Song Gil's term was ending in late November last year and he escaped the diplomatic compound in early November" with his wife, Kim Min-ki told reporters. The spy agency briefing to lawmakers came after South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo daily reported that Jo had sought asylum in an unidentified Western country with his family. "He sought asylum early last month," the JoongAng quoted a diplomatic source in Seoul as saying. Italian authorities were "agonising" over what to do, the official was cited as saying, but added that they were "protecting him in a safe place". The last senior North Korean diplomat to defect was Thae Yong Ho, who abandoned his post as deputy ambassador in London in 2016. Jo, 48, has been acting ambassador in Rome since October 2017 after Italy expelled the then ambassador Mun Jong Nam in protest at a nuclear test by the North a month earlier in violation of UN resolutions. Italy is an important diplomatic mission for Pyongyang, as it handles relations with the Rome-headquartered UN Food and Agriculture Organization and North Korea suffers from chronic food shortages. Jo is "known to be a son or son-in-law of one of the highest-level officials in the North's regime", the JoongAng cited an unnamed North Korea expert as saying. Most North Korean diplomats serving overseas are normally required to leave several family members -- typically children -- behind in Pyongyang to prevent their defection while working abroad. Jo however came to Rome in May 2015 with his wife and children, suggesting he may be from a privileged family, the JoongAng said, adding the reason for his defection bid was still unclear. At the time of his own defection Thae, the former deputy ambassador to London, said he had switched sides partly to give his three children a better future after being ordered to return to the North. The Kim dynasty has ruled the impoverished but nuclear-armed state for three generations with little tolerance for dissent, and the regime stands accused of widespread human rights abuses. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 57-year-old builder allegedly committed suicide Thursday by shooting himself at his office in suburban Chembur, a police official said. Sanjay Agarwal, the owner of Sanjona Builders, was apparently under stress as one of his projects in the upmarket Chembur area had got delayed, he said. Agarwal allegedly shot himself with his licensed revolver in his office cabin in Chembur's Sindhi Colony around 11.25 am. He was rushed to a nearby hospital where doctors declared him dead, Deputy Commissioner of Police (zone-VI) Shahaji Umap said. Agarwal's son, his brother-in-law and some office employees were present in the premises when the incident took place, police said. An accidental death report was registered by the Chembur police and the body was sent to Rajawadi Hospital in Ghatkopar for postmortem, the official said. According to Agarwal's family members, he was under stress as his project on 10th Road in Chembur had got delayed, police said, adding that a probe was underway. Earlier, Agarwal had worked in a senior position at Nukem Industries, one of the largest suppliers of chemicals to most of the top pharmaceutical companies in the country, for 20 years. He had formed Sanjona Builders in 1999 in partnership with one Sunil Gupta. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Madhya Pradesh Finance Minister Tarun Bhanot said Thursday that the newly-elected Congress-led government will take steps to bring in financial discipline to the state. Speaking to reporters here, he also assured that there would be no increase in taxes. "As of now we have no plans to increase the tax burden on the people. A review meeting on the state's financial condition will be held in Bhopal Friday," Bhanot said. After assessing the situation, "we will take steps to have financial discipline," he said. He also said he has asked officials to obtain balance sheets of various public corporations and institutions for a review. Madhya Pradesh's debt is over Rs 1.75 lakh crore, he said. Chief Minister Kamal Nath has set an example of fiscal discipline by not spending money on advertising his decision to give a loan waiver to farmers, he said. Nath, soon after taking oath last month, announced a loan waiver of upto Rs 2 lakh for farmers. Bhanot said the government saved crores of rupees by not issuing advertisements or putting up hoardings to give publicity to the decision. The Congress-led government will focus on improving the infrastructure at schools and imparting quality education, the finance minister said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) It is the "joke of 2019" when Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he does not know about the federal front of regional parties being attempted by Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, AICC spokesperson Sravan Dasoju claimed here Thursday. Dasoju, who has been appointed as the spokesperson for AICC two days ago, wondered how can Modi say (in a media interview) that he does not know about the non-Congress, non-BJP front proposed by Rao when the latter was going around the country to promote the initiative. "Both together (after) reaching a tacit understanding, to weaken Congress, by confusing parties who are pro-Congress and to move them away from UPA, Modi and KCR are conspiring" Dasoju told reporters. Modi talked about 'people's front' (comprising Congress, TDP and others) losing in Telangana Assembly polls but what about BJP which has been decimated, he said. "I don't understand whether shame is there or not. I am sorry to use such a language against the Prime Minister. But then, he says people's front lost. What happened to your party? BJP is decimated here," he said. It is a "funny" situation with Modi feeling happy about people's front losing in Telangana by forgetting as to why people rejected BJP, he said. Out of total 119 Assembly seats, BJP lost security deposit in 105 constituencies. Congress has not lost much as it won 19 seats now compared to 22 segments it won in 2014, he said. Noting that "a blind tiger in a forest eats its own cubs", Dasoju claimed that Modi, in a similar fashion, has sacrificed his own BJP MLAs before KCR and then talked about hurting Congress in Telangana. Alleging that the NDA government was trying to evade answers on the Rafale deal, Dasoju said the government should accept the demand for a JPC probe into the issue if it has any morals. India had inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September last year for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore, nearly one- and-half years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the proposal during a visit to Paris. The delivery of the jets is scheduled to begin from September, 2019. The Congress has raised several questions about the deal including the rates, and accused the government of compromising national interest and security while promoting "crony capitalism" and causing a loss to the public exchequer. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Accusing the Punjab government of "going slow" in implementing central schemes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Thursday asked the Amarinder Singh-led dispensation to "wake up and complete the people-friendly projects in time". Addressing a rally organised by the SAD-BJP combine here, the prime minister said, "The Punjab government is going slow on smart city projects of Amritsar, Ludhiana and Jalandhar and AMRUT schemes the government should wake up and complete the people friendly projects in time." He added that the NDA government has initiated several schemes for Gurdaspur and the rest of Punjab during the past four years. Saying that the water of the river Ravi has been flowing into Pakistan for decades without being used by Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, he claimed, "The waste of natural resource is not acceptable to the NDA." He added that the Centre had cleared the Shahpurkandi dam project four months ago to tap the water resource. In the next three to four years, the project will be completed, and will help irrigate thousands of hectares of land in Gurdaspur and other parts of Punjab, and Jammu and Kasmir, Modi asserted. Punjab will be able to generate over 200 MW electricity from the Shahpurkandi project, he said. The Centre has earmarked a budget of Rs 800 crore for the realignment of the Rajasthan and the Sirhind feeder canals, which will help in irrigating nearly 1.75 lakh hectares of land, the prime minister said. He said that the NDA government is setting up modern godowns, cold storage and food processing units in the state. A mega food park is being set up in Fazilka, Modi said, adding that approval has been given to set up similar parks in Ludhiana and Kapurthala. He listed several other initiatives of the NDA, including setting up of the AIIMS at Bathinda, for the development of Punjab. Modi said the Centre was simplifying the Goods and Services Tax (GST), and materials used for community kitchens in shrines were being excluded from the purview of the GST. "Now 99 per cent of the materials used for community kitchens in shrines is in the tax slab of below 18 per cent," he added. Notwithstanding criticism from the opposition over the GST, Modi said it has brought transparency to the taxation system. "As we are getting suggestions, the government is trying to simplify and make the GST more effective," he said. "Now, you know how much tax you are paying on items like soap, shoes etc. Earlier, it was not visible, though it was charged... It is the transparent system which is the base of new India," the prime minister said. "We are in favour of a satisfactory rate of GST on items and processes related to construction of houses. An agreement on this could not be reached in the last meeting of the GST Council," he said, hoping that a decision would be arrived at soon. Modi further said that efforts were being made to simplify the GST for traders, businessmen and small entrepreneurs for the last one and half years. "We have been requesting the GST Council that the threshold limit for filing GST (returns) should be hiked from a turnover of Rs 20 lakh to Rs 75 lakh so that they (small businesses) get relief from it," he said at the rally. He further said that the government had taken a decision Wednesday which would benefit small traders and exporters. "Under the pre and post shipment rupee credit, there is a relief of three per cent for the manufacturing sector. But there has been a demand to extend this benefit to merchant exporters also. The government has accepted this demand and this decision will benefit small traders connected with exports to the tune of about Rs 600 crore. It will also benefit the small traders and the MSME sector of Punjab," Modi said. Earlier, striking a chord with the people of Gurdaspur, which until a year ago, was represented by the late BJP MP Vinod Khanna, the PM recalled the efforts taken by the actor-turned-politician for the development of the area. "After Vinod Khanna's demise, this is my first visit to Gurdaspur," he said. "Vinod Khanna made efforts for progress of this place. He wanted to see modern and prosperous Gurdaspur, we have to realise his dream," he added. Notably, the Congress which came to power in Punjab in 2017, also won the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat last year in the by-polls necessitated by Khanna's demise. The NDA government is making constant efforts for the progress of Gurdaspur and the entire Punjab, Modi said. Under the guidance of former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, the SAD-BJP are working shoulder-to-shoulder for the prosperity and progress of the state, he added. Modi said the Centre has drawn up mega plans to commemorate the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev this year by organising programmes in the state capitals of the country and other parts of the world. "The Centre has decided that the message of Guru Nanak Dev 'Naam Japo (focus of God), Kirat Karo (honest living) and Vand Chakko (sharing with others) will be taken to every corner of the world," he said. Efforts are also being made to facilitate visits of pilgrims to places connected with the Guru, Modi said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Lalu Prasads elder son Tej Pratap Yadav on Thursday asserted out of turn that his eldest sister Misa Bharti will contest the coming Lok Sabha election from Pataliputra again. Tej Pratap, who was speaking on the sidelines of his daily 'Janata Durbar' at the RJD state headquarters here, also said that he would start campaigning in Pataliputra for his elder sister from today itself even though the party is yet to come out with any official word on the candidature for the seat. Responding to queries about a recent statement by Maner MLA and chief RJD spokesman Bhai Virendra wherein he had expressed his desire to contest from the seat, he said The people of Pataliputra want Misa didi. Voters cast their votes in the name of Lalu Prasad. Neither Bhai Virendra nor I can do anything about it," Yadav told reporters. "Bhai Virendra had not got a ministerial berth and may be that is why he suffers from anxieties," he told newsmen. Carved out in the 2008 delimitation, the Pataliputra seat is seen as a prestige issue for the 'first family' in RJD as both Prasad and his daughter have unsuccessfully contested from there. The RJD president had lost to his former protg Ranjan Yadav in 2009, when the latter was contesting on a JD(U) ticket. Misa fought in 2014 and lost to Ram Kripal Yadav, another former close aide of her father who had gravitated to the BJP. The comments of the mercurial elder son of Prasad and former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi come in the backdrop of reports of discomfiture within the family over growing clout of the younger son Tejashwi Yadav, with whom Bhai Virendra is believed to be close to. Tejashwi has emerged as the partys de facto leader in the absence of the RJD supremo who is serving sentences in a number of fodder cases. He had made his electoral debut along with his elder brother Tej Pratap in the 2015 assembly polls and was straightaway appointed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as his deputy. Tej Pratap was given a cabinet berth. After RJD lost power on account Kumars exit from the Grand Alliance, Tejashwi was appointed as the leader of opposition in the state assembly and by a unanimous resolution adopted at RJDs national council named its chief ministerial candidate for the next assembly polls. Although Tej Pratap and Misa, who is currently a Rajya Sabha member, have repeatedly denied reports of any rift in the family, speculations have been rife about the elder siblings feeling of having been slighted under the shadow of the younger one. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The on Thursday told the Meghalaya government that it was not satisfied with the steps taken so far for the rescue of 15 people who are trapped in an illegal coal mine in the state since December 13. A bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and S Abdul Nazeer asked the Meghalaya government as to why it was not successful in rescuing these people. ALSO READ: SC to hear plea seeking urgent steps to rescue trapped miners in Meghalaya The counsel, appearing for the state, told the court that they have taken adequate steps in the rescue operation and the Centre was also lending support to them. "We are not satisfied. It is a question of life and death," the bench said. The bench asked petitioner Aditya N Prasad, who had sought urgent steps for recuse of these people, to call a law officer of the Centre so that appropriate order could be passed immediately. The bench will continue with the hearing during the day. The rat-hole mine, located on top of a hillock fully covered with trees in East Jaintia Hills district, had got flooded when water from the nearby Lytein river gushed into it, trapping the miners. Benchmark indices spiralled lower for the second straight session Thursday as investors fretted over the fiscal impact of the government's proposed farm package while a rare cut in revenue forecast by Apple took its toll on global equities. The 30-share BSE Sensex tumbled 377.81 points, or 1.05 per cent, to end at 35,513.71. The broader NSE Nifty plunged 120.25 points, or 1.11 per cent, to 10,672.25. Asian and European markets tripped following a sudden sell-off on Wall Street after Apple cut its revenue forecast for the first time in nearly 12 years, highlighting risks to corporate earnings amid slowing global growth. Investor sentiment also turned choppy after the White House meeting between US President Donald Trump and top Congressional leaders on resolving the ongoing partial government shutdown ended in a stalemate Wednesday. The biggest losers in the Sensex pack were M&M, ONGC, Vedanta, Tata Steel, L&T, HDFC, NTPC and Axis Bank, falling up to 3.04 per cent. The gainers included HCL Tech, Bajaj Auto, HUL and Asian Paints, rising up to 0.50 per cent. Sectorally, auto, pharma and metal indices took the worst hit, falling over 2 per cent. Trading mood was subdued after reports said the government was contemplating direct transfers worth Rs 4,000 an acre per season for farmers, among other incentives, which will likely have a substantial financial implication on the exchequer. Investors also remained on the sidelines ahead of the corporate earnings scheduled to begin next week, traders said, adding that heavy selling by foreign as well as domestic funds weighed on local equities. According to Hemang Jani, Head - Advisory, Sharekhan by BNP Paribas, with general elections around the corner, one can expect the volatility in the Indian markets to continue. "The auto sector remained in the limelight as growth for December 2018 remained sluggish. This was the second consecutive month of subdued performance by the industry. Weak consumer sentiments due to mandatory insurance costs and increased lending rates continued to impact demand," he added. On a net basis, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth Rs 621.06 crore Wednesday, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) were net sellers to the tune of Rs 226.18 crore, provisional data available with BSE showed. Meanwhile, the rupee was trading marginally weaker against the US dollar at 70.26. Brent crude futures dropped 0.15 per cent to USD 54.83 per barrel. Elsewhere in Asia, Korea's Kospi ended 0.81 per cent lower, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.26 per cent and Shanghai Composite Index slipped 0.03 per cent. Japanese market remained shut on account of New Year holiday. In Europe, Paris CAC was down 0.58 per cent, while Frankfurt's DAX fell 0.63 per cent. London's FTSE slipped 0.29 per cent. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Kerala women's wall protest is relevant for the whole country, said CPI(M) on Thursday stressing that it was within 12 hours of the human chain being formed that two women below the age of 50 entered the Sabarimala temple and prayed at the inner sanctum. On new year's day, January 1, over 35 lakh women in Kerala participated in the 620-km-long state-sponsored "Women's wall" campaign stretching from the northern tip of Kasaragod to the southern end in Thiruvananthapuram to uphold gender equality and renaissance values. "The manifestation of the Women's Wall is relevant not only for Kerala but for the whole country which is ruled today by the Hindutva forces who stand for manuvadi values", said the latest editorial of the 'People's Democracy', the mouthpiece of the party. State ministers and district collectors were in charge to make the initiative a big success. Schools in some districts had declared holiday while Universities had postponed examinations amid allegations of misuse of official machinery, which the ruling LDF has denied. "The Women's Wall was a collective response to the three month-long agitation against the Supreme Court verdict on the entry of women to the Sabarimala temple. The agitation represents the regressive and communal forces who want to roll back the rights of women achieved through decades of social reform movements and struggles based on renaissance values", stated in the editorial. It alleged that the agitation led by the BJP and the RSS has seen repeated attempts to intimidate and assault women wanting to enter the temple, hartals, destruction of public property and open defiance of the court verdict. The CPI(M) mouthpiece editorial also slammed the Congress for its role in opposing entry of women of all ages into the famous Hindu shrine in Kerala. "Shamefully, the Congress party has been acting in tandem with the RSS-BJP combine in challenging the Court verdict and undermining the Constitution", the editorial said. The editorial also slammed Prime Minister Narebndra Modi and added that on the day the Women's Wall came up, Modi sought to justify the BJP-RSS stand on Sabarimala. Criticising the PM for saying that triple talaq and Sabarimala entry for women were different matters, the editorial stated that while triple talaq is an issue of gender equality, Sabarimala is a matter of temple tradition. "By this false dichotomy, Modi has revealed the true Hindu communal mindset which advocates gender equality for Muslim women but refuses to extend it to Hindu women", the editorial added. "Fortuitously, within 12 hours of Women's Wall being formed, two women below the age of 50 entered the Sabarimala temple and prayed at the inner sanctum," it said. They did so with a police escort - a step in line with the declared policy of the state government that any woman who wishes to pray at the temple would be given protection to do so, the statement said. Bindu, 42, a college lecturer and CPI(ML) activist from Kozhikode district's Koyilandy, and Kanakadurga, 44, a civil supplies department employee from Angadipuram in Malappuram, stepped into the hallowed precincts guarded by police three months after the Supreme Court's historic judgement lifting the ban on entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its "eternally celibate" deity. The duo, draped in black and their faces covered in veils, entered the temple at 3:38 am on Wednesday. Police contingents have been posted at their residences as protests erupted at several places across the state in protest, with Hindu right-wing activists blocking highways and forcing closure of shops and markets. Hurling crude bombs and stones, Hindu fringe groups Thursday rampaged through the streets of Kerala, fighting pitched battles with police and political rivals, leaving scores of people injured including three BJP workers in a knife attack, officials said. The dawn-to-dusk 'Hartal' called by Sabarimala Karma Samithi, an umbrella organisation of pro-Hindutva groups, and the Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP), to protest the entry of two women of reproductive age into the Sabarimala temple on Wednesday virtually brought the state down to its knees. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A man was arrested for allegedly taking money from the family of an accused in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir on the pretext of getting him released from the police custody, police said on Thursday. "A fraudster identified as Mohammad Shafi Shah had deceitfully grabbed Rs 60,000 from the family of one Mohammad Yousuf Wani, who is under police custody for his involvement in a case registered at Police Station Tral," a police spokesman said. He said, Shah had promised Wani's family that he will get him released and also get the case withdrawn. Shah was arrested on Wednesday and Rs 50,000 was recovered from him, the spokesman said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 45-year-old man has been arrested in Lahore for sexually abusing at least 30 girls, mostly minors, and filming the victims after luring them either through candies or money, Pakistani officials said. The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested the child pornographer, Imdad Ali, from Lahore's low-income area Badami Bagh area last week and obtained his five-day physical remand for interrogation. The investigators have detected more than 30 porn clips of minor girls from the suspect's cellphone. "The video clips of 30 or so girls, mostly minors, have so far been retrieved from the mobile phone of the suspect. In these clips, he appears forcing the girls into sexual acts," FIA Punjab cyber crime wing Deputy Director Chaudhry Sarfraz told PTI. He said the FIA was spurred into action after a video clip of the suspect with a child had gone viral on social media. He said it took the FIA three months to track the suspect down. "We have sent the suspect's mobile phone for forensic examination and booked him under the Prevention of Electronic Crime Act (Peca). The FIA has become complainant in this case on behalf of the state after none of the identified victim girls' families showed willingness to file a complaint against the suspect." Sarfraz further said the suspect is not a part of any pornography ring (involved in selling material online) as he used to film his victims for his 'own consumption,' being a pervert. The suspect, a spurious engine oil dealer, has confessed to committing the crime. He also took the team to a nearby house he owned where he would take minor girls (mostly of the nearby areas) after luring them either through "candies or money." According to the cyber crime law, a child pornographer shall be punished with imprisonment for a term of up to seven years or with a fine of up to Rs 50 lakh or both. The FIA Punjab in 2017-18 has arrested four child pornographers in different areas of the province. Last year, the rape and murder of a minor girl in nearby Kasur city sparked outrage and protests across Pakistan. The 24-year-old suspect, who was involved in at least nine incidents of rape-cum-murder of minors, was given death penalty by an anti-terrorism court. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The activists of Mahila Congress on Thursday tried to march towards Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's residence demanding the sacking of Agriculture minister Pradeep Maharathy in connection with Pipili rape and murder case but were stopped by the police. While the Congress women activists were marching towards the CM's residence, the police intercepted them at Sishu Bhavan Chhak leading to a scuffle, a police officer said. About 500 activists were taken to preventive custody and later released, the police said. Odisha Mahila Congress president, Sumitra Jena said one woman activist was injured in the scuffle and admitted at the Capital House. "Unless Maharathy is removed from the ministry, we will continue our agitation. The Crime Branch and police have failed to collect evidences against the culprits and now they are exerting their power on the agitators," said Mahila Congress leader, Bijayalaxmi Sahoo said. The BJP Mahila Morcha had also held demonstration on Tuesday and Wednesday demanding the removal of Maharathy The women activists of both the opposition parties have been demanding the sacking of Maharathy from the ministry over his controversial remarks "hailing" the acquittal of Pipili gang rape and murder case accused persons. A 19-year-old dalit woman was raped in 2011 and she died in 2012 in Pipili area. A court in Bhubaneswar on December 24, had acquitted the two accused persons in the case. Maharathy had "welcomed" the judgement and also claimed that the victim got justice as the accused got acquittal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court Thursday revived the government case in National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) against Nestle India seeking damages of Rs 640 crore alleging unfair trade practices, false labelling and misleading advertisements. The top court had on December 16, 2015 stayed the proceedings before the NCDRC and directed the CFTRI (Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysuru) to place its test report before it. A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Hemant Gupta was told by senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Nestle India, that tests reports of the Mysuru lab had been submitted and it found that lead content in Maggi noodles was well within the limit. "Why should we be eating Maggi with lead in it?", Justice Chandrachud asked Singhvi, who replied that lead content in the noodles was well within the permissible limit and there was some amount of lead in various other products. The bench said the report of CFTRI, where the samples of Maggi noodles were tested following earlier orders of the court, will form the basis for the proceedings before the NCDRC. "We are of the view that CFTRI report be evaluated by the NCDRC in the complaint before it. It will not be appropriate for this court to pre-empt the jurisdiction of NCDRC... All the rights and contentions of the parties will remain open," the bench said. During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General Vikramjit Banerjee, appearing for Centre said that in the wake of the Mysuru lab report the matter should go back to NCDRC and stay on the proceedings should be vacated. Singhvi said the matter has now become infructuous as the report is in my favour and presence of MSG (monosodium glutamate) was not found. He along with senior advocate Arvind Dattar opposed sending the matter back to NCDRC saying nothing remains to be decided after the lab report. "Why should we usurp the power of NCDRC. We will send the lab reports to the commission and them ask to dispose of the complaint filed before it," the bench said adding that the appeal against the Bombay High Court order which had in 2015 quashed the Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) ban order against Nestle's Maggi noodle will be heard at a later stage. The Consumer Affairs Ministry had in 2015 filed a complaint against Nestle India before the NCDRC using a provision for the first time in the nearly three-decade-old Consumer Protection Act. It had filed a complaint against Nestle for causing harm to Indian consumers by allegedly indulging in unfair trade practices and false labelling related to the Maggi noodles product. It was for the first time that the government had taken action under Section 12-1-D of the Consumer Protection Act, under which both the Centre and states have powers to file complaints. In the petition filed before the NCDRC, the ministry had charged that Nestle India has misled consumers claiming that its Maggi noodle was healthy -- "Taste bhi healthy bhi". Nestle had to withdraw its instant noodles brand Maggi from the market over allegations of high lead content and presence of MSG. The food safety regulator FSSAI had banned Maggi noodles after it found excess level of lead in samples, terming it as "unsafe and hazardous" for human consumption. FSSAI had also said Nestle violated labelling regulations on taste enhancer 'MSG' and ordered the company to submit a compliance report on its orders. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Veteran actor Joanna Lumley is set to once again emcee The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards. The 72-year-old actor had become the first woman to host the award ceremony after she took over from Stephen Fry last year. The 2019 ceremony, to be held at the Royal Albert Hall on February 10, will also feature a special performance from Cirque de Soleil. "We're delighted to be returning to the iconic Royal Albert Hall for the third year and collaborating again with Cirque du Soleil. "We're thrilled that Joanna has agreed to return as our host for a second year, she was fantastic and we're looking forward to the ceremony with her once again at the helm," Emma Baehr, Director of awards at BAFTA, said in a press release. The nominations for 72nd BAFTA Film Awards will be announced on January 9. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jana Sena president Pawan Kalyan Thursday spurned alleged overtures by the ruling Telugu Desam Party for a realignment of the two parties, asserting that his outfit would contest all 175 assembly seats in the elections due in May this year. Except with the Left parties, the Jana Sena would not have tie-up with any other party, Kalyan said during an interaction with party workers here. "The opposition camp is speaking about the Jana Sena's seat-sharing with the ruling party while leaders of the ruling party too are trying to destabilise us by speaking about possible poll alliance. Please don't go by this false propaganda," Kalyan told his party workers. In the 2014 elections, when the Jana Sena was launched, it extended support to some parties (TDP and BJP) only to ensure stability, he pointed out. "This time we are contesting the elections from all 175 seats to strike a balance. Our aim is to protect the interests of future generations. Top priority will be given to women and youth," the actor-turned-politician added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Jammu and Kashmir administration Thursday ordered the constitution of a committee for the management of road safety fund in the state, officials said. According to an order issued by the General Administration Department (GAD), the Committee will be headed by the administrative secretary, finance department. The members of the committee include administrative secretaries or their representatives from the departments of housing and urban development, health and medical education, home, planning, public works, transport and the Inspector General of Police, Traffic, J&K among others. The Transport Commissioner, J&K will be the member secretary of the committee. The Committee shall review physical and financial progress of sanctioned schemes, ensure maintenance of accounts in accordance with rules and place all the proposals and action plan before the J&K State Road Safety Council, the official said. The Committee shall meet in every quarter of the financial year. Governor Satya Pal Malik had notified the road safety rules last September and also released a corpus of Rs 8 crore to ensure their effective implementation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) PDP president Mehbooba Mufti Thursday said Governor Satya Pal Malik should issue directions to security forces not to harass the families of the terrorists while fighting terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. "Our police is a disciplined force. The Governor should issue clear cut directions that families of militants should not be harassed," Mehbooba told reporters after visiting family of a slain militant in Shopian district of south Kashmir. The former chief minister said while the police did not want to indulge in such acts, the directions were seemed to be coming from somewhere in this regard. "The fight against militancy should not involve the families of the militants and general public. They (families of militants) should not be harassed," Mehbooba said. "I am sure that police does not want to do it but the directions are coming from somewhere that families of militants are being harassed. The brothers, sisters or parents (of terrorists) should not be harassed," she said. Mehbooba said during her tenure as the chief minister, she had directed the police and security forces that the fight against terrorism should not involve harassing the families of militants. "Fighting the militants is a separate issue ... when I was the CM, at Manigam (Police Training Institute), I gave directions to the police and security forces that while you fight militancy, the families of militants should not be harassed," she said. This was Mehbooba's second visit to the family of militants. Earlier, she had visited a similar family in Pulwama district. National Conference (NC) leader Omar Abdullah hit out at the PDP president saying she was trying to "rehabilitate a badly damaged reputation". "The architect of 'Operation All-out' & the overseer of the operations that killed hundreds of militants since 2015 is now going from one militant home to the next trying to rehabilitate a badly damaged reputation," Omar wrote on Twitter. "She used militants by sanctioning their deaths to appease the BJP and now she uses dead militants to try to appease the voter. Just how gullible does she think people are?" the former CM added. BJP, the former ally of PDP, was quick to dismiss Mehbooba's visits as a "political gimmick" and sought to remind her of the remarks she made as chief minister during a press conference at the peak of 2016 agitation following killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani and his two associates. "It was Mehbooba who earlier made a statement like were they (youth who were killed in 2016 agitation) out to buy toffee or milk. Her visits now to the families of slain militants is a political gimmick," BJP leader Ashok Koul said. Several social media users have also dismissed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief's outreach campaign as political opportunism with an eye on coming elections. A Facebook user posted the video clips of Mehbooba's press conference in 2016 as well as the latest comments on harassment of militant families with the title "a very good example of a chameleon". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is likely to launch Chandrayaan-2, the country's second mission to the Moon, next month, sources in the space agency said Thursday. "We are all trying hard. Definitely, it should be possible to launch the mission in February," a senior ISRO official told PTI. It is expected by the middle of next month but no date has been finalised, the sources said. "There is no impediment. It's on track," the official said. Chandrayaan-2, a totally indigenous venture, comprises an orbiter, a lander and a rover. After a controlled descent, the lander would soft-land on the lunar surface at a specified site and deploy a rover, according to the ISRO. The six-wheeled rover will move around the landing site on the lunar surface in a semi-autonomous mode as decided by the ground commands. The instruments on the rover will observe the lunar surface and send back data, which will be useful for analysis of the lunar soil. The 3,290-kg Chandrayaan-2 will orbit the Moon and perform the objectives of remote sensing it. The payloads will collect scientific information on lunar topography, mineralogy, elemental abundance, lunar exosphere and signatures of hydroxyl and water-ice, the space agency said. Chandrayaan-1 was India's first lunar probe. It was launched by the ISRO in October 2008 and operated till August 2009. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 32-member delegation of Indian lawyers is on a visit to Pakistan where they met Lahore High Court Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Shamim on Thursday. The delegation also met Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) president Noor Samand Khan, secretary Hassan Warraich and other senior lawyers who gave them a warm welcome. On the occasion, the Indian delegation led by Punjab and Haryana Bar Council chairman Partap Singh said, "We are very happy to visit Pakistan and have found Pakistanis quite different from the general impression created". He stressed that both countries need to come together for peace to flourish. According to a statement issued by the LHC office, Singh congratualted Justice Shamim over taking oath as new chief justice. Shamim briefed the delegation about the court and its regional benches. The judicial systems as well as the common laws of both countries were also discussed. The bar representatives said relations between both countries should be strengthened for an atmosphere of peace to promote people-to-people contacts. The Indian delegation arrived here via the Wagah border on Wednesday to attend functions hosted by Pakistan's Punjab Bar Council (PbBC). The delegation will stay in Lahore for five days and will attend a conference of the PbBC among other events. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Indian Medical Association has called a nation-wide protest on Friday against three bills in Parliament, which it said, would "change the profile" of the medical profession and healthcare sector in India. The protest has been called against the Medical Commission Bill, 2017, the Indian Medical Council (amendments) Bill, 2018, and the Consumer Protection Bill, 2018. The health body assured that medical services will not be affected by its protest. "The three bills have the potential to change the profile of the medical profession and healthcare in India. It is bound to affect patients at large. "The All India Protest Day on January 4 by the IMA is to invite the attention of Parliament and the nation," president, IMA, Santanu Sen, said. Local and state branches of the IMA have been asked to observe the day to protest against the bills. The Medical Commission (NMC) Bill is "anti-poor, anti-people and anti-federal". If it is allowed to pass it will have "unforeseen consequences" not only on the healthcare sector but also on the federal structure of the country, Sen claimed. The bill, which aims to overhaul medical education in the country, will give all authority to the government of India. If adopted, it would repeal the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956, he said. It proposes that fee for 50 per cent seats in medical colleges will be regulated by the government. The reservation of medical seats, up to 50 per cent, for managements is denial of equitable opportunities and is certainly anti-people and pro-rich, Sen said. Currently, several states have a fee fixing committee, but after implementation of the NMC Bill, they would lose their power to regulate fee, the IMA official said. "The NMC bill was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health which had recommended 24 amendments unanimously. The government accepted one recommendation and some in a partial manner. "The NMC bill still remains anti-people, pro-rich, anti-democratic and anti-federal. The IMA is determined to resist and oppose it at all costs," Sen said. R V Asokan, secretary general, IMA, said if the Consumer Protection Bill, which was passed by Lok Sabha on December 20, comes into force, it will led to an increase in litigations and also cause substantial increase in treatment cost, making healthcare unaffordable and inaccessible to weaker sections of society. The Consumer Protection Act, 1986, is being repealed and replaced by the bill, which enforces consumer rights. The Act of 1986 did not envisage to include medical profession. Medical profession was later brought under the purview of the Act in 1994 by a verdict of the Supreme Court, he said. Many concerns were placed by the IMA in the draft bill in 2015 and were put in the public domain, but they have not been addressed in the recently passed Consumer Protection Bill, Asokan said. "This legislation will cause substantial increase in treatment cost, make health care unaffordable and inaccessible to weaker sections of the society. "The government, which on one hand is concerned about the catastrophic healthcare cost, on the other hand is indirectly changing the rules," he said. It has to be realised that such moves hit people directly. Besides adversely impacting small and medium hospitals, small entrepreneurs will also be affected, Asokan said. The IMA demands capping of compensation for medical negligence cases. Unreasonably high compensations will give rise to more frivolous litigations and promote defensive medicine. Litigations by organisations or associations are generally vindictive in nature, he claimed. "It will be a bad precedence to allow such a practice. Moreover, peer expert opinion has to be mandatory before taking up a case of medical negligence by the consumer forum," Sen said. The IMA also opposed the IMC (Amendments) Bill 2018 which was recently passed in the Lok Sabha. The health body also expressed strong reservations in the way that an elected Medical Council of India (MCI) was superseded for no credible reason. Undue haste was shown to proclaim an ordinance creating a nominated board of governors while the election process was under way, it claimed. The MCI represents the plurality of opinion from multitude of institutions in our federal nation. It is "preposterous" to install a group of nominated board of governors who will never be able to fulfil the aspirations of the institute, Asokan said. All IMA members will wear black badges on Friday and will also hand over memorandums to all MPs in their constituencies. All medical services will function normally. In a sharp attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Shiv Sena Thursday said it wondered when the Ram temple could be constructed in Ayodhya if not during the tenure of the current BJP-led majority government. It said if the Ram temple cannot be built before 2019 (polls), it will be like betraying people of the country, for which the BJP and the RSS would have to apologise to them. The Sena, an ally of the BJP at the Centre and in Maharashtra, slammed Modi for his comment in a recent interview, broadcast by several TV channels, that any government action on the temple construction can happen only after the judicial process is over. "He (Modi) came to power in the name of Ram, however, according to him, law is not bigger than Lord Ram. The question now is if the temple cannot be constructed in the majority government, when will it ever be," the Sena asked in an editorial in party mouthpiece 'Saamana'. The Modi government got a magnificent statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel constructed in Gujarat, but the prime minister did not show the courage of 'sardar' over the Ram temple issue, it said, asserting that this would be recorded in the pages of history. The agitation for the Ram temple began in 1991-92 and hundreds of 'kar sevaks' lost their lives, it noted. "Who did this massacre and why? While hundreds of Hindu kar sevaks died, the subsequent (Mumbai) bomb blasts led to the killing of hundreds of people from both sides (Hindu and Muslim communities). If the Supreme Court had to take the decision, why this massacre and bloodshed?" it asked. The Uddhav Thackeray-led party further sought to know whether the BJP and the RSS were ready to take the responsibility for those killings and bloodshed. "The way the Congress had to apologise for the massacre of Sikhs (after the anti-Sikh riots in 1984), we have to understand the sentiments of those who demand an apology (from the BJP) for the massacre of Hindus," it said. Further attacking Modi over his interview in which he defended his government's decision of demonetisation in 2016, the Marathi daily said if note ban was not a shock and people had been warned a year before it was done, "who exactly were those people"? "Those who lost their lives standing in bank queues and those who lost employment, were they not citizens?" it further asked. In remarks laced with sarcasm, the Sena said if according to Modi, the upcoming general elections would be between people and the 'Mahagathbandhan' (the proposed anti-BJP alliance), "did people of Iran vote for the BJP in 2014?" "The people of five states who voted against the party (in the recent Assembly polls), are they not citizens of this country," the Sena queried. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ranveer Singh had a great 2018 both personally and professionally but the actor says he navigates through all the "blessings" by staying away from his own hype. The actor's flamboyant persona, his marriage with fellow actor Deepika Padukone and back-to-back hits in "Padmaavat" and "Simmba" kept him in the headlines throughout last year and Ranveer is aware how it can affect a person's outlook. "When this happens around you, there are two possibilities - you either believe it or you are simply aware of it. While I am aware of it, I don't start believing in my own hype. My experiences have shaped me to be the kind of person I am," he says. The actor says he keeps himself grounded by constantly reminding himself of his struggle period. "I had a proper struggle period of three and half years, so today when opportunities come my way, I value them tremendously. I never lose sight because I have a vivid memory of the times when I had none of this," he told PTI. Film industry is one of most volatile places and an actor's sense of security is challenged every Friday, something that Ranveer says he has learnt to deal with. "I try and adopt the middle path - don't get too carried away with the success and don't get bogged down by failures. I feel happy when I succeed, you must do that. But then quickly immerse yourself in the current moment again. "Filmmaking is a collaborative effort, so if it failed, it's not entirely your doing. I find this middle approach very healthy," he says. The 33-year-old actor says the child in him still considers his journey to success in Bollywood as a "fairy tale." "This one kid, out of nowhere, had a dream and he's now living it. Everyday my heart is filled with gratitude. I pray before I go to work and always say thank you because I value it. It is surreal what is happening with me, or around me. "This love keeps me grounded and humbled. When fans ask me to get clicked with them, what I am actually thinking is 'What? Me? Do they really want to be clicked with me!'" The actor will next be seen in Zoya Akhtar's "Gully Boy" with Alia Bhatt. The poster of the film released on Wednesday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bombay High Court Thursday said it will soon consider if the reproduction of old traditional songs amounts to copyright violation and is liable for criminal action. A division bench of Justices B P Dharmadhikari and Revati Mohite-Dere admitted a petition filed by lyricist and song writer Pramod Surya and two publishers Pukhraj Surya and Hiten Patel, seeking to quash an FIR lodged against them for copyright violation. According to the petition, Pramod Surya had made a compilation of old Marwari and Gujarati traditional songs, sung during marriage and other ceremonies, and published them in two books. In December 2014, one Ashadevi Sonigada had filed a complaint at the Malad police station here alleging that Pramod Surya and the two publishers had copied a song that she had already published in one of her books. The high court, after hearing brief arguments, sought to know as to how copyright can be claimed on such songs. "These are old traditional songs that have been played and sung at weddings and other ceremonies since generations. How can one claim copyright on it? This is like saying our national anthem and 'Vande Mataram' cannot be reproduced by anyone anywhere," Justice Dharmadhikari said. While admitting the petition, the bench directed the police not to file its charge sheet in the case against the lyricist and the publishers. "We will consider the issue whether reproduction of old traditional songs and compilation of such songs amounts to copyright violations and criminal action," the court said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bombay High Court Thursday allowed a 14-year-old rape victim to terminate her 24-week pregnancy. A division bench of Justices B P Dharmadhikari and Revati Mohite-Dere noted that the pregnancy was allegedly the result of a rape, and hence the anguish caused by such a pregnancy may lead to a grave injury to the girl's mental health. The girl had approached the court in December last year seeking permission to terminate her then 22-week pregnancy. The high court on December 26 directed that a panel of doctors from the state-run J J Hospital in Mumbai should examine her and submit a report on whether the termination of pregnancy was advisable. Passing its order Thursday, the court took note of the medical report which said that the pregnancy could be terminated. Under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, abortion beyond 20 weeks of pregnancy is prohibited. The act provides for constitution of committees to look into cases where the pregnancy beyond this period is sought to be terminated. However, as the state government has not formed these committees so far, women have to move the high court in such cases. The girl had lodged a complaint with the suburban Mankhurd police on December 1 last year alleging that she was raped by a man living in her neighbourhood. The accused was subsequently arrested for rape under the Indian Penal Code as well as the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POSCO) Act. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Martin Guptill celebrated his return to the New Zealand line-up with a masterful century as New Zealand posted 371 for seven in the first one-day international against Sri Lanka in Tauranga on Thursday. James Neesham, also recalled to the New Zealand side, marked his return with five sixes in one over on his way an unbeaten 47 off 13 deliveries. Guptill, who had been sidelined by injury in recent months, blasted 138 off 139 deliveries after captain Kane Williamson won the toss and opted to bat. There were 14 sixes in the New Zealand innings, six of them from Neesham and five from Guptill who also smacked 11 fours in the course of his 14th ODI century. Guptill became the ninth fastest batsman to reach 6,000 ODI runs during his innnings, achieving the milestone in his 160th match at an average of 43.67. Williamson was also in sight of a century until he miscued an attempted late cut and chopped a short Nuwan Pradeep delivery on to his stumps and was out for 76 while Ross Taylor made 54. Neesham took 33 off the penultimate over when he smacked Kusal Perera for five sixes, a single and a two with the two coming off one of five no balls from full tosses above waist height. Lasith Malinga, who finished with two for 78, fired three full tosses above waist height but escaped censure while Pradeep received an official warning after firing one high full-toss at Taylor. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Three migrant fishermen received Greek citizenship Wednesday for helping rescue dozens of people who were forced into the sea by flames from a summer wildfire that caused 100 deaths. Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos hosted a ceremony for Gani Xheka, 35, from Albania and Egyptians Emad El Khaimi, 50, and Mahmoud Ibrahim Musa, 46, both to honour them and for "sending a message to Europe" to counter anti-immigrant sentiment. The three men pulled people from the water who had fled the out-of-control wildfire at the seaside resort of Mati, east of Athens, by swimming out to sea while having difficulty breathing because of heavy smoke. The trio also guided survivors to a nearby port after the July 23 blaze reached the shore and gutted hundreds of homes. "In a situation like that, when you are talking about people's lives, there's no religion, no black people, no white people. You just have to help people who are in danger," El Khaimi said after the ceremony. The death toll from Greece's worst wildfire in decades included victims who drowned after seeking safety in the sea, as well as people who were trapped inside their homes or along narrow roads. The decision to grant the three men citizenship was published in Greece's official government gazette December 21 but formally announced Wednesday. "The three foreign nationals, displaying self-sacrifice and ignoring the dangers, joined Greek fishermen and saved dozens of our fellow citizens, including many children whose lives were at risk," the decision said. "Their self-denial and the exceptional contribution ... warrant the application of legal provisions for honorary naturalization." Interior Minister Alexis Charistis, who attended the ceremony, said the "human values" the fishermen displayed are ones people "must hold dear because unfortunately, there has been a reappearance in Greece and in Europe of voices of racism and hatred. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Left-backed labour union CITU on Thursday came down heavily on the Centre's move to amend the Trade Unions Act and accused the BJP government of redrafting the procedure of granting recognition to central trade unions. The Trade Unions (Amendment) Act, 2018 is "thoroughly designed with dubious articulation to impose conditions of slavery on the working people and totally abrogate trade union rights", the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) said in a statement. The CITU alleged that the proposed amendments reveal the government's dubious intent in total departure from existing mutually-agreed practices being followed for the last couple of decades. It pledged to raise the issues during its countrywide two day general strike on January 8 and 9. The Narendra Modi Cabinet had on Wednesday approved amendment to the Trade Unions Act, 1926, to make provisions regarding recognition of trade unions. The present Act provides for only registration of trade unions and there is no provision for recognition of unions. The CITU said the BJP government had been showing keenness in rewriting the procedure of recognising central trade unions. "They remain absolutely negative in making the employer mandatorily recognizing the trade unions at the enterprise level." As a result, it said, in many workplaces across the country, particularly in the private sector, workers were being victimised only for forming their trade unions -- as had happened in the Maruti Suzuki case in Manesar, Haryana, and recently in Yamaha case in Tamil Nadu last year. The existing law empowers the employer not to deal, if they like, with the trade union at the workplace level even if there is a single union, it said. The proposed amendment bill totally ignored the long-standing demands of the trade union movement, thereby allowing corporate masters to play with the basic rights of workers, the CITU alleged. It added that numerous struggles were going on only on the demand of recognition of trade unions in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana, Rajasthan and other states. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) has released Rs 193.16 crore from the Rs 1,830.87 crore fund approved for the construction of Kalewa-Yagyi road section and to build bridges on the India-Myanmar- trilateral highway, Parliament was informed Thursday. The 1,360 Km lone India-Myanmar- trilateral highway is an initiative of the three countries. is undertaking construction of two sections of the trilateral highway in Myanmar, that entails building 120.74 km Kalewa-Yagyi road section and constructing 69 bridges along with the approach road on the 149.70 km Tamu-Kyigone-Kalewa (TKK) road section, Minister of State for and Highways Mansukh L Mandaviya told Lok Sabha in a written reply. "The funds released by this Ministry is Rs 188.32 crore out of the approved cost of Rs 1,459.29 crore for the Kalewa-Yagyi road section and Rs 4.84 crore out of the approved cost of Rs 371.58 crore for the 69 bridges along with approach road on the TKK road section," Mandaviya added. Both the projects are being funded by the government of under grant assistance to the Government of The Minister said that the work on these sections were awarded on engineering, procurement and construction mode in May 2018 and November 2017. The schedule time for completion of both the projects are three years from the date of commencement at the project site by the executing agency. Food businesses need to comply with new packaging regulations that bar use of recycled plastics and newspapers to wrap food articles by July 1, regulator FSSAI said Thursday. The new regulations prohibit packaging material made of recycled plastics including carry bags for packaging, storing, carrying or dispensing articles of food. Taking cognizance of the carcinogenic effect of inks and dyes, the norms also prohibit the use of newspaper and such other materials for packing or wrapping of food articles and includes respective Indian standard for printing inks for use on food packages. "The new packaging regulations would raise the bar of food safety in India to the next level," Food Safety and Standards Authority (FSSAI) CEO Pawan Agarwal said in a statement. He also said that there would be "difficulties" in implementation of these regulations by the unorganised sector and therefore sufficient time has been given before the regulations come into force. "The food businesses shall have to comply with these regulations by 1st July, 2019," he said. Agarwal also mentioned that stakeholder's consultation and mass awareness building amongst consumers and food businesses would precede implementation of the new packaging regulations. Besides general and specific requirement with respect to packaging materials, the FSSAI said new regulations also prescribe overall migration and specific migration limits of contaminants for plastic packaging materials. The regulations specify the suggestive list of packaging materials for different food product categories. As per these regulations, packaging materials used for packing or storing the food products should conform to the Indian standards provided in the schedules. The new norms will replace all provisions with respect to packaging requirements prescribed in the Food Safety and Standards (Packaging and Labelling) Regulations, 2011. Recognising the importance of packaging in the food sector and its impact on food safety, packaging regulations have been separated from labelling regulations. The primary objective of packaging is to protect the food contents from micro-biological, chemical, physical and atmospheric contamination and preserve the food and thereby protect consumer's health. Good packaging also ensures that there is no change in sensory properties or composition of food when packed. Packaging is essential and critical for promoting food safety, extended shelf-life and thereby enhancing food security. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Justice of the Bombay High Court Chandrashekhar Shankar Dharmadhikari died at a private hospital here in Maharashtra in the wee hours of Thursday. He was 91. Justice Dharmadhikari was not keeping well and two days back he was admitted to the private hospital where he suffered a cardiac arrest on Wednesday night, a source said. He breathed his last around 1 am on Thursday, he said. He is survived by two sons, senior Bombay HC judge Satyaranjan Dharmadhikari and senior lawyer Ashutosh Dharmadhikari, and daughter Dr Aruna Patil. Justice Dharmadhikari was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2003. He was born on November 20, 1927 at Raipur (then in Madhya Pradesh). After graduating in law from Nagpur, he enrolled as an advocate of the Nagpur bench of the high court in 1956. During his legal practice, he served as government pleader before being appointed judge of the Bombay High Court in 1972. He retired on November 20, 1989. Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao expressed grief over his demise and said the state has lost a staunch Gandhian and humanist. "Coming from the family of freedom fighters, Justice Dharmadhikari had imbibed Gandhian values right from his childhood. He distinguished himself as one of the finest judges of the Bombay High Court who was associated with some of the most important judgements," he said. Rao said Justice Dharmadhikari was an outstanding orator and writer, and championed the cause of rural development, dignity of labour and promotion of khadi. "He had spoken on the theme 'Gandhian Values' at the Raj Bhawan in Mumbai barely three months ago on Gandhi Jayanti (October 2). I pay my respects to the abiding memory of late Justice Dharmadhikari and convey my deepest condolences to his family," the governor said. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also condoled Justice Dharmadhikari's demise, saying he was a stickler for principles and an inspiration for the new generation. "Justice Dharamadhikari carried forward the legacy of social responsibility of his father late Dada Dharmadhikari. He worked for the spread of Gandhian values till his last. He had also guided the state government from time to time," he said. Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit said Dharmadhikari's demise was a great loss for society and a personal loss for him. "He was a towering personality who made a significant contribution towards the betterment of society. He was a scholar, an erudite speaker, a thinker and legal luminary who inspired a generation of lawyers," he said. Purohit said he had a long association with Justice Dharmadhikari as they both worked together in social and educational fields. Five members of a Rohingya family were deported to Myanmar Thursday, three months after seven others were handed over to the authorities of the neighbouring country, police said here. Assam Additional Director General of Police (Border) Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta said were handed over to the Myanmarese authorities along the International Border in Manipur. "They were apprehended about five years ago without any travel document and were booked for violating the Foreigners Act," Mahanta said. They were lodged at Tezpur Detention Centre after completion of their jail terms. On October 3 last year, seven Myanmarese nationals, who were in a detention in Cachar Central Jail in Silchar, were deported from Assam. Mahanta had then said deportation of illegal entrants from countries like Bangladesh, Myanmar and Pakistan were going on for sometime. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis apologised for arriving late at the venue of a function at Naigaon in Satara district Thursday, saying the delay was caused by late take-off of his helicopter from Pune. While the local media claimed that the helicopter had a technical snag, an official in the chief minister's office (CMO) denied it. "In the beginning, I express my apologies to everybody. I was supposed to come here at 10 am but the helicopter which was supposed to bring me here got delayed in Pune. I apologise for coming late," Fadnavis said at the function. Local channels claimed that the delay was caused by a technical snag in the chopper. But a CMO official said this was not the case. "The chief minister flew to Naigaon in the same helicopter. Where is the question of technical snag?" he asked. Fadnavis has had some narrow escapes in mishaps involving helicopters since he became chief minister. In 2017, a government chopper in which he was flying crashed at Latur after its rotor blades got entangled in power cables. But he escaped unhurt. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after Congress chief Rahul Gandhi challenged the prime minister for a one-on-one debate on the Rafale issue, the opposition party accused Narendra Modi of "running away" from taking exam in Parliament and described Finance Minister Arun Jaitley as his "defensive minister". Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said Gandhi has "unmasked" PM Modi. The Congress president had Wednesday said Modi faced an open book exam on the Rafale deal in Parliament and asked if he will show up at the exam or send a proxy. On Thursday, he tweeted, "So it seems our PM has fled Parliament & his own open book Rafale exam & is instead lecturing students at Lovely University in Punjab, today." Singhvi told reporters here, "So-called exam warrior of 'Mann Ki Baat', who likes to preach and write a booklet on exams, has not (only) flunked the exams, but has run away from taking the exam. After the direct challenge thrown for a debate, he has 'gone furr' (fled)." "He has a finance minister (Arun Jaitley) who has become not the defence minister but the 'defensive minister' for the Government of India, for the Prime Minister. He has in that process, debased the dignity of his office by giving out 'manufactured lies'," Singhvi alleged. He said Gandhi, in his address after Jaitley's response, disproved the "Goebbelsian lie" of the minister by using his own statements. "The BJP has perpetually been in a damage control mode since of the Rafale scam broke and it is only a matter of time before the lid is blown off the top of this scam of unprecedented proportions," he said. In his response Wednesday, Jaitley had accused the Congress chief of peddling "lies" and "falsehood". Singhvi Thursday said the Congress chief has "exposed" the fallacies in Jaitley's speech in Lok Sabha, whom he described as 'the blogger minister', and said "it lacked as much truth as it did dignity". "Congress party directed pointed questions at PM Modi but he hid behind his advocates who did a terrible job in defending him. The Finance Minister, instead of the Defence Minister, was seen spewing manufactured facts and rhetoric on the floor of the House, while also debasing the dignity of his office with jibes that have no place in Parliament," he charged. The Congress leader alleged the Modi government has claimed several times that it cannot reveal the price of 36 Rafale jets. But Gandhi busted that claim by quoting Arun Jaitley himself, in which he admits that the total cost for 36 is Rs 58,000 crore which translates into Rs 1,611 crore per aircraft, he said. Singhvi said the Supreme Court judgement cited by the government in its defence, is a "spin-doctoring" by Jaitley, as the court has not said that there should be no Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the deal. He also flayed the NDA dispensation for "losing" the opportunity of getting transfer of technology to the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, saying it would have been good for the country. However, the government changed the deal and "gave Rs 30,000 crore" offset contract to a PM's "friend". "All aircraft in this country have a HAL connection and all that corporate has flown is not even paper plane," he said, alleging that the benchmark price for the Rafale deal was increased from Rs 39,422 crore to Rs 62,166 crore. "Did the Defence Ministry object...and if it did, are these the files hidden in Mr Parrikar's bedroom. Are these the files which you are scared the JPC will look into," asked Singhvi. Gandhi had on Wednesday also asked Modi to come clean on a purported audio tape of Manohar Parrikar, in which he claims the Goa chief minister has said during a state cabinet meeting that he has complete documents and the file pertaining to the Rafale deal in his bedroom. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Entry of trucks to Delhi would be stopped for 24 hours starting 11 pm Friday in view of the severe pollution in the national capital, the Supreme Court-appointed EPCA has instructed authorities. In a letter to chief secretaries of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) chief Bhure Lal directed them to stop the entry of truck traffic into Delhi, except essential commodities, from 11 pm on January 4 to 11 pm of January 5. "The enforcement of this direction requires coordination of all NCR (National Capital Region) states and you are therefore, requested to take steps to ensure that this happens. "Also, the opening of the Eastern and Western Expressway will make this easier to implement as the trucks that are not destined for Delhi now have convenient alternative to take," Lal said. The decision has been taken in view of the severe pollution level in the national capital for over 31 hours. Lal also urged people to minimise use of personal vehicles and avoid being outside for prolonged periods. The direction came after the recommendations of the Central Pollution Control Board-led task force. Delhi's air quality remained severe for the second day on Thursday due to adverse meteorological conditions as authorities warned that the condition would continue to deteriorate unless sufficient rainfall brings respite by cleansing the air. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The government Thursday said it endeavours to provide affordable quality healthcare for all while also working to boost the domestic pharmaceutical sector through 'Make in India'. As part of its efforts to give an impetus to the sector, Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers D V Sadananda Gowda will meet leaders of pharmaceutical and medical devices industry to discuss policy and challenges facing the industry, during the international conference being organised in Bengaluru in February. "The endeavour of the government is to provide affordable quality healthcare for all and boost indigenous pharma sector through 'Make in India'," Gowda said while addressing media during a curtain raiser for 'India Pharma 2019 & India Medical Device 2019' here. The minister further said to boost the sector, the Cabinet has already given approval for 100 per cent FDI under automatic route for manufacturing of medical devices. The Department of Pharmaceuticals, under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, along with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, is organising the 4th International Conference on Pharmaceutical & Medical Devices sector on February 18 and 19 in Bengaluru. Seeking to address concerns of the industry over various issues, including price control, the minister said the event would provide an opportunity to discuss government policy and challenges facing the industry. "The government is striving to make the processes in the sector as transparent and easy as possible," he added. The flagship event would bring key stakeholders of the pharma and medical devices sectors under one roof, Gowda said. The theme for India Pharma 2019 is 'Enabling Quality Affordable Healthcare' and that of India Medical Device 2019 is 'Med-Tech India: Gearing up for Ayushman Bharat'. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An encounter broke out between militants and security forces in Jammu and Kashmir Pulwama district on Thursday, police said. The security forces launched an anti-insurgency operation in the higher reaches of Tral area in the morning following information about the presence of at least two militants in the forests, a police officer said. The search operation turned into an encounter when the militants, who were hiding, opened fire, the officer said. There were no reports of any casualties in the operation so far, the official added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Editors Guild of on Thursday expressed concern over the arrest of a leading Bengali daily's editor by the CBI last month and asserted that the views held by him in discharging his editorial responsibilities should not be a factor in the probe. The (CBI) on December 20 arrested Suman Chattopadhyay, editor of Ei Samay, in connection with West Bengal's ICore chit fund scam. He was summoned to the investigating agency's office in Kolkata after several rounds of questioning and was placed under arrest by officials. The Editors Guild of India, in a statement, expressed concern over Chattopadhyay's arrest by the CBI on "reported charges of financial misdemeanour". The guild said it believes that nobody has immunity from the law and it must take its own course, but warned that the views held by Chattopadhyay in discharging his editorial responsibilities should not be held against him or become a factor in the investigation. ALSO READ: CBI arrests veteran journalist Suman Chattopadhyay in Bengal chit fund scam "The guild wants the government to make sure that its investigative agencies are totally fair and professional in pursuing this investigation and prosecution," the statement said. It also urged law enforcement authorities to provide Chattopadhyay all the options and facilities that are available to citizens for seeking due legal recourse. The Navy and divers waited all day Thursday to resume rescue work but could not since the water level remained unchanged in the 370-feet-deep shaft in Meghalaya's East Jaintia Hills district where 15 miners are trapped since December 13. During the day, the expressed strong dissatisfaction over the rescue efforts to trace those trapped inside the illegal mine in Lumthari village for 22 days, telling the state government to bring them out dead or alive. There was some progress Thursday in dewatering the nearby mines, which rescuers believe might be connected with the main shaft, with the help of three high powered pumps pressed into service by the Odisha Fire and Disaster Service personnel. At 5:10 pm when the pumping stopped, the water level in one mine went down by another six inches, operation spokesman R Susngi told PTI. The water level had lowered by 16 inches in this mine on Wednesday. While in the next abandoned mine, where pumping began in the afternoon on Thursday, the water level went down by 13 inches, he added. Rigorous pumping of water from the nearby abandoned mines is expected to begin Friday as two more high powered pumps from Kirloskar Brothers Ltd arrived during the day, Susngi said. A high powered submersible pump from will also begin pumping on Friday as the preparations to lower it inside the shaft took longer than expected, he said. The multi-agency operation, however, failed to make any headway in reducing the water level in the main shaft, resulting in undue delay in the efforts to rescue the trapped miners. The services of the rescue divers from the and the could not be utilised as the water level was above the safe diving limit of 30 metres. The search and rescue operations were halted for the night. They waited all day but since there was no change in the water level, they could not dive in, Susngi said. The spokesman said the divers would resume operations once the water level in the main shaft decreases to about 100 feet from its current level of over 160 feet. Authorities said there were at least 90 abandoned mine shafts in the area and they were filled with water. Rescuers believe that these nearby mines might be interconnected and draining out water in these mines could help in reducing the water level in the main shaft. Even after a lapse of 22 days, no contact has been established with the trapped miners. It is still not clear if they have access to food and drinking water. / -- Beautification drive includes distribution of plants and meetings with Assistant Commissioner, SMC Celebrating the 75th Milad Mubarak of His Holiness Dr. Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin Aqa TUS, the Dawoodi Bohra Community in Gujarat came together for one of the grandest cleanliness drives across the region. As part of their beautification campaign, 450 potted plants were distributed to members of the community for a mere INR 100 at Tanzeem offices. Furthering their commitment to keeping the city clean, women from the Dawoodi Bohra community met with Gayatri Jariwala, Assistant Commissioner, Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC), to discuss the challenges faced in maintaining the city and the solutions to achieve the same. At the meeting, it was proposed that garbage collection be done twice a day, besides requesting separate bins for wet and dry waste. Additionally, it was suggested that the timings for garbage collection be fixed and followed accordingly. Women from the community also expressed their concern over stray animals and their faeces, which soil the city, and asked if the SMC could find a solution to this. They also requested the SMC to fix potholes and gutters, as well as solving parking problems in the area, to facilitate a better city. Speaking about the cleanliness drive, Samina Kanchwala, Secretary, DBWRF said, "It is wonderful to see women from the community take up the onus of keeping Gujarat clean. This is just the beginning and we are confident of taking the clean-up mission across the country, with more and more women joining in." With this, the Dawoodi Bohra community has reaffirmed its commitment to the teachings of His Holiness Dr. Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin Aqa TUS, who encourages people to maintain hygiene and cleanliness around them. About DBWRF In May 2017, a few Dawoodi Bohra women stalwarts initiated a movement to bring together the Dawoodi Bohra Women of India on a common platform to preserve and protect the beliefs, customs, culture and religious rights of Dawoodi Bohra Women. And thus was born DBWRF which today represents tens of thousands of Dawoodi Bohra women in India. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb claimed Thursday that violence and crime against women have reduced considerably in the state ever since the BJP-IPFT government came to power. The BJP-Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) unseated the 25-year-old Left Front government in March last year. "After the new government came (to power) atrocities against women have reduced and general violence has also come down considerably. All these things were possible due to the positive role played by the state police and state paramilitary Tripura State Rifles (TSR)," Deb, who is also the Home Minister of the state, said while inaugurating the 'Tripura Police Week' at A D Nagar Police Ground here. Deb said that the police should build a good relationship with the people of the state, which would help them in handling law and order in a better way. "If the police keep a good relation with the people, the rate of crime will slow down. It would help maintaining law and order in the state in a better way," he said. Deb said he was in favour of a crime-free state which could be achieved if police and people work in a cordial manner" and Tripura can emerge as a model state. "I also want empowerment of women in the state. For making Tripura a model state, we also have to make it a drug-free state." Deb said. He said that raids against drugs would continue till Tripura becomes a drug-free state. Director General of Tripura police Akhil Kumar Shukla said that after Punjab, Tripura is the state where the state police has crushed decades-old insurgency. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The opposition CPI(M) in Tripura on Thursday opposed the Centre's decision to allow private sector Vedanta Limited to explore oil and natural gas in the state terming it as a "ploy" to weaken public sector firms like ONGC. Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in a letter to Tripura Chief Secretary LK Gupta in December said, The Government of India has signed 55 revenue sharing contracts with companies who have been awarded Petroleum Exploration blocks under the first round of Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) and Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) for exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas. The letter added, One exploration block has been awarded to Vedanta Limited for exploration and production in the state of Tripura. Vedanta Limited is required to apply to the state government for grant of Petroleum Exploration Licenses (PELs). The petroleum ministry has also asked Tripura to facilitate speedy clearance for smooth flow of investment in the project. A statement issued by CPI(M) on Thursday said, The Navaratna ONGC is exploring oil and natural gas in Tripura for the last five decades. It has extracted huge quantity of gas and played a very important role in generating electricity and distributing LPG in the households of the state. Many states of the North East and neighbouring Bangladesh are being benefited from the electricity generated from Tripura. The state unit of CPI(M) vehemently protests the central governments decision to weaken the public sector undertaking, ONGC, the statement said. The party also appealed to the people to protest the decision. ONGC started drilling in Tripura in 1962. The company, in a joint venture with the state government in 2012 started a gas-based power company at Palatana in Gumati district, about 60 km from here, which generates 726.6 MW power per day and caters to the north eastern states and Bangladesh. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad Thursday attacked BJP, accusing it of destabilising the government in Jammu and Kashmir and trying to break National Conference (NC), PDP and Congress in the stat. Initiating the debate on resolution to impose President rule in Jammu and Kashmir in Rajya Sabha Azad said: "You made the government with fanfare in Jammu & Kashmir but BJP withdrew from it. "Why didn't you conduct elections. You took four months and tried to brake Congress, NC and whosoever (PDP) did development in Kashmir. The moment you came to know that government cannot be formed, you dissolved the assembly," he said. Azad further said :"We are secular forces. We want to have Kashmir with India. You withdrew security in the state and made them soft target (for militants)". The leader of the opposition in the House said it is necessary to strengthen regional parties for stability of elected state governments. However, Azad supported the resolution moved by Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday, to approve proclamation issued by the President on December 19, 2018 under Article 356 of the Constitution of India in relation to Jammu & Kashmir. The resolution has already been passed by the Lok Sabha on December 28, 2018. Azad also pointed out that since Jammu and Kashmir Governor has legislative and executive power, the Governor brought 55 amendments in different law in such a sensitive state. He also held BJP responsible for "100 per cent alienation" in the state alleging the government has brought this in the culture of state administration on how many Hindu or Muslim officials are appointed by them. He said there were maximum number of cease fire violations during the last four years and a large number of people as well as animals were killed due to shelling. "We had given you a Kashmir which was known for communal harmony and development. But it not the same," he said. Azad also accused government of not creating enough employment opportunities in the state and said this led to youth who were trained as doctors, engineers and Phd holders, to join militancy. Relying to Azad's accusations, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said if the Congress leaders want to become statesmen then they have to get out of blame game. He also said the Congress cannot get away with its responsibility regarding the situation of alienation in the state because "stone pelting incident came to light in your golden era only." He also said : "You ruled the state and now you say that people are alienated". Jaitley said :"When history will decide which point of view--Shyama Prasad Mukherjee or Jawahar Lal Nehru - was right, then you will have problem. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress would review from tomorrow its performance in the December seven Assembly elections in Telangana and discuss preparations for this year's Lok Sabha polls in the State. The TRS had returned to power, winning 88 seats in the 119-member Assembly, pushing the Congress to a distant second position with 19 seats. The Congress had forged "Prajakutami" (People's Front) along with the Telugu Desam Party, the Telangana Jana Samiti and the Communist Party of India but the grouping came a cropper at the hustings. The TDP, headed by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, won a mere two seats, while the TJS and the CPI drew a blank. The AICC in-charge of Congress affairs in Telangana, R C Khuntia and Telangana Pradesh Congress President N Uttam Kumar Reddy said the party's central leadership has given instructions to strengthen the organisation in Telangana. "To prepare for Parliamentary elections, several directions have been given," Reddy told PTI Thursday. "Only old (ten) districts have DCC (District Congress Committee). Decision has been taken to put DCC presidents in new (23) districts (in Telangana)," he said. Khuntia said all the districts would have party presidents by January ten. A meeting would be held here from tomorrow to January eight to review the party's peformance, constituency-wise, in the assembly elections and also take stock of the oufit's preparations for Lok Sabha polls, Khuntia said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress and the All Assam Students Union (AASU) Thursday termed as pre-election sop the Union cabinet's decision to set up a high-level committee to recommend safeguards to protect the indigenous people of Assam. A high-level committee had also been set up earlier by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government to implement the Assam Accord, but it did not yield any result, the AASU, a signatory to the Accord, and the Congress said here separately. The NDA government at the Centre came to power in 2014 and the Sarbananda Sonowal government won the state polls in 2016, but they found time to implement the Clause-6 of the Accord only when the Lok Sabha election is approaching, said the AASU and Congress. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had on Wednesday announced that the cabinet would set up a high-level panel for implementation of Clause-6 of the Assam Accord signed in 1985. Singh said the clause, which provides for protection of the rights of indigenous people of the state, had not been fully implemented even almost 35 years after the Accord was signed. A six-year agitation by the AASU demanding identification and deportation of illegal immigrants culminated with the signing of the Assam Accord by the Rajiv Gandhi government and the AASU on August 15, 1985. AASU Chief Advisor Samujjal Kumar Bhattacharya said the decision was an attempt to "assuage the feelings of the Assamese community which was hurt due to the move to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955." The Leader of Opposition in Assam assembly Debabrata Saikia said termed the decision a 'jumla' before the elections as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was rattled by the fierce opposition to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. The bill seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955, for granting Indian nationality to people belonging to minority communities -- Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians -- in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan after six years of residence in India instead of 12, even if they don't possess any proper document. The AASU and other socio-political organisations of the northeast have vehemently opposed the bill. "The BJP is trying to hoodwink the people of Assam by giving sops before the general elections as the party is known for using cheap gimmicks and insincere promises to win elections," Saikia said in a statement here. The nodal ministry for implementation of the Assam Accord is the union home ministry and the Central and Assam governments are to implement it, said Bhattacharya, wondering how the committee could decide the fate of the state. "Detection, deletion and deportation of illegal Bangladeshis from Assam and border protection are the responsibility and duty of the two governments and not of committees. This is not acceptable," he asserted. A high-level committee, with bureaucrat G K Pillai as the head, had been constituted for implementing the Assam Accord when Atal Behari Vajpayee was the prime minister but no further progress was made during his five-year term, Saikia said. One of the AASU representatives in the panel was Assam's current chief minister, Bhattacharya said. "We were on the path of consensus and only declaration was awaited. But the central government yesterday gave the impression that the issue of seat reservation is a new thing," the AASU leader said. After the Narendra Modi government came to power at the Centre, the Union Home Minister had announced on December 27, 2016 that Clause-6 would be implemented, Saikia said. "It appears that the BJP considers the people of Assam extremely gullible as it has come up with a new assurance when the list of unfulfilled pre-election promises made in 2014 and 2016 is already quite long," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The government has constituted a committee to look into reasons for as many as 37 students of Navodaya Vidyalaya committing suicide in last 10 years, the Rajya Sabha was informed Thursday. The government was also working on appointing counsellors in each of the schools, Human Resources Development Minister Prakash Javadekar said after the the issue was raised through a Zero Hour mention by Viplove Thakur (Congress). Thakur alleged that no attempt was made to find out the reasons behind so many students committing suicide. Replying to this, the Minister said Navodaya Vidyalaya is a highly successful mode of residential school education with 98 per cent of students passing 12th standard, which was more than the CBSE average of 82 per cent. The suicides happened over a period of 10 years and "we have appointed a committee to look into causes," he said. Tiruchi Siva (DMK) raised the issue of Staff Selection Commission holding examination for appointment of non-gazetted officers only in Hindi and English. He demanded that such examination be conducted in regional languages and selection done on zonal level. Binoy Viswam (CPI) raised the issue of 15 miners being trapped in a coal mine in Meghayala, while Manish Gupta (TMC) said the merger of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with Bank of Baroda will leave to job losses and hit credit to farm sector. Gupta said 1,800-1,900 branches will be closed. "How will merger reduce NPAs," he asked. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The government Thursday said it has augmented the supply of coal to power plants to meet the country's energy demands. The development assumes significance as Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy recently met Coal Minister Piyush Goyal and demanded the Centre to ensure immediate supply of coal to Raichur Thermal Power Station. "Ministry of Coal has increased the coal stock and coal supply to power plants to meet the energy demands in the country," the coal ministry said in a statement. The coal stock in power plants as on December 31, 2018, was 16.60 million tonnes (MT) as compared with 13.20 MT on December 31, 2017, showing an increase of around 25 per cent. As on December 31, 2018, the number of power plants in the critical/super-critical category was nine, compared with 13 on December 31, 2017. "The coal stock in power plants on December 31, 2018, was sufficient for 10 days as compared to the coal stock in power plants on December 31, 2017, which was sufficient for nine days," it said. The supply from Coal India Ltd (CIL) to power plants as on December 30 was 357.5 MT as against 332.03 MT as on December 30, 2017, showing a rise of around 7.7 per cent. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat Thursday said the state government will brook no delay in setting up growth centres and asked officials to fully implement the scheme in a time bound manner. Reviewing progress of the scheme at a meeting here, Rawat said enough funds have been sanctioned for the purpose through NABARD. The World Bank has also agreed to fund the development of growth centres, according to an official release. Briefing the chief minister about the progress of the project, officials said most of the growth centres will start functioning in the next 3-4 months. The work on developing turmeric and chilli cluster by Amotha Agri-Business Growth Centre is being started in the Ekeshwarblock of Pauri Garhwal by Watershed Management Department. Semar Agri-Business Growth Centre in Ekeshwar Block, Naali (Falait) in Dhauladevi, Raipur (Thano), Kapkot, Punah Pokhari (Charkarta) and Khariasi centre in Jaunpur Development Block will be functional by March. Rawat suggested that the vacant school buildings and Patwari posts should be used for the growth centres. In addition, the chief minister issued instructions to work on the action plan to develop cluster of famous local yellow chilli in Lakhauri near Bironkhal, Nainidanda. The CM also said that a proposal to open 25 selling points of Uttarakhand products in Delhi has been discussed with New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC). Due to the large population of Uttarakhand migrants in Delhi, there is a good demand for local products of the state there. Four growth centres of cluster-based trout fishery farming under the fisheries department, Dehradun cluster-based Pangasius and Carp farming in Haridwar will start by March. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Chinese serial killer and rapist, dubbed 'Jack the Ripper' and convicted of murdering 11 women, was executed Thursday following a court verdict sentencing him to death. Gao Chengyong, 53, was sentenced to death at the Baiyin Intermediate People's Court in Gansu province in March last year, about 30 years after his first killing. Gao has been executed on Thursday morning, state-run China Daily reported. He faced multiple charges of homicide, rape, robbery and mutilation of corpses committed between 1988 and 2002. The court found him guilty of killing the victims to cover up robbery and rape in Baiyin, Gansu and Baotou, Inner Mongolia. Gao confessed to his crimes in the court and said he would not file an appeal, official media reported. Chinese Police hunted Gao for 28 years until one of his relatives committed a crime and underwent DNA testing in 2015, which led to his arrest in August 2016, a previous report by state-run Xinhua agency said. Dubbed "Jack the Ripper" by Chinese media, Gao, a married father of two, followed his victims home before robbing, raping and murdering them. He cut their throats and mutilated their bodies. The original Jack the Ripper was a serial killer who was active largely in the impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The unidentified serial killer is widely believed to have murdered many women. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) China's Chang'e-4 lunar rover scripted history on Thursday when it made the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon and sent back close-up images of the previously unexplored region, a giant leap for cosmic exploration and a major boost to the Communist nation's quest to become a space superpower. Chang'e-4, named after a Chinese moon goddess and comprising a lander and a rover, touched down at the preselected landing area at 177.6 degrees east longitude and 45.5 degrees south latitude on the far side of the moon at 10:26 am (Beijing time), China National Space Administration (CNSA) said. The lunar explorer landed on the far side of the moon and has already sent back its first pictures from the surface, which were shared by state media. The pioneering achievement is another demonstration of China's ambitions to be a space power. The country aims to land a crewed flight on the moon in the coming decade. The US space agency NASA congratulated Chinese scientists on their success. "Congratulations to China's Chang'e-4 team for what appears to be a successful landing on the far side of the Moon. This is a first for humanity and an impressive accomplishment!" NASA administrator Jim Brindestine tweeted. "As part of the international science community, we look forward to learning about this rather unexplored part of our Moon exploration," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The robotic spacecraft is carrying instruments to analyse the unexplored region's geology and will conduct biological experiments. The first-ever soft landing is being seen as a major milestone in space exploration because unlike previous moon missions that have landed on the Earth-facing side, this is the first time any craft has landed on the unexplored and rugged far side of the moon. The successful landing formally inaugurated the world's first expedition to the far side that never faces the Earth and is expected to fulfil scientists' long-held aspiration to closely observe the enormous region, state-run China Daily reported. Though the far side has been extensively photographed by spacecraft, starting with a Soviet probe in 1959, no probe had ever made a soft landing onto it. Scientists around the world have not been able to conduct close observations and surveys of the region for decades. The probe was launched by a Long March-3B carrier rocket on December 8 from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan Province. It landed on the Von Karman crater in the South Pole-Aitken basin and then sent back a picture of the landing site shot by one of the monitor cameras on the probe's lander, marking the world's first image taken on the moon's far side. The picture, published by the China National Space Administration, shows the place where Chang'e 4's rover will be heading to roam and survey. Tidal forces on Earth slow the moon's rotation to the point where the same side always faces Earth. The other side, most of which is never visible from Earth, is the far side of the moon. Direct communication with the far side of the moon, however, is not possible, which is one of the many challenges for the Chang'e-4 lunar probe mission. China launched a relay satellite, named Queqiao, in May, to set up a communication link between the Earth and Chang'e-4 lunar probe. This is the first time an attempt is made to explore the far side of the moon. Since the moon's revolution cycle is the same as its rotation cycle, the same side always faces Earth. The far side of the moon is the hemisphere that never faces Earth, due to the moon's rotation. It is sometimes mistakenly referred to as the "dark side of the moon," even though it receives just as much sunlight as its Earth-facing side. The Chang'e-4 mission will be a key step in revealing the moon's mysterious side, a report by state-run Xinhua agency said. The scientific tasks of the Chang'e-4 mission include low-frequency radio astronomical observation, surveying the terrain and landforms, detecting the mineral composition and shallow lunar surface structure, and measuring the neutron radiation and neutral atoms to study the environment on the far side of the moon, according to CNSA. Chang'e-4 mission has four scientific payloads developed by scientists from the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Saudi Arabia. Chang'e 4 is the fourth lunar probe launched by China since the country's lunar programme was opened in 2004. Chang'e-4 includes two main parts: the main lander weighing about 2,400 pounds and a 300-pound rover. By comparison, NASA's Opportunity rover on Mars weighs about 400 pounds, and the Curiosity rover there is much bigger, at 2,000 pounds. The spacecraft is largely a clone of Chang'e-3, which landed on the moon in 2013. Named after the goddess of the moon in Chinese legends, the first Chang'e spacecraft was launched in 2007 to verify China's lunar probe technology, obtain lunar images and perform scientific surveys. The Chang'e 2 followed in 2010 to carry out high-definition imaging of the moon and investigate landing conditions for the Chang'e 3. Chang'e 3 landed on the moon in 2013. Chang'e 3 released the first Chinese lunar rover, Yutu, on the moon. It worked there for around 1,000 days. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi played down concern over Africa's debts with Beijing on Thursday as he arrived in Ethiopia at the start of a four-nation Africa tour. China has funnelled cash and loans into infrastructure projects across the continent, where many African leaders consider Beijing's terms a better deal that than those offered by bilateral Western nations. Wang initially sidestepped concerns -- often made by Western nations -- about whether the debt repayments were sustainable. "Generally, debt in Africa has been a protracted issue left from history," Wang said. "It didn't come up today, still less is it caused by China." China is the single largest bilateral financier of infrastructure in Africa, exceeding the combined total of the African Development Bank (ADB), the European Union, International Finance Corporation, the World Bank and the Group of Eight (G8) countries. "We know that in terms of financing, some African countries have encountered difficulties," Wang then added, speaking on the first leg tour of tour that will also include The Gambia, Senegal and Burkina Faso. "China attatches great importance to that, as Africa's good friend and brother. We're always ready to extend a good hand when African countries need it." Chinese foreign investment and construction between 2005 and 2018 totalled USD 298 billion in sub-Sahara Africa, according to data compiled by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative research organisation. Both Wang and his Ethiopian counterpart, Foreign Minister Workneh Gebeyehu, spoke warmly of ties between their nations - and dismissed a suggestion that relations had cooled since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power last year with a sweeping reformist agenda. "The reform process in Ethiopia - we believe it will further strengthen our ties with China," Workneh said. "China will continue to be Ethiopia's strategic partner," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Chinese lunar rover landed on the far side of the moon on Thursday, becoming the world's first spacecraft to touch down on the moon's uncharted side never visible from Earth, in a major boost to Beijing's quest to become a space superpower. The lunar explorer Chang'e-4 probe touched down on the far side of the moon and sent photos. The probe, comprising a lander and a rover, landed at the preselected landing area at 177.6 degrees east longitude and 45.5 degrees south latitude on the far side of the moon at 10:26 am (local time), China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced. The probe was launched by a Long March-3B carrier rocket on December 8 from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan Province. It landed on the Von Karman crater in the South Pole-Aitken basin and then sent back a picture of the landing site shot by one of the monitor cameras on the probe's lander, marking the world's first image taken on the moon's far side. The picture, published by the China National Space Administration, shows the place where Chang'e 4's rover will be heading to roam and survey. The successful landing formally inaugurated the world's first expedition to the far side that never faces the Earth and is expected to fulfill scientists' long-held aspiration to closely observe the enormous region, state-run China Daily reported. Tidal forces on Earth slow the moon's rotation to the point where the same side always faces Earth. The other side, most of which is never visible from Earth, is the far side of the moon. Though the far side has been extensively photographed by spacecraft, starting with a Soviet probe in 1959, no probe had ever made a soft landing onto it. So scientists around the world had not been able to conduct close observations and surveys of the region for decades. Direct communication with the far side of the moon, however, is not possible, which is one of the many challenges for the Chang'e-4 lunar probe mission. China launched a relay satellite, named Queqiao, in May, to set up a communication link between the Earth and Chang'e-4 lunar probe. This is the first time an attempt is made to explore the far side of the moon. Since the moon's revolution cycle is the same as its rotation cycle, the same side always faces Earth. The other face, most of which cannot be seen from Earth, is called the far side or "dark side" of the moon, not because it is dark, but because most of it is uncharted. The Chang'e-4 mission will be a key step in revealing the moon's mysterious side, a report by state-run Xinhua agency said. The scientific tasks of the Chang'e-4 mission include low-frequency radio astronomical observation, surveying the terrain and landforms, detecting the mineral composition and shallow lunar surface structure, and measuring the neutron radiation and neutral atoms to study the environment on the far side of the moon, according to CNSA. Chang'e-4 mission has four scientific payloads developed by scientists from the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Saudi Arabia. Chang'e 4 is the fourth lunar probe launched by China since the country's lunar programme was opened in 2004. Named after the goddess of the moon in Chinese legends, the first Chang'e spacecraft was launched in 2007 to verify China's lunar probe technology, obtain lunar images and perform scientific surveys. The Chang'e 2 followed in 2010 to carry out high-definition imaging of the moon and investigate landing conditions for the Chang'e 3. Chang'e 3 landed on the moon in 2013. Chang'e 3 released the first Chinese lunar rover, Yutu, on the moon. It worked there for around 1,000 days. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The ruling AAP in Delhi Thursday alleged that the Centre was "conspiring" to obstruct Metro Phase IV project on the pretext of operating loss issue. Raising the issue in the Delhi Assembly, Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot said, "In a conspiracy, the Centre is planning to stop work (on Metro Phase IV). We have heard that a hurdle will be created and the Delhi government will bear the entire operating loss". He said the central government should hand over the Delhi Metro to the city government and it will be run efficiently. The Metro Phase IV project, delayed by about two years, was approved by the Kejriwal government on December 21. The fresh tussle between the Centre and Delhi government appears to be brewing after the AAP dispensation imposed a condition of 50-50 per cent operational loss sharing while giving approval to the Phase-IV of Delhi Metro. The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry officials had said the condition that the Centre equally shared any operational loss with the AAP government was being examined, adding it was a state subject and that other states might raise similar demands. Gahlot alleged that the officers of the Centre first delayed the Metro Phase IV and now a fresh conspiracy was being hatched by the BJP (at the Centre) to stop it. "We want Metro Phase IV to be completed soon. But, the BJP wants to take revenge from people by stopping it," he said. Among the projects chosen under the Phase IV are: Rithala-Bawana-Narela (21.73 km, elevated), Janakpuri West-RK Ashram (28.92 km, 21.18-km elevated ), Mukundpur-Maujpur (12.54 km, elevated), Inderlok-Indraprastha (12.58 km, underground), Aero City-Tughlakabad (20.2 km, 5.58-km elevated), Lajpat Nagar-Saket G Block (7.96 km, 5.89-km elevated). The project is estimated to cost around Rs 45,000 crore. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi Police Thursday arrested former Bihar MLA Raju Singh, his wife and two others Thursday in connection with a celebratory firing incident during a New Year's Eve party at the ex-legislator's farmhouse here, in which a woman suffered serious injuries and succumbed later. The former MLA, who had unsuccessfully contested the 2015 Assembly election in Bihar on a BJP ticket, and his driver Hari Singh, had fled Delhi after the incident. They were arrested after being detained on Wednesday from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh. Raju Singh's wife Renu Singh and Raminder Singh, who worked for the leader, were arrested for allegedly destroying evidence, police said. Renu Singh is a former member of the Bihar legislative council. Raminder Singh, apart from cleaning the floor, also hid the bullets used, besides trying to threaten the witnesses, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Vijay Kumar. Renu was questioned and initially she did not cooperate but it was found that she was the one who ensured that the bloodstains are cleaned and the rounds are hidden, sources said. They added that she initially kept claiming no bullets were fired but when she was confronted with evidence, she confessed to her role. The police have added IPC Section 302, which pertains to punishment for murder, and punishable with a maximum term of life imprisonment or death sentence, to the FIR after Archana Gupta, who was hit by bullets, succumbed to injuries on Thursday. Gupta, an architect, and a resident of Gautam Nagar in Hauz Khas, had gone to the party along with her husband and daughter. They were invited at the farmhouse in Mandi Gaon by the ex-MLA's brother Sanjeev Singh. The Guptas were known to Sanjeev Singh for over 25 years. The party was attended by around 30 families including women and children. In total, 50-60 people were at the party, police said. Police were informed about the incident by the hospital authorities at 1.05 am by Fortis Hospital, Vasant Kunj. Around 12, when the countdown began for the new year, firing took place, said the DCP, adding five-six rounds were shot. "Out of this, one bullet hit the victim. Gupta's husband noticed her falling down, when he got to know about the injury at the head near the right ear, she was rushed to hospital by her husband and his cousin," he added. Police said they did not receive any PCR call from the farmhouse and only got to know about it after a call from the hospital authorities. When police reached the farmhouse, they learnt that certain evidences were destroyed, an official said, adding the floor was washed and they did not find any empty rounds. When police reached the spot, they found many guests had left the party. It was learnt that, two men, Raju Singh and his driver Hari Singh, were missing. During enquiry, it was found that Raju Singh and his driver Hari Singh had opened fire. The accused duo absconded soon after the incident. With the help of technical surveillance, police learnt that the accused was en route to Uttar Pradesh. The UP Police border check-post and Kushi Nagar district police were alerted about the possibility of an Innova car passing through the area, police said. The UP police intercepted the vehicle and subsequently, Raju Singh and his driver were taken into custody by the Delhi Police team. The accused duo was produced in court on Thursday. Police have taken them in police remand for seven days. A pistol and a rifle were seized from the car in which Raju Singh fled from the spot after the incident, Special Commissioner of Police, Law and Order (South), R P Upadhyay said. Police also recovered two used .22 k cartridge from the spot. The pistol used in the incident was seized from the car of Raju Singh. A rifle was also recovered from the vehicle while 800 rifle rounds were recovered from the farm house, police said. However, used bullets have not been recovered yet, they added. During questioning, the former MLA's wife was evasive, sources said. After their arrest, Raju Singh and Hari Singh were taken to AIIMS for medical examination before their production in the court, Vijay Kumar, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South), said. Forensic test was also done on the accused to ascertain who fired the shots, police said. The mortuary is also situated in the same building. Adequate security arrangements were made at the hospital when the accused were taken there. Reports claimed that the accused met the victim's family members. The police, however, said they were not allowed to meet the victim's family at the hospital. The woman was cremated after the post-mortem. Police had earlier seized two rifles and 800 bullets from Raju Singh's farm house in south Delhi's Vasant Kunj area. In his complaint to police, Archana Gupta's husband had said that they were at the farm house on Monday night to celebrate the New Year along with friends and around midnight, two-three rounds were fired by Raju Singh. Immediately, he noticed that his wife had fallen down and was bleeding. The police were informed and a medicolegal case was registered, a hospital spokesperson said. Raju Singh was booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act, police said, adding that he has five other cases registered against him. The farm house is owned by Raju Singh's mother where he lives with his family. Singh's two brothers also live with their families in the farm house, police added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Friends, family and relatives of a 42-year-old architect, who suffered critical injuries in a celebratory firing incident on New Year eve and succumbed Thursday, mourned her death even as police arrested former Bihar MLA Raju Singh, his wife and two others in connection with the incident. The former MLA, who had unsuccessfully contested the 2015 assembly election in Bihar on a BJP ticket, and his driver Hari Singh, had fled Delhi after the incident. They were arrested after being detained on Wednesday from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh. Raju Singh's wife Renu Singh and Raminder Singh, who worked for the leader, were arrested for allegedly destroying evidence, police said. A CCTV footage showing Singh and his driver roaming with weapons, helped police nail them in connection with the case. Renu Singh is a former member of the Bihar legislative council. In an act of benevolence, the family of architect Archana Gupta has donated her kidneys. Friends and others who knew her expressed shock over the "bizarre incident" and said she had celebrated her birthday in the last week of December. Raminder Singh, apart from cleaning the floor, also hid the bullets used, besides trying to threaten the witnesses, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Vijay Kumar. Renu was questioned and initially she did not cooperate but it was found that she was the one who ensured that the bloodstains are cleaned and the rounds are hidden, sources said. They added that she initially kept claiming no bullets were fired but when she was confronted with evidence, she confessed to her role. The police have added IPC Section 302, which pertains to punishment for murder, and punishable with a maximum term of life imprisonment or death sentence, to the FIR. Gupta, a resident of Gautam Nagar in Hauz Khas, had gone to the party along with her husband and daughter. Police said they did not receive any PCR call from the farmhouse and only got to know about it after a call from the hospital authorities. When police reached the farmhouse, they learnt that certain evidence were destroyed, police said, adding the floor was washed and they did not find any empty bullets. Many guests had left the party by then. It was learnt that, two men, Raju Singh and his driver Hari Singh, were missing. During enquiry, it was found that Raju Singh and Hari Singh had opened fire. The accused duo absconded soon after the incident. With the help of technical surveillance, police learnt that the accused was en route to Uttar Pradesh. The UP Police border check-post and Kushi Nagar district police were alerted about the possibility of an Innova car passing through the area, an official said. The UP police intercepted the vehicle and subsequently, Raju Singh and his driver were taken into custody by the Delhi Police team. The accused duo was produced in court on Thursday. Police have taken them in remand for seven days. A pistol and a rifle were seized from the car in which Raju Singh fled from the spot after the incident, Special Commissioner of Police, Law and Order (South), R P Upadhyay said. Police also recovered two used .22 k cartridge from the spot. The pistol used in the incident was seized from the car of Raju Singh. A rifle was also recovered from the vehicle while 800 rifle rounds were recovered from the farm house, police said. However, used rounds have not been recovered yet, they added. During questioning, the former MLA's wife was evasive, sources said. After their arrest, Raju Singh and Hari Singh were taken to AIIMS for medical examination before their production in the court, Vijay Kumar, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South), said. Forensic test was also done on the accused to ascertain who fired the shots, police said. The mortuary is also situated in the same building. Adequate security arrangements were made at the hospital when the accused were taken there. Reports claimed that the accused met the victim's family members. The police, however, said they were not allowed to meet the victim's family at the hospital. The woman was cremated after the post-mortem. Police had earlier seized two rifles and 800 bullets from Raju Singh's farm house in south Delhi's Vasant Kunj area. In his complaint to police, Gupta's husband had said that they were at the farm house on Monday night to celebrate the New Year along with friends and around midnight, two-three rounds were fired by Raju Singh. Immediately, he noticed his wife falling down and bleeding. The police were informed and a medicolegal case was registered, a hospital spokesperson said. Raju Singh was booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act, police said, adding that he has five other cases registered against him. The farm house is owned by Raju Singh's mother where he lives with his family. Singh's two brothers also live with their families in the farm house, police added. The Delhi Police arrested former Bihar MLA Raju Singh, his wife and two others Thursday in connection with a celebratory firing incident during a New Year's Eve party at the ex-legislator's farmhouse here, in which a woman was killed. The former MLA and his driver Hari Singh, who had fled Delhi after the incident, were arrested Thursday after being detained from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh a day before. Raju Singh's wife Renu Singh and Raminder Singh, who worked for the leader, were arrested for allegedly destroying evidence, police said. Renu Singh is a former member of the Bihar legislative council. Raju Singh had unsuccessfully contested the 2015 Assembly election in Bihar on a BJP ticket. The police have added IPC Section 302, which pertains to punishment for murder, and punishable with a maximum term of life imprisonment or death sentence, to the FIR after Archana Gupta, who was hit by bullets, succumbed to injuries on Thursday. A pistol and a rifle were seized from the car in which Raju Singh fled from the spot after the incident, Special Commissioner of Police, Law and Order (South), R P Upadhyay said. "We have arrested Raju Singh and Hari Singh in connection with the incident. They will be produced in a city court later in the day. Police will seek their remand for seven days," he said. During questioning, the former MLA's wife was evasive, sources said. After their arrest, Raju Singh and Hari Singh were taken to AIIMS for medical examination before their production in the court, Vijay Kumar, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South), said. Forensic test was also done on the accused to ascertain who fired the shots, police said. The mortuary is also situated in the same building. Adequate security arrangements were made at the hospital when the accused were taken there. Reports claimed that the accused met the victim's family members. The police, however, said they were not allowed to meet the victim's family at the hospital. The woman's post-mortem is currently underway at AIIMS, hospital sources said. Police had earlier seized two rifles and 800 bullets from Raju Singh's farm house in south Delhi's Vasant Kunj area. In his complaint to police, Archana Gupta's husband had said that they were at the farm house on Monday night to celebrate the New Year along with friends and around midnight, two-three rounds were fired by Raju Singh. Immediately, he noticed that his wife had fallen down and was bleeding. The police were informed and a medicolegal case was registered, a hospital spokesperson said. Raju Singh was booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act, police said, adding that he has five other cases registered against him. The farm house is owned by Raju Singh's mother where he lives with his family. Singh's two brothers also live with their families in the farm house, police added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In an act of benevolence, the family of a woman architect, who died Thursday after being critically injured in celebratory firing during a New Year's eve party here, has donated her kidneys. The woman was wounded in celebratory firing during the party at former Bihar MLA Raju Singh's farm house here. Singh and his driver Hari were arrested Thursday, police said. Archana Gupta, 42, was on life support at the Fortis hospital in Vasant Kunj where she was brought to on the intervening night of December 31 and January 1. "Till Wednesday, the patient continued to be in a critical state and on life support. Despite best efforts by our team of doctors, the patient could not be revived and was declared brain dead on January 2," according to hospital authorities. Thereafter, the proposal to donate her organs for a larger cause was discussed with the family. Post consultation, the "family agreed to donate her kidneys," they said. According to NOTTO (National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation), once a patient is declared brain dead, a hospital can approach the family for organ donation. NOTTO protocols and guidelines also stipulate that any hospital has to inform it about a possible organ donation after which the government body decides as to which organ is to be sent to which hospital.Specific locations are given based on a list of priority recipients, the hospital authorities said. "In this case, after the necessary approvals and the hospital-wise rota was decided by NOTTO, one kidney was sent to Apollo Hospital and the other given to Fortis Hospital, Vasant Kunj," a hospital spokesperson said. Gupta was brought to the emergency ward of the hospital at 12:18 am on January 1 in an "extremely critical condition." "Her family, displaying enormous strength and grit in their hour of grief decided to donate her kidneys. An no-objection certificate was obtained from the Delhi Police since this is a medico-legal case," the hospital said in a statement. In his complaint to police, Gupta's husband had said that they were at the farm house on Monday night to celebrate the New Year along with friends and around midnight, two-three rounds were fired by Raju Singh. Immediately, he noticed that his wife had fallen down and was bleeding. Incidentally, it was Fortis hospital which had informed the police after which a medico-legal case was registered. Mangla Dembi, Facility Director, Fortis Hospital, Vasnat Kunj, said, "We thank the donor's family for recognising the importance of organ donation and are deeply appreciative of them to have agreed for this magnanimous and noble act in their hour of grief and irreparable loss." "It is extremely motivating to see a gradual shift in public perception on the issue of organ donation in our country,"Avnish Seth, Director, Fortis Organ Retrieval and Transplant (FORT), said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A CCTV footage showing former Bihar MLA Raju Singh and his driver roaming with weapons, helped police nail them in connection with a celebratory firing incident during a New Year's Eve party at his farmhouse here in which a woman architect was killed, police said. The former MLA and his driver Hari Singh, who had fled Delhi after the incident, were arrested Thursday after being detained from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh a day before. The former MLA's wife Renu Singh and Raminder Singh, who worked for the leader, were arrested for allegedly destroying evidence, police said. Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Vijay Kumar said CCTVs were installed in the farmhouse. "Police managed to access the Digital Video Recorder of the CCTV on the day of the incident. No CCTV was found at the spot of incident. But in one of the footages of a duration of 15-20 minutes before the incident, Raju Singh and his driver Hari Singh were seen roaming with weapons," he added. A pistol and a rifle were seized from the car in which Raju Singh fled from the spot after the incident, Special Commissioner of Police, Law and Order (South), R P Upadhyay said. Sources claimed that it was the former MLA who handed over the weapon to his driver and kept on prodding him to fire when the countdown for the new year began. According to the victim Archana Gupta's husband, Vikas Gupta, on the night of December 31, his wife and daughter had gone to attend a new year party at Rose Farm in Ambedkar Colony in Mandi Village. The farmhouse belong to his friend Sanjiv Singh (ex-MLA's brother) who was known to the victim's family for more than 25 years. At around midnight, there were celebrations and dancing on the DJ floor. Archana, her daughter and husband shared a family hug and wished each other. Archana then returned to the dance floor to continue dancing. In his complaint, Vikas said that at that time, he saw that a man fired twice in the air and Raju Singh, brother of Sanjiv Singh, also fired four-five times in the air with his own weapon. About five minutes later, firing was again done by Raju Singh. Vikas noticed that she had fallen down and he rushed towards her, he told police. She was unconscious and had blood on her face. With the help of other guests, he picked her up and rushed her to hospital in a Innova car belonging to Sanjiv Singh, police said. Raju Singh was booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act, police said, adding that he has five other cases registered against him. The accused have claimed that the pistols were licensed. However, police are yet to verify it and will question the accused how they had procured such a large number of rounds. "Since it was a party, alcohol was served. However, it is yet to be ascertained if the accused was drunk at the time of incident," police added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Home Minister Rajnath Singh Thursday said the government will have no objection in holding elections in Jammu and Kashmir along with general elections slated later this year if the Election Commission so desired. Replying to the debate on the statutory resolution on imposition of President's rule in the state, Singh said the Centre would provide whatever security forces the Election Commission wanted for holding elections in Jammu and Kashmir. The resolution was passed by a voice vote. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Budget session of the Assam Legislative Assembly will begin from January 28, an official said Thursday. According to a notification by the Assembly Secretariat on Thursday, Assam Governor has summoned the House for the Budget session from January 28. The Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the House will meet on January 9, when the tenure of this session will be fixed, Assam Legislative Assembly Principal Secretary Mrigendra Kumar Deka said. On presentation of the Budget for 2019-20, Deka said "The exact date will be decided by the BAC. We are thinking for February 5 or 6. We will talk to the finance department and finalise the date accordingly. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi Urban Development Minister Satyendar Jain Thursday requested the Centre to bring an ordinance to stop the ongoing sealing drive and also find out a solution to encroachments on the city roads. Participating in a discussion in the state Assembly on the sealing issue, Jain slammed the DDA and BJP-led municipal corporations, saying encroachment is the main problem, but sealing drive is being carried to "only make money" and trouble the traders. "I request the central government to bring an ordinance to stop the sealing drive and also find out a solution to the encroachments on roads," the AAP leader said. Jain also claimed that conversion charges, being taken from traders to provide relief from sealing, are just to "make money". "They (Civic bodies) get an order of sealing 20 establishments, but they seal 100 establishments. Later out of 100, they de-seal 80 establishments to make money..." Jain claimed. The minister said municipal corporations and the police have powers to remove encroachments. Earlier, AAP MLAs Rituraj Govind, Nitin Tyagi and Saurabh Bharadwaj initiated a short discussion on 'problems being faced by Delhiites due to sealing of commercial properties and urgent need for suitable legislation by the Parliament to provide relief". The sealing drive, which has been underway on the directions of the Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee, has assumed political overtones in Delhi with the 2019 Lok Sabha and the 2020 Assembly polls drawing nearer. Over 2,200 kilometres of streets and footpaths have been encroached upon in the national capital, whose length is almost like travelling from here to Kanyakumari, the Supreme Court had said in September last, observing it reflected the magnitude of the problem. The apex court in July also had directed that there would be "no stopping of sealing or demolition" of unauthorised constructions in Delhi after the Centre had said it had not given any instructions to the civic bodies to go slow or stop the sealing drive against offending structures. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Top seeds Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan saved six match points in an edge-of-the-seat thriller against Leander Paes and Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela to move to the semifinals of the Tata Open Maharashtra, here Thursday. After splitting the two sets, the Super Tie Breaker turned out to be a cliffhanger in which Paes and his Mexican partner had as many as six chances to close the match but the Asian Games gold medallists held their nerves to remain alive. At 8-8, Paes appeared to have served a double fault but the chair umpire and the linesman did not call and a livid Bopanna began an argument with the match official but to no avail. The match had all the ingredients of a thriller in which the top seeds eventually prevailed 6-7(4) 6-4 17-15 after one hour and 45 minutes. Immediately after saving their sixth match point to make it 15-15, Bopanna smashed a volley winner to earn their second match point and finished it with a lob, which landed near the baseline, sailing over their opponents. The shot ended the 24-minute super tie breaker. Nevertheless, it was a superb match played by veteran Paes who initially served big, losing just four points in the entire first set on his serve. Miguel was easily the best player on the court with his game craft, solid returns and volleying at the net. Left-handed Sharan was the easiest to attack as several times he just pushed the ball, giving his opponents ample time to get into position and find suitable return. The first break chance was created by Bopanna in the fourth game off Mexican's serve when he found a backhand winner down the line but Miguel saved it with an ace. Soon, Miguel hit a service return winner to earn two break chances for his team but Bopanna served strong to save both and also the deciding point. Paes was the only player, of all four on court, who did not concede a single point on his serve in his first two service games even as Sharan saved two break points and a deciding point in the seventh to stay ahead. It was Miguel who placed a perfect spin-loaded lob when Sharan served at 15-30 to earn the chances. Bopanna held his own in the ninth and Paes was now serving to stay in the opening set. Sharan placed a winner between the two players near the base line as Paes conceded first point on his serve. His backhand return then just went long as he went down 0-30. Bopanna tried to steal points with angles but his soft returns sailed over the side lines. Miguel's soft hands were at play again as they saved two set points to make it 5-5. Sharan's serve was put under pressure in the next but he and Bopanna managed to hold, saving a break point with Paes hitting the forehand on net. The tie-breaker too was close with teams locked 4-4. From there both Paes and his partner found a volley winner each to earn their first set point. Sharan, feeling the heat, smacked Paes' serve long to hand the opponents the first set. Several times Sharan gave easy soft balls while Miguel in the opposite team remained solid throughout and it made a hug difference. The top seeds drew the first blood in the second set in the third game, breaking Paes, who went down 0-40. Bopanna found a service return winner and then the veteran Indian hit one out. Sharan hit a fierce return on the second break point as Miguel could not pick it. The top seeds threw away the advantage with Sharan losing his serve in the next game. Bopanna and Sharan, though, were back in the match when Paes dropped his serve for the second time in a row, again going down 0-40, struggling with his first serve. Two more breaks followed and Bopanna served out the set at love to take it to the Super Tie Breaker. The result means that Paes has not won a match in the last two and a half years when there is at least an Indian across the net. While playing against Sharan, he lost four times -- at European Open (November, 2018), Citi Open (July, 2018), Bordeaux Challenger (May 2017) and Chennai Open (2017). Against Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan also he lost four times -- at Monterrey Challenger (October, 2018), Hall of Fame Open in Newport (July, 2018) and Dallas Challenger (January 2018) and Pune Open (January, 2018). Against Bopanna, he lost at Dubai in February, 2017. The last win for Paes against a top Indian player came way back in September, 2016 when Paes and Andre Begemann got the better of Purav Raja and Sharan at St Petersburg Open. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Boko Haram jihadists have raided at least three military posts and overpowered troops in the latest attacks in northeast Nigeria, sources said Wednesday. Fighters from the IS-affiliated Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) overran the posts in Borno state on Tuesday, military and militia sources told AFP. The Boko Haram faction has in recent months intensified attacks on military targets in Borno and Yobe states, raiding bases and killing dozens of troops. "They first dislodged soldiers at a checkpoint in Kimba in Biu... and then took over another post at Sabon Gari, five kilometres away," said one military officer of the latest attacks. The jihadists launched another attack on a base in nearby Wajirko, according to a militiaman in the area. On Monday, the jihadists had overwhelmed troops in Buni Gari village in neighbouring Yobe state, leading to "some losses", an army officer said. "Troops were outgunned and forced to retreat after heavy fighting with the terrorists," the military source said. ISWAP gunmen apparently attacked the village in reprisals over the killing of fellow jihadists in the village last month. Residents alerted soldiers in a nearby military base as they arrived in trucks. During an attempt by jihadist fighters to seize another base on Wednesday in Damasak, the army said it lost a helicopter. Details are scant, but if the aircraft was shot down by the insurgents it would suggest that they now possess more sophisticated weapons than they have used in the last four years of fighting. ISWAP has claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they killed 14 soldiers and took another hostage, according to SITE intelligence which monitors jihadist activities. Last week the group took control of the strategic town of Baga, on the shores of Lake Chad. Borno and Yobe, along with nearby Adamawa state, have borne the brunt of nine years of jihadist violence that has claimed 27,000 lives and forced 1.8 million people to flee their homes. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP-led government in Maharashtra has given financial assistance of Rs 50,000 crore to farmers in the last four-and-a-half years, much more than the erstwhile Congress-NCP administration, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said Thursday. Fadnavis said his government is working for the poor and common people and a slew of welfare schemes have been implemented for them in the state. He said the BJP-led government is committed to farmer welfare and since taking charge in October 2014, it has provided Rs 50,000 crore in financial aid to cultivators. More help will be made available to farmers, he said. In comparison, the previous Congress-NCP government had given only Rs 20,000 crore-Rs 22,000 crore to farmers in 15 years of its rule, said Fadnavis. He was speaking after the inauguration of construction work of an administrative building, a government guest house and other development works at Phulambri tehsil here in central Maharashtra. Fadnavis said his government is known for taking "speedy" decisions and giving priority to providing facilities to the people in rural areas. The CM said the government has made all arrangements to provide relief in drought-affected areas. More funds have been sought from the Centre for drought relief, Fadnavis said. He said two lakh farmers have been given electricity pumps in the Marathwada region and this has helped them a lot in irrigation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bangladesh's newly-elected parliament members took oath of office on Thursday, even as jailed ex-premier Khaleda Zia's BNP and its allies boycotted the ceremony to protest what they called "farcical and rigged" elections. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) won five seats and its partners in the National Unity Front (NUF) got just two as compared to 258 seats of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League and 22 of her ally Jatiya Party in the recently concluded 11th general elections. Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, who chaired the 10th parliament, first took oath on her own as per parliamentary rules and then administered the oath of office to the Awami League MPs-elect including Hasina at the Oath Room of parliament around 11 am. Clad in pink and ash coloured jamdani saree, Hasina was seated in the front row, leading the rows of "black and white" Awami League MPs-elect. The members of other Grand Alliance partners including former president HM Ershad's jatiya Party, left leaning Workers Party and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal and centre-right Bikalpa Dhara Bangladesh and Tariqat Federation and independent lawmakers were sworn in thereafter. The Jatiya Party has won 22 seats, becoming the second largest bloc in parliament. The seven MPs-elect of opposition NUF boycotted the ceremony. The NUF, with BNP being its key partner, has rejected the election, calling it a "farce" and demanded fresh polls under a non-party caretaker government. Prime Minister Hasina, however, dismissed the accusations saying the opposition's weaknesses caused their debacle though most Western countries cautiously welcomed her victory in the polls simultaneously noting the opposition allegations. Under Bangladesh's Constitutional provisions, MPs-elect must take oath within three months or forfeit their seats. The BNP has sent a letter to the government seeking permission to meet Zia in jail, visibly to seek her advice about the party's next course of actions. Hasina is likely to be sworn in as the prime minister on January 10 for the third consecutive term and a record fourth time. Meanwhile, uncertainty prevailed over the opposition structure in the 300-member parliament. According to legal and parliament experts, a party needs to win at least 10 per cent of the total seats to formally get the status of an Opposition party. The Jatiya Party on Wednesday hinted that they could emerge as an opposition in Parliament. "We will take a decision soon whether Jatiya Party will be with the government or emerge as the parliamentary opposition," party secretary general Moshiur Rahman Ranga told a briefing after a three-hour-long meeting with the party leaders. He added: "In terms of representation in Parliament after the election results, our position is second after the Awami League." The Jatiya Party acted simultaneously as the main opposition and partner of the ruling alliance with induction of its several lawmakers in Prime Minister Hasina's cabinet after the 2014 elections, which the BNP had boycotted. Critics and political analysts feared the overwhelming majority in parliament could expose Bangladesh to a authoritarian rule. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : Devotees of Lord Ayyappa staged protests at several places across Karnataka Thursday against the entry of two women of menstruating age into the Sabarimala temple in neighbouring Kerala. Meeting under the banner of the 'Sabarimala Samrakshana Vedike' (Save Sabarimala Forum), the protesters demanded Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's resignation over the incident. Bindu and Kanakadurga, both in their 40s, became the first women to enter the temple after the Supreme Court verdict early on Wednesday, resulting in violent protests across Kerala. The protesters pointed out that Vijayan was not only a party leader, but also the Chief Minister of a state and hence he should respect the religious sentiments of crores of Ayyappa devotees, because India is a democratic country. "Pinarayi Vijayan cannot bulldoze his way. There should be respect for crores of devotees who are visiting Sabarimala tooffer prayers," they added. Protests were also staged in Udupi, Mysuru, Chikmagaluru, Mangaluru, Tumkuru and other places. The protesters argued that even sanyasis who have renounced the world are not allowed in some temples in Kerala. "These sanyasis are allowed inside the shrine only afterconducting purification rituals," they added. Also, men are not allowed in some temples in India and hence rituals and religious practises should be respected by the authorities, they said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ahead of a Supreme Court hearing Friday in the Ayodhya dispute, a mahant who says he is a party to the case has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking impeachment proceedings against Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi. In a letter that is also addressed to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and BJP president Amit Shah, Mahant Dharam Das has accused the Chief Justice of India of showing disinterest in the title suite. The apex court on October 29 had said an appropriate bench will decide in January the schedule of the hearing in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case. It also turned down a plea for an urgent hearing. Dharam Das represents Ram Janmabhoomi Nirman Samiti, which seeks the handover of the disputed site in Ayodhya for the construction of a Ram temple. The Babri mosque which stood at the site was demolished in 1992. "If the Chief Justice can't put the 70-year-old case on priority, then what is the use of such a Chief Justice? We don't have faith in him anymore and that is why we want him removed from this case, he told reporters. The delay by the Supreme Court in hearing the case has led to a clamour by right-wing organisations for legislation allowing the construction of the Ram temple. The matter is listed for Friday before a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul. It is likely to constitute a three-judge bench for hearing 14 appeals filed against a 2010 Allahabad High Court judgement that had ordered the partition of the 2.77-acre piece of land among the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Thursday said that the state government is taking measures to promote agriculture as a respectable means of livelihood so that more youths take up farming as a profession. The state's farmers have been deprived from getting right prices for their products due to dearth of mechanism to sell their goods at different places of the country and abroad, Sonowal said. The state government is taking steps to improve communication and infrastructural facilities, the Chief Minister said while laying the foundation stone of the Centre for Perishable Cargo (CPC) at the Lokopriyo Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport here. The cost of the CPC project is estimated at Rs 19.84 crore with Rs 50 lakh being contributed by the state government and rest by the Centre. The CPC with a 1705 sqm area will contain handling facilities for inbound and outbound cargo, cold storage along with other measures to export perishable agricultural goods to different domestic and international airports. "Once completed, this centre would revolutionize the whole agricultural sector of the state", Sonowal said. Assam's fruits and vegetables are being sold at the markets abroad such as in London and Singapore, and efforts are on to expand the market to Europe, America and South East Asia, he said. The Central government's UDAN scheme has facilitated both domestic and international Cargo flights and Act East Policy has given new impetus to the business and commercial ties between India and South East Asian countries, the Chief Minister said. Industry and Commerce Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary said the CPC will enable the state's farmers to find newer markets to sell their products at right prices. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Business space solutions provider Ascendas-Singbridge Group Thursday announced acquisition of a 12.20 acre land in Chennai for an "undisclosed" sum to set up an IT park over 1 million square feet in the first phase. The land, acquired from the GSquare Group, is located on the Pallavaram-Thoraipakkam Road (Radial Road) and offers total development space of 2.30 million square feet, according to a company release here. The land parcel would be developed into an IT park with supporting amenities, it said. The first space would offer approximately 1.10 million square feet of Grade A business space and construction will commence soon based on approvals. Following the acquisition, the property would be named International Tech Park Chennai-Radial Road after the company's flagship ITPC located at Taramani. It would be the sixth property for Ascendas-Singbridge Group in Chennai and would add to the current IT parks ITPC-Taramani and CyberVale, two logistics and warehouse facilities at Oragadam, the release said. The acquisition further demonstrates the firm's commitment to the city and Tamil Nadu, the release said. "ITPC-Radial Road is well located in an up-and coming high growth area and will strengthen Ascendas-Singbridge Group," the company's India Operations and Private Funds CEO Vinamra Srivastava said. Ascendas-Singbridge Group currently manages assets over 20 billion Singapore dollars, the release added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As the new government plans to review school textbooks in Rajasthan, a war of words has erupted between the Congress and the BJP over Maharana Pratap. BJP legislator Vasudev Devnani said Thursday the ruling party wants "Congressisation" of text books and sought Chief Minister Ahok Gehlot's views on the Rajput warrior. "The Congress has put the pride of the nation and the state at stake and is on the task of 'Congressisation' of curriculum. Not accepting Maharana Pratap as great is insult and is equivalent to sedition in the eyes of common people," he said. He added, Mughal emperor Akbar can be accepted as a ruler but people of the country will not accept if he is compared to Maharana Pratap. Devnani was the school education minister in Vasundhara Raje's government, which lost power in the state elections held last month. "Transport minister has accepted that Maharana Pratap was great whereas school education minister is hesitating in accepting his greatness. So, chief minister should clarify whether he considers him great or not," he added. Hitting back, School Education Minister Govind Singh Dotasara sought to know in which book the BJP government has described Maharana Pratap as "great". "We want to know from the BJP that in which book and which chapter it described Maharana Pratap as great. They made several changes during their tenure but did not write the word 'great'," he told PTI. The minister said every child of the country accepts the valour, greatness and courage of Maharana Pratap. However, the BJP government added chapters on Hindutva idealogue Veer Savarkar and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya but did not describe Maharana Pratap as "great" anywhere. "We will be reviewing the work of the BJP that tried to impose one ideology," Dotasara added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The UN refugee agency Thursday voiced "concern" for the safety of 100 Arab citizens who went missing after seeking shelter in Algeria and others stranded at the border with Niger. "Some 120 Syrian, Palestinian and Yemeni individuals were detained at the Tamanrasset Centre in southern Algeria before being taken to an area near the Guezzam border post (at the southern border with Niger) on 26 December," the UNHCR said in a statement. Some members of the group were "known to UNHCR as registered refugees who have fled conflict and persecution or claim to have attempted to seek international protection in Algeria", it added. The UN agency said 20 members of the group "remain stranded in the desert", several kilometres from the Guezzam border post. "The other 100 individuals who were taken to the border are unaccounted for," it added. Hacen Kacimi, an Algeria interior ministry official, told AFP on Thursday that a group of about 100 people, mostly Syrians from Aleppo, had been "expelled" on suspicion of links to jihadist groups. Kacimi, who heads the ministry's migration department, said they had entered Algeria illegally and were put on trial in September and that the court ordered their expulsion. His comments came after the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights on Monday denounced the deportation to Niger of 50 mostly Syrian migrants, including women and children, who were smuggled into the country in September. Rights groups regularly criticise Algeria for its treatment of sub-Saharan migrants, many of whom are hoping to reach Europe. An October report from the UN urged Algeria to stop collective expulsions of African migrants across its border with Niger, after rights groups accused Algiers or rounding up thousands of people and expelling them into the desert. Algeria, which does not have asylum legislation, has faced an influx of sub-Saharan migrants in recent years, with rights groups estimating some 100,000 have entered the country in recent years. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the Andhra Pradesh government of indulging in scams and making friends with a "wicked" Congress, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu Thursday hit back, calling him a "liar." The BJP did "more injustice" to Andhra Pradesh than the Congress (over state bifurcation), he said. "Prime Minister speaks only lies whenever he opens his mouth," Naidu said at a public meeting in connection with a government programme in Guntur district. Addressing BJP workers of various Lok Sabha constituencies in the state through video conferencing Wednesday, Modi had blasted the ruling Telugu Desam Party for not remaining committed to its own ideology, and spreading "blatant lies" against the Centre. Hitting back, Naidu accused Modi of hatching a conspiracy along with "two other Modis", Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and YSR Congress president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, to defeat the TDP in the coming elections. It was the BJP-led government that was steeped in corruption while Andhra Pradesh was ranked number three among the least corrupt states in the country, the chief minister alleged. He cited the Rafale deal as an example. Launching a scathing attack on Naidu, Modi had said "Late N T Rama Rao, who founded the TDP to promote the interests of Telugu people and to safeguard Telugu pride, always addressed Congress as 'dushta' (wicked). "And today, those in power are treating it as 'dost' (friend) Congress. Do they want to say that NTR was wrong?" Modi had said, Naidu said the TDP was not at anyone's mercy. "For us, people are the high command and I will do what is good for the people," Naidu said, defending his partys alliance with the Congress. "You (BJP) have done more injustice to AP than the Congress," he said. While the Congress enacted the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 with various provisions, including according national status to the Polavaram project, and also promised grant of Special Category Status, the BJP did not honour one commitment, Naidu said. It was only because the BJP betrayed the state that the TDP broke its alliance with the NDA, he said. He claimed that a strong anti-NDA wind was blowing across the country which would lead to its defeat in the coming Lok Sabha elections. On the Prime Ministers remark that the state government was not able to execute the Polavaram multipurpose project properly, the chief minister said it bagged the Central Board of Irrigation & Power (CBIP) award for speedy execution. "Modi says they gave Rs 7,000 crore for Polavaram but they have to actually give another Rs 54,000 crore. We have spent Rs 3,500 crore on the project but that money was also not reimbursed," he said. The chief minister said Andhra Pradesh was contributing Rs 4,000 crore to Rs 5,000 crore annually to the Centre in the form of various taxes but was not getting its due. "When I am asking all this, Modi is counter-attacking me," Naidu said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh Thursday skipped the Indian Science Congress, an event inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi here. Chief ministers usually attend the inaugural session of the Indian Science Congress (ISC) as it is considered a prestigious event, especially for the university and the state hosting it. Punjab Governor V P Singh Badnore, Union Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of the State for Social Justice Vijay Sampla and Punjab Commerce Minister Sunder Sham Arora were present at the event. After inaugurating the ISC, Modi also addressed a poll rally at Gurudaspur where he attacked the Congress. The ISC held at Imphal in Manipur last year was attended by Chief Minister N Biren Singh, while the Congress held at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh in 2017 was attended by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Asserting that every issue raised by the on deal has been clarified by the Supreme Court, External Affairs Minister on Thursday said in that there is no controversy in the matter, except in minds of the opposition party leaders. Unsatisfied by the minister's reply during the Question Hour, the members including former prime minister staged a walkout. in his supplementary query demanded that the government make public the minutes of the meeting of Prime Minister and former French Fracois Hollande held last year on the deal in a bid to settle the controversy once for all. To this, Swaraj said, "Anandji, there is no controversy. Controversy is there in your mind. All the controversy issues that you (Congress) raised, the has clarified on each of them. Please don't use the word controversy again." She said, "The whole country knows there is no controversy. The has cleared each issue. If you still think there is a controversy, then no one can reply." To a query raised by member if there was any discussion on the deal during the recent visit of French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to India, Swaraj said, "There was no discussion on the matter.""On that day, the verdict (on Rafale deal) was pronounced. He (French Minister) was very happy. He expressed joy and felt there was no need to have discussion," she said. On the Indo-French fund for developing script for co- production of films, the Minister said the French delegation had visited and had discussion with representatives of Bollywood besides meeting the state chief minister. To another query on the Jaitapur Nuclear Power project, Swaraj said that an agreement was signed on March 22, 2016 to set up a plant. France's EDF and India's NPCL are looking into it. "Six EPR units are to be set with each unit having a capacity of 1650 megawatt. Once it is ready, it will be the world's largest nuclear plant," she said. The project was reviewed in March last year, when the rate of power per unit and setting up of a reference plant were also discussed. "We will proceed after seeing the model plant. We have decided about the dates," she added. All India Trade Union Congress Thursday said the government has proposed amendment to Trade Union Act with "malafide intentions and to interfere with independent functioning of trade unions in the country". The Cabinet Wednesday approved amendment to the Trade Unions Act, 1926 to make provisions over recognition of trade unions. The present Act provides for only registration of trade unions. Currently, there is no provision for recognition of unions in the Act. "The government has malafide intentions to meddle with the laid down procedures for recognition of trade unions at state and central level. Through this amendment they actually want rights of government in the state and central level to interfere into the independent functioning of the trade unions. "It (the bill) is regressive and would take us to British era position. We fought during British rule in India to get Trade Union Act 1926 and later on, improvements in that. But, this government is camouflaging and actually wanting to promote their tout and pocket unions by dismantling the laid down procedures," an All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) statement said. According to the statement, the clause they (government) are amending deals with enterprise level unions. And trade unions at that level are already using it. Recognition at state and central level is not at all part of the procedure for state and national recognition. To say that they will ensure true representation is actually to promote tout unions. Again to say that it (the move) is to check arbitrary nominations is actually to deny the representations to unions who question government policies, AITUC noted. Talking of reduction of litigation and industrial unrest is to actually stifle the collective bargaining. The government decision is against the stated positions of Indian Constitution and the BJP-led NDA government, the union said. It also said that ten central trade unions are going on nationwide strike on January 8 and 9 on 12 point charter of demands, which includes opposition to anti-worker, anti trade unions changes in labour laws. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Telecom operator Bharti Airtel added more than 1 lakh new users in November after two months of decline, according to the industry data. Vodafone Idea, however, continued to lose customers for the third consecutive month in November after completion of their merger. The combined entity lost over 65 lakh subscribers in November but still remained the largest mobile services provider in the country with a user base of over 42 crore, the COAI data released Thursday showed. In September and October, Bharti lost over 23 lakh and 18 lakh customers respectively while Vodafone Idea lost over 66 lakh and 73 lakh customers during these two months. New entrant Reliance Jio has been continuously adding new customers. However, its new customer addition data for the month of November was not available. "Mobile connectivity and data services are imperative in the goal to bridge the digital divide in India. With these tools, we can move towards a truly equitable and democratic nation. The telecom industry therefore, deserves an urgent and immediate intervention to encourage policy and regulatory stability, and facilitate growth, innovation and investment in the sector," COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews said. The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) does not capture the monthly subscriber figures of BSNL, MTNL, Tata and Reliance Communication. It shared subscriber base detail of Reliance Jio Infocomm based on information available from the telecom regulator Trai. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) European aircraft manufacturer Airbus said Thursday it had finalised the sale of 120 A220-300 single-aisle jets worth $11 billion (9.7 billion euros). Sixty of the aircraft would go to low-cost US carrier JetBlue and another 60 to a start-up codenamed Moxy that is to begin operations in 2021, Airbus said. Airbus acquired in 2017 the A220-300 aircraft line, which Canadian firm Bombardier developed as its CSeries, and which represents a new generation designed for airlines seeking 100-150 seat planes. Bombardier had struggled to win customers even though the planes offered fuel-savings similar to a new class of larger aircraft sold by Airbus and US rival Boeing. "JetBlue has proven there is no contradiction between economic efficiency and a high quality product," said Airbus Chief Commercial Officer Christian Scherer in a statement. "Their endorsement of the A220 proves this aircraft meets those two criteria better than any alternative in its segment," he added. Moxy is an airline venture led by David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue and Azul Brazilian Airlines and who is now the controlling investor in TAP Air Portugal. The aircraft are to be assembled in a new Airbus factory in the US state of Alabama, with work to begin later this month. The A220's seating capacity falls between that of traditional commuter planes and Airbus' A320 family, which can seat from 180 to 240 people and which has become an airline workhorse on medium-range routes. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Following the BJP's poor show in the recent state polls, RSS-backed students' outfit ABVP will launch a nationwide campaign against NOTA before the Lok Sabha elections. NOTA or none of the above gives voters a right not to vote for any candidate contesting from a particular seat. The ABVP will urge people to vote in favour of any candidate of their choice instead of opting for NOTA in the upcoming elections, its national secretary Hema Thakur said. "The ABVP is in favour of abolishing the NOTA option in the upcoming elections in the larger interest of democracy. Even if it is not abolished, we will ask people to vote in favour of any candidate of their choice instead of opting for NOTA," Thakur told reporters here. The decision to launch the campaign was taken at a four-day national session of the ABVP held from December 27 to 30 in Ahmedabad, she added. However, Thakur denied that the decision was taken over the BJP's poll performance in the three states. She said that the campaign would also focus on the ABVP's slogan of 'Nation First, Voting Must' to encourage people to exercise their franchise and ultimately achieve the target of 100 per cent voting. "It is a misconception that the ABVP is a students' wing of the BJP. The ABVP came into existence in 1949 whereas the BJP was formed after several decades in 1980. Some of our policies may be similar. Yes, the ABVP is a part of the Sangh Parivar," she said. In several seats of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, votes polled in favour of NOTA were more than the victory margin which could have changed the final results. In Rajasthan assembly elections, at least 15 constituencies polled more NOTA votes than the victory margin of the wining candidates. While the Congress got 99 seats in the state, the BJP managed 73 seats. In Madhya Pradesh too, votes cast in favour of NOTA were more than the margin of victory in 22 assembly constituencies. NOTA even 'outperformed' some of the parties such as the AAP and the Samajwadi Party. The state saw a close race with the Congress winning 114 seats and the BJP 109 seats. On total vote share basis, the difference between the Congress and the BJP in Chhattigarh was 10 per cent and NOTA polled 2 per cent votes. Demanding early formation of 'Bhavya Ram Mandir' in Ayodhya, she criticised the judiciary for delay in its decision on the issue. Thakur said the apex court pronounced judgements on issues like homosexuality, adultery and Sabarimala but is delaying the verdict on Ram Temple, which is an matter of faith for millions. On the Sabarimala issue, she said, "I support entry of women into Sabarimala temple as far as rights of women are concerned. But everyone should take care of the issue of faith and entry should not be forced. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Reacting sharply to Donald Trump's 'library' jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP general secretary Ram Madhav said Thursday India has been doing immense development work in Afghanistan for which the people of the war-ravaged country "thank us, no matter what others do or don't". Madhav was responding to Trump's jibe at Modi for funding a "library" in Afghanistan, saying it is of no use in the war-torn country as he criticised India and others for not doing enough for that nation's security. "May be Trump should know that while he is decrying every other help in Afghanistan, India has been building not only libraries, but roads, dams, schools and even parliament building. We are building lives, for which the Afghan people thank us, no matter what others do or don't," Madhav said in a tweet. The BJP leader has been a key member of the ruling party's foreign outreach. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti (MANS) Thursday demanded action against some members of the Kanjarbhat community here who were allegedly seen in a video asking a newly-married man the outcome of the bride's 'virginity test'. A delegation of the MANS, an anti-superstition outfit founded by the late Narendra Dabholkar, met Maharashtra Social Justice Minister Rajkumar Badole and sought action. An old custom of the Kanjarbhat community where the bride has to prove on the wedding night that she is virgin has come under criticism from progressive sections of that community as well as social activists. A video showing members of the Kanjarbhat 'jaat panchayat' (community's representative body) asking the groom the outcome of the virginity test and whether he was "satisfied" went viral on social media recently. Nandini Jadhav, executive president of the MANS, said the groom in this case, son of a former mayor, has studied abroad while the bride too is an architect and daughter of a retired police officer. "We met the minister who was in the city and demanded that the government take action on its own against this regressive practise,"she said. Badole promised that action will be taken, she said. "We will also approach the police tomorrow," she added. While neither the groom nor the bride in this case have taken objection to the custom, around 40 youngsters from the community have formed a group -- 'Stop The V-Ritual' -- and are carrying on a campaign on social media against the regressive practise. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A section of AAP leaders and workers from Punjab raised concern over the possibility of an alliance with Congress for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls at a meeting with party's national convener Arvind Kejriwal Thursday. In the four-hour meeting of the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) held at Kejriwal's residence here, the party's Punjab unit expressed reservations about joining hands with the Rahul Gandhi-led party. AAP is the main opposition in Punjab where the government is headed by the Congress. Senior AAP leader Gopal Rai told reporters that the PAC will consider the opinion of party leaders and workers from Punjab, Haryana and Delhi in a meeting after January 15, and take a decision on alliances as per the existing situation. AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said, "As of now, we have no alliance with any party. We are not saying anything on the future plans of the party". The National Council of AAP had in its meeting last week decided to contest all 33 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Goa and Chandigarh. The party, however, is still undecided over any pre-poll alliance with the Congress or the 'Mahagathbandhan' of various non-BJP parties. "In the meeting with Kejriwal, some persons pointed out AAP was the main opposition in Punjab where Congress is the ruling party, which has failed to fulfil its promises, so it will be difficult to contest the elections (with Congress)," Rai said. The meeting was attended by around 800 AAP office-bearers, party MLAs and MPs from Punjab. The Haryana party unit will meet Kejriwal on Friday followed by the party's Delhi representatives. Such meetings will continue till January 15. Rai said Punjab AAP unit's core committee has been asked to shortlist the names of candidates on all the seats and send the same to the PAC for a final decision. The party has already announced its candidates on five seats in the state. The booth-level organisation in Punjab will be strengthened under the stewardship of block in-charges till January 30. Afterwards, a door-to-door campaign will be launched to reach out to the voters, the AAP leader said. An agitation against high power tariff in the northern state has also been planned by the AAP, Rai added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sixty workers of a Tamil Nadu-based fringe Hindu outfit were arrested for trying to stage a 'rail-roko' on Thursday in protest against the entry of two women of menstruating age group into the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, police said. The Hindu Makkal Katchi activists were prevented from staging the protest at a railway station in Coimbatore, the police said. Fifteen members of the Bharatiya Janata Party lawyers' wing here burnt a portrait of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. They raised slogans against him for failing to maintain the shrine's "sanctity". In view of the one-day hartal in Kerala over the issue, the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation suspended services to that state from here. About 25 bus services were cancelled, police said. Ten Hanuman Sena activists have urged the Union Home Ministry to take note of the incident, alleging that it had "hurt the sentiments of Hindus" and sought necessary action against the Kerala government. Kanakadurga (44) and Bindu (42) had made history when they stepped into the hallowed precincts of the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala early on Wednesday, breaking a centuries-old tradition and defying dire threats from the Hindu right. It came over three months after the Supreme Court's historic judgment that lifted the ban on the entry of girls and women between 10-50 years into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its "eternally-celibate" deity. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The AAP government has decided to accept most of the recommendations of the Fifth Delhi Finance Commission, providing 12.5 per cent of its total tax collection to municipal corporations in the city, Urban Development minister Satyendar Jain said Thursday. Presenting the Delhi government's action taken report on the Fifth DFC in the Assembly, Jain said earlier this amount was 10.5 per cent as per the Third DFC recommendation. However, the government refused to implement the report of the Fourth DFC, saying that in any case, it has released more funds to municipal corporations ranging from 14 per cent to 17 per cent. The urban development minister also presented government's action taken report on the Fifth DFC in the House, which was adopted. The minister told the House that there were a total of 171 recommendations made by the Fifth DFC, out of which 88 were accepted by the government, 20 related with devolution of funds were accepted with amendments, 13 were for local bodies to accept, 17 were referred to committees, and 29 were rejected. According to the devolution formula, 12.5 per cent of tax collection that will be transferred to the local bodies will be divided into two parts. The first part of six per cent will be further broken down into three per cent each. The East and North Delhi will receive 65 per cent and 35 per cent, respectively of it. The other three per cent will be meant for all the local bodies, including the New Delhi Municipal Corporation and the Delhi Cantonment Board. The remaining 6.5 per cent will be devolved to the local bodies through budgetary provisions of different departments, Jain said. Presenting the action taken report of the Delhi government on the Fourth DFC, Jain said that the Centre denied to accept it. The Fourth DFC recommended the Delhi government's control over the local bodies, including the municipal corporations and the Delhi Development Authority, he said. "It was said by the Fourth DFC that the Delhi government will accept recommendations to it only after the Centre accepted those for it, but they rejected it," he said. Jain also said the Delhi government provided 17.6 per cent of its budget to the municipal corporations in 20112-13, 16.11 per cent in 2013-14, 15.34 per cent in 2014-15, and 14.40 per cent in 2015-16. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India has planned 32 missions, including the "most complex" Chandrayaan-2 during 2019, the Indian Space Research Organisation has said. India's maiden human spaceflight programme 'Gaganyaan' activities would go full steam to accomplish the various development and qualification milestones during the year, the space agency said. "The year 2019 promises to be much more challenging to the ISRO community with 32 planned missions (14 launch vehicles, 17 satellites and 1 Tech demo missions)," ISRO Chairman K Sivan said in a New Year message. "This includes the most complex Chandrayaan-2, which will be the 25th mission from SLP (second launch pad), and the development flights of Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV)," he said. ISRO had earlier said Chandrayaan-2 will be launched in a window from January-February 16, 2019. Sources said it is expected by the middle of next month but no date has been finalised. "We are all trying hard. Definitely, it should be possible to launch the mission in February," a senior ISRO official told PTI. "There is no impediment. It's on track," the official said. Chandrayaan-2 mission, costing nearly Rs 800 crore, is an advanced version of the previous Chandrayaan-1 mission about 10 years ago. This spacecraft to be launched on board GSLV-Mk III is a totally indigenous mission, comprising an Orbiter, Lander and Rover. Sivan said during the year, Gaganyaan activities would go "full steam" to accomplish the various development and qualification milestones. The Union Cabinet gave its nod for the Rs 9,023-crore programme last Friday. The objective of the mission is to carry a three-member crew to low earth orbit and return them safely to a predefined destination on earth. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on Independence Day announced that the mission would be undertaken by 2022. ISRO is aiming to reinstate its microwave remote-sensing capability through the RISAT (Radar Imaging Satellite) series and attain operational Geo-imaging capability through the GISAT (GEO Imaging Satellite) series, according to Sivan. It is also planned to progressively improve the payload capability of GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle) and its variants. The country would meet the high throughput bandwidth requirement of Digital India and also in-flight connectivity with the launch of GSAT-20. On the application side, crop production estimation would be enhanced to cover 10 additional crops and also provide vital inputs for water and energy security, Sivan said. He said 2019 is the birth centenary of the founding father of Indian Space Programme, Vikram A Sarabhai, and year-long celebrations, consisting of a host of national and international events, would commence August 12, 2019. Terming 2018 as a year of many 'firsts' and 'beginnings' with profound growth in all directions, he said during the year ISRO completed 16 missions, signing off with seven successful missions within 35 days. This included two successful GSLV missions in a single year. Among other things, the period also witnessed active discussions and partnerships with other space agencies in advanced technology areas of human spaceflight and other areas like LOX/Methane propulsion, joint satellite missions, among others, he said. A major initiative has been the UNNATI programme, which is an international programme to train participants on nano satellite assembly, and has evoked major respoISRO-LD CHANDRAYAANnse from 34 countries. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Authorities on Wednesday were investigating the deaths of a man, his son and the son's girlfriend whose bullet-riddled bodies were found concealed on a property known for hosting transients in Washington state. Police discovered the bodies when they were sent to the home near the waterfront city of Port Angeles for a welfare check, the Peninsula Daily reported. Investigators found the door to the home ajar and then found the bodies of Darrell C Iverson, 57, and his son Jordan D Iverson, 27, covered by tarps and debris in front of the house, Clallam County Sheriff Bill Benedict said. The elder Iverson owned the home, county documents say. The body of the younger man's girlfriend, 26-year-old Tiffany A May, was discovered later in a locked shed close to the home. Investigators believe all three were killed on December 26 by someone they knew, Benedict said. No arrests have been made and authorities are investigating at least two people of interest who knew the victims. Benedict said evidence found so far points to one shooter who acted alone. Dozens of shots were fired, but the weapon hasn't been found, he said. "There are many trailers on the property where some transients and other people had lived," Benedict said. "Notably, there was no one was staying there when we went to check it out." A motive for the killings hasn't been determined. "We're doing everything we can to do this correctly," sheriff's Staff Sgt. John Keegan said. "We'll take this crime scene apart, piece by piece." Steve Lovik, who bought his property from the Iversons five years ago, told the Daily that it was unnerving the killings happened close to home but glad authorities believe no one else is in danger. "I grew up in Port Angeles," he said. "This doesn't happen here. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan on Thursday again rejected the 2016 surgical strike as a "figment of Indian imagination", saying there was no such 'event'. The Indian Army conducted surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control on September 29, 2016, but Pakistan denied any such attacks. Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal said this at his weekly briefing when asked about the assertions made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the surgical strikes in an interview on the New Year. "There was no such event. It is a figment of Indian imagination. The Indian media is itself doubting the claims of their government," he said. In an interview on Tuesday, Modi asserted that it would be a "big mistake" to think that Pakistan will mend its ways after just "one war", referring to the 2016 surgical strike. A surgical strike is a military attack aimed to harm only the intended target and ensure minimal collateral damage to general public infrastructure and utilities around it. "Pakistan will never improve on the basis of one war. That nation will still take some time to improve. But, can we hear anything in the midst of bombs? Today, terror supporting Pakistan is isolated," Modi quoted as saying in tweets by the PMO. He also said all PMs of India, across all parties never opposed dialogue with Pakistan. On a dialogue between India and Pakistan, Faisal said that Islamabad wanted a dialogue with India but New Delhi was shying away. "If India shies away from dialogue, we cannot do much. It takes two to tango. Our position on the matter is clear," he said, adding that a letter by Prime Minister Imran Khan, written to his Indian counterpart on September 14, clearly laid down Pakistan's policy. India has also made it clear to Islamabad that talks and terror cannot go together. "Obviously we would like to discuss the dispute of Jammu and Kashmir, first and foremost, in addition to all other matters. We, unlike India do not shy away from having a dialogue for resolution of all outstanding issues between the two countries," he said. Faisal also said that Pakistan's desire for peace must not be misconstrued as its "weakness". Terming India-Pakistan relations as a "difficult and complicated one", he said, "We are slowly moving forward." Condemning the alleged violation of the Line of Control by Indian drones, he said Pakistan was vigilant and responded effectively to these threats. "Any misadventure by India would be responded in a befitting manner," he said. Asked about the reports claiming 23 Indian passports were misplaced by the High Commission for Pakistan in New Delhi, he said "the matter has been looked into. There is no evidence that the alleged missing 23 passports were received by the Mission. As such, reports in this regard are baseless and speculative." To a question on abduction of a retired Pakistan Army Colonel from Nepal, he said Pakistan was pursuing the matter. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) It is more blessed to give than to receive, according to the scriptures but so many people will return disappointing Christmas gifts to the store for an exchange or refund today that January 3 has sometimes been dubbed National Returns Day. While it may deflate our ego to know that our gift choices do not bring our loved ones the pleasure we had hoped, there are economic, political, and spiritual truths embedded in this unheralded holiday tradition. Despite the secret guilt and implied ingratitude of returning gifts, the practice is widespread and growing across the West. Nearly half (46 percent) of all Americans will return unwanted Christmas gifts, according to Optoro, a company that tracks this figure annually. Of these, the average person returns four items. The value of exchanged merchandise is 143 million in the UK alone; globally, that rises to $90 billion, and climbing. Stream editor Jay Richards captured the economic reality behind this in a touching childhood story about a game a teacher played in elementary school, which you can see summarized here. The bottom line is: The more choice a person has over a gift, the greater the satisfaction. Economists call this maximizing utility, and expanded choice increases personal happiness. Christmas gift returns also refute the notions of socialism and command economics. If those closest to us, who know us personally, cannot always choose gifts we might like, how can distant and anonymous central planners? As Friedrich Hayek pointed out, their grasp of the situation always amounts to incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge that, by its nature, cannot tell bureaucrats how to secure the best use of resources. Even if they knew of the particularities facing every one of the nations 325 million citizens, government administrators could not micromanage circumstances to bring the same degree of enjoyment we can through millions of independent choices. Economic centralization makes people less happy than the autonomy bestowed by economic freedom. Every returned shirt, tacky piece of jewelry, or unwanted kitchen appliance silently attests to the failure of socialism. Finally, there is a spiritual sense pregnant even in something as mundane as exchanging unwanted gifts. The Christmas season specifically marks Jesus Christs nativity, in which the Savior took our human nature and our fallen faculties the ability to commune with God. St. Gregory Nazianzus said that through Christs incarnation, the new was substituted for the old and each property of His, Who was above us, was interchanged with each of ours. This is the reason for the generation [birth] and the virgin, for the manger and Bethlehem, he continued, to make Christ to dwell in the heart by the Spirit: and, in short, to deify, and bestow heavenly bliss upon Christs followers (Oration 2, 24 and 22, respectively). Thank God for this heavenly exchange. (Photo credit: JJByers. This photo has been cropped. CC BY 2.0.) Two men were arrested for alleged burglary at a house in Delhi's Patel Nagar area, police said Thursday. The accused were identified as Naseem (39) and Sayyad Saud Hassan (29), both residents of Delhi, officials said. Manmeet Singh filed a complaint that on December 16 some men broke locks of his house and burgled Rs 12-13 lakh in cash and jewellery worth Rs 7-8 lakh, Mandeep Singh Randhawa, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central), said. Police identified the two accused with the help of CCTV footage installed outside the house, he said. Hassan was apprehended from Darya Ganj and Nadeem from Seelampur, he added. During interrogation, the accused revealed that they along with their accomplice Shahzad committed several burglaries in different areas of Delhi in the last ten years, the officer said. They used to carry house breaking instruments in their scooter and target locked houses, he said. Two motorcycles, one scooter, house breaking instruments, gold jewellery and Rs 87,000 in cash were recovered from them, police said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A total of 13 people, including two children, were killed and 18 more injured in separate road accidents in Jharkhand on Thursday, police said. A speeding trailer mowed down the children and one person sleeping on a footpath in the early hours near the Tatanagar railway station here, they said. Four people were injured in the accident that took place after the driver of the trailer lost control over the vehicle, hit a divider and ran over the people, East Singhbhum district Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Alok Ranjan said. The injured were rushed to the M G M Hospital, he said, adding that the driver has been arrested and the vehicle confiscated. Five people were killed and eight others injured when a passenger van collided with a truck near Dakaya forest in Deoghar district. Sub-divisional Police Officer Vikas Chandra Srivastav said three of the injured were stated to be critical, and are undergoing treatment at the Sadar hospital. In a third accident, three people died and five others were injured when a pick-up van overturned at Dhava village in Palamau district, a police officer said. The injured are undergoing treatment at the Medininagar Sadar hospital, he said. In another accident, two people were killed when a speeding car ran them over on the Marine Drive in Jamshedpur and fell into the river Kharkhai, police said. The two were going to take a bath in the river. The driver of the car, who was allegedly in an inebriated state, was injured and hospitalised, Deputy Superintendent of Police Arvind Kumar said. Local people put up a road blockade, demanding adequate compensation to the victims' family. It was withdrawn after police intervened. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) About 12 crore devotees are expected to visit Kumbh Mela starting at Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh from January 15 and the government has made elaborate arrangements to ensure their security and smooth conduct of the mega event, said a minister from the northern state Thursday. Touted as the biggest cultural and religious event in the world, the Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj (formerly Allahabad) has been accorded the status of world heritage by the UNESCO. The event, which will conclude on March 4, has been included in the list of 'intangible cultural heritage of humanity.' Addressing reporters here, Uttar Pradesh Urban Development Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna said for the first time, two integrated control and command centres have been formed to ensure law and order in the city. "The Kumbh Mela area has been brought under surveillance of these centres and CCTV cameras. The system will facilitate controlling and keeping safe the traffic movement and the crowd coming to the mela," he said. He said 1,400 CCTV cameras will not only keep an eye on safety and security of pilgrims but also monitor the cleanliness arrangements. The minister said representatives of 192 countries are expected to visit the Kumbh Mela. "Ambassadors of about 71 countries had witnessed the preparations for this grand event. A conference on NRI day is being organised in Varanasi this month. Over 5,000 NRIs are likely to visit the Kumbh," he added. A temporary township has been set up to accommodate the devotees. "To ensure participation of people from all states, the Uttar Pradesh government is making efforts to bring people from every state in the kumbh. For the convenience of devotees and tourists, air, road and river transport facilities have been made available," Khanna said. Meanwhile, the Narayan Seva Sansthan (NSS), a charity that runs a smart village for the differently abled people and a hospital in Udaipur, plans to set up a spiritual-cum- surgical camp at the Kumbh Mela. "The Narayan Seva Sansthan will also establish a 100- bed hospital along with artificial limb development unit where differently abled individuals will be measured for customised size and shape. "Later, these customised limbs will be installed and donated to the differently abled beneficiaries," Prashant Agarwal, president, NSS, said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least 11 people were arrested for allegedly attacking a Christian gathering in Maharashtra's Kolhapur district last month, said police Thursday. The attack took place in a rented bungalow at Kowad village under Chandgad taluka, about 370km from here, on December 23 in which 12 people were injured, an official said. The arrests were made from adjoining Karnataka. "We have arrested 11 people hailing from Belgaum in Karnataka during a search operation carried out during the week," Abhinav Deshmukh, Superintendent of Police, Kolhapur, told PTI. Some of them are in police custody, while the others obtained bail from court, he said. The accused are in the 20-30 age group, but do not belong to any particular organisation, Deshmukh added. Two of the key accused were identified as Jotiba Patil and Pravin, said Sripad Yadav, inspector at the Chandgad police station. During interrogation, the accused persons claimed that the man, who had taken the bungalow on rent since the last 12 to 15 years, was involved in spreading Christianity in the area, Deshmukh said. They attacked the place to send out a message that the people who gather there for prayers should stop their proselytising activities, he said. While investigating the case, the police recorded statements of the injured persons and others who attended the congregation, he said. All of them denied they were involved in spreading Christianity and claimed they attended the gathering to overcome ailments and problems they were facing in their lives, he said. A group of men armed with swords, iron rods and glass bottles, hailing from neighbouring Belgaum, had barged into the ground floor of the rented bungalow when Sunday prayers were on, the police had said. They threw stones at those attending the prayer. Some women, who were part of the prayer meet, forced the attackers to back-off by throwing chilly powder on them, they had said. The Maharashtra police had initially identified five of the assailants with the help of CCTV footage, following which arrests were made, Deshmukh said. The police had formed several teams, including one from the Crime Branch, to investigate the case and also sought help from their Karnataka counterparts. A Christian delegation had met the police and the resident district collector, demanding security for the community and action against the accused persons. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Around lunchtime every weekday, 100 reporters from the wire agencies, news and cable networks and the national newspapers gather to quiz the American presidents press secretary, standing at a lectern in front of that famous blue backdrop, on everything from the leaders actions in a war to the state of the economy. In difficult times like the Lewinsky scandal during the Clinton administration, and I suppose pretty much every day since Donald Trump took office ... Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor This refers to Too early to write off payments banks (January 3). While one agrees with the analysis of payments banks by R Jagannathan, some issues raise concerns about the concept and their performance so far. Most importantly, almost every payments bank is falling foul of the Reserve Bank of India's various guidelines so early in their journey. This is serious and shows a cavalier attitude by the promoters. If not their weak performance, a repeat of such behaviour will certainly make them candidates for early write-off. One may also not agree with the suggestion ... US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Colombian President Ivan Duque have vowed to take steps to reduce coca production by 50 per cent by 2023. Pompeo said in a meeting here with Duque that he is "deeply concerned" about the increased production of coca leaf, the raw material for cocaine, in Colombia, the BBC reported on Thursday. A recent UN report said the amount of agricultural land used for coca crops in Colombia had hit record levels. The country has fought for years to tackle cocaine production, with the US providing around $400 million annually to help combat the producers and traffickers. Colombia is the world's largest producer of cocaine, while the US is the world's largest consumer. "The US remains deeply concerned about the surge in coca cultivation and cocaine production in Colombia since 2013, and its impact on each of our two countries," Pompeo said. "We know we must do our part to reduce demand in our country and we'll work alongside you here as well." Duque thanked the US for its support in the drugs war. In August 2018, newly-elected President Duque said the government would create a new drug-fighting policy, with a goal to have "concrete results" in the next four years. --IANS mag/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two militants were killed and three soldiers injured on Thursday in a gunfight in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district. Police sources said the two militants belonging to the Hizbul Mujahideen were killed in the ongoing fighting in Gulshanpora village of Tral tehsil. "The operation is still on," an officer said. Earlier, three soldiers were injured in the area when militants opened fire when the troops were laying a cordon. "So far we have not recovered any militant's body," the officer said. Security forces started a cordon and search operation in Gulshanpora village after receiving information about the presence of militants. "As the cordon around the militants was tightened, they fired at the surrounding security forces, triggering an encounter," the officer said. --IANS sq/mr (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President Donald Trump has mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over funding a "library" in war-torn Afghanistan, saying it is of no use there as he criticized India and others for not doing enough for the nation's security. It was unclear to which "library" project Trump was referring to. His comments were dismissed by India, with sources in New Delhi saying that the government does not send troops abroad except under specific UN mandate. In his first Cabinet meeting of the year on Wednesday, the US President railed against a litany of perceived injustices, including a lack of international support for Washington in conflicts in the Middle East and Asia, the Independent reported. Trump asked India, Russia, Pakistan and other neighbouring countries to take responsibility for Afghanistan's security as he defended his move to withdraw troops from that country. He referred to Prime Minister Modi as an example of how world leaders were talking about their contributions that were nowhere near the billions of dollars the US was spending. "I could give you an example where, I get along very well with India and Prime Minister Modi, but he's constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan. Ok a library. That's like, you know what that is? It's like five hours of what we spend (in Afghanistan)," Trump told his Cabinet members. "And he (Modi) tells me. He is very smart. We are supposed to say, oh thank you for the library. Don't know who's using it (the library) in Afghanistan. But it's one of those things. I don't like being taken advantage of. "I say this, India. (I have) great relationship with Prime Minister Modi. He is a great gentleman and a great man and he's done a fantastic job. He has brought the country together," he said. Though India has not put its boots on Afghan soil, it has played a key role role in the reconstruction efforts of the war-ravaged country, including key infrastructure projects. --IANS soni/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President Donald Trump said he has received a "great" letter from the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong-un and expected their second meeting to take place in the "not-too-distant future." "I just got a great letter from Kim Jong Un," Trump was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency on Wednesday. "We'll probably now have another meeting ... we'll be setting that up in the not-too-distant future," said Trump at the White House during a Cabinet meeting. In early December, Trump had revealed that his second meeting with Kim was likely to happen in January or February. Trump's words came one day after Pyongyang released a series of positive signals over the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Kim said on Tuesday in his New Year speech the he would push forward the denuclearization and was ready to meet with Trump at any time. Kim also stressed his determination to work to build new relations with Washington on the condition that the United States takes corresponding measures. "We could be left with no choice but to seek a new way if the U.S. does not make good on its promises, misjudges our patience, while seeking to force things unilaterally and clinging to sanctions and pressure," Kim warned. The relations between the DPRK and the United States improved last year. The first-ever summit between Trump and Kim was held in Singapore in June. Meanwhile, differences between the two sides remained over key issues like the scale of denuclearization, U.S. sanctions, and whether to issue a war-ending declaration. --IANS vin (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) "To Kill a Mockingbird" has become one of the greatest stage successes of any Broadway season. Aaron Sorkin's adaption of Harper Lee's classic novel has shattered records in its second full week of performances, grossing $1.702 million, making it the highest single-week grossing American play in Broadway history, surpassing "All the Way", the Bryan Cranston drama about Lyndon Johnson that took in $1.623 million during the week of June 22, 2014, reported variety.com. The new high-water mark set by "To Kill a Mockingbird" is for the week of December 30, 2018, a particularly busy time for Broadway, in the midst of the holiday season when Times Square is flooded with tourists. "I've never had, or seen, a new play perform like this one is," said Scott Rudin, the Tony-winning producer behind "To Kill a Mockingbird. "We've had plenty of shows break plenty of records, but nothing we've ever had has been like this. The company of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' has been together for quite a long time already, through numerous labs, readings, and a very healthy preview period. The success of this play - and the huge affection shown for it thus far - belongs entirely to them. It's their hit," Rudin added. Set in Alabama in 1934, "To Kill a Mockingbird" is a coming-of-age story that also gives a penetrating look at racial injustice in the segregated South. --IANS rb/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Tamil Nadu Assembly was adjourned on Thursday without transacting any business after paying rich tributes to DMK leader and five-time Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi who died in August last year. After adopting a condolence resolution moved by Leader of the House and Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam mourning the deaths of Karunanidhi and AIADMK MLA A.K. Bose, the members observed two minutes silence. Moving the resolution, Panneerselvam said Karunanidhi was one of the senior most political leaders in the country and had the distinction of winning all the Assembly elections he fought since 1957. He said Karunanidhi first became the Chief Minister in 1969 and since then had served as Chief Minister five times. The House expresses its deep shock and anguish over the death of Karunanidhi, who was a member of the Assembly. Panneerselvam said right from the age of 14, Karunanidhi involved himself in social movements and worked to achieve social justice. He was also a great dialogue writer for films through which he created social awareness. His love for Tamil language won universal admiration. Panneerselvam described Karunanidhi's death as a big loss to Tamil Nadu and offered the House' condolences to his son and Leader of the Opposition M.K. Stalin and members of the DMK party. Chief Minister K. Palaniswami also paid rich tributes to Karunanidhi. He recalled some of the fond moments in the Assembly when Karunandihi was the Chief Minister. After the House was adjourned, Stalin met Speaker P. Dhanapal and thanked him, the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister for adopting a condolence resolution for Karunanidhi. --IANS mr/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Three soldiers were injured on Thursday in an ongoing gunfight between security forces and militants in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district. Police said the soldiers were injured in the initial exchange of firing by hidden militants in Gulshanpora village of Tral tehsil, triggering a gunfight. "So far, we have not recovered any militant's body. The operation is on," a police officer said. Security forces started a cordon and search operation in Gulshanpora village after receiving information about the presence of militants. "As the cordon around the militants was tightened, they fired at the surrounding security forces, triggering an encounter which is underway," the officer said. --IANS sq/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two people died of swine flu on Thursday in Rajasthan while a total of 44 new cases tested positive in the state, health officials said here. According to Health Department officials, of the 44 cases, 17 patients are from Jodhpur, nine from Jaipur, three each from Sikar and Barmer, two each from Kota, Pali, Ajmer and Udaipur and one each in Tonk, Jaisalmer, Dausa and Rajsamand. Overall, 88 cases have tested positive in the state in 2019, with three patients succumbing to the virus in three days from the start of the year, said officials. According to the comparative status of influenza from 2009 to 2018, out of 9,163 samples tested in 2009, 3,032 came out positive and 149 deaths were reported. In 2018, out of 22,705 samples tested, 2,419 patients tested positive but the number who died touched 225. Health Minister Raghu Sharma appealed to the people not to fear swine flu. In case of symptoms such as cold and joint ache, the patient should rush to the nearest health centre or hospital. Sharma said the biggest challenge was to cure the patients and check the rising number of patients. The reason for the outbreak of the disease can be traced later. --IANS arc/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha, who has been critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah, is keeping the cards close to his chest about whether he would join the Rashtriya Janata Dal and contest the coming Lok Sabha elections on its ticket. "I've been advised by my family to not make any official announcement till January 14. The time is not right until then. But my closeness to and fondness for Laluji and his family is no secret. "As far as contesting the 2019 elections goes, my constituency will always be Bihar. Once a Bihari Babu always a Bihari Babu," he said. He was replying to a question whether he was officially joining hands with the jailed RJD leader Lalu Prasad, whom he met in prison in Ranchi recently. Sinha, who has been attacking his party too, said BJP was practising politics of vendetta on him. Excerpts from the interview: Q. Shatruji, what is this about the VIP treatment being withdrawn at airports for you? A. It is nothing but the politics of vendetta being followed by the honourable Prime Minister's dedicated soldiers who think he will be pleased with such malicious attempts to pull me down. Q. But why give such privileges in the first place? A. I wasn't given the so-called VIP treatment to make me feel important. It is for health reasons that I am driven directly to the flight. Otherwise I am happy to mingle with the janata. I've been as close to them all my life as possible. I'd happy to travel economy class. Q. Then why the VIP treatment? Like I said it's for health reasons. After my heart operation, I was advised not to exert myself. After the leg operation I've been forbidden from walking long stretches. Q. The reason being given for the withdrawal of the privilege is one of security? The entire airport authority escorts me to the aircraft, and suddenly I am a security threat? Is this some kind of a joke? As I said this is merely vendetta politics. Q. Do you think it's to do with your joining hands with Lalu Yadav? Of course it is! They first withdrew the privilege, as you call it, from Laluji and now me. And mind you other politicians like Ram Vilas Paswan have been given the VIP privilege at the airport. Why am I being singled out for this treatment? Q. You tell me? Nowadays you have to make friends with the friends of those in power. Some of my colleagues from the film industry are very good at doing that. I can't pretend to like my political compatriots if I don't like them. Nor can I pretend not to like those whom I am close to. --IANS skj/rb/vsc/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, lodged in the city's Kot Lakhpat Jail, has been denied an orderly and told to clean his prison room himself. The Punjab province government on Wednesday said it could not provide a prisoner to the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader who could serve as his "orderly" and that he would have to maintain his room on his own, Dawn newspaper reported on Thursday. Inspector General of Prisons Shahid Saleem Beg said that Sharif was asked to maintain his room to serve the seven-year "rigorous" imprisonment handed down to him in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills/Hill Metal Establishment corruption on December 24. The National Accountability Bureau, Pakistan's anti-corruption body, while sentencing Sharif had ruled that Al-Azizia Steel Mills -- a Saudi Arabian firm carrying the name of his son -- belonged to the former Prime Minister, who was unable to demonstrate how the project was funded. The three-time Premier was provided with a "B-class" room in the Kot Lakhpat Jail with a TV set, bed, blanket, heater, a chair and table. The prisons chief said Sharif's case was highly sensitive due to which he was not allowed to go outside his barracks in the prison. He said Sharif's "rigour had been kept within his barracks". However, he later clarified to Dawn that Sharif had not been put to any rigour and that they were sensitive to how Sharif was treated because the country's reputation was at stake. --IANS soni/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court will hear on January 8 the BJP's plea challenging a Calcutta High Court division bench order that quashed a single bench's conditional go-ahead to the party's 'Rath Yatra' programme in West Bengal. The bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said on Thursday that the plea would be listed on January 8 after senior counsel Ranjit Kumar told the court that because of the High Court order, the BJP can't go ahead with its programme. The BJP's plans to take out 'save democracy rallies' hit a roadblock when the High Court's division bench on December 21 quashed the single bench's order that had given the go-ahead to the programme saying the party should not create any trouble during their programme as they would be held liable. The division bench comprising Chief Justice Debasish Kar Gupta and Justice Shampa Sarkar sent the case back to the single bench with a directive that the latter consider the intelligence inputs provided by the state agencies. The Mamata Banerjee government had moved an appeal before the division bench against the single bench's December 20 order. While setting aside Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty's order, the division bench directed it to study afresh the 36 intelligence inputs from 31 police stations and five police commissionerates submitted by the state government before it. The Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government had refused permission to BJP's programme to hold the 'Rath Yatra', arguing there was "grave apprehension of major breach of peace and communal violence during and in the aftermath" of the programme. The BJP then moved the Calcutta High Court on December 17 after the Bengal government's decision and proposed December 22, 24 and 26 as fresh dates for the three rallies. The BJP was originally scheduled to hold three 'Rath Yatra' rallies from north Bengal's Cooch Behar, South 24 Parganas district's Gangasagar and Birbhum district's temple town of Tarapith, to be flagged off by party President Amit Shah on December 7, 9 and 14 respectively. These rallies were meant to touch all 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state before converging in Kolkata in January. --IANS pk/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Ram Vilas Paswan on Thursday expressed opposition to the idea of bringing an ordinance on the Ram Mandir issue and said the Supreme Court's decision on this matter should be final. "Everyone should accept whatever judgement the Supreme Court gives on the Ram Mandir issue -- be he from Hindu, Muslim or any other community," Paswan told reporters here. He said his party's stand has been consistent on the issue and it would not support an ordinance with regard to construction of Ram Mandir at the disputed site in Ayodhya. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on Tuesday said that the government would not bring an ordinance on the issue of the temple when the matter is being heard in the Supreme Court. Saffron outfits such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad have been mounting pressure on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government for an ordinance to facilitate construction of the Ram Mandir. Paswan also asked Congress President Rahul Gandhi to clear his stand on the issue. He said his party supports the Supreme Court's decision allowing women entry into Sabarimala temple in Kerala as stopping them amounts to gender discrimination. --IANS spk/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Thursday vacated its stay on the Centre's 2015 action seeking damages of Rs 640 crore from Nestle India limited - the manufacturer of Maggi noodles - for alleged unfair trade practices, false labelling and misleading advertisements. The class action is rooted in the case of alleged high lead content and presence of MSG (monosodium glutamate) in Nestle's popular Maggi instant noodles. The bench headed by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud today vacated the stay of the proceedings before the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) that were stayed way back in 2015 as the top court then was seized of the matter. While vacating the stay on the proceedings on the class action by the Centre seeking damages of Rs. 640 crores, the court said the report of the Mysuru-based Central Food Technological Research Institute where the samples of Maggi noodles were tested would form the basis of the proceedings. The court asked the Centre, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), Nestle and others to argue before the NCDRC whether the consumers were misled by the company as contended by the Centre in its class action. The Supreme Court had in 2015 put on hold proceedings before the NCDRC after Nestle moved the top court challenging the commission's order directing the testing of 16 samples of Meggi noodles to ascertain their safety for consumption. The NCDRC had ordered the testing of the Maggie noodles in the course of the hearing of the Central government's class action against Nestle India, the manufacturer of Maggi noodles, seeking Rs 640 crore in damages for alleged unfair trade practices, false labelling and misleading advertisements. The Commission had directed that out of withdrawn stocks of Maggi noodles in the custody of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (of which 100 batch numbers were randomly noted by the local commissioner) 16 samples be sent for testing for presence of lead in any form and of MSG, including their quantity in the samples at the Export Inspection Council of India, Chennai. Appearing for Nestle, senior counsel Abhishek Manu SinghviA said, "The lead content was found to be within permissible limit and there is some amount of lead in lot of products." Senior counsel told the court that the Mysuru-based Central Food Technological Research Institute has given the finding that the noodles contained lead "within permissible limits". However, the Centre contended that the main issue in the class action was not whether noodles were harmful or not, but the company misled the consumers by alleged unfair trade practices, false labelling and misleading advertisements. --IANS pk/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel on Thursday said the Centre has given its go-ahead to set up an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Rajkot at a cost of Rs 1,200 crore. "The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has given the permission for setting up an AIIMS at Rajkot. The institute will have medical education, research and a hospital with at least 800-bed capacity. This will cost around Rs 1,200," said Desai. "A Central government committee had selected Vadodara and Rajkot for setting up the institute. After considering the geographical position and factors such as local healthcare facilities, infrastructure and maximum beneficiaries, the panel decided on Rajkot. Now Gujaratis will be able to avail of specialty and super specialty health care for critical ailments," said Patel. The minister said the state government would provide free-of-cost 20-acre land for the institute. --IANS desai/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former state Minister Vasudev Devnani on Thursday accused the Rajasthan government of doing "Congressisation" of the state's system by following a policy of minority appeasement. Addressing the media at the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) office here on Thursday, he said: "It is unfortunate that Minister Govind Singh Dotasara has a hesitation in accepting the fact that Maharana Pratap was a 'great' emperor... It's an insult to those who sacrificed their lives for the sake of nation." "Pratap was brave as he fought with Akbar till his last breath," he added. Referring to Kothari Commission, he said this commission had also recommended for transformation of the Indian education system, as according to it, the education in the country was made Europe-centric by the Britishers. "That's why, the panel recommended that the education system be converted into an India-centric one. The Commission said it is important to make the transformation. "Hence, we added stories of bravery of Guru Govind Singh, Veer Savarkar, Prithviraj Chauhan, Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar and many others," he said. On the Education Department's decision to change the school bicycles' colour from orange to any other colour, he said that saffron is one of the colours of our national flag which stands for sacrifice and dedication. Why is Congress allergic to this colour, he asked. He recounted the achievements made under the former government and said that Rajasthan's rank in education was elevated to second from 26th in the country, board percentage was increased from 57 to 80 per cent, school registrations saw a rise and the staff crisis was successfully addressed. "If the Education Minister still has doubts about our performance, questions will be asked on his own intelligence," he added. The Congress had left 4,400 high secondary schools which were increased to 13,000 in state under the BJP rule. "We built schools in each village panchayat, connected anganwadi centres to schools and took all measures to enhance education standards in the state. It would have been good if the state Education Department had initiated steps to take it forward, he added. --IANS arc/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actor Pulkit Samrat on Thursday started shooting Adoor in Kerala for his upcoming film "Haathi Mere Saathi". "Lush green forests, chirping birds and the gentle beast...that's what the shoot for 'Haathi....' is like every single day. A life changing experience which not only is beautiful at the face of it, but the soul too," Pulkit said in a statement. He will be seen playing a mahout in the film, which also stars actors like Rana Daggubati and Kalki Koechlin. "Elephant corridors being encroached upon by corporate giants is a big menace claiming lives of several elephants every year," said Pulkit. "The film revolves around true incidents from all over the country and makes us pause and think about it while entertaining us with scenic visuals and soulful music," he added. The trilingual, helmed by Prabhu Solomon, is being shot simultaneously in Hindi, Telugu and Tamil. --IANS nn/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US President and Republican as well as Democratic congressional leaders have failed to make tangible progress on how to end the partial government shutdown due to Donald Trump's demands for billions of dollars for a border wall. During the contentious meeting in the Situation Room on Wednesday, the 12 day of the shutdown, Trump made his case for a wall on the southwestern border and rejected Democrats' proposals for reopening the government while the two sides ironed out their differences, the New York Times reported. Trump warned before the meeting that he will keep the government partially shut down for as long as necessary, that is, apparently, till Democrats give in to his previous demands for financing his much-touted border wall with Mexico. At the White House meeting, Democratic leaders asked Trump to immediately reopen the portions of the government that were currently shut down, leaving the discussion about border security -- the reason why Trump ostensibly called the meeting in the first place -- for later. "I don't think any particular progress was made today," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters after the meeting. "But we talked about all aspects of it and it was a civil discussion and we're hopeful that somehow in the coming days and weeks we'll be able to reach an agreement." The likely incoming Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, said upon leaving the meeting that the Democratic lawmakers' aim was "to end the partial government shutdown tomorrow". "Tomorrow we will bring to the floor legislation that will open up government. It will be based on actions taken by the Republican Senate -- led by Senator Mitch McConnell," Pelosi said on Wednesday, making reference to a Senate bill that passed but did not include wall funding. Pelosi said that approving the Democrats' bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security through February 8 would give lawmakers and Trump 30 additional days to negotiate regarding allocating funds for US border security without the need to keep the government partially shut down and some 800,000 of the 2.1 million federal workers idled. "We asked the president to support the bills that we support to open up government," added Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, noting that he had asked Trump to give "one good reason" for continuing the shutdown if lawmakers were discussing border security with the expectation of finding a mutually agreeable solution. "He could not give a good answer," Schumer said. The government has been partially shut down since December 22 after negotiations between Republican and Democratic lawmakers reached a deadlock over the President's demand that the budget bill include more than $5 billion for construction of the wall. --IANS soni/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Parliament on Thursday approved imposition of Presidents Rule in Jammu and Kashmir with Home Minister Rajnath Singh stating that the government will have no objection if the Election Commission (EC) decides to hold Assembly polls in the state along with the coming Lok Sabha elections. The Rajya Sabha on Thursday approved the proclamation of President's Rule in Jammu and Kashmir which has already been okayed by the Lok Sabha last week. Replying to a debate which saw both Congress and BJP members targeting each other, Rajnath Singh said that the government would meet all security needs sought by the Election Commission. "If the Election Commission wants, we won't have any objection to it," he said while responding to a query by Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad. Azad had sought to know whether the government is ready to conduct simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and the Assembly in Jammu & Kashmir. "It is Election Commission's job to hold elections. But I would like to assure the House that we do not have any objection (to holding polls in Jammu & Kashmir). We are ready to provide whatever security support the Election Commission wants," Rajnath Singh added. The Minister also refuted allegations levelled by opposition parties that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was earlier trying to form a government in the state. "No one should doubt the government's intentions. There was no conspiracy," he said. Participating in the debate, Finance Minister Arun Jailtey said that mistakes made by the Congress had led to alienation among people in Kashmir and rejected its charge that the process had started in the last four and half years. He asserted that when history gives its verdict on the viewpoint of India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and that of Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the ideologue of the Jana Sangh, the BJP's predecessor, the Congress will feel the pain. He also defended BJP forming alliance with the PDP in the state to run a coalition government. Jaitley said there "is a history of alienation, there are policies" and noted that assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir for successive years including in 1957, 1962 and 1967 were not fair and Congress had also indulged in destabilising governments. "If elections are held in such manner, it will sow seeds of alienation. The people of the state felt they do not have right to contest polls. This is the you did to stay in power," he said. He questioned Nehru government's decision to go for ceasefire during the invasion of Kashmir in 1947 when Indian troops were moving forward and claimed that the announcement was made without proper consultations with then Home Minister Sardar Patel. He also questioned the assurance given by Nehru government on a plebiscite in Kashmir saying it had "hung around our neck like an albatross." He said Congress cannot "whitewash its historical mistakes" in Kashmir as they are part of history now. Jaitley said people of the Valley still recall that the first free and fair elections in the state were held after Morarji Desai became prime minister in 1977. "You had put all your eggs in one basket," he said, and added that the Congress government had to change its policy and arrest the National Conference leader Sheikh Abdullah. He said the Indira-Sheikh Abdullah agreement was reached in 1975 but disagreements soon cropped up. The minister said that the then state Governor B.K. Nehru refused to play the Centre's game to destabilise the Farooq Abdullah government in 1984 and stepped down. He said a new governor was appointed and a new government was formed by splitting the National Conference. Jaitley said Congress again joined hands with Farooq Abdullah in 1986 and ran a government till 1989 which caused "so much alienation which the valley had never seen". Jaitley targeted the Congress over the death of Bharatiya Jan Sangh founder S P Mookerjee in custody, saying he gave away his life due to "barriers you erected". The minister said it would be better not to indulge in blame-game. It was necesssary to learn from the mistakes made in the past and work for peace and progress. Initiating the debate, Azad said if people of the Valley who fought against the Pakistani intruders in 1947 had chosen to remain with India were "unhappy with us today, then I think somewhere we 130 crore Indians have faulted". "We have made mistakes. Should those mistakes not be corrected? The year 2014 should be the benchmark as to where we had le"t Kashmir and where it is now," he said. Azad, a former chief minister, said Kashmir is incomplete without Kashmiri Pandits who left the Valley in fear. "They are our blood and a part of our blood has gone away from us." He said the state governor has made as many as 55 amendments in various laws. "Is this right? you would not Is it not the elected government's right to amend laws?" Trinamool Congress member Derek O'Brien said the government should give an assurance that elections in Kashmir would be held now or latest with the Lok Sabha polls. He also raised questions over the role of the Governor. "The government that talks of Digital India cannot even handle fax machines. Are Raj Bhawans becoming branch offices of the government at the Centre?" he asked. "Nationalism is not the copyright of one party. Heal Kashmir. It's a heaven. My appeal to the government is please don't turn it into a hell," he said. NCP member Majeed Memon said other parties should have been allowed to form government in the state after the BJP had withdrawn support to the PDP. Governor's rule was imposed in Jammu and Kashmir in June after none of the political parties came forward to stake claim to form the government following BJP's withdrawal of support to the PDP-led government. Then Governor N.N. Vohra weighed all the options available before the political parties, including the BJP and the Congress, but they did not express intention to form the government, he added. President's Rule was imposed in the state last month. --IANS ps/mak/vsc/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said the government will have no objection if the Election Commission (EC) decides to hold Assembly polls in Jammu & Kashmir along with 2019 general elections. "If the Election Commission wants, we won't have any objection to it," he said while responding to a query by Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad. Azad had sought to know whether the government is ready to conduct simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and the Assembly in Jammu & Kashmir. Replying to a discussion on a resolution on the presidential proclamation imposing President's rule in the state, Singh said the government would meet all security needs sought by the Election Commission. "It is Election Commission's job to hold elections. But I would like to assure the House that we do not have any objection (to holding polls in Jammu & Kashmir). We are ready to provide whatever security support the Election Commission wants." The Minister also refuted allegations levelled by opposition parties that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was earlier trying to form a government in the state. "No one should doubt the government's intentions. There was no conspiracy," he said. The President's rule had to be imposed as none of the political parties came forward to stake claim to form the government, Singh said. Then Governor N.N. Vohra weighed all the options available before the political parties, including the BJP and the Congress, but they did not express intention to form the government, he added. --IANS mak-bns-spk/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The ruling Democratic Alliance (NDA) ally in Bihar, Janata Dal-United, on Thursday said it will oppose the in case voting takes place in the Rajya Sabha. JD-U Rajya Sabha MP and party's Bihar unit chief Bashistha Narain Singh told IANS: "The matter is related to a big community. There should be no hurry in bringing the in the Rajya Sabha." He said the government should have done more consultation with the stakeholders before rushing the Bill. Asked about his party's stand in case voting takes place in the Upper House, Singh replied, "We will vote against the government." The Opposition is demanding that the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2018, be referred to a select committee of the House. Earlier in the day, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the government was receptive to any "constructive" suggestions by the Opposition on the Bill. Prasad was responding to IANS query as to why the government was not accepting the Opposition demand to refer the Bill to a select committee of Parliament for scrutiny. "We will decide on the floor of the House when I speak there. We have already improved a lot of things. A select committee is important, but the plight of victim women is equally important. I would appeal to MPs to listen to their plight," Prasad said. The government had listed the Bill on Monday, but the Rajya Sabha could not take it up because of Opposition's reservations over the proposed legislation and its insistence on sending the Bill to a parliamentary panel. This led to heated exchanges between the Opposition and Treasury Benches and the House was adjourned for the day amid din. Both Opposition and government have been accusing each other of doing politics over the issue ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. ALSO READ: Oppn in Rajya Sabha demands triple talaq bill be sent to select committee During the discussion on the Bill in Lok Sabha, the Opposition, and even the fence sitters such as the AIADMK and BJD, demanded that the Bill be referred to a joint committee. The government did not yield to the demand and got the Bill passed after a four-hour debate. When the Bill came up in the Rajya Sabha on December 31, the Opposition pressed for voting on whether it should be sent to a select committee of the House. The voting could not take place due to din and subsequent adjournment. Devotees of Lord Krishna will celebrate the Lord Jagannath Rath Yatra 2019 chariot festival at Shivaji Park here on Saturday, organised by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) Chowpatty, an official said on Thursday. The 10th in the series, the Mumbai 'Rath Yatra' is considered the biggest outside Puri (Odisha) in size and scale with devotees from the US, the UK, Europe, Australia, South America, Russia and other countries joining in. "The two-day festival will start on January 5 with a 'Maha Arti' and the four-hour-long rath yatra will travel from Shivaji Park to Sena Bhavan, Plaza Cinema, Portuguese Church, Prabhadevi and back to the starting point," said ISKCON spiritual head Radhanath Swami. Other major highlights will be the special dressing darshan of Lord Jagannath, a special 108-bhoga offering in organic designer pots, a mangal yagna by devotees, dinner-prasadam for all, distribution of Vedic literature besides other spiritual and cultural activities for all, he added. "This festival is a prime example of Indian culture of unity in diversity, rarely seen elsewhere in the world. The Path of Righteousness shown by Lord Krishna applies to entire humanity and such festivals help promote it further," Radhanath Swami said. Besides Mumbai, the rath yatra will also be organised by ISKCON and celebrated in Islamic countries including Pakistan and Bangladesh and 400 other temples scattered around the world. In Pakistan, the rath yatra shall be taken out in the Swaminarayan Temple complex in Karachi and the oldest chariot festival to be celebrated in Bangladesh will be at the four-century-old Yasho Madhab Temple in Dhamrai, on the outskirts of the capital Dhaka. --IANS qn/mag/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi has revealed his "communal mindset" by taking different lines on gender equality on the issues of triple talaq and women's entry into the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, the CPI-M has said. An editorial in the CPI-M journal "People's Democracy" hailed the human chain or "Women's Wall" of January 1 involving over 5.5 million women, covering 620 km from the northern tip in Kasargode in Kerala to Thiruvananthapuram, in support of gender equality. "On the day the Women's Wall came up, Modi sought to justify the BJP-RSS stand on Sabarimala," the Communist Party of India-Marxist said. "In an interview, he said that triple talaq and Sabarimala entry for women are different matters - while triple talaq is an issue of gender equality, Sabarimala is a matter of temple tradition. "By this false dichotomy, Modi has revealed the true Hindu communal mindset which advocates gender equality for Muslim women but refuses to extend it to Hindu women," the editorial said. "Hence, the manifestation of the Women's Wall is relevant not only for Kerala but for the whole country which is ruled today by the Hindutva forces who stand for manuvadi values." The editorial said that within 12 hours of the Women's Wall being formed, two women below the age of 50 entered the Sabarimala temple and prayed at the inner sanctum. "They did so with a police escort - a step in line with the declared policy of the state government that any woman who wishes to pray at the temple would be given protection to do so. "The RSS-BJP combine and the outfits set up by them have protested the 'sacrilege' of women entering the temple; their rage seems more to stem from the fact that their elaborate arrangements to forcibly prevent women going to the temple have been foiled," it said. --IANS mr/soni (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday added 'Jai Anusandhan' to the slogan 'Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan' coined by the late Lal Bahadur Shastri, hailing the power of research to propel the nation into the top league. The slogan 'Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan' was later suffixed with 'Jai Vigyan' by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Addressing the 106th Indian Science Congress here, Modi said India must place emphasis on its research output. "Today's new slogan is 'Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan, Jai Vigyan and Jai Anusandhan'. I would like to add 'Jai Anusandhan' to it," he said. The research now should have two objectives, he said: generation of disruptive technologies and consumption of that technology for socio economic well-being. "Our scientists must commit themselves to addressing problems of affordable healthcare, housing, clean air, water and energy, agricultural productivity and food processing. "While science is universal, technology must be local for providing solutions relevant to local needs and conditions," he said. He advised that though the number of research papers coming from India had increased, "we must not do research for the sake of it". "India has enlightened the world since ancient times. Now the time has come that India regains its earlier status," Modi said. Continuing his emphasis on research, the Prime Minister said 95 per cent of students still study in state universities and colleges "where research is limited". "A strong ecosystem is needed to be developed at these universities and colleges." The farmers' distress also found mention in his speech. Modi said that a big problem with agriculture was that most farmers were farming on less than two hectares of land. "These people have most need of technology to use their limited resources. "We have achieved success in ease of doing business, now we need to focus on 'ease of living'," he said. The five-day Science Congress will host a series of seminars and talks on science related issues revolving around the theme 'Future India: Science and Technology'. The Congress has a rich legacy during both, pre and post-independence India, having been chaired in the past by such illustrious scientists as Meghnad Saha, J.C. Bose, C.V. Raman, Homi J. Bhabha, Satyendra Nath Bose, C.N.R. Rao and P.C. Mahalanobis. The first day saw a gathering of around 15,000 people including students, scientists and delegates. "This is probably the biggest gathering of scientists under one banner in history of mankind," claimed Ashok Mittal, Chancellor of Lovely Professional University where the event is being hosted. --IANS vn/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Realty major Mahindra Lifespace Developers Ltd. (MLDL) and Maharashtra government on Thursday signed an agreement to develop Murud as an eco-friendly global tourist destination, an official said here. The plans include developing around 1,300 acres to promote health and wellness, adventure, culture and heritage tourism in this tiny coastal village in adjoining Raigad district, around 150 km from Mumbai. MLDL's subsidiary Deep Mangal Developers Pvt. Ltd. signed the agreement to revamp Murud under the state's Tourism Policy intended to attract investments, create jobs and skill development. "Tourism has the potential to significantly improve the lives of local communities, contribute to economic growth, and attract investments. I am happy MLDL is taking the initiative to develop Murud region blessed with unmatched natural beauty," said Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra said not only would the new initiative help put Murud on the global tourism map, but it would also catalyse the growth of the local tourism industry by creating new jobs and business opportunities. MLDL Chairman Arun Nanda said the development of Murud as 'one-of-its-kind tourism destination' would cater to the globally growing needs of holistic healthcare and wellness tourism besides promoting adventure and heritage tourism. Located in the scenic coastal Konkan belt, Murud has a long history and is famed for its Murud-Janjira sea forts, besides pristine beaches of Kashid and Murud, the Garambi falls and an invigorating climate, making it the ideal global tourist attraction. Maharashtra's Tourism Policy 2016 has declared tourism as a priority sector to drive investments, economic development and employment generation for which the government will support projects by facilitating necessary infrastructure for the tourists arriving from all over the world. --IANS qn/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As many as 19 Lok Sabha members belonging to the Telugu Desam Party(TDP) and AIADMK were on Thursday suspended for four consecutive sittings by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan for causing "grave disorder" in the House by storming near the podium, tearing papers and throwing them towards the Chair. The Speaker's action came a day after she had suspended 24 Lok Sabha members belonging to AIADMK for five consecutive sittings for their similar "unruly behaviour". Soon after the House reassembled at noon on Thursday after a washout of the question hour, the AIADMK and the TDP members trooped near Speaker's podium and started sloganeering. The AIADMK members were protesting against the proposal for a dam across Cauvery river in Karnataka while the TDP members were demanding special status to Andhra Pradesh. As the official papers were being laid on the table of the House amid din, Mahajan warned the protesting members to go back to their seats or face action. But the members did not relent. "I will name you...I am warning...you have come to the well of the House...you are violating the dignity of the house..it's a grave disorder...Under rule 374 (A) you are suspended for four consecutive sittings," she said. And then, she started reading the names that included TDP's Jayadev Galla, Maganti Murali Mohan, Muthamsetti Srinivasa Rao, Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Thota Narasimham, Ram Mohan Naidu. Mahajan then adjourned the House till 2 p.m. --IANS rak-bns/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Farm loan waiver scheme alone would not be sufficient to alleviate farmers' distress across states and ensuring remunerative prices for their produce should be coupled with it so that they do not get into indebtedness further, a leader of peasants' movement in India said here on Thursday. One of the biggest farmers' body in the country, All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), President Ashok Dhawale said neither the Narendra Modi government at the centre and nor the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government is addressing the issue of farmers' indebtedness and non-remunerative prices that they have been reeling with. "Farmers, all over India, have two fundamental demands - liberation from debt or a complete loan waiver and remunerative prices so that they do not go into debt again," he said. The National Commission on Farmers, headed by M.S. Swaminathan, had recommended that every farmer for every crop should get a minimum support price that includes the entire cost of production and 50 per cent profit, Dhawale said. "Loan waiver must be the first step and it cannot be the final step. After that, implementation of Swaminathan Commission recommendation must be done so that they do not get into debt again. Both these things should be done together," he said. According to him, newly elected Congress governments in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh announced "partial loan waiver" after coming to power in their respective states because of "growing peasants' movement" in the country. He said small, medium and tenant farmers and agricultural workers are still left out of the institutional loan package as they used to borrow from local money lenders. "Our demand is that loan of small and medium farmers should also be waived. Two private member bills were placed before parliament," he said. "We see neither the Narendra Modi government at the centre nor Trinamool Congress government in the state addressing any of the two basic issues," he said on the sidelines of the 52nd anniversary of the CPI-M's daily mouthpiece 'Ganashakti'. He criticised the state government for giving some "cash sops" to state farmers ahead of Lok Sabha elections. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has announced yearly financial aid of Rs 5,000 per acre for all peasant families in the state. "Unless two basic issues of freedom from debt and profit-making prices, sops like this are not going to lead to any fundamental change in the farmers' life. They may get a few votes with such cash sops," he said. Banerjee also announced life insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh for each of the state's farmers aged 18-60 years under a state-sponsored 'Krishak Bondhu' scheme from 2019. "Instead of giving help to farmers after their deaths, why does the government not give some help when they are alive?" he asked. Farmers' movements have become mature, Dhawale said, adding that they have realised that these are not the sops for which farmers are fighting. "We are for radical changes in the agrarian system,a he added.A --IANS bdc/ssp/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress President Rahul Gandhi's comment on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's New Year interview by a "pliable journalist" evoked strong condemnation from the Editors Guild of India and journalist bodies, who expressed concern over the gradual decline in the nature of political discourse. Concerned over Gandhi's remarks against journalist Smita Prakash who interviewed Modi, the Guild said: "Labelling of journalists has emerged as a favourite tactic on the part of the establishment. Discredit, de-legitimise and intimidate them." "We have seen our political class use this for some time now. In the recent past, top BJP leaders as well as those of AAP have used unambiguously abusive expressions such as 'presstitute', news-traders, 'bazaari' (saleable commodities) or 'dalals' (pimps) for journalists," the guild said in a statement. It said that combined with ploys such as boycotts, denial of access and lately government accreditation, the abusive expressions add up to a "reprehensible strategy to throttle freedoms". "This must be reversed. Journalists, we believe, will continue to deal with these with their usual thick skins and not let these tactics intimidate them," said the Guild calling for a halt to the tendency. The Press Club of India, Indian Women's Press Corps and the Press Association also expressed concern over the gradual decline in the nature of political discourse. "Terms like 'presstitute' used by a former Union Minister and more recently 'pliable' by the President of a political party for the are inappropriate and lower the dignity of discourse in general," they said in a joint statement. --IANS and/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) He expresses no overt resentment, but the late and great writer-actor Kader Khans son Sarfarazs bitterness spills through when he talks of the way his illustrious father was neglected by the film industry after he migrated to Canada to live with his three sons. Sarfaraz said: "It is the way the Indian film industry has become now. There are too many fragmented camps and loyalties. The out-of-sight-out-of-mind mentality can't be helped. "My father always told us, his sons, not to expect anything from anybody and we grew up with the belief that one must do what is required in life and expect nothing in return." However, the hurt is palpable, specially since not too many from the film industry have bothered to call his sons in Canada even after Kader Khan's death. "There are so many people in the film industry whom my father was close to. But the one person that my father loved the most was Bachchan saab (Amitabh Bachchan). I'd ask my father whom he missed the most from the film industry and the answer promptly would be Bachchan Saab. And I know the love was mutual. "I want Bachchan saab to know that my father spoke about him till the end," said the doting son emotionally. Shakti Kapoor, David Dhawan and Govinda were others who worked very closely with Kader Khan during the 1980s and 1990s. Govinda has gone on record to say Kader Khan was like a father figure to him. Sarfaraz laughed mirthlessly, and said: "Please ask Govinda how many times he inquired about his father figure's health. Has he even bothered to call us even once after my father's passing away? This is the way our film industry has become. "There are no real feelings for those who have contributed to Indian cinema when they're no longer active. The top guns may be seen getting clicked with these retired veterans. But the affection goes only as far as photographs. No more. Look at the condition in which Lalita Pawarji and Mohan Chotiji died. "Luckily, my father had three sons to look after him. What about those who die with no financial and emotional support?" Kader Khan's fans would be happy to know that he passed away surrounded by those he loved the most. "There was a smile on my father's face when he passed away. I cherish that smile more than anything else in the world. My father's final years were very painful for him. He suffered from a degenerative disease that left him completely without the will to do anything. He got the best possible medical care here in Toronto." Kader Khan's three sons live close to one another in Toronto. Sarfaraz says the family intends to carry his legacy forward. "My father has contributed so much to Hindi cinema. We intend to honour his memory in a substantial and relevant way. At the moment we're all mourning his going. But I can assure his fans all over the world that we won't let the film industry forget him." --IANS skj/rb/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday embarked on a two-day official visit to Turkey on the invitation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the media reported. A high-level delegation, including Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Planning Minister Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtyar and Adviser to the Prime Minister Abdul Razak Dawood, accompanied Khan on the trip. The Prime Minister was expected to discuss the "entire spectrum of bilateral relations as well as (the) regional and international situation with President Erdogan", Radio Pakistan reported. During his stay in Ankara, Khan will also address a business forum and hold meetings with Turkish businessmen and potential investors. The visit will help explore new avenues of cooperation and collaboration between the two countries, particularly in the areas of economic, trade and commercial relations, the report said. Khan has visited several countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, China and Malaysia, after his election to the top office in an effort to strengthen bilateral and economic relations and secure foreign investment for Pakistan. In October, President Arif Alvi and Erdogan had agreed to strengthen mutual cooperation between the two "brotherly countries" during the former's visit to Turkey. --IANS soni/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Gujarat Fortunegiants overcame a late resurgence from UP Yoddhas to beat them 38-31 in the second qualifier on Thursday and make it to their second consecutive Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) final where they face the Bengaluru Bulls here on Saturday. Captain Rishank Devadiga turned out to be the handicap for the Yoddhas as the star raider failed to rise to the occasion in the do-or-die clash at the NSCI Indoor Stadium here. Srikant Jadhav led the Yoddhas fightback with seven points while Nitesh Kumar and Prashanth Kumar Rai got six and five points, respectively. For the Gujarat franchise, raider Sachin was the top scorer with 10 points while K.Prapanjan scored five while captain Sunil Kumar, Hadi Oshtorak and Sachin Vittala got three points apiece. Sachin got Gujarat the early lead before a two pointer raid from Prashanth Kumar Rai reversed the scoreline to 2-1 in favour of the UP Yoddhas after the initial couple of minutes. Gujarat got their lead back to 4-2 by the eighth minute before Shrikant Jadhav scored a touch point in the do or die raid to cut the slender deficit for the UP side. The pendulum shifted either way with both the sides stealing a couple of bonus points before Gujarat's K.Prapanjan was super tackled twice, which helped the Yoddhas square the scores at 11-11. But minutes before the end of the first half, the Gujarat side bounced back in style by inflicting the first All Out of the match to stretch their lead to 19-14 at the breather. Coming back, Gujarat rubbed salt into the hapless UP Yoddhas' wounds by immediately inflicting another All Out and double their lead to 28-14 with merely 15 minutes to go. Dejected but not the ones to give up easily, the Yoddhas managed a couple of points in the next few minutes, thanks to Prashanth stealing a bonus point as the scoreline read 16-30 before extending it further to 22-32. The Yoddhas continued their strong comeback by inflicting their first All Out that further swelled their score to 27-34 and went on to add a few more. But with time running out of UP's hands, and Gujarat preferring to play the waiting game with a slender lead, the match ended in favour of last season's runner-up side 38-31. --IANS tri/gau/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The anonymous 'X', the person who is heard in the audio clip with Goa Health Minister Vishwajit Rane, may come out with the truth about the discussion in the state Cabinet meeting last month about Rafale files in Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar's bedroom, state Congress spokesperson Jitendra Deshpranbhu said on Thursday. Deshprabhu also said that X, a cryptic acronym for the other voice in the audio clip, mentioned in the transcript released to the media by AICC media cell in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala in the national capital on Wednesday, was a male journalist. "...because ultimately the truth has to come out. If it is not the Minister of Health, it will be the X factor and the X factor is not controlled and governed by the honourable Minister, mind you. He is as much a media person as you and he is truthful," Deshprabhu told a press conference in Panaji. An audio clip between X and Health Minister Rane, in which the latter says that Parrikar, a former Defence Minister, said at a cabinet meeting that Rafale-related files were kept in his bedroom had stalled proceedings in Parliament on Wednesday. Both Rane and Parrikar have claimed that the audio clip is a fake. Asked if X referred to in the audio clip was a media person, Deshprabhu said: "He is as much a media person as you and he is truthful." --IANS maya/mr maya (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Four Congress workers were hit and injured by the pilot vehicle of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan when he was returning home from office for lunch on Thursday, the Congress said. Congress legislator M. Vincent told IANS that the four party workers got injured in two different incidents. He said some Congress activists waving black flags were hit by the pilot vehicle in what he insisted was "a deliberate attempt", injuring two of them. Later, another 200 metres from the first site, "the pilot vehicle knocked down two of our workers who were on a two-wheeler", said Vincent. Congress legislator K.S. Sabarinadhan told IANS that two of them had been taken to the Medical College Hospital and two were being treated at the General Hospital. "Our workers have got bruises and injuries on the shoulder, hands and legs," he said. The Congress is observing Thursday as a black day to protest the manner in which the government facilitated two women to pray at the Sabarimala temple a day earlier. --IANS sg/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The arrival of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the inauguration of the 106th session of the Indian Science Congress (ISC) being held at the Lovely Professional University (LPU) near Phagwara in Punjab was delayed for over one hour due to fog. The Prime Minister flew in from New Delhi to the Adampur base of the Indian Air Force (IAF), around 25 km from Jalandhar. A thick fog cover delayed the flight's arrival. However, the weather cleared up in the afternoon, enabling the flight to land at Adampur. Leading scientists, including three Nobel laureates, and experts are participating in the five-day ISC being held on the LPU campus, around 130 km from here. --IANS js/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Making things worse for Facebook, which is already mired in controversies surrounding data leaks of tens of millions of its users, a new research has found that the social media giant tracks even those Android users who do not use the app. Facebook routinely tracks users, non users and logged out users outside its platform, said the study by UK-based charity Privacy International. App developers share data with Facebook through the Facebook Software Development Kit (SDK), a set of software development tools that help developers build apps for a specific operating system, showed the findings. Scrutiny of Facebook increased manifold since it revealed earlier this year how the now defunct London-based political consultancy, Cambridge Analytica, improperly got access to data of up to 87 millions users. For the latest study, Privacy International examined 34 apps on Android, each with an install base from 10 to 500 million. The apps included language-learning tool Duolingo, travel and restaurant website TripAdvisor, job database Indeed and flight search engine Skyscanner among others. The researchers analysed what data these apps transmitted to Facebook through the Facebook SDK. All apps were tested between August and December 2018. The research, presented at Chaos Computer Congress in Leipzig, Germany, showed that that at least 61 per cent of apps that Privacy International tested automatically transfer data to Facebook the moment a user opens the app. "This happens whether people have a Facebook account or not, or whether they are logged into Facebook or not," the report said. This data reveals the fact that a user is using a specific app, every single time that user opens an app. "In our analysis, apps that automatically transmit data to Facebook share this data together with a unique identifier, the Google advertising ID (AAID)," the researchers said. The primary purpose of advertising IDs, such as the Google advertising ID (or Apple's equivalent, the IDFA) is to allow advertisers to link data about user behaviour from different apps and web browsing into a comprehensive profile, according to the report. Responding to the findings, Google said that users can disable ads personalisation via a control in the Google Account controls. This will stop Google advertising services from creating user profiles for advertising purposes or for targeting users with personalised advertising. Facebook told Privacy International that sharing data is "common practice for many companies" and is useful for both users and the companies involved, The Independent reported on Wednesday. "This information is important for helping developers understand how to improve their apps and for helping people receive relevant advertising in a privacy-protective way," Facebook said. "We do this in a transparent manner by explaining the practice through our Data Policy and Cookies Policy, and by using Google's advertising identifier, which can be controlled centrally by people using their device settings," it added. --IANS gb/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Expressing concern over the arrest of senior Kolkata journalist Suman Chattopadhyay, the Editors Guild of India on Thursday urged the government to make sure that the agencies handling the case are "fair in their prosecution" and that Chattopadhyay gets his options to seek legal recourse. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on December 20 arrested Chattopadhyay, Editor of a leading Bengali daily, for allegedly receiving money in his bank accounts from chit fund firm I-Core Group. At the time of his arrest, Chattopadhyay was the Editor of 'Ei Samay', a Bengali newspaper published from Kolkata. "The Guild believes that nobody has immunity from law and it must take its own course, but warns that the views held by Chattopadhyay in discharging his editorial responsibilities should not be held against him or become a factor in the investigation," the Guild said in a statement. Chattopadhyay, also a director in Disha Productions and Media Pvt Ltd (DPMPL), was arrested after several hours of questioning at the CBI office in Kolkata. The Guild also urged the government to make sure that its investigative agencies were "totally fair and professional in pursuing this investigation and prosecution". "Chattopadhyay should also get all the options and facilities that are available to all citizens for seeking due legal recourse by the law enforcement authorities," the statement said. Chattopadhyay will be produced in a special Chief Judicial Magistrate's court in Bhubaneswar in Odisa on Friday. --IANS sd/oeb/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi government on Thursday said that it will accept most of the recommendations of the Fifth Delhi Finance Commission and will provide 12.5 per cent of its total tax collection to municipal corporations in the city. Presenting the Delhi government's action taken report on the Fifth DFC in the Delhi Assembly, Urban Development minister Satyendar Jain informed the House that earlier the figure was 10.5 per cent, as per the Third DFC recommendations. The 12.5 per cent of the net tax collection, to be transferred to the local bodies, will be divided into two parts of six per cent and 6.5 per cent, Jain said. The 6.5 per cent will be devolved to the local bodies through budgetary provisions of different departments, including health and education, Jain said. The rest six per cent will further be divided into two parts of three per cent each. "The East and North MCD will receive 65 per cent and 35 per cent, respectively divided from one part, while the other three per cent will be kept for all the other local bodies, including the New Delhi Municipal Corporation and the Delhi Cantonment Board," Jain said. The House adopted the Fifth DFC, which made 171 recommendations. "Out of 171, 88 were accepted by the Delhi government while 21 related with devolution of funds were accepted with amendments. Thirteen were left for the local bodies to decide while 17 were referred to a committee, and 29 were rejected. Three of the recommendations were already implemented," Jain said. The date for implementation of the 5th DFC will be April 1, 2016, he said. Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta said the Delhi government has "played a big fraud" with its "apparent acceptance" of the fifth DFC. "It is a conspiracy to starve the MCDs of fund so that their functioning is totally paralysed. It (Delhi government) has rejected as many as 29 recommendations which were favourable to local bodies and could have turned around the finances of the local bodies," Gupta said. He said instead of providing relief to local bodies, it will aggravate their financial crises. Presenting the action taken report of the Delhi government on the Fourth DFC, Jain said the Delhi government was unable to implement the Fourth DFC, as the Central government rejected it. "It was said by the Fourth DFC that the Delhi government will accept the recommendations only after the Centre accepted those for it, but they rejected it," he said. The time period of the fourth DFC already lapsed on March 31, 2016. However, Jain said the Delhi government has already released more funds to municipal corporations ranging from 14 per cent to 17 per cent than what has been recommended by the fourth DFC. --IANS nks/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As Delhi continued to breathe toxic air for over 30 hours, the Supreme Court-appointed EPCA on Thursday issued directions to take urgent measures under the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) from Friday and stop the entry of trucks in the city for a day. Delhi's air quality was in the "very poor" category on Tuesday, before it deteriorated to "severe" on Wednesday as it was on Monday. On Thursday, it remained in the "severe" zone with the overall Air Quality Index (AQI) at 444 (severe), with PM2.5 and PM10 as major pollutants. Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority Chairman (EPCA) Bhure Lal in his letter to Delhi Chief Secretary Vijay Kumar Dev said that in case the situation does not improve by Friday morning, entry of trucks into Delhi (except essential commodities) may be stopped. "The enforcement of this direction requires coordination of all NCR states and you are therefore requested to take steps to ensure that this happens. Also, the opening of the Eastern and Western Expressways will make this easier to implement as the tracks that are not destined for Delhi now have convenient alternatives to take," the EPCA head said. The pollution control authority, as per the recommendations made by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) Task Force, has also directed to issue public notice asking people to minimise use of personal vehicles and avoid prolonged exposure because of unhealthy air. The task force has also recommended that measures which are already in force "must continue with intensified action by implementing agencies, particularly with regard to traffic congestion, open burning of waste and industrial emissions". The "severe-plus" condition that has prevailed in the national capital for more than 30 hours saw PM2.5 levels exceeding 300 microgrammes per cubic meter. As per the India Meteorological Department (IMD), currently, the wind speed is around 10 kmph and is likely to increase resulting in better dispersion. But a forecast of light scattered rain on January 5 evening and the night of January 6 might further deteriorate the air quality in the city. Across 35 areas in Delhi where pollution is actively monitored, the average concentration of PM2.5 and PM10 was 359 and 530 microgrammes per cubic meter on Thursday at 9 p.m. The concentration of the two pollutants across 48 monitoring stations in the NCR was 338 and 503. The safe limit for PM2.5 is 60 units as per national standards and 25 units according to international standards. For PM10, up to 100 units is safe by national standards and 50 units by international standards. Both PM2.5 and 10 get into the lungs and cause cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, but PM2.5 is more dangerous because it mixes with the blood stream. According to the CPCB, if the quality gets worse and reaches the "very poor" level, a ban is imposed on the use of diesel generator sets, coal/ firewood in hotels and open eateries, parking fee increased 3-4 times, and bus and metro services are increased. Also, under the GRAP, media organisations are alerted to advise people with respiratory and cardiac patients to avoid polluted areas and restrict outdoor movement. The measures implemented when the level touches "severe" include closing of brick kilns, hot-mix plants, stone crushers, shutting down of the Badarpur power plant and maximising power generation from the existing natural gas-based plants. When the pollution level dips to "severe+", a ban is imposed on the entry of trucks, except those carrying essential commodities, into Delhi, and construction activities stopped. --IANS sd/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress on Thursday attacked Arun Jaitley over increase in bank frauds and plunge in new investments, saying the Union Finance Minister is more concerned about defending the Rafale deal instead of running the economy. Citing a recent Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report revealing a 72 per cent rise in bank frauds in 2017-18 over the last year, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi questioned the "stoic silence" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue. "While our Finance Minister is busy trying to defend the defenceless Rafale deal, fraudsters looted around Rs 41,167 crore from our banks in 2017-2018, a steep rise of 72 per cent over the previous year when the figure was Rs Rs 23,933 crore," Singhvi told the media citing the RBI report. Singhvi also cited two others reports to target the Modi government over its economic policies. "Another report states that investments in the October-December quarter fell to a 14-year-low, with new investments being 55 per cent lower than the year-ago period. According to the Finance Ministry data, the amount of Mudra loans that turned into NPAs almost doubled in the year to Rs 7,277 crore from the Rs 3,790 crore of NPAs recorded in 2016-17. "While the economy is in dire straits, neither Modi nor his government has bothered to give any response. This is what happens when the Finance Minister of country acts as a 'defensive minister' for the government instead of focusing on the economy," said Singhvi. Ridiculing Modi for campaigning in Punjab instead of facing questions over the Rafale deal in Parliament, Singhvi asserted the Congress will continue to raise the issue inside and outside Parliament until the Prime Minister responds. --IANS and/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Chinese serial killer convicted for murdering 11 women was executed on Thursday in the country's Gansu province, authorities said. Gao Chengyong, 53, was dubbed "China's Jack the Ripper" for targeting females dressed in red. He followed his victims home before raping and killing them -- often by slitting their throats -- between 1988 and 2002. He reportedly also mutilated the bodies of his victims, including one girl aged 8. Gao, a married father of two, was arrested in 2016 at the grocery store he ran in Baiyin, Gansu province. The police had been hunting for him for 28 years until one of his relatives committed a crime and underwent DNA testing in 2015, which led to his arrest, Xinhua news agency reported. He ultimately confessed to 11 murders in Gansu province and Inner Mongolia and was sentenced to death on March 30, 2017. Gao's death sentence was reviewed and approved by the country's Supreme People's Court. Gao's first murder was in May 1988, the year his son was born. A 23-year-old woman was found in Baiyin with 26 stab wounds to her body. Subsequent murders followed a similar pattern, with the killer often targeting young women who lived alone. Women in Baiyin would not walk alone in the streets without being accompanied by male relatives or friends after the spate of attacks. "The suspect has a sexual perversion and hates women," the Baiyin police said at the time, according to state media. "He's reclusive and unsociable, but patient." Gao's family seemed to have been in the dark about his crimes. His wife wailed and cried when she heard of his arrest, the Beijing News reported. --IANS soni/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi trained guns on him, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday hit back saying the entire country wants change at the Centre. Claiming that the anti-NDA wind is blowing throughout the country, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) President said BJP-led NDA would surely bite the dust in this year's elections. Addressing a public meeting at Guntur, Naidu once again made a scathing attack on Modi saying he betrayed Andhra Pradesh. During a video-conference with BJP workers on Wednesday, Modi had lashed out at TDP government and Naidu, accusing them of corruption. He claimed that Andhra Pradesh was looking for a change as people were deeply angry with the present political leadership. The TDP chief said Modi went back on all the commitments made to Andhra Pradesh after bifurcation of the state. He said Modi was attacking him as he was demanding the Centre to fulfil the promises. On Modi's criticism for joining hands with Congress, Naidu said he was trying to divert people's attention from failing to accord special category status to the state and provide assistance for developing new state capital. Naidu said BJP had done more injustice to Andhra Pradesh than Congress. On Polavaram irrigation project, he reminded Modi that it was previous Congress-led UPA government which declared it a national project. "He is saying that he has given Rs 7,000 crore for the project. The state has to get another Rs 74,000 crore," said the Chief Minister. On suspension of TDP MPs in Lok Sabha, Naidu said they were not afraid of suspension and would continue to fight for justice for the state. --IANS ms/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Besides economic resources, parents' autonomy in the workplace can help boost the health of their children, suggests a research. While it was long known that sick children can affect a company's bottom line, less is known about the impact a parent's work life has on their children's health. The researchers, from the University of Houston in the US, looked at the so-called "self-regulatory resources", or the amount of self-control parents bring to parenting, including the ability to act in a more reflective manner. "If a parent has too many stressors, it reduces your self-control," said Christiane Spitzmueller, Professor. Parental self-control was linked to better health outcomes for children. In other words, how we parent when we experience high levels of stress is probably fundamentally different from how we parent when we are coping well. "At lower levels of job autonomy," the researchers wrote, "employees likely have to rely more on self-regulatory resources to compensate for the impact of limited control over one's job on one's personal life." On the other hand, "at higher levels of job autonomy, freedom and more decision-making opportunities are likely to motivate the person to engage; however, self-regulatory resources would be less needed." According to Spitzmueller, the key lies in the sense of control about their own work profiles. "If you can decide how you are going to do your job, rather than having that imposed on you, it is better for children," Spitzmueller noted. In the study, published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, the team collected data from both parents and children in Nigeria, targeting one group of low-income families and a second group of more affluent families. While the low-income group included people living in dire poverty, she noted that their responses did not differ markedly from those of the wealthier group. The study found that economic resources are not as much of a buffer, instead, feelings of autonomy in the workplace reduced the health problems for the children. --IANS rt/mag/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The West Bengal Fire and Emergency Services Minister Sujit Bose on Thursday said his department has "identified certain shortcomings" in Kolkata Metro's safety armour, including non-functional alarm and fire detection system, after the December 27 train fire incident that left 40 passengers injured. "We investigated all 24 stations between Kolkata's Kavi Subhash and Noapara in North 24 Parganas and identified the shortcomings after the incident that raised a question on safety and security of the passengers," Bose said. He said reports suggest that the fire alarms and detection system were not functional, there were shortcomings in the smoke management system and other instruments. Also, there is no proper mechanism that can help in the evacuation of a person in case he falls sick. "Metro rail is a Central government's organisation where thousands of people work. I think there was slackness on their part, so we are sending our suggestions to them," the minister said. Elaborating on the suggestions, he said they have proposed a smoke detector inside the train, a fire check door and electric installation in the server room, the presence of men with firefighting training who can take passengers out safely. "The smoke management system should be efficient enough to clear the smoke quickly during an emergency. Also, there should be an alternative electric system, so that there is no panic-like situation in case of a power failure," he said. At least 40 people were injured after an air-conditioned rake of a metro train in Kolkata caught fire on December 27 evening disrupting metro services partially for four hours. --IANS bnd/ssp/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The newly-elected members of Bangladesh's Parliament took the oath of office on Thursday amid an boycott following the country's 11th parliamentary election. Bangladesh's Parliament Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury swore in the lawmakers, including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a ceremony in the Oath Room of the Parliament Complex in Dhaka at 11 a.m, bdnews24.com reported. The MPs from former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led major alliance skipped the oath-taking ceremony. Speaking to the Dhaka Tribune in front of the BNP Gulshan office, a party leader said: "A meeting will be held to decide the next course of action for the MPs-elect, as they did not attend the oath taking ceremony." According to the Election Commission Gazette, Awami League (AL) led by Hasina won 257 out of 299 seats in the December 30 election, more than enough for her party to form another five-year term government. The Bangladesh Parliament comprises 300 seats for elected representatives. But voting was held at 299 constituencies after the death of a candidate prior to the election led to the rescheduling of voting at Gaibandha-3. ALSO READ: Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina rejects poll rigging claims after landslide win Khaleda's major party BNP, which suffered the most lopsided loss in its political history since 1978, won 5 seats. It was the ruling party in Bangladesh for two terms -- 1991-1996 and 2001-2006 -- since the country's return to democracy in 1991. AL's key ally in the elections Jatiya Party won 20 seats while BNP's ally Gono Forum managed only two seats. The BNP rejected the election results, alleging various irregularities. The voting was tainted with violence across the country that claimed the lives of 18 people. According to the Constitution, the President must convene Parliament within 30 days of swearing-in ceremony. The 11th Parliament will officially begin functioning after the termination of the 10th Parliament on January 28 that was convened on January 29, 2014. Following weaker than expected iPhone sales, particularly in China, Apple has lowered its revenue guidance for fiscal 2019 first quarter, which ended on December 29. In a letter to investors on Wednesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the company now expects revenue of approximately $84 billion, down from the $89 to $93 billion it had previously projected. Cook acknowledged that the revenue shortfall in its guidance was partly due to China's trade tensions with the US. The slowdown in the Chinese economy also impacted its revenue, he said. Apple stock fell about seven per cent on the news, CNBC reported. "While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China," Cook said. "In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 per cent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad," he added. Cook said that lower than anticipated iPhone revenue, primarily in China, accounts for all of Apple's revenue shortfall to its guidance and for much more than its entire year-over-year revenue decline. "And, while we saw challenges in some emerging markets, others set records, including Mexico, Poland, Malaysia and Vietnam," he said. "Our profitability and cash flow generation are strong, and we expect to exit the quarter with approximately $130 billion in net cash," Cook said. Apple will report the next quarter results on January 29. --IANS gb/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Andhra Pradesh Police on Thursday arrested Nowhera Shaikh, the Managing Director of the Hyderabad-based Heera Gold group, in a ponzi scheme case. The Crime Investigation Department (CID) took the entrepreneur-politician into its custody in Chittoor district. Shaikh, who was earlier arrested by Hyderabad and Mumbai Police for allegedly duping the investors, hails from Chittoor district. She was recently released on bail in Mumbai. She is facing allegations of duping investors in various parts of the country by promising high returns. According to police, Shaikh floated 20 subsidiary companies and collected hundreds of crores from investors by promising returns of over 36 per cent. Police reportedly found that the turnover of her business increased from Rs 27 lakh in 2010-11 to Rs 800 crore in 2017-18. Authorities in various states were investigating the allegations that Shaikh violated various laws while expanding her business to different parts of the country and even abroad. Hyderabad police had arrested her in October for cheating, criminal breach of trust and criminal intimidation. She was also booked under Telangana Deposits of Financial Establishment Act 1999 and The Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978. After her release on bail in Hyderabad, she was arrested by Mumbai Police on similar charges. She came into the limelight in 2018 after she floated All India Mahila Empowerment Party. The party contested Assembly elections in Karnataka but drew a blank. --IANS ms/pgh/mag/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least eight Afghan police personnel were killed and two others wounded after Taliban militants attacked a security checkpoint in the country's Baghlan province overnight, officials said on Thursday. "The clashes occurred after several hundred militants stormed the checkpoint named Safar-ba-Khair with guns and rocket propelled grenades along Baghlan-Samangan main road," Safdar Mohseni, an official of the provincial council, told Xinhua news agency. Several militants were also killed and wounded during the gun battle. The militants also overran the security post and took all weapons and ammunition, said the official. The province, 160 km north of Kabul, has been the scene of heavy clashes between security forces and Taliban militants for long. Fighting has escalated in Afghanistan as the Taliban insurgency spreads from its traditional strongholds in the south and east to the once peaceful region in the north, where the group have been recruiting from among the youth. --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least six people died, including a minor and several others injured after an explosion in a factory in Delhi on Thursday night, police said. Deputy Commissioner of Police (West) Monika Bharadwaj told IANS, "Till now eight bodies have been removed from the building, out of which six have been declared dead in Acharya Bhikshu hospital." Another senior police official said that a factory of fan blade painting was functioning in the building when the LPG cylinder exploded. According to the police official, the building comprises ground and the first floor. A Delhi Fire Service (DFS) official said, "A call of blast in building was received by the fire office around 8.48 p.m. following which eight fire tenders were rused to the spot." "After the fire tenders reached the spot in Sudarshan Park area of West Delhi it found that due to the impact of the blast a portion of the building has also collasped," he said, adding that the reason seems to be blast in compressor. The official also said that 15 people have been rescued so far. "Seven to eight more people are expected to be trapped inside the building wreckage," he said. Rescue operation by Delhi Police, fire officials and disaster teams is still underway. On January 20 last year, at least 17 people died after a fire broke out in an illegal firecracker factory in Bawana industrial area. --IANS aks/vin (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A court here has convicted three men for the murder of a BBC journalist who was shot dead in Afghanistan's Khost province in April last year, officials said on Thursday. One of the convicts was given death sentence while the other two were given jail terms, Attorney General's office spokesman Jamshid Rasouli told Efe news. He said the hearing of the case was held this week in the anti-terrorist court of Bagram prison. Rasouli said the case was now referred to a higher court to validate the ruling by the anti-terrorism tribunal. The BBC journalist, Ahmad Shah, was killed by unidentified men in Khost province on April 30 while on his way home from work. Three people were arrested shortly after the murder and were named as the main suspects. However, Rasouli did not provide details about the involvement of each in the murder. Shah was shot dead in Khost on the same day of an attack in Kabul that killed another nine journalists and injured six, making April 30, 2018 the bloodiest day for the Afghan media in the past 17 years. The year 2018 was the deadliest for Afghan media workers with 20 journalists killed and another 20 injured, according to Nai, a media watchdog supporting free media in Afghanistan. Rasouli said Afghan government was serious and determined to investigate the cases of violence against journalists. --IANS soni/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Vedanta fell 2.49% to Rs 188.30 at 15:29 IST on BSE on reports the Supreme Court agreed to hear Tamil Nadu's appeal against the NGT order to reopen the firm's copper plant at Tuticorin. Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 391.77 points, or 1.09% to 35,499.75. On the BSE, 11.98 lakh shares were traded in the counter so far compared with average daily volumes of 8.84 lakh shares in the past two weeks. The stock had hit a high of Rs 195 in intraday. The stock had hit a low of Rs 187.65 during the day, which is also a 52-week low for the counter. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 355.70 on 29 January 2018. According to reports, the Supreme Court on Thursday, 3 January 2019, agreed to hear on 8 January 2019 Tamil Nadu government's appeal against the National Green Tribunal (NGT) order to reopen Vedanta's Sterlite copper plant at Tuticorin. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul said the case will be heard next week, reports added. The Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday, 2 January 2019, moved to the Supreme Court challenging NGT's order to reopen Vedanta's Sterlite copper plant in Thoothukudi. In its petition, the state government argued that the tribunal has no jurisdiction to hear the matter. The green tribunal had last month set aside the state government's order to shut down the plant and described the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led government's order as "unjustifiable". It had directed the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board to issue a fresh order of renewal of consent for the smelter within three weeks. The state government had then said it would challenge the order in the Supreme Court. However, the Madras High Court on 21 December 2018 had restrained Vedanta from reopening the plant after protests by activists and local groups. The Madurai branch of the High Court had said that the status quo would remain in effect until 21 January 2019. Vedanta's consolidated net profit fell 34.82% to Rs 1900 crore on 5.16% rise in net sales to Rs 22705 crore in Q2 September 2018 over Q2 September 2017. Vedanta is a diversified natural resources company. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Fresh selling in index pivotals derailed a brief intraday pullback on the bourses to once again sink in negative zone in mid-morning trade. At 11:28 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 126.80 points or 0.35% at 35,764.72. The Nifty 50 index was down 49.65 points or 0.46% at 10,742.85. Most Asian stocks fell. Intraday volatility was high. Indices cut early losses to regain positive zone in morning trade. Key benchmark indices edged lower in early trade after provisional data showed that domestic and foreign funds, both, were net sellers of Indian equities yesterday, 2 January 2019. The trading activity on that day showed that the foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 621.06 crore. Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 226.18 crore. The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was off 0.23%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index was up 0.03%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex. The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, turned negative from positive. On the BSE, 951 shares rose and 1137 shares fell. A total of 142 shares were unchanged. Back home, ONGC (down 2.78%), Tata Steel (down 1.95%), HDFC (down 1.48%), M&M (down 1.4%) and Coal India (down 1.24%) edged lower from the Sensex pack. Shares of the state-run oil marketing companies dropped after Brent crude prices moved higher. HPCL (down 3.08%), BPCL (down 2.23%) and Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL) (down 2.48%) declined. In the global commodities markets, Brent for March 2019 settlement was down 76 cents at $54.15 a barrel. The contract jumped $1.11 a barrel or 2.06% to settle at $54.91 a barrel during the previous trading session. Higher crude oil prices could increase under-recoveries of public-sector undertaking oil marketing companies (PSU OMCs) on domestic sale of LPG and kerosene at controlled prices. The government has already freed pricing of petrol and diesel. Overseas, most Asian stocks fell after Apple Inc. added to global growth concerns by cutting its guidance. Apple downgraded its sales projections, citing slowing Chinese growth. US stocks closed the first session of the year on a positive note after volatile trading Wednesday, as crude oil prices rebounded. Market participants are watching a partial US government shutdown that is nearing its second week as President Donald Trump mets with top lawmakers to discuss reopening the government by resolving a dispute over funding for the expansion of the US-Mexico border wall. On the data front, a survey of American manufacturers showed the slowest growth in December in 15 months. IHS Markit said its manufacturing PMI slipped to 53.8 in December from an initial reading of 53.9, and it was down from 55.3 in the prior month. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mahindra Lifespace Developers announced that one of the wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, Deep Mangal Developers has signed a non-binding State Support Agreement with the Government of Maharashtra for the development of a world-class tourist destination in Murud in district Raigad. This project will be developed under the aegis of the Maharashtra Government's Tourism Policy and will help drive investment and create opportunities for employment and skill development. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India's textile and apparel exports stood at US$ 22.9 billion in April-Oct 2018 The Minister of State of Textiles, Ajay Tamta informed the Lok Sabha that government has taken number of steps to curb imports and promote domestic manufacturing, while carried out an import analysis of textile and apparel imports. Government raised the basic customs duty (BCD) from 10% to 20% on: * 298 man-made fabric (MMF) fabric lines w.e.f. 27 October 2017 * 5 Silk fabric lines w.e.f. 2 February 2018 * 504 lines w.e.f. 16 July 2018: - 22 Fabric lines - 383 Apparel lines - 75 Carpet lines - 9 Made-ups and - 15 other lines Further, Government has imposed antidumping duty on import of linen yarn from China and nylon filament yarn from Vietnam and EU w.e.f. 19 October 2018 and 6 October 2018 respectively. As per India Ratings and Research Agency (Ind-Ra), the outlook for cotton and synthetic textiles is expected to remain stable for the year 2019. This is in view of stable cotton prices and improved consumer spending outlook in key user countries. During April-October, 2018, rupee has depreciated by 6.7% to 68.8 Rs/US$ (average) as compared to 64.5 Rs/US$ (average) during April-October, 2017. During April-October, 2018, India's textile and apparel exports stood at US$ 22.9 billion as compared to US$ 22.3 billion during same period last year. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court will on January 8 hear the BJP's plea against the Calcutta High Court's order on party's yatra in West Bengal. Last month, the BJP moved the vacation bench of the Apex Court against the order of the high court's division bench which restricted the party from holding yatra in West Bengal. The division bench had earlier quashed the order of a single bench allowing the BJP to hold yatra in the state. The Mamata Banerjee-led state government has been protesting against the proposed yatra citing intelligence reports of possible communal violence in areas where the BJP has planned the rallies. "The areas proposed to be covered by the yatra are, because of publicity and propaganda gradually turning into communally sensitive pockets. Intelligence reports indicate that public perception is that the religious overtones of the Yatra will be turned into propaganda," a letter from the state government reads. The government also claimed that the yatra may trigger communal violence in several districts due to the participation of the RSS, Bajrang Dal and the VHP. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has directed state governments to take appropriate action against fake universities informed Minister of State (HRD), Dr Satya Pal Singh on Thursday in a written reply to a Rajya Sabha question. The house was informed that the University Grants Commission (UGC) has already released a list of 24 fake Universities and has also issued public notice against the unrecognized status of several institutes. UGC has issued public notice against the unrecognized status of Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM), New Delhi and illegal status of Bio-Chemic Grant Commission, Nadia, West Bengal. Bhartiya Shiksha Parishad, Lucknow, UP is also not recognized by the UGC under Section 2(f) of the UGC Act, 1956. Apart from identifying Raja Arabic University, Nagpur as a fake university in the state of Maharashtra, it has also issued warning notices to three institutes in the state during the current year. The three institutes which have been issued warning notices are Indian Institute of Alternative Medicines and Natural Healing, Andheri, Institute of Event Management, Andheri and Indian Board of Health and Research, Pune. On November 13, 2018, UGC had sent letters to Chief Secretaries, Secretaries and Principal Secretaries of the respective State and Union Territory Governments for taking appropriate action against these fake Universities which are operating in their states. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States government shutdown could last a long time, President Donald Trump said on Wednesday (local time). Interacting with reporters during a cabinet meeting, Trump reiterated that he wouldn't accept anything less than USD 2.5 billion for his long-promised border wall. "I mean, we spend in Afghanistan more in one month than what we're talking about for the wall. Think of that, okay. That's another way," CNN quoted Trump as saying. "USD 5 billion for the wall is such a small amount compared to the USD 54 billion in foreign aid. Why give money to other countries but not to our own?" he asked. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who attended the meeting along with a number of other leaders, said there was no progress made towards ending the shutdown, adding that he was hopeful of achieving progress in the days to come. Echoing similar thoughts, Senator Chuck Schumer opined that using the partial shutdown as hostage was not appropriate. On the 12th day of the shutdown (Wednesday), Trump met with leaders from both parties to arrive at a solution to end this partial government shutdown. Democrats will take control of the House on Thursday (local time) as the new Congress convenes, and House Democratic leaders are expected to vote on proposals to reopen the government just hours later, CNN reported. The recent shutdown, the third time in the last one year, was imminent as the US President remained at odds with lawmakers over border wall funding. The shutdown resulted in many federal workers going on temporary leave due to paucity of funds. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel on Thursday termed as "completely unacceptable" US President Donald Trump's mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi over India's reconstruction programmes in Afghanistan and hoped the government would take it up "firmly" with the US. "The tenor and tone of the American President describing the Prime Minister of India is not in good taste and is completely unacceptable," said Patel. "Hope our Government responds firmly and reminds America that since 2004, India has built extensive roads, dams in Afghanistan and pledged over $3 billion in assistance," he said. Trump on Wednesday (local time) mocked Prime Minister Modi over India funding a library in Afghanistan, suggesting that a library was of no use. Trump brought up the issue ofIndia's aid to Afghanistan during a press appearance at a Cabinet meeting as he defended his push for the US to invest less overseas. While stating that he got along with Prime Minister Modi, Trump said the Indian leader was "constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan". "You know what that is? That's like five hours of what we spend, and we are supposed to say, 'Oh, thank you for the library.' I don't know who is using it in Afghanistan," the US President said. The Trump administration last month had ordered the withdrawal of around 7,000 troops from Afghanistan in the near future. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday (local time) mocked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan, suggesting that a library was of no use. Trump brought up India's aid during a press appearance at a Cabinet meeting as he defended his push for the United States to invest less overseas. While stating that he got along with Prime Minister Modi, Trump said the Indian leader was "constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan." "You know what that is? That's like five hours of what we spend, and we are supposed to say, 'Oh, thank you for the library.' I don't know who is using it in Afghanistan," the US President said. The Trump administration last month had ordered the withdrawal of around 7,000 troops from Afghanistan in the near future. The Afghan authorities have been requesting the US to not take such a step as it would hamper its operations against the Taliban and ISIS-like elements. Against the backdrop of the US' decision to cut down its army presence in Afghanistan, Afghan National Security Advisor (NSA) Hamdullah Mohib is expected to visit India later this week to discuss security ties between New Delhi and Kabul. India has been contributing heavily for Afghanistan nation-building effort and has provided security and military training to a large number of its citizens in both India and Afghanistan. Recently, a batch of Afghan women also completed their training at the Officers Training Academy in Chennai. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court will hear Thoothukudi Sterlite plant re-opening matter on January 8. Earlier, Tamil Nadu government had approached the Apex Court challenging the Green Tribunal (NGT) order of reopening the Sterlite copper smelter plant at Thoothukudi. On December 15, 2018, the green tribunal had set aside Tamil Nadu government's order for closing Sterlite plant. NGT had directed the state government to roll-out fresh orders for the renewal of consent for Vedanta's copper smelter plant within a span of three weeks. It also directed the firm to spend Rs 100 crore in a period of three long years for the welfare of the people residing in nearby areas. In May last year, as many as 13 people were killed and several others were injured in the alleged police firing during the violent protest against Sterlite plant in Tuticorin. The people were protesting against the construction of the Sterlite copper plant, claiming that it was polluting groundwater, and was hazardous for the environment. Taking note of the people's demand, Tamil Nadu government on May 28 last year ordered the closure of the plant. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Thursday asked Meghalaya government what steps have been taken so far to rescue 15 miners, trapped in a coal mine in East Jaintia Hills since December 13 last year. The state government has informed the Apex Court that 72 NDRF personnel, 14 Navy personnel, and Coal India personnel have been working since December 14, 2014, to rescue the trapped miners. "Then, why are they not successful," asked the Supreme Court, asserting that it was not satisfied with the rescue operations. "It is a very serious situation and the question of life and death of 15 coal miners," said the Apex Court. "We are not satisfied. We do not know what happened to them in 18 days. We don't know they are dead or alive. Something urgently must have been done. Can't you (State) request Army? We read in the newspaper that the Army volunteered but they are not allowed," the bench said. At least 15 miners have been trapped in an illegal flooded coal mine in East Jaintia Hills since December 13 last year. Senior advocate Anand Grover, appearing for petitioner told the court that all the units that are engaged in rescue operations are not working in coordination. "This is a very serious matter. They have not just done what is required. In the future, you require central coordination mechanism. They are sending personnel who have no experience," said Grover. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) workers held protest march in Kochi on Thursday against the entry of two women in Sabarimala temple on Wednesday. "We will carry on with our agitation in a peaceful manner and abide by the law of the land," BJP Kerala president PS Sreedharan Pillai told ANI. A protest march was also held in Pandalam by Sabarimala Karma Samiti and BJP workers. On Wednesday morning, two women of menstruating age group- Bindu and Kanakadurga entered the temple to offer prayers. Following this, violent protests broke out across the state with protestors pelting stones and blocking highways. In September last year, the Supreme Court had lifted the ban on entry of women of age group between 10 to 50 years into the Sabarimala temple. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Russia will start delivering the first of India's five S-400 missile regiments from 2020 with complete deliveries in the next three years by 2023 and will provide security to vulnerable areas and points from aerial threats, says Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre. "A contract was signed on October 5, 2018, for delivery of S-400 system from Russia. The deliveries will commence from October 2020 and will be completed by April 2023," adds the Minister. "The system will provide very capable air defence coverage to vulnerable areas (Vas) and vulnerable points (VPs)," Minister Bhamre informed the Lok Sabha on Wednesday in a written reply. India and Russia had signed a deal worth around Rs 40,000 crore for acquiring five regiments of the S-400 air defence missile systems from Russian Almaz Antey. The Russian missile system can track and destroy multiple targets at a distance between 100 to 380 km. India would be the second user of the missile system in Asia after China. However, the Chinese system is believed to be less capable than the Indian system as Russia has not provided the longest-range missile system to China with 380 km strike range. The Indian system has four tiers of strike range with the lowest being around 100 km. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) United States President Donald Trump revealed that he received a "great letter" from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, amid talks of denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. Speaking to reporters here after a cabinet meeting, Trump said the White House would arrange a meeting with Kim in the "not too distant future." Furthermore, Trump, who held up a sheet of paper in the Cabinet Room, reiterated that he was in no rush for progress in North Korea and was encouraged by the absence of rocket or missile tests, CNN reported. On Tuesday, Trump had said that he was looking forward to meeting Kim to discuss nuclear denuclearisation process and peace talks. "Kim Jong-un says North Korea will not make or test nuclear weapons or give them to others - & he is ready to meet President Trump anytime. PBS News Hour. I also look forward to meeting with Chairman Kim who realizes so well that North Korea possesses great economic potential!" the US President had tweeted. According to The Hill, the North Korean leader had clearly stated in his New Year message that if Washington insists on "one-sided demands," then the former will have "no choice but to defend our country's sovereignty and supreme interest, and find a new way to settle peace on our peninsula." Kim had further agreed to give up his atomic arsenal and long-range missiles programmes if the US provided North Korea with relaxation in sanction. The North Korean leader reaffirmed his country's commitment to denuclearisation while stating that US-North Korea relations could improve if the United States responded in a corresponding manner to the state's efforts towards denuclearisation. "If the U.S. responds to our active and preemptive efforts with trustworthy steps and corresponding behaviour, (the North-U.S. relations) will move forward at an excellent and fast pace in the process of taking concrete and innovative measures," Kim said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Rajya Sabha will take up the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill '18, popularly known as Triple Talaq Bill, on Thursday for consideration and passing. The Bill criminalises the practice of instant triple talaq with a provision of 3 years' imprisonment to the husband. The Upper House could not discuss the Bill on Wednesday due to repeated adjournments following the ruckus created by opposition members over the Bill and the Centre's approval to Karnataka's Mekedatu dam on Cauvery river. The Triple Talaq Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on December 27 last year with 245 votes in favour and 11 against the Bill. The opposition parties want the Bill to be sent to the Select Committee of Parliament for further vetting, a demand rejected by the Centre. According to the Business List, the Upper House will also take up for consideration and passing the Council for Technical Education (NCTE) Amendment Bill '18, and Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Amendment Bill '18, the Appropriation (No.6) Bill '18. Union Shipping and Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari will also make a statement on Mekedatu project of Karnataka. AIADMK leader and Deputy Lok Sabha Speaker M Thambi Durai has said the Centre's nod to Mekedatu project is the BJP's electoral ploy. The Winter Session of Parliament, which began on December 11, will conclude on January 8. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) CPI veteran D Raja on Thursday termed Rafale fighter jet a big scam, while Janata Dal-United leader KC Tyagi said the whole controversy over the jet fighter deal would dissipate like a bubble. "Rafale deal is a big scam in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is involved. The Prime Minister should tell what the truth is. He must answer why the number of aircraft has been reduced? Why the prices have been enhanced and why the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) was bypassed," said Raja, while talking to ANI. Rajya Sabha member and JD-U leader Tyagi, however, said: "Nothing was found in the Bofors scam and nothing would be found in Rafale too," said Tyagi while talking to ANI. The Bofors scandal was a major weapons-contract political scandal that occurred between India and Sweden during 1980s and 1990s in which then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, and several other members of Indian and Swedish governments were accused of receiving the kickbacks. Tyagi also slammed the Congress party and its president Rahul Gandhi for cornering Prime Minister Modi on the Rafale deal, saying that the Congress party has not acted as a 'responsible opposition' in the Parliament. "Since the last one month, the role of Congress party has been to malign the image Prime Minister Modi and disrupt the proceedings of Parliament. This is not the role of a responsible opposition party," said Tyagi, whose JD-U is a BJP ally. Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday threatened to play in the Lok Sabha an audio tape that claimed former Defence Minister and now Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has the Rafale files with him. Rahul, however, aborted the idea after a strong protest from the treasury benches and insistence from Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to authenticate the tapes. The Congress president on Wednesday also expressed his desire to have a direct debate with Prime Minister Modi over the issue of Rafale fighter plane procurement. The Rafale jet deal controversy has been on the boil over the last a few months. The Congress and other opposition parties have been alleging irregularities in the high-profile deal, which the ruling BJP has denied outrightly. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said that a strong research ecosystem must be developed in state universities and colleges. Speaking at 106th Indian Science Congress in Jalandhar, the Prime Minister said, "Our strengths in Research and Development are built on the backbone of our laboratories, central universities, IIT, IISc, TIFR and IISER. However, over 95 percent of our students go to state universities and colleges. A strong research ecosystem must be developed in these Universities and Colleges." He further called upon the Prime Minister's Science, Technology and Innovation Council, to discuss these issues in detail and formulate an action plan in consultation with the Ministry of Human Resource Development to boost research in colleges and state universities. Noting that the life and works of Indian Scientists are a compelling testament of nation-building, the Prime Minister said, "The life and works of Indian Scientists are a compelling testament of integration of deep fundamental insights with technology development and nation-building. It is through our modern temples of science that India is transforming its present and working to secure its future." " The future is about convergence and connected technologies. We should catalyze, harness and manage change for the nation's prosperity," he stressed. Stating that 2018 was a very good year for science, the Prime Minister recounted,"Among our achievements this year (2018) are the production of aviation Grade Biofuel Divya Nayan - a machine for visually impaired Inexpensive devices for diagnosis of Cervical Cancer, TB, Dengue, and a real-time landslide warning system. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Keeping aside political differences with the government, Opposition Congress leaders on Thursday flayed US President Donald Trump for mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi over India's reconstruction programme in Afghanistan. The Opposition party said it hopes the government would respond firmly to Trump's comments. The gesture of the main Opposition party to defend the Prime Minister assumes significance as it comes amidst a bitter fight with him, particularly over the Rafale fighter deal issue. "The tenor and tone of the American President describing the Prime Minister of India is not in good taste and is completely unacceptable," senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel said. "Hope our Government responds firmly and reminds America that since 2004, India has built extensive roads, dams in Afghanistan and pledged over $3 billion in assistance," he added. Congress spokesman Randeep Surjewala also joined Patel in criticising Trump. "Dear Mr Trump, stop mocking India's PM. India doesn't need sermons from the US on Afghanistan," tweeted. He added that under former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, India helped build Afghan Assembly. "Humanitarian needs to strategic economic partnership, we are one with our Afghan brothers and sisters," Surjewala tweeted. Trump on Wednesday mocked Modi over India funding a library in Afghanistan, suggesting that a library was of no use. Trump brought up the issue of India's aid to Afghanistan during a press appearance at a Cabinet meeting as he defended his push for the US to invest less overseas. While stating that he got along with Prime Minister Modi, Trump said the Indian leader was "constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan". "You know what that is? That's like five hours of what we spend, and we are supposed to say, 'Oh, thank you for the library.' I don't know who is using it in Afghanistan," the US President said. The Trump administration last month had ordered the withdrawal of around 7,000 troops from Afghanistan in the near future. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg will undertake a three-day visit to India from January 7 to hold talks on various issues "to further expand the multifaceted partnership in areas of common interest." Prime Minister Solberg is coming to India at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Solberg will be paying a state visit to India from January 7-9 and accompanied by senior officials from her government and a large business delegation," said Union Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in a statement. During the visit, the Norwegian Prime Minister will call on President Ram Nath Kovind and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and hold talks with Prime Minister Modi. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will also call on Prime Minister Solberg. Prime Minister Solberg will deliver the inaugural address at the Raisina Dialogue and will also address India-Norway Business Summit. "The upcoming visit of Prime Minister Solberg will provide an opportunity to the two sides to review the progress in bilateral cooperation and discuss ways to further expand the multifaceted partnership in areas of common interest," the MEA statement said. India and Norway enjoy close and multifaceted ties. Economic and technical cooperation are important facets of the bilateral relations. More than 100 Norwegian companies have invested in India in areas such as shipbuilding, petroleum-related services, hydropower, clean energy, and IT services. Several major Indian companies are also present in Norway. The two nations have a mutual interest in sustainable use of ocean resources for the growth of their respective economies. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Dismissing the controversy surrounding the Rafale fighter jet deal, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Thursday said that it is present "only in the minds" of the Congress, even as several MPs from the party staged a walkout from the Upper House. During the Question Hour, Congress leader Anand Sharma, citing a joint statement, demanded that the central government make public the minutes of the meeting that took place between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then French President Francois Hollande at Elysee Palace in Paris on April 10, 2015. After briefly describing the Rafale deal, Sharma said: "I am referring to a joint statement whereby Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then French President Francois Hollande had met (in Paris) on April 10, 2015. Will the government make the minutes of the meeting public since there is a controversy, and that would settle it once for all one way or the other." Looking unperturbed, Swaraj said that there was nothing controversial in the deal and maintained that even the Supreme Court had given a clear ruling in the matter. "There is no controversy at all. It is only there in your mind. Whatever controversial issues you have raised, the Supreme Court, which is the highest judicial forum of the country, cleared the matter as well. Despite this, you are using the word controversy," she said. The Union Minister said the entire nation knew that there was "no controversy" surrounding the high-profile defence deal. "If they still continue to have this controversy in their minds, then no one can answer about it," Swaraj remarked. However, unmoved, several Congress MPs continued to shout slogans in the House, following which the party parliamentarians staged a walkout from the Rajya Sabha. On Wednesday, Congress President Rahul Gandhi had threatened to play an audio tape in the Lok Sabha that purportedly claimed that former Defence Minister and now Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar had the Rafale files with him. Gandhi, however, aborted the idea after a strong protest from the treasury benches and insistence from Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to authenticate the tapes. The Congress president also expressed his desire to have a direct debate with Prime Minister Modi over the issue of the Rafale fighter plane procurement. The Rafale jet deal controversy has been on the boil over the last a few months. The Congress and other opposition parties have been alleging irregularities in the high-profile deal for purchase of 36 fighter jets, which the ruling BJP has outrightly denied. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A man named Benjamin Eitan Ackerman has been arrested, months after he allegedly robbed rapper Usher's USD 4.2 million home. Ackerman is accused of taking USD 800k worth of property and carrying out a number of burglaries at other high-end homes, confirmed TMZ. "Over the past several months, numerous residences within the Hollywood Hills have been burglarized," Corey Palka, commanding officer of LAPD Hollywood division, said on Wednesday. "Several of these residences included celebrity homes where a high-value property was taken." Earlier this year, ten gang members were charged for breaking into the homes of stars like LeBron James and Rihanna. The celeb victims of Hollywood burglaries also include Jason Derulo, Adam Lambert, 'Real Housewives' star Dorit Kemsley and Rebecca Hutton. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An LIC agent was shot dead by some unidentified assailants at his residence in Sarairanjan in Samastipur on Thursday. A police investigation into the matter is underway. The Nitish Kumar-led government has been under fire lately over the law and order situation in the state. Last month, a man was shot dead by Naxals in state's Aurangabad district. Following the incident, the workers of Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) had also staged a protest march in Patna. On December 22, a businessman was killed allegedly by unknown assailants near Ranipur in Darbhanga district. Cornering the state government over the recent crimes, RJD leader and son of former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, Tej Pratap Yadav on Wednesday asked Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to increase his security amidst the "deteriorating law and order situation". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) American filmmaker Kevin Smith is all geared up to start the new year with an old comedy. Taking to his Twitter, the 48-year-old, who first announced the project in August 2017, confirmed that he has launched pre-production on his long-promised 'Jay and Silent Bob' reboot with Jay Mewes and producer Jordan Monsanto. "Start the new year with an old comedy! #JayAndSilentBob Strike Back returns to @netflix! Watch now and sway the almighty algorithm!" read his tweet. Since the debut in 1994, Smith's Jay and Silent Bob were mostly set in his home state of New Jersey. They have been seen in projects including "Mallrats," "Chasing Amy," "Dogma," "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" and 2006's "Clerks 2" - the final film in which the characters appeared. Smith, who suffered a heart attack after shooting for a standup comedy show, 'Kevin Smith Live!', is getting an early start for a busy 2019. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Commission for Women (NCW) has decided to constitute an inquiry committee to investigate into the plight and condition of the bonded women labourers recently rescued from a plantation in Savanthahalli Village, Karnataka. Taking serious note of the horrifying accounts of abuse and atrocities that have recently come to light in Karnataka's Hassan District, NCW stated: "We've decided to constitute an inquiry committee to inquire into the plight and condition of the bonded women labourers recently rescued from a plantation in Savanthahalli Village, Karnataka." According to various media reports, the now rescued bonded women labourers were forced into labour, beaten with wooden logs and were made to live in deprived and inhumane conditions with little sustenance. The NCW further stated that the three-member inquiry committee, led by the NCW Chairperson Rekha Sharma will visit Karnataka on January 4-5 to inquire into the circumstances leading to the incident and the action taken by the concerned authorities. The inquiry committee will meet the concerned district officers including Hassan Superintendent of Police, AN Prakash Gowda, who led the rescue team, the victims, and other such persons as deemed proper to ascertain the facts and circumstances. The Committee will investigate into the case in accordance with the procedure laid down in Section 10 (1) read with Section 10 (4) of the NCW Act, 1990, and submit its recommendations to the commission for taking such action as deemed fit against those involved in the case. Further, Sharma will also meet the State's Chief Secretary, Home Secretary, Labour Secretary, Women and Child Development Secretary and Director General of Police on January 5 in Bengaluru to discuss the matter. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Indian Army has alerted its troops along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir to a possible Border Action Team (BAT) strike from Pakistan, sources said. The apprehension of a BAT attack has arisen as Pakistan Army commandos and Lashkar terrorists have been spotted to be active across the LoC in Poonch- Rajouri sector, the sources added. Soon after the Indian Army foiled a Pakistan Army's BAT action in Naugam sector, intelligence agencies have observed the movement of Pakistan Army SSG commandos and Lashkar terrorists together and it is suspected that they may try to strike Indian posts in Rajouri and Poonch sector. "Small teams of 5-6 persons of Pakistan Army commandos from its Special Services Group (SSG) and Lashkar terrorists have been seen opposite Rajouri and Poonch sector in the last three to four days," intelligence sources said. The SSG commandos and terrorist groups are generally part of BAT commando teams which are used to strike targets and posts in the Indian Territory. "The Army and other security forces positioned in these areas have been warned about these terrorist teams and how they may try to attack Indian posts there," the sources said. On December 31, Army troops of Bihar regiment foiled an attempt by Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) to carry out an attack across the Line of Control (LoC) in Naugam sector of Kashmir, killing two suspected Pakistani soldiers. According to a statement issued by the Indian Army on that day, a large cache of warlike stores had also been recovered. From the recovery, it was estimated that they intended to carry out a gruesome attack on the Indian Army forward post in Naugam sector. The attackers, who were dressed in Indian Army and BSF fatigues for deception, were provided cover fire by the Pakistani Army post as they tried to sneak into the Indian side, the statement said. BAT is a small unit generally comprising Pakistani Army personnel and terrorists who sneak across the LoC or International Border to carry out an attack on an Indian post. "The intruders attempted to move by exploiting the thick jungles close to LoC and were assisted by heavy covering fire of high calibre weapons such as Mortars and Rocket Launchers from the Pakistani posts," the statement said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Colonel of the Indian Army will face a general court martial for allegedly having an "inappropriate relationship" with a fellow officer's wife. The accused officer was posted in Delhi when he developed the relationship with the wife of a fellow Colonel who was also posted in the capital. A Court of Inquiry against the Colonel was initiated on a complaint filed by the husband after he saw objectionable content from the officer in his wife's mobile phone. The probe in the Delhi Area of the Army was going on against the officer for over couple of years and recently the authorities concerned recommended that the officer be tried by a General Court Martial on three charges under Army Act 45 for act unbecoming of an officer. During the Court of Inquiry, the Army authorities had also taken the officer's phone for taking out evidence where it allegedly came out that he was sending sexually explicit video to the fellow officer's wife, Army sources said. During the examination of the data of the smartphone of the officer, it also came out that the officer was allegedly indulging in sexually explicit chatting through Whatsapp with the lady, according to the chargesheet. After taking the charges into account, Army sources said a Brigadier-rank officer of the Army recommended the officer to be tried by a GCM. The Army has adopted a zero tolerance policy against cases of moral turpitude and corruption as recently a Major General was recommended to be dismissed by a General Court Martial in a sexual harassment case in Chandigarh. Similarly, a Lieutenant Colonel has been recommended to serve a sentence in jail along with cashiering from service for having an illicit relationship with wife of his close friend, who was also an officer in the Army. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India firmly believes in the critical role that developmental assistance can play in transforming human lives and it does not send its armed forces abroad except under the specific mandate of UN peacekeeping operations, sources told ANI on Thursday. India plays a significant role as a development partner of Afghanistan and the partnership is built on the specific needs and requirements worked out with the Afghanistan government, added the sources, saying that "it is aimed at the welfare of the people of Afghanistan and for a tangible improvement in the lives of its people. India seeks to build capacities and capabilities of Afghan nationals and its institutions for governance and delivery of public service, develop socio-economic infrastructure, secure lives and promote livelihood." This comes after US President Donald Trump on Wednesday mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan, suggesting it was of no use. Trump brought up India's aid during a press appearance at a Cabinet meeting as he defended his push for the United States to invest less overseas. While stating that he got along with Prime Minister Modi, Trump said the former was "constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan." "You know what that is? That's like five hours of what we spend, and we are supposed to say, 'Oh, thank you for the library.' I don't know who is using it in Afghanistan," the US President said. New Delhi has given development assistance exceeding USD 3 billion to Kabul and contributed to the construction of a 218 km road from Zaranj to Delaram for facilitating movement of goods and services to the Iranian border. The India-Afghanistan Friendship Dam (Salma Dam) has an installed capacity of 42 MW and supplies water for irrigating 75,000 hectares of land. Since inauguration in 2016, the project has been generating electricity and releasing water for irrigation. Moreover, the new Afghan Parliament building, constructed with Indian support, is a symbol of the democratic traditions that the two nations share. More than 3,500 Afghan nationals are undergoing various training programmes in India. Moreover, in an effort to improve connectivity, a direct air freight corridor between India and Afghanistan was established in 2017. India has also supplied 1.1 million metric tons of wheat to Afghanistan as humanitarian assistance. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) All branches (Local and state) of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) will remain shut on Friday as a mark of protest against the "anti-poor" Medical Commission (NMC) Bill 2017, IMC (amendments) Bill 2018, and Consumer Protection Bill 2018 pending before the Parliament. All IMA members will wear black badges across the country as part of the protest and hand over memoranda to all MPs in their constituencies. IMA's president Dr. Santanu Sen, said, "NMC as such still remains an anti-poor, anti-people and anti-federal legislation which if allowed to pass will have unforeseen consequences not only on the healthcare sector but also on the federal structure of the country." Further elaborating about why the IMA opposes the NMC Bill 2017, Sen said, "Reservation of medical seats up to 50 per cent for management is a denial of equitable opportunities and is certainly anti-people and pro-rich. At present most of the states have a fee-fixing committee. After the implementation of NMC Bill, they would lose their power to regulate fees." "The NMC bill was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health which had recommended 24 amendments unanimously. The government only accepted one recommendation and some in a partial manner. The IMA is determined to resist and oppose it at all costs," he added. The original Consumer Protection Act (CPA), 1986 passed by the Parliament did not envisage including the medical profession. This was later brought under the purview of CPA in 1994 by a verdict of the Supreme Court. IMA's secretary general Dr RV Asokan said, "IMA is opposing the IMC (Amendments) Bill 2018 which was recently passed in Lok Sabha. IMA has very strong reservations in the way that an elected Medical Council of India (MCI) was superseded for no credible reason and undue haste was shown to proclaim an ordinance creating a nominated Board of Governors while the election process was underway. MCI represents the plurality of opinion from a multitude of institutions in our federal nation. It is preposterous to install a group of nominated Board of Governors who will never be able to fulfill the legitimate aspirations of diverse people of our country." On March 28, the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved certain amendments to the Medical Commission (NMC) Bill. The Centre considered the recommendations after a DRPSC report was tabled in the House on March 20 and general feedback, particularly the views of medical students and practitioners regarding certain provisions of the Bill. Responding to the demands from states to increase their representation in the NMC, the nominees of states and Union Territories have been increased from three to six. The NMC will now comprise of 25 members of which 21 will be doctors. The Cabinet approval also replaced the clause of the monetary penalty with a provision which provides different options for a warning, reasonable monetary penalty, reducing intake, stoppage of admission leading up to the withdrawal of recognition. The wide range of monetary penalty, ranging from one half to ten times the annual fee recovered from a batch, was one of the major concerns while approving the amendments. Stringent punishment for unqualified medical practitioners or quacks have been approved as the central government is concerned about the quality and safety of healthcare being made available to the citizens and the need to act strictly against unqualified practitioners. The punishment for any unauthorised practice of medicine has been upgraded by including a provision for the imprisonment of up to one year along with a fine extending up to Rs 5 lakh. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Nishad Party leader Arjun Kashyap, the main accused in Saturday's Ghazipur violence, blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the stone pelting incident that claimed the life of a police constable and injured two civilians. Speaking to ANI, Kashyap said that if the law rules him accused he will surrender within one week. "BJP is in power and they have done it. Their people are the main accused. Our people also might have retaliated later, but stones were not pelted on policemen. If as per law, I am the main accused, then I will surrender within one week," he said. On December 29, police constable Suresh Vats was killed and two civilians were injured after some members of a protest rally, organised by Nishad Party demanding reservation, allegedly hurled stones on them near Naunera area in Ghazipur. The police constable was deployed at the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally in Ghazipur and was returning from the event when the incident took place. Kashyap also pressed for reservation for Nishad community and said, "Even Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath promised to fulfill the demands of Nishad community, but nothing has been done. There is no one in Lok-Sabha or Rajya Sabha to raise our demands. We will keep protesting till we get a reservation for our people. If we don't get our right, we will form our own government." So far 19 people have been arrested in connection with the incident while an FIR against 32 people was registered on December 30. "The death of Head Const. Suresh Pratap Singh Vats in Gajipur in stone pelting is extremely tragic. So far 19 accused in 3 cases have been arrested, which include 11 in the case of murder. Strict action will be taken against those involved in violence under stringent sections of law," Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police, OP Singh had tweeted on December 30. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A bonded cargo from Bangladesh departed from Kolkata airport for the first time on Thursday. A press statement released by the Bangladesh High Commission informed that this was the first time when Expo Freight Limited (EFL) offices situated both in Bangladesh and India, introduced a tailor-made logistics solution to handle such cargo transshipment between the two neighbouring countries. Bangladeshi trucks carrying cargo weighing 4.1 tonnes transferred the goods to Indian trucks at the Benapole in Dhaka, and Petrapole on the Indian side of the border. From there, via GPS enabled trucks, the cargo moved to the Kolkata airport. Finally, it was air freighted to reach the terminal destination in Europe within the specified time window. Through this trial initiative, Kolkata turned out to be a strategic and useful transshipment doorway to Bangladesh for inbound and outbound air transportation. "We are proud to enrich our ties with Bangladesh through this movement and alternative solutions of this nature will enable us to enhance efficiencies of our logistics operations to promote international trade," Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of EFL Group S. Senthilnathan said. Meanwhile, EFL is considering this move as a breakthrough that would further prove to be instrumental in positively impacting business growth beyond borders. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As multi-formulae scientific calculators are proving a boon for students in an advanced mathematics competition, a 'math competition' was held in Thailand to solve the problem of advanced mathematics. This competition was held in cooperation between OBEC (Office of the Basic Commission) of the Ministry of of Thailand and Japanese electronics manufacturing company Casio. In South-East Asian countries, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), which promotes education specialised in science, has actively been introduced. The purpose of the 'math examination' is to use a scientific calculator to solve mathematical problems and compete with each other with an aim to increase the interest of the students in the subject while having fun. The scientific calculator is produced by Casio. Students must use these calculators to solve the problems within a time limit of one hour. Dr Thanarat, an official from OBEC, said: "According to Thailand's educational development plan, the main purpose is that all Thai people gain education and life quality concurrent to the philosophy of the government to enter sustainable economics and transformation in the 21st century. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led Jatiya Oikya Front boycotted the swearing-in ceremony, even as the remaining newly-elected lawmakers, including those from the Awami League, took the oath here on Thursday. The oath-taking ceremony took place at the Jatiya Sangsad (National Parliament) at around 11 am (local time) on Thursday. Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury administered the oath to the newly elected MPs including Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina. The Awami League that emerged victorious in the recently-held 11th general elections, is scheduled to hold a meeting of its parliamentary committee at 12 pm (local time) that will announce the Leader of the House, who will ultimately form the government, Dhaka Tribune reported. Hasina will chair the parliamentary committee meeting. The Constitution of Bangladesh states that the president must convene the Parliament within 30 days of the oath-taking ceremony. The 10th Parliament was convened on January 29, 2014, and will expire on January 28, 2019. The 11th Parliament will officially function after the dissolution of the 10th Parliament, according to the constitution. The Awami League-led Grand Alliance swept the polls, securing 288 seats out of the 300 seats in the December 30, 2018, elections, while the BNP-led Jatiya Oikya Front suffered a massive rout, winning only seven seats. However, the BNP decided to not participate in the oath-taking ceremony, alleging that the elections were rigged and demanded fresh elections. The Bangladesh Election Commission rejected the party's claims, maintaining that the voting process was held in a free and transparent manner. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Seems like Ariel Winter has had enough of bizarre allegations. The 'Modern Family' star clapped back at body shaming trolls on social media who maligned her New Year's Eve Instagram post with her boyfriend Levi Meaden, alleging that she took drugs for weight loss. The 20-year-old shared a snap of herself and her beau sharing an intimate moment during a party. The star, who is no stranger to online trollers, fired back at one person, who took the opportunity to chastise her for drinking underage. She wrote, "Drinking underage! Very bad! Lol." However, it was the response by another fan that raised her anger. "Not half as bad as all the coke. meth she uses. She literally dropped 30 pounds." In her reply, Winter wrote, "Yup... I dropped 30 bodies of water so fast. and yes!! My psychiatrist switched me from my previous antidepressant that didn't work and made me gain weight, to coke/meth!! Definitely not a new one that worked and then regulated my metabolism. Coke/meth was a controversial decision but she stands by it." Winter, clearly having had enough of the exchange, issued a lengthy response. "...thanks for the compliment...? I'm sure you know EXACTLY what goes on or is hand in hand with EVERYONE in Hollywood seeing as everyone knows everything about people they DON'T know. And apparently, everyone does the same thing now??? I couldn't have lost weight for any other reason just because of the industry I'm in? I'm not trying to be rude, but I am trying to let you know that telling someone how something happened to them AFTER they told you what actually happened (only the person it happened to would know) is sh----y and completely arrogant. I don't need to explain myself to anyone. No one does. However, I want to cut this sh-- out of my thread right now. I think it definitely counts as hating on someone when you completely ignore the truth coming from the actual person, to just follow your own fantasy narrative. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Seems like fans of American actor Amandla Stenberg are not happy about her latest film. Written and directed by Belle and 'A United Kingdom' director Amma Asante, the movie is a war romance drama about an interracial teenager in Nazi Germany who falls in love with a member of the Hitler Youth. It was released in September. While some people praised the movie and Stenberg's performance, others ripped it apart online over the film's storyline. "Nazi's and those who love them are not deserving of being humanised/sanitised. They don't need to be immortalised by the film. Their love is not revolutionary or beautiful!" one Twitter user argued. "Dear Amandla, Fire your agent. A Nazi love story? Really girl?," another critic wrote online. "Welp! 2 hours of my life I'll never get back. Cheers to this absolute dumpster fire of a movie," a comment read. "Amma Asante needs to explain this one because I don't understand," a viewer tweeted. "The second half of the movie had a lot of good emotional moments since they were literally in a labor camp. But the entire premise is extremely problematic." Someone pointed out a particular scene in the film in which Stenberg's character refers to jazz music as "n---a music." "The QUESTIONS....THAT I HAVE...FOR AMMA ASANTE, GORL," a Twitter user retorted. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior advocate and former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader HS Phoolka on Thursday resigned from the party and handed over his resignation to party chief Arvind Kejriwal. Poholka took to microblogging site Twitter to share the details of his resignation and asserted that while he has tendered his resignation, party president Kerjriwal advised him against doing so. "I have resigned from AAP & handed over resignation to Kejriwal ji today. Though he asked me not to resign but I insisted," he tweeted. He has also said that he will be doing a media briefing on Friday to explain the reason for leaving the party as well as to disclose his further plans. A senior Supreme Court lawyer, Phoolka has been at the forefront of fighting the judicial battle in the 1984 anti-Sikh riot case. After Congress leader Sajjan Kumar surrendered before Karkardooma Court or Tihar jail authorities here on Monday, Phoolka one of the petitioners in 1984 anti-Sikh riot case, has appealed to the victims of the riot to not go to the court. In a statement, Phoolka said: "It is apprehended that Sajjan Kumar might try to create disturbances around the court tomorrow, to use as an excuse not to surrender and ask for an extension. I request 1984 Sikh genocide victims not to go to the court tomorrow. He has not got any relief from the Supreme Court. So, he has to surrender. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Looking for in-depth reporting on labor issues? You're in the right place. Subscribe to The Chief and get stories that cover every side of civil service in New York City and beyond. You can sign up in minutes for immediate access. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will likely contest 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Puri in Odisha, claimed Pradip Purohit, the BJP MLA from the state's Padampur assembly constituency. "There is 90 per cent possibility of Prime Minister Narendra Modi contesting from Puri seat," Purohit told ANI. "People of Odisha state want the Prime Minister to fight elections from Puri. The party leaders and maybe Prime Minister Modi himself would like to contest from Puri," he added. The claim from the BJP leader came amidst speculations that the BJP might field Prime Minister Modi from the holy city of Puri, famous for the ancient Jagannatha Temple. "Prime Minister had sought blessings of Lord Jagannath and won from Varanasi in 2014. Now he can contest elections from Puri this time," the BJP MLA said. Purohit made the statement after Prime Minister Modi, in his interview with ANI on Tuesday, had called the reports as the creation of media. "Media persons also should get some work," the Prime Minister had told ANI when asked if he will be fighting next elections from Puri. However, Purohit claimed that Prime Minister Modi may choose Puri as he loves the people of Odisha and wants its development. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Around 20 women activists were detained after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) women's wing while marching towards Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's residence here indulged in a quarrel with security personnel. The women reportedly wanted to meet Patnaik over the acquittal of accused Prasant Pradhan and Sukant Pradhan in the Pipili gang rape and murder case. They were also protesting against minister Pradeep Maharathy's derogatory statement on the verdict. The BJP Mahila Morcha has been demanding CBI probe into the case. DCP of Bhubaneswar Anup Sahu said, "Women's wing of BJP reached his residence and protested. In this protest, we have detained around 20 BJP women activists." A 19-year-old woman was found unconscious and semi-naked in a paddy field at Puri's Pipili November 28, 2011, and died on June 21, 2012. BJP Mahila Morcha had also protested near Crime Branch Headquarters in Cuttack on Monday for the same reason. They alleged that the prosecution had botched up the investigation in the case. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Shares of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank have fallen by up to 20% on the BSE in early morning trade on Thursday following an unfavorable share-swap ratio on their merger with Bank of Baroda. Dena Bank has plunged 20% to Rs 14.40 on the BSE. The stock was trading close to its 52-week low of Rs 13.75 touched on July 16, 2018, in intra-day trade. A combined 5.95 million equity shares changed hands on the counter on the BSE and NSE till 09:21 am. Vijaya Bank slipped 7% to Rs 47.25 in intra-day trade so far. The stock of Bank of Baroda however, was up 3% at Rs 123 on the BSE. In comparison, ... Coffee exports from declined 7.36 per cent on a year-on-year basis to 350,000 tonnes in 2018 owing to a fall in shipment of robusta and instant coffee varieties, according to Coffee Board. In terms of value also, coffee exports dropped to Rs 5,770.48 crore in 2018 from Rs 6,091 crore in the previous year. was the top export market for in 2018, as 76,437.56 tonnes of coffee was exported to the country followed by (28,582 tonnes) and (21,397 tonnes). As per the Board's latest data, the country exported 350,280 tonnes of coffee in 2018 calendar year, lower than 378,119 tonnes in the previous year. Out of which, export of robusta varieties showed a decline of 17.65 per cent at 179,903 tonnes in 2018 as against 218,463 tonnes in 2017. The shipment of instant coffee also showed a decline of 39.87 per cent to 29,157 tonnes in 2018 calendar year as against 48,496 tonnes in the previous year. However, there was slight increase in the shipment of arabica coffee varieties at 53,302 tonnes in 2018 as against 47,314 tonnes in 2017. The shipments in terms of value remained lower even as the export realisation was higher at Rs 164,738 per tonne in 2018 as against Rs 161,086 per tonne in the previous year, the Board data showed. Coffee production in India, Asia's third-largest producer and exporter of coffee, is estimated to be 316,000 tonnes in the marketing year that ended September 2018. FROM TEARS TO RELIEF: Former NYPD Deputy Inspector James Grant (center), who walked out of a courtroom in tears after being acquitted of corruption charges Jan. 2, a couple of hours later was beaming when he strode out of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Federal Courthouse a free man, even as his co-defendant was convicted on a series of bribery counts. The will this year conduct its first-ever missile drill around the Japanese island of Okinawa, according to a report Thursday, as Washington seeks to counter an increasingly assertive China. The has told its Japanese counterpart it plans to deploy surface-to-ship missiles in the strategically important Okinawa this year for the first such drill by Japan's key ally, the Sankei Shimbun reported, without citing sources. The drill would involve a mobile rocket launcher seen as a counter-measure to potential attacks from Chinese surface-to-sea ballistic missiles, the paper said. In recent years, Chinese warships have frequently sailed through waters near Okinawa, where the majority of US troops in Japan are based. Experts say China's increasingly active maritime activities are part of a plan to establish control of waters within the so-called "first island chain" that links Okinawa, Taiwan and the Philippines. Some analysts believe Beijing seeks to end dominance in the western Pacific by exerting control of the second island chain that links Japan's southern Ogasawara island chain, the US territory of Guam, and Indonesia. China's rapid military build-up has unnerved Asian neighbours, with Japan's defence chief last year saying China had been "unilaterally escalating" its military activities in the previous year. Beijing insists the activities are for self-defence. ALSO READ: Japan urges G20 to settle global trade woes multilaterally Despite increasing military rivalry, the US and China are each other's largest trading partners and China is one of largest holders of US national debt. A massive bilateral trade imbalance has however caused frictions between the world's top two economies, with Washington and Beijing imposing tit-for-tat tariffs on more than $300 billion worth of goods in total two-way trade last year. The meeting between President Donald Trump and top Congressional leaders on resolving the ongoing partial government shutdown ended in a stalemate Wednesday, with Republicans and Democrats sticking to their respective positions over the presidential demand for a US-Mexico border wall. The President is seeking $5.2 billion in funding for the wall which according to him is a must to prevent the flow of illegal immigrants into the US. The Democrats assert that such a move is a "waste" of taxpayers' money. Following their inconclusive Situation Room meeting, Congressional leaders and Trump agreed to meet again on Friday. Newly elected members of the Congress are scheduled to be sworn in Thursday; the first day of the 116th Congress. Democratic Leader is all set to be elected as the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. "Important meeting today on Border Security with Republican and Democrat Leaders in Congress. Both parties must work together to pass a Funding Bill that protects this Nation and its people this is the first and most important duty of government," Trump said in a tweet after the meeting. "I remain ready and willing to work with Democrats to pass a bill that secures our borders, supports the agents and officers on the ground, and keeps America Safe. Let's get it done!" said the US President. Pelosi told reporters at the after the meeting that she plans to go ahead with the Democratic legislation on a spending bill without funding for a border wall. Beginning Thursday, Democrats would enjoy majority in the House of Representatives. "We are asking the president to open up the government. We are giving him a Republican path to do that. Why would he not do it?" Pelosi told reporters at the "Democrats have been committed to protecting our borders. It's the oath of office we take to protect and defend. It has been very important to us, and we have committed resources to it when we were in the majority, and will continue to do so," she said. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Democrats asked the President to support the bills that they support that will open up government. "We asked him to give us one good reason -- I asked him directly. I said, Mr President, give me one good reason why you should continue your shutdown of these -- of the eight cabinet departments while we are debating our differences on Homeland Security? He could not give a good answer," he said. "So, we would hope that they would reconsider and would support the very bills that passed the Senate, four of them 92 to 6, two of them unanimously, in the Appropriations Committee with Mitch McConnell's support," he said. "The only reason that they are shutting down the government is very simple. They want to try and leverage that shutdown into their proposals on border security. We want strong border security. We believe ours our better. But to use the shutdown as hostage, which they had no argument against, is wrong," Schumer said. Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell later said that no progress was made Wednesday in the meeting with Trump. Not very optimistic, he said that the partial government shutdown now into its 12th day could continue for even weeks. "It was a civil discussion. We're hopeful that somehow in the coming days and weeks we'll be able to reach an agreement," he said. The partial government shutdown that started on December 22 has affected 800,000 federal employees, who have either been furloughed or are working without pay. has said he wants talented people who can help American companies to grow to enter the US, asserting that a wall along the Mexico border is the only way to check illegal immigration. Chairing the first Cabinet meeting of the year, Trump said on Wednesday there was a need to fix the "crazy" loopholes in the immigration system. "We want to end all of this nonsense, the visa lottery system. So, they pick them out of a jar," he said in his remarks at the meeting which was dominated by the issue of illegal migration and border security. "We want to pick people to come into our country on the basis of merit and talent so that all of the companies that are moving in, we have large numbers of companies, many, many companies, and more than we've seen in many years, the companies that have left our country are coming back because of what's going on," he said. "You see, our job numbers are great. We need people to come in but we can't have these loopholes. These loopholes are crazy," Trump said. He reiterated his wish to end loopholes in the legal immigration system so as to attract more people based on merit. Trump said his administration wants people to come into the country legally and on merit. "We need people to come into our country. But they have to do it through the system, they have to do it legally and we want people that can help our country - where it can be based on merit and achievement, people that are going to be helped, the companies that are going to be coming into our countries, which are so many," he said. Trump said everyday border patrol encounters roughly 2,000 trying to enter the US. Every week, 300 Americans are killed by heroin, the vast majority of which comes across through our southern border. "Our southern border is like a sieve. It just pours through our southern border. And unless we're going to have physical barriers, it's never going to be able to be stopped. Too much money is being made," he said. Last month, 20,000 minors were illegally smuggled into the United States, he said. In the last two years, officers arrested 235,000 criminals who were able to come in over the years through the United States, he added. "I think you see that even last night where people charged the border, tried to get through but they couldn't because we have a wall up. But tear gas was flying and a lot of things were happening and I guess for the most part you've seen it. It's very sad. "If they knew they had a physical barrier, if they knew they had a wall, if they knew they had something that's going to stop them, they would have never come up in the first place," he said as he made his case for a wall along the Mexico border. Trump said only a wall can stop the flow of "Walls work. If you look at Israel, I was with Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu and he threw up his hands. He said 'I don't understand why they fight you on a wall'. In Israel, as you know, they built a wall. He said '99.9 per cent it works'. And it would with us too. It'll work almost 100 per cent of the time," he said. "We have much less of a problem and we'd save money, so much money on a monthly basis, probably would pay for itself in a month or two because we lose pretty close to $250 billion on illegal immigration and I would say that it could be on a monthly or couple of months it would pay for the wall, pay for what we're talking about," he said. Trump has been seeking a USD5 billion in Congressional funding for the wall, which he believes is essential to stop the flow of into the US. The opposition Democratic party has opposed such a funding and blocked its passage from the Congress. The stalemate has resulted in a partial federal government shutdown. Oil prices rose more than 1 percent on Thursday in volatile trade, drawing support from signs that Saudi Arabia is cutting crude output but pressured by concerns that slowing global economic growth could dent demand. Brent crude futures gained $1.04 to settle at $55.95 a barrel, a 1.89 percent gain. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 55 cents to settle at $47.09 a barrel, a 1.18 percent gain. Prices traded in a wide range, with Brent hitting a session high of $56.30 a barrel and a low of $53.93 a barrel. WTI posted a session high of $47.49 a barrel and a low of ... In his New Year address on Tuesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned he might take a "new path" if Washington maintains sanctions amid his country's push for economic development, but experts say it may be too late to change the trajectory of negotiations. Kim did not specify what the new approach might be. His warning may sound similar to the bellicose rhetoric that Pyongyang often deployed before last year's summit, but he cannot jeopardise the hard-won thaw and has few options beyond appealing directly to US President Donald Trump, experts say. State ... Expressing dissatisfaction over New Delhi's decades-old role in the Afghanistan peace process, US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he wants the regional countries, including India, and Pakistan to fight the Taliban in the war-torn country. In his first Cabinet meeting of the year, the US President also referred to Prime Minister for funding a library in Afghanistan, wondering who would use it in that country. "Why is not there (in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban)? Why isn't India there? Why isn't Pakistan there? Why are we (US) there? We are 6,000 miles away. But I don't mind. We want to help our people. We want to help other nations," Trump told reporters in response to a question during the Cabinet meeting. The US President cited India's efforts towards peace and development in Afghanistan but alleged that the countries were not doing enough in the war-ravaged country and that they were taking advantage of the United States. Asserting that the Afghan war costs billions of dollars to the US, Trump said, "I want people to treat us fairly". He noted that heads of countries have told him that they are involved in the peace process by "just sending some 100 or 200 soldiers". The US President referred to his friendly terms with Prime Minister Modi, but appeared critical of a library funded by India in Afghanistan. "I could give you an example where I get along very well with India and Prime Minister Modi. But he is constantly telling me, he built a library in Afghanistan. Library! That's like five hours of what we spend (in Afghanistan)," Trump told his cabinet colleagues. "And he (Modi) tells me. He is very smart. We are supposed to say, oh thank you for the library. Don't know who's using it (the library) in Afghanistan. But it's one of those things. I don't like being taken advantage of," he said. Trump drew a comparison between the expenses being borne by the US and other countries in the Afghan peace efforts. "What other countries have done for the last long period of time is given us some soldiers and then talk about it like it's the end of the world. And we are subsidizing their military is by billions and billions and billions of dollars, many, many, many times, what those soldiers cost that country," the US President said. Responding to a question, he said he wants India to be involved in Afghanistan. Asked if India's role in Afghanistan was going to be security related, Trump said: "We are going to be doing something that is right. We are talking to the Taliban. We are talking to a lot of different people." "But here's the thing, because you mentioned India. India is there. is there. Russia used to be Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan. Russia. So you tend to look at other countries. Pakistan is there. They should be fighting. But Russia should be fighting," he said. "The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was that terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there. The problem is it was a tough fight and literally they (Russia) went bankrupt," Trump said. US claimed on Wednesday that he had "essentially" fired Jim Mattis, even though the former Pentagon chief had pointedly quit his post over multiple disagreements. During a rambling monologue to journalists at the start of a cabinet meeting, Trump lashed out at his former defense secretary even as his replacement, Patrick Shanahan, sat at the president's side. "What's (Mattis) done for me? How has he done in " Trump said, lamenting the ongoing Afghan security crisis and the amount spends in the war-torn nation. "I'm not happy with what (Mattis has) done in and I shouldn't be happy," Trump said. "I wish him well. I hope he does well. But as you know, Obama fired him and essentially so did I. I want results." It is common for Trump to turn on former staffers and make demeaning remarks after they've left their post, but the criticism of Mattis is notable as Trump had often touted his admiration for the man he called "Mad Dog Mattis." Mattis, a former Marine general, was head of Central Command when Obama fired him in 2013 over his hawkish views on Iran. Mattis resigned December 20, after Trump stunned the US establishment by ordering a full troop withdrawal from Syria. In his stinging resignation letter, Mattis made little attempt to hide his disagreements with Trump. "Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours," Mattis said in the letter, "I believe it is right for me to step down from my position." Trump, who received multiple draft deferments during the Vietnam War, also said he thought he "would have been a good general. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Its human development indicators, as Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen is fond of pointing out, are even better than its income level would indicate. Bangladesh is also one of the few countries in the developing world which has successfully wedded secularism to its national identity. And, in a truly extraordinary act that should shame many larger and richer countries, this enormously ... Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor Airtel has announced the launch of its 4G services in the remote geography of Hayuliang (Anjaw District) in Arunachal Pradesh. Customers in 100 villages across the Hayuliang region will now be able to enjoy superfast data experience and HD quality VoLTE calling on Indias fastest mobile network. Airtel plans to gradually expand its 4G services to other parts of the district. The rollout, which is part of Project Leap Airtels network transformation initiative, is a testament to the companys network execution capabilities. Airtels network teams and partners have overcome the challenge of extremely difficult terrain to deploy a state-of-the-art 4G network in the region. Airtel has also been consistently ramping up its 4G capacity in the North East region to serve the fast-growing customer demand for high-speed data. Airtel is the largest private mobile operator in Arunachal Pradesh with over half million customers. Its 4G services covers over 30 towns and 900 villages across the state. Commenting on the launch, Raveendra Desai, Chief Executive Officer, Bharti Airtel, North East and Assam said, We are pleased to launch our services in Hayuliang and look forward to delighting customers with best in class services on Indias best smartphone network. We invite customers to avail the exciting data offers and get on to the digital superhighway. We remain committed to the Governments digital vision for the State and will continue to invest in expanding our services. Over 200 4G smartphones now support Airtel VoLTE, enabling customers to experience HD quality voice calling and superfast data on a wide range of smartphones on Airtels nationwide 4G network. All popular 4G smartphones are now shipped with default Airtel VoLTE support. Users of the bestselling 4G smartphones from major brands like Oppo, Vivo, Apple, Samsung, OnePlus, Nokia, Panasonic, Xiaomi, Karbonn, Lava and Panasonic can now converse on the HD quality voice calling offered on Airtel VoLTE. There will be no additional data charges for VoLTE and calls will be billed as per existing plan or pack benefits. In case of non-availability of 4G network, Airtel VoLTE calls automatically fall back on 3G/2G network to ensure that customers continue to stay connected at all times. Customers can get started on Airtel VoLTE services by following a few quick steps. @Technuter.com News Service The is mulling allowing (CSCs) to provide non-biometric assistance for Aadhaar enrolment and updation services, including helping public in filling online forms, according to a source. Village-level Entrepreneurs or VLEs, who run CSCs, have been asking the to allow them to restart Aadhaar enrolment and updation services, after restricted these centres and private operators from doing so to ensure security and safety of biometric data of 120 crore Aadhaar holders. A person familiar with the ongoing deliberations at the Aadhaar-issuing body said allowing CSCs to carry out public assistance services for filling online Aadhaar forms for enrolment and updation activities, without involving any biometrics, is under consideration. This service could be particularly helpful to users in rural areas or those not familiar with the online system, and CSCs can be allowed to charge a small fee for offering the assistance, the official said. A final decision is yet to be taken on the matter. The proposal also dovetails into Unique Identification Authority of India's (UIDAI) ongoing plans to offer more services online. The had earlier promised to look into CSC's appeal that they be allowed to carry out Aadhaar-related work such as enrolment and updation of services. IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, while addressing VLEs at an event in November, had said the government will make all efforts to look for a solution to the ongoing imbroglio. VLEs have been unhappy with UIDAI's decision to stop Aaddhar services, contending that they had invested money in purchasing equipment and in training manpower for Aadhaar-related work. Making a strong pitch on behalf of these centres, CSC Chief Dinesh Tyagi had earlier said Aadhaar has helped people in rural get an identity, and that the 12-digit identifier should be allowed to remain the 'aadhaar' or foundation for CSCs as well. CSCs act as access points for delivery of digital services and there are nearly three lakh such centres operating across the country today. Apart from delivering essential government and public utility services, this flagship rural outreach program also delivers a range of social welfare schemes, financial services, education and skill development courses, healthcare, agriculture services and digital literacy. A Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) examining the controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill has adopted amid protests by Opposition MPs its report that will be tabled in the Lok Sabha on January 7, sources said. Barring a few minor changes, the JPC will recommend for the introduction of the original form of the proposed legislation, which seeks to grant Indian nationality to people belonging to minority communities, other than Muslims, in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. "We have adopted the report in the JPC meeting today and we will submit it in Lok Sabha on January 7," MP Rajendra Agrawal, who heads the panel, told PTI. Agrawal said members of the JPC can give their dissent notes till 3 PM, Friday. Opposition MPs, including those belonging to the and the CPI(M), have protested the adoption of the JPC report without discussions. ALSO READ: House panel on citizenship bill to table its report by January 7 In protest, Rajya Sabha member Bhubaneswar Kalita walked out of the JPC meeting, the sources said. Agrawal said there were detailed discussions during the panel's last meeting held on December 31 and clause-by-clause amendments initiated by the Opposition members were defeated. The has an edge in the 30-member JPC. The ruling party has 14 MPs in the panel. The has four members while the Trinamool Congress and the Biju Janata Dal have two MPs each. The Shiv Sena, JD(U), TRS, TDP, CPI(M), AIADMK, SP, BSP have one member each in the panel. The Bill seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955, to grant Indian nationality to people belonging to minority communities -- Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians -- in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan after six years of residence in India instead of 12, even if they don't possess any proper document. This was an election promise of the in 2014. The Congress, the Trinamool Congress, the CPI(M) and a few other parties have been steadfastly opposing the Bill claiming that citizenship cannot be given on basis of religion. After the report is submitted in Lok Sabha on January 7, it is to be seen whether the Bill could get through during the Winter Session of Parliament, which comes to an end on January 8, sources said. Various members from Opposition parties have been asserting that citizenship is a constitutional provision and it cannot be based on religion, as India is a secular nation. ALSO READ: Citizenship amendment bill may not get through in Winter session An Opposition MP said if the Bill in its present form comes into effect, then it will nullify the Assam Accord under which anyone entering the state illegally after March 1971 should be declared foreigner and deported. A large section of people and organisations in the Northeast have opposed the Bill, saying it will nullify the provisions of the Assam Accord of 1985, which fixed March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date for deportation of illegal immigrants irrespective of religion. Even the governments of Meghalaya and Mizoram have strongly opposed the Bill and adopted resolutions against it. The JPC has already taken six extensions from the Lok Sabha Speaker. Last time it had sought time for the presentation of the report was on the "first day of the last week of the Winter Session, 2018". ALSO READ: 83 Hindus from Pakistan get Indian citizenship During the course of its examination and study visits, the committee met a cross-section of people in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Assam and Meghalaya and heard views of organisations, individuals, experts and others over the issue. The committee also heard the views of chief secretaries and police chiefs of Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and West Bengal. A Juneteenth celebration at Bruce's Beach will be among many such events throughout Southern California this week, but it may also be the most significant now that the Black original owners' family are on the verge of getting land back. With media personnel being attacked at various districts during the 12-hour hartal by saffron outfits against the entry of two women in their 40s into Sabarimala temple, the Kerala Union of Working Journalists on Thursday decided to boycott BJP and Sabarimala Karma Samithi. The press meets called by BJP state president P S Sreedharan Pillai and Samithi leader K P Sasikala were boycotted by the media this afternoon in protest against the widespread attacks faced by them since Wednesday afternoon. Journalists and camera persons have faced the ire of frenzied protesters of the saffron outfits across Kerala while trying to cover the violence spread by them. The dawn-to-dusk shutdown was called by Sabarimala Karma Samithi, an umbrella organisation of various pro-Hindutva groups, and the Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP). Three media persons were injured on Thursday in Thiruvananthapuram alone while covering the violence unleashed by BJP workers on the hartal day. Following this, the Thiruvananthapuram district committee of KUWJ decided to boycott the press meet called by Sreedharan Pillai at 12.30 PM, in front of the Secretariat where the party has organised an indefinite fast for last one month. An embarrassed Pillai was seen giving a speech with just one camera of the Janam TV, a pro-Right-wing channel. At the same time in Kottayam, the press club authorities refused to give its hall for use to Hindu Aikya Vedi leader K P Sasikala, who had yesterday declared a hartal on behalf of the Samiti. BJP state general secretary K Surendran also faced the wrath of the media at Kozhikode, where they boycotted his press meet. ALSO READ: Kerala on the edge as mobs take to streets over women entering Sabarimala On Wednesday, four media persons were attacked by the protesting Yuva Morcha activists, who took out a march against the successful entry of two women of menstrual age group into the Journalists staged a protest march in the state capital on Thursday after they were allegedly assaulted by protesters. The Army on Wednesday claimed to have shot down a second "Indian spy quadcopter" flying over the Pakistani side of the Line of Control. Major General Asif Ghafoor, the director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations - the Army's media wing, said " Army troops shot down another Indian spy quadcopter". The quadcopter was destroyed in Satwal Sector, he added. On Tuesday, Maj Gen Gafoor had tweeted along with a picture of the drone, claiming that troops had shot down an "Indian spy quadcopter" in the Bagh Sector of Pakistani side of the Line of Control, a claim strongly rejected by the He had said that not even a quadcopter will be allowed to cross (the) According to the Pakistani defence officials, "four intruding Indian drones were shot down by Pakistani forces last year. Stress due to financial crunch is suspected to have led city builder Sanjay Agarwal to allegedly commit suicide by shooting himself in suburban Chembur on Thursday, police said. Agarwal (57) was facing difficulties with regard to a project in the upmarket Chembur area and this may have led him to take the extreme step, police officials said. A realty sector body cited project delays and tighter regulations as the prime reason for developers facing financial problems and sought government help to overcome them. Agarwal's suicide, which comes after at least two similar incidents in recent years in the megapolis, resulted in the realty sector flagging concerns on project delays and tighter norms. "He was facing financial difficulties as a project was stuck and the family says he was under stress because of the same," senior police inspector J M Bhosale told PTI. Agarwal allegedly shot himself with his licenced revolver in his office cabin in Chembur's Sindhi Colony at around 11.25 am, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (zone-VI) Shahaji Umap. He was rushed to a nearby hospital where doctors declared him dead, Umap said. It was a single gunshot that pierced the builder's temple, he said, adding a case of accidental death has been filed and further investigation was underway. Agarwal's son, his brother-in-law and some office employees were present in the premises when the incident took place, the police said. The accidental death report was registered by the Chembur police and the body sent to Rajawadi Hospital in Ghatkopar for postmortem, they said. Agarwal had formed Sanjona Builders in 1999 after a stint with chemicals supplier Nukem Industries, where he held a senior position for 20 years. Industry body Credai MCHI's president Nayan Shah said many developers in Mumbai are under tremendous stress to give timely possession of projects while they are fully at the mercy of approvals from authorities and government agencies. "Developers do not have any fall-back mechanism where they can file complaints because as soon as they do so, various officials come together to ensure his voice is muzzled and business interests compromised," he claimed. Shah cited a provision in the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (Rera) and said a developer can approach authorities if a project is not getting timely attention and alleged that the same is not being implemented. "A lot more needs to be done in this direction. We urge the government to ensure a balance of responsibilities among all stakeholders in the housing industry," Shah added. In 2015, Thane builder Suraj Parmar killed himself and left behind a note in which he alleged harassment by civic officials and local politicians. The death of Mohan Group's Amar Bhatia in Kalyan in 2016, too, led to speculation about financial problems being faced by his company. The All India Democratic Women's Association has expressed strong objection to the purification rituals carried out by the priests after two women of menstruating age visited the Sabarimala temple, calling it "demeaning" as it projects women as "impure" and "unclean". On Wednesday, the two women had stepped into the temple of Lord Ayyappa, breaking a centuries-old tradition, defying dire threats from the Hindu right. Kanakadurga, 44, and Bindu, 42, stepped into the hallowed precincts guarded by police three months after the apex court's historic judgement lifting the ban on entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its "eternally celibate" deity. Following the entry of the women into the shrine, the chief priest had decided to close the sanctum sanctorum of the temple in order to perform the "purification" ceremony. "The purification ritual is demeaning to women as it projects them as 'impure' and 'unclean'. It is also a clear violation of the Supreme Court verdict," AIDWA said in a statement. AIDWA strongly condemns the attempts of Right-wing groups to create a communal frenzy and subvert the implementation of the orders of the Supreme Court (SC) in the "They have resorted to threats and attacked the houses of the two women imperiling the lives of their families," the statement said. AIDWA has called upon all its units in the country to condemn this regressive stand of the communal forces on January 3, the birth anniversary of social reformer Savitribai Phule. Despite the Supreme Court's historic ruling on September 28 last year, no children or young women in the 'barred' group were able to offer prayers at the shrine following frenzied protests by devotees and right-wing outfits. Kerala was in ferment on Thursday, a day after two women of menstruating age entered the Sabarimala temple, infuriating saffron outfits, with protesters blocking roads by placing burning tyres and granite blocks, and clashes leaving three BJP workers injured in a knife attack, officials said. The dawn to dusk shutdown called by Sabarimala Karma Samithi, an umbrella organisation of various pro-Hindutva groups, and the Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP), plunged the state into turmoil, as hundreds of Hindu right-wing activists disrupted vehicular movement, and vandalised shops and offices of the ruling The state was under siege as strike supporters clashed with police and the ruling activists at several places. In Thrissur, three BJP activists were stabbed during a clash with workers of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), the political wing of Popular Front of India, a militant Islamic outfit, police said. Most state-run buses kept off the roads after several of them were damaged in Wednesday's violence, while only a few autorickshaws plied in cities and towns. A 55-year-old man, who was seriously injured when CPI (M) workers hurled stones at protesters from atop their party office at Pandalam in Pathanamthitta district, died late Wednesday night. However, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told media that the man, Chandran Unnithan, died due to cardiac arrest. Unnithan was part of the protest march taken out by Sabarimala Karma Samiti on Wednesday evening which came under attack by workers. Nine people accused of involvement in the attack have been identified and two of them arrested, police said. As tempers ran high in Kerala, the Supreme Court Thursday refused to urgently hear a contempt petition moved by a lawyers' group against authorities for closing the shrine for purification after two women entered it. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul said that the contempt petition will be heard along with the pending review petitions against the apex court verdict which allowed women of all age groups to enter the Advocate P V Dinesh appearing for Indian Young Lawyers Association told the bench that the temple authorities closed the shrine Wednesday for purification after the women's entry which was in violation of the apex court verdict. Vijayan, who blamed the BJP-RSS combine for the violence, warned of stern action against the perpetrators. He told reporters here that the government was not against the belief of the believers, but owed allegiance to the Constitution. "There was a clear planning to the violence unleashed by the hartal supporters. Since yesterday, there has been so much violence. Media personnel, including women, and police were among those attacked," Vijayan said. Seventy-nine state transport corporation buses were vandalised and 31 police personnel injured in the violence, he said. "Most of those attacked were women. Many shops have been damaged by Sangh Parivar. Offices of CPI(M), CPI have been vandalised and attacked in the state," Vijayan said. Protest demonstrations by the BJP and Sabarimala Karma Samithi turned violent at several places in Kozhikode, Kannur Malappuram, Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram. Police used batons and water cannons to break up protests. The office of the CPI at Palakkad was attacked by the protesters and the vehicles parked in front of it, including state transport corporation buses, auto-rickshaws and police vehicles were pelted with stones. Agitators hurled a crude bomb at a local beedi manufacturing unit managed by the CPI(M) in Thalassery in Kannur district, but it did not explode, police said, adding 10 right-wing activists were arrested. Another crude bomb was thrown at Nedumangadu police station about 17 km from here, officials said. It was not immediately known whether it went off and caused any damage. Journalists staged a protest march in the state capital after they were allegedly assaulted by protesters. The state's police chief Lok Nath Behera said a special team will probe the assault on media. Normal life was thrown haywire because of the shutdown, as shops and hotels remained shuttered in the state capital. However, defying the 'Hartal' call, some shopkeepers opened their establishments on SM Street, a major trade hub in Kozhikode, besides a few places in Kochi and Kollam under police security. CPI(M) offices were pelted with stones in Ernakulam and Mallapuram districts, while a library managed by the party in Palakkad was also vandalised. Some Youth Congress workers were injured when they were hit by the pilot vehicle of the chief minister's convoy while they attempted to show black flags to Vijayan. The Congress is observing a 'black day' against the entry of women into the Sabarimala shrine, the abode of its perennially celibate deity Lord Ayyappa. Bindu and Kanakadurga, two women in their 40s, had defied dire threats from saffron organisations and offered prayers at the temple that was out of bounds for girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age, breaking the centuries-old tradition and infuriating the Hindu right. Scores of protesters were arrested from different parts of the state for breaking the peace. The state's universities postponed the examinations scheduled for Thursday. Scientists from NASA's New Horizons mission released the first detailed images of the most distant object ever explored -- the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule. Its remarkable appearance, unlike anything we've seen before, illuminates the processes that built the planets four and a half billion years ago. "This flyby is a historic achievement," said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "Never before has any spacecraft team tracked down such a small body at such high speed so far away in the abyss of space. New Horizons has set a new bar for state-of-the-art spacecraft navigation." The new images -- taken from as close as 17,000 miles (27,000 kilometers) on approach -- revealed Ultima Thule as a "contact binary," consisting of two connected spheres. End to end, the world measures 19 miles (31 kilometers) in length. The team has dubbed the larger sphere "Ultima" (12 miles/19 kilometers across) and the smaller sphere "Thule" (9 miles/14 kilometers across). The team says that the two spheres likely joined as early as 99 percent of the way back to the formation of the solar system, colliding no faster than two cars in a fender-bender. "New Horizons is like a time machine, taking us back to the birth of the solar system. We are seeing a physical representation of the beginning of planetary formation, frozen in time," said Jeff Moore, New Horizons Geology and Geophysics team lead. "Studying Ultima Thule is helping us understand how planets form -- both those in our own solar system and those orbiting other stars in our galaxy." Data from the New Year's Day flyby will continue to arrive over the next weeks and months, with much higher resolution images yet to come. "In the coming months, New Horizons will transmit dozens of data sets to Earth, and we'll write new chapters in the story of Ultima Thule -- and the solar system," said Helene Winters, New Horizons project manager. Slides from Press Briefing Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. The nation is worried that Sabarimala may become the next Ayodhya. Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has assured people that he wont allow that to happen. But judging by the events that have unfolded since September, I am not convinced. I covered a similar protest in Maharashtras Ahmednagar district, at Shani Shingnapur village. There was tension there for about 40 days in 2016, but the responses of everyone involved were far removed from what is playing out in Kerala in the name of faith and tradition. The 400-year-old Shani temple has a sanctum sanctorum ... China is trying to reach a milestone in space exploration: landing a vehicle on the far side of the moon for the first time in history. The mission is one in a series that underscore the countrys ambitions to join and even lead the space race. The spacecraft, whose landing could come on Thursday, is called Change-4 after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology. China landed another rover on the moon in 2013, joining the United States and the Soviet Union as the only nations to have carried out a soft landing there, but the ... Yogesh Raj, a key accused in the mob violence in Bulandshahr in which a police inspector and a civilian were killed, has been arrested, police said Thursday. Raj, the local convenor of Bajrang Dal, was on the run ever since the violence broke out in Siyana tehsil of the district on December 3, 2018. He was arrested around 11.30 pm on Wednesday from the Khurja T-point on Highway 91, the police said. On Wednesday, Satish and Vineet, accused of violence, and Azhar, accused in the cow slaughtering case, had surrendered in the local court in Bulandshahr. An official said the police were gathering evidence related to their involvement in the cases and legal proceedings were underway. "Yes, Yogesh Raj has been arrested. He is undergoing medical examination and would be produced in the local court later today for legal proceedings," Circle Officer (Siyana) Raghvendra Kumar Mishra told PTI Thursday morning. Working on a tip-off about his movement from Khurja to Bulandshahr, Raj, whose name appears on the top in the FIR on December 3 violence, was nabbed by the police, officials said. With his arrest, the number of accused held in connection with the violence has gone up to 31, they said. Inspector Subodh Kumar Singh and civilian Sumit Kumar of Chingrawathi village were killed in the mob violence that broke out in Siyana area after cattle carcasses were found strewn outside a village. Two cases were lodged at the Siyana Police Station the next day, one for violence, in which the police had turned complainant, and the other for alleged cow slaughter, on a complaint by Raj. Twenty-seven people, including Raj, were named in the FIR, while 50 to 60 unidentified people were booked under Indian Penal Code sections 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house, etc), 307 (attempt to murder), 302 (murder), 124A (sedition), 147, 148, 149 (related to rioting), 332, 33, 353 (related to voluntary assault on public servant to obstruct them from performing their duty), 336 (act endangering life or personal safety of others). They were also booked for destroying public property, among others. On December 5, two days since the violence, a purported video of Raj surfaced on social media in which he had claimed innocence and said he was sure of being cleared of all accusations. However, his statements on the sequence of events on December 3 in the purported video were contrary to what he had stated in the complaint for cow slaughter based on which an FIR was registered against seven people, including two minors, of Nayabans village. Tension prevails in this district in the wake of a 55-year-old man being beaten to death in a remote village by a mob which accused him of cattle theft, police said on Thursday. Mohd Kabul was killed in Simarbani village under Sikti police station area of the district last week and the matter came to light after a video, shot by those watching the brutal assault, was uploaded on the three days ago, Sub Divisional Police Officer, Araria, K D Singh said. He said an FIR has been lodged against "unknown persons" since the identity of the assailants could not be made out from the video footage wherein the middle-aged man can be seen pleading with the attackers that he had no reason to steal a cattle. "There is tension in Simarbani. Kabul's relatives are angry and demanding that a named FIR be registered. We have assured them that the same would be done as soon as we get evidence against any suspect", Singh said. District Magistrate Himanshu Sharma said he was "not aware of the details of the incident but instructions have been issued for maintaining order in the area and bringing the guilty to book at the earliest". Mob lynchings have been witnessed in various parts of over the past few months. On Wednesday, two persons including a boy in his early teens were beaten to death in Nalanda district by a mob which was agitated over the murder of an RJD of the opposition in the state assembly Tejashwi Yadav has targeted the Nitish Kumar government over such incidents in a tweet wherein he alleged that has become a "lynch Vihar". Almost 21,000 government schools in the country are without girl's as per 2016-2017 data, the Parliament was informed Thursday. All States and UTs have been advised to comply with the provision of the RTE Act, 2009, which inter alia states that every school building should have separate for boys and girls, the Minister of State for Drinking Water and Ramesh Chandappa Jigajinagi informed Lok Sabha. "The subject relating to toilet/ facilities in schools is dealt by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. "As per the information received from that Ministry, as per Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE), 2016-17 (Provisional), total number of Government schools, without girls' toilet was 20,977 (1.93 per cent) and without boys' toilet was 28,713 (2.67 per cent)," he said. He further said 4.17 lakh including 1.91 lakh girls' toilets were constructed/made functional in 2.61 lakh government schools in one year period up to August 15, 2015. It was done under the Swachh Vidyalaya initiative launched in collaboration with State/UT Governments, (PSUs) and Private Corporates for provision of separate toilets for girls and boys in all government schools, the minister added. Malaysia Airports Holding Berhad has said it terminated the Share Purchasing Agreement (SPA) with the Group for selling its 11 per cent stake to the latter as the Indian infra major did not fulfil the obligations as per the agreement before December 31. Infrastructure Limited in February last year said its subsidiary Airports Limited entered into an agreement with Malaysia Airports Holding Berhad and its subsidiary to acquire 11 per cent of the stake that the Malaysian company is holding in GMR Hyderabad International Airport, for $76 million. "The Board of Directors of MAHB wishes to announce that the SPA has been automatically terminated due to failure of the purchaser to complete their obligation in accordance with the terms of the SPA by 31 December 2018. Therefore, MAHB and MAHB (Mauritius) Private Limited shall remain as shareholders of GHIAL accordingly," MAHB said in a regulatory filing Wednesday. GHIAL, a special purpose vehicle manages Rajiv Gandhi International Airport here. GAL currently holds 63 per cent stake and the remaining in the company is held by Airports Authority of India (13 per cent) and the Telangana government (11 per cent). GMR Infrastructure shares were trading at Rs 16 apiece on the BSE at 10 a.m. Even as the minimum recharge plans initiated by telecom companies are expected to boost average revenue per user (ARPU), analysts say the move would impact only three of the 22 circle area in the country for the December quarter. The real benefits would show only from the March quarter. At Bharti Airtel, revenue growth in the December quarter (third or Q3 of 2018-19 is expected to be flat from the earlier one. However, a rise in Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) in the African business is likely to make up for the decline in the Indian wireless ... Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC It was the first New Years Day of the rest of their lives! Brooklyn welcomed a bevy of bundles of joy on Jan. 1, all of whom entered the world within hours of the start of 2019 and two of whom arrived at the exact same minute. One of Kings Countys first newborns of the year, seven-pound-three-ounce Joseph Patrick Bernstein, arrived at 12:44 am at Park Slopes Methodist Hospital, leaving his loving his parents lost for words, according to his dad. Seeing your son come into this world is an experience that you cant really describe, said Bensonhurst resident Jonathan Bernstein, who welcomed his 20-inch son to the world with his wife, Jennifer. Its just overwhelming emotion. And at the same time, young Zakariyah Mir entered Brooklyn at Borough Parks Maimonides Medical Center, according to a hospital spokeswoman. Parents Afifa Mir and Mir Rashids boy also weighed the same as baby Bernstein clocking in at seven pounds, three ounces but measured four inches taller than the Slope-born child. Another babe arrived less than an hour later, at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn in Sunset Park. Oh baby!: Kings Countian Diloram Mukhiddinova gave birth to daughter Fatima Zahra just after 6 am at Coney Island Hospital on Jan. 1. Coney Island Hospital New parents Brucha and Yisroel Avrum Teitelbaum at 1:40 am greeted their little boy, who came out of the womb at 21.25-inches and weighing eight pounds, two ounces, according to hospital spokesman Colin DeVries, who said the parents did not immediately decide on a name for the newborn. The next New Years baby arrived just before 5 am down in the Peoples Playground, where mom Amina Riaz gave birth to a third boy at Coney Island Hospital, according to spokeswoman Roseanne Mottola. Riaz and the babes dad Wagas Javed also did not immediately name their son, who entered the world at roughly the same size as baby Bernstein, measuring 20-inches and weighing seven pounds, three ounces, Mottola said. And a little more than an hour later, mom Diloram Mukhiddinova and dad Mustafa Boguchakov welcomed daughter Fatima Zahra in the same wing of Coney Island Hospital. The 21.5-inch girl stood a whole quarter of an inch taller than the tallest boy born before her, and weighed in at seven pounds, 14 ounces, Mottola said. Reach reporter Julianne McShane at (718) 2602523 or by e-mail at jmcsh ane@c ngloc al.com . Follow her on Twitter @juliannemcshane. Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC Cops cuffed a man on Wednesday after he turned himself in for brutally assaulting a woman while trying to rape her in Williamsburg on New Years Day. The suspect allegedly punched the 26-year-old victim in the back of her head inside a S. Second Street apartment building around 5:30 am on Jan. 1, before getting on top of her and attempting to rip off her underwear, according to police. But the woman fought back, and the man fled the building towards Marcy Avenue, according to authorities, who said the suspect lives a block away from the scene on S. Third Street. Police slapped the 30-year-old man with charges including attempted rape, sex abuse, and forcible touching after he walked into the 90th Precinct station house and surrendered himself, according to officials. The latest incident came roughly three months after another creep, whom cops are still searching for, violently sexually assaulted a separate victim in Williamsburg. That villain in October, allegedly forced himself inside a 27-year-old woman without her permission on Richardson Street between Humbolt and N. Henry streets, according to the victim. But cops, citing grainy surveillance footage of the incident, said they are investigating it as an attempted rape, because the video does not explicitly show the mans penis entering the womans vagina. And although authorities did not classify either incident as a rape, the number of rapes still spiked across Brooklyn over the last 12 months, with victims reporting a total of 540 in 2018, 16.6 percent more than the 463 reported in 2017, according to statistics from the district attorneys office. Latest News Lendi Group posts record results in first month after Aussie merger May 2021 was the most successful month ever for one of the biggest names in mortgage lending ANZ hikes long-term rates but slashes short term below 2% Interest rate price war takes new turn as Big Four bank makes surprising move Opposing calls to place restrictions on landlords, Ripehouse Advisory CEO Jacob Field said it will only make a bad situation worse. The restrictions would limit their capacity to increase rents, as many claim renters are being pushed out of homes by greedy landlords. Field said the reason why rents are increasing beyond the reach of many tenants is due to a severe shortage in rental stock, made worse by moves from APRA. He believes APRA has gone too far and with banks being extremely conservative after the Royal Commission, investors have been prevented from purchasing investment properties because they simply cant get finance. He said, The underlying reason why landlords are increasing their rents is in a bid to meet current lending specifications. Not only are banks increasing LVR requirements, but they are also are forcing minimum serviceability for new property purchases and refinances. Field said banks are continuing to change the goal posts for investors. A recent client who had pre-approval in place with an 80% LVR found that when it actually came time to purchase the lender reduced it down to 60%. Whats more, the bank then included an additional serviceability requirement, insisting that the investment have a minimum of 4.8% yield, Field said. He suggested that if it wasnt for this pressure coming from financial institutions, landlords might not be so aggressive in pushing their rents up. He added, In the first instance, banks are forcing investors to purchase high yielding properties and then when they are looking to refinance there is pressure on them to continue pushing up their rents to achieve these minimum yields. Field said there was additional stress being placed on the rental market, pushing it to crisis point by the tenants themselves. Tenants are putting upward pressure on rent, because of the severe shortage of properties available, he explained. Field notes as an example there are currently fewer than 100 property available for rent in the entire capital city of Hobart. In these markets, there are so many renters falling over themselves to lease the few properties available, the balance of supply and demand is critically out of whack, he said. Ultimately Field believes that curtailing landlords ability to increase rents is not the solution, but instead, we need to encourage greater investment within the community. If we try to limit rental increases in this way, it will mean fewer landlords in the market and a further decrease in the number of rental properties available to rent. The way to put a brake on rental increases is not through artificial restraints. The fix lies in helping landlords viably put lower yielding properties into the market, by lifting current lending restrictions, he said. The doctor-turned federal MP who once argued the controversial case for Australia's first heroin injecting room has intervened in the debate over pill-testing, warning political resistance to government-sanctioned drug taking at music festivals was costing young lives. The premier who approved the clinic in Sydney's Kings Cross nearly 20 years ago, Bob Carr, has also reiterated his endorsement of a pill-testing regime following the deaths of five people in as many months at music events in NSW and Victoria. "The success of Kings Cross confirms that people have got a pragmatic, realist view and they listen carefully to the arguments and they do so because they've got kids, know kids or know other people's kids, and want what's best," Mr Carr told the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. "There's little problem in trialling pill-testing now. People will accept a premier who says 'look we are going to give this a go, if it doesn't succeed and bad things happen then we will terminate it'." Kerryn Phelps, who pushed for the supervised injection centre as president of the Australian Medical Association nearly 20 years ago, challenged state leaders to approve a 12-month pill-testing trial and rejected arguments that any shift would be tantamount to endorsing illegal drugs. Still bruised from a very public downfall, Andrew Broad says he is leaving politics to "come out the other side stronger and better". The scandal Mr Broad calls his "dumb mistake" has left the Nationals facing a tougher battle to retain one of their traditional strongholds than they would have anticipated, his seat of Mallee now receiving far more attention than its 21 per cent margin would otherwise have commanded. Nationals MP Andrew Broad said he made a "dumb mistake". Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "I probably could have toughed it out and let the storm blow over, stepped back from the ministry and maybe could have won the seat ... but for what?" Mr Broad told Sunraysia Daily. In December 2018, Mr Broad decided not to recontest his seat after women's magazine New Idea published an interview and texts from a woman he met in Hong Kong through a "sugar daddy" website. The state government has flagged its intention to launch an urgent inquiry after a man was discharged from a mental health facility only to allegedly stab a Perth woman to death just a day later. Jesse de Beaux, 23, was a voluntary patient at Graylands Hospital on December 27 when he was released in what is believed to be accordance with standard procedures. Munster murder victim Cara Hales and accused murderer, Jesse de Beaux. Credit:9 News Perth Less than 24 hours later, Cara Hale, 30, was found stabbed to death inside her Munster home. Mr de Beaux was later found wandering through suburban bushland, naked and disorientated. A man is in custody after a high speed chase in Perth's south east on Thursday afternoon. It's understood the chase started at 2pm near the intersection of Abernathy Road and Orrong Road in East Cannington. It's believed the suspect was driving a hire car at the time, a 2018 model blue Hyundai Kona sedan. Two men were taken into custody in relation to the incident. Credit:9 News Perth The man led officers on a chase through Welshpool and Belmont before he crashed the car into a tree on Cosmos Street. Temperatures have dropped by more than 15 degrees in just half an hour in Melbourne after the city sweltered through its hottest day in five years, with temperatures hitting 42 degrees mid-afternoon. The temperature peaked at 42.6 degrees at 3.40pm, dropping to 26.8 degrees just after 4pm. It was 21.3 degrees by 5pm and by 6pm it had plateaued at 21 degrees. Children jump into the water off Altona pier on Friday. Credit:AAP Emergency services were kept busy during the sweltering conditions, with as many as 10 children rescued from hot cars across Melbourne. Several campfires were also started and left unattended on Friday, despite a total fire ban across the state. There were 37 rescue operations at Victorian beaches on Friday. Authorities have been on high alert after seven drowning deaths in the state since Christmas. A man survived being struck in the head by a one-tonne excavator bucket then a nine-hour flight from remote Queensland to a Brisbane hospital, stunning the emergency doctor. The patient, aged in his 50s, suffered head, neck and ankle injuries when the buckle connecting the bucket on the excavator came off and the heavy machinery fell on him about noon on Wednesday. A LifeFlight Rescue team flew the man about 900 kilometres to Brisbane after he was struck by an excavator bucket. Credit:LifeFlight Rescue "Being hit by a one-tonne excavator head on the side of his skull, he could have easily been dead," doctor Martin Londahl said. "All I can say is I can't believe he got away that easy without critical injuries." Do you stop driving because someone is killed on the road? Of course not. So why would our youths stop popping pills just because we demand they do? The short answer is that they will not, and our politicians - along with the rest of us - need to get our head around that. This is a simple issue, being made complex. A teenager has been arrested after a fatal stabbing at the Church of Scientology headquarters in Chatswood. The 16-year-old was asked to leave the church about 12.30pm on Thursday. As he was escorted down the driveway, he allegedly produced a knife and stabbed a Taiwanese national, Detective Superintendent Simon Jones said. "With that knife, he stabbed a 24-year-old, who we believe to be a Taiwanese male in the neck and he also caused lacerations to an older gentleman also escorting him from the premises," Superintendent Jones said. NSW Police at the scene of a double stabbing at the Church of Scientology headquarters at Chatswood. Credit:AAP Patrols arrived on scene shortly after and ordered the 16-year-old to drop the very sharp kitchen knife and drew their Tasers. The first plumes of tyre smoke drifting in the Canberra breeze and the unmistakable throb of V8 engines on Northbourne Avenue have flagged the start of the annual Summernats street machine festival. Event co-owner Andy Lopez described the opening day and the now-traditional massed cruise of vehicles through Canberra's city centre as like entering the final lap of a marathon for his team. Spectators watch the Summernats City Cruise down Northbourne Avenue. Photo: Dion Georgopoulos Credit:Dion Georgopoulos "We started the planning for this a year ago so once the event actually kicks off, all we can do is just let the schedule roll out and hope everyone has a great time," Mr Lopez said. "This year, like every other year, we are trying to introduce new things because if you stand still in this business, you actually go backwards. FAME (Federation of Australasian Mandolin Ensembles) Mandolin Festival Canberra 2019: Viva La Mandolina. January 6 to 13. Public concert: Albert Hall, Yarralumla on Saturday, January 12 at 7.30pm. Tickets: eventbrite.com.au/e/fame-festival-canberra-2019-concert-tickets-52954300739. phone 0421043082 or email famefestival2019reg@gmail.com. More information: famefestivalcanberra2019.com. More than 60 mandolin players from Australia and New Zealand - along with one from Noumea - will be in Canberra next week for the FAME (Federation of Australasian Mandolin Ensembles) Mandolin Festival Canberra 2019: Viva La Mandolina. Aonzo has an international reputation as performer and teacher. Credit:Filippo Bellini It is produced by the national capital's two mandolin groups, the Canberra Mandolin Orchestra, formed in 2003, and COZMO (Capital of Australia Mandolin Orchestra), formed in 2005. The festival committee chairman, Ian Bull, a member of the CMO, says FAME was formed in 1979 for the formation and training of, and composition for, mandolin orchestras. While the mandolin (a treble instrument), the mandola (alto) and mandocello (low voice) are the main focus Bull says, "It's intended to promote contemporary interest in plucked strings [including] the guitar and the double bass." Some of Australia's top business leaders have sounded warnings over the "unintended" fallout from the banking royal commission, including a crunch on lending by nervous banks, which they believe poses the biggest threat to the economy in 2019. Ahead of the Hayne royal commission's final report, due to be handed down next month, prominent business figures attending the KPMG Couta Boat Classic race, raised concerns on Thursday about the impact of the "heightened risk alert" that was gripping the banking sector and causing a tightening of new lending to companies and would-be home buyers, driving a downturn across the housing market. Latitude Financial Services CEO Ahmed Fahour at the KPMG Couta Boat Race 2019. Credit:Markus Weber David Crawford, chairman of mining giant South32 and former chairman engineering behemoth LendLease, said companies and individuals alike were struggling to obtain funding in the current climate. "It's across the board," he said. "You've got to understand that many of the major corporates are generators of significant wealth for the country, but if they are unable to get financing, then that's going to adversely impact." Le Collectif Cheikh Yassine a organise un certain nombre dactivites et de festivites pour les enfants de Gaza sous le theme La joie des enfants de Gaza pour lAid . Ces activites ont commence le premier jour de lAid et continue jusquau 4eme jour de lAid dans la bande de Gaza. Plusieurs activites, ont ete organisees parmi lesquelles : des competitions recompensees par des prix, des jeux, des animations et des chants presentes par un groupe ainsi que des distributions de cadeaux et daides financieres. (WB) These are the top 10 world LGBT related stories of 2018 chosen by the Washington Blade. No. 10: Kim Davis-backed Romania marriage referendum fails A referendum on whether to define marriage as between a man and a woman in the Romanian constitutions definition of family failedin October because of insufficient voter turnout. Less than 21 percent of voters participated in the referendum. Kim Davis, a soon-to-be-former Kentucky county clerk who went to jail in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, is among those who backed the campaign in support of the proposed amendment. Mihnea Florea, program coordinator of MozaiQ, a Romanian LGBTI advocacy group, is among those who welcomed the referendum results. No. 9: Brazils incoming president sparks fear in LGBT community The election of Jair Bolsonaro as Brazils president has sparked fear among the countrys LGBTI community. Bolsonaro defeated former Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silvas Workers Party by a 55-45 percent margin in the second round of the countrys presidential election that took place on Oct. 28. Bolsonaro, who has represented Rio de Janeiro in the Brazilian congress for 27 years, will take office on Jan. 1. Bolsonaro has sparked widespread outrage for his comments against the LGBTI community, women, indigenous people, Brazilians of African descent and other underrepresented groups. Bolsonaro has also said he would defend the true sense of marriage between a man and a woman once he takes office. No. 8: U.S. remains publicly committed to global LGBTI rights The U.S. in 2018 Continued to publicly support LGBT rights abroad, even though its domestic record has continued to spark criticism. The State Department this year criticized anti-LGBTI crackdownsin Tanzania. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in June acknowledged Pride monthin a statement. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan is among the U.S. officials who participated ina global LGBTI rights conference that took place in the Vancouver, British Columbia. A new State Department policythat requires partners of foreign mission personnel and employees of international organizations to be married in order to qualify for a diplomatic visa took effect on Oct. 1. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins is among those who took part in a religious freedom conferencethe State Department held in July. No. 7: Bermuda becomes first non-U.S. jurisdiction to repeal marriage Bermuda in June became the first jurisdiction in the world outside the U.S. to rescind marriage rights for same-sex couples. John Rankin, the governor of the British island territory, on Feb. 7 signedthe Domestic Partnership Act, which allows same-sex couples to enter into domestic partnerships as opposed to get married. The law, which prompted calls to boycott Bermudas tourism industry, took effecton June 1. Rankins government appealed a Bermuda Supreme Court ruling that found the Domestic Partnership Act unconstitutional. The territorys top court on Nov. 23 upheldthe decision. No. 6: British prime minister apologies for anti-LGBTI colonial laws British Prime Minister Theresa May on April 17 said she deeply regrets colonial-era laws criminalizing consensual same-sex relations the U.K. introduced in Commonwealth countries. I am all too aware that these laws were often put in place by my own country, she said during a speech at the Commonwealth summit that took place in London. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now. As the U.K.s prime minister, I deeply regret both the fact that such laws were introduced and the legacy of discrimination, violence and even death that persists today. Consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in a number of the Commonwealths 53 countries. No. 5: Taiwan marriage referendum fails A referendum on whether same-sex couples should receive marriage rights in Taiwan failedon Nov. 24. Voters by a 67-33 percent margin rejected a question on whether same-sex couples should receive marriage rights through Taiwans civil code. Questions on whether marriage in Taiwan should be defined as between a man and a woman and whether same-sex couples should be able to enter into civil unions or domestic partnerships, as opposed to marriages, passed by margins of 72-28 percent and 61-39 percent respectively. Voters by a 66-34 percent margin rejected a question on whether Taiwans Gender Equity Act should include LGBTI-inclusive school curricula. A question on whether the law should not include LGBTI-inclusive school curricula failed by a 67-33 percent. Evan Wolfson, founder of Freedom to Marry, is among those who supported Taiwanese activists before the referendum. The National Organization for Marriage backed marriage opponents. Lawmakers still face a May 2019 deadline to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples under a Taiwan Constitutional Court ruling from two years before. No. 4: Inter-American court issues landmark LGBTI rights ruling The Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Jan. 9 issueda landmark ruling that recognizes same-sex marriage and transgender rights in the Western Hemisphere. The ruling stems from the Costa Rican governments request for an advisory opinion on whether it has an obligation to extend property rights to same-sex couples and allow trans people to change their name and gender marker on identity documents. The Costa Rican government has said it will comply with the ruling, which has bolstered advocacy efforts throughout the Western Hemisphere. Margarette May Macaulay, president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, on Dec. 5 reiteratedher support of marriage rights for same-sex couples during a hearing on the subject over which she presided in D.C. The Chile Supreme Court on the same day issued a ruling that said marriage for same-sex couples is a human right, but the countrys president, Sebastian Pinera, continues to face criticism from advocates over his opposition. No. 3: New proposed Cuban constitution includes marriage amendment Cuban lawmakers on July 22 approvedthe draft of a new constitution that would extend marriage rights to same-sex couples. A series of public meetings on the proposed constitution took place across the Communist island over the fall. The Cuban National Assembly in the coming weeks is expected to give its final approval to the document. A referendum is scheduled to take place in February. The debate over the proposed constitutional changes is taking place nearly 60 years after gay men were among those sent to work camps after the Cuban revolution brought Fidel Castro to power. His niece, Mariela Castro, over the last decade has spearheaded LGBTI-specific issues in the country. Independent activists with whom the Washington Blade speaks insist they continue to face criticism and even arrest for publicly criticizing Mariela Castro and/or the Cuban government. No. 2: LGBTI migrants seek refuge in U.S. The waves of migrants who have left Central America in 2018 include people who are fleeing violence and discrimination based on their sexual orientation and gender identity in their homelands. A gay man from Honduras with whom the Blade spoke in Mexico City on July 17 said he fled his homelandearlier this year after a group of gang members raped and killed his friend in front of him. Other LGBTI migrants from Guatemala with whom the Blade spokein the Mexican city of Tijuana earlier this month said they hope to seek asylum in the U.S. The migrants many of whom have traveled to the U.S. border in caravans still hope to enter the U.S., despite President Trumps zero-tolerance immigration policy that has sparked widespread criticism. The death of Roxsana Hernandez, a trans Honduran woman with HIV, in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody on May 25 sparked additional outrage among immigrant rights activists and their supporters. No. 1: India Supreme Court decriminalizes homosexuality The India Supreme Court on Sept. 6 issueda landmark ruling that decriminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations in the country. The unanimous ruling specifically struck down Indias colonial-era sodomy law known as Section 377. LGBTI rights advocates in India and around the world not only celebrated the decision, but stressed it will bolster efforts to decriminalize homosexuality in other Commonwealth countries. We rejoice with all sexual, gender and sex minorities communities in India, said Ruth Baldacchino and Helen Kennedy, co-secretaries general of ILGA, in a statement. As of today, a shameful part of an enduring colonial legacy is finally history. We hope that this ruling, which was made possible by the tireless work of many human rights advocates, will have an impact also on other countries around the world where our communities continue to live under the shadow of oppressive criminal laws, especially those that share a common legal heritage with India, as far afield as Africa, the Pacific and Caribbean. A judge on Trinidad and Tobagos High Court in April struck down the countrys colonial-era sodomy law. The Kenya High Court early next year is expected to issue a ruling in a case that challenges a portion of the countrys penal code that criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual relations. British Prime Minister Theresa May in April said she deeply regrets colonial-era sodomy laws the U.K. introduced in Commonwealth countries. James Lowe has been banned for two weeks following his red card in Saturday's defeat to Munster. The Leinster winger appeared via videolink in front of a disciplinary panel today, and accepted that his challenge on Andrew Conway warranted a red card. A number of Bus Eireann drivers are on sick leave following assaults by passengers. There were seven assaults on drivers in the last couple of months alone. The National Bus and Rail Union is calling for safety screens to be retro-fitted to the entire bus fleet. Union Representative Stephen Nugent said drivers can also be easily robbed. Mr Nugent said: "Only a small percentage of our fleet has safety screens, whereas if you look at the Dublin Bus model, all their buses have safety screens. "We are wide open and the difference between ourselves and other buses is that we have a very substantial amount of cash, unlike Dublin Bus where the coin goes into a safety box and it's impossible to get to. We are totally exposed." The Transport Minister has been accused of not doing enough to get a replacement for the Irish Ferries service linking Rosslare with Cherbourg. The company announced just before Christmas that it was unlikely to operate the route in 2019. Latest: The company that runs Luas says 3,226 people who signed up to the Luas newsletter may have had their records compromised after its website was hacked. However, they say no financial information has been compromised. Transdev has taken its site offline, after a message appeared on its homepage this morning demanding one Bitcoin, which is worth over 3,000. Luas say they will write to those people affected within the next 24 hours informing them of the potential breach. The site is being analysed to identify how the attack occurred and technicians are working to restore the service for customers. Update (11.55am): Ransom demand on Luas website could be 'first of many' this year, says cybersecurity firm An Irish cybersecurity firm has said that the ransom demand on the Luas website is likely to be "the first of many in 2019". Cybersecurity firm Smarttech 247 is urging businesses and the public to ensure their computers have the protection they need against an increasing number of ransomware attacks. It comes after a message on the Luas website appeared today claiming it has been hacked, with the hackers demanding payment of one Bitcoin. Transdev have said the website could be down for the day. The apparent hack of the Luas website matches a trend that has already been detected by experts, Smarttech 247 said. CEO of cybersecurity firm Smarttech 247, Ronan Murphy said: Although its only three days into the new year Smarttech247 team have already seen a sharp rise in ransomware attacks. "These are primarily spreading via email where they appear to be a Microsoft document (word, excel). The Ransomware will attack any server or computer which does not have adequate protection and this includes web servers that host websites and applications. Earlier: Luas website taken offline after hacker demands a Bitcoin Luas operators are asking people not to visit its website after it was hacked overnight. A team of engineers have taken the website offline completely as they look into the issue. Anyone that visited the Luas website this morning was greeted with a message stating it had been hacked. The apparent attacker said that it had written to the tram operators some time ago, claiming the website had "serious security holes". The hacker was threatening to publish all data if Transdev did not pay one Bitcoin, or around 3,400, within the next five days. Operators have tweeted urging people not to visit the website as it has been taken offline, adding that they have a number of technicians working on the issue. Due to an ongoing issue, please do not click onto the Luas website. We currently have technicians working on the issue. We will be using this forum only for travel updates should the need arise. For any queries, please contact our customer care number on 1850 300 604. Luas (@Luas) January 3, 2019 Luas has said it will update customers via twitter, Facebook, AA Roadwatch and the media if there are any changes to services today and has apologised for the inconvenience. There was an unexpected Budget surplus of 100m last year. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar outlined the end of year exchequer results, saying this was the first time spending was ahead of schedule in the decade since the economic crash. It's being put down to an increase in tax take from corporations and a 250m underspend. Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe briefed Cabinet on the latest Exchequer Returns earlier. Exchequer Returns show that tax receipts in 2018 are up almost 4.3b (8.3%) year-on-year While the healthy financial position for the government was partially as a result of exceptional corporate tax returns, Mr Varadkar said the country was now "very well prepared" for any potential economic downturn if one hit Ireland. Minister Donohoe said in a statement: "All major tax heads, except excise duties, are up year-on-year, reflecting the growing strength of the economy, while expenditure remains close to Budget day expectations. This means that we are on track to exceed our fiscal targets for 2018, with todays figures recording a small surplus. "The main budgetary metric for international purposes is the general government balance and this will be reported by the CSO at end-March. However, based upon the Exchequer figures, a small general government surplus is now possible. A modest deficit of 0.1% was projected in the recent Budget. We are now aiming to deliver a surplus of 0.1%." He added: "This strong performance will provide a stable platform for the external challenges that lie ahead in 2019. "Any gains in 2018 against profile represent a positive development in terms of our potential to reduce our overall debt burden. We must continue to prioritise the reduction of debt, which in the event of a shock to our tax base, would assist our fiscal capacity to deal with such an occurrence, putting us in a stronger position to weather potential storms and ensure our economy remains resilient." A man arrested in connection with a shooting incident in Edenmore on New Year's Day has been released without charge. The 44-year-old man was released last night and a file will now be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions. Cabinet will today be updated on the progress of contingency plans in place in the event of a 'no-deal' Brexit. Planning for the outcome was prioritised following a previous meeting of the Cabinet in December. (AP) Newly installed President Jair Bolsonaro issued executive orders targeting Brazil's indigenous groups, descendants of slaves and the LGBT community in the first hours of his administration, moving quickly after a campaign in which the far-right leader said he would radically overhaul many aspects of life in Latin America's largest nation. One of the orders issued late Tuesday, hours after his inauguration, likely will make it all but impossible for new lands to be identified and demarcated for indigenous communities. Areas set aside for "Quilombolas," as descendants of former slaves are known, are also affected by the decision. Another order removed the concerns of the LGBT community from consideration by the new human rights ministry. In a move favorable to his allies in agribusiness, which have criticized giving large swaths of lands to the indigenous, Bolsonaro transferred the responsibilities for delineating indigenous territories from the Justice Ministry to the Agriculture Ministry. The new agriculture minister, Tereza Cristina, is part of the agribusiness caucus in Brazil's lower house and has opposed requests from native communities. Bolsonaro, a former army captain and longtime congressman, said during his presidential campaign that he would stop making what he calls concessions to native Brazilians and quilombolas. "Less than one million people live in those places isolated from the real Brazil," Bolsonaro tweeted Wednesday. "They are explored and manipulated by nonprofits. Together we will integrate those citizens and give value to all Brazilians." The Justice Ministry previously handled demarcation of indigenous lands through the FUNAI agency, which also oversees other initiatives for indigenous communities such as health care, housing and language preservation. Bolsonaro's order is raising uncertainties about FUNAI by shifting it to a new ministry for family, women and human rights that is headed by an ultraconservative evangelical pastor. Observatorio do Clima, a network of 45 Brazilian civil society groups, said in a statement to The Associated Press that the executive orders "are only the first step on meeting Bolsonaro's campaign promises of dismantling environmental governance, stripping indigenous peoples of their rights and opening up indigenous lands for business." "The attack on FUNAI goes beyond the wildest dreams of the rural caucus, who had tried for years to pass a constitutional amendment transferring the demarcation of indigenous lands from the president to Congress," the nonprofit said. "Bolsonaro solved the problem by transferring them directly to farmers. Not even the military dictatorship, whose treatment of indigenous peoples was ghastly, went that far." FUNAI was created in 1967 during Brazil's military dictatorship. The authoritarian rule, of which Bolsonaro is a fan, went from 1964 to 1985. The far-right leader said last year that he also wants to annul land demarcation decisions made by previous administrations, but legal experts say recent Brazilian Supreme Court rulings could block such move. New Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta, meanwhile, suggested on Wednesday that there will be spending cuts in health care for the indigenous. "We have figures for the general public that are much below what is spent on health care for the indigenous," he said, without providing details. In removing LGBT concerns from the responsibilities of the human rights ministry, Bolsonaro did not name any agency to consider such things. He has strongly criticized what he calls "gender-based ideology," saying it is a threat to Brazil's Christian values. Damares Alves, the new human rights minister, did not discuss the LGBT order in her first address on the job, but the evangelical pastor has insisted over the years that "the Brazilian family is being threatened" by diversity policies. On Wednesday, she said: "The state is lay, but this minister is terribly Christian." LGBT activist Symmy Larrat said she doesn't' expect reasonable treatment from the Bolsonaro administration. "The human rights ministry discussed our concerns at a body called secretariat of promotion and defense of human rights. That body just disappeared, just like that. We don't see any signs there will be any other government infrastructure to handle LGBT issues," she said. The newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported that Bolsonaro will later announce the closing of an agency within the Education Ministry that has been aimed at promoting diversity in public schools and universities. Also on Wednesday, the Brazilian Press Association criticized restrictions on journalists at Bolsonaro's inauguration. Reporters had to arrive seven hours before the events began and were forbidden to move freely in Brazil's Congress and presidential palace. Food was seized and access to bathrooms and water was limited. "What was seen in different scenarios of Brasilia is incompatible with a democratic regime," the association said in a statement. "Respect to the press is one of the main indicators of nations that consider themselves civilized." Bolsonaro, a fan of U.S. President Donald Trump, met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on earlier. Pompeo told him that Trump is "very pleased with the relationship that our two countries are on the precipice of beginning to develop." "He's also confident that it (the relationship between the U.S. and Brazil) will benefit the world and the set of shared values that we believe we can together advance," Pompeo said before leaving Brasilia for Colombia. Brazil's Bolsonaro targets minorities on 1st day in office SAO PAULO Newly installed President Jair Bolsonaro issued executive orders targeting Brazil's indigenous groups, descendants of slaves and the LGBT community in the first hours of his administration, moving quickly after a campaign in which the far-right leader said he would radically overhaul many aspects of life in Latin America's largest nation. One of the orders issued late Tuesday, hours after his inauguration, likely will make it all but impossible for new lands to be identified and demarcated for indigenous communities. Areas set aside for "Quilombolas," as descendants of former slaves are known, are also affected by the decision. Another order removed the concerns of the LGBT community from consideration by the new human rights ministry. In a move favorable to his allies in agribusiness, which have criticized giving large swaths of lands to the indigenous, Bolsonaro transferred the responsibilities for delineating indigenous territories from the Justice Ministry to the Agriculture Ministry. The new agriculture minister, Tereza Cristina, is part of the agribusiness caucus in Brazil's lower house and has opposed requests from native communities. Bolsonaro, a former army captain and longtime congressman, said during his presidential campaign that he would stop making what he calls concessions to native Brazilians and quilombolas. "Less than one million people live in those places isolated from the real Brazil," Bolsonaro tweeted Wednesday. "They are explored and manipulated by nonprofits. Together we will integrate those citizens and give value to all Brazilians." The Justice Ministry previously handled demarcation of indigenous lands through the FUNAI agency, which also oversees other initiatives for indigenous communities such as health care, housing and language preservation. Bolsonaro's order is raising uncertainties about FUNAI by shifting it to a new ministry for family, women and human rights that is headed by an ultraconservative evangelical pastor. Observatorio do Clima, a network of 45 Brazilian civil society groups, said in a statement to The Associated Press that the executive orders "are only the first step on meeting Bolsonaro's campaign promises of dismantling environmental governance, stripping indigenous peoples of their rights and opening up indigenous lands for business." "The attack on FUNAI goes beyond the wildest dreams of the rural caucus, who had tried for years to pass a constitutional amendment transferring the demarcation of indigenous lands from the president to Congress," the nonprofit said. "Bolsonaro solved the problem by transferring them directly to farmers. Not even the military dictatorship, whose treatment of indigenous peoples was ghastly, went that far." FUNAI was created in 1967 during Brazil's military dictatorship. The authoritarian rule, of which Bolsonaro is a fan, went from 1964 to 1985. The far-right leader said last year that he also wants to annul land demarcation decisions made by previous administrations, but legal experts say recent Brazilian Supreme Court rulings could block such move. New Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta, meanwhile, suggested on Wednesday that there will be spending cuts in health care for the indigenous. "We have figures for the general public that are much below what is spent on health care for the indigenous," he said, without providing details. In removing LGBT concerns from the responsibilities of the human rights ministry, Bolsonaro did not name any agency to consider such things. He has strongly criticized what he calls "gender-based ideology," saying it is a threat to Brazil's Christian values. Damares Alves, the new human rights minister, did not discuss the LGBT order in her first address on the job, but the evangelical pastor has insisted over the years that "the Brazilian family is being threatened" by diversity policies. On Wednesday, she said: "The state is lay, but this minister is terribly Christian." LGBT activist Symmy Larrat said she doesn't' expect reasonable treatment from the Bolsonaro administration. "The human rights ministry discussed our concerns at a body called secretariat of promotion and defense of human rights. That body just disappeared, just like that. We don't see any signs there will be any other government infrastructure to handle LGBT issues," she said. The newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported that Bolsonaro will later announce the closing of an agency within the Education Ministry that has been aimed at promoting diversity in public schools and universities. Also on Wednesday, the Brazilian Press Association criticized restrictions on journalists at Bolsonaro's inauguration. Reporters had to arrive seven hours before the events began and were forbidden to move freely in Brazil's Congress and presidential palace. Food was seized and access to bathrooms and water was limited. "What was seen in different scenarios of Brasilia is incompatible with a democratic regime," the association said in a statement. "Respect to the press is one of the main indicators of nations that consider themselves civilized." Bolsonaro, a fan of U.S. President Donald Trump, met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on earlier. Pompeo told him that Trump is "very pleased with the relationship that our two countries are on the precipice of beginning to develop." "He's also confident that it (the relationship between the U.S. and Brazil) will benefit the world and the set of shared values that we believe we can together advance," Pompeo said before leaving Brasilia for Colombia. The owners of the family-run building firm facing a High Court dispute with the Department of Education over alleged defects in schools buildings paid out a dividend of over 3m (3.3m) last year, new accounts show. The McCloskey family firm, Western Building Systems (WBS) show pre-tax profits increased 4% to 4.32m as revenues fell 8.5% to 34m in its last financial year, which covers the 12 months to the end of April. After paying 846,527 in corporation tax, the business posted a net profit of 3.47m The new accounts show the firm paid out a dividend of 3.08m last year, down from a payout of 5.9m in the previous year. In recent months, the business became ensnared in a row with the Department of Education over parts of its school building programme. WBS has built 42 schools in the Republic in the last 14 years and the Department of Education is now suing the firm in the High Court. Structural weaknesses were allegedly found in a number of schools, two of which were closed temporarily while precautionary works were carried out and a third building was partly closed. WBS has, in the past, said the schools were certified on completion as being free from defects by the department and were also hailed as buildings that met the highest of standards. Some of the buildings have subsequently been deemed by the department to require remedial works, the firm, which is based in Coalisland in Co Tyrone, has said. The company has claimed in a statement issued in November that such a turnaround was troubling on a wider scale. A spokesman for WBS said yesterday it will fully contest the departments High Court proceedings. We have been informed of proceedings and are seeking specific details. The company has been requesting details of structural assessments since November last and has not been provided with any details, the spokesman said. He said that the core fundamental point in the dispute with the department remains why schools, previously verified and approved by the department, were subsequently found by the department to have potential issues. The spokesman said: The company has three schools currently in construction, two of these on behalf of the department. We have communicated to the department on a number of occasions seeking clarity on the verification process for these schools and continue to await a response. In the new accounts lodged with Companies House in the UK, the directors of the business said that the companys order book is already very strong and post year end, trading is strong. The directors said that the financial results for the year to the end of April were considered satisfactory, set against a background of increased competition in the marketplace and reduced margins. The outlook for the 2018-19 year is encouraging, and company directors expect performance to be in line with 2018, the directors said in the accounts. The company had a profit and loss reserve of 11.35m at the end of the financial year. The businesss cash pile increased from 7.3m to 9.49m. Staff numbers directly employed by the firm increased from 45 to 54, while staff costs increased from 1.7m to 2.27m. The accounts name four directors: Martin McCloskey, Nora McCloskey, Declan McCloskey, and Melissa Canavan. Directors pay totalled 415,911 and the top paid director earned a total of 74,266. Ryanair has secured a UK operating licence to fly within the UK and UK to non-EU routes in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The Civil Aviation Authority said it issued an air operator's certificate (AOC) to the low-cost carrier today. The Dublin-based airline has expressed concern that flights could be grounded if the UK withdraws from the EU without an agreement. Flights between EU nations and from the UK to many non-EU nations currently operate due to the UK's membership of the bloc. UK Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has insisted the UK and the EU do not want flights to be grounded after Brexit "in any scenario". Ryanair's company secretary Juliusz Komorek said: "We welcome the Civil Aviation Authority's decision to grant our UK based airline, Ryanair UK, with a UK AOC, allowing Ryanair to operate UK domestic routes and UK to non-EU routes in a post-Brexit environment. "The risk of a no-deal Brexit in March is rising, and despite our robust post-Brexit structures, including our post-Brexit plan around European ownership, we continue to call for the UK and EU to agree a transition deal from 31 March 2019, so that any disruption to flights and British consumer summer holidays in 2019 can be avoided." Ryanair has said it may restrict the voting rights of its non-EU shareholders in the event of a no-deal Brexit to help the airline comply with EU laws. PA The number of people employed in IDA Ireland backed companies has reached its highest level ever. According to the IDA's results for 2018 almost 230,000 employees are working in the Multinational sector here. Over half of the jobs are outside of Dublin resulting in the largest regional jobs growth in 17 years. CEO of IDA Ireland Martin Shanahan says our regions are in competition with the rest of the world, not with the capital. "We need both that's the answer," said Mr Shanahan. We are, of course, focused on other cities and other urban locations that is why the regional figures today are so strong and why the regional employment has grown so strongly over the past four years. "We also need a strong Dublin, Dublin is an international city of scale, it is a beacon." Brexit is making Ireland a "safer pair of hands" in terms of foreign direct investment. That is according to Raymond Sexton, founder of Tangible Ireland, an independent economic and social development agency that provides support services to FDI projects here. Following the publication of the Government and the IDA's annual results for 2018, Mr Sexton says Brexit is good for Ireland in relation to foreign direct investment. "Essentially Brexit is actually making Ireland a safer pair of hands," said Mr Sexton. "Everyone is just thinking 'let's head to Europe' or the northern hemisphere or across the Atlantic and immediately they link 'London - confused, Dublin - clear'. It's that simple at the moment, it's just clarity versus confusion. Mr Shanahan said that although today's figures show strong gains, there are many significant risks facing Ireland in the future. "Ireland is a small open trading economy and increased nationalism and protectionism is likely to have an impact on future FDI figures," said Mr Shanahan. "10 years on from the financial crisis, the global economy continues to grow at a steady pace but the OECD says global GDP growth has peaked and is slowing on the back of weaker trade growth and less supportive monetary and fiscal policies. According to FDI Intelligence, global greenfield investment projects fell 1.1% in 2017, while at the same time investment into Ireland continued to grow. "Ireland wins a much larger market share of European FDI than expected for its size. "Irelands share of all FDI projects to the EU in 2017 was 5.4%, while Irelands share of EU GDP was just 1.9%." Irish pensions fund trustees have been told to diversify and de-risk over the coming year amid the huge losses of global stock markets and falling bond yields for some European markets. Pensions firm Aon said the fallout of market turmoil has led to a fall of 5.2% in the traditional Irish pension managed funds last month. Global equity markets fell over the month as weak economic data from China and Europe fanned concerns of a global economic slowdown, leaving investors fretting over the wider impact of a still-unresolved US-China trade dispute, said the firms Nick Hatherley. Global stock markets started the first day of the new year mixed, with Asian markets losing heavily, European stock markets ending mixed, and some new selling weighing on US stock markets. Much of the initial negative sentiment seems to be emerging from China as the latest manufacturing output survey appear to suggest the US-China trade has played a role in putting the brakes on, said Fiona Cincotta at City Index. Chinas growth has been a huge factor in the overall global economic growth story and its influence as a source of investment, credit and cheap manufacturing has been felt everywhere in the last 10 years. These numbers will be making investors nervous, she said. IGs Chris Beauchamp said bruised by the volatility of recent months that investors arent yet grabbing the chance to buy the dip with both hands. Germanys Dax ended slightly higher, the Cac-40 in Paris was 1% lower at one stage, while the Ftse-100 in London ended little changed, buoyed by the weakening of sterling. The Iseq was up by over 0.25%. Irish manufacturing expanded in December but at its slowest rate for nine months, as Brexit uncertainty slowed the growth of new orders, according to a new survey. How events play out at Westminster in the coming weeks is likely to prove pivotal, said Investec Ireland of the IHS Markit Irish Purchasing Managers Index. Experts have long pointed out that a significant slice of Irish pension funds were tied to the performance of US markets. Brexit fears hit the Iseq hard last year to make it one of the worst performers in Europe. The Irish index of shares lost 21% of its value. Davy said the sharp drop which has pummeled shares as diverse as Bank of Ireland, Applegreen and Glenveagh created a number of very attractive investment opportunities. But the broker added: Political uncertainty in the UK will continue to drive asset price volatility until Brexit is resolved. SEATTLE - Two more Puget Sound orcas are ailing and probably will be dead by summer, according an expert on the critically endangered population of killer whales that live in the waters of the Pacific Northwest. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/1/2019 (892 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. SEATTLE - Two more Puget Sound orcas are ailing and probably will be dead by summer, according an expert on the critically endangered population of killer whales that live in the waters of the Pacific Northwest. Drone photography taken this past September showed the ailing population of orcas known as the southern residents went into the winter thinner than they were when the whales arrived in the San Juan Islands last summer. FILE - In this Jan. 18, 2014, file photo, an endangered southern resident female orca leaps from the water while breaching in Puget Sound, west of Seattle. Two more Puget Sound orcas are ailing and probably will be dead by summer, according an expert on the critically endangered population of killer whales that live in the waters of the Pacific Northwest. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File) They also are thinner than Puget Sound's so-called northern resident population of killer whales, which have been steadily growing in population for the past 40 years in their home waters primarily in northern British Columbia and southeast Alaska, where they have access to more fish and cleaner and quieter water. The northern residents gave birth to 10 new calves last year. The Seattle Times reports Center for Whale Research founding director Ken Balcomb said photos taken of a southern resident orca known as J17 on New Year's Eve showed the 42-year-old female has so-called peanut head a misshapen head and neck caused by starvation. In addition a 27-year-old male known as K25 is failing, also from lack of sufficient food. He lost his mother, K13, in 2017 and is not successfully foraging on his own. Several southern resident whales were documented to be pregnant in September, but so far there has been no sign of babies. The southern residents have not had a successful pregnancy in three years. The southern resident population is at a 35-year low after three deaths in 2018. There are only 74 left. Losing J17 would be a blow to the southern residents because she is a female still of reproducing age, said Deborah Giles, research scientist for University of Washington Center for Conservation Biology. Giles said she was not surprised to hear about K25. The social dynamics of the southern residents, in which older females help their pod, and especially their sons by sharing food, is both a blessing and a curse if that female dies, Giles said. "These large, adult, hungry males benefit by the females in their family," Giles said. "There probably is still family foraging going on, but not like he had when his mom was alive." The coming year is not looking any easier for the southern residents in terms of their food supply. The whales mostly eat chinook salmon. Ocean conditions and poor river migration, with warm water and low flows, have hurt chinook salmon returns in the past several years. Last month, two new areas off Vancouver Island were designated as protected critical habitat for resident killer whales by the Canadian government. Fisheries and Oceans Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said at the time the decision means key foraging locations for the endangered whales are protected from destruction. The government is increasing the amount of protected habitat from about 6,400 square kilometres to roughly 10,700 square kilometres. The new protected area is intended to help recovery efforts for northern and southern resident killer whales, and covers an area off southwestern Vancouver Island. The state of Washington also recently announced US$1.1 billion in spending and a partial whale-watching ban in an attempt to help the population's recovery. The money would go toward protecting and restoring habitat for salmon, boosting production from salmon hatcheries, storm-water cleanup and quieting vessel traffic. With files from The Canadian Press WASHINGTON - Nancy Pelosi, a veteran Democrat brawler and vocal critic of Canada's trade agreement with the United States and Mexico, resumed her role Thursday as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first woman in history to hold the gavel twice in her political career. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/1/2019 (892 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California enters the chamber as the House of Representatives assembles for the first day of the 116th Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) WASHINGTON - Nancy Pelosi, a veteran Democrat brawler and vocal critic of Canada's trade agreement with the United States and Mexico, resumed her role Thursday as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first woman in history to hold the gavel twice in her political career. Pelosi presides over a diverse collection of representatives the 116th Congress includes 102 women in the House and 25 in the Senate, a new record, and also sets new thresholds for black, Hispanic, Muslim, Indigenous and LGBTQ members that is girding for battle with U.S. President Donald Trump. "I now call the House to order on behalf of all of America's children," Pelosi said after summoning her grandkids to the podium, along with countless other young ones who were in the chamber to see family members take the oath of office. Before she did it, though, she put the White House on notice that the new Democratic majority in the House was no accident. "Two months ago, the American people spoke, and demanded a new dawn," Pelosi said. "They called upon the beauty of our constitution: our system of checks and balances that protects our democracy, remembering that the legislative branch is Article I: the first branch of government, co-equal to the president and judiciary. "They want a Congress that delivers results for the people, opening up opportunity and lifting up their lives." Even so, many Democrats feel disinclined to give Trump even an inch of breathing room. That has sparked concern that the hard-won new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the presumptive successor to NAFTA that's still awaiting legislative ratification in all three countries, could hang in the balance as the president learns for the first time what it's like to govern without Republicans in control of Congress. Thursday's proceedings also made history in a bleaker way, marking the first time that Congress has been sworn in under the shadow of a partial government shutdown the result of an ongoing standoff with the White House over funding for Trump's long-promised wall along the southern border. The president summoned reporters to an unannounced White House briefing Thursday, only to reiterate his position on funding the wall and to introduce a host of border-security and immigration officials who expressed support for his hard line. In an interview with NBC's "Today" show earlier Thursday, Pelosi said it remains an "open discussion" whether it's possible to indict a sitting president, a hot topic in Washington given special counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing investigation of ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Justice Department guidelines say such an indictment would be unconstitutional. "I do not think that that is conclusive," said Pelosi. "I think that is an open discussion in terms of the law." And while she allowed that it would not benefit the U.S. to seek to impeach a president purely for political reasons, Pelosi refused to rule out the possibility that the Democrats would take up impeachment proceedings at some point. All of which could bode ill for USMCA, given the Democrat ambivalence it inspires. The agreement includes elements aimed at the centre-left members in Congress, including environmental protections and a requirement that by 2023, 45 per cent of auto parts be made by workers being paid at least $16 an hour. Mexico must also pass a host of labour-law reforms that support and protect women, unions and migrant workers. But to critics like Pelosi and other powerful Democrats, it lacks teeth. "The idea that we're going to be able to get a trade deal through Congress when we can't even keep the government open I think that should level-set expectations for the prospect of USMCA in 2019," said Dan Ujczo, an Ohio-based trade lawyer and partner in the firm Dickinson Wright who specializes in Canada-U.S. business. "I think there's a very real question of if this even comes up for a vote in 2019." Canadian Ambassador David MacNaughton, whose outreach efforts were heralded as key in securing USMCA, will be back at it later this month, working to convince lawmakers on Capitol Hill to support the deal and also to convince the White House to exempt Canada from its punitive regime of steel and aluminum tariffs. Follow James McCarten on Twitter @CdnPressStyle WINNIPEG - A Winnipeg man who police believe was high on meth faces public mischief charges after almost seven dozen false 911 calls that included a report of a family being sexually assaulted. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/1/2019 (892 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. WINNIPEG - A Winnipeg man who police believe was high on meth faces public mischief charges after almost seven dozen false 911 calls that included a report of a family being sexually assaulted. Police say officers went to a home in the city's northwest just after 11 p.m. on Tuesday to look into the trouble call, but family members said they were fine and had not contacted authorities. The Winnipeg Police Service logo is seen in this undated handout photo. A Winnipeg man who police believe was high on meth faces public mischief charges after almost seven dozen false 911 calls that included a report of a family being sexually assaulted.THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Winnipeg Police Service *MANDATORY CREDIT* The police service says that over the next 4 1/2 hours, there were another 78 unfounded calls, many claiming someone was in distress, and using fictitious names and addresses. Patrol officers arrested a man at a residence just before 4 a.m. on Wednesday. Joseph Paul Peters, who is 23, was charged and detained in custody. It's estimated operators at the communications centre spent a total of two hours on incoming and outgoing calls to assess their legitimacy and to try to identify the caller. Police say that does not include additional time spent conducting traces and contacting other resources. Saturdays yellow vest protest rally, like others across Canada, speaks to the frustration felt by many Canadians, and they could pose a problem for the Liberals in this years federal election, says a Brandon University political science professor. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/1/2019 (893 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Advertisement Advertise With Us Saturdays yellow vest protest rally, like others across Canada, speaks to the frustration felt by many Canadians, and they could pose a problem for the Liberals in this years federal election, says a Brandon University political science professor. "The middle and working class seem to feel that theyre a little bit squeezed out, economically," Kelly Saunders said Wednesday. Kelly Saunders On an online poster promoting a truck rally between Virden and Brandon, organizers say they oppose the carbon tax, illegal or "irregular" immigration, any censorship laws or measures and the import of foreign oil. They also call for a total reform of Canadas electoral system and equalization payments, cutting "wasteful spending in Ottawa" and withdrawal from the United Nations Global Compact for Migration, a non-binding intergovernmentally negotiated agreement that covers all dimensions of international migration. Some opposed to the yellow vest movement have branded it racist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic. "Its (the yellow vest movement) become a bit of a flashpoint, I think, for just a number of frustrations that different pockets of Canadians might be feeling," Saunders said. "A lot of times, people dont know what to do with their frustrations ... or theres not one place where they can direct it and (get) relief from it ... and they feel theyre not being listened to." The yellow vest movement started in France in the wake of rising fuel prices and has moved on to other parts of Europe and North America. CP Oil and gas industry supporters gather at a pro-pipeline rally at city hall in Calgary on Dec. 17. The yellow vest movement is set to hit Westman with a truck rally on Saturday. (The Canadian Press) "Its taken on different contexts," Saunders said. "When looking at whats been happening in Europe, and France in particular, (its) a bit of a populist, kind of anti-establishment movement." In the U.S., economic changes in manufacturing and the loss of blue-collar jobs have ignited the movement there, Saunders said, adding the same kind of populist pressures could be seen in the leadup to the election of President Donald Trump. "We see some common themes," she said. "A bit of an anti-establishment, populist, frustration amongst working people that somehow, you know, theyre working harder and falling further behind." That, she said, is spilling into Canada. "We are part of a globalized world, and so what happens in other parts of the world obviously has an impact here." In Alberta, there is frustration over the oil-price crisis "that is really devastating the Alberta economy," she said. "We need more pipelines, we need more railcars, we need more means to be able to get that product to market. "I think it started off with that frustration and the fact that in the eyes of many, that the Liberals really werent moving quickly enough on coming up with a comprehensive solution on getting pipelines built," she said. For others, concerns over such things as immigration, irregular border crossings and the deficit have led them to support the yellow vest movement. Saunders noted it plays into the hands of various political parties that may take advantage of that. The Conservatives share a lot of the same concerns over immigration and the carbon tax, she said, "so no surprise they would be building on this a little bit or using some of this momentum to their own advantage." She added: "This is such a wonderful gift for the Conservatives, quite frankly." With less than a year to go before the next federal election in October, it has been difficult for the party to get that ballot-box issue, Saunders said, adding that the economy is currently robust and employment is healthy. "Yes, we have rising deficits for sure and a new carbon tax, but there hasnt been that single issue that is really going to ... significantly and forcefully kind of drive a wedge in the Liberal vote base." These protests, she said, are giving the Conservatives "a lot of fodder" to drive voters away from the Liberals. "This could be a problem for the Liberals," she said. The truck rally is scheduled to leave Virden at noon, heading for Brandon along the Trans-Canada Highway. It is expected to reach Victoria Avenue and 18th Street at 1 p.m. before heading back to Virden. brobertson@brandonsun.com Twitter: @BudRobertson4 Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/1/2019 (893 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Advertisement Advertise With Us Manitobas Independent Investigation Unit has launched two separate probes into two Brandon police officers. On Dec. 7, 2018, the Brandon Police Service notified the IIU it had recently become aware that one of its officers may have misled investigators in 2015, leading to a criminal investigation and charges against another officer, the IIU stated in a news release on Wednesday. The initial investigation and subsequent charges stemmed from an incident at a Brandon bar in 2014. The investigation was conducted by the Winnipeg Police Service and led to charges being laid against a Brandon police officer in 2016. Those charges were stayed in 2017. The Brandon Police Service subsequently conducted an internal review of the file and, as a result, notified the IIU that one of their officers may have misled the Winnipeg police investigators. Although the WPS investigation and alleged criminal conduct predates the opening of the IIU, due to the recent discovery of relevant information by the Brandon Police Service, the IIU civilian director determined it is in the public interest for the agency to investigate, the news release stated. In a second probe, the IIU is investigating the statements and actions of a Brandon police officer following a collision involving the officers vehicle. On Dec. 18, 2018, Brandon Police Service notified the IIU that, on Dec. 1, an on-duty officer reversed their police vehicle and, in doing so, struck another vehicle. The vehicles audio-video system captured the collision, the IIU said in a news release. A collision review was conducted and the recording was found to be inconsistent with the officers statement that the police vehicle was rear-ended. Although this is not a mandatory IIU investigation, the civilian director determined it is in the public interest for the agency to investigate to determine whether charges should be laid under the Highway Traffic Act. The IIU, which investigates all serious incidents involving police officers in Manitoba, whether they occur on or off duty, said it will not provide further details on either case, since the investigations are ongoing. The IIU does not name the officers involved in either case. However, an obstruction of justice charge against longtime Brandon police Const. Grant Shane Stephenson was stayed in December 2017 after a Manitoba judge deemed a statement made by the officer during the investigation inadmissible due to a violation of his rights, The Brandon Sun reported at the time. Stephenson was charged with attempting to obstruct justice during an investigation into Landon Lockhart, who is the son of fellow BPS officer Sgt. Dallas Lockhart. Sgt. Lockhart faced similar charges in connection with a related incident, which were stayed earlier that month. Crown attorney Tim Chudy stayed Stephensons charge in Brandon provincial court after Judge Murray Thompson granted defence counsels application to exclude Stephensons statement as evidence. The charge stemmed from an incident that took place on July 4, 2014 at Houstons Country Roadhouse involving Landon Lockhart, who was the suspect in an assault on an employee. His father, Sgt. Dallas Lockhart, was Stephensons superior officer at the time. According to Thompsons written decision, there appeared to be no investigation into the assault at Houstons by Stephenson until after a second incident involving Landon Lockhart occurred at The Great Western Roadhouse in November 2014. During the second incident, Landon Lockhart accused Stephenson of using excessive force while arresting him. Following the second incident, a meeting was set up between BPS, Landon Lockhart and Stephenson to address the complaint, in which Landon Lockhart agreed not to pursue criminal charges against Stephenson. At the end of the meeting, however, Stephenson allegedly "informed (Landon) Lockhart that he wanted to speak to him to investigate the Houstons incident," Thompson wrote. Instead of dropping his complaint as he suggested at the meeting, Landon Lockhart filed a Law Enforcement Review Agency complaint a few days later and Professional Standards Unit investigators were called in from the Winnipeg Police Service. The four-page LERA complaint requested a criminal investigation be launched against Stephenson for allegedly choking Landon Lockhart when he was being detained at the Roadhouse, according to Thompsons decision. Landon Lockhart also raised concerns Stephenson was in a conflict of interest by investigating him as a suspect in the first incident at Houstons four months after it took place and immediately after he made a complaint about being assaulted. In his written decision, Thompson referred extensively to the cross-examination of the lead investigator from the Winnipeg Police Service, referred to only as Detective Sgt. Gibson in court documents, during the voir dire. The judge noted that, during that cross-examination, Gibson agreed he had wondered whether Stephenson was trying to do his superior officer a favour by sitting on the Houstons investigation involving his son for months in the hope it would go away. Thompson also noted that, the day before Gibson interviewed Stephenson, Gibson had written then BPS chief Ian Grant to update him on the investigation. Gibson remarked it was unreasonable that Stephenson didnt have any notes from the Houstons incident and the matter needed investigation. With the charge against Stephenson dropped, however, Gibsons suspicions were never proven in court and Stephenson is considered innocent. A spokesman for the Brandon Police Service could not be reached for comment by press time Wednesday. brobertson@brandonsun.com, with files from Erin DeBooy Twitter: @BudRobertson4 The public record shows that Mayor Rick Chrest and former city councillor Lonnie Patterson invoiced the city for tens of thousands of dollars, but the city says the record is incorrect. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 3/1/2019 (893 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Advertisement Advertise With Us The public record shows that Mayor Rick Chrest and former city councillor Lonnie Patterson invoiced the city for tens of thousands of dollars, but the city says the record is incorrect. Rather, a glitch when tabulating the costs resulted in incorrect information appearing on the public record. Lonnie Patterson On Brandons open government website (opengov.brandon.ca) the current "Councillor Expenses" disclosure spreadsheet lists that Chrest spent $12,175 for a police conference meal on Aug. 10, 2018, and $43,141 for another police lunch on Aug. 13, 2018. The document says Patterson, the former council representative for South Centre, invoiced the city for $17,199 for security at a public meeting in June. These numbers are wrong, however, and were erroneously reported due to a "glitch" during the tabulation of each councillors expenses, according to Heather Ewasiuk, director of legislative services at the City of Brandon. Neither politician actually expensed the city for these large amounts. Ewasiuk said the actual cost of the lunches on Aug. 10 and Aug 13 were $33.05 and $10.02, respectively. Pattersons invoice for security was actually $47.02. The June meeting Patterson hosted was for an initiative the poverty committee was working on while she was a city councillor. Patterson said the meeting was to organize The Brandon Collaborative, an arm of Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corp. focused on tackling poverty reduction. "(The) poverty committee doesnt have a budget, so any time we have something that needs money it comes from council expenses," Patterson said. The collaborative is still in the process of being established, and the plan is to use local data to tackle big problems in the community. Chrest said in an email the two police conference meals one a dinner and the other a lunch were for meals at the annual Canadian Association of Police Governance. This years conference was in Winnipeg from Aug. 8-10. Rick Chrest He said he tries to be frugal with the expenses he charges to the city. As for the mistake in the open data, Chrest said the Clerk Department and IT Department are working on the issue. Patterson said shes not overly concerned about the error in the citys record-keeping. "It just is a very rare occurrence in my experience and its tough when it does happen, but as Ive found, things do get fixed as quickly as possible and you try to prevent it from happening again." Ewasiuk said the errors in the open data should be corrected by next week, at which time the public will be able to access the corrected data. dmay@brandonsun.com Twitter: @DrewMay_ A lawsuit filed against Prince Georges County Public Schools and the countys Board of Education charges that a female transgender teacher was subjected to five years of discrimination, harassment, abuse and retaliation by school administrators, fellow teachers, students and parents after she transitioned in 2011 from male to female. The lawsuit was filed Nov. 28, 2018 in United States District Court for the District of Maryland by the nationally known law firm Arnold and Porter on behalf of Jennifer Eller, an English teacher. On Dec. 20, the LGBT litigation group Lambda Legal joined Arnold & Porter in representing Eller. The lawsuit says Eller taught at three schools in the P.G. County public school system from 2008 to 2017, when the lawsuit says she was forced to resign after school officials allegedly refused to adequately address the anti-trans harassment and abuse Eller encountered beginning in 2011. For years, I was aggressively misgendered, attacked and harassed in the hallways and even in my own classroom by students, peers and supervisors, Eller said in a statement released by Lambda Legal. I woke up each day afraid to go to work because I didnt know where the next attack would come from, but I already knew full well that the school administrators would do nothing to support me, she said. My pleas for help, for sensitivity training on LGBTQ issues for students and staff, fell on deaf ears, she said. Finally, the harassment and the humiliation became unbearable and I had no other alternative than to resign, she said in her statement. No one student or teacher should go through the hell I was put through at school just for being who they are. The lawsuit charges that the treatment to which the school district and its administrators subjected Eller violated Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the federal Education Amendments Act of 1972, the Equal Protection Cause of the U.S. Constitution, the Maryland Fair Employment Practices Act, and the nondiscrimination provision of the Prince Georges County Code. In addition to Prince Georges County Public Schools and the Prince Georges County Board of Education, the lawsuit names as a defendant Monica Goldson, the school systems Interim Chief Executive Officer. John White, the official spokesperson for the Prince Georges County public school system, couldnt immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit. Under court rules the school system, school board, and Goldson have 21 days from the time they were officially served papers naming them as defendants in the lawsuit to file an answer to the lawsuit. The statement released by Lambda Legal says the alleged discrimination and harassment against Eller began in March 2011, three years after she began working as an English teacher at Kenmoor Middle School in Landover, Md. It was at that time, the statement says, that Eller informed the principal at the school that she would be transitioning to live authentically as the woman she is. According to the statement, when she began to present as a woman she was subjected to verbal abuse by students and was instructed by school officials to stop wearing skirts or dresses. The statement says sometime later in 2011 Eller was transferred to Friendly High School in Fort Washington, Md., where she also encountered abuse and harassment to a greater degree than she encountered at Kenmoor Middle School. She was the target of rampant verbal and physical harassment for wearing traditionally feminine attire and staff demanded that she present as male, dismissing a therapists note as garbage, the Lambda Legal statement says. Students would shout transphobic slurs at her and she was repeatedly misgendered and threatened, it says. She reported all these incidents to school administrators, who took little to no action and ignored her. The lawsuit states that a therapist Eller had been seeing to assist her in her transition process wrote a note to school officials explaining the importance of her presenting as a woman in womens attire as part of the transition. Both the Lambda Legal statement and the lawsuit say that in 2015 Eller filed a complaint against the school system with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reporting the alleged harassment and abuse she had encountered at the schools for which she taught. After an extensive and thorough investigation, in September 2017, the EEOC issued a letter finding that there was reasonable cause to believe that Ms. Eller had been subject to unlawful treatment based on her sex and gender in violation of Title VII, in effect recognizing and confirming this discriminatory treatment on the part of students, parents, staff, and administration, the Lambda Legal statement says. After she filed this discrimination charge, the school administration retaliated against Ms. Eller by taking away her advanced placement English class and opening a disciplinary hearing against her that ended in no sanctions, the statement says. Omar Gonzales-Pagan, a Lambda Legal attorney working on Ellers case, told the Washington Blade that under federal law the EEOC has direct enforcement authority over private employers and over federal government employment practices, but its authority does not cover state and local employers such as the P.G. County school system. Gonzales-Pagan noted that in past years the U.S. Justice Department stepped in to enforce an EEOC ruling against a state or local government employer. But he said the Justice Department under the Trump administration declined to intervene in Ellers case. Thats what triggered the filing of this lawsuit, Gonzales-Pagan said. Among the allegations made by the lawsuit is that after she began presenting as a woman in March 2011 at Kenmoor Middle School Eller immediately became the target of rampant harassment by staff and students alike. Students called her a pedophile, and the human resources representative, enlisted to help her through the transition, demanded that she present as male, the lawsuit states. Shortly after transferring to Friendly High School students continuously referred to her as mister and he, the lawsuit says. It says other students refused to sit in their assigned seats in her classes and refused to provide her with their names. By December 2011, some students would ask Ms. Eller about the appearance of her genitals, the lawsuit notes. Others would run unannounced into her classroom, scream he or shim, and immediately run away, the lawsuit says. It also notes that it took school officials three years to update Ellers email address to reflect her new name after her transition. It says that even after the EEOCs finding of probable cause of discrimination in 2017 the school systems publicly accessible employee directory continued to list Eller by her male birth name. The lawsuit says parents also subjected Eller to harassment, with one parent threatening to inform the school board that Eller was a lying, pedophile, tranny as a man pretending to be a woman. To the best of Plaintiffs information and belief, Defendants took little, no, or ineffective action in response to any of the afore-described incidents of discrimination, abuse, harassment, and even physical assault, the lawsuit concludes. The lawsuit says that following years of facing a hostile work environment Eller reached her breaking point and was forced to take a medical leave of absence on Oct. 7, 2016. Ms. Eller immediately checked into an outpatient psychiatric program at Georgetown University Hospital, where she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder from the abuse, discrimination, and retaliation she experienced as an employee of Defendants, the lawsuit says. Ms. Eller was able to continue her leave of absence until spring of 2017, the lawsuit continues. However, concluding that she would not survive the strain of returning to her prior intolerable working conditions, Ms. Eller was forced to resign on August 18, 2017, it says. The lawsuit notes that Eller has since landed a job as a youth counselor with the U.S. Navys Child & Youth Programs known as the Navy CYP, where she is treated with respect and as an equal. Gonzalez-Pagan of Lambda Legal and Paul Pompeo, the lead attorney working on Ellers case from Arnold & Porter, said the lawsuit is needed to hold P.G. County school officials accountable for the years of mistreatment Eller encountered solely because of her status as a transgender person. The level of verbal and even physical abuse Ms. Eller endured at school is horrifying, and the failure of school administrators to take the abuse seriously and to respect and protect Ms. Eller is not only inexcusable, it is unlawful, Gonzalez-Pagan said. We look forward to vindicating Ms. Ellers rights, he said. Among other things, the lawsuit calls for the court to grant Eller declaratory and injunctive relief, including possible reinstatement as a teacher, back pay and lost benefits, and a requirement that the school system end its discriminatory practices against transgender employees. It also calls for an award of compensation for emotional pain and suffering, embarrassment, anxiety, stress, depression, humiliation, loss of enjoyment of life, and violation of her dignity, in amounts to be determined at trial. Gonzalez-Pagan said Eller would not be available at this time for an interview with the Blade or other news media outlets. (WB) These are the top 10 national LGBT related stories of 2018 chosen by the Washington Blade. No. 10: Ric Grenell confirmed as ambassador After months of Democratic opposition, the U.S. Senate confirmed Richard Grenell this year as U.S. ambassador to Germany, making him the most high-profile openly gay appointee in the Trump administration. Democrats objected to Grenell who was confirmed by a largely party line vote of 56-42 based on comments he made in the past on Twitter about the appearance of women as well as other comments he made downplaying the significance of Russias influence in the 2016 election. After his confirmation, controversy continued following comments he made on Twitter instructing Germany to stop doing business in Iran and an interview with Breitbart London in which he said he backs the populist conservative movement in Europe. At years end, Grenell denounced MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski who has an antagonistic relationship with President Trump over comments she made calling Mike Pompeo Trumps butt boy. Brzezinski later apologized. No. 9: Parkland students find their voice Student Emma Gonzalez became a central figure of the gun control movement this year after the school became the latest site of a mass shooting in the United States. When a gunman killed 17 people and wounded others at Stoneman Douglas High School, Gonzalez and other survivors joined activism efforts in favor of gun control in Florida and across the country. During the March for Our Lives rally in Washington D.C., Gonzalez delivered a powerful speech and named the victims of the shooting before holding a moment of silence. Although Congress didnt enact significant legislation on gun control, the Florida Legislature approved a bill signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott that raised the age to buy firearms to 21, established a waiting period and background checks and allowed the arming of some teachers. No. 8: Anti-trans memo exposed at HHS An explosive report in the New York Times this year exposing a planned memo within the Department of Health & Human Services that would effectively erase transgender people from federal law ignited a massive outcry among transgender rights supporters. The initiative asserts Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which bars sex discrimination in schools, doesnt apply to transgender people and calls for government agencies to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of sex on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable. That would be consistent with other anti-transgender actions within the Trump administration, such as the transgender military ban and reversal of Obama-era guidance requiring schools to allow transgender kids to use the restroom consistent with their gender identity. The report ignited a firestorm among transgender rights supporters, who took to the streets, demonstrated before the White House and declared #WeWontBeErased on social media. No. 7: Court rules Title VII bars anti-gay workplace bias The case law finding sexual orientation discrimination amounts to sex discrimination under federal law continued to increase this year when the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling asserting Title VII of the Civil Rights of Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination against gays in the workforce. The Second Circuit in New York City issued the ruling in the case of Zarda v. Altitude Express. The estate of the now-deceased gay skydiver Donald Zarda filed the lawsuit on the basis of allegations Zarda was terminated from his position for telling a client he was gay. The Second Circuit is the second federal appeals court to find anti-gay discrimination is illegal under federal law. Last year, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a similar ruling, although the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals didnt reach the same conclusion. The U.S. Supreme Court may have the final say on the matter. A petition seeking review of the decision is pending before justices, as are petitions in similar cases seeking review over whether Title VII covers anti-gay discrimination and anti-trans discrimination. No. 6: Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling The U.S. Supreme Court sidestepped a major decision this year in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, issuing a narrow decision based on the facts of the lawsuit in favor of a Colorado baker sued for refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. In the 7-2 decision written by U.S. Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Supreme Court vacated the decision by the Colorado Court of Appeals against baker Jack Phillips on the basis the state commission handling his case displayed a religious bias against him. When the Colorado Civil Rights Commission considered this case, it did not do so with the religious neutrality that the Constitution requires, Kennedy writes. But the decision kept in place Colorados Anti-Discrimination Act. Although Phillips sought a First Amendment right to refuse services to same-sex couples, Kennedy wrote the right of denial should be restricted to clergy and laws against anti-LGBT discrimination are valid. No. 5: HRCs Chad Griffin steps down After six years as head of the nations largest LGBT rights group, Chad Griffin announced this year hed step down as president of the Human Rights Campaign. Griffin made the announcement after a successful $26 million #TurnOut campaign that sought to motivate the estimated 10 million Americans who identify as LGBT and 52 million Americans who support pro-LGBT policies to vote in the election. Those voters were credited with contributing to the blue wave in the 2018 congressional midterm election. During Griffins tenure at the Human Rights Campaign, the Supreme Court issued three decisions advancing same-sex marriage, including the 2015 decision advancing marriage equality nationwide. Griffin spearheaded the lawsuit leading to the Supreme Courts decision against Californias Proposition 8 in 2013. Other LGBT leaders who stepped down included Kate Kendell at National Center for Lesbian Rights, Gregory Angelo at Log Cabin Republicans, Rachel Tiven at Lambda Legal and Matthew Thorn at OutServe-SLDN. No. 4: Kavanaugh wins confirmation after brutal fight When President Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to succeed former U.S. Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, LGBT rights supporters worried the appointment would lead to a rollback of LGBT rights. Senate Democrats fought hard against him, decrying the Trump administration for refusing to release records during Kavanaughs time at the Bush administration, including when the Bush White House was pushing a Federal Marriage Amendment. The confirmation process heated up when Christine Blasey Ford testified Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s when they were both teenagers. Similar allegations emerged, but Kavanaugh denied he ever sexually assaulted anyone. Despite the charges, the U.S. Senate narrowly voted to confirm Kavanaugh. It remains to be seen what action hell take on LGBT-related cases. Petitions are already pending before the court on Trumps transgender military ban and the inclusion of LGBT people under civil rights laws. No. 3: Rainbow Wave sweeps country on Election Day LGBT candidates running in the 2018 congressional midterm elections this year broke pink ceilings and made a blue wave turn rainbow. After Democrats nominated gubernatorial candidates representing all four letters of the LGBT acronym, Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) was elected governor of Colorado, making him the first openly gay person elected governor in the United States. Transgender candidate Christine Hallquist ran a historic campaign to become governor of Vermont, but came up short on Election Day. Three other transgender candidates two in New Hampshire and one in Colorado won election to state legislatures. In another transgender victory, Massachusetts voters rejected at the ballot an attempt to undo non-discrimination protections for transgender people, defying a campaign stoking fears about sexual predators in the bathrooms. Lesbian Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) fended off a Republican challenger and Kyrsten Sinema won election in Arizona, making her the first bisexual person elected to the U.S. Senate. Four non-incumbent openly LGB candidates running for U.S. House seats Sharice Davids, Chris Pappas, Katie Hill and Angie Craig also won, resulting in an expected net gain of two openly LGB lawmakers in the next Congress. No. 2: Trans military ban lands in courts Litigation against President Trumps transgender military ban continued to proceed through the courts this year. The Trump administration made renewed requests calling on the courts to lift injunctions against the policy announced by Trump last year on Twitter in the wake of a report from Defense Secretary James Mattis affirming the ban. None of the trial courts that issued injunctions against the ban would lift those orders, although two federal appeals courts are currently reviewing whether to take that action. The Justice Department has filed requests calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the litigation at this time and to issue a stay order allowing the ban to go into effect. It would be unusual for the Supreme Court to take up the case at this stage. No. 1: Democrats win House After two years of President Trump and anti-LGBT policies from his administration, voters across the United States this year elected a Democratic majority in the U.S. House during the congressional midterms. In a blue wave election year, Democrats picked up 40 seats in the U.S. House, although Republicans ended up with net gain of two seats in the U.S. Senate. Democrats won a majority in the House for the first time since 2008. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has said the Equality Act, comprehensive federal legislation against anti-LGBT discrimination, would be a personal priority in the next Congress. LGBT rights advocates are expecting movement on the Equality Act as well as oversight over the Trump administrations anti-LGBT policies, which include the transgender military ban, religious freedom actions seen to enable anti-LGBT discrimination and the exclusion of LGBT people from the enforcement of federal civil rights laws. Honorable mention: No Pride proclamation from Trump. For the second year, President Trump declined to recognize June as Pride month, as the Pentagon celebrated Pride while pushing a ban on trans service members. The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless. The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well. By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism. Felicia Frazar is the assistant editor of the Seguin Gazette. She can be contacted by e-mail at felicia.frazar@seguingazette.com. PR Newswire TAIPEI, Taiwan, Jan. 3, 2019 TAIPEI, Taiwan, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Taiwan Civil Government (TCG), an educational and advocacy organization based in Taiwan, held a press conference to call upon the United States and the Republic of China (ROC) authorities to sign a new treaty resolving outstanding issues from World War II and addressing the international recognition of Taiwan. The Secretariat Cabinet Minister Shangfong Lin released a written statement outlining the TCG's position that the US-led coalition defeated the Japanese Empire (including Taiwan and Penghu) during World War II, and therefore continues to be the sole and best solution towards Taiwan's sovereignty. The TCG points out that on September 2, 1945, Allied Commander General MacArthur appointed Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek to represent the Allied forces in accepting the surrender of the Japanese military. On October 25, 1945, ROC occupied Taiwan and Penghu, which it has done ever since. The TCG further explained that on September 8, 1951, 48 countries signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty (SFPT) with Japan, which included several provisions on Taiwan, including the following Article: Article 23: The United States of America is the principal occupying Power of Japan (including Taiwan, Penghu). Notably, the ROC did not sign the SFPT, and therefore Taiwan was in anarchy, the TCG explained. According to the laws of war, a Taiwanese government must be established by the people of the occupied territories. The ROC, as an agent of the United States, did not help the Taiwanese people establish a Taiwanese government; therefore violating the laws of war by establishing the Taiwan Chief Executive Office. A recent diplomatic conversation illustrates the TCG's argument. In a November 14, 2018 meeting, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin, expressed that Japan and Russia will elevate their mutual trust and resolve the territorial disputes stemming from a post WWII "joint declaration" in 1956. In dispute are four islands referred to as the Northern Territories by Japan and the Southern Kuriles by Russia. One key issue in Russia returning the islands to Japan is that no U.S. military bases will be built on the islands. Abe and Putin stressed that while World War ll ended more than 70 years ago, they recognize the outstanding territorial issues, and, they should be resolved and not left for future generations to address. Similarly, Formosa (Taiwan) and the ROC were both participants in World War ll. It has been 73 years since the end of that war, but no Peace Treaty has been signed between the US, ROC and TCG, regarding Taiwan's sovereignty. The TCG argued it must be resolved now to avoid leaving this problem to future generations. At the press conference, the TCG appealed to the United States, the principal occupying Power, that TCG should sign a war-ending agreement and peace treaty with Kinmen and Matsu's ROC to conclude World War II, bringing peace to Taiwan and the world. For more information, visit www.taiwancivilgovernment.com View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/taiwan-civil-government-tcg-appeals-to-the-united-states-roc-authorities-to-sign-a-war-ending-agreement-and-peace-treaty-with-tcg-300772660.html SOURCE Taiwan Civil Government PR Newswire LAS VEGAS, Jan. 2, 2019 LAS VEGAS, Jan. 2, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services, Inc., a California corporation ("MMREIS") and other plaintiffs, today filed a lawsuit against individuals associated with the Nevada Real Estate Commission (NREC) and Nevada Real Estate Division (NRED) for violations of Federal Antitrust laws, the Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), conspiracy, and other statutes and common laws. The lawsuit initiated in the U.S. District Court on December 21, 2018 names as defendants Devin Reiss, current President of the NREC; Lee K. Barrett, Vice President of the NREC; Wayne Capurro, Secretary of the NREC; Neil Schwartz, Commissioner of the NREC; Norma Jean Opatik, former Commissioner of the NREC; Richard Johnson, former President of the NREC; and Jan Holle, NRED Chief Investigator. In filing the complaint Paul S. Mudrich, Chief Legal Officer of MMREIS, stated, "We believe NRED'S and NREC'S egregious conduct was committed with blatant disregard for both state and federal law, as they have admittedly and unapologetically conspired to illegally stifle interstate commerce and thwart fair competition for the Commissioners' own personal financial gain, and to ensure an illegal monopoly in favor of themselves and other similarly-situated in-state real estate professionals. As NRED and NREC have unleashed and aggressively sought to enforce their self-benefitting regulations, they have destroyed fair and open markets, turning Nevada into an island by cutting Nevada real estate off from the rest of the national market." The complaint details allegations that the defendants conspired to use their positions with the NREC and NRED for personal gain and to the detriment of Nevada property owners and consumers, out-of-state professionals, and the national marketplace. Specifically, the complaint alleges that in 2014 the defendant Commissioners, who are themselves licensed real estate professionals competing for brokerage commissions, conspired to alter the real estate regulations to exclude out-of-state professionals and limit competition. The lawsuit seeks to remove unconstitutional and illegal barriers that ban Nevada residents from using out-of-state real estate professionals to buy or sell Nevada real estate. These barriers prohibit Nevada property owners from hiring the specialists of their choice and cut Nevada off from the national marketplace. The complaint alleges that defendants acted without public notice or comment, or any consumer complaints or harm in order to divert brokerage commissions away from out-of-state licensed professionals to local real estate professionals, such as the defendant Commissioners themselves. It is also alleged that the results of these illegal actions are deflated Nevada real estate values, reduced consumer choice, and an illegal monopoly over the Nevada commercial real estate market. Mudrich further stated, "The defendants' selfish and singular focus on protecting their own pocket books is terrible for the state, its residents, and Nevada property owners everywhere. Not only are Nevada property owners prevented from retaining the trusted licensed professional of their choice, but in limiting this choice, defendants have driven down Nevada property values by eliminating exposure to buyers around the country." Representatives for MMREIS assert that the lawsuit comes after significant good faith efforts to work with state officials to correct its agencies' unconstitutional actions. With its efforts ignored, MMREIS claims it was left with no avenue but the courts to end the illegal actions, hold the individuals accountable, and protect Nevada property owners. About Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services, Inc.MMREIS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Marcus & Millichap, Inc. a leading national brokerage firm specializing in commercial real estate investment sales, financing, research and advisory services. Contact: Seth M. Mott, Deputy General Counsel801-736-2623 SOURCE Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services, Inc. Reciba en su email: noticias de ultima hora, analisis tecnicos o el cierre de mercado Email no valido Recibira las informaciones mas relevantes del dia en tiempo real Que informacion desea recibir? Noticias de Ultima hora Boletin Cierre de Mercado Boletin analisis tecnico Boletin Fundsnews Debe seleccionar un tipo de boletin Acepto la Politica de privacidad Debe aceptar la politica de privacidad Responsable EMPRESAS DEL GRUPO WEB FINANCIAL GROUP Finalidad La remision de informacion, novedades y promociones Establecimiento o mantenimiento de Relaciones Comerciales. Legitimacion Consentimiento del interesado. Interes legitimo en el desarrollo de la relacion comercial Destinatario Empresas del Grupo WEB FINANCIAL GROUP Derechos Acceso, rectificacion, supresion, limitacion, oposicion y portabilidad Informacion adicional Politica de Privacidad de nuestra pagina Web + INFORMACION 1. Saphala Ekadashi - 1 January 2019 Ekadashi is the eleventh day of the fortnight of a month. Each Ekadashi is dedicated to the worship of Lord Vishnu. The first Ekadashi of this year will be observed on January 1, and is known as Saphala Ekadashi. It is said that worshipping Lord Vishnu on this day helps achieve success in all ventures. 2. Pradosh Vrat - 3 January 2019 Pradosh Vrat falls on the fourteenth day of the fortnight. It is dedicated to the worship of Lord Shiva. January Pradosh Vrat shall be observed on 3 January 2019. Both Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati are offered prayers to on this day. Pradosh is the other name for the evening in Hindi. Since the Puja is done in the evening, it is known as Pradosh Vrat. 3. Masik Shivratri - 4 January 2019 Masik Shivratri, is that day when the devotees of Lord Shiva offer water and milk on a Shivlinga. Since the day is dedicated to Lord Shiva, it is known as Shivratri. While a Shivratri is observed every month, there are only two major Shivratris in a year. This month it will be observed on 4 January 2019. 4. Paush Amavasya - January 5 2019 Amavasya is the Indian name for a full moon night. This day is considered for worshipping the long-dead ancestors. This Amavasya falls on a Saturday and therefore it is known as Shani Amavasya. The Amavasya falling in the Paush month is known as Paush Amavasya. This month it will be observed on 5 January 2019. Most Read:Worship Hindu Gods Day Wise 5. Hanuman Jayanti - 5 January 2019 Hanuman Jayanti is the birth anniversary of Lord Hanuman. It is believed that it is on this day that the energy of Lord Hanuman is abundantly available to take blessings from. Hanuman Jayanti will be observed on 5 January 2019 this year. 6. Surya Grahan - 6 January 2019 Surya Grahan is the Indian name for a solar eclipse. A total of five solar eclipses will occur this year. The first one of the year will be observed on 6 January 2019. While the temples remain closed during the eclipse timings, a number of precautions need to be taken for health as well. 7. Chandra Darshan - 7 January 2019 Chandra Darshan takes place one or two days after the new moon when the moon is sighted for the first time after the new moon. It is said that watching this moon, proves lucky and brings fortune to a person's life. Chandra Darshan would take place on 7 January 2019 this year. 8. Vinayaka Chaturthi - 10 January 2019 Chaturthi is the fourth day of the fortnight according to Hindu calendar. Since it is dedicated to the worship of Lord Ganesha, it is known as Vinayaka Chaturthi. This year it will be observed on 10 January 2019. While most of the people observe this day by keeping fasts, some just visit the temples and offer prayers to Lord Ganesha. 9. Skanda Shashti - 12 January 2019 Skanda Shashti is dedicated to the worship of the brother of Lord Ganesha, named Skanda. He is also known as Murugan, Kartikeyan or Subramanyam. Worshipped in entire India, the deity is very popular in the Southern parts of the country. People observe a fast on this day, which will fall on 12 January 2019. 10. Swami Vivekananda Jayanti 12 January 2019 A patriotic Saint, Swami Vivekananda was born on 12 January 2018. His birth anniversary is popularly known as Vivekananda Jayanti. According to Hindu calendar, he was born after seven days of the Paush Purnima, on Krishna Paksha Saptami. The Gregorian date January 12 is observed as National Youth Day. His disciples organise functions trying to propagate his teachings. Most Read: Five Ways To End Poverty 11. Bhanu Saptami - 13 January 2019 Bhanu is another name for Surya Dev. Saptami Tithi and Sunday, both are dedicated to Surya Dev. So when both the Saptami Tithi and Sunday fall on the same day, it is known as Bhanu Saptami. The day is considered auspicious for performing Pitra Tarpan. Offering sweets to Surya Dev on this day is also considered good. Fasting on this day helps relieve parents and spouse from long drawn illnesses. 12. Masik Durgashtami - 14 January 2019 Durga Ashtami or Durgashtami is the eighth day of the fortnight which is dedicated to the worship of Goddess Durga. People observe fasts, offer food to small girls and offer sweets in temples to Goddess Durga on this day. While the most significant Durga Ashtami comes during the Navratras, this is the monthly Ashtami, which will fall on 14 January this month. 13. Makar Sankranti - 14 January 2019 Makar Sankranti is a Hindu festival but is observed according to the Gregorian calendar on 14th January every year. This festival is dedicated to the Sun God, that is Surya Dev. The festival corresponds with various other festivals such as Pedda Panduga, Pongal, Magh Bihu, Magh Mela, etc. However, some of these are just other names of the same festival. 14. Pongal - 15 January 2019 Pongal, is a harvest festival in Tamil Nadu, Pudducherry, Srilanka and for all the Tamilians throughout India and across the globe. This festival marks the beginning of the journey of Sun towards the north, which continues for a period of six months. This year, it will be observed from January 15 to January 18. 15. Magh Bihu - 15 January 2019 It is the festival which corresponds with Makar Sankranti. It marks the end of harvest season in the state. Since it falls in the Magha month according to the Hindu calendar (Jan-Feb), it is called Magh Bihu. It will also be observed on 15 January 2019. 16. Pausha Putrada Ekadashi 17 January 2019 The Ekadashi that will be observed during the Krishna Paksha in the month of Paush is known as Pausha Putrada Ekadashi. It is dedicated to the worship of Lord Vishnu and couples worship him on this day for getting a good son as the blessing. 17. Guru Gobind Singh Jayanti 13 January 2019 Guru Gobind Singh was the tenth Guru of the Sikhs. Prayers and offerings are made to him while a religious function is observed on this day by the Sikh communities across the world. Guru Gobind Singh Jayanti will be observed on 13 January 2019. 18. Banada Ashtami - 14 January 2019 The second Ashtami Tithi of the month which falls during the Shukla Paksha is known as Paush Shukla Ashtami. This is the day when Shakambari Navratri begins, this year from 14 January to 21 January 2019. Goddess Shakambari is another incarnation of Goddess Bhagvati. 19. Lohri - 14 January 2019 A popular Punjabi festival celebrated by the Hindus and Sikhs mainly those in Punjab, this festival falls on January 13, a day before Makar Sankranti. While people gather together and exchange sweets and gifts, a popular song is sung which details about a person who used to steal from the rich and distribute among the poor. 20. Rohini Vrat -18 January 2019 Rohini Vrat is observed by the Jain community. It falls on the day when Rohini Nakshatra (constellation) rises in the sky. One gets relieved from all the problems of materialistic life, by observing a fast on this day. Rohini Vrat will be observed on 18 January 2019. 21. Pradosh Vrat - 19 January 2019 As there are two Chaturdashi Tithis, in one month, one occurring in each fortnight, there are two Pradosh Vrats. The second Pradosh Vrat will be observed on 18 January 2019. 22. Shri Satyanarayan Vrat - 21 January 2019 Shri Satyanarayan is one of the forms of Lord Vishnu. A Purnima day is considered to be the most auspicious day to offer prayers to him. While devotees observe a fast, they observe a Puja also. Satyanarayan Vrat will be observed on 21 January, 2019. 23. Sankashti Chaturthi - 24 January 2019 The second Chaturthi of the month, which falls during the Krishna Paksha is known as Sankashti Chaturthi. This day is also dedicated to Lord Ganesha and devotees observe a fast on this day. Sankasthi Chaturthi will be observed on 24 January 2019. SIGN UP TO GET BLACKLISTED NEWS DELIVERED RIGHT TO YOUR INBOX Enter your email address: Zambia's Supreme Court yesterday sentenced Derrick Sinjela, editor-in-chief of the privately owned Rainbow Newspaper, to 18 months in prison for contempt of court. Ekachai Wongsakul via 123RF Sinjela was convicted in September in relation to articles that accused the Supreme Court of corruption and questioned its handling of a case between two private companies, said Hyde Haguta, vice-chairperson of the Zambian chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa, who attended the sentencing, and Richard Mulonga, chief executive of the online rights group Bloggers of Zambia."The decision by the Supreme Court is disproportional and sends a very grave message that journalists, and Zambians in general, cannot criticize the judiciary without risking their liberty," said CPJ Africa program coordinator, Angela Quintal, in New York. "A critical press is crucial for accountability and transparency within the judiciary."Sinjela, who had pleaded guilty and asked for leniency, confirmed to the court yesterday that he did not have a lawyer, Haguta said.At least two other people have been charged after criticizing the judiciary's handling of the same case, which involved Stanbic Bank and Savenda Management Services, and one of those was sentenced to six years in prison in November. Sinjela is currently detained in a prison in Lusaka, according to Mulonga. The project was a collaboration between the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Malaria Research (ICMR-NIMR), and the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), Odisha. It was funded by the Medicines for Malaria Venture, Geneva. Experts at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP) have called for replicating across the country a model project in Odisha that resulted in 85 per cent decline in average monthly malaria cases in the state over one year. The malaria control approach project, termed 'Comprehensive Case Management Programme (CCMP)', was started in four districts of Odisha leading to 47 per cent decline in malaria cases between 2015 and 2017, reported PTI. A research paper, 'Improved access to early diagnosis and complete treatment of malaria in Odisha, India', on the outcome of the project was published in the PLOS ONE journal. CCMP, initially implemented in four districts of the state -- Angul, Dhenkanal, Kandhamal and Dolangir -- led to a sharp decline in malaria cases over five years through a control approach that involved mass screening and comprehensive case management. The project was a collaboration between the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Malaria Research (ICMR-NIMR), and the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), Odisha. It was funded by the Medicines for Malaria Venture, Geneva. The CCMP was then implemented across 22 districts of Odisha under an initiative called Durgama Anchalare Malaria Nirakaran (DAMaN). WHO's 'Test-Treat-Track' strategy, that urges malaria-endemic countries to scale up diagnostic testing, treatment and surveillance for malaria, was also implemented. Between 2017 and 2018, Odisha recorded 85 per cent decline in malaria cases, as result of which India's burden of the disease decreased by almost 50 per cent, Dr Anup Anvikar, a scientist at ICMR-National Institute of Malaria Research, said. The programme provided universal access to malaria diagnosis and treatment, and improved the quality of services and surveillance, he said. Dr Balram Bhargava, Secretary in the Department of Health Research and Director General, ICMR, said India is committed to eradicating malaria by 2030 and there has already been significant progress in bringing down the caseload. "CCMP is a sustainable model for improving access to malaria control tools in hard-to-reach areas. Other states can take a cue from this and intensify efforts towards malaria elimination," he said. Dr Neena Valecha, Director, ICMR-NIMR termed CCMP as a living laboratory that helped in understanding the true picture of malaria in the study areas. It received technical and financial support from Medicines for Malaria Venture, Geneva, the NVBDCP and WHO. Reiterating India's commitment towards malaria elimination by 2030, Dr Neeraj Dhingra, Additional Director, NVBDCP, said the National Framework for Malaria Elimination has already been launched. "There is a need to reach out to people in remote areas in order to control malaria. The Government of India has already distributed Rs 4 crore long-lasting insecticide nets for malaria control. The country has seen a drastic decline in the number of malaria cases and deaths last year," he said. According to WHO, India accounted for four per cent of global malaria cases in 2017 and has made significant progress in bringing down its malaria burden since then. A government data said the total number of malaria cases in 2018 was 3.4 lakh, while it was 8.4 lakh and 11 lakh in 2017 and 2016 respectively. The number of deaths in the country due to malaria too decreased from 331 in 2016 to 194 in 2017 and 41 last year, it stated. Reflecting on the theme of the event this year Future India: Science and Technology he said that India's true strength will be in connecting its science, technology and innovation, with its people The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, today delivered the inaugural address at the 106th session of the Indian Science Congress. Reflecting on the theme of the event this year Future India: Science and Technology he said that India's true strength will be in connecting its science, technology and innovation, with its people. He recalled the great Indian scientists of the past, including Acharyas J.C. Bose, C.V. Raman, Meghnad Saha, and S.N. Bose, and said that they served the people through "minimum resources" and "maximum struggle." "The life and works of hundreds of Indian Scientists are a compelling testament of integration of deep fundamental insights with technology development and nation-building. It is through our modern temples of science that India is transforming its present and working to secure its future," the Prime Minister said. The Prime Minister emphasized that the pursuit of science is fulfilled through the achievement of two objectives: generation of profound or disruptive knowledge; and use of that knowledge for socio-economic good. As we boost our discovery science ecosystem, we must also focus on innovation and start-ups, the Prime Minister said. He said that the Government has launched the Atal Innovation Mission to promote innovation among our scientists. More Technology Business Incubators have been established in the last four years than in the forty years before that. "Our Scientists must commit themselves to addressing problems of affordable healthcare, housing, clean air, water and energy, agricultural productivity and food processing. While Science is universal, technology must be local for providing solutions relevant to local needs and conditions," the Prime Minister said. The Prime Minister said that big data analysis, artificial intelligence, block-chain etc should be utilised in the agricultural sector, especially to help the farmers with relatively small farm-holdings. He urged the scientists to work towards ease of living for the people. In this context, he mentioned issues such as drought management in low rainfall areas; early disaster warning systems; tackling malnutrition; tackling diseases among children such as encephalitis; clean energy; clean drinking water; and cyber security. He called for time-bound solutions through research, in these areas. The Prime Minister mentioned major achievements of Indian science in 2018, including: production of aviation grade biofuel; Divya Nayan - a machine for visually impaired; inexpensive devices for diagnosis of cervical cancer, TB and dengue a real-time landslide warning system in the Sikkim-Darjeeling region. He said that strong pathways to commercialization, are needed to leverage our Research & Development achievements, through industrial products. The Prime Minister called for research, which is a fusion of Arts and Humanities, Social Science, Science and Technology. Noting that our strengths in research and development are built on the backbone of our national laboratories, central universities, IITs, IISC, TIFR and IISERs, the Prime Minister said that a strong research ecosystem must be developed in the State Universities and Colleges, as well. He announced that the Union Government has approved a National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems with an investment of over Rs. 3600 crore. The Mission will cover in a seamless way, R&D, Technology Development, Human resources and Skills, Innovation, Start-up Ecosystem and strong Industry and International Collaborations, he added. Speaking on achievements in the space sector, the Prime Minister mentioned the success of Cartosat 2 and other satellites. He said preparations are underway for sending three Indians into space, through the Gaganyaan in 2022. He expressed happiness that research has begun to find an effective solution for sickle cell anaemia. He said that the Prime Ministers Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council will help formulate appropriate Science and Technology interventions, catalyze collaborations across stakeholder Ministries and implement multi-stakeholder policy initiatives. We have launched the Prime Ministers Research Fellows Scheme under which, a thousand bright minds from the best Institutions in the country will be offered direct admission in Ph.D. Programs in IITs and IISc, the Prime Minister said. The scheme will catalyze quality research and address shortage of faculty in the premier Educational Institutions, he added. The composition of the Governing Board is broad based with due representations from the Government, domain experts, etc. Besides, the States shall also be represented in the Governing Board on rotational basis The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the restructuring of existing National Health Agency as "National Health Authority" for better implementation of Pradhan Mantri - Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY). With this approval, the existing society "National Health Agency" has been dissolved and will be replaced by National Health Authority as an attached office to Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. The existing multi-tier decision making structure has been replaced with the Governing Board chaired by the Minister of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India which will enable the decision making at a faster pace, required for smooth implementation of the scheme. The composition of the Governing Board is broad based with due representations from the Government, domain experts, etc. Besides, the States shall also be represented in the Governing Board on rotational basis. No new funds have been approved. Existing budget that was approved earlier by the Cabinet for The National Health Agency, including costs related to IT, human resources, infrastructure, operational costs etc. would be utilized by the proposed National Health Authority. It is envisaged that the National Health Authority shall have full accountability, authority and mandate to implement PM-JAY through an efficient, effective and transparent decision-making process. The five schemes listed in the proposal are crucial to attaining the goals and objectives laid out in National Health Policy (NHP) 2017, and international commitments in the form of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has given its approval for continuation of five schemes under the "Umbrella Scheme for Family Welfare and Other Health Interventions" during the Fourteenth Finance Commission period 2017-18 to 2019-20. An overall outlay of Rs. 2381.84 crore for the scheme will be spent during the Fourteenth Finance Commission period 2017-18 to 2019-20 and would be funded 100% by Central Government Budgetary support. Components of, Social Marketing of Contraceptives, Free Supply of Contraceptives are specifically targeted towards low income group people. However, the overall scheme is not restricted to any particular group or category and has a mandate to cover the population throughout India. The five schemes listed in the proposal are crucial to attaining the goals and objectives laid out in National Health Policy (NHP) 2017, and international commitments in the form of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SNA scheme has a very ambitious target of improving health seeking behaviour of the population through increased awareness and enhanced uptake of health services. The other components as HSHR would assist in keeping a tab on the progress of entire set of health programmes/schemes run by Government of India, assisting in timely course corrections. The free and social marketing of contraceptives will enable better child and mother health, besides population stabilisation. The target is to support the key goals of the National Health Policy 2017 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to which India is a signatory. The attempt through Media / IEC outreach is to move from care for sickness to the concept of wellness by using 360 degree approach in conventional and social media. The target of the free distribution and social marketing of contraceptives is to improve the Modern Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (mCPR), help Family Planning and reach population stabilization. The target for NFHS is to provide reliable data on all health indicators. All the five schemes are Central Sector Schemes with 100% funding from Central Government. These are as follows: Swastha Nagrik Abhiyan(SNA):For dissemination of information on health issues to create awareness among citizens of India of ail age/sex/locations and appropriately influence their health seeking behavior to encourage healthy lifestyles and empower the citizens. SNA has been approved, with an estimated outlay of Rs. 1030.15 crore for three years. Free Supply of Contraceptives: For providing free supply of contraceptives including condoms, Oral Contraceptive Pills, Pregnancy Test Kits, other contraceptives, etc. to States with a view to improve Maternal and Child Health and achieving population stabilization. MIS Scheme now proposed as Health Surveys and Health Research (HSHR):For sourcing of data on population, health and nutrition for India and its States including through periodically conducted National Family Health Survey, which is one of the largest surveys of its kind worldwide. The NFHS provides valuable data for policy and programmes right up to the district level. Social Marketing of Contraceptives:For branding, attractively packaging, marketing arid selling of products and services related to Family Planning for low-income groups at affordable prices. Population Research Centres (PRCs):For third party evaluation of the scheme on PRCs and specially of those centres which are being considered for continuation will be carried out. Headquartered in China, Antengene is committed to delivering innovative drugs and combination therapies to diseases with high unmet medical needs in China and the Asia-Pacific region. Antengene, a Shanghai based clinical stage therapeutics company focused on oncology has announced that it has completed a $120 million Series B financing. The Series B financing was jointly led by Boyu Capital and FountainVest, with participation from Celgene Corporation, WuXi Corporate Venture Fund, and Taikang. Previous investors, Qiming Venture Partners and TF Capital, also participated in this round. This new round follows a $21 million Series A financing in 2017, led by Qiming Venture Partners. Founded in 2017, Antengene is a biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the development and commercialization of novel therapeutics. Headquartered in China, Antengene is committed to delivering innovative drugs and combination therapies to diseases with high unmet medical needs in China and the Asia-Pacific region. Proceeds from the financing will be primarily used to fund the continuing development of the company's lead programs ATG-008 and ATG-010 (selinexor) and other clinical-stage assets, to expand the company's pipeline through internal R&D and external partnerships, and to prepare the commercial launch of late-stage drug candidates. A 169,984 square feet manufacturing and research facility in Shaoxing, China, currently undergoing construction for GMP manufacturing, will provide both the clinical and commercial drug supply for the company's pipeline products. ATG-010 (selinexor) is a first-in-class Selective Inhibitor of Nuclear Export (SINE) compound in late clinical development for the treatment of multiple hematological malignancies and solid tumors, including multiple myeloma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, liposarcoma, etc. ATG-008 is a second generation TORC1/2 inhibitor currently in late stage development for the treatment of hepatitis B virus positive (HBV+) hepatocellular carcinoma. This program has also been selected as a "Key Project for Novel Drug Development in China". "We are grateful for the support and recognition from these prestigious and well-established investors, and that we share a common vision of delivering cutting-edge therapies to help patients with life-threatening diseases. We look forward to creating value for patients, investors and our partners," said Dr. Jay Mei, founder, chairman, and CEO of Antengene. "This round of financing is critical for Antengene's growth. We will continue to maintain and advance rigorous, science-driven, and patient-centered R&D, while actively preparing for the commercialization of our lead products in China and the Asia-Pacific Region." Commented Yanling Cao, Managing Director of Boyu Capital, "As a long-term investor in China's biopharmaceutical industry, Boyu Capital is much honored to be the lead investor in the Series B financing of Antengene. We view in-licensing of first-in-class/best-in-class drug candidates as an effective solution to the unmet clinical needs in China. In addition, we are very impressed with the progress that Antengene is making and the pipeline they are building. Therefore, we are excited about the opportunity to work with the exceptional team at Antengene and bring novel therapeutics to Chinese and Asian patients." "In the coming decade, China will rapidly fill the gap in healthcare compared to western countries. This trend will continuously bring opportunities to innovative biopharmaceutical companies such as Antengene. But it also requires patient capital and financial investor with strategic angle. That's how FountainVest position ourselves," said Zhen Li, Managing Director of FountainVest. "We are delighted and fortunate to lead this round of investment in Antengene, and look forward to best deploying FountainVest's resources and expertise in the field to contribute to the healthcare industry in China and the rest of Asia together with Antengene." Drug regulators from US, European Union, United Kingdom, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Uzbekistan, Argentina, Brazil, Ghana, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are expected to take part in the event. The Department of Pharmaceuticals will prepare its annual action plan which may re-visit the current policies based on inputs received from CEOs and international agencies, including the WHO, at the 4th edition of INDIA PHARMA 2019 and INDIA MEDICAL DEVICE 2019, to be held on 18-19 February 2019, in Bengaluru, Karnataka. This was stated here today by Mr D V Sadananda Gowda, Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers, Government of India, while addressing the media at curtain raiser for the two-day event. INDIA PHARMA 2019 & INDIA MEDICAL DEVICE 2019 is a flagship annual event of the Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). The event will see the participation of some of the biggest names in the Indian pharmaceutical and medical devices industry who will come together on a common B2G platform to deliberate with the Government, drug regulatory agencies, pricing regulators and WHO on key policy changes required for the growth of the pharma and medical devices Industry. Drug regulators from US, European Union, United Kingdom, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Uzbekistan, Argentina, Brazil, Ghana, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are expected to take part in the event. Mr. Gowda said that affordability of medicines and medical devices and implants has been the subject of discussions between industry and government. He assured industry that the government will work with it to ensure the accessibility of medicines to all. He said that the government was striving to make processes in the sector as relevant and simple as possible. He cited the example of single window clearance in the pharma sector, which he described as a huge step as "We are dealing with medicines and the nature of the sector demands several checks and scrutiny at various levels. At present, our focus is on stabilising policies in terms of pricing and enabling a conducive environment for manufacturing in India". Mr. Mansukh L. Mandaviya, Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers, said that event will have brainstorming sessions on various aspects of pharmaceuticals and medical device sectors and hoped that the 2019 edition would help in resolving the issues impacting the growth of the sectors. Highlights Although the Taliban has welcomed the prospect of a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the group will have to decide whether to press for a greater advantage after the pullout or pursue a deal out of fear of a growing Islamic State. Pakistan, Iran, China and Russia might not like having U.S. troops on their doorstep, but they worry about the implications of any rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces. Because no neighboring country can assume the United States' mantle in Afghanistan, each will seek to guarantee only a modicum of stability in their areas of interest in the country. U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement late last month about the imminent withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria grabbed all the headlines, but it wasn't his only notice about a coming pullout. According to reports, Trump has also ordered the withdrawal of half of the 14,000 American forces in Afghanistan. Although the White House subsequently contradicted the reports on Dec. 28, Trump has made no secret of his distaste for the long U.S. involvement in the country. What's more, Washington's current efforts to reach a peace deal with the Taliban highlight its increasing impatience with the enduring war in Afghanistan and its desire to leave the conflict. While the Taliban and the Afghan government will celebrate and bemoan, respectively, a big reduction in U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the pullout will force regional neighbors Pakistan, Iran, China and Russia to weigh their options and consider their strategies in an Afghanistan with few or no American forces. Their differences notwithstanding, all these countries have a significant stake there, yet none is likely to adopt a significant, on-the-ground presence in the wake of an American withdrawal. Instead, they are all likely to enhance their ties with Afghanistan's various dominant actors and carve out zones of influence in the country to promote their interests and insulate themselves from the scourge of transnational terrorism. The Taliban's Choice Afghanistan's war is currently locked in a stalemate. The Taliban dominate large swaths of the countryside while the U.S.-backed government holds the urban areas. Meanwhile, the Islamic State maintains a small but dangerous presence, frequently clashing with both the Taliban and the central government. International forces assisting Kabul, including the 14,000 U.S. troops and smaller NATO and other allied contingents, are indispensable to the government. While a significant drawdown or outright withdrawal of these forces would not necessarily prompt the immediate collapse of the Afghan security forces, there is little doubt that a pullout would allow the Taliban to seize and maintain the initiative and gradually capture ever more territory. Washington remains especially critical to Kabul's security operations, because it provides much-needed air power, logistics and training. The United States also conducts the lion's share of strikes and special operations raids on key Taliban targets, often at night. Critically, the Western presence in Afghanistan also brings in desperately needed funding that foots most of the bill for the Afghan security forces, as well as the wider Afghan economy. The cessation of such funding would deal an even bigger blow to Kabul than the withdrawal of U.S. forces. It is little surprise, then, to read that the reports of a U.S. drawdown have shaken and dismayed many Afghan government and security officials. In contrast, Taliban social media accounts erupted in jubilation at the news. Although the Taliban have yet to formally enter peace talks with Kabul, any withdrawal could harm the chances of an end to hostilities because the militant group might withhold concessions in the hopes of waiting Washington out. At the same time, the Taliban might be more amenable to a transition deal with the United States due to their concerns about the growing strength of the Islamic State and other more radical extremist groups. Regardless of how a drawdown occurs, it is clear to all concerned that the Taliban will remain a pivotal political player in the future of the country. As the United States signals its intention to leave Afghanistan at least partially neighbors such as Pakistan, Iran, China and Russia will have to develop their own strategies to deal with the vacuum. For all their critical differences with the Washington, none will be particularly happy to see the United States leave, especially since they all lack the desire and, in some cases, the capability to deploy a replacement force. Instead, the foursome will focus on building influence with key Afghan actors while placing a special emphasis on securing the areas that abut their territory. Pakistan: Taking Care of Imperatives Islamabad's overarching goal in Afghanistan is to ensure that Pakistan does not become encircled by India and a hostile government in Kabul, although it also wishes to convince any post-conflict Afghan administration to renounce its territorial claims to Pakistani soil. To this end, Pakistan has long cultivated its ties with the Taliban as a relatively friendly force to counter the emergence of a more India-aligned Afghan government. Pakistan has also been loath to sever its support for the Taliban, even at the cost of harming its wider relationship with the United States. For Islamabad, securing its northern front from potential threats is simply more urgent. Even so, Pakistan's differences with the United States do not mean that a rapid U.S. withdrawal will please Islamabad. It would prefer to see a methodical, negotiated drawdown that ensures its preferred Afghan factions retain a significant stake in Kabul. This preference is driven by increasing concerns over the emergence of radical transnational forces such as the Islamic State, which would likely grow in strength if a vacuum emerges in Afghanistan. As a result, Islamabad will likely encourage the Taliban to engage in negotiations while attempting to maintain its own seat at the table so it may advance its interests. But to the United States' likely chagrin, Pakistan won't sever its ties with the Taliban when the group is on the cusp of acquiring an even more pivotal role in Afghanistan's future a development that would certainly help insulate Pakistan from threats from the north. Iran: Shifting Sands Even before the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, Iran had to contend with threats from its eastern neighbor varying from spillover fighting to drug trafficking. In 1998, Iran even came close to invading Afghanistan after Taliban forces murdered 10 Iranian diplomats after they seized the Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif. At the time, Tehran largely backed the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, which eventually partnered with the United States to remove the Taliban from power. But their ties have since shifted. Iran has begun supporting certain factions of the Taliban in recent years to gain more traction and influence in western Afghanistan amid an increasingly tense standoff with the United States. Tehran will be somewhat relieved to see Washington leave Afghanistan, if for no other reason that it would eliminate a possible staging post for an American attack on Iran. (A U.S. RQ-170 spy drone that crossed over into Iran in December 2011, for instance, reportedly departed from a base in Afghanistan.) Still, Tehran will also harbor worries about a quick U.S. pullout, because that would elevate the risk of Afghanistan's instability spilling over into Iran. Tehran's previous enmity with the Taliban aside, Iran has suffered a number of high-profile Islamic State attacks, meaning it is keen to insulate itself from such a threat as much as possible. Accordingly, Iran will likely work to expand its influence in western Afghanistan and pursue closer ties with Pakistan in the aftermath of a U.S. withdrawal. China: Worried About a Spillover China's primary interests in Afghanistan relate to its concern over militancy, especially in relation to the wider unrest in its Xinjiang region, as well as how instability in the country could complicate its Belt and Road Initiative. Beijing is already alarmed at the growing strength of the Turkistan Islamic Party in northwestern Syria, where the group has acquired significant combat experience and has also amassed a powerful arsenal of weapons. China fears that members could end up closer to home in a place such as Afghanistan if they are pushed out of the Middle East. Militants in both Afghanistan and Pakistan have already attacked Chinese interests, meaning Beijing will be apprehensive that a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will provide room for extremist groups to develop and eventually launch cross-border attacks in China proper. Fearful of such a prospect, China will likely accelerate its security involvement in northeastern Afghanistan, particularly in Badakhshan province, whose Wakhan corridor borders China. The People's Armed Police has been conducting patrols in the corridor, while Beijing has reached agreements with Kabul to train mountain troops for the Afghan security forces. In such a situation, China is likely to be receptive to strengthening its ties with the Taliban if it emerges as a dominant player in the northeast that can keep transnational extremist groups at bay. Russia: Hedging Bets Russia is another country that, despite significant tensions and adversity with the United States, would be alarmed by a hasty U.S. pullout on its southern front. Although it does not directly border Afghanistan, Russia harbors deep concerns about the robust drug trade there, as well as the threat from terrorist groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and, more recently, the Islamic State. The Kremlin had previously supported the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, especially during the first decade of the war, when the aftermath of the invasion effectively crippled the IMU. Russia provided logistical support to the U.S. effort through the Northern Distribution Network, assisted in the establishment of the Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan and provided military equipment to Afghan government forces. In recent years, however, Russian actions have increasingly challenged the U.S. mission there. These moves, in part, reflect the increasingly acrimonious ties between the two countries, but they are also tied to Russian concerns about growing Afghan instability and the potential for spillover into Central Asia. While the United States continues to focus on bolstering the central government, for instance, Russia's fears that it could lose significant strength or see a collapse have led it to hedge its bets by fostering ties with the Taliban and perhaps even provide the group with weapons and funding. A U.S. withdrawal would galvanize Russia into solidifying its security presence in neighboring countries such as Tajikistan in an attempt to insulate Central Asia from any spillover. At the same time, Moscow would look to strike up ties with a number of other groups in northern Afghanistan in addition to the Taliban, as well as former strongmen from the Northern Alliance, such as the Uzbek Abdul Rashid Dostum. Band-Aid Solutions Although they don't see eye to eye with Washington on many things, Afghanistan's neighbors have relied upon the long U.S. presence in the country to limit spillover from the conflict. Whether this has worked remains a topic of debate, because drug production has exploded over the past decade and dangerous transnational terrorist groups such as the Islamic State have established a foothold in the country. But there is a real possibility that these threats will only worsen if the United States withdraws hastily, leading Pakistan, Iran, China and Russia to brace themselves to engage more actively with Afghanistan. None of these countries is willing or, in some cases, even able to assume the U.S. mantle, but they hope to maintain a strong enough buffer on their respective borders by establishing relationships with various powerful local groups. Such action, however, might be little more than a cosmetic solution if not a cause of greater problems down the road as Afghanistan continues to come apart at the seams. It is almost beyond belief that the U.S. government is partially shut down because Congressional Democrats will not allocate 5 billion dollars to construct a barrier on the southern border. The left has banded together to put forth that walls dont work. This comes as a shock to Israelis who now lie protected from daily terror acts behind a barrier, as well as older East Germans who were held captive by a wall. The left wing Long Island newspaper Newsday opposes the wall and opines that drones and more immigration judges can mitigate the massive drug and people smuggling coming from Mexico. Loopy doesnt even come close to describing that editorial position. Unless drones are armed with death rays to smoke drug traffickers, drones can only observe the mass intrusion on the US border. Judges can deport people many of whom come right back. Somebody tell Newsday. Adding to the insanity, many left-leaning Americans support protecting even alien criminals by using Sanctuary policies to disobey federal law. It all adds up to anarchy and stupidity. The United States has become an irrational country where ideology trumps public safety. Fair-minded Americans need to wake up. Illegal immigration is not a good thing. Want to come here - do it legally. Tonight on the No Spin News, well talk with Dennis Prager, who sees dark clouds in 2019. Should be interesting. See you beginning at 7 eastern. Thanks for visiting us. Berks County Workshop on running for local office offered by Penn State Berks Protesters display placards during a rally against violence in suburban Quezon City, northeast of Manila, Nov. 23, 2018. Philippine police filed murder charges against a mayor and six others on Thursday for their alleged involvement in the contract killing of a congressman and a police officer last month. Director General Oscar Albayalde, the national police chief, accused Daraga town Mayor Carlwyn Baldo of using a gun-for-hire syndicate in the fatal shooting of Rep. Rodel Batocabe and a police bodyguard at a gift giving-ceremony for the elderly in eastern Albay province three days before Christmas. It appears that it was Mayor Baldo who paid them to kill Rep. Batocabe, Albayalde told a news conference, citing a police investigation that largely drew on the testimony of one of the mayors aides who was caught last Sunday. We will do everything to arrest the suspects. Batocabe, 52, became the highest-ranking public official slain so far in a rash of killings in the lead up to the May vote, when the country is to elect 12 senators, the entire 297-member House of Representatives and thousands of other local officials. From all indications as revealed by the suspects and witnesses, and physical evidence gathered by the police, the group that killed Batocabe and Diaz is a private armed group employed by the mayor that is involved in contract killing as a gun-for-hire syndicate, Albayalde said. Baldos aide, identified by police as Christopher Cabrera, was arrested last Sunday. Under interrogation, Cabrera told police that the mayor put up a 5 million peso fund (about U.S. $95,000) for the lawmakers assassination, Albayalde said. The hitmen were composed of former soldiers and paramilitary personnel employed by Baldo, Albayalde added. The plot, Albayalde said, was hatched in August, about the time that Batocabe first announced plans to go against Baldo in the coming polls. He said Baldo paid Cabrera an initial amount to purchase weapons and motorcycles to be used in the killing. He said the case is considered closed, adding: This is a victory of the rule of law in this country. Baldo denies allegations Baldo, in a statement, denied the accusation against him, and said he would face the charges in court. I assert my innocence. Let us not forget that while I am being used as a convenient scapegoat, those who are truly responsible for the crime remain free and blameless, he said. I did not order the deaths of anyone. He said his lawyers had asked him to avoid discussing the case. Albayalde said double murder and multiple frustrated homicide charges had been filed against Baldo and six others. Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo lauded the efforts of police in the early and swift conclusion of Batocabes killing. This is a breakthrough in the pursuit of justice for the victims and their families, Panelo said, adding that the suspects would be prosecuted for the heinous crime without delay. Jeoffrey Maitem in Cotabato City contributed to this report. Chinas envoy to Malaysia said Thursday he was hopeful that negotiations to resume construction of the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) would succeed, after the Malaysian prime minister signaled a softening in his stance against the U.S. $19.5 billion project. Following an official visit to a Chinese-owned railway equipment production center in Malaysias Perak state on Thursday, Ambassador Bai Tian told reporters he hoped the two countries could reach a deal to resume the stalled project. A day earlier, Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad had indicated that the project might be revived on a smaller scale. Last year, he announced that his government was cancelling construction of the rail line and other China-backed projects. Both governments have been talking to each other about continuation of the ECRL project and both have agreed to leave the negotiations for the project to the contractors and the owner of the contract. So now we are still waiting for the report from the two parties, the Chinese ambassador said. We havent got the report yet (but) we are still optimistic of the outcome and we hope by the mutual respect, by goodwill and the spirit of mutual benefit and equal footing, the businesses will come out with a win-win result, Bai Tian said. But Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke, who was with the Chinese envoy, sounded less optimistic. It is only fair we wait for the final report before we can make any decision as both sides leave it to the working committee to negotiate before making a decision. As far as we are concerned, the Malaysian government has yet to make a final decision, Loke told reporters. Smaller scale In August 2018, Mahathir, the new prime minister, told Chinese officials that his government was shelving the high-speed railway line along with other China-backed infrastructure projects, which included two gas pipelines. At the time, he said Malaysia did not need them and could not afford them. Mahathir also said then that he had inherited 1 trillion ringgit ($241 billion) in national debt when his government took over three months earlier. On Wednesday, Mahathir told the Chinese publication Sin Chew Daily that the ECRL might be revived, but it could be smaller than originally planned. But this is not easy as we are bound by the contract and cannot terminate the project easily as we have no money to pay China, he told the publication, adding, we have paid a lot of money to China after the postponement. In August 2017, then-Prime Minister Najib Razak, hailed the 688-km (430-mile) project spanning the states of Selangor, Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan, as a game changer for Malaysia, stating it was to be completed in 2024 at a cost of about $13 billion. The ECRL was also a flagship project in Malaysia seen as part of Beijings One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative. Through this trillion-dollar infrastructure drive, Beijing plans to build a vast network of roads, railway lines and ports in South and South Asia that would allow China to trade more easily with European countries via the Indian Ocean and Central Asia. The rail-link project was awarded to China Communications Construction Co. (CCCC) as the main contractor while Malaysia Rail Link Sdn Bhd (MRL) was listed as the owner. It received a loan from the Export and Import Bank of China. Mahathirs government, which took power in May 2018 after defeating Najibs Barisan Nasional coalition in a general election, said the projects cost had ballooned by 26 billion ringgit ($6.3 billion). After Mahathirs latest comments were published, Najib, in a Facebook posting, said he was surprised by the number of people who believed the country would be forced to lease land around the rail line to China. It is hard for me to believe why many Malaysians can still believe the PH propaganda and that Malaysia will become like Sri Lanka because of the ECRL, he said using the abbreviation for Mahathirs Pakatan Harapan government. In 2017, Sri Lanka gave China a 99-year lease for a port in Hambantota after it failed to pay back loans for construction of the port project. The Sri Lankan port was one major pieces completed earlier as part of Beijings OBOR initiative. Najib also said he did not believe that the government lacked money to go on with the project. The former prime minister faces 39 criminal charges linked to the beleaguered state development fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad, which he established in 2009. The U.S. Justice Department alleges that almost $4.5 billion (18.7 billion ringgit) from the state fund was embezzled and laundered through real estate and other assets. Question of pricing Meanwhile, Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, said the negotiations could help improve relations between Malaysian and China, adding that Beijing wanted to complete the ECRL. I think there is a need for a rail link across the breadth of the Malay Peninsula to facilitate primarily the transport of goods from Port Klang to, say, the Kuantan port. The existing East Coast rail line can be upgraded to serve better goods and human transport needs, he told BenarNews. He said the cost of the project had been a sticking point. It has always been a question of pricing from the onset. As long as the price negotiations are satisfactory, then it can proceed, he said. Foreign laborers working in Taiwan gather at a rally in Taipei to call on the government to legislate legal protection for them, Dec. 13, 2009. Indonesia suspended its university internship program in Taiwan after a media report alleged that hundreds of student participants were made to work in factories and eat meals containing pork, the foreign ministry said Thursday. Indonesias Economic and Trade Office (IETO) in Taiwan was asking Taiwanese authorities for clarification about the media report, said Arrmanatha Nasir, spokesman at the Indonesian foreign ministry. A lawmaker in Taiwan had alleged that the Indonesian students were forced to work four days a week instead of attending classes. Indonesia will temporarily stop sending students under the study-internship scheme until theres an agreement on better arrangements, Arrmanatha said in a statement sent to BenarNews. Meanwhile, Indonesian legislator Martin Hutabarat urged the government to investigate the allegations. I think the Taiwanese government will seriously check the veracity of the news for the sake of good relations with Indonesia. Our government must move quickly to find the truth, Martin told BenarNews. In 2016, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen launched the New Southbound Policy (NSP), an exchange program to promote cooperation between Taiwan and 18 Asian countries. About 6,000 Indonesians are studying in Taiwan, including 1,000 participants of the internship program enrolled at eight universities, according to the foreign ministry. IETO has urged Taiwanese authorities to take steps to ensure that the welfare and interests of Indonesian students were protected. Last week, Taiwanese legislator Ko Chih-en said that six universities had sent students under an NSP program to work in factories, according to the report in Taiwan News, the oldest English-language newspaper in Taiwan. Ko cited a case where 300 Indonesian students enrolled at Hsing Wu University were forced to work four days a week at a factory where they packaged contact lenses for 10 hours per shift. They were allowed to attend classes two days a week and have one day of rest, the report said. University visit Kendra Chen, a spokesman for the Taipei Economic and Trade Office in Jakarta, dismissed the report as false. What we want to emphasize here is Taiwan always looks after the welfare of members of the Indonesian diaspora in Taiwan be they students, workers or their spouses, Chen told BenarNews. Officials from Taiwans Ministry of Education and the IETO visited Hsing Wu University on Thursday to seek clarification, Chen said. The Indonesian students there denied there were problems as the report suggested. A total of 217 students at Hsing Wu University even co-signed a letter and made a video to show their support for the university, he said. Chen said the students believed allegations were made by people with bad faith, adding that the Taiwanese trade office in Jakarta would hold a news conference on Friday to address the issue. Ko had also alleged that the students were fed meals containing pork which is forbidden by the Muslim culture. Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world. The Indonesian Council of Ulema urged Taiwan to respect religious freedom. It is best to avoid policies that are detrimental and contrary to international law, said Muhyiddin Junaidi, leader of the councils foreign affairs department. Members of Bangladeshs new parliament take their oaths in Dhaka, Jan. 3, 2019. Updated at 5:36 p.m. ET on 2019-01-03 Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will start forming her new cabinet next week, officials announced Thursday, as members of Bangladeshs newly elected parliament were sworn in despite a boycott by opposition MPs over alleged widespread voting irregularities in Sundays polls. After taking the oath of parliament with more than 280 MPs all from the ruling Awami League or its allied parties Hasina was elected parliament leader, the first step before she can return to office for a record fourth time as PM after the Grand Alliance coalition won the Dec. 30 general election. If everything goes fine, the next cabinet will be sworn in at 3:30 p.m. Monday, Joynal Abedin, the press secretary of President Abdul Hamid, told BenarNews on Thursday. Our preparations have been on. Hamid, who holds a largely ceremonial post, called on Hasina to form a new government after the Awami League leader visited him at the Bangabhaban, the presidents official residence. On Dec. 31, the Election Commission declared that Hasinas ruling coalition had won the 11th general election in a landslide, paving the way for her government to stay in power for up to another five years and giving her a third consecutive term as prime minister. But the ruling partys victory has been clouded by opposition claims that the election was farcical, with reports of intimidation taking place through pre-election and polling day violence. The opposition National Unity Front (NUF) has rejected the election results and called for a balloting re-run. On Thursday, seven elected NUF members declined to take their oaths, but a senior parliamentary official warned that new elections would take place in their constituencies if the MPs werent sworn into office after 90 days. [S]even MPs belonging to the National Unity Front did not take the oath, Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, who administered the oath to the new class of MPs from the ruling coalition, told BenarNews. Before the oath-taking, members of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which spearheads the newly formed NUF alliance, had an urgent meeting at its party offices in Dhaka. We are not taking the oath. Id like to make it clear: We have rejected the results, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the secretary-general of BNP who chaired the meeting, told reporters. On Thursday afternoon, NUF leaders met elections chief K.M. Nurul Huda at the Election Commission office, where they handed him a letter demanding that fresh elections be held. The election commission has not commented on the letter. Huda, however, had earlier rejected calls for new balloting after declaring that the Grand Alliance headed by the Awami League had taken 288 out of 299 seats that were up for election in the first national vote contested in a decade. On Wednesday, the European Union and United States criticized the election-day violence, with the U.S. State Department saying this had made it difficult for many opposition candidates and their supporters to meet, hold rallies and campaign freely. We are also concerned that election-day irregularities prevented some people from voting, which undermined faith in the electoral process, Robert Palladino, a state department deputy spokesman, said in a statement. Police had said at least 16 people were killed in political-related violence nationwide on Saturday and Sunday. Also on Wednesday, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) called for an independent probe into alleged vote-rigging and poll-related violence. The pre-election period was characterized by violence and intimidation against the opposition, attacks on opposition campaign events, and the misuse of laws to limit free speech, Brad Adams, the groups Asia director, said in a statement issued by HRW. Reports of ballot stuffing, intimidation of voters, and ruling party control of voting locations on election day mean that an independent and impartial commission should be formed to determine the extent of the violations, he added. Correction: An earlier version misstated that Human Rights Watch issued its statement on Thursday. The Christian communities of the Middle East, descendants of the first Christians, persevere in their faith in Christ. They live in an era with a constant threat of violence, unrest and persecution. The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, recently wrote of the plight of Christians in the Middle East, stating: Many have left. Hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes. He warned that across the region Christian communities that were the foundation of the universal Church now face the threat of imminent extinction. Many do not think he is overstaing the problem. There is serious unrest in the Middle East, and many are worried it will only get worse for the Christians that remain. In the last few years, they have been slaughtered by so-called Islamic State, and in many countries they find themselves squeezed between the upper and lower millstones of pressure on them within society and of conflicts that afflict the region. Many have been killed, enslaved and persecuted or forcibly converted. Even those who remain ask the question, Why stay? The Christian population of Iraq, for instance, is less than half what it was in 2003 and their churches, houses and businesses have been damaged or destroyed. The Syrian Christian population has halved since 2010. Even in countries like Israel, where Christianity is more secure, the tension makes life difficult for them, he added. Despite the success of U.S.-led coalition forces against the Islamic State, Christians in the Middle East still run the risk of being persecuted. The Christian population in Iraq has gone from 1.5 million in 2003 to just about 200,000 today, and the numbers in Syria are comparable, although more difficult to know exactly as a result of confusion in the context of war, said Tricia Miller, a senior research analyst and Christian expert for CAMERA stated. Amid their struggles, Middle East Christians and other religious minorities received a boost in recent weeks with the signing into law by U.S. President Donald Trump of the Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act, which provides humanitarian relief to genocide victims in Iraq and Syria, and holds accountable Islamic State perpetrators of genocide. My sincere hope is that through this bill, American assistance will aid those religious groups that suffered so horrendously under the Islamic State, and American and foreign authorities will go after those responsible for the horrors committed by the Islamic State, Pastor John Hagee, founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel, said. We want to know what you think. Is there no limit to the double standards and inconsistency of Sinn Fein? And yet, time after time, they don't seem to see it. Most political parties use Facebook and other social media to communicate their message and announce events and Sinn Fein are no exception. So, a few days before Christmas, North Down Sinn Fein, also known as the Winifred Carney Cumann, posted on its Facebook page an invitation to join them "at Crawfordsburn for a peaceful protest against the annual New Year's Day fox hunt". In fact, the annual New Year's Day hunt at Crawfordsburn is a "drag hunt", rather than a "fox hunt", with the hounds following an artificially laid scent, rather than hunting foxes. Nevertheless, protests have been going on for some years and usually draw between 80 and 100 people, from a variety of backgrounds, with the hunt attracting a larger number of supporters. Public opinion on hunting is divided, with both supporters and opponents, and there are many others who are ambivalent about the issue. Indeed, newspaper reports specifically stated that the hunt was greeted with both cheers and jeers. Members of the North Down Sinn Fein cumann, which is probably one of their smaller branches, have attended the Crawfordsburn protest for several years and the view of the person who manages their Facebook page is clear: "I believe that bloodsports are barbaric and have no place in civilised society." I suspect that this new-found interest for Sinn Fein is part of their overall strategy of repackaging themselves as a "progressive" party, in the hope that they can broaden their support-base, especially in areas such as North Down, which are outside their traditional heartlands. They look for opportunities, such as this, to align themselves with and embed themselves in what are often portrayed as "progressive" causes. However, this often opens them up to legitimate accusations of double standards and inconsistency. While the Sinn Fein Facebook page in North Down was inviting people to a "progressive" event in Crawfordsburn on New Year's Day, the Sinn Fein Facebook page in Fermanagh and South Tyrone was advertising an event that was more in keeping with the "regressive" heart of Sinn Fein. This was the annual New Year's Day commemoration for the IRA raid on Brookeborough RUC station on January 1, 1957. The event marks the start of Sinn Fein's annual calendar of IRA commemorations and the speaker on Tuesday afternoon was senior Sinn Fein TD Caoimhghin O Caolain. The attack was part of the IRA border campaign, which had started in December 1956, and it was murderous in its intent. The objective was to blow up the police station and murder the police officers inside the building. However, it was a shambolic operation and two young IRA men, Sean South and Fergal O'Hanlon, were killed, their bodies being left behind in a cow shed. Sean South became a republican icon, who is still honoured by Sinn Fein in spite of his controversial views. His ideology was both deeply sectarian and thoroughly anti-Semitic and yet the commemorations continue. So, how do Sinn Fein reconcile the two events on New Year's Day? In the morning, they were condemning hunting and in the afternoon they were eulogising a terrorist organisation that has murdered hundreds of innocent people. Surely, if bloodsports are barbaric, then the murders of innocent men, women and children by the Provisional IRA were also barbaric. Bloody Friday, the La Mon massacre, the Shankill bomb and many more IRA atrocities were all acts of barbarism and yet they received glowing coverage in the pages of the Sinn Fein newspaper. Sinn Fein are trying to build a broad menu of "progressive" issues, through which they can garner a broader support. But this lacks any credibility while they continue to honour those who deprived so many of the most basic of human rights: the right to life. The month of January takes its name from the ancient Roman god Janus, who is usually depicted as having two faces, looking in opposite directions. On January 1, Sinn Fein showed, once again, that they are a two-faced party, a party of double standards and inconsistency and a hindrance to political progress. Saudi Arabia has announced it will seek the death penalty against five suspects over the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The killing has seen members of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans entourage implicated in the writers death. Prosecutors said 11 suspects attended their first court hearing with lawyers, but the statement did not name those in court. It also did not explain why seven other suspects arrested over the October 2 killing at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, did not immediately face formal charges. The kingdom previously announced 18 people had been arrested. The killing of Mr Khashoggi, who wrote columns critical of Prince Mohammed, has strained the decades-long ties the kingdom enjoys with the United States. Expand Close Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (Victoria Jones/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (Victoria Jones/PA) It has also added to a renewed international push to end the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The state-run Saudi Press Agency and state television gave few details about the hearing. The Public Prosecutor demanded imposing proper punishments against the defendants and is seeking capital punishment for five of the defendants for their direct involvement in the murder, a statement from prosecutors said. The suspects requested copies of the indictments they faced and asked for more time to prepare for their case, prosecutors said. While vague on details about the case, prosecutors made a point to express concerns about Turkey. They alleged that Turkish officials did not answer two formal requests made for evidence in the case. To date, the Saudi Public Prosecutor has not received any response, and the Public Prosecution is still awaiting their response, the statement said. Turkish officials have previously said they shared evidence with Saudi Arabia and other nations over Mr Khashoggis killing. Turkey has also demanded Saudi Arabia extradite those 18 suspects to be tried there for Mr Khashoggis killing. Turkish security officials have kept up a slow leak of videos, photographs and morbid details surrounding Mr Khashoggis killing to pressure the kingdom, as the two US-allied countries vie for influence over the wider Middle East. Turkish media have published photographs of members of the crown princes entourage at the consulate in Istanbul ahead of the killing. Mr Khashoggis body, believed to have been dismembered after his killing, has yet to be found. The 59-year-old entered the consulate on October 2 as his fiancee waited outside, but a team of Saudi officials had flown in before his arrival and laid in wait for him. Saudi Arabia denied for weeks that Mr Khashoggi had been killed but later changed its story and ultimately acknowledged the brutal killing. King Salman ordered the restructuring of the countrys intelligence service, but has so far shielded Prince Mohammed, his 33-year-old son who is next in line to the throne in the oil giant kingdom. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday (Evan Vucci/AP) The partial US government shutdown persisted through a 12th day over Donald Trumps demand for billions of dollars to build a wall along the US border with Mexico. In one big change, the new Congress convenes on Thursday with Democrats taking majority control of the House, and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said outside the White House there would be rapid passage of legislation to re-open the government without funds for the border wall. But the White House has rejected that package, and Mr Trump said ahead of the session with the congressional leaders the partial shutdown will last as long as it takes to get the funding he wants. Could be a long time or could be quickly, he said during lengthy comments at a Cabinet meeting at the White House, his first public appearance of the new year. Meanwhile, the shutdown dragged through a second week, closing some parks and leaving hundreds of thousands of federal employees without pay. Democrats said they asked Mr Trump directly during Wednesdays private meeting held in the Situation Room why he would not consider their package of bills. One measure would open most of the shuttered government departments at funding levels already agreed to by all sides. The other would provide temporary funding for Homeland Security, through February 8, allowing talks to continue over border security. I said, Mr. President, Give me one good reason why you should continue your shutdown, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said afterward. He could not give a good answer. We would hope they would reconsider. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said there was no need to prolong the shutdown and he was disappointed the talks did not produce a resolution. He complained Democrats interrupted Homeland Security officials who were trying to describe a dire situation at the border. We were hopeful that we could get more of a negotiation, said Mr McCarthy. He said the leaders plan to return to the White House Friday to continue negotiations. The two sides have traded offers, but their talks broke down ahead of the holidays. On Wednesday, Mr Trump also rejected his own administrations offer to accept 2.5 billion dollars for the wall. That offer was made when Vice President Mike Pence and other top officials met with Schumer at the start of the shutdown. Instead, on Wednesday, Mr Trump repeatedly pushed for the 5.6 billion dollars he has demanded. Making his case ahead of the afternoon session with Democratic and Republican leaders, he said the current border is like a sieve and noted the tear gas flying overnight to deter arrivals. If they knew they couldnt come through, they wouldnt even start, Mr Trump said at the meeting, joined by Cabinet secretaries and top advisers, including Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Mr Trump complained he had been lonely at the White House during the holiday break, having skipped his getaway to Mar-a-Lago in Florida. He claimed his only companions were the machine gunners, referring to security personnel, and they dont wave, they dont smile. He also criticized Ms Pelosi for visiting Hawaii. At the Capitol on Wednesday, Ms Pelosi said she hoped Republicans and the White House are hearing what we have offered to end the shutdown. Mr Trump contended the Democrats see the shutdown fight as an election point as he celebrated his own first two years in office. He promised six more years of great success. The partial government shutdown began on December 22. Funding for the wall has been the sticking point in passing funding bills for several government departments. Expand Close House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, left, the House Speaker-designate, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, left, the House Speaker-designate, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) Ms Pelosi, who is expected to become speaker on Thursday, said Democrats would take action to end the Trump Shutdown by passing legislation Thursday to reopen government. We are giving the Republicans the opportunity to take yes for an answer, she wrote in a letter to colleagues. Senate Republicans have already supported this legislation, and if they reject it now, they will be fully complicit in chaos and destruction of the Presidents third shutdown of his term. But the Republican-led Senate appears unlikely to consider the Democratic funding bills. A spokesman for GOP leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans would not take action without Mr Trumps backing. Even if only symbolic, passage of the bills in the House would put fresh pressure on the president. At the same time, administration officials said Mr Trump was in no rush for a resolution to the impasse, believing he has public opinion and his base on his side. The Democratic package to end the shutdown would include one bill to temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security at current levels with 1.3 billion dollars for border security, far less than Mr Trump has said he wants for the wall through February 8 as talks continued. It would also include another measure to fund the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Housing and Urban Development and others closed by the partial shutdown. That measure would provide money through the remainder of the fiscal year, to September 30. The Change 4 lunar probe launched from the the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in December (Jiang Hongjing/Xinhua via AP) A Chinese spacecraft has made the first-ever landing on the far side of the moon in the latest achievement for the countrys growing space programme. The relatively unexplored far side of the moon faces away from Earth and is also known as the dark side. A photo taken by the lunar explorer Change 4 at 11.40am China time (3.40 GMT) and published online by the official Xinhua News Agency shows a small crater and a barren surface that appears to be illuminated by a light from the probe. Change 4 had touched down on the surface just over an hour earlier at 10.26am, the China National Space Administration said. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) The landing was announced by state broadcaster China Central Television at the top of its noon news broadcast. The landing highlights Chinas growing ambitions as a space power. In 2013, Change 3, the predecessor craft to the current mission, made the first moon landing since the then-Soviet Unions Luna 24 in 1976. The United States is the only other country that has carried out moon landings. Expand Close A simulated landing process of Change 4 lunar probe is seen through the monitor at Beijing Aerospace Control Centre in Beijing (Jin Liwang/Xinhua News via AP) AP / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A simulated landing process of Change 4 lunar probe is seen through the monitor at Beijing Aerospace Control Centre in Beijing (Jin Liwang/Xinhua News via AP) The work of Change 4, which is carrying a rover, includes astronomical observations and probes to determine the structure and mineral composition of the terrain. The far side of the moon is a rare quiet place that is free from interference of radio signals from Earth, mission spokesman Yu Guobin said, according to Xinhua. This probe can fill the gap of low-frequency observation in radio astronomy and will provide important information for studying the origin of stars and nebula evolution. In 2013, Chang'e 3 was the first spacecraft to land on the moon since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976 The Long March 3B rocket carrying Chang'e 4 blasted off on December 8 and touched down at 10.26am local time on Thursday China plans to send its Chang'e 5 probe to the moon next year In May, a relay satellite Queqiao, or Magpie Bridge, named after an ancient Chinese folk tale, was launched to provide communications support between Change 4 and Earth. A Long March 3B rocket carrying Change 4 blasted off on December 8 from Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in southern China. China plans to send its Change 5 probe to the moon next year and have it return to Earth with samples the first time that will have been done since 1976. Change is the name of a Chinese goddess who, according to legend, has lived on the moon for millennia. ASAP Bari, real name Jabari Shelton, arrives at the Old Bailey (PA/Kirsty OConnor) A domestic violence charity has condemned the negligible sentence handed to a founder of the American hip-hop group ASAP Mob after he sexually assaulted a woman at a hotel room in east London. ASAP Bari, real name Jabari Shelton, 27, from Manhattan, New York, was fined 4,000 and told to pay 2,500 to his victim after he admitted assaulting a woman at the Curtain Hotel in Shoreditch. Campaigners said the decision not to jail him showed the entertainment industry provided men with a way of escaping the consequences of abusing women. Expand Close ASAP Bari real name Jabari Shelton arrives at the Old Bailey (Kirsty OConnor/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp ASAP Bari real name Jabari Shelton arrives at the Old Bailey (Kirsty OConnor/PA) Shelton pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to one count of sexual assault after a video emerged of him pulling the covers from the naked woman as she lay in bed then slapping her bottom as she told him to stop. The fashion designer was also told to pay 2,000 costs and subjected to a restraining order banning him from contacting the woman or her parents unless through a solicitor regarding other proceedings. Karen Ingala Smith, chief executive of the nia charity, a member of the Rape Crisis organisation, said: Me Too highlighted sexual violence and abuse of women in the entertainment industry and this sentence illustrates that being part of that industry with its international remit provides men yet another way of escaping what many consider adequate accountability and penalty for the abuse of women. It also gives the message that for men of relatively high net worth, the price paid for sexual violence can be negligible. Shelton attacked the woman in the early hours of July 10 2017 when the pair met after they both attended the Wireless Festival music event in Finsbury Park. He was initially arrested last year but bailed in June 2018 after he paid a cash security of 25,000 to allow him to return to the US, the court heard. It has exposed a very unpleasant attitude by you towards womenJudge Zoe Smith QC Sentencing him on Thursday, Judge Zoe Smith QC told him: The court does have concerns in this matter because it has exposed a very unpleasant attitude by you towards women. She also said there is no need to ever be so abusive and humiliating to a female, adding: No fine that I impose will compensate her for the humiliation that she has suffered. Prosecuting, James Lofthouse said Shelton had first approached his victim as she waited for a taxi after the festival. Mr Lofthouse said: He walked up to her and propositioned her, if I can put it that way. She said no. The court heard the woman later went to the Curtain Hotel with another man, named in court as AJ. Mr Lofthouse went on: She was then woken at around 4.30 or five in the morning, shortly after, by the defendant entering the bedroom. He seemed to react to her being present in bed with AJ. He pulled the duvet off and Your Honour has seen the footage of what occurred and indeed what was said. Shelton can be heard telling the woman: Bitch, you f***ed my assistant, now suck my dick. He also said Shut the f*** up bitch after she told him to stop. Mr Lofthouse said: She then moved hastily towards the bathroom. He slapped her naked buttocks as she did so and she was saying honestly, Bari, no stop. Police were later called to the hotel and the woman initially denied she had been assaulted. She reported the assault several days later when footage emerged online. Mr Lofthouse added: The defendant flew back to America later that same morning. However, about three to four days later she (the victim) became aware through her mother that footage had been circulating on the internet. Its that footage we have seen in court. Following that she of course got back in touch with the officer. Sheltons barrister, Gideon Cammerman QC, told the court his client had already spent seven days in custody after his initial arrest. Mr Cammerman said: The publicity that this case has attracted has already caused very significant financial loss to him, the loss of very significant contracts and other matters. He added: In the current climate, publicity of this sort is quite rightly toxic. Bearded Shelton, who sported several tattoos across his shaved head, arrived at the court wearing a ski mask to shield his face and a designer padded jacket. He stood in the dock wearing a black suit and white shirt without a tie, along with a pair of Nike trainers, and showed little emotion as he admitted the charge. Mr Cammerman said footage of the attack was shared online by somebody who wanted to do him harm and has. A rescue operation is under way to help a sperm whale believed to be tangled in rope in a loch. Coastguards were called to Loch Eriboll, near Durness in Sutherland, by the Scottish SPCA at around 12.30pm on Wednesday. The 30ft-long mammal is believed to be trapped in the sea loch and a British Divers Marine Life Rescue Team is en route with a disentanglement kit. We are working closely with the Scottish SPCA and HM Coastguard to monitor and assess the sperm whale in Loch Eriboll. We have specialist disentanglement equipment ready to use should it be confirmed that the whale is in some way caught in lines preventing it leaving the loch. BDMLR (@BDMLR) January 3, 2019 A Maritime and Coastguard Agency spokeswoman said the sperm whale is still swimming and urged the public to keep a safe distance. Durness, Melness and Kinlochbervie coastguard rescue teams along with Scottish SPCA officers have been monitoring the whale. Sperm whales are one of the worlds deepest diving mammals, with mature males averaging around 50ft long. Two men have been arrested on suspicion of arranging the illegal movement of migrants into the UK as the Home Secretary requested the help of the Navy to patrol the English Channel. A 33-year-old Iranian national and a 24-year-old British man were arrested in Manchester on Wednesday evening. A National Crime Agency spokeswoman said: NCA officers have tonight arrested a 33-year-old Iranian national and a 24-year-old British man in Manchester, on suspicion of arranging the illegal movement of migrants across the English Channel into the UK. As the investigation is ongoing, we are unable to comment further at this time. Tonight (2/1/19) NCA officers have arrested a 33-year-old Iranian national and a 24-year-old British man in Manchester, on suspicion of arranging the illegal movement of migrants across the English Channel into the UK. Full statement: https://t.co/KMoaAfkgfo pic.twitter.com/D8MYgXcYB4 National Crime Agency (NCA) (@NCA_UK) January 2, 2019 The arrests come as it was revealed Home Secretary Sajid Javid had written to the Ministry of Defence to request use of the Royal Navy. An MoD source told the Press Association that HMS Mersey, an offshore patrol vessel, is available and ready to be deployed. It would represent a significant escalation of Britains response to the migration issue after Mr Javid earlier this week announced the redeployment of two Border Force cutters from the Mediterranean. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: Our Armed Forces stand ready to provide additional capacity and expertise to assist the Home Office with the response to migrant crossings. Royal Navy ships continue to conduct patrols to protect the integrity of UK territorial waters. On Wednesday Mr Javid was criticised for questioning whether migrants using small boats to make risky journeys across the English Channel are genuine asylum seekers. Speaking on a visit to Dover he said: A question has to be asked: if you are a genuine asylum seeker, why have you not sought asylum in the first safe country you arrived in? He also suggested those picked up by UK authorities faced having asylum requests denied as a deterrent to prevent others undertaking the same dangerous journey. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Mr Javid was right to say that the UKs proud tradition of granting asylum is not abused. The Home Secretary, who cut short a family holiday in South Africa to take personal control of the situation following criticism of the Governments response, defended describing it as a major incident. He told reporters 539 people had attempted to cross the Strait in 2018, with 80% making the journey in the last three months of the year. Labour backbencher Stella Creasy, who has visited migrant camps in Calais, accused Mr Javid of normalising anti-refugee rhetoric online. She added: The asylum system in France is completely deadlocked and I fear deliberately so they should be challenged on that. But none of that means Britain can absolve itself of responsibility to refugees. People will continue to die and be at mercy of traffickers all the time politicians pretend to play tough for votes rather than recognise why people flee. Paul Hook, head of campaigns at the charity Refugee Action, added: The Home Secretary must remember that these are people who have fled their homes and they each deserve a decent, humanitarian, and understanding response. This situation demands our compassion and cool, calm heads and we hope the Home Secretary will reflect this in his statements on the subject. Dr Lisa Doyle, director of advocacy at the Refugee Council, said Mr Javids comments were deeply concerning. She added: The outcome of an asylum application cannot be pre-judged before it has been made and must be processed on its individual merit, irrespective of how that person reached the country. Let us not forget that we are talking about people who are in desperate need of protection, having fled countries with prolific human rights abuses. While on a visit to Malaysia, Mr Hunt was asked if he shared Mr Javids suggestion that those attempting the crossing may not be genuine asylum seekers. I think the Home Secretary is right to say that, as a country that is very proud of our tradition of granting asylum to people who need it, we also want to make sure that isnt abused, he said. But our priority right now is the safety of people in the Channel; to discourage people from making this very dangerous crossing, but to make sure that everyone that does is kept safe. The knife Erick Ekam used to stab Mohamed Aadam Mohamed to death in Camden, north London, in September 2017 (Metropolitan Police/PA) A police officer who caught a murderer after witnessing him stab a man to death in the street has said he is humbled to receive a bravery award. Sergeant Matthew Ebbs, 26, gave chase after Erick Ekam, 19, plunged a 12in carving knife into Mohamed Aadam Mohamed, 20, in Camden, north London. The officer, who was working in plain clothes targeting drug dealers, confronted the knifeman, who ran at the officer before fleeing and throwing his weapon away. Sgt Ebbs arrested the killer after he tripped and fell on September 4 2017. Expand Close Sergeant Matthew Ebbs has been awarded for his bravery Metropolitan Police by Commissioner Cressida Dick (Met Police/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sergeant Matthew Ebbs has been awarded for his bravery Metropolitan Police by Commissioner Cressida Dick (Met Police/PA) Ekam was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 17 years in December after he was found guilty of murder at the Old Bailey. A graphic image of the blade was released by police at the request of Mr Mohameds family as a shock deterrent. Sgt Ebbs, as well as a cyclist who helped detain Ekam, have been awarded commendations for their bravery by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick. Expand Close Mohamed Aadam Mohamed, 20, was knifed to death in Camden (Met Police/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mohamed Aadam Mohamed, 20, was knifed to death in Camden (Met Police/PA) The officer said: The events of that day were saddening and traumatic. I cannot begin to imagine the grief that is felt by Mohameds family. Like most days, I started my shift not knowing what I would be dealing with, but I never imagined that I would witness such an incident. The incident happened so quickly and after witnessing the attack I was faced with a man brandishing a knife running towards me and members of the public. Expand Close Erick Ekam, 19, was jailed for murder at the Old Bailey (Met Police/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Erick Ekam, 19, was jailed for murder at the Old Bailey (Met Police/PA) My police training and instinct led me to confront and chase him but it was heartening that members of public tried to save the victim, and I am grateful that a passing cyclist, unaware of what had happened or the risks involved, bravely offered his help to me whilst I struggled with the suspect. I am humbled to have been awarded a Commissioners Commendation for bravery, but I have no doubt that I acted in the same way that many of my colleagues would have, doing what was right at the time to protect the public. Ms Dick said she was proud to recognise her officers bravery and thanked members of the public who tried to save the victims life. She added: He acted without a thought for his own safety, after a considerable foot chase and a violent struggle, arresting him. That Matt was in plain clothes made the whole episode more dangerous and he showed courage, quick thinking and great professionalism. Seaborne has been given a contract worth 13.8m to run ferries from Ramsgate to the Continent in the event of a no-deal Brexit (Gareth Fuller/PA) Fresh questions have been raised about the readiness of a company awarded 13.8 million to run no-deal Brexit ferry services after it was accused of copying part of its website from that of a takeaway firm. The terms and conditions section of the Seaborne Freight website was found to contain a section saying: It is the responsibility of the customer to thoroughly check the supplied goods before agreeing to pay for any meal/order. The page, which has since been edited, also informed users that they were prohibited from making false orders through our website. It also warned that it would seek compensation if it suffered losses incurred as the result of hoax delivery requests. Expand Close The section of the Seaborne website which raised questions from MPs and has since been changed (PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The section of the Seaborne website which raised questions from MPs and has since been changed (PA) Seaborne was one of three firms awarded contracts totalling 108 million last week to lay on additional crossings to ease the pressure on Dover when Britain pulls out of the EU, despite having never run a Channel service. The Department for Transport (DfT), which has insisted that the company was properly vetted before being given taxpayers money, said the section had been put up in error and since corrected. Seaborne Freight. No ships, no trading history and website T&Cs copied and pasted from a takeaway delivery site... (h/t @ormondroyd) pic.twitter.com/yuVnNFXjqo Tom Watson (@tom_watson) January 3, 2019 Tom Watson, the Labour deputy leader, said: Seaborne Freight. No ships, no trading history and website T&Cs copied and pasted from a takeaway delivery site Fellow Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, a supporter of the Best for Britain group, added: This is beyond a joke. Its not just that the Government have panic hired a firm with no ships to conduct ferry services. That firm has literally nothing prepared to suggest the 13.8 million handed over to them is a sound investment. Theyve seemingly copied and pasted their terms off a takeaway fast food website, and their login portal sends you back to Google. On Wednesday, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling defended the contract award to the firm, saying it was an example of the Government supporting new business. Seaborne aims to operate freight ferries from Ramsgate in Kent to the Belgian port of Ostend, beginning with two ships in late March and increasing to four by the end of the summer. It was established two years ago and has been in negotiations about running freight ferries between Ramsgate and Ostend, but no services are currently running. Narrow berths in the port mean there are few suitable commercial vessels available. A spokesman for the firm said: Seaborne Freight (UK) Limited (SFL) is currently making preparations across its business for re-introducing the Ramsgate to Ostend ferry service and has been working on the project for the past two years. Naturally these preparations include ongoing updates to its pre-launch website, including T&Cs. A DfT spokeswoman added: This section of the terms and conditions on the companys website was put up in error. This has now been rectified. Theresa Mays Brexit agenda has been dealt a series of fresh blows ahead of a looming Commons vote on her withdrawal plan. The DUP, on whom the Tories rely for a Commons majority, insisted their objections to Irish border backstop arrangements remained, while the EU closed ranks in the face of demands for new concessions. After a meeting with the Prime Minister, DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds said: The Withdrawal Agreement, as currently proposed, flies in the face of the Governments commitments on Northern Ireland as we leave the EU. Mr Dodds again attacked the proposed Irish border backstop, which would see the UK remain under EU customs rules if no wider trade deal was agreed by the end of a withdrawal transition period, as unnecessary. Were happy to offer reassurances and guarantees to the UK, but not reassurances and guarantees that contradict or change what was agreed back in NovemberIrish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar However, Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he would not accept any changes to the deal that would make the backstop inoperable. Mr Varadkar said he had spoken to German Chancellor Angela Merkel by telephone on Thursday and the two leaders agreed to stand by the Brexit deal. He said: Were happy to offer reassurances and guarantees to the UK, but not reassurances and guarantees that contradict or change what was agreed back in November. Mr Varadkar said the conversation, which lasted about 40 minutes, focused on securing the ratification of the deal. The remarks are a blow to the Prime Minister, who is trying to get concessions on the Irish backstop plans in the hope it will convince MPs to vote her Withdrawal Agreement through Parliament later this month. Mr Varadkars comments came as the EU confirmed no further meetings are foreseen with the UK on updating Mrs Mays Brexit deal because negotiations have concluded. A spokeswoman for European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said the leaders of the remaining 27 countries have been very clear that what is on the table will not be renegotiated. At a press conference in Brussels, Mina Andreeva, deputy chief spokeswoman for the European Commission, was asked what talks would be held before the Commons has its say on the deal in the week of January 14. She said: We have said many times the deal that is on the table is the best and only deal possible. And the EU27 leaders confirmed on December 13 in their conclusions that it will not be renegotiated. Ms Andreeva said the EU side have started the ratification process on the terms in the Withdrawal Agreement, adding: For now, no further meetings are foreseen between the Commissions negotiators and the UK negotiators as the negotiations have indeed been concluded. She said Mr Juncker is always willing to listen to Mrs Mays views on the backstop, but when asked what else he can do to help her deal get through Parliament, she rebuffed any chance of altering the backstop as it currently stands. And Mrs Mays deal drew criticism from Tory former minister Ben Gummer, who co-authored the Conservative manifesto at the last election. Mr Gummer, who lost his Ipswich seat at the 2017 election, said it would leave the country poorer for generations. He told the BBC: I think it is probably unique in modern parliamentary history, because Members of Parliament are being asked to walk through the division lobbies to make the country, and their constituents, permanently poorer and less secure. Not just in one generation, but in two or three. Mr Gummer said if Parliament failed to find a route through the Brexit situation, a new referendum should be held. The comments came as Environment Secretary Michael Gove said the consequences of a no-deal Brexit would be considerable in the agricultural sector. WHEN LOVE COMES TO TOWN U2 mixed the blues and the gospel - rock and roll and B. B. King - to create a genre-bending sound that honored tradition while creating something new. My sense is that the holy continues to break through our popular culture in startling but creative ways if we have eyes to see and ears to hear. John O'Donohue writes: "Beauty does not linger, it only visits. Yet beauty's visitation affects us and invites us into its rhythm, it call us to feel, think and act beautiful." More than ever before I sense that this era cries out for a spirituality of tenderness in small, real ways that touch our ordinary lives. Artist Anita Rolls gets it right with "Jesus on the Tube." Undated handout photo issued by the Metropolitan Police of security guard Tudor Simionov, who was stabbed to death outside a private New Years party at the Fountain House on Park Lane, central London. A man who was arrested by police investigating the murder of a security guard a New Years Eve party in Park Lane has been charged with firearms offences. Scotland Yard said Imran Mostafa Kamel, 26, of Ealing, west London, has been charged with possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear or danger and possession of a firearm when prohibited for life. He is to appear at Londons Westminster Magistrates Court on Thursday. Security guard Tudor Simionov, 33, was working outside the private event at Fountain House in Park Lane in the capitals West End when he was attacked on January 1 at around 5.30am. A man has been charged with firearms offences as part of the investigation into the murder of a man in Park Lane #Westminster on 1Jan. https://t.co/zYROytnmMa pic.twitter.com/QcRKM0jen3 Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) January 3, 2019 He was stabbed to death as he tried to stop gatecrashers storming into a party. Scotland Yard said the charges have been brought in connection with a separate incident at Fountain House on January 1 at around 5.36am in which no firearm was discharged. The charges are not directly connected to Mr Simionovs death or the other people who injured in the attack, the spokesman said. Two of Mr Simionovs colleagues, aged 29 and 37, were also stabbed during the fight, as was a 29-year-old woman. Their injuries are not life-threatening. Home Secretary Sajid Javid is overseeing the Governments response to a recent increase in in attempts by migrants to cross the Channel in small boats (Gareth Fuller/PA) The Government has stepped up patrols in the English Channel following a rise in attempts to reach the UK in recent weeks. How many people have attempted the crossing? In 2018, 539 migrants attempted to travel to the UK on small boats. Of these, 227 (42%) were intercepted by French authorities before they made it to the UK, according to Home Office figures. The statistics show 434 (81%) of the 539 made their attempts in the last three months of the year. Expand Close Border Force agents by a empty dinghy on the beach at Lydd-on-Sea (Chris Matcham/Twitter/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Border Force agents by a empty dinghy on the beach at Lydd-on-Sea (Chris Matcham/Twitter/PA) Where are those who are rescued at sea taken? Decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, but generally people rescued in UK waters are brought to Britain while those picked up on the French side are taken to France. What happens once they arrive in the UK? Home Secretary Sajid Javid said on Wednesday that in almost every case those who make the journey go on to claim asylum in the UK. Asylum applicants arriving in these circumstances are given a medical assessment before being transferred to immigration officials for an initial interview. They are then provided with accommodation while their application proceeds through the system. Can asylum seekers be transferred to another European country? An EU rule known as the Dublin Regulation is used to determine which member state is responsible for examining asylum claims. Other Dublin states can request that the UK take responsibility for asylum claimants, and vice versa. In 2017, there were 461 transfers into the UK and 314 transfers out under the Dublin Regulation. How is the Channel patrolled? Currently one Border Force cutter, HMC Vigilant, is deployed in the Channel, alongside two smaller coastal patrol vessels. The number of cutters will rise to three after two were recalled from abroad to join the operation. What do the cutters do? They can rescue several migrant boats at the same time, with as many as 200 people picked up in a single mission. Other functions include searching vessels for restricted goods, carrying out strategic patrols and providing support to other agencies. Each of Border Forces five cutters has two crews that rotate on a fortnightly basis. The cutters work within a maximum range of 2,300 nautical miles, and are expected to be able to respond within 30 minutes of a call. Military counter-drone equipment deployed on a rooftop at Gatwick airport has been withdrawn (Gareth Fuller/PA) The military hardware deployed to stop drones disrupting flights at Gatwick Airport has been withdrawn, the Ministry of Defence said. Reported drone sightings at the airport caused mass disruption to passengers in the run-up to Christmas and the Army were brought in to help bring an end to the travel chaos. Around 1,000 flights were affected. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said on Wednesday: The military capability has now been withdrawn from Gatwick. The Armed Forces stand ever-ready to assist should a request for support be received. Between December 19 and 21 the airport was repeatedly forced to close due to reported drone sightings. Expand Close Passengers stranded at Gatwick Airport in the run-up to Christmas (PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Passengers stranded at Gatwick Airport in the run-up to Christmas (PA) The Israeli-developed Drone Dome system is believed to be among the technology used at the airport by the British Army. The anti-drone equipment can detect and jam communications between a drone and its operator and was deployed on a roof at Gatwick. The system, which is said to have a range of several miles, uses four radars to give 360-degree detection in order to identify and track targets. Sussex Police Chief Constable Giles York said last week that police received 115 reports of sightings in the area, including 93 which have been confirmed as coming from credible people including a pilot and airport staff. However some reports of drones in the area may have involved the polices own craft, he said, but added that he is absolutely certain a drone was flying near the airports runways during the three-day period of disruption. A Conservative party MP has said he was unaware a DUP event he plans to attend next month was a fundraiser for the party. Peter Bone is scheduled to appear at an event organised by DUP MP Jim Shannon in Strangford, Co Down next month. He is the latest in a line of Conservative Party MPs to draw controversy over appearing at DUP party events. The Irish News reports Mr Bone was unaware of the exact nature of the event or that it was a fundraiser. "Jim asked me to speak and I'm happy to go," he said. "I'm going because the DUP are our partners in government." Jim Shannon told the News Letter proceeds from the fundraiser would be split between the DUP and Elim Missions. Mr Bone was an outspoken advocate for Brexit during the 2016 referendum, and is part of the political advisory board of Leave Means Leave, a multi-party campaign group advocating for a "clean, swift exit from the European Union". Since the establishment of the DUP's confidence and supply deal with the Conservative party, the rules around MPs appearing at fundraisers for other political parties has come into focus. Earlier this week, former deputy chairman of the Northern Ireland Conservative party Frank Shivers questioned why leading Eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg was set to appear at a fundraiser organised by North Antrim MP Ian Paisley next month, but had declined an invitation to appear at an event held by the Northern Ireland branch of the Conservative party. In September Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson appeared at a DUP gala dinner alongside Arlene Foster. Details of his appearance at the event or his speech were not publicised until after the event, something which it was later claimed was due to security reasons. A fundraising dinner held in September 2017 by Ian Paisley featuring an appearance by Cabinet Minister Michael Gove was investigated by the Electoral Commission. It related to the circumstances around Mid and East Antrim council purchasing a 1,500 table at the event. It emerged in September that Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council also paid 1,500 for a table at the event. The Northern Ireland Audit Office has issued guidance to both councils on the matter. The councils were given separate advice to ensure attendance at events was neither directly or indirectly political, and for up-to-date guidelines to be given to councillors. One in 10 Northern Ireland people will banish the post-festive blues by organising a summer vacation this month, new research suggests. Holiday protection scheme ATOL said January 5, which has been dubbed 'Sunshine Saturday', will see the beginning of a month-long booking frenzy, with around 180,000 consumers set to turn their thoughts towards a summer break. The Costa Dorada, Costa del Sol and Mallorca in Spain are the three top sunshine destinations with local travellers, with the Canary Islands - Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura - also proving popular. Tailor-made holidays are on the increase, especially cruise holidays, which continue to flourish, and there is also a noticeable increase in people wanting more luxurious cruise trips further afield. Ski trips also continue to do well with people in Northern Ireland and a couple of tour operators are now offering trips to Bulgaria and Romania. ABTA spokeswoman for Northern Ireland, Heather Fielding, managing director of Gallagher Travel in Londonderry, said traditionally there is a spike in bookings in the first month of the year. "Our staff don't take holidays in January because it's always our busiest month when it comes to booking holidays," she said. "People from Northern Ireland look for different things when they're going away and we find that they consider a variety of factors beyond price, such as a high standard of accommodation." She added: "But you can always get a bargain in January. I put up a deal today, offering five nights in three star self-catering accommodation in the Costa del Sol for 99 (flights and transfers included), leaving on January 13." ATOL said the price of the getaway is still the number one factor when booking holidays, with more than a third (35%) admitting they are looking to grab a bargain by booking early. Another quarter (26%) are seeking sunshine and hot weather after dreary winter weather. Andy Cohen, head of ATOL, said a lot of people will decide on this year's summer holiday destination in two days' time. "January traditionally sees holidaymakers rushing to book their summer holiday, with Sunshine Saturday still expected to be one of the busiest booking days of the year," he said. "With consumers in Northern Ireland taking advantage of holiday bargains and booking quickly, however, many are missing out on financial protection. "If you are booking a package holiday, make sure you check for the ATOL logo to ensure you are protected." ABTA said that Mauritius has also proven popular over the past 12 months with people from Northern Ireland, while trips to the US and South Africa have both picked up over the past few years and are expected to continue to do well. People are also generally booking their summer holidays earlier to make the most of good offers and best value for their trips. The leadership of the SDLP has written to members asking them to stretch themselves "beyond their comfort zones" over a merger with Fianna Fail. An email sent to all party members yesterday explained that talks over the link-up have been sanctioned. It stated that they are "exploring co-operation and partnership with Fianna Fail based on how best to meet the challenges of Brexit and restore the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement". There have been rumblings of discontent after sources within both organisations hinted that a merger would result in one all-island party under the Fianna Fail banner. In October the party's Brexit spokeswoman Claire Hanna said a merger would be a "rogue move" that would not solve the many problems in Northern Ireland, nor within the SDLP. Mairia Cahill, a former Labour Senator in Leinster House who was co-opted onto Lisburn and Castlereagh Council for the SDLP in July, said this week that the possible amalgamation resembled a "takeover". And in a tweet on Monday SDLP Youth restated its opposition to any merger, a position reached at its conference in August 2018. In his New Year message leader Colum Eastwood said the party was ready to "embrace" change, but didn't directly mention ongoing negotiations with Fianna Fail. However, in yesterday's email Mr Eastwood said the party had to "act creatively and courageously". "As a party it is our responsibility to stretch ourselves beyond our comfort zone," the email said. "It is this broader context on the island and the ongoing crisis in our politics which has led us to explore co-operation and partnership with Fianna Fail. "Our discussions have been based on how best to meet the challenges of Brexit, how best to restore the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement and how best to ensure that our values of reconciliation and the unity of our people can once again enter into the lifeblood of our politics. "These talks have been discussed, sanctioned and supported by our MLA team, our councillors association and at our management committee. "These talks are coming to a conclusion and we will of course share with you any proposal which emanates from them. We have been clear. The future of the SDLP will be decided by you, the party, our membership. "Any fundamental change which we recommend in terms of the future of this party will be brought to you." The SDLP was contacted for comment but didn't reply. There are more than 20 inpatients at hospitals in the Fermanagh and west Tyrone area stuck in wards while awaiting care packages or nursing home places, it has been reported. The Fermanagh Herald reports that, due to the closure of one nursing home last year in Enniskillen and another not accepting new patients, many are being left with nowhere suitable to live. A total of 24 inpatients, many suffering from dementia, were awaiting placements or home care packages while at the Omagh Hospital, the South West Acute Hospital, or the Tyrone and Fermanagh Hospital a week before Christmas. Deputy chief executive of the Western Trust, Kieran Downey, said they are working on addressing the waiting list issue as part of their Pathfinder initiative, which aims to provide better organised services in the region with the help of community engagement. "Under the Pathfinder Project the Trust are undergoing a considerable engagement process where we will engage closely with this, and all, communities to determine the best future provision of residential and nursing care across the Fermanagh and West Tyrone region," he said. It is not just in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone area where nursing homes closures and shortages of beds are causing issues, however. In November last year, the manager of a Belfast care home said that funding pressures are causing many facilities to close units, in turn putting pressure on hospitals. "Beds are closing, nurses are leaving for agencies and private nursing homes are no longer able to afford the type of care our older people need and deserve," Helen Chambers of Victoria Care Home told the Belfast Telegraph. "Nursing homes are being forced to close their nursing units and become residential only. But the question is, if no one is going to be able to provide the specialised care people need in their older years, then where are they going to go? "That's going to put even more pressure on hospitals. The backlog is already there and it's only going to get worse." Passengers at Belfast International Airport complained bitterly last night as they were forced to wait for hours in queues to get through security. The airport apologised for the length of the queues, which have been a regular problem in the Aldergrove facility. Read More Jonathan Wales was one of the unfortunate fliers venting their anger on Twitter. He tweeted: Another disgraceful showing from #belfastinternationalairport two hours to get from door to gate. Disgraceful, I wonder what the MLAs are doing about it? #mockery. Another disgraceful showing from #belfastinternationalairport - 2 hours to get from door to gate. 6 xray belts, two closed, 4 open, but an empty one for "priority security" - which you cannot buy on the day. Disgraceful, I wonder what the MLAs are doing about it? #mockery pic.twitter.com/4JZ9sm05Ge Johnny Wales (@JW_UAV) January 3, 2019 Those stuck in the airport complained that some of the security lanes werent open. But an airport spokeswoman told the BBC last night that extra lanes opened in response to a high volume of passengers and queues subsequently did move quickly and cleared. She also told the broadcaster that it was a very, very busy time of year and a high volume of passengers arrived in a short period. Mairead Comiskey from Armagh missed her 7.50pm flight to Liverpool the first time she has ever missed a plane. She tweeted that she had never seen anything like the chaos at Belfast International Airport tonight. I have never experienced queues like it in any airport across the world at any time of the year. What must tourists think?! Belfast International has experienced a difficult year dogged by complaints of long queues in its security area and frustrating delays in baggage. Wilson James took over the airports security services on November 1, promising to recruit 50 new staff in a bid to tackle the problem. Asked if the queues were connected to ongoing recruitment issues, their airport spokesperson said: The airport and our partner Wilson James are actively recruiting for the security team and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. Northern Ireland pupils hoping to start university in the Republic in 2019 have been left in limbo over how much their tuition fees will be after Brexit. Currently, non-EU students pay much higher fees than students from the Republic and other EU countries. But with less than a month to go before the deadline for the first stage of applications, no guidance has yet been issued. There has been a gradual rise in the number of students from Northern Ireland studying in the south in recent years and there are now calls for clarity from the Republic on fees. Those attending university in the Republic currently pay a "student contribution" of 2,700 a year, the same as those from the Republic and the EU. Most receive a student loan to cover the cost. However, those fees could rise by more than 9,000 a year if Northern Ireland students were classed as non-EU after Brexit. Students from here who are already at an Irish university have been told their current fees will not change during their degree. However, those intending to begin their studies in September 2019 have received no guarantees, despite the first stage of the application process closing on February 1. SDLP North Belfast MLA Nichola Mallon said she has now written to the Irish Government asking for advice and clarity for northern students after Brexit. Ms Mallon said: "Students still have no clear indication as to their status or the level of fees they will have to pay post Brexit leaving many too unsure to follow their dream and apply. "This is another example of how the chaotic response of the British Government to Brexit is having a detrimental impact on the lives of young people in Northern Ireland. This chaos is not of the Irish government's making but it is important that where it can, it provides clarity for northern students." 'The accounts lodged with Companies House show that the owners last year awarded themselves a 3.08m dividend' (stock photo) The owners of a Tyrone-based firm facing High Court action in the Republic over its school building programme there have paid themselves 9m in dividends in the past two years. That is according to new accounts from the McCloskey family-owned Western Building Systems (WBS), which show that the company's pre-tax profits increased by 4% to 4.32m in the 12 months to the end of April last. The accounts lodged with Companies House show that the owners last year awarded themselves a 3.08m dividend. This followed a dividend windfall payout of 5.9m in the prior year. In recent weeks the business has been involved in a very public row with the Irish Department of Education over aspects of its school building scheme. WBS has built 42 schools around the country in the last 14 years, but the department is now suing the firm in the High Court in Dublin. In recent months alleged structural weaknesses were found in 23 schools, two of which were closed temporarily while precautionary works were carried out. A third was partly closed. WBS has complained that the department had previously certified completed schools as being free from defects. Now they are deemed to require remedial works, it said. Such "a turnaround" was "troubling on a wider scale", the company said in November. A spokesman for WBS said yesterday that it will fully contest the department's High Court proceedings. He said: "We have been informed of proceedings and are seeking specific details. The company has been requesting details of structural assessments since November last and has not been provided with any details." The spokesman said its core point on the dispute with the department "remains why schools, previously verified and approved by the department, were subsequently found by the department to have potential issues". The company directors are named as Martin, Nora and Declan McCloskey, and Melissa Canavan. Directors' pay last year totalled 415,911 made up of 261,911 in remuneration and 154,000 in pension contributions. The top paid director was paid 74,266. Last year the business recorded post-tax profits of 3.47m after paying 846,527 in corporation tax. Nearly 1000 English and Scottish police officers are set to begin training for deployment to Northern Ireland in case of disorder resulting from a no-deal Brexit. The Guardian has reported that the plans have been put in place after PSNI bosses put out an appeal for more riot-trained police officers from other parts of the UK in anticipation of potential disruption following Brexit. Read More The PSNI regularly receives support from officers in other parts of the UK during the marching season. It is understood an email sent to police forces across the UK has asked for officers with "level 2 public order training" to volunteer to assist the PSNI ahead of Britain leaving the EU in March. Three training days are scheduled to take place ahead of March 29, the day Britain will leave the EU. The purpose of the training being provided is to give officers the capabilities to carry out the type of policing operations which are more usual in Northern Ireland. In a statement a PSNI spokesman said: "PSNI are working closely with other UK policing partners in our planning processes. While there is, as yet, no indication that mutual aid will be required, preparations for mutual aid form part of our ongoing planning work. "Planning around mutual aid is something that happens every year across policing and if required, the provision of mutual aid to police services is provided through the National Police Co-ordination Centre. PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton warned last year that if border posts and security installations were created as a result of a hard Brexit that they would be seen as "fair game" for attack by dissident republicans. The last thing we would want is any infrastructure around the border because there is something symbolic about it and it becomes a target for violent dissident republicans," the police chief said. Our assessment is that they would be a target because it would be representative of the state and in their minds fair game for attack. I would assume that that assessment is shared by senior politicians and officials who are negotiating Brexit." In December the PSNI was awarded 16.48m to help prepare for Brexit. They plan to use the money to recruit 308 officers and staff by April 2020. Karen Walsh who was jailed for at least 20 years for murdering Maire Rankin using a crucifix The crucifix that was used as a murder weapon The family of murdered Maire Rankin outside court in 2015. From left, her daughters Aine Brodie and Mairead McElkerney, son-in-law Paul McElkerney, and daughters Emily Rankin and Dympna Lambert The daughter of a Newry pensioner murdered at Christmas 10 years ago says she is still saddened by the fact her mother never lived to meet her great-grandchildren. Maire Rankin (81), was killed with a crucifix in her home and then sexually assaulted after saying her bedtime prayers in the early hours of Christmas Day 2008. Mrs Rankin was found dead in her Dublin Road home on Christmas morning after being subjected to a sustained assault which left her with a serious head injury and 15 broken ribs. Her next door neighbour, Dublin pharmacist Karen Walsh (then 45) was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in jail after a 10-day murder trial. She will not be eligible for parole until she is herself a pensioner. A decade on, Maire's daughter Brenda, one of eight siblings, told the Newry Reporter this week that flashbacks are still a regular occurrence, particularly over the Christmas period. "It's always difficult coming up to Christmas time," she told the newspaper. "I thought back then I would never get over what happened. I have done my best to move on and be as strong as possible with the help of family and friends. "There are, of course, flashbacks to those dark days after the murder in December 2008." Maire Rankin had planned to spend Christmas Day with her daughter Brenda's family in Loughbrickland in Londonderry. However, she had been sick with a chest infection and insisted she wanted to stay in her own bed on Christmas Eve. Brenda told the Newry Reporter that it is family togetherness that has helped them all get through the traumatic experience. She said they prefer to remember the way she lived, not how she died. She added: "We all miss mummy very much, but life has gone on in our family. Over the past year alone there have been two family weddings and four births, times when we have come together as a family to celebrate happy events. "There has been a lot of joy and laughter. "These occasions remind me of what our family life was like growing up. I was blessed to be raised in a house full of love and laughter. "I think it's a great tribute to both my parents that our family has survived this tragedy and found the courage and strength to carry on. "As I look back on old photographs over the past year there are a lot of smiling faces and real happiness. "Of course we miss both our parents and it's particularly sad that mummy did not live to see any of her seven great grandchildren. "But it's important to all of us that we pass on the lovely memories of mummy and daddy to their grandchildren and great grandchildren, keeping their spirit alive in a positive way. "For us it's more important to celebrate the way mummy lived her life rather that dwell on the way she died." A man has been left in hospital with potentially "life-changing injuries" after a home invasion in east Belfast in which he was beaten unconcious. The incident happened between 1.30am and 2.30am on Tuesday at the property on Belvoir Street. When the occupier of the property opened the door the men forced their way inside. The victim was struck several times around the face with a hammer or baton, and after he fell to the ground he was kicked in the head and torso until losing conciousness. He was then taken to hospital for treatment. Sergeant McPhillips said: "This was a particularly vicious incident which has left one man in hospital with what could potentially be life-changing injuries. "I would appeal to anyone who was in the area at the time and saw two men acting suspiciously to get in touch with detectives as soon as possible on the non-emergency number 101, quoting reference number 287 of 03/01/19. The public can also contact independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. The incident took place in the Fountain Street area. Credit: Google. A man in his 40s has been arrested after reports of a suspicious approach to two young girls in Co Down. The incident took place in the Fountain Street area of Downpatrick on Thursday afternoon. The man remains in police custody at this time. Police would appeal to anyone who saw anything suspicious in the area at around 2:30pm to contact police in Downpatrick on 101, quoting reference number 678 3/1/19. Michael McCann of Templeard, Londonderry, lands the first salmon in the International Year of the Salmon on the Lackagh River in Donegal The first salmon of 2019 has been caught in Ireland by an angler from Londonderry. Michael McCann of Templeard landed the fish on the Lackagh River in Co Donegal at 9.25am on New Year's Day. The salmon weighed approximately five pounds and was caught on a single barbless hook before being released back into the water. It was also the first caught and released during International Year of the Salmon. Michael was one of 22 anglers fishing on the Lackagh at the time of the catch. International Year of the Salmon is a world-wide initiative to raise awareness of what humans can do to ensure salmon and their habitats are conserved and restored against a backdrop of several environmental factors which have contributed to their decline. Kilkeel harbour is at capacity and needs to be expanded, says Alan McCulla of fisheries collective Sea Source Business leaders in Kilkeel have said they are prepared to step in after a Government department claimed it did not have the 350,000 needed to unlock a stalled expansion plan for the Co Down fishing town's harbour. In November the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA), which owns the harbour, said there was no cash available to pay for an environmental impact assessment (EIA) it says is needed to advance the 35m project. But the fishing community says the development is urgent, claiming that jobs and investment could be moved to more modern ports on either side of the Irish Sea. It says the project will help sustain and potentially double the 1,100 jobs already based around the harbour. DAERA was among the organisations which financially supported an initial appraisal of the proposal from Kilkeel Strategic Partnership. But in November it said further work was needed to fully assess the business case, including consideration of potential engineering and environmental implications. "At this stage no public expenditure provision exists to cover the costs of these further studies and in the absence of a minister no decision for such an infrastructure project can be made," said a spokesman. Legislation clarifying civil servants' abilities to make decisions in the absence of Stormont ministers was passed at Westminster in October. Alan McCulla of Kilkeel-based fisheries collective Sea Source said the DAERA position flew in the face of decisions about other projects signed off by local civil servants. He said that the Kilkeel Strategic Partnership, set up five years ago to support business and employment, is willing to pay 350,000 for the EIA to get the project back on track. "We cannot allow the DAERA civil servants to jeopardise the future of Kilkeel any longer by refusing us the 350,000," said Mr McCulla. "Other ports across the Republic of Ireland and in Scotland are seeing multi-million pound investment as fishing and offshore services expand internationally. Our appeal to DAERA is to let us do the work on this project if they can't, for whatever reasons. Either way, it is now a matter of grave urgency. "We are one of the few successful industries in Northern Ireland re-emerging after years of decline and employing more people than ever." Kilkeel Harbour expansion was mooted for inclusion in the Belfast Region City Deal. But it was later dropped by Newry, Mourne and Down District Council due to the lack of progress. The port has seen year-on-year growth for the past five years, expanding to 1,150 workers in everything from boat building and engineering to fishing and fish processing. Mr McCulla said the harbour is now "bursting at the seams". "The Northern Ireland Health and Safety Executive have advised the Northern Ireland Fishery Harbour Authority (a DAERA agency) that Kilkeel harbour is at capacity, bringing with it added risks," he said. "Kilkeel is a leading UK port and one of the busiest on the island of Ireland but we will soon see this work drift away unless we are allowed to expand and extend the harbour to allow much needed development around the docks and more space for bigger boats." A DAERA spokesperson said: The Department did not previously agree to provide funding for an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) as part of an appraisal for proposals to expand Kilkeel Harbour. "Instead, DAERA, together with its strategic partners, are commencing a strategic programme of work to explore the challenges and opportunities facing the NI Fishing industry. "This is an important first step, which will help to shape long term plans for the industry enabling it to realise its full potential. "We plan to conclude this exercise in 2019. This will provide a substantive basis for future planning for NI fisheries across all fishery harbours, at a time when the UK transitions into an independent coastal state. Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe briefed the Cabinet on the latest Exchequer returns for 2018 on Thursday Ireland has gained more than 4,500 jobs from major international firms because of Brexit-related investments, it has been claimed. The Republics foreign investment agency, IDA (Industrial Development Authority) has said that the country continues to secure a substantial number of investments as a result of Brexit. According to IDAs annual results, there were more than 55 investments approved last year. Some of the companies that are setting up or expanding include Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Legal and General, Everest Re, Central Pharma, The Standard Club, Coinbase, Citigroup and Barclays. Overseas multinationals spend a19.2 billion in the Irish economy; payroll a11.7 billion; Irish materials a2.4 billion and Irish services a5.1 billion. All ai pic.twitter.com/KbhoxrEjjK IDA Ireland (@IDAIRELAND) January 3, 2019 In its report, published on Thursday, it said: For investors, the importance of Irelands ability to provide a stable predictable investment climate cannot be overstated. We have continued to engage significantly with our clients on this issue, fighting for any mobile investment that arises. Irelands advantages in a post-Brexit context include English language, commitment to the EU, a common law system in addition to our existing competitive proposition. In order for the rest of the country to thrive, we must continue to invest in making Dublin a great place to live and workIDA It said that Dublin has continued to absorb a significant amount of foreign investment in 2018 and remained an attractive place for investors to locate. It added: In order for the rest of the country to thrive, we must continue to invest in making Dublin a great place to live and work. Other global cities are already doing this and placemaking is becoming a real area of competitive advantage in cities across the world. Martin Shanahan, chief executive of IDA, said that a strong capital city and strong regions were required to win investment. As IDA has said many times, continued investment in regional Ireland is essential, he added. Our regions are in competition to win investment with the rest of the world, not with Dublin. The figures were announced as the Irish Government recorded a budget surplus of 100 million euro (90.2 million) for last year. It is the first time a budget surplus has been recorded in the last decade, with the exception of the one-off sale of AIB shares. Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe briefed the Cabinet on the latest Exchequer returns for 2018 on Thursday. Speaking after the meeting, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the surplus had been achieved a year ahead of schedule. Its the first time in ten years that weve recorded a budget surplus, he said. It means that were very well prepared for a downturn, for an economic shock, if that were to affect us, much more prepared that other countries. The vast majority of European countries, including the UK, are still running deficits. Mr Varadkar said the surplus was due to an underspend of 250 million euro (225.5 million) in non-voted expenditure, which was not related to any particular government department, and also a very big increase in the amount of tax taken from corporations. But he said they would not be complacent when planning for 2019. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar speaking to the media outside Government Buildings in Dublin (Niall Carson/PA) The Irish and German leaders have pledged to stand by the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. It comes as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said Ireland will not accept any change to the deal that renders the backstop inoperable. Mr Varadkar also said the threat of a no-deal scenario was not of Ireland or the EUs making, and that he was looking to the UK to propose a viable solution. It is up to them to make a proposal but it has to be a proposal that we can accept, he said. Taoiseach @campaignforleo and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have both agreed to astand bya the #Brexit withdrawal agreement. During a 40-minute phone conversation they also discussed ano-deala contingency planning. pic.twitter.com/Pwur9mXH80 Michelle Devane (@michelledevane) January 3, 2019 It cant be a proposal that contradicts whats already in the Withdrawal Agreement. It cant be something that renders the backstop inoperable. Mr Varadkar made the comments in Dublin on Thursday following the Governments first Cabinet meeting of 2019. Ministers met to discuss no-deal contingency preparations in detail following the publication of the Governments action plan last month. It comes as the UKs former Brexit secretary David Davis urged Prime Minister Theresa May to delay the meaningful vote on the deal for a second time. Speaking at Government Buildings Mr Varadkar said he had spoken with German Chancellor Angela Merkel by phone on Thursday morning at her request. We're happy to offer reassurances and guarantees to the UK, but not reassurances and guarantees that contradict or change what was agreed back in NovemberTaoiseach Leo Varadkar The conversation, which lasted about 40 minutes, focused on securing the ratification of the deal, which is expected to be put to a vote in the House of Commons later this month. Mr Varadkar said both leaders had decided to stand by the agreement. Were happy to offer reassurances and guarantees to the UK, but not reassurances and guarantees that contradict or change what was agreed back in November, he said. The Taoiseach said the Irish Government would be continuing with its contingency planning in the event of a no-deal Brexit. About 45 pieces of legislation will need to be approved if a deal is not reached. But he said that he would not be bringing any such legislation to parliament before March as he did not want to tie up parliamentary proceedings with legislation that may not be needed. In its action plan in the event of a no-deal scenario, the Government warned that if an agreement is not reached it would have severe macroeconomic, trade and sectoral impacts on the country. The more than 130-page document aims to minimise any potential risk of disruption from additional checks. It includes the recruitment of 600 customs officer posts, as well as extra staff for the Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Agriculture. Mr Varadkar added that he had given up speculating on the potential outcome of Brexit. The threat of a no-deal isnt one that Ireland is making, isnt one that the European Union is making, he said. The threat of no deal can be taken off the table at any time by the UK Parliament either by ratifying the agreement that the 28 governments have made or by seeking the extension to Article 50 to allow more time for us to negotiate what needs to be negotiated. Ruth Bradley and Pippa Haywood in the production A film crew at work on Channel 5's Agatha and the Truth of Murder at Grey Abbey One of Northern Ireland's oldest stately homes is enjoying a new international life as an increasingly popular filming location. Grey Abbey House has stood in the Ards peninsula since 1762. The estate in Greyabbey also includes the nearby medieval abbey, which dates back to 1193, plus several islands in Strangford Lough. It is one of a number of locations in Northern Ireland enjoying popularity among directors and producers. Nine television dramas and six feature films were filmed on locations in Northern Ireland in 2018, all of which had funding support from Northern Ireland Screen. One of these was Channel 5's Agatha and the Truth of Murder, a story inspired by Agatha Christie's life, which was shot at Grey Abbey House. The property is the third home on the current site built by the Montgomery family - one of the most pre-eminent of the planter families from Scotland who arrived in Co Down around 1607. Portraits of Montgomerys from across the centuries line the walls of one of the sitting rooms. "It's huge fun (to live in a house like this), it's a lovely house to live in and we are very lucky," said owner, Bill Montgomery. His wife, Daphne, added they also feel very much part of the village. Now viewers from around the world are enjoying their historic home through the growing number of movies and TV productions being filmed there. These include The Frankenstein Chronicles, which starred Sean Bean, My Mother and Other Strangers starring Ciaran Hinds and most recently the Truth of Murder, which aired on December 23. Pippa Haywood, Tim McInnerny and Blake Harrison were among the cast who filmed at Grey Abbey House in autumn. Mrs Montgomery said that the house was also used for the Woman in White and Mrs Wilson - while other productions have featured the abbey and islands. She said: "Sean Bean was in the Frankenstein Chronicles, that was all about the stealing of bodies. "So it was quite sinister." Mrs Montgomery said the house is often transformed for filming. "The set designers are very good. "And we would recognise the house," she said, although her husband added: "Sometimes it requires a double take." The process involves preparing the house, filming and then putting everything back and Mrs Montgomery paid tribute to production crews. "We do enjoy having productions filmed here because they are very aware that they are intruding a bit of course, but it's how the business works," she said. A number of pensioners have escaped without injury after a fire at a property in Mount Vernon. (stock photo) A number of pensioners have escaped without injury after a fire at a property in north Belfast. Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service responded to a call out shortly before 10pm on Wednesday evening at an address in Mount Vernon Court sheltered dwellings. Five fire appliances from Whitla, Lisburn, Westland, and Central Fire Stations attended the incident. A spokesperson for the Fire Service said a woman in her 70s and two men in their 60s and 70s were rescued from the property, all of which were uninjured. A man in his 80s was led to safety by firefighters and treated at the scene by personnel from the Ambulance Service for smoke inhalation, although he did not require hospital treatment. Two other residents on the floor of the building where the fire happened managed to make their way out of the property by the time the Fire Service arrived. The blaze was extinguished by firefighters wearing breathing apparatus, who ventilated the property. Residents were alerted to the fire by smoke alarms sounding. The Fire Service confirmed the cause of the fire was accidental, and it had been dealt with by firefighters by midnight on Wednesday. Cats Protection workers Hanna Breen and Colin Bryans with two of their kittens, Marley and Annie Small Paws The festive season often ends in misery for unwanted pets - but Northern Ireland's biggest cat shelter is set to re-home more than 20 cats. Annie Small Paws is one of 22 felines who will start 2019 off in a 'forever home' when her new family picks her up from Cats Protection in Dundonald. Adoption Centre manager Bel Livingstone is delighted that her fluffy friends - including the 11-week-old kitten - now face a brighter future. "Annie was abandoned outside a woman's house in November and wouldn't leave before she was eventually handed in to us," she said. "She's a wee cutie pie - a very friendly and tiny wee thing." Annie is due to arrive at her new home in Bangor later today following a brief spell at the centre which provided essential vaccinations, microchips and neutering for 548 cats in 2018. The cats had all been reserved prior to December 25, but the charity refused to hand them over until after the holidays to minimise the consequences of impulse buying. "We firmly believe that a pet is for life and not just for Christmas," Ms Livingstone said. "It's important to give people time to prepare and think about the commitment they have made before taking a new pet home." One of the centre's longest-dwelling residents has also been fortunate enough to find a new family over the holiday season. Nine-year-old Cringle was handed in after he was discovered with a wound to his eye in 2013. "He's one of my favourites because he's been with us for a considerably long time and is such a wee character - he's more like a wee dog," Ms Livingstone said. "It is absolutely amazing that he's finally found a home because he has particular needs." This "free-spirited soul who loves to explore" will now be able to prowl around the suburbs of south Belfast. One of the most common reasons a cat can find itself homeless is due to the death of a loving owner who has no family to step in - which is what happened to 10-year-old Murphy just before Christmas. "Her owner was a great friend of ours - I'm glad we have been able to secure a happy ending for Murphy who is now heading for pastures new in east Belfast." Luna's life was turned upside down following the arrival of a new baby with a severe allergy in December, leaving her family with no choice but to give the 18-months-old cat up. She is all set to start over again in Newtownards once her new owners pick her up. Ms Livingstone said regular visits from new owners over the festive period has allowed a lot of excitement to build among many families and ensured that each new home has been cat-proofed with all the essential accessories. "It also allows people to think about the financial burden involved - my own cat had to spend a week in the vets recently and the bill was 1,000," she said. "People don't realise how expensive it can be, even with pet insurance." While the devoted cat carer said the number of felines being re-homed today highlights the overlooked positive side of Christmas, she still expects to pick up the pieces when unwanted cats are inevitably abandoned over the coming weeks. "There are 49 cats on our list right now and we have already taken one in," she said. "It actually had a microchip but when we contacted the owner they did not want it returned - so that's our first wee one who has been kicked out at Christmas. Sadly we expect there will be more." Residents leave their homes in Ballysillan Avenue after attacks in August last year Hundreds of families are still being forced from their homes every year because of intimidation by paramilitaries. The Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) has dealt with more than 2,000 cases in the last three-and-a-half years where people said they have been left homeless due to victimisation. Read More In almost three-quarters of incidents the reason cited was threats from paramilitaries. Hundreds of thousands of pounds have also been paid out by the NIHE in grant aid to assist families who have been forced from their homes to find new accommodation. The figures - two decades after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement - have been branded "alarming". Former Justice Minister Claire Sugden said the collapse of Stormont has impacted on the ability to address the issue. Figures show: - 2,017 households presented themselves as homeless due to intimidation between April 2015 and October 2018. - In 1,488 cases the reason cited was intimidation from paramilitaries. - A further 271 cases related to anti-social behaviour. - In 80 other cases it was due to racial intimidation. - Another 135 cases were linked to sectarianism. - Discrimination around sexual orientation (40) and disability (three) accounted for other cases. Details of paramilitary intimidation emerged after a Freedom of Information request by the Belfast Telegraph to the NIHE. In August photographs of residents in a housing estate at Ballysillan Avenue in north Belfast leaving their homes made national headlines. However, the figures obtained by this newspaper show it is an all-too-common issue, with an average of eight families a week presenting themselves as homeless due to paramilitary threats. SDLP Justice spokeswoman Dolores Kelly said the number of threats from paramilitary groups was alarming, and called for the issue to be addressed. "The rising numbers of households presenting as homeless across Northern Ireland is extremely concerning," she said. "More than that, the alarming rise in intimidation cases under threat must be tackled head-on. "For too long criminals masquerading as paramilitaries have been allowed to rule communities with an iron fist. "These thugs cannot be allowed to dictate who lives where and when. The SDLP has consistently called for a 20-year housing strategy to combat our growing housing problem here. "However, it is well-known that intimidation cases skew housing waiting lists. "Therefore, to effectively tackle our housing crisis we must tackle this issue head-on, otherwise homelessness and waiting lists will continue rising." Analysis of recent figures shows the highest level of intimidation came in 2016/17, when a total of 661 households requested to be rehomed by the Housing Executive - 477 of those making the requests said it was because a paramilitary organisation had threatened them. In 2015/16, 544 households requested to be rehomed, 393 due to paramilitary intimidation; and in 2017/18 there were 558 cases, 425 due to paramilitary intimidation. In the first half of the current financial year, from April to October 2018, 254 cases requested to be rehomed. Of these, 193 cited paramilitaries. In every year the number of paramilitary threats remains significantly higher than all other forms of intimidation such as sectarianism, anti-social behaviour, race, sexual orientation and disability. All cases are investigated, and a small number in each year may not be deemed authentic. Anyone who has been intimidated from their home can be entitled to 754 under the grant aid scheme, which comes out of the NIHE's budget. In 2015/16 and 2016/17 it paid out more than 354,000 in grant aid to families to assist with rehousing after they were forced to flee from intimidation. Ms Sugden, who served as Justice Minister from 2016 until the Assembly's collapse, said the lack of devolution had impacted efforts to address the paramilitary problem. She added: "During my time as Justice Minister the work done around the paramilitary action plan was actually calling paramilitaries for what they are, and that is criminal thugs who have control of their communities and keep them down. "The work that we had done before Stormont collapsed wasn't going to fix the problem overnight but it did focus in on the type of activity paramilitaries are engaged in, and that is criminality. The problem is, the money is there for the public services but we are not able to improve them because we can't sign a new directive, and I wonder if that is being exploited by these criminals. I genuinely think the two are linked." The Housing Executive said: "As part of a process to determine intimidation, we will make enquiries from various sources to assist in the decision-making process. "These sources include the PSNI and we will ask for written reports from police on any incident, seeking confirmation of any risks or threats that may exist. "We may also seek information from other relevant organisations, such as Base 2 (a crisis intervention service provided by NIACRO) and other welfare or support groups such as NICEM (Northern Ireland Council on Ethnic Minorities) for racial intimidation or the Rainbow Project (sexual orientation). "If our staff are satisfied intimidation has taken place, following this process we accept the applicant as statutorily homeless and they may be awarded points for intimidation." PSNI Inspector Paul Noble said police have a comprehensive policy to deal with the problem. He said: "Nobody should be threatened or subject to any form of intimidation. "While there may be instances of people not reporting these incidents to police, anyone who feels threatened or is subjected to any form of intimidation should report this information to us so we can address any threat and investigate. "PSNI follows a comprehensive corporate policy on threats to life, which provides instruction and advice on receiving, assessing, responding to, reviewing and resolving threat and warning notices. "A threat assessment is conducted in each case in order that appropriate steps may be taken to manage the threat. "There are a number of tactical options which can be considered when managing any threat received and the exact course of action taken will be determined upon the particular circumstances of each individual case. "Where appropriate, we will also liaise with the Housing Executive." A Belfast DUP representative has urged his fellow councillors to come together and oppose plans to name a new 500m city centre development 'Tribeca'. DUP councillor Lee Reynolds said representatives from all parties should unite against the name in a vote planned for a full Belfast City Council meeting next Monday. Read More At the meeting councillors will be addressed by Conor Shields from the 'Save Cathedral Quarter' campaign. Mr Reynolds will then propose a motion that council calls on Castlebrooke Investments to drop the naming plans. This Council, whilst welcoming investment and the regeneration of our City, calls upon Castlebrook Investments to drop the Tribeca branding for their City centre regeneration scheme, the motion will read. Councillor Reynolds said the name does not reflect the real Belfast. "We have spent the last couple of years trying to develop a brand and an identity for Belfast and two important things, it has to be authentic and it has to be distinctly Belfast," he told BBC Radio Ulster. "Taking a name from another city is neither authentic nor distinctly Belfast." A Castlebrooke spokesperson said that Belfast City Council "risked sending out a very negative message to investors" if they voted against the naming plan. In November 'Tribeca Belfast' was announced by Castlebrooke Investments as the name for its 12-acre retail and office regeneration project beside St Anne's Cathedral. Expand Close Councillor Lee Reynolds / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Councillor Lee Reynolds The scheme, which has already been given the green light for its first phase, will see the creation of 1,500,00 sq ft of residential space, office units as well as retail and hospitality elements. The project formerly known as Royal Exchange is Belfast's single largest regeneration scheme. It borders Royal Avenue, Donegall Street, Lower Garfield Street and Rosemary Street. TriBeCa is a trendy neighbourhood in Lower Manhattan, which is an abbreviation of 'triangle below the canal'. It is one of the most expensive places to live in Manhattan. Outlining how they came up with the name Tribeca Belfast, Castlebrooke revealed it relates to the location being at the heart of the city site - the 'triangle beside the cathedral'. Elaborating further they said Tribeca Belfast "reflects the geography of the site, and links our brand of 'International Heart, Belfast Soul'." However Belfast Lord Mayor Deirdre Hargey was one of a number of high-profile people to criticise the New York link. "I'm sorry but this is Belfast not New York. We are proud of our city, its people, its places names and its heritage, that's what gives Belfast it's soul!" she tweeted when the name was announced. The draft EU Withdrawal Agreement flies in the face of Government commitments on Northern Ireland, Nigel Dodds said (Michael Cooper/PA) The draft EU Withdrawal Agreement flies in the face of Government commitments on Northern Ireland, Nigel Dodds has said. The DUP deputy leader met Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday along with his partys Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson and MEP Diane Dodds. He reiterated the partys concerns over the proposed Northern Ireland border backstop, which proponents in Europe and the Irish Republic have called an insurance policy to protect frictionless all-island trade. Mr Dodds said: The Irish Republics no deal preparations published just before Christmas have laid bare the nonsense propaganda about a hard border. No-one wants a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Indeed, its becoming clearer by the day that no one is ever going to construct such a border. With this clarity emerging in London, Dublin and Brussels, there is evidently no need for the aspects of the Withdrawal Agreement, which have been so vigorously opposed by a broad cross-section of the House of Commons. The Withdrawal Agreement, as currently proposed, flies in the face of the Governments commitments on Northern Ireland as we leave the EU. Statement following meeting with @10DowningStreet Principled objections to Withdrawal Agreement remain: Dodds pic.twitter.com/wKmgZp9LjV Nigel Dodds (@NigelDoddsDUP) January 3, 2019 The UK Government has said it does not want a hard border reimposed on the island of Ireland. Mrs May has also said the country will exit the EU as one United Kingdom. Contrary to pro-EU spin, the border backstop keeping Northern Ireland aligned with the Republic on trade matters is not the best of both worlds, Mr Dodds said. It is potentially indefinite in time, would place a barrier between us and our main trading partner in Great Britain and give enormous leverage to the European Union in the negotiations on the future relationship with the United Kingdom. Mr Dodds said the party would have further discussions with the Prime Minister and will continue to work with the Government in the interests of getting a better deal. Brussels must now demonstrate that if it truly cares about Northern Ireland, then erecting a new east-west barrier should be no more palatable than having any new north-south barriers, he said. We need to give the public a final say on Brexit with the option to stay and strengthen ourselves within EuropeBest for Britain Meanwhile, Best for Britain, which describes itself as an organisation attempting to keep the UK open to EU membership, said the DUP had pulled the rug out from underneath the Prime Minister. It claimed: Her Brexit deal is dead in the water. If Theresa May cant convince Nigel Dodds and her own party to back her deal after a one-to-one, why should the country support it? It irritates Leavers and Remainers alike, and it actively concedes influence over British laws. Its a bad deal. Theres only one solution to this nightmare. We need to give the public a final say on Brexit with the option to stay and strengthen ourselves within Europe. Airbnb has said the onus remains on local property owners to ensure they are acting within the law The number of local properties listed on Airbnb soared in 2018 despite the start of legal action against unlicensed landlords. Figures compiled by AirDNA, which analyses Airbnb market trends in Belfast, Londonderry and Co Down, found 2,516 properties listed online during December. It includes 1,552 entire homes and 960 private rooms. The bulk of the properties are located in the Greater Belfast area, which has 898 homes and 545 rooms listed. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK where anyone offering overnight accommodation must have certification. Last year Tourism NI initiated legal action for the first time against two people who advertised their properties on the web-based service as accommodation. The cases were dropped when the property owners opted to register, an online process that Tourism NI says costs 40. Airbnb has said the onus remains on local property owners to ensure they are acting within the law. Tourism NI said: "If it's brought to our attention that someone is operating without certification we will contact them, advise them of the legal requirement and ask them to register for certification. "In almost every case the property will comply. We have the option to take court action against those who don't. "This applies to everyone regardless of what marketing platform they use." Airbnb told the Belfast Telegraph: "We regularly remind hosts to check and follow local rules, and provide guidance about hosting in Northern Ireland to help them on our responsible hosting page." AirDNA, which also monitors the cumulative number of properties listed here since 2011, highlighted the scale of Airbnb's growth over the past seven years. As of 2018, there have been 2,644 properties listed in the Belfast area, 61% more than the 1,639 listed the year before. It suggests the Airbnb market in the city is now 25 times the size it was four years ago, when just 105 properties were listed via the online booking service. AirDNA's analysis also shows that the 1,444 active rentals in the city belong to 765 property owners, with 240 hosts letting out multiple properties in Belfast. It was a similar story in Derry, which recorded a 63% cumulative rise in Airbnb properties listed on the site over the year, growing from 327 in 2017 to 534 this year. Four years ago it was just 25. The number of listings in Co Down has increased from 79 to 1,326 over the same four year period. A total of 770 properties are actively listed on Airbnb, with the biggest concentration in popular seaside locations such as Bangor and Newcastle. The scale of Airbnb's global growth has prompted moves in some countries to curb its impact on the supply of housing. Caps have already been introduced in London and Paris limiting the number of days hosts can rent out their properties. In 2016 Berlin banned tourists from renting entire apartments via Airbnb. The Irish Government has also changed its law. Prompted by a housing shortage, from June this year homeowners in the Republic will be prevented from letting their primary residence on a short-term basis for a maximum of 90 days in a year and up to 14 days at a time. Number of properties in Belfast, Derry and Co Down actively listed online by Airbnb in December 'Police told the BBC the group was not being investigated. It's understood that, unlike other groups, members were non-aggressive and did not film or broadcast the incident online' (stock photo) A man has been removed from a local care home after he was arrested on suspicion of attempting sexual communication with a child. An investigation is under way after a group of so-called paedophile hunters arrived at the Co Tyrone care home, apparently intending to confront a resident. The incident occurred on Sunday, December 2, although there was no attempt by the people to enter the premises. Instead, they asked to speak to a resident. However, after being refused entry they handed over a file containing allegations of inappropriate online contact to staff, after which they left and police were alerted. Those arriving at the home were described as a "vigilante-type group" by a health watchdog. Police told the BBC the group was not being investigated. It's understood that, unlike other groups, members were non-aggressive and did not film or broadcast the incident online. The resident was moved to a similar facility elsewhere after being released on bail. That home said: "At this time the matter is being dealt with under the joint protocol with the home, PSNI and SHSCT (Southern Health and Social Care Trust) and the home does not wish to make any further comments regarding the incident." However, the home lists its local authority as the Northern Health and Social Care Trust (NHSCT). The Southern Trust is involved as it placed the resident at the facility, but because of its location, the Northern Trust has regional responsibility. The Northern Trust suggested the facility's management be contacted directly for comment as it doesn't manage the home. It said: "Guidance and response should be sought from the care home management. "We are not aware of any incidents affecting Northern Trust service users in the home." The Southern Trust confirmed it was aware of the incident, but declined further comment due to the live investigation. Health watchdog the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority said: "Under The Nursing Homes Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005, services are required to notify RQIA of any event at the home which may adversely affect the wellbeing or safety of any patient. "In early December 2018 RQIA was appropriately notified of an incident involving a vigilante-type group, which is subject to a PSNI investigation. "The safety and wellbeing of all those living at the home is of paramount importance to RQIA, and we continue to monitor this service through our ongoing inspection and regulatory activities." The PSNI confirmed a male had been arrested on suspicion of attempted sexual communication with a child. He was released on bail pending further enquiries, it said. It is understood the arrested man had been a resident for some time. He has now been moved to similar accommodation elsewhere. Due to concerns raised over previous activity a number of safeguarding measures were in place, including a ban on internet access. A DUP MLA has called for a greater police presence on the streets of Belfast after witnessing drug use in public during a New Year's Day stroll with his young children. Writing in the Belfast Telegraph today, Christopher Stalford MLA told how he was walking along the Connswater Greenway in mid-morning when he passed two men - one "casually" smoking a cannabis joint. "The nonchalance and matter-of-fact way in which he was breaking the law and in front of kids made me stop to think; how did this come to be acceptable? How is this now normal?" the South Belfast MLA said. Documenting further incidents around Shaftesbury Square and around Botanic Avenue he added: "In vast swathes of Belfast, especially in the inner city, the unmistakable smell of cannabis hangs thick in the air. "My office has been contacted dozens of times about drug paraphernalia being dumped in entries and playgrounds. Frankly, I have the impression that Belfast is awash with drugs. Something has happened that both dealers and users feel empowered to behave so brazenly. "I strongly believe that it is time for a step change in the battle against drug dealing in our society. Some will say it is a fight that cannot be won. I don't agree. We have an obligation to start pushing back against this rising tide." The PSNI said tackling the supply of drugs and drug use remains a main priority in Belfast and across Northern Ireland. Superintendent Muir Clark said: "Drugs destroy lives and there should be no place in society for those who grow or supply it. The reality however is that as long as there is demand there will be drugs on our streets. "I can assure the community that where we have information that drug dealing is taking place, we will deploy extra police resources to combat this destructive behaviour. "In the 12 months leading up to September 2018, there were 2,107 drugs seizures and 1,190 drugs arrests in Belfast - an increase of 199 and 217 respectively for the same period in 2017. "We remain committed to restricting the availability of illegal drugs in our community. "Community support to addressing the issue of drugs is vital and I would encourage everyone to contact police about suspected drug dealing." Police blamed the attack on the home on the 'South East Antrim UDA'. Photo by Alan Lewis. A baby in a pram has narrowly escaped injury after homes were attacked in Co Down by UDA members, police have said. In a post on social media, PSNI Ards said they believe "Newtownards-based South East Antrim UDA" carried out the series of attacks on houses and cars in the town on Wednesday night. "In one of the incidents large bricks were thrown through a front living window landing on their furniture narrowly missing young children," they wrote. "Had they been less fortunate glass and bricks would have landed in a pram with a young baby." Police said that, while the group may give "their own warped explanation" for the attacks, they questioned what could be achieved "by terrorising children and babies in the sanctuary of their own home". "These criminals skulk about in the hours of darkness terrorising local communities under the banner of South East Antrim UDA they do this to control communities, not help them," they added. Police have urged urged anyone with any information regarding the attacks or paramilitaries in the area to contact them on 101 or anonymously through Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. "Only by the community speaking out against these criminals will you help the fight against them," police said. "Paramilitaries dont protect you they control you." The scene on Dermot Hill Parade in West Belfast on Thursday following an overnight arson attack on a family home. (Rebecca Black/PA) A house belonging to a west Belfast family has been badly damaged in a fire believed to have been started deliberately, just days after two other attacks. The blaze at the house in the Dermott Hill Parade area in the early hours of Thursday morning gutted the ground floor of the property. No-one was inside the house at the time but the smoke spread to the house next door where a number of people had to be evacuated. The Police Service of Northern Ireland are treating the incident as arson. Expand Close The incident is being treated as arson (Rebecca Black/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The incident is being treated as arson (Rebecca Black/PA) They have not commented on speculation that dissident republicans are behind the attacks. A PSNI official said police believe the latest attack may be linked to criminal damage at the same address on January 1, in which a number of windows were smashed. We are also investigating a possible link to a shooting incident at residential premises in the Upper Springfield road area, which was reported to police on Tuesday, the official added. Everyone has a right to live in a safe and stable community and this type of senseless and reckless criminality will not be tolerated. Expand Close Police have appealed for witnesses (Rebecca Black/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Police have appealed for witnesses (Rebecca Black/PA) Those living in the local area who have any information should bring it to police immediately so that we can bring the perpetrators to justice. The Dermot Hill Parade house was attacked on New Years Eve. George Richmond, who lived in the house, said thousands of pounds of damage was inflicted with windows, window frames and doors smashed. Hours later, in the early hours of New Years Day, shots were fired at a nearby flat where his daughter Georgina, a former contestant on the Voice of Ireland competition, lived in the Upper Springfield Road area. The family have left the two properties. About Me Scott Because prophetic scriptures are found throughout the bible, it is obvious that a comprehensive, systematic approach would be useful, if not necessary, for the understanding of prophecy. Past prophecies have been fulfilled in a literal manner, as confirmed by the dating of these writings and historical records of confirmation. These past prophecies also serve as a model of how to interpret future prophecies. A literal view of prophecy clearly indicates a certain sequence of events will occur within a single generation, concluding with the Tribulation and Second Advent and these events will be obvious. The prophetic signs appear to be present in this generation and we believe these signs are revealed in the news from around the world. View my complete profile A man whose brother was murdered in the Kingsmill massacre has said he hopes this weekend's memorial will not be overshadowed by controversy. Each year a service is held in south Armagh to remember the victims of the IRA atrocity on January 5, 1976 in which 10 Protestant workmen died. Barry McElduff was forced to resign as a Sinn Fein MP after posting footage online of himself posing with a Kingsmill-branded loaf on his head on the anniversary of the killings last year. Mr McElduff, who announced last month he will stand as a candidate in the upcoming council elections, has always denied he was aware of the date and stressed it was never intended to offend. Colin Worton, whose brother Kenneth was one of those killed, said yesterday he expected this Saturday's service to be solely focused on the families. "Hopefully there will not be as much controversy," he said. "Unfortunately, though, sick jokes will probably still be made on social media." Mr Worton, who will be attending the service with his 92 year-old mother Bea, welcomed the presence of other IRA victims at the event. These include members of the South East Fermanagh Foundation, which has attended the service in recent years. "It will be emotional. For innocent victims, the pain of losing a loved one is the same," said Mr Worton. He added that he wants this year to see greater progress on the ongoing Kingsmill inquest, which opened in 2016 but has been held up by legal difficulties. Victims' campaigner William Frazer has vowed to name alleged perpetrators connected to the atrocity at the service. "Annually the families gather in dignified reflection to remember those who were brutally murdered by the IRA," he said. "The world now knows and accepts that there was an unjustified campaign of ethnic cleansing within south Armagh. "The romantic narrative of Irish revolutionaries is far displaced from the sectarian reality suffered by many people who lived and worked within this area. "I will be publicly updating the families on the current inquest. Those suspects with OTR (on-the-run) letters may be able to hide behind the courts, but I'll ensure their names are made public. "Locals know who they are, it's about time were given the publicity they deserve." Backing the Kingsmill families in their ongoing fight for justice, he said they will continue not to be "deterred by obstruction or deflection". "Kingsmill is more than an event in history," he added. "It's the reality that 10 innocent men - husbands, sons and brothers - were murdered. "We will stand with the families on Saturday as they remember their loved ones." I first became interested in the subject a number of years ago. It stemmed from the fact that my grandfather, grandmother and great aunt all served at Larne Naval Base during the First World War. My first book was titled Airships Over The North Channel and told the story of the airship station at Bentra in Whitehead. I returned to the National Archive at Kew and carried out more research, the fruit of which was a second, revised and expanded edition now titled Airships Over Ulster. Both of these touched upon the role of Larne Naval Base, as the airships were under the control of the Senior Naval Officer in the town. I then began to think of a further development of the story, putting the tale of the airships in their context as part of a much larger national effort. So I went back to Kew twice more and uncovered a vast amount of material about the 1914-18 war at sea as it specifically related to Ireland. Much of what I have uncovered has never been presented in a book before and has hitherto been hidden history. Many of the 400-plus photos have never been published previously. The work of the RN, RNAS and, latterly the RAF, USN and USNAS in Ireland was crucial to winning the war at sea and the eventual victory of the Allies. Last year I also assisted the museum staff in Larne and Carrickfergus in devising and setting up exhibitions on this subject. It has been very hard work, but very rewarding and satisfying to shed light on an important but overlooked part of our history. The Great War of 1914-18 brought many technological innovations which served to add to the horror and carnage of the conflict. The war at sea was not immune from these developments as battle was engaged not only on the surface but also by underwater craft and in the air above. Ireland went from being a naval backwater to the forefront of a major theatre of the war. In 1914 nobody thought that the U-boat would prove to be such a key weapon or that naval forces based in Irish ports and airfields would be crucial to winning the war. Ireland first entered the war in a naval sense when the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet moored in Lough Swilly for a month in the autumn of 1914 while the anti-U-boat defences at Scapa Flow were being upgraded. While there, on October 27, 1914, the new battleship HMS Audacious was sunk by a mine laid off Tory Island by the German auxiliary minelayer SMS Berlin. As a direct result of this catastrophe minesweeping trawlers were sent to Buncrana and also to Larne. Naval bases were established in both locations. In 1914 Larne was a thriving market town and seaport with a population of around 9,000. Its situation on the north-east coast of Co Antrim gave it a strategically important position on the North Channel between Ireland and Scotland. Any vessel passing through the northern end of the Irish Sea en route to Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin or Liverpool, as well as many minor ports, was subject to the jurisdiction of the naval forces based in Larne. The sea route from Stranraer to Larne was also the shortest crossing between Great Britain and Ireland. Larne's Olderfleet Hotel became a naval headquarters under the direction of the Senior Royal Naval Officer. Expand Close The Olderfleet Hotel / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Olderfleet Hotel The challenge faced by British forces in the U-boat war should not be underestimated. U-boats first penetrated the North Channel, the Irish Sea and the Atlantic coast of Ireland in early 1915. A considerable proportion of the Royal Naval Reserve was sent to ports all around the coast of Ireland. The RNR was largely made up of trawlers and drifters and their crews who were drafted into service. By the spring of 1915 more than 100 of these small but sturdy vessels were based in Larne. In due course they would be equipped with 3-inch or 6-inch guns and fitted with wireless telegraphy sets. While based at Larne these small ships would have their coal bunkers replenished between patrols, their boilers would be cleaned, repairs made, the crews rested, supplies would be taken on board and the necessary command and control would be given. The largest ship to be based in Larne in 1915 was the former London and North Western Railway Kingstown to Holyhead mail steamer TSS Hibernia, which was requisitioned by the Admiralty and renamed HMS Tara. Supported by a flotilla of four destroyers - HMS Dee, HMS Dove, HMS Garry and HMS Thorn - HMS Tara patrolled the North Channel, inspecting merchant vessels and keeping them clear of danger areas. Expand Expand Previous Next Close The local naval base brass band Guy's grandparents Eric Lionel Warner and Martha Knox / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The local naval base brass band Anti-submarine nets were laid from the north coast of Ireland to the Mull of Kintrye and were patrolled ceaselessly by relays of drifters. As the North Channel was too deep to net to the bottom, the object was to make the submarines use up their batteries by keeping them submerged for as long as possible. Two lines of nets were laid 20 miles apart, "a light flexible curtain of thin steel wire woven into six or 10ft meshes and supplied in lengths of 200 yards. These were laid clipped together. The submergence of the glass buoys on which the nets were hung or the automatic ignition of a calcium light betrayed immediately the presence of a submarine". Between these nets were four or five lines of net drifters, supported by patrols. Day and night the little steamers kept under way, continuously towing their nets. In addition there were surface patrols for five miles at each end, which meant that to pass through, a U-boat had to stay submerged for 30 miles. The Admiralty decided that accommodation for officers could be provided by converting part of the drifter's fish hold or by adding a cabin to the upper deck. This work was carried out in Belfast. Much other work on the drifters and trawlers was undertaken by the Larne Shipbuilding Company (which had been established in 1878 near the Olderfleet Castle and would survive until 1922). The company was taken in hand, "extensive additions were made to the facilities and a great many extra hands were engaged". As many as 150 armed trawlers and drifters at a time were based in Larne. Expand Close An airship landing at Bentra / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp An airship landing at Bentra Additionally, the Royal Navy developed a fleet of airships to patrol the seas. The new submarine-searching or submarine-scout craft became known as the SS Class and was crewed by the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). No other contemporary aircraft could match the airships' endurance or slow speed capability. They could patrol for hours on end and used wireless telegraphy to communicate with their bases, who could then direct warships towards a potential target. Success depended on close co-operation between the naval airmen and the warships operating from Larne Naval Base. The surveillance and detection capabilities of the airships helped keep U-boats below the waves, where they could see less, had to travel much more slowly and used up valuable battery power. It is a well-documented fact that the U-boats crews loathed the airships. In October 1915 Bentra, just outside Whitehead, was established as a sub-station of RNAS Luce Bay airship base in Scotland under the command of the Senior Naval Officer at Larne Naval Base. Rations for the men stationed at Bentra were provided by the Army Service Corps via the 6th Royal Fusiliers at Carrickfergus Castle. Duties included convoy escort and also accompanying the Larne-Stranraer steamer, the Princess Maud. Expand Close Section C of the WRNS in the town / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Section C of the WRNS in the town Crewed by young men barely out of their teens, the SS and later SSZ class airships made long patrols over the sea of up to 10 hours duration. It is hard to imagine now just what it would have been like for the crews of the airships, suspended beneath a gasbag in an open cockpit, between a few hundred and a few thousand feet above the cold, grey sea. One of the pilots, Flight Sub-Lieutenant Thomas Elmhirst, only 19 years old at the time, later wrote: "It should be noted that conditions were cramped and confined on board, exposed to the cold and at the mercy of the elements. This would not be a pleasant experience when returning from a long patrol - tired, hungry and cold." Other devices and weapons which would be deployed at sea - even in the smallest vessels - from 1916 onwards included the hydrophone and the depth charge. The hydrophone consisted of a receiver which, when lowered into the water, picked up the vibrations of a U-boat's propellers and passed the sound by means of "communicating wires and headphones to a trained listener stationed on deck". These were non-directional at first until the development of directional hydrophones in 1917. An Ulsterman from Hillsborough, Lieutenant Hamilton Harty RNVR, renowned as the conductor of Manchester's Halle Orchestra, used his musical ear to great effect tuning the equipment and matching pairs of hydrophones. The depth charge was a 300lb bomb fitted with a hydrostatic device to detonate it at a pre-set depth, therefore allowing a submarine to be attacked when submerged. The development of depth-charge throwers rather than simply rolling them over the stern increased their range and efficiency and chances of success. For vital supplies - foodstuffs, oil, munitions - and, from 1917, troops from America to cross the Atlantic from the US to the Allies, ships had to pass the coast of Ireland, either to the north or south. The situation became critical in the spring/early summer of 1917 - losses of merchant shipping to the German U-boats were unsustainable. Expand Close Armed drifters in Larne Lough / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Armed drifters in Larne Lough In June 1917 First Sea Lord Admiral Jellicoe warned the War Cabinet that the shortage of shipping was becoming so serious that it would be impossible to continue the war into 1918 if the losses carried on at the same appalling rate, having reached a peak of 834,594 tons in April. The introduction of the convoy system in 1917 was critical to winning the war at sea. It was increasing in intensity, and for the vessels and warships based in Larne and at Bentra, 1918 would be a critical and dramatic year, which would bring considerable success. The full story of the war at sea from bases all around the coast of Ireland 1914-18 is told in Guy Warner's new book U-boats Around Ireland, published by Colourpoint Books of Newtownards, price 18 Snuggled under a silky silver blanket on a curved couch in an extremely posh London hotel suite, dark eyes sparkling and glossy waves bouncing as she talks, Huda Kattan is every bit as glamorous and gregarious in person as she appears to her 30 million (and rising) Instagram followers. On a visit to the capital to promote her latest creation, Kayali perfume, the Dubai-based beauty blogger turned brand founder is loving the festive feeling in the city. "I honestly want to move here. I love it so much," she says, rainbow-hued nails glinting as she gestures enthusiastically. And with the Huda Beauty company she founded in 2013 - after training as a make-up artist and starting a blog three years earlier - bringing in an estimated 158 million a year (according to Forbes), a UK move isn't just a pipe dream for its CEO. "We opened our office in LA, and we opened our office in the UK, and then our main office is in Dubai, so I really think I'm going to have homes in all those locations." From the outside, the 35-year-old leads an incredibly luxurious and exciting lifestyle, but Kattan insists that isn't the case. "Are you going to be disappointed if I tell you I'm a boring person? I'm a boring person, I swear!" she says, before listing her activities for the next week, which include a day-long board meeting in Dubai ("not fun"), a circus-themed staff Christmas party, a team building trip to the desert and Eva Longoria's Global Gift Gala. I guess I'm not that boring!" she admits, "but in the evening, I really chill out. I like to spend time with my daughter (six-year-old Nour Giselle), and we're usually just in bed, watching TV or snuggling." Today she's on work duty, however, so we took the opportunity to grill the jet-set CEO on all things Huda Beauty... Your new fragrance collection, Kayali, is the first sub-brand for Huda Beauty, why did you decide to position it that way? "It's so funny, because everybody was just like, 'What are you doing? It should just be a Huda Beauty fragrance'! Expand Close Huda's new perfume Kayali PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Huda's new perfume Kayali "But if it's a Huda Beauty fragrance, it's going to be limited in the packaging, it's going to be limited in the bottle shape, and all those things. "Kayali is a completely new entity, has a completely different DNA, it has a completely different story." Eva Longoria was one of your first clients as a make-up artist, do you ever do her make-up nowadays? "Sometimes. You know, it's so funny, I saw her the day before she gave birth. She was like, 'You know, I'm going into labour tomorrow, do you want to come over'? "And I went over to her house and was like, 'Let me do your make-up, before you go into labour'. And she was like, 'I don't want to'. And I was like, 'Let's just do it'! "And she asked me to do her make-up on one of the days we had a Christmas party. I just like to mess around with her. She's so much fun." Kim Kardashian West is often credited with helping promote the first ever Huda Beauty product, lashes. Are you guys friends now? "Yeah, we know each other. She reached out to me when she first started her make-up line and we had lunch and she was lovely. "But, you know, we're very different people. I think people used to compare us in the beginning, because she wore a little bit of a Middle Eastern style of make-up. "It was funny, because people were like, 'Oh my gosh, you kind of look like Kim', and I didn't like being compared to somebody else. But I guess if it was going to be her, I couldn't be that mad, you know? She was a beauty icon. She's just as beautiful in person. And very sweet." You're a beauty icon yourself for your millions of followers - who are your beauty icons and have they changed over the years? "I always loved Sophia Loren as a kid. I'm a big fan of the Sixties and Brigitte Bardot. I don't feel like my icons have changed over the years, I always just love the Sixties. "I definitely am inspired now more by the Nineties than I was before. I've been super into, like Mean Girls and Clueless, and before it was actually trendy!" What do you think of the Duchess of Sussex's make-up style? "I love her! I just think she's naturally beautiful, I'm obsessed with her. Expand Close The Duchess of Sussex PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Duchess of Sussex "I love just in general her hair, her face, her make-up. She's really light with her make-up. I like that she just looks flushed, and her skin looks healthy." Are there any beauty trends from 2018 that you think have gone too far? "Yeah, definitely the crazy brows. There's a lot on Instagram that people do just for the sake of doing them. "I think people are getting very artistic now, with the trends, and they're drawing full canvasses on their face. "And I think it's beautiful, but I would never wear it out." 'Bank of Ireland, forecourt retailer Applegreen, building merchants MacBlair owners Grafton, and hotel operator Dalata are all among the stocks perceived by Davy Stockbrokers as offering significant value' A raft of stocks in Irish firms with operations on this side of the border have been tipped as investment opportunities because of their exposure to a strong economy in the Republic and a prediction that there won't be a hard Brexit. Bank of Ireland, forecourt retailer Applegreen, building merchants MacBlair owners Grafton, and hotel operator Dalata are all among the stocks perceived by Davy Stockbrokers as offering significant value. It has based its predictions on its expectation that there won't be a hard Brexit and that the UK will remain in the single market for the "foreseeable future". The Irish stock market shed about 23% of its value last year, wiping more than 21bn (19bn) from its value. Shares in Irish firms were pummelled by external factors including Brexit, but also by concerns about the underlying health of the economy. Some stocks were hit by company-specific issues. They included Ryanair, which spent the bulk of 2018 dealing with labour and union issues. Its shares fell more than 28% last year. Paddy Power Betfair also faced challenges to its business, sending its shares 28% lower in 2018. Davy Stockbrokers said yesterday that given the economic outlook for Ireland this year, weakness in many Irish stocks will provide "very interesting investment opportunities" in 2019. Ireland's economy is expected to grow by 4.2% in 2019, according to the Economic and Social Research Institute. That follows expected growth of 8.2% in 2018. A recent EY-DKM report predicted that 60,000 net new jobs will be added to the Republic's economy this year. Davy Stockbrokers expects the Irish economy to expand by 5.6% in 2019. "We also believe that many investors have taken too pessimistic a view on Ireland's point in the cycle - specifically with respect to the outlook for the housing market and bank lending," said Davy. "A budget surplus will encourage a rise in government spending in infrastructure and perhaps more expansionary fiscal policy," it added. Manufacturers here are reporting that finished goods are taking up most cold storage space as stockpiles hit a six-month high across the UK in preparation for a no-deal Brexit. The IHS Markit/CIPS UK manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) showed a reading of 54.2 last month, higher than the 53.6 recorded in November - making it a six-month high. A figure above 50 indicates growth and economists were expecting a reading of 52.5 in December. Businesses importing goods from the EU will face severe disruption in the event of a no-deal Brexit. According to the IHS, manufacturers are building up safety stocks to mitigate the potential upheaval. Stephen Kelly, chief executive of Manufacturing NI, said: "Our firms are reporting similar trends. Food firms in particular have been stockpiling intermediate products (such as sugars) and many are reporting that finished goods are taking up most, if not all, of the available cold storage. "This in itself is causing difficulties for those who are producing fresh goods but don't have storage available to them." The survey showed that uncertainty over the impact of Brexit influenced manufacturers' purchasing activity, stock levels and business confidence in December. Inventories rose at the fourth-fastest rate in the survey's 27-year history and a rise in finished goods stocks in December was the second-strongest since the survey began in 1992. Rob Dobson, director at IHS Markit, said: "December saw the UK PMI rise to a six-month high, following short-term boosts to inventory holdings and inflows of new business as UK companies stepped up their preparations for a potentially disruptive Brexit." A Belfast specialist camera maker has sounded concerns over Brexit and the fall in the value of sterling after recording a year of declining revenues and profits. Andor Technology, which is based at Springvale Business Park, reported an 8% (5.6m) drop in revenue to 63.6m for the 12 months to March 31, 2018. New accounts for the firm also show pre-tax profits dropped 24% (3m) to 9.6m for the same period. The company, which employed 282 people during 2017/18, manufactures high performance scientific imaging cameras, spectroscopy solutions and microscopy systems for research and other manufacturers. Now part of Oxford Instruments plc, the latest annual report from Andor Technology Ltd said its continuing success depends on the ability to innovate with new products. Over the year the firm invested 5.5m in research and development, slightly down on the 5.8m of the previous year. But it has cited major risks ahead posed by the UK's withdrawal from the European Union and the exposure to the value of currency. Just over 90% of Andor's revenue came from customers outside the UK. Revenue from customers in the Americas dropped from 27.9m to 22.1m, with revenue from the Asia and Pacific region dropping from 23.4m to 21.3m. The only revenue growths in the reported period were recorded inside the UK, which rose to 5.8m, and in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which increased from 13m to 14.4m. The tech firm has also said that a reduction in Government funding could impact the business. Andor received 787,000 in the last financial year, compared with 854,000 the previous year. Its strategic report revealed such funding could be vulnerable post-Brexit. The firm said lower participation in EU-funded research and a potential short-term hiatus in UK research funding were at risk by leaving the bloc. It also listed concerns over barriers emerging to the free movement of goods, tariffs on exports to EU countries and vice-versa. The report also said the UK could become less attractive to EU nationals. Andor's workforce was slightly reduced from 287 in 2016/17 to 282 in 2017/18. Staff numbers were cut in its production and sale and marketing divisions. However, it increased research and development staff from 87 to 90. The reduced numbers were reflected in annual staff costs, which dropped from 15.4m to 14.9m over the year. A total of 899,000 was paid out to the firm's directors, with one director paid 321,064. Some of the directors were paid from another company within the group. Andor emerged out of the work by Dr Hugh Cormican, Dr Donal Denvir and Mike Pringle during their time at Queen's University during the mid-1980s. They established the company in 1989, specialising in products that enabled its customers to perform light measurements previously considered impossible. The firm, which became a plc in 2004, was acquired by Oxford Instruments for 176m in 2013, and remains a subsidiary of the UK group. Paul Horscroft of Horscroft Design; Gavin Annon of Mount Charles and Mark O'Connor of Marcon on site at Freshly Chopped in Belfast The company involved in the fit-out of the Dippy the Dinosaur exhibition at the Ulster Museum has reported a pre-tax profit of 3.1m for the year to March. Marcon Fit-Out revealed the figure in accounts for the 12-month period, a 29% increase on the 2.4m pre-tax profit reported in 2017. After tax the sum comes in at just over 2.4m, compared to 1.9m during 2017. Annual turnover for UK and European sales also increased to 33.5m, up 28% from 26.2m the previous year. The award-winning contractor was founded in 2004 by Mark Elroy and Mark O'Connor and has carried out work for international brands including McDonald's, Vans and consulting firm Grant Thornton. Marcon currently has 56 employees, up from 52 in 2017, with its total salary bill increasing to 2.35m from 2m over the year. The company is one of 30 that received a portion of 22m from economic development agency Invest NI in 2017 to create 282 jobs over the next four years within the industry. Although based in Antrim, the firm also has offices in Sheffield and Middlesbrough. The group, made up of Marcon Fit-Out and Marcon Fit-Out (Ireland), won major contracts in the UK and Ireland in 2018, including a fit-out for the new 5m Biggin Hill Memorial Museum in London. The museum will focus on the airfield's World War Two role, in particular as a front line fighter station during the Battle of Britain. In Northern Ireland Marcon was responsible for helping set up the Belfast exhibition housing the famous 292-bone skeleton of the Natural History Museum's diplodocus, which was unveiled in 1905 and has now gone out on tour for the first time. Marcon's portfolio includes specialist work at Titanic Belfast and fit-out of the Seamus Heaney Homeplace in Bellaghy. The company was also responsible for the fitting out of a unit for Irish healthy food brand Freshly Chopped in Belfast. The store opened last month at the site of the former Apartment Bar in the city centre. Despite the murky outlook for the economy with the possibility of a no-deal Brexit, Marcon's success looks set to continue. The group will fit out six more standalone Freshly Chopped outlets here and in Co Donegal over the next three years. The American Red Cross is offering Dunkin' Donuts gift cards to blood donors in six states to boost donations amid a winter shortage. Individuals in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and parts of New York will receive a $5 Dunkin' Donuts card when they donate blood in January, which is National Blood Donor Month. The Red Cross is battling a severe winter blood shortage, in part due to the holiday season and inclement weather, which can shut down blood drives. 2019 marks the 10th year Dunkin' Donuts has partnered with the Red Cross to help encourage and thank blood donors. More than 100 psychiatric hospitals are still fully accredited by the Joint Commission, despite significant safety violations, including care lapses associated with patient deaths and abuse, a database investigation by The Wall Street Journal found. The nonprofit accrediting organization revoked or denied full accreditation to less than 1 percent of psychiatric hospitals it reviewed in fiscal year 2014 and 2015, according to the most recent federal data available. About 16 percent of those hospitals each year (about 140 institutions) operated with such severe safety violations that they jeopardized their federal funding, state inspectors found. But troubled hospitals use their continued accreditation to attract new patients, even after some facilities lost Medicare funding due to ongoing safety incidents. The Joint Commission is the only accrediting organization with a federally approved psychiatric-hospital accreditation program for Medicare. The WSJ previously reported that the Joint Commission continued to accredit a variety of hospitals despite safety violations. Patients and staff at inpatient psychiatric hospitals are especially vulnerable since many of the patients are suicidal and treated without family members to serve as their advocates. Joint Commission officials said their surveys of hospitals should not be considered regulatory inspections and said they collaborate with psychiatric hospitals to help them improve. Most hospitals come into compliance once deficiencies are pointed out, Joint Commission officials told WSJ. "The goal of the private accreditation system is to identify deficiencies in care and have the hospitals correct those deficiencies it is not to find as many deficiencies as possible to justify removing accreditation from those organizations," they said. However, about three-fourths of the psychiatric hospitals found with violations in 2014 or 2016 went on to have later violations, according to an analysis of the federal data. CMS officials, who oversee the Joint Commission and give it authority to inspect hospitals, have been concerned for years about the accreditation of psychiatric hospitals. The federal agency cited "serious issues" regarding the commission's performance in December 2015 and later put its psychiatric-accreditation program under probation, which ended in December 2016. But CMS ultimately supported the program, saying it would closely monitor the commission's work. A computer-based model could help hospitals control outbreaks of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and identify MRSA patients who don't show symptoms, according to a study published in eLife. The research team, led by scientists at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York City, created a computer model of MRSA outbreaks using over 2 million admission records from 66 hospitals in Sweden. The records represent a six-year period. The model recreated outbreaks of the most prevalent MRSA strain, UK EMRSA-15, which is present in 16 countries, the U.S. included. Harnessing statistical techniques used in weather forecasting, the model simulates infection transmission within hospitals and infections imported from the community. The model estimated as many as 400 asymptomatic MRSA cases per month in the Swedish hospitals and found up to 61 percent of MRSA infections diagnosed in the hospital setting came from the community. The MRSA simulation also calculates a patient's chances of being infected. The researchers tested the value of these chances by simulating a treatment intervention for high-risk patients. The researchers' targeted intervention was better at controlling an outbreak than current practices, which involve either treating patients who have spent the most time in hospital, treating patients with the most contacts in the hospital, or using contact-tracing to treat patients exposed to another patient with the infection. "Compared with traditional intervention strategies that may overlook a considerable number of invisible colonized patients, this new model-inference system can identify a pivotal group for treatment, namely individuals who may otherwise transmit MRSA asymptomatically," said researcher Sen Pei. The researchers plan to apply their system to other antimicrobial-resistant pathogens and settings with a higher burden of disease. Patients with fewer than six months to live can ask for a prescription of a life-ending medical under Hawaii's Our Care, Our Choice Act, according to Hawaii News Now. Hawaii is the seventh state or jurisdiction to allow terminally ill patients to take their lives with prescription drugs. The legislation was expanded to Hawaii this monthand requires patients to receive two "independent diagnoses," indicating that the patient has six months or less to live. The patient must also seek psychological counseling. The Hawaii Department of Health created a webpage, providing all forms and instructions to physicians and patients. But some healthcare providers and pharmacists oppose the measure, some on religious or ethical grounds; others say its not practical. James Hochberg, attorney and president of the Hawaii Family Advocates, told Hawaii News Now that the process of dying under Hawaii's new law is "cumbersome," and makes it difficult for patients to acquire the full dose of medicine need to kill themselves. More articles on clinical leadership and infection control: Over 100 psychiatric hospitals with safety violations still accredited by Joint Commission, WSJ finds How a computer model can help control MRSA outbreaks in hospitals Ebola cases exceed 600 in Congo as violence persists Tucson, Ariz.-based Banner Health placed restrictions on patient visitors to the hospital on Jan. 2, according to NBC affiliate station News4 Tucson. The restrictions bar visitors who have flu-like symptoms and children under age of 12 who are not accompanied by an adult. "While we understand visitor restrictions can be difficult, they are necessary to prevent the spread of flu and other respiratory viruses within our hospitals. We appreciate everyones help in keeping our patients safe," said Joan Ivaska, senior director of infection prevention at Banner Health. The Arizona Department of Health Services has seen an increase of flu cases within the last month. More articles on clinical leadership and infection control: Kidney shortage costs 43,000 lives annually, researchers estimate Oregon will vaccinate homeless against hep A Hawaii now allows terminally ill patients to take their own lives with prescription drugs The CDC worked 24/7 to help protect Americans from numerous health threats in 2018, ranging from antibiotic resistance to tuberculosis. Here are seven health issues the CDC addressed in 2018: 1. Opioid epidemic. Congress appropriated $476 million in fiscal year 2018 to support the CDC's efforts to address the opioid epidemic. The agency dispersed the funding across all 50 states and four U.S. territories to help bolster prevention and response activities. 2. Foodborne outbreaks. The CDC helped investigate and resolve numerous foodborne outbreaks in 2018, including E. coli infections linked to romaine lettuce. 3. Acute flaccid myelitis. The agency established an AFM task force in November 2018 to support the ongoing investigation into the cause of the illness and treatment options. 4. Ebola. The CDC has been working with health officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo to help contain the country's second-largest Ebola outbreak in history. 5. Outbreak threats overseas. In 2018, the CDC continued to help more than 60 countries implement stronger disease surveillance activities and laboratory systems to prevent global disease outbreaks. 6. Antibiotic resistance. The CDC and HHS unveiled the AMR Challenge in September 2018, which is a global initiative to combat antibiotic resistance. 7. Tuberculosis. The agency is supporting a global effort to offer preventive TB treatments to 5 million people living with HIV by 2020 as part of the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Hospital nurses regularly dispose of unused medicines in sinks or toilets, but hospital leaders may want to reconsider this practice to avoid harm from dangerous substances entering the water supply, CNN reports. "Many times during a typical workday, American hospital nurses routinely discard unused portions of narcotics and other controlled substances into municipal water supplies," researchers wrote in a 2017 study. The reason the practice is routine, the authors said, may stem from inconsistencies in regulations and how hospitals interpret them. "There are agencies at the federal, state, and local levels that have issued conflicting rules" about pharmaceutical disposal methods for hospitals, the researchers wrote. The EPA strongly discourages pouring or flushing pharmaceuticals down the drain since they can contaminate the water supply and bans the sewering (pouring down the drain or toilet) of hazardous waste pharmaceuticals at healthcare facilities. However, the EPA's rule, which was finalized in December, applies only to drugs considered hazardous waste, and most pharmaceuticals are not in this category. The FDA, on the other hand, advises individuals to sewer narcotics and controlled substances, such as morphine and other opioids, to prevent animals and humans from accessing them. "To date, scientists have found no evidence of harmful effects to human health from medicines in the environment," according to the FDA's website. Althugh more research is needed to uncover the human health effects of pouring or flushing drugs, hospital leaders can employ simple solutions, Patricia Deesy, a registered nurse in North Carolina, told CNN. "There is a company that has a safe box that comes with a neutralizing solution in it that can be used for wasting narcotics, but I have yet to see anyone use it," Ms. Deesy said, adding that she's asked several hospitals "to investigate using them with no response." Hospital leaders can also help make hospital staff more aware of the potential harm of pouring drugs down the drain, Ms. Deesy said. A study examining what insurance policies 450 private and public colleges offered their employees in 2017 found a significant increase in high-deductible health plan offerings, according to Sibson Consulting. Here are five things to know: 1. A dramatic increase in the number of colleges offering health plans with a deductible of $1,000 or more occurred in 2017. Nearly 72 percent of colleges offered HDHPs in 2017, up from 59 percent in 2015. 2. In 2017, HDHPs grew to represent more than a third of all medical plans offered by colleges. 3. In most cases, cost-sharing features like deductibles, copayments and employee contributions increased in 2017. The percentage increase in what employees contributed to medical coverage outpaced the increase in total medical and prescription drug costs, according to Sibson Consulting. 4. The consultants identified a significant increase in the prevalence of pharmacy cost-management programs. These included step-therapy programs and mandatory use of generic drugs. 5. "Higher education institutions understand that they can no longer afford to simply maintain a traditional approach to employee healthcare benefits and that they must now proactively address rising costs for their institutions and for their employees," the consultants wrote. "The dramatic increase in HDHPs is a direct result of institutions' desire to engage faculty and staff in the healthcare purchasing process to promote consumer awareness of the high cost of medical services." More articles on payers: Walmart is changing how we pay for healthcare: 5 things to know Walmart, GM should be 'wake-up call' for private insurers Tenet on Cigna dispute: Being forced out of network is 'unsure-ance' Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas has "months" before it considers cutting some neonatal intensive care unit services due to dwindling Medicaid reimbursement, the hospital's CEO told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Here are five things to know: 1. Sunrise Hospital CEO Todd Sklamberg told the publication the hospital incurred $77 million in uncompensated costs caring for intensive care infants last year. The hospital has the most pediatric acute care beds in Nevada. 2. Roughly 70 percent of infants in Sunrise's NICU are covered by Medicaid. While NICU care can cost the hospital thousands of dollars each day, Medicaid only pays up to $1,487 daily for each infant, according to the report. 3. Nevada's Medicaid program uses a flat dollar amount to pay high-level NICU visits regardless of the level of care provided. Most states' Medicaid programs reimburse using diagnosis-related group codes that consider acuity. 4. Sunrise does receive Disproportionate Share Hospital payments, but the supplemental reimbursement falls short, according to the report. For 2018, nearby University Medical Center in Las Vegas received 98 percent of the $70.7 million that Clark County, Nev., hospitals got through the DSH program, while Sunrise received $216,000. 5. In November, Sunrise launched a public campaign to highlight how current reimbursement rates are threatening its ability to maintain NICU services. "There has to be a fair level of reimbursement," Mr. Sklamberg told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "Right now, it is unsustainable. Given the disproportionate level of acuity here, the need for us is immediate." More articles on payers: Walmart is changing how we pay for healthcare: 5 things to know Walmart, GM should be 'wake-up call' for private insurers Health plan members are winning more appeals in Massachusetts Sturgis (Mich.) Hospital's birth center will close Jan. 2 amid job and services cuts, according to WWMT, a CBS-affiliate TV station in Kalamazoo, Mich. A send-off celebration for the last patients at the birth center was expected that afternoon, the report states. Sturgis Hospital CEO Rob LeBarge announced last month that he would take a 10 percent pay cut to help the 84-bed acute care facility improve its finances. He confirmed plans to end hospice and obstetric services and cancer treatment; reduce inpatient medical and surgical services; and make staffing adjustments in the emergency department. The hospital expects the changes to result in the elimination of 60 full-time positions. Hospital officials told WWMT the process of transitioning patients at the birth center to new providers has been ongoing over the last month. The Indian Health Service, an HHS agency tasked with providing health services to American Indians and Alaska natives, has stopped several care services due to the government shutdown, Kaiser Health News reports. Parts of the federal government shut down Dec. 22 after Congress and the White House did not reach a spending deal the previous night, according to CNN. Funding expired for about one-fourth of the federal government. Since Congress has not approved funding for the Indian Health Service, which is run by HHS but receives money through the Department of the Interior, IHS is significantly affected by the shutdown. The only IHS services that can continue are those that meet "immediate needs of the patients, medical staff and medical facilities," the shutdown contingency plan said. That includes IHS-run clinics, which provide healthcare to tribes nationwide. These facilities are open, and many staffers are going to work since they are deemed "excepted," an agency spokesperson said. However, they will not be paid until Congress and the White House reach a deal. The agency also suspended grants supporting tribal health programs and preventive health clinics run by the Office of Urban Indian Health Programs. Sudents at Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Mellon have developed a wristband that sounds an alarm when its wearer is at risk of an opioid overdose, according to engineering magazine IEEE Spectrum. The HopeBand shines LED light through the wearer's skin, which detects the changes in light absorption that monitor blood oxygen level. If it is too low, the wristband will alarm and send a text message with the wearer's location, the Pittsburgh Business Times reported. The students developed the wristband after it was sponsored by pharmaceutical consulting firm Pinney Associated, based in Bethesda, Md. The HopeBand prototype won third place in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Opioid Challenge held during the Health 2.0 Conference last September in Santa Clara, Calif. The HopeBand has not been tested on people, but there are plans to give out the bracelet through needle-exchange programs. More articles on opioids: 9,000 pediatric opioid overdose deaths since 1999, study finds Patients receiving naloxone for opioid overdoses can be safely discharged after 1 hour of observation Opioid tapering guidelines 'aggressive and unrealistic,' experts write Authorities charged a pharmacist in Dearborn, Mich., with billing Medicare and Medicaid for more prescriptions than were present in his inventory, according to ABC affiliate WXYZ. A criminal complaint against Haytham Fakih was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan Dec. 29. According to the complaint, federal authorities accused Mr. Fakih of billing Medicare for medications he didn't dispense. He was also charged with billing for medications for deceased beneficiaries. The scheme allegedly occurred over a four-year period, resulting in $1.2 million in overpayments from government payers. Officials' audit revealed Mr. Fakih had billed for 10 drugs that were not sufficiently stocked in his inventory in the quantities he reported, according to the complaint. More articles on legal & regulatory issues: Nurses allege Legacy Health denied breaks, pay for overtime 10 latest healthcare industry lawsuits, settlements Ambulance company pays $300K to resolve false billing probe President Donald Trump said he believes the Supreme Court will eventually affirm a district court decision that deemed the ACA unconstitutional, leaving lawmakers to craft a new healthcare policy, according to The Hill. U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor ruled Dec. 14 that the ACA and its individual mandate are unconstitutional. The ruling is being appealed by the attorneys general of multiple Democratic-led states, though some legal experts believe the case will one day be heard in the Supreme Court. "That case from Texas should win in the Supreme Court," said President Trump. "We should win at the Supreme Court, where this case will go. When we do, we will sit down with the Democrats and we will come up with great healthcare." After a hospital suffers a data breach, advertising expenditures tend to increase 64 percent, according to a study published in The American Journal of Managed Care Dec. 21. Researchers from the University of Central Florida in Orlando and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., analyzed data on expenditures by nearly 1,000 Medicare hospitals, as reported by traditional media outlets. The sample included 72 nonfederal acute care inpatient hospitals that experienced data breaches between 2011 and 2014. In the two years following a data breach, hospitals' advertising expenditures increased an average of 64 percent, according to the study. "Efforts to repair the hospitals image and minimize patient loss to competitors are potential drivers of the increased spending," the study authors concluded. "Advertising costs subsequent to a breach are another cost to the healthcare system that could be avoided with better data security." Numerous privacy incidents at hospitals, IT suppliers and other healthcare organizations captured public attention last month. While media outlets reported on the following breaches in December 2018, healthcare organizations experienced breaches as early as 2015. Here are 10 healthcare privacy incidents reported by Becker's Hospital Review in December: Editor's note: The incidents are presented in order of number of patients or organizations affected. Physician compensation is far more than just a number, and several data anomalies may shed light on what physicians' earnings mean, two authors write in a STAT op-ed. The op-ed was written by Halee Fischer-Wright, MD, the president and CEO of MGMA, formerly the Medical Group Management Association, and Todd Evenson, the company's COO. To better understand the physician compensation landscape, the authors looked at MGMA's 2018 Physician Compensation and Production Report based on 2017 data from 136,000 providers working in various U.S. practices for anomalies that may be instructive. Here are three data anomalies the authors discussed: 1. Non-metro areas rule. Although salaries are typically thought to be higher in big cities, that's not always the case for healthcare professionals, the authors said. For example, in MGMA's data, the median income for a metro-area anesthesiologist was $444,846. In non-metro areas (areas with populations of 50,000 or fewer), the median anesthesiologist income was $469,057. "An extra $25,000 a year sounds pretty good even more so if that anesthesiologist is residing where the cost of living is likely lower than it is in the nearby metro area," the authors wrote. When attracting specialists, healthcare organizations must pay more to get the good ones, explaining this anomaly. "Of course, there are anomalies within the anomaly. This trend doesn't hold true for every specialty rural cardiologists make about 10 percent less than their urban colleagues but we found it was true for most of them," the authors said. 2. Quality is still ignored. Value-based care and quality incentives are projected to determine physician compensation in the future, but at least 80 percent of compensation plans in 2017 did not have quality incentives. Productivity was still the core metric when it came to physician pay, the authors said. "The inclusion of quality incentives in compensation plans depended on practice size: Independent and smaller practices were much less likely to provide any kind of quality incentives, while larger providers and hospitals were more likely to include them," the authors said. 3. Compensation flattens over time. Workers in most industries make more as their careers progress, but this trend does not hold true for physicians, the authors said. Primary care physicians see an upward trend in pay for the first few years of their career, but most physicians' compensation is maxed out sometime around year eight. This is because primary care physicians are building their base of patients during the first years of their career, and their compensation increases with the size of their patient panels. "But there are only so many patients a physician can see in a day or week or year, and sooner or later he or she will max out," the authors wrote. "At that point, compensation in primary care tends to level off." Specialists' compensation, on the other hand, tends to follow a bell curve. Orthopedic surgeons, for example, start off in years one to two making an average of $543,000 per year. That number tops out at $750,000 in years 13 to 17, then drops back down to $530,000 after 23 or more years of practice. "These anomalies aren't just odd data points that make you say, 'Huh,'" the authors wrote. "They are important for anyone who wants to better understand physician compensation, which is far more than just a number." Sexual misconduct allegations are rarely reported to the medical review boards, and few allegations result in actual charges, according to a Kaiser Health News report on Medscape. Here's what you should know: 1. KHN examined sexual misconduct reports made in California. They found review boards receive fewer than 200 reports annually, and typically, under 20 of those reports result in discipline. 2. KHN studied 135 cases of alleged sexual abuse from July 2008 to June 2018. More than one-third of the cases were for sexual misconduct that included more than one victim. Physicians had their licenses revoked in 39 cases, and they surrendered their licenses in 38 cases. 3. California's regulatory board imposed a minimum seven-year probation period for physicians who engaged in sexual misconduct. However, that period was not enforced in more than half of the cases. 4. In eight cases, a physician sanctioned for sexual misconduct had previously been sanctioned for misconduct. In several cases, California's board granted probation to a physician who was convicted of misdemeanor criminal charges related to sexual abuse. 5. More than 33 percent of physicians sanctioned by California's board received probation in the last decade, and some of those physicians received probation more than once. 6. Physicians on probation received temporary chaperones, underwent psychotherapy and took courses in "professional boundaries.". 7. California recently passed a law that will require physicians accused of sexual misconduct to disclose this to their patients. It will take effect in July. To read the entire KHN report, click here. The Vidor Fire Department and Beaumont Fire Department responded to a large structure fire Thursday at a steel mill in Vidor, according to information from the department. At approximately 11:36 a.m. officials responded to a call in reference to a lime silo structure fire at Optimus Steel, formerly Gerdau Ameristeel, located in the 100 block of US 90. Two more arrests made in Tyler County have been linked to a capital murder suspect accused of having a dead body in his Hillister home. Four people have now been arrested in connection with Christopher Paulette, 34, who is currently at the Tyler County jail on a capital murder charge. The most recent arrests occurred at approximately 8:30 a.m. on December 23 when police were called to investigate possible criminal activity on FM 1943 near Fred, according to Tyler County investigators. A woman called police from the road and said the vehicle in front of her had its door open, and a woman inside appeared to be trying to escape. The suspicious vehicle pulled onto the shoulder of the road, with the concerned caller pulling over behind it. A female fled the vehicle and ran towards that of the caller, police said, while screaming "they are trying to kill me." The victim told deputies she knew the two men, and left her Warren home with them in a friendly manner. It was after that, officials report, that the subjects told her they were working "on behalf of Christopher Paulette" and "tying up loose ends," the department said. Wesley Harris, 21, of Corrigan; and Colton McInnis, 19, of Silsbee, have been charged with aggravated kidnapping and jailed on $500,000 bonds. Paulette was jailed without bond on December 21 after an anonymous caller said there was a man being held against his will at Paulette's home. When authorities arrived they were met by a man who was bound at his hands; Paulette was arrested at the scene. While searching his residence, authorities found the body 64-year-old Susan Morris was found inside his home, the department said. A Beaumont woman and Granbury man were arrested December 28 after they were spotted outside Paulette's home, the department said. Bryan Hewson, 32, and Krystine Caldwell, 30, were charged with evading arrest. Officials were called to Paulette's residence at about 7:30 a.m. after someone reported a suspicious vehicle parked at the house. The driver fled from police, the department said, and then crashed into a utility pole. You can reach Sam Morgen at 661-395-7415 or smorgen@bakersfield.com. You may also follow him on Twitter @smorgenTBC. Joseph Luiz can be reached at 395-7368 or by email at jluiz@bakersfield.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @JLuiz_TBC. Detectives have arrested two men in connection with the killing of a man whose body was found inside a burned vehicle earlier this month. Colombia Hoy Para nunca olvidar Paginas vistas en total 'Parasite' painted on a statue of Queen, Elizabeth in Kent, England Sin palabras La UE le apunta a la paz Cada vez mas solo Follow by Email Precio del Brent To get the BRENT oil price, please enable Javascript. Dolar USA Vs Euro LULA y su Pueblo Bye Bye Homenaje al genial Quino Fueron ellos Una imagen que resume Tan bajo ha caido que se deja tocar el trasero? Porky y el Nene (archiconocido narcotraficante) Ladrones al poder Asi mira el perrito a su amo Crazy Clamor popular La nueva inquisicion Bolivia Chile Hoy Eso es todo amigos! Pinerachet No More Trump Adios Macri, hasta nunca La Marioneta se desinfla Asi o mas cinico Almugre Mexico en 1794 Mas arrastrado imposible La pura verdad Solidaridad con Palestina Serie Capitalismo Espejismos de la clase trabajadora Comerciantes o delincuentes Asi es la vida USA HOY La avaricia no tiene limites Chile Hoy Asi son las cosas Mapa Electoral de Venezuela Patagonia argentina? Un aniversario mas del mayor genocidio de la Humanidad Retrato del franquismo en Espana El Chulo de Madrid Cuando la policia se roba la democracia Una imagen dice mas que mil palabras La purita verdad Asi gobierna la maldita burguesia Mi pobre clase media Como Chavez nadie Comparte La Colmena via twitter Twittear Programa de la MUD Asi o mas clarito Por que Trump no ataco Corea del Norte? Hace 15 anos Por que la OEA no se pronuncio? Una verguenza nacional La luz que nos guia La Union Europea Premio Nobel de la Paz? Feudalismo ayer y hoy Obama, el mentiroso Curiosa coincidencia Un mundo de cerdos No es extrano? La Marioneta Los ricos protestan, los pobres celebran MARICORI Y OBAMA Cuantas muertes este ano? 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Por culpa de Chavez Cerveza Polar Algun dia Colombia volvera a la ideologia de Bolivar Translate LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS NO TOMAN CACA-COLA No se trata solamente de un capricho, sino de una sana actitud en todos los sentidos. Desde la solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano donde la empresa Caca-Cola ha cometido los mas grandes abusos contra sus trabajadores incluyendo el presunto secuestro y asesinato de los dirigentes del sindicato, hasta la proteccion de la salud de nuestros hijos, enviciados por ese jarabe de cola y azucar, que les produce obesidad prematura. Pensemos tambien los revolucionarios, que ese dinero que gastamos en los refrescos es utilizado por esas empresas para financiar el terrorismo en nuestro pais. Es cierto, no se trata solo de la Caca-Cola, sino tambien de la cerveza, de los cigarrillos y todos esos articulos innecesarios y mas que eso, daninos para nuestra salud. Podriamos incluso pensar en un dia de parada para cada uno de ellos. Es cuestion de irnos organizando. Pero para empezar, que tal si dejamos de comprar Caca-Cola y sus similares? Cuando lo extraordinario se vuelve cotidiano... Discurso del Acto de Grado en Barinas en 12 de Febrero del 2005 Queridos Graduandos: Mas que un discurso, quiero dirigirles algunas palabras que escribi anoche, despues de visitar en las clinicas, a los estudiantes heridos, a consecuencia de los enfrentamientos con la policia de hace apenas dos dias. Me ha tocado por razones del destino, ser la persona que les otorgue el titulo que bien merecieron con sus estudios. Y me siento sumamente orgulloso de serlo. Me consta que la Universidad de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, a pesar de lo dicho por los enemigos de esta universidad, es una universidad de primera. No tendremos la mejor planta fisica, en los salones hace calor. En el comedor hace calor. Pero no es en lo material que las cosas deben valorarse. El mayor capital es el ser humano. Y en eso, nuestra UNELLEZ, lo digo con conocimiento de causa, esta sobrada. Los llaneros venezolanos son nobles, valientes, de coraje. En la UNELLEZ hacen vida, en este momento, aproximadamente 67000 personas. El 97% de ellas son estudiantes. Jovenes que, como Ustedes hasta el dia de hoy, buscan ese titulo, que constata los anos de dedicacion y de estudio. Los jovenes son el rio de la vida, ustedes graduados deben ser los capitanes de esos barcos que naveguen por el rio de la vida. Nuestra Patria atraviesa momentos muy dificiles porque decidio dejar de ser esa matrona de edad vetusta y complaciente, para ser joven, rebelde y altanera. Nuestra imagen ya no es la de una acaudalada ricachona mayamera. En nuestro rostro brilla ahora la sonrisa del Che Guevara, con su diente delantero torcido, su pelo largo y su boina con la estrella. Entender esto, a mi me ha tomado practicamente toda la vida. Tengo 53 anos, y ya perdi mi oportunidad de derramar sangre joven a causa de un ideal. Ustedes son jovenes, estan en la flor de la vida. No cometan por favor el error de renunciar a su instinto de rebelion. El Che Guevara fue Ministro de a Economia en Cuba. Los billetes y las monedas se adornaban con su rostro. Nada de eso le importo. Primero fue a Angola donde paso un penoso ano de combate. Despues se fue a Bolivia, donde encontro la muerte. El Che era el ultimo que comia, el que cargaba la mochila mas pesada. Siempre se sacrificaba por los demas en un estoicismo que mas parecia fervor religioso que ideologia marxista. Si quieren un modelo de vida. Ahi lo tienen. Dije hace unos momentos que el 97% de la poblacion de la UNELLEZ es estudiante. Se imaginan Ustedes la Universidad que podriamos tener si todos los estudiantes tuvieran la abnegacion, la combatividad del Che? Los momentos que se avecinan van a requerir de una gran unidad del pueblo venezolano. La alternativa de continuar siendo libres o regresar a la pobreza se nos planteara en los proximos dias de forma enmascarada, o quizas peor, desenmascarada, vestida con uniforme de soldado del Imperio. Por nuestra parte podemos esperar lo mejor. La macroeconomia no podria ir mejor, la justicia social ha mejorado notablemente. Las misiones ocupan un papel muy importante en el pago de dicha justicia social. Aqui en Barinas ya hemos cumplido con dos de las misiones, la mision Robinson y la mision Sucre. No hay analfabetismo y no hay exclusion en la educacion superior, en estas tierras de Zamora. Pero ay malhaya! Son precisamente estos exitos los que nos hacen mas antipaticos al Imperio. Para ellos, somos inclusive un mal ejemplo que se esta contagiando al resto del continente y cuidado sino al resto del mundo. Nunca venceremos al Imperio. Estara siempre ahi, acechando. Por lo menos hasta que el mismo no se autodestruya. Porque, sepanlo senores, el neoliberalismo es canibal. Cuando le ataque el hambre, se devorara a si mismo. Ustedes, queridos graduandos, a partir de hoy pasan a conformar la elite profesional que debe sostener este pais en los proximos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Anos decisivos para el logro de nuestra libertad y del rescate de nuestra Soberania. No se dejen comprar. No se dejen corromper. No se dejen gritar. No se dejen pisar. Que nadie les diga que comer, o que vestirse, o que leer. Sean siempre autenticos, rebeldes, contestatarios. Pero eso si, profundamente patriotas, dignos de ser hijos de Bolivar. Muchas gracias y que Dios los bendiga. Alguna duda? Medio siglo de Holocausto Palestino Oscar Zanartu Nacio en Caracas en 1960. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en las galerias Minotauro, Clave y San Francisco, y en salas de Coro, estado Falcon, y Puerto Ordaz, estado Bolivar. En Paris su obra ha sido exhibida en el Centro Cultural Tanagra, en la Exposicion Cite Internationale des Arts, en las galerias De Mars y Arver Space, al igual que en la Galeria Municipal Levallois, en Levallois Perret (Francia). En muestras colectivas, su obra se ha expuesto en Belgica, Francia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela; en Caracas intervino en la exposicion "Del genesis a la memoria", 1995, organizada por la Fundacion La Previsora. En 1982 obtuvo el Premio Nacional Critven y en 1990 la Mencion de Honor Jose Antonio Paez, en la Embajada de Venezuela en Paris. En 1991 se le concedio el primer premio de Pintura Itinerante, en Levallois Perret, Francia. OZ1 OZ2 OZ3 OZ4 Homenaje a Jason Galarraga La Victoria de Samotracia Odalisca Mas fotos de la nevada del pasado agosto 2008 La Sierra Nevada de Merida Nuestro precioso Churum Meru Homenaje a Picasso Autoretrato Sabes lo que bebes en una Coca-Cola? La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar. Mi profesion? Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos. Sal en la Coca Cola? A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar. De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla: Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gusto Acido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido) azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa) Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantas Mucha Cafeina Conservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o Potasio Dioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebe Sal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracion El uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja. Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos. Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja. En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero). Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma. La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate. Bebidas Light? Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal. Publicado por loretahur En realidad, la formula secreta de la Coca-Cola se puede detallar en 18 segundos en cualquier espectrometro optico, y basicamente la conocen hasta los perros. Lo que ocurre es que no se puede fabricar igual, a no ser que uno disponga de unos cuantos millones de dolares para ganarle la demanda que te metera la Coca-Cola ante la justicia (ellos no perderian).La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gustoAcido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantasMucha CafeinaConservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o PotasioDioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebeSal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracionEl uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el aspartamo , despues de tres semanas mojado, pasa a tener gusto de trapo viejo sucio.Para evitar eso, se agregan una infinidad de otros productos quimicos, uno para alargar la vida del aspartamo, otro para neutralizar el color, otro para mantener el tercer quimico en suspension porque sino el fondo de la gaseosa quedaria oscuro, otro para evitar la cristalizacion del aspartamo, otro para realzar el sabor, dar mas intensidad al acido citrico o fosforito que perderia su sabor por el efecto de los cuatro productos quimicos iniciales... y asi sucesivamente.Un consejo final !!Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.Publicado por loretahur MARGARINA o MANTEQUILLA La margarina fue producida originalmente para engordar a los pavos; cuandolo que hizo en realidad fue matarlos.Las personas que habian puesto el dinero para la investigacion quisieronrecobrarlo asi que empezaron a pensar en una forma de hacerlo.Tenian una sustancia blanca, que no tenia ningun atractivo como comestible,asi que le anadieron el color amarillo, para venderselo a lagente en lugar de la mantequilla.Que tal esa?... Ahora han sacado algunos nuevos sabores para vender mas alos incautos como usted y yo.CONOCE USTED la diferencia entre la margarina y la mantequilla?Siga leyendo hasta el final... porque se pone bastante interesante!Comparacion entre mantequilla y margarina: 1.- Ambas tienen la misma cantidad de calorias. 2.- La mantequilla es ligeramente mas alta en grasas saturadas: 8 gramos,comparada con los 5 gramos que tiene la margarina. 3.- Comer margarina en vez de mantequilla puede aumentar en 53% el riesgo deenfermedades coronarias en las mujeres, de acuerdo con un estudiomedico reciente de la Universidad de Harvard. 4.- Comer mantequilla aumenta la absorcion de gran cantidad de nutrientesque se encuentran en otros alimentos. 5.- La mantequilla provee beneficios nutricionales propios mientras lamargarina tiene solo los que le hayan sido anadidos al fabricarla. 6.- La mantequilla sabe mucho mejor que la margarina y mejora el sabor deotros alimentos.7.- La mantequilla ha existido durante siglos mientras que la margarinatiene menos de 100 anos. Ahora... sobre la margarina: 1.- Es muy alta en acidos grasos trans. (Si, esos que recien ahora loscientificos descubrieron que son malisimos y los gobiernoscomenzaron a prohibirlos) . 2.- Triple riesgo de enfermedades coronarias. 3.- Aumenta el colesterol total y el LDL (el colesterol malo) y disminuye elHDL (el colesterol bueno). 4.- Aumenta en cinco veces el riesgo de cancer. 5.- Disminuye la calidad de la leche materna. 6.- Disminuye la reaccion inmunologica del organismo. 7.- Disminuye la reaccion a la insulina. Y he aqui el factor mas inquietante (AQUI ESTA LA PARTE MAS INTERESANTE! ):A la margarina le falta UNA MOLECULA para ser PLASTICO...!!Solo este hecho es suficiente para evitar el uso de la margarina de porvida, y de cualquier otra cosa que sea hidrogenada (esto significaque se le anade hidrogeno, lo cual cambia la estructura molecular de lassubstancias).Usted puede ensayar lo siguiente:Compre un poco de margarina y dejela en el garaje o en un sitio sombreado.Dentro de unos dias notara dos cosas: * No habra moscas; ni siquiera esos molestos bichos se le acercaran (esto yale debe decir a usted algo). * No se pudre ni huele mal o diferente porque no tiene valor nutritivo; nadacrece en ella. Ni siquiera los diminutos microorganismos puedencrecer en ella.Por que? Porque es casi plastico!! No a la guerra, Si a la Paz Misterios de la ciencia... Los costos de la guerra medicos y capitalismo... medicos (2) Quien educa a nuestros hijos? Los Medios... Sin Palabras... Chistes feministas - Cual es el problema, Eva? - Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas. - Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas... - Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti. - Que es un hombre? - Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente. - Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente. - Cual es el truco?. - Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion. - Cual? - Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer. Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas? Porque todos son unos cerdos Un dia, en el Paraiso, Eva llamo a Dios: Tengo un problema.- Cual es el problema, Eva?- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.- Que es un hombre?- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.- Cual es el truco?.- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.- Cual?- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas? Porque todos son unos cerdos Ellas (2)... Tres venganzas femeninas VENGANZA NUMERO 1 Hoy mi hija cumple 21 anos y estoy muy contento porque es el ultimo pago de pension alimenticia que le doy, asi que llame a mi hijita para que viniera a mi casa y cuando llego le dije: -Hijita, quiero que lleves este cheque a casa de tu mama y que le digas que: Este es el ultimo maldito cheque que va recibir de mi en todo lo que le queda de su puta vida!!! Quiero que me digas la expresion que pone en su rostro. Asi que mi hija fue a entregar el cheque. Yo estaba ansioso por saber lo que la bruja tenia que decir y que cara pondria. Cuando mi hijita entro, le pregunte inmediatamente: -Que fue lo que te dijo tu madre? -Me dijo que justamente estaba esperando este dia para decirte que no eres mi papa! VENGANZA NUMERO 2 Un hombre que siempre molestaba a su mujer, paso un dia por la casa de unos amigos para que lo acompanaran al aeropuerto a dejar a su esposa que viajaba a Paris. A la salida de inmigracion, frente a todo el mundo, el le desea buen viaje y en tono burlon le grita: - Amor, no te olvides de traerme una hermosa francesita Ja ja ja!! Ella bajo la cabeza y se embarco muy molesta. La mujer paso quince dias en Francia. El marido otra vez pidio a sus amigos que lo acompanasen al aeropuerto a recibirla. Al verla llegar, lo primero que le grita a toda voz es: - Y amor me trajiste mi francesita?? - Hice todo lo posible, - contesta ella - ahora solo tenemos que rezar para que nazca nina. VENGANZA NUMERO 3 El marido, en su lecho de muerte, llama a su mujer. Con voz ronca y ya debil, le dice: - Muy bien, llego mi hora, pero antes quiero hacerte una confesion. - No, no, tranquilo, tu no debes hacer ningun esfuerzo. - Pero, mujer, es preciso - insiste el marido - Es preciso morir en paz. Te quiero confesar algo. - Esta bien, esta bien. Habla! - He tenido relaciones con tu hermana, tu mama y tu mejor amiga. - Lo se, lo se Por eso te envenene, hijo de puta!!! machismo y cibernetica Chiste machista La NASA ha enviado al espacio una mision experimental tripulada por dos monos y una mujer.Apenas abandona la atmosfera, se establece comunicacion con Houston. -Atencion, simio 1, verifique sistemas hidraulicos, controle adecuada presion de los propulsores de arranque. A 60.000 pies disminuya un 25% la velocidad. El simio hace la sena de OK. -Atencion, simio 2, nivele al cruzar la estratosfera y active sistemas anticongelantes. No olvide monitorear sistemas de comunicacion e indicadores de presion. Comprendido?. El simio hace la sena de OK. -Atencion, Houston llamando a mujer: no se olvide. -Mujer: Si, si, ya se! -interrumpe enojada- que no me olvide darles de comer a estos monos de mierda y que no se me vaya a ocurrir tocar nada!. .Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti. Un abogado mantiene un romance con su secretaria.Al poco tiempo, esta queda embarazada y el abogado, que no quiere que su esposa se entere, le da a la secretaria una buena suma de dinero y le pide que se vaya a parir a Italia.Esta pregunta: Y como voy a hacerte saber cuando nazca el bebe ? El abogado responde: Para que mi mujer no se entere, tan solo enviame una postal y escribe por detras: Spaghetti. Y no te preocupes mas, que yo me encargare de todos los gastos. Pasan los meses y una manana la esposa del abogado lo llama al bufete, algo exaltada: Querido, acabo de recibir el correo y hay una postal muy extrana viene desde Italia. La verdad, no entiendo que significa.El abogado, tratando de ocultar sus nervios, contesta:Espera a que llegue a casa, a ver si yo entiendoCuando el hombre llega a casa y lee la postal, cae al suelo fulminado por un infarto.Llega una ambulancia y se lo lleva. Ya en el hospital, el jefe de cardiologia se queda consolando a la esposa y le pregunta cual ha sido el evento que precipito tan masivo ataque cardiaco. Entonces la esposa saca la postal y se la muestra diciendole: No me explico, doctor; el solamente leyo esta postal. Vea usted mismo lo que trae escrito.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti."Tres con salchicha y albondigas y dos con almejas Gol !!!! Chistes de Borrachos Entra un borracho a su casa todo manchado con lapiz labial por todos lados hecho un desastre, y la mujer le pregunta:-Hombre que te paso?Y el borracho le responde:-No me vas a creer, me pelee con un payaso! Este es un borracho que entra en un bar y le dice al camarero:-Me da cinco copas de whisky?Al rato:-Me da cuatro?Al rato:-Me da tres copas?Despues:-Me da dos copas?Luego le dice:-Me da una copa?Y le dice al camarero:-Ves? Cuanto menos bebo, mas borracho estoy! 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By Trend Ten new defense industry projects will be developed in Turkey, Trend reports referring to the country's Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM). Some 300 million Turkish liras have been allocated for the projects, according to the SSM. All new projects of the defense industry will be developed as part of the Turkish governments "Vision 2023" plan. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has earlier said that Turkey will strengthen the defense industry and will become a world leader in the manufacture of defense products. Erdogan noted that no obstacles can stop the development of Turkey's defense industry. "I personally instruct all law enforcement bodies not to import defense products from abroad. Turkey is capable of providing itself with relevant products," Erdogan said. Erdogan noted that mass production of Turkish "ALTAY" tanks will soon begin. "Turkey is forced to strengthen its defense industry," he added. In January-November 2018, exports of the Turkish defense industry grew by 16.05 percent compared to the same period in 2017, reaching $1.782 billion. In the first 11 months of 2018, products of the Turkish defense industry worth $150.5 million were exported to Oman. During the reported period, products of the Turkish defense industry worth $72.3 million were exported to the Netherlands and $71.6 million to India. In the recent years, Turkey has invested about $35 billion in the defense industry. (1 USD = 5.3412 TRY on Jan. 3) --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Ghana has from October 2018 begun the monthly forfeiture of $40 million to Eni Ghana, as a result of the countrys failure to put in place appropriate infrastructure to off-take gas from Offshore Cape Three Point (OCTP) for the use of thermal plants. OCTP, operated by Eni Ghana, commenced operations in mid-2018, and has an agreement to produce the lean gas for onward off-take by the government of Ghana. Unlike crude oil and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) which are storable and could be transported to the international market, lean gas is not. Therefore in developing a natural gas field, the investors (OCTP Partners) had to be assured of a ready off-taker (Ghana), a ready market and guaranteed repayment. The OCTP is operated by Eni Ghana as the lead operator with a 44.44 per cent interest, along with its partners Vitol Ghana with 35.56 per cent, the National Oil Company (GNPC) with 20 per cent. Between the operators and Ghana, before the gas hit the shore, it requires infrastructure (pipeline) to transport the gas from the wellhead, through processing units and the delivery of the agreed volume to the off-taker (Ghana) for thermal energy generation. Take-Or-Pay Such infrastructure per the industry standard, should have been ready and pre-commissioned one clear year before the completion of the development and production of the Sankofa field. However, since the commencement of gas production at the Sankofa field, the country has not been able to take the volumes of gas delivered to the shore by the partners, triggering off the Take-or-Pay clause in the OCTP oil contract. The investment of more than $7-billion into the development of OCTP, which is a heavy, gas concentrated field project touted as a great relief-to-be for the countrys challenged power sector, was occasioned by Ghana. In 2015, the Government of Ghana signed the deal with the Italian oil giant, ENI and partners for the production of about 180 million cubic feet of gas for which Ghana was expected to prepare adequately to receive and utilize or pay for the agreed volume of gas even when the country is unable to consume it all. Source: Graphic.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video By Abdul Kerimkhanov Armenia's Prime Minister was unable to bring any positive news from the capital of Russia. Returning to Yerevan, Nikol Pashinyan said no final decision was reached on the gas price at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He added that there is no decision on the gas topic and discussions on gas will continue in a working order. Pashinyan also noted that the parties understand, this issue is "sensitive" and expressed hope that gas negotiations will take place without "undesirable processes". The topic of the gas tariff spoiled the New Year holidays not only to ordinary consumers of blue fuel in Armenia, but also the government. The "revolutionary" government failed to solve the problem before the New Year and write this merit to the people as an asset. Russian gas for Armenia rose sharply from January 1, 2019. Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Kozak sent a letter to Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia Tigran Avinyan, noting that Russian gas at the border will cost $215 per 1,000 cubic meters, and this is not negotiable. The public is reassured, asserting that the growth will only affect the expenses of the state that buys gas from Russia and nothing will change for consumers. But few people believe in this, since doubling the price at the border will certainly affect the tariff for consumers. Such news, especially at the height of winter, of course, worries Armenian society. Considering that Armenia is a mountainous country with a continental climate and winter is traditionally cold there, Armenians will be forced to pay more in order not to freeze. The only optimistic outcome of Pashinyans visit for the Armenian society was the long-awaited congratulation of Vladimir Putin on the victory of his party in the parliamentary elections. However, Armenian society hardly needs these congratulations on the threshold of a cold winter. General Director of the Russian "National Energy Security Fund" Konstantin Simonov noted that the decision on gas is a political decision. He said Russia wants to show Pashinyan that he is addicted and for this it is necessary to increase the gas price. "The second strategy, on the contrary, shows that it can come to an agreement with Russia, so there is no need to raise the price," he believes. Earlier, Armenia used to receive Russian gas at the border at $150 per 1,000 cubic meters, but it is sold to Armenian consumers at $ 290-292. Pashinyan tried to make claims on the Russian side about this issue in summer 2018, but after negotiations with Putin, he announced that they had come to the conclusion that "high gas prices are an Armenian problem". It is obvious that the more aggravated Russian-Armenian relations are, the more trust in Pashinyans community falls. Pashinyan was in a hopeless situation thats why he went to Moscow. Russia understands that new Armenian authorities are playing a double game. Calling on his supporters to participate in rallies, Pashinyan demands the withdrawal of Russian military bases from Armenia, and at the same time makes a number of political moves in order to receive funds from the West. Therefore, it would be so naive to expect that Russia will close its eyes to these antics of the new Armenian leadership and will agree not to raise gas tariffs. Thus, the fiasco of Pashinyans visit to Russia was inevitable. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend A Member of Iranian Parliament said that at the meeting between the Parliament members and minister of industry, mine and trade, the representatives threatened to lift the ban on the import of foreign cars, if the prices on domestic cars are not lowered. The warning was made during Iranian Minister of Industry, Mines and Trade Reza Rahmani's last week meeting with a fraction of the parliament, for discussions on the domestic car prices. "We talked over a number of issues at the meeting. First of all, we urged them to comply with obligations regarding the pre-sales. Unfortunately, our carmakers sold their products to people in recent months, and now they're increasing prices, Iranian parliament member Gholam Ali Jafarzadeh told Trend. The minister of Industry Mr. Rahmani said to do his best to force automakers to deliver their products at the pre-sales price, said the MP. Jafarzadeh went on to say that the Iran Khodro and Saipa's rise in prices, was unlawful, and even the amount of inspections carried out, didn't seem to help matter improve. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The governor of the Iran's Central Bank (CBI) and the Indian Ambassador to Iran, in an assessment of the latest state of banking and trade relations between the two countries, announced the preparation of a financial mechanism between the two countries. The Indian ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Surat Kumar, met with Governor of the Central Bank of Iran Abdul Nasser Hemmati, on Monday evening. The latest state of banking and business relations between the two countries was assessed during the meeting, Trend reports citing IRNA. Kumar said the financial mechanism between the two countries is being prepared and the parties will carry out their business and banking activities on the basis of the Indian government's exemption from the US sanctions against Iran. The meeting also focused on facilitating banking and the operations of the construction of Chabahar Port which is being carried out out by Indian investment. The US has excluded the development of the Chabahar Port in Iran from the maximum-pressure sanctions against Tehran. The exemption for Chabahar is linked to the ports importance for both India and Afghanistan, and likewise the importance of India and Afghanistan to US foreign policy aims. The port project is simply too critical for India and can benefit Afghanistan immensely. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline will significantly increase Turkmenistans export capacity, Trend reports citing the World Economic League Table 2019 (WELT) of the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr). "China is currently Turkmenistans largest customer for natural gas exports. However, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline is set to come online in the early 2020s, and will significantly expand Turkmenistans export capacity. The idea of a Trans-Caspian pipeline has also been explored, which would provide access to the European market," said the report. Cebr said that Turkmenistans economy remains strong, with GDP growth of 6.2 percent forecast for 2018. "The recent pickup in hydrocarbon prices together with some restrictions on imports have lowered the current account deficit from nearly 20 percent of GDP in 2016 to 8 percent of GDP in 2018. The government is currently aiming to prioritize expenditures in growth-enhancing areas such as infrastructure in order to boost Turkmenistan's competitiveness. The Communications Ministry has also outlined plans to improve access to the internet and digital services, particularly in rural areas. " Cebr forecasts that the Turkmen economy will grow at an average annual rate of 5.7 percent over the next fifteen years, as increasing gas production is offset by a general decline in commodity prices. "This will see Turkmenistan move from 91st in the World Economic League Table in 2018 to 70th by 2033." The construction of the TAPI pipeline began in December 2015. The possible costs of the TAPI project vary within $7-10 billion. The total length of the pipeline, with a capacity of 33 billion cubic meters of gas per year will be 1,840 kilometers. The fuel will be supplied from the Galkynysh gas field in Turkmenistan, the second largest in the world. The length of the Turkmen section will be 205 kilometers. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend In 2019, Uzbekistan plans to increase exports to Ukraine to $220 million and resume flights between Tashkent and Kiev, Trend reports citing Uzbek media. The announcement was made by the Uzbek Ambassador to Ukraine Alisher Abdualiyev. In addition, it is planned to develop projects to attract direct investments of $10 million in Uzbekistan for the production of pharmaceutical products. It is also planned to hold cultural and humanitarian activities. It should be noted that over the past two years, Uzbek-Ukrainian business meetings and negotiations were organized to stimulate the export of Uzbek textile, leather and footwear products, home appliances and cars. During these events, export contracts totaling more than $120 million were signed. "Flights between Tashkent and Kiev are temporarily suspended, which negatively affects the development of tourism in Uzbekistan. Now work is underway to resume direct flights to Kiev from the second half of 2019, which will help to eliminate the factors hindering the mutual tourist exchange," Abdualiyev said. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Director of the National Iranian Carpet Center says that a bartering mechanism has been designed to maintain the export markets for handmade carpets. "In a mechanism designed to barter carpets with imported goods, exporting countries to Iran will get carpets," Fereshteh Dastpak said referring to US sanctions, Trend reports citing IRNA. "Countries such as China could potentially be customers of Iran's handmade carpets and enter the carpet bartering system," she continued. Pointing to the US sanctions against Iran and the suspension of carpet exports to that country, she says, "Given the US market has always been the destination for 30 percent of Irans handmade carpets, with the help of NGOs, we are seeking to lift the carpet sanctions." Last year, 5,400 tons of Iranian handmade carpets worth $425 million were exported. The United States is the largest handmade carpet market in the world; last year, it imported $126 million worth carpets. Germany, Lebanon, Britain and Japan are the most important export markets for Iranian handmade carpets after the US. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend This year will be key in ensuring the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) is commissioned and progressively ready for operations and the start of gas deliveries in 2020, TAP Managing Director Luca Schieppati said in an interview with Trend. "On the technical side, we will be focused on safely completing onshore pipeline construction works in Greece and Albania. Once mechanical completion is achieved, TAP will enter several phases to ensure the pipeline is entirely safe and ready for operations, in line with national and international safety and operations standards. These phases include pre-commissioning and commissioning," he said. Additionally, the managing director noted that 2019 will be marked by the completion of TAP compressor and metering stations in Greece and Albania as well as significantly progressing the offshore construction activities, onshore pipeline construction and the pipeline receiving terminal in Italy. "Finally, early 2019 we also expect to fully complete construction of the first section of the pipeline in Greece," Schieppati said. In parallel, he pointed out that TAP is very focused on preparations for commercial operations as a transmission system operator (TSO) and an Independent Transmission Operator (ITO). In 2019, the main deliverables of TAP commercial team will be finalizing and adopting the TAP Network Code and implementing the related Information and Communications Technology (ICT) tools, signing the Interconnection agreements with the adjacent TSOs as well as securing a series of commercial licenses to operate from the relevant authorities in the host countries, such as the Independent Natural Gas System operations license in Greece and the transmission license in Albania. "Our operations team is committed to safety, environment and efficiency, with a strong focus on availability and reliability. Therefore, a full Operations Readiness Programme has been established, which includes independent Operability Assurance by third parties. Our operations team is also building both the transportation services (e.g. dispatching, metering, balancing) and the asset management processes in order to be ready to operate efficiently and effectively," he said. Schieppati noted that maintenance plans have already been defined and shared with the local transmission system operators in Greece and Italy, and the maintenance joint venture for Albania. "All in all, there is still a lot of work ahead of us. But we are confident that TAP will continue to progress on time and on schedule, delivering a modern, safe and robust pipeline for the transport of Shah Deniz gas to Europe," he added. TAP project, worth 4.5 billion euros, is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union (EU). Connecting with the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) at the Greek-Turkish border, TAP will cross Northern Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea before coming ashore in Southern Italy to connect to the Italian natural gas network. TAP shareholders include BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent). --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov Baku continued its diplomatic efforts to resolve the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict within the sovereignty, territorial integrity and international borders of Azerbaijan in 2018, Milli.az reported. Negotiations on the conflict settlement for many years have not yielded any results, but conversations within the framework of the Dushanbe and St. Petersburg Summit of the CIS countries, led by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, create optimism in terms of progress in the negotiation process. Although Pashinyan tried to put the "leadership" of the so-called regime in occupied Karabakh on the negotiating table, Azerbaijan was very decisive to keep the format of the negotiations unchanged. The Azerbaijani Armed Forces, which ranks among the world's 50 most powerful armies, carried out successful operations in the battlefield in 2018. More than 11,000 hectares of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, including Gunnut village of Sharur region, were liberated from Armenia, favorable heights were seized along the state border and Yerevan-Gorus-Lachin road was taken into custody in May 2018. This successful operation was a logical continuation of Azerbaijani Armys victory in 2016. In April fights, army of Azerbaijan carried out a counter-attack operation in response to the Armenian provocation, liberated some of the territories of Fuzuli, Jabrayil and Aghdere regions, totaling more than 2,000 hectares of land, and security in the village of Jojuq Marjanli with the liberation of the Leletepe highway. As soon as the village of Jojuq Marjanli was restored, more than 150 houses were built and internally displaced persons returned to their native homes. The end of the Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan in 2018 was the main task of the countrys diplomacy and remains a priority task in 2019. The talks between the Azerbaijani President and the Armenian Prime Minister were held within the framework of the CIS summit in Dushanbe and Saint-Petersburg and three meetings were held between the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister and his Armenian counterpart in the past six months. Joint Declaration of Heads of Delegation of OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries, Joint Statement of Azerbaijani and Armenian Foreign Ministers were adopted during the OSCE Ministerial Meeting on December 6, 2018. The statement notes the continuation of negotiations on a peaceful and just resolution of the conflict. It also stresses the call for concrete steps for the implementation of the agreement reached at Dushanbe at the level of two countries heads and the preparation of both countries population for peace. Another important point is that it reflected a need of intensifying negotiations for a fair conflict solution at the level of Azerbaijani and Armenian heads. This approach is fully supported by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs. Azerbaijan hopes that the 2019 year will be important for the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Countrys principled position remains unchanged, and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan must be ensured unconditionally, occupying forces must withdrew from occupied Azerbaijani lands, as international law requires. Azerbaijan stands by to boost efforts in the foreign policy in this direction this year on the basis of bilateral contacts. Both historical and legal grounds support the countrys position. The processes taking place in the region strengthen Azerbaijan's regional authority and the situation in the region is changing in Azerbaijans advantage. All these factors suggest that certain steps will be taken for the solutiom of the conflict in 2019. Still, it is too premature to make any statement, but what is clear Azerbaijan will not abandon its principal position and restore territorial integrity in any way is the countrys sovereign right. Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied lands around it are Azerbaijani historical lands, both today and tomorrow. Thus, in the current year, Azerbaijan will do its best to put an end to the aggression of Armenia, to liberate lands from occupation, and to return internally displaced persons to their homelands. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Narmina Mammadova New tax and customs benefits may be offered to residents of the High-Tech Park of Azerbaijans National Academy of Sciences (ANAS), a source in the High-Tech Park told Trend. Proposals for amending relevant legal regulation have already been prepared, according to the source. "The main goal is to create more investment-attractive environment in the High-Tech Park," the source noted. "The prepared proposals will be submitted to the appropriate authorities, and we hope that they will be reflected in the tax and customs code." The status of resident of the High-Tech Park has been granted to 11 companies that receive full support from the High-Tech Park. The residents receive expert, legal and financial support. In addition, they also enjoy tax and customs benefits. The residents are exempt from tax on income, property, land, VAT and on imported technical equipment. In the future, it is expected that raw materials imported by the residents wont be taxed, either, and the products sold by the residents will be exempt from VAT, and this will ensure the competitiveness of their products. High Tech Park Limited Liability Company under the Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies was established according to President Ilham Aliyevs Decree in frame of the national development program, Azerbaijan 2020 in November 5, 2012. According to the Decree, 50 ha of land in the Pirallahi district of Baku was allocated to the Park. The main purposes are to stimulate the ICT development in the economy and increase the competitiveness of national technological market and to create modern infrastructure for further pursuit of Research & Development and implementation of new technologies in the country. The High-Tech Park has already concluded major contracts for the export of cables with Georgia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The signed agreements are already being fulfilled. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend New tax and customs benefits may be offered to residents of the High-Tech Park of Azerbaijans National Academy of Sciences (ANAS), a source in the High-Tech Park told Trend. Proposals for amending relevant legal regulation have already been prepared, according to the source. "The main goal is to create more investment-attractive environment in the High-Tech Park," the source noted. "The prepared proposals will be submitted to the appropriate authorities, and we hope that they will be reflected in the tax and customs code." The status of resident of the High-Tech Park has been granted to 11 companies that receive full support from the High-Tech Park. The residents receive expert, legal and financial support. In addition, they also enjoy tax and customs benefits. The residents are exempt from tax on income, property, land, VAT and on imported technical equipment. In the future, it is expected that raw materials imported by the residents wont be taxed, either, and the products sold by the residents will be exempt from VAT, and this will ensure the competitiveness of their products. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz President Akufo-Addo has revealed that a Special Investigations Team has been put in place to undertake criminal investigations into the failures of all seven banks for possible prosecutions by the relevant State agencies. Addressing the media at an end of year press conference on Wednesday, 19th December, 2018, President Akufo-Addo assured that no one found complicit will be spared. Additionally, the Bank of Ghana, he indicated, is conducting its own internal investigations into the conduct of its officials (past and present) that could have facilitated wrong doing at these banks. Throwing light on the banking sector, the President noted that his administration inherited a financial system that was under a considerable state of distress, with banks that were known to be insolvent as far back as 2015, and banks that had been licensed without the requisite capital. Some of these banks, he said, were surviving day to day only by virtue of liquidity support from the Bank of Ghana with the underlying problems that plagued them remaining unresolved. To protect depositors funds as well as to prevent contagion from these failed banks to the rest of the financial system, the new administration of the Bank of Ghana took some courageous measures in the public interest, to clean up the banking system and to put it on a stronger and more resilient path, he said. President Akufo-Addo continued, There is no doubt that the failure of the seven banks came at a cost to the Ghanaian taxpayer and staff of the affected banks. As a result of the decisions taken by the Bank of Ghana and the financial support Government provided through the establishment and funding of Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited, the President noted that this has ensured that deposits of more than 1.5 million customers with deposit values of over GH10 billion and about 70 per cent of the 5,000 jobs in the affected banks were saved. This, he explained, was important to alleviate the severe adverse outcomes that could have occurred. It is important that the costs of these interventions, which were borne by taxpayers, are recovered to the extent possible through recoveries from debtors, shareholders, and related and connected parties who took money from the defunct banks, he said. The President continued, the receivership processes are ongoing, and the receivers are making great strides in their recovery efforts. Amounts in excess of GH400 million have so far been recovered by the Receivers of the 2 banks closed last year. At the same time, the recapitalisation efforts by banks have been very successful so far, with about 22 banks already meeting the new minimum capital of GH400 million well in advance of the 31st December deadline. The 22 banks that have met the new requirement include a good number of indigenous banks, whilst a few others are in the final stages of meeting this requirement. I am confident that at the end of the exercise, we will have a stronger, more resilient banking sector with a strong indigenous presence, well-positioned to finance the next phase of our agenda of economic growth, the President added. Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has announced an exploratory committee for a 2020 presidential run, voiced support for the idea of withdrawing troops from Syria and Afghanistan during an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Wednesday night. The big picture: The decision by the Trump administration to withdraw troops from Syria has drawn heavy criticism from the national security sector. Warren said that the answer from the foreign policy establishment to the situation in the Middle East seems to be, "Stay forever. That is not a policy. We can't do that." She does, however, believe the plan should be coordinated with allies and disagrees with President Trump conducting "foreign policy by tweet." Warren also told MSNBC that candidates should "not be self-funding," and that "they should not be funded from PACs from other billionaires." "I think this is a moment for all of the Democratic nominees, as they come into the race, to say in a Democratic primary we are going to link arms and we're going to say grassroots funding. No to the billionaires." Go deeper: Elizabeth Warren backs "idea" of a Green New Deal The sudden withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria that Trump has called for, potentially within as little as 30 days, would pose severe humanitarian risks. Why it matters: The power vacuum created by an abrupt U.S. disengagement could spark a new round of fighting, which in turn will disrupt and displace communities. The result could be an even worse humanitarian crisis in a country where some 11 million people have fled their homes and more than half a million people in the northeast alone are already receiving some form of humanitarian assistance. The withdrawal could allow for a revival of the Islamic State, which remains active in the area and a re-assertion of control by Assad in Syrias northeast. On Thursday, Turkey threatened to launch new incursions against the Kurds in the same region. The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Manbij and elsewhere in the northeast could incentivize Turkey to push even father into Syrian territory, displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians. In southern Syria, over 40,000 Syrians who fled the Assad regime are sheltering in squalid conditions in the makeshift camp of Rukban close by the American base at Tanf. If U.S. troops pull out, Rukbans inhabitants will once again be at the regimes mercy. Where it stands: The UN has a very light footprint in northeast Syria, and only a handful of international aid and local organizations are operating in communities ravaged by the Islamic State. None of them are resourced to respond to another major outbreak of violence. Cities like Raqqa, the terrorist groups former capital, remain largely destroyed. Efforts to help these communities recover are very much a work in progress. The State Department is preparing to evacuate U.S. aid workers and diplomats in northeast Syria. Other relief groups could also follow suit. The result will be reduced humanitarian capacity at a time when more is urgently needed. The bottom line: An abrupt U.S. disengagement will have significant consequences for civilians in areas where U.S. forces are present. Before any withdrawal goes forward, plans must be in place to minimize the humanitarian consequences of the ensuing instability. Hardin Lang is vice president for programs and policy at Refugees International. Sen. Bernie Sanders apologized for allegations of sexual harassment and sexism lodged against his 2016 campaign, telling CNN's Anderson Cooper Wednesday night that if he runs for president in 2020, his team will "do better." The big picture: The New York Times reported on Wednesday that a strategist on Sanders' 2016 campaign complained of sexual harassment by a campaign surrogate to her supervisor, Bill Velazquez, who made light of the allegations by saying she "would have liked it if he were younger." Sanders acknowledged that that the complaints were "not dealt with as effectively as possible," but said he was not aware of the allegations at the time: "I was a little bit busy running around the country trying to make the case." Apple's big reveal yesterday that China's economic slowdown will dampen revenues shows one reason why oil prices face headwinds despite OPEC's move to dial back production. Why it matters: The tech giant's warning points to economic clouds that could also affect other sectors including oil, which is already under pressure from rising U.S. supplies. "The slowdown in China and turmoil in stock and currency markets appears to be making investors nervous, including in oil markets," Reuters notes. Where it stands: China is the world's largest oil importer, and this report comes on the heels of data showing a slowdown in manufacturing. But, but, but: Prices are rising this morning after declining in the pre-dawn hours. WTI crude is trading at around $47.33 and Brent moved up to $56 as we sent this newsletter. The big question: One thing to watch is whether the OPEC efforts can overcome worries about the global economy. We really do need a sustained effort from some of the OPEC producers to take supply out of the market in order for prices to recover, Jefferies analyst Jason Gammel tells Bloomberg. Now were starting to see that." Threat level: Another factor that could influence oil markets are signs that President Trump is picking up where he left off last year pressuring OPEC to keep prices low, even though Saudi Arabia and other petro-states want higher returns. During yesterday's cabinet meeting, Trump claimed credit for the steep decline in prices since early October. I called up certain people and I said, let that damn oil and gasoline, you let it flow the oil, Trump said (h/t to Voxs Aaron Rupar and Bloombergs Javier Blas for flagging). Side note: Trump is still inaccurately conflating Brent and WTI prices, noting prices went from over $80 a few months ago to the mid-$40s now, but the former is Brent and the latter is WTI. Be smart: A note from the Rapidan Energy Group flags Trumps penchant for verbal and Twitter remarks toward OPEC as something to watch in oil markets, alongside the possibility that he could back NOPEC legislation to go after the cartel using U.S. antitrust laws. The note states: Trumps shift in policy and rhetoric, from preventing oil price spikes to pursuing low pump prices (which he views as an extra tax cut), constitutes an important and related development that will induce OPEC+ producers to accept lower prices than they would otherwise prefer closer to $60 average Brent than $70 or higher. What's next: The Energy Information Administration (EIA) will release its latest data on domestic oil stockpiles late Friday morning. Go deeper: Other companies are feeling the heat in China's slowing market Editor's note: This post has been updated to note that the release of EIA's data will take place Friday morning, not Thursday morning. 1 big thing: Climate politics enters 2020 race Several new developments suggest that global warming might not just be an afterthought in another presidential race. Where it stands: The 2020 White House election cycle got rolling during our holiday break including some early positioning on climate change. 1. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told Axios through an aide yesterday that she broadly supports the idea of a Green New Deal. The comments came a day after Warren became the first major Democratic hopeful to formally begin a White House run. 2. Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee plans to get into the race and run a climate-focused campaign, per this morning's The Atlantic. "Inslee is lining up donors and adding them to the political-action committee he launched in December. An official presidential exploratory committee is next," Edward-Isaac Dovere reports. 3. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg signaled on Sunday's "Meet the Press" that he aims to elevate the role of climate in the 2020 race, whether he runs or not. The big picture: There's growing momentum among Democrats behind the Green New Deal, raising the odds it will be on the national political agenda as the 2020 cycle unfolds. The Green New Deal is the sweeping climate, energy and economic framework championed by progressives including Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The odds: There are other reasons to think climate might buck precedent and actually make more than just cameo appearances in a national election. They include a slew of dire and recent scientific reports on the dangers of global warming and the closing window to hold the temperature rise in check. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who's eyeing another presidential run, also backs the Green New Deal and has long made climate central to his politics and work. And other potential candidates, like Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and activist Tom Steyer, broadly endorse the Green New Deal idea. Go deeper: 1 big thing: First House bill to tackle election security H.R. 1, the gargantuan first bill the new House Democratic majority will unveil Friday, is an anti-corruption grab bag that most prominently tackles campaign finance, sexual harassment and voting rights. But election cybersecurity will quietly play a major role in the bill, too. The big picture: This bill will likely clear the House and then die in the Senate. "These are things [Senate] Majority Leader McConnell has spent his entire career fighting," noted a source familiar with the final content of the bill. Beyond the Senate, President Trump is unlikely to welcome a provision requiring presidential candidates to release tax returns. But H.R. 1 is more than just a flag in the sand. Everyone who blocks the Democrats' crackdowns on government misconduct will have to explain why they are opposed to: Forcing super PACs to report donors. Barring Congress from using taxpayer funds to pay sexual harassment settlements. Reinstating the Voting Rights Act. Other largely bipartisan-supported provisions many voters see as good government. Enter cybersecurity. Details aren't final, but those who have worked on the bill say its election cybersecurity efforts will borrow heavily from the 2018 Secure Elections Act proposed by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). That bill: Authorized $1.7 billion in grants for states to purchase more secure election equipment. Those numbers could easily change: H.R. 1 is described as matching the goals but not the specifics of the earlier legislation. Would dole out those funds for training, security testing, maintenance and shoring up the security of all aspects of election infrastructure, from voting machines to IT systems. Requires the White House to create and formalize an election cybersecurity strategy. Requires that vendors be owned by U.S. citizens or residents and that they disclose where components of their systems are manufactured. The new funding would augment $380 million allocated last year for election cybersecurity. A report by Verified Voting and the Brennan Center noted that $380 million would have been barely enough to pay for more secure upgrades in the handful of states where voting machines didn't provide paper receipts, had the money all been spent on that need which it wasn't. In practice, state election officials by and large agree with that sentiment. H.R. 1 also contains the Honest Ads Act, a Senate bill that would require political ads online to disclose who paid for them. That kind of regulation already exists for other kinds of media. While Russia famously purchased Facebook ads in rubles during the 2016 election, most of its disinformation work was conducted through puppet social media accounts. What's next: A source knowledgable about H.R. 1 deliberations said that Democrats would ultimately be comfortable breaking out those parts of the bill that could pass the Senate into standalone legislation and the cybersecurity provisions would be among the most likely to achieve Senate support. Kevin Hassett, the chairman of President Trump's Council of Economic Affairs, told CNN on Thursday that a "heck of a lot of companies" that do business in China will see a hit to their earnings until the U.S. and China negotiate a trade deal. Why it matters: On Wednesday, Apple slashed its revenue expectations due in part to a slowing Chinese economy, which CEO Tim Cook said was exacerbated by the ongoing trade war. In recent weeks, the White House has started to publicly acknowledge the damage tariffs could do to the U.S. economy. Trump told a Cabinet meeting this week that markets will improve "once we settle trade issues" and Hassett told CNN that corporations' "sales will recover" with a China trade deal. Go deeper: The Chinese role in Apple's seismic iPhone warning There was a collective thud Wednesday as Apple warned that its holiday quarter revenue would fall billions short of expectations amid exceptionally weak business in China. The backdrop: There are two important factors to consider when trying to make sense of the news: The problems Apple saw in China go far beyond just Apple. But Apple's iPhone problems extend far beyond China, too. On China: The Chinese economy is weak and perhaps weaker than previously realized. This is probably the biggest takeaway from the news. Apple CEO Tim Cook said that weakness in Greater China (which Apple defines as China, Taiwan and Hong Kong) accounted for nearly all of the company's revenue miss (though it did see other pockets of weakness). Some of that was likely share picked up by other smartphone makers, but it also suggests significant slowness in the Chinese economy, particularly at the high end of the market. On iPhone: While things were especially bad in China, Apple saw weak iPhone demand in other places, too. Apple blamed a range of factors, from currency exchange rates to people choosing a discounted battery replacement for their old phone rather than buying a new iPhone. All of those points are likely valid, but miss the fundamental issue: the smartphone market has matured. People are happy with a battery upgrade because they are generally happy with their phone. This is problematic for Apple not just because the iPhone generates the bulk of company revenue and profits, but also because Apple tends to do best when innovation is rapid rather than incremental. What they're saying: Apple CEO Tim Cook : "While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China." : "While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China." Bloomberg's Shira Ovide wrote an article, headlined "Apple's iPhone warning comes years too late," saying that Apple missed clear warning signs that the smartphone business was slowing down. "This should have been absolutely predictable to anyone who was able to peer outside of Apples bubble." wrote an article, headlined "Apple's iPhone warning comes years too late," saying that Apple missed clear warning signs that the smartphone business was slowing down. "This should have been absolutely predictable to anyone who was able to peer outside of Apples bubble." The Verge's Tom Warren: "I think Apple is hitting a difficult iPhone period. People are upgrading less, carrier subsidies arent enough, and $1,000 phones are making consumers pause and consider. Mix that in with fears of a recession, and 2019 could be challenging for Apple and many others." What's next: Apple will report full results at the end of the month and will likely go into greater detail. Meanwhile, we will also hear from other smartphone makers as well as others with big business in China. That should help show how much of Apple's experience was universal and how much it was uniquely its own. Go deeper: Other companies are feeling the heat in China's slowing market From Greg Swank, 12-4-2 You are about to read a list of 45 goals that found their way down the halls of our great Capitol back in 1963. As... There are several carmakers now working toward autonomous parking solutions, and the progress made in the last year, especially by German automakers, has been significant.In the first days of 2019, South Korean auto group Hyundai-Kia announced it will be joining the Germans in the race to take the next step in automated parking technologies by presenting the concept of a vehicle equipped with wireless charging system and the Automated Valet Parking System (AVPS).As its name says, the system has been created with electric vehicles in mind, and as a means to eliminate the time needed for the drivers to find a parking space equipped with a charging station.The car envisioned by Hyundai can be controlled via a smartphone. Using this, owners can command the vehicle to get to a charging station. Using info received from the AVPS and the parking lot itself, the car navigates automatically to a vacant wireless charging station.Once the car is fully charged, if the vehicle is not summoned in the meantime by its owner, it moves on its own to another vacant parking space, thus freeing the charging station to accommodate another electric vehicle. Once the owner is ready to go, they can call the car via the same smartphone app it sent it away with.The systems detailed this week by Hyundai are by no means close to production, nor was a working version announced for the next 12 months. The Koreans plan however to start selling the tech as part of a Level 4 automated vehicle in 2025. Before that time, autonomous vehicles will be introduced in some smart cities as soon as 2021. Hyundai s ultimate goal is to launch a fully automated car (Level 5), but plans are to do so no sooner than 2030. Stay up to date on COVID-19 Get Breaking News Sign up now to get our FREE breaking news coverage delivered right to your inbox. The identities of three men suspected in a jewelry heist at The Little Nell Hotel last week have been established thanks to help from the Chilean government, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the TSA and others. A jet flies over the Aspen-Pitkin County Airports control tower this week. Candidates for four committees that will help to steer the scope of future upgrades at the airport will be presented to Pitkin County commissioners on Jan. 22-23. Talks between US-Taliban to be held in Qatar The next round of talks between the US officials and the Taliban will be held in Qatar this month, Taliban sources said on Wednesday. The United Arab Emirates, which hosted the Taliban and the US officials in Abu Dhabi on Dec 17-18, had stated that a new round of talks would be held in Abu Dhabi to complete the Afghanistan reconciliation process. However, Taliban sources confided to Daily Times that the talks are planned in Doha, where the Taliban have a political office. They also disputed claim by the Afghan officials that Saudi Arabia will soon host Afghan talks. Taliban and the US officials have not reached any agreement despite having at least four rounds of talks started in July. A Taliban source, privy to the talks, is hopeful some progress in the next round. Taliban political negotiators travelled to Iran this week ahead of their new round of talks and discussed post-invasion and regional peace with Iranian officials, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid says. Earlier the Iranian foreign ministry said Taliban have held intensive talks with Iranian officials in Tehran that were aimed at facilitating dialogues between the Afghan groups and Kabul administration to advance peace process in the country. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi told his weekly briefing on Monday that Iran is quite willing to play a pivotal role in establishing peace and tranquility in its neighbouring state especially now, after Shamkhanis meeting with the Afghan government, Iranian state IRNA news agency reported. A Taliban statement said their delegations pay visits to regional countries to seek countries political and moral support and cooperation to end the invasion of Afghanistan. Taliban political negotiators visited Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Indonesia over the past few months. A Taliban official told Daily Times that talks could be held in other countries if they formally make request and the US also agrees with other venues. The visit to Iran is seen as part of the Afghan insurgents move to strengthen relations with countries. Taliban have visited Tehran several times and their chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a US drone strike shortly after he returned from Iran on May 21, 2016. Taliban, who had tense relationship with Iran during their rule since 1996 until they were ousted in late 2001 as the result of the US military operation, later established relations with Iran and some sources have confided to Daily Times that Taliban have their special envoy for Iran like several other countries. The US sanctions and the emergence of Daesh brought the Taliban and Iran closer. Iran would definitely pay back to the US in Afghanistan for its hostile policies towards the Islamic Republic and Taliban need support to fight the Americans and its Western allies. Iran is among the few regional countries, which demand end to the US invasion of Afghanistan. In a series of background interviews it was found that Taliban mostly believe Saudi Arabia had almost broken contacts with them for years. A Taliban official insists many countries including permanent members of the UN Security Countries, European Union, neighbours and Asian countries are in contact with the Taliban political representatives but Saudi Arabia did not. Taliban and Saudi officials met for the first time in UAE in December after a long time and Afghan officials say that the Kingdom has planned peace talks that will be attended by the Taliban and the Afghan government. Taliban are also trying to create a balanced relationship with countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies, but a Taliban official says it depends on the Saudi officials if they establish contacts with the Taliban like other countries. Of custody and crypto The normally staid world of custody banking is now having to embrace the wild child of global assets: cryptocurrency. And this is happening just as bitcoin, the poster child of cryptocurrency, seesawed from US$30,000 one week to $40,000 the next, shedding then recovering 30% of its value. Some bitcoin bulls are talking of $100,000 by year-end In addition to my regular drama columns, I published three other pieces in The Wall Street Journal during my recent semi-hiatus from this blog. The first one, which ran on December 12, was a Sightings column about what happens when creative artists of importance draw up lists of works of art that they like: A film buff recently posted on Twitter the 10 films listed by Whit Stillman, the writer and director of The Last Days of Disco and Love & Friendship, when he was asked to participate in the 2012 poll in which Sight & Sound, the British film magazine, invited 358 prominent directors to name the 10 greatest movies of all time. Since Mr. Stillmans mind is as full of surprises as his films, it stands to reason that he should have come up with his fair share of unexpected picks Ask any artist of stature to draw up a similar list of preferences and youll almost certainly learn something just as valuable about him or her. Why? Because the making of lists, in Dr. Johnsons oft-quoted phrase, concentrates the mind wonderfully. In 1955, Langston Hughes published a volume called The First Book of Jazz in which he included a list called 100 of My Favorite Recordings of Jazz, Blues, Folk Songs, and Jazz-Influenced Performances. To be sure, it contains a fair number of the records that turn up on most such lists, among them Louis Armstrongs West End Blues and Coleman Hawkins Body and Soul. But Hughes, like Mr. Stillman, did his own thinking, and his list also includes politically incorrect picks To read the complete piece, go here. The second one, which ran on December 20, was a Saturday essay called How the Movies Invented Christmas: It is a well-attested historical fact that the publication of A Christmas Carol, the best-loved book by the best-selling English-language novelist of the 19th century, had the unintended consequence of reintroducing Christmas to countless Britons and Americans who had stopped observing the holiday. And its influence continues to be felt: Dickenss 1843 novella has been adapted more than three dozen times for film and television since 1901 (Bennett Miller is currently working on a new screen version with a screenplay by Tom Stoppard). Moreover, the vast majority of Americas most popular Christmas films contain plot twists that are derived, at one or more removes, from A Christmas Carol. What explains its enduring appeal to filmmakers? It is, first and foremost, a rattling good story. But it is also a secular story, one that offers skeptics a nonreligious route to spiritual renewal. To read the complete piece, go here. Finally, I published another Sightings column last Thursday, this one about Green Book and the reasons, good and bad, for its mixed critical reception. It happens that I saw Don Shirley, one of the films real-life subjects, play a concert in my once-segregated Missouri home town in 1969, an experience that gave me a special slant on the film: The sharks of Hollywood are gnawing on Green Book, Peter Farrellys biopic about Don Shirley, a black pianist who hired Tony Lip Vallelonga, a white nightclub bouncer, to be his chauffeur-bodyguard on a 1962 tour of the Deep South, through which blacks traveled by car at their own risk. (The title refers to the Negro Motorist Green-Book published between 1936 and 1966 that told black travelers where they could eat and sleep without fear of embarrassment.) Once it would have been a cinch at the Oscars, but times have changed, and Green Book is instead drawing heavy critical fire. Many contend that its characterizations and storytelling are quaintly sentimental, factually suspect andworst of allunenlightened. Green Book has been compared to Driving Miss Daisy, but its really In the Heat of the Night played for laughs. Norman Jewisons 1967 film, in which a black detective from Philadelphia (famously played by Sidney Poitier) gets caught up in a Mississippi murder case and befriends the racist local police chief, was once thought daring, but now it feels dated. Green Book has a similarly old-fashioned air that will strike many millennials as alien, though it will more likely fill you with nostalgia for the way movies used to be if youre 50 or older. Either way, its a solidly traditional piece of storytelling, and Mr. Farrellys portrait of the ugly realities of segregation will surely seem believableas well it shouldto viewers of all ages. The catch is that Hollywoods time-honored by-the-book formulas dont mesh well with todays heightened racial sensitivities. To read the complete piece, go here. The [countertenor] filed the suit earlier this month against Andrew Lipian, who accused Daniels of groping him in 2017 in a federal lawsuit which also alleges that the University of Michigan turned a blind eye to allegations of sexual impropriety. New York Daily News Since April 2017, an estimated one million of Xinjiangs 11 million Uyghur population including most of its Uyghur artists and writers have disappeared into what the government calls re-education camps, without recourse or documentation, where they are reportedly tortured into denouncing Islam and their Uyghur identity, and accepting Communist Party rule and Han Chinese dominance. The Art Newspaper Pakistan always talked about peace with India: DG ISPR 03 January, 2019 Related News Imran Khan distributed loan cheques under Kamyab Jawan Programme PTI govt to face all challenges coming its way: Imran khan More on this View All Tips for Taking Incredible iPhone Travel Photos Top 2021 Accessories We Know You Will Love Types of Casino Payment Methods Are Slot Developers Important for players? Best Poker Hands ever played on a Casino Hand Wash and Toiletries in Pakistan And the Role of DUPAS in Reshaping the Industry Woke Bingo Islamabad: ISPR Director-General Major General Asif Ghafoor has urged India to change its aggressive approach in the region. In a TV interview broadcast by ARY News, the latter said that India has seen the result of going to war with Pakistan. Major-General Ghafoor said Pakistan and India had a 70-year-old history in which Pakistan always talked about peace. We have told India a number of times that we want to progress towards peace but India has always showed aggression. Let me make this clear, if India resorts to a war with Pakistan, then we are ready to respond to it, he said. He reiterated the armys claim that India has never carried out any surgical strikes in Pakistani territory. The Indian government hasnt given the proofs of surgical strikes to even its own people, he said. On the the countrys war against terrorism, he said that Pakistan has come a long way since the start of Operation Sherdil in 2008, adding that it had been two years since the Operation Radd-ul-Fasad was launched in the country. The ISPR DG said the operation was aimed at ensuring the rule of constitution and law in the country. He said more than 75,000 secret operations were carried out throughout the country in the last two years in which more than 35,000 illegal weapons were recovered. Talking about the fallout of military operations that resulted in the displacement of thousands of people from erstwhile Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the militarys spokesperson said that the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA had borne the brunt of terrorism, and given up their properties to live in camps so that military operations could be carried out. He maintained that the grievances of Internally-Displaced Persons (IDPs) had been resolved, saying that now there was a need to provide the IDPs with education and livelihood opportunities. About the demands of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), he said the military had no objection to PTMs fair demands, however, he didnt specify if there were any particular demand that the military deemed unfair. Rights activists and independent observers have time and again endorsed all of PTM demands as being within the ambit of the countrys constitution. Recently, at a political rally in Garhi Khuda Bux, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had criticised the authorities in Islamabad for what he said were attempts to corner the movement. Further in the TV interview, the ISPR DG said the border with Afghanistan was 2,611 kilometres long and one of the objectives of the Operation Radd-ul-Fasad was to fence the border. He said that no country could wish for peace in Afghanistan more than Pakistan because a peaceful Afghanistan meant a peaceful Pakistan. Only a coalition government in Afghanistan can ensure peace, he said, adding that development works in Afghanistan should remain in progress even after the United States exits the war-torn country. Dismissing the impressions in some quarters that defence budget or government land was being used in Pakistan Armys welfare projects, he said that such claims were untrue and not a single penny from these sources was used in welfare projects run by Pakistan Army. A big chunk from the defence budget goes back to the government in the form of taxes, even the welfare organisations of the Pakistan Army pay their taxes, he said. The Pakistan Army meets its necessities while remaining within the budget allocated to it, and no allocation of the Shuhada Package is used for the armed forces but the families of the armys martyrs, he said. Recounting the performance of military courts since their latest inception in 2015, he said that so far, 717 cases were referred to the military courts, out of which 646 cases had been decided. The military courts have awarded 345 convicts death sentences while 296 have been handed various sentences, he said. The extension granted to the military courts is ending soon; the government has to decide whether it wants to extend their tenure or not, he said. Rubbishing the allegations levelled against Army for meddling in the elections, he said that the elections were a national activity which always brought change, and the Pakistan Army had no interference in the election process. In recent years, the democratic system has enjoyed armys support more than any point in the past; we wish to see political stability in the country because it results in the ultimate progress of the country, he said. Major General Asif Ghafoor, the spokesman for Pakistani military, said India always opted for an escape route from [bilateral] talks, noting that problems would not be resolved by issuing threats of a war. He said the new war is for progress, against ignorance, and for health, education and employment. Speaking about situation in Afghanistan, the DG ISPR said Pakistan wants development to continue in Afghanistan after United States pull-out from there. If there would be peace in Afghanistan, then Pakistan would also be peaceful, he said. Asked about on-duty Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav who has been held by Pakistan, he said the International Court of Justice was to conduct a hearing of the case in some time. The Pakistani military spokesman said that Jadhavs mercy plea was pending with Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa. Commenting on elections in the country, Major General Ghafoor said polls are a national activity that does bring a change and the military has nothing to do with it. He, however, maintained that Pakistan would only prosper in the presence of democracy and political stability. Gediminas Ziemelis, chairman of Avia Solutions Group, explains how and why airlines should be held accountable for passenger compensation when it comes to delays and cancellations. Ziemelis said: 2018 was an interesting year for airlines. On one hand there was the introduction of the blockchain bringing greater security to aircraft maintenance data while presenting an opportunity to one day revolutionize most aspects of aviation from training to the passenger experience. But going along with the big strides that were made in technology was the harsh contrast of a growing consolidation of many European airlines, with even some well-established airlines filing for bankruptcy. In the same vein, 2019 is gearing up to be a year of contrasts where we will continue seeing airlines filing for bankruptcy who cannot adapt to modern competition and greater regulations aimed at protecting passengers and holding airlines accountable for poor service. In more exciting developments, in the summer time there will be growth that surpasses 2018 to make 2019 a big year. Bankruptcy to continue Thousands of passengers were left stranded in foreign countries in October of 2018 when the aviation industry was rocked by news that the Cyprus based Cobalt Air suddenly ceased operations and closed its gates. The Nordic carrier Primera suffered the same fate and abruptly grounded all its aircraft as it entered bankruptcy. While disruptive to the airline industry the failure of these airlines were not unprecedented. Just a year earlier in 2017 the airlines Monarch and Air Berlin closed their doors signaling a start to the massive consolidation European airlines were about to face. 2019 will continue on this trend of consolidation with at least 3 mid-size airlines not making it through winter. As the price of a barrel of oil has shot back up from $40 in 2016 to now reaching past $100, the airlines that were barely holding on to a thin profit margin are not in a good position to stay financially stable. While many have been barely holding on for the past couple years, 2019 may be the year many decide to stop holding on. Proper resource allocation for passenger claims The airlines that went bankrupt have added further proof to the claim that the current state of passengers reimbursement claims is a mess. Airlines have proven time and time again they cannot self-regulate on this issue with those posing the biggest risk taking the most advantage of this gray area. Auditors are no longer ignoring this pressing problem and in 2019 will likely require scheduled airlines (especially those publically traded) allocate 1% reserve for passenger claims. This will help companies to better manage passenger claims and increase the image and dependability of European airlines. Playing by the new IFRS rules The IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) brings financial information to investors on the global scale. IFRS is requiring companies to bring most leases on-balance in 2019. This new standard IFRS 16 will enable analysts to see a companys own assessment of its off-balance sheet lease liabilities. The new standard covers commercial aircraft so some airlines will be in trouble as the new prescribed methodology will require many to re-negotiate covenants with their bank. As the airlines will now be required to increase the liabilities and assets they report it will have a significant impact on their financial standing, bringing mostly negative consequences. For the airlines that have traditionally kept their leased aircraft classified as a finance and operating lease this change means the assets will be more visible on their balance sheets so they will appear to be more indebted. In addition to this structural change in the accounting of the balance sheets there will also be changes in accounting over the life of the lease contract which ultimately will mean more costs to the airline when these changes go into effect. Even into the future, managing these now on-balance assets will prove costlier over the life of the lease. Failure to LEAP Projections through 2038 indicate 75% of all aircraft deliveries will be single aisle narrow body aircraft. Many of the aircraft on back order today and there are thousands will make up a good portion of the 2030s fleet. The airframes that are dominating on orders are the Airbus A320neo family and the Boeing 737 MAX platform. Since both these aircraft use LEAP powerplants it is imperative the engines get delivered on time; but unfortunately setbacks such as teething issues, disc forging problems, and defective turbine shroud coatings have put the engine deliveries further behind schedule that will likely continue into 2019. Amidst this problem the opportunity exists for a greater ACMI utilization in 2019 for airlines who are waiting for their deliveries to supplement their fleets with leased aircraft that are ready to fly and make a profit for the airline. Making it to summer For the airlines that make it through the winter months, summer of 2019 will return respectable results to the airlines. All regions will be returning profits greater than in the summer of 2018 but the Middle East especially is shaping up to generate returns far in excess of their costs of capital. Globally, this return on capital will stabilize profits with an average return of 8.6% according to IATA. There will be many contributing factors to this profitability ranging from economic forces to political changes but one of the biggest reasons will be a drop in oil prices. This profitability will translate into many tangible effects as the airfares will remain low and unique city pairs connected by airlines are forecast to grow. Putting it all together Much like the years before it 2019 will have its own unique challenges as well as carrying over the effects both good and bad from previous years. But at its core the theme that keeps reemerging is 2019 will be a year of crossroads. Commercial aviation is going through changes with new business models in maintenance, leasing, and the airlines themselves as well as experiencing the introduction of new technology. 2019 will be interesting as we witness the old way of doing things go up against new ways and aggressive innovation. The trial against the pro-independence political prisoners will dominate the first half of a momentous political year, both in Catalonia and in Spain. Our collective future will be decided in courts profoundly lacking in prestige and credibility, and not only in terms of events in Catalonia: The Spanish judicial system has also been called into question following the ruling in the Wolf Pack trial [upholding a controversial verdict in which five men accused of gang-raping a woman were found guilty of sexual abuse rather than the more serious offence of rape], the outrageous trials involving the freedom of expression and questionable rulings involving mortgage fees. Ultimately, the decision in the 1-O trial [named after the 1 October 2018 referendum deemed unlawful by Spain] will mark the culmination of the judicialization of Spanish democracy, to the astonishment not only of the European political world, but also in judicial circles, which in Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Switzerland, signalled their disagreement by rejecting the extradition of exiled Catalan political leaders. Pakistan always believed in dialogues for bringing back peace in Afghanistan: FO Foreign Office Spokesperson Dr Muhammad Faisal on Wednesday said Pakistan always believed in dialogues for bringing back peace in Afghanistan, private channel reported. In his statement issued here on Wednesday, Dr Faisal said the peace in Afghanistan can only be achieved through dialogues between the stakeholders. Pakistan has always remained supporter for the peace process in Afghanistan, he continued. Pakistan believes in peaceful neighborhood and is desirous of peace and friendship with all its neighboring countries. The international community also backs the Pakistans stance of reconciliation on the Afghan issue, the spokesman added. The countrys military command has also pledged support for the negotiation process in Afghanistan. Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Thursday (December 27) had said his country was committed to efforts for peace in Afghanistan as it is important for peace in Pakistan. He was talking to Commander Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan General Austin Scott Miller, who called on him in Rawalpindi. During the meeting matters of mutual interest with particular reference to regional security and ongoing Afghan reconciliation process were discussed, said a statement issued by the Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR). Both the military leaders expressed unanimity of views on importance of political resolution of Afghan situation and underlined that only an Afghan owned and Afghan led inclusive process can lead to peace in Afghanistan. They also reaffirmed the need for continuing harmonised efforts against terrorists and for effective border management. Purchase an online subscription to our website for $7.99 a month with automatic renewal. Each online subscription gives you full access to all of our newspaper websites and mobile applications. To cancel you may contact Customer Service @ 256-235-9253 or email JPAYNE@ANNISTONSTAR.COM For a limited time, for NEW SUBSCRIBERS ONLY a NEW ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION is just $59.99 for the first year. Existing customers do not qualify for the specials! After the first year, well automatically renew your subscription to continue your access at the regular price of $69.99 per year. Please note *Your Subscription will Automatically Renew unless you contact Customer Service To Cancel* Xiaomi has announced today that it is spinning Redmi into its own sub-brand under its umbrella. Redmi was already functioning as a sub-brand of Xiaomi for a few years now, but it is now officially a sub-brand. Redmi has been around for a few years, mostly in emerging markets that Xiaomi has been expanding into, with India being the first market that Redmi launched in. It was used for Xiaomis lower-end smartphones, which obviously do very well in emerging markets like India and Brazil. The first Redmi smartphone launched almost five years ago, and it has done very well since then, launching numerous smartphones since. Redmi has mostly been used as a catalyst for Xiaomi to launch into new markets. Of course, the majority of markets that it has launched into, were emerging markets. So a good budget phone will sell better than a high-end flagship like the Mi MIX 3. Also, bringing a good budget smartphone into a new market is going to garner a lot of attention and also allow Xiaomi to quickly pick up market share in the country. Which is exactly what has happened here. In less than five years, Xiaomi has gone from not even being in India, to being the number one smartphone brand in the country. And seeing as India is a slightly smaller market compared to China, that is a pretty big deal. Xiaomi co-founder explains why the separation of Mi and Redmi brands Advertisement After the announcement early this morning, Xiaomis co-founder and CEO, Lei Jun explained to a user on Weibo why it decided to separate the two brands Mi and Redmi. And it essentially boils down to the focus of each brand. Redmi focuses more on value-for-money budget smartphones, while Mi is focused on high-end devices. The other main difference between the two is that Redmi is primarily sold online, while Mi devices are primarily sold through its Mi stores (available in many countries now). This does make plenty of sense for Xiaomi here, though Redmi was already basically used as a sub-brand for the company, it is just making it official as of now. Its unclear if Xiaomi will appoint a CEO or product manager for Redmi, or if Jun will remain in charge as he is today in charge of all of Xiaomi. Of course, we will be getting more information on how Redmi will operate on January 10, at its first solo event, so that question will likely be answered then. This strategy is not a new one, in the smartphone space. Huawei actually started this trend back in 2013 when it created its Honor brand. The company likes to say that Honor is separate from Huawei, even though it is owned by Huawei. But it operates as a separate company, and is primarily sold online, versus Huawei being sold both online and offline. Since Honor debuted in 2013, many other companies have followed this lead, including ZTE with its Nubia brand (which it now no longer has any ownership of), as well as OPPO with its Realme brand and there will likely be more to come. The main idea with adding sub-brands is to bring its brand into other markets, for Xiaomi, the name is going to be tough to pronounce in the West. However something like Redmi or Poco will be much easier, though it is still going to garner plenty of questions, like what does the name mean. But it will be easier to pronounce. On top of that, companies can use these brands to hit markets that it wouldnt normally hit with its main brand, without watering down that brand. That goes for Xiaomi, as well as Huawei, ZTE and OPPO. Three separate brands from Xiaomi Advertisement With this announcement, there are now three separate brands from Xiaomi. Theres Mi, Redmi and of course Poco that debuted last year. Mi is for its premium smartphones, while Redmi is for its budget-minded smartphones and of course Poco is for budget-priced premium smartphones. With these three brands, Xiaomi is able to cover all of the market segments around the world. Whether you are looking for something under $200, something under $500 or the best smartphone available, Xiaomi has something for you. Last year, Xiaomi introduced its Poco brand, which appeared to be its take on OnePlus. It offers a phone with high-end specs, and features, for a pretty low price. The Pocophone F1 launched with a Snapdragon 845 chipset, up to 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB of storage, starting at around $300 USD, which is pretty impressive. And that did lead to many giving it the budget smartphone of the year award for 2018. And its not hard to see why. Redmis first Announcement as a sub-brand comes January 10 Advertisement Along with the announcement today, Redmi also announced that it will be launching a new phone on January 10. At that event, they will give out more details on the plans for Redmi, and also launch a phone with a 48-megapixel camera. Now back in early December, Xiaomis global spokesperson, Donovan Sung had been teasing that something was coming in January, and there was a picture of the camera on a phone that said 48MP. It now appears that this is the phone that he was referring too. Of course, he could also be referring to a Mi-branded smartphone that is also coming, seeing as Xiaomi does launch multiple phones each month. As of this moment, there isnt much else known about this smartphone that Xiaomi is planning on unveiling in about a week, in China for its Redmi brand. Though with the Redmi brand, Xiaomi does usually pack in a pretty good screen (likely a HD or Full HD display) and a massive battery, usually around 4000mAh capacity. So this could shape up to be a pretty good phone, though it likely wont be coming to the US, which is unfortunate, but for those in countries that Xiaomi is already available in, this is going to be a smartphone that you are going to want to pay attention to. According to a new report from India, both the Samsung Galaxy Fold and Galaxy A50 will become official in the country in 2019. The source claims that it will happen soon after both devices become official on a global scale, though these two phones probably will not launch at the same time, in case you were wondering. The Samsung Galaxy Fold is quite probably one of the more interesting phones in 2019, as it will become the companys very first foldable smartphone, while the Galaxy A50 is more of a regular mid-ranger. The Galaxy A50s release date is still a mystery, though the Galaxy Fold is rumored to arrive in March, the phone will quite probably launch first in either South Korea, or perhaps in the US / Europe, depending on what Samsung decides, and if the company opts to launch it during a separate event, or as part of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. It is worth noting that the Galaxy S10 series is also expected to launch during MWC 2019, and its highly unlikely that both will be presented there, so Samsung will almost certainly host a separate event either for the Galaxy Folds launch, or for the launch of its Galaxy S10 smartphones. Samsung Galaxy Fold Is Foldable! Samsung has been working on a foldable smartphone for a long time now, and a while back, the company actually showed off its upcoming foldable smartphone during its developers conference, though the phones design was obstructed by a heavy-duty case, so we didnt really get to see its design properly. In any case, the devices display folds right down the middle, and when folded, its secondary display activates. When you unfold it, the secondary display shuts down, and basically moves to the back of the phone, while the phones main panel activates. The company did demonstrate all this at its press conference, though the transition between the main and secondary panels wasnt as instantaneous as it should be, so the company is clearly still optimizing the device. The device is rumored to be quite expensive, actually, as rumors are saying that it may cost around $2,000 even. The phone will probably be fueled by either the Snapdragon 855 or the Exynos 9820, it may even arrive in both variants. Samsung still did not confirm the Galaxy Fold name for the device, but that name has been trademarked by the company, and it fits the phone perfectly, so chances are that will be its final name. The device will be based on Android, and chances are it will pack a rather large battery, mainly due to its huge display, so you can expect to see a 5,000mAh or 6,000mAh battery, at least if rumors are to be believed. I have to admit Im rather skeptical when it comes to foldable smartphones, as bezels on such phones wont be as thin as they should be, and the phones will be considerably thicker than your modern smartphones, so I dont know what would make me carry it around instead of a regular phone, as I do find todays 6+-inch displays to be more than large enough. Opinions do differ, though, so you may disagree completely. Advertisement Galaxy A50 Info Not much info is available when it comes to the Galaxy A50, but some spec info did surface recently. The phone is rumored to sport a 4,000mAh battery, and an in-display fingerprint scanner, despite the fact its a mid-range phone. A 24-megapixel camera will, allegedly, be included on the back of this phone, while the Exynos 9610 SoC is rumored to fuel the phone. The device will include 4GB of RAM, as per rumors, while you will be able to choose between 64GB and 128GB storage versions. All in all, the Galaxy A50 is supposed to introduce in-display fingerprint scanners to mid-range smartphones, at least as far as Samsungs mid-rangers are concerned. The phone is also rumored to sport a new Infinity display, and that probably means well see a display with a camera hole in it, but well have to wait in order to see how accurate those rumors are. The phone will launch in either first or second quarter of the year, were still not sure what Samsung is planning in this regard, but stay tuned, more info will probably surface soon. ATC granted 20-day physical remand of Khadim Hussain Rizvi An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore on Wednesday granted police a 20-day physical remand of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi, Pir Afzal Qadri, Pir Ijaz Ashrafi and Hafiz Farooqul Hassan. Civil Lines police officials, after producing Rizvi in court amid tight security, sought a 60-day remand of the cleric. Furthermore, they told the ATC judge that interrogators needed to conduct accused photogrammetric test, which according to a counsel, is the process of proving that the person in a video or audio clip is the person accused. The court, after hearing the arguments, remanded Rizvi and others into police custody for 20 days. On Nov 23, 2018, Rizvi was taken into protective custody by police as law enforcement agencies launched a massive crackdown on TLP workers. According to the figures issued by the government, a total of 2,899 people were taken into protective custody from across Punjab while 139 persons from Sindh and 126 from Islamabad were also taken into custody during the crackdown. A patent application to the China National Intellectual Property Administration (via) for a smartphone case suggests that the Huawei Mate 30 Pro will have a penta-camera setup. The case shows an elongated cutout at the upper half of the case, and it is larger than the camera cutout for the Mate 20 Pro, which sported three rear cameras and an LED flash. The suggestion being the longer cutout of the smartphone case for the Mate 30 Pro could potentially accommodate five rear cameras and an LED flash. The case also shows that the right side of the device will be where the power button and the volume rocker are located, and the lack of cutouts for a fingerprint scanner suggests that the smartphone may include an under-display fingerprint sensor. The bottom of the handset will hold the USB Type-C port, as well as the grills for the bottom-firing loudspeaker. Background: If the rumor is correct, the Mate 30 Pro will not be the first smartphone that features five rear cameras as the Nokia 9 PureView will also reportedly include a penta-camera setup, and recent leaks mention that the device will allow users to take 5 photographs at the same time while increasing the amount of light captured by the cameras. It is likely that similar features may also come to the Huawei Mate 30 Pro, along with other camera functionalities proprietary to the handset. As was the case with the Mate 20 Pro last year, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro is also likely to feature a new chipset. The Mate 20 Pro sported the Kirin 980 chipset, which offers up to a 40-percent improvement in performance compared to the Kirin 970 found in the Huawei P20 series. It is possible that the upcoming handset will offer similar performance improvements, and like other premium smartphones that are expected to be released in 2019 its possible Huawei will include 5G connectivity support with the Mate 30 Pro, although it is also possible that this feature might be limited to a variant of the device. Given that Huawei launched the entire Mate 20 lineup, including the Mate 20 Pro, last October, Huawei will likely unveil the Mate 30 series at around the same time this year. As a recap, the Mate 20 Pro featured a 6.39-inch display with a resolution of QHD+ and an aspect ratio of 19.5:9. The handset also includes up to 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal flash storage, along with an IP68 water and dust-resistance certification. The smartphone features a 4,200 mAh battery and a single front-facing camera equipped with a 24-megapixel sensor. Advertisement Impact: Five rear cameras on the Huawei Mate 30 Pro will turn the upcoming smartphone offering into a flexible imaging tool for consumers. The addition of more cameras could also allow the manufacturer to experiment more freely with the types of sensors included with the device. Nonetheless, to ensure the best possible photograph quality from the handset, Huawei will need to couple the improved camera hardware with enhanced image processing algorithms, which is likely to be the case as the company has already placed a good deal of focus for its current smartphones on its smart features, and specifically, its smart camera features. With the Congressional Session ending today, before the new Senators and House Representatives are sworn in tomorrow and take their new positions, there was one last attempt at undoing the Net Neutrality reversal that FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai oversaw. In the Senate, the vote to reverse the repeal was done, but there werent enough votes in the House to overturn it completely. Pai later issued a statement stating that he is please that a strong bipartisan majority of the US House of Representatives declined to reinstate heavy-handed Internet regulations. In his statement, Pai also claimed that due to the reversal of Net Neutrality regulations, the US saw improvements in speeds for broadband, and also new fiber deployments in 2018. This is true, however it is only partially true. These speeds improved because of competition, not because of the Net Neutrality rollback. Pai also noted that the Internet has remained free and open the FCCs light-touch approach is working. The Net Neutrality Fight is not over, by a long shot While Pais reversal of the Net Neutrality rules set in place under the Obama Administration may be standing for now, the fight is no where near over. In fact, there are a number of advocacy groups that are getting ready to fight this even further. Fight For the Futures deputy director, Evan Greer said that as usual Ajit Pai is full of it. Adding that his claim that broadband speeds are up is the tech policy equivalent of its snowing outside, therefore climate change is a hoax.' Fight For the Future was just one of many advocacy groups that were pressuring Congress to reverse Pais decision. Greer reaffirmed that the fight is far from over, stating that dozens of anti-net neutrality members of Congress have already lost their jobs, and supporters of the open Internet will soon chair the committees that provide oversight for the FCC. Advertisement That last sentence in Greers statement is pretty important, the fact that supports of the open Internet will soon chair committees that oversee the FCC. Meaning that Net Neutrality wont be solely in the hands of Commissioner Pai, after the new Congress takes its seats tomorrow in Washington, DC. This is important too, now that the Congressional session is over, it can no longer simply repeal and reinstate the older rules. Which means that it is going to take a bit more time to get Net Neutrality back in place. Pais Victory Lap May Be Shortlived The victory lap that Pai is taking today in Washington is one that might be shortlived. With the Democrats taking over the House, it wont be long before new Net Neutrality laws pass through the House though it will still need to pass through the Senate, which the Republicans still control. Net Neutrality is something that is needed now, especially with ISPs able to throttle traffic for specific sights and applications on its network. The whole point of Net Neutrality was not to give the government a heavy hand, but to allow all Internet traffic to be treated equally. That is no longer happening. There have been a couple of cases in 2018 alone, where ISPs were caught throttling traffic for specific sites. This included Sprint throttling traffic for Skype which is a popular video calling service and likely uses a good amount of bandwidth on its network. Without these Net Neutrality rules that were set by the Obama Administration back in 2014, ISPs are going to be able to not only throttle traffic, but also charge more for traffic to specific sites like Netflix and YouTube because they use more bandwidth than say Twitter and Facebook. Advertisement Another way the Trump Administration is undoing everything Obama did Since Trump took offer in 2017, he has sought to undo everything that Obama did during his eight years in The White House. Now this isnt new, or unique to Presidents Trump and Obama. Typically, when the other party takes over the executive branch (aka the presidency), they undo a lot of things that were done by their predecessor. However, in the case of Trump, he is undoing things just because Obama did it. Another major achievement under Obamas presidency was the Affordable Care Act, something that President Trump and the Republicans have tried repeatedly (and failed repeatedly) to repeal, since taking office nearly two years ago. Whats Next? Advertisement With the Democrats taking over the House this week, with the new Congress taking over, there are a few things that can happen. The House can draw up some Net Neutrality regulations and pass it through to the Senate which may or may not pass it, since it is still Republican-held. But that of course will not be a major concern to the new Congress this week. There are a number of other things that the new Congress is going to be focused on at first, which includes the Russia investigation and the Special Counsel. Net Neutrality will likely end up heading to the courts. Currently, the FCC is already defending its repeal in a lawsuit that was filed by more than three dozen entities (which include state attorneys general, consumer advocacy groups and tech companies). In this lawsuit in particular, judges will have to decide whether the repeal can remain in place and whether the FCC can keep states from creating and enforcing their own Net Neutrality laws California is one such state that has already created its own, but it agreed to suspend enforcing it until the court case is over. There are many different paths to go down, for the future of Net Neutrality. But perhaps the most important thing here is the fact that no one is giving up on it. Remember that if Net Neutrality is important to you (and it should be), you can write or call your US Senator or Representative and tell them that its important that we have tougher Net Neutrality rules in place. While it may seem arbitrary to do so, it does make a difference, if enough people call or write in. Andover, MA (01810) Today Cloudy with showers. High 69F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Cloudy skies after midnight. Low near 60F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%. Have any questions? Please give us a call at 907-561-7737 Asif Saeed Khosa appointed as next CJP President Dr Arif Alvi on Wednesday approved the appointment of Justice Asif Saeed Khosa as the next chief justice of Pakistan. Justice Khosa will assume the charge of his office on January 18 after the retirement of Chief Justice Saqib Nisar a day earlier. The Law Ministry had earlier sent a recommendation of the appointment to the president. Justice Khosa was born on December 21, 1954, in Dera Ghazi Khan. After completing his undergraduate and masters degree from the University of Punjab, he went to the United Kingdom for higher studies. He obtained an LLM Degree from the University of Cambridge. Trump must not give up momentum on the border wall The illustrious David Mamet wrote, "When the three branches of government have failed to represent the citizenry and the mass of the media has failed to represent the citizenry, then the citizenry better represent the citizenry." We are now at that point. The people elected Donald Trump because a majority of them were sick of being dismissed by the inhabitants of the swamp that is the D.C. establishment. In these first two years of his administration Trump has done an amazing job despite the left's 24-7 attempts to derail his agenda and destroy him personally. This is a vicious bunch of pols, our elected officials in Congress and the "legacy" media. From well before the election, they had devised a strategy to take Trump down and out. When that failed, they escalated their plan to destroy his nascent presidency with all manner of fabricated nonsense: a fake dossier, the unmasking of nearly everyone in the Trump orbit, the Mueller "probe" that is nothing but an attempt to cover up the crimes of the Clintons and the Obama administration. To Hillary Clinton, we are "deplorable." The outgoing governor of California recently expressed his utter disdain for the inland residents who oppose his destructive agenda and have suffered so much under his state-destroying policies. Mitt Romney has weighed in with his own version of moral superiority, proving only that he is a man who lacks character. His op-ed in the Washington Post ("Bezos's Bulletin") has revealed him as just another narcissistic pol with poor judgment. He apparently aspires to be the next Jeff Flake or John McCain, each of them traitors to their own party. He lost his campaign to be president; Trump won. But Romney feels duty-bound to lecture Trump! What a fool. Trump won for many reasons, and one of them was to secure our southern border. He wants to build a wall as so many other nations do for the same reason. We are being overrun by illegal migrants. They are destroying our cities, costing taxpayers billions of dollars to care for and imprison. They are killing innocent Americans by the thousands, by driving drunk and by cold-blooded murder, which they seem to consider a sport, especially if their victims are law enforcement personnel. But the left, most prominently Nancy Pelosi, Charles Schumer, Jerrold Nadler, et al. are so obsessively intent upon derailing Trump that they are willing to sacrifice American victims, no matter their numbers. They all supported a border wall in years past just not now, because it is one of the main reasons Trump won. They hate Trump and every single American who voted for him. We are pond scum to the Democrat left, troglodytes who need not be considered when implementing their Marxist-Alisnkyite formula for the transformation of America. It should be clear to every American by now that the progressive left cares not one bit about individual Americans. Leftists long ago relegated us to one or another of their racial, class, and expanding "gender" categories. We are nothing but digits on a demographic cheat sheet to the left. Leftists will appeal to our specific concerns when running for election, but they have nothing but contempt for us. They hate that our votes count. In 2016, they cheated as fervently as they could and lost. In 2018, they cheated with their ballot-harvesting scheme and illegitimately won the House. Now their plan is to go all in to get Trump out of the White House. Leftists refuse to admit Trump's many successes: the economy, tax cuts, the resulting revenue to the government, trade (China is gradually giving in), North Korea, the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, troops to come home from Syria, etc. Despite their never-ending, devious plots to terminate this presidency, the man is unstoppable. Trump must not give up his plan to build the wall. The country cannot remain a nation without it. The left's intention to flood our states with illegal migrants is as vile a plot as one can imagine. The Elizabeth Warrens, Ocasio-Cortezes, Sheila Jackson Lees, Jerrold Nadlers, Maxine Waterses, Adam Schiffs, and their like-minded cohorts in Congress all advocate for socialism of the communist variety. They want to punish those who produce and reward those who do not. They want and need a permanent underclass to serve them and to vote for them. As zoos have walls to keep dangerous animals in, they all have walls around their homes to keep out those they see as riffraff. That would be we. Schumer, Pelosi, and their acolytes assume they will win this stalemate over border security. They are so thoroughly out of touch with the actual citizenry of this great nation that they actually think they can corral us into ridiculous politically correct categories and we will not rebel. We did rebel, and we are behind Trump all the way. They will still try to take our guns; control what our children are taught; dictate what we eat, drive, say, think, and see. These people must be defeated, and the border must be secured. It is time for the American people to step up to the plate and represent the American people along with this president, who has sacrificed so much to help us do exactly that. For the film The Edge, Mamet wrote "We're all put to the test...but it never comes in the form or at the point we would prefer, does it[?]" Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of this country. The time and place for this nation's test is now. Hatred and calls for violence are so normal now on the left even among celebrities who just by being famous carry weight among many that few if any prominent people bother to condemn them. A shocking silence on the left greets the news that a major conservative media figure is under a death threat taken very seriously by law enforcement. The attempted assassination of a large group of Republican congressmen on a softball field that seriously wounded Steve Scalise ought to have been a wake-up call but wasn't. The fact that the name of the would-be assassin, James Hodgkinson, is not widely recognized betrays the degree to which the media have suppressed the incident from public consciousness. Now comes news from the Washington Times of a threat to talk show host Michael Savage taken so seriously that the he has moved to a "changed location." Cheryl Chumley reports: City, state and federal agencies are taking a look at a vicious, hateful email sent [to] a restaurant frequented by talk radio icon Michael Savage that threatens to shoot up the establishment if he's not denied future service. Superficially, this is aimed at preventing Michel Savage from patronizing a favorite restaurant, which is now a well accepted tactic on the left, though usually accomplished by harassing conservatives or public officials while dining. This threat of mass casualties is different in kind, because it could deny service to the targeted person in addition to potentially killing many bystanders. The email itself is utterly vile: Portions of the email sent to the restaurant state, in all caps, "I DEMAND THAT YOU REFUSE TO ALLOW MICHAEL SAVAGE ... IN YOUR F-ING RESTAURANT AGAIN. HE IS A RACIST WHITE SUPREMACIST PIECE OF S--- ... DONT WANT TO LISTEN TO ME? WELL I GUESS YOURE ALL GONNA F------ DIE THEN CUZ I AM WAITING FOR THE M----------- AND I WILL WAIT AND WATCH YOUR F------ BUSINESS AND WHEN I SEE HIM GO IN THERE IM GOING TO START SHOOTING EVERY BODY I CAN FIND." The suspect then gets very specific. "I OWN 3 GUNS AND I CAN DO SOME SERIOUS F------ DAMAGE," the email went on. "I WILL KILL AS MANY OF YOU RACIST-SUPPORTING/ENABLING WHITE SUPREMACISTS AS I F------ CAN." ... "PEOPLE WILL F------ DIE," the email messenger wrote. "IM GOING TO KILL THAT F------ CRYPTO JEW BUT IF YOU DONT WANT YOUR WHOLE BUSINESS TO TURN INTO A F------ SHOOTING GALLERY AND YOUR CUSTOMERS TO GET CAUGHT UP IN THIS YOU BETTER KEEP HIM OUTTA THERE OR ELSE ... YOURE ALL GONNA F------ DIE UNLESS YOU DO WHAT I F------ SAY. ILL REALLY MAKE U F------ FAMOUS." So far as both a Duckduckgo news search and a Google news search reveal, no left wing politician or media figure has spoken up against this hideous threat. Perhaps they, too, are so full of hatred for those who oppose them that they are fine with threats, and maybe even death for their ideological opponents. This is shameful. Maybe today will bring a wave of condemnation, but I am not holding my breath. Right now, actress Ellen Barkin is calling for the rape and death of a comedian of whom she disapproves. She already has called for the assassination of President Trump and "endorsed a Tweet calling for Republicans to die via Hurricane Isaac." None of this appears to have damaged her career, and she currently appears on air in a TNT series. A couple of decades ago, the debut of the AIDS threat led to a wave of propaganda proclaiming, "Silence = Death." Today, with political violence rising, the same could become true here. Image source: Pexels.com. The stakes could not be higher, and not just for Michael Savage. Normalizing political violence never leads anywhere good. The Nazis rose to power on the effective use of violence against their opponents, at rallies and by assassination efforts. Japan's Taisho Democracy was killed by military officers assassinating political foes, in a period that historians have dubbed "government by assassination." So, as Chumley suggests, it is time for change on the left: Maybe now the Nancy Pelosis of the country and the Maxine Waters[es] of the nation will start to understand that calls for summers of resistance and cries to confront conservatives particularly those tied to this Donald Trump administration in the streets, in restaurants, at their homes, are all examples of uncalled-for rallies that can indeed spark the mentally unstable or viciously partisan to actually get physical? If you think that it can't happen here, you're kidding yourself. And if you think that an unanswered wave of actual violence won't provoke counter-strikes, you are also living in dreamland. So Rachel Maddow, Anderson Cooper, and all the others clamming up when a conservative is targeted ought to think twice about remaining silent. If this continues, everyone loses. We just heard that former senator Harry Reid is very ill. We wish him well. Harry Reid, the former Senate Majority Leader who is suffering from pancreatic cancer, has given a rare interview in which he compares a "weird" President Trump unfavorably to mafia bosses who "are really good with what they do." He told The New York Times: "Trump is an interesting person. He is not immoral but is amoral. Amoral is when you shoot someone in the head, it doesn't make a difference. No conscience." When the writer Mark Leibovich suggested there was a hint of grudging respect in Reid's words, he added: "I think he is without question the worst president we've ever had[.] ... We've had some bad ones, and there's not even a close second to him." Reid refused to say whether he backed his successor Chuck Schumer's tactics in dealing with Trump. "I do not call Schumer," he said. "I call him once in a while not weekly[.] ... I talk to Nancy often. I love Nancy Pelosi." The Times piece states, bluntly, that Reid "does not have long to live." Again, we wish him well, but his words are shocking. We remember Senator Reid as a total partisan who went as far as accuse then-candidate Mitt Romney of not paying his taxes. He said that without evidence as the majority leader during a speech on the Senate floor. To my knowledge, he never regretted peddling the lie. On the matter of illegal immigration, he was always an opportunist. Harry Reid 1993: No Sane Country Would Give Illegals Citizenship! In other words, I never got the impression that Senator Reid was a man with much of a "conscience." Reid was all about winning elections and telling people what they want to hear. PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter. Muslim #Patrol Car has been spotted in Brooklyn New York pic.twitter.com/EcrohZkNZq It should be noted that other racial and religious groups in New York City have community patrols as well. When the Brooklyn Asian Safety Patrol (BASP) launched in 2014, it had close ties to the police department. "They are our eyes and ears," NYPD Deputy Inspector James Grant, who helped start the program, told the Post in 2014. The group received civilian-observation-patrol training from the NYPD, as well as support from the volunteer Jewish watch group Shomrim. The BASP launched with a team of 15 Asian-American residents, walkie-talkies, uniforms, and two NYPD-style patrol cars. Its members like those of Shomrim do not have the authority to stop and detain people, but they call 911 if they witness a crime or spot someone acting suspiciously. NYPD officers will then come and stop, question, and frisk people if warranted. These community groups work as part of "broken windows" policing, targeting small-time crimes in order to prevent more serious ones. The Haredi Shomrim has been around since the 1980s in several New York neighborhoods. Both the Brooklyn Asian Safety Patrol and the Shomrim act in coordination with the police department. Not so, apparently, with the MCP: Yet in a statement to PJ Media on Wednesday, the NYPD disavowed any link to the Muslim Community Patrol. Any attempts to enforce Sharia (Islamic law) would not be sanctioned by the police. "This is not an NYPD vehicle," Sergeant Jessica McRorie told PJ Media. "The NYPD did not outfit or label this vehicle. This group is not officially sanctioned by the NYPD and they are subject to the law." There are some concerns that the MCP would attempt to enforce sharia law in their neighborhoods. The fact that the MCP neglected to coordinate with the NYPD does not instill confidence that they are not religious police. The neighborhood in question, Bay Ridge, is known as the "heart of Brooklyn's Arab community" but is still a largely white neighborhood of 80,000. It seems unlikely that the MCP would be enforcing a dress code or other aspects of sharia in a mostly non-Muslim neighborhood. These "community patrols" are popping up in big cities across the country. Sometimes they are neighborhood-based, while other groups are racial, ethnic, or religious minorities. The police give them mixed reviews, but there's no doubt that residents feel a little safer because of them. In the pages of the Washington Post, the paper of record for the Washington establishment, Boot decries the fact that the left wing of the Democratic Party more or less mirrors President Trump on foreign policy matters. Boot writes, Back in 1956, Clarence "Frogman" Henry croaked out a tune entitled " Ain't Got No Home ." This is the theme song of Max Boot, as his latest opinion piece demonstrates. The progressive wing of the Democrat Party is as ready to abandon free trade as the Trumpified GOP and as willing to criticize money spent for nation-building as a giveaway to foreigners that would be better directed towards domestic needs. Apart from Boot's mischaracterization of the unfair trade arrangements endured by the U.S. as "free trade," what's not to like about such positions? Anyone who is not on the Chinese payroll directly or indirectly can see the absolute need of Trump's efforts to aggressively address China's predatory trade practices. Continuing on trade, Boot criticizes Elizabeth Warren for writing the following in Foreign Affairs magazine: While international economic policies and trade deals have worked gloriously well for the elites around the world, they have left working people discouraged and disaffected. Efforts to promote the United States' own security have soaked up huge resources and destabilized entire regions, and meanwhile, U.S. technological dominance has quickly eroded[.] ... To fight back, we need to pursue international policies that benefit all Americans, not merely an elite few. If Warren keeps thinking like that, next thing you know, she'll be wearing a MAGA hat. Regarding military interventions, Boot can't seem to understand why Bernie Sanders would say something like this: "Far too often, American interventions and the use of American military power has produced unintended consequences which have cause incalculable harm" to the U.S. and others. It is not often that Crazy Bernie is lucid, but in this particular case, credit the Vermont senator for seeing the obvious. Boot is tearing out what is left of his hair as "[n]either Democrats nor Republicans will make a principled argument for nation-building[.]" Well, Max, no candidate is likely to make such an argument. If any did, his chances of winning an election at any level, never mind the presidential one, is slim. What Boot can't get through his head is that a "principled case for nation-building" was basically made by candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney. What happened to them? They both lost to an otherwise beatable man who rejected it. More to the point, the U.S. is suffering from an ongoing nation-building hangover due to President George W. Bush's disastrous experiment with it in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those interventions, along with the Obama-Clinton Libya fiasco, have destabilized the Middle East, costing America many trillions of dollars along with a multitude of dead and maimed young U.S. soldiers. The truth is America is not more secure for trying to bring democracy to the Middle East; it is less so. Boot thinks he can reverse the tide of American public opinion against foreign adventures and unfair trade by the power of his words. At least when King Canute commanded the tide to stop from coming in, he was intentionally demonstrating the folly of trying. Not Boot. And because Max Boot demands his adopted country continue to be the "benevolent global hegemon" of yesteryear tending to the world's problems, he ain't got no home not in the Republican Party of Trump nor the rising progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Romney showed no fight against Obama in 2012. He selected Paul Ryan as his V.P. running mate, who had absolutely no fight as the V.P. candidate in 2012 and did his best to sabotage President Trump's efforts to secure funding for the southern border wall. Romney did not fight back when Harry Reid falsely accused him of not paying his income taxes. But Mitt has no problem attacking President Trump. Evidently, Romney spent the Christmas and New Year holidays composing an op-ed for the Washington Post in which he so unfairly attacks President Trump that even the National Review criticized him. But, on balance, his conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions last month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office. What is Romney's agenda and motive in writing these words? He has absolutely no chance to beat President Trump in the 2020 primaries. During this critical time, when President Trump is attempting to obtain funding for the wall to protect Americans, Romney stabs President Trump and those who voted for Trump in the back. If Romney had valid concerns about President Trump's conduct and policies, then the honorable conduct would have been to speak to President Trump privately. But Romney decided to write an article for the Washington Post. Maybe Romney wants a job at MSNBC. Romney must believe that the Hate Trump Media will embrace him as they embraced John McCain before he ran against Obama. But Mitt will learn that nobody respects a traitor, and the Hate Trump Media will dispose of Romney after they use him. Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr. Since PRC leaders mean what they say, a "Victory at Sea" sequel maybe fast approaching. A Chinese admiral in the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) named Luo Yuan* just told America we had best sound General Quarters. ("Sound General Quarters all hands man your battle station" is a Navy term meaning prepare to fight.) "What the United States fears the most is taking casualties," Admiral Lou declared. He said the loss of one super carrier would cost the US the lives of 5000 service men and women. Sinking two would double that toll. "We'll see how frightened America is." Rear Admiral Luo Yuan (image credit: Voice of America). Anywhere a U.S. Navy ship sails, it will be prudent for any adversary to know there is the high probability that the spirit of U.S. Navy World War II fleet admiral Nimitz travels with it. There is a great quote about Nimitz's personal leadership in World War II. His chief of staff, Raymond Spruance, said of Nimitz that he "never knew what it meant to be afraid of anything." Less than a year after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the "Doolittle Raiders" had their "30 Seconds over Tokyo" bombing raid. In doing so, the Navy-Army Air Corp team gave the Japanese leaders a real wake-up call that they would ultimately lose WWII. B-25 Army Air Force crews made their heroic flight launching from the deck of the CV-8, USS Hornet. After the Doolittle Raid, the USS Hornet continued to fight the Imperial Japanese Fleet. At the Battle of Midway, the entire complement, save one pilot, of Torpedo Squadron 8 from the Hornet were all killed, but the great "miracle at Midway" victory was achieved. Finally, the heroic ship was sunk at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Island. Quoting various reports about the battle proved that it was a hard ship to kill. In a 15-minute period, Hornet took three bomb hits from "Val" dive bombers, another bomb hit compounded by the "Val" itself crashing into the deck, two torpedo hits from "Kates", and another "Val" crashing into the deck. Because of the damage the Hornet was taken under tow when another Japanese plane scored a hit. The order was given to abandon ship. U.S. forces then attempted to scuttle Hornet, which absorbed nine torpedoes and more than 400 5 in (130 mm) rounds from the destroyers Mustin and Anderson. Mustin and Anderson moved off when a Japanese surface force appeared in the area. Japanese destroyers Makigumo and Akigumo then finished Hornet with four torpedoes. At 01:35 on 27 October, she finally sank with the loss of 140 of her crew. It was the last U.S. fleet carrier to be sunk in WWII. And another history lesson, this time from my class in naval history over four decades ago at the U.S. Naval Academy. I have tried to find the original source, but I just remember the professor's narrative. As the war in the Pacific got closer to the main islands of Japan, Kamikazes the drones of the day were used to attack the American battle fleet. At that time the aircraft carrier was the primary ship leading the attack. Killing carriers was the goal. The Navy, knowing this, screened the fleet carriers with radar picket destroyers to both give warning and provide anti-aircraft fire at incoming Kamikazes. During a lull after a wave of deadly Kamikaze attacks, a voice was heard skipping across the waves by sailors of the main fleet (sound can do this at sea). As told, it was an ensign on a radar picket ship, and he was telling the crew that all the officers were killed, but he was in command, and they would continue to fight the ship. I was told the destroyer was lost. If PLA satellites are a problem and it is a choice between putting a carrier battle group at risk or fighting a space war, I think the fighting Navy is capable and ultimately ruthless enough to blind the PRC military. After the PLA shot down a satellite from a land-based launch pad, the U.S. Navy demonstrated our at sea capability. From a Department of Defense report: At approximately 10:26 p.m. EST, Feb. 20, (2008) a U.S. Navy AEGIS warship, USS Lake Erie (CG-70), fired a single modified tactical Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) hitting the satellite approximately 133 nautical miles over the Pacific Ocean as it traveled in space at more than 17,000 mph. USS Decatur (DDG-73) and USS Russell (DDG-59) were also part of the task force. So let us make it simple for the PLA, PLAN, PLAAF, and 2nd Artillery: the U.S. Navy is battle-tested, with a legacy of carrying the fight to any enemy. In the 21st century, it will be important that no platform fight alone. USN satellite-killing Aegis ships are joined by F-35Bs flying from the Navy/Marine Amphibious Readiness Group "Gator" Navy the USMC F-35B V/Stol. This is a huge at sea multiplier in capability. Carrier battle group air wings with the F-35C will give naval forces afloat both situational awareness and the ability to fight a three-dimensional war. Anti-submarine warfare is a huge war-at-sea weakness of the Chinese PLAN. In the American Navy community, historically, it was proven that "courage runs deep" in our submarine force. In WWII, Navy undersea warriors accounted for 52% of all ships sent to the bottom, with 52 "Still on Patrol." They are to this day a fearless group of sailors. Finally, like the radar picket ships of WWII, current destroyers and frigates can add a huge defensive element against CHICOM incoming missiles. The capability to spoof and jam incoming guided weapons is an art of electronic warfare practiced by Navy forces for decades. The 21st-century Navy can blind them and blast them and sink them and that is real deterrence and should give the PRC pause. Before starting a hostile action, if you fight "Feet Wet," Admiral Lou, all your ships will be sunk. *Spelling of this name varies: Luo Yuen, Luo Yuan, and Lou Yuen have all appeared in print. Ed Timperlake is a Naval Academy graduate who commanded VMFA-321, a Reserve Marine fighter squadron. News media do this all the time. It gives the reporter a chance to show true compassion to the family of someone in trouble overseas and express outrage that the authoritarian Russian government would hold an American for any reason. This is not a story about CNN and one American's bias against the network. But the self-absorbed, narcissistic Camerota didn't see it that way. What possible connection to Paul Whelan's detention is his belief that CNN disseminates fake news? Are the Russians justified in holding Whelan because of his anti-CNN social media posts? That's what Camerota appeared to imply when asking these bizarre questions. Poor Mr. Whelan. He didn't realize he had to apologize to CNN for his brother's mean postings. I'm sure questions about his "anti-CNN bias" were exactly the sort of things he expected to answer when he agreed to the interview. WHELAN: "I don't think there is any chance that he was a spy." CAMEROTA: "There are some strange elements of your or at least questionable, I guess, of your brother's story. He had this social media account, the equivalent in Russia of Facebook, it's called VK, and he's had it for 13 years. He had various postings on there, pictures of him in Russia. I think the first one we have is where he took a rest and relaxation. Here's one. I wasn't planning to go to this one yet, but let's talk about this one. Here's one where he says, 'Just drinking coffee and watching fake news.' Now, I'm not taking this personally that he's pictured with CNN, but I just am wondering, is this a statement on his part somehow?" WHELAN: "I don't really know. I don't know what's on his VK page. I don't follow him on social media other than Twitter, which is where I am. So I don't know what he was intending by those photos." CAMEROTA: "What did he tell you about his social media? Why do you think that he did have a VK account, a social media account in Russia?" WHELAN: "I knew over the years he had met Russians. I don't know whether it was through work or through his marine activity, but he had met people while he had been traveling around. And he connected with them on social media. And he would tell us that when he was traveling he would go and visit those people. I expect he probably had a V contact page because his Russian friends had a V contact page." But incredibly, Camerota decided that the most vital information her viewers should know is that Paul Whelan apparently doesn't think much of CNN and posted on Russian social media that the network is "fake news." Michigan businessman and ex-Marine Paul Whelan was detained in Russia this week on charges of espionage. CNN's Alisyn Camerota interviewed David Whelan, brother of Paul. News media do this all the time. It gives the reporter a chance to show true compassion to the family of someone in trouble overseas and express outrage that the authoritarian Russian government would hold an American for any reason. But incredibly, Camerota decided that the most vital information her viewers should know is that Paul Whelan apparently doesn't think much of CNN and posted on Russian social media that the network is "fake news." WHELAN: "I don't think there is any chance that he was a spy." CAMEROTA: "There are some strange elements of your or at least questionable, I guess, of your brother's story. He had this social media account, the equivalent in Russia of Facebook, it's called VK, and he's had it for 13 years. He had various postings on there, pictures of him in Russia. I think the first one we have is where he took a rest and relaxation. Here's one. I wasn't planning to go to this one yet, but let's talk about this one. Here's one where he says, 'Just drinking coffee and watching fake news.' Now, I'm not taking this personally that he's pictured with CNN, but I just am wondering, is this a statement on his part somehow?" WHELAN: "I don't really know. I don't know what's on his VK page. I don't follow him on social media other than Twitter, which is where I am. So I don't know what he was intending by those photos." CAMEROTA: "What did he tell you about his social media? Why do you think that he did have a VK account, a social media account in Russia?" WHELAN: "I knew over the years he had met Russians. I don't know whether it was through work or through his marine activity, but he had met people while he had been traveling around. And he connected with them on social media. And he would tell us that when he was traveling he would go and visit those people. I expect he probably had a V contact page because his Russian friends had a V contact page." Poor Mr. Whelan. He didn't realize he had to apologize to CNN for his brother's mean postings. I'm sure questions about his "anti-CNN bias" were exactly the sort of things he expected to answer when he agreed to the interview. What possible connection to Paul Whelan's detention is his belief that CNN disseminates fake news? Are the Russians justified in holding Whelan because of his anti-CNN social media posts? That's what Camerota appeared to imply when asking these bizarre questions. This is not a story about CNN and one American's bias against the network. But the self-absorbed, narcissistic Camerota didn't see it that way. Anti-fracking = pro-Russia Fracking in the United States has led this country to energy independence. America becoming a net exporter of energy (in particular oil and natural gas) is disruptive to the global markets in oil and natural gas. American energy independence results in the reduction of the economic power and leverage over other countries heavily involved in oil and natural gas exporting. One of the countries most reliant on fossil fuel exports to finance its economy is Russia. American energy independence is bad for Russian economic and political leverage through the energy markets. Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In the United States, substantial political forces have aligned against the fracking industry. Led by the Sierra Club and other environmental NGOs, anti-fracking forces have demonstrated, lobbied, and harassed the fossil fuel industry. This pro-Russian stance has permeated the left and the Democratic Party. There are persistent rumors unconfirmed that Russians are contributing financially to the Sierra Club's and others' anti-fracking campaign. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton was opposed to the Keystone pipeline, coal-mining, and fracking. Intentionally or not, these stands were and are all objectively pro-Russian stands. On the other hand, Trump was consistently in favor expanding the American energy industry through additional pipelines and export facilities as well as fracking. Trump's stands on these issues were motivated by being pro-America but also had the impact of being anti-Russia. If Russians were funding anti-fracking efforts in the U.S., these funds had the impact of promoting Clinton's campaign to the detriment of Trump. Any Russian contributions to the Sierra Club or other anti-fracking efforts would have amounted to foreign meddling in the 2016 election campaign in favor of Clinton. Since the Washington Post and the New York Times will never cover what I learned, I will "speak out" here. I hope it does some good. I went to El Salvador last year. This commentary explains how the experience finally reconciled me with the conservative position on immigration. I emphasize the pain caused to a beautiful people, the Salvadorans, by their living in a state not like Jesus in Egypt, but more like the Babylonian captivity of the Old Testament. Sometimes history presents lose-lose scenarios where a trend has no winners. Illegal immigration belongs in such a category. Immigration is emotional In the Los Angeles Civic Center, my wife took an oath to become a citizen. After sixteen years together, fourteen years of marriage, and over a decade with a green card, she had finally cleared all the hurdles, made her decision, and decided to become American. Few experiences can rival such a scene. Masses of people from every corner of the globe, dressed in their finest, carry bouquets and snap photographs. This happened before the homelessness crisis caused tents and human waste to cover the sidewalks downtown. I recall waiting with Iranians, Mexicans, Filipinos, Germans, British, Nigerians, Indians, Israelis, Russians, Poles, Cubans, Venezuelans, and Guatemalans, wiping the sweat from our multicolored brows, as we waited for our people to emerge with envelopes full of all-important papers. Papers, papers, papers. I grew up knowing that documents really mattered. Because before my wife became a citizen, my mother and father were immigrants. The first generation before mine My grandmother delivered my mother in Puerto Rico, twenty years after the Jones Act gave islanders citizenship. My mother found the island too small for her character and ambitions. So did her mother. My grandmother flew to New York to study, leaving her three children, including my mother, with my grandfather in the 1950s. She would return. The family had intelligence evidenced by the high number of college degrees and professions but they never seemed to have much money. They lived in a small city in southeastern Puerto Rico famed for its canaveral, its history of slavery, and sugarcane refineries. My grandfather had only completed fourth grade but knew that his oldest daughter had unusual genius. My mother rose to the top of both her high school and college. She had come to identify with a gay, lesbian, and possibly transgender (in today's terms) community. Neither her career nor her growing bohemian sensibility could fit in. She journeyed with little money but big ambitions to Buffalo to pursue medical school. In World War II Buffalo, many enlisted and went off to serve. Some Puerto Rican laborers replaced them, picking apples. Some stayed and found jobs in factories, settling on the city's west side. When my mother sought to leave the island, she needed to go somewhere affordable, where she knew people. She had some cousins living in Buffalo. Rent was cheap. The city had a medical school. My father arrived at almost the same time. He was born to a colorful family with a typically Filipino backstory. My grandmother came from an Ilokano rice town, where her four sisters and brother felt like royalty. They had some land. Known to be daring and flippant, my "Lola" ran off to Manila to work as a librarian. She lived in a house for working girls supervised by Catholics who made them pray each day and closely watched over them. As my Lola told me, one day she saw a warning posted in the boarding house. It said there were "dangerous bachelors" from a southern island city, Silay, who had been known to conduct themselves dishonorably. On this list was my grandfather. Lola snuck out a window to see if she could see this dangerous man up close at a dance. She met my grandfather and ran off with him, back to the island town where his family owned a plantation and a fishing reserve. They married and had children. They became separated during the Japanese invasion. As late as the 1990s, she would bristle if I brought a friend with Japanese ancestry along to visit. She had witnessed atrocities on a scale few could imagine. Her husband fought as a guerrilla and died of liver cirrhosis soon after. Their land suffered critical damage, and the documents proving their ownership got lost in the bombings. My Lola fought a court battle to regain her share of the land, but it got delayed for generations. By the time she died in 2005, at the age of 93, the courts were deciding the case. My father's brother fell in with gangsters in the years after World War II. This proved invaluable to my studious father. My grandmother worked several jobs. They lived in a dangerous neighborhood. My uncle hired bodyguards to walk my father to and from school. My father knew that every exam he took, every paper he wrote, had to excel for the sake of a whole family counting on him to lift them from poverty. Filipinos of my father's generation played no games with education. He took no creative writing classes or courses in gender studies. He finished a pre-medical training program, then got a visa to complete medical studies in Hartford and Buffalo. Eventually, he would end up helping to finance the studies, migrations, homes, and businesses of countless cousins. Their parents guarded him when he studied. He had to make good on what he owed them. When my father finished his residency in Buffalo, he received an appointment to work in a field nobody really respected in the late 1950s: combating "addiction." Back then, it was heroin. He started in the field at the very beginning of America's drug crisis. He would end up shining in his career. Even today, in his eighties, people fly him around to give lectures. He cannot quit because nobody can replace his extensive experience. He met my mother in Buffalo. They eventually had me. The mindset of a legal immigrant family I thought like this when I grew up: America held great promise, but you should never feel entitled to anything. If you want America's opportunities, you deal with American paperwork. You wait. And wait. And wait. Obligations defined immigration obligations to the old countries, where you had to send money, and to this country, where you showed gratitude for American living and proved you were committed. Racism ranked low on our list of worries. My folks knew that the Philippines and Puerto Rico were a lot harder than racism. My mother has some black ancestry, but she had the fairest skin of her siblings, while my father, for some reason, had very dark skin. To many people, they were simply not white, so classified with blacks. In Buffalo in the 1960s, they lived in a black neighborhood, accepting the era's segregation with patience and resignation. Riots tore across the city in the 1960s. When I was born in 1971, the family had moved to a white suburb of Buffalo. While we differed racially, almost everyone in our neighborhood had recent ancestors who had immigrated from Italy, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Greece, or Scandinavia. I dealt with racism the way my parents did. I learned to fight a longer war for justice, to give those who would hate us no ammunition. And the rules, the rules. You have to follow the rules, because you aren't like ordinary families. You are probationary Americans. If you don't like it, you can always go back and sell gum to tourists on a highway. How I met my wife My wife comes from another country. She and I met in grad school and got together in 1999. I fell in love quickly and felt profound Catholic guilt over being involved without being married. Like my Filipina grandmother, I followed my passions, but Catholic guilt persists in people despite even the most postmodern attempts to quash it. I moved in with her. I had grown up in a family that knew that documents, certificates, oaths, obligations, promises, and all the rest it all mattered. And you couldn't cut corners, or you might lose everything. We got married in January 2001. I remember so clearly all the rules we had to follow, down to the letter. My wife could not have dual intent, which meant she could not keep her student visa. The officials explained: the primary motive for resettling must serve as the basis for your visa. You cannot say, "I married and might start a family" and "I am just in town getting a degree." A student visa expires when the degree is done. A marriage visa moves toward a green card and possible citizenship. I remember I signed a paper saying that if we went on public assistance, she would be deported. We had to send papers regularly updating our status to the immigration office. It took years to get a green card. My wife could not travel outside the country for several years. She had "authorization to work," but if we set foot outside American soil, we would not be able to re-enter, and she would be repatriated. We lived five minutes from Canada. Her father came to visit us, and we took him to Niagara Falls. He felt furious that we could not cross a bridge to see the beautiful Horseshoe Falls. But those were the rules. By 2008, we had a daughter, and I worked in California as an assistant professor. A budget crisis swept the state. I could not go without work. My wife still did not have her citizenship. I signed up for the Army Reserves to make sure that if any layoffs happened, I would be able to keep my wife in the country. I went to boot camp at the age of thirty-nine. I had a concussion in training. I knew the stakes, so I got through it. The job market fell apart in Los Angeles. My wife tried to use her language skills but illegal aliens, working for lower wages and with no need to pay taxes, saturated the economy. She got a job offer in the Midwest and took it. I was shipped out to active duty for training. Between 2009 and 2013, I had to live apart from my wife and child. In 2014, she quit her job, and we reunited as a family, staying together since. We lived an American story not unlike my parents' generation's and the stories of generations before them. Given all this, how do I feel when I read about people who come into the U.S. with no paperwork, hauling their kids across a desert, then mad because they are separated for a few weeks? How do I feel when the media play this up and cry "racism"? I feel many things. Primarily, I feel angry. To call us all "immigrants" with no distinctions demeans everyone. It disregards the incredible sacrifices people make to follow the rules in good faith. People who come legally do so because they know the harm caused by secrets, lazy shortcuts, sloppy decisions. People who come legally know that it is a ponderous decision to leave one land and join another. Leftists will say my family is "rich," but that's silly. Poverty at different times was part our stories. Liberals who talk about illegal immigration have never, in my experience, wanted to listen to people who followed the rules to come here. Their racism leads them to dismiss our stories (because we serve no purpose) and to oversimplify the stories of illegal aliens (because they assume that poor "others" are too stupid to know how to follow the rules). They dramatize the sufferings of people at the border while showing total indifference to the sacrifices of people in their midst who came to America the right way. Their advocacy amounts to using people for a while and then discarding them. That's wrong. In 2019, I refuse to play along with it anymore. Follow Robert Oscar Lopez at English Manif. Image: Gulbenk via Wikimedia Commons. The End of Everything...or Not The media and many political elites are warning me to prepare for pretty much the end of everything. But the life I lead seems to be going along on its usual pedestrian path. Is it possible that the impending doom highlighted by the media does not accurately reflect reality for most of us? My wife subscribes to the Washington Post. Her early morning routine includes exercise; a cup of coffee; and sitting at the breakfast table, reading the paper. When she is finished, and only then, am I allowed see what the Post has to say about today's world. A recent edition was particularly threatening. Headlines screamed: "Shutdown standoff to stretch past Christmas." "Congress Fails to Compromise." "Trump reportedly asked advisers about his power to fire Fed chair." "After Mattis's departure, era of containing Trump is over." "Delving into the probable effects of the impasse." "How Russia finally won the Cold War." "A recession is coming. Trump will make it so much worse." Too, too much to bear. Back to bed and under the covers? Except I am not seeing the chaos the Washington Post describes with increasing intensity. Last November, I was able to vote. We vote at a nearby church. There was a long line, all ages, races, and political persuasions, based on the large number of people holding either Republican or Democratic sample ballots . Neighbors manned the polling place, checking IDs and asking our name and address. Everything seemed to go smoothly. Perhaps the "agents of vote suppression" were on a coffee break. After voting, our tradition is to go to IHOP for pancakes. Somehow, we were able to get there have a car, can get reasonably priced gas for that car, can still afford inexpensive pancakes. The place was crowded. No school that day. Families with kids filled the tables. Somehow, with all the impending chaos, they too had made it to IHOP. A grocery store opened near us. The county replaced the dirt path along a busy street with a new sidewalk. We can leave the car at home and walk to the store. Prices are good. They have a nice bakery and helpful employees with new jobs. We run into our neighbors checking out the new store. We catch up on this and that. Trump chaos does not come up. My wife walks several miles each day. On one of her walks, she tripped on something, fell, and landed on her face and hand. After finishing her route, she came home to say we needed to go to the emergency room. It was open, welcoming, helpful, and efficient. A quick X-ray confirmed two broken bones in her hand. A temporary cast, a referral to an orthopedist, and we were on our way back home. We have used this facility before on weekends and late at night. Sometimes there is a longer wait, but it is well staffed and provides excellent care. Is this the last remaining island of care not yet overwhelmed by the Washington Post-described, Trump-caused chaos? Or is it possible that most Americans get pretty good health care? The nurse taking care of my wife had been in the Marines for nine years a Humvee-driver and ordnance disposal specialist. She and her husband, also a Marine, wanted to start a family, so they left the military. She went to nursing school, got a job at the emergency room, now has three young children, and plans to teach nursing in the future. She was bright, optimistic, helpful, considerate, and thorough, and she appeared to be enjoying the challenges of life clearly an exceptional person, and a better representation of capable, hardworking Americans than the apocalyptic Hieronymus Bosch vision painted daily by the Washington Post. The same newspaper in editorials and columns warns us that democracy is teetering on the edge of the abyss, threatened by the forces of authoritarianism and, oddly, populism. I keep looking for signs here locally. So far, I have been able to read what I want, go where I want, worship or not as I want, vote as I want, order something made in China, and attend a concert performed by a visiting orchestra from Russia. As far as I know, government officials are not lurking in my bushes, following me on the highway (except for that speeding ticket), or listening in on phone calls to my daughters. When neighbors tell a joke about Trump, they don't suddenly disappear. I don't think the reporters, editors, and publisher of the Washington Post live in some alternate universe that has gone berserk. But they write as if they did. Their frantic obsession grows in sync with their disconnect from my reality. My guess is, I am not alone. I commented on my radio show that if the women wear the hijab on the floor of Congress, it will look like an Islamic republic. The mainstream media went wild, depicting me as a raving lunatic, while portraying the newly elected Muslims as courageous representatives of American diversity. Every liberal media outlet is celebrating the election of two Muslim women to Congress -- Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. Since they both wear the traditional hijab, Nancy Pelosi will move to repeal a 180-year rule prohibiting head coverings on the floor of Congress. Some suggested that all the women in Congress wear the hijab in solidarity with their new Muslim colleagues. A CNN anchor suggested two years ago that all American women wear the hijab in solidarity with Muslim women against a Trump presidency. Both women will be sworn in on the Koran, and Tlaib will wear a Palestinian robe to show she is firmly in the anti-Israel camp. What a surprise. By the way, it is interesting to note that Jews have served in Congress since the early 1800s and there has been no Jewish push to allow wearing the yarmulke. Learning of my comments, Ms. Omar responded, The floor of Congress will look like America. Just deal. First, most American women do not wear Islamic headdress. I have no idea what Just deal means. I do know that wrapping leftist ideology in a hijab doesnt make it right or good for America. It is clear that Ilhan Omar is an America-hating leftist who is using her religion to win sympathy as a victim. Muslims have not been victims of Americans. It is the other way around. Islamists killed 3000 of our people on 9/11 and have killed many more in other terrorist attacks. Yet, by her own admission, after 9/11, Omar did not start an anti-terrorist movement within Islam. She did not express mourning over the deaths of fellow citizens. Instead she played the Muslim victim and decided to start wearing her hijab to express pride in her Islamic identity. Having escaped war-torn Somalia to come to America, was she grateful to live in a nation of peace and prosperity? No. She says upon arrival in America, she was confronted with my otherness as a Muslim and black. She and her family were granted asylum, and her first impression is the otherness she feels? She is exactly the kind of immigrant we do not need -- a perfect ingrate. She was barely sworn in as a citizen when her resentment surfaced. I think back to the [citizenship] orientations I went through a little over 20 years ago, says Omar. ...they did not have people who were homeless... There was an America where prosperity was guaranteed..., She added, I wasnt comfortable with that hypocrisy. She should have failed her citizenship test. In America, it is up to each individual to make the most of our gifts and abilities. Our Constitution secures our God-given freedom and fundamental rights. No one is guaranteed prosperity. According to the New York Times, Omar concluded that [America] was not the golden land that she had heard about. Sorry we disappointed her. If America is not golden enough for her, she can return to the Somali hell from which she escaped. I remind her, Nancy Pelosi and the women of Congress that Islamic law enslaves women in a system of beating, rape, genital mutilation, honor killings and denial of education. I recently interviewed Kamal Saleem, a former jihadist and member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Now a Christian, he confirms that Islam is not merely a religion, but a cultural, political, and military system of conquest through violence, stealth, or both. His mission was to undermine Americas way of life and demand submission to Sharia Law. Islam does not assimilate. It infiltrates. If there is any doubt about that, look at the crisis Europe is facing with its Muslim population. The end goal of Islam is all people living under a worldwide Islamic Caliphate. Any honest Muslim will admit that, but under the doctrine of taqiyya, lying to advance the cause of Islam is virtuous. Muslims have the right to practice their religion in the private sphere. However, allowing Sharia Law into our legal and political system is subversive of our Constitutional Republic. An Arab parable warns against letting a camel get his nose into the tent. Allowing the hijab -- required by Sharia -- to be worn on the floor of Congress is the camels proverbial nose. Omar says, And this is not the last ban Im going to work to lift. Really? What ban will she seek to lift next? Polygamy? Honor killings? Wife beating? That fable ends with this warning: "It is a wise rule to resist the beginnings of evil." E.W Jackson is an author, speaker and nationally syndicated radio host on American Family Radio & Urban Family Talk. He is founder & President of STAND [www.standamerica.us], and has been a candidate for Lt. Governor and U.S. Senator in Virginia. He is Bishop and Senior Pastor of The Called Church [www.thecalled.org] in Chesapeake, Virginia. Germany and the Migrants It has been over three years now since German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the borders of Europe during the migrant crisis of 2015 and 2016, which allowed approximately 1.5 million to enter Germany alone. It would be difficult at this point to argue that this has been anything other than a blunder, and a major disaster for the people of Europe. While growing numbers of German citizens have been hoping that their government would come up with some realistic solution to the migrant issue, a leaked government report published in the Rheinische Post revealed instead that there are plans to accept millions more. And on December 10, 2018 Merkel appeared in Marrakesh, Morocco for the signing of the U.N. Migration Pact, which aims to facilitate the regular movement of people from the third world to developed countries. Opening the borders of Europe was presented as a humanitarian effort to help refugees from the Syrian civil war. However, it is now known that 80% of those who arrived in Europe were not even from Syria. Once word got out that you could enter Europe without a passport, they arrived from other third-world countries such as Nigeria, Somalia, Morocco, Eritrea, Sudan, Iraq, and Bangladesh. These were mostly single males from 18 to 35, without skills and unemployable. Frans Timmermans, the pro-migration vice president of the European Commission, even admitted that the overwhelming majority of those who had entered Europe were not actually asylum seekers but economic migrants who had no more right to be in Europe than anyone else. Violent crime and terrorism have increased, and billions of Euros are spent every year to support the new residents. Some creative attempts have been made to deny the increase in violent crime and terrorism linked to mass migration, but the facts are beyond dispute. During the peak of the migrant crisis it was claimed that the newcomers would become vibrant new additions to the German workforce who would compensate for Germanys low birthrate. Merkel said the multitude of young men would help secure the welfare state and ensure that enough tax revenue is collected to support senior citizens on government pensions. The unfortunate reality is that 75% of the migrants are living off the state, costing German taxpayers over 20 billion euros a year (approximately $25 billion). Most of the remaining 25% are working low-skilled jobs, such as cleaning, and still need some level of state support. This is not surprising, considering that only about 25% of the migrants even have a high school diploma, and the majority are illiterate in their own language, let alone German. Bernd Raffelhuschen, an economist, has estimated that in the long run the migrant crisis could cost German taxpayers over one trillion euros (approximately $1.25 trillion). This would be an enormous burden for any nation, but we are talking about a country that is about 1/28 the size of the U.S. with 25% of the population. The fertility rate in Germany currently stands at 1.4, one of the lowest in the world, well below the 2.1 needed to keep a nations population stable. A number of reasons exist for Europes low fertility rate, among them the extended time taken for education in societies that require a highly skilled labor force. For many graduates, the focus is on career and financial stability, which results in postponing marriage. There is no doubt that one of the main reasons for the low birthrate in Europe is simply because of the costs involved. High tax rates and a high cost of living make children prohibitively expensive, so many couples postpone starting a family and will only have one child, if they have any at all. The leaked report revealed that the government believes that Germany should accept 300,000 more migrants from outside the European Union a year, 12 million over the next 40 years, to prevent population decline. Of course, it has been claimed that these migrants would be hard-working, highly skilled people who would pay into the social welfare system and keep it solvent, but we have heard that before. The government is concerned about the sustainability of the welfare state, with fewer young workers to pay into the system. Wouldnt it be logical to create new policies and incentives to help young families afford children? Couldnt the money used to support migrants have been used to help taxpaying couples have more children, instead of bringing millions of culturally incompatible people into Europe? In the last few years Hungary has experienced a significant improvement in its birthrate as a result of more effective family support measures, so it can be done. Poland and Italy have more recently started similar programs. Reports indicate that German officials have called for the surveillance and investigation of the AfD (Alternative for Germany), an opposition party critical of Merkels open border policy, and in the last few years the nations fastest-growing party. The AfD has also been called racist, radical, and extreme right wing, among other things, by the government and the pro-Merkel media. This is political harassment, and a tactic to create a negative view of a growing opposition party in the minds of voters, as Merkel and her party, the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) continue to lose support. An objective look at the AfDs political program, which calls for a leaner government, more secure borders, immigration reform, and protection of the environment, would lead one in the U.S. to view it as a centrist, or moderate conservative party. Other individuals or groups in Germany who have criticized Merkels open borders policy have been labeled as radical right-wing extremists. For example, in August after a German man was stabbed and killed by a migrant who demanded his credit card in the Eastern city of Chemnitz, several demonstrations occurred with thousands of people protesting Merkels policy and the resulting increase in crime. Some participants explained that in the past knife attacks were practically unheard of but had recently become almost commonplace. The media portrayed the protesters as radical right-wingers or fascists. Video clips of angry looking demonstrators were often included in these reports. But independent journalists gave contradictory accounts and posted videos that showed most of the protesters were just regular people -- men, women, families, and senior citizens concerned about misguided policies. One misleading report by a British news agency stated that the knifing victim died of cardiac arrest after being involved in a brawl. It was not explained that the perpetrator used a knife and that the victim suffered multiple stab wounds, which resulted in cardiac arrest. Apparently British reporters did not believe that was worth mentioning. There is more support for the AfD in states that were formerly part of East Germany than in the western states. When I was in Berlin several months ago, I met with Frank-Christian Hansel, a member of the AfDs State Executive Committee, who explained that the Eastern Germans tend to be more skeptical of claims made by government and mass media due to their experience of communism before the fall of the Berlin wall. Similarly, former East Bloc nations such as Hungary and Poland have been critical of the EUs open borders policy. They also value their independence and culture to a greater extent than West European nations as a result of their historical experience under the Soviets. But instead of taking the AfDs position on mass migration seriously and considering the concerns of nations such as Hungary and Poland, Merkel and the media have labeled their opponents as radical extremists. And now, despite all the problems which have resulted from this mass migration, the U.N. Migration Pact has been signed and Berlin is ready to accept millions more. The prosperous nations of the West should provide assistance to developing nations and people in need, but not to the point where we become so accommodating that it jeopardizes our own well-being. There are other ways to deal with a low birthrate besides accepting millions of third worlders. The primary responsibility of government is to ensure the security of its citizens and act in their best interests. A government that does not understand that has failed its people. Hoggs highest SAT score is 1270 , and the average SAT score for admissions into Harvard is roughly 1480.* Americans who ascribe to the ideology of meritocracy rightfully struggle with the idea that Hogg is able to meet Harvard requirements with a score approximately 200 points below the average acceptance score. Furthermore, Hogg already received rejection letters to several universities in California , but the premier Ivy League school of America found a place for the anti-Second Amendment activist. David Hogg , supposed victim of the Parkland shooting and anti-gun activist, got the letter 42,749 applicants hope to receive from Harvard: an acceptance letter. In 2018, Harvard accepted only 4.59 percent of applicants, roughly 1,900 persons. Once Hoggs tweet that announced the good news went viral, eyebrows across the United States were raised in befuddlement. According to a report by Reuters, Harvard is already embroiled in a racial-profiling case of Asian-American applicants. In essence, Harvard chose Caucasian males over Asian males based not on the merits of academic performance but instead on personality. The fact that a university discriminates against minorities, especially in an anti-progressive ethos, is baffling. Such acts raise the question as to what agendas do universities in America like Harvard have by discriminating against minorities who have meritoriously earned their place at a school? Furthermore, outlets such as the LA Times and the Washington Post admit universities teem with progressive professors in comparison to a minority of conservative professors. Depending on which study you peruse, progressive professors outnumber conservative professors 12 to 1. Likely, the majority of public institutions have very few conservative professors with the majority of conservative professors located at private religious institutions across the United States. However, many professors wait in silence of their views, hoping for tenure at their state school. Once they achieve tenure, then these professors are able to exercise more of their First Amendment rights without fear of retribution by their institution. The University of North Carolina -- Wilmington is an infamous case in which leadership denied the tenure of and fired Dr. Mike Adams because he no longer shared the views of progressivism and atheism at UNCW. Adams won the case based on the universitys suppression of his First Amendment rights. Nevertheless, Adams case represents the culmination of shifted imperatives of universities from a marketplace of ideas to an indoctrination of ideas. Progressivism has achieved its ideological goal via higher education by progressively alienating the marketplace of ideas from the hallowed halls of learning. Institutions founded upon Christian or Western values slowly, but successfully, experienced the divorce from said values for the progressive. Recently, Campus Reform reported that Oklahoma University slates a new class that combines feminist theory and the movies of James Bond. Those who take the course hope to learn theory behind the obvious misogyny of the Bond films. The likelihood a class like this will benefit a student in a practical way is limited. The person who will benefit, and benefit financially, is the professor who wrote all the textbooks that are required reading for the course. As John Stonestreet so aptly says, Ideas have consequences. And bad ideas have victims. Dont let your future student be a victim of progressive Americas universities. Here are some practical ways for your student to not become a victim of the bad ideas found at universities. First, ask your student what major he or she intends to pursue. Business, psychology, and the hard sciences are great places to pursue a meaningful major. If your student is interested in a Social Justice major, then you need to have a different talk with your student. Degrees like Social Justice or Gender Studies have little to no market value. Completing such a degree may only be useful if ones student intends to pursue a masters degree in counseling or go to law school. In the 1990s, gender studies adherents debated on whether or not to dispense with objective data in order to further the field. From the way gender theory is approached today, it appears the empiricists lost. Such majors are not the types of degrees your student needs to pursue. Second, click over to FIREs (Foundation for Indivdual Rights in Education) link to find out how the institution your student wants to attend rates on free speech. If the university rates low on the allowance of free speech, this is a good indicator the university is more about ideological indoctrination as opposed to the free market of ideas. Third, evaluate the clubs on campus to see where your student can best fit. Ask to see a list of clubs so you can determine if there are solid campus ministry opportunities, conservative movement groups like Turning Point USA, or even critical thinking groups like Ratio Cristi. If groups like these are not present, the lack may indicate how the university supports free speech. This is an often overlooked area. Fourth, and this is the most difficult, see if you can find info on what speakers have been allowed or prohibited from visiting campus. Remember, a university should be a marketplace of ideas, so progressive and conservative speakers should be allowed on campus if a campus group sponsors such a speaker. A spectrum of speakers should be allowed to speak, from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Dave Rubin to Lila Rose to Charlie Kirk. These voices should not be silenced. Let the marketplace of ideas determine whether students want to hear their ideas or not. As you help your student navigate the difficult world of college admissions, the above points should aid you and your student to find a university that will help your student learn, grow, and mature -- not simply pursue a progressive agenda of indoctrination. Your student should be able to attend a university with the sole imperative to be a free market of ideas, based on meritorious performance. These steps take a little work yet are well worth the effort. * 1540 is the average of the 25th and 75th percentile of those admitted Lake Charles, Louisiana (70615) Today Mainly sunny to start, then a few afternoon clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 94F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Considerable clouds this evening. Some decrease in clouds late. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 76F. Winds light and variable. Will women win fight to worship in Hindu temple? Protests paralyse the southern Indian state where two women defied an ancient ban on entering shrine. Dozens of police officers injured while trying to control protesters, who damaged state-run buses in Kerala. Clashes have broken out in southern India for a second day as Hindu hardliners sought to enforce a general shutdown in protest against two women entering the Sabarimala temple. A day after violence between rival groups and police left one man dead and 15 people injured, authorities on Thursday said that 266 protesters had been arrested across the state of Kerala. Hindu hardliners vandalised shops, shut businesses and clashed with police in the southern state to protest the women entering one of Indias largest Hindu pilgrimage sites, police said. Police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse the protesters, who also blocked roads by placing burning tyres and concrete blocks in key towns. Most shops remained shut in the state and most state-run buses kept off the roads after several were damaged by protesters. Pinarayi Vijayan, the states top elected official, said Thursday that 39 police officers were injured while trying to control the protesters. The Press Trust of India news agency reported that a 55-year-old passer-by died after being injured amid rock throwing by protesters in Pandalam on Wednesday. At least 20 offices of the Communist Party of India, which governs Kerala in a left-wing alliance, were attacked, said Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, state party secretary. Journalists were assaulted in the city of Palakkad during a march organised by Prime Minister Narendra Modis Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a hardline Hindu group and the ideological parent of the BJP. Vijayan accused BJP supporters of triggering the violence. Two women entered the temple to pray early on Wednesday, leading to protests. They were escorted by police because it is the governments constitutional responsibility to give protection to women, Vijayan said. 190103191032443 Women of menstruating age were forbidden to pray at the temple until the Supreme Court lifted the ban in September. The ban was informal for many years but became law in 1972. Some devotees have filed a petition, saying the court decision revoking the ban was an affront to the celibate deity Ayyappa. Thousands of Hindu devotees, many of them female, had previously succeeded in preventing women from accessing the site in the weeks following the landmark ruling, with some hardliners throwing stones at police and assaulting female journalists. On Tuesday, tens of thousands of women, in a local government-backed initiative, had braved harassment to form a huge human chain called the Womens Wall across Kerala to back the demand for access to the temple. Irans FM says its planned space vehicles launches and missile tests do not violate a UN Security Council resolution. Iran has rejected a US warning against carrying out space vehicle launches and missile tests, saying on Thursday they did not violate a UN resolution. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued the pre-emptive warning earlier on Thursday against pursuing three planned space rocket launches that he said would violate a UN Security Council resolution because they use ballistic missile technology. But Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif rejected the warning, tweeting that Irans launch of space vehicles & missile tests are NOT in violation of (Resolution) 2231. He added, The US is in material breach of same, & as much it is in no position to lecture anyone on it. Pompeo had said Iran planned to launch in the coming months three rockets, called Space Launch Vehicles (SLV), that he said incorporate technology virtually identical to what is used in intercontinental ballistic missiles. The United States will not stand by and watch the Iranian regimes destructive policies place international stability and security at risk, Pompeo said in a statement. 181216150434118 We advise the regime to reconsider these provocative launches and cease all activities related to ballistic missiles in order to avoid deeper economic and diplomatic isolation. Iranian Deputy Defence Minister General Qassem Taqizadeh in late November was quoted by Iranian media as saying that Iran would soon launch into space three satellites made by domestic experts. Pompeo said the rocket launches would violate UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. It calls upon Iran not to undertake activities related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons but does not explicitly bar such activity. Final touches on satellite Iran has repeatedly rejected US accusations about its ballistic missile tests, including the firing of space launchers. Tehran denies it has missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads. Pompeo said Iran has launched ballistic missiles numerous times since the UN resolution was adopted. He said it test-fired a medium-range ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple warheads on December 1. US President Donald Trump last year walked out of the Iran deal, which was negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama, instead reimposing sweeping sanctions aimed at crippling the countrys economy. European powers still support the accord, noting that Iran is in compliance while sharing concerns about missiles. 181231152428686 In July 2017, Iran launched a Simorgh (Phoenix) rocket it said could deliver a satellite into space, an act the US State Department called provocative. Earlier that month, the US imposed new economic sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile programme. Irans Amirkabir University of Technology said on Tuesday that it was putting the final touches to the Payam (Message) satellite, which it said was equipped with four cameras and could be used for agricultural, forestry and other peaceful purposes, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. The satellite, weighing about 100 kg (220 pounds), is to be launched by a state-run space centre into an orbit of 500 km (300 miles) with a Simorgh, the ISNA news agency reported. Iranian media reports said the Payam launch may coincide with celebrations in early February marking the 40th anniversary of Irans Islamic revolution. A look at the key dates shaping the relationship between Taipei and Beijing over the past seven decades. Chinas President Xi Jinping warned on Wednesday that the unification of China and Taiwan was inevitable, with the use of military force remaining an option. Xi made the comments during a speech marking the 40th anniversary of a message sent to Taiwan, when China declared an end to what had been routine artillery bombardment of Taiwan-controlled offshore islands and offered to open up communication between the two sides. The Message to Compatriots in Taiwan in 1979 eventually led to a thaw in relations with the self-ruled island. Here are key dates in relations between Taipei and Beijing. 1949: Separation Mao Zedongs communists take power in Beijing in October 1949 after defeating Chiang Kai-sheks Kuomintang (KMT) nationalists in a civil war. The KMT flee to the island of Taiwan and form their own government in Taipei in December, cutting off contacts with mainland China. In 1950, Taiwan becomes an ally of the United States, which is at war with Communist China in Korea. It deploys a fleet in the Taiwan Strait between the two to protect its ally from possible attack from the mainland. 1971: Beijing gets UN nod In October 1971, Beijing takes over Chinas seat at the United Nations, previously held by Taipei. In 1979, the US establishes diplomatic relations with China but also commits to assisting the defence of Taiwan. It backs the policy of one China, with Beijing as the legitimate government, but establishes trade and military ties with Taipei. 1987-2016: fragile reconciliation In late 1987, Taiwan residents are for the first time permitted to visit China, allowing families to reunite and leading to a boom in trade. In 1991, Taiwan lifts emergency rule, unilaterally ending a state of war with China. The first direct talks between the two sides are held in Singapore two years later. But in 1995, Beijing suspends talks in protest at a visit by Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui to the US. In 1996, China tests missiles off Taiwan to deter voters in the islands first democratic presidential election. In 2000 elections, the KMT loses power in Taiwan for the first time and over the next five years trade links between the two sides improve, first by sea and then via air. In March 2005, Beijing adopts a law which makes secession by Taiwan illegal at the risk of military action. In April, there is the first meeting since 1949 of the leaders of the KMT and Communist Party of China. In 2008, Taiwan and China resume high-level talks after the KMTs Ma Ying-jeou is elected president on a Beijing-friendly platform. In 2010, they sign a sweeping Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement; in 2014, they hold the first government-to-government talks since separation. In 2015, the leaders of both sides meet in Singapore, shaking hands and waving enthusiastically to a huge press throng but refraining from any joint statement. Tsai Ing-wen at her inauguration ceremony in Taipei on May 20, 2016. [File: Tyrone Siu/Reuters] 2016: End of the honeymoon In January 2016, opposition candidate Tsai Ing-wen, from the traditionally pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, wins elections to become Taiwans first female president. In her victory speech, Tsai said the results showed that democracy is ingrained in the Taiwanese people and that she will strive to maintain stability with China. We will work towards maintaining the status quo for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait in order to bring the greatest benefits and well-being to the Taiwanese people, Tsai said. The day of her inauguration in May, China cautions that peace would be impossible if she makes any moves to formally break away. In June, China suspends all communications with Taiwan after the islands new government fails to acknowledge the concept that there is only one China. In December 2016, President-elect Donald Trump breaks with decades of US diplomatic policy by speaking directly, by telephone, with Tsai. In 2017, Trumps administration approves $1.4bn worth of arms sales to Taiwan, prompting anger from Beijing. In March 2018, the US adopts a law reinforcing ties with Taiwan, again infuriating China. In September 2018, the US State Department approves the sale to Taiwan of spare parts for F-16 fighter jets and other military aircraft worth up to $330m, drawing a warning from China that the move jeopardised cooperation between Beijing and Washington. UN says 2,500 displaced in Rakhine State, where 2017 military campaign forced over 700,000 Rohingya to flee. Intensified fighting between a Buddhist armed group and Myanmars security forces has driven thousands of people from their homes in the countrys western Rakhine State over the past month, amid rising tensions in the area where the Rohingya crisis broke out in 2017. Farhan Haq, United Nations spokesperson, said on Wednesday that about 2,500 people had been displaced since early December when clashes broke out with the Arakan Army, one of the several groups fighting Myanmars military that want more autonomy for ethnic minorities. The Myanmar military last month announced a four-month cessation in fighting in the north and northeast of the country, in what appeared to be a rare conciliatory move aimed at kick-starting peace talks with the armed groups. 181212082048462 Rakhine State was excluded from the pause, stoking doubts about the militarys willingness to bring an end to all the countrys conflicts. Analysts say the military left Rakhine State out because it does not want the Arakan Army which claims to represent the Rakhine, the Buddhist ethnic group that makes up the majority in the state of the same name to gain a foothold in the area and has lingering concerns over the less powerful Rohingya armed groups, who call themselves the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. Rakhine clashes The state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Wednesday said that one police officer was critically wounded when border guard police were attacked by about 30 men carrying small and heavy arms the previous day near Saytaung, a village in the Buthidaung area. 181210090218297 Khine Thu Kha, a spokesperson of the Arakan Army, denied that the group attacked the police, but said its fighters did clash with government security forces in Saytaung on Tuesday, according to Reuters news agency. Hundreds of border guard police had been deployed in areas far from the border with Bangladesh as part of a broader military offensive against the group, Khine Thu Kha told Reuters on Wednesday. There was no immediate comment from Myanmars military. Rakhine State was where Myanmars security forces launched a brutal campaign in August 2017 that drove more than 730,000 Muslim-majority Rohingya into neighbouring Bangladesh. A report by UN investigators in August last year found that Myanmars military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya with genocidal intent and said the commander-in-chief and five generals should be prosecuted under international laws. Myanmar has denied most of the allegations in the report. Last month, a human rights law group of the United States State Department to investigate the Myanmar militarys crackdown on the Rohingya, said it had found evidence of genocide and called on the international community to establish a criminal investigation into the atrocities and ensure justice for the victims. Storm set to bring heavy rains, strong winds and high seas to southernmost provinces and popular beach resorts. Thailand is bracing for a potentially devastating Tropical Storm Pabuk, which is set to bring heavy rains and high seas to the countrys southern provinces and famed beach resorts popular with domestic and foreign tourists. Weather authorities on Thursday said the storm was moving west from the tip of Indonesia into the Gulf of Thailand with maximum winds of 65 kilometres an hour. Heavy downpours are forecast until Saturday in most parts of southern Thailand, including popular tourist destinations such as Phuket, Koh Samui and Krabi. There has been no official evacuation order but tens of thousands of tourists have fled the resort islands of Koh Phangan and Koh Tao as tourists packed onto ferries bound for the southern Thai mainland, as swimming was banned and boats were set to suspend services. I think the islands are almost empty between 30,000 to 50,000 have left since the New Years Eve countdown parties, Krikkrai Songthanee, Koh Phangnan district chief, told AFP news agency. The acting mayor of Koh Tao, one of Southeast Asias finest diving spots, said boats to Chumphon on the mainland were crammed with tourists, but several thousand guests were still on the island likely to brave the storm. On Koh Samui, authorities said they were preparing shelters for any tourists who decide to wait out the storm. High seas Pabuk, which means a giant catfish in Lao, is Thailands first tropical storm in the area outside of the monsoon season for around 30 years. It was unlikely to intensify into a full-blown typhoon, according to forecasters. But we expect waves as high as five or seven metres near the eye of the storm. Normally in the Gulf of Thailand there are only two-metre high waves, Phuwieng Prakammaintara, director general at the Thai Meteorological Department, told reporters. Its difficult to predict the severity of the storm so people should comply with authorities recommendations. Pabuk is also expected to dump heavy rain across the south, including the southernmost provinces bordering Malaysia of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala. Saudi state media says prosecutor has demanded death penalty for five of the 11 defendants. Saudi Arabias state media says the 11 suspected killers of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi have attended their first court hearing in the capital, Riyadh. The official Saudi Press Agency said the prosecutor, the countrys attorney general, has demanded the death penalty for five of the 11 suspects. A statement from prosecutors said the suspects attended the hearing with their lawyers. The statement also said that prosecutors sent a request to Turkey for evidence that Ankara has collected while investigating the slaying, which has badly hurt the kingdoms international reputation and strained its ties with Western countries. Khashoggi went missing on October 2 while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Turkish authorities later revealed that he was murdered inside the consulate by a Saudi hit squad. 181221052015064 Ankara demanded that the suspects be handed over for trial in Turkey, but Saudi Arabia refused the request. Al Jazeeras Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Ankara, said Turkey has consistently accused Saudi of not cooperating on this issue. The Turkish foreign minister also stated before that the Saudi prosecutors office has never shared any information about those 11 people who have been arrested, Koseoglu said. This death sentence decision will most likely not be welcomed by Ankara, because it will mean that Saudi Arabia will prevent those people from talking. Koseoglu said if the Saudis proceed with the execution, neither Turkey nor any other country will be able to hear the testimonies of the accused. International pressure Turkish media have published photographs of members of the crown princes entourage at the consulate before the slaying. In December 2018, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey was working with other countries to carry the investigation into Khashoggis killing to the UN. The announcement came a month after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres held talks with Cavusoglu over the famed critics murder. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric at the time told reporters that the UN had not yet received a formal request from the Turkish side. Questions also remain over Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans role in ordering the killing, with several western intelligence agencies alluding that he had knowledge of the operation beforehand. 181230215116612 A number of US senators have also questioned Saudi claims that the crown prince was unaware of the killing, which authorities in Riyadh described as an operation undertaken by rogue elements. You have to be willfully blind not to come to the conclusion that this was orchestrated and organised by people under the command of MBS, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters in December. Khashoggis body, believed to have been dismembered, has not been found. Britain is more likely to end up leaving the European Union without a deal if parliament rejects the agreement Prime Minister Theresa May has negotiated with Brussels, according to Brexit minister Stephen Barclay. In an article published on Thursday in the UKs Daily Express newspaper, Barclay, who has been tasked to oversee Britains departure from the EU bloc, urged MPs to unite behind Mays plans ahead of a crucial parliamentary vote. No deal will be far more likely if MPs reject the governments Brexit deal later this month, Barclay wrote. After months of back-and-forth, May struck a widely-criticised withdrawal agreement in November with European leaders, sparking political chaos in the UK and triggering a wave of cabinet resignations. 181201182945771 There is obviously division in parliament over the PMs Brexit deal. Its not a perfect deal. But its the only workable deal that delivers on the democratic choice of the British people. And its the best way to avoid no deal, Barclay said. British politicians have been unable to agree on any alternative Brexit course, deepening concerns the UK will, as May has warned, drop out of the worlds biggest trading bloc without a deal. MPs are set to vote on the draft agreement in the week beginning January 14. My colleagues in Parliament must put the national interest first and vote for this deal so we can get on with delivering Brexit and building the UKs prosperous future as an outward-looking global trading nation, outside the EU, Barclay wrote in his article. Brexit chaos Nearly 52 percent of Britons more than 17 million people voted to leave the EU during a divisive referendum held in June 2016. Turnout for the poll was more than 72 percent. The UK is now set to leave the 28-member bloc on March 29, two years after it triggered Article 50 the exit clause in the EUs constitution and kick-started negotiations with European leaders over a divorce deal. May has rejected growing demands for a second referendum on the UKs membership of the European Union, warning it would further divide the country and break faith with the British people. 181116200622444 Mays failure to find a deal the British parliament will approve means the worlds fifth-largest economy now faces three choices: agreeing on a last-minute deal, halting Brexit, or leaving the EU without an agreement. No deal means there would be no transition, so the exit would be abrupt. The deal reached between the UK and the EU allows for a backstop to be set up in order to prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state, if no trade deal is sorted out during the so-called transitional period between 29 March, 2019 and December 31, 2020. Under the terms of the draft agreement, the whole of the UK will remain in a customs union with the EU unless and until the bloc agrees there is no prospect of a return to a hard border. But the backstop idea has prompted scorn from Mays parliamentary crutch, the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), who argue such an arrangement could mean different rules being applied to Northern Ireland than the other parts of the UK. Hardline Brexiteers within her own Conservative Party, meanwhile, are also unimpressed and have suggested the proposed deal could trap the UK into the customs union forever, effectively forcing it to indefinitely accept EU regulations moving forward. Pyongyangs acting ambassador and his family are reportedly seeking asylum in a Western country. North Koreas top diplomat in Italy has gone into hiding, according to a South Korean member of parliament, after a South Korean newspaper reported he is seeking asylum in the West. Kim Min-ki told reporters after a closed-door meeting with South Korean intelligence officials on Thursday that the acting Ambassador, Jo Song Gil, disappeared with his wife and children. Acting Ambassador Jo Song Gils term was ending in late November last year and he escaped the diplomatic compound in early November, he said. The spy agency briefing to MPs came after South Koreas JoongAng Ilbo daily reported that Jo had sought asylum in an unidentified Western country with his family. He sought asylum early last month, the JoongAng quoted a diplomatic source in Seoul as saying. The report said the 48-year-old, who is known to be a son or son-in-law of one of the highest-level officials in the Norths regime, was in a safe place with his family under the protection of the Italian government. Most North Korean diplomats serving overseas are normally required to leave several family members typically children behind in Pyongyang to prevent their defection while working abroad. Jo, however, came to Rome in May 2015 with his wife and children, suggesting he may be from a privileged family, the JoongAng said, adding the reason for his defection bid was still unclear. No confirmation South Koreas presidential Blue House said earlier on Thursday it had no knowledge of the matter. A representative of the Italian embassy in Seoul, which is also responsible for North Korea affairs, did not have any immediate comment. Later on Thursday, a source close to the Italian foreign ministry told the AFP news agency that Rome was not aware of any asylum request from the diplomat. The source said the ministry had simply received a request for the replacement of Jo. Italy is an important diplomatic mission for Pyongyang as it handles relations with the Rome-headquartered United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and North Korea suffers from chronic food shortages. The last senior North Korean diplomat to defect was Thae Yong Ho, who abandoned his post as deputy ambassador in London in 2016. Nigerias Calabar Carnival defies financial woes Harsh economic realities in Nigeria have forced government to cut spending but Calabar Carnival defies those challenges. Dutch government offers to take some of the 32 refugees on Sea-Watch 3, as Malta offers two ships shelter from storm. The Netherlands has announced it is prepared to welcome some of the 32 refugees and migrants waiting to disembark from a Dutch-flagged vessel in the Mediterranean if other countries did the same. The Netherlands has indicated a readiness to possibly take in a proportional number of migrants who are on board Sea-Watch 3, on condition that other European countries do the same, said Lennart Wegewijs, the security and justice ministry spokesman, on Wednesday. The Dutch had at first joined Italy, Malta and Spain in refusing to accept the refugees and migrants who were rescued on December 22 by Sea-Watch 3, which is operated by a German charity and have been stranded off Malta. 181231150324386 Also on Wednesday, Maltas navy announced that it will allow two German NGO ships with refugees on board, including the Sea-Watch 3, to take shelter in Maltese waters due to the deteriorating conditions on board. The 32 refugees on the Sea-Watch 3 who were plucked from a makeshift boat in international waters include three young children, three unaccompanied adolescents and four women from Nigeria, Libya and Ivory Coast. The Sea-Eye, the second ship, has also been stranded in the Mediterranean with 17 refugees on board. A German government spokesman said on Saturday that Germany would only accept some of the refugees if other European countries also agreed to do so. Storm warning The Sea-Watch NGO tweeted on Wednesday that a storm at sea is now returning, and the ships passengers and crew need a safe harbour. The storm has forced the ships crew to pack the migrants and refugees together in a small area below the deck. Separately, Spanish coastguards reported on Wednesday they had rescued 401 refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean over the first two days of the New Year. The news comes just days after a charity rescue vessel carrying 311 mainly African refugees plucked off the coast of Libya docked in Spain, ending a traumatic journey which saw them spend Christmas at sea. With Italian ports closed to refugees by the government in Rome since June, Spain has become a leading destination. More than 1,300 refugees and migrants died trying to reach Italy or Malta via the central Mediterranean last year, according to the International Organization for Migration. Interior ministry says assailants killed themselves after security forces surrounded their hideout on Wednesday. Two gunmen commited suicide in Tunisia after exchanging fire with security forces in the city of Jilma, located some 250 kilometres south of the capital Tunis. An interior ministry statement on Thursday said the assailants killed themselves after being surrounded by security forces during a raid on their hideout late on Wednesday. The toppling of longtime leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali during the Arab Spring uprisings led to a security vacuum that has been exploited by armed groups in the region. 181030130301913 Between 3,000 and 6,000 Tunisians are estimated to have joined the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIL) in Iraq, Syria as well as neighbouring Libya where a civil war is raging. ISIL has claimed responsibility for a string of deadly attacks, mostly targeting tourist destinations, including one on the Bardo National Museum and a second on a beach resort in the town of Sousse. An attack by a woman in downtown Tunis in October raised questions about safety in a country where tourism remains vital to the economy. After President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of 2,000 troops from Syria last month, the US military ramped up its bombing campaign against territory still held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in the eastern part of the country, according to sources on the ground and photographs obtained in a joint investigation by Al Jazeera and The Intercept. The fiercest attacks in the past week occurred in Al Kashmah, a village on the Euphrates River near the border with Iraq, according to three sources in eastern Syria. Amid US air attacks and artillery fire by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), civilians and family members of ISIL fighters fled to villages to the south, the sources said. While Al Kashmah has not yet fallen, the only people remaining there are fighters representing what has become the front line of the war against ISIL in Deir Az Zor province. The ISIL fighters are clustered in villages along the Euphrates, from the border with Iraq to south of Hajin, a former ISIL stronghold that fell to the SDF, a Kurdish-led militia, in mid-December. There are about 50,000 to 60,000 people who remain in those areas, according to a civilian activist in Deir Az Zor who documents rights abuses and asked not to be named due to safety concerns. The civilians in these areas have no place to go or hide from the US bombardment of their villages, the activist said, noting that the residents have been harmed at the hands of the Syrian government, the US and ISIL alike. Bombing of a hospital The ISIL-held villages along the Euphrates have been the targets of US bombing sorties since November as part of Operation Roundup. In addition to military targets, Operation Roundup bombed civilian areas, including a hospital, The Intercept and Al Jazeera reported last month. The US could not attack the hospital without warning it first - and without giving the hospital a reasonable amount of time to either stop ISIS from using it or to evacuate civilian personnel and wounded. Kevin Jon Heller, professor of international law A senior ISIL fighter said the Yarmouk Hospital was the regions last public health facility that treated civilians in the area. He also acknowledged that ISIL might have used it to treat its fighters if treatment was not available in its own field hospitals. Kevin Jon Heller, an international law scholar, told Al Jazeera that the US could not legally attack the hospital simply because it believed some ISIL fighters were there. The US could not attack the hospital without warning it first and without giving the hospital a reasonable amount of time to either stop ISIS from using it or to evacuate civilian personnel and wounded, said Heller, a professor of international law at Australia National University and the University of Amsterdam Heller said the bombing of a hospital in a combat zone without considering civilian casualties or issuing a warning is a fundamental violation of international humanitarian law, a component of international law that regulates the conduct of war and the protection of civilians. Fighters and civilians in the villages have reportedly been describing the US bombing campaign as a scorched-earth policy, using an Arabic term that translates to burn the ground [Zoe Garbarino/US Army Photo/AP Photo] Trumps abrupt December 19 decision to withdraw US ground troops involved in the fight against ISIL in Syria took even the US Department of Defense by surprise. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the president declined to give a timeline for the pullout, and said instead that it would happen over a period of time. The increased intensity of the bombings, however, belie claims by Trump and others that ISIL has been defeated or that the US war in Syria, which has largely been carried out from the skies, is over. It remains unclear whether US air attacks will continue once the troops leave. During the final days of 2018, the US campaign bombed villages up and down the Euphrates, focusing primarily on Al Kashmah. On New Years Eve, the bombs relentlessly assaulted Al Kashmah, leaving the village largely destroyed by the next morning, according to an ISIL fighter who was there. (We interviewed members of ISIL and the SDF, as well as a tribal leader, for this article via messaging services, and weve granted them anonymity because they all stand to be targeted by the various warring factions for speaking to journalists.) The coalition against ISIL appears to be targeting internet cafes, according to two sources on the ground. Internet cafes in the villages are used by civilians and ISIL fighters alike. They are not part of ISILs tactical communications infrastructure, according to sources, but fighters typically use them to communicate with the outside world, especially their families in other countries. They just like to disrupt and mess everything up, an ISIL fighter said in an interview. They bombed the places where they sell gasoline for the motor, or they sell cooking oil, or where they filter the water they bomb all these places. Not just the net, they bomb everything just to make your life horrible. The aftermath of the US bombing campaign in Al Kashmah, from where civilians have fled due to relentless attacks [Courtesy: The Intercept] The risk of civilian casualties from bombings in Deir Az Zor is high because the rural villages have become densely populated with the families of ISIL fighters and civilians fleeing in recent months from cities and towns that have fallen to Kurdish-led forces. No building is empty here, the ISIL fighter said, referring to the remaining ISIL-controlled villages in Deir Az Zor. Fighters and civilians in the villages have reportedly been describing the US bombing campaign as a scorched-earth policy, using an Arabic term that translates to burn the ground. On Sunday, the US military admitted that it has killed 1,139 civilians in Iraq and Syria since the start of its campaign against ISIL in 2014. That number is significantly smaller than the estimates of civilian casualties put out by monitoring groups, like Airwars, which says that between 7,308 and 11,629 civilians have been killed. In response to a list of questions about the bombings in Syria, Danielle Covington, a spokesperson for the US Department of Defense, said the coalition dictates the pace of our strikes against ISIS targets deliberately and with careful consideration of their impact to civilians. The increase in strikes in late December were selected specifically to degrade ISIS capabilities and were unrelated to any other variable. Following Trumps withdrawal announcement, the Kurds, who lead the on-the-ground forces that had partnered with the US in fighting ISIL in Syria, reached out to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria for protection. Feeling betrayed by the US, the Kurds are concerned about a possible attack by Turkey, which has long feared that its own minority Kurdish population might be emboldened by the existence of a Kurdish state or autonomous region to the south of Turkey. (In March 2018, the Turkish Armed Forces and allied militia seized control of the Syrian city of Afrin from the Kurds.) In addition, after the evacuation of civilians from Al Kashmah, ISIL negotiated a three-day ceasefire with the Kurds, according to three sources on the ground. On Monday, seven trucks carrying food and humanitarian aid entered ISIL-controlled areas under the agreement, according to one ISIL and one SDF source. The ceasefire was initially scheduled to end on December 31, but ISIL officials are discussing a possible six-month extension, according to an ISIL fighter familiar with the talks but who is not directly part of the effort. During the temporary ceasefire, some ISIL fighters and defectors fled Deir Az Zor to other parts of Syria, according to two sources who made such journeys themselves. A lasting ceasefire would allow badly-needed supplies to reach civilians in the villages, and ISIL would also use it to regroup. The Kurds would receive a safeguard from a two-front war if the Turks attack. A ceasefire between ISIL and the Kurds, coupled with the Syrian governments potential protection of the Kurds from Turkey, would largely undercut part of Trumps public rationale for withdrawing US troops from Syria. In a tweet, Trump described how Turkey could easily take care of whatever remains of ISIL. In a subsequent tweet, Trump spoke of his conversation with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey: President @RT_Erdogan of Turkey has very strongly informed me that he will eradicate whatever is left of ISIS in Syria.and he is a man who can do it plus, Turkey is right next door. Our troops are coming home! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 24, 2018 But the prospect of Turkeys completion of a clean-up job against ISIL in Syria seems increasingly unlikely given the rapidly shifting alliances there. Meanwhile, the US military continues to drop bombs on Deir Az Zor, despite the fact that the Kurds, expected to be abandoned by the US, are not currently engaging ISIL fighters. Theyve backstabbed all their allies and theyre killing the people here, and eventually the Islamic State will survive and spread or it will fall, the ISIL fighter said, referring to the US. But there will be people here who will remember what happened here, and they will carry on this information and it will spread throughout the Middle East. Follow Ali Younes on Twitter: @ali_reports Trump suggested Indias contribution to development in Afghanistan was minimal, compared with that of the US. India has rejected US President Donald Trumps comments mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan, saying New Delhi has provided $3bn in development assistance to the war-torn country. The US president on Wednesday took a swipe at what he said were Modis frequent comments about building the library: You know what that is? Thats like five hours of what we spend. And were supposed to say, Oh, thank you for the library. I dont know whos using it in Afghanistan, Trump said. A statement provided to AFP news agency by government sources in New Delhi said: India plays a significant role as a development partner, in Afghanistan, with projects aimed at achieving a tangible improvement in the lives of its people. 190102162117235 As the largest donor in the region, New Delhi has helped with infrastructure projects, humanitarian assistance and economic development, the statement said. The projects include a 218-kilometre road, a dam providing irrigation to farmers and training programmes for more than 3,500 Afghans in India. New Delhi has also provided 1.1 million tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan as well as a 400-bed childrens hospital built in 1972 and renovated after the fall of the Taliban in 2002. Trump also said in the cabinet meeting that the former Soviet Union, which invaded Afghanistan in 1979, was right to be there because terrorists were going into Russia at that time. The Afghan government on Thursday has demanded an explanation following the comment, Afghanistans Presidential Palace said. The palace said in a statement that the request for clarification was lodged through official diplomatic channels. 181210211443443 The statement added that the Afghan government understands that, there is a difference between remarks and the official policy of a country. Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, the son of a former leader who fought against the invasion, tweeted that the Soviet occupation was a grave violation of Afghanistans territorial integrity and national sovereignty. Trump also said that currently Russia, Pakistan and India should be intervening in Afghanistan, not the US. Why are we there 6,000 miles away? he said. Some 14,000 US troops are currently stationed in Afghanistan. Counting centres await more than 80 percent of local tallies as internet shutdown continues and broadcasts are curbed. Provisional results from the Democratic Republic of the Congos (DRC) long-delayed presidential election could be pushed back past Sundays deadline, the countrys electoral commission has said, as ballots trickle in and tensions prevail over the vote count. As of Wednesday, three days after the election, counting centres had received just 17 percent of the tally sheets drawn up by individual polling stations, the president of the CENI electoral commission, Corneille Nangaa, said. We are working around the clock. We are doing our best to publish the results on January 6. But if we cant, we cant, Nangaa told AFP news agency, without mentioning a reason for the delays. Election monitors from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) said the December 30 vote went relatively well despite chaotic scenes that prevented many from voting. The crucial election is meant to lead to DRCs first democratic transfer of power in 59 years of independence. But more than a million Congolese in three opposition strongholds were unable to vote due to an Ebola outbreak, security concerns, local factional conflict and various logistical problems. A spokesman for Felix Tshisekedi, one of the two opposition candidates, said he doesnt mind when the results are published as long as they are an honest reflection of the vote. I doubt it will be Sunday, because some corners of the country have not transmitted their results, but I cant speak for the commission, Vital Kamerhe told reporters in the capital, Kinshasa. Whether its on Sunday or Monday, Tuesday, we dont mind. What we want are results published that reflect the truth of the ballot boxes, that is the most important thing, he added. 181229073646167 The elections will determine the successor of President Joseph Kabila, who has been at the helm of sub-Saharan Africas biggest country for nearly 18 years. Kabila refused to step down after his two-term constitutional limit ended in 2016, sparking protests that were quelled at the cost of scores of lives. Pre-election polling showed Kabilas preferred candidate, ex-Minister of the Interior Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, trailing the main opposition candidates, Martin Fayulu and Tshisekedi, but both sides say they expect to win. The African Union (AU) issued a statement on Wednesday saying Sundays vote had taken place in a peaceful and tranquil atmosphere, despite interference and all the security, political and organisational challenges. The holding of these elections constitutes, in itself, a first great victory for the Congolese people, the statement said. The mission strongly wishes that the results that will be declared are true to the vote of the Congolese people. Broadcasts, internet curb Meanwhile, the Congolese ruling party said the internet shutdown, which has been in place since Monday, will continue, to prevent disorder. The Common Front for the Congo (FCC) regrets the internet shutdown since Monday, but notes that some people tried to use the internet to pit the Congolese people against each other, said Barnabe Kikaya Bin Karubi, FCC spokesperson. We ask the population to remain calm and wait peacefully for the provisional results that the electoral commission will publish in the coming days, he told reporters. Amid tensions over the vote counting, authorities have also pulled accreditation for a French radio journalist and cut broadcasts from the station, as well as a local television channel. Government spokesman Lambert Mende accused Radio France Internationale (RFI) correspondent in Kinshasa, Florence Morice, of violating electoral law and the code of good conduct for foreign journalists covering the elections. 190101193103079 Accusing the station of stirring controversy, he said, RFIs broadcasts have been cut off in all of Congos cities. We are not going to let a radio station throw petrol on the flames at a time when we are waiting for the compilation of the provisional results, Mende said. Mende said authorities also cut the signal of local Canal Congo television, seen as close to the opposition, for broadcasting election results before an official announcement. Preliminary election results are due by Sunday, definitive results by January 15, with the next head of state due to be sworn in on January 18. Contested election results in 2006 and 2011 led to violent street protests, and there are fears a disputed outcome this time could also destabilise DRCs volatile eastern borderlands with Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, where dozens of armed groups are active. More than one million voters in three opposition strongholds were excluded because of concerns about security and Ebola. Many Congolese were kept from voting in the December 30 presidential election because polling stations often opened late, closed early and voting machines sometimes did not work, a group of observers said on Thursday. The report by Congos SYMOCEL, which deployed thousands of staff to about a third of voting centres for Sundays poll, is the most comprehensive independent assessment to date of the election, which is meant to lead to the countrys first democratic transfer of power. 190103054329276 The electoral commission had been scheduled to publish provisional results on Sunday but it said on Thursday that could be delayed because counting centres are still waiting for 80 percent of local vote tallies. DR Congos influential Roman Catholic Church on Thursday said that it knew who had won the countrys presidential elections and called on the authorities to quell a mounting storm about the outcome. A senior church body, the National Episcopal Conference of Congo (CENCO), said on Thursday that data in its possession from vote counting reports from polling stations designates the selection of one candidate as president. It called on election overseers to publish the election results in keeping with truth and justice. The vote is meant to choose a successor to incumbent Joseph Kabila, who is due to step down this month after 18 years in power. Repeated delays since 2016, when Kabilas mandate officially expired, have sparked violent protests in which security forces killed dozens of people. Pre-election polling showed ex-Minister of the Interior Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, Kabilas preferred candidate, trailing the main opposition candidates, Martin Fayulu and Felix Tshisekedi. Both Shadary and the opposition say they expect to win. The opposition says the vote was marred by widespread irregularities, while the ruling coalition and electoral commission say it went smoothly overall. Government spokesman Lambert Mende on Thursday defended the credibility of the election and said the decision to cancel voting in the Ebola-hit cities of Beni and Butembo was justified by public safety concerns. More than one million Congolese in opposition strongholds were barred from voting after the electoral commission cancelled the polls there, citing an Ebola outbreak, the second-deadliest in history, and ethnic violence. 181230055430093 Mende also defended a decision to cut internet access until the results were known, saying the measure was intended to stop the spread of false news about the outcome. SYMOCEL said 24 percent of the polling stations it observed closed without allowing those already in line at closing time to cast their ballots, as required by law. It added that 27 percent of polling stations it observed opened late, sometimes by many hours, and 18 percent had problems with malfunctioning electronic voting machines. Seventeen percent of polling stations it observed allowed voting by people who either did not have voting cards or whose names were not on the voter roll, and 15 percent did not publicly display vote tallies after counting, as required by law, it said. The divided 116th Congress convenes as partial government shutdown enters 13th day with no signs of either side caving. The House and Senate convened for the 116th US Congress on Thursday with the most diverse class of politicians in history. The House is returning the first woman to the speakers office as Democrats take the majority with a large class of freshman representatives. Theyre ready to confront President Donald Trump in a new era of divided government, with Republicans still controlling the Senate. Its also the first new Congress to convene during a partial government shutdown, now in its 13th day over Trumps demands for funding for a southern border wall. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader, is pledging broadly to make Congress work for all Americans. But her party is also ready to challenge Trump with investigations that threaten the White House agenda. As one of their first acts, House Democrats are expected to pass a two-part spending package meant to end the shutdown. The legislation does not include the more than $5bn in wall funding Trump has demanded. Republican leader Mitch McConnell has said the Senate will not take up the bills because Trump wont sign them. 190103152648713 Congressional leaders are due to resume talks at the White House on Friday in an attempt to overcome the impasse. The day unfolded as one of both celebration and impatience. Newly elected politicians arrived, with friends and families in tow, to take the oath of office and pose for ceremonial photos. A record number of women, including the youngest woman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and the first Muslim women Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to be elected to Congress were sworn in. Other firsts include Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids, the first Native American congresswomen, Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia, Texass first Latina congresswomen, and Ayana Pressley, Massachusettss first black female member of Congress. A number of younger, more progressive politicians will be eager to push back with greater effect against an administration they believe has overstepped its authority and abused power in the nearly two years since Trumps inauguration. 190103133635234 They will have that opportunity, as congressional panels will be led by chairmen who have pledged to probe topics such as Trumps income taxes, his firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and the presidents ties to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. That expected barrage of investigations could bog down a White House already besieged by Special Counsel Robert Muellers Russia collusion probe. But while the blue wave swept dozens of House Republicans out of Congress last November, Trumps party managed to modestly expand its majority in the Senate, meaning Washington gridlock is almost certain to deepen. US-based comic breaks silence after video streaming service blocked episode of his show Patriot Act for Saudi audiences. American comic Hasan Minhaj has responded to Netflixs decision to ban an episode of his show, the Patriot Act, in Saudi Arabia. In a post on Twitter on Wednesday, the former Daily Show correspondent joked that the ban would be counterproductive. Clearly, the best way to stop people from watching something is to ban it, make it trend online, and then leave it up on YouTube, Minhaj wrote, adding: Lets not forget that the worlds largest humanitarian crisis is happening in Yemen right now. Clearly, the best way to stop people from watching something is to ban it, make it trend online, and then leave it up on YouTube. Lets not forget that the worlds largest humanitarian crisis is happening in Yemen right now. Please donate: https://t.co/znMP8vyJma https://t.co/t2VUDhhIdB Hasan Minhaj (@hasanminhaj) January 2, 2019 In the episode, Minhaj criticised Saudi Arabia over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October, as well as the countrys participation in the war in Yemen. Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), was murdered by a Saudi hit squad in what Riyadh after weeks of denials said was a rogue operation. Senior US politicians, who have access to classified CIA information, have blamed the crown prince for the slaying. In Yemen, tens of thousands have died as a result of Saudi and UAE-led air attacks and starvation and disease brought about by a blockade of the rebel territory imposed by the two countries. Netflix said it pulled the episode in Saudi Arabia after receiving a complaint from authorities, who warned that it fell foul of the countrys anti-cybercrime laws. The decision to ban the episode, which was revealed by the Financial Times newspaper, sparked outrage online, with activists accusing the company of censorship and prioritising profit over principles. Change-4 lunar rover successfully touches down on the far side of the moon, becoming the first probe to do so. A Chinese probe has made the first-ever landing on the far side of the moon, according to state media, in a groundbreaking mission in space exploration. The unmanned Change 4 spacecraft successfully touched down at 10:26am (02:26 GMT) on Thursday on a preselected landing area, state media said. It relayed a photo of the dark side of the moon to the Queqiao satellite, which will relay communications between controllers on Earth and the far side of the moon. The moon is tidally locked to Earth, rotating at the same rate that it orbits our planet, so the far side is never visible from Earth and relatively unexplored. Previous spacecraft have seen the far side of the moon but none has landed on it. The soft landing lifted the mysterious veil from the far side of the moon and opened a new chapter in human lunar exploration, state media said. 190102201443302 The tasks of the Change-4 include astronomical observation, surveying the moons terrain, landform and mineral composition, and measuring the neutron radiation and neutral atoms to study the environment on the far side of the moon, the China National Space Administration has said. The probe, which includes a lander and a rover and is also equipped with a panorama camera, will perform radio-astronomical studies that, because the far side always faces away from Earth, will be free from interference from our planets ionosphere, human-made radio frequencies and auroral radiation noise, according to space industry expert Leonard David. In 2015, NASA, the US space agency, released an animation that shows satellite images of the far side of the moon. NASA says the images show the moon illuminated by the sun, as it crosses between the DSCOVR spacecrafts Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera and telescope, and the Earth one million miles away. The launch of Change 4 lunar probe on December 8, 2018 [Jiang Hongjing/Xinhua via AP] Dark side The moons far side has a different composition than sites on the near side, where previous missions have landed. 180610125508616 The United States sent 12 astronauts between 1969 and 1972 to the Earths satellite. The first Soviet probe, Luna 24, landed there in 1976. It wasnt followed until 2013, when the first Chinese probe, the Change 3, landed. China plans to send its Change 5 probe there next year and have it return to Earth with samples the first time that will have been done since 1976. A crewed lunar mission is also under consideration. Chinas space programme has benefited from cooperation with Russia and European countries, although it was excluded from the 420-tonne International Space Station, mainly due to US concerns over transfer of technology that could be used for military purposes. Its programme also suffered a rare setback last year with the failed launch of its Long March 5 rocket. China conducted its first crewed space mission in 2003, making it only the third country after Russia and the US to do so. It has put a pair of space stations into orbit, one of which is still operating as a precursor to a more than 60-tonne station that is due to come online in 2022. The launch of a Mars rover is planned for the mid-2020s. Rights groups warn that the far-right leaders rhetoric, actions towards native groups will lead to increased violence. Amarante do Maranhao, Brazil Davi Gaviao, an indigenous man with a mental illness was known to spend his days wandering the streets of Amarante do Maranhao, a poor and remote rural town on Brazils Amazon frontier. By nightfall, he would usually return to the nearby 42,000-hectare Governador indigenous reserve where he lived with around 1,500 other Gaviao Pykopje tribespeople, in Maranhao state. But in mid-October, days after the first round of Brazils presidential elections, Davi was killed, shot dead by two men on a motorbike as he lay asleep outside a local supermarket. Sebastiao Wagner Bezerra, a local civil police chief, confirmed to Al Jazeera that an investigation into Davis murder was advancing but the motive was still unknown. Rumours spread that Davi had somehow offended the matriarch of one of the powerful landowning families that dominate the region. Others speculate that he was killed for being indigenous. Amarantes economy, specialists say, is based in large part on illegal timber, much of which is plundered from indigenous reserves like Governador where Davi lived. Some locals here see indigenous people as a barrier to progress, said Guaraci Mendes da Silva, a substitute regional coordinator in Maranhao state for Brazils National Indigenous Foundation (Funai). Davis murder comes amid rising violence against indigenous people and rural peasants in Brazils Amazon states, enabled by recent cuts to indigenous and environmental budgets. And now, with the election of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office on January 1, local indigenous activists fear even more violence due to the presidents history of anti-indigenous rhetoric and alliance with Brazils powerful farming lobby. A sign marking an indigenous territory is riddled with bullet holes [Tommaso Protti/Al Jazeera] Shortly after being elected at the end of October, Bolsonaro said in a TV interview, As far as I am concerned, there is no more demarcation of indigenous land. 190102202755422 Increased gun ownership for rural property owners and opening up indigenous lands for mining were also measures touted throughout his campaign. Hours after assuming office on Tuesday, Bolsonaro issued an executive order transferring the responsibilities of regulating and creating new indigenous lands from the indigenous affairs agency, Funai, under the Justice Ministry to the Agricultural Ministry. Funai will be moved to a new ministry for family, women and human rights. Analysts fear that such a move and rhetoric empowers violent loggers and land grabbers in largely lawless and remote rural areas and towns like Amarante. Its a discourse that legitimises violence against indigenous people, said Cleber Buzatto, executive secretary of the Indigenous Missionary Council, an advocacy group, said of Bolsonaro. Sends a message In July, Bolsonaro visited Eldorado do Carajas, in the Amazon state of Para, which neighbours Maranhao, site of a 1996 massacre in which 19 rural workers protesting by blocking a highway were killed by military police. Two former police colonels are serving 228 years for the crime. Brazils O Estado de S Paulo newspaper reported that Bolsonaro said, Who needed to have been arrested were the MST, (Landless Workers Movement) who are scoundrels and shameless. The police reacted not to die. Luiz Antonio Nabhan Garcia, president of the Democratic Association of Ruralists (UDR), a group of right-wing farmers and activists opposed to land reform, now appointed as Bolsonaros secretary for land affairs, told Brazils O Globo in a recent interview that he would not negotiate with landless peasant movements. The tendency is for rural violence to increase even further, its very worrying, said Paulo Cesar Moreira, a national coordinator for Brazils Pastoral Land Commission. 180420101258313 Brazil is already the worlds deadliest country in sheer numbers for indigenous, land and environmental activists with a record 57 killings in 2017 according to NGO Global Witness. Impunity is a huge driver of violence and Maranhao is one of the worst affected states. According to Brazils Pastoral Land Commission, a rural violence watchdog, of 157 land conflict killings in Maranhao between 1985 and 2017, just five ended up in court. Amarante do Maranhao, a municipality of some 40,000 people is home to two large indigenous reserves; Governador and Arariboia. Together, a handful of indigenous lands and conservation units concentrate 70 percent of the remaining Amazon forest in Maranhao state. According to Brazils National Institute for Space Research, just 25 percent of Maranhaos previous 110,000 square kilometres of Amazon forest remains, the majority of which was cleared for agriculture and cattle ranching. Recent data showed that across Brazils Amazon states, deforestation increased by nearly 50 percent during the August to October election period. Bolsonaros discourse throughout the campaign, that hell end Ibama [Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources] or the environmental ministry, this sends a message to those that commit environmental crimes, that they will be tolerated, said Marcio Astrini, public policy coordinator for Greenpeace Brazil. It has an immediate effect. Government data pointed to an overall increase of nearly 14 percent in Amazon deforestation in 2018 compared with the previous year, the worst result in a decade, which the government blamed on illegal logging. Ibama destroyed several irregular sawmills in Amarante and the surrounding municipalities last year [Tommaso Protti/Al Jazeera] Experts warn that unless deforestation slows, the Amazon will reach a point of no return and eventually begin to turn into shrubland. If the deforestation continues and passes 20 25 percent, there is the risk of the beginning of the process of the Amazon turning into Savannah, said Carlos Nobre, one of Brazils leading climate scientists. Nobre said that 16 percent was already gone and could be accelerated through climate change, global warming and forest fires. Ricardo Salles, Bolsonaros environmental minister, has called climate change a secondary issue and environmental fines ideological. We have no resources, no support In poor rural Amazon towns like Amarante do Maranhao, many locals who depend on the timber trade for their income agree with Salles, leading to conflicts with authorities and indigenous groups. Last year, Ibama destroyed several irregular sawmills in Amarante and the surrounding municipalities. The objective of destroying these sawmills was to protect the biodiversity inside of indigenous lands and conservation units, said Roberto Cabral, surveillance operations coordinator of Ibama, who was once shot and injured by loggers in the region. Rosinan Alves dos Santos, 43, said that he had worked at a sawmill that was destroyed by Ibama last year and that afterwards was unemployed for nearly eight months. Now working at another irregular sawmill, he said he could earn 50 Brazilian real (about $13) a day, more than Brazils minimum wage. They come here and destroy our jobs, he said of Ibama. For us, this is the only work we have. Roberto Cabral of Ibama said, There is a false impression that the jobs that sawmills provide are providing prosperity, Cabral added that if you look at cities where clandestine sawmills are present, the city doesnt develop, because there are no taxes paid. Forest guards say that they receive regular threats [Tommaso Protti/Al Jazeera] Al Jazeera visited the Governador indigenous reserve earlier this year. For decades, the Governador reserve has been plundered by illegal loggers and in 2013, tribesmen set up an indigenous forest patrol guard initiative to keep the loggers out. Before, illegal logging in our territory was basically liberated, said Marcelo Gaviao, 37, the leader of the forest guard. Marcelo Gaviao said he and other leaders receive regular threats. But its far from stopped. It was here, last year, that Sonia Vicente Cacau Gaviao and Jose Caneta Gaviao, were killed when they were hit by a speeding truck local leaders say belonged to loggers. Marcelo Gaviao also said that some indigenous on Governador are co-opted: that they pass information to loggers in exchange for payment. 180913150932682 Even during our monitoring group we have people who pass information about missions, he said. Al Jazeera recently accompanied the forest guard on a night patrol of the territory. At one point, Marcelo Gaviao and four other forest guards dressed in camouflage and armed with shotguns in a pick-up truck, sped after a truck laden with timber they suspected was taken from their reserve but gave up after a brief chase, fearful of a violent confrontation. Now, with the murder of Davi Gaviao and the new Bolsonaro government, Marcelo Gaviao, his forest guard and the community fear escalating violence and increased invasions of their territory. We are really scared after what happened to Davi, Jonas Polino Sancao, a local indigenous teacher and activist said. We have no resources, no support. Awami Leagues student movement dismisses opposition claims of election violence and voter intimidation. By Dena Bank share price was the worst hit, losing a whopping 20 per cent after Bank of Baroda (BoB) board announced the merger ratio for the 'amalgamation' with Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank, which experts believe is fair for BoB's shareholders but not so much for those of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank. Going by fundamentals, however, the merger is highly favourable for Dena Bank and little unfair to Vijaya Bank. Reacting to the announcement, Dena Bank share price shed as much as 19.77 per cent to Rs 14.40 on the BSE, while Vijaya Bank share price slipped over 7 per cent to hit its intraday low of Rs 47.25. Bank of Baroda reacted positively, gaining 3.3 per cent to Rs 123.35. Merger ratio mechanics The boards have decided a merger ratio of 110 BoB shares for every 1,000 shares of Dena Bank and 402 BoB shares for every 1,000 shares of Vijaya Bank. As per January 2 closing price, Vijaya Bank's 1,000 equity shares amounted to Rs 51,050 against 402 equity shares of BoB worth Rs 47,939, translating into a loss of 6 per cent. Likewise, the market value of 1000 shares of Dena Bank, stood at Rs 17,900 against BoB's 110 equity shares worth Rs 13,118, translating into a loss of 27 per cent. G.Chokkalingam, Founder & Managing Director, Equinomics pointed out that going by January 2 closing prices, shareholders of Dena Bank are at maximum loss. "Ideally Vijaya Bank shareholders should have got an offer of 510 shares instead of 402 shares of BoB for every 1,000 shares held in Vijaya Bank. Similarly, in the case of Dena Bank, only 56 shares of BoB should have been offered instead of 110 shares," he said. Going by fundamentals, however, the merger ratio is positive for Dena Bank, and slightly negative for Vijaya Bank. "If we go by the adjusted book value method of calculating the swap ratio this deal is slightly negative for Vijaya Bank shareholders as it is at 21 per cent discount (based on September 30, 2018 abstract balance sheet) while that for Dena Bank it's at a 50 per cent premium. However, on our expected earnings and book values of FY2020, the discount for Vijaya Bank is around 15 per cent," he added. Chokkalingam recommended investors to continue to hold Vijaya Bank as the merged entity, Bank of Baroda will become attractive stock. Global brokerage Nomura also maintained 'buy' rating on BoB, saying the valuation is undemanding. "Our pro forma estimates indicate a merged company RoE of +12 per cent by FY21F. The merger will be nearly 4 per cent book-accretive to BOB and nearly 4 per cent earnings-dilutive," the brokerage pointed out in a research note. "BoB trades at 0.65x Sep-20F book on an adjusted basis, which we believe is undemanding, hence we maintain our Buy rating," Nomura added. However, the valuation of the merged entity appears expensive to domestic brokerage Elara Capital. "The total number of shares post-merger comes to 3,425 million while net worth of the combined entity stands at Rs 556 billion. Our calculations show adjusted book value for the merged entity's stands at Rs 80 per share. Thereafter, considering the actual swap ratio and January 2's closing price for BOB, the combined entity is at a valuation of 1.5x, which seems to be richly valued," Elara Capital noted in a research note. The brokerage estimates the merged entity's loan book to increase by 42 per cent with largely unchanged net NPA and a slight fall in the coverage ratio, from 61.8 per cent to 58.4 per cent. And, the merged entity would undergo equity dilution of merely 29 per cent. The merger is expected to be completed by April 1, which would give birth to India's third-largest commercial bank with a total business size of Rs 15.4 lakh crore and loan book size of Rs 6.6 lakh crore and branch network of 9,511. US tech giant Apple has taken the rare step of slashing its quarterly sales forecast, acknowledging that demand for iPhones is slowing and confirming investor concerns that its most profitable product has lost some of its consumer appeal amid competition from cheaper rivals. In a letter to shareholders, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said Apples revenue for the October-December quarter including the crucial holiday shopping season will drop well below the companys earlier projections and those of analysts. Apple now expects revenue of $84bn for the period, below analysts estimate of $91.5bn, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. Apple originally forecast revenue of between $89bn and $93bn. The official results are scheduled to be released on January 29. The news sent Apple shares tumbling 7.7 percent in after-hours trade, triggering a broader selloff in the stock market and dragging the companys market value below $700bn. Cook traced most of the revenue drop to China, where the economy has been slowing and Apple has faced tougher competition from smartphone makers such as Huawei and Xiaomi. US President Donald Trump has also raised fresh tensions between Washington and Beijing by imposing tariffs on more than $200bn in goods, although so far the iPhone has not been affected directly. Chinas economy began to slow there for the second half, Cook said during an interview with CNBC on Wednesday afternoon. The trade tensions between the United States and China put additional pressure on their economy. In his letter, Cook, who became Apples CEO in 2011, said the company anticipated challenges in key emerging markets but did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China. In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad, he wrote. Cook also acknowledged that consumers in other markets are not buying as many of the latest iPhones, released last autumn, as Apple had anticipated a factor that could stem from a starting price of $1,000 for Apples top-of-the-line iPhones. What Apple would like to do, as much as possible, is to cite China and the trade war as the cause of this but over the last couple of years Apple has significantly increased the price of the iPhone, Shaun Nichols, technology reporter at The Register, a tech news and opinion website, told Al Jazeera. Tim Cooks official explanation for this kind of a combination the trade war is causing problems in China, worries over the economy and thats making people less likely to go and purchase Apple products. Hal Eddins, the chief economist at Apple shareholder Capital Investment Counsel, said Cooks comments on the effect of the US trade tensions with China might be a dig at Trump, but mostly he may be using the trade turmoil as an excuse for some missteps theyve made over the last year. Analysts say Apple must now try to find a way to win back Wall Streets confidence and reverse a steep decline that has erased $350bn in shareholder wealth in just three months. This is Apples darkest day during the Cook era, Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives said. No one expected China to just fall off a cliff like this. While Trumps trade war with China is not helping Apple and other US technology companies, Ives believes Apples price miscalculation created an opening for rivals with less costly alternatives that still worked well. The price gap is one reason Huawei surpassed Apple in smartphone sales from April through September last year to seize the number two spot behind industry leader Samsung, according to the research firm International Data Corp. Apples board of directors named Tim Cook as the companys chief executive officer in 2011 [File: Marcio Jose Sanchez/The Associated Press] Premium pricing strategy Wednesday was the first time that Apple issued a warning on its revenue guidance before releasing quarterly results since the iPhone was launched in 2007. Apples move was not entirely a surprise, however. In November, the Cupertino-based company said it would stop disclosing unit sales data for iPhones and other hardware items, leading many analysts to worry that a drop in iPhone sales was coming. And after several component makers in November forecast weaker-than-expected sales, some market watchers called the peak for iPhones in several key markets. In November, Cook cited slowing growth in emerging markets such as Brazil, India and Russia for lower-than-anticipated sales estimates for the companys fiscal first quarter. But Cook specifically said he would not put China in that category of countries with troubled growth. That all came before the damage to the Chinese economy from trade tensions with the US and long-simmering structural issues became evident. Apple is now the highest-profile multinational corporation to warn that the economic slowdown in China could hurt its business. Automakers such as Ford Motor Co, Hyundai Motor Co and Nissan Motor Co all previously said they planned to cut production in the country. But Apple has held firm on its premium pricing strategy in China despite the risk of a slower economy. The question for investors will be the extent to which Apples aggressive pricing has exacerbated this situation and what this means for the companys longer-term pricing power within its iPhone franchise, James Cordwell, an analyst at Atlantic Equities, told Reuters news agency. In the latest fiscal year, ended on September 29, unit sales of the iPhone were essentially flat from the prior year, while iPhone revenue expanded 18 percent to $166.7bn. That growth came entirely from higher prices. But some investors were heartened by Apples plans on using its cash pile. In his letter, Cook said Apple has $130bn in net cash and that it intends to continue its efforts to reduce that cash balance to net zero, which the company has so far accomplished through dividend increases and share buybacks. We would anticipate the company increasing share buybacks on the weakness to return capital to shareholders at discount prices, said Trip Miller, managing partner at Apple shareholder Gullane Capital Partners. Being a Dalit means being in permanent isolation, stuck in the dark chambers of ones uncharted fears. The Dalit is that stubbornness that the Hindu ideology has adamantly maintained for more than 3,000 years. I grew up in a world surrounded by Dalits. From early on I was conscious of my identity and that it meant we belonged to the lower strata. Parents and family members disciplined us to make sure we do not mess up elsewhere and face the wrath of the dominant castes the rich people with power and position. I grew up celebrating the birthday of B R Ambedkar, the eminent Dalit scholar and former justice minister, who inspired the Dalit movement. We stayed away from Hindu festivals as they were a reminder of our ancestral humiliation and of our secondary status in Indian society. Our neighbour, a sahukar (merchant) caste, who ran a grocery shop, was one of the few non-Dalits in our neighbourhood. He resented us, but loved our money. He made sure all physical contact with us was avoided when we were paying for our purchases. It is extremely difficult to receive small coins without physically touching the other person; to avoid this blasphemy, we were told to drop the coins in an open box. When we paid with a bank note, he would take it with his fingers from the other end, carefully avoiding physical touch. Living among Dalits, the sahukar maintained his and his familys purity by erecting a concrete wall around his house. The tallest wall in our neighbourhood was between our house and the sahukars. He was also extremely suspicious of us; hed often accuse us of stealing. We were made to feel like criminals in our homes. When I went to high school, classmates, mostly from the dominant castes, refused to lend their time to me. They were contemptuous, just like their parents, and readily exercised their right to caste discrimination. My only close friends in the school were Dalits and I had the profound pleasure of hanging out at their home and sharing their food, a privilege I was denied by the dominant caste peers. The fact that I was never invited to break the bread in an upper caste home kept reminding me of my pitiful isolation. I was the child soaked in sweat in the summer heat, with a dry throat, desperate for a glass of water, standing outside a Brahmin classmates house. Never was I invited inside the house, nor was I entertained in the courtyard. I walked home thirsty after school till I graduated. And today I still see Dalit children who, just like me, are walking down the same street, thirsty and famished. The caste system holds us responsible for our suffering. Solidarity and support from non-Dalits do not exist, even today in the 21st century. Isnt it absurd that we are now actively exploring another planet to settle and scouring other galaxies for life, but on our own Earth we are still unable to shake millennia-old inhumane and unscientific customs and perceptions that selectively devalue human life? It is. And it is equally absurd that so-called progressive Indians lavishly spend their energy pushing a Hindu-only narrative of the Indian civilisation and choose not to accord any respect or equal status to us, the declared despicable, the wretched of the earth. Stuck in this dark chamber of millennia-old, forcibly-imposed inferiority complex, fear and terror, we struggle to break free. The only way out is self-love. Caste systems around the world It was not until university that I learned that there are other societies beyond India that have their own outcastes or untouchables. It was then that I came across a report written by human rights expert and lawyer, Smita Narula, called Broken people: Caste violence against Indias untouchables commissioned by Human Rights Watch. It put the caste systems across the world into perspective for me. It referenced the Buraku people of Japan, the Osu of Nigerias Igbo people, and certain groups in Senegal, Mauritania and Somalia who suffer under their own caste or caste-like systems. The terrorism my community faced in our lives seemed no longer exclusive to us and certainly not attached to our fate only. This discovery took me to places with hopes of finding fellow oppressed peoples who are fighting the monster of caste discrimination and hatred. I started asking people from across the world about the caste system in their societies. During a lecture at Harvard University, for example, I asked Nigerian writer and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, but he gave a rather vague answer about the Osu. I soon realised that most of the people I was meeting and asking were almost always the Brahmins of their societies who used their privileged position to tactically downplay or avoid mentioning the suffering of the subalterns. I am yet to come across an oppressed/lower caste person from Nigeria, Japan, Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Kenya, Somalia, the US, South Africa, Eastern and Western Europe, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Israel, Afghanistan, and others. Due to abject poverty and lack of representation, many untouchables of the world are still unable to challenge mainstream narratives in their societies. Through my travels and research, I also discovered that the postcolonial scholarship and activism were another stratagem of the elites of native societies to hide the oppressions they practice and redirect public attention towards the external other the moribund colonial state. They have thoroughly researched the historical and sociological underpinnings of colonial rule in their native societies, thus developing a novel yet spineless critique. In the postcolonial project, oppressor castes from the colonised societies ensured that the radical voices of dissent from among the lower castes never received the attention needed to achieve their liberation. The subalterns fighting for civil rights have sporadically made the news but almost never the headlines. Because of this, entire generations of the last century were fed one-dimensional propaganda of postcolonial fears and tears. The actual pains of the suffering masses were buried under the heaps of mystified narratives of the Third World. The Fourth World In addition to the uniqueness of caste being a descent-based, inherited form of inescapable discrimination, there are other types of prejudice that result in similar oppression. There is what we can call a Fourth World of outcastes around the world who have been left out of the prominent discourses and debates concerning human rights and social and economic justice. Today, there is an urgent need to identify these underprivileged groups and establish international solidarity networks. Such solidarity work has been undertaken before but it has received little public and theoretical attention. Its traces were lost within the dominant discourses on nation-state building and the pursuit of democracy. It is what happened with the international links built in the mid-20th century by pioneers like Ambedkar, who put the Dalit situation on the global map. He connected with African American leaders like W E B Du Bois; African American organisers and civil rights leaders paid attention to his work. Ambedkar also reached out to the Buddhist South and East Asian countries. In Japan, the formidable Matsumoto Jiichiro, leader of the Buraku people, the outcastes in the Japanese feudal system, took notice of his work and they established a connection in the 1950s. Over the following decades, efforts to build upon the foundations Ambedkar laid were not successful in establishing strong international networks and cross-national collective action. More recently, there have been renewed efforts to rekindle solidarity outreach. In September, the Buraku and Dalit people met in September in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan to resolve to discuss ways to fight caste systems across the world. They passed 12 resolutions that ensured the international outlook of these communities remained intact. Similar solidarity work has been initiated by prominent African Americans, like Cornel West, Martin Luther King III and professor Kevin Brown of Indiana University. In the Boston area, the Dalit and Black Lives Matter movement stands as a testament to the renewed, re-energised solidarity of the younger generation of Dalit and black activists. But there is still much work that needs to be done. It is about time that trans-national solidarity of oppressed people leaves the confines of elite platforms and reaches grassroots level. Being a Dalit means living in isolation; fighting against the injustice of the caste system inevitably will have to include breaking this isolation and creating vast networks of outcastes that are able to collectively struggle for their rights. An organisation dedicated to this task, seeking to challenge mainstream narratives, a Fourth World think-tank, could serve this purpose. It would provide the most vulnerable groups around the world with a platform to discuss and share their experiences of marginalisation and learn ways to fight discrimination and oppression. It would take solidarity work to the grassroots and help build knowledge and activism structures among underprivileged groups across the world. The oppressed castes need to come under one roof to develop a collective egalitarian vision for the future of the world. Coming together and working collectively is the only way in which we can break the bonds of oppression. The geography of our struggle has to be a global one; we can no longer afford to be divided and isolated from each other. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee is the author of "Looking For the Nation: Towards Another Idea of India". Indias so-called cow protection gangs display antithetical qualities to the ones they attribute to their sacred animal they are unholy, ungentle, frenzied and violent. According to data analytics site India Spend, 45 people were killed in 120 cases of cow-related violence reported across India between 2012 and 2018. The highest number of violent incidents were recorded in the state of Uttar Pradesh, with 19 verified incidents of cow-related violence resulting in 11 deaths. On December 3, the killing of police officer Subodh Kumar Singh was added to this worrying statistic. Inspector Singh was killed alongside a 20-year-old man when a violent mob clashed with police in Uttar Pradeshs Bulandshahr district. The attackers, many of them members of far-right Hindu groups, were protesting the alleged inability of the police in the village of Chingrawathi to stop cow slaughtering, claiming that animal carcasses including those of cows were found in the area. When rumours about the slaughter of the sacred symbol of Hindu nationalism arise, it appears, even an officer of the law is not safe. 18120520180346 Incidentally, Singh was part of the team that investigated the 2015 lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq, a 52-year-old resident of Bisara village, over allegations of cow slaughter and beef consumption in a district neighbouring Bulandshahr. Saroj Singh Chauhan, sister of the slain officer, believes her brother fell victim to a conspiracy by the state police because he was investigating the Akhlaq case. She questioned why her brother was left alone in his vehicle in the middle of a violent mob and said the police, who she accuses of collaborating with cow protection gangs, are complicit in the incident. Her allegation daringly suggests that law enforcement in Uttar Pradesh is taking on a political role when it comes to cow protection and helping the expansion of majoritarian politics. Abhishek Singh, the younger son of the deceased police officer, told reporters, My father wanted me to be a good citizen who doesnt incite violence in society in the name of religion. The good citizen in India currently seems to be under severe stress, facing fatal consequences for obstructing the tide of right-wing vandalism. The reversal of justice A day after the incident in Bulandshahr, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath called a meeting in the state capital, Lucknow. An investigation into allegations of cow slaughter and illegal slaughterhouses was ordered by Adityanath, but local reports said he did not address Singhs killing in the Lucknow meeting. A day later, Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police Om Prakash Singh described the Bulandshahr incident as part of a larger conspiracy. His concerns, just like the chief ministers, centred solely around cow slaughter and he told reporters that the police would be conducting a reverse investigation an investigation that would focus on how and why animal carcasses ended up in the area rather than the two murders. This reverse order of concern by the police and political leadership raised a legitimate fear that the so-called reverse investigation is going to lead to a reversal of justice. Just days after the December 3 attack, four Muslim men were arrested in connection with the Bulandshahr case in villages dozens of kilometres away from the place where the animal carcasses were found. They were released after being found innocent. There is however, encouraging news. Bajrang Dal leader Yogesh Raj, who was the main accused in the mob violence and was absconding since, has been arrested on January 3. Raj has reportedly confessed to his role in the violence. It was based on Rajs complaint that the police had earlier arrested the four Muslims. The question lingers, why is guilt attributed more readily to people of the minority community. The complete collapse of constitutional values The fear that the murderers of officer Singh may never be brought to justice led 82 former bureaucrats, including a former national security adviser, to write a fiercely worded open letter demanding Adityanaths resignation. The signatories call the Bulandshahr incident a frightening indicator of the complete collapse of constitutional values. They claim this collapse is epitomised by Adiyanath, who wears his bigotry as his badge of identity and protects perpetrators as defenders of faith and culture. The signatories claim that the chief ministers actions promote the rule of lawlessness. There seems to be a political attempt under way to reorder social spaces in India according to majoritarian diktats. The secular framework of law is being compromised to favour Hindu religious outfits who are using lawless means of violence to intimidate and punish minorities. The signatories of the letter see in the murder of the police officer a calculated attempt by the state administration to teach a lesson to those who are nonpartisan in cases that involve minorities. This is a serious indication of the growing order of lawlessness: a member of the state police paid the price for defending the law against the moral police hell-bent on spreading social disorder and indulging in violence. The image of Singhs burned-out jeep is a stark exemplar of the lawlessness overtaking the law. The ex-bureaucrats view the Bulandshahr mayhem as a deliberate ploy to further subordinate Muslims and make them live in fear. This need is so overwhelming that even if Muslims in the country stop dealing in cows, the right-wing vigilante will invent other methods, like the allegations of so-called love jihad, to harm them. There is a concerted move to turn Muslims into political and social outcasts in India by coercion and segregation. So far, more than half the victims of lynchings over alleged cow slaughter have been Muslims. Hindutva groups use the cow as a tool to demarcate territories of fear and intimidation. The politics of communalism never hesitates to put symbols it holds sacred to utilitarian use. In any supremacist project, majoritarian pride is incomplete without its obverse (and perverse) side: prejudice and paranoia against minorities. The diktat is clear minorities have to lose their identity or perish. Hindu nationalism seeks to make the minority feel minor. Hindutvas cunning rhetoric pits a rigid idea of national unity against disunity, rather than accept legitimate (and competing) political and cultural difference. Indias founders stood up to majoritarian pressure In his recently published book, A Peoples Constitution: The Everyday Life of Law in the Indian Republic, Rohit De offers a fascinating account of the vexed history of cow protection laws in post-colonial India. Public debates, sporadic violence and mass mobilisations on the cow slaughter issue have been ongoing in India since the late 19th century. During partition, De mentions, Gandhi made the secular argument that Hindu law cannot be imposed on non-Hindus. The Drafting Committee of the Indian Constitution, in the spirit of defining India as a secular republic, kept the question of cow protection out of its original draft. BR Ambedkar, the chairman of the Drafting Committee, pushed the amendment on cow protection to Directive Principles, skirting the cow protection lobbys demand to include it as a Fundamental Right. Indias first prime minister after independence, Jawaharlal Nehru, who shared Ambedkars modernist indifference to the issue, tried to defuse the problem of cow slaughter by referring it to state legislatures, which brought it under the purview of statutory law. 170927084018325 Hindu cow protectionists arguments, explains De, were based on cultural homogeneity and majoritarianism. The Qureshis, a marginalised butcher community, on the contrary, challenged the Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in early 1956, on grounds of economics and livelihood. In 1961, the Allahabad High Court, while drawing up the principles for punitive action in cow slaughter cases, did not deem the religious sentiments of the majority community relevant unless there was a deliberate attempt to inflame communal passions. These instances reveal that the founding thinkers of the Indian democracy, despite facing an emotive issue like cow slaughter, did not allow their sensibilities to buckle under majoritarian pressure. The secular law of the state was deemed higher than communal sentiments. A threat to constitutional morality Currently, 24 states in India have various regulations prohibiting either the slaughter or sale of cows. The idea of an existing prohibition is being used in Uttar Pradesh by Hindu cow vigilante groups to spread lawlessness and inflame communal passions within their own community. If the Uttar Pradesh state administration does not act against this vandalism, constitutional morality will suffer. Constitutional morality, Ambedkar said in his 1949 Constituent Assembly Speech, is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated. Communalism is not a natural sentiment either. It is aroused by political design, to undermine the spirit of secular law. India needs a strong culture of resistance against communal passions that prevent people from cultivating their constitutional morality. The Bulandshahr case will have lasting effects on the sense of political security among local communities. Sarfuddin, a 38-year-old shop owner who was arrested kilometres away from Chingrawathi village and wrongly accused of cow slaughter, has just been released along with three other Muslim men. He is worried the people in his village will now see him as a criminal. How will I live with this charge on my name? he told local media. Sarfuddin is also worried about holding on to his reputation as a good citizen. An administration that is incapable of upholding constitutional morality would do well to at least not charge good citizens wrongfully. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. Short version: On Thursday the Mobile City Council overrode a mayoral veto, unanimously approving an ordinance that asserts council authority over contracts. The administration of Mayor Sandy Stimpson warned that the measure, which calls for the administration to provide a wide range of documentation on contracts, settlements and other activity, represents "a whole new layer of bureaucracy" that will bog down city operations with potentially dire consequences. Council members said they don't think thats the case but will be happy to modify the ordinance to mitigate any unwanted consequences. Long version: Mobiles mayor and council, increasingly at odds over the balance of power in city government, began the new year with a fresh clash in a dispute that has already generated one court case and seems to have the potential to spawn more. "We have the court case to deal with one particular issue that has arisen with the council's initiative to hire a consultant under contract," said Councilwoman Bess Rich. "I'm hoping this is not run over to court as well." The latest chapter began Wednesday evening when Stimpson sent out a call to arms via mass email with the subject line "Need your help." "When I ran for office as mayor, I made a commitment to make Mobile the safest, most business and family friendly city in America by 2020," it began. "We have made tremendous progress toward that goal by getting control of city spending, improving the delivery of services and cutting red tape at City Hall. Now, the City Council is trying to undo that progress. They are attempting to choke the mayor's contracting authority through an ordinance placed on their agenda for Thursday's meeting." Stimpson warned that he had vetoed ordinance 14-034 but that the council was "intent on overriding my veto without pausing to consider its effect on our employees, our local contractors and most importantly on you." He urged recipients to call or email their council members and provided contact information for all seven. As the council worked through its preliminary organizational session on Thursday morning, it was clear the email had produced some response. But maybe not the one intended. Council Vice President Levon Manzie said that he'd "spent a lot of time last night" responding to calls and comments. Some were from people expressing support for the mayor. Some were from people expressing support for the council. Some of the ones support the mayor didn't really have a clear understanding of the actual content of the ordinance, he said, and once they understood it better, some reconsidered their opinion. Other council members generally echoed Manzie's take. At the council's meeting later Thursday morning, John Williams said he'd gotten 35 emails, with about 20 supporting Stimpson's stance. Some of those were open to discussion, he said. Fred Richardson likewise said the email had triggered a useful opportunity to inform the public about the ordinance. "I would say before the Scud missile was launched last night, the citizens didnt have a clue what was going on," he said. "But since they shot the missile last night, a lot of people who didn't know what was going on, they know now I dropped what I thought would nullify the Scud, is what I dropped." A couple of council members ribbed Stimpson's senior director of communications, George Talbot, for the Stimpson email's claim that the ordinance "will bind our employees in so much red tape that it may take us weeks longer just to fix a broken sidewalk or buy fuel for our fire trucks." "George, that was beautiful, by the way," said Williams of the fire truck line. "That's a Talbot," chuckled Manzie. Stimpson was not present for the council's preliminary organizational session or its regular meeting. At the latter he was represented by City Attorney Ricardo Woods, who took issue with the complaint by several council members that Stimpson had waited until the last minute to make his objections known about an ordinance that had been under consideration since early December. That wasnt correct, Woods said. He said that Chief Assistant City Attorney Florence Kessler had sent a letter to Council Attorney Wanda Cochran on Dec. 17, detailing some concerns. (That letter, provided to AL.com, by Talbot, warns that the ordinance would heavily impact several departments including engineering, purchasing and finance, and that it should be discussed with the City staff that handles contracts on a daily basis to gauge and address potential problems before being enacted.) Woods said that Stimpson had spoken individually to council members, and that his veto itself, dated Dec. 27, also spelled out objections and concerns. (That document, formally known as a statement of disapproval, runs two and half pages; among its points are an assertion that the city's current contract approval process "was adopted in 1994, by an agreement reached between the city council and mayor," has since then become established and accepted practice, and that the system "should not be amended through the unilateral action of the council.") Several council members made a point of saying that if the ordinance did cause problems, they'd be willing to modify it. Woods, anticipating its passage, said the administration would do what it could to handle new requirements for what information had to be given to the council and what measures required council approval. Well go forward with the voting, well do our best to make it work, Woods said. There will be problems. There will be logjams because of the way this has been enacted. The council, which voted 7-0 to approve the ordinance on Dec. 18, again voted 7-0 to override the veto. Where that fits into the bigger ongoing struggle remains to be seen. Some issues linger from the councils passage of an amended budget in late September. Among other changes, the council approved an increased allocation for Ladd-Peebles Stadium. The administration has announced its intention not to release that money to the stadium. Stimpson filed a legal complaint over the councils attempt to rehire its communications manager, Marion Steinfels, after he fired her in October. Circuit Judge Michael Youngpeter called for mediation in that matter after an initial hearing, and Talbot confirmed Thursday that the parties have met with a mediator. But he said the process was confidential and would provide no information about what progress, if any, has been made. The council also has a special counsel looking into longstanding complaints from employees in one section of the Public Works Department. The progress of that investigation didnt come up on Thursday. Several council members took pains Thursday to stress that the dispute, or disputes, had not and would not shut down city government. It was perfectly normal for the legislative branch and the executive branch of a government to have some differences, they said, and perfectly normal for some of these to be resolved by the judicial branch. "The business of the city is moving forward," said Manzie. Its inherent in the system, said Councilman Joel Daves. This will be worked out Well get that [lawsuit] resolved eventually and all go on our merry way, and in the meantime the business of government moves forward without any slackness at all. By Stephanie Butler, executive director of Blumberg Family Jewish Community Services of Dothan The Family Relocation Project and Temple Emanu-El board member, written in response to the Washington Post article A millionaire paid Jews to move to a small town in Alabama. Now, a couple struggle with their choice. Some words are just...big. Anti-Semite, for example. Thats an awfully big word, with a lot of weight to it. It grabs the readers attention. So, we understand why nearly every journalist who has sought out a story about Dothan, Alabamas Jewish community has tried to dig out that word. If a reporter asks enough people enough leading questions, maybe they can get someone to say it. And this time, it worked. Out of hours and hours of deep conversation with rich context, someone provided the fodder. And a reporter cant be faulted for simply quoting a source, can she? Or might context matter? Might it matter that within our community, by and large, hatred of Jews does not exist? Or that the relationships Dothanites have with our neighbors are enriched by our differences? Or that the vibrancy of the interfaith community in Dothan rivals that of any other community? Might it matter that, more or less, Dothan is just like every other place in America? I suppose perhaps it would surprise you to know that the Anti-Defamation Leagues H.E.A.T. (Hate, Extremism, Anti-Semitism, Terrorism) Map for our corner of Alabama is all but blank. Dothan is certainly not a perfect place, but do not try to paint us over with the brush of ignorance and hatred. Among my diverse local tribe of people, we have difficult and important conversations about how we can grow the cross-cultural, racial, and religious relationships here just like all good people in all places have those conversations about their own towns. Heres the thing about big words how we choose to define them really matters. If an anti-Semite is my good neighbor, friend or co-worker who is giving thanks to G-d in the only language they know how, what word should we use for people like the man who spewed a hateful diatribe at a deli in Boca Raton, as reported in Hadassah Magazine last month? What word for those who painted swastikas on campus at Kent State also last month? What word for the man who murdered eleven Jews in Pittsburgh in October? A prayer spoken by a friend in Dothan and said in Jesuss name doesnt quite seem to measure up to the definition of anti-Semitism. One last thing about big words they can really hurt. Within hours of the publication of the story about our community, all of Dothan was searching their memories and souls. Was it me? they asked themselves. Was I the one to offend? They picked up their phones to call their Jewish friends, starting the conversation with, Mea culpa! I did not mean to hurt you. Please forgive me. And they did this having no earthly idea what it was they were apologizing for. They had simply read that their neighbor may be hurting and they felt terribly about it. And most of them did it because they are good Christian people -- a quality that was framed in this story as an accusation instead of an asset. So, what was missed in the authors mission to find anti-Semitism in Dothan, Alabama? Missed was the opportunity to celebrate Temple Emanu-Els shared interfaith mission with our Methodist neighbors across the street, which brought Lisa Priddle to teach about Chanukah at the church. Missed was Lisa speaking to one of our Rotary clubs the following week alongside two dear friends of the Jewish community, the Rev. Joe Johnson and Imam Raymond Rasheed. Missed was the context to a quote from Mr. Blumberg showing that he believes Dothan, in fact, to be less fraught with cultural tension than other places, and he wants others to be able to enjoy what we have here. Missed was our friend and hospital chaplain, a Quaker, who we turned to for pastoral support for our friend who was in the hospital. Missed were the over two hundred Dothan community members of all faiths who joined us in mourning and Shabbat worship immediately following the tragedy in Pittsburgh. So very much was missing from this story. Yes, Dothan is a small city in the South and that comes with a certain amount of historical baggage, but in 2019 we are not who you want to believe we are. A Birmingham man is charged with murder in the Christmas Day shooting of another man at a Fairfield apartment. Fairfield police obtained the murder warrant against 33-year-old Desmond Martez Williams. He is charged in the Dec. 25 slaying of 27-year-old Romero Deon McMorris. The shooting happened about 7:15 a.m. that Tuesday in the 600 block of 55th Place. McMorris was taken to UAB Hospitals Trauma Center where he was pronounced dead at 8:15 a.m. Fairfield police Chief Nick Dyer said the shooting happened outside an apartment in the public housing community behind Miles College. Williams is the boyfriend of McMorriss ex-girlfriend, he said. McMorris went to his ex-girlfriends apartment that morning where a confrontation erupted between McMorris and Williams. That is when, the chief said, Williams shot and killed the victim. Williams was booked into the Jefferson County Jail at 11:45 a.m. Wednesday. He remains jailed on $150,000 bond. Birmingham police are investigating after a man was pronounced dead outside the East Precinct early Thursday morning. At approximately 12:39 a.m., a man drove to the departments East Precinct on Red Lane Road and told officers the passenger in his car had been struck by gunfire. According to Officer Rod Mauldin, the passenger was shot at another location while the two men were inside the car and, after the victim had been shot, the driver headed to the police station. Birmingham Fire and Rescue teams responded to the precinct and the victim was pronounced dead on the scene. The victim has been identified as 28-year-old Carltez Clark, of Birmingham. According to Sgt. Johnny Williams, investigators learned Clark was in a car that was traveling towards Center Point on Parkway East when a black male suspect in a black, mid-sized car pulled up beside Clark and started to shoot into his car. After he was struck, Clark told the driver to turn around and drive to the precinct. Investigators later learned from the Jefferson County Sheriffs office that a similar shooting happened on Springville Road about ten minutes before Clark was shot, Williams said. Police believe this is a random shooting. Anyone with information on the shooting or the suspect should contact police at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers 205-254-7777. The Indian equity market is likely to open higher on Thursday, tracking firm cues from global peers and Nifty futures on Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX). Here is a list of top stocks that are likely to be in focus in today's trading session: Shares of Ashok Leyland will remain in focus after Hinduja group flagship firm acquired 27.25 per cent additional stake in Ashley Aviation Ltd (AAL), increasing its shareholding in the firm to 76.25 per cent. "The company has acquired 10,89,985 shares of Rs 10 each constituting 27.25 per cent in the paid-up share capital of Ashley Aviation Limited (AAL) at a price of Rs 5.10 per share," Ashok Leyland said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange. The Chennai-based commercial vehicle manufacturer paid Rs 55.59 lakh to acquire the additional stake in the company. It proposes to acquire the balance equity shares held by individuals in AAL before March 31, 2019. Also Read: Ashok Leyland acquires 27.25% more stake in Ashley Aviation Bank of Baroda, Dena Bank, and Vijaya Bank The cabinet on Wednesday approved the merger of public sector lenders, Vijaya Bank & Dena Bank with Bank of Baroda, to create the third-largest bank after State Bank of India and HDFC Bank. The government expects the new entity will be operational from the beginning of the next financial year. Also Read: Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank, Dena Bank merger: BoB announces share swap ratio Tata Power Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) allows BEST to extend its existing PPA with Tata Power for 676.69 MW for a period of five years from 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2024. SBI Life Insurance SBI Life Insurance has signed a pact with Syndicate Bank wherein the public sector lender will be selling its policies, according to media reports. HDFC HDFC is planning to raise up to Rs 45,000 crore through issuance of secured redeemable non-convertible debentures (NCDs) on a private placement basis. "The board of directors of the company will consider the issuance in a meeting on January 29, 2019," HDFC Bank said in a filing to the exchange. Bank of Baroda The board of Bank of Baroda has approved issuance of Tier-II Capital Bonds compliant with Basel III Capital Regulations of Rs 285 crore, with a base issue size upto Rs 100 crore and a Green shoe option to retain oversubscription upto Rs 185 crore. The board also okayed issuance of Tier-II Capital Bonds compliant with Basel III Capital Regulations of Rs 1,000 crore, with a base issue size upto Rs 250 crore and a Green shoe option to retain oversubscription upto Rs 750 crore in single or multiple tranches. Syndicate Bank State-controlled Syndicate Bank said on Wednesday that the bank plans to raise Rs 1,632 crore through issuance of equity shares to the government of India on preferential basis. The bank would also raise up to Rs 500 crore by issuing shares to its employees under the employee stock purchase scheme. "A meeting of the Board of Directors of the Company is scheduled on January 07, to consider and approve a proposal to raise capital aggregating to Rs 1,632 crore through issuance of equity shares to the government of India on preferential basis," Syndicate Bank said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange. Also Read: Sensex, Nifty seen opening higher on firm global cues; BoB, Dena and Vijaya Bank shares in focus Edited by Chitranjan Kumar The man charged with killing his former business associate in her Highland Lakes home two years ago is now being sued by another business partner. A civil suit was filed against 38-year-old Adam Burrus by his business partner Donald Mize on Dec. 27. Mize claims Burrus breached their partnership agreement by lying about his business financial situation and pocketing money he made in third-party transactions. Records from the Alabama Secretary of States Office show Burrus was the sole owner of Bass Attacker LLC, which was formed in 2014 and operated in the plastic and biodegradable bait industry. Connie Overstreet Woolweaver was not listed on official documents as being involved in the business, but she had the Bass Attacker name on her LinkedIn page. In December 2016, Woolweaver was slain in her Highland Lakes home and discovered by her 13-year-old son. She was shot several times, at least once in the head, and investigators previously described the scene as terrible. Burrus, described as a longtime friend and business associate of Woolweaver, was quickly arrested and charged with murder for her death. He was indicted by a grand jury in 2017. No motive has been released by police. Shelby County Sheriff John Samaniego said he couldnt confirm that Woolweaver-- a mother of two and Homewood native-- loaned Burrus a large sum of money. Authorities said the slaying was a crime of passion, and Samaniego said no one knew of any prior or ongoing disputes between the two. Burrus murder case is set for trial on Feb. 11. In April 2018, Mize formed the company Bama Baits and entered into a partnership with Bass Attacker to manufacture, market, and sell plastic fishing bait. According to the lawsuit, Mize paid Burrus $20,000 to become an equal owner and partner in Bass Attackers plastic mold business and the partnership would operate under the Bama Baits name. Mize and Bama Baits operated as the managing partner with exclusive management and control of the day-to-day business, the suit states. The agreement between Mize and Burrus said, among other things, that the two partners would have to unanimously vote to allocate profits and losses, that all account books would be open to either partner at all times, and that neither man should engage in business or transactions that could be competitive or in conflict with their partnership without the other partner knowing. Business funds were also to be put in an account controlled by Mize under the Bama Baits name. According to the lawsuit, Burrus used misleading and untrue figures to represent the financial situation of Bass Attacker before Mize bought into the business. Burrus did so to willfully and intentionally with the fraudulent intent to induce Bama Baits and its principal into the partnership, the lawsuit claims. The lawsuit states that Burrus violated the partnership in several ways: By issuing purchase orders in a different name with the intent to keep funds for himself, failing to turn over funds from transactions with third-party customers, lying about the manner in which funds were acquired and their amounts, preventing Mize from taking control of the company, refusing to turn over bills and debts, providing false information about customer contacts and communications, lying about insurance, and misrepresenting business opportunities. Burrus also overstated the cost of bills and manufacturing costs and kept the excess money for himself, the lawsuit states. Court records do not list an attorney for Burrus in the civil suit. Mize is suing on five counts and has asked for an undetermined amount of damages and a temporary restraining order against Burrus. An eastern Jefferson County woman is thanking God that she and her children were spared after a stranger opened fire into her vehicle, sending glass and bullets flying, one of which grazed her 14-year-old daughter. A Birmingham man, however, wasnt so fortunate. Authorities say 28-year-old Carltez Clark was killed in a separate incident a short time later when a black male in a black mid-sized car opened fire on the vehicle in which he was a passenger on Parkway East. Authorities said both shootings appeared to be random and believe they could have been carried out by the same gunman. We are using every tool at our disposal to find the person behind this reckless activity, said Birmingham police spokesman Sgt. Johnny Williams Jr. We will continue to do our part as we investigate to bring this person in. We also need the citizens to do their part, he said. We need those who have information on whos responsible for this shooting to come forward and get that information to our detectives. It all began just after midnight. Lajonia Jefferson, 40, said she and her three children ages 20, 14 and 1 - had just dropped off her sister and were returning to their own home when they stopped at a traffic light at Old Springville Road and Brewster Road. Jefferson said there were no other cars around and then she saw a dark-colored, four-door sedan stop behind them. Next, she said, the driver of that vehicle pulled around as if he was going to make a left turn. All of the sudden, she heard a pop and thought she had blown a tire. I turned on my caution lights and was going to pull off, she said. One of her children started saying your window, your window is shattered, and Jefferson pulled off while more gunfire was aimed at her vehicle. Once home, Jefferson called 911 and the Jefferson County Sheriffs Office responded. We were hit about eight times, or nine times, Jefferson said Thursday. I didnt even know the bullets came in until the police came to my home. Sheriffs officials said one of the projectiles passed through the rear door, grazing Jeffersons 14-year-old daughter. Authorities said the projectile was slowed by the door and the girls injuries consisted of bruising and abrasions. She was taken to Childrens of Alabama, where she was treated and released. Chief Deputy Randy Christian said they are evaluating any links to the similar shooting in Birmingham that led to Clarks death. Williams said in the Birmingham case, officers were alerted at 12:39 a.m. to a person shot when the victim showed up at the East Precinct on Red Lane Road. Investigators learned that the injured man Clark was a passenger in a vehicle traveling toward Center Point on Parkway East when a black male in a black, mid-sized car, pulled up and started shooting. Clark told his friend to turn around and drive to the East Precinct, Williams said. Birmingham Fire and Rescue responded to the precinct and pronounced Clark dead. He is the citys second homicide of 2019. Williams said investigators believe the shooting was random and happened just 10 minutes after the shooting into Jeffersons vehicle. We are not ruling anything out. But, based on the information that both agencies received, the time and close proximity, investigators believe they are related, he said. Jefferson said the ordeal left her shaken, but shes grateful she and her family were spared. Im just thankful were here, were still alive, she said. She said she was saddened to learn someone else had been killed. This really needs to stop. They have no clue who theyre shooting at, she said. The shooting needs to stop. The killing needs to stop. Its senseless. Anyone with information on the incident is asked to call Birmingham police at 205-254-1764, the Jefferson County Sheriffs Office at 205-325-1450, or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777. The City of Birmingham announced Wednesday that some city offices will extend their regular business hours during what is expected to be a 14-month closure of Interstate 59/20 through downtown, as the aging interstate bridges are torn down and replaced. The Birmingham Department of Finances Tax & Licensing and Cash Management divisions and the Department of Planning, Engineering and Permits (PEP) One-Stop Permitting, Condemnation and Engineering field staff will operate from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m, Monday through Friday, as construction will require the portion of I-59/20 through downtown, blocks from City Hall, to shut down for more than a year. The extended hours for the city departments will be in effect beginning Jan. 14. The city says the expanded hours will offer more opportunities for individuals needing to pay fees, apply for business licenses or other permits while City Hall may be more difficult to reach due to traffic and construction-related road closures. We encourage all downtown employers to consider innovative ways to help both employees and customers conduct business during the interstate construction project, Mayor Randall Woodfin said in the news release. Flexible hours will go a long way in helping our businesses run smoothly as possible during this transition period. The Alabama Department of Transportation has not announced what day the interstate closure will start, but said it is expected to be mid to late January. Once the interstate is closed, contractors will have 14 months to demolish and replace the aging interstate bridges through the citys central business district, according to ALDOT. The contractors will face a $250,000 penalty for each day past the 14-month deadline the interstate remains closed. Similarly, if the new interstate reopens in less than 14 months, they will receive a $250,000 bonus for each day before the deadline. The contractors also have obligations to keep at least one lane of traffic flowing north and south in three separate zones that will be affected by the construction. In addition to rebuilding the bridges, ALDOT is also converting the space under the interstate into a public park called CityWalk Bham. If the project maintains its current schedule, the interstate would reopen in March 2020, and the entire project would be complete by November 2020. Birmingham City Council President Valerie Abbott said her roof was damaged from celebratory gunfire on New Years Eve, adding that the city should expand its deployment of technology to detect shots fired to more neighborhoods. I had some holes in my roof from celebratory gunfire that came down through the roof and the roofers found the bullets, Abbot said during Wednesdays City Council meeting. Thats scary because it goes through your roof so you know what itll do to your head. Abbott said she was walking through her neighborhood in Glen Iris and said her neighbors were firing their guns to ring in 2019. There was far more gunfire than there were fireworks, she told the council. It was pretty scary. I kept on thinking: Are you an idiot for being out here walking in your neighborhood while all this gunfires going on? Abbot said the city should consider expand the shotspotter program to take in more neighborhoods than just the usual suspects. Birmingham Police Chief Patrick Smith said the shotspotter technology detected 960 shots in communities with the technology, compared to 468 shots last year. Smith noted that the increase in neighborhoods with shotspotters accounts for some of that increase. Abbott wasnt the only councilor whose home had been affected by celebratory gunfire. City Councilor Steven Hoyt said in other years, his roof has leaked from bullet holes caused by his neighbors. Itll cost you a lot of money on repairs, Hoyt said. Abbott said city residents who discharge their guns in celebration on New Years Eve are just mindless. They cant possibly be thinking when theyre doing all this shooting up in the air, she said. Plus, bullets are expensive. Youd think theyd think about that if they dont think about anything else. A woman was rushed to UAB Hospital after she was found at a gas station in west Birmingham suffering from gunshot wounds, Birmingham police said. The woman was found at a gas station in the 2400 block of Avenue E in Birminghams Ensley community, police said. She was taken to UAB Hospital. The extent of her injuries was not immediately available. The woman told police she did not know who shot her, police said. It was not immediately clear where the shooting happened. Further details about the investigation were not immediately available. Anyone with information is asked to call Birmingham police at 205-254-1700 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777. Before Alabamas newly elected Legislature can tackle issues like the gasoline tax and problems with state prisons, lawmakers must choose their leaders, fill out committee rosters and approve the rules they will operate under for four years. That will happen starting Tuesday in the once-every-four-years organizational session, mandated in the Alabama Constitution. Lawmakers cant vote on bills during the session, which can last up to 10 days. They can begin to file bills in preparation for the regular session, which starts March 5. Almost one-third of the Legislature 29 representatives and 13 senators -- are new to their positions since lawmakers last met in March 2018. But most of the top leaders wont change. In the House, the Republican caucus announced in November it would nominate Rep. Mac McCutcheon of Monrovia to return as speaker. That wont be official until the vote of the full House next week. With Republicans holding 77 of the 105 seats, the outcome is not in doubt. The caucus picked Rep. Victor Gaston of Mobile to return as speaker pro tem. Rep. Nathaniel Ledbetter of Rainsville returns as House majority leader. Rep. Anthony Daniels of Huntsville returns as leader of the Democratic minority in the House. In December, McCutcheon announced that the chairmen and vice chairmen of most of the key committees would also return. Full committee assignments will come next week. In the Senate, the Republican caucus picked Sen. Del Marsh of Anniston to return as president pro tem. Sen. Greg Reed of Jasper returns as majority leader. The formal vote comes next week but is not in doubt because Republicans hold 27 of the 35 seats. The Democratic caucus picked Sen. Bobby Singleton of Greensboro as minority leader. Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Range, said he expects to become the new chairman of the Finance and Taxation General Fund Committee, a key position previously held by Sen. Trip Pittman of Baldwin County, who did not run for reelection. Majority Leader Reed said committee chairs have been picked but said he would keep a commitment he made to the other senators not to release the list until Tuesday. Albritton said one reason he expects to be picked as the General Fund chairmanship is in the interest of geographic balance. Education budget committee chairman Arthur Orr is from Decatur in north Alabama, while Albrittons district is in the southwestern part of the state. Although up to 10 days are allowed for the organizational session, Reed said he expects it to last only two days or slightly longer because of the work already done on rules, assignments and other tasks. Reed does not expect any major changes to the Senate rules. It seemed that we were able to function pretty well under the rules that we had, Republican and Democrat, Reed said. House Majority Leader Ledbetter said he also does not expect any major changes in the House rules from the previous four years. House Minority Leader Daniels said it will be important for him and others in the caucus to become experts on the rules, partly because some of the most experienced Democrats in the House did not return. When it comes to committee assignments, Daniels said a priority for him is that districts that are home to state universities have Democratic representatives on the education budget committee. Thats important to me, as the leader, to make certain that the voices are heard of all my colleagues and their constituents, Daniels said. And a part of their constituency is these higher education institutions. Looking ahead to the regular session in March, a proposal to increase the gasoline tax to provide more money to improve, expand and maintain roads, bridges and other infrastructure is expected to be a main issue. Republican leaders Marsh and McCutcheon and Gov. Kay Ivey are among proponents of raising the gas tax because they say it no longer provides enough money to support a sufficient road system. Lawmakers last raised the gas tax in 1992, when they added 5 cents a gallon. Were still trying to fund the aging infrastructure on something that was passed in 1992, Ledbetter said. So the governor has certainly made that a priority. House Minority Leader Daniels and Senate Minority Leader Singleton say they have not seen a gas tax proposal and are withholding judgement on the idea. Daniels said lawmakers must be sensitive to how a higher tax could affect some families, especially in areas where the jobless rate is higher than most of the state. We know that infrastructure has to be a priority, Daniels said. But we have to make certain that were very conscious of how it could indirectly impact families. While Republican leaders are advocating more investment in highways, Democratic leaders Daniels and Singleton say their caucuses will continue to press for more investment in health care, specifically through Medicaid expansion. It makes business sense, Daniels said, noting that the Alabama Hospital Association is waging a public awareness campaign about the need for Medicaid expansion, partly to help save financially troubled hospitals, especially in rural areas. Ledbetter said he does not expect the Republican caucus to support Medicaid expansion. But he does expect Medicaid funding and the plight of some hospitals to be an issue. The Medicaid issue is going to be an issue that well certainly be talking about, Ledbetter said. Weve had some rural hospitals to close, unfortunately. We want to look at that closely. Tax revenues that support education, especially income taxes, grew substantially last year, the strongest surge since the Great Recession a decade ago. When the regular session begins in March, lawmakers should have more money to appropriate for schools, possibly more than in any previous year. I think this will be the largest education budget our state has ever seen, Ledbetter said. As for how to allocate the education dollars, one proposal that appears to have support in both parties is expansion of the states acclaimed prekindergarten program. The First Class pre-k program has consistently received recognition for high standards, such as teacher qualifications, curriculum and class sizes. But although funding has increased substantially over the last few years, its still available to only about one-third of the states 4-year-olds. Daniels and Ledbetter both said more funding should be a priority. Daniels said lawmakers should promote partnerships with foundations and corporations that could help make the program more widely available. Ledbetter said the House Republican caucus might break this year with its standard practice of introducing an agenda of bills. Those proposals generally get attention early in the legislative session. Ledbetter said that has sometimes resulted in the House getting bogged down on issues that arent necessarily the most broad-based in their impact. He said the caucus might try a different approach this year, identifying a few signature issues rather than a list of specific bills. Dont be surprised if you dont see a Republican platform, Ledbetter said. We may just tag three different issues and say, Weve got to fix infrastructure, weve got to do this and this is a priority. Bird Box, is a hit with viewers but theres a dangerous trend inspired by the dark Netflix movie. The film, which stars Sandra Bullock, is set in a world where people must wear blindfolds or risk being possessed by creatures that make them kill themselves. The movies plot centers around Bullocks characters dangerous journey with her children, Boy and Girl, all accomplished while she cant see. Not content with just watching the movie, people have come up with the Bird Box challenge in which they try to compete tasks while blindfolded. Some of the challenges are pretty harmless see the GMA makeup attempts while others could result in injury. The trend, which has been shared on social media, spread enough so that Netflix eventually weighed in to warn people against it. Cant believe I have to say this, but: PLEASE DO NOT HURT YOURSELVES WITH THIS BIRD BOX CHALLENGE. We dont know how this started, and we appreciate the love, but Boy and Girl have just one wish for 2019 and it is that you not end up in the hospital due to memes. Netflix US (@netflix) January 2, 2019 The online media company announced last month that Bird Box had been streamed by 45 million accounts, setting a new record for the best-ever first week for a Netflix film. An Alabama man is accused of pushing a television stand that landed on a toddler, causing the boy to lose three toes. The Tuscaloosa News reported Wednesday that 23-year-old Kendrick Antwan Woods was charged with second-degree assault Dec. 20. Court records show Woods was involved in an argument with his girlfriend at University Manor on Aug. 5. According to police records, the woman asked him to leave the apartment. A Tuscaloosa police investigator wrote that Woods then came back into her apartment and pushed over the TV stand, chopping off the child's toes. The woman told officers Woods was aware the boy was standing in front of the TV stand at the time. Its unclear if Woods has a lawyer who could comment. The man accused of shooting his wife dead before turning the gun on himself in downtown Montgomery has died, Montgomery police said. The shooting happened about 6 p.m. Dec. 26 in the 100 block of Commerce Street. Police say 58-year-old Theron Herbert fatally shot his wife, 58-year-old Lana Herbert, soon after they concluded a meeting with an attorney regarding divorce proceedings. It appeared Theron Herbert shot his wife before shooting himself, police said. Police responded and found both of them suffering from gunshot wounds. Lana Herbert was pronounced dead at the scene. Theron Herbert was taken to Jackson Hospital with serious injuries from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead late in the evening on Dec. 27, police said. Police said he would have been charged with murder had he survived. Further details about the shooting and investigation were not immediately available. The new year has brought a social media vow from Roy Moore to reveal more details about the 2017 U.S. Senate race he lost to Democrat Doug Jones in light of a now-uncovered disinformation campaign designed to influence voters. Moore, twice elected as the states chief justice of the Supreme Court and subsequently removed from the high court, posted on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon that he would be providing more information about the campaign to discredit him. There are many false and misleading accounts on social media about me, it is about time I speak for myself! Moores Twitter post said. Come join the growing Conservative movement in Alabama and follow @RealJudgeMoore for more details about how the Dem's hacked my race! #staytuned There are many false and misleading accounts on social media about me, it is about time I speak for myself! Come join the growing Conservative movement in Alabama and follow @RealJudgeMoore for more details about how the Dem's hacked my race! #staytuned Judge Roy Moore (@RealJudgeMoore) January 2, 2019 It was the first message posted on the Twitter account since Dec. 30, 2017. There has been no other information posted from Moore but the tweet is perhaps an indication that Moore does not plan to let the issue fade from the public spotlight. Jones has called for an investigation into the case and Reid Hoffman, the billionaire who gave $750,000 to the group linked to the anti-Moore campaign, has apologized. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has said he plans to review the issue of the disinformation campaign, telling The Washington Post last month, The information is concerning. The impact it had on the election is something thats significant for us to explore, and well go from there." The New York Times broke the story Dec. 19 about the efforts to derail Moores campaign by Democratic tech experts, which worked to spread disinformation about Moore on Facebook and Twitter. The campaign was modeled after Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election, according to The Times. The projects operators created a Facebook page on which they posed as conservative Alabamians, using it to try to divide Republicans and even to endorse a write-in candidate to draw votes from Mr. Moore, The Times said in its report. It involved a scheme to link the Moore campaign to thousands of Russian accounts that suddenly began following the Republican candidate on Twitter, a development that drew national media attention. Though the disinformation campaign was designed to help him be elected, Jones told reporters before Christmas that he was as outraged as anyone else over the project. Updated Jan. 4, 2019, to clarify that Marshall plans to review the disinformation campaign. Shares of Bank of Baroda climbed over 3 per cent on Thursday after the public sector lender announced the swap ratio for the proposed merger of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank. The investors also cheered the bank's plan to raise fund up to Rs 1,285 crore by issuing Basel III compliant bonds. Following the announcement, shares of Bank of Baroda gained as much as 3.30 per cent to touch an intra-day high of Rs 123.35 apiece, after opening higher at Rs 121.80 compared to the previous close of 119.40 on the BSE. Holding early gains, shares were currently trading at Rs 120.90 apiece, up 1.26 per cent. On the National Stock Exchange, stocks of the bank were trading at Rs 120.90, up 1.30 per cent. Bucking the trend, shares of Dena Bank plunged as much as 20 per cent to Rs 14.40 on the BSE amid spurt in volume trade. According to data available with exchange, as much as 21.31 lakh shares have changed hand over the counter as compared to two-week average of 2.94 lakh shares. Also Read: Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank, Dena Bank merger: BoB announces share swap ratio In a similar trend, Vijaya Bank shares tumbled 7.4 per cent in intra-day trade as investors gave thumbs down to share-swap ratio on its merger with Bank of Baroda. The Union Cabinet on Wednesday gave its approval for the proposed merger of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank with Bank of Baroda. Also Read: Cabinet approves merger of Vijaya Bank, Dena Bank with Bank of Baroda As per the scheme of amalgamation, shareholders of Vijaya Bank will get 402 equity shares of Rs 2 each of Bank of Baroda for every 1,000 shares held of Rs 10 each. Similarly, Dena Bank's shareholders will get 110 shares of Rs 2 each of Bank of Baroda for every 1,000 shares held of Rs 10 each. In September last year, the government had announced the merger of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank with Bank of Baroda to create the third-largest bank after State Bank of India and HDFC Bank. The government expects the new entity will be operational from the beginning of the next financial year. Meanwhile, the benchmark index BSE Sensex was trading lower by 242.29 points, or 0.68 per cent, at 35,649.23. Eidted by Chitranjan Kumar U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled today in favor of public access to information about the state prison system, ordering that correctional officer staffing reports be made public sooner than the Alabama Department of Corrections wanted. The ADOC wanted the quarterly reports on how many correctional officers work in each state prison sealed for 12 months, arguing that the prison-specific information could pose a security risk. Thompson ordered that the information become public after five months, granting the request of lawyers representing inmates who sued the ADOC. Thompson wrote that the publics interest in ensuring the constitutionality of Alabamas prisons and in the judicious stewardship of taxpayer dollars weighed in favor of the shorter delay. The court finds that the benefit outweighs the cost if a five-month delay is used to balance the competing interests, Thompson wrote. The ruling is the latest development in the lawsuit over mental health care in Alabama prisons, filed in 2014. In June 2017, Thompson ruled the care was horrendously inadequate and in violation of the U.S. Constitutions prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The judge found that the shortage of mental health staff and correctional staff was an overarching factor. In February 2018, Thompson ordered the ADOC to file quarterly reports on mental health staffing and correctional staffing under seal. Lawyers representing the inmates, including attorneys from the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program, asked Thompson to unseal the reports. The ADOC agreed to unseal the mental health staffing numbers but opposed releasing the correctional staffing numbers broken down by facility. The ADOC agreed to unseal the system-wide correctional staff numbers. The ADOC acknowledged that the staffing numbers were published monthly on the ADOCs website until Thompsons ruling in June 2017. Tonight, the ADOC issued a statement in response to Thompsons ruling: The Alabama Department of Corrections will continue to comply with the courts directives on the timing of the disclosure of staffing information. ADOC is committed to ensuring that the court and public are kept informed of the current operational staffing situation of the states correctional system. The ADOC holds the safety of correctional staff and those in the departments custody as one of its greatest responsibilities. The staffing shortage is significant. The Associated Press reported that ADOC Commissioner Jeff Dunn said the agency needs to hire 1,800 to 2,000 more officer, almost doubling the staff. Last month, Dunn told the Legislatures contract review committee that the ADOC planned to submit a plan to the Legislature for increasing correctional officer compensation to help recruit and retain officers. Last year, the ADOC increased pay for officers in the states maximum security prisons by 10 percent and gave those in medium security prisons a 5 percent boost. The increase boosted the starting salary for an entry-level officer with a high school diploma to $31,368 at a maximum security prison and to $29,942 at a medium security prison. Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, said lawmakers face tough decisions about how to adequately fund prison staffing. Ward said its difficult to find people candidates to work inside a prison when there are better paying jobs in law enforcement with cities and counties. Thompson is scheduled to hold a hearing on Monday in the case. The judge ordered the ADOC to show why it should not be held in contempt of court for failing to meet deadlines for expanding the mental health staff in prisons. The ADOC has said it is making all reasonable efforts to do so but has not been able to meet the courts benchmarks because of circumstances outside its control. Updated at 9:57 p.m. to add statement from the Alabama Department of Corrections. The ongoing government shutdown could jeopardize funding for more than 751,000 Alabamians who depend on food stamps. The U.S. Department of Agriculture office, which oversees food stamps - official known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - said recipients will receive their benefits in January. There are no assurances after that if President Trump and Congress fail to reach a funding deal to restore services to the 25 percent of government agencies, including the USDA, that are impacted by the shutdown. SNAP provides important nutritional support for low-wage working families, low-income seniors, and people with disabilities living on fixed incomes. Barry Spear, spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Human Resources, said Alabamas SNAP program is impacted the same as all other states with no assurance of funding past January. As of September, the month for which the most recent data was available, 751,235 Alabamians - or 353,530 households - depend on food stamps with the average recipient receiving $118 per month. Nationally, close to 70 percent of SNAP recipients are in families with children; nearly a third are in households with seniors or people with disabilities. The federal government pays the full cost of SNAP benefits and splits the cost of administering the program with the states, which operate the program. Other domestic nutrition assistance programs, including the Commodity Supplemental Food Program and WIC will continue using state funds, according to USDA guidance. The Child Nutrition Program, which includes school lunch and breakfast and the summer food service, will continue operations into February but there are no assurances past that time, the guidance said. Currently, about 95 percent of USDA employees are furloughed waiting for the shutdown to end. The government shutdown is now in its 12th day and the president and Congress seem no closer to an agreement on funding a $5 billion wall at the U.S./Mexico border. On Wednesday, the president said he would not accept anything less than $2.5 billion for the wall, adding the shutdown could last a long time or it could end quickly. The 116th Congress starts tomorrow, with Democrats in control of the House and Republicans leading the Senate. Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in deer populations is inching closer to the state of Alabama deer herd. No cases have been found yet and the ADCNR wants to keep it that way. Chuck Sykes, wildlife biologist and Director of the Alabama Wildlife & Freshwater Fisheries division, explained the reason for the expanded CWD sampling stations being set up over the next two weekends in northwest Alabama. The Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries has been conducting active disease surveillance for CWD since 2002, following the confirmation of CWD in Wisconsin. More than 8,000 deer have been tested with no deer testing positive for CWD in Alabama." The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources is increasing Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) sampling surveillance efforts in northwest Alabama after deer in nearby Mississippi and Tennessee counties tested CWD-positive. The deer were discovered approximately 40 miles from the Alabama border. CWD is a contagious and deadly neurological disorder that affects members of the deer family. As CWD impacts the brain of the animal, its typical awareness of its surroundings is affected, explaining the higher predominance of CWD in road-killed animals, Sykes explained. The testing of road-kills and those from our hunter harvested deer can greatly increase our ability to test a more thorough sample of the deer population in that area. CWD symptoms may take 18-24 months to express themselves, so a deer may have this disease but yet appear and act as a normal deer. There is no way to tell a deer has CWD other than through testing, illustrating the importance of these surveillance efforts." The Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries (WFF) will conduct a voluntary CWD-sampling station Jan. 4-6 in Hackleburg, Alabama, in Marion County, and Jan. 12-13 in Waterloo, Alabama, in Lauderdale County. The sampling station in Marion County will be set up in the parking lot of Hackleburg Hardware, 125 Boyd Street, Hackleburg, AL 35564. This is located at the intersection of Boyd Street and Highway 172. Deer may be brought to Hackleburg for sampling during the following dates and times: Friday, January 4 from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.Saturday, January 5 from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.Sunday, January 6 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The sampling station in Lauderdale County will be set up in the parking lot of Waterloo Fire Station #1, 6390 County Road 14, Waterloo, AL 35677. Deer may be brought to Waterloo for sampling during the following dates and times: Saturday, January 12 from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.Sunday, January 13 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Deer harvested in Franklin, Marion, Lamar, Lauderdale and Colbert counties are being targeted, but biologists will sample deer from surrounding counties as well. Sampling involves removing the retropharyngeal lymph nodes from the head of a deer. Hunters may bring in a whole deer, field-dressed deer, or just the head from the harvested animal. Collecting a sample from a harvested deer takes only a few minutes. Ana Franklin, the embattled outgoing Morgan County sheriff, today entered a guilty plea to a misdemeanor federal tax charge. Franklin, 54, pleaded guilty in a federal courtroom in Huntsville to willful failure to file a tax return. I plead guilty, your honor, Franklin told U.S. Magistrate Judge Herman N. Johnson Jr. after he read her rights and the prosecutor described the crime with which the sheriff was charged. Sentencing is May 13 at 11 a.m. Morgan County Sheriff Ana Franklin pleaded guilty just minutes ago to a misdemeanor federal tax charge. Sentencing is Monday, May 13 at 11 a.m. in Huntsvilles federal courthouse pic.twitter.com/wzng4oTSGT Ashley Remkus (@aremkus1) January 3, 2019 Last month Franklin signed court records saying she planned to plead guilty. Her arraignment initially set for Jan. 10 in Birmingham was rescheduled to happen this morning in Huntsville. At arraignment, defendants enter their pleas of guilty or not guilty. Franklin pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge of willful failure to file a tax return. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Posey told the judge today that Franklin failed to file a 2015 tax return with the Internal Revenue Service by the April 15, 2016 deadline. Franklin faces up to a year in prison and a fine up to $100,000. Federal prosecutors said in court records they are leaving it up to the judge whether Franklin should serve prison time or be allowed to serve her sentence on house arrest or probation. Prosecutors will recommend that the defendant be awarded an appropriate reduction in offense level for acceptance of responsibility, court records state. Defense attorney William Gray said previously that Franklin filed the tax return months after it was due. Gray said Franklin is expected to complete her term as sheriff, which ends in less than two weeks. Franklins successor, Hartselle police Chief Ron Puckett, will take office Jan. 15. Franklin did not seek a third term during this years election. During her two terms, Franklin has been the subject of numerous investigations and lawsuits. Read more here. A day after a previously-deported Mexican national charged with raping an Alabama juvenile came to light, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall delivered a clear message: Build the wall. In a Thursday morning press release coming a day after AL.com reported on the charge against Amancio Betancourt Martinez, Marshall spoke out. Alabamians were shocked to learn of the brutal murder of a little 13-year-old girl in our state last year by affiliates of the Mexican drug cartel, Marshall said in a statement. Tragedy struck south Alabama when a woman riding her bike was hit and killed by an illegal immigrant who fled the scene, knowing that hed already been deported twice. This week, we learned that a criminal alien previously deported for drug crimes illegally reentered the countryeven returning to Alabama where his original crimes were committedand was charged with the rape of a minor. Where does it end? When does it end? It ends with a border wall as the backbone of a serious and effective border-security strategy that protects Alabamians and all Americans. Illicit drugs and violent crime are the legacy of ignoring border protection. Where does it end? When does it end? It ends with a border wall as the backbone of a serious and effective border-security strategy that protects Alabamians and all Americans. https://t.co/VyoJol2uAk AG Steve Marshall (@AGSteveMarshall) January 3, 2019 With the federal government in its second week of a partial shutdown, Marshall joined the chorus of Alabama Republicans in Congress backing President Trumps stance insisting on border wall funding be part of any deal to reach a budget agreement and bring the government fully back to life. Marshalls position comes as no surprise, given that he participated last year in a White House panel discussion on border security, but he provided a new voice Thursday to the ongoing national debate. His comments were released less than two hours before U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-California, was expected to be elected Speaker of the House as Democrats won majority control of the lower chamber in the November mid-terms. Democrats have made clear they do not plan to provide funding for a border wall in the standoff with Trump. It is the fundamental role of government to provide for the safety and security of its citizens and yet many in Washington, D.C., shirk this basic duty in order to score political points, Marshall said. Shame on them and shame on Speaker Pelosi for turning a blind eye to continued security threats to Americans by refusing to fund a border wall and the vital operations of U.S. Homeland Security. As Alabamas Attorney General, I am deeply troubled by the steady stream of dangerous illegal drugs entering my state and the impact it has on our citizens and law enforcement. Drug trafficking, human trafficking and many violent crimes committed in Alabama can be traced to criminal elements crossing our countrys borders and the failure of current efforts to secure our border. As the new Congress began Thursday, Alabama Republicans spoke out spurred both by the timing of the new session beginning and the news of the Mexican national charged with rape in their home state. The heinous rape committed by a previously deported illegal alien against an American juvenile in Shelby County, Alabama is exactly why we need stronger border security, U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Huntsville, posted Wednesday on Facebook as he shared AL.coms report. This sickening crime was entirely avoidable, yet Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer continue to obstruct Republican efforts to secure our border to help prevent awful crimes like this one against Americans. The heinous rape committed by a previously deported illegal alien against an American juvenile in Shelby County, Alabama... Posted by Congressman Mo Brooks on Wednesday, January 2, 2019 U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Saks, echoed Brooks sentiments on Thursday. National stats are alarming, but stories like this are too close to home, Rogers posted on Twitter. We need to #BuildTheWall NOW! I will continue to stand with @realDonaldTrump to fight for our national security and the safety of all Americans and folks across #Alabama. National stats are alarming, but stories like this are too close to home. We need to #BuildTheWall NOW! I will continue to stand with @realDonaldTrump to fight for our national security and the safety of all Americans and folks across #Alabama. https://t.co/mRy8S1TTsq Mike Rogers (@RepMikeRogersAL) January 3, 2019 U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Fairhope, posted a video statement on Twitter on Thursday morning. We have an illegal immigrant from the Birmingham area who has been arrested and charged with a brutal rape of an innocent woman, Byrne said in the video. Thats on top of an innocent police officer in California being killed by an illegal immigrant. Both of these two illegal immigrants had been deported. Border security is national security. Border security is your security. What were fighting for here is the safety and security of the American people. The Democrats need to get into this and work this out with us. We know we need the wall, they know we need the wall. Mike Rickman is now Bradford Health Services' chief executive officer. Rickman, who became the Birmingham-based recovery services' president last year, becomes only the fourth CEO in the companys 40-year-history. Rickman said he was honored by the position. Bradford has a strong platform with unique opportunities to expand access to care, improve outcomes and achieve significant growth," he said. Prior to joining Bradford, Rickman spent 25 years in healthcare, with stints at Tenet Healthcare, Brookwood Medical Center and Practice Partners in Healthcare. He also served as Shelby Baptist Medical Center CEO. According to Bradford Health, W. Clayton Simmons, the current CEO and a founder of the company, will become chairman of the board. His tenure spans more than three decades with the company and its entities, covering a quarter of a million patients and their families. He will also continue to represent Bradford Health Services with the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers and other national trade organizations. Simmons said he was proud of his time in building Bradford, and he looks forward to working with Rickman. Mike has made a tremendous impact in his short tenure with Bradford, Simmons said. He has strengthened our clinical and operational capabilities while keeping patient care at the forefront of Bradfords focus. With Mikes leadership, Bradford is well positioned to continue to expand its geographic footprint and service offerings to meet the growing demand for behavioral health treatment. The Donald Trump administration is providing the Lebanese army with more than $100 million in upgrades to tanks and attack helicopters in the latest US effort to stem the influence of Iran-backed Hezbollah. The package includes training for pilots and maintenance crew on MD-530G light scout attack helicopters provided by the Pentagon last year as well as laser-guided rockets, according to Defense Department records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Security Assistance Monitor. Lebanon will receive the equipment through the Defense Departments Section 333 program, which helps US partners build their military inventories to fight terrorism and handle border security. The Pentagon has indicated that the upgrades have long been in the works to help the Lebanese army stem the influence of Iran and Hezbollah as the organizations activity has spread inside Syria. The package will also include sniper rifles, night-vision devices and mortars for infantry units. The Department of Defense (DoD) plans Section 333 security cooperation including the assistance in question well in advance according to our plans to strengthen the capabilities of key partners in the region, Pentagon spokeswoman Rebecca Rebarich told Al-Monitor in a statement. Strengthening the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) advances a range of US interests in the Middle East that includes not only countering the spread of violent extremisms but also stemming the influence of Iran and Hezbollah. With al-Qaeda and the Islamic State on the run, top Trump administration officials including national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have called for the United States to take a harder line against Iran. But some experts arent sure aid to the Lebanese army fits the emerging American policy in the region. The Pentagon has provided $1.7 billion in US military assistance to Lebanon since 2006, including tanks and attack helicopters sent over last year. Experts say the United States still holds a good record when it comes to keeping track of the equipment, despite the federal Government Accountability Office finding flaws in the State Departments monitoring efforts in 2014. But its not clear that arming the LAF will help mitigate Hezbollahs influence in the country. Lawmakers in Lebanon have failed to agree on the formation of a government since elections in May, which saw Hezbollah make gains over Sunni Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Hariri has criticized Hezbollah for impeding the process of forming the Cabinet, which is split by law between the countrys religious blocs. Irans influence has been ascendant in Lebanon since the country faced a brutal 15-year civil war, which ended in 1990. Experts tell Al-Monitor that while US assistance is of limited military significance, only helping on a limited counterterror mission that has little relevance to the nations security, it gives the United States some influence at the bargaining table. These insurgencies are not an issue anymore, Hanin Ghaddar, a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute, told Al-Monitor. Its more about leverage that the United States would like to keep. Its the only leverage that the United States has over state institutions. While information on Section 333 had long been made widely available through Congress, the Defense Department recently began categorizing the records as For Official Use Only, making them more difficult for journalists and members of the public to obtain. During his tenure as secretary of defense, James Mattis sought to limit access to unclassified records and said DoD employees were obligated to report leaks. Correction: Jan. 4, 2019. This article has been revised to delete an outdated reference to sectarianism within the Lebanese Armed Forces. The US-backed coalition to defeat the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS) is scrambling to rejigger its mission following President Donald Trumps decision to pull American troops out of Syria. In a message to coalition member nations sent on Dec. 19, just as Trump announced the phased withdrawal of 2,000 US service members from Syria over the next 30 days, the coalition said it must continue its preparations for the next phase of its campaign despite the American decision. We remain fully committed to assisting the government of Iraq to continue to fight the remaining elements of ISIS in Iraq and those that threaten Iraq from Syria, the coalition said in a message obtained by Al-Monitor. The coalition should increase its focus on disrupting ISISs global network through increased information sharing and complementary efforts on counter-finance, counter-messaging and security-law enforcement. The 73-nation alliance, which had been represented on the US side by presidential envoy Brett McGurk before he resigned over the Syria pullout on Dec. 20, plans to meet at a Feb. 6 ministerial to discuss the next steps in uprooting IS. But it remains unclear what role the United States will have in the campaign going forward, even as Trump has suggested in subsequent tweets that the Syria withdrawal will occur more slowly than initially indicated. The coalition statement indicates that it still seeks the enduring defeat of IS by stabilizing liberated areas and stopping the spread of the group. The US president, however, tweeted Dec. 23 that his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, would eradicate the remnants of the caliphate. Though Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, a leading architect of the counter-IS campaign, has left the Pentagon, the US administration reportedly maintains military options to deal with the group. On Dec. 22, the New York Times reported that American commandos could strike at the remnants of the group from outposts in Iraq. Yet as the coalition struggles to realign its mandate, US military officials have offered an uncharacteristically frank assessment of the years-long US effort to build up Iraqs military, which faced significant attrition in the fight against IS. In testimony to lawmakers last month, Marine Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the incoming head of US Central Command, called the Iraqi Security Forces a competent force. But he said that key factions, such as the elite counterterrorism service that suffered 40% losses in the Mosul fight last year, has yet to receive a break to recover and reconstitute after IS' territorial defeat in Iraq. Iraqs border force, McKenzie added, was decimated after IS' 2014 campaign. It remains undermanned and poorly equipped, he said, and would need two years to reach full capability. Whats more, McKenzie said in testimony submitted to Congress in December, Iraq will not be able to pay for the maintenance of US-supplied equipment. Is the border porous? Most likely so, Army Col. Jonathan Byrom, deputy director of US operations in Iraq, told Al-Monitor at a December briefing at the Pentagon. The United States also will face questions in 2019 over whether to integrate Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Units into the bulk of the Iraqi Security Forces, which would mean training and equipping the Shiite units. The Iraqi army, experts say, only has the capability to support small vehicles on its own. They dont have a lot of money, said Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The government has been on an austerity budget for a while. The fight for investment is very, very intense. That could become a major problem for Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, whose government has been on an austerity budget even as citizens demand the restoration of the electrical grid and potable water in key Sunni cities destroyed in the fight against IS. Meanwhile, the Shiite-dominated militias expect to be rewarded for helping defeat the group and save Iraq. Theyre going to want pensions, theyre going to want all of that, and [Iraqs] economic situation doesnt allow for that, said Alex Mello, an analyst with Horizon Client Access. A few years down the road, theyll have all of these pissed-off guys who fought against IS who arent getting paid. Turkey has never made any secret of its hatred of Brett McGurk, the prominent former State Department official who resigned in protest last month over President Donald Trumps decision to pull out US troops from northeastern Syria. Turkeys Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had publicly called on Washington to sack the man. A Turkish prosecutor weighed a criminal complaint calling for his arrest on terror charges. In private conversations lubricated with expensive Scotch, Turkish officials wished him an even darker fate. In Ankaras eyes, McGurk was the main architect of the US-led coalitions alliance with Turkeys enemy, the Syrian Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG), in the battle against the Islamic State. It's a measure of just how deep the anger against McGurk burns that even after he stepped down, TRT International, the Turkish state broadcasters English-language propaganda channel, ripped into the Columbia-trained lawyer today. Was McGurk the new Lawrence of Arabia?, TRT asked in reference to the controversial British officer-cum-archaeologist and then spy who encouraged the Arabs to rise up against the Ottomans around the First World War. Recalling McGurks long years dealing primarily with Iraq starting with the US occupation in 2003, TRT contended that the Iraqi Constitution was "one of his creations and that "many experts think it had divided the country along ethnic and sectarian lines and dragged the country back into the path of violence. Not only that: The Kurds of Iraq had gasp secured a legal status. It's an interesting accusation. Turkey is arguably among the biggest enablers of the Iraqi Kurds near independent status because it allows the Kurds to sell their oil through a purpose-built pipeline running from oil fields in Iraqi Kurdistan to loading terminals on the Turkish Mediterranean coast. Baghdad insists it is a breach of its sovereignty. Turkish leaders, most notably late President Turgut Ozal, have expressed interest in reclaiming parts of Mosul on the grounds that it was unlawfully wrested by the British from the Ottomans. As for sectarianism, Turkeys support for Muslim Brotherhood-linked Sunni Iraqis has prompted the same sort of accusation against Ankara. And while Turkey together with Iran led the chorus of protest against last years referendum on Kurdish independence, quite a few Iraqi Kurds blame McGurk for the debacle that ensued. McGurk vocally opposed the timing of the plebiscite if not its substance and pushed hard for its deferment. Some prominent Kurdish leaders argue that his efforts to keep former Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in power came at their expense. In Syria, the Kurds clearly share Turkeys view that McGurk was their biggest friend. The tidal wave of eulogies on Twitter following his announcement that he was stepping down attest to their affection and high regard. But the move to partner with the YPG was made by the Barack Obama administration, when interagency consultations were still the backbone of decision-making. McGurk certainly played an important role but without the president and the Pentagons support, the decision to arm and train the YPG could not have been made. He led the implementation on the ground, which made him the public face of a policy that he was not solely responsible for and the pitfalls of which he was well aware, a US official speaking on strict condition of anonymity told Al-Monitor. The hard truth is that Turkey had months as that decision was being discussed to put a better option the table, but never did. Ultimately, the continued scapegoating of McGurk speaks to Turkeys stubborn refusal to ever find fault with itself. President Donald Trumps surprise announcement last month that hes withdrawing US troops from Syria was met with a strong bipartisan rebuke from Congress. But several notable Democrats were silent including those with presidential aspirations. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the first Democrat to formally take steps to run against Trump in 2020, became the first presidential aspirant to address Syria on Wednesday. And she partially agrees with him on the military withdrawal. I think it is right to get our troops out of Syria, Warren said in an interview on MSNBC as she simultaneously endorsed a US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Everybody who kept saying no, no, no, you cant do that in the defense establishment needs to explain what they think winning in those wars looks like and where the metrics are. Why it matters: Warrens remarks echo Trumps defense of his Syria withdrawal. They also illustrate a dilemma for Democrats hoping to woo the party's progressive base, which views US military intervention with skepticism despite disdain for the president. The idea that the way were going to do that is just to continue to keep troops and more troops forever and ever in that part of the world, its not working, said Warren, who sits on the Armed Services Committee. Similarly, Trump tweeted earlier this week, I campaigned against the NEVER ENDING WARS, remember! Allies wanted: But the Massachusetts Democrat also took pains to ensure that she implicitly rebuked the commander-in-chief. When you withdraw, youve got to withdraw as part of a plan, Warren said. Youve got to know what youre trying to accomplish throughout the Middle East and that piece needs to be coordinated We actually need to plan this out and talk about with our allies how we ensure more safety and stability in the region. The fate of Americas Kurdish allies in Syria in particular is an open question once US troops leave for good. The United States has backed the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) against the Islamic State, which still maintains a small presence in eastern Syria. The support prompted Turkey, which deems the YPG a terrorist group, to threaten an offensive. Following Trumps announcement, the Kurds have appealed to the Syrian regime, Russia and France to shield it from Ankaras wrath. "We want to protect the Kurds," Trump said on Wednesday. "But I don't want to be in Syria forever. It's sand, and it's death." Whats next: For now, Warren remains the only potential Democratic challenger to address Trumps latest shift on Syria. It remains to be seen how other progressives and more centrist challengers tackle the issue. Trump has also backed down on his initial 30-day deadline for withdrawal, simply stating on Wednesday that it would happen over a period of time. Know more: Read Diplomatic Correspondent Laura Rozen for the latest on Trumps walkback of the withdrawal timeline. And be sure to read Pentagon Correspondent Jack Detschs deep dive into how the US-led coalition intends to finish the campaign against the Islamic State without troops in Syria. - Bryant Harris The taxman was plenty busy today. While the Income Tax department today carried out raids on five popular restaurant chains in Chennai, in Karnataka the residences of the bigwigs of Kannada film industry in a simultaneous statewide exercise. IT raids are were conducted at the offices of Saravana Bhavan, Hot Breads, the Anjappar group and two groups of Grand Sweets in Chennai following complaints of alleged tax evasion, NDTV reported. The tax authorities conducted searches in 32 locations in the city, including the homes and offices of the directors of the restaurant groups, however the restaurants' daily operations were reportedly not affected. "We have information that these groups have been indulging in large scale tax evasion over the last several years. Only after investigation at these places, we would be able to assess," a senior officer told the media company. Among the restaurant chains under the scanner in Chennai, Saravana Bhavan is the most well-known, with outlets in 20 countries including the US, the UK, France and Australia. The Anjappar group, specialising in Chettinad cuisine, has 70 outlets, in India and abroad, while bakery chain Hot Breads has branches in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Meanwhile, Karnataka was rocked by raids on the residences of four top Kannada film actors and three leading producers. Officials told PTI that the raids were carried out across 23 locations in the state and involved around 200 sleuths. According to sources, the raids on one of the places unearthed a huge cache of cash and gold ornaments. The IT officials had even brought a goldsmith along to evaluate the seized ornaments. With PTI inputs Edited by Sushmita Agarwal Also Read: 26 firms evince interest in conducting a special audit of telcos: DoT sources IT Dept allows manual filing by resident, NRI taxpayers for lower or nil rate TDS certificate ED moves court for open-ended NBW against 4 directors of Guj firm in Rs 5,000 crore case WASHINGTON President Donald Trump, meeting with his shrunken Cabinet today for the first time in the new year amid a government shutdown, said he was still determined to remove US forces from Syria. But he suggested possible flexibility in the pace of the US withdrawal that he abruptly announced last month, prompting the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. I never said fast or slow, Trump said, answering a journalists question about his timetable for a US withdrawal from Syria during a televised, 100-minute Cabinet meeting today. Somebody said four months, but I did not say that either. We are getting out of Syria, Trump asserted. Look, we dont want Syria, Trump continued, explaining that his predecessor Barack Obama gave up Syria years ago when he didnt enforce his red line on Syrias use of chemical weapons. So Syria was lost long ago." We're talking about sand and death, Trump said. We're not talking about vast wealth. Trump, who visited US troops in Iraq for the first time over the Christmas holiday, did not repeat his claim from last month that the so-called Islamic State in Syria (known as IS or ISIS) had been entirely defeated. But he said he was open to arguments that the United States should not abandon the Kurds, who provided many of the forces on the ground who helped the US-led coalition seize territory once held by IS. Now the Kurds, its very interesting, Turkey doesnt like them, other people do, Trump said. At the same time, they fight better when we fight with them. We want to protect the Kurds nevertheless, Trump said. But I dont want to be in Syria forever. It is sand and death. Trump also rejected any claims that Russia or Iran were celebrating his announced plans to leave Syria, arguing they faced a significant threat from IS as well. If we go, everyone says, then they [IS] will come to our country. Well, thats possibly true, a very small percentage, Trump reasoned. But you know where else they are going? To Iran, who hates ISIS more than we do. They are going to Russia, who hates ISIS more than we do." And then I read, when we pull out Russias thrilled, Trump continued. "Russias not happy. You know why Russia is not happy? Because they like it when we are killing ISIS, because we are killing them [IS] for them. And we are killing them for Assad. And we are killing ISIS also for Iran. Trumps remarks come as US national security adviser John Bolton, US Syria envoy Jim Jeffrey and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford are expected to travel to Turkey and Israel early this month for discussions on a deliberate and coordinated US withdrawal, a National Security Council spokesman said. But asked today about the possibility of a US withdrawal from Syria benefiting Iran, Trump was dismissive. They can do what they want there, frankly, Trump said. Journalist Jamal Khashoggis murder on Oct. 2, 2018, at the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul has had countless political ramifications on the international level. Although the remains of Khashoggis body have yet to be discovered, chilling footage recently broadcast by pro-Turkish government television channel A Haber shows men from the hit team carrying five cases into the residency of Saudi Arabias consul general, Mohammad al-Otaibi. Although the footage, which an official in Ankara claims is accurate, confirms what most analysts have concluded early in the Khashoggi case (that Khashoggi was killed and dismembered in the consulate), it does provide new clues about the murder that could help answer unresolved questions. How will this new footage impact the Turkish governments investigation as well as Ankaras relationship with Riyadh? While Turkish investigators conducted a search of the Saudi Arabian Consulate and the residency shortly after Khashoggis killing without finding the body, a focus has returned to the residency because of these revelations. The question arises of whether the Turkish prosecutors team will acquire a warrant to search the residence again this year. Nonetheless, if Saudi authorities do not consent to another search, it is doubtful that another search will be possible even if a warrant is given to the team. By using Saudi Arabias diplomatic immunity, which prevents diplomats from being subject to a lawsuit or prosecution in the host countrys legal system, it is almost guaranteed that officials in Riyadh will continue refusing to cooperate with their Turkish counterparts. From a strategic perspective, Turkeys officials have run circles around their Saudi counterparts throughout the aftermath of Khashoggis murder. Ankaras drip-feeding of evidence behind the killing has successfully enabled this case to continue making headlines without the story being overtaken in the global press by other events. As politicians and civil society members throughout the West continue to express outrage over the Khashoggi saga (albeit with the United States, the United Kingdom and France Saudi Arabias top three arms suppliers not freezing weapons sales to Riyadh), the pressure will remain on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (often referred to by his initials, MBS), which is precisely what Turkeys leadership desires. Unquestionably, the launch of an international investigation, which Turkeys foreign minister is working toward in coordination with other governments, would elevate the seriousness of this murder case to an entirely new level, ultimately putting more pressure on MBS to come clean about what occurred in the Saudi Arabian Consulate. Turkey has sought to provide the Saudis with opportunities to cooperate, hence the gradual drip-feeding of information has been aimed at increasing the pressure on Riyadh. But there is no reason to expect Saudi cooperation on this file, which will undoubtedly serve to plague the kingdoms relationship with Ankara throughout 2019 and perhaps beyond. From the Turkish perspective, Khashoggis killing was not only a grave crime in and of itself but also an incredibly serious sign of disrespect to Turkey as a country as well as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was a personal friend of the slain journalist. Turkey, as a rising player in the international arena, views its sovereignty as sacrosanct and is especially sensitive about issues concerning alleged Saudi and Emirati interference in Turkeys affairs. According to interlocutors in the Gulf who spoke with this author, Turkish authorities bugged Saudi Arabias diplomatic mission in Istanbul after the failed 2016 coup plot, which many Turks firmly believe Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were behind. The idea of the Saudis taking advantage of their diplomatic immunity to carry out this murder is extremely offensive to Turkey. To be sure, from a moral standpoint it does not seem that committing this crime in the Saudi Arabia Consulate in Istanbul versus any other diplomatic mission in another country would make a difference, but as a country that plays an important and influential role in the greater Islamic world and as a former imperial power, Turkey found the decision to carry out this brutal act on Turkish soil as particularly outrageous and unacceptable. What can be expected in Ankara-Riyadh relations for 2019? Unquestionably, the unresolved Khashoggi case combined with the Saudi/Emirati-led blockade of Qatar plus competition for influence in the Horn of Africa, the Maghreb and the Levant will fuel greater tension between these two powers that compete for a leadership role in the Sunni Muslim world. A nightmare scenario that MBS fears for 2019 is that Washington will begin shifting toward the Turkey-Qatar alliance as a favored bloc in the Sunni Muslim world in order to counter Iran, rather than continuing to make the Saudi Arabia-United Arab Emirates-Egypt axis its preferred bloc to coordinate with in efforts aimed at pushing back against Tehrans consolidating influence in the Arab world. Perhaps it is rather difficult to imagine the US administration of Donald Trump supporting such a shift toward an Islamist alliance, yet the recent rapprochement between Washington and Ankara combined with the Trump administrations warm relationship with Qatar suggest that this might not be impossible. Doubtless, MBS must consider a future in which his biological father, King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, is deceased, and the crown prince becomes the next ruler of Saudi Arabia when Trump is no longer in the Oval Office. Under such circumstances, the Khashoggi affair will likely continue to serve as a major source of friction in the US-Saudi partnership. Such tension could severely undermine Riyadhs vital interests at a time when strong American support for the kingdom would be important for MBS amid internal transformations in Saudi Arabia and turmoil throughout the region that threatens the kingdoms security. On a recent afternoon in a popular cafe in Washingtons Adams Morgan neighborhood, Murat Yasa, a veteran Kurdish activist, tears up, his burly frame shaking as he recalls the orgy of violence that erupted outside the residence of the Turkish ambassador to Washington on May 16, 2017. Yasa, a 61-year-old US citizen, was among a group of Kurdish men and women who had gathered in Sheridan Circle to demonstrate against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Turkish leader was in town to meet with President Donald Trump that day and the group was peacefully protesting Turkeys repression of their brethren with a volley of salty accusations. Baby killer, Yasa shouted as Erdogans sedan pulled into the driveway. It wasnt long before Yasa found himself semi-conscious in hospital along with nine other protesters after Erdogans bodyguards and thugs for hire set upon them. One yelled Die Kurd as they kicked and struck the demonstrators with discernible glee. Lucy Usoyan, a young Yazidi woman who was repeatedly hit on the head, fell unconscious, despite Yasas best efforts to shield her. The images captured on video and later subjected to forensic scrutiny leave no doubt as to what had transpired. I didnt know if I would ever see my children again, Yasa said. I thought I was dying. Nineteen months on, Yasa, who runs a floor-laying business in Virginia, suffers from dizzy spells and memory loss. His hands are unsteady. He is, he said, an altered man. But Yasas desire for justice is unwavering, with potentially bruising effects on Turkeys already turbulent relationship with the United States. In May, Yasa and a dozen and a half fellow victims filed a civil action lawsuit in US federal court against Turkey. They are demanding at least $300 million in compensation on multiple counts ranging from bodily harm to psychological trauma including, in at least one case, damage to conjugal relations. Prominent Washington litigator Steven Perles, who has won more than $6 billion in civil lawsuit judgments, has taken up their cause. Perles made national headlines when he helped land a $2.6 billion verdict against Iran for its alleged role in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 US service members and a $1.5 billion ruling against Libya for numerous bombings, hijackings and other acts of terrorism in the mid-1980s. A wiry figure full of nervous energy, Perles sounds every bit as tenacious now as he was then. During an interview at his sprawling offices on Connecticut Avenue, Perles told Al-Monitor that the tort case against the Republic of Turkey rests on the Foreign Sovereignties Immunity Act, which stipulates seven violations for which foreign governments can be sued in US courts. Id love to see Turkey argue that under US law, We are entitled to beat up people on the streets of Washington, DC,' Perles said. No dictator gets to come to my country and beat up citizens of my country on my watch. Ill take that argument all the way to the Supreme Court. Turkey has breezily denied any wrongdoing, branding the protesters as terrorists and the actions of its security forces as self-defense. Its reaction to the legal case so far has been to act as if it doesnt exist. Turkeys toothless media, which is almost fully controlled by Erdogans business cronies, has followed suit. A rare mention of the affair came when Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu made a point of visiting the only two offenders to be arrested, both Turkish Americans, in their jail cell in the United States. Eyup Yildirim of New Jersey and Sinan Narin of Virginia faced a maximum of 15 years in prison for their actions, including stomping on Usoyans head. Hailing the pair as his brothers, Cavusoglu declared he brought them love and greetings from Turkey. Photographs of the encounter were splashed across the Turkish press. The pair walked free in late April of last year after striking a plea agreement. In November 2017, federal prosecutors dismissed charges against seven members of Erdogans security detail who had been indicted by a federal grand jury that July on a slew of charges, including aggravated assault, conspiracy and hate crimes. Although the men had already left the country, the warrants seemed to carry a powerful message that foreign agents could not act with impunity on US soil. Then in February 2018, the cases against four others were quietly dropped, leaving only four guards on the hook. Coming just before then-Secretary of State Rex Tillersons first official trip to Ankara that same month, a strong whiff of diplomatic appeasement hung in the air. The Trump administration was trying to secure the release of North Carolina pastor Andrew Brunson and to calm Turkish fury over its continued support for the Syrian Kurdish militia known as the Peoples Protection Units (YPG). The militants are an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been waging a bloody fight with Ankara since 1984. Brunson was finally freed in October, after protracted haggling. Retaliatory sanctions slapped by the Trump administration on the Turkish ministers of justice and the interior were lifted in exchange. In a further sop to Ankara, Trump announced Dec. 19 that he would be pulling US forces out of Syria, leaving the YPG in the lurch. Yet Turkish hopes that the Sheridan Circle affair would be buried are proving premature. Andreas Akaras, a litigator with Bregman, Berbert, Schwartz & Gilday, one of two law firms representing the victims, said Ankara has twice rejected service of summons related to the case on the grounds that Turkey is a sovereign nation. But it can only run for so long. Akaras confirmed that the US Embassy in Ankara had been sent copies of the summons in both Turkish and English. The State Department is legally bound under US law to forward them to the Turkish Foreign Ministry. In a document shared with Al-Monitor, the Department of State Overseas Citizens Services acknowledged Nov. 26 that Usoyan v. Turkey was mailed to our embassy this morning. Turkey has two choices: It could put up a defense in the US district court, or it could continue to ignore the controversy and risk legal penalties. The first hearing of what will be a bench trial could be held as early as June depending on when the US Embassy in Ankara formally relays the summons. A State Department official speaking on condition of anonymity declined to confirm whether that had happened yet, but acknowledged that US law requires it. The US government makes no judgment on the merits of the litigation in question, or whether Turkey enjoys immunity from suit, which is a question to be decided by the courts, the official added. A Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman did not respond to Al-Monitors request for comment. Perles said Turkey can say No all it wants, but if the Turkish government does not acknowledge service within 60 days of the delivery of the summons by a US diplomat, a federal judge will proceed without Turkey at that moment. The State Department official in turn confirmed that under US law, A defendant in a lawsuit (including a foreign government) must file an answer within 60 days or risk having final judgment entered against it without the opportunity to present arguments on its behalf. Turkey has two choices: It could put up a defense in the US district court, or it could continue to ignore the controversy and risk legal penalties. There are myriad ways in which judgments may be enforced, Akaras said. Should Turkey have property present in the United States (of which it has plenty), certain parts of that property could be attached to satisfy judgment. In other words, it could be seized. Perles speculated that the State Department was unlikely to urge Turkey to reach a settlement before the case balloons into a bigger embarrassment. Typically, US diplomats do not intervene, sources familiar with the departments modus operandi said. However, Congress, where Turkey is already in trouble over the continued detention of several Americans as well as local employees of US diplomatic missions in the country, could weigh in. In the meantime, Turkey has allegedly resorted to bullying relatives of the plaintiffs who are in Turkey in hopes of getting them to drop the lawsuits. Several have filed as John Does precisely to avoid such harassment. One of them told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that police had hauled in family members for interrogation, but declined to provide details for fear their identity may be revealed. Three other victims approached by Al-Monitor declined to speak, even off the record. Akaras acknowledges that the case could drag on for several years. But he believes it is a strong one. The evidence against Erdogans guards, laid out in painstaking detail by The New York Times, among others, is pretty damning. It includes footage of the head of Erdogans security detail, Muhsin Kose, leaning into the presidents black Mercedes after it pulled up at the ambassadors residence. After speaking with Mr. Erdogan, Mr. Kose talked into his earpiece, and three security personnel who were guarding the presidents car hurried toward the protest, the Times reported. The brawl began moments later, and one of these men, a heavy-set bald man, appeared on video punching and kicking people. It wasn't the first time Kose and his men had roughed up protesters in Washington. In March 2016, they clashed with demonstrators outside the Brookings Institution as Erdogan was giving a talk. Clobbering dissidents in foreign countries is not a uniquely Turkish habit. In January 2018, a federal judge ruled that the Democratic Republic of Congo had to fork over more than $500,000 to three protesters who were savagely attacked by the security detail of President Joseph Kabila Kabange outside the luxury Georgetown hotel where he was staying. Much like Erdogans security detail, the Congolese security officers flew out of the United States within hours of the incident. One of the protesters, Jacques Miango, who was kicked in the throat, the face and the spine, shared Yasas disbelief that such violence could unfold in the heart of Washington. You imagine that those kinds of things cant happen in America, Miango told The Washington Post. But after it happened to me, I know nothing is impossible. Yasa, for his part, said he wants justice, not money. His quarrel is not with his native Turkey or its people, but with its rulers because of what he calls the continued oppression of the Kurdish people. An out-of-court settlement is out of the question, he said, except under one condition: In the unlikely event that Erdogan were to resume peace talks with imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, Yasa said he would withdraw the case without a second thought. Those negotiations the first of their kind broke down in 2015 amid Turkish alarm at the YPGs rise in neighboring Syria and Ocalans apparent reluctance to stop it. Ocalan has been kept incommunicado ever since, while Turkey has carried its war against the Kurdish militants to Syria. Peace is what we were demonstrating for in Sheridan Circle, Yasa said. And if peace were the outcome, our suffering will not have been in vain. Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report. For the crime of selling land to Jews, a Ramallah court sentenced East Jerusalem resident Issam Akel to life in prison with hard labor Dec. 31. Palestinians regard such sales, especially in Jerusalem, as an act of treason and the court dealt with Akel accordingly. The Palestinian Authority has declared war against land sales to Jews in light of an intensified buying spree by Jewish organizations of houses in the Old City and in the Silwan neighborhood. These groups, especially Ateret Cohanim, aspire to settle Jewish families there. The security forces of the Palestinian Authority gathered information about residents of East Jerusalem and Palestinian intermediaries involved in damaging national security, recently reporting they had thwarted the sale of 3,000 dunams (740 acres) of Palestinian-owned land in Jerusalem and the West Bank to Jews and arrested 44 Palestinians for selling land to Jewish groups. Some of them have already been tried and sentenced to lengthy jail terms and hard labor. When the PA was established in the mid-1990s, selling land to Jews was made a war crime. For the Palestinians, the struggle for land has been ongoing since they were uprooted from their homes during the 1948 war the Palestinians call the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe. Right-wing Jewish groups are buying up land in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalems Old City, in East Jerusalem neighborhoods and in West Bank's Area C as part of their plan to settle Jews in Palestinian population centers. The Palestinians highest concern is the deals in Jerusalem, where the sides are waging a highly charged property struggle. This struggle has intensified since the United States moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May 2018. The Palestinians saw the shift as proof that they will never realize their dream of a Palestinian capital in al-Quds, the holy city of Jerusalem. Israel generally does not intercede when Palestinian courts impose heavy jail terms on Palestinians. The convictions and sentences have not affected the already complex and complicated relationship between Israel and the PA. Occasionally, Israeli officials will discretely cut a deal with the Palestinian security forces, which are obliged to closely cooperate with Israel as well as arrest suspected land-selling traitors. In Akels case, given that he is both a US national and an East Jerusalem resident of Israel, the Shin Bet and Israeli police opened an investigation into the arrest in Ramallah. The Americans have tried to intervene on Akels behalf, so far to no avail. The hard-line Palestinian stance on his case appears to stem not only from the land war in Jerusalem, but also from the murky relationship between the PA, Israel and the United States over the December 2017 declaration by President Donald Trump recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Akel is the scapegoat for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' rage and frustration against the Israelis and the Americans. Palestinian security forces arrested Akel in October 2018 after luring him to Ramallah to sign some documents. In the past, the US Consulate or someone acting on its behalf would have quietly freed Akel within days. After all, the United States funds the activity of the PA security agencies. These, however, are not ordinary times. A month from now, the crisis in the relationship between the Palestinian leadership and the United States is likely to intensify when the Taylor Force Act goes into effect, suspending US funding to the PA as long as it continues to pay stipends to Palestinian attackers and their families. The law is named after American student Taylor Force, who was murdered in a terror attack in the center of Jaffa in March 2016. Enforcement of the bill is expected to halt or dramatically cut tens of millions of dollars in US funding for the PAs security forces. Trump has already shown that he does whatever he wants. Absent the current level of US funding, the cash-strapped PA will be unable to keep the security agencies running, certainly not in their current format. Late Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat established a quasi-military power within the PA. His principle aim was to provide a living for his loyalists in the Fatah organization who were returning from exile in Tunis and elsewhere to the West Bank. After Arafats death in 2004 and the end of the second intifada in 2005, Abbas was named as his successor, and the Americans took it upon themselves to rebuild the PAs security agencies with generous funding. US Gen. Keith Dayton even came to the West Bank to oversee the rebuilding of the security forces that Israel had crushed in putting down the Palestinian uprising. The American interest was clear: to rehabilitate the PA and enable peace negotiations with the Israelis. Even after these negotiations collapsed in the spring of 2014, the United States continued to budget aid for the security agencies. And even when it gradually reduced the general aid level to the PA, the Americans were careful not to touch the security forces funding. A Palestinian political source who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity rejected claims that Akels life sentence was revenge against the Americans. The issue of Palestinian lands sold by greedy criminals, as he called them, has always been a top priority of the Palestinian judiciary and law enforcement authorities. The source conceded that despite US appeals and pressure, Abbas has thus far been unwilling to consider a deal in Akels case. American teams met with Akel in the Ramallah jail and CIA officials spoke to Palestinian intelligence head Majid Faraj, who has an excellent working relationship with his American counterparts, but to no avail. The Palestinians insist the decision is in the hands of the Palestinian court, not the security forces. Israel tried to pressure the Palestinian leadership by arresting Adnan Ghaith, the Palestinian governor of East Jerusalem, and dozens of East Jerusalem residents employed by the PAs security forces. But Abbas did not even blink. In the coming weeks we will learn whether Akels conviction and sentencing signal the collapse of the longstanding and mutually beneficial security cooperation between Israel and the PA. Judging by the way Abbas has been conducting himself and the tirades he delivers at every opportunity, it would seem the Palestinian leader has decided to fight back. The coordination with Israel is the last effective weapon left in his arsenal after the humiliation he has suffered at the hands of the Trump administration, and the sore spot could truly hurt both Americans and Israelis. I believe nothing will come of this, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared at a Dec. 31 news conference during a visit to Brazil. This is a reference to three affairs in which police suspect Netanyahu of corruption: Case 1000 involves gifts he allegedly received from wealthy businesspeople; in Case 2000 he allegedly conspired with a news publisher for favorable coverage; and in Case 4000 he is suspected of granting regulatory favors to a media tycoon, also in return for favorable coverage. Netanyahu added, "The hearing doesnt end until my side is heard. And therefore, it is not logical to open a hearing process before elections if you cant finish it before elections. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit reportedly promised members of a senior judiciary forum recently that he would make an all-out effort to complete studying the police findings and recommendations in all three cases as quickly as possible in order to decide whether to indict Netanyahu, pending a hearing. According to a Jan. 1 report on Channel 2, Mandelblit agreed that issuing a decision prior to the elections was a public duty so that voters can go to the polls fully informed. However, no mention has been made of why Mandelblit allowed Netanyahu to evade a criminal probe into a far more serious case Case 3000. Case 3000 stems from a contract estimated at $2 billion that Israel awarded the German industrial giant ThyssenKrupp in 2016 for the purchase of three submarines and four warships. Police have recommended indicting several senior figures in the affair on suspicion of accepting bribes, money laundering and other crimes. A petition submitted Dec. 18 to the Supreme Court by a public watchdog is demanding that the attorney general, the state prosecutor, the head of investigations at the Israeli Police and the prime minister himself provide answers to a series of tough question emanating from the affair by Jan. 6. The petitioners represent the Movement for Public Integrity, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting public corruption that includes among its leading figures Brig. Gen. Yaakov Or, who headed the Defense Division in the State Comptrollers Office and previously served as the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. Another leading activist was Shlomo Gur, the attorney who served as director general of the State Comptrollers Office and before that of the Justice Ministry. The petition presented by Attorney Avigdor Feldman and the movements current legal adviser Yuval Yoaz argues that the police questioned Netanyahu under caution in the other suspected corruption affairs, and recommended indicting him on charges of bribery and breach of trust. These charges, according to the petitioners, were nothing compared to the suspicions emerging from investigations in Case 3000 that are so severe that "they obscure the eye of the sun." The movement further claims that the conduct of Mandelblit and State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan in this affair was incompatible with the standards of public probity and administrative and criminal law. The de facto immunity that they granted Netanyahu from the start of the affair diverted the investigation from its due course, the petitioners allege. The mind refuses to understand, the petitioners argue, how the state could determine from the start that Netanyahu was not a suspect in the case even before the investigation, before one of those involved turned a states witness and before extensive evidence was gathered. Can this suspicion be left to hang over the head of the prime minister and of the voters who believe in him and trust him to place the security of the state and its residents above all other considerations? the petitioners ask. And there is more. Much like other large weapon deals by Israel, the submarine deal with ThyssenKrupp included an exclusivity clause, hindering the company from selling the same technology to Israels neighboring countries. Still, the company agreed to sell similar submarines to Egypt. The petitioners allege that Attorney Yitzhak Molcho, Netanyahus private special emissary, was the one who probably agreed the German government could sell these advanced submarines to Egypt, in coordination with Israels National Security Council but unbeknownst to the minister of defense, the security Cabinet and the army, which had previously objected to such a deal. Then-Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon has dubbed the affair an act verging on treason," and accused corrupt officials of pushing the deal for profit even though Israel had no need for the submarines. Israels approval of the sale to Egypt emerged by chance when German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Israeli President Reuven Rivlin about it on his visit to Germany in May 2015. Although the prime minister was the only one authorized to approve a trip by Molcho to Germany with such a letter lifting Israels opposition to the sale to Egypt, police did not question him about it under caution. Police did not question the president nor did it follow up further with Merkel's office, according to the petition. The petitioners are asking the Supreme Court to instruct the state prosecution and the police to investigate Netanyahu under caution regarding the deal for the submarines and the warships allegedly needed to protect Israels gas exploration rigs. According to the indictments against the suspects, the specifications of the vessels were tailored to the capabilities of ThyssenKrupp and designed to enrich the corrupt group of Israelis. The petitioners base their arguments, among other things, on statements by Yaalon and another former defense minister, Ehud Barak, who argue that it is unrealistic to believe Netanyahu was unaware of the criminal decisions made within the framework of the criminal conspiracy exposed in this affair. The suit also alleges that Netanyahu was deeply involved in the deals with Germany, in some of which he was even the lead figure, for example in his contacts with Merkel. The petition demands that Mandelblit and Nitzan as well as Netanyahu himself respond to the question of how the prime minister failed to see the corruption and criminality of the deals. How could he not discern that in his home, in his office, by the closest of his associates deeds were being carried out in contrast to which every other criminal investigation pales? the petitioners asked. The petitioners noted that three of the six suspected of profiteering from selling the security of the state are members of Netanyahus inner circle. Netanyahu appointed one of them, Brig. Gen. (Res.) Avriel Bar-Yosef, as deputy head of the National Security Council and entrusted him with the states top secrets. Another suspect, Attorney David Shimron, was entrusted with Netanyahus top secrets, having served as his personal lawyer. The petitioners ask whether, as the probe advanced, investigators should not have addressed suspicions that the prime minister not only chose to ignore his close associates actions but also aided and abetted them? The submarine issue is sunk, Netanyahu declared in November following the indictments against his associates, accusing the media of allegedly making supreme efforts to tie me to an issue to which I have no connection. The Movement for Public Integrity, led by first-class jurists and auditors, is making an effort to rescue Case 3000 from the depths and to float the following question: Was the prime minister a party, directly or indirectly, to gravely harming state security? That is the question before the highest court in the country. Israeli voters deserve an answer. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has appointed Ayatollah Sadegh Amoli Larijani as chairman of the influential Expediency Council amid heavy speculation about who will succeed Larijani as head of the powerful judiciary. One top name circulated for the post is Ebrahim Raisi, the conservative who lost the 2017 presidential election. The conservative Larijani was named to head the Expediency Council on Dec. 30 after its chairman, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, died Dec. 24. Shahroudi had rarely attended council meetings since his appointment in 2017 as he was dealing with intestinal cancer. The Expediency Council has the final say when a disagreement erupts between the Guardian Council and parliament over a bill. The Guardian Council is tasked with studying bills to see if they are in accordance with Islamic law and the Iranian Constitution. Before Shahroudi, moderate Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani had chaired the council for 22 years. The announcement of his successor took more than seven months. In contrast, Amoli Larijani was chosen to succeed Shahroudi less than a week after his demise. The behind-the-curtain importance of this urgent appointment may be rooted in recent tensions between the parliament and the Expediency Council over several bills aimed at bringing Iran in line with the standards set out by the Financial Action Task Force. The FATF is an international, intergovernmental organization created in 1989 to combat money laundering and terrorism financing. Iran's presence on the FATF blacklist was suspended in 2016 with the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. At its latest meeting in October, FATF gave Iran until February to undertake reforms that will bring it in line with global banking norms. To meet the requests of the FATF, Iran's government submitted four motions to the parliament that were passed by lawmakers but rejected by the Guardian Council. Simultaneously, in an unusual development, the Expediency Council's new monitoring group tasked with assessing whether the bills are in line with the macro policies of the establishment entered the field and rejected the bills. The reaction of the monitoring group triggered irritation among lawmakers, leading parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, who indirectly said he doesnt recognize the Expediency Council subcommittees objections. He is the younger brother of Amoli Larijani. Against this backdrop, the appointment of Amoli Larijani as Expediency Council chairman may be good news for the administration of President Hassan Rouhani as he is rumored to be likely to take the side of the government and members of parliament on the FATF-related bills. In this vein, it ought to be noted that on Oct. 19, First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri said the judiciary chief, parliament speaker and president have agreed that passage of the four FATF-related bills is a necessity for the country. It should be noted that Ali Larijani is considered a moderate figure who has maintained friendly ties with Rouhani. Moreover, the naming of Amoli Larijani as Expediency Council chairman could lead to conservative Mohsen Rezaie being ousted from the influential body. Rezaie a three-time presidential candidate presently holds the powerful position of secretary of the Expediency Council. Speculation about him has increased given that a number of senior members of parliament have indicated that the recent tensions between parliament and the Expediency Council have arisen due to power-grabbing tactics on the part of Rezaei. In addition, it can be assumed that Amoli Larijani has little interest in an entrenched council secretary who is unlikely to be a team player. At the same time, Rezaies possible exit from the council would not necessarily mean that conservatives, including Amoli Larijani, are abandoning rumored plans to turn the Expediency Council into an Iranian Senate. What should further not be neglected in the equation is that the supreme leader on Dec. 30 also appointed Amoli Larijani as a member of the Guardian Council, of which Shahroudi was also a member. This appointment may signal that Amoli Larijani is a possible successor of 91-year-old Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati as secretary of the Guardian Council. Such a shift would significantly rejuvenate the leadership of the Guardian Council given that Amoli Larijani is 57. Another dimension to consider is the fact that Amoli Larijanis new position could elevate his status as a possible successor of the supreme leader. Meanwhile, speculation has reached a peak about who will replace Amoli Larijani in the judiciary, as his second five-year term will end in August. Reports have emerged about Raisi taking over the judicial branch of power. Raisi, the conservative candidate in the 2017 presidential elections that landed Rouhani a second term, has spent most of his career within the judiciary. While his appointment as judiciary chief might at first glance appear unlikely as it was just two years ago that Khamenei named Raisi to be custodian of the holy shrine of Imam Reza, various reports indicate he is very close to being selected. Of further note, Raisi has been also described by some observers as a candidate to become Irans next supreme leader. It should be noted that Raisi has not denied the many rumors about his next potential career move. On Jan. 1, responding to a question about his possible appointment as judiciary chief, Raisi didnt didn't reject it and merely said, Go ask those who published these reports. Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, the prosecutor general, recently reacted to reports that Raisi might be appointed to head the judiciary by saying, It is still [circulated] in cyberspace, [but] it will take a while to be turned into reality. According to a text published on Khamenei's website, the supreme leader has apparently asked Amoli Larijani to settle the remaining issues in the judiciary and to start focusing fully on his new positions in the Expediency Council and the Guardian Council. This could mean that that the appointment of Amoli Larijani's successor may occur sooner than expected. Other candidates to succeed Amoli Larijani include Montazeri and judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei. Over the past year, Montazeri has intensified his outreach activities, including engagement with the media. For instance, he recently went to the Tehran Grand Bazaar to "listen to complaints" among traders while also showing up at Islamic Azad Universitys main Tehran campus to talk to students who had staged a protest over a deadly bus crash. Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, the Qom Friday prayer leader, and Guardian Council members Mehdi Shabzendedar Jahromi and Mohammad-Reza Modarresi Yazdi are said to be among possible successors of Amoli Larijani as judiciary chief. It should be noted that it has become an unwritten tradition for the head of the judiciary to have been a member of the Guardian Council, as was the case with Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi (1989-1999), Shahroudi (1999-2009) and Amoli Larijani (2009-to date). Whatever happens in the coming months, Amoli Larijani's farewell to the judiciary could also be good news for the media in Iran. During his time in office, outlets have been under pressure from the judiciary, leading to self-censorship among newspapers and news sites. After a week of speculation and rumors, President Hassan Rouhani has accepted the resignation of Minister of Health and Medical Education Hassan Ghazizadeh Hashemi, who quit over budget issues and accusations of corruption at the ministry. A video of his last address at the ministry was published online. With my staying, nothing will change other than the damages will increase. The issue is no longer normal but has become personal. Hopefully, this change will cause someone to come [in my place] and do what was promised [by the administration], said Ghazizadeh Hashemi. He added, Im a hard worker and I have a high tolerance these arent new issues, and I have not made these issues public until now. Ive written numerous letters to the president; many things have happened and I have not told anybody. Citing some of his issues, Ghazizadeh Hashemi said that he did not want to remain just to send people away who needed medical help or force people to purchase low-quality equipment and medicine from the outside and bring into the system a group of rent-seekers. He added, Im not this kind of person. It was a mistake to work with these types of people. Iranian parliamentarian Elyas Hazrati first tweeted rumors of Ghazizadeh Hashemis resignation on December 30: Unfortunately I heard the news that Dr. Hassan Ghazizadeh Hashemi, in protest of the reduction of [his ministrys] budget, has resigned and has not been participating in Cabinet meetings for some days. Hazrati added, It is the responsibility of all those who are sympathetic to prevent his resignation, and I hope that the health minister returns to the Cabinet soon. Officials from the Management and Planning Organization, which is headed by Rouhani ally Mohammad-Bagher Nobakht, have denied that the Health Ministry budget has decreased. Rather, they have argued that in the last six years, the budget for the ministry has tripled. The resignation reveals not only the financial pressure the Islamic Republic is facing the discrepancy over the increase in the budget could be due to exchange rate fluctuations but also the infighting that was welcomed by conservative media. Before Rouhani had accepted the resignation, Tasnim News Agency wrote Jan. 3, The 12th administration has been in its second year of activity, and it appears there is still no sense of calm. The article referenced the resignation of Abbas Ahmad Akhoundi, who had been the minister of roads and urban development since 2013 but resigned in October 2018, blaming Rouhanis management for the economic situation in the country. Even Reformists who have been his main supporters are criticizing the moderate president. Abdullah Naseri, former adviser to Reformist President Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005), wrote that many political activists warned Rouhani when he first took office in 2013 that he needs to take seriously his duties. Naseri wrote that Rouhani failed to heed their advice and caused anger and that these days could have been predicted. Addressing the accusation that among Rouhanis Cabinet some are more equal than others, Naseri wrote, It creates problems among the ministers and deputies. Rather than refusing to attend Cabinet meetings in protest over the budget and then resigning, Naseri urged Ghazizadeh Hashemi to do as Akhoundi did and write down his complaints and problems with the Rouhani administration for the public. Mohamed Khairy, a resident of Gharbia in the Nile Delta, discovered the benefits, and profits, of sericulture last summer. I earned a reasonable sum after selling cocoons to the silk producers, the young man proudly told Al-Monitor. Three boxes of cocoons make one kilogram of raw silk, which sold for 600 Egyptian pounds [$33]. The Egyptian government hopes that more young entrepreneurs will be like Khairy, who is 17 years old, and take note of the Ministry of Finances October announcement on lifting customs duties on the import of silkworm eggs. This decision, coupled with Egypts growing demand for silk goods, could present new money-making opportunities in sericulture. Egypt currently uses 350 tons of natural silk annually, said Osama Mohamed Ghazy, director of the Sericulture Research Institute, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Agriculture. Only about one ton of this amount is locally produced, while the rest is imported. Ghazy told Al-Monitor that cultivating silkworms has great economic potential in Egypt because it can also contribute to growth in other sectors, such as mulberry tea production, cosmetics that use silk proteins and surgical sutures. Our research department has succeeded in producing a cosmetic cream using natural silk, Ghazy said. The mulberry leaves, on which silkworms are cultivated, can also be used in mulberry tea production. Sericulture is a zero-waste sector that could have a considerable effect on the economy. He added, Egypt has developed a lot in cultivation technology, so small owners can breed all year long, not just in one season. Sameh Ahmed, head of the Union for Silk Producers, told Al-Monitor that his organization helps promote the sector by training existing producers and encouraging new ones to get into the business. He allows, however, that it is not easy. There are a number of challenges that producers face, such as the high price of imported silkworm eggs due to the devaluation of the Egyptian pound. We also have a huge shortage of mulberry trees in Egypt, Ahmed said, pointing out that the few remaining ones are in villages, primarily in the Delta region. There is no government directive or subsidy to plant more trees. Ahmed believes the government should allocate land and subsidies for silkworm breeders to cultivate mulberry trees close to where they live. Silkworms prefer the leaves of the white mulberry tree. The [number of] mulberry trees has decreased a lot over the past ten years, so they can only be found in certain areas, which are not always accessible to those who want to enter the industry, Ahmed remarked. Khairy cultivated his cocoons in mulberry trees on the riverbanks of the Delta on the outskirts of Gharbia. I used the mulberry trees in my village, but the residents were against it, the young breeder said, adding that many of them were not aware of the business potential. Importing silkworm eggs for cultivating is an expensive start-up by Egyptian standards. A box of imported silkworm eggs costs 420 Egyptian pounds [$23], while a local one costs 120 Egyptian pounds [$6.70], but there is a shortage of local eggs, Ahmed told Al-Monitor. Egypt is currently overcoming the shortage of silkworm eggs by importing them from China, Japan and the EU. Shaimaa Serag Emara, an economist, told Al-Monitor that the Finance Ministry's tariff exemption followed a request by the Ministry of Trade and Industry to lift the duties to boost silkworm production. The current number of silk producers does not exceed 1,000, Serag said. According to Ahmed, silkworm breeders are primarily located in Menoufia, Qalyubia, Fayoum, Dakahlia and Gharbia. They usually sell what they produce to two major factories in Egypt, he said, noting that the union owns one of these factories and the Agriculture Ministry owns the other one. Carpet manufacturing is one of the main industries in need of raw natural silk. Mohamed Ibrahim Nawara, an official in the Menofuia Governors Office, said manufacturers buy raw natural silk from the Ministry of Agriculture and the local union of the silk producers and from promoters on Facebook to produce natural silk carpets. Menofuia is the home to most of the silk-carpet factories in Egypt. Nawara explained that after purchasing cocoons, the makers must reel and spin the silk before it can be used. Natural silk carpets range in price from 3,000 to 150,000 Egyptian pounds ($167 to $836) per meter, according to Nawara. The European Union is the destination of 90% of local, natural silk carpet exports, Nawara remarked, adding, The main competitors for Egypt are China, Iran and Turkey. A last-minute, partial debt payment is keeping Hamas' broadcast wing in the Gaza Strip on air for now but the organization still faces a financial crisis that threatens what is left of its media assets. Hamas financial woes have worsened in recent years for several reasons: declining Iranian support since 2012, Egypt's campaign to close off smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Sinai since 2013 and shrinking financial donations from abroad. This is all on top of the pressure that weighs on Hamas from the United States, Israel and some Arab countries that accuse the movement of funding terrorism. The movements Al-Aqsa TV channel announced Dec. 19 that financial problems compounded by Israel's devastating bombing Nov. 12 of the station's Gaza Strip headquarters would drive it off the air for the first time since 2006. Prominent sources in Hamas told Al-Monitor that senior leaders then made some calls, after which Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas political bureau, announced Dec. 20 that the channel would not stop broadcasting after all, and that part of its $220,000 debt had been settled. Al-Aqsa TV broadcasts from the Gaza Strip and has offices for its reporters in Lebanon and Jordan. The channels facility in the West Bank was closed in July amid the ongoing Palestinian division. Al-Aqsa TVs initial announcement that it would stop broadcasting raised mixed reactions among Palestinians. Essam al-Dalis, deputy head of Hamas political bureau, said in a Dec. 19 tweet that the movement should neither disappear from the television scene nor be silenced, despite its financial crisis. Salama Maroof, head of Hamas' media office in Gaza, said in a Facebook post Dec. 20 that it's unfortunate that what Israel failed to achieve when it bombed A-Aqsa TV headquarters Nov. 12 almost happened anyway as a result of the financial crisis. Also on Dec. 20, Alaa Rimawi, who was director of Al-Aqsa TV's office in the West Bank before Israel shut it down in July because of its affiliation with Hamas, said on his Facebook page that the channel doesn't represent a specific faction. Rather, he said, it embodies an entire political approach, which is why decision-makers need to do everything to keep it afloat. Wesam Afifa, director general of Al-Aqsa TV, told Al-Monitor. The most important aspect of the channels financial crisis is the accumulated debt of $220,000 in recent years, which includes the operational and broadcasting fees. Our 200 employees have only been receiving 50% of their salaries over the past year. Afifa added, Perhaps the channels administration took longer than it should have to deal with the crisis. But we never expected the crisis to lead to this shocking announcement. [Some of] the channels $220,000 debt has been settled and the crisis partially averted. ... But a new year is starting and we need to pay what we already owe in order to sign new broadcasting deals, or the crisis will re-emerge in the coming weeks. Al-Aqsa TV receives a large part of its funding from Hamas budget, in addition to donations from Hamas supporters abroad like businessmen and traders. These contributors send money to the channel, on condition of anonymity and without revealing the amounts for fear of being pursued by Israel and the United States on charges of funding terrorism. Al-Aqsa TV doesn't charge viewers subscription fees, and Palestinian companies refrain from running ads on its channels, also fearing the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel will accuse them of supporting terrorism. This makes the channel directly and clearly affected by Hamas financial crisis. Hamas' inability to come up with $220,000 has people asking if perhaps the organization isn't properly distributing its few financial resources. Although the channel is broadcasting, it has no permanent headquarters. The Israeli strikes in November caused $4.5 million in losses. The channel doesn't have enough funding to rebuild the headquarters, and for now is broadcasting from temporary offices in the Gaza Strip. Hussam al-Dajani, a Hamas expert and political science professor at Ummah University in Gaza, told Al-Monitor, Since Al-Aqsa TV spoke out about its financial crisis, it has received donations from inside and outside of Palestine. The exact amount received remains unknown, but it was enough to help it partially cover its losses. But the problem has yet to be completely fixed. The station has yet to cover the costs caused by the Israeli strike and must produce $220,000 more in the coming weeks to keep broadcasting in 2019. Al-Quds TV, which is also affiliated with Hamas and broadcasts from Beirut, has been facing a similar crisis for two years. In recent months, Al-Quds TV had to let go dozens of its employees, who have been paid only intermittently, or not at all, for more than a year. An official from Al-Quds TV told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, The [Al-Quds] channel's crisis is related to Hamas financial problems. We owe millions of dollars in salaries and operational expenses. We can't replace our worn-out equipment and we don't have operational budgets. He added, Al-Quds administration had to take pre-emptive measures and lay off some employees to save on salaries, restructure management and rationalize consumption. Raafat Morra, the head of Hamas foreign media office and who resides in Lebanon, told Al-Monitor, Hamas is distributing its money to its media institutions to ensure their continuity, but we have been suffering a financial crisis for years. The distress facing our media institutions is a reflection of the movements harsh circumstances. But Hamas doesn't want to shut down any of its media institutions. Just before Al-Aqsa TV announced it would have to go off the air, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research published a poll Dec. 18 saying the channel was the most-watched Palestinian channel, with viewership reaching 14%. It was followed by Maan, Felesteen and PalToday with 12% each. Osama al-Ashqar, a Palestinian media expert based in Sudan, told Al-Monitor, The financial crisis plaguing Hamas media institutions requires urgent action, such as merging large institutions, eliminating small ones, setting a unified budget for media institutions and refraining from establishing new ones until the crisis is over. Back when Hamas was well-off, before Israel imposed a siege on the Gaza Strip and the movement's financial sources dried up, Hamas built a comprehensive media network inside and outside the Palestinian territories. It had newspapers, radio stations, TV channels and news websites, all of which drained its budget. When the financial crisis hit, all its institutions, platforms and employees became an administrative and financial burden that Hamas couldn't shoulder. BAGHDAD A recently convened UN committee addressed discrimination against many minorities in many countries, including Iraqis of African descent. Its conclusions shed light on the marginalization of this almost forgotten minority forgotten especially years after the 2013 assassination of one of its main leaders, Jalal Diab, in Basra. Diab had posters of Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama on the walls of his school dedicated to teaching poor African-Iraqis in the slums of the Az Zubayr area of Basra. The two pictures showed an unexpected awakening of identity in the areas of the oil-rich Basra province where this minority lives. And this same province has witnessed popular protests in recent years. Inspired by Diab, and subsequently his death, this group raised its voice in protest, seeking an end to discrimination and to gain the rights afforded to all other minorities. Thus, the observations of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) can be considered the victory of Diab, who spent his life fighting for these rights and was known as the Martin Luther King Jr. of Iraq." CERD, during its session in Geneva on Nov. 26-Dec. 14, raised the issue of civil society's responsibility to promote tolerance and prevent discrimination. It called for national cohesion and pointed out that a country's educational curricula should reflect its people's linguistic and cultural differences. The committee said it was concerned about persistent structural racial discrimination, stigmatization and marginalization of people of African descent. The committee recommends that the Iraqi State party redouble its efforts to effectively combat" this discrimination "by taking special measures to reduce the poverty and the social exclusion of people of African descent and increasing their access to adequate living conditions, education, health, housing and employment." In its first reaction to the topic, the Iraq High Commission for Human Rights (IHCHR) published on its website that Ali Akram al-Bayati, a member of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), has stated that the UN has issued the first international convention acknowledging the rights of black Iraqis to political representation and assignments, among other things. The UN has called on the Iraqi government to fight racial discrimination, stating that Bayati "considers this convention a victory for humanity crowning the efforts of the OHCHR and the work it has invested into this noble outcome." "This will be a giant leap in this field," IHCHR said. African-Iraqis are of several ethnicities. Some are Nubians from Egypt, others are from Zanzibar (an island in the Arabian Sea facing Yemen), or from Ghana or Ethiopia. African-Iraqi heritage expert Sawra Yusuf specifies their descendance based on the rites and customs they have been practicing for centuries in specific areas called al-Makayed ("restricted") and in certain locations within Basra province like Az Zubayr and Abu al-Khaseeb. Yusuf told Al-Monitor, Each group has different rites. The Nubians from south Egypt in Africa, al-Habash from what is currently Ethiopia and the Kenyans particularly from the coast share Bambassa tribal roots. These rites were transferred through slave trade during the Abbasid Caliphate between 750 and 785. After the slaves settled in Basra, they established their own society and practiced their rites as reassurance while they were away from home. Yusuf called on the Iraqi government to help preserve African-Iraqi rites and their oral history, while African-Iraqi activists focus on political rights. Ammar Jassem, vice president of Ansar al-Hurriya al-Insaniya (Movement of Free Iraqis), one of the major organizations representing African-Iraqis in Basra, said IHCHR's observations present the Iraqi government with a door to engrain the demands that the community has been calling for over the years to improve its political representation, grant it the quota [of parliament seats] it deserves just like other minorities and end the racial discrimination through passing a law penalizing anyone who practices it. Jassem had previously run for election to provincial committees to represent African-Iraqis in Basra. Diab supported him in 2013; however, after Diab's assassination, Jassem stepped down and temporarily left Basra as he feared for his life especially since he was in Diabs car at the time of the incident. Years after Diab announced the movement to protect African-Iraqis' rights, as he headed Ansar al-Hurriya al-Insaniya that would become the first political framework for their rights in the Middle East, CERD observations and its recommendations to the Iraqi government are the communitys opportunity to obtain justice after centuries of discrimination and inequality. While most home-makers in the country aspire to start a business of their own, lack of financial funding proves to be a major roadblock for them, highlights the findings of a recent survey conducted by Nielsen for Britannia. According to the survey, nearly half (48 per cent) of Indian homemakers had dreams and aspirations to start a business or pursue a hobby to make money when they were young. However, 69 per cent of them cited that they could not pursue this due to lack of financial funding. The report is based on a survey, which was conducted among 1267 non-working housewives in cities of Delhi, Lucknow, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Asansol, Chennai, and Coimbatore in the age group of 25-45 years belonging to NCCS A & B. Also Read: Patent application filed by women entrepreneurs to get faster clearance: DIPP proposal The survey revealed that 1 in 2 Indian homemakers had dreams and aspirations to be financially independent when they were young but couldn't follow it through due to various reasons. While lack of funds was cited most often as the reason (69 per cent), 63 per cent said home responsibilities, 39 per cent said lack of guidance and 36 per cent reported lack in confidence as their reasons for not starting their businesses. These women mostly aspired to start small businesses such as tailoring (36 per cent), beauty parlours (28 per cent), opening a boutique or shop (26 per cent) and home tuitions (20 per cent). When asked what they would need most to start a business of their own, most of the women said they needed financial support (62 per cent), while 51 per cent said they needed counselling to develop self confidence. The survey also revealed that these women wanted to start their own venture to either gain financial independence (64 per cent), or an identity of their own (54 per cent). The social milieu of India is not very supportive of women entrepreneurs as it requires more time and resources than a 9-6 job. Therefore, while gender ratio at workplace though skewed is improving gradually, and very few women still opt for entrepreneurship route. According to data from the Sixth Economic Census, the total number of establishments owned by women entrepreneurs is 8.05 million (13.76 per cent of the total). These establishments provided employment to 13.45 million people despite the fact that 83.19 per cent were without hired workers. Read More: Like airlines, check live availability of train seats online soon Why the parliamentary panel is angry with domestic airlines Savannah River Nuclear Solutions has completed and submitted plans regarding the transition and turnover of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility as well as the venture's related equipment, materials, property and data, among other things. SRNS, the Savannah River Site management and operations contractor, transmitted the plans to the National Nuclear Security Administration on Dec. 21, according to a senior NNSA spokesperson who issued a lengthy statement on the matter that same day. The NNSA, a semiautonomous U.S. Department of Energy agency, oversees the MOX project. The agency canceled MOX in full, effective immediately, on Oct. 10, 2018. The transition plan to be reviewed and approved is part of the MOX closeout process. The mothballing efforts were described as an "ongoing wind down" in a preface to the NNSA statement. MOX, located at the site, was designed to turn surplus weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors. The project was more than a decade in the making and was killed after years of political, financial and legal turmoil. Five months before the MOX contract was canceled, the NNSA and U.S. Department of Defense jointly recommended repurposing MOX's bones for an enduring plutonium pit production mission. Plutonium pits are grapefruit-sized nuclear weapon cores. NNSA document details one year of MOX termination work "The government requires termination activities to be completed in the shortest timeframe and at minimal cost in alignment with budget availab SRNS's plans include a transition timeline with "future use" in mind, according to the NNSA spokesperson. About one year of total MOX termination work is expected, according to an NNSA statement of work, which the Aiken Standard obtained late last year. "The government requires termination activities to be completed in the shortest time frame and at minimal cost in alignment with budget availability," the lengthy, and highly detailed, statement of work reads. The NNSA is working closely with SRNS and MOX Services, the MOX prime contractor, to "ensure an orderly and efficient transition," the spokesperson said. MOX employed about 1,700 people at the time of termination; more than 1,000 have now received layoff notices. Two more rounds of layoff notifications are to be issued by the end of January, according to a person familiar with the matter and project communications obtained by the Aiken Standard. SRNS spokespeople would not comment further on the plans when asked Wednesday. But Kim seems so nice! Photo: ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP/Getty Images Among the many holiday greetings received at the White House in the last few weeks was another missive from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. President Trump described it as a great letter, and for now, well have to take his word for it; while hes reportedly taken to showing off Kims correspondence to visitors, hes yet to share the letters contents. But Kim had some public messages for the U.S. in his address on New Years Day, and they were pretty straightforward. Basically, if Trump officials want to keep claiming diplomacy with the North as one of their major successes, theyre going to have to work for it. And no, North Korea isnt giving up its nuclear weapons. Pyongyang mostly stayed out of U.S. headlines in the final months of 2018, but it has been busy. North Korea stiffed U.S. negotiators while taking big symbolic steps with South Korea and rebuilding relationships with Russia and China, undercutting whats left of U.N. sanctions. Washingtons frustration mounted steadily, as North Korean interlocutors delayed meeting with U.S. envoy Stephen Biegun and even canceled a scheduled trip to the United States just after the 2018 midterms. Administration officials quietly backed away from their optimism for doing a deal around the Norths nuclear program. Who remembers now, as Bloombergs Nick Wadhams points out, that back in June, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said such an agreement could be mostly wrapped up before the 2020 elections? One person who hasnt seemed concerned is President Trump himself. Even as experts pointed out that no disarmament was happening, Trump continued to tout the quality and depth of what he and Kim had built throughout 2018. Who could forget his we fell in love riff at a fall campaign rally, after Kim wrote him beautiful letters? He went in a different direction on January 2, telling reporters that, had he not sat down with Kim, we would have a big fat war in Asia. Unfortunately for Trump, Kim depicts their relationship in less passionate terms. His New Years address doubled down on a point hes repeated since their June meeting in Singapore: The North sees nuclear disarmament as a process it will undertake in conjunction with Washington pulling back the U.S.s ability to use nuclear weapons and conduct large-scale military exercises on the Korean Peninsula. And although Kim called the U.S.North Korea summit and subsequent meetings with South Korean president Moon Jae-in an undeletable achievement, Kim wanted the world to know that he has options: We even might find ourselves in a situation where we have no other choice but to find a new way for defending the sovereignty of the country and the supreme interests of the state and for achieving peace and stability of the Korean peninsula, he said. Observers read that as a threat to resume nuclear testing and/or heighten efforts to play Washington against Beijing, which Kim is due to visit again early in the new year. Kim is already causing discord between the U.S. and its longtime ally South Korea. The Moon government has moved steadily ahead on symbolic gestures like border summits and train trips into the North, and would like to go further with economic assistance and extending enterprise zones, which would inject money and technology into the Norths economy. However, much of Trumps Cabinet wanted to keep up economic pressure on the North, and resume military exercises with the South. Of course, Trump has done a pretty good job of upsetting U.S.South Korean ties all by himself; negotiations on how the two countries share the costs of the U.S. troop presence on the Korean Peninsula broke down when Trump reportedly demanded the Koreans double the $836 million they currently pay per year. Right now there is no agreement in place. Funds to pay the South Korean workers supporting U.S. forces run out in April, and unlike the U.S. government, Seoul does not have a tradition of shutdowns and subsequent worker paybacks. Meanwhile, Trumps tariffs are pinching Korean manufacturing. Kim and his North Korean predecessors have a long tradition of using their nuclear program to bring attention back to the peninsula, and playing the U.S., China, and Russia off each other skillfully to get what they want. Since the Singapore Summit, Washingtons default position has been to give Kim a little and wait to see what he would offer; instead, Kim seems to be seizing the initiative, saying what else will you give me to keep this beautiful friendship flowing? That presents a dilemma for Trump and his team: They can either admit that they would take some kind of deal that accepts a nuclear-armed North Korea (maybe even giving up some chips for such an agreement), or stick to the goal of full denuclearization and see tensions rise again. This would be a difficult call even for an administration that wasnt working with an acting Defense secretary, acting U.N. ambassador, and acting assistant secretary of State for East Asia. And this quandry is bigger than the Trump administration. In the months since the Singapore Summit, more and more North Korea experts and nuclear policy wonks have been willing to say publicly, if grudgingly, that the Norths nuclear program is here to stay. The U.S. will have to live with a relationship based on deterrence, they say, and settle for some limits and intelligence on the Norths nuclear program. Yet Washington is strewn with politicians in both parties who have said for years that North Korea must not become a nuclear power, full stop never mind that its been one for quite some time. As we head into the 2020 election, Democratic candidates will have to come up with their own vision for relations with North Korea. All of that means you should expect more fire and fury over North Korea, or at least sparks and tweets, in 2019. And not all of them will be aimed outside Washington. Would you like to receive breaking news notifications from The Post and Courier? Sign up to receive news and updates from this site directly to your desktop. Breaking News Columbia Breaking News Greenville Breaking News Myrtle Beach Breaking News Aiken Breaking News Click on the bell icon to manage your notifications at any time. Success! Please click the 'Allow' button in the 'Show Notifcations' alert in your browser if one is available. Thank you for signing up! Please enable notifications in your browser and reload the page. Among the services the Kansas AgrAbility Project helps to coordinate is assisting farmers and ranchers with lift chair technology so they can access their farming equipment. Pulse USA, a pulse crop and forage seed company based in Bismarck, N.D., is now fully-owned by some of the employees who work there. CHICO, Calif. - Chico police are still searching for the person or persons they say robbed two Chico businesses within 24 hours during the New Year holiday. The first robbery happened on New Year's Eve at the East Avenue Liquor. The store owner said he was closing up his shop around 11:45 p.m. when a white man in his 40s entered the store with a handgun and demanded money. The store owner said he gave the man a little more than $1,000 in cash. Surveillance video shows that the man had on a blue hoodie and bandana covering his face. The second robbery happened on New Year's Day at All The Best Video on Cohasset Rd. Chico police would not say whether the two crimes are related and whether they are looking for one or multiple suspects. Anyone with information on either of the crimes is asked to contact the Chico Police Department at (530) 897-4900. WENN/FayesVision Celebrity According to a source, a judge signed off on the dissolution of their marriage last month, four years after Erika filed for divorce from the former 'American Idol' judge. Jan 3, 2019 AceShowbiz - Randy Jackson and his estranged wife are getting closer to be single again in the eyes of the law. A little over four years after Erika Riker filed for divorce in September 2014, news broke out that the former judge on "American Idol" and his ex will find themselves officially divorced on February 7. Court documents obtained by TMZ uncovered that the dissolution of the estranged couple's marriage was signed off by a judge sometime in December 2018. Details on the settlement, however, are kept under wraps. Since the former pair did not have any prenuptial agreement, it is likely that all of what the record producer's earnings during the marriage will be split fifty-fifty between them. Back in 2014, Riker cited "irreconcilable differences" as the reason of her split from Jackson. At that time, she sought a full physical custody and joint legal custody of their youngest child, Jordan, who was at the time still a minor. She also sought spousal support and asked the Grammy-winning producer to pay for her attorney's fees. At the time of split, Jackson and Riker had been married for 19 years. They are parents to two children together, a daughter named Zoe and a son named Jordan. Since the divorce process took a long time to be finalized, Jordan's custody won't be an issue anymore as their youngest son has since turned 21. In regards to the marriage breakdown, an inside source told PEOPLE, "[Jackson] is bummed out. It's not the way he wanted it to happen or end." Still, this was not Jackson's first marriage. The "America's Best Dance Crew" producer was previously married to Elizabeth Jackson until it got dissolved in 1990. From the marriage, he had a daughter named Taylor. Syndicated Celebrity During her January 2 appearance on 'The Ellen DeGeneres', the 'Project Runway' host revealed that she apologized to the Canadian star for ghosting her. Jan 3, 2019 AceShowbiz - Heidi Klum and Drake's story apparently doesn't end after the model revealed in September last year that she ignored the "In My Feelings" rapper's text in which he asked her for a date. During her January 2 appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", the "Project Runway" host revealed that she did apologize to the Canadian star for ghosting her. "The last time we were on here we talked about Drake and you not responding to Drake. Has he now reached out again?" Ellen DeGeneres asked. "No, but I did," she responded. "I said, 'I'm sorry,' because I know I've made a huge wave after I was here," she explained, before telling the host his priceless reaction. "He just made that face," the mom of four said as she tried to mimick a mopey looking expression. When asked if she met with the hip-hop star in person, Heidi said, "No. You know those little emojis that they send?" Knowing that it was all Drake responded, Ellen believed that Drake is mad. It all went down back in February last year when Heidi confessed to Ellen that she was "very single and ready to mingle." The two then played a "Who'd You Rather" game, and that was when she said she would love to date the "Hotline Bling" hitmaker instead of the likes of Brad Pitt, Harry Styles and Milo Ventimiglia. "I like Drake. I mean look at that muscle!" she said at the time. Later in September, Heidi returned to "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", revealing that Drake texted her. However, the timing was bad because just a week ago she met her now-fiance Tom Kaulitz. "Someone who I know knows him and he asked to have my number and then he texted me, she shared. "I was like, 'Oh my gosh, this is so weird!' but then I never texted him back because I found the love of my life." Ellen then asked, "Wait, so he texted you and you didn't even respond?" "No," the "America's Got Talent" judge replied. "I mean, what do you do? You snooze you lose, you know what I mean?" Instagram Celebrity After the wife of Nick Lachey tells an online troll to be positive in the new year, her social media account gets flooded with applauds for her classy response. Jan 3, 2019 AceShowbiz - Vanessa Lachey a.k.a. Vanessa Minnillo is reaping from the goodness she sows. The host of "Top Chef Junior" has garnered praises from fans after she chose to thank a rude fan who compared her 3-year-old daughter, Brooklyn, to her husband's ex, Jessica Simpson, on Twitter. On Monday, December 31, one Twitter user rudely posted a now-deleted tweet that read, "Ok... elephant in the room... but why does Vanessa Lachey's daughter look like Jessica Simpson?" The wife of Nick Lachey was quick to share her thought on the matter. "2019, new year, new outlook. Let's be positive, especially with our children," she replied. "Thanks Kimberly. Happy New Year." 2019, new year, new outlook. Lets be positive, especially with our children. Thanks Kimberly. Happy New Year. Vanessa Lachey (@VanessaLachey) 1 Januari 2019 Vanessa's positive response was immediately met with applause by other followers. A number of people commended her for showing "a class act." Another wrote, "Classy response to a tweet. Happy New Year!" Meanwhile, a third pointed out, "I'm not sure I would've been so nice!! Your children are beautiful." You are a class act Mrs. Lachey! Tami (@TamiJCase) 1 Januari 2019 Classy response to a tweet. Happy New Year! Dave Larsen (@DaveLar55659955) 2 Januari 2019 Another supporter went to great length to commend Vanessa's kind reply. "I wanted to say your response was VERY CLASSY! It's sad this person made a comment like that. No one should talk about someone's children on Social Media," the fan stated. "They should be Off Limits! You and your Children are BEAUTIFUL - Inside and Out! I Wish your Family a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!" I wanted to say your response was VERY CLASSY! It's sad this person made a comment like that. No one should talk about someone's children on Social Media. They should be Off Limits! You and your Children are BEAUTIFUL - Inside and Out! I Wish your Family a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR! Beauty To Love (@BeautyToLove) 3 Januari 2019 While many complimented the 38-year-old's reaction, others raved over her middle child. A user noted, "Alot of people says that about Brooklyn because she simply have blonde hair. Your daughter looks just like you Vanessa you and @NickLachey Happy New Year. You 2 have beautiful Children." Another shared similar sentiment by writing, "She's absolutely beautiful, kids should always be off limits. Much love @VanessaLachey." Alot of people says that about Brooklyn because she simply have blonde hair. Your daughter looks just like you Vanessa you and @NickLachey Happy New Year. You 2 have beautiful Children. Carra Ciara Patillo (@CarraPatillo2) 1 Januari 2019 She's absolutely beautiful, kids should always be off limits. Much love @VanessaLachey MICHELLE FLYNN (@Ummmmichelle) 2 Januari 2019 Vanessa married Nick at Sir Richard Branson's private Necker Island in the British Virgin Island back in 2011. Aside from Brooklyn, she also shared 6-year-old Camden and 2-year-old Phoenix with the 98 Degrees member whom she met in 2006 when appearing in the music video for his solo song, "What's Left of Me". Nick himself divorced Jessica in 2006. At the time, "irreconcilable differences" was put forth as the reason of the separation. Jessica has since moved on by marrying Eric Johnson with whom she has two children, 6-year-old daughter Maxwell and 5-year-old son Ace Knute. She is currently pregnant with a third child. 20th Century Fox TV In a new interview, Rob Liefeld reveals he remains optimistic that an animated series centering on the anti-hero may still be in the cards after one Marvel executive's tease. Jan 3, 2019 AceShowbiz - Fans were left devastated after Donald Glover announced that his planned animated series centering on Deadpool fell apart due to creative differences with FX. However, it seems fans of the Merc with a Mouth can still hope for another animated series of the Marvel Comics character as Deadpool co-creator hints that Deadpool cartoon isn't dead yet. Talking to Nerdist, Rob Liefeld says that he himself wants to see an animated Deadpool series. "When that Donald Glover news broke, and maybe unlike the rest of you, sometimes I look at my phone when I'm driving, which I shouldn't, on the freeway and I may have swerved. Like, woah! When that went south, that was very, like, unfortunate," he tells the site. However, Liefeld remains optimistic that an animated series centering on the fan-favorite anti-hero may still be coming to the small screen. "I think for all. But, I will not say who, but a Marvel executive did say, 'Don't worry, Robert, we're going to give you a Deadpool cartoon. It's still going to happen,' " he reveals. "Let me tell you that I have no inside information," Liefeld notes. "I just know that look, Marvel is doing a great job of taking over the world right?" Back in March, fans' hope of a Deadpool animated series was crushed after FX canceled a 10-episode planned Deadpool cartoon which was created by Donald and Stephen Clover. "Due to creative differences, FX, Donald Glover, Stephen Glover and Marvel Television have agreed to part ways on Marvels Deadpool animated series," FX said in a statement. "FX will no longer be involved with the project. FX and Marvel have an ongoing relationship through our partnership on 'Legion', which will continue." The "Atlanta" creator/executive producer/star later took to Twitter to share a spoof script of the canned series in which he slammed the network. "For the record: I wasn't too busy to work on Deadpool," he wrote in a now-deleted post. In the 12-page faux script, Deadpool told Sudan, "You know, I'm not mad about this whole 'cancelled' thing. I actually think it's a good time to have a violent, gun loving white man ranting on TV? Other than the PRESIDENT!" The titular character later wonders whether "they just wanna sell toys" or they "cancelled the show 'cause of racism?!" President Trump has another weird, pro-Russian history take Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded neighboring Afghanistan. The American interpretation of this invasion, shared by both parties, is that the Soviets were propping up a faltering communist client state, following the Brezhnev Doctrine, which held that any country that had gone socialist could not be allowed to revert. President Trump bizarrely interjected a different interpretation of this episode. The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia, he told reporters today. They were right to be there. The problem is, it was a tough fight. And because it was so tough, he explained, the Soviet Union became Russia. The part about the fight being tough, and resulting in the collapse of the Soviet Union is true. The strange bits in Trumps explanation are his claim that the Soviets were right to invade and that its a problem that the fight was tough. Americans dont agree about the U.S. response to the invasion a grain embargo by the Carter administration, and then arming anti-Soviet guerrillas, many of whom had radical Islamist views. But there has been little disagreement that the Soviets did something bad by invading. Until now. Meanwhile, the Russian government is moving an official resolution defending the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. (The approval is scheduled to take place next month.) Russians have previously called the invasion a tragic error, but Vladimir Putins regime which regards the collapse of the Soviet Union as a world-historical tragedy is systematically rehabilitating various Soviet crimes. Trump is almost certainly not carrying out some kind of favor for Putin by weirdly defending the invasion of Afghanistan and lamenting its harmful consequences for the Soviet empire. (Putin doesnt gain much from Trump launching a weirdly Russophilic historical riff.) Still, it raises the question of just where Trump is hearing this stuff. Hes not getting pro-Soviet revisionist history from Fox & Friends. Hes also probably not reading alternative histories of central Asia. So who planted this idea in Trumps head, anyway? WENN/Brian To Celebrity The former 'Jackass' star, who admitted to have been struggling with alcoholism and bulimia, made the announcement via a post on his social media account on New Year's Eve. Jan 3, 2019 AceShowbiz - Bam Margera has checked into rehab for the third time as he continues his battle against alcoholism. The former star of "Jackass" and pro skateboarder announced in a post on Instagram on Monday, December 31, 2018, that he was entering treatment once again. In 2017, Margera admitted he had struggled with alcoholism and bulimia, and he has since completed two stints in rehab - one following an arrest last year for driving under the influence. "Off to alcohol rehab for the 3rd time," he captioned a shot of himself holding his one-year-old son Phoenix Wolf, whom he shares with his wife, Nicole Boyd. "I am hoping the term 3rd time is a charm is true." "Thanks to @johnnyschillereff of element skateboards for checking me into alcohol rehab today," he continued. "No phones here, see y'all soon." Margera shared a snapshot from inside the facility and explained that he will be allowed to use his phone to keep in touch with his family. "Rehab privileges- having my own bathroom, i can p**s and floss simultaneously, and I get to use my phone an hour a day!" he wrote. The TV stuntman escaped jail last April after he was charged with driving under the influence and driving with a blood alcohol level of .08 per cent in February (18) following his arrest in California the previous month. He was detained after he failed a field sobriety test after traffic police officials spotted him using his cellphone while driving and pulled him over. The 39-year-old received three years' probation and had to attend an alcohol and "live in" programme, Alcohol Anonymous meetings, and pay fines. Margera's "Jackass" costar Ryan Dunn died in 2011 while driving under the influence of alcohol. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE On her third day as governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham announced that New Mexico will drop the oft-maligned PARCC exam after the current school year if not sooner. In its place, a new state-specific assessment system will be created, Lujan Grisham said. Although its unclear exactly what the replacement will look like, the new Democratic governor said shes confident it can be in place by August and will meet federal requirements. I know that PARCC isnt working, Lujan Grisham said after announcing two executive orders during a news conference at the state Capitol. We know that around the country. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ The governor, who was joined by four teachers at Thursdays news conference, also said families and students around the state should expect to see New Mexico transition immediately out of high-stakes testing. Lujan Grisham had vowed on the campaign trail to eliminate PARCC testing in New Mexico if elected, and described it Thursday as a punitive system that has pushed educators to focus on test-taking preparation, not on teaching. Teachers union leaders, who had clashed with former Gov. Susana Martinezs administration over the PARCC exam and other education initiatives, praised Lujan Grishams executive orders as a positive step. It will be a huge morale-booster for teachers, said Charles Goodmacher, the government and media relations director for the National Education Association-New Mexico union. It could even convince some people who were thinking about leaving to stay longer. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said it was telling that Lujan Grishams first official action as governor was focused on public education. The governor recognizes what renowned scientists have been saying for years that an overreliance on standardized testing turns schools from welcoming learning sanctuaries to testing factories, Weingarten said. However, the governors announcement was not met with universal applause, even among teachers. Amanda Aragon, executive director of the nonprofit group NewMexicoKidsCAN, called Lujan Grishams announcement disappointing. I think the criticisms of PARCC tend not to be based in real information, Aragon said. She argued that the rhetoric across the country about PARCC has become politically driven and expressed concern that Thursdays announcement would leave teachers and students in limbo while they wait for a replacement assessment to be developed. If youre a teacher or student, its confusing, she said. Members of another organization made up of educators, principals and education assistants, Educators Elevating New Mexico, also blasted the announcement, saying the governor had failed to consult with groups representing high-performing teachers and those in rural areas. Three founding members of the organization, which was created last summer, also said in a statement that teachers unions do not speak for all educators. David Peercy, president of the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education, said hell watch closely to see what new system the state adopts. He told the Journal that hes not anti-PARCC but has been against the way the test has been used. The former PED administration used PARCC scores as a factor in school grades, which were used to identify low-performing schools for potential closure, and teacher evaluations. Walkouts, protests The New Mexico Public Education Department began using the PARCC exam in 2015 for students in third through 11th grades. Results from the PARCC test, short for Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, were used by the Martinez administration in the states school grading and teacher evaluation systems, both of which could now undergo changes. The initial implementation of the annual standardized test prompted walkouts, protests and criticism from Democratic lawmakers. Nearly 5,500 students declined to take the exam in the first year it was implemented, but that number and the protests have dropped significantly. The state has also made changes, including shortening the test. Meanwhile, the number of states using PARCC has dropped in recent years and Lujan Grishams decision to end it in New Mexico will leave New Jersey and the District of Columbia as the only states still fully administering it. During Thursdays news conference, Lujan Grisham said some parts of the PARCC exam may still be used this spring when the annual test is scheduled to be taken to ensure that New Mexico complies with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which she voted for as a member of Congress. The governor also said feedback from teachers, school administrators and parents will be used to create the new assessment tool. In addition, she said she believes the changes will be allowable under federal law, which requires annual tests from third to eighth grades but gives states flexibility in how theyre administered. My expectation is my leadership team deals with that proactively so we dont have those (problems), Lujan Grisham said. Despite moving quickly to drop PARCC testing in New Mexico, Lujan Grisham said shes not necessarily planning to undo all other Martinez-era education initiatives. She also heralded the recent announcement that New Mexicos 2018 high school graduation rate had increased to 73 percent an all-time high that still lags behind the national average. We want to build on that thats a good thing for New Mexico, Lujan Grisham said. Education secretary Although several Cabinet secretaries have been named, Lujan Grisham has not announced her pick to run the Public Education Department. She said Thursday that she will unveil her choice before the 60-day legislative session starts Jan. 15, but she indicated that logistical challenges including the $128,000-per-year salary have complicated efforts to fill the post. Im not going to move so quickly we dont have the right person in this job, Lujan Grisham told reporters. In the meantime, she said Lt. Gov. Howie Morales, a former state senator and special education teacher, will temporarily take on the duties and responsibilities of PED secretary. Morales, who also attended Thursdays news conference, met for hours with PED employees later in the day to inform them of the pending changes. We want the department to know theres stability, leadership and direction, Morales said. He said his message to PED staffers was received positively. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... FARMINGTON The San Juan County Commission is scheduled to proclaim Chevel Shepherd Week when it meets at 4 p.m. Thursday at the county administration building, 100 S. Oliver Drive in Aztec. The meeting was originally scheduled for 4 p.m. Tuesday but was rescheduled due to the New Year holiday. The proclamation may happen at the start of the meeting. The Commission will also discuss state and federal legislative requests for 2019. Other meeting topics include transferring the ownership of the Harper Valley subdivisions wastewater collection system to Valley Water and Sanitation District. Shepherd, 16, is a recent winner on NBCs The Voice. She belted out God Bless America during a Tuesday inauguration event for New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in Santa Fe. The Farmington High School junior earned the most support among The Voice voters nationwide last month and claimed the grand prize of a recording contract with the Universal Music Group. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ She is planning to hold a public concert soon in San Juan County. 2019 The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.) Visit The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.) at www.daily-times.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. New Mexico regulators are considering a proposal that calls for investigating soil and groundwater contamination at a former meat packing plant in Albuquerque. The state Environment Department said Wednesday it will review the initial plan to clean up the former Karler meat packing facility. The agencys Ground Water Quality Bureau required the property owner to submit a plan to address pollution at the site. Previous sampling results indicate that concentrations of nitrate, chloride and total dissolved solids exceed state water quality standards. The proposed investigation will define the extent of soil and groundwater effects at the site. At a later stage, the property owner will have to outline proposed actions for dealing with the pollution. The public will have an opportunity to comment and can request a hearing. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... The White House recently recognized Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center Executive Director Joseph Oder as a 2018 Air Force recipient of the Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Executive. This is a highly prestigious award, which is very well deserved, said Maj. Gen. Shaun Morris, AFNWC commander. It recognizes Joes exceptional accomplishments and strong commitment to public service throughout his career. Air Force recipients of the Presidential Rank Awards are endorsed by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, reviewed by a board of private citizens from across the country and approved by the president. I am humbled and honored to receive this award, Oder said. It recognizes the importance of our mission and the entire team that ensures our nations most-powerful weapons are never doubted and always feared. A U.S. Air Force Academy graduate, Oder has more than 25 years of experience in nuclear weapons and counter proliferation. He has served in the Air Force and the National Nuclear Security Administration as an officer and a civilian. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ According to the Office of Personnel Management, each year the awards recognize an elite group of senior career members for their exceptional leadership, accomplishments and service over an extended period of time. One of two ranks, the Meritorious Executive rank is awarded for sustained accomplishments, with only five percent of career senior executive service members receiving it. Headquartered at Kirtland AFB, AFNWC is responsible for synchronizing all aspects of nuclear materiel management on behalf of Air Force Materiel Command, in direct support of Air Force Global Strike Command. The center has about 1,100 personnel, military and civilian, assigned to 18 locations worldwide. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... SANTA FE The leader of a prominent New Mexico teachers union has filed a personal injury lawsuit against the Legislatures administrative arm, alleging that injuries she suffered in a fall down a Roundhouse staircase during the final days of last years legislative session were due to negligence. Stephanie Ly, the president of the American Federation of Teachers-New Mexico, filed the lawsuit with her husband this week in state District Court in Santa Fe and is seeking damages to cover her past and future medical bills, among other things. She claims in the lawsuit that she was hurt while walking down the Capitol stairs in February from the office of Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, D-Albuquerque, to the House floor. The offices for many state senators, including Ivey-Soto, are on the Roundhouses third floor, two levels up from the House and Senate floor. Although the lawsuit does not describe exactly how the fall occurred, it alleges the injuries Ly suffered were due to hazardous conditions and the Legislative Council Services negligence in failing to adequately maintain the stairway. Lys attorney, Bruce Thompson of Albuquerque, said Wednesday that he could not provide additional details about the incident. A top official with the Legislative Council Service said he could not provide more information either. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ New Mexicos tort claims law, which sets rules over how and when government agencies can be sued, mandates that lawsuits against state government entities must be filed within two years of an injury-causing incident. The most that state government can be required to pay under a judgment or settlement is $300,000 for medical bills and a total of $750,000 for other losses, including lost wages. Ly was a vocal critic of many of the education initiatives pushed by former Gov. Susana Martinez, including a teacher evaluation system that used students standardized test scores and other criteria to determine educators effectiveness. She was also one of several teachers union leaders named as members of new Gov. Michelle Lujan Grishams transition team for the Public Education Department. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... RIO RANCHO By no means is David Marler the only ardent collector in the City of Vision. But Marlers UFO collection encompassing dozens of file drawers, original newspaper front pages, photographs and rare material from the Air Forces Project Blue Book is different in that it has a destination after his passing. Of course, Marlers only 50, so hes not going anytime soon. But someday, his growing collection will be handed off to the University of New Mexico, which Marler sees as the future destination for UFOlogists. UFO organizations come and go, but the universitys always gonna be here, he said. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Marler, who makes his living through medical sales throughout the state and El Paso, often spends his own money for travel expenses and accumulating others collections, as he recently did on a trip to Tempe, Ariz., to acquire a substantial collection that included a wealth of foreign reports on sightings from South America to the former Soviet Union. That shows the global nature of the phenomenon, Marler said. People are looking up and seeing things they cant identify. Theres a volume of material that even ardent skeptics cant refute. Documentarian James Fox, in the state recently to do a piece on a 1964 Socorro incident, checked out Marlers photos of the purported landing site of that UFO. The Bibles a collection of books; this is a collection of collections, Marler said. A dedicated UFO researcher, he began this hobby in 1990; UFO collectors are just curators, he said. One of his most recent acquisitions came from a dumpster diver who yanked out a collection thrown away after the death of a collector. Among that material was correspondence signed by President Lyndon Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. But it gets expensive, amassing a lot of one-of-a-kind material and documents, and newspapers that may have once been printed in the millions but are rare 100 or so years later. Thats why Marler recently joined the 21st century he has a Facebook presence now and began a GoFundMe page to attract donations. Youll find Marlers GoFundMe account online at gofundme.com/ufo-research-fund; his website is at www.davidmarlerufo.com. In the collection are videos, one of which includes the eyewitness account of late Mercury 7 astronaut Scott Carpenter of the second time he saw an apparent UFO at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in 1957. The film of the UFO mysteriously disappeared. Still, Marler wont argue fervently to defend the existence of UFOs. Hes never seen one. He said he refuses to let his feelings influence his frequent conversations about the subject. As he puts it, Fact, fiction or folklore, its part of our history. That history began before the acclaimed Roswell incident in 1947. I like the battle of LA, he said of his favorite story. The incident in 1942 on the West Coast had thousands of witnesses. But Farmingtons also interesting, because of one-third of the town looking up over two or three days (and seeing) hundreds of objects, he said. The Farmington event took place in March 1950, when thousands of people reported seeing hundreds of flying saucers in broad daylight in northwestern New Mexico. Not much research had been done on it until Marler began investigating, interviewing a few eyewitnesses, and finding newspaper accounts throughout the state of similar events 68 years ago. Give Marler a few minutes, and hell be able to extract yellowed newspaper clippings from the late 19th century, or another item hes proud of: A bound volume of Scientific American from 1882, in which theres a very short story about a sighting of two black triangular notches seen passing the surface of the moon in July 1881. People still report disc-shaped (UFOs), but there have been more and more reports of triangular-shaped UFOs, Marler said. And, hes quick to point out, those triangular-shaped reports were coming in long before the countrys stealth fighter jets. Accumulating and organizing materials, making occasional presentations hes booked for a presentation in Nova Scotia in 2020 soon writing another book, traveling for his full-time job and being consulted by his fiancee, Kendra, about their May nuptials, Marler has the right to feel exhausted. Im burning the candle at three ends, if thats possible, he said. Its a fascinating subject. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal Daniel Eyestone was looking for a change of scenery when he moved from Kansas to Albuquerque about three years ago. But he and his wife werent ready to call it quits on a 30-year career in teaching just yet. When the two retirees found substitute teacher openings at Albuquerque Public Schools, it seemed like a good fit for both of them. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Eyestone, who has worked at roughly 12 schools in the district, has been subbing for three years since. This year will be a special one for the Eyestones, because APS substitute teachers and educational assistants are getting raises, starting this month. The APS subs are getting raises of $1.40 to $4.20 an hour. For a substitute educational assistant, the rate is going from $9.10 to $10.50 an hour, and the base pay for a sub teacher is going from $10 to $13 an hour. APS estimates the raises will cost the district about $1.2 million annually. Eyestone said that although his family was comfortable, the additional income will go toward paying off their move and to help boost their rainy day fund. With this raise, it alleviates a lot of concerns we might have, he said. He said that when he was first job hunting in Albuquerque he noticed the substitute salary rate hadnt gone up in a while. So he was surprised but glad the district was able to give the raises, saying it makes him feel appreciated. Boy, were two people who are very grateful, Eyestone told the Journal. Its work he enjoys, saying he likes that each day is different and keeps him on his toes. Its different kids and not the same thing every day, he said. It can also be challenging at times, because subs get called into an array of classrooms. The longtime government and history teacher feels a little out of his element on a day he is called to teach math, for instance, but hes able to exercise the classroom management and other skills decades of teaching instilled in him. It also keeps him busy. He told the Journal there are periods when he is at a different school every day of the week, because there is a districtwide need for subs. But the raises are supposed to help with that, too. In APS announcement of the raises, the district said it is increasing the pay to attract more subs. Officials say the district has about 1,000 substitute teachers and wants to increase the number to 1,500. And although the district would like 300 educational assistant subs, it has only 60 now. According to a New Mexico State University report, 53,455 students across the state were being taught by long-term substitutes as of Oct. 1. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal The winter weather that walloped the state over the New Years holiday left roadways closed and snarled traffic with dozens of crashes. Some proved deadly. A chain reaction crash on Wednesday morning in Albuquerque took the life of a tow truck driver trying to lend a hand, and icy roads outside Cuba led to a crash that killed a young boy on New Years Eve. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Between New Years Eve and Wednesday morning, the Albuquerque Police Department responded to 66 traffic accidents with injuries, 157 traffic accidents with no injuries and 124 stranded motorist calls, according to Deputy Chief Harold Medina. Albuquerque Fire Rescue will continue to drive through the city to rescue stranded drivers and others who need help. Tow truck driver Patrick Cisneros, 50, was working early Wednesday morning when he saw a New Mexico State Police officer stuck on Interstate 40, just west of the Big I, after a crash. Cisneros got out of his truck to help the officer and was fatally struck by a semi-tractor trailer. State Police spokesman Dusty Francisco said the crash occurred at about 1 a.m., involved six vehicles and shut down eastbound I-40 from Coors to the Big I until midmorning Wednesday. It started when a State Police officer stopped on I-40, just west of the Big I, to investigate a crash. He said a semi-tractor trailer collided with the officers vehicle while the officer was still inside. Francisco said Cisneros, 50, then stopped to help. He was outside his tow truck when another semi-tractor trailer barreled into him, his truck and the State Police vehicle. He said a third semi-tractor trailer side-swiped another semi-tractor trailer that had slowed to avoid the crashes and collided with the tow truck a second time. Francisco said the State Police officer sustained non-life-threatening injuries, but Cisneros died at the scene. I-40 was our biggest issue, State Police Lt. Mark Soriano said, adding that the road conditions were the worst from Moriarty to Clines Corners. A lot of traffic. A lot of semis sliding off the road, jackknifed semis. Gerald Madrid, owner of Madrid Towing, said Cisneros was one of the hardest-working guys he knew. He could outwork the young guys any day and never complain, he said. Madrid said he had known Cisneros for decades and hired him in May 2018. He said it was not unusual to find Cisneros hard at work the morning after pulling a late night shift and only getting an hour or two of sleep. I said, Pat what are you doing?' he said, adding that Cisneros would reply, Theres calls; I got to get it handled. Madrid said he doesnt know where Cisneros, who was on call for Albuquerque police Tuesday night, was headed at the time of the crash, but he wasnt surprised he stopped to help. Albuquerque Police Chief Mike Geier released a statement Wednesday after Cisneros death. Madrid Towing is one of our contract companies that works every day with our officers to assist motorists, Geier said. Like Mr. Cisneros, tow truck drivers are all professionals who do dangerous jobs to keep people safe. I offer my condolences on behalf of APD, along with our appreciation for the years of service Mr. Cisneros gave to his community. Outside Cuba, a New Years Eve crash left a 12-year-old Albuquerque boy dead, according to State Police. State Police spokesman Ray Wilson said a truck was traveling north on U.S. 550 around 7 p.m. when it fish-tailed on the slick road and slid into oncoming traffic, colliding with a car. He said a passenger in the car, Alexander Madsen, died in the crash and three others were treated for non-life threatening injuries. The weather was a contributing factor in the crash, alcohol was not involved, and seat belts were properly used, Wilson said. The crash is still under investigation. In Bernalillo County, authorities were discouraging travel through Wednesday morning. The state Department of Transportation website reported severe driving conditions Wednesday morning in much of the East Mountains, including Tijeras Canyon, Cedar Crest, Sedillo Hill and the Edgewood/Moriarity area. N.M. 536 from Sandia Park to Sandia Crest was closed Wednesday. Much of the Albuquerque metro area reported difficult driving conditions Wednesday morning, but street conditions improved during the day. During an operational briefing Wednesday at the Office of Emergency Management, Patrick Montoya, director of the citys Department of Municipal Development, said crews would continue to work 12-hour shifts with additional workers helping to get at least 30 trucks moving consistently. He said those shifts would continue overnight in case streets refreeze and are likely to extend to todays morning commute. We concentrate on arterial streets Lomas, Louisiana, Menaul, Montoya said. Once we feel comfortable with those streets, we go to collector streets, which are Spain and Morris. Crews were unable to plow residential streets, he said, which would make it difficult for many residents to get out of their neighborhoods. According to the National Weather Service, the metro area could see temperatures in the low teens this morning, possibly causing streets and highways to refreeze. Low temperatures will continue to dip into the teens tonight and Friday night. Hard-hit Los Alamos was also digging out Wednesday. N.M. 4 at Los Alamos was closed for about 24 hours, reopening early Wednesday morning, according to Cmdr. Oliver Morris of the Los Almos Police Department. Most of the main roadways are pretty clear now, he said late Wednesday afternoon. I think what were dealing with now is the accumulation. Clearing out some of the parking areas and such, they havent quite caught up. Rosanne Rodriguez, a spokeswoman with DOTs District 5, said many roads were still snowpacked and icy. There are a lot of areas where there still are difficult driving conditions, like in Chama and up to Colorado. But all the other roads seem to be drying up, she said. Rodriguez added that snow drifting on some roads was also a problem. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... WASHINGTON Trump has always been erratic and impulsive. Why is Wall Street surprised now? There isnt any good explanation for President Trumps abrupt announcement last month he was withdrawing all U.S. troops from Syria. Conservative hawks are livid, of course, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the decision a Christmas gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin. But even those who favor withdrawal seem bemused. International-relations analyst Stephen M. Walt cheered the troop withdrawal in a Foreign Policy article headlined: Good Riddance to Americas Syria Policy: As usual, Donald Trump has done the right thing in the wrong way. Was the president trying to shore up his support with a base grown tired of foreign interventions? Did he cave when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told him over the phone that he was going to carry his operations against the Kurds into Syrian territory? Was Trumps decision a momentary whim now incredibly become indelible history? Who can say? Just in time for Christmas, Trump finally brought us the peace that passeth all understanding. Even by Trumpian standards, the troop-withdrawal announcement looked haphazard. And it wasnt the Trump administrations only holiday surprise. On the Saturday before Christmas, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced (on Twitter, naturally) that the president had no intention of firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell. Which of course raised the possibility that he might. On Sunday, Mnuchin returned with a stunning encore: He said he had spoken with the heads of the United States six largest banks to confirm that they had ample liquidity available for lending and havent had any clearance or margin issues the markets continue to function properly. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Always nice to hear, of course, but because no one had suggested the markets werent functioning properly, the news was startling. Such announcements are traditionally made only on the eve of a crisis, not an otherwise dull Sunday afternoon. Inevitably, people feared they had somehow overlooked a looming disaster in what had seemed, until then, merely a mild and orderly market correction from an exuberant boom. Markets skidded further on Monday. Mnuchins actions are both more and less mysterious than the presidents. Less, because it seems clear why his Twitter feed developed a sudden nervous tic: He was trying to appease his boss. More, because neither Mnuchin nor anyone else understands how to calm the impetuous, irascible occupant of the Oval Office. Presumably, the president is displeased by the recent decline in financial markets. Its less clear whether he, or anyone else, actually believed that investors would perk right up if the treasury secretary, for no apparent reason, started shouting, Guys, everythings fine! Were not going to have another financial crisis, okay? To be fair, its not clear what would cheer them up. Which brings us to the deepest mystery of all: Why were investors so optimistic in the first place? I asked a number of financial professionals that question back when the bull market was still charging ahead. After all, Trump had promised tariffs, which large, publicly traded corporations tend not to like; he had promised immigration restrictions, which such companies really dont like; and finally, he had promised lots of uncertainty, which those firms hate with the white-hot fire of a thousand suns. The boom could be viewed as a collective sigh of relief that Democrats wouldnt be finding new and creative ways to regulate the private sector. But given the protectionist drawbacks of a Trump administration, this didnt really justify a 35 percent increase in the value of the S&P 500 from November 2016 to September 2018. The best answer I got was that investors and chief executives assumed that Trump was planning to do the stuff they wanted the tax cuts, the deregulation and that the rest of his campaign promises were just base-pandering rhetoric that would be quickly abandoned. Their belief seemed touchingly naive, even quaint. But also sincere and strongly held. Which may solve the twin mysteries of boom and the bust: Wall Street believed that Trump was just playing erratic and impulsive for the cameras, but that behind the policy scenes, what theyd be getting was a normal Republican presidency, only maybe a bit more so. The current correction may simply reflect Wall Streets belated realization that investors would be getting exactly what theyd seen on the stump: a man who substitutes reaction for planning and angry tweets for policy. One thing, of course, is totally unsurprising: that when those on Wall Street finally figured out who they were really dealing with, and prices slumped, the guy from the campaign stump was going to find a way to make it all worse. Twitter, @asymmetricinfo. (c) 2018, Washington Post Writers Group. Shes running. Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP/REX/Shutterstock In 2016, Bernie Sanders didnt launch his bid for the presidency until Elizabeth Warren nipped hers in the bud. And, by most accounts, that wasnt a coincidence. The Obama administrations response to the financial crisis which prioritized stability for Wall Street above relief for underwater homeowners combined with its embrace of fiscal austerity, had seeded demand for a populist challenge to the presidents heir apparent. But at the time, Warren looked like the most logical standard-bearer for such a cause. After all, she had been the most prominent and effective Democratic critic of Wall Street throughout the Obama years. The Goldman Sachs wing of the party was unanimous in its hatred for Warren, and she welcomed that hatred. Activists began building her the presidential campaign she never wanted. It was only after she turned them down, that a sizable grassroots campaign to draft Bernie Sanders took shape. In 2020, Warren admirers will need no substitute. This week, the Massachusetts senator announced that she is exploring the possibility of a presidential bid. But so is Bernie Sanders; albeit, less officially. And this time around, its the Vermont senator who boasts the higher national profile, and larger army of door-knocking cadre. All this has forced those in the left corner of the Democratic tent to confront the question: Now that Warren is (all-but) officially running for president, should Sanders stand down in the interest of uniting the partys populist forces against the BidenBros and BetoBots or is Sanders the superior vehicle for chasing the moneylenders from the Democratic temple? I have no confident answer to that query. But here are few points that progressives (and/or socialists) might want to consider before picking sides in emoprog Americas impending civil war. The fact that Warren is a Brandesian liberal while Sanders is a Debsian socialist (probably) doesnt matter. Bernie Sanders describes himself as a democratic socialist, spent his formative years making documentaries about Eugene Debs, and believes that there is far too much competition in Americas deodorant industry. Elizabeth Warren identifies as a capitalist to my bones, spent her formative years as the (now nonexistent) kind of Republican who believed that markets couldnt be truly free unless they were well-regulated, and has evinced zero interest in nationalizing Old Spice. These are significant ideological distinctions. Theyre also (probably) of little-to-no practical importance. Understandably, many on the left think otherwise. Heres how the venerable progressive reporter David Dayen framed the stakes of Bernie vs. Warren late last year: In the simplest possible terms, Warren wants to organize markets to benefit workers and consumers, while Sanders wants to overhaul those markets, taking the private sector out of it. This divideand where Warren or Sanderss putative rivals position themselves on itwill determine the future of the Democratic Party for the next decade or more. Jacobin founder Bhaskar Sunkara takes a similar (if far less neutral) view: [Warrens Accountable Capitalism Act] would require the largest businesses to engage in codetermination with their employees, giving workers more say in management, and limit corporate political activity and what executives could do with their company shares. But it relies on notions of corporate citizenship, and its clear in her Wall Street Journal op-ed promoting the act that Warren sees neoliberalism as an ideological shift that can be corrected while retaining many of the existing parameters of capitalismBut it wasnt a moral failing that brought about neoliberalism, but a structural shift: corporations in the 1970s couldnt keep up with militant wage demands from unions, the after-effect of the Opec oil shock and increased international competitionWithout a broader ideological agenda, capital knew that it had to restructure itself and saw labor regulations and unions as impediments. Neoliberal mantras and ideology followed these developments. The only way to undo that U-turn is to rebuild the trade unions and leftwing political movements that could actually bring about a different sort of political economyIt will be easy for Sanders supporters to spread their vision to people who feel unrepresented by establishment politics. With his relentlessly disciplined messaging, Sanders has communicated to millions exactly what he is about. It isnt corporate citizenship, its creating a political revolution to get whats rightfully ours from millionaires and billionaires. Neither of these arguments seem persuasive. If Americans were electing an absolute ruler in 2020, then the ideological distinctions Dayen spotlights would be of real consequence. But in a world where Joe Manchin will likely have veto power over the next Democratic presidents entire domestic agenda, theyre irrelevant if not incoherent. As Dayen acknowledges, Warrens reverence for markets hasnt prevented her from endorsing the nationalization of the insurance industry, or a public option for banking. And Sanderss thirst for decommodification hasnt stopped him from championing a wide variety of regulatory reforms aimed at advancing market fairness, including reforming labor law and breaking up major Wall Street banks (notably, there are many American socialists who argue that breaking up the big banks is a poor substitute for nationalizing them; Bernie Sanders isnt one). Furthermore, the notion that Sanderss emphasis on expanding the welfare state makes him the socialist candidate while Warrens focus on increasing worker control of firms makes her the pro-market reformist is somewhat counterintuitive. All of which is to say: Warren may view the economy through a Brandesian lens, while Sanders sees it through a Debsiasn one but after four decades of perennial defeat in the one percents class war, the left is a long way away from the point where that distinction begins to matter. Warrens economic platform is virtually identical to Sanderss. One might posit that they would prioritize different legislative goals once in office. But it seems unlikely that their priorities on that front would be wildly different. There is enormous activist energy, congressional enthusiasm, and public demand for health-care reform. That is not true of worker codetermination, or any of Warrens other idiosyncratic ideas. And while Medicare for All is sure to attract the fierce opposition of the health-care industry, Warrens Accountable Capitalism bill will antagonize all of corporate America. Shes not going to make it her top priority in 2021. The next Democratic president will try to do something on health care, and John Tester will probably have more agency in determining what that something is than said president will. What the other agenda items will be is unclear. But theres little reason to believe that we can derive Warren and Sanderss hypothetical legislative priorities by studying their disparate theories of political economy. Sunkaras argument that Sanderss socialist rhetoric and theory of change will make him a more effective catalyst for a radical mass movement is harder to refute. But its also difficult to substantiate. Sanderss 2016 campaign was immensely influential, and dramatically expanded the horizons of political possibility within the Democratic Party. But exposing a national audience to his disciplined class-war message did not prove sufficient for sparking mass political mobilization. Sanders mobilized and radicalized a significant number of college-educated millennials. But he didnt come anywhere close to assembling the revolutionary movement Sunkara envisions. Whats more, Sunkara overstates the difference between Warren and Sanderss rhetorical modes. It is true that Sanders puts more emphasis on the necessity of mass mobilization. But it isnt actually the case that Warren preaches corporate responsibility, while only Sanders condemns the billionaire class, and champions trade unions as the former made clear in her announcement video this week: Americas middle class is under attack. How did we get here? Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie. And they enlisted politicians to cut them a fatter slice. They crippled unions so no one could stop themPoliticians look the other way while big insurance companies deny patients life-saving coverage, while big banks rip off consumers, and while big oil companies destroy this planet.Our government is supposed to work for all of us, but instead it has become a tool for the wealthy and well-connected. The whole scam is propped up by an echo chamber of fear and hate, designed to distract and divide us. Socialist intellectuals might discern a crucial difference between this message and Sanderss. But it seems unlikely that ordinary workers will. All that said, the two senators ideological distinctions on foreign policy could actually matter quite a bit. It is easier to define Sanders and Warrens ideological differences on domestic issues than their disagreements on foreign affairs not least, because neither had all that much to say about the latter until recently. Nevertheless, theres some cause for thinking that Sanders has a more coherent, and radical, vision for American foreign policy than Warren does. And since the next president will be able to make profoundly consequential foreign policy decisions without Joe Manchins permission, even small ideological distinctions between Warren and Sanders on geopolitical questions could have major consequences. Although Sanders was conspicuously reluctant to discuss foreign policy in 2016, he was a vehement critic of American imperialism in his younger years; in 1974, he called for the abolition of the CIA. More recently, Sanders has established himself as the Senates most passionate defender of Palestinian rights (admittedly, a title somewhat akin to the worlds largest chihuahua), led the opposition to U.S. support for the Saudi war in Yemen, voted against increasing the Pentagons budget (even as Warren voted for it), and launched an international leftist alliance with radical Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis. Warren, by contrast, saves her sharpest elbow-throwing for the domestic realm. Her formal speeches on foreign policy are broadly similar to Sanderss, but she hasnt been nearly as aggressive in challenging Democratic orthodoxy on Israel, defense spending, or the Saudi alliance during her time in the Senate. The voices of the Palestinians are rarely heard. This is what life is like for those who are living in Gaza under a 10 year blockade: pic.twitter.com/pZHOljjDHL Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 6, 2018 Elizabeth Warren understands financial regulation extremely well, and the president has a lot of authority over financial regulation. This point is fairly straightforward. It is very hard to pass legislation in the United States but, for that very reason, its also quite hard to take laws off the books. Thus, presidents can make an awful lot of policy simply by stepping up enforcement of and/or reinterpreting existing federal statutes. But first, they need to have a detailed knowledge of said statutes. And Warren is a leading authority on American consumer protection and bankruptcy law; Sanders very much isnt. Its possible, then, that a president Warren would be more effective at curbing financial predation than a president Sanders would. The one-time Trotskyist fellow traveler and CIA abolitionist might actually be the safe, electable option. Bernie Sanders once served as an elector for a Trotskyist political party which called for abolishing the Pentagon budget, and extending solidarity to Ayatollah Khomeinis Iran. He is nearly 80 years old, a self-professed socialist, and is on the record as an opponent of criminalizing computer-generated child pornography (for sound, civil-libertarian reasons). And yet, theres reason to think hes the more electable left-wing option. The Vermont senators national approval rating hovers around 57 percent, while Warrens lies under 40. Sanderss favorability numbers in Vermont (which is to say, with the constituents who know him best) are far higher than the states partisan breakdown would predict; Warrens home-state favorability, by contrast, is roughly equal to what one would expect a generic Democratic senator to boast in Massachusetts and her approval rating is also decidedly lower than that of her colleague Ed Markey. And although they have relatively little predictive value, in polls of hypothetical 2020 matchups, Sanders reliably performs better against Trump than Warren does. And then, of course, theres that whole DNA thing. Warren and Sanders will compete for the same pool of small donors and volunteers but not necessarily for the same bloc of voters. Finally, its possible that there will be room in the 2020 primary field for two enemies of Wall Street. Sanders and Warren will divide their partys small contingent of deeply ideological left-wing activists and donors. And that faction might be overrepresented enough in the primary electorate to be significant as a voting bloc in a multi-candidate field. But its worth noting that the vast majority of rank-and-file Democrats dont have strong feelings about their partys internal ideological disputes or, at least, dont vote on the basis of an informed understanding of said disputes. For example, a recent Morning Consult poll found that Democrats who considered Bernie Sanders their first choice for president in 2020 ranked Warren as their fifth choice behind Beto ORourke, Cory Booker, and Joe Biden. As the 2020 primary season heats up, it's really, really important to keep front of mind that most Democratic primary voters like most Democratic politicians and don't have super coherent frameworks for conceptualizing those politicians in an ideological space. we're going to pass AVR (@SeanMcElwee) December 3, 2018 Its conceivable then, that Warren and Sanders wont actually occupy the same lane in the primary, at least in the eyes of the electorate. And if they dont cannibalize each others constituencies, then having two separate candidates on the primary stage calling for war on the billionaire class could do more to advance the lefts cause than uniting behind a single standard-bearer would. On the other hand, if Warren or Sanders stepped down early and threw all of his or her energy into electing the other that would presumably give the left its best shot of keeping a centrist off the partys ticket. But as of this writing, neither the progressive populist nor the democratic socialist appears interested in such collective action. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... SANTA FE Ex-teacher Gary Gregors alleged abuse of young girls was not limited to his students, according a woman who told her story to a Santa Fe judge Wednesday. The woman, niece of Gregors, said that she was just 6 years old when Gregor moved in with her family in Montana and he began sexually assaulting her. Gregor, 62, was found guilty last month of 12 total counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor, criminal sexual contact of a minor and kidnapping for acts he committed against two female students while he was a fourth grade teacher at Fairview Elementary School in Espanola during the 2007-08 school year. He faces up to 168 years in prison and was supposed to be sentenced Wednesday, but Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer granted a defense request for a continuance so Gregor can undergo a mental health evaluation. But the judge allowed Gregors niece to address the court since she shed traveled to Santa Fe for Wednesdays hearing from Nevada, where she now lives. The woman, now 30, said Gregor moved in with her family when she was child after he had lost a teaching job in Utah. Gregor has been accused of abusing or misconduct with his students across three states over the years and has been cited as an example of passing the trash, when teachers move among school districts despite a history of allegations of molesting students. In 1994, in Utah, Gregor was charged with two felony counts of aggravated sex abuse of a child and one misdemeanor count of lewdness involving a child for acts involving females students, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this year on behalf of two more alleged abuse victims in New Mexico. The charges were dropped by the judge the day before the trial began. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ In May 1996, the Utah Professional Practices Advisory Commission issued a letter of reprimand to Gregor that said the commission found no evidence of immoral conduct, but did find he was guilty of exhibiting a lack of professional judgement in some of his teaching activities, the lawsuit states. After Gregor subsequently moved to Montana, his niece said Wednesday, Gregor would pick her up from her bed and carry her to his bed, and she recalled one time where he sexually assaulted her with his knuckles. He will abuse and use any little girl he comes in contact with, the woman said, fighting back tears. He has no limits. The woman eventually underwent a sexual assault examination in Nevada at some point after she told her mother about the attacks. The results revealed sexual injuries that she did not remember incurring, causing her to believe that Gregor had also drugged her. Gregor disclosed to the New Mexico Public Education Department in 1998, before he was awarded a teaching license here, that he had been fired from a Montana school district for violating a school policy barring after-school activities with students. A trial for Gregor on charges he abused another Fairview Elementary victim in Espanola is slated to begin Jan. 15. Gregor is also expected to face two more trials for crimes he allegedly committed against two females students while he was teaching at Agua Fria Elementary in Santa Fe during the 2003-04 school year. Staff reports Aberdeen News A state law restricting cannabidiol resulted from South Dakotas reluctance to move quickly on anything related to marijuana. This half-way to nowhere approach makes little sense and may cause needless suffering. CBD oil as cannabidiol is known cant get you high. CBD is the polar opposite of its criminal cousin THC, the psychoactive chemical in pot. CBD oil is to THC what hardworking hemp is to its controversial doppelganger. Hemp also wont get you high. In recent years, CBD has proven to be the only effective aid for some children suffering from severe epilepsy, but it also may be broadly helpful with nausea, anxiety and pain. Notice the may be a lot remains unknown but at least it appears harmless. For decades, hemps resemblance to marijuana besmirched its reputation and by extension that of CBD. Hemps nightmare is about to end, however, thanks to Farm Bill provisions that finally recognize you cant judge a plant by its cousin. Business analysts predict a hemp explosion. Sen. Mitch McConnell championed widespread hemp because of its potential to replace tobacco, a plant thats legal despite many proven harms. Soon we can expect to see what appear to be giant pot fields blooming all across America. In South Dakota, however, because of a 2017 law, CBD will remain available only by prescription. The irony would be comedic if the rule didnt hurt people. If CBD cant get you high, the potential for abuse is nil. The health supplement sections of nearly every grocery store stand full of old-world remedies that cant get you high and may or may not work. Consider ginseng, St. Johns wort, ginkgo biloba and aloe vera. Many of us try them, and if they dont work, we stop. Americans can even buy melatonin in health supplement aisles. That sleep aid requires a medical prescription in the United Kingdom, European Union, Japan, Australia and Canada. Americans generally prefer fewer restrictions. We can judge what works by ourselves. Restricting CBD might make sense if it had even the psychoactive abilities of, say, nutmeg which can kill you or even alcohol, the most widely abused naturally occurring substance in the world. It doesnt. Why did South Dakota restrict CBD? There appear to be two reasons. A British pharmaceutical company seeking to license a purified form of CBD oil lobbied lawmakers heavily. Two, the companys extract can be guaranteed pure and free of even trace amounts of THC. It sounds reasonable if you overlook some big holes. Without regulation, how can we discern pure CBD from an adulterated product? The same way we will discern legal hemp fields from illegal pot fields. Hemp will soon be ubiquitous. Continuing the state requirement for a prescription also makes CBD outrageously expensive and difficult to obtain. Consider the recent findings of a CBD study for epilepsy patients at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. The majority of 23 participating epilepsy patients benefited from taking CBD oil. The study used Epidiolex oral solution, the same drug approved by South Dakota lawmakers. The studys author noted the Epidiolex cost an estimated $32,000 each year. He added it will be more difficult to obtain after becoming commercially available. Who gets hurt by the states restrictions? The poor, the elderly, people dying from cancer. McConnell, the Republican Congress and President Donald Trump approved widespread growing of hemp. CBD wont get anybody high. This shouldnt be controversial even though it tangentially involves pot. Lawmakers should remove the senseless restrictions. Katherine Grandstrand kgrandstrand@aberdeennews.com Drive down South Jay Street and soon youll run into Northern State University, and the Memorial Archway that signifies the main entrance. That archway was gifted to the school by graduates of the classes of 1916 to 1920 in honor of the 442 students, alumni and instructors that died during World War I, according to information from Stephanie Cossette, the archivist at the Beulah Williams Library at Northern. The Memorial Archway has been on campus since 1920 and was designed by a 1909 graduate, C.O. Reed Jr., Cossette wrote in an email. All of the other archways and gateway posts were modeled after it. Greg Blair, associate professor of art at Northern, doesnt see a distinctive style inspiring the archway. It would be interesting to kind of look at the time period when they were made, Blair said. The layout of the Memorial Archway is a sentinel gateway, Blair said. Its supposed to be a dual purpose, Blair said. It serves as the gateway, the entrance to the campus, but also sentinel implies the caretaker, the protectors of the campus. The architecture of several buildings on campus including some of the oldest buildings reflects mimicry of other famous styles, Blair said. He takes students in his art history I course on a tour of campus to point out the different designs used. You can see remnants from ancient Greek architecture in them, Blair said of buildings like Lincoln and Graham halls. So I pose it like, Why would we want to emulate the ancient Greeks? Theres a couple of correct answers the Greeks invented modern liberal arts education and adding historic design touches to a new building can give the appearance of an older institution, Blair said. Even if its a brand-new building, if it looks like an ancient Greek temple, youre like, Oh wow, there must be a lot of history there, Blair said. The Memorial Archway has enough significance that its featured prominently on the universitys seal, Blair said. The next set of archways was on Washington Street and was donated by the class of 1921, Cossette wrote. The nine members of the class sold ice cream cones at 10 cents each over the summer session to fund the $600 project. Back then it was common for a graduating class to donate gifts to the school, Cossette wrote. The classes of 1907 to 1913 each donated a stained-glass window for the west wall of the auditorium. The class of 1909, in addition to a stained-glass window, donated a bronze slab inscribed with President Abraham Lincolns Gettysburg Address to commemorate the centennial of his birth. The class of 1915 donated a clock that was set at the peak of the Central Building, which burned down in 1961. The classes of 1916-20 donated the Memorial Archway. The class of 1921 donated the Washington Street gateway. The class of 1924 donated the Memorial Stone, which is located directly south of the Memorial Archway. The classes of 1924-28 donated to a fund that paid for the archways across Kline Street. The class of 1927 donated a statue of Abraham Lincoln. The class of 1928 donated an ivory statue of George Washington. It is unknown where the slab with the Gettysburg Address is located, as well as the statues of Lincoln and Washington, Cossette wrote. Plaques were added to the Memorial Archway to signify veterans from World War II, Korea and Vietnam, Cossette wrote. When the name was changed to Northern State College in 1964, a giant neon sign was placed on top of the main posts of the Memorial Archway, according to Northern State University: The First Century by Mark C. Bartusis. In 1981, the lighted globes were restored. During construction of Wolves Memorial Suites, and now the Harvey C. Jewett IV Regional Science Education Center, care has been taken to make sure existing corner posts remain. The lighted globe at the corner of 12th Avenue Southeast and South State Street has been removed during science center construction. When Northern was first established at the turn of the last century, the south side of Aberdeen was not developed much at all, Cossette wrote. The gateways were likely built to establish campus borders, and to denote public from private land. Its part of the way-finding system to give a clear, visual indicator of this is where campus starts, this is the four corners of the space, Blair said. Aberdeen News A proposed land swap between Brown County and a local landowner was tabled Wednesday morning, but an exchange may yet move forward. Brown County commissioners discussed the proposed land exchange involving county property on Richmond Lake and property adjacent to the southeast corner of the Brown County Fairgrounds. It would involve swapping 64.3 acres owned by the county with 40.5 acres owned by the Edwards Legacy Family Limited Partnership. Bill Edwards was at the commission meeting at the courthouse. High public interest in the proposal was evident with almost 30 people in attendance standing around the Brown County Commission Chambers and in the doorway. The room has seating for six people. Ken Dulik provided information on the history of the land in question, which was donated to Aberdeen and Brown County in 1937 by Alfred Lindboe. When that land transaction was made, Dulik said, it was done so with existing encumbrances, which were listed on another property deed as water conservation purposes. Dulik said property gifted in the 1930s was often done with the intent of setting aside land for use as parks. The city relinquished its ownership in the land in 1943, he said. Todd Campbell said city meeting minutes from 1943 note the sale of the land to the county and specifically mention the land should be used as a park. As a former member of the city council, Campbell said, the term park isnt used lightly. It comes down to original intent, he said. This land should never have been considered for sale. That led Brown County Commissioner Dennis Feickert suggest tabling discussion about the land swap, and other commissioners agreed. The decision received a round of applause from those in attendance, but discussion on the issue continued. While concerns were raised about the original intent of the land donation, States Attorney Chris White said he maintains the county is allowed to sell the land because the use restrictions on the land apply to the land thats currently under water and extends to 12 feet above the high water mark. What the county owns can still be sold, White said. Campbell said that may be true, but the county can clean up the language in the deed moving forward to reflect the intended use of the land. Campbell then encouraged the county to pass a resolution designating the land as a park. This parcel already has a recreational trail through the property. Dulik said this trail was developed by his son as an Eagle Scout project. Edwards then stood up and proposed the same property exchange with a caveat. Knowing the land adjacent to the fairgrounds would be beneficial to the county, Edwards asked if the exchange could be made if he agreed to gift the Richmond Lake property for use as a refuge and park. No action was taken on Edwards proposal, but Game, Fish and Parks representatives in attendance were going to find out the process of accepting a land gift. If this proposal moves forward, commissioner Duane Sutton said, it would be back before the commission for consideration. Victoria Lusk vlusk@aberdeennews.com 1. As the last remaining original anchor store at Aberdeen Mall, many were saddened to watch Herbergers close after its parent company, Bon-Ton Stores Inc., filed bankruptcy. About 70 jobs were lost locally. The spot still remains vacant, although RockStep Capital has many things in the works, trying to fill the space. 2. Senior citizens at 18 nursing homes and one assisted-living center across South Dakota were at extreme risk this year after the financial demise of their parent company, Skyline Healthcare. Since going into receivership, the facilities are still trying to keep their heads above water, which hasnt been easy. Current operator, Black Hills Receiver, will close two of the 19 facilities in early 2019 due to lack of funds and income. 3. After announcing it was closing, Molded Fiber Glass got a new contract order that kept the plant producing wind turbines to the end of the summer. And then it got another contract that will keep it operating into at least the next couple of years and maybe even for the extreme long-term. 4. After 21 years downtown in the Citizens Building, the Red Rooster coffee shop moved south a few spots on Main Street. In fact, the Rooster was one of several tenants that moved from the Citizens Building in 2018. 5. Runnings announced plans to move into the former Kmart location on Sixth Avenue Southeast. Work on the building is ongoing, and the business is set to move and open in the new location in early 2019. 6. A trade war with China meant no exports from the Pacific Northwest, which had farmers seeking storage right before and during harvest. One local company planned to build new bins until at least Nov. 1. 7. A new, larger veterans outpatient clinic was announced for Aberdeen. Groundbreaking is planned in spring with completion by the end of 2019. 8. Wells Fargo in March announced plans to transfer 100 jobs from its student loan and auto finance collections departments in Aberdeen. Of those, 19 people chose to move to another Wells Fargo location. 9. Selby residents came together in October in an attempt to keep open its nursing home that employs one-fourth of the towns workforce. And it worked. As a nonprofit, the Walworth County Care Center took over operations of the nursing home Dec. 1. 10. A long-anticipated Stutsman-Harley Davidson motorcycle store opened in Aberdeen in April. The business sold its first bike within its first half hour in business. Staff reports Aberdeen News The South Dakota Supreme Court has affirmed Jason P. Lewandowskis conviction for the 2015 murder of Jeremy Hendrickson, according to a news release from the South Dakota Attorney Generals Office. Lewandowski broke into Hendricksons Roslyn home on the night of Nov. 20, 2015, and shot Hendrickson in the head in front of his wife and child. A jury found Lewandowski guilty of murder and burglary on Nov. 2, 2017. Lewandowski appealed his conviction claiming that his confession to the shooting had been illegally obtained by investigating officers, according to the release. The South Dakota Supreme Court rejected Lewandowskis claim in light of evidence that Lewandowski was read his Miranda rights and had spoken freely with investigating officers, the release reads. The justices noted overwhelming evidence supporting the conviction, including eyewitness testimony from Hendricksons wife and statements Lewandowski made after the shooting. Hendricksons wife testified during the trial that she was standing next to her husband when Lewandowski shot him. Lewandowski is serving a life sentence. The federal government entered its 13th day of partial shutdown Thursday, but for federal employees at the National Weather Service, it's just another day at work. "Our mission is to protect lives and property against weather, water and climate disasters," NWS Missoula Meteorologist Bruce Bauck said. The Missoula office monitors weather for Western Montana. Their work shows how weather may impact your day, which includes mapping our the regions current driving conditions, that may change what time you leave for work during a snow storm. "We use a satellite to monitor where the weather is, where it might be heading next and then we pass that on," Bauck said. There are more than 13,000 federal employees across Montana. According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, federal employees deemed "essential" continue their work without pay during the shutdown. Essential employees are those who "perform emergency work involving the safety of human life or the protection of property or performing certain other types of excepted work." The NWS is considered essential staff. "When we ask our employees to stay here and work, there's an expectation that once things do come back around, they'll receive some type of pay. I don't know when we'll get paid," Bauck adds. NWS has 24 employees in Missoula and more than 80 employees across the state. Bauck adds regardless of what's happening in Congress, his colleagues know their work is important, which helps keep them going during this time of uncertainty. "Although we don't see payroll right now, we do know that we're doing something good for the public," Bauck said. "It gives you that 'want to' no matter what the situation is in the administration." While Republicans and Democrats battle over the nation's budget on capitol hill, Bauck said you can always depends on the NWS. "You can count on the National Weather Service being here no matter what the situation is to provide a service of weather water and climate impacts to the public," Bauck adds. Sandra Bullock in Bird Box. Photo: Netflix You dont actually need to have seen Bird Box, Netflixs runaway hit starring Sandra Bullock, to understand how the Bird Box challenge works. All you need to know is that Bullock and her co-stars spend the duration of the film wearing blindfolds they cannot take off or else theyll die. (Just go with it.) The movie has become the streaming services most-watched ever and inspired meme upon meme plus a challenge where people blindfold themselves and try to go a day (or some other amount of time) without removing said blindfolds. The most-viewed challenge video comes from YouTuber Morgan Adams and has over 2 million views. (Adams, for reference, has 2.3 million followers.) The most dangerous thing she does in the video is take an escalator and, mind you, she does everything in the 24 hours she is blindfolded while accompanied by somebody who is filming her and is obviously able to see and could guide her away from danger. (Most of the videos Ive found were not filmed by the blindfolded party.) A video with over 1,000 views shows some teens wandering around a Walmart blindfolded. They put the blindfolds on after arriving at the store. Theres another one with 2,000 views of a woman attempting to give herself a haircut. On Wednesday, Netflix issued a warning from its Twitter account asking people not to hurt themselves doing the challenge. Not asking them to stop doing it, mind you, just asking that they not end up in the hospital due to memes. Cant believe I have to say this, but: PLEASE DO NOT HURT YOURSELVES WITH THIS BIRD BOX CHALLENGE. We dont know how this started, and we appreciate the love, but Boy and Girl have just one wish for 2019 and it is that you not end up in the hospital due to memes. Netflix US (@netflix) January 2, 2019 But for the most part, if you search YouTube for Bird Box Challenge, what youll find is not videos of people doing the challenge, but rather news clips featuring anchors wringing their hands and declaring the Bird Box Challenge this weeks Big Thing in dangerous, stupid internet trends. Many of these clips feature the same video, a man with two children, all of whom are blindfolded. In that particular clip, the younger child runs smack into a wall. (In Bird Box, Bullock carts around two blindfolded children known as Boy and Girl.) Have parents been known to endanger their children for the cost of YouTube clicks? Yes. (The parents behind DaddyOFive, a prank family YouTube channel, were sentenced to five years probation for child neglect in 2018 as a result of their videos.) Have people been known to do stupid things under the mantle of so-called internet challenges. Also yes. (Google duct tape challenge if you wont take me at my word here.) But for the most part, the Bird Box Challenge isnt either of those things. Its a few people putting on blindfolds for a combination of attention and maybe fun and theyre not really putting themselves in danger. In April 2018, the panic-inducing challenge du jour was condom snorting: a time-honored internet tradition where people, for lord only knows what reason, snort condoms through one nostril and pull them out the other, or out their mouths, and film it. (Oh, right, the reason is attention.) The challenge which had an earlier iteration back in 2013 was feverishly covered by media outlets declaring it dangerous and widespread. Only the former was true. Teens werent snorting condoms in April. And people this month arent putting themselves in real danger participating in the Bird Box Challenge. Netflix, however, is getting a lot of free press. Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Panda Auto, a car-hailing platform for new energy vehicles, was recently given a license by Chongqing authority who allows the company to conduct road tests for their autonomous vehicles, following such eight firms as Changan Automobile, Baidu, FAW Group, Dongfeng Motor, GAC Group, Geely, Foton Motor and Roadstar.ai. Chongqing is the third city in China that legalizes autonomous vehicle road tests under certain conditions. The former two are megacities Beijing and Shanghai. Founded in May, 2015, Panda Auto is an hourly car rental service platform invested by Chongqing Lifan Holdings Co., Ltd. After three-year development, it has launched businesses in 12 cities including Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Nanjing and Kunming, deploying over 20,000 vehicles and serving more than 4 million registered users. Panda Auto and Chines Internet titan Baidu jointly launched the China's first shared autonomous vehicle pilot program in Chongqing on May 24 last year. The trial operation deploys six autonomous vehicles for the public for nearly one month in the Baidu-Panda Autonomous Vehicle Demonstration Park of Chongqing's Liangjiang New Area. According to Panda Auto's CEO Gao Yu, the shared autonomous vehicles feature such functions as automatic parking, automatic charging and remote-hailing. The scale application of these technologies will not only help users accurately pinpoint and find shared vehicles, but also reduce costs of off-line operation and energy replenishment. BOZEMAN A prominent Bozeman educator is one of only 193 people across the nation diagnosed last year with the rare, polio-like illness called Acute Flaccid Myelitis, better known as AFM. Kevin Conwell, principal of Bozeman High School, has received an outpouring of support in recent months, both emotionally and financially. The high schools news team made him a personalized video, faculty members have been sending monthly care packages and visiting Conwell at his temporary home in a Utah hospital, and the Bozeman community is raising tens of thousands of dollars to cover medical costs. Back in September, Conwell became sick with what he thought was the common cold. But within hours, he was paralyzed. An emergency flight to the University of Utah saved his life, but it came with a $40,000 price tag. In just two months, a GoFundMe page for Conwell set up by a family member has raised more than $32,000. "When he got sick, it's just been really hard on all of us," says Rob Watson, Superintendent of Bozeman Public Schools. "Because we're worried about him, and we're hoping for the best for him. We really value him as a leader and as a principal." The latest illness comes after Conwells battle with cancer over the last four years. According to the Center for Disease Control, the rare disease attacking Conwell was first detected in 2014. It attacks the nervous system, rendering Conwell and hundreds of others who have transmitted the disease since 2014, unable to move. Watson suggests anyone interested in encouraging Conwell should send him a note via the school districts office in the Willson Building at 404 W. Main Street. For those wanting to donate to Conwells GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/kevin-conwell-life-flight-transport Meta Film; Focus Features; Warner Bros.; Getty Images; Annapurna Pictures; Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy; Focus Features; Lifestyle Pictures/Alamy (2); Warner Bros.; Netflix; Universal Studios Sandra Bullock, Glenn Close, Julia Roberts and Hugh Jackman are among the stars nominated for AARP The Magazines 18th annual Movies for Grownups Awards, which honor films by and for people 50 or older, at a ceremony on Feb. 4 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Shirley MacLaine will receive the Movies for Grownups career achievement award. Hosted by Martin Short, the event will be televised for the second year on PBS, coproduced by the Great Performances series, on Feb. 15 at 9 p.m. (check local listings) and will stream starting Feb. 16 on pbs.org/gperf. Event proceeds will benefit AARP Foundation, which works to end senior poverty by building economic opportunity and social connections for vulnerable older adults in Los Angeles and across the country. Since mature talents are making progress in Hollywood the average age of the 20 top-grossing film stars is 60 there was a wide array of Movies for Grownups Awards candidates. 2018 was a banner year for a sensational collection of movies that resonated with the powerful 50-plus audience, says Myrna Blyth, senior vice president and editorial director for AARP Media. Here is the full list of nominees 1. The comment section is for discussion. Opinions are welcome. Personal attacks, trolling, name-calling and/ or bigotry will not be tolerated. 2. Posts containing links may be moderated. This blog does not accept paid advertisements and will not entertain free ones either. 3. Kindly stay on topic. Say what you think and refrain from telling others what they think. 4. Violators will be warned, deleted, and/ or banned at sole discretion of the moderator. Oliver Bullough in The Guardian: What does the life of an Ottoman-born ethnic Armenian oil tycoon have to teach us about the modern world? Quite a lot, it turns out, judging by this fascinating biography of Calouste Gulbenkian, a dealmaker for the ages and, at his death in 1955, the worlds richest man. Gulbenkian saw an oilfield only once, on a visit to Baku (then an oil-fuelled boomtown in the Russian empire, now the capital of Azerbaijan) as a 19-year-old graduate from Kings College London, but he was very quick to appreciate the importance of oil as a commodity, and the opportunity inherent in international competition for it. He combined excellent contacts in the Middle East with skills he learned as an entrepreneur in the City of London, and secured a 5% stake in all oil found beneath the Asian territories of the Ottoman empire. When the deal was signed, on the eve of the first world war, his stake didnt sound like much, but he fought for decades to hang on to it and, by the 1950s, he had a shilling for every pound earned from some of the worlds richest oilfields. And that really added up. In modern terms, he died with a fortune of almost 5bn. He was clearly not an easy person to like, and fell out with almost everyone he came across, but his buccaneering qualities make him an extremely interesting person to read about. At one point, he exploited the young Soviet Unions shortage of capital to build the nucleus of a world-class art collection. There are several Rembrandts missing from the Hermitage, thanks to his negotiating skills. There also was no federal law limiting how much insurers could charge people for that coverage, which ended up putting coverage out of reach for many sick people. The Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010, changed all that. The law that the Republican Party has sought to dismantle for eight years made providing insurance coverage regardless of health status something we accept today and demand. Remember that when you hear Republicans in Congress say they want to preserve this provision. Remember, too, that it was the Affordable Care Act that restricts how much insurers can charge for this coverage. Critics of the ACA are less likely to back this particular provision, even though it is essential to making the pre-existing conditions piece of the law work for everybody. Prior to the ACA, and even now, congressional Republicans mostly talked about health savings accounts when they were asked about health care, not about the protections contained in the ACA. But ever since 2014, when the ACAs major provisions kicked in, these protections have gained a foothold with the public. As such, politicians ever so sensitive to the changing winds have gone with the breeze. At least insofar as their talking points go. EVANSDALE -- Fire departments in Evansdale and in Grundy County were busy Tuesday night fighting house fires. In Evansdale, authorities are investigating a blaze that badly damaged a home at 209 Morris Ave. Fire crews were called to the home just after 6:30 p.m. to find flames and heavy smoke inside the residence and on two sides of the home. Raymond and Gilbertville fire crews were called in to assist. No injuries were reported, but the home sustained "heavy fire damage," according to Evansdale Fire. The Iowa State Fire Marshal's Office was called in to assist with the investigation, and no cause had been determined as of Wednesday. The home is owned by Timothy Miller, according to online Black Hawk County records. Meanwhile, a family in Reinbeck is out of their home after a fire Tuesday evening. Reinbeck Fire Chief Chris Heasley said the fire was reported about 5:45 p.m. at 111 Clark St. Homeowner Douglas Ballard reportedly suffered some burns on his hands trying to extinguish the blaze. He was treated at Grundy Memorial Hospital, but Heasley said he was then back out at the fire scene later that evening. WATERLOO Tom Little has been selected to chair the Black Hawk County Board of Supervisors for the fourth time. Little, an Evansdale Democrat first elected to the board in 2004, was unanimously chosen by his colleagues Wednesday to serve as chairman of the board overseeing county government. Little, who previously served as chairman in 2007, 2011 and 2015, replaces fellow Democrat Craig White. Supervisor Linda Laylin was unanimously elected to serve as vice chair during 2019. The chairman runs the board meetings and has some say over the placement of items on board agenda. The chairmanship traditionally rotates annually among supervisors of the majority party; Democrats now hold a 4-1 board majority. Dan Trelka is the boards lone Republican. The Waterloo police chief, who was elected in November to replace Frank Magsamen, participated in his first meeting this week. The election of officers was part of the annual organizational meeting held by the supervisors, which also included reappointment of department heads, approving official newspapers and other ministerial business. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 DES MOINES U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren from deep blue Massachusetts will take her 2020 presidential exploratory campaign this weekend to western Iowa, where the latest election results suggest the regions deep red politics may be fading. On the second-term senators first visit to Iowa since a 2014 campaign appearance with then-U. S. Rep. Bruce Braley, she is set for a Friday visit to Council Bluffs and Saturday visits to Sioux City, Storm Lake and Des Moines. Other than Des Moines, those are areas President Donald Trump carried handily in 2016. His margins in Pottawattamie, Woodbury and Buena Vista counties were 22, 20 and 25 percentage points. However, in 2018, Republican U.S. Rep. David Young carried Pottawattamie County where Council Bluffs is located by only 49 to 48 percent, losing the district overall to Democrat Cindy Axne. And Republican U.S. Rep. Steve King carried Buena Vista County (Storm Lake) 49 to 48 percent, but lost to Democrat J.D. Scholten 45 to 53 percent in Woodbury (Sioux City). King won the overall district. WATERLOO A Waterloo man has been arrested after he allegedly attacked a woman in her vehicle and began groping her. Waterloo police arrested Dayln Cornelius Harrington, 25, of 304 1/2 Courtland St., for public intoxication, assault with intent to commit sexual abuse and first-degree burglary. His bond was set at $110,000. According to police, the woman didnt know Harrington, and at 12:20 a.m. Thursday she pulled up to the Broadway Liquor and Food drive-through window on Broadway Street. Harrington allegedly entered the vehicle and sat down in the passenger seat and started groping her and pulled her hair. The woman resisted and pulled around to the front of the business, exited her vehicle and entered the store, said Maj. Joe Leibold with the Waterloo Police Department. Harrington left the area, and a short time later police detained him for public intoxication following a disturbance at Kwik Star on Broadway Street. A breath test registered a .221 blood alcohol content, according to court records. Two arrested for alleged hate vandalism WATERLOO | Two Waterloo men have been arrested under the states hate crime statutes after t Harrington is currently on parole for burglary and domestic abuse convictions from 2014 and vandalism in 2015. Love 1 Funny 3 Wow 2 Sad 1 Angry 11 CEDAR FALLS Cedar Falls Mayor Jim Brown and police administration are meeting with College Hill businesses next week to discuss security and crime prevention efforts. The move comes days after a shooting early New Years morning. Two Waterloo teenagers were wounded when a person fired shots into a crowd in the 2200 block of College Street about 1:45 a.m. Tuesday, police said. The assailant remains at large. Public Safety Director/Police Chief Jeff Olson said in a news release Thursday that late night activity on College Hill occasionally brings about criminal activity, including the recent shooting. City officials and late night business owners (on Wednesday) will discuss improved methods of security and what joint efforts business owners and police can do together to prevent crime and to apprehend those who commit those crimes, Olson said. City officials also are reviewing street and parking lot lighting and improved camera usage in the College Hill area. The city is committed to doing their part in assuring that the Cedar Falls crime rate remains one of the lowest in the state, Olson said. City officials will hold a similar meeting with downtown businesses in the near future. Love 1 Funny 5 Wow 2 Sad 0 Angry 0 Debt is also growing so much because government grants and appropriations have not been keeping pace with increasing college costs, he said. The cost of education is going up, but money from the government is not, shifting the burden to the families. For students and families unable to afford the higher cost of college, Kantrowitz said student loans provide the only degree of elasticity. At the same time, family income has been almost flat since 2000. There was a slight uptick last year, but nothing major. So families dont have any other way to pay for college, but to rely on loans, he said. Kantrowitz said student loan debt can be affordable, depending on the borrowers income after college, but he added the debt-versus-income ratio varies greatly. We have to realize student loans are paid back over decades, not months or years like credit card debt, he said. So each new class is graduating with debt, while the paying back of debt for existing borrowers is relatively slow. For parents, they often cannot afford to pay off debt for their children. Students are often the ones making agreements to pay off the parent loans, too. The Lynchburg, Virginia, native already has a job secured after graduating in May 2019 as an associate consultant with Beacon Hill Staffing Group in New York City. During the three-week session, students have the opportunity to create their own winter academic experiences. More and more faculty are also using this time to offer a course that they may not be able to offer during the spring and fall semesters. Take for example Arian Korkuti, senior graduate teaching assistant in the School of Architecture + Design at Virginia Tech in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, who will be leading students on a winter domestic travel class to look at the practice of architecture through a selection of built and under construction works in Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, D.C. Students will also visit several architectural firms in New York City, with the courses focus mainly on the most relevant and recent works of architecture. Offered for the first time in winter session, this course has generated great interest. "Not only is this travel program an opportunity but also an obligation towards students and their direct contact with the works of architecture, Korkuti said. In doing so, students observe the many aspects of architecture and the urban condition within which it exists. The format of the course also lends itself to a cross section of students, including architecture undergraduate and graduate students, in addition to a visiting international student of finance interested in architecture and urban studies. While Korkuti will be traveling with his students, Donna Wertalik, associate professor of practice in the Department of Marketing, will be engaging with her students through an online dialogue in her marketing management class this winter. Professor Wertalik provided very interesting and engaging video lectures that related to real-life situations that were relatable to students, Job said. It was important to establish a sense of connectedness from the beginning, Job added, recalling Wertalik asking the class to introduce each other via a Canvas discussion post. This was a quick and fun way to get to know the other students enrolled in the course, and it was fun to hear other people's winter break plans. Winter session online classes are especially valuable when students are traveling or not at one location during the three weeks. "I was in the airport traveling to Michigan for part of my break and was able to successfully access the course wherever I was. It was something fun to do while waiting for my flights, Job said. Wertalik also made herself accessible to students by hosting online office hours and providing timely responses to emails and questions. Daniel Pillis, research assistant professor, and Tanner Upthegrove, lab research coordinator, with the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology will co-teach an Honors College course titled, Immersive Virtual Environment for Art, Data, and Research in the Cube at the Moss Arts Center for the third consecutive year. Over winter break, my son and I built this gingerbread house. Out of that experience came a short essay about tradition, innovation, and what building a gingerbread bayit teaches me about building the Jewish future. And because Steve Silbert is awesome, he sketchnoted my essay. Here's how it begins: Mom, lets build a gingerbread house! Maybe my nine year old got the idea because he was building a LEGO set while watching The Great British Bake-Off. Hes been on winter break from his elementary school, and for us that means lots of playdates, LEGO creations, and bake-off on Netflix. It also turned out to mean an opportunity to notice three lessons about building the Jewish future through baking a gingerbread bayit with my kid... Read the whole thing at Builders Blog: Building A Gingerbread Bayit. From January 1, New York City pharmacies will cease to sell cigarettes or other tobacco products. The bill to withdraw such products from circulation in New York City was part of legislation designed by Mayor Bill de Blasio. While signing the bill in 2017, he had said, Pharmacies are places of health and should not sell deadly consumer products. The intention was to introduce a control on the items in order to decrease the rate of smoking and all the stores in the city will clear their shelves of the offensive items. Daily Mail UK reports the ban will include supermarkets and big-box stores where there are pharmacies. In the opinion of a senior official, such action will drastically slash the number of smokers in New York City within a time frame of three years, and pharmacies must emphasize promoting health issues. The ban on cigarettes could prove useful The number of those addicted to cigarettes in New York City has reached alarming figures and includes not just adults but also high school students. Mayor de Blasio wanted to see a drop in the numbers and raised the base price of cigarettes as a deterrent. That way, the city became home to the most expensive cigarettes in the country. There is already a ban on electronic cigarette sales at pharmacies since late August because e-cigarettes are also harmful. #NYC to ban cigarettes sales in pharmacies as of 2019: 500 stores will pull tobacco products on January 1 https://t.co/pTPFrCS4bb The_News_DIVA (@The_News_DIVA) December 31, 2018 Another strategy to check the menace was to air ads on TV highlighting the ill effects of smoking. Those who get addicted to tobacco and its products suffer from serious health issues that include cancer. Health officials have identified the use of tobacco as a factor responsible for cancers, heart disease, and strokes that kill thousands in New York City every year. Exposure to secondhand smoke is equally bad and adds to the health risks. Critics of the ban become vocal According to Independent UK, some business owners feel the ban will adversely affect their interests. They argue that customers enter the store to buy cigarettes and end up buying other items also. Moreover, imposing a ban on pharmacies may not be the solution, especially when there are other outlets. However, Sonia Angell, a deputy health commissioner, does not agree. Her argument is that pharmacies should promote health. Dr. Herminia Palacio, the deputy mayor for Health and Human Services, has explained to a section of the media that pharmacies selling cigarettes must realize that they should be playing a more positive role by helping smokers quit and not by promoting the evil. The Blue Ridge Campus has experienced exponential growth since opening in August 2015. When it opened, a team of faculty and staff served 18 dual-enrollment students. Because of the increased community engagement and support, legislative involvement and a team of determined faculty and staff, a new stand-alone campus welcomed more than 230 students in fall 2020. Being part of this success is why Ott accepted the job in 2015. "The opportunity to be a part of a new campus that was just opening and growing it basically from the ground up was what attracted me most to this position," she said. Ott has worked in higher education for more than 20 years. Her experience ranges from student affairs to the University System of Georgia and the Technical College System of Georgia. When Ott heard about the opening of the UNG campus in Blue Ridge, she was eager to get involved. "I knew the rich history of UNG and the tradition and reputation that it has in this area, in the state, the country and across the globe," she said. Those arent the only qualities Ott admires about the Blue Ridge Campus. She describes the campus as an environment that promotes and facilitates genuine relationships among faculty, staff, students, and the Blue Ridge community. "That's something very special about the Blue Ridge Campus," Ott said. "Everyone here started at the same time, so it's an outstanding team of professionals who are so invested in the success of this campus. There is a sense of camaraderie and a true team that works for the students here." Ott and her team's hard work was tangibly recognized in May 2018 when Gov. Nathan Deal announced the allocation of money for the construction of the permanent Blue Ridge Campus. The new facility opened several doors for students, including additional course offerings. "We are very grateful for our state legislators who saw the need and provided this opportunity," Ott said. "Having a stand-alone UNG campus in Blue Ridge will truly be a game-changer for this region, and I am truly humbled and blessed to be a part of this." Ott reminds incoming and current students of the historical value of their attendance at the campus. "I've said it before, but it truly is a special place," she said. As a leader, Ott has learned to adapt and embrace change and growth. More importantly, she's learned the value of successful internal and external relationships. In 2016, she was awarded the Chancellor's Outstanding Service Excellence Award, an honor created by the University System of Georgia (USG) to celebrate employees who shine in their positions. She was given the award because of her commitment to fostering meaningful, successful relationships within the UNG community and beyond. "The support that I have received as well as this campus has received has been tremendous, and this campus would not be where it is today without the support of UNG, local school systems and our community partners," she said. Ott is looking forward to the growth of the Blue Ridge Campus and the successful futures of the students. One of her favorite aspects of her job is to watch the ripple effect of students' success among their families and the community. "I truly have the best job in the whole world," she said. Entering the political realm never really crossed Steve Gooch's mind as he grew up on a farm in Lumpkin County, Georgia. That is until he worked on a local campaign as a young man. "I was involved in local politics and helped with a campaign for a local senator," the 1992 University of North Georgia (UNG) alum said. "I worked for him and I got the bug, so to speak." Gooch also felt called to serve his community in the best way he could. "I felt obligated to serve in public service through volunteerism," the 51-year-old said. So in 2000 at age 33, Gooch ran for county commissioner of Lumpkin County and won. When explaining the position to people unfamiliar with the political system, he uses a 1980s television show as an example. "To give you a funny comparison, if you ever watched the TV series with 'Dukes of Hazzard,' Boss Hogg was sole commissioner of Hazzard County, Georgia," Gooch said. "The sole commissioner is the chief executive and chief legislative officer of the county. It's a lot of power and a lot of responsibility in one person. At the age of 32, I had a lot to learn." Gooch said his education at UNG prepared him for his task ahead. He earned a Bachelor in Business Administration in 1992 and a Master of Public Administration in 1998. "My education at UNG was very important in preparing me for that role," he said. "Without it, then it would have made the job more difficult to do in those first few years." Gooch's road to higher education was not an easy one. After high school, he went to work on R Ranch, a private resort located on 830 acres of land in the north Georgia mountains. After saving money, Gooch enrolled in UNG. "I decided to stay at home and go to college," he said, explaining he paid for his own college tuition and books. Gooch continued to work during his education, clocking a full 40-hour work week. "I would go to school in the morning and work in the afternoon and on the weekend," he said. "So I wasn't your traditional college student." His college education paid dividends. He continued to work at R Ranch, applying his business education to his job. Six years after earning his degree, Gooch returned to UNG for a master's degree. It was during these classes that Gooch started to understand the political system. "It was very rewarding and I learned a lot about local and state government," he said. "We studied a lot of different topics. It opened the world up in a different way. That's when the light came on and I knew it was something I would do." Two years later, Gooch ran for his first public office and won. During his tenure, he said he utilized the lessons he learned, such as making public input a priority and maintaining transparency. "I solicited volunteers to help make decisions," he said. "I felt it would help create more public trust to the office." The most useful lessons came from his finance professors. "In budgeting classes, we talked about zero-based budgets," he said. "I applied the budgeting principle to finances in the county." Gooch served as last sole county commissioner for four years and then as its first chairman of county commissioners for four years. Instead of seeking re-election in 2008, he ran as a Republican for the Georgia House of Representatives against Amos Amerson. While he did not win the election, he gained the notice of fellow Republicans including then-Gov. Sonny Perdue. Perdue, who served as governor from 2003-11, appointed him to serve as board member of the Technical College System of Georgia. In 2009, Amerson nominated Gooch to be the third person to serve out a five-year term representing the state's 9th Congressional District on the state Department of Transportation board. Representatives and senators from the states 9th District vote for the nominees. Gooch received 13 votes in two separate rounds of voting to win, which started a streak for the Dahlonega, Georgia native. In 2010, Gooch ran for the state Senate seat representing District 51, which includes Fannin, Union, Gilmer, Lumpkin, White, Dawson, and parts of Pickens and Forsyth counties. He won and has held the seat ever since. Currently, Gooch is the majority whip of the Senate Majority Caucus and vice chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee. He serves as secretary of the Appropriations Committee. He also is on the Finance; Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Overview Committee; and Regulated Industries and Utilities committees and an ex-officio on the Assignments and Rules committees. Gooch said he never forgets his love of public service started in Lumpkin County, and he learned the skills to do the job at UNG. "My time there was incredible and very rewarding," he said. "I think the low teacher-to-student ratio was part of it. I've heard at other universities, you are one of 100 kids in classroom. At UNG the numbers were smaller. Some classes as few as 15 and 20 students. In my master's courses we had eight to 10 students. That one-on-one was rewarding. You could ask questions and get interaction with the professor. And with 100 students you would hardly have interaction. The small classroom was rewarding with the way I could learn." Gabriella "Gabi" Fleck could barely believe her eyes when she saw the email stating that she received one of the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships in early December. "I called my parents and laughingly said, 'It can't be true,'" the University of North Georgia (UNG) senior from Cumming, Georgia, said. On the same day, Naomy Huaman sat in her class on East Asian politics when an email notified her that she also earned a Gilman scholarship. "I was baffled," the UNG junior from Athens, Georgia, said. "I thought that we didn't get the results until February. I wasn't expecting this at all." Similar scenes played out in early December as six UNG students learned they were the Gilman Early Summer awardees. They were: Fleck, majoring in Spanish on the Dahlonega campus, will study in Spain. Elias Keif, majoring in strategic and security studies with a concentration in cybersecurity and East Asian studies with a concentration in Chinese and in the ROTC Chinese Flagship on the Dahlonega Campus, will study in Taiwan. Alexa Hernandez-Lopez, majoring in visual arts on the Gainesville Campus, will study in Japan. Gabe Holder, majoring in Spanish and minoring in Arabic on the Dahlonega Campus, will study in Jordan. Huaman, majoring in international affairs on the Dahlonega Campus after transferring from the Oconee Campus, will study in Japan. Melissa Silva, majoring in Spanish and in the RISE program on the Gainesville Campus, will study in Spain. "I'm excited that this group reflects UNG's diversity of programs, majors and campuses," said Dr. Anastasia Lin, assistant vice president of research and engagement and associate professor of English at UNG. Of the nearly 4,500 students who applied, more than 1,200 American students 844 for spring 2019 and 395 for early summer decision 2019 were selected to receive scholarships to participate in credit-bearing study abroad programs and career-oriented internships in countries around the world. Holder, a senior from Toccoa, Georgia, is looking forward to earning nine credit hours of upper level Arabic when he studies in Jordan this summer. The 22-year-old said this opportunity would not have been possible for him without the Gilman scholarship. "I came from a financially strapped household," Holder said. "The thought of international travel was unattainable. When I saw I got the scholarship it made my day, week and my whole year." Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and implemented by the Institute of International Education, the Gilman program offers scholarships of up to $5,000 to outstanding U.S. undergraduate Pell grant recipients. Students studying a critical need language could be eligible to receive a scholarship of up to $8,000. The funds, no matter the amount, offer relief to students in myriad ways. "I was genuinely concerned about my financial ability to fulfill the study abroad requirements of my major and Chinese Flagship until I learned that I had been selected," said Keif, a senior from Cumming, Georgia. "As a recipient, I believe that my academic goals are now attainable." Hernandez-Lopez, sophomore from Norcross, Georgia, said her trip to Japan will let her fulfill her minor in Japanese and improve her language skills "100 percent." Of course, she and the other students are looking forward to becoming immersed in the language and culture they will study this summer. "I can expand my knowledge of Japanese and practice it there," Huaman said, adding she has been studying the language for two years at UNG. "And I really want to work in Japan one day." Silva, a senior scheduled to graduate in summer 2019, hopes living with a host family will increase her awareness of the cultural differences between Mexico and Spain. "Spain colonized Mexico, and the Mexican language and culture is a mix of the indigenous people and Spain," the native of Gainesville, Ga., said. "By spending five weeks living with a family in Spain, I think I will find links to my Mexican culture." For Fleck, she views the experience as a rite of passage. "I have never been anywhere but college without my parents, let alone outside of the country," the 21-year-old said. "This is a really big deal for me." Keif plans to use his time in Taiwan as a way to really learn Mandarin. "Taiwan is a very exciting place to study Chinese because unlike mainland China, the Taiwanese use the traditional form of Mandarin," the 20-year-old said. "Being able to read traditional characters is critical to the success of a student of Chinese." Applications for summer 2019 and fall 2019/academic year 2019-2020 programs will open in mid-January. Student applications are due March 5, 2019. Students interested in learning more about nationally competitive scholarships including Gilman should contact ncs@ung.edu for more information. Students interested in learning about study abroad opportunities through various programs may visit UNGs Center for Global Engagement online. The Telegraph The Queen's grandson Peter Phillips and his estranged wife, Autumn, have agreed a divorce settlement, narrowly avoiding a courtroom showdown. The couple, who have two daughters aged 10 and nine, confirmed that they had resolved the financial aspects of their divorce "amicably". It came just hours after a five-day trial had been scheduled to begin at the High Court. It was called off minutes before it was due to start. The couple announced last February that they were divorcing after 12 years of Archaeologists have uncovered the oldest known human burial in lower Central America: the skeletal remains of a mysterious woman who lived 5,900 years ago in what is now Nicaragua, a new study finds. In general, tropical places don't preserve human remains well, but in this case, the ancient women's bones remained intact because of where she was buried, said study lead researcher Mirjana Roksandic, a professor of anthropology at the University of Winnipeg in Canada. "[She] was buried in a shell mound, which reduced the acidity of the soil and helped preserve the remains," Roksandic told Live Science in an email. Ancient people created shell mounds for a number of reasons, including to bury their dead or to mark the landscape, she said. [10 Things We Learned About the First Americans in 2018] It's incredibly rare to find ancient human remains on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, a country of about 6 million people that's the second poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, according to the CIA's World Factbook. But Roksandic and her team who usually study the ancient people who lived in Cuba got a tip from a fellow anthropologist that there might be something worth investigating at Monkey Point, a coastal village in southern Nicaragua. "I was delighted and went there right away to visit the site and examine the burial," Roksandic said. (Top left) A map of Nicaragua, where the ancient woman's remains were found; (bottom left) Monkey Point, the site of the archaeological dig; (right) a zoomed-in image of Monkey Point, showing the exact spot of the Angi site. Roksandic M. et al., Antiquity 2018; Figure by L.M. Viera Sanfiel from Imagery @2018 Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO, Landsat/Copernicus, Data LDEO-Columbia, NSF, NOAA The exact spot, known as the Angi site, was originally excavated in the 1970s. But the mysterious woman's bones weren't found until recently, Roksandic said. The anthropologists found the woman buried 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) below the ground's surface. Once they realized they had uncovered human bones, the scientists immediately got permission from the local Rama and Kriol communities to continue their work. Soon after, they found that the woman had been buried in a shallow oval pit. She was on her back, with her legs flexed toward her stomach and her arms along the sides of her body. Story continues A profile shot of the Angi burial. On the left is a photo taken during the excavation. On the right is a drawing of that photo, showing the different layers, as well as where the shells and body were buried. Roksandic M. et al., Antiquity 2018; Courtesy of BICU-CIDCA A analysis revealed that the woman was an adult, but not particularly old likely between 25 and 40 years old. And she wasn't that tall; the woman stood 4 feet, 11 inches (150 centimeters) tall, which is short by Northern American and Northern European standards, "but not by the standards of Central America or other Southern populations," Roksandic noted. Despite the woman's small stature, she had "strongly developed musculature of the forearm possibly from rowing or similar activities," Roksandic said. Even today, local people are adept rowers. "While we were in the village of Bankukuk Taik, [study co-researcher] Harly Duncan introduced us to a Rama elder who rowed that very day for 4 hours to visit family," Roksandic said. "She was 82 years old. Kids as young as 9 rowed around Rama islands in a dugout." The left radius (arm bone) of the ancient woman. Notice the pronounced markings on the bone, which suggest she was muscular. Roksandic M. et al., Antiquity 2018 Moreover, like other people who eat a fair amount of shellfish, the woman had extensive wear on her teeth, Roksandic said. [Photos: Ancient Shell Carving Is Oldest On Record] Given that few ancient human remains are found in tropical places, little is known about the indigenous cultures of lower Central America, Roksandic said. While ancient people who build shell mounds are often fishers, gatherers and horticulturalists, "without further study of the site, it will not be possible to ascertain who they were and why the burial was placed there and what is the significance of this particular individual," Roksandic said. In the anthropology world, time is of the essence, as Monkey Point will soon be affected by the construction of the Nicaraguan canal and other developmental projects, Roksandic said. The woman's remains are currently housed in the CIDCA Historical Cultural Museum of the Caribbean Coast, the researchers said. The local communities, which are working with anthropologists on how to preserve their heritage, will decide what happens to her next. The study was published online in the December issue of the journal Antiquity. Originally published on Live Science. FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Latvia violated European Union law by barring from office its central bank governor, who is also a European Central Bank policymaker, the advocate general of the European Court of Justice argued on Wednesday. Ilmars Rimsevics was suspended earlier this year on charges of corruption, leaving Latvia without a vote at ECB policy meetings and challenging a key plank of central bank independence. Advocate General Juliane Kokott said Latvia had failed to provide evidence of corruption -- which Rimsevics denies -- and urged the court to find Latvia in violation of EU statutes. "Although the documents contain a description of the acts allegedly committed by Mr Rimsevics, they do not contain any factual evidence capable of establishing that those acts did in fact take place," the court said in a statement. "There is therefore no evidence before the Court that would allow it to ascertain whether the allegations made against Mr Rimsevics are well founded," it added. However, the advocate made no mention of reinstating Rimsevics, possibly leaving the issue to the court, which is expected to deliver a verdict in the coming months. Although the advocate's opinions are not binding, the court generally follows them and it also has a track record of siding with the ECB, which brought the case along with Rimsevics. In a case without precedent for the ECB, Rimsevics was detained in February on accusations of soliciting a bribe and was barred by Latvian authorities from working as governor. Latvia argued that Rimsevics was not formally removed from office, and thus there was no violation, but even that was rejected by the advocate, who said that the Latvian measures constituted being relieved from office. The ECB declined to comment. Latvian officials could not immediately be reached for comment. (Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Hugh Lawson) Business minister Heather Humphreys made the announcement on Thursday. Pic: PA Brexit has already created more than 4,500 jobs in Ireland, the countrys development agency said on Thursday (3 January). Since June 2016, over 55 companies have made the decision to opt for Ireland on foot of Brexit, said Martin Shanahan, the CEO of IDA Ireland, the state agency responsible for attracting foreign direct investment. The agency said that it had secured a substantial number of Brexit-related investments in 2018 alone, and noted that Brexit was now a factor in all investment decisions in Ireland. These investments reflect the faith that the international community has in Ireland as a post-Brexit financial and commercial hub, said Heather Humphreys, Irelands business minister, pointing to moves made by JP Morgan and Thompson Reuters. In total, there are now almost 230,000 people employed in the countrys multinational sector, an all-time record. The 11% growth in overall multinational job numbers in 2018, Shanahan said, was evidence that Ireland was experiencing a Brexit dividend, even if all of the jobs could not be tied directly to the UKs decision to leave the European Union. Despite that, both Humphreys and Shanahan noted that Brexit would create more than a few problems for Ireland. There is no positive scenario from Brexit for Ireland, notwithstanding that it is driving investment in our direction, Shanahan said. In particular, the Irish government warned last month that a no-deal Brexit would have profound political, economic and legal implications for the country. READ MORE: Irish government publishes no-deal Brexit contingency plan But Shanahan told Yahoo Finance UK that he expected Brexit-related investments to continue for quite some time, noting that the UK was now less attractive as an investment location in general. He also noted that the 4,500 jobs created by the more than 55 companies who have invested in Ireland as a result of Brexit were only initial jobs announcements. There is every likelihood that employment associated with these companies will increase, Shanahan said. Story continues Financial institutions like Bank of America and Morgan Stanley, as well as Citi Group and Barclays, had declared a new or expanded presence for Ireland in 2018, the agency noted. Irelands advantages in a post-Brexit context include English language, commitment to the EU, a common law system in addition to our existing competitive proposition. And Shanahan said that there would also be an increase in sectors outside of finance, such as the pharmaceutical sector, which is already a major investor in Ireland. Cookies op Tweakers Tweakers is onderdeel van DPG Media en maakt gebruik van cookies, JavaScript en vergelijkbare technologie om je onder andere een optimale gebruikerservaring te bieden. Ook kan Tweakers hierdoor het gedrag van bezoekers vastleggen en analyseren. Door gebruik te maken van deze website, of door op 'Cookies accepteren' te klikken, geef je toestemming voor het gebruik van cookies. Wil je meer informatie over cookies en hoe ze worden gebruikt? Bekijk dan ons cookiebeleid. A hospital source says that the driver of a tractor trailer that plowed into more than 20 motorbikes stopped at a traffic light, killing four, in the Mekong Delta province of Long An on Wednesday tested positive for heroin and alcohol. An employee at the Long An Province General Hospital, speaking under the condition of anonymity, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that the driver, 32-year-old Pham Thanh Hieu, had taken two clinical urine tests at the infirmary. The examinations were taken three hours part, but both results showed the driver had heroin in his system. The tests also revealed that the driver had extremely high blood-alcohol content. Officers from the provincial police department are still investigating Hieu and have yet to release an official statement. At around 3:20 pm on Wednesday, 21 motorcycles waiting at a traffic light at the Binh Nhut intersection of National Highway 1 in Long Anhs Ben Luc District were struck by Hieus tractor trailer. Three people were killed on the spot and another passed away at the hospital. Eighteen other victims were injured, eight of whom were transferred to Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City for treatment. CCTV footage of the incident shows that the truck plowed into the motorcyclists without showing any sign of slowing down. The truck continued to travel with motorbikes trapped under for another 200m before coming to a complete halt. Hieu immediately fled the scene but turned himself into police the same night. According to Phung Thanh Nhan, the trucks owner and Hieus employer, the driver was tasked with transporting goods from Tan An City in Long An to Ho Chi Minh City. The Long An Department of Transport previously stated that Hieus drivers license was issued in September 2015 and was set to expire in October 2020. The tractor trailer was manufactured in 2015 and its inspection is set to expire in March, according to the Vietnam Registry. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Here are todays news stories: Society -- Tropical Storm Pabuk became slightly stronger on Thursday morning and is expected to be about 280 kilometers southwest of the Ca Mau Cape in the namesake southernmost province by Friday morning. -- Customs officers at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday caught a Vietnamese- American passenger attempting to smuggle 2.3 kilograms of drugs from the United States. -- The Ho Chi Minh City Management Board of Urban Railway and South Korean consulting units have finished their feasibility report on the construction of a 1,894-meter metro route connecting Hoang Van Thu Park in Tan Binh District with Tan Son Nhat International Airport, which is expected to cost about US$296 million. -- The Department of Transport in Ho Chi Minh City is set to start pulling down the over a century old Phu Long Bridge, connecting District 12 and Thuan An Town in neighboring Binh Duong Province after the 2019 Lunar New Year holiday. -- A 47-year-old car driver in the north-central province of Nghe An turned himself into police on Tuesday after crashing the vehicle into two elderly women, killing one and injuring the other, on December 29. Following the incident, officers released CCTV footage of the crash to hunt for the culprit. -- A container truck broke down and another had its wheels stuck in the muddy section of the Phuong Hoang Pass, which connects south-central Khanh Hoa Province and the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak, on Wednesday night, causing serious congestion that lingered until Thursday morning. -- Police in the north-central province of Thanh Hoa on Wednesday morning caught a truck carrying over 850 bottles of smuggled alcohol along National Highway 1. The illegal products were being transported to northern provinces for distribution. Business -- Owners of Lai Vung tangerine gardens in the Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap are offering tourists an opportunity to visit their gardens as well as have a taste of the special fruits and other products made from tangerines. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A Ho Chi Minh City-bound tractor trailer in the southern province of Long An crashed into more than 20 motorcyclists stopped at a traffic light, claiming at least four lives. The fatal accident took place at around 3:00 pm at the Binh Nhut intersection on the National Highway 1 in Long Ans Ben Luc District, with three victims killed on the spot and a fourth pronounced dead at a local hospital. Seventeen other victims were also taken to the hospital for treatment. Victims with severe injuries have since been transferred to Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City for better treatment. A Ben Luc police officer said that authorities believe that break failure could be the cause of the incident. The driver, 32-year-old Pham Thanh Hieu, fled the scene immediately after the deadly crash, but turned himself into police later the same day. CCTV footage of the accident shows that the truck was speeding toward the motorcyclists and showed no sign of slowing down before ploughing through the crowd. The truck continued to travel with some motorbikes trapped beneath it for another 200m before coming to a complete halt. Phung Van On, a member of the Long An traffic safety committee, said this is one of the worst traffic accidents to ever happen in the province. Police are continuing their investigation into the incident. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! OPINION: "I am disheartened by our current administrations pattern of blanket giveaways, as opposed to judiciously allocating the funds to where they are most needed," writes Tucsonan John Newport. Our latest contributor, Edward Thompson III, argues that Trump has used two essential American myths to rise to power. "Americans elected Trump to lead the worlds most powerful nation. Accordingly, his egregious policies are our policies," Thompson III says. PHOENIX Women seeking to terminate a pregnancy are now going to face some new questions about their decision. And the doctors who perform the procedure will have new reports to file. A new law that took effect Tuesday updates existing statutes that had an open-ended question that health-care providers were supposed to ask about the reason for the abortion. That included whether the procedure is elective or due to some issue of maternal or fetal health. But proponents of the change argued that doesnt provide sufficient information, at least not in a form where it can be classified into categories and published in annual reports by the Arizona Department of Health Services. Now patients have to be asked whether the abortion is elective or whether it was due to one of a list of medical conditions. Theres more. Women also will be asked whether the procedure is being sought because the pregnancy is due to rape or incest. And there also are questions about whether they are being coerced into the abortion, whether they are the victim of sex trafficking and whether they are the victim of domestic violence. Nothing in the measure, however, requires a woman to answer in order to have her pregnancy terminated. Sign spinner Codie Norman founder of Cool Kat Street Level Promotions was known to many motorists because of his smile, performances and friendly demeanor. The 58-year-old worked spinning signs, advertising for businesses throughout Tucson, and at street fairs on Fourth Avenue, Second Saturdays downtown and Tucson Meet Yourself. On Dec. 28, Norman died of an apparent drug overdose, according to his family. He wanted to make people smile, said his son Codie Norman Jr., 29, of Missoula, Montana, who spent time with his dad when he founded the promotions company in 2012. He would look at individuals in their eyes as they were passing, and he would wave and they would recognize he was waving to them. He was more than and advertiser. He was everybodys friend, said the son, recalling how his dad would collect Bibles and coats every year to give to the homeless. The elder Norman struggled with alcoholism and drugs over the years, which led to episodes of homelessness and more than two years in prison for a burglary conviction. At one point years ago, he was living in a makeshift tent behind Pima Street Baptist Church on East Pima Street and North Rosemont Boulevard. After two days of snow and plenty of freeze warnings, Tucson is expected to warm up a bit on Friday. But I hope you like a little rain there's currently a pretty good chance of it on Saturday night and into Sunday. And as for temperatures, areas in Southern Arizona are expected to see temperatures in the low- to mid-20s Thursday night into Friday morning, the National Weather Service said. Temperatures are forecast to be in the lower 30s in the Tucson area, so don't put away your jacket just yet. Temperatures will gradually warm up on Friday, with highs expected in the 60s. This weekend and into next week should also bring similar 60-degree temperatures with exception of Sunday, which is currently expected to see highs in the 50s. A Pacific storm is forecast to hit the region Saturday night, with rain a possibility into Monday. Mountain snow is another possibility. Snow levels for this storm, however, are expected to stay fairly high in elevation. Sorry, Tucson. Snow was falling early Wednesday morning in portions of the Tucson metro area as well as across southern Arizona. The snow was mostly over eastern Pima and Santa Cruz counties. It was moving out of the area in an eastern direction, the National Weather Service in Tucson said early Wednesday. According to the National Weather Service, the Rita Ranch/Vail area had around 5 inches of snow as of Wednesday at noon. Summerhaven saw 4 inches and Nogales got around 6 inches. Sierra Vista had 3 inches and Green Valley had 1. Snow here was expected to end later in the morning, but portions of southeastern Arizona could expect snowfall into the afternoon, the weather service says. A winter storm warning is in effect to the east of Tucson until 5 p.m. Fort Huachuca has closed for the day, sighting multiple incidents due to icy roads and snow. Officials said in a Facebook post that the child care centers on post are closing once parents have picked up their children. Gyms and the clinic are closing as well. The Army installation in Cochise County will only be open today to emergency responders. Its college application season, kids. That means its time to start thinking about how much tuition will cost and how it compares at other schools. Weve rounded up tuition costs at several Arizona colleges and universities, both public and private, so you dont have to do countless Google searches. The following are tuition and fee costs for full-time undergraduate students for the 2018-19 school year. Graduate tuition and certain programs may cost more or include additional fees. Tuition also may increase next school year at some institutions. Many of these schools also offer online programs, which may have different tuition prices. Not all fees or costs may be included in the tuition prices listed below. For instance, some fields of study have higher tuition and some fees for specific uses may not be added into the price. Theres also the cost of room and board (and parking) to consider. And one major consideration: Many students dont pay sticker price for tuition, so your actual cost to attend, once scholarships, grant and other funds are included, could differ greatly from the amounts listed below. We believe that everyone has a story to share. That's why the Arizona Daily Star founded Tucson Storytellers, a series of live storytelling events dedicated to highlighting different perspectives in our community. We have everyday people share true, first-person stories and invite you to share your story at one of our upcoming events! Think you want to attend an event before signing up? You can purchase tickets for all our 2019 events at tucson.com/tickets. Here's a look at our shows coming up in 2019. See you there! February 18: Pivot From starting a new job to navigating life's tough decisions, join us as we partner with Startup Tucson to share stories of the times in life when we've had to pivot. Deputies with the Pima County Sheriff's Department will start carrying a life-saving nasal spray that treats opioid overdoses this year. The sheriff's department says all deputies will carry Narcan in their first-aid kit. They'll also get training on how to spot an opioid overdose and how to use the spray. The Arizona Department of Health Services is providing the spray at no cost to the sheriff's department. It recently launched a big media campaign targeted to young people on the danger of abusing opioids. The health department says there have been over 15,000 suspected opioid overdoses since June 2017, and about 14 percent of those resulted in death. Twenty-five to 34-year-olds are the most likely to overdose. Pima County was one of the few law enforcement agencies in the region that did not carry the anti-overdose spray in a survey by the Star over the summer. It said then that since paramedics responding to medical emergencies already carry naloxone, theres little need for sheriffs deputies to carry it, too. And that they were concerned the FDA-approved drug would degrade in the heat of their patrol cars and render it ineffective. Photo editor Rick Wiley is the photo editor of the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson. From 1995-2004, he was director of photography at the East Valley Tribune in Mesa. From 1988-94 he was a photographer at the Tucson Citizen. He is a graduate of ASU (yes, that ASU). CHEYENNE (AP) Wyoming Game and Fish Department Director Scott Talbott says 2018 was a year especially notable for the partnerships between his agency and the public to manage wildlife and conserve it for the future. Talbott noted the collaboration of the department and the public in charting future conservation plans for the Yellowstone cutthroat trout in northwest Wyoming. The work developed a set of specific recommendations for future Yellowstone cutthroat trout restoration efforts in the Absaroka, Beartooth and Bighorn mountains. The agency also worked with others in bringing back the Wyoming Outdoor Expo. Other collaboration efforts involved chronic wasting disease and ungulate migration. For the new year, Talbott says Game and Fish looks forward to implementing a new strategic plan and continuing to provide top-notch wildlife viewing, hunting and fishing in Wyoming. Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The effects of the companies successful lawsuit are clear in the bill. Previously, the state capped payments for air ambulance companies at just over $3,900 and denied bills from the companies that routinely topped $30,000. This bill would increase how much the state would pay these companies for workers comp-related claims while still allowing the companies to directly bill the injured worker should the air ambulances choose not to accept the states payment. Barlow said that if the companies accepted the proposal of a doubled Medicare rate, they would be paid promptly and with certainty. If they instead decided to balance bill the worker, they would face lengthier fights that may not result in the companies getting the amount they desire, he said. Its unclear if this choice is acceptable to the companies. Barlow said no representative from an air ambulance firm has attended a recent Labor, Health and Social Services Committee meeting. Messages sent Wednesday afternoon to three of the four companies that sued the state in 2015 were not returned. (The fourth company, Rocky Mountain Holdings, is a subsidiary of one of the other companies.) A Wyoming Army National Guard unit will have a sending-off ceremony on Friday as it prepares to deploy to the Middle East, the first in a wave of deployments of Wyoming units over the next several months. The unit, G Company of the 2nd Battalion, 211th Aviation, is a medical evacuation company. It is the most-deployed unit in the Wyoming guard, according to a state press release. Gov. Matt Mead and Maj. Gen. Luke Reiner, the adjutant general for Wyoming, will both attend a farewell ceremony for the unit in Cheyenne on Friday at the Joint Forces Readiness Center, 58000 Central Ave. The event begins at 2 p.m. and is open to the public. From Cheyenne, the unit will travel to Fort Bliss, Texas, for further mobilization training, according to the release. The medevac unit has been deployed six times since Sept. 11, 2001, according to the release. It is made up of soldiers from Bear River, Casper, Carpenter, Guernsey, Cheyenne, Laramie and Wheatland, and from Colorado, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Casper resident Billie Wellman said she loves to shop at Macys, which is why she was dismayed to learn the chains only branch in Wyoming will be closing its doors in the coming months. I hate that its closing, said Wellman, who was browsing the department store for new sheets on Thursday morning. I think its going to kill the mall. Macys, which is located in Eastridge Mall in Casper, is expected to shut down in March, according to general manager Carrie Allen. This store is closing here in Casper, Allen said. Not all Macys (stores). Allen, who could not confirm the number of employees who work at the store, said she was unable to comment further at this time. In an email to the Star-Tribune, Emily Goldberg, the manager of corporate communications at Macys headquarters in New York, said that the decision to close the Casper branch was made after Macys Inc. reviewed its real estate portfolio across the country. The creator of OxyContin has asked a Wyoming judge to dismiss the Equality States lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company, claiming that the federal Food and Drug Administrations previous findings invalidate the states legal challenge. In October, Wyomings Attorney Generals Office announced it had filed suit against Purdue Pharma, the drug company most publicly associated with the opioid crisis, in Laramie County Circuit Court. In its lawsuit, the state claimed Purdue effectively used deceptive practices to market opioids in Wyoming, selling 16 million pills here between 2001 and 2017. In its 115-page lawsuit, the state alleges that Purdue was deceptive in its marketing and that it worked to broaden the pool of patients who physicians deemed eligible for an opioid prescription. Further, the state claims that Purdue overstated the benefits of chronic opioid treatment while downplaying its serious risks. In response, Purdue through its Cheyenne attorneys, Richard Mincer and Erin Berry alleges that the Food and Drug Administration had approved the use of opioids for treating chronic pain. The Philippines again is the subject of travel warnings from at least two countries following the lawlessness in Mindanao. Australia and the United Kingdom cautioned their citizens against traveling to the strife-torn island, in the wake of recent terrorist attacks and clashes between government troops and insurgent groups. The Philippines is used to negative travel advisories, especially if known terrorist groups such as the Abu Sayyaf and the local ISIS abduct civilians and foreign tourists, or bomb public places to harm or kill people. But such warnings will have a long-term impact on the tourism industry, the investment climate and the overall economic development of a region or the entire nation itself. The travel warnings from the foreign governments can be unfairly extensive as the one issued by the British government. UKs travel advisory warned about more terrorist attacks in the Philippines, including Manila. Terrorist groups, says the UK advisory, continue to plan attacks and have the capacity and the intent to carry out attacks at any time and anywhere in the country, including in places visited by foreigners, like airports, shopping malls, public transport, including the metro system, and places of worship.The UK also cited the report of American authorities that highlighted poor aviation security at the capitals main airport. The warning may be excessive but the British government has the responsibility to protect its citizens planning to travel in Mindanao, amid the plebiscite on the Bangsamoro Organic Law scheduled on Jan. 21. Close to 2.8-million voters are expected to cast their votes in the areas of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Isabela City in Basilan and Cotabato Cityknown hot spots in the island. Authorities, meanwhile, must increase police presence in tourist destinations, seaports, airports and other public places to deter violence. They should monitor and patrol these places 24 hours a day to keep peace and order. The travel advisories may have already scuttled the plans of potential foreign tourists to visit the Philippines, but there is no substitute for vigilance in containing all forms of lawlessness. A charity rescue vessel carrying 311 mainly African migrants plucked off Libya docked in Spain on Friday, ending a traumatic journey which saw them spend Christmas at sea and several European nations denying the ship entry. The migrants cheered and applauded as the vessel docked in the port of Crinavis near the southern city of Algeciras. Proactiva Open Arms, the Spanish charity which runs the Open Arms vessel carrying the migrants, feted the arrival with a "Mission accomplished" tweet. The migrants come from 19 different countries, including Somalia, Syria and the Ivory Coast. More than a third of them, 139, are minors. By early afternoon all of the migrants had disembarked from the boat and received clothes and food, as well as medical tests if required, from Red Cross officials. Women and children left the boat first. "They are in good health in general," said Inigo Vila, who is in charge of emergencies for the Red Cross in Spain. The migrants were welcomed with applause from bystanders / AFP Police will identify the migrants before moving them to shelters. The migrants were rescued on December 21 from three vessels but were denied entry by Italy and Malta. Libya, France and Tunisia did not respond to Proactiva Open Arms' requests for permission to dock, Madrid said. On Saturday, a newborn baby and his mother were helicoptered from the boat to Malta, while a 14-year-old suffering from a serious skin infection was taken to the Italian island of Lampedusa. - 'Lives in danger' - Photos and videos posted by the charity showed the rest of the rescued migrants celebrating Christmas at sea listening to music and singing. Some children wore red Santa hats as they huddled together on the small ship. The migrants received clothes and food, as well as medical tests if required, from Red Cross officials / AFP "We are talking about lives in danger, of people who need help. And it is really deplorable to have to travel for eight days at sea to take them to a safe port when international rules say to go to the nearest safe port," said Proactiva Open Arms founder Oscar Camps. Proactiva Open Arms operates in the sea between Libya and southern Europe, coming to the aid of migrants who get into difficulties during the crossing from northern Africa. This was the first time since August that Spain has allowed a charity rescue ship to dock and unload migrants in the country. The Open Arms resumed its Mediterranean patrols off the Libyan coast in late November, along with two other boats run by migrant aid groups. The movements of the Open Arms migrant rescue ship before it was finally allowed to dock in Spain / AFP It suspended its missions in August, accusing governments -- and hardline Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini by name -- of "criminalising" migrant rescue charities. Salvini has denied the groups access to Italy's ports, accusing them of acting as a "taxi service" for migrants. Malta too has been increasingly unwilling to host rescue vessels. "Your rhetoric and your message will, like everything in this life, end," Camps told Salvini on Twitter earlier. "But you should know that in a few decades your descendants will be ashamed of what you do and say." - Another ship still stranded - A member of Proactiva Open Arms organisation holds a new born baby rescued with her mother / AFP The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) meanwhile said Friday it was "concerned" for 32 migrants rescued by German NGO Sea Watch off the coast of Libya on December 22 and called for "their timely disembarkation at a nearby safe port". Sea Watch's ship was on Friday also looking for a boat carrying around 75 migrants which the Italian coastguard said was in distress off Libya, but has so far failed to find it, a spokeswoman from the charity said. The Libyan coastguard refuses to speak to Sea Watch and it was not clear if the migrants have already been rescued or if it was a false alarm, she added. More than 1,300 migrants have perished trying to reach Italy or Malta since the beginning of the year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). That makes this stretch of the Mediterranean the most deadly for migrants attempting to cross to Europe. Spain meanwhile has become Europe's main entry point for migrants this year, overtaking Greece and Italy. More than 56,000 migrants have arrived in Spain by sea this year, and 769 have died trying, according to the IOM. After a week of protests against the government of right-wing nationalist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, sparked by reforms to labour law and the judiciary, the opposition and trade unions are trying to keep up the momentum. - The spark - Passed by parliament on 12 December, the new overtime law raises to 400 the number of additional hours that bosses can demand from employees annually, as well as allowing payment to be delayed by up to three years. The government says it is responding to labour shortages and that the reform will allow those who want to work more to earn more but the opposition dubbed it a "slave law". Also passed on the same day was another bill paving the way for new "administrative courts" to oversee cases concerning matters such as public procurement or electoral disputes. Critics say the measure would cement the government's control over the judiciary. - The movement - The protests were initially organised in an ad hoc fashion and saw rare clashes break out in front of parliament in Budapest. But the unions subsequently threw their weight behind the protests, as did the opposition, which has seen unprecedented unity between its left-wing, liberal and far-right factions. Protesters have also been venting their anger at the increasing control that Orban and his Fidesz party exercise over the media, the judiciary and swathes of the economy. Since being re-elected in April for a third straight term, Orban has also stirred controversy with his attacks on NGOs and the Central European University (CEU) -- founded by the government's bete noire, liberal Hungarian-born US billionaire George Soros. On Monday the focus of the protests switched to the headquarters of the MTVA public broadcaster when a dozen MPs entered the premises and demanded -- unsuccessfully -- that a petition outlining their demands be read out on air. - Running out of steam? - Even though the protests have managed to keep momentum going since last week, the biggest turnout thus far has been 15,000 on Sunday, far from the 40,000 who protested against the first tranche of measures against the CEU in April 2017, or the demonstrations in 2014 against a proposed tax on internet usage. Despite a few hundred demonstrators gathering at various points in other big cities, the movement remains essentially confined to the capital Budapest and even there only a few hundred turned out on Tuesday. - Second wind - According to one poll more than two-thirds of Hungarians sympathise with the movement, which now has its own anti-Orban symbol and hopes for a big turnout on Friday and Saturday before the Christmas break. The opposition is also calling for a big demonstration to kick off the New Year in Budapest on 2 January. Unions may be key to giving the movement a second wind if they make good on pledges to mount a general strike if the overtime law comes into force. Thus far the government doesn't seem minded to offer any concessions, dismissing the protestors as "vandals" in the pay of Soros. - 'Arrogant' style - "How the wave of protests develops is closely linked to how the unions act," Balazs Boecskei, director of the IDEA policy analysis institute told AFP, who says only a general strike would be likely "to force the government to retreat". However, the rate of unionisation is at an all-time low at only nine percent of workers. Added to that is the mistrust the six main unions have traditionally had for each other which has hindered coordinated action. That has meant they haven't been able to exploit Hungary's labour shortage, which should have played to their advantage. Tamas Szekely from the VDSZ chemical workers' union admits that Orban has been able to capitalise on the situation. "He doesn't even bother pretending to consult anyone and big businesses have adopted the government's arrogant style," Szekely told the index.hu website. "The unions haven't understood that faced with Orban they have to be more activist, that there's no point sitting down to negotiate because there'll be no-one sitting opposite them to talk to," Boecskei said. The unity of virtually all the opposition parties against Fidesz, however, does mark a turning point in Hungarian politics, according to the analyst Gabor Filippov. "They're not staying passive any more when faced with the illusion of the rule of law which is conveyed by the regime. They are pressuring it into showing its true face," he told the 24.hu site. Vague ideas, no concept and a friendly and self-satisfied prime minister: Those are just some of the criticisms expressed by the leaders of the opposition after Xavier Bettel's RTL interview. The right-wing Alternative Democratic Reform Party (ADR) has singled out and criticised one of the PM's perceived visions for the future: Unbridled growth. The Left has criticised selective contributions in kind. While they generally support a universal welfare state in which stronger shoulders take on more of the burden, they believe that the government needs to do more to make sure that people aren't left out or patronised by the state. The Christian Social People's Party criticise the government's plan of making it easier for working parents to wear both hats. The CSV doesn't appreciate these family policies, as they believe that parents have a right to chose between being a working parent and being a stay-at-home parent. The induction of a new tax bracket would further undermine that choice, according to the CSV. The Pirate Party was the only opposition party to support the government's programme, essentially giving the coalition an early vote of confidence. All four opposition parties pointed out that they value constructive opposition politics and would support the government wherever possible. The French president Emmanuel Macron is under fire again due to his sacked security official and deputy chief of staff's recent trip to Chad using a diplomatic passport. Alexandre Benalla was sacked following the reveal that he had beaten up a young protester during a May Day demonstration in 2018. The latest charge is that Benalla continues to use his diplomatic passport, although in theory he should have returned it with his dismissal. Looking at the Grand Duchy in light of this controversy, how does Luxembourg regulate the use and distribution of diplomatic passports? It should first be stressed that a diplomatic passport is not a fun accessory or a 'get out of jail free' card. Luxembourg's Ministry of Foreign Affairs distributes diplomatic passports, but only for official missions and never for private reasons. The main purpose of a diplomatic passport is to facilitate official missions and placements abroad. In some countries, even diplomatic passport holders must follow visa procedures. Who receives a diplomatic passport in Luxembourg? Those granted with diplomatic passports in the Grand Duchy include, most obviously, the Grand Duke and members of his family, the prime minister and other ministers, and members of parliament. Other passport holders are ambassadors, diplomatic agents and other officials who represent the Grand Duchy's interests. Other jobs that have more specific roles do not necessarily mean that the jobholders get diplomatic passports. Instead, these people receive a so-called service passport, which does not provide any diplomatic immunity. The Benalla affair and regulating who holds a passport A diplomatic passport is closely linked to duty, which is why the Alexandre Benalla affair is causing so much controversy. Despite his dismissal as security officer and deputy chief of staff, Benalla continued to travel using this passport. Macron is having to answer the question of whether Benalla received preferential treatment. In Luxembourg, there are currently between 700 and 800 diplomatic passports in circulation. Upon inquiry, the ministry was clear in its response. As soon as an agent changes their job, they must return the passport. The ministry carefully monitors the distribution and return of passports. A Luxembourgish diplomatic passport is only valid for at most five years at a time. 2018 marked a black year in traffic safety in Luxembourg. 35 people lost their lives on Luxembourg's roads, 11 more than in 2017. In 2017, 24 people were killed in traffic. In 2016, that number stood at 30. Raymond Schintgen, the president of the national association for road crash victims ("Association Nationale des Victimes de la Route" - AVR) called 2018 a "black year" in terms of road safety. 35 people died over the course of 365 days. Behind each number in the statistic, there lies a family tragedy. The AVR has expressed its disappointment at the new government's coalition agreement. In an RTL interview, Schintgen stated that reducing traffic fines for smaller traffic violations would send the wrong message. Instead, Schintgen believes that the government should at east consider simultaneously upping the fines for more serious infractions and/or adjusting fines to the salary of the person who committed the traffic violation. Transport minister Francois Bausch has pointed out that several casualties were in fact suicides or the result of people falling ill behind the wheel. Schintgen on the other hand believes that the combination of speed and alcohol is still one of the deadliest combinations often underestimated by drivers. Young drivers are especially vulnerable to this. The president of the national association for road crash victims believes that radar sections, a new generation of speed check technology, could do much to curb the number of crashes in Luxembourg. Radar sections calculate the driver's average speed over a stretch of road, rather than at just one specific spot. Luxembourg's speed check camera apparatus have been operational for almost three years now. The government is currently also improving road safety by installing crash barriers on tree-lined roads. Paul Hammelmann of the road safety association believes that reducing maximum speeds on country roads from 90 km/h to 80 km/h would be an important step. The ministry of transport will release a more detailed analysis of road safety in 2018 later in the year. After the year 2018 stood out with unseasonably high temperatures and low water levels, Luxembourg's farmers are dreading the potential effects of Brexit in 2019. New year, new challenges. Luxembourg's farmers' association is apprehensive about the potential consequences of Brexit. The British government is expected to vote on Theresa May's deal on 21 January. The future of the UK is currently somewhat up in the air with the decision between a "hard" or "no-deal" Brexit, May's Brexit deal and even a second referendum still looming. The Grand Duchy would generally prefer for May's deal to go through rather than go down the route of a no-deal Brexit. Josiane Willems, president of the farmer's association, stated that the UK is an important trading partner to Luxembourg. A great deal of goods from the 27 member states are exported from the continent to Britain, and Great Britain is in turn an important exporter to continental Europe. Hard Brexit With Brexit, taxes and customs costs are expected to go up, making products more expensive and less competitive. Experts are warning of a hard Brexit, saying that consequences could be even more dire than during the 2014 Russia embargo. Almost five years ago, some markets completely collapsed under the pressure. Milk prices were especially affected. Brussels is currently working on an emergency plan to prevent history from repeating itself. But even with a solid plan in place, the consequences are expected to be felt in continental Europe as well as across the Channel. As if Brexit weren't enough to worry about, climate change and the extremely hot temperatures in recent years are putting farmers in a spot of bother. Willems stated that the farmers' association is also fearful of potential cuts to the European agriculture budget. A guaranteed price stability does not exist in the agricultural sector, which means that farmers have to deal with a lot of uncertainty. Regional meteorological analysis of the year 2018 shows above average temperatures and a shortage of rain in the summer(2.1.2019). Graph 1: temperature anomalies. Graph 2: precipitation anomalies. Graph 3: climatic water balance in mm. / MA According to an article published in W magazine, Prince Harry - once known as the "Party Prince" - has given up alcohol, coffee, and tea out of respect for his pregnant wife, Meghan Markle. Prince Harry has been no stranger to controversy in his partying days (such as dressing up as a Nazi for a party), but those days seem to be behind him as he has turned over a new leaf. According to an article in W Magazine, married life has rather changed the Prince - who has reportedly given up not just alcohol, but also tea and coffee, in solidarity with his pregnant wife. This lifestyle change, it is said, has ushered in a brand new side to his personality, "He was always fidgeting and on the go, always looking for the next thrill," friends of the palace told The Express. "He was a great laugh but it was always very full on." The days where Prince Harry was the life of the party are but a dim and distant memory, but at least his friends are calling him "more chilled and relaxed" now that he's off caffeine train. Friends of the Prince, again according to The Express, know him to be "a pretty brutal drinker since he was a young teenager," so are heralding the commitment to this new healthy living/tee-totaling specimen as being "quite an achievement." Whichever way you look at it, even giving up a modicum of vices in solidarity with your pregnant wife is more than some blokes manage. This subscription will allow existing subscribers of The World to access all of our online content, including the E-Editions area. NOTE: To claim your access to the site, you will need to enter the Last Name and First Name that is tied to your subscription in this format: SMITH, JOHN If you need help with exactly how your specific name needs be entered, please email us at admin@countrymedia.net or call us at 1-541 266 6047. "Commercial aviation is booming in Asia." The worlds best two best airports, Changi of Singapore and Incheon International Airport Corp. of South Korea, will operate in the Philippines to help manage the countrys future two best airportsClark International in Pampanga and the New Manila International Airport in Bulacan. Changi is the partner of Filinvest Development Corp. and JG Summit Holdings (owner of Cebu Pacific Air) to operate and maintain Clark International Airport for 25 years. Incheon Airport is the partner of San Miguel Holdings Corp., the airport subsidiary of San Miguel Corp., which is putting up the $15-billion NMIA, in Bulakan town, Bulacan province, 40 kms northwest of Manila and will operate it for 50 years. The Clark contract awarded Filinvest-JG Summits North Luzon Airport Consortium on Dec. 21, 2018 will also develop the commercial assets, operate and maintain project facilities and fit out the new terminal. We are confident that with the vast experience of each member of the consortium in terms of property development, air transportation and airport operations, NLAC will be able to reinvent Clark International Airport to a world-class airport, meet the continued growth of international and domestic air travel, and deliver its commitment to the government and the public, said Josephine Gotianun-Yap of Filinvest Development Corp., the lead consortium member. NLAC vows to establish a new reputation for the Philippine international airports with its technical partner Changi Airport Philippinespart of the Changi Airport Group that operates Singapore Changi Airport. Skytrax has named Changi Airport as the worlds best for six consecutive years, including 2018 when Incheon placed second. Meanwhile, on Nov. 23, 2018, in Tokyo, Japan, San Miguel Corp. President Ramon S. Ang signed a memorandum of understanding with Incheon International Airport President Chung Il-young for a cooperative partnership with SMC subsidiary, San Miguel Holdings to develop and manage the proposed New Manila International Airport. In terms of quality of management, efficiency, and scale of markets, Incheon and Changi airports are on the same level, according to industry insiders. Ang likes the Koreans. They are easier partners, he volunteers. Bulacan will be the largest airport outside Seoul in which Incheon Airport will get involved. The Airports Council International named Incheon International Airport Best Airport Worldwide for a record seventh year in a row, from 2005 to 2011. At Incheon airport, it takes only 16 minutes processing for departure and 12 minutes for arrivalfar above the global standards of 60 and 45 minutes, respectively. From 2005-2011, Incheon has also regularly won ACIs awards for Best Airport Worldwide, Best Airport in Asia Pacific, and Best Airport with 25-40-million passengers per year. The ACI Best Airport award is considered the Nobel Prize of the Aviation Industry, and is determined through the survey of 1,700 airports by 350,000 passengers. The Clark International Airport claims to be one of the biggest aviation complexes in Asia. It has two runways parallel to each other but because the facility used to be for military purposes, the distance between them is narrow, virtually making Clark a single-runway airport. The runway can be extended to 4 kms to accommodate new generation wide-bodied aircraft.The primary runway (Runway 02R/20L) has a length of 3,200 meters and a width of 61 meters and is fully equipped with all navigational aids and lighting facilities, with Category 1 rating for precision approach. The secondary runway (Runway 02L/20R) has a length of 3,200 meters and a width of 45 meters. Not yet equipped with navigational aids and lighting facilities, it is for Visual Flight Rules only. San Miguels NMIA will have four runways good for 100 million passengersRunway 1 (45m x 3500m); Runway 2 (45m x 2600m); Runway 3 (45m x 3500m); and Runway 4 (45m x 2600m). Ramon Ang promises to build an additional two runways (to make it six) to service up to 200 million passengers. Ang says with the NMIA, tourist arrivals will increase to 20 million, from barely seven million at present. Assuming two workers per tourist, 20 million translate into 40-million jobs. Aviation contributes 9 percent of economic activity or GDP which amounts to P17 trillion. Of P1.53 trillion aviation GDP, 70 percent or P1.07 trillion is contributed by NAIA. If NAIA is phased out, that P1.07 trillion (6.3 percent of GDP) contributed to the economy will come from San Miguels NMIA. Commercial aviation grows by 4 percent- 5 percent yearly so that in 10 years, NMIAs contribution to the economy will be P1.6 trillion. In Clark, Changi has the advantage of helping manage an existing airport undergoing expansion. Its capacity will be limited4.1-million passengers per annum (ppa) at the old terminal, eight million ppa at the new terminal (completed in 2020), 22 million in the second phase, and 46 million in the third. In Bulacan, Incheon Airport has the advantage of helping develop a brand-new airport from the ground up, using its experience and technology developing and managing Seouls Incheon which was also built on reclaimed land. Also, with Incheon partnering with San Miguel, other South Korean industrial giants could be enticed to come to the Philippines. The Land of the Morning Calm is the worlds 11th largest economy which is worth $1.645 trillion. It is the worlds sixth-largest steel producer and third largest in cement. Koreas R&D spending, at 3 percent of GDP, during 2000 to 2006 exceeded that of China, Russia, and the US. Its top exports of electrical machinery, machinery (including computers), vehicles, and ships. San Miguel is keen to go into integrated steel million to produce high grade steel and is expanding its cement production exponentially to make it a cement export powerhouse. Commercial aviation is booming in Asia. There were 8.2-billion air passengers in 2017, according to the Airports Council. They will swell to 20.9-billion by 2040, at an annual growth rate of 4.1 percent. Of the 12.7 billion increase, from 8.2 billion to 20.9 billion, half or 6.35 billion will be handled by Asia Pacific airports. About 4 billion (19 percent) of the 20.9 billion air passengers by 2040 will be Chinese. Four billion Chinese will fly by air in 22 years. Indeed, over 60 percent of air passengers will come from emerging and developing economies like the Philippines. Vietnam, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and China will be the fastest growing in air passenger traffic from 2017 to 2040. Transportation Secretary Art Tugade is right in promoting the multiple airport strategy for Manila. South Korea has a population of 51 million. It gets 13.3-million tourists yearly. Singapore has a population of 5.3 million. It gets 17-million tourists. The Philippines has a population of 110 million. It gets just below seven-million arrivals a year. Using the South Korea ratio of one tourist for every four South Koreans, the Philippines should easily attract 27-million tourists a yearthanks to San Miguels Bulacan airport, and of course, Clark. Further, to be fair, these newly devised workplace protocols are not primarily a function of paranoia but of reality. Everyone has seen or experienced how fraught workplace relationships can be -- and even casual interactions can seem unnecessarily risky. And this new reality isn't limited to the world of finance. Many men across all industries now fear being alone with a female colleague. This probably goes without saying, but it's also true that fewer women of the baby boomer generation were likely to think of themselves as victims in instances of workplace harassment, barring sexual assault as opposed to sophomoric buffoonery, or a misinterpretation of context or intent. Perceptions have changed significantly the past several decades, for the good, but we still have much work to do in defining what is and isn't "abuse." In many ways, this is all-new terrain for us societally: How do we balance the right of every individual to be believed innocent until proven otherwise, while also giving accusers a platform to be heard? The recent Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh highlighted the impossible position of being forced to prove one's innocence against accusations backed by no verifiable evidence. We should sleep uneasily in the wake of such an abuse of due process, not as a legal matter but as a time-honored principle of fairness. He was acting as a tour guide for other wedding guests who had not visited Russia previously, his brother said. Before his arrest, he had been staying at Moscow's Metropol Hotel and spent time with the wedding party at the Kremlin. When Paul didn't arrive at the wedding on Friday, the newlyweds filed a missing-person report with Russian authorities, his brother said. He used Russian social media for years It appears Whelan had been using a Russian social media platform similar to Facebook for the past 13 years. Photos showing Whelan have been uploaded to the VKontakte, or VK, social network from around the world for years, in a profile under his name. The last status update on the page reads "next stop, Moscow..." Whelan appears to have posted several comments in Russian last year, including one congratulating the Russian people for "Victory Day," the day of Nazi surrender in 1945, and another one wishing a merry Christmas. The page shows that someone last logged in to the profile under Whelan's name on Friday, the same day Russian officials said he was arrested in Moscow. When asked about the VKontakte page, Whelan's brother said he couldn't confirm the account, but accepts that his brother likely had one, because he made friends in the country. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Bullets damaged several homes and a vehicle over the weekend and into the New Year, according to Orangeburg County Sheriffs Office incident reports. Three Baxter Street residents spoke with deputies on Sunday morning after realizing their property was damaged by gunfire between midnight and 4:30 a.m. No one was injured during the shootings. One of the residents said he heard gunshots outside early Sunday morning, but didnt know his home was damaged at the time. At 7:30 a.m., he discovered that some of the marble on his kitchen table was broken. The glass door which leads to his garage was shattered. Deputies recovered a shell casing on the kitchen floor. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Another resident spoke with deputies at 8:39 a.m. and reported that her vehicle was damaged by gunfire. Her son heard gunshots around midnight. She checked her vehicle at 7 a.m. and saw that a bullet struck it. At 9 a.m., deputies made contact with a third Baxter Street resident. She said no one was inside her residence when a bullet struck it earlier. I arrived in Seoul, South Korea and was met and picked up by a dear friend and her husband. They took me to Suwon to spend 10 days taking pictures of that lovely city. Suwon is home to the Hwaseong Fortress, which was built as a self-contained, planned city with fortress walls during King Jeongio's era of the Joseon Dynasty. The fortress was built between 1794 and 1796. In 1997, UNESCO designated it as a World Heritage site. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} This year was the 55th Suwon Hwaseong Cultural Festival. I had a wonderful time taking pictures of the many different events that were held throughout the Fortress. The colors and pageantry at these events were stunning. I really enjoyed going to so many of the events and getting closeups of the people performing at the events. The parade at the beginning of the festival was full of color, style and grace. There were so many people involved in the parade, and the precision and teamwork they displayed were just amazing. I have been very fortunate to get to know a lot of people in Suwon and have found them to be very loving, caring and compassionate people. When I visited last year, I got introduced to the mayor of Suwon and his team, and they were so helpful and took the time to take me around to the many special historic places in Suwon. In his Dec. 19 letter, Galen focused on the lack of responsiveness to public input on this request on the part of the IDNR and the IEPA. These agencies are supposed to protect the interests and welfare of the public, as is written into the very name of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. I would like to propose an alternative approach to the mines request a conditional approval that wouldnt transfer the burden and cost of cleaning this wastewater to the downstream landowners and municipalities who will have to deal with it. Instead, grant the permit on the contingency that the mine treat the water before it is released into the Big Muddy River. They can pass the cost on to their customers instead of passing it on to the public. After all, they surely do not plan to issue dividends to those who have to deal with their polluting practice. The CMT Music Awards are Wednesday night. The show, which will air live from Nashville, is hosted by Kane Brown and Kelsea Ballerini and some of country's biggest names are set to take the stage. A native of Portland, Tennessee, McDowell tried to establish a career in country music after serving four years in the U.S. Navy. He had a band that played predominately in Bowling Green and Nashville, as he honed his skills as a songwriter and developed contacts on Music Row. I started writing songs while I was in Vietnam, McDowell says. After I got out, I put together a band with my little brother Ricky. We played a lot of Top 40 stuff. Back then, record companies had an open door policy. You could literally walk in, play them a song you had just written and they would honestly listen. When Presley died on Aug. 16, 1977 of a drug-related heart attack, McDowell was profoundly affected. After shaking off the initial shock, he sat down and wrote The King is Gone, a signature tune that broke him out of obscurity and paved the way to country music stardom. When the song came to me, I had been writing for about five years, he says. It literally came from the soul. Fate is a hunter. It will find you. You cant manufacture it. The song came to me out of nowhere in 15 minutes. The Toronto-Dominion Bank, together with its subsidiaries, provides various personal and commercial banking products and services in Canada and the United States. It operates through three segments: Canadian Retail, U.S. Retail, and Wholesale Banking. The company offers personal deposits, such as chequing, savings, and investment products; financing, investment, cash management, international trade, and day-to-day banking services to businesses; and financing options to customers at point of sale for automotive and recreational vehicle purchases through auto dealer network. It also provides credit cards; real estate secured lending; auto finance; consumer lending; point-of-sale payment solutions for large and small businesses; wealth and asset management products, private banking, investment advisory, and trust services to retail and institutional clients; and property and casualty insurance, as well as life and health insurance products. The company also provides capital markets, and corporate and investment banking services, including underwriting and distribution of new debt and equity issues; advice on strategic acquisitions and divestitures; and trading, funding, and investment services to companies, governments, and institutions. It offers its products and services under the TD Bank and America's Most Convenient Bank brand names. The company operates through a network of 1,085 branches, 3,440 automated teller machines, and 1,223 stores, as well as offers telephone, digital, and mobile banking services. The Toronto-Dominion Bank was founded in 1855 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Read More Suncor Energy Inc. operates as an integrated energy company. The company primarily focuses on developing petroleum resource basins in Canada's Athabasca oil sands; explores, acquires, develops, produces, transports, refines, and markets crude oil in Canada and internationally; markets petroleum and petrochemical products under the Petro-Canada name primarily in Canada. It operates in Oil Sands; Exploration and Production; Refining and Marketing; and Corporate and Eliminations segments. The Oil Sands segment recovers bitumen from mining and in situ operations, and upgrades it into refinery feedstock and diesel fuel, or blends the bitumen with diluent for direct sale to market. The Exploration and Production segment is involved in offshore operations off the east coast of Canada and in the North Sea; and operating onshore assets in Libya and Syria. The Refining and Marketing segment refines crude oil and intermediate feedstock into various petroleum and petrochemical products; and markets refined petroleum products to retail, commercial, and industrial customers through its other retail sellers. The Corporate and Eliminations segment operates four wind farm operations in Ontario and Western Canada. The company also markets and trades in crude oil, natural gas, byproducts, refined products, and power. The company was formerly known as Suncor Inc. and changed its name to Suncor Energy Inc. in April 1997. Suncor Energy Inc. was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Read More "Protection of liberty and property will leave people free to pursue their own flourishing." At the end of last year, the media was teeming with reviews of the past 12 months. With their focus on the positive, compilations such as 20 Reasons 2018 Was A Great Year catch my eye. But often such lists of arguably positive statistics and achievements are a mixed bag of the positive and the negative. I argue that the standard we should use for assessing the positives and negatives is human flourishingbecause only that standard makes happy, healthy, and prosperous lives possible for all. That is the standard Johan Norberg used in his 2016 book Progress, in which he tells the story of human progress, backed up with statistics, in the last 100 years or less, in areas such as food, sanitation, life expectancy, and poverty. That is why I liked his book so much. However, lists such as the 20 Reasons do not use human flourishing as the standard, and therefore almost half of the statistics it includes are either harmful or irrelevant to human well-being. The 20 Reasons starts with a promising subheading, An incredible year for global health, which notes a new, affordable vaccine to end cholera, a 25-percent drop in cancer rates, and the disappearance of the Zika virus, among other positives. But even this section reports government intervention in our lives as a positiveyet it is a drain on human flourishingsuch as new sugar and other excise taxes in the Philippines. Presumably, taxing sugar (as opposed holding people responsible for their own choices) would stem obesity and diabetes. Among the positives, the 20 Reasons also lists a number of statistics on improved living standards and reduced violent crime and terrorism, but the remainder of the report is either mixed or anti-human flourishing. While nature conservation can be consistent with human flourishingsuch as setting up parks for human enjoyment and recreation, preventing water pollution, or reforestation to prevent soil erosiongovernment running national parks or banning commercial fishing or mining violate the principle of private property rights and therefore peoples ability to thrive. (Under private ownership, most property owners manage their resources responsibly, whether fish or forests. And those who dont will suffer the consequences).The greatest contradiction in the 20 Reasons is its treatment of energy, reporting (with some dubious sources) as progress a terrible year for the fossil fuels industry with governments phasing out carbon emissions, banning gas-fueled vehicles, and subsidizing unreliable sources of energy: Solar and wind power. Yet, at present, only the fossil fuels provide the abundant, affordable, and reliable energy that human flourishing depends on. What reports such as the 20 Reasons fail to realize is what constitutes human progress and what makes it possible. Any progress we make in flourishingall the advances in human health and prosperity listed in these reportsdepends on one source: the thinking human mind. Inventing vaccines, restoring eye sight, developing new and more efficient food sources, increasing productivity, reducing poverty, all depend on human ingenuity: our exercising reason to solve problems and to create. The mind to exercise reason and to think has one crucial requirement: freedom. Freedomnot government regulations and bansis required for the discovery of new knowledge. Imagine how much more progress there would be in human health if there were more freedom in medicine and the pharmaceutical industry, or how much poverty would be further reduced under more freedom? Government attempts to control the discovery of knowledge and the development of innovations through funding and restrictions (on energy sources and emissions, for example) reduce human flourishing, as politicians or bureaucrats lack the accountability and expertise in picking the winners. Government regulation to restrict freedom also creates disincentives to fund discovery of knowledge, as it diminishes the return on such investment. Government does have a crucial, although a very limited, role in making human flourishing possible: It must ensure freedom by protecting individual rights against the initiation of physical force and fraud. Such protection of liberty and property will leave people free to pursue their own flourishing, voluntarily Trading with others, leading to progress for all. Lets hope for more of that this new year, to make our lives even better. HDFC Bank Limited provides various banking and financial services to individuals and businesses in India, Bahrain, Hong Kong, and Dubai. It operates in Treasury, Retail Banking, Wholesale Banking, Other Banking Business, and Unallocated segments. The company accepts savings, salary, current, and Demat accounts; fixed and recurring deposits; and safe deposit lockers, and rural and pension accounts, as well as offshore accounts and deposits, overdrafts against fixed deposits and salaries, and sweep-in facilities. It also provides personal, home, car, two wheeler, three wheeler, business, educational, gold, rural, and term loans; loans against properties, assets, and securities; loans for professionals; government sponsored programs; and loans on credit card, as well as working capital and commercial/construction equipment finance, term and professional loans, healthcare/medical equipment and commercial vehicle finance, and dealer finance. In addition, the company offers credit, debit, prepaid, and forex cards; payment and collection, export, import, remittance, bank guarantee, letter of credit, trade, hedging, loan syndication, and merchant and cash management services; and insurance and investment products. Further, it provides short term finance, bill discounting, structured finance, export credit, documents collection, Internet and wholesale banking, mobile banking, real time gross settlement, channel financing, vendor financing, reimbursement account, money market, derivatives, employee trusts, cash surplus corporates, tax payment, and bankers to rights/public issue services, as well as financial solutions for supply chain partners and agricultural customers. As of March 31, 2020, it had 5,416 branches and 13,640 automated teller machines in 2,803 cities/towns. HDFC Bank Limited was founded in 1994 and is based in Mumbai, India. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of HP: 3Com, 3PAR, ABB CADE, AOME Holdings Ltd., Alpha Holding One B.V., Alpha Holding Two B.V., Anatolus Holding B.V., Antila Holding B.V., Apogee, Apogee Corp, Apollo Computer, AppIQ, Applied Optoelectronic Tech, Aptitude Management Consulting W.L.L., Aquarius Holding S.C.A., ArcSight, Arteis, Artivision Technologies, Aruba Networks, Atos Origin, Atos Origin Middle East group, Aurasma Limited, Autonomy Corporation, Avantek, BT & D Technologies, Bitfone Corporation, Bluestone Software, Boonton Radio, Bristol Technology Inc., Bromium, CEC Europe Service Management, CGNZ, CaLan, Caleum Holding B.V., Callisto Holding B.V., Colorado Memory Systems, Colubris Networks, Colubris Networks, Columba Holding B.V., Compaq Cayman Holdings Company, Compaq Cayman Holdings General Partnership II, Compaq Cayman Islands Vision Company, Compaq Information Technologies, Compaq Information Technologies LLC, Computer Insurance Company, Computing and Printing Global Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Computing and Printing Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Computing and Printing Professional Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Consera Software, ConteXtream Inc, Convex Computer, Crater Holding B.V., David Vision Systems GmbH, Dazel, Division, Dorado Holding B.V., EDS (Electronic Data Systems), EEsof, EYP Mission Critical Facilities, Elara Holding B.V., ElseWare, Eon Systems, Eucalyptus Systems, Eunomia Holding B.V., ExcellerateHRO, Exstream Software, Extreme Logic, F&M Scientific Corporation, F.L. Moseley Company, Flame Holding B.V., Fortify Software, Four Pi Systems, Gram Global Operations Limited, Gram Inc., HP Austria GmbH, HP Belgium BVBA, HP Bermuda Holding One L.P., HP Bilgisayar ve Bask Teknolojileri Limited Sirketi, HP Bilgisayar ve Bask Teknolojileri Limited Sirketi Ankara Subesi, HP Brasil Industria e Comercio de Equipamentos Eletronicos Ltda, HP Brasil Industria e Comercio de Equipamentos Eletronicos Ltda.Branch 01 (Tambore), HP Brasil Industria e Comercio de Equipamentos Eletronicos Ltda.Branch 2 (Sorocaba), HP Brasil Industria e Comercio de Equipamentos Eletronicos Ltda.Branch 3 (Porto Alegre), HP Canada Co., HP China Holding B.V., HP Colombia SAS, HP Computing and Printing Middle East FZ-LLC, HP Computing and Printing Nigeria Ltd, HP Computing and Printing Systems India Private Limited, HP Computing and Printing d.o.o. (Beograd), HP Computing and Printing d.o.o. (Zagreb), HP Deutschland GmbH, HP Deutschland Holding GmbH, HP Europe B.V. Regional Dubai Branch, HP Europe BV Amsterdam Meyrin Branch, HP Finland Oy, HP France Holding SAS, HP France SAS, HP France SAS Bahrain Branch, HP Global Trading B.V., HP Global Trading B.V. Kazakhstan Branch, HP Hewlett Packard Group LLC, HP Holdgate Co., HP Inc (Thailand) Ltd., HP Inc AP Hong Kong Limited, HP Inc Argentina S.R.L., HP Inc Bulgaria EOOD, HP Inc Chile Comercial Limitada, HP Inc Costa Rica Limitada, HP Inc Czech Republic s.r.o., HP Inc Danmark ApS, HP Inc Gulf, HP Inc Hong Kong Limited, HP Inc Magyarorszag Kft., HP Inc Polska sp. z o.o., HP Inc Romania SRL, HP Inc Slovakia s.r.o., HP Inc Tunisie SARL, HP Inc UK Holding Limited, HP Inc UK Limited, HP Inc. Peru SRL, HP Information Technology R & D (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., HP International Sarl, HP International Sarl (Puerto Rico Branch) LLC, HP International Trading B.V., HP International Trading B.V. 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Guangzhou Branch, HP Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd. Nanjing Branch, HP Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd. Shanghai Branch, HP Technology (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., HP Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, HP Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. Dalian Branch, HP Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. Zhangjiang Branch, HP WebOS LLC, HP-PPS Ecuador Cia. Ltda, HPCP-Computing and Printing Portugal Unipessoal Lda., HPI Bermuda Holdings LLC, HPI Brazil Holdings LLC, HPI CCHGPII LLC, HPI CCHGPII Sub LLC, HPI Federal LLC, HPI J1 Holdings LLC, HPI J2 Holdings LLC, HPI Luxembourg LLC, HPQ Holdings LLC, Hadar Holding B.V., Handspring Corporation, Heartstream, Hewlett Packard Distribution Center Panama S. de R.L, Hewlett-Packard (Chongqing) Co. Ltd, Hewlett-Packard (Chongqing) Manufacturing Export Procurement and Settlement Co. Ltd., Hewlett-Packard (Japan NK) Holdings C.V., Hewlett-Packard Angola Ltda., Hewlett-Packard Arabia LLC, Hewlett-Packard Cambridge B.V., Hewlett-Packard Company Archives LLC, Hewlett-Packard Copenhagen B.V., Hewlett-Packard Danube B.V., Hewlett-Packard Development Company L.P., Hewlett-Packard Enterprises LLC, Hewlett-Packard Europe BVAbu Dhabi Branch, Hewlett-Packard G.K., Hewlett-Packard Global Holdings B.V., Hewlett-Packard Global Investments B.V., Hewlett-Packard India Sales Private Limited, Hewlett-Packard Indigo B.V., Hewlett-Packard Indigo Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Industrial Printing Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Industrial Printing Solutions Europe BVBA, Hewlett-Packard International Pte Ltd, Hewlett-Packard International Pte Ltd Taiwan Branch, Hewlett-Packard Ireland (Holdings) Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Ireland 1 Limited, Hewlett-Packard Ireland Limited, Hewlett-Packard KSA Ltd, Hewlett-Packard KSA Ltd. Qatar Branch, Hewlett-Packard Lisbon B.V., Hewlett-Packard MENA FZ-LLC, Hewlett-Packard MENA FZ-LLC Libya Branch, Hewlett-Packard Malaysia Manufacturing Sdn. Bhd., Hewlett-Packard Mercator B.V., Hewlett-Packard Munich B.V., Hewlett-Packard Products B.V., Hewlett-Packard Products C.V., Hewlett-Packard Products CV 1 LLC, Hewlett-Packard Products CV 2 LLC, Hewlett-Packard Services Saudi Arabia Company, Hewlett-Packard Singapore (Private) Limited, Hewlett-Packard Sunnyvale B.V., Hewlett-Packard Vietnam Ltd., Hewlett-Packard West Indies Limited, Hewlett-Packard World Trade LLC, Hiflex Software, IBRIX, IndiGo, Indigo America Inc., Kale Holding B.V., Kale Holding B.V. (Puerto Rico Branch) LLC, Knightsbridge Solutions, Lefthand Networks, Limited Liability Company HP Inc, Logoworks, Lyra Holding B.V., MacDermid ColorSpan, ManageOne, Melodeo, Mensa Holding B.V., Mercury Interactive, Metrix Network Systems, NUR Macroprinters, Neoware, Nihon HP Nin-I Kumiai, Novadigm, NuView ManageX, Nur do Brasil Ltda, OOO "Hewlett-Packard RUS", Opelin, Opelin, Open Skies, Opsware, Opsware, Optimization Systems, Optotech, OuterBay Technologies, OuterBay Technologies, PERSIST Technologies, PFE Investments Ltd., PIXACO, PROLIN, PT Hewlett-Packard Indonesia, Palm, Palm, Palm Asia Pacific Limited Taiwan Branch, Palm Comercio de Aparelhos Eletronicos Ltda., Palm Europe Limited, Palm Global Operations Limited, Palm Inc., Palm Ireland Investment, Palm Latin America Inc., Palm South America LLC, Palm Trademark Holding Company LLC, Pearl Holding Cooperatief U.A., Peregrine Systems, Perseus Holding B.V., Phoenix Holding L.P., PipeBeach, Polaris Holding One L.P., Polaris Holding Two L.P., PolyServe, Propus Holding B.V., Qosnetics, Quartz Holding Co, RLX Technologies, Regor Holding B.V., SPI Dynamics, Samsung Printing Solutions, Scitex, Scitex Vision, Scope Communications, Scorpius Holding B.V., Security Force Software, Shoreline Investment Management Company, Shunra Software, Shunra Software, Silverwire Holding, Snapfish, StorageApps, Stratavia, Synstar, Tabblo, Talking Blocks, Tall Tree Insurance Company, Techink International Pte. Ltd., Technology Partners, Telegra, The Technology Partners, Tourmaline Holding B.V., Tower Software, Tower Software Engineering Pty Ltd, Transoft Networks, Trellis Software & Controls, Triaton, Trinagy, TruLogica, Trustgenix, Turquoise Holding L.P., VeriFone, Verifone, Versatest, Vertica Systems, Vesta Holding B.V., Vital Technology Pte Ltd, Voltage Security, VoodooPC, and ZAO Hewlett-Packard A.O.. American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. All rights reserved. 326 E 8th St #105, Sioux Falls, SD 57103 | U.S. Based Support Team at [email protected] | (844) 978-6257 MarketBeat does not provide personalized financial advice and does not issue recommendations or offers to buy stock or sell any security. Our Accessibility Statement | Terms of Service | Do Not Sell My Information 2021 Market data provided is at least 10-minutes delayed and hosted by Barchart Solutions. Information is provided 'as-is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice, and is delayed. To see all exchange delays and terms of use please see disclaimer. Fundamental company data provided by Zacks Investment Research. As a bonus to opt-ing into our email newsletters, you will also get a free subscription to the Liberty Through Wealth e-newsletter. You can opt out at any time. Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI Brazil ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI Brazil ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys. View MarketBeat's top stock picks here. The widow of the slain aide of former Biliran Rep. Glenn Chong on Thursday asked the Department of Justice to order the National Bureau of Investigation to conduct its own probe of the killing of her husband in Cainta, Rizal last December 9. Jeanette Santillan formally asked the DOJ to direct the NBI to conduct a parallel investigation on the circumstances surrounding the killing of her husband Richard Santillan. I would like to ask for help of our president, the DOJ and the NBI. I want to file charges against the policemen under [Region IV-A regional director] Gen. [Edward] Carranza, she said in an interview after submitting her letter to the DOJ. The widow said she does not believe in the findings of the Philippine National Police that her husband was killed after figuring in an encounter with policemen who were looking for a carnapped vehicle. The police conducted the autopsy without our consent and knowledge. We learned about it only after 16 hours, she said. In her request, the widow specifically asked the NBI to take custody of the evidence from the PNP, including Chongs vehicle which was equipped with a dashboard camera and Santillans belongings. She sought forensic examinations of the evidence as well as full reconstruction of the incidents leading to the killing. Mrs. Santillan made the request after a reautopsy by the Public Attorneys Office showed that her husband was tortured before being killed. The widow was accompanied by Chong and Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission commissioner Greco Belgica.Chong said he could be the real target of the attack and believed that Smartmatic could be behind it. Chong is an election reform advocate who testified in a congressional investigations on the alleged poll fraud during the 2016 elections and tagged Smartmatic in the cheating. He even submitted to the President Electoral Tribunal earlier several evidence of fraud in support of the protest of former senator Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr. against Vice President Leni Robredo. There was really no shootout. Smartmatic or politicians who cheated in the elections could be behind this, Chong alleged. According to the police report, Santillan exchanged fires with authorities before he was shot dead. The vehicle had over 30 bullet holes. Police said they have recovered firearms, an explosive device and a sachet of suspected illegal drugs from his possession. However, Chong disputed the PNP report, saying his close-in aide went to Cainta for his annual gift-giving activity for impoverished children. North Koreas leader focuses his address on the economy, not nuclear weapons. For defector former North Korean diplomat Thae Yong-ho, negotiations can progress if US accepts limits on nuclear weapons, not total denuclearisation. Seoul (AsiaNews/Agencies) In his New Year address, North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un focused on the economy, a possible sign that UN and US sanctions are biting, forcing him to go on the defensive, this according to South Korean experts. Some 300 people met on Wednesday to discuss Kims annual speech at the Seoul Global Center, including a panel of eight experts. The event was hosted by the Korean Sharing Movement and Ewha Womans University's Institute of Unification Studies. "Out of a total of 12,881 characters in Kim Jong-un's New Year speech, more than half, or 8,456 characters, were dedicated to emphasising the country's economy and people's livelihoods," said Kim Joon-hyung, a professor at Handong Global University. "This is in contrast with last year's speech that emphasised nuclear arms." The speech did not however include anything specific, noted Lee Seog-ki, Senior Research Fellow at Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade. "No new specific economic strategy was presented in most industrial sectors and expressions of the old days were revived, such as unified guidance by the state and the socialist economic law," Lee explained. "It seems, he added, that international sanctions against the North Korean regime have had a substantial impact on North Korea's economy in 2018, making the strategies for 2019 defensive." Nonetheless, for former North Korean diplomat Thae Yong-ho said, "Reading the context of this year's address, we can tell there has not been the slightest change in Kim's stance of keeping hold of nuclear weapons. Thae, who was North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom, defected to the South in 2016. He is the highest-ranking North Korean official to have done so. "If the US agrees to talks on nuclear arms reduction, many negotiations would take place including talks on establishing a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula," he said. "However, if the US insists on denuclearisation talks, the North's relations with the US as well as the South will not see as much progress as in 2018." For his part, Kim said he was firmly committed to denuclearisation and was ready to meet US President Donald Trump at any time even though talks with Washington were stalled. Yet, he warned that he could seek "a new way" if the United States "does not make good on its promises [and] misjudges our patience by keeping the sanctions. Likewise, the North Korean leader renewed his call for an end to joint military drills between South Korea and the United States, demanding that no foreign military strategic assets be present onto the Korean Peninsula, saying that they are a "source" of tensions in the region. He also stressed that the all the agreements reached at last year's three inter-Korean summits carry "significant meaning" in that they could be regarded as non-aggression treaty between the Koreas. US President Trump expressed his satisfaction with Kims speech on social media. Kim Jong Un says North Korea will not make or test nuclear weapons, or give them to others - & he is ready to meet President Trump anytime, the US leader tweeted. I also look forward to meeting with Chairman Kim who realizes so well that North Korea possesses great economic potential! Image courtesy of Go-Jek Go-Jek has announced that it is now fully available in Singapore as part of their 500 million USD investment to expand their services across South-east Asia which includes countries such as Thailand, Vietnam and Philipines up next. That being said, as of now there were no plans by Go-Jek to expand their services to Malaysia. However, I personally feel that the expansion of the service to our country could be a possibility due to the fact that Budget 2019 clearly stated by the Minister of Finance, Lim Guan Eng, that cars below 1500cc, as well as motorcycles under 125cc, will be eligible for petrol subsidies. Since Go-Jek is a service that focuses more on motorcycles instead of 4-wheeled vehicles, it will benefit greatly from the subsidies mentioned. Image courtesy of malaymail.com and soyacincau.com Furthermore, the service will also be more convenient in urban areas where traffic congestion is a big issue as the motorcycles could easily cut through traffic to their destination. Urban areas will not be the only ones that will benefit from this service as rural areas will also be able to benefit from the convenience as well. Not only will the rides be cheaper on motorcycles, but it will also be as fast, if not even faster than the current implementation of using cars. With Grab being the potential direct competitor to Go-Jek, it will be interesting to see what Go-Jek will do to be more appealing to their customers. For more updates like this, stay tuned to TechNave.com. Weather and monitoring services are down to skeleton crews. In Portland, the National Weather Service will provide critical forecast, watch, and warning information to protect life and property throughout the shutdown, according to the National Weather Service website. All other functions have been halted. At the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, the Volcano Hazard Program will continue to issue alerts, operate equipment and update data, while other nonessential functions have ceased. Though furloughs may stretch well into the new year, theyre guaranteed to continue until at least Thursday. Thats when the 116th Congress opens and new members vote on a stopgap measure that would fund the government until Feb. 8. In Washington, D.C., the sticking point is the $5 billion sought by President Donald Trump to build a wall along the United States-Mexico border. Funding for the border wall is unlikely to be approved by the incoming Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. Whats still open? Theres a silver lining it could be worse. Of the agencies and employees who rely on federal funding, most based in Clark County have been unaffected by the partial shutdown. Cowlitz County sheriff's deputies arrested a Woodland man Friday afternoon after he allegedly pointed a revolver at a woman and threatened to shoot her. Jeffrey Lynn Stephens, 61, was arrested at his home in the 200 block of Big Sky Road. Stephens denied pointing the gun or threatening to shoot the woman and said he picked it up only to defend himself. Police found a .22 caliber revolver and .22 caliber rifle in the house. Stephens, a convicted felon, is legally barred from owning firearms. He was arrested on suspicion of first-degree assault domestic violence and two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm. Stephens was still being held Wednesday in the Cowlitz County jail in lieu of $50,000. He will be arraigned Jan. 15 but has yet to be formally charged. Love 1 Funny 2 Wow 2 Sad 0 Angry 1 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Cowlitz County sheriffs deputies arrested a Silver Lake man on Saturday afternoon after he allegedly pointed a gun at one woman and later fired through a bedroom wall of a residence in which several adults and a child were present. Jordan Ray Wyatt, 30, was arrested at his residence on suspicion of first- and fourth-degree assault and two counts of reckless endangerment. He allegedly pointed a gun at one woman after kissing her. The woman left, and then Wyatt and his wife got into an argument over the kiss, according to witnesses interviewed by deputies. During that argument, Wyatt pulled out a handgun and shot it into the wall of the bedroom he and his wife were in, according to a sheriffs report. The woman fought to retrieve the gun from Wyatt and was left with a bloody lip and gash to her left arm after seizing the gun, according to a sheriffs report. Deputies found a bullet hole and bullet in the adjacent childs bedroom. It was not clear Wednesday whether anyone was in that room. About a dozen people including a child then fled the house located in the 100 block of Wilford Road, witnesses said, leaving Wyatt alone inside. He exited the house and was arrested after a SWAT team began breaking windows and firing gas into the house. Wyatt will be arraigned Jan. 15. Love 1 Funny 1 Wow 5 Sad 1 Angry 5 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Firecrackers At about 3 p.m. Tuesday Cowlitz County sheriffs deputies responded to reports of three teenagers and a 20-year-old lighting fireworks and firing guns out of a truck, which was starting small fires in the 600 block of Davis Peak Road near Woodland. Deputies contacted the foursome, who admitted to tossing the firecrackers and said they had been target shooting earlier but not shooting from the vehicle. The firearms were found unloaded and properly stored in the vehicle. The group was contrite and respectful during contact before being released and advised to go home. An agreement between Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and the Nour Eddin el-Zinki movement broke down when some fighters from Tahrir al-Sham were killed writes Enab Baladi. The National Army, which operates in the northern Aleppo countryside, announced that it has dispatched units of fighters to repulse an attack by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the western Aleppo countryside. On Wednesday, the official spokesman for the army, Youssef Hammoud, said, We have dispatched units from all divisions to support the National Army in the western Aleppo countryside in repulsing the aggression of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. He added that the number of fighters was large, saying that, The National Front is not in need of equipment, weapons or fighters, but rather a united intellectual and practical position among the leaders. Media sources from the western Aleppo countryside told Enab Baladi that units of the 9th Division and 23rd Division arrived to support the Nour Eddin el-Zinki movement on Tuesday. This comes after Tahrir al-Sham took control over large parts of western Aleppo at Zinkis expense, most prominently the town of Daraat Izza and the strategic Jebel al-Sheikh Barakat. Daraat Izzas importance to Tahrir al-Sham comes from the fact that it is among the largest and most prominent areas in the western Aleppo countryside, in addition to its strategic position, given the presence of the highest summit in the north, which is Jebel al-Sheikh Barakat. Tahrir al-Sham is trying to take control over the Daraat Izza area as a step towards imposing control over the opening connecting Afrin and Idleb province, and thereby force the exit of rebel groups from Idleb to the Euphrates Shield areas. What has been notable in recent battles is Turkeys disregard and the lack of participation of other National Front groups alongside Zinki. However, the commander of Ahrar al-Sham, Jaber Ali Basha, has recently suggested that his group could enter into the fight alongside Zinki. He said on Telegram that the National Liberation Front is the most prominent formation in the revolution, and it has brought together under its banner all the factions operating in Idleb, and therefore our collective decision is to defend ourselves and protect our territory. He added, We, in this revolution, came out defending our rights and in support of the oppressed, and do not mind moving collectively in service of this principle. We will not permit the blood of any revolutionary factions to be shed. On Tuesday, the two sides (Tahrir al-Sham and Zinki) traded accusations about breaking the deal that had been reached last Sunday to resolve the dispute that had occurred between them after members of Tahrir al-Sham were killed days earlier in the Daraat Izza area in western Aleppo. A source from the Free Syrian Army had told Enab Baladi on Nov. 26, 2018, that Tahrir al-Sham was trying to take full control over the international highway by turning its attention to Maraat Nouman in the southeastern Idleb countryside, and Daraat Izza in the western countryside of Aleppo. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. Beginning March 31, legacy carrier Philippine Airlines will operate a daily frequency flight between Nagoya and Cebu in a bid to strengthen Japanese tourist travel to the Philippines. Flight PR-480 will depart from Nagoyas Chubu Centrair International Airport at 9:10 a.m. every day, and arrive in Cebu by 2:30 p.m., while PR-479 will leave Cebu at 3:30 p.m. and touch down in Nagoya by 6:50 p.m. All flights will depart from or arrive at Cebus brand new International Terminal 2, the countrys most heralded airport gateway known for its unique resort ambience. PAL will utilize its 199-seater dual class Airbus A321ceowith 12 seats on business and 187 seats on economyfor the daily Nagoya-Cebu flight service. Philippine Airlines takes pride in offering Japans business and leisure travelers a direct link to Cebu, the Queen City of the South. We are now the only airline flying daily direct to Cebu from Tokyo [Narita], Osaka and now Nagoya, and this represents PALs determination to invest in Cebu as a prime gateway to all the treasures of the Visayas and beyond, said PAL president and chief operating officer Jaime J. Bautista. He said that from Cebu, Japanese tourists can also board PALs direct flights to Palawan, Camiguin, Siargao, Bacolod, Iloilo, Tacloban, Boracay, Legazpi, Davao and other parts of the country via the airlines extensive Cebu hub network. Our trademark Heart of the Filipino service will shine through in each and every flight, added Bautista.At present, PAL operates a four times weekly Nagoya-Cebu service. The upcoming daily service will mark the most significant expansion since the Nagoya-Cebu service was first introduced in December 2014. PAL has been flying from Nagoya to Manila since March 2005, a month after Nagoya first opened the Chubu Centrair International airport. Voted recently as the No. 1 Most Improved Airline in the World and a fully Skytrax-certified 4-Star Global Airline, PAL operates by far the largest network of flights between Japan and the Philippines. The Philippine flag carrier recently launched a thrice weekly flight between Manila and Sapporo. The carrier also links Osaka to Cebu seven times weekly, Tokyo Narita to Cebu 14 times weekly, Tokyo Narita to Manila 14 times weekly, Tokyo Haneda to Manila 14 times weekly, Osaka to Manila 14 times weekly, Nagoya to Manila seven times weekly, and Fukuoka to Manila seven times weekly. The list released by the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Commission in Syria affects individuals and organisations from 30 different countries reports Al-Akhbar. About 615 people and 105 entities are featured on the local list that was recently published by the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Commission in Syria, based on Security Council Decisions 1373 and 1267. The list includes about 30 Arab and foreign nationalities, while the bases of operations for the entitieswhich include associations, organizations, institutions and agenciesare spread across 12 Arab and foreign countries. As expected, the largest portion of people accused of financing terrorism are Syrian, comprising about 58.5 percent of the total people included on the list. Saudis came in second place, with 67 people, with 10.8 percent of the total. Lebanese nationals were in third place, with about 42 people, at 6.8 percent of the total. The fourth place were those with Kuwaiti nationality, with 31 people featured, comprising about 5 percent. The list included military, political, religious and social figures, businessmen, university professors, judges, and normal citizens. The Kuwaiti figures included on the list included Justice Minister Shafi al-Ajmi and Ambassador Abdel Aziz al-Sabeea, as well as about nine MPs. The Saudis mostly came from three professions: Religious preaching, businessmen, and university professors. The names on the list included Lebanese political leaders and well-known businessmen, as well as MPs known for calling for the downfall of the regime in Syria. The lists included Saad al-Hariri, Walid Jumblatt, Samir Geagea, Khalid al-Daher, Okab Sakr, Sheikh Dae al-Islam al-Shahal, Bilal Daqmaq and others. The same went for Turkish figures, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, and the Sheikh Nureddin Yildiz and Sheikh Murad Basha. Iraqi figures included Masrour Masoud al-Barzani and al-Sheikh Hareth Suleiman al-Dari. Egyptians include Sheikh Youssef al-Qardawi and Sheikh Mohamed Abdu Ibrahim Ali. The list went on to include figures from Asia, Africa and Europe who are connected to Syrian figures, including people known by virtue of their professions and their names becoming prominent in the ranks of the opposition during the war, such as the artist Abdel Hakim al-Qutaifan and a businessman who has lived for years in Dubai, Walid al-Zouabi, and others. There were others who were not well known but the Syrian government accused of funding and backing terrorism. The Security Council Resolutions 1267 and 1373 aimed to take the necessary measures to end the financing of terrorism. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. The Syrian Commission for Family Affairs and Population has called for a rise in population and for the marriage age to increase writes Al-Ayyam. The head of the Syrian Commission for Family Affairs and Population, Akram al-Qish, said that if we want to work towards forming a balanced age structure of the countrys population, the number of Syrian citizens in 2030 should be 42 million people. Qish added, during a reconstruction conference for higher education students at the economics college, that the crisis had a major impact on fertility. Before 2011, there had been a sort of stagnation in fertility rates in Syria, especially between 2001 to 2009, with the a fall of 3.6 percent in 2009. Qish said that because of the crisis there had been negative development in fertility due to early marriage and families tending to compensate for the loss of their children, in addition to poverty. He said that before the war the average age for a young man to marry ranged between 29 and 30 years old and was 25 for a woman, and during the war this level has fallen, especially for women. Qish said that raising the marriage age to what it was before the crisis would require a lot of work to bring awareness to the street. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. As well as the thousands of people, over 100,000 trucks containing aid and commercial materials have also crossed from Turkey to Syria reports Anadolu Agency. Over 40,000 Syrians left Turkey last year for their hometowns liberated from terrorists in northwestern Syria. Taking refuge in Turkey due to the civil war in Syria, a total of 40,574 Syrians from different parts of Turkey used the Cilvegozu border gate in southern Hatay province to return to Syrias terror-free areas of Idleb province. Syrians headed to their homeland after legal procedures at the border. This year, a total of 104,000 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid and commercial materials used the same border gate. Turkeys Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations in northwestern Syria liberated the region from YPG/PKK and Islamic State terrorists, making the return of Syrian civilians to their homeland possible. Last month, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said that nearly 300,000 Syrians returned to their homes after the Turkish military conducted successful operations in the region. The number of Syrians who returned to their country after the Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations is 291,790, Soylu said. This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. It is unclear what the US forces will do in Iraq, but they are not expected to remain in the country reports Anadolu Agency. US troops in Syria are going to leave the war-torn country through northern Iraq, an Iraqi military officer said. The forces will withdraw to Erbil, not areas controlled by Iraqs [Baghdad] central government, Major General Yahya Rasul said. He said the US forces may return to the US or be transferred to other regions after arriving in Erbil. The officer said the move will not undermine Iraqi sovereignty, as a permanent presence of the troops is not a subject of discussion. The US is yet to announce a roadmap for the withdrawal. On Monday, President Donald Trump signalled a slowing down of its withdrawal of 2,000 troops stationed in Syria. The announcement appeared to be at odds with his original declaration in which he vowed the immediate removal of US forces from Syria and the defeat of the Islamic State. But the new timeline for the US exit remains unclear. The withdrawal of Kurdish combat units was set out in an agreement at the start of the year writes SANA. On Wednesday, a convoy of Kurdish combat units withdrew from the Manbij area in Aleppos northeastern countryside to the eastern banks of the Euphrates River, as part of an agreement to restore normal life to the north of the country. The Defense Ministry said in a statement that as per the agreement reached on Jan. 1, 2019, a convoy of Kurdish combat units consisting of over 30 vehicles withdrew from the Manbij area and headed to the village of Qara Qozaq on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, around 25 km northeast of Manbij city. The Ministry said that information indicates that around 400 Kurdish fighters have left Manbij so far. This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Sent off the third choice, Cenalta Call Girl ($7.60) outlasted a lengthy first-over grind to put away Southwind Ion at head-stretch and keep two further rivals at bay for a 1:57.1 score in the co-featured $8,500 Preferred 3 Pace for fillies and mares on Wednesday (Jan. 2) at The Raceway at Western Fair District. As 7-5 favourite Cousin Mary (J Harris) dropped out of contention after breaking following an early leave attempt, Cenalta Call Girl inherited sixth in the early going behind Southwind Ion (Colin Kelly), who dictated early splits of :27.4 and :57.4. Scott Coulter angled the five-year-old Allamerican Merlin mare out from just worse than midfield with five-eighths to go, but the pair did not encroach upon the top flight until the second circuit. With just over a quarter mile remaining, Cenalta Call Girl worked into third spot, forcing Southwind Ion to quicken through a :29 third split. The pair duelled on the far turn and Cenalta Call Girl struck the front at the eighth pole but with a pair of fresh threats waiting in the wings. Regal Luck (Scott Young) wedged through at the pegs to escape a collapsing pocket, and Neon Moon (Ryan Holliday) was driven to give chase off live cover, but neither could catch Cenalta Call Girl, who took her 16th career win by a length in 1:57.1. Regal Luck narrowly took second over Neon Moon. Trainer Pam Forgie co-owns Cenalta Call Girl with Dr. Steve Taylor. Three In A Row For Sicario Following a pair of December wins by a combined 12-3/4 lengths, Sicario ($2.90) picked up in 2019 right where he left off in 2018, reporting home a geared-down winner in the co-featured $8,500 Preferred 3 Trot. After breaking before the start and landing in fourth early, the four-year-old Holiday Road gelding angled out midway on the first turn and was geared up by Travis Henry to clear Nebraska Jack (Kelly) before a :30 first quarter. After gaining command, Sicario was never challenged, rating middle splits of 1:00.2 and 1:29.2 before opening up at will to as much as a four-length lead on the final turn. Cornering for home, Sicario was on cruise control, coasting to his third straight win in 1:59.1 while eased to the winning post. Liam Needsome (Harris) angled out in mid-stretch and closed well for second, 1-1/2 lengths back, over the one-paced Nebraska Jack. Lindsey Kerr trains 10-time winner Sicario for Rick Rier and Pamela and John Hehn. To view Wednesday's harness racing results, click the following link: Wednesday Results The Raceway at Western Fair District. Former Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario has urged the government to work in tandem with Vietnam as strategy towards eventual adoption of a Code of Conduct in the disputed South China Sea, major part of which is being claimed by China as part of its territory under its so-called Nine-Dash Line. Clearly, it would be a constructive move to consult with Vietnam to give us an opportunity to share and appreciate each others views which could lead to an agreed plan of action that is beneficial not only to both countries but to others as well, Del Rosario said, replying to a question on what he believed should be the Philippine strategy regarding a COC in the South China Sea. The former top diplomat made the suggestion after noting China was adopting a delaying strategy in moving the COC forward in order to give itself time to complete the Chinese unlawful expansion and militarization strategy. Now that they have practically completed their overall intended strategy, Beijing appears to want to forge ahead with the COC. What could it mean? Del Rosario asked. He said the Philippine government should exercise utmost vigilance in ensuring that the COC is not utilized by Beijing for the purpose of protecting what has been declared as being unlawful by the arbitral tribunal which is now an integral part of international law. He agreed that Vietnams specific positions on banning any new Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), clarifying maritime entitlements in accordance with international law, the blocking of a proposal by China to ban military drills in the SCS with outside powers unless all signatories agree, and the blocking of Beijings proposal to exclude foreign oil firms by limiting joint development deals to China and Southeast Asiaare all areas of major importance which should be fully supported not only by the Philippines but by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as a whole.An Asean consensus on the aforementioned specifics, if achieved, will serve to demonstrate to the world that the 10 Asean states as a solid body are willing to strongly uphold its centrality and not allow itself to be bullied and bribed, Del Rosario stressed. Recent reports about negotiations for a new pact between China and Asean aimed at easing tensions in the South China Sea are expected to toughed after Vietnam vowed s to push for provisions that may not be acceptable to Beijing. Reports about negotiating draft of the Asean Code of Conduct indicated that Hanoi wanted the pact to disallow many of the actions China has carried out across the hotly contested waterway in recent years, including artificial island building, blockades and offensive weaponry such as missile deployments. The draft also reportedly shows that Hanoi is pushing for a ban on any new Air Defence Identification Zone - something Beijing unilaterally announced over the East China Sea in 2013. Hanoi is also reportedly demanding states to clarify their maritime claims in the vital trade route according to international lawan apparent attempt to shatter the controversial nine-dash line by which China claims and patrols much of the South China Sea. Nitra mafia ex-boss detained Lubos Ferus previously faced accusations of serious crimes, now he is charged with robbery. The court in Levice ruled on the pre-trial custody for Lubos Ferus, who faces robbery charges. For years Ferus has been regarded the mafia boss of Nitra, the Sme daily wrote. "He was taken into pre-trial custody," said Lena Kiradziev, a court spokesperson, adding that he appealed against the order, as quoted by Sme. The police reported that Ferus was involved in an incident when a dark-coloured Audi blocked a cab on the night of December 28 in Zeliezovce, near Levice in the Nitra Region. The three perpetrators, two of whom are being prosecuted without detention, are said to have pulled people out of the cab and attacked them. Ferus and two others reportedly robbed four people in the cab of 1,600 and a smartphone, Sme wrote. One of the prosecuted said the men from the cab had caused damage to the nightclub and run away, but the incident which soon followed did not occur how the men from the cab described, as reported by Sme. Ferus is also charged with taking part in the murder of another mafia boss Miroslav Sykora, in 1997. Although he denies the charge, a prosecutor said that he had financed the murder, Sme wrote. 3. Jan 2019 at 13:57 | Compiled by Spectator staff University allegedly discovered Danko's plagiarism Findings of the commission and Dennik N correspond. Speaker of Parliament Andrej Danko most likely plagiarised the thesis he submitted in 2000, the Dennik N daily cited unofficial information on the conclusions of an investigation by a university-appointed committee. Read also: Why is an 18-year-old doctoral dissertation causing an uproar among the public? Read more This time, the daily is referring to the unofficial information of the special commission, set up by Matej Bel University (UMB), which claimed its findings are "similar to a large degree" to those of Dennik N from mid-September. "It follows that Danko plagiarised his text on public administration," wrote Dennik N. Danko will not respond to any information on his thesis until the commission publishes its official report, said Tomas Kostelnik, the parliament's spokesperson, to the daily. Commission silent for now Despite the fact that the commission has already prepared its report, nine members of it were sworn to secrecy until January 11, when the UMB's academic senate hold its meeting, the daily reported. "I can only say that the result is similar to a large degree to the previously discovered findings," said Jozef Michal Mintal, the senate's deputy chairman and member of the special commission, as quoted by Dennik N. The commission, set up in mid-November, allegedly examined several theses that may have been plagiarised, Dennik N reported. Miroslav Kryston, chairman of the senate, along with other members, will receive the commission's report a few days before their meeting, the daily wrote. Others, including the rector or the public, will learn about the findings after the senate's vote. Precitajte si tiez: Precitajte si tiez: How the thesis writing business is prospering Read more 3. Jan 2019 at 14:11 | Compiled by Spectator staff The Three Kings will march through Bratislava on Sunday The Slovak capital starts a new tradition. The Three Kings known also as the Three Magi will march through the streets of Bratislavas Old Town for the first time. Christian tradition relates how these distinguished foreigners visited Jesus after his birth, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. The march will take place on Sunday, January 6, the day Christians celebrate the Epiphany. The Magi come from far-distant countries and will represent three generations and three nations. Two will arrive on horses with one of them even riding a camel, the Old Town borough informs on its website. They will be accompanied by drummers, bag-pipers and carollers. The march organised by the Dobra Novina charity, the society Istroproduction and others will start at Rybne Square at 14:30 and will end at the Main Square. The map of The Three Kings March (Source: Courtesy of Pavol Hudak) The organisers, promising a lot of surprises, invite people to participate in the march itself by playing any of the characters, or just watch the march in the streets. 3. Jan 2019 at 8:34 | Compiled by Spectator staff US President Donald Trump has said Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been "constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan." Constantly? Really? You mean the two of you are in constant touch and the only subject Modi constantly talks about is having built a library in Afghanistan? Really? Both would be weird. I mean Modi and Trump being in "constant" touch and Modi talking only about one library. After watching Trump make those comments yesterday, I had this vision of Modi calling up the US president everyday and starting the conversation thus: Mr. President, did you know that India has built a library in Afghanistan? and Trump responding, Yeah, yeah, there you go again.. library blah blah blah Of course, it is absurd for Trump to claim that Modi has been constantly talking about that one library. That is Trumps juvenile way of deriding others. It is likely that Modi would have mentioned it a couple of times, once because it is a worthwhile thing to mention and second time because the first time anything worthwhile gets lost on this president. By the way, a single library has much greater potential to change numerous lives in Afghanistan, or for that matter anywhere else, than 17 years of relentless military engagement. The larger geostrategic question of whether America alone should remain so inordinately focused on Afghanistan for so long without much to show for the trillions spent on it is a valid one. Trump is right in raising it but to mock libraries in Afghanistan is in keeping with the mans aversion to reading more than 240 characters. For the record, India has invested over $3 billion in Afghanistan since 2011 in a variety of aid packages, many of which have been focused on infrastructure projects. New Delhi has been the largest regional donor to Afghanistan and Modi is right in pointing out projects such as libraries. In principle, the idea that Afghanistans immediate neighborsRussia, Pakistan and Indiashould help it emerge from decades of bloodletting whose purpose no one really understands, or worse, even cares about now, is not necessarily a flawed one. But one must bear in mind that both Russia and Pakistan have had very different strategically self-serving reasons to have been involved there. I can dwell on those but I will not because it is not like you pay me to read this blog. As for India, relations with Afghanistan have cultural depth going back centuries and they are certainly more substantive than perhaps any other player. A single library is just one minor example of that. If a single Afghan child uses the library to advance his or her intellectual horizon and eventually makes a transforming contribution to their country, it would have served much greater purpose than any of this militaristic, geostrategic skulduggery ever would. Natasha Singer | NYT/ 02 Jan 19 | 01:30 AM A police officer on the late shift in an Ohio town recently received an unusual call from Facebook. Earlier that day, a local woman wrote a Facebook post saying she was walking home and intended to kill herself when she got there, according to a police report on the case. Facebook called to warn the Police Department about the suicide threat. Related Stories No Related Stories Found Widgets Magazine The officer who took the call quickly located the woman, but she denied having suicidal thoughts, the police report said. Even so, the officer believed she might harm herself and told the woman that she must go to a hospital either voluntarily or in police custody. He ultimately drove her to a hospital for a mental health work-up, an evaluation prompted by Facebooks intervention. (The New York Times withheld some details of the case for privacy reasons.) Police stations from Massachusetts to Mumbai have received similar alerts from Facebook over the last 18 months as part of what is most likely the worlds largest suicide threat screening and alert program. The social network ramped up the effort after several people live-streamed their suicides on Facebook Live in early 2017. It now utilises both algorithms and user reports to flag possible suicide threats. Facebooks rise as a global arbiter of mental distress puts the social network in a tricky position at a time when it is under investigation for privacy lapses by regulators in the United States, Canada and the European Union as well as facing heightened scrutiny for failing to respond quickly to election interference and ethnic hatred campaigns on its site. Even as Facebooks chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has apologised for improper harvesting of user data, the company grappled last month with fresh revelations about special data-sharing deals with tech companies. The anti-suicide campaign gives Facebook an opportunity to frame its work as a good news story. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among people ages 15 to 29 worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Some mental health experts and police officials said Facebook had aided officers in locating and stopping people who were clearly about to harm themselves. ALSO READ: Facebook data scandals stoke criticism that a privacy watchdog rarely bites Facebook has computer algorithms that scan the posts, comments and videos of users in the United States and other countries for indications of immediate suicide risk. When a post is flagged, by the technology or a concerned user, it moves to human reviewers at the company, who are empowered to call local law enforcement. In the last year, weve helped first responders quickly reach around 3,500 people globally who needed help," Zuckerberg wrote in a November post about the efforts. But other mental health experts said Facebooks calls to the police could also cause harm such as unintentionally precipitating suicide, compelling nonsuicidal people to undergo psychiatric evaluations, or prompting arrests or shootings. And, they said, it is unclear whether the companys approach is accurate, effective or safe. But other mental health experts said Facebooks calls to the police could also cause harm such as unintentionally precipitating suicide, compelling nonsuicidal people to undergo psychiatric evaluations, or prompting arrests or shootings. And, they said, it is unclear whether the companys approach is accurate, effective or safe. Facebook said that, for privacy reasons, it did not track the outcomes of its calls to the police. And it has not disclosed exactly how its reviewers decide whether to call emergency responders. Facebook, critics said, has assumed the authority of a public health agency while protecting its process as if it were a corporate secret. Its hard to know what Facebook is actually picking up on, what they are actually acting on, and are they giving the appropriate response to the appropriate risk," said Dr. John Torous, director of the digital psychiatry division at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Its black box medicine." ALSO READ: Problems at Facebook will take years to fix, admits Mark Zuckerberg Facebook said it worked with suicide prevention experts to develop a comprehensive program to quickly connect users in distress with friends and send them contact information for help lines. It said experts also helped train dedicated Facebook teams, who have experience in law enforcement and crisis response, to review the most urgent cases. Those reviewers contact emergency services only in a minority of cases, when users appear at imminent risk of serious self-harm, the company said. While our efforts are not perfect, we have decided to err on the side of providing people who need help with resources as soon as possible," Emily Cain, a Facebook spokeswoman, said in a statement. In a September post, Facebook described how it had developed a pattern recognition system to automatically score certain user posts and comments for likelihood of suicidal thoughts. The system automatically escalates high-scoring posts, as well as posts submitted by concerned users, to specially trained reviewers. Facebook has always been way ahead of the pack," said John Draper, director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, not only in suicide prevention, but in taking an extra step toward innovation and engaging us with really intelligent and forward-thinking approaches." (Vibrant Emotional Health, the nonprofit group administering the Lifeline, has advised and received funding from Facebook.) Facebook said its suicide risk scoring system worked worldwide in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic except for in the European Union, where data protection laws restrict the collection of personal details like health information. There is no way of opting out, short of not posting on, or deleting, your Facebook account. A review of four police reports, obtained by The Times under Freedom of Information Act requests, suggests that Facebooks approach has had mixed results. Except for the Ohio case, police departments redacted the names of the people flagged by Facebook. n one case in May, a Facebook representative helped police officers in Rock Hill, S.C., locate a man who was streaming a suicide attempt on Facebook Live. On a recording of the call to the police station, the Facebook representative described the background in the video trees, a street sign to a police operator and provided the latitude and longitude of the mans phone. The Police Department credited Facebook with helping officers track down the man, who tried to flee and was taken to a hospital. Two people called the police that night, but they couldnt tell us where he was," said Courtney Davis, a Rock Hill police telecommunications operator, who fielded the call from Facebook. Facebook could." On Dec. 11, 2018, Future Tense hosted a conversation with Lindy Elkins-Tanton and other leaders in the aerospace field: Hidden Figures: What the Women Whove Conquered Space Can Teach Silicon Valley. Watch the full event here. We had been on the Kotuy River for a number of days before we came to our first town, the little settlement of Kayak. Theres no road, no railroad. Just the hundred or so workers from the nearby mine, where they still used picks to extract coal from a rich seam, who made Kayak home. In the summer, boats would make the 200-km upriver journey from Khatanga, the closest town. In winter, when the river froze, the people of Kayak mostly relied on snow transports and helicopters to ferry people and supplies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Our team of six American and Russian geoscientists had been on the river collecting rocks and studying the nearby geology to try to understand whether an ancient volcanic eruption in the area had triggered the worlds largest extinction 252 million years ago: the end-Permian. But we needed to resupply and meet a helicopter to transport us to our next destination. We stopped and went into one of the little shops in Kayak, the kind that exist throughout Siberia in the front rooms of houses. After we finished buying the pasta, rice, cracked wheat, canned meat, and cookies we needed for happiness and dinners, the others went off on other errands. Soon it was just me and the two women running the store. Advertisement Zdravstvuyte, ochen priatna poznakomitsya. (Hello, very good to meet you!) I greeted them in my bold, first-year Russian. I could say and understand just enough to receive their warm Russian welcome and answer some basic questions. They began asking me all about my children (one, a boy) and telling me about theirs. Soon, they placed a little bottle of their homemade berry liquor on the counter, and we were toasting to all our health. At last, looking concerned, the two of them exchanged glances, and then leaned forward to confide in me: Geology is no work for a woman. You shouldnt be out here in the field. You should go home to your family! Advertisement Im sure that women throughout the ages, and across various pursuits, have received similar versions of this well-meaning advice. And many of us have had cause to wonder, at moments, that perhaps we should have heeded it. I wondered this myself later that day, when a threatening man followed me to the public baths and scratchedliterally scratched with his fingernailson the outside of the door while I had my first warm-water wash in many days. Was the risk of traveling and sometimes being alone too great? Was the worry of my family at home too much of a sacrifice? Advertisement But the call of the wild places, of exploration, is also deep in our human bones. Like so many people before me, Ive ached to go to the remote places where I am the only person for milesand to the special places, like north central Siberia, where I could collect the evidence of the cataclysms of the Earths past. Advertisement Yet, of the many human pursuits that have been denied to women, exploration has ranked among the most male-dominated. Land. Sea. Air. Nearly every foray into a frontier in recorded history has been helmed by men. That is, perhaps, until now. Of course, there are important women among the most important historical explorers. Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir, an Icelandic woman, joined Eric the Reds travels to Greenland in the 11th century, and later told the pope about it. Then there are women like Gertrude Bell, who explored, mapped, and advised the British Empire on the Middle East, and Freya Stark, one of the first Europeans to travel through the southern Arabian Desert. These determined women lived unconventional lives and fought the status quo to make their marks. Yet, in general, men have been the leaders and the followers in the often violent, dangerous forays humans have made into the inhabited and uninhabited regions of our Earth. Advertisement Nearly every foray into a frontier in recorded history has been helmed by men. That is, perhaps, until now. But now we live in a new age. Much of the Earths surface has been explored, and we are increasingly looking outward to space. In the few decades humans have been sending satellites, probes, and people to explore these further reaches, missions have skewed decidedly male, both in who gets to lead and participate and who gets recognition for their contributions. Yet, as the women of space exploration can attest, looking around today, we can see the ways the classically macho and predominantly white aerospace field has begun to change. For one, women now make up more than one-third of NASAs active astronaut roster. As emphasis has turned toward robotic, rather than crewed, exploration, women, too, have made it to the forefront. The first woman in history to compete for and win a deep-space mission, Maria Zuber, led the team that created the dual-robot GRAIL mission to the moon, which mapped its gravitational fields. The data gathered by the twin probes has helped to answer key questions about the moons internal structure and evolution. Zuber is now the vice president for research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Following her path, Im the second woman in history to compete for and win a deep-space mission: the Psyche mission, named after the metal asteroid our probe will visit. It will be the first metal world that humans will ever explore. Were on track to launch in 2022, which means our robotic orbiter will arrive at Psyche in 2026 and show us, for the first time, what a metal surface like this looks like and, we hope, help us reveal how this body formed. (Disclaimer: ASU, the lead organization partnered with NASA on this mission, is also a partner with Slate and New America in Future Tense.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Certainly, like other STEM-heavy fields, aerospace continues to be held back by a lack of inclusion. Its still far from the point where people achieve, lead, and participate entirely based on their merits, rather than being judged and then excluded based on gender, race, accent, clothing, or any other of our favorite biases. And certain sectors of space exploration have more diversity problems than othersperhaps most notably, the emerging private spaceflight industry being piloted by billionaire entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson. Advertisement Yet, compared with other science, tech, engineering, and math fields and the history of exploration writ large, women have been able to make formidable strides in the arena of space exploration. So what has changed from Iceland in the 11th century to today? Advertisement Thinking of my own experience, I know I benefit from the many women who came before me. I also benefit from the will of a society that, through rules and laws, has tried to make hiring for some of the key roles in my field more gender-blind. At NASA, were all supposed to have the same chance. The Civil Rights Act, the Equal Pay Act, Title IX, and the Constitution itself all guide employers not to discriminate. Given the way the federal government has been more rigorous about offering and enforcing these and other equal opportunity employment policies, its likely no accident that, in agencies like NASA and contractors that have had long-standing business with them, women have better representation in leadership and across their workforces. Advertisement Though these kinds of policies dont fix all the problems of implicit and explicit biases in education and opportunity, they have repeatedly created great improvements in representation. Government should continue to take on this role to keep guiding the way to a better societyfor, as weve seen, those in power repeatedly fail to do so when left alone. Leaders and educators, too, can do more to be more inclusive in their support of talented individuals in all stages of the pipeline. We can raise all boats with our tide. Advertisement I am thrilled by the progress that has allowed me to get to where I am and has advanced many women throughout the field. Im also daunted by how far we still have to go: Women aerospace engineers, for example, still represent less than 10 percent of workers employed in that occupation. But looking back at that day in Siberia, 12 years ago now, when I ignored the warning of my new well-meaning Siberian friends, I cant help but be filled with optimism that we can get to an age where human exploration includes more of humanity. One where well continue pushing to go where no humans have gone before, go with curiosity rather than violence, and go together. Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. A day after former Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke left office, the Washington Post reported that the Justice Department is investigating whether he lied to the Interior Departments inspector general investigators. Before his departure, the scandal-plagued Zinke, who has faced at least 15 investigations during his time with the administration, had been the subject of inspector general probes related to his real estate dealings in his hometown of Whitefish, Montana, as well as a conflict related to a proposed casino project in Connecticut and other actions taken during his tenure. While its not known exactly which matter Zinke might have lied about, the Post reported Thursday that sources said the matter did not have to do with the Montana land deal, making it possible it had to do with the accusations by Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes that Zinke had killed their casino proposal because of improper political influence. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As the Post noted, the crime of making false statements can be difficult to prove, as investigators will have to show Zinke knew what he was saying was false. But others in President Trumps orbit have pleaded guilty to making false statements, including Michael Flynn, Michael Cohen, and George Papadopoulos. But Zinke, who was not a part of Trumps campaign and does not appear to be of much interest to the special counsel investigation, may prove less of an attractive target to investigators. A spokesman for former interior secretary told the Post that Zinke had participated in two inspector general interviews about the casino issue in Connecticut and that he to the best of his knowledge answered all questions truthfully. After growing pressure over his scandals, as well as the presidents reported displeasure over unrelated matters, Zinke announced in December he would resign. He left office on Wednesday. Slates expanded voting rights coverage is made possible by the support of Slate Plus members and readers like you. A federal judge swatted down North Carolina Republicans latest attempt to preserve their gerrymander of the General Assembly, rejecting a bizarre GOP ploy to prevent the progressive state Supreme Court from striking down the current maps. North Carolinas state Legislature is grotesquely gerrymandered to entrench Republican power. GOP lawmakers hired political operatives to draw mangled districts that dilute Democratic votesbecause, they declared, electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats. This gerrymandered firewall held firm in 2018, when Democrats won a majority of statewide votes for both the House and Senate but received a minority of seats. In response, Common Cause and the North Carolina Democratic Party filed a lawsuit in state court, arguing that the gerrymander infringes upon the North Carolina Constitutions guarantees of free elections, equal protection, and freedom of expression. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The decision to pursue the claim in state court, rather than federal court, was strategic: In 2018, North Carolina elected civil rights attorney Anita Earls to the states high court, cementing a 52 progressive majority. There is thus an excellent chance that the justices will follow the lead of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and invalidate the gerrymander under the state constitution. So legislative Republicans tried to remove the case to federal courta totally frivolous move, since the claims arise solely under the North Carolina Constitution and the federal judiciary has no authority to resolve them. To work around this roadblock, GOP lawmakers devised a rather startling theory: They alleged that the plaintiffs were attempting to force North Carolina to violate the Voting Rights Act, the 14th Amendments Equal Protection Clause, and the 15th Amendments bar on race-based voter suppression. How, exactly, could an effort to remedy partisan gerrymandering wind up disenfranchising minorities? Republicans argued that if the current map were invalidated, either the North Carolina Supreme Court or the General Assembly would have to draw new districts. And, they insisted, neither could do so without trampling on the voting rights of racial minorities. The argument implies that both legislators and the justices are too racist to be trusted to redraw the maps in a way that wouldnt violate the Constitution. Advertisement Advertisement On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Louise W. Flanagan rightly tossed out this embarrassing Hail Mary, sending the case back to North Carolina court. Flanagan noted that she would explain her full reasoning in a later opinion, but its easy to see why she kicked out the case: It has no business in federal court, it is built upon a strange and offensive legal theory, and it is obviously just a delaying tactica bid to run down the clock so that new maps cannot be drawn before the 2020 election. Flanagan, a moderate conservative appointed by George W. Bush, had no desire to become complicit in the North Carolina GOPs undemocratic machinations. Thanks to Wednesdays order, the case is back on track, leaving the North Carolina judiciary enough time to consider the merits and demand new districts before the next election cycle. Legislative Republicans will surely have more dilatory tricks up their sleeve. But it is increasingly unlikely that theyll be able to keep this case off Justice Anita Earls docket. News broke on Thursday that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi will support Democrat-led hearings for so-called Medicare for all legislation. Its a big win for the increasingly assertive progressives in the Democratic Party; while a universal-Medicare bill was first introduced in 2003, the concept really took off in popularity when Bernie Sanders endorsed it during his 2016 presidential campaign. Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who co-founded the House Medicare for All Caucus in July, told the Washington Post that she expects specific legislation for review will be finished in the next couple of weeks. (While Medicare for all is a fungible concept, it appears that what Jayapal is discussing will be a full-on Canada-style single-payer plan. Hoard your Canadian-border elective surgery appointments while you still can!) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Elsewhere in D.C. this week, the ambitious Green New Deal goals championed by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC to her fans and haters) were endorsed by all-but-formally-announced presidential candidate and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren; theyve also been talked up by senators and maybe-probably candidates Bernie Sanders and Cory Booker. While Ocasio-Cortezs push for an explicitly labeled Green New Deal House select committee was stymied by more senior Democrats (haters!), Dems will still be relaunching a select committee on climate change, which will now be operating under heightened expectations and scrutiny. What Medicare for all and the Green New Deal have in common, apart from the support of high-profile legislators who operate outside the formal Democratic congressional leadership structure, is that they are phrases that wouldve been familiar to few, if any, voters before Sanders began his long-shot run for president. Now, after a relatively short period in which the fundamental conditions of the American environment and health care system changed very littlebut in which Sanders and similarly motivated lefty upstarts brought up their big ideas over and overboth concepts poll quite well and have a good chance of being endorsed (in some form) by the next Democratic presidential nominee. Advertisement Advertisement As Ive written before at tedious length, senior Democrats like Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (not to mention Hillary Clinton) seem to operate under the assumption that the Democratic Party should play a fundamentally defensive gamethat, while it should have a certain set of steadfast principles about the social safety net and environmental protection and such, its primary role is to contain Republican aggression, manage corporate interests, and win over skeptical swing voters.* Sanders, Jayapal, Ocasio-Cortez, Warren, and others clearly have a different approachand whatever you think of the merits of their policy proposals, at the moment their go-big-or-go-home strategy instincts appear to be winning the day. Matthew Charles, a rehabilitated felon whose mistaken release and reincarceration drew nationwide outcry, will be freed from prison on Thursday at the order of a federal judge. Charles, who already served 20 years in prison, received a sentence reduction under the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform bill that President Donald Trump signed on Dec. 21. In 1996, a jury convicted Charles on charges related to the distribution of crack cocaine and unlawful possession of firearms. He received a 35-year-sentence under a law that harshly penalized crack, treating one gram of the drug like 100 grams of powder cocaine. In 2010, Congress amended the law to reduce this disparity, and the revised sentencing guidelines applied retroactively to some prisoners. Charles petitioned for a sentence reduction, citing both the new law and his own spotless record behind bars, where he taught GED classes, pursued college coursework, helped inmates with legal appeals, and completed 30 Bible correspondence courses. In 2016, U.S. District Judge Kevin Sharp granted the request, ordering Charles release. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But Sharp made a mistake. The law did not permit early release for offenders who, like Charles, were deemed career criminals. So prosecutors appealed Sharps decision, and in December 2016, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Charles back to prison. By that point, the ex-offender had fully re-entered society: He spent every Saturday morning volunteering at a food pantry in North Nashville, Tennessee, mentored young men on probation or parole, reconnected with his children and grandchildren, obtained a job, and began a relationship. The 6th Circuit even acknowledged that Charles had amassed a record not only of rehabilitation but of good works, and suggested that Trump should consider commuting his sentence. But Trump granted no clemency, and in 2018after living nearly two years as a free manCharles reported back to prison to serve the remaining decade of his sentence. The government transferred him to a medium-security facility in South Carolina, hours away from his friends and family. His case sparked outrage across the political spectrum and helped create momentum for the First Step Act, which made the 2010 reforms fully retroactive. That meant even career criminals like Charles sentenced under the old, stringent guidelines could petition for early release. On Dec. 27, public defenders asked a federal court to release Charles for time served, and federal prosecutors did not object. And on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Aleta Arthur Trauger ordered Charles immediate release. Shon Hopwood, one of Charles attorneys and a fierce advocate for the First Step Act, was overjoyed by the news. Today, Matthew Charles sentencing judge righted a great injustice, Hopwood told me. Matthew earned a second chance at a new life and today he received it. About 2,600 other federal inmates serving crack convictions should soon be freed under the new law, as well. The First Step Act wont single-handedly resolve Americas mass incarceration crisis. But for people like Matthew Charles, its nothing short of a miracle. The Armed Forces of the Philippines will commit its Joint Task Force-National Capital Region to help the police secure the Traslacion or the feast of the Black Nazarene on Jan. 9. This was disclosed by AFP public affairs office chief Col. Noel Detoyato when asked Wednesday on what particular task the military would be doing in the annual religious procession. JTF-NCR ang take charge for the coordination and deployment of their opcon [operationally controlled] units. The JTF-NCR will be supporting the PNP [Philippine National Police] in this annual religious activity, he said in a message to the Philippine News Agency. Detoyato, however, declined to give specific figures but stressed that JTF-NCR would commit enough forces to support the PNP.Deployment will also depend on what will be agreed upon during coordinating conferences, he added. In a separate message Wednesday, AFP chief-of-staff Lt. Gen. Benjamin Madrigal said JTF-NCR was also tasked to support the PNP in securing the Traslacion. JTF-NCR was tasked to support in coordination with [the] PNP and organizers. We have prior coordination with them. We will provide additional contingency forces in view of the recent bombing in Cotabato [last Dec. 31 which killed two persons and wounded 34 others], Madrigal added. In a report released Wednesday, the House Ethics Committee concluded that Rep. Thomas Garrett, who announced in May he would not run for re-election after reports surfaced that he and his wife used staff members to run errands and do chores for them, violated House ethics rules. But according to the committee, the Garretts were so slow in responding to the committees requests that it now no longer has any jurisdiction over the retired legislator and cannot require him to reimburse the U.S. Treasury. Advertisement Garrett, a Republican from Virginia, first raised eyebrows when Politico reported in May that he and his office were in turmoil, prompting him to host a rambling press conference in which he both admitted his doubts about wanting to do the job and asserted he would again run for office. Soon after, Politico reported that Garrett and his wife, Flanna, had made staffers shop for groceries, fetch clothes, and even pick up dog poop for them. A spokesman at the time denied the allegations, but Garrett would soon announce that he planned to retire after all to deal with his alcoholism and focus on his family, while still denouncing the allegations. Advertisement Advertisement In August, an Office of Congressional Ethics investigation concluded there was substantial reason to believe the allegations were true, and it referred its findings to the committee. The committees investigation went into greater detail. In the 47-page report, it found instances in which Garrett and his wife asked staffers to buy cigarettes, drive them to the airport (and, once, IKEA), have their car serviced, schedule medical appointments, help them move between apartments, and help his children apply to schools and obtain passports. Committee staffs investigation revealed numerous instances in Representative Garretts office of diverting staff time away from official matters toward tasks related to Representative Garretts and his familys personal needs, the report concluded. At times, this resulted in a prioritization of Representative Garretts and his wifes personal needs over those of his constituents. Advertisement Worse, Garretts wife, who regularly participated in office staffing decisions, including hiring, firing, and the awarding of employee bonuses, berated staff for not prioritizing her demands, causing some to feel they had no option other than to comply. This confusion was exacerbated by bullying behavior from Mrs. Garrett, who responded with insults and profanity when staff questioned or displeased her, the report noted. A text from her provided as an example: Advertisement NONE of what I asked to be done with the phone was done. Not a f****** thing. I am going to sit down with some of your staff and tell them how f****** disrespectful and STUPIDLY shortsighted they are for completely disregarding every thing I asked them to do. Advertisement And, according to the findings, Garrett violated these ethics rules even after he attended a staff meeting with Ethics Committee staffbrought about because of staff confusion over what was and was not allowedand was told about proper ethics rules related to official resources. During the investigation, he told the committee he incorrectly believed that he could ask staffers for personal favors if they were paid by his campaign. Normally, Garrett would have to reimburse the federal government for the time his staffers spent on personal matters, but because Garrett hindered the Committees investigation by delaying his document production to the Committee and producing incomplete records without giving an explanation for the missing documents, the committee released its findings on his last day in office, meaning it no longer had jurisdiction over him and could not compel him or his wife to cooperate further or repay the federal government. House Democratic leaders made public on Tuesday night one of the first big pieces of legislation they would vote on: the rules governing the 116th Congress. The package makes substantial changes to the rules under which House Republicans had governed for the past eight years. It eliminates the need for stand-alone votes to increase the debt ceiling, the rule requiring three-fifths support for tax increases to pass, and the cut-as-you-go (or cut-go) rule, which requires that spending increases be met with matching spending cuts elsewhere. The package also creates the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, authorizes the House to intervene in the current lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, and removes term limits on committee chairs. Advertisement But the change that garnered the most attention Wednesday morning was what Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi and incoming Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern chose to replace CUTGO with (instead of, say, nothing). The rules package reinstates a pay-as-you-go (or pay-go) rule, meaning that certain measures that increase the deficit would have to be matched with spending cuts or revenue increases. Democrats obeyed the pay-go rule during their last majority, only to watch Republicans eliminate it when they took control in 2011. Advertisement Advertisement Pelosi had said during the 2018 campaign that Democrats were committed to pay-go, but some progressives hoped to talk her out of it. Republicans never follow pay-go rules, they argued, so why should Democrats bother with fiscal responsibility when they want to pass their own agenda? Advertisement But Pelosi didnt budge. And after the rules package was released, two prominent progressivesCalifornia Rep. Ro Khanna and incoming New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Corteztweeted that they wouldnt support it. I will be voting NO on the Rules package with #PayGo. It is terrible economics. The austerians were wrong about the Great Recession and Great Depression. At some point, politicians need to learn from mistakes and read economic history. @paulkrugman @StephanieKelton @RBReich https://t.co/avimV0SU4t Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) January 2, 2019 Advertisement Tomorrow I will also vote No on the rules package, which is trying to slip in #PAYGO. PAYGO isnt only bad economics, as @RoKhanna explains; its also a dark political maneuver designed to hamstring progress on healthcare+other leg. We shouldnt hinder ourselves from the start. https://t.co/WW3UaBs7vh Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 2, 2019 Advertisement With all but one Republican expected to vote against the rules package, Democrats can afford only 19 defections on the floor. Khanna and Ocasio-Cortezs opposition seemed to signal a potential flood of defections that could force a last-minute rewrite. But neither Khanna nor the Progressive Caucus were actively whipping against the rules package Wednesday, and few others seemed willing to publicly threaten votes against it. Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Mark Pocan, meanwhile, tweeted that he had gotten assurances from Democratic leaders that the new PAYGO rule will not be an impediment to advancing key progressive priorities in the 116th Congress. In other words: He had gotten assurances that the rule, when inconvenient, would just be waived by a simple majority vote in the House. Advertisement That gets to a bigger point that Pocan also makes in his tweets: The real pay-go problem for progressives is the pay-go law that Congress passed in 2010, not the Houses pay-go rule, which comes and goes and gets waived or circumvented over and over. The 2010 law requires that tax cuts and mandatory spending increases not boost the deficit. (It does not pertain to discretionary spending considered through the appropriations process.) If Congress violates the rule, then the Office of Management and Budget is authorized to make cuts to mandatory-spending programs to match the violation. Since this is law, waiving statutory pay-go for any particular violation would require legislation thats subject to the 60-vote Senate filibuster. Republicans, for example, passed a pay-go waiver for their tax-reform bill last year in a separate spending bill. Democrats went along with that after the tax bill already had enough Republican votes to protect harmful, automatic Medicare cuts. Some Democrats argue, though, that if the tables were reversed, and Democrats were passing big legislation, Republicans might be less willing to go along with Democratic waivers to block automatic, mandatory spending cuts. Advertisement Advertisement The real pay-go problem for progressives is the pay-go law that Congress passed in 2010, not the Houses pay-go rule. So, as Pelosis deputy chief of staff, Drew Hammill, tweeted in response to Khanna and other critics of the new pay-go rule, the rule at least offers them an opportunity to put forward their own pay-fors for their progressive legislationincluding tax increasesas the alternative to the indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts in federal mandatory spending that would arise without a waiver for statutory pay-go. (As a side note, this is an interesting way to describe the effects of a bill that Pelosi ushered through when she was speaker.) But if the House rule can be waived or circumvented whenever necessary, and the real pay-go problem is the pay-go law, then why does anyone have a strong position about the new rule? Why is Pelosi so adamant on including it? Why is Khanna so adamant about rejecting it? Advertisement For House Democratic leaders, it could be that theyre trying to protect vulnerable Democrats in purple or red districts after a campaign when many of those candidates called out Republicans reckless fiscal management. Acknowledging the value of fiscal responsibility helps many of our front-line colleagues, a senior Democratic aide said. For Khanna, though, reinstating any pay-go rule, even a porous one, is just bad politics, as he told me in an interview Wednesday. On the granular level, the waiver process creates its own unnecessary problems. Why have a waiver and give Republicans a talking point every time youre asking for a waiver? he said. Advertisement He acknowledged that statutory pay-go was a problem but didnt believe that coming up with pay-fors should be the Houses initial priority when presenting its ideas. Advertisement We can pass things in the House and not have offsets, then the Senate could come up with its offsets, and then we can negotiate, Khanna said. What we shouldnt do is send the Senate a package with a trillion dollars in cuts before negotiations. (Hammill countered that this approach would empower McConnell to devastate Democratic priorities in the budget.) More broadly, though, Khanna believes that Democrats need to stop nodding in the direction of austerity, as we now have conclusive proof that austerity politics dont work. I think this would be a great provision if we were in the 1990s, he said. Listen now: Get More Mom and Dad Are Fighting Slate Plus members get extended, ad-free versions of our podcastsand much more. Sign up today. Join Slate Plus Subscribe to Mom and Dad Are Fighting Copy this link and add it in your podcast app. copy link copied! For detailed instructions, see our Slate Plus podcasts page. Listen to Mom and Dad Are Fighting on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. On this weeks episode: Gabriel Roth takes you behind the Slate Plus velvet rope to showcase a selection of our favorite Slate Plus segments. From The Sand Couch Edition, Allison Benedikt joins to discuss an extended discourse with her kids on the complexities of people and how difficult it is to label someone as simply a good guy or a bad guy. From the Whats Under the Bed Edition, Rebecca Lavoie discusses a major social media dust-up in her town of Hopkinton, New Hampshire. From The Great Grandma Name Debate Edition, Isaac Butler takes on a question from a listener about how hard it is to teach your kids strong values when you yourself do not actually practice those values. Finally, Gabe regales us with the exciting tale of his own circumcision. Join us on Facebook and email us at momanddad@slate.com to tell us what you thought of todays show and give us ideas for what we should talk about in future episodes. Got questions that youd like us to answer? Call and leave us a message at 424-255-7833. Podcast produced by Benjamin Frisch. Care and Feeding is Slates parenting advice column. In addition to our traditional advice, every Thursday we feature an assortment of teachers from around the country answering your education questions. Have a question for our teachers? Email askateacher@slate.com or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group. This weeks Ask a Teacher panel: Matthew Dicks, fifth grade, Connecticut Brandon Hersey, second grade, Washington Katie Holbrook, high school, Texas Carrie Bauer, middle and high school, New York I have a question about the wisdom and latest research regarding starting kindergarten early. My almost-3-year-old daughter is in her second year of a full-day five day a week Montessori program in which she is thriving. She loves it, she loves her friends, her teachers say she is a leader in the classroom and excels in her work. Her January birthday means she isnt even close to the September kindergarten cutoff in our district, so shes looking at 2 more years of Montessori preschool. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is really fine, but I started thinking: What if I had her do one more year of Montessori and then do kindergarten and first grade in a private school? The district will transfer students in as second-graders in this way. This girl is going to be Ready with a capital R, socially, emotionally, and academically. I feel like if we just go with the districts age guidelines shell be bored and potentially missing out on academic opportunities later on. For context, my 6-year-old is where she should be and thriving on the districts curriculum, but my 8-year-old (whos young for his grade) is bored and still brings home perfect papers and tests. He qualifies for gifted programming, but the academic enrichment curriculum here is underfunded and does not really amount to much. Im trying to get ahead of potentially seeing the same boredom and frustration crop up for my youngest. Decades ago, I also skipped a grade, and it was definitely the right call, so maybe Im just more open to messing with the grade levels to match the child. But if you tell me that this would set her up for failure or the research says it doesnt help, Id love to take that into consideration. Obviously I have a while to keep thinking this through. Advertisement Advertisement Parent of Precocious Preschooler Dear PPP, In terms of the research, its mixed at best. In most cases, I think it comes down to the child. Regardless of the research, here are three reasons I would recommend against putting your daughter into school now: 1. Academics are only part of your daughters educational experience. Her social and emotional development are equally important, and by placing your daughter into school early, you ensure that she will be the youngest in almost every situation at school. This may not be a big deal now, but as she enters middle and high school, her friends are likely to be physically and emotionally ahead of her. I see this every day as a fifth-grade teacher. My younger students are simply more innocentplaying with toys and believing in Santaand less physically developed and less likely to be flirting with their latest crush. This can create quite the divide in my classroom, and it often results in younger students emulating the older students in order to feel like they belong. Advertisement This may not be a big deal now, but as she enters middle and high school, her friends are likely to be physically and emotionally ahead of her. 2. Moving your daughter into private school for the first two years, and then moving her to public school also guarantees her a transition from one school to another. While kids make these transitions all the time, they arent always easy socially or academically, and transitioning from private to public school can also be challenging for many kids. Advertisement 3. Most importantly, we only get so many years with our children. In the blink of an eye, children grow up. Many parents would give their right arm for one more year of their child at home. Sending your daughter off to school early steals away one of those precious years, and forces her to become an adult one year earlier than necessary. Advertisement For this reason alone, I wouldnt do it. My daughter is in fourth grade, moving onto middle school next year. I am keenly aware that I have eight more years with her before we send her off to college and her future life as an adult. Eight years. It feels so short. What I wouldnt give to hit the pause button and stop the relentless loss of childhood. Dont force your daughter to grow up too fast. Childhood is fleeting and precious. Allow it to last as long as possible. Mr. Dicks Our daughter is in kindergarten. While shes doing well by all academic markers, and her teacher confirms that shes very well-behaved in class, shes completely miserable. Per her reports, her teacher yells a lot at the other kids, and at the whole class. Shes gone from being very confident and happy to being fearful and extremely negative about her own abilities. Weve attempted to engage with the teacher, focusing on she feels that instead of you yell, but the result was a messthe teacher decided to talk to my daughter (fine) and then engage in a big debate with her over whether the teacher yells. This culminated in a full-class meeting, in which the other children in class were asked to confirm that the teacher doesnt yell and our daughter is wrong. Our daughter was mortified and is now too sick every morning to go to school, and has generally turned into a nightmare at home. Im at a loss. Weve had great teachers at this school for years with our older child, and weve never had to deal with something like this. What should we do? Advertisement Advertisement Spiraling Situation Hey there Spiraling, Wow. Yelling is probably the fastest way to cause anxiety in a child, so its no wonder your daughter has been feeling sick. Based on your account, youve done all the right things to try to address this issue in a thoughtful, professional way. Thats more than we can say for the teacher! When I read about her full-class meeting, my stomach turned! What a tough scenario for your daughter to endure. There are a few things you can do. If your school has a counselor, Id request a meeting with your daughter, so that the counselor can help her work through some of her anxiety. Its important this happens quickly, since her behavior at home is escalating. You want to rebuild her love for learning before this self-doubt and negativity become fully ingrained in her. If your school doesnt have a counselor, Id ask the principal or a district official to suggest outside resources. Oftentimes these services can be very affordable or even free. Advertisement Also, this class meeting seems more like an attempt to publicly shame your daughter. This is incredibly inappropriate. It has created an incredibly hostile learning environment for her. However, to avoid worsening the situation, Id recommend revisiting the conversation with the teacher only if this type of treatment continues. And if that doesnt work, you always have the option of going directly to the principal. Advertisement Advertisement In primary education, trust between teacher and student is everything. Rebuilding your daughters love for school and her trust in her teacher wont be easy, but with enough positive supports in place, Im confident shell be back to her normal self in no time! Mr. Hersey My fiancees brother and family emigrated from Vietnam to the United States about three years ago. His two kids (daughter is 15 and son is 17) are in regular high school classes but still very much learning English, and neither is receiving language support. While they are both doing OK in school grade-wise, I know they are struggling with the language issue. For example, my niece-to-be told me that she recently had no idea what she was supposed to do on a major, semester-long history project because she had difficulty understanding the instructions. Advertisement My fiancee and I have some idea of how to help (checking in periodically, reviewing assignments, etc.), but we want to do more. The challenge is that my fiancee is not in a position to do thisshe is bipolar and in the midst of a prolonged depressive episode that previously required hospitalization. I dont mind taking the lead, but I feel a little uncertain about my role, what is appropriate, and when I am overstepping my bounds. For example, over Thanksgiving, my future nieces mom wanted her to fill in at the nail salon where her mom works, but I thought she should spend the time catching up on school assignments. (I didnt say anything.) I also think she needs an adult figure to reach out to the teachers to make sure that she is getting the in-school support she needs, but I am very conscious of the fact that I am not technically family. Advertisement Advertisement Any advice on how I can advocate for them given these relationship dynamics would be appreciated! Lost in translation Dear Lost, All English language learners are entitled to programs or services that ensure they can meaningfully participate in schoolits their civil right. If these kiddos moved to the U.S. three years ago, theres an excellent chance they need services, but there are two reasons they might not be in English as a second language classes. They may have tested out of ESL by performing well on a proficiency exam (but they still qualify forand likely needcontinued support). Or, their parents may have opted out of the program, which they can legally do. However, the school is required to monitor students who have exited or opted out of services to ensure they are thriving. Advertisement Youre right that your position as the aunts fiancee makes things complicated. Legally, parents advocate for and make decisions about their childrens education. Your ability to help will depend on your relationship with this family. Determining how they spend their Thanksgiving break is more of a parenting issue than an education issue. In my experience, most parents are not looking for outsider advice when it comes to parenting. Advertisement However, if the family comes to value your knowledge and experience with the American school system, they may appreciate your perspective. So I would start there. First, you can certainly offer yourself as a tutor to the teensthey are old enough to decide for themselves whether they would appreciate the help. Let your future niece and nephew know youre eager to help them study, understand instructions, or proofread essays. Advertisement As you get to know their situation, you may find that the school is not meeting its obligations. Once you have more concrete information, you can talk to the parents to ensure they know their childrens rights and help them navigate the bureaucracy. As far as reaching out to the teachers yourself, I have only communicated directly with a tutor when parents have explicitly asked me to do so, as there are legal privacy issues at play. But another way you can help these teens is to brainstorm how to advocate for themselves in school (I recommend role-playing!). If their grades are pretty good, teachers may not realize they are struggling. And in some cultures, students are loath to challenge a teacher, and therefore may be reluctant to speak up when in need of assistance. Advertisement There are also a wealth of resources online! Investigate resources specific to your state. Your desire to help is laudable! It takes a village. Ms. Holbrook As a weird, introverted kid, I clashed a lot with my school administration. I was diagnosed with a developmental disorder (though I dont really think I have it) when I was 15. My parents and I talked to the principal, the school psychologist, and some other administrators to figure out how my IEP would work. Shortly after, my principal used that to prevent me from doing my favorite extracurricular activity, essentially punishing me for something out of my control. I quit a few months later. Even back then I thought that could be illegal under the Americans With Disabilities Act, but suing wasnt worth the time and expense. Advertisement Once I got to college, I began having some mental health issues. My school eventually forced me to take a leave of absence. I recently found out that the school was pretty unethical in its treatment of other mentally ill students, to the point where a nonprofit is suing on their behalf. I felt that the school had definitely not tried to see my perspective during the whole incident, to say the least. I spoke to a lawyer at the nonprofit about my experience. Advertisement Advertisement My question is: How do I work through my past traumatic experiences to develop a healthy relationship with my school? I distrusted most of my teachers in high school because of my experience with the principal. I tried to interact with my teachers as little as possible because I was always worried I would get in trouble. I definitely dont want this to follow me around in college. What do I do? Advertisement Trying to Move On Dear Move On, Youve been through a lot, and I really admire your perseverance in continuing to pursue your degree despite the challenges youve faced. It sounds like you really value education, as I obviously do, too. I also appreciate and support your instinct to process your past experiences and move forward with confidence. As for the question of how to do that, heres the thing: Part of my responsibility as a teacher is to recognize which issues I have the skill and knowledge to address and resolve. Another part of my responsibility is to recognize issues that I dont have the skill and knowledge to address and resolve. When the latter occurs, it is my job to try to identify the person or support system that can meet my students need, and to then connect my student to that support. Advertisement Advertisement When I read your letter, I reached out to a few friends with expertise in mental health and higher education, and we are all in agreement: My role here is to encourage you to connect with a counselor you trust. It sounds like you identify your past experiences as unresolved trauma; a mental health professional can offer you the nuanced guidance and sustained support that will be most helpful to working through that. I think that universities usually offer counseling services via the student health center, so I would investigate that as a starting point. If thats not an option, then I might try reaching back out to your contact at the nonprofit that intervened at your school. My hunch is that they will have a network of connections at various support services, and they may be able to point you in the right direction. Good luck. This sounds tough, and you deserve to feel better. Ms. Bauer In Slates annual Movie Club, film critic Dana Stevens emails with fellow criticsthis year, K. Austin Collins, Amy Nicholson, and Bilge Ebiriabout the year in cinema. Read the first entry here. Hi, Cinematically speaking, Vice was probably the biggest disappointment of the year for me. I know a lot of people were dubious about this movie before it came out, but I was not one of them. I think Adam McKay is a treasure. Seriously, look at his filmography as a director; he helmed pretty much all of the good Will Ferrell movies and none of the bad ones. And I loved The Big Short. And a couple of years ago, when someone asked me if there was one actor out there whom I would see in anything, no matter what, I realized my answer was Christian Bale. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The first time I saw Vice, I thought it was a complete disaster. At times, I wondered if McKay wasnt done editing the thing yetif maybe he was rushing to meet a release date, perhaps to help save the struggling Annapurna from a grim financial fate. The movie posits that Dick Cheney didnt believe anythingthat he was only interested in power for powers sakeand while thats an interesting notion, the near-Trotskyite zealotry of his time in office and his alliance with the neoconservative cause would suggest otherwise. A change clearly came over this man, but the film is so uninterested in exploring anything resembling an actual person that the transformation doesnt register. Advertisement There are fascinating threads in thereabout the theory of the unitary executive, for example, and about the disconnect between politicians and the battlefield in the modern erabut the movie has no focus, so everything just hangs there. I could have done with approximately 80 percent fewer cutaways to belabored fishing metaphors and score settling with the Antonin Scalias and Roger Aileses of the world, and 80 percent more follow-through on Cheneys personal journey. The movie hand-holds us through certain events of recent history and yet barely mentions the first Gulf Warwhich is when much of the country first met Cheney, and the results of which had a direct impact on the ensuing Iraq war. Advertisement Advertisement Ive now seen Vice three times. I do think theres a less discombobulated, more engaging version of the movie in there, somewhere, and it occasionally peeks through. Butand here comes the real heartbreaker for meI dont think anything can fix Bales performance. He and the makeup team have done all the hard work to make him look exactly like Dick Cheney. But it all feels so robotic, like Im watching the most expensive SNL skit ever or maybe an immaculately produced, high-end Christmas version of The Simpsons Rappin Ronnie Reagan tape. Yes, yes, Dick Cheney does Bales soft, monotone growl thing a lotbut he does more, too! We sat through eight years of the guy as vice president, watching him on TV, and hes clearly got more emotional and vocal range than the sketch-comedy imitation Vice presents us with. Thats a choice. A poor choice. Obviously, some are down with it, since it looks like Bale is headed for an Oscar nomination. But I was flabbergasted. Oh well. Advertisement Cheneys clearly got more emotional and vocal range than the sketch-comedy imitation Vice presents us with. As for Roma, I wasnt left cold by it, though I maybe wasnt quite the emotional wreck others were. But I maintain that this is at least partly intentional. Cuarons stylistic conceit here is both immersive and alienating. He keeps Cleo at the center of his frame, but we often get obstructed views of her, and much of the film is played out in long shots. And almost everything we know about her is through interactions with the people around her, in which she is usually put in an inferior position, whether as a servant, or an employee, or a woman, or a mother-to-be. Advertisement Toward the end, as Cleo finally becomes the one in need of helpthe person who must now become the center of attention, if even for a little bitthe movie acknowledges this: The most emotional moment for me wasnt the childbirth scene, or the climactic sequence with the beach and the waves (which is nevertheless wonderful), but rather the bit right when she is whisked away at the hospital. The grandmother is asked about Cleos middle name, and her age, and her birthdate, and she has no idea. Advertisement For me, Roma as a film is essentially that exchange writ large. Its protagonist, in that sense, is Cuaron himself: Its as if hes trying to re-create the era of his childhood, in all its anguished detail, with all its political and social and personal texturesand then searching desperately through these images and environments to locate and understand this woman who meant so much to him, but whom he took for granted. But of course, thats just one take. Perhaps Im revealing the limits of my own vision by reading the film in this way. Regarding Kams rant about the best way to see movies: When Roma came up after that last round of exchanges, I decided to watch it again. The first time Id seen it was streaming off a linkI had to vote on it for an awards-nomination jury and hadnt gotten invites to any screeningsand I could tell I was missing something. (I also fell asleep for a bit.) The second time I saw it was in a screening room, where I could better appreciate the movies technical accomplishment, including its mind-blowing sound work. Advertisement Advertisement But I still felt like I needed to see it again. Im in Florida as I write this, staying in an old motel thats basically a series of small rooms off a little courtyard. Theres no lobby, which is where I would usually work at night, in order to not wake my family up. So here, I take my laptop and sit in a little gazebo in the middle of the courtyardits the only spot with an electrical outlet. And thats where I watched Roma off a screener DVD at midnight last night. About 30 feet behind me were some old-timers lounging in some deck chairs, smoking a ridiculous amount of weed, which wafted my way. They could see my screen, so during the naked martial arts scene, I demurely skipped ahead a bit. At one point, a lizard hopped across my laptop. Halfway through, one side of my headphones died, so I could only hear half the audio. Advertisement And yet, this might have been the best viewing of Roma Ive had yet. Now, I am someone who proselytizes for the theatrical experience every chance I get. And I too make a point of seeing things in theaters whenever I can. Being a parent, Im usually at the movies at least once a weekend with my son, spending an ungodly amount of money on Ubers and Fandango fees and reserved seats and buckets of popcorn and Icees so we can sit in a darkened room watching a movie screen, with trailers and dumb Geico ads and everything. (Of course, its usually a movie screen with absurdly shitty projection, because even as Americas exhibitors will splurge on fancy adjustable seats and state-of-the-art Cheeto-covered popcorn, they cant be bothered to make sure their films are being shown properly. I digress.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But Im also a child of the home-video era (like the rest of you, I assume) and a lot of my cinematic education happened via VHS tapes. And often not just VHS tapes, but poorly dubbed, 10th-generation bootleg VHS tapes, usually recorded off inferior copies and prints. My favorite film of all time is Barry Lyndon, one of those movies that people like me are usually petulantly exhorting everyone else to see in a cinema. But my first and best viewing of Barry Lyndonthe one that changed my lifehappened on a teeny-tiny monitor, off an old, not-very-good laserdisc, in a rickety wooden cubicle at my universitys Film Studies Center, with a fluorescent light overhead. My other favorite film is The Conformist, which I first saw off an old, dubbed VHS. Cinema, like life, finds a way. Advertisement Even so, I think there is something spiritually distinctive about the cinematic experience. I believe that a switch flips in our brains when we know something is a movieas opposed to, say, TV. We watch it differently, even if were watching it on a laptop in the middle of nowhere, or a tiny television in a room full of people who are doing something else. (Im still horrified whenever I ask TV-writer friends how they find the time to watch so many shows, and some confess that they often do so while theyre paying bills, or theyre at the gym, or whatever. Im not sure I could watch a film that way and still feel like Ive properly seen it.) And even if were spending less and less time in movie theaters, the idea of the theater is still in some ways the psychic source of the cinematic experience. If we actually lose that idea, then we will eventually lose the whole thingand the next thing you know, there will be laws against turning off the motion smoothing on your parents TV. Advertisement Advertisement Maybe its a generational thing; it probably is. So heres my paranoid rant: In an age of tech-enabled convenience and monopolistic aggression, I feel that we need to fight harder to preserve this idea of cinema itself. Because as far as I can tell, its total war out there. Companies dont want merely to survive and grow; they want to dominate and overthrow. Competition, alternatives, consumer choicethese are quickly becoming things of the past, along with the actual movies of the past. Its all or nothing. I am convinced that certain companies dont want just to offer alternative viewing options; they want to be the only viewing option. I wouldnt be surprised if thats the only way they foresee turning an actual profit. Maybe theyve crunched the numbers and dont feel that a world with a wealth of choices is a sustainable one for them. So you guys tell me: Am I just a privileged fuddy-duddy hanging on to the outmoded ways of his youth? I want Netflix and Amazon to exist, and I want movie theaters to exist, and I want Blu-rays and DVDs to exist. Do I ask the impossible? Bilge Read the previous entry. Read the next entry. SIOUX CITY -- With financial and logistical details hammered out, Siouxland officials say a SIOUX CITY -- As Keith Radig, who was selected Wednesday as the Woodbury County Board of Su In 2016, I was interviewing then-Hard Rock Hotel & Casino executive chef Keith Wittrock about what his perfect New Year's menu would look like. "I'd have plenty of crab legs because because they're so over-the-top," he said, giving it some serious thought. "I'd also make a seven-layered salad, a seven-layered cake and anything with a combination of 'seven' in its description, since we are a casino, after all." "Then I wouldn't mind roasting a whole pig," Wittrock said, contemplating the logistics in his mind. "That would be cool." So, wait, he wanted to roast an entire pig, just like they do at some swank luau in Hawaii and stuff? "Yeah, there's a long custom of eating pork on New Year's," Wittrock said. "Pigs symbolize luck, progress and prosperity in many cultures." Huh, I did not know that. For the Weekender's first food column for 2019, we plan on getting in touch with our inner Daft Punk. Specifically, in the new year, we'll be living by one abiding philosophy. "We're up all night 'til the sun/we're up all night to get some/we're up all night for good fun/we're up all night to get lucky." Daryl Dragon, one half of popular '70s duo The Captain & Tennille, died Wednesday, according to his publicist Harlan Boll. He was 76. Daryl Dragon, one half of popular '70s duo The Captain & Tennille, died Wednesday, according to his publicist Harlan Boll. He was 76. Dragon, whose ever-present captain's hat left no doubt about which half of the duo he was, died of renal failure in Prescott, Arizona, Boll said. "He was a brilliant musician with many friends who loved him greatly," Toni Tennille said in a statement. "I was at my most creative in my life when I was with him." Tennille was at Dragon's side when he passed away, Boll said. The duo's best-known songs included "Muskrat Love," "Do That to Me One More Time" and "Love Will Keep Us Together." Dragon, a classically trained pianist, was most at home behind the keyboard. One of his early gigs was as a backup musician for the Beach Boys in the mid-'60s. Dragon and Tennille met in 1971 when she hired him to play piano for a musical called "Mother Earth." They married in 1975, a year after they signed a deal with A&M Records. Their first album produced the hit single "Love Will Keep Us Together," which enjoyed multiple weeks atop the Billboard chart. The Energy Department officially recommended to the Department of Foreign Affairs the lifting of the moratorium on oil and gas exploration in the West Philippine Sea amid the enhanced relations between China and the Philippines, officials said. Energy Resource Development Bureau director Ismael Ocampo said the recommendation was submitted to the DFA, on the request of PXP Energy Corp. through Forum Energy Ltd. to lift the force majeure imposed on Service Contract 72 or the Recto Bank. Our main concern is energy security, Energy Undersecretary Felix William Fuentebella said, adding the move was in line with the governments thrust to explore for more indigenous sources of energy. Fuentebella said the Philippines was left behind by its Southeast Asian neighbors in the area of oil and gas drilling. PXP sent the letter of request to the DoE last month requesting the lifting of the force majeure in the wake of the signing of the memorandum of understanding between the governments of the Philippines and China for the cooperation over the West Philippine Sea. We see the lifting of the force majeure as a positive development for our SC 72 block and for the country in general, Forum Energy country representative Daniel Stephen Carlos said earlier. Forum Energy, where PXP holds a direct and indirect interest of 78.98 percent, has a 70-percent participating interest in SC 72 located in Northwest Palawan, through wholly-owned subsidiary Forum GSEC. PXP has a total economic interest of 53.1 percent in SC 72. PXP is an upstream oil and gas company incorporated in the Philippines whose shares are listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange. The company, directly and indirectly, owns oil and gas exploration and production assets in the Philippines, and indirectly owns an exploration asset located in offshore Peru. Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi earlier advised PXP Energy to apply for the lifting of the moratorium on its service contracts amid the recent breakthrough in negotiation between the Philippines and China. Cusi also expressed keen interest to immediately meet with his Chinese counterpart to draw up the framework of the oil and gas cooperation over West Philippine Sea or South China Sea.I have already expressed my intention to meet, my Chinese counterpart. I have sent my message already that I want to meet immediately, Cusi said. The Philippines and China agreed to cooperate on oil and gas development, as a part of the deals forged during the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping in November. The MOU is to explore a solution. I dont want more delays, so I gave notice to meet already, Cusi said, He said the notice was directed to China but coursed through the Department of Foreign Affairs. To China through DFA, I am ready. I want to meet immediately, anytime, anywhere. I am not passive, Im saying lets meet already, Cusi said. Energy assistant secretary Gerardo Erquiza said DoE advised DFA as a matter of protocol. Anytime we can start and go through the process, we just have to go through some details, Erquiza said. He assured that the framework would work within the service contract system of the Philippines and sets forth the elements of the Philippine jurisdiction. SOUTH SIOUX CITY -- The South Sioux City Police Department on Wednesday presented two donations as a result of recent fund-raising events to the June E. Nylen Cancer Center. Several of the officers who participated in one or both events met with Cancer Center interim director Krista McCullough and executive assistant Sherri Rossiter at the Dakota County Law Enforcement Center and presented a $1,000 check from the department's No Shave November and December event in which officers grew out their beards for charity. Another check for $787 was the result of October's Pink Patch Project, in which officers wore pink department patches on their uniforms to raise awareness of breast cancer and research. The South Sioux City Police Officer's Association then sold the patches. South Sioux City Police Investigator Clint Nelson said the department would soon be presenting another $307 check raised from the online sale of T-shirts as part of the project. Copyright 2018 The Sioux City Journal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. SIOUX CITY -- A Sioux City man was sentenced Thursday to seven years in prison for his role in a 2016 beating that left the victim in a coma. Jacob Gallaugher, 18, had pleaded guilty in Woodbury County District Court in September to aggravated assault and willful injury. Gallaugher is the fifth person sentenced in connection with the June 22, 2016, beating of Bradley Coan, then 22, of Waterbury, Nebraska, in the 700 block of Riverside Drive. Court documents show that a group of people punched and kicked Coan and beat him with metal pipes. Gallaugher was charged with stomping on Coan's chest and stealing his cell phone and later throwing it away because it was believed there was incriminating evidence on it. Coan had to be induced into a coma because of serious brain injuries. Police said the group beat Coan because he had jumped Gallaugher's brother Brody Dula earlier. At Thursday's sentencing hearing, Gallaugher denied assaulting Coan. "I did not throw any punches. I was just there," Gallaugher told District Judge Patrick Tott, who denied Gallaugher's request to delay the sentencing so he could file a motion challenging his guilty plea. Dula was sentenced in April 2017 to five years in prison for willful injury. LE MARS, Iowa -- A Plymouth County murder trial that began in July and was continued for several months will conclude with a verdict later this month. District Judge Jeffrey Neary on Wednesday filed notice that he will announce his verdict in Thomas Bibler's case on Jan. 18. Bibler, 36, of Le Mars, is charged with first-degree murder, willful injury and going armed with intent for the June 11, 2016, stabbing death of his sister, Shannon Bogh. He is accused of stabbing Bogh outside her Le Mars home while talking to her. An autopsy showed that Bogh, 27, died of internal bleeding after a major vein in her chest was cut by a sharp object. Bibler had waived his right to a jury trial and chose to have Neary decide his case. If found guilty of first-degree murder, Bibler would face a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. Testimony began in Plymouth County District Court in July and ended on Aug. 1, when the defense rested its case. Neary then suspended the trial while Plymouth County Attorney Darin Raymond decided whether to call a rebuttal expert witness. The trial resumed on Nov. 1 with no witnesses, and Raymond and public defender Billy Oyadare gave their closing arguments. LAKE VIEW, Iowa Kevin McNew drove 170 miles to land at the inlet serving Black Hawk at Lake View on Thursday afternoon. Funny what sunshine and temperatures nearing 50 degrees will do for an angler on January 3. The ice isnt thick enough in southwest Iowa, said McNew, a Shenandoah resident who drove three hours north to Storm Lake before cruising south 30 miles to Lake View for a chance to land some perch, crappie or bluegill. McNew, who used a day of 2018 vacation on this sun-dappled afternoon, stared out onto an inlet that almost took on the look of happy hour with a half-dozen men bellied up to theice. I fish here about every day, said Louie Smith, a Lake View resident who traveled a mile or so to this site, unlike the visitor from Page County. There were 14 shacks out here on the ice Sunday. The ice shacks werent needed late Thursday afternoon as the mercury hit 46 degrees. For some, coats were optional. It was slow at Storm Lake, so a guy suggested I come here, McNew said. Ive never been here before. I just got a 16-foot Lund (boat), so Im looking for places to use it (this summer). FILE PHOTO: Mongolian wolves devour a deer cadaver in an enclosure at Wolfspark Werner Freund, in Merzig in the German province of Saarland January 24, 2013. Picture taken January 24, 2013. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner/File Photo By Madeline Chambers BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's Agriculture Minister wants to loosen restrictions on shooting wolves to reduce a growing population that threatens sheep and goats. Wolves disappeared from Germany a century ago after many were killed, in part because they are symbols of cunning and wickedness in German folklore but also because they attack farm animals and even humans. They have made a comeback across Germany and the ministry says more than 600 now roam a northern belt from the border with Poland and the Czech Republic to the Dutch frontier. Wolves killed more than 1,000 farm animals in 2016, said the ministry. Farmers say their animals are being ravaged and hunters say wolves eat game they want to shoot and even damage trees. But their legal protection is viewed as sacrosanct by animal welfare and biodiversity groups. The wolf population will likely rise by an annual 30 percent, the ministry said on its website. "This excellent success in terms of species protection is a challenge for those keeping grazing animals," it said. Agriculture Minister Julia Kloecker wrote last month to her counterpart in the environment ministry, Svenja Schulze, to lobby for a change in the rules to allow more wolves to be shot as part of a moderate regulation of the wolf population. It was unclear who would be licenced do to do the shooting. She said an earlier suggestion by Schulze to allow the removal of individual wolves that pose a danger was a step in the right direction but was insufficient. Wolf management is a political issue and there was even a clause on the need to come up with a strategy on wolves in last year's coalition deal between the conservatives of Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Social Democrats. Currently, farmers can get compensation for farm animals that fall prey to wolves and subsidies for electric fences are available to help keep them out. The latest data from the Federal Office for the Protection of Nature shows Germany has 73 packs of wolves, 13 more than a year earlier, and for the first time, the southern state of Bavaria has its own pack. (Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg) A Singaporean activist was found guilty Thursday of organising an illegal protest after holding what he called a "harmless" public discussion in 2016 that featured Hong Kong democracy campaigner Joshua Wong speaking via Skype. Jolovan Wham, 39, was charged with violating public order laws because he failed to apply for a police permit before inviting Wong, a non-Singaporean, to speak via video call to an audience in the tightly controlled city-state. Wham, who is also an advocate for migrant workers' rights, said earlier in a Facebook post that the gathering in November 2016 "was a harmless and straightforward discussion about social movements". But district judge Kessler Soh Boon Leng said in his verdict Thursday that the prosecution proved the charges against Wham "beyond reasonable doubt" and set sentencing for January 23. Wong, who was among the leaders of the massive pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2014, spoke about the role of civil disobedience and democracy in building social movements. Organising a public assembly without a permit in Singapore is punishable by a fine of up to Sg$5,000 ($3,600). Repeat offenders can be fined up to Sg$10,000 or jailed a maximum six months or both. The wealthy city-state is regularly criticised by rights groups for its heavy-handed response to political dissent and freedom of expression. Last month, the editor of a Singaporean website was charged with defamation for publishing a letter alleging corruption among the country's leaders. The same month, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong sued a blogger for defamation over a Facebook post alleging he was the target of an investigation in neighbouring Malaysia related to the scandal-plagued wealth fund 1MDB. After only a year in business, startup Luckin Coffee said Thursday it will open 2,500 stores this year to dislodge Starbucks and become China's largest coffee chain. The company said it plans to have more than 4,500 stores in China by the end of 2019, taking it past the US coffee giant, which has over 3,600 stores across the country. China is Starbucks' second biggest market after the United States. Luckin has challenged the US coffee chain's dominance in the country by appealing to tech-savvy youth who prefer to order coffee using their smartphones and have it delivered. It is also relying on heavy discounts to poach consumers, a tactic used by other homegrown startups such as Didi-Chuxing, a ride-hailing service that dislodged Uber from the Chinese market. "What we want at the moment is scale and speed," Luckin's chief marketing officer, Yang Fei, told reporters on Thursday. "There's no point talking about profit," he said, adding that the company will continue to offer subsidies to attract customers over the next few years. China's thirst for coffee has increased in recent years -- a trend fuelled by young people who have studied or worked abroad. In 2017, China's coffee shop sales reached some 30 billion yuan (around US$ 4.4 billion), and are expected to reach 1 trillion yuan by 2025, according to consultancy firm Qianzhan. North Korea's top diplomat in Italy has sought asylum and gone into hiding, Seoul lawmakers told reporters after a closed-door meeting with South Korean intelligence officials on Thursday. It would mark the latest high-profile defection by a senior North Korean envoy since the deputy ambassador in London abandoned his post in 2016. "Acting ambassador Jo Song Gil's term was ending in late November last year and he escaped the diplomatic compound in early November" with his wife, lawmaker Kim Min-ki told reporters. Jo, 48, has been acting ambassador in Rome since October 2017 after Italy expelled the then ambassador Mun Jong Nam in protest at a North Korean nuclear test a month earlier in violation of UN resolutions. Italy is an important diplomatic mission for Pyongyang, as it handles relations with the Rome-headquartered UN Food and Agriculture Organization and North Korea suffers from chronic food shortages. Another member of the South Korean parliament, Lee Eun-jae, told reporters that the National Intelligence Service (NIS) had confirmed the envoy had sought asylum, but did not appear to know his whereabouts. A source close to the Italian foreign ministry told AFP on Thursday the country had "no knowledge" of any asylum request from Jo. The source said the ministry had simply received a request for the "replacement" of the diplomat, but did not know Jo's whereabouts, adding that the replacement had arrived in Rome. The NIS briefing to lawmakers came after South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo daily reported that Jo had sought asylum in an unidentified Western country with his family. "He sought asylum early last month," the JoongAng quoted a diplomatic source in Seoul as saying. Italian authorities were "agonising" over what to do, the official was cited as saying, but added that they were "protecting him in a safe place". - 'Privileged family' - Jo is "known to be a son or son-in-law of one of the highest-level officials in the North's regime", the JoongAng cited an unnamed North Korea expert as saying. Most North Korean diplomats serving overseas are normally required to leave several family members -- typically children -- behind in Pyongyang to prevent their defection while working abroad. Jo however came to Rome in May 2015 with his wife and children, suggesting he may be from a privileged family, the JoongAng said, adding the reason for his defection bid was still unclear. Relations between the nuclear-armed North and South Korea improved markedly last year after the tensions of 2017, with the two countries' leaders meeting three times. Jo's defection, if confirmed, would not impact inter-Korean ties, said Koh Yu-hwan, professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul, "unless Pyongyang thinks the escape was arranged by South Korean authorities". The former deputy ambassador to London who defected in 2016, Thae Yong Ho, said at the time that he had switched sides partly to give his three children a better future after being ordered to return to the North. Pyongyang denounced him in vitriolic terms, calling him "human scum", but did not demand his repatriation. The Kim dynasty has ruled the impoverished North for three generations with little tolerance for dissent, and the regime stands accused of widespread human rights abuses. A former prime minister, the current Supreme Court chief justice and a deceased Catholic cardinal are among Latvians who collaborated with the KGB during the Cold War, according to files released Friday. The Latvian National Archives revealed all the former agents -- many still active in politics and business -- after a quarter century of legal and legislative battles in the Baltic state. "The list of collaborators shows that KGB contacts were recruited from all professions and ages," political scientist Didzis Senbergs wrote at local news portal Pietiek.com. The KGB enlisted nearly 24,000 Latvians as collaborators and agents between 1953 and 1992. Unlike other countries under Soviet rule at the time, Latvia managed to save its KGB archive from being destroyed when it regained independence in 1991. The Latvian authorities took over the KGB building in Riga and threw the documents into huge sacks that they transported to a secure location. Dubbed "the KGB sacks" ever since, the archive contains an index of all the collaborators as well as their codenames, real names, birthplaces and other data. - Politicians, religious leaders, journalists - "The entire archive is enormous," said computer scientist Ilmars Poikans, a member of Latvia's scientific commission on the files. "It includes information gathered by KGB spies and criminal investigations involving the KGB and its agents," he told AFP. "There are also cases fabricated against Soviet-era dissidents and pro-democracy activists. Everything will be scanned and eventually released." High-profile individuals mentioned include Ivars Godmanis, who twice served as Latvia's prime minister, was a European Parliament member and now sits on the board of the country's largest pharmaceutical company. Others include current Supreme Court chief justice Ivars Bickovics, the Catholic cardinal Julijans Vaivods -- codename "Omega" -- who died in 1991. Former foreign minister Georgs Andrejevs and Aleksandrs Kudrjashovs, the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church in Latvia, were also on the list. Several current and former parliament members, diplomats, artists and writers also appear in the KGB sacks. They include Rolands Tjarve, who was enlisted as an agent while a student during the 1980s. He went on to become the head of the public broadcasting company LTV before getting sacked and becoming a journalism lecturer at the University of Latvia. Another high-profile name is Rihards Eigims, who was arrested last week on suspicion of soliciting a bribe while serving as the mayor of Latvia's second city of Daugavpils. - In handwritten Cyrillic - "Only the court can conduct a full investigation and find out whether the individual was indeed a KGB collaborator," National Archives director Mara Sprudza warned in a statement ahead of the release. "The documents are being published in their original order, but readers should beware that most of them are in handwritten Cyrillic." The index also contains the names of people who were pressured by the KGB into collaborating but who nevertheless refused to spy for them. Latvia had for years debated whether to release the KGB sacks, running up against constant opposition from individuals suspected of having been KGB agents. It was only in 2015 that a commission was set up to sort through the archives and prepare them for publication. The National Archives are scanning the next batch of documents for release in January. Anyone can access the files placed online so far at kgb.arhivi.lv by free registration. Helmad offers an innovative way for brands to advertise products on helmets, while rewarding two-wheeler riders for every kilometre they cover Helmad Founder Michael Hendriks Michael Hendriks was touring to Jakarta in 2015 when he decided to lock himself one night in the brainstorm room of a co-working space, with nothing more than a whiteboard and some music. He was working on a concept that could possibly change the lives of millions of people of Indonesia, a city he was deeply in love with. He invited a friend to share his feedback on the product, or rather the prototype. After hours of discussions and iteration, he ended up wiping clean the whiteboard and drawing a helmet and an advertisement next to each other. And an innovative product, Helmad, took shape. Hailing from Holland, I arrived in Jakarta early 2015 after many visits as a tourist. I saw the possibilities offered by this country, a land of nearly 300 million people and a fast-growing economy, Hendriks tells me. On a personal level, Jakarta has always felt like home to me; the culture, the busy city, the people, the vibes, and even the traffic. After years of painstaking research, Hendriks started Helmad in 2018. His product offers an innovative way for brands to advertise products on helmets, while rewarding two-wheeler riders for every kilometre they cover. In other words, Helmad turns a safety tool people are obliged to wear in traffic into a moving billboard. I couldnt imagine that almost four years after I arrived here, I would turn the traffic jams into a new marketing machine, but it feels only right to contribute to a better, safer and more booming environment, he shares. Also Read: One startup in Indonesia seeks to transform the way people deal with food excess According to him, Helmad is partly a new marketing channel and partly a social impact generator. Along with providing a platform for brands to spread their message around town, Helmad allows students to earn some cash and receive other incentives along with it. Story continues As for the quirky brand name, we simply smashed the words helmet and ads together. Its so simple that its effective, and is weird enough. A weird name works; some people like it, some people dont. It makes people start talking about it, he laughs. How does it work? Drivers can sign up and get assigned to a certain client ad campaign, after which they will receive a helmet with a built-in GPS tracker (to persuade students to sign up as drivers, Helmad offers free helmets with 12-month basic insurance, in addition to rewards). The helmets are designed in partnership with the clients in order to ensure the marketing message remains on the headgear throughout the campaign. Throughout the campaign, Helmad provides live updates on its progress and offers continuous support to its client, who may want to change their game plans along the way. At the end of each campaign, the helmet will be renewed or exchanged and the drivers will get brand new ones. The drivers (students) will keep track of their covered distance as well as their earnings through Helmads app. Moving forward, Helmad will actively turn the app into a financial platform, where drivers will be guided on how to save and manage money. Whether the driver gets assigned to a campaign of one month or three months, he or she receives the insurance for 12 months upfront, allowing everybody to get acquainted with insurance coverage. For the insurance, we are working together with a partner, who offers a very affordable life insurance with lots of features and benefits, and most of all, an easy-to-use app, allowing users to upgrade or downgrade certain policies, he reveals. With the current structure, Helmad focuses on bigger brands, for their marketing budget fits with its business model. We have been pitching Helmad to some of the key players active in Indonesia, and especially in Jakarta. We can offer them tailor-made campaigns varying in length, number of drivers and of course budget. More than half of the prospected clients are interested to start a campaign in 2019. However, Helmad doesnt restrict itself to big brands. The beauty of this system, however, is that we can easily scale it down, and it will be interesting and affordable for smaller businesses also, Hendriks adds. Think about an artist who releases a new album, or movies that will be in the cinemas soon, or even events. We also see huge opportunities in the countrys politics. The project I am most proud of has to be the upcoming presidential elections in Indonesia. I am expecting to make a huge social impact with that, although I cannot disclose too much information about that at the moment. Also Read: 6 ways to grow a thriving Telegram group As per market research portal Statista findings, the total advertising spending in Indonesia came to US$2.36 billion in 2015 and is projected to grow to US$3.23 billion in 2019. This includes online advertising streams such as desktop/laptop, mobile and other internet-connected devices as well as offline advertising mediums such as directories, magazines, newspapers, out-of-home, radio and TV). The projected market share for Out Of Home (OOH) advertising is around 29 to 30 per cent of the total ad spending market, which translates to US$93.3 million. The growth of OOH advertising is showing the same amount of annual growth, and we at Helmad believe that we can trigger certain markets to opt for OOH even more and less for online, he shares. While Indonesia has always been Hendrikss target market, he is not averse to exploring neighbouring markets. We have already sat down with a party from Vietnam to discover the opportunities there, since it has a booming economy. Soon after, more countries like the Philippines can and should follow. It will be another dream come true, but for now, we need to deliver in Indonesia first. In the starting stage, Helmad faced many challenges. One mistake he made, Hendriks says, was coming up with client pricing and drivers wage calculations before comparing them with the countrys minimum wages. Long before starting Helmad, Hendriks ran a business in Holland, and most recently in Indonesia. However, there was no social drive and it was solely focused on profit. It took me over 15 years to finally find a way to and make people happy and make a living out of it, he signs off. The post Indonesian startup Helmad turns your two-wheeler helmet into a moving billboard appeared first on e27. Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has written to the Philippine president to raise concerns about four Hongkongers jailed for life on drug charges in the Southeast Asian country, making the case a top-level diplomatic issue. A spokesman for Lams office on Thursday confirmed a letter had been sent to Rodrigo Duterte, but declined to reveal the content. The announcement came following earlier disclosure of the move by Hong Kong Democratic Party lawmaker James To Kun-sun, who had repeatedly pressed Lam to intervene. A source familiar with the matter said Lam told the president in the two-page letter that the Hong Kong government was concerned. The chief executive wrote on Wednesday that since the charges were serious, and Hong Kong people, including the families involved, were concerned, she would like to draw the presidents attention to the matter and ensure the Hong Kong residents well-being and their right to a fair trial are being protected, the source said. Another source said Lam mentioned the four men had launched an appeal and that the verdicts had been a severe blow to their families. Lawmaker To has been helping the men as they fight to clear their names. He said the families were grateful that Lam had stepped in. I hope the chief executive and the Chinese central government will continue to monitor the progress of the case and the mens fight for a fair trial, he said. Lo Shu-ho, sister of one of the men, said the letter had come a bit late but she hoped the two leaders were determined to help. Lo Wing-fai, 44, Chan Kwok-tung, 31, Kwok Kam-wah, 49, and Leung Shu-fook, 51, were sentenced last month to life in jail for the possession of 467.8 grams of methamphetamine. In 2016, the four men accepted a job sailing a fishing boat from the Philippines to mainland China. Then Philippine police chief Ronald dela Rosa, who is now running for a seat in the countrys Senate, led a team of officers together with journalists to the vessel and had the men arrested. Story continues According to video footage of the incident captured by reporters, the officers initially emptied the mens bags without finding anything. But the four were then taken briefly to a room with no light, and after being escorted back out, were asked to open their bags again. Inside Leungs was a brown bag containing drugs. The group have insisted they are innocent. They are being held in the maximum-security New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa. Winkey Leung Wing-lam, Leungs 19-year-old daughter, said Lams letter was a confidence boost for her, but she still did not want to be too hopeful. I am thankful she has expressed her concerns over the case. But I dont want to be too hopeful. We have been through a lot of ups and downs already, she said. To earlier said the Hong Kong and Beijing governments must intervene and tell the Philippines of suspicions surrounding the police operation. Such a move could pressure the country to launch an investigation into the raid, he said. As of Thursday the families had raised about HK$411,000 (US$52,000) through a crowdfunding campaign to pay for legal fees. Last Friday the four applied to have the Philippine judge review their case, a process that could take six months. This article Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam writes to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte over concerns about jailing of four men on drug charges first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. Beijing and Kuala Lumpur on Thursday sought to depoliticise the debate over a stalled China-backed megaproject in Malaysia, saying that negotiations on how to move forward would be left to contractors from both sides. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad put a stopper on the 80 billion ringgit (US$19.3 billion) East Coal Rail Link (ECRL) project last year after returning to power in a shock election victory. At a press conference on Thursday, Chinas ambassador to Malaysia, Bai Tian, said both governments were still awaiting a report from the project owner Malaysia Rail Link and main contractor China Communications Construction Company before any final decision was made. Both governments have been talking to each other about the continuation of the ECRL project. Both have agreed to leave the job of negotiation of this project to the contractor and owner so now we are still waiting for the report from the two parties, he said following a visit to a factory run by CRRC Corporation, a Chinese rolling stock manufacturer that is unaffiliated with the project. We havent got the report yet but we are still optimistic about the outcome. We hope that by mutual respect, by goodwill and the spirit of mutual benefit and equal footing, the two businesses will come out with a win-win result. The project will be good for Malaysia, he added. Bais comments come just days after Mahathir announced that the project could continue on a smaller scale if Beijing was amenable. The ECRL was one of several China-backed infrastructure projects suspended by Mahathirs administration following Mays general election, citing ballooning national debts and a looming financial crisis. Yet in an interview with Chinese language Malaysian daily Sin Chew earlier this week, the Malaysian prime minister said that the 80 billion ringgit (US$19.3 billion) project could continue if Beijing took into account the tough economic spot Malaysia was in. Story continues What we are trying to do is ensure that we will not spend much money and that China will not suffer a loss, Mahathir said, before reiterating the two nations long friendship and noting that 2019 marks 45 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties. As far as the Malaysian government is concerned, we have not made a final decision Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke, who was also at the briefing, said that the matter would be left to a working committee to negotiate the details. As far as the Malaysian government is concerned, we have not made a final decision, he said. The railway which would cross the Malay Peninsula if constructed, connecting Port Klang on the Malacca Strait with Kuantan on the eastern coast before running north through Tumpat on the border with Thailand was to be financed in large part by the Export-Import Bank of China. Malaysia has already paid 19.68 billion ringgit (US$4.8 billion) towards its construction. While the ECRL dispute is ostensibly a commercial matter between two companies, a source directly involved in the talks told This Week in Asia last year that both governments getting involved was inevitable. This article Future of Malaysias China-backed East Coast Rail Link hinges on elusive report first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. More from South China Morning Post: (Reuters) - Canada's auto sales declined 8 percent in December from a year earlier, marking the ninth straight month of sales drop, according to industry data released on Thursday. Overall sales for December fell to 114,289 units, according to a report http://www.globalautomakers.ca/files/2018_press_release/december2018_release.pdf by Global Automakers Canada (GAC). Auto sales in Canada has been on the decline as buyers continue to feel the pinch from rising interest rates. However, the Bank of Canada kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged in December last year, after raising interest rate five times since July 2017 to tackle inflation. "Given all of the political and economic turbulence combined with interest rate increases it is difficult to classify the 2018 as disappointing from a sales perspective," said David Adams, President of Global Automakers of Canada in a statement. Separately, research firm DesRosiers Automotive Consultants said passenger car sales and light truck sales in Canada declined by 12.1 percent and 6.5 percent respectively. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV reported a 32 percent drop in total December auto sales in Canada. Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp reported a 8.9 percent jump in the same period with 14,153 units sold, according to the GAC report. The country's biggest carmaker General Motors Co reported total sales of 13,855 vehicles, including 10,691 retail and 3,164 fleet deliveries, in December. Earlier in the day, top U.S. automakers including General Motors, Ford Motor Co reported a dip in auto sales for the month of December, however remained bullish on pickups in 2019 sales. [https://reut.rs/2Rttycd] (Reporting by Arundhati Sarkar in Bengaluru; Editing by James Emmanuel and Shailesh Kuber) President Xi Jinpings former father-in-law, who was involved in the early stages of Sino-British talks on Hong Kongs future in the early 1980s, died in Beijing on Tuesday at the age of 103. Ke Huas youngest daughter, Ke Lingling, was Xis first wife. Their three-year marriage ended in 1982 and she subsequently moved to Britain. In 1954, Ke Hua joined Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs and became the first person to take up the post of director general of its protocol department. In 1960, he became Chinas first envoy to an African country with his appointment as ambassador to Guinea. He served as director general of the ministrys department of Asian affairs in the mid-1970s and was appointed Chinas ambassador to Britain in 1978. In July 1982, Ke discussed the future of Hong Kong with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher when he hosted a dinner for the Iron Lady at the Chinese embassy in London. Thatcher, who a month earlier had led Britain to victory against Argentina in the Falklands war, insisted that the three treaties signed in the 19th century between the Qing dynasty and Britain concerning Hong Kong were still valid. She argued that Britain should rule the city for another 30 to 50 years after the lease expired in 1997. Two months later, Ke was present at the historic meeting between Thatcher and paramount leader Deng Xiaoping in Beijing. Deng told the British prime minister that sovereignty was not a matter which could be discussed and Beijing would certainly take control of the city in 1997. After the meeting, Thatcher stumbled on the stairs outside the Great Hall of the People where the talks were held. The slip-up was caught on camera and shown many times in Hong Kong. The two governments later held formal talks and signed the Joint Declaration on Hong Kongs future in 1984. Ke returned to China in 1983 and became a consultant of the State Councils Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office. He became a member of the standing committee of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference in 1988. Story continues Because of his involvement in the discussions on Hong Kongs future, the Chinese government invited him to the handover ceremony on June 30, 1997, to witness the return of the citys sovereignty to China. This article Chinese President Xi Jinpings former father-in-law, diplomat Ke Hua, dies in Beijing at age 103 first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. Bulgaria's defense ministry asked the government on Friday to start direct talks with the United States on acquiring F-16 fighter jets to replace its ageing Soviet-built MiG-29 planes. "The acquisition .... will raise the combat capabilities of Bulgaria's air force to a new level," the ministry said. A member of NATO since 2004, Bulgaria has earmarked 900 million euros ($1 billion) for the purchase of at least eight fighter jets. Lockheed Martin's initial offer however exceeded this sum. "A lowering of the price, which according to them is doable, can only be achieved in direct government-to-government talks," Defence Minister Krasimir Karakachanov told a news conference. The ministry also asked the government to seek parliament's approval for a higher budget in case a discount was not possible. Conservative Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said last week that he favoured the F-16 fighters over the other offers, which include Boeing F-18s, Gripen fighters from Sweden and used Eurofighters from Italy. Borisov discussed this with US Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan, who visited Sofia last week and lobbied for Lockheed Martin's offer, as well as with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In an improved offer, Sweden's Gripen said last week it could supply 10 fighters for the same sum but defence ministry officials said that both the Swedish and Italian offers did not include costly weapons that had to be bought separately. Jan 3 (Reuters) - Suzhou China Create Special Material Co Ltd: * SAYS CONTROLLING SHAREHOLDER'S OFFICE SEALED UP BY RELEVANT DEPARTMENTS AND ENTIRE 77.7 MILLION SHARES IN THE COMPANY HAVE BEEN FROZEN BY POLICE * SAYS COMPANY'S OWNER, CHAIRMAN AND DIRECTORS UNABLE TO PERFORM THEIR DUTIES TEMPORARILY AS THEY ARE ASSISTING THE INVESTIGATION * SAYS THE MATTER DOES NOT AFFECT CO'S OTHER BUSINESS OPERATION AND WILL NOT AFFECT CO'S 2018 FINANCIAL RESULTS Source text in Chinese: https://bit.ly/2SElVx3 Further company coverage: (Reporting by Hong Kong newsroom) Bob Moos is the Southwest regional public affairs officer for the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. " " The lunar probe Chang'e-4 is the first manmade spacecraft to land successfully on the far side of the moon. China National Space Administration You can only see one side of the moon from Earth's surface, and things have been that way for around 4 billion years. But on Jan. 3, 2019, the world turned its collective attention to the other, more mysterious realm. That's because the Chinese lunar probe, Chang'e-4, became the first manmade spacecraft to land on the far side of the moon. For a country that's now a major player in the global space community, this was a jubilant moment indeed. Advertisement Xinhua, a state-run news agency, reports that the China National Space Administration's Chang'e-4 touched down on the moon's surface at 10:26 a.m., Beijing time, on Jan. 3, 2019. It landed inside the Von Karman crater, a depressed area measuring 110 miles (186 kilometers) wide. This geological landmark resides within the South Pole-Aitken Basin, the biggest crater on the moon. Located over on the far side, it's 1,150 miles (2,500 kilometers) in width and covers almost one quarter of Earth's natural satellite. The historic journey of Chang'e-4 began at around 2:23 a.m., Beijing Standard Time, on Dec. 8, 2018, when it took off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. It entered lunar orbit four days later. Similar in design to the Chang'e-3 which landed on the moon's near side in 2013 the probe consists of a 300-pound (136-kilogram) mobile rover and a 2,400-pound (1,088-kilogram) robotic lander. Fitted with cameras, ground-penetrating radar and other tools, Chang'e-4 was designed to help scientists answer lingering questions about our moon's geologic past. Of particular interest to biologists are the potato seeds, flowering plants, and silkworm eggs that Chang'e-4 took along for the ride. These will be experimented upon to see how lunar gravity affects growing life forms. To communicate with researchers at the China National Space Administration, Chang'e-4 relays signals to Queqiao, a satellite that's now circling above the moon's far side in a halo orbit. Regardless of what the probe ends up telling us, its legacy is secure. Though the far side of the moon has been photographed many times, landing a rover there is a feat that neither NASA nor any other space agency has ever pulled off. "We ... have done something the Americans have not dared try," astronomer Zhu Meng-Hua told The New York Times. Meng-Hua is an assistant professor at the Macau University of Science and Technology in Taipa and studies craters and lunar geology (among other things). He believes this ambitious mission "shows that China has reached the advanced world-class level in deep space exploration." The China National Space Administration plans to launch another probe, the Chang'e-5, later in 2019. Its mission will be to obtain geological samples on the near side of the moon and send these back to Earth. NOW THAT'S INTERESTING The Von Karman crater was named in honor of the Hungarian-American aerodynamicist Theodore von Karman, who also has a Martian crater named after him. Due to his groundbreaking work on wind tunnels, he became the first National Medal of Science recipient in 1963. This report was compiled by Lisa Andre. You can reach her at landre@leecentralcoastnews.com. Follow her on Twitter @LAndreSYVNews Populism may have made some massive gains in 2018, from Brazil to Italy and a number of venues in between, but economics is likely to catch up with the trend and its not going to be pretty. Sure, people around the world are tired of living under the austerity that hit them following the 2008 financial crisis. And theyre tired of the suffocating globalization and the win-win for the elite. They want payback, and they believe theyll get it through populist leaders. But those leaders and their high-flying promises of state-funded prosperity arent necessarily considering the longer-term (or even the medium-term) economic picture here. All evidence suggests that they cant pay for their promises. Populism has been festering in Europe for years, and Trumps victory in the U.S. was decidedly populist. In 2016, the Philippines ushered in populist president Rodrigo Duterte, and just yesterday, Brazil followed suit with the inauguration of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. In Italy, the victory of a coalition of far-right populist leaders has already given us a glimpse of the economic pain to come as the country goes head-to-head with the EU over a budget that Brussels fears could bring down the entire union. Italy, now, enters 2019 bracing for a recession as December numbers showed that manufacturing shrank for the third month in a row. Manufacturing activity was at 49.2 for December, and needs to be at 50 or above to be considered an upward trend. In November, the Italian economy contracted for the first time in four years, with GDP dropping 0.1 percent from July to September. For the populists, including Trump, economic policy is necessarily dictated not by the market but by public popularity; thus, when populist leaders feel threatened, they use high-profile measures to fight back in the public. Italys populists have used the 2019 budget, battling with the European Union in the public eye to gain political capital. In the end, they lost some of that capital by revising their 2019 budget in a way that opponents say they caved to Brussels to some extent, but the battle to get there strengthened them enough to survive what comes next. After a lengthy standoff with the EU, Italian parliament passed the 2019 budget in the last days of December, lowering its planned budget deficit from 2.4 percent of GDP to 2.04 percent. It was less than Brussels wanted, but too much for opponents. Related: New Regulations Could Boost Lagging Solar Growth The anti-establishment elements of the new budget include a citizens wage income support scheme that will hand out nearly $900 a month to 1.7 million poor Italian families. It also includes a slashing of the retirement age from 67 to 62 for certain workers, and a tax cut for self-employed workers. The numbers just dont add up, and investors are concerned that given Italys mountain of debt, it could slip into recession. Then we have Brazil, where Bolsonaros populist appeal is the opposite of Italyshes got to implement austerity measures, which makes his flirtation with populism rather more vulnerable. In other words, his challenge is to make austerity popular and bring down a worrisome budget deficit of over $47 billion. The jury is still out on this one, and investors are maintaining their optimism, particularly because the new presidents economic team is led by a former investment banker. His main cheerleader is Trump himself, which brings us full circle to the United States, where the Democrats unrelenting investigations and a government shutdown will push the populist American president to act very publicly. Whatever happens has to be big and sweeping in order to wrest attention from the Democrats attacks. In the meantime, global markets have to somehow price in populism, and they are likely to put a high price on fiscal irresponsibility. This is where markets decide whether populists can have their cake and eat it, too. By Michael Kern of Safehaven.com More Top Reads From Safehaven.com PIERRE | South Dakota legislators will get their first pay raise in about two decades as they head to the state Capitol next week for the 2019 session. State lawmakers will be paid $11,378.80 in 2019, a roughly 90 percent jump from the $6,000 per session they've received since 1998. Legislators also get a per diem allowance that's increased during that time. House Majority Leader Lee Qualm, a Republican, said the raise will allow more people to get involved in state politics. The wage hike is part of a law approved last year that set legislator salaries at one-fifth of the South Dakota median household income. Supporters said then that the measure aimed to fairly compensate future lawmakers in order to encourage a wider range of qualified candidates to run for office. They contended the change would tie lawmakers' salaries to the economic prospects of the people they represent. "If our economy goes up and overall people are making more dollars, then that pay increases," Republican Rep. Chris Karr said this week. "We're trying to solve problems for South Dakota, come up with solutions, so messing around with compensation and then arguing over what it should be ... is probably not the best use of our time." Amos Oz, the Israeli writer, novelist and journalist who won numerous awards for his books which were translated into some 45 languages, died on December 28. In the last years of his life, he formed an unexpected friendship with a Chabad rabbi. Four years ago, Amos Oz struck up an unlikely friendship with the Chabad representative to Rivne (Rovno), Ukraine. Ozs mother, Fania Mussman, was from what had once been a Polish city. The home that she had grown up in, described in Ozs best selling autobiographical novel, A Tale of Love and Darkness, had since become a tourist destination for Israeli fans and readers. Now the Rivne municipality wanted to commemorate the Mussman family home. Local authorities asked Rivnes Chabad rabbi to collaborate with Ozs children on a text for the plaque of the landmark home. The authors daughter, Fania Oz-Salzberger arrived from Israel to participate in the ceremony. Her father followed the unveiling from Israel. Soon Oz would invite the Chabad representative, himself an Israeli, to visit him in his Tel Aviv home. Despite their starkly antithetical orientations, a serious friendship developed through visits and weekly conversations in their native Hebrew. As it happens, Rivnes Chabad representative is named Shneur Zalman Schneerson. This intrigued Amos Oz, whose second-grade teacher, one of Israels most famous national poets, was a first cousin of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and named Zelda Schneerson. We called her Teacher Zelda and she was my first love, Oz wrote in a WhatsApp message to the Chabad rabbi. I was a seven-year-old and she was a woman of 30 or so, but this love has illuminated my life to this very day. Lubavitch.com reached Rivnes Chabad representative in Israel, where he was paying a shiva call to the Oz family. Over the four years of their friendship, the author had taken a keen interest in Schneersons work to rebuild Jewish life and restore a traditional Jewish community experience for Rivnes Jews. Oz also kept up with Schneersons family, sending personal notes on the births of his children and their birthdays, and regular Shabbat and holiday messages. Schneerson would visit Amos Oz whenever he traveled to Israel. On one of his visits to the Oz home in Tel Aviv, he brought a new edition of The Tanya that he had just printed in Rivne. Amos buried his head between the pages of the Tanya, inhaling the scent of the fresh ink, recalls Schneerson. And then the award-winning author apologized and asked for privacy so that he could be alone with, in his words, this holy book that was printed in Rovno. By no means a religious Jew, Oz sometimes revealed a spiritual side. Asked by an Israeli journalist in one of his last interviews what he hoped his most important legacy would be, he said that if any of what he had written over his lifetime would move people in some way, I will have something to show for myself at the entrance On High. Over time, the author seemed to take more of an interest in Jewish practices. Four years ago, I had offered to say the Yizkor prayer for his mother and grandmother, recalls Schneerson. Amos wasnt interested. But in a text message that Oz sent a few weeks ago, he asked the Chabad representative to say Kaddish on behalf of his wife and his children: Please say the Kaddish in our name for all the sons and daughters of the Mussman family and all the Jewish people who were murdered in Rovno. This past September, Schneerson brought his young son, Levi Yitzchak, to Israel. Theres no yeshiva in Rivne, so we enrolled him in a yeshiva in Jerusalem. It was the opening day of school, but first father and son paid a visit to Amos Oz. By then the cancer treatments had weakened Amos, but he welcomed me with great warmth, recalls Schneerson. I told him that my son was beginning yeshiva that day, and Amos beamed with what I can only describe as pride. It was shortly before Rosh Hashana, and the Chabad representative had brought a shofar along with him. Amos became pensive. He seemed lost in thought as I blew the shofar, and he remained that way for some time after, even as his wife, Nili, began chatting with me about her grandchildren. He later sent a text message, thanking Schneerson for the visit, and wishing Levi Yitzchak much success on his first day in yeshiva. The message was signed, as many of them were, Nili and Amos. When Schneerson turned 40, he received a long, beautiful note from Oz expressing gratitude for the Chabad representatives work to memorialize Rovnos Jewry, among them many of my own family murdered by the German Nazis and their cohorts. You have merited to bear a name [Schneerson] that carries a unique legacy, wrote Oz. In you, I found an interesting sparring partner . . . a lover of the Jewish people, with a warm heart and a wise heart. He ended the message with an allusion to the Hebrew acronym for ChaBaD, wishing his friend many more years blessed with Chochma [wisdom] Binah [understanding] Daat [knowledge]. Schneerson will miss the rich conversations and the weekly exchanges of emails and chats. The unexpected friendship prompts some to ask him if Amos Oz had become religious at the end. No, says the Chabad rabbi. But who is to say? Maybe he was. (Flickr) The Pennington County Sheriffs Office will hold a job fair from 3-6 p.m. Friday on the second floor of the Public Safety Building at 300 Kansas St. in Rapid City. The office is looking to hire correctional officers, detox technicians and law enforcement officers, according to a press release. The starting pay for correctional officers and law enforcement officers is $21.94 an hour, while detox technicians start at $17.20 an hour, the press release said. Tours and onsite interviews will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Two days ahead of her inauguration, Republican Gov.-elect Kristi Noem has announced her latest staff pick for a policy adviser. According to a Thursday, Jan. 3, news release, Jason Simmons, who currently works as the South Dakota Legislative Research Council (SDLRC)'s principal fiscal analyst, will work as a policy adviser for Noem in her incoming administration. Simmons has worked with the SDLRC since 2013, where he worked on legislation and developing the state budget. Prior to his time with the SDLRC, he worked as a utilities analyst with the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission. Simmons is also a partial owner of his familys livestock and small grain farm near his hometown of New Underwood, east of Rapid City. Noem has named several other policy advisers and analysts over the past few weeks as she transitions into the governor's office, including her daughter Kennedy Noem, who will work as a policy analyst. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Karen McGregor, a resident at the subdivision and member of the Black Gap road district board, said if the land is rezoned to heavy industrial, the residents will have little say in what gets built there. "The wind is going to blow ... so we're going to smell whatever is there, whether it's an asphalt plant or a feedlot," she said. "I think we deserve a little bit of consideration, too." District 4 Commissioner Mark DiSanto, whose constituency includes the Black Gap area, said he agrees with the concerns about the rezoning. He suggested a compromise: rezone the 560 acres to light industrial, which would still allow for some industrial development in the area and alleviate residents' concerns. Commission Chairwoman Deb Hadcock reminded those at the meeting that Wednesday's approval was for a first reading of the rezone only, and said she would be looking at it more closely before the next reading. Even if the rezoning is ultimately approved, she said, future development plans would also have to go before a public board. New commissioners sworn in Incoming commissioners Ron Rossknecht (District 1) and Gary Drewes (District 5) and incumbent District 3 Commissioner Deb Hadcock were sworn in to office Wednesday morning by 7th Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Davis. Hyronimus said Wounded Face would be scheduled for a preliminary hearing when a judge determines whether there is probable cause for the charges. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} An affidavit signed by a detective with the Rapid City Police Department provides new insight into the four-hour armed standoff. Around 9 a.m. on Jan. 1, the affidavit says, Wounded Face's mother reported him to the police, saying he was making loud noises, throwing things around and may be "dusting," a slang term for getting high off of inhalants. She also said she may have heard gunshots and decided to leave the house. Body camera footage shows an officer identifying herself and telling Wounded Face that she wanted to speak to him since his mother was afraid, the affidavit says. Three shots are then heard and the officer runs away. She told the detective that she wasn't sure if Wounded Face shot directly at her. The Pennington County Special Response Team responded and locked down the 1200 block of Racine Street and evacuated neighboring homes. Butte County typically has from 12 to 15 individuals incarcerated at the Meade County jail, Lamphere said, though there's been a spike in the last half of 2018 thanks to drug-fueled crimes. In the event of arrests of protesters trespassing on private property or disorderly conduct, Lamphere said the county could move some longer-term inmates from Meade County to Faulkton to ease up space in Sturgis. "It's a preventive maintenance," Lamphere said. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} In 2016, law enforcement agents with Morton County in North Dakota made mass arrests during protests that drew thousands to the Cannonball River to protest the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. On Monday, Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said his department made 863 arrests between August 2016 and February 2017 during the height of the protests. "I only had a 42-bed facility at the time the protest was going on," Kirchmeier said. "Once they got to the LAC (law enforcement center), they would be processed and then bused to other locations throughout the state." Kirchmeier said they had arrangements with approximately half a dozen counties to use their jails in overflow situations. Most individuals arrested were in custody for two to three days and cost approximately $75 a day. In late June, two months after completing a detailed online application, Milos was contacted for an interview. About a month later he was invited to take the position, which involves soil conservation work, fruit tree cultivation and nutrition education in a community in western Nepal. Milos said his rangeland degree was a definite plus in being accepted for Peace Corps service, because the agency has trouble finding people with agricultural training. While there isnt much rangeland in mountainous Nepal, he thinks some of the subjects he studied will be useful in the job. A lot of the base courses do apply, like soil science and hydrology, he said. We learn about herbicide application and the effect of tillage on soils, and Ive taken outside courses like entomology and botany. On Jan. 30, Milos will join a group of other Peace Corps volunteers and fly to Nepals capital, Kathmandu, where he will have about three months of cultural and language training before going on to the community where he will spend the next two years. Through a Facebook group of new and recently returned volunteers he has received tips about what to expect and reassurance about the conditions he will encounter in the impoverished nation, which is still recovering from a long-running domestic rebellion and a devastating 2015 earthquake. Before the Figge Art Museums next big exhibit comprising colorful Tiffany glass works opens in February, you can get a sneak preview with a permanent Tiffany window on the second floor of the museum at 225 W. 2nd St. The River of Life window by Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) was at the mausoleum of Frederick C.A. Denkmann (1822-1905). Stolen in the 1970s from the family mausoleum in Chippiannock Cemetery in Rock Island, the stained-glass window was recovered by the FBI in 1997, and is now on long-term loan to the Figge. Tiffanys father, Charles Lewis Tiffany, influenced his sons eye for decoration and design, according to the museum. Beginning in 1837, the fathers successful fancy goods and jewelry business, which later became Tiffany & Co., imported and sold an exotic mix of the finest porcelain, textiles, glass and brassware. With his fathers support, the well-educated and well-traveled Tiffany was an accomplished painter by the age of 20. By the 1870s, Tiffany's artistic ambitions had grown to include interior decoration and design. His desire to control all aspects of the design process led to Louis C. Tiffany and Associated Artists the first of several ventures that produced innovations in glassmaking for which he would become famous. She said the group now is fundraising and hired a realtor "to find a forever home" for the clubhouse. Depending on funding, it plans to be open Aug. 1 or sooner. For Sheila and Robert Boyd, such a resource cannot come soon enough. "My husband will be a member and me as a caregiver," said Sheila Boyd, of LeClaire. "We've been through quite a lot in the last eight years." She said her husband was 38 when he became a brain injury patient. At the time he was a volunteer firefighter, a Cub Scout leader and worked full-time in security at Kraft. "Now he goes to adult daycare at CASI," she said, adding that her now 46-year-old husband misses being among people his age and part of the community like he had been. Those with brain injuries "want to be around other people who understand, who know what you're going through," she added. "There are many people living in the Quad-Cities with a brain injury that need a place to go." The Boyds and several other families living with brain injuries have been part of the organization of Empower House Quad-Cities. Maurice Hughes, 18, 501 W. 3rd St., Davenport, charged with possession of a controlled substance-marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia. Witnesses said he was involved in the disturbance. Officers found a scale and 1.65 grams of marijuana in his possession. Jonakico Williams, 42, 915 Filmore St., Davenport, charged with interference with official acts and parole violation. Police say Williams was running in the area of West 14th and Marquette streets after the disturbance. Officers told him to stop running, and he was taken into custody after a pursuit. Trayvon True, 22, of 2224 Rockingham Road, Davenport, charged with used or expired drug tax stamp and possession with the intent to deliver. According to police, True had 17 Adderall pills. He admitted he sells the pills, which he got from a friend, according to police. Ochoa, Hughes and True were released from the Scott County Jail on their own recognizance. Williams remained in the jail as of Thursday afternoon. Detectives are following up on the alleged shots fired incident. Police ask anyone with information to call the Davenport Police Department at 563-326-6125 or submit an anonymous tip via the mobile app CityConnect Davenport, IA or CrimeReports by Motorola. Love 0 Funny 2 Wow 2 Sad 0 Angry 2 Are you a viable person? Do you have a reasonable chance of surviving? If not, should you be terminated? Would you like to be terminated in 15 weeks or 24 weeks? Oh, is your viability greater than that? Some people are terminated as early as 4-6 weeks. Regardless of a person's age, only the Creator of all things has the right to end a life. To quibble over how many weeks or years old a precious human being should be before he or she can be killed is ridiculous; at any age, it is murder. Bragg said her son wasnt a bad person, he made a bad decision. She takes some comfort in the fact that through his generous decision to be a donor, the organs that were harvested that terrible night 12 months ago saved five lives. Among those who were moved by the power of Markus generous gift was the dispatcher who took the initial emergency call the night Markus died. This is just amazing, I was so inspired by what one person can do by being a donor, said Kathryn Hale. It is. Its also remarkable that of the five people the registered organ, eye and tissue donor saved that night, Bragg has been in contact with three. Organ donations usually are anonymous. Her goal now is to meet with all of them at next summers Quad-City Times Bix 7 in honor of her sons love of running. We hope she gets her wish. We also hope that others in the Q-C will choose to honor her sons memory by doing all they can to grow the organ and tissue donor registry. If youre not signed up, please do so today at lifegoeson.com or your communitys Illinois Drivers License Facility. Principle No. 1: If a judge starts the year with 100 cases on his docket, he wants to end the year with 100 or less cases on his docket. If 100 new cases are filed each month, the judge must dispose of 100 (new or old) cases each month. If on Jan. 1, you have 100 cases on your docket, and 100 more are filed in January, if you dispose of only 64, on Feb. 1, you will have 136 cases on your docket. If that pattern holds (you fail to dispose of 36 cases each month), by April 1, you will have 208 cases on your docket, and by years end you will have 532. Principle No. 2: Getting an acceptable negotiated plea requires that judges and prosecutors be able and willing to take/force cases to trial. If the defendant makes bond, why would any defendant or his attorney care if the case ever gets to trial? If defense counsel knows that the prosecutor is unable or unwilling to try his case, what incentive is there for the defendant ever to seriously negotiate or plead guilty? I grew up on a farm near Galesburg and shortly before leaving for school, someone hollered that our hired hand had been hurt. I yelled for my mother to call an ambulance and raced behind the hog barn where he had been working. The back of the otherwise blue Ford tractor was bright red with the mans blood. My dad was standing over him administering a tourniquet. And I found the mans foot 20 feet away. After the ambulance left, I climbed into my Pontiac and headed for school. There were tears in my eyes and I was embarrassed. I grew up in a home where boys werent supposed to cry. When I pulled into the high school parking lot, the only thing I could think to do was talk to Mr. Fitch. He listened and told me about losing a cousin in a logging accident when he was growing up. Later he walked with me to talk to a teacher and asked that I be excused from a test that day and he contacted each of my teachers to let them know what I had been through. He cared. I cant help but wonder how many teenagers sat in his office and shared secrets: pregnancies, trouble at home, bullying at school. Im sure Mr. Fitch gave each of them a compassionate ear as he did for me. ROCK ISLAND A YouTube video prompted 9-year-old Nathan Simons to start the new year by paying it forward. His father, Ethan, said he often questioned his sons interest in the videos he saw online at the YouTube website. Those thoughts changed, however, when he learned his son had seen a video of someone donating $100,000 to homeless shelters and wanted to do something similar. That (video) was in a larger city, Ethan Simons said. But Nathan said he wanted to do what they did. I told him we dont have $100,000 and he said, Well, I have $150 saved, Ethan Simons said. He added he was hesitant at first with the idea because his son had been saving his allowance money for about 1 years with the goal of eventually purchasing some big item for himself. My initial instinct was to try to talk him out of it, Ethan Simons said. But I questioned what kind of a lesson would that teach him. Rather than talk his son out of the idea, his father agreed to match whatever his son chose to donate. More than 80 vehicles came and went from the Redstone parking ramp at River Drive and Main Street in Davenport early Sunday around the time dozens of shots were fired from the fourth floor. Five teenagers are facing multiple charges following an early morning chase in Davenport and Bettendorf in a stolen vehicle. At 1:04 a.m. Wednesday, Davenport police officers spotted the vehicle recklessly driving eastbound on Locust Street from Eastern Avenue, according to a media release from the city of Bettendorf. Bettendorf officers deployed a stop stick near Locust Street and Middle Road as the vehicle approached city limits. The vehicle continued to drive toward Devils Glen Road and Field Sike Drive, where a Bettendorf squad car used a maneuver to immobilize the vehicle. Other squad cars blocked the vehicle in so that the occupants could not flee, according to the media release. Four Davenport police vehicles and two Scott County Sheriffs vehicles were near the scene and assisted with taking the five teenagers into custody. A .45-caliber pistol was located in the stolen vehicle, as well as various other unidentified keys and key FOBs to unknown vehicles, according to the release. All five teenagers were taken to the Scott County Juvenile Detention Center. Those charged are: The Casino Rock Island reportedly cost $13 million to build and was being offered in 2012 for $2 million. In 2016, it was bought by the New Orleans Steamboat Company for an undisclosed price. We instantly fell in love with the boat, said project manager Matthew Dow, project manager. We saw the potential in her and knew that we could do her justice and bring her back not only to her former glory but well beyond that. Operating out of the Bienville Street Wharf in New Orleans, the 189-foot-long, 55-foot-wide riverboat will have three enclosed decks and able to carry more than 1,000 passengers. Dow said the vessel already looked the part of a New Orleans riverboat, with its curved decks, plentiful windows, decorative fleurs de lis and giant paddlewheel. Initially it was brought to a dry dock for hull repairs, then towed to New Orleans for a makeover. We had to rip all of the walls out, all the ceilings, a lot of the insulation, Dow said. Basically, we had to strip this boat down to the superstructure, to bare bones, and everything had to go back new. So she asked her prayer group at the Cambridge church if they would be interested in an exercise activity. They encouraged her to launch the group. "I ordered a video and found a space at church that was not busy, she said. We have anywhere from two to six or seven people at our class. Some of them are from other churches, and some people drive over from Andover. "At my age, I feel I need to keep moving or I wont be able to move at all," she said. "And church activities are important to me. I think it keeps me connected with God and Godly people. "We all have lots of things happen in our lives that we are concerned with the good and the not-so-good things that happen," she said. "I believe that in sharing with one another we recognize and give God credit for the good things that happen in our lives and tell Him of our concerns. "Our exercise time goes by quickly as we are not only exercising, we are busy sharing." Ross says she plans to continue leading the class, saying it has become an important part of her life. "I dont worry about the future," she said. "My future is in Gods hands, and I am blessed to be healthy enough to do these things. ROCK FALLS (AP) Planning officials in Rock Falls are opposing a proposed community solar farm just outside its city limits. Sauk Valley Media reports the Rock Falls Plan Commission has recommended the city object to the project, saying it is incompatible with comprehensive plans of the city and Whiteside County. The proposed project site is in an agricultural area at 25856 W. Rock Falls Road/U.S. Route 30, near the intersection with Lawrence Road and Oneighty Church west of Rock Falls. The city contends the site should continue to be used for farming until it can be developed for more traditional commercial purposes. Minnetonka, Minnesota-based Sunrise Energy Ventures is seeking a special-use permit for the project. Rock Falls has a say in the matter because the site is within a 1.5-mile radius of its borders. Illinois sees second largest outward migration ST. LOUIS (AP) Vermont's population is among the smallest in the U.S., but a United Van Lines study indicates people are moving to the New England state. Card Beshara al-Rahis New Year message addresses the countrys political crisis, slamming those who hinder the formation of a new cabinet, which is needed to ensure "political, economic and social stability". For Greek-Catholic metropolitan, the interests of the nation [come] above everything else. Beirut (AsiaNews) In his New Year message, Maronite Patriarch Card Beshara al-Rahi criticised the countrys Shia, Sunni and Christian lawmakers for failing to reach an agreement to form a new government after eight months. The cardinal accuses those who "have hindered the formation of a government [. . .] of failing to fulfil their duty to ensure peace, which the people of Lebanon need." The head of the Maronite Church would like to see a non-political cabinet be set up, with experts and specialists from various domains to overcome the current political, economic and governmental stalemate. For the cardinal, the country is "hostage to political militias" who have made the crisis worse, so much so that ordinary Lebanese have taken to the streets to protest. In his homily during yesterdays solemn Mass at the Patriarchate headquarters in Bkerke, Card al-Rahi stated that peace in his view means "political, economic and social stability, and employment opportunities for everyone." If those who lead the country really want to "revive Lebanon", they must avert "financial and governmental crises" by establishing a "neutral government of technocrats." Some of the obstacles to forming a new cabinet, which was expected before Christmas holidays, include the balance of power within the various party alliances and the assignment of some of the most important ministries, like the ministries of industry, environment and information. "We want to live together with respect and mutual trust in the implementation of the spirit and the letter of the Taif agreement", the patriarch said. The latter refers to the accord that ended the Lebanese civil war. The Greek Catholic Metropolitan of Beirut Elias Audi shares the patriarchs concerns. In a statement, he called for the new year to provide "a different way for political factions to proceed since it is their duty to put "the interests of the nation above everything else." Since last May Lebanon has been waiting for a strong and united government to deal with the countrys many threats and challenges: from the economy to the immigration crisis, from rising poverty to high unemployment, especially among young people. The Lebanese Church has been very critical of this very serious situation, exacerbated by the war in neighbouring Syria, which has triggered an unprecedented humanitarian emergency. Posted pro bono: Wild Thoughts by Julia Randall. A three-part series on wilderness ethics and management offers a comprehensive review of wilderness as a legal concept, an ecological condition and as a cultural phenomenon. Click on the following links to access Part I , What is Wilderness; Part II , For Whom Does Wilderness Exist? ; and Part III , Wilderness and a Livable World . Ms. Randall's StoryMap can be found on the Adirondack Councils website at: Ms. Randall'scan be found on the Adirondack Councils website at: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/39efc4883ac348a09fbd03a0f2c6c78f Combating on the job misbehavior: https://www.not-me.com/organizations An app (the #NotMe app) employers can make available to their personnel permitting the easy and timely submission of complaints of alleged supervisor or co-worker misconduct to personnel officers, human resource teams, compliance officers or designated individuals. Click on for information concerning this program. Concerning the viral evolution of COVID-19: Science Magazine e-Letter had posted NYPPL's Science Consultant Robert Michaels' item concerning "Viral evolution may herald new pandemic phase. Click here to read Dr. Michaels' comments. Sexual Harassment is a form of unlawful discrimination : New York State : https://www.ny.gov/programs/combating-sexual-harassment-workplace 's Internet guidelines addressing employer obligations to combat sexual harassment in the workplace is at The Steel Bar is the epic story of the rise and fall and rebirth of the Pittsburgh lawyer, from the earliest days of the Pittsburgh bar to the modern era, against the backdrop of American history." More at https://publicpersonnellaw.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-steel-bar-pittsburgh-lawyers-and_28.html Contaminants of Emergent Concern was discussed by Dr. Robert A. Michaels [bam@ramtrac.com] at the New York State Bar Association, Energy and Environmental Law Section on January 31, 2020. Dr. Michaels' remarks are posted for viewing/downloading at no charge at the following URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339055672_Legacy_Contaminants_of_Emergent_Concern. Other articles addressing environmental issues by Dr. Michaels are posted on on the Internet at:https://publicpersonnellaw.blogspot.com/2020/01/articles-by-dr-robert-michaels-nypers.html Ransomware continues assault against cities and businesses - take a look at the most recent attacks, how US and international cities have handled them, and advice for dealing with the aftermath. Keep reading. Social Effects and Outcomes of Identity and ID Programs - Download this impact report that details research, use cases and tips for creating a successful municipal and government ID program to better transact with citizens by clicking here: Government ID Impact Report New technology assists local governments to better serve its residents by using new technologies to save money, communicate with residents and allow taxpayers to make payment. Click here to download a report released on September 16, 2019 by New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli. Governing Daily has posted a link to an item, How to Prevent Job Loss in the Public Sector, noting that when budgets get slashed and hiring comes to a halt, municipalities need a way protect their most valuable resources people and finances. [Content provided by CentralSquare Technologies.] Click here to LEARN MORE 3 hours ago | June 14th | 2021 8:51 AM Is influencer marketing really going to die in the next few years? "Influencer Marketing Will Die in 2023!" they made headlines earlier this year. Some worried and others celebrating the end of a trend, which, although it has brought consumers closer to brands, has also made certain lifestyles see unattainable. However, no publication really explained what the possible decline of an industry with millions of followers around the world is happening. Democrats took control of the House of Representatives on Thursday and voted in Nancy Pelosi as speaker. The Democratic majority was expected to take up bills to fund government operations. Stefanik has said she does not support government shutdowns, which is why she voted for earlier legislation that funded government operations and included $5 billion for a border wall. Her office did not immediately respond to an inquiry about how she would vote on the Democratic-backed bills. At Thursdays protest, Patrick Nelson, who ran for Congress last year, criticized Republicans in Congress for being willing to spend $5.7 billion for a border wall, but not funding other priorities, such as paying benefits to all veterans exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. Bernice Mennis of Fort Ann said a wall sends the wrong message. We should go back to the Statue of Liberty and being a welcoming country, she said. They are good people who want asylum. music social Free Fellowship Dinner, 4:30-6 p.m., Ticonderoga First United Methodist Church, 1045 Wicker St. (Route 9), Ticonderoga. Celebrate the new year at the next Free Fellowship Dinner at the Ticonderoga First United Methodist Church, in Fellowship Hall. Everyone is welcome; reservations are not necessary. The Twelfth Night celebration is also going to be held the same evening at 7 p.m. at the Methodist church, so come for dinner and stay for the concert featuring the voices of many local church choirs. The menu for January will be Beef Stroganoff and Gravy over noodles along with tasty vegetables. Assorted desserts and beverages will also be served. The free monthly dinner program is usually held on the first Sunday of each month. It is an outreach project of the church and is self-supporting. Penny Mason, one of the organizers of the free dinner program, wants to remind everyone that all are welcome to attend the free dinners held each month. There is plenty of good food, conversation and laughter enjoyed by all. While there is no charge, a free-will donation is appreciated. High chairs, booster seats, take-outs and a child-friendly menu are also available. For more information about the free dinners or the church, please contact the church office at 518-585-7995 or visit the church website: www.tifumc.com. SCHROON A house of worship was destroyed Wednesday by a fire that brought firefighters from two counties in an effort to contain the blaze. The Schroon Lake Community Church, located at 1086-1088 Route 9, at the corner of South Avenue in the hamlet of Schroon Lake, was engulfed in flames at about 3:15 p.m. The building houses a church and parsonage. Heavy flames were reported, and smoke was visible from miles away. A neighboring building appeared to have suffered some exterior damage as well. Photos and videos posted on social media showed extensive damage to the building, with flames shooting out of the large windows and through the roof of the church. A large crowd watched from north and south of the church in the nearby business district on Main Street. One witness, Tonya Whitford Condon, wrote on Facebook that intense heat could be felt downtown. Firefighters from Schroon Lake, North Hudson, Chilson, Pottersville, Horicon, Chestertown and Ticonderoga were summoned, and were on scene into the evening. There was no word on injuries or a possible cause of the fire as of early evening. Part of Route 9 was closed, between Cedar Hill Road and Hoffman Road, by the fire response. Happy New Year! It is good to be back in the swing of things with a column after some vacation days and holidays. A dilapidated city-owned building on West Mountain Road should be coming down this week, according to City Engineer Steve Gurzler. Gurzler said he is waiting for National Grid to disconnect power to the property at 885 West Mountain Road. As soon as that is done, the building will come down, which should take about a day or two. An excavator could be seen at the site on Wednesday. The building used to be a residence provided to the water superintendent as part of the compensation package. That practice was discontinued when the city contracted out oversight of its water and sewer services to EarthTech. Glens Falls since has resumed managing the department. The house had been rented out as low-income housing, but its condition has deteriorated. Gurzler said the property will remain vacant watershed land after the demolition. This is the second of two city-owned dilapidated buildings to come down in the last couple weeks. Get set to welcome the post-holiday, true beginning of the new year with a lot of hope and new-found energy. Mercurys move into Capricorn on Friday will assist you in organizing that long to-do list you may have made out for 2019. The eclipse of the sun/new moon that takes place on Saturday will encourage you to set intentions for your goals, and be confident that things, no matter how stuck they may have seemed, will finally move in the right direction. This feeling of a jump-start will be accentuated by planet Uranus emergence from a long retrograde period. You may stop simply pondering what you were going to do with this bright new year, and finally put your thoughts into action! Venus move into Sagittarius on Monday will boost your chances for getting along with people. Most will have the tendency to put aside their differences for the sake of the fun you can have together, both in business and personally. Friday will feature a shift from the energetic and outgoing energy of the Sagittarius moon to the quieter, more stable influence of Capricorn. The void of course between 12:41 and 1:55 p.m. will add intrigue to lunch hour interactions. You wont get what you expect, whether its mayo on a dry ham sandwich, or a companion who thought you said 1 p.m. and not noon. A nice interaction between the sun and Neptune during the afternoon makes the rest of the day seem magical. By evening, Mercurys move into Capricorn will make it easier to effect clear and direct communication. All week there has been a heightened sense of anticipation, and it may have had more that just the holiday to account for it. On Saturday, the new moon that occurs at 8:28 p.m. will be an eclipse of the sun. Expect there to be marked changes in your life, and to also have a willingness to embrace them with renewed commitment. On Sunday, Uranus will come out of the long retrograde period that began last August. A sudden insight about a decision you need to make could arrive, and youll suddenly feel that you know exactly what to do next. The Capricorn moons influence will ensure that you dont think or act too rashly. The world is almost certain to fully awaken from its holi-daze on Monday, and the Aquarius moon will ensure that people get in touch with the relevancy of all their actions. Venus move into Sagittarius will encourage everyone to take extra steps toward relationship harmony, too. Tuesday and Wednesday will provide opportunities to go deeper into negotiations of all kinds, thanks to a struggle between Mercury and Mars. Issues pertaining to just how much action should be taken in just how much time will be under the microscope. Try to be cautious without becoming frozen in a standstill. Thursday will feature the embracing attitude of the Pisces moon. While it might be difficult to get people to use mental clarity, actions that are taken via the heart will resonate well and do the most good possible. In the evening, the moons union with Neptune could set a romantic mood that encourages you to bring on the weekend just a little bit early. For entertainment purposes only. Credit: CC0 Public Domain A combined team of researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of California has found evidence that casts doubt on the use of zircon crystals as evidence of early development of the Earth's magnetic field. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes testing they conducted on the crystals and what they found. Scientists have long been curious about the development of the Earth's magnetic fieldit is believed to be part of the process that made life possible on the planet because it shields the atmosphere from the solar wind. But it is not known when it first appeared. Scientists believe that the field exists due to the spin of the Earth's metal core, but that theory was tested when researchers found something intriguing when studying zircon crystals from Jack Hills in Western Australia. The crystals were found to be between 3.3 and 4.2 billion years old, suggesting they could offer evidence of conditions when the planet was still forming. They noted that the crystals were magnetic, suggesting that they had been magnetized by a planetary magnetic field. But prior research has suggested the Earth's core did not harden until much laterthus, the magnetic field would have been created by a liquid core. In this new effort, the researchers claim to have found evidence that suggests the crystals could have become magnetized much later than their creation date, casting doubt on their use as evidence of a liquid core-generated magnetic field. The researchers found nano-sized holes in the crystals that appeared to have resulted from radiation damage. That allowed magnetite to accumulate within the tiny holes long after the crystals had developed. The researchers note that magnetite is very easily magnetized (hence its name) and will retain magnetism for very long periods of time, as long as it is not exposed to temperatures above 550C. This finding suggests that the magnetism in the crystals could have developed long after the crystals formedand it prevents them from being used as evidence for the existence of a planetary magnetic field during its creation stages. More information: Fengzai Tang et al. Secondary magnetite in ancient zircon precludes analysis of a Hadean geodynamo, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2019). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Fengzai Tang et al. Secondary magnetite in ancient zircon precludes analysis of a Hadean geodynamo,(2019). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1811074116 2019 Science X Network Captain James Cook sailed the Endeavour off New Zealands east coast in 1769. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-ND Two hundred and fifty years ago this year, James Cook's ship the Endeavour arrived off the eastern coast of New Zealand. The following circumnavigation marked the beginning of ongoing European contact with the indigenous population, and eventually mass British immigration from 1840. One important question historians are trying to answer is how many Maori lived in Aotearoa at the time of Cook's arrival. This question goes to the heart of the negative impacts of European contact on the size and health of the 19th-century Maori population, which subsequently bottomed out in the 1890s at just over 40,000 people. The conventional wisdom is that there were about 100,000 Maori alive in 1769, living on 268,000 square kilometres of temperate Aotearoa. This is a much lower population density (0.37 people per square kilometre) than densities achieved on tropical and much smaller Pacific Islands. Examples of order-of-magnitude higher density Pacific populations in the contact-era include: Hawai'i where 200,000 to 800,000 people lived on 28,000 square kilometres (7 to 29 people per square kilometre) Tahiti where 66,000 or more people lived on 1000 square kilometres (66 people per square kilometre), and Rapa Iti where 3000 people lived on 38 square kilometres (79 people per square kilometre). In conjunction with later 19th-century census figures, the conventional wisdom implies that European contact and colonisation following Cook's arrival was much less devastating for the indigenous population of Aotearoa than for many other Pacific islands. Three approaches have been used to support the estimate of 100,000 Maori. Unfortunately, none bears any serious weight. The Cook population estimate The 100,000-strong estimate of the contact-era Maori population is often attributed to Cook. However, it never received his seal of approval, and it was not made in 1769. It was published in a 1778 book written by Johann Forster, the naturalist on Cook's second expedition of 1772-1775. Forster's estimate is a guess, innocent of method. He suggests 100,000 Maori as a round figure at the lower end of likelihood. His direct observation of Maori was brief, in the lightly populated South Island, far from major northern Maori population centres. Later visitors had greater direct knowledge of the populous coastal northern parts of New Zealand. They also made population estimates. Some were guesses like Forster's. Others were based on a rough method. Their estimates range from 130,000 (by early British trader Joel Polack) to over 500,000 Maori (by French explorer Dumont D'Urville), both referring to the 1820s. The wide range further emphasises the lack of information in Forster's guess. A map of the east coast on New Zealands North Island, drawn by Captain James Cook. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-ND Working backwards from the 1858 census A second method takes the figure from the first New Zealand-wide Maori population census of 1858, of about 60,000 people. It works this number backwards over 89 years to 1769, making assumptions about the rate of annual population decline between 1769 and 1858. There is a good quantitative estimate for the rate of decline back from 1858 to 1844, taken from a Waikato longitudinal census. But there is nothing solid for the period before 1844. To overcome the absence of numbers, an apparently better documented and very low average annual rate of decline of the Moriori people of the Chatham Islands of 0.4% between 1791 and 1835 has been applied to New Zealand. However, the estimated rate is calculated from wrong numbers for both the 1791 and 1835 Moriori populations. In fact, there is no contemporary 1791 estimate of the Moriori population from which to calculate a meaningful rate of quantitative decline to 1835. The qualitative conclusion of low population decline is based on two propositions. The first is that prior to the 1850s, imported European diseases were localised to a few coastal areas. The second is that the impact of warfare on populations over the first half of the 19th century was minimal. What is the evidence for these propositions? The answer is not much in either case. Historical evidence suggests that there were indeed widespread epidemics in New Zealand prior to the 1850s. For example, there is evidence of a great epidemic around 1808, possibly some form of enteric fever or influenza, which killed many people across the North Island and the top of the South Island. Other high-mortality diseases known to be present in New Zealand pre-1840 and readily transmittable internally include syphilis and tuberculosis. The estimates of how many Maori died directly and indirectly on account of warfare over the 1769 to 1840 period lack a coherent method. They are weak on definitions of what they count. They cover varying or indeterminate periods. Where they can be made roughly comparable, the numbers arrived at are wildly different, with estimates of deaths ranging from 300 to 2000 people on average annually. In other words, the impact of warfare on population decline could have been quite small or quite large. We simply don't know. Overall, Hawaiian archaeologist Patrick Kirch's conclusion on the validity of this method for estimating other contact-era Pacific populations is also applicable to New Zealand. It is a largely circular exercise in assuming what needs to be proven. Predicting population from settlement The third method used to estimate 100,000 Maori predicts the population forward from first arrival in New Zealand. Prediction requires a minimum of three parameters. These are the arrival date of Maori in New Zealand, the size of the founding population and the prehistoric population growth rate to 1769. The current consensus is that voyagers from Eastern Polynesia arrived in New Zealand between 1230 and 1280 AD and then became known as Maori. However, even a 50-year difference in arrival dates can make large differences to an end population prediction. Geneticists have estimated the plausible size of the Maori female founding population as between 50 to 230 women. The high population estimate which would result from using these numbers is therefore nearly five times the size of the low estimate. Such a broad range is meaningless. Waka paddles, as described in Joseph Banks journal in 1769. From New Zealand drawings made in the countries visited by Captain Cook in his First Voyage. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-ND The third big unknown of the prediction method is the growth rate. Minimalists have employed low rates, based on prehistoric Eurasian populations, where humans had lived for tens of thousands of years. This perspective of low Maori prehistoric growth rates is problematic. Humans did not live in New Zealand prior to Maori. The population density faced by newly arriving people was zero. Also, New Zealand's flora and fauna had evolved without people. Once people arrived, they would have found more niches of exploitable nutrients than in regions where plants and animals had long co-evolved with people as apex predators. Such circumstances allowed for a potentially rapid Maori population expansion. Indeed, historically recorded population growth rates for Pacific islands with small founding populations could be exceptionally high. For example, on tiny, resource-constrained Pitcairn Island, population growth averaged an astounding 3% annually over 66 years between 1790 and 1856. Arguments for rapid prehistoric population growth run up against other problems. Skeletal evidence seems to show that prehistoric Maori female fertility rates were too low; and mortality, indicated by a low average adult age at death, was too high to generate rapid population growth. This low-fertility finding has always been puzzling, given high Maori fertility rates in the latter 19th century. Equally, archaeological findings of a low average adult age at death have been difficult to reconcile with numbers of elderly Maori observed in accounts of early explorers. However, recent literature on using skeletal remains to estimate either female fertility or adult age at death is sceptical that this evidence can determine either variable in a manner approaching acceptable reliability. So high growth paths cannot be ruled out. Because of resulting uncertainties in the three key parameters and the 500-year-plus forecast horizon, the plausible population range around 100,000 Maori in 1769 is so broad as to make any prediction estimate meaningless. Virtually any contact-era population can be illustrated by someone with a modicum of numerical nous. Density analogies In the 2017 New Zealand Journal of History, New Zealand archaeologist Atholl Anderson argues that medieval population density on the large (about 103,000 square kilometres, slightly smaller than the North Island), isolated and sub-arctic island of Iceland is a much better analogy for likely contact-era Maori density than those of smaller tropical Pacific islands. He uses Icelandic population density from the year 1800, over 900 years into the settlement sequence. If Icelandic population numbers closest to 500 years into the settlement sequence were used, they would provide a more direct temporal analogy for 500 years of Maori settlement in 1769. Iceland was settled circa 870 AD. The best estimates of the pre-industrial Icelandic population closest to 500 years post-settlement are from 1311. They are based on farm numbers counted for tax purposes. This method gives 72,000 to 95,000 Icelanders. So, in its medieval period, sub-arctic Iceland achieved population densities of 0.70 to 0.92 people per square km. Applying these densities to contact-era temperate New Zealand gives a Maori population of between 190,000 to 250,000 people when Cook arrived. In terms of a New Zealand-related density analogy, there is good 1835 population data from the temperate Chatham Islands (about 970 square kilometres in area), giving a Moriori population density exceeding two people per square kilometre. It was measured after decades of likely population decline from contact with European sealers and whalers, as well as after at least one serious epidemic. Applying this density figure to the North Island alone, which the Chatham Islands climatically best resembles, gives 230,000 people when Cook arrived. Using analogies from Iceland and the Chatham Islands suggests that post-Cook European contact may have been more devastating for Maori than conventional wisdom acknowledges. There may have been 200,000 or more Maori in 1769, falling to about 40,000 in the 1890s. Additionally, a figure of 200,000 or more Maori implies that much post-contact population decline occurred prior to mass British immigration. As elsewhere in the Americas and the Pacific, perhaps European germs, not mass immigration, were the primary driver of indigenous population decline. But 250 years on from Cook, more work and different methods are needed to answer this question. Explore further Growing drug resistance will lead to long-term harm This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Credit: Colorado State University Will there be enough water for everyone in the near future? Water equity affects us all and is one of the 21st century's key environmental justice issues. While people may look to CSU's engineers and watershed scientists for answers, the Department of Sociology also has an important role in ensuring water quality and access. CSU is internationally known for its water expertise, and Sociology is home to some of CSU's water specialists. "Increasingly, water managers and community leaders are involving social scientists in order to develop effective responses to today's water challenges," says Dr. Pete Taylor, Department of Sociology professor and chair. Including social scientists ensures that legal, economic and social barriers are considered when policies and collaborative efforts are designed and implemented. Sociologists work directly with water stakeholders including farmers, engineers, urban developers, conservationists, lawmakers, and more. They connect individuals to groups and help groups understand individuals' interests and behaviors. Without sociologists, scientific data is often undecipherable for everyday people, and concerns people have about their livelihoods are often misunderstood by decision-making groups. When sociologists bridge communication gaps, conversations flow and better solutions emerge. Water Pressure Taylor and research assistant Kelsea Macilroy, Sociology Ph.D. student, have worked with farmers, environmentalists, and government agencies along the Colorado River as key participants in the project "Moving Forward on Agricultural Water Conservation." The Colorado Water Institute (CWI), a CSU affiliate that connects water experts with managers and users, designed the project, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) funded it. The Colorado River serves many purposes as it crosses several states, and agricultural users hold the largest percentage of its water rights. As populations grow and climate change and drought occur, cities and federal agencies have asked farmers to conserve and share their agricultural water to help prevent future shortages. But the effects of sharing this over-allocated resource vary considerably by stakeholder and involve real risks for farmers, so scientists including sociologists began researching the technical aspects of water flow, the social aspects of water law, and more. Water rights are often the most important asset a farmer has, and only mother nature knows how much or how little will be needed from year to year. Water law here in the west is, in a nutshell, "use it or lose it," meaning farmers who conserve water and share it may risk losing their rights to it in the future. Taylor and Macilroy reviewed literature and conducted more than 50 in-depth interviews with stakeholders along the CRB. The sociologists found that many irrigation farmers are willing to cooperate, especially if they know their voices are being heard by policymakers. By bringing legal, economic, and social barriers to light, sociologists have supported water managers and legislators' efforts to begin to put protections in place for farmers. Conversation and conservation are flowing. The sociologists also found that collaborations are more successful when water conservation is considered as a community issue rather than just a farming issue. Their findings from six extensive case studies include innovative legal frameworks, economic incentives, irrigation agreements, and more solutions that are benefiting both rural and urban residents, and even endangered fish swimming in between. Findings available here are being shared in CSU's classrooms as well as in the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation and other articles for professional journals used by water practitioners, policymakers, and faculty at other universities. In June, Taylor was invited to Shanghai, China to present the case studies, barriers, and opportunities to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), one of the world's most important social science think tanks. Several CSU sociology faculty also presented at CASS as part of a larger, multi-year initiative through CSU's Vice President for Engagement Office to build ties worldwide around outreach and community engagement. Tapping into the Community CSU sociology associate professor Dr. Stephanie Malin is also bringing people together to share and disseminate successes. This fall's special issue of CWI's Colorado Water includes articles from citizens, authors, and academics who attended an event Malin co-organized at CSU, "Stories of Water Equity and Environmental Justice Symposium." Representatives from the Flint, MI water crisis and the Dakota Access Pipeline conflict shared their experiences, while others discussed access to safe water and sanitation as a human right, how natural disasters and hazards affect underrepresented communities, and much more. The Ripple Effect Sharing innovative solutions is vital, especially because water shortage is a global issue. Taylor and CSU sociology affiliate David Sonnenfeld, as co-editors of Society and Natural Resources, were interested in how water crises are being addressed worldwide. They put out a call for field-based findings by social scientists investigating water issues. More than 120 submissions were received from around the world. The editors selected as many as their April 2017 issue could hold. Then, they co-authored a recent book "Water Crises and Governance: Reinventing Collaborative Institutions in an Era of Uncertainty" to share valuable tools for water managers, industry influencers, educators, and anyone willing to rethink highly complex environmental and social crises as opportunities. Bridging Water and People While Taylor's research is in the dissemination phase, Malin is kicking off a new project. She and Dr. Josh Sbicca, also a CSU sociology assistant professor, are principal investigators for "Food-Energy-Water Systems Justice: Urban and Rural Corridors in the Rio Grande-Bravo Basin (RGB)." The project will identify critical environmental justice issues and opportunities in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico thanks to funding from CSU's Water Center, which facilitates collaboration among more than 200 water experts on campus. Macilroy is also involved in this project as the program coordinator. Malin is guiding graduate students as they map the large area's community and environmental justice stakeholders, which include grassroots groups, government agencies, and everyone in between. The team is also creating geographic information systems and other comprehensive maps and databases of local socio-environmental systems. The flow of information and impact continues with webinar and listening sessions this spring. By gathering residents' input on possible legal, economic, and social ramifications prior to agencies putting large-scale plans in place, sociologists help ensure that partnerships among these groups and future regulations are equitable for everyone. "We bridge science and communities," says Malin. "These projects build relationships by allowing us to interact with people on the ground." Explore further California water managers vary in use of climate science Timber rattlesnakes, according to the study's author, are among the most docile creatures in Appalachia. Credit: Thomas Maigret. On the Cumberland Plateau in eastern Kentucky, surface coal mining is destroying ridgelines and mountaintops, and along with them, the habitat of a surprisingly gentle reptile speciesthe timber rattlesnake. "Timber rattlesnakes may be the most docile, calm animals of their size in eastern US forests," Thomas Maigret, a researcher from the University of Kentucky, said. "On several occasions, I've witnessed spiders using a rattlesnake as an anchor for a web. Females, especially, move very infrequently, and pose almost no threat to a careful human." Unfortunately for the timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) and other species in this regionboth plant and animalsurface coal mining requires complete removal of mature forest cover and the upper soil layers. This means that soil is scraped away, rocks disturbed and dug out, plants and trees removed, or the ridgetop landscape flattened and made more uniform to reach the coal buried in the earth. This alteration eliminates many diverse, unique places for animals to live and hibernate. The central Appalachia region spans eastern Kentucky, northeastern Tennessee, southwest Virginia, and southern West Virginia and is one of the most diverse non-tropical ecosystems in the world with thousands of plant and animal species, many that are only found there. Maigret and his colleagues tracked timber rattlesnakes in a study published today in the Ecological Society of America's journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. The researchers implanted radio transmitters in snakes of the Cumberland Plateau and tracked their movements until they retreated to hibernation sites in the fall. The data gathered provided a roadmap for identifying other potential hibernating sites, or "hibernacula," across the study area. "Snakes of the eastern U.S. vary in their hibernacula selection behavior, and for many species not much is known about hibernacula preferences," Maigret explained. "For example, many aquatic snakes prefer damp hibernacula near the streams where they reside during the summer. But for other species, any warm, protected crevice they can fit into seems to suffice." Timber rattlesnakes choose places to hibernate that are more likely to be surface mined due to their ridgetop locations. Mining thus put this species at a disadvantage and reduces the biodiversity of the area. Credit: Thomas Maigret. By analyzing remote-sensing and satellite imagery, mining maps, and permit data from the USGS and other sources, the researchers were then able to determine how mining might affect a wide range of hibernation sites. They found that because timber rattlesnakes tend to hibernate in the same places that make ideal mines, surface mining disproportionately alters or eliminates their preferred habitat. "Other species with habitat preferences similar to timber rattlesnakesincluding some snakesmay also be affected disproportionately by mining. On the other hand," Maigret said, "species associated with middle or lower slopes will not be affected by mining to the same extent." In other words, the mining operations here are selecting against timber rattlesnake habitat, effectively cutting into the region's biodiversity. The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 does not require mining companies to reforest the area to the original mountaintop landscape after mining has wrapped up. The law does dictate that the "approximate original contours" of a site be re-established, in an attempt to not leave the area uninhabitable by the species that once lived there. However, it is rare for forests and biodiversity to fully recover from mining-related disturbances, to the detriment of many animals and their habitats. Is the damage done to mountain-tops irreversible? While researchers are actively improving the ability to restore habitats on reclaimed mine lands, surface mining acts as an eraser of unique ecosystems, creating a uniform landscape where there once were diverse habitat options. In the Cumberland Plateau, mining leaves conservation and management efforts very little to work with even after an operation restores the approximate original mountaintop landscape. Still, Maigret is optimistic about the future of restoring mined areas for the docile rattlesnakes. "Coal mining in central Appalachia has serious economic headwinds," he stated, "and may never return to the rates of surface mining of the late 20th century. Timber rattlesnakes are resilient, and their ability to adapt to previous landscape changesincluding massive deforestation in the 19th and early 20th centuryshould not be underestimated." Explore further Old mines cast a long shadow on their surroundings More information: Thomas A Maigret et al, Persistent geophysical effects of mining threaten ridgetop biota of Appalachian forests, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (2019). Journal information: Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment Thomas A Maigret et al, Persistent geophysical effects of mining threaten ridgetop biota of Appalachian forests,(2019). DOI: 10.1002/fee.1992 A young Magellanic penguin male. On average, males at Punta Tombo dont breed until age 7 and, with the increasingly skewed sex ratio, fewer and fewer males are finding mates each breeding season. Credit: Natasha Gownaris Like most of their stout-bodied, flippered kin, Magellanic penguins spend much of their lives in the ocean. From late autumn through winter and into spring in the Southern Hemisphere, these South American penguins swim off the coast of southern Brazil, Uruguay and northern Argentina in search of anchovies, sardines and squid. But as spring turns to summer, they swim thousands of miles south and congregate in big coastal colonies. There, males and females pair off, breed and attempt to rear one or two newly hatched chicks. One of the largest breeding colonies for Magellanic penguins is at Punta Tombo in Argentina, where University of Washington biology professor P. Dee Boersma and her team at the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels have studied the penguins since 1982. They have documented a population decline at Punta Tombo of more than 40 percent since 1987, along with a rising male-to-female ratio, and have spent years trying to pinpoint its cause. In a paper published Jan. 2 in the journal Ecological Applications, Boersma and UW postdoctoral researcher Natasha Gownaris report that juvenile females are more likely to die at sea, which has caused a skewed sex ratio of nearly three males to every female, as well as population decline. Their study incorporated more than 30 years of population data collected by UW researchersincluding banding and studying individual penguinsinto models of population dynamics. Boersma and Gownaris' models show that juveniles have much lower survival rates than adults in all years, a common phenomenon in seabirds. In addition, among both juveniles and adults, females are less likely to survive than males, but this sex bias is much larger among juveniles. Adult females seem to fare worst in years when overall survival is low, suggesting they are more vulnerable than males to disruptions in the food supply during the nonbreeding season. "From a conservation standpoint, this study shows us how important it is to try to protect the places where these penguins feed throughout the year, both in the breeding season and the nonbreeding season," said Gownaris. "It all comes down to food for this species." A Magellanic penguin mated pair mutually preening. Credit: Natasha Gownaris This study relied on year-to-year surveys of penguins that had been fitted with stainless-steel bands marked with a unique five-digit number. Between 1983 and 2010, Boersma and her team banded 44,374 chicks at Punta Tombo, tracking generations of Magellanic penguin families. Only 3,296 of these individuals survived and were seen again at the colony. In 57 percent of cases, researchers also noted the sex of the individualno easy task in a species where males and females look so much alike. Each Southern Hemisphere summer, which corresponds to winter in the Northern Hemisphere, researchers noted which individuals returned to Punta Tombo, and gathered information such as body condition and breeding success. The 3,296 penguins that returned are a small fraction of the hundreds of thousands who came to Punta Tombo over the three-decade survey period. But information about the banded birds helped Gownaris and Boersma learn about the entire population. Gownaris compared the results from her models of banded birds to annual survey data collected throughout the colony. These comparisons allowed her to see whether trends in the banded birds were also seen in the larger population. One of these trends is an increasingly skewed sex ratio and more single male penguins. "Two decades ago, there were about 1.5 adult male Magellanic penguins for every adult female at Punta Tombo," said Gownaris. "Today, it's approaching three males for every female." A Magellanic penguin parent feeding its chicks as its mate looks on. Credit: Natasha Gownaris Both the survey data and population models indicated that adult sex ratios were skewed because fewer females than males returned to the colony each spring for the breeding season. The surveys of banded penguins showed an average return rate for juvenile males of just 17 percent, and 12 percent for juvenile females. Gownaris' models of the whole population indicated that male juveniles had an average return rate about 33.3 percentage points higher than females. Adult Magellanic penguins had much higher return rates than juveniles, and though females still lagged behind males, the gap was not as large as in juveniles. About 89 percent of adult males returned each year, as did 85 percent of females. Though this may seem like a small difference, the bias in survival accumulates over time. By the time a cohort of penguins reaches age 25, there are about six males for every female. Other groups have analyzed Magellanic penguin corpses that washed up off the coast of southern Brazil in winter. Their studies also indicate that females are more likely to die of starvation than malesespecially juvenile females. Though male and female Magellanic penguins look similar, males are about 17 percent larger, and have longer and thicker bills. This may give males a significant advantage when foraging for food in the oceanespecially when oceanographic conditions make finding food in the winter more difficult, as the team showed in a paper published in August. A Magellanic penguin chick nearly ready to fledge, as shown by the small amount of down on its head, and leave for its first year at sea. Credit: Natasha Gownaris Using population models, Gownaris showed that the higher mortality of females at Punta Tombo contributed to skewed sex ratios and consequent population declines at the site from 1990 to 2010. This contribution was much greater than that of variation in chick survival. The data also suggest that, due to the skewed sex ratio, the population may be declining faster than suggested by the population surveys that are typically used to calculate population trends in the colony. "It makes sense that the worsening sex ratio is responsible for so much of the population decline at Punta Tombo based on what we know about penguin behavior," said Gownaris. "Magellanic penguins are serially monogamouswith one male pairing with one female each breeding seasonand both parents working together to rear the chicks. So, having fewer females means you have fewer pairings each year overall." Gownaris wants to survey other Magellanic penguin breeding colonies along the coast to see if they show similarly skewed sex ratios. She and Boersma hope that this information will help new conservation efforts. "Over the years, this team has helped preserve the land and waters around breeding colonies like Punta Tombo," said Gownaris. "But now we're starting to understand that, to help Magellanic penguins, you have to protect waters where they feed in winter, which are thousands of miles north from Punta Tombo." More information: N. J. Gownaris et al. Sex-biased survival contributes to population decline in a long-lived seabird, the Magellanic Penguin, Ecological Applications (2019). Journal information: Ecological Applications N. J. Gownaris et al. Sex-biased survival contributes to population decline in a long-lived seabird, the Magellanic Penguin,(2019). DOI: 10.1002/eap.1826 By Benjamin Jumbe. Pentecostal pastors are set to hold a meeting this morning in Kampala over governments recent move to regulate churches. It follows a recent announcement by the state minister for ethics and Integrity Rev Fr Simon Lokodo that government had suspended registration of religious and faith-based organisationsuntil a legal framework is instituted to monitor operations of Churches. The minister also said government was set to implement a new policy that will require all preachers in the country to have theological training before opening up a church which among other things is aimed at enforcing transparency and financial accountability in religious and faith based institution in the country. The move has attracted castigation from the Pentecostal pastors who say they were excluded from the policy making process. Now speaking to Kfm Bishop David Kiganda says todays meeting is for consultation before a common position is reached which can be forwarded to government for consideration. Guillaume Lamarche-Gagnon sampling some water with a syringe into a vial for later methane analysis, with the Glacier visible in the background. Credit: Marie Bulinova The Greenland Ice Sheet emits tons of methane according to a new study, showing that subglacial biological activity impacts the atmosphere far more than previously thought. An international team of researchers led by the University of Bristol camped for three months next to the Greenland Ice Sheet, sampling the meltwater that runs off a large catchment (> 600 km2) of the Ice Sheet during the summer months. As reported in Nature, using novel sensors to measure methane in meltwater runoff in real time, they observed that methane was continuously exported from beneath the ice. They calculated that at least six tons of methane was transported to their measuring site from this portion of the Ice Sheet alone, roughly the equivalent of the methane released by up to 100 cows. Professor Jemma Wadham, Director of Bristol's Cabot Institute for the Environment, who led the investigation, said: "A key finding is that much of the methane produced beneath the ice likely escapes the Greenland Ice Sheet in large, fast flowing rivers before it can be oxidized to CO 2 , a typical fate for methane gas which normally reduces its greenhouse warming potency." Methane gas (CH 4 ) is the third most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere after water vapour and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). Although, present in lower concentrations that CO 2 , methane is approximately 20-28 times more potent. Therefore smaller quantities have the potential to cause disproportionate impacts on atmospheric temperatures. Most of the Earth's methane is produced by microorganisms that convert organic matter to CH 4 in the absence of oxygen, mostly in wetlands and on agricultural land, for instance in the stomachs of cows and rice paddies. The remainder comes from fossil fuels like natural gas. While some methane had been detected previously in Greenland ice cores and in an Antarctic Subglacial Lake, this is the first time that meltwaters produced in spring and summer in large ice sheet catchments have been reported to continuously flush out methane from the ice sheet bed to the atmosphere. Lead author, Guillaume Lamarche-Gagnon, from Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences, said: "What is also striking is the fact that we've found unequivocal evidence of a widespread subglacial microbial system. Whilst we knew that methane-producing microbes likely were important in subglacial environments, how important and widespread they truly were was debatable. Now we clearly see that active microorganisms, living under kilometres of ice, are not only surviving, but likely impacting other parts of the Earth system. This subglacial methane is essentially a biomarker for life in these isolated habitats." Most studies on Arctic methane sources focus on permafrost, because these frozen soils tend to hold large reserves of organic carbon that could be converted to methane when they thaw due to climate warming. This latest study shows that ice sheet beds, which hold large reserves of carbon, liquid water, microorganisms and very little oxygen the ideal conditions for creating methane gas are also atmospheric methane sources. Co-researcher Dr. Elizabeth Bagshaw from Cardiff University added: "The new sensor technologies that we used give us a window into this previously unseen part of the glacial environment. Continuous measurement of meltwater enables us to improve our understanding of how these fascinating systems work and how they impact the rest of the planet." With Antarctica holding the largest ice mass on the planet, researchers say their findings make a case for turning the spotlight to the south. Mr Lamarche-Gagnon added: "Several orders of magnitude more methane has been hypothesized to be capped beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet than beneath Arctic ice-masses. Like we did in Greenland, it's time to put more robust numbers on the theory." Explore further Volcanoes and glaciers combine as powerful methane producers More information: Guillaume Lamarche-Gagnon et al. Greenland melt drives continuous export of methane from the ice-sheet bed, Nature (2018). Journal information: Nature Guillaume Lamarche-Gagnon et al. Greenland melt drives continuous export of methane from the ice-sheet bed,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0800-0 Human errors caused by a lack of standardised procedures and insufficient training are the major drivers behind loss in food manufacturing, a new study has found. Researchers at Brunel University London and Ghent University studied the production processes at 47 food manufacturers in Belgium to determine where the highest losses were observed. They found that human error accounted for 10.9% of all food waste, second only to the losses recorded as a result of product change changing the food output of a manufacturing facility. The findings will be published in the journal Annals of Operations Research. "At most of the companies we went to, there was no standardisation of work or visual management in place," said Dr. Manoj Dora of Brunel Business School, who led the study. "It's a management issue." "In many instances there wasn't proper training or a standardisation of work being applied in their workplace, and as a result there was a greater tendency towards errors, and therefore, more food waste." The researchers gathered data from a wide variety of companies, ranging from ready-meal manufacturers producing 6,300 tonnes of food per year, to drinks manufacturers producing nearly 130,000 tonnes of products per year. On average the manufacturers suffer a loss of 1 tonne of food for every 35 tonnes they produce. Where 10.9% of this loss was accounted for by human error and 13% was caused by product changes, a further 8.7% was attributed to product defects and 6.4% as a result of buyer contracts. "Aside from human error, another key area of loss is product changes," said Dr. Dora. "Say you're making a tomato sauce and when you've finished you want to make a mustard sauce, then this means the whole process must be cleaned. This whole process contributes a significant amount of loss." Dr. Dora and his team also identified the relationship a company has with its suppliers and customers as being an area of significant loss, especially when considering seasonal goods. "When dealing with suppliers, it's important when you order, how you order, and how you keep the produce," said Dr. Dora. "But then dealing with the buyers the supermarkets is also critical. Let's say a retailer orders a thousand kilos of sausages predicting good weather, but then it clouds over and rains, so retailer cut down their demand. This would mean the manufacturer bears these losses, and there is significant waste." "This shows a lack of collaboration in the supply chain the farmer, the processor and the buyers aren't in sync. They're talking, but not enough to predict each other's demand and supply." One of the most interesting findings, said Dr. Dora, was how unaware many manufacturers particularly the smaller ones were of how much food they were wasting. "We were amazed to see how little companies didn't actually measure how much they were throwing away, and they were surprised to see in monetary terms how much they're losing because of food loss," said Dr. Dora. "Good collaboration, appropriate measurement systems and the implementation of lean management tools in the production process can significantly reduce food loss". The paper Importance of Sustainable Operations in Food LossEvidence from the Belgian food processing industry will be published in the Annals of Operations Research. More information: Annals of Operations Research. link.springer.com/journal/10479 An adult of the recently discovered species Hyloscirtus hillisi. Credit: Gustavo Pazmino, BIOWEB Ecuador A new treefrog species was discovered during a two-week expedition to a remote tabletop mountain at Cordillera del Condor, a largely unexplored range in the eastern Andes. "To reach the tabletop, we walked two days along a steep terrain. Then, between sweat and exhaustion, we arrived to the tabletop where we found a dwarf forest. The rivers had blackwater and the frogs were sitting along them, on branches of brown shrubs similar in color to the frogs' own. The frogs were difficult to find, because they blended with their background," Alex Achig, one of the field biologists who discovered the new species comments on the hardships of the expedition. Curiously, the frog has an extraordinary, enlarged claw-like structure located at the base of the thumb. Its function is unknown, but it could be that it is used either as a defence against predators or as a weapon in fights between competing males. Having conducted analyses of genetic and morphologic data, scientists Santiago R. Ron, Marcel Caminer, Andrea Varela, and Diego Almeida from the Catholic University of Ecuador concluded that the frog represented a previously unknown species. It was recently described in the open-access journal ZooKeys. Unlike other frogs, the new species has a claw at the base of the thumb. The function of this unusual structure is still unknown. Credit: Gustavo Pazmino, BIOWEB Ecuador The species name, Hyloscirtus hillisi, honors Dr. David Hillis, a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, who discovered three closely related frog species in the same genus in the 1980s, while conducting a series of field trips to the Andes of southern Ecuador. Throughout his career, Dr. Hillis has made significant contributions to the knowledge of Andean amphibians and reptiles. Despite being newly described, Hyloscirtus hillisi is already at risk of extinction. It has a small distribution range near a large-scale mining operation carried out by a Chinese company. Habitat destruction in the region has been recently documented by the NGO Amazon Conservation. The recently discovered treefrog species (Hyloscirtus hillisi) in its natural habitat. Credit: BIOWEB Explore further Search for vanishing frogs leads to discovery of new species More information: Santiago R. Ron et al, A new treefrog from Cordillera del Condor with comments on the biogeographic affinity between Cordillera del Condor and the Guianan Tepuis (Anura, Hylidae, Hyloscirtus), ZooKeys (2018). Journal information: ZooKeys Santiago R. Ron et al, A new treefrog from Cordillera del Condor with comments on the biogeographic affinity between Cordillera del Condor and the Guianan Tepuis (Anura, Hylidae, Hyloscirtus),(2018). DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.809.25207 Cannon Beach in Oregon is a popular site for tourists, but has also experienced dangerous sneaker waves. Credit: Jeff Hollett On January 16, 2016, a sudden swath of large and powerful waves swept through seaside communities along 450 kilometers (280 miles) of Pacific Northwest coastline. From Washington to northern California, water rushed past normal tide lines and filled beaches and streets, stretching hundreds of meters inland. These "sneaker waves" are aptly named given their unannounced arrival, which occurs when massive waves push extra water onshorea higher-than-usual water level that scientists refer to as runup. At best, these events take beachgoers by surprise. At worst, they are disastrous and fatal. Researchers taking interest in these surprise events are starting to understand how they unfold. The data gathered so far suggests distant storms created the swells that drove the 2016 sneaker wave and another that occurred in early 2018, according to Chuan Li, a civil engineering graduate student at Oregon State University who presented his team's most recent work on the two massive waves last month at the 2018 AGU Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C. As researchers learn more about what caused these events, Li said they hope to better inform the public about the possibility of an unexpected and powerful sneaker wave. "The bottom line is we're trying to better understand these extreme runup events so we can inform the public," Li said. "This work is motivated by wanting to provide additional safety for beachgoers and ultimately creating more awareness and better warning systems." Taking the "sneak" out of "sneaker waves" Sneaker waves are fairly common in the Pacific Northwest. But the 2016 one was different. "Video footage showed really large wave runup events within two or three hours of each other," Li said. "The runup was so strong and went so far that people were up to their knees and water went all the way up into an inlet. We saw some pretty unusual phenomenon on this particular day." Li and other scientists were confounded: the wave activity measured deep in the ocean and on shore resembled conditions for a small tsunami, but without the triggering earthquake or telltale atmospheric disturbances. "These long runup signals are often generated by things like earthquakes, submarine landslides, and tsunamis, or sometimes by waves at the surface," said Ryan Mulligan, a coastal engineer and oceanographer from Queens University in Kingston, Ontario who was not involved in the research. "I don't think I've ever seen effects in the deep ocean and on shore like that unless it's a tsunami. So if it's not a tsunami, then what is going on?" To get to the bottom of this mystery, a team of researchers at Oregon State University examined the near- and off-shore conditions leading up to and during the sneaker wave. They turned to existing data gathered by sensors and instruments off the Pacific Northwest coast: tide gauges, wave buoys, and bottom sensors on the ocean floor. Examining the wave patterns around the runup event, Li's team observed unusually long and rapidly increasing peak wave periods both near the shore and further out at sea, indicating that a large swell may have driven the runup. What exactly caused the swell was not yet clear, but Li suspects distant storms may have been responsible. As Li and his colleagues began to dive deeper into analyzing the instrumentation data, they learned that the 2016 sneaker wave was not a one-off event. Two years laternearly to the dayanother massive runup event burst on the scene. It produced similar oddball signals and yielded another wave of attention on social media. But Li says there is still not enough information readily available to protect the public from these occurrences. Sneaker waves don't move in a predictable pattern like most wave sets, making them difficult for passersby to anticipate, according to Li. "Visitors often don't know much about the dangers of this particular part of the world, where we get very big waves," Li said. "They might think, I can just stand by the edge of the water and I'll be okay. But [these events] are the leading cause of death by drowning in this area." Li's team now plans to further explore the possible drivers of this event and better understand potential generation mechanisms. "We're hoping to do some numerical modeling and lab workrunning some short waves immediately followed by very long wavesto see if we can replicate some of this," Li said. "We're going to try to understand as much as possible." Explore further Deadly Indonesian tsunami was unleashed by landslide in Palu Bay, study suggests More information: Generation of unusually large runup events. Generation of unusually large runup events. agu.confex.com/agu/fm18/meetin app.cgi/Paper/458132 Provided by GeoSpace This story is republished courtesy of AGU Blogs (http://blogs.agu.org), a community of Earth and space science blogs, hosted by the American Geophysical Union. Read the original story here. Taiwans hard core pro-independence camp has warned the self-ruled island is facing an imminent crisis and called on President Tsai Ing-wen to drop her ambitions for a second term and take a back seat role for the rest of her governments time in office. Four senior figures from the hardline faction of Tsais pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) endorsed an open letter, published on Thursday in several local newspapers, which warned of a party split if she insisted on standing again. The four signatories Peng Ming-mun, Wu Li-pei, Lee Yuan-tseh and Kao Chun-ming are veteran pro-independence activists whose faction within the DPP has long shown its displeasure with Tsai for her relatively soft position on independence. The incendiary letter was published a day after Chinese President Xi Jinping said it was time for Beijing and Taipei to start talks on unification and the adoption of one country, two systems in Taiwan, a stance which was roundly rejected by Tsai. In what analysts said was clear evidence the two leaders were now playing a zero-sum game, Tsai said Taiwan would not accept the one country, two systems model and that it was opposed by majority opinion. She also said no individuals or parties could represent the government in talks with the mainland. The open letter called the current situation extremely severe and difficult for the DPP, due to its crushing defeat in the November local elections, in which the party lost 2 million votes and seven of the 13 cities and counties it used to control, including Kaohsiung, its stronghold in southern Taiwan. The Kuomintang (KMT) victory in the local elections was equivalent to Taiwan opening up to the mainland, as the heads of local governments from north to south were now from the mainland-friendly KMT, the letter said. It said if Tsai insisted in running, not only she would face a bitter defeat, but the party would split because other, more qualified, party members who no longer have trust and confidence in Tsai would challenge her in next years elections. Story continues The hard core camp would have no option but to support those people, the letter continued. Our appeals are very clear: First, President Tsai must give up her ambition to seek a second term and announce that she would only serve one term. Second, the president must hand over her executive power and retreat to the backstage to allow the premier to assume his duty of forming his own cabinet in line with the constitution. Presidential spokesman Alex Huang said the most serious thing to do at this time was to safeguard Taiwans sovereignty, rather than discussing next years elections. No one can decide who to run and who shouldnt run. Its the democratic mechanism which has the last say, he said. In Beijing, Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesman for the State Councils Taiwan Affairs Office, lashed out at Tsai for rejecting Xis calls for unification. What Tsai said is a naked announcement of the separatists state-to-state theory, which not only goes against the wishes of the people of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, but also intensifies the confrontation between the two sides and sabotages cross-strait peaceful development, he said. Ma said Tsai must self-reflect after the DPPs crushing defeat instead of continuing to promote a confrontational policy towards the mainland. One country, two systems . is the best solution for cross-strait unification issue, he said. Taiwan and the mainland have been divided since Kuomintang, or Chinese Nationalist, forces were defeated by the Communists and retreated to the island in 1949, at the end of Chinas civil war. In the 70 years since, relations across the strait have been tense, with the threat of military confrontation ever present. This article Taiwans Tsai Ing-wen urged to stand aside by hardline pro-independence faction first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. World number one Novak Djokovic won another gruelling battle in Doha on Thursday to continue his unbeaten start to the year and progress to the Qatar Open semi-finals. The Serb came from a set down, just like in his previous match, to beat Georgia's Nikoloz Basilashvili 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in a match lasting almost two hours. Djokovic will play Spain's Roberto Bautista Agut in Friday's semi-final, who beat three-time Grand Slam winner Stan Wawrinka in straight sets 6-4, 6-4. It is the first time Djokovic has won back-to-back matches from a set down since Cincinnati in August last year, a tournament he went on to win. As on the previous evening, where he struggled against Hungary's Marton Fucsovics, the Serb started slowly. He lost his first service game and never recovered the break as Basilashvili, the number five seed, powered by a blistering forehand took the first set. However, Djokovic's fortunes changed in the second set when he broke the Georgian in the fifth game and slowly took control of the match. By contrast, Djokovic's opponent in the semi-final is yet to drop a set this week. However, the Serb, twice a previous tournament winner in Doha, remains the overwhelming favourite to win the tournament and now has a 15-1 record overall in Doha. The irrepressible Djokovic then headed back out to court to play his sixth match of the week in the doubles with his brother Marko. Also through to the semi-finals is Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic who brushed aside France's Pierre-Hugues Herbert, one of the surprises of the tournament, 6-2, 6-4. Berdych is a former finalist in Doha, losing in 2015 to David Ferrer. The last semi-final spot went to Italy's Marco Cecchinato who beat Dusan Lajovic of Serbia 7-6 (7/2), 6-2. As diplomatic rift between Japan and South Korea deepens, how hard can Seoul afford to push? Relations between South Korea and Japan are at an all-time low and the rift between the two governments could yet deepen in 2019. In the event of further diplomatic unrest, though, Seoul appears the likely loser, given its economic exposure. Bilateral relations were immediately strained when Moon Jae-in came to power in Seoul in May 2017. Tokyo was wary of his left-wing leanings and concerned that he would offer support and aid to the regime in North Korea. From Tokyos perspective, those fears have been borne out. In November, Moons administration invalidated an agreement Tokyo made with his predecessor, Park Geun-hye, to resolve the long-running issue of Japans use of wartime sex slaves, referred to as comfort women. Weeks later, South Koreas Supreme Court ruled Japanese firms could be held liable for forced labour during the years of Tokyos colonial rule on the Korean peninsula. The ruling contradicted Tokyos position that all compensation claims had been settled by the 1965 treaty that normalised relations between the two countries. The animosity has not subsided in the weeks since. The armed forces of both countries traded accusations over an encounter in the sea that separates the countries. Tokyo claimed a South Korean warship used its fire radar to lock onto a reconnaissance aircraft. Seoul countered that the Japanese aeroplane was flying too low as its ship attempted to help a North Korean vessel in distress and that it did not use its fire control radar. This has to be the lowest point that I can remember in South Korea-Japan relations Yoichi Shimada, international relations professor The issue of forced labour was given further impetus on Wednesday when lawyers representing the four South Korean plaintiffs filed for a local court to seize assets of Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal. The money would be used to pay 100 million won (US$89,000) compensation to each plaintiff, as ordered by the Supreme Court. Story continues This has to be the lowest point that I can remember in South Korea-Japan relations, although I dont actually think that too many Koreans are interested in the case surrounding the former forced labourers, said Yoichi Shimada, a professor of international relations at Fukui Prefectural University. But here in Japan, I can see a mounting distaste against the Korean government, particularly in connection with the radar lock-on incident. That is particularly worrisome. Even left-leaning newspapers in Japan, like the Asahi, have condemned South Korea on these issues and the next worry is that the Moon administration will go ahead with extending financial support and aid to the North Korean regime. According to Shimada, members of Shinzo Abes government are indignant about Seouls broken promises. They have, however, adopted a posture of intentional indifference towards Moons government, in the expectation it will eventually be undermined by low approval ratings, rising unemployment and a diminished economy. Japanese firms have been worried about their operations in Korea and they are already making plans to reduce their operations there and shift their focus to Southeast Asia or India, Shimada said. In the longer term, the weakening economy and ageing population make Korea a less attractive market. But I talk to South Korean businesspeople and they are very worried about Japanese firms leaving, he said. They know just how important Japanese companies are to the overall economy and they worry what will happen if Chinese companies decide they want a bigger piece of the Korean market. I think they are right to be worried. This article As diplomatic rift between Japan and South Korea deepens, how hard can Seoul afford to push? first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. More from South China Morning Post: This story is part of an ongoing series on US-China relations produced jointly by the South China Morning Post and POLITICO, with reporting from Asia and the United States. Chinas Vice-President Wang Qishan will lead the Chinese delegation at the World Economic Forums annual meeting from January 22-25 in Davos, Switzerland, according to two separate sources familiar with the arrangements. It is not known if Wang will have an official meeting with US President Donald Trump, who will be making his second appearance at the annual gathering of global elites. Wang, who has a reputation as Chinas firefighter for his track record of handling Beijings most difficult tasks, has been cautiously stepping up on the diplomatic front. He attended a new economic forum organised by US billionaire Michael Bloomberg in Singapore last November and criticised unilateralism, although he did not directly name Trump. And, at a forum in Guangzhou last month, Wang made another veiled attack on Trumps trade policies when he criticised the adoption of a zero-sum mindset. Why Chinas Wang Qishan cant take praise even from Bloomberg In previous years Beijing has used Davos to present China as a business-friendly place to global political leaders, executives and opinion leaders. Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the gathering in January 2017 and voiced support for globalisation, while his chief economic aide Vice-Premier Liu He, gave a speech at last years event which promised that China would open its market wider to foreign investors. This years Davos forum will take place as officials from China and the US negotiate an end to the escalating trade war, during the 90-day truce which ends on March 1. The truce was agreed after a meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on December 1, 2018, in which both sides agreed to suspend additional tariffs while entering into negotiations to settle other long-term disputes, such as the forced transfer of technology to Chinese firms. Story continues Deputy US trade representative Jeffrey Gerrish will lead a delegation to China on January 7 to hold talks with Chinese officials. The delegation will include David Malpass, Treasury undersecretary for international affairs. Wang Yong, director of the centre for international political economy at Peking University, said that the vice-president was effective at communicating with the outside world, adding that the occasion would allow him to use his charm. He said that while Wangs presence at the forum was likely to be at attempt at boosting external confidence in Chinas economy and its support for reform and multilateralism, there was a limit to what he could deliver. The international community should lower their expectations about Chinas reform and opening up, he said. China will speed up its reforms, but the changes will not happen overnight. He Weiwen, senior fellow at the Centre for China and Globalisation, said while Beijing hoped to use the platform of Davos to influence global business leaders opinion, Wang was no more than a messenger for Xi. The decision to send him to Davos is that of the top leader, said He. So ultimately it depends on what President Xi Jinping has to say. Additional reporting by Catherine Wong This article Chinese Vice-President Wang Qishan to lead Davos delegation first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. Chinese authorities have ordered a one week hiatus on Baidu and Sohu updating some of their online products as the two internet majors find themselves targeted in the first phase of a six-month government campaign to clean up the countrys cyber ecology. Beijings internet regulator said on Thursday that it had called on Baidu, operator of Chinas largest internet search engine, to carry out deeper rectification after some of the companys online products, including its mobile web and news apps, were found to be spreading vulgar content, thus damaging the countrys cyber public opinion ecology. The ban was effective from 3pm on Thursday. Baidu News, the official platform for Baidus news product, said in a Weibo posting that it will follow the instructions of the authorities and make improvements to promote the healthy development of the industry. A similar ban on updating content was imposed at the same time on rival internet search engine Sohu, which was also accused of spreading vulgar content. Baidu CEO warns of downshift in Chinas economy On Thursday Chinas cyberspace administration announced the launch of a six-month cyberspace clean-up campaign to police information that is deemed negative and harmful amid the governments tightening control over Chinas internet, which boasts the worlds largest online population of 800 million. Under Chinese president Xi Jinping the ruling Communist Party has tightened its grip on the internet, with even moderately critical voiced now silenced, after a relatively vibrant political environment began to emerge on social media platforms including microblogs. This article Chinas internet regulator suspends some Baidu, Sohu news products amid renewed cyber clean-up campaign first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. More from South China Morning Post: The mathematical (and other) thoughts of a (now retired) math teacher, About Me Oscar Bartoli Washington, DC, United States Avvocato, giornalista pubblicista, collabora con molti media italiani. Risiede negli Stati Uniti dal 1994 e vive tra Washington D.C., Los Angeles e Bangalore (India). Consigliere comunale per il Partito Liberale a Palazzo Vecchio (Firenze) porta ancora addosso i segni delle percosse che i 'compagni' comunisti di allora gli hanno dato per essere andato a parlare nelle piazze dove comandava solo il PCI. Ha lavorato per molti anni nel gruppo SMI,leader europeo nel settore metalli non ferrosi, successivamente nell'IRI come responsabile dei contatti con i media e in seguito direttore IRI USA. Ha insegnato per dieci anni alla scuola di giornalismo della Luiss e per due anni alla Catholic University di Washington DC. Tiene un corso sulla comunicazione nel Master di Relazioni Internazionali dello IULM di Milano. Rotariano da decenni ha contribuito a creare due Club a Roma, e' stato presidente del Cassia Romana ed attualmente fa parte del Washington Rotary Club. Da giovane, per pagarsi gli studi ma, soprattutto, perche' gli piaceva, ha lavorato come chitarrista - cantante suonando nelle case del popolo, circoli cattolici, night clubs, radio e televisione. View my complete profile Da non perdere "Lei non sa chi sono io" Oscar Bartoli- Prefazione Romano Prodi- Editore Ciuffa "Ed anche questa e' America", di Oscar Bartoli - prefazione Walter Veltroni Editore Luiss University Press "Mezzogiorno di Fuoco: duello all'ultimo spot" di Oscar Bartoli - Editore goWare "W.D.C (sotto traccia)" di Oscar Bartoli, Editore Luca Betti "DC Undercover" (Scarith Books/New Academia Publishing 2013) "Massoneria@FQA-Elogio dell'Informazione e della Comunicazione" di Stefano Bisi e Oscar Bartoli. Editore Luca Betti Potus-Sutop (Leo Rasco-Oscar Bartoli) Kindle Amazon Blog Archive Libyas largest producing oil field, Sharara, may be losing 8,500 bpd of crude to looters, the National Oil Corporation said today. The field, which normally yields some 315,000 barrels daily was seized by a group of local tribesmen and members of the Petroleum Facilities Guard in early December, which prompted the NOC to declare a force majeure on the field about a week later. The group is demanding money for wages and what the Libyan Express referred to as development funds. The legitimate and rightful concerns of the Southern Libyan communities are being hijacked and abused by armed gangs, who instead of protecting the field to generate wealth for all Libyans, are actually enabling its exploitation and looting, NOC's chairman, Mustafa Sanalla said as quoted by the Libyan daily. Sanalla also warned that the continued suspension of production at Sharara and the takeover of the group could lead to damages in the Sharara field infrastructure and losses for the Libyan economy. In late December, Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj agreed to set up a fund of over US$700 million for the development of southern Libya, a part of the country that has been neglected for a long time, after negotiations with the attackers. The negotiations followed a warning from NOCs Sanalla that the government should not pay the group as this would set a dangerous precedent. At the time, the chairman of the state oil company said if the government paid the money the attackers demanded, the NOC would not lift the force majeure, which has also affected neighboring field El Feel, which uses power produced at Sharara. Libyas oil production slipped by 300,000 bpd in December on the back of the Sharara and El Feel shutdown as well as a result of harsh weather that temporarily closed the countrys oil export terminals. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: OPECs January production is likely to come in lower than anticipated, a former Saudi Aramco executive said in a statement to CNBC on Thursday. The oil cartel agreed last month to shave 800,000 barrels per day off its October production levels, with its non-OPEC allies agreeing to cut 400,000 barrels per day, for a combined 1.2 million barrels per day. But Sadad al Husseini, former executive vice president of Saudi Aramco, told CNBC that OPEC is likely to cut in January about 1 million barrels per day off its October production levels, adding that it is possible that the cartel could cut as much as 1.2 million bpdthats in addition to its allies who promised to cut 400,000 bpd. All signs from OPEC this past week, following a brutal oil price slide, have all indicated that OPEC was aware that the 1.2 million bpd in promised cuts would not quell the market unrest. The United Arab Emirates Energy Minister said on Tuesday that a market rebalance should take place in the first quarter of 2019; he also added that OPEC would cut deeper if it turned out to be an insufficient volume of oil taken off the market. Then news came in that Saudi Arabias exports had fallen more sharply than expected, and indications are today that fewer OPEC barrelsthe fewest in five years, in factmade their way to the United States in December. Most analysts agree that oil prices will stay low if OPEC and its allies fail to make good on its promise. Oil prices were up late on Thursday afternoon after the bullish media reports, with WTI trading up 1.22% per barrel at $47.11, with Brent trading up 1.78% at $55.89 per barrel. By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Markets have been anticipating more trade talks this year between Washington and Beijing. However, it appears that the U.S. could be preparing to ask for even more from China before a formal deal can be reached, according to a New York Times report on Monday. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has warned President Trump that additional tariffs on Chinese imports may be needed to get meaningful concessions in trade negotiations, the report said. Early last month the U.S. and China agreed to set a 90-day freeze on more tariffs as the two sides try to mend trade differences. They also set a self-imposed March 2 deadline. If a deal cant be reached, the U.S. will likely increase existing tariffs on $200 bn worth of Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent as well as impose duties on another $267 bn worth of Chinese goods. China would likely respond in a tit-for-tat manner again and also impose more duties on U.S. goods. Lighthizers comments were immediately felt in global equity markets. European markets were down while U.S. stock futures also fell sharply. The New York Times report added that Lighthizer must negotiate with China it in a way that tilts the balance of power toward the U.S. Going forward, his hawkish approach will have significant ramifications for American companies, workers and consumers whose fortunes are increasingly tied to China. LNG connection A number of these companies, seemingly waiting on the edge of their seats, are U.S.-based firms trying to jump-start new liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects as part of the so-called second wave of U.S. LNG development. Many of these new U.S. LNG project proposals that are now being planned and/or receiving federal approval will have a difficult time reaching the all-important final investment decision (FID) needed to go forward without Chinese assistance. These projects not only need to sign long-term off-take agreements with Chinese entities but many of them, particularly newcomers not backed by more experienced oil and gas majors, will need Chinese financing to go ahead. Without Chinese aid, its likely that a significant number will fall through the cracks, and even jeopardize the U.S. ability to challenge Qatar and Australia as the global LNG leader next decade. Related: Oil Tanker Firms Scrap Most Ships In Three Decades China, for its part, has placed a 10 percent tariff on U.S. LNG with the threat of increasing that figure in the future, resulting in China having to find alternate sources of the super-cooled fuel on the spot market. The downside for China is that it also needs U.S. sourced LNG as its insatiable gas demand expands amid Beijing's mandate that gas makes up at least 10 percent of its power generation energy mix by 2020, with further earmarks set for 2030. These new U.S. projects will mostly vie for LNG markets in the Asia-Pacific region, which currently accounts for 72 percent of all LNG demand with that amount projected to increase to 75 percent, amid demand from both China and South Asia, namely Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. Hitting China hard American tariffs have already made a negative impact on the Chinese economy. A Caxin report indicated on Monday that Chinas manufacturing had an even worse December than expected. The Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers index (PMI), a private survey, fell to 49.7 in December from 50.2 in November. A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below that level signals contraction. In December, two separate measures for new orders and new export orders showed contraction, the Caixin report showed. Lighthizers top deputy will meet with Chinese officials this week ahead of more planned high-level talks in February. He will push for even more substantive changes, including forcing China to end its practice of requiring American companies to hand over technology as a condition of doing business in the country. By Tim Daiss for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: When OPEC+ agreed to begin cutting crude oil production again in December, hardly anyone in the cartel thought the effect of the news on prices would be as lackluster as it turned out to be. It took some time for the fact to sink in that this time too many traders were worried about the future of oil demand and were reluctant to speculate with oil. Now OPEC is facing another tough year, perhaps even tougher than 2016, and it might just need to reduce production even more to make it work. Well, J.P. Morgan said prior to the OPEC meeting early December, that if OPEC didnt really cut by more than around 1.2 million barrels per day, and they did just for the first half, (not) for the full year, that we could gravitate toward ... our low-oil-price scenario, which is $55 Brent for 2019, the investment banks head of oil and gas for the Asia-Pacific told CNBC this week. We expect oil markets to remain volatile, in part driven by flexible North American shale production that can ramp up and down quickly in response to changes in investment levels, ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance told Bloomberg, also this week. North American shale production is, of course, the number-one challenge for OPECs plans. Two years ago it was easier: nobody was sure exactly how flexible shale oil production can be so the OPEC cuts worked, helped by a brighter global economic outlook. Now, things are different. Shale production is growing despite the slump in prices and although this may change if prices fall further or stay at current levels for longer, this is far from certain: in the last week of December, after prices have been on the decline for three months, U.S. drillers continued adding rigs. Related: The New Oil Order Yet it wasnt just U.S. production that rose last year: Russias hit a new record in 2018, at 11.16 million bpd, which made it the second-largest producer after the United States. Saudi Arabia also pumped at a record level of over 11 million bpd in the months that followed the June OPEC+ decision to reverse the cuts to rein in prices. This is the context in which OPEC+ agreed the new cuts, which were 600,000 bpd lower than the ones agreed in 2016. No wonder skepticism is rife. Some analysts believe that once the cuts enter into effect, which they did at the start of the new year, the effect on prices will come to be felt. But JP Morgans Scott Darling may just turn out to be right: yesterday, news that Saudi Arabia had reduced its crude oil exports by half a million barrels daily pushed up prices only briefly before both Brent and West Texas Intermediate faltered and slid down again. While six months may be enough to reduce the combined output of OPEC and its partners by the agreed 1.2 million bpd, if U.S. production continues to grow at the current rate, it would likely offset this cut completely. True, the amount of crude that is added or leaves the global markets is not the only factor that counts: the type of crude is also important, and U.S. oil is overwhelmingly light crude, while there is also global demand for heavier grades that the Middle East and Russia produce. Yet grades are rarely the top concern of traders when they hear words like oversupply. Volatility, as Conocos Ryan Lance said, is clearly here to stay and will likely intensify in the coming months. OPEC might just be forced to extend the cuts it agreed in December if a positive effect from this agreement fails to materialize soon. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: 1. Yes. Its important to address the problem before it gets worse. A bond is needed. 2. Yes. Its fine, as long as the bond isnt too large. The city doesnt need more debt. 3. No. A bond issue would just put the problem back on the taxpayers. Not acceptable. 4. No. Certificates of obligation, targeting the worst roads, would be a better choice. 5. Unsure. Its hard to say without knowing the details of what a bond would entail. Vote View Results Washington, PA (15301) Today Variable clouds with scattered thunderstorms. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High near 80F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Thunderstorms during the evening will give way to mainly clear skies after midnight. Low 54F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%. Cheteshwar Pujaras third century of the series has lifted India to 4-303 at stumps on day one of the fourth Test in Sydney, where Australia failed to strike with the second new ball. Pujara finished 130 not out at stumps on Thursday, when his highest score of a career-best series significantly boosted Indias bid for a maiden Test series win in Australia. CLASSLESS: Sydney fans condemned over disrespectful Kohli treatment LOVELY GESTURE: Kohlis beautiful nod to the Pink Test Indias most productive day with the bat this summer started when Virat Kohli called correctly at the toss. Josh Hazlewood struck with his third delivery of the innings when recalled opener KL Rahul was out edging but from that point on it was a day of toil for Australias star-studded attack. He (Pujara) is a class payer. We just have to hold our patience longer than him and we havent done that so far, Hazlewood said on Fox. Pujaras big ton has India in control of the fourth Test. Pic: Getty We had some good spells and some poor ones. Pujara, as he has been throughout the series, was an immovable object occupying the crease with minimal fuss and maximum effect. Fans were glowing in their praise for Pujara on social media comparing the batsmans series to Kohlis unforgettable 2014/15 tour. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Hazlewood temporarily unsettled Pujara late in the morning session with a bouncer that struck the back of the helmet, while Starc left a bruise on his arm late in the final session. Pujara quickly regained composure after both blows and has now spent almost 30 hours batting in this series, underlining how pivotal his patience has been in the tourists retention of the Border-Gavaskar trophy. Batting is like meditation, Pujara said in Melbourne, when asked about the mindset that allows him to put such a high price on his wicket. Mayank Agarwals brisk 77 set the tone for India, while Hanuma Vihari also kept the scoreboard ticking over with an unbeaten 39. Pujara clattered three Marnus Labuschagne long hops to the rope in the penultimate over of the post-lunch session. Story continues Tim Paine has wasted one of his two reviews; the skipper referring a caught-behind shout off Pat Cummins bowling when Pujara was on 12. Pujaras partnerships with Kohli have represented a stumbling block for Paines team throughout the series, most recently when they combined to outscore Australias entire first innings at the MCG. The gun batsmens 54-run stand in Sydney was ended by Hazlewood, who had Kohli caught behind down the leg side in the first over after tea. Ajinkya Rahanes dismissal on 18, to a rearing delivery from Starc, then gave the hosts hope of exposing Indias tail on day one but it proved forlorn. With AAP Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. (Yahoo News photo Illustration; photos: AP, Getty) Back in 2015, I sat down with President Obama, during a visit to Nikes Oregon campus, to talk about the huge Asian trade pact he was trying to sell. But the thing that got all the talk-show teeth chattering had nothing to do with the deal itself. It was what Obama said that day about Elizabeth Warren, who had become a vocal critic of the trade deal, that landed like a grenade. Some of Obamas own allies on the Hill accused him of sexist bullying and called on him to apologize. What crude and awful thing did Obama say? The truth of the matter, he told me, is that Elizabeth is, you know, a politician like everybody else. That was it. He called her by her first name, and he used that word. Its always been this way with Warren and the left. She runs around branding everyone else as venal or corrupt if they happen to take issue with her economic theories, but even the suggestion that she has ambitions of her own invites shrieks of indignation. But of course, Obama was right. Warren, who entered the 2020 presidential race this week, is very much a politician and an unusually good one at that. Which is why shes about to leave her buddy Bernie Sanders in the dust, and why shes likely to have a profound impact on the race, win or lose. Sanders looks in the mirror and sees a crusading purist, in the mold of Henry Wallace or Gene McCarthy. He fancies himself above crass calculation (even when you point out, as I did here, that he really isnt). One of my favorite campaign slogans is the one Jimmy Carter used against George Wallace in the 1976 primaries: Dont send them a message. Send them a president. Sanders is a message in a suit. He seemed viable in 2016 mainly because he had the leftmost wing of the party almost entirely to himself. But thats not Warren. Shes not some messenger masquerading as a candidate. Shes a candidate who happens to have a message. Ive never been very sympathetic to Warren. Im innately suspicious of class-based, us-versus-them narratives. I once referred to her as Senator Stands-With-a-Fist, which probably didnt endear me. Story continues So when I ran into Warren in a hallway in Philadelphia during the 2016 convention, I expected an icy reception. (In a similar situation a week earlier, in Cleveland, one Michael Cohen had come very close to outright threatening me if I kept up my barrage on Donald Trump.) To the contrary, though, Warren couldnt have been more gracious or more endearing. She admired my work! She couldnt believe it had taken us this long to meet! She wanted me to come by her office soon so we could talk. I should call. I did, a few weeks later. And a few weeks after that. Until it became clear that no one in Warrens office had any intention of calling me back, let alone putting me on the schedule. Then I saw that hallway encounter for what it was a talented politician skillfully disarming a critic on whom she had no intention of wasting another second. Id been played, and I had to admire it. I tell that story only because it crystallizes what Ive come to understand about Warren, watching her steep ascent in Washington. Going back to her days as a Harvard law professor, when Id read her polemics on the ruin of the middle-class, Id thought of Warren the way she wanted us to think about her as a brilliant academic who somehow stumbled into politics. In fact, the reverse is true. Warren in a natural-born political operator, and that had probably something to do with her rise to the pinnacle of academia, too. Next to the brutality of university politics, after all, Washington looks like the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Thats the real significance of this business about her checking the box for Native American ancestry on her Harvard faculty application. Whether or not shes 1/164th Cherokee or whatever is completely beside the point. Warren checked that box because she knew it would be help her get ahead, and she unchecked it later because she didnt need the advantage anymore. She was doing what she had to do. Just like later, when Warren became an influential voice on economic inequality. Plenty of economists had been droning on about the mathematical reality of the situation, but it was Warren who figured out how to sell it to liberal lawmakers, and how to position herself in the burgeoning debate. Warrens signature argument, that the entire middle class was vanishing before our eyes, was always a little too facile, ignoring complexities like the pivotal difference a college education seemed to make, or vastly overstating the correlation between medical expenses and bankruptcies. But it got her where she needed to go. It created a political brand. And unlike Sanders, Warren can be nuanced and adaptable with that brand. Several months ago, she declared herself a devout capitalist. (Its hard to believe weve reached a point in Democratic politics where thats actually seen as controversial, but we have.) Later, she released that slick mini-documentary about her Native American DNA test, which was apparently meant to neutralize the controversy with voters who hadnt made up their minds about her. Then she made a point of speaking out on race to a largely black audience. What all of this tells me is that Warren sees the situation clearly. She knows she comes to this race with a built-in base of liberal voters, and shes already focused on broadening that support, for the primaries and beyond. The question I have about Warren is whether she can be as adaptable a thinker as she is a tactician. This back-to-the-future shtick works well on both sides of the ideological divide. In Trumps case its nostalgia for the Eisenhower era; for Warren, its more about returning to the expansionist mindset of the New Deal. But we know where an election like that ends. Somebodys nostalgia gets 49 percent, and somebody elses gets 48, and the country goes on warring with itself and rethinking nothing. What Democrats could use what all of us could use, really is a candidate who can channel all of that populist rage into an agenda that looks more forward than back, even if that means facing some hard truths about the time-worn orthodoxies of the last century. Warren is a born politician, deft enough to evolve in her worldview without squandering her iconic status on the left. As Obama flatly said, thats the stone cold truth about her, and also what makes her intriguing. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: While some investors are already well versed in financial metrics (hat tip), this article is for those who would like to learn about Return On Equity (ROE) and why it is important. To keep the lesson grounded in practicality, well use ROE to better understand Vista Group International Limited (NZSE:VGL). Our data shows Vista Group International has a return on equity of 8.0% for the last year. That means that for every NZ$1 worth of shareholders equity, it generated NZ$0.080 in profit. Check out our latest analysis for Vista Group International How Do You Calculate ROE? The formula for ROE is: Return on Equity = Net Profit Shareholders Equity Or for Vista Group International: 8.0% = 11.062 NZ$152m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2018.) Its easy to understand the net profit part of that equation, but shareholders equity requires further explanation. It is all the money paid into the company from shareholders, plus any earnings retained. The easiest way to calculate shareholders equity is to subtract the companys total liabilities from the total assets. What Does Return On Equity Signify? Return on Equity measures a companys profitability against the profit it has kept for the business (plus any capital injections). The return is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. The higher the ROE, the more profit the company is making. So, all else being equal, a high ROE is better than a low one. That means it can be interesting to compare the ROE of different companies. Does Vista Group International Have A Good Return On Equity? One simple way to determine if a company has a good return on equity is to compare it to the average for its industry. However, this method is only useful as a rough check, because companies do differ quite a bit within the same industry classification. As is clear from the image below, Vista Group International has a lower ROE than the average (15%) in the Software industry. Story continues NZSE:VGL Last Perf January 2nd 19 Thats not what we like to see. We prefer it when the ROE of a company is above the industry average, but its not the be-all and end-all if it is lower. Nonetheless, it could be useful to double-check if insiders have sold shares recently. How Does Debt Impact Return On Equity? Virtually all companies need money to invest in the business, to grow profits. The cash for investment can come from prior year profits (retained earnings), issuing new shares, or borrowing. In the first two cases, the ROE will capture this use of capital to grow. In the latter case, the debt used for growth will improve returns, but wont affect the total equity. That will make the ROE look better than if no debt was used. Combining Vista Group Internationals Debt And Its 8.0% Return On Equity While Vista Group International does have a tiny amount of debt, with debt to equity of just 0.079, we think the use of debt is very modest. Although the ROE isnt overly impressive, the debt load is modest, suggesting the business has potential. Judicious use of debt to improve returns can certainly be a good thing, although it does elevate risk slightly and reduce future optionality. In Summary Return on equity is a useful indicator of the ability of a business to generate profits and return them to shareholders. Companies that can achieve high returns on equity without too much debt are generally of good quality. All else being equal, a higher ROE is better. Having said that, while ROE is a useful indicator of business quality, youll have to look at a whole range of factors to determine the right price to buy a stock. It is important to consider other factors, such as future profit growth and how much investment is required going forward. So you might want to check this FREE visualization of analyst forecasts for the company. Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. Santiago (AFP) - A wild puma kept watch over a neighborhood of Chile's capital Santiago for 15 hours in a tree before it was rescued, the zoo in charge of the operation said on Thursday. The young male puma, which weighs around 30 kilograms (66 pounds), was first seen up a huge tree on Wednesday afternoon in the El Arrayan neighborhood. He remained there, practically without moving, until he was shot with a tranquilizer dart by the Agriculture and Livestock Service, after which he fell 18 meters (59 feet) onto cushions, his drop also slowed by branches. "It was the best scenario. It was a low-risk fall," Alejandra Montalba, director at the city's Metropolitan Zoo, which oversaw the rescue operation, told local media. Following the rescue, the puma was taken to the Santiago zoo, although it is due to be released back into the wild at a later date. "He climbed the tree because he was very scared as there were dogs and many people. He wasn't going to come down alone," added Montalba. It is unclear why the puma found itself in an urban zone but with the growth of Santiago into the surrounding foothills of the Andes, sightings of wild animals in built-up areas are becoming ever more common, Montalba said. Pumas -- also known as cougars, mountain lions, panthers and catamounts -- are large wild cats native to the Americas and can be found from Canada's northwest Yukon territory all the way down to the southern Andes. Fully grown males average just over 60kg but can weigh up to 100kg and can stand up to 90 centimeters tall. Wide-body jet deal cost carrier Rs 4.35b in losses: Sub-committee report The $209.6-million Airbus deal, the largest ever in Nepals aviation history, is turning out to be one the biggest corruption scandals in the countrys history as the Sub-committee under the Parliamentary Public Account Committee has concluded that the procurement of two wide-body Airbus A330 jets by Nepal Airlines Corporation has caused a loss of Rs4.35 billion to the government. Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretary-General Lim Jock Hoi (L) is greeted by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi before a meeting at the Foreign Ministry in Beijing, China, June 12, 2018. Greg Baker/Pool via Reuters Daniel R. DePetris Security, Asia Sovereignty issues created the original crisis and they are now undoing talks to create a Code of Conduct. Why China and ASEAN's South China Sea Negotiations Will Go Nowhere As the world gets acclimated to 2019, the South China Sea could very well be at the center of the new years most bare-knuckled negotiations. Talks between China and the ten-nation grouping of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) over the Code of Conduct (CoC) in this strategically vital waterway will be (at best) an exercise in migraine-inducing frustration. Indeed, it could very well turn out to be an exercise in futility. This, of course, would be an unfortunate outcome. Before Beijing began militarizing the area with anti-ship missile batteries on artificial islands and ramming fishing boats in order to assert dominance around contested reefs, the South China Sea was largely viewed as an issue that could be contained with informal understandings and good neighborliness. While territorial disputes between China, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippians, and Vietnam were longstanding and often irreconcilable, the situation was not as escalatory as it has become over the preceding six years. Skirmishes and diplomatic finger-wagging were common, but China and ASEAN nevertheless recognized that stability was in the interest of everyone. A mechanism needed to be created that would resolve the competing claims once and for all. This is precisely what the CoC was intended to achieve, an ambitious project that Southeast and East Asian nations committed themselves to after a 2002 meeting in Cambodia. As the non-binding declaration stated, [t]he Parties concerned reaffirm that the adoption of a code of conduct in the South China Sea would further promote peace and stability in the region and agree to work, on the basis of consensus, towards the eventual attainment of this objective. Since that time, negotiations over a final CoC have been cumbersome and snail-like. Discussions produced little of anything until 2017, when China and ASEAN came to terms on a draft outline of what a code would look like. The agreement was merely a framework, the beginning of a bare foundation on which the rules would eventually rest. It took another fifteen months for the states respective delegations to arrive at a common understanding of the underlying text, which would theoretically include determinations on everything from how disputes would be resolved to how large of an area the code would cover. When an agreement on the draft was reached in August 2018, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was ecstatic. It is like China and ASEAN countries building a house together, the foreign minister said. In the past, there were 11 designs from the 11 countries on what this house would look like. Now we have laid good groundwork for a single design of this house. Story continues The problem is that all of the claimant states have a different interpretation of how the house should be built. By virtue of their military power and economic dominance, the Chinese are by far the strongest party in the talks, and their negotiators are striking a hard bargain. According to public reports of the talks over the ensuing months, Beijing is lobbying to include provisions in the CoC that would prohibit regional countries from partnering with non-regional (i.e., U.S.) militaries in joint exercises unless all parties agree to the arrangement. This would provide China with a veto over the defense policies of their neighbors, a bureaucratically clever way to block the U.S. Navy from operating in an area the Chinese have long seen as an extension of their territory. The U.S. State Department has rightly objected to the Chinese suggestions, calling them abstruse to third-party states and an interference in the sovereign right of other nations to form their own defense relationships. Yet unless and until Beijing rescinds or compromises on this point, the entire negotiations over a CoC could fall apart over the one issuesovereigntythat has made the South China Sea issue such a potent dilemma to being with. China is not the only country with a hard line. Vietnams position on the CoC is the polar opposite of Beijings. The Vietnamese are adamant that any code must explicitly condemn and make illegal the island-building campaign the Chinese have conducted over the previous few years, a demand Beijing will strenuously object to. In 2013, the Chinese set up an Air Defense Identification Zone over disputed waters with Japan in the East China Sea; the Vietnamese aim to prevent a similar zone from being adopted in the South China Sea, another collision with Beijings policy. Then there are the competing claims from the Philippines, a country which has been far more friendly towards Beijing under the leadership of Rodrigo Duterte but not too friendly as to voluntary roll-over to Chinas wishes. A negotiation gets more difficult as more players participate. The more players at the table, the more positions are represented and the more interests are at stake. Talks over a code for the South China Sea have been going on periodically for two decades. Despite the positive spirit demonstrated by the parties last August, its highly unlikely the working level talks taking place throughout 2019 will result in a final agreement all eleven states can live with. Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities, a nonpartisan foreign-policy organization focused on promoting security, stability and peace. Image: Reuters Read full article This image released by Universal Pictures shows Steve Carell, left, and Merritt Wever in Welcome to Marwen. (Ed Araquel/Universal Pictures via AP) Oscar-winning director Robert Zemeckis has a new film in cinemas right now and, like his other recent films, Welcome To Marwen pushes the boundaries of visual effects in new and unusual ways. Utilising groundbreaking performance capture technology, the film tells the real-life story of Mark Hogancamp, an American artist who uses photography and model craft to rebuild his life after he suffers life-changing injuries in a brutal, and unprovoked attack. Stunning VFX work is deployed by the Back To The Future filmmaker to bring Hogancamps fantasy world of Marwen to life. Steve Carell plays Hogancamp and also Hoagie, the Action Man-like hero of the fictitious model world of WW2-era Marwen, which is also populated by a series of female dolls played by Leslie Mann, Merritt Wever, Janelle Monae, and more through mo-cap performances. As the film reaches its climax, Zemeckis introduces something very familiar from one of his most famous films, and its been taking audiences by total surprise. The filmmaker admits he was initially resistant to the idea of including it for fear of being too self-referential. Warning: Welcome To Marwen plot spoilers incoming As Hogancamps battle with the real-life thugs changed his life reaches its peak in the real world, as does Hoagies fight with the Nazis their fictional proxies in Marwen. His only chance to survive is by building a time machine, which appears in the form of a hastily-cobbled together DeLorean DMC-12, the time machine used by Doc Brown and Marty McFly in Zemeckis most famous film Back To The Future. The director says, although he was initially cautious about re-using the famous film car, he felt he had no other options. I struggled with the self-reverential thing, Zemeckis tells Yahoo Movies UK. But then I ultimately had to embrace reality. And the embracement of reality was, if went out into the street and collected a bunch of people, and asked them what a time machine looked like, the vast majority would say it looked like a flying car. And I thought thats probably what Mark thought too. Story continues Because that would be the cultural time machine touchstone, so I just had to go with it. This photo provided by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment shows Christopher Lloyd, left, as Dr. Emmett Brown, and Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly in the 1985 film, Back to the Future. (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment via AP) Zemeckis, who won Oscars for Forrest Gump, says he let the designers have free-reign in redesigning the time machine, only offering advice when needed. I gave a little bit of input but then I said to the guys who were designing it, this guy builds this out of scrap. He builds it out of a collection of LEGO and stuff that he finds laying around in a scrap heap so its got to look handmade in that sense, and they got it. They did a good job. Its a huge crowd-pleasing moment in the film, offering a bit of much-needed levity to the films emotional finale. Welcome To Marwen is in cinemas now. Read more Steve Carell is the internets latest crush How Who Framed Roger Rabbit changed Hollywood The best movies of 2018 The 116th Congress has come to order, with the Democrats now taking control of the House of Representatives. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was elected speaker for a second time on Thursday, securing the votes of 220 members out of the 430 in attendance. Her appointment comes during the partial government shutdowns 13th day as President Donald Trump continues to demand $5.6 billion in funding for his campaign-promised border wall between the United States and Mexico. In the presence of lawmakers, their families, visitors and journalists, Capitol Hill buzzed with energy as it prepared to welcome a record number of women for the swearing-in ceremony. American Apparel & Footwear Association EVP Steve Lamar noted the historic moment. They are bringing in all their new perspectives, he said in an interview with FN. There will also be a lot of members that dont have the background on particular issue, so a lot of education has to be conducted. We spend the first couple months of any new Congress meeting up with as many members as possible to educate them on our issues and our priorities, especially since trade issues are on the forefront of the national debate. Less than two months remain before Trumps 90-day trade war truce with China hits its deadline, as tensions simmer between the the worlds two largest economies. Washington and Beijing are in talks to end the bitter dispute that has already seen tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports, with the White House putting on hold its threat to raise levies from 10 percent to 25 percent on an additional $200 billion of goods. The president keeps tweeting out that good things are happening, and the Chinese government is considering policy changes internally that would assuage the concerns of the U.S. government, said Matt Priest, president and CEO of the Footwear Distributors & Retailers of America. Short-term, if the administration can get to a deal on the China front and set it aside, that will give a boost to the economy. Story continues As such, industry representatives are getting the ball rolling. Lamar spoke about already meeting with members of the new Congress to discuss trade policy, including the negative impact of tariffs on American businesses and consumers, as well as potential solutions to those problems. How that translates into actionable policies that can then make it across the presidents desk to be signed into law still remains to be seen, he added. Its always tough to get stuff done when you have a divided Congress. Thats usually a recipe for Congress to not take a lot of action because its hard for the two parties in the two chambers to reach an agreement. The assembly also comes as the U.S. economy faces a slowdown, with fears that a number of robust economic trends including record-low unemployment and affordable gas prices will begin to temper in this year. Were long in the tooth when it comes to economic expansion; weve been expanding for almost a decade now, and its not out of the norm to be approaching recessionary territory, Priest said. Thats got to be concerning for everybody in retail, not just footwear. Want more? Why More Than 5 Million American Workers Will Have Greater Spending Power in 2019 Why Corporate Silence Has Become Unacceptable in the Era of Trump Related stories Nancy Pelosi's Meme-able Coat Is So Popular, Max Mara Is Reissuing It Industry Reacts Favorably to US-China Trade War Truce How Athletic Companies Are Preparing for Trump Tariff Hit Washington (AFP) - The United States on Thursday warned Iran of consequences if it goes ahead with plans to send off three space launch vehicles, charging despite Tehran's denials that the move would violate a UN resolution. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Iran's satellite-delivery rockets used technology "virtually identical" to nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, which could eventually include long-range missiles capable of reaching the United States. "The United States will not stand by and watch the Iranian regime's destructive policies place international stability and security at risk," Pompeo said in a statement. "We advise the regime to reconsider these provocative launches and cease all activities related to ballistic missiles in order to avoid deeper economic and diplomatic isolation," he said. Pompeo said that an Iranian launch would defy UN Security Council Resolution 2231 of 2015, which endorsed an international accord on ending the clerical regime's nuclear program and called on Tehran "not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons." US President Donald Trump last year walked out of the Iran deal, which was negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama, instead reimposing sweeping sanctions aimed at crippling the country's economy. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif denied Pompeo's charges, saying that neither space launches nor missile tests -- which Iran says are vital for defense and not nuclear in nature -- violated Resolution 2231. "The US is in material breach of same, & as such it is in no position to lecture anyone on it," he tweeted, referring to the US rejection of the UN-endorsed denuclearization pact. Iran's deputy defense minister, Brigadier General Ghasem Taghizadeh, said in November that Tehran would launch three satellites into space "in the coming months." Story continues "These satellites have been built with native know-how and will be positioned in different altitudes," he said, as quoted by the semi-official ISNA news agency. Iran has seen economic potential in developing a satellite program, which could build a needed revenue source and also be used for espionage. But US intelligence has said that the technology could easily be converted to long-range missiles. The United States warned its citizens Thursday they could face arbitrary action by authorities when they visit China, following the detention of a number of Canadians. Updating a travel advisory, the State Department maintained its previous guidance that Americans should "exercise increased caution" in China but stopped short of discouraging visits. While the language was largely the same as earlier, the State Department warned of "arbitrary enforcement of local laws," sudden prohibitions on exiting the country and harassment of US citizens of Chinese heritage. "In most cases, US citizens only become aware of the exit ban when they attempt to depart China, and there is no method to find out how long the ban may continue," it said. "US citizens under exit bans have been harassed and threatened," it said. It also advised Americans to look out for last-minute security checks and curfews in Xinjiang and Tibet, two minority-dominated regions where Beijing has sought to impose strict control. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, asked about the updated advisory in a televised interview, said the State Department wanted Americans to "understand the risk but still travel there when it's appropriate." "We wanted to let them know that there have been more risks from what China has done in terms of folks traveling there and not being permitted to return," Pompeo told Fox News host Sean Hannity. China has detained 13 Canadians since early December when a senior executive of Chinese telecom giant Huawei was arrested in Vancouver on a US request for alleged violations of Washington's sanctions on Iran, according to Ottawa. Two of the arrests -- of former diplomat Michael Kovrig and consultant Michael Spavor -- were widely viewed as retaliation for the arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who is facing extradition to the United States. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang hit back at a regular press briefing in Beijing Friday. Story continues "The travel warning issued by the US, frankly speaking, does not stand," he said. "China always welcomes foreign citizens -- including US citizens -- to visit China, and protects their security and legal rights, including freedom of entry and exit." China last year appeared to hit back at the US travel advice by issuing its own guidance to Chinese coming to the United States, warning of the risk of mass shootings and the high cost of health care. Despite rising political friction, the two countries remain among the top sources of visitors to each other, with China by far the largest provider of foreign students to the United States. Washington (AFP) - When Dan Pollock and his bride arrived at the marriage bureau in the US capital Washington to pick up their marriage certificate, they were surprised to find it was closed because of the government shutdown. "It never occurred to us that the DC marriage bureau was federally funded," said Pollock, who, like his wife, is a former Senate staffer who had worked through previous government shutdowns. "When we showed up at the courthouse, they politely turned us away and said there would be no licenses until the government reopens," Pollock told AFP. With just two days until their wedding, however, it was too late to change their plans. "We chose to embrace the insanity," said Pollock. "The entire wedding was a blast nonetheless, and I guess we'll be back in DC to make it official." The couple, who posted their story on Twitter to show the real impact that the shutdown -- sparked by President Donald Trump's demand for funding for a wall on the Mexico border -- was having on ordinary people. The government has been closed since before Christmas, and the leadership of the newly installed Democrat majority in the House of Representatives are refusing to yield to the president's demand for $5.6 billion for a wall, a key campaign pledge that he had originally said Mexico would pay for. Trump has refused to sign off on a slew of government funding bills until he receives money for his "beautiful" southern border wall, leading to a government closure that has left hundreds of thousands of federal employees without pay over the holiday season. The District of Colombia, where the nation's capital is located, receives part of its funding from the federal government, and has seen some city services directly impacted by the closure. That includes the marriage bureau, which issues licenses for civil unions and certificates needed for other types of unions. - 'Lucky shutdown?' - Story continues With neither side showing any sign of blinking, many couples are starting to worry they will not be able to officially tie the knot. "We're still going to get married and we're still going to have our wedding, and we'll still be happy about that," said Claire O'Rourke, who has 140 guests coming to her January 12 wedding. "But, man, I would still like the paperwork to be done," she told WTOP radio. Washington mayor Muriel Bowser, aware of the stakes for constituents waiting to walk down the aisle, has announced extraordinary measures to issue marriage licenses despite the shutdown. "Mayor Bowser will put forth emergency legislation to establish the authority to issue marriage licenses during a shutdown," said her spokesman John Falcicchio. "Just like the Grinch can't steal Christmas, the shutdown can't stop love," he said. In the meantime, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, for whom Pollock and his wife worked, paid homage on social media Thursday to the "beautiful couple." "Like rain on your wedding day, maybe shutdowns are good luck," he said. As for other soon-to-weds, wedding planner agency Howerton Wooten has some advice: "Get some wedding insurance," "Determine a plan B," and finally, "Don't panic. Government shutdowns are public relations nightmares for politicians, so they typically work hard to find a solution within days." Chicago (AFP) - Patricia Gallagher Marchant was first abused by a priest who befriended her family when she was seven or eight years old. More than five decades later, the 61-year-old stood Wednesday in front of a throng of news cameras outside the downtown Chicago headquarters of the Catholic archdiocese in this sprawling American city, and demanded the church listen to survivors. "They've counted on our silence," Marchant said. "The horror of what happened to each of us needs to be out and spoken." Marchant was joined by leaders of two survivors' advocacy groups who sent an open letter to Pope Francis asking to be a part of a historic gathering that the Catholic leader called for in February at the Vatican, to discuss the ongoing crisis roiling the church. At issue was the very credibility of the pope's conference, they claimed, and whether survivors would have faith in its outcome. "What we want is for this summit to be able to be taken seriously and to result in real, meaningful reform," said Zach Hiner, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). - A troubled history - The demands came just as US bishops gathered at a Chicago-area seminary for a prayer summit in advance of the Vatican meeting. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops was tight-lipped about the gathering, saying only that it would consist of seven days of silent prayer and reflection. Two of the attendees were targeted by the activists in downtown Chicago for their key roles in the upcoming Vatican event: Cardinal Blase Cupich, the leader of the Chicago archdiocese, and US bishops leader Cardinal Daniel DiNardo. Both were blamed for alleged cover-ups of clergy abuse under their watch. "We're asking the pope to do something very simple: put individuals to lead your summit that have not covered up for child sex crimes," said Peter Isely, a self-identified survivor and spokesman for the group Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA). Story continues "Then, survivors and the rest of the world might have a glimmer of hope." Survivors' advocates have long accused church officials of slow-walking abuse investigations and failing to disclose all allegations. Marchant said her abuser was allowed to remain a priest for almost two decades after she first reported him. "The church has a history of minimizing and denying the undeniable pain and horror of being sexually abused by a priest," said Marchant, who is now a therapist helping other clergy abuse survivors. - 'No doubt' more to do - The new demands came two weeks after the top prosecutor in the Midwestern state of Illinois, where Chicago is located, revealed hundreds of previously undisclosed allegations of clergy abuse. In a scathing report, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said church officials mishandled investigations and failed to inform law enforcement of all accusations. More than 500 additional accused clergy were uncovered by state investigators within months of looking into dioceses' records, according to Madigan, far more than the 185 names previously disclosed. Cardinal Cupich acknowledged that more reforms were needed. "There can be no doubt about the constant need to strengthen our culture of healing, protection, and accountability," he said in December statement. The scale of the apparent cover-up in Illinois eclipsed the findings of a grand jury in Pennsylvania, which in August alleged more than 300 suspected predator priests and more than 1,000 victims had been concealed for decades. In announcing the February meeting to discuss the abuse crisis, Pope Francis urged bishops to "reach out and visit with victims of sexual abuse... to learn first hand the suffering that they have endured." Moscow (AFP) - Russian prosecutors have charged an American ex-Marine detained in Moscow last week with espionage, his lawyer said Thursday, the latest in a series of spying accusations between Moscow and Washington. "The tribunal has ordered the provisional detention" of Paul Whelan after he was charged, his lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov was quoted as saying by the news agency Ria Novosti. Zherebenkov said he had appealed the ruling and asked for Whelan to be released on bail pending the start of the trial. Whelan, who has denied the charges, could face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty. His lawyer said the 48-year-old was "behaving in a constructive manner" and that investigators were treating him in a "humane and professional way". The charges came a day after the US ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman met Whelan at the Lefortovo prison in Moscow. "Ambassador Huntsman expressed his support for Mr Whelan and offered the embassy's assistance," a State Department spokesperson said following the visit. The United States has been cautious in its public comments on the case, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying earlier Wednesday that Washington was trying to learn more about the situation. - 'Act of espionage' - Born in Canada, Whelan was arrested last Friday "while carrying out an act of espionage", according to Russia's FSB domestic security service. His family has denied he is a spy, saying he was visiting Moscow to attend the wedding of a fellow ex-Marine to a Russian woman. "We are deeply concerned for his safety and well-being. His innocence is undoubted and we trust that his rights will be respected," the family said in a statement. Speaking to Canada's CBC News, Whelan's brother David said "there's no chance" the Russian accusations against his brother were accurate. Paul Whelan's employer, US-based automotive components supplier BorgWarner, said that he is the firm's director of global security. Story continues "He is responsible for overseeing security at our facilities in Auburn Hills, Michigan and at other company locations around the world," the company said in a statement. Whelan's arrest came after President Vladimir Putin accused Western nations of using espionage cases to try to undermine an increasingly powerful Russia. US intelligence services have accused Moscow of interfering in the 2016 presidential election. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has charged 25 Russians -- including members of the GRU military intelligence -- and three Russian companies for that alleged interference but they have not been arrested. In December, Russian national Maria Butina pleaded guilty in a Federal Court in Washington to acting as an illegal foreign agent. Butina faces up to six months in prison, followed by likely deportation. United Parcel Service UPS witnessed a disappointing 2018, evident from its share price depreciating 18.2% during the same. Whats Ailing UPS? The company made significant investments in facilities upgrade to meet the surge in demand following rapid growth in e-commerce. UPS incurred $4.5 billion of capital expenditure in the first nine months of 2018. We expect high costs to hurt UPS fourth-quarter 2018 results as well. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fourth-quarter earnings has slid in excess of 1% over the last 60 days. In fact, capex for 2018 is projected between $6.5 billion and $7 billion, bulk of which will be directed toward new technology, aircraft and automated capacity. The increased investments imply a rise in costs. Trade-related tensions with China is a headwind for the stock as UPS has Chinese exposure. For instance, UPS joined forces with SF Holding in 2017 to strengthen its footprint in the Chinese market. Moreover, as the company operates globally, it is vulnerable to foreign exchange-related risks. Though positive on the labor deal approval by its freight workers, we note that the turmoil in the run up to the voting procedure might hurt the companys fourth-quarter results at its freight division. Prior to the voting procedure, UPS had stopped pickups for its freight customers. The move was aimed at emptying its freight network of any cargo that could have been stranded in the event of a strike materializing, had the polls not gone in favor of this Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) stock. What Awaits UPS in 2019? Recommendations from a task force appointed by President Donald Trump suggested that the United States Postal Service (USPS) should raise the price for shipping packages. The move might affect online retailers like Amazon.com AMZN and eBay EBAY massively. It may also hit UPS apart from its rival FedEx Corporation FDX as these companies often use USPS for the last mile delivery Competition is likely to intensify for UPS with Amazon looking to expand its logistics network. In November 2018, media reports indicated that Amazon was offering steep discounts for its pilot shipping program that are currently being scrutinized. The discounts made Amazons shipping service, launched last year, cheaper than those offered by UPS. Story continues Despite the above-mentioned challenges, we expect consistent e-commerce growth to benefit this package delivery company in 2019. In this regard, the company anticipates cross-border e-commerce volume to expand 28% in the 2019-2021 timeframe. Additionally, we expect UPS, which hiked its quarterly dividend by 10% in 2018, to maintain its share-holder friendly approach in 2019. The current tax law, leading to substantial savings, should support dividend raises and buybacks in the current year. UPS' solid free cash flow hints at the possibility of a dividend increase in the near future. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone! It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 27 billion devices in just 3 years, creating a $1.7 trillion market. Zacks has just released a Special Report that spotlights this fast-emerging phenomenon and 6 tickers for taking advantage of it. If you don't buy now, you may kick yourself in 2020. Click here for the 6 trades >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) : Free Stock Analysis Report eBay Inc. (EBAY) : Free Stock Analysis Report United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS) : Free Stock Analysis Report FedEx Corporation (FDX) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Could our universe really look like this? (University of Uppsala) Could ">our universe actually be riding on the edge an expanded bubble in an extra dimension and surrounded by other bubbles, each with other universes? Its certainly a far-out idea, but university of Uppsala researchers believe that it could explain a few things including why our universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate. The new structural theories is based on string theory the idea that all matter consists of tiny, vibrating stringlike entities. String theory also suggests that there are more dimensions than the three we experience in our day-to-day lives. MORE: Pedestrian killed by helicopter that landed on top of him at Brazil beach resort MORE: Police mocked for sharing e-fit of suspected robber who looks like the Grim Reaper The new model could solve the problems with previous ideas of the structure of the universe, the researchers say. The researchers write, The whole Universe is accommodated on the edge of this expanding bubble. All existing matter in the Universe corresponds to the ends of strings that extend out into the extra dimension. The researchers also show that expanding bubbles of this kind can come into existence within the framework of string theory. It is conceivable that there are more bubbles than ours, corresponding to other universes. The Uppsala scientists model provides a new, different picture of the creation and future fate of the Universe, while it may also pave the way for methods of testing string theory. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Wide-body aircraft deal: PM says parliamentary sub-panel isnt the ultimate authority Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has said that the sub-committee of the Parliament is not the ultimate authority to investigate the procurement of two wide-body Airbus A330 jets. By Tom Hals WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) - The partial U.S. government shutdown is showing signs of straining the country's immigration system and has been blamed for worsening backlogs in courts and complicating hiring for employers. U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to continue the shutdown until he gets the $5 billion he is seeking for a wall on the Mexican border, which the opposition Democrats have refused, prompting the 13-day shutdown. About 800,000 federal employees have been affected. That includes border patrol agents who are working without pay, according to Joshua Wilson, vice president of the border patrol union in San Diego. Immigration judges have been furloughed, which means thousands of long-delayed deportation cases will have to be rescheduled, frustrating efforts by Trump's Justice Department to clear a backlog of 800,000 cases. Jeremy McKinney, an immigration lawyer in North Carolina, said a client who is fighting deportation had a procedural hearing canceled this week and it probably will not be rescheduled until 2020 due to overflowing dockets. "That's one case for one judge in one city. Multiply that by hundreds in Charlotte and thousands and thousands of cases across the country," he said. "The shutdown has resulted in a complete standstill for most of the immigration docket." The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which is part of the Justice Department and runs the immigration courts, said in a notice that immigrants in detention still will have court dates. However, the judges hearing those cases are working without pay, according to Ashley Tabaddor, the president of the national immigration judges' union. In the past there has been retroactive pay provided but that has to be provided by Congress, so there is a lot of anxiety among the judges about what will happen, Tabaddor said. A Justice Department spokesman said he could not respond to a request for comment because of the shutdown. A system known as E-Verify, which is used to check if a person is authorized to work in the United States, was taken offline for a lack of funding. Several states require employers to use the program and the Trump administration has considered making E-Verify mandatory for employers. Shanon Stevenson, a lawyer with Fisher & Phillips in Atlanta, said she has heard from clients that they may postpone adding staff until E-Verify is available. "They dont want to invest the time and training and find they then have problem," she said. (Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware, Kristina Cooke in San Francisco and Mica Rosenberg in New York; Editing by Bill Trott) Ankara (AFP) - Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday said Ankara and Baghdad would deepen cooperation against terrorism after tensions last month over Turkish air strikes against Kurdish militants in Iraq. "We know the importance of working together to be successful in our fight against terror. God willing, in the future we will deepen our cooperation in this area," Erdogan told a press conference in Ankara with his Iraqi counterpart Barham Saleh. Erdogan said there were threats to both countries from "terrorist organisations" such as the Islamic State group, Kurdish militants and the group blamed for a failed coup in 2016. "Iraq wants real cooperation and strategic partnership with Turkey," Saleh said, which would "serve not just the two countries but the whole region". The talks come after the Turkish ambassador to Baghdad was summoned last month to protest against "repeated" Turkish air strikes on Iraqi territory. Baghdad at the time denounced the strikes as a "violation of its sovereignty" after Ankara hit Kurdish militant positions in the northern Sinjar and Mount Karajak regions. Turkish warplanes have often bombed hideouts of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency against Turkey since 1984 and is blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies. The Turkish defence ministry earlier Thursday said warplanes had struck PKK targets in the Zap, Metina, Avasin-Basyan and Gara regions on Wednesday. Erdogan has threatened to expand Turkey's fight against the PKK to Iraq and launch an operation against the group in Sinjar. President Donald Trump said that he could have made a good general in a White House meeting, even as he maintained feuds with several retired generals. During a rambling 95-minute Cabinet meeting Wednesday, Trump criticized the strategy of American military leaders in Afghanistan, adding, I think I would have been a good general, but who knows? In the same meeting, Trump also criticized retired General James Mattis, saying that he had essentially fired the general from his position as Secretary of Defense because he had done not too good in Afghanistan. In fact, Mattis resigned from the post in protest after the president announced his plan to withdraw all U.S. troops currently serving in Syria. Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position, Mattis wrote in his resignation letter. Trumps comments about his unrealized potential as a general also stand out because he was criticized throughout his 2016 campaign for his lack of military service. Trump received a medical deferment during the Vietnam War after he was diagnosed with bone spurs. Trump was later criticized for referring to his avoidance of sexually transmitted diseases as his own personal Vietnam. During the campaign, Trump also received scorn for saying that he had always wanted to get the Purple Heart, a medal awarded to soldiers who have been wounded or killed in service. Trump has also publicly feuded with various generals during his campaign and presidency. In recent days, Trump harshly attacked retired four-star Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, calling him a Hilary lover who had been fired by President Barack Obama and has a big, dumb mouth. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Trump also reportedly has a strained relationship with retired General John Kelly, his former chief of staff. While Kelly has rarely publicly criticized the president, reports say that he has called Trump an idiot. Other reports suggest that Trump resented Kelly for acting as if he thinks hes running things. Story continues Kelly has also contradicted Trumps stance that steel slats would constitute a border wall, saying that the president had long since abandoned his commitment to constructing a real wall. To be honest, its not a wall, Kelly said an exit interview with the Los Angeles Times. Meanwhile, retired General David Petraeus said he is not considering joining in the Trump Administration. I think there does have to be policy alignment [with Trump,] and Im not sure that exists, Im afraid, Petraeus said, according to an interview with BBC Radio Four. Last year, Petraeus also signed a letter along with 12 other former national-security leaders criticizing Trump for removing of John Brennans security clearance. WASHINGTON President Donald Trump seemed to misstate the former Soviet Union's involvement in Afghanistan on Wednesday with a convoluted account that sparked ridicule on Twitter. "Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan," Trump said during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. "The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there." The former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to prop up Afghanistan's then- communist government, which was battling anticommunist guerrillas. The U.S. condemned the Soviet move and eventually helped the mujahideen rebel forces. Under then-President Ronald Reagan, the U.S. provided the mujahideen with anti-aircraft missiles, among other assistance. In part because of U.S. involvement, the Afghan conflict became a quagmire for the Soviet Union, costing Moscow billions of dollars and dealing a blow to the reputation of its Red Army. It was one factor among many that helped lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union. President Donald Trump reveals why he 'essentially fired' General Jim Mattis Political experts seemed taken aback that Trump said Russia was "right" to invade Afghanistan in a Cold War conflict that pit the U.S.S.R. against the U.S. "I'm old enough to remember when GOP presidents didn't think the USSR was right to invade Afghanistan," Jonah Goldberg, a conservative columnist and political analyst, tweeted after Trump's remarks. Others suggested Trump had flat-out misstated history. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump says former Soviet Union was 'right' to invade Afghanistan, prompting ridicule By Jeff Mason WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the United States would get out of Syria slowly "over a period of time" and would protect the U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in the country as Washington draws down troops. Trump did not provide a timetable for the planned military exit from Syria, which he announced last month against the advice of top national security aides and without consulting lawmakers or U.S. allies participating in anti-Islamic State operations. The decision prompted Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to resign. Trump said on Wednesday he had essentially fired Mattis, whose letter of resignation was seen as a sharp rebuke to the Republican president. During a Cabinet meeting at the White House in front of reporters, Trump said he had never set a reported four-month timetable for the withdrawal of 2,000 American troops stationed in Syria amid a battle against Islamic State militants. "We're getting out and we're getting out smart," Trump said. "I never said I'm getting out tomorrow." He declined to be specific about how long troops would remain in Syria. In recent days, Trump appeared to back off from any hasty pullout and stressed that the operation would be slow. "We're slowly sending our troops back home to be with their families, while at the same time fighting Isis [Islamic State] remnants," he said on Twitter on Monday. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he came out of a recent lunch with Trump feeling reassured about the Syria policy. Graham told reporters that Trump was committed to making sure Turkey did not clash with the Kurdish YPG forces once U.S. troops leave Syria, and was assuring the NATO ally that it would have a buffer zone in the region to help protect its own interests. Turkey views the YPG as a branch of its own Kurdish separatist movement and is threatening to launch an offensive against the group, igniting fears of significant civilian casualties. U.S. commanders planning the U.S. withdrawal are recommending that YPG fighters battling Islamic State be allowed to keep U.S.-supplied weapons, according to U.S. officials. That proposal would likely anger Turkey, where Trumps national security adviser, John Bolton, is expected to hold talks in the coming days. Trump said he was not happy that the Kurds were selling oil to Iran, but that he wanted to protect them either way. "I didn't like the fact that they're selling the small (amount of) oil that they have to Iran, and we asked them not to sell it to Iran... We're not thrilled about that. OK? I'm not happy about it at all," he said. "We want to protect the Kurds, nevertheless. We want to protect the Kurds, but I don't want to be in Syria forever. It's sand. And it's death." Trump has been critical of previous administrations for sending and keeping U.S. troops abroad, and has made bringing troops home part of his signature "America First" policy as he eyes a re-election bid in 2020. (Reporting by Jeff Mason, additional reporting by Tim Ahmann; Writing by Doina Chiacu and Jeff Mason; editing by Bill Berkrot) By Jeff Mason and David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he had received a "great" letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and would probably meet him again in the not-too-distant future as part of efforts to persuade him to give up his nuclear weapons. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump defended stuttering U.S. negotiations with Kim, saying that if it had not been for his administration "you'd be having a nice big fat war in Asia." He reiterated that there was no hurry. "I'm not in any rush. I don't have to rush. All I know is there's no rockets, theres no testing," he said, referring to North Korea's nuclear and missile tests that have been halted since the second half of 2017. Trump said he had watched coverage of Kim's New Year speech on the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service. "They said that in Chairman Kims speech he really wants to get together, he wants to denuclearize and a lot of good things are happening," Trump said. "They really do want to do something. Now, does that mean its going to be done? Who knows? A deal's a deal, you never know, but I tell you, we've established a very good relationship with North Korea." "We'll probably now have another meeting. He'd like to meet, I'd like to meet," Trump said. "We'll set that up, we'll be setting that up in the not-too-distant future." Kim vowed to work toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula when he met Trump for the first time at a summit in Singapore in June, but there has been little concrete progress since. Kim said in a nationally televised New Year address on Tuesday that he was ready to meet again with Trump anytime, but warned he may take a "new path" if U.S. sanctions and pressure continued. Trump, who in 2017 threatened to rain "fire and fury like the world has never seen" on North Korea because of the threat its nuclear weapons and missiles posed to the United States, said a world war had been averted. "That was going to be a war - there could have been a World War Three to be honest with you ... And instead, we have somebody who I really think wants to get on to economic development and making a lot of success and money, frankly, for his country." Trump said North Korea had "tremendous" potential, and added: "We'll help them out too." On Monday, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that Kim had sent a message to Trump regarding the stalled nuclear talks. The report did not include details about the "letter-like" communication. Trump told reporters on Wednesday the letter was "great" and that he would love to read it out loud, but did not do so. Trump has said previously that a second summit with Kim was likely in January or February, though he wrote on Twitter last month he was "in no hurry." 'SINISTER INTENTION' In his address on Tuesday, Kim said denuclearization was his "firm will" and North Korea had "declared at home and abroad that we would neither make and test nuclear weapons any longer nor use and proliferate them." However, he warned that North Korea might be "compelled to explore a new path" to defend its sovereignty if the United States "seeks to force something upon us unilaterally ... and remains unchanged in its sanctions and pressure." In spite of Trump's words, Kim's comments have fueled doubts over whether North Korea intends to give up a nuclear weapons program it has long considered essential to its security. Analysts said Kim's message sent clear signals that North Korea, which has sought acceptance as a "responsible" nuclear power, was willing to stay in talks with Washington and Seoul this year - but on its own terms. North Koreas main state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary on Thursday last year saw "wonderful changes" and "great movements" in North Korea's relations with the South Korea and the United States, but progress in inter-Korean relations were locked up in stagnation because of U.S policies. "The U.S. still remains unchanged in the policy hostile towards the DPRK," the paper wrote, using the initials of North Koreas official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The paper accused the United States of having a "a sinister intention to deprive the DPRK of its nuclear weapons and bring it to its knees without goodwill to build a new, good relationship with the DPRK". "The U.S. is urged to do what it should do for the improvement of the DPRK-U.S. relations, not making useless admonition while meddling in the issue of north-south relations, an internal issue of the Korean nation," it said. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made several trips to Pyongyang last year but the two sides have yet to reschedule an abruptly canceled November meeting between him and senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol aimed at paving the way for a second summit. As well as demanding a lifting of sanctions, Pyongyang has been seeking an official end to the 1950-1953 Korean War in response to its initial, unilateral steps that have included dismantling its only known nuclear testing site and a missile engine facility. U.S. officials have said the extent of initial North Korean steps was not confirmed and could be easily reversed. Washington has halted some large-scale military exercises with South Korea to aid negotiations, but has called for strict global sanctions enforcement until North Korea's full, verifiable denuclearization. (Reporting by Jeff Mason; Writing by Susan Heavey and David Brunnstrom; Additional reporting by Josh Smith in SEOUL; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and James Dalgleish) Michael Peck Security, What do China, Russia, bubonic plague and global warming have in common? They are among the top threats to U.S. national security, according to the U.S. government. These Are the Top 26 National Security Threats Facing America What do China, Russia, bubonic plague and global warming have in common? They are among the top threats to U.S. national security, according to the U.S. government. The Government Accountability Office polled four government agencies on what they saw as the biggest threats to American security. The result was 26 threats identified by the Department of Defense, Department of State, Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Here are the 26: Chinese global expansion. China is marshalling its diplomatic, economic, and military resources to facilitate its rise as a regional and global power, the report said. This may challenge U.S. access to air, space, cyberspace, and maritime domains. China's use of cyberspace and electronic warfare could impact various U.S. systems and operations. Russian global expansion. Russia is increasing its capability to challenge the United States across multiple warfare domains, including attempting to launch computer-based directed energy attacks against U.S. military assets. Russia is also increasing its military and political presence in key locations across the world." Iran. Iran is expanding the size and capabilities of its military and intelligence forces, as well as developing technology that could be used to build ICBMs and cyberwarfare. North Korea. North Korea is developing ICBMs that can hit North America. Unstable governments. Terrorism, extremism and political instability in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean could tax U.S. resources needed for counter-terrorism and humanitarian relief. Terrorism. Terrorists could advance their tactics, including building nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, or increase their use of online communications to reach new recruits and disseminate propaganda. Story continues New adversaries and private corporations. New states could arise that threaten the U.S. Interestingly, the GAO report worries about private corporations obtaining resources that could grant them more influence than states. Information operations. Adversaries such as Russia, China and Iran will take advantage of social media, artificial intelligence and data crunching to wage information warfare. Artificial intelligence. AI will allow adversaries to design better weapons. Quantum communications. Quantum technology could result in communications that cant be intercepted or decoded by U.S. intelligence, while also making U.S. communications more vulnerable to interception. Internet of Things. Networks that control critical infrastructure, such as the power grid, are vulnerable. Drones. Adversaries are developing autonomous capabilities that could recognize faces, understand gestures, and match voices of U.S. personnel, which could compromise U.S. operations, GAO said. Unmanned ground, underwater, air, and space vehicles may be used for combat and surveillance. Biotechnology. States, terrorists and criminals could use DNA modification to create super-soldiers. Emerging technologies. New technologies such as 3-D printing, which could allow terrorists to manufacture weapons. Weapons of mass destruction. More actors are developing them. Electronic warfare. Other nations are developing technology that can disrupt U.S. communications, computers and satellite networks. Hypersonic weapons. Russia and China are developing Mach-5-plus weapons that can penetrate U.S. anti-missile defenses. Significantly, the report notes that there are no existing countermeasures to these weapons. Counterspace weapons. In addition to Russian effort, China is developing capabilities to conduct large-scale anti-satellite strikes using novel physical, cyber, and electronic warfare means. Missiles. Not just land- and sea-based missiles, but also space-based missiles that could orbit the earth. Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms. Future advances in AI, sensors, data analytics, and space-based platforms could create an environment of ubiquitous ISR, where people and equipment could be tracked throughout the world in near-real time. Aircraft. China and Russia are developing faster and longer-ranged aircraft, including stealth aircraft. Undersea weapons. Russia has made significant advancements in submarine technology and tactics to escape detection by U.S. forces. China is developing underwater acoustic systems that could coordinate swarm attacksthe use of large quantities of simple and expendable assets to overwhelm opponentsamong vehicles and provide greater undersea awareness. Cyber weapons. In addition to Russia and China, Iran and North Korea are developing cyberattack capabilities that could target a variety of systems, such as air traffic control or health care. Infectious diseases. Climate change, and increased global travel, could spread drug-resistant pandemics. Climate change. More extreme weather, such as more frequent hurricanes and droughts, and rising sea levels could disrupt food and energy supplies. Melting Arctic ice is opening new sea routes in the north, potentially increasing Russian and Chinese access to the region and challenging the freedom of navigation that the United States currently has. Mass migration. Disasters, whether natural or man-made, will spur population flows that could strain U.S. military and civilian resources. Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook. Image: Reuters. Read full article Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump on Wednesday offered a rather stark take on the situation in war-wracked Syria, summing it up in two words -- "sand and death" -- while remaining vague about the timing of the withdrawal of US troops. "So Syria was lost long ago. It was lost long ago. And besides that, I don't want -- we're talking about sand and death. That's what we're talking about," Trump said during a cabinet meeting. "We're not talking about vast wealth. We're talking about sand and death." On when US forces would leave Syria, Trump said: "I don't want to be in Syria forever." But after saying troops would come home right away, and that the Islamic State group was defeated, he didn't give any specific timetable. "I never said we are getting out overnight," Trump said. "Oh, we're withdrawing," he added, saying only that it would happen "over a period of time." On Monday, the Republican president said the United States was "slowly sending" troops home -- a markedly different tone than he used in his initial announcement of a withdrawal on December 19. "Our boys, our young women, our men -- they're all coming back and they're coming back now," he said in a video message that day. The United States has about 2,000 troops -- most of them special forces -- deployed in northern Syria to fight IS and reinforce anti-jihadist forces. Top-ranking US military officials had repeatedly warned against a hasty retreat from Syria, which they say could leave the door open in Syria to allies of President Bashar al-Assad -- notably Russia and Iran. Trump's defense secretary Jim Mattis resigned over the decision to leave Syria, as did the administration's special envoy to the anti-IS coalition, Brett McGurk. Anup Kumar Upadhyay tipped to head electricity commission The government is set to appoint former energy secretary Anup Kumar Upadhyay as chair of the powerful Nepal Electricity Regulatory Commission that will oversee the countrys energy sector their business was born in a balloon going up, and spent all its early years in the sky." They had seen nothing but the extreme of fortune. One hundred per cent per annum on an investment was in their judgment only a fair profit. Ida Tarbell, "The History of the Standard Oil Company" 1904 Facebooks problems are coming so fast and furious these days that the companys biggest challenge is simply keeping track of it all. Between high-profile mega hacks, negligent sharing of data, and lawsuits, never mind investigations by governments all over the world, Facebooks top executives are expending much of their time trying to stop the bleedingmany would say ineffectuallyat the expense of running the business. Memo to Sheryl and Zuck: Theres a message in that disequilibrium. At this point its probably too much to ask those twothe company founder, cum CEO, cum controlling shareholder and his handpicked, right-hand personto figure out how to fix Facebook. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg are too close to it and have too much faith in the righteousness of what they consider not merely a company, but a cause.* (Dangerous thinking that.) Both Sandberg and Zuckerberg recently posted longish similar year-end messages that both displayed equal measures of earnestness and cluelessness. The posts engendered over 15,000 comments combined, many of them negative. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during the F8 Facebook Developers conference on May 1, 2018 in San Jose, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Its clear to many Facebook watchersacademics, researchers at think tanks and regulatorsthat the company is incapable of self-oversight. And to be fair, what company of this scale is? There are reasons why Coke, Walmart, and Comcast, etc. are regulated. Though some might argue they are overly regulated, who would suggest these giants be allowed to operate as unfettered as Facebook does today? The power of the network effect As for Facebook, never in the history of the planet has a company grown so big, so fast in such a new business as Facebook. In October, Facebook said that every day more than 2 billion people use at least one of its family of serviceswhich includes photo-sharing site Instagram, messaging app WhatsApp, Facebook itself, and Facebook Messenger. Story continues In addition to those services, Facebook also owns virtual-reality pioneer Oculus, which it bought for $2 billion in 2014. With the exception of a few scattershot efforts like a 2011 consent agreement with the FTC, this growth has come with next to no oversight. Thats a pretty massive disconnect. The world has never seen the network effect as powerfully exhibited as with Facebook, says Dave Roux, a veteran technology executive and investor. The bigger it gets the better it gets and the more powerful it gets. Unfortunately, you have a toxic combination with this massive scale and one person [Zuckerberg] completely in control. Its very much like a corporate North Korea. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg accompanied by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, right, before the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on "Foreign Influence Operations and Their Use of Social Media Platforms" on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) Lina Khan, an academic fellow at Columbia Law School and a senior fellow at the Open Markets Institute (OMI), an anti-monopoly think tank based in Washington D.C., notes that most of the major concerns about Facebook including privacy and national security are heightened because of Facebooks market power and scale. Many of its problems stem from its dominance and business model, Khan says. Facebooks scale coupled with its business model are dangerous. And Facebooks market share continues to grow. According to a new report by the OMI: Facebook had 72% of the $25.6 billion share of revenue from social networking sites. (LinkedIn was a distant second at 11%, followed by Twitter at 6% and everyone else with 11% combined.) In 2012, Facebook had a 61% share to LinkedIn's 14%. Given that bad actors (Russian agents, white supremacists, and proponents of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, for example) have used Facebooks platform to foist their agendas on our society, and given Facebooks ineptitude and reluctance in responding to these threats, lawmakers in Washington are increasingly up in arms. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia and Congressman David Cicilline of Rhode Island, who both play key oversight roles on the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Judiciary Committee respectively, have strongly criticized the company. Cicilline has tweeted his displeasure over Facebook on numerous occasions. Cicilline tweet In a recent interview Cicilline told me that Facebook has an alarming concentration of economic power, and had engaged in a disturbing set of tactics that recalls big tobacco. As for Warner, he told me at Yahoo Finances All Markets Summit in Washington this past November, the notion that [Facebook is] going to be able to self-regulate themselves out of this just doesnt cut it. A simple, yet radical solutionbreak up Facebook A reckoning of some sort is coming. The question really is: What would be the best outcome not just for customers, employees and shareholders, but given Facebooks impact on our society writ large, for all Americans? First, lets take a step back. Critics have raised questions about Facebook practices in several broad and interconnected areas including privacy, censorship, national security, and market power/antitrust. This has made forming a regulatory consensus difficult because usually each lawmaker focuses on one set of problems and not the big picture. For instance, GOP congressmen lambast the company for stifling conservative voices (which may or may not be accurate), while the Senate Intelligence Committee is focused on Russian security forces using Facebook to influence elections. Its hard to imagine left-leaning Cicilline, whos concerned about Facebooks market power and use of customers data, working with Senator Ted Cruz, whos slammed the company because he says its biased against conservatives. On the one hand this makes things incredibly messy for Facebookfacing off against myriad critics with different agendasbut on the other hand it has allowed the company to effectively divide and conquer its opponents. However, just because its critics are uncoordinated, doesnt mean these problems will go away for Facebook. In fact it may make them fester. So again, how best to proceed? There are a number of proposals on the table, which include a privacy bill of rights, government oversight, and tighter regulation a la Europes GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). But really these are essentially piecemeal solutions that address the aforementioned issues in a select fashion. To cobble together a comprehensive solution would require many or all of them to be adopted, which is unrealistic. I do think however, there is one simple, admittedly radical, remedy that would potentially resolve all of Facebooks problems. That is: Break up Facebook. Source: David Foster/Yahoo Finance I know what youre thinking: Weve heard that before. And, It will never happen. Or, What good will that do? And its true that even outspoken critics like Cicilline told me that breaking up Facebook is not in Congresss purview and a solution of last resort. Yet I think theres a compelling case to be made. Breaking Facebook into competitive social media platforms would create instant competition in the social media business, which would allow the marketplace to reward the separated companies by best practices. For instance the company with the best user privacy protocols might attract the biggest audience. The idea has caught the attention of some on Wall Street. If you have separation, lets just say of the three largest platforms Facebook ownsFacebook, Instagram, WhatsApp [some also include Messenger and Oculus Rift as other potential stand-alone platforms] certainly under different management and in a competitive construct they would be fiercely competitive for users. And it could change the way that the businesses are run, says Scott Devitt, an analyst with Stifel. In the end, I think a competitive environment can be good for owners of companies and users of companies. The breakup of Facebook would put the separate companies on longer term paths that would diffuse some of the issues that exist today around lack of competition, antitrust oversight, and regulatory, Devitt says. Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu, author of a new book, The Curse of Bigness, that essentially calls for a break up of Facebook, tells me that Instagram and WhatsApp could position themselves as the anti-Facebook. Wu says that Facebooks mergers with these companies was illegally consummated because antitrust authorities in both the U.S. and the UK did not have the tools to understand the markets or the stakes. The historical argument for breaking up Facebook Facebook investor and venture capitalist Roger McNamee, right, addresses reporters as producer James Jacoby looks on during a panel discussion on the PBS Frontline special "The Facebook Dilemma" at the 2018 Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour at the Beverly Hilton, Tuesday, July 31, 2018, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP) Longstanding Silicon Valley investor Roger McNamee, who chronicles his transformation from Facebook booster to Facebook loather in his soon-to-be published book Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe, notes there is a precedent for breaking up big companies in the U.S. where all constituents make out for the better. Antitrust is better than censorship because antitrust is growth, McNamee says, pointing to the breakup of AT&T in the 1980s as being a huge win for shareholders. In 1992, Fortune did a rundown of the common stockholders equity in old AT&T versus post-breakup AT&T. The article says: The market value of AT&T's common stock just before the settlements were announced in January 1982 was $47.5 billion. In late June of this year, the market value of the eight successor companies togetherthe stripped-down AT&T, plus Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, Nynex, Pacific Telesis, Southwestern Bell, and US Westcame to no less than $180 billion. Some of that gain reflects the billions of earnings that the companies have retained: The common stockholders' equity, or book value, of the seven Baby Bells plus AT&T is around $27 billion bigger than AT&T's was before the breakup. Standard Oil Company founder John Davison Rockefeller (1839 - 1937) walks on a New York city street amongst an unidentified group, 1908. (Photo by Buyenlarge/Getty Images) Even more significantly, the overall economy benefitted as the breakup ushered in discounted long distance and greatly sped up the advent of wireless telephony. Going further back into American history, the breakup of John D. Rockefellers Standard Oil of New Jersey into 34 entities in 1911 similarly unleashed a boon for shareholders and for the greater economy. Tim Wu tells me he met with the Justice Department in June 2018 to warn it about Facebooks dominance. DOJs response? They gave me the impression that they werent there to sit on their hands, Wu said. Facebook declined to make any executives available to comment, but a spokesperson sent an email saying: Facebook operates in a fiercely competitive environment where people use our apps at the same time they use free services offered by many others. For every service offered on Facebook and our family of apps, there are three or four competing services with hundreds of millions, if not billions, of users. Importantly, under one roof, weve been able to better fight spam and abuse and build new features much faster, providing people with more useful products and services. The law is on Facebooks side, for now But lets get real. Siva Vaidhyanathan, the Robertson Professor of Media Studies and director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia, says it would be crucial to break up Facebook, because as of now there is no real competition and no inclination in Silicon Valley to start up a new competitor. Vaidhyanathan says that realistically, however, the chances that the Justice Department would take on the breaking up Facebook right now are slim. Antitrust has been degraded for nearly 40 years, he says, pointing out that DOJ now looks only at consumer welfare, meaning prices, not all the other problems that market dominance can bring. We need new law review articles, new clerks, new case work and that would take years, he says. Facebook is well aware that the current state of antitrust law benefits its position. A Facebook pr person pointed me an op-ed piece in The Hill, written by David Balto, a former policy director at the Federal Trade Commission and Matthew Lane, outside counsel to the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which criticizes those like Vaidhyanathan and Wu who would restore and or expand anti-trust so that it could theoretically take on Facebook as hipster antitrust, that has fixated on antitrust law as panacea for all the worlds ills. (The New York Times recently published a story describing the FTC as an entity that many say has been far too cautious in overseeing Facebook and other social media giants.) In this May 7, 2009 file photo, Susan Desmond-Hellmann, left, (and new UC Davis chancellor Linda Katehi) at a University of California Board of Regents news conference in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File) One possible source of change could be independent directors of Facebook; a group that includes White House veteran Erskine Bowles, former American Express CEO Ken Chenault, and Gates Foundation CEO Susan Desmond-Hellmann. Bowles was reportedly angry at not being informed of problems at the company. If youre associated with a tire fire of a situation and not associated with a solution ... independent directors [could] ... threaten to resign at some point if Facebook doesnt do what independent directors think is right, says Brian Wieser, an analyst with New York City-based equity research firm Pivotal Research Group. But asking directors to force a company to break itself up would be unrealistic, never mind unprecedented. A tough pill to swallow The ultimate change agent would be Zuckerberg himself. But is it possible that he would have the vision to see that breaking up Facebook would result in the best outcome for Facebook, oh and, by the way, for America? Not likely to be perfectly honest. Wieser with Pivotal Research agrees that a breakup would be tough for Zuckerberg to swallow. I assume someone in that position would generally not want to be told what to do, for starters. If youre them, the top management, you genuinely believe you havent done anything wrong. You genuinely believe youre doing good for world. If you believe in doing whats right, why wouldnt you fight it? Right, it becomes an ego thing really, even though remember that Zuckerberg would likely make out financially in a big way. Says Devitt: If separation happened with Facebook, youd have the opportunity to value entities separately, which on a stand-alone basis one could conclude the pieces would be worth more than theyre valued together today. It could be a positive outcome as it relates to shareholders. Think of the companys shareholders wanting to make money off of the paper they own, which would benefit Zuckerberg the most as the largest shareholder. So sure, Zuck would get even richer. But with a net worth of some $50 billion, thats not why hes getting out of bed in the morning. So what if Mark Zuckerberg thought even bigger? What if he would imagine the innovation and growth that would occur if Facebook were broken up, like AT&T or Standard Oil? What if Facebooks breakup ushered in the next internet revolutionand Zuck were the person responsible for it? Contrast that with the current scenario, where Zuckerberg and his lawyers will likely be fighting enemies and regulators for years and yearsand most importantly, not participating in and shaping the future of the digital media, social networking, and the internet. Thats why Mark Zuckerberg should on his own, proactively, break up Facebook. For himself. For the company. For all its constituents. For all of us. Its a huge, huge call. But its the right thing to do. *Facebooks mission statement used to be: Making the world more open and connected. Two years ago the company changed it to: To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. Andy Serwer is Yahoo Finances editor-in-chief. Read more: Imagine Facebook without the ads but with a monthly fee Tech companies are suffering from a success delusion Mark Warner: This will send a shiver down the spine of Facebook, Google, and Twitter WASHINGTON As congressional leaders from both parties left the White House on Wednesday with little progress on ending the ongoing government shutdown, some lawmakers appeared ready to try to resurrect a deal that would secure billions for the construction of a border wall in exchange for protections for children of immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally. Republican Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, the leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told Yahoo News on Wednesday that hes had dozens of conversations with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., about a potential deal. Compromise and finding common ground are not void from the conversations that he and I have had, as well as some of the conversations Ive had with some of my Democratic colleagues, Meadows said. Though the Freedom Caucus has previously opposed extending protections from deportation for the children of undocumented immigrants, Meadows suggested he would be open to a deal to preserve such concessions in exchange for wall funding. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speak to the media after meeting at the White House with President Trump on border security on Jan. 2. (Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP) Wednesdays event at the White House was part of President Trumps push for $5.6 billion to fund further construction of a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. Democrats have refused to provide any money to fund a wall they have described as ineffective and unnecessary. In an interview with NBCs Today show set to air Thursday morning, presumptive House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was adamant that her partys measure to reopen the federal government would not include funding for a wall. No, no, Pelosi said. Nothing for the wall. But amid the saber-rattling, other members of Congress have resurrected the idea of crafting a compromise in which border wall funding would be exchanged for protections for those immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Many of these children were previously shielded from deportation by President Barack Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy. However, Trump ended that program in September 2017. Since then, the future of the children covered by DACA has remained uncertain amid ongoing legal battles. Story continues Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., and Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., have both said they would be willing to provide some border wall funding as part of a deal that would preserve DACA. Graham has similarly suggested a compromise could be reached that would include border wall funding in exchange for DACA protections. At the end of the day, theres a deal to be had, Graham said on CNN last Sunday, adding, We need to start talking again. Trump has rejected a proposal from Graham and Sen. Lamar Alexander R-Tenn., that would combine wall funding with protections for some of the immigrants covered by DACA. Though he expressed openness to a compromise that included the policy, Meadows described a DACA wall funding deal as a moot point because Democrats have made it very clear theyre not going to negotiate to provide wall funding. He argued that Democratic leaders need to bend. The president has been consistent on wanting border security fencing, a wall, whatever you want to call it. Hes been consistent on that for the last two years and, at some point, just saying no is not a winning strategy, Meadows said. Potential compromises involving DACA protections in exchange for wall funding were previously offered in February 2018. At that time, Trump backed a plan that would include DACA protections along with strict curbs on legal immigration. Trumps plan was rejected by a large bipartisan group of senators. At the same time, Trump and conservative senators opposed bipartisan plans, including one that would have provided about $25 billion for border security over a decade. Trump has been pushing for immediate border wall funding. President Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Jan. 2, 2019, in Washington. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP) At a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Trump suggested he was also close to reaching a deal last November with Democrats to protect DACA in exchange for wall funding. However, Trump said that compromise fell apart when a federal appeals court ruled in favor of blocking Trumps plan to end DACA. We had a deal pretty close to being done, and a lot of people say I backed away from that deal. I didnt back away, Trump said. The minute the judge overruled the case and they allowed DACA, they didnt talk to us and I dont blame them they didnt answer the calls. Fact checkers have disputed similar claims from Trump, citing his prior opposition to similar DACA compromises. At Wednesdays Cabinet meeting, Trump went on to say that he is confident he will be able to make a deal preserving DACA in exchange for wall funding if the Supreme Court takes up the case and rules in favor of his efforts to end the policy. If we win that case and I say this for all to hear well easily be able to make a deal on DACA and the wall as a combination, Trump said. But until we win that case, they dont really want to talk about DACA. While some members of Congress and the president have indicated they could be willing to end the shutdown with a DACA compromise, the prospect of any potential deal seemed far away as congressional leaders left the White House on Wednesday. Neither camp seemed willing to budge as both sides made their case to reporters waiting outside the West Wing. House Minority Leader-designate Kevin McCarthy accused Democrats of refusing to listen to a briefing on border issues from Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. I was a little disappointed with, I would say, some on the other side, McCarthy said. Once the secretary started, [Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer interrupted her and they really didnt want to hear it. McCarthy said the Democrats were focused on pushing Trump and the Republicans to support a legislative package to fund the government through Feb. 8 that Pelosi plans to pass in the House tomorrow. That legislation would resolve the shutdown temporarily, but it does not address the issue of border security funding. The president has been very clear its not the bill he would support and [Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell had said hes not bringing anything up thats not going to become law, McCarthy said. The border wall was a centerpiece of Trumps presidential campaign, but he also promised that Mexico would pay for it. The Mexican government has been adamant that it will not fund the wall. Shortly before the congressional leaders came to the White House on Wednesday, Trump tweeted that Mexico is paying for the Wall through the new USMCA Trade Deal. McCarthy and the other Republican leaders ignored multiple questions from reporters about how the trade deal would make Mexico pay for the wall and why taxpayer funds were needed if this was the case. As she left the White House, Pelosi encouraged Republicans to back her legislative package. She claimed it was based on prior proposals put forth by McConnell and called it a chance for the GOP to take yes for an answer. Pelosi said negotiations over border security funding could then begin after the government is reopened. Our question to the president and to the Republicans is, why dont you accept what you have already done to open up government? Pelosi asked. That enables us to have 30 days to negotiate for border security. Schumer accused the Republicans of trying to use a shutdown as leverage to help Trump deliver his promised border wall. He described it as a temper tantrum that would hurt those who are affected by a shutdown. The Democratic leaders did not respond to a question from Yahoo News about whether this could be an opportunity for a DACA deal. McCarthy said Trump invited the leaders of both parties back to the White House for a meeting on Friday. As they departed, Schumer and Pelosi ignored questions about whether they planned to attend. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: See our 2018 year-end features >>> The partial government shutdown entered its 12th day on Wednesday, as congressional leaders planned to meet with President Donald Trump. 'Hoping for the best, planning for the worst' By Ernest Johnson Everyone affected by the shutdown is a real person, including myself. I have bills, just like everyone. And while I'm just a single guy, others are single parents, have families, are caring for elderly parents, among others. The shutdown has created 800,000 permutations of this example. Just like many Americans, I'm struggling to make ends meet. Not knowing how long the shutdown would last and anticipating it might last more than two weeks, and that if we get back pay, it might not be for a couple weeks, as well I chatted with Ally Auto Finance and asked whether my account was in good enough standing to request a deferment due to the furlough and not having income. Ally allowed it, but a "deferment" is a "pay the interest in January" and February is the difference of a full payment, so I'm still paying $160 this month, but next month it'll be about $360. Talker: Is Warren the candidate Democrats have been waiting for? Some doubt it Those of us affected by the shutdown are your friends and neighbors, our children go to the same schools, we attend the same religious centers, and we are all focused on providing for our families and the communities in which we live. We do not go to work waving flags with "Go Team Red" or "Go Team Blue." My co-workers and team members have common goals of providing the most efficient, quality service to the public who depend on our services. I'm still waiting on unemployment insurance to be approved, then I can know how much I'll need to borrow from friends come Feb. 1 for rent and bills due early that month. When you see our #ShutdownStories, please understand that we are regular people. We are nervous, stressed, afraid, worried and concerned about all this, and we are simply expressing our feelings. Personally, I would be fine working with no pay (knowing I will get back pay), just so I can keep my services, responsibilities and commitments to the public. I do not know how all of this will end, all I know is that I will just put one foot in front of the other and make it through another day. Hoping for the best, planning for the worst. Story continues Ernest Johnson is a federal employee in Wyoming. You can follow him on Twitter: @SciFiCowboy_v2. What others are saying The New York Times, editorial: "For the workers directly affected, among those facing the greatest economic uncertainty are contractors, who make up more than 40 percent of the government work force. This includes not only white-collar positions but also thousands of blue-collar jobs, such as janitors and security guards. Unlike regular government employees, many contractors may not be compensated for lost time. They could simply lose the income. Even for regular, noncontract employees, who have eventually been granted back pay after past shutdowns and can reasonably expect the same this time, the grinding anxiety and financial costs of scraping by in the meantime mount with each passing day. Many of these workers live paycheck to paycheck, with little wiggle room." Jonathan Bernstein, Bloomberg: "What President Donald Trump has been doing so far is, as political scientist Dave Hopkins points out, following the lead of the House Freedom Caucus. But Freedom Caucus radicals don't have plans for either policy gains or public-relations wins. What they care about is proving that they're True Conservatives by differentiating themselves from mainstream Republicans. In practice, that means finding irrational but tough-sounding tactics to endorse. That's this shutdown in a nutshell. Instead of making a deal last year, when Republicans held unified control of government, Trump has chosen to negotiate from a position of relative weakness as Democrats take over the House majority." The Washington Post, editorial: "In the name of securing the border and keeping out illegal immigrants, President Trump has opted for a partial government shutdown. Irony of ironies, that shutdown has paralyzed the nations immigration courts, shuttering many of them and allowing several hundred undocumented immigrants to dodge deportation orders each day the shutdown continues. They are among many hundreds of others whose cases will be postponed for years or, in effect, indefinitely for every day the closure lasts." What our readers are saying Why is border security any more critical now than it was two years ago when Donald Trump became president? Has Trump made it worse over the past two years? Republicans had two years to get Trump his wall and they didn't. John Bertelson Senate and House Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi have no incentive to end the shutdown. As long as they think the shutdown will hurt Trump politically, they could not care less how much the shutdown hurts the country and its people. Robert Johnson In two years, Trump couldn't get a dime out of a Republican majority Congress for his silly wall. So now he tells his true supporters it can magically happen by constitutionally mugging the nation? Dannie Leroy Porath To join the conversations about topics on USA TODAY or provide feedback to this newsletter, email jrivera@usatoday.com, comment on Facebook, or use #tellusatoday on Twitter. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The shutdown is hurting people, leaving Americans in uncertainty: Today's talker By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Patrick Shanahan was thrust into the spotlight during his debut as acting U.S. defense secretary on Wednesday, sitting next to President Donald Trump as he publicly disparaged Shanahan's predecessor, lampooned the war in Afghanistan and called Syria a land of "sand" and "death." The former deputy defense secretary officially took office during the New Year's holiday on Tuesday, issuing a statement saying that he looked "forward to working with President Trump to carry out his vision." Trump's vision for the second half of his four-year term in office came into view on Wednesday as he spoke exhaustively during a cabinet meeting about America's wars, and his displeasure with them. Shanahan, a former Boeing executive, sat silently at Trump's side, often expressionless, as television cameras rolled. Trump suggested that former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis - who abruptly resigned last month over policy differences with Trump - had been essentially fired and that Mattis had failed in Afghanistan, where Taliban insurgents are becoming increasingly confident of ending the 17-year-old war on terms favorable to them. "I'm not happy with what he's done in Afghanistan and I shouldn't be happy," Trump said. The remarks put Shanahan in a difficult position from the start of what could be a long tenure at the Pentagon, where many staff were loyal to Mattis. Trump has suggested Shanahan could be acting as defense secretary for an extended period of time. Several candidates previously seen as potential successors to Mattis have recently indicated they don't want the job, officials say. Mattis' public resignation could also make Senate confirmation perilous for any hand-picked successor. Mattis implicitly criticized Trump in his resignation letter for failing to value allies who fight alongside the United States, including in places like Syria. Even Shanahan had been picked by Mattis for the deputy job and held him in high regard, officials say. As deputy, Shanahan often had to fill in for Mattis in meetings, including those with cabinet members. One reason Mattis resigned was Trump's surprise decision to order the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria. Although Trump has declared victory there, critics warn Islamic State still has a toehold, and could stage a comeback if U.S. forces depart. Trump said during the cabinet meeting that Islamic State militants should be combated by nations in the region, including U.S. adversary Iran. "It's sand and it's death," he said. Shanahan has yet to detail his thoughts on the way forward in Syria, where the Pentagon plans a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops over the coming months. He has also not commented on planning for a dramatic drawdown in Afghanistan. Seth Jones at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank in Washington said Shanahan started the job from a somewhat weaker position, as he did not have the mandate of having been confirmed by the Senate. "Second, the president has made major decisions on a range of these (national security) issues," Jones said. CHINA, CHINA, CHINA In one of his first meetings of the day, Shanahan told civilian leaders of the U.S. military to focus on "China, China, China," even as America fights militants in Syria and Afghanistan, a U.S. defense official said. The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not elaborate on Shanahan's views on China or other guidance he gave. Other officials have described Shanahan as an advocate of the Pentagon's toughening stance toward Beijing. The 2018 National Defense Strategy https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf, which Shanahan helped develop, branded China as a strategic competitor. "While we're focused on ongoing operations, acting Secretary Shanahan told the team to remember China, China, China," the official said. Relations between the world's two largest economies have plumbed new depths under Trump, with a trade war and disagreements over Taiwan and the South China Sea. In Beijing on Thursday, a foreign ministry spokesman said China valued relations between the militaries of the two countries. "If what we mutually seek is a partner, then we will likely get a partner. If what we seek is an adversary, then we will certainly get an adversary," Lu Kang told a regular news briefing, when asked about Shanahan's remarks. Shanahan, best known for his focus on internal Pentagon reform and his private-sector experience, had spent three decades at Boeing and was general manager for the 787 Dreamliner passenger jet before he joined the Pentagon. During Shanahan's tense Senate confirmation hearing in 2017, the committee's then-chairman, John McCain, voiced deep concern about giving the deputy job to an executive from one of the five corporations accounting for the lion's share of U.S. defense spending. "I have to have confidence that the fox is not going to be put back into the henhouse," said McCain, who died in August. Shanahan has recused himself from participating in Boeing-related issues, a spokesman said. (Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; additional reporting by David Alexander in WASHINGTON and Martin Pollard in BEIJING; Editing by James Dalgleish and Clarence Fernandez) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is eyeing a presidential run, blasted former Senator Joseph Lieberman for becoming a lobbyist for ZTE Corp, a Chinese telecommunications equipment maker accused of ties to China's government. In a tweet posted on Wednesday night, Warren said Lieberman had "joined" lobbyists for ZTE, which she wrote had "violated serious U.S. sanctions" against Iran and North Korea. "Should that be legal? No," she added, arguing in a subsequent tweet for a lifetime ban on lawmakers working as lobbyists. Lieberman, who ran unsuccessfully for vice president as a Democrat in 2000 and Kasowitz Benson Torres, the firm where he is a lobbyist, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. But a lobby registration form released on Wednesday showed Lieberman was "retained to undertake an independent assessment of concerns that Members of Congress, Executive branch and American businesses have about any national security vulnerabilities and risks that ZTE products may pose in the US." It added that Lieberman would not be lobbying for ZTE, saying he was registered "in the interest of transparency and caution." The comments highlighted the politically charged debate in Washington about ZTE and Huawei Technologies Cos Ltd [HWT.UL], China's biggest network equipment companies. The U.S. government says both companies work at the behest of China's government and sell equipment capable of spying on Americans, charges both companies deny. In August, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a bill barring the federal government from using ZTE equipment. Reuters reported last week that Trump was considering an executive order this year to declare a national emergency, banning American companies from using ZTE and Huawei telecommunications gear. Warren's tweets came days after the liberal from Massachusetts formed an exploratory committee that would allow her to begin raising money to compete in what is expected to be a crowded Democratic field for the 2020 presidential race. (Reporting by Alexandra Alper; editing by Jonathan Oatis) Sen. Lindsey Graham wants President Donald Trump to stick to his guns in the fight over funding for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and warned that giving in to Democrats' demands could be "the end of his presidency." With a partial government shutdown sparked by the fight over funding for the wall in its second week, the South Carolina Republican on Wednesday told Fox News host Sean Hannity that GOP lawmakers won't back down "until we get the money." Trump is seeking the approval of more than $5 billion toward the construction of a border wall. "I'll tell you exactly how this is going to end," Graham told Hannity. "The president is going to challenge the Democrats to compromise and if they continue to say no, they're going to pay a price with the American people." "If he gives in now, that's the end of 2019, in terms of him being an effective president," Graham said. "That's probably the end of his presidency," he added. Exclusive: Nancy Pelosi vows 'different world' for Trump with new Congress, no more 'rubber stamp' How long will the federal shutdown last?: Here are lessons from previous budget battles And Graham went a step further, cautioning Republicans, "That's the end of us if we give in on this issue." Graham's warning came on the eve of Democrats taking over the House of Representatives. During the 2016 campaign, Trump promised voters a "big, beautiful" concrete wall along the southern border, which Mexico would pay for. The president looked at prototypes of different wall designs earlier this year. But Trump's definition of a wall has fluctuated in recent weeks. On Dec. 21, he tweeted that a barrier of steel slates would be "totally effective." Then 10 days later he tweeted that he was not giving up on a concrete wall in "some areas." Story continues The president believes a wall is necessary for national security because it would limit undocumented border crossings, and slow the flow of drugs. Democrats have opposed such a concrete wall on the grounds that it would be costly, ineffective and would be a negative symbol. But many of them accept the need for a barrier or fence in places along the border. They say a barrier should be part of a comprehensive border security plan that includes the use of new technology such as drones. On Sunday, Graham said "the wall has become a metaphor for border security, and what we're talking about is a physical barrier where it makes sense." During a fruitless meeting with congressional Democrats on Wednesday, Trump reportedly indicated that he believes his image is part of what's at stake in the negotiations. According to CNN, Trump rejected a Democratic proposal to temporarily end the shutdown because he worried, "I would look foolish if I did that." With Republicans like Trump and Graham believing the GOP's future is riding on the outcome of this budget battle, an end to the government shutdown appears to be unlikely anytime soon. Nancy Pelosi, expected to be selected as the next speaker of the House, said in an NBC interview Thursday morning that she is unwilling to give Trump any money for a border wall. "No. Nothing for the wall," she said. When asked Wednesday how long he was willing to keep the government shutdown in order to get the money he wants for a border wall, Trump told reporters, "As long as it takes." Contributing: David Jackson and Michael Collins This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Government shutdown: How it could hurt the economy More: House Democrats will move to reopen government as partial shutdown enters its 13th day This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Sen. Lindsey Graham warns President Trump: Loss in wall battle could be 'end of his presidency' If you want to know who really controls New Delhi Television Limited (NSE:NDTV), then youll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Institutions will often hold stock in bigger companies, and we expect to see insiders owning a noticeable percentage of the smaller ones. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome. With a market capitalization of 2.5b, New Delhi Television is a small cap stock, so it might not be well known by many institutional investors. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutions own shares in the company. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about NDTV. View our latest analysis for New Delhi Television NSEI:NDTV Ownership Summary January 3rd 19 What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About New Delhi Television? Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices. We can see that New Delhi Television does have institutional investors; and they hold 8.5% of the stock. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. Its therefore worth looking at New Delhi Televisions earnings history, below. Of course, the future is what really matters. NSEI:NDTV Income Statement Export January 3rd 19 Hedge funds dont have many shares in New Delhi Television. As far I can tell there isnt analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar. Insider Ownership Of New Delhi Television While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it. Story continues Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances. It seems insiders own a significant proportion of New Delhi Television Limited. Insiders own 858m worth of shares in the 2.5b company. I would say this shows alignment with shareholders, but it is worth noting that the company is still quite small; some insiders may have founded the business. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling. General Public Ownership The general public, with a 15% stake in the company, will not easily be ignored. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders. Private Equity Ownership With a stake of 9.7%, private equity firms could influence the NDTV board. Sometimes we see private equity stick around for the long term, but generally speaking they have a shorter investment horizon and as the name suggests dont invest in public companies much. After some time they may look to sell and redeploy capital elsewhere. Private Company Ownership We can see that Private Companies own 32%, of the shares on issue. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company. Next Steps: While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Many find it useful to take an in depth look at how a company has performed in the past. You can access this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow . Of course this may not be the best stock to buy. Therefore, you may wish to see our free collection of interesting prospects boasting favorable financials. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. One of the best investments we can make is in our own knowledge and skill set. With that in mind, this article will work through how we can use Return On Equity (ROE) to better understand a business. To keep the lesson grounded in practicality, well use ROE to better understand Sanford Limited (NZSE:SAN). Our data shows Sanford has a return on equity of 7.3% for the last year. Another way to think of that is that for every NZ$1 worth of equity in the company, it was able to earn NZ$0.073. Check out our latest analysis for Sanford How Do I Calculate Return On Equity? The formula for ROE is: Return on Equity = Net Profit Shareholders Equity Or for Sanford: 7.3% = 42.303 NZ$582m (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2018.) Most readers would understand what net profit is, but its worth explaining the concept of shareholders equity. It is all earnings retained by the company, plus any capital paid in by shareholders. You can calculate shareholders equity by subtracting the companys total liabilities from its total assets. What Does Return On Equity Signify? ROE measures a companys profitability against the profit it retains, and any outside investments. The return is the profit over the last twelve months. That means that the higher the ROE, the more profitable the company is. So, as a general rule, a high ROE is a good thing. Clearly, then, one can use ROE to compare different companies. Does Sanford Have A Good ROE? One simple way to determine if a company has a good return on equity is to compare it to the average for its industry. Importantly, this is far from a perfect measure, because companies differ significantly within the same industry classification. You can see in the graphic below that Sanford has an ROE that is fairly close to the average for the Food industry (8.5%). NZSE:SAN Last Perf January 2nd 19 Thats neither particularly good, nor bad. ROE doesnt tell us if the share price is low, but it can inform us to the nature of the business. For those looking for a bargain, other factors may be more important. For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket. Story continues The Importance Of Debt To Return On Equity Most companies need money from somewhere to grow their profits. That cash can come from retained earnings, issuing new shares (equity), or debt. In the first and second cases, the ROE will reflect this use of cash for investment in the business. In the latter case, the debt used for growth will improve returns, but wont affect the total equity. Thus the use of debt can improve ROE, albeit along with extra risk in the case of stormy weather, metaphorically speaking. Combining Sanfords Debt And Its 7.3% Return On Equity Although Sanford does use debt, its debt to equity ratio of 0.27 is still low. Although the ROE isnt overly impressive, the debt load is modest, suggesting the business has potential. Judicious use of debt to improve returns can certainly be a good thing, although it does elevate risk slightly and reduce future optionality. But Its Just One Metric Return on equity is useful for comparing the quality of different businesses. In my book the highest quality companies have high return on equity, despite low debt. If two companies have the same ROE, then I would generally prefer the one with less debt. But when a business is high quality, the market often bids it up to a price that reflects this. It is important to consider other factors, such as future profit growth and how much investment is required going forward. So I think it may be worth checking this free report on analyst forecasts for the company. But note: Sanford may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. Sajid Javid refers to himself as The Saj, according to a Cabinet source (Reuters) Sajid Javid has reportedly started referring to himself in the third person during meetings with other ministers. The Home Secretary calls himself The Saj and The Sajid while making assurances to his colleagues in Cabinet, a source told The Sun. Mr Javids allies have said the claims are an attempt to discredit the 49-year-old, who is currently the bookies favourite to replace Theresa May as the next leader of the Conservative Party. The latest odds put him ahead of rivals Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab. A spokesman said that the story about Mr Javids nicknames for himself is completely untrue. Mr Javid has come under criticism for his handling of the increase in migrants attempting to enter the UK by crossing the channel. He was accused of making illegal comments by immigration lawyers and refugee charities after suggesting that Britain could make sure claims from asylum seekers are often not successful in order to dissuade others from attempting the cross-channel journey. In a message to people planning to try and enter the UK, he said: We will do everything we can to make sure it is not a success, in the sense that I dont want people to think that if they leave a safe country like France they can get to Britain and then just get to stay. Thats why I am working out ways with the French to increase the number of returns that we can make to also send a very strong message that we will do all we can not just to protect human lives of course thats the right and responsible thing to do at all times but also to protect our borders. Sajid javid has been tipped as a possible successor to Theresa May. (PA Images) The Home Secretarys hardline stance on the arrival of migrants is widely seen as a move to position himself as the next Prime Minister. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that Europe cannot close its borders to those genuinely seeking asylum. He said: They are the product of wars, they are the product of human rights abuses, they are the product of environmental disasters. Europe cannot close its borders to them. Sky-high corruption Government must take serious note of the wide-body financial irregularity American Paul Whelan, detained in Moscow last week, was indicted on espionage charges, Russia's Interfax news agency reported Thursday. The agency, citing what it called an informed source, said Whelan denied claims in the indictment. Whelan, a former Marine, was arrested Dec. 28 "while on a spy mission," the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said. Russian lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov, who was appointed to represent Whelan, told Interfax that bail was requested, but Whelan will remain in custody in Moscow until at least Feb. 28. Zherebenkov said Whelan is handling detention well and does not appear depressed. The FSB said the investigation was continuing. Whelan could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of espionage. The U.S. ambassador in Russia, Jon Huntsman, visited Whelan on Wednesday at Lefortovo detention center in Moscow. More: Mysterious tale of Paul Whelan, American accused of spying in Russia More: American Paul Whelan was in Russia for wedding, not to spy, family says More: US ambassador visits American Paul Whelan Russia's Rosbalt news service reported that Whelan is accused of obtaining "state secrets." Authorities told the news service Whelan, 48, was in a Moscow hotel room when he received a flash drive containing a list of employees at an undisclosed Russian agency. Minutes later, Russian agents stormed into the room and made the arrest, Rosbalt reported. Rajesh De, who was a general counsel at the National Security Agency in the Obama administration, told USA TODAY it was difficult to "sift the truth from the propaganda." "Our system isn't perfect, but it has far more due process rights than they do," he said. Whelan's family denied the charges and said Whelan was in Moscow for a wedding when he was arrested. His brother, David, said Paul Whelan traveled to Russia on Dec. 22 to help a friend from the Marines who was getting married in Moscow. The friend asked Paul to help his American family and friends get around in Russia, David Whelan said. Story continues Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., represents the district where Paul Whelan lives and works as global security chief for automotive parts maker Borg Warner. Stevens said shes been in repeated contact with his family and is trying to get the State Department to appoint a dedicated attache to work on this going forward. Last month, Russian national Maria Butina, 30, pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an agent for the Kremlin and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors. The Kremlin denied that she is a spy. Butina, in jail since her arrest in July, could get up to five years in prison. Sentencing guidelines call for no more than six months, however. De said the United States cannot be bullied into some kind of swap, Butina for Whelan. He expressed alarm that President Donald Trump has not publicly demanded that Whelan's rights be protected. "The timing of the arrest is suspect," De said. "We can't allow our justice system to be subject to external pressure." U.S.-Russian relations have struggled in recent months despite Trump's frequent praise of President Vladimir Putin. Scores of Russian diplomats were expelled last year after the poisoning of an ex-Russian spy and his daughter in Britain that was linked to the Kremlin. Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election brought scrutiny on communication between Trump's inner circle and Russian operatives. Contributing: Kristen Jordan Shamus and Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Russia indicts American Paul Whelan on spying charges A crime hit cul-de-sac has taken policing into its own hands with residents paying hundreds a month for a private security firm to patrol the street. Around 140 homeowners living on Warwick Road in the affluent West Midlands town of Sutton Coldfield are stumping up 126 a week for a team of guards to patrol the road three times a week. Residents on the estate, located near a retail park, connected via WhatsApp after noticing a spike in burglaries and car break-ins since November, with 69 families paying an extra 10 each for added security. Business owners, John Edkins, 67, and wife Janice, 61, put the idea to their neighbours as a solution to stop criminals from continuing to target their homes. Signs have been erected in a community in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands after residents hired a private security firm to patrol around 140 properties in the estate after a rise in break-ins. (Caters) Janice said: Home break-ins and car thefts started happening every four or five days, and at any time of the day or night. Recently, residents had noticed a number of unknown cars driving up and the street. We felt like we were being watched, it made us scared to leave the house. As it kept happening, we decided we needed to do something about it. We decided to run a five week-long trial period to hire private security for the street. Signs have been erected in a community in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands after residents hired a private security firm to patrol around 140 properties in the estate after a rise in break-ins. (Caters) We offered to pay the first week on behalf of our community. We didnt want to use residents money if our idea didnt work. As more residents discovered what we were doing, they put their names on the list. One neighbour told me that he didnt know anyone more than two doors away from his house, and now he knows everyone. Birmingham-based company Innovative Security Control, which employs the guards, have erected signs letting would-be criminals know the area is patrolled. Company director Riz Dean said: The residents came across our website and got in touch, so our operations manager went there for a meeting. We do mobile patrols across several businesses, but residential was nothing we had thought about up until now. Since our patrols started, they feel a lot safer. Its also making the street a more community-driven place. Story continues We think its a great idea for residents, because it makes criminal think twice when they know theres an extra layer of protection in the area. Residents plan to maintain the patrols for as long as they think they need it. John added: The area hasnt always had this many problems, but weve taken note of the increase and decided to supplement our local police force by coming together and helping where we can. We understand the police are stretched at the moment. We want to help where we can. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Call it the green rush. Or the green wave. Either way, the movement toward legalized marijuana use in North America is gaining ground. November's midterm elections saw Missouri and Utah join 31 other U.S. states where medical marijuana is legal. Michigan voters made their state one of 10 (plus the District of Columbia) where recreational use isn't a criminal offense. Canada recently became the first industrialized nation to legalize recreational marijuana use nationwide. The prospect of continuing momentum has investors seeing green in more ways than one, but those who have been riding the green wave thus far have had a wild run. In advance of Canada's October 17 legalization, Canadian cannabis stocks soared. Canadian pot firm Tilray was trading in the low to mid $20s for much of August before the share price spiked to an intraday high of $300 in September. The shares have since receded dramatically, trading at $100 in early December. Shares in other major Canadian growers and distributors, such as Canopy Growth and Aurora Cannabis, followed a similar, if less extreme, trajectory: a huge run-up prior to legalization followed by a pullback due to concerns over industry-wide supply shortages. Despite the volatility, some intrepid investors (and some blue-chip companies) are entering the fray. If you are considering cannabis stocks, here's what you need to know. [PULLQUOTE] What's the appeal? Analysts at the Arcview Group, a cannabis-focused investment and research firm, estimate worldwide legal cannabis spending will reach $32 billion by the end of 2022, up from an estimated $12.9 billion in 2018. The companies most likely to take advantage of that torrid growth rate are Canadian-licensed marijuana producers, says Vivien Azer, an analyst at investment firm Cowen. Firms such as Aphria, Aurora Cannabis, Canopy Growth, Cronos Group and Tilray have been able to gobble up the majority of supply agreements that allow companies to sell recreational weed in Canada, Azer says, and are likely to be first-movers when it comes to expanding into international markets. Story continues Major firms are showing interest. In December, tobacco giant Altria announced plans to pay $1.8 billion for a 45% stake in Cronos Group. In August, beer, wine and liquor producer Constellation Brands invested $4 billion in Canopy Growth, upping its stake in the cannabis firm from 9.9% to 38%. Should I invest in cannabis stocks now? Probably not--it's still too early. Even the more established players in the cannabis business are going through growing pains. Although nearly all Canadian growers are reporting massive spikes in revenues following legalization, most project little to no earnings in addition to operating losses as they pump money back into expanding their businesses. The supply shortage following legalization is just one of many hurdles these firms face, says Jason Wilson, president of investment firm Budding Equity. "Post-prohibition, it remains to be seen which companies will be able to execute on all these different levels--from marketing to supply chain to branding," he says. Plus, legal cannabis businesses compete not only with each other, but also with long-established black markets, says Charles Feldmann, an attorney whose practice assists medical marijuana business clients. And "black-market distributors don't have to pay lawyers or accountants or banks or taxes," he says. With the industry still in its early stages, trying to pick a winner is like playing the lottery, Feldmann says. "If you're considering investing in pot stocks, it has to be with money you have no problem losing." What makes these stocks particularly risky? Even after pulling back, prominent pot stocks are trading at nosebleed levels. A basket of cannabis stocks tracked by analysts at Wells Fargo trades at an average price that's 22 times projected 2019 sales. Remember: There are no earnings to speak of. The average price-to-sales ratio for the S&P 500 is 1.9. Increased volatility stems in part from the fact that pot stocks are owned mostly by individual investors who are often more likely to react to headlines than are institutional shareholders. "It seems like a tweet from the right person can send the market careening in one direction or another," says Steve White, CEO of Arizona-based cannabis company Harvest Inc. If I still want to invest in pot stocks, where can I do it? Canadian cannabis firms can list on U.S. exchanges and trade just like any other stock, as long as they don't have business operations in the U.S. Only a few have opted to do so, so far. You'll find a handful of cannabis-based biotech firms, both domestic and internationally based, listed on U.S. exchanges as well. Some Canadian firms that haven't listed stateside trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange and may be available to trade via your online broker. Because marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug, it's still federally illegal in the U.S., and American firms can't list on U.S. exchanges or in Toronto. But these stocks, along with smaller Canadian names, trade on minor Canadian exchanges or on over-the-counter markets. Most are penny stocks that don't have to adhere to the reporting requirements of major exchanges and should probably be avoided. If you must speculate, consider a diversified approach. The ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF (symbol MJ, $29) holds nearly 40 stocks--mostly cannabis producers, but also makers of fertilizers, pesticides and growing equipment, as well as tobacco firms. Are there other ways to invest in the green wave? The partnership of Constellation Brands (STZ, $189) with Canopy Growth represents an intriguing opportunity, says Azer. Constellation, known for brands such as Corona beer, Black Box wine and Svedka vodka, eventually plans to produce cannabis-infused beverages and sleep aids. Canopy's revenues are currently a drop in the bucket at Constellation, so investors bullish on cannabis shouldn't buy for that reason alone. Nevertheless, the firm is worth considering on the strength of its alcohol business, buoyed by strong demand for its lineup of craft and imported beers. "Constellation is a best-in-class beer stock with a free cannabis option," says Azer. Biotech firms might be another way to play cannabis. In June, the Food and Drug Administration announced its first approval of a marijuana-derived drug, Epidiolex, a treatment from GW Pharmaceuticals (GWPH, $125) for rare forms of epilepsy. Although there is huge potential for growth in this field, says Arcview CEO Troy Dayton, it remains to be seen what kind of market exists for these treatments and how willing doctors will be to prescribe them. Analysts at investment research firm Stifel assign a "buy" rating to Cambridge, England-based GW Pharmaceuticals, which trades in the U.S. as an American depositary receipt. But the stock is a risky proposition given that the firm isn't expected to produce positive earnings until 2020, according to Stifel's estimates. What will it take for marijuana investing to take off in the U.S.? Nationwide legalization. A 2018 survey from the Pew Research Center found that 62% of Americans think the use of marijuana should be legalized, up from 31% in 2000. The STATES Act, a bipartisan bill introduced in Congress in 2018, would represent the biggest step yet toward legalization, says Azer. The bill would grant each state the right to regulate the sale of marijuana within its own borders. The law could also pave the way for U.S. firms to have easier access to federally regulated banks and to list on major U.S. exchanges, says Dayton. Opinion among cannabis industry insiders and state regulators is split as to whether the legislation is likely to pass. EDITOR'S PICKS Copyright 2019 The Kiplinger Washington Editors Donald Trump and Mitt Romney in happier times. WASHINGTON It looks like President Donald Trump has a new Republican antagonist in the Senate. His name is Mitt Romney. Responding to a critical op-ed by the Utah Republican, Trump tweeted Wednesday that the incoming Utah senator and 2012 Republican presidential candidate should be more respectful. "Would much prefer that Mitt focus on Border Security and so many other things where he can be helpful," Trump said. "I won big, and he didnt. He should be happy for all Republicans. Be a TEAM player & WIN!" This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. In an op-ed published by the Washington Post, Romney said Trump's leadership is unnecessarily dividing Americans and alienating allies. He questioned Trump's character, and said he has not "risen to the mantle of the office." "I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions," Romney wrote. Romney welcomed Trump's support for his own presidential bid in 2012. He later criticized Trump when the New York businessman successfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. After winning the 2016 election, Trump interviewed Romney for secretary of State, though it's hard to say how serious that courtship was. Now elected to the Senate from Utah, Romney may seek to become a prominent Republican critic of Trump, a role that had been filled by the late Sen. John McCain and outgoing Sen. Jeff Flake, both of Arizona, and outgoing Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee. "Here we go with Mitt Romney, but so fast!" Trump tweeted. "Question will be, is he a Flake? I hope not." More: Mitt Romney on President Donald Trump: He hasn't 'risen to the mantle of the office' Romney was also attacked by a prominent Trump backer: Republican Party chairwoman Ronna McDaniel who also happens to be Romney's niece. "POTUS is attacked and obstructed by the MSM media and Democrats 24/7," McDaniel tweeted. "For an incoming Republican freshman senator to attack @realdonaldtrump as their first act feeds into what the Democrats and media want and is disappointing and unproductive." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: President Trump fires back at Mitt Romney after critical op-ed: 'I won big and he didn't' Hollie Sheridan-Connis, who collapsed and died at the Glan y Gro Lakeside Suites in Llangower, Bala, Wales (Wales News Service) A romantic New Year getaway to a Welsh lakeside retreat has turned to tragedy after a woman, 24, collapsed and died. Hollie Sheridan-Connis, from Merseyside, was found by her partner at the Glan y Gro Lakeside Suites in Llangower, Bala, Wales. Her cause of death remains a mystery and a 31-year-old man is helping police with enquiries, said North Wales Police. They said they were waiting for the results of toxicology results. Her body was found by her partner who set off a fire alarm to alert people. Hollie had travelled from Merseyside for the romantic break (Wales News Service) Owner Rob Moore was woken by the alarm and raced to try and help the young woman and gave her CPR. They came here for a romantic getaway, my daughter checked them in and my wife saw them during the early hours of New Years Day and said they were laughing and joking and in high spirits, Moore told the Sun. He added that it was a horrible situation. Paramedics raced to the scene but Hollie died after the ambulance arrived. The area was also sealed off by police forensics teams. The tragic incident happened in north Wales (wales News Service) North Wales Police confirmed that a young man is currently helping us with our enquiries. A postmortem is expected to take place to determine the precise cause of death. Hollies grandmother Mary Connis, led tributes to her granddaughter in a post on Facebook. My gorgeous Granddaughter passed away today, she wrote. People who know me know for a long time my gorgeous granddaughter lived with me, what can I say Hollie Pops my heart is broken in 2. In a statement posted on Wednesday night, North Wales Police said: Senior Investigating Officer T/Superintendent Neil Harrison of North Wales Police said: Our thoughts remain with Hollies family and friends at this incredibly difficult time. Forensic examinations of the scene have been undertaken and we now await the result of toxicology tests. Washington (AFP) - Top advisors to President Donald Trump met at the Pentagon on Thursday to discuss Syria and other topics, a defense official said. The meeting was the first of its kind for Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who started his new job January 1 following the resignation of his predecessor Jim Mattis. According to a senior defense official, Shanahan met with National Security Advisor John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and General Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They "discussed a wide variety of topics to include Syria," the official said. Mattis quit last month after Trump ordered the withdrawal of US troops from Syria, even though the Islamic State still has thousands of fighters in the country and a US pull out would leave Kurdish fighters vulnerable to attack by Turkey. Shanahan must oversee how the US pulls more than 2,000 troops out of Syria. Various timelines have been floated, but Trump on Wednesday seemed vague, saying only that it would happen "over a period of time." New details have emerged about Paul Whelan, the 48-year-old Novi, Michigan, resident who is facing 10 to 20 years in Russian prison on charges of espionage. While U.S. court records and the accounts of Whelans family and workplace cannot clear him from any suspicion of spying, they depict him as a fairly ordinary American an Iraq war veteran, former sheriffs deputy and corporate security expert who, his brother says is a loyal friend and family member. We are deeply concerned for his safety and well-being, the Whelan family said in a statement that his twin brother, David Whelan, posted on Twitter. His innocence is undoubted and we trust that his rights will be respected. David Whelan later told CNN about that he learned that his brother, who had been in Russia for a wedding, had been detained from a news story. According to David Whelan, Paul Whelan served multiple tours in Iraq as a marine and is a corporate security expert. Paul Whelan had made several trips to Russia in the past, his brother believes that he was attending the wedding to help other guests navigate Moscow. David Whelan told CNN that his brother is a helpful sort of person. Pauls a kind soul, hes very generous, hes notorious among my kids for his huge belly laugh, he said. He added that his brother is a highly capable individual, who has served in Iraq and worked in law enforcement. In court records from 2013, Paul Whelan testified to working as a corporate security expert for over a decade. At the time, Whelan was working as a senior manager of global security and investigations for Kelly Security Services, he testified. He said that he was responsible for looking into accusations of theft, fraud, sexual harassment and workplace violence. Transportation technology company BorgWarner Inc. confirmed in a statement that Whelan is currently the companys director of global security. He is responsible for overseeing security at our facilities in Auburn Hills, Michigan and at other company locations around the world, a BorgWarner spokesperson said in a statement. Story continues Between 1990 and 2008, Whelan also served several tours in Iraq as an active-duty reservist, he testified. Whelans future, however, remains uncertain. David Whelan told CNN that he is appealing to U.S. officials to push for his brothers release. He has also been in contact with State Department officials, who say that they are working to secure a meeting between Whelan and U.S. embassy officials in Russia. The State Department declined to comment about the case, but confirmed that they have been informed about Whelans detention by Russian authorities. A departmental spokesperson said that Whelan is assured access to the consular authorities under the Vienna Convention. We have requested this access and expect Russian authorities to provide it, the spokesperson said in a statement. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. overstock crypto blockchain bitcoin Online retail giant Overstock will become the first major US company to pay part of its 2019 Ohio state business taxes in bitcoin. Overstock which has a blockchain business division said the move is part of its ongoing efforts to promote cryptocurrency use. Overstock CEO and founder Patrick Byrne praised Ohio and its treasurer Josh Mandel for making Ohio the first US state to accept bitcoin for tax payments. We are proud to partner with forward-thinking governments and officials like Ohio and Treasurer Mandel to help usher in an era of trust through technology for our nations essential financial systems, Byrne remarked in a statement. We have long thought that thoughtful governmental adoption of emerging technologies such as cryptocurrencies (when accompanied by non-restrictive legislation) is the best way to ensure the US does not lose our place at the forefront of the ever-advancing global economy. Overstock will use bitcoin to pay its Ohio commercial activity taxes in February 2019. The company has long been a corporate pioneer for crypto. In 2014, Overstock became the first major retailer to allow customers to pay for their online purchases using cryptocurrencies. That same year, Overstock launched Medici Ventures, a business division that applies blockchain technology to existing industries. Today, Medici Ventures oversees a global portfolio of 19 blockchain companies, as CCN reported. Overstock: Blockchain is Bigger Than the Internet In October 2018, Medici Ventures invested $6 million in Minds, a blockchain-based social media network that claims to be an alternative to Facebook, Twitter, and the Google-owned YouTube that promises strict user privacy and absolutely no censorship. In November 2018, Patrick Byrne confirmed that he is exiting the retail business to focus exclusively on blockchain because he believes its a disruptive technology that will transform the world. The blockchain revolution has a greater potential than anything weve seen in history, Byrne said. Its bigger than the Internet revolution. Story continues This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. However, as CCN reported, Kevin Werbach a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania dismissed Ohios bitcoin tax payment program as a gimmicky PR stunt. There is not a particular advantage in paying your taxes with bitcoin today, said Werbach, who teaches a blockchain MBA class at Wharton. The state just wants to signal that its cryptocurrency-friendly.' Youre Either Ahead of the Curve or Behind Nevertheless, the stunt appears to be working. Across the pond in Europe, Eddie Hughes a member of the British Parliament urged the UK government to consider allowing residents to pay their local taxes and utility bills using bitcoin. Hughes pointed to the US state of Ohio as an example of growing crypto adoption. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Eddie Hughes said its time for other members of the British Parliament to familiarize themselves with crypto and blockchain because the disruptive technologies are the wave of the future. Hughes urged the UK to plant a flag and become a world leader in the burgeoning cryptocurrency industry. Youre either ahead of the curve or youre behind the curve, Hughes said. We are at a crossroads and were about to determine our future one in which taking the lead in this field could prove very beneficial. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post Overstock Will Be First Major Company to Pay State Taxes in Bitcoin appeared first on CCN. Investors in Cisco Systems, Inc. CSCO need to pay close attention to the stock based on moves in the options market lately. That is because the Jan 4, 2019 $50.00 Put had some of the highest implied volatility of all equity options today. What is Implied Volatility? Implied volatility shows how much movement the market is expecting in the future. Options with high levels of implied volatility suggest that investors in the underlying stocks are expecting a big move in one direction or the other. It could also mean there is an event coming up soon that may cause a big rally or a huge sell-off. However, implied volatility is only one piece of the puzzle when putting together an options trading strategy. What do the Analysts Think? Clearly, options traders are pricing in a big move for Cisco Systems shares, but what is the fundamental picture for the company? Currently, Cisco Systems is a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) in the Computer - Networking industry that ranks in the Top 34% of our Zacks Industry Rank. Over the last 60 days, five analysts have increased their earnings estimates for the current quarter, while three have dropped their estimates. The net effect has taken our Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current quarter from 71 cents per share to 72 cents in that period. Given the way analysts feel about Cisco Systems right now, this huge implied volatility could mean theres a trade developing. Oftentimes, options traders look for options with high levels of implied volatility to sell premium. This is a strategy many seasoned traders use because it captures decay. At expiration, the hope for these traders is that the underlying stock does not move as much as originally expected. Looking to Trade Options? Each week, our very own Dave Bartosiak gives his top options trades. Check out his recent live analysis and options trade for the NFLX earnings report completely free. See it here: Trading Netflix's (NFLX) Earnings with Options or check out the embedded video below for more details: Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. 'Resham Chaudhary should face punishment if court finds him guilty' The government has clarified that lawmaker Resham Chaudhary, who has been remanded to custody as the main suspect of the 2015 Tikapur incident, will be booked according to the law. Thiruvananthapuram (India) (AFP) - One person was killed and at least 15 injured in violence across southern India's Kerala state which broke out after two women defied traditionalists to enter one of Hinduism's holiest temples, police said Thursday. Clashes were reported across the state after the two women activists, escorted by police, entered the Sabarimala temple in a surprise pre-dawn operation on Wednesday. The Supreme Court in September overturned a decades-old ban on women of menstruating age -- deemed as those between 10 and 50 -- setting foot inside the gold-plated Sabarimala temple. Several women activists have made unsuccessful attempts to reach the temple since the order but faced stiff resistance from thousands of devotees including men and women, who see it as an attack on tradition. "The person who died was part of a BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) demonstration yesterday and got injured when some stones were hurled (at the demonstrators)," Kerala police spokesman Pramod Kumar told AFP. "His injuries were serious and he died late Wednesday night. At least 15 others were injured in incidents across the state," Kumar added. Local media reports said the demonstrators from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP were hit by stones from a local office of the state's ruling Communist party. Kerala remained tense on Thursday, and the police said additional forces had been deployed across the state to prevent further violence breaking out. The police Wednesday used tear gas, stun grenades and water cannon to control clashes between the rival groups, largely conservatives and cadres of the state's ruling left-wing parties. Journalists were also assaulted during the disturbances in the state's capital, Thiruvananthapuram, and nearby Kollam city. September's verdict was the latest progressive ruling from the court, with judges also overturning bans on gay sex and adultery last year. Story continues In rare comments regarding the Sabarimala temple on Tuesday, Modi -- running for a second term in elections later this year -- appeared to support the ban, saying the matter was related to tradition. "There are some temples which have their own traditions, where men can't go. And men don't go," Modi told Indian media. The Supreme Court is to start hearing a legal challenge on its ruling to allow women into the temple from January 22. Women are still barred from a handful of Hindu temples in India. The entry of women at Sabarimala was taboo for generations and formalised by the Kerala High Court in 1991. Olivia Newton-John (Credit: AAP) Olivia Newton-John has denied that shes got just weeks to live. A report from Radar Online last week cited an insider close to the Grease actress, who claimed that her bodily functions appear to be shutting down and that she was clinging to life. Then a second report from an Australian website added that she was looking at a prognosis [of] weeks not months. But this morning, she took to Twitter to shut down the rumours. Happy New Year, everyone! she exclaims in a video message. I just want to say the rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated, to quote a very famous quote, and Im doing great and I want to wish all of you the happiest, healthiest 2019 thats possible. Thank you all for the wonderful love and support for me and for my Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness Centre in Melbourne, Australia. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Her manager Michael Caprio added that the speculation was hilarious. Newton-John revealed in May last year that she was battling breast cancer for the third time, 20 years after first being diagnosed. In an interview on Australian TV in September, she said: Id be lying if I said I never [get scared]. There are moments, Im human. If I allowed myself to go there, I could easily create that big fear. But my husbands always there, and hes there to support me. I believe I will win over it. Thats my goal. (Credit: PA) The actress has also spoken out about the legalisation of cannabis for medical use, calling for Australia to change its laws. My husbands a plant medicine man so he grew cannabis for me and made tinctures for me to take for pain and inflammation and so many other things that cannabis can do, she said. Its been a maligned plant all these years [but] it really is a magical miracle plant. It helped me a lot with pain, because, you know, I dont like taking prescription drugs, so its kind of a no-brainer. Read more 21 movies directed by women out in 2019 Comedians defend Tiffany Haddish Netflix pulls Patriot Act episode critical of Saudi Arabia Environment Secretary Michael Gove has warned it is vital to avoid a no deal Brexit if agriculture is to flourish. (PA). Michael Gove has outlined the grim, inescapable reality facing farms under a no-deal Brexit. Speaking at the Oxford Farmers Conference, The environment secretary stressed the importance of Theresa Mays Brexit deal for the agricultural industry. He warned that, if the UK leaves the European Union without a deal, in place farmers will be faced with potentially new duties on beef and lamb that could put producers out of business, as well as a trade tariff of 11%. Mr Gove said in a no-deal scenario, exports to the EU from the UK could face huge tariffs, with beef exports potentially being hit by a 65% duty, and lamb exports suffering a 46% charge, which could push up the costs for businesses, putting some producers out of business and leading to an increase in food prices. Nobody can be blithe or blase about the impact on farmers, Mr Gove warned. Farmers could be hit by fresh tariffs and rising costs pushing up food prices if there is a no deal Brexit, Michael Gove has warned. Stock photo. PA. While he said a nation as adaptable, resilient and creative as the UK would flourish over time even without a deal, the turbulence which will be generated by our departure without a deal would be considerable. Mr Gove added: It would hit worst those who are our smaller farmers and farm businesses. He said tariffs, border checks and labour pressures would all add to costs for food producers. Nobody can be blithe or blase about the real impacts on food producers in this country of leaving without the deal, he told the conference. While Mr Gove flagged up the challenges that would face farmers and the food industry exporting their products, he played down the risk of consumers facing shortages on supermarket shelves. Beef could be hit with duty of up to 46% if MPs dont back Theresa Mays Brexit deal, Michael Gove has warned. Stock image. PA. We are doing everything possible to ensure that when it comes imports both of food and veterinary medicines that we can maintain continuity as effectively as possible, he said. Weve taken steps to ensure a continuity approach. There shouldnt be a problem with food coming into the country. He said leaving the EU would rejuvenate the UKs democracy, make power more accountable and allow the UK to escape from the bureaucratic straitjacket of Europes Common Agricultural Policy, which currently controls farm regulation and the subsidy system. Story continues National Farmers Union president Minette Batters has said if the government fails to secure a fair deal for farmers the whole UK will suffer. (PA). National Farmers Union president Minette Batters said that, less than 90 days away from Brexit, there was still enormous uncertainty about the future and how domestic food production would fare. She said: Food is one of the fundamentals of life. Its importance cannot be understated. A government that fails to deliver a Brexit that gets this right will fail us all. It is crucial that government engages with our industry to deliver a sustainable, competitive and profitable British farming sector for generations to come. The NFU warns that British agriculture could face huge disruption as a result of not being able to export agricultural products to the EU if its role as an exporter has not been re-approved by Brussels by March 29. The lamb industry could be particularly hit as 31% of its produce was exported in 2017. In a no-deal scenario, exports to the EU from the UK could face huge tariffs, with beef potentially seeing a 65% duty, and lamb suffering 46%, which could push up the costs for businesses. Imports could also be affected, with severe delays at ports of essential items such as veterinary medicines, fertilisers, feed and machinery parts. Quizzed on whether the 3.2 billion the UKs farmers receive in funding through the EUs subsidy scheme was under threat, Mr Gove insisted it was not. He said the money was guaranteed until the end of this Parliament, and that the case needed to be made for more investment, if farmers embraced reform in the sector and the value of public goods could be demonstrated. Looking beyond Brexit, Mr Gove said the world is facing a fourth agricultural revolution, with new technology from gene editing to artificial intelligence, robotics and data analytics to reduce costs and improve yields. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Beirut (AFP) - Syria's Kurds have established an autonomous region during seven years of civil war, but the abrupt decision by their US ally to withdraw has thrown their political future into doubt. Kurdish-led forces control a large swathe of the country's north and northeast, some of it seized from the Islamic State group at the cost of heavy losses with backing from the US-led coalition. A US withdrawal could leave them exposed on two fronts, both to an attack by neighbouring Turkey and its Syrian proxies, and to a return of Damascus government institutions. - Will they lose land? Syria's Kurdish minority have largely stayed out of the civil war, instead forging autonomy in a large swathe of the north and northeast, including along the Turkish border. The fight against IS has allowed the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces to expand that territory to include the Euphrates Valley city of Raqa, as well as key oil and gas fields in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor. On December 19, President Donald Trump took many even among his own supporters by surprise with the announcement of a full US troop withdrawal from Syria. On Thursday US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the withdrawal would indeed go ahead but would not give a precise timeline, so as not to tip off US adversaries. "The importance of ensuring that the Turks don't slaughter the Kurds, the protection of religious minorities there in Syria. All of those things are still part of the American mission set," Pompeo told Newsmax, a US news and opinion site popular with conservatives. Trump's troop withdrawal announcement prompted the Kurds to seek a new alliance with the Damascus regime to protect them from a long-threatened attack by neighbouring Turkey. Ankara views the Kurdish fighters of the SDF as "terrorists", in cahoots with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been fighting Turkish troops since 1984. Although unlikely without prior agreements between regime ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey, analysts foresee a possible carving up of the northeast between the different sides. Story continues - What does the regime want? Today, the regime holds almost two-thirds of Syria after victories against jihadists and other rebels, and has pledged to eventually return the northeast to government control. Last week, Damascus deployed troops in the northern countryside to stem off any Turkish-led attack on the flashpoint SDF-held city of Manbij. On Wednesday, the army said 400 Kurdish fighters had retreated from areas around the Arab-majority city. But an Arab contingent of the SDF remains in control, and US forces are also present as they have not yet withdrawn. On Monday, pro-government newspaper Al-Watan cited an Arab diplomat in Moscow as saying the northern city would revert to "full state supervision". The source also said Turkey, Russia and fellow regime ally Iran would discuss "a return of state institutions" to areas further east, beyond the Euphrates River, at a meeting expected at the start of the year. Balanche said the regime would eventually resume full control of the main northeastern cities of Hasakeh and Qamishli. It would also retake the Arab-majority city of Raqa, as well as the oil fields of Deir Ezzor. "The Syrian army will... rapidly seize the Omar oil fields -- two-thirds of Syrian production," Balanche said. - What does Turkey want? Turkey has led two previous incursions across the border, the most recent of which saw its Syrian proxies seize the northwestern enclave of Afrin from Kurdish forces last year. But analyst Heiko Wimmen said Ankara would first have to seek consent from Moscow before any third offensive, especially to use its air force. "If it does happen however, Turkey will try to control the border strip," said Wimmen, of the Brussels-based think tank, the International Crisis Group. "What they are aiming for is a buffer zone along the border," he added. Balanche predicted Turkish troops and their allies would eventually push 20 to 40 kilometres (12 to 24 miles) into Syria. - What of Kurdish autonomy? After decades of marginalisation, since the civil war erupted in 2011 Syria's Kurds have set up their own institutions in areas they control. Following the pulling out of government forces from Kurdish-majority areas in 2012, the Kurds set up their own administrations and implemented longstanding demands such as Kurdish-medium education. But as loyalist forces gained ground last year and Damascus rejected Kurdish self-rule, the Kurds entered talks with the regime to seek some form of decentralisation. With the Kurds now set to see their US ally withdraw from Syria, Wimmen said the Kurds were "certain to lose a lot". "The question is whether the loss will be total or whether some of it can be salvaged... through a deal with the regime, guaranteed by Russia," he said. But "given the track record of the regime and its negotiation positions so far... there is little reason for optimism." Netflix confirmed Tuesday that, in response to legal threats from Saudi Arabia, it has removed an episode of a comedy show that featured criticism of the kingdom and its royal family. The episode of the satirical comedy show The Patriot Act, in which comedian Hasan Minhaj criticized Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman for his role in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, was made inaccessible to viewers in Saudi Arabia but remains available to viewers in the rest of the world. At one point they were saying he died in a fist fight, Jackie Chan-style. They went through so many explanations. The only one they didnt say was that Khashoggi died in a free solo rock-climbing accident, Minhaj said of Saudi officials efforts to distance Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman from Khashoggis death. The Saudi exile was murdered and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey by a team of assassins. The CIA determined with a high degree of confidence that the agents were dispatched by bin Salman, though the crown prince and other top officials claim the killers acted without informing the crown prince. Citing legal threats issued under Saudi Arabias cybercrime law, Netflix defended its decision to remove the content in a statement provided to the Financial Times. We strongly support artistic freedom worldwide and only removed this episode in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal request and to comply with local law, the statement read. The statute Netflix cited criminalizes the production, preparation, transmission, or storage of material impinging on public order, religious values, public morals, and privacy, through the information network or computers. Minhaj also criticized Saudi Arabias ongoing bombing campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen, which has resulted in a massive humanitarian crisis and overwhelming civilian casualties. ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK, Colo. This federal government shutdown stinks. Not just in a "my vacation is ruined" way for people who were hoping to visit Rocky Mountain National Park but found the roads unplowed and closed to cars, although that's certainly true. Not just in a "I'm not getting paid" kind of way, even though that's definitely the case for the park's hundreds of rangers, maintenance workers, biologists and other employees. And not just in a "my tourist-dependent business is suffering" kind of way, although that's also starting to happen. No, this shutdown stinks for a much more basic reason: With the park's toilets closed and locked because there's no one to clean them, piles of toilet paper and yellow snow are accumulating behind the buildings. "We were so pissed," said Hope Turrubiartez, 43, who came to the park with her family on a weeklong vacation from Waco, Texas. "When you have kids, it's a struggle." Opinion: Destructive, inane shutdown drags on after talks hit a wall Travel: Which national parks are open during the federal government shutdown? Like all other national parks, Rocky Mountain National Park is effectively closed due to the partial federal government shutdown, which entered its 12th day on Wednesday. Some parks are entirely closed, while others, including Rocky, are technically still open but unstaffed and unmaintained. Rocky, the nation's fourth-busiest national park, draws more than 4 million visitors annually. Wednesday, park visitors had to content themselves with walking along the entrance roads or hiking from trailheads that are accessible from outside the main entrance. "We've managed to have fun," said Cassie Abel, 28, as she pulled her daughter, Brynlee, 6, in a pink sled along the road. Abel and her parents came from Denton, Texas, to spend the holiday in nearby Estes Park, which is heavily dependent on the park's tourist traffic. Story continues The first week of the park shutdown brought little financial impact, said town manager Frank Alexander, likely because most tourists had already booked their Christmas stays and couldn't cancel. Along the town's main street on Wednesday, tourists peered in candy-store windows, shopped for T-shirts and rented snowshoes, with little sign the nearby park is largely inaccessible. "But as it stretches out, people will be making decisions about whether to come here or go somewhere else," Alexander said. The other problem, he said, is that the park's staff isn't being paid. A lot of our friends and neighbors arent getting paychecks," he said. "Theyre not spending money and theyre holding back. Similar scenarios are playing out at national parks across the country: Piles of trash accumulating outside the National Monument, overflowing toilets at Joshua Tree, traffic jams at Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks. "We're hearing stories about people who are going into some areas in off-road vehicle, damaging resources," said Bill Wade, the former superintendent of Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. "We know that some people will just take advantage of the fact that rangers aren't around and patrolling." More: Skeleton crew of rangers still patrols Joshua Tree National Park despite government shutdown Under federal law, national parks are required to protect the resources they've been entrusted with, and Wade said one could make the argument that the federal government's decision to "soft close" some parks violates the law. Without rangers patrolling, Native American artifacts, wildlife and even wild ginseng is at risk from pickers, former park workers said. Wednesday, many Rocky visitors said they're frustrated a political fight 1,700 miles away is hurting their ability to access what is, after all, their own land. Its pretty rotten. I hope Congress is working hard to come up with a reasonable budget so we can have our parks back," said Marybeth Lisse, 49, who lives near Lyons, Colorado. Lisse brought her twin teen daughters and two of their friends to the park for a day of sledding but were forced to switch locations. "I feel terrible for people who dont know their way around," said Lisse, who was able to find the four girls a gently sloping and closed road on which to sled. The girls, however, pronounced themselves disappointed they couldn't use their normal sledding hill, a former ski area inside the park. "It's not steep enough here," said Julia Lisse, 13. "And I got stuck under a fence," added Anna Anderson, 12. Safety remains a major concern at the open-but-unstaffed parks. Across the country, visitors are flocking to parks that are currently free to enter, since no one is working the entrance booths. "Visitors are still coming and that need is still there," said Phil Francis, chairman of The Coalition to Protect Americas National Parks, and a retired 41-year park service employee. "People who are called non-essential still provide essential services. When you have a rescue in the backcountry, it's not just the rangers who are working." Francis said the lingering park shutdown is an insult to the service's approximately 17,000 employees: "This is not a political issue to them. This is bread-and-butter to them: Coming to work, doing their job and being paid for it in a timely way." Federal employees are usually retroactively paid once Congress agrees on a budget following a shutdown. Not everyone sees the closures negatively, of course. Marie MacCord, who works at the Mad Moose furniture store near the park's entrance, said she thinks federal spending should be cut. MacCord said she's frustrated to hear tourists complaining about the park closure when the national debt is so high. "My question is, what choice do we have? We can't continue in the direction we were headed," she said. "The streets aren't paved with gold. We're in so much debt that we'll never be able to pay back, and so sacrifices have to be made." Turrubiartez said her family group of six managed to have fun despite the closure, and they're already making plans to come back next year. "We were lucky to get such beautiful views. We were lucky to get that," she said. " We were so disappointed who doesnt want to get into Rocky Mountain National Park and see the mountains?" This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: National parks left to rot during government shutdown: 'I hope Congress is working hard ... so we can have our parks back' A Muslim convert plotted a terror attack on Oxford Street despite repeated attempts by authorities to deradicalise him over a decade. Former Royal Mail worker Lewis Ludlow, 27, of Rochester, Kent, said he was filled with animosity and hatred when he swore allegiance to Islamic State, the Old Bailey heard. All the while, he appeared to engage with the Prevent deradicalisation programme, having 16 meetings and a phone call with officers over six months before his arrest last April. One of the meetings was on the same day Ludlow carried out reconnaissance of targets around the capital, taking photographs of Oxford Street and Madame Tussauds. A note recovered from Ludlows bin detailing his plans for the attack. (PA). Ludlow planned to kill up to 100 people in a ram attack after being stopped by police at Heathrow Airport in February 2018 as he attempted to board a flight to the Philippines. The defendant, who called himself The Eagle and The Ghost, had bought a phone under a false name and wrote down his attack plans, which were later found ripped up in a bin. He pleaded guilty last year to plotting an attack in the UK and funding IS in the Philippines and appeared at the Old Bailey on Thursday to be sentenced. Prosecutor Mark Heywood QC set out Ludlows past association with extremists in Britain and abroad. Scene shot of Oxford Street, where Lewis Ludlow plotted to carry out a terror attack. (PA). He said the Prevent programme had attempted to engage with Ludlow since November 2008, when his college had raised concern about his religious beliefs and carrying a knife. In 2010, Ludlow attended a demonstration led by radical preacher Anjem Choudary and his banned Al-Muhajiroun (ALM) group. He was pictured with the convicted terrorist Trevor Brooks and had secret communication with British Jihadi Junaid Hussain, who was killed in a drone strike in Syria. In June 2015, he discussed with Hussain doing something before travelling abroad and mentioned his job at Royal Mail. Hussain told him it was a good idea and Ludlow promised to look into it. That year he was arrested and IS material was recovered from Ludlows phone but no further action was taken. Story continues Ludlow had cut off contact with Prevent two years before but resumed meetings with officers in November 2017, while keeping his true feelings under wraps. In January 2018, he bought a ticket to fly to the Philippines on February 3 but was stopped at the airport and had his passport seized, and in March he sent money to an alleged extremist called Abu Yaqeen. Police went on to recover torn-up scraps of paper from Ludlows bin detailing potential attack sites in Britain. He said: Wolf should either use a ram attack or use on the truck to maximise death it is a busy street it is ideal for an attack. It is expected nearly 100 could be killed in the attack. Mr Heywood said there was evidence the defendant wanted to recruit a second attacker as he did not have a drivers licence and was scared of crashing. On April 13 last year, Ludlows mobile phone was retrieved from a storm drain and found to have videos of the defendant swearing allegiance to IS and evidence of hostile reconnaissance. In one video he said: I, the Eagle, have pledged allegiance to Dawlatul Islam and also, this is a little message to you people, there is no love between us, there is nothing between us except animosity and hatred. Rebecca Trowler QC, mitigating, said autistic Ludlow was directed by the extremist in the Philippines and his plans were embryonic. Giving evidence, Ludlow, who converted to Islam at 16, told how he dropped out of school after he was bullied for nine years. He said: I was a loner. I was on my own and it was sad. People would say they found me too strange. It was really depressing. I felt everyone hated me and I thought I would be better off dead. Ludlow said he found ALM online and was invited to demonstrations. At first it was friendly and he was seen as funny but after two years things turned sour and he was suspected of being a spy. The sentencing hearing is due to go on for up to three days. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Briellea Gamez, 5, was attacked on the school bus. (Photos: Courtesy of Aubrey Corley) A Georgia mother is concerned for her 5-year-old daughters safety after the girl was attacked on a school bus by a 12-year-old. Aubrey Corley says her daughter, Briellea Gamez, was poked, slapped and even strangled on her way home from school on Dec. 4. Corley tells Yahoo Lifestyle that it was just a regular Tuesday when she went to pick up her daughter from the bus stop before she noticed that something was very wrong. From a distance, it first looked like Briellea had marker on her face, but immediately I noticed it wasnt and she was crying and screaming, Corley says. Briellea got to my car door and I noticed the bus trying to pull away. I quickly jumped out my car and ran to the bus drivers window. According to Corley, the bus driver who has been driving Gamez to Samuel E. Hubbard Elementary School in Forsyth, Ga., since she started attending 2017 casually told her that her daughter had been slapped. Corley says that the driver assured her that he was going to write up the children who were responsible up and move Gamez to the front of the bus. However, once Gamez explained the severity of the attack she faced to her mom, further action seemed necessary. She said the girl slapped her, pulled her hair, grabbed her head and slammed it into the bus wall, Corley says about her daughters description of the attack. But the 12-year-old wasnt acting alone. Instead, Corley says that a 9-year-old boy also took part in the aggressive behavior and even poked Gamez in the behind. The worst of it is Briellea tells me that the girl grabbed her by the throat and told her to stop breathing, Corley says, which prompted her to call the schools assistant principal and file a police report. The mother also took to her Facebook page to share photos of the marks on her daughters face and body. Luckily, Gamez didnt require any medical treatment. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. The family has been in touch with administrators from the school, the Monroe County School District and the Monroe County Sheriffs Office, in addition to a specific investigator and social worker attached to the case. Story continues Yahoo Lifestyle has requested comment from the elementary school, the school district and the sheriffs office and will update this post when we hear back. The school confirmed the incident to local Macon, Ga., news station WMAZ, and law enforcement said charges have been filed against the 12-year-old, whose identity has not been made public. Both parties are said to be reviewing footage from the bus. Corley tells Yahoo Lifestyle that her daughter has continued to ride the bus in a different seat, and the 9-year-old was moved to another bus. The 12-year-old was suspended for 10 days, but there is yet to be a solution for when she is back. Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle: Photo of crowded school bus with kids wedged in like sardines in a can goes viral Students, 8 and 9, stop their school bus after the driver collapses: The two boys just reacted Muslim mother and daughter say they were attacked for wearing hijabs Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. Vatican City (AFP) - Pope Francis issued a warning to US bishops on Thursday, saying in a letter that using marketing tricks or flow charts would not restore trust in the Catholic church following the sex abuse crisis. "Loss of credibility calls for a specific approach, since it cannot be regained by issuing stern decrees or by simply creating new committees or improving flow charts, as if we were in charge of a department of human resources," Francis wrote. Attempts to restore the centuries-old institution's credibility must be based on rebuilding trust, he wrote, rather than "concern with marketing or strategizing to reclaim lost prestige or to seek accolades". The pontiff also warned against reducing the church's mission to the administration of an "evangelisation business". The US bishops were gathered at a Chicago-area seminary for a prayer summit in advance of a historic gathering that the pope has called for in February at the Vatican, to discuss the ongoing crisis roiling the church. A litany of child sexual abuse scandals has rocked the Catholic church, which has 1.3 billion followers around the world, with the pope as recently as December accepting the resignation of a US auxiliary bishop over his "misconduct" with a minor. Francis has struggled to resolve the problem as the steady drip of scandal corrodes the church's authority amid sharp divisions in Rome over how to handle the fallout. Airbus A330 purchase scandal: Oli government faces moral quandary The KP Oli government faces a serious moral quandary as a sitting minister and top-level bureaucrats have been indicted by the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament in the embezzlement scandal surrounding the purchase of two Airbus A-330 jets. by Vladimir Rozanskij In a letter sent on December 30, the Patriarch of Moscow condemns the decision taken for autocephaly in Ukraine. Kirill challenges the authority of Bartholomew, as overly hasty. Allegations also to Filaret of Kiev and Makarij, "the adventurer". The schism spreads throughout the world: Moscow will establish dioceses and its own parishes where there are structures of the patriarchate of Constantinople. Moscow (AsiaNews) - Moscow Patriarch Kirill (Gundjaev) has delivered an ultimatum to the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew (Archontonis), in response to the latter's communication on the recognition of the new autocephalous Ukrainian Church: if he does not reverse the decision taken in Ukraine, he can no longer be considered the "ecumenical patriarch" of all universal Orthodoxy. The harsh words are contained in a letter that Kirill sent to Constantinople on December 30th. "You will lose forever the possibility of serving the unity of the holy Churches of God and you will stop being the Primate of the Orthodox world - says the head of the Russian Orthodox Churcg to his Greek counterpart. In the letter, the Russian patriarch goes over the various "forced stages" that led to the decision to endorse the "pseudo-council" of Kiev last December 15th. By tragic coincidence, this expression recalls that of the "pseudo-council" of Lviv in 1946, when the patriarchate of Moscow led by Aleksij I, under the leadership of Stalin and Khrushchev, annexed the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, which remained in catacombs until 1990. According to Kirill, the rush to conclude the "union of the schismatic" Ukrainians is due to the pressure of a "process of politicization, far from the norms and spirit of the canonical seals", that if they were respected they would have achieved the desired result "with full satisfaction both for the Ukrainian Orthodox and for all the other Orthodox in the world ". And now it will be necessary to deal with the opposition of the "majority of the Ukrainian people", which in his opinion supports the only canonical Church of the patriarchate of Moscow. In the letter we recall the suggestions given to Bartholomew "to study the documents of the previous centuries together with authoritative historians, theologians and specialists of ecclesiastical canon law", the refusal of which was justified by "for lack of time". It is understood that Constantinople opposed this suggestion: in 1000 years of history, the Orthodox Churches have never been able to come to agreement on canonical norms, and this could hardly have happened after the Russians refused to participate in the 2016 pan-Orthodox council of Crete . The Patriarch of Moscow disputes Bartholomew's authority concerning the granting of autocephaly to the other local Orthodox Churches, which derives from canons 9 and 17 of the Council of Chalcedon of 451, based on "a series of objections by authoritative commentators of canon law" , of which the Byzantine canonist Ioann Zonara, a historian of the twelfth century, is mentioned. In every dispute between the Orthodox the "rush to quotations" of the various ancient synods and theologians is repeated, where one can find any kind of argument for or against one's theses. The argument to which Kirill proves to be most sensitive - for ecclesiastical and personal reasons - is the readmission of the "schismatic patriarch" Filaret of Kiev, now "emeritus", which in the letter is remembered with the lay name of "Mikhail Denisenko". In 1976 the old hierarch was one of the consecrators of the episcopal ordination of the same Kirill, then 29 year old "emerging star" of the Russian episcopate of the Soviet school. The complaints do not spare even the other "schismatic" readmitted bishop, Makarij Maletic, head of a Church defined as "adventurers" (in Russian samozvantsy, the "autoelects"), and underscore doubts about the morality of bishops and priests blessed by Constantinople (not without reason, moreover: the two Churches concerned were long out of control). The letter establishes a situation that can hardly be healed in a short time, and may even worsen. In a television interview on December 28, Metropolitan Ilarion (Alfeev) declared that the Patriarchate of Moscow will proceed with the establishment of its own dioceses and parishes in all the territories where there are structures of the "schismatic" patriarchate of Constantinople; the struggle extends practically to the whole world, and Orthodoxy will never be the same again. Gordon Hawthorn, 69, right, has been jailed for two years and six months after previously admitting one charge of stalking involving serious alarm or distress to BBC Points West presenter, Alex Lovell, left. A man who sent a barrage of disgusting and frightening greetings cards threatening to rape a BBC regional news presenter has been jailed for two years and six months. Gordon Hawthorn, 69, previously admitted one charge of stalking involving serious alarm or distress to Alex Lovell, who works for BBC Points West. Bristol Crown Court heard Hawthorn, of Street, Somerset, bombarded Ms Lovell with dozens of greetings cards signed with a distinctive set of Xs from 2012. In January 2016, Hawthorn wrote that his New Years resolution was to have sex with the presenter with or without her consent. BBC Points West presenter Alex Lovell who was left suffering anxiety attacks after a stalking campaign from Gordon Hawthorn. (BBC) He initially wrote the name Gordon at the end of the cards but signed them your stalker and your soon to be rapist as they became more sinister. Judge Martin Picton jailed Hawthorn for two years and six months and imposed an indefinite restraining order, banning him from contacting Ms Lovell or going to the BBCs regional centre on Whiteladies Road in Bristol. People in the public eye are entitled to the same respect and privacy as everyone else in society, the judge told Hawthorn. The fact that someone has a high profile does not mean that it can be open season for people such as yourself. You need to understand, as does the public in general, that serious consequences result from appalling behaviour of that kind that features in this case. Inside one of the cards sent by Gordon Hawthorn to BBC Points West presenter, Alex Lovell. (PA) The judge told Hawthorn that his cards, sent to the BBC on Whiteladies Road, caused Ms Lovell both distress and fear. For two years she could never be sure that she was safe, the judge told Hawthorn. Ms Lovell would have an awareness, whenever she was on screen, that the author of those letters was watching and thinking the kind of thoughts that you expressed in your messages to her. When out and about she could never be sure that the author of the cards was not spying on her or posing a threat to her safety. What you threatened to do to her was designed to and did cause her to feel disgusted, frightened and miserable. Story continues Material sent by Hawthorn to BBC Points West presenter Alex Lovell. Ms Lovell contacted Avon and Somerset Police in January 2016, following the threat to rape her in a New Year card. The card, received on Janaury 12, read: Make no mistake Alex that I am going to have sex with you this year, even if it means I have to rape you. After reporting the matter, Ms Lovell received further cards including dates when Hawthorn claimed he would rape her. On November 29 in 2017, Hawthorn wrote that he had previously raped other women and kept their underwear as a trophy. Police issued a public appeal about the cards in March 2018 and a woman came forward to say she had received one that was similar. Hawthorn was caught after DNA tests matched with two of the cards sent to Ms Lovell. In a victim personal statement, Ms Lovell said she felt as if she had been punched in the stomach when she received the first rape threat. She experienced panic attacks due to the stress caused by Hawthorns cards and used an app called HollieGuard, developed by the Hollie Gazzard Trust, for safety. Miss Gazzard, 20, was murdered by her ex-partner in the hairdressers where she worked in Gloucester in 2014. Following his arrest, Hawthorn told police he would never have acted on the threats he made to Ms Lovell. Avon and Somerset Police released audio recordings in which the stalker said he was disgusted with his actions but laughed after saying he would have carried on had he not been caught. Asked why the language he used in his cards got darker over time, Hawthorn said: I dont really know, its just the way it sort of progresses. I said such and such last time, what can I say next time to maybe make it a bit more? Thats it really. He said he was aware the cards would upset Ms Lovell but added: The thing about stalking I never followed her at all. Asked how he felt after being caught, Hawthorn said: Disgusted with what Ive done. Like I say its really an obsession and pure fantasy on my part. Hawthorn also admitted he would have carried on sending rape threats to the presenter had he not been arrested by police, saying: I would have sent her a birthday card at the end of this month (laughs). I probably would. Like I said I got an obsession for her but a harmless obsession. Not harmless but theres no way I would do anything Officers praised Ms Lovells bravery and said it had taken courage to report the cards. Ms Lovell hosted Brainteaser on Channel Five in 2002 after working on a live shopping channel. She has been presenting on BBC Points West since 2005. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Gediminas Jasinskas, right, has been jailed for a minimum of 20 years after he stabbed Cristina Magda-Calancea to death outside her home in Kings Lynn in September. (Norfolk Police). A man has been jailed for life with a minimum of 20 years after stabbing his ex-girlfriend to death outside her home. Gediminas Jasinskas, of Tennyson Avenue in Kings Lynn, Norfolk, was jailed by a judge at Norwich Crown Court on Thursday after he previously pleaded guilty to the murder of 26-year-old Cristina Magda-Calancea. Police were called to Fenland Road, Kings Lynn, at around 10.15pm on September 21 after Jasinskas stabbed Ms Magda-Calancea as she returned home from work. She was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for treatment but died as medics fought to save her. A general view of Norwich Crown and County Court The court heard how 30-year-old Jasinskas fled from the scene after the attack but told paramedics near to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital he had a moment of passion and lost control and stabbed her. On the day of the attack, Jasinskas left his cleaning shift early, taking a taxi to Ms Magda-Calanceas house in Fenland Road, Kings Lynn, where he hid in the garage. When she came to put her bike away shortly after 10pm, Jasinskas stabbed her in the neck, chest, abdomen and groin with a kitchen knife. The pair worked at the same factory and dated from August 2016 to July 2018. Prosecutor Peter Gair told the court friends and family calling Jasinskas a jealous man who would become aggressive if he felt any other man was showing an interest in Cristina. During a holiday to Bali, Ms Magda-Calancea, 26, told her brother Razvan Milea that Jasinskas was eating my life he doesnt leave me alone. They separated when they returned, but Jasinskas sent her a text message saying: I cannot live without you. Wherever you go, I will find you. Speaking to the BBC Razvan Milea, Ms Magda-Calanceas brother, said: He was a perfect guy polite, always on time, didnt smoke, didnt drink, didnt do drugs. We spent time together at work and at home. Everything looked perfect even my sister said that. She called him the best guy ever and that he understands her. Everything was normal, but then some things happened that we didnt know about [until after her death]. Story continues Detective Inspector Lewis Craske from the Norfolk and Suffolk Major Investigation Team said: Cristina was the victim of a senseless, brutal act of violence at the hands of Gediminas Jasinskas. My immediate thoughts are for Cristinas loved ones. Whilst today they have seen justice, nothing can make up for the pain and anguish Jasinskas has caused them and I can only hope that todays sentencing assists with their grieving process. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Antananarivo (AFP) - Hundreds of supporters of the losing Madagascar presidential candidate staged a protest in the capital Antananarivo on Thursday, rejecting the election result ahead of a court verdict reviewing the vote. Former president Marc Ravalomanana was defeated on December 19 by another former leader of the Indian Ocean island, Andry Rajoelina, who won nearly 56 percent of a run-off vote. The country's Constitutional Court is reviewing a petition filed by Ravalomanana, who claims the election was tarnished by massive fraud. The court is due to hand down its ruling on January 8. "The message to the (court): we will not stop until the truth is restored," vowed Hanitra Razafimanantsoa, a lawmaker from Ravalomanana's TIM party. The protesters have vowed to stage daily vigils until the results are announced next week. Security forces fired tear gas to break up a demonstration on Wednesday by Ravalomanana supporters. Ravalomanana and Rajoelina, long-term rivals, were banned from running in the 2013 election as part of an agreement to end recurring crises that have rocked Madagascar since it gained independence from France in 1960. By P.J. Huffstutter CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. farmers, already battered by the U.S.-China trade war, are facing increasing anxiety as the partial government shutdown nears the two-week mark, leaving crucial aid and loan payments in limbo. The shutdown has blocked assistance for many farmers, who at this time of year apply for federal loans as they pay bills due from the previous year and begin budgeting for next season's planting. It is also affecting aid payments promised to allay the effects of the trade war. The timing is particularly bad for U.S. farmers, who are already suffering the fallout from the trade war's raised tariffs and low prices for a top export crop, soybeans, with purchases by China lagging previous years. "It's just bad news on top of everything right now," said Brian Duncan, whose family farms corn and soybeans and raises hogs in northwestern Illinois. The partial shutdown was triggered last month by President Donald Trump's demand for $5 billion to fund a U.S.-Mexico border wall. Democrats now controlling the House of Representatives have vowed to fund the government through legislation, but Trump has insisted that any measure to fully reopen the government include wall money. Pressure on Trump and lawmakers to end the partial shutdown is growing from the agricultural sector. Many of the nation's 3.2 million farmers and ranchers are Republicans, and have been steadfastly loyal to the president. But some farmers have warned their support for a Trump campaign in 2020 is not guaranteed if the farm economy worsens and trade disputes continue to threaten demand for U.S. crops. About a quarter of the federal government, or 800,000 workers - including some from the U.S. Department of Agriculture - are off the job. The USDA's Farm Service Agency (FSA) managers and supervisors were instructed to cancel all previously arranged loan closings when the shutdown started, according to the agency's shutdown plan posted online. Agency officials could not be reached for comment Thursday. Story continues Commodity traders and farmers alike are also growing nervous that the USDA will also push back or possibly cancel a slew of global supply and demand grain reports set for release on Jan. 11. The data is watched by farmers when making their planting plans. LEVELS OF UNCERTAINTY U.S. grain farmers have been increasingly turning to the FSA for loan assistance as they struggle with low commodity prices and trade issues in recent years. Banks, too, have relied on the agency to help guarantee the loans they are issuing to farmers particularly for shorter-term farm operational loans. "This is the time of year when farmers are talking to their bankers to get operational loans, and the money from the federal government is not coming in," said Ted Seifried, vice president of the Zaner Ag Hedge Group in Chicago, who works with farmers. The government last year also pledged up to $12 billion in aid, much of it in direct payments to soy, pork and dairy farmers, to help offset some of the losses for crops hit by retaliatory Chinese tariffs imposed in response to Washington's tariffs on Chinese goods. The deadline to apply for the aid is Jan. 15, yet the FSA offices where farmers must submit their applications have been shuttered since Dec. 28. Some farmers had been hoping to plant more corn, in the hopes that China will increase its corn imports for ethanol production. But planting corn can be more expensive than soybeans - a cost many operators cover through loans or aid payments. For Duncan, a wet and snowy harvest season meant he was not able to finish harvesting last year's corn until Dec. 31 - making it too late for him to apply for the corn trade aid for now. "Between the tariffs and the government shutdown, it's adding levels of uncertainty to farming that no one wants," said Duncan, 54. (Reporting by P.J. Huffstutter, writing by Caroline Stauffer, additional reporting by Julie Ingwersen in Chicago and Ayenat Mersie in New York, editing by Rosalba O'Brien) By Trevor Hunnicutt NEW YORK (Reuters) - A top BlackRock Inc investor focused on Latin American stocks is leaving the company, the world's largest asset manager said on Wednesday. Will Landers, the veteran portfolio manager for the company's Latin American equity funds and head of research for the region, is leaving along with two analysts based in Sao Paulo, Brazil's financial center, the company said in a statement. Landers oversaw an estimated $2 billion in assets, according to BlackRock's most recent filings with U.S. regulators. Research analysts Andrea Cardia and Andrea Weinberg are also leaving to "to pursue other opportunities," BlackRock Global Head of Active Equities Mark Wiseman and one of his colleagues said in a staff memo provided to Reuters. It was not immediately clear where the BlackRock employees will be going. Landers, Cardia and Weinberg did not respond to messages sent to social media accounts they maintain. BlackRock's memo said that Ed Kuczma would take on some of Landers' portfolio management responsibility duties, adding that Kuczma has more 15 years of investment experience in Latin American equities. The transition comes during a wild period for investors focused on the region, whose swing to conservative rule in places, including Brazil, has isolated leftist-ruled countries such as Venezuela, a major oil producer. Brazil's new far-right President Jair Bolsonaro was sworn in on Tuesday. Investors are also looking for progress on economic initiatives from Mexico to Argentina. BlackRock's memo said the company is "working actively to strengthen our resources in Latin America research and portfolio management," and planned to increase staff dedicated to that effort. It was not clear if the company's active equities division will still have an on-the-ground presence in Brazil, and a BlackRock spokeswoman did not comment. Global fund managers have struggled in recent years with a trend toward cheaper "passive" index-tracking products. BlackRock, which oversees $6.4 trillion in both actively managed and passive funds, announced in 2017 a strategy to bolster its own stockpickers, including reorganizing to focus on niches, such as specific geographic regions where it could offer expertise and win assets. Equity research in Sao Paulo was highlighted as part of that effort. (Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) BEIRUT (Reuters) - A convoy of Syrian Kurdish fighters has pulled out of the flashpoint area of Manbij in northern Syria, close to territory controlled by Turkey, Syria's defense ministry said on Wednesday. Some 30 km (20 miles) from the Turkish border, the town occupies a critical spot on the map of the Syrian conflict, near the junction of three separate blocks of territory that form spheres of Russian, Turkish and - for now - U.S. influence. "According to information, approximately 400 Kurdish fighters have left Manbij so far," the Syrian defense ministry said. Their departure was in line with an agreement "for the return of normal life to the area of northern Syria," it said. The ministry showed online a video of dozens of vehicles traveling along an unmade road carrying armed fighters, some waving the flags of the Kurdish-led People's Protection Units (YPG) militia and its female counterpart the YPJ. The YPG is the strongest element in the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF), a coalition of militias that the United States has backed in its campaign against Islamic State, helping it capture swathes of north and east Syria. Fearing an attack by Turkey after a U.S. pull-out from Syria, the YPG asked Syrian government forces to deploy in the area around Manbij. There was no immediate comment from the YPG or the SDF on the withdrawal or on how many fighters might remain in Manbij. Turkey regards the YPG as a terrorist group tied to the PKK inside its own borders, and has staged incursions into Syria in support of Syrian rebels to push it from the Turkish frontier. As a result of one of those incursions, Turkish-backed forces have held an area bordering Manbij since 2016, and Ankara has repeatedly demanded that the YPG leave the area and cross to the east bank of the Euphrates. The YPG previously announced it had pulled its forces out of Manbij and has said fighters still in the area belonged to a local militia allied to the SDF. U.S. forces have underpinned stability in Manbij since Islamic State's defeat there in 2016, and have conducted joint patrols with Turkish forces since November in an effort to allay Ankara's security concerns. (Reporting By Angus McDowall; Editing by Richard Balmforth) If you want to know who really controls China Golden Classic Group Limited (HKG:8281), then youll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome. China Golden Classic Group is a smaller company with a market capitalization of HK$295m, so it may still be flying under the radar of many institutional investors. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutions are not on the share registry. Lets take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholder can tell us about 8281. View our latest analysis for China Golden Classic Group SEHK:8281 Ownership Summary January 3rd 19 What Does The Lack Of Institutional Ownership Tell Us About China Golden Classic Group? Small companies that are not very actively traded often lack institutional investors, but its less common to see large companies without them. There could be various reasons why no institutions own shares in a company. Typically, small, newly listed companies dont attract much attention from fund managers, because it would not be possible for large fund managers to build a meaningful position in the company. It is also possible that fund managers dont own the stock because they arent convinced it will perform well. China Golden Classic Groups earnings and revenue track record (below) may not be compelling to institutional investors or they simply might not have looked at the business closely. SEHK:8281 Income Statement Export January 3rd 19 We note that hedge funds dont have a meaningful investment in China Golden Classic Group. As far I can tell there isnt analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar. Insider Ownership Of China Golden Classic Group Story continues While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it. I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions. Our information suggests that insiders own more than half of China Golden Classic Group Limited. This gives them effective control of the company. Given it has a market cap of HK$295m, that means they have HK$201m worth of shares. It is good to see this level of investment. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently. General Public Ownership The general public holds a 32% stake in 8281. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies. Next Steps: While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Many find it useful to take an in depth look at how a company has performed in the past. You can access this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow . If you would prefer check out another company one with potentially superior financials then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, backed by strong financial data. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. The big shareholder groups in Krakatoa Resources Limited (ASX:KTA) have power over the company. Large companies usually have institutions as shareholders, and we usually see insiders owning shares in smaller companies. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome. Krakatoa Resources is not a large company by global standards. It has a market capitalization of AU$2.9m, which means it wouldnt have the attention of many institutional investors. In the chart below below, we can see that institutions are not really that prevalent on the share registry. Lets take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholder can tell us about KTA. Check out our latest analysis for Krakatoa Resources ASX:KTA Ownership Summary January 3rd 19 What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Krakatoa Resources? Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index. Since institutions own under 5% of Krakatoa Resources, many may not have spent much time considering the stock. But its clear that some have; and they liked it enough to buy in. If the company is growing earnings, that may indicate that it is just beginning to catch the attention of these deep-pocketed investors. We sometimes see a rising share price when a few big institutions want to buy a certain stock at the same time. The history of earnings and revenue, which you can see below, could be helpful in considering if more institutional investors will want the stock. Of course, there are plenty of other factors to consider, too. ASX:KTA Income Statement Export January 3rd 19 Hedge funds dont have many shares in Krakatoa Resources. Our information suggests that there isnt any analyst coverage of the stock, so it is probably little known. Insider Ownership Of Krakatoa Resources Story continues While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it. Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group. Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Krakatoa Resources Limited. Insiders own AU$775k worth of shares in the AU$2.9m company. It is great to see insiders so invested in the business. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying recently. General Public Ownership The general public, who are mostly retail investors, collectively hold 59% of Krakatoa Resources shares. This size of ownership gives retail investors collective power. They can and probably do influence decisions on executive compensation, dividend policies and proposed business acquisitions. Private Company Ownership We can see that Private Companies own 9.7%, of the shares on issue. Its hard to draw any conclusions from this fact alone, so its worth looking into who owns those private companies. Sometimes insiders or other related parties have an interest in shares in a public company through a separate private company. Next Steps: Its always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Krakatoa Resources better, we need to consider many other factors. Many find it useful to take an in depth look at how a company has performed in the past. You can access this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow . Of course this may not be the best stock to buy. Therefore, you may wish to see our free collection of interesting prospects boasting favorable financials. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker with the blocs chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier (Getty) EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker dismissed calls from the blocs official watchdog to make Brexit talks more transparent, according to letters seen by Yahoo Finance UK. The European commission vowed to ensure a maximum level of transparency during the whole of the negotiating process when talks got underway in June 2017. However, correspondence between Juncker and European Ombudsman Emily OReilly suggests the commission has fallen short of its stated aim. In a letter sent to Juncker last year, OReilly wrote: While welcoming the strong commitment of the commission to transparency, I would be grateful if you could reflect on ways to do even more in terms of informing EU citizens. The Irish former journalist called on the commission to regularly publish details of meetings held by all members of its Brexit task force, rather than solely those of chief negotiator Michel Barnier. READ MORE: Manufacturers stockpiling parts at near record pace to prepare for Brexit She specifically said the activities of Barniers influential deputy, Sabine Weyand, should be listed online. The ombudsman also called on the commission to provide more context on the meetings by publishing any or all of the following in relation to meetings with organisations and selfemployed individuals: participant lists, agendas, minutes or other documents exchanged during the meetings. OReilly noted that this would go beyond normal commission procedure but wrote: I urge the commission to make an exception in this case given the specific commitment to a maximum level of transparency extending to the entire taskforce. None of those recommendations have since been implemented by the commission. Juncker waved away scrutiny of Weyands activities in his reply to OReilly, saying they were mainly of an institutional nature. The EUs deputy chief Brexit negotiator Sabine Weyand (Getty) He pointed out that details of meetings held by Weyand and other task force members had been published in response to a freedom of information request, but was silent on OReillys call to publish the details routinely on the task force website. Story continues Minutes of meetings cannot be published while negotiations are ongoing, he added. Moreover, such meeting reports may contain sensitive information and commercial data, as well as personal data, disclosure of which is subject to exceptions. Rather than acting on the ombudsmans recommendations to make Brexit talks more transparent, the commission subsequently increased the secrecy around negotiations through a concept they called the tunnel. Weyand convinced fellow EU officials that talks should be taken out of the public eye in order to minimise controversies at the crucial final stage, according to the Guardian. READ MORE: Juncker warns May there is no room whatsoever to change Brexit deal It meant that no details of her regular meetings with Olly Robbins, the prime ministers Brexit advisor, were made public flouting the ombudsmans recommendations. The commission hasnt published an agenda for Brexit negotiations since September 5 last year. When Yahoo Finance UK asked for basic details of these meetings, the commissions chief spokesperson told us only that officials were in continuous talks. I think our commitment to transparency is beyond any doubt, he said. The UK governments commitment to Brexit transparency has also come under scrutiny this week after it emerged the departments involved in negotiations are most likely to reject freedom of information requests. Giuseppe Matarazzo was gunned down after being released from prison A paedophile priest has been shot dead, apparently gunned down by a hitman hired by the father of his victims. Giuseppe Matarazzo had just left an Italian jail, after being convicted of abusing two young sisters. One of his victims committed suicide aged just 15, Italian media reported. The girl hanged herself from a tree. He was killed just weeks after leaving prison. Matarazzo had spent more than 11 years behind bars for the abuse, which happened while he was a priest in Frasso Telesino, southern Italy. He was a priest in the town of Frasso Telesino, near Naples (Google Street View) The 45-year-old was released from jail earlier this year, but soon after his body was found with five gunshot wounds in the same town north of Naples. Press reports in Italy say the shooting was a professional killing. Caserta News claimed that two men, Giuseppe Massaro, 55, and Generoso Nasta, 30, carried out the shooting, which took place in July. Police have revealed that they also found a magnum pistol in connection with the slaying. Officers have also said there is a third person involved in the murder. And they claim they are investigating the heartbroken father over the shooting. The Catholic Church has been beset by abuse scandals for many years, and Rome even once claimed that one in 50 clergy are paedophiles. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Man held with rhino horn in Dhangadhi An investigation team from the District Police Office, Kailali, arrested a man in possession of a rhino horn from Dhangadhi Sub-metropolis on Tuesday. OptiBiotix Health Plc (LON:OPTI), which has zero-debt on its balance sheet, can maximize capital returns by increasing debt due to its lower cost of capital. However, the trade-off is OPTI will have to follow strict debt obligations which will reduce its financial flexibility. While OPTI has no debt on its balance sheet, it doesnt necessarily mean it exhibits financial strength. I recommend you look at the following hurdles to assess OPTIs financial health. Check out our latest analysis for OptiBiotix Health Is OPTI right in choosing financial flexibility over lower cost of capital? Debt capital generally has lower cost of capital compared to equity funding. However, the trade-off is debtholders higher claim on company assets in the event of liquidation and stringent obligations around capital management. Either OPTI does not have access to cheap capital, or it may believe this trade-off is not worth it. This makes sense only if the company has a competitive edge and is growing fast off its equity capital. Opposite to the high growth we were expecting, OPTIs negative revenue growth of -28% hardly justifies opting for zero-debt. If the decline sustains, it may find it hard to raise debt at an acceptable cost. AIM:OPTI Historical Debt January 3rd 19 Does OPTIs liquid assets cover its short-term commitments? Since OptiBiotix Health doesnt have any debt on its balance sheet, it doesnt have any solvency issues, which is a term used to describe the companys ability to meet its long-term obligations. However, another measure of financial health is its short-term obligations, which is known as liquidity. These include payments to suppliers, employees and other stakeholders. With current liabilities at UK88k, it appears that the company has been able to meet these obligations given the level of current assets of UK2.2m, with a current ratio of 24.98x. Having said that, many consider a ratio above 3x to be high. Next Steps: OPTI is a fast-growing firm, which supports having have zero-debt and financial freedom to continue to ramp up growth. This may mean this is an optimal capital structure for the business, given that it is also meeting its short-term commitment. Going forward, OPTIs financial situation may change. Keep in mind I havent considered other factors such as how OPTI has been performing in the past. I suggest you continue to research OptiBiotix Health to get a more holistic view of the stock by looking at: Historical Performance: What has OPTIs returns been like over the past? Go into more detail in the past track record analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of our analysis for more clarity. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. Nearly half of all people covered by private health insurance are now in high-deductible plans, with the percentage rising every year, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Whether you sign up for a high-deductible plan by choice or because it's the only option available, having a high-deductible policy unlocks a valuable opportunity: the ability to get a triple tax break with a health savings account. Your contributions are tax-deductible (or pretax if made through your employer), the money grows tax-deferred, and you can withdraw money tax-free for eligible medical expenses at any time. See Also: 50 Ways to Save on Health Care You'll get the biggest benefit if you invest the HSA money for the future and use other cash for current expenses. There's no time limit for withdrawing HSA money tax-free for eligible expenses you incur once you open the account, as long as you keep your receipts. While these accounts provide a tax-efficient way to save for future health care costs, high fees can diminish their appeal. If your employer offers an HSA, that's usually your best bet; most employers cover the administrative fees, and employers often contribute to employees' accounts. But if you're getting an HSA on your own, it's important to compare the costs of different plans. Morningstar found that nine out of 10 popular HSAs charge a maintenance fee, ranging from $12 to $54 per year, and several charge an extra fee of $18 to $36 to invest the money, in addition to annual mutual fund expenses. (Some waived the maintenance or investing fee if you keep a minimum of $2,000 to $5,000 in the account.) The fees can be difficult to decipher. The industry needs a lot more transparency, says Morningstar's Leo Acheson. The options are improving. Fidelity, which used to offer HSAs only through employers, recently introduced an HSA available directly to consumers that charges no annual or maintenance fees. And Vanguard just started to offer HSAs to employers. The competition from new offerings should help lower fees and improve transparency; Acheson saw the same thing happen with 529 college-savings plans. Story continues To qualify for an HSA, you need an HSA-eligible insurance policy with a deductible of at least $1,350 for individual coverage or $2,700 for family coverage, whether you get insurance through your employer or on your own (you can't contribute if you're enrolled in Medicare). See Also: 7 Ways to Save on Prescriptions EDITOR'S PICKS Copyright 2019 The Kiplinger Washington Editors By Suchitra Mohanty NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the government to list the steps it plans for the rescue of at least 15 miners trapped in a so-called "rat-hole" coal mine for three weeks in a remote hilly state, warning that "every second counts". The workers were ensnared on Dec. 13 when the illegal mine in the northeastern state of Meghalaya was flooded. Rescuers have so far only been able to find three helmets and two axes underground. The country's top court wondered why attempts to reach the miners had not yet been successful. "Tell us by tomorrow, because for people who are trapped, every second counts," Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri told the federal government, represented by Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta. The Meghalaya government told the court that nearly 86 people were working on the rescue effort since Dec. 14, including employees of state-controlled Coal India Ltd, the world's biggest miner of the fuel. Kyrmen Shylla, Meghalaya's disaster management minister, told Reuters both government and private agencies had been involved in the bid to reach the miners, many of whose family members have given up hope. Rat-hole mining has killed thousands of workers in Meghalaya, including children, before India's environmental court banned the practice in early 2014. At its peak, the state produced coal worth $4 billion a year, or about a tenth of India's total production. Despite the ban, many mines continued operation https://in.reuters.com/article/india-coal-meghalaya-mines/meghalaya-cm-pushes-for-coal-mining-critics-say-hes-helping-wife-idINKCN0SM0N220151028, requiring workers, often children, to descend hundreds of feet on bamboo ladders and dig coal out of narrow, horizontal seams. The unsuccessful rescue bid has drawn criticism of a lack of urgency shown by government agencies, particularly given the remote location of the mine, a journey to which can take more than five hours from the nearest commercial airport in Guwahati. "Would we have cared more if the miners had not been at the fringes of national consciousness in the northeast?" senior journalist Vir Sanghvi asked on Twitter. "I have not given up hope, but our response to this crisis shames us as a nation." (Additional reporting by Zarir Hussain in GUWAHATI; Writing by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) The killing only stopped when there was no one left to murder (Getty) A quarter of all the Jews who died in the Holocaust were killed in roughly 100 days in what is described as a pulse of death, where Hitler ordered the death camps to step up operations. The spike of hyper-intense killing was far worse than previously believed, new research shows. Up to 15,000 people were murdered per day far higher than more recent genocides such as the Rwandan genocide, with 1.47 million people dying between August and October 1942. The figures are based on train records of Operation Reinhard, showing that the highly coordinated executions using train transports and gas chambers killed about 10 times more than is commonly believed. The death rate dropped thereafter simply because there were far fewer Jews left to kill, says mathematician Lewi Stone from Tel Aviv University in Israel. Stone says, Even though the Holocaust is one of the best documented genocides in a historical sense, there is surprisingly little quantitative data available. MORE: Pedestrian killed by helicopter that landed on top of him at Brazil beach resort MORE: Police mocked for sharing e-fit of suspected robber who looks like the Grim Reaper The Reichsbahn railway network was a critical component of the Nazis blueprint for genocide and destruction, Stone writes in his new paper. Records of train schedules and movements, fragmentary as they are, have since become an important source of data used to estimate the spatial and temporal patterns of victims who were shuttled to the death camps. The Nazis extremely efficient extermination machine presumably could have continued to run smoothly for many more months at the kill rates identified here had there been a continuous supply of victims in the GG [Nazi-occupied Poland]. Instead, the enormous pulse of death consumed the large majority of possible Jewish victims. The subsequent rapid plunge in the death rate simply reflects that there were very few Jewish victims left alive to murder by this stage in the GG. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Century Aluminum Company CENX stock looks to be an attractive bet now based on its strong earnings outlook, favorable industry fundamentals and compelling prospects for 2019. We are positive on the companys prospects and believe that the time is right for you to add the stock to portfolio. Let's delve deeper into the factors that make this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) stock an attractive investment option at the moment. Impressive Earnings Surprise History Century Aluminum has outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate in each of the trailing four quarters. In this timeframe, the company has delivered a positive average earnings surprise of 57.3%. Growth Expectations Growth prospects for Century Aluminum for 2019 look encouraging. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings for 2019 for the company is currently pegged at 97 cents, reflecting an expected year-over-year growth of a whopping 488.3%. Revenues for Century Aluminum for 2019 is also projected to rise roughly 18% year over year as the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the year is currently pegged at $2.23 billion. Attractive Valuation Valuation looks attractive as Century Aluminums shares are currently trading at a level that is lower than the industry average, suggesting that the stock still has upside potential. Going by the EV/EBITDA (Enterprise Value/ Earnings before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization) multiple, which is often used to value metals and mining companies, Century Aluminum is currently trading at trailing 12-month EV/EBITDA multiple of 5.1, cheaper compared with the industry average of 7.3. Healthy Industry Fundamentals Century Aluminum, in its third-quarter call, stated that downstream demand depicts growth and the trend is likely to continue. It is seeing strength across major end-markets and healthy growth across the United States and Europe. According to the company, global aluminum demand rose 4% year over year in the third quarter. It witnessed roughly 5% year-over-year growth in China, around 3% growth in Europe and roughly 2% growth in North America. Per the company, primary aluminum inventories across the globe have declined as projections indicate a production deficit of roughly 2 million metric tons in 2018. Century Aluminum also envisions a similar global deficit in 2019 that is expected to lead to continued destocking of inventories and support LME (London Metal Exchange) aluminum prices over the long haul. Delivery and product premiums are also firm in the United States, supported partly by the business-friendly policies taken by the U.S. administration. The company also believes that it is now witnessing the end-phase of the difficult conditions that have impacted the alumina sector during 2018. It expects the alumina market to be well supplied and prices to return to historical norms, considering the resolution of these issues. Expansion Moves to Boost Production Century Aluminum, in late 2018, announced two new expansion programs at the Sebree smelter. The move will boost the smelters production of value-added and secondary aluminum. The expansions are expected to be complete in the first quarter of 2019. It will improve the smelters product mix by adding around 90,000 metric tons (MT) of additional billet to the Sebree casthouse. This will boost the smelters overall output by adding 20,000 MT of additional secondary or scrap reprocessing capacity. The company expects Sebree to produce roughly 230,000 MT of aluminum (primary and secondary) products in 2019. This includes around 175,000 MT of billet. The expansion programs indicate the companys confidence in the future of the U.S. aluminum industry along with the consistent positive impacts of the Trump administrations Section 232 program. Story continues Century Aluminum Company Price and Consensus Century Aluminum Company Price and Consensus | Century Aluminum Company Quote Other Stocks to Consider Other top-ranked stocks worth considering in the basic materials space include Quaker Chemical Corporation KWR, Israel Chemicals Ltd. ICL and Cameco Corporation CCJ. Quaker Chemical has an expected earnings growth rate of 21.1% for the current year and carries a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). Its shares have gained 18% in the past year. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Israel Chemicals has an expected earnings growth rate of 2.7% for the current year and carries a Zacks Rank #2. The companys shares have rallied 39% over the past year. Cameco has an expected earnings growth rate of 20% for the current year and carries a Zacks Rank #2. The companys shares have gained 16% in the past year. More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone! It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 27 billion devices in just 3 years, creating a $1.7 trillion market. Zacks has just released a Special Report that spotlights this fast-emerging phenomenon and 6 tickers for taking advantage of it. If you don't buy now, you may kick yourself in 2020. Click here for the 6 trades >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Quaker Chemical Corporation (KWR) : Free Stock Analysis Report Israel Chemicals Shs (ICL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Cameco Corporation (CCJ) : Free Stock Analysis Report Century Aluminum Company (CENX) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research bitmain bitcoin hack The website of Dublins light rail system, Luas, has gone down after it was hacked, the Irish Examiner has reported. Consequently, visitors to the website, which has been offline for more than three hours now, are being greeted with a message that the hacker(s) posted citing their demands. The unidentified hackers are demanding to be paid one bitcoin in five days or they will release privileged data that they have obtained. In the message (which has been slightly edited for clarity) the hackers alluded to their frustrations at their previous attempts to extort Dublins light rail system: You are hacked. Some time ago I wrote that you have serious security holes you didnt reply. The next time someone talks to you, press the reply button. You must pay 1 bitcoin in 5 days otherwise I will publish all data and send emails to your users. At the bottom of the message is a bitcoin address to which the hackers want the ransom payment sent to. Static Website It is unclear what kind of information the hackers have obtained since the Luas website is mostly informational with limited interactive features. According to reports, the Luas payment website that is used by passengers to pay for fare violations has not been affected. On Luas Twitter account, users were advised not to visit the compromised website and to instead call for enquiries: This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. The website of Dublins tram system is being held to ransom just days after TheDarkOverload hacking group claimed to be in possession of stolen information touching on the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack in New York. The hacking group is threatening to release the information with a view of offering many answers about 9.11 conspiracies, as CCN reported: This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Per TheDarkOverload, the information was obtained from insurance firms including Lloyds of London and Hiscox Syndicates these were some of the insurers of the World Trade Center structure which was one of the targets of the terrorists during the 9/11 attack. Story continues List of Targets The group, which is threatening to publish all the privileged information unless paid a ransom in bitcoin, is mostly targeting law firms, property managers, insurers and law enforcement agencies among others: If youre one of the dozens of solicitor firms who was involved in the litigation, a politician who was involved in the case, a law enforcement agency who was involved in the investigations, a property management firm, an investment bank, a client of a client, a reference of a reference, a global insurer, or whoever else, youre welcome to contact our e-mail below and make a request to formally have your documents and materials withdrawn from any eventual public release of the materials. Featured image from Shutterstock. The post Hackers Demand Bitcoin After Taking Down Dublins Tram System Website appeared first on CCN. Man arrested for hurling acid at wife in Chitwan Police on Wednesday arrested a man for throwing acid at his wife in Chitwan. Biren Gurung of Pokhara-1, aided with three other accomplices, attacked his 20-year-old wife Dolma Rumba. She was living with her parents in Jagatpur of Chitwan Bharatpur Metropolis-24. Gurung hails from Pokhara-1. Millions of people who receive Social Security benefits are retired workers who depend on the program for a substantial portion of their total income. But many other Social Security takers are actually not yet retired, choosing to work while they receive monthly payments from Social Security, drawing their total income from regular wages and their benefits. Special rules apply to people working while collecting Social Security, and learning the hang ups can help you continue your career into your later years while maximizing your Social Security benefits. If you're not careful, you can end up losing some of your benefits. This guide offers an overview of how people continue working while receiving Social Security and how to avoid costly pitfalls. Two people's upper bodies superimposed on a blue background with the frame of a Social Security card and the picture from the $1 bill. Image source: Getty Images. How can I receive Social Security while I'm working? Many people think Social Security's main purpose is to provide benefits to replace regular wage income for folks who have stopped working in their old age. This is true for a large number of people who receive retirement benefits from Social Security after reaching the end of their careers and who don't expect to have further earnings from employment in the future. However, there are a number of situations in which you can become eligible to receive Social Security benefits long before you reach a typical age for retirement. They include: Early retirement benefits. You can start getting your benefits as early as age 62. Though the full retirement age (FRA) at which you can claim the full amount of monthly payments that results from calculations using the Social Security benefit formula is currently somewhere between 66 and 67 for anyone born in 1943 or later, you're entitled to claim early retirement benefits before reaching your FRA. Moreover, there's no requirement that you actually be retired to get those benefits -- they're called retirement benefits in part to distinguish them from family benefits, which are based on someone else's work record, like with spousal and survivors' benefits. Spousal benefits. If your living spouse has claimed retirement benefits, then you can also be eligible to claim spousal benefits. The most typical situation requires you to be 62 or older before claiming Social Security based on a spouse's work record. However, if you're caring for a child who's under age 16 or is disabled, then you can claim at any age. Survivors benefits. If your spouse has passed away, then you typically become eligible for survivor benefits once you reach age 60 -- even if you yourself have never worked or earned Social Security retirement benefits of your own. Again, though, surviving spouses can receive benefits at any age if they're caring for a child under age 16 or who is disabled. Also, if you yourself are disabled, then you can receive benefits as a surviving spouse even earlier, at age 50. Disability benefits. Social Security pays benefits to disabled workers and certain family members, including a spouse, children, or a dependent grandchild or parent at any age as long as the worker meets the qualification requirements. In general, to get disability benefits, your condition must prevent you from doing both your former work and other types of work, and it must be long-term in nature, lasting at least 12 months. Because disability benefit payments are based on the idea that the worker is unable to have gainful employment, however, the situation involving disability benefits is fundamentally different from the retirement benefits. In any of these situations, you might be entitled to Social Security while you're an age at which you'd like to keep working. But that leads to another question: If you can get valuable Social Security benefits that would replace a significant part of the income you earn from working, why even stay at your current job? Story continues Why keep working while on Social Security? There's nothing implicit in the rules governing Social Security that says you must stop working once you decide to claim your benefits. But for many people -- especially those who claim early benefits -- becoming eligible for Social Security offers freedom to consider the option of early retirement. The benefits may afford you the luxury of ending your career younger than a traditional retirement age. Many workers choose to take their Social Security retirement benefits at the minimum age of 62 to start their golden years early. On the other hand, though, many people decide to work past their FRA, sometimes keeping their jobs well into their 70s or even longer. Increasingly, what many older people are finding is that early retirement has both pros and cons. The freedom and flexibility to do whatever you want with your time is certainly valuable, but for some retirees, losing the social connections from being in a workplace turns out to be a bigger challenge than they expected. In addition, given how important work is to one's sense of accomplishment and purpose, choosing to set aside the knowledge and experiences of your chosen profession by ending your career and moving on to a much different lifestyle can be an extremely difficult decision. The current economic environment is supportive of older Americans who want to continue working past traditional retirement age. Unemployment is at near-record low levels, and the sheer mass of retirees leaving the workforce is putting a strain on the ability of employers to fill the positions their former workers leave vacant. That puts older Americans approaching retirement in a favorable position to negotiate with their employers, and many are using that leverage to transition into retirement slowly, by reducing hours or switching to less demanding roles that better fit the overall lifestyle that they want to have in the twilight of their careers. That said, the potential to lose Social Security benefits by continuing to work is a major impediment for those who want to extend their careers. Fortunately, the rules governing those who work while on Social Security don't apply to people of all ages, and what that means is that once you reach a certain age, you can claim Social Security and work as long as you want without fear of giving up a single penny of your monthly checks. What happens if I get early Social Security benefits while working? If you're younger than your FRA and you receive Social Security benefits, then your benefits will be reduced if your earnings from work are more than a certain amount. The amount of the reduction depends on your age and the amount by which your earnings exceed the thresholds the Social Security Administration (SSA) defines each year. One set of limitations applies to people younger than FRA throughout the whole year, while another set applies if you reach FRA during the year. Special rules also apply if you begin receiving benefits in the middle of a year. How much will I lose in benefits if I'm working? The SSA establishes Social Security earnings limits each year and the limit that applies to you depends on what age you start claiming Social Security. This is how you end up forfeiting, or giving up, some of your Social Security income because you're working. For 2018, those who are younger than FRA throughout the year can earn up to $17,040 per year in wages without losing any of their benefits. Beyond that limit, you'll lose $1 of annual benefits for every $2 you make above that maximium threshold. So if you earned $19,040, then you'd lose $1,000 in benefits -- half of the $2,000 over the limit. The limit for 2019 goes up to $17,640. For those who start taking benefits during the year, the monthly limits are $1,420 and $1,470 respectively for 2018 and 2019, and they apply only to the period of the year during which you receive benefits. Those who reach FRA during the year have higher limits and less onerous forfeiture provisions. For 2018, you'll lose $1 in annual benefits for every $3 earned above the annual limit of $45,360. The 2019 limit goes up to $46,920. If you reach FRA midyear, then earnings after that date don't count toward the total, but the annual amount isn't prorated, either. In other words, if you earn $10,000 a month but hit FRA at the end of April, then you won't have to lose any benefits even though the $10,000 amount is well above what the prorated monthly amount would suggest. There's also a special rule that applies to those who intend to retire in the middle of the year. Even if you would otherwise lose your benefits because of the forfeiture provisions, you can still receive full Social Security checks for any month after you start working. So for instance, say you're 63 and decide that you're going to quit your $200,000 a year job at the end of June. You'd forfeit all of your benefits for the first six months of the year because of your high earnings, but starting in July, you could still get checks for the remaining six months even though your total annual earnings were above the annual limit. When can I get Social Security while working without losing benefits? Social Security gives workers flexibility in when they decide to claim their retirement benefits, but it creates some incentives for selecting certain ages by having different rules depending on when you decide to make your claim. Specifically, if you wait until your FRA, then you can work and get full benefits no matter how much you earn. What that means is that any work you do after FRA has no impact on the amount of Social Security benefits you receive. So what is your FRA? The age at which you no longer have to worry about losing Social Security benefits varies depending on when you were born. The table shows the FRA that applies to you if you're claiming your own retirement benefits or spousal benefits. If You Were Born In... Your Full Retirement Age for Retirement or Spousal Benefits Is... 1943 to 1954 66 1955 66 and 2 months 1956 66 and 4 months 1957 66 and 6 months 1958 66 and 8 months 1959 66 and 10 months 1960 or later 67 Data source: Social Security Administration. A different table applies for survivors benefits. If You Were Born In... Your Full Retirement Age for Survivors Benefits Is... 1945 to 1956 66 1957 66 and 2 months 1958 66 and 4 months 1959 66 and 6 months 1960 66 and 8 months 1961 66 and 10 months 1962 or later 67 Data source: Social Security Administration. In addition, if you claim benefits before your FRA and the SSA takes away some of your monthly checks as a result, it will stop doing so once you hit the retirement age above. Only those who claim benefits earlier than FRA can suffer potential losses of benefits, and those losses only last for the period until they reach their FRA. If I forfeit some of my Social Security benefits, do I lose them forever? Once the SSA figures out how much in benefits you'll have to forfeit, it starts by withholding them from your monthly benefits. It generally does so by withholding entire monthly checks for however long it takes to cover the forfeited amount. So for instance, if you get $1,000 a month from Social Security and your earnings will lead to a forfeiture of $3,000, then the SSA will pay you for nine months but withhold your checks for the other three months. Forfeiting benefits sounds bad, but there's a silver lining. In exchange for every month's worth of retirement benefits you forfeit, the SSA treats you as if you had decided to claim your benefits a month later than you actually did. That leads to your receiving larger monthly payments from Social Security once you hit FRA than you otherwise would have. Over time, the resulting amount by which each of your monthly benefit checks for the rest of your life goes up should offset your forfeiture losses. You can even end up ahead if you live beyond your average life expectancy. Special rules for working while getting Social Security disability benefits The situation for forfeiting disability benefits from Social Security is completely different, because the entire reason why recipients get disability benefits is that the disabled worker can no longer work in gainful employment because of the disabling injury or illness. For most disabled workers, earnings of more than $1,180 per month in 2018 make you ineligible to receive disability benefits. Blind workers have higher earnings limits of $1,970 per month before ineligibility results. The corresponding limits for 2019 are $1,220 and $2,040 per month respectively. These special rules only apply to the disabled worker so family members getting benefits are subject to the normal rules. Keep in mind that the substantial gainful activity rules are an all-or-nothing test, with no phased-out reduction based on earnings above the threshold. If you make less than the amounts above, then you keep full benefits, and if you make more, then you lose all of your disability benefits. There are no prorated benefits. How to maximize your Social Security benefits while working Now that you know all about what can happen to your benefits if you work while on Social Security, the key question is what you can do to make sure that you'll keep all of your Social Security money. The following options will prevent you from being subject to Social Security's forfeiture provisions: You always have the ability to wait until FRA or later before you claim your Social Security benefits. If you do, then you'll be able to earn all you're eligible for without worrying about the earnings tests and whether they apply to you. If you wait until the year that you're going to reach FRA to claim your benefits, then it's easier to avoid losing any of your benefits to forfeiture. That's because the earnings limits are higher in the year that you're due to reach your FRA. Also, those limits only apply to any money you earn up to the month you reach full retirement. So for instance, if your FRA is 67 and your birthday is in May, then only your earnings from January to April will count toward determining if you've gone over the earnings limit for the year. Those who decide to do a phased retirement by reducing their work hours or working a part-time job might find their lower earnings leave them under the thresholds at which forfeitures would occur. That can make it possible to claim your Social Security and keep all of it even while you're still working. Finally, sometimes surprises can make it impossible to avoid problems. For instance, some early retirees decide they want to go back into the workforce, even though they've already claimed their Social Security and started getting benefits. If you run into such a situation and only later realize that claiming your Social Security will lead to an unwanted forfeiture of benefits, then you do have a chance to change your mind. The current rules for withdrawing your Social Security application essentially give you up to 12 months to get a do-over on your claiming decision. To do so, you'll need to file the appropriate form with the SSA, and you'll also need to pay back any benefits that you might have received. After that, though, you'll be treated as if you'd never applied. You can only use this feature once in your lifetime, however, so you'll need to be especially careful the second time around to make sure your timing is right. Using retirement accounts to avoid forfeiting Social Security benefits All that said, some people still want to supplement their work income in the last years of their careers. If claiming Social Security would only lead to forfeiting some of your benefits, one alternative is to look at tapping retirement accounts like IRAs and 401(k)s. Typically, you can get access to your retirement savings anytime after you turn 59 1/2 without penalty. It's true that you'll owe taxes on the amount you withdraw from any traditional IRA or 401(k) accounts you have, but those who have Roth IRAs can make withdrawals on a tax-free basis without any increase to their tax bill. Whether that strategy makes sense depends on your tax situation. If you're in a high tax bracket, then drawing money from a traditional IRA or 401(k) that will only add to your immediate tax burden doesn't usually make sense. But if your work income is relatively low, then taking a retirement account distribution can help you bridge the gap between now and reaching FRA -- at which point you'll no longer have to consider potential benefit forfeiture in deciding when to claim your Social Security. Social Security can help you live the life you desire Deciding when to stop working can have an impact on your Social Security, but you shouldn't let potential reductions in benefits keep you from making the right life decision. By being aware of the multiple options you have to avoid losing your benefits, you'll be able to manage your career and your benefits exactly the way you want. More From The Motley Fool The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. We have issued an updated research report on GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes S.A. GOL on Jan 2. Strong passenger revenues and fleet modernization efforts buoy optimism on the stock. Shares of the company have fared well in a years time. The stock has rallied 37.8%, against the industrys decline of 23.2%. Factors Influencing GOL Linhas Performance The Sao Paulo, Brazil-based airline company is gaining momentum on the back of solid demand for air travel, which leads to strong passenger revenues. Passenger revenues rose 11.5% year over year in the first nine months of 2018. Robust passenger revenues are expected to boost the top line in the final quarter of 2018 as well. The increase in average fares is also aiding GOL Linhas top line. The metric increased 8.1% in the first nine months of 2018. Additionally, the carrier might be able to strengthen marketing capabilities and generate strong revenues with possibilities of additional foreign ownership. Furthermore, we are impressed by GOL Linhas efforts to modernize fleet and lower debt levels. To this end, the company recently announced the acceleration of fleet renewal and modernization plan on account of operational gains as well as buoyant market conditions. The carrier plans to expedite fleet renewal process with Castlelake and Apollo Aviation by replacing 13 Boeing 737 Next Generation (NG) aircraft with Boeing 737 MAX-8 aircraft in the next few years. The sale of these 13 737-800 NGs will reduce the Brazilian carriers net debt by approximately R$1.1 billion. Moreover, the low-cost carrier is focused on capacity discipline and revenue management. As a result, the company posted impressive passenger unit revenues (PRASK) in the first nine months of 2018. The metric expanded 8.2%, while total unit revenues (RASK) climbed 7.3% in the period. Notably, the Zacks Consensus Estimate has been revised 42.9% upward in the past 90 days for current-quarter earnings. The favorable estimate revision reflects brokers optimism in the stock. Story continues Considering the wealth of information at their disposal, it is in the best interest of investors to be guided by broker advice and the direction of their estimate revisions. This is because the direction of estimate revisions serves as an important pointer when it comes to the price of a stock. Additionally, GOL Linhas, which carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), flaunts an impressive VGM Score of B. Here V stands for Value, G for Growth and M for Momentum and the score is a weighted combination of all three scores. Our research shows that stocks with VGM Scores of A or B when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 make solid investment choice. Other Stocks to Consider Investors interested in the broader Transportation Sector may consider Azul S.A. AZUL, Spirit Airlines, Inc. SAVE and Fly Leasing Limited FLY, each sporting a Zacks Rank #1. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Shares of Azul and Spirit Airlines have surged 79.4% and 56% in the past six months, respectively. Meanwhile, Fly Leasing boasts an impressive earnings history, outpacing the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters, the average being 13.5%. More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone! It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 27 billion devices in just 3 years, creating a $1.7 trillion market. Zacks has just released a Special Report that spotlights this fast-emerging phenomenon and 6 tickers for taking advantage of it. If you don't buy now, you may kick yourself in 2020. Click here for the 6 trades >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Spirit Airlines, Inc. (SAVE) : Free Stock Analysis Report Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes S.A. (GOL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Fly Leasing Limited (FLY) : Free Stock Analysis Report AZUL SA (AZUL) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Jazmine Barnes (Chris Cevilla/Gofundme) A seven-year-old girl has been in a random drive-by shooting in the US. Jazmine Barnes was gunned down as she was in a car with her mother and three sisters on Houston, Texas, said police. Jazmine and her mother, LaPorsha Washington, were shot. A six-year-old daughter received injuries from broken glass The seven-year-old subsequently died in the cars backseat as a result of her wounds. Police believe the family were targeted entirely at random and say they know of no motive for the attack. They are looking for a bearded white man, thought to be in his 40s and wearing a red sweatshirt, according to Jazmines 15-year-old sister, who saw the man while the shooting took place. Police could release a sketch of the suspect later today. He was reportedly driving a red pick-up truck. The man drove up beside the family and shot without any provocation in the incident which happened on Sunday morning. We will not rest until an arrest is made. We are going to continue to search for this killer, said Sheriff Ed Gonzalez. He admitted though that the search could be a long one as there were a lot of pick-up trucks in Texas. The red pick-up truck was spotted on security camera footage (Harris County Police) He added: But when you put the pieces together, consider that were looking for a bearded man, possibly in his 40s, driving a red pick-up truck. This could be your neighbour. This could be your co-worker. He also called on the gunman to turn himself in to avoid any further violence, amid fears that the incident could inflame racial tensions. A sobbing LaPorsha Washington, who was shot in the arm, has spoken to local media KHOU 11 News, saying she had no idea why the attack took place. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. I replayed this moment in my head over a million times to see did I cut this man off? she said. Did I make a wrong turn in front of him? Did I do anything wrong to cause this man to fire shots at my car? I didnt. I didnt do anything. He fired off at us for no reason. A civil rights attorney Lee Merritt and a social activist, Shaun King, have offered the equivalent of almost 40,000 as a reward for any information that will help capture the suspect. Merritt claims the attacks was racially motivated. We want to emphasize the racial nature of the attack and that hate-crime charges are appropriate, he told the Washington Post. A sizeable part of portfolio returns can be produced by dividend stocks due to their contribution to compounding returns in the long run. Recently, FY Financial (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. (HKG:8452) has started paying dividends to shareholders. Today it yields 2.6%. Does FY Financial (Shenzhen) tick all the boxes of a great dividend stock? Below, Ill take you through my analysis. View our latest analysis for FY Financial (Shenzhen) 5 checks you should use to assess a dividend stock When researching a dividend stock, I always follow the following screening criteria: Is it paying an annual yield above 75% of dividend payers? Has it paid dividend every year without dramatically reducing payout in the past? Has it increased its dividend per share amount over the past? Can it afford to pay the current rate of dividends from its earnings? Will it have the ability to keep paying its dividends going forward? SEHK:8452 Historical Dividend Yield January 3rd 19 How does FY Financial (Shenzhen) fare? FY Financial (Shenzhen) has a trailing twelve-month payout ratio of 16%, which means that the dividend is covered by earnings. Furthermore, analysts have not forecasted a dividends per share for the future, which makes it hard to determine the yield shareholders should expect, and whether the current payout is sustainable, moving forward. When considering the sustainability of dividends, it is also worth checking the cash flow of a company. A business with strong cash flow can sustain a higher divided payout ratio than a company with weak cash flow. If theres one type of stock you want to be reliable, its dividend stocks and their stable income-generating ability. The reality is that it is too early to consider FY Financial (Shenzhen) as a dividend investment. Last year was the companys first dividend payment, so it is certainly early days. The standard practice for reliable payers is to look for 10 or so years of track record. In terms of its peers, FY Financial (Shenzhen) generates a yield of 2.6%, which is on the low-side for Diversified Financial stocks. Story continues Next Steps: After digging a little deeper into FY Financial (Shenzhen)s yield, its easy to see why you should be cautious investing in the company just for the dividend. On the other hand, if you are not strictly just a dividend investor, the stock could still be offering some interesting investment opportunities. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, you should always research extensively before deciding whether or not a stock is an appropriate investment for you. I always recommend analysing the companys fundamentals and underlying business before making an investment decision. Below, Ive compiled three important factors you should further examine: Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for 8452s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for 8452s outlook. Valuation: What is 8452 worth today? Even if the stock is a cash cow, its not worth an infinite price. The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether 8452 is currently mispriced by the market. Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. Clashes broke out in southern India for a second day Thursday as Hindu hardliners went on the rampage, seeking to enforce a general shutdown in protest at two women entering one of the country's holiest temples. A day after violence among rival groups and with police left one man dead and 15 people injured, authorities said that 266 protestors had been arrested across the state of Kerala. Anger erupted among Hindu traditionalists on Wednesday after news that the two women in their 40s, escorted by police and dressed in black, wrong-footed devotees to sneak into the Sabarimala temple via a side entrance before dawn to pray. This was the first time that any woman of menstruating age -- deemed as those aged between 10 and 50 -- had set foot in the gold-plated temple, located on a hilltop in a tiger reserve, since India's Supreme Court overturned a ban in September. Thousands of Hindu devotees, many of them female, had previously succeeded in preventing women from accessing the site in the weeks following the landmark ruling, with some hardliners throwing stones at police and assaulting female journalists. On Tuesday, tens of thousands of women, in a local government-backed initiative, had braved harassment to form a huge human chain called the "Women's Wall" across Kerala to back the demand for access to the temple. Kerala police told AFP that the man who died on Wednesday was part of a demonstration organised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). - 'Battle zone' - Kerala's chief minister said later that the man, Chandran Unnithan, died from a heart attack after being taken injured to hospital, but a later post mortem report said he died from injuries sustained to the head. Police on Wednesday had used tear gas and water cannon, including in the state capital Thiruvananthapuram, as protestors set fire to tyres and blocked roads. On Thursday, police clashed with protestors pressuring shop owners to comply with a call by the Sabarimala temple hierarchy for a dawn-til-dusk "hartal" shutdown. Story continues Most shops remained shut in the state, while bus services came to a standstill. Four people were stabbed, media reports said, with stone-throwing protestors smashing the windows of 99 buses and causing an estimated 33.5 million rupees ($480,000) worth of damage. In the coastal city of Kozhikode police used tear gas to disperse protestors. Twenty offices of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which governs Kerala in a left-wing alliance, were attacked, said Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, state party secretary. Journalists were assaulted in the city of Palakkad during a march organised by the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a hardline Hindu group and ideological mentor of Modi's party. Kerala's Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan accused the BJP and the RSS of trying to turn Sabarimala into a "battle zone", saying that more than 100 people including 38 police officers had been injured. Vijayan also slammed the head priest of the Sabarimala temple for carrying out a "purification ritual" after the two women entered the site, saying he should quit if he is not prepared to accept the Supreme Court verdict. The restriction on women at the temple, atop a 3,000-feet (915-metre) hill that takes hours to climb, reflects a belief -- not exclusive to Hinduism -- that menstruating women are impure. September's verdict was the latest progressive ruling from India's top court, with judges also overturning bans on gay sex and adultery last year. The Supreme Court is to start hearing a legal challenge on its ruling to allow women into the temple from January 22. Women are still barred from a handful of Hindu temples in India. The entry of women at Sabarimala was taboo for generations and formalised by the Kerala High Court in 1991. PARIS (Reuters) - Two French scientists who validated Jeanne Calment's status as the oldest person ever to have lived, have dismissed claims by Russian researchers who say that she didn't really survive to 122. Mathematician Nikolay Zak and gerontologist Valery Novoselov claim that Calment's daughter, Yvonne Calment, assumed her mother's identity decades earlier. The Russians analyzed photographs, official documents and interviews to produce a body of evidence they acknowledge is circumstantial. Gerentology is the scientific study of old age. Jean-Marie Robine, one of the two French scientists who validated Calment's age, told France Inter radio late on Wednesday that the stir being caused in France by the Russians' findings was a "ridiculous controversy". A spokesman for Guinness World Records, which registered Calment's age as a world record, said they were aware of the Russians' claims. "Extensive research is performed for every oldest person record title we verify, which is led by experts in the gerontology field and they have been notified of the current situation," a spokesman said. In a paper for the Moscow Center For Continuous Mathematical Education, Zak cites discrepancies between the color of Jeanne Calment's eyes, her height and the shape of her forehead in a copy of a 1930s identity card and in her appearance later in life. "I do not have cast-iron proof," Zak told Reuters on a snow-blanketed street in Moscow. "I reviewed the whole situation. There are lots of small pieces of evidence." The second French scientist who validated Calment's age, gerontologist Michel Allard, acknowledged that even if far-fetched, the Russians' conclusions should be given consideration, although he rejected their suggestions of discrepancies between early images of Calment and her appearance in later life. "In the last years of Jeanne Calment's life, I saw so many transformations of her physiognomy," he told France Inter. Story continues Jeanne Calment was born on Feb 21, 1875, more than a decade before the Eiffel Tower was built and a year before Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone. She married a distant wealthy cousin and outlived her daughter Yvonne -- who died of pneumonia in the early 1930s according to official documents -- her husband and a grandson before passing away in Arles, southern France, on Aug 4, 1997. (Reporting by Richard Lough and Claudia Wyatt in Paris and Dmitriy Turlyun in Moscow; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Kirsten Donovan) On the lookout for a Sector - Tech fund? Starting with Fidelity Select Electronics (FSELX) is one possibility. FSELX has a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 2 (Buy), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance. Objective FSELX is part of the Sector - Tech category, which boasts an array of different possible selections. With a much more diversified approach, Sector - Tech mutual funds give investors a way to own a stake in a notoriously risky sector. Tech companies are in various industries like semiconductors, software, internet, and networking, among others. History of Fund/Manager Fidelity is based in Boston, MA, and is the manager of FSELX. The Fidelity Select Electronics made its debut in July of 1985 and FSELX has managed to accumulate roughly $2.87 billion in assets, as of the most recently available information. Stephen Barwikowski is the fund's current manager and has held that role since January of 2009. Performance Obviously, what investors are looking for in these funds is strong performance relative to their peers. This fund has delivered a 5-year annualized total return of 20.95%, and is in the top third among its category peers. Investors who prefer analyzing shorter time frames should look at its 3-year annualized total return of 18.77%, which places it in the top third during this time-frame. When looking at a fund's performance, it is also important to note the standard deviation of the returns. The lower the standard deviation, the less volatility the fund experiences. Over the past three years, FSELX's standard deviation comes in at 18.59%, compared to the category average of 15.45%. Over the past 5 years, the standard deviation of the fund is 17.48% compared to the category average of 15.37%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade. Risk Factors Investors cannot discount the risks to this segment though, as it is always important to remember the downside for any potential investment. In the most recent bear market, FSELX lost 57.16% and underperformed its peer group by 3.85%. These results could imply that the fund is a worse choice than its peers during a sliding market environment. Story continues Investors should note that the fund has a 5-year beta of 1.27, so it is likely going to be more volatile than the market at large. Another factor to consider is alpha, as it reflects a portfolio's performance on a risk-adjusted basis relative to a benchmark-in this case, the S&P 500. With a positive alpha of 7.03, managers in this portfolio are skilled in picking securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns. Expenses Costs are increasingly important for mutual fund investing, and particularly as competition heats up in this market. And all things being equal, a lower cost product will outperform its otherwise identical counterpart, so taking a closer look at these metrics is key for investors. In terms of fees, FSELX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.70% compared to the category average of 1.35%. FSELX is actually cheaper than its peers when you consider factors like cost. Investors need to be aware that with this product, the minimum initial investment is $2,500; each subsequent investment has no minimum amount. Bottom Line Overall, Fidelity Select Electronics ( FSELX ) has a high Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively strong performance, average downside risk, and lower fees, this fund looks like a good potential choice for investors right now. Your research on the Sector - Tech segment doesn't have to stop here. You can check out all the great mutual fund tools we have to offer by going to www.zacks.com/funds/mutual-funds to see the additional features we offer as well for additional information. If you are more of a stock investor, make sure to also check out our Zacks Rank, and our full suite of tools we have available for novice and professional investors alike. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Get Your Free (FSELX): Fund Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Two women made history by sneaking into one of India's holiest Hindu temples before dawn yesterday/WED in defiance of hardline activists blockading the shrine from female worshipers. The Sabarimala temple in southern Kerela has been at the centre of a highly politically charged stand-off after the Supreme court lifted a centuries-old ban on women of menstrual age from praying inside it. Violence erupted as news spread that the two women in their 40s had defied traditionalists, backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modis Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), by entering the temple for the first time since the landmark court ruling. Police fired tear gas, stun grenades and used water cannon as clashes between rival groups erupted across the southern state of Kerala, local media reported. Several officers were reportedly injured. The two women entered the temple under police escort around 3.45am local time, and left undetected a short while later after offering prayers inside the shrine. Women on a previous attempt to breach a blockade surrounding a Hindu temple in the Indian state of Kerala, after the country's supreme court lifted a ban on women entering Credit: AFP/Getty It is a fact that two women entered the shrine state chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan confirmed, adding that police are bound to offer protection to anyone wanting to worship inside the temple. Bindu Ammini, 42, and Kanaka Durga, 44, had tried entering Sabarimala last month, but were forcibly turned back by Hindu activists committed to violently enforcing the ban, despite its revocation by Indias Supreme Court last September. At the time the court had ruled that banning women of menstrual age-between 10 and 50 years-from entering Sabarimala was unconstitutional and an infringement of human rights and of equality of worship. Immediately after the ruling protesters, with the support of the government, disregarded the courts ruling and begun preventing women devotes from entering Sabarimala, even resorting to force. They maintained that age-old religious sentiments prevailed over judicial rulings and that preventing menstruating women from entering the shrine was essential to appease and protect Ayyappan, the temples deity who is depicted as a celibate yoga-practising god. Story continues Police protected the temple again in October, after clashing with devotees and arresting 2,000 people Credit: REUTERS/Sivaram V/File Photo Devotees take a vow of celibacy for 41 days before undertaking the arduous trek to the Sabarimala temple in a bid to earn the deitys blessings. Officials at the temple on Wednesday said the two women had left for 11-mile log uphill trek to Sabarimala around midnight, but instead of ascending the final 18 holy steps to the temple had entered the shrine stealthily through the staff gate. Video images circulating on WhatsApp reveal the two women dressed in black tunics entering the temple with their heads bowed as they rushed inside. We arrived early in the morning and had a darshan (visitation of the idol) for a few minutes Ms Ammini told the BBC later. We left before protestors stopped us, she added. After news of the two women entering Sabrimala became public, the temple authorities accused them of defiling the shrine and closed it for an hour to purify it before opening it up to receive male devotees. Protestors block traffic and shout slogans reacting to reports of two women of menstruating age entering the Sabarimala temple Credit: R S Iyer/ AP Local BJP leader Sreedharan Pillai, however, strongly criticised the temple entry by the two women, calling it a conspiracy by Keralas atheist rulers to destroy Hindu temples. He was referring to Keralas Marxist government that came to power in 2016. The BJP will support all struggles against the destruction of (the Hindu) faith by the Communists Mr Pillai told local television news channels. On New Years Day some five million women formed a 385-mile long human chain across Kerala in support of gender equality and to protest against activists enforcing the ban on females entering Sabarimala despite the Supreme Court having overturned it. Women of all ages and from all wakes of life including lawyers, doctors, actors, authors, teachers, civil servants and even members of the LGBT community stood shoulder to shoulder for 15 minutes late in the afternoon in a show of female solidarity. Their protest ended with a pledge to harness the power of enlightenment to insulate society against revanchist forces that sought to push Kerala back to the dark ages of casteism and discriminatory religious practices. Meanwhile, in many traditional Hindu communities across India, menstruating females are considered unclean and unholy. This, in turn, results in restrictions and, in some cases outright bans, on women of child- bearing age from entering some temples and holy spots. Reuters (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away a free speech challenge to a federal anti-riot law brought by two members of a militant white supremacist group who pleaded guilty to crimes related to a deadly 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The justices declined to hear appeals by the two California men, Michael Miselis and Benjamin Daley, of a lower court ruling that upheld their convictions under the 1968 Anti-Riot Act but also deemed some parts of the law a violation of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech. Miselis and Daley were members of the Southern California-based Rise Above Movement, a white supremacist group that billed itself as "combat-ready" and whose purpose was to engage in violent attacks on counter-protesters at various political rallies. Shares of FedEx Corporation FDX have plunged 35.3% in 2018, wider than the industrys 25.1% decline. Reasons Behind the Downslide The United States-China trade war has wreaked havoc at FedEx. This is because the company has a substantial presence in China. To strengthen its foothold in the country, last January, it opened a hub in Shanghai. Trading activities are said to have weakened in China. Further adding to the woes is the softness in the European economy. Such issues have forced FedEx to trim its earnings per share guidance for fiscal 2019 (ending May 31, 2019). It now anticipates the same in the range of $15.50-$16.60 excluding pension adjustments and TNT Express integration expenses. Prior view was in the band of $17.20-$17.80. Moreover, the company will not be able to achieve its objective of raising its Express segment operating income by $1.2-$1.5 billion in fiscal 2020. Additionally, realization of benefits from TNT Express acquisition will be delayed. Apart from a sluggish European economy, this downside can be attributed to a change in service mix induced by the TNT Express cyberattack in June 2017. Additionally, a global slowdown in trade over the past few months has deteriorated the Express units performance. Further, the segments growth is anticipated to remain under pressure as there are evidences of the turbulence persisting in the near term. Apart from trade war worries, the companys high capital expenses are a cause for concern. With FedEx investing significantly in facilities upgrade at its key divisions, capital expenses are on an upswing. Capex is expected to be $5.6 billion for fiscal 2019. Additionally, integration expenses pertaining to TNT Express are pushing up the costs. FedEx projects TNT Express integration charges of approximately $1.5 billion through 2020. Of these costs, approximately $450 million is estimated to be incurred in 2019. The company might further incur additional integration costs after 2020. These high costs in turn, are likely to hamper the company's bottom-line growth. Due to these headwinds, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the companys current-quarter earnings has declined 17.5% over the last 60 days. The same for fiscal 2019 earnings has been revised 8.3% downward over the same time frame. Zacks Rank & Key Picks FedEx carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). Some better-ranked stocks in the broader Transportation sector are United Continental Holdings UAL, Spirit Airlines SAVE and Azul AZUL. While United Continental holds a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), Spirit Airlines and Azul flaunt a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Shares of United Continental, Spirit Airlines and Azul have rallied more than 24%, 29% and 16%, respectively, in 2018. More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone! It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 27 billion devices in just 3 years, creating a $1.7 trillion market. Zacks has just released a Special Report that spotlights this fast-emerging phenomenon and 6 tickers for taking advantage of it. If you don't buy now, you may kick yourself in 2020. Click here for the 6 trades >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Spirit Airlines, Inc. (SAVE) : Free Stock Analysis Report United Continental Holdings, Inc. (UAL) : Free Stock Analysis Report FedEx Corporation (FDX) : Free Stock Analysis Report AZUL SA (AZUL) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Main accused in Tikapur incident, Chaudhary takes oath as lawmaker Lawmaker-elect of Kailali constituency-1 Resham Chaudhary, the main accused in 2015 Tikapur incident, has taken the oath of office and secrecy on Thursday. How the Federal Government Shutdown Affects YouEven If You Aren Most Americans spent the final weeks of 2018 focused on preparing for the holidays and paid scant attention to headlines about the partial government shutdown. But as a compromise looks further away than ever, the shutdown's effects have begun reaching beyond those directly employed by Uncle Sam to those who rely on the government to remain at least semi-functional in order to continue life interrupted. Here's who needs to consider the ramifications of the gridlock in Washington before making any plans for the new year. Who: Museum and culture fans Why: Some of the nation's most celebrated institutes of art and culture rely on federal funding to keep their doors open to the world, and with the government brought to a screeching halt, most of these tourist destinations stand shuttered to visitors. All 19 of the Smithsonian museums, from the Air and Space Museum to the American Art Museum, are closed until further notice, as is the National Gallery of Art. Alternatives: Most of the big-ticket attractions for art lovers are closed in D.C. (depending on how you feel about Madame Tussauds) but if you're determined to keep your vacation plans to the nation's capital, you can always walk the National Mall and see some of the country's most iconic monuments and memorials from the outside. Who: Hikers looking forward to seeing a national park Why: The breathtaking vistas of Yellowstone, Joshua Tree and other national parks haven't been officially closed due to the government shutdown, but most services provided by employees of the National Park Servicethe federally-run department responsible for the upkeep of the parkshave been officially suspended. That includes clearing the roads after inclement weather, picking up garbage left by visitors and settling disputes between groups of campers. In short, while you may find yourself able to visit these parks, the conditions may make you regret your choice. "Any entry onto [National Park Service] property during this period of federal government shutdown is at the visitor's sole risk," the government agency told the press. Story continues Alternatives: If you don't feel like wading into a Purge-like environment, you may want to point any plans of seeing Old Faithful on hold. Maybe check out Planet Earth on Netflix? Who: Small business owners looking for a loan Why: President Calvin Coolidge once stated "the chief business of the American people is business," but tell that to entrepreneurs depending on a loan from the Small Business Administration (SBA) to fund their dreams. The government shutdown has suspended loan guarantees the SBA provides to business owners who need help qualifying for loans with traditional lenders (i.e., banks) to help pay for equipment, office space and other essentials. Alternatives: Most people looking for help from the SBA aren't able to quality for a business loan with a bank or credit union on their own. Still, it's worth taking a look at some of the best loans available for entrepreneurs, including those offered by fintech lenders. Just be warned that getting a loan from a non-traditional fintech company almost always means paying a higher interest on the principal. Who: Anyone with questions about their taxes Why: Good news, everyone! The government shutdown will not hamper Uncle Sams ability to collect taxes from you. However, it will make getting any information or clarification from them regarding this year's taxes virtually impossible. Need to get a tax return from a previous year for an apartment lease or to prove your job history? Too bad, the IRS is closed for all business...except for the business of making sure you pay your taxes. Alternatives: While the IRS can provide personalized assistance with your tax questions, other resources existsuch as this helpful story. Who: People depending on federal employees to pay them Why: If you're a landlord to one of the country's 800,000 federal employees (or even just subletting to one), you might not get that rent check on time. Paychecks to federal employees have been put on hold during the government shutdown, and while the money lost during the shutdown will likely be paid (judging by past shutdowns), that's little comfort to anyone depending on those employees to meet their financial obligations now. Alternatives: Both Wells Fargo and Bank of America have announced they will provide help to customers affected by the government shutdownprovided their individual cases qualify. You'll have to contact both banks directly and ask about their assistance programs to get the ball rolling on your case. Who: Anyone traveling through an airport Why: TSA agents, like all federal employees, aren't receiving a paycheck during the shutdown. However, they also don't have the dubious luxury of being furloughed as their jobs are considered essential, meaning TSA agents wanting to keep their jobs have to work for free. CNN reported last week that hundreds of agents called in sick across the country, stoking fears that the system ensuring safe air travel could be on the verge of collapse. Alternatives: There's no confirmed reports of airport security descending into chaos quite yet, but if you have a vacation coming up you might want to arrive at the airport even earlier than usual just in case security lines are longer due to lack of available TSA agents. Or take the opportunity to embark on a roadtrip instead. Who: Contractors working with the federal government Why: Not all of the jobs performed by the federal government are carried out by direct employees. An estimated 4.1 million Americans work as contractors with the federal government as a client, in industries ranging from construction to IT. The government shutdown means these workers aren't getting paid and because they don't work directly for the government, they can't expect to receive back pay after the shutdown ends. Alternatives: Outside of collecting unemployment and looking for a new job, there's little these workers can do except hope for a compromise in Washington that ends the government shutdown. Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock January 3, 2018 Some women take to breathing exercises and ice chips as a means of getting through their contractions, but what about acapella singing? One family is making headlines for their smooth take on Salt-N-Pepas Push It and we are blown away. Youre going to want to check this out for yourself. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Jordan Houston and his wife, Jadie Phelps, welcomed their daughter Alaya Jae in the best waywith one epic family sing along. Weve never seen a delivery room as lively as this, and Facebook users alike can feel the love: "This is AMAZING!!! Great support system!!!! My SIL had a 41-hour labor with their first son. I made sure to send link to my bro and tell him get on his beatbox skills so baby girl can cut the time down S&P beats motivates me, why not try it! Makes me smile just to see other families sharing the good things in life like this," wrote Maria Ann. "This is so funny and the amount of support in the room for her is incredible," wrote Allana Gordy. "Wow dont ya just wish your [labor] was this enjoyable time for another just to do it like this aha," wrote Sarah Wilson. With all the excitement happening in the Baylor All Saint Medical Center delivery room in Fort Worth, TX, little baby Alaya Jae couldnt wait to meet her amazing family. Houston took to Facebook to share that their daughter arrived in just 10 minutes after the video took place. She was greeted by her mother, father, uncle, grandma, and aunt. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Its clear Alaya Jae is in amazing hands as a member of this musically gifted family. Congratulations Jordan and Jadie on your beautiful little girl! A woman in Goldsboro, N.C., who woke up on Thursday to find the familys van had been torched by vandals and covered in racial slurs believes the apparent hate crime was a form of retaliation against her 14-year-old daughters interracial relationship. Amanda Miller told local Raleigh, North Carolina, news station WRAL she still cant believe what happened to her car. When you walk out, all you see is a swastika, and youre like, Oh my gosh, what just happened? Miller said of the racist symbol that accompanied terrifying, spray-painted scrawlings calling her daughter a wh***, s***, and n***** lovin b*****, and telling her to rot in hell. Miller believes the graffiti was a severe reaction to her daughters recent relationship with an African American boy she met at church. The vulgar words were accompanied by $17,000 worth of fire damage to the familys brand new 2018 SUV, which theyve made only four payments on so far. The Wayne County Sheriffs Office is now calling the destruction of property a case of arson, vandalism, and racism, and have launched an investigation that includes digging into social media accounts and phone records as well as conducting in-person interviews to identify the vandals. Among the hateful graffiti was a swastika on the rear of the vehicle. (Photo: WRAL.com) It makes your heart sink, Miller told Raleigh news station WTVD of how it feels to be the target of so much hate. Its sad. Its awful. It makes you just feel like, Oh my gosh, somebody has this much anger; whats next?' Miller said shes always taught her daughter, Brianna, to gravitate toward people who treat her well, regardless of their race or ethnicity. Ive always tried to instill in her: Be friends with who is good to you. Like who is good to you, she told WTVD. It doesnt matter what color somebody is, it doesnt matter what race they are. She said that Brianna has since amicably broken up with the boy, whose parents have apparently been in contact and very supportive through the crisis. Though the family doesnt know exactly who the vandals are that committed these apparent hate crimes which include fire damage to a second nearby car Miller says Brianna has been bullied on social media for her interracial romance. Im worried about her going back to school, because I dont know whats gonna happen at school, she said to WRAL, adding that the family plans to meet with officials at Briannas high school to assess whether its safe for her to return. Story continues Miller said Brianna has been away in Florida visiting family so she hasnt even been home to see the destruction firsthand. When she returns, the teen will be heading straight the sheriffs office to talk with authorities and have her phone searched for clues. I think anybody that has that much anger and [could] write something like that and damage someone elses property theyre capable of doing bodily harm to somebody else, Miller told WTVD. Miller says her great hope is that Brianna still feels free to make friends and date with an open heart and mind. I dont want her to hide who she is, Miller said. I want her to have a normal life like everybody else has, and I feel like is going to kinda put her in a box she feels she cant get out of. Neighbors have dropped by to express their support to the family and their gratitude that the harsh, hateful graffiti was finally erased from the vehicle. Miller says she wants the community to feel at ease and feels that catching the vandals will bring the justice needed to restore and sense of normalcy. I hope that people just stop, she said. They need to look at this and say, This has gone too far. This has to stop.' In the meantime, the Millers have set up a GoFundMe page (warning: photos on the page contain explicit language) to raise money to replace the SUV thats been totaled. Miller says their auto insurance will not cover the damage, and they will have a shortfall of $7,000. We have to try and find a cheap car with low payments, as we cant afford 3 car payments much less a car that we no longer have, she wrote on the page, which has raised more than $1,000 toward its $10,000 goal. Yahoo Lifestyle has reached out to Amanda Miller for updates on the story and will include new information when she replies. Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. WASHINGTON Nancy Pelosi, who is expected to take the gavel as House speaker Thursday, told USA TODAY in an exclusive interview that President Donald Trump can expect a different world from the first two years of his presidency when the GOP controlled both chambers of Congress. The California Democrat plans to confront Trump on many fronts, from investigating the deaths of immigrant children in U.S. custody to demanding Trumps tax returns and protecting special counsel Robert Muellers Russia probe. Those clashes loom as Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues remain locked in a budget and border-security battle with Trump that has left parts of the federal government shut for nearly two weeks. The election of speaker is one of the first orders of business for the new Congress being sworn in Thursday. With Democrats in control of the House for the first time in eight years, Trump has warned that investigations of him and his administration would lead to a war-like posture in Washington. But the presumed incoming speaker has made clear she wont shrink from a fight. He was used to serving with a Republican Congress, House and Senate that was a rubber stamp to him. That won't be the case, Pelosi said in the USA TODAY interview just before the holidays. Oversight of government by the Congress is our responsibility. That's the role that we play." Vice President Mike Pence, center, looks on as House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., argues with President Donald Trump during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House Dec. 11, 2018, in Washington. But despite calls from some on the left wing of her party to try to remove Trump from office, Pelosi said the efforts to serve as a check on Trumps power dont extend to impeachment at least not yet. She remains intent on protecting Muellers investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia in the 2016 election. If there's to be grounds for impeachment of President Trump and I'm not seeking those grounds that would have to be so clearly bipartisan in terms of acceptance of it before I think we should go down any impeachment path, Pelosi said. Story continues I keep coming back to the same word: the facts, she said. The facts will indicate a path and I don't think we should impeach a president for any political reason, but I don't think we can ignore any behavior that requires attention and that was all based on the facts. One of the first moves Democrats will take to try to check the power of the White House and Republicans will be the unveiling of an anti-corruption bill designed to ease obstacles to voting, curb the role of big money in politics and hold politicians and government officials to higher ethical standards. They want to require presidents to release their taxes something Trump has refused to do. Newly armed with subpoena power, Democrats are expected to investigate potential conflicts of interest between Trumps businesses and his role in setting policy for his administration as well as possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia and whether Trump and his family have financial ties to Russia. They are also likely to subpoena Trumps tax returns. Jim Manley, a former aide to Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, said oversight of the Trump administration will be a target-rich environment, but as speaker, Pelosi will have an important role in guiding the broad parameters of the investigations. Shell give the chairmen wide latitude, dont get me wrong, but its all going to be coordinated by the leadership, Manley said. Thats just how she rolls. 'War room-style effort' For the past two years, members of Pelosis team have held weekly strategy meetings with top policy and communications staffers from several committees with oversight powers. They have focused on exposing scandals among administration officials who have since left their positions, allegations of Trumps conflicts of interests, the handling of security clearances and aspects of the Russia investigation. Given the magnitude of the corruption, cronyism and incompetency in this administration, its definitely a war room-style effort, said Ashley Etienne, a Pelosi spokesperson who leads communications work on oversight for Democrats. As House speaker from 2007 to 2011 and minority leader before and after that, Pelosi, 78, has named close allies to the House Intelligence Committee, the only committee whose membership is controlled by party leaders, and the committee thats now the central player in the Russia investigation. She is a former ranking member of the committee and she may be more deeply involved in that committees work than any other, said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the incoming chairman. Her involvement isnt at the level of specific investigative threads or witnesses, he said. Its more at the level of the Gang of Eight, the intelligence committee and party leaders who are briefed on covert actions. When it comes to protecting the Mueller investigation, her position is part of a "consensus," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., the incoming House Judiciary Committee chairman. "Nancy certainly agrees with that and she pushed that," Nadler said. Caution on impeachment Pelosis own caution about impeachment hasnt stopped some Democrats from twice voting for impeachment. A House resolution was defeated 355 to 66 on Jan. 19, 2018. The group Need to Impeach, which is headquartered in her district and funded by billionaire activist Tom Steyer, has gathered 6.5 million signatures in support of impeachment and expects Pelosi to come around. The Democrats nationally want action around Trump, said Kevin Mack, the lead strategist for Need to Impeach. We as a party have to prove that we can represent Democratic values. So, I dont think Nancy Pelosi can be a speed bump on impeachment forever. Others say part of her caution about impeachment comes from watching Republicans go after former President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and lose House seats in 1998. The House, then dominated by Republicans, voted to impeach him after the election, but he was acquitted by the Senate. GOP pollster Frank Luntz said Americans could welcome the oversight of the Trump administration if they feel it is being done for the right reasons. On the flip side, Luntz said: "If they think its oversight for political gain, they will reject it." Trump has sought to rally his political base by portraying Democrats as intent on taking him down. Alex Conant, a former aide to Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, said Clinton benefited from "overzealous" Republicans during the Lewinsky scandal. Because of that, Conant said Pelosi will need to walk a fine line. Pelosis role will be to negotiate big policy matters with the White Houseand then to try to limit and guide the investigations behind the scenes, said Conant, a White House spokesman during former President George W. Bush's second term. Clearly, the Trump administration would love nothing more than for Democrats to overreach and go on fishing expeditions. Pelosi is not only the first woman to become House speaker but she will be one of just a handful who have won the post multiple terms. She is admired by some in the party for her legislative prowess. Getting Obamacare over the finish line is one example of that. Former President Obama, speaking in November on "The Axe Files" podcast, said Pelosi isnt always the best on a cable show or with a quick soundbite, but he called her an extraordinary partner and praised her as one of the most effective legislative leaders that this country's ever seen. Coastal elite caricature Shes also seen by Republicans and some Democrats as the personification of a coastal elite. Her Hawaii trip during the government shutdown fed into that criticism. During the 2018 midterm campaign, the GOP ran constant ads hammering her, frequently pointing out that her favorability rating was underwater. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll from mid-December had her at 41 percent unfavorable, 28 percent favorable. That same poll had Trump had at 52 percent unfavorable, 37 percent favorable. The campaign featured scathing attacks on Pelosi from Trump and Republicans. Even some Democrats sought to distance themselves from Pelosi. Meanwhile, she worked on strategy behind the scenes and hauled in $135.6 million for Democrats this cycle, including $129 million directly for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, according to her office. She prevailed, with Democrats winning a net gain of 40 seats. Pelosi has historically appeared to be proper and relied on this grandmother image, but shes actually a very strong determined woman, said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif. Her relationship with Trump will be a stunning dynamic to watch because Trump hasnt had to deal with anyone like her before a mother of five children who knows how to deal with "bratty behavior." The president has been successful in bullying people into doing things thats how he makes his deals, she said. Hes got to change his strategy or he will fail. After Democrats won the House, Pelosi faced opposition in her bid for speaker, but she stamped out a centrist rebellion by agreeing to limit her term to just four more years. Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, considered challenging Pelosi for the top spot until Pelosi announced that Fudge would chair a subcommittee focused on elections and voting issues, one of her signature issues. Republicans grudgingly admire her toughness and ability to hold her caucus together. Pelosi plays the blood sport of politics better than the last three GOP speakers, said Tim Cameron, a Republican strategist who worked for the House GOP conference under Speaker John Boehner. Her ability to dispel potential rivals is literally unrivaled, Cameron said. I think every Republican speaker since 2010 has been jealous of what she was able to get done from 2006 to 2010. She never really had the issues that we had with the conservative wing of the party, Cameron said. Lecturing Trump While much of Pelosi's legislative deal-making is done behind the scenes, the country witnessed her latest toe-to-toe battle with Trump on government funding during an extraordinary televised meeting Dec. 11 in the Oval Office. Republicans later pounced on Pelosi for saying the GOP didnt have the votes in the House for a border wall. The House on Dec. 20 passed $5.7 billion in funding for the wall, but it didn't get a vote in the Senate and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called on Trump to "abandon the wall." Pelosi told USA TODAY that the House vote was another example of Trumps rubber stamp Congress. I know that many of them did not really believe in that, but they gave him the vote anyway, for whatever reason, she said. Still, Pelosis allies point to that Oval Office meeting where the president said hed be proud to shutdown the government as the latest example of Pelosi holding her own. She lectured Trump on negotiating with Congress and then donned sunglasses as she left the White House, in a moment that lit up the Internet. Speier recalled attending a holiday party with Pelosi the weekend after the meeting with the president. Women approached the pair to thank them for their work and compliment Pelosi for standing up to Trump. I said were sassy, Speier, a fellow California congresswoman, recalled to USA TODAY. And then Nancy says No were badasses. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Exclusive: Nancy Pelosi vows 'different world' for Trump with new Congress, no more 'rubber stamp' A photograph taken on Thursday by the Chang'e-4 probe of the For centuries, humans have written books, songs, and poems about the so-called dark side of the Moon, but only today did a man-made object make physical contact with the rugged, unexplored area. The news, revealed in the early hours of Thursday, that Chinas space agency successfully landed the unmanned Change-4 probe on the far side of the Moon prompted the appropriate levels of excitement, with photographs of its arid landscape beamed over to Earth within minutes. Announcing the momentous step, Chinese state media said the landing lifted the mysterious veil from the far side of the Moon and opened a new chapter in human lunar exploration. But for those of us without any expertise in space travel, the news raised as many questions as it answered. Havent we already landed on the Moon? What will this new mission teach us? And what exactly is the far side of the Moon, anyway? Andrew Coates, professor of physics at UCLs Space Science Laboratory, answers some common questions. What is the far side of the Moon? The far side of the Moon (or dark side of the Moon as it is more commonly known, thanks in no small part to the 1973 Pink Floyd album) refers to the previously unexplored area of the Moons surface invisible from Earth. Its all explained by tidal locking: the Moon moves in gravitational lockstep with the Earth, rotating at the same rate that it orbits our planet, which means only one section of the Moon is ever visible from Earth (the Earth-facing side). Over time, we can see slightly more than half of the Moons surface from Earth, says Prof Coates, due to small variations in the Moons orbit speed (a process known as libration). The probe displayed at the China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in November 2018 Credit: CHINA STRINGER NETWORK What is new about the Chinese landing? Since the Chinese probe touched down at 02:26 GMT, photographs of the areas rugged landscape have been beamed across the world. But Thursdays Change-4 landing is not the first time we have seen the far side of the Moon. That happened on 7th October 1959 when, at the height of the Cold Wars Space Race, the Soviet probe Luna 3 broadcast a number of photographs of the previously unseen area, mapping one-third of its surface area. Subsequent probes were able to make more detailed maps of the areas terrain. But Change-4 is the first time a man-made device has successfully landed on the Moons far side. This is the first time weve actually been able to touch down, says Prof Coates. Thats the distinguishing feature which which makes it quite exciting. Story continues Whats the point? Politics aside, researchers hope that Change-4 will make a number of important scientific findings. They are most interested in the composition of the South Pole-Aitken Basin, which at 2,500 kilometres wide and 13 kilometres deep is the oldest and deepest basin area on the Moon, and probably a remnant of a collision which occurred early in the Solar Systems history. The hope is that looking at the composition of rocks will give interesting information about the formation of the Moon and also the early history of the Solar System, says Prof Coates. This will build on scientific strides made in the 1960s, when American probes found plains on the Moons Earth-facing side suggesting a history of volcanic eruptions, along with the famous Sea of Tranquility, which served as the landing site for the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. Change-4 could also conduct space weather experiments, he says, attempting to track weather events that are heading towards Earth. The Chang'e-4 lunar probe launches from the Xinchang Satellite Launch Center in China's Sichuan Province, on 8th December 2018 Credit: Jiang Hongjing/ Xinhua How will scientists take advantage of the far sides radio silence? Radio astronomy (using radio waves to explore the Solar System) is made famously difficult on Earth due to signal interference; something as simple as a microwave in next doors kitchen can throw a spanner into the works, says Prof Coates. But this problem does not apply on the Moons far side, which is unaffected by the Earths radio signals. Now that Change-4 has landed, he thinks, the far side may become a prime location for radio astronomy. Its relatively radio quiet, all you have to listen to is the rest of the cosmos, so it makes it an exciting target for that, he says. But this does, of course, raise another question ... How are scientists keeping in contact? Out of reach of radio signals, Change-4 can only communicate with scientists back on Earth by bouncing signals off a separate satellite in orbit before beaming them back to Earth. Is the American flag still there? Painted with the Stars and Stripes, it was planted by Neil Armstrong and his comrades in 1969 at the iconic moment that man first walked on the Moon. And the flag is almost certainly still there, says Prof Coates. As far as we know it will still be there. Theres no wind on the Moon so it wont have been blowing, but it will have been affected because theres still a wind from the sun. Its been sitting in that solar wind environment for almost 50 years. I imagine it will be almost as good as new. The American flag, planted in the Moon's surface during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 Credit: AFP Is it all about politics? Thursdays Change-4 landing excited scientists across the world, many of whom are optimistic about the progress it could bring in mankind's understanding of space. But as with all space exploration, politics is never far behind. Indeed, CNSA - the Chinese space agency - released very little news about Change-4s mission before Thursdays official announcement that it had successfully touched down, in what looks like an attempt to play down the mission in case it failed. Fred Watson, the Australian governments astronomer-at-large, has compared this secrecy to that shown by the Soviet Union in the early years of its competition with Nasa. He told the BBC: The Chinese space agency is a young organisation, but perhaps in years to come it will catch up. New York (AFP) - New York-based pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb on Thursday announced it would buy US biotech firm Celgene in a $74 billion cash-and-stock deal, creating a rival to the world's largest drug makers. The merger plans underscored the companies' efforts to diversify in the field of cancer treatments, with investors in recent months questioning their growth prospects. In the deal, Bristol-Myers Squibb gains Celgene's blockbuster Revlimid treatment for multiple myeloma. The companies said the new entity would also offer nine products with more than $1 billion in annual sales. Bristol-Myers Squibb Chairman and CEO Giovanni Caforio said in a statement the combined companies would also enjoy "a deep and broad pipeline that will drive sustainable growth." They also pointed to oncology, immunology, inflammation and cardiovascular disease as important growth areas. "We will also benefit from an expanded early- and late-stage pipeline that includes six expected near-term product launches," Caforio said in the statement. Other advantages of the deal include a number of new product launches expected in the next 12 months and extensive cost savings. Executives described company assets as "complementary" and with the potential to create "the preeminent global bio-pharmaceutical company," according to a conference call with analysts. The transaction follows other recent large pharma deals, including French company Sanofi's purchase of US hemophilia group Bioverativ for $11.6 billion and Novartis' $8.7 billion acquisition of rare-disease treatment company AveXis. Both companies had been the subject of merger speculation, with investors saying Bristol-Myers's big seller Opdivo, a cancer medication, had lost market share to rival Merck. Celgene meanwhile faced the prospect of mounting competition from copycat drugs as patents begin to expire. - Patent expirations on horizon - Story continues The company has said in securities filings that it expects competitors could market generic versions of its Revlimid cancer drug ahead of patent expirations, which Celgene has said will remain in force "at least through 2022." Revlimid accounted for $8.2 billion in sales in 2017, nearly two-thirds of overall revenues of $13 billion. Caforio told analysts the company "conducted extensive due diligence" on the intellectual property questions surrounding Revlimid and agreed with Celgene's views, adding that the company's forecasts on the drug were "more conservative" than those of analysts. A slide in an investor presentation on Thursday had some generics hitting the Revlimid market in March 2022, with "full generic entry" in January 2026. Bristol-Myers's top two selling drugs last year globally were Opdivo and blood clot drug Eliquis, which together accounted for nearly half the company's 2017 revenues of $20.8 billion. Bristol-Myers had 23,700 employees at the end of last year, while Celgene had 7,647. Caforio will continue to serve in his chief roles while two members of Celgene's board will hold spots on Bristol-Myers Squibb's board of directors. Under the deal, Bristol-Myers shareholders will own about 69 percent of the new pharmaceutical giant, while Celgene shareholders will receive one Bristol-Myers share and $50 per share of Celgene. The companies expect to close the deal in the third quarter of this year, with earnings per share at Bristol-Myers Squibb swelling by 40 percent in the first full year. Shares in New Jersey-based Celgene surged 20.7 percent to $80.43, while Bristol-Myers Squibb fell 13.3 percent to $45.12. Morningstar said in a note that the purchase was "very logical buildout" for the larger company. But a note from Cowen said the effect of the deal was "mixed." The transaction strengthens Bristol-Myers' near-term outlook somewhat but Celgene "adds patent expiration concerns to those Bristol-Myers Squibb already faces." Ratings agency Standard & Poor's has placed Bristol-Myers debt ratings under review with negative implications, while saying that the acquisition of Celgene is positive. "Despite more debt, we believe the business has strengthened as a result of the transaction and expect the combined entity to generate substantial cash flow," Standard & Poor's said. The agency expects to lower Bristol-Myer's overall rating to "A" with a stable outlook, while the short-term rating would be lowered to "A-1," it said. Kurdish Peshmerga fighters gather north of Kirkuk, Iraq October 19, 2017. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed Christian Whiton Security, Middle East America should not be in the business of creating another de facto Kurdish state. We Dont Owe Syrias Kurds Panicked neoconservatives seeking to keep America at war in Syria think theyve found an effective talking point: We cannot abandon the Kurds! Using his trademark oversimplification, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), told CNN, If we leave now, the Kurds are going to get slaughtered. Surely the ghosts of Mark Sykes and Francois Georges-Picot smile on Graham and his unpopular but vocal cadre of Beltway interventionists. Those two men, authors of the Sykes-Picot agreement that secretly planned the carving up of the Middle East by imperialist British and French forces upon the conclusion of World War I, might sympathize with the vanity of those who think they can advantageously remake the region. For the rest of us, skepticism is warranted. The neocons implication is that having worked at times with Kurds in Syria to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), we must now support or perhaps even guarantee their own security against the numerous warring parties that remain, especially government forces led by Bashar al-Assad and neighboring Turkey, which hates both Assad and the Kurds. This is a half-clever way to achieve the neocons long-held goal of not merely defeating ISIS, but also getting America into the Syrian Civil War. Ultimately, they would like to conduct regime change against Assad and install a liberal democracy, despite failures to do so in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan. We potentially would be in simultaneous conflict with Assad, the Turks, non-Kurdish Iraqis, Iran, and Russianot to mention miscellaneous jihadists for whom we would be foreign enemy number one. To assure the security of the Kurds, we would in effect have to help establish another de facto Kurdish state like the one we helped create in northern Iraq. The two landlocked entities would touch and could be the basis of an independent Kurdish homeland. Story continues Students of history may conclude that the Kurds deserve exactly that. But such a U.S. dependency was never part of President Trumps strategy in Syria or the broader Middle East. Even just supporting the Kurds in Syria, much less fighting for them for the indefinite future, has never been put to the American people. I highly doubt it was ever presented clearly to Trump, and there has been no formal or informal consent to the idea from Congress. If any of our generals or covert operatives made promises to the Kurds, they did so without authority from the commander in chief. Nor did they place a treaty of alliance before the Senate, which is empowered by the Constitution to judge any treaty for good reason: the costs and consequences can be massive. Just ask those who have grappled with the legacy of Sykes and Picot. Sadly for the neoconservatives, the Kurds themselves arent playing along with doomsday predictions. They recently announced a desire for talks and mutual defense with Assad, especially against Turkey. This reportedly angered U.S. military planners who had been talking up the Kurds. But it makes a lot of sense. Assad is evil, but he has been willing to allow some latitude to ethnic and religious minorities in Syria, including Christians. It is also presumably easier to negotiate with him when heavily armed, as the Kurds are. Furthermore, he has nearly won the Syrian Civil War having clawed back the most important parts of the country, and his lamentable government is lamentably durable. Its also important to remember that before Syrias Kurds were the darlings of neoconservatives and other advocates of forever war, that position was held by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighting Assad. One of that armys key boosters was the late Senator John McCain, who visited it on multiple occasions, one time even being photographed with terrorist kidnappers Mohamed Nour and Abu Ibrahim who happened to be members of the army. McCains office said that None of the individuals the senator planned to meet with was named Mohamad Nour or Abu Ibrahim. A spokesperson also said, If the individual photographed with Senator McCain is in fact Mohamed Nour, that is regrettable. But it would be ludicrous to suggest that the senator in any way condones the kidnapping of Lebanese Shia pilgrims or has any communication with those responsible. Trump wisely ended U.S. support for the FSA. The lesson is that our ability truly to understand the forces at work in Syrian Civil War, and, more importantly, to manage its outcome, is extremely limited. The war there is lurching toward a conclusion which, while far from good, might at least end the killing that has snuffed out hundreds of thousands of lives and sparked a massive refugee exodus. Amid this, President Trump is right to refuse to commit U.S. forces to new missions in Syria, which almost certainly would lack the support of the American people and again have Americans dying for other peoples strugglesand distracted from threats like China that genuinely put us at risk. Christian Whiton was a State Department deputy special envoy from 2003 to 2009. He serves as a senior fellow at the Center for the National Interest and the author of Smart Power: Between Diplomacy and War. Image: Reuter Read full article If you own shares in Madras Fertilizers Limited (NSE:MADRASFERT) then its worth thinking about how it contributes to the volatility of your portfolio, overall. In finance, Beta is a measure of volatility. Volatility is considered to be a measure of risk in modern finance theory. Investors may think of volatility as falling into two main categories. First, we have company specific volatility, which is the price gyrations of an individual stock. Holding at least 8 stocks can reduce this kind of risk across a portfolio. The second type is the broader market volatility, which you cannot diversify away, since it arises from macroeconomic factors which directly affects all the stocks on the market. Some stocks see their prices move in concert with the market. Others tend towards stronger, gentler or unrelated price movements. Beta can be a useful tool to understand how much a stock is influenced by market risk (volatility). However, Warren Buffett said volatility is far from synonymous with risk in his 2014 letter to investors. So, while useful, beta is not the only metric to consider. To use beta as an investor, you must first understand that the overall market has a beta of one. Any stock with a beta of greater than one is considered more volatile than the market, while those with a beta below one are either less volatile or poorly correlated with the market. See our latest analysis for Madras Fertilizers What we can learn from MADRASFERTs beta value Madras Fertilizers has a five-year beta of 0.91. This is reasonably close to the market beta of 1, so the stock has in the past displayed similar levels of volatility to the overall market. Using history as a guide, we might surmise that the share price is likely to be influenced by market voltility going forward but it probably wont be particularly sensitive to it. Share price volatility is well worth considering, but most long term investors consider the history of revenue and earnings growth to be more important. Take a look at how Madras Fertilizers fares in that regard, below. Story continues NSEI:MADRASFERT Income Statement Export January 3rd 19 Does MADRASFERTs size influence the expected beta? Madras Fertilizers is a rather small company. It has a market capitalisation of 3.8b, which means it is probably under the radar of most investors. Companies this small are usually more volatile than the market, whether or not that volatility is correlated. Therefore, its a bit surprising to see that this stock has a beta value so close to the overall market. What this means for you: Madras Fertilizers has a beta value quite close to that of the overall market. That doesnt tell us much on its own, so it is probably worth considering whether the company is growing, if youre looking for stocks that will go up more than the overall market. In order to fully understand whether MADRASFERT is a good investment for you, we also need to consider important company-specific fundamentals such as Madras Fertilizerss financial health and performance track record. I highly recommend you dive deeper by considering the following: Financial Health: Are MADRASFERTs operations financially sustainable? Balance sheets can be hard to analyze, which is why weve done it for you. Check out our financial health checks here. Past Track Record: Has MADRASFERT been consistently performing well irrespective of the ups and downs in the market? Go into more detail in the past performance analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of MADRASFERTs historicals for more clarity. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. Many investors are still learning about the various metrics that can be useful when analysing a stock. This article is for those who would like to learn about Return On Equity (ROE). By way of learning-by-doing, well look at ROE to gain a better understanding of Diagnostic and Therapeutic Center of Athens HYGEIA SA (ATH:HYGEIA). Our data shows Diagnostic and Therapeutic Center of Athens HYGEIA has a return on equity of 11% for the last year. One way to conceptualize this, is that for each 1 of shareholders equity it has, the company made 0.11 in profit. Check out our latest analysis for Diagnostic and Therapeutic Center of Athens HYGEIA How Do You Calculate Return On Equity? The formula for return on equity is: Return on Equity = Net Profit Shareholders Equity Or for Diagnostic and Therapeutic Center of Athens HYGEIA: 11% = 14.299 131m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2018.) Most know that net profit is the total earnings after all expenses, but the concept of shareholders equity is a little more complicated. It is all the money paid into the company from shareholders, plus any earnings retained. The easiest way to calculate shareholders equity is to subtract the companys total liabilities from the total assets. What Does Return On Equity Signify? ROE measures a companys profitability against the profit it retains, and any outside investments. The return is the profit over the last twelve months. The higher the ROE, the more profit the company is making. So, all else being equal, a high ROE is better than a low one. That means it can be interesting to compare the ROE of different companies. Does Diagnostic and Therapeutic Center of Athens HYGEIA Have A Good Return On Equity? One simple way to determine if a company has a good return on equity is to compare it to the average for its industry. However, this method is only useful as a rough check, because companies do differ quite a bit within the same industry classification. If you look at the image below, you can see Diagnostic and Therapeutic Center of Athens HYGEIA has a similar ROE to the average in the Healthcare industry classification (12%). Story continues ATSE:HYGEIA Last Perf January 3rd 19 That isnt amazing, but it is respectable. ROE doesnt tell us if the share price is low, but it can inform us to the nature of the business. For those looking for a bargain, other factors may be more important. If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying. Why You Should Consider Debt When Looking At ROE Most companies need money from somewhere to grow their profits. That cash can come from retained earnings, issuing new shares (equity), or debt. In the first and second cases, the ROE will reflect this use of cash for investment in the business. In the latter case, the debt used for growth will improve returns, but wont affect the total equity. Thus the use of debt can improve ROE, albeit along with extra risk in the case of stormy weather, metaphorically speaking. Combining Diagnostic and Therapeutic Center of Athens HYGEIAs Debt And Its 11% Return On Equity Although Diagnostic and Therapeutic Center of Athens HYGEIA does use debt, its debt to equity ratio of 0.98 is still low. Im not impressed with its ROE, but the debt levels are not too high, indicating the business has decent prospects. Judicious use of debt to improve returns can certainly be a good thing, although it does elevate risk slightly and reduce future optionality. In Summary Return on equity is one way we can compare the business quality of different companies. In my book the highest quality companies have high return on equity, despite low debt. All else being equal, a higher ROE is better. But ROE is just one piece of a bigger puzzle, since high quality businesses often trade on high multiples of earnings. The rate at which profits are likely to grow, relative to the expectations of profit growth reflected in the current price, must be considered, too. Check the past profit growth by Diagnostic and Therapeutic Center of Athens HYGEIA by looking at this visualization of past earnings, revenue and cash flow. Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. Dividends can be underrated but they form a large part of investment returns, playing an important role in compounding returns in the long run. Historically, Deutsche Lufthansa AG (FRA:LHA) has paid dividends to shareholders, and these days it yields 4.0%. Lets dig deeper into whether Deutsche Lufthansa should have a place in your portfolio. See our latest analysis for Deutsche Lufthansa 5 checks you should do on a dividend stock When researching a dividend stock, I always follow the following screening criteria: Is it the top 25% annual dividend yield payer? Has it paid dividend every year without dramatically reducing payout in the past? Has dividend per share risen in the past couple of years? Does earnings amply cover its dividend payments? Will the company be able to keep paying dividend based on the future earnings growth? DB:LHA Historical Dividend Yield January 3rd 19 How does Deutsche Lufthansa fare? Deutsche Lufthansa has a trailing twelve-month payout ratio of 17%, meaning the dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Going forward, analysts expect LHAs payout to increase to 22% of its earnings. Assuming a constant share price, this equates to a dividend yield of 4.7%. However, EPS is forecasted to fall to 4.22 in the upcoming year. Therefore, although payout is expected to increase, the fall in earnings may not equate to higher dividend income. When thinking about whether a dividend is sustainable, another factor to consider is the cash flow. A company with strong cash flow, relative to earnings, can sometimes sustain a high pay out ratio. If theres one type of stock you want to be reliable, its dividend stocks and their stable income-generating ability. Not only have dividend payouts from Deutsche Lufthansa fallen over the past 10 years, it has also been highly volatile during this time, with drops of over 25% in some years. These characteristics do not bode well for income investors seeking reliable stream of dividends. Relative to peers, Deutsche Lufthansa produces a yield of 4.0%, which is high for Airlines stocks but still below the markets top dividend payers. Story continues Next Steps: Taking all the above into account, Deutsche Lufthansa is a complicated pick for dividend investors given that there are a couple of positive things about it as well as negative. But if you are not exclusively a dividend investor, the stock could still be an interesting investment opportunity. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, I urge potential investors to try and get a good understanding of the underlying business and its fundamentals before deciding on an investment. There are three pertinent factors you should look at: Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for LHAs future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for LHAs outlook. Valuation: What is LHA worth today? Even if the stock is a cash cow, its not worth an infinite price. The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether LHA is currently mispriced by the market. Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. Nayak Paudel is a crime reporter for The Kathmandu Post. Since joining the Post in 2018, he has also written on health issues. Washington (AFP) - US Democrats swept back to power Thursday in the House of Representatives with veteran Nancy Pelosi at the helm, but they came face to face with what may be a new divided government normal in Washington: legislative gridlock. After a historic opening session of the 116th Congress in which Pelosi was elected as speaker for the second time in her storied career, lawmakers took aim at a bipartisan priority of ending an embarrassing partial government shutdown that was stretching into its 13th day. The House passed two measures that would re-open government agencies whose funding had lapsed, but provide no money for a border wall demanded by Donald Trump. They are all but dead on arrival in the Senate, where the Republican leadership has vowed not to bring them up for a vote because they do not pass muster with the president. Trump has demanded that Congress approve $5.6 billion for construction of a wall on the southern US border with Mexico -- an oft repeated pledge from his 2016 presidential campaign. The bills that passed the House contain no wall funding. "We're not doing a wall," Pelosi told reporters shortly before the votes largely along party lines. "A wall is an immorality between countries. It's an old way of thinking, it isn't cost effective," she said, arguing that money would be better spent on border security technology such as drones and cameras, and on hiring more border agents. Republican leaders immediately blasted the vote as a pointless political gimmick that would do little to provide the resources necessary to secure the border, and said Democrats were not negotiating in good faith. "The president made it clear, we're here to make a deal," Vice President Mike Pence told Fox News late Thursday. "We will have no deal without a wall." Democratic congressional leaders said they will head to the White House Friday at 11:30 am (1430 GMT) in a bid to break the impasse, but lawmakers have warned the shutdown could extend for several more days, even weeks. Story continues Democrats' new majority in the House of Representatives marked a dramatic power shift on Capitol Hill less than two years before the Republican president's re-election bid, as Democrats intend to put a check on Trump's turbulent White House. Several lawmakers cheered and applauded at length when Pelosi reclaimed the speaker's gavel -- a striking comeback for the only woman ever to hold the post. In her opening speech, Pelosi vowed the new Congress would be "bipartisan and unifying" but acknowledged the reality of Washington's bitter divisions. "We have no illusions that our work will be easy, that all of us in this chamber will always agree," she said. "But let each of us pledge that when we disagree, we will respect each other and we will respect the truth," she added, in a likely dig at the president's aggressive style and his propensity to embellish facts. While the "blue wave" swept dozens of House Republicans out of Congress last November, Trump's Republicans managed to modestly expand its majority in the Senate, meaning Washington gridlock is almost certain to deepen. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Democrats would have to "get serious about border security so that a government funding agreement may be reached that can pass the House, earn 60 votes here in the Senate, and receive a presidential signature." - Shutdown showdown - Top House Republican Kevin McCarthy said divided government was "no excuse for gridlock or inaction," before handing the gavel to Pelosi, who was elected with 220 votes in a free-wheeling session that included children scampering in the chamber. Pelosi will preside over the most diverse Congress in history. One hundred House freshmen took the oath of office, including trailblazers like New York's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who at 29 is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. The first two Native American women and first two Muslim women were also elected. "It's a new day in America," tweeted Ilhan Omar, a former Somali refugee elected from Minnesota. - Impeachment threat - Progressives will be eager to push back with greater effect against an administration they believe has overstepped its authority. They will have that opportunity, as congressional panels now led by Democrats are expected to unleash a barrage of investigations on everything from Trump's income taxes to his ties with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. That is bad news for White House already besieged by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia collusion probe. And hovering in the background in Washington will be the threat of impeachment. While it is almost certain that some Democrats will introduce proceedings to remove Trump from office, Pelosi has downplayed the idea. "It would be very divisive," she told Elle magazine. "It's not something that I'm stirring the pot on." Nancy Pelosi secured 220 votes of the 430 cast on Thursday to become House speaker for the second time, but not all Democrats joined in supporting her nomination. Twelve Democratic lawmakers voted for someone other than Pelosi, and three more simply withheld their support for the first woman speaker, now in her second stint leading the House. Not a single Republican voted to return control of the House gavel to Pelosi. The speaker traditionally is a member of Congress, but in principle it can be anyone. Jason Crow and Jim Cooper, left, top and bottom; Nancy Pelosi; Joe Cunningham and Anthony Brindisi, right, top and bottom. (Photo-illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Jason Connolly/AFP/Getty Images, Jonathan Mattis/AP, Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images, J. Scott Applewhite/AP, Andrew Kelly/Reuters, Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Heres the breakdown of which Democrats broke with the rest of the caucus in refusing to give Pelosi a thumbs-up. New York Rep. Antony Brindisi was elected in the 2018 blue wave that gave Democrats control of the House, beating Republican incumbent Claudia Tenney in the 22nd district. He voted for Vice President Joe Biden. Tennessee Rep. Jim Cooper has represented the 5th District since 2003 and is a member of the Blue Dog coalition of moderate Democrats. He voted present. Colorado Rep. Jason Crow upset Republican Mike Coffman in the 2018 midterm elections that he said were a referendum on President Trump. He voted for Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth for speaker. South Carolina Rep. Joe Cunningham cast his vote for Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos, telling the Post and Courier newspaper he wanted a fresh face in the role of speaker. Maine Rep. Jared Golden campaigned on the promise not to support Pelosi and voted Thursday for Bustos instead. Wisconsin Rep. Ron Kind did not vote for Pelosi two years ago when she was elected minority Leader, and did the same on Thursday, voting for Georgias Rep. John Lewis instead. Pennsylvania Rep. Conor Lamb won a special election in the 18th congressional district in 2018 in which he campaigned to support new leadership for the Democratic Party. After Pennsylvanias congressional map was redrawn, he won the seat in the new 17th district. He voted for Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III. Utah Rep. Ben McAdams campaigned in the 2018 midterms on the promise to vote for a speaker other than Pelosi. He supported Florida Rep. Stephanie Murphy. Story continues New York Rep. Kathleen Rice explained in on op-ed in the Washington Post that a vote for Pelosi might result in future losses for the Democratic Party. She cast her vote for Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. New York Rep. Max Rose voted for Duckworth, keeping a promise made while campaigning in Staten Island and Brooklyn. Oregon Rep. Kurt Schrader was one of a handful of Democrats who helped lead the fight against Pelosi, saying it was time to move on. He voted for Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge. New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill declared she wouldnt support Pelosis speaker bid shortly after winning election in 2018. She also voted for. Bustos. Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who said she has a respectful relationship with the speaker, voted present. Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger upset Republican Rep. Dave Brat in 2018 and made it clear that she would not support Pelosi for speaker, saying the party needed to turn a new page. She voted for Bustos. New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who took a Never Nancy pledge during his 2018 campaign, kept his word but surprised many in the House by casting an odd vote of no, which was recorded as present. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: See our 2018 year-end features >>> The Hague (AFP) - A bag containing dangerous powder washed up on a small Dutch island on Thursday, a day after some 270 containers tumbled from one of the world's biggest cargo ships in rough weather, as authorities scramble to clean debris-strewn beaches. Frisian Island authorities, which said the bag was found closed, identified the powder as "organic peroxide", a highly flammable substance used in making plastics. "A bag containing 25 kilogrammes (55 pounds) of powder was found on the beach of Schiermonnikoog," Jan-Willem Zwart, spokesman for the security services in the region, told AFP. The Panama-registered MSC Zoe, which was mostly carrying toys, furniture and auto parts, lost the containers late on Tuesday while battling a storm off the Frisian Islands, an archipelago off the northwestern Dutch coast also known as the Wadden Islands. Coastguards said three containers that had been transporting organic peroxide on the MSC Zoe have not been located and are thought to have sunk. So far, around 20 containers have been located near the shores of these islands while another six were found in German waters. Following appeals from officials in the affected islands, the Dutch ministry of defence announced soldiers would arrive Friday to help the clean-up operation on coastlines strewn with rubbish, notably polystyrene. Volunteers have been helping collect items washed up on the beaches, which "look like a mess", Zwart said. Authorities have warned volunteers and locals not to touch any bags but to call police or the fire brigade. "We strongly advise residents and people who have come to clean the beaches to... immediately seek medical attention if they come into contact with the bags (containing organic peroxide)," Zwart said, warning that the chemical substance "can cause burns". On the tiny island of Ameland "130,000 kg of debris has already been collected from eight km (5 miles) of beach", the authorities said in a tweet. Story continues In a statement shipping firm MSC Mediterranean Shipping said it took the incident "very seriously, both in terms of the impact of such accidents on the natural environment and in terms of any damage to customers' cargo". The firm said it had appointed a salvage company to help retrieve cargo and the clean-up and had deployed ships equipped with sonar after what it described as a "substantial spill of containers". Dutch broadcaster NOS on Wednesday broadcast footage of locals gathered around one of the containers, with toys and other materials strewn across the beach and one man carrying off a flat screen television. The MSC Zoe, which berthed at the northern German port of Bremerhaven late Wednesday, is one of the world's largest container vessels at 396 metres (1300 feet) long and 59 metres wide. It was built in 2015. burs-cvo/smt/nla/klm/dcr Zagreb (AFP) - Croatia threatened to cancel its purchase of F-16 fighter jets from Israel on Thursday after months of stalling due to a lack of US approval. Croatia had in March agreed to buy 12 used F-16s from Israel to replace its Russian-made MiG-21s. The deal, worth $500 million (440 million euros), was the Balkan nation's biggest arms purchase since splitting from former Yugoslavia in the 1990s war. But Washington objected to the sale of the US-made jets because it wants the removal of electronic system upgrades that Israel added in a rare defence dispute between the close allies. After months of delay, the Croatian defence ministry said it asked Israel for "official information by January 11 on whether Israel can deliver the planes." If Croatia is not able to buy the specific jets it chose, the government will cancel the deal, the ministry said. "We are not happy that this happened," said Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic on Wednesday. "The government firmly stands by its decision ... to realise only the offer as accepted" in March, he said. Apart from Israel, several other countries also put in bids for the tender, including Greece, South Korea, Sweden and the United States. Croatia joined NATO in 2009 and the European Union four years later. By Giulia Paravicini and Stanis Bujakera KINSHASA (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo's Catholic church said on Thursday it was clear which candidate won the country's presidential election, and demanded that the electoral commission publish accurate results. The church, one of Congo's most trusted institutions and representing about 40 percent of its 80 million population, based its finding on tallies from more than 40,000 observers it deployed for the Dec. 30 poll, meant to mark the country's first democratic transfer of power. The church's bishops conference, known as CENCO, did not say which candidate had won. But if its count points to victory for an opposition candidate, it could set up a standoff with outgoing President Joseph Kabila's ruling coalition, which has insisted its man is poised to win. The CENCO mission and another domestic observer group, SYMOCEL, both said in reports on Thursday they witnessed widespread irregularities on election day, though they did not allege outright fraud. The electoral commission had been scheduled to publish provisional results on Sunday, but it said on Thursday that could be delayed because counting centers are still waiting for 80 percent of local vote tallies. The opposition says the delay could be used to manipulate vote totals. In Washington, the State Department called on Congo's electoral commission, CENI, to ensure votes were accurately counted and threatened to impose sanctions against those who undermined the process or threatened peace and stability in the country. "We strongly urge the CENI to ensure that votes are counted in a transparent and open manner, with observers present, and that the results reported by CENI are accurate," State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said. "Those who undermine the democratic process, threaten the peace, security or stability of the DRC, or benefit from corruption may find themselves not welcome in the United States and cut off from the U.S. financial system," he said, referring to sanctions. Congo government spokesman Lambert Mende defended its handling of the election, saying public safety concerns justified a decision to cancel voting in the Ebola-hit cities of Beni and Butembo, and cutting internet access until the results were known was intended to stop the spread of false news about the outcome. The vote, meant to choose a successor to long-term leader Kabila, had been repeatedly delayed since 2016, when his mandate officially expired. Those delays sparked violent protests in which security forces killed dozens of people. Pre-election polling showed ex-interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, Kabila's preferred candidate, trailing the main opposition candidates, Martin Fayulu and Felix Tshisekedi. Both Shadary and the opposition say they expect to win. The CENCO mission "observes that the figures in its possession from polling stations' vote tallies reveal the choice of one candidate as president of the republic," its secretary-general Donatien Nshole told reporters. "We call on the CENI ... to publish, with all responsibility, the results of the election that respect truth and justice." 'IRREGULARITIES' Kabila, who succeeded his assassinated father in 2001, helped reunify the country amid civil war, and has presided over strong economic growth driven by exports of copper and cobalt, a component of electric car batteries. But critics say there has been little improvement in the quality of life for average Congolese and accuse the government of brutally suppressing dissent. More than one million Congolese were unable to cast ballots due to the cancellation of voting, which hit opposition strongholds and for which the electoral commission also cited ethnic violence. In areas where polls did go ahead, many were kept from voting because polling stations often opened late, closed early and voting machines sometimes did not work, according to SYMOCEL's report based on what its staff saw at a third of voting centers. SYMOCEL said 24 percent of the polling stations it observed closed without allowing those already in line at closing time to cast their ballots, as required by law. Twenty-seven percent opened late and 18 percent had problems with malfunctioning voting machines. Seventeen percent of polling stations it observed allowed voting by people who either did not having voting cards or whose names were not on the voter roll, it said. CENCO's report said that 38 percent of polling stations it observed were missing materials at the start of election day, and also noted ballot boxes that did not remain sealed before counting and polling stations that did not properly verify voters' identities. (Writing by Aaron Ross; Additional reportiing by Lesley Wroughton in Washington; Editing by Edward McAllister, John Stonestreet and Sandra Maler) In December 2018, one of the key economic pillars of Beijing fell into contraction phase for the first time in two years. Per Chinese National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), official manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) was 49.4lower than 49.9 expected in a Reuters poll. Domestic economic slowdown and the uncertainty surrounding the tariff war primarily resulted in the shrink in manufacturing activity. The December reading happens to be weakest since February 2016. There is a sequential slowdown in factory activity as manufacturing activity stalled in November. The Manufacturing PMI for November fell to 50.0 from 50.2 in October last year, which was the weakest reading since July 2016. (read: China's Manufacturing Stalls in November: ETFs in Focus). Per Iris Pang, Greater China economist from ING Wholesale banking, slowdown in economic activity in December is slightly unusual going by historical trends. She said that the slowdown in domestic orders was unusual. In December, new orders, which include both domestic and export, fell below the 50 point level for the first time in 2018, reflecting serious problems on the economic front, per Pang. Also, new exports contracted for the seventh straight month, falling to 46.6the lowest level since November 2015. The data from the worlds largest economy is being closely tracked to assess the effects of the U.S. - Sino trade war. Also, the oil markets are being affected by the slowdown in Chinese economy. Globally, China is the biggest importer of oil. Non Manufacturing PMI Provides Relief The decline in manufacturing PMI was partly offset by non-manufacturing firms, mostly service sector companies. China's official non-manufacturing PMI came in at 53.8, which was higher than a reading of 53.4 in November. The non-manufacturing sector in China accounts for a significant chunk of the total economic output. Therefore, this indexs reading holds much more importance than manufacturing PMI. Per Nomura economists, the sequential expansion in December points to rebalancing in the Chinese economy toward more consumption. Story continues However, the official composite PMI was at its lowest level in December since NBS started reporting it in January 2017. The official composite PMI, which measures sentiment among Chinese manufacturing and service sector firms, fell to 52.6 in December from 52.8 in November. What Lies Ahead? In a December meet of Central Economic Work Conference, top officials agreed on a number of progressive steps to boost the economy. Among them were additional tax cuts and infrastructure spending. Also, the government in China needs to take necessary steps to end or at least de-escalate the trade war before the March 1 deadline. In the G-20 summit conducted on Nov 30 and Dec 1, President Trump and Xi Jinping agreed to a 90-day truce according to which the Trump administration will not be hiking tariffs to 25% from 10% on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods for another 90 days. The rates were supposed to be hiked on Jan 1, 2019 (read: Trump-Jingping Truce to Boost These ETFs). ETFs in Focus There are reports that Washington and Beijing will start negotiations in early January. So, Chinese ETFs, which performed poorly in the past four weeks (as of Dec 31), are in for a volatile ride going ahead. While developments in trade talks could lead to an upward trend, the slowdown, attributable to domestic factors, could propel investors to look beyond these ETFs. Below we highlight them in detail (see: all the Asia-Pacific (Emerging) ETFs here): iShares China Large-Cap ETF FXI The fund tracks the FTSE China 25 Index, which tracks the performance of the largest companies in the Chinese equity market. It comprises 50 holdings. The funds AUM is $5.7 billion and expense ratio is 0.74%. It has lost 7.4% over the past four weeks. The fund has a Zacks ETF Rank #3 (Hold) with a Medium risk outlook (read: 10 Most-Heavily Traded ETFs of 2018). iShares MSCI China ETF MCHI The fund tracks the MSCI China Index and comprises 302 holdings. The funds AUM is $3.6 billion and expense ratio is 0.59%. It has lost 9.2% over the past four weeks. The fund has a Zacks ETF Rank #3 with a Medium risk outlook KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF KWEB The fund tracks the CSI China Overseas Internet Index, which includes publicly traded China-based companies whose primary business or businesses are in the Internet and Internet-related sectors. It comprises 44 holdings. The funds AUM is $1.5 billion and expense ratio is 0.70%. It has lost 13.6% over the past four weeks. The fund has a Zacks ETF Rank #3 with a High risk outlook SPDR S&P China ETF GXC The fund tracks the S&P China BMI Index and comprises 641 holdings. It has AUM of $900 million and expense ratio is 0.59%. It has lost 7.4% over the past four weeks. The fund has a Zacks ETF Rank #3 with a Medium risk outlook Xtrackers Harvest CSI 300 China A-Shares Fund ASHR The fund tracks the CSI 300 Index, reflecting price fluctuation and performance of the China A-share market. It comprises 360 holdings. The funds AUM is $1.1 billion and expense ratio is 0.59%. It has lost 9.4% over the past four weeks. The fund has a Zacks ETF Rank #3 with a High risk outlook Want key ETF info delivered straight to your inbox? Zacks free Fund Newsletter will brief you on top news and analysis, as well as top-performing ETFs, each week. Get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report SPDR-SP CHINA (GXC): ETF Research Reports DEUTS-XT HV CS3 (ASHR): ETF Research Reports ISHARS-CHINA LC (FXI): ETF Research Reports ISHARS-MS CH IF (MCHI): ETF Research Reports KRANS-C CHN INT (KWEB): ETF Research Reports To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report BEIJING (Reuters) - China reported an outbreak of deadly African swine fever on a huge pig farm part-owned by a Danish investment fund, showing the spread of the virus to modern industrial farms expected to have the best levels of disease prevention. The outbreak occurred on a farm in Suihua city with 73,000 pigs in northeastern Heilongjiang province, owned by the Heilongjiang Asia-Europe Animal Husbandry Co Ltd, a company established in 2016. The farm's herd included 15,000 breeding pigs, according to its website, and it was aiming to produce 385,000 pigs for slaughter a year. Some 4,686 pigs had been infected and 3,766 animals died, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said late on Wednesday. All animals on infected farms must be culled under current rules. The farm is the largest yet to be hit by the disease, which has infected almost 100 farms across China since August 2018, spreading faster than in any other country to date. More than 200,000 pigs on infected farms have been culled, according to a Reuters tally of official figures, while hundreds of thousands more in the vicinity have also been put down. China has the world's largest hog herd and the rapid spread of African swine fever has roiled the country's trade in pork, the nation's most popular meat, disrupting supplies and pushing up prices in some areas. Neither Heilongjiang Asia-Europe Animal Husbandry nor its majority owner, state-owned Zhejiang Rural Development Group Co. Ltd, responded to calls for comment. Steffen Schiottz-Christensen, vice president for North Asia at Denmark state fund IFU, confirmed the outbreak but declined to comment further as he had yet to be fully briefed. IFU, which provides risk capital and advice for investment in developing countries, invested 28.4 million DKK ($4.32 million) in the farm in 2017, according to its website, although its shareholding has since been diluted, Schiottz-Christensen said. "The African swine fever situation is only getting worse. Small farms, big farms, slaughterhouses, feed - the whole production chain basically all got hit," said Yao Guiling, an analyst with consultancy China-America Commodity Data Analytics. Beijing has banned feeding kitchen waste to pigs, and restricted transport of live pigs and products from infected areas. But the virus has now reached 23 provinces and municipalities across China. The disease is deadly to pigs but does not affect humans. "The policies are good, but the increasing outbreaks show that there might be some problem with execution at the local government level," said Yao. China's agriculture ministry also said on Wednesday that slaughterhouses will need to test their pork products for African swine fever before selling them to the market. Slaughterhouses must slaughter pigs from different origins separately, and can only sell the products if blood from the same batch of pigs tests negative for the virus. If the virus is detected, slaughterhouses must cull all pigs to be slaughtered and suspend operations for at least 48 hours, according to the regulation, which will go into effect from Feb. 1. (For a graphic on 'Swine fever in China' click https://tmsnrt.rs/2QMhmzL) (Reporting by Hallie Gu and Dominique Patton; editing by David Evans and Richard Pullin) By Michael Martina BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese space probe successfully touched down on the far side of the moon on Thursday, China's space agency said, hailing the event as a historic first and a major achievement for the country's space program. The Chang'e-4 lunar probe, launched in December, made the "soft landing" at 0226 GMT and transmitted the first-ever "close range" image of the far side of the moon, the China National Space Administration said. The moon is tidally locked to Earth, rotating at the same rate as it orbits our planet, so most of the far side - or "dark side" - is never visible to us. Previous spacecraft have seen the far side, but none has landed on it. The landing "lifted the mysterious veil" of the far side of the moon and "opened a new chapter in human lunar exploration", the agency said in a statement on its website, which included a wide-angle color picture of a crater from the moon's surface. The probe, which has a lander and a rover, touched down at a targeted area near the moon's south pole in the Von Karman Crater after entering the moon's orbit in mid-December. The tasks of the Chang'e-4 include astronomical observation, surveying the moon's terrain, landform and mineral makeup, and measuring the neutron radiation and neutral atoms to study the environment of its far side. The control center in Beijing will decide when to let the rover separate from the lander, state news agency Xinhua said. "It's an important milestone for China's space exploration," Wu Weiren, chief designer of the lunar exploration program, said, according to Xinhua. The probe also took six live species - cotton, rapeseed, potato, arabidopsis, fruit fly and yeast - to the lifeless environment to form a mini biosphere, Xinhua said. A MAJOR SPACE POWER The landing is the latest step for China in its race to catch up with Russia and the United States and become a major space power by 2030. Beijing plans to launch construction of its own manned space station next year. Story continues While China has insisted its ambitions are purely peaceful, the U.S. Defense Department has accused it of pursuing activities aiming to prevent other nations from using space-based assets during a crisis. Besides its civilian ambitions, China has tested anti-satellite missiles and the U.S. Congress has banned NASA from two-way cooperation with its Chinese counterpart over security concerns. As competition accelerates in space, U.S. President Donald Trump seeks to create a new "Space Force" by 2020, as the sixth branch of the military. But the private space race is also heating up, as numerous companies aim to commercialize space travel, such as California-based SpaceX, which has upended the industry with its low-cost reusable Falcon 9 rockets. The United States is the only country to have landed humans on the moon, and Trump said in 2017 he wanted to return astronauts to the lunar surface to build a foundation for an eventual Mars mission. NASA administrators have said people could be put on Mars by as soon as the mid-2030s, with the agency having landed eight spacecraft there, the most recent in November. As soon as 2022, NASA expects to begin building a new space station laboratory to orbit the moon, as a pit stop for missions to distant parts of the solar system. In 2003, China became the third country to put a man in space with its own rocket after the former Soviet Union and the United States, and in 2017 it said it was preparing to send a person to the moon. China completed its first lunar "soft landing" in 2013, but its "Jade Rabbit" rover began malfunctioning after several weeks. (Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Paul Tait and Clarence Fernandez) An image taken by China's Chang'e-4 probe after its landing - China National Space Administration/Xinhua News Agency A Chinese spacecraft has made the first successful landing ever on the far side of the moon, a mission seen as an important step as the country looks to push forward its space programme. The lunar explorer Chang'e 4 touched down at 10:26 am and relayed a photo of the "dark side" of the moon to the Queqiao satellite, the official China Central Television reported on Thursday. The moon is tidally locked to Earth, rotating at the same rate that it orbits our planet, so the far side - or the "dark side" - is never visible from Earth. Previous spacecraft have seen the far side of the moon, but none has landed on it. The landing "lifted the mysterious veil" from the far side of the moon, and "opened a new chapter in human lunar exploration", the broadcaster said. China launched the Chang'e-4 probe earlier this month, carried by a Long March-3B rocket. It includes a lander and a rover to explore the surface of the moon. An image taken by China's Chang'e-4 probe after its landing Credit: AP "The far side of the moon is a rare quiet place that is free from interference of radio signals from Earth," mission spokesman Yu Guobin said, according to Xinhua. "This probe can fill the gap of low-frequency observation in radio astronomy and will provide important information for studying the origin of stars and nebula evolution." Unlike the near side of the moon that offers many flat areas to touch down on, the far side is mountainous and rugged. The tasks of the Chang'e-4 include astronomical observation, surveying the moon's terrain, landform and mineral composition, and measuring the neutron radiation and neutral atoms to study the environment on the far side of the moon. The near side (l) and far side (r) of the Moon show marked differences China aims to catch up with Russia and the United States to become a major space power by 2030. It is planning to launch construction of its own manned space station next year. However, while China has insisted its ambitions are purely peaceful, the US Defence Department has accused it of pursuing activities aimed at preventing other nations from using space-based assets during a crisis. Story continues Apart from its civilian ambitions, Beijing has tested anti-satellite missiles and the US Congress has banned Nasa from bilateral cooperation with its Chinese counterpart due to security concerns. A simulated landing process of Chang'e-4 lunar probe is seen through the monitor at Beijing Aerospace Control Center in Beijing Credit: AP The United States is so far the only country to have landed humans on the moon. US President Donald Trump said in 2017 he wants to return astronauts to the lunar surface and establish a foundation there for an eventual mission to Mars. It was not until 1959 that the Soviet Union captured the first images of the moon's mysterious and heavily cratered "dark side". No lander or rover has ever previously touched the surface there, and it is no easy technological feat - China has been preparing for this moment for years. The first image of the moon's far side taken by China's Chang'e-4 probe Credit: Barcroft images A major challenge for such a mission was communicating with the robotic lander: as there is no direct "line of sight" for signals to the far side of the moon. As a solution, China in May blasted the Queqiao ("Magpie Bridge") satellite into the moon's orbit, positioning it at a 'Lagrange point' so that it can relay data and commands between the lander and Earth. A Lagrange point is a location in space where the combined gravitational forces of two large bodies, such as Earth and the sun or Earth and the moon, equal the centrifugal force felt by a much smaller third body. The interaction of the forces creates a point of equilibrium where a spacecraft may be "parked" to make observations. In another extreme hurdle, during the lunar night - which lasts 14 Earth days - temperatures drop to as low as minus 173 degrees Celsius (minus 279 Fahrenheit). Long March-3B rocket carrying Chang'e 4 lunar probe takes off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre Credit: Reuters During the lunar day, also lasting 14 Earth days, temperatures soar as high as 127 C (261 F). The rover's instruments have to withstand those fluctuations and it has to generate enough energy to sustain it during the long night. The pioneering landing demonstrates China's growing ambitions as a space power. In 2013, Chang'e 3 was the first spacecraft to land on the moon since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976. China plans to send its Chang'e 5 probe to the moon next year and have it return to Earth with samples - the first time that will have been done since 1976. Chinas historic lunar landing may lead humanity closer to science fictions long-held vision of terraforming other worlds. On Thursday morning, a Chinese probe called the Change-4 touched down on the moons far side, making China the first to do so. Thats also exciting for scientific reasons. The countrys rover will study a basin more than 1,550 miles in diameter called the Von Karman crater, and itll carry a spectrometer that will enable it to perform low-frequency radio astronomy observations, as the moon blocks it from radio noise coming from Earth, according to the BBC. The Chinese Space Agency also will attempt to grow flora and fauna on the moons surface, using live species of cotton, rapeseed, potato, fruit fly, yeast and the flowering plant arabidopsis. If China is able to create a miniature biosphere, it may successfully grow the first flower on the lunar surface. This is a first for humanity and an impressive accomplishment! NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said on Twitter. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. The far-side landing is Chinas first attempt at something that other space powers have not attempted before, Ye Quanzhi, an astronomer at Caltech, told the BBC. The surface is called the far side because it never faces Earth. The moon rotates on its axis every 27 days, the same amount of time it takes to orbit Earth, which is why we only ever see one moon face, according to Space.com. To call it the dark side of the moon, while poetic, is inaccurate, because the far side gets plenty of light. There are two weeks of daylight and two weeks of night on every spot on the lunar surface, Charlie Duke, the Lunar Module pilot on the Apollo 16 mission, told Space.com. China has been leading the charge in moon landings of late. Its Change-3 craft, which landed on the moons Earth-facing side in 2013, was the first moon landing since the former Soviet Union touched down with its Luna 24 in 1976. China plans to send the Change-5 probe next year to collect samples and bring them back, which hasnt been done since the then-Soviet Unions mission, The Associated Press reports. Story continues With its landing in 2013, China became the third nation to send a vehicle to the lunar surface. The United States is still the only country to have humans step foot on the moon. Related... China Plans Historic First Landing On Far Side Of The Moon New Moon Footage: NASA Releases Remastered Moon Landing Footage (VIDEO) Chinese Land On Moon Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Joshee will not be assigned benches: Chief Justice Rana Newly appointed Chief Justice Cholendra Sumsher Rana has announced that he would not assign Supreme Court benches to senior-most Justice Deepak Raj Joshee, who was rejected as the chief of judiciary by the parliamentary committee five months ago. Flyers aboard LATAM Airlines are most likely to make their connecting flight and arrive at their destination on time, according to a new ranking of the world's most punctual airlines. Air travel intelligence company OAG released its latest 2019 Punctuality League ranking, which recognizes the top airlines for on-time performance, defined as flights that arrive within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival time. The ranking is based on 58 million flights using full-year data from 2018. With an 86 percent OTP last year, Chile's flagship carrier LATAM Airlines topped the category for mega airlines, defined as the world's top 20 global operators in terms of scheduled flights in 2018. Rounding out the top three spots are All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines. The most punctual low-cost carriers are Azul (Brazil), Jetstar Asia (Singapore) and Solaseed Air (Japan). Here are the world's most dependable, punctual airlines: Mega airlines: 1. LATAM Airlines 2. All Nippon Airways 3. Japan Airlines 4. Delta Airlines 5. Alaska Airlines 6. IndiGo 7. Southwest Airlines 8. United Airlines 9. American Airlines 10. British Airways Low-cost carriers 1. Azul 2. Jetstar Asia 3. Solaseed Air 4. Mango 5. Volaris 6. Transavia 7. IndiGo 8. Thai AirAsia 9. Spirit Airlines 10. Sky Airline Associated Press Investigators digging under the house of a suspected serial killer on the outskirts of Mexico City said Saturday they have found 3,787 bone fragments so far, apparently belonging to 17 different victims. Prosecutors in the State of Mexico, which borders Mexico City, suggested the grisly finds may not end there. The number of bone fragments found underneath concrete floors at the suspect's home would imply the corpses may have been hacked into tiny pieces. Protesters outside Westminster in September last year (PA) The government is launching a publicity drive to prepare people for a no-deal Brexit, less than three three months before Britain is due to leave the European Union. Whitehall departments and the health regulator will begin publishing guidance on how the public can get ready for potential issues if Britain leaves without a deal. These include what to do about travelling in Europe and what kind of passport is needed in the event of a no-deal. It will also tell what to do regarding medicine needs if Britain crashes out. Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay said broadcasts would be put on radio and social media to help people get ready. Businesses will also be told how best to prepare for a potential no-deal. The UK is due to leave the EU on March 29, but a deal has still not been finalised by Parliament. Mr Barclay said that a no deal will be far more likely if MPs reject the Prime Ministers agreement when a crucial vote is held in the week beginning January 14. The pace and intensity of the work we are doing reflects the potential scale of this disruption to people and businesses across the UK that a no-deal scenario could bring, the minister wrote in the Daily Express. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. The Home Office will next week be publicising guidance on new passport rules for people travelling to many European countries. These rules would mean some people have to renew their passport earlier than planned. Advice is already available online and next week the Home Office will further publicise how to renew a passport as easily as possible. The Department for Transport is sharing guidance on how we will ensure people can continue to travel to the EU in the event of no deal, and today the medicines regulator has updated guidance to ensure regulatory processes for medicines, medical devices and clinical trials are fit for purpose. And, on Tuesday, we will start a new phase in our public information campaign, using radio and social media to further raise awareness. Story continues Sinking hopes? Theresa may has still to convince MPs to back her controversial Brexit deal (PA) Ministers have warned about the impact of a no-deal, but many Brexit supporters have accused of them of raising fears ahead of the crucial Commons vote. Prime Minister Theresa May is desperately trying to get parliamentary support for the deal she has already agreed with Brussels, as well as further concessions. However, her task still looks monumental when it comes to getting MPs to back her deal. There is little sign that more than 100 Tory MPs who have pledged to vote against the EU deal have changed their minds. And a former Brexit Secretary David Davis has urged Mrs May to pull the vote again. Last month It was delayed after the PM admitted she faced defeat. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK By Gram Slattery RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Depending on who you ask, Roberto Castello Branco, the new chief executive of Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro SA , will either save the indebted oil major - or strip it to the bone. Tapped by far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who took power on Tuesday, Castello Branco had said in a June newspaper column he thought Petrobras - as the company is known - should be privatized, a hardcore proposal even in an administration packed with free market advocates. He has walked back on that idea since being named as CEO in November, saying such a move is not in his mandate, but has indicated he remains laser-focused on an ambitious divestment program, aimed at cutting Petrobras' staggering net debt, which stood at $73 billion as of the third quarter. Castello Branco has sharply criticized the former government for meddling in domestic diesel pricing. In an interview last year with Reuters, he also complained about courts blocking Petrobras asset sales, which include four refineries and a pipeline subsidiary known as TAG, among many others. His stance has delighted investors, who want the sprawling firm to slim down and consolidate efforts on core businesses, notably exploiting Brazil's deepwater oilfields. Yet some lawmakers, judges and unions fear Castello Branco will give away some of Brazil's most prized possessions. They have pledged to get in his way. "It's the worst situation possible; he's a fox in the hen-house," said Eduardo Henrique, a leader of the FNP oil workers union, one of the nation's largest. "He's come along to destroy the company ... and confronting that is our big challenge." ROCKY TERRAIN Castello Branco, an academic and former board member at Petrobras and iron ore miner Vale SA , is among a coterie of economically conservative officials in the Bolsonaro administration who were trained at the University of Chicago. Story continues In Latin America, its pro-free-market graduates - who have at times in recent decades enjoyed significant sway over policymakers - are often referred to as "Chicago Boys." "It's interesting that although he is a liberal, he's going to be head of a state-run company," said Carlos Langoni, an economist, who advised Castello Branco on his dissertation in the 1970s. "He has been very consistent in his ideas about reducing the role of the state in the economy ... he knows that state-run companies are exceptions." However, the extent to which Castello Branco will be able to put his liberal ideas into practice is in doubt. Various courts in Brazil have suspended major Petrobras asset sales in recent months. The company is locked in a multi-billion-dollar dispute with the government over an oil producing zone known as the transfer-of-rights area, while the state has effectively required the firm to help front the bill for subsidized diesel purchases since June. Castello Branco, described by many around him as exuding confidence, lacks the political experience of his predecessor Ivan Monteiro, who rose up the ranks of state-run Banco do Brasil SA , deftly maintaining a healthy balance sheet even amid periods of intense government interference. Castello Branco already ruffled feathers at Petrobras in December by setting up an office before taking on his role officially, sources said. He is due to begin formally on Thursday. Brazilian voters have consistently opposed selling off public firms in part or in whole, even as they supported a candidate who promised to dramatically shrink the role of the state in the economy. That could also leave Castello Branco's agenda vulnerable. "A lot of people who voted for (Bolsonaro) didn't agree with his ideas," said Henrique, the union leader. "Next year there will be a big movement to confront the privatizations - specifically with Petrobras." (Reporting by Gram Slattery; Additional reporting by Marta Nogueira, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien) Mark Reuss, the global head of General Motors (GM)' product development operations, will add "president" to his already expansive list of duties the latest in a series of management tweaks under CEO Mary Barra . The 55-year-old Reuss whose father also served as GM president nearly three decades ago replaces Dan Ammann. Ammann moved over to the company's autonomous vehicle subsidiary, Cruise Automation, last November. But Reuss will assume only some of Ammann's former duties in a paired down role as president, allowing him to retain his current focus on product. Saying that Reuss has played a "critical role" at GM in his current assignment, GM Chairman and CEO Barra added, "Mark's global operational experience, deep product knowledge and strong leadership will serve us well as we continue to strengthen our current business, take advantage of growth opportunities and further define the future of personal mobility." Gasoline in his veins Reuss is wont to say he has "gasoline in his blood." Having trained as an engineer, his duties as product development chief have been as much passion as avocation. It is a job that frequently lets him shed his suit and tie for a helmet and fireproof racing suit while testing new products at the General Motors Proving Grounds in Milford, Michigan, an hour northwest of its corporate headquarters along the Detroit riverfront. He joined the automaker in 1983 as a student intern. It was a period of massive change under then-Chairman and CEO Jack Smith. In 1990, as the controversial chairman retired, Mark Reuss's father Lloyd was named GM president, but he held that post only two years before being ousted in the first in a series of activist investor-led revolts. The younger Reuss remained with GM and, over the next two decades served in a broad mix of posts testing his business acumen as well as his engineering skills. That included a run as head of the automaker's long-struggling Australian subsidiary, Holden, which recently shuttered its manufacturing operations. Story continues Big break Reuss got his big break in 2001 when he was tasked with creating a new performance division where he got the chance to oversee development of a variety of vehicles, including the Chevrolet Corvette, as well as the reborn Chevy Camaro. While never generating significant volume, those products helped shine GM's star, tarnished by some of the poorly reviewed products it had produced during the 1980s and 1990s, an era when it was sometimes dismissed as "Malaise Motors." But things continued to go from bad to worse for the company saddled with debt and facing ever tougher competition from European and Asian imports. By 2010, GM was forced to enter a carefully managed bankruptcy, surviving only with the help of a massive federal bailout. Most of its top management team, starting with then-Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner, were unceremoniously booted, much as Lloyd Reuss had been nearly two decades earlier. Son Mark was, however, one of the survivors. Plum assignment And he landed a plum assignment that would test both the business and product side of his skills as the new head of North American Operations. By mid-decade, Reuss was seen as a potential contender for CEO. But as Dan Akerson , an industry outsider who joined GM post-bankruptcy, announced his retirement, the job instead went to another top lieutenant. Like Reuss, Mary Barra had also started at GM as a college co-op student and also came from a GM family though her father was a factory "shop rat." For his part, Reuss got a major consolation prize, heading global product development a job that frequently leds him shed his suit and tie for a helmet and fireproof racing suit. Last June, he was also named head of Cadillac and has been heavily involved in the development of a stream of new vehicles expected to roll out of the luxury brand every six months through 2021. Too many hats Under his new assignment as president, Reuss will retain those roles, a decision that analyst Joe Phillippi, head of AutoTrends Consulting, questions. Though Reuss is "very talented," Phillippi said, "he had too many hats to start with. There should be someone running product development and that's all they do all day." Whether Reuss might eventually shed some of his duties remains to be seen, but observers say that GM's upper management ranks appear to be in a bit of a flux. If anything, the company had indicated it wasn't going to name a new president when Ammann moved over to Cruise Automation as CEO of the San Francisco-based autonomous vehicle development company last November. For those worried that Reuss may find his time spread thin, a GM spokesman told CNBC that the company's new president won't take over all of the duties that had been on Ammann's plate. Full speed When the former president was reassigned, CEO Barra took over responsibility for managing both the automaker's global regions, as well as its "captive" finance subsidiary, GM Financial. Chief Financial Officer Dhivya Suryadevara, meanwhile, assumed control over GM's corporate development operations. Reuss will take on one new role, overseeing GM's quality control operations which, the automaker noted, dovetails well with his product development duties. Long faulted for reliability issues, GM has, in recent years, made rapid gains, particularly with its Buick and Chevrolet brands, according to studies by outside arbiters such as J.D. Power and Associates. "I am very proud to have spent my entire career at General Motors, and to now take on this new role is truly a great honor," Reuss said in a statement Thursday. "With our current lineup of outstanding cars, trucks and crossovers around the world, I'm looking forward to keeping our momentum going at full speed." Arthur Hayes, CEO of crypto exchange platform BitMEX, recently said that Bitcoin is societys best hope for a private form of money. The Seychelles-based BitMEX has risen to become one of the larger crypto trading and exchange platforms in the world. Its CEO, who is known to be bullish on the future of cryptocurrencies, has stated that digital assets will be the new private form of money. In a blog post published on January 3, 2019, titled Two sides of the coin: the bifurcated near-future of money, Hayes proclaimed centralized e-money as the near future of money, describing it as a: synthesis of the existing central bank system and our increasingly corporatized economy. To expound his theory, Hayes used WeChat Pay as an example. The platform, which is one of the most innovative payment platforms in China, makes it easy for customers to pay merchants seamlessly on a mobile app connected to your bank account. Hayes believes that, while payment platforms like WeChat Pay are gradually disrupting traditional fiat payments, a potential issue that could arise in the future is the one of privacy. The various mobile payment systems now offered by major players in different parts of the world differ in their details. But in some cases, they know almost everything about you: what goods and services you purchase, as well as where and when you purchase them, which can presumably be linked to all the other data they have on you. The BitMex CEO went further by highlighting the access that these private corporations have on customer information, which he says will make it increasingly easy for government agencies to get access to them as well, which could act as a violation of customers privacy. Acknowledging this risk, he said: At the same time, weve seen our governments in the West, when the spirit moves them, lean hard on our corporate friends to cough up our personal information. Unsurprisingly, the corporations tend to comply with these requests. Story continues As a solution, Hayes identified Bitcoins decentralized and peer-to-peer nature, touting the ability of the worlds most popular digital asset to protect customers identities while also serving as a viable means of making payments. Bitcoin runs via a network of voluntary, independent, and self-interested actors, who neither demand nor require any favors or permissions; a few basis points in transaction fees is literally all they want from anyone and all theyre allowed to take. And while the public address of any Bitcoin wallet, and its transaction history, are visible to all, no personally identifiable information is contained in any transaction. Which means that Bitcoin, or something like it, is perhaps societys best hope for a private form of electronic money. Featured image from Shutterstock. The post Bitcoin Is Societys Best Hope for a Private Form of Electronic Money Says Arthur Hayes appeared first on CCN. Bitcoin Cash mining centralization has reached a level where just one pool is controlling half of its hashrate, according to Coin Dance. The crypto statistics service found that BTC.TOP mining pool, a China-based private entity, took over as high as 50.2% of the entire Bitcoin Cash network at some point today. It contributed the hashrate of 679 Peta-Hash per second against other major competing pools including BTC.com (257 PH/s), ViaBTC (215 PH/s), AntPool (125 PH/s), and Bitcoin.com (187 PH/s). SOURCE: COIN.DANCE Bitcoin Cash and Centralization The notable increase could have taken place due to variance but, at the same time, it threatens the Bitcoin Cash network with a potential 51% attack scenario. The Roger Ver-led blockchain project has been criticized before for failing a stress test, conducted at the behest of an anonymous developer(s) known as Bitpico. Evidence showed that 98% of all the Bitcoin Cash nodes were sitting on the same server rack which exposed the coin to seizures and security threats. In early 2018, Alex Simons, the identity division chief at Microsoft, found that increasing block size such as those done by the Bitcoin Cash team threatened decentralization more than second-layer scalability solutions like Lightning Network. While some blockchain communities have increased on-chain transaction capacity (e.g. block size increases), this approach generally degrades the decentralized state of the network and cannot reach the millions of transactions per second the system would generate at world-scale, he had said. Whats Next for Bitcoin Cash The central aspect of any decentralized blockchain project is its ability to guard the system against central control. In a worst-case scenario, malicious mining entities could combine their hashrate output to form a stable coalition. It could make them prevent transactions from getting confirmed; it could allow them even to reverse the confirmed transactions or spend one valid token twice by creating a new chain or by altering old blocks. Story continues Bitcoin Gold, for instance, suffered a 51% attack on its network in 2018 where attackers double-spent BTG tokens for several days. They eventually stole $18 million worth of Bitcoin Gold tokens, according to the BTG/USD exchange rate at the time of the attack. In August 2016, two Ethereum-based crypto projects, Krypton and Shift, also suffered 51% attack on their networks. In some cases, mining pools which unintentionally crossed the 50% hashrate barrier voluntarily reduced their computing power with the purpose of redistributing it to other mining pools. GHash.io, for instance, had exceeded 50% of the bitcoins computing power in July 2014 but reduced it back to 40% after facing a community backlash. What BTC.TOP could do is what GHash.io had done in its time: let go of some of the computing power to reinject trust in the Bitcoin Cash network. If it doesnt scale back, the digital currency could suffer hugely as investors sentiment wears off. Featured image from Shutterstock. The post Bitcoin Cash: Single Mining Pool Controls 50% of Hashrate appeared first on CCN. Jeremy Hunt said that President Bashar al-Assad will remain in place for Jeremy Hunt, Foreign Minister, has conceded that President Bashar al-Assad will remain in place for "a while", reversing Britain's long-held position to reflect the new reality on the ground in Syria. "The British long-standing position is that we won't have lasting peace in Syria with that (Assad-led) regime," Mr Hunt said. "But regretfully we do think he's going to be around for a while and that is because of the support that he's had from Russia. "Russia may think that it's gained a sphere of influence. What we would say to them is: Yes - and you've also gained a responsibility, the Foreign Minister told Sky News. Moscow, which intervened in the war in 2015 on behalf of the Syrian government, helped swing it in Assad's favour. Russian military gives a press tour of destroyed parts of Aleppo, Syria. Credit: Alec Luhn for the Telegraph While Russia's relationship with Damascus, which dates back to the Soviet era, may not be new, its dominance in the civil war helped elevated it to a position of power broker in the region. Britain, the US and its allies meanwhile backed the opposition, though its lack of real commitment allowed President Vladimir Putin to gain the upper hand. The UK broke off diplomatic contact with the regime in 2012 after peaceful protests were met with a brutal crackdown. Its position since has been that Assad must go and there must be a transition of power through a democratic election. This stipulation is also a precondition to the UK providing the country with reconstruction aid, which Damascus greatly needs to rebuild its flattened cities. However, with Assad claiming a victory and showing no signs of any intention to step aside, the UK must decide how it now wishes to engage. Syrian President Bashar Assad, left, meets with Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir in Damascus, Syria, Credit: Sana "If you're going to be involved in Syria then you need to make sure that there really is peace in Syria," Mr Hunt said. "And that means making sure that President Assad does not use chemical weapons on his own people." The British admission also raises doubt that the Syrian leader and his inner circle will ever face trial for alleged war crimes, including sarin attacks which left more than 1,200 dead. Story continues In December, the United Nations acknowledged it had failed to persuade Moscow, a veto-wielding member, to agree to form a sufficiently diverse body to prepare a constitution and elections in Syria. This meant the indefinite delay of any UN-supervised elections. The president had for years been an international pariah, but in recent months relations with the Arab world have begun to thaw. Last week, the United Arab Emirates reopened its embassy in Damascus, marking a diplomatic boost for Assad from a US-allied Arab state that once backed rebels fighting him. Egypt and other Arab League members have also hinted that Damascus could soon be invited back into the group it was expelled from in 2011. The Army is calling out to binge gamers, class clowns, phone zombies, snow flakes and selfie addicts in its new recruitment drive (PA) Millennials obsessed with their smartphones, games consoles are being targeted by the British Army in its latest recruitment drive. Binge gamers, class clowns, phone zombies, snow flakes and selfie addicts are all highlighted in the Armys attempt at wooing Generation Z youngsters. The Your Army Needs You campaign suggests the potentially overlooked raw skills of people like gamers and daydreamers could be seen as a strength by the Army. The campaign has been designed to show the Army looks beyond young stereotypes and sees people differently and recognises their need for a bigger sense of purpose, according to British Army Major General Paul Nanson. Marketing is pitched towards the Gen Z or Generation Z youngsters, the nickname of the generation who were born approximately between 1995 and 2015, as 16 to 25-year-olds are a key recruitment range. Marketing is pitched towards the Gen Z or Generation Z youngsters (PA) The recent First World War centenary may have raised awareness of the famous Lord Kitchener-style recruitment posters of that time which have been updated. Based on the historic Your Country Needs You First World War poster featuring the stern-eyed British field marshal, the new billboards call out to Me Me Me Millennials, Class Clowns, Binge Gamers, Phone Zombies, Snow Flakes, Selfie Addicts and say the Army needs their potential and assets. These are named as their self-belief, spirit, drive, focus, compassion and confidence. MORE: Incredible before and after pictures shows the destruction of volcano that caused Indonesian tsunami MORE: Police attempt to reunite 2m haul of property stolen by prolific crime gang with owners TV adverts build on the idea that young ambitious people may feel undervalued and want a job with purpose. Would-be recruits are shown at home or work, with others calling out their stereotypes, before the scene changes to show them in the Army roles including as soldiers assisting on humanitarian missions in war-torn villages and supporting on a hurricane relief effort. Story continues The adverts are the latest part of a recruitment campaign which has previously drawn criticism suggesting it makes the Army appear soft. Topics included the emotional benefit of the strong bonds of being in the Army and inclusivity. The campaign has been designed to show the Army looks beyond young stereotypes (PA) What may be seen as weaknesses may be seen as strengths by the Army, according to Maj Gen Nanson. He said: The Army sees people differently and we are proud to look beyond the stereotypes and spot the potential in young people, from compassion to self-belief. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson described the campaign as a powerful call to action that appeals to those seeking to make a difference as part of an innovative and inclusive team. He said: Now all jobs in the Army are open to men and women. The best just got better. It comes as the British Army failed to meet recruitment targets as it under-estimated the complexity of what it was trying to achieve when it embarked on a project with outsourcing giant Capita, according to a National Audit Office (NAO) report in December. The campaign comes as the British Army failed to meet recruitment targets (PA) Capita was controversially awarded the 495 million contract for Army recruitment in 2012, but the Army has not recruited the number of soldiers it requires in any year since the contract began. The Commons Defence Committee was told in October that the Army currently has 77,000 fully trained troops compared with a target of 82,500. Figures relate to half of regular soldier applicants in the first six months of 2018-19. A total of 47% of applicants dropped out of the process voluntarily in 2017-18, and both the Army and Capita believe the length of the process is a significant factor in this, the report said. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK A man leaves an Apple store in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Apples (AAPL) dramatic decision to cut its Q1 2019 revenue guidance from $89 billion to $93 billion down to $84 billion on weaker-than-expected iPhone sales in China has rocked the companys stock. Apple was down as much as 9.5% on Thursday. In a letter to shareholders, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, Lower than anticipated iPhone revenue, primarily in Greater China, accounts for all of our revenue shortfall to our guidance and for much more than our entire year-over-year revenue decline. Simply put, Apples latest iPhones arent appealing to Chinese consumers. The high price of the $999 iPhone XS and $1,099 iPhone XS Max make it a tough buy for shoppers, especially when Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE can sell equally impressive devices often for hundreds of dollars less. The Greater China market has always been difficult for Apple to break into, and its only going to get more difficult. China beat Apple at its own game Apples exceptional design aesthetic is one of the main reasons the iPhone is such a popular device. But that same success also made the company a prime target for copycats looking to ape Apples style. For years, Chinas biggest smartphone makers have been selling smartphones that look suspiciously like the iPhone. In 2014, Business Insider called out Huaweis Honor 6 Plus for not only looking like Apples iPhone, but also using a similar name. But Huawei, Oppo, and Xiaomi, which own 24.6%, 20.5% and 13.6% of the Chinese market, respectively, werent content with simply cribbing Apples design. As those companies pushed Apples market share to 7.5% in China, they also began to offer innovative features of their own. For proof of this, look no further than Huaweis powerhouse P20 Pro, which reviewers scored as well as Apples own iPhone X and Samsungs Galaxy S9. That handset has a three-lens Leica camera and an AI chipset, not to mention a stunning paint job and a long-lasting battery that easily matches up with the iPhone X. And yet it costs roughly $694, less than the iPhone Xs $999 launch price. Oppos own Oppo Find X is an equally strong contender for the iPhone, and tops out at $779. Story continues None of these competing smartphones runs Apples iOS operating system. Instead, they operate a version of the Googles (GOOG, GOOGL) Android. In the past, iOS would be a selling point on its own, but since Googles Android has reached parity with iOS, theres less reason to opt for Apples offering with the hopes of getting better features. Whats more, many manufacturers customize Android to their own liking in a way that appeals more to the Chinese market. How Apple can overcome its losses If Apple is going to manage a comeback in China, it will need to offer more low-cost handsets. According to CLSA analysts Cherry Ma and Nicolas Baratte, Apples best-selling iPhone in November was the $749 iPhone XR, which is less expensive than the iPhone XS and XS Max. The XS Max was the second best-selling iPhone, while the 8 Plus came in third. Year-over-year, Apple saw unit says fall 27.5% in the month of November, and 22.8% month-over-month, CLSA reported. Huawei, on the other hand, saw a 33.8% year-over-year increase, and was flat month-over-month. The companys mid-range Honor 8X was also its best-selling device in November, followed by the high-end Mate 20, P20 and Honor 8X Max. At this point all smartphones are relatively equal across the board in terms of performance and features. Unless Apple can produce a truly innovative smartphone, the best bet for the companys hardware division is to debut some kind of new, unique product beyond the smartphone. The Apple Watch and AirPods are certainly impressive, but they require you to own an iPhone to use them. Apple needs a breakout device that reinvigorates the brand, and reminds consumers why it was once valued at $1 trillion. Until then, Apples trouble in China will continue. More from Dan: The 5 best smartphones of 2018 Why Big Tech is breaking free of Silicon Valley What is Huawei? China crown jewel now in U.S. crosshairs Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@oath.com; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley. Follow Yahoo Finance on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.finance.yahoo.com/ India, China yet to rebuild school buildings Reconstruction of 13 schools in Dolakha district, which were damaged by the 2015-earthquake, has been left in limbo as the donor countries that had pledged to rebuild the infrastructure have yet to initiate the project. Washington (AFP) - Apple's bombshell news -- a sharply weaker revenue outlook and lower iPhone sales -- has raised questions over the future of the California giant, which until recently had been seen as the undisputed innovation leader in the tech sector. Apple's rare admission on Wednesday cited steeper-than-expected "economic deceleration" in China and emerging markets and noted that trade frictions between Washington and Beijing were taking a toll on its smartphone sales. But the news raised questions on whether Apple -- the first to reach a $1 trillion valuation and until recently the world's most valuable company -- is seeing a bump in the road or is starting to slide back from its leadership position. Some analysts point to Apple's dependence on iPhone sales to drive revenue and profits, even as it tries to diversify its product base and add services such as music and digital payments. "The iPhone has been supporting the company for more than a decade," said Roger Kay, analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates. "The world isn't coming to an end for Apple but it's a major inflection point. Up to now, Apple has defied gravity by growing faster than any other company in the market, but mathematically it was impossible to beat the market forever." Apple shares plummeted nearly 10 percent on the news Thursday, with the company shedding some 38 percent since its valuation hit $1 trillion last year. Kay said the trillion-dollar valuation was "irrational" and based on growth projections Apple is unlikely to achieve without a new catalyst. Apple, which has been growing in China even though it lacks a dominant position, is pressured by tariffs and other trade issues, further inflamed by the arrest of China-based Huawei's chief financial officer in Canada at the behest of the United States. Huawei has overtaken Apple as the third largest global smartphone maker despite limited presence in the United States. Story continues - 'At a crossroads' - The update suggested a disappointing figure for iPhone sales, the key driver of revenue and profit for the California tech giant. Apple said that it expects weak iPhone sales in other emerging markets, driving down revenue despite some positive signs in developed markets and in its other products and services. The company slashed its revenue guidance for the first fiscal quarter of 2019, ended December 29, to $84 billion -- sharply lower than analyst forecasts averaging $91 billion. "Apple stock is now at a crossroads," said a research note Thursday from Gene Munster and Will Thompson of the investment firm Loup Ventures. "Some investors will consider the stock broken.. but we've followed the company long enough to know there is cyclicality in the market's relationship with Apple." Munster and Thompson said it would take "a new product category," or large acquisition to allow Apple to regain its momentum. - Tactical errors? - Some analysts said Apple erred in boosting the price of its new iPhones to well over $1,000 in a global smartphone market that is largely saturated and facing tougher competition. "I think the main villain is the very high prices that Apple is charging for its new iPhones," said Richard Windsor, a technology analyst who writes the Radio Free Mobile blog. "This is not a catastrophe nor is it a sign that Apple is losing its grip on the smartphone market but merely a misjudgment by Apple with regard to how much money people will pay for an iPhone." The latest news sparked talk of the "Nokia moment" for Apple -- a reference to the Finnish-based firm that led the mobile phone market in the early 2000s. But Windsor said: "I do not in any way think that this represents Apple's 'Nokia' moment simply because there is still nothing to seriously challenge the iPhone in the high-end segment." Carolina Milanesi of Creative Strategies said Apple is unique among smartphone makers because it has a wide array of apps and services that produce revenue. "While it is true that no other single product has done for Apple as much as the iPhone, the product offering as an aggregate still puts Apple ahead of all other vendors who might be selling higher volumes but have no direct way to monetize from their users once the sale has occurred," Milanesi said in a blog. Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy said Apple may be unable to deliver the double-digit growth than many on Wall Street have been expecting given the current smartphone market. "I am not concerned for the company, but it's likely investors will not see the company value it was at until it can see a likely path to double-digit revenue growth," Moorhead said. Apple CEO Tim Cook and his management team should read the coverage of their mind-blowing warning to every investor on the planet on Apple News and then ask: Should investors trust us right now? And, how can we regain that trust. No doubt January 2, 2019 will go down as one of the worst days in Apples history. Its not akin to 1997 when Apple founder Steve Jobs returned to a flailing tech company that was losing billions. But still one that amounts to a complete smashing down of the reset button on how Wall Street and the average investor views Apple (AAPL). And as tough as it is to say, given Cooks generally strong leadership since the passing of Jobs, he and his management team bare the responsibility for the shocking warning. They failed to keep it real with investors on what they were seeing in iPhone demand data late in 2018. Simply no longer providing unit sales data wasnt enough of a signal to investors that something was wrong, bottom line. As a result, Apples stock could be broken until credibility is restored. Apples stock is now at a crossroads. Some investors will consider the stock broken and never reward it with a proper multiple, but weve followed the company long enough to know there is cyclicality in the markets relationship with Apple, cautions long-time Apple analyst Gene Munster of Loup Ventures. A poor job done with guidance. Apple said in a filing released after market close Wednesday that it now sees first quarter revenue of about $84 billion. It previously anticipated $89 billion to $91 billion. In the filing, Cook attributed the reduced guidance to weakness in emerging markets and in Greater China as well as supply constraints on new products. Cook also hinted strongly that Apple felt resistance from consumers to the new $1,000 plus iPhone XS line. While Cook tried to hype strong demand in AirPods and Apple Watches, investors werent buying it. Trading was halted Wednesday for Apple shares at about 4:25 p.m. ET in advance of the release of the announcement. The stock declined 8.49% to $144.51 per share when trading resumed 25 minutes later, hitting the lowest level since July 2017. Story continues Shares dropped about 8% in early trading on Thursday. Apple should have kept it real with investors in 2018. But a little more than two months ago Cook and Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri were singing from a different hymn sheet. Judging by their comments on Apples fourth fiscal quarter earnings call on November 1, Apple was in fine standing around the globe. Interest in new iPhones was running high. Investors should ignore executives deciding to remove a key piece of guidance (iPhone unit sales) that has been key in assessing Apples fundamentals for years. Some comments of interest from that November call. Maestri Comment 1: Third, starting with the December quarter, we will no longer be providing unit sales data for iPhone, iPad and Mac. As we have stated many times, our objective is to make great products and services that enrich people's lives, and to provide an unparalleled customer experience so that our users are highly satisfied, loyal and engaged. As we accomplish these objectives, strong financial results follow. As demonstrated by our financial performance in recent years, the number of units sold in any 90-day period is not necessarily representative of the underlying strength of our business. Furthermore, a unit of sale is less relevant for us today than it was in the past, given the breadth of our portfolio and the wider sales price dispersion within any given product line. If Apple hadnt pulled its unit guidance and kept it real by leaving it intact, investors could have gotten a truer picture of the business more than two months ago. Instead, they are gifted an unwelcome holiday surprise on the first day of trading for 2019. Maestri Comment 2: At the revenue level, we started from the fact that we are very, very excited about the lineup of products and services that we have getting into the holiday season. It's the strongest lineup that we've ever had. And our guidance range, by the way, represents a new all-time quarterly revenue record. Apparently, not that strong given the almost $7 billion haircut to revenue guidance. Maestri Comment 3: The third point that I think it's important to keep in mind, and Tim has talked about this, we are launching, in the last six weeks, we've launched an unprecedented number of new products. They're all ramping right now. The ramps are going fairly well, but obviously we have some uncertainty around supply/demand balance for some of these products. Not that well it seems. Cook devoted a good chunk of his letter on Wednesday to the impact to sales from supply constraints for the Apple Watch 4, iPad Pro, AirPods and Macbook Pro. And then finally, the last point that we've taken into account is what Tim's talked about in terms of some level of uncertainty at the macroeconomic level in some emerging markets where clearly consumer confidence is not as high as it was 12 months ago. Cook cited macroeconomic issues holding back results three times in his new letter. That isnt exactly on par with Maestris some level of uncertainty expressed in November. Tim Cook: To give you a perspective in of some detail, our business in India in Q4 was flat. Obviously, we would like to see that be a huge growth. Brazil was down somewhat compared to the previous year. And so I think, or at least the way that I see these, is each one of the emerging markets has a bit of a different story, and I don't see it as some sort of issue that is common between those for the most part. In relation to China specifically, I would not put China in that category. Our business in China was very strong last quarter. We grew 16%, which we're very happy with. iPhone in particular was very strong, very strong double-digit growth there. Our other products category was also stronger, in fact, a bit stronger than even the overall company number. Nothing here from Cook indicates China would be mostly blamed as the culprit for a nasty financial warning some two months later. Apple CEO Tim Cook, too optimistic? The bottom line Unsurprisingly, most Wall Street analysts remain upbeat on Apple in the wake of the warning. Price targets have been slashed by most firms, but analysts continue to think Apple is unrivaled in tech and that positioning will bring massive future earnings. Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley captures the mood of most of his peers right now rather well. With a mature smartphone market, we believe Apple has locked up strong share of the premium tier market and will continue to dominate high-end smartphones sales and capture the vast majority of smartphone profits for the next several years. While the smartphone market is slowing to low single digits annual growth, Apples dominant profits of the worlds largest consumer electronics market is likely to continue, Walkley writes. But the bottom line is that Cook & Co. temporarily must be viewed skeptically by Apples entire investor base. Stock analystss musings be damned. Cook & Co. must lay it all out on the table when the company officially reports earnings in coming weeks. More transparency, not less on business performance. A more measured tone, not another hype job as is typical in Silicon Valley. Clear insight into when completely new products will debut and what they could be (augmented reality, TV, streaming service). Specific details on efforts being taken to jump start the China business. Says Munster, We expect the company to focus on Tim Cooks promise to focus really deeply on the things we can control and help investors better understand the underlying strength of Apples business. It will probably take a new product category, large M&A (to restart growth narrative), a more aggressive buyback, or providing greater insights into their business, particularly services, to persuade investors to think differently about Apples multiple. If Cook & Co. dont do these things, their new credibility problem will likely rage on for most of 2019. That would be unfortunate given their level of expertise and Apples standing in the world. Emily McCormick contributed to this story Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @BrianSozzi Read Yahoo Finances Apple coverage: Heres what Apples China nightmare scenario looks like Apple just confirmed the market's biggest fear What Tim Cook left out about China in Apple's revenue guidance Is Apple in any real trouble in 2019? With most of the U.S. seeing bare ground, who knew we'd have to go beyond the solar system to find a snowman? As NASA's New Horizons spacecraft zoomed by the distant Ultima Thule object early on New Year's Day, it snapped some shots of the never-before-seen space rock. Those photos continue to be received by scientists down here on Earth. In some photos from Tuesday, the object looked like a bowling pin. Wednesday, however, scientists released better photos that showed the rock has a bizarre but familiar shape: Yes, it looks like a reddish snowman. The bowling pin is gone. Its a snowman! lead scientist Alan Stern informed the world at a news conference Wednesday. Ultima Thule consists of two fused-together spheres, one of them three times bigger than the other, extending about 20 miles across. The larger one is "Ultima" while the smaller one is "Thule." Scientist Jeff Moore of NASAs Ames Research Center said the two spheres formed when small, icy pieces coalesced in space billions of years ago. Then the spheres slowly spiraled closer to each other and stuck together. Gravity holds the two rocks together, NASA said. Its remarkable appearance, unlike anything that's been seen before, illuminates the processes that built the planets four and a half billion years ago. More: Beyond Pluto: Spacecraft to fly by distant space rock 'Ultima Thule' on New Year's Day More: NASA starts new year with flyby of most distant object ever visited by a spacecraft "New Horizons is like a time machine, taking us back to the birth of the solar system," Moore added. "We are seeing a physical representation of the beginning of planetary formation, frozen in time. Studying Ultima Thule is helping us understand how planets form both those in our own solar system and those orbiting other stars in our galaxy." The rock is roughly 1 billion miles away from Pluto making it the most distant object ever visited by a spacecraft. Story continues With the inelegant official name of "2014 MU69," Ultima Thule was first discovered in 2014 by astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA said the nickname Ultima Thule means "beyond the borders of the known world." Contributing: Brett Molina, USA TODAY; The Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Space snowman' discovered outside our solar system Benton, a 130-pound Boerboel, sleeps on a twin mattress where a drunken New Year's Eve reveler was discovered Tuesday -- in the wrong house. Lynn Sarver turned a scary start to her New Year into an act of compassion. The Wisconsin nurse awoke shortly after 5 a.m. Tuesday to find a man sleeping on her dog's bed along with Benton, her 130-pound Boerboel, a South African mastiff. At first, she thought perhaps her son had come home unexpectedly from out of town. But when she saw it wasn't him, she woke her house guest and asked her if she knew the man. She did not, so both women grabbed a knife in the kitchen and called 911. "He was out," Sarver said of the stranger. "Even when I went to pull off Benton, the guy didn't move." Waukesha police roused the man and asked him if he knew where he was. He said he needed his glasses. Benton, a 130-pound Boerboel "Once he put them on and looked around, he said, Oh yeah, this is not my house, " Sarver said. She said the young man, about 21, who turned out to live with his mother two doors down, was cooperative with police, very embarrassed and extremely apologetic. Sarver said police asked if she wanted to press charges, but she saw no need. "I learned a big lesson," she said, "and I'm sure he did too." Waukesha Police Sgt. Brady Esser confirmed the man was "heavily intoxicated," but not dangerous and was taken to his own home. Sarver said she and her house guest had come home from a party about 1:30 a.m., then fallen asleep watching episodes of "Grey's Anatomy." Sarver's alarm woke her at 5:15 a.m. Sarver said she routinely locks her front door and had to unlock it for police, so she suspects the young man entered through a side patio door she had forgotten to lock. He said he couldn't remember how he came in or anything past midnight. She got Benton about three years ago for protection and couldn't explain why Benton didn't bark since he does for most visitors. She said she got a deal on a twin mattress that serves as his bed in the living room because an official dog bed big enough for him was almost $200. Story continues "My dog is pretty smart. He could probably tell this kid wasn't a threat," she said. More: New year, new you? 20 things that will help you get in shape for 2019 More: Need a new diet this new year? Here's how to pick one and stick with it Follow Bruce Vielmetti on Twitter: @ProofHearsay This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: New Year's Eve reveler found passed out in 130-pound dog's bed in the wrong house Per a Bloomberg article, Apollo Global Management LLC APO is likely to announce a deal to acquire Arconic Inc ARNC by mid-January. Citing people familiar with the matter, the report said that the purchase price is expected to be $22 per share. Shares of Arconic rallied 9.7% after the news of intended acquisition reached the market. However, the final price is still being decided upon and there are chances of the deal being cancelled. The companies involved are in discussions to strike a deal that would protect Apollo from one of Arconics potential liability related to an apartment fire that happened in London in 2017. Also, people familiar said that Arconic would have to spin off its cladding business, the division responsible for making aluminium panels, as part of acquisition agreement. A New York-based hedge fund, Elliott Management Corp., which is part of Arconics board, would be buying majority stake in the cladding business. On the other hand, Elliot would roll over 10.7% interest in Arconic as part of the take-private transaction with Apollo, per the article. Sources also mentioned that the key hurdles in the deal could be securing financing and further stock market volatility. In August 2018, Apollo had inked an all-cash deal worth $2.6 billion to acquire Aspen Insurance Holdings AHL. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first half of 2019, subject to closing conditions. The acquisition would boost Apollos resources and expertise in financial services such as underwriting capabilities and proficiency, which along with long-standing client relationships have helped Apollo solidify its market position. This Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) stock has lost around 27% over the past six months compared with 21.6% decline recorded by the industry. A better-ranked stock in the financial space to consider is Bank of Marin Bancorp BMRC. The company has witnessed slight upward estimate revisions for 2018 for the past 60 days. Additionally, the stock has jumped more than 20% in the past year. It currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone! It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 27 billion devices in just 3 years, creating a $1.7 trillion market. Zacks has just released a Special Report that spotlights this fast-emerging phenomenon and 6 tickers for taking advantage of it. If you don't buy now, you may kick yourself in 2020. Click here for the 6 trades >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Bank of Marin Bancorp (BMRC) : Free Stock Analysis Report Apollo Global Management, LLC (APO) : Free Stock Analysis Report Aspen Insurance Holdings Limited (AHL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Arconic Inc. (ARNC) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Testimony from Johnny Depp and Amber Heards contentious 2016 divorce has been unearthed due to the actors lawsuit against U.K. tabloid the Sun and the 471-page deposition transcript sheds more light on the startling claims of abuse made by each star. Johnny and I refer to his other personality, the part of him that is present when he beats me up we call that the monster and have called [that] the monster for many years, Heard stated during an Aug. 13, 2016, deposition, according to documents obtained by the Hollywood Reporter. I was petrified of the monster, Heard added. (Depp has denied allegations of domestic abuse.) The Aquaman star, 32, and Depp, 55, have different accounts of what happened on May 21, 2016. In the transcripts, Heard claims the actor threw her phone at her as hard as he could and it hit her in the face. She also declares that he grabbed her by the hair and she screamed for help and that he broke a lot of glass things that left glass on the floor. Depp claims he was abused prior to the May incident and that Heard punched him in the face twice on April 21, 2016, after he was late to her birthday dinner. As for the alleged altercation one month later, Depp says he had two security guards with him when he arrived at their penthouse because he was concerned about what Ms. Heard might do. The Fantastic Beasts actor states that he tossed the phone on the sofa and it didnt hit Heard. He says he didnt touch her, either. He claims to have left after Heard started yelling at him and crying, so any damaged items on the floor were not caused by him and that hardcopy photographs were put in evidence, but neither the original images nor the associated metadata were produced. When Heard was asked by Depps lawyer whether she had ever struck, slapped or thrown an object at the actor, she replied that she did her best to defend herself against her stronger husband. The documents also contain depositions from the LAPD officers who responded to the 911 call at the penthouse that night. One officer said that Heard, who refused to give her name, was crying and the officer did not see any marks, bruises, swelling or signs of injury on her face. The officer says she saw no signs of shattered glass or broken items. The officer saw no probable cause to believe a crime had been committed. A second officer shared similar testimony. Heard testified that she declined to give a statement to the officers at the advice of her lawyer. Story continues Amber Heard and Johnny Depp attend the 2015 Black Mass screening in London. (Photo: John Phillips/Getty Images for BFI) Depp is suing the Sun for defamation over an April 2018 story titled How can J.K. Rowling be genuinely happy casting wife-beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film? Legal standards in defamation cases in the U.K. are different than the U.S. In the U.S., the person suing for defamation must prove that what was said concerning him or her was false, while in the U.K., the statement is generally presumed false unless the defendant can prove it was true. The Sun will need to disprove Depps claims of what happened on May 21, 2016. Depps lawyer told the Hollywood Reporter in October that their legal team has evidence Heard severely injured the actor and faked abuse allegations. Heard claims this is false and defamatory. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Heard was asked to testify in the proceeding, but a source says Depps legal team will not allow it or she will be in violation of their nondisclosure agreement (NDA). However, Depps camp insists shell be allowed to testify if the Sun calls her. Both Depp and Heard signed an NDA as part of their divorce settlement and agreed not to discuss their marriage or make derogatory statements about each other. That hasnt worked out well. In an interview with GQ published in October, Depp blasted Heard and her assault claims. Heard has also continued to speak out as a survivor of domestic violence, although she has tiptoed around ever naming her ex-husband. In an arbitration demand, Heard claims Depp violated their agreement last year and believes shes entitled to punitive damages. Mr. Depps ongoing defamation and violation of the parties confidentiality agreement is already the subject of a pending arbitration, her lawyer tells the Hollywood Reporter. We wont dignify his comments with any further response. Depps lawyer claims Heard withdrew her arbitration complaint and suggests that if she would like to go to court we will see her there. A hearing for Depps lawsuit against the Sun is set for Feb. 22. Read more on Yahoo Entertainment: MADRID (Reuters) - Workers at Amazon's biggest warehouse in Spain started a two-day strike on Thursday just ahead of a gift-giving feast day, as part of a long-running campaign for better pay and conditions. The strike, called by the country's two main unions, CCOO and UGT, may affect the delivery of products for Epiphany, the day on which three kings brought gifts to Jesus in Christian tradition, which most Spaniards mark by exchanging presents. "We have been protesting for a year. This is the richest company in the world and they want to keep profiting by taking away workers' rights," said David Matarraz, an Amazon worker outside the warehouse close to Madrid. Amazon workers in Germany and Poland have also walked off the job, demanding better conditions. German and Spanish workers went on strike two months ago on Black Friday, the discount spending spree that kicks off the Christmas shopping season, but Amazon said this had no impact on customer orders. Seventy percent of employees at the Spanish center joined Thursday's strike, CCOO representative Douglas Harper said. An Amazon spokesman denied this, saying most employees at the center had been at work on Thursday. Employees at the Madrid center earn a minimum 19,300 euros ($21,933) per year, the spokesman said. Spain's legal monthly minimum wage is 1,050 euros. Protesters at the site lit a bonfire and a man walked around wearing a mask showing the face of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. (Reporting by Andres Gonzalez and Miguel Gutierrez; Editing by Isla Binnie and Dale Hudson) Abby Sunderland was rescued by a French trawler after the Wild Eyes vessel capsized in June 2010. A yachtswoman left stranded at sea when she capsized as a teenager has said her heart skipped a beat after her boat was found almost a decade on. Californian solo sailor Abby Sunderland abandoned sloop, Wild Eyes, in the Indian Ocean in 2010 during an ill-fated round-the-world attempt had been found off the Australian coast. South Australia Police confirmed that a barnacle-encrusted, upturned 40ft hull found drifting 12 miles south of Kangaroo Island on Monday was Wild Eyes. She was just 16 and attempting to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone and unassisted when her yacht capsized and lost its mast in mountainous seas between Africa and Australia on June 10 2010. Abby Sunderland was just 16 when the vessel overturned and has said the discovery of her missing yacht was very emotional. Ms Sunderland was rescued two days later by a French trawler 2,000 miles west of Australia. The now 25-year-old described seeing reports of the boats discovery as very emotional. It brought back memories good and not so good but it was neat to see it after so long, Ms Sunderland said in a statement. It looked a little creepy, thats to be expected after so long. She said she wondered whether video equipment which she used to record her voyage was still inside and hoped that the boat would be retrieved. Asked if the boat a potential navigational hazard would be recovered, a police spokesman said the vessel had disappeared by Thursday and might have sunk. In the midst of an ongoing battle over womens right to visit an important Hindu temple, women in the southern Indian state of Kerala lined up to form a 620km (385-mile) human chain in a mass demonstration for gender equality on Tuesday, reported the BBC. The protest comes during a fraught period for religious and gender rights in Kerala. In September, Indias highest court overturned a historical ban on women of menstruating age, defined to be between ages 10 and 50, from entering the states Sabarimala shrine. Protesters have attacked women who attempting to visit the temple. Tuesdays rally was organized by Keralas left-leaning government, with approximately five million women from across the state taking part in the womens wall, officials told the BBC. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said on Monday that womens issues were part of the partys class struggle, reported the Indian Express. He went on to say that the womens wall is required to protect the renaissance tradition of the state. Most Hindu temples allow women to enter if they are not currently menstruating, rather than disallowing women from a broad age group, according to the BBC. Some Hindu communities regard menstruating women as unclean. Two women were able to reach the Sabarimala temple premises in October, thanks to the protection of more than 100 police, but they were forced to retreat after a confrontation with protesters outside the temple sanctum, reported the BBC. The fight over womens right to enter the temple also comes in the lead-up to Indias general election in April and May. Indias ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has pursued a Hindu nationalist agenda, has painted the September court ruling as an attack on traditional Hindu values. Critics have accused the BJP of exacerbating religious tensions in order to rally their conservative Hindu base. In an interview with Reuters affiliate ANI on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed confidence in the BJPs prospects in the upcoming elections, despite the partys recent losses in state contests. In 2019, if there is one party which the country trusts and is connected with the people, it is the BJP, Modi told ANI. An 11-year-old from Brooklyn has reportedly died after suffering what appears to be a severe allergic reaction when he smelled fish that was cooking in his home. Camron Jean-Pierre, who had a known fish allergy, became unconscious inside his house around 7:30 p.m. on New Years Day while his family was cooking cod, police told the New York Post. Jean-Pierres father called 911 and he was taken to a local hospital where he died. While Jean-Pierres family suspects the boy died of an allergic reaction, the official cause of death still has yet to be determined. Fish allergies are a frequent cause of anaphylaxis, a potentially life-threatening allergic reaction that appears quickly, impairs a persons breathing and can send them into shock, according to the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (ACAAI). People with a fish allergy can experience a range of symptoms, depending on how severe their allergy, but someone may have hives or a skin rash, nausea, stomach cramps, indigestion, vomiting and/or diarrhea, a stuffy or runny nose and/or sneezing, headaches, asthma or anaphylaxis after being exposed to fish, the ACAAI says. Usually, people have an allergic reaction after accidentally eating fish, but its actually possible to have one after breathing it in. Foods with proteins that are stable to the cooking process can get into the air during heating, Stacey Galowitz, DO, an allergist at ENT & Allergy Associates Somerset, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. If they then get into the airways of someone with a significant allergy to that food, this can lead to allergic symptoms. Again, this requires a severe food allergy and its rare, although asthmatics may be at higher risk for this, Purvi Parikh, MD, an allergist/immunologist with Allergy & Asthma Network, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. Its also more likely that someone will experience less severe symptoms like hives, itching and an asthmatic reaction if they breathe in a food allergen, Galowitz says. Story continues Unfortunately, it can be hard to predict who will have a reaction by simply breathing in the smell of a food theyre allergic to, but there are some clues. Some factors that put you at higher risk may include asthma, severity of allergy as measured by a skin or blood test and history of previous anaphylaxis, Parikh says. Olajumoke Fadugba, MD, director of the Allergy and Immunotherapy Fellowship Training Program at Penn Medicine, adds, For most patients, the severity of the reaction depends on how much of the food matter is in the air, and how sensitive that individual is, [but] most people do not develop reactions at all from inhaling food they are allergic to. Fadugba also says its a good idea to wear a medical alert bracelet to let other people know about your allergy in case youre unable to. Simply being aware that this can happen and taking the right precautions is also important, Galowitz says. Foods such as shellfish can more commonly become aerosolized due to their heating processes, she says. This is even more common in a seafood restaurant where large quantities are being prepared and being served steaming hot to the tables. Thats why she recommends her patients with a known severe fish allergy steer clear of seafood restaurants, and avoid cooking fish or shellfish at home. If you or your child happens to have a food allergy this severe, Parikh recommends educating family and friends to take the allergy seriously. She also recommends keeping an epinephrine auto injector like an Epi-Pen available at all times. It should be used immediately and medical evaluation should also be sought, she says. In life threatening allergic reactions, timing is everything and delay in administration of epinephrine can be deadly. Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. Homestays in Madi bring cheer to locals Newly opened homestays in Madi, Chitwan have been seen a spike in the number of visitors, with 11 homestays serving more than 10,000 visitors. Steve Design/Shutterstock January 3, 2019 Last year, a study published in the journal Pediatrics noted that around 5.6 millionor 8% ofchildren in the U.S. have a food allergy. Of the total, around 1.6 million children were allergic to peanuts; 1.4 million to milk; 1 million to shellfish; and 900,000 to tree nuts. A further 600,000 were at risk of being sickened by eggs; 400,000 by fin fish; and the same number by wheat and soy. A recent tragedy out of Brooklyn, New York illustrates how these stats can lead to tragedy. An 11-year-old boy passed away on New Year's Day, and officials suspect the cause was an allergic reaction to the smell of cooking fish. Camron Jean-Pierre was visiting his grandmother in Brooklyn, along with his father Steven, according to the New York Post. The boy's grandmother had been preparing cod, and the fumes caused the pre-teen to be knocked unconscious. It just so happens they was cooking it when we came in, Steven explained to the Post. Usually he dont get nothing that severe. The boy had a known allergy to fish, and his father quickly gave him his portable nebulizer, but he couldnt catch a breath. I [tried] to give him the machinethat usually worksbut it didnt take, and then I just called the ambulance, Steven explained. It felt like he had no pulse. I [tried] to give him CPR, and he came back briefly, but soon slipped away again, the dad recalled. When first responders arrived, they rushed the boy to Brookdale Hospital, but he couldn't be saved. My son was the best, Steve shared. He made everyone around him happy. He made his dad happy. While police are still investigating the definitive cause of Camron's death. Although we tend to think of allergic reactions as stemming from ingestion as opposed to inhalation, the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology warns people with allergies to fish to "Stay out of areas where fish is being cooked, as proteins may be released into the air during cooking." Story continues Parents should also note the following fish allergy symptoms: Hives or a skin rash Nausea, stomach cramps, indigestion, vomiting and/or diarrhea Stuffy or runny nose and/or sneezing Headaches Asthma Anaphylaxis (less common), a potentially life-threatening reaction that impairs breathing and can cause the body to go into shock Purvi Parikh, MD, an adult and pediatric allergist and immunologist with NYU Langone Health and Allergy & Asthma Network, tells Parents.com that inhalation triggering an allergic reaction is "very rare, thankfully, but there have been reported cases. Asthmatics are especially at risk." She recommends that parents abstain from cooking or baking foods that a child may be allergic to. "We cannot predict allergen exposure and every child has different levels of severity," Dr. Parikh says. "If you must, probably best to do in a separate area that is well ventilated and cleaned as reactions from contact/touch also can occur. Also, accidental ingestion and cross contamination is an even bigger risk. Most families I know do not keep the food at home at all for that reason." If an allergic reaction does occur, she recommends using "an epinephrine injector first and foremost, as it is the only medicine that saves lives and timing matters. Do not hesitate to also call 911 for help." 23:46 Amid controversy over a purported audio tape of a Goa minister on the Rafale deal, the state Congress sought to know Thursday why Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has not been replaced despite being unwell for 11 months. Goa Pradesh Congress Committee president Girish Chodankar said when Union minister Arun Jaitley underwent a surgery for kidney transplant last year, his portfolios were temporally assigned to another minister, but Parrikar has continued to head key departments despite not being well. The Bharatiya Janata Party has retained 'critically sick' Parrikar in the chair for almost 11 months, he said and wondered if this has something to do with the information mentioned in the audio tape cited by the main opposition party in the Rafale deal. The Congress had on Wednesday released the audio tape in which Goa minister Vishwajit Rane is purportedly heard telling an unidentified person that Parrikar has Rafale files, due to which, he has managed to continue in the chair. Parrikar, a former Defence minister, and Rane, who quit the Congress and joined the BJP after the 2017 Goa polls, have claimed the tape is 'doctored'. However, speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Chodankar claimed the audio clip is authentic and said the unidentified person in it is a journalist. "That time, we had doubts Parrikar had secret (Rafale) documents due to which he has managed to retain the chair. After the Cabinet meeting - in which the issue was reportedlydiscussed, our doubts were confirmed," he added. Chodankar said there is no doubt that the voice in the clip is that of Rane. "It is very clear that the voice is very much that of Vishwajit. Just to divert the attention they are claiming that it is manufactured in the studio of a Congressman," he said. The GPCC chief was asked about message doing the round that the audio was dubbed in a studio owned by Goa Congress spokesperson Siddhanath Buyao. "There is a confirmation that the discussion about Rafale had happened in the Goa Cabinet. I don't know why the Rafale issue has to be discussed in the state Cabinet," said Chodankar. The Congress leader said the other man in the tape is a journalist, but did not reveal his identity. "There are so many names (of journalists), but I don't know who is he," he said, referring to the journalist named as 'Mr X' in the conversation released by the Congress. Congress spokesperson Jitendra Deshprabhu said 'Mr X' in the tape is a journalist who is not based out of Goa. "Ultimately the truth has to come out. Mr X is not controlled or governed by the Health minister. He is very much a mediaperson like you," he said at the press meet. Deshprabhu declined to name the journalist, saying "If I speak about him then I would be exposing him." The spokesperson also said the audio tape is authentic. "The tape should be examined by the topmost agencies which are neutral. There are many agencies which can do it," Deshprabhu said. -- PTI In July of 1519, in a brazen act that would upend history, Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes ordered his men to sink all but one of the 11 ships they sailed from Cuba to Mexico on a supposed exploratory mission. Nearly 500 years later, the fleets final resting place remains unknown. But members of an international team of underwater archaeologists who are conducting the first modern-day search for the scuttled vessels, as well as 16 others that Cortes sank a year later, have found an anchor that provides the first compelling clue to the location of the lost ships. They made their discovery by combining archival and historical data about Spanish conquistadors and the Aztec empire with the best available science, technology, and local community knowledge to survey the seafloor for remains of his fleet. Cortes had two mutinies to quell from men who wanted to return to Cuba, so scuttling those ships was his way of sealing their fate and forcing their allegiance, said Frederick Fritz Hanselmann, director of underwater archaeology at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. So we know why. But how and where would he do it? Would he just float them offshore and say, Oh the ships are gone? Or would he make an object lesson of it, and do it in plain view? Hanselmann and the other co-directors of the Cortes expedition, Christopher Horrell, research fellow with the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University, Roberto Junco Sanchez, director of underwater archaeology for Mexicos National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), and Melanie Damour, an independent researcher, lean toward the latter scenario. With a grant from the National Geographic Society awarded to Horrell and funding and resources from INAHs underwater archaeology unit, they and their international team of researchers spent six weeks last summer surveying a 30-square-mile area offshore of Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, the first Spanish town which Cortes established in 1519, 50 miles north of the modern-day port city of Veracruz. By towing a magnetometer behind a small boat to detect anomalies on the seafloor, they uncovered a historic anchor with a well-preserved wooden stock. Wood samples from the stock were sent to two different laboratories, and their testing suggest the samples came from a tree felled between 1417 and 1530, the time period of the Age of Exploration and the conquest of Mexico. INAHs Archeobotanical Laboratory also determined that the wood is a type of red oak that may be indigenious to northern Spain, though additional analyses are ongoing. Interestingly, this area includes the Basque region, where the manufacture of iron tools, fasteners, and anchors was common during the 15th through 19th centuries. It wasnt until the mid-1800s that anchors were consistently manufactured with iron stocks, souncovering it was pretty exciting, Hanselmann said. But we have to remain skeptical. As scientists, you have to remain objective and not jump to any conclusions. For now, the anchor remains where its been for centuries. Without the means to analyze and preserve the artifact, the archaeologists followed protocol and reburied it where they found it. Once the team acquires more funding, they plan to recover and conserve the anchor and explore dozens of other anomalies recorded with the magnetometer. As Horrell noted, the well-preserved nature of the anchor stock suggests that other wooden artifacts, including other remains from wooden ships, could be equally well-preserved. The number of targets is promising and requires systematic diver evaluation, excavation, and documentation to either eliminate the anomaly from the list of potential targets or discover a shipwreck associated with the 1519 skuttling event, Horrell said. The most interesting anomalies, which signal various degrees of ferrous, or iron, material hidden below, are clustered together, which could indicate multiple components of a shipwreck site. But it could also be a sunken marine buoy, a lobster trap, fishing tackle, or other marine debris, Hanselmann said. You never know until you go and look. The volcanic geology of the area, which could present challenges by influencing the local magnetic field, also could actually benefit the researchers in the long run. One working hypothesis is that Cortes vessels were stripped of their usable components, then loaded with local rocks to help ensure they sank, Damour said. The magnetic signature of volcanic rocks, clustered in the bottoms of the wooden hulls, may help lead to the fleets discovery. Even more importantly, the ballast would likely have helped to preserve the wooden hull beneath them. In all, the archaeologists are searching for the remains of two fleets of Spanish ships, sunk a year apart. The first: 10 of the 11 original vessels that Cortes and about 500 men sailed to Mexico in April 1519against the direct orders of the governor of Cuba. The second: 16 of the 18 ships Cuban Governor Diego Velazquez dispatched to Mexico a year later with Spanish conquistador Panfilo de Narvaez and 800 soldiers aboard. They had come to arrest Cortes, but after a short skirmish that left Narvaez outmaneuvered and his soldiers eyeing the gold and silver Cortes took from the Aztecs, most of the newcomers willingly joined Cortes rogue mission. Not long after, with his small renegade army and alliances with Aztec enemies, Cortes seized Tenochtitlan and conquered Mexico. The conquest was a very traumatic episode in our history that sparks the imagination of most Mexicans, said Junco. We think of ourselves as heirs to a great prehistoric past that ended with foreign Spaniards. We hope to change the idea that our Spanish roots are foreign, and by looking at the technology of the first ships to sail our waters. In 1891, Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, a prominent Mexican historian and archaeologist, made the first known attempt to locate Cortes fleetwithout, of course, the modern-day technology his successors have today. Utilizing hard-helmet divers, he started underwater archaeology in Mexico and was one of the pioneers in this field of scientific research, Junco said. Believed to have been a combination of lateen and square-sail rigged caravels, little else is known about the vessels. Given that they werent laden with gold or other riches, they havent attracted treasure hunters who scour the seas for Spanish shipwrecks. But to Hanselmann, Horrell, Junco, and Damour, Cortes lost fleet offers a glimpse into the beginning of the conquest that ushered in a new era of globalization, connecting and reshaping different cultures, peoples and nations across time. The conquest of Mexico was a seminal event in human history and these shipwrecks, if we can find them, are symbols of the collision of cultures that led to what most of the Western Hemisphere is today, geopolitically and socially, Hanselmann said. They are tangible connections to the story of our shared past. Added Horrell, Archaeology is all about discovering patterns of human behavior through the material remains people left behind. In this case, the shipwrecks and associated artifacts are the tangible remains that can recast the story of the conquest, providing a greater understanding of how our world has changed through time. Additional expedition support was provided by Marine Magnetics, YETI Coolers, Hypack, Divers Alert Network (DAN), and the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University. Chaudharys oath honour of democracy and peoples mandate: Rajendra Mahato Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal (RJP-N) presidium coordinator Rajendra Mahato has hailed the oath ceremony of Resham Chaudhary as an honour of democracy and peoples mandate. "Armenia" bloc representative: If we win the elections, 5 reservoirs will be built in Armavir Province Armenia 2nd President: You shouldn't expect victory when a deserter becomes Commander-in-Chief Azerbaijan MOD releases list of 2,904 soldiers killed during aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh Biden says Queen Elizabeth II reminded him of his mother Azerbaijan swaps 15 Armenian POWs for maps, another captive gets 20-year in prison, Jun 14 digest Armenia acting PM: Preliminary investigation into case of events of October 27, 1999 has been reopened Azeri MPs to get tested for COVID-19 ahead of Erdogan's visit to Milli Majlis "I Have the Honor" bloc's campaign meeting in Armenia's Vanadzor ends with march Karabakh State Minister receives International Committee of the Red Cross delegation Robert Kocharyan: Armenia has capacities to export electricity Armenia MP: Nikol Pashinyan is lying, he has already handed over main map of mine fields to Azerbaijan Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: I have sufficient grounds to believe that there is chance to re-establish Artsakh Armenia acting PM: I will personally lay down on asphalt those in Avshar village who try to oppress people's will Ex-President Kocharyan: Armenia nuclear plants life should be extended Armenia 2nd President promises to disclose data on number of servicemen who fell in the war Armenia local self-government bodies' representatives visit combat positions along with army colonel One dollar falls below AMD 517 in Armenia Armen Ashotyan: Centrist Democrat International expresses its support to Republican Party of Armenia Armenia former President Kocharyan: At all meetings we are told "Defend the country!" Armenia Parliament Speaker: National Security Service asked for my support, and I expressed my willingness CoE report: 1% of Turkey's population is in prisons Stoltenberg says Georgia will become NATO member, but no specific date has been set EU calls on Armenia, Azerbaijan to reengage in substantiate negotiations under auspices of OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs His Holiness Karekin II, Italy Ambassador discuss Azerbaijani army's encroachments on Armenia's borders Bright Armenia Party leader: All phenomena then criticized by current authorities have had even greater setbacks New York Times: As Biden meeting nears, Erdogan softens his stance Armenia 2nd President gives interview to Russia Today, Sputnik Armenia and RIA Novosti Armenia ombudsman: There are armed Azerbaijan soldiers on Syunik Province roads PACE Rapporteur welcomes release of 15 Armenian POWs Journalist asks Armenia acting PM if members of his team also think he has a mental health problem Russian-Armenian entrepreneur Sergey Hambardzumyan says he supports Armenia 2nd President Armenia official's spokesperson has no comment on controversial phone talk Armenia acting premier on snap parliamentary election day: June 20 is the day for God to speak Armenia acting PM tells children at campaign meeting to chant along with the crowd Stoltenberg says NATO does not intend to start a cold war against China "I have the honor" bloc representative considers coalition with "Armenia" bloc real Tesla to resume selling cars for bitcoins when the cryptocurrency goes green Biden's visit and NATO summit will cause inconveniences to residents of Brussels 8 people hospitalized in Texas after car hitting race spectators Armenia acting PM continues making unjust accusations against Armenian Church, says Holy Etchmiadzin Interior minister: We thank Russia for mediation efforts to stabilize situation in Artsakh (PHOTOS) Etchmiadzin residents greet Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan with chants, doves being released into sky Armenia acting PM: Times of "velvet" are coming to an end Another captive Armenian gets 20-year prison sentence in Azerbaijan Ombudsman: Armenia government should urgently apply to ECHR with interstate complaint Armenia Ararat Province governor mobilizes everyone to attend acting PM's campaign meeting Red Cross chief responds to Armenia Presidents letter Armenia ex-PM supports 2nd President Robert Kocharyan in snap parliamentary election Electoral Rights Watch: Armenia ruling party engages kids in its election campaign (PHOTOS) 41 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia SIPRI reports growth in global nuclear arsenals Bitcoin goes up 10% Biden has been preparing for meeting with Putin for 50 years, Psaki says Coronavirus general symptoms change over time Experts calculate wealth of Queen Elizabeth II Armenia ombudsman: Necessary to stop myopic development of agenda of mutual insult, swearing in public sphere US teen kills 4-year-old child Armenia acting official, city mayors controversial phone talk going viral on Internet Turkey announces, on eve of Biden-Erdogan meeting, possibility of "resolving" S-400 issue Armenia Central Electoral Commission makes decisions on registration of acting PM and ruling party Armenia acting PM holds march in Yerevan district, warns those involved in electoral fraud about consequences "I Have the Honor" bloc leader on Armenia acting PM posting photo of returned POWs Biden says US-Russia relations at low point but were not looking for conflict Armenia 2nd President: I'm certain about opportunities for retrieval of Karabakh's Hadrut Serzh Sargsyan: It's impossible to live normally and be protected in this region without a combat-ready army OSCE/ODIHR presents report on pre-election period in Armenia Armenia ruling Civil Contract Party being campaigned on official page of Vedi Medical Center Armenia 2nd President: We need to punish the authorities, but not with a hammer Who is ripping posters of "Armenia" bloc? Armenia 2nd President states time limits for increasing combat-readiness and recovery of losses "I Have the Honor" bloc: Armenian Public Television's actions show that bloc's rating is growing Erdogan to raise White House's recognition of Armenian Genocide during meeting with Biden Armenia 3rd President visits St. Mary's Church in Gavar after campaign meetings (PHOTOS) Fire breaks out in village of Armenia's Ararat Province Court rules to allow "Armenia" bloc's rally to end at 9 p.m. Armenia 3rd President holds meetings in Gegharkunik Province Armenia Elections Oversight Committee member addresses letter to OSCE/ODIHR regarding Pashinyan's statements Armenia acting PM receives steel hammer as a gift, refers to it as a 'steel mandate' Armenia 2nd President recommends setting up Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora Armenia 2nd President: It is necessary to either ban offices of Soros or set tight restrictions Armenian Public Television and "I Have the Honor" bloc apply to Ombudsman regarding video broadcasting Armenia acting PM: Today there are army generals who have served for over 20 years, but have no apartments Australia, UK and US agree on cooperation Armenia Ombudsman's representatives hold personal talks with 15 Armenian POWs "I Have the Honor" bloc says Armenian authorities might allocate nearly $1.5 mln for electoral bribes "I Have the Honor" bloc: Mass media report that conspiratorial junta is delaying return of Armenian POWs Putin on upcoming meeting with Biden, says it is necessary to establish direct dialogue OSCE Chairperson-in-Office welcomes return of 15 Armenian POWs Georgia MFA: Tbilisi worked for return of Armenian soldiers for 2-3 months Armenia ex-official: Sectors of country's roads will be transferred to Azerbaijan, according to current authorities Armenia Armed Forces' General Staff ex-chief: War won't break out, Azerbaijani army is currently weakened Iran's interior minister: Country's presidential election will be held in full security atmosphere Armenia acting PM to citizens: Opposition was mourning and weeping after return of 15 Armenian POWs Armenia confirms 39 new COVID-19 cases, 3 deaths Armenia 3rd President: I declare that there was no talk about enclaves during my administration Armenia MOD: 2 residents of Syunik Province disoriented, find themselves in Azerbaijani territory Russian MFA Spokesperson on return of 15 Armenian POWs Armenia Central Electoral Commission grants motion to deprive MP candidate of liberty Members of "Armenia" bloc light candles at Haghpat Monastery after campaigning US Secretary of State expresses gratitude to Georgia for its assistance in talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan Wild yeast exists throughout the vineyard and is naturally transported to the winery on the grapes skins to flourish and multiply in the air and on various equipment. Under proper conditions, and left on its own, the complex mix of wild yeast strains can initiate and continue fermentation to dryness. But the process is not always perfect and may require the winemakers skilled intervention along the way. Many winemakers elect to take advantage of wild yeast to begin fermentation and follow with the inoculation of specific cultured strains that take over and finish the process. These specific strains are chosen by the winemaker to better control fermentation and willingly serve to express his stylistic goals. Others let the native yeast fermentation proceed on its own hoping to achieve more complexity and enhanced textural feel even though this tack is a bit riskier and far less predictable. In case the wild yeast fermentation gets stuck or begins to show negative characteristics, the winemaker does have the option of inoculating with cultured yeast, allowing the process to proceed to completion in a more predictable manner. The St. John the Baptist Conference of St. Vincent de Paul in Napa thanks George Altamura and Hands Across the Valley for their generous donation to our annual Thanksgiving Box program. Each Thanksgiving, we provide those in need, mostly families with children, with a Thanksgiving box filled with fresh vegetables, canned goods, and other staples, along with a local supermarket gift card to help with the holiday period. This year, we provided 165 boxes, which were made available just before Thanksgiving. Denis Belletto St. Vincent De Paul St. John the Baptist Conference Browns mayoralty did have one embarrassing episode. After decades at his side, Barzaghis rather strange persona became a liability and in 2004, he was forced to resign from Browns staff, after police had responded a complaint of domestic violence at his home. By then, however, Gust had replaced Barzaghi as Browns top advisor and she and the mayor were married in 2005. Being mayor whetted Browns appetite to resume his political career and the next step on his revival tour would be attorney general a position, he often reminded acquaintances, that his father had held before becoming governor. He was strongly implying that he wanted to follow his father back to the top of California politics. Brown easily bested other candidates to become the states top legal official in 2006 for one largely drama-free term. Its most interesting aspect was Browns stout legal defense of the states death penalty even though he had long been a capital punishment foe. As a young former seminarian, he had beseeched his father to spare kidnapper and rapist Caryl Chessman in 1960 and as governor, he had vetoed a bill to restore the death penalty. ST. HELENA A pivotal mayoral election, an ambitious analysis of the citys aging facilities, the closure of a few beloved St. Helena institutions, and the tragic death of a local mental health professional, wife and mother were among the stories that dominated the pages of the St. Helena Star in 2018. Here are the top 10 St. Helena news stories of 2018, as voted by the Stars staff and editorial board. 1. Ellsworth defeats Galbraith for mayor The mayoral campaign between incumbent Alan Galbraith and City Councilmember Geoff Ellsworth was a study in contrasts worthy of Spock and McCoy: Harvard-educated attorney with a mastery of technical details versus the St. Helena native son who had gained a passionate local following for his big-picture critiques of the effects of winery tourism on the towns quality of life. The campaign revisited some of the same issues raised in last years unsuccessful recall campaign against Galbraith, such as fiscal management and the fairness of the new water rates. Ellsworth vastly outspent Galbraith, with an October filing showing more than $36,000 in expenses and $39,800 in outstanding debts for the Ellsworth campaign, compared with just over $19,000 in campaign expenses for Galbraith. Galbraith led by 16 votes on election night, but Ellsworth gained ground as more ballots were counted, ultimately defeating Galbraith by 59 votes. With Galbraith and his ally Peter White off the council, replaced by Anna Chouteau and a yet-to-be-appointed councilmember, St. Helenas city politics are sure to take on a different flavor in 2019. 2. Terra, Cindys close St. Helena lost two of its favorite restaurants in 2018, a year that saw a wave of restaurant closures throughout Upvalley. The Michelin-starred Terra closed in June, with co-owners Lissa Doumani citing difficulty in finding staff given the high cost of housing in the area. She said the local housing shortage had gotten even worse after the 2017 wildfires, and one cook was commuting 62 miles from Danville in the East Bay. Her concerns were echoed by the owners of other restaurants that called it quits in 2018, from Redd in Yountville to Brannans in Calistoga. Cindys Backstreet Kitchen closed in July after owner Cindy Pawlcyn and her business partner Sean Knight sold the building to restaurateur and winemaker Joel Gott. Sometimes things just come up out of the blue and you have to act, Pawlcyn told the Star, explaining that Gott made her an offer she couldnt pass up. Gott plans to use the former Cindys kitchen to prepare food for Gotts Roadside and a new convenience store at the Napa Valley Petroleum gas station. St. Helena also lost The Big Dipper this year. Once a local favorite at its former location on Oak Avenue, the ice cream shop never found its footing on Main Street and closed in April after 40 years in business under several owners. 3. SHAPE Committee studies city facilities Everybody knew that City Hall was run-down, a few public buildings on Railroad Avenue were underused, and the Adams Street property was vacant. But nobody had ever put those facts together and evaluated the citys options in a comprehensive way. Nobody, that is, until the St. Helena Asset Planning Engagement (SHAPE) Committee came along and spent dozens of hours over seven months analyzing the citys finances and facilities, from Scout Hall to the little Head Start building at Crane Park. The council-appointed committee toyed with some provocative ideas, such as moving City Hall offices into the library and building a hotel on Adams Street. But after the committee released its 117-page report in May, the council endorsed the more conservative option of rebuilding City Hall on its current site as part of a multi-use facility. Consultants are helping the city ponder its next steps, and the council is scheduled to take further action early this year. 4. Housing study warns of shrinking middle class Housing consultant Erica Sklar issued a report in June using statistics to paint a stark portrait of St. Helenas dwindling middle class. The increasing cost of housing and the scarcity of developable land within the city limits are producing a town full of haves, have-nots, and not too many people in between, according to Sklars study. The stats offered a bleak outlook for local workers. St. Helenas median home price of $1.09 million is too expensive for 70 percent of the citys residents. A home of that price would require an income of $215,000, far beyond the citys median income of $86,041. Workers who cant afford to live in town are commuting in and out, creating more traffic and making it harder for businesses to hire qualified workers. 5. St. Helena mom killed in Pathway Home shooting St. Helena resident Jennifer Golick and two of her colleagues were killed on March 9 at The Pathway Home in Yountville by a gunman whod been kicked out of the program that helped returning veterans readjust to civilian life. Golick, 42, was a therapist who had devoted her career to helping soldiers cope with post-traumatic stress. In the days after the shooting, St. Helenans learned that shed also been a mother, wife, friend, runner, San Francisco Giants fan, animal lover, and outspoken advocate for adolescent mental health. More than 200 people participated in a candlelight vigil in her memory. Muir Wood Adolescent and Family Services formed a scholarship in her name, one of the only rays of light to emerge from the years saddest story. 6. SHFD hires full-time firefighters Two years after St. Helenas firefighters became full-time employees, the fire department took another step away from its volunteer model in 2018 by hiring two full-time firefighters, Nick Solakian and Martin Macias. It was becoming harder for the department to depend on quasi-volunteers to drop whatever they were doing and run to the firehouse on a moments notice, a model that had worked for 107 years. More calls for service and a limited number of qualified drivers also contributed to the decision. The hirings could nudge the city further in the direction of a fully professional department. The transition would be expensive, but it might be inevitable. 7. St. Helena Catholic School closes The St. Helena Catholic School closed in June, citing declining enrollment, an increasing number of students relying on tuition assistance, and a lack of wealthy donors whod helped keep the school afloat for 55 years. When the closure was announced in January, parents were initially shell-shocked. But soon they banded together in an all-hands-on-deck effort to save the school, forming committees, raising money, and putting extra effort into the schools annual Seafood Extravaganza to compensate for another fundraiser that had been cancelled due to the 2017 wildfires. Parents thought they had a chance to keep the school alive, but church officials announced in March that the closure was going ahead as planned. The last four eighth-graders graduated in June. 8. General Plan update nears finish line City officials made real progress in 2018 toward finishing St. Helenas next General Plan, a process that had been stuck in neutral ever since the council tabled the plan in 2010. With the help of consultants, the city issued an updated General Plan and a draft environmental impact report in October. Public comments and the citys responses will be incorporated into a final environmental impact report for another round of public hearings and possible adoption in early 2019. 9. City tries to help downtown businesses The proliferation of empty storefronts was a sign that not all was well in downtown St. Helena. The city hired a consultant that made various suggestions about how to help downtown retailers. Most of the recommendations were incorporated into a Downtown Economic Strategy aimed at supporting the citys economic base without sacrificing its quality of life. St. Helena Jingle All the Way, a collaboration between the city at the Chamber of Commerce, brought an ice rink to Lyman Park. The City Council streamlined the permitting process for businesses and started allowing pop-ups, the first steps toward overcoming a widespread perception that St. Helenas city government has been unfriendly to business. 10. Dillon survives election challenge District 3 Supervisor Diane Dillon fended off a challenge from grapegrower Cio Perez during a June election dominated by Measure C. Perez supported Measure C, which would have strengthened stream setbacks and limited the removal of oak woodlands. Dillon stayed neutral on the measure. Dillon won and Measure C lost, but the battle over vineyard development continues. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. American Canyon police say a man broke into an occupied car and stole the driver's purse while she was stopped at a traffic light on Friday. The robbery occurred around 6:45 p.m. at the intersection of American Canyon Road and Silver Oak Trail, police say. A woman was alone in her Honda, waiting to turn into a residential neighborhood across the street from a Walgreens. She heard a loud bang and realized her front passenger seat window was smashed, according to police. The man took her purse and fled in an unknown direction, police say. American Canyon Police Chief Oscar Ortiz said this is the first time police have seen such a "smash and grab" robbery in the area. Similar cases have recently cropped up in other parts of the Bay Area, such as Antioch and Concord. The man would have been arrested on suspicion of committing a felony robbery had he been caught, Ortiz said. 80 pc breathalysers defunct; cant be repaired in country Although the traffic polices anti drunk-driving campaign has been widely praised for helping reduce the number of road accidents in the Valley, 80 percent of the breathalysers that are currently being used are not working properly. Three major insurance companies are suing PG&E over the billions of dollars in claims they expect to face from the Camp Fire. The lawsuits, by Allstate Insurance Co., State Farm and USAA, represent another potentially staggering blow to PG&E, which has already acknowledged that problems occurred on a high-voltage transmission tower near the spot where the fire started Nov. 8. Multiple lawsuits have already been filed by Camp Fire survivors, and the company is under intense scrutiny by Cal Fire, the Public Utilities Commission and federal prosecutors. Cal Fire is investigating and hasnt yet assigned any cause for the Camp Fire. But the insurance companies are laying the blame squarely on Pacific Gas and Electric Co., arguing the company did a poor job of maintaining its power lines, towers and other equipment. Plaintiffs have suffered damages caused by an act or omission of defendants, Allstate said in its lawsuit, filed Dec. 21 in Sacramento Superior Court. State Farms lawsuit accused PG&E of failing to keep the power lines, wires, and and any and all associated equipment in a safe condition at all times to prevent fires. Critical areas of the Arts Master Plan will be implemented, including a free two-week Arts and Science Summer Camp for English Learner students in grades 3-5 in June. It will also allow the district to purchase curriculum materials that are aligned with English Language and English Language Development adoptions through 2025. The arts integration training will be offered to mainstream and specialist teachers, including special education, physical education and teachers working with advanced learners. Some of the grant funds will also benefit after-school arts programs. Increased student engagement leads to deeper learning and better retention in all subjects, including math and English. The arts are a demonstrated way to support and encourage engagement, Neidhoefer said. At NVUSD, the grant will align aspects of the Arts Master Plan with the Districts Strategic Initiatives, including technology expansion (special training will be provided to support technology-infused arts integration) and student wellness initiatives (the annual spring Wellness Conference will feature content on Wellness & the Arts). A search warrant was executed in November at a Coloma Way home in Vallejo, where Majid was renting a room, and authorities subsequently found child pornography images on a laptop in his bedroom court records say. They further located several picture and video series depicting the sexual assault of at least one child on a bed closely resembling Tariq Majids, an affidavit filed in the case says. Majid told investigators he had been sexually molested as a child and was still trying to deal with the pain and trauma, according to the affidavit. The suspect also admitted that photos and a video of two children being molested while apparently unconscious were taken by him and that he told investigators we would locate four or five other such victims, the affidavit states. Multiple other potential victims were located, the affidavit says, and youngsters told detectives that Majid would show up at an apartment complex, visit with kids and choose one kid to spend the night at his place. Majid taught martial arts to some of the children and would always make smoothies for the kids, the affidavit says, adding that investigators found generic Ambien and childrens cold medicine in his home. "What are you doing? You're young. You should be crazy, unhinged. Not in a suit, saying 'I'm here to tell . . .' " C.K. said in the audio clip. "You're not interesting because you went to a high school where kids got shot. Why does that mean I have to listen to you? How does that make you interesting? You didn't get shot. You pushed some fat kid in the way and then, now I gotta listen to you talking?" The bit continued, referring to the February mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 students and staff. "Everybody gets upset when there's a shooting at a high school. I don't really see why it's any worse than anybody else dying. I don't. Cuz a lot of people die, every day 7,500 people die in America, OK, so that day 17 kids got shot in a school. What about the other . . . 7,500 people? They didn't die in their sleep. Some of them got electrocuted. By their parents. People get upset because they're young. Because they died so young. That's offensive to me." Those who survived the Parkland massacre, and parents of those who didn't, quickly slammed C.K.'s routine. Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, criticized the comic in a tweet Monday morning. On the first anniversary of her being laid to rest in Antioch, CA, following her death on November 9, 2017, we remember Eleanor, born and raised in West Pittsburg, CA, the youngest of five children of George and Kate OHara and a member of a pioneering family who settled in the area in 1860. Married to Tom McManus (1908-1998) for 53 years, she made homes in Los Angeles, Altadena, St. Helena, and Pasadena, where she died peacefully, surrounded by family, at age 95. Eleanor worked in the Martinez County Courthouse, at Pasadena City College, and at the St. Helena Christian Brothers Retreat Center, in roles that included managing correspondence, organizing finances, and facilitating general operations. She was appreciated for her precise writing, her keyboard speed, her attention to details, and her welcoming and helpful disposition. She loved travel, baking, waltzing, and assisting friends and neighbors at Vineyard Valley in St. Helena, where she lived for 39 years. She cherished her Irish heritage, her large family, and her God and church, and she constantly expressed pride in and gratitude for God having given her the best family ever. We wish all whose lives she touched much love and peace. American Canyon police say they arrested an ex-felon from Vallejo because he wore a shoelace around his neck with a .40 Glock pistol tied to the end. Police received a report around 2:40 p.m. on Saturday that a man at a park in the 2300 block of Elliot Drive had a gun. Officers found two men, including Michael Bryan Lott, 29, a previously convicted felon, according to a statement from American Canyon Police. Officers found the gun on a shoelace, plus a 22-round magazine and handgun in the car Lott came in, according to the statement. Police say the gun was reported stolen in Vallejo. It was Lott's first arrest in Napa County, according to jail records. Police Chief Oscar Ortiz said he had not seen anyone tie a gun to their neck with a shoelace before. The Napa County District Attorney's Office charged Lott on Wednesday with seven felonies related to carrying ammunition and a concealed, stolen weapon as an ex-felon, court records show. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. by Mathias Hariyadi Shooting breaks out between MIT terror group and police after the latter try to recovery victims remains. Security forces launch a manhunt for Islamist group members, find weapons and explosive material. Jakarta (AsiaNews) The discovery of a decapitated body has revived the nightmare of Islamic terrorism in Poso, in Central Sulawesi. For Indonesias security forces, the Mujahidin Indonesia Timur (East Indonesia Mujahideen, MIT) is responsible for the brutal assassination, which occurred three days ago. The group is linked to the Islamic State (IS). The next day, the terrorists exchanged fire with police, wounding two police officers, when a police detective tried to recover the victim's remains. The dead person was a resident of Salubanga, a village in Parigi Moutong Regency. Meanwhile, Indonesias military and police have launched a manhunt against members of the Islamist group based in Poso, which is led by Ali Kaliora. The military have found weapons and explosive material that belong to MIT, Police spokesman General said Dedi Prasetyo. Since 2016 Indonesian authorities have been involved in Operation Tinombala to track down terror groups in the area. In July 2016, the military killed Santoso, MITs historic leader, better known as Abu Wardah. Two months later, the police announced the capture of his successor, Mohammad Basri. In October, Kalioras wife Tini Susanti Kaduku was also taken into custody. Between 1997 and 2001, Sulawesi and neighbouring Maluku Islands were the scene of a bloody conflict between Protestants and Muslims. Thousands of people fell victim to violence, hundreds of churches and mosques were destroyed, thousands of houses were razed, and almost half a million people became refugees, 25,000 in Poso alone. On 20 December 2001, the two sides signed a truce in Malino (South Sulawesi), thanks to a peace plan sponsored by the government. However, the deal did not stop sporadic episodes of terror. In October 2005, the decapitation by three Islamic extremists of three Christian female students, Alfito Polino, Theresia Morangki and Yarni Sambu, shocked everyone, sparking outrage around the world. In April 2018, Tshwane launched a trial where vehicle and drivers licensing centres started using an online booking system to help schedule renewals for driving licence cards. It was amazing. Available at the Akasia, Waltloo, Centurion, and Bronkhorstspruit licensing centres, the proof of concept operated by The Online Company South Africa worked well, granting priority access to people who made an appointment online. You come in at the appointed time, and within 30 minutes your licence card renewal application was completed. There was a special section of the licensing centre dedicated to those who booked online, while other sections continued to serve walk-in clients. Tshwane licensing centres crippled by thieves The online booking system trial was a welcome reprieve from the drop in service levels seen at licensing centres around Tshwane due to a spate of robberies that crippled the infrastructure at Centurion and Waltloo. Thieves broke into the licensing service centres at Centurion and Waltloo in 2017, taking cameras, computers, and live capture systems. In a separate incident, thieves stole an undisclosed sum of money at Waltloo after assaulting security personnel and officials. An attempted burglary at Akasia was thwarted by the SAPS and Metro Police, however, leading to the arrest of two people. As a result of the thefts, no licence renewals were possible at Centurion or Waltloo for a period. Service levels at Centurion were never quite the same after the robbery. People queued for hours to get their licences renewed, and those who had not started queuing in the morning were frequently turned away. For a time, the online booking system offered a way to avoid the queues until the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) rolled out its own online booking system and pulled the plug on the services The Online Company were offering. New online system and a strike The RTMC issued a press release on 16 August 2018 stating it would launch a national online booking platform for learner and drivers licence tests, and licence renewals. It would roll out to Gauteng first, and then expand to other parts of the country. The current process requires applicants to queue for between 140180 minutes at a testing station. This process is also fraught with corruption as officials at the licensing centres have an incentive to withhold available bookings for lucrative payments from willing applicants, the RTMC said. When it is launched later, the solution will benefit the public by promoting efficient service delivery, removing barriers to access, eliminating fraud and corruption, and optimising business operations. The goal was noble, but given the governments track record with launching ICT systems the alarm bells should have been ringing. Problems with the implementation of the online system were not helped by Tshwanes decision to phase out walk-in clients entirely, and a strike at the Department of Transport. Industrial action at the Driving Licence Card Account (DLCA) in Pretoria, a trading entity of the Department of Transport, resulted in a massive backlog of drivers licences. The strike started in August 2018, the same time the RTMC announced its plans for a national online booking system. Making matters worse was the DLCA was upgrading its systems. We had a strike that went on, but equally at that time we had an upgrade of the production system, and we had taken about three weeks to do that, DLCA CEO Collins Letsoalo said. All of this added up to a surge in demand for temporary drivers licences, which when combined with the renewals process being upended resulted in a very poor customer experience. In the past, if you had let your drivers licence expire, you would apply for your temporary licence when you went in to renew your card. Thanks to Tshwanes decision to only allow online bookings for licence renewals, this is no longer possible. When you went to the new NaTIS portal during December, for example, the Centurion testing station was not an option for booking your renewal. Other stations presented as options included Akasia, Langlaagte, Randburg, and Krugersdorp but appointments were only available in the second week of January. Frustratingly, on the evening of 20 December after I had obtained my temporary licence, it was suddenly possible to book a renewal appointment at Centurion between 4 and 11 January. None of the staff queried at the station on that same day could say when appointment slots would open up again. Stories from the ground While queuing outside the Centurion testing station, I heard stories from several motorists which affirmed that nearly everyone had experienced levels of bad service from Tshwane, the RTMC, or the Department of Transport. Most of the people I asked had their licence expire months ago, and they were only coming to renew it now. Many of them didnt know they had to book online until they arrived at the licensing centre. A handful tried to book online, however, but no dates were available before their licenses expired. A more upsetting story came from a man who was trying to replace all the documents he lost when his vehicle was stolen. He had been at Centurion the day before, but at 13:00 the power went off. When the electricity did not come back on after a while, staff went home. No replacement bookings Another issue with the system was that when licensing centre staff called the names of people who had made appointments to renew their licence, but had not shown up, no one was allowed to take their place. This was thanks to the online booking portal, as the RTMC offered no way to cancel an appointment. The NaTIS site also only allows you to make one appointment at a time. No comment The City of Tshwane was asked to comment on this story, but did not respond by the time of publication. The spokesperson for the RTMC could not be reached for comment. Another year, another government shutdown. Not that we need more evidence, but these events once again show that Washington is broken. The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill to avoid the latest shutdown and fund enhanced border security at a level supported by President Trump and agreed upon by many Democrats as part of broader legislation earlier this year. Following the House vote, I suggested the U.S. Senate take an up or down vote on the bill. If a majority supported it, it would go to President Trumps desk for signature. If not, we would work on another solution. That struck me as a reasonable idea. So, whats the problem? To understand the issue, you have to understand how the Senate works, and more specifically, the misguided Senate filibuster. To pass most legislation in the Senate, you need to get 60 votes, rather than a simple majority. This is what we call the filibuster. The underlying problem with the filibuster is seen clearly in the very broken annual funding process for the federal government. Congress must pass all of the funding bills before the year ends. Over the past 41 years, Congress has only done this four times. Students receive ARCO scholarships Atlantic Richfield Company has awarded $1,500 scholarships to three Montana Tech students after working with university faculty members to design a scholarship program that requires an essay about conservation and sustainability. Environmental engineering and ecological restoration graduate student Augustina Kwesie Osabutey received the Biodiversity Scholarship. Industrial Hygiene graduate student Griffen Warner received the Industrial Hygiene/Health Safety, Security and Environment Scholarship, and Carly Peach, who will begin an interdisciplinary masters program specializing in ecology restoration in the fall, received the restoration scholarship. LDS church changes service hours Starting Sunday, Jan. 6, the Butte 1st and 2nd Wards of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be moving to a two-hour block for church services. Sacrament service for the Butte 1st Ward will start at 9 a.m., with Sunday school, priesthood, relief society, and primary meetings following from 10 to 11 a.m. Sacrament service for the Butte 2nd Ward will start at 10:30 a.m., with Sunday school, priesthood, relief society, and primary meetings following from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Brown hasnt received the crime or arrest data for District 3 yet. But he said in 2019, he wants to focus on assigning crash prevention units out to specific problem areas once a week or every other week, to bring the district back up to full force, as they are down one trooper, and address both intoxicated driving and driving without a seat belt. We want to continue to keep our highways safe, to put out DUI patrols and look for unrestrained drivers, Brown said. Both Brown and Skuletich not only recapped the year in crime, but also talked about the start of Butte crime in 2019: New Years Eve and New Years Day. Between 1 a.m. on Dec 31 and midnight on Jan. 1, Skuletich said there were three DUI arrests made by Montana Highway Patrol, bringing 2019s total arrests to 10. At the start of 2018, there were also three DUI arrests, but roughly 20 total arrests. According to Brown, this year there was an extra team of MHP troopers in Butte over the New Year holiday to help make traffic stops and look for drivers under the influence, a team that travels all over the state to help enforce sober driving and using seat belts. However, he said he thinks there probably would have been more intoxicated drivers out if the temperatures hadnt been so extreme. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 1 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Montana Attorney General Tim Fox knows about criminals but does not have a clue about the legitimate use of opioids. Betty is 88 and has used opioids for over 15 years. Betty will use opioids for the rest of her life. At one time Betty used two different opioids. How does Betty get her opioids each month? First, each month, Betty calls her doctor at least 10 days in advance; two, Betty has to physically go to the doctor's office to pick up the prescription; three, Betty physically takes the prescription to the pharmacy. Betty does not drive and Betty uses a walker when circumstances do not allow her scooter. Betty needs a total ankle replacement. Benefis does not cover this surgery. Betty would have to travel to Missoula or Billings. Betty does not have a support group in either town. Betty has two spinal fusions for her degenerative back disease and may need a third. Betty was discharged from the hospital without any opioids and spent four days without any pain medication. I pleaded with every on-call physician. No one would find her general practitioner to get a refill. Betty is blood tested every 90 days, she is 88. Randall Knowles, Great Falls You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 2 Angry 0 2018 will be remembered as the year that climate change hit home for Americans. Flood-inducing hurricanes battered the Atlantic Coast, unprecedented wildfires ravaged California, and extreme drought hit the Southwest. All these disasters were exacerbated by climate change. Many were killed in these events, and the economic costs will be astronomical. In addition, two separate reports representing the best scientific consensus on climate change were issued late in 2018. The Fourth National Climate Assessment was put out by President Trumps own administration. In short, it says climate change poses a severe threat to Americans' health and pocketbooks, as well as to the countrys infrastructure and natural resources. The global warming of 1.5 degrees C was put out by the International Panel on Climate Change. It warns that we have as few as 12 years to curb greenhouse gas emissions enough to prevent climate catastrophe. Despite this, the Trump administration is in the process of rolling back regulations that limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants, and oil and gas fields. In the face of the threat that climate change poses, this is the definition of crazy. Please let our elected officials know this is unacceptable. America must act now. David Dittloff, Missoula You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 3 Funny 5 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 The people of the Nakoda and Aaniiih Nations in northcentral Montana have a saying about our home. We often say this land is as close to heaven as you are going to get. For many years we have invited visitors to experience Fort Belknap. We have opened our reservation for others to learn our history and explore our water and mountains. We do this because we are proud of where we live and of our culture. Increasing tourism is one solution to bring more sustainable economic opportunities to our communities and build a better future for our children. But honest work takes time. Our reservation shares the same hurdles as other communities on the Hi-Line who are working to promote the Missouri River Country. We are not very close to established visitor destinations and our infrastructure needs work to handle more people. However, Im a great believer there is opportunity for everyone in our region to address these challenges and diversify our collective economy. Now my 10 years BEST OF is on a facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Justacarguyblog/ and nose art of WW2 fighter and bomber planes is on another facebook page and nose art of WW2 fighter and bomber planes is on another facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Nose-Art-WW2-aircraft http://justacarguy.tumblr.com Beautiful women: http://isonlyskindeep.tumblr.com Beautiful women: the best costumes and cosplayers from Comic Con SDCC, including Masquerade Ball http://isurvivedthehallhline.blogspot.com/ http://isurvivedthehallhline.tumblr.com/ advice for my nephew at http://uncles-advice.livejournal.com/ if you like reading, I'm putting together the best I've found in scrapbooks, anthologies, and poetry compilations http://better-than-palgrave.blogspot.com things done at home that make a significant visual or functional improvement http://designandstyleathome.tumblr.com/ andif you like reading, I'm putting together the best I've found in scrapbooks, anthologies, and poetry compilationsthings done at home that make a significant visual or functional improvement the best costumes and cosplayers from Comic Con SDCC, including Masquerade Ball Vehicles:When I can find time, I'm going to put my best photos into a livejournal, the image size is enormousAnd to show what an improvement a moment with photoshop 7 can do for old photos: Like her co-defendant before her, 23-year-old Tiffanie Pierce's attorneys have requested her trial be held in a different district, where the allegations against her aren't as well known to the general public. Pierce has been charged in the killings of Jackson Wiles, 24, and Marilyn Pickett, 15, who police found dismembered and partially dissolved in tubs of chemicals in August 2017. Her co-defendant, Augustus Standingrock, last month pleaded guilty to the fatal stabbing that killed the two in the basement of the home where he and Pierce lived. Standingrock said he stabbed Wiles, then handed the knife to Pierce, who then stabbed Pickett. As part of the plea agreement, which calls for Standingrock to serve a life sentence in prison, he agrees to testify against Pierce. The day before he changed his plea, Standingrock's attorneys requested his trial be held in Yellowstone County. That request was denied. Butte police have not released the name of the 28-year-old man who jumped out of a second-story window on Thursday. As previously reported, the man had brought a 9mm handgun into the Butte-Silver Bow Law Enforcement building, claimed he was in danger, fled to the Synesis7 building across the street, allegedly threatened to shoot anyone without a badge, and fired at least four rounds. No one was injured, except for the suspect, police said. According to Undersheriff George Skuletich, the suspect seriously injured his lower body, breaking his pelvis, an arm and a knee. Skuletich said the man is still in the hospital and may be going into surgery on Wednesday. His name will not be released until charges are filed against him, Skuletich said, which could be up to six weeks as the man is still in St. James Healthcare receiving treatment. Butte-Silver Bow Deputy County Attorney Ann Shea is overseeing this case. She said that as of Wednesday afternoon, she has not had a chance to speak with law enforcement and does not have a timeline for when charges may be filed. President Donald Trump speaks to Gov.-elect Kristi Noem, R-S.D., during a meeting with newly elected governors in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018, in Washington. From left, Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker, D-Ill., Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., Trump, Noem, and Gov.-elect Mike DeWine, R-Ohio. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) In a rush of new appointments days before his inauguration, Governor-elect Ron DeSantis tapped Mark Inch, the former director of the federal bureau of prisons and a retired two-star Army general to lead the Florida Department of Corrections. Inch's appointment marks the first major hire of an agency head who hails from outside Florida. The transition team had previously said they were recruiting out-of-state, but the only picks that had been previously announced were of Florida public officials, lobbyists or business-people. Inch's time as chief of the federal Department of Justice's prison arm was brief. He was appointed by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in August 2017, then resigned unexpectedly in May 2018. The New York Times later reported that Inch told Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein he was tired of the administration flouting departmental norms. And he felt that Sessions largely excluded him from major staffing, budget and policy decisions, according to the Times, in addition to being caught in an ideological war between Sessions and Jared Kushner, who disagreed on criminal justice reform. During his career in the Army, Inch was the commanding general of the Combined Joint Interagency Task Force 435 in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to the transition team's announcement, and he advised senior Army officials on policing, rule of law and detainee operations. When it comes to criminal justice reform, Inch wrote a December op-ed in The Daily Caller in which he supports the federal First Step Act and said that "rehabilitation is an honorable and integral calling of the corrections professional." MONICA HERNDON | Times Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis talks to the media after a campaign stop on October 4, 2018 at the Italian Club in Ybor City, Tampa, Fla. Governor-elect Ron DeSantis' transition team announced Thursday that they were adding two more communications staff members to the administration. Dave Vasquez, an early staffer in DeSantis' campaign who worked as his spokesperson, will be hired as press secretary. Vasquez also worked as a campaign manager for state Rep. Bob Cortes, R-Altamonte Springs. Meredith Beatrice will serve as the administration's deputy communications director. She was the director of communications for the Republican Party of Florida during the 2018 election and previously served in the same role for the Florida Department of State. Both will work under the administration's director of communications, Helen Aguirre Ferre, who served as Trump's White House director of media affairs for two years. Police officers should have more discretion over arresting students in schools, parents whose children were killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas massacre told a panel advising Florida Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis today. "Bureaucrats dont understand policing or police work," said Andrew Pollack, whose daughter, Meadow, was killed in the shooting. "We need to take bureaucrats out of the mix of policing in the schools." Ryan Petty, whose daughter, Alaina, was killed in the Parkland massacre, said the culture around school safety needs to be changed. "We have substituted the judgment of school administrators and educators for law enforcement," Petty said. "We need to stop looking at law enforcement as the enemy. They are part of the solution, and we need to approach it that way." Discussion around massacre in Parkland last year dominated the final meeting of the governor-elect's advisory committee on public safety. Pollack, Petty and others are on the committee, and their experience and recommendations were echoed by officers. Before the shooter carried out his attack, he'd been disciplined in school without being arrested, and the FBI received warnings about him without acting. Jeff Bell, president of the Broward Sheriff's Office Deputies Association, said police officers need more discretion to arrest students. "We need to be unleashed into the schools," he said. The committee will now assemble a report with recommendations to the governor in the next few weeks. Committee Chair Kent Stermon told the Times/Herald after the meeting that of all of the important issues the committee discussed, school safety seemed to him to be the most important. "I also thought its the issue we can come to the quickest consensus on," said Stermon, who is the chief operating officer of Jacksonville-based company Total Military Management. Damien Kelly, the new executive director of the state's Office of Safe Schools, told the panel that nearly $100 million had been awarded to improve the physical security of school buildings, with an average of $27,467 going to each school. All of the grants will be awarded by Jan. 15. The office has also paid out $2.5 million to the 25 sheriff's offices that have agreed to train armed staffers and retired police officers, Kelly said. In total, the sheriffs have requested about $9.3 million for training so far. The Department of Education is also working on a "social media monitoring tool," to help school districts monitor threats against students, employees and schools. The department is already working to contract with Tampa-based Abacode, LLC, to create the tool. @joeflech New year, new faces and titles at Miami City Hall. Mayor Francis Suarez has named a new chairman of the City Commission and hired a new chief of staff. Fresh off his first year in office, which featured a mix of legislative and political wins and losses that included a failed bid to expand his powers by becoming a "strong mayor," Suarez has used one of his few powers to name Commissioner Ken Russell as the new commission chairman. Russell represents District 2 along Miami's coast stretching from Morningside to Coconut Grove. His vice chairman will be Commissioner Willy Gort, who is entering his final year in office representing District 1, which includes Allapattah and Grapeland Heights. This mean Russell, considered a Suarez ally who is running for re-election this year, will control the flow of legislation for Miami's decision-making body and run commission meetings. Russell has served as vice chairman for Commissioner Keon Hardemon, who served as chairman for three years. Russell will hold the gavel as he vies for a second four-year term after dropping his bid for Congress nearly last spring. He already has a challenger Javier Gonzalez, a Coconut Grove real estate agent who ran in 2015. Russell also a war chest. After refunding donors who wanted their money back and donating to nonprofits and other Democratic organizations and campaigns last year, Russell moved $100,000 from his Congressional campaign into a political committee backing his commission campaign, a group called Turn the Page. Two donors complained they never heard from Russell before the transfer, gripes that Russell considered political potshots from folks who've been angered by his votes in the past. The District 2 race could be a lively one. Suarez thanked Hardemon in a memo this week announcing the appointments, saying Hardemon "effectively and efficiently presided over the City Commission." Hardemon, the District 5 commissioner representing Overtown, Liberty City, Wynwood and the Upper Eastside, was known for keeping meetings moving along, thought he drew some critics with the way he organized public comment periods. He held public hearings at the beginning of morning and afternoon sessions during commission meetings instead of allowing comments before votes on individual items. Hardemon developed a reputation for capably steering the sometimes-heated conversation among commissioners without inciting their ire and using his position to make speeches about race relations in Miami. On Wednesday, Russell told the Miami Herald he is not planning on any substantive changes at this point, but he generally wants to work with city staffers to improve the resident experience for those who come to City Hall and wish to address the commission. Suarez also named a new chief of staff: Jeremy Schwarz, an attorney at K&L Gates, Harvard Law graduate and Navy veteran. In other personnel news, city communications director Eugene Ramirez is leaving to join national public affairs and communications firm Kivvit. A former television journalist, Ramirez joined the administration in spring 2018 as a new hire under City Manager Emilio Gonzalez, a Suarez appointee. Ramirez worked with Stephanie Severino, deputy communications director, who has now been promoted to director. Governor-elect Ron DeSantis has named Chad Poppell the new head of the Department of Children and Families, putting the former state workforce agency leader and lobbyist in charge of the long-troubled state's child welfare arm. The Department of Children and Families, which has been led by interim secretary Rebecca Kapusta since September, has in recent years struggled to retain its leaders. Before former secretary Mike Carroll stepped down last fall, he had been the third leader in a year to take over DCFs reins when he was tapped for the role in 2014. That year, a Miami Herald investigation had detailed the deaths of 477 children since 2008, even though their families had dealt with the agency in the past. During Carroll's four-year tenure, the agency continued to deal with several high-profile cases, particularly those involving the deaths of vulnerable children. Poppell, a former secretary of the Department of Management Services, has past experience in state and local government but little in child welfare. He led DMS, which supports other agencies with workforce and business-related functions, until 2017 and previously served as chief of staff in the state's Department of Economic Opportunity. Poppell also worked as director of employee services at JEA, Jacksonville's public electric water and sewer utility, and the City of Jacksonville's chief of human resources, according to a press release from DeSantis' transition team. Former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum with his brother, Marcus, and former lobbyist Adam Corey. A complaint over Andrew Gillum's trips with a lobbyist in 2016 will get a hearing later this month, when state officials will decide whether there is probable cause that the former Tallahassee mayor violated state ethics laws. Gillum, who narrowly lost a bid for Florida governor last year and is now being talked about as a potential 2020 presidential candidate, will be present at the Jan. 25 hearing, his lawyer, Barry Richard, said. "I think its clear that theres no credible evidence that he violated anything," Richard said. If ethics commissioners find probable cause that ethics laws were violated, records in the case become public and commissioners would later determine what Gillum's punishment might be. If commissioners find no probable cause, the case ends and the records also become public. The hearing, which isn't open to the public, was first reported by the Tallahassee Democrat. The complaint revolves around trips then-Mayor Andrew Gillum took with lobbyist Adam Corey and others in 2016, before Gillum launched his bid for governor. Tallahassee businessman Erwin Jackson, who filed the complaint last year, alleged that Gillum received benefits from Corey above the $100 limit during trips to Costa Rica and New York. Gillum has denied the allegations, and he has turned over receipts that he says shows that he paid his own way during the trips. The complaint received little attention, however, until the final two weeks of the election, when Corey's lawyer, former Rick Scott and Charlie Crist advisor Chris Kise, decided to release hundreds of pages of records that he had given to ethics investigators. The records revealed that undercover FBI agents arranged outings for Gillum and his brother in New York, including providing tickets to see the Broadway musical "Hamilton." And they showed that one of the agents sponsored a fundraiser for Gillum in Tallahassee. The extraordinary revelations revealed the lengths FBI agents had gone to investigate Gillum, and they cast new questions about his ties to Corey, whom Gillum described as a friend who'd led him astray. No charges have been brought against Gillum, who has said that FBI agents assured him that he was neither a target nor a subject of the investigation. Jackson, who has long been a thorn in Gillum's side, said he would attend the hearing. Jackson has filed numerous ethics complaints against city officials over the years, including against then-Tallahassee City Commissioner Scott Maddox in 2014. That complaint alleged that Maddox was still involved with his lobbying firm, Governance, Inc., and that he didn't disclose the conflicts when the company had clients before the city. The ethics commission found no probable cause for the allegations, since Maddox had declared he'd sold his interest in the company before running for city commission. But according to the FBI, Jackson was mostly right. Last month, a federal grand jury indicted Maddox on 44 counts, including bribery and racketeering relating to his relationship with Governance while he was in office. Credit: CC0 Public Domain A jagged little protein appears to be key to how cancer stem cells differentiate and enable metastasis, according to researchers at Rice University and the Duke University School of Medicine. Rice scientists who have formed several theories on how cancer grows and spreads connected the dots for a more complete picture of tumor mechanics. At the center, they found JAG1, a ligand, or small protein, that interacts with a signaling pathway critical to regulating the fate of cells. Their new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences backed by experiments at Duke shows how and why some cells differentiate within tumors and how they spread. The researchers led by members of Rice's Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP) extended their models of hybrid epithelial-mesenchymal cancer stem cells that have the ability to not only resist chemotherapy but also band together in small groups and metastasize. Epithelial cells form tissues that line the outer surfaces of organs. Mesenchymal cells are motile cells that are normally involved in such processes as wound repair. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is the process by which epithelial cells become migratory mesenchymal cells. Cancer hijacks this process and becomes most aggressive by stopping it in the middle to form the metastasizing hybrids. The Rice team had already published theories on how cancer stem cells communicate with each other and the outside world by taking control of the notch signaling pathway involved in extracellular signaling, wound healing and embryonic development. In those studies, they discovered how ligands that activate the pathway go rogue to hold migrating cancer cells together and help them attach to connective tissues at new locations. The new work pulls all those hard-won discoveries together into a cohesive picture, with JAG1 as the prime suspect and inflammatory proteins in a supporting role. The Rice researchers led by physicists Jose Onuchic and Herbert Levine also described for the first time how inflammatory proteins, including the cytokine interleukin 6, amplify signals between notch and jagged proteins that support hybrid epithelial-mesenchymal stem cells. "We have a model of EMT, a model of stemness, a model of cancer metabolism and a model of notch-delta," Onuchic said. "In a real system, all these models are coupled. And in this particular case, we show that under stress, jagged's involved in all of them. "The notch-delta pathway creates communication between cells, but things become problematic when the receptor is jagged instead of delta," he said. "We already knew JAG1 was paramount for cells to assume this (hybrid) state where they can send and receive signals and coordinate with other cells to migrate together," said Federico Bocci, co-lead author of the paper and a graduate student at Rice. "And we also knew these molecules correlate to the proliferation potential of cells. "Together, they give us the whole picture of why we believe jagged is a crucial mediator of epithelial-mesenchymal heterogeneity of cells in the tissue and an important player in this metastatic escape," he said. The team at Duke led by Gayathri Devi, an associate professor in surgery and pathology and program director of the Duke Inflammatory Breast Cancer Consortium, saw evidence of heterogeneity in lab experiments on highly aggressive, inflammatory breast cancer cells. "This heterogeneity remains a major roadblock to any clinical advances, because no 'magic bullet' can eradicate all types of cells in a tumor," she said. "Thus after most therapies, a few cells are left unharmed, a scenario that can lead to tumor relapse." Duke graduate student Larisa Gearhart-Serna, co-lead author of the paper, used a novel tumor organoid model of inflammatory breast cancer cells that is enriched with cancer stem cells developed previously in Devi's lab to show that reducing the presence of JAG1 affected the cancer stem-like properties and capacity to proliferate. The work could lead to therapies that track down and destroy those cells. "JAG1 may play crucial roles in regulating this heterogeneity, and inhibiting its levels can significantly curb tumor formation," Devi said. "We are now using these patient-derived tumor organoid models to identify druggable targets in the notch signaling pathway." Bocci said mesenchymal stem cells tend to remain near a tumor's periphery, where they are exposed to the surrounding environment, particularly the suspect inflammatory proteins. Cells in the tumor's interior tend to spread out and become hybrids that are harder for drugs to destroy. "This also highlights the role of jagged as a crucial mediator, connecting all these different axes of tumor progression," Bocci said. Onuchic noted jagged ligands are important to the body's inflammatory system, so reducing their numbers carries risks of its own. "We have learned that when bad things happen and cells are under stress, there's high levels of jagged in the neighborhood," he said. "Any therapy that comes from this work will be related to controlling the level of jagged, but you cannot completely get rid of it because it has beneficial functions." Levine suggested jagged could serve as a target for new diagnostic tools. "There's another aspect to what this work helps us do, and that's to judge whether a tumor is aggressive enough to treat," he said. "There's a lot of literature based on measuring tumors to understand the chances of a person getting a metastatic disease. If we can identify features like jagged that help tell us if a tumor is really aggressive, this will also be an important result." Co-authors of the paper are lab analyst Mariana Ribeiro of Duke; Rice alumni Marcelo Boareto of ETH Zurich and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and Mohit Kumar Jolly, an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Science; and the late Eshel Ben-Jacob, who was a senior investigator at the CTBP. Explore further Cancer cells coordinate to form roving clusters More information: Federico Bocci et al, Toward understanding cancer stem cell heterogeneity in the tumor microenvironment, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2018). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Federico Bocci et al, Toward understanding cancer stem cell heterogeneity in the tumor microenvironment,(2018). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1815345116 Credit: CC0 Public Domain Mayo Clinic researchers and collaborators have shown in mice that obesity increases the level of "zombie" or senescent cells in the brain, and that those cells, in turn, are linked to anxiety. When senolytic drugs are used to clear those cells, the anxious behaviors in the mice dissipate. These findings appear in Cell Metabolism. Senscent cells are just as the name zombie impliessemidormant cells that remain in a given area of the body and, by doing so, impair other functions. Research has shown that they contribute to aspects of aging, from osteoporosis to diabetes and muscle weakness. In this case, researchers knew that obesityin both humans and miceis related to increased anxiety and other emotional issues. Yet the details of that relationship are unclear. Using genetically modified mice and normal mice, the team, which included researchers from the Mayo Clinic Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging and the University of Newcastle, as well as others, determined that the study mice developed more fat cells in the brain area that controls anxiety and they had a significant increase of senescent cells in that region. Clearing the cells with senolytic drugs in the two mouse models resulted in anxious behavior ending; lipid cells in the brain disappearing; and neurogenesis, or normal neurological cell growth, resuming. How do you tell if a mouse has anxiety? A number of scientifically validated tests are used. An anxious mouse tends to avoid open areas in its environment, and tends to move only along the outside walls or corners of its enclosure. Also, anxious mice behave differently in mazes, performing poorly and with hesitation, often not completing the test. After removal of the zombie cells, the mice did much better even though they were still obese. In their paper the authors say, "Our data demonstrating a link between obesity, senescence and anxietylike behavior provide critical support for the potential feasibility of administering senolytics to treat obesity-associated anxietylike behavior, provided that clinical trials validate this approach." They say more preclinical research is needed, as well, to determine which type of senescent cells are responsible and define the mechanism of action more fully. Support for the research came from Cancer Research UK, a Newcastle University Faculty of Medical Sciences Fellowship, The Academy of Medical Sciences, The Connor Group, the National Institutes of Health, the Glenn/American Federation for Aging Research Breakthroughs in Gerontology award, Robert and Theresa Ryan, The Ted Nash Long Life and Noaber Foundations, Regenerative Medicine Minnesota, and Humor the Tumor. Researchers include first author Mikolaj Ogrodnik, Ph.D., and senior authors Diana Jurk, Ph.D., formerly of University of Newcastle and now at Mayo Clinic, and James Kirkland, M.D., Ph.D., of Mayo Clinic. The team also included researchers from Stony Brook University, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, University of Texas Health Sciences Center, and the Near East University, Cyprus. Explore further Zombie cells found in brains of mice prior to cognitive loss Credit: CC0 Public Domain A team of researchers from the University of Washington, the Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense and Texas A&M University has developed a nanoscavenger that is capable of protecting mice against nerve agent attacks. In their paper published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the group explains how they came up with the nanoscavenger and how well it worked during testing. Chemical weapons became infamous during the First World War as armies used them against one another during trench warfare. Since that time, international bodies have tried to convince countries to ban such agents during wartime because of their horrible impact on the human body. That has not deterred terrorist groups or governments such as those in Syria from using them, however. Because of that, scientists have been working diligently to develop a pre-treatment that would protect people exposed to organophosphatesthe deadly component in nerve agents. As part of such research, scientists have attempted to develop what they describe as prophylactic "scavenging" molecules that both track down nerve agent components and then neutralize them. Until now, progress has been slow. Compounds developed have tended to degrade in the body too quickly to be effective. In this new effort, the researchers report that they have developed a nanoscavenger that proved to be effective in protecting rats and guinea pigs. The new nanoscavenger was made by wrapping an enzyme that targets organophosphates in a polymer gel coating. The particles that resulted were nano-sized, which made them small enough to go undetected by the immune system, allowing them to remain in the body long enough to neutralize nerve agents. The researchers report that when they injected rats with the nanoscavenger, it induced immunity to nerve agent attacks for up to five days. And there were no known side effects. Guinea pigs given injections of the nanoscavenger were protected for up to eight days. Such a nanoscavenger could be considered a form of vaccine against organophosphate-based nerve agents if used in humans. But before that can happen, the team will test them in monkeys, and if all goes well, start human trials. Explore further Researcher working on destruction of chemical weapons More information: Peng Zhang et al. Nanoscavenger provides long-term prophylactic protection against nerve agents in rodents, Science Translational Medicine (2019). Journal information: Science Translational Medicine Peng Zhang et al. Nanoscavenger provides long-term prophylactic protection against nerve agents in rodents,(2019). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aau7091 2019 Science X Network Credit: CC0 Public Domain High levels of low-density lipoproteins, parcels of lipids and protein that carry cholesterol, are a leading risk factor for heart disease. Many cholesterol medications lower LDL, some of them by targeting the protein PCSK9. In the January issue of the Journal of Lipid Research, scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, report on an investigation into why experiments on PCSK9 give different results in a test tube and in liver cells. What they found may explain how a mutation in PCSK9 that has long puzzled scientists leads to heart disease. Ordinarily, the LDL receptor on the surface of liver cells is responsible for suctioning low-density lipoprotein out of the blood. But after being torpedoed by PCSK9, LDL receptor is brought into the cells and broken down, making the liver less able to control LDL in the bloodstream. "We have very effective and safe therapies at reducing PCSK9 function," said John Chorba, a cardiologist and researcher at UCSF. Perhaps you've heard of them: Praluent and Repatha are drugs that lower patients' cholesterol by blocking the interaction between PCSK9 and the LDL receptor. "But they're antibody-based approaches," Chorba said, "and are very expensive. Having a more thorough understanding of how PCSK9 works gives us new opportunities to develop drugs which could be more cost-effective." Chorba, who splits his time between lab and clinic, worked with medical student Adri Galvan to better understand the biochemistry of the PCSK9/LDL receptor interaction. In a test tube, LDL particles block the interaction between the LDL receptor and PCSK9. This sounds like a good thing; the more LDL you have in circulation, the more you'd want the LDL receptor to work, and the less you would want PCSK9 to disrupt it. But when Chorba and Galvan repeated the experiment in cells, the results showed that the relationship is a little more complicated. In cells, LDL does not seem to disrupt the interaction as effectively. "That's when we really started to ask, what else is going on with these cells?" Galvan said. "What else is PCSK9 interacting with?" Chorba said, "We thought there must be something (on the cells) that was attenuating that effect." Around the same time that Chorba and Galvan were trying to determine what the mystery interactor might be, a Danish group at Aarhus University published its finding that heparan sulfate proteoglycans, extracellular proteins with a particular sugar chain attached, can help PCSK9 reach the LDL receptor. Chorba and Galvan confirmed that in cells from which that sugar chain had been cleaved, the LDL receptor/PCSK9 interaction on the surface of cells could be disrupted by LDL, similar to what happened in a test tube. This led them to a clue about how a long-known but poorly understood mutant form of PCSK9 might work. It's called the S127R mutation, because it changes the 127th amino acid in PCSK9, serine, into arginine. "S127R was the initial mutation discovered in PCSK9 as a cause of genetic familial hypercholesterolemia, but the way it worked has been unknown for years," Chorba explained. S127R is a head-scratcher because the change in its amino-acid sequence disrupts PCSK9 maturation. You'd expect the change to reduce total PCSK9, which would reduce LDL, and that should be good for carriers of the gene. But instead, the mutant raises LDL cholesterol levels, putting patients at elevated risk of heart disease. Chorba and Galvan found that while removing heparan sugar chains from cultured liver cells affected how the cells' LDL receptors bound to wild-type PCSK9, it affected their interaction with the mutant even more. That suggested that S127R PCSK9 might be interacting more strongly with HSPGand offered a potential way for the mutant PCSK9 to interact more strongly with LDLR. "I would imagine that S127R PCSK9 would be more likely to bind to the surface of (liver cells)," Chorba said. "So the local concentration of PCSK9 would be higher... and it would be more likely to run into an LDL receptor that would get internalized and degraded." It remains to be seen whether this explanation holds up to further experimental scrutiny. If it does, then drugs that disrupt the PCSK9/heparin sulfate proteoglycan interaction, which a spinoff company from Aarhus University, called Draupnir Bio, is working to develop, could be especially effective for people with familial hypercholesterolemia who carry the S127 mutation. Explore further The role of PCSK9 in the pathogenesis of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease More information: Adri M. Galvan et al, Cell-associated heparin-like molecules modulate the ability of LDL to regulate PCSK9 uptake, Journal of Lipid Research (2018). Journal information: Journal of Lipid Research Adri M. Galvan et al, Cell-associated heparin-like molecules modulate the ability of LDL to regulate PCSK9 uptake,(2018). DOI: 10.1194/jlr.M087189 You've heard of "in vitro" (the study of things in test tubes) and "in vivo" (the study of things in a living system). Now meet "in fimo," a new scientific term coined by researchers at the UNC School of Medicine and Notre Dame University to mean "excrement examined experimentally." Their proposal was published in the journal Gastroenterology. Why, you might ask, do we need a scientifically accurate term based in Latin for the study of poop? The answer is quite simple: because so many scientific words are based in Latin and there hasn't been one for the experimental study of excrement, even though the scientific study of human waste is now at the forefront of biomedical research. Our stools can tell us a lot about what's going on inside our gastrointestinal systems because in excrement we find a diverse sampling of the bacteria populating our guts. And all of these microbesscientifically referred to as the microbiotacan be quite important to human health. For instance, when our bacterial composition is out of balance, the results can range from the mildly unpleasant to the wildly serious. There's strong evidence that gut bacteria play important roles in weight gain, eating disorders, cancers, gut diseases, and even autism. Studying these bacteria has become extremely important. Yet, when discussing this work in scientific papers, researchers have not been as accurate in their terminology as scientists are known to be. When Aadra Bhatt, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine at UNC-Chapel Hill, realized the need for a proper term, she set out to find one. But as can happen while digging into Latin, the pursuit of a proper name for the experimental study of poop became soiled with impurities. Bhatt enlisted the help of Luca Grillo, Ph.D., a classics professor at Notre Dame, formerly of UNC-Chapel Hill, to help investigate the Latin roots of the word "manure." Turns out, those pesky Romans had no less than four Latin terms for "manurelaetamen, merda, stercus, and fimus. Bhatt and Grillo traced laetamen to the Latin root laetus, which means "fertile, rich, happy." "For all its cheerful associations with joy," Grillo said. "We had to resist the temptation to use 'in Laetamine' as our term of choice because it seems to have been more related to farm animal dung." Merda also didn't smell right. It's remained unchanged in Romance languages as a reference to poopmerde in French, mierda in Spanish, and merda in Italianpossibly derived from a root word smerd/smord, from which came the Old English derivatives "stinkan" and the current English words of "stink" and "stench." With two terms down the drain, Bhatt researched stercus and fimus. Both are older than laetamen and were never used to refer to stench. Bhatt and Grillo found that the word stercus was used broadly in ancient times, including as a term of abuse. It also seems to share the root word from which "scatology" originated. And scatology refers to "obscene literature." Originally, Romans used the term fimus less than stercus, and fimus seemed to refer strictly to the use of manure in agriculture. But, the key Roman writers Virgil, Livy, and Tacitus used fimus and never stercus. "Fimus, then, with its technical accuracy and literary ring made us opt for "in fimo" as our scientific term of choice for the experimental examination of excrement," Bhatt said. Sticks in the mud of modernity might ask, "why not just use 'fecal' or 'in feco?'" Because both are wrong. Grillo said, "Faex never meant "excrement" in Latin, and its derivative, 'feces,' did not enter English usage until the 17th century, when it first referred to the dregs at the bottom of a wine cask or other storage vessels." And so, Bhatt and colleaguesincluding UNC co-author Matthew Redinbo, Ph.D. - have been using "fimus" and "in fimo" at international academic conferences to rave reviews. They are quite aware of the whimsical nature of this work. Therefore, just as some scientists have fun with their naming of model organismssuch as "Dumpy" for a mutant model of the classic worm C. elegans - Bhatt and colleagues have devised a playful term for the active enzymes they extract from their in fimo samples: poopernatant. Explore further Latin may help students bridge their native language with English More information: Aadra P. Bhatt et al, "In Fimo": A Term Proposed for Excrement Examined Experimentally, Gastroenterology (2018). Journal information: Gastroenterology Aadra P. Bhatt et al, "In Fimo": A Term Proposed for Excrement Examined Experimentally,(2018). DOI: 10.1053/j.gastro.2018.11.070 Credit: CC0 Public Domain Psychiatric disorders share common alterations of functional connectivity between three core brain networks involved in cognition, according to a meta-analysis published in Biological Psychiatry. The network alterations were localized in brain regions underlying general cognitive performance. The study suggests that the alterations in these networks contribute to the cognitive dysfunction present in multiple psychiatric disorders. The alterations in functional connectivity, which emerged from a meta-analysis of 242 functional brain imaging studies in people with a variety of psychiatric disorders, were found in the three large-scale networks considered to be particularly important for complex cognitionthe default mode network; frontoparietal network; and the salience network. Further, analysis of 363 structural brain imaging studies revealed reduced gray matter that was confined to the altered networks, tightly linking structural and functional alterations. Importantly, the study provides the first evidence from a meta-analysis of common functional connectivity alterations in neurocognitive networks across psychiatric disorders. "This new knowledge calls for studying brain-based diagnostic biomarkers of psychiatric disorders that are beyond traditional diagnostic boundaries," said senior author Yong He, Ph.D., Beijing Normal University, China. Although psychiatric illnesses are considered to be distinct disorders, cognitive dysfunction appears in most of them. This overlap of symptoms across psychiatric disorders has been a major challenge to precisely categorize patients. Although enormous progress has been made in characterizing the neural correlates of diagnoses and symptoms over the past 25 years, neuroimaging biomarkers have yet to contribute to the psychiatric diagnostic process. "Dr. He and colleagues provide an important clue as to why neuroimaging diagnostic biomarkers have made limited progress," said John Krystal, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry. "This finding pushes us to rethink the potential role of neuroimaging in the diagnostic process." The shared neurocognitive network alterations suggest that neuroimaging may be providing a measure of symptom-related pathology not directly related to the disease process. This could pose a problem, as the study of psychiatric disorderswhich are defined by collections of symptomsis primarily limited to the study of behaviors. It is possible that disease-specific elements of biology exist, but the similarity between disorders in this study indicate that greater efforts may be needed to adjust for common elements of pathology in the search for "disease-specific" biomarkers. Explore further Alterations in brain networks explain why some children are resilient to maltreatment More information: Zhiqiang Sha et al, Common Dysfunction of Large-Scale Neurocognitive Networks Across Psychiatric Disorders, Biological Psychiatry (2018). Journal information: Biological Psychiatry Zhiqiang Sha et al, Common Dysfunction of Large-Scale Neurocognitive Networks Across Psychiatric Disorders,(2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2018.11.011 Thyroid cancer is the most rapidly increasing cancer diagnosis in the United States. While surgeries to remove all or part of the thyroid are the most common treatment, there has been debate about the risks to the patient, how common those risks are, and how to prevent them. In a new retrospective study, researchers at Jefferson (Philadelphia University + Thomas Jefferson University) looked at the number of patients who were readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of their thyroid surgery for cancer and other diagnoses, in the most comprehensive analysis of this question to date. "The information we gleaned is directly applicable to patient care, and suggests more careful immediate follow-up for patients at high risk for side effects and complications of surgery," said Alliric Willis, MD, Associate Professor of Surgery and Co-Director of the Jefferson Thyroid and Parathyroid Center. "Surgical thyroid removal is generally a safe operation. However, the side effects of thyroid surgery can be severe enough that patients end up seeking immediate medical attention and needing readmission to the hospital for treatment. Our study demonstrates that this happens more frequently than one might think. It also identifies the risk factors that can be addressed to prevent these readmissions." The study was recently published in the journal Surgery. A small percentage of patients can develop side effects and symptoms that include tingling in the fingers that can progress to tremors, and spasms in all muscles of the body, including the heart, and muscles surrounding the lungs. Although other side effects can also occur, low calcium levels or hypocalcemia, as the condition is called, is the most common and usually caused by damage or removal of the parathyroid glands, which control calcium metabolism and regulate other hormones. The condition can be treated with oral calcium. Using the 2014 Nationwide Readmissions Database, the researchers examined records of 22,654 patients who had surgery to remove all or part of the thyroid gland in 2014 because of cancer, goiter, or overactive thyroid. They found that of these, 990 or four percent were readmitted to the hospital within 30 days, the majority of whom returned within a week. Twenty five percent returned within two days. "Although four percent is less than estimates from earlier, smaller studies, it still amounts to nearly a thousand patients per year whose symptoms are severe enough to seek immediate medical attention and need admission to the hospital," said first author Arturo J. Rios-Diaz, MD, a Jefferson surgical resident. Dr. Willis and colleagues also looked at the characteristics of patients who were at highest risk for readmission to the hospital. They noted that those with Medicare and Medicaid insurance were more likely to be readmitted , as well as those patients who had a low calcium level measured before discharge after surgery, and patients who stayed in the hospital for two days or more after surgery. "Although the standard treatment for hypocalcemia is simple, patients have to be able to get their medications after discharge from their surgery. Patients on Medicaid and Medicare could find it financially or logistically difficult to obtain the treatment before the symptoms begin and worsen," says Dr. Willis. The research points to clear interventions that could reduce the number of patients experiencing serious side effects at home. "One solution is to follow up on patients using telehealth in the days immediately after surgery when patients are most at risk for developing hypocalcemia symptoms," said Dr. Willis. Explore further One in five readmitted after head, neck cancer reconstruction More information: Arturo J. Rios-Diaz et al, Understanding nationwide readmissions after thyroid surgery, Surgery (2018). Journal information: Surgery Arturo J. Rios-Diaz et al, Understanding nationwide readmissions after thyroid surgery,(2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.surg.2018.09.007 As Idaho faces a $500 million request to expand prisons that primarily house drug offenders, and ranks in the top three states in America for portion of the population in prison, we can no longer afford to ignore the simple truth: mass incarceration is a costly and ineffective way to deal with drug abuse. Reforming Idahos mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug offenders is the most obvious place to start, as it will not only save taxpayers money but also improve the quality of justice. Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey just made headlines for their bipartisan bill reforming harsh mandatory minimum sentences for federal drug offenders. Some of us here in Idaho have been working across party lines supporting this long-overdue reform at the state level for years, and it may finally happen in the 2019 session. Mandatory minimum sentences right now are absolute. Idahos drug trafficking laws do not require actual selling merely possession of specified drug amounts. Therefore, even if you have no prior record and arent selling drugs, you can be guilty of drug trafficking and automatically get one to 30 years in prison, depending solely on volume and type of drugs involved. Period. The judge has no ability to look at the circumstances or individuals involved. Originally posted on IdahoEdNews.org on Jan. 2. BOISE When state lawmakers open the 2019 legislative session on Monday they will be facing budget uncertainties that they havent seen in several years. Through the first five months of the states current budget year, state revenues are lagging behind projections by $62.9 million, according to the Division of Financial Management and Legislative Services Office. Whats more, actual revenue is $27.2 million behind where it was at the same point a year ago. The problem is weaker-than-expected income tax collections. But regardless of the cause, the revenue situation is likely to breed caution in the budget-setting process. Its cause for caution, said Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, the House vice chairwoman of the Legislatures joint budget committee. Sales and corporate tax revenues are up, but personal income tax revenues are down. Its a challenging trend that will make this year particularly difficult to predict revenue upon which to base a budget. A new year is upon us, which means new is in style. New habits. New gym memberships. New hairstyles. A whole new you! Im all for setting goals and trying new things especially when it comes to fishing. With that in mind, here are some ideas for a fun year of fishing in 2019. I invite you to try them along with me! Fish with new people: You can never have too many fishing buddies. Its fun to get to know new people out on the water, and each fishing partner brings a new set of experiences. My newest fishing buddy, Bryce, is a diehard angler and amateur comedian who has been showing me the ropes on catching sturgeon in the Snake River. See, it pays to make new friends! Fish in new places: Theres something special about fishing new waters for the first time the excitement is addicting! There are so many rivers, lakes, streams and ponds in Idaho, it shouldnt be hard to find a new fishing hole. Its also fun to test waters outside of the Gem State. In 2018, I caught my biggest bass of the year at Owyhee Reservoir in Oregon and tangled with Coho and Chinook Salmon on the Puget Sound in Washington. The next time you take a trip, remember to bring your tackle! BURLEY A Heyburn man has been charged with possessing child pornography. John Russell Godfrey, 51, was arraigned on five felony counts of possession of child sexually exploitative materials on Wednesday in Cassia County Magistrate Court. Godfrey was charged after officers from the Idaho Attorney Generals Internet Crimes Against Children unit received a cyber tip about Godfrey, according to court documents. Officers spoke with Godfrey at the probation and parole office in Burley. Godfrey was sentenced in 2009 on a charge of lewd conduct with a minor child under the age of 16. Godfrey cooperated with the officers, giving them the codes to his cellphone and a tablet that was at his house after giving them consent to search the devices. He told officers that someone had been sending him pictures, which he had been trying to get rid of, but later said the officers would find child pornography in a gallery on his phone. He also admitted that he had been on the internet and had social media apps, which are prohibited by his probation terms. The officers found pornographic photos of girls ages 8 to 15 in his possession. A preliminary hearing in the case is set at 9 a.m. Jan. 11 in Cassia County Magistrate Court. Love 0 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 19 "If we continue on the path we've seen for crude oil, we'd see a lot of job losses," said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service. Gas prices are down sharply Cheap oil and gasoline prices are no longer a slam-dunk positive for the American economy. That's because the United States is both the largest consumer and producer of oil. "When the president calls for lower oil prices, he's ignoring the new reality," Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote to clients in a November report. Yet Trump tweeted twice within the span of an hour on New Year's Day celebrating the benefits of cheap gas. "Do you think it's just luck that gas prices are so low, and falling? Low gas prices are like another Tax Cut!" Trump said on Twitter. He's right that gas prices are low. The average gallon of regular gasoline fetched $2.25 on Wednesday, down from $2.47 a month ago and $2.49 a year ago, according to AAA. Nine US states, including Texas, Ohio and Missouri, are currently enjoying average prices below $2 a gallon. A one-block stretch of East Doty Street will be down to one traffic lane Friday so work can continue on the Judge Doyle Square project. The Madison Traffic Engineering Division said East Doty Street will be narrowed between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and South Pinckney Street, from 6 a.m. to about 3 p.m. Contractor JP Cullen is doing a large concrete pour for the project, and needs the space for the work. The pedestrian walkway adjacent to the work site on East Doty Street will also be closed during the concrete pour. Flaggers from the construction company will help pedestrians crossing East Doty Street at South Pinckney Street. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Americans have grown all too familiar with the horror of school shootings. One of the worst ever, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, left 17 dead and provoked the state to tighten its gun laws. The tragedy and others like it have given parents cause to worry when they send their kids to school. But mass shootings in schools are rare events. Whats more common is the daily danger from bullying, threats and violence that many students (and even teachers) face from disruptive students. This problem is far less lethal but can cause psychological as well as physical injury, not to mention its corrosive effect on learning. After the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, President Donald Trump empaneled a federal commission on school safety. In late December, it issued a report stressing the need for the federal government to help local school districts address their respective discipline issues rather than dictating one-size-fits-all solutions. One of the chief recommendations was to revoke the previous administrations guidance on racial differences in school discipline which this commission judged to be attacking the wrong problem in the wrong way. Madison mayoral hopeful Toriana Pettaway is describing as some White Supremacy BS a finding by the city clerks office that she fell two signatures short on her nominating petitions and is therefore ineligible to appear on the April 2 ballot. In an email Wednesday night to Pettaways campaign, certified municipal clerk Eric Christianson said she had collected 198 of the 200 valid signatures she needed. I am being told I cant run for Mayor, Pettaway, the citys racial equity coordinator, said in a Thursday email to the clerks office and local media. Do to being Short two signatures on the Nomination Sheets. I am reviewing them now. Always some White Supremacy BS. Pettaway was one of six people to submit nominating petitions and other paperwork by Wednesdays 5 p.m. deadline to run for the office. A primary to whittle the race to two finalists will be held Feb. 19. Christianson said Pettaway submitted a total of 217 signatures, but 18 of them were from people who dont live in the city, and one was not dated. The undated one can have a date added within three days and be considered valid, he said, but that would still leave Pettaway one signature short of the statutorily required 200. Hart: Madison deserves leadership and accountability in a climate of growing political change and necessity, as we both expand outwards and reflect inwards. Its the responsibility of active and concerned citizens to participate in local politics, not only through voting, but by seeking office as an effective platform for discussion and leadership. Im not motivated by a political career but by an honest wish to affect change in our city. Pettaway: I love and know our community. After 25 years I have seen no change in the disparities for all residents. Actually, the disparities are worse for many of our residents. With a divine vision backed by 20 years of government experience from my career in the state and city, I am the catalyst for equitable prosperity. Rhodes-Conway: My time serving Madison on the City Council taught me how to get things done. My experience working with cities around the country on affordable housing, transportation, equity, climate change responses and more has helped me see a vision of what Madison can be. It is that experience and vision that make me the best choice to be the next mayor of Madison. There was some confusion when we tried to get our appetizer order, which had not yet arrived, transferred to the table. And it irritated our young waitress. Halfway through the meal she warmed to us, and us to her. The pricey cheese curds ($10), uniformly small with bits of jalapeno in the breading, made a good case for always adding jalapenos to fried cheese curds. They were served with a ranch dipping sauce. The four slim walleye fingers ($10) had a light cornmeal crust and were moist and tender inside. They came on top of a pile of great, greasy onion strings, with chipotle ranch on the side. It pays to go during happy hour when both the curds and the fingers, as well as selected other appetizers, are half price. Happy hour is every day, including Friday and Saturday night, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. to midnight. Its also $3 for many drinks at that time. Looking over the menu later, I discovered that the restaurant has a vast and intriguing list of appetizers, with plenty of options that arent deep fried. Now, Im curious about the Brussels sprouts tossed with grated Parmesan, jalapeno bacon, balsamic drizzle and garlic; strawberry mango salsa; Sloppy Jack sliders; as well as a couple of other fried items the mini tater tot hot dish; and the spicy breaded cauliflower. Art and intrigue make scheming bedfellows in the latest novel by B.A. Shapiro, master of the "historical art thriller." This time she takes on the 1920s art world as post-Impressionism is taking hold. The shape-shifting Cubists and color-crazed Fauvists are captivating Paris, and Gertrude Stein presides over soirees with Picasso and Matisse. Into this world steps Vivienne Gregsby, a young woman reeling from a disastrous engagement to a con man who cost her family their fortune and art collection. She appears to catch a break when American tycoon Edwin Bradley hires her to help him assemble an art collection for a museum in Philadelphia. Then her ex-fiance con artist reappears. George - or is it Benjamin, or Ashton, or Ivan? - wants her back for his next escapade. She wants her family's collection back - and revenge. Their sparring takes a darker turn when Vivienne's boss dies in suspicious circumstances. By the end of 1959, it was clear to many families that the revolution meant to change Cuba in a way that was contrary to their interests and way of life. As 1960 unfolded, there was only one alternative for us: leave the country and seek refuge in the USA until the Americans would figure out what to do about Castro. It is amazing to think that all of this happened in a period of two years! On Jan. 3, 1961, the U.S. broke diplomatic relations with Cuba and soon thereafter came the Bay of Pigs invasion, an event in which my older brother and many of his contemporaries took part. The tension between our countries only rose after that and culminated in the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union nearly came to nuclear war. It was about that time that our current policy of embargo and isolation of Cuba was put in place. With very few modifications over the next 56 years, this policy now requiring an act of Congress to end has become the standard of U.S.-Cuba relations, creating a web of regulations and issues that affect the lives of all Cubans and an increasing number of Americans who wish to have a normal relationship with our island neighbor. At these three events, which included breakout sessions on a variety of topics, the keynote speakers were Arno Arr Michaelis IV (a former white supremacist) and Pardeep Kaleka (son of an Oak Creek Sikh Temple shooting victim). Both serve on our advisory board. Pardeep lost his father in the Aug. 5, 2012, Sikh Temple shooting. The shooter belonged to a gang that Arno started in the late 1980s. Ultimately Arno and Pardeep became good family friends and started an organization called Serve 2 Unite, which works with students to create inclusive, compassionate and nonviolent climates in their schools and communities. They share their powerful real-life story that resonates with students, teachers, administrators and community members at large. Our local media plays a key role in promoting and covering our events a key to our success. While our organization is very young (only 2 years old), we are already having an impact, particularly on our youth. This is what one of the principals of a high school said: Thank you again for making today possible! The students got so much from the assembly and talked all day about the positive messages they took away. I heard multiple times that you all were the best speakers theyve ever heard. It wouldnt have happened without you. We appreciate all of your efforts! We cant thank you enough. The students are still talking about it and the impact it had on them. Even parents are emailing about what a wonderful opportunity our school provided to our community. Population growth is at an 80-year-low, notes Democurmudgeon blogger John Peterson. He claims that Republican policies, both Trump's and Scott Walker's, are making labor-shortage matters worse. He lists four examples of why that's so, including Scott Walker's pro-business but anti-labor terms in office. Set aside the b.s. that Scott Walker is claiming to be his legacy, says Political Environment blogger James Rowen, and focus on the b.s. that Wisconsin citizens have been required to drink. Walker -- and his colleagues Robin Vos and Scott Fitzgerald -- are responsible for the brown water that's been bubbling up around the state, thanks to their lax protection of the state's water. he says. Madison Mayor Paul Soglin is offering a major change to the Judge Doyle Square project that would return the development rights of one downtown block back to the city. The city and its Chicago-based development partner, Beitler Real Estate, are redeveloping two blocks downtown in an effort to replace the aging municipal Government East Garage located on Block 105 and bring a hotel, apartments, and retail and commercial space to Block 88, which also holds the Madison Municipal Building. The city is currently building an underground municipal parking garage on Block 88. When that is complete, the Government East Garage will be demolished and Beitler will take over development of the Block 105 property. Madison and Beitler have disagreed over the terms of the development and have been working to come to an agreement following a lawsuit the developer filed and later dropped over a portion of the Block 88 structure known as the podium. The City Council has not favored previous attempts at a resolution with some alders expressing concerns over the Block 88 development rights. My main focus is to try and negotiate an agreement that is acceptable to Mr. Beitler and his organization, acceptable to a majority of the City Council and is in the best interest to the city of Madison, Soglin said. With three of the seven seats on the Madison School Board up for an election in 2019, Wednesday's filing deadline brought some new candidates into the mix. Each seat is contested and will include a primary election on Feb. 19 before the April 2 general election. Candidates seeking a seat on the School Board had to file all of their paperwork to the City Clerk's office by 5 p.m. Wednesday to make it on the ballot. Officials are still in the process of verifying signatures for some candidates, but the list of people who have entered the race is now at ten. Several candidates announced their campaigns in the past week. Seat 3 The Seat 3 race is set to usher in a new School Board member after Dean Loumos, the incumbent, announced last month that he would not seek re-election. Three candidates are running to be the new face of Seat 3. Drummond would ostensibly be the villain of any other Western, but Fuller presents her as a complex character, ruthless because a woman has to be to survive in the mans world of the frontier. Jessica has a big soft spot her sociopathic younger brother Brockie, who drinks and fights and lets his older sister mop up after him. Things come to a head when a new Marshal, Griff Bonnell (Barry Sullivan), rides into town with his brothers Wes and Chico. The Bonnell brothers are there to arrest one of Jessicas lieutenants, but quickly run afoul of Brockie. Much of Forty Guns follows the escalation between the Bonnells and Jessicas men, including a beautifully-constructed ambush sequence that Fuller builds out of a series of repeated shots, each one revealing new information. Unexpectedly, Griff and Jessica fall for each other. Fuller is rather tender in showing how these two middle-aged people, each with pasts theyd rather forget, try to overcome their suspicions of each other. But their young, rash underlings threaten their last chance at happiness together, making Forty Guns something of a tragedy as circumstances maneuver Griff and Jessica towards a confrontation. Growth in China last year is set to be the weakest since 1990. The world's second largest economy is feeling the effects of a darkening trade outlook and government attempts to rein in risky lending after a rapid rise in debt levels. "While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China," Cook wrote in his letter. Trade tensions The company's China problems have been magnified by an ongoing trade war with the United States. Cook told CNBC that trade tensions between the two economic heavyweights are putting "additional pressure on their economy." "As the climate of mounting uncertainty weighed on financial markets, the effects appeared to reach consumers as well, with traffic to our retail stores and our channel partners in China declining as the quarter progressed," Cook added in his letter. He said China's smartphone market is feeling a particularly tight squeeze. A ripple effect The court found the mesothelioma law was not a retrospective law merely because it related to prior facts or transactions and the familys claim was valid. Peter Joy, a Washington University law professor, said it was not clear how that pertained to the Proposition Z issue. Assuming there isnt any clear expression of the legislative intent, Joy said, this could go either way in the courts. Derek Rose, an attorney with Bryan Cave who specializes in federal and state tax controversy matters, said it wasnt clear to him either. I suspect that both sides are taking their positions because its not well- defined, he said. Legally, we have a question that is not clear. Council Chairman Sam Page, who voted in favor of putting the question on the ballot, sharply criticized Krane on Wednesday for failing to foresee such problems. The council has complained for two years that Krane, who reports to Stenger, does not adequately represent the council. St. Louis County voters rejected in August a charter amendment that would have allowed the council to hire its own lawyers. Ruth Laws was struggling financially even before her two granddaughters were orphaned by the murder of an Olivette couple a month ago. She was devastated by the unsolved murders of Michele Laws, 43, and her boyfriend, Igor Zhukov, 47, but crime victims and their families dont just face emotional challenges. Ruth Laws, 75 and legally blind, already had custody of her grandchildren, 9 and 13, but now must raise them without help from their parents. And she needed to pay for her daughters funeral. For assistance, Laws has turned to the states Crime Victims Compensation Program, which may cover as much as $5,000 for her daughters funeral. Zhukovs family is doing the same. It would be nice to get some help with the finances, Laws said. Im very grateful that this is available for victims. It helps with the funerals. If any money is left over, it can help with the welfare of the children. All of this is extra in our life that we didnt program our lives for. A new law meant to make it easier for Missouri crime victims to get help from the fund appears to be working for people like Laws, advocates say. Missouris Crime Victims Compensation Program was set up to help pay for things like medical and counseling expenses for the survivors of crime or up to $5,000 for funeral expenses for murder victims. It will also cover lost wages for a period of time. Fines from state and federal offenders pay for the program, which is run by the state Department of Public Safety. Of 1,700 applications last fiscal year, Missouri approved 892 and issued more than $5.1 million, according to Mike OConnell, spokesman for the Department of Public Safety. Victims can get a maximum of $25,000 for eligible crime-related expenses, though the money only covers costs not covered by insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, restitution and civil suits. Fewer hoops A few months after the legislative overhaul of the program, it is noticeably easier for victims to request aid, Katie Dalton recently told the Associated Press. Dalton volunteers and is director of programs at the Crime Victim Center, a St. Louis group that helps victims apply for such aid. The fund formerly came with significant red tape, she said. The hoops victims had to jump through, on top of the trauma of dwelling on the crimes, sometimes led them to drop their applications. Theyll get frustrated and they get confused by all the different people calling them and what they need, Dalton told the Associated Press. So they either get denied because they stopped contacting Crime Victims Compensation or because theyve then said, Im done, I dont want to complete this form. Cemeteries and funeral homes sometimes offer to pursue the funds, with mixed results. Some have learned after the funeral bills come due that paperwork was never submitted and deadlines have passed. Before the changes took effect in August, victims had to submit a notarized application to receive aid. Theyd need to send in official documents and medical paperwork by mail, and hospitals and other physicians were not allowed to do so on their behalf. Furthermore, they were required to report crimes to police within 48 hours and to cooperate with prosecutions that might not occur until years later. It could take as long as six months for victims to receive financial help, but Dalton said the revamped process has already shaved off time and made it easier for applicants to follow through on their requests. The law also expanded eligibility, according to Colleen Coble, CEO of the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. Previously, those with recent, serious felony records could be denied aid, she said. Not everyone had problems under the old system. Maria Miller, 41, of Maryland Heights, was able to get money from the program to help pay for the burial of her son, Courtney Williams, 21, of Jennings. Williams was shot in the head while driving on Dec. 24, 2014. A funeral home helped Maria Miller fill out the paperwork. The fund helped pay for her sons funeral and headstone, and she received some grief counseling. That money came back right on time, she said. It took a huge burden off of me, Miller said. But her own mother struggled getting help after two other murders in the extended family the same year. Gloria Miller, 58, of Pagedale, said she hoped to get help burying her son, Harrol Berry, 23, after he was found shot to death in St. Louis on Nov. 25, 2014. Her window to apply for funds expired. She says a cemetery employee offered to fill out the paperwork for her but failed to do it. She learned too late that the application had never been submitted. She took two jobs and was able to save enough for a marker for Berry. She is still saving to pay for a marker for another son, who was killed in prison by other inmates while serving life sentences for murder. Families of people victimized while in prison werent eligible for aid previously and arent under the changed law. Meanwhile, Laws is hoping to get help more quickly and with fewer headaches than some in the past. After the death of her daughter in the double homicide, Laws called the Crime Victims Compensation Program and explained her situation. She was quickly emailed forms to fill out and got someone to help her with them. I was grateful for that, she said. I hated that I am eligible for this. I hate that I am a crime victim and that I would be eligible for such a benefit. The Associated Press contributed to this report. A message from David Nicklaus Want to stay smart about what's happening in St. Louis? Make a modest investment in a Post-Dispatch subscription and I'll tell you how developments around the world affect local businesses big and small. Intro subscription rate: Just $1 for 6 months Shake off your afternoon slump with the oft-shared and offbeat news of the day, hand-brewed by our online news editors. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Helaine Fendelman and Joe Rosson have written a number of books on antiques. Do you have an item youd like to know more about? Contact them at Joe Rosson, 2504 Seymour Ave., Knoxville, TN 37917, or email them at treasures@knology.net. If youd like your question to be considered for their column, please include a high-resolution photo of the subject, which must be in focus, with your inquiry. File-This Oct. 9, 2018, file photo shows Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mitt Romney answering a question about tariffs during the debate with Democratic opponent Jenny Wilson in the America First Event Center in Cedar City, Utah. Utah Sen.-elect Romney says President Donald Trump's "conduct over the past two years ... is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office." Romney, who was the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, is praising some of Trump's policy decisions in a Washington Post op-ed published Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019. But he adds: "With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable. And it is in this province where the incumbent's shortfall has been most glaring."(James M. Dobson/The Spectrum via AP, File) Asus is introducing a whole bunch of new Chrome OS devices aimed at the education market including laptops, convertibles, and the companys first standalone Chrome OS tablet. That last one is part of a small, but growing line of touchscreen-only devices designed to run Googles Chrome operating system. And like the first Chrome OS tablet, it has an awkward name that makes you wonder if its really a tablet or a notebook (that just happens to ship without a physical keyboard). Meet the Asus Chromebook Tablet CT100. The tablet features a 9.7 inch, 2048 x 1536 pixel touchscreen display, a stylus (that slides into a hole in the tablet when its not in use), an OP1 (Rockchip RK3399) hexa-core processor with Mali-T864 graphics, and support for up to 4GB of RAM and up to 32GB of eMMC storage. It has a 5MP rear camera, a 2MP front-facing camera, a USB 3.1 Type-C port for charging, data, or display output, a microSD card reader, a headphone jacks, 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1. The Asus Chromebook Tablet CT100 measures 9.4 x 6.8 x 0.4 and weighs 1.3 pounds and it features a 35 Wh battery. Asus says the tablet is aimed at young kids who may be more comfortable interacting with a touch-only device than a device with a keyboard. As such, it features a rubberized chassis thats rated to survive drops from up to 100cm (about 3.2 feet). Asus will likely be showing off the new tablet next week during the Consumer Electronics Show, but the company says the configuration, pricing, and availability details will be available in the coming months. Asus EdgeUp blog post Share this article: Share this: Facebook Twitter Reddit Pocket Tumblr Pinterest LinkedIn Email Patel also drew on the encouragement of her friends, who encouraged her to enter the pageant: Bella Patel of Junction City, Urvashi Patel of Lebanon, Divya Amin of Portland and Jashu Patel of Washington state. All are unrelated. Patel has lived in Lebanon since she moved to the United States in 1995. In India, she earned a law degree and worked as a journalist. She and her husband own and operate the Valley Inn Motel in Lebanon. Ravishing Women is a non-profit organization which operates a wide range of cultural beauty pageants. Patel was happy to be the first woman from the Gujarati community to participate in one of these pageants. Gujarat is the Indian state where Patel lived. Everyone is so proud of me because Im the first from my community, the Gujarati community, and Im the first one, Patel said. During the competition, Patel had to answer a question on how one should face difficult times in life. For the talent competition, she improvised a scene in which she acted out the experience of mother whose son is in the Indian army. Because she was one of the top placers, Patel will take part in next years event, helping to crown winners. She wants to become more involved with Ravishing Women because she believes in the organizations message. Its encouraged lots of women. We can do anything, any age. Age is only numbers, Patel said. Love 3 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The 116th United States Congress returned the first woman to the position of Speaker of the House and swore in the most diverse group of lawmakers in history. The legislators took office Thursday in the middle of a partial government shutdown. The shutdown dispute is over President Donald Trumps demand for money to build a wall along the U.S-Mexico border. Nancy Pelosi was the first woman to ever serve as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. She did so from 2007 to 2011. On Thursday, she was re-elected to the office, as Democrats took control of the House. Republicans still hold the majority in the Senate. The new Democratic-controlled House has more women and more minorities than in the past. It includes New Yorks Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. There is also Michigans Rashida Tlaib and Minnesotas Ilhan Omar, the first two Muslim women to be elected. New Mexicos Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids of Kansas became the first two Native American women in Congress. Women hold 102 seats in the House and 25 seats in the Senate. There are also now 10 lawmakers who identify as LGBTQ. Republicans added to their majority in the Senate after the November midterm elections. In her opening speech Thursday, Pelosi noted she was especially proud to be the woman Speaker of the House of this Congress, which marks 100 years of women winning the right to vote, as we serve with more than 100 women in the House of Representatives the highest number in history. The new speaker added, This House will be for the people. She said its mission would be to lower health costs and prescription drug prices, and protect people with pre-existing conditions; to increase paychecks by rebuilding America with green and modern infrastructure. Pelosi also said that she will seek to work with Republicans in the House, as well as with the Republican-controlled Senate and the president, who is a Republican. In her first act as speaker, Pelosi announced that Democrats would pass legislation to re-open the government and end the shutdown. The bill, however, does not include the money that Trump has demanded for his border wall. Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he had no plans to consider bills proposed by the House unless Trump agrees to sign them into law. That means the shutdown is sure to continue. Hai Do wrote this story for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story partial - adj. not complete or total LGBTQ - acronym, stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer infrastructure - n. structures such as roads and bridges that are needed for a country or region Three-day-old Oskar Lunde sleeps in a small bed at an Estonian hospital. Across the room, his father turns on a laptop computer. Now we will register our child, Andrejs Lunde says, as he lifts his identification card into the card reader. His wife, Olga, looks on. And just like that, Oskar is Estonias newest citizen. No paper. No time spent standing in a line. Estonia has launched a project to make government administration completely digital. The goal is to reduce the size of the government work force, open up the decision-making process and fuel economic growth. As more countries turn to online government services, Estonias experiment provides a look at how interacting with the state might be for future generations. Need medicine? Reach for a computer and send an email or text message to a doctor. Need help from the local government? There are no lines on websites. As for education, parents can see whether their childrens homework was done on time. Estonia has created a single system that supports electronic authentication and digital signatures. It provides paperless communications for both the government and private industry. There are a few things that one cannot do electronically in Estonia: marry, end a marriage or buy and sell property. That is only because the government has decided it was important to show up in person for some big life events. This spring, the government aims to take additional steps. If Oskar had been born a few months later, he would have been registered electronically, with his parents receiving an email welcoming him into the nation. Marten Kaevats is Estonias national digital adviser. He says the goal is a government that supports its citizens while staying out of the way. Other countries have a lot to learn, says Siva Vaidhyanathan. He is director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia. Estonia took time to build security and privacy into its online model. It made sure that state accountability is part of the process, Vaidhyanathan said. Estonians largely seem to have welcomed the new system, while people in other countries are more concerned about attacks on computers. At a demonstration of the digital system, project manager Indrek Onnik stood beside a large picture of his computer profile. It showed his high school records from 10 years ago and driving record. If he had a dog, its vaccination record also would appear there. Citizens can follow their personal data and see if any government or private organization looks at it. The system is supported by a software program called X-Road, a data exchange system that links computer databases. Outgoing records are digitally signed and recorded, and all incoming data is confirmed and noted. Push for digital came with independence When Estonia declared independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, it had to build a new economy. Government leaders looked for an industry where the country could compete. They decided on information technology and the internet. When the poor country needed to replace a 1930s phone system, former President Toomas Hendrik Ilves rejected the offer of a free analog system from Finland and argued for a digital one. The only way we could do really well was to go digital, Ilves told the Associated Press. The project, which began in 1997, led the way for Estonias technology industry. The government built computer labs for young students in schools. And Microsoft bought Estonias most famous high-tech export, the video calling service Skype, for $8.5 billion in 2011. Last year, information and communications accounted for 5.9 percent of the economy. The government hopes to increase that figure with an e-residency program that lets entrepreneurs around the world register their businesses in Estonia and gain a presence in the European Union. More than 51,000 people from 167 countries have registered at a cost of 100 euros, or $114 each. The government also has a plan to re-establish digital services in the event of invasion or severe cyberattacks. The plan would set up what are being called data embassies in other countries like Luxembourg. Like a traditional embassy, the servers are considered Estonian territory and would give the government a chance to set up somewhere else, if needed. Will this work in larger countries? Zvika Krieger is head of technology policy and partnerships at the World Economic Forum. He wonders if Estonias system can be used in countries, like the United States and India, with more people and more governments at the city, state and local levels. Krieger said, Estonia is a good first test case. And now the question is whether other countries will find Estonias success compelling enough to take the risk to try it at a larger scale. Estonia sees its system as a design for modern democracy as compared to authoritarian use of technology to control citizens. Ilves, the former president said, Estonians hate their politicians just as much as everyone elseBut at least since the administration of the state works extremely well and efficiently, people trust the system. Andrejs Lunde is among those who trust the system. He says digital government makes life so much easier that it is worth the risk. He points out that personal information can be stolen from paper-based systems as well. If someone really wants my information, they will get it anyway, said Lunde. If they can get Hillarys emails, they can get mine. Im Bryan Lynn. Danica Kirka reported this story for the Associated Press. George Grow adapted the report for VOA Learning English. Hai Do was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page. Quiz - Estonia Plots the End of Paperwork Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story digital adj. relating to computer technology, especially the internet online adj. connected to or involving a computer or telecommunications system authentication n. officially confirmed as real or true accountability n. being responsible for what you do profile n. a description of something that contains all the most important or interesting facts about it entrepreneur n. person who attempts to make a profit by starting a company or by operating alone in the business world compelling adj. forceful and convincing Thursday, January 3, 2019 The Illinois Review Board proposes a five-month suspension of an experienced attorney for misconduct unrelated to the practice of law The Administrator brought a one-count complaint against Respondent, alleging that he engaged in fraud, constructive fraud, dishonesty, and the crime of insurance fraud based upon his receiving health insurance benefits from his former domestic partner's insurer for eight years after he was no longer covered. Following a hearing at which Respondent was represented by counsel, the Hearing Board found that Respondent had committed the charged misconduct, and recommended that he be suspended for six months. Respondent filed exceptions. On appeal, he argued that the Hearing Board's findings of misconduct were against the manifest weight of the evidence and contrary to law, and should be reversed. In the alternative, he argued that, if the Review Board were to find that he committed the charged misconduct, he should be reprimanded or censured, but not suspended. The Review Board affirmed the Hearing Board's finding that Respondent engaged in misconduct by continuing to receive, over an eight-year period, insurance benefits that he knew he was not entitled to. It recommended that Respondent be suspended for five months for his misconduct, emphasizing that Respondent's misconduct, while serious and inexcusable, did not involve or affect any clients. Findings Respondent was admitted to practice in Illinois in 1975. Upon graduating from law school, he worked for the Cook County Public Defender's Office for 10 years, and then practiced with several firms, including an insurance defense firm. He opened his own law office in 1993 and has been a solo practitioner concentrating in criminal law since then. He has no prior discipline. From 1993 through August 2004, Respondent received health insurance coverage through his wife's employer. His wife filed for divorce in 2002, and Respondent continued to be covered under her insurance while the divorce was pending. Later in 2002, he began a romantic relationship with Donna Masterson. Masterson moved into Respondent's home in April 2003. When Respondent's divorce became final in August 2004, his health insurance benefits through his wife's employer ended. In September 2004, Respondent and Masterson applied for health insurance benefits for Respondent through Masterson's employer, the Illinois Education Association (IEA), because they met the criteria for a domestic partnership under IEA's health insurance plan and therefore Respondent was eligible for coverage under the plan. In support of their application for insurance for Respondent, Respondent and Masterson signed an affidavit in which they attested that they had resided together since April 2002 and intended to reside together permanently; that they were in a committed and mutually exclusive relationship; and that they agreed to notify IEA in writing if there was any change of circumstances attested to in the affidavit within 30 days of such change. Respondent testified that he probably read the affidavit before signing it. Masterson submitted the affidavit to IEA. Thereafter, Respondent received medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, and dependent life insurance coverage through IEA's insurers. In January 2006, about 16 months after applying for insurance coverage for Respondent, their domestic partnership ended when Respondent and Masterson broke up and Masterson moved out of Respondent's home. Respondent did not, at any time, notify IEA that his domestic partnership with Masterson had ended. Masterson testified that she notified IEA in February 2008 that she and Respondent were no longer in a domestic partnership. The Hearing Board, however, found her not credible on this subject. Respondent continued to receive insurance benefits based up on his domestic partnership with Masterson. Respondent testified that he recognized by 2010, and probably as early as 2008, that he was no longer entitled to insurance benefits from IEA, yet continued using the insurance benefits knowing that he was not entitled to them. It was not until November 2014, however, that IEA ended his insurance coverage, after having discovered through an unrelated investigation that Respondent and Masterson were no longer domestic partners. Masterson was allowed to retire from IEA, albeit with diminished benefits, in lieu of being fired. Between 2006 and 2014, IEA paid over $132,000 on insurance premiums and claims on Respondent's behalf. Sanction The Hearing Board's sanction analysis in this case is well-reasoned and guides our recommendation. However, we believe that, in recommending a six-month suspension, the Hearing Board gave insufficient consideration to the fact that Respondent's conduct did not involve or impact any clients. While any conduct involving personal or professional dishonesty is inexcusable and warrants discipline, in this matter, Respondent's record of representing clients and conducting himself ethically in his profession remains unblemished after over 40 years of practice. Imposing discipline that would trigger the requirements of Supreme Court Rule 764, including the requirement that Respondent notify clients, courts, and others of his discipline, seems unduly harsh and akin to punishment. We thus have strived to reach a sanction recommendation that recognizes the seriousness of Respondent's misconduct and achieves the objectives of discipline but does not seek to punish Respondent. Accordingly, taking into account Respondent's misconduct as well as the aggravating and mitigating factors present here, and giving particular consideration to the fact that Respondent's misconduct did not involve or affect any clients, we recommend that Respondent be suspended for five months. We believe that this sanction is commensurate with Respondent's misconduct, consistent with discipline that has been imposed for comparable misconduct, and sufficient to serve the goals of attorney discipline and deter others from committing similar misconduct. (Mike Frisch) https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2019/01/the-illinois-review-board-proposes-a-five-month-suspension-the-administrator-brought-a-one-count-complaint-against-responden.html Woman Pleads No Contest In Attack On 91-Year-Old Man A woman pleaded no contest today to a felony elder abuse charge stemming from an attack with a brick on a 91-year-old grandfather who was beaten in Willowbrook on the Fourth of July. Laquisha Jones of Los Angeles, 30, is facing 15 years behind bars in connection with the apparently unprovoked attack, according to Ricardo Santiago of the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office. ADVERTISEMENT The aftermath of the attack was captured on cell phone video that showed Rodolfo Rodriguez on the ground, with blood covering much of his face. Rodriguez suffered several broken bones, including a shattered jaw and a pair of broken ribs, and a GoFundMe page established by his family has raised more than $327,000. Jones was arrested by Los Angeles County sheriffs deputies six days later, and has remained behind bars since then, according to jail records. Along with the elder abuse charge, Jones admitted the allegations that she used a weapon a brick and that she had a prior conviction from 2017 for criminal threats, according to Santiago. She is due back in a Compton courtroom for sentencing Feb. 28. Wilson Focuses on Building New Relationships with Gods People Inside and Outside Church Walls Like many pastors, the Rev. Nicolette Birdsong Wilson wants her St. James AME Church congregation to grow spiritually and numerically. But, numbers play a lesser role than relationship building. Her focus is on developing better and new relationships with Gods people, both inside and outside of the walls of the church. Evangelism was never about just inviting someone to church, said Wilson, who was appointed in October 2018. It was and is about building loving and Christ-like relationships with each other. ADVERTISEMENT This approach is not new for Wilson, who employed a similar strategy while serving as spiritual leader of Johnson Chapel AME Church in El Centro and more recently, as the first woman of Brown Memorial AME Church in Pasadena. After experiencing success with the method at both parishes, she firmly believes that relationship building will also work at St. James and that is what she plans to put her energies into, said Wilson, who insisted, Once we accomplish this, then people will follow and meet us here. Among the individuals that Wilson hopes to attract are more youth and millennials, and working in her favor is the fact that she is a Generation X pastor. In addition, her blended family with her husband, Cedric, is comprised of millennials and Gen Z children. Attracting both groups are be a struggle, if there is not an open dialogue with them. The dialogue must go beyond the why are you not in church question and get to what their interest and life concerns are and what drives them, explained Wilson. I listen to their music and watch their shows and discuss drugs, sexual identity, cutting, suicide and dysfunctional families. It is not until the church stops turning a blind eye to the real issues of these generations, will they be able to both attract and retain them, she said. Wilsons dedication to Christ and His people has been noticed by others and resulted in her being the recipient of several honors. She received the Southern California Conference Women in Ministrys (SCCWIM) Jarena Lee scholarship in 2013, and the groups Rev. Annette Hollins scholarship award in 2014 and 2016. Also, the AME Fifth District Women in Ministry presented Wilson with the Marjorie L. Casson scholarship in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Her denominational involvement includes being the SCCWIM worship leader for the past six years and serving as an advisor to the AME Fifth District Richard Allen Young Adult Counsel. ADVERTISEMENT Many of her other activities are community-related such as her role as chaplain of both the National Council of Negro Women and the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives in the San Gabriel Valley. Also, Wilson was just appointed to Pasadenas Ad Hoc Committee on Africa where she will work on developing ties with Dakar Plateau, Senegal, the citys newest and only African Sister City. As if her schedule wasnt already filled, Wilson still finds time to volunteer at the Union Rescue Mission where she teaches a class for homeless women that she describes as revealing the real ways that God is moving and working in the lives of these women and is still ordering their steps. Moving forward in building loving and Christ-like relationships, Wilson said she will always depend on God to fulfill her goals. I believe an Incredible God Deserves Incredible Praise and I praise the Lord for second, third and fourth chances of my life to get it right! I want to do all the good I can, by all the means, the ways, the places, the times and to all the people I can for as long as I can! St. James AME Church is located at 655 W. 70th St., in Los Angeles. Sunday worship is at 11 a.m., and Wednesday Bible Study is at 7 p.m. To learn more, call (323) 758-6786. Walmart Heirs Money Influences Black Charter Schools Debate Amid fierce debate over whether charter schools are good for Black students, the heirs to the Walmart company fortune have been working to make inroads with advocates and influential leaders in the Black community. The Walton family, as one of the leading supporters of Americas charter school movement, is spreading its financial support to prominent and like-minded Black leaders, from grassroots groups focused on education to mainstream national organizations such as the United Negro College Fund and Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, according to an Associated Press analysis of tax filings and nonprofit grants data. Those closest to the challenge often have the best solution, Marc Sternberg, who leads the Walton Family Foundations education efforts, said in a prepared statement. ADVERTISEMENT Charter schools, which are publicly funded and privately operated, are often located in urban areas with large Black populations, intended as alternatives to struggling city schools. Black enrollment in charters has doubled over the course of a decade, to more than 760,000 students as of 2015-16, according to the latest federal data, but the rise also has been marked by concerns about racial segregation, inconsistent student outcomes, and the hollowing-out of neighborhood public schools. While some Black leaders see charters as a safer, better alternative in their communities, a deep rift of opinion was exposed by a 2016 call for a moratorium on charters by the NAACP, a longtime skeptic that expressed concerns about school privatization, transparency and accountability issues. The Black Lives Matter movement is also among those that have demanded charter school growth be curbed. When NAACP leaders gathered to discuss charters in 2016, a group of demonstrators led the Cincinnati hotel to complain to police that they were trespassing. The three buses that brought the 150 Black parents from Tennessee on the 14-hour road trip were provided by The Memphis Lift, an advocacy group that has received $1.5 million from the Walton foundation since 2015. Deidra Brooks, chief of staff for The Memphis Lift, said they were not asked by Walton to carry out the protest and declined to say how much of their budget came from the foundation. The startup advocacy group seeded by Walton money also provides parents school choice counseling and advocacy training. Like U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and many other deep-pocketed billionaire philanthropists, the Walmart heirs, one of Americas richest families, embrace charter schools and education reform as an avenue to help the neediest. The Walton foundation is in the midst of a $1 billion pledge dedicated largely to expanding charters, which they see as investments to find better ways to educate those who struggle in traditional school systems. Andre Perry, an education policy expert at the Brookings Institution, said the Walton foundations reliance on Black faces to makes its case for charters suggests that theyre exploiting Black people for a White agenda. ADVERTISEMENT Its a sad thing that education reform is about how much money you have and not about what connection you have with Black communities, Perry said. Much of the $9 million granted to the United Negro College Fund has been spent on the scholarship organizations fellowship program for students interested in education reform. Likewise, the foundation gave $170,000 in recent years to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation for its events, while the Waltons are also giving $530,000 to sponsor an affiliated education policy advocacy and campaign training workshop. Walton money totals nearly $2 million to the 100 Black Men of America campaign and $7.3 million to the National Urban League. Both groups have strong ties to charter schools on the ground. The Waltons have given small amounts to other kinds of black community groups, as well, including the New England Blacks in Philanthropy organization, the Association of Black Foundation Executives and the National Black Child Development Institute. And this year, the foundation sponsored a luncheon at a Detroit conference for the National Association of Black Journalists, which was advertised as The Importance of Educating our Black Children and primarily featured Waltons pro-charter grantees as panel speakers. Of course weve seen push back from people in general, but that goes with privatization. The forces of privatization are powerful and have friends in all sorts of places, said Victor Goode, the NAACPs education director. After the NAACP proposed the moratorium, Walton money had a hand in the highly publicized debate that followed. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, an advocacy group that has received more than $16 million from Walton, organized a campaign that urged the NACCP to reconsider, including a letter signed by more than 160 Black education leaders. Among them was prominent charter advocate Howard Fuller, a former Milwaukee schools superintendent. The Waltons gave $17 million to his now-defunct advocacy group, the Black Alliance for Educational Options. Another outspoken critic of the moratorium idea, Chris Stewart, leads the Wayfinder Foundation, an advocacy group that has received nearly $2 million from Walton. Hes suggested that the countrys oldest civil rights group was in the pocket of teacher union interests, an issue he pushed using the (hash)FreeTheNAACP hashtag online. In any city, if youre advocating for charters, you are out of your depth. Theres no way you are going to match the number of foot soldiers who are going to support an anti-charter narrative, Stewart said of the public teacher unions who stand to lose with non-unionized schools. Sternberg of the Walton foundation said any aggressive acts of advocacy its grantees take in the debate are rooted in the impatience over a century of educational inequity for Blacks. The foundation also points to $120,000 in grants it has given to the NAACP in the past two years for event sponsorship, and its support of other black civil rights groups over the past 25 years. This is not our agenda, Sternberg said. This is way bigger than us. Suits & Solidarity Members Celebrate Holidays Suits in Solidarity members recently celebrated their end of year meeting with a holiday reception with City Council President Herb Wesson, Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and Kerman Maddox, Co- Founder Suits in Solidarity. Suits in Solidarity was founded by Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas and Kerman Maddox in response to the national epidemic of unarmed African American Men killed by law enforcement officials. Originally, they were trying to get the broader media to understand the issue of police misconduct in the African American Community was widespread and affected African American Men no matter their age or Socio-Economic status. Going forward, the goals of Suits in Solidarity are to reform the criminal justice system, reduce disproportionate police discipline against students of color in schools, promote economic growth of African American Businesses and contribute in ways to empower the African American Community. ADVERTISEMENT Sonja Herbert Creates Sisterhood of Black Pilates Instructors If you cant find what youre looking for, you should probably just make it yourself. That is the principle that Sonja Herbert was going by when she was looking for a community of Black women who were also Pilates enthusiasts and instructors. After teaching Pilates for 12 years and not seeing many Black women in that community, she decided to be the change she wanted to see. I decided to start the group. I reached out to two friends of mine on Instagram. They gave me about fifty names, she recalls. I started following them and then became Facebook friends. Now that group has increased to over 300 people who live across the United States as well as abroad. Herbert explains, Theyre all over the world. Weve got members from Nigeria, South Africa, Germany, Switzerland. All Black women. Created by German fitness instructor Joseph Pilates, in the early twentieth century, Pilates is an exercise system that according to Wikipedia, Improves flexibility, builds strength and develops control and endurance in the entire body. Popular for many years among dancers, it is particularly effective Herbert explains, For overall core body strength. That means the trunk part of your body, like from your neck, down to your hips, front and the back part of your neck, down your hips back. Thats your foundation and if the foundation is strong, then the rest of the body can move properly. Pilates will make everything else you do better. For instance it will help you do yoga better, but nothing but doing Pilates, will make you do Pilates better. Pilates can be done as a series of exercises on the floor or using machines created specially for it. Herbert became hooked after one class when her daughters ballet instructor, Cynthia Shipley, formerly of the Baltimore Dance Theater, convinced her to give it a try. ADVERTISEMENT Mainly through the use of Facebook and Instagram, Black Pilates instructors in Herberts community, network, mentor and provide each other with a source of support and inspiration. All instructors are either certified or are actively working toward certification. There are now two Facebook groups: one for instructors called Blackgirl Pilates (Instructors Only) and one for those looking for instructors called Black Girl Pilates Tribe. As Black women teaching Pilates, youre not going to run into a hell of a lot of us nor are you going to run into a hell of a lot of Black clients either. We are in very White spaces. Its pulling together all of this amazing talent and expertise but also giving each other support as Black women. Herbert and some of the members are now developing their own certification program. Our certification will be classic exercises that Joseph taught himself, with modern components. Their certification will also include knowledge of the impact of two women of color on the history of Pilates. Kathy Grant, a Black woman and Lolita San Miguel, whos Puerto Rican, Herbert explains, were certified by Joseph Pilates himself. Herbert at one point had to defend herself and the group against charges of reverse racism, going so far as writing an essay in a national magazine addressing the issue. Herbert says she wasnt exactly shocked. I wasnt really surprised. Ive had some well-meaning White people try to join the group who just want to support us but Im like, This is a safe space and you being here would make it unsafe for us. I had a few conversations in the initial part of starting a group and then after, I decided that it wouldnt be good to have those conversations. The group meets annually in New York City for a huge mashup. In 2019, there will be an even bigger, international meeting taking place in Barcelona Spain. Excitedly, Herbert shares, Ill be meeting a lot of women Ive never met before. Trying to create what she jokingly terms Pilates Wakanda, Herbert is coordinating a number of smaller local meetings that will take place throughout the year in locations such as New York City, Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Georgia and Texas. Herbert finds it hard to pinpoint just one great benefit she received from creating this community, but said, Ive never really had the opportunity to have a lot of female friends and I consider this community, all of them, friends. I think for me, its a sisterhood and the feeling of safety that brings. Sharon McDougle, The Hidden Figure Behind the NASA Spacesuit Team Behind every great astronaut is a great team suiting him or her up to travel into space. While many history books discuss the story of Mae Jemison, the first African American woman to travel to space, they often fail to mention how NASA spacesuit manager Sharon McDougle, helped prepare astronauts like Jemison for their launch and how she made history herself. McDougle grew up in Moss Point, MS where she attended Moss Point High School. Right after high school graduation, in 1982, McDougle joined the Air Force and was stationed in California at the Beale Air Force Base. During her seven years there, she worked as an aerospace physiology technician, worked with the altitude chamber, and the hyperbaric chamber. Additionally, she worked on the SR-71 and U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. In 1990, McDougle who had finished serving in the Air Force, applied for a position as a suit technician for Boeing. Given the fact that she had already gained experienced working with pressure suits, McDougle thought she would be the ideal candidate for the job. At time, she was the only African American and one of two women in her department. McDougle worked as a suit technician for 14 years and during that time, she was assigned to 20 missions until 2004 when she was the first African American woman to be promoted to manager of the Crew Escape Equipment (CEE). This position required McDougle to oversee the United Space Alliance Flight Crew Equipment: Crew Escape Equipment Lab (AECS) which is responsible for supporting astronaut crews on missions. According to a statement McDougle gave on NASAs website, the team assists the astronaut crews in donning and doffing the suit, as well as strapping the crew into the shuttle before launch and recovering the crew upon landing. ADVERTISEMENT Prior to her 22 year career coming to a close in 2011 due to the Space Shuttle program ending, she had the opportunity to suit up notable African American astronauts including Charles Bolden, Frederick Gregory, Dr. Bernard Harris, and Mae Jemison. In the course of her career rising through the ranks and setting history, McDougle was awarded the Silver Snoopy, the Space Flight Awareness Honoree Award, the USA Employee of the Month Teamwork Award, the USA Employee of the Month Community Service Award, and the coveted Women of Color in Flight Award from astronaut legend Jemison. In previous interviews, McDougle has been asked to reflect on her experiences and well as challenges she faced a woman of color in the field. In her response, she stated, I was very fortunate to not have any real challenges. I feel I was treated very well throughout my career. As far advice goes, McDougle encourages young women of color who are interested in pursuing a career in aerospace, science, or any other STEM related fields to not be afraid. There are many career paths in these fields you dont have to become an astronaut. Anything is possible, but you do have to work hard to achieve success. I advise them to not put off going to college, but to complete their education goals immediately after leaving high school. And lastly, please help each other out; lend a hand to another sister of color whenever possible. Even in this day and age there may only be one or two women of color in these fields, said McDougle in a Black Girl Nerds Interview. Security Guard Charged with Murder in Walgreens Shooting A security guard at a Hollywood pharmacy has been charged with murder in the killing of a suspected shoplifter, the District Attorneys Office announced today. Donald Vincent Ciota, 28, of Covina, is also facing multiple gun allegations in the alleged murder of 21-year-old Jonathan Hart. Ciota, who is being held on $3 million bail, appeared in a downtown courtroom this morning with his defense attorney Mark Geragos, but did not enter a plea. His arraignment was postponed to Thursday. Investigators say Ciota confronted Hart inside the Walgreens pharmacy on Sunset and Vine on Dec. 2 and the two men began fighting. Ciota then pulled out his firearm and allegedly shot Hart in the back of his neck as he ran away, according to prosecutors and a coroners report. ADVERTISEMENT A witness told CBS2 that Hart was carrying something as he walked near the door to use the ATM. The witness said he knew Hart, who he believed to be homeless and suffering from mental illness. If convicted as charged, Ciota faces a possible maximum sentence of 50 years to life in prison, according to prosecutors. An attorney for Harts family alleged that he was targeted because he was Black and gay and questioned why Walgreens only has armed security guards at four stores in the Los Angeles area. Each of these stores are in the Black, Brown and homeless and LGBT communities, and we want to know why, attorney Carl Douglas said at a Dec. 11 news conference. Walgreens issued a statement in response saying the company had extended our deepest and most sincere condolences to Harts family, and noted that as a result of the shooting, we immediately terminated the security company that hired the guard. We are committed to providing a safe environment for our employees, patients and customers in the communities we serve, according to the company. ADVERTISEMENT We contract for armed and unarmed security, as well as video surveillance, in our stores based on the public safety needs of each location. We operate in thousands of communities and neighborhoods across the nation and the suggestion that we would inappropriately serve any community is simply false. We firmly believe everyone should be welcomed and treated equally in all of our stores. Douglas insisted that Hart, also known as Sky Young, was not shoplifting. He said Hart and another Black man were in the store, and at one point while inside the store, one of them picked up a $2.99 water flavoring product. The guard confronted the men and got into an argument with Hart, the attorney said. The guard feels the man pushed him one time, Douglas said. The guard pushes the man back one time. The guard watches as the man turns to run toward the back door. The guard raises his gun and points at the man. The guard says, `Freeze, as the man travels toward the door. The guard fires one shot, striking the man in the back of the neck. The guard watches as the man crumbles to the ground. Hart died at a hospital. Douglas said the only thing in Harts hands when he died was a California ID card. Jonathan was not shoplifting, he said. Let me repeat that. Jonathan was not shoplifting when he was shot. Thats the propaganda Walgreens wants you to report. He added: I dare say, Jonathan Hart was profiled because he was homeless. He was harassed because he was gay, and he was shot because he was Black. Douglas said he planned to file a lawsuit against Walgreens seeking $525 million in damages and scheduled a news conference at his Ladera Heights office this afternoon to respond to the murder charge. Walgreens reiterated its commitment to its employees, patients and customers in an email to City News Service today, adding We have cooperated with authorities and will continue to support their prosecution of this case. Sam & Dave to be Honored with Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award Sam Moore and Dave Prater the Soul duo Sam & Dave which were one of the primary chart stars at the Stax and Atlantic labels in the 60s, bringing the passion of gospel to their wailing soul side were announced this week by The Recording Academy as one of the recipients of the Special Merit Awards, The Lifetime Achievement Award. A special award presentation ceremony and concert celebrating the honorees will be held on May 11, 2019, in Los Angeles. Additional details regarding the ceremony will be announced in the coming weeks. Each year, the Recording Academy has the distinct privilege of celebrating music industry giants who have greatly contributed to our cultural heritage, said Neil Portnow, President/CEO of the Recording Academy. This year, we have a gifted and brilliant group of honorees and their exceptional accomplishments, contributions, and artistry will continue to influence and inspire generations to come. The Lifetime Achievement Award celebrates performers who have made outstanding contributions of artistic significance to the field of recording, while the Trustees Award honors such contributions in areas other than performance. The Recording Academys National Board of Trustees determines the honorees of both awards. Technical GRAMMY Award recipients are voted on by the Academys Producers & Engineers Wing Advisory Council and Chapter Committees and are ratified by the Academys Trustees. The award is presented to individuals and companies who have made contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording industry. ADVERTISEMENT Other honorees of The Lifetime Achievement Award are Black Sabbath, George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic, Billy Eckstine, Donny Hathaway, Julio Iglesias, and Dionne Warwick. Lou Adler, Ashford & Simpson, and Johnny Mandel are Trustees Award honorees, and Saul Walker is the Technical GRAMMY Award recipient. The first 20-plus years of Sam Moores sensational career began by lending his unmistakable lead vocals to soul duo Sam & Dave. The 1967 smash hit Soul Man, catapulted the duos career up the Pop and R&B Charts, selling more than 10 million records worldwide and ultimately an induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Moore also scored critical acclaim and numerous awards as a solo artist for more than 35 years, performing at some of the worlds most iconic and notable venues, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Hollywood Bowl, The Ryman Auditorium, The Grand Ole Opry, Royal Albert Hall, Nippon Budokan, The John F. Kennedy Center, The White House, Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument. Moore has recently joined Florida International University (FIU) as an Artist in Residence for their Center of Humanities to build a program around the artist histories that shaped our culture through music. Peabo Bryson R&Bs Most Passionate Advocate Grammy and Oscar award-winning artist re-releases Stand For Love with two bonus tracks Rumors of the demise of R&B will never come true as long as Peabo Bryson is around. Thats because the legendary artist is perhaps the genres biggest advocate and constantly delivers soulful tracks to keep it alive. Long known for enduring hits such as Feel the Fire and Im So Into You, Bryson is back with a re-release of his popular album, Stand For Love, which featured two chart-topping songs All She Wants to do is Me and Love Like Yours and Mine. The new deluxe CD promises to attain equal heights. Already, Looking for Sade, the single with special guest Boney James, is number one on the Jazz list and the other eight songs on the album are garnering lots of attention. But, Bryson is aiming for more than attention. His true mission is to keep R&B relevant and attractive to all generations younger and older. ADVERTISEMENT Theres something for everyone on this particular CD, said Bryson, who collaborated with iconic producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis on the project. I dont make music for myself anymore. I make music for those who will endear themselves to it, take something from it and pass that something on. He also believes Stand For Love will help rekindle the importance of relationships as opposed to hook-ups. In his opinion, establishing heartfelt connections with others transcends all age groups. Youre not always going to be 20, 30 or even 40-years-old. Nobodys going to be young forever. Youll need a real relationship and thats what R&B is traditionally meant for for the artist to say out loud what something really is that you relate to people. All of it is based on real relationships, insisted Bryson. His catalogue underscores his commitment to that philosophy, which includes timeless R&B hits such as Can You Stop the Rain and Tonight, I Celebrate My Love recorded with Roberta Flack. Further evidence of his devotion to love appear in his musical renditions of Beauty and the Beast, sang with Celine Dion, and A Whole New World with Regina Belle for the movie Aladdin. Thats all Stand For Love really is its a reminder that we are human beings, explained Bryson, who credited producers Lewis and Jam with aiding him in making music to reflect that theme. You have Jimmy and Terry who are two of the finest human beings, let alone two of the greatest music producers of all times they understand exactly what life is and what life isnt. Its an odd thing to be in a relationship, musically, or in a music fellowship with two iconic human beings, noted Bryson. The thing I noticed about them is the absence of ego and importance. They actually listen and so collaboration with them is exactly that. You can contribute as much as your skill set will take you. They are only interested in you being all that you can be that represents you. Theyre all about making your reality come true. They are geniuses at it! ADVERTISEMENT Another quality Jam and Lewis possessed, said Bryson, was the ability to make him relevant in any music conversation going on today without comprising the integrity of his career, which he built over multiple decades. But audiences agree that his concerns were needless because Stand For Love only enhances Brysons long history of classic hits. In addition, the albums success reassured him that he must remain true to his R&B roots. That message was honed in him by two of his best friends. Aretha (Franklin) is one person that kept me true to my course. She always encouraged me to hold out because she knew what I was holding out for the same thing she had been holding out for her entire life. We tried to make that work, tried to find that thing that suits us and what suits us is very, very unique, recalled Bryson. Also, Nancy Wilson the single greatest jazz vocalist ever always encouraged me to not give up about finding that thing for me. Aretha and Nancy are the two most iconic vocalists ever to me. In their genre, they reign supreme! Considering their advice, Bryson said his devotion to R&B will remain secure as well as relevant. Is there hope for R&B? Sure and its going to get better, he declared. Love will always be relevant. Its an ever-changing, all-encompassing phenomenon that is constantly evolving. Stand For Love is available in stores and online at iTunes, Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Music and Google Play. To learn more, visit TheRealPeaboBryson.com. North Carolina Honors Former Slave Who Bought His Freedom As a young slave, Lunsford Lane glimpsed a path to freedom when he sold a basket of peaches and collected 30 cents, the first money hed ever touched. Not long after that, he won a few marbles and sold those, too, adding 60 cents to his pile. Slowly, Lane built a nest egg out of odd jobs, chopping extra wood at night, selling flavored tobacco and handmade pipes to members of the North Carolina state legislature in Raleigh. He stashed his loot away. ADVERTISEMENT Then in 1835, he bought his freedom for $1,000, a fortune earned through sweat and beatings. I cannot describe it, Lane wrote in his 1842 book Narrative, only it seemed as though I was in heaven. I used to lie awake whole nights thinking of it. And oh, the strange thoughts that passed through my soul, like so many rivers of light; deep and rich were their waves as they rolled; these were more to me than sleep But I cannot describe my feelings to those who have never been slaves. The state approved a historical marker for Lane, the sixth sign in Raleigh to honor a former slave. Sometime in June, said Ansley Wegner of the N.C. Highway Historical Marker Program, the man born property of Sherwood Haywood will be recognized on Edenton Street, just across the street from the Capitol where he sold pipes for 10 cents each. But even after Lane paid the price, freedom stayed out of reach. A Raleigh judge declared that he had done nothing meritorious to earn his freedom, forcing Lane to travel to New York, according to the marker programs research. Twice, he tried to relocate in Raleigh, finding no welcome. A state law forbade freed slaves for staying longer than 20 days, so Lane paid to free one of his daughters and fled north. A second time, in 1842, a mob in Raleigh tarred and feathered Lane for giving abolitionist speeches up north, and he escaped to Massachusetts with the rest of his family. The thought that I was now in my loved, though recently acquired home, that my family were with me where the stern, cruel, hated hand of slavery could never reach us more almost overwhelmed me with emotion, and I had a deep and strange communion with my own soul, Lane wrote in Narrative. ADVERTISEMENT Wegner said Raleighs marker collection includes five others with backgrounds in slavery: Anna Julia Cooper, Charles Hunter, Edward Johnson, James Harris and James Young. In his Narrative, Lane describes his luck at being a house servant in Raleigh rather than a plantation slave, but still the knowledge that he would always serve another preyed upon my heart like a never-dying worm. Once in Massachusetts, Lane worked in a Union hospital during the Civil War and later sold medicine, the states research said. Before dying in 1879, he helped found a school in New Bern, never forgetting that he was once forbidden to hold a book. The wine fresh from the clustering grapes never filled so sweet a cup as mine, Lane wrote, concluding his book. May I and my family be permitted to drink it, remembering whence it came! NAACP Joins Ferguson Activist in Demanding Answers in Alleged Hanging Death of Son As the nation moves into the Holiday season, its been a brutal eight-weeks since that dreadful day when Ferguson-based activist Melissa McKinnies found her son Danye Jones hanging dead from a tree in her yard; eight weeks with no answer from the St. Louis County Medical Examiners Office regarding the cause of death. While reports from police say the death was reported as a suicide, McKinnies says no, it was a lynching. She believes that she and other activists who have protested police brutality, including the deaths of Michael Brown Jr., and Freddie Gray in Baltimore, have been targeted and monitored not only by racists and White Nationalists, but also agencies within the US government. She believes there was foul play in the death of her son and is calling on transparency by police. My son was murdered, point blank, said McKinnies. We are demanding the Medical Examiners office to release its findings and demanding police investigate his death as a murder, she added. ADVERTISEMENT The St. Louis County NAACP is joining the McKinnies family in the call for transparency and justice regarding the murder of Danye Jones. Theres too many unanswered questions that we are demanding answers to, said John Gaskin III, St. Louis County NAACP President. We support Mrs. McKinnies call for justice and transparency in the death of her son. According to a report in the Washington Post several deaths of Ferguson Activists since 2014 have inspired speculation that Ferguson protesters are being systematically murdered While the reports suggests there is no evidence yet regarding this, numerous media reports have confirmed the surveillance of Black activists by Federal agencies. Earlier this year groups Color of Change and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit against DHS and the FBI regarding information on the governments tracking of activists involved in the Movement for Black Lives. For McKinnies, the most pressing matter right now is justice regarding her sons death. This is about justice! All Black lives matter and so does the life of my son! Moderate or Severe Sleep Apnea Doubles Risk Of Hard-to-Treat Hypertension in African Americans African Americans with moderate or severe sleep apnea are twice as likely to have hard-to-control high blood pressure when their sleep apnea goes untreated, according to a new study funded mainly by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health. The findings, which researchers say may partially explain why African Americans suffer hypertension at rates higher than any other group, point to screening and treatment of sleep apnea as another important strategy for keeping uncontrolled high blood pressure at bay. A common disorder that blocks the upper airways and causes people to stop breathing during sleep, sleep apnea already has been linked to an increased risk of high blood pressure in Whites, but the association in Blacks has been largely understudied. This new research demonstrates this link in a large population of African Americans. The results are scheduled to be published Dec. 10 in Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Association. ADVERTISEMENT This is an example of how NHLBI funded research is making important advances to our basic understanding of cardiovascular risk and sleep health, said Michael Twery, Ph.D., director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research at NHLBI. This report underscores the need for studies to determine whether screening groups at high risk for sleep apnea, such as African-Americans, would facilitate early medical intervention and reduce the risk or severity of heart disease. This study identifies a risk factor for hard-to-control hypertension that, until now, has gone underrecognized in African Americans, said study leader Dayna Johnson, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta. Johnson added that the disproportionately high rate of uncontrolled hypertension among African Americans makes the study results even more consequential. A recent NIH-funded study showed that about 75 percent of African American men and women are likely to develop high blood pressure by age 55, compared to 55 percent of White men and 40 percent of white women of the same age. Johnson noted that the current findings could provide more of an impetus for African Americans with the condition to get evaluated for sleep apnea, which also appears to affect them more than it does Whites. An estimated 1 in 4 African-Americans in the United States have moderate or severe sleep apnea, but most have not been diagnosed or treated by a doctor, according to a 2018 study led by Johnson when she worked at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston. In the new study, the researchers followed 664 African Americans with hypertension who were participants in the Jackson Heart Study, the largest investigation of causes of cardiovascular disease in African Americans. The researchers tested the participants for obstructive sleep apnea (the most common kind) with a special device used overnight in the home. Researchers classified sleep apnea as unaffected, mild, moderate, or severe based on the number of times a person either partially or completely stopped breathing during sleep. The tests revealed that more than a quarter of the participants had moderate or severe sleep apnea and that the condition had gone undiagnosed in almost all of themi.e., 94 percent of the cases. The remaining participants had either no sleep apnea, or a milder form of it. The researchers also took blood pressure measurements and found that 48 percent of the participants had uncontrolled high blood pressure, meaning they had the condition even though they took one or two antihypertensive medications. About 14 percent had resistant hypertension, meaning they had the condition while on three or more antihypertensive medications. Resistant hypertension is more severe than uncontrolled and carries a higher risk for heart disease and death, the researchers said. The researchers then compared measures of sleep apnea to categories of blood pressure control. Study participants with moderate or severe sleep apnea were twice as likely to have resistant hypertension when compared to participants without sleep apnea. Those with severe sleep apnea were 3.5 times as likely to have resistant hypertension compared to participants without sleep apnea. Somewhat unexpectedly, the researchers found no association between milder forms of sleep apnea and uncontrolled or resistant hypertension. ADVERTISEMENT The results suggest that African Americans with more severe forms of sleep apnea are at higher risk of having hard-to-treat hypertension, the researchers said. The current study did not explore what proportion of resistant hypertension is attributable to sleep apnea. The study did not examine the mechanisms by which sleep apnea increases blood pressure. But Susan Redline, M.D., senior physician at Brigham and Womens Hospital and the studys senior author, said that earlier studies indicate that untreated sleep apnea can cause blood pressure to surge during sleep and remain high during the day when a patient is awake. Her earlier research showed that treatment of sleep apnea with continuous positive air pressure (CPAP) lowers blood pressure, especially during the night. CPAP and other breathing devices deliver slight air pressure through a mask and are highly effective for treatment of sleep apnea. The study was supported by grants from the NHLBI (R01HL110068, 3R01HL110068-03S2; T32HL007901-18, and K01HL138211). Additional NHLBI support included the following: KL2TR001874, R01HL117323, and 5R35HL135818. Other NIH support included funding from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (U54GM115428) through the University of Mississippi Medical Center. The Jackson Heart Study is supported and conducted in collaboration with Jackson State University (HHSN268201300049C and HHSN268201300050C), Tougaloo College (HHSN268201300048C), and the University of Mississippi Medical Center (HHSN268201300046C and HHSN268201300047C) contracts NHLBI and the National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities. The study was also supported by additional institutions outside of NIH, including the American Heart Association. For a more complete funding disclosure, please see the full research article. Listen A 2019 Challenge in Memory of Robby Gregg Im leaving 2018 behind, with its myriad of trials and tribulations. For me, many of the challenges revolved around the unhealthy atmosphere in Washington, D.C., and thats not likely to change. But many of the challenges, joys, and sorrows were also personal. One of them was the loss of Robby Gregg, Jr., a diversity expert and consultant at Cook Ross, a diversity and inclusion firm in the DC area that was founded by my dear friend Howard Ross. Robby died unexpectedly at 58, just a week before Christmas. Alarmed at not having heard from him, a friend went to his home and found him gone. Unless you are part of the D&I community (as diversity experts call themselves), connected to Wake Forest University (Robby was a 1983 graduate), or part of the vast Maya Angelou extended family (Robby was one of Dr. Mayas students at Wake, and an ardent supporter of the Maya Angelou school in Washington, D.C.), you probably wouldnt know Robby. He was a man worth knowing. Im writing about Robby because his memory has challenged me to make a 2019 resolution. I am going to endeavor to listen more, especially to people I disagree with. Im going to seek some of these people out for conversation, and Im also planning to have tea or a meal (without knives halfway joking) with a few of them. While I will never let go of my commitments to social and economic justice, to racial parity, and to reparations, knowing Robby made me realize that it is also important to open oneself up to thought-provoking conversations with those we disagree with. ADVERTISEMENT Robby and I had been friends for a while, but he was no fan of my confrontational style, and he didnt mind telling me. He was offended by my Facebook page, which is a combination of policy analysis, organizing, and personal sharing. Because I live in a gentrified neighborhood where, in my opinion, my melanin-deficient neighbors can be entitled and inconsiderate, with a sprinkling of racism thrown in, I vent on my page about the Brads and the Beckys. And Robby didnt like it. He responded that if I didnt like my neighborhood, I should move from the home Ive lived in for 20 years. Not. I became so angered by his suggestion that we began to avoid each other and cease interaction. An unpleasant encounter at a social gathering (I was wrong to carry our disagreement into that space) prompted me to reach out, and the result was a wonderful three-hour lunch where we offered each other the gift of listening. I think we both walked away feeling affirmed, if not in perfect agreement or alignment. We could agree that we loved and respected each other and shared common values, even if our ways of going about things was different. Robby and I shared an appreciation for Howard Ross, the founder of Cook Ross and author of Belonging: How Our Need to Connect is Tearing Us Apart (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2018). Its a great read about the ways our human tendencies to belong work both for us and against us. Part of the book recounts Howards journey around the country talking and listening to people who voted for 45, some of whom regret their vote, and others who stand by it. He walked away with a more nuanced understanding of 45 supporters, which he shares in the book, along with techniques for having civil, even friendly, and informative conversations. When I interviewed Howard a few weeks ago, he threw out the suggestion of lunching with those with whom I have profound disagreements. I scoffed at it, considering it an utter waste of time in many cases. The day after our interview, Robby Gregg, Jr. was found dead, and I wondered if there was a message in his passing for me. After all, had we not had that delightful long lunch, my friend and I would not have had rapprochement. So, in memory of and in tribute to Robby and, equally importantly, to do my part in exploring the possibility of more civility in our discourse, Im challenging myself to do more listening. And Ill promise an opponent at least three minutes of uninterrupted time, as long as Im not on the air. Im challenging you to do the same. Not just in the name of Robby Gregg, but in the interest of community. ADVERTISEMENT Julianne Malveaux is an author and economist. Her latest book Are We Better Off? Race, Obama and Public Policy is available via www.amazon.com for booking, wholesale inquiries or for more info visit www.juliannemalveaux.com IN MEMORIAM: Cigars and Whiskey Americas Oldest Veteran, Richard Born on May 11, 1906, Richard Arvin Overton, a member of what is often called Americas Greatest Generation, died on December 27, in Austin, Texas. At 112 years and 230 days, Overton was believed to be the oldest living man in the United States as well as Americas oldest veteran. He enlisted into the Army on September 3, 1940 at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. Overton then fought in World War II, serving in the all-Black 1887th Engineer Aviation Battalion. He fought in the South Pacific from 1940 through 1945, a time which included battle in Iwo Jima. He retired from the U.S. Army in October of 1945 as a technician fifth grade. He then worked at a furniture store and then took a job at the Texas Department of the Treasury. He was there at Pearl Harbor, when the battleships were still smoldering. He was there at Okinawa. He was there at Iwo Jima, where he said, I only got out of there by the grace of God said former President Barack Obama in 2013 during a Veterans Day ceremony honoring Overton at Arlington National Cemetery. ADVERTISEMENT The second World War was the deadliest conflict in modern military history as over 70 million people lost their lives and the U.S. suffered over 407,000 deaths in battle. As the years went by Overton became a local and then national celebrity. In 2013, at the age of 107, Overton won widespread media attention after telling Fox News he would spend Memorial Day smoking cigars and drinking whiskey-stiffened coffee. He was later invited to the White House. Overton had been hospitalized with pneumonia but was released from the hospital on December 24, Christmas Eve according to family member Shirley Overton. He had become known in his community for driving others to church well after turning 100 years old. With his quick wit and kind spirit he touched the lives of so many, and I am deeply honored to have known him, wrote Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in a statement on December 27 after hearing the news of Overtons death. The Governor added that Overton was, an American icon and Texas legend. Richard Overton made us proud to be Texans and proud to be Americans. We can never repay Richard Overton for his service to our nation and for his lasting impact on the Lone Star State. Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced. First Member of Congress Calls for Trumps Resignation Amid Month of Chaos On Christmas Eve, Milwaukee Congresswoman Gwen Moore became the first sitting member of Congress to demand that President Donald Trump resign from the presidency. She made her comments as the Dow dove 500 points on December 24 in worst Christmas Eve trading day ever. As of Christmas, the market was on track to suffer its worst December since the Great Depression. Some of this money for the doggone wall, I wish they would put into places like Flint and Milwaukee, said Rep. Moore during the interview. The Congresswoman worked to secure millions of dollars to remove lead from Americas water infrastructure. During an interview on the Scott Dworkin report, Rep. Moore said that President Trump resigning is a dignified way for him to leave as opposed to being impeached or as opposed to being indicted or having the 25th amendment evoked. Its really a very palliative approach to ask him to just go quietly and spare us all this pain. ADVERTISEMENT December 2018 featured a turbulent series of events around the 45th President. His Secretary of Defense, retired Marine General James Mattis, resigned. The White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly, set a time for his departure. The federal government partly shut down as Trump reportedly became angry with a budget bill that didnt include billions in funding for a wall at the U.S. and Mexican border. Two children died in U.S. custody as Trump Administration policy on immigration was led by relative policy novice, Stephen Miller. Though many other members of Congress have been consistently critical of the President, Moore is now the first member of Congress to actually call for him to resign. Nine members of the House have either stated on the record that President Trump should be impeached or assisted in moving articles of impeachment to the floor of the U.S. House. The impeachment effort against Trump has been led by Rep. Al Green of Texas. In October 2017, Rep. Green drafted an impeachment resolution and articles of impeachment and attempted to have it considered on the House floor against the wishes of Democratic leadership. Rep. Green would be joined a year later by Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio). Non-CBC members Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and John Yarmuth (D-Ky.). Currently President Trumps approval rating is only 40 percent. Democrats will take control of the U.S. House on January 3rd. EDUCATOR SPOTLIGHT: Rebecca Francis Rebecca Francis, like most dynamic leaders of our time, recognized a problem and created a solution. As a former behavioral counselor, fourth grade teacher, and international high school psychology and English literature instructor, Rebecca Francis professional resume alone qualifies her to lead in the field of education. But her personal experience as an adolescent in the Bay Area, traveling 45 minutes across town to attend a higher performing school in a more affluent neighborhood, sparked the passion she needed to lead effectively. Now Francis is looking to expand her passion for equity in education to Houston, Texas. Drawing from her studies at the Purpose Preparatory Academy in Nashville, Tennessee, Francis is proposing a new, independent, PreK-5 public charter school in the Bayou City. Through a Building Excellent Schools Fellowship, she is designing and founding Elevate Collegiate Charter School, slated to open Fall 2020. Francis has visited over 25 high-performing schools across the nation to learn what it takes to make award-winning, high-quality public charter schools. She believes charter schools offer an alternative option to parents and students who are not satisfied with the options available to them. Although she supports traditional public, neighborhood schools, Francis recognizes the reality that all schools are not created equal and that traveling far away from home can inhibit childrens social development. ADVERTISEMENT As a little girl, traveling long distances in pursuit of a higher quality education I thought, What is wrong with the school in my own neighborhood? Why does something like this not exist closer to my home? Lessons reiterated as a professional, then, as an educator it became more clear that children on different ends of the income spectrum were receiving vastly different education experiences Francis said. Elevate Collegiate Charter School seeks to provide an accessible high-quality option to underserved students in Houston. Their mission is to equip all pre-kindergarten through fifth grade scholars with the academic knowledge and character development necessary to set forth confidently on the path to college. Elevate Collegiate Charter School strongly believes that they are not just responsible for providing a college preparatory education to students, but also to help instill the character traits necessary for them to be positive members in their class, school, and community. Increased access to opportunity is a major goal of Elevate Collegiate Charter School. We see education as a tool that all children need to unlock their greatest potential. Francis says, To better serve minority and low-income students this charter school will feature double literacy blocks, which we hope will promote advanced literary skills, and an increased prioritization of computer science. In the eight largest tech companies, African Americans make up less than 5 percent of the workforce. So, our challenge is also to figure out innovative ways to infuse coding, robotics, and basic computer software to light that tech spark in the curriculum. Title IV, Part C, of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), entitled, Expanding Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools, supports the increased accessibility of high-quality public charter schools. State entities can even receive grants from the federal government to open and prepare for the operation of new charter schools. ESSA defines a high-quality charter school as an educational institution that shows evidence of strong academic results or growth and has no significant issues with fiscal management or procedural compliance. ESSA gives states more flexibility to states to decide how to incorporate charter schools into their accountability systems, but most state charter school laws hold charter schools to the same standards as their traditional public school counterparts. Why Houston? Rebecca is an alumna of the University of Houston where she earned Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in African American Studies. Houston is one of the most diverse cities in the nation and there are currently roughly 22,000 students on alternative school option waiting list. Elevate Collegiate Charter School seeks to provide the individualized learning support towards mastery that ESSA encourages. It will do so by hiring teachers with experience teaching underserved populations and who have the passion to do so effectively and consistently. ADVERTISEMENT To learn more about the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the innovative opportunities it affords to Black students check out nnpa.org/essa. Diverse New Congress Gavels in, Ready to Confront Trump WASHINGTON (AP) The 116th Congress gaveled into session Thursday swathed in history, returning the first woman to the House speakers office and ushering in a diverse class of Democratic freshmen ready to confront President Donald Trump in a new era of divided government. The new Congress is like none other. There are more women than ever before, and a new generation of Muslims, Latinos, Native Americans and African-Americans in the House is creating what academics call a reflective democracy, more aligned with the population of the United States. The Republican side in the House is still made up mostly of white men, and in the Senate Republicans bolstered their ranks in the majority. In a nod to the moment, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader, was broadly pledging to make Congress work for all Americans addressing kitchen table issues at a time of deep economic churn even as her party is ready to challenge Trump with investigations and subpoena powers that threaten the White House agenda. Its the first new Congress to convene amid a partial government shutdown, now in its 13th day over Trumps demands for money for a wall along the U.S-Mexico border. ADVERTISEMENT This House will be for the people, Pelosi was to say in remarks after winning the gavel, according to excerpts released ahead of time, to lower health costs and prescription drugs prices, and protect people with pre-existing conditions; to increase paychecks by rebuilding America with green and modern infrastructure from sea to shining sea. Pelosi vowed to restore integrity to government, so that people can have confidence that government works for the public interest, not the special interests. The day was unfolding as one of both celebration and impatience. Newly elected lawmakers arrived, often with friends and families in tow, to take the oath of office and pose for ceremonial photos. The Democrats planned to quickly pass legislation to re-open the government, but without the funding Trump is demanding for his promised border wall. Vice President Mike Pence swore in newly-elected senators, but Senate Republicans under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had no plans to consider the House bills to fund the government unless Trump agrees to sign them into law. That ensures the shutdown will continue, clouding the first days of the new session. Its a time of stark national political division that some analysts say is on par with the Civil War era. Battle lines are drawn not just between Democrats and Republicans but within the parties themselves, splintered by their left and right flanks. Pelosi defied history in returning to the speakers office after eight years in the minority, overcoming internal opposition from Democrats demanding a new generation of leaders. She will be the first to regain the gavel since legendary Sam Rayburn of Texas in 1955. ADVERTISEMENT Putting Pelosis name forward for nomination, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the incoming Democratic caucus chair, recounted her previous accomplishments passing the Affordable Care Act, helping the country out of the Great Recession as preludes to her next ones. He called her leadership unparalleled in modern American history. As speaker, shell face an early challenge from the partys robust wing of liberal newcomers, including 29-year-old New Yorker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has risen to such prominence she is already known around the Capitol and on her prolific social media accounts by the nickname AOC. She said shed cast a no vote on a new package of rules to govern the House. Ocasio-Cortez and other liberals oppose the pay-as-you-go budget provisions in the rules package that would allow restrictive objections to any legislation that would add to federal deficits. They say such restraints would hamstring Democratic efforts to invest in health care, education and develop a Green New Deal of renewable energy infrastructure projects to fight climate change. Republicans face their own internal battles beyond just the conservative House Freedom Caucus, but as they decide how closely to tie their political fortunes to Trump. GOP leader Kevin McCarthys name was put into nomination by his partys caucus chair, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the daughter of the former vice president. She said McCarthy knows our rights come from God and government is not the source of our liberty. Many GOP senators are up for re-election in 2020 in states, including Colorado and Maine, where voters have mixed views of Trumps performance in the White House. Trump, whose own bid for 2020 already is underway, faces potential challenges from the ranks of Senate Democrats under Chuck Schumer. Trump had little to say early Thursday as the new Congress was convening, but he did tweet an attack on one of his likely presidential challengers, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, mocking her claim to Native American ancestry. The halls of the Capitol were bustling with arrivals, children in the arms of many new lawmakers. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., opened the House prayer asking at a time fraught with tribalism at home and turbulence abroad that lawmakers become the architects of a kindlier nation. Overnight, Democratic Rep-elect Ilhan Omar of Minnesota tweeted a picture with her family at the airport. She wrote, 23 years ago, from a refugee camp in Kenya, my father and I arrived at an airport in Washington DC. Today, we return to that same airport on the eve of my swearing in as the first Somali-American in Congress. Democrats Focus on Voting Rights Ahead of 2020 Primary Democrats are trying to turn their most painful losses this year into a rallying cry they hope will electrify the 2020 presidential campaign: Every vote matters. Multiple potential contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination are elevating the issue of voting rights as they prepare to launch campaigns. Theyre vowing to oppose Republican-backed efforts to require identification to vote, reinstate protections eliminated by a 2013 Supreme Court ruling and frequently highlight the necessity of counting every vote. The aim is to tap into the anger and frustration among Democrats who argue that Republicans win some elections by making it harder for their constituents, particularly minorities, to vote. ADVERTISEMENT That sentiment has long existed among Democrats but intensified after the party lost closely watched races for governor in Georgia and Florida last month. Both contests featured heated racial rhetoric and charges of voter suppression. The partys suspicion of Republicans has also grown as a congressional race in North Carolina remains mired in allegations of absentee ballot fraud and GOP lawmakers in Wisconsin and Michigan seek to weaken the power of incoming Democratic governors. Democrats ultimately hope to turn the issue of voting rights into an argument thats just as persuasive to voters in 2020 as health care proved to be in 2018. And theres already competition among potential presidential contenders to build a reputation as the most aggressive in advocating for the right to vote. This is not a new issue, and it is quite frankly the dark history of our country, which is specific populations being restricted from meaningful access to the right to vote, Sen. Kamala Harris of California told The Associated Press. Theres no question that 2018 highlighted an issue that has maybe seemed to be dormant for some time, but its very much alive and it should be the subject of dinner table conversations everywhere and it should be of real concern to everyone because, look, when people lose confidence in our democracy, when Americans lose confidence in our democracy, it will impair our strength. It will cause us to be weaker, she said. Aides to Harris said that voting rights would be among her top priorities, and that she would likely frame it less as a civil rights issue and as more of a broader Democratic rallying point. She has argued that the entire Democratic agenda is weakened when Republicans restrict ballot access for unions, minorities and other groups. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who is weighing his own presidential bid, has framed the issue of voting rights in the context of a traditional civil rights issue. During an October trip to Des Moines, Iowa, Booker sparked cheering standing ovations as he quoted from Martin Luther King Jr.s speech from the 1965 voting rights march on Montgomery, Alabama. ADVERTISEMENT How long will it take? Im going to tell you, not long now, Booker proclaimed, turning the moment into a call-and-response. Because its not long until November. Harris, Booker and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota are among the potential presidential candidates who will hold onto seats on the Senate Judiciary Committee heading into 2020, giving them an important post from which to address voting rights. Thats leaving some activists pleased that the issue appears to be moving into the mainstream of Democratic politics. This is the first time where I feel like there has been a broad conversation because the examples were so egregious, said Adrianne Shropshire, the executive director of BlackPAC, which works to mobilize black voters. It was literally in every community that I went to, in every church that I stopped by, in every neighborhood when I was knocking on doors that was almost one of the first things that people were talking about because everyone felt like their community was under assault. Still, some caution that the focus on voting rights isnt a successful strategy to win a crucial election and could instead backfire on Democrats who are trying to appeal to broader swaths of voters. Peter Guzman, a Republican who is the president of the Latin Chamber of Commerce in Nevada, said that while he feels every candidate Democrat and Republican should talk about voting rights, he didnt see it as a singularly important issue to center a campaign on. I think the conversation should be encouraging everybody to vote, and if anybody feels like thats being suppressed, they certainly should call the authorities and make it known that theyre not able to vote, Guzman said in an interview. He added that he could see potential backlash for a candidate who campaigns on it. Im not quite sure everybody in the country believes the problem is that significant, he said. Here in Nevada, I believe that we have some of the best, safest voting in the United States, he added. I think were a model for the rest of the nation. I do not believe that theres voter suppression. Whenever I hear voter fraud, I believe those are buzzwords for other things. Thats not stopping Democrats for now. At a post-election gathering on Capitol Hill of the National Action Network, the civil rights organization founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton, multiple senators who appear to be moving toward jumping into the 2020 presidential race eagerly discussed the issue.When it comes to elections, there should be no hesitation: Every vote matters, period, said Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. If you cant get more Americans to vote for you than the other guy or gal, then you lose. Its that simple. Politicians are supposed to compete over how many voters they can persuade to come vote for them, not how many American citizens they can disqualify, discourage or demoralize. Klobuchar, who could stake out a more moderate position among Democrats should she choose to seek the White House, told the gathering, I think No. 1 on the agenda has got to be our economy. And then, she continued, you cant have a fair economy for everyone if you dont have fair voting rights. Klobuchar noted she has sponsored a bill calling for automatic voter registration and supports reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act. Last week in Charleston, South Carolina, dozens of people attended a town hall led by Tom Steyer, the billionaire investor and Democratic activist, focused on the right to an equal vote. I do think weve seen more transparency into cheating, and more awareness that cheating actually flips elections, Steyer, who is considering running for president, told the AP. We saw it in Georgia this year, were seeing it in North Carolina real-time, but we also saw it in Wisconsin in 2016 its not just south of the Mason-Dixon line. Even as he pushed his own message that every person deserves the right to an equal vote, Steyer said he wasnt sure that this issue would become a defining issue of the cycle. Voting is a justice issue, but it doesnt come up that much, he said. D.C. Council Passes Historic Climate-Change Legislation D.C. joined Hawaii, California and several U.S. cities and towns Tuesday in furthering its commitment to environmental sustainability, as the city council approved one of the countrys most progressive climate-change bills. In the moments leading up to the councils unanimous vote, council members Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) and Kenyan McDuffie (D-Ward 5) received collegial accolades for their part in crafting a bill that reflected the input of environmentalists, local business owners and other relevant parties. Were trying to do what we can on the local level to respond to climate change. Its a moral imperative, Cheh said moments before the D.C. Council approved the CleanEnergy DC Omnibus Amendment Act of 2018. ADVERTISEMENT The sweeping legislation was introduced by Cheh in July, a year after President Donald Trump (R) withdrew from the Paris Accord. The new law mandates that all energy used in the District must come from renewable sources some of which can be produced locally by 2032. The federal government has abandoned us and unless we do something, well leave this catastrophe to our grandchildren, said Cheh, who chairs the councils Committee on Transportation and the Environment. This bill is a major achievement and I hope the people of D.C. can be proud. Other provisions of the law create an energy performance standard program for large and new structures in the District and incentivize the purchase of fuel-efficient vehicles, all with the goal of the reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent within the next 32 years. For some key players involved in shaping the bill, however, the real victory lies in the opportunity to expand access to renewable energy sources for low- and moderate-income families burdened by the increasing cost of living. Climate change is an important issue and has a real impact, said Melissa Lavinson, senior vice president of governmental and external affairs at Pepco Holdings. Its important for the District to have a model that drives innovation and is more inclusive. Other provisions of the law create an energy performance standard program for large and new structures in the District and incentivize the purchase of fuel-efficient vehicles, all with the goal of the reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent within 32 years. ADVERTISEMENT Council hearings and working group meetings in recent months centered on the pathways to reducing carbon emission, improving modes of public transportation in that regard, and expanding the Districts presence in the energy efficiency arena. Those discussions culminated in the introduction of amendments by McDuffie, chair of the councils Business & Economic Development Committee, one of which lifts barriers utility companies may encounter in expanding energy efficiency options to needy residents. Last month, all council members, except Robert White (D-At Large), who was absent, approved two measures, one that allows energy companies to provide cost-reduction programs to eligible customers unlike that offered by the District Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU), and another that requires the mayor to establish a transportation program geared toward fully eliminating commercial vehicle emissions by 2045. Lavinson lauded the amendments as a step in the right direction for addressing inequities that preclude low-income communities from accessing energy efficient amenities. Some of the elements of the bill that Council member Kenyan McDuffie strengthened do that, Lavinson said. Advancing the bill will provide money to expand access to local solar and renewable energy to low- and moderate-income residents. This can serve as a model to make sure theyre realizing the tangible benefits of this great bill. Data shows that city residents in 27,000 households with median incomes at or below the poverty rate spend nearly one-third of their household income on utilities. Families that allocate significant portions of their budget to utilities often develop long-term health problems as a result of forgoing cooling and heating, and lack of healthy food options. Residents who qualify for residential discount programs receive a monthly credit on their bill and exemptions for spending surcharges, including those referenced in the CleanEnergy DC Omnibus Amendment Act. Lavinson also referenced two forms of a burgeoning solar energy program. Through the private rooftop solar program, customers save money and energy when they install solar panels on their roofs. The District agencies work hard to get outreach and help people understand there are local and federal programs that they should be taking advantage of, she said. This is something we do every day, which is why were excited that the bill provides us an opportunity to do more. The innovative pricing structure had been of great benefit for residents living in multifamily dwellings such as Jubilee Housing on Columbia Road in Northwest. Proponents of solar energy and other cost-saving measures have set their sights on spreading the word among low- and moderate-income residents who qualify for those services. But for some, including Peoples Counsel Sandra Mattavous-Frye, affordability remains an issue in discussions about the bill. At the bills inception, she stressed her concerns about how fee increases to fund the District Green Bank would financially burden residents. Another gripe involved the chance that, even with the passage of McDuffies amendment, Pepco and other utility providers would duplicate cost-saving programs over which SEU has sole authority. On Monday, the day before the council vote, Mattavous-Frye maintained that the recent amendments to the bill wouldnt prevent rate increases for low- and moderate-income customers. The bill as presently drafted allows Pepco and Washington Gas to propose energy efficiency programs, while the utilities are not precluded from submitting programs under the present system, she said. I am concerned that the utility programs will duplicate the efforts and programs offered by the Sustainable Energy Utility, which is the third-party contractor created to implement citywide energy efficiency programs. Duplicative programs will cause consumers to pay twice for the same program. Convicted Double-Murderers Death Sentence Upheld The California Supreme Court today upheld a death sentence for a convicted double murderer who was barred from being in a Los Angeles County courtroom for his trial after he attacked his defense attorney as jury selection was beginning in his case. The states highest court unanimously rejected the defenses contention that Cedric Jerome Johnson had been denied his day in court because a Los Angeles Superior Court judge barred him from attending his trial, in which he was charged with the September 1996 shooting deaths of Gregory Hightower and Lawrence Faggins in Watts. ADVERTISEMENT In a 77-page ruling written by Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, the court noted that Johnson suddenly and violently attacked his attorney, Steven K. Hauser, in full view of hundreds of witnesses by striking him in the head as the jury selection process was beginning in September 1998 in his retrial after the first jury to hear the case against him deadlocked on the charges. The defendant had also unleashed profanity-laced tirades and accusations of racism against a number of different judges, along with repeatedly spitting on his attorney and threatening to kill his family, according to the ruling. At various points, the judges presiding over the proceedings expressed concern that defendant sought to inject error into the trial through his disruptive behavior. Not surprisingly, defendant now alleges error arising from the trial courts efforts to manage his behavior, including the decision to bar him from trial and the finding that he forfeited his right to testify. What we conclude is that defendants repeated efforts to compromise the integrity of a capital trial were unsuccessful. In each instance where the trial court made decisions challenged by the defendant, the court acted within the permissible scope of its discretion, Cuellar wrote, with the rest of the panel concurring. Johnson was wearing a remotely activated stun belt under his clothing at the time of the attack on his attorney in a jury assembly room where both sides had gathered with prospective jurors, and was able to launch a second attack on his attorneys before sheriffs deputies ultimately managed to subdue the defendant, whose stun belt appeared not to work, according to the ruling. Johnson subsequently said he said did not want to listen to his trial and disrupted court proceedings by banging on the door of a courthouse lockup cell, the justices noted. His appellate attorneys argued in an appellate brief that the case was like no other. ADVERTISEMENT For the first time in the history of this country, a capital defendant was tried in absentia from jury selection through penalty verdict the jury found the defendant guilty and returned a verdict of death without ever seeing or hearing from the defendant, and without the defendant ever seeing the jurors or confronting a single witness, the appellate attorneys wrote in a court filing. But the California Supreme Court found that the exclusion of a defendant from a death penalty trial was unusual, but not unprecedented. We have previously upheld death judgments where the trial court excluded the defendant from part or most of a trial because of the defendants disruption of proceedings, the panel found, noting that Johnson had refused daily invitations to listen to the proceedings and demonstrated his unwillingness to conform to courtroom decorum by his continued misbehavior. Hightower who had worked for Congressman Maxine Waters, opened up his own business and helped to create a truce between gangs after the 1992 riots was shot to death along with Faggins after the two left a party about the same time, according to the ruling, which noted that Faggins had reportedly snitched on someone and had been warned while at the party that he was in danger, according to the ruling. Co-defendant Terry Betton who was charged along with Johnson in the killings was sentenced to 89 years to life in state prison after being convicted of Faggins slaying. Jurors deadlocked on the murder charge against him involving Hightower, which was eventually dismissed, according to court papers. African Americans Were Russian Targets in 2016 Election The Senate Intelligence Committee released two reports this week about Russian meddling in the 2016 election. They both highlight the efforts by the Internet Research Agency (IRA) in St. Petersburg to influence Black voters. The IRA is owned by Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, a good friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Prigozhins tricksters used ads, posts, and fake accounts on social media platforms to give Donald Trump a boost into the White House. Less known is the extent to which they also tried to depress Black votes and undermine support for Hillary Clinton. The Russian persuaders used virtually all platforms including second-tier ones like Reddit, Gab, Pinterest, and Tumblr to lower voter turnout among Democrats in 2016. Researchers from Oxford University and Austin-based New Knowledge analyzed data from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Both groups of researchers found Instagram was used much more to reach African Americans than previously thought. ADVERTISEMENT Instagram got 187 million likes from content generated by IRA. Facebook users engaged Russian propaganda only 76.5 million times. New Knowledge found that African Americans were targeted with dozens of phony Facebook pages compared to one or two pages that were aimed at other ethnic or religious groups. The report found IRA created 81 bogus Facebook pages. The 25 pages aimed at right-wingers drew 1.4 million followers. The 30 pages aimed at African Americans drew 1.2 million. In addition, the Russians launched a Twitter barrage to confuse voters about voting rules and dissuade them from voting. The Oxford researchers found much the same thing. These campaigns pushed a message that the best way to advance the cause of the African American community was to boycott the election, they wrote. Reaction to the reports came swiftly from the N.A.A.C.P. They called for a week-long boycott of Facebook and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. The Senate Judiciary Committee in 2016 asked social media outlets like Facebook and Google to combat fake news and develop ways to remove inappropriate content. At first Facebooks Zuckerberg resisted. But this year he hired hundreds of workers to combat hate speech and to stop posts and photos that attack people on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality or gender. Both Facebook and Google now use algorithms to catch inauthentic content from slipping onto their platforms. ADVERTISEMENT In July Facebook announced a new partnership with the Atlantic Council, a conservative think tank. Their mission: to decide what content should go and what should stay. Critics say Google and Facebook have restricted alternative news while corporate news outlets have gotten a pass. For centuries the arbiter of what constitutes protected speech has been the U.S. Supreme Court. But social media has changed the political landscape. Smartphones are the vehicles that navigate it. Social media now controls more of what Americans read and see and are shaping what we think. In any case, Facebook and Google arent as smart as the Russians. The researchers say they are still up to their tricks and continue to use things like Instagram to divide the electorate and influence American politics. ACCOUNTABILITY CRUCIAL FOR BLACK PROGRESS The word accountability is used so often and indiscriminately, it has become a meaningless buzz word, especially for those in leadership positions. Todays column again examines the implications of a disconnection between the rhetoric and reality of accountability among African Americans leaders, especially. (The definition of accountable includes obliged to account for ones actsand accepting responsibility for ones actions or inactions.) The discussion, while general, applies to Black leadership accountability at virtually every level- elected officials, civic leaders, leaders of community and neighbor groups and organizations, the press, educators and even to gang leaders- all relate to the forward progress, or lack of same, of the Black community. Accountability is most often mentioned when describing the performance of elected and/or appointed public officials. However, the Black communitys failure to recognize and acknowledge the need for broad, overall accountability absolves everyone, leadership in particular, from responsibility, for their actions, even when such actions are not in Black people/s best interest. The continuing lack of accountability by so many of its leaders aggravates the very conditions that tend to block Blacks forward movement. For Blacks, the most egregious effect of a lack of leadership accountability is the resulting tendency to perpetuate a status quo that, by practically any measure, does not benefit the Black community. And widespread lack of accountability continues, with impunity, in most Black communities where outrage over unacceptable conditions is typically episodic, only a moment, not the start of sustained, collaborative protest. This column posed the question whether there would be sustainable accountability following Trayvon Martins murder, and many since. Was it really a spark that would ignite sustainable protest or simply another opportunity, wasted? ADVERTISEMENT Certainly, The Black Lives Matter movement is thus far, meeting the sustainability criteria. Hopefully, it will turn out to be a major incubator for broad Black united front,, i.e., unity with diversity, based upon explicit common ground. Of course, accountability begins by meeting ones individual responsibility. For Blacks in general, it also means rejecting individualism and materialism and returning to self-determined moral and ethical values that are fundamental to our collective future. A simple example of a lack of individual responsibility and accountability: A person in a particular group says he/she accepts the groups purpose and objectives, but regularly fails to attend meetings or respond to meeting notices. This may, or may not, indicate a lack of interest or concern, but such behavior does indicate that attending the groups meetings and/or responding to the groups requests to do so, is not an immediate priority. Depending on the group, such behavior could be contrary to its purpose and rules and even inconsistent with the persons professed buy-in to the groups mission. This example may seem trivial, but I would argue that it is a snapshot of what occurs all the time and sometimes with serious negative consequences for the person or the group. Im sure those who have worked extensively with a group to develop common ground and/or unity on important issues like police abuse, education and politics, resonate with this mundane example and have no trouble supplying their own accounts about the contradictions of individuals, and groups, stated priorities versus their actual behavior. This discussion also relates to problems and adverse conditions effecting Black folks that are often swept under the rug when they should be dealt with honestly. Reality is both plus and minus, and soft peddling tough issues distorts the truth which often has serious negative implications. This is especially true in the social justice arena where seemingly trivial matters can derail a groups plan, project or even its credibility. These days, Black leaders tend to overemphasize the positive (often code for maintaining the status quo) while downplaying the need to challenge continuing barriers to Blacks progress. And such sugar coating often correlates with their lack of accountability. Further, failure to deal honestly with both positives and negatives makes it virtually impossible to effectively challenge racism and race-based inequities or hold the system accountable. It also obscures Black peoples responsibility to hold their own leadership accountable. Although brutally enslaved and stripped of family, values, language and culture, Blacks are arguably, the most resilient people in history. But too many of us are complicit in prolonging our systemic oppression by failing to honestly and consistently challenge barriers to civil rights, social justice, and most important, for us, human rights. Lasting solutions to the 21st Centurys daunting (mythical post racial) challenges require that we re-dedicate ourselves to respecting one another and work together for real change, anything less will not get the job done. ADVERTISEMENT Accountability should always be a top-down, bottom-up proposition. It starts with parents exercising greater responsibility, respect and control of their children and then, holding ourselves and Black leadership, especially in schools and, accountable at every level, as mentioned earlier. This necessitates deliberately rejecting Americas individualistic and materialistic values, then (or simultaneously) again embracing moral and ethical group- oriented values. This will happen as Blacks become sufficiently dissatisfied to feel and behave differently. It also requires taking new risks, and having broad-based support indispensable for achieving sustainable progress. Black leadership accountability is about modeling ethical and moral behavior, as opposed to mouthing empty platitudes that perpetuate a status quo inimical to our own best interests. We must reclaim, internalize and actively represent the best of our great and proud heritage. Larry Aubry: [email protected] Columbia Borough police BURGLARY COLUMBIA: A male was seen walking through a parking lot and entering a black vehicle Dec. 31 in the 200 block of Locust Street after police responded to a report of a residential burglary in the area, police said. Police ask anyone with information to call 717-684-7735. East Cocalico police BURGLARY EAST COCALICO TWP.: Debra A. Hulse, 48, no address given, was charged with burglary, criminal trespass and theft by unlawful taking after she appeared to take up residence at a home on the first block of Kurtz Road sometime between Dec. 10 and 12, police said. The resident of the home later discovered several medications missing, police said. East Earl Township police FORGERY EAST EARL TWP.: Sonny B. Spennato, 27, of Philadelphia, was charged Dec. 27 with forgery, criminal attempt at theft by deception and bad checks after trying to cash a check stolen from a business, police said. Police ask anyone with information to call 717-355-5302. Lancaster city police ASSAULT LANCASTER: A male was hit in the face and knocked to the ground after he got in an argument with a male who approached him Dec. 30 in the 200 block of North Queen Street, police said. LANCASTER: A male told police he was slapped in the face and chest by a female he was escorting away from a business because she was being uncooperative Dec. 30 in the 200 block of North Water Street, police said. LANCASTER: A male told police he was hit in the head with what he thought was a rock while walking Dec. 25 in the first block of West Chestnut Street, police said. BURGLARY LANCASTER: A person took $600 in cash Dec. 12 after entering a second-floor apartment bedroom window in the 100 block of College Avenue, police said. DRUG CHARGES LANCASTER: Victor Alonso Ascencio, 26, of Chester Street, was charged with possession of a controlled substance, disorderly conduct and public drunkenness after officers responded to a possible fight Dec. 29 at 31 Howard Ave., police said. LANCASTER: Angelo Luis Ortega, 28, of the 600 block of Poplar Street, was charged with possession of a small amount of marijuana and drug paraphernalia after he was found sleeping in the drivers seat of a parked, running vehicle Dec. 29 in the 200 block of North Water Street, police said. LANCASTER: Juan Carlos Custodio-Fontanez, 39, of the 300 block of South Ann Street, was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia after police responded to a domestic incident Dec. 21 in the 300 block of South Ann Street, police said. SHOTS FIRED LANCASTER: A male was seen pulling a handgun out of his waistband and firing shots Dec. 25 in the 300 block of North Reservoir Street, police said. LANCASTER: Police responded to a shots fired call around 2 a.m. Dec. 23 in the 1200 block of Union Street. No one was injured, police said. LANCASTER: Police reported an incident just after 11:30 p.m. Dec. 22 in the area of 881 Rockford Road. THEFT CHARGES LANCASTER: John Miller, 39, of the 300 block of Winthrop Drive, was charged with retail theft and possession of a controlled substance after he was seen taking items Dec. 28 from Pep Boys, 1700 Fruitville Pike, police said. LANCASTER: Joan Omar Munoz, 42, of the 1000 block of Grofftown Road, was charged with retail theft after he was seen taking two fragrance gift sets Dec. 21 from 825 E. Chestnut St., police said. THEFT LANCASTER: A female told police she left an iPhone X on a toilet-paper dispenser Dec. 28 at Park City Center. The female said she went back about an hour later, and the phone was gone. She told police she found a Galaxy S9 in its place. LANCASTER: A Playstation gaming system, two controllers and cash were stolen Dec. 27 from an apartment in the 700 block of North Shippen Street. Northern Lancaster County Regional police THEFT PENN TWP.: Police said Shahbaz Khan, 26, of Woodbridge, Virginia, entered Manheim Auto Auction, 1190 Lancaster Road, late in the morning of Dec. 28, took eight key fobs worth $2,700 and used them to enter and exit several vehicles. The site is off limits to the general public. HIT-AND-RUN WARWICK TWP.: Harkit Singh Rai, 45, of Bethel, Connecticut, was charged with knocking down a stop sign and street signs while trying to make a right turn from Lincoln Road onto Brunnerville Road in his tractor-trailer around 8:45 p.m. Dec. 28, police said. State police THEFT CHARGES SALISBURY TWP.: Ernest Kile Dyer Jr., 19, of Lancaster County, was charged with theft by unlawful taking after taking socks Dec. 10 while an employee at Urban Outfitters, 766 Brackbill Road, police said. SALISBURY TWP.: Ashlee Martinez, 25, of Lancaster County, was charged with theft by unlawful taking after taking jewelry between Dec. 7 and 11 while an employee at Urban Outfitters, 766 Brackbill Road, police said. West Hempfield Township police CRIMINAL MISCHIEF WEST HEMPFIELD: David Edward Brown Jr., 22, of East Petersburg, was charged with criminal mischief and public drunkenness after a domestic dispute Dec. 27 at Columbia Avenue and 18th Street, police said. Brown allegedly broke a window out of a persons vehicle, causing about $100 in damage, police said. DRUG CHARGES WEST HEMPFIELD TWP.: Margaret Ellen Carr, 32, of Columbia, was charged with possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia after police responded Dec. 26 to a report of marijuana odor at a room at the Mainstay Suits, 314 Primrose Lane, Mountville, police said. Editor's note: This story was originally published December 2017. The pale, expressionless face has gazed from a third-story window in southern Lancaster County for more than 100 years. To the family that lives in the centuries-old brick house in New Texas, near Peach Bottom, its just the head in the window. To people living nearby, or passing the house as they travel Route 222 just north of the Maryland border, its the face of a grieving widow who waited fruitlessly for her husband or, some say, her son to come home from the Civil War. The truth behind the wan face is much more mundane. Waiting for the call LNP reader Dale Bezzard posed the question via LancasterOnlines We the People journalism project. Readers ask questions and vote for their favorites, and LNP reporters find the answers. What is the real story behind the house with the head in the upstairs window on Route 222 south close to the Maryland border? Bezzard asked. The house, at 2500 Robert Fulton Highway, dates to the 1700s. Angeline Stowe lives there with her husband John and their children: Aiden, 12, and Hailey, 11. "Ive been waiting for this call," Stowe, 39, said Friday, having heard that her home was the subject of curiosity. Raised in Rising Sun, Maryland, Stowe says as a child she heard stories about the head in the window. She often saw it on trips north, she says, and she always thought it was creepy. Shortly before she got married, her future husband called to tell her he'd bought a house at auction. She was shocked to discover it was that house. "I actually cried. I was terrified," Stowe says. "I thought, 'I cant live in that house.' Now, I love it." Making it home Stowe moved into the house in February 2005. The head in the window was the only thing left behind by the former occupants, she says. She planned to get rid of it, she says. "But, once I walked through the house, I was fine," she says. "Right away, it felt homey." And the head, she soon realized, was "a big deal" in the area. "So we decided to leave it there," she says. People often stop to ask about the head or take photos from the street. Stowe says a man in his 80s told her he used to come by to see the face when he was a child. Many people believe the face represents a woman waiting for her husband or son to return from a Virginia battlefield, where he died during the Civil War. Others say the head was put there by a 19th-century slave owner to convince workers he was always watching, or that a woman had a death mask made to torment her philandering husband. A lawyer who helped arrange purchase of the house told Stowe the head's true origin. "I know why its really there," she says. "Unfortunately, its not a glamorous story." Studying the bumps The house was featured in a book titled "Pennsylvania Dutch Country Ghosts, Legends & Lore," Stowe says. It was also written up in a 1939 edition of National Geographic, in an article titled The Face on Carters Hill. That's the same title as a poem by Frederick W. Hammond, published in booklet form in 1910, according to Eric Conner, assistant stationmaster at Strasburg Rail Road. Conner provided a copy of the poem to LNP, as well as a 1952 article from The Pennsylvania Dutchman about the head. Carter, Stowe says, refers to Professor Henry Carter, who owned the house in the late 1800s. "Henry Carter was a phrenologist," Stowe explains. "He used the head to teach his students." Phrenology was a Victorian-era belief that mental faculties and character traits could be read by studying bumps in the skull. When Carter died in 1896, his daughter Kate inherited the house, Stowe says. "When she was going through his personal belongings, she found this head and put it in the attic window just to see peoples reactions." Stowe admits the head's humdrum origin are disappointing. "I was like, are you kidding me?" she says. "I wanted something exciting." Keeping it where it is The head, made of hard white plaster, resembles a child or small woman, Stowe says. "It has ears, but thats about it," she says. "Theres an indentation for eyes, but there are no eyes. It has the shape of the mouth and nose." It sits on the broad sill of the attic window, where it's been largely undisturbed for more than 100 years. But Stowe has come to believe another legend surrounding the head that it brings bad luck to anyone who removes it. The year after they moved in, she says, she and her husband replaced a concrete landscaping wall along Route 222 with a more attractive block wall. At about the same time, she decided to replace the head. "I bought a pretty mannequin head from a cosmetology store and put it there instead," she explains. "I figured if I had to have a head in the window, it should be a pretty one." Bad idea. "I was nine months pregnant with my son, about ready to go to work, when I heard a commotion outside," says Stowe, who works at Swift Middle School in Solanco. The wall had collapsed into the highway, she says. Firefighters from Robert Fulton Fire Company were on the scene, shifting debris to get traffic flowing. "After that, I put the head back," she says. "I got rid of the mannequin head. I didnt want our head to be jealous." Now, after 13 years, "Im completely used to it," Stowe says. "It doesnt scare me. Its almost like its watching over us." Besides, she adds, "my husband and I could stand on the porch buck naked and no one would see us. Theyd all be looking up at the head." More 'We the People' reports: Manheim Township police are looking for a man they say entered a jewelry store and ran off with necklace valued at nearly $3,000 on New Years Eve. The incident occurred at 1:43 p.m. on Monday, police said, when a yet-unidentified male police refer as a necklace nabber in a news release entered the Vincent and Company Fine Jewelers at 1633 Lititz Pike, Lancaster Shopping Center, and requested to observe a gold necklace. After being handed the 24-inch, 14-karat yellow gold mariner link style chain necklace, the male ran from the store with the necklace. The necklace is valued at $2,995. Anyone with information on the identity of the man is asked to contact Manheim Township police at 717-569-6401 or submit an anonymous tip through the CRIMEWATCH website. Generations of Girl Scouts from Lancaster County who spent nights in the woods would have a hard time recognizing Camp Furnace Hills after extensive logging. Its definitely destroyed, said Will Haggans, of Manheim, who founded the grassroots Furnace Hills Camping Association to try to prevent the camp from being developed. Last Saturday, Haggans and three other members of the group hired a plane to show the extent of logging on the long-wooded 240-acre camp that has served Girl Scouts from Lancaster County since 1947. Everyone on the plane was completely shocked by what we had seen, Haggans said. Some wooded areas around camp sites and buildings seem to be nearly treeless. Amid declining revenue, the Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania caused an uproar in November 2017, announcing that all but 50 acres of the cherished retreat adjacent to Middle creek Wildlife Management Area in Clay and West Cocalico townships would be timbered, then sold. The Girl Scouts council said the property would not be clear-cut. A logger working on the property described the timbering as a very heavy selective cut. Regardless, not many trees or vegetation is left after the logging operation, which is still going on. Efforts to buy property In two separate efforts to buy the property, groups requested that the property not be logged before being sold. In an open letter sent to the council board last week, Haggans accused the board of turning a blind eye to the national Girl Scouts creed of promoting environmental stewardship. Despite the logging damage, Haggans said his group is still interested in buying and restoring the property for the community. He said the groups membership is now in the thousands and consists mostly of people who attended the camp through the years as Girl Scouts or volunteer counselors, as well as residents of the area. Also interested in keeping the property from being developed in some form is Friends of Camp Furnace Hills. The initial effort to buy the property from the Girl Scouts was spearheaded by the Lancaster County Conservancy, which had brought in the Pennsylvania Game Commission as the ultimate owner and had, along with the Natural Lands nonprofit group, arranged possible funding from state and federal grants. The groups offered to pay full appraised value but had urged the council not to log the property. If the Girl Scouts are interested in protecting this land, while securing appraised value, we would again bring the partners together, said Kate Gonick, the conservancys director of land protection and in-house attorney. However, the Girl Scouts need to move as the federal funds are not unlimited and are being earmarked for other projects. First crack at purchase All these groups will get first crack at buying the property, according to Amy Mountain, spokeswoman for the Girl Scouts board. She said the councils broker is actively reaching out to all parties that have previously expressed an interest in acreage, before the property is listed publicly for sale. Mountain said that an initial asking price has been set, in consultation with a New York broker, but she declined to reveal the price tag. Haggans said the council told him that 175 acres of Camp Furnace Hills will be offered to the parties and if no sales agreement results, the property would be placed on the market for public sale on or before Feb. 28. To see several dozen aerial photos of the Girl Scouts camp and the logging, click here. Fulton Bank said Thursday it has agreed to buy Forney Financial Solutions, a wealth management business based in Altoona. The price was not disclosed. The transaction is expected to be completed by March 31. Established by John C. and Sherry G. Forney in 2001, Forney Financial has about $250 million in assets under management or administration. All seven Forney Financial employees will be retained. Fulton Bank has about $11 billion in assets under management or administration through its wealth management division, Fulton Financial Advisors. Fulton Bank said its acquiring Forney Financial to strengthen its wealth-management presence in central Pennsylvania. The Altoona office will take the Fulton Financial Advisors name. LAist only exists with reader support. If you're in a position to give, your donation powers our reporters and keeps us independent. Our reporting is free for everyone, but its not free to make. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe California rang in the new year by becoming the first state to ban pet stores from selling commercially bred dogs, cats and rabbits. Passed in October 2017, the law took effect just this year on Jan. 1 and puts a serious damper on "puppy mills," many of which are notorious for breeding under poor conditions that hurt the health of the animals. Many Southern California cities, Los Angeles included, had similar bans on sales of commercially bred pets in place for several years. But California wins the title of the first state to require pet stores to sell only rescued animals. At least in Los Angeles County, the law is more about the statement it makes, said Jack Hagerman, vice president for communications at the Pasadena Humane Society & SPCA. "This was California's way of saying, 'We don't think it's cool for commercial breeders to put more and more animals in the world who have a lot of health and behavior issues,'" he said. Pet stores are required to develop cooperative agreements with at least one public or private animal shelter. The Pasadena organization already has partnerships with four nearby pet stores that house and sell its rabbits and cats, while its dogs make appearances in mobile adoption events. "It's a formula and a business model that works really well," Hagerman said. As for which locations get the best rescued animals from the shelter, Hagerman said it's more about which animals can handle the pet store environment. If an animal is older, more sickly, or needs extra accommodations, it likely will remain at the shelter or stay in a foster home. But Hagerman said while the humane society is against puppy mills, it isn't anti-breeder. If you still want a purebred corgi, you can get one from a responsible breeder by asking the right questions. Among them: how often does a seller breed their females? Are they breeding the animals with a focus on health or aesthetics? "Because when you breed for something specific, it will be at the expense of something else," Hagerman said. "And a responsible breeder will have a very clear and well-thought out answer for you." Annette Markese, owner of the Super Pets store in Temple City, used to sell rabbits. After the law passed, she decided she would stop before the new year. She sold her last rabbit last month. "It's a lot of work, and it's a lot of liability," she said. But even so, she said California made the right choice in passing the law. She said it gives homeless animals a better chance at finding a good home. "It makes people not impulse buy," she said. "It makes people think twice about buying an animal that lives 10 years. If they have to go and adopt them, it makes them think twice about their purchase." Hagerman agreed the law makes people consider their purchase. "When pets go to stores, they're seen as a product," he said. "[But] buying a pet isn't like buying a pair of jeans -- where if the jeans don't end up fitting that well a week from now, you can just discard them in the Goodwill bin." Often, shelters like the Pasadena Humane Society "end up becoming the Goodwill for live animals because people weren't prepared," Hagerman said. Pet stores face a penalty of $500 per animal if they violate the law. Hey, thanks. You read the entire story. And we love you for that. Here at LAist, our goal is to cover the stories that matter to you, not advertisers. We don't have paywalls, but we do have payments (aka bills). So if you love independent, local journalism, join us. Let's make the world a better place, together. Donate now. Trump has ascribed to the wall almost magical powers to fight murder, prevent gang activity and reduce opioid abuse. Never mind that violent crime rates among migrants are significantly lower than among the native-born. A barrier of the type that Trump embraces would not even address more routine problems. Smugglers are talented in finding ways above and below static barriers. They are effective in outsmarting officials at overwhelmed checkpoints. And one of the largest sources of illegal migration outstayed visas has nothing to do with a wall. What might work better is an immigration system that allows seasonal workers to enter and leave the U.S. in an orderly fashion, and that treats women and children from Central America seeking asylum with dignity, thus allowing law enforcement to focus on real criminals and traffickers. To get that type of comprehensive immigration reform, Id be willing to include some version of the wall in exchange. But without broader reform, a wall would likely end up as a useless ruin a monument to vanity and bigotry. Even as a political metaphor, the wall is badly lacking. It is the symbol of a political movement that has left liberty, inclusion and optimism behind it. Evers, asked if he will propose restoring any collective bargaining rights curtailed under outgoing Gov. Scott Walker, said thats part of the budget we havent made any determinations on. Legislation would be needed to unravel some of Walkers biggest collective bargaining changes, such as the Act 10 law for public workers or the so-called right to work law for private-sector workers. But in a nod to the improbability of passing such a change through the GOP Legislature, Evers said he has considered non-legislative moves such as hiring Cabinet secretaries that value input of employees. We have very talented people; I think they feel their value has been limited, Evers said. So having opportunities for new leadership in these agencies to lift up their voice, I think its critically important. Evers repeatedly declined to say what his budget will do about his campaign pledge to implement a sustainable, long-term fix for how we fund our roads. He said only that such a funding fix will be part of his budget. He also declined, in the interview, to rule out including any leading options for doing so, such as increasing gas taxes, vehicle fees or collecting highway tolls. About 150 casinos are now in operation, up from 98 in 2017. In the coastal province of Sihanoukville alone there are 88. The law bans Cambodians from entering casinos. For PIME missionary, it is difficult to assess the consequences of the trend because all this has happened so fast. Phnom Penh (AsiaNews) - Cambodia granted 52 licences to casinos in 2018; that pushed the number of gambling facilities up by 53 per cent over the previous year, the Ministry of Economy and Finance reported. In the coastal province of Sihanoukville alone, there are 88 casinos, said Ros Phirun, the deputy director-general of the ministrys General Department of Financial Industry the gambling business regulator in the Kingdom. This has turned the province and its homonymous provincial capital into one of Asias gambling meccas. Both have experienced a building boom in the past few years thanks to a steady flow of Chinese investment in hotels, casinos and real estate. However, one of the side effects of Chinas growing presence and investments, especially in south-western Cambodia, has been crime and instability, Provincial Governor Yun Min said in a letter to the central government. The presence of so many gambling facilities is a source of concern for its impact on locals. Although Cambodians are not allowed in the casinos, groups like the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability have warned that more and more of them are falling into poverty from gambling. "From a social point of view, casinos worry the Church", said Fr Gianluca Tavola, superior delegate of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) in Cambodia. According to the clergyman, "no one believes that a casino can deliver well-being, social balance and the common good. In my opinion, today it is difficult to assess the consequences of the trend because all this has happened so fast over the past two to three years. "The city of Sihanoukville is just one big construction site. An invasion is taking place with Chinese nationals and companies scooping up land and businesses. This has forced several local and foreign businesses to sell, cease their activities or move east, to Kampot. In fact, Western tourists now prefer the latter, boosting local resorts." These have gone through therapy. They have developed mechanisms to control whatever PTSD, depression, OCD, anything that anyone else could have, Brahm said. At the Judiciary and Administration Committee, Padesky added that his neighbors have been damned to hell, and treated unfairly for sharing their concerns. Brahm stressed that she has understood their fears all along and has been trying to answer questions to alleviate those fears, saying the other 45 residential homes in the VAs programming nationwide have faced similar opposition and were accepted into the community. Neighbors including Michael Myre renewed their concerns that the neighborhood isnt the right place for that facility. Hes concerned about impacts on property values and said he didnt like that the city would grant an exception to the 2,500-foot rule. The other thing to consider is that there are 27 people that object to this and the very few people who are for it, who have documented letters on the citys website, none of them live next door or even remotely close to it, he said. Im for veterans. Were all for veterans, but to think that this program can only exist in this house is simply untrue. MADISON An Arcadia man previously convicted of child sex assault was sentenced Thursday in federal court to 10 years in prison to be followed by 10 years of supervised release for possessing child pornography. Michael Reynolds, 43, would have faced a prison sentence between 46 and 57 months, but his 1992 conviction for first-degree sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl required District Judge William Conley to impose the 10-year statutory mandatory minimum sentence. Decades had passed since Reynolds conviction, and his child pornography offense involved one sexually explicit photo and seven similar videos far fewer depictions than the average recent cases. However, the seriousness of his prior offense, his absconding while on probation for it and his continued interest in children as sex objects warranted a lengthy prison term, Conley said. Conley noted that Reynolds and his siblings were victims of child sexual abuse when he was 9, and the judge was dismayed that Reynolds did not have empathy for vulnerable children as a result. Reynolds attorney, Terry Frederick, said that being sexually abused so young increased the likelihood that Reynolds would act out on others. Donors must be 17 or older, weigh at least 110 pounds and provide a driver's license or two other forms of ID. To make an appointment to donate blood or platelets, download the free Red Cross Blood Donor App, visit RedCrossBlood.org or call 1-800-733-2767. - There were social media posts claiming that the Philippines won in the Miss Universe twice during the term of President Duterte - It said that Miss Universe 2015 Pia Wurtzbach and Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray won in the current administration - However, this claim was debunked by a French news agency PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed Several social media posts claimed that during the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines won the Miss Universe twice. KAMI learned that this claim had been debunked by a French news agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP). The Facebook posts had misleading claims and were posted on fan pages supporting President Duterte and former PNP chief Bato dela Rosa. The posts reached more than 2.1 million on Facebook as reported by ABS-CBN News. You may visit the posts here and here. According to the post, Dalawang Ms. Universe sa kanyang termino. Tunay kang pinagpala. Mahal naming Pangulo. The post showed a photo of Miss Universe 2015 Pia Wurtzbach and recently crowned Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray along with a photo of President Duterte with Wurtzbach. Screenshot from Facebook Source: Facebook Screenshot from Facebook Source: Facebook PAY ATTENTION: Using free basics app to access internet for free? Now you can read KAMI news there too. Use the search option to find us. Read KAMI news while saving your data! The claim was debunked by AFP. Wurtzbach won as the 64th Miss Universe on December 20, 2015 according to the international beauty pageants official website. Meanwhile, Duterte became the President on June 30, 2016. It was back on July 18, 2016 when Miss Universe 2015 Pia Wurtzback paid a courtesy visit to President Duterte which photo was used in the misleading post. Wurtzback and Gray were the third and fourth Filipina to win in the Miss Universe. As previously reported by KAMI, Wurtzbach went all out to support Gray in the recent coronation. Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news! Guess what, it's our special edition of the tricky questions challenge, in which you will find lots of Christmas songs and joyous laughter! Merry Christmas everyone from the whole HumanMeter team on KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel! Source: Kami.com.ph - Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray disappeared from the public eye for several days - She was finally spotted at the airport being simple and independent before heading to New York - The beauty queen was also seen wearing a barong-inspired jacket at the airport PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed Catriona Gray was finally spotted in public after days of disappearing from the eyes of the media. KAMI learned that photos of Catriona in an airport in the Philippines have gone viral. The Miss Universe 2018 was seen wearing a barong-inspired jacket and carrying luggage emblazoned with the Philippine flag. Refreshed from a quiet holiday season with my loved ones, I've packed up my home in Manila and now I'm ready to move to my new home in New York City!! I still can't believe it! @missuniverse I have to say I'm most nervous about experiencing the chill of NYC in winter. but would love to know, what are your recommendations to see, do and eat?! Let me know in the comments below!! Styled by @ton_lao @justine.aliman19 in a @jorel.espina Bomberong jacket, Catriona wrote. Netizens had mixed reactions regarding the viral photos, with some commenting about the beauty queens simplicity while others talked about her disappearance from the public eye: She deserve a break because she works so hard Doesnt she get to have a private airplane? I feel sad to see that she had to do the check in herself. The airline should have helped her. At least upgrade to priority passanger or sth. every public person they want private life, they want to enjoy the christmas with out media unlike any other public who wants a media every moves they do, Cat is not like that. Like everyone of us, shes just another human being who needs time to be human! She spent a quality holiday time with her family and loved ones because she knows that its going to be a busy year for her. She deserves that break!!! PAY ATTENTION: Using free basics app to access internet for free? Now you can read KAMI news there too. Use the search option to find us. Read KAMI news while saving your data! As reported earlier by KAMI, Catriona was crowned as the Miss Universe 2018. Catriona Gray is a Filipino-Australian actress and model who was born on born January 6, 1994. Catrionas father is Ian Gray, a Scottish-Australian. Her mother is Normita Magnayon, a Filipina from Albay. She already joined and became a finalist in Miss World 2016 before winning Miss Universe this year. POPULAR: Read more news about Catriona Gray Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news! Guess what, it's our special edition of the tricky questions challenge, in which you will find lots of Christmas songs and joyous laughter! Merry Christmas everyone from the whole HumanMeter team on KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel! Source: Kami.com.ph CALEDONIA Tom Weatherston, a former Caledonia village trustee who is retiring from the State Assembly, hopes to return to a seat on the Village Board. Weatherston, 68, is the only non-incumbent running for one of the three Village of Caledonia trustee positions that will be up for election April 2. He will be running against incumbent Jay Benkowski for the trustee No. 1 position. The winner of that election will be elected to a two-year term with a yearly salary of $6,600. The reason I ran for state Assembly was to get jobs in the community, said Weatherston, who was first elected as a Republican representative in November 2012. I want to make sure the Village of Caledonia grows with (the rest of southeast Wisconsin). Weatherston is being replaced by Racine Unified School Board President Robert Wittke Jr., also a Republican, as District 62s representative in the Assembly. Wittke said Wednesday that he will not seek re-election to the School Board. The candidates Benkowski has served on the Village Board since winning an elected seat in April 2017. Thats going to be something that we have to address as we see the costs under the Affordable Care Act continue to escalate, Steil said. From the House perspective, a lot of this is going to be in the hands of Nancy Pelosi and how she wants to govern. And I think thats going to be one of the very telling things early on. But with Democrats in the majority in the House, Steil said he does not think a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act is going to happen during this Congress. I do think theres going to be requirements to address specific aspects that have an impact on allowing us to lower the cost of health care, Steil said. I do think itll be a little more nuanced than a full repeal and in each one of those (bills) Ill be analyzing and saying Does this help people in southeast Wisconsin? Does this help people in Racine? If it does you vote yes, if it doesnt you vote no. One area of health care that Steil believes has bipartisan agreement is on price transparency. In a basic sense, price transparency is the idea that patients and doctors know the cost of medication or procedures before agreeing to them. Steil said thats an idea that both parties can support. Praise from Republicans Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, who has been critical of some of Evers picks for his cabinet, said with Barca Evers finally got one right. Rep. Barca is a reasonable Democrat who is more than willing to work across the aisle and has the political courage to do whats right for the people of Wisconsin, Vos said. The Assemblys loss is certainly the administrations gain. I want to wish Peter the best of luck in his new position and thank him for his friendship and service in the state Assembly. State Rep. Samantha Kerkman, R-Salem Lakes, whose district includes part of Somers, said she will miss Barcas contributions in the Assembly but added I am glad to note that the State of Wisconsin will continue to benefit from his leadership. Ive always appreciated Rep. Barcas experience and statesmanship and have valued our good working relationship in serving Kenosha County, Kerkman said. I look forward to working with Rep. Barca in his new role. RACINE An alleged battery at Monument Square in the early morning hours Tuesday resulted in stitches for one woman and a felony charge for another. Janajae A. Malone, 18, of Kenosha is charged with felony substantial battery and misdemeanor disorderly conduct. For the first charge, she could face up to three years and six months in jail and as much as a $10,000 fine. According to the criminal complaint: Malone told police that another woman, the alleged victim, had been following her around and picking on her all night on Monday, New Years Eve. Malone said she fought the other woman because, I can only take so much before I get angry. The other woman, however, denied following Malone. The victim said the two had gotten into an altercation at a bar on Junction Avenue, and she left and went to another bar in an effort to avoid further conflict with Malone. Malone reportedly approached the victim as she sat in her car in the Monument Square parking area and allegedly hit the victim in the head at least three times with a glass bottle. The victim suffered several small lacerations to her face that required stitches. RACINE Racine police have named the restaurants whose delivery drivers were the recent victims in a string of armed robberies. The first incident occurred at 8:08 p.m. Dec. 18 on Riverside Drive. A delivery driver from Rong Hua, 1530 Washington Ave., was robbed at gunpoint. Another robbery took place on Wednesday, Dec. 26, on McKinley Avenue. A delivery driver from Zaks Fish and Chicken, 1536 Marquette St., was robbed at gunpoint. The suspect, who had a gun, reportedly told the victim to get on the ground. On Friday, a delivery driver from Golden Chicken, 3523 16th St., was robbed in the 200 block of Frank Avenue. Police said the driver was punched. Once on the ground, the suspect hit the driver in the head with a handgun. The last incident occurred on Monday, when a delivery driver from Main Moon, 3900 Washington Ave., was robbed in the 1800 block of Roosevelt Avenue. The delivery driver was in the car and opened the window to make the delivery. The armed suspect punched the victim. In all of the incidents, the drivers food and money were taken. Past targets This is not the first time that delivery drivers have been targeted in the City of Racine. After a concerned person called law enforcement on New Years Eve, police found Symoens vehicle parked with a two-year-old child in it, in a lot in the 7800 block of McHenry Street in the Bohners Lake area of the Town of Burlington. The doors were locked, the vehicle was running, and Symoens was inside a store. Deputies found a marijuana pipe as well as a bag of marijuana inside the vehicle. A deputy observed that Symoens was incoherent and had slurred speech as she was being questioned. She allegedly told police that marijuana, barbiturates and methamphetamines would be found in her blood, following an evidentiary blood draw obtained through a warrant. A pretrial conference in the case is set for 3:15 p.m. on Jan. 31 at the Law Enforcement Center. Kathleen H. Mueller, 48, of the 6400 block of Highway H in Caledonia,is charged with felony OWI, fourth offense, as well as misdemeanor counts of resisting an officer, disorderly conduct and two counts of bail jumping. Caledonia police allegedly found Mueller in her gray Honda just after 2 a.m. on New Years Eve in a ditch on Highway H, near her driveway. There was significant damage to the vehicle, and the headlights were still on. MILWAUKEE A Kenosha police sergeant, who reportedly crashed into the back of a vehicle while driving drunk, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to jail on Wednesday. Gregory M. Munnelly, 41, will spend 40 days in jail minus one day of time served for the 2017 crash in Oak Creek. He must report to the Milwaukee County Jail next Wednesday, but may go earlier if he chooses to. As part of the sentence, Munnelly lost his driving privileges for a year. When his driving privileges are eligible for reinstatement, he will be required to use an ignition interlock device for an additional year. Munnelly was also ordered to make a contribution to a nonprofit organization that deals with alcohol-related issues, according to online court records, which did not indicate how much he would be required to give. Sgt. Munnellys off-duty incident is not acceptable or reflective of our standards, and is in no way condoned, Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis said in a statement issued Thursday. Based on his conduct and the conviction, I will be seeking termination of his employment with the Kenosha Police Department. KENOSHA Kenosha Police located two potentially explosive suspicious soda bottles Wednesday and are seeking information from residents. At 10:31 a.m. Wednesday, Kenosha Police responded to the 6300 block of 53rd Avenue to investigate a suspicious soda bottle, according to a City of Kenosha Police Department news release. While investigating, officers found a second suspicious soda bottle across the roadway from the first. Both bottles had the potential to be explosive , police said. The Kenosha County Sheriffs Hazardous Device Unit responded and rendered the bottles safe. The surrounding area was canvassed and no additional suspicious items were located, nor were there any other reports of suspicious items in the area. The investigation is still active. Kenosha Police ask anyone with information to contact the Kenosha Police Department Detective Bureau at 262-605-5203. Callers wishing to remain anonymous may call Kenosha Area Crime Stoppers at 262-656-7333. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. RACINE The case of the Racine police sergeant reportedly involved in a drunken hit-and-run crash has been assigned to Kenosha County prosecutors. Racine County District Attorney Tricia Hanson confirmed Wednesday that the Kenosha County District Attorneys Office has been assigned as the special prosecutor in the case of Racine Police Sgt. Samuel Stulo, a 16-year veteran of the force. Stulo was cited for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, hit-and-run involving injury, inattentive driving, and refusing to take a test for intoxication after he allegedly crashed into an occupied parked vehicle on Dec. 17. Stulo was then placed on administrative leave after the crash, which reportedly injured a 63-year-old woman in the vehicle that was struck. The incident report states that Stulo asked for a lawyer after the crash and refused to submit to a blood draw until he spoke with his attorney. After a search warrant was obtained, Stulos blood was able to be collected at 10:42 p.m. nearly two hours after the crash. The Racine County Sheriffs Office said results of the blood draw could take six to eight weeks, but a Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene official said that results could come in as little as two weeks. Whats Going On includes upcoming one-time events in and around Racine County such as breakfasts, dinners, car washes, rummage sales, parties and dances intended to be money-raisers by or in behalf of nonprofit community organizations, either held or requiring reservations within the next two weeks. Events held on a regular basis are not used. Announcements must arrive at The Journal Times by noon Tuesday before the desired Saturday publication date. Announcements may only be used one time. Send information to the Online Calendar at www.journaltimes.com/calendar and select Benefit & Fundraiser under sections; mail information to Community, 212 Fourth St., Racine, WI 53403; fax to Loreen Mohr, 262-631-1780; or send email to lmohr@journaltimes.com. 1. Set your boundaries and stick to them As part of my research, Ive recently been speaking with a number of sex workers in Europe about their digital security and privacy. One consistent thing Ive heard from them is, The best way to stay safe is to set boundaries. Decide on your own, and in advance what data youre willing to share with apps and online services, and stick to those limits. That way, when the latest new app asks you for a permission that oversteps what youre willing to share, youll be more prepared to answer. Also set limits on the online discussions youre willing to participate in; bow out when a discussion is hurting more than helping you. Its even useful to set boundaries for how much time youre willing to spend on digital security which could be an endless task. 2. Burst your filter bubble People who get their news primarily or exclusively from social media are subjecting themselves to the whims of the algorithms that decide what to display to each user. Dennis D. Boetcher wrote ("Border wall would boost our security," Dec. 28) that Democrats in Congress are "evil" and "despicable" because they won't give Donald Trump his wall on the southern border. Mr. Boetcher says the wall is about the "safety and security of us Americans." Perhaps Mr. Boetcher's anxiety will be allayed somewhat by the fact that more Americans have been killed by contaminated lettuce in 2018 than by undocumented immigrants. But if it's "evil" Mr. Boetcher is looking for, he need look no further than the CBP facilities where, in the last couple of weeks, at least two young migrant children have died under what observers, including members of Congress, have called "inhumane" conditions. And if it's "despicable" he's after, maybe Mr. Boetcher ought to check in on some of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who've spent the holidays worrying about keeping up with their mortgages, car loans and tuition payments for their kids' colleges because Trump shut the government down. No matter how old you are, you have never seen anything quite like the chaos in Washington. Not to give away my age, but Donald Trump is the 14th president who has taken office since I've been around. In less than two years, it has been one crisis after another. The problem is that a lot of what has happened has faded from memory. The outrage over separating families at the border has become a non-news item. The threat to deport "Dreamers" if Congress did not fund the border wall went away. Now, we have a government shutdown over "border security." The trade wars, withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, withdrawal from the Paris accords on climate change, and so on. And through it all, the people we sent to Washington to represent us are like the three monkeys: hear no evil, see no evil, speak not at all. Not long ago, Trump proposed deporting people who fled to America during the Vietnam War -- people who have been here for decades. That whizzed right past most of us. Congress has given up too much control to the president. The checks and balances written into our Constitution are way out of balance. Congress needs to step up and save us from Trump's authoritarian "my way or the highway" mentality. Critics of a border wall have pointed out its ineffectiveness. One calls it a 5th-century solution to a 21st-century problem. Others point out that a majority as much as 66 percent, according to the Center for Migration Studies of those who join the undocumented population each year overstay a valid visa and thus would be unaffected by a wall. In addition to its enormous expense, the kind of wall that Trump ran on would have to be built in a more or less straight line on this side of a very crooked river, effectively relinquishing thousands of acres of American territory into a useless no mans land. The impact on the animals that frequently cross the river would be significant. There are problems of right of way and the ongoing costs of maintenance. And so on. But a walls impact on the border would be psychological and emotional as well as physical. A wall even half as formidable as the one that Trump imagines is a stark repudiation of more than 130 million Mexicans, nearly all of whom are not criminals, rapists or terrorists. Further, it would demonstrate contempt for the reliable trading partner and ally that Mexico has been for decades, as well as for the important role that Mexican labor legal and illegal plays in our economy. The re-trial of a man accused of killing a fellow inmate, Michael Galindo, during a 2017 uprising at Tecumseh State Correctional Institution has been delayed. Eric Ramos' first trial, in August, ended in a mistrial after a meeting between a Nebraska State Patrol investigator and prison staff witnesses. Johnson County District Judge Vicky Johnson agreed to change the venue to Saline County District Court in Wilber because of media coverage of the first trial and originally set a new trial date for Jan. 3. She later continued that until she rules on a defense motion, seeking to bar the state from re-trying Ramos, alleging it would be a double-jeopardy violation. On March 2, 2017, prison staff found Galindo and another inmate, Damon Fitzgerald, dead at the hands of inmates after a disturbance, sparked by staff's discovery of 29 gallons of alcohol in inmate cells. The state alleges Ramos, 27, was one of several inmates who kicked, beat and stabbed Galindo. Ramos, so far, is the only person charged with murder, based largely on prison staff piecing together surveillance video, which they say tracks back to him being one of Galindo's attackers. But the Nebraska Attorney General's office has said it expects to charge others involved. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Investigators believe a 69-year-old woman sent $32,000 to Nigeria to a man she had developed an online romantic relationship with over the course of two years, a Lincoln police spokeswoman said Thursday. The woman reported the fraud to police Wednesday, Officer Angela Sands said. Her husband died in 2013, and in October 2016, she began messaging someone on Facebook purporting to be a man named "Paul" who lived in Nigeria, Sands said. Soon after they began talking he convinced her to send $10,000 in MoneyGrams, and later, he said he needed money for a double kidney transplant, Sands said. Then someone purporting to be a friend of the man while he was in surgery said "Paul" had purchased her a van and home in Nebraska City and that he needed money to travel to Nebraska so they could get married. These conversations migrated between different social media messaging platforms, Sands said. The woman ended contact with the man last month, police said. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. A 21-year-old Omaha man pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to two counts of an indictment for firing a gun between two clerks during the robbery of a Lincoln convenience store two years ago. Those gunshots tied Marcus Remus to two other robberies at a Lincoln bank and a second convenience store in the last week of December 2016, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Woods said. In exchange for his guilty pleas to interference with commerce by robbery and discharge of a firearm in furtherance of a robbery, Woods agreed to drop four other charges (two for robbery and two for discharging a firearm while committing them) at his sentencing in April. He'll face up to 20 years for the robbery and a consecutive 10 years to life on the gun charge. Woods said Lincoln police identified Remus after lifting his fingerprint from a plastic Walmart bag he handed to a clerk at a robbery Dec. 28, 2016, at the Union Bank and Trust branch at 6801 O St., then left behind. She said his face also was visible on the bank's surveillance video. A judge sentenced a 30-year-old Lincoln man to prison for nine to 15 years Wednesday for sending sexually explicit messages to an 11-year-old girl and professing his love to her. Joseph Borrink, who turned himself in to police in June, pleaded no contest to attempted child enticement. Police said he approached them June 4 outside the North 27th Street substation to say he wanted to report an online conversation he'd had with the girl that had gotten out of hand. In an affidavit for Borrink's arrest, police said they interviewed him inside the station and he showed them a sexually explicit conversation on the Facebook Messenger app on his phone. At sentencing Wednesday, Deputy Lancaster County Public Defender Kristi Egger said Borrink was so remorseful that he immediately turned himself in and entered a plea that prevented the victim from going through a deposition. She said he had a very minimal prior criminal history and wanted to get treatment. "He never said what he did was appropriate," Egger said. Borrink said he knows the severity of what he's done, and it will never happen again. Woburn, MA (01801) Today Cloudy with periods of rain. High around 75F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Showers early, then cloudy overnight. Low 61F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%. Regarding your article (Investigation: 500 clergy accused of abuse across state), Bishop Paprocki referred to a virtuous intent to protect the faithful from scandal that prevented the Catholic church from effectively dealing with sexual abuse. Based on reports from Illinois, Pennsylvania and others, it would seem this virtuous intent was of hiding and covering up abuse. Paprockis statements about clerical sex abuse reveal why the Catholic church is struggling to get a grip on this crisis. In recent articles in the Catholic Times, he asserts that the sexual revolution is ultimately responsible for the scandals rocking the church. He seems to say that the rape of children by clergy is morally equivalent to the use of birth control by married couples. While minimizing the monstrous crimes of Clergy molesters and rapists, Paprocki all but dismisses the victimization and suffering of hundreds of children (and their families). Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. For many hundreds of years, the Catholic Church has cultivated a culture of secrecy; avoiding scandal has been much more important than exposing and removing priest-offenders. Bishop Daniel Ryans tenure in Springfield is an example. A twisted sense of brotherhood encourages these men to cover for one another, and whistle-blowers have suffered serious consequences from fellow priests and bishops. Also, if someone (clergy or layperson) confesses to abusing a child, the priest hearing this confession is not legally required to report it; in fact, the Seal of Confession forbids him to do so. Any priest whos been around awhile is likely keeping some evil secrets. O how great is the priest! If he realized what he is he would die.God obeys him: he utters a few words and the Lord descends from Heaven at his voice, to be contained within a small host. (John Vianney) Too many clerics from the Vatican on down continue to embrace this separate and superior mindset -- and remain accountable to no one other than higher-ups in the church hierarchy. It isnt difficult to see how abuse and predation, along with its minimization, gradually became woven into the fabric of the Catholic church. Our Attorney General is likely correct in her assessment that the church is unable to police itself. Bishop Paprocki and his fellow bishops/priests need to own this crisis and acknowledge that they and their antiquated leadership structures are the problem rather than the sexual revolution or parishioners secretly practicing birth control. Until they do, little is likely to change. Vicky Tucker, Charleston Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 CHICAGO By the end of the week, Sears Chairman Edward Lampert could find out whether his push to keep the bankrupt retailer together and open for business still has a shot. Lampert's hedge fund, ESL Investments, said Friday that it's prepared to pay $4.4 billion for many of the retailer's remaining assets, including about 425 Sears and Kmart stores. Dec. 28 was the deadline for parties interested in acquiring Sears' assets to submit bids. Transform Holdco, a new entity controlled by Lampert's fund, said in a letter to Sears' investment banker that it believes keeping the Hoffman Estates-based company in business is the best way to preserve up to 50,000 jobs and recover money the retailer owes. The letter, dated Dec. 28, was released Wednesday in a regulatory filing. If Sears doesn't accept the $4.4 billion bid packaging many of the remaining assets together, Transform Holdco said it also would bid on certain assets individually, including the Sears Home Services business, certain intellectual property and real estate, and the logistics operation. Sears has until Friday to notify parties that submitted offers to purchase its assets whether they have been accepted as qualifying bids, according to a timeline approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Transform Holdco said if Sears doesn't accept either proposal as a qualifying bid by Friday, both will be withdrawn. It's unclear how many other offers Sears received or whether any would attempt to rescue Sears rather than liquidating it. Great American Group submitted a bid with Tiger Capital Group but declined to share details of the offer. A subsidiary of B. Riley Financial, Great American Group partnered with Tiger Capital Group last year to buy many of bankrupt retailer Bon-Ton Stores' assets and liquidate the company. Another firm has since purchased Bon-Ton's intellectual property and is working to revive its brands, including Carson's. ESL's $4.4 billion offer for Sears includes $850 million in cash, funded by a new $1.3 billion loan from three financial institutions. It also includes a $1.3 billion credit bid, in which ESL would trade Sears debt it holds for ownership in the new company. Transform Holdco said it wants Sears to confirm it will be able to use the credit bid to finance the purchase. The company also wants Sears to release ESL from liability related to transactions with the retailer prior to its bankruptcy filing. In the letter, Transform Holdco said it expects to continue employing up to 50,000 Sears employees under the $4.4 billion proposal, "depending on any further actions Sears may take between now and closing." Sears said it employed 68,000 employees and had 687 Sears and Kmart stores when it filed for Chapter 11 in October. Last week, Sears said it would close 80 stores in March, bringing the total number of closures announced since its bankruptcy filing to 262. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 David Spurney of rural Staunton hopes the new year brings an end to statewide restrictions on overtime for personal assistants. Spurney, 47, and his personal assistant, Tami Straub, in whose home he lives, said they would like to see Gov-elect J.B. Pritzker rescind outgoing Gov. Bruce Rauner's overtime rule and lift the threat of suspension for PAs who work more than 45 hours per week. "This policy has put people with disabilities and their caregivers through hell ... with hours of worries," said Straub, 45, who has cared for Spurney, a quadriplegic, 70 hours per week for 27 years. The governor-elect, a Democrat who will be sworn in Jan. 14, has given signs that he may undo the rule initiated by Rauner, a Republican defeated by Pritzker in the November election. Pritzker's campaign didn't respond to a request for comment Monday. Pritzker, however, highlighted Spurney and Straub's situation on a website -- RaunerFailedMe.com -- sponsored by the billionaire philanthropist's campaign. "The fact that he's talked about it gave us hope," said Kaitlin DeCero, spokeswoman for SEIU Healthcare. The Service Employees International Union, which has opposed Rauner's overtime policy, represents approximately 28,000 workers affected by the policy in Illinois' home services program. Personal assistants are paid $13 per hour and help people with disabilities live in their homes rather than in a nursing home. The program serves about 30,000 low-income, non-elderly people and costs the state about $500 million per year, with the federal government reimbursing the state for close to half of the total cost. Rauner administration officials first put the overtime rule in place for three months in 2016 in response to a U.S. Department of Labor mandate that most home-care workers in the United States receive time-and-a-half pay after 40 hours instead of continuing to be paid straight time. Rauner's OT rule limits those payments in most situations unless clients and their caregivers receive authorization. Rauner rescinded the first version of the rule in 2016 when SEIU threatened a lawsuit, then put it back into place on Aug. 1 2017, with approval from the General Assembly's bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules. The rule's initial cap on work beyond 40 hours was changed to 45 hours when the policy was activated a second time. Rauner administration officials have said the rule will save the state $8 million per year. Officials also said the OT limits will reduce worker burnout and help ensure that all clients have a backup provider if their primary caregiver is unable to provide assistance. Opponents of the rule have included SEIU and the Illinois Network of Centers for Independent Living. They have voiced concerns that requiring clients to arrange for alternative caregivers beyond 45 hours is difficult for some clients -- especially in rural parts of the state -- and will put clients with specialized in needs at increased risk of health complications. SEIU contends the rule should have been negotiated with the union. The union's challenge of the policy failed in front of the Illinois Labor Relations Board, and an appeal of that decision is pending in front of the Illinois Appellate Court. SEIU also has gone to court to enforce a 48-cent-per-hour pay raise for personal assistants that was approved in 2017 as part of a state budget passed by the General Assembly over Rauner's veto. A Cook County Circuit Court judge ruled in the union's favor in March, but Rauner, who has declined to put the raise into effect, appealed the judge's decision to the Appellate Court. The pay-raise case remains pending while potential back pay from the state accrues in an escrow account that now contains $24 million, DeCero said. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Meghan Powers, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Human Services -- an agency controlled by Rauner -- said all but 1.4 percent of personal assistants are "abiding by the rule's new limits on overtime. More importantly, people with disabilities who receive Home Services Program services remain able to choose their caregivers and have the same amount of service hours in their plans as they had before the rule." Personal assistants who work beyond 45 hours without permission from the state still are paid overtime but face potential suspensions once they receive three violation notices. As of late July, 4,735 PAs had received a first notice, 1,557 received a second notice, and 550 received a third notice, DeCero said. She said she was surprised the Rauner administration hasn't suspended any PAs, at least not yet. In an emailed response to questions from The State Journal-Register, Powers wouldn't say why none has been suspended. Powers noted the state has received 831 requests from clients for overtime exceptions for their caregivers. Sixty percent of those requests have been approved, 20 percent were denied, and other requests are pending or have been withdrawn, she said. SEIU officials believe that some PAs are working beyond 45 hours but not reporting the hours and not being paid for them, while others are stopping at 45 hours because they and their clients aren't aware that they can apply for exceptions to the OT rule. Though SEIU believes the rule is putting clients' care at risk, the union doesn't know for sure whether the policy has caused the health of any clients to deteriorate or led to more hospital emergency room visits or nursing home admissions, DeCero said. She said personal assistants "save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars every year" through the Medicaid program, which is funded by the state and federal governments. Spurney, who uses a wheelchair after suffering a suffering a spinal-cord injury in a motorcycle crash in 1991, said he appreciates his personal assistant's hard work and dedication as he deals with complications from his injury. "She knows all my background, where other people don't," said Spurney, a former machinist who now receives Social Security disability benefits. "She does an excellent job. If it weren't for her, I would be in a nursing home. I don't want to be in a nursing home." Spurney and Straub said they are longtime friends but are not a romantic couple. Straub has received three warnings from the state about being paid for more than 45 hours of work. She and Spurney have been denied an exception to the OT rule. Spurney challenged the denial in Macoupin County Circuit Court and in June benefited from an order by Circuit Judge Kenneth Diehl temporarily blocking the state's denial. A court hearing in the case is scheduled Feb. 28. With overtime, Straub's gross weekly pay is $1,105, or $195 more than she received when she received straight time for 70 hours. "That's what we're talking about -- a couple hundred dollars versus someone's life," Straub said. She is worried what would happen to Spurney if he had to find an additional caregiver to handle his needs beyond 45 hours. Spurney said he shares that concern. Straub added: "I'm not doing this for the money. This is a health issue and a safety issue for David. ... We are hopeful and thankful that there's a new governor at the helm and that he will stand up for people with disabilities." Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 MATTOON -- Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center is now partnering with a Springfield hospital to provide surgery for severely obese patients. The partnership is with Memorial Medical Center, according to a news release, and began Wednesday. SBLHC will continue to provide pre- and post-surgery bariatric services but will make surgeries available in the same program, the news release said. SBLHC Medical Director Bernie Ranchero said the hospital is "very pleased" to offer the "comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach" to weight loss. The hospital's services included treating patients at its Center for Healthy Living, psychology department and other areas before and after weight-loss surgery, according to information from SBLHC. With the agreement with Memorial Medical Center, patients won't have to make separate arrangements in a different program in order to schedule surgery. It takes at least a few months in a program to prepare a patient for surgery, the hospital indicated. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} The news release said the services that will take place at SBLHC include nutrition, physical therapy, social work and imaging. Surgeries performed at the Springfield hospital are designed to decrease the amount of food a patient is able to ingest, according to the news release. It said they include using staples to separate the stomach into sections and placing an elastic ring around the upper part of the stomach. Orlando Icaza, Memorial Medical Center surgeon and bariatric medical director, said the "most remarkable" benefits of the surgery are the improvements and their duration. For patients with sleep apnea, 88 percent who have the surgery see the condition "completely resolved," he said in the news release. He also said just more than half of type 2 diabetes cases have also been resolved and other conditions are also addressed. The release said obesity is the second-leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States, second to smoking. It said more information about the program is available by calling 866-205-7915 or online at MemorialWeightLossAndWellnessCenter.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0 MATTOON -- The City Council voted Wednesday evening to transfer a parking lease with Brian's Place to the new owner of this bar and restaurant. The council had authorized a 25-year agreement in 2001 for the previous Brian's Place owner, Brian Edwards, to lease city-owned former railroad right-of-way north of his business, 2100 Broadway Ave., for use as a parking area. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Now, the parking lease has been transferred to new property owner Matthew Hortenstine of Effingham. The lease agreement will continue at a rate of $10 per year until its expiration in 2026. Hortenstine said the bar and restaurant will still operate as Brian's Place in the near term. Hortenstine said he is in the design phase for developing his plan to remodel the building at 2100 Broadway later this year. He said the business will be temporarily closed during the remodeling and will then reopen once this work is complete. In other matters, the council approved the appointment of officers Tyler Poland and Luke Wilson to regular employment status with the Mattoon Police Department after successful completion of their probationary period, effective Monday. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Your LifeSpan Center encourages you to express your creativity through the creation of art. The Mattoon/Charleston Area Art Guild, which meets every Tuesday from 1-3 p.m. in the craft room of your LifeSpan Center, is seeking new members. Whether you are an amateur or professional, male or female, young or young at heart, you are invited to bring a current art project and enjoy the opportunity to work on it among the company of fellow artists. Professional artists and amateur artists have been active with the Art Guild for years. Established around 1984 from an art class at the YMCA, the art guild began meeting in the evenings at Mattoon High School. Most members eventually decided that they didnt like working on their art in the evenings, but preferred to meet in the daytime. As a result, the Guild lost quite a few working people. The Mattoon/Charleston Art Guild will frequently show its work in local venues such as the Tarble Arts Center, Charleston City Hall and the Mattoon Public Library. Members will often submit their work in art shows in Paris, Effingham and Palestine. Members produce amazing pieces and enjoy collaborating and consulting with fellow members for critiques and feedback. This is key to creative growth of the individual artists and the group as a whole. Each artist moves at his or her own pace. Each artist works on his or her own work, and anything goes. That is to say, artists will work with water color, pastels, acrylic, colored pencils, oil and even silverpoint. Working among other artists provides a wonderful opportunity to seek constructive criticism from one another. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} The LifeSpan Center knows we have a community of many artists in all stages of expertise and would love to see more members join the Art Guild. If you are interested in joining the Mattoon/Charleston Area Art Guild, simply bring your materials to your LifeSpan Center any Tuesday from 1-3 p.m. Plan to enjoy a few hours of uninterrupted art time. Anyone, regardless of age or county of residency, is welcome to join. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact your LifeSpan Center directly at 217-639-5150. Would you like someone to pick you up and take you home? Transportation may be arranged through Dial-A-Ride by calling 639-5169 or 1-800-500-5505. The LifeSpan Center is located at 11021 E. County Road 800N, Charleston. The telephone number is 217-639-5150. Come join us each weekday at noon for Lunch at LifeSpan. Peace Meals, sponsored by Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center, are served Monday through Friday at a suggested donation of $3.50. To register, reserve a lunch or learn more, call 217-345-1800. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Of Jesus, Maryam Rajavi said, He was the messenger of compassion and friendship. He used to say, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me (Matthew 25: 35-40). Christ set a tradition that showed men that they could be privileged by sacrificing for others. He said, Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down ones life for ones friends (John 15: 9-17). From this, we can clearly see that Maryam Rajavi lives the true message of Jesus, which is living to serve others, protecting those who are persecuted, advocating for justice, and being prepared to lay your life for humanity. Maryam Rajavi is often falsely maligned by the mullahs for her work, but this will not stop her from advocating for peace on earth and freedom for the Iranian people. Maryam Rajavi said, Today the ogre of oppression, fraud, vengeance and cruelty, which is the Velayat-e Faqih regime, is at war with the emancipating messages of Christ, Mohammad and all the prophets of God. But the impetus and force of those messages and the enormous power of the people who thirst for emancipation and freedom will turn this dark page in the history of Iran and the world. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Maryam Rajavi reflected on 2018, which saw Iran plagued by internal disputes and mass protest, and declared that the Regime was simply unable to solve the problems that will lead to its overthrow. Maryam Rajavi said, The year that is coming to its end, was the year when the mullahs dictatorship was surrounded by the Iranian peoples incessant uprisings and protest movements. It was a year of unprecedented deterioration of the regimes unsolvable dilemmas, and a year when our persistent and organized Resistance against the mullahs religious fascism will be on the rise. Maryam Rajavi advised that the start of 2019 would bring great change to the world, not least to Iran, which would see only more uprisings against the Regime and more widespread protests that will shake the mullahs to their core. This, Maryam Rajavi said, would be the end of the mullahs and bring freedom and victory to the Iranian people and their Resistance. Maryam Rajavi said, I call on the people of the world to support the Iranian peoples resistance and uprising to overthrow despotism, religious discrimination, and a regime which is the central banker of terrorism and the enemy of peace and freedom in the region and the world. A number of Irans regional adversaries have made it clear in recent years that the proliferation of such groups is a source of anxiety. Many of those same countries were also critical of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, spearheaded by then-US President Barack Obama, because of its perceived role in legitimizing the Iranian regimes activities on the world stage. Now, Irans adversaries are reacting with similar concern to the current US presidents apparent efforts to remove American forces from key areas of the Middle East. In December, President Donald Trump declared on Twitter that he considered the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to be effectively over, and that this represented an end to the sole reason for US troops to be present in Syria, where they had been advising and supporting the Kurds and moderate rebel groups opposing both ISIL and the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. Trumps announcement of a forthcoming withdrawal of those troops was at odds with earlier remarks suggesting that the administrations policy involved counterbalancing Iranian power in Syria and elsewhere. The reversal of that shift was made definitive on Wednesday, when Trump was reportedly asked a direct question about Iranian influence in Syria and answered that they can do whatever they want there. But various US allies, including European Union member states as well as the Arabs and Israelis, have issued repeated warnings about how the American withdrawal may be construed as a green light for the Iranian regime and the Revolutionary Guards to accelerate their build up inside Syrian territory while more openly promoting regional militant proxies. It is possible that the Iranian response to changing American priorities is already underway. As one item of evidence for this, the World Tribune reported on Wednesday that Iran-backed Syrian militias had established a clear presence within three miles of the border with Israel. The report suggested that this was part of a concerted effort to consolidate a sphere of influence stretching from that border back to Damascus. This, in turn, plays into the long-established Iranian strategy of establishing a Shiite crescent connecting Tehran to the regional capitals that the Iranian regime controls or aspires to control. The Israeli efforts to confront Iranian forces in Syria are aimed, in particular, at preventing the Islamic Republic from developing permanent bases there. One such base is already reportedly under construction near El-Kiswah, although the Israelis recently carried out a strike on a compound in the area. These efforts are no doubt supported by Israels emerging Arab partners, especially in light of the fact that other Iranian bases are reported to be forthcoming. But even in absence of these bases for Irans own forces, its militant proxies have evidently established permanent footholds in crucial areas. The Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, for instance, has been seen to be entrenched near the Golan Heights, where it can better wage its ongoing war against Israel. The World Tribune suggests that this is part of a much larger phenomenon in which Hezbollah and other Iran-backed forces have been playing a highly substantial role in major battles on Syrian territory. This ongoing entrenchment represents an imminent threat to Israel and to anti-Assad rebel groups in Syria, but it is also a concern for enemies and critics of the Islamic Republic throughout the region and the world. The Washington Free Beacon reported on Wednesday that Iranian support has helped to encourage near-daily attacks on Israel by Palestinian terrorist groups. The reality of this support is not a matter of dispute, least of all in the wake of direct meetings between the terrorist groups leaders and Iranian officials. The Free Beacon reported that Tehran had recently hosted a delegation of leading Palestinian terrorists. It did so openly, and only days before a delegation from the Sunni militant Taliban traveled from Afghanistan to Iran for a publicly-acknowledged meeting. Tehrans outreach to the Taliban underscores the broader implications of expanding Iranian influence, and it helps to fuel calls to action by Trump administration supporters and by allies of the US other than Israel. The Free Beacon report noted that meetings between Iranian officials and known terrorist leaders could be grounds for further sanctions measures under existing statutes. It went on to quote an anonymous congressional source and supporter of a new anti-terrorism bill as saying the only way Iran-backed terror attacks and destabilizing activities will stop is if the U.S. Treasury Department and Congress finally drain [Tehrans proxies] of resources. The White Houses inconsistency with regard to Syria policy has arguably been reflected in some aspects of its sanctions policy. In the first place, after Trump withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal last May, the administration openly pursued a policy of maximum pressure and sought to reduce Iranian oil exports to zero. However, when the last of the suspended sanctions were re-imposed in November, the administration relented on the issue of waivers and granted them to some of Irans trading partners, ostensibly on a short-term and conditional basis. But it remains to be seen just how far the administration is now willing to go to expand economic penalties for the Islamic Republic and its would-be supporters. In the meantime, the lingering uncertainty may be encouraging some of those partners to assume a defiant tone and to provide the Iranian regime with an opening for still further expanding its influence. On Wednesday, Middle East Eye noted that Iraq was still enjoying a period of exemption from US sanctions, but faced possible censure by American authorities if it fails to cease trade with Iran before the end of that period. Yet the report also indicated that Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali al-Hakim has no intention of supporting such economic withdrawal, which he said Iraq was not obliged to undertake. Speaking to journalists, al-Hakim explained that the two countries were examining a number of options for evading the sanctions and keeping alive the roughly 12 billion dollars worth of annual trade. The foreign ministers willingness to defy US strategy in the region may lend credence to warnings delivered earlier in the week by the head of Israeli intelligence, who said that Irans growing clout in Iraq could encourage the mullahs regime to exploit its immediate neighbor in much the same way it has exploited Syria. On the other hand, a high-ranking Iranian lawmaker painted a different picture, lamenting the supposed loss of Irans economic influence over Iraq and suggesting that this posed a threat to its influence in the political and military spheres, as well. A key reason for this is Tehrans growing isolation amidst international anxiety over sanctions. But the extent of the sanctions effectiveness remains dependent upon a number of factors including the extent to which European allies of the US participate in the sanctions strategy. On Wednesday, a blog post by EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini indicated that the multinational body, which includes three signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal, intends to continue working on a mechanism for evading US sanctions on Iran. That mechanism has been dubbed the special purpose vehicle, although details about its establishment and function have generally been lacking. In fact, reports last month suggested that SPV transactions might be limited to certain sectors of the economy and might not even include oil purchases. This was a shift away from the more far-reaching defiance of earlier European discussions of the issue. The possible scaling-back of SPV ambitions may be attributable in part to growing anxiety among European leaders about the same regional activities that are generating a coordinated response from the Arabs and Israelis. Additionally, the European signatories to the nuclear deal the UK, France, and Germany have all been critical of Irans ongoing ballistic missile development, as well as the underlying belligerence in Iranian foreign policy. The latest indications are that that belligerence is still ascendant. This was demonstrated, for instance, by Iranian armed forces Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheris rhetoric in his speech on Monday decrying Western plots and condemning US allies in the region. The Frontier Post referred to the speech as macho posturing on Wednesday and noted that by delivering it from the disputed Abu Musa island, Bagheri was seemingly sending a symbolic message to the United Arab Emirates, the leading partner to Irans main regional adversary, Saudi Arabia. The speech drew a dividing line between Arab Muslim allies of the United States on one side, and Muslim supporters of Irans axis of resistance on the other. This rhetoric was taken up on Wednesday by Seyyed Ali Qazi Askar, a top Iranian religious cleric who called for unity in pursuit of the progress and superiority of Islamic states, and praised Iran as the only country resisting the US and its allies. With leadership from Irans Islamic Revolution, Askar said, the resistance axis will be able to break up the great powers. Although such statements are not uncommon among Irans religious and political authorities, they are at odds with the regimes recurring insistence that its foreign policy strategy is purely defensive. But amidst an escalating war of words with the US and other enemies, the Islamic Republic may be trending away from that talking point. IranWire called attention to this phenomenon last Saturday when it quoted Mohammad Ali Jafari, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, as suggesting that from now on we must be ready to take the offensive and go after the enemy. The report went on to note that this message had been endorsed by Mohammad Pakpour, the commander of the IRGC ground forces. Such commentary gives the impression of a hardline ambition for preemptive war, which IranWire characterized as the expansion of the regimes proactively repressive domestic policies into the realm of foreign affairs. Naturally, this may be a cause for concern among Irans regional and Western adversaries, many of whom are already anxious about the expansion of Iranian influence and the potential implications of American withdrawal from Middle East combat zones. But as IranWire notes, it is presently unclear how the international community might react if the Revolutionary Guards actually did put the doctrine of preemptive war into action or if it further threatened to do so. Israeli interventions in Syria represent one possible template for such a reaction, while the ongoing enforcement of and support for US sanctions on the Islamic Republic represent another. New Delhi, January 3: If live-in partners have sex with mutual consent and the man later fails to marry due to circumstances beyond his control, the woman cannot accuse him of rape, the Supreme Court of India held on Wednesday. The apex court said rape charges cannot be invoked if the man breaks the promise to marry after having consensual sex as it would be a case of breach of promise rather than a case of a false promise to marry. Also Read | Sex Tip of the Week: How to Talk Dirty To Each Other The Dos and Donts The top court made the remarks while quashing criminal proceedings against a government doctor from Maharashtra, who was accused of rape by a nurse working under him. The nurse was in a live-in relationship with the doctor. "There is a clear distinction between rape and consensual sex," a bench of Justices A K Sikri and S Abdul Nazeer said. The bench said there is a difference between breaching a promise and making a false one for fulfilling sexual desires. Non-Consensual Sex With Wife is Not Rape, Subjecting Oral & Unnatural Sex is Cruelty: Gujarat High Court. "The court, in such cases, must very carefully examine whether the complainant had actually wanted to marry the victim or had mala fide motives and had made a false promise to this effect only to satisfy his lust, as the later falls within the ambit of cheating or deception," the court said, as reported by a leading daily. Also Read | On New Year Day 2019, Florida Man Shot Wife & In-Laws After Discovering Her Sex Tape With His Best Friend "There may be a case where the prosecutrix agrees to have sexual intercourse on account of her love and passion for the accused and not solely on account of the misconception created by accused, or where an accused, on account of circumstances which he could not have foreseen or which were beyond his control, was unable to marry her despite having every intention to do. Such cases must be treated differently," the court further clarified. Story continues The observations from the apex court came while hearing the doctor's plea to quash the FIR lodged against him. In her complaint, the nurse said she was in a live-in relationship after falling in love with him and indulged in a physical relationship as he promised to marry her. She lodged the case after the doctor married another woman. After the Bombay High Court had rejected his plea, the doctor approached the Supreme Court. While hearing the plea, the court pointed out that the woman herself admitted that she had fallen in love with him and started living with him without marriage. "It is not her case that he has forcibly raped her. She had taken a conscious decision after active application of mind to the things that had happened. It is not a case of a passive submission in the face of any psychological pressure exerted and there was a tacit consent and the tacit consent given by her was not the result of a misconception created in her mind," the court said. "We are of the view that, even if the allegations made in the complaint are taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety, they do not make out a case against the appellant," the court added. The pedestrian was killed when a helicopter crashed on top of him (CEN) A pedestrian walking along a street at a popular beach town resort has been killed after a helicopter landed on top of him. The Robinson R44 Raven II helicopter, that was carrying a pair of tourists on a sightseeing trip of Sao Paulo, Brazil, began dropping shortly after it took off, according to reports. The pilot could not stop the aircraft crashing to the ground, hitting pedestrian Alessandro Correia Leite, 42, who died at the site of the accident in the town of Ubatuba. Videos taken from the scene show the destroyed helicopter strewn across a road as a team of paramedics work to try and save Leites life. The pilot and two passengers, a married couple, reportedly escaped with only minor injuries. Alessandro Correia Leite died at the scene of the crash (CEN) The couple were taken to the local Santa Casa hospital, while the pilot did not require treatment. An investigation has now been launched into the causes of the accident. Police spokesman Bruno Aragao said: The passenger said that the aircraft had barely taken off and, within a minute, she noticed a light coming on and the aircraft was already falling. The victims father, Antonio Correa Leite Neto, said: I had just had a coffee with him. He left and and I stayed to have a lie down in my room. MORE: Police mocked for sharing e-fit of suspected robber who looks like the Grim Reaper MORE: Food warning for parents after study claims 10-year-olds exceed recommended sugar intake for young adult I heard the sound and I shouted to my other son. It was the normal sound of a helicopter, but at the same time I heard a different noise. I left shouting for my son to call the fire service as there was someone on the ground. I walked close by but I did not see initially that it was my son. The helicopter tour was organised by Helicon who said they regretted the incident, adding that they would help support the family of the victim. The cause of the crash remains unknown. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Besides economic resources, parents autonomy in the workplace can help boost the health of their children, suggests a research. While it was long known that sick children can affect a company's bottom line, less is known about the impact a parent's work life has on their children's health. The researchers, from the University of Houston in the US, looked at the so-called self-regulatory resources, or the amount of self-control parents bring to parenting, including the ability to act in a more reflective manner. According to Christiane Spitzmueller, Professor, "If a parent has too many stressors, it reduces your self-control." Parental self-control was linked to better health outcomes for children. In other words, how we parent when we experience high levels of stress is probably fundamentally different from how we parent when we are coping well. At lower levels of job autonomy, the researchers wrote, employees likely have to rely more on self-regulatory resources to compensate for the impact of limited control over one's job on one's personal life. On the other hand, at higher levels of job autonomy, freedom and more decision-making opportunities are likely to motivate the person to engage; however, self-regulatory resources would be less needed. According to Spitzmueller, the key lies in the sense of control about their own work profiles. "If you can decide how you are going to do your job, rather than having that imposed on you, it is better for children. "The Study In the study, published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, the team collected data from both parents and children in Nigeria, targeting one group of low-income families and a second group of more affluent families. While the low-income group included people living in dire poverty, she noted that their responses did not differ markedly from those of the wealthier group. The study found that economic resources are not as much of a buffer, instead, feelings of autonomy in the workplace reduced the health problems for the children. Also Read: Five Parenting New Year Resolutions I Shall Try to Keep in 2019 . Read more on Fit by The Quint.RSS & BJPs Nehru-Netaji Cosplay: Irony Dies a Thousand DeathsPolice Arrest Over 250 For Sabarimala Violence, Detain 334 . Read more on Fit by The Quint. Very soon the nation will decide who the next prime minister should be: Narendra Modi or Someone Else? The fact, however, is that the voter will never be informed who that Someone Else is before the election results come in if Modi is defeated, that is. If indeed that happens, the new dispensation will spring a surprise on the voter in the form of someone (whom many voters might not have voted for to begin with had they known who the anti-Modi lobbys PM nominee is before the elections) who emerges as the consensus candidate. Instead, the voter is dismissively notified that this group has many leaders anyone of whom can be the prime minister. Dismissively, as if the PMs office is something just about anyone can dignify. Despite boasting of a galaxy of leaders, I, the voter, will never be given that one name before I cast my ballot. After all, these leaders are jostling for space to elbow out their nearest ally-cum-rival as each one wants to be the PM. The voter is told, First we have to defeat the BJP, then we will sit and pick the PM. What that person will be is not important. What is actually being said is, First we defeat the BJP, then we will fight amongst ourselves to see who bags the top job. We will finally choose someone pliable and non-threatening. For long, it has been fashionable to take the voters for a ride. When you have a hodge-podge government, with several leaders who would have had to reluctantly give up their dream of occupying the PMs chair, it is obvious it would be wobbly: those who are forced to drop their dream will want their pound of flesh. Or else Indian history is replete with governments being pulled down by supporters the moment the political scenario changes in their favour. And, as the former prime minister lamented, Compromises have to be made in a coalition: a euphemism to indicate one has to look the other way even while the country is being looted. So what kind of a prime minister do Indians want? Story continues One whose party ruled the nation for decades but was so busy promoting personal glorification and corruption that it took 60 years for India to attain the progress it should have achieved in merely 30? One who is out on bail for alleged financial irregularities but keeps throwing muck plus expletives and lies at honest functionaries to divert peoples attention? Or one who produces questionable audio clips, purportedly to establish corruption in the Rafale deal, and wants to play them in Parliament but is scared of authenticating them? One who is terrified at the thought of letting the young brigade in his party prosper and prefers the old guard, who have been slaves of the dynasty for so long they have forgotten how to be independent? One who is prompted and spoon-fed by sycophants on what to reply when asked the simplest of questions? One whose father dismissed the massacre of thousands of members of a community as an understandable reaction to the killing of a former prime minister? One who follows the ideology of a lady who afflicted the most horrendous wound on the soul of this democracy and strangled all forms of freedom? One whose father genuflected before patriarchy to snatch away the rights of the women of the minority community which he now pretends to fight for? One who insists that holding press conferences is the only way a prime minister should lead the country? Or one whose parent has been named by a fraudster in a shady aviation deal? Or one who wholeheartedly encourages the harming of political opponents and terrorizes them to such an extent that many electoral seats go uncontested? One who clearly shows naked favouritism in the garb of being secular and has the interest of a limited geographical region at heart? One whose heart bleeds for illegal immigrants and some chosen communities at the cost of the majority? One who, in true Mughal ruler style, wrested control of the party his father built after toppling him and yet continues to beat his chest saying he is not after power? One whose followers garland her with currency notes and is richer than God despite having no known sources of income other than a public representatives salary, and ostensibly professes to fight corruption and uphold secularism? One who nurtures deep-rooted hatred for the upper castes and yet calls oneself inclusive? One who swears by the Marxist doctrine but holds forth on democracy? One who develops amnesia when it comes to atrocities perpetrated on the majority community? Or one who was brought up on the money garnered through corruption for which his father has been convicted and languishes in jail? Or one who has little interest in the growth, prosperity and well-being of the nation, and only craves for power so that he/she can begin to loot the country and fill personal coffers again: something that has been put an end to in the last five years? The choice is in the hands of the voters: whether India deserves a stable, non-corrupt and decisive government or one that falls to its knees to appease a coalition partner and compromises with everything virtuous only to stick to power. So be careful when you cast that priceless vote. One wrong move could mean being condemned to a fate that the nation experienced for the last several decades: corruption, poverty, instability, lies, deceit, misinformation, opportunism and more. Saudi Arabia announced on Thursday, 3 January, it will seek death penalty against five suspects in the slaying of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a killing that has seen members of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's entourage implicated in the writer's assassination. Prosecutors announced that 11 suspects in the slaying attended their first court hearing with lawyers, but the statement did not name those in court. It also did not explain why seven other suspects arrested over the 2 October killing at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul did not immediately face formal charges. The kingdom previously announced 18 people had been arrested. Saudi officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The killing of Khashoggi, who wrote columns critical of Prince Mohammed, has strained the decades-long ties the kingdom enjoys with the United States. It also has added to a renewed international push to end the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The state-run Saudi Press Agency and state television gave few details about the hearing. The Public Prosecutor demanded imposing proper punishments against the defendants and is seeking capital punishment for five of the defendants for their direct involvement in the murder, a statement from prosecutors said, without elaborating. The suspects requested copies of the indictments they faced, as well as asked for more time to prepare for their case, prosecutors said. While vague on details about the case, prosecutors made a point to express concerns about Turkey. They alleged that Turkish officials did not answer two formal requests made for evidence in the case. "To date, the Saudi Public Prosecutor has not received any response, and the Public Prosecution is still awaiting their response," the statement said. Officials in Ankara could not be immediately reached for comment. Turkish officials have previously said they shared evidence with Saudi Arabia and other nations over Khashoggi's killing. Story continues Also Read: CCTV Footage Shows Men Transporting Jamal Khashoggi Body Parts Turkey also has demanded Saudi Arabia extradite those 18 suspects to be tried there for Khashoggi's killing. Turkish security officials have kept up a slow leak of videos, photographs and morbid details surrounding Khashoggi's slaying to pressure the kingdom, as the two U.S.-allied countries vie for influence over the wider Mideast. Turkish media have published photographs of members of the crown prince's entourage at the consulate in Istanbul ahead of the slaying. Khashoggi's body, believed to have been dismembered after his killing, has yet to be found. Khashoggi, 59, entered the consulate 2 October as his fiancee waited outside. But unbeknownst to him, a team of Saudi officials had flown in before his arrival and laid in wait for him. Saudi Arabia denied for weeks that Khashoggi had been killed but later changed its story and ultimately acknowledged the brutal slaying. King Salman ordered the restructuring of the country's intelligence service, but has so far shielded Prince Mohammed, his 33-year-old son who is next in line to the throne in the oil giant kingdom. Also Read: Saudi King Salman Orders Cabinet Shakeup After Khashoggis Killing All that has not has not stopped widespread international criticism against the kingdom. Under Prince Mohammed, Saudi Arabia has seen the arrest of business leaders, royals and activists while also recently granting women the right to drive. US senators in December passed the measure that blamed the prince for Khashoggi's killing and called on Riyadh to "ensure appropriate accountability." Senators also passed a separate measure calling for the end of US aid to the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Both measures drew angry responses from the kingdom, but a renewed international effort has begun to end the Yemen war. It is no surprise that the kingdom would seek to execute those accused in Khashoggis slaying. Saudi Arabia was the worlds third top executioner in 2017, behind China and Iran, according to Amnesty Internationals most recent figures available. The kingdom executed at least 146 people, according to the group. It regularly beheads those condemned to death and last year said it "crucified" a Myanmar man, an execution in which the condemned is usually beheaded and then the body put on display, arms outstretched as if crucified. . Read more on World by The Quint.RSS & BJPs Nehru-Netaji Cosplay: Irony Dies a Thousand DeathsLatest News: 6 Dead After Delhi Factory Collapsed . Read more on World by The Quint. Charlie Plummer in Lean on Pete. The thought has crossed my mind that perhaps my indifference to so many movies this year may be due to the fact that Ive simply seen too many films. Could the burnout Ive been warned about by others have finally set in? To a small extent, I think thats true. Studios seemed to adhere to proven formulas more so now than at any time before, producing tentpole movies set out to meet audience expectations but eschewing risk-taking narratives. One look at the films vying for awards at year end is all the proof you need. When A Star is Born the fourth version of the same old story is considered the frontrunner for the Oscars, you can see what a safe year its been. Other sure nominees for the Academy Awards The Favourite, First Man, Green Book, Mary Poppins Returns, Vice will never have to worry about having the word groundbreaking used to describe them. This was the year in which independent fare challenged audiences and took on issues that Hollywood was afraid to touch. Lean on Pete and The Rider took an unflinching look at American poverty. American Animals, Assassination Nation, Skate Kitchen, Mid90s and Thoroughbreds examined the dangers of disenfranchised youth, while the scourge of drug abuse was front and center in Beautiful Boy and Ben is Back. Speaking of working outside the traditional Hollywood studio system, Netflix took steps this year to declare itself a major player in feature films. In an effort to gain credibility in the movie game, theyve taken to releasing certain productions in theaters before making them available on the streaming service in order to qualify for the Oscars. They just may take home the Academy Award for Best Picture with Alfonso Cuarons Roma, a moving, gorgeous movie the company has been promoting aggressively. If they take home the big award on Feb. 24, this may prove to be a game changer that will attract other big-name filmmakers. (Martin Scorsese has already signed on to have Netflix produce and release his next production.) It was a year of highs for documentaries and lows for animated films. RBG, Wont You Be My Neighbor?, Three Identical Strangers, Free Solo, Science Fair and Fahrenheit 9/11 were all exceptional movies that broke through and played at multiplexes rather than simply art houses. As for the long-form cartoons, standard fare was the order of the day as Ralph Breaks the Internet, Incredibles 2, Hotel Transylvania 3 and The Grinch failed to break any new ground or, for the most part, inspire. Only Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse proved to be a bright spot. There were films I liked that you didnt (Assassination Nation, Beirut, The House with a Clock in its Walls, Overboard, Papillon, Robin Hood, The Sisters Brothers, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Tomb Raider, Unfriended: Dark Web, Unsane), movies you liked that I didnt (Bohemian Rhapsody, Book Club, Crazy Rich Asians, Creed II, Deadpool 2, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, The Grinch, Halloween, Hereditary, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Skyscraper), and those no one liked (Early Man, The Front Runner, The Girl in the Spiders Web, The Happytime Murders, Hunter Killer, Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Mile 22, Mortal Engines, Peppermint, The Predator, Red Sparrow). Compiling this years Top 10 list was a rather simple task as there were very few, in my mind, that would make the cut. All in all, what with those tied in the 11th spot, there are only 18 movies I felt were head and shoulders above the others. Films that would make the grade were the ones that moved me in one way or another. Each of the movies listed below did just that to one degree or another, reminding me once more of the mediums ability to transcend its limitations and touch those viewers open enough to receive its bounty. First Reformed Paul Schraders astounding meditation on faith in the modern world is propelled by a career-best performance by Ethan Hawke as Ernst Toller, a minister whos uncertain as to his duty to his church and his place in the world. Where his path takes him is unexpected but not surprising when seen through the lens of the many conflicting social and political messages that are being pushed today. Tollers struggle is our struggle, as he searches for meaning in a world that seems devoid of it. This is far and away the most thought-provoking, disturbing and profound film of the year. Lean on Pete Writer/director Andrew Haighs adaptation of the novel by Wily Vlautin came out of left field and surprised many with its heartbreaking look at one teenage boys struggle with poverty and homelessness. Circumstances leave Charley (Charlie Plummer) at loose ends and he winds up working for a cynical horse trainer (Steve Buscemi) and falling for an old nag named Lean on Pete. The boy steals him in a misguided effort to save him and embarks on an odyssey that will change them both. This look at the many who live life on the margins is unflinching in looking at the waste and neglect that ensues in a society driven by an unfair economic engine. Poignant, but, in the end, hopeful. Rafael Casal and Daveed Diggs in Blindspotting. Based on the memoir by author and confessed forger Lee Israel, this intriguing tale deals with the writers efforts to survive by selling forged celebrity letters and the scandal that ensues. Melissa McCarthy gives a career-best performance as the desperate Israel, who comes to blur the notion of authorship in her mind the more she assumes others voices. Shes matched by British actor Richard E. Grant as a bottom-dweller who willingly goes along with the scheme, selling his friends counterfeit wares. Whereas much praise was heaped on Spike Lees fine but overratedas well as the dark comedy Sorry to Bother You, this debut film from director Carlos Lopez Estrada and first-time screenwriters Rafael Casal and Daveed Diggs shined a no-holds barred light on modern racism in a way those other films didnt. The writers star as lifelong friends who are struggling to cope with their changing neighborhood as well as finding where they belong in a society that views them as expendable or a menace. Heartfelt and sincere, this film powerfully examined issues of race and the challenges facing young men of color in ways other 2018 movies failed to do. Alfonso Cuarons gorgeous tribute to the women who guided him through his childhood the family servant Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) and his mother Sofia (Marina de Tavira) is a heartfelt movie that not only recognizes these women as strong individuals who survived in a world of impersonal men, but also a longing look back at a less complicated time. Shot in black and white, this beautiful production applies to all families and people who remember a key period in their lives not so much as it was but as they hoped it would be. The most criminally underseen film of the year, Bart Laytons examination of a heist gone wrong by four college students is a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction tale made all the odder by the directors approach. What begins as a standard fact-based movie combines documentary elements as the men who hatched the scheme show up to give their conflicting memories of what went wrong as their fictional counterparts recreate that deed. Its a daring, invigorating approach that brilliantly shows how getting to the truth of the matter is nearly impossible what with conflicting memories and confusion that arises between facts and media reports. Paddington 2. Wildlife Paul Danos impressive directorial debut is an adaptation of the Richard Ford novel of the same name. Set in the west during the early 1960s, teenager Joe Brinson (Ed Oxenbould) helplessly watches as his parents marriage falls apart due to economic hardship but also a nagging feeling of restlessness in both his mother and father. Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal are superb as Jeanette and Jerry, each at loose ends and willing to take desperate measures to save their respective senses of self in a marriage that was never meant to last. Oxenbould is just as good as the quiet observer who learns a great deal about himself as he witnesses the two people he loves most come apart at the seams. This follow-up to the wonderful 2014 adaptation of the English childrens book follows the titular bear on a misadventure in which he winds up in jail after trusting the wrong person in his pursuit of a rare book for his aunt. Imaginative visual gags abound as do gently rendered jokes. But the thing that makes the film stand out is its overall pleasant and refreshing nature and message. In an age in which ignorance and cruelty from the highest levels dictate how we live, Paddingtons approach to life by following the Golden Rule was a welcome balm for our modern troubles. The second sequel on the list is the sixth entry in the Tom Cruise franchise, one that inexplicably continues to get better with each chapter. Whether Ethan Hunt is riding a motorcycle at high speeds against the traffic in Paris, dangling from a helicopter in the mountains of southeast Asia or destroying a hotel bathroom in hand-to-hand combat, the stunts continue to push the limit and thrill in a way CGI-produced mayhem cant. However, one of the things that makes this sequel stand out is the clever way writer/director Christopher McQuarrie connected this adventure to previous films in the series, providing a narrative through-line that makes this feel less like a follow-up and more of an extended character study of its main character. Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible: Fallout. Peter Hedges lacerating look at the scourge of drug abuse does a far better job than the similarly themed Beautiful Boy as it provides a much rawer look at the far-reaching effects one teens addiction has on his family. Hedges script is masterfully constructed as he slowly doles out just how Ben Burns (Lucas Hedges) got hooked on opioids and the damaging effect it had on all those unfortunate to be in his orbit. Julia Roberts gives her best performance to date as the boys mother who desperately tries to save her son over the course of a critical 24-hour period. Frightening and unforgettable. This film opens in Springfield Jan. 11.Tied for 11th place The Coen Brothers homage/parody of the Western genre The Ballad of Buster Scruggs Cory Finleys cutting look at pampered youth Thoroughbreds Debra Graniks look at the effects of PTSD and modern poverty Leave No Trace Bo Burnams poignant look at the awkward teen years 8th Grade Joel Edgertons sobering examination of one young mans trials in a gar conversion camp Boy Erased Sam Levinsons incendiary look at modern prejudice Assassination Nation Luga Guadagninos ambitous and disturbing remake Suspiria Barry Jenkins heartbreaking If Beale Street Could Talk. click to enlarge PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE Jim Hightower Ho-ho-ho! Wait till you hear about the gifts I gave some of Americas power elites for Christmas.To each of our Congress critters, I sent my fondest wish that, from now on, they receive the exact same income, health care and pensions that we average citizens get. If they receive only the American average, it might make them a bit more humble -- and less cavalier about ignoring the needs of regular folks.To the stockings of GOP leaders whove so eagerly debased themselves to serve the madness of Donald Trump, I added individual spritzer bottles of fragrances like Essence of Integrity and Eau de Self-Respect to help cover up their stench. And in the stockings of Democratic congressional leaders, I put Spice of Viagra and Bouquet du Grassroots to stiffen their spines and remind them of whom they represent.For Americas CEOs, my gift is a beautifully boxed, brand-new set of corporate ethics. Its called the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Going to pollute someones neighborhood? Then you have to live there, too. Going to slash wages and benefits? Then slash yours as well. Going to move your manufacturing to sweatshops in China? Then put your office right inside the worst sweatshop. Executive life wont be as luxurious, but CEOs would glow with a new purity of spirit.To the Wall Street hedge-fund hucksters whove conglomerated, plundered and degraded hundreds of Americas newspapers, Ive sent copies of Journalism for Dummies and offered jobs for each of them in their stripped-down Dickensian newsrooms. Good luck.And what better gift to the Trump family -- Donald, Ivanka and Jared, Eric, Donnie Jr. and the whole nest of them -- than to wish that they live with each other constantly and permanently. No, really. Each of you deserves it.Yes, I have finally mastered the art of finding perfect gifts for people on my list -- gifts that rise above crass commercialism and are genuinely appreciated by the people who receive them. I wholeheartedly recommend such gift-giving to you.For example, I gave a goat to my mother, Lillie, for her birthday, even naming the animal after her. Although she was raised on a farm, Momma was 103 on her last birthday and really didnt really want to tend to a goat, but she loved getting it. Thats because the beloved critter wasnt delivered to her, but to an impoverished family in Nepal that desperately needs the nutritional, economic and life-affirming benefits that can flow from something as basic as a goat.Her gift, which indeed will keep giving, was made possible by Heifer International, a terrific charitable organization based in Little Rock, Arkansas, that works to end global poverty one animal at a time. Heifer publishes a gift catalogue that lets you and me make a donation and choose to send anything from a flock of baby chicks ($20) to a water buffalo ($250). Heifer International then places the animals with families around the world who put these living donations to work, lifting them from abject poverty. Not only does Heifer connect us to specific needs, but it also has teachers and development experts on staff who work directly with the recipients to make the gifts work.There are dozens of good groups that offer such gifts that matter. For example, one Christmas, my gift to Momma came from the catalogue of The Nature Conservancy. She became the symbolic owner of two acres of land in Appalachia that are part of the groups conservation efforts.For her, and for me, this kind of giving is a lot more satisfying (and a lot truer to the spirit of giving) than buying another thing that she didnt need. For information about these groups and more, go to CharityNavigator.org. Photo by Bruce Rushton Alex Walker, left, and his husband, Taylor Walker, say they were targeted on the basis of their sexual orientation by Habitat for Humanity. The sides cant agree on what happened, and so at least one thing must be true: Someone is either lying or mistaken. Alex and Taylor Walker say they were the subject of discrimination at the hands of a Habitat for Humanity store manager in Sullivan, where they said they were ordered out of the store last October after a quick embrace that left no doubt that they were gay. Habitat for Humanity, the couple says, is biased against homosexuals. Not so, says Gary Smith, president of Moultrie County Habitat for Humanity. He says the group that runs a secondhand store and helps build housing for the disadvantaged welcomes everyone. Were not going to discriminate against anyone, Smith says.The Walkers have retained an attorney, and their case is now before the Illinois Human Rights Commission. They say that video from store surveillance cameras would back their version of events.It began last October, when the Walkers, whove been married for three years, visited the ReStore second-hand shop run by Habitat for Humanity in Sullivan. Bargain hunting is their hobby, they say, and theyve been welcomed at second-hand stores throughout central Illinois. Both men say that theyd never before visited the Sullivan ReStore outlet.The Walkers, whove submitted affidavits to the human rights commission, say that they were in the store for about five minutes when Taylor briefly put his arm around Alex and said he was going to check out a different area of the store. He kind of puts his arm around me and whispers in my ear, Hey, Im going to this other area and look for something else, Alex Walker recalls in an interview. Thats when the store manager approached, the Walkers say. Shes like, Young man, Im going to have to ask that you leave, Alex Walker says. I look at her and I say Why? She said We dont allow homosexual behavior or homosexuals in our store. In their affidavits, the Walkers say that the manager was shouting. It was humiliating and embarrassing, Taylor Walker writes in his sworn statement.Smith, the charitys president, says that Taylor had been in the store previously and caused some sort of problem, and the couple was being loud and disruptive. Both Taylor and Alex Walker say that theyd never set foot in the store until the day they were ordered to leave. Alex acknowledges cussing and becoming angry, but only after the manager said that the store didnt allow gay people. A black person or a Muslim or anyone else ordered to leave a business because of the color of their skin or their religion would become angry, too, if they faced the same sort of discrimination, the couple says. Were normal people, Taylor says.The couple says that their show of affection was limited to a quick squeeze around the waist, the sort of hug that happens every day in any number of public places without anyone taking offense. They say their anger grew after they complained about the store manager to Smith. It got worse after talking to him, Alex Taylor says.Alex Taylor says he made multiple calls to both the state office for Habitat for Humanity and the Moultrie County office over the course of two days, but no one called back. Finally, he says, he reached Smith. He said Yeah, I heard something about that, Alex Taylor recalls. At that point, Alex Taylor said, all he wanted was an apology from Smith and from the store manager. Then I was going to be done with it, Alex Taylor says.In his affidavit, Alex Taylor writes that Smith apologized. I then asked him if Taylor and I were allowed back into the store. He replied, Well, no, because I dont want people like that coming into the store, clearly referencing our sexual orientation. I said What? He replied, I dont need people like that coming in the store and causing problems, referring to our homosexuality as a problem.Smith says sexual orientation has nothing to do with it. Rather, he says that the Walkers were told to leave because they were disruptive. They went in and there was a manager down there who said something about problems before with one of them, Smith says. Then that guy blew up and started cussing her and went up and down, up and down, cussing her. She had to ask him to leave. She was getting ready to call the police, I guess.Sarah Noll, attorney for the Walkers, says its too soon to say whether the matter will morph into a lawsuit. Smith says that no one can come into the charitys store and cause problems the way that the Walkers did.Anyone can file a complaint on anything, Smith says.Contact Bruce Rushton at brushton@illinoistimes.com. How many minority languages are there in the world and in Europe? There are maybe 6,000 or 7,000 languages spoken in the world and it is estimated that in a century at least a half of them will have died out. In Europe at the moment 79 indigenous regional and minority languages, spoken by in total 203 national minorities or linguistic groups, have been acknowledged in the European Charter of Regional and Minority Languages. But its quite difficult to measure simply because countries can choose what languages they include in international agreements. In Italy alone it is said that there are maybe 50 minority languages spoken (but officially) these languages are considered dialects of Italian. Why do languages die out? Because there is some stronger language that is spoken in the same area and whose speakers have the political prestige and the power to decide what should be spoken. This was one of the consequences of nation state-building in Europe since the late 19th century. Processes like urbanisation and migration are also a threat for traditional ways of life which, at least in the past, used to go hand in hand with linguistic diversity. Then of course there are the international lingua francas most notably English, which is spreading everywhere. What is the point in safeguarding languages? When a language is dying out, a whole world of traditions and concepts and ways of seeing the world dies with it. Languages are the immaterial richness of mankind. And languages are important for the speakers. Its a human right for a person to speak, and transfer to the next generation, their own language. 'Its a human right for a person to speak ... their own language.' Professor Anneli Sarhimaa, University of Mainz, Germany Is the internet driving out minority languages? The internet is an extremely important way of supporting the revitalisation of minority languages. New technology makes it possible for speakers of minority languages who live in diaspora, or live scattered over a vast geographical area, to communicate regardless limitations of space or time. But one problem is that many minority languages have not been standardised, so the algorithms dont even recognise the materials that have been written in a particular language and are available online - simply because people write it in different ways. Then of course there are no interfaces (such as web browsers) available in many minority languages. There are languages like Basque where there are interfaces, online dictionaries, translation programmes and so on and then there are languages such as Karelian which does not have basically anything yet. How do you preserve a language? It has to do with the decisions of families about what language they want to pass to their children. This decision comes from the identity of the parents. The worst possible decision that parents can make is to leave it to the kid, saying: When they grow older they can decide. How can they decide if they never learned the minority language in the first place at all? Then families have to be supported by society, of course, because its not enough that children hear it at home. They also have to have kindergarten and school teaching about the language and, in the best scenario, in the language. Its also important that the language has some kind of domain of use outside the most intimate networks of relatives, such as in a religious community or within the dominant language mass media. Have you come across any resurgent minority languages in your region of central, eastern and northern Europe? Not yet. One language that is close to my own heart is Karelian. It used to be spoken in the area that Finland ceded to the Soviet Union as a consequence of the Second World War. Finland evacuated the ceded area and everyone was given a new home in some other part of Finland. It was bad for the language, among other things, because people moved very quickly to cities and so the traditional communities were then broken. Young people from the ceded areas did not choose to fall in love on the basis of joint language and cultural heritage: many got married to Finns and then the language of the new, young family usually was Finnish. And Karelian was never supported in Finland (by the government). Its a very common story. As part of the ELDIA project, you developed a barometer for measuring the vitality of minority languages. What did that find about Karelian? (It) measured the health of 12 Finno-Ugrian languages. Karelian in Finland was one of the three most endangered. Speakers use Karelian rarely and predominantly with family members and some friends; people who know it do not transmit it to their children any longer. Although an autochthonous (indigenous) language in Finland, Karelian is less protected by legislation than new immigrant languages are. Karelian is not a part of the educational system at all. The barometer showed that it is not enough to permit the use of a language or prohibit discrimination language policy decisions must influence individual and social structures on a wide scale. Karelian should be supported in the education system more concretely. Information is also needed by healthcare personnel on how to face and act with elderly Karelians in institutional care who possibly only can speak Karelian. Is there any hope for Karelian? I have known so many people who thought that they were the last speakers of Karelian in Finland because they did not know any other speakers. And what I find very nice now is that every week I get to know new people who speak fluent Karelian. This has a lot to do with online communities, different kinds of social media groups in which Karelian is used. So in that sense Karelian appears to me to be much stronger nowadays than it was 8 or 10 years ago. But I wouldnt call it a success story yet because a lot needs to be done. Map based on the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages. Click on a country to learn more about its languages. The research in this article was funded by the EU. If you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media. Young people involved in dairy can sometimes face an information overload when it comes to learning. Utilizing resources, staying in touch with dairy industry friends, and reading dairy magazines and online resources were just a few of the strategies engaged by the young people interviewed for the Round Table These young farmers came back to the dairy that can be found on pages 714 to 716 of the December 2018 issue of Hoards Dairyman. Heres how they answered the question How do you stay up-to-date on dairy information? Slaymaker Farm (Jessica and Dan Slaymaker), Mansfield, Pa.: As far as staying informed, we glean new information from our membership in the Professional Dairy Managers of Pennsylvania (PDMP) and attend their meetings throughout the year. We also rely on information from the Penn State extension group and read various agriculture publications. Additionally, Dan is always watching and listening to what others are doing. He likes gathering ideas from those around him and then utilizing the ones that work for him. He gets a lot of ideas from serving on his milk co-ops board. Finally, we utilize a profit team, which has been absolutely crucial to getting us where we are today. Our team gets out to our operation as well as other farms and brings in really valuable new ideas. Schulze Dairy (Chris Schulze), Holland, Minn.: I stay informed about the industry primarily through my online networks as well as individuals I interact with at shows. I try to attend both World Dairy Expo and the Central Plains Dairy Expo to gather ideas each year. Finally, for the past several years, the farm has been working with the Southwest Minnesota Dairy Initiative. We have a team made up of our banker, veterinarian, nutritionist, and extension personnel that evaluate the farm and meet with us two to four times a year to discuss opportunities and challenges on the farm. Ohlde Dairy (Justin Ohlde), Linn, Kan.: Staying informed has never been so easy. There are magazines to read, people to follow on Twitter, blogs, emailed newsletters, people in the industry, and so forth. You just have to pick out what is good and what is a waste of time. I read a lot, which is funny because I hated reading in school. Parents, dont lose hope if your teenage boy doesnt like to read; they might change their mind. Glen Meadows Farm (Clark Egelston), Fultonville, N.Y.: I joined the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity at Virginia Tech, which consisted of many young men in the same position as myself. I still have very good relationships with my fraternity brothers and find that I get a lot of my information for the farm through them. Chances are if there is some new technology out there, one of my fraternity brothers uses it, and there is nothing more valuable than an honest opinion and learning through someone elses experiences. I also feel that Hoards Dairyman does a fantastic job getting real accounts from real farmers and offers the same level of integrity I get from my college relationships. I rely heavily on my veterinarian and pharmaceutical representatives to keep me up-to-date on current research. I take advantage of different young farmer/leadership programs offered through my co-op and farm lender. If there is one thing I have learned since college, its that I will never know it all, and it is extremely important to keep pushing myself to learn. To comment, email your remarks to intel@hoards.com. (c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2018 December 31, 2018 | Tapedeck Teac V-5010 Cassette g56ryu : Fashion123 : 9 : Fashion123: 9 #1 Tapedeck Teac V-5010 Cassette / 03-01-2019 07:17 Tapedeck Teac V-5010 Cassette ( 24-01-2019 22:51 #1 .) : : : -------------------- -- Hi-Fi ---- ---- ---- ---- -- -- -- -- ---- D ---- BD/DVD/LD ---- - ---- , ---- ---- -- -- -- -- : 1 () | Mitsubishi Diatone DT-4700 Stereo Tapedeck g56ryu : Fashion123 : 9 : Fashion123: 9 #1 Mitsubishi Diatone DT-4700 Stereo Tapedeck / 03-01-2019 07:14 Mitsubishi Diatone DT-4700 Stereo Tapedeck ( 24-01-2019 22:59 #1 .) : : : -------------------- -- Hi-Fi ---- ---- ---- ---- -- -- -- -- ---- D ---- BD/DVD/LD ---- - ---- , ---- ---- -- -- -- -- : 1 () DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia announced on Thursday it will seek the death penalty against five suspects in the slaying of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a killing that has seen members of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's entourage implicated in the writer's assassination. Prosecutors announced that 11 suspects in the slaying attended their first court hearing with lawyers, but the statement did not name those in court. It also did not explain why seven other suspects arrested over the Oct. 2 killing at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul did not immediately face formal charges. The kingdom previously announced 18 people had been arrested. Saudi officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The killing of Khashoggi, who wrote columns critical of Prince Mohammed, has strained the decades-long ties the kingdom enjoys with the United States. It also has added to a renewed international push to end the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The state-run Saudi Press Agency and state television gave few details about the hearing. "The Public Prosecutor demanded imposing proper punishments against the defendants and is seeking capital punishment for five of the defendants for their direct involvement in the murder," a statement from prosecutors said, without elaborating. The suspects requested copies of the indictments they faced, as well as asked for more time to prepare for their case, prosecutors said. While vague on details about the case, prosecutors made a point to express concerns about Turkey. They alleged that Turkish officials did not answer two formal requests made for evidence in the case. "To date, the Saudi Public Prosecutor has not received any response, and the Public Prosecution is still awaiting their response," the statement said. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Officials in Ankara could not be immediately reached for comment. Turkish officials have previously said they shared evidence with Saudi Arabia and other nations over Khashoggi's killing. Turkey also has demanded Saudi Arabia extradite those 18 suspects to be tried there for Khashoggi's killing. Turkish security officials have kept up a slow leak of videos, photographs and morbid details surrounding Khashoggi's slaying to pressure the kingdom, as the two U.S.-allied countries vie for influence over the wider Mideast. Turkish media have published photographs of members of the crown prince's entourage at the consulate in Istanbul ahead of the slaying. Khashoggi's body, believed to have been dismembered after his killing, has yet to be found. Khashoggi, 59, entered the consulate Oct. 2 as his fiancee waited outside. But unbeknownst to him, a team of Saudi officials had flown in before his arrival and laid in wait for him. Saudi Arabia denied for weeks that Khashoggi had been killed but later changed its story and ultimately acknowledged the brutal slaying. King Salman ordered the restructuring of the country's intelligence service, but has so far shielded Prince Mohammed, his 33-year-old son who is next in line to the throne in the oil giant kingdom. All that has not has not stopped widespread international criticism against the kingdom. Under Prince Mohammed, Saudi Arabia has seen the arrest of business leaders, royals and activists while also recently granting women the right to drive. U.S. senators in December passed the measure that blamed the prince for Khashoggi's killing and called on Riyadh to "ensure appropriate accountability." Senators also passed a separate measure calling for the end of U.S. aid to the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Both measures drew angry responses from the kingdom, but a renewed international effort has begun to end the Yemen war. It is no surprise that the kingdom would seek to execute those accused in Khashoggi's slaying. Saudi Arabia was the world's third top executioner in 2017, behind China and Iran, according to Amnesty International's most recent figures available. The kingdom executed at least 146 people, according to the group. It regularly beheads those condemned to death and last year said it "crucified" a Myanmar man, an execution in which the condemned is usually beheaded and then the body put on display, arms outstretched as if crucified. Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 CHICAGO Longtime Aldman Edward Burke, one of Chicago's most powerful figures and a vestige of the city's old Democratic machine, has been charged with attempted extortion for allegedly using his position as alderman to corruptly solicit business for his private law firm. The 37-page criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court comes five weeks after the FBI carried out a stunning raid on Burke's City Hall office, working for hours behind windows covered with brown butcher paper before leaving down a back staircase with computers and files. According to the one count, Burke in 2017 tried to extort a company that owns fast-food restaurants in the Chicago area and needed help with permits for a remodeling job. The evidence includes numerous recorded calls from Burke's cell phone as well as emails and other documents, according to the complaint, which was filed Wednesday and unsealed Thursday. The complaint also alleged Burke illegally solicited a campaign donation from an executive with the restaurant company for another politician, who is not named in the charges. The criminal charge was jaw-dropping even for a city with a long history of public corruption. While dozens of his City Council colleagues have been convicted and sent to prison over the decades, Burke was largely seen as too clever or sophisticated to be caught. He had faced federal scrutiny several times before but always escaped charges. As a consummate insider with his hands on many of the city's levers of power, Burke is arguably one of the biggest fish ever reeled in by the U.S. attorney's office, which has famously indicted a succession of Illinois governors, aldermen and other politicians in a seemingly never-ending parade of graft. For decades, the Southwest Side alderman has used his iron grip on the City Council's Finance Committee and key role in slating Cook County judges to build a massive amount of political capital. Burke, who turned 75 last week, often decides whether Chicago's most important legislation will move forward. He controls millions of dollars in campaign funds. He is the sole steward of the city's $100 million workers' compensation program. And he plays a crucial role in redrawing the city's ward maps, a key in maintaining political power amid shifting demographics. He's also married to Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, who was quietly sworn in to a second 10-year term on Nov. 29, the same day her husband's City Hall and 14th Ward offices were raided. The FBI carried out a second search of Burke's City Hall office on Dec.13. Known for his bold pinstripe suits, throwback style and a love of Chicago lore, Burke was first elected as the ward's Democratic committeeman in July 1968 after his father, Aldman Joseph P. Burke, died of lung cancer while in office. The following year, the onetime Chicago police officer won election as alderman. He has held the post ever since, rising from a young ward heeler to one of the most influential council members the city has seen over the last half century. In his rise to political power, Burke also built a lucrative business as one of the city's most prominent property tax appeals attorneys, routinely saving some of Chicago's largest business interests millions of dollars on their tax bills. He was known in the 1980s as a key player in the racially heated Council Wars when a bloc of white aldermen led by him and Alderman Ed Vrdolyak feuded with Harold Washington, often blocking the initiatives of Chicago's first black mayor. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Now more than a quarter century later, Burke and Vrdolyak have been reunited in a strange sense: both face pending criminal charges at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. Vrdolyak, who was convicted of real estate fraud years after he left the City Council and served a year in prison, is scheduled to go on trial in April on tax-related charges stemming from the massive tobacco company settlement in the 1990s. In his 50 years in politics, Burke has been under federal scrutiny several times before but never charged. In 2012, the city's Inspector General Joseph Ferguson sought access to records from the workers' compensation program to review it for waste and inefficiency. Burke denied Ferguson access to those records, contending they fell outside the watchdog's jurisdiction. That same year, a federal grand jury issued subpoenas for the program's database, injury records, medical assessments and claim investigation records dating back to January 2006. Federal authorities also had subpoenaed similar records, but nothing appeared to have come of those requests. Federal authorities also sought records from Burke's Finance Committee in 1995 as part of Operation Haunted Hall a probe centered on ghost-payrolling that led to the convictions of about three dozen elected officials, their political cronies and relatives. Marie D'Amico, the daughter of then-39th Ward Alderman Anthony Laurino, held ghost-payrolling jobs with the Finance Committee from 1991 to 1993, purportedly overseeing workers' compensation claims, federal authorities said at the time. Back then, Burke blamed a dead man Horace Lindsay, D'Amico's supervisor at the Finance Committee for forging time sheets to cover her behavior. "I don't supervise the personnel," Burke said then. "Do you expect I should know where everybody is, all 75 or 80 people or whoever's there?" At the time, officials had been looking closely at Burke since former short-time Alderman Joseph A. Martinez, who was a lawyer in Burke's private law office and onetime Finance Committee employee, pleaded guilty to charges that he held ghost jobs with three City Council committees while working full time for Burke's law firm. In late 1997, Burke was under investigation again, this time by a federal grand jury. At the time, Burke and 11th Ward Alderman Patrick Huels, the former floor leader for then-Mayor Richard M. Daley, drew the federal heat. The grand jury subpoenaed the two aldermen's campaign finance records, records of their personal campaign committees and financial payments awarded by the Finance Committee and the Transportation Committee, chaired by Huels at the time. Huels recently had resigned after admitting he borrowed $1.25 million from a Daley friend who also was a city contractor. In 1998, federal agents subpoenaed city financial records of payments to Michael Pedicone, a lawyer working for Burke's Finance Committee who also served as president of a security firm that was part of an investigation of City Hall's financial dealings. Burke was the licensee in charge of the security firm, SDI Security Inc. Huels was an owner. The loan that led to Huels' resignation helped bail out the security guard agency, which owed the Internal Revenue Service for failing to pay federal employment taxes. At the time, Burke withstood calls to resign, saying Pedicone had been paid $490,000 in legal fees by the committee since 1989, primarily to represent the city in claims filed by employees in work-related accidents. "I have no intention whatsoever of stepping down," Burke said then, "simply because I have done nothing wrong." Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 7 DECATUR The Decatur Fire Department is seeking the public's help in its investigation of a Friday house fire that killed a 67-year-old woman. In a Facebook post Wednesday, Decatur fire officials released a short video of footage taken at the scene of the fatal blaze, 1608 E. Cantrell St., and asked for anyone with video of the fire to contact the department. Sharing video of the fire might help with the department's investigation, the post said. Fire Inspector Brad Gillmar said there were no new developments in the investigation as of Wednesday afternoon. He said that other than Decatur police and the Macon County coroner becoming involved, nothing changes with the fire department's investigation process when a fatality is reported. Coroner Michael Day said the preliminary cause of death for Bertha Louise Harden, whose body was found amid the rubble of the destroyed brick home, was carbon monoxide inhalation from the smoke and soot at the scene. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Day said an autopsy performed Saturday morning at the McLean County Coroner's Morgue in Bloomington found no sign of foul play and "no injuries inconsistent with fire involvement." Firefighters were called to the East Cantrell address at 8:09 a.m. Friday. Capt. Kirk Riley said they were alerted to the possibility there could be one or two people in the house, but firefighters were prevented from entering due to the extent of the fire and the condition of the building. Day said the coroner's office was summoned to the scene around 11 p.m. Friday after firefighters found Harden's body. An inquest into her death is pending, he said. Gillmar said anyone with information or video of the fire to share with the department should call (217) 424-2811. Contact Jaylyn Cook at (217) 421-7980. Follow him on Twitter: @jaylyn_HR Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. MOWEAQUA Shortly after he received his skinny spotted leopard, 4-year-old Ryker Beck had picked out a name for the new addition to his family. Lepter, he said as he concentrated on fattening the toy. During their Christmas break, Ryker and other local children were invited to the Moweaqua Public Library to build their own stuffed animals. On Wednesday, the library hosted a Noahs Ark Build an Animal Workshops for the little toy makers. Andrea Then brought her son, Ryker. He enjoys stuff like this, Then said. And this is a benefit for the library. Proceeds from the activity were designated for updating the librarys community room, where the workshop was held. Each animal cost $20. Plans call for additional cabinets, flooring, paint and a kitchenette. The room is used by adults, as well as children, for various activities, including weekly bingo and card games, exercise classes, art workshops and story time. The space is also rented to groups for bridal and baby showers and other parties. It is an affordable place for our community to use, said librarian Fran Lower. We want it to be more inviting and have better facilities. The 600 N. Putnam St. library was built at a cost of $600,000 in 2006 and the 750-square-foot community room, which takes up about half the building, hasn't been updated since. I dont think we envisioned the amount of use we would get out of it, Lower said. We do a lot of messy crafts. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} The process of raising $12,500 began a few months ago. We are 90 percent there, Lower said. But we wanted the kids to be part of it. Noahs Ark Build an Animal is based on the concept of Build-a-Bear, in which children choose an animal, fill it with stuffing and complete a birth certificate. And all of the funds go toward the fundraiser, said William Mars, library assistant. Decatur schools among recipients of school library grants DECATUR The Decatur School District is one of 694 in Illinois to receive a school library grant from Secretary of State Jesse White. More th Children also built their own stuffed animals during the summer reading program. It went over well and its easy, Lower said. Makenzie White, 9, from Moweaqua, built an animal at the library during the summer. This is real fun, she said. Makenzie explained the process to her friend, Brookelyn Jackson, 9. I wanted to do this because Ive never done it before, Brookelyn said. I know you get to rub a heart on it and stuff it inside." Makenzies mother, Kari White, brought her daughter to the workshop, not only because the child enjoys craft projects, but because of the fundraiser. It helps the library, White said. Im happy they give the opportunities for the kids to do these things. We come here as much as we can. The children and their new animal friends participated in a ceremony to end the workshop. Before the children stuffed the important rainbow colored star inside their animals, they were to rub the star on their heads, heart, ears and eyes. So their new pal can see them when they give it a big hug, Lower recited from the pledge. PHOTOS: Kids build plush animals to raise money for Moweaqua Public Library community room renovations Contact Donnette Beckett at (217) 421-6983. Follow her on Twitter: @donnettebHR Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. DECATUR Enraged after his 1-year-old daughter accidentally kicked him on the site of a recent gunshot wound, a Decatur father spanked the child and then strangled, punched and bit her mother when she protested, police said. A sworn Decatur police affidavit said the incident happened Tuesday afternoon at a home in the 2500 block of East North Street and the 21-year-old father was arrested that afternoon. He was booked on preliminary charges of aggravated battery to a pregnant victim (his girlfriend is 16 weeks pregnant with their second child), unlawful restraint and committing domestic battery while having a previous domestic battery conviction. All preliminary charges are subject to review by the state attorneys office. Writing in the affidavit, officer Andrew Holloway said the babys 19-year-old mother reported the child had been lying on the floor near her father, who was also lying down, when she kicked the site of the two-week-old gunshot wound in his back. The father then spanked the baby as punishment, prompting an argument between the parents. The mother told police the father then got up off the floor and charged her, locking his hands around her neck and strangling her for approximately 10 seconds, the document said. (The mother) stated he then began to punch her in the face multiple times with both of his fists as she was still sitting on the couch, Holloway said. She stated that he punched her in the face five to six times ... before she was able to push him away. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. The mother told police she made a run for the front door but the father caught her in a bear hug and bit her on the left shoulder, hard enough that police saw the perfect imprint of two sets of bloody teeth marks. The affidavit said the violence was witnessed by the fathers sister, who stopped the attack after yelling at her brother to leave his girlfriend alone. The father remained held in the Macon County Jail on Wednesday in lieu of posting $75,000 bond. Decatur police detective Sgt. Chris Copeland said Wednesday the father had been shot in December in an incident that remains under investigation. Photos: 2018 mug shots from the Herald & Review Contact Tony Reid at (217) 421-7977. Follow him on Twitter: @TonyJReid Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Today's Highlight in History: On Jan. 3, 1977, Apple Computer was incorporated in Cupertino, California, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Mike Makkula Jr. On Jan. 3, In 1521, Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Leo X. In 1777, Gen. George Washington's army routed the British in the Battle of Princeton, New Jersey. In 1868, Japan's Meiji Restoration re-established the authority of the emperor and heralded the fall of the military rulers known as shoguns; the upheaval paved the way for Japan's drive toward becoming a modern power. In 1938, the March of Dimes campaign to fight polio was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who himself had been afflicted with the crippling disease. In 1958, the first six members of the newly formed U.S. Commission on Civil Rights held their first meeting at the White House. In 1959, Alaska became the 49th state as President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a proclamation. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. In 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced the United States was formally terminating diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba. In 1967, Jack Ruby, the man who shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, died in a Dallas hospital. In 1980, conservationist Joy Adamson, author of "Born Free," was killed in northern Kenya by a former employee. In 1993, President George H.W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed the START II missile-reduction treaty in Moscow. (However, the agreement ultimately fell apart.) In 2009, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama won Democratic caucuses in Iowa, while Mike Huckabee won the Republican caucuses. After seven days of pummeling the Gaza Strip from the air, Israel launched a ground offensive; Hamas vowed that Gaza would be a "graveyard" for the Israelis. Veteran actor Pat Hingle died in Carolina Beach, N.C., at age 84. In 2013, students from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, reconvened at a different building in the town of Monroe about three weeks after the massacre that had claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six educators. The new 113th Congress opened for business, with House Speaker John Boehner re-elected to his post despite a mini-revolt in Republican ranks. In 2014, the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled again that the National Security Agency could keep collecting every American's telephone records every day. Phil Everly, who with his brother Don formed an influential harmony duo, died in Burbank, California, at age 74. No. 12 Clemson rallied to beat No. 7 Ohio State 40-35 in the Orange Bowl. In 2018, President Donald Trump signed an executive order disbanding the controversial voter fraud commission he had set up to investigate the 2016 presidential election after alleging without evidence that voting fraud cost him the popular vote; the White House blamed the decision to end the panel on more than a dozen states that refused to cooperate. A brutal winter storm delivered a rare blast of snow and ice to the coastal Southeast, giving parts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina their heaviest snowfall in nearly three decades. Thought for Today: "The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't." Henry Ward Beecher, American clergyman (1813-1887) Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Though its difficult to take a newspaper seriously that features the comic strip Mallard Fillmore on its opinion page, it nevertheless defies belief that an op-ed denouncing writer Alice Walker and the New York Times has any relevance to Helena, Montana. (See "Times ignores appalling pedigree of anti-Semitism," Dec. 26). Yet it seems so, even if other critical stories are ignored, such as the criminalization of dissent by the Israel anti-boycott legislation sweeping the country which represents a direct full-frontal attack on American democracy. That any criticism of Israel can now be deemed anti-Semitic, even historically non-violent protest measures such as boycotts and disinvestment, spells doom for the First Amendment. And that a newspaper would knowingly choose a peripheral slur against a great American writer who, not surprisingly and unmentioned in the op-ed, is a vehement champion of Palestinian rights and courageously proclaims their slow genocide at the hands of the racist Israeli state, over vital information extremely relevant to the healthy functioning of our democracy, announces that the free press has indeed become compromised and whats worse, useless. The body of a 3-year-old who fell into the Musselshell River was found late Thursday, Musselshell County Sheriff Shawn Lesnik said Thursday evening. The body was found around 5:20 p.m. Thursday. The 3-year-old was with his 5-year-old sister when he fell in Monday, Lesnik said. The boy is Canadian and was visiting the Kilby Butte Hutterite Colony outside of Roundup with his family. Ice and snowy conditions on the river complicated search efforts, but on Thursday, warmer temperatures it was 46 degrees Thursday morning had eased the pressure on search crews, who worked through subzero temperatures and wind earlier in the week, Lesnik said. Were just going to continue to look and continue to hope to get lucky, Lesnik said Thursday afternoon. Because at this point, its just going to be luck if we find him. But the warmth also caused the river levels to rise and made the ice dicey to work on, Lesnik said. The funeral for a 14-year-old girl found dead last week on the Northern Cheyenne reservation will take place Saturday in Lame Deer. Henny Scott's funeral is scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday at Lame Deer High School, according to Forsyth-based Stevenson & Sons Funeral Home. On Friday, mourners will gather at the school for a traditional wake, beginning at 7 p.m. Scott was first reported missing Dec. 13, when the Bureau of Indian Affairs says it entered her name into a national missing persons database. Nearly two weeks later, on Dec. 26, the FBI requested state authorities issue a missing or endangered person alert, according to the Montana Department of Justice. Learn about the behavior of Antarctic penguins Join Angie Leprohon and David Nimick for an entertaining and educational program describing their trips to Antarctica, a land of huge glaciers, towering icebergs, sea ice galore and thousands upon thousands of penguins. This presentation provides an overview of penguin populations and behavior with an in-depth look at the vocal and non-vocal communications used during the breeding season by the brush-tail penguins of the Antarctic Peninsula and the king penguins of South Georgia Island. Learn the importance of stones as gifts; the difference between gakkering, courting bows and loud mutual displays; and the value of the essential but humorous feeding chase. In addition to photographs, videos, and audio clips, Angie and David will imitate the vocalizations and behaviors of many of the penguins. Audience participation is encouraged! As with all such stories, the early runs are flawless, and Earl delivers the goods without a hitch. Each time he simply parks his truck at a hotel, and puts the keys in the glove compartment. Two hours later, he comes back and next to his keys is an envelope full of cash. At last, a steady income. Earl puts the money to good use: helping a veterans group, for example. But we know whats coming. The story tells two simultaneous stories. One about Earl running drugs, and the other about a federal agent, Bradley Cooper, gradually piecing together this scheme. The tale of the Feds is deadly boring, full of cliches. We gotta make a bust. Yes, sir. Even the Eastwood drug runs are pretty dull. Earl drives along, arm out the window, eye on the mirror. The film gets its power elsewhere: In the portrait of an aging man whos been a disappointing father and a less-than-devoted husband. His family leaves gatherings when he tries to visit. Earls burned all his bridges. So, the deeper story in The Mule is about reconciliation between Earl and both his ex-wife and his daughter. In the last 24 hours officers responded to 61 calls which included four accidents, four domestic or family disturbances, four welfare checks, three fraud calls and seven suspicious circumstances calls. As of Wednesday morning, the county jail held 108 inmates (96 for felonies and 12 for misdemeanors). In total, the county has 131 inmates at various detention facilities. One-hundred-eleven clients are serviced by the 24/7 sobriety program. Of these, 48 are on PBT (Personal Breath Test), 45 are on SCRAM (Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor bracelet), 12 are on GPS, and six are on house arrest. Pretrial Services is currently working with 269 clients. Helenas 165th year was an eventful one for the city, featuring an overhaul of snow removal procedures, an infusion of new capital into the fi Before the holidays, I was able to chat with twin brothers, Zach and Charles Weinert. These guys spent many years working on separate musical projects, but in 2014, they joined forces to create MZG. Recently relocated to Colorado, the brothers have wasted no time in making a mark, performing with respected state staples EOTO and members of Pretty Lights, as well as Barclay Crenshaw. Interview With MZG So, tell me about the band. At first, it was a bit of a random brainchild. We had been doing our own music solo for years, with different styles of music. But we finally combined forces into a DJ act with EDM and heavy bass music. It was pretty inevitable that we would work together. And I love your name. Yes! Its shorthand for the scientific term for identical twins (monozygotic) when one egg splits into two. How could we not? How do you think being twins affects the band? Well, obviously we have a natural chemistry that affects us in a good way we share the same ideas. We just get each other. We live together and that really benefits the band in terms of timing and the work. Sure, we have the family personal level stuff, but we dont let any emotions get in the way of the work. When we are performing, everything else gets left at home. And welcome to Colorado! What made you decide to move here? We came from Florida and being anywhere for 15 years, you can kind of get stuck. We were contacted by our (now) manager and trying to decide our next move. We had looked at other cities, but they convinced us to move here because of the great EDM scene and we had plenty of contacts in the area. Denver is treating us really well. People here love to go out to shows; its amazing. I saw that you were from Jacksonville. I went to college in St. Augustine. Yeah? We were really close then. We had gained such a great group of supporters there, it was hard to leave. Have you found any Denver acts you like? There is such a huge group of bands here from all kinds of musical backgrounds. We have been lucky to already have collaborations with several like Kyral X Banko. Have been enjoying making music with everyone here. I have to admit, I dont see as many EDM shows as rock and indie, but I do enjoy the vibe when I do. What is special about it for you? Theres just this great culture about EDM. We like how everyone sticks together. And then theres the combination of lights and sounds that you dont get from only guitars. Theres a dynamic that builds and drops and pulses from the whole environment. Also, its a weird challenge to entertain with your whole performance reading the crowd and building the show. You almost have to have a sixth sense to understand how everyone is feeling. Like a chess game, preparing your next move. Highlights of your musical career so far? Returning to Suwannee Music Park in Florida for Hulaween was a very large and fun show so that was definitely a huge deal for us. It showed how much our hard work has paid off and going home for that was special. We are also getting a lot of opportunities here in Colorado that we are excited about. And plans for 2019? We are opening for HeRobust at the Ogden on February 1st! And then a new EP is in the works for spring. I look forward to seeing more from MZG as they explore Denver! Photos provided by MZG. Grand Old Partisan salutes George Davis, born this day of 1840. During the Civil War, he interrupted his law studies to enlist as captain in the 8th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. He later served as major in the 3rd Rhode Island Volunteer Cavalry. Peace restored, the ambitious Republican relocated to Chicago, achieving success in manufacturing and finance. In 1878, he won the first of three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. He secured federal funding to upgrade the harbor and preserve the lake front. His next position was Cook County treasurer. As its director general, Davis "exhibited the highest order of executive ability" managing the immensely successful 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition. Here is a Video Version of this article on YouTube: https://youtu.be/YpL3-hxD1ic Michael Zak is author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party, a history of GOP civil rights achievement. Each day, his grandoldpartisan YouTube channel and Grand Old Partisan blog celebrate more than sixteen decades of Republican heritage. And, see Speech Raves for audience feedback from his presentations in thirty-one states so far. He also wrote the 2005 Republican Freedom Calendar. Clarence Thomas cited Back to Basics for the Republican Party in a Supreme Court decision. Buy the book at Amazon See www.youtube.com/q?v=IzxKCiXc5Qc for a brief video of a Texas Republican praising Back to Basics for the Republican Party. "This is the most amazing book about politics that I have ever read. The Overview should be required reading for anyone with even a minor interest in government. The remainder is an enthralling history lesson that I will never forget. For years, we have all been misled about the true nature of the GOP. This is the real deal! Read it and be proud!" "Michael Zak wrote the definitive history of the GOP." "Back to Basics for the Republican Party is the most significant contribution to the Republican Party in the last twenty years apart from Ronald Reagan." "Back to Basics for the Republican Party is more important to our party now than ever before." and "one of the best books I ever read" Thule Artifacts (A) Meaning / Idiom (B) Meaning (C) Meaning / Idiom (D) CORRECT (E) Modifier / Meaning (with being) First glance Issues (1) Meaning: explained as Explained by explained as Explained as explained as explained by a rapid movement of people (2) Meaning / Modifier: Thule artifacts region being The fact that (X is true) can be explained by Y explanation (3) Meaning / Modifier: with being comma + with comma with comma with comma with The Correct Answer One explanation for the remarkable similarity is that passive structure passive voice passive The opening of each answer choice changes significantly. This problem doesnt have a great initial clue as to what the sentence may be testing. When this happens, pay special attention to overall sentence structure and meaning when reading the original sentence.Logically, the sentence is trying to say that the fact that these artifacts are so similar can be explained by, or is due to, the fact that people were moving throughout this region; presumably, they were carrying these artifacts with them., however, does not mean the same thing as, which the sentence uses.is used when youre trying to connect or equate two things. For example, compare these two sentences:A yawn can bea generally involuntary reflex consisting of an intake of air accompanied by a release of pressure (or popping) in the eardrums. (This explains what a yawn is.)The doctors endless yawning can beher lack of sufficient sleep the night before. (This explains why shes yawning.)In the problem, the similarity of the artifacts is not. Rather, the similarity might be the result of this rapid movement. Eliminate answers (A) and (C).The opening modifier is constructed incorrectly. The wordis tricky to use properly. Consider this incorrect sentence:The dogs being similar, one explanation is that they are siblings.When the intent of the sentence is something like, dont use the being construction above. In this case, the structure of the opening modifier does not indicate that thein question is about why the dogs are similar. Eliminate answer (B).modifier is an adverbial modifier; it refers to the main action taking place in the sentence. Consider these two correct examples:He jumped crazily on the trampoline, with arms and legs flying everywhere.She ate too much at dinner, with the result that she suffered indigestion.In the first correct example, themodifier describes an action taking place simultaneously with the main action. In the second correct example, themodifier introduces a consequence of the main action.In the problem, though, themodifier tries to explain the main clause; this is not an acceptable way to structure this meaning. Consider this incorrect example:She ate too much at dinner, with the explanation being that she hadnt eaten anything all day.Rather, She ate too much at dinner because she hadnt eaten anything all day.Correct answer (D) fixes the original meaning error by changing the structure of the sentence completely:people moved around a lot.Theof the rest of that sentence (there was a very rapid movement of people) will likely cause many people to eliminate this choice. If you did, or were tempted to do so, remind yourself in future: there is nothing inherently wrong with the. Dont eliminate just because a choice isNote: in the first printing of the 2016 edition of for GMAT Review, the question text on page 678 does not completely match the re-print of the same question on page 717. This solution follows the problem as printed on page 678. mohammadalsheikh wrote: Dear pqhai , thank you for nice explanation, but I need a help in the following issue : I can distinguish when to use "who" or " whom" using many ways that you mentioned one of them above, but I have a problem in produce the sentence , for example : I am going to see the doctor. The doctor delivered me when I was born. I am going to see the doctor who delivered me when I was born. __R__ Jessica met a new friend. Jessica liked her friend very much. Jessica met a new friend whom she liked very much. in the first example : I applied what I learned from the grammar book, but as we use whom because the noun phrase is present as objective. in the second example I do care for Jessica not for her friend. so please to help me understand the concept. thank you he subject (doctor) is the doer of the sentence him the receiver. in first example, the answer to the question, "who delivered you?" is "". "He" delivered me. So we use "who". Another way to think of it is,. the doctor delivered me.in second example, the answer to the question, "who did Jessica like?", is "". Jessica met "him". Another way to think of it is, the subject (friend) of the sentence is used as an object of a verb (liked). this person isof the sentence. You don't care about Jessica, but you are mainly concerned about the friend she met, whom she liked very much. ReservationAtDorsia wrote: She is a Harvard MBA and served on the adcomm for a few years as well. She seems great but I wanted to know if anyone here is familiar with her and/or used her services. Thanks! I hired Jillian for the 3-school package ($2,000) without doing much due diligence as I was quite frenetic approaching Round 2 deadlines. This was definitely the most expensive ripoff/scam of my life and made my application process extremely stressful.For her credentials, she is a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School and has never interviewed for Harvard admissions for both undergrad and graduate school. The Divinity School doesn't have an interview component and she would never tell me what she interviewed for, nor provide any references. Overall, she never provided references for anything including clients, so I'm wondering if I'm the only victim. I called Harvard to verify all of this so you can cross reference that way. I even paid $33 to check on the degree because I thought she lied about that too. All I can find of her professional experience is that she was a west coast installation artist in 2012.In her resume review for me, she literally changed one word and told me to add numbers.For general strategy, she basically advised me that I would get in because I worked at a bulge-bracket firm and told me to write about professional accomplishments in all the essays. As one of my schools was Haas, literally every student I spoke to advised against this. Her rebuttal was to not solicit advice from others as this was 'too many cooks in the kitchen' but most schools really do advise you speak to their alumni! For anyone applying to Berkeley or other schools, the general advice is to demonstrate how you live the school's mission/defining principles. I would have expected a top school consultant to know this.She never knew my role at my firm so when she edited my essays, she added that my firm relocated me from NYC to London (which wasn't the narrative at all). So even on the limited places she actually did work, they were wrong because she never bothered to understand my role. To this day, she doesn't know my GMAT score or what I do at work. I always expected an MBA consultant to look for the strongest areas in your professional life and craft areas around them, then address weaknesses. We never talked about any of this so it was basically expensive copy editing.We only did essays for two schools because I didn't think paying someone $2k to change one word in my resume and insert inaccurate facts into my essays were worthwhile but she refused a partial or full refund.We had a dispute about the interviewing, I wasn't really interested in more "advice" rather than actual practice. Then once I looked up all her background, I felt she would be an unqualified interviewer given her credentials and lack of knowledge about my industry/experience, so asked for a refund which she refused because she "blocked out time" for me. If I had so much time reserved for me, I have no idea why email replies for all of this took so long.I lost the dispute with Paypal so since then, I haven't used Paypal or any consulting services. I would definitely stay away from Jillian for consulting or if you actually get references from her, please send it to me! Also, a heads up that if you pay Paypal from your bank account balance, there is no protection from Bank of America (they consider it ACH) and you're at the mercy of Paypal who sides with the vendor. Their customer service wait time was 2 hours and they didn't let me upload documents. It's worth paying the $50 or whatever for putting it on your credit card just in case.I ended up doing the apps myself anyway so here are some resources that were more helpful:-current students (I found organizations I wanted to join at the schools and asked members about their experience, this was extremely helpful)-MBAs at your company (I'm interested in PM and emailed MDs I never thought would answer me, and they are still involved in my app process)-Poets&Quants articles, ClearAdmit LiveWire, GMATClub, general googling interviews from admissions officers for high level strategiesThe most important lesson is that if you do end up using a consultant, definitely get their references, write up a contract for expected services (she refused to mock interview me, just "give advice"), delivery times (she always answered days later and was always sick), and make sure they have a clear understand of your industry, the school's needs, your role, and your future goals beyond just getting in so you can articulate a strong story. I still want my 2k back.. Good schools with GMAT score 680 [ #permalink Hi, I was getting 710 in mocks but unfortunately landed with 680 in GMAT. Need urgent advise for my chances at schools like Insead/HEC/Cambridge/HAAS. Below are the major profile details: My GMAT score is 680(Q49 V34). Have 4.5+ years of Experience in Accenture as Senior software engineer. 64.4% in Graduation(BTECH Computer Science) 73% in class 12th 82% in class 10th Have 3-4 national level certificates in Volleyball. Also which schools I can target with this profile. I tried getting information from some consultancies. However, they seem to promote their partners more like Skema buisness school, GISMA, Munich, IUBH. Are these schools worth top 50? RIMOUSKI, Quebec, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Puma Exploration Inc. (the Company or PUMA) is pleased to announce that Rio Tinto Exploration Canada Inc. (RTEC) proceeded with the first anniversary $75,000 CAD option payment due on or before March 2, 2019. The option payment is part of the Option Agreement signed between the parties on March 2, 2018 (see news release 2018/03/08). Under the terms of the Option Agreement, RTEC shall have the right to elect to exercise the option and earn 100% undivided interest in the Red Brook Project upon payment of $1,000,000 to PUMA over a period of five (5) years on the following terms: $120,000 within forty-five (45) days of execution of the Agreement; (executed) $75,000 on or before first anniversary date; (executed) $75,000 on or before second anniversary date; $100,000 on or before third anniversary date; $200,000 on or before fourth anniversary date; $430,000 on or before fifth anniversary date. RTEC has also satisfied the terms of the underlying amended Agreement with a prospector (i.e., cash payments and exploration expenditures) which means that Puma fulfilled the requirements needed to satisfy the terms of the third anniversary initially signed by Puma for the Red Brook high grade Zinc Project in New Brunswick. Qualified Persons and QC/AC The content of this press release was prepared by Marcel Robillard, P.Geo., President and Dominique Gagne, P.Geo., Vice President Exploration of Puma Exploration, qualified persons as defined by NI 43-101, who supervised the preparation and technical information that forms the basis for this news release. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Mr. Robillard and Mr. Gagne are not independent of the Company, as both are officers and shareholders thereof. About Puma Exploration Inc. Puma Exploration is a Canadian mineral exploration company with advanced precious and base metals projects in Canada. The Company's major assets consist of an option to acquire 100% beneficial interest in the Murray Brook Property (on which it has signed a Strategic Alliance LOI with Trevali Mining Corp. - see press release 2018/03/02), the wholly owned Turgeon Zinc-Copper Project and the Nicholas-Denys Project, all located in the Bathurst Mining Camp of New Brunswick, as well as an equity interest in BWR Resources, exploring in Manitoba. Pumas objective for the coming year is to focus its exploration efforts in New Brunswick and advance the Murray Brook Deposit. You can visit us on Facebook and Twitter . Learn more by consulting www.pumaexploration.com for further information on Puma Exploration Inc. Marcel Robillard, President (418) 724-0901 president@explorationpuma.com Forward-Looking Statements: This press release may contain forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements involve a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Puma Exploration Inc. to be materially different from actual future results and achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements which speak only as of the date the statements were made, except as required by law. Puma Exploration undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are described in the quarterly and annual reports and in the documents submitted to the securities administration. TORONTO, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nutritional High International ("Nutritional High" or the "Company") (CSE: EAT, OTCQB: SPLIF, FRANKFURT:2NU) is pleased to announce that it has entered into an Asset Purchase Agreement (the "Agreement"), as amended on December 26, 2018, between its wholly-owned Nevada subsidiary (the "Subsidiary"), and a Washington limited liability company (the "Seller"), pursuant to which the Subsidiary will acquire assets and certain IP brands from the Seller. The purchase price of US$3,675,000, will be settled as follows: US$150,000 deposit (paid), which shall be refundable if closing does not occur; US$525,000 cash due on closing; and US$3,000,000 in common shares of the Company (the "Shares") to be issued as follows: US$2,000,000 in Shares upon closing, US$500,000 in Shares on the date that is six months after closing, and US$500,000 in Shares on the date that is nine months after closing. Subject to the policies of the CSE, the Shares will be issued based on a 20-day VWAP of the Shares prior to the date of each issuance. The Agreement supersedes the binding LOI that the Company entered on August 10, 2018 with the Seller. The closing is subject to third party approvals which the Company expects to be forthcoming. More details will be provided once third party approvals are secured and a closing date is determined. About Nutritional High International Inc. Nutritional High is focused on developing, manufacturing and distributing products under recognized brands in the cannabis products industry, with a specific focus on edibles and oil extracts for medical and adult recreational use. The Company works exclusively with licensed facilities in jurisdictions where such activity is permitted and regulated by state law. The Company follows a vertically integrated model with a fully developed strategy for acquisitions in extraction, production, sales, and distribution sectors of the cannabis industry. Nutritional High has brought its flagship FLI edibles and extracts product line from production to market through its wholly owned subsidiaries in California and Oregon, as well as Colorado where its FLI products are manufactured by a third-party licensed producer. In California, the Company distributes its products and products manufactured by other leading producers through its wholly owned distributor Calyx Brands Inc. and is entering the Nevada, Washington State and Canadian markets in the near future. For updates on the Company's activities and highlights of the Company's press releases and other media coverage, please follow Nutritional High on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and Google+ or visit www.nutritionalhigh.com . For further information, please contact: David Posner Co-Chairman of the Board Nutritional High International Inc. 647-985-6727 Email: dposner@nutritionalhigh.com NEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR OTC MARKETS GROUP INC., NOR THEIR REGULATIONS SERVICES PROVIDERS HAVE REVIEWED OR ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. This news release may contain forward-looking statements and information based on current expectations. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. The statements relate to the transaction contemplated by the Agreement. Risks that may have an impact on the ability for these events to be achieved include completion of receipt of applicable approvals and effective integration of the assets following the completion of the transactions contemplated in the Agreement. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that such assumptions will prove to be correct. We assume no responsibility to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. The Company's securities have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or applicable state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold to, or for the account or benefit of, persons in the United States or "U.S. Persons", as such term is defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act, absent registration or an applicable exemption from such registration requirements. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in the United States or any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. Additionally, there are known and unknown risk factors which could cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information contained herein. All forward-looking information herein is qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement, and the Company disclaims any obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking information or to publicly announce the result of any revisions to any of the forward-looking information contained herein to reflect future results, events or developments, except as required by law. Some of the risks and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking information expressed in this press release include, but are not limited to: obtaining and maintaining regulatory approvals including acquiring and renewing U.S. state, local or other licenses, the uncertainty of existing protection from U.S. federal or other prosecution, regulatory or political change such as changes in applicable laws and regulations, including U.S. state-law legalization, market and general economic conditions of the cannabis sector or otherwise. NEW YORK, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Greystone , a leading commercial real estate lending, investment, and advisory company, announced it has provided $14,000,000 in bridge financing for the acquisition of a 130-bed skilled nursing facility in Johnson County, KS. The transaction, which closed on December 18, was originated by Leor Dimant of Greystone. Greystone provided a 24-month $14 million bridge loan at 90% loan-to-purchase price for the borrower to be able to acquire the property while Greystone begins securing a low, fixed-rate permanent HUD loan. Our expanded bridge platform gives us the flexibility to put together the right solutions very quickly, which is important in a changing market, said Mr. Dimant. Were excited to be able to deliver this win for our clients, and we can now continue with our bridge-to-HUD lending process to get them a long-term financing solution. About Greystone Greystone is a real estate lending, investment, and advisory company with an established reputation as a leader in multifamily and healthcare finance, having ranked as a top FHA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac lender in these sectors. Our range of services includes commercial lending across a variety of platforms such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, CMBS, FHA, USDA, bridge and proprietary loan products. Loans are offered through Greystone Servicing Corporation, Inc., Greystone Funding Corporation and/or other Greystone affiliates. For more information, visit www.greyco.com . PRESS CONTACT: Karen Marotta Greystone 212-896-9149 Karen.Marotta@greyco.com WILMINGTON, Mass., Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UniFirst Corporation (NYSE: UNF) today announced results for its first quarter which ended November 24, 2018. Revenues for the quarter were $438.6 million, up 5.5% from $415.8 million in the comparable prior year period. Operating income in the first quarter of fiscal 2019 was $50.4 million compared to $51.9 million in the prior year. Net income in the quarter increased to $38.3 million ($1.99 per diluted share) from $34.2 million ($1.67 per diluted share) in the first quarter of fiscal 2018. The Company's operating income and net income in the quarter benefited from a $3.0 million pre-tax gain ($0.11 per diluted share) from the settlement of environmental litigation. In addition, the Company's net income also benefited from a tax rate in the first quarter of fiscal 2019 of 26.2% compared to 35.5% in the prior year period primarily due to the positive impact of the recent U.S. tax reform. Steven Sintros, UniFirst President and Chief Executive Officer, said, "As anticipated, our overall margin in the quarter was challenged primarily by the impact of higher payroll costs partially driven by the low unemployment environment, as well as higher merchandise and related costs. We want to thank our thousands of employee Team Partners across North America, Central America and Europe as they continue to work through these challenges and produce solid results for our Company all while striving to provide high quality service to our customers." Core Laundry revenues in the quarter were $390.5 million, up 4.5% from the first quarter of the prior year. Organic revenue growth, which excludes the estimated effect of acquisitions as well as fluctuations in the Canadian dollar, was 4.1%. The Core Laundry operating margin was 11.5% compared to 12.4% in the first quarter of the prior year. The segment's operating margin was impacted by continuing wage pressures in its production and service payroll as well as higher merchandise amortization, energy and depreciation expense as a percentage of revenues. These items were partially offset by the $3.0 million gain from the settlement of environmental litigation, lower healthcare claims as well as the capitalization of sales commission costs due to the adoption of new revenue accounting guidance in the first quarter of fiscal 2019. Revenues from our Specialty Garments segment, which consists of nuclear decontamination and cleanroom operations, were $34.4 million in the quarter, an increase of 21.2% compared to the same period a year ago. This segments results can vary significantly due to seasonality and the timing of reactor outages and projects. This segment's top-line benefited from acquisitions in fiscal 2018 that increased quarterly revenues by 11.3%, increased outage and project-based activity at the segments Canadian customers and solid growth from its cleanroom division. Specialty Garments' operating margin decreased from 15.7% in the prior year to 13.0% in the first quarter of fiscal 2019 primarily due to higher costs related to its 2018 acquisitions as well as higher production payroll, merchandise amortization and casualty claims expense as a percentage of revenues. UniFirst continues to maintain a strong balance sheet with no long-term debt and significant cash balances. At the end of the Company's first quarter of fiscal 2019, cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments totaled $276.5 million. Share Repurchase Program On January 2, 2019, the Company's Board of Directors approved a share repurchase program authorizing the Company to repurchase up to $100.0 million of its outstanding shares of common stock. Repurchases made under the program, if any, will be made in either the open market or in privately negotiated transactions. The timing, manner, price and amount of any repurchases will depend on a variety of factors and may be suspended or discontinued at any time. CRM-Related Settlement Agreement During fiscal 2017, UniFirst recorded a pre-tax non-cash impairment charge of $55.8 million when it was determined that it was not probable the version of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system that was being developed would be completed and placed into service. On December 28, 2018, the Company entered into a settlement agreement with its lead contractor for the version of the CRM system with respect to which the Company recorded the impairment charge. As part of the settlement agreement, the Company will record a gain of $20.3 million in its second fiscal quarter of 2019, which includes the Companys receipt of a one-time cash payment in the amount of $13.0 million as well as the forgiveness of amounts previously due the contractor. Outlook Mr. Sintros continued, At this time, we continue to expect our fiscal 2019 revenues to be between $1.765 billion and $1.785 billion, however, due to the increases that we are experiencing primarily in our payroll costs and merchandise amortization we now expect full year diluted earnings per share to be between $6.65 and $6.90. This guidance excludes the impact of the CRM-related settlement agreement and as a reminder, our guidance for fiscal 2019 includes one extra week of operations compared to fiscal 2018 due to the timing of our fiscal calendar." Conference Call Information UniFirst will hold a conference call today at 9:00 a.m. (ET) to discuss its quarterly financial results, business highlights and outlook. A simultaneous live webcast of the call will be available over the Internet and can be accessed at www.unifirst.com. About UniFirst Corporation Headquartered in Wilmington, Mass., UniFirst Corporation (NYSE: UNF) is a North American leader in the supply and servicing of uniform and workwear programs, as well as the delivery of facility service programs. Together with its subsidiaries, the company also provides first aid and safety products, and manages specialized garment programs for the cleanroom and nuclear industries. UniFirst manufactures its own branded workwear, protective clothing, and floorcare products, and with more than 250 service locations, over 300,000 customer locations, and 14,000-plus employee Team Partners, the company outfits nearly 2 million workers each business day. UniFirst is a publicly held company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol UNF and is a component of the Standard & Poor's 600 Small Cap Index. For more information, contact UniFirst at 800.455.7654 or visit www.unifirst.com. Forward Looking Statements This public announcement contains forward looking statements that reflect the Companys current views with respect to future events and financial performance, including projected revenues and earnings per share. Forward looking statements contained in this public announcement are subject to the safe harbor created by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and may be identified by words such as estimates, anticipates, projects, plans, expects, intends, believes, seeks, could, should, may, will, strategy, objective, assume, or the negative versions thereof, and similar expressions and by the context in which they are used. Such forward looking statements are based upon our current expectations and speak only as of the date made. Such statements are highly dependent upon a variety of risks, uncertainties and other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in such forward looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to, the performance and success of our Chief Executive Officer, uncertainties caused by adverse economic conditions and their impact on our customers businesses and workforce levels, uncertainties regarding our ability to consummate and successfully integrate acquired businesses, uncertainties regarding any existing or newly-discovered expenses and liabilities related to environmental compliance and remediation, any adverse outcome of pending or future contingencies or claims, our ability to compete successfully without any significant degradation in our margin rates, seasonal and quarterly fluctuations in business levels, our ability to preserve positive labor relationships and avoid becoming the target of corporate labor unionization campaigns that could disrupt our business, the effect of currency fluctuations on our results of operations and financial condition, our dependence on third parties to supply us with raw materials, any loss of key management or other personnel, increased costs as a result of any changes in federal or state laws, rules and regulations or governmental interpretation of such laws, rules and regulations, uncertainties regarding the impact of the recently passed U.S. tax reform on our business, results of operations and financial condition, uncertainties regarding the price levels of natural gas, electricity, fuel and labor, the negative effect on our business from sharply depressed oil and natural gas prices, the continuing increase in domestic healthcare costs, including the impact of the Affordable Care Act, our ability to retain and grow our customer base, demand and prices for our products and services, fluctuations in our Specialty Garments business, instability in Mexico and Nicaragua where our principal garment manufacturing plants are located, our ability to properly and efficiently design, construct, implement and operate a new customer relationship management (CRM) computer system, interruptions or failures of our information technology systems, including as a result of cyber-attacks, additional professional and internal costs necessary for compliance with any changes in Securities and Exchange Commission, New York Stock Exchange and accounting rules, strikes and unemployment levels, our efforts to evaluate and potentially reduce internal costs, economic and other developments associated with the war on terrorism and its impact on the economy, general economic conditions, our ability to successfully implement our business strategies and processes, including our capital allocation strategies, and other factors described under Item 1A. Risk Factors in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended August 25, 2018 and in our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to update any forward looking statements to reflect events or circumstances arising after the date on which they are made. UniFirst Corporation and Subsidiaries Consolidated Statements of Income (Unaudited) (In thousands, except per share data) Thirteen weeks ended November 24, 2018 Thirteen weeks ended November 25, 2017 Revenues $ 438,550 $ 415,778 Operating expenses: Cost of revenues (1) 277,049 253,650 Selling and administrative expenses (1) 85,959 87,510 Depreciation and amortization 25,116 22,707 Total operating expenses 388,124 363,867 Operating income 50,426 51,911 Other (income) expense: Interest income, net (1,705 ) (1,276 ) Other expense, net 172 154 Total other income, net (1,533 ) (1,122 ) Income before income taxes 51,959 53,033 Provision for income taxes 13,639 18,827 Net income $ 38,320 $ 34,206 Income per share Basic: Common Stock $ 2.08 $ 1.77 Class B Common Stock $ 1.67 $ 1.42 Income per share Diluted: Common Stock $ 1.99 $ 1.67 Income allocated to Basic: Common Stock $ 32,137 $ 27,384 Class B Common Stock $ 6,183 $ 6,822 Income allocated to Diluted: Common Stock $ 38,320 $ 34,206 Weighted average number of shares outstanding Basic: Common Stock 15,432 15,462 Class B Common Stock 3,710 4,816 Weighted average number of shares outstanding Diluted: Common Stock 19,302 20,434 (1) Exclusive of depreciation on the Companys property, plant and equipment and amortization on its intangible assets. UniFirst Corporation and Subsidiaries Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets (Unaudited) (In thousands) November 24, 2018 August 25, 2018 Assets Current assets: Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments $ 276,536 $ 270,512 Receivables, net 212,655 200,797 Inventories 91,154 90,176 Rental merchandise in service 178,636 174,392 Prepaid taxes 11,578 27,024 Prepaid expenses and other current assets 38,854 21,899 Total current assets 809,413 784,800 Property, plant and equipment, net 558,442 559,576 Goodwill 397,296 397,422 Customer contracts and other intangible assets, net 67,536 70,904 Deferred income taxes 423 425 Other assets 74,048 30,259 $ 1,907,158 $ 1,843,386 Liabilities and shareholders equity Current liabilities: Accounts payable $ 71,987 $ 73,500 Accrued liabilities 104,712 124,225 Accrued taxes 736 Total current liabilities 176,699 198,461 Long-term liabilities: Accrued liabilities 104,124 105,888 Accrued and deferred income taxes 86,837 74,070 Total long-term liabilities 190,961 179,958 Shareholders equity: Common Stock 1,543 1,543 Class B Common Stock 371 371 Capital surplus 84,015 82,973 Retained earnings 1,480,922 1,405,239 Accumulated other comprehensive loss (27,353 ) (25,159 ) Total shareholders equity 1,539,498 1,464,967 $ 1,907,158 $ 1,843,386 UniFirst Corporation and Subsidiaries Detail of Operating Results (Unaudited) Revenues (In thousands, except percentages) Thirteen weeks ended November 24, 2018 Thirteen weeks ended November 25, 2017 Dollar Change Percent Change Core Laundry Operations $ 390,477 $ 373,796 $ 16,681 4.5 % Specialty Garments 34,448 28,427 6,021 21.2 % First Aid 13,625 13,555 70 0.5 % Consolidated total $ 438,550 $ 415,778 $ 22,772 5.5 % Operating Income (In thousands, except percentages) Thirteen weeks ended November 24, 2018 Thirteen weeks ended November 25, 2017 Dollar Change Percent Change Core Laundry Operations $ 44,782 $ 46,358 $ (1,576 ) (3.4 )% Specialty Garments 4,470 4,477 (7 ) (0.2 )% First Aid 1,174 1,076 98 9.1 % Consolidated total $ 50,426 $ 51,911 $ (1,485 ) (2.9 )% UniFirst Corporation and Subsidiaries Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows (Unaudited) TORONTO, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gran Colombia Gold Corp. (TSX: GCM; OTCQX: TPRFF) announced today that its Board of Directors has adopted a shareholder rights plan agreement (the Plan). The Plan is effective immediately and the Toronto Stock Exchange (the TSX) has conditionally accepted notice for filing of the Plan, subject to ratification by shareholders at Gran Colombias 2019 annual shareholder meeting, which is currently expected to be held in June. The Plan was not adopted in response to any specific proposal or intention to acquire control of Gran Colombia. The Board considered a number of factors and believes that adopting the Plan will protect Gran Colombia's shareholders from unfair, abusive or coercive take-over strategies and to ensure that all shareholders have an equal opportunity to participate in any future take-over bid, and to receive full and fair value for their common shares. The Plan is similar to rights plans adopted in 2018 by other Canadian companies that have been ratified by their shareholders. Under the terms of the Plan, the rights issued will attach to and trade with the common shares of Gran Colombia and no separate certificates will be issued unless an event triggering these rights occurs. The rights will not be triggered by the purchase of shares made pursuant to a Permitted Bid, as defined in the Plan. The rights will become exercisable only when a person, including any party related to it, acquires or attempts to acquire 20% or more of the Companys outstanding common shares without complying with the Permitted Bid provisions of the Plan or without approval of Gran Colombia's Board of Directors. Should such an acquisition occur or be announced, each right would, upon exercise, entitle a rights holder, other than the acquiring person and related persons, to purchase common shares at a significant discount to the then current market price. Under the Plan, a Permitted Bid is a bid made to all shareholders which must be open for a minimum of 105 days (or such shorter period as is permitted under applicable Canadian securities laws) and must contain certain conditions, including that no shares will be taken up and paid for unless 50% of the common shares that are held by independent shareholders are tendered to the bid. Upon ratification by shareholders and completion of certain other requirements, the rights referred to in the Plan will be listed on the TSX. The rights will not appear on the TSXs trading list as an entry separate from Gran Colombias common shares. If and when the rights become separable from the common shares, an application to list the securities issuable upon exercise of such rights will have to be made to the TSX. If the Plan is not ratified by shareholders, it will be rescinded or otherwise cancelled and be of no further effect immediately after such shareholders meeting. If ratified by the shareholders, the Plan shall be reconfirmed by the shareholders at every third annual meeting. To the best of the knowledge of the Company, no existing shareholder currently owns greater than 20% of the outstanding common shares of Gran Colombia. A copy of the Shareholder Rights Plan will be available under Gran Colombias profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. About Gran Colombia Gold Corp. Gran Colombia is a Canadian-based mid-tier gold producer with its primary focus in Colombia where it is currently the largest underground gold and silver producer with several mines in operation at its Segovia and Marmato Operations. Gran Colombia is continuing to focus on exploration, expansion and modernization activities at its high-grade Segovia Operations. Additional information on Gran Colombia can be found on its website at www.grancolombiagold.com and by reviewing its profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com . Vast Resources plc / Ticker: VAST / Index: AIM / Sector: Mining 3 January 2019 Vast Resources plc (Vast or the Company) Director Share Purchase Vast Resources plc, the AIM listed mining company with operating mines in Romania and Zimbabwe, announces that yesterday it was notified that on 2 January 2019, Mr. Andrew Prelea, Chief Executive Director of the Company, purchased 5,000,000 ordinary shares of 0.1 pence each in the share capital of the Company (Ordinary Shares) at a price of 0.2835 pence per Ordinary Share. Following this purchase, Mr. Preleas total beneficial ownership in the Company is 31,772,069 Ordinary Shares, which represents approximately 0.55% of the Company's issued share capital. Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) Disclosure Certain information contained in this announcement would have been deemed inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 until the release of this announcement. The notifications below, made in accordance with the requirements of the EU Market Abuse Regulation, provide further detail on the directors' dealing in the Ordinary Shares. **ENDS** For further information, visit www.vastresourcesplc.com or please contact: Vast Resources plc Andrew Prelea (Chief Executive Officer) www.vastresourcesplc.com +44 (0) 20 7236 1177 Beaumont Cornish - Financial & Nominated Adviser Roland Cornish James Biddle www.beaumontcornish.com +44 (0) 020 7628 3396 Brandon Hill Capital Ltd Joint Broker Jonathan Evans www.brandonhillcapital.com +44 (0) 20 3463 5016 SVS Securities Plc Joint Broker Tom Curran Ben Tadd www.svssecurities.com +44 (0) 20 3700 0100 St Brides Partners Ltd Susie Geliher Juliet Earl www.stbridespartners.co.uk +44 (0) 20 7236 1177 Notes Vast Resources plc is an AIM listed mining and resource development company focussed on the rapid advancement of high-quality brownfield projects and recommencing production at previously producing mines in Romania and Zimbabwe. Vast Resources currently owns and operates the Manaila Polymetallic Mine in Romania, which was commissioned in 2015, and is focussed on its expansion through the development of a second open pit operation and new metallurgical complex at the Carlibaba Extension Area. The Companys Romanian portfolio also includes interests in two brownfield development projects; the Baita Plai Polymetallic Mine (80% interest), which has a reported 1,800,000-tonne copper-silver-zinc-lead-gold-tungsten-molybdenum ore body at 6% copper equivalent (Russian Reserves and Resources Reporting System) within the mining licence area; and the Blueberry Project (29.41% interest), a 7.285km brownfield area of prospectivity in the Golden Quadrilateral of Romania located in the immediate vicinity of the now closed Baia de Aries mine. The Company also has interests in a number of projects in Zimbabwe including a controlling 25 per cent. interest in the producing Pickstone-Peerless Gold Mine, a 23.75% economic interest in the Eureka Gold Mine, and an 86.67% interest in a SPV which has a due diligence access agreement and pre-agreed joint venture terms on a diamond concession within the Marange Diamond Fields, widely considered to be one of the richest sources of alluvial diamonds globally. 1. Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities/person closely associated a) Name: Andrew Prelea 2. Reason for the notification a) Position/status: Chief Executive Officer b) Initial notification/Amendment: Initial notification 3. Details of the issuer, emission allowance market participant, auction platform, auctioneer or auction monitor a) Name: Vast Resources Plc b) LEI: 4. Details of the transaction(s): section to be repeated for (i) each type of instrument; (ii) each type of transaction; (iii) each date; and (iv) each place where transactions have been conducted a) Description of the financial instrument, type of instrument: Identification code: Ordinary shares of 0.1 each b) Nature of the transaction: Purchase of ordinary shares c) Price(s) and volume(s): Price(s) Volume(s) 0.002835 5,000,000 d) Aggregated information: Aggregated volume: Price: Price(s) Volume(s) 0.002835 5,000,000 e) Date of the transaction: 02-01-2019 f) Place of the transaction: AIM, London Stock Exchange English Estonian Baffinland Iron Mines LP declared of using the contractual option to charter the multifunctional icebreaker Botnica in 2019 during the period from the end of June to the end of October. The exact number of chartering days and the number of trips to Northern Canada depends on weather and other conditions. In the beginning of summer 2018, the subsidiary company of AS Tallinna Sadam, OU TS Shipping, signed an agreement with Baffinland Iron Mines LP for chartering m/v Botnica for the 2018 summer period including annual call options for the summer periods in 2019-2022. Baffinland Iron Mines LP is a Canadian mining company, engaged in the mining of iron ore on Baffin Island in Northern Canada. According to the agreement m/v Botnica will provide escort ice management services, oil spill and emergency response services. Last summer m/l Botnica assisted Panamax type vessels within the iron ore export project in the Arctic waters of northern Canada more than 80 times and proved its ability to work in extreme conditions. Tallinna Sadam is one of the largest cargo- and passenger port complexes in the Baltic Sea region, which in 2017 serviced 10.6 million passengers and 19.2 million tons of cargo. In addition to passenger and freight services, Tallinna Sadam group also operates in shipping business via its subsidiaries OU TS Laevad provides ferry services between the Estonian mainland and the largest islands, and OU TS Shipping charters its multifunctional vessel m/v Botnica for icebreaking and construction services in Estonia and offshore projects abroad. Tallinna Sadam group is also a shareholder of a joint venture AS Green Marine, which provides waste management services. Tallinna Sadam group's sales in 2017 totaled EUR 121.3 million, adjusted EBITDA EUR 66.5 million and net profit EUR 26.4 million. Additional information: English Lithuanian Taking into account the growing volume of the production and sales of corrugated cardboard and striving to ensure a more efficient management of corrugated cardboard production business, its further development and business profitability increase, on the 2nd of January, 2019 AB Grigeo transferred a part of its business the corrugated cardboard production business (hereinafter the Business) to its 100 % owned subsidiary UAB Grigeo Packaging, legal entity code 302329061, address Vilniaus g. 10, Grigiskes, Vilnius City municipality, the Republic of Lithuania, data about the company is collected and stored in the Register of Legal entities of the Republic of Lithuania The transfer of the Business to UAB Grigeo Packaging is implemented by increasing the authorized capital of UAB Grigeo Packaging and paying for the entire new issue of shares by AB Grigeo by contribution other than in cash, i.e. by the Business, as a complex of assets, rights and obligations that from an organizational point of view is an autonomous economic unit, in exchange for new ordinary shares of UAB Grigeo Packaging. Business, as a contribution other than in cash, was transferred to UAB Grigeo Packaging by AB Grigeo on the basis of the Share subscription agreement signed on the 2nd of January, 2019. According to the Business valuation report issued by an independent property valuer on the 6th of November, 2018, the value of the transferred Business is EUR 15.2 million. AB Grigeo will acquire all the newly issued shares of UAB Grigeo Packaging after the Articles of Association of UAB Grigeo Packaging, which were amended as the result of the increase of the authorised capital will be registered in the Register of Legal Entities of the Republic of Lithuania. Considering the opinion of the Audit Committee of AB Grigeo on the conclusion of the transaction with the related party given on 31st October, 2018, the transaction of AB Grigeo with the related party UAB Grigeo Packaging, i.e. transfer of the Business to UAB Grigeo Packaging on the basis of the Share subscription agreement is fair and reasoned as regards AB Grigeo and its shareholders who are not a party to the transaction. After the transfer of the Business to a subsidiary, AB Grigeo and UAB Grigeo Packaging continue their production activities at the same address as before the transfer of the Business at Vilniaus g. 10, Grigiskes, Vilnius City municipality, the Republic of Lithuania, i.e. the place of the production activities of the Business has not changed. AB Grigeo will concentrate its activities on the production of tissue paper products, and UAB Grigeo Packaging will carry out corrugated cardboard production activities. Gintautas Pangonis President of AB Grigeo (+370-5) 243 5801 VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Auxly Cannabis Group Inc. (TSX.V - XLY) ("Auxly" or the "Company") is pleased to provide the following operational update on the Companys operations in Uruguay conducted through Inverell S.A. (Inverell). Inverell, founded and operated by Dr. Raul Urbina, a world-renowned expert in large scale outdoor cultivation, micropropagation, plant breeding and extraction operations, is a federally licensed cannabis operator based in Montevideo, Uruguay. Pursuant to the definitive agreement (the Agreement) dated April 10, 2018, the Company will acquire 80% of the outstanding common shares of Inverell in exchange for aggregate consideration of USD$15,000,000. Part of the consideration is subject to Inverell achieving certain milestones related to the registration of certain cannabis genetics and the successful export of CBD products. The transaction remains subject to regulatory approval in Uruguay which the Company expects to receive imminently. 2018/2019 Cultivation Plan Inverell has finalized its 2018/2019 cultivation plan where it will plant 150 hectares, composed of over 1,500,000 hemp plants, starting in mid-October 2018. Inverells land parcel contains key pieces of infrastructure needed for the mass cultivation of hemp plants, including a large fresh water lake that feeds into an existing irrigation system infrastructure. Inverell expects that the first harvest, once completed in April 2019, will yield approximately 75,000 kilograms of biomass to be used as feedstock for its extraction facility described below. Extraction Facility Inverell is progressing well toward the expected 2019 completion of its extraction facility (the Extraction Facility) located within Uruguays Parque de las Ciencias (PDC). The PDC is a Free Trade Zone located near the Montevideo airport which exempts facilities located on the property from local taxes for activities conducted in the Free Trade Zone. Inverell is pleased to be working with TSYA S.A. (TSYA) on the technical design and buildout of the Extraction Facility in the PDC. TSYA has significant experience on the design and buildout of world-class pharmaceutical facilities, having completed the state-of-the-art Mega Pharma Campus located in the PDC which consists of a pharmaceutical plant, R&D center and logistics hub. Upon completion, the Company expects the Extraction Facility to have the capacity to output 12,000,000 grams of CBD crystal per annum for local consumption and international export. Genetics Objectives Inverell has made significant progress towards its genetics objectives over the preceding months, having moved several new genetic strains to the propagation phase. Inverell expects that the combination of proprietary genetics and feminized seeds, currently being propagated and produced in Inverells existing greenhouse, will result in significant operational efficiencies and improved cultivation yields. Hugo Alves, President and Director of Auxly commented: Taking into consideration that Inverell is a key partner and contributor to the upstream segment of the Auxly platform, we could not be more pleased with the progress Dr. Urbina and his team have made in the short time since the announcement of the acquisition. The depth of Dr. Urbinas teams knowledge on plant breeding, micro-propagation, high density outdoor cultivation and extraction of high value molecules from plants is truly unmatched. For these reasons, we believe that Inverell is poised to be a dominant player in the production of CBD extract for export in South America with their world class hemp cultivation and processing assets. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD "Chuck Rifici" Chairman & CEO About Auxly Cannabis Group Inc. (TSX.V: XLY) Auxly Cannabis Group is a collective of entrepreneurs with a passion for the cannabis industry past, present and future. Our mandate is to facilitate growth for our partners by providing them with financial support and sharing our collective industry experience. Our partners all have different visions, voices and brand values, and all share a common goalto build a world-class industry based on ethics, diversity, quality and innovation. About Inverell S.A. INVERELL innovation beyond imagination - was founded by Dr. Urbina in February 2017 and has a committed team with a passion for innovation. Inverell has already achieved the creation of various strains, a genetic bank, growth protocols, in vitro propagation protocols, massive seed propagation protocols and innovative and more efficient organic extraction processes. Investor Relations: For more information about investing in Auxly Cannabis Group, please visit: http://www.auxly.com or contact our Investor Relations Team: Email: IR@auxly.com Phone: 1.833.695.2414 Stay Connected: Follow up on Twitter @Auxlygroup Media Enquiries (only): For media enquiries or to set up an interview please contact: Sarah Bain, VP External Affairs Email: sarah@auxly.com Phone: 613.230.5869 Notice Regarding Forward Looking Information: This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "continue", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or information that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. This information is only a prediction. Various assumptions were used in drawing the conclusions or making the projections contained in the forward-looking information throughout this news release. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to: the Company's ability to obtain all requisite regulatory approvals for the production and export of cannabinoid products from Uruguay and/or import of such products to other federally legal jurisdictions, political changes in Canada, Uruguay and internationally, future legislative and regulatory developments involving cannabis in Canada, Uruguay and internationally, the Companys ability to secure distribution channels in international jurisdictions, competition and other risks affecting the Company in particular and the cannabis industry generally. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from a conclusion, forecast or projection contained in the forward-looking information in this release including, but not limited to, whether: Inverell is able to maintain its cannabis operator license, the Company is able to successfully develop international distribution channels for cannabis products, Inverell is able to successfully cultivate and harvest outdoor hemp crops in Uruguay, Inverell can obtain all necessary governmental and regulatory permits and approvals for the Extraction Facility, and whether such permits and approvals can be obtained in a timely manner, and general economic, financial market, legislative, regulatory, competitive and political conditions in which the Company operates will remain the same. Additional risk factors are disclosed in the revised annual information form of the Company for the financial year ended December 31, 2017 dated May 24, 2018. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for management to predict all of those factors or to assess in advance the impact of each such factor on the Company's business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking information. The forward-looking information in this release is based on information currently available and what management believes are reasonable assumptions. Forward-looking information speaks only to such assumptions as of the date of this release. In addition, this release may contain forward-looking information attributed to third party industry sources, the accuracy of which has not been verified by the Company. The purpose of forward-looking information is to provide the reader with a description of management's expectations, and such forward-looking information may not be appropriate for any other purpose. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information contained in this release. The forward-looking information contained in this release is expressly qualified by the foregoing cautionary statements and is made as of the date of this release. Except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, whether as a result of new information, future events or results, or otherwise. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The Dodge was traveling southbound on 120th Avenue and the Grand Prix was traveling northbound on 120th Avenue. According to Iowa State Patrol, the Dodge was traveling on the wrong side of the road and struck the Grand Prix head on. The Grand Prix came to rest on the east side of the road, facing southbound. The Dodge came to rest in the ditch also facing southbound. On Wednesday, Iowa State Patrol Sgt. Mindy Coe said investigators believe there were eight people in the Grand Prix. Investigators say alcohol consumption may have been a factor. Coe said the investigation is complicated as investigators are still trying to place all the occupants in the vehicles and determine who the driver was. She said there were conflicting accounts regarding who was driving and where individuals were seated. Seat belts were not used by all passengers. Coe said charges could be possible. MASON CITY - A Mason City woman was injured in a single vehicle crash in Cerro Gordo County. At about 4:18 a.m. Tuesday, Cerro Gordo County deputies responded to a rollover in the 19000 block of Mallard Avenue, north of Mason City. Jessica Paulsen, 32, was driving a 2004 Lincoln Navigator southbound on Mallard Avenue when she lost control and entered the ditch, rolling the vehicle multiple times. When deputies arrived, the vehicle was on its top in the ditch. Paulsen was transported to Mercy Medical Center - North Iowa with non-life threatening injuries. According to a Mercy spokeswoman, Paulsen was treated and released. The sheriffs office said the crash is under investigation as alcohol is a possible factor. No charges or citations have been filed as of Wednesday afternoon. Mason City Fire Department assisted at the scene. Contact Courtney at 641-421-0534 or on Twitter @CourtneyFiorini. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Letter: King's support, base is in Iowa Congressman Steve King is a steadfast supporter of life, the Constitution and agriculture. H Warren said she plans to run on many of those same basic economic issues, which she said have been made even more precarious by Washington politics. "I believe that Washington is corrupt," she said. "I see it firsthand." Warren was been a favorite target of Trump, who frequently calls her "Pocahontas" a reference to Warren's claims of Native American heritage. Warren in October released a DNA test meant to bolster those claims, but the test seemed only to generate more controversy for Warren. The test indicated that Warren likely had Native American in her bloodline, though the ancestor probably lived six to 10 generations ago. Some critics complained that the genetic analysis cheapened the identities of tribal members with deeper ties. Trump told Fox News Channel's "All-American New Year" in an interview Monday that he hopes Warren runs. "We'll see how she does," he said. "I wish her well. I hope she does well. I'd love to run against her." Warren plans to start her swing through Iowa on Friday with a stop at an organizing event in Council Bluffs followed by similar events on Saturday in Sioux City and Des Moines and a roundtable discussion in Storm Lake. FILE - This composite image made from a series of Jan. 23, 2018 photos shows a self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on Vera Rubin Ridge. On Thursday, June 7, 2018, scientists said the rover found potential building blocks of life in an ancient lakebed and confirmed seasonal increases in atmospheric methane. The rover's arm which held the camera was positioned out of each of the dozens of shots which make up the mosaic. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS via AP) Gov. John Hickenlooper this week appointed a new judge to the El Paso County Court, rounding out changes that will bring three new arrivals to the county bench. Samuel Evig of Colorado Springs will fill a vacancy left by Christopher Acker, who failed in November to win retention to a new term. Evig was chosen Monday from a field that also included El Paso County prosecutor Sam Burney and Steven John Paul, who practices insurance defense for an Englewood law firm. His appointment is effective Jan. 8. It is Hickenloopers 185th and final court appointment in his eight years in office. Two other new county court judges will also be sworn in on Jan. 8. Meredith Ann Patrick Cord and Dulce Denise Peacock were appointed in August to fill vacancies left by the impending retirements of Stephen Sletta, a 27-year veteran, and Regina Walter, who served in the county court for 10 years and as a juvenile magistrate for 21 years. El Paso County Court judges handle civil cases under $15,000, misdemeanors, traffic infractions, protection orders, and small claims. El Paso Countys District Court, where felonies and major lawsuits are heard, will receive one new judge, former public defender Chad Miller. He succeeds Judge Theresa Cisneros, who retires after 21 years on the bench. Gov. John Hickenlooper this week appointed a new judge to the El Paso County Court, rounding out changes that will bring three new arrivals to the county bench. Samuel Evig of Colorado Springs will fill a vacancy left by Christopher Acker, who failed in November to win retention to a new term. A Fort Carson, Colorado, soldier sought for an Indiana slaying had been in the Army for seven months before allegedly deserting his post. Spc. Peter V. Lian, 21, is wanted in the death of his estranged wife Khuang Par, whose body was in an Indianapolis trash bin on on Dec. 23. The following day he flew to Hong Kong and caught a flight to Bangkok, Thailand, police say. What better way to start your first morning of 2019 than with some fresh air? And in case you forgot during the busy holiday season that you l For nearly a year, Pakistans powerful military has questioned, criticized, and even persecuted civil rights activists demanding security and rights for the countrys largest ethnic minority, the Pashtuns. But in an apparent change of heart, it has now offered to join hands with the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) to bring development and prosperity to their northwestern homeland where more than 50,000 civilians were killed and millions more displaced by nearly 15 years of militant attacks and military operations. The PTM is a non-violent movement, which is campaigning for its demands. We wish that the PTM leaders and other people [supporting them] will join the state in the [rehabilitation] phase, which is aimed at bringing relief and services to them, Major General Asif Ghafoor, the military spokesman, told Pakistans private ARY television channel on January 2. Ghafoor had previously criticized the PTM. In December, he warned that the movement should not cross those lines where the state has to use its force to control the situation." Last year, Pakistani army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa suggested the PTMs campaigns were engineered protests and part of a hybrid war against his country. Our enemies know that they cannot beat us fair and square and have thus subjected us to a cruel, evil, and protracted hybrid war. They are trying to weaken our resolve by weakening us from within, he said in April. But in an apparent reconciliatory gesture, Ghafoor said he hoped that the PTM leadership, for the benefits of their people, will talk to the government channels for their uplift so we can move forward in unity. He also acknowledged the suffering endured by more than 30 million Pashtuns over 15 years of unrest that began with the arrival of the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in Pakistans former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) after a U.S.-led military campaign toppled the hard-line Taliban regime in neighboring Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. We salute the residents of erstwhile FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa because they first faced the terrorists who had made their lives difficult, Ghafoor noted. Later on, they faced displacement when state forces went into [their homeland] to launch operations. Ghafoor said that violence in the Pashtun homeland adversely affects all its residents. I dont think there is a single street in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or FATA where someone didnt embrace martyrdom, he said. There is no individual there [in FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa] who has not seen some harm from this. But the PTM leadership, however, doesnt seem impressed. Lawmaker Mohsin Dawar, a key PTM leader, says they need to see concrete actions addressing their demands. As long as they have not accepted and acted on our demands and changed their policies, our struggle will continue, he told RFE/RLs Gandhara website. We have heard a lot of nice words before, but we need to see concrete actions. The PTM emerged last February during a sit-in protest in Islamabad. The movement demands that Islamabad probe thousands of illegal killings and present thousands of victims of enforced disappearances to the countrys courts. It has also called for demining in the conflict region and an end to harassment of Pashtun civilians during raids and curfews and at check posts. The PTMs leaders have also consistently criticized the military for backing Islamist militant groups to foment violence in the Pashtun homeland and neighboring Afghanistan. The military rejects these charges. The PTMs often noisy and crowded street protests and robust online campaigning, however, attracted the wrath of the Pakistani authorities. The movements leaders and supporters have faced police investigations, court cases, travel bans, imprisonment, business closures, beatings, and attacks by pro-government militants over the past year. I don't know how many young women come to this blog or how many are parents of teenage or young adult women, but here are some safety tips from Kelsey's Army: T I P S 1. Trust your instincts - If something feels wrong then something probably is wrong.2. Know your surroundings - know who and what is around you.3. Always have a plan for where you would go and what you would do if a situation arises.4. Be willing to make a scene in order to be noticed.5. Let someone know where you are going and when you will be back.Remember the acronym TIPS:ake Chargenform others of your whereaboutsrepare for any situationurvival Mentality (role play situations so you will respond should they happen)For more information, go to Kelsey's Army With January serving as National Blood Donor Monththe American Red Cross is encouraging people throughout the country to help meet the urgent need for blood donations by resolving to give blood this month. Its resolution season, and I know youve heard these all before--stop snacking and slacking--start reading and runningbut what about resolving to give more life? Samantha Pollard, Midwest communications manager at American Red Cross Blood Services, said. According to Pollard, donating blood is a way to make a lifesaving impact in the new year for patients like Judy Janssen. Janssen was diagnosed with end-stage autoimmune liver disease in 2016 and subsequently received frequent blood transfusionssometimes multiple times a weekuntil she underwent a liver transplant last January. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Blood donors make a really big difference with very little effort, Janssen said in a released statement. I wouldnt be here if it wasnt for blood donations. The critical role of blood and platelet donors has been celebrated each January for nearly 50 years during National Blood Donor Month, which coincides with one of the most difficult times to maintain a sufficient blood supply for patients according to the American Red Cross. Shares of United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) had largely been stuck in neutral over the past year as the company awaited approval for its $30 billion acquisition of Rockwell Collins. The deal finally closed in late November, but the company's Nov. 26 announcement that it plans a three-way split adds a new layer of uncertainty that appears likely to linger well into 2020. UTC's decision to split its aerospace business, Otis Elevator, and Carrier HVAC into three independent entities has long been discussed, and there is logic to the move. The three companies enjoy few economies of scale from working together, have different capital requirements and debt profiles, and issues at one business in the past have led investors to ignore successes elsewhere. Workers on the line at a Pratt & Whitney engine center. Workers on the line at a Pratt & Whitney engine center. Image source: United Technologies. But the conglomerate model has provided some shelter for highly cyclical operations, and the independent units might be more vulnerable to market swings than the combination ever was. What's an investor to do while the split plays out? Here's a look at the three companies that are set to emerge from United Technologies. A one-stop aerospace shop UTC paid a full price for Rockwell Collins, with the company going on the defensive to counter efforts by Boeing and Airbus to squeeze their supplier base and bring more work in-house. Combined with Rockwell Collins the UTC aerospace business, which will keep the United Technologies name, has greater exposure to key commercial platforms and more negotiating power. The aerospace business with Rockwell Collins is by far the biggest segment inside the conglomerate, with pro forma annual sales of $39 billion. It supplies a range of electrical, mechanical, and software products, interior seats and cabin equipment, and Pratt & Whitney engines. Honeywell, itself a mini-conglomerate but perhaps the most similar publicly traded entity, trades at about 2.6 times sales and 18 times expected 2019 earnings. TransDigm, a more focused aerospace supplier, meanwhile trades at about 22 times expected earnings. If the new United Technologies falls somewhere in that range the aerospace business alone would be worth about $100 billion, or a significant portion of the combined company's current $131.38 billion enterprise value. Story continues It's worth noting that in addition to pressures from Airbus and Boeing commercial aerospace is benefiting from a now decade-long new plane buying binge, and Pratt & Whitney has had issues bringing its promising geared turbofan engine to market as promised. A fall-off in orders or continued engine problems could cut into valuation. But the post-split portfolio should have enough aftermarket exposure to make the new United Technologies a strong business even when new plane purchases inevitably decline. Carrier M&A talk could heat up Carrier, with $17.8 billion in sales, though best known for air conditioning, is a supplier of a range of HVAC, refrigeration, fire, security, and building automation products with a portfolio of brands including Kidde, Edwards, and Automated Logic and a global distribution network. United Technologies has reportedly been considering buyers for much of the business's fire and security businesses, which would create a HVAC and refrigeration specialist with both residential and commercial building exposure. Should the fire business find a home elsewhere, Carrier could be an attractive partner for a rival like Johnson Controls or Lennox International. There is a huge variance in valuations in the sector, with Lennox trading at 2.3 times sales and 24.7 times expected earnings, conglomerate Ingersoll-Rand at 1.7 times sales and 18.8 times earnings, and Johnson Controls -- which like Carrier has a lower-margin fire and security unit -- at 1 times sales and 18 times earnings. If an independent Carrier was to fall somewhere in the middle of that range it would be worth at least $30 billion, either as a stand-alone post-split or perhaps as part of a merged entity should United Technologies find a way to do a tax-efficient deal. More down than up Otis is the leading name in elevators, with an estimated 9% of the $22 billion global market according to research company Ibis World, but the company's share and margins have been on the decline for nearly a decade. The company in recent years has been willing to cut prices to try to gain marketshare in China, hoping to benefit from future servicing revenue. Otis, with $12.3 billion in 2017 sales, generates strong cash flow via a portfolio of more than two million elevators under maintenance. But it was also the worst-performing part of UTC in the most recent quarter, with adjusted operating margins down 2.4% to 15.2%. United Technologies warned that it now expects Otis operating profit to fall year over year and said its 2020 profit goal is in doubt. It's hard to value this business, as most of Otis' publicly traded rivals are smaller but have reported stronger growth and healthier margins of late. Kone Oyjs and European-traded Schindler Holdings are valued in a range of 2 to 2.4 times sales and 20 to 25 times forward earnings. Assume a similar range for Otis and you have a stand-alone valued at between $25 billion and $30 billion. This business could also be ripe for a private equity buyer with some expertise in cost-cutting, or to participate in consolidation if regulators were to allow it. No reason to jump in There's a lot to like about United Technologies' portfolio, and evidence to suggest that the company is, as some activists have suggested, suffering from a conglomerate discount. The very rough comparables listed above would suggest that UTC's sum-of-the-parts valuation could be between 15% and 20% above its current enterprise value. But considering all the work UTC management must do between now and 2020, and the risk of a turn in the business cycle between now and then, there isn't much reason to buy in ahead of the split. A report by Barclays analyst Julian Mitchell concluded that in 13 recent splits involving industrial companies, the shares of those companies on average underperformed the market by 4% from announcement until close. Given the uncertainty surrounding UTC, it would be no surprise if the market takes a similar wait-and-see approach to this breakup. Within two years, investors will be able to choose between three distinct entities with very different free cash flow and growth profiles, and all tied to different markets. They'll also get to make that choice knowing exactly how the overall economy, the commercial aerospace cycle, and the construction cycle have held up as the split played out. There's likely to be real value to come out of the United Technologies split. But now is not the time to buy in in anticipation of that value. The UTC split is best watched from the sidelines. More From The Motley Fool Lou Whiteman owns shares of TransDigm Group. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends TransDigm Group. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Jan 3 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. - U.S. President Donald Trump and Democratic congressional leaders dug in Wednesday for a lengthy partial shutdown in a newly divided government after a White House meeting the first in 22 days could not break an impasse over Trump's demands for billions of dollars for a border wall. https://nyti.ms/2BU44ed - China reached a milestone in space exploration on Thursday, landing a vehicle, Chang'e-4, named after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology, on the far side of the moon for the first time in history, state media announced. https://nyti.ms/2CKBz47 - Saudi Arabia denied it had issued American-made weapons to Sudanese soldiers in Yemen, disputing statements made by five of the soldiers and reported last week in The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/2CKcXbJ - Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that he wants progress on China's decades-long quest to win control of Taiwan. But his proposal appeared unlikely to win over residents of the self-ruled island, who have seen Hong Kong's freedoms in rapid retreat under a similar deal. https://nyti.ms/2F3KQXI - Chelsea has paid Borussia Dortmund $73 million to complete the signing of Christian Pulisic, making the 20-year-old the most expensive American player in history by some distance. https://nyti.ms/2F2710h (Compiled by Bengaluru newsroom) The logo of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is seen outside their headquarters in Vienna, Austria December 7, 2018. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger By Collin Eaton HOUSTON (Reuters) - OPEC crude cargoes leaving for the United States in December dropped to the lowest level in at least five years, data from Refinitiv Eikon and market intelligence firm Kpler show. Oil cargoes departing from OPEC nations to the United States fell to 1.63 million barrels per day (bpd) last month, down from 1.80 million bpd in November and 1.78 million bpd in October, the data show. Saudi Arabia, the biggest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and several others curbed supplies in the face of rising U.S. production and inventories, analysts said. "Some of it was a decline in OPEC production," said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates in Houston. "But they're facing competition from U.S. shale and Canadian production." OPEC and allies including Russia agreed last month to cut crude production beginning this month by 1.2 million bpd, following a strategy to support prices when supplies overwhelm demand. OPEC pumped 32.68 million bpd last month, according to a Reuters survey, down 460,000 bpd from November, suggesting some members moved to reduce supplies ahead of the recent accord. "Historically, Saudi Arabia has utilized crude export flows to the United States as a method of signalling the Kingdom's intentions, given the transparency of the U.S. market," said Reid I'Anson, an energy economist at Kpler. Vessels last month carried about 534,000 bpd from Saudi Arabia to the United States, down from 632,000 bpd in November. Algeria sent 10,000 bpd, down 94,000 bpd, and Nigeria shipped 103,000 bpd, down by 48,000 bpd, according to Kpler. One major exception to the decline was Iraq, which sent 295,000 bpd to the United States, up by 140,000 bpd from November. Shipments from Venezuela increased 22,738 bpd. Booming U.S. shale production and growing stockpiles also crimped the nation's appetite for imported crude. U.S. commercial crude stocks rose to 441 million barrels in the week ended Dec. 21, up from 394 million barrels in mid-September, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. "When inventories began rising, that started to help decrease the demand for imports," said Gene McGillian, vice president of market research at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut. "We could see even lower imports from OPEC." (Reporting by Collin Eaton, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien) Four South Korean plaintiffs were awarded 100 million won each in October for forced labour, though only one of them is still alive (AFP Photo/Ed JONES) Lawyers for South Korean victims of Tokyo's wartime forced labour have sought the seizure of a Japanese steelmaker's assets, they said Wednesday. The two neighbours are both democracies, market economies and US allies, but their relationship is heavily coloured by historical and territorial issues, largely stemming from Tokyo's brutal 1910-45 colonial rule over the Korean peninsula. According to official Seoul data, around 780,000 Koreans were conscripted into forced labour by Japan during the 35-year occupation, not including the women forced into sexual slavery for Japanese troops. After a 21-year legal battle, four South Korean plaintiffs -- only one of whom is still alive -- won a ruling from the country's Supreme Court in October that Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal (NSSM) should pay each of them 100 million won ($89,000). They said they were forced to work at its steel mills between 1941 and 1943. The ruling drew the ire of Tokyo, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe describing the decision as "impossible". Japan says all historical compensation issues were settled under the 1965 treaty that re-established diplomatic relations and included a reparations package of about $800 million in grants and cheap loans. NSSM had failed to comply with the ruling, the victims' lawyers said in a statement to AFP, so they sought a court order Monday for the seizure of its shares in PNR, a joint venture with South Korean steelmaker Posco. The Japanese steelmaker had displayed an "inhumane attitude and indifference" to the court order, the lawyers said, adding the victims had been seeking justice "for more than 70 years". NSSM is estimated to own 2.34 million shares in Pohang-based PNR, worth 11 billion won, according to Yonhap news agency. The airline hit turbulence last year after failing to report its quarterly earnings (AFP Photo/Sajjad HUSSAIN) Shares in India's second-largest airline Jet Airways fell five percent Wednesday after the company admitted it had failed to meet debt payments to banks. The airline hit turbulence last year after failing to report its quarterly earnings or pay its staffers including pilots in August. Subsequently, chief executive Vinay Dube released the earnings and announced a cost cutting programme amounting to 20 billion rupees ($280 million) over the next two years. "Payment of interest and principal installment due to the consortium of Indian Banks on 31st December 2018 has been delayed due to temporary cashflow mismatch," the struggling airline said in a statement. Jet added that it was in talks with the consortium led by State Bank of India (SBI). After reporting a loss of $178 million for July-September, the carrier announced last November that it would cut flights on less profitable routes as part of a plan to reduce costs. Dube has also sought investment to help turn around the firm's fortunes, having seen millions of dollars wiped off its market capitalisation throughout 2018. According to reports, the Tata Group had reviewed Jet's accounts to potentially buy a stake. Tata already operates Vistara in partnership with Singapore Airlines and AirAsia India with AirAsia Group. India's aviation sector is projected to become the world's third-largest by 2025. But fluctuating global crude oil prices, fierce competition, a weak rupee and price wars have hit the country's carriers including the largest airline by market share, IndiGo, and loss-making national carrier Air India. India's passenger numbers have grown six-fold over the past decade as the economy has powered ahead. Jet Airways shares were trading at 267 rupees as compared to 283.95 rupees a day earlier on Mumbai-based Bombay Stock Exchange(BSE). China Lands Probe on Far Side of the Moon in a World First (Bloomberg) -- Sign up for China Rising, a new weekly dispatch on where China stands now and where it's going next. China landed a lunar probe on the far side of the moon, the first ever spacecraft to reach the surface that always faces away from Earth and giving a boost to the countrys ambitious space program. The Change-4 lunar probe, named after the mythical Moon Goddess, landed at 10:26 a.m. Beijing time Thursday and relayed a picture, the Peoples Daily newspaper reported. The feat caps a series of lunar missions China has launched over the past few years as part of its plan to become one of the worlds top three aerospace powers by 2030. The nations space budget is about $8 billion a year, second only to the U.S. The moon landing comes at a time when tensions between the two powers are at a long-time high, with their economic, technological and military rivalry deepening amid Chinas quest for dominance. Aerospace is among sectors President Xi Jinping has identified as key to modernizing Chinas economy. That means developing its own technology for planes, rockets, satellites and other spacecraft. In 2017, a state-owned company successfully test flew the nations first home-built single-aisle passenger plane. The country has also rolled out an alternative to American-owned GPS, while local startups are racing to launch rockets and microsatellites. Jim Bridenstine, the administrator at the U.S. National Aeronautics & Space Administration, congratulated China on the accomplishment in a Twitter post, as did billionaire Elon Musk. Landing on the unexplored region will enable Change-4s rover to better study the moon because of the lack of electromagnetic interference from Earth. The rover is equipped with a low-frequency radio spectrometer to help scientists understand how the earliest stars were ignited and how our cosmos emerged from darkness after the Big Bang, according to Chinas official Xinhua News Agency. Scientists will test whether plants can grow while on the moon, it said. Story continues Change-3, launched in 2013, and its rover Yutu -- or Jade Rabbit -- surveyed the moons geology and natural resources after a soft landing. In May, China launched a relay satellite called Queqiao thats now orbiting about 450,000 kilometers (280,000 miles) from Earth, where a gravitational equilibrium can be maintained so it stays on course to relay messages from the rover back to Earth. China also plans to launch its first Mars probe by the end of this decade, according to a white paper on the countrys space activities issued in 2016. It also aims to build its own space station in 2022, Xinhua reported. NASA is pursuing a dual path of building a lunar orbital platform and returning astronauts to the moon in the mid-2020s, with the eventual aim to send humans to Mars. The Mars InSight craft landed on the planet on Nov. 26 to study its interior to help answer questions about the early days of the solar system. (Updates with Chinas aerospace ambitions in fourth paragraph.) To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Dong Lyu in Beijing at dlyu3@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Emma O'Brien at eobrien6@bloomberg.net, Sam Nagarajan, Young-Sam Cho For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. Apple is having a rough quarter selling iPhones to Chinese consumers, according to CEO Tim Cooks letter to investors on Wednesday. Cook blamed the macroeconomy and U.S.-China trade tensions, but said the company wont sit around waiting for the macro to change" in an interview with CNBC. The iPhone maker has come up with what it hopes to be a solution to tepid sales in its second-largest market: get people to trade in their Android phones for credit to help them buy a newly-released iPhone. To boost iPhone sales, Apple launched a GiveBack trade-in promotion offer for its new iPhone XS and iPhone XR devices in the U.S. in November. In late December, the promotional program for the new models went live in China, adding one major perk: users in China can not only trade in their old iPhones, but also Android phones made by Apples major competitors in China, including Huawei, OPPO and Xiaomi. Consumers can trade in a Huaweis flagship phone Mate 9 PRO with 128 GB storage, for example, for a 720 yuan ($104) credit that they can use on iPhone XS and XR purchases. But the trade-in value for Android Phones seems to be much lower than old iPhone devices. A functional iPhone 7 Plus with the same amount of storage can get a trade in value of 1939 yuan ($282). An advertisement for Huawei Mate 20 series is seen outside an Apple store, as customers queue before the store opens on the day the new iPhone XR goes on sale in Shanghai, China October 26, 2018. (REUTERS) A rare move for Apple Offering trade-ins for Android phones is a rare move for Apple and suggests that the Silicon Valley giant is having a difficult time in China not just getting existing iOS users to upgrade to the latest model, but also luring users from homegrown Android phones. The offer comes after Apple iPhone sales in China lost momentum in November, with shipments tanking 22.8% month-over-month and iPhones market share dropping to 11.7%. Domestic giants Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi (which run on the Android operating system) account for 77% of the China market, according to IDC. Analysts see it as a result of slow sales volume of the new iPhone Xs and XRs since their launch in September. Story continues Its too early to say whether the trade-in program will help Apple attract new users. Even with the maximum trade-in credit, users still need to pay about $710 for the cheapest iPhone XS, which is sold for $1,265 in China. Its also harder to lock in users within the iOS system in China, where proprietary Apple services, including iMessages and iTunes, arent as popular as in the U.S. The promotion in China is available until January 31, around the same time the iPhone maker is expected to release its fiscal first-quarter earnings. Cook said the trade-in program is one of the initiatives to improve the companys results in his letter, but he didnt specify his expectations for the promotion in China. We started it primarily because its great for the environment, Cook told CNBC. There's a substantial benefit, economic and environmental from a trade-in. Krystal Hu covers technology and trade for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter. Read more: Chinese companies flooded into the U.S. IPO market in 2018 What Tim Cook left out about China in Apple's revenue guidance Shares of these U.S. suppliers are getting slammed in the wake of the Huawei arrest (Bloomberg Opinion) -- The optimistic narrative about Apple Inc.s iPhone business is falling apart in front of our eyes. The company on Wednesday stunningly slashed its own revenue forecast for its first fiscal quarter that ended in December. Apple led by blaming a slowing economy in China and the trade skirmish with the U.S. for worse-than-expected consumer transactions in the region that includes China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Apple said its first quarter revenue is now expected to fall about 5 percent from a year earlier. China may be the new weather a go-to excuse for companies whose sales arent up to snuff. But that wasnt all. In an extraordinary letter to Apple investors, CEO Tim Cook also told stockholders what he should have been saying for years: The companys iPhone business has shifted into a lower gear because of changes in the smartphone market and consumer behavior. This should have been absolutely predictable to anyone who was able to peer outside of Apples bubble. Executives have failed in their duty to warn investors ahead of time about all this, and reality is finally and all at once catching up to Apple. In his letter, Cook said in some established markets outside of China, iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be. (Upgrades are people with older-model iPhones opting to buy new models.) The company attributed that to economic weakness in some countries but also other factors, including people holding onto smartphones longer as mobile phone companies halt subsidies, the climbing prices of Apples devices, and users taking advantage of lower-cost battery swaps rather than purchasing the latest and greatest iPhones. In addition, Cook wrote on Wednesday that economic conditions slowed in China in the second half of 2018 and that shopping traffic was hurt by uncertainty about the U.S.-China trade war. Here, too, Apple missed opportunities to caution investors. Cook said two months ago that Apples China business was very strong, even amid signs of an economic slowdown and months of headlines about trade tensions with the U.S. He consistently told investors that he thought the U.S. and China would resolve their trade dispute amicably and didnt give any indications that consumers were on edge or reluctant to shop because of the geopolitical fracas. Its possible that the last couple of months of economic circumstances in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong caught Apple by surprise, but executives failed to give any hints of red flags in the region. Story continues Its possible conditions in China changed quickly, but the broader trends in smartphone activity are not new. Why didnt Cook make any of these admissions before now? Phone companies in the U.S. and some other big smartphone markets have for years sought to stop offering people iPhones at an artificially low price of $200 as they did in the iPhones earlier days. That factor plus less drastic changes to each years model of iPhone or other smartphones and the rising prices of some new devices has led people in the U.S. to keep their smartphones for more than three years on average, up from about two years in 2014, according to mobile industry consultant Chetan Sharma. Apple sells by far the majority of new iPhones to people who already owned one of the devices, which means sales are dinged if someone wraps electric tape around her three-year-old iPhone and soldiers on. This is a trend years in the making. But at each and every opportunity, Cook has dismissed questions about whether changes in upgrade behavior will hurt Apples revenue. In an August conference call with stock analysts, one of them asked Cook whether the company could continue to sell more iPhones in a few years in light of the smartphone markets stagnation. Cook said he thought Apple could sell more phones to people who already owned iPhones, to those who had competing devices and to people who had never owned a smartphone. It was an answer straight out of 2015, when everything Cook said was true. Its not true anymore, and Cook should have known that. The research firm IDC estimates global sales of smartphones declined slightly in 2018, as they did in 2017. Apple seemed to defy that smartphone gravity for a long time, but it didnt. In Apples fiscal year ending in September, Apple barely sold more iPhones than it did the previous year. Revenue increased because Apple charged a super-premium price for the iPhone X and other new models and Apple loyalists paid those higher prices. But there is a limit to how many people are willing to pay $1,000 out of pocket for a new phone, and it seems as if Apple reached that limit all at once. This isnt to say that Apples business is falling apart. It is still generating levels of revenue and cash flow that are the envy of the corporate world. But Apple failed in the No. 1 mission of being a public company: being honest with investors about its business. The company simply denied the reality that was staring it in the face, until denial was no longer an option. To contact the author of this story: Shira Ovide at sovide@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Daniel Niemi at dniemi1@bloomberg.net This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Shira Ovide is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. She previously was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion 2019 Bloomberg L.P. (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc.s Tim Cook confirmed Wednesday that the latest iPhones, his flagship product, are not selling up to expectations. The news exposes his toughest challenge since taking over as chief executive officer from the legendary Steve Jobs: how to take the company forward when its top product has lost luster with consumers. Cook has dealt with a series of controversies during his more than seven years in the role, ranging from the companys failed Google Maps replacement launch and the need to oust the head of iPhone software in 2012, to concerns over labor and tax practices. He has calmly navigated the politics of President Donald Trumps administration, and so far has avoided tariffs on the companys key devices as the U.S.-China trade war widens. Now comes the disclosure in a letter to investors that Apple sold fewer than anticipated new iPhones, and would cut its holiday quarter sales outlook by as much as $9 billion. Cook plans to address Apple staff about the situation on Thursday at an all-hands meeting where he will take questions from workers, according to a person familiar with the matter. This is probably one of the hardest things Tim Cook has had to do as CEO, putting out that letter today, said Michael Gartenberg, a former Apple marketing executive who has followed the company for decades. Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, said this is going to be the most defining moment of Cooks career. When he succeeded co-founder Jobs in 2011, Cook was well regarded for his supply chain mastery. Hes leaned on lieutenants like design chief Jony Ive and marketing head Phil Schiller to dream up new devices. Hes also benefited largely from the success of the iPhone. It generates about two-thirds of the companys sales, but it produces much more revenue when accounting for services like Apple Music and attached devices like the AirPods and Apple Watch. The stock price has gained 194 percent since Cook took the top job, share buybacks have been strong, and annual revenue has more than doubled. The iPhones average sales price, revenue and unit sales have increased. That has allowed investors and analysts to mostly ignore the lack of new ground-breaking products like the iPhone across the Cook era and his delegation of product development to his staff. Story continues The disclosure of lower-than-anticipated iPhone sales due to an economic slowdown in China and fewer upgrades to new models by existing users calls into question Apples strategy of being so reliant on the device. The companys shares fell as much as 8.5 percent in extended trading. Apples U.S. and Asia suppliers also declined. Its a two-fold challenge: they need to prove that this is a blip, not a trend, Gartenberg said. Well see a lot of efforts from Apple from marketing and PR to show that. For Tim, the other part is: How does Apple juice iPhone sales? Gartenberg said Apple may try to highlight its other products and reduce the attention on the iPhone since the next major model isnt expected until September. Well see Apple try to position the iPhone as more affordable. Wedbushs Ives said Cook has two choices: Cut prices and figure out China and realize recent iPhone pricing was a mistake or they can have a sense of hubris and continue the current strategy. He expects Cook will steer Apple toward the former. Apple needs to look beyond its core product. Smartphone sales have stagnated and are virtually unchanged worldwide the past two years. Under Cook, Apple has launched a few new types of products, including AirPods and Apple Watch. Both, however, are glued to the iPhone. The company has talked about its services business as a significant new source of revenue -- Cook said sales increased to $10.8 billion in the holiday quarter -- but those are best used on an iPhone. Wholly new categories like self-driving car technology and augmented reality glasses still appear years away, while a major new iPhone for fifth-generation networks isnt expected until 2020. For now, it appears Apples iPhone sales problem is China-focused. According to analyst Shannon Cross of Cross Research, as long as the problem doesnt spread to other regions, Cook can weather the storm. Its going to rely on understanding the supply chains, how to make sure costs are efficient and effective, which are Cooks strengths, Cross said. Cook could also use this as an opportunity to reassess the companys reluctance to make industry-shattering acquisitions. His biggest deal to date was for Beats Electronics and Beats Music, which sold for a combined $3 billion in 2014. For several years, analysts and investors have predicted that Apple could use its giant cash holdings to quickly break into new categories. Over the years, takeovers of Tesla Inc. and Netflix Inc. have been investor dreams. Ive always been very clear, Cook said in an interview Wednesday with CNBC. We look at many, many companies including very large companies. Weve elected so far not to do those because we havent found one that we said, wow, thats a nice intersection of Apple. But Id never rule it out. --With assistance from Ian King. To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Gurman in San Francisco at mgurman1@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net, Andrew Pollack, Robert Fenner For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook told employees he wont blame external factors for selling fewer iPhones than anticipated during the holiday quarter. In a memo obtained by Bloomberg News, Cook expressed his disappointment after Apple cut its revenue outlook for the first time in almost two decades. That arose from a number of factors some macroeconomic, and some specific to Apple and the smartphone industry. But the CEO added that the company would set record revenues for its services, wearables and Mac businesses. Cook also invited employees to a rare all-hands meeting Thursday, where he intends to share more details about the quarter and take questions. The full memo is below: Team, Happy New Year I hope everyone was able to rest and enjoy time with loved ones over the holidays. This afternoon we issued a letter to Apple investors explaining that we are revising our financial guidance for the holiday quarter. I encourage you to read it. As you will see, our revenue shortfall in Q1 is from iPhone, primarily in Greater China. While we are disappointed to be falling short of our quarterly revenue goal, our fiscal first quarter was also a record setter for revenue from Services, Wearables and the Mac. iPad revenue grew double-digits over the year-ago quarter, and iPhone activations in the U.S. and Canada set new Christmas Day records. We expect to set all-time revenue records in key markets including the US, Canada and Mexico, Western European countries including Germany and Italy, and countries across the Asia-Pacific region like Korea and Vietnam. Our worldwide installed base of active devices also hit a new all-time high, reflecting the loyalty of our customers and their appreciation for the work you do. We are tremendously proud of the innovations were delivering to our customers with iPhone XR, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. These are, without a doubt, the best iPhones weve ever made. We did not set a new record for iPhone sales in Q1, however, due to a number of factors some macroeconomic, and some specific to Apple and the smartphone industry. Story continues External forces may push us around a bit, but we are not going to use them as an excuse. Nor will we just wait around until they get better. This moment gives us an opportunity to learn and to take action, to focus on our strengths and on Apples mission delivering the best products on earth for our customers and providing them with an unmatched level of service. We manage Apple for the long term, and in challenging times we have always come out stronger. With that in mind, please join me for an all-hands meeting on Thursday morning at 9:30 a.m. PT. Be sure to check AppleWeb for more details. Due to construction at Apple Park, well be gathering at Town Hall on the Infinite Loop campus. Join us there in person, or via live stream through AppleWeb. Ill have more details about the quarter, and Im looking forward to your thoughts and questions. Hope to see you there. Tim To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Gurman in San Francisco at mgurman1@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net, Edwin Chan, Robert Fenner For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. This item is available in full to subscribers. Attention subscribers We have recently launched a new and improved website. To continue reading, you will need to either log into your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription. If you are a digital subscriber with an active subscription, then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you've not yet logged in to your account on this new site. If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free website account by clicking here. Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing. Washington: US President Donald Trump mocked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for financing a library in Afghanistan. US President said that it was of no use in the war-torn nation. In apress conference on Wednesday, US President said that the Indian PM was "constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan. As per the reports, Trump said that "You know what that is? That's like five hours of what we spend. And we're supposed to say, 'Oh, thank you for the library.' I don't know who's using it in Afghanistan," India to give aid of $3 billion to Afghanistan . India has undertaken projects such as the construction of an elite school besides scholarships to 1000 Afghan students in India every year. India has also builtAfghanistan's Parliament at a cost of $90 million. while inaugurating the Parliament building in Kabul in 2015, Indian PM also reiterated India's commitment to empowering Afghan youth with modern education and professional skills. Trump also said that Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan. Berlin: Two Austrian women are the first same-sex couple to officially tie the knot in the predominantly Catholic country, following years of legal challenges from gay rights groups. Public broadcaster ORF reported Tuesday that Nicole Kopaunik and Daniela Paier wed in a ceremony in Velden, southern Austria, shortly after midnight Tuesday. The couple, both 37, had reportedly been engaged for four years. Austria's constitutional court ruled in 2017 that same-sex couples should have the right to marry from January 1, 2019. Previously, same-sex couples could only enter into a registered partnership that granted fewer rights than marriage. Austria's current governing parties, the People's Party and the Freedom Party, had strongly opposed granting same-sex couples the right to marry, but said they would respect the court's ruling. New Delhi: Developmental assistance can play a major role in transforming Afghanistan, official sources said Thursday, rejecting US President Donald Trump's jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over funding of a 'library' in the war-ravaged country and asking 'who's using it'. The sources said India has been implementing a range of mega infrastructure projects as well as community development programmes in Afghanistan as per requirement of its people and the initiatives are crucial for their socio-economic welfare. While referring to billions of dollars the US was spending in Afghanistan, Trump, during a cabinet meeting, brought up contributions by India and several other countries and referred to Modi as an example of how world leaders were talking about their developmental assistance in the country. "I could give you an example where I get along very well with India and Prime Minister Modi. But he is constantly telling me, he built a library in Afghanistan. Library! That's like five hours of what we spend (in Afghanistan)," Trump said. It is not clear what project Trump was referring to when he talked about "library", or whether he was talking about the Afghan Parliament building. The sources said India may be building small libraries as part of the community development initiative, but most of its investments in Afghanistan were on mega infrastructure projects including the 218 km road from Zaranj to Delaram, the Salma Dam and the new Afghan Parliament building. India has committed USD 3 billion in assistance to Afghanistan since 2001 when the Taliban was removed from power. India has given four military helicopters to Afghanistan which has been trying to strengthen its air power. India has also been supplying military equipment to Afghanistan besides providing training to hundreds of Afghan security personnel. The sources said India plays a significant role in the country as its development partner and that the partnership is built on the specific needs and requirements worked out with the Afghan government. "India seeks to build capacities and capabilities of Afghan nationals and its institutions for governance and delivery of public service, develop socio-economic infrastructure, secure lives and promote livelihood," said a source. Besides mega infrastructure projects, India is implementing 116 new 'High Impact Community Development Projects' in 31 provinces of Afghanistan, including in the areas of education, health, agriculture, irrigation, drinking water, renewable energy, flood control, micro-hydropower, sports infrastructure, administrative infrastructure. India constructed the 218 km road from Zaranj to Delaram for facilitating movement of goods and services to the Iranian border. The highway will connect Iran with the Garland Highway, which links Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif Herat and Kunduz. India also laid a 220kV transmission line from Pul-e-Khumri to Kabul and set up a 220/110/20 kV sub-station at Chimtala. The transmission line not only brings electricity and light to smaller towns and villages but also provides a key element of security for Afghan and US forces, sources said. The Salma Dam, built by India, has an installed capacity of 42 MW and supplies water for irrigating 75,000 hectares of land. Since inauguration in 2016, the project has been generating electricity and releasing water for irrigation, sources said. Recently, India supplied 1.1 million MT of wheat to Afghanistan India and Afghanistan launched a direct air freight corridor in 2017, primarily to encourage trade between the two countries. India is also involved in development of Iran's Chabahar port which will provide trade route to Afghanistan. Read more World News New Delhi: The Supreme Court said Thursday that "prompt, immediate and effective" operation was required for rescuing 15 people who are trapped inside an illegal coal mine in Meghalaya since December 13. A bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and S Abdul Nazeer said it was not satisfied with the steps taken so far by the Meghalaya government for rescue of these people and asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to urgently look into the matter. "For people who are trapped there, every minute counts," the bench said, asking Mehta to apprise it on Friday about the steps taken for the rescue. At the outset, the bench expressed dissatisfaction over the steps taken so far and asked the Meghalaya government as to why it was not successful in rescuing these people. The counsel, appearing for the state, told the court that they have taken adequate steps in the rescue operation and the Centre was also lending support to them. "We are not satisfied. It is a question of life and death," the bench said. It asked petitioner Aditya N Prasad, who had sought urgent steps for rescue of these people, to call a law officer of the Centre so that appropriate order could be passed immediately. The bench will continue with the hearing during the day. The rat-hole mine, located on top of a hillock fully covered with trees in East Jaintia Hills district, had got flooded when water from the nearby Lytein river gushed into it, trapping the miners. New Delhi: Escalating his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the the Rafale deal issue, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi Thursday said it seems the PM has "fled" his "open book Rafale exam" in Parliament and is instead lecturing students in Punjab. Gandhi's attack came a day after he said Modi faced an open book exam on the deal in Parliament and asked if he will show up at the exam or send a proxy. The Congress president had Wednesday also tweeted four questions related to the Rafale deal and demanded answers from the prime minister. "So it seems our PM has fled Parliament & his own open book Rafale exam & is instead lecturing students at Lovely University in Punjab, today," Gandhi tweeted on Thursday. He also urged students at the university to ask the prime minister to answer the four questions posed by him. Gandhi had tweeted, "Here are the exam questions in advance: Q1. Why 36 aircraft, instead of the 126 the IAF needed? Q2. Why 1,600 Cr instead of 560 Cr per aircraft. Q4. Why AA instead of HAL? Will he show up? Or send a proxy?" He later tweeted another question, terming it as "The Missing Q3!". In the third question, he asked the prime minister to tell why former defence minister Manohar Parrikar keeps a Rafale file in his bedroom and what's in it. Kozhikode: The collective effort of shopkeepers in Kozhikode to discourage the frequent hartal calls by political parties and other organisations failed to make any impact on Thursday with the workers of Sabarimala Karma Samiti, BJP, RSS and other Hindutva outfits unleashing violence across the city streets. The Sabarimala Karma Samiti had called for a dawn-to-dusk hartal on Thursday to protest against the entry of two women of child-bearing age to Sabarimala temple on Wednesday. The duo visited the temple after the Supreme Court lifted a centuries-old ban on women visiting the shrine. Widespread violence in Kerala. Photo from Palakkad In the morning Kozhikode's traders, led by Vyapari Vyavasayi Ekopana Samiti president T Naseeruddeen, came in group and opened three shops in SM Street, where more than 200 shops are located. When the Karma Samiti issued the hartal call, Naseeruddeen had made it clear that the shops would remain open on Thursday. Even as the traders started opening more shops, the protesters reached the spot in a procession and asked them to down the shutters. In a bid to stop the Samiti workers, DYFI men also reached the spot. The traders told the Samiti workers more shops would be opened and they cannot afford to keep their shops closed for each hartal. District collector Sambasiva Seeram and police commissioner S Kaliraj Mahesh Kumar reached the spot and deployed more force in the street, one of the prominent business spots in the town. The road was recently converted into a walkers' street. The collector asked the police to take strict action against those who resort to violence. However, till the filing of this report only three shops out of at least 200 could be opened at SM Street and workers of DYFI and the Samiti are camping at the spot, creating tension in the area. Valiyangadi, another business area of the city, shopkeepers opted to keep their shops closed. All major roads in the city are witnessing protests by the Samiti workers and even two-wheeler riders are being stopped by the cops to avoid any untoward incidents. In Kannur, shopkeepers complained that though they were ready to open the shops, they were not provided enough security cover by the police. In Malappuram district's Ponnani town, four policemen were injured in stone pelting by RSS workers. Right-wing workers pelted stones at buses also, bringing bus services in Malappuram and Kozhikode to a halt. Police-protesters clash in Malappuram In Majeri, Karma Samiti activists laid siege to the office of a temple as a protest against the Devaswom Board. This Ayyappa temple comes under Malabar Devaswom Board. Read more: Latest Kerala news New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday refused to accord urgent hearing to a contempt petition moved by a lawyers' group against Sabarimala temple authorities for closing the shrine after two women entered it. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul said that the contempt petition will be heard along with the pending review petitions against the apex court verdict which allowed women of all age groups to enter the Sabarimala temple. Advocate P V Dinesh appearing for Indian Young Lawyers Association told the bench that the temple authorities closed the shrine Wednesday for purification purpose after two women had entered inside which is in violation of apex court verdict. On Wednesday, two women of child-bearing age group had stepped into the Lord Ayyappa shrine in Sabarimala, breaking a centuries-old tradition defying dire threats from the Hindu right. Kanakadurga, 44, and Bindu, 42, stepped into the hallowed precincts guarded by police three months after the apex court's historic judgement lifting the ban on entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine. Following the entry of the women into the shrine, the chief priest had decided to close the sanctum sanctorum of the temple in order to perform the 'purification' ceremony. Despite the Supreme Court's historic ruling on September 28 last year, permitting women in the 10-50 age group, no children or young women in the 'barred' group were able to offer prayers at the shrine following frenzied protests by devotees and right-wing outfits. Thiruvananthapuram: An RSS worker, who was arrested for allegedly circulating fake photos linked to Sabarimala row on social media, has found an unique way to protest against the entry of two women into Sabarimala temple on Wednesday. Rajesh R Kurup from Chemkapally shaved off half his moustache and posted the photo on social media. He wrote that he was shaving off his moustache as a mark of protest after the two women Kanakadurga and Bindu offered prayers at the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala. He also said the faithful should take steps to protect their temple properties from being looted. A native of Mannar, Rajesh was earlier booked and arrested for spreading fake photos. His earlier photo showed a person wearing police uniform and boots stamping Rajesh, who was dressed as a devotee and holding on to an idol. As a controversy erupted the photos were removed from Facebook. RSS worker Rajesh Kururp held for circulating fake photos on Sabarimala row Widespread protests were held in Kerala after the two women entered Sabarimala temple on Wednesday, three months after the Supreme Court's historic judgment lifting the ban on entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine. As the news spread, protests erupted at several places, with right-wing activists blocking highways and forcing closure of shops and markets on Wednesday. RSS worker held for circulating fake photos on Sabarimala row BJP and CPM workers clashed in front of the Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram for over five hours on Wednesday as police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse them. The Karma Samiti's hartal call on Thursday received mixed response as some business establishments were opened in certain parts of the state. The BJP is supporting the shutdown while the Congress-led UDF is observing a "black day" on Thursday. Thiruvananthapuram: A hartal called by Sabarimala Karma Samiti forced Kerala to a standstill on Thursday as the right-wing outfits violently protested against the state government for allowing two women to enter the Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala on Wednesday. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets, shouting slogans and waving flags. Streets turned into battle fields with clashes between activists of right-wing outfits and the ruling CPM workers. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan flayed the Sangh Parivar outfits for disrupting law and order situation in the state during the dawn-to-dusk hartal, backed by the BJP. The women duo, Kanakadurga and Bindu, stated that the visit to Sabarimala was not part of an agenda and was at their own will. "We climbed the hill along with other devotees and was accompanied by two SPs," they told Manorama News in an exclusive interview. Police chief Loknath Behera had warned of severe action if protesters unleashed violence and obstructed road traffic. Behera's warning had no effect as protesters went on rampage in several areas. Violence erupted in many districts including Thiruvananthapuram, Palakkad, Pathanamthitta, Malappuram, Kannur and Kozhikode. Barring a few incidents, Ernakulam and Kottayam remained relatively peaceful. People take out a protest rally after two women enter Sabarimala on Wednesday. Bus services, including the state-run KSRTC, were halted and most of the autorickshaws and taxis did not ply. Earlier traders had said they would function even on hartal day. However, this led to further escalation of violence with agitators forcing the shops to down shutters. Few shops functioned even in the famed SM Street of Kozhikode despite the presence of a huge posse of policemen. Huge posse of police personnel at SM Street, Kozhikode Shops and hotels remained closed in most parts of the state. Television channels aired visuals of protesters forcibly downing shutters of shops after the hartal began at 6 am. Several vehicles were vandalised on hartal day. The protesters burnt tyres and placed granite blocks on roads to check vehicular transport in Kozhikode, Palakkad and Kollam. The local party offices of the ruling CPM were pelted with stones in several places, including Ernakulam and Malappuram districts. Police-protesters clash in Malappuram A library run by the CPM party in Palakkad was vandalised by protesters. Autorickshaws and private buses were damaged during stone pelting in Kannur and Kozhikode. Police patrol vehicles were also attacked in some places. A large number of protesters were arrested in various districts in connection with the violent incidents. A 64-year old woman, Pathumma from Wayanad, who came for treatment at the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC) in Thiruvananthapuram, collapsed and died at the railway station in the morning. Journalist Deepti reaches Pamba Her relatives alleged that a delay in getting ambulance service resulted in her death. In the wee hours of Wednesday, two women were escorted by police into the Sabarimala temple through a side gate, catching the protesting devotees off the guard. The Supreme Court had on September 28 allowed women of all age groups to enter the temple. Several KSRTC buses came under attack on hartal day. Protests against the women entering the temple erupted quickly. A Sabarimala Karma Samiti worker, Chandran Unnithan, died during a stone pelting incident in Pandalam. The UDF also observed a black day on Thursday. Women were not airdropped: CM Condemning the widespread violence, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan said that this was the fifth statewide hartal called by the BJP over the Sabarimala issue. He said police personnel were merely doing their duty when they escorted the two women to Sabarimala. Police protesters in Palakkad Pinarayi said the two women were not 'airdropped' to Sabarimala but went as normal devotees and the other pilgrims did not protest. "Kanakadurga and Bindu were given protection after they sought security to visit the shrine. They were not airdropped. They visited shrine like normal devotees. None of the devotees protested," he told reporters here. The chief minister also said that conducting hartal over women's entry into the shrine was like calling a hartal against the Supreme Court's order. Coming down heavily on the chief priest's action of closing the temple for purification ceremony, Pinarayi said this was against the apex court's verdict. "Such things are to be decided by the Devaswom Board. The action was not only a violation of the Supreme Court's verdict but also against the rules of the board," Pinarayi added. Meanwhile, a woman journalist from Hyderabad, Deepti, reached Pamba on Thursday. Though reports said she sought security to visit Sabarimala, she later clarified that she was in Pamba as part of her duty and did not plan to visit Sannidhanam. Read more: Latest Kerala news Abu Dhabi: A Keralite has won the top prize in the first Big Ticket raffle draw of the New Year worth 15 million UAE Dirhams. Sarath Purushothaman earned the prize for the ticket number 083733. The prize amount equals around Rs 28 crore. Incidentally, of the top ten winners, eight are Indians, including six Keralites. The draw was held at Abu Dhabi International Airport on Thursday morning. When Sarath was informed of the good news, he initially refused to believe it. Okay; but I will call back after checking the Big Ticket website, he said. Sarath, however, did not react when contacted again. But the winner later said that he had purchased the ticket along with some friends. I have been regularly buying the ticket over the last couple of years, he added. Sarath also said that he would be soon travelling to Kerala to meet his mother. He did not elaborate. The other Big Ticket winners are Jinachandran Vazhoor Narayanan (One lakh Dirhams), Shahid Fareed (BMW 4 series car), Muhammed Sajith Puthanpura Mallatty Randupurayil (90,000 Dirhams), Athul Muraleedharan (70,000 Dirhams), Nesheer Khan (50,000 Dirhams), Kamlesh Shashi Prakash (30,000 Dirhams), Gattu Ramakrishna (20,000 Dirhams), Mohammed Saeed Imtiaz (20,000 Dirhams), Manoj Kumar Thankappan Nair (10,000 Dirhams) and Radha Krishnan Unni (10,000 Dirhams). Educational journalism is an emerging concept that requires clear cut definition and enunciation. But it is as vast as education and as comprehensive as journalism. Any kind of writing and editing for journals including magazines, reports, diaries, bulletins etc for newspaper radio and television concerning education and educational institutions may be called educational journalism. All the papers prepared by teachers, inspectors and administrators in the field of education are covered under this medium. Journalism, particularly educational journalism requires special kind of writing, editing, reporting and compiling. Special techniques are required to make this media more effective. Educational journalism in India is undergoing a gut wrenching transformation of its business model and its organisational trends. Even in ways in which news is being delivered is changing rapidly. Digital technology has fundamentally altered ways, in which news is being delivered, now people can access information via social medias, web browsers , ipads, kindles, desktop computers and the list goes on. Much of the information for which people had to pay in the past is now available for little or no money at all in this digital era. Thanks to the many digital reforms implemented by the government, the access to internet has widened to larger sections, and access has become more lucid and transparent. Reliability of educational journalism involves reimagining ways of improving and expanding coverage, canvassing views of leaders in the field and conducting case studies of specific ventures. Educational journals have clear virtues such as immediacy, interactivity and diversity. The explosion of online media gives consumers so much choice that makes it difficult for news organisers to charge them. The school magazine is one such example of reliable educational journal. It is the foundation of the activities of the school for the creativities of the students. It is the most effective and in depth advertisement of the school. The school management should extend their cooperation and support the publications to make it the mirror of the school and medium of communication at the institutional level. The government has started many incentives for providing encouragement in this direction. With proper planning and implementation desired excellence and exuberance can be promoted in the educational journals in the country. Besides the traditional school magazines the newer categories that have emerged in this direction are digital niche publications, social Medias, news aggregators and new content providers such as university think tanks and non profit government organisations. The rise of internet and digital media is epicentre to many of these new ventures. They provide the virtue to reach multiple numbers of people. There has been a shift from general news to specialising in specific topics. This is particularly welcoming for the education sector which in the past had very less media coverage. In India there are several website that provide information about various insights of education ranging from the quality and affordability to information and syllabus for various graduate and under graduate courses. But in a world of speciality outlet it is difficult to reach the inadvertent audience who is not particularly interested in education. News aggregators synthesize existing education coverage from a variety of sources and serve as a clearinghouse for news information. This includes portals such as google, yahoo, quora etc. Some of these portals provide some original content along with synthesized ones. This sector has seen a rapid growth with the advent of digital India scheme. Blogs, facebook and twitter has taken the educational journalism to newer levels. It has made access to school information much easier, quick and fun for both parents and students alike. It has also lessened the teachers burden. Administrators use social media to plan school events, explain budget decisions and so on. Education blogs has also expanded with wider coverage of topics. Many websites now provide free tuitions and classes both at school and college level. This is of particular interest since the internet is affordable even to lower sections of the society, thanks to the heartfelt efforts of both public and private sector. As traditional content providers have cut budget and lay off employees. Thus the new content providers offer educational journals. Researchers and scholar share their works online at low or no costs or students can access the university archives to read the works. This is beneficial to both the students who are studying at the university and also outside students. Until people perceive education journalism as a route to long-term professional success, it will be hard to reinvigorate school related coverage. It is a great paradox. Most journalists and media entrepreneurs value the education that gave them the opportunity to do the work they love. Virtually everyone in public life acknowledges that improving education and expanding educational opportunity is central to the solution of many other problems. Yet journalism itself has never conferred on education coverage the honour and status it accords to so many other fields. Just as we undervalue the teaching profession, so do we undervalue education journalism. Our schools will not achieve as we would like them to until we give adequate respect and reward to teaching. And in the same vein, education journalism will not be what it needs to be until we give greater respect to those who cover our schools, colleges and universities. Mumbai: Veteran actor Anupam Kher, who has impersonated former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in "The Accidental Prime Minister", says the trailer of the film is not easily available on YouTube. "Dear YouTube, I am getting messages and calls that in parts of our country if you type, trailer of 'The Accidental Prime Minister', it is either not appearing or at 50th position. We were trending at No. 1 yesterday. Please help," Anupam tweeted. If one searches for the trailer of "The Accidental Prime Minister" on YouTube, the user ends up getting Anupam's interviews regarding the film. However, if one types "'The Accidental Prime Minister' official trailer", the trailer will emerge right at the top. Ever since the release of the film's trailer, the project has been dogged by controversies. Satyajeet Tambe Patil - President of the Maharashtra State Youth Congress - sent a letter to the producer of the film demanding a special screening before it is released. He raised objections to "incorrect presentation of the facts" in the film. Also featuring actors Akshaye Khanna as Baru and Divya Seth Shah as Manmohan Singh's wife Gursharan Kaur, the film is scheduled to release on January 11. New Delhi: The Union cabinet on Wednesday approved the merger of public sector lenders Dena Bank, Vijaya Bank with Bank of Baroda (BoB). Briefing reporters following the cabinet meeting, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the merger will make the "transferee" Bank of Baroda the third largest bank in the country and a "globally competitive entity." "There will be no retrenchment of employees as the employees of Dena and Vijaya banks will be transferred to BoB. There will be no problem in service conditions," he said. Announced by the government in September last, this reform measure aimed at further consolidation in the banking sector will make BoB the country's third largest bank with a combined business of Rs 14.82 lakh crore. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced the merger proposal, saying the respective boards of the three banks have been directed to consider the proposal at the earliest. Jaitley said the merger would create a sustainable mega-bank. The merger decision was taken by the "alternative mechanism" comprising Jaitley, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. This is the second such exercise in the last 21 months. In the previous such mega merger, five associate banks and the Bharatiya Mahila Bank became part of the state-run State Bank of India on April 1, 2017, making the country's largest lender among the world's top 50 banks. Noting that Dena Bank has been under the Reserve Bank of India's Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) framework on account of its massive accumulated non-performing assets (NPAs or bad loans), Jaitley had said the consolidated entity's capacity to absorb a weaker bank had guided the government's decision to propose this merger. Read latest in Business News KYODO NEWS - Jan 3, 2019 - 16:18 | Sports, All Tokai University came from behind to win the Tokyo-Hakone collegiate ekiden road relay for the first time on Thursday. Tokai University, starting 1 minute, 14 seconds behind Wednesday's first-day leaders Toyo University, clocked a total time of 10 hours, 52 minutes, 9 seconds for the two-day, 10-segment round trip from Tokyo to Hakone, Kanagawa Prefecture. "I'm still having trouble believing, but I'm very happy. All 10 runners were confident in what they've been doing until now and demonstrated it," Tokai University manager Hayashi Morozumi said. Aoyama Gakuin University was runner-up, missing its chance to become the third school in history to win the annual race five years running. The school started Thursday's 109.6-kilometer return leg in sixth place but narrowed the gap to finish 3 minutes, 41 seconds behind Tokai. Toyo University, the 2014 champion and overall runner-up the past three years, finished third in the 23-team race. Tokai University, competing in the men's race for the 46th time, was fifth last year. "We've had frustrating results in the past, but the fact that the runners never gave up bore fruit," Morozumi said. Tokai's second runner of the day Ryohei Sakaguchi closed the gap with Toyo to four seconds in the seventh stage, and Yohei Komatsu rewrote the eighth-stage record to take the lead. Twenty-two universities and one unified team from eastern Japan's Kanto region competed in the 95th edition of the prestigious collegiate road relay held annually on Jan. 2 and 3 and broadcast live on national television. Ten runners per team each contest one of ten stages over the race's two legs. Wednesday's outward leg from Tokyo's Otemachi business district to Hakone, totaling 107.5 kilometers, was also split into five stages. They said that in Chairman Kims speech he really wants to get together, he wants to denuclearize and a lot of good things are happening, Trump said. They really do want to do something. Now, does that mean its going to be done? Who knows? A deals a deal, you never know, but I tell you, weve established a very good relationship with North Korea. Well probably now have another meeting. Hed like to meet, Id like to meet, Trump said. Well set that up, well be setting that up in the not-too-distant future. Kim vowed to work toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula when he met Trump for the first time at a summit in Singapore in June, but there has been little concrete progress since. Kim said in a nationally televised New Year address on Tuesday that he was ready to meet again with Trump anytime, but warned he may take a new path if U.S. sanctions and pressure continued. Trump, who in 2017 threatened to rain fire and fury like the world has never seen on North Korea because of the threat its nuclear weapons and missiles posed to the United States, said a world war had been averted. That was going to be a war - there could have been a World War Three to be honest with you ... And instead, we have somebody who I really think wants to get on to economic development and making a lot of success and money, frankly, for his country. Trump said North Korea had tremendous potential, and added: Well help them out too. On Monday, South Koreas Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that Kim had sent a message to Trump regarding the stalled nuclear talks. The report did not include details about the letter-like communication. Trump told reporters on Wednesday the letter was great and that he would love to read it out loud, but did not do so. Trump has said previously that a second summit with Kim was likely in January or February, though he wrote on Twitter last month he was in no hurry. In his address on Tuesday, Kim said denuclearization was his firm will and North Korea had declared at home and abroad that we would neither make and test nuclear weapons any longer nor use and proliferate them. However, he warned that North Korea might be compelled to explore a new path to defend its sovereignty if the United States seeks to force something upon us unilaterally ... and remains unchanged in its sanctions and pressure. In spite of Trumps words, Kims comments have fueled doubts over whether North Korea intends to give up a nuclear weapons program it has long considered essential to its security. Analysts said Kims message sent clear signals that North Korea, which has sought acceptance as a responsible nuclear power, was willing to stay in talks with Washington and Seoul this year - but on its own terms. North Koreas main state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary on Thursday last year saw wonderful changes and great movements in North Koreas relations with the South Korea and the United States, but progress in inter-Korean relations were locked up in stagnation because of U.S policies. The U.S. still remains unchanged in the policy hostile towards the DPRK, the paper wrote, using the initials of North Koreas official name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. The paper accused the United States of having a a sinister intention to deprive the DPRK of its nuclear weapons and bring it to its knees without goodwill to build a new, good relationship with the DPRK. The U.S. is urged to do what it should do for the improvement of the DPRK-U.S. relations, not making useless admonition while meddling in the issue of north-south relations, an internal issue of the Korean nation, it said. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made several trips to Pyongyang last year but the two sides have yet to reschedule an abruptly canceled November meeting between him and senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol aimed at paving the way for a second summit. As well as demanding a lifting of sanctions, Pyongyang has been seeking an official end to the 1950-1953 Korean War in response to its initial, unilateral steps that have included dismantling its only known nuclear testing site and a missile engine facility. U.S. officials have said the extent of initial North Korean steps was not confirmed and could be easily reversed. Washington has halted some large-scale military exercises with South Korea to aid negotiations, but has called for strict global sanctions enforcement until North Koreas full, verifiable denuclearization. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 3 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: Ten new defense industry projects will be developed in Turkey, Trend reports referring to the country's Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM). Some 300 million Turkish liras have been allocated for the projects, according to the SSM. All new projects of the defense industry will be developed as part of the Turkish governments "Vision 2023" plan. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has earlier said that Turkey will strengthen the defense industry and will become a world leader in the manufacture of defense products. Erdogan noted that no obstacles can stop the development of Turkey's defense industry. "I personally instruct all law enforcement bodies not to import defense products from abroad. Turkey is capable of providing itself with relevant products," Erdogan said. Erdogan noted that mass production of Turkish "ALTAY" tanks will soon begin. "Turkey is forced to strengthen its defense industry," he added. In January-November 2018, exports of the Turkish defense industry grew by 16.05 percent compared to the same period in 2017, reaching $1.782 billion. In the first 11 months of 2018, products of the Turkish defense industry worth $150.5 million were exported to Oman. During the reported period, products of the Turkish defense industry worth $72.3 million were exported to the Netherlands and $71.6 million to India. In the recent years, Turkey has invested about $35 billion in the defense industry. (1 USD = 5.3412 TRY on Jan. 3) --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Former Moscow Region Finance Minister Alexei Kuznetsov accused of fraud and embezzlement to the tune of 14 bln rubles ($ 201.3 mln) has been extradited from France to Russia, the press service of the Russian Prosecutor-Generals Office informed, Trend reports referring to TASS. "The French competent authorities have complied with the request of the Russian Prosecutor-Generals Office concerning the extradition of former Moscow Region Finance Minister Alexei Kuznetsov for criminal prosecution under Part 4 of Section 159, Part 4 of Section 160 and Part 3 of Section 174.1 of Russias Criminal Code. Kuznetsov is accused of committing fraud (ten crimes), embezzlement (three crimes) and legalizing property acquired as a result of committing crimes (nine crimes)," the Prosecutor-Generals Office said. According to investigators, Kuznetsov and his accomplices inflicted damage on the Moscow Region government, housing and utility enterprises and the Mosobltransinvest company to the tune of over 14 bln rubles. On January 3, Kuznetsov accompanied by officers of Russias Federal Penitentiary Service and the Russian Interpol Bureau was extradited to Russia. "This became possible due the fact that the senior officials of the Russian Prosecutor-Generals Office place special emphasis on international cooperation and are actively involved in it. Permanent cooperation with our French counterparts makes it possible for us to overcome the existing barriers caused by differences in our legal systems," the Prosecutor-Generals Office noted. Mexico has sent the United States a diplomatic note requesting a thorough investigation into tear gas incidents that occurred near the border on January 1 and November 25, the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release on Thursday, Trend reports citing Sputnik. "The Foreign Ministry sent a diplomatic note to the US Embassy today regarding the January 1 incident at the San Diego-Tijuana border in which it requests a thorough investigation into both the January 1 and the November 25 incidents that took place in the same area," the release said. "The note deplores the occurrence of any sort of violent act on the border with Mexico." The Mexican Foreign Ministry will assemble a meeting of the Border Violence Prevention Council with the Department of Homeland Security, the release said, without providing a specific date. The ministry said the note reiterates Mexico's commitment to protect the human rights and safety of all migrants. It added that the Mexican government would continue to focus on cooperation to address the issue of migration and recognize it as a shared responsibility. On January 1, US immigration authorities fired tear gas at migrants after more than 100 of them attempted to rush the US border in a bid to enter the country illegally. A similar incident occurred on November 25, when groups of migrants broke off from a larger protest at the border and attempted to cross illegally into the United States. Media reports said that children were among those affected by the smoke in both incidents. From January 1989 to Dec. 31, 2018, some 95,265 Kashmiris became martyrs, Trend reports referring to Pakistan's Dispatch News Desk (DND) news agency. As per the new statistics released by the Research Section of KMT, during the last 29 years, the Indian troops arrested 145,504 Kashmiris while 7,120 died during the custody. The KMT said that 22,896 women were widowed, 107,754 children were orphaned whereas 11,111 women were gang-raped or molested. In addition, according to the KMT, 109,201 structures including houses, shops, and commercial buildings etc were arsoned and destroyed. Only in December 2018, 31 Kashmiris were martyred by Indian troops, 375 were tortured/injured, 162 were arrested while four women were gang-raped/molested. Opposition members of Bangladeshs parliament boycotted a swearing-in ceremony on Thursday, after rejecting results of a general election that they said was rigged to give Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina her third straight term, Trend reports referring to Reuters. Hasinas ruling alliance won more than 90 percent of the seats contested in Sundays election, which was marred by accusations of ballot stuffing, voter intimidation and violence that killed at least 17 people. Hasina and her ruling Awami League party have dismissed the accusations. While all 291 newly elected members of parliament, including Hasina, from the ruling bloc were sworn in, the seven opposition members stayed away. They must take their oath within three months or forfeit their seats. Leaders of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) could not immediately be reached for comment. The BNP sent a letter to the government on Wednesday seeking permission to meet their leader, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who has been in jail since February on what they call trumped up charges. On Thursday, New York-based Human Rights Watch said the run-up to the vote was characterized by violence and intimidation against the opposition ... and the misuse of laws to limit free speech. It called for an independent and impartial investigation of the accusations of electoral abuses. Reports of ballot stuffing, intimidation of voters, and ruling party control of voting locations on election day mean that an independent and impartial commission should be formed to determine the extent of the violations, Brad Adams, Asia director at the rights group, said in a statement. Western government, including the United State and the European Union, have condemned the election-day violence and called for investigation of a range of irregularities. Hasina said after the results came out that the vote was largely peaceful and voters had taken part enthusiastically. The BNP has said its workers were being attacked across the country by Awami League activists. The ruling party has denied the charges. Hasina, whose father, state founder Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated in a coup in 1975, has alternated in and out of power for nearly three decades with her main rival, BNP leader Khaleda. Khaleda was First Lady when her husband, Ziaur Rahman, was president from 1977 until he was assassinated in 1981. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gained pop star status among Brazilians during a five-day visit to their country to attend the inauguration of the new president, Jair Bolsonaro, Trend reports referring to Times of Israel. Brazils most influential primetime newscasts, Jornal Nacional and Fantastico, dedicated several minutes to coverage of the first sitting Israeli prime minister to visit Brazil. The warm feelings between Israels right-wing prime minister and Brazils most right-wing president in three decades played out in public events and on social media. They contrasted with the previous 16 years of tension between the two countries under Brazils left-wing regimes. This visit is unique, historical, a turnover in the relationship between Israel and Brazil. Its a great start of year 2019, Israels ambassador to Brazil, Yossi Shelley, told JTA. Bibi crowns Bolsonaros once-in-a-lifetime moment, Israels honorary consul, Osias Wurman, told JTA to explain Netanyahus unexpected popularity. This city was the starting point for Netanyahu along with his wife, Sara, and their son, Yair. After landing, the prime minister headed straight to the Copacabana fort, where he was surprised to be awarded the National Order of the Southern Cross, Brazils highest national honor for high-ranking guests, by Bolsonaro. We will be starting a difficult government from January. In order to overcome the obstacles, well need good allies, good friends, good brothers. Like Benjamin Netanyahu, Bolsonaro said about the only foreign leader he met prior to being sworn in. Bolsonaro also joined Netanyahu at a Dec. 28 ceremony at the Kehilat Yaacov synagogue in the heart of Copacabana, Rios most heavily Jewish neighborhood. Some 500 members of the 30,000-strong Jewish community there attended the ceremony at the Orthodox synagogue, shouting mito (Portuguese for myth or legend) at Bolsonaro, and Netanyahus nickname, Bibi. We cant understand that we had to wait over 70 years for an Israeli prime minister to visit Brazil, Netanyahu said in Hebrew, calling Bolsonaro yedidi, my friend, and mitos. Its not just friendship, not a pact of interest, its also a pact of brothers. Bolsonaro said: It is with great honor that today I meet the man that is to me an example of patriotism, austerity and work for his people. I have always mentioned Israel as an example. Look what they dont have and see what they are. Look at Brazil, look what we have and see what we dont have. Well be more than just good partners, well be brothers. Back at their hotel, the Netanyahus held a private Friday evening Shabbat ceremony, where Freddy Glatt, the 90-year-old president of the Brazilian Association of Holocaust Survivors in Rio, offered the kiddush blessing over the wine. His visit is very positive to show Brazilians the good things about Israel, Glatt told JTA. Despite the leftist people who are usually harsh on him, he is very nice and surprisingly behaved with simplicity. Like most Cariocas, or Rio natives, the Netanyahus chose the beach to enjoy the 95-degree weather on Saturday morning. While Yair, 27, took a helicopter and went on a yacht ride at a pristine island off Rio, the prime minister and his wife took a stroll that drew the attention of locals and tourists. A scene of the pair eating at a seafront restaurant fueled a media spectacle. When someone in the crowd of onlookers yelled Free Palestine, Netanyahu immediately added from Hamas. On Sunday, the couple was escorted by Rio state governor Wilson Witzel and his wife for a visit to Sugarloaf Mountain, a city landmark. They headed for the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue, but the prime minister could not leave the car for security reasons. At night, the statue was lit up with the blue-and-white colors of the Israeli flag. The Israeli prime minister met with Jewish officials from several Brazilian states, including those concerned about the impact of Netanyahu and Bolsonaros right-wing politics. The Jewish community is quite diverse and we will work so that political differences do not affect our unity, Fernando Lottenberg, president of the Brazilian Israelite Confederation, told JTA the day after Bolsonaro was elected in October. At a news conference, Netanyahu highlighted Israels innovation and high technology contributions to the world. He also spoke of Bolsonaros plans for the Israeli Embassy. President Bolsonaro said hell move the embassy to Jerusalem. Its not a matter of if, but when, Netanyahu told the audience about the Brazilian leaders promise during the campaign. President Trump said the same thing, he moved the embassy. And President Bolsonaro will move the embassy as well. Israel also offered assistance to Brazil in domestic security a key part of the Bolsonaro campaign in the crime-ridden country including the sale of drones with facial recognition technology. Bolsonaros pro-Israel stance during his campaign and Netanyahus eagerness to embrace the new leader have earned mixed reactions at home. Reporters at a briefing with an unnamed senior Israeli political officer noted that Bolsonaro has denigrated women, the LGBTQ community and minorities. Netanyahu has his own positions and no one can diminish them, both regarding women and regarding gays, the official replied, according to Haaretz. He is liberal in these matters, and its not just political correctness. But our relations with countries like Brazil are important. We do not have the privilege of hunkering down in our fortress of purity. Netanyahu was joined later by Witzel and Rios mayor, Marcelo Crivella, at a meeting with several evangelical Christian leaders who, fiercely pro-Israel, played a pivotal role in supporting Bolsonaros election. Brazil has the worlds second-largest Christian population and the largest Catholic population. We have no better friends in the world than the evangelical community, and the evangelical community has no better friend in the world than Israel, Netanyahu said. You are our brothers and sisters, and we protect the rights of Christians. President Bolsonaros first name in Hebrew is Yair, which is also the name of our son. It means he who brings light. And I think that we have now an opportunity together to bring a lot of light to the people of Brazil and the people of Israel. This is an alliance of brothers. During the event, the Brazilian state of Amazonas launched a commemorative stamp featuring a picture of Netanyahu and also honoring Israels 70th birthday. Tuesday, New Years Eve, was a day to meet businesspeople who flew to Rio from all corners of Brazil. The following morning they flew to Brasilia for Bolsonaros inauguration. Lets unite the people, value the family, respect the religions and our Jewish-Christian tradition, Brazils president said during his speech in the Brazilian congress on Jan. 1 after being greeted by the Netanyahus. In the capital city, Netanyahu held separate meetings with the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo; Chiles president, Sebastian Pinera; and the president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who recently expressed his willingness to move its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. Netanyahu said Bolsonaro has accepted his invitation to visit Israel in March, weeks before Israel is slated to hold national elections. Until a few months ago Brazil was the unattainable goal of Israeli diplomacy. Overnight it has turned from hostile to sympathetic, Netanyahu said. This is a partnership that has been meaning to happen, meant to happen, and were going to make it happen very fast. Israel and the US have not yet reached an agreement regarding the sale of 12 F-16 C/D Barak fighter jets to Croatia, a deal which is worth more than half a billion dollars, with Croatia demanding a decision be made by Friday, Trend reports referring to The Jerusalem Post. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Brasilia on Tuesday, Israel got almost everything it asked in the meeting, a senior diplomatic official told reporters on Wednesday on Netanyahus plane back to Israel after a five-day visit to Brazil. Israel had eight requests, and seven of them were answered, the official said. The only issue that remains for discussion is the jet sale to Croatia. The US is demanding that the F-16s planes they sold to Israel decades ago and that Israel has since upgraded be stripped of the Israeli technology added to them before being sold. The official said that the issue is stuck deep in bureaucracy. The Total Croatia News website reported on Wednesday that it is expected that Croatia will cancel its decision to buy the planes if the Israeli upgrades are not included. The Axios website reported that Netanyahu has been personally involved in trying to resolve the issue, raising it with former secretary of defense James Mattis, who rejected his request to soften the USs conditions for the deal. Last month, Channel 10 reported that Washington was miffed that Israel added advanced Israeli-made electronic systems to the planes, giving Jerusalem an edge over US planes in the bidding for the lucrative tender. In another diplomatic matter, which was raised during meetings on the sidelines of the inauguration of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday, the senior diplomatic official said that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told Netanyahu that Hungary is putting forward a new plan for the Holocaust museum to be built in Budapest. Netanyahu, according to the official, said that the historical content needs to be approved by the relevant bodies who deal with the study of the Holocaust, such as Yad Vashem and the Holocaust Museum in Washington. Last month, Orban sent a delegation to Israel to discuss the contentious museum, which has been named the House of Fates. The museum is being built by the Hungarian government at a cost of over 28 million euro. The main curator of the museum, Maria Schmidt, is a controversial historian who has equated Nazism with communism, something widely viewed as a form of Holocaust distortion. Israel has made it clear to Hungary that it will support the museum only if it meets objective historical standards set by Yad Vashem and similar institutions. Yad Vashem has publicly criticized the museum, saying that it ignores anti-Jewish laws passed by the Hungarian government in 1938, the deaths of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews in forced labor imposed by the government, and the participation of Hungarian authorities in the deportation of Jews to Auschwitz. Britain is more likely to end up leaving the European Union without a deal if parliament rejects the agreement Prime Minister Theresa May has negotiated with Brussels, Brexit minister Stephen Barclay said on Thursday, Trend reports referring to Reuters. With less than three months until Brexit lawmakers will make a pivotal decision later this month: accept Mays plans for a managed exit and relatively close economic ties, or reject the deal and spawn huge uncertainty about the countrys next steps. No deal will be far more likely if MPs (Members of Parliament) reject the governments Brexit deal later this month, Barclay wrote in the Daily Express newspaper, arguing that Mays plan was the only workable deal available. May is seeking extra reassurances from Brussels to help persuade skeptical lawmakers within her own party, and the small Northern Irish party that props up her minority government, to back her plan. The vote is due in the week beginning Jan. 14. , whose primary remit is to make sure Britain is ready in case a deal cannot be reached, said that next week the government would step up its campaign to make sure citizens are prepared for such an outcome. On Tuesday we will start a new phase in our public information campaign, using radio and social media to further raise awareness about the need to prepare, he wrote. Sterling continued to fall against the U.S. Dollar, driven in part by growing concerns over the course of the Brexit process. Former Brexit minister David Davis said in an opinion essay published on Wednesday that UK Prime Minister Theresa May should delay the vote on her Brexit deal for leaving the European Union, Trend reported citing Reuters. The more we prepare to leave the EU without a deal, the more likely a good deal becomes, Davis said in an opinion piece in the Telegraph newspaper. He wrote that the EU is worried about losing the 39 billion pounds divorce payment that would come with a Brexit deal. French police arrested Eric Drouet, one of the key figures in the so-called yellow vest protests, near Place de la Concorde in central Paris over, Trend reported citing Sputnik. Drouet was arrested for the "organization of a non-declared manifestation" late on Wednesday, the FranceInfo broadcaster, reported, citing a police source. The outlet added that Drouet and around 50 other people had arrived at the square to light candles for those injured during the yellow west protests. Apart from the opposition figure, a lot of other participants of the campaign have been arrested for identity checks. The broadcaster noted that Drouet already faced trial in France in the wake of his previous arrest on December 22 over illegal possession of a police baton and participation in a group established for the purposes of violent activities. Notably, on December 6, Drouet suggested that the participants of the yellow west protests should enter the Elysee Palace, which is the French presidential residence. The yellow vest protests, named after hi-vis jackets worn by French drivers, began in November as a series of rallies against the fuel tax hike. Though the government has since backtracked on its fuel tax reform, the protests have grown into demonstrations against economic policies of French President Emmanuel Macron. The protests have been overshadowed by violence between demonstrators and law enforcement. British police said on Wednesday they were increasingly confident that a man who attacked three people with a kitchen knife at Manchesters Victoria station on New Years Eve acted alone, Trend reported citing Reuters. Police had already said that the 25-year-old man had been detained under the Mental Health Act. He is now in a secure medical facility. The investigation has moved at a very fast pace and detectives are increasingly confident that the man acted alone in the final stages of the attack, Greater Manchester Police said in a statement. The investigation will continue and will examine if anybody may have encouraged or assisted the man to commit the attack. China is working to restore the ecosystem of coral reefs in the disputed South China Sea, the Ministry of Natural Resources said, amid concerns that its land reclamation operations have damaged the environment, Trend reports referring to South China Morning Post. Facilities to protect and recover coral were installed on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief reefs, the three biggest of Chinas seven artificial islands in the Spratly group, and operations began at the start of the year, the ministry said. On Tuesday, its website announced surveys to identify more areas where coral would be protected and restored involving a natural recovery approach to help the reefs repair themselves complemented by artificial methods, and techniques developed especially for the Spratlys. In July 2016, an international tribunal ruled that Chinas land reclamation and construction of artificial islands had caused severe harm to the coral reef environment. The tribunal said China had violated its obligation to preserve and protect fragile ecosystems and the habitat of depleted, threatened, or endangered species and inflicted irreparable harm on the marine environment. Beijing dismissed the ruling and said its construction was a green project. In 2015, Chinas State Oceanic Administration said construction did not alter the health of the Spratly Islands ecosystem, but it suggested planting, repairing and transplanting corals after construction. China carried out a land reclamation programme in the Spratlys between 2013 and 2016 that expanded reefs some of which at first were submerged rocks at high tide into islands as large as 558 hectares (1,379 acres). Ownership of the Spratlys is contested by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, and the Chinese construction project sparked international criticism over environmental damage even before the tribunal ruled. Constructor vessels shredded the coral, sucked up the debris and blew it onto land. The biggest of these ships was the dredger Tianjing that shifted about 4,500 cubic metres of materials every hour, enough to nearly fill two Olympic-size swimming pools. Chinas foreign ministry praised this as a simulation of the natural process of sea storms blowing away and moving biological scraps which gradually evolve into oasis on the sea. But it was criticised by marine biologists including John McManus of the University of Miami the chairman of a five-year study of a US government coral reef conservation programme who in 2016 said the process kills basically everything living around coral reefs and lagoons. Beijing also claimed in 2015 and 2016 that coral ecology was damaged by natural causes and overfishing long before construction began. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Natural Resources said ecological protection and restoration was a mission. To protect the coral ecological system is the key to ensuring the ecological security of the Spratlys as well as the entire South China Sea, it said. A total of 17 people, including 14 Algerian nationals, have been arrested in the northern city of Tangier for attempting to migrate illegally to Europe, the Moroccan police said in a statement on Thursday, Trend reports with the reference to Xinhua. According to the statement, policemen found the would-be immigrants in a house along with three people suspected of organizing illegal immigration operations and human trafficking activities. During the police raid, authorities seized Algerian passports and identity cards, lifejackets, a zodiac inflator, sums of money and two cars suspected of being used to transport would-be illegal immigrants, the source pointed out. An investigation was opened under the supervision of the prosecutor's office to shed light on the activities of the suspects and on the possible ramifications of this network at the national and international levels, the source noted. Morocco has seen a significant hike in illegal immigration attempts this year. According to the Moroccan Interior Ministry, authorities have foiled over 76,000 illegal immigration attempts between January and November. During the same period, the country also dismantled 174 illegal immigration networks, up from some 70 in 2017. The first female president of Georgia Salome Zurabishvili has issued her first pardon decree, releasing three female inmates, Trend reports referring to Agenda.ge. The presidents administration has reported that one of the women is pregnant, another has an underage child and the third is a mother of three children. Zurabishvili says that she may change several members of the Pardon Commission in the coming days. The Presidents Pardon Commission is composed of 11 individuals, mainly lawyers from the civil sector, public figures, the Public Defender and a spiritual representative from Georgias Patriarchate. The group must discuss all cases sent to the Pardon Commission by inmates or their families and decide which prisoners they believe deserve to be pardoned. The list then is sent to the president. Tehran, Iran, Jan. 3 Trend: Director of the National Iranian Carpet Center says that a bartering mechanism has been designed to maintain the export markets for handmade carpets. "In a mechanism designed to barter carpets with imported goods, exporting countries to Iran will get carpets," Fereshteh Dastpak said referring to US sanctions, Trend reports citing IRNA. "Countries such as China could potentially be customers of Iran's handmade carpets and enter the carpet bartering system," she continued. Pointing to the US sanctions against Iran and the suspension of carpet exports to that country, she says, "Given the US market has always been the destination for 30 percent of Irans handmade carpets, with the help of NGOs, we are seeking to lift the carpet sanctions." Last year, 5,400 tons of Iranian handmade carpets worth $425 million were exported. The United States is the largest handmade carpet market in the world; last year, it imported $126 million worth carpets. Germany, Lebanon, Britain and Japan are the most important export markets for Iranian handmade carpets after the US. Tehran, Iran, Jan.3 Trend: The central building of the Free Zone of Imam Khomeini Airport in Iran will be opened with the participation of the Minister of Road and Urban Development and the Secretary of Supreme Council of Free Zones, Imam Khomeini Airport Town Company caretaker Ali Rostami told Trend. Talking about the advantages of the Imam Khomeini airport town, Rostami said that the airport town has the same exemptions as other free zones. 'In terms of scope, there are 1,500 hectares of free zone and 2,500 hectares of special economic zone." "Our first priority is cargo. We set up a free and special zone in this regard, and according to the talks we had with the railway authorities, we considered to pass the Tehran - Qom - Isfahan railroad through the airport town, and now this railway is running, he said. Our transport is to connect to rail or land transport, which is already provided by its airborne infrastructure, and the old railroads, but it does not have the ability to connect to the airport, he said. It is necessary to provide the platform with infrastructure in advance to transfer the airborne cargo through the airport, he added. For this purpose a cargo terminal is needed in order to increase the import and export of the goods, Rostami said. Tehran, Iran, Jan.3 Trend Iran and Afghanistan are in a dispute over water in the Helmand River, and the issue is planned to be discussed at an upcoming meeting in Tehran. Iran Energy Minister Reza Ardekanian noted the importance of Iran's Helmand River water rights. "Iran would not give up on its water rights, therefore the issue is to be discussed with officials of Afghanistan, he said, Trend reports citing ILNA. The Helmand River (also spelled Hirmand in Persian) is the longest river in Afghanistan and the primary watershed for the Sistan Basin on the border with Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan Province. The water treaty of 1973 had assigned Iran with 820 million cubic meters of Helmand River annual water share, however construction of dams by Afghanistan on the river has reduced the volume of water flow into Iran. Ardekanian also noted that Iran looks to increase the production capacity of power plants in Sistan and Baluchestan Province to 2.685 megawatt in early 2021. "The production capacity of power plants in this province is to double until 2021. The Energy Ministry has allocated more than 974 million euros for the project", he added. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 3 By Elnur Baghishov - Trend: As many as 130 contracts have been signed for commissioning of production units in the Khorramdasht Industrial Park in Irans Qazvin province, and 155 hectares of land have been allocated to investors, Director Executive of Qazvin Industrial Parks Company Hamidreza Khanpour said in an interview with IRNA, Trend reports. He said that 63 production units were commissioned in the Khorramdasht Industrial Park and 1,600 permanent jobs were created. He added that the work is nearing completion in 66 production units at the park as well. In case if these production units are commissioned by the end of the next year (starts March 21, 2019), another 5,000 jobs will be created, he said. He noted that 2,200 hectares out of 3,000 hectares of land have been handed over to the ownership of the Qazvin Industrial Parks Company. The Khorramdasht Industrial Park is located in the Takistan district of the Qazvin province. Tehran, Iran, Jan.3 Trend: Iran's cooperation with India regarding the development of Chabahar Port project is expected to inspire further investments, and possibly trigger the return o international shipping companies to Iran. "It's expected that by start of India Ports Global Limited (IPGL) operation at Chabahar Port, other international shipping companies would return to Iran," said the managing director of the Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran Mohammad Rastad, Trend reports citing ILNA. "One of the main operative work of IPGL for the Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran is marketing, attracting goods and increase of cargo traffic," he said during the meeting with India Ambassador in Tehran. The official noted Chabahar Day on February 26 would be celebrated by all the working companies in the port. "One of the main reasons of Chabahar agreement was the entrance of international liner companies," he said. "Implementing proper equipment for big ships and unloading cargo in the port, would help this goal, hopefully the work of Indian company would create conditions to cooperate with big shipping liners." "Development of economic cooperation between Iran, India and Afghanistan is very important and using high potential of Chabahar port would facilitate the process," he added. The two officials reviewed other related issues to improve the finalization of the Chabahar port agreement. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 3 By Elnur Baghishov - Trend: Iraq isnt obliged to abide by sanctions imposed by the US against Iran and will be pursuing options to continue bilateral trade, Iraqs Foreign Minister Mohamed Ali Alhakim said, Trend reports via Tasnim News Agency. On Dec. 20, 2018, the US granted Baghdad a 90-day extension to a waiver on abiding by the sanctions that were re-imposed on the Islamic Republic in November. Trade between the two neighboring countries is thought to amount to around $12 billion, while Iran provides around 40 percent of Iraq's electricity needs. Although Iraq faces possible censure by the US if it fails to cease its trading with Iran by the end of the waiver period, the foreign minister said his country could continue relations with Iran. These sanctions, the siege, or what is called the embargo, these are unilateral, not international. We are not obliged (to follow) them, Alhakim said. He said a number of "possibilities" had been suggested that could keep trade routes open with Iran, "including dealing in Iraqi dinars in bilateral trade". Last month, Iraq's President Barham Salih visited Iran and discussed strengthening economic ties between the two countries with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani. "The economic exchange between the two countries is $12 billion and we can increase this to $20 billion, said Rouhani after the meeting. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 3 By Elnur Baghishov - Trend: The ban on using mobile phones by Iranian MPs has been put on the parliaments agenda, Gholam Reza Kateb, chairman of the Iranian Parliament Rules of Procedures Codification Committee, said in an interview with ISNA, Trend reports. He said that the committee approved the draft by the member of National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Hossein Naqavi Hosseini about 2 months ago on the ban on using mobile phones by MPs, adding that 140-150 MPs have signed this draft. This draft is on the agenda of the parliament, he noted. This ban may be effective in improving the legislations quality, he said. Before entering the parliamentary sessions, the MPs will be able to leave their phones in a specified place, he added. Tehran, Iran, Jan.3 Trend: The governor of the Iran's Central Bank (CBI) and the Indian Ambassador to Iran, in an assessment of the latest state of banking and trade relations between the two countries, announced the preparation of a financial mechanism between the two countries. The Indian ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Surat Kumar, met with Governor of the Central Bank of Iran Abdul Nasser Hemmati, on Monday evening. The latest state of banking and business relations between the two countries was assessed during the meeting, Trend reports citing IRNA. Kumar said the financial mechanism between the two countries is being prepared and the parties will carry out their business and banking activities on the basis of the Indian government's exemption from the US sanctions against Iran. The meeting also focused on facilitating banking and the operations of the construction of Chabahar Port which is being carried out out by Indian investment. The US has excluded the development of the Chabahar Port in Iran from the maximum-pressure sanctions against Tehran. The exemption for Chabahar is linked to the ports importance for both India and Afghanistan, and likewise the importance of India and Afghanistan to US foreign policy aims. The port project is simply too critical for India and can benefit Afghanistan immensely. Tehran, Iran, Jan.3 Trend: A Member of Iranian Parliament said that at the meeting between the Parliament members and minister of industry, mine and trade, the representatives threatened to lift the ban on the import of foreign cars, if the prices on domestic cars are not lowered. The warning was made during Iranian Minister of Industry, Mines and Trade Reza Rahmani's last week meeting with a fraction of the parliament, for discussions on the domestic car prices. "We talked over a number of issues at the meeting. First of all, we urged them to comply with obligations regarding the pre-sales. Unfortunately, our carmakers sold their products to people in recent months, and now they're increasing prices, Iranian parliament member Gholam Ali Jafarzadeh told Trend. The minister of Industry Mr. Rahmani said to do his best to force automakers to deliver their products at the pre-sales price, said the MP. Jafarzadeh went on to say that the Iran Khodro and Saipa's rise in prices, was unlawful, and even the amount of inspections carried out, didn't seem to help matter improve. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 3 By Elnur Baghishov Trend: There is an opportunity for the Iranian citizens to get a one month visa at 20 rials (Oman's currency) which is 5.6 million Iranian rials (about $133) at the Muscat International Airport, the Iranian Customs Office said, Trend reported via ISNA. Due to recent devaluation in Iran, the number of Iranians traveling abroad has decreased. It should be noted that Oman is one of the favorite countries to visit for Iranians during winter. The US imposed sanctions on Iran in November 2018. The US is committed to prevent Iran from obtaining foreign currencies, in particular US dollars, euros. The experts say that one of the ways to deal with this issue is the signing of bilateral or multilateral agreements. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.3 Trend: Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Combine (AMMC) in Uzbekistan plans to build a new copper concentration plant, Trend reports citing UzDaily. The TOMS Research and Design Institute (Russia) will develop a project for a new factory, which is scheduled to be launched by 2022, according to AMMC. The new factory will use rational schemes for enrichment of minerals, which, among other things, will make it possible to increase the output of marketable products - copper, molybdenum and gold. The Russian side should provide for the possibility of processing oxidized ores, slags and old tailings tailings, which will also provide an opportunity to increase the production of copper and gold. The TOMS Research and Design Institute will be involved in the modernization of two operating copper enrichment plants. Here the work will begin next year. These factories are now processing sulphide copper-molybdenum ores from the Kalmakyr and Sary-Chek deposits, from which, in addition to non-ferrous metals, precious and rare metals are extracted. Equipment of factories are outdated and need to be updated, AMMC notes. The modernization will improve the technological performance and introduce modern technological solutions for the enrichment of copper-molybdenum ores. The President of Kyrgyzstan Sooronbai Jeenbekov expressed satisfaction with the results of the year. He stated this at a meeting with representatives of three branches of government, Trend reports referring to 24.kg. According to the presidential press service, Sooronbai Jeenbekov met with the Speaker of the Parliament Dastanbek Dzhumabekov, the Prime Minister Mukhammedkaly Abylgaziev and the Chairwoman of the Supreme Court Gulbara Kalieva. The head of state congratulated them on the New Year. He drew attention to the coordinated work of the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government aimed at the prosperity of the state and strengthening the welfare of the people. In 2018, plans were shaped, a basis for reforms in all spheres of the countrys life was laid. We face major tasks in the implementation of these plans, development of the state, and improvement of the social and economic status of citizens. I wish the country prosperity in 2019, and the Kyrgyzstanis peace and well-being, Sooronbai Jeenbekov stressed. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 3 By Rashid Shirinov Trend: A direct flight from Shymkent, Kazakhstan, to Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has been launched, Trend reports with reference to the Kazakh media. Shymkents city administration informed that Fly Dubai planes will operate the flights between the two cities. It is expected that the frequency of the flights will be twice a week. The duration of the flights will be three hours. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @ShirinovRashid Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 3 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: Turkey expects to get results from oil and gas exploration in the Black Sea until mid-2019, Trend reports referring to Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources. Turkey's goal is to reduce the country's dependence on hydrocarbon imports. "In order to reduce the import of oil and gas, active work is currently underway to explore hydrocarbon resources," the ministry said. The ministry also noted that a new seismic survey vessel, Fatih, started operation in the Black Sea for oil and gas exploration in November 2018. A law permitting oil exploration in forests and national parks came into force in Turkey in April 2014. According to a report of the ministry, a total of 56 wells have been drilled as part of exploration of new oil and gas fields in Turkey since 2014, of which 54 are onshore, and two are offshore. In 2017, 1,863 exploration projects were carried out in Turkey to search for new oil and gas fields. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 3 By Sara Israfilbayova - Trend: Azerbaijan has played a leading role in OPECs Declaration of Cooperation, Mohammad Barkindo, OPEC Secretary General told Trend. At OPEC, we are extremely grateful for the robust support and excellent contribution of Azerbaijan, and we look forward to keep working closely with the country, as we move forward to enhance the framework of cooperation, he said. Barkindo noted that he visited Baku twice last year and met with President Ilham Aliyev, Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov and other senior officials. I would also like to recognize, with utmost gratitude and respect, the late Natig Aliyev, who was a driving force in the lead-up to the Declaration of Cooperation. He left a rich legacy and is fondly remembered, said the OPEC secretary general. The Declaration of Cooperation constitutes an unprecedented milestone in the history of the OPEC. For the first time ever, the Member Countries of OPEC coordinated with 11 non-OPEC oil producing countries in a concerted effort to accelerate the stabilization of the global oil market through voluntary production adjustments, which amounted to approximately 1.8 million barrels per day. The Declaration was an outcome of the 1st OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting held on 10 December 2016 and was effective for an initial period of six months. The 5th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting was held in Vienna, Austria, on December 7, 2018. The meeting participants decided to adjust the overall production by 1.2 million barrels per day, effective as of January 2019 for an initial period of six months. The contributions from OPEC and the voluntary contributions from non-OPEC participating countries of the Declaration of Cooperation will correspond to 0.8 million barrels per day (2.5 percent), and 0.4 million barrels per day (two percent), respectively. In January-November 2018, Azerbaijan produced 35.47 million tons of oil and gas condensate, which is 0.1 percent more than in the same period of 2017, according to the Azerbaijani State Statistics Committee. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @IsrafilbekovaS Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 3 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline will significantly increase Turkmenistans export capacity, Trend reports citing the World Economic League Table 2019 (WELT) of the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr). "China is currently Turkmenistans largest customer for natural gas exports. However, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline is set to come online in the early 2020s, and will significantly expand Turkmenistans export capacity. The idea of a Trans-Caspian pipeline has also been explored, which would provide access to the European market," said the report. Cebr said that Turkmenistans economy remains strong, with GDP growth of 6.2 percent forecast for 2018. "The recent pickup in hydrocarbon prices together with some restrictions on imports have lowered the current account deficit from nearly 20 percent of GDP in 2016 to 8 percent of GDP in 2018. The government is currently aiming to prioritize expenditures in growth-enhancing areas such as infrastructure in order to boost Turkmenistan's competitiveness. The Communications Ministry has also outlined plans to improve access to the internet and digital services, particularly in rural areas. " Cebr forecasts that the Turkmen economy will grow at an average annual rate of 5.7 percent over the next fifteen years, as increasing gas production is offset by a general decline in commodity prices. "This will see Turkmenistan move from 91st in the World Economic League Table in 2018 to 70th by 2033." The construction of the TAPI pipeline began in December 2015. The possible costs of the TAPI project vary within $7-10 billion. The total length of the pipeline, with a capacity of 33 billion cubic meters of gas per year will be 1,840 kilometers. The fuel will be supplied from the Galkynysh gas field in Turkmenistan, the second largest in the world. The length of the Turkmen section will be 205 kilometers. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 3 By Sara Israfilbayova - Trend: The increase in oil production, especially in the US, will continue to restrain price hike next year, expert Vassiliy Chekulaev, director general of Coface Russia, told Trend. Nevertheless, analysts at Coface believe that despite the constraining factors, oil prices will rise in the next 12 months, he said. The demand for oil in 2019 is unlikely to rise, he noted. "Thus, despite that in 2019, global economic growth is likely to slow down due to risks in the global market [trade wars, Brexit, crisis in Italy, deterioration of positions of developing countries in international market, etc.], based on current data, it is safe to assert that the global economy will continue to grow steadily and relatively quickly, maintaining a strong demand for hydrocarbons." "In addition, at a meeting of OPEC members Dec. 6, a decision was made to reduce oil production. The fact that the parties managed to reach an agreement means that in 2019, the supply in the market will decrease, and this will contribute to the growth of prices," Chekulaev added. He noted that next year, as the analysts at Coface say, the price will be relatively stable at $75. The expert added that the excess of supply, which exerts downward pressure on prices, appeared in November this year as a result of the simultaneous effect of three factors. The first factor is the approval of an increase in oil production by OPEC countries on June 23, he said. "This decision was made to help some OPEC countries that are in difficult economic situation, for example, Venezuela, experiencing a sharp crisis, and Iran, suffering greatly from the US sanctions," he noted. "As a result, Russia and Saudi Arabia significantly increased production, the latter to a record 11.2 million barrels per day." The second factor is the US sanctions against Iran imposed Nov. 4, which will reduce the supply in the hydrocarbon market and cause a price increase, he said. "However, the US government made exceptions in the sanctions for some buyers of Iranian oil, which allowed such major importers as China and India to continue unhindered trade with their Middle Eastern partner," he noted. "Thus, Iran managed to maintain significantly higher oil exports than analysts were expecting." The third factor is the consistent increase in oil reserves of the US, which also contributed to decrease in oil prices, he said. Chekulaev noted that in the first half of November, the US produced an average of 11.7 million barrels a day. If the trend continues, by the end of the year, the US may become the leading oil supplier in the global market, he added. "The collapse in oil prices is facilitated by a number of reasons, but the main one is the oversupply from three biggest exporters - Saudi Arabia, Russia and the US - and the concern of oil traders about the alarming trends in the global economy and their potential impact on the demand," he said. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @IsrafilbekovaS Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 3 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: This year will be key in ensuring the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) is commissioned and progressively ready for operations and the start of gas deliveries in 2020, TAP Managing Director Luca Schieppati said in an interview with Trend. "On the technical side, we will be focused on safely completing onshore pipeline construction works in Greece and Albania. Once mechanical completion is achieved, TAP will enter several phases to ensure the pipeline is entirely safe and ready for operations, in line with national and international safety and operations standards. These phases include pre-commissioning and commissioning," he said. Additionally, the managing director noted that 2019 will be marked by the completion of TAP compressor and metering stations in Greece and Albania as well as significantly progressing the offshore construction activities, onshore pipeline construction and the pipeline receiving terminal in Italy. "Finally, early 2019 we also expect to fully complete construction of the first section of the pipeline in Greece," Schieppati said. In parallel, he pointed out that TAP is very focused on preparations for commercial operations as a transmission system operator (TSO) and an Independent Transmission Operator (ITO). In 2019, the main deliverables of TAP commercial team will be finalizing and adopting the TAP Network Code and implementing the related Information and Communications Technology (ICT) tools, signing the Interconnection agreements with the adjacent TSOs as well as securing a series of commercial licenses to operate from the relevant authorities in the host countries, such as the Independent Natural Gas System operations license in Greece and the transmission license in Albania. "Our operations team is committed to safety, environment and efficiency, with a strong focus on availability and reliability. Therefore, a full Operations Readiness Programme has been established, which includes independent Operability Assurance by third parties. Our operations team is also building both the transportation services (e.g. dispatching, metering, balancing) and the asset management processes in order to be ready to operate efficiently and effectively," he said. Schieppati noted that maintenance plans have already been defined and shared with the local transmission system operators in Greece and Italy, and the maintenance joint venture for Albania. "All in all, there is still a lot of work ahead of us. But we are confident that TAP will continue to progress on time and on schedule, delivering a modern, safe and robust pipeline for the transport of Shah Deniz gas to Europe," he added. TAP project, worth 4.5 billion euros, is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union (EU). Connecting with the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) at the Greek-Turkish border, TAP will cross Northern Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea before coming ashore in Southern Italy to connect to the Italian natural gas network. TAP shareholders include BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent). --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 3 By Elnur Baghishov - Trend: In the current Iranian year (started March 21, 2018), so far, exports from Iran's Dogharoon Special Economic Zone to neighboring Afghanistan increased by 50 percent in terms weight and 180 percent in terms of USD value, executive director of the economic zone Hossein Aghaei said, Trend reports via ISNA. He noted that the zone is one of the main economic centers thanks to its proximity to Iran-Afghanistan border. Aghaei further added that Afghanistan's Herat city, which is not far from the Dogharoon economic zone, is also an economic hub. Dogharoon's proximity to Herat has created a safe haven for production, trade and services, he added. Metals, construction materials, bitumen, fuel, foodstuff and medium-density fiberboard (MDF) are the main export goods sent from Dogharoon Economic Zone to Afghanistan, he added. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 3 Trend: President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has attended the opening of a new residence of the Real Estate Services of the State Committee on Property Issues. Chairman of the State Committee on Property Issues Karam Hasanov informed the president of the conditions created there. The construction of the two-storey building started last May. A parking area was created, landscaping work was carried out, and green areas were laid out in the yard of the building. The president cut the ribbon symbolizing the opening of the building. President Aliyev was informed of the committees electronic services. The committee provides 40 electronic services to the citizens directly and through the e-Government portal. All necessary infrastructure was created in the building for the application of electronic information systems, and the building was supplied with the advanced ICT equipment. A total of 46 types of services will be provided for citizens there. The president was informed of the operation principle of the Satellite Surveillance System project used for land management. President Aliyev wished the staff success and posed for photographs together with them. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 3 By Elchin Mehdiyev Trend: 2018 can be described as a year full of many important events both for the whole world and for Azerbaijan, Samad Seyidov, head of the Azerbaijani delegation to PACE, told Trend. The last year was important from the point of view of implementation of energy, transport and other projects, Seyidov, who is also chairman of the parliamentary committee for international and interparliamentary relations, said. The most memorable event of 2018 in Azerbaijan was the re-election of Ilham Aliyev as the president. Seyidov stressed that this should be regarded as the most important event of the year, as all other achievements are directly related to this event. "The Azerbaijanis expressed their confidence towards President Aliyev, and it is natural that the president has been carrying out his work at the highest level, he said. Of course, Azerbaijan has achieved great success both in domestic and foreign policy." Seyidov stressed that such events as including the issue related to Azerbaijans territorial integrity in the resolution of the European Parliament, determination of the status of the Caspian Sea, high-level foreign visits, including the arrival of presidents, prime ministers, foreign delegations to Azerbaijan, holding various international forums in the country, the work on Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), the opening of the STAR Refinery in Turkey by the Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR can be mentioned. These and other achievements testify that 2018 was very successful, Seyidov stressed. He said that 2018 was also successful in terms of the development of Azerbaijans relations with neighboring countries. "During 2018, Azerbaijan further developed relations with Turkey, Georgia, Iran and Russia, he said. Azerbaijan was able to attract more trust and positive attitude from the Collective Security Treaty Organization than Armenia itself, which is a member of that organization, because Azerbaijan brought Armenias non-constructive position, which is contrary to good-neighborly relations, to the whole world." 2018 was significant for Azerbaijan from the point of view of security, Seyidov added. "Choosing Azerbaijan as a venue for holding a meeting between the highest military representatives of the US and Russia, holding a joint Azerbaijani-Turkish military parade and further strengthening our army are of particular importance, he said. Of course, all this influences the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, he said. The recent processes demonstrate that Azerbaijan welcomes peaceful settlement of the conflict, but does not exclude the military solution to the conflict; on the contrary, Armenia is afraid of both peaceful solution and military solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Seyidov added that 2018 was very successful for Azerbaijan and this gives grounds to assert that 2019 will be even more successful for the development of the country. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. Hours after Tehran was engulfed by an "obnoxious smell" its source still remains a mystery. An expert team has been set up to find the source of an unpleasant smell which started bothering the citizens of the Iranian capital on Wednesday evening, an official with the Environment Department of Tehran Province announced. Local reports on the source of the foul smell are highly contradictory. Initial reports said that it engulfed mainly the southern part of the capital after a burst in Tehran's sewage facility at Enghelab (Revolution) street. Later reports speculated that leakages in Tehran's oil refinery, as well as in its gas pipelines were responsible. However, all these reports were later dismissed as unfounded. The department of public relations at Tehran's Sewage System officially issued a statement, declaring that there was no report of any breakage in the system. In a similar response, Tehran's oil refinery, gas and water management entities said that no leaks have been reported in their facilities. Meanwhile, according to Iranian government's official news agency, IRNA, Samim Rouzbahani, the spokesman of Crisis Management Department of Tehran Municipality, said the source of the smell is reportedly from Hassanabad area in central Tehran. Investigations have begun in different parts of the city, local news outlets reported. The latest reports point the finger at Tehran's garbage dumps as the culprit. Speaking to the state-run Iran Students News Agency (ISNA), Tehran's representative to Majlis (parliament), Ms. Tayyebeh Seyavoshi cited Department of Environment officials as saying, "As the odor is not sulfurous and it rather smells like Ammonia, the source might be Tehran's main garbage depot near Kharizak, 31 kilometers (roughly 18.5 miles) south of the capital. In the meantime, another local MP, Ms. Fatemeh Zolqadr, believes that the source of the repulsive smell is Mellat (Nation) metro station in Tehran. While, officials have repeatedly insisted that there was no health hazard in the obnoxious odor, the head of Tehran City Council's Health Committee has cautioned that after the spread of the foul smell, the rate of the pollutant materials in Tehran's increased up to 40 percent. Tehran has been engulfed by smug in recent weeks. Currently, the volume of the smell has subsided in some parts of Tehran, but central parts of the city are still shrouded in it. Irans foreign minister says that Oman had informed Iran about Israeli prime minister Benjanim Netanyahus visit to the Arab country in late October. This was the first time in more than two months an Iranian official acknowledged that Tehran was informed beforehand about the historic trip. Mohammad Javad Zarif in an interview with Irans Hamshahri newspaper said Irans response to Oman was that the trip was not in line with Omans interests. After Netanyahus trip, Israeli media and other news outlets speculated that he used the visit to send a warning or a message to Iran, using Omans diplomatic channels to Tehran. There is also the possibility that Oman could act as a mediator between Israel and Iran, given the Sultanates role in kick-starting the Obama era nuclear negotiations with Tehran, resulting in the 2015 agreement restricting Irans nuclear program. Zarif has also disclosed in his interview that after the visit, Oman informed Tehran about what had transpired and assured the Islamic Republic that Netanyahus trip was not against Irans interests, saying that Oman and Iran should not necessarily share the same opinion on all issues. Oman is one of the few Arab countries of the Persian Gulf region that in the past 40 years has maintained normal relations without tensions with the Islamic Republic. After Netanyahus trip mid-ranking Iranian officials had voiced dismay at Omans decision to host the Israeli leader. In recent years, relations between several Arab countries and Israel have improved, contrary to Tehrans wishes. Israel is enjoying substantial support from the United States and is acting confidently in the region. However, Zarif in the interview once again reiterated his recent claim that Iran is not after Israels destruction. Zarif also told Hamshahri that President Donald Trumps re-election cannot be ruled out and Iran might end up having to deal with him for another six years. But he said that the U.S. should seriously alter their behavior to make it possible for Iran to negotiate. The Trump administration in turn has put forth twelve conditions for Iran to meet before Washington would change policy toward Tehran. The U.S. is demanding that the Islamic Republic stop supporting militant groups, such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas and the Taliban. It also wants Iran not to interfere in the affairs of regional countries. Iran's Police Chief Hosein Ashtari has told Palestinian Islamic Jihad Leader Ziad al-Nakhaleh that his forces are prepared to offer training to the "Palestinian Resistance Front," ISNA reported on Wednesday January 2. The "resistance front" is Iran's nickname for groups such as HAMAS and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The statement by the police chief followed Iranian President's meeting with Al-Nakhaleh on January 1 during which President Hassan Rouhani called for the continuation of Palestinians' struggle against Israel, adding that the Palestinians' battle should end with Israel "bowing" to Palestine. Al-Nakhaleh also met with Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Tuesday. Khamenei told him that "A Palestinian state will be finally declared in Tel Aviv." His remark was against Palestinians' ideal of setting up a government in Jerusalem. Meanwhile, the Iranian Foreign Ministry's spokesman has stressed that Tehran's stance against Israel will remain unchanged. Rouhani said in his meeting with Al-Nakhaleh and the accompanying delegation that "The U.S. is helping Israel to dominate the region, including Palestine," adding that "Regional nations should think of Israel not only as an enemy of Palestine, but as an adversary for the entire region." The Islamic Jihad leader reportedly promised in this meeting that "The Palestinian nation will not stop resistance and will fight till victory." Iranian media reports about the meeting between Iran's police chief and the leader of the Islamic Jihad were unprecedented as previously Iran did not acknowledged contacts between its military personnel and Palestinian armed groups. In his meeting with Al-Nakhaleh, Ashtari likened assistance to the "resistance movement" to Iran's "holy defense"; an official jargon to describe the war with Iraq in the 1980s. Assisting groups such as the Islamic Jihad is against international regulations enforced on the financial front by the Financial Action Task Force or FATF, which has required Iran to stop assistance to terrorist groups. Iran has started the enactment of legislation required by FATF to ban financing for terrorism, but hardliners have stopped the process. Irans timing for arranging al-Nakhalehs visit and the exposure given to it will not make its international isolation any better. The U.S. has reimposed heavy economic sanctions on Iran, partly because of Tehrans support for militant groups and Europe, which is willing to trade with Iran, is waiting to see if Tehran will enact the laws demanded by FATF. ISNA quoted Ashtari as saying that "Iran is the only country that assists the resistance movement." This was the Islamic Jihad leader's first visit to Tehran where he met high-ranking Iranian officials. Al-Nakhaleh has been the group's leader since September 2018. The Islamic Jihad, established in the 1970s, officially declared its existence in 1987 in a charter "based on the ideas of Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeyni," the founder of Iran's Islamic Republic. Islamic Jihad is the closest Palestinian group to Iran and is considered by regional players as an Iranian puppet. The group's leader, Ziad al-Nakhaleh, was sentenced to life imprisonment in Israel in 1971 but was freed in 1985 during a prisoner swap with Palestinian groups. He was arrested once again in 1988 and sent to exile in Jordan, but later he went to Syria, Iran's ally in the region. The United States has declared him a terrorist. In the meantime, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Ghasemi's remark about the unchangeability of Iran's stance against Israel appears to be an explanation to balance Foreign Minister Zarif's statement in an interview with French magazine Le Point in December, during which he said "No one in the Islamic Republic has ever said that they want to destroy Israel." However, Ghasemi did not further explain his comment. Russian news agency Sputnik earlier had quoted Naser Abu Sharif, Islamic Jihad's representative in Tehran, as saying that Iran is the only country that ignores all international sanctions and supplies weapons to Palestinians." Abu Sharif also said that some Islamic Jihad members have been trained in Iran. Last month, a HAMAS delegation had visited Iran. The Islamic Republic supports Palestinian groups regardless of Tehran's deep economic crisis that brought thousands of Iranians to streets in 2018 chanting slogans against wasting Iranian people's resources in the Middle East conflicts. The leader of Iran's pro-reform "Green Movement" has challenged the Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by calling for the release of the uncensored video of their last meeting in 2009. Former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi (1981-1989), who has been under house arrest since 2011, was responding to footage recently published by Khamenei's official website. The two-minute footage shows Khamenei speaking to a limited number of clergy whose faces, for an unknown reason, are deliberately blurred. Mousavi was Mahmoud Ahmadinejads main challenger in the 2009 presidential election. Ahmadinejad was endorsed by Khamenei and officially declared the winner right after polls closed, angering many voters. Nevertheless, Mousavi, in tandem with another challenger, former speaker of Majles (parliament) Mehdi Karroubi, refused to accept the official outcome calling it an engineered result. Their protest led to more than five months of anti-Khamenei demonstrations that left dozens killed and hundreds imprisoned. The uprising was immediately branded as "sedition" by hardliners close to Khamenei. Later in 2011, Mehdi Karroubi, Mousavi and his wife were extrajudicially confined to their houses after they called for street demonstrations in solidarity with the so-called Arab Spring. To celebrate the publication of a new book about the 2009 controversial presidential election, Khamenei's office circulated a two-minute footage on its website showing him in a gathering with a few clergymen, on July 20, 2009, in the midst of protests against Ahmadinejad's re-election. Addressing the clergy Khamenei lambastes Mousavi by referring to quotations allegedly made by two former Presidents, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Mohammad Khatami, against the former PM. In the same footage, armed with the citations, Khamenei harshly criticizes Mousavi's position regarding the election result and dismisses his ideas. He also accuses him of inciting people to revolt. A website promoting Iran's "Green Movement", Kalemeh, reports that after Mousavi was informed about the two-minute "doctored" and "edited" footage, he called for the release of the uncensored footage of his negotiation with Khamenei, in full, for the sake of informing the people. However, Kalemeh has not elaborated on the "information" that, according to Mousavi, the people of Iran deserve to have. In the meantime, Kalemeh reports, "The Islamic Republic's propaganda machine once again spent huge sumsto disseminate false information and fake news regarding the 2009 presidential election and events related to it. December 30 was the anniversary of a state-sponsored march to counter the Green Movement protests and state organization came out in full force to spread the official version of the 2009 events. Dozens of speeches were organized, thousands of banners and posters were produced across the country, TV documentaries were aired and books were published on December 30, 2018 to smear the character of Mousavi, his wife, and Karroubi who are still under house arrest, Kalemeh reports. In recent days, Ayatollah Khamenei's allies, in an orchestrated manner, have repeatedly warned against the recurrence of a "sedition" similar to the one in 2009. The head of the Islamic Republic's judiciary, who was recently appointed by Khamenei as the chairman of the influential Expediency Discernment Council, Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani, explicitly warned against the "repetition" of the 2009 "sedition". One of the advisors of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps' chief commander, Ali Mohammad Naeini also warned that, since the parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held later in 2019, and there are labor and civil rights protests across the country, the establishment should be vigilant against flare-ups in coming year. These warnings echo remarks earlier made by Khamenei, calling upon the authorities to be vigilant against the "enemy" and the repetition of the 2009 "sedition" in the next Iranian year. Questioning the warnings, Tehran's outspoken representative to Majles and its deputy speaker, Ali Motahari has lambasted Khamenei's allies, including Friday Prayer Leaders who have vehemently warned about the possibility of "sedition". "I do not know the basis for their warnings. Yet, it might be better to ask them to tell us what sort of sedition they are going create, again?" Motahari has retorted. KYIV. Jan 3 (Interfax-Ukraine) - The most important problems for Ukrainians at present are the military conflict in the east of Ukraine (58%), the low level of salaries and pensions (57%) and the increase in utility tariffs (52%). Some 35.9% of Ukrainians are concerned about the rise in prices for basic goods, the lack of work - 25.2%, bribery and corruption in power - 23.3%. These are the findings of a survey conducted by the Social Monitoring Center and the Oleksandr Yaremenko Ukrainian Institute for Social Research from December 16 to 22, 2018. The study was conducted throughout Ukraine, with the exception of temporarily occupied territories in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and Russia-occupied Crimea. The margin of error does not exceed 2.2%. The inability to get quality medical care is the most important problem for 17% of respondents, the growth of crime and lack of security on the streets - 11.3%, unfavorable conditions for the development of small and medium-sized businesses - 10.3%, the inability to get quality education - 6.2%. 68.3% of respondents believe that Ukraine is moving in the wrong direction, 19.4% believe that the country is moving in the right direction, 12.3% were undecided. 63.7% are in favor of radical changes in the country, 14.1% believe that let everything remain as it is, just not worse and 14.9% believe that it is better to return the situation in Ukraine to the state it was "before." On Friday, January 4, at 11.00, the press center of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency will host a press conference entitled "Topical Issues of Preserving the National Heritage in the Context of Granting of the Tomos to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine." Religious organizations received hundreds of valuable cultural heritage sites all over Ukraine from the state: about 90% of this property was given to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, and the state of preservation of these unique monuments has come under sharp public criticism. What exactly and in which way should the state immediately do to preserve these most valuable monuments during the times of transformations in Ukrainian Orthodox Christianity? Participating will be MP Ihor Lutsenko, lawyer Maryna Solovyova, member of the St Andrew's Peizazhna Initiative Iryna Nikanorova, and former director general of the National Kyiv Pechersk Historic and Cultural Reserve Serhiy Krolevets (8/5a Reitarska Street). Registration requires press accreditation. Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Liudmyla Denisova has appealed to Russian officials requesting information about the whereabouts of Ukrainian political prisoner Yevhen Panov, who is being transferred from a pretrial facility in Simferopol to another incarceration facility. "Vera Kotelianets, Panov's mother, contacted me yesterday. Panov has been transferred from one pretrial facility to another for a long time, and she is worried about the lack of communication with him," Denisova said on Facebook on Thursday. Denisova said she contacted Russian Ombudswoman Tatyana Moskalkova, Director of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) Gennady Korniyenko and advisor to Ukraine's Charge d'Affaires in Russia Vasyl Pokotylo with a request to report Panov's whereabouts. A court in Crimea on July 13, 2018, sentenced Panov to eight years in a high-security prison. The Zaporizhia region native was found guilty of several crimes: "illegal possession and transportation of weapons and ammunition," "attempt to buy contraband weapons and ammunition," "preparation for sabotage as a member of an organized group." Panov denied all the charges. Born in Energodar, Panov worked as bus driver at the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant. According to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), on August 7-8, 2016, FSB agents prevented several attempts by saboteurs to enter Crimea from Ukraine. A Russian military and a special service officer were killed. The FSB alleges Panov was an employee of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and one of the leaders of the saboteurs. He first confessed, but later said he did so under torture. Ukraine's Defense Ministry refuted information about the detention of its employees in Crimea. New international sanctions could be imposed on Russia in response to aggression in Black Sea Klympush-Tsintsadze Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze has said new international sanctions may be imposed on the Russian Federation in response to its aggression against the Ukrainian naval vessels near the Kerch Strait that took place on November 25, 2018. "[Since] Russia's aggressive attack in the Black Sea occurred two weeks before a meeting of the European Council and less than a week before a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union, we managed to get a quick reaction of the [EU-member] countries and their clear stances. Upon provision of all the facts by Ukraine, we received political support both from NATO and the EU, as well as from some partner countries about the inadmissibility of violation of international law by the Russian Federation," Klympush-Tsintsadze said in an exclusive interview with the Kyiv-based Interfax-Ukraine news agency. She said that as a result, sanctions on Russia were extended without additional discussions for its failure to fulfill the Minsk agreements on settling the situation in the east of Ukraine and new sanctions were approved in response to the illegitimate elections in Russia-occupied territories. "I cannot rule out new sanctions on Russia may be imposed. This needs to be done so that the Kremlin would not enjoy impunity for such an audacious step," the deputy prime minister said. Also, she said Russia's failure to recognize the Ukrainian naval seamen as prisoners of war and its unwillingness to engage at least in humanitarian cooperation to allow international organizations to get access to them may encourage European countries to return to discussions about the need for sanctions in response to that attack. "Of course, we will continue to insist that this behavior cannot go unpunished," Klympush-Tsintsadze said. At the same time, she forecasts that Russia will conti At present, there is understanding in the world that building of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline by Russia has little to do with the economically justifiable business model, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze has said. "There is no consensus regarding the construction of Nord Stream 2 even among the European Union member states. There are individual countries that see and clearly understand the geopolitical risks of implementing this project. At the same time, there are countries where there are strong business lobbies that try to convince that there is no political component here," she said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine. "As you can see, the position of the United States regarding the unacceptability of this project is also quite harsh. However, all these joint efforts, warnings and arguments have not yet stopped the power of money," the deputy prime minister said. As for the application of the Third Energy Package of the European Union, Klympush-Tsintsadze said: "While this is bogged down in dialogues, I now see no prospects for when this could be approved." Russian-led military forces mounted five attacks on Ukrainian positions in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, in the past day. No Ukrainian army casualties were reported. "There were no Joint Forces casualties in the past day," Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) press service said on Facebook January 3 morning. The enemy shelled Ukrainian positions near the village of Khutir Vilny close to the village of Stanytsia Luhanska in the Luhansk sector, using grenade launchers of various systems, large-caliber machine guns and small arms. Attacks were also reported near the village of Opytne in the Donetsk sector and the village of Vodiane in the Mariupol sector. Pisky in the Donetsk sector came under enemy sniper fire. Russia-led occupation forces did not use proscribed weapons. According to intelligence reports, one enemy solider was killed and three were injured on January 2 because of careless handling of weapons. Since January 3 midnight, Russian-led forces have not opened fire. As many as two million Ukrainians have been able to benefit from a visa-free regime with the European Union, President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine has said. "Two million Ukrainians have already used a visa-free regime with the EU! The visa-free regime does work!" Poroshenko wrote on his Facebook page on January 3 morning. The Ukrainian head of state said Ukraine enjoys a visa-free regime with more than 100 countries. "At present, we have a visa-free regime with more than 100 countries. And we continue to open the world for Ukraine and Ukraine for the world," Poroshenko said. In 2019, Ukraine expects that NATO and the United States will provide assistance to it to strengthen its defense capabilities, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the U.S.A. Valeriy Chaly has said. "We expect further assistance [from the United States and NATO] in strengthening our defense capabilities. In addition, we expect the development of specific projects in such areas as energy and energy security," he said in an interview with the chastime program of the Voice of America published on the Facebook page of the Ukrainian embassy in the United States on January 3 morning. The Ukrainian ambassador said Russia is not only posing a threat to Ukraine but also to Europe and the United States as a whole. A vox rally led by party leader Santiago Abascal. Manu Fernandez / AP The election in Andalusia has boosted the fortunes of the center-right and the right: they got 39% of the vote in 2015 and 50% in 2018. However, the ideology of Andalusians has not actually changed that much. When we asked voters how they would define themselves, we didnt see a shift to the right; nor have they radically changed their opinions. According to data from the Center for Sociological Studies (CIS), there were more people in Andalusia wanting a change of government, as well as more supporters of middle-of-the-spectrum politics than in 2015, but not that many more. Sometimes its not the ideology that shifts, but the issues that we give more relevance to Berta Barbet, Barcelona Autonomous University So how is it possible that the election result was so different? In fact, theres no need for people to change their ideas. Someone can hold the same opinions, such as wanting better public services and feeling Spanish, but change the importance that they award each issue when the elections come round. Sometimes its not the ideology that shifts, but the issues that we give more relevance to, says Berta Barbet, a researcher at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. The debate this year has been dominated by issues such as immigration, feminism and, above all, Catalonia. This could explain the rights success in Andalusia, says Barbet. Its more due to the fact that some of the top issues addressed by these parties obviously from a right-wing angle have become more relevant, says Barbet. Catalonia, in my opinion, is the big catalyst. The Andalusian elections in early December have been the first since October 1, which marked a year of listening to arguments about allowing, redirecting and heading off independence in Catalonia. Its understandable that some Andalusians have voted to express how they feel on this matter. Vox supporters celebrating the results of the Andalusian election. Alejandro Ruesga Its also possible that the Catalan issue made some left-wing voters stay home. If the position on the independence issue defended by the Socialist Party (PSOE) and the Podemos-backed Adelante Andalucia did not convince their supporters, it may have meant a higher abstention rate among this group. As Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) researcher Jose Fernandez-Albertos pointed out, this could explain the apparent paradox: It would not represent a swing to the right in the electorate as a whole, but a greater relative success by the representatives of the right. The other key factor is the emergence of the far-right party Vox. Perhaps no one has changed their ideas; its simply that voters on the right have found a party that says what they already think. Is that a move to the right? In a sense it is, as voter representation has moved to the right. In another sense, however, it is not. This process would be perfectly feasible with the same distribution of ideological preferences as in the past, says Fernandez-Albertos. A year ago, there were already people who believed that Catalan independence had to be nipped in the bud and that immigrants deserved fewer rights than Spaniards, but as Barbet told me, No one was leading that discourse. The emergence of Vox could be viewed as part of a global trend We could guess early on that immigration and Catalonia were key issues in Andalusia. But now we have proof of it, particularly in relation to Vox. First of all, we know that the party got most votes in the neighborhoods that have long been the fiefdoms of the Andalusian right. We also know that Vox did better in towns where there is more immigration. And finally we know that its supporters are not defined by age or social and economic background but by ideology. In fact, what appears to unite the voters of the far right are nationalist and nativist arguments. Asked to explain the reasons for their vote, a quarter replied: To stop the secessionists; a third said: To defend the unity of Spain; and almost half replied that it was because of Voxs stance on immigration. The emergence of Vox could be viewed as part of a global trend. Its not so much a swing to the right or not exactly a swing to the right as a retreat into nationalism. In many western countries, there is a demand to lock down society, to put up physical or cultural barriers and to defend national, differentiated identities. It is something that links Donald Trumps America First with Brexit, with Le Pens appeal in France, with the anti-European sentiment in Italy and Greece, and with the growth of anti-immigration parties in Sweden and Germany. This trend has not been absent in Spain, as it could be linked to the push for independence in Catalonia, but it has become more evident with the emergence of Vox. The underlying currents of nativism also existed within our borders, but they did not emerge with the worst of the economic crisis: instead, they became apparent in the heat of the Catalan secession drive, when the balconies became filled with Spanish flags. The home where the victim was stabbed to death. Alberto Losa In the first recorded case of domestic violence in Spain this year, a 26-year-old woman was allegedly stabbed to death by her boyfriend on Thursday in Laredo, in the northern region of Cantabria. The 29-year-old suspect is in custody after he turned himself in, said the government delegate in the region. Emergency services received a call at 4.05am on Thursday, and the police were sent to a home on Rosario Ochandiano Square, where they found the victim with knife wounds to her chest. Health workers were unable to save her life. The man, who hails from Ecuador, had no criminal record of domestic abuse, while his alleged victim, a native of Dominican Republic, had not filed any complaints against him. All my condolences and solidarity go out to the family and friends of the young woman who was murdered by her partner in Laredo. We will never forgo our commitment to eradicate sexist violence, tweeted Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Thursday. In 2018, a total of 47 women were killed by their current or former partners, the lowest figure since records began to be kept. The typical victim is a woman between 41 and 50 years of age who is murdered by her sentimental partner, whom she had never reported for abuse. La Manada Two members of La Manada leaving court on December 26. EFE Also on Thursday, a Navarre court decided to allow five men found guilty of sexual abuse at the 2016 Running of the Bulls to remain free while they wait for their appeals to be reviewed by the Supreme Court. The members of La Manada (The Wolf Pack) were placed in preventive custody on July 7, 2016 and released on June 21, 2018. In April of last year they were sentenced to nine years in prison for sexually abusing a young woman during the popular Sanfermines festival in the northern city of Pamplona. A higher court later confirmed the conviction, but the men have appealed to the Supreme Court. The case galvanized public opinion in Spain, where there were calls to revamp the criminal code to better reflect the nature of sexual violence. While convicted of abuse, the men were exonerated from the rape charges. The tomb of Francisco Franco inside the basilica of the Valley of the Fallen. Samuel Sanchez A new chapter is unfolding in the ongoing saga over what to do with the body of late Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. In the latest development, the Catholic Church has informed government officials that it is denying them authorization to access the mausoleum where Franco is buried inside the Valley of the Fallen, a controversial Civil War memorial located in the mountains outside Madrid. The obstructionist position of Prior Santiago Cantera will not prevent the process from moving ahead Spanish government The decision was relayed on December 26 by the Prior of the Valley of the Fallen, Santiago Cantera. Two weeks earlier, Justice Minister Dolores Delgado had formally requested permission to enter the basilica. The religious leader cited the disagreement of the Franco family, and noted that the matter is still in the courts. The Supreme Court, which the Franco family has asked to stop the exhumation, is expected to hand down a decision in two to three months. A government source said that they were expecting this attitude from Santiago Cantera, whose ideological history is a matter of public knowledge. The executive noted that before joining the Order of Saint Benedict, Cantera was a candidate in the 1993 Spanish election and in the 1994 European election with the Spanish Independent Falange, a defunct neo-fascist party. Despite this new setback, the government of Pedro Sanchez, of the Socialist Party (PSOE), says it will forge ahead with its plans. Franco supporters demonstrating at the Valley of the Fallen. Santi Burgos The obstructionist position of Prior Santiago Cantera will not prevent the process from moving ahead, said the executive in a release. Despite the setbacks that could result from Prior Canteras refusal, the government maintains its decision to press ahead with the exhumation process, while respecting every guarantee that the Franco family is entitled to by law. A long legal battle The Valley of the Fallen contains a mass grave with around 30,000 bodies as well as the tombs of Franco and Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the fascist Falange Espanola. The nature of the memorial and the need to reform it has been the subject of years-long debate in Spain. Pedro Sanchez, who accessed power in early June on the back of a no-confidence vote against Mariano Rajoy of the Popular Party (PP), made it a priority to move Francos remains out of the basilica in order to make the Valley of the Fallen a more neutral place to honor the victims of the 1936-1939 war and subsequent dictatorship. The prior noted that the matter is still pending a decision by the Supreme Court But his plan has met with fierce opposition from the Franco family, which has retained top lawyers to devise ways to prevent it. In October, the family said that if forced to take their grandfather out of the Valley, they would move him to the family vault inside La Almudena cathedral, in the heart of Madrids most tourist-heavy district. In response, Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo traveled to Rome to discuss the matter with Pietro Parolin, Pope Francis right-hand man. The government also sought to block the move by amending the Historical Memory Law, but this was not possible due to opposition from other parties. In late December, the governments Madrid delegate produced a report citing security reasons to prohibit Francos reburial in La Almudena. The report said there would be a risk of confrontations between Franco detractors and supporters. The Dzhumaya mosque in Plovdiv. JENS KALAENE / AFP Plovdiv has been crowned 2019 European Capital of Culture, making it the first Bulgarian city to be recognized as such. With a population of 550,000, it is Bulgarias second-largest city and a compendium of historical periods, having been used as a throughway by the Thracians, Macedonians, Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans and even some Romantic travellers such as Alphonse de Lamartine. Its cultural heritage is one of Europes richest, and if Europe has anything to celebrate in these tumultuous times filled with skepticism and centrifugal tendencies, it has to be its culture. Visibility is something we cant achieve without Europes help Deputy Mayor Stefan Stoyanov Surrounded by cultural powerhouses like Italy, Greece and Turkey, Bulgaria, which joined the EU in 2007, is the poorest member and it was in dire need of a push to make its cultural heritage visible. So the citys status as the European Capital of Culture is a godsend, though it is not the only Cultural Capital this year Matera in Italy has also been selected. Run by the EU, the ECoC (European Capital of Culture) initiative provides cities with exceptional stimulus, which according to Plovdivs deputy mayor, Stefan Stoyanov, goes beyond the purely cultural. We have a very small budget compared with Matera, says Stoyanov who is in charge of Plovdiv 2019. It is between 10 and 15 million, 10 of which comes from the State, as well as an additional 20 million to create or improve infrastructure, but visibility is something we cant achieve without Europes help. Besides the pride we feel for being chosen eight Bulgarian cities including the capital had competed for the title this will also help us to empower the region in a country that is very centralized. The cultural agenda that is being drawn up will reach the center and the south of the country, but also Varna, Sofia and Veliko, the countrys three runners-up. EUROMIND, a platform for debate on how to shape Europe Teresa Gimenez Barbat of the Ciudadanos party, the only Spanish MEP who sits on the European Parliament Committee on Culture and Education insists that education should be a priority in the shaping of Europe, while social sciences should be used as a tool to combat prejudice with particular regard to the hot topic of immigration. "In my opinion, the spread of progress and prosperity inevitably involves taking scientific knowledge into account," she says. "In other words, when it comes to legislating and devising policies, evidence and facts should take precedence over ideological prejudice. That is why I am promoting a debate platform called Euromind that tries to coordinate science and politics by equipping politicians with resources to access the facts so they can be better informed when deciding on an issue they are about to vote on. The question of European citizenship has been a crucial part of my work in this area, given that what we are aspiring to is a Federal Europe often interpreted as the United States of Europe, adds Gimenez. Its true that such a comparison seems impossible given the inexorable legacy of Europes history a real anthology of fratricidal wars. But it is about constructing a place that we can call a fatherland concurrent with the EU. As far as Im concerned, any initiative, program or proposal that is related to this goal is shaping Europe. The Culture Committee, of which I am a full member, is particularly involved in this. Is there any better cement for this identity than cultural heritage? The program is aggressively modern, but there is also a nod to the recent past which helped to usher Bulgaria into the EU, such as the exhibition of a collection of original fragments from the Berlin Wall, which fell 30 years ago this year. As far as Stonayov is concerned, being the European Capital of Culture means boosting the citys future by nurturing its past and uncovering buried treasures such as an enormous Paleochristian basilica with 2,000 square meters of beautiful mosaics, which was restored thanks to funding from a private investor. A posse of cranes, diggers and yellow helmets buzz around the site, which is hidden by massive dark tarpaulin sheets. The frenetic activity is indicative of the degree of collaboration between state, local and private parties, which in some ways defines the ECoC initiative. At least 10% of the budget comes from the private sector. The EU, meanwhile, lends the city its recognition and, if it meets the requirements that go with the honor of being chosen, it is awarded the Melina Mercouri Prize, worth 1.5 million. There is an extensive public and political consensus on the importance of culture for personal development Momchil Nekov, Bulgaria Socialist Party By establishing a niche on the cultural map, Plovdiv will inevitably attract more tourism. The city has a lot going for it. Not only does it enjoy 300 days of sun a year, it is also a cyclists paradise with 52 km of cycle lanes. Just four years ago, at the time we were selected, you could count the number of tourists coming here on one hand, says Stoyanov. This year [2018], we have had a million and we hope to double that in 2019. Being the capital of culture is not just about having the biggest cultural offer or new cultural infrastructure, its also about fostering the fabric of the local economy. Since 2014, tourist apartments, new hotels and small businesses in gentrified areas such as the Kapana district have multiplied. Kapana was a rundown area whose makeover only cost the city council 1.5 million, providing it with better pavements and street lighting, so the economic return is several times greater in real terms. Now, Kapana is like a miniature Soho it is vibrant, colorful and keen to be noticed by the world. A look at previous European capitals of culture confirms the economic impact at a local level. Every euro of public money invested in Mons in Belgium in 2015 generated between 5.5 and 6 in the city. In Wroclaw, Poland, which was ECoC in 2016, more than 40% of the cultural creative businesses registered a boost in profits. But it is not a foregone conclusion that Plovdiv will prosper like their predecessors. For a start, Bulgarias economy is far smaller than that of Belgium and Poland, not to mention Italy. The effort is greater for us than it is for Matera because we need more time to develop the country and show off our culture, says Stoyanov. The lack of freedom during the communist era wreaked havoc on our society but also on creativity. This is why Plovdiv 2019 is about more than just exhibitions. At a deeper level, it is about radical change, as the ECoC intended an urban regeneration which will give the city a different spin, not just for the world but for its own residents. Perhaps it is best described as an injection of self-esteem. This is how, over the past 30 years, the ECoC has become a laboratory of strategic investment on both a local and regional level. Budget maneuvers In 2021, the ECoC will choose a third capital of culture from a country aspiring to become an EU member or a member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). But the biggest EU program on the cards is Creative Europe, which will nurture cinema, the arts and the creative sectors, which account for 7.5% of the workforce in the EU and 509 billion of its GDP. The fact that the EU budget for culture has grown indicates that its significance is being increasingly acknowledged. Between 2014 and 2020, it was 1.46 billion, 9% more than the previous six-year term. However, a number of European MPs from Bulgaria believe there is a temptation to cut back on culture during economic downturns. There is an extensive public and political consensus on the importance of culture for personal development, says Momchil Nekov, from the Bulgarian Socialist Party. But, when the European and national budgets are drawn up, it seems that other areas take priority, which is a shame. Unfortunately, Bulgaria is no exception. Nekov adds, It is certainly true that the EU was battered by the economic crisis, but the coffers for culture and cultural legacy should not be raided during emergencies or when other priorities arise. This is why I believe the next financial framework for the 2021-2027 term should provide adequate resources for this key sector whose tremendous economic and social potential is yet to be exploited. I think priority should be given to initiatives and policies that have been seen to add value, such as Creative Europe and the European Capital of Culture which offer visibility to cities such as Plovdiv with its great cultural heritage, history and rich traditions. CARSON CITY Its a new year, and Bradley Crowell, director of the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, is excited to announce the appointment of Robert Bob Mergell to serve as the new administrator for the Nevada Division of State Parks. As NDSPs administrator, Mergell will lead the division in its mission to develop and maintain Nevadas 26 state parks for visitors to enjoy, while supporting the stewardship of areas of scenic, historic, and scientific importance. Mergell became the deputy administrator in 2015, and has served as acting administrator since October 2018, when the previous administrator, Eric Johnson, retired after 34 years with NDSP. Mergell has more than 23 years of experience in parks management and operations, beginning his tenure as a seasonal park aid at the former Floyd Lamb State Park. He has also served as a park ranger at South Fork State Recreation Area and Lahontan State Recreation Area, a Park Supervisor at Wild Horse State Recreation Area, and as the State Parks Northern Regional manager. As an avid outdoor enthusiast, Mergell enjoys camping and has ridden his motorcycle through every county in the state. MALI STON, Croatia An oyster leads a dreadful but exciting life, M.F.K. Fisher observed in her classic book about them, full of stress, passion and danger. The oyster, in other words, fits right in with the beleaguered Balkans. In his 62 years in this tumultuous region, the life of Bode Sare has been at least as eventful as an oysters. Mr. Sare has been a partisan warrior, a weapons smuggler, a cafe owner and a prisoner (twice). Now, as the owner of highly regarded seafood restaurants in Croatia, he champions locally grown oysters, and is part of a collective of 75 farmers that tends oyster beds in Mali Ston Bay, part of the Adriatic Sea along the southern Croatian coast. One early morning, as a mist shrouded the ancient wall that snakes around the hills overlooking the town of Mali Ston, Mr. Sares son, Tomislav, guided the familys boat past the plastic markers bobbing in the shimmering blue waters and marking the collectives oyster beds. The pipeline is destroying the effect of sanctions imposed on Russia. Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz has called on the EU to halt the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. The pipeline is destroying the effect of sanctions imposed on Russia, the minister told Germany's Handelsblatt. "Nord Stream 2 kills Ukraine," said Czaputowicz. "If the Russian gas transit through Ukraine is over, the country will lose not only substantial revenues, but above all the guarantee of protection against further acts of Russian aggression." Read alsoNord Stream 2 can be justified if Ukraine's interests safeguarded, German minister says The European Commission also seeks to prevent Russian energy giant Gazprom to become a sole gas supplier to the EU, according to the top diplomat. The minister expressed regret that the EU member states could not agree on a common position on the construction of the gas pipeline. "Poland, the U.S., and the European Commission represent a pro-European position here, while Germany an anti-European position," said Czaputowicz. He accused Germany and Austria of "deception maneuvers" around the project. Expert: Ukraine to launch deep modernization of T-64 tanks It is necessary to ensure the tank's ability to engage the enemy at night, equip the machine with a reliable protection system, and install a more modern engine. If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter Grain exports in 2018-2019 MY may increase to 47 mln tonnes Ukraine's agrarian ministry head At the same time, wheat exports are expected to reach 16 million tonnes. If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter PM Groysman describes Ukraine as "rather attractive investment destination" Financial stability, economic growth, further reforms are among the country's main priorities in 2019. If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter Gas transit shipments via Ukraine 7.1% down in 2018 Gas transit supplies from Russia via Ukraine in December 2018 alone shrank by 4.4% year-over-year. If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter Russia's energy giant Gazprom PJSC reported a record 201 billion cubic meters of natural gas exports to Europe in 2018 and plans to maintain those volumes into 2020. European natural gas prices look set to fall for the first time in four years in 2019 as buyers keep a close eye on flows from Russia that reached a record last year. With a healthy amount of fuel in storage after a mild start to this winter, the outlook is bearish, Bloomberg said. That's being exacerbated by an expected increase in imports, which would help offset declining production in the region. Read alsoUkraine cuts entry, exit point tariffs on natural gas transportation media While Russia intends to maintain its grip on about 40 percent of the European market, fluctuations in that dependency will be closely monitored. "The question is how much gas Russia ends up delivering into the European markets that will be a key determinant," said Murray Douglas, research director for European gas at Wood Mackenzie Ltd. "Russia expressed publicly it wants to keep deliveries. That could generate a real collapse in prices in the summer months, when we will see a big LNG supply." Kremlin-backed energy giant Gazprom PJSC reported a record 201 billion cubic meters of natural gas exports to Europe in 2018 and plans to maintain those volumes into 2020. Exports were up 2 percent in the year through December 15. There's a question whether Russia will be able to follow through on that ambition later in the year when a flood of liquefied natural gas is set to enter European markets, Bloomberg said. A rescuer walks at the site of a partially collapsed apartment block in Magnitogorsk, Russia, January 1, 2019. Photo by Reuters/Andrey Serebryakov Thirty-seven bodies have been recovered from the rubble of a Russian apartment building that partially collapsed after an apparent gas explosion. The blast in the early hours of December 31 damaged 48 apartments in a 10-storey building in the industrial city of Magnitogorsk, some 1,700 km (1,050 miles) east of Moscow. The death toll has progressively risen in the past few days as rescuers battle blisteringly cold temperatures to recover people trapped under the rubble, Russian news agencies reported on Thursday. As of Thursday morning, the bodies of 22 of the 37 dead had been identified, agencies cited the local branch of the emergencies ministries as saying. Russia's Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, has said it is still investigating the exact cause of the blast. It said no traces of explosives had been found at the site. Initial reports attributed the blast to a gas explosion. Gas explosions are relatively common in Russia because of ageing infrastructure and poor safety regulations surrounding gas use. Indian magazine Bold Outline says Vietnams the most ideal place for adventurous travel that does not break the bank. Bold Outline, a magazine of pop culture, fashion, travel, art and leisure, says Vietnam is a must visit place for backpackers all around the world because its easy on the wallet and offers great value for money. It recommends famous attractions in Vietnam like Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Sapa, Ha Long Bay and the Mekong Delta. Vietnam landscape terraced rice field in Sapa. Photo by Shutterstock/Thampitakkull Jakkree. "From exploring the worlds largest cave to sipping weasel coffee, Vietnam has a new adventure at every turn. Vietnam, a country with nothing but ample natural beauty, rich history and unique heritage is nothing short of paradise," the magazine writes. Follow Vietnam on the list are Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives and Sri Lanka. Previously, Vietnam was ranked among top travel destinations for 2019 by U.S. travel website Go Overseas. According to Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, Vietnam welcomed 15.4 million visitors in 2018, up 19.9 percent against 2017. This set a new record for the countrys tourism. A 2018 global report by the United Nations World Tourism Organization ranked Vietnams tourism growth as the fourth highest in the world. Fishers at a beach in Mui Ne in Vietnam's south central coast. Photo by VnExpress/Le Dang Vietnam is considering fishing bans in certain places at certain times as it runs out near-shore seafood sources. With a long coastline that runs 3,260 km (2,025) miles, Vietnam is globally famous for fresh seafood, but this could well change in the near future. Authorities are planning to issue a fishing ban in the first quarter of this year to cope with a decline in fisheries caused by overexploitation. The countrys seafood resource is in decline, Nguyen Viet Nghia, deputy head of the Research Institute for Maritime Fisheries under the agriculture ministry, told VOV. Last year, a number of Vietnamese fishing vessels tresspassed into waters outside Vietnams maritime boundaries, prompting a "yellow card" warning from the European Commission (EC) in October 2017. This is a warning issued by EC to countries involved in illegal fishing. The commission informed member countries about Vietnams failure to meet requirements on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing prevention. Fish exports from Vietnam since then have been subjected to intense scrutiny, with all Vietnamese seafood containers being inspected in a process that could take three to four weeks and cost 500 euros ($633) per container. A rejected container can cost an exporter nearly $12,000, and the risk of rejection is high. The EC had initially said it would remove the yellow card in June last year, but extended the withdrawal, saying it would consider lifting it within January this year. In case the situation gets worse and the yellow card is upgraded to a red card, all Vietnamese seafood will be banned from the EU market. For the planned fishing ban, the Directorate of Fisheries under Vietnams agriculture ministry is collecting opinions from relevant ministries and departments, said Nguyen Quang Hung, deputy head of the directorate. The plan is to prohibit all fishing activities in 20 near-shore areas along the country's coast from north to south. The ban will be imposed from April to June in the northern coast and from May to July in the central and southern coasts, it is planned. The ban will also include prohibitions on using certain kinds of nets, traps and tools that help catch small creatures and bottom feeders. Tools equipped with light will not be allowed, except for catching squid. From 2021, Vietnam wants to ban all fishing activities using nets for a month across the country, and expand it to two to three months from 2025. Le Tran Nguyen Hung, head of the directorates Department of Aquatic Resources Conservation and Development, said overexploitation of seafood resources of all ages and sizes was quite common, covering almost all sea areas in the country. The process of encroachment on the sea has affected the habitats of many species, leading to disorder in the ecosystem and caused many to die. Hung said the ban will be imposed for at least 10 years to give time for the marine resources to recover. "The plan will absolutely have direct impact on fishers but that is something we have to accept. Right now this is the only solution for sustainable exploitation in the future," he told VnExpress International. According to the Maritime Law that takes effect from January 1 this year, those violating regulations on prohibited fishing methods will be fined between VND1-2 billion (43,150-86,300) and even face criminal charge. US aircraft carrier in Vietnam among most memorable images A satellite image capturing the historic visit of a U.S. aircraft carrier to Da Nang was among the most memorable photos of 2018. A satellite image provided by DigitalGlobe to AP shows the USS Carl Vinson docked in the central city of Da Nang on March 5, 2018. The U.S.-based Associated Press (AP) has included the picture among eight most striking news images captured by satellite imagery company DigitalGlobe in 2018. The photo, titled "Back to Danang," which captures the USS Carl Vinson docking at Da Nang City on Vietnams central coast for a historic five-day visit last March, has made it into the list. The visit marked a monumental milestone in the diplomatic relationship between the two former enemies. It was also the first time a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier docked in Vietnam, four decades after the end of the Vietnam War. Professor Carlyle Thayer from the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defense Force Academy told VnExpress International the USS Carl Vinson has sent a message that the U.S. will maintain its naval presence in the South China Sea. Vietnam calls the waterway the East Sea. "Vietnam has been reassured by the Trump administration that it will enhance their comprehensive partnership," he said. "This visit signals that the United States intends to remain engaged in Southeast Asia." "From space, the message was clear in the dozens of fighter jets on deck," the AP reported. U.S. aircraft carrier the USS Carl Vinson docks in Da Nang City on Vietnams central coast for a historic five-day port call on March 3, 2018. Photo by VnExpress/Nguyen Dong Besides the U.S. aircraft carrier visit, satellite images depicting the eruption of Kilauea on the Big Island of Hawaii on May 3, the Vostok military exercises in Russia last September and the massive earthquake in Indonesias Palau City were among APs selections. A motorbike is badly damaged after being hit by a truck in Long An Province Wednesday. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran The truck driver who plowed into motorbikes waiting at a traffic light has tested positive for liquor and heroin. Police say that 32-year-old truck driver Pham Thanh Hieu, who surrendered hours after causing a most horrific accident Wednesday that killed four and badly injured 16 others, had high concentrations of alcohol in his blood and also tested positive for heroin. One of the worst traffic accidents in the southern province of Long An prompted Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh to order an urgent investigation into its cause as also steps to overcome its consequences. At around 11 p.m., the driver was taken to the provinces general hospital for urine and blood tests. Three hours later, he was tested again, and the results of the first tests were confirmed. Normally, a drug test that uses urine samples can detect heroin metabolites for one to three days after the last drug use. Pham Thanh Hieu, 32, is held at local police station after the accident that killed four and injured 16 others. Photo courtesy of Long An Police Hieu is being held for further investigation, facing charges of "violating road traffic regulations that cause serious consequences," a crime punishabe by up to 15 years in jail under Vietnam's Penal Code. Camera footage shows the truck speeding towards the crowd of motorbikes waiting at the traffic light without any sign of slowing down. In the ensuing crash, many motorbikes were dragged for over 150 meters before the truck came to a halt. Horrible nightmare Survivors of the fatal road crash called it a horrible nightmare. Three people were killed on the spot and another succumbed to injuries in the hospital. Sixteen were injured. Survivors and eyewitnesses were still in panic as they recalled the heart-stopping moments of the accident. Vo Van Tin, 28, and his girlfriend were on their way back from the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang to Binh Duong Province after the four-day New Year holiday break. While he and many other drivers had stopped their vehicles at the red traffic light at the Binh Nhut crossroads in Ben Luc District, around 60 kilometers southwest of Ho Chi Minh City, the truck driver hit them without any warning as people looked on in horror and fear. Lying in the emergency room of a local clinic with minor injuries to his legs and shoulders, Tin said: "I was waiting at the red traffic light, I heard a loud noise. When I turned my head, I saw the truck knock down many drivers and motorcycles and rush towards me." "It was really frightening. The scene at that time looked like a war zone," said an eyewitness Dang Truong Giang. Driver in deadly Vietnam crash high on liquor, heroin Drunk driver tested positive with drug after fatal accident that killed four Rescue efforts Many passers-by and local residents put aside their fear of the pools of blood and took injured victims to the hospital. Dang Truong Giang said he was in the sand at the foot of Ben Luc Bridge near the accident scene when he heard a loud noise, and then big screams and cries. "When I got there, I saw a horrific sight, like it was wartime. Three people lay in their own blood. Some other people and I took them on the ambulance." Tran Quoc Loi, 31, a xe om motorbike taxi driver, parked his vehicle at a nearby coffee shop and rushed to the scene to help carry the injured victims to the hospital. Unbearable grief Victims of the deadly crash are being treated at Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo by VnExpress/Hoang Le Relatives of the ill-fated victims screamed in sorrow and cried, unable to accept the truth. The parents of Mai Huynh Duc, 20, one of the four dead victims, wailed and called out their sons name while waiting at the local medical center to bring his body home for the funeral. Another man, Sau, fainted at the scene after seeing his wifes mangled body. Road crashes are a leading cause of deaths in Vietnam, killing almost one person every hour. A total of more than 18,720 traffic accidents occurred in 2018, killing 8,244 people and injuring nearly 14,800, according to the National Traffic Safety Committee. During the four-day New Year holiday 136 accidents were recorded, in which 111 people died around Vietnam and another 54 were injured, according to the Traffic Police Department. This was a significant increase in fatalities from last year, when 67 died in three days. Drug using is not rare among Vietnamese truck drivers, who need to survive their heavy workload, according to people familiar with the matter. An inspection by the transport ministry of 136,000 drivers in 2014 found 526 of them using drugs. Sabeco claims it does not violate Vietnam's tax law. Photo by Reuters HCMC tax authorities have failed to collect $135.73 million in taxes and fines, while brewer Sabeco has cried foul. The Tax Department of Ho Chi Minh City informed Vietnams largest brewer Sabeco on December 24 that it would withdraw VND3.1 trillion ($135.73 million) from the beer companys bank account to collect overdue special sales tax from 2007 to 2015 and penalties for administrative violations. However, the move failed because there was no money left in Sabecos Vietcombank account. Le Duy Minh, deputy head of the department, said that his agency has temporarily blocked Sabecos Vietcombank account. "We have asked Sabeco to provide details of other bank accounts but it has not fulfilled that request," he said. But Sabeco claims that it has not violated the law. Sabeco general director Neo Gim Siong Bennett said in a statement Sunday that Sabeco has not violated regulations on the declaration, calculation and payment of special sales tax. He said the enforcement action by the HCMC Tax Department was a violation of Vietnamese laws, as it was taken "without a valid administrative decision" and "contradicts with the very written guidance issued by the Ministry of Finance, General Department of Taxation and Tax Department of HCMC." He said Sabecos "legitimate interests are being threatened by the inconsistent views among State authorities." As Sabeco is set to meet with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, the tax department will await the meetings results before taking further steps, Minh said. Following Sabecos meeting with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Wednesday, the latter has asked the tax department to defer its enforcement actions. Mai Tien Dung, Chairman of the Prime Minister Office, told VnExpress that government bodies are carefully examining the case as it involves "foreign factors." In December 2017, Thai Beverage acquired a 53.59 percent stake in Sabeco from Vietnam's Ministry of Industry and Trade for $4.84 billion through a local entity, Viet Beverage (VietBev). Sabeco, formally known as Saigon Beer Alcohol Beverage Corp, recorded revenues of VND25.5 trillion ($1.1 billion) in the first nine months 2018, meeting 70 percent of its annual target. It occupies approximately 42.8 percent of the domestic beer market, according to the Ho Chi Minh City Securities Corporation. It produced nearly 1.8 trillion litres of beer in 2017. Cathay Pacific Airlines admit mistakes in selling first- and business class seats at the price of economy seats. Photo by Reuters Cathay Pacific Airways mistakenly sold Vietnam-U.S. first class and business class tickets at economy prices, but will honor them. The Hong Kong flag carrier made this announcement in a Twitter post Wednesday after customers reported Tuesday that they were able to purchase first class and business class tickets at unusually cheap prices from Vietnam to North American destinations such as San Francisco and New York in the U.S. and Vancouver, Canada. Cathay, Asias largest international airline, offered return business and first seats from Vietnams central city of Da Nang to New York at the price of $650 and $845 respectively, while typically these tickets cost $16,000 and $31,000. Hanoi-based pastor Jacob Bloemberg was one of the lucky customers who were able to purchase the tickets, which only lasted "for minutes." "My wife and I travel from Hanoi to the U.S. every year, but we are very excited this time as we enjoy business class seats at the price of an economy seat," he told VnExpress International. The number of tickets sold during the computer error is believed to be several thousand. Cathay Pacific blamed the mistake on an individual entering the wrong fares into the companys system, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported. Although Cathay has not revealed the cost of this error, the SMCP calculated that the airline should have collected at least $685,800 from 11 customers that it spoke to. However, Cathay said it hoped the move would make this year special for its customers. "Yes we made a mistake, but we look forward to welcoming you on board with your ticket issued. Hope this will make your 2019 special too!," the airline said on its Twitter account. It added #promisemadepromisekept, and #lessonlearnt at the end of the post. Last summer, a similar situation happened with Hong Kong Airlines when business class tickets were sold for $587, much lower than the usual price of $3,800. The airline honored its mistakes and covered all bookings. Bloemberg said that Cathays move was "honorable." "If there are similar errors in the future, Id like to find out right away." Dutch water technology firm Pure Water Group delivered and installed a pilot desalination installation at the Starokrymsk filtration station in Mariupol, Ukraine. Attended by US Ambassador Mrs. Marie Yovanovich and Ukraine minister Vadim Chernysh, the official ceremony of the installation took place on 25 October. The system is based on the Evoqua USA NexED electro desalination technology, and delivered and installed by the Ukraine company HT Engineering. US ambassador Marie Yovanovich (left) and Ukraine minister Vadim Chernysh see how a produced water sample is taken by an HT Engineer. Tackle a problem together In her speech US ambassador Yovanovich said to be pleased that the people of Mariupol can enjoy drinking water of good quality. "I am really glad that a team of the Ukraine based HT Engineering, Pure Water Group from the Netherlands and Evoqua Water Technologies from the United States are showing what can be achieved when these people tackle a problem together", she said. Yovanovich continued: "The environmentally and ecologically efficient electro desalination technology is an important step towards clean water supply and living a healthy life in Mariupol." Director Johan Ossenblok at Pure Water Group interviewed by Ukraine reporters. Module technology Evoqua's Nexed module technology provides innovative features such as an advanced low-energy membrane, intelligent flow distribution, and tunable dissolved solids removal capability allowing new options for reduced energy use, costs, and facility footprint. This makes the system cost-effective and provides a consistent water quality with variable feed water parameters or partial removal of contaminants without the need for blending. Pure Water Group is a leading manufacturer of ultra pure water equipment and highly specialised in the electro deionization (ED) technology. As Evoqua 'Master service provider' it distribute modules and systems from our European warehouse to water system integrators across the world. (Photos: HT Engineering and Pure Water Group) Read also on this website Pure Water Group delivers additional CEDI water treatment units to power plant in Egypt, 17 April 2018 Pure Water Group produces customized EDI water treatment system for Australia, Argentina and Portugal, 28 June 2017 Expertise: Water technology More information Pure Water Group Sprundel, the Netherlands +31 165 348 253 www.purewatergroup.com 1934 December 25, 2018 James Harrison, 84, of Albany, died peacefully on Christmas day at home with his loving family. He is undoubtedly dancing with his wife, Leslee, in heaven. Jim graduated from Albany Union High School in 1953, Oregon State University in 1957 and was a successful wood products businessman in Oregon, Louisiana and New Mexico for five decades. Jim was a Boy Scout, a DeMolay and a Jaycee. Jim was an expert bass fisherman and legendary chukar partridge hunter. Jim was preceded in death by his wife, Leslee (nee, Perse). He is survived by his son; daughters-in-law; six grandchildren; nine great-grandchildren; and three sisters; Helen Kropp, Barbara Steele, and Kathryn Ladd Davis and many nieces and nephews. He was cared for and loved by many nieces, nephews and old friends. The family would like to thank Samaritan Supportive Services for care provided. Jims graveside memorial service will be held at the Historic Baptist Cemetery in Brownsville at a date to be determined. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Historic Baptist Cemetery fund, C/O Brownsville Baptist Church, c/o Fred Anderson, 27910 Seven Mile Lane, Brownsville, OR 97327 or Samaritan Albany General Hospital Foundation Palliative Care (Phone: 541-812-4705). Fully funding Measure 98, which was approved by voters in 2016 and dedicated state funds to career and technical education programs. The state spent $170 million on the program in its 2017-19 budget, which only funds it to 60 percent of what was written into the law. To fully fund Measure 98, the state estimates it would need another $133 million. Noss said he didnt have any priority policies or reforms he thought the committee missed. If we are able to accomplish some of the recommendations of this committee, it will be a huge step forward, he said. Noss said he will be on a work group this legislative session looking at the 180-day school year, which represents a 10-day increase over the average length of a school year in Oregon. He added that Corvallis Assistant Superintendent Kevin Bogatin will be on a work group looking at chronic absenteeism. Classroom time Jennifer Ward, chair of the Greater Albany Public Schools board, said it's unlikely that the committee's full package of reforms will be implemented, she'd like to see a focus on more time for students in the classroom. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} AQUAMAN 3 stars (Comic book action, PG-13, 143 minutes, playing at the Regal 7 in Albany, the Regal 4 in Corvallis and the AMC Corvallis 12) DCs underwater hero makes a big-screen splash in a movie that is pure camp and wildly entertaining. Give credit to director James Wan for concocting the biggest, wildest aquatic adventure that he could. Jason Momoa, Nicole Kidman, Amber Heard and Patrick Wilson star. (Katie Walsh, Tribune Media Service) BUMBLEBEE 2 stars (Sci-fi action, PG-13, 113 minutes, playing at the Regal 7 in Albany, the Regal 4 in Corvallis and the AMC Corvallis 12) This uneven prequel finds something that was missing in the earlier Transformers flicks: heart. The movie is structured a little too closely to a John Hughes teen flick from the 1980s, but Bumblebee himself is irresistable: Hes just an intensely loyal big old goofball. Hailey Steinberg stars. Travis Knight, of Portlands Laika Studios, directs. (Katie Walsh, Tribune Media Service) MARY POPPINS RETURNS 3 stars A Chinese serial killer who mutilated several of his 11 victims the youngest of whom was eight was executed on Thursday. Gao Chengyong, 54, nicknamed the Jack the Ripper of China, was sentenced to death in March by Baiyin Intermediate Peoples Court in northwestern Gansu province for robbery, rape, murder and defiling the dead. After the sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Peoples Court, Gao was put to death in Baiyin on Thursday morning, the Ministry of Public Security said. At trial in 2017, Gao pleaded guilty to crimes in Baiyin and Baotou in Inner Mongolia between 1988 and 2002. His victims were 11 females, most of them in their 20s. Gaos killings created panic as the perpetrator was said to have targeted young women who lived alone. In 2004, Baiyin police offered 200,000 yuan for clues that led to his capture. Before Gao was arrested 12 years later, the case was regarded by authorities as one of the countrys most notorious series of unsolved crimes. The court found that Gao followed his victims home before raping and killing them. Many of his victims wore red clothes and he typically struck during daylight. Many were mutilated, their hands, ears, and private parts were cut off. To satisfy his perverted desire to dishonour and sully corpses, many of his female victims corpses were damaged and violated, Baiyin court said on Weibo when Gao was convicted in March. The motives of the defendants crimes were despicable, his methods extremely cruel, the nature of the acts vile and the details of the crimes serious, the court said. Police checked 100,000 pieces of fingerprint evidence while hunting for Gao. He was caught in August 2016 in Baiyin after a tip-off. Gao was identified as a lead suspect after a distant relative was arrested for bribery and provided a partial match with DNA left at a murder site. Police said Gaos DNA and fingerprints matched those left at the scene of his crimes. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) The London-based international human rights organisation, Amnesty International, says while it welcomes a significant reduction in the application of the use of the death penalty in the English-speaking Caribbean in recent years, it is urging all regional countries to abolish it. As the English-speaking Caribbean marks its first decade as an execution-free region, Amnesty International congratulates those governments who have recognised the ultimate cruelty of the death penalty and renews its calls on them and all other states that still retain this punishment to take further steps to abolish it for good, Amnesty International said in a statement at year-end. It said figures on the use of the death penalty in the English-speaking Caribbean indicate that there has been a significant reduction in the application of this punishment in recent years. According to Amnesty International, only half of the 12 English-speaking Caribbean countries have imposed new death sentences since the last man was executed in St Kitts-Nevis at the end of 2008. It said five countries Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Belize, Jamaica, and St Lucia have commuted their remaining death sentences in the past five years (2013-2017), reporting empty death rows and leaving a minority of countries to carry the weight of the death penalty in the Americas region, together with the United States. Amnesty International said the United States has remained the only State to carry out executions, but even in the USA figures on death sentences imposed and implemented have reached historically low records. Amnesty International said that as of the end of 2017, over 96 per cent of all those on death row in the English-speaking Caribbean were held in three countries alone, Barbados (13 per cent), Guyana (32 per cent) and Trinidad and Tobago (52 per cent). The three countries retain the mandatory death penalty in their legislation. International law prohibits the mandatory imposition of the death penalty, as it removes from judges the possibility of considering any mitigating factors at sentencing in relation to the circumstances of the offence and of the offender. Amnesty International said that the overall decrease in the death sentences in the region fully reflects global trends on the death penalty, noting that in the past decade, 13 countries have repealed the death penalty completely from their national legislation and a further two have become abolitionist for ordinary crimes, such as murder, retaining it only for crimes committed in exceptional circumstances. The international human rights group notes that a recent decision by the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), the highest appellate court for Barbados, shows that the momentum towards abolition is set to continue. It said that on June 27, last year, the CCJ ruled in relation to two cases from Barbados that Section 2 of the Offences Against the Person Act was unconstitutional because it gave judges no choice but to apply the death sentence. The court recommended resentencing for all cases where a death penalty sentence was initially given for murder under Section 2 of the Act. As the Parliament of Barbados continues its deliberations on draft legislation proposed in 2014, aiming at introducing judicial discretion in murder cases to comply with decisions by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the death penalty in the region was handed another blow, Amnesty International added. It said cracks in the wall of capital punishment in the English-speaking Caribbean were also seen at the international level in 2018. For the first time, two countries from the English-speaking Caribbean did not oppose a UN call for the establishment of a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty, in a historic move that further shows that global consensus is building towards ending the use of the death penalty. Amnesty International said on December 17, the UN General Assembly adopted with record-high support its seventh resolution on the issue. For the first time, Dominica co-sponsored and voted in favour of the resolution, and Antigua and Barbuda and Guyana abstained at the vote, in an unprecedented move that shows the perception of the death penalty in the region is changing, Amnesty International said. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde33 Nepal: Forgotten wetlands by Ramesh Bhushal January 03,2019 | Source: The Third Pole A few kilometres north of the Indian border in Kapilvastu district the birth place of Buddha lies Jagdishpur lake, the largest reservoir in Nepal, and one of the ten wetlands in the country listed under the Ramsar Convention. The lake is home to about 23,000 birds according to the latest surveyprobably the largest single avian population in the country. Local farmer Purnabashi Chaudhary often visits the lake to collect medicinal plants. When we reached the lake in the early afternoon on the first week of February, Chaudhary was resting in the shade of a tree after applying the juice of the Madaar plant to his teeth. It relieves pain, he said, pointing to a shrub nearby. But over grazing of goats has left very few plants around the lake now. The lake was declared a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention in 2003, but since then there has been little action to protect the lake. There is very minimal funding available to protect or conserve this lake, its mostly our voluntary efforts that is keeping it alive, said Abdul Rashid Khan, a local conservationist who lives near the lake. In the early 1970s the reservoir was built to irrigate adjoining paddy fields and later expanded to 225 hectares. This became one of the best habitats for endemic and migratory birds. However, locals were not aware of its importance until recently. People used to think that these birds come every year so whats wrong with killing them for meat, added Khan. This all changed when the local communities came together to control such activities a few years back. But the poaching hasnt stopped completely. Some people still kill birds. If asked not to then they threaten us and say [the birds] are public property, Chaudhary said. Weighty wetlands According to the Ramsar Convention, 2,293 lakes are listed as wetlands of international importance globally, covering 230 million hectares. Listed as the richest ecosystems on earth after tropical rainforests, these wetlands support wild animals and plants, some of which are on the brink of extinction. Jagdishpur hosts not only water fowl but one horned rhinos and royal Bengal tigers also use these wetlands as source of water. Wetlands are also a major source of livelihoods for communities across Nepal. From fish to fodder, drinking water to medicinal plants, communities benefit from the natural wealth of wetlands. We can hardly think of life without this water source as it irrigates our fields, provides water to drink, said Krishna Chaudhary, drinking untreated water from the source of Ghodaghodi lake in Kailali district. We are at the source so I can drink water without treatment, but as you move south, it gets polluted and you cant imagine drinking it, he smiled. Undervalued and ignored Government officials agree that there hasnt been enough done to protect wetlands and it is low priority on their agenda. With increasing population pressure, land degradation, haphazard road construction and unplanned urbanization, there is tremendous pressure on wetlands and we should be more serious about protecting these water bodies which are often termed as the earths kidneys, said Maheshwar Dhakal, joint secretary at the Ministry of Environment and Forests of the Nepal government. With the federal system in place now, we hope that wetlands will receive more attention in future, he added. Nepal promulgated a new constitution in 2015 and decided to establish a federal system, abolishing the monarchy. Under the new constitution, federal governments are now responsible for managing wetlands. Its not about who has been given authority, its about where this falls on their priority list. Wetlands have been thought of as wastelands despite of their significant role in ecosystems and encroached or destroyed, said Hem Sagar Baral, Country Manager at Zoological Society of Londons Nepal office and a noted ornithologist in the country. Heaven for birds but till when? My first visit to Nepal was in 1978. I will forever remember the remarkable diversity of bird life that greeted us in the Sal forests of the Terai the feeding parties, seemingly in a hurry, packed full of woodpeckers, drongos, flycatchers, and warblers. Bird after bird was new for me and I was in heaven, wrote Richard Grimmett, who now heads Bird Life Internationals global conservation program, in a book titled, Status of Nepals birds: The National Rest List series. But in last 40 years things have changed a lot. About 20% of Nepals 878 birds are threatened with extinction, including 37 species which are threatened on a global scale, according to the latest research by Bird Life International and the Zoological Society of London. About 25% of those threatened are wetland birds. This years survey of birds, which is yet to be published, estimates 45,000- 50,000 birds travelled from northern Asia to Nepal this winter travelling from as far away as Siberia. Its hard to count exact numbers but our regular survey shows about 150 species of birds migrate to Nepal in winter every year and about one-third of them are wetland dependent, said Baral, country manager of Nepal at the Zoological Society of London. But ornithologists have warned that the rapid degradation and deterioration of wetlands may lead to permanent extinction of several species. Comb Ducks used to be spotted frequently on Ghodaghodi, the largest lake in Kailali district, Nepals far western region. But the species hasnt been recorded in the area for the past twenty years, said Baral. Unlike other species, the Comb Duck wont easily bounce back even if conditions are made favorable, he added. The Comb Duck is listed under category II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), meaning it will soon be threatened with extinction if not protected. There isnt much research being done on the impact of urbanization, habitat destruction and other developmental works on the wetlands. Since the birds fly across countries it is hard to estimate full the full impact without coordinated transboundary research, Baral said, But research in Nepal suggests overall population is declining with some species already rare and threatened, he added. Another ornithologist Benj Smelt, who has been doing research on birds in Ghodaghodi, said that once common species like peafowl (Mayur) have almost disappeared and called for authorities to take action before its too late. Human -wildlife conflict Jogilal Dagaura has a contract to raise fish in a small pond on the boundary of Ghodaghodi lake owned by Ghodaghodi Forest Users Group. While his sons sell fish in the market, his job is to guard the lake and protect the fish from birds. Every few minutes he makes a loud sound to distract birds that come to feed in the pond. As we tried to talk to him, he ran to another corner of the lake as he saw some birds trying to catch fish. Its his daily routine. We bring fingerlings and grow in this pond and sell in the market, but its hard to save them from birds, said Dagaura. Birds have become a source of conflict in villages because they eat their crops. In Ghodaghodi lake conservation is a story of happiness and sorrow. On the one hand, communities are happy to help protect the lake and birds, but on the other hand, birds have left them helpless. They eat our crops, which is the only source of food for many of us, as we cant afford to buy food. Its really hard to farm here with birds around, said Deepak Shah, Chairperson of Ghodaghodi Community Forest Users Group. People have been demanding compensation for years, but the government has turned a deaf ear. Who listens to us? A compensation policy would have been very helpful as it would encourage local communities to engage with conservation of lakes and birds, but authorities are not the least bothered about it, added Shah. The Nepal government has a policy to compensate people for the damage caused by wild animals but this doesnt include birds. Deepak Shah thinks that the government is not serious about protecting lakes or forests and the communitys efforts have been undervalued. A few years ago, he said, a boy fell into Ghodaghodi lake while playing and was killed by a crocodile. Villagers dragged his body out of the crocodiles mouth and demanded compensation from the government for his family, but not a single penny was provided. Instead authorities took that wounded crocodile, arranged a veterinary doctor from Kathmandu and put it back in a river nearby after treatment. They didnt even provide transportation to carry the boys dead body to the place of cremation, Shah added. The district administration office said that there is no policy to compensate for such casualties. Despite our commitment and efforts to save the lake, the authorities have not valued our contribution and that has irked the communities. Humans have less value than animals here, he added. Declining fish, worried fishermen About 21 ethnic communities directly depend on the wetlands of Nepal and fishing is one of their major occupations. Its hard to get fish nowadays, wetlands are shrinking or disappearing and there are too many people, said Bimala Bote, a fisherwoman near Jagdishpur lake in Kapilvastu in west Nepal. Its not only in Jagdishpur that fish are declining. Rupa Chaudhary in Maghi village near Ghodaghodi lake in far west had a similar experience. Research shows that fish diversity is declining rapidly in the wetlands of Nepal, especially in the southern plains. In Ghodaghodi lake alone there has been a 50% decline in fish diversity over the last 20 years. Twenty-seven fish species were recorded in 1998, but only 13 species were found in 2017. Fishing communities in the east are equally worried. On the Koshi riverbank we met Chandan Kumar Mukhiya, a fisherman who feeds his family of four. As fishing became more difficult he opted to take a part time job as an electrician in Indias capital New Delhi. Fish are declining and some days I have to return home empty handed. A few years ago it wasnt the case, Mukhiya said. A 2009 study found fish from the wetlands of Koshi Tappu are the most important source of food and income for local people. There are 15 ethnic communities who depend on fishing in the Koshi Tappu wetland alone. In the past there were few people who used to fish but nowadays everyone is fishing thats why its hard to find fish, added Mukhiya. Wetlands are also the major source of drinking water for wildlife, including rare or endangered species. Wildlife officials said an increasingly dry climate across the country has put wetlands under threat and this will lead to shortage of water for animals to drink. We have already started pumping groundwater and collecting it in the ponds for wildlife to drink in western Nepal, but increasing dryness may lead to similar conditions in central and eastern Nepal, said Bed Kumar Dhakal, chief warden at Chitwan National Park. We dont have long-term data to help us understand the pattern of change in our wetlands. I think is very important to invest in this so we can make better plans before its too late, he added. According to Nepals Water and Energy Commission Secretariat report, the annual average precipitation over Nepal is decreasing at the rate of 9.8 mm per decade. Deserve better Wetlands are one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet but the richest in biodiversity. The first thing is to make everyone understand that these are not wastelands and they have a huge role in providing food, water, medicine and many other services as well as maintain ecosystems, said Hem Sagar Baral. As the most undervalued natural resources in the country they fall prey to any development work, but they need more respect. Our thinking in Nepal needs to change, said Maheshwar Dhakal, joint secretary at the ministry of environment and forests. For us water means rivers flowing from north to south and we hardly consider the small ponds, lakes or marshy lands that provide such an important resource to people. They deserve better respect and better management. Economy dominates environment Most of the communities we met have plans to attract more tourists and build infrastructure around or inside lake to earn money. We would like to get boats for tourists and generate income, hopefully we will be doing this by the end of this year, said, Chandan Kumar Bhagat, manager of Barju lake in eastern Nepals Sunsari district. Locals around Jadishpur had similar plans. Conservationists worry tourist activities will damage the habitat of the large number of birds and animals that depend on wetlands. However, locals say that its hard to maintain the lake without funding and promoting tourism will allow them to raise money to protect the wetlands. If there is no benefit for locals in terms of money through tourism then who would be interested in saving these lakes, Bhagat said. Ornithologist Hem Sagar Baral believes the local area can attract more environmentally aware tourists. People go with loudspeakers, dance, and drink and there is no regulatory body to monitor. Such kinds of activities have negative impacts on birds or degrade habitat. There could be different way to enjoy in these wetlands, he said. We can promote bird watching groups, where people enjoy nature rather than boats. Quality tourism rather than quantity would save biodiversity as well as increase income of communities around, he added. Going to restaurants, bars and concerts is normal for a young woman her age. However, if you prefer not to subsidize the vacations because you feel they are excessive, discuss your feelings with her before deciding what to do. DEAR ABBY: My husband and I have lived like nomads for the last few years. We have bought, sold and moved many times for all sorts of silly reasons. Our 5-year-old daughter finally started school, yet we don't feel at home here. We now realize buying and selling may not be for us, so we are renting, but we still aren't happy. We moved here to be close to my oldest and dearest friend, whose kids are now grown, and to my sister, who hardly talks to us or sees us. My husband's sister and her husband's family love us and treat us well. They have suggested we should move by them. They have kids our daughter's age. The only issue is possibly not finding a good home or school. Private school could be an option. Would another move be bad? Should we make a final move before our daughter gets vested in school and friends? It would put us within walking distance to several families we spend a lot of time with and who love us very much. We are afraid of judgment from everyone. Please help us sort it out. -- HOPEFUL NOMADS IN ILLINOIS Park Hills officially and quietly marked 25 years as a city at 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 1. Park Hills formed when four smaller towns: Elvins, Esther, Flat River, and Rivermines consolidated into one larger community. While Park Hills has celebrated 25 years, the seeds of the town have been around for much longer. According to the State Historical Society of Missouri, the first settlers came to the area around 1720, when important minerals were found by French settlers. St. Francois County, itself, was officially established in 1821, making it one of the oldest counties in Missouri. By 1870, shallow underground mining operations began to find galena, an important ore found in lead, and a source of silver. Deep mining operations soon followed, and up into the 1960s, the area surrounding what is now Park Hills was one of the worlds biggest lead production areas. As miners moved to the area and the population grew, towns and settlements were being created in close proximity to one another. Some of these towns were governed by their own citizens, and many were ruled by the mining companies that owned them. The Washington County Sheriffs Department has released details on a New Years Day drowning that occurred just outside Bismarck. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} According to Sheriff Zach Jacobsen, deputies and emergency personnel were dispatched to the 10,000 block of McFarland Road near Bismarck at 5:52 p.m. on Tuesday for a drowning. Upon arrival, the victim, Caleb Bruno, 29, of Belgrade, was found in the water. Life-saving measures were performed, but emergency personnel were unable to revive the man. Bruno was pronounced dead at the scene by Washington County Coroner Brian DeClue. According to the press release, it appeared that Bruno was clearing a beaver dam when he slipped into the water and drowned. Matt McFarland is a reporter for the Daily Journal. He can be reached at 573-518-3616, or at mmcfarland@dailyjournalonline.com. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 2 Sad 5 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Heart & Soul Hospice of Farmington received a certificate of recognition from Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America for reaching goals in fiscal year 2018, covering the months of July 1, 2017, through June 30, 2018. The recognition came through PMMAs Emerald Awards Program, designed to encourage its 17 locations and 2 hospices to achieve high levels of resident and employee satisfaction, meet financial goals, build philanthropic support for the organizations mission and meet marketing goals. There are 10 areas measured for the hospice Emerald Awards. To receive an Emerald Award, a hospice has to meet its goals in all 10 areas. Certificates of recognition were given out to hospices that reached their goals in one or more category. Heart & Soul Hospice of Farmington received recognition for meeting goals for professional employee growth, bereavement management, participation in community events, and safety. This recognition is a visible sign of Heart & Soul Hospices commitment to their compassionate end-of-life care guided by Christian values, said Bruce Shogren, chief executive officer for PMMA. State Police are seeking a woman in the robbery of Members 1st Federal Credit Union on York Road in South Middleton Township Wednesday afternoon. Police said the woman entered the branch about 12:30 p.m. and approached a teller only after allowing other customers to go in front of her. She gave the teller a note demanding money. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Police said she fled in an unknown direction by unknown means with an undisclosed amount of money. The robber is described as a white woman about 5 feet, 4 inches tall with long brown hair and glasses. She was wearing a gray zip-up hooded sweathshirt and black gloves, and carried a backpack. Anyone with information is asked to contact the State Police at 717-249-2121. Love 7 Funny 2 Wow 8 Sad 3 Angry 8 It has been more than two years since Daniel Harris was shot and killed inside the Haines-Stackfield American Legion in Carlisle, but his accused killer may be up for trial in 2019. According to Carlisle Police, Harris, 30, was sitting inside the American Legion on West Penn Street in Carlisle when Robert Anderson, 40, walked in around 12:15 a.m. June 11 and shot him six times in the chest. +3 Carlisle man charged in Stackfield American Legion shooting case Despite issues with cooperation from witnesses and victims throughout the investigation, Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed said Harris died as a result of the shooting, and Carlisle Police Lt. Stephen Latshaw described the killing as an assassination. Despite a room full of people, it would take roughly four months before Anderson was arrested and charged in the killing. +4 Mother calls on Carlisle community to help solve son's shooting death Charlene Gomez is living most parents worst nightmare, having just buried her child. Her heart is broken and she feels the community has rema Anderson was arrested in October 2016 and charged with criminal homicide, felony possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and misdemeanor reckless endangerment. You cant tell the story of the murder of DJ Harris on June 11 without going into the background of whats been going on in Carlisle, really for a number of years, then Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed said in 2016 when announcing charges against Anderson. Officials said Anderson and Harris had a long-standing dispute that involved previous acts of violence and shootings inside the borough. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Margaret Koziol March 27, 1920 -- Dec. 31, 2018 Margaret Koziol, 98, of Genoa, died Dec. 31, 2018, at the Genoa Community Hospital - LTC. A Mass of Christian Burial will be at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 5, at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, with the Rev. Bill L'Heureux celebrating Mass. Interment will be in the Valley View Cemetery in Genoa. Visitation will be from 47 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 4, at the church, with a 7 p.m. vigil service. Visitation will continue from 9:30-10:30 a.m. on Saturday at the church. Margaret was born on March 27, 1920, to Ladislaus and Ethel (Kahl) Wozniak near Genoa. She spent most of her childhood growing up on surrounding farms in the Nance and Boone County regions. She graduated from Fullerton High School in 1939. Margaret received normal training in Kearney, and taught in several rural schools in the Nance County area for six years. Margaret worked at Union Pacific in Omaha, and she worked at Scotts Awning and Tents during WWII, sewing tents for the war cause. A weather system can cause a lot of issues, he said. Natural disasters and emergency situations arent just limited to large communities they happen everywhere. This is about opening up and making sure we have great communication channels. Miller and Wemhoff both said the different entities involved in the exercise already work together well, but that the drill would only strengthen their efforts and benefit area residents. Even though these different entities work with each other often, to bring everyone together for a planned training exercise such as this, (it brings) us all to the table to learn from each other. We all have our strengths as well as our weaknesses, we each have abilities or things we can or cannot do, Wemhoff said. A training event such as this helps us recognize those, so as to aid each other the best way we can if an event such as this, God forbid, ever occurred. This also brings faces to the table, helping us all to get to know each other a little better. And should something like this ever happen, knowing each other will hopefully ease the process. And so, if we know each other a little better, I believe that forms good solid working relationships for those day-to-day operations, as well. A Monroe woman convicted of stealing thousands of dollars from her previous Columbus employer was recently sentenced to spend the next two to four years in the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women in York. Jennifer A. Held, 46, on Dec. 28, 2018, was present in Platte County District Court before Judge Robert Steinke to learn her fate regarding the case in which she was accused of embezzling just under $87,000 from a small electronics business located in the 2800 block of 33rd Avenue, according to court records. The defendant pleaded no contest and was found guilty of theft by deception in the amount of $5,000 or more, a Class IIA felony. If prosecuted to the full extent of the law Held could have faced a maximum of 20 years in prison. Four additional charges were dropped: Three counts of second-degree forgery, Class III felonies; which the court determined the defendant was improperly charged upon, and one count of theft by deception, according to Platte County Public Defender Tim Matas. As part of her sentence and conviction, Steinke ordered the defendant to pay $40,899.15 in restitution. The payments are required to be made in $700 increments over a 60-month course until the full-dollar amount is paid, according to a journal entry completed by Steinke. The payments will begin the first day of the new month following Helds release from prison. Widespread water quality problems The Southwest Wisconsin Groundwater and Geology plans to sample more wells in the spring. Then, scientists will evaluate pathogens in the water to determine if they are the type that originated in dairy or swine manure, or from faulty septic systems. Well tests conducted in November looked for E. coli and coliform, bacteria that signal the possible presence of other bacteria, viruses and parasites that can cause flu-like symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, fever and diarrhea. Symptoms can be mild to severe to life-threatening. Testing was also done for nitrate, which causes potentially deadly methemoglobinemia, or blue-baby syndrome. A growing body of research links nitrate consumption to health risks in adults, including thyroid disease and cancer. Nitrate in drinking water usually comes from fertilizer. The 42 percent contamination rate is higher than in some other parts of the state that have gotten more attention. But state geologist Ken Bradbury said the rate wasnt surprising. Its no secret that southwest Wisconsin has areas of thin topsoil and porous bedrock that allow surface pollutants to reach groundwater relatively easily. Neubauer doesnt see those ties as a concern and said she is proud of her familys accomplishments. She pointed to broad support for her candidacy, especially from other appellate court judges, as well as a judicial philosophy that she said treats everyone before the court fairly. They need to have confidence that when they walk through the doors, theres no outcome in mind, theres no overriding ideology or agenda thats going to meet them when they present their case, she said. Hagedorn served as Republican Gov. Scott Walkers chief legal counsel for nearly five years before Walker appointed him to the bench. But he, too, said he doesnt view his background as inhibiting his impartiality. The critical question is not whether you have views on the world, but whether you believe that those views are a part of what your job of judging is, and I dont, Hagedorn said. Hagedorn, however, said Neubauers endorsement of Abrahamson, who in his view takes a political approach to the court, is a concern. Neubauer pushed back, praising Abrahamson, the first woman elected to the state Supreme Court, as a role model for women and a real force on a number of issues such as access to the courts. The Real Jackie Kennedy Her style and grace were legendary, and her image came to define the 1960s. She captured the hearts of world leaders, fashion icons and people all over the planet, who knew her as Jackie Kennedy, Jacqueline Onassis, or simply Jackie O. But who was the real Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis? Take our quiz and find out. Take The Quiz Chub was born Nov. 20, 1932, in Eau Claire, to the late Algie and Elizabeth (Berchem) Rice. He served in the U.S. Army from 1952-1954. Chub married Lois Marie Jean Gregory July 22, 1955, in Waterloo, Iowa. He was a loving father, loyal friend and a distinguished predator of local pan-fish. He enjoyed spending time with his family and his Chihuahua, Dozer. Chubs quick wit and sense of humor will be sorely missed by all who knew him. As we lay him down to rest in peace, we celebrate a life well lived. Peer-to-peer support is also far cheaper than hospitalization, Laird said, and it may save states and communities money in the long run. Monarch House doesnt medically treat mental health crises or substance abuse emergencies, but its a good bridge to people who dont need that intensive treatment, Welle said. Prior to these respites, there were really only two choices. You could stay home and deal with things that youre going through on your own or having to go to the hospital, Laird said. And for a lot of people, thats really too intensive. Hospitals are vital, but are designed to stabilize a crisis instead of giving much one-on-one support, Laird said. In a hospital, those struggling with mental health may not be allowed to leave for one or two days. They may miss work or classes, a ripple effect that can cause lost wages. At Monarch House, those same people have the freedom to come and go, work if they wish and most importantly, talk to people who have experienced similar struggles, Welle said. This is a place where people can get a short respite and hopefully get some tools they can take back to their life and implement, Welle said. Welle compared Monarch House to mutual aid. Authorities have recommended a first-degree homicide charge for a man detained after a suspicious death in Menomonie Sunday. Richard W. Seehaver, 52, of 603 15th St. SE was detained and arrested Sunday after authorities responded to a disturbance call at the 15th Street residence and found another man, John Likeness, 54, dead at the scene. Likeness was also a resident of the 15th Street house, according to Menomonie police. Seehaver was referred to the Dunn County District Attorneys office on charges of first-degree intentional homicide and domestic abuse-repeater, according to a statement issued by the Menomonie Police Department. Police are still investigating the case and are waiting for the results of an autopsy, Menomonie Police Commander Rick Hollister said. The emergency call came at 3:17 p.m. Sunday, and authorities first treated the scene as a suspicious death. In the early part of this investigation, it appears at this time (that) the crime scene is not a random act, Hollister said. Menomonie police, Menomonie Fire and Rescue, Dunn County Sheriffs Office, UW-Stout Police, Wisconsin State Patrol, Wisconsin Crime Lab, Dunn County Medical Examiners Office, Dunn County District Attorneys Office and the Ramsey County Medical Examiner assisted with the case. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh. blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. . ..Legal Insurrection..01 January '19..Two professional associations of police leaders and chief law enforcement officers in Georgia have condemned the virulently anti-Israel and undeniably antisemitic Deadly Exchange campaign.That campaign, led by Jewish Voice for Peace, falsely blames Israel and American Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), for U.S. domestic police practices and problems in minority communities.In numerous prior posts weve written about this vile Deadly Exchange initiative, which aims to exploit preexisting and unrelated domestic racial tensions to stoke hatred of Jews by blaming Jews, all in the service of building an anti-Israel coalition.As we discussed, the campaign was launched several years ago by the anti-Jewish and anti-peace extremist organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Its now being heavily promoted by many pro-BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) organizations based in the U.S.Police departments across the country are coming under increasing pressure to end their relationships and exchange programs with Israel, but so far theres been little if any push back.Primarily thats because JVP and its allies have been able to operate with a lot of behind-the-scenes lobbying and can work fast with little public notice.Basically, theyve been able to count on well-meaning people having little understanding of modern policing challenges. This makes it easier for JVP to promote Deadly Exchange as in the best interests of cities and to present it as consistent with progressive values and the larger progressive agenda.Now all that could be about to change. CBC Recent developments: What's the latest? Western Quebec is one of the province's regions under yellow zone rules as of today. A big change is the return of masked and distanced indoor gatherings between two households, along with bars being able to open up inside again. Ontarians who received the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine are now able to get their second dose eight weeks after their first instead of waiting 12 weeks as previously required. Whether they are able to depends on vaccine sup It's night time. A pair of luminous eyes stare out at you from the edge of a clearing surrounded by trees. A wolf's howl is heard close by. This isn't the opening scene of a cabin-in-the-woods horror movie. Priscilla Plamondon Lalancette/Radio-Canada It's a fair description of an adventure experience some people pay handsomely for. In this case, the opportunity to sleep in a small, bare-bones cabin surrounded by wolves. Parc Mahikan, which means wolf in Innu language, is located in Girardville, north of Lac-Saint-Jean. It's one of the leading observation centres exclusively dedicated to wolves in Canada. Priscilla Plamondon Lalancette/Radio-Canada For the last 15 years, Gilles Granal and his wife Marie-Christine have been trying to share their love of wolves and their canine cousins. "The aim of the park is to demystify the wolf. It's an animal that leaves some people ambivalent. Others love it. Others are afraid," said Granal. Granal runs the park that offers the chance to stay overnight in cabins, take guided tours and have supervised interactions with the wolves. Priscilla Plamondon Lalancette/Radio-Canada There are 35 wolves in the park, which make up three packs. While most of them are still quite wild, seven of them are more domesticated and comfortable with humans. Granal and his wife came to Quebec from France in 1987 and fell in love with the small town of Girardville. The couple soon followed their passion for sled dogs, of which they have 68, to opening the wolf park. Priscilla Plamondon Lalancette/Radio-Canada Park Mahikan only gets about 300 visitors a year. Granal says it's not about volume, but quality of time and experience for his guests. It's also a matter of not stressing out the animals. There are four eco-cabins on the property, located inside the enclosures where the wolves live and roam. Priscilla Plamondon Lalancette/Radio-Canada These chalets are all-seasonal with wood-stove or propane heating, but no electricity and certainly no wireless internet. Sleeping among the wolves means being lulled to sleep by howling packs. "When they howl, you're right in the middle. It's something special to experience," said Granal. Story continues Priscilla Plamondon Lalancette/Radio-Canada Jean-Pierre Parisien, a Franco-American tourist, told Radio-Canada that he kept his door locked just in case. "At night, what is very impressive is to see the eyes of the wolves reflecting the light," he said. The Arctic wolves and grey wolves roam the better part of the six hectares of the park, but they are more scared than vicious toward humans. There is a call for the U.S. government to adjust the border near Manitoba to give Canada the geographic oddity known as the Northwest Angle. Known simply as the Angle to the 120 people who live there, it is a jetty of Minnesota sandwiched between Manitoba and northwestern Ontario. It is the only place in the United States outside Alaska that is north of the 49th parallel. And it was based on a flawed map from 1755. "Make America great by correcting this critical survey error," states a petition, called "Give Canada back the Northwest Angle located in Manitoba," and created as part of We the People. Launched in September 2011 under then-President Barack Obama, We the People is a section of the White House website for petitioning policy experts. Petitions that meet a certain threshold of signatures are typically reviewed by administration officials who are prepared to issue official responses. The threshold for a response is 100,000 signatures, so it could take some for the Northwest Angle petition to find its way onto the desk of U.S. Congress. It was created Sunday, and as of Wednesday, had just 32 signatures. The international boundary that takes in the Northwest Angle was made shortly after the Treaty of Paris in 1783 between the U.S. and Britain. However, Benjamin Franklin and British representatives relied on a 1755 map from American John Mitchell, who was not a professional geographer or map-maker. He was a physician and botanist who developed an interest in geography and created his map based on materials he found in official archives and private hands. But he misattributed the source of the Mississippi River as being at the edge of Lake of the Woods, and drew the lake itself in the shape of an oval rather than bent and bowed by the multiple bays it actually contains. Story continues The Treaty of Paris stated the boundary between U.S. territory and the British possessions to the north would run "...through the Lake of the Woods to the northwestern-most point thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the river Mississippi." The source of the Mississippi River, however, actually lies nearly due south of Lake of the Woods, rather than north and west of it. The end result is a thumb of land isolated from the rest of the U.S. In those months when Lake of the Woods is free of ice, Angle residents can reach the mainland U.S. directly by boat. However, to make the journey by land, residents must pass through two Canada-U.S. borders at the east and southern boundaries of Manitoba. "Even the most mundane tasks involve a certain amount of shuttle diplomacy. Grocery shopping is once a week, and that's an hour and 15 minutes, one way," states a story on the region by CBS News in 2016. "First, residents have to notify Canadian authorities that they're about to cross the border. Then, it's a 60-mile [96.6-km] or so trek through Canada back to the U.S. boundary line to cross back into Minnesota and the nearest town." Nasas New Horizons spacecraft has survived humanitys most distant exploration of another world. Ten hours after the middle-of-the-night encounter four billion miles away, flight controllers in Laurel, Maryland, received word from the spacecraft that it had successfully completed its latest mission. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Cheers erupted at Johns Hopkins Universitys Applied Physics Laboratory, home to mission control. An anxious crowd in a nearby auditorium watching events joined in the loud celebration. New Horizons zoomed past the small celestial object known as Ultima Thule three-and-a-half years after its spectacular brush with Pluto. (PA graphics) Scientists say it will take nearly two years for New Horizons to beam back all its observations of Ultima Thule, a full billion miles beyond Pluto. At that distance, it takes six hours for the radio signals to reach Earth. Based on rudimentary pictures snapped just hundreds of thousands of miles before the 12:33am close approach, Ultima Thule is decidedly elongated in shape measuring about 22 miles by nine miles. Scientists say there are two possibilities for this: Ultima Thule is either one object with two connected lobes, sort of like a spinning bowling pin or peanut still in the shell, or two objects orbiting surprisingly close to one another. A single body is more likely, they noted. An answer should be forthcoming on Wednesday, once new and better pictures arrive. But the best colour close-ups will not be available until later in January and February. The icy rock has been in a deep-freeze preservation state since the formation of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago. Scientists hope to learn about those origins through New Horizons observations deep inside the so-called Kuiper Belt, or frozen Twilight Zone, on the fringes of the solar system. New Horizons will continue to zoom farther away. The hope is that the mission will be extended yet again and another target will be forthcoming sometime in the 2020s. Ultima Thule is the first destination to be reached that was not even known until after the spacecrafts launch. New Horizons rocketed from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2006. I cant dance, but I can pack, Adam Claude said of packing meals with new bride Chara Juneau and their charity hall wedding. (Photo: Courtesy of Feed My Starving Children) A couple tying the knot in Minnesota decided to forgo a fancy reception hall and even skip their first dance, instead opting to spend their New Years Eve nuptials packing meals for hungry kids at the charity that brought them together and their 70 guests followed suit. Chara Juneau and Adam Claude have spent many date nights and even Valentines Day at their favorite charity organization, Feed My Starving Children in Cn Rapids, Minn., Claude told Yahoo Lifestyle. So it was very fitting that their wedding would take place there too but surprisingly, the idea didnt occur to them until Judy Watke, the organizations director of development and a close friend of the couple, suggested it in passing. We thought, Wait a second, thats not a bad idea,' Claude said, noting that Watke knew an engagement was looming. I had the ring already, he said. Though Claude and Juneau were in no hurry, the stars just started to align. First, Claude bid and to his surprise easily won a trip to the Virgin Islands at a charity auction in November. We thought, This would make a great honeymoon, but the trip was for early January, so wed have to push it back a few months to make it a honeymoon. Claude and Juneau exchanged vows in front of 70 loved ones, who then joined them in packing meals for kids. (Photo: Courtesy of Feed My Starving Children) Thats when Juneau suggested the two just head to the courthouse for a shotgun wedding and leave the honeymoon trip as is. The spontaneous planning quickly led back to the proposal of a wedding at Feed My Starving Childrens headquarters and eventually, the scenario made too much sense for the pair to pass up. We asked [Watke], Were you serious when you said we could have our wedding there? and she said, Absolutely, this would be amazing. Itd be you!' Claude and Juneau then ran the idea by their friends and family to make sure it wasnt ridiculous, he joked, and they said it would be awesome, and theyre on board. Claude told Yahoo Lifestyle the philanthropic wedding meshed with the couples financial sensibilities, too. The whole thing cost very little money, he said. I didnt want to start our lives in debt. It was a great way to generate money rather than spending thousands of dollars, we could raise thousands of dollars. Story continues And thats how the wedding went from low-key affair to full-blown charity event. Claude set up a wedding fundraiser called Lets Feed Kids, where he set a lofty goal of $1,000,000 and the couple has already raised more than $100,000 and counting. But the day itself was where the action happened. After exchanging vows in front of their guests, the couple pulled on hairnets and started sealing and packing meals that are scheduled to be delivered to starving children in Sierra Leone. Their guests joined in, and together, the entire party prepared 22,000 meals, which will feed 60 kids for a year. The guests even took time out to playfully form a ladle arch for the newlyweds to pass through a venue-appropriate tweak on tradition. Guests formed a ladle arch for the newlyweds. (Photo: Courtesy of Feed My Starving Children) Like many love stories, Claude and Juneaus marriage almost never happened. Claude, an IT consultant, had been living in Minnesota, happily organizing meal-packing events at Feed My Starving Children when Juneau, a wedding photographer, moved there from Seattle to be closer to her family in 2017. Twice a year, hed launch a big event with more than 150 volunteers at the Cn Rapids location where the pair would eventually wed. Claude told Yahoo Lifestyle that Juneau was invited by their mutual friend on Facebook to more than one meal-packing event, but continued to decline because she wanted to be available for her sister, who was pregnant. She told me to keep inviting her, though, Claude said. But fate intervened, and the pair finally met while attending the same church. I didnt know we went to same church, Claude said, but he was glad he recognized her from her Facebook photos. From there we started hanging out, he said, noting that the Feed My Starving Children charity may not have been where they met, but its how we met. Claude told Yahoo Lifestyle that the whole point of the wedding was for the couple to remain low-key while putting the focus others in need but clearly that backfired, he joked. That said, hes happy to now be receiving funds from anonymous donors who were touched by the wedding story. FMSC uses donations given by people (like you) to fund meal ingredients, where volunteers (like me) hand-pack meals, he wrote on the fundraising page. The meals are delivered to areas that are in desperate need of food. For Claude and Juneau, the entire series of events has been a whirlwind. Within 24 hours we accepted an offer on a house and got married, he said, noting that the couple was closing on their new house on Wednesday, and would be jetting off on their honeymoon not long after. No doubt the couple will be visiting their charity stomping grounds soon after returning to real life but for now, suffice to say theyve earned their time in the sun. Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. By Michael Martina BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese space probe successfully touched down on the far side of the moon on Thursday, China's space agency said, hailing the event as a historic first and a major achievement for the country's space program. The Chang'e-4 lunar probe, launched in December, made the "soft landing" at 0226 GMT and transmitted the first-ever "close range" image of the far side of the moon, the China National Space Administration said. The moon is tidally locked to Earth, rotating at the same rate as it orbits our planet, so most of the far side - or "dark side" - is never visible to us. Previous spacecraft have seen the far side, but none has landed on it. The landing "lifted the mysterious veil" of the far side of the moon and "opened a new chapter in human lunar exploration", the agency said in a statement on its website, which included a wide-angle color picture of a crater from the moon's surface. The probe, which has a lander and a rover, touched down at a targeted area near the moon's south pole in the Von Karman Crater after entering the moon's orbit in mid-December. The tasks of the Chang'e-4 include astronomical observation, surveying the moon's terrain, landform and mineral makeup, and measuring the neutron radiation and neutral atoms to study the environment of its far side. The control center in Beijing will decide when to let the rover separate from the lander, state news agency Xinhua said. "It's an important milestone for China's space exploration," Wu Weiren, chief designer of the lunar exploration program, said, according to Xinhua. The probe also took six live species - cotton, rapeseed, potato, arabidopsis, fruit fly and yeast - to the lifeless environment to form a mini biosphere, Xinhua said. A MAJOR SPACE POWER The landing is the latest step for China in its race to catch up with Russia and the United States and become a major space power by 2030. Beijing plans to launch construction of its own manned space station next year. While China has insisted its ambitions are purely peaceful, the U.S. Defense Department has accused it of pursuing activities aiming to prevent other nations from using space-based assets during a crisis. Besides its civilian ambitions, China has tested anti-satellite missiles and the U.S. Congress has banned NASA from two-way cooperation with its Chinese counterpart over security concerns. As competition accelerates in space, U.S. President Donald Trump seeks to create a new "Space Force" by 2020, as the sixth branch of the military. But the private space race is also heating up, as numerous companies aim to commercialize space travel, such as California-based SpaceX, which has upended the industry with its low-cost reusable Falcon 9 rockets. The United States is the only country to have landed humans on the moon, and Trump said in 2017 he wanted to return astronauts to the lunar surface to build a foundation for an eventual Mars mission. NASA administrators have said people could be put on Mars by as soon as the mid-2030s, with the agency having landed eight spacecraft there, the most recent in November. As soon as 2022, NASA expects to begin building a new space station laboratory to orbit the moon, as a pit stop for missions to distant parts of the solar system. In 2003, China became the third country to put a man in space with its own rocket after the former Soviet Union and the United States, and in 2017 it said it was preparing to send a person to the moon. China completed its first lunar "soft landing" in 2013, but its "Jade Rabbit" rover began malfunctioning after several weeks. (Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Paul Tait and Clarence Fernandez) A statue honouring Alaska Native culture has been put up in the state's largest city. The installation included the bronze statue of a Dena'ina woman holding dried fish, the Anchorage Daily News reported. She wears traditional dress hemmed with quills and stands before a rack hung with fish skins. A fish silhouetted in concrete swims into a partially submerged fish trap. The artwork at the Anchorage small boat launch was more than a decade in the making and marks a traditional Dena'ina fish camp at the mouth of Ship Creek that commemorates the Native village of Eklutna and its cultural history. "It's a pretty significant thing to have our people accurately represented, in an accurate likeness of what we're doing," said Joel Isaak, a Soldotna, Alaska, based artist who created the sculpture who is himself Dena'ina. Fish traps were used by the Athabascan-speaking tribe to catch hooligan and small stickleback in early spring before salmon returned to the creeks. The fish camp was used until World War II,when the Army took over the site. The Associated Press Mitigating infrastructure projects Big infrastructure projects planned in the 2000s threatened to disrupt the site. An art installation emerged as a way to use culture to mitigate the effects of the Knik Arm Crossing project, said Aaron Leggett, the president of Native Village of Eklutna and the curator of Alaska history at the Anchorage Museum. An expansion of the Port of Anchorage also was planned. Port expansion ended up mired in lawsuits. But the main contractor on the project, the United States Maritime Administration, kept a promise to pay for art honouring Eklutna, said Jocelyn Fenton, program manager with the Denali Commission. The total budget ended up at about $266,000, Denali Commission records show. It's a positive approach to letting people know we're still here. - Joel Isaak, Dena'ina artist The sculpture of the woman and the fish camp stand counter the statue of Captain James Cook, the namesake of Cook Inlet, whose statute overlooks the Alaska Railroad headquarters, Leggett said. Story continues Tribe members wondered why the community built a statue for an explorer who sailed up the inlet but never walked on the mainland, he said. 'Grandma Olga' The bronze Dena'ina woman in the sculpture is modeled after Olga Nikolai Ezi, an elder known as "Grandma Olga." Ezi died in the mid-20th century. She was Ahtna and married a Dena'ina chief, Simeon Esia. They had five children and established much of the lineage of the tribe, according to interpretive panels at the installation. Isaak is a distant relative of Ezi's. The village gave him photographs of Ezi's descendants so he could create a semblance of her, he said. The statue was not meant to be an exact replica of Ezi. Submitted by Joel Isaak "Her family should see themselves in her, was my goal," Isaak said. From start to finish, the sculpting process took about two years, Isaak said. He wanted to acknowledge that the Dena'ina people have been fishing in this spot for hundreds of years. The sculpture also seeks to honour the matrilineal structure of Dena'ina culture, Isaak said, and Ezi's efforts to pass her language and culture down to her family and past generations after it was forcibly removed during colonization. "It's a positive approach to letting people know we're still here," Isaak said. Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar, who hopes Ireland turned a corner in its housing crisis in 2018. Photo: PA When Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar, in a turn-of-the-year interview, said that Irelands colossal housing crisis was easily the biggest challenge that his government faced in 2018, he hadnt forgotten about Brexit. From the perspective of staunch Brexiteers like Jacob Rees-Mogg, Varadkar and his government are doing their damnedest to foil the grandest ambitions of a post-Brexit UK. Yet after years of simmering below the surface, the countrys homelessness crisis and wider housing problem easily dominated the headlines in 2018 just as much as the UKs looming exit from the European Union. Yes, Varadkar said in the interview, Brexit was the elephant in the room. And hes under no illusion about the degree to which Brexit could impact Ireland: His government has already said that a no-deal Brexit would have profound political, economic and legal implications for the country. But few Irish people took to the streets about Brexit last year. In comparison, hordes of protestors in recent months commanded Varadkars government to take action about housing. They occupied vacant buildings, stopped traffic and orchestrated clever social media campaigns. In many cases, they were joined by a roster of complainants from Irelands business, political, and policy-making communities. READ MORE: The issue gripping Ireland right now isnt just about Brexit Just before Christmas, the forceful eviction of a farmer and his family from a house in County Roscommon led to angry debate in Irelands parliament and some 2,000 taking to the streets in protest of the move as well as a retaliatory attack against security guards protecting the house by dozens of masked men. People taking part in a December housing demonstration in Dublin. Photo: PA Some 29,000 borrowers in Ireland are in long-term arrears, having accumulated at least two years worth of missed payments. Research conducted by the Irish Central Bank suggests that up to half of those in long-term mortgage arrears are at risk of having their homes repossessed. Story continues Though the bank has introduced new rules that seek to prevent financial institutions from too swiftly repossessing homes to encourage them to do deals with borrowers instead this research has been used to suggest that up to 14,000 Irish people could be at risk of losing their homes. READ MORE: Irish government announces new Airbnb restrictions amid housing crisis At the same time, some 10,000 Irish people are in emergency accommodation a figure that Varadkar hopes will tail off this year. I hope well look back in 2018 as the year in which the number of people homeless and in emergency accommodation stabilised and in 2019 is the year in which the number falls, he said. But research conducted by an Irish charity points to the fact that more than two-thirds of homeless families lost their last stable home in the private rented sector. Rents in Dublin, Irelands capital, are at an all-time high. And data published by property website MyHome.ie on Wednesday suggests that property prices will increase by 5% in 2019. One solution, of course, is to build more homes. Around 20,000 new homes were built in 2018, the highest in a decade, Varadkar said. And he pointed to plans to increase the stock of social and affordable housing social housing by 8,000 in 2019. Even then, Brexit could change the assumptions of his government when it comes to the public finances, he warned. But we are in a good position to absorb any shocks, should there be a shock to the economy, because the public finances are very much in good order. Bill Hader Cries When He Says Work Got in the Way of Him Seeing His Kids Trending News: Bill Hader Tears Up in an Interview When Talking About Missing His Kids Making millions of people laugh their asses off is no easy feat. And for Bill Hader, a former cast member on Saturday Night Live, it comes with sacrifices. Hader admitted that his work schedule has prevented him from seeing his kids, but he has a plan to remedy that. Related: 12 Tips to Balance Work and Family Missing His Kids A teary-eyed Hader said in an interview with Variety that last summer, he didnt spend enough time with the three daughters he shares with ex-wife Maggie Carey Hayley, Harper, and Hannah because he was so busy working on HBOs Barry and filming a role for It: Chapter Two. I think I saw my kids a total of five days all summer, the 40-year-old revealed. It was terrible. So Im going, Next summer Im taking off, and Im going to spend every day with them. Its this weird thing where when youre in this industry, you dont have time to be with them, and its really, really difficult. Im getting emotional right now talking about it. He added: Congrats, its the first interview Ive ever cried in. History of Anxiety Hader admitted he doesnt always handle stress well. While playing beloved SNL characters such as Stefon, the oddball nightlife correspondent, or Devon in The Californians, he suffered from panic attacks and migraines on and offstage. When I was on SNL, I was a bit of a basket case, he told Variety. It could not have been easy on my wife at the time. I was so consumed with work and anxiety. He added: Sometimes I felt like people thought, Oh, hes just wanting attention or something. It was like, No, man, Im legit. Im freaking out right now. Learning From His Mistakes Haders hard work has unquestionably paid off. His HBO show, Barry, about a hit man who falls in love with acting, is in its second season and took home three awards at the Emmys in 2018. The show is also nominated for three trophies at the upcoming Golden Globes, including Hader for best actor in a comedy series. But the hard-working comedian plans to mitigate his stress going forward. After season 2 finishes, Hader plans to spend the summer at home to finish a screenplay for a film he wants to direct. While there, hell have plenty of time to play with his kids, who are ages 4, 6 and 9. They can see me all day if they want, he told Variety. They can really get sick of me. You Might Also Dig News / National by Mandla Ndlovu Trevor has always supported ZanuPF killers like Mnangagwa. Mnangagwa's cronies Oliver Chidhawu & Douglas Munetsi secured Trevor's interests in the private media through ABC Bank, as it then was. For all you know, Mnangagwa might be a hidden shareholder in Trevor's media house! Prof Jonathan Moyo (@ProfJNMoyo) January 3, 2019 Exiled former G40 Kingpin Professor Jonathan Moyo has came out guns blazing at Alpha Media Holdings owner Trevor Ncube accussing him of supporting President Emmerson Mnangagwa whom he accused of being a killer"Trevor has always supported ZanuPF killers like Mnangagwa. Mnangagwa's cronies Oliver Chidhawu and Douglas Munetsi secured Trevor's interests in the private media through ABC Bank, as it then was. For all you know, Mnangagwa might be a hidden shareholder in Trevor's media house."Moyo was responding to Ncube who had earlier called him Robert Mugabe's stooge. The whole fiasco started when Trevor Ncube said he supports Strive masiyiwa who had accused Human Rights Watch Director Dewa Mavhinga of bullying his wife."Dear Chief Native Villager Ali Naka Please stop touching me on my studio about this Chap Jonathan Moyo. Robert Mugabe's chief stooge who is now a poster child for some Zimbabwe "democrats". My New Year's Resolution is to be nice to everybody. Stop It. Thank you." Ncube had wrote on Twitter.Moyo further said Ncube has skeletons in his cupboard yet he parades himself like a democrat."He's a total fake. His cupboard is full of gory skeletons but he goes around town strutting like a peacock. He plays holy and self-righteous, invoking Jesus Christ with his fellow juntapreneurs who, like him, are neck deep in debt."Moyo finished his frenzied tweet by saying there is nothing good to be said about President Mnangagwa because if you oppose him he sanctions your death."There's absolutely nothing good to be said about a gukurahundist like him, who believes that if you oppose him; your neck should be separated from your shoulders."Moyo is a survivor of an attempted assassination by the military forces during a bloody coup that ended 37 years of Robert Mugabe's ruthless rule. News / National by Staff reporter Zimbabwe can win one of five UN Security Council seats up for election in the next two years, President Emmerson Mnangagwa's spokesman has said, although analysts doubted the southern African country would win approval by two-thirds of the world body's General Assembly members to secure a term.The General Assembly has just elected Germany, Belgium, South Africa, the Dominican Republic and Indonesia for a two-year term in the Security Council starting on January 1, 2019.This comes as businessman Frank Buyanga has called on the UN - and greater western world - to give Zimbabwe a chance, and due recognition in global politics, as it was on a solid path to reform.The private initiative not only comes as Mnangagwa's government has vowed to vigorously pursue re-engagement efforts, but is pretty much in line with calls for the west to loosen its trade embargo on the Harare regime."...Africans need your support on many issues, including being able to voice their views on matters of security, those deliberated by the UN Security Council (UNSC)," Buyanga said in his letter to UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, adding the key organ "has never been more important to the continent, given the numerous interventions in conflicts around the region and undemocratic selection of representatives on the council, and where smaller nations' are left out"."The African Union (AU) is leaving the selection of who will represent Africa... to be determined by foreigners. This, Mr Guterres, opens a gap for manipulation and only the big' countries will forever be selected to sit on this powerful council ...it is from this background that... Zimbabwe think(s) it is time our country be given a chance to be part of the UNSC," he said."There is no threat to peace and security in Zimbabwe.Secretary-general, with your help and guidance we hope and trust that Zimbabwe will get the recognition it deserves. We recommend that you support our recommendation that smaller' African countries... have a seat on the UNSC," Buyanga said, adding "the recommendation must not only hold ground, but also be debated at the next general assembly (GA)".While the maverick businessman has welcomed the selection of South Africa, Belgium, Dominican Republic, Germany and Indonesia on the global organ, he says Africa must follow up on the Ezulwini Consensus - a 2005 pact and - whereby two permanent seats with veto powers were to be reserved for the continent.Presidential spokesman George Charamba told the Daily News that Zimbabwe needs the backing of the continent to earn the Security Council seat."The UN is an intergovernmental institution. He is a citizen expressing a wish for his own government. It has to be taken to an inter-governmental event," Charamba said. "There are due processes that are followed."Charamba said the proposal was feasible given that Zimbabwe has previously held a seat in the UN Security Council, when it voted in 1990 to authorize the United States and its allies to expel Iraq from Kuwait by force if President Saddam Hussein, now late, did not withdraw his forces.Charamba said Zimbabwe was part of the Security Council members who came up with a plan to observe "a pause of good will" until a January 15 deadline date by taking no further actions against Iraq and concentrating on diplomatic efforts to promote a peaceful settlement.Zimbabwe was part of the rotating members of the Security Council who supported the resolution, and the action was a success, he said."We have been in the UN Security Council when Saddam was kicked out of Kuwait, the first time," Charamba told the Daily News."We have been there. Its not a novel idea, Africa will have to have permanent seats. We have to proffer ourselves, backed by the continent to be on the UN Security Council. We should have the attitude to handle it on rotational basis. At some point it must become an entitlement. We are a paid up member of the UN. You can vie for any space, for any opening. Its a right that comes with membership. He is just wishing the best for his country," Charamba said of the maverick businessman, who is also a director of the continental lobby Pan African Business Forum.Set up in 1946 after the World War II, the UNSC comprises 15 members, five of them - Britain, France, China, the United States and Russia - are permanent, while 10 are non-permanent members that serve for two years.But critics, including Buyanga, say the UNSC represents an international, if not outdated, order that does not represent and is adaptive to the 21st century.The UN system was established at the San Francisco conference shortly before the end of World War II.Political analyst Trevor Maisiri said the call for a permanent seat for Africa in the Security Council will find a lot of traction, not only from developing countries, but from critical peace and security institutions, civil society and some in the industrialised nations as well."If you look at the UN Peace and Security Council agenda of late; it has heavily been skewed in dealing with matters on the African continent," Maisiri said. "Given the global move towards equitable sovereignty and the dismantling of historical imbalances and inequalities; the call for an African seat on the Security Council is justified."Stephen Chan, a professor of world politics at the London School of Oriental and African Studies said originally, the plan was for an even stronger Security Council, but strenuous lobbying by middle powers such as Australia led to a small number of powers to be invested in the General Assembly."Even so, the Security Council is the key force in the UN. Five permanent members sit on it and a rotating number of other members come and go, but only the big five have veto powers. For many years now, hugely growing powers like India and, from Africa, Nigeria and South Africa have sought permanent seats - to no effect. What does Zimbabwe have that is more than Nigeria or South Africa? This is simply an act of wishful thinking without any realisation of the very low place Zimbabwe now holds in international relations," Chan told the Daily News.Piers Pigou, senior consultant at the International Crisis Group,told the Daily News its a long shot for Zimbabwe to obtain a seat on the UN Security Council."This reflects fundamental misunderstanding of what's possible in current context of UN processes and where the UN reform process is" Pigou said.Dewa Mavhinga, a southern African director at the Human Rights Watch said Buyanga's UN petition over Security Council appears to be a posturing act meant to present him as a "notable cheerleader for the Zimbabwe government but with no prospects of securing the seat for Zimbabwe.""It seems Buyanga is using his petition to seek attention from the Mnangagwa government and the general public," Mavhinga said.A peace and security analyst and doctoral researcher, Josphat Munetsi, said the common theme among proposals for reform of the UN Security Council in recent years was a call for an increase in Security Council membership."The corollary usually is that adding more members to the council will make it more representative, but this does not equate to effectiveness," Munetsi said. "By increasing membership the group would be too large to conduct serious negotiations and still too small to represent UN membership as a whole."He said it was incontrovertible that self-interest, not democracy, motivates the membership claims, and warned that a council loaded with more permanent members would suffer from gridlock and political sclerosis.The current "chances for Security Council reform are zero," he said, adding that member states could only exert moral pressure to reform the old institutions in a new world."Essentially, the idea of Security Council reform is nice in principle, but in practice, it does not work," he said. News / Africa by Ihechukwu Njoku Prophet T.B. Joshua has denied releasing any prophecy regarding Nigeria's upcoming presidential elections in February 2019.An article circulating on several online news sites in Nigeria alleged that the famed cleric had predicted success for Nigeria's opposition candidate Atiku Abubakar during his annual New Year service."The election will be closely contested between the two leading political parties but I see Atiku Abubakar winning," the article, which was widely shared on social media in Nigeria, quotes Joshua as saying.However, in a statement released on his official Facebook page, Joshua categorically denied the report."Prophet T.B. Joshua has not yet released any prophecy for the year, 2019,"the statement began. "Any prophecy credited to him should be ignored. Emmanuel TV is our means of spreading our message; stay tuned to Emmanuel TV," it concluded.Rather than releasing a yearly prophecy, Joshua posted a hard-hitting sermon on YouTube, which had already garnered nearly 200,000 views since its release on January 1st2019.The cleric bemoaned the religious spirit' which has infiltrated Christianity, stressing that "Jesus' focus is the motive behind what we do" and "Christianity lies in the heart"."When you see someone who is doing good, don't be in a haste to see him as good because you don't know his motive,"he continued, citing the example of politicians who fail to fulfil election campaigns after being elected to office."Jesus looks at our motive behind our action but men look at the action Jesus tests our heart to reward us," he stressed.Despite denying a prediction of Atiku's victory, the cleric is on record giving a cryptic warning regarding Nigeria's democracy on two occasions in 2018."Nigeria, we should pray against a stop-over and pray for a smooth democracy,"Joshua stated on December 9th2018.Earlier on July 1st2018, he had warned Nigerians to "pray against the interruption of the democratic practice". South Africa is among the top economies that rank as conducive markets when it comes to the ease of doing business. Being the second biggest economy in Africa, the country attracts attention from the international business community. While the business environment is regarded as challenging by some entrepreneurs haggling to have a piece of the cake, a business has to be compliant to take advantage of the opportunities in the offing. If you are planning to set up a shop in the region, you must adhere to some administrative procedures, legal rules, and statutory requirements beforehand. Read on to know how to register a business in South Africa. Image: pexels.com Source: Original A business begins with an idea. Before you even think of registering a company, you will, of course, have determined the nature of the business and the industry it falls in. We have three groups of businesses: Sole proprietorship Partnership Private Company A single individual controls the running of a sole proprietorship. However, a company operates under the guidance of directors and some shareholders. The Companies Act, 2008, states that there are two categories of companies under the jurisdiction of the South African law; profit and non-profit companies. Note that a company is recognized as a legal entity in the same act. How to register a business in South Africa If one of your plans is registering a business in South Africa, especially a small business in the form of a small-medium enterprise (SME) or a startup, you will not have to register the entity like a company. In most cases, an SME can be either a sole proprietorship or a partnership. Nonetheless, you need to fulfill some tax obligations regardless of whether you will be operating the business on a personal capacity. Image: canva.com (modified by author) Source: UGC Unlike a company, small businesses are not legal entities. As such, you are not required to register it with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC). After starting your business operations, you are required by law to register for an income tax reference number from the exchequer within 60 days. The government will tax partners in the business depending on the share of ownership. To legalize your small business, apply for the right business permits and licenses from your local authority. How to register a sole proprietorship in South Africa A sole proprietor registers and operates a business on his/her own. An entrepreneur who desires to go it alone will end up with a sole proprietorship. One thing to take into consideration is that, if such kind of a non-legal entity is embroidered in a legal or financial case, the owners personal property can be seized or liquidated to pay debts or other pending liabilities. Wondering how to register a business in South Africa as a sole proprietor? Considering that a sole proprietorship is not a legal entity, registration is not necessary apart from the standard legal and tax requirements. On the other hand, you will be required to register the business with the South Africa Revenue Service (SARS) for purposes of tax returns. SARS combined individual income with the business revenues to determine what the sole trader pays as taxes. An entrepreneur will have the choice to register the business using either a fictitious name or his/her name. The false name will act as a trading name, and hence, one is required to file for the business name with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) in the location where the business is based. Company registration in South Africa Companies are common business entities in South Africa. The law has established them as legal entities. What distinguishes a company from other businesses is that it is a separate entity from the shareholders who own the business. Directors run the operations of the company. Company registration South Africa with the CIPC is mandatory for anyone wishing to register a private company. But before that, let us understand the process of how to register a company. 1.Having the right documentation Some of the documents required by the CIPC to register a company in South Africa include filled copies of a Notice of Incorporation and Memorandum of Incorporation. One can download them on the commissions' website. Other personal documents or requisites that you have to furnish are: Identification documents (ID) or passports of the incorporators and the directors Identification copy of the applicant if none of the directors is making the registration application. Power of attorney to sign all the related documents on behalf of the incorporator if he/she is a juristic person Certified ID copy to identify the power of an attorney for the previous action Valid name reservation in case of a prior filing of incorporation Note that it will take almost 25 days to have fully registered companies in South Africa from the time of application. However, it will take you a day if you decide to register the company without a reserved name. 2. Reserving a company name You will need to file for a company name that will identify your business in the Memorandum of Incorporation. There are three options to register a name- either by registering a company first using your name and file for registration of the name later or reserve the name and then initiate the company incorporation process later. Before you even reserve a name, you need to carry out a name search with the CIPC to ensure that no other company bears the trademark or name. CIPC does not charge business owners to search patented information as long as they have registered on the main portal to access CIPC online services. The last option is using the enterprise number to register the company with the view to filing for a name at a later stage through a name amendment. CIPC charges R75 for the manual registration of the companys name and R50 if you file electronically on the portal. From the date of application, it will take three days to reserve the name until its approval. Once approved, the name reservation will be valid for six months. 3. Registering with the South African Revenue Services (SARS) All businesses must fulfill the legal obligation to remit taxes. In our case, a private company will be registered with the taxpayer automatically if the incorporation of the company is done through the CIPC. Otherwise, for other types of businesses registered by sole proprietors or partners, they have to register with SARS within 60 days of starting their business operations. 4. Registering with Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) The convenience of business registration South Africa is that you can do it online or in person at the designated terminals. The CIPC self-service terminals are located in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, or at an authorized bank like First National Bank (FNB). The whole registration cost is R175 inclusive of the charges to reserve the name. Have with you the following document or information ready for the registration: Certified contact details for the directors and owners Owners Identification details or passport Details of physical location, email, and bank information Signed copies of the registration forms To access the commissions online services, you will need to register as a customer to transact any business on the e-services portal. Once registered, you will be given a new CIPC customer code. The next step after securing the virtual CIPC account is to deposit some money into the account. It is from the account that all deduction pertaining to the CIPC Company registration and name reservations are carried. If you choose to register your company online with CIPC, you must first be registered as a customer on their main website. Do you want to know how to register a company in South Africa? Here is the outlined procedure: Visit the CIPC main website. Hover to the on-line transacting and select e-services'. You will be redirected to the main portal. Use your password and security code to log in to the service portal. Once logged in, select register a new company'. In the required field, enter the identification number of the companys incorporator and director (s). You will be prompted to capture or edit the details of the directors. Click Save to confirm the information. Include additional personal details of the directors and incorporators including contacts, postal address, etc. Confirm the information and click, save'. Head to the bottom of the page and select, continue'. On the fields provided, including details relating to the company inclusive of authorized shares, email, website, physical and postal address. The next step will require you to select a name reservation option depending on the method you had selected earlier. You can choose between the following 3 options: 'applying for a new name as part of the process, use a name that has already been approved or register the company using the enterprise number. Depending on the option you selected to formalize the company, indicate all the details required. Verify all the information included and select, lodge company'. If you have included the correct details on all the required fields, a confirmation notification will pop up. Within a short while, an email will be sent prompting you to provide the supporting documents. Print the emailed form and have it signed by the directors and incorporators as indicted. Attach the supporting documents (listed earlier) with the signed form and send to the email- eServicesCoReg@cipc.co.za This post highlights the standard practice on how to register a business in South Africa. The process should not prove a challenge if you use this guide and have all the requisite documents required. Whether you are looking forward to starting a franchise business, church, private school or a law firm, you have no reason to hold off on your goals. Be sure to comply with municipal by-laws and agencies like the Department of Labour and South African Revenue Service. DISCLAIMER: This article is intended for general informational purposes only and does not address individual circumstances. It is not a substitute for professional advice or help and should not be relied on to make decisions of any kind. Any action you take upon the information presented in this article is strictly at your own risk and responsibility! READ ALSO: 11 uniquely South African business ideas A look at the SA business people who made Forbes' top 30 under 30 Omphile Mabitsela, 6, starts his own handmade stationery business Source: Briefly.co.za Wow, never saw that one coming. The print your own guns proponent is a creep. In Texas, '3D gun' guy Cody Wilson has been indicted on multiple counts of sexual assault against a minor. Wilson rose to national attention as a self-styled advocate of 3D-printed guns, with the entities "Ghost Gunner Inc" and "Defense Distributed." He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted, plus fines. The charges involve a female "child younger than 17 years of age" whom he is said to have solicited through the website SugarDaddyMeet.com. From reporting by Nathan Matisse at Ars Technica, who has been following the case in Austin, Texas: More than three months have passed since a warrant (PDF) initially went out for Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson's arrest. That document detailed Wilson's alleged sexual assault against a female "child younger than 17 years of age" whom he reportedly solicited through the website SugarDaddyMeet.com. Last Friday, December 28, the State of Texas finally formally indicted (PDF) Wilson. The 3D printed gun advocate now faces multiple charges: four counts of sexual assault of a child, two charges of indecency with a child by contact, and two charges of indecency with a child by exposure. These charges are all second-degree felonies punishable by up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $10,000. Wilson's two previously scheduled initial court appearances in November and December had each been pushed back, as often happens in cases still waiting on a formal indictment. This recent filing may make it more likely that the newest tentative date (scheduled for early February) will occur, meaning Wilson's team would need to finally appear at the Travis County Courthouse. Today, Wilson is a relatively free man at home, out of jail on a $150,000 bond. Ars reports that he is being monitored. PHOTO SOURCE: US Marshals shared this image of Wilson arriving into custody in Houston on September 23. At right, his 'WANTED' poster. News Pakistan police detain 19 staff of a food chain after being denied free burgers Workers at the trendy chain Johnny & Jugnu in the eastern city of Lahore were rounded up and held for seven hours overnight on Saturday, leaving behind unattended kitchens and hungry customers. Following outcry among fans, nine police officers involved were suspended, provincial police chief Inam Ghani said on Twitter. Open borders Pelosi takes control of the House Of Representatives today. A dark day in history for America in the making. The House will swear in their new group of Democrat anti American radicals. Sad day in America today. From January through October of every year, tennis star Sloane Stephens is in a different city competing. Based out of Florida, she visits her mother in Los Angeles as often as she can and also checks in on the Sloane Stephens Foundation, which utilizes education and tennis to uplift vulnerable children. I honestly dont remember where exactly (my first tennis tournament was), but I do remember that I had a lot of fun and met friends that I grew close to and continued to see at tournaments, Sloane said from Paris, where she was competing in the French Open. That positive first experience with tennis is why I stuck with it. That is the type of environment we create with the kids at the Sloane Stephens Foundation. We give you all the tools to take tennis as far as you want, but the most important thing is that you are finding a pathway to be healthy, happy and have a positive experience. Stephens who serves on the WTA Players Council stays in touch with fans on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/sloanestephens/), Twitter (https://twitter.com/SloaneStephens) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Sloaneposts). North Dakota police officers would be able to pull over drivers for failing to wear a seat belt under a bill introduced in the state Legislature. Republican Sen. Curt Kreun of Grand Forks cited the human and financial toll of vehicle crashes as his motivation for introducing the bill. He said his father was a state trooper in Minnesota who once said that he never unbuckled a dead person in 23 years. As of November, North Dakota was one of 15 states with a secondary law for adults in a vehicles front seats, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association, meaning officers may only issue a ticket for not wearing a seat belt when another violation takes place. State law allows for primary enforcement of seat belt use for minors, however. Its a dramatic, heartbreaking, grief-stricken event that can be really easily taken care of or remedied just by putting that seat belt on, Kreun said Wednesday, Jan. 2, a day before the legislative session kicks off. Of the state's 91 motor vehicle fatalities in which seat belts were available in 2017, 55 percent were unbelted, according to a North Dakota Department of Transportation report. North Dakota lawmakers met Thursday morning with the reinstated tribal and judicial addresses on their first legislative day of the 2019 session. Spirit Lake Nation Tribal Chair Myra Pearson highlighted learning from "negative and positive experiences" in her address. Pearson also noted "a positive year" for women and Native American women entering public service, such as new Rep. Ruth Buffalo, D-Fargo, who with Sen. Richard Marcellais, D-Belcourt, escorted Pearson to the podium. Pearson also addressed the issues facing Indian Country, such as substance abuse, involving methamphetamine and prescription drugs, and missing and murdered women and girls. She pointed to the cases of Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind and Olivia Lone Bear, two native women who went missing in 2017 in North Dakota before being recovered dead. Pearson also praised efforts such as Savanna's Act and the interest to further "legislative efforts to safeguard our women, children and men." She thanked state and tribal officials for their efforts to address issues in Indian Country. We know that even one breach or one financial attack by a bad actor could be far costlier than the $16 million we're trying to use to shore up our cybersecurity, the governor said. Sure to be a hot topic this session is spending proposals for Legacy Fund interest earnings, as the governor outlined $300 million in projects involving those dollars. The Legacy Fund sits at about $5.6 billion, derived from monthly oil tax revenue. Among his Legacy proposals, Burgum has posed $30 million for a statewide tracking network for drones and $50 million in a two-to-one match for the planned Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library at Medora. For the latter, he asked legislators "to envision" the ribbon cutting of the TR library, urging swift action on the project, which did draw applause. "This and each of our Legacy Fund proposals will have lasting impacts beyond the current generation," Burgum said. Burgum also spoke directly to opponents of his Higher Education Task Force recommendation of a multi-board alternative to governing public universities and colleges, invoking the states many local school boards. During the lunch hour, groups reassembled one by one to share the results. The word was slow, slow, slow. The 39 tick-marks tallied were a far cry from last years 45 species on the noon list. With the beautiful weather, you might think there should be lots of birds, but that was not the case. The 2018 final tally as it stands right now is 46 species, which is below the 20-year average of 49 species this millennium, with the highest CBC of 60 species checked off in 2013. As the data sheets were reviewed for the day, few species seem to be noteworthy. Careful scanning of thousands of geese on the river revealed white-fronted goose for the fourth time all in this decade. A pair of gadwall was recorded for only the second time, with the other in 2011. An Ebird alert on my phone indicated three eastern bluebirds were found in Fort Lincoln State Park for a fifth CBC record. A feeder watcher sent me a photo of a brown thrasher, a summer resident dining on suet. This was its third CBC report, with the others being in 1976 and 2006. A merlin and gray partridge was seen the day after the count and a white-throated sparrow before the count so they are included as count week but does not add to the total. Of course, we always look forward to the next Christmas Bird Count season, but, until then, we will certainly enjoy the birdlife that passes by and reminisce about memorable birding experiences. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 0 Prosecutors say that the Maryland driver who struck numerous cars in Tribecaincluding one that overturned and caught fire, killing its driverwas going 100 mph during the crash. Assistant District Attorney Courtney Groves said, "The defendants inexplicable recklessness resulted in an entirely avoidable, tragic death to a woman who was on her way to work." On December 29th, just after 7 a.m., police say Sherman Harrison, 37, was driving his Audi north on West Street near Laight Street when he first hit a Honda CRV, driven by Amy Phillipson. The impact of the crash sent Phillipson's vehicle up the street: Horrific deadly crash on West Side Hwy NB in TriBeCa...Dashcam video just obtained by @ABC7NY shows the car moments after it was hit, on fire and swerving in traffic before coming to a rest at the Hubert St intersection. Courtesy: Prince Khanvpure pic.twitter.com/viDkhUkBlq Naveen Dhaliwal (@NaveenDhaliwal) December 29, 2018 Then, according to the NYPD, Harrison continued north and hit a Toyota pick-up truck, which crashed into a Hyundai sedan. The truck driver, a 28-year-old man, and the Hyundai driver, a 69-year-old woman, were treated at nearby hospitals, while Phillipson was pronounced dead at the scene by EMS. Harrison allegedly tried to flee the scene with his Rottweiler but officers apprehended him. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was charged with manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident. A charge of criminally negligent homicide was later added. He appeared at his arraignment on Wednesday by closed circuit camera from the hospital. According to WABC 7, "Harrison had blown through three red lights before the accident, police said. A .40-caliber Glock magazine loaded with 17 rounds was found inside his car." The Daily News reports, "Harrison, wearing light blue hospital scrubs, interrupted the virtual proceeding several times. Some of his outbursts were incoherent, prompting Judge Kevin McGrath to ask his lawyer if a psychiatric fitness exam was necessary." He exclaimed "Im gonna stop! Im gonna stop myself or the court!" Harrison is being held without bail. His lawyer said, "My client was in shock and is still in shock, your honorIf hes released, we can work with the family to set him up with some sort of intensive mental health program. He is right now not himself. He is grieving." Phillipson was headed to work as a customer service rep at a FedEx call center. Her family said she usually took the subway to work. North Dakota's portion of a nationwide legal settlement with Wells Fargo Bank is $1.2 million. The payment will cover attorney fees and legal costs associated with a multi-state consumer protection violation lawsuit, according to a statement by Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem. Wells Fargo was accused in 2016 of opening millions of unauthorized customer accounts, enrolling customers in online banking services without their consent, improperly referring customers for enrollment in third-party insurance policies, charging insurance fees and premiums without consent and other fraudulent practices. More than 3.5 million customer accounts were involved. Affected customers were to be reimbursed separately through a share of more than $600 million in restitution from a related consumer class-action lawsuit. Wells Fargo also must implement a financial relief program for customers who did not receive restitution, as part of its settlement with the states. The bank has until Feb. 26 to create a website where those customers may file their financial relief requests. Wells Fargo created incentive programs and unrealistic sales goals, which provided the opportunity for fraudulent conduct by its employees," Stenehjem said in a statement. "This settlement is the most significant action involving a national bank by state attorneys general acting without a federal law enforcement partner." Reach Jessica Holdman at 701-250-8261 or jessica.holdman@bismarcktribune.com Love 1 Funny 1 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0 The business news you need With a weekly newsletter looking back at local history. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Changing this House rule would result in a flood of bills voted on by the entire House of Representatives who have not heard the committee discussion which caused the proposed law to be tabled. This change would create chaos since there are more than 3,000 proposed laws currently being drafted for the 2019 Legislature to consider. The proposed change being pushed by the Rep. Jones coalition would eliminate the value of legislative committees responsible for carefully evaluating proposed laws. This would weaken the voters ability to address legislation during the committee process. In addition, the leaders of this fringe Republican group are angry that the majority of the Republican Caucus did not elect them to House leadership. Consequently, they are discussing joining forces with the minority Democrat legislators to overthrow the newly nominated House of Representative leadership. I and the 26 former Montana legislators listed below, urge voters to contact the newly elected Republican legislators to encourage them to support the Republican majority who were elected to the Montana House of Representatives and not support the Rep. Llew Jones faction promoting division within the Republican caucus to support the Democrats agenda. Republican Ed Butcher, of Winifrid, is a former Montana legislator. His reports that this opinion was co-signed by 26 other former GOP legislators, including: Ken Miller, George Everett, Betty Lou Kasten, Verdell Jackson, Dave Kasten, Scott Boggio, Ed Hilbert, Bill Nooney, Bob Wagner, Wendy Warburton, Joan Blyton, Bill Harris, Jack Wells, Krayton Kerns, Jim Whitaker, Mike Miller, Jack Ross, Kenneth Peterson, Dan Skattum, Wayne Stahl, Janna Taylor, Art Wittich, Joel Bonick, John Witt, Dave Lewis and Matthew Monforton. Love 3 Funny 14 Wow 1 Sad 1 Angry 7 Theres no fighting the demographics or the progression of time. Forslund and other state officials have said the best way to keep costs down while best serving the elderly is to keep those people in their homes for as long as possible. That still costs money, money that the state and federal governments will have to provide, but its less than what would be necessary if every older Wyomingite checked into a long-term care facility. There are signs already that policymakers are taking this concern seriously. In his supplemental budget request, Mead included $13.5 million in all to take care of the elderly, with $2.5 million for nursing home enrollment, according to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. But the issue will not be blunted by one budget or one legislative session; it will likely be a concern for Gordon throughout his time in Cheyenne and may persist beyond his tenure. More health care-related challenges await policymakers. Theres the continued frustration of the lack of transparency in health care pricing something Gordon and other gubernatorial hopefuls had expressed concern about. This is a problem nationwide but one felt especially acutely here, where there are few choices for most health consumers. The funeral for a 14-year-old girl found dead last week on the Northern Cheyenne reservation will take place Saturday in Lame Deer. Henny Scott's funeral is scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday at Lame Deer High School, according to Forsyth-based Stevenson & Sons Funeral Home. On Friday, mourners will gather at the school for a traditional wake, beginning at 7 p.m. +7 Family, community filled with questions after teen's death on Northern Cheyenne Reservation A 14-year-old girl was reported missing then found dead two weeks later on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. Grieving the loss of Henny Scott, her family raise questions about the investigation into her disappearance and death. Scott was first reported missing Dec. 13, when the Bureau of Indian Affairs says it entered her name into a national missing persons database. Nearly two weeks later, on Dec. 26, the FBI requested state authorities issue a missing or endangered person alert, according to the Montana Department of Justice. CenturyLink, a Louisiana-based company, has customers in several dozen states and reported that customers in virtually every area of the country were affected. CenturyLink told The Gazette on Wednesday the cause of the problem was a "faulty network management card" that was part of software from a third-party vendor. The company said that it had already taken action to make sure the outage couldn't happen again. "CenturyLink experienced a network event beginning Dec. 27 that impacted voice, IP, and transport services for some of our customers," said Linda Johnson, spokeswoman for CenturyLink, said in an email response. "The event also impacted CenturyLink's visibility into our network management system, impairing our ability to troubleshoot and prolonging the duration of the outage. Affected services began to restore as of Dec. 28, and the network traffic had normalized as of Dec. 29. Steps are being taken to help prevent the issue from reoccurring." CenturyLink officials said the company is complying with any state and federal investigation into the incident. "We are in contact with policymakers and will cooperate fully with any investigation," Johnson told The Billings Gazette. Also in attendance were Mayor Bill Cole, U.S. Attorney for the District of Montana Kurt Alme, Yellowstone County Commissioners John Ostlund, Denis Pitman and Don Jones, Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito, U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Cavan, and Standing Masters Yvette LaFrentz and Melissa Williams. Of the sitting Yellowstone County District Court judges, only Michael Moses was in attendance. I have some amazing colleagues on the judiciary, and Im very much looking forward to working with them, Harada said in comments at the end of the ceremony. I understand that most of them couldnt be here because of the holidays, but its going to be a wonderful time in the Yellowstone County Courthouse. All six sitting judges had offered their public support to Haradas opponent, Juli Pierce, in a letter to the editor in The Billings Gazette the week before the November election. Harada thanked her family and friends for their support during her campaign. She said she both gained and lost friends while running for office, and that it had been a difficult process. There's plenty of great stuff to check out this week. Here are a few of our top picks for arts and entertainment in the area. Kathy Manos Penn with Lord Banjo Within days of each other, two articles expressing the same sentiment caught my attention. Their point stayed with me and continued to surface throughout the Holiday season. The message I took away was twofold: Loneliness is on the rise in our society, and we shouldn't lose touch with our friends.The first article was a WSJ review of Ben Sasse's book "Them: Why We Hate Each Other-and How to Heal." I steer clear of books about politics, but the review painted Sasse's book as more about how our family and friend connections have deteriorated rather than about our differences.Sasse notes,How many people do we know who would count themselves in that contingent? Never mind the reasons posited as to why this may be the case. Consider instead that the reviewer dubbed this situation a "loneliness epidemic."Next was Lewis J. Walker's columnWalker is a financial planner and speaks from the perspective of planning for retirement. His point? So many of us worry about running out of money when perhapsBoth authors spoke of the many Americans who have been diagnosed with depression or say they are depressed. Sasse wonders whether people are truly depressed or simply lonely while Walker notes that sadness can stem from loneliness. Regardless of the causes, they both agree loneliness is an issue and that friends and loved ones with whom to interact are critical to a healthy life, be it in retirement or earlier in life.I've always counted myself fortunate to have two sets of long-time friends with whom I can share pretty much anything. The first was formed when I taught school early in my career. I only taught for four years, but the close friendships I formed still exist. We five occasionally go weeks or even months without talking to each other, but when we do catch up, nothing has changed. Texts and emails help us to keep up with each other, especially in a city like Atlanta, where getting together is a bear.The second group grew out of the years when I facilitated leadership training. We gals traveled together, often in pairs, to conduct four-day classes in B&Bs and hotels across the country. When we weren't providing the training, we were being trained or sitting in meetings together. We just clicked. Through all life's changes and ups and downs, we've managed to stay connected and occasionally meet up for a long weekend.I know I could pick up the phone and call any one of these friends out of the blue, and they'd be there for me. Whether it was a request to talk something over by phone or to take the next plane to see me, they'd be there.I wholeheartedly agree that friends are essential to health and happiness, and I'd be heartbroken to lose touch with any of mine. As John Leonard said so well, "It takes a long time to grow an old friend." My New Year's resolution, then, is to work even harder to stay connected with my friends, old and new. Here's to a happy, healthy New Year for us all.Kathy Manos Penn is a Georgia resident. Her latest book,and her collection of columns,are available on Amazon. Contact Kathy at Want yet more one signal that American politics has changed markedly in the past decade? Look no further than the annual report card issued by the Cato Institute to grade the fiscal performance of the nation's state governors.Cato is a libertarian think tank, so on economic matters you might expect Republican politicians to be more in line with Cato's policy preferences than Democrats would be (the situation might be different on social issues). And, generally speaking, you'd be right.But even just 10 years ago, there were quite a few Democratic officeholders whose views on fiscal policy were moderate-to-conservative. Their budgets were constructed to prioritize education and other core programs without committing to reckless spending growth. Some Democratic governors proposed tax cuts to enhance their state's economic competitiveness while giving residents more freedom to decide for themselves what to do with their money.Employing both revenue and expenditure variables, Cato analyst Chris Edwards assigned letter grades to each governor . Of the 17 who received As or Bs in 2008, six were Democrats: governors Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Ted Strickland of Ohio, Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Brad Henry of Oklahoma, John Baldacci of Maine, and Phil Bredesen of Tennessee.In the 2018 report card , however, the 16 governors earning above-average grades were all Republicans, including five with As: Susana Martinez of New Mexico, Henry McMaster of South Carolina, Doug Burgum of North Dakota, Paul LePage of Maine, and Greg Abbott of Texas. Only one Democrat, Steve Bullock of Montana, managed even a C.Our own Roy Cooper, alas, was one of the six Democrats and two Republicans who received failing grades on the 2018 report card. Cooper deserved it, in my opinion, for the utterly irresponsible budget plan he proposed in 2018. (In fairness, you should know that I also thought the Republican legislature's 2018-19 budget plan raised spending too much.)Quite apart from whether you agree with the fiscal-policy preferences that the Cato Institute and I share, however, think for a moment about what these two snapshots in time reveal about the increasing polarization of American politics.Although political parties can disappoint their hardest-core supporters by going too slowly or straying from their ideological moorings on occasion, it is essential to recognize that the Democratic Party is much more consistently liberal than it used to be, while the Republican Party is much more consistently conservative.These terms mean different things to different people , I grant you. The term "liberal" has become an umbrella term that describes an alliance of progressives (left on economics and social policy) and communitarians (left on economics but not on social policy) while the term "conservative," in its modern context, describes an alliance of traditionalists (right on economics and social policy) and libertarians (who often dissent on the latter).Something like the same coalitions were evident in 2008. But the partisan umbrellas were open a bit wider, capturing a more diverse assortment. On the Democratic side, Joe Manchin is now a U.S. senator and Phil Bredesen tried to become one in 2018. But few up-and-coming Democrats are following in their footsteps.For one thing, the Democratic politicians who inspire party activists - and who dominate the field of presidential candidates for 2020 - tend to be in Congress, not leading executive branches in state capitals. And to the extent Democratic governors are helping define the party's current brand, they are fiscal liberals such as Jerry Brown of California (who got a D on the Cato report card), Mark Dayton of Minnesota (D), Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania (F), and Jay Inslee of Washington (F).The events of the past two years have presented Republicans with big political challenges, no question about it. But to the extent Democrats cede both right and center to Republicans when it comes to economics, both in Washington and in state capitals, they are making a long-term bet that the public wants vastly more government and vastly more taxes to pay for it. Seems risky. Please log in to keep reading. Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Despite promises from Mayor Bill de Blasio that his crackdown on e-bikes wouldn't hurt "the little guy," the NYPD has continued to issue fines to delivery workers, instead of the businesses they work for. Six weeks ago the department issued a memo to its uniformed officers, directing them to follow the letter of the law and cite the restaurants, not the workers themselves. The directive, dated November 20th, tells NYPD officers to interview the rider of a motorized scooter or throttle-powered e-bike (pedal-assisted e-bikes are legal) and determine if they are using it for work or personal reasons. If they're a working cyclist, the officer is supposed to find the address of their employer and "Respond to business location if within a reasonable distance." Failing that, officers are required to mail a summons to the business. City law explicitly states that employers are "liable" for the $500 e-bike fines their workers get, but the NYPD previously argued that the delivery workers often don't wear the required reflective vests that bear the name and address of their employers, or refuse to tell NYPD officers where they work, making it more difficult to cite businesses. From January 1st, 2018 through October 28th, 2018, the NYPD handed out 590 e-bike summonses to riders, and just 204 to businesses. A spokesperson for the department could not immediately provide more recent figures. "In theory, the numbers [of citations] for cyclists should be zero," Steven Wasserman, an attorney for the Legal Aid Society, which obtained the department's memo, told Gothamist, adding that he thinks the directive "is a very good thing." Wasserman, who has represented many delivery cyclists at the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings [OATH], said that there has been somewhat of a "drop off" of e-bike summonses against delivery cyclists in late 2018, after OATH hearing officers began dismissing citations issued to riders and not their employers. Even if the $500 fines are issued to the businesses and not the delivery workers, the bikes are still confiscated, and the employers will have to pay to get them back. "The business could just decide to disregard the summons and leave the e-bike guy in the lurch, but my guess is the first time that happens the court is gonna find them in default, and is gonna levy the fine, and there's gonna be some very rapid enforcement," Wasserman said. The memo also does not mention how officers can communicate with delivery cyclists who speak poor English. "There's a lot of them that just walk away, they're afraid of being deported," Wasserman added. The NYPD's directive comes as a package of City Council bills seeks to legalize electric scooters and throttle-assisted e-bikes by giving workers the opportunity to retrofit their bikes and cap their speed at 20 mph. Those bills are still in committee. "In a matter of months, hopefully we'll have arrived at some kind of a norm that's just, and where the delivery workers can do their jobs," Wasserman said. "Given language barriers and fear of police, immigrant workers will continue to bear the brunt of enforcement," said Do Lee, a member of the #DeliverJusticeCoalition who wrote his PhD thesis in environmental psychology on delivery cyclists at the CUNY Graduate Center. Lee stressed that the vast majority of e-bikes used in deliveries are owned by the workers, not their employers. "Fined businesses may fire vulnerable immigrant workers or take their wages to pay the fines," Lee said. "In the past two months, car drivers killed two immigrant workers on e-bikes: M-Din Rajon killed in a hit-and-run and Hugo Gracia killed by a fatal dooring. This e-bike crackdown distracts from the very real problems and violence that immigrant delivery workers face in labor and street conditions." You can read the entire NYPD memo below. E-Bike Patrol Guide Memo by on Scribd michaelquirk/iStock(NEW YORK) -- A Florida high school honors student is fighting back after she says her SAT score was held for review following a massive increase from a test earlier this year -- an uncommon practice that only happens in a "tiny fraction" of cases. Kamilah Campbell, 18, is calling on the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which administers the SAT, to release her test within two weeks so she can be considered by college admissions officers, Ben Crump, a national civil rights attorney representing Campbell, announced Wednesday. "ETS's invalidation of Kamilah's SAT scores has already had a significant negative impact on her and her family, causing extreme emotional pain and suffering, and threatening her future success," Crump wrote in a demand letter to ETS dated Jan. 1. "In concluding that the only way Kamilah could have improved her score so substantially was by cheating, ETS defamed Kamilah's character and replaced what should have been appropriate and motivating pride with shame and confusion." Crump added in the letter that Campbell, a dancer, is looking to attend Florida State University and invalidating the score "has threatened her ability to pay for college by eliminating her consideration for a Bright Futures Scholarship." About two weeks after Campbell took the test on Oct. 6, she received a letter from ETS, a non-profit, saying her exam was flagged for review, Crump said. ABC News has not obtained a copy of the letter from ETS to Campbell. The teenager received another letter on Oct. 31, indicating her score was still being reviewed and a decision would take up to six weeks. Once the time frame passed, Crump said Campbell called ETS multiple times. ETS officials told Campbell she scored 1,230, which is more than 300 points higher than when she took the SAT in March, the lawyer said. SAT scores range from 400 to 1,600. Crump said his client was told her score was flagged because that big of an improvement "indicated to ETS that she likely had 'prior knowledge' of the test." Campbell said she explained to ETS that when she took the SAT in March, she hadn't prepared, so between March and the October exam, she worked hard to improve, using prep resources and working with tutors, according to Crump. ETS told Campbell in a letter received Dec. 19 that a preliminary review showed "substantial evidence" that her score was invalid because of "substantial agreement between your answers on one or more scores sections of the test and those of other test-takers," according to Crump and a College Board spokesperson. That was among a number of factors for which her scores are under review, the board said, without elaborating. Campbell's score is being held while it's under review, a spokesperson for The College Board said. At the end of the process, depending on how the investigation turns out, her score might be released to her, but its also possible her score would be cancelled, the board said. ETS deferred to the College Board for comment, which in a statement said research shows "students who spent 20 hours on Official SAT Practice gained an average of 115 points," and that "these gains were consistent across race, income, and gender." The letter to Campbell "never references score gains as a reason for her scores being under review," a College Board spokesperson said. "In fact, the College Board celebrates when students work hard and improve their scores on the SAT," the spokesperson added. The College Board said, along with ETS, it reviews scores "when statistical analyses and other factors determine it is necessary." According to a 2012 ETS pamphlet, "only a tiny fraction of test scores are ever questioned." Among the information ETS said it considers are: scores inconsistent with previous scores, a test taker who may have not worked alone and test content or answers that may have been available before the exam. "When scores are under review, we work directly with students to collect relevant information and make determinations about the validity of the test scores following a comprehensive investigation of the evidence," the College Board said in a statement. "We do not cancel scores based on a score gain alone; we will only cancel scores after we are confident that there is substantial evidence to do so." The review process is two-pronged, with different personnel responsible for each, the ETS pamphlet explains. The initial review, run by ETS' office of testing integrity, considers whether there's substantial evidence of invalidity; if not, the review is ended, and if there is substantial evidence, the student is given a chance to submit more information to address the concerns. The second prong, the ETS pamphlet said, is involvement of the ETS' impartial Board of Review staff, which meets in rotating panels to review cases. "We are consistent in our test security procedures for all students. We analyze multiple factors looking for evidence of score invalidity," a College Board spokesperson told ABC News, adding, "the criteria we use in our test security efforts are not determined by race, ethnicity or any other personal attribute." Crump told ABC News Thursday the College Board's decision to hold her test is "a terrible abuse of power with no oversight." "We have given them a 14-day deadline to release her test scores," Crump said. "She needs an answer so she doesnt miss out on getting into colleges or scholarships." Crump threatened to potentially sue, claiming civil rights violations, if the scores are not released within the two weeks, the demand letter said. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Calvin J. King, age 92, of Beatrice, Nebraska, passed away on Dec. 31, 2018, at the Good Samaritan Home in Beatrice, Nebraska. Calvin was born June 9, 1926, on a farm three and a half miles southwest of Waterville, Kansas, in Marshall County to Grace L. (Roepke) and John T. King. He graduated from Waterville High School in 1944. Soon after he was inducted in the US Army, receiving basic training at Fort Hood, Texas and jungle warfare training in Hawaii and Saipan. He then was assigned to the 77th Infantry Division. He participated in the invasion and securing of Okinawa. He was awarded the Bronze Star and the Combat Infantry Badge. After serving in Okinawa he was reassigned to Cebu Island in the Philippines and from September 1945, he served with the first occupational forces at Hokkaido, Japan. He was reassigned to the US Air Force serving as a supply sergeant. Calvin was honorably discharged in 1946 as a Staff Sergeant. During the Korean Conflict in 1950, he was commissioned as a Lieutenant in standby reserve, but was not called back to active duty. A judge is expected to act different in Recovery Court, including using a different tone than a regular criminal proceeding. Reed explained that many people in the court have a negative view of prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges. We try to reframe their view of the world by understanding that this judge cares about me, but they certainly wont learn that if theyre being yelled at, Reed said. Presiding Judge Mark Moran explained that Reed has spent his time in the Recovery Court improving it by increasing awareness, size and helping it receive dedicated funding. Moran said Reeds position as a judge pro tempore, or as a judge that can be hired and fired by the county, has allowed him to gain experience as he helps take some cases off of other judges plates. Judge Reed has been with us cutting his teeth and doing everything except jury trials, Moran said. He brings a very experienced and balanced background to that position, much more so than other judges moving from pro tempore. Reed looks at this part of his life as a voter-appointed judge as his next chapter, and sees it as one of learning. In the past, Paw Placement offered lower costs and reduced prices for those who are tight on money but need to spay or neuter their animals. Conrad said they want to get to a point where they can again offer such services. Such services, and any others they may hope to provide such as an animal food bank, will be dependent on grants and private donations, Conrad said. This is because the contracts with the city and county essentially cover just the basics: keeping the lights on, employees paid and animals looked after. And this is even after the city and county agreed to pay more than they were when Coconino Humane Association held the contract. While the contract with the Humane Association had the city paying $250,000 per year, the deal with High Country Humane has the city chipping in $280,000. The county will be paying $229,500 per year under this arrangement. The current contract is for five years of services, with the option to extend the contract another five years. The city and county are also paying into what has been called a deferred maintenance fund to help High Country Humane deal with problems as they occur. In all, the city will put $61,950 into the fund over the next five years. Though George W. Bush may seem like an intellectual and stategeric genius by todays standards, during his presidency from 2001-2009 he was widely considered to be a bumbling buffoon. Many at the time also surmised his vice president, Dick Cheney, was actually pulling many of the strings. But writer and director Adam McKays new biopic Vice reveals just how powerful Cheney was, as well as giving us a glimpse of what brought him to that office. Vice opens with Cheney (Christian Bale) being hustled to the White House Situation Room by Secret Service agents during the Sept. 11 attacks. He immediately takes control of the room as a troubled Condoleezza Rice (LisaGay Hamilton) looks on. We then jump back to a young Cheney being pulled over for drunk driving in the early 1960s, to introduce both his hard-partying ways and the scorn that his young wife Lynne (Amy Adams) has for his lack of discipline. Hopping back and forth in time, McKay interweaves the W-era Cheney with which most of us are somewhat familiar. Cheney as a younger man getting his start as an intern during the Nixon administration under the tutelage of Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell); as a state representative from Wyoming; and as Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush, before W (Sam Rockwell) asks Cheney to be his running mate for the 2000 presidential election. Meanwhile, a narrator (Jesse Plemons)whose relevance to the story will not be revealed until very late in the filmhelps explain some of the more complicated and infuriating machinations Cheney pulled on the American people from behind the scenes. FLEMING Longtime Cayuga County Sheriff's Office member Brian Schenck, taking over for newly-retired Sheriff David Gould, was sworn in Wednesday, alongside the county coroner and a county legislator. At a reception in Fleming's Springside Inn, Schenck, who first joined the department in 1997, was sworn in by acting Cayuga County Supreme Court Judge Mark Fandrich to replace Gould after the latter retired from his 12 years as sheriff earlier in the week. Cayuga County Coroner Adam Duckett and Cayuga County District 10 Legislator Joseph Bennett, R-Auburn, were both also sworn in after winning re-election. Schenck and Duckett both said one of the biggest priorities of their terms would be to continue their offices' cooperative work to alleviate the damaging effects of the drug and opioid epidemic in Cayuga County. Noting how many in the crowd gathered Wednesday were from both the Democratic and Republican parties, Duckett said it was that kind of unity needed to solve the problem. "It's amazing to see how really special this county is to bring so many people out," Duckett said. After being sworn in, Schenck began his remarks by thanking the long list of people whose support he couldn't have done without. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} The district was one of 373 districts in the United States and Canada to be included on the College Boards 9th Annual Advanced Placement District Honor Roll, according to a post on the district's Facebook page. The post said the district received the honor through the number of students in AP courses while also increasing and sustaining the percentage of students who earned AP exam scores of 3 or higher when completing those courses. The College Board is a nonprofit meant to help students transition successfully to college. David Sweat, the inmate who escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility in June 2015 and was subsequently caught after a three-week manhunt that made national news, is now a resident of Auburn Correctional Facility. Sweat, 38, was moved to the Auburn prison Dec. 3, according to the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} The department did not provide a specific reason for Sweat's transfer, but noted in a statement that there are approximately 5,000 inmate transfers from one prison to another every month, based on regular reviews of inmate behavior, allegiances with other inmates and over-familiarity with a facility. Men are parents, too, a longstanding fact New York state will now formally acknowledge in law. Going forward, newly constructed public bathrooms for every gender must include changing tables, thanks to a measure originally passed last April as part of the 2019 fiscal year budget. Baffling, honestly, that no one though to do this before 2018, but here we are. "New York proudly leads the nation in fighting for the rights of working parents, and by ensuring access to these amenities, we will help ensure all New Yorkers can give their children the care they need at this critical stage of their lives," Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement issued April 5. The idea, Cuomo said, was to make the state "stronger, fairer and more equal" for all its residents. So: Starting now, all "new or substantially renovated" public restrooms will have to have a minimum of one changing station on-hand, while all state buildings open to the public must also have lactation rooms available for nursing parents. In September, a photo of a Florida man went viral with the hashtag #squatforchange. In it, dad Donte Palmer can be seen bracing against a bathroom wall, squatting so his son can lie across his lap for an extremely inconvenient diaper change. This photo really resonated with Palmer's fellow dads: "Eighty percent of the conversation was, we need father equality," he told the NY Times. That conversation has been ongoing, and has even attracted celebrity voices: In 2015, for example, Ashton Kutcher offered a free social media boost to any men's room that provided its patrons with a changing table. Indeed, in 2016, dad extraordinaire Barack Obama got involved, signing the Bathrooms Accessible in Every SituationBABIESlaw, which mandated that federal public buildings must put changing tables in all their bathrooms. Introducing the New York bill in 2015, state Senator Brad Hoylman emphasized that the dearth of changing stations for dads harkened back to times when women weren't really welcome in the workforce, and marriage was for heterosexual couples only. "We no longer live in an age of segregated gender spheres," he noted. "If we expect fathers to bear more of the burden of child-care, we must ensure that public accommodations reflect this new normal." Actually, it's a point Hoylman buried toward the end of his statement that I find most compelling. "All family or gender-neutral bathrooms," he wrote, "would be an elegant and simple solution." I would tend to agree: Make sure anyone can do whatever bathroom business they need to do, whenever they need to do it. *Bangs gavel* Case settled, court is adjourned, and congratulations to all our local dads. +2 Port Byron couple charged with faking son's cancer arrested on new charges A Port Byron couple charged with fraud earlier this year for raising thousands of dollars by Investigators determined the couple had driven to the residence and allegedly taken fentanyl there in the presence of the children. As a result, both were charged with one count of endangering the welfare of a child. In Cayuga County Criminal Court Thursday morning, Senior Assistant District Attorney Brittany Grome said that the District Attorney's Office was prepared to put an offer on the table for the couple to each plea guilty to one count each of first-degree scheme to defraud, a class E felony; and endangering the welfare of a child, a class A misdemeanor. In exchange for their pleas, she said, the office would offer each of them a one to three year, indeterminate, prison sentence. Judge Thomas Leone said based on what he knows about the case now, the couple's worst case scenario would likely be a one to three year prison sentence. Given they have no other criminal history, he said he would likely be comfortable going forward with a probationary sentence with a drug court component. If the either Jolene or Martin were to falter while in drug court, however, he warned that they could see more prison time. The case was adjourned until Jan. 17. Staff writer Megan Ehrhart can be reached at (315) 282-2244 or megan.ehrhart@lee.net. Follow her on Twitter @MeganEhrhart. Love 0 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 3 Angry 10 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. What were we thinking of? Well, why does the price of roses rise so high during the first 10 days of February? Who is gouging who? Why do more than 2 million blooms, from places like Israel, South Africa, Colombia and Kenya, fly each day into the Amsterdam airport in the Netherlands to be trucked 20 miles to the auction house in Aalsmeer to be sold, repackaged and sent to destinations across the world? Why cant we grow those 2 million carnations we import daily from Colombia right here in the United States? The list goes on and on. So, let me begin with some answers. Ill start with an easy question, and one that will become important to many American men just about five weeks from now: the price of roses. Why do florists up their prices by 20 or 30 percent for that one week of the year? Isnt that unfair to the consumer? It is a matter of economics. You see, a rose plant will produce only so many flowers in the course of the year and the monthly output from a plant is quite static, though it can be changed a bit. And that is what happens in Ecuador and Colombia. It takes about 12 weeks for a rose to develop on a plant once the growth bud is initiated. So in the late fall, the growers go through the greenhouses and snip off the growths that will produce flowers in the coming 10 or 12 weeks. In doing so, millions of new growths are initiated, growths that will produce roses for Valentines Day. Now they need to recoup the losses of those roses that they do not have for sale. So part of the price rise is in the greenhouse; other extra costs are for the many extra airplanes that have to be rented to get the product to us, the extra staff all along the way. And those costs filter down to the wholesaler, the retailer and the supermarket. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Colombian President Ivan Duque discussed Wednesday how to help restore democratic rule to crisis-wracked Venezuela and reject its "dictatorship." Pompeo followed up a trip to Brazil to meet with new far right President Jair Bolsonaro with a visit to Colombia for talks on the migrant exodus from neighboring Venezuela, and its regime led by President Nicolas Maduro. "Our conversations today covered how we can collaborate with regional and international partners to help those fleeing and help Venezuelans recover their democratic heritage," Pompeo said from the Caribbean city of Cartagena. He described Colombia as "a natural leader on regional efforts to support democracy and the rule of law in Venezuela," its neighbor. Right-wing Duque, who succeeded Juan Manuel Santos in August, said that "all the countries that share the value of democracy should unite to reject the Venezuelan dictatorship and do everything necessary to restore democracy and constitutional order." Pompeo praised Colombia for its support of the one million Venezuelans that have crossed the border and "fled the crisis caused by the Maduro regime's authoritarian misrule." According to the United Nations, 2.3 million Venezuelans have escaped poverty and economic meltdown since 2015 as those who remain face shortages of basic necessities such as food and medicine, as well as failing public services, including water, electricity and transport. Pompeo said the US has dedicated almost $92 million in aid to help Colombia deal with its influx of Venezuelan migrants. During his visit to Brazil, Pompeo agreed with his Peruvian and Brazilian counterparts to increase the pressure on Maduro, with Venezuela's government reacting by decrying interference. Maduro will begin his second mandate as president on January 10, although the result of last year's election was branded a fraud by the US, European Union and Organization of American States. Relations between Bogota and Caracas have been tense since Duque came to power. Maduro has accused Colombia and Brazil of collaborating with Washington to overthrow and assassinate him, although both neighboring South American countries have dismissed any suggestions of a military intervention. US President Donald Trump has ramped up sanctions against the Maduro regime since succeeding Barack Obama. Colombia President Ivan Duque (left) meets with United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Cartagena to discuss Venezuela Tens of thousands of tourists have fled some of Thailand's most popular islands as Tropical Storm Pabuk closes in and threatens to batter the southern part of the kingdom with heavy rains, winds and seven-metre (22-foot) waves. The islands of Koh Phangan and Koh Tao, packed with holiday-makers during the peak Christmas and New Year season, have emptied out since Wednesday as tourists squeeze onto ferries bound for the southern Thai mainland, with swimming banned and boats set to suspend services. Pabuk, Thailand's first tropical storm in the area outside of the monsoon season for around 30 years, is poised to hit the two islands as well as neighbouring Koh Samui on Friday afternoon, before cutting into the mainland. Packing winds of 104 kilometres per hour (65 mph), Pabuk is unlikely to intensify into a full blown typhoon, according to forecasters. "But we expect waves as high as five or seven metres near the eye of the storm," Phuwieng Prakammaintara, head of the Thai Meteorological Department, told reporters. No official evacuation order has been given but tourists are leaving in droves, with those unable to book flights preparing to see out the storm on eerily deserted islands. "I think the islands are almost empty... between 30,000 to 50,000 have left since the New Year's Eve countdown parties," Krikkrai Songthanee, Koh Phangnan district chief, told AFP. The acting mayor of Koh Tao, one of Southeast Asia's finest diving spots, said boats to Chumphon on the mainland were crammed with tourists, but several thousand guests were still on the island likely to brave the storm. "It's difficult to predict the severity of the storm so people should comply with authorities' recommendations." - 'Danger flags' - On Koh Samui, a Russian man drowned on Wednesday after his family ignored warnings not to go into the sea. "A family of three went swimming but the strong current caught a 56-year-old man who drowned," Police Captain Boonnam Srinarat of Samui Police told AFP. "Island officials announced the warning and put up the red 'danger' flags... but maybe the family did not think the situation was that serious." Bangkok Airways, which has a virtual monopoly on the air route to the island, cancelled all flights in and out of Samui on Friday. Authorities prepared shelters for tourists who decided to wait out the storm or who could not secure seats on ferries for the mainland before services are suspended late Thursday. Pabuk, which means a giant catfish in Lao, is also expected to dump heavy rain across the south, including tourist hotspots in the Andaman Sea such as Krabi and Phuket. The Similan National Park, home to pristine beaches and bays, has been closed until Saturday as a precaution as the storm bites into business during the peak season. The southernmost provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala near the Malaysia border are also bracing for flooding. Thailand's economy is heavily reliant on tourism. The kingdom is expected to welcome a record 40 million people this year, many bound for its southern beaches and resorts. Ko Phangan and nearby Koh Tao are hugely popular with tourists over the Christmas and New Year season Map of Thailand showing Koh Phangan, Koh Tao and Koh Samui where a tropical storm is heading according to officals on Thursday. Somalia on Thursday told the UN Security Council not to interfere in its national affairs after expelling a UN envoy who questioned the government's decision to arrest an al-Shabaab defector running for election. Somali Ambassador Abukar Dahir Osman did not specifically mention his government's decision to order Nicholas Haysom to leave but he argued that Somalia was in need of support, not criticism from the world body. "The UN and its representatives have a duty, even an obligation, to respect their mandate and to not interfere in our internal affairs, and to let the Somalis control their own destiny," said the ambassador. In his address to the council, Haysom did not comment on the government's order to expel him but he renewed his criticism of Mogadishu authorities after 15 people were killed in electoral violence. The council then met behind doors to discuss the fate of the UN envoy. There was no official statement released after those talks. Addressing the council, Haysom warned of a risk of conflict during elections in Somalia's federal states due to tensions with the central authorities. "We witnessed this during the electoral process in South West State," he said. "Allegations of interference by the FGS (federal government of Somalia) and the violence which erupted following the arrest of one of the candidates, a former al-Shabaab deputy leader, marred the process and does not bode well for upcoming electoral processes in other regions or for the 2020 national elections," he added. The United Nations stepped up efforts to persuade Somalia to reverse its decision, according to diplomats. "We are still trying to get clarification," said UN spokesman Farhan Haq when asked about Haysom's status. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stepped in to appeal to Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, diplomats said. - Rebranding terrorism - The Somali government ordered Haysom, a South African lawyer and experienced diplomat, to leave late Tuesday after he wrote a letter requesting information on the legal basis for the arrest of Muktar Robow who was running for the post of regional president of South West State. Robow, who defected from Al-Shabaab in 2017, was arrested last month and flown to the capital Mogadishu. The arrest sparked protests in the southwestern town of Baidoa on December 13-15 that were violently suppressed by Somalia's security forces, leaving at least 15 dead. In his letter, Haysom requested an investigation of the protest violence and stressed that UN-backed security forces must respect human rights. The Somali ambassador told the council that former Shabaab militants "cannot assume leadership positions without going through stringent established rehabilitation programs." "We reject the criticism and attempt to rebrand renewed terrorism as ice cream salesperson without redeeming themselves," he said. Haysom warned that the arrest of Robow could discourage other Shabaab militants "who may be considering exchanging violence for a political path." The UN mission in Somalia is tasked with supporting peace efforts and the strengthening of government institutions in the Horn of Africa nation, which were ruined by decades of civil war. UN envoy Nicholas Haysom renewed his criticism of Somalia's government two days after he was expelled Prominent Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi and British-Iranian detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe announced Thursday plans to go on hunger strike in Tehran's Evin Prison to protest against the denial of medical treatment. "We are urging for an immediate action to be taken," they said in a joint letter. Initially arrested in 2015, Mohammadi was sentenced to 10 years in prison for "forming and managing an illegal group", among other charges. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in 2016 and is serving a five-year jail sentence for alleged sedition. "Nazanin is currently having medical treatment blocked for lumps in her breasts, for neurological care over her neck pains and numbness in her arms and legs, and seeing an outside psychiatrist has been banned," her husband Richard Ratcliffe told AFP. "These are all being personally blocked by the head of Evin clinic, Mr Khani, despite having been approved by the prison doctor." Mohammadi was the spokeswoman for the now-outlawed Defenders of Human Rights Centre, which was co-founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. "We are severely disturbed and concerned by this prevention of specialist care approved by the prison doctor and strongly protest against it," Mohammadi and Zaghari-Ratcliffe said, according to the joint letter, originally published on Ebadi's website. "In protest to this illegal, inhuman and unlawful behaviour, and to express our concerns for our health and survival at this denial of specialist treatment, despite taking daily medicines, we will go on hunger strike from January 14 to 16. "We are urging for an immediate action to be taken. "We announce that in the event of the authorities' failure to address these concerns and them further endangering our health, we will take further actions. "The authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran are to be held responsible for the potential consequences." Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in 2016 and is serving a five-year jail sentence in Tehran for alleged sedition Filer dated June 25, 2007, of Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for "forming and managing an illegal group", among other charges Opposition MPs on Thursday boycotted the swearing-in of the new Bangladesh parliament after a controversial election that was dogged by allegations of intimidation and fraud. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was declared the landslide winner after Sunday's poll, marking a third term in office for the leader accused of increasing authoritarianism and overseeing a crackdown on the opposition. Hasina and 290 other MPs -- mainly from the ruling Awami League and its allies -- took the oath Thursday, with Hasina elected parliament leader, the first step to her being named prime minister of the South Asian nation. But seven opposition MPs boycotted the ceremony, calling for a re-run of the elections -- something Hasina has ruled out. Parliament spokesman Kamal Hossain said that if the MPs do not take an oath within 90 days new elections will be held in their constituencies. Opposition leaders and candidates from Sunday's election, which ended with at least 17 dead in voting-related unrest, met in Dhaka and were expected to submit an official request to the election commission for the results to be cancelled. The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its allies say that there was widespread voter intimidation and rigging of the results. The European Union has called on Bangladesh authorities to probe the obstacles to voting which it said had "tainted" the election, while the United States has expressed concern about "credible reports of harassment, intimidation and violence". "Reports of ballot stuffing, intimidation of voters, and ruling party control of voting locations on election day mean that an independent and impartial commission should be formed," said Brad Adams, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch, which has also called for an investigation. The Communist Party of Bangladesh and other left-wing parties staged a protest Thursday outside the national press club in Dhaka demanding the cancellation of the poll, with some 200 people standing in a human chain with black ribbons tied around their mouths. Opposition activists and MPs have criticsed the election and called for the poll to be re-run Niger's army killed more than 280 Boko Haram militants near the southeast border with Nigeria in days of land and air raids, the defence ministry said Wednesday. More than 200 jihadists were killed in air strikes and a further 87 by ground troops since the offensive began on December 28, the ministry said in a statement read on state television. It comes after Western African leaders held talks in November on the escalating attacks by the Nigerian Islamist group in the Lake Chad area, a strategic region where the borders of Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger converge. The operations were carried out on the islands of Lake Chad and along the Komadougou Yobe river which serves as a natural border between Niger and Nigeria, which has suffered a string of recent attacks on its military bases. The Niger army said it had lost no troops or equipment in its offensive and had seized eight canoes and two rocket launchers as well as assault weapons, ammunition and vehicles. In December, Niger's defence minister said he feared Boko Haram would launch renewed attacks on its positions from January, when the Komadougou Yobe river's waters which usually prevent incursions begin to recede. Niamey was particularly concerned by the situation in Nigeria where "military bases have been defeated," Defence Minister Kalla Moutari said in parliament. "Boko Haram fighters were able to get supplies, they were able to reinvigorate themselves," said Moutari. Boko Haram's bloody insurgency began in northeastern Nigeria in 2009 but has since spread into neighbouring countries, prompting a regional military response. Some 27,000 people have been killed and two million others displaced, sparking a dire humanitarian crisis in the region. Militants have targeted both soldiers and civilians and have been blamed for abductions of children and employees of foreign companies. In November, around a dozen girls were taken in raids on several border villages in southeastern Niger. In the same month, seven local employees of a French drilling firm and a government official were killed after suspected Boko Haram gunmen stormed their compound. That attack shattered months of relative calm in the Diffa region near the Lake Chad basin. Nigerian soldiers, pictured in 2017, have faced incursions from Boko Haram militants along the Komadougou Yobe river which serves as a natural border between Niger and Nigeria When I think back on the New York City bathtubs I have known, the picture is...not particularly inspiring, but also pretty typical I think. My longest-standing bathtub relationship ran three years, in which the tub was probably cleaned fewer times than I can count on a hand. On the rare, post-bleach occasion, it offered an adequate bathing experience: Sure, the tiny window sat a person's height above the basin itself, and looked out on a pungent poultry processing plant and a reliably crowded bar, but as long as you didn't mind stewing in the shadows and relative filth, it'd do. After that came the much smaller tub in the much smaller bathroom: a travel-sized, pepto pink number hunkered in a cramped, windowless room. My roommate at the time enjoyed taking hours-long night baths, so I guess the set-up worked for someone. Anyway, because most of us live inside a hamster ball's worth of spacewherein the "bathtub" is a hose floating high over the toilet, itself situated in the kitchen, which is really just an extension of the livingbedroomI have always taken it for granted that New York is for showers. But according to a NY Times investigation, aptly filed to "things that rich people enjoy," this is an extremely plebeian assumption. If you are fancy enough to pay for a hotel room in a city where you already pay thrice what you should in rent, and if you are fancy enough to do that just 'cause you could really use some you time, then your best possible option reportedly lives in the Riverhouse Suite at 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge. It checks all the bath-time musts on the Times bath-time rubric, have a look: This tub has a view so dazzling that Walt Whitman wrote a nine-part poem about it. Floor-to-ceiling sliding-glass windows invite in the bewildered gaze of the East Riverclose enough to feel the afternoon breeze, far enough to ensure privacy from peeping ferry-takers. The tub itself is cleaved from a single block of granite surrounded by two inches of counter space for whatever iced beverage you are sipping. ... The water at 1 Hotel is piped in through an extensive filtration system, as a decadent and largely unnecessary gesture, for "additional safety against biological contamination," according to the hotel's press representative. It rushes forth from a curved gunmetal faucet that was imported (from Canarsie) and splashes on the granite basin of the tub in the manner of rainfall against a mountainside. The bath is housed in a kind of slate-wall and glass enclosure in the middle of the bedroom; the windows can be opened for a plein air effect. The tub takes 10 minutes to fill, which gives you plenty of time for a pre-soak shower. Also, and this is very important, the tub bears no traces of previous murders. So, how much would you pay for the privilege of marinating in a carnage-free, carved stone bathtub, high in the sky in DUMBO, for 24 hours (or more!) because the hotel does not yet offer a pro-rated soaking rate? What is the most you would pay to wash like a king? Please take into account, the suite also boasts an indoor hammock for your Instagram needs, a yoga mat, sheepskins on every surface, and a Nespresso machine. Additionally, it affords visitors what seems like unlimited access to Influencers. (AND would-be influencers.) With all that in mind, does $7,000, or roughly half a year's rent, per night sound like too much? No? Then perhaps I have not effectively made my case: Splash around in this luxury tub over on the NY Times, in a suite that goes for up to $7K a night. Meanwhile, I will be weeping in my literal water closet. A male customer was arrested for assaulting two female McDonalds employees, allegedly grabbing one over the counter and kicking the other in the stomach. In a spectators video taken on New Years Eve, customer Daniel Willis Taylor, 40, yelled at a cashier named Yasmine James inside a Florida, McDonalds, reaching across the counter and grabbing her by the collar. She fought back, punching him on the arm and pulling his shirt. Co-workers pulled them apart, and then someone who appears to be a manager calmly finished the mans order. And I want her a** fired right now, said Taylor. When James says hes going to jail for assaulting her, Taylor shot back, I was just asking you a f***ing question, b****. Then to the manager, Taylor says, Youre going to give me a goddamn refund. The fight was reportedly over a straw. A male customer was arrested for assaulting two female McDonalds employees in Florida. Source: Storyful The other incident was only captured on store surveillance video and allegedly shows Taylor being escorted out of McDonalds and kicking a female employee named Tateona Bell in the stomach while she stood near the door. A representative of the St Petersburg Police Department told Yahoo Lifestyle that the security tape is not being released at this stage of the investigation. Viewers said the manager should not have finished Taylors order. Violent white man verbally & physically assaults a black female employee & managers response is to check his order? tweeted activist Qasim Rashid. The male employees were also called out for not immediately protecting James or trying to subdue Taylor. Co-workers pulled them apart, and then someone who appears to be a manager calmly finished the mans order. Source: Storyful According to an arrest affidavit sent to Yahoo Lifestyle by the St. Petersburg Police Department, Taylor, a transient from Clearwater, Florida, was charged with two counts of simple battery, a misdemeanour. No one picked up the phone at the McDonalds on 4595 34th Street South when called for comment by Yahoo Lifestyle. A representative of McDonalds corporate office did not return a request for comment. Records from the Pinellas County Sheriffs Office show that Taylor is currently held in the Pinellas County Jail on a $1,000 bond. The mayors of three large Italian cities are refusing to obey a controversial anti-immigration law penned by far-right deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, slamming it as unconstitutional. Salvini, also interior minister, on Thursday demanded the resignations of the rebellious leaders of Florence, Palermo and Naples, with the last escalating the row by also offering to take in migrants stranded at sea that Italy has turned away. "This (law) incites criminality, rather than fighting or preventing it," Palermo mayor Leoluca Orlando said. "It violates human rights. There are thousands, tens of thousands of people who legally reside here in Italy, who pay their taxes, who pay into pensions, and in a couple of weeks or months they will become... illegal," he claimed. The tough new anti-migrant law, adopted by parliament on November 28, makes it easier to expel new arrivals and limits residence permits in a country that has become the main gateway for migrants crossing the Mediterranean. It also abolishes humanitarian residence permits granted until now to vulnerable people, families or single women with children. Salvini, head of the far-right League party, was quick to suggest Orlando "take care of the many problems in his city instead". But his rebuke proved counterproductive with other mayors joining in the protest. - 'We will not bow' - Florence mayor Dario Nardella said his city would "not bow to" a law which "expels asylum-seekers and, without repatriating them, throws them out onto the street". Naples mayor Luigi de Magistris vowed that the parts of the law that he said were unconstitutional, "such as those on the right to asylum, will under no circumstances be enforced". He then upped the ante by offering to take in 32 migrants who are blocked in limbo at sea after being rescued by an NGO but denied a safe port in Europe. - 'Heart of stone' - "I hope the boat approaches the port of Naples, because -- contrary to what the government says -- we will launch a rescue plan and let them dock. I will oversee the rescue operation myself," he told a local radio. He accused Salvini of having "a stone instead of a heart". Salvini snapped back on Facebook that those who helped illegal migrants "hate Italians and will answer to the Law and History". Orlando said he would seek legal advice on whether the law was unconstitutional. Italy's tough new anti-migrant law has sparked protests Hungarian opposition parties on Thursday pledged to turn 2019 into a "year of resistance" against nationalist-conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orban, two days ahead of fresh anti-government protests in Budapest. "We vow to make 2019 a year of resistance, both inside and outside parliament. And we will do this with the unity and cooperation of all the opposition parties," a group of politicians declared at an impromptu gathering in front of the parliament in the Hungarian capital. Following a holiday truce, opposition parties, trade unions and civil groups are hoping to draw tens of thousands of demonstrators to a rally in Budapest on Saturday in new protests against a controversial labour reform signed into law last month. Dubbed a "slave law" by its opponents, the reform has increased the amount of overtime that employers can demand from 250 to 400 hours per year and allows payment to be delayed by up to three years. The government says the law is needed to tackle Hungary's labour shortage and will enable those who wish to work more hours to earn more. Hungarian President Janos Ader signed the reform into law just before Christmas, despite more than 10 days of sometimes violent clashes between demonstrators and police in the capital and other cities. The opposition is also calling for another recent reform to be scrapped that could threaten the independence of judges. And it is demanding greater freedom for public media in a country that is regularly criticised for infringing the right of law. Since he was re-elected for a third term last April, Orban, an admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has pursued reform policies aimed at creating an "illiberal democracy". The head of the Socialist Party, Bertalan Toth, welcomed the new show of unity between the leftist, liberal, environmentalist and far-right opposition parties, regretting that they had failed to demonstrate such solidarity during the elections in April. With 48 percent of the vote, Orban's Fidesz party and its allies holds two thirds of the seats in parliament, giving it the power to make constitutional changes. Opposition parties in Hungary hoping to draw tens of thousands of demonstrators to a rally in Budapest on Saturday in new protests against a controversial labour reform signed into law last month Australias southeast coast is set to swelter through a couple of gruelling days as temperatures soar across Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. After two weeks of brutal heat, Sydneysiders will receive somewhat of a reprieve with a looming cold front coming through on Sunday. But for those further down the coast, authorities are warning that the conditions could prove fatal. In addition to the brutal heat, a severe weather warning for damaging winds has also been issued for parts of the southeast coast. Image: Weatherzone There will be scores of people who have cardiac arrest or who present in a really severe state by ambulance, Victorias acting Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said. Meanwhile parents are again being told not to leave children in the car on hot days, as they could be unconscious in minutes. Victoria: If a fire starts its going to be uncontrollable Victorians are set to bake and firefighters are on high alert with thunderstorms, strong winds and fire risks adding to the potentially deadly conditions. Mildura, Swan Hill, Kerang and Echuca in the states northwest, are tipped to hit 46C while Bendigo heads to a top of 45C and Melbourne is forecast to reach 42C on Friday. A cool change will bring welcome relief for some areas later in the day but may bring wind gusts up to 100km/h with the potential to exacerbate fires. Melbournes Brighton Beach is expected to get a workout before the temperatures drop away later in the day. Image: AP This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Thunderstorms are also expected in parts of central and eastern Victoria in the late afternoon, with the possibility of dry lightning strikes posing a risk of fire. A total fire ban has been issued for Victoria with extreme fire warnings for the Mallee and the Wimmera. If a fire starts its going to be uncontrollable, its going to be fast-moving, Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said. SA swelters through a scorcher Adelaidians are set to flock to the beaches over the next couple of days to escape the soaring mercury. Image: AAP South Australia has sweltered through a summer scorcher with temperatures in the west and northern parts of the state soaring into the mid-40s. Ceduna, on the states west coast, was among the hottest spots with the mercury reaching 47.1C on Thursday. Other centres were almost as hot including Oodnadatta with 46.3C, Nullarbor with 46.2C and Port Augusta with 45.5C. Story continues This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. In Adelaide the top at the Kent Town observation centre hit 42.3C. But the Bureau of Meteorology said a cool change was slowly edging across SA and dropped the temperature by 10 degrees at Nullarbor in just eight minutes. The cooler conditions are expected to reach Adelaide during Friday morning with the city forecast to have a milder top of just 31C ahead of even cooler conditions across the weekend. The Country Fire Service reported no major incidents with the worst being a fire in a hay truck at Auburn in the mid-north. Unseasonably warm in Tassie Tasmanians are preparing for a day of scorching, dry and windy weather, with authorities warning of a severe fire risk for parts of the island state. Hobart is expected to reach 36 degrees on Friday, with Campania and Brighton tipped to hit 39. Those temperatures are 10 to 15 degrees warmer than what wed expect at this time of the year, climatologist Ian Barnes-Keoghan said. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Extra firefighters and equipment are on standby, with the east coast, southeast, midlands and Upper Derwent Valley rated a severe fire risk. A total fire ban is in place for the eastern half of the state. The mercury is likely to peak around 2pm, before an afternoon cool change brings relief to Hobart and sweeps up the east coast. Friday is the sixth anniversary of the Dunalley bushfires that destroyed hundreds of homes in the states southeast. Popular national park tracks at Mt Field, Freycinet and Maria Island have been closed due to the extreme heat. A German far-right group has launched a vigilante street patrol in a Bavarian town where four Afghan and Iranian asylum seekers allegedly attacked passers-by last weekend, local authorities said Thursday. The mayor of Amberg, Michael Cerny, said he was "shocked" after the extremist NPD party posted photos online of four people wearing red protective vests to create "safe spaces", including outside a refugee centre. "I can understand the insecurity seen in some of the reactions of some Ambergers, but the hatred and the threats of violence from all over the country go way too far," Cerny told the local daily Mittelbayerische Zeitung. Police said they were investigating the reports, which included a group calling itself "Kraut/pol" accusing town authorities in an email of failing to protect the citizens of Amberg. Police last Saturday detained four men from Afghanistan and Iran, aged 17 to 19, who had allegedly drunkenly attacked passers-by at random. Twelve people aged 16 to 42 suffered mostly minor injuries, and a 17-year-old was treated for head wounds in hospital. The case revived a simmering debate over immigration, integration and crime that has flared since the mass influx of over one million asylum seekers from 2015. Interior Minister Horst Seehofer -- head of Bavaria state's CSU party, who has been highly critical of Chancelor Angela Merkel's liberal stance on immigration -- called for speedy expulsions of immigrants who break the law. The newspaper said the suspects included an Afghan man with an ongoing asylum request and three rejected asylum seekers -- an Iranian who has no passport, an Afghan who is under age, and another Afghan with an ongoing appeal against his deportation order. The CSU's parliamentary leader, Alexander Dobrindt, said he "sharply condemns" the original street violence as well as the fact that "certain extremist groups" were seeking to instrumentalise the attacks. A spokeswoman for Merkel had Wednesday condemned the assaults in Amberg as well as a xenophobic attack by a 50-year-old unemployed German who steered his car into groups of immigrants on New Year's Eve. One of those attacks, in the city of Bottrop, left eight people injured, including a four-year-old Afghan boy and a 10-year-old Syrian girl. Amberg police last Saturday detained four men from Afghanistan and Iran who had allegedly drunkenly attacked passers-by at random Cerny said he was "shocked" after the extremist NPD party posted photos online of four people wearing red protective vests to create "safe spaces" Eight people were injured in Bottrop in a xenophobic attack by a man who steered his car into groups of immigrants on New Year's Eve A serial killer dubbed China's "Jack the Ripper" for the way he mutilated several of his 11 female victims was executed Thursday morning, three decades after the first murder, the court which sentenced him said. The court in the northwest city of Baiyin, Gansu province, which handed him the death sentence in March last year announced on the Twitter-like Weibo that it had been carried out. China's supreme court had approved the execution, it said. Gao Chengyong, 54, robbed, raped and murdered 11 women and girls between 1988 and 2002 in Gansu and the neighbouring Inner Mongolia region. In March 2018 he was found guilty by the Baiyin City Intermediate People's Court and handed death sentences for both robbery and intentional homicide, and lesser sentences for rape and dishonouring corpses. Gao targeted young women wearing red and followed them home, often cutting their throats and mutilating their bodies, according to state media reports. The youngest victim was eight years old. Some victims had their reproductive organs removed, the Beijing Youth Daily said when Gao was arrested in 2016. "To satisfy his perverted desire to dishonour and sully corpses, many of his female victims' corpses were damaged and violated," the court said on Weibo when he was convicted. "The motives of the defendant's crimes were despicable, his methods extremely cruel, the nature of the acts vile and the details of the crimes serious." Police had been hunting Gao for years. "The suspect has a sexual perversion and hates women," police said in 2004 when they linked the crimes for the first time and offered a reward of 200,000 yuan ($30,000) for information leading to an arrest. "He's reclusive and unsociable, but patient," according to the police profiling at the time. A lead in the case came when police collected and tested the DNA of one of Gao's relatives over a separate minor crime, the China Daily had reported. Police concluded the killer they had been hunting for 28 years was a relation, and Gao's DNA matched the murderer's. The original Jack the Ripper was a serial killer active in east London in the late Victorian era, who is widely believed to have murdered five women, mutilating several of them. Those killings have never been solved. Gao Chengyong, a serial killer dubbed China's "Jack the Ripper" for the way he mutilated several of his 11 female victims, is sentenced in court in Baiyin The world's most popular museum, the Paris Louvre, received over 10 million visitors in 2018, a record which it partly attributed Thursday to a Beyonce video shot against the backdrop of the Mona Lisa and other famous works. Some 10.2 million people visited the museum last year, a 25 percent increase over 2017, which its president Jean-Luc Martinez also linked to a stunning tourism recovery in Paris after a slump caused by a spate of terror attacks. But Martinez also gave some of the credit to pop power couple Beyonce and Jay Z, who shot the video for their hit "Apeshit" in the galleries of the former royal palace. The wildly popular clip, which has been viewed 147 million times on YouTube, went on to form the basis of a tour designed by the Louvre that takes in the 17 paintings and sculptures featured in the video. "The Beyonce clip and the opening of the Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi had people around the world talking about the Louvre. And one of the consequences is this spectacular rebound in the visitor numbers in 2018," Martinez told France Info radio. A 60-million-euro revamp of its reception areas and ticketing system also helped the venerable museum, one of Paris's best-known landmarks which was founded after the French Revolution, manage the influx. The overhaul was chiefly funded by an agreement between France and the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, where the Louvre opened an outpost in Abu Dhabi to great fanfare in November 2017. - Chinese surge - In 2017, the Louvre just edged the National Museum of China to remain the most-visited museum in the world with 8.1 million visitors compared to 8 million for the Beijing gallery and 7.3 million for the Metropolitan museum in New York. While the French remain the biggest patrons of the Louvre, which also home to the Venus de Milo, foreigners accounted for three-quarters of the intake. Nearly a million Chinese swept through the Louvre's doors in 2018, making them the second biggest foreign visitor group after Americans, who numbered nearly 1.5 million. "It's a huge leap," Martinez told AFP, noting that five years ago the Chinese were not in the top five of foreign visitors. The record numbers cap a dramatic turnaround for the Louvre, which like other Paris landmarks had suffered the fallout of several major terror attacks that severely dented visitor numbers. The Louvre itself was targeted in one attack in February 2017, when an Egyptian man armed with machetes lunged at soldiers on patrol outside the facility. No visitors were hurt in the incident, which saw police shoot the attacker, seriously injuring him. The record numbers cap a dramatic turnaround for the Louvre, which had suffered the fallout of terror attacks that dented visitor numbers Some 10.2 million people visited the museum last year, a 25 percent increase over 2017 The Louvre is home to Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" The Louvre opened an outpost in Abu Dhabi to great fanfare in November 2017 The number of migrants who died or went missing attempting to cross the Mediterranean fell by more than a quarter in 2018 over the previous year, to 2,262, the UN refugee agency said Thursday. The number of migrants who arrived in Europe after surviving the sea crossing also dropped by roughly the same proportion last year to 113,482 after 172,301 in 2017, according to the UNHCR's full-year figures. A total of 3,139 were reported dead or missing in 2017. "The Mediterranean has been for years the most deadly sea crossing in the world for refugees and migrants," UNHCR spokeswoman Celine Schmitt told AFP in Paris. The data also confirmed that Spain had become the main gateway into Europe for migrants and refugees who travel from north Africa, with 55,756 people registered as arriving there by sea in 2018. Italy, under its hardline anti-immigration government, cut the number of arrivals dramatically last year to 23,371 -- around a fifth of the number who arrived in 2017 when 119,369 crossed from Libya. All of the figures are far down from their peak in 2015 when an estimated one million people crossed the Mediterranean to Europe, mostly from Turkey into Greece. The effects of that influx continue to reverberate around the continent, sparking debate about immigration policies and fuelling far-right parties in countries that have welcomed large numbers of refugees, such as Italy, Germany and Sweden. Rescue boats carrying migrants also sparked repeated flareups among European countries in 2018 after Italy's populist government closed its ports to charity-run ships which pick up stranded migrants. The European Union has been working with north African countries, particularly conflict-wracked Libya, by offering aid money and help with border patrols in a bid to stem the flow of people. The EU has also financed border protection and development projects in other impoverished African states that are a source of migrants or serve as transit routes. The largest group of migrants who arrived in Europe in 2018 came from the west African state of Guinea (13,068) followed by Morocco (12,745) and Mali (10,327). Syrians were the fourth biggest group (9,839), followed by Afghans (7,621) and Iraqis (7,333). The European Union has been working with north African countries, particularly conflict-wracked Libya, by offering aid money and help with border patrols in a bid to stem the flow of people A federal judge dealt a blow to Mayor Bill de Blasio's attempted crackdown on Airbnb and other "home sharing" services on Thursday, blocking a citywide effort to force the short-term rental company to disclose sensitive information about its users. The law, which was set to go into effect next month, would have required that Airbnb and similar companies like Homeaway.com to share the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses of hosts, as well as rental info about guests, so that the city could more easily target scofflaws. The vast majority of Airbnb-type rentals are currently illegal in New York, though that hasn't stopped landlords and tenants from renting out their units to out-of-towners for days or weeks at a time, exacerbating the city's housing crisis. The New York Civil Liberties Union had previously raised privacy concerns over the way the law requires Airbnb and similar sites to provide host names, addresses, and contact information to the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement, along with details on when, how long, and for what fee those people rented out their spaces. Over the summer, Airbnb filed a lawsuit attempting to block the regulation, which they called an "extraordinary act of government overreach." On Thursday, Judge Paul Engelmayer sided with Airbnb, issuing a preliminary injunction pending the outcome of the ongoing litigation. In his decision, Engelmayer said that the city's law may violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on illegal searches and seizures. "The city has not cited any decision suggesting that the governmental appropriation of private business records on such a scale, unsupported by individualized suspicion or any tailored justification, qualifies as a reasonable search and seizure," Engelmayer wrote in the ruling. Asked about the injunction at an unrelated press conference this afternoon, de Blasio told reporters, "We felt we were well within the law. We have a huge city with a lot of Airbnb activity and a lot of concern in our neighborhoods and, unfortunately, a lot of examples of abuse. And to put a strong data regimen in place made all the sense in the world. So I think it's a good law and we're certainly going to fight for it, legally." Attorneys for the city did not immediately respond to a request for comment. "The decision today is a huge win for Airbnb and its users, including the thousands of New Yorkers at risk of illegal surveillance who use Airbnb to help make ends meet," Liz DeBold Fusco, a spokesperson for Airbnb, said in a statement. "The court today recognized the fundamental importance of New Yorkers' constitutional rights to privacy and the sanctity of their own homes." Australian coins. (Image: Getty) An Adelaide business rejection of a customer trying to pay $10 entirely with 50 cent coins has triggered a heated debate on social media. Local woman Amy Dee complained this week on Facebook that her small grocery purchase at the drive-through cashier of the OTR convenience store was declined, as first reported by The Advertiser. $10 worth of .50c pieces to get 2x 2ltr Milks and 2x Breads for my kids at OTR so I didnt have to lug my 2yr old and 11month old through the shops and have the car out in the heat just for a simple OTR job, she said. Dee claimed that her car was the only one in the queue so she was not holding up other customers. Shameful OTR!! So much for convenience shopping. So, drive back home, (15mins) to get shoes for my toddler so we can go back to shops again. Technically the OTR staff member was correct in declining the transaction, as payments exceeding $5 with any combination of 5c, 10c, 20c and 50c coins are not legal tender in Australia. But opinion on social media is divided between the business right to reject the customer and its heartless attitude towards a mother in need. You should have thrown it in her [sic] face and taken your bread and milk. You paid for it. Bad customer service OTR, said one social media commenter. OTR first responded to Dees complaint by pointing out the legal tender rules, but after a backlash on social media it softened its stance. An OTR representative by the name of Louise called me yesterday 3/1/19 at around 2pm and was very sympathetic and even said she thinks the employee should have just taken the money, said Dee in an update. This situation was easy counting and due to not being busy, he should have accepted it. She did offer me a $10 voucher for bread and milk Im glad they called me with a sincere apology, I just wish this could have happened 1st rather than a Currency Law lesson from 1965 lol. Make your money work with Yahoo Finances daily newsletter. Sign up here and stay on top of the latest money, news and tech news. Story continues Read next: How to land that dream job using a LinkedIn trick Read next: Yahoo Finances morning wrap for Friday Read next: Spotted $618 return flights from Australia to Europe With no Facebook, we respected one another because our weaknesses were not on the radar, as it were, so no one was able to know our full character. Fifteen years ago when there was no Facebook (it was launched on 4 February 2004), we wrote letters or occasionally encountered men and women along paths, at meeting places or on PMVs and exchanged phone numbers before parting ways. You can use Facebook to build your profile or destroy your reputation as a person, professional or leader. PORT MORESBY - Facebook is the most dominant social media and networking site in Papua New Guinea as it is around the world. Now with Facebook, we know who is an educated eunuch, mediocre mind, big-headed bigot, pompous public servant or a putrid pimp. And, in contrast, peoples language and manners on Facebook can also reveal their education and their decency. In PNG Facebook, our leaders love to take a selfie with a stubby or a wine bottle while others are seen buying lunch for a pale security guard or paying school fees for a tribesman. This is an effort to create the impression they are kind-hearted and altruistic. And each time this good deed is posted, the leader soars with ego. The sad thing is that he or she has no insight that there are many humble people who have done more decent, less self-centred charitable work and never posted on social media. Another leader preaches about the many wives he has and wants the whole Simbu Province to think he is a man of immense importance like a King Solomon or a Caesar who can make women melt like butter in the sun. Still another gives a sermon to a crowd of village folks and gets a pimp to take the money shot and upload it so the whole Simbu can say he is the sole leader and rival tribesmen and women are pretenders. This leader will subsequently belittle every other person who expresses a contrary opinion. The other clumsy Facebook cultural quirk we notice is that aspiring politicians praise the educated eunuchs rather than correct their error and arrogance that inundate the social media forum. We readers know they are more worried about securing votes than anything else. We also know that true leadership demands truth not falsehood. For their New Years resolutions, some of these Idi Amin characters needed to resolve to change and become credible people by sidelining their egos and respecting Simbu and other Facebook members. In fact collective humanity demands these small but shiny egos be shrouded and swapped for civic virtue. By the same token, those few followers who continue to praise them and give accolades to whatever they post on Facebook need a new year resolution to show other members of the forums that they are critical thinkers and can make rational contributions rather than being sponges that absorb any liquid and squeeze out gunk. Simbu and Papua New Guinean society needs all and every trade, skill and profession to build a decent society. If you think you need only lawyers and accountants to build a decent society then you are at fault because lawyers use electricity, shower, eat and use the toilet. And of course sleep in a house and so need electricians, plumbers, cooks, carpenters and so forth. The same applies to the accountant. Social scientists emphasise the importance of functionalism, or the organic model, where every able bodied man and woman plays a role in society for a society that is vibrant and healthy. As such, the legacy of Simbu mens houses demands that these egocentric frauds shroud their stockpile of ego and clothe themselves with civic virtue so becoming decent and respectful members of an egalitarian society in this new year of 2019. Now, with funding from the Asian Development Bank, a Chinese company has been contracted to transform the road into a two-lane sealed thoroughfare that will eventually connect this section of the densely populated highlands with the coastal province of Madang. Depending on the weather, the trip along the 29-kilometer stretch of road can take anywhere from one to three hours. At times it is only accessible by heavy-duty, four-wheel-drive vehicles. Barely passable during heavy rains because of its muddy surface and frequent landslides, the current Kundiawa-to-Gembogl road is a one-lane dirt track that winds a precarious path along limestone cliffs and the areas main river, the Simbu. GEMBOGL - In Papua New Guineas central highland province of Simbu, residents of the mountainous Gembogl district eagerly await the completion of a long-overdue road upgrade that will seamlessly connect them with the regions capital and the Highlands Highway, a vital link to much of the countrys predominantly rural population. Most skilled work on road upgrades is done by Chinese nationals from China Harbour Engineering Company. Local communities are employed as labourers and sign-holders (Camilo Mejia Giraldo) The road is a link to the rest of PNG, says Steven Yimgin, a local community leader. Seen as a path to development and improving their livelihoods, the project highlights the hunger rural communities across PNG have for reliable roads, as well as the central governments current push to open up and integrate remote areas through an ambitious road expansion initiative. But while the government emphasises the economic benefits of roads, some local organizations and experts have raised deep concerns about this push to pave the hinterlands. Rather than a path to development for communities around the country, they see the governments road-building initiative as a mechanism to open up previously untouched areas for extractive industries. PNG hosts some 7% of the worlds biodiversity and contains a vast swathe of the third-largest tropical rainforest in the world after the Amazon and the Congo Basin. It is also one of the worlds most mineral-rich nations, with deposits of copper, silver and gold, and has substantial reserves of oil and gas. However, the country remains one of the poorest in the Pacific, with widespread illiteracy and malnutrition. Aiming to harness the countrys natural wealth to spur development, the governments 2018-2022 Medium-Term Development Plan envisions expanding PNGs road network from 8,740 km to 12,000 km in just five years. This rapid expansion falls within an economic corridor concept that touts the development of infrastructure like roads, bridges and airports as the way to alleviate poverty in disconnected rural areas. In the introduction to the development plan, prime minister Peter ONeill says his government aims to grow internal revenue by 50%. To facilitate this economic sector stimulus, we are investing in key enabling infrastructures, the plan reads. We will construct five new national highways and missing road links to unlock the vast economic potential of our country. For John Chitoa, director of the local non-profit organisation Bismarck Ramu Group, the governments economic strategy and missing link road expansion is being undertaken purely to allow extractive industries into resource-rich areas. They are basically highways for the government into these areas, Chitoa says, adding that on-the-ground research by BRG has concluded that the government will combine the corridor concept with special agricultural business leases (SABLs) to extract both land and resources. The controversial SABLs, initially distributed mostly to foreign companies to undertake large agricultural projects, have been linked to illegal logging, government corruption and human rights abuses of local indigenous landowners. According to a study by the US-based Oakland Institute on illegal logging in PNG, SABLs have been systematically used by many foreign logging companies to expedite access to land purely for deforestation. Due to the SABL framework, the study says, PNG has experienced a sharp increase both in logging and timber exports, making it the second-largest exporter of tropical logs in the world, after Malaysia. Although the government has launched official investigations into SABL abuses, little has actually been done to roll back the number of leases. For Chitoa and BRG, the governments lack of action on SABLs and its continued push toward integrating the country via the economic corridors points to only one conclusion: The reason why they are using this [is] to grab land, its a land-grabbing mechanism for the government. Chitoa adds that although roads are vital to PNGs future economic development, the current plan by the government, funded largely by foreign interests, is not the way forward. Officials from PNGs Department Of Works did not respond to repeated requests for comment by Mongabay on the issue. Read the complete article here A terrified Papuan man is tortured with a machete by an Indonesian soldier DANIEL KUMBON WABAG - Just log into any Free West Papua website and you can view graphic videos, pictures and articles on the genocidal military operations against the Melanesian people who inhabit the western half of the island of New Guinea. The images and stories are intimidating, cruel and chilling. You almost want to scream. Our Melanesian forefathers did not invite foreign powers to come here to divide the large island into portions to claim for their king or queen. Ultimate world domination and greed were their motives. They lusted after New Guineas rich natural resources - like a man viewing a young woman bathing alone in a stream. They saw our weakness isolated communities, poorly armed, illiterate. A people who had been living in isolation for millennia. #Ahora Peruanos/as realizan planton exigiendo la salida de #Chavarry y en respaldo a fiscales Domingo Perez y Rafael Vela, en Puerta del Sol, #Madrid, Espana. #FueraChavarry #3E pic.twitter.com/eJFv3dwvgL 10:16 | Lima, Jan. 3. In a statement, they said the removal of Prosecutors Rafael Vela and Jose Domingo Perez from the Odebrecht case constituted severe interference in the investigations into an emblematic case of national interest. "Even though the decision was reversed , the Attorney General's behavior has affected the normal development of the investigation, thus generating a situation of chaos and confusion within our institution," reads the release. Adou Kouadio is from the Ivory Coast, where he claims his life was threatened after backing the former president. He crossed the U.S. border from Mexico in early 2016 and eventually lost his asylum case in immigration court. But the government wouldn't let him out on bond during the years he was detained, and he is currently appealing the asylum ruling in federal court. Last week, a federal judge in New York found this long detention violated his right to due process and ordered a bond hearing. On Monday, immigration judge Mimi Tsankov heard arguments from both sides about whether to let Kouadio out on bond. The detainee participated via video teleconference from the Hudson County jail (the government stopped bringing detainees to the court on Varick Street following a protest in June). Kouadios face and the top of his orange jumpsuit were visible on the courtroom screen as he listened to an interpreter who could translate into Twi, a language spoken in Ghana and Ivory Coast. Government attorney Fen Lu, of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), called Kouadio a flight risk who should not be released. She questioned whether one of the individuals who offered to help pay for and supervise his release really was a brother-in-law because an earlier document called him a friend. My concern is the respondent has no meaningful ties to the community, she said. But Kouadios attorney, Craig Relles, attributed any confusion about the brother-in-law to his clients original statements in Texas, where he didnt have access to an interpreter. He also noted that his client had a letter attesting to his character from a social worker at the Hudson County jail, where hes been held in ICE custody since his transfer from Texas in late 2016. Judge Tsankov ruled $15,000 was an appropriate bond to ensure Kouadios return to court, higher than the $5,000-$10,000 his lawyer had sought. After the ruling, Kouadio called his brother-in-law, Mathew Adomah-Baffour, who lives in the Bronx and attended the court hearing. Hes happy because finally, if he gets help, hes going to come out, he said. Adomah-Baffour said his sister is married to Kouadio and the couple has three children together. They moved to Ghana after Kouadios life was threatened for campaigning with the former Ivory Coast president, Laurent Gbagbo, but he said the threats continued. Johnson Darko, a longtime friend from Ghana who is now a U.S. citizen living in New Jersey, also attended the court hearing. His freedom has been violated, he said, of Kouadios three years behind bars. Darko and Adomah-Baffour both seemed stunned by the high price of the bond, which must be paid in full, unlike in criminal court, where only a portion has to be raised. Adomah-Baffour works in home health care and also drives a taxi. "Raising $15,000 is hard but we're going to do our best and see how God can help us, said Darko. Relles said there would be an online fundraiser. Immigrants are routinely released from detention on bail, but the government considers some ineligible and litigation has gone to the U.S. Supreme Court. Relles said Kouadios case is unique because of the way federal judge Alvin Hellerstein rebuked the government in ordering a bond hearing after three years of detention. The judge wrote, This nation prides itself on its humanity and openness with which it treats those who seek refuge at its gates. But his ruling only applies to Kouadio. Nonetheless, Relles said it gives hope to other clients that if they go to a federal judge they can win. We are going to continue to fight to get people free from immigration detention, absolutely, he said. He does not know when a federal appellate panel will hear Kouadios appeal for asylum. Beth Fertig is a senior reporter covering courts and legal affairs at WNYC. You can follow her on Twitter at @bethfertig. Marcha en apoyo a los fiscales Rafael Vela y Jose Domingo Perez, ratificados en sus cargos esta tarde. Ciudadanos se encuentran en la Plaza de Armas https://t.co/vLT5T70GcA Video: @BraianReynaG pic.twitter.com/cnC7vr5J9j Munoz succeeds Luis Castaneda Lossio, whose 4-year-term ended on December 31, 2018. AHORA El presidente @MartinVizcarraC participa en la ceremonia de juramentacion del alcalde Jorge Munoz y 39 regidores de Lima Metropolitana, electos para el periodo 2019-2022. pic.twitter.com/yoDi32r0gj Presidencia Peru (@presidenciaperu) 3 de enero de 2019 About Jorge Munoz Jorge Vicente Martin Munoz Wells the son of Julio Munoz Valdivieso and Molly Wells Leguia was born in Lima's Miraflores district on April 12, 1962. He attended Nuestra Senora del Carmen (Carmelitas) School in the same neighborhood between 1968 and 1979. The new capital city's leader joined Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru (PUCP) Law School in 1980 and graduated in 1986. Additionally, he received a master's degree in land use planning and management from Universidad de Barcelona. After that, he joined Fernando Andrade's administration in Miraflores as part of Somos Lima party renamed Somos Peru for the 1996-1998 term. Munoz also served as a councilman in the aforementioned locality between 1999 and 2002. Later, he ran for mayor of the same district under the Somos Peru banner in 2010 and won. He was re-elected in 2014. By the end of 2015, while in office, he quit Somos Peru the political party where he had served for almost 20 years. He has dedicated his career to politics and public management while serving as mayor of Miraflores district. In 2017, the 56-year old lawyer joined Accion Popular as a pre-mayoral candidate for Lima. In 2018, he won the party's primary for mayor. Finally, he was the winner of the last mayoral election in Lima , followed by Daniel Urresti and Renzo Reggiardo, who came second and third, respectively. (END) RMB/MVB YORK, Pa., Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Glatfelter (NYSE: GLT) today announced that it has entered into a consent decree with the United States Government, the State of Wisconsin, and Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products, under which Glatfelter expects to fully resolve its liability for the Lower Fox River and Green Bay environmental remediation and related Superfund litigation. The consent decree is subject to approval by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. The Lower Fox River and Green Bay site involves the remediation of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from the bed of the river, and has been the source of complex, multi-party litigation since 2008. Under the terms of the settlement, Glatfelter agrees to pay to the United States $20.5 million to resolve all claims for past government cleanup, enforcement, and oversight costs and natural resources damages. Glatfelter will also be responsible for payment of future oversight costs. In addition, Glatfelter will be primarily responsible to perform the long-term monitoring and maintenance work in certain portions of the site, with Georgia-Pacific performing that work in other portions of the site. Pursuant to a prior consent decree entered into between NCR Corporation, Appvion, Inc., and the governments, NCR Corporation is obligated to complete the remediation work. Glatfelter, along with another prior settling party, cleaned up the upstream portion of the river pursuant to a consent decree entered into in 2004, and has continuing monitoring and maintenance obligations under that consent decree. Glatfelter has entered into a contract with Foth Infrastructure and Environment to perform the long-term monitoring and maintenance work for which Glatfelter is primarily responsible under this new consent decree, as well as Glatfelters earlier consent decree, for a fixed stream of remaining payments totaling $10.9 million over 29 years. If approved by the court, the settlement is expected to conclude the complex litigation that has been ongoing for over ten years. The United States and the State of Wisconsin provide Glatfelter with covenants not to sue for all claims related to the remediation of the Lower Fox River and Green Bay site, as well as contribution protection for related litigation matters. Glatfelter, in turn, will waive any claim for reimbursement for the Governments over-recovery of natural resource damages, which the Court previously ruled Glatfelter is entitled to. Glatfelter and the Governments will ask the district court to vacate those rulings. Glatfelter will also grant covenants not to sue to the United States and the State of Wisconsin and agree to relinquish its claims for recovery of costs against other responsible parties. Glatfelter will withdraw its appeal of the NCR consent decree presently pending in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. If the court approves and enters this consent decree and NCR, Georgia-Pacific, and Foth perform their obligations as they contractually committed, Glatfelter will no longer face uncertainty with respect to the Fox River PCB matter except for the amount of future government oversight costs. The terms of the consent decree are consistent with Glatfelters expectations in previously setting its reserves for this matter and, as a result, the reserve will not be increased. The reserve for this matter totaled $45 million at September 30, 2018. Glatfelter expects to pay $20.6 million to $23.0 million in 2019 related to this matter including the $20.5 million to resolve all past government claims. Glatfelter was represented in negotiation of this settlement as well as the underlying litigation, by Greenberg Traurig, LLP. Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements Any statements included in this press release which pertain to future financial and business matters are forward- looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company uses words such as anticipates, believes, expects, future, intends, plans, targets, and similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements. Any such statements are based on the Companys current expectations and are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and other unpredictable or uncontrollable factors that could cause future results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements including, but not limited to: changes in industry, business, market, and economic conditions, demand for or pricing of its products, market growth rates and currency exchange rates. In light of these risks, uncertainties and other factors, the forward-looking matters discussed in this press release may not occur and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release and Glatfelter undertakes no obligation, and does not intend, to update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this press release. More information about these factors is contained in Glatfelters filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available at www.glatfelter.com. About Glatfelter Glatfelter is a leading global supplier of engineered materials. The Companys high-quality, innovative and customizable solutions are found in tea and single-serve coffee filtration, personal hygiene and packaging products as well as home improvement and industrial applications. Headquartered in York, PA, the Companys net sales approximate $950 million annually with customers in over 100 countries and approximately 2,300 employees worldwide. Operations include eleven manufacturing facilities located in the United States, Canada, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the Philippines. Additional information about Glatfelter may be found at www.glatfelter.com. TORONTO, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MPX Bioceutical Corporation (MPX) (CSE: MPX; OTC: MPXEF) announced that on December 28, 2018, it had agreed to acquire certain minority interests in two Massachusetts entities associated with certain cultivation and production activities. The entities include IMT, LLC and Fall River Development Co. LLC, both limited liability companies domesticated in Massachusetts (Sellers). Through its wholly-owned subsidiary CGX Life Sciences Inc. of Nevada, MPX currently owns fifty-one percent (51.0%) of each entity, and today announces its agreement to acquire the remaining interests in an all-stock transaction. Under the terms of the agreement, MPX will issue to the Sellers common shares of MPX equal, in the aggregate, to $4.9 million USD, as determined by the ten day volume weight average price of MPX Shares on the Canadian Stock Exchange (Ten Day VWAP) prior to the announcement of this agreement, and subject to the rules and policies of the Exchange Share held. The transaction is subject to customary closing requirements of the parties under Massachusetts law, and may be subject to regulatory supervision and approval. About MPX Bioceutical Corporation MPX, through its wholly-owned subsidiaries in the U.S., provides substantial management, staffing, procurement, advisory, financial, real estate rental, logistics and administrative services to three medicinal cannabis enterprises in Arizona operating under the Health for Life (dispensaries) and the award-winning Melting Point Extracts (high-margin concentrates wholesale) brands. The successful Health for Life brand operates in the rapidly growing Phoenix Metropolitan Statistical Area. With the acquisition of The Holistic Center, MPX added another operating medical cannabis enterprise to its footprint in Arizona. GreenMart of Nevada NLV, LLC (GreenMart NV) is an award-winning licensed cultivation, production and wholesale business, licensed for both the medical and adult use sectors in Las Vegas, Nevada, and is already selling wholesale into the Nevada medical cannabis market. In Massachusetts, MPX is building out and will operate a cultivation and production facility as well as up to three dispensaries, and manages three full service dispensaries and one producer in Maryland. Forward Looking Statements Statements in this news release that are forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties concerning the specific factors disclosed here and elsewhere in MPXs periodic filings with Canadian securities regulators. When used in this news release, words such as "will, could, plan, estimate, expect, intend, may, potential, believe, should, our vision" and similar expressions, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements may include, without limitation, anticipated benefits associated with the transaction described herein, anticipated effects of the transaction on the company and its strategy going forward, the completion of any capital project or expansions, the timing for the completion of the transaction, and the satisfaction of closing conditions including, without limitation, compliance by MPX with various covenants contained in the agreement. The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the content of this news release. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to sell any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the U.S. Securities Act) or any state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. CONTACT INFORMATION Scott Boyes, Chairman, President and CEO MPX Bioceutical Corporation (formerly The Canadian Bioceutical Corporation) 416-840-3725 info@mpxbioceutical.com Media Contact: Anne Donohoe KCSA Strategic Communications 212-896-1265 adonohoe@kcsa.com OTTAWA, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Avivagen Inc. (TSXV:VIV) (Avivagen) announces the appointment of UHY McGovern Hurley LLP as auditors. UHY McGovern Hurley LLP has been appointed to carry out the audit of Avivagens financial statements for the year ended October 31, 2018. Audit work has already begun, and Avivagen expects to file its audited financial statements within the timelines required by National Instrument 51-102 (NI 51-102). We are pleased to be engaging UHY McGovern Hurley LLP as auditors for Avivagen moving forward, says Kym Anthony, Chairman and CEO, Avivagen Inc. UHY McGovern Hurleys admirable track record in working with emerging biotech companies such as ourselves provides Avivagen with valuable expertise, while ensuring we continue to invest our resources in areas of the business that will provide the greatest benefit to our stakeholders. UHY McGovern Hurley LLP will replace PricewaterhouseCooopers LLP (PwC). A Notice of Change of Auditor as well as letters from both PwC and UHY McGovern Hurley LLP have been posted on www.SEDAR.com. As indicated in the Notice of Change of Auditor, PwC previously advised Avivagen that it believed there to be an unresolved issue, as defined in NI 51-102, in connection with its resignation. While Avivagen is confident that sufficient information and documentation was or could have been provided to PwC to allow it to complete its original audit mandate, the Audit Committee of Avivagens Board of Directors has authorized it to respond fully to inquiries by UHY McGovern Hurley LLP. About UHY McGovern Hurley LLP UHY McGovern Hurley LLP is a medium-sized firm of Chartered Accountants, Chartered Professional Accountants and Licensed Public Accountants with six partners and staff of approximately 45. UHY McGovern Hurley LLP is registered with the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC), the Canadian Public Accountability Board (CPAB), and the U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). They currently audit approximately 120 reporting issuers listed on various exchanges and with operations around the world. They have been auditing reporting issuers for over 25 years. UHY McGovern Hurley LLP is the Toronto network office of UHY International, one of the world's leading business advisory, consulting and accounting networks, with teams operating over 325 offices, over 95 countries, over 7,850 staff worldwide. UHY member firms are modern businesses in their respective countries, knowledgeable of local regulations, market practice and cultural norms. The ability to draw on its extensive industry knowledge and expertise allows UHY McGovern Hurley LLP to conduct audits that are tailored to the size and specifics of its clients. About Avivagen Avivagen is a life sciences corporation focused on developing and commercializing products for livestock, companion animal and human applications that, by safely supporting immune function, promote general health and performance. It is a public corporation traded on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol VIV and is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, based in partnership facilities of the National Research Council of Canada and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. For more information, visit www.avivagen.com. The contents of the website are expressly not incorporated by reference in this press release. About OxC-beta Technology and OxC-beta Livestock Avivagens OxC-beta technology is derived from Avivagen discoveries about carotenoids, compounds that give certain fruits and vegetables their bright colours, and is a non-antibiotic means of maintaining optimal health and growth. OxC-beta Livestock is a proprietary product shown to be effective and economic in replacing the antibiotics commonly added to livestock feeds. OxC-beta Livestock is currently registered and available for sale in the Philippines, Taiwan, New Zealand and Thailand. Avivagens OxC-beta Livestock product is safe, effective and could fulfill the global mandate to remove all in-feed antibiotics as growth promoters. Numerous international livestock trials with poultry and swine using OxC-beta Livestock have proven that the product performs as well as, and, sometimes, in some aspects, better than in-feed antibiotics. Forward Looking Statements This news release includes certain forward-looking statements that are based upon the current expectations of management. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties associated with the business of Avivagen and the environment in which the business operates. Any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking, including those identified by the expressions aim, anticipate, appear, believe, consider, could, estimate, expect, if, intend, goal, hope, likely, may, plan, possibly, potentially, pursue, seem, should, whether, will, would and similar expressions. Statements about OxC-betas ability to replace antibiotics commonly added to livestock feeds or to fulfill the global mandate to remove in-feed antibiotics as growth promoters and statements about Avivagens expectation that it will be in a position to file its audited financial statements within the timeline required by NI 51-102 are forward looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations. For instance, Avivagens products may not gain the market acceptance or regulatory approvals necessary to fulfill the global mandate to remove in-feed antibiotics as growth promoters. The filing of Avivagens financial statements for the year ended October 31, 2018 is subject to UHY McGovern Hurley LLP completing its audit work and delivering an audit opinion. UHY McGovern Hurley LLPs ability to issue an audit opinion within the time required by NI 51-102 or at all is subject to certain conditions, many of which are outside of Avivagens control, and although Avivagen has no reason to believe UHY McGovern Hurley LLP will not be able to deliver an audit opinion, UHY McGovern Hurley LLPs ability to do so is, in part, outside of Avivagens control. Readers are referred to Avivagens latest managements discussion and analysis available at www.SEDAR.com for a discussion of risks associated with its business. Except as required by law, Avivagen assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. For more information: Avivagen Inc. Drew Basek Director of Investor Relations 100 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0R6 Phone: 416-540-0733 E-mail: d.basek@avivagen.com Kym Anthony Chairman & Interim CEO 100 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0R6 Head Office Phone: 613-949-8164 Website: www.avivagen.com Copyright 2019 Avivagen Inc. OxC-beta is a trademark of Avivagen Inc. HOUSTON, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tokio Marine HCC today announced that A.M. Best has affirmed the A++ (Superior) Financial Strength Ratings and aa+ Long-Term Issuer Credit Ratings of the property/casualty insurance companies in the Houston Casualty Group and HCC Life Insurance Company. The outlook for all of A.M. Bests ratings is Stable. We are very pleased that A.M. Best has affirmed Tokio Marine HCCs Financial Strength Ratings of A++. These robust ratings reflect our strong balance sheet, underwriting-focused business strategy and track record of profitable results, as well as our effective enterprise risk management, said Susan Rivera, Tokio Marine HCCs Chief Executive Officer. The following property/casualty insurance companies comprise Houston Casualty Group, as defined by A.M. Best: Houston Casualty Company U.S. Specialty Insurance Company Avemco Insurance Company HCC Specialty Insurance Company American Contractors Indemnity Company United States Surety Company Producers Agriculture Insurance Company Producers Lloyds Insurance Company HCC Reinsurance Company Limited Tokio Marine HCC is the marketing name used to describe the affiliated companies under the common ownership of HCC Insurance Holdings, Inc., a Delaware-incorporated insurance holding company. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Tokio Marine HCC is a leading specialty insurance group with offices in the United States, the United Kingdom and Continental Europe. Tokio Marine HCCs major domestic insurance companies have financial strength ratings of AA- (Very Strong) from S&P Global Ratings, A++ (Superior) from A.M. Best, and AA- (Very Strong) from Fitch Ratings; its major international insurance companies have financial strength ratings of AA- (Very Strong) from S&P Global Ratings. Tokio Marine HCC is a member of the Tokio Marine Group, a premier global company founded in 1879 with a market capitalization of $34 billion as of December 31, 2017. For more information about Tokio Marine HCC, please visit www.tokiomarinehcc.com. Contact: Doug Busker, Vice President Public Relations Tokio Marine HCC 713-996-1192 VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- New Carolin Gold Corp. (the Company or New Carolin) (TSXV: LAD | OTCBB: LADFF): New Carolin is pleased to announce the results of its annual general and special meeting of shareholders (the AGM) held on Tuesday, December 18, 2018 in Vancouver, Canada. Shareholders voted in favour of all items put forward by the Board of Directors and management of the Company. All five of the individuals nominated for the Board of Directors - Robert L. Thast, Richard T. Gillard, Kenneth R. Holmes, Robert P. Lunde and Christopher Taylor - were elected at the AGM and will serve as directors of the Company for the ensuing year, other than Robert Thast who has resigned from the Board of Directors subsequent to the date of the AGM, as further disclosed in the Companys press release dated December 26, 2018. The shareholders of the Company also voted in favour of (i) appointing Crowe MacKay LLP, Chartered Accountants, as auditors of the Company for the ensuing year and authorizing directors to fix the auditors' remuneration; (ii) re-approving the Company's incentive stock option plan; and (iii) approving the re-pricing of certain stock options granted under the Companys stock option plan. About New Carolin Gold Corp. New Carolin Gold is a Canadian-based junior company focused on the exploration, evaluation and development of our 100% owned property consisting of 144 square kilometers of contiguous mineral claims and crown grants, collectively known as the Ladner Gold Project (Project). The Project is located near Hope, BC in the prospective and under-explored Coquihalla Gold Belt, which is host to several historic small gold producers including the Carolin Mine, Emancipation Mine and Pipestem Mine, and numerous gold prospects. For additional information, please visit the Companys website at www.newcarolingold.com . ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS "Kenneth R. Holmes" President Phone: (778) 379-1275 Toll Free: 1(855) 891-9185 E-mail: info@newcarolingold.com Web site: www.newcarolingold.com This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the U.S. Securities Act) or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or the accuracy of this press release. Caution concerning forward-looking information This news release may contain forward-looking statements that are based on the Companys expectations, estimates and projections regarding its business and the economic environment in which it operates. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to control or predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements and readers should not place undue reliance on such statements. Statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to update them publicly to reflect new information or the occurrence of future events or circumstances, unless otherwise required to do so by law. Company expects to reschedule event for next week EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MamaMancini's Holdings, Inc. (the "Company" or "MamaMancini's") (OTCQB: MMMB), a manufacturer and marketer of specialty pre-prepared, frozen and refrigerated all-natural food products (as defined by the United States Department of Agriculture), announced that the scheduled investor webinar for today at 4pm ET, has been postponed due to technical issues. The event will be conducted next week and the company will make an announcement with further details. About MamaMancini's MamaMancini's is a marketer and distributor of a line of beef meatballs, turkey meatballs, and chicken meatballs all with sauce, five cheese stuffed beef, turkey and chicken meatballs all with sauce, original beef and turkey meatloaves and bacon gorgonzola beef meatloaf, and other similar Italian cuisine products. The Company's sales have been growing on a consistent basis as the Company expands its distribution channel, which includes major retailers such as Publix, Shop Rite, Jewel, Save Mart, Lucky's, Lunds and Byerlys, SUPERVALU, Safeway, Albertsons, Whole Foods Market, Shaw's, Kings, Roche Bros., Key Foods, Stop & Shop, Giant, Giant Eagle, Foodtown, Sam's Club, SpartanNash, Hy-Vee, Topps, Kroger, Shoppers, Marsh, King Kullen, Central Markets, Weis Markets, Ingles, and The Fresh Market. The Company sells to distributors such as Sysco, AWI, UNFI, Driscoll Foods, SUPERVALU, Monterrey Provision Co., Burris Logistics and C&S Wholesale Grocers. In addition, the Company sells a wide variety of its products through QVC, the world's largest direct to consumer marketer, via on air presentations, auto ship programs, and direct purchases through the internet. Forward Looking Statements This press release may contain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. "Forward-looking statements" describe future expectations, plans, results, or strategies and are generally preceded by words such as "may," "future," "plan" or "planned," "will" or "should," "expected," "anticipates," "draft," "eventually" or "projected." You are cautioned that such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause future circumstances, events, or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements, including the risks that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, and other risks identified in the Company's 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2018 and other filings made by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Contact: Carl Wolf Chairman and CEO MamaMancinis Holdings, Inc. Stock Symbol: MMMB 973-985-0280 SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash., Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via OTC PR WIRE -- Daybreak Oil and Gas, Inc. (OTC PINK: DBRM) ("Daybreak" or the "Company"), a Washington corporation, is pleased to announce that it finalized an agreement to settle all of its outstanding indebtedness under the existing credit facility with Maximilian Resources, LLC ("Maximilian") through the payment of $700,000 on December 27, 2018 which will eliminate approximately $12.6 million in debt from its Balance Sheet. The Company also acquired an additional 40% working interest in Daybreak's Michigan Project along with a note receivable from its Michigan Project partner that was held by Maximilian. Daybreak now owns a 70% working interest in its Michigan Project. Furthermore, all encumbrances have been removed from all of the Company's leases in California and Michigan. The effects of this transaction will be reflected on the Company's financial statements at February 28, 2019. The $700,000 paid to Maximilian was obtained from private investors by selling a Production Payment from future wells to be drilled in California and Michigan. The Company intends to raise an additional $600,000 to drill new wells in California and Michigan. No additional debt was created from this Production Payment sale. James F. Westmoreland, President, and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "This transaction is obviously a significant event for the Company and its Shareholders. By eliminating approximately $12.6 million in debt from our Balance Sheet, we have created an opportunity for new avenues of growth by the Company." Daybreak Oil and Gas, Inc. is an independent crude oil and natural gas company currently engaged in the exploration, development and production of onshore crude oil and natural gas in the United States. The Company is headquartered in Spokane Valley, Washington with an operations office in Friendswood, Texas. Daybreak owns a 3-D seismic survey that encompasses 20,000 acres over approximately 32 square miles with approximately 3,700 acres under lease in the San Joaquin Valley of California. The Company operates production from 20 oil wells in our East Slopes project area in Kern County, California. Daybreak now owns a 70% working interest in 1,400 acres in the Michigan Basin where we have two shallow crude oil prospects. More information about Daybreak Oil and Gas, Inc. can be found at www.daybreakoilandgas.com Contact: Ed Capko Telephone: 815-942-2581 Investor Relations Email: edc@daybreakoilandgas.com Certain statements contained in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Such statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "believe," "expect," "may," "should," "up to," "approximately," "likely," or "anticipates" or the negative thereof. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections for the future of our business and our industry and are not statements of historical fact. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about our expectations regarding our financing, our future operating results, our future capital expenditures, our expansion and growth of operations and our future investments in and acquisitions of crude oil and natural gas properties. We have based these forward-looking statements on assumptions and analyses made in light of our experience and our perception of historical trends, current conditions, and expected future developments. However, you should be aware that these forward-looking statements are only our predictions and we cannot guarantee any such outcomes. Future events and actual results may differ materially from the results set forth in or implied in the forward-looking statements. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements: general economic and business conditions; exposure to market risks in our financial instruments; fluctuations in worldwide prices and demand for crude oil and natural gas; fluctuations in the levels of our crude oil and natural gas exploration and development activities; our ability to find, acquire and develop crude oil and natural gas properties, including the ability to develop the East Slopes Project and Michigan prospects; risks associated with crude oil and natural gas exploration and development activities; competition for raw materials and customers in the crude oil and natural gas industry; technological changes and developments in the crude oil and natural gas industry; legislative and regulatory uncertainties, including proposed changes to federal tax law and climate change legislation, and potential environmental liabilities; our ability to continue as a going concern; and our ability to secure additional capital to fund operations. Additional factors that may affect future results are contained in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") and are available at the SEC's web site http://www.sec.gov. Daybreak Oil and Gas, Inc. disclaims any obligation to update and revise statements contained in this press release based on new information or otherwise. HOUSTON, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Universal Weather and Aviation, Inc. Chairman Greg Evans has been awarded the National Business Aviation Associations prestigious Silk Scarf Award for his contributions to the business aviation community throughout his career. The Silk Scarf represents diligence, industry and persistence and was created to honor outstanding business aviation community members and inspire future aviators. Over many years, Greg has generously donated his resources, time, finances, and even his aircraft to support those in need, said NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen. He is always willing to step up, and lend a hand to help others. He embodies what the Silk Scarf Award is all about, and it is a privilege to recognize him with this honor. Evans has been with Universal since 1978. Prior to serving as Universal Chairman, Evans served as flight supervisor for two years and Vice President, Operations Officer for 18 years. Throughout this aviation career, Evans has served as a vocal and active advocate for business aviation, working with government and airport officials to ease access restrictions and improve operating flexibility at high-risk and stress locations around the world. Bolen noted that Evans was instrumental in the work of a broad, diverse coalition that successfully defeated recent legislation calling for so-called privatization of air traffic control. He has also been a strong supporter of NBAAs political action committee and Leadership Council. He has donated Universals business aircraft to assist the Corporate Angel Network, Impact a Hero, Operation Mend and other non-profit organizations. In 2010, Universal received Gulfstreams prestigious Outstanding Flight Award for donating the use of its aircraft to transport severely wounded veterans to special events in their honor. In addition to his involvement supporting industry initiatives, Evans is also active in the community, supporting the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, where he graduated with a double major in Business Administration and Behavioral Marketing. He also helps nonprofit organizations such as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Corporate Angel Network, Impact a Hero, and Operation Mend. About Universal Weather and Aviation, Inc. You're counted on to make every trip a success, but you dont have to do it alone. Reduce your operating risk and stress by accessing a global community of resources dedicated to helping you prepare for unforeseen events, navigate the ever-changing regulatory environment, and manage your stakeholders expectations. Keep your organization moving and ensure mission success with complete and customized trip management services coordinated through your dedicated trip support team, or online and on your Apple iPad via uvGO. For more information, contact worldwide sales at +1 (800) 231-5600 ext. 3300 (North America) or +1 (713) 944-1622 ext. 3300 (Worldwide). Apple and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Universal Weather and Aviation, Inc. is not endorsed, sponsored, affiliated with or otherwise authorized by Apple Inc. Media Contact: Louis Smyth +1 (713) 306-3269 lsmyth@univ-wea.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/e64995dd-0b09-42fc-8fff-a0652362608c LOS ANGELES, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Acumen Research and Consulting, a global provider of market research studies, in a recently published report titled Bio-decontamination Equipment Market (Type: Chamber Decontamination, Room Decontamination; Application: Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, Bioscience Research, Hospital & Healthcare) Global Industry Analysis, Market Size, Opportunities and Forecast, 2018 - 2025, estimates that global bio-decontamination equipment market is expected to reach the market value of around $182 million by 2025 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 5% in terms of revenue during the period 2018 2025. Download Sample Pages of this report for better understating@ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/request-sample/926 Growing concerns towards medical center gained contaminations and increment in matured populace that are increasingly inclined to ailments are driving the worldwide bio-decontamination equipment market. Bio-decontamination equipment refers to the equipment, for example, a chamber or a confined box in which cleaning process is performed. Bio-decontamination market has been developing at a quick rate because of the incremental consciousness of such procedures and administrations of different nations taking activities in this field. Decontamination might be finished by physical means, synthetic or science based strategies. Disinfecting with physical means includes strategies, for example, thermal, high weight techniques and others. Decontamination by synthetic substances includes utilization of oxidizing operators, surfactants for balance of concoction waste and others. Science based disinfection techniques include utilization of enzymatic frameworks, counterfeit microscopic organisms and others. Decontamination chambers offer a totally fixed chamber for cleaning of hardware and materials entering or leaving a barrier facility. As far as framework, the chamber disinfecting requires littler impression and less framework hardware than room decontamination. A decontamination room with an inside load size of around 300ft2 has an impression of 120-130ft2. Decontamination loads of the equivalent 300ft2 inside have an impression of around 45ft2. Chamber decontamination requires less vitality when contrasted with room decontamination. These elements are relied upon to drive the chamber cleaning portion. Cost and space reserve funds likewise make chambers an appealing alternative. In 2017, the chamber decontamination production was around 3700 and the market share was around 70%, and it is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 5.5% from 2018 to 2025. VIEW DETAIL REPORT WITH COMPLETE TOC@ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/bio-decontamination-equipment-market On the other hand, room decontamination relies on the work of human beings. In room decontamination, the room must be emptied prior to decontamination and equipment and furniture must be moved away from the walls. Room decontamination is energy and time consuming. Also studies conducted by Bioquell concluded that room decontamination does not remove dust and stains which are important to patients and visitors and hence cleaning must precede decontamination. Additionally room decontamination is slower than chamber decontamination and considerably more expensive. These factors are expected to restrain the growth of room decontamination segment. Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Held Most Absconding Piece in Market Pharmaceutical manufacturing is a major application of bio-decontamination equipment. Owing to aging population and increasing chronic and infectious diseases, the pharmaceutical manufacturers are investing heavily in bio-decontamination equipment. Microbial testing and equipment decontamination can be offered as a value-added service to pharmaceutical manufacturers. Bio-decontamination equipment eliminates the risk of cross contamination. Recently, a 13,500ft3 pharmaceutical creation suite comprising of different preparations and handling equipment was cleaned with chlorine dioxide gas after a tainting was found. Indeed, even after exhaustive cleaning and fluid decontamination, a constant salmonella difficulty might not be eliminated. Owing to these factors, the pharmaceutical manufacturing is expected to grow at a steady rate. In 2017, the bio-decontamination equipment consumption in pharmaceutical manufacturing was around 2500, and it will reach over 3,800 in 2025. Regional Overview North America dominates the global bio-decontamination equipment market due to large number of aging population and broad technical applications of bio-decontamination equipment in the region. In North America, the United States is driving the market growth. It held the largest share in this market owing to factors like efforts of government in reducing the number of hospital acquired diseases and strict regulations in using medical equipment. There is increasing awareness and numerous initiatives to implement decontamination practices; set by various regulatory bodies throughout U.S. Stringent regulations in surgical and medical devices usage for infection control and medical safety, growing number of pharmaceutical and medical devices, increasing investment for the development of healthcare infrastructure, and adoption of newer technologies in bio-decontamination process are expected to fuel the market growth in the region. Besides, stringent regulations in surgical and medical devices usage for infection control and medical safety, growing number of pharmaceutical, medical devices, increasing investment for the development of healthcare infrastructure, and adoption of newer technologies in bio-decontamination process are expected to fuel the market in Europe. India, China, and Japan also hold a momentous share in the global bio-decontamination market and are anticipated to grow at a good CAGR through the forecasting timeframe. Key Players & Strategies The worldwide bio-decontamination equipment market can be portrayed by the existence of serious competition, fast advances in innovation, and regular changes in customer inclinations. These sellers are concentrating on catching more prominent pieces of the pie by getting medium-sized manufacturers of bio-decontamination equipment. Additionally, sellers in the market contend dependent on parameters, for example, quality, execution, development in structure and usefulness, compliance with key controls, arrangement of support services, and cost. Some of the vital players operating in the global bio-decontamination equipment market, profiled in the report include Noxilizer, Howorth Air Technology, JCE Biotechnology, TOMI Environmental Solutions, STERIS Life Science, Bioquell, Fedegari Group, Tailin BioEngineering, Weike Biological Laboratory. INQUIRY BEFORE BUYING@ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/inquiry-before-buying/926 The report is readily available and can be dispatched immediately after payment confirmation. Buy this premium research report @ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/buy-now/0/926 Would like to place an order or any question, please feel free to contact at sales@acumenresearchandconsulting.com | +1 407 915 4157 For Latest Update Follow Us: https://twitter.com/AcumenRC https://www.facebook.com/acumenresearchandconsulting https://www.linkedin.com/company/acumen-research-and-consulting/ Impactful Investment Firm, Vanderbilt Financial Group, announces new CCO Steve Howe with a fresh, collaborative approach to compliance WOODBURY, N.Y., Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vanderbilt Financial Group (VFG) is proud to announce the promotion of Steve Howe to the position of Chief Compliance Officer. A thorough, mindful and compassionate member of the Compliance team, Howe brings a wealth of experience to the role with over a decade of championing greater advisor/client relationships. Howe exudes Vanderbilts values of G.R.I.T.T. (Gratitude, Respect, Innovation, Teamwork and Trust) through his collaborative approach to leadership and oversight. In this new role, he will be responsible for driving the compliance team forward while striving to deliver the highest level of support and service to our clients and advisors. Howe will maintain his responsibilities of on-boarding new advisors and advisory teams to VFG, introducing them to a unique culture of impactfulness that values a collaborative, entrepreneurial approach to business. "In this new capacity, we're pleased to have Steve Howe build upon the firm's legacy of compassionate compliance. Our team aims to treat advisors and clients as human beings with desires and goals for the future, not just from a financial perspective but also positively impacting society, socially and environmentally. Given his background in environmental science and forest management, Steve feels like a natural fit within the culture of sustainability at Vanderbilt." stated Stephen Distante, Chief Entrepreneurial Officer of Vanderbilt Financial Group. As an experienced, senior financial services professional, Steve possesses an innate ability to oversee back office operations/compliance, manage custodial processes, and champion advisor-client relationships. Steve brings to Vanderbilt an extensive background working with independent Registered Investment Advisors (RIA), Broker Dealers (BD), Qualified Plan/TPA, Insurance, and Corporate Trust services. Steve is knowledgeable with securities data aggregation, financial planning, and CRM systems and technologies. Previously, he was the Director of Operations and Compliance at 3 Dimensional Wealth Advisory. Steve holds a Masters Degree from Boston University in Environmental Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (03) and a Bachelor of Science in Forest Management with an Environmental Science concentration from the University of Vermont (99). About Vanderbilt Financial Group: Vanderbilt Financial Group is an investment firm disrupting traditional finance by focusing on socially and environmentally responsible, ethical, and impactful investments. Headquartered in a LEED-certified Platinum building, Vanderbilts commitment to changing the world begins at home in our office and within our culture. Under the leadership of Chief Entrepreneurial Officer, Stephen Distante, Vanderbilts culture has garnered multiple awards and was most recently named Best Places to Work on Long Island for 2018. As a thought leader in the impact space, Vanderbilt Financial Group is dedicated to increasing the reach and impact of the financial services industry using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a framework. Their education platform, Impact U, provides students, advisors and investors with unique opportunities to increase their impact investing knowledge through videos, podcasts and fun interactive exercises. Vanderbilt and CEO Steve Distante recently released a documentary short film Impact, produced in partnership with Investment News, sheds light on how purposeful entrepreneurship and impactful investments can help improve the worlds greatest challenges. Interact with Impact U at www.ImpactU.me . For more information on Vanderbilt Financial Group, please visit www.joinvanderbilt.com . High-Res Photos and Interviews Available Upon Request to Jeso ONeill or Kim Wynne at marketing@vanderbitsecurities.com , 631-845-5100. Vanderbilt Financial Group marketing@vanderbitsecurities.com 631-845-5100 Vanderbilt Financial Group is the marketing name for Vanderbilt Securities, LLC and its affiliates. Securities offered through Vanderbilt Securities, LLC Member: FINRA, SIPC Registered with MSRB Advisory Services offered through Vanderbilt Advisory Services, LLC PRINT | EMAIL | PERMALINK Newscity Lawmakers Focus on School Safety As the 60-day legislative session nears, state lawmakers are pushing a number of bills aimed at improving safety and security on public school campuses. Legislators say four billsSB 146, SB 147, SB 148, and HB 129are being introduced in response to a school shooting that occurred at Aztec High School in Dec. 2017. If passed into law, the first Senate bill, Create Crime of School Threat, will make it a fourth degree felony charge for making a school threat. A school threat is defined as making any threat of violence against an individual on school property or towards school property. The second bill, School Safety Drill Requirements will require schools to conduct active shooter drills four times a year if passed. And Former Officers as School Safety Personnel will give campus officers cost-of-living adjustment increases as a method for retaining employees. All three Senate bills were sponsored by Craig Brandt. Meanwhile, a House bill sponsored by Linda M. Trujillo, School Security Personnel & Deadly Weapons, would clarify who qualifies as school security personnel that can carry deadly weapons. The 60-day legislative session begins Jan. 15. Governor's Social Spending to be Audited A social spending allowance account provided for the state's governor will face examination this year with the implementation of a new law. Last year, Gov. Susana Martinez signed a law that went into effect Jan. 1 which will allow the auditing of a contingency fund supplied by the state and used at the governor's discretion to pay for social gatherings, events, item expenditures for awards and other uses. This year will be the first time the $72,000 fund has ever been audited, according to the Alamogordo Daily News, and lawmakers say the new law will increase government transparency. The fund will now fall under the Inspection of Public Records Act, and future governors will have to submit an itemized list of expenditures to a legislative committee and the Department of Finance and Administration every month. Any unspent money from the fund will be returned to the state. NEW YORK, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Incysus Therapeutics, Inc. (Incysus), a biopharmaceutical company focused on delivering an innovative gamma-delta () T cell immunotherapy for the treatment of cancers, announced today the appointment of Lawrence S. Lamb, PhD as Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Lamb will lead the companys research and development programs and will be responsible for setting scientific strategy. Dr. Lamb has been working with Incysus since early 2016; his experience and leadership as the scientific co-founder of the Company has guided Incysus in the groundbreaking development of scientific advancements in cancer treatments. He has a proven record of successful research and was the first to describe the homeostatic reconstitution of T cells in patients who receive alpha-beta () T cell depleted bone marrow grafts and an association between T cell recovery with disease-free survival in allogeneic bone marrow transplantation patients as well as T cell receptor CDR3 conservation in leukemia patients. We are very pleased that Dr. Lamb is joining us in an expanded leadership role with Incysus. said William Ho, Chief Executive Officer of Incysus. Larry brings a broad range of expertise that will be essential to the growth of Incysus. His more than two decades of experience in clinical and translational research, focused on innovative cellular immunotherapies, will guide Incysus as we develop commercially viable and effective immune-based therapies for the treatment of cancer. His appointment further demonstrates our commitment to building our team and advancing our clinical programs into Phase 1 trials during the first half of 2019. I am excited to be joining Incysus at this time and to expand my role in the development of T cell immunotherapies for cancer patients, said Dr. Lamb. Incysus is well-positioned to change the landscape of cancer treatment and to offer patients an innovative approach to treating their specific cancers. Prior to joining Incysus full time, Dr. Lamb was a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology and the Director of the Cell Therapy Laboratory for the Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Cell Therapy Program at the University of Alabama Birminghams (UAB) School of Medicine. He also had academic appointments in the Departments of Pathology and Pediatrics and as a Senior Scientist in the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Lamb holds an Advanced Practice Certification in Oncology Nursing and a PhD in Experimental Pathology from the University of South Carolina School of Medicine and completed fellowships in Molecular Genetics and Transplantation Immunology at the University of South Carolina and Richland Memorial Hospital. About Incysus Therapeutics, Inc. Incysus is focused on delivering a novel off-the-shelf cell therapy for the treatment of cancer. By using genetically modified gamma-delta () T cells, the Companys technology addresses the challenges that immunotherapies face targeting cold, low mutation cancers. Incysus immuno-oncology programs include activated and gene-modified adoptive cellular therapies that protect cells from chemotherapy and allow novel combinations to disrupt the tumor microenvironment and more selectively target cancer cells. Since the Companys inception in early 2016, Incysus has filed two Investigational New Drug applications (IND) and has initiated several cancer programs in early pre-clinical stages. The Companys first program is targeted to leukemia and lymphoma patients and the IND related to this program was accepted by the FDA in late 2017. The Companys second program is targeted to treat patients with newly-diagnosed glioblastoma (GBM). In collaboration with the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), Incysus has advanced its technology and expects to begin both Phase 1 trials early next year. For more information, visit www.incysus.com . Dateline: Massachusetts The University of Massachusetts asked a student to remove a sign that said, Fuck Nazis because it wasn't inclusive. According to The Boston Globe, UMass Amherst student Nichole Parsons placed the sign in her dorm window after an unknown vandal drew a swastika on a Happy Hanukkah sign that had been posted by a Jewish resident assistant. Parsons told reporters that the university failed to properly respond to the incident, so she took it upon herself to confront the unknown perpetrator. The sign goes on to say, Nazis You Are Not Welcome Here. On Dec. 18, Parsons was reportedly asked to remove the sign, but she refused. She then received an email from residence director Eddie Papazoni acknowledging that the sign was protected by the student's right to free speech, but asking her to remove it. Papazoni said that the sign should be removed so that all students can be a part of an inclusive residential experience, as well as having a respectful environment to be a part of here on our campus. In a written response, UMass Amherst spokesman Ed Blaguszewski told reporters that Papazoni's email had been poorly worded and said the student could continue to display the sign. However, he said the university was sensitive to the use of profanity, which some may find inappropriate. Dateline: Canada Last week, the Canadian government confirmed that Santa Claus is a tax-paying resident of Canada. Although the North Pole isn't officially owned by any country, numerous Canadian officials made statements affirming Santa's citizenship status, reports CTV News. While privacy concerns barred the release of official papers, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Ahmed Hussen's office was able to confirm that Santa and Mrs. Claus are Canadian citizens and reside in the North Pole. A spokesperson for the minister also noted that the Claus' traditional garb of red and white signaled a patriotic spirit. The Canada Revenue Agency provided this statement to reporters: The confidentiality provisions of the Income Tax Act prevent the CRA from commenting on specific cases However, on special exception, and with the kind permission of Mr. and Mrs. Claus (henceforth known as 'the Taxpayers'), the CRA has been permitted to share some confidential filing information. The statement went on to say that the couple received tax reductions only available to those who have lived in the area for at least six months in the last year. They have reportedly filed on time every year for as long as the agency has been in operation. The agency confirmed that the Claus' finances have been investigated on a number of occasions, including over claims that they paid workers in holiday cheer and accepted payment in the form of cookies and carrots. Dateline: Alabama An Alabama Police Department has come under fire for blaming a spike in murders on Satan. According to AL.com, the Opp Police Department made a Facebook post last month blaming a recent increase in local homicides on the small community's young people and claiming it happened because the citizens of Covington County have turned away from God and embraced Satan. The post was made in response to two shootings that happened in as many days and resulted in fatalities. The post went on to say, It is time to ask for God's help to stop this There are sheep; there are wolves and there are sheep dogs. Which group do you belong to? A Wisconsin-based groupthe Freedom From Religion Federationwrote a letter to the department, condemning its promotion of specific religious beliefs and mentioning multiple citizen complaints that had been lodged against it. We write to ensure the department take down its promotion of religion (and contempt for one specific religionSatanism) and cease including religious remarks in social media posts, the letter said. The offensive post has since been removed. Dateline: China A bathroom in a Chinese park has been outfitted with facial recognition technology to curb paper waste and theft. Sputnik International reports a machine has been installed in a restroom at the Baotu Spring Park in the Shandong province that scans a user's face and dispenses around 27 inches of toilet paper. The gadget's scanning technology allows it to tell if a user is attempting to get more than their allotted share and will not dispense any more. Users have to wait at least nine minutes before they are allowed to receive more paper. The bathroom is reportedly using 10 fewer rolls of toilet paper than before the machine was installed. Toilet paper dispensers using facial recognition technology were first introduced in Beijing last year after local media reported on the large number of thieves stealing paper from public restrooms at the Temple of Heaven complex. According to Abacus News, more public restrooms in China are having the technology installed as a result of Chinas president pronouncing a Toilet Revolution in 2015 to combat negative perceptions of the nation's restrooms. Some restrooms have reportedly been renovated with cell phone charging stations, electronic occupancy indicators and sensors that detect ammonium and release air fresheners. Robin Babb Every coffee roaster eventually develops a reputationfor their quality, consistency and for the type of roasts they tend to turn out. As far as reputation goes, Red Rock Roasters has earned theirs. Twenty-five years and two generations of experience roasting coffee in the high desert has made them hone their recipes into a product thats won them loyal industry and private customers throughout New Mexico and across the country. And theyve won some other things toomost notably the first annual New Mexico Coffee Roaster Competition, which happened at Villa Miriam Roasters in September of last year. Rachel Langer, the coffee director at Red Rock (and generation number two of the family business) proudly shows me the trophy, handmade by Daniel Sanchez of Oval Dogs Coffee. Its carved wood made to look like a coffee tamper, with a turquoise Zia inlay in the handle. I visited Langer at Red Rock recently to try a few of their favorite coffees in a guided tasting. There are specific terms used in the coffee world to describe things like flavor, mouthfeel and aroma: A flavor wheel on the wall of their storefront gives some of those terms and their subgenres. If you try a coffee and taste fruity, the wheel helps you hone in on the flavor based on notes that are typically found in coffeecherry is a very different flavor from grapefruit, for instance. In addition to this common language of defining coffee, there are standardized score sheets for rating them. One is designed by Specialty Coffee Association, and the other by Intelligentsia, the Chicago-based roasting and distribution giant. Langer tends to use the Intelligentsia cupping scoresheet, she says, because Its simple and intuitive. It makes more sense for what the process is actually like. Shes talking about the standardized coffee tasting process: cupping. For this cupping, Langer served samples of three of her favorite Red Rock coffees: the single origin Sumatra, Ethiopia and Guatemala. Each coffee in this tasting has the same roast and the same brew method, meaning the only flavor variable is the origin. If the Guatemala tastes different from the Ethiopia, its because of the differences in the soil, air, water and climate of those places. And as I quickly discovered upon tasting, these factors make a huge difference. Here are the three Red Rock coffees we tried, according to my tasting notes: Guatemala: Aroma: Savory, light and vegetal. Theres nothing cloying or earthy about this coffee. Flavor: Citrusy and bright. Theres a definite aftertaste of lightly toasted bread. A good breakfast coffee that you could keep sipping all morning. Pairing: Langers request: Nothing spicy! This is a delicate coffee that could be overpowered by food thats heavy on any kind of spice. Have it with toast or pancakessomething carbyor a breakfast burrito with mild green chile. (P.S.: Langer has written a whole post about coffee and burrito pairings on Red Rocks blog. You should check it out.) Sumatra: Aroma: Smells roasted and a little earthy. I know roasted sounds obvious, but its a definite fresh out of the oven kind of scent. Flavor: Milk chocolate and herbs. As Langer put it, It smells like dirty weed. But, you know, in a good way. Pairing: A good coffee to drink with milk, if you like that sort of thing. Its fairly neutrala coffee flavored coffee. You could drink this with almost anything. Ethiopia: Aroma: Blueberry, brownie and dessert-y smell Flavor: Dark chocolate, cherries, pipe tobacco. Its like the Port of coffee: heavy, sweet and rich. Pairing: A great dessert coffee, but dont let it overpower something delicate like a fruit tart. Drink it with your chocolate cake or bread pudding. The Ethiopia was by far my favorite. Though all of them are tasty in their own right, this is the one I took home with me. Whether or not you consider yourself a coffee person, knowing what flavors you like will help you know what to look for when youre shopping. Good coffee shops and roasters, just like a good wine shop, speak the language and will know what to get for you. However, If you want to know what coffee goes best with which burrito, you should probably go to the expert in that niche. Politics in America are at a point at which we have basically two options: We can sink into a swamp of suicidal despair, or we can laugh ourselves stupid at the whole soul-crushing situation. Writer-director Adam McKay has certainly chosen his side. The former head writer of Saturday Night Live and the man behind Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and The Other Guys has turned the administration of President George W. Bush into a scathing comedy-drama. Vice takes a slightly more comedic look at those years than Oliver Stones 2008 flick W. did. And it sidelines the often bumbling efforts of George W. to spotlight the somewhat more nefarious machinations of Vice President Dick Cheney. But it follows up on the more socially conscious, less slapstick-heavy promise of McKays 2015 biographical comedy The Big Short (which found bitter humor in the 2007 financial crisis). And depending on your own personal politics, it might be just the tonic youre looking for right now. Vice is narrated by Kurt (Jesse Plemons from Friday Night Lights and Breaking Bad), a fictitious Iraq War veteran. Kurts connection to the story of Mr. Cheney only becomes apparent much later on. But for the majority of the film, he takes viewers on a flashback tour of Dick Cheneys wild and wooly life and adventures. The film follows Cheney from his drunken college days through his time working as a White House intern during the Nixon administration and into his life in the US House of Representatives during the Reagan administration. Christian Bale (American Psycho, Batman Begins, The Fighter) would seem like an odd casting choice to take on the role of the fat, balding adult version of Dick Cheney. But the normally handsome English-American actor does an amazing job (ably assisted by a raft of makeup artists, no doubt) of transforming himself, physically, to play Cheney over a wide range of decades. The only caveat (and its not Bales fault) is that the film pretty much views its subject as a Machiavellian villain, wallowing in corruption, backstabbing and ruthless ambition. Hes not exactly an admirable (or even a particularly charismatic) guy, and (given the history with which were all familiar) he isnt going to go though any major transformation of character over the course of this films 132 minutes. What you see is what you get. The films crazy quilt casting continues into the supporting players, with Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney, Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld, Tyler Perry as Colin Powell, Alison Pill as Mary Cheney, Justin Kirk as Scooter Libby and Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush. Thats some showy, star-power casting, all right. But in context, it all works in an Oh, now I get it! kind of way. (Rockwell, for example, is cartoonishly perfect.) Like The Big Short, which employed various star cameos (Margot Robbie, Anthony Bourdain, Selena Gomez) to explain complex financial concepts like subprime mortgages and collateralized debt obligations, Vice is also happy to break the fourth wall and wink at audiences. At one point the film even settles on a happy ending, in which Dick becomes CEO of Haliburton while his wife raises golden retrievers, and rolls the end creditsonly to admit that the story doesnt quite end there. Weve still got that whole Sept. 11 thing to deal with. The thrust of Vice seems to be that Dick Cheneys raison detre was to rule the worldor at least grab as much power as humanly possible and hold onto it for as long as he could. Along the way, we get all the highlights: His struggles with alcohol, his daughter coming out as a lesbian, the War on Terror, the Plame Affair, that time he shot his friend Harry Whittington in the face with a shotgun. McKay and crew play fast and loose with it all, jumping around in time and tone. Much of it is darkly funny, some of it is absurd, just about all of it is painful to remember. One could argue that such a crazy and tumultuous part of our countrys history should have been handled with a bit more gravity and a bit less meta satire. (There are plenty of other ironic cutaways, old movie clips, and visual gags in the film.) But here we are. Sprawling, messy and overflowing with ambition, this cautionary tale our country has already ignored is exhilarating in some parts and frustrating in others. Much like its subjects hunting skills, Vice is a distinctly hit-and-miss affair. If youre a fan of the former veep, youre already complaining about this socialist Hollywood Michael Moore knockoff on Breitbart. If youre a hard-left Bernie backer, you may find this comical recap lets far too many real-life people off the hook with chuckle and a pat on the back. If youre inclined to laugh at the real-life hijinks of our countrys various psychopathic politicos, however, then Vice just might get your vote. PLEASE NOTE! Due to the March 23, 2020 NM DOH Public Health Order, These Event Listings Are Not Accurate! All non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are prohibited! (One day some of these events will be rescheduled or will resume, but they are not happening now!) Rob M. Like sands in the hourglass, et cetera et cetera. Before you knew what was happening, another year done snuck up and bit you on the butt. Now you can expect to be writing the wrong date for at least a few months. If you're me, it will last until sometime in the summer. Despite the gray fog that seemed to steal 2018 from many of us, strange leaps occurred in the weird world of cannabis that seem incredible now. In November 2017, the New Mexico Medical Cannabis Program said more than 45,000 patients were card-carrying marijuana patients. A year later, and the number has rocketed to over 66,000. The US Census Bureau estimated the population of our state to be around 2,095,000 people last July, meaning over 3 percent of the population is enrolled. And if that wasn't enough numbers for you: The qualifying condition that New Mexican patients are suffering from the most is post-traumatic stresswith over 33,000 patients, followed closely by chronic painwith over 22,000 patients. There are over 7,500 personal production licenses in circulation at this moment. The vast majority of patients live in Bernalillo Countyaround 22,000. Yes, dear reader, I understand that those numbers were very boring, but they were also very important. You can tell a few things about this data. For one: The jump in patients between 2016 and 2017 was around 20,000 people, similar to the rise that happened last year. Patients complaining of PTS or chronic pain have also increased at comparable rates over the last three years like clockwork. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, lifetime prevalence of PTS among adults in the US and Canada affects around 6.8 percent of the population, based on data from the early oughts. More recent figures estimate it to be upward of 9.2 percent. A 2012 report from the National Institute of Health estimated the number of Americans suffering from severe chronic pain to be around 11.2 percent of the population. So while patients seem to be applying to the program at a staggering pace, statistically, only a few of those suffering from the state's list of qualifying conditions are seeking treatment through cannabis. The reasons for that are legion, but it usually comes down to ignorance about cannabis' efficacy and a lack of personally delivered anecdotes. People want to hear about it from someone they trust, not a reporter or a scientist. One thing I've noticed in the past few years of writing this column is that people are loathe to admit they use cannabis in polite companyeven in today's free-wheeling marketplace of ideas. I'm a transplant from the South, and I've been shocked to find how rare it is to meet someone in Albuquerque who doesn't use marijuana (legally or not). Meanwhile, we all keep playing this weird game where we can only admit it after we've checked over our shoulders and lowered our voices to a whisper. It's a new year. If you actually believe in the transformative and curative properties of cannabis, stop feeling ashamed and hiding your use from everybody. The story of your personal experience might the last puzzle piece that makes someone take the plunge themselves. Legalization Curbs Smuggling According to a report from the Cato Institute, the average Border Patrol agent between ports of entry confiscated 78 percent less marijuana in fiscal year 2018 than in 2013. The street value of all drugs (not just marijuana) confiscated by Border Patrol in the same time reportedly fell by 70 percent. The author of the report, David Bier suggests a correlation with the introduction of state-level cannabis legalization in 2014. He also points out that while surveillance technologies were improved upon and the number of border agents was doubled between 2003 and 2009, no significant drops in the rates of confiscated drugs were seen until legalization occurred. And while drug smugglers have compensated for the drop in demand for black market marijuana with a rise in the transportation of harder drugs, Bier says the markets aren't even close, and the cartels are losing funds. This should hardly be shocking, since marijuana advocates have been crowing about it for years: If you legalize cannabis, then the cartels south of us will dry up. Bier argues against the construction of a border wall or an increase in Border Patrol agents as deterrents against drug smuggling and suggests more progressive drug laws in the US. Sperm Affected by THC A new study is claiming that THC can affect sperm cells and might cause negative changes in a potential baby's genetic programming. Researchers from Duke University compared the sperm from two groups of ratsone who had been dosed with THC, and one that had notin a study published last month in the journal Epigenetics. They also compared the sperm from 24 men who used marijuana weekly and a group that had never used it more than 10 times in their life and not within 6 months of the study. In both rats and humans, the scientists found evidence that methyl groups (chemicals that help program genes) were affected by THC level. The chemicals appeared to affect two pathways: one that helps organs reach their full size and one that suppresses the growth of cancerous tumors. The authors admitted that the scope of the study was very limited. They said the goal was only to see if the presence of THC had any effect at all. Now they know it does, and much more research will have to be conducted before anyone can say for sure what the effects are. The long and short of it: Be careful about where you put your THC-filled sperm until we have more data. According to Valeriy Chaly, Russia is a threat not only for Ukraine but also for the EU and the U.S. Open source Ukraines Ambassador to the U.S. Valeriy Chaly stated that Ukraine expected NATO and the U.S. to provide assistance in increasing the defence capacity, as Chastime reported. We expect continuing support (from the U.S. and NATO, - ed.) in enhancing our defene capacity. We expect the development of specific energy and energy security projects, the Ambassador said. He added that this was conditioned by the fact that Russia was a threat not only for Ukraine but also for the EU and the U.S. As is known, the U.S. defence budget in 2019 provides $250 million for Ukraine. Ukraine news on 112.international Open source Two criminal cases were opened due to the attack on Viktor Kovalsky, the worker of the state company Antonov ,as the prosecutors office of Kyiv reported. According to the prosecutors office, the investigation subdivision of Solomiansky investigation department of the National Police received the application on the attack at the worker of Antonov due to his currency fraud. According to this fact, the investigators of the police put the information on the signs of the deliberately inflicted actual bodily harm to Unified State Register of Pretrial Investigation and begin the pretrial investigation, the message said. At the same time, during the considering of the materials of the criminal proceeding by the procedural heads and holding of the immediate questioning of the victim, Kyiv Prosecutors Office #9 established the circumstances, which show the possible involvement of the police officers in the incident. Considering the foregoing, the local prosecutors office put the data on the commitment of the criminal offense by the police officers to the United state register of pretrial investigation due to the abuse of power or official authority. The criminal proceeding is sent to the territorial department of State Investigation Bureau of Kyiv, the message said. The State Investigation Bureau confirmed the beginning of the criminal proceeding on the involvement of the police officers in the attack at the aircraft designer. The perpetrators can be imprisoned from two up to five years. As we reported Viktor Kovalsky, the 81-year-old famous aircraft designer, who created An-225 Mriya was beaten up in Kyiv. Three unknowns attacked him and began to beat him up by legs. Two police officers, who arrived to the site later, also used force against Kovalsky as the victim reported to the journalists. The police did not confirm the involvement of the officers in the beating; however, it stated that the officers of the patrol police worked at the site. Zaporizhya Appeal Court left the suspect, co-organizer in the murder of ex-volunteer of Ukraines army Vitaly Oleshko known as Sarmat under arrest until January 20. First Deputy of the Head of the National Police of Ukraine Viacheslav Abroskin reported that on Facebook. His criminal ties did not help him. Neither did the gratitude for good work with his case, at which the defense pointed out. The trust in victory is growing. I thank the judges for the integrity and decent work, Abroskin said. On December 16, the officers of criminal police detained a Dnipro resident at Kharkiv international airport; he is suspected of being an accomplice to the murder of former volunteer Vitaliy Oleshko (Sarmat). As we reported earlier, two gunshot wounds took the life of Vitaliy Oleshko, the former volunteer fighter of Donbas battalion and the active participant in Donbas conflict. The gunfire attack occurred in the southeastern city of Berdyansk. Oleshko was shot dead in the yard of a local hotel, in front of his wife. Andriy Madzharov, who later uploaded a video on his social network account confirmed that the man sustained two wounds to his back; the killer used a shotgun. The shooter who killed Vitaliy 'Sarmat' Oleshko is the former fighter of Tornado volunteer battalion. The convict, formerly the sniper of the unit, might face the life imprisonment for this particular crime. LOS ANGELES, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- City National Bank, Americas Premier Private and Business Bank, today announced that Linda Duncombe has been appointed executive vice president of marketing and product strategies. She will succeed Thomas Miller, who is retiring from the bank after more than 18 years. Duncombe joined City National on January 2, 2019. She leads a team that is responsible for advancing the companys brand, articulating its value proposition and supporting business development. She oversees marketing, client experience, advertising and communications as well as digital channels, product development, credit cards and multicultural outreach. Duncombe brings City National 16 years of financial services marketing experience that includes business and private banking. She was previously the global head of design for Citibanks Global Consumer Bank and the chief marketing officer and head of growth for Citi FinTech, the banks innovation arm. A native of Australia, Duncombe began her career in 1988 with National Australia Bank in Sydney. In 2010, she was named managing director of marketing, digital banking and customer experience for Citibank in Australia. She moved to the United States in 2016 to become the chief marketing officer of Citi FinTech. Since then, she has overseen the development of several new products, including the companys flagship Citigold app. Duncombe will report to Kelly Coffey when Coffey succeeds Russell Goldsmith as City Nationals CEO on February 1. Linda will bring to City National a strong track record of leadership and innovation as well as marketing, communication, product development, and digital technology that enhances the client experience, Goldsmith said. Her demonstrated ability to work effectively with various business lines will support our companys growth and help our clients on the way up. City National is at a pivotal and exciting time in its 65-year history, and I couldnt be joining at a better time, said Duncombe. The banks commitment to its colleagues, clients and communities is well-known, and the possibilities for growth here are impressive. Im so pleased and honored to be leading the marketing team here. Miller will remain with City National until January 31, 2019. For nearly two decades, he played a key role in elevating and distinguishing City Nationals brand, and he has contributed significantly to the companys business strategy and has led its marketing, corporate communications, product strategies, credit cards, client experience and multicultural units. Thom is an outstanding executive who has done an exceptional job of articulating City Nationals values and value proposition, Goldsmith said. Whats more, he has contributed great leadership across a diverse portfolio of responsibilities. He is going to be missed. For a picture of Duncombe click here: https://www.cnb.com/content/dam/cnbcom/publishingimages/Linda-Duncombe.jpg About City National With $50.3 billion in assets, City National Bank provides banking, investment and trust services through 71 offices, including 19 full-service regional centers, in Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, Nevada, New York City, Nashville, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C. In addition, the company and its investment affiliates manage or administer $67.5 billion in client investment assets. City National is a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), one of North Americas leading diversified financial services companies. RBC serves more than 16 million personal, business, public sector and institutional clients through offices in Canada, the United States and 34 other countries. For more information about City National, visit the companys website at cnb.com . Media Contact: Debora Vrana, City National Bank, 213.673.7631 Debora.vrana@cnb.com The cyclonic whirlwind will be observed over the Sea of Azov; it will leave Ukraine and move on to Russia by Saturday Open source A cyclone's effect will be clearly felt in Ukraine on January 4. It will cause snowstorms, snowfalls and some black ice. Mykola Kulbida, the head of Ukraine's State Meteorological Centre said that as quoted by 112.ua news agency. 'On January 4, we expect a cyclonic whirlwind in the area of the Sea of Azov, which will affect the southeastern part of Ukraine. On January 5, it will leave Ukraine and move on to the territory of the Russian Federation. Thus, these features will weaken and cease already in the daytime of January 5', Kulbida said. The daily temperature of the air will make from -1 to -3 degrees by Celsius. The heaviest precipitation is expected in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, with the snow cover reaching 15 to 20 cm in height. The wind gusts will make the speed of 15-20 meters per second, 25 meters per second on the coast of Azov Sea. Open source The U.S. President Donald Trump stated that the participation of the Soviet troops in the Afghanistan war was the reason for the fall of the Soviet Union, as The Washington Post reported. Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia, because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan. The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there. The problem is, it was a tough fight. And literally they went bankrupt; they went into being called Russia again, as opposed to the Soviet Union. You know, a lot of these places youre reading about now are no longer part of Russia, because of Afghanistan, Trump said. The news agency contests the statement of the President. The USSR invaded in 1979 and left a decade later, in 1989. The superpower dissolved shortly thereafter in 1991. But correlation is not causation. And Trump who was using that anecdote to argue that the United States should pull out of Afghanistan and Syria is really straining for causation here, the news agency reads. The news agency names a couple of the reasons for the fall of the Soviet Union, namely the oil prices decline and the Perestroika. The Poles consider Russias aggression against Ukraine in the Azov Sea the most important international event of 2018, according to the survey conducted by the Research Centre of Public Opinion in Poland. According to the results of the survey, the 100th anniversary of the restoration of Polands independence is one of the most significant events which happened in the country (40%). Poles consider the Russian fleet attack against the Ukrainian vessels in Azov Sea the most important event on the international stage (6%), the message says. On November 25, the coast guard ships of the Russian Navy attacked the ships of the Ukrainian Navy, which have been carrying out a scheduled transition from Odesa port to Mariupol port in the Sea of Azov. 21 Ukrainian sailors have been delivered to Lefortovo remand center in Moscow, three others are in the hospital of Matrosskaya Tishina prison, also in the Russian capital. On December 3, the Russian prosecutors officially accused Ukrainian sailors with the 'illegal crossing of the state border' during the attack in the Kerch Strait. Related video: As Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, the Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, stated, "this should be done to make the Kremlin feel that such bold move will be punished" New international sanctions might be imposed against Russia due to its aggression against the Ukrainian vessels in Kerch Strait, as Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, the Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, said, Interfax-Ukraine reported. Russias aggressive attack in the Black Sea occurred two weeks before the European Council session and less than a week before the Council of Ministers for Foreign Affairs meeting, we received a quick reaction of the countries and their firm position. We got political support from NATO, from the EU and some other partner-states concerning the inadmissibility of the violation of the international law by the Russian Federation, she stated. According to the Vice Prime Minister, this led to additional sanctions against Russia for non-compliance with Minsk Agreements on settlement of the situation on the East of Ukraine without any discussions. Sanctions for conduction of illegal elections on the occupied territories were approved. I do not exclude the fact that the new anti-Russian sanctions might be imposed. This should be done to make the Kremlin feel that such bold move will be punished, the Vice Prime Minister noted. Besides, according to her, the fact that Russia did not recognize the Ukrainian sailors as POWs, that it is not ready for the humanitarian cooperation so that the international organizations could gain access, might encourage the European states to return to discussions of imposition of sanctions due to this attack. Of course, we will continue insisting that such behavior should not remain unpunished, she stressed. At the same time, the Vice Prime Minister predicted that Russia would continue behaving aggressively. As it was reported, on December 26, Ukraines National Security and Defence Council imposed sanctions against the Russian legal and physical entities for carrying out illegal elections in occupied Donbas and for Russias aggression in Kerch Strait. On November 25, the coast guard ships of the Russian Navy attacked the ships of the Ukrainian Navy, which have been carrying out a scheduled transition from Odesa port to Mariupol port in the Sea of Azov. 21 Ukrainian sailors have been delivered to Lefortovo remand center in Moscow, three others are in the hospital of Matrosskaya Tishina prison, also in the Russian capital. On December 3, the Russian prosecutors officially accused Ukrainian sailors with the 'illegal crossing of the state border' during the attack in the Kerch Strait. Related video: According to Ukraines Representative in the UN, the issue should be decided in Normandy or Minsk formats first The deployment of the UN peacekeepers in Donbas will not be considered at the UN Security Council until the decision in Normandy or Minsk formats is ready. Ukrinform news agency reported that, citing Ukraines Representative to UN Volodymyr Yelchenko. We need the decision of the UN Security Council to begin a real UN peacekeeping mission. But for this to happen, this issue should be indicated in Normandy or Minsk formats, he said. Yelchenko thinks that all formats of the settlement of the Donbas Conflict, including track Volker-Surkov have stalled due to the expectation of Russia of the election of the pro-Russian president of Ukraine. Earlier, U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker claimed that the draft resolution of Russia, which provides for the deployment of peacekeepers in Donbas only along the line of conflict, is unacceptable for the United States and the United Nations, since it will not guarantee security, but will only deepen the conflict. Yevhen Panov is sentenced to eight years behind the bars for the alleged 'preparation of sabotage acts' in the occupied Crimea Lyudmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian Parliamentary Envoy for Human Rights turned to her Russian counterpart Tatyana Moskalkova and Director of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service Gennadiy Korniyenko. She asks them to report on the current whereabouts of Yevhen Panov, the political prisoner who is now behind the bars in Russia. 'Yesterday, Vira Kotelaynets, the mother of Ukrainian political prisoner Yevhen Panov (...) turned to me. Yevhen has been transferred from one remand centre to another for a while, and his mother is worried there's no contact with him', Denisova posted on Facebook. Earlier, a 'prosecutor' of the Crimea Supreme Court, which is currently under the control of the Russian Federation, requested 10.5 years in prison for Ukrainian political prisoner Yevhen Panov. In August 2016, The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation claimed to have detained Ukrainian saboteurs in Crimea. Russia says that Ukrainian diversionary group planned terrorist acts in the occupied Crimea, and Yevhen Panov, born in 1977, residing in Zaporizhia region, an officer of the Chief Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, was allegedly the leader of the group. Later Russian authorities released a video with Panovs confession, however, Ukrainian human rights defenders stated that the video showed the signs of testifying under duress. The closing of the polling stations on the territory of the Russian Federation by the Central Election Commission is the reason for the recognition of the elections as illegitimate. Valentyn Zemlyansky, the expert in energy issues made such statement as 112 Ukraine reported. It is the violation of the acting legislation. If the law provides the possibility to vote for the citizens of Ukraine who stay on the territory of the Russian Federation, the Embassy of Ukraine is the sovereign territory of Ukraine. It is the restriction of the constitutional rights of the citizens of Ukraine who stay in Russia. Thus, part of the voices is removed, and the elections... it is the reason to recognize them as illegitimate, he said. Representative of the Opposition platform For Life Viktor Medvedchuk called the decision of the Central Election Commission a restriction of the civilian rights of the Ukrainians. Such decision of the Central Election Commission made at the beginning of the election campaign opens the way for possible falsifications and witnesses about the fact that authority continues walking on the totalitarian course for the restriction of the constitutional rights of the citizens. The issue is about the citizens of the south-east of the country, Russian-language population, supporters of the normalization of the relations with Russia and all those, who do not support the anti-people policy of predatory nationalism and the tariff genocide held by the authority, he wrote. Earlier the Central Election Commission of Ukraine closed all polling station in Russia, particularly, Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, Saint Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk. As Kyiv sees it, the attack on Ukrainian military ships and seizure of two dozen sailors is the culmination of months of Russian attempts to squeeze Ukrainian boats out of those waters, violating a 2003 bilateral treaty that guarantees free shipping for both countries Open source The war in Ukraine continues to smolder with no end in sight. Sparked by Russias 2014 annexation of Crimea and its subsequent support for separatists in Ukraines eastern Donbas region, it also fuels the wider geopolitical standoff between Russia and the Western powers. The latest flash point is the Sea of Azov, where Russian and Ukrainian vessels clashed in November and Russia effectively blocked the access to the Kerch Strait, at the mouth of the sea. The confrontation suggests that neither side sees any advantage in compromising. As Kyiv sees it, the attack on Ukrainian military ships and seizure of two dozen sailors is the culmination of months of Russian attempts to squeeze Ukrainian boats out of those waters, violating a 2003 bilateral treaty that guarantees both countries free shipping. Moscow claims the boats were entering its coastal waters and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko 'provoked the skirmish' to shore up Western backing and his domestic base ahead of presidential elections scheduled for March 2019. Poroshenkos subsequent efforts to introduce martial law didnt help; the Kremlin, together with the presidents domestic critics, painted it as a political stunt. Either way, the incident clearly showcased Moscows newfound willingness to use overt force against Ukraine. Meanwhile, fighting in the Donbass continues, and civilians living along front linesabandoned by both Kiev and the separatistsare paying the price. Neither Ukraine nor Russia has taken steps to end the war. Kiev refuses to devolve power to Donbasssomething it pledged to do as part of the Minsk agreements that set out a path to end the waruntil Russia withdraws arms and personnel from separatist-held areas, which Moscow shows scant willingness to do. Proposals for possible peacekeeping missions have not gone far. Absent a meaningful shift in tack by either side, 2019 will most likely see more of the same. Kiev is unlikely to budge before elections (in addition to the presidential vote, parliamentary polls are due before the years end). Russia may chafe at the cost of keeping separatist-held areas afloat, but it is unlikely to give up influence in the Donbass any time soon. The Ukrainian elections or domestic developments in Russia might bring opportunities for peacemaking. But as the Azov spat shows, the danger of escalation is ever present. *** In a world with fewer rules, the only truly effective one is knowing what you can get away with. The answer today, it turns out, is: quite a lot. As the era of largely uncontested U.S. primacy fades, the international order has been thrown into turmoil. More leaders are tempted more often to test limits, jostle for power, and seek to bolster their influenceor diminish that of their rivalsby meddling in foreign conflicts. Multilateralism and its constraints are under siege, challenged by more transactional, zero-sum politics. Instruments of collective action, such as the United Nations Security Council, are paralyzed; those of collective accountability, including the International Criminal Court, are ignored and disparaged. Nostalgia can be deceptive. Too fond a portrayal of the era of Western hegemony would be misleading. Iraqs chemical weapons use against Iran in the 1980s; the 1990s bloodletting in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Somalia; the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; Sri Lankas brutal 2009 campaign against the Tamils; and the collapse of Libya and South Sudan: all these happened at a time ofin some cases because ofU.S. dominance and a reasonably coherent West. A liberal and nominally rules-based order hardly stopped those setting the rules from discarding them when they saw fit. The erosion of Western influence, in short, looks different from Moscow, Beijing, and the developing world than it does from Brussels, London, or Washington. Still, for better and for worse, U.S. power and alliances have for years shaped international affairs, set limits, and structured regional orders. As the Wests influence declines, accelerated by U.S. President Donald Trumps contempt for traditional allies and Europes struggles with Brexit and nativism, leaders across the world are probing and prodding to see how far they can go. In their domestic policies, many of those leaders embrace a noxious brew of nationalism and authoritarianism. The mix varies from place to place but typically entails rejection of international institutions and rules. There is little new in the critique of an unjust global order. But if once that critique tended to be rooted in international solidarity, today it stems chiefly from an inward-looking populism that celebrates narrow social and political identity, vilifies minorities and migrants, assails the rule of law and independence of the press, and elevates national sovereignty above all else. Trump may be the most visible of the genre, but he is far from the most extreme. The wind is in the sails of strongmen worldwide. They realize, at times perhaps to their surprise, that constraints are crumbling, and the behavior that results often fuels violence or crises. Myanmars mass expulsion of 700,000 Rohingya, the Syrian regimes brutal suppression of a popular uprising, the Cameroonian governments apparent determination to crush an Anglophone insurgency rather than tackle the grievances fueling it, the Venezuelan governments economic warfare against its own people, and the silencing of dissent in Turkey, Egypt, and elsewhere are but a few examples. All are motivated in part by what leaders perceive as a yellow light where they used to see solid red. Beyond their borders, these leaders test norms, too. Having annexed parts of Georgia and Crimea and stoked separatist violence in Ukraines Donbass region, Russia is now throwing its weight around in the Sea of Azov, poisoning dissidents in the United Kingdom, and subverting Western democracies with cyberwarfare. China obstructs freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and arbitrarily detains Canadian citizensincluding the International Crisis Groups Michael Kovrig. Saudi Arabia has pushed the envelope with the war in Yemen, the kidnapping of a Lebanese prime minister, and the gruesome murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its consulate in Istanbul. Iran plots attacks against dissidents on European soil. Israel feels emboldened to undermine ever more systematically the foundations of a possible two-state solution. Such actions are hardly new or equal in magnitude. But they are more brazen and overt. They have this much in common: They start with the assumption that there will be few consequences for breaches of international norms. The U.S. government has hardly been an innocent bystander. Trumps disdain for human rights and penchant for transactional diplomacy have set a strikingly negative tone. So too has his flouting of Americas international commitments: tearing up the Iran nuclear deal and, worse, threatening to impose economic punishment on those who choose to abide by it; hinting he will leave the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty if U.S. demands are not met rather than working within it to press Russia to comply; and signaling, through attacks on the International Criminal Court and chest-thumping speeches about U.S. sovereignty, that Washington regards its actions and those of its friends as beyond accountability. The danger of todays free-for-all goes beyond the violence already generated. The larger risk is of miscalculation. Overreach by one leader convinced of his immunity may prompt an unexpected reaction by another; the ensuing tit for tat easily could escalate without the presence of a credible, willing outside power able to play the role of arbiter. True, not everyone gets away with everything all the time. Bangladesh seemed poised to forcibly return some Rohingya refugees to Myanmar but stopped, almost certainly in response to international pressure. The feared Russian-backed reconquest of Idlib, the last rebel stronghold in Syria, has, for now, been averted, in no small measure due to Turkish, European, and U.S. objections. The same is true (again: for the time being) when it comes to a potential Saudi-led offensive on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah, with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi largely deterred by warnings about the humanitarian impact and cost to their international standing. Elsewhere, leaders anticipating impunity have been taken aback by the severity of the response: Russian President Vladimir Putin, for example, by the stiff sanctions and show of united resolve that Western powers have maintained since Moscows annexation of Crimea and the killing of its former agent on British soil; Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman by the outrage that followed Khashoggis murder. Overall, though, it is hard to escape the sense that these are exceptions that prove the absence of rules. The international order as we know it is unraveling, with no clear sense of what will come in its wake. The danger may well lie less in the ultimate destination than in the process of getting there. As the following list of 10 Conflicts to Watch in 2019 amply illustrates, that road will be bumpy, and it will be perilous. Read the original text at Foreign Policy. Washington, DC, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Celebrate Capri at The Hay-Adams Hotel Photos here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/q0j6sspb7w82a0x/AAAEJ3p8YkI2zr58CFuGRov7a?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ncwgjjjeazttnk1/AAACCktsGbMCYRcq5kJjwcOba?dl=0 Washington, D.C. - From February 4-10, 2019, Washingtonians and guests of the landmark Hay-Adams can be swept away with the flavors of Capri, Italy as Stefano Mazzone, the executive chef from the islands renowned five-star Grand Hotel Quisisana, https://www.quisisana.com/, will journey to the nations capital. Both The Hay-Adams and Grand Hotel Quisisana are sister members of the elite group, Leading Hotels of The World. This partnership affords the rare opportunity for Mazzone to join The Hay-Adams Executive Chef Nicolas Legret, Chef de Cuisine Jacopo Beni and Pastry Chef Elenor Apolonio-Frantz to create dishes representative of the clean Mediterranean cuisine reflective of the award-winning Quisisanas Rendez-Vous Restaurant. Mazzone perfects dishes for their simplicity, seasonality and lightness incorporating the quality products of southern Italy including the best olive oil, fish, meat and shellfish. While in Washington, he will work with Legrets culinary team to source exceptional local produce bringing forth the flavors of this unique island and the entire region of Campania. The Grand Hotel Quisisanas owners, the Morgano family, appointed Mazzone to helm their notable kitchen in 2007, at the age of 30 because he possessed an impressive culinary background. This iconic hotel has been the favorite of politicians and poets, royalty and rock stars since it opened in 1845. He welcomed the challenge of delighting the palate of the most refined travelers from all over the world who visit Capri to enjoy this prestigious hotel on the island. Mazzone was previously in Taormina, where worked at the Hotel Sant' Andrea restaurant. His culinary career includes time working at the Teutonic by Heinz Beck. Guests at The Hay-Adams will enjoy a prix-fixe dinner menu beginning Monday, February 4 in the elegant Lafayette restaurant. Furthermore, throughout the entire week, the chefs collaborative efforts will introduce Italian dishes on the breakfast, lunch, dinner and weekend brunch menus. One will also find highlighted specials showcased on the hotels famous bar menu at Off The Record. A selection of the most popular dishes will remain on the menus for the remainder of the month of February. On February 7, an exclusive dinner will be held at Top of The Hay including a four-course menu with Italian wine pairings. With a commanding view overlooking the White House, this Capri tasting experience is limited to 40 guests and is priced at $295 including taxes and gratuity. In addition to exceptional cuisine from the island of Capri, guests will enjoy a signature cocktail from the Grand Hotel Quisisana which will be available for the month of February. Capri Meets Washington as Quisisana Partners with The Hay-Adams A la carte dinner menu Insalata di Astice con Battuto di Pomodoro e Salsa Aioli Lobster Salad, tomato Tartare and Aioli Sauce Vitello Tonnato Veal with Tuna Sauce Broccoli e Acciughe Broccoli and Anchovies Parmigiana di Melanzane in Piedi Eggplant Parmigiana Risotto al Pomodoro, Capperi e Olive Tomato Risotto with Capers and Olives Tortelli di Patate e Provola con Astice Potato and Provola Cheese Tortelli with Lobster Sauce Stracci di Pasta Verde Gratinati Come una Lasagna Napoletana Gratinated Green Stracci Pasta with Neapolitan Ragu Spaghetti con le Vongole Spaghetti with Clams Capesante Arrosto, Carciofi al Prezzemolo Roasted Scallops with Parsley Artichokes Spigola Grigliata al Limone, Colatura di Pomodoro e Maionese Leggera allOrigano Grilled Sea Bass with Lemon and Tomato Juice, lightly Oregano Mayonnaise Pollo Ruspante in Salsa Fricassea, Funghi e Cipollotti Brasati Roasted farm Chicken in Fricassee Sauce, Mushrooms and Spring Onion Filetto di Manzo al Pepe Beef Fillet with mixed Pepper Sauce Desserts Choco Qvisi Baba al Rum *** Caprese Touches for Breakfast Almond Chocolate Caprese Cake Croissant with Lemon Marmelade Sfogliatelle Lisce e Ricce Tangerine Marmelade Bread and Butter Mozzarella Ox-Heart Tomato Eggs en Cocotte in Purgatory with Tomato Sauce and Bread Omelette with Mozzarella o Filoscio Drops of Capri cuisine for lunch Tuna Carpaccio with Capers and Olives Caprese Salad Spaghetti sciue sciue, fresh Tomato Sauce Mezzi Paccheri Pasta with Lemon Blackspot Seabream in Tomato Broth with Shellfish Meat Balls Ragu, mashed Potato and sauteed Turnip Tops *** The Hay-Adams is located at 800 16th Street NW, Washington DC, 20006, across Lafayette Square from the White House. The historic Hay-Adams offers guests Washington's most prestigious address with views overlooking the White House, Lafayette Square and St. John's Church, the "Church of the Presidents." Consistently recognized as one of the worlds best hotels by Conde Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Fodors Travel and U.S. News & World Report, the hotel is just minutes from the Smithsonian Museums, the Washington Monument, the Capitol Building, the Mall, as well as convenient to Metro stations and the convention center. For reservations or more information call (202) 638-6600 or visit their website at www.hayadams.com. ### Washington: The US would pull out its troops from Syria slowly over a period of time and will protect its Kurdish allies, President Donald Trump has said, summing up the situation in the war-torn country as "sand and death". President Trump did not give a timetable for the planned military exit from Syria. Last month, he surprised the world by announcing that he was pulling back American troops from Syria, resulting in the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis in protest. Trump argues that there is no need for the US troops in Syria as they have accomplished their primary job of defeating the ISIS. "I never said I'm getting out tomorrow. I said we are pulling our soldiers out and they will be pulled back and Syria and we are getting out of Syria. Yes, absolutely. But we are getting out very powerfully," Trump told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday. "I don't know somebody said four months but I didn't say that either. I'm getting out, we are getting out of Syria," he said when asked about the timetable for the exit. "Syria was lost long ago, it was lost long ago. And besides that we're talking about sand and death, that's what we're talking about. We are not talking about vast wealth. We are talking about sand and death," he said. The US has some 2,000 troops in Syria, which will gradually return from this war-ravaged country. Earlier, on his first visit to US troops stationed in Iraq, Trump defended his decision to pull American troops out of war-torn Syria, saying the US cannot be the "world's policeman". "We don't want Syria, Obama gave up Syria years ago when he didn't violate the red line. I did when I shot 59 missiles in but that was a long time later and when President Obama decided not to violate his statement that never crossed the red line and then they did and he didn't do anything about it," he said. Trump said he will protect the US-backed Kurdish fighters. "Now the Kurds it's very interesting Turkey doesn't like them, other people do. I didn't like the fact that they are selling the small oil that they do have to Iran and we asked them not to sell it to Iran but the Kurds, our partners, are selling oil to Iran. We are not thrilled about that, I'm not happy about it at all," he said. "At the same time, they fight better when we fight with them. You know when we send 30 F-18's in front of them they fight much better than they do when we don't and you've seen what's happened. But we want to protect the Kurds nevertheless we want to protect the Kurds but I don't want to be in Syria forever. It's sand and it's death," the US president said. Trump has criticised previous administrations for sending and keeping US troops abroad, and has made bringing troops home part of his signature "America First" policy as he eyes a re-election bid in 2020. "When we kill ISIS - if we don't, know everyone says then they'll come to our country. Well, that's possibly true a very small percentage but you know where else they are going? To Iran who hates ISIS more than we do. They are going to Russia who hates ISIS more than we do," he noted. "We are killing and then I read when we pull out Russia's thrilled. Russia is not happy. You know why they're not happy? Because they like it when we're killing ISIS because we are killing them for them and we are killing them for Assad and we are killing ISIS also for Iran," he said. Trump told his Cabinet colleagues that Syria was in a mess when he took over. "When I took over Syria, Syria was a mess. It was riddled riddled with ISIS. And now everybody says it's down to 1 per cent of the land and sometimes you could even see a less 1 per cent," he said. "That place was a mess, it was terrible. But we also have to have other countries fighting ISIS. You know, we're helping by doing this. People say Russia and Iran, we are helping them. Everything we do over there helps them. They don't see us leave because we are knocking out ISIS. Let them fight ISIS too. We're spending all of this money. I want to spend money in our country but we've had a tremendous success in Syria," Trump said. Seoul: A North Korean diplomat who was until recently acting ambassador to Italy has gone missing, a South Korean member of parliament said on Thursday, after a South Korean newspaper reported he is seeking asylum in the West. The diplomat, Jo Song Gil, disappeared with his wife after leaving the embassy without notice in early November, according to Kim Min-ki, a South Korean lawmaker who was briefed by the National Intelligence Service. Earlier on Thursday, the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, citing an unidentified diplomatic source, said Jo, 48, had applied for asylum to an unspecified Western country and was in a "safe place" with his family under the protection of the Italian government. Kim told reporters he had some information about the case but could not discuss it. "They left the diplomatic mission and vanished," Kim said, referring to Jo and his family. If confirmed, Jo would join a slowly growing list of senior diplomats who have sought to flee the impoverished, oppressive North under the rule of Kim Jong Un. Thae Yong Ho, the North`s then deputy ambassador to Britain, defected with his family to South Korea in August 2016, becoming the highest-ranking diplomat to do so. Jo took up the acting envoy post in October 2017 after Italy expelled then-ambassador Mun Jong Nam in protest over North Korea`s nuclear and long-range missile tests in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions. Jo`s stint began in May 2015 and was due at the end of November, lawmaker Kim said. A source familiar with the matter, who asked to remain unnamed in order to speak about a sensitive political issue, told Reuters that Jo was officially replaced as acting ambassador by Kim Chon in late November. The source could not confirm the JoongAng Ilbo report or whether Jo was still based in Italy. South Korea`s presidential Blue House said earlier on Thursday it had no knowledge of the matter. A representative of the Italian embassy in Seoul, which is also responsible for North Korea affairs, did not have any immediate comment. Italy said in a report it submitted to a U.N. panel monitoring the enforcement of sanctions in November 2017 that four diplomats were stationed at the North Korean embassy there, listing the acting envoy as first secretary. The JoongAng Ilbo said Jo was with his wife and children. Citing an unidentified expert, it said he was known to be the son or son-in-law of a top-ranking North Korean official. North Korea forced diplomats stationed overseas to leave children at home after Kim took power in late 2011. Thae, the former deputy ambassador to Britain, said in his 2018 memoir that was the main reason behind his defection, calling it a "hostage" scheme. However, Thae also wrote there were some exceptions for those from the top echelons and who were seen as the most loyal to Kim. SEOUL: In his New Year address on Tuesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned he might take a "new path" if Washington maintains sanctions amid his country`s push for economic development, but experts say it may be too late to change the trajectory of negotiations. Kim did not specify what the new approach might be. His warning may sound similar to the bellicose rhetoric that Pyongyang often deployed before last year`s summit, but he cannot jeopardise the hard-won thaw and has few options beyond appealing directly to US President Donald Trump, experts say. State media have in recent weeks accused the State Department of risking returning to "exchanges of fire" of the past by ramping up sanctions, while crediting Trump for his efforts to continue talks. As both sides struggle to find a breakthrough in stalled talks, the speech shows Kim shifting the focus from calls for complete dismantlement of its nuclear arsenal and hinting at including countries other than the United States. Q: IS THIS A SIGN OF FRUSTRATION? A: Kim vowed to work towards denuclearisation at a summit with Trump in Singapore in June. But since then there has been little progress, with a high-level meeting between the two sides cancelled abruptly in November. Pyongyang has demanded Washington lift sanctions and declare a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War in response to the dismantlement of its Punggye-ri nuclear testing site and a key missile engine facility. Despite goodwill responses from Washington, such as a halt of some major military exercises with South Korea, U.S. officials have said North Korea`s initial steps were not confirmed and could be easily reversed. US Vice President Mike Pence said North Korea would not be forced to provide a list of nuclear weapons and locations, and a U.S. nuclear envoy offered to facilitate humanitarian aid. But Kim`s speech on Tuesday called for a "complete end" to all joint exercises and slammed the sanctions campaign. "His message was `we have done what we said we would at Singapore, but the United States has done very little in return,`" said Vipin Narang, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Q: WHAT DOES `NEW PATH` MEAN? A: North Korea`s state media has stepped up criticism of the United States, warning of a return to the era of confrontation if sanctions and pressure continued. But that indicates Pyongyang`s frustration rather than the "new path" Kim suggested, experts say. "One thing is clear: Kim is not going to return to any sort of posture where the U.S. or its allies would consider a military attack, and that means no missile or nuclear tests for the foreseeable future," said Harry Kazianis of the Washington-based Centre for the National Interest. Instead, "new path" may refer to focusing on concessions that don`t involve broad denuclearisation in favour of action-for-action commitments. South Korea`s Unification Ministry said on Wednesday it could not speculate on what the alternative path might be, but Kim showed his "clear resolve" to abandon the weapons programme and improve U.S. ties by mentioning "complete denuclearisation" himself for the first time. Kim Joon-hyung, a professor at Handong Global University, said one possible scenario was the North`s dismantling of the Yongbyon nuclear complex, as offered at an inter-Korean summit in September in Pyongyang, and acknowledging some facilities in return for eased sanctions, such as a partial restart of inter-Korean economic projects. Kim Jong Un said in the speech he was willing to reopen the Kaesong factory park and allow access to the North`s Mount Kumgang resort "without conditions." Yet there remains an opportunity to limit Kim`s arsenal, said Patrick Cronin of the Hudson Institute in Washington. "This will not be easy, and neither side will achieve outright success, but diplomacy is possible," Cronin said. "China and others may also be invited to play a role." Q: DOES NORTH KOREA WANT TO SHIFT ITS FOCUS FROM AMERICA? A: The New Year address called for a launch of multilateral talks to officially declare an end to the Korean War, an idea also floated previously by South Korea. That could mean working with China, South Korea and others in pressing Washington, professor Kim said. But other experts, including former South Korean nuclear envoy Lee Soo-hyuk, were sceptical that would happen given the deadlocked bilateral talks, the Sino-U.S. trade war and Trump`s dislike for multinational mechanisms. "Kim can present Trump with a choice: Either play ball with me on a negotiated nuclear settlement and reduce sanctions or I will go to China for help and get the economic development I want and keep my nukes," Kazianis said. Washington: US President Donald Trump has said that he has received a "great letter" from Kim Jong-un and is looking forward to meet the North Korean leader for a second time in the "not-too-distant future" to restart talks about the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. President Trump's announcement came after the North Korean leader warned that Pyongyang may change its approach to nuclear talks if Washington persists with sanctions. "I just got a great letter from Kim Jong-un. Those few people that I've shown this letter to, they've never written letters like that. This letter is a great letter. We've made a lot of progress with North Korea and Kim Jong-un," Trump told his Cabinet colleagues during a meeting on Wednesday. "North Korea has tremendous economic potential and so I look forward to our meeting with Chairman Kim. We'll set that up. We'll be setting it up in the not-too-distant future," he said. Trump said he and Kim had established a very good relationship. "A lot of good things are happening. I never said speed. Look, it's been this way for 80 plus years," he said. Kim and Trump held a historic meeting in Singapore on June 12 last year. They issued a vague goal for the "complete denuclearisation" of the Korean Peninsula without describing when and how it would occur. "We'll probably now have another meeting. He'd like to meet, I'd like to meet, but we've established a very good relationship," he said. Trump said his administration was not getting any credit for this peace initiative which has averted the world from a major war. "We're given no credit for frankly if this administration didn't take place, if another administration came in instead of this administration, namely (Vice President) Mike (Pence) and myself and the group around this table, you'd be at war right now," he said. "You'd be having a nice big, fat war in Asia and it wouldn't be pleasant," he added. Trump said he was in no rush for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. "We're getting along fine. I'm not in any rush. I don't have to rush. All I know is there's no rockets, there's no testing," he said, expressing satisfaction over the progress in talks with the North Koreans. North Korea really want to do something, he said. "Now, does that mean it's going to be done? Who knows? Who knows? Deals are deals. You never know but I tell you, we've established a very good relationship with North Korea," he said. "That was going to be a war, that could have been a World War III to be honest with you because a lot of people would've had to get involved in that all over Asia and then it spreads beyond Asia, and instead we have somebody that I really think wants to get onto economic development and making a lot of success and money, frankly, for his country because North Korea has tremendous potential and will help them out," Trump said. DHAKA: Sheikh Hasina will be sworn in as the Prime Minister for the fourth time at Bangabhaban the official residence and office of the Bangladesh President. Besides Hasina, other cabinet ministers will also take an oath. The swearing ceremony of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and cabinet members will be held at Bangabhaban at 3.30pm on Monday i.e. January 7, 2019, informed President Abdul Hamids press secretary Joynal Abedin. The announcement came in the wake of President Hamid extending an invite to Hasina to form the government after Awami League appeared as the single largest party securing 288 of the total 298 seats. Elections were held for 298 of total 300 seats in Bangladesh on December 30, after polls were cancelled in one seat (Brahmanberia -2) and were deferred in one seat (Gaibandha) due to the demise of the BNP candidate. Earlier in the day, elected Awami League members and party President Sheikh Hasina were sworn in as the members of Parliament. The swearing in ceremony was held at the Oath room of the Parliament. As many as 257 Awami League members took oath alongside 22 Awami League alliance partner Jatiya Party members. Prime Minister-designate Sheikh Hasina also took oath as the member of Parliament today. The Parliament speaker Shirin Chaudhury administered the oath ceremony. However, Opposition members stayed away from the oath ceremony. The opposition alliance Jaitya Oikya Front managed to secure seven seats five were bagged by BNP and two by Gono Forum. On the same day, a seven-member delegation of the Jatiya Oikya Front led by BNP secretary general Fakhrul Islam submitted a memorandum to the Chief Election Commissioner Nurul Huda demanding fresh elections under a caretaker and a non-partisan government. Similar demands for fresh elections were raised by the opposition alliance. However, the election commission of Bangladesh had turned it down. The 11th general elections to Bangladesh were held on December 30, 2018. The elections were marred by violent clashes between the ruling Awami League and the Opposition party BNP members. As many as 18 people lost their lives in the violent clashes. Two civilians who had gone to cast their vote were caught amidst a cross fire and succumbed to bullet injuries later. A security personnel belonging to the Ansar force was also killed while bringing a situation under control on the day of the polling. New Delhi: The Union Cabinet on Wednesday gave its ex post facto approval to India's negotiating stand at COP24 where it reiterated its commitment to Paris Agreement, but added that the actions of developing countries must be supported by developed nations. The Indian delegation to the 24th Conference of Parties (COP24) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held at Katowice in Poland between December 2 and 15, was led by Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan. "The key focus of the meeting was to finalize guidelines for implementation of Paris Agreement in post-2020 period. India's approach was guided by principles and provisions of UNFCCC and Paris Agreement particularly the principles of Equity and Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capability (CBPR-RC)," an official statement said. "India reiterated its commitment to Paris Agreement and highlighted its leadership during the COP-24 by reuniting its promise to implement the Paris Agreement fully in a collective manner. In line with our traditional ethos of protecting environment, India has taken several initiatives to address climate change concerns under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and these initiatives reflect India's commitment towards climate action," it added. The government said the push for renewable energy leading to achieving about 74 gigawatt of installed renewable energy capacity, including about 24 gigawatt from solar, was an example of India's efforts. "It is, however, important to ensure that the actions of developing countries are supported by sustained and adequate means of implementation including finance, capacity building and technological support by developed countries," the government statement said. "The adopted guidance operationalises the obligation of developed countries in providing means of implementation to developing countries and requires developed countries to provide detailed information to bring clarity on projected levels of climate finance. "Parties have also agreed to initiate the work on setting up the new collective finance goals post-2020 from the floor of $ 100 billion," it added. New Delhi: After watching her enact a scene during the screen test for '1942: A Love Story', director Vidhu Vinod Chopra dismissed Manisha Koirala as a terrible actress but in no mood to give up, she requested him for a second chance the next day and the rest is history. A gritty Manisha came the next day and after her performance, Chopra remained silent for long, as if in a daze. And then he said the words that were music to Manisha's ears, "If this is the heart and soul that you promise to put into each scene of my movie, I will sign you up instead of Madhuri Dixit. Manisha, yesterday, you were at zero. You are at a hundred today." Manisha recalls this episode in her memoir 'Healed: How Cancer Gave Me a New Life'. "I remember my screen test for '1942: A Love Story'. Veteran filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra had called me to do a scene. But to my disappointment, at the end of it he remarked: 'Manisha, you were shit. You're a terrible actress.' "This was not acceptable to me. The warrior woman inside me had been challenged. I requested him to give me twenty-four hours to come back for a second chance. Back home, I practised my lines passionately, over and over again, until my mother became distressed at my state," she writes. "What are you doing to yourself? It's okay if you don't get this movie. Don't kill yourself over it," her mother told her. The next day, Manisha says, she poured her soul into her performance and subsequently got signed for the movie. Manisha, who won a tough battle against ovarian cancer, talks in her book her treatment in the US, the care provided by the oncologists there and how she rebuilt her life once she returned home. Born into the prominent Koirala family in Nepal, Manisha made her Bollywood debut with 'Saudagar' in 1991 and went on to act in films like '1942: A Love Story', 'Akele Hum Akele Tum', 'Bombay', 'Khamoshi: The Musical', 'Dil Se', 'Mann', 'Lajja' and 'Company'. She took a break from acting in 2012 and returned five years later with the coming-of-age drama 'Dear Maya', Netflix's 'Lust Stories' and biographical drama 'Sanju'. New Delhi: Actor Varun Dhawan and his girlfriend Natasha Dalal, who celebrated the New Year's eve together in New York, have returned to Mumbai. An adorable couple that they are, Varun and Natasha were captured by the shutterbugs at the Mumbai airport on Wednesday evening. While Varun was seen in a black sweatshirt with white pants and sneakers, Natasha looked lovely in grey crop top and completed her look with a Louis Vuitton handbag. Check out the pic here: Varun and Natasha, who is a fashion designer by profession, have been in the limelight for quite some time, especially since the 'Judwaa 2' actor confessed to dating her during celebrity chat show 'Koffee With Karan 6'. The duo is often been spotted together and we assume that they both love travelling together. In November 2018, they were clicked arriving hand-in-hand at Mumbai airport, as they had returned from an undisclosed location. Before that, in August 2018, the duo had jetted off to London spend a relaxing holiday in each other's company. If rumours are to be believed, Varun and Natasha are all set to get married in November, 2019. On the work front, Varun will be next seen in Abhishek Verman's period drama 'Kalank'. The movie is being produced by Karan Johar's Dharma Productions and also stars Alia Bhatt, Sonakshi Sinha, Madhuri Dixit and Sanjay Dutt in the lead role. The film is slated to hit the theatres in April. Los Angeles: Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are expecting a fourth child - again using a surrogate, according to multiple media reports on Wednesday. Celebrity magazines Us Weekly and People quoted sources close to the couple as saying the surrogate was pregnant and expected to give birth in May. Representatives of the reality TV star and her rapper husband did not respond to a request for comment. Kardashian and West`s third child, Chicago, was born via a surrogate in January 2018. The couple has two other children North, 5, and Saint, 3. They turned to surrogacy after doctors warned Kardashian of serious health risks if she became pregnant again after her first two children. Us Weekly reported that the couple put their plans for a fourth child on hold about six months ago as West was struggling with mental health issues. The rapper said last year he suffers from bipolar disorder and embarked on a bizarre Twitter spree that culminated in a rambling October meeting at the White House with U.S. President Donald Trump, who West supports. "Kim wanted their carrier to be pregnant shortly after Chicagos birth, but they put those plans on hold when Kanye was having his issues, an anonymous source was quoted as telling Us Weekly. "Kanye has been great. Hes been healthy, happy and his head is clear. They are both very excited for this new baby," the source added. West, who said after the Trump meeting that he was distancing himself from politics, kicked off the New Year with a series of tweets reiterating his support for the Republican president. "Trump all day," the musician wrote on Twitter on Jan. 1, saying he planned to perform wearing the "Make America Great Again" hat made popular by Trump and his supporters. "One of my favourite of many things about what the Trump hat represents to me is that people cant tell me what to do because Im black," West added on Twitter. New Delhi: The last rites of veteran actor-writer Kader Khan, who died on New Year's Eve, was carried out on Wednesday in Meadowvale cemetery in Canada. The last rites was attended by several Aghan community members, including his three sons, who paid their tribute to the late actor. Kader died after a prolonged illness at a hospital in Canada. He was 81. Canada: #Visuals from veteran actor & screenwriter Kader Khan's funeral ceremony held in Mississauga yesterday. He passed away at the age of 81 in a hospital in Toronto on January 1 pic.twitter.com/08TPt8AWMg ANI (@ANI) January 3, 2019 "The last rites will be performed here in Canada as we have our entire family here. He (Khan) is going to be buried at approximately 2:30 pm as per Canadian time at Meadowvale cemetery," Kader's son Sarfaraz had told PTI earlier. The whole of Bollywood is mourning the death of the legendary actor. Actor Govinda, who worked with Kader in several hit films in 90s, expressed his grief on his demise. Posting a photo with Kader from 1998 released 'Dulhe Raja', Govinda wrote that he was not just a mentor but also a father figure to him. Govinda also mentioned how all the actors he worked with eventually attained superstardom. "RIP Kader Khan Saab. He was not just my "ustaad" but a father figure to me, his midas touch and his aura made every actor he worked with a superstar. The entire film industry and my family deeply mourns this loss and we cannot express the sorrow in words," he tweeted. RIP Kader Khan Saab. He was not just my "ustaad" but a father figure to me, his midas touch and his aura made every actor he worked with a superstar. The entire film industry and my family deeply mourns this loss and we cannot express the sorrow in words.#ripkaderkhansaab__ pic.twitter.com/NISPM1UMs1 Govinda (@govindaahuja21) January 1, 2019 Govinda and Kader made one of the most adored on-screen pairs of 90s Hindi cinema. They did films like 'Dulhe Raja', 'Sajan Chale Sasural', 'Coolie No. 1', 'Aankhen', 'Haseena Maan Jayegi' and many more. Kader was reportedly suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative disease that causes loss of balance, difficulty in walking and dementia. Born in Kabul, Kader's family migrated to Mumbai when he was a year old. Kader went on to write dialogues for over 250 films, including some of the biggest blockbusters of the '70s and '80s such as Dharam Veer, Ganga Jamuna Saraswati, Coolie, Desh Premee, Suhaag, Parvarish, Amar Akbar Anthony, Sharaabi, Lawaaris and Muqaddar Ka Sikandar. He was equally prolific as an actor after making his screen debut in 1973 with Rajesh Khannas Daag. He featured in a variety of character roles in over 300 films. BOCA RATON, Fla., Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ViViPAY (ViVi), a subsidiary of ViVi Holdings Inc. and a leading provider of Fintech financial technology solutions, announced today it has signed an agreement with the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference NHCLC. Under the agreement, ViVi will offer its financial ecosystem solution with a digital wallet linked to a Mastercard or Visa, that gives parishioners that attend one of the NHCLCs more than 40,118 million-member churches a low-cost option to a traditional bank account with no credit check. ViViPAY has developed a complete ecosystem of financial solutions for the unbanked and underbanked populations. According to a 2015 FDIC study, over 40% of the U.S. Latino community are unbanked or underbanked without access to basic financial services that everyone deserves. Members also receive access to Claro mobile services integrated directly into their digital wallet. The ViVi financial ecosystem is a simple solution to manage money and maintain financial control as it offers convenience, security and ease of use. To utilize the product, the user simply downloads the free digital wallet app and deposits funds to their digital wallet according to their budget. This can be done by depositing a check directly through the app, having their paycheck or government check direct deposited, or by depositing cash at any of the thousands of deposit locations throughout the country. They are then able to use the digital wallet, much like a bank account, to pay bills, transfer money, access health benefits, and even make donations directly from the app. "The focus of this partnership is to offer solutions that are highly sought after by the NHCLCs members and offer an easily accessible service for those with little or no credit or who do not have a bank account or credit card, allowing access to basic financial services with additional benefits and rewards," said Jose Ferreira, CEO of ViVi Holdings Inc. Customers can utilize their linked ViVi Mastercard or Visa, which can be used in millions of locations worldwide wherever Mastercard and Visa are accepted. It can also be used at ATMs nationwide to withdraw money 24 hours a day. In addition, the digital wallet marketplace offers Claro discount mobile service and free membership to the ViVi discount club, which gives members discounts of up to 50% at over 300,000 locations nationwide and features exclusive savings from popular restaurants, retailers, hotels, theme parks and more, with up to 50% off from Americas top brands and local stores. These discounts are available in the app using the ViVi Show Your Phone mobile coupons. Via this new sponsorship, VIVI is providing members of the NHCLC with a simple solution to connect them with cutting edge, inexpensive banking alternatives that will empower the community giving them the opportunity to access the basic financial services that everyone deserves, said Samuel Rodriguez the president of the NHCLC. About NHCLC With over 40,118 churches, it is the largest Hispanic evangelical church organization in the United States and empowers pastors with messaging and mobilization tools and resources for the purpose of leading a righteousness and justice movement. Founded in 2001 by Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, the NHCLC exists to unify, serve and represent the Hispanic Evangelical Community with the divine (vertical) and human (horizontal) elements of the Christian message via our 7 Directives of Life, Family, Great Commission, Education, Justice, Stewardship and Youth. About ViVi Holdings ViViPAY ViVi is a subsidiary of ViVi Holdings, a U.S.-based "Fintech" financial technology company that has developed a complete ecosystem of financial solutions and is committed to the digital inclusion of basic banking services for the entire population. It aggregates the branches of technology, telecommunications and payment processing in one cohesive, intuitive platform that uses "AI" Artificial Intelligence and Private Blockchain technology to guarantee security. New Delhi: UP Police, on Thursday, arrested Yogesh Raj - the main accused in the Bulandshahr violence case in which a cop and a youth had died last month. "Yes, Yogesh Raj has been arrested. He is undergoing medical examination and would be produced in the local court later today for legal proceedings," Circle Officer (Siyana) Raghvendra Kumar Mishra told news agency PTI. Raj had been absconding since December 3 when mob violence reared its ugly head in UP's Bulandshahr. The clashes broke out when some local residents were protesting against alleged cow slaughter at illegal slaughterhouses. The protesters pelted stones and set several motorcycles on fire. Inspector Subodh Kumar and 20-year-old Sumit died in the incident.In a video clip released on December 6, Raj had claimed innocence even as he remained in hiding. "I have nothing to do with it. I have full faith in God. I will be cleared of all accusations," he said, adding that he was not present at the site of the incident when Kumar and Sumit received gunshot wounds. The claim of innocence, however, did not stop cops from halting a massive manhunt for Raj, a Bajrang Dal leader. UP Police also faced a lot of flak for the manner in which the investigation was handled while CM Yogi Adityanath has had to fight fire as well. Rival leaders have repeatedly questioned the state of law and order with few saying that the state government is focussed more on welfare of cows than clamping down on crime and bringing criminals to justice. NEW DELHI: In October 2018, reports of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) sightings in Manipur's capital city Imphal went viral. Boys of a students' hostel in the city's Mantripukhri locality allegedly spotted a strange disc-shaped object hovering in the sky. Nearly three months after the news went viral, the Centre has responded to the reports of UFO sightings. UFO reported by the general public have often been linked to aircraft activities and dynamical processes that mimic a moving object, said Union Minister Jitendra Singh in Rajya Sabha while reply to a question on the subject. At present ISRO is unaware of detection of any UFO, he added. Reports of UFO sightings has emerged time and again from across parts of the world. In July 2018, reports of alleged UFO sightings near Prime Minister Narendra Modis official residence sent security forces in Delhi into a tizzy. The UFO was sighted at Lok Kalyan Marg, Delhi. The 2-km radius area around the PMs house is a no-fly zone. In December last year, Pune Police were sent on a wild goose chase after a man sent an email to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) claiming to have spotted an "alien object" outside his house. After the PMO forwarded the letter to the Maharashtra government, police got instructions to look into the matter, said an official attached to the Sinhgad Road police station. The probe later revealed that the man, who is 47 years old, was suffering from a mental ailment, a police officer said on Thursday. NEW DELHI: Senior advocate and Punjab-based leader HS Phoolka resigned from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday. He submitted his resignation to Delhi Chief Minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal, who asked him to reconsider his decision. Phoolka will hold a press conference on Friday to explain his decision to resign. Taking to Twitter, the Supreme Court advocate wrote, "I have resigned from AAP & handed over resignation to Kejriwal ji today. Though he asked me not to resign but I insisted. Will be briefing media tomorrow at 4 pm at Press Club, Raisina Rd, New Delhi to explain the Reason of leaving AAP & my further plans." Last year, Phoolka had resigned as a legislator from the Punjab Assembly, over the state governments alleged failure to act against former CM Parkash Singh Badal. The move comes amid speculation over the possibility of an alliance between the Congress and the AAP for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The AAP has not denied alliance prospects with the Congress, saying its political affairs committee will take a call after considering the opinion of its leaders and workers from Delhi, Punjab and Haryana. The 73-year-old lawyer is representing the victims in 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases, in which former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar was recently convicted. Kerala is tense and the state CM has blamed Sangh Parivar for the prevailing situation here. A day after two women of menstruating age managed to enter the Sabarimala Temple on Wednesday, the state government has been accused of hurting religious sentiments but Pinarayi Vijayan has said that efforts are on to turn the ground situation extremely volatile. On Thursday, Vijayan defended the decision to provide security to women devotees who had managed to enter the Sabarimala Temple. "It's the government's responsibility to give protection to women. The government has fulfilled this constitutional responsibility. Sangh Parivar is trying to make Sabarimala into a clash zone," he said. "Seven police vehicles, 79 KSRTC buses destroyed and 39 police personnel attacked till now. Most of the persons attacked were women." A state-wide hartal was called in protest against the entry of the two women into the holy temple where purification rituals had to be carried out on Wednesday. BJP workers staged a protest outside CM's house while party leader V Muraleedharan said that the two women who had entered the temple were Maoists. For the common man - and woman, daily schedules were thrown off track as transport services were affected in many places of the state - including capital Thiruvananthapuram where ambulances were used to ferry passengers. Meanwhile, the state government maintains that it is only obeying the orders of Supreme Court which had allowed for women of all ages to enter Sabarimala Temple. Protestors have, however, maintained that they cannot let traditions and religious beliefs be compromised and managed to keep women of menstruating age - considered 'impure' - at bay, till Wednesday. A dawn-to-dusk 12-hour hartal called by Hindu outfits began Thursday morning in protest against the entry of two women of menstruating age into the Sabarimala temple of Lord Ayyappa. Two women, Kanakadurga (44) and Bindu (42), created history be stepping into the hallowed precincts guarded by police three months after the Supreme Court's historic judgement lifting the ban on entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its "eternally celibate" deity. The BJP is supporting the shutdown while the Congress-led UDF is observing a "black day" on Thursday. The security has been tightened in view of the hartal called by several organisations. Meanwhile, state DGP Loknath Behara has warned of strict action against those indulging in violence during the hartal. As the news of the women entering the shrine spread like wildfire from the hill shrine, protests erupted at several places, with Hindu right-wing activists blocking highways and forcing the closure of shops and markets. BJP and CPI(M) workers clashed in front of the Secretariat for over five hours Wednesday as police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse them. Here are the live updates: # Asianet cameraperson Biju at Trivandrum, Kerala, attacked by BJP workers during the protest. Trivandrum: Asianet cameraperson Biju attacked by BJP workers during protest over #SabarimalaTemple issue. #Kerala pic.twitter.com/RGemTsBDbz ANI (@ANI) January 3, 2019 #Kerala: Sabarimala Karma Samiti and BJP workers hold protest march in Pandalam over the issue of entry of women in #SabarimalaTemple pic.twitter.com/cKmwlrtGCf ANI (@ANI) January 3, 2019 # "We're observing 'black day' in Kerala today. State govt is challenging the sentiments of devotees of Sabarimala. With the sponsor of state govt, these two young women entered the temple. They are activists, they are maoists," Congress MP K Suresh. # "7 police vehicles and 79 KSRTC buses have been destroyed and 39 police personnel attacked, till now. Most of the persons attacked were women. Women media persons were also attacked," added the Kerala CM. # "It is government's responsibility to give protection to women. The government has fulfilled this constitutional responsibility. Sangh Parivar is trying to make Sabarimala into a clash zone," said Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. # Kerala government is taking measures every day to send someone there to disturb its rituals. It is festival time when per day 1-2 lakh people used to come to temple but due to the action of the government, it has reduced to 10-15,000," said PGS Varma, member of royal Pandalam family. # Supreme Court refuses to give an urgent hearing to a mentioning by lawyer, PV Dinesh, seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against the Sabarimala Temple priest for purification of temple premises after entry of two women on Wednesday. SC said the matter has been fixed for January 22. # Two people have been arrested and two others detained for attacking a Special Branch Women Police personnel on duty in rural area of Ernakulam district on Wednesday night. # BJP holds a protest march in Kochi against the entry of women in the temple. # NK Premachandran, KC Venugopal, Suresh Kodikunnil and PK Kunhalikutty move an adjournment motion in Lok Sabha. # "Yesterday two women entered Sabarimala temple. They weren't devotees. They were Maoists. CPM with selected policemen prepared an action plan and then saw to it that the women go inside the temple. This is a planned conspiracy by Maoists in league with Kerala government and CPM," said BJP leader V Muraleedharan. # At least two people have been detained by police in connection with Wednesday's violence and stone pelting incident in Pandalam. # BJP Kerala president PS Sreedharan Pillai, "We will carry on with our agitation in a peaceful manner and abide by the law of the land." # As the hartal is being observed in Kerala, ambulances are used to help stranded passengers at Thiruvananthapuram Central as bus services have been affected in the area. Kerala: Ambulances being used to help stranded passengers at Thiruvananthapuram Central as bus services are affected in the area due to the hartal called by various organisations over #SabarimalaTemple women entry. pic.twitter.com/tURDZgevh5 ANI (@ANI) January 3, 2019 # Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) has stopped its bus operations to Kerala for the day in view of the hartal called by various organisations. # The security has been tightened in view of the hartal called by several organisations. Meanwhile, state DGP Loknath Behara has warned of strict action against those indulging in violence during the hartal. Kerala: Security deployed in Pathanamthitta in the view of hartal called by various organisations over #SabarimalaTemple women entry pic.twitter.com/Hse169zZLs ANI (@ANI) 3 January 2019 # Various universities, including Kerala, Mahatma Gandhi, Calicut, and Kannur have postponed their examinations scheduled for Thursday. # Merchants' organisations have said they would not cooperate with the hartal and keep shops and business establishments open. # A 55-year-old Sabarimala Karma Samiti worker, who was seriously injured in stone throwing, during a clash between CPIM and BJP workers, at Pandalam, died late Wednesday night. A police investigation is currently underway. # The BJP is supporting the shutdown while the Congress-led UDF is observing a "black day" on Thursday. Kerala: United Democratic Front to observe 'black day' in the state in connection with Sabarimala Temple women entry issue; Visuals from Thiruvananthapuram pic.twitter.com/YOfcRVKNge ANI (@ANI) 3 January 2019 # Auto-rickshaws and two-wheelers were plying at the railway station in the state capital and various other places. But in Kozhikode, protesters blocked vehicles and burnt tyres in the morning. # The hartal, which began at 6 am, has been called by Sabarimala Karma Samithi, an umbrella organisation of various pro-Hindutva groups, spearheading protests against the Supreme Court's September 28 verdict, and Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP). # Two women, Kanakadurga (44) and Bindu (42), created history be stepping into the hallowed precincts guarded by police three months after the Supreme Court's historic judgement lifting the ban on entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its "eternally celibate" deity. As the news spread like wildfire from the hill shrine, protests erupted at several places, with Hindu right-wing activists blocking highways and forcing the closure of shops and markets. Islamabad: The Pakistan Army claimed to have shot down an "Indian spy quadcopter" flying over the Pakistani side of the Line of Control in Bagh Sector, a claim strongly rejected by the Indian Army. Major General Asif Ghafoor, the director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations - the Pakistan Army's media wing - released the picture of the drone in a tweet Tuesday. "Pakistan Army troops shot down Indian spy quadcopter in Bagh sector along Line of Control (LoC)," he said in the tweet. Ghafoor said not even a quadcopter will be allowed to cross (the) LoC. In New Delhi, the Indian Army sources strongly rejected Pakistan Army's claim of shooting down the "Indian spy quadcopter", saying no such incident happened along the LoC. According to the Pakistani defence officials, "four intruding Indian drones were shot down by Pakistani forces last year". The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed dissatisfaction with the steps taken till now to rescue the 15 people trapped in the illegal coal mine in Meghalaya and reprimanded the state government. The apex court stated that the miners should be taken out irrespective of the condition they are in. "No matter whether they are all dead, some alive, few dead or all alive, they should be taken out. We pray to God they are alive," said the SC. Fifteen miners are trapped inside a 370-foot-deep illegal coal mine in East Jaintia Hills district since December 13, 2018, after water from a nearby river gushed in, puncturing the mine wall. The apex court asked the Meghalaya government on the steps taken to rescue the miners. The government submitted before the court that "the state is taking steps to rescue the trapped miners. 72 NDRF personnel, 14 Navy personnel, and Coal India personnel are working since December 14". "What steps have you taken? Miners have been missing for so many days. We're not satisfied with rescue operations," said SC. The apex court added that the situation is very serious and its a question of life and death of the miners. On Wednesday, the Indian Navy and NDRF officials said that efforts are on to install high-powered submersible pumps to drain out water from interconnected shafts. According to officials, the divers will measure the water level again to take a call on resuming search and rescue operation for the trapped diggers. A day after raking up a controversy by stopping the singing of National Song ('Vande Mataram') at the Madhya Pradesh secretariat, Chief Minister Kamal Nath on Thursday announced a new policy to implement the tradition. 'Vande Mataram' was not sung at the state secretariat on Tuesday, the first working day of the month, a tradition followed by the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. The Chief Minister said that at 10.45 am on the first working day of every month, a police band will play the tunes that encourage patriotic feelings during their march from Shaurya Samarak to Vallabh Bhawan in Bhopal. He added that on the arrival at the Bhawan, both National Anthem (Jana Gana Mana) and National Song (Vande Mataram) will be sung. Earlier on Wednesday, former chief minister Shivraj Chouhan also attacked the Kamal Nath government and said he and all other BJP MLAs will sing 'Vande Mataram' on the first day of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly session if the Congress government does not restore the practice at the secretariat. Nath, however, said the practice of singing 'Vande Mataram' on the first working day of every month was being discontinued for the time being and that his government has decided to implement it in "naya swaroop" (new form). "We have not taken this decision under any agenda nor are we opposed to singing 'Vande Mataram'. It is deeply rooted in our hearts and we have sung it from time-to-time. We will start it again but in a different form," Nath said in a statement. He also criticised those who were trying to politicise the issue. "I condemn those who do politics in the name of either temple or Vande Mataram. We are bringing it (Vande Mataram) in a new form and I will make an announcement on it within a day or two," the chief minister said. Taking a swipe at the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh, BJP chief Amit Shah had said on Wednesday that 'Vande Mataram' was not sung at the state secretariat just to please a "particular community" and asked whether it was done on instructions from party president Rahul Gandhi. In a Facebook post, Shah alleged that Congress is making Madhya Pradesh, the "heart of Hindustan", a centre of its "appeasement" policy. "I want to ask Congress national president Rahul Gandhi whether the insult of Vande Mataram is his decision. Rahul Gandhi should clear his stand before the people of the country on the unfortunate decision by the Congress government," Shah said. The BJP chief said 'Vande Mataram' does not belong to any particular community and instead it is a symbol of the sacrifice of lakhs of warriors who laid down their lives for the freedom of India. "And its insult just to please a particular community is very sad, shameful and disrespect of the country's freedom," Shah said. By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. You can find out more by clicking this link New Delhi: Doctors and medical staff across the country will don black badges on Thursday to protest against three bills related to health sector. The three bills are the National Medical Commission Bill - 2017, the Indian Medical Council (amendments) Bill - 2018, and the Consumer Protection Bill- 2018. Asking for the restorations of the Medical Council of India, Indian Medical Association President Dr Santanu Sen said, The three bills have the potential to change the profile of the medical profession and healthcare in India. It is bound to affect patients at large. "The All India Protest Day on January 4 by the IMA is to invite the attention of Parliament and the nation, he added. Local and state branches of the IMA have been asked to observe the day to protest against the bills. The IMA, however, assured that medical services will not be affected by the protest. Extending support to the protest, the National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill said that the bill was "anti-poor, anti-people and anti-federal". If it is allowed to pass it will have "unforeseen consequences" not only on the healthcare sector but also on the federal structure of the country, Sen claimed. The bill, which aims to overhaul medical education in the country, will give all authority to the government of India. If adopted, it would repeal the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956, he said. It proposes that fee for 50 per cent seats in medical colleges will be regulated by the government. The reservation of medical seats, up to 50 per cent, for managements is denial of equitable opportunities and is certainly anti-people and pro-rich, Sen said. The IMA will also hand over memorandums on the matter to all MPs in their constituencies. With agency inputs KANSAS CITY, Mo., Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Its tax season year-round for H&R Block (NYSE: HRB), but January is when some consumers will start to receive their tax documents and many start preparing their tax returns. Even though theres a partial government shutdown, theres no reason for tax filers to delay preparing their tax returns. With more than 10,000 tax offices filled with tax pros ready to help clients in person and teams of tax pros at the ready to help online clients, H&R Block is ready to help consumers prepare their taxes any way they want, even during the partial government shutdown. Whether you want to sit with your tax pro and see the tax prep process on your own monitor, or you want to prepare your return yourself, with or without help from a tax pro, weve got your back, said Vinoo Vijay, chief marketing officer at H&R Block. H&R Block has always gotten you your maximum refund, guaranteed, and now thanks to enhanced virtual help for online clients there truly is an H&R Block option for everyone. Visit an office for tax help, upfront and transparent prices, and faster access to money For the past six decades, clients wanting in-person tax help relied on H&R Blocks offices and tax pros. New this year, not just to H&R Block but to the national, branded assisted tax prep industry, is upfront, transparent pricing . This means in just three simple steps H&R Block clients can know the price for tax preparation before they begin. Our tax pros are passionate about finding ways to improve our service and they told us clients expect and deserve to know the price of tax prep services before they start, said Karen Orosco, senior vice president of H&R Blocks retail business. Our new upfront, transparent pricing this season is just one more way we show our clients that Block has your back. In-person clients who want money faster than the IRS will deliver their refund can apply for a Refund Advance Loan * of up to $3,000. The Refund Advance, a no-interest loan from Axos Bank offered Jan. 4 to Feb. 28 at participating offices, is repaid from the clients federal or state income tax refunds. If approved, clients will typically have access to money within hours of applying, even while the IRS remains partially closed. H&R Block tax professionals will also provide W-4 planning advice when clients file their 2018 tax returns. Updating their W-4 is the best way for employees to prevent drastic, unplanned refund changes, which are increasingly likely after tax reform. Because much of the same information on a tax return is helpful in completing a W-4 form, and updating a W-4 at the start of the year stretches out the changes over a longer period, tax season is an opportune time to update a W-4. Get upfront pricing, no office visit and a tax professional to prepare the return with virtual tax prep If full assistance with a tax pro is what a client wants, but going to a tax office isnt, they can opt for virtual assistance with H&R Block Tax Pro Go SM back Jan. 4 for its second season. H&R Block Tax Pro GoSM enables clients to get their taxes prepared and filed by a tax professional without leaving their home. Clients provide their information and documents online then the tax professional does the rest. They can talk to and securely message their tax pro when it is convenient for them. This tax professional will get the client their maximum tax refund, guaranteed, all starting at $59 for a simple federal return and one state return. Get upfront pricing, best value, more robust Free product online This season, H&R Block online DIY tax products cost less than TurboTax in most cases $10 to $13 less. 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These are the help options available to online filers: DIY Online Help Center , which is found throughout the DIY Online product, has been redesigned so its easier for clients to find and navigate the self-help options and easier to get assistance from a seasoned tax expert when necessary. , which is found throughout the DIY Online product, has been redesigned so its easier for clients to find and navigate the self-help options and easier to get assistance from a seasoned tax expert when necessary. Ask a Tax Pro , which online filers can add for a fee starting Jan. 4, gives H&R Block online filers unlimited, on-demand chat sessions with a tax expert, which means they can get the help they need as they complete their returns. This includes screen-sharing and access to a member of the exclusive group of tax experts who are highly trained and average 15 years of experience. , which online filers can add for a fee starting Jan. 4, gives H&R Block online filers unlimited, on-demand chat sessions with a tax expert, which means they can get the help they need as they complete their returns. This includes screen-sharing and access to a member of the exclusive group of tax experts who are highly trained and average 15 years of experience. Tax Pro Review , also available Jan. 4, provides online filers who add the service the opportunity to have a highly-trained tax pro review their documents and actual tax return, sign the return, and file it on their behalf without coming into an office. Clients are paired with a tax professional who has the training and skills to handle their tax situation. In-person and online, H&R Block has its clients backs. For more information about tax filing options for tax season 2019, visit hrblock.com. Upfront Pricing and Refund Advance are available at participating offices. *This is an optional tax refund-related loan from Axos BankTM, Member FDIC; it is not your tax refund. Loans are offered in amounts of $500, $750, $1250 or $3000. Approval and loan amount based on expected refund amount, ID verification, eligibility criteria, and underwriting. If approved, funds will be loaded on a prepaid card and the loan amount will be deducted from your tax refund, reducing the amount paid directly to you. Tax returns may be e-filed without applying for this loan. Fees for other optional products or product features may apply. Limited time offer. Not offered in Puerto Rico. HRB Maine License No. FRA2. OBTP#B13696 See hrblock.com/refundadvance for details. 2018 HRB Tax Group, Inc. About H&R Block H&R Block, Inc. (NYSE: HRB) is a global consumer tax services provider. Tax return preparation services are provided by professional tax preparers in approximately 12,000 company-owned and franchise retail tax offices worldwide, and through H&R Block tax software products for the DIY consumer. H&R Block also offers adjacent Tax Plus products and services. In fiscal 2018, H&R Block had annual revenues of over $3.1 billion with over 23 million tax returns prepared worldwide. For more information, visit the H&R Block Newsroom . About Axos Financial, Inc. and Axos Bank Axos Financial, Inc. is the holding company for Axos Bank, a nationwide bank that provides consumer and business banking products through its low-cost distribution channels and affinity partners. With nearly $10 billion in assets, Axos Bank provides financing for single and multifamily residential properties, small-to-medium size businesses in target sectors, and selected specialty finance receivables. Axos Financial, Inc.s common stock is listed on the NYSE under the symbol AX and is a component of the Russell 2000 Index and the S&P SmallCap 600 Index. For more information about Axos Bank, please visit https://www.axosbank.com. New Delhi: India specific modifications, transfer of technology and low volume of production have ensured that indigenously manufactured Indian Air Force's Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighters are costlier than Russian Su-30 jets. Minister of Defence (State) Subhash Bhamre in a written reply to the Lok Sabha on Wednesday said that the IAF Su-30MKI and Russian Su-30 are not the same planes, hence, one to one comparison of cost may not be appropriate. Elaborating further, Bhamre added that the SU-30MKI has a higher cost of manufacturing due to following factors:- 1) Additional modifications are incorporated in the indigenous Su-30MKI to enhance the operational capability and to suit Indian Air Force (IAF) requirements. 2) Being a Transfer of Technology (ToT) programme, cost is involved towards payment of license fee to Russian side. 3) Owing to the low volume of production of Indian SU-30 MKI as compared to Russian SU-30, economies of scale come into play. 4) Import of raw materials and proprietary components from Russia involves dependency on Russian Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) for the offered kit costs, which are not proportionate with the kit contents. He, however, added that indigenous manufacturing of an advanced fighter has helped in creating advanced skill sets in India, self-reliance and will ultimately result in lower Life Cycle Cost and reduced dependency on OEM on repair & maintenance and faster turn-around time and quick support to IAF bases. The cost of the indigenous Su-30MKI are likely to come down in the future if Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) gets new order for bulk production of the twinjet multirole air superiority fighter. While the first Russian made Su-30MKI entered service with the IAF in 2002, the first indigenous fighter joined the service in 2004. The Su-30MKI has several India specific features and avionics along with French and Israeli systems which makes the jet an extremely potent fighter. BJP leader and former JDU MLA Raju Singh, who was arrested for killing a woman during New Year's Eve party celebrations in the national capital, was on Thursday sent to the police custody for seven days. The woman who was wounded in celebratory firing during the party at Singh's farmhouse in Delhi succumbed to injuries even as the legislator and his driver were arrested, said the police. A hospital source said Archana Gupta succumbed to injuries on Thursday. A pistol and a rifle were seized from the car in which Raju Singh fled from the spot after the incident, Special Commissioner of Police, Law and Order (south), R P Upadhyay said. "We have arrested Raju Singh and Hari Singh in connection with the incident. They will be produced in a city court later in the day. Police will seek their remand for seven days," he said. Upadhyay said the woman who was injured during the incident succumbed to injuries. On Wednesday, they were detained in Uttar Pradesh's Gorakhpur city. Police had earlier seized two rifles and 800 bullets from Raju Singh's farmhouse in south Delhi's Vasant Kunj area. In his complaint to police, Archana Gupta's husband had said that they were at the farmhouse on Monday night to celebrate the New Year along with friends and around midnight, two-three rounds were fired by Raju Singh. Immediately, he noticed that his wife had fallen down and was bleeding. The Delhi Police was informed and a medicolegal case was registered, a hospital spokesperson said. Raju Singh was booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act, police said, adding that he has five other cases registered against him. His wife is a former member of the legislative council from Bihar, they said. The farmhouse is owned by Singh's mother where he lives with his family. Singh's two brothers also live with their families in the farmhouse, police added. SRINAGAR: Three terrorists were killed in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama encounter that is currently underway. The encounter broke out between security forces and terrorists on Thursday morning. The exchange of fire took place at Gulshan pora village of Tral area where two to three terrorists are believed to be trapped. The security forces launched an anti-insurgency operation in the higher reaches of Tral area in the morning following information about the presence of at least two terrorists in the forests, a police officer said. The search operation turned into an encounter when the terrorists, who were hiding, opened fire, the officer said. Police said security forces have cordoned off the area and launched a search operation in after receiving information about the presence of terrorists there. "As the cordon around the hiding terrorists was tightened, they fired at the surrounding security forces, triggering an encounter which is underway," a police officer said. The significance of a library and what it can do to enrich a society is unlikely to impress a real estate tycoon. Even if he is the US President. And so, there is little wonder that Donald Trump - who spread his business empire through hotels, casinos and luxury residences - recently downplayed India's role in funding a library in war-torn Afghanistan. US media outlets recently reported that Trump had questioned the relevance of having a library in Afghanistan and claimed that it had mentioned to him by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on several occasions. "I get along very well with Prime Minister Modi. But he is constantly telling me he has built a library in Afghanistan. Library! That's like five hours of what we spend (in Afghanistan)," he is believed to have told reporters after a cabinet meeting. "He is very smart. We are supposed to say, oh thank you for the library. Don't know who's using it in Afghanistan. But it's one of those things. I don't like being taken advantage of." Trump had often claimed that the US is providing billions of dollars in aid to countries which offer nothing in return. He also recently decided to pull out a large number of American troops from Afghanistan - a move that has attracted the ire of even fellow Republicans. And even as Washington has insisted that India plays a greater role in bringing peace to Afghans, a library apparently has no place in Trump's idea of 'contribution.' Library though is only one of the many ways India has shown it stands for the welfare and prosperity of Afghans. The reconstruction of the Afghan parliament was funded by India while New Delhi has helped in construction of schools in Kabul as well as offers scholarships for Afghan students to study in India. Bilateral trade between the two countries is also on an upward swing with Kabul increasingly seeing India as a far more reliable partner than Pakistan, its traditional trading partner. Not surprisingly then, Afghanistan's Tolo News - while reporting on Trump's comments about the library - described it as a 'rambling press appearance.' The report goes on to list the numerous ways India has helped Afghanistan. Days after a constable was killed by pelting stones by a mob in Uttar Pradesh's Ghazipur, Nishad party leader Arjun Kashyap, who is an accused, on Thursday blamed the BJP members as the main accused. He also said that if law rules him as the main accused then he will surrender. He added that the members or supporters of his party might have resorted to stone pelting, however, he denied attacking policemen. "BJP is in power. They've done it. Their people are the main accused. Our people also might have done it later, but stones were not pelted on policemen. If as per law, I'm the main accused, then Ill surrender," said Kashyap. He also held UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of not fulfilling the demands of the people of Nishad community. "Even Yogi ji promised to fulfill the demands of Nishad community, but nothing has been done. There's no one in Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha to raise our demands. We'll keep protesting till we get reservation for our people. If we dont get our right, we'll form our own government," added the party leader. The incident took place on December 29, while Constable Suresh Vats was returning from the venue of a public meeting addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. According to Ghazipur Police, Constable Suresh Vats, 48, from Karimuddinpur police station was hit on the head by a stone when he went to end a traffic jam caused by the protests. He later succumbed to his injuries. Two other local residents were also injured in the stone pelting incident. Superintendent of Police (Ghazipur) Yashveer Singh said the protesters were workers from the Rashtriya Nishad Party who were prevented by the administration and the police from going to the rally venue. "Police is not being able to protect their own. What can we expect from them? What will we do with compensation now? Earlier, similar incidents took place in Bulandshahr and Pratapgarh," VP Singh, son of deceased constable said. On December 30, the police registered an FIR against 32 people. While 60 unnamed people have also been mentioned in the FIR, a few of them have been arrested in connection with the violence. "32 people have been named in the FIR. 60 unnamed people also mentioned in the FIR. A few people have also been arrested," MP Pathak, CO City, Ghazipur had said. Vat's death came less than a month after the killing of Inspector Subodh Kumar Singh, who was shot dead during mob violence in Bulandshahr district over alleged cow slaughter. New Delhi: The telecom regulator Trai has approached the Supreme Court against TDSAT order, which dismissed its predatory pricing tariff rule, Parliament was informed Wednesday. "Trai has filed an appeal before Hon'ble Supreme Court against the order of Hon'ble TDSAT dated 13th December, 2018. The appeal is yet to be listed," telecom minister Manoj Sinha said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. Under the predatory pricing tariff rule, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had barred telecom operators, with over 30 percent market share, from offering services at a price which is below the average cost of service that are intended to reduce competition or eliminate the competitors. The regulator has also said that telcos will have to provide services to all subscribers availing the same tariff plan in a non-discriminatory manner. However, the same was dismissed by the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal(TDSAT) in an order dated December 13, 2018 citing lack of transparency in the guidelines over determining market share and rates of services. In February 2018, Trai said it will impose financial disincentive of up to Rs 50 lakh per circle on operators if their service rates are found to be predatory in nature. The amendment was issued after old telecom operators Airtel, Vodafone and Idea alleged that Reliance Jio is offering services at predatory rates. Sinha said that transparency in tariff is and has always been an issue of prime concern for the government and to protect the interests of the consumers of telecommunications services, the regulator has issued several tariff orders, directions and guidelines in order to ensure transparency in tariff offers from time-to-time. "However, despite these measures to ensure transparency in tariff, the Trai has been receiving complaints from consumers and consumer organisations highlighting, inter-alia, lack of transparency in the tariff offer of telecom service providers," Sinha said. Trai does not handle individual consumer complaints but the complaints received from consumers are forwarded to the concerned telecom operators for appropriate action. Data shared by the telecom minister shows that the number of consumer complaint received by the regulator has increased in 2018. Till December 20, 2018, Trai has received 1,316 complaint from consumers, while in 2017, the regulator had received 1,055 complaints. New Delhi: The government Wednesday introduced a bill in the Lok Sabha that will allow individuals to offer voluntarily biometric ID Aadhaar as a means of identity verification for obtaining services like opening a bank account and getting a mobile phone connection. The bill, which seeks to amend three separate laws governing Aadhaar, telecom sector, and banking regulation, also gives a minor an option to opt out of the 12-digit identity scheme on attaining the age of 18 years. It also provides for stiff penalties for violation of norms set for the use of Aadhaar. The Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill 2018, moved by Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in the Lok Sabha, bans storing of core biometric information as well as Aadhaar number by service providers in cases of individuals who have voluntarily offered the national ID as a means of authentication. It also makes it clear that anyone not offering Aadhaar cannot be denied any service, be it a bank account or a SIM card. The bill seeks to amend the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 and the Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002. The legislation proposes telecom service providers, apart from using Aadhaar for authentication, can also leverage offline verification, use of passport, or any other officially valid document or modes of identification as notified by the central Government. The amendments, according to the objects and reasons for the Bill, will "provide for 12-digit Aadhaar number and its alternate numbers to be generated" in a manner so as to conceal the actual Aadhaar number. It would also "permit the entities performing authentication only when they are compliant with the standards of privacy and security," it said. The Bill also seeks to lay down the procedure for offline verification of an Aadhaar number holder, and confers enhanced regulator-like power on Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to give directions as it may consider necessary to any entity in the Aadhaar ecosystem. It says that every requesting entity to whom an authentication request is made, will inform the Aadhaar number holder of alternate and viable means of identification and shall not deny any service to them for refusing to, or being unable to undergo authentication. Mandatory authentication of an Aadhaar holder for the provision of any service will take place if such authentication is required by a law made by Parliament. The bill proposes a civil penalty of up to Rs 1 crore on entities that violate the provisions of the Aadhaar Act, with an additional fine of up to Rs 10 lakh per day in case of continuous non-compliance. Unauthorised use of identity information by a requesting entity or offline verification seeking entity would be punishable with imprisonment of up to three years with a fine that may extend to Rs 10,000 or in case of a company with a fine of up to Rs 1 lakh. Punishment for unauthorised access to the Central Identities Data Repository as well as data tampering is proposed to be extended to 10 years each from the current three years. The bill also seeks to omit Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act relating to the use of Aadhaar by private entities. There will be a provision to file an appeal before the TDSAT (Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal), and against the orders of TDSAT an appeal can be made in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, in a landmark verdict in September last year, had upheld the constitutional validity of 'Aadhaar' but limited the scope of the controversial biometric identity project, ruling it is not mandatory for bank accounts, mobile connections or school admissions. Holding there was nothing in the Aadhaar Act that violates right to privacy of an individual, the SC had cleared the use of Aadhaar (world's largest biometric ID programme) for welfare schemes. The court had held that Aadhaar will remain mandatory for filing of Income Tax (IT) returns and allotment of Permanent Account Number (PAN) but struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 that permitted private entities like telecom companies or other corporate to avail of the biometric Aadhaar data. Following this, the Cabinet last month approved amendments to Aadhaar Act, the Indian Telegraph Act and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The bill says that "every Aadhaar number holder to establish his identity, may voluntarily use his Aadhaar number in physical or electronic form by way of authentication or offline verification or in such other form as may be notified..." It also says offline verification can be performed only with the consent of Aadhaar number holder. New Delhi: State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) Wednesday said the government has not yet asked it to reconsider listing its overseas arm ONGC Videsh Ltd on bourses. The board of ONGC had on December 21 considered a government demand to list its profitable overseas investment arm but opined that it was not the right to go for an initial public offering. ONGC Chairman and Managing Director Shashi Shanker said the company has communicated its views on the listing of OVL to the government. After that "we have not received any request to reconsider (listing of OVL)", he told reporters here. The company will reconsider it if and when such a request is made, he said. Sources said the company board on December 21 deliberated on the demand from the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) for the listing of OVL but felt that the market conditions are not right for an oil and gas exploration and production company to list. Also, there were several complexities involved in getting the firm listed. OVL, they said, has assets in countries like Venezuela, Iran, and Sudan, which are exposed to some or other Western sanctions. These assets will have to be first separated from the company. While this may not be a difficult task, it would involve issues of capital gains and tax thereon, they said. Also, OVL is heavily under debt and such a move would require taking approval of all the lenders -- yet another tedious job. A third of its USD 28.45 billion (Rs 1.51 lakh crore) investment in 41 projects in 20 countries has been financed by loans. More importantly, OVL has been only in acquisition mode till now and has not yet reached an economic model where it can stand on its own feet. The company is dependent on its parent for even guarantees for taking loans. OVL has great assets and it would reach that economic model once couple of its assets like the giant gas field in Mozambique starts production, they said. OVL projects are in the development stage and an IPO will get the best value when these projects are monetised, they said. OVL's giant gas field in Mozambique will start production sometime in 2022 when two LNG trains of 12 million tonnes per annum capacity are set up and gas exported in cryogenic ships. Its Farzad-B gas field in Iran is on hold in view of US sanctions on the Persian Gulf nation. Also, its Venezuelan oilfields are producing much less than their potential. According to a letter DIPAM wrote to ONGC management in August, the listing of OVL would help unlock value by improving its corporate governance and efficiency. ONGC had helped the government meet its disinvestment target last fiscal when it bought a 51.11 percent stake in state-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) for Rs 36,915 crore. After failing to find a buyer for Air India, DIPAM is again looking at ONGC to meet the Rs 80,000 crore revenue mobilisation target set out for it in the Budget for 2018-19 from the sale of government stake in PSUs. In the letter, DIPAM said PSUs with a positive net worth and no accumulated losses should be listed to unlock value. It, however, did not state how much stake in OVL should be sold for its listing. Market regulator Sebi calls for a minimum 25 percent public float for a listed company. Sources said proceeds of a potential listing of OVL would accrue to its parent ONGC but the government would seek a special dividend to reap that. The government owns 67.45 percent in ONGC. If ONGC were to declare entire proceeds of OVL listing as a special dividend, the government would get 67.45 percent of the amount. The government had in 2015 as well asked ONGC to list OVL. But the state-owned firm had at that time told the government that it was not the right time to list as oil prices were subdued and the company would not get the right value. Oil prices have since rebounded and the government is looking to cash in on that. Under its portfolio, OVL has reserves of 711 million tonnes of oil and oil equivalent natural gas. In 2017-18, it produced 9.35 million tonnes of crude oil, up from 8.43 million tonnes in the previous year. Together with natural gas, the output was 14.16 million tonnes of oil equivalent, up from 12.80 million tonnes in the previous year. It reported a net profit of Rs 981 crore on a turnover of Rs 10,418 crore in 2017-18 fiscal. This compared with a net profit of Rs 701 crore on a turnover of Rs 10,080 crore in the previous fiscal. It had reported a net loss of Rs 3,633 crore in 2015-16 due to a sharp drop in oil prices. TORONTO, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Peter M. Deeb (the Acquiror) announces the filing of an early warning report (the Early Warning Report) pursuant to National Instrument 62-103 The Early Warning System and Related Take Over Bids and Insider Reporting Issues regarding the holdings by the Acquiror in Hampton Financial Corporation (the Corporation) (TSXV: HFC) (TSXV: HFC.PR.A). On December 27, 2018, the Acquiror, indirectly through Deeb & Company Limited (an Ontario corporation controlled by the Acquiror) (Deeb & Co), disposed of 850,000 subordinate voting shares (Shares) of the Corporation in the open market (through the facilities of the TSX Venture Exchange) at a price of $0.30 per Share for total consideration of $255,000. Immediately before the disposition, the Acquiror, directly and indirectly through Deeb & Co, owned and controlled approximately 1,476,500 Shares, being approximately 11.2% of the issued and outstanding Shares (based on 13,210,370 Shares issued and outstanding). Of the Shares, 89,000 were held by the Acquiror and 1,387,500 were held by Deeb & Co. Immediately after the disposition, the Acquiror, directly and indirectly through Deeb & Co, owned and controlled approximately 626,500 Shares, being approximately 4.7% of the issued and outstanding Shares (based on 13,210,370 Shares issued and outstanding). Of the Shares, 89,000 were held by the Acquiror and 537,500 were held by Deeb & Co. On December 31, 2018, the Acquiror, indirectly through Deeb & Co, acquired 850,000 units (Units), each of which is comprised of one Share, together with one Share purchase warrant (a Warrant). The Units were offered and purchased at a price of $0.30 per Unit for total consideration of $255,000. Each Warrant entitles the holder, upon the exercise thereof, to purchase one additional Share (a Warrant Share) at the price of $0.40 per Warrant Share for a period of 24 months following the date of the issuance of the Warrant. The Units were offered and purchased from the Corporation in connection with the recently completed non-brokered private placement offering of the Corporation. Immediately before the acquisition, the Acquiror, directly and indirectly through Deeb & Co, owned and controlled approximately 626,500 Shares, being approximately 4.7% of the issued and outstanding Shares (based on 13,210,370 Shares issued and outstanding). Of the Shares, 89,000 were held by the Acquiror and 537,500 were held by Deeb & Co. Immediately after the acquisition, the Acquiror, directly and indirectly through Deeb & Co, owned and controlled approximately 1,476,500 Shares, being approximately 10.5% of the issued and outstanding Shares (based on 14,060,370 Shares issued and outstanding). Of the Shares, 89,000 are held by the Acquiror and 1,387,500 are held by Deeb & Co. If Deeb & Co converts all of the Warrants into Warrant Shares, the Acquiror, directly and indirectly through Deeb & Co, could own and control approximately 2,326,500 Shares, being approximately 15.6% of the issued and outstanding Shares (based on 14,910,370 Shares issued and outstanding). The securities of the Corporation were disposed of and acquired for investment purposes. Depending on market and other conditions, the Acquiror and/or Deeb & Co may, directly or indirectly, acquire ownership or control over additional securities, or options to acquire Shares, through market transactions, private agreements, the Corporations stock option plan or otherwise, in accordance with applicable securities legislation. Depending on market and other conditions (and subject to escrow and coattail agreements), the Acquiror and/or Deeb & Co may sell any of the securities which the Acquiror owns or controls or exercise stock options that the Acquiror may receive. The Acquiror and Deeb & Co currently have no other plans or future intentions that relate to, or would result in the matters listed in clauses (a) to (k) of Item 5 of the Early Warning Report. Depending on market conditions, general economic and industry conditions, the Corporations business and financial condition and/or other relevant factors, the Acquiror and/or Deeb & Co may develop such plans or intentions in the future. A copy of the Early Warning Report will appear on the Corporations profile on SEDAR or may be obtained upon request by contacting the Acquiror at (416) 862-8651. The address of the Acquiror is c/o 1800 141 Adelaide Street West, Toronto Ontario, M5H 3L5. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 06:35:19|Editor: yan Video Player Close CHICAGO, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- A team of researchers led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has identified distinct molecular signatures of glioblastoma in men and women. This suggests that tailoring treatments to men and women with glioblastoma based on the molecular subtypes of their tumors may improve survival for all patients. Culling patient MRI scans and survival data from a cancer research database, the researchers calculated tumor growth velocity every two months for the duration of therapy in 63 glioblastoma patients, 40 males and 23 females who received standard chemo-radiation treatment following surgery. While initial tumor growth velocities were similar between females and males, only the females showed a steady and significant decline in tumor growth after treatment with temozolomide, the most common chemotherapy drug used to treat glioblastoma. "The males did not respond as well, and we wanted to understand why, so we looked at the underlying genetics of patients' tumors," said Joshua B. Rubin, a Washington University professor of pediatrics and of neuroscience and the study's co-senior author. The researchers tapped into The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), and applied sophisticated statistical algorithms to distinguish male- or female-specific gene expression patterns from such patterns that were shared among the male and female patients. They then focused on the sex-specific gene expression to identify molecular subtypes that corresponded to differences in survival for males and for females. "We observed tremendous genetic sex differences in the tumors of glioblastoma patients that correlated with survival," said study's co-senior author Jingqin "Rosy" Luo, a Washington University associate professor of surgery in the Division of Public Health Sciences. Specifically, the researchers showed that the tumors of patients with glioblastoma cluster into 10 distinct subtypes: five for tumors in males and five for tumors in females. The clusters are distinguished by gene activity and survival. The researchers validated the clusters in three additional data sets and also showed that even genes activated at similar levels in tumors in males and females can result in substantial sex-specific effects on survival. "In males survival was all about regulating cell division, which suggests that drugs that block cell-cycle progression may be more effective in men. For females, survival was all about regulating invasiveness, which suggests that drugs targeting integrin signaling may be more effective in women," Rubin said. "This tells us it might be better to separate males and females and examine their sex-specific genetic signatures." Among diseases in general, sex differences are often tied to hormones. For example, the female hormone estrogen contributes significantly to more women getting breast cancer than men. However, with glioblastoma diagnosis and survival, sex hormones did not directly contribute to female and male differences, Rubin said. "The sex-specific genetic activity in glioblastoma is not dependent on the acute actions of circulating sex hormones as differences are evident across all stages of life." "In a broader sense, I want our research to encourage people to think more about how diseases uniquely affect males and females, making it the norm and not the exception," Rubin added. "I hope the research will inspire more specific approaches to treatments. It may be that we shouldn't be using the same criteria when treating diseases in males and females." The findings were published on Jan. 2 in Science Translational Medicine. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 06:10:15|Editor: yan Video Player Close RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- At least six people died and another 23 were injured following a traffic accident in the city of Seabra, in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia, authorities said Thursday. The accident occurred Thursday morning when a truck lost control of its brakes on a road leading into Seabra and crashed into a bus and two cars, according to the Federal Highway Police. "The likely cause of the accident is mechanical failure. The truck crashed into the side of the bus and two cars. The bus had capacity for 22 passengers and a driver," Glauber Nunes, an officer with the Federal Highway Police, said. The impact left the two cars completely destroyed while the bus lost its roof and the truck lost the driver's cabin. On board the bus were 22 members of the same family, who were traveling from Goias in central Brazil to the municipality of Senhor do Bonfim in the state of Bahia. The majority of the injured were taken to the hospital in Seabra. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 05:10:04|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close Nancy Pelosi (C) is surrounded by children after being elected the new speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., the United States, on Jan. 3, 2019. Representative Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, was elected the new speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday, the first day of a new, divided Congress. (Xinhua/Ting Shen) WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Representative Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, was elected the new speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday, the first day of a new, divided Congress. Pelosi, 78, is the only woman who has held the office before and is among a few elected officials to return to the post. She was the House speaker from 2007 to 2011 when her Democratic Party controlled the lower chamber. For her second speakership, Pelosi defeated Republican nominee Kevin McCarthy in a roll-call vote Thursday, winning 220 votes out of a total of 430 present, according to CNN. In her floor speech upon accepting the speaker's gavel, Pelosi said that the House floor must be "America's Town Hall" where people's voices will be heard and affect lawmakers' decisions as she was trying to set a bipartisan tone for the new Congress. She previewed her party's long-term priorities, including tackling climate change, lowering health care costs, investing in "green" infrastructure and "restoring integrity" to government, while hinting at measures to end a partial government dragging into the 13th day on Thursday. "Democrats will be offering the Senate Republican appropriations legislation to re-open government later today," Pelosi said. About a quarter of the federal government shut down last month as a result of an impasse between the White House and the Congress over whether to provide billions of U.S. dollars for President Donald Trump's long-promised border wall. Pelosi said in a clip airing on MSNBC on Wednesday that she's willing to give "nothing for the wall," while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the upper chamber won't consider any bills without the president's support. Christopher Galdieri, assistant professor at Saint Anselm College, told Xinhua that he expects "the shutdown fight to continue take up most of the oxygen" in Washington. The convening of the new Congress also comes at a time when Pelosi and her party are poised to confront the White House and the Republican agenda with their House majority, as Democratic lawmakers have vowed to conduct more oversight onto the Trump administration. An effective legislator and political strategist, Pelosi played a key role in last year's midterm elections that saw Democrats seize control of the House for the first time in eight years by helping raise millions of dollars for Democratic candidates and keep them focus on the issue of health care on their campaign trails. The new Congress Pelosi's now presiding over seats a record number of female lawmakers and is the most racially and ethnically diverse, including a new generation of Muslims, Latinos, Native Americans and African-Americans. The new speaker said she welcomes the "transformative freshman class." In overall, Democrats have a 235-199 majority in the House, with one seat still in dispute after allegations of election fraud in the state of North Carolina. In the Senate, 53 Republicans hold the majority over 45 Democrats and two independents aligning with Democrats. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 04:49:59|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L) shakes hands with Ethiopian Foreign Minister Workneh Gebeyehu during their meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Jan. 3, 2019. (Xinhua/Zhang Yu) ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Ethiopian Foreign Minister Workneh Gebeyehu in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa on Thursday. Wang said Ethiopia, a regional power in Africa and an emerging economy with huge potential for development, is an important strategic and cooperative partner of China on the continent. The traditional friendship between the two countries has withstood the tests of fluctuating international situations and won profoundly support from the society and people, according to Wang. China has always viewed the development of the bilateral relations from a strategic and long-term perspective, and will continue to pursue a friendly policy toward Ethiopia, Wang said. China is willing to deepen political mutual trust, broaden mutually beneficial cooperation and advance China-Ethiopia comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation with new developments under a new situation, by upholding principles of mutual respect and supporting each other, said Wang. Wang stressed China is willing to assist and support Ethiopia in its national development and improvement of people's livelihood, properly solve problems in the cooperation through friendly consultations, and maximize the economic and social benefits of major development projects in Ethiopia, including the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway and industrial parks. China will be pleased to see the early implementation of the outcome of the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Ethiopia. Ethiopia is among the first batch of African countries which signed cooperation documents concerning jointly building the Belt and Road, Wang said, stressing that the east African country is an important partner for China to build the Belt and Road on the continent. Wang said he hoped the two sides will further advance mutually beneficial cooperation and common development as China is going to hold the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, adding that China is willing to strengthen coordination and cooperation with Ethiopia so as to safeguard the common interests of the two nations and the developing countries as a whole. For his part, Gebeyehu said that Ethiopia highly values Ethiopia-China relations, regarding China as the most important comprehensive strategic partner of cooperation and putting bilateral relations at the top place of Ethiopia's foreign policy. Like other African countries, Ethiopia appreciates China's commitment not to interfering in other countries' internal affairs and is benefiting a lot from China's stable and consistent foreign policy, Gebeyehu said. Gebeyehu stressed that whether it is during the period of smooth national development or in times of difficulties, China has given Ethiopia firm support, for which Ethiopia is grateful. Ethiopia believes that advancing the bilateral ties fully complies with the national interests of Ethiopia and its people, Gebeyehu said. Gebeyehu stressed that Ethiopia remains as China's reliable strategic partner, and the country hopes it will continue to receive support from China during its development, the Ethiopian foreign minister said. Ethiopia appreciates the initiatives of cooperation with Africa, put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Beijing Summit of the FOCAC, Gebeyehu added. Gebeyehu said Ethiopia hoped that it will benefit more from the outcome of the FOCAC summit, and more Chinese enterprises will invest in the country. Gebeyehu stressed that Ethiopia supports and will continue to actively participate in the Belt and Road cooperation, adding it is willing to coordinate and cooperate with China closely in international organizations such as the United Nations, so as to promote regional peace and development. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 03:39:35|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close OTTAWA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Canada's Air Task Force (ATF) has completed its four-month deployment with NATO's enhanced Air Policing in Romania, according to the Canadian Ministry of National Defense Thursday. ATF-Romania is composed of approximately 135 Canadian Armed Forces personnel and five CF-18 Hornets. It is Canada's third ATF deployment to Romania on Operation REASSURANCE. The first was from April to August 2014 to the Romanian Air Force 71st Air Base in Campia Turzii, and the second was from September to December 2017 to Constanta. After its mission completion, ATF-Romania members are expected to return to Canada this month. ATF-Romania is the component of Operation REASSURANCE for air policing mission in Central and Eastern Europe. NATO's enhanced Air Policing is a collective defence mission, which safeguards the integrity of the alliance's airspace. It is part of NATO assurance and deterrence measures introduced in 2014, according to the ministry. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 03:19:30|Editor: yan Video Player Close VILNIUS, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Pre-trial investigation involving Lithuania's state enterprise Lithuanian Post (LP) has been launched into suspected substantial pecuniary damage made to the company and alleged criminal activities by former LP executives, Lithuania's Ministry of Transport and Communications announced on Thursday. According to the ministry, it is suspected that former heads of LP allegedly established a subsidiary "for dubious purposes" and possibly squandered around 3.7 million euros from 2012 to 2016. The pre-trial investigation was launched by Lithuania's Special Investigation Service (STT). "Traces of possibly impudent scheme arranged for benefiting from the state funds were obtained in Lithuanian Post. By working closely and actively with law enforcement agencies, we hope to give answers to all public concerns," Rokas Masiulis, minister of transport, was quoted as saying in a statement released by his ministry. A complicated scheme was devised in order to avoid state's supervision as the LP subsidiary allegedly was involved into inexpedient transactions, Masiulis said. The subsidiary had to create certain information technology solutions,"but there was no visible benefit in reality", the minister told reporters at a press conference. He did not elaborate on how many people were part of the scheme but mentioned to reporters that more than one person was involved. The suspicious activities of former LP leaders started in 2012, when the company established its subsidiary LP Mokejimu Sprendimai (LPMS), the ministry said. LP was the sole shareholder of the new enterprise and was headed by Lina Minderiene, LP chief executive at the time, local media reported. Minderiene was dismissed from the duties in 2017 due to certain infringements linked to cash operations. There are no suspects so far in the current pre-trial investigation, STT said to local media on Thursday. LP is fully controlled by the Lithuanian state represented by the Ministry of Transport and Communications.(1 euro = 1.14 U.S. dollars) Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 03:19:28|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close TRIPOLI, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Libya's Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha and Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Political Affairs in Libya Stephanie Williams Thursday discussed security arrangements in capital Tripoli. International community's support for the implementation of the capital's security arrangements and the ministry's new vision for the security were the focus of discussions between the two officials, said the UN Support Mission in Libya. Libyan security services struggle to establish security, particularly in Tripoli, as the country suffers escalating violence and political division. The security arrangements, which focus on forming joint police and armed forces to secure Tripoli, were adopted by the government in September when violence broke out in the city between the government forces and armed groups. On Sept. 12 last year, UN Special Envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame announced the start of the implementation of the arrangements. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 02:59:24|Editor: yan Video Player Close BAGHDAD, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- The UN monthly civilian casualty data showed Thursday that violence across Iraq killed a total of 32 civilians in December 2018, the lowest since the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) began publishing the data six years ago. A UNAMI statement said that another 32 civilians were also wounded in the terror attacks and armed conflicts in Iraq last month. The figures showed that the capital Baghdad witnessed 20 civilian casualties (17 killed and three wounded), while 26 civilian casualties were caused in northern province of Nineveh (seven killed and 19 wounded), according to the statement. Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the UN special envoy to Iraq and the UNAMI chief, said "UNAMI views these figures as more than mere statistics. Every civilian death documented by UNAMI over the years represents a family grieving and struggling to come to terms with its loss." "Each injury or maiming of a civilian represents immense individual and societal suffering," she added. The security situation in Iraq has been dramatically improved after Iraqi security forces fully defeated the extremist Islamic State militants across the country in December 2017. However, small groups and individuals of extremist militants regrouped in urban and rugged areas and have been carrying out attacks against the security forces and civilians despite operations from time to time to hunt them down. Many blame the chronic instability, cycle of violence, and the emergence of extremist groups in Iraq on the United States, which invaded the country in March 2003, under the pretext of seeking to destroy weapons of mass destruction in the country. But no such weapons were found. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 02:24:19|Editor: ZD Video Player Close by Xinhua writer Gu Zhenqiu LONDON, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Theresa May greeted the new year by starting efforts on two fronts, at home and abroad, to breathe life into her much criticized Brexit deal by talking to unyielding European Union (EU) leaders and hostile members of parliament. The prime minister returned to Downing Street on Thursday morning after spending her Christmas break phoning EU leaders in the hope of securing a "clarification" to the controversial backstop plan that has provoked a major rebellion by Tory members of parliament and her political allies from the Democratic Unionist Party. May is facing a "meaningful vote" the parliament in mid-January on the fate of her withdrawal agreement as Brexit uncertainties drag into 2019, when the country will leave the large trading bloc. With less than 100 days to go until March 29, the Brexit date, the British government and parliament are still far from reaching consensus on how the country will conduct the divorce. This week, the prime minister tried to speak to leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and European Council President Donald Tusk, in a bid to break the Brexit logjam. May hoped to win concessions from EU leaders on plans for the backstop of Northern Ireland, the key sticking point in the Brexit issue, in the hope it will vote her deal through parliament this month. The prime minister spoke to the German leader on Christmas Eve, and again on Wednesday, but there is slim chances of a breakthrough in time for next week's debate. At home, the prime minister is inviting every Tory members of parliament to Downing Street for drinks parties on Monday and Wednesday in hope that she can win over those who still have doubts over her Brexit deal. However, bad news already was reported Thursday from other side of the Channel on May's bid to get her Brexit deal over the line, at a time when the prime minister is yet to kick off her charm offensive next week by talking to Tory MPs. Earlier on Thursday, the EU confirmed that "no further meetings are foreseen" with Britain in a blow to the prime minister's diplomatic efforts. A spokeswoman for European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said at a press conference in Brussels that the leaders of the remaining 27 countries "have been very clear" that what is on the table "will not be renegotiated." Downing Street on Wednesday night downplayed expectations that the prime minister had won EU concessions on her Brexit accord. The British parliament was originally due to vote on May's deal on Dec. 11, but the prime minister delayed it at the last minute as it became clear it faced a near-certain defeat. Since surviving a no confidence vote shortly before Christmas, May has been seeking reassurances from her EU counterparts to convince MPs to back her withdrawal agreement. So far the sticking point has been that her deal would not allow Britain to unilaterally exit a temporary customs union arrangement with the EU designed as a temporary measure to avoid a hard border in Ireland. British Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay on Thursday talked up the risk of no-deal Brexit, saying it will be "far more likely" if MPs refuse to support May's deal, which is due to be voted on in the week beginning Jan. 14. Without any doubt, Brexit will again dominate British politics in 2019, and the Brexit uncertainties will surely drag on. Internal Combustion Engine Market (By Fuel - Petroleum [Diesel, Gasoline, Others], Natural Gas [CNG, LNG, Others]; By End-user - Automobile, Aviation, Marine) - Global Industry Size, Share, Trends and Forecast 2018 2026. Advancement in technology leading to development of low temperature combustion engine and hybrid systems worldwide are driving the demand for the internal combustion engine market. LOS ANGELES, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global demand for internal combustion engine accounted for 158,291 thousand units by 2017, in terms of volume. The market is projected to grow at 4.67% CAGR during the forecast period 2018-2025. The market, over the years, has experienced friction due to high dependence on fossil fuels which are limited reserves, and expectation for improving the internal combustion engines emission levels. However, the recent array of advanced technologies, including low temperature combustion engines and hybrid systems, have helped the industry gain traction, a trend expected to elevate industry growth over the forecast period. Download a Sample of This Report for Better Understanding@ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/request-sample/925 Various stringent laws for exhaust emissions and fuel economy worldwide is compelling the industry players to continuously work and invest towards R&D in order to innovate and develop high-speed and more efficient engines that can optimally satisfy the customers' needs and also minimize the environmental hazards. However, the governing bodies across the globe are hinting at replacing IC engines with more efficient and eco-friendly counterparts in the automotive sector. For instance, Norway, France, the U.K., India, the Netherlands are planning to ban IC engines sales by 2025. Germany and China are among the other countries who are also planning to enforce a ban on internal combustion engines but have not specified any time for the same. If electric vehicles manufacturers can develop the electric vehicle in the above mentioned timeframe set by various countries, to ban IC engines, it may turn into reality. In an optimistic scenario, the internal combustion engine going out of market anytime soon is highly unlikely due to various factors including adoption among the consumers, lack of sophisticated charging infrastructure across the globe and the price quotient of these vehicles being higher than the present scenario. VIEW DETAIL REPORT WITH COMPLETE TOC@ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/internal-combustion-engine-market In the global internal combustion engine market, the automotive ICE segment is expected to experience noteworthy growth anticipated by high vehicle demand over the period. Rising demand for efficient engines which have minimum carbon emissions, is among the other prime factors driving the growth of the global internal combustion engine market. Developing several combustion modes using advanced technologies such as homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) is expected to escalate the growth of global internal combustion engine market in the coming years. The global internal combustion engine market is segmented into fuel, end-use and region. On the basis of fuel the global internal combustion market is segmented into petroleum and natural gas. Petroleum is further sub-segmented into diesel, gasoline and others, whereas natural gas is sub-segmented into CNG, LNG and others. On the basis of the end-use the global internal combustion engine market is segmented into automotive, aircraft, and marine. Automotive segment is sub-segmented into 50-200 HP, 200-300 HP and >300HP. The marine segment is further sub-segmented into 258-1000HP, 400-1400HP and 730-1800HP. On the basis of region the global internal combustion market is segmented into Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, and Middle East & Africa. The aviation industry in the Asia Pacific market is booming and offers avenues for growth of the aircraft engines segment over the forecast years. Additionally, technological advancements such as multi-fuel capabilities that improve fuel mileage is expected to boost demand. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) forecasted an increase in the number of global flight passengers by 2030; in order to cater for this demand, the aviation industry is expected to raise its output globally, which would subsequently drive the aircraft engines segment, leading to the increasing demand for internal combustion engines, driving the global internal combustion engine market. Other factors for which growth of the global internal combustion engine market is attributed to are rising consumer disposable income and the follow-on increasing adoption of vehicles worldwide. Technological developments resulting in improvements in IC engines in terms of performance, emission, and fuel efficiency will also ignite product demand over the coming years. The global internal combustion engine market is characterized by the presence of experienced and established players. Key companies include Toyota Motor Corporation, Volkswagen AG, Volvo AB, Rolls-Royce Holdings plc, Mahindra & Mahindra Limited, Renault SA, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, MAN SE, General Motors, Ford Motor, Fiat SpA, Caterpillar Incorporated, Shanghai Diesel Engine Company Limited, Bosch, and AGCO Corporation. Industry participants battle on the basis of price, new innovated product launches, and expanding market presence. Manufacturers regularly lay emphasis on strengthening their global footprint in order to improve market presence and achieve a spirited advantage. INQUIRY BEFORE BUYING@ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/inquiry-before-buying/925 The report is readily available and can be dispatched immediately after payment confirmation. Buy this premium research report @ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/buy-now/0/925 Would like to place an order or any question, please feel free to contact at sales@acumenresearchandconsulting.com | +1 407 915 4157 For Latest Update Follow Us: https://twitter.com/AcumenRC https://www.facebook.com/acumenresearchandconsulting https://www.linkedin.com/company/acumen-research-and-consulting/ Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 02:09:15|Editor: yan Video Player Close RABAT, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- A total of 11.3 million tourists visited Morocco between January and November, up 8.5 percent from the same period last year, the Moroccan Tourism Ministry said on Thursday. According to the Moroccan ministry's statistics, the number of foreign tourists hiked by 15 percent, while the arrivals of Moroccans living abroad rose by two percent. During the first eleven months of 2018, the growth was mainly driven by the continuous increase of visits from traditional European markets. The statistics showed an increases of 15 percent in Italian tourist arrivals, 10 percent in German tourists, eight percent in French visitors, and six percent in Spanish tourists. Morocco's top tourist destinations of Marrakech and Agadir generated alone 60 percent of total overnight stays, the same source noted. The North African country is on its way to set a new record in tourist arrivals after it attracted a record of 11.35 million tourists in 2017. However, statistics of tourist arrivals for December, which are expected to come at the beginning of next month, will be watched closely. On Dec. 17, the kingdom saw a tragic murder of two women tourists, a Danish and a Norwegian near the tourist village of Imlil, 60 kilometers away from Marrakech. The authorities are treating the act as a terrorist attack and have brought into justice 22 suspects. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 02:04:13|Editor: yan Video Player Close RABAT, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- A total of 17 people, including 14 Algerian nationals, have been arrested in the northern city of Tangier for attempting to migrate illegally to Europe, the Moroccan police said in a statement on Thursday. According to the statement, policemen found the would-be immigrants in a house along with three people suspected of organizing illegal immigration operations and human trafficking activities. During the police raid, authorities seized Algerian passports and identity cards, lifejackets, a zodiac inflator, sums of money and two cars suspected of being used to transport would-be illegal immigrants, the source pointed out. An investigation was opened under the supervision of the prosecutor's office to shed light on the activities of the suspects and on the possible ramifications of this network at the national and international levels, the source noted. Morocco has seen a significant hike in illegal immigration attempts this year. According to the Moroccan Interior Ministry, authorities have foiled over 76,000 illegal immigration attempts between January and November. During the same period, the country also dismantled 174 illegal immigration networks, up from some 70 in 2017. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 01:24:00|Editor: yan Video Player Close BEIRUT, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Hezbollah said Thursday that it is in Lebanon's interest for Syria to take part in the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit, which will take place in Beirut later this month, local media reported. "Lebanon is the closest and most important neighbor to Syria and thus it should initiate in facilitating Syria's return to the Arab League from which it had been suspended since 2011," Hezbollah, a Shiite Islamic political party in Lebanon said in a statement which was released by the National News Agency. Hezbollah's statement noted that there is a positive attitude among Arab countries with regard to opening up to Syria. "It would be of a great advantage for Lebanon to be an initiator in this regard," according to the statement. The Arab economic summit, an event organized by the Arab League, is concerned primarily with developmental issues in the Arab world. The event is scheduled on Jan. 19-20, 2019, in Lebanese capital Beirut. However, Syria will not be capable of taking part in the summit because the Arab League passed a decree on Nov. 12, 2011 that suspends Syria's membership. The Arab League said it froze Syria's membership because its government failed to stop violence against civilian protesters back in 2011. Political parties close to Syria have been pushing Lebanon to invite Syria to Beirut's summit while parties loyal to the March 14 coalition have warned of the repercussions of such invitation, particularly if taken without the consent of the Arab League. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 00:58:56|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close DAMASCUS, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Tens of civilians returned Thursday to their homes in "liberated areas" in the countryside of Manbij city in the northern countryside of Aleppo province as their areas have been secured by the Syrian army, state news agency SANA reported. The civilians crossed from Manbij to their areas in the countryside of Manbij through the Tayha crossing, according to SANA. Manbij has come under the spotlight recently when the Kurdish fighters declared withdrawal from it and handing their positions to the Syrian army to thwart a planned Turkish military campaign against it. Earlier in the day, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said that the Turkey-backed rebels who were poised to attack Manbij withdrew as a result of an undeclared deal between Turkey and Russia. For its side, the Syrian pro-government al-Watan newspaper said Thursday that the Turkey-backed rebels are withdrawing from the vicinity of Manbij in tandem with the withdrawing of the Kurdish-backed forces from the city itself amid reports that the Syrian government will assume control in the city. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 00:58:55|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close Photo provided by the China National Space Administration on Jan. 3, 2019 shows Yutu-2, China's lunar rover, leaving a trace after touching the surface of the far side of the moon. China's lunar rover, Yutu-2, or Jade Rabbit-2, left the first ever "footprint" from a human spacecraft on the far side of the moon late at night on Thursday, after it separated from the lander smoothly. The process was recorded by the camera on the lander and the images were sent back to the Earth via the relay satellite "Queqiao", the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced. Launched on Dec. 8, 2018, China's Chang'e-4 lunar probe, comprising a lander and a rover, landed on the far side of the moon on Thursday morning. (Xinhua) BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- China's lunar rover, Yutu-2, or Jade Rabbit-2, left the first ever "footprint" from a human spacecraft on the far side of the moon late at night on Thursday, after it separated from the lander smoothly. The rover touched the lunar surface at 10:22 p.m. on Thursday, leaving a trace on the loose lunar soil. The process was recorded by the camera on the lander and the images were sent back to the Earth via the relay satellite "Queqiao", the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced. Launched on Dec. 8, 2018, China's Chang'e-4 lunar probe, comprising a lander and a rover, landed on the far side of the moon on Thursday morning. Since the moon's revolution cycle is the same as its rotation cycle, the same side always faces the Earth. The other side, most of which cannot be seen from the Earth, is called the far side or dark side because most of it is uncharted. After the successful landing, experts verified the conditions of "Queqiao", meaning Magpie Bridge, which was launched in May of 2018 to set up the communication link between the Earth and the moon's far side, the environment parameter of the landing area, the conditions of the probe's equipment as well as the angle of incoming sunshine to make preparations for the separation of the lander and rover, the CNSA said in a statement. At 3:07 p.m., experts sent the separation order to the probe via "Queqiao". After receiving the order, Yutu-2, atop the probe, extended its solar panel, stretched out its mast and started to drive slowly to the transfer mechanism, according to the Beijing Aerospace Control Center. The transfer mechanism unlocked as planned with one side reaching the moon's surface, allowing the rover to descend to the surface from the slope. Chang'e-3, consisting of China's first moon rover Yutu and a lander, was launched in 2013. It was the first Chinese spacecraft to soft-land on and explore an extraterrestrial object. Like its predecessor, Yutu-2, capable of enduring vacuum pressure, intense radiation and extreme temperatures, is equipped with four scientific payloads, including a panoramic camera, infrared imaging spectrometer and radar measurement devices, to obtain images of the moon's surface and detect lunar soil and structure. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 00:53:54|Editor: yan Video Player Close LONDON, Jan. 3 (Xinhua)-- The British Ministry of Defence (MOD) has signed a 250-million-pound (315.5 million U.S. dollars) deal to support the Royal Air Force's (RAF) intelligence-gathering Shadow aircraft fleet, Defence Minister Stuart Andrew announced on Thursday. He said the new contract signed with Raytheon will sustain a total of 450 jobs at the company's facilities in Broughton, North Wales, and across the UK supply chain. Under the new contract, services will also be established at RAF Waddington, home of RAF's intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) fleet, to ensure aircraft availability. The support contract will cover maintenance, airworthiness, design and supplier management services as well as modification and integration work, which will allow Shadow to be upgraded in the future. The MOD statement identified Shadow as a highly capable ISTAR aircraft fleet, which performs key operations all around the world. Shadow aircraft have also been on operations above battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. Under commitments laid out in the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review, the UK is bringing a total of eight Shadow aircraft into RAF service. "This 250 million pound investment will ensure the UK retains its position as a global leader in battlefield intelligence gathering for UK troops and our NATO allies," said the minister. "It is also great news for the economy through the safeguarding of 450 skilled jobs across the country, including 200 in North Wales, confirming the region as a UK centre of excellence for air support," he added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 00:13:45|Editor: yan Video Player Close TUNIS, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Five terrorists were shot dead by Tunisian security forces, Sofien Zaak, the spokesperson of Tunisian Interior Ministry said Thursday. "It was a preventive operation launched by Tunisia's National Unit of Investigation for Terrorist Affairs and Organized Crime, in the early hours of Thursday in Jelma in Sidi Bouzid governorate in central Tunisia," Tunisian private channel Nessma TV quoted Zaak as saying. A security officer was hit in the crossfire between Tunisian security units and the terrorists. Two explosive charges and firearms, belonging to a soldier killed by terrorists in 2015, were seized during the operation. Security forces also seized two mobile phones, a sum of money and two hunting rifles. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 00:13:44|Editor: yan Video Player Close MADRID, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- A total of 1,180 people lost their lives in road accidents in Spain in 2018, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said here on Thursday. The death toll is 18 fewer than that in 2017, said the minister at a press conference, quoting figures compiled by the National Traffic Authority (Direccion General de Trafico). The slight drop in the number of deaths comes despite a 2 percent rise in the number of journeys made on Spain's roads and a 3 percent increase in the number of vehicles in circulation. Nevertheless, Grande-Marlaska was cautious, insisting there was "no reason to get carried away" by the figures, which include people who died within 24 hours of suffering an accident but not the victims of fatal road accidents in cities or towns. More detailed figures, including victims who died of their injuries up to a month after suffering an accident, will be published later in 2019. The minister said reducing the number of deaths on Spain's roads depends on "the conduct of everyone who gets behind the wheel of a car." He also highlighted an increase in the number of deaths on motorways, up from 280 in 2017 to 303 in 2018, and commented that male drivers tend to be "more careless" than women drivers. This is backed by the fact that in 2018 around 80 percent of road accident casualties in Spain were males. Effective on Jan. 1, the speed limit on conventional roads in Spain was reduced from 100 kilometers an hour to 90 kilometers, and on Jan. 29 the speed limit in towns and cities will be cut to 30 km/h to further reduce death toll from road accidents. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 00:13:43|Editor: yan Video Player Close GAZA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- A joint Palestinian committee comprising various Palestinian factions on Thursday denounced the new Israeli measures against Palestinian prisoners as "a declaration of war." Ismail Radwan, a senior Islamic Hamas movement leader and a member of the Prisoners' Committee of Islamic and National Factions, said during a sit-in in front of the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross that the Israeli measures "are rejected." "The new Israeli measures against our prisoners will not break the prisoners' determination and will never force us to stop our procession of struggle against the occupation," said Radwan. He stressed that the question of Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails "will remain the top priority of the national and Islamic factions and political powers." He called on international rights groups "to act as immediately as possible to stop all these criminal measures, which contradict with the international laws and the principles of human rights." Earlier on Thursday, Israel Radio reported that Israeli Minister of Interior Security Gilad Ardan announced that a new plan has been created to tighten measures against Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The measures include reducing the number of family visiting hours, barring prisoners from preparing food inside their rooms, and reducing the number of hours of watching television. Israel is currently holding more than 6,000 Palestinian and Arab prisoners in its jails, including 250 children, 54 women and 27 prisoners who have been imprisoned for more than three decades. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-04 00:03:40|Editor: yan Video Player Close LUSAKA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Zambia should formulate a strategy and technical working groups if the country is to benefit from initiatives that came from the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), a think-tank said on Thursday. The FOCAC Beijing Action Plan (2019-2021) was adopted at the summit, held in last September, to confirm that China and Africa will comprehensively enhance pragmatic cooperation focusing on the implementation of the eight major initiatives -- industrial promotion, infrastructure connectivity, trade facilitation, green development, capacity building, health care, people-to-people exchange, and peace and security. The Policy Monitoring and Research Center (PMRC) said Zambia should immediately formulate a strategy in order to benefit from the initiatives. Bernadette Deka, the think-tank's executive director, said preparations should commence now and that some of the initiatives could be aligned to the country's Seventh National Development Plan. She said in a release that the initiatives present an opportunity for the country to reflect on its efforts to address various key trajectories aimed at national building development. FARMINGTON, Conn., Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC), a non-profit standards development organization and accrediting body for organizations that electronically exchange healthcare data, announced today the release of new criteria versions for all 18 of its accreditation programs for use starting January 1, 2019. The significant updates to the 2019 criteria include the upgrade of all 18 stakeholder-specific accreditation programs to HITRUST CSF Version 9.1. This update, incorporated by EHNAC in September 2018, includes the addition of EU General Data Protection Regulation ( GDPR ) and New York State Cybersecurity Requirements for Financial Services Companies ( 23 NYCRR 500 ). In addition to enhancing EHNACs accreditation programs with criteria that will support GDPR and NYCRR requirements, all 18 accreditation programs will include new criteria regarding the use of international vendors and locations as well as added third-party Cloud Service Provider (CSP) criteria. Healthcare industry stakeholders are encouraged to regularly visit the EHNAC website to download and review the latest EHNAC criteria versions in full detail. Applicant candidates commencing the accreditation or re-accreditation process in 2019 will be required to adhere to these updated criteria versions. Following the standard, 60-day public comment period, EHNACs criteria committee and commission has incorporated public feedback to finalize and adopt the enhanced and final criteria versions for the following accreditation programs: ACOAP Accountable Care Organization Accreditation Program (V3.2) CEAP Cloud Enabled Accreditation Program1 (V1.3) DRAP Data Registry Accreditation Program (V3.2) DTAAP-CA Direct Trusted Agent Accreditation Program for Certificate Authorities (V3.2) DTAAP-RA Direct Trusted Agent Accreditation Program for Registration Authorities (V3.2) ePAP-EHN e-Prescribing Accreditation Program (V8.2) EPCSCP-Pharmacy Electronic Prescription of Controlled Substances Certification Program Pharmacy Vendor (V3.2) EPCSCP-Prescribing Electronic Prescription of Controlled Substances Certification Program Prescribing Vendor (V3.2) FSAP-EHN Financial Services Accreditation Program for Electronic Health Networks (V4.2) FSAP-Lockbox Financial Services Accreditation Program for Lockbox Services (V4.2) HIEAP Health Information Exchange Accreditation Program (V3.2) HISP P&S Health Information Service Providers, Privacy and Security (V1.1) HNAP-EHN Healthcare Network Accreditation Program for Electronic Health Networks [Includes Payer] (V12.2) HNAP-Medical Biller Healthcare Network Accreditation Program for Medical Billers (V3.2) HNAP-TPA Healthcare Network Accreditation Program for Third Party Administrators (V3.2) MSOAP Management Service Organization Accreditation Program (V3.2) OSAP Outsourced Services Accreditation Program2 (V3.2) PMSAP Practice Management System Accreditation Program (V3.2) The EHNAC criteria for each of its accreditation programs sets the foundational requirements for measuring an organizations ability to meet federal and state healthcare reform mandates such as HIPAA, Omnibus, ARRA/HITECH, ACA and other mandates for covered entities and business associates focusing on the areas of privacy, security, confidentiality, best practices, procedures and assets. Visit www.ehnac.org for more details or to review the latest EHNAC criteria. 1The Cloud Enabled Accreditation Program has been modified for 2019. Many criteria covered by the prerequisite to use only FedRAMP-certified CSPs has been eliminated. 2OSAP includes 10 different accreditation programs tailored for Accountable Care Organization Technology Service Providers; Call Centers; Data Centers; DRP Facilities; Health Information Exchange Technology Service Providers; Media Storage; Network Administrators; Printing; Product Development; and Scanning. Support has been added for accrediting Cloud Service Providers to OSAP. About EHNAC The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC) is a voluntary, self-governing standards development organization (SDO) established to develop standard criteria and accredit organizations that electronically exchange healthcare data. These entities include accountable care organizations, data registries, electronic health networks, EPCS vendors, e-prescribing solution providers, financial services firms, health information exchanges, health information service providers, management service organizations, medical billers, outsourced service providers, payers, practice management system vendors and third-party administrators. The Commission is an authorized HITRUST CSF Assessor, making it the only organization with the ability to provide both EHNAC accreditation and HITRUST CSF certification. EHNAC was founded in 1993 and is a tax-exempt 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization. Guided by peer evaluation, the EHNAC accreditation process promotes quality service, innovation, cooperation and open competition in healthcare. To learn more, visit www.ehnac.org , contact info@ehnac.org , or follow us on Twitter , LinkedIn and YouTube . Press contact information: Tom Testa, Anderson Interactive, 617-872-0184 tom@andersoni.com Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 23:58:39|Editor: yan Video Player Close TEHRAN, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Health Minister Hassan Qazizadeh Hashemi has resigned over cuts in the budget allocated to the Health Ministry, Press TV reported on Thursday. Qazizadeh Hashemi stepped down from his post last week due to differences with the administration over health spending cuts in the new budget bill submitted to the Iranian parliament last month. No further details were released in this regard, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani accepted the resignation of his health minister. Rouhani appointed Saeed Namaki as caretaker of Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 23:28:28|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close DHAKA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's new cabinet will be sworn in on Jan. 7 amid standoff with opposition, a week after achieving landslide victory in violence-hit general election. President Abdul Hamid has invited Hasina to form her third straight five-year government, his Press Secretary Joynal Abedin, told journalists Thursday night. He said members of the next cabinet including the prime minister will take oath at 3:30 p.m. (local time) on Monday at the President's Office. The announcement came hours after the newly elected members of Bangladesh's parliament from Hasina's ruling coalition took the oath of office amid an opposition boycott on Thursday. Bangladesh's Parliament Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury swore in the lawmakers including Hasina at a ceremony in capital Dhaka on Thursday. The MPs from ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led major opposition alliance skipped the oath-taking ceremony. BNP rejected the election results, alleging various irregularities. The Joint General Secretary of Bangladesh Awami League Jahangir Kabir Nanak said the election was held in free, fair and peaceful manner with the participation of all parties. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 22:58:21|Editor: yan Video Player Close BEIRUT, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Caretaker Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil warned Thursday that ministries will run out of finances if Lebanon fails to form a government within one month, the National News Agency reported. Khalil's remarks came following his meeting with Prime Minister Designate Saad Hariri to discuss the latest political developments. Nassib Ghobril, economist and head of the economic research department at Byblos Bank, attributed Khalil's remarks to the absence of a 2019 state budget. Lebanon's parliament approved last year the 2018 government budget, only the second since 2005. "The 2019 state budget should have been submitted to the government by the finance minister at the end of 2018 for it to be sent to the parliament for voting and approval," Ghobril told Xinhua while adding that Lebanon has missed again the constitutional deadline when it comes to state budget due to the absence of a government. However, Ghobril commented on Khalil's remarks by saying that ministries will not run out of finances because the finance ministry will issue treasury bonds at market rates and the banks will subscribe to them. "Banks have already subscribed to the treasury bonds that were issued in November last year by the ministry of finance," said Ghobril. Ghobril noted that the government is posting a deficit as usual and it needs to borrow in all cases but he argued that the economic situation and public finances are being used as a pressure card in the formation of the government. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 22:48:19|Editor: yan Video Player Close MANILA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Abu Sayyaf Group terrorists have freed a 28-year-old Filipino man who was kidnapped more than a year ago, the Philippine military said on Thursday. Gerry Besana, the spokesman of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Western Mindanao Command, said the hostage named Jed Quimbo, who was abducted in September 2017 in Zamboanga del Norte province in the southern Philippines, was released on Dec. 30, 2018 in Sulu province. Besana said no ransom was paid for the hostage's release. He claimed the hostage was released due to "military pressure." The family of the hostage and the Sulu governor received the kidnapped victim after his release. The Philippine military said the Abu Sayyaf Group terrorists are still holding three foreign and two Filipino hostages in Sulu province. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte activated a new Army Infantry Division to crush the Abu Sayyaf terrorists last month. Philippine security forces have been trying to crush the Abu Sayyaf terrorists since early 2000. Abu Sayyaf Group is the smallest but also the most radical terrorist groups in the Philippines, and often carry out kidnappings, bombings and beheadings in western Mindanao, particularly in their lair in the island provinces of Basilan and Sulu. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 22:43:16|Editor: yan Video Player Close DHAKA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's cabinet will be sworn in on Jan. 7 amid standoff with opposition, a week after achieving landslide victory in the violence-hit general election. President Abdul Hamid has invited Hasina to form her third straight five-year government, his Press Secretary Joynal Abedin, told journalists Thursday night. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 22:33:11|Editor: yan Video Player Close MOGADISHU, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Ten al-Shabab militants were killed on Thursday in an airstrike of an operation jointly conducted by the United States and Somali forces in southwest Somalia, state news agency reported. The Somali National News Agency reported that the joint forces conducted the operation against al-Shabab militants at an area about 150 km southwest of the capital Mogadishu. Al-Shabab militants did not comment on the latest operation so far. This is the first operation conducted by the joint forces this year. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 22:33:10|Editor: yan Video Player Close by Tichaona Chifamba HARARE, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- A decision by the country's biggest beverage manufacturer Delta Corporation to charge its products in U.S. dollars with effect from Friday has riled many consumers who have expressed shock at the move and implored the government to intervene. Delta manufactures most of the local beers and soft drinks. It announced Wednesday that it would start selling its products in foreign currency on Friday, causing panic among consumers and retailers. Some consumers immediately started hoarding their favorite drinks while retailers scaled down on sales, unsure whether the company would be allowed to proceed to sell in hard currency. Delta said in a statement that its business had been adversely affected by shortages of foreign currency, which had resulted in the company failing to meet orders, and "in the case of soft drinks, being out of stock for prolonged periods." It said the fiscal and monetary policy frameworks announced by the government in October 2018 did not provide for "easy access to foreign currency by non-exporters." "The company has only received limited foreign currency allocations from the banking channels, which have not been adequate to fund the import requirements," said the statement. It said as a result, all its foreign suppliers were unable to continue providing credit or meeting new orders as some of them had not been paid for extended periods. "In order to sustain its operations, the company advises the retail and wholesale customers that its products will be charged in hard currency with effect from Friday 4th January 2019," the statement said. However, the government warned the company that the intended move would be illegal. Industry and Commerce Minister Mangaliso Ndlovu said Wednesday that business must "stop forthwith" dollarizing the economy. "We have noted with concern a proliferation in the number of companies and businesses engaging in preferential currency practices. This is not only against the spirit of fairness, but it is also an illegal practice. Government is very clear that this practice is unacceptable and has to stop forthwith and if not, the law will take its course," said the minister. Ndlovu said the government had tried to ensure businesses operate in a free atmosphere, but companies were now acting in bad faith. "The government has supported business to operate liberally within the economy without interference but giving an intervening hand whenever it has been called upon to assist. In return, government has expectations that business will operate in good faith and responsibly," he said. Delta has not been spared from severe foreign currency shortages affecting the country. It requires 2 million U.S. dollars per month to buy raw materials such as concentrates and granules used to manufacture plastic bottles. Delta said it had invested over 600 million dollars in plant and equipment, vehicles and ancillary services since 2009, and there was need to protect this investment and ensure sustenance of all value chain partners. Chairperson of the department of economics at the University of Zimbabwe Albert Makochekanwa said it was incomprehensible that Delta wanted to sell in foreign currency when almost all employees' salaries were in bond notes and RTGS (bank transfers). "Charging in USD will likely mean reduced customers, which may affect their sales (and) there maybe upward demand for USD, which will cause an upward increase in (the) buying (of) USD on black market," he told the Herald newspaper. Economist and Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce chief executive officer Takunda Mugaga, said the move by Delta indicated the economy was "redollarizing faster than we can catch up," which would have an impact on pensions. "Delta, being a market leader as well as industry on its own due to the monopolistic nature of its being, the result is expedited redollarization which will have enterprise-wide impact from the farm to the salary of an employee directly and indirectly employed by Delta," said Mugaga. He said smaller beverage manufacturers would follow suit. Mugaga warned, however, that if the government blocked Delta from charging in foreign currency, this could lead to job losses, arguing the company could no longer afford to continue looking for hard currency outside the formal means. Harare resident Tafadzwa Musariri said the move by Delta would impact heavily on many people. "Beer is a favorite pastime for many people. They now want us to pay for it in foreign currency which is not available. Where will we get it, even at a premium?" Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 22:23:07|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close JERUSALEM, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Israel's taxation and economic section of the State Attorney's Office informed Thursday the supermodel and television host Bar Refaeli that prosecuting her is considered, subject to a hearing, on suspicion of concealing over 29 million new shekels (about 7.75 million U.S. dollars). According to the State Attorney's Office, it also considers the indictment of Refaeli's parents, for money laundering offenses. The investigation revealed that in years 2006-2007, the supermodel reported to the Israeli tax authorities that she does not live in Israel and therefore did not declare income from her work abroad. Regarding these years, Bar and her mother Zipi Refaeli are suspected of concealing about six million new shekels (about 1.6 million U.S. dollars) from the tax reports. According to suspicions, Bar Refaeli rented and bought apartments in Israel during those years, but to prevent a tax decision in which the center of her life is in Israel, she hid her name from the housing records, with the help of her mother. It was also found that between 2009 and 2012, Bar Refaeli established companies and opened bank accounts worldwide, where her revenues were deposited. The Attorney's Office stated that according to the reports submitted by Bar and her parents, she had no income in Israel these years, and was a foreign resident. At the same time, Bar allegedly reported to the U.S. tax authorities that she lives in Israel. The revenues for which the concealment operations were carried out during 2009-2012 reached more than 23 million new shekels (6.15 million U.S. dollars). In addition, the mother is suspected of omitting three million new shekels (802,000 U.S. dollars) in commissions she received as her daughter's agent. The two are also suspected of hiding barter deals, such as an apartment purchase and using luxury vehicles in exchange for advertising and public relations. Bar Refaeli's lawyers stated that she had not committed any offense and that they are convinced that after hearing, it will be decided that there's no need for criminal proceeding. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 22:13:02|Editor: zh Video Player Close Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) and his Iraqi counterpart Barham Salih shake hands during a joint press conference at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, on Jan. 3, 2019. Turkey and Iraq would enhance their cooperation in the fight against terrorism, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday. (Xinhua/Mustafa Kaya) ANKARA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Turkey and Iraq would enhance their cooperation in the fight against terrorism, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday. Speaking at a joint press conference with Iraqi President Barham Salih in Ankara, Erdogan said terror groups like Daesh, PKK and the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) pose threats to both Turkey and Iraq, and the two countries should deepen cooperation in fighting terror. Turkey is ready to help Iraq rebuild infrastructure and development projects, Erdogan added. The relations between the two countries should be "shoulder to shoulder," Salih said, adding that Iraq expects Turkey's contribution in reconstructing terror-free regions in the country. Salih arrived in Ankara for an official visit on Thursday, in his first such trip since he took office in October, 2018. Turkey has been targeting PKK positions in northern Iraq with airstrikes during past months. Turkey also has military deployment in Kurdish region in northern Iraq. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 21:52:55|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close GAZA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is to hold talks with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo on Friday, a Palestinian envoy said Thursday. Deyab al-Louh, the Palestinian Authority ambassador in Cairo, told Palestinian Radio "Voice of Palestine" that Abbas' visit to Cairo is made upon an official invitation from Sisi. "President Abbas visit in Cairo will last for three days," said al-Louh, adding that Abbas will discuss with the Egyptian president the bilateral ties and recent developments in the region, mainly the Palestinian cause. He said that the current developments in the Middle East require the two sides to deepen their mutual consultations "to crystallize a joint vision on all the political, diplomatic and legal levels to confront what is coming." Al-Louh said that issues related to Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and the biased U.S. support to Israel "need to be deeply discussed by the leaders of the Arab and Islamic regions." TORONTO, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Captor Capital Corp. (Captor or the Company) (CSE: CPTR; FRANKFURT: NMV; STUTTGART: NMVA; USOTC: NWURF), a cannabis-focused investment company, announced today that CEO of Captor, John Zorbas, was issued 233,333 common shares at a deemed issue price of $1.50 in lieu of receiving $350,000 in deferred and unpaid salary and bonuses owing to Mr. Zorbas. Mr. Zorbas said Captor has valuable and promising cannabis assets and I believe strongly in the long-term success of Captors business. Converting my unpaid salary into shares, further aligns my interests with the interests of our shareholders. About Captor Capital Captor Capital Corp. is a Canadian firm focused on the cannabis sector listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange, the OTC, and the Frankfurt and Stuttgart stock exchanges. A vertically integrated cannabis company, Captor provides recreational and medical marijuana based products to consumers via its leading brands and dispensary locations. Listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange, the OTCUSA, and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Captor owns and operates advanced growing facilities which produce consistent high quality contaminant free marijuana for its customers, as well as other high demand cannabis based goods for consumption. The Company follows a strategy of acquiring cash flowing established companies and organizations with growth potential that require capital to scale. Captor currently has a number of revenue generating cannabis investments including the world famous West Hollywood MedMen branded dispensary, CHAI in Santa Cruz and Higher Level, Castroville. The Company also owns Mellow Extracts, a highly regarded producer of cannabis extracts based in Costa Mesa, CA. Captor Capital is currently looking at additional revenue generating investments in the cannabis space and will be updating the market in due course. Contact Gavin Davidson, Communications Captor Capital Corp. 647.524.5479 gavin@captorcapital.com Forward-Looking Statements NEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATIONS SERVICES PROVIDER HAVE REVIEWED OR ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. This press release contains or refers to forward-looking information, and is based on current expectations that involve a number of business risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statement include, but are not limited to availability of investment opportunities, economic circumstances, market fluctuations and uncertainties, uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future, changes in equity markets, inflation, changes in exchange rates, and the other risks involved in the investment industry and junior capital markets. Forward-looking statements are subject to significant risks and uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expected results. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company assumes no responsibility to update them or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances other than as required by law. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 21:37:51|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close by Burak Akinci ANKARA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared 2019 as "the Year of Gobeklitepe" in a bid to boost the archeological site of Gobeklitepe, dubbed "the ground zero for human history." Located in Turkey's southeastern province of Sanliurfa near the Syrian border, Gobeklitepe is one of the world's oldest megalithic structure. The year of 2018 was named "The Year of Troy," Erdogan recalled, saying the initiative revived the tourism activities in the northwestern Canakkale province by 60 percent. "I believe that we will see a much higher performance in Sanliurfa. This ancient settlement proves the importance of Anatolia in the history of humanity and it will certainly attract worldwide attention," he said, announcing to attend the official opening ceremony there soon. The decision was hailed by tourism professionals. "This is a very important move. Gobeklitepe will be one of the most precious tourism destinations," Firuz B. Baglikaya, head of the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies (Tursab) told Xinhua. "I think that Gobeklitepe will be in 2019 a driving force for regional tourism and we plan to attract up to one million tourists to this region by 2023," he added. Gobeklitepe, which means Potbelly Hill in Turkish, is the world's oldest known megalithic structure in Upper Mesopotamia. Dates back to nearly 12,000 years ago and considered one of the world's oldest temple, it features massive carved stones and T-shaped pillars that predate the invention of agriculture. The site was reopened to tourists in early 2018 following extensive restoration work, in whish a 4,000-square-meter steel roof was erected to protect the site. It was added in 2018 to the World Heritage List of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Klaus Schmidt, a German archaeologist and pre-historian, has led the wide-ranging excavations at Gobeklitepe since 1996 until his death in 2014, contributing a lot to rewrite the early history of civilization. The T-shaped pillars, some of which are up to 5.5 meters high and weighed several tons, were transported from the nearby quarry to the site, where the locals shaped them into round-oval, semi-subterranean stone buildings. The Neolithic art includes sculptures of fox, crane, boar and scorpions. Scientist believe that the structure, older than the Egyptian pyramids or Stonehenge, is the spot where modern human civilization began. The site is open to the public and there are numerous local and international businesses specialized in trips and guided tours of the archeological wonder. However, experts warned that once a site is chosen to promote tourism for hundreds of thousands of people, it also increases burdens and risks for the site itself. "Serious studies have to be made to establish how many people will be coming to the site and a survey team has to be deployed to monitor the findings of scientific studies," Necmi Karul, a member of the scientific board of Gobeklitepe, told Xinhua. "Most of the articles concerning Gobeklitepe confidently said that it is 'the world's oldest temple,' while it is most probably not," Karul noted, adding that "we have to present as it is a very valuable archeological discovery and protect it from wild urbanization schemes." According to UNESCO, Gobeklitepe was the meeting center of the last hunters before humans switched to a lifestyle based on agriculture. "Gobeklitepe is a unique sacred space and sacred meeting center of the Neolithic period in terms of its location, dimensions, dating and monumentality of architectural ruins and sculptural pieces," an article on UNESCO's website says. "There are settlement areas dating back to the same period as Gobeklitepe but these settlements are much smaller in scale and have different functions to Gobeklitepe," it added. Preparations are well under way in Sanliurfa to present the ancient site as a tourist attraction for visitor around the world. "Gobeklitepe will be given a special in the expos that Turkey will attend. Informative tours for travel agencies in Turkey and abroad will be organized to introduce the site to a larger audience," Aydin Aslan, provincial director for culture and tourism, told state-run Anadolu Agency. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 21:37:51|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close BEIJING, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang on Thursday said the cooperation between China and Latin American nations including Brazil serve not only the interests of their own but also the common interests of China and Latin America. As an important emerging market, Brazil is fully aware where its interests are and does not need to be taught by others, Lu said. He made the remarks in response to media reports that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, when meeting with Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo, that the United States is different to some other countries which make investments not for commercial reasons but for political reasons. The reports claimed that China was likely one of the "other countries," though Pompeo did not mention China by name. "I have noted relevant reports," Lu said. "I have also noticed that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, in his meeting with President Xi Jinping's special envoy Ji Bingxuan, said Brazil and China are both great countries and the new government of Brazil attaches great importance to cooperation with China and is willing to push forward bilateral relations." Bolsonaro also said the prospect for cooperation between the two countries would become better, according to Lu. "I would like to reiterate that, under the principle of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit, the cooperation between China and Latin American countries including Brazil is not only in our own respective interests, but is also conducive to promoting the common interests of China and Latin American countries," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 21:32:50|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close NAIROBI, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's imports from its neighbors in the East African Community (EAC) rose 43 percent year-on-year in the first nine months of 2018 while its exports to the region remained flat, latest data showed. Imports stood at 54.83 billion Kenyan shillings (543 million U.S. dollars) between January and September 2018, up from 380 million dollars during the same period in 2017, according to the data released by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) on Thursday. Kenya, which is the biggest economy in the EAC, exported goods worth 860 million dollars to other EAC members in the first nine months, flat from the same period of the previous year, according to KNBS. The EAC consists of five other nations namely Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan. Kenyan imports from the region mainly come from Uganda and Tanzania and they are largely food imports in particular grains like maize and wheat. Imports from Uganda stood at 410 million dollars between January and September, up from 243 million dollars in the same period in 2017, the KNBS data showed. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 21:02:45|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close KHARTOUM, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Thursday accused foreign trends of conspiring against Sudan and seeking to destabilize the country. "The external conspiracy continues. There has been an economic siege, and we have lost our main source of oil," he said, adding that "nevertheless, Sudan remained steadfast." Al-Bashir made the remarks when addressing a gathering of Sudanese Workers' Trade Unions, Pensioners and Women Associations at the Friendship Hall in Khartoum. He further vowed to improve the livelihood of the Sudanese people through increasing salaries of workers, providing houses for workers and improving the situations of the pensioners. Since Dec. 19, 2018, various areas in Sudan, including Khartoum, have been witnessing popular protests over the deteriorating economic conditions and price hikes of basic commodities. According to government statistics, 19 people have been killed during the popular protests. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 21:02:44|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close STOCKHOLM, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Two more people have been found dead after the train accident in Denmark, Danish police told a press conference on Thursday. An examination during the night revealed two more fatalities, bringing the death toll up to eight. "Unfortunately, our investigation of the train has shown that two more died in the train," said Arne Vedsted Gram, police director on the island of Fyn. The two had been considered missing since the accident occurred, but parts of the train were too difficult to be accessed while it was on the bridge. In total, eight people have lost their lives after the train accident at the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark, including five women and three men. Some of the victims' bodies were so badly damaged that police had to use dental records and DNA to identify them. The accident occurred at 7:30 a.m. local time on Wednesday when cargo from a freight train came loose and hit a passenger train traveling in the opposite direction on the Great Belt Bridge, just outside the central Danish island of Fyn. Initial reports counted six deceased and 16 injured. Of the 16 injured, 14 have now been discharged from Odense University Hospital, according to Danish news agency Ritzau. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 20:57:42|Editor: yan Video Player Close Photo provided by the China National Space Administration on Jan. 3, 2019 shows the first image of the moon's far side taken by China's Chang'e-4 probe. China's Chang'e-4 probe touched down on the far side of the moon Thursday, becoming the first spacecraft soft-landing on the moon's uncharted side never visible from Earth. The probe, comprising a lander and a rover, landed at the preselected landing area at 177.6 degrees east longitude and 45.5 degrees south latitude on the far side of the moon at 10:26 a.m. Beijing Time (0226 GMT), the China National Space Administration announced. (Xinhua) by Xinhua writers Yu Fei, Quan Xiaoshu, Xie Jiao BEIJING, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- No wind blows and no rain falls there. Only crashing meteorites occasionally disrupt the stillness. The desolate landscape on the far side of the moon - never visible from Earth - has waited billions of years to see the first-ever soft landing of a visitor from Earth. After orbiting the moon for more than 20 days, the Chang'e-4 probe, launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China on Dec. 8, 2018, has seen countless craters, mountains and valleys on the moon. Finally, its destination on the far side, the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin, the largest, deepest and oldest crater in the solar system, was illuminated by the rising sun. The developers of Chang'e-4 decided on Thursday it was the time to come down on this barren world. At 10:15 a.m., a variable thrust engine was ignited with the assistance of the relay satellite Queqiao (Magpie Bridge), operating in the halo orbit around the second Lagrangian (L2) point of the Earth-moon system, about 65,000 km from the moon, where it can see both Earth and the moon's far side. Chang'e-4's relative velocity to the moon was lowered from 1.7 km per second to close to zero, and the probe was adjusted to face the moon and descend vertically towards the Von Karman Crater in the SPA Basin. When it descended to an altitude of about 2 km, its cameras captured the shadows of the hills and valleys on the lunar surface. Its computer identified and assessed large obstacles such as rocks and craters, so the probe could avoid them. At 100 meters up, the probe hovered to identify smaller obstacles and measured the slopes on the surface. Its computer calculated again and selected the safest site. At 2 meters above the surface, the engine stopped, and then the golden lander with a silver rover on top touched down on the desolate gray surface with four legs, throwing up some dust. The probe performed the entire landing process, lasting about 12 minutes with no intervention from ground control, and the relay satellite transmitted the first close-up photos of the moon's far side back to a control center in Beijing. The China National Space Administration later announced that the probe landed at the preselected landing area at 177.6 degrees east longitude and 45.5 degrees south latitude on the far side of the moon. "It's an important milestone for China's space exploration," said Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's lunar exploration program. "It is a perfect display of human intelligence," said Jia Yang, deputy chief designer of the Chang'e-4 probe, from the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST). Named after Chinese moon goddess "Chang'e," China's lunar exploration program, which began in 2004, includes orbiting and landing on the moon, and bringing samples back to Earth. After Chang'e-3 completed China's first soft landing on the moon in 2013, Chinese space experts aimed high, hoping Chang'e-4 could carry out unprecedented and more challenging tasks. "Landing on the far side of the moon is more risky than landing on the near side. The rugged terrain on the far side has raised many problems," said Sun Zezhou, chief designer of Chang'e-4 probe, from CAST. "But solving those problems might help lay the foundation for future space exploration. High-precision landing is a necessity for further exploring the moon and asteroids. We hope to be able to reach the whole moon and even the whole solar system," Sun said. "The far side of the moon has unique features never before explored on site," said Zou Yongliao, director of the lunar and deep space exploration division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). "The exploration of this virgin land by Chang'e-4 might bring breakthroughs." The moon is tidally locked to earth, rotating at the same rate that it orbits Earth, so one side of the moon is seen from Earth, leaving the far side a mystery, until now. About 60 years ago, the Soviet Union's Luna 3 probe sent back the first images of the moon's far side. And about 50 years ago, three astronauts on the United States Apollo 8 mission became the first people to see it with their own eyes. Lunar orbiters have shown the moon's two sides are very different: the near side is relatively flat, while the far side is thickly dotted with impact craters of different sizes. Scientists believe that the lunar crust on the far side is much thicker than the near side. However, the reason is still a mystery. Only on site exploration might reveal the secrets. The moon and Earth shared a similar "childhood." But traces of the remote past on Earth have been erased by geological activities. "The moon might provide some insights to the early history of Earth," said Lin Yangting, a researcher at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics. Exploring the Von Karman Crater in the SPA Basin is meaningful in another sense. The crater was named after a Hungarian-American mathematician, aerospace engineer and physicist in the 20th century, who was also the teacher of Qian Xuesen and Guo Yonghuai, the founders of China's space industry. Nearly 50 years have passed since people first stood on the moon. Can we return? How will radiation on the moon affect astronauts? How much water is there? Scientists from China, Germany and Sweden hope to find the answers through Chang'e-4, and make preparations for people to return to the moon. Professor Robert Wimmer-Schweingruber, of the Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics of Kiel University in Germany, said that preparing for future human exploration of the moon was an excellent idea. "If astronauts come back to Earth, the radiation on the moon is the only danger that remains in their body. So we need to understand that," he said. Johan Koehler, head of Solar System Science and Space Situational Awareness, Swedish National Space Agency, said exploration of the far side of the moon was a great achievement by China. "We are very happy to be a part of it." "There is a theory that water on the surface of the moon is formed by the interaction of solar wind with the surface regolith. So this is something that Swedish scientists together with Chinese scientists want to answer," said Koehler. The Chang'e-4 mission, including the probe, the relay satellite Queqiao and a micro satellite orbiting the moon, is equipped with four payloads developed through international cooperation, providing more opportunities to the world's scientists and combining human expertise in space exploration. "I think one of the beauties of space science is that we do cooperate internationally. Space science to me is something important, also as a message of peace worldwide," Wimmer-Schweingruber said. For astronomers, the far side of the moon is a place of ideal tranquility, as the body of the moon shields against radio interference from Earth. From there, they can study the origins and evolution of stars and galaxies, peering into the dawn of the universe. Chang'e-4 carries low-frequency radio astronomical instruments developed by Chinese and Dutch scientists. "Conducting such observation on the moon's far side is a long cherished goal of astronomers, and could fill gaps in astronomical observation,"said Zou. The probe also took six live species - cotton, rapeseed, potato, arabidopsis, fruit fly and yeast - to the lifeless environment to form a mini biosphere, which is expected to produce the first flower on the moon. Chinese space engineers also plan to get data by constantly measuring temperatures on the surface of the moon. "Exploring the far side of the moon is one contribution China is making to the world. Although we still don't know what we might find, this exploration might influence several generations," said Shen Zhenrong, a designer of the lunar rover. Wu Weiren said: "Exploring the unknown is human nature. The moon is a mysterious world to us. We have a responsibility to explore and to understand it. Exploration of the moon will also deepen our understanding of Earth and ourselves." Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 20:52:41|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close by Dana Halawi BEIRUT, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Lebanon's tourism sector performed well in 2019 new year holiday, said industry experts on Thursday. "Our hotels have witnessed a good activity by tourists with an increase in occupancy by 7 percent for the period of new year compared to the same period last year," Pierre Ashkar, head of the Syndicate of Hotel Owners in Lebanon, told Xinhua. Ashkar said that Lebanon succeeded in attracting tourists for the holidays despite the political instability prevailing in the country and the absence of a government. Lebanon succeeded in holding the first parliamentary elections in nine years, but it still faces the challenge of overcoming all hurdles hindering cabinet formation. The absence of government has impacted several sectors of the economy including tourism to a certain extent. Ashkar was worried about possible reservations cancellations after the media reported that two civil planes were saved from a humanitarian disaster when Israel allegedly violated Lebanon's airspace to implement raids against Syria's Damascus. "Luckily, people did not cancel their reservations," said Ashkar, adding that Lebanon even witnessed a slight increase in visitors from the Gulf region. "Hotels were mostly reserved by Iraqis, Egyptians, Jordanians and Syrians in addition to Europeans for new year holidays. But we have also witnessed a slight increase in tourism activity by people from the Gulf, which is a positive sign," he said. In Nov. 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait warned their citizens against traveling to Lebanon because of a Lebanese-Saudi crisis caused by Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri's controversial resignation in Riyadh which he rescinded soon after. However, Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid Bukhari announced last month that Saudi Arabia will remove the travel ban on Lebanon upon the formation of a Lebanese government. "When Saudi Arabia removes the travel ban on Lebanon, the rest of the Gulf countries will follow suit," Ashkar said. The reservations at restaurants and pubs saw a great improvement in Christmas and new year after having suffered throughout the whole year in 2018, said Tony Ramy, head of Lebanese Syndicate of Restaurants Owners. Restaurants were capable of attracting customers in new year without increasing prices, Ramy added. Meanwhile, Gerard Zwein, vice president of car rental agencies, told Xinhua that car rental companies worked well during three days before 2019 new year's eve and two days after it. "We have witnessed demands by Lebanese expatriates mostly in 2018 in addition to some demands by people from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait," he said. However, Zwein said that such demands will go down again after the holiday season. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 20:47:41|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close SHENZHEN, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Zhao Yeyun suffers from lower-body paralysis and has been living with the help of wearable exoskeleton robots, although he cannot afford them. A car accident damaged his spinal cord nine years ago. A year after his hospitalization, he was able to stand with the help of the first model of a wearable exoskeleton robot developed by Wu Xinyu and his research team in the Center for Intelligent and Biomimetic Systems under the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Since then, he has become a volunteer for testing the exoskeleton robots developed by the team based in the southern China city of Shenzhen. Wu, the executive director of the center, has led the team to develop four types of exoskeleton robots with six different models, which have 38 national patents. "The algorithm of the robot system controls sensors to read the wearer's movement intentions and send commands to the drive system. The bionic shape design of lower limb prosthesis is in accordance with the characteristics of the wearer's skeleton and joints," said Xu. Volunteers like Zhao provide details on the effects of the robots. With the assistance of an exoskeleton robot, Zhao can stand, walk and sit down on his own. Zhao said the first time he tried on the robotic legs, they did not work. "The robotic legs are so heavy that I could not straighten up or lift my feet high enough," Zhao said. Based on feedback from volunteers, the research team improved and updated the exoskeleton robot's physical design and control algorithm over and over again. "In order to decrease the robot's weight, we use alloy and carbon fiber as a substitute material for steel," said Wu. The weight of the robot models has declined from 25kg to 14kg. He said that apart from being used in rehabilitation and medical treatment, exoskeleton robots can provide increased strength, security and working efficiency for workers in heavy machinery industries. The team has developed a light flexible exoskeleton robot weighing 4 kg to enhance physical strength of wearers, and signed a letter of cooperative intent with the Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China Ltd. and the Hong Kong International Airport. "The exoskeleton robots help workers save energy and avoid muscle fatigue. In the future, we plan to develop wearable robots that can assist human beings in climbing, hiking and other activities," said Wu. Zhao, from southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, said he could not afford such a robot priced at about 200,000 yuan (29,000 U.S. dollars) or more. "I hope this technology can be industrialized as soon as possible, as mass production can make the robots more affordable," he said. As one of the world's largest emerging markets of robotics, China has launched a development plan for the robot industry from 2016 to 2020, which encourages the mass production and application of service robots in rehabilitation, clinic treatment and other fields. According to the International Federation of Robotics, China installed around 138,000 industrial robots last year, accounting for one-third of the global market and representing a 58-percent growth rate year on year. Robot sales are expected to reach 150,000 units in 2018. Wu said a number of the world's most prestigious universities and institutions have applied to put their advancing robotics research into practice in China. The global market for exoskeleton robotics is estimated to exceed 1.8 billion U.S. dollars by 2020. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 20:37:37|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close GUIZHOU, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- A new expressway on southwest China's Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau opened to traffic on Thursday, facilitating trade and communication between provinces in the area. The 190-kilometer expressway links Liupanshui city and Weining county in Guizhou Province, shortening the journey between from the previous two hours to one hour. The expressway also shortens the journey from Liupanshui to Zhaotong city in Yunnan Province from the previous five hours to two hours. With an investment of about 25.3 billion yuan (3.68 billion U. S. dollars), the expressway, built in a mountainous area, has 157 bridges and 32 tunnels. According to Guizhou Expressway Group Co. Ltd., the expressway has an altitude ranging from 1,700 to 2,260 meters. Some of the expressway is equipped with a de-icing system and fog lights to ensure the safety of cars in extreme weather. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 20:32:36|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close HONG KONG, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- The 12th Asian Financial Forum will be held on Jan. 14 to 15 in Hong Kong, with attendees from different countries and regions discussing the latest global economic situation, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council announced on Thursday. The forum will be jointly organized by the government of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council under the theme "Creating a Sustainable and Inclusive Future". More than 120 policymakers, financial and business leaders and investors will examine topical issues in the global economy and explore new opportunities. Diana Cesar, chairperson of the Asian Financial Forum Steering Committee, said that this year's forum will explore recurrent topics of interest, including financial innovation, technology and sustainability, and entrepreneurship. The first plenary session on the first day of the forum will explore ways to drive sustainable economic growth and build a better future in the face of opportunities and challenges around the world. A panel discussion under the theme "Managing Global Financial Risks and Opportunities in 2019" will see financial experts share insights on the global market and financial policies. Four new panel discussions will be held at the forum this year, they are "Global Investment in the New Economy", "Financial Innovation", "Start-ups and Entrepreneurship" and "Risk Management along the Belt and Road". The newly launched FinTech Showcase will allow international financial institutions and technology corporations to showcase innovative solutions to the industry on site, promoting the use of new technology to help the industry stay competitive and create a more sustainable and inclusive future. LAS VEGAS, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CV Sciences, Inc . (OTCQB: CVSI) (the Company, we or our), a preeminent supplier and manufacturer of hemp CBD products through its industry-dominating brand PlusCBD Oil , is proud to announce its certification by the US Hemp Authority Guidance Program . Established in 2018, the US Hemp Authority Certified program was developed by the US Hemp Roundtable , and is designed specifically to educate hemp farmers and hemp finished product producers in FDA Current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) and Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) to ensure that consistent quality is achieved. The U.S. Hemp Authority Certification Program is administered by experienced quality assurance and verification professionals from industry-leading food and agricultural companies. This achievement illustrates the Companys robust quality management system throughout its supply chain from seed to shelf. This certification is a milestone indicative of the Companys commitment to assuring that customers continue to receive the highest quality products from CV Sciences and that all PlusCBD Oil products are safe. Additionally, this certification should give law enforcement officials certainty that our products are not made from genetic strains of marijuana. "Consumer interest and demand for industrial hemp products is growing rapidly and we believe consumers are entitled to full transparency with respect to product quality, safety and consistency. By completing the US Hemp Authoritys rigorous certification process, consumers can continue to trust in CV Sciences commitment to the highest operating and production standards, stated Michael J. Mona, III, co-founder, President and Chief Operating Officer at CV Sciences. This landmark certification provides additional assurance to our customers that we are focused on continuous improvement, customer trust and satisfaction. As one of the first companies to meet the stringent self-regulatory standards and passing a third party audit, the Company is now licensed to use the Certified Seal of the US Hemp Authority in its product labeling, marketing, and advertising of PlusCBD Oil products. For more information on a US Hemp Authority, visit ushempauthority.org. About CV Sciences, Inc. CV Sciences, Inc. (OTCQB:CVSI) operates two distinct business segments: a drug development division focused on developing and commercializing novel therapeutics utilizing synthetic CBD; and, a consumer product division focused on manufacturing, marketing and selling plant-based CBD products ( PlusCBD Oil) to a range of market sectors. CV Sciences, Inc. has primary offices and facilities in San Diego, California and Las Vegas, Nevada. Additional information is available from OTCMarkets.com or by visiting www.cvsciences.com . FORWARD-LOOKING DISCLAIMER This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements and information, as defined within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the Safe Harbor created by those sections. This material contains statements about expected future events and/or financial results that are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements by definition involve risks, uncertainties. CONTACT INFORMATION: Investor and Media Contact: ir@cvsciences.com 866-976-4784 Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 19:47:26|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close WUHAN, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Police in central China's Hubei Province have detained 24 suspects involved in trans-provincial drug trafficking, the Enshi Public Security Bureau announced Thursday. In March 2018, police in the city of Enshi found clues about the drug trafficking gang and began to collect evidence in the southwest municipality of Chongqing and provinces including Fujian and Hunan. After more than nine months of investigation, police found that the gang had sold over 30 kg of drugs. Police used big data to trace the suspects and busted two drug production dens with 2 kg of methamphetamine seized at the scene. During a police operation, a gang member slammed his car into two police vehicles and abandoned the drugs while attempting to escape. Some gang members also attacked the police. In June 2018, police arrested the leading members of the gang. Currently, all 24 members have been arrested. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 19:07:18|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close RIYADH, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Saudi Arabia's Public Prosecution demanded on Thursday the capital punishment against five out of 11 suspects over murdering journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Press Agency reported. The Saudi attorney general highlighted in a statement that the demand was made during the first hearing of the case at the criminal court held in Riyadh. He said that the Public Prosecution requested death sentence of the five over the involvement in the murder, adding that all the 11 suspects attended the hearing with their lawyers. The attorney general also revealed that the Public Prosecution has waited until now to get information about the case from its Turkish counterpart. Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey in October, 2018 and a number of top Saudi officials were arrested in connection with the case. The Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud ordered to restructure the intelligence authority. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 18:32:11|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close MACAO, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Macau International Airport (MIA) registered strong performance in 2018 with passenger flow and aircraft movements all growing significantly, the airport said here on Thursday. In 2018, MIA welcomed 8.26 million arriving and departing passengers and handled over 65,000 aircraft movements, representing an increase of 15 percent and 12 percent respectively year-on-year, the airport said in its latest performance report. The airport said the achievement came from the joint efforts and cooperation among its business partners, and Macao's government policy to integrate into the development of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and to build up Macao into a World Center of Tourism and Leisure. The opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge also contributes to the growing passenger flow, it added. There were 27 airlines operating at MIA in 2018, connecting Macao to some 51 destinations covering the Chinese mainland, China's Taiwan, Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia. The passenger traffic from routes of the Chinese mainland, Southeast and Northeast Asia accounted for 37 percent and 41 percent of the total passenger volume. The report also said in 2018, MIA expanded the air network by adding 10 new international routes. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 18:17:09|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close Members of the Israeli security forces remove a caravan that settlers had brought to the former outpost of Amona in the West Bank, following clashes between settlers and policemen, on Jan. 3, 2019. A total of 23 policemen were injured in clashes with Israeli settlers that erupted amidst the evacuation of illegal settlement structures in the West Bank on Thursday, Israeli police said. The clashes began early on Thursday morning as police forces arrived at Amona, an illegal outpost which was evacuated and demolished under a court order in 2017, after settlers rebuilt makeshift structures at the site. (Xinhua/JINI) JERUSALEM, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- A total of 23 policemen were injured in clashes with Israeli settlers that erupted amidst the evacuation of illegal settlement structures in the West Bank on Thursday, Israeli police said. The clashes began early on Thursday morning as police forces arrived at Amona, an illegal outpost which was evacuated and demolished under a court order in 2017, after settlers rebuilt makeshift structures at the site. Dozens of settler activists entrenched themselves overnight inside the buildings to resist the eviction. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that some 300 pro-settler activists "were involved in disturbances with police when stones and oil were thrown at them at the time of the evacuation." A border police spokesperson said in a statement that the forces were met with "very severe violence from dozens of rioters who threw stones, burned tires and threw iron bars." Rosenfeld said that the police "responded using non-lethal weapons in order to deal with the disturbances at the scene." The eviction was completed after several hours of clashes and 23 policemen were injured. Seven people were arrested, Rosenfeld said, adding that arrests will be continue. Amona was an outpost built in 1995 without permits from Israeli authorities. Israel's Supreme Court ruled it should be evicted because it was unlawfully built on private Palestinian lands. The government offered Amona's 42 families to relocate to a new settlement built especially for them on a nearby hill. The government-sponsored settlement was inaugurated in March 2018. Israel occupied the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war and has kept its control over the territories despite international criticism. The settlements are illegal under international law and are considered an obstacle to peace. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 18:12:09|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close ULAN BATOR, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia's capital Ulan Bator city has declared 2019 as citizen participation-development year, the mayor's press office said Thursday. "The year 2019 is a special year for Ulan Bator. This year marks the 380th anniversary of the establishment of the city," Jantsan Batbayasgalan, acting mayor of the capital city, said at the first meeting of Ulan Bator City Council in 2019 on Thursday. "We need to listen to the voices of our residents in order to intensify the development and prosperity of the city, and solve the pressing issues, including traffic jam and air pollution. So, we declared 2019 as citizen participation-development year," the acting mayor said. Ulan Bator is home to more than half of the country's population of 3.2 million. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 17:46:58|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close KAMPALA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Works have started on the removal of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that overshot the runway on Thursday at Uganda's Entebbe International Airport, delaying flights, authorities said. A statement from Uganda's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said that efforts in consultations with Ethiopian Airlines have started to ensure that the aircraft is removed from the runway end so that normal flight operations can resume. Vianney Luggya, CAA's spokesperson, told Xinhua earlier that Ethiopian Airlines Flight No. ET 338, a Boeing 737-800, overshot the runway on landing at 00:41 a.m. local time (2141 GMT) on Thursday. All the 139 passengers and crew onboard disembarked safely. CAA said the incident affected all inbound international flights. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 17:36:54|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close ULAN BATOR, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Mongolian Parliament speaker Miyegombo Enkhbold has rejected demands for him to resign, the press office of the legislative body said Thursday. "Before the new year, some 40 lawmakers demanded me to voluntarily step down from my post. I sent their demand letter to the parliament's standing committee on state structure for consideration," Enkhbold told parliament. Enkhbold refused to resign, saying the committee declined to consider the demand "as it is contrary to the law on dismissing the speaker of the parliament." According to the Mongolian law, there are five legal grounds to dismiss parliament speaker, namely death, severe disease, appointment to another position, guilty of a crime, and decision of dismissal from the constitutional court. More than half of the lawmakers in the 76-seat parliament and ministers have boycotted plenary sessions and meetings of standing committees of the parliament for five weeks, demanding Enkhbold's resignation over alleged conflicts of interest. Mongolian Prime Minister Ukhnaa Khurelsukh also submitted a request to the constitutional court on Nov. 29 to fire Enkhbold. Audio recordings were made public last year that some officials of the ruling Mongolian People's Party, including Enkhbold, allegedly used their government positions as a tool to run in the parliamentary election in 2016. According to Khurelsukh, Enkhbold has been interfering in the investigation and resolve of the case. Enkhbold has denied the allegations, saying he did not do anything unethical and illegal. In late December, Enkhbold submitted an official demand letter to the prime minister, requesting the parliament to stop boycotting plenary sessions. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 17:21:51|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close BEIJING, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump has said that he expected his second meeting with Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), to take place in the "not-too-distant future." Trump told reporters on Wednesday at the White House during a Cabinet meeting that he has received a "great" letter from Kim. "We'll probably now have another meeting ... we'll be setting that up in the not-too-distant future," added Trump, who revealed in early December that his second meeting with Kim was likely to happen in January or February. Trump's words came one day after Pyongyang released a series of positive signals over the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Kim said on Tuesday in his New Year speech that he would push forward the denuclearization and was ready to meet with Trump at any time. "I am always ready to sit down again with the U.S. president at any time and will make efforts to produce an outcome that the international community would welcome," Kim said. He stressed his determination to work to build new relations with the United States, establish lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula and seek "complete denuclearization," on the condition that the United States takes corresponding measures. "We could be left with no choice but to seek a new way if the U.S. does not make good on its promises, misjudges our patience, while seeking to force things unilaterally and clinging to sanctions and pressure," Kim warned. The relations between the DPRK and the United States improved last year. The first-ever summit between Trump and Kim was held in Singapore in June. Meanwhile, differences between the two sides remained over key issues like the scale of denuclearization, U.S. sanctions, and whether to issue a war-ending declaration. Analysts said the primary reason for the stalemate in the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is lack of mutual trust between the DPRK and the United States. The United States remains skeptical about the DPRK's willingness to abandon its nuclear weapons and refused to relax its sanctions on the DPRK, which delayed the DPRK's next moves, they said. To break the stalemate, the two sides need to meet each other halfway in the new year and take decisive measures to bring the denuclearization cause back on the right track, they added. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang said on Wednesday that China hopes that the DPRK and the United States would respect and accommodate each other's reasonable concerns to achieve progress in the denuclearization of and establishing a peace mechanism on the Korean Peninsula in the new year. Lu made the comments at a routine press conference when responding to a reporter's question on the New Year's speech made by Kim. "China will continue to play its role in this regard," Lu said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 17:16:46|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close COLOMBO, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka received 2.3 million tourists last year, with December recording the highest number of arrivals with over 250,000 tourists, a statement from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) said Thursday. According to official data, Sri Lanka's tourist arrivals during 2018 had registered a 10.3 percent growth, reaching 2.3 million compared to 2.1 million tourist arrivals in 2017. India, China, Britain and Germany continued to be the leading markets in 2018 while a significant growth was also seen from Australia. In terms of monthly arrivals in 2018, March, February, June, and November recorded the highest growth rates compared to 2017, while December recorded the highest number of arrivals within the year. "Although the tourist arrivals for the year 2018 was fallen slightly short due to the political instability we saw post Oct. 26, I think in terms of earnings we have reached the 3.5 billion dollar target," Minister of Tourism Development John Amaratunga said. On Wednesday, Amaratunga said the tourism sector was targeting 3 million tourists in 2019 with an earning of 4 billion U.S. dollars by the end of the year. He said the ministry had organized massive promotional campaigns in India and China throughout the year and they were confident to receive a higher number of tourists from these destinations as Sri Lanka had transformed into a popular tourist destination globally. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 17:16:45|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close ABUJA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is in Africa on a visit on Jan. 2-6, continuing a 29-year tradition of making Africa the first international trip by him and his predecessors in a new year. The move reiterates the importance China has attached to its relations with Africa and to South-South cooperation and reaffirms China's commitment to common development and prosperity. During his four-country tour, Wang, who is also Chinese State Councilor, will discuss with African leaders how to step up implementation of the action plan adopted at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Beijing Summit in September 2018. China is proven to be a true friend and cooperation partner of Africa based on the principles of sincerity, real results, amity and good faith. China respects the choice of the African people to pursue their own development paths and has never imposed "prescriptions." And when faced with challenges and problems, China seeks solutions in an open and honest way and through consultations with its African counterparts. A friend in need is a friend indeed. China is ready to help when it is in true need for Africa. For decades in a row, China has sent medical teams to help Africans fight epidemics while dispatching agricultural experts and providing financial and technical support for infrastructure transformation and poverty reduction. Notably, China was among the first to offer assistance as Ebola wreaked havoc in West Africa and great famine hit East Africa. The 60 billion U.S. dollars in funds China pledged at the 2015 FOCAC Johannesburg Summit has been either delivered or arranged, and the 10 cooperation programs have brought huge benefits to local people. With the extension of highway and railway networks and the building of airport terminals, sea ports and industrial parks across Africa in recent years, the continent's interconnectivity has been boosted and its industrial capacity unlocked. In people-to-people exchanges, Chinese medical teams, cultural centers and the Confucius Institutes have served as major platforms for communication to enhance mutual understanding. In addition, Chinese films and TV series were introduced into Africa and entertained locals. The Chinese foreign minister's new year trip will see to implementation of the collaboration initiatives proposed at the 2018 FOCAC Beijing Summit, which cover areas including industrialization, infrastructure, trade facilitation, green development, capacity building and health care. The initiatives are expected to usher in a new stage of China-Africa cooperation in the next three years and beyond, as part of the efforts to build a community with a shared future for mankind. Dublin, Jan. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Strategic Analysis of the Indian Western Dedicated Rail Freight Corridor and Its Impact on Indian Logistics, 2017-2041" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. This research service provides company profiles of all key logistics solution providers, cold chain product distributors, cold storage companies, and online retailers for consumer goods in India. It also encompasses market shares of key companies in the industries considered, market drivers and market restraints, and key areas of growth opportunities. Challenges faced by these companies in India are explained in detail along with ideas on mitigating the situation to make these services more efficient and the products more reliable. The roles played by the ministries in India are also explained and the benefits for industry participants in cold chain logistics are included as well. With the construction of the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC), India would explore new opportunities along the corridor to best utilise its capacity and efficiency in the transportation of freight. Indian cold chain logistics will benefit from this due to the demand for fresh produce to be conveniently delivered to end users at their door steps. This would also allow import of goods on a global scale as people start demanding goods all-year round irrespective of domestic seasonal availability, as they can be transported and stored in refrigerated trucks and cold storage warehouses. Consumption of cold stored products is becoming increasingly popular in India, with a large working population seeking convenience in fresh produce that is preserved for longer shelf life. This growing need for cold stored products and off-season products around the year, is beneficial for setting up cold storage facilities in and around the dedicated freight corridors and in-freight trains. Cold chain logistics in India is fragmented and is highly unorganised, allowing international participants in the cold chain market to take charge of the market and have more organised distribution of consumer products. Opening the market for international participants would allow new, innovative logistics technology to be available in India and would enable existing participants in the Indian logistics market to adopt them through intelligent partnerships with the companies entering the market. Freight transportation in India is expected to have a 15% year-on-year increase for the next decade due to the growing demand for imported products for consumption and cold storage products among the urban working population. The existing volumes of cold storage trucks are highly insufficient with the demand being 60,000 reefer trucks and the current capacity at 10,000 reefer trucks. Upgrading freight trains to be cold-storage compatible and utilising trucks to cater to the first- and last-mile requirements would be the ideal for cold chain products to be efficiently delivered to end consumers in pristine condition. Key Topics Covered: 1. Executive Summary Key Findings Introduction to the Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) Introduction to Temperature-controlled Logistics in India Challenges in Temperature-controlled Rail Transportation Key Findings and Future Outlook 2. Research Aims, Objectives, and Scope Research Scope Research Aims and Objective Key Questions this Study will Answer Research Methodology 3. Introduction to the Indian Dedicated Freight Corridor Introduction to the Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) Distinct Roles and Responsibilities-DFCCIL and Indian Railways Planned Dedicated Freight Corridor Network The Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) Construction of the WDFC-Current Status Western Dedicated Freight Corridor-Technical Features Western Dedicated Freight Corridor-Impacts on Commodities Policies Regarding Logistics Hubs Between Delhi and Mumbai Logistics Hubs Along the WDFC and Their Proposed Features Salient Facilities of Logistics Hubs Inland Container Depots and Facilities Along the WDFC 4. Introduction to the Indian Temperature-controlled Transportation (Cold Chain) in Rail and Logistics Market Introduction to Cold Chain in the Rail and Logistics Market in India Market Size for Cold Chain in Rail and Logistics Market in India Cold Storage Capacity in India Cold Chain Utilisation in India Modal Movement of Commodities Across India Ideal Requirements for Temperature-controlled Logistics Challenges in Temperature-controlled Transportation Temperature-controlled Market-Forecast Methodology Forecast of Temperature-controlled Transport Market: 2009-2021 5. Current Challenges of the Indian Cold Chain in Rail and Logistics Market Challenges in Cold Chain in the Rail and Logistics Market-Transportation Challenges in Cold Chain in Rail and Logistics-Entire Value Chain Extent of Challenges in the Indian Cold Chain in the Rail and Logistics Market Cold Chain in the Rail and Logistics Market-Stakeholders' Perception Analysis Key Retail Trends in Indian Cold Chain in the Rail and Logistics Market End Customer Perceptions Towards Frozen Food in India 6. Local Climate and Technologies in Temperature-controlled Transportation Climatic Conditions Across India Major Applications of Temperature Control in India Product Holding Life Vs. Storing Temperature Regulations for Refrigerated Transportation of Vaccines and Other Medicines Technologies in Temperature-controlled Transportation Technologies in Temperature-controlled Storage Technologies in Temperature-controlled Boxes/Packages Regulations on Temperature-controlled Transportation Regarding Food Safety and Hygiene Permission System-Temperature-controlled Transportation and Storage for Food Safety and Hygiene 7. Temperature-controlled Transportation Market Size-Total Market Estimation of Costs on Temperature-controlled Transport-Truck, Rail, and DFC Cost Comparison for Temperature-controlled Transport on Truck and DFC Estimation of Revenue on Temperature-controlled Transport on Western Corridor-All Scenarios 8. Indian Cold Chain Market Company Profiles Profile-PescaFresh Business Model of PescaFresh Profile-Atsuya Technologies Business Model of Atsuya Technologies Profile-RINAC Business Model of RINAC Profile-BigBasket Business Model of BigBasket Profile-Geetee Carriers Pvt. Ltd. Business Model of Geetee Carriers Profile-Transport Corporation of India Business Model of TCI-Cold Chain Profile-Future Supply Chain Solutions Business Model of Future Supply Chain Profile-Kool-ex Business Model of Kool-ex 9. Funding Schemes in Temperature-controlled Railway Transportation Major Government Funding Schemes 10. Estimation of Cost and Environmental (CO2) Impact by DFC Annual Freight Volumes and GHG Emissions-No DFC Scenario Annual Freight Movement Along WDFC With Scenarios of Modal Shift Annual GHG Emissions Along WDFC With Scenarios of Modal Shift Annual Freight Volumes and GHG Emissions in 2041-All Scenarios Cumulative Freight Volumes and GHG Emissions in 2016 to 2041-All Scenarios Estimated Penetration of Cold Chain Operations-All Scenarios Estimation of Specific GHG Emissions-Road, Conventional Rail, and DFC Temperature-controlled Freight Volumes and GHG Emissions-No DFC Scenario Annual Temperature-controlled Freight Movement Along WDFC With Scenarios of Modal Shift Annual Temperature-controlled GHG Emissions Along WDFC With Scenarios of Modal Shift Annual Temperature-controlled Freight Volumes and GHG Emissions in 2041-All Scenarios Cumulative Temperature-controlled Freight Volumes and GHG Emissions in 2016 to 2041-All Scenarios Current Air Quality in Delhi and Mumbai Government Initiatives and Plans to Reduce Air Pollution National Level Strategy to Address Air Pollution Concerns Secondary Impacts of Air Pollution Analysis of the Effect of Improvement in Environment Along the WDFC Current Air Quality Scenario and Projections With DFC in Delhi Modal Shift to Rail and Environmental Improvement Impacts 11. Growth Opportunities and Companies to Action Growth Opportunity 1-Business Models and Partnerships Growth Opportunity 2-Mega Trends Impact and New Capabilities Growth Opportunity 3-Disruptive Applications and New Capabilities Strategic Imperatives for Success and Growth 12. Conclusion The Last Word-3 Big Predictions Legal Disclaimer 13. Appendix Market Engineering Methodology List of Exhibits For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/ll2whk/strategic?w=12 Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 16:51:41|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close LANZHOU, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- A man convicted of killing 11 women was executed Thursday in northwest China's Gansu Province, local authorities said. Gao Chengyong, 53, killed 11 women between May 1988 and February 2002 in Gansu Province and neighboring Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Gao killed the victims after committing a series of robberies and rapes in the city of Baiyin in Gansu and the city of Baotou in Inner Mongolia. Police had been hunting the criminal for 28 years until one of Gao's relatives committed a crime and underwent DNA testing in 2015, which led to his arrest in August 2016. He was sentenced to death by the Intermediate People's Court of Baiyin City on March 30. Gao's death sentence has been reviewed and approved by the Supreme People's Court, the country's top court. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 16:41:39|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close A simulated landing process of Chang'e-4 lunar probe is seen through the monitor at Beijing Aerospace Control Center in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 3, 2019. China's Chang'e-4 probe touched down on the far side of the moon Thursday, becoming the first spacecraft soft-landing on the moon's uncharted side never visible from Earth. The probe, comprising a lander and a rover, landed at the preselected landing area on the far side of the moon at 10:26 a.m. Beijing Time (0226 GMT), the China National Space Administration announced. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang) BEIJING, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- China's Chang'e-4 probe touched down on the far side of the moon Thursday, becoming the first spacecraft to make a soft-landing on the moon's uncharted side that is never visible from earth. The probe, comprised of a lander and a rover, touched down at the preselected landing area at 177.6 degrees east longitude and 45.5 degrees south latitude on the far side of the moon at 10:26 a.m. (Beijing Time), the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced. With the communication assistance of the relay satellite Queqiao (Magpie Bridge) the probe sent back the first-ever close-up photograph of the moon's far side, opening a new chapter in lunar exploration. After the Beijing Aerospace Control Center sent an order at 10:15 a.m., the Chang'e-4 probe, launched on Dec. 8, 2018, began to descend from 15 km above the moon with a variable thrust engine being ignited, according to CNSA. The Chang'e-4's relative velocity to the moon was lowered from 1.7 km per second to close to zero, and the probe's altitude was adjusted at about 6 to 8 km above the lunar surface. At 100 meters up, the probe hovered to identify obstacles and measured the slopes on the surface. After avoiding the obstacles, it selected a relatively flat area and descended vertically and slowly. Then the probe landed in the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin. During the descending process, a camera on the probe took photos of the landing area. "It's an important milestone for China's space exploration," said Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's lunar exploration program. "It is a perfect display of human intelligence," said Jia Yang, deputy chief designer of the Chang'e-4 probe, from the China Academy of Space Technology. After landing, the solar panels and antennas on the probe were unfolded under the control of the space engineers in Beijing through the communication transmission of the relay satellite, which was operating in the halo orbit around the second Lagrangian point of the earth-moon system, about 65,000 km from the moon, where it can see both the earth and the moon's far side. The first close-up photo of the moon's far side, taken by a monitoring camera on the lander at 11:40 a.m., showed the direction the rover would drive on to the lunar surface. The control center in Beijing will choose a proper time to let the rover separate from the lander, according to CNSA. The Chang'e-4 probe, carrying eight payloads including two developed through international cooperation, will conduct low-frequency radio astronomical observation, survey the terrain and landforms, detect the mineral composition and shallow lunar surface structure and measure the neutron radiation and neutral atoms to study the environment on the far side of the moon, according to CNSA. The mission provides the world's scientists more opportunities to explore the universe. Johan Koehler, head of Solar System Science and Space Situational Awareness, Swedish National Space Agency, said the exploration of the far side of the moon was a great achievement by China. "We are very happy to be a part of it." The moon is tidally locked to earth, rotating at the same rate that it orbits the earth. Therefore, only one side of the moon is seen from earth, leaving the far side a mystery before the age of spacecraft. Many lunar orbiters have shown the moon's two sides are very different: the near side is relatively flat, while the far side is thickly dotted with impact craters of different sizes. Scientists believe that the lunar crust on the far side is much thicker than the near side. However, the reality is still a mystery, and only on site exploration will reveal the truth. For astronomers, the far side of the moon is a place of ideal tranquility, as the body of the moon shields against radio interference from the earth. From there, they can study the origins and evolution of stars and galaxies, peering into the dawn of the universe. Chang'e-4's low-frequency radio astronomical observation on the moon's far side will fill many gaps in astronomical observation. The probe also took six live species -- cotton, rapeseed, potato, arabidopsis, fruit fly and yeast -- to the lifeless environment to form a mini biosphere, which is expected to produce the first flower on the moon. Chinese space engineers also plan to measure temperatures on the surface of the moon from day to night to get first-hand data. "Exploring the far side of the moon is one contribution China is making to the world. Although we still don't know what we might find, this exploration might influence several generations," said Shen Zhenrong, a designer of the lunar rover. Wu Weiren said: "Exploring the unknown is human nature. The moon is a mysterious world to us. We have a responsibility to explore and to understand it. Exploration of the moon will also deepen our understanding of the earth and ourselves." Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 16:41:39|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close URUMQI, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- China's far western Xinjiang region on Thursday put into trial operation its second railway mainly specializing in transporting coal to other parts of the country. A freight train loaded with 3,700 tonnes of coal left the Naomaohu station in Yiwu County of Xinjiang for the Hongliuhe station in neighboring Gansu Province. The railway currently has an annual coal transport capacity of 39.5 million tonnes. In the long term, the annual capacity could rise to 150 million tonnes, helping turn Xinjiang's energy resources into economic benefits. With a private investment of 10.9 billion yuan (1.6 billion U.S. dollars), the 435.6-km-long railway was built by a subsidiary of Guanghui Energy Co., Ltd., according to the China Railway Urumqi Group Co., Ltd. Construction started in March 2012 and lasted for six years. The trial operation ended the history of no railway service in the coal-rich regions of Naomaohu and Santanghu in northeast Xinjiang and will help send local energy and agricultural products to other parts of the country, said Shang Jiqiang, president of Xinjiang Guanghui Industry Investment Group Co., Ltd. Xinjiang is rich in coal but before the opening of this railway, its only railway specializing in transporting coal outside of the region has long been unable to meet its demand. In 2009, local authorities proposed to build another two to supplement the artery route. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 16:16:30|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close ROME, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Italy's Uffizi Gallery has appealed to the German government for helping return a still-life painting seized by Nazi troops in 1943, which is now in the possession of a German family. Painted by 18th-century Dutch artist Jan van Huysum, the artwork, Vase of Flowers, was first displayed in Florence in 1824 and was stolen along with other paintings by German army in 1943 as they retreated north. According to a statement released on the gallery's website, intermediaries for the unidentified German family have demanded payment for the return of the painting, which was refused by the gallery. "Because of this issue ... the wounds of the Second World War and Nazi terror are not yet healed," Eike Schmidt, chief of the Uffizi Gallery, said in the statement, adding that for Germany "there is still a moral duty to return this work to our museum." A black and white reproduction of the painting is now symbolically exhibited in the gallery with the word of "stolen" in Italian, English and German. "We will be happy to remove this photographic memory, when the original one is returned to the Uffizi," said Schmidt. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 16:11:29|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close Workers are seen in the rolling stock center of Chinese locomotives manufacturer CRRC in Batu Gajah, Perak, Malaysia, Jan. 3, 2019. Malaysia welcomes Chinese companies to bring in expertise and investment as the Southeast Asian country seeks to become a regional railway manufacturing hub, Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook said here Thursday. Speaking during a site visit to the rolling stock center of Chinese locomotives manufacturer CRRC in Malaysia, Loke said he hoped the close cooperation between the two countries would help Malaysia realize this aim. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei) BATU GAJAH, Malaysia, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia welcomes Chinese companies to bring in expertise and investment as the Southeast Asian country seeks to become a regional railway manufacturing hub, Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook said here Thursday. Speaking during a site visit to the rolling stock center of Chinese locomotives manufacturer CRRC in Malaysia, Loke said he hoped the close cooperation between the two countries would help Malaysia realize this aim. "We will continue our strong cooperation with China especially on transport related issues and industries," he told a press conference. "And railway is one of the major industries that we can see strong collaboration between Malaysia and China." He said he had invited CRRC to make further investment in Malaysia, to increase the capacity of the rolling stock center and to make it as the hub for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region. China could help Malaysia in cultivating local human resources to boost the railway industry, he said. "We understand to build up an industry we need human resources, we need local talents which of course we know that we are lacking in this industry," he said. "That is why we hope there will be foreign investment from China, they have the expertise, they have the talents that can bring in with the technology and hopefully they can train our local talent, or local human resources along the way." Becoming fully operational in 2015, CRRC rolling stock center has the capacity to manufacture up to 200 carriages a year while providing major overhaul for 150 carriages. It is CRRC's first and only manufacturing facility in Southeast Asia. Fu Chengjun, president of CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotives that oversees the Malaysian operations, said CRRC has embarked on localization in manufacturing, employment, procurement, service and marketing in Malaysia, with more than 85 percent of its staff in Malaysia are locals. Also present on the visit to the plant was Chinese Ambassador to Malaysia Bai Tian who said the future of China-Malaysian cooperation is "great potential and bright prospects." "CRRC is only one of the examples of cooperation with Malaysia. There are many cases, many successful stories here and so far China has invested in about 400 projects, creating about 68,000 jobs in Malaysia," Bai said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 15:46:21|Editor: Liu Video Player Close HOHHOT, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Three suspects were returned to China as part of the Fox Hunt campaign against economic fugitives, police in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region said on Thursday. The Fox Hunt campaign targets economic crime suspects who have fled overseas. According to the police in the city of Ordos, the three suspects committed fraud and scammed more than 300 million yuan (43.6 million U.S. dollars) from the public by crowdfunding and promising high returns. The head of the ring surnamed Wang fled abroad after they failed to pay back the high returns to those who invest with them. The other two suspects fled overseas soon after. Police investigation showed that Wang has very complicated social connections and used several identities. The three were seized after six months of investigation, local police said. No further detail of the case was disclosed, and the case is still under investigation. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 15:41:19|Editor: Liu Video Player Close NANJING, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- A court in east China's Jiangsu Province has sentenced a man in charge of a downloading website to three years in prison for copyright infringement. The sentence was given by the Intermediate People's Court of the city of Huaian, which also fined the operator 800,000 yuan (116,000 U.S. dollars) for his violations. In 2016, the man surnamed Yuan was found providing download services for films and television programs without permission of copyright holders on the website BTtiantang, and earning money from advertisements. It said that the site, providing more than 10,000 download links, attracted more than 3 million page views every day. Yuan illegally gained more than 1.4 million yuan from May 2015 to July 2016 from advertisements on the website. Yuan was arrested by the police for copyright infringement and illegal profits in September 2016. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 15:36:18|Editor: WX Video Player Close ISLAMABAD, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- A thick blanket of fog paralyzed routine life in parts of Pakistan's eastern Punjab province on Thursday, as near zero visibility made authorities to close several highways, local reports said. Road accidents were also reported in parts of the province, but no casualty was noted, ARY News said. Meanwhile, motorway police noted the public to avoid unnecessary traveling and drivers of commercial vehicles were told to use fog lights during rough weather conditions to avoid accidents. Local meteorological office said cold and foggy weather is expected in Punjab Thursday night and Friday morning. However, rain and thunderstorm are likely to hit scattered places later Friday, which is expected to help subside the dense fog. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 15:16:15|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close Bangladesh Parliament Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury administers oath to newly elected members of parliament at an oath-taking ceremony in Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, Jan. 3, 2019. The newly elected members of Bangladesh's parliament have taken the oath of office amid an opposition boycott following the Dec. 30 parliamentary election. (Xinhua) DHAKA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- The newly elected members of Bangladesh's parliament have taken the oath of office amid an opposition boycott following the Dec. 30 parliamentary election. Bangladesh's Parliament Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury swore in the lawmakers including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a ceremony in capital Dhaka on Thursday. The MPs from ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led major opposition alliance skipped the oath-taking ceremony. According to the Election Commission Gazette, Awami League (AL) led by Hasina won 259 out of 299 seats, more than enough for her party to form a straight third five-year term government since January 2009 after ruling the country in 1996-2001. Khaleda Zia's major opposition party BNP which suffered the most lopsided loss in its political history since 1978 won 5 seats. BNP was ruling party in Bangladesh for two terms -- 1991-1996 and 2001-2006 -- since the country's return to democracy in 1991. AL's key ally in the elections Jatiya Party won 20 seats while BNP's ally Gono Forum managed only two seats. BNP rejected the election results, alleging various irregularities. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 14:10:58|Editor: WX Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that the partial government shutdown could continue for days or even weeks due to continued discrepancy between the Congress and the president. "I don't think any particular progress was made today, but we talked about all aspects of it. It was a civil discussion," McConnell told reporters after a White House meeting with President Donald Trump and other congressional leaders. Homeland Security Department officials also joined the meeting, or the "briefing" on border security, the first time the president sat down with top congressional leaders of both parties since the start of the shutdown, which has stretched into its 12th day. "We're hopeful that somehow in the coming days and weeks we'll be able to reach an agreement," McConnell said. The House Democrats plan on moving forward with spending bills to reopen the government Thursday, when they take control of the lower chamber. That includes measures to keep the Homeland Security Department funded at the current level until Feb. 8, and to fund the eight other cabinet departments affected by the shutdown through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said he challenged the president to give one reason why he would continue the shutdown. "He could not give a good answer," he told reporters after the meeting. "So we would hope that they would reconsider and would support the very bills that pass the Senate, open up the government as we continue to debate what is the best way to secure our border," Schumer said. Trump, meanwhile, showed no willingness to back down from his original demand. When asked by a reporter at a cabinet meeting Wednesday morning whether he would accept a bill containing border wall funding below 5 billion U.S. dollars, the president said "I'd rather not say it." "The 5 billion dollars approved by the House is such a small amount compared to the level of the problem," he said, referring to the 5.7 billion dollars for border wall funding approved by the Republican-controlled House on Dec. 20. The bill failed to garner enough votes from the Senate on the following day, leading to the partial government shutdown. Trump had also rejected an earlier offer by Vice President Mike Pence to accept 2.5 billion dollars for the wall, which was made when Pence and other top officials met with Schumer at the start of the shutdown. The shutdown, which affected a quarter of the federal government, has forced about 420,000 federal employees, who are deemed essential, to work without pay, while 380,000 others are expected to take unpaid leave. CLEARWATER, Fla., Jan. 02, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As 2018 drew to a close, volunteers for the local Foundation for a Drug-Free World, an organization supported by the Church of Scientology, helped 525 youth in December alone sign the Drug-Free Pledge. The youth committed to, ..lead the way by: Living a drug-free life. Showing my friends that a drug-free life is more fun. Learning more about how drugs really harm people. Telling people the truth about the harmful effects of drugs. Helping my family and friends be drug-free. Working with others to help spread the truth about drugs so together we create a drug-free world. Julieta Santagostino, President of the Foundation for a Drug-Free World Florida Chapter, said, Children whose parents talk to them about drugs are 42% less likely to use drugs. She went on to say, So it is very important to educate the parents as well, so they can educate their kids. The Foundation for a Drug-Free World provides free drug education materials, including The Truth About Drugs documentary DVD and 14 different informational booklets on the most commonly abused drugs - such as marijuana, alcohol, painkillers and heroin. In his book, How to Raise a Drug-Free Kid, Joseph Califano - Founder and Chair of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse notes that, Nearly every child will be offered drugs or alcohol before graduating high school. The good news is that a child who gets to age twenty-one without smoking, using illegal drugs, or abusing alcohol is virtually certain never to do so. Any parent or child who would like more information or to receive free copies of the informational booklets and the Truth About Drugs documentary DVD can visit the Foundation for a Drug-Free World information center at 41 N. Fort Harrison Ave, Clearwater, FL 33755 or by contacting the Foundation at 727-467-6962 or email, info.fl@drugfreeworld.org Foundation for a Drug-Free World The Foundation for a Drug-Free World is a non-profit organization that educates youth and the community on the truth about illicit drugs so they can make the right decision live drug-free. The Church of Scientology is a sponsor of the program making it possible for the Foundation to provide educational materials at no cost to educators, law enforcement and the community. L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology said, Drugs rob life of the sensations and joys which are the only reasons for living anyhow. For more information contact Julieta Santagostino at 727-475-6541 or email info.fl@drugfreeworld.org A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f502360f-8b4e-40d7-b885-4f39a75862c7 Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 14:00:54|Editor: WX Video Player Close MOSCOW, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Russia's manned spacecraft will perform record-long missions to the International Space Station (ISS), lasting for seven months, Sputnik news agency reported Thursday. "Soyuz MS-12 is to be launched on March 1 and is to land on Oct. 3 with the mission duration of 216 days. Soyuz MS-13 is launched on July 6 and lands on Feb. 6, 2020, with the mission duration of 215 days," a source in the aerospace industry was quoted by Sputnik as saying. The Soyuz spacecraft usually stay docked to the ISS for around 200 days. Russia's Soyuz models are currently the only spacecraft for spaceflights between the ISS and the Earth. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 13:55:53|Editor: WX Video Player Close PUL-E-KHUMRI, Afghanistan, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- At least eight Afghan police personnel were killed and two others wounded after Taliban militants attacked a security checkpoint in northern Baghlan province overnight, a local official said Thursday. "The clashes which claimed the lives of eight police and injured two others occurred after several hundred militants stormed the checkpoint named Safar-ba-Khair with guns and rocket propelled grenades along Baghlan-Samangan main road," Safdar Mohseni, an official of the provincial council, told Xinhua. Several militants were also killed and wounded during the gun battle, but their number could not be exactly specified as the militants evacuated their casualties after the fighting. The militants also overran the security post and took all weapons and ammunition, he said. The province, 160 km north of Kabul, has been the scene of heavy clashes between security forces and Taliban militants for long. Fighting has escalated in Afghanistan as the Taliban insurgency spreads from its traditional strongholds in the south and east to the once peaceful region in the north, where Taliban have been recruiting from among the youth. The Afghan security forces' casualties have risen since the beginning of 2015 when Afghan soldiers and police assumed full responsibilities of security from the U.S. and NATO troops. On Tuesday night, five army soldiers were killed and six others wounded after a Taliban tunnel bomb struck an army base in southern Kandahar province. Black-necked cranes fly over the natural reserve for black-necked crane in Lhunzhub County, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, Jan. 1, 2019. Black-necked cranes are often seen in Tibet's river valleys and the region's barley and wheat fields in winter. With an estimated population of around 10,200, the species is classified as "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Tibet is home to about 80 percent of the world's total population of the bird. Thanks to efforts made by locals and authorities, these exhausted birds, after flying for over 1,000 km, don't have to face hunger, pesticide, or poachers. Instead, they can now easily find pollutant-free highland barley and wheat left by farmers. (Xinhua/Zhang Rufeng) XINHUA PHOTOS OF THE DAY A craftsman makes a copper horse at a factory of Tongshifu in Jiande City, east China's Zhejiang Province, Jan. 2, 2019. A traditional sanitary ware production company, Tong Shifu, meaning Copper Master, has converted itself into an enterprise that designs and makes copper artworks in collaboration with museum, cartoon firm and artist's studio. (Xinhua/Weng Xinyang) XINHUA PHOTOS OF THE DAY A gathering to commemorate the 40th anniversary of issuing Message to Compatriots in Taiwan is held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 2, 2019. (Xinhua/Shen Hong) XINHUA PHOTOS OF THE DAY A woman takes photos of snowman sculptures on the riverbank of Songhua River in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Jan. 2, 2019. Altogether 2,019 cute snowmen were displayed here to greet the year 2019. (Xinhua/Wang Song) XINHUA PHOTOS OF THE DAY People visit the Chuixiang Pavilion in Hunan University at the foot of Yuelu Mountain in Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan Province, Jan. 2, 2019. The Yuelu Mountain has attracted more tourists after a snowfall recently. (Xinhua/Li Ga) XINHUA PHOTOS OF THE DAY People fish on the ice at the Heiwa village reservoir in Qianxi County, Tangshan City of north China's Hebei Province, on Jan. 2, 2019. The "ice-fishing" has been great fun for local residents here. (Xinhua/Wang Aijun) XINHUA PHOTOS OF THE DAY A water bird flies above the Yellow River in Lanzhou, capital of northwest China's Gansu Province, Jan. 2, 2019. An increasing number of water birds are flying here to live through winter as ecological envrionment keeps improving at the upper reaches of the Yellow River. (Xinhua/Fan Peishen) XINHUA PHOTOS OF THE DAY Aerial photo taken on Jan. 1, 2019 shows the Xingyan part of the Beijing-Chongli Expressway in Beijing, capital of China. The 42-km highway starting from Beijing's northwestern Sixth Ring Road to the outlying district of Yanqing was open to traffic on Tuesday. The Beijing-Chongli highway, which runs through the mountains in northern Beijing to Chongli, a ski event venue for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, will be an important part of the Olympic Games infrastructure. (Xinhua/Xing Guangli) XINHUA PHOTOS OF THE DAY Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 13:50:52|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close A simulated landing process of Chang'e-4 lunar probe is seen through the monitor at Beijing Aerospace Control Center in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 3, 2019. China's Chang'e-4 probe touched down on the far side of the moon Thursday, becoming the first spacecraft soft-landing on the moon's uncharted side never visible from Earth. The probe, comprising a lander and a rover, landed at the preselected landing area on the far side of the moon at 10:26 a.m. Beijing Time (0226 GMT), the China National Space Administration announced. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang) BEIJING, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- China's Chang'e-4 probe touched down on the far side of the moon Thursday, becoming the first spacecraft soft-landing on the moon's uncharted side that is never visible from Earth. The probe comprised of a lander and a rover, touched down at the preselected landing area at 177.6 degrees east longitude and 45.5 degrees south latitude on the far side of the moon at 10:26 a.m. (Beijing Time), the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced. With the communication assistance of the relay satellite Queqiao, meaning Magpie Bridge, the probe sent back the first-ever close-up photograph of the moon's far side, opening a new chapter in lunar exploration. After the Beijing Aerospace Control Center sent an order at 10:15 a.m., the Chang'e-4 probe, launched on Dec. 8, 2018, began to descend from 15 km above the moon with a variable thrust engine being ignited, said CNSA. The Chang'e-4's relative velocity to the moon was lowered from 1.7 km per second to close to zero, and the probe's attitude was adjusted at about 6 to 8 km above the lunar surface. At 100 meters up, the probe hovered to identify obstacles and measured the slopes on the surface. After avoiding the obstacles, it selected a relatively flat area and descended vertically and slowly. Then the probe landed in the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin. During the descending process, a camera on the probe took photos of the landing area. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 12:15:36|Editor: ZX Video Player Close A simulated landing process of Chang'e-4 lunar probe is seen through the monitor at Beijing Aerospace Control Center in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 3, 2019. China's Chang'e-4 probe touched down on the far side of the moon Thursday, becoming the first spacecraft soft-landing on the moon's uncharted side never visible from Earth. The probe, comprising a lander and a rover, landed at the preselected landing area on the far side of the moon at 10:26 a.m. Beijing Time (0226 GMT), the China National Space Administration announced. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang) BEIJING, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- China's Chang'e-4 probe touched down on the far side of the moon Thursday, becoming the first spacecraft soft-landing on the moon's uncharted side never visible from Earth. The probe, comprising a lander and a rover, landed at the preselected landing area on the far side of the moon at 10:26 a.m. Beijing Time, the China National Space Administration announced. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 12:05:33|Editor: ZX Video Player Close BEIJING, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing has ventured beyond ride-sharing and into financial services as the company is trying to diversify its businesses. The firm's financial products available on its app cover mutual protection and crowdfunding for critical illnesses, credit and lending, wealth management and auto-financing, DiDi said in a statement Wednesday. DiDi started exploring the financial services market in early 2018. Prior to the nationwide launch, the in-app services were piloted in 10 cities including southwestern Chinese city Chongqing and central Chinese city Zhengzhou. The insurance and lending products mainly target gig economy workers, and are built on its credit mechanism and data-based risk control architecture, DiDi said. The company now serves about 550 million users and has offered flexible work to over 31 million drivers. As a ride-sharing giant, the company has also branched into services like car maintenance and food delivery. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 11:10:27|Editor: WX Video Player Close VIENTIANE, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Flood victims in southern Laos' Attapeu Province are calling for urgent provision of housing, local daily Vientiane Times reported on Thursday. Attapeu provincial authorities have urged contractors to speed up the construction of temporary housing in Sanamxay district, some 560 km southeast of Lao capital Vientiane, for completion in this January. According to initial plans, construction of temporary houses for victims of the flood caused by the collapse of a dam at the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy hydropower plant was to be completed in last November but construction is still ongoing. During a recent inspection of the construction project, Governor of Attapeu province Let Xayaphone stressed that companies must speed up the erection of temporary housing in Donbok, Pindong and Tamoyoth villages, which is expected to be finished in January. Construction of 178 temporary houses in Donbok village is underway and 62 have now been completed with 125 families (523 people) having relocated there from Thasaengchanh village, 89 families have moved from Samong village to 15 completed temporary houses in Pindong out of a total of 90 under construction, another 176 families have moved from Hinlath village to 103 completed temporary houses in Tamoyoth village out of 196 under construction. Provincial authorities have assigned 40 soldiers to help contractors expedite the construction of the temporary housing, said the report. Temporary housing for flood victims is being built in Dongbak, Hadyao, Donbok, Pindong and Tamoyoth villages in Sanamxay district. In the future, permanent dwellings, as well as essential infrastructure, will be built in Dongbak, Donbok, Tamoyoth and Pindong villages. Altogether, there are 13 villages affected by the flood and a total of 13,067 people in these villages were affected. More than 7,000 displaced people have been accommodated at five temporary centers in Sanamxay district while others have gone to stay with relatives in Attapeu and other provinces. Governor of Sanamxay district Bounhom Phommasane told Vientiane Times on Wednesday that the death toll from the flood stood at 42 while some 23 people are still missing. An under-construction saddle dam of the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy hydropower project, collapsed on July 23 last yar, unleashing a large amount of water into 13 villages of Sanamxay district, leaving dozens killed and missing. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 11:10:27|Editor: ZX Video Player Close HAVANA, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Cuba maintained its record low infant mortality rate in 2018, local media reported Wednesday. The infant mortality rate was again 4 per 1,000 live births, Roberto Alvarez, head of the obstetrics and pediatrics department of the Health Ministry told the official daily Granma. In fact, in the Caribbean island state, the incidence of death among newborns dropped slightly from 4.044 deaths per 1,000 in 2017 to 3.963 in 2018. According to the preliminary data, there were 116,320 births last year, 1,349 more than the year before, a rise hailed by officials as Cuba's population is aging and birth rates are as low as in many developed countries. The overall improvement in healthy births came as a result of Cuba's Family Doctor and Nurse program as well as a national program to diagnose, manage and prevent congenital defects and genetic diseases, said Alvarez. The mortality rate due to congenital defects has fallen below one per 1,000 live births for the past six years, being at just 0.8 at the end of December. In Cuba, newborns can get free monthly medical checkups in the first year, and are also examined by the geneticist and vaccinated against 12 preventable diseases. Each pregnant woman receives an average of 17 medical checkups and nearly all of them give birth in hospital or at birth center. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 10:30:21|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close TIANJIN, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- From buying to renting, an ever-growing number of Chinese young people have switched their pursuits for their dwellings, spurring China's long-term rental apartment market. This new style of renting is normally owned or leased by real estate companies, offering various sizes of apartments with unified furniture and necessary appliances. Su Zifang, a 32-year-old professional speaker from north China's Shanxi Province, now lives in a Link Apartment, a long-term rental apartment brand of Tianjin Housing Group in northern Tianjin Municipality. Frustrated by moving six times within eight years due to the old facilities in traditional rental apartments, Su now pays 2,700 yuan (about 392 U.S. dollars) a month to rent an over 50-square-meter apartment. "Thanks to free Wi-Fi, necessary household appliances and a weekly cleaning service, I can save about 10,000 yuan a year, in favor of my career development," Su said, adding that a 24-hour service is also available to handle any problems which may arise. The long-term rental apartment has gained popularity among locals in Tianjin. Liu Qianli, a local native, rented a single room on the 20th floor in a Link Apartment because of the close distance to her workplace. "It meets the needs of many graduates and white-collars, who prefer independent living spaces after a long day at work," said Liu, who is satisfied with her current living conditions. With a total 228 apartments ranging from 35 to 114 square meters, Link Apartment saw its occupancy rate stand above 90 percent since its opening in September 2017, according to its deputy general manager Yin Wenkai. Tan Hongbo, 25, said it's hard to know the quality of houses and apartments in the traditional rental market. "It is definitely not an easy task to find a satisfying apartment." With the online-to-offline model, people can access information published on the Internet or an app on their smartphones to rent a suitable apartment. Xu Man decided not to buy houses either after she graduated from Nanjing University in east China's Jiangsu Province. Xu now lives in Unests International Youth Community in Shanghai, where she met her boyfriend, Samuel. They cook together, meet friends together, read books online in the public areas, and participate in various activities organized by the community. "Many Chinese people believe owning a house has a sense of belonging, but I think that sense of belonging lies in the quality of life and social relations, where friends, lovers, and family members make a home. I don't want to sacrifice my living quality to buy a house," said Xu. Since the Chinese government has reiterated on many occasions that "housing is for living, not speculation," many real estate companies in the country have taken actions. "Long-term rental apartments are just one of our major business projects," said Mao Wenbin, general manager of Longfor Group Holdings Limited's Guangzhou branch. Guanyu, Longfor's long-term leasing apartment brand, had 10 projects in seven cities by the end of July 2017, said Han Shi, vice president of Longfor and CEO of Guanyu. China Vanke, one of the country's top property developers, offered 12,000-18,000 apartments for long-term leasing as of July in 2017. With more favorable policies in sight, the long-term rental apartment market boasts huge potential. As of March 2018, there have been more than 1,200 long-term rental apartment projects in China, with a total of over 2 million apartments, according to 58 Anjuke Institute. Nearly 300 million Chinese people are expected to rent houses by 2030, creating a market value of 4.6 trillion yuan, according to a report by Guanghua School of Management with Peking University. Experts believe the development of long-term leasing apartments in China is transforming the deep-rooted concept of buying a lifelong house. Liu Weimin, a researcher with the Development Research Center of the State Council, said the increasing amount of migratory population generates a large rental group. "As more and more people move from small and medium-sized cities to large cities during the process of urbanization, China's overall leasing market still has potential for development." Liu said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 10:10:18|Editor: WX Video Player Close BRASILIA, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo and visiting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday agreed to broaden bilateral relations based on "shared values." Pompeo, who was in Brasilia to attend the inauguration of President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday, met with Araujo for half an hour at the ministry's headquarters. At a joint press conference following their talk, both stressed the potential to step up collaboration under the leadership of Bolsonaro. "We want to build a much more intense partnership between Brazil and the United States," said Araujo, adding "we have several concrete ideas for broadening this relationship." Pompeo agreed the two nations were on the verge of a "new stage" in bilateral ties due to the similarities in thinking between Trump and Bolsonaro. This should lead to "great opportunities" in several fields, "and also in the area of security," said the U.S. envoy. TORONTO, Jan. 02, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Partners Real Estate Investment Trust (the REIT or Partners) (TSX: PAR.UN) announces it has entered into an agreement for the sale of its 11 Quebec retail properties (the Quebec Sale Transaction). The Quebec Sale Transaction is subject to completion of satisfactory due diligence by the purchaser, satisfaction of any applicable Competition Act (Canada) requirements and certain customary closing conditions. Subject to satisfaction or waiver of all conditions, the Quebec Sale Transaction is expected to close early in the second quarter of 2019. If completed, the Quebec Sale Transaction is currently expected to result in net cash proceeds to the REIT, after payment of related mortgages and transaction expenses, of approximately $65 million. In September 2018, the REIT retained BMO Capital Markets Real Estate Inc. (BMO Capital Markets) to explore the possible sale of some or all of the REITs retail properties in Quebec. After considering a variety of factors, including among others, general industry, retailer and economic conditions in the markets in which the REIT operates and the anticipated effect of those conditions on the value of the REITs properties, and after receiving financial and legal advice, the board of trustees of the REIT (the Board) determined that pursuing the Quebec Sale Transaction is in the best interests of the REIT. The carrying value of the Quebec retail properties on the REITs September 30, 2018 interim financial statements was approximately $194 million. Current negative market conditions in Quebec, including recent increases in the supply of retail properties on the market and reduced demand for these properties, have resulted in the selling price under the Quebec Sale Transaction being lower than such September 30, 2018 carrying value. In the event that the Quebec Sale Transaction is completed, the REIT will then own 11 retail properties in Ontario and one in Manitoba, aggregating approximately 623,000 square feet of leasable space. As the REIT previously disclosed, in those circumstances the Board expects it would likely consider a possible sale of either the REIT itself or such remaining 12 properties. The carrying value of these 12 properties on the REITs September 30, 2018 interim financial statements was approximately $120 million. However, the REIT believes that the realizable value of these properties would currently be lower as a result of negative market conditions in Ontario, including recent increases in the supply of retail properties on the market and reduced demand for these properties, which are generally resulting in higher capitalization rates and lower values particularly for retail properties in secondary markets such as those owned in Ontario by the REIT. Partners will update the carrying value of its properties in the ordinary course when it releases its audited financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2018. In the event that the Quebec Sale Transaction is completed, the Board expects to consider the payment of a special cash distribution to all unitholders of a portion of the net cash proceeds from the sale of the Quebec properties. The Board will determine the amount of that special cash distribution in due course based upon, among other things, the ongoing cash requirements of the REIT. In the event that the Quebec Sale Transaction is completed, the Board also expects it will review the appropriateness of Partners current normal monthly distribution of $0.015 per unit ($0.18 per unit annually), including whether such distribution should be reduced or discontinued in light of the smaller size of the remaining portfolio and other relevant factors. About Partners REIT Partners REIT is a real estate investment trust that manages a portfolio of retail and mixed-use community and neighbourhood shopping centres located in both primary and secondary markets located mainly in Ontario and Quebec, Canada. Disclaimer Certain statements included in this press release constitute forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, those identified by the expressions expect, will and similar expressions to the extent they relate to Partners REIT. The forward-looking statements are not historical facts but reflect Partners REITs current expectations regarding future results or events. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations, including the inability of the REIT to complete the Quebec Sale Transaction, including as a result of failure to receive all required approvals and the ability of the parties to satisfy, in a timely manner, the other conditions to the closing of the Quebec Sale Transaction. The anticipated dates provided may change for a number of reasons, including the inability to secure necessary third party approvals in the time assumed or the need for additional time to satisfy the other conditions to the completion of the Quebec Sale Transaction. Although the REIT believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and, accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Partners REIT Investor Relations 1 (844) 474-9620 ext. 401 investor.relations@partnersreit.com Jane Domenico Chief Executive Officer (416) 855-3313 ext. 401 Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 10:10:17|Editor: WX Video Player Close MEXICO CITY, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday urged the nation's unemployed youth to join the soon-to -be-created National Guard. Anyone over 18 will be eligible to apply to join the National Guard, which Lopez Obrador has proposed as a means to combat rampant crime and also curb unemployment. The proposal still needs to be approved by Congress. "Over a period of three to four years we need to recruit about 50,000 new people for public security," said the president. Lopez Obrador's national anti-crime plan calls for, among other things, a 50,000-strong National Guard composed of federal police officers, army and navy troops as well as newly enlisted youth. The president hopes the National Guard will help lay the foundations for a new national police force. Members will receive a "decent salary," social security, comprehensive medical coverage for themselves and their families, lodging and uniforms, along with training, he said. Crime in Mexico spiked since ex-president Felipe Calderon declared war on organized crime by sending the military into the streets. Militarizing the war on drugs has come under fire, especially since the decision failed to pacify the country. But many agree that simply calling off the military, without replacing it with another effective security force, carries risks of its own. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 10:05:16|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- The following is a selection of the latest posts on social media. U.S. President Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump on Twitter) "Kim Jong Un says North Korea will not make or test nuclear weapons, or give them to others - & he is ready to meet President Trump anytime." PBS News Hour. I also look forward to meeting with Chairman Kim who realizes so well that North Korea possesses great economic potential! - - - - U.S. President Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump on Twitter) Mexico is paying for the Wall through the new USMCA Trade Deal. Much of the Wall has already been fully renovated or built. We have done a lot of work. $5.6 Billion Dollars that House has approved is very little in comparison to the benefits of National Security. Quick payback! - - - - President of the European Commission (@JunckerEU on Twitter) My sincere condolences to the families & friends of the victims and the Danish people. Lives were sadly cut short when people travelled back from the festive season. I commend the rescue services for their work & wish for a speedy recovery of the injured passengers. @larsloekke Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 10:05:15|Editor: WX Video Player Close LOS ANGELES, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Scientists from NASA's New Horizons mission on Wednesday released the first detailed images of the most distant object ever explored - the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule, unveiling the very first stages of solar system's history. New Horizons performed the farthest flyby in history at 12:33 a.m. EST (0533 GMT) on New Year's Day, as it approached Ultima Thule within 2,200 miles (about 3,540 km) of the surface at a velocity of 31,500 miles (about 50,694 km) per hour. The new images -- taken from as close as 17,000 miles (about 27,000 km) on approach -- revealed Ultima Thule as a "contact binary," consisting of two connected spheres, said NASA. End to end, the world measures 19 miles (about 31 km) in length. The team has dubbed the larger sphere "Ultima" (12 miles/19 km across) and the smaller sphere "Thule" (9 miles/14 km across). Ultima and Thule were once separate, free-flying objects. They coalesced long ago, just after the solar system's birth, according to the mission team. This union was not violent. The two bodies came together at about walking speed, in a meetup more akin to a spacecraft docking than to a collision, said Jeff Moore, leader of New Horizons' geology and geophysics team. The two spheres likely joined as early as 99 percent of the way back to the formation of the solar system, said the team. The appearance of Ultima Thule, unlike anything human have seen before, illuminated the processes that built the planets four and a half billion years ago, said NASA. "New Horizons is like a time machine, taking us back to the birth of the solar system. We are seeing a physical representation of the beginning of planetary formation, frozen in time," Moore said. "Studying Ultima Thule is helping us understand how planets form, both those in our own solar system and those orbiting other stars in our galaxy," he said. Data from the New Year's Day flyby will continue to arrive over the next weeks and months, with much higher resolution images yet to come, said NASA. "In the coming months, New Horizons will transmit dozens of data sets to Earth, and we'll write new chapters in the story of Ultima Thule - and the solar system," said Helene Winters, New Horizons project manager. Ultima Thule, at 4 billion miles (about 6.4 billion km) from the Sun and 1 billion miles (about 1.6 billion km) from Pluto, will be the most distant object ever directly explored, according to NASA. The flyby of Ultima Thule was the first-ever exploration of small Kuiper Belt Objects, a disc-shaped region beyond Neptune that extends from about 30 to 55 astronomical units. "This flyby is a historic achievement," said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "Never before has any spacecraft team tracked down such a small body at such high speed so far away in the abyss of space. New Horizons has set a new bar for state-of-the-art spacecraft navigation," he said. The New Horizons mission, launched in January 2006, aims to understand worlds at the edge of our solar system by making the first reconnaissance of the dwarf planet Pluto, and by venturing deeper into the distant, mysterious Kuiper Belt -- a relic of solar system formation. The Ultima Thule encounter, the most-distant planetary flyby in history, is the centerpiece of New Horizons' extended mission, which runs through 2021. Stern said the spacecraft has enough power and fuel left to potentially perform a flyby of yet another distant object, if NASA ends up approving another mission extension. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 09:50:09|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close Chinese President Xi Jinping's special envoy Ji Bingxuan (front R), also vice chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, delivers a signed letter by Xi Jinping to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in Brasilia, Brazil, Jan. 2, 2019. Ji Bingxuan attended the inauguration ceremony of Jair Bolsonaro here Tuesday. (Xinhua/Li Ming) BRASILIA, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's special envoy Ji Bingxuan attended the inauguration ceremony of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro here Tuesday. Ji, also vice chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, met with Bolsonaro on Wednesday. Ji conveyed President Xi's warm congratulations and good wishes to Bolsonaro and delivered him a signed letter by Xi. Ji said friendship between China and Brazil has become a model of relationship between major developing countries and South-South cooperation. China has always developed its relationship with Brazil from a strategic and long-term perspective, Ji said. China is willing to work with the Brazilian side to strengthen all-round exchanges, deepen pragmatic cooperation in various fields and develop closer multilateral coordination, to promote greater development of comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries, said Ji. For his part, Bolsonaro thanked President Xi for sending an envoy to attend his inauguration and asked Ji to convey his warm greetings to President Xi. Bolsonaro said China and Brazil are both great countries and the new government of Brazil attaches great importance to cooperation with China and is willing to push forward bilateral relations. The prospect for cooperation between the two countries will surely become better and better, added Bolsonaro. Ji also met with Brazil's new Vice President Hamilton Mourao and the outgoing Foreign Minister Aloysio Nunes. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 09:30:05|Editor: WX Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the U.S. troops would be withdrawing from Syria "over a period of time," dismissing the previously reported four-month exit plan. "Over a period of time. I never said I'm getting out tomorrow," Trump told reporters at the White House in a cabinet meeting when asked if there is a time table for withdrawal. Trump dismissed a New York Times story reporting earlier that the U.S. military had been given about four months to retreat the 2,000 soldiers from the war-torn country. The Trump administration announced on Dec. 19 that it had started returning U.S. troops home from Syria after claiming a victory in the fight against the Islamic State. U.S. media cited anonymous officials as saying that the United States was planning a "rapid" and "full" withdrawal of troops from Syria. Trump himself last week reversed the tone in a tweet, claiming that his country is "slowly" withdrawing troops from Syria. Currently, there are more than 2,000 U.S. soldiers deployed in Syria. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 08:24:56|Editor: ZX Video Player Close ISLAMABAD, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Pakistani Army said late Wednesday that it has shot down an Indian drone in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir area, marking the second drone brought down in two days. The army spokesman Asif Ghafoor said on Twitter that Pakistan army troops shot down another Indian spy quadcopter in Satwal sector near the Line of Control (LoC), which divides both countries in Kashmir. The Pakistan army said Tuesday that it had shot down an Indian spy quadcopter in Bagh sector. The incidents came at a time when relations between the two neighbors are tense over cross-border firing. The army said Monday that Indian forces killed a woman and injured nine civilians along the LoC during a cross LoC firing. Pakistan and India had declared ceasefire along the LoC in 2003, but both accuse each other of ceasefire violations. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 07:44:52|Editor: ZD Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he has received a "great" letter from the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Un and expected their second meeting to take place in the "not-too-distant future." "I just got a great letter from Kim Jong Un," Trump told reporters at the White House during a Cabinet meeting. "We'll probably now have another meeting ... we'll be setting that up in the not-too-distant future," added Trump, who revealed in early December that his second meeting with Kim was likely to happen in January or February. Trump's words came one day after Pyongyang released a series of positive signals over the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Kim said on Tuesday in his New Year speech the he would push forward the denuclearization and was ready to meet with Trump at any time. Kim also stressed his determination to work to build new relations with Washington on the condition that the United States takes corresponding measures. "We could be left with no choice but to seek a new way if the U.S. does not make good on its promises, misjudges our patience, while seeking to force things unilaterally and clinging to sanctions and pressure," Kim warned. The relations between the DPRK and the United States improved last year. The first-ever summit between Trump and Kim was held in Singapore in June. Meanwhile, differences between the two sides remained over key issues like the scale of denuclearization, U.S. sanctions, and whether to issue a war-ending declaration. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 07:31:54|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close A water bird flies above the Yellow River in Lanzhou, capital of northwest China's Gansu Province, Jan. 2, 2019. With the improvement of environment on the upper reaches of the Yellow River, more water birds come to winter here in Lanzhou. (Xinhua/Fan Peishen) Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 07:24:48|Editor: ZD Video Player Close LOS ANGELES, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Scientists from NASA's New Horizons mission on Wednesday released the first detailed images of the most distant object ever explored - the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule. New Horizons performed the farthest flyby in history at 12:33 a.m. EST (0533 GMT) on New Year's Day, as it approached Ultima Thule within 2,200 miles (about 3,540 km) of the surface at a velocity of 31,500 miles (about 50,694 km) per hour. The new images - taken from as close as 17,000 miles (about 27,000 kilometers) on approach - revealed Ultima Thule as a "contact binary," consisting of two connected spheres, said NASA. End to end, the world measures 19 miles (about 31 kilometers) in length. The team has dubbed the larger sphere "Ultima" (12 miles/19 kilometers across) and the smaller sphere "Thule" (9 miles/14 kilometers across). The two spheres likely joined as early as 99 percent of the way back to the formation of the solar system, colliding no faster than two cars in a fender-bender, said the team. The appearance of Ultima Thule, unlike anything human have seen before, illuminated the processes that built the planets four and a half billion years ago, said NASA. "New Horizons is like a time machine, taking us back to the birth of the solar system. We are seeing a physical representation of the beginning of planetary formation, frozen in time," said Jeff Moore, New Horizons Geology and Geophysics team lead. "Studying Ultima Thule is helping us understand how planets form, both those in our own solar system and those orbiting other stars in our galaxy," he said. Data from the New Year's Day flyby will continue to arrive over the next weeks and months, with much higher resolution images yet to come, said NASA. "In the coming months, New Horizons will transmit dozens of data sets to Earth, and we'll write new chapters in the story of Ultima Thule - and the solar system," said Helene Winters, New Horizons Project Manager. Ultima Thule, at 4 billion miles (about 6.4 billion km) from the Sun and 1 billion miles (about 1.6 billion km) from Pluto, will be the most distant object ever directly explored, according to NASA. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 07:46:37|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close Hu Chunhua, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development, makes an inspection at the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 2, 2018. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 06:54:42|Editor: Yamei Video Player Close CHICAGO, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Researchers from the University of Michigan (UM) Life Sciences Institute have uncovered a cause of declining motor function and increased frailty in tiny aging worms, and identified a molecule that can be targeted to improve motor function. As humans and animals age, their motor functions progressively deteriorate. Millimeter-long roundworms called nematodes exhibit aging patterns remarkably similar to those of other animals, and they only live about three weeks, making them an ideal model system for studying aging. To better understand how the interactions between cells changed as worms aged, the researchers investigated the junctions where motor neurons communicate with muscle tissue. They identified a molecule called SLO-1, namely slowpoke potassium channel family member 1, that acts as a regulator for these communications. The molecule dampens neurons' activity, slowing down the signals from neurons to muscle tissue and reducing motor function. The researchers manipulated SLO-1, first using genetic tools and then using a drug called paxilline. In both cases, they observed two major effects in the roundworms: not only did they maintain better motor function later in life, they also lived longer than normal roundworms. "It's not necessarily ideal to have a longer lifespan without improvements in health or strength," said Shawn Xu, a professor of molecular and integrative physiology at the UM Medical School. "But we found that the interventions improved both parameters-these worms are healthier and they live longer." More surprisingly, the timing of the interventions drastically changed the effects on both motor function and lifespan. When SLO-1 was manipulated early in the worms' life, it had no effect on lifespan and in fact had a detrimental effect on motor function in young worms. But when the activity of SLO-1 was blocked in mid-adulthood, both motor function and lifespan improved. As the SLO-1 channel is preserved across many species, the researchers hope these findings will encourage others to examine its role in aging in other model organisms. In the next step, the researchers hope to determine the importance of the SLO-1 channel in early development in the worms, and to better understand the mechanisms through which it affects lifespan. The findings were published on Wednesday in Science Advances. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 06:49:39|Editor: Yamei Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Last year was a "good year" for the United Nations, with funds for 97 percent of the budget collected from 152 of the 193 member states, the spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday. "It was a good year as far as the member states paying their dues," Farhan Haq, deputy chief spokesman for Guterres, told Xinhua, adding that what was paid amounted to 97 percent of the budget and there was still another month grace period for the 41 member states with dues outstanding to pay up and still be recorded as on time. "We expect them to come through with their amounts," he added. "Last year, 152 out of 193 states paid in full by Dec. 31, 2018," he told reporters at a regular briefing. The amount paid by member states was being applied to the 2018 portion of the nearly 5.4 billion U.S dollar 2018-2019 UN regular two-year budget. "So, we are pleased at the response we got," the spokesman said. "It's a new year and it's a new Honor Roll," Haq said. "Two members have enrolled to date -- Estonia and Malawi -- and we extend gratitude to those two member states for their full payments to the regular budget" in 2019. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 05:49:26|Editor: yan Video Player Close PARIS, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Uruguay international defender Mathias Suarez has joined Montpellier from Defensor Sporting, the French Ligue 1 side said on Wednesday. The 22-year-old will be tied to the club until the end of the 2023 seasons after Defensor accepted a reported one million-euro transfer fee. "For me it's a dream come true to play in Europe," said Suarez, who made 103 appearances for Montevideo-based Defensor Sporting, during his official presentation on Wednesday. Suarez can play as both a right and left sided full-back or in a central defensive role. He has been capped twice for Uruguay's national team, having made his debut in a friendly against Brazil in November. Montpellier are currently fourth in the Ligue 1 standings, 17 points behind leaders Paris Saint-Germain. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 04:44:09|Editor: yan Video Player Close TIRANA, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- A 34-year-old Albanian man, allegedly under the effect of alcohol, knifed his 31-year-old wife and her 18-year-old sister after a brawl in the southern town of Ballsh, Albanian police said on Wednesday. According to local police, the couple Gazment Musta and Gentiana Caushaj quarreled as the latter had asked to go to the parents' family for the holiday. Gazment, who is suspected to be under the effect of alcohol, took the knife and attacked to death his wife and her sister. Local police arrived at the scene and arrested Gazment. The two victims were found without signs of life. Gazment worked as an immigrant in the neighboring country of Greece and was back home to celebrate the New Year holidays. The couple had two minor children, aged 3 and 7 respectively. File Photo: Giant panda Tian Tian enjoys its birthday cake at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington D.C., the United States, on Aug. 27, 2018. (Xinhua/Ting Shen) WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- David Skorton, head of the U.S. Smithsonian Institution, said he remains optimistic about the cultural and people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States in the future. The secretary and chief of the prestigious U.S. cultural and research institution made the remarks in a recent interview with Xinhua at the headquarters of the Smithsonian Institution, which is the world's largest museum, education, and research complex. COOPERATION WITH CHINA The institution's work with China dates back to 1972 when two giant pandas came to the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, DC. But even before that, scientists from the institution's National Zoo and the National Museum of Natural History had begun carrying out scientific research in China. A prominent part of the Smithsonian's cooperation with China lies in the fields of anthropology, archeology and cultural history, Skorton said. "These are areas that we're very strong at, so these are areas that we tend to focus on, because China is such an ancient civilization and affected so much thinking around the world to this day, we think that interacting about those cultural matters is very, very important," he said. "I believe that our partners in China also find it very useful to work with our scientists," he added. "China is a place of great, great interest for us and many partnerships." "What I can tell you is this, our Smithsonian continues to be very active in China," he said. "You'll be very impressed about how many things that we have been doing and are doing right now and there are more things being planned." PANDAS TIES Soon after then U.S. President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, Beijing sent the U.S. National Zoo, which is under the Smithsonian, two pandas as gifts. Currently, the two sides have been working together on the research of panda's landscapes and wildlife interactions, conservation, and comparative medicine and disease susceptibility. Three other zoos in the United States currently have pandas on loan from China, namely in San Diego, Atlanta, and Memphis, but the National Zoo's panda program is the oldest. Skorton was exhilarated about the pandas living in the Zoo. "The pandas are an area of great public interest throughout the United States," he said. "But especially in Washington ... every time something happens, like a panda becomes pregnant or a panda gives birth, it's the biggest news in Washington." "Everybody is very happy. But in addition to the jocular happy aspect of that, the pandas also act as a bridge between our cultures," he added. "Because our veterinarians and scientists are working on an endangered species and we've had relationship for years and years with Chinese counterparts and formed a fabulous scientific collaboration," he said. "That's what makes it work, the people-to-people exchange," he said. CULTURAL BONDS The years after China's reform and opening up of the late 1970s have seen frequent and wide-ranging cooperation between the Smithsonian and its Chinese counterparts. "I have many good friends in China, some are in the higher education community, some in the science community. And I've had the honor of visiting the Chinese Academy of Sciences and many other aspects of the cultural scene in China," he said. "Very admirable work going on and very good advancements throughout the world of knowledge in science, in art and in the humanities," he added. Skorton noted that "we continue to be very interested in working with Chinese colleagues and in doing studies together where we can do partnerships together." "Cultural institutions continue to want to work together. I continue to think about my colleagues and friends in China as colleagues and friends. I believe they feel the same way toward me and toward the Smithsonian Institution," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 02:08:50|Editor: ZX Video Player Close Photo taken on Jan. 2, 2019 shows a press conference held by a group of Sudanese political parties in Khartoum, Sudan. A group of Sudanese political parties on Wednesday reiterated commitment to remain in the government, voicing that adherence to dialogue is means to resolve Sudan's political crisis. The Parties of the Government of National Unity, which brings together 20 parties, including the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), held a press conference in Khartoum. (Xinhua/Mohamed Khidir) KHARTOUM, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- A group of Sudanese political parties on Wednesday reiterated commitment to remain in the government, voicing that adherence to dialogue is means to resolve Sudan's political crisis. The Parties of the Government of National Unity, which brings together 20 parties, including the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), held a press conference in Khartoum. The group criticized the Sudanese National Front for Change (NFC), an alliance bringing together 22 political parties, which on Tuesday decided to withdraw from the government. "The political forces and the peace signatory movements reiterated their adherence to outcomes of the national dialogue and to press ahead with implementing those outcomes," Bahar Idris Abu Garada, chairman of Liberation and Justice Party, said at the press conference. He acknowledged that there is an economic crisis facing the country, but the government is working to address it. Abdel Rahman Al-Khidir, NCP's Political Secretary, said that "we expressed confidence in the government which represents us and works to find the necessary solutions to the issues of our people." He accused the NFC's attempts to incite the Sudanese army to carry out a military coup, saying "it is against the Constitution." The NFC, including the Reform Now Party led by Ghazi Salahuddin and the Umma Party (Reform and Renewal) led by Mubarak Al-Fadilt, on Tuesday announced withdrawal from the government and demanded formation of a new one. Since Dec. 19, 2018, various areas in Sudan, including Khartoum, have been witnessing popular protests over the deteriorating economic conditions and price hikes of basic commodities. According to the government statistics, 19 people have been killed during the popular protests. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 01:48:48|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, delivers a speech at a gathering to commemorate the 40th anniversary of issuing Message to Compatriots in Taiwan, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 2, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Tao) BEIJING, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping's speech Wednesday is of great significance and charts the course for cross-Strait relations in the new era, overseas Chinese said. Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addressed a gathering marking the 40th anniversary of the Chinese mainland's Message to Compatriots in Taiwan. The speech was lauded by overseas Chinese of all circles, who expressed confidence in a peaceful national reunification. Zhu Jianrong, a professor at Toyo Gakuen University in Tokyo, said Xi provided a strategic guidance for the development of cross-Strait relations by proposing that the mainland and Taiwan conduct democratic consultation on cross-Strait relations and the future of the nation, and establish institutional arrangement for peaceful development of cross-Strait relations. Li Zhuohui, editor-in-chief of Harian Xin Bao Indonesia, said Xi's speech carries a message of sincerity and kindness, and provides a most feasible solution that promotes harmony across the Taiwan Strait. Xi's speech was informative, powerful and passionate, with far-reaching influence on the prospects of the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations, said Zhu Liangwei, secretary-general of the UK Chinese Association for the Promotion of National Reunification. Fan Xuan, editor-in-chief of Europe Times based in Hamburg, said Xi's statement that "China must be, will be reunified" was powerful. This is the common desire of all the people of China, including the patriotic compatriots in Taiwan. Chen Shanzhuang, president of the American Chinese Commerce Association (Hong Kong), said he cannot agree more with Xi's speech, adding that the Taiwan question is China's internal affair and allows no external interference. Li Hongwei, honorary chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification (CCPPNR) in Chicago, said Xi called for joint efforts to advance the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations and the peaceful national reunification, which greatly inspired overseas Chinese to keep working unswervingly toward the achievement of a peaceful cross-Strait reunification. Feng Zhenyu, chairman of the CCPPNR in Tanzania, said the major policies Xi mentioned in his speech embody the national fundamental interests and the national core interests, grasp the trend of the times, comply with the historical trend, and will further promote the process of the peaceful reunification of the motherland. Chen Jiannan, chairman of the CCPPNR in Egypt, said overseas Chinese will firmly uphold the great cause of peaceful reunification of the motherland and make contributions to this end. Related: Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 01:43:47|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close BEIJING, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Ministry of Education has asked education authorities at all levels as well as middle and primary schools to establish daily supervision to ensure that mobile device apps used by the schools meet the standards set by the ministry. Some apps contain pornography, violence, online games, commercial advertisements as well as those that violate education rules, the ministry told Xinhua. Negative content can impact the physical and psychological health and education of students. In a notice recently issued by the ministry's general office, content, links, functions and information security of apps should be strictly reviewed and filed to higher education authorities for approval. Schools should avoid using apps to increase the course load for students and educational apps used on campus are not allowed to charge students. Information should be protected and privacy leaks should be prevented. Apps that are not filed for record and approved by education authorities are forbidden to be used by schools, the notice said. It also required regular checking of changes and updates of apps in order to deal with harmful information in a timely manner. Schools and teachers should not release grades and ranks of students through apps, it said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 00:13:25|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close A bullet train runs on the Yangxian section of Xi'an-Chengdu high-speed railway line in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, March 21, 2018. China plans to build 3,200 km of new high-speed railways in 2019, with the total length expected to exceed 30,000 km, Lu Dongfu, general manager of the China Railway (CR), told a work conference Wednesday. (Xinhua/Tang Zhenjiang) BEIJING, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- China plans to build 3,200 km of new high-speed railways in 2019, with the total length expected to exceed 30,000 km, the country's top railway operator said Wednesday. The 3,000-plus km of high-speed railways are part of the planned development of 6,800 km of new railways for the new year as the country will keep fixed-asset investment on railway on a large scale, Lu Dongfu, general manager of the China Railway (CR), told a work conference. The country saw an expanding high-speed railway network over the years, with a total length of 29,000 km by the end of 2018, accounting for more than two-thirds of the total high-speed railway in the world. China aims to build 30,000 km of high-speed railways by 2020. China's railways are expected to transport 3.54 billion passengers and 3.37 billion tonnes of goods this year, the general manager said. By the end of this year, China will see 850 Fuxing high-speed trains put into service while the research and development of Fuxing high-speed trains running at 350 km, 250 km, 200 km and 160 km will be strengthened, according to the CR. China will continue to expand the coverage of high-speed trains in 2019. Though with a developed high-speed railway network, the length and coverage of railways in central and western regions of China is still inadequate. Lu said the CR would facilitate the investigation and research of Sichuan-Tibet railway and try to start construction by the end of the third-quarter of 2019. China will continue to promote the application of digital tickets and explore more flexible pricing mechanisms for high-speed trains, he said. The fixed-asset investment on railways stood at 802.8 billion yuan (about 117 billion U.S. dollars) with more than 4,600 km of new railways launched in 2018. The total revenue of railway transport saw a record rise of 10.9 percent year-on-year last year, reaching 772 billion yuan. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-03 00:08:22|Editor: ZX Video Player Close BERLIN, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- The German interior minister Horst Seehofer on Wednesday has renewed his demands for tightened deportation laws. Seehofer told the German newspaper Bild that asylum seekers who commit violent crimes would have to leave our country. "If the existing laws are not sufficient, they must be changed." In mid-December, Seehofer had already announced that he intends to discuss such a proposal for stricter deportation laws for refugees at the beginning of the year. During Saturday night local time, four asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan and Iran allegedly attacked and injured several people in the German city of Amberg. "The events in Amberg have stirred me up very much. These are violent excesses that we cannot tolerate," Seehofer told Bild on Wednesday. Rainer Wendt, chairman of the German police union (DPolG), also told Bild that the motive of the four perpetrators in Amberg was "deep contempt for our country and for the people who live here". According to the newspaper Muenchner Merkur, the CSU parliamentary group wants foreign perpetrators to be arrested consistently if they have already been sentenced on probation in other member states of the European Union. The CSU demands a Europe-wide registration system, similar to the German federal central register, in which, among other things, court rulings including personal data of culprits are recorded. These demands are to be adopted at a CSU conference in Seeon, Bavaria, on Thursday. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (The News Service of Florida) - A freshman House member Wednesday proposed offering sales-tax exemptions on items that can help seniors live independently in their homes. Rep. Joe Casello, D-Boynton Beach, filed the proposal (HB 159) for consideration during the 2019 legislative session, which starts March 5. Under the measure, items such as handrails, bed rails, grab bars and shower seats would be exempt from sales taxes. Meanwhile, the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee on Monday is slated to take up a bill (SB 60), filed by Sen. Lauren Book, D-Plantation, that would provide a sales-tax exemption for incontinence products. LEON COUNTY, Fla. (WTXL) - The Leon County Sheriff's Office got a special delivery Thursday morning. Dick Schmelz makes clocks for sheriff's deputies in Florida. He said after two deputies were killed in Gilchrist County, he felt like he should do something special, so he made the department a clock. Then he decided all 67 sheriff's offices in Florida should get one. He said he wants to show sheriffs that someone does care. "Because people don't have respect for them, I want to show them respect that people do care," said Schmelz. This is the 31st clock he's delivered so far and now he'll head home to make more. It takes about four days to make each clock and he tries to localize it for the county it's going to. Gadsden and Wakulla will be next to receive their clocks. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - It's been two months since a gunman opened fire at a Tallahassee Yoga Studio and left two peple dead and five injured. Now Hot Yoga Tallahassee is preparing to reopen its doors. WTXL ABC 27's Jada Williams was live Thursday morning with the latest details. Hot Yoga Tallahassee at Betton Place will reopen its doors this weekend. That's the first time since the shooting on November 2. Two classes are scheduled to take place, both led by owner Brittani Whittington. According to the studio's Facebook page, the 10 a.m. class and the 5 p.m. both have a waiting list. The studio hasn't led a class since November 2, when an armed man pretending to be a student began shooting. Five were injured. Maura Binkley, an FSU student, and Dr. Nancy Van Vessem, a faculty member with the College of Medicine, were killed in the shooting. The gunman killed himself inside the studio that day. China News on Women Sorry, the page you requested was not found. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Womenofchina.cn, try visiting the Womenofchina Home page Shen Yueyue (R3), president of the ACWF, Peng Peiyun (R2), Gu Xiulian (L3) and Chen Zhili (R1), all former vice-chairpersons of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and former presidents of the ACWF, Zhang Meiying (L2), former vice-chairperson of CPPCC, and Meng Xiaosi (L1), president of the CWDF, attend the gathering. China Women's Development Foundation (CWDF) organized a special gathering to mark its 30th anniversary and launch the organization's latest charity project on December 27 in Beijing. Shen Yueyue, president of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF), attended the event and delivered a speech. Other attendees included Peng Peiyun, Gu Xiulian and Chen Zhili, all former vice-chairpersons of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and former presidents of the ACWF; Zhang Meiying, former vice-chairperson of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC); and, Huang Xiaowei, vice-president and first member of the Secretariat of the ACWF. ACWF President Shen Yueyue speaks at the gathering. In her speech, Shen said that the Party and the government has attached great importance to public welfare undertaking, and especially since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held in 2012, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as its core has put forward explicit requirements on encouraging and supporting the development of charities and making full use of their active roles in alleviating poverty. In 2016, the Charity Law of the People's Republic of China was promulgated, which legally ensures the development of charities and charity culture, she added. Shen spoke highly of CWDF's work. During the past 30 years, the foundation has played a unique part in improving the environment for women's survival and development, enhancing impoverished women's sense of fulfillment and security and promoting gender equality. It has also made contributions to the promotion of charity culture, modern charitable causes and the building of a harmonious society, Shen continued. According to Shen, President Xi stated in the report to the 19th CPC National Congress that the country will improve the systems for social assistance, social welfare, charity, and benefits and services for entitled groups. It will also improve the system for supporting and caring for so-called "left behind" children, women, and elderly people in rural areas. During his meeting with the new leadership of the ACWF in November 2018, Xi explained that close attention must be paid to vulnerable women including those living in poverty-stricken areas and those who are physically-impaired, and practical efforts must be made to resolve their difficulties. All these remarks have clarified the direction of CWDF's work and the development of women's charity in the new era. Shen urged CWDF to adhere to the Party's leadership and use Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to guide its work. She said the foundation should also focus on serving the country's overall development, serving women and families to promote the progress of women's charity in the new era. CWDF should also promote charity culture and philosophy for better observance of the core socialist values and improve its organization for greater progress of women's charity, Shen commented. During the event, CWDF President Meng Xiaosi gave a keynote speech. On behalf of the organizers, she presented certificates of appreciation to extend gratitude to representatives of enterprises, individuals, institutions and women's federations that have made remarkable contribution to the foundation's development. CWDF has raised a total of 4.6 billion yuan in funds and materials and spent 1 billion yuan in central lottery funding to implement its various projects including Water Cellar for Mothers, Health Express for Mothers and Postal Parcel for Mothers. The Water Cellar for Mothers project has helped offer safe drinking water to 2.7 million people and 450,000 schools in drought-and poverty-stricken areas in central and western China. The Health Express for Mothers project has provided 2,651 medical service vehicles and distributed 346 million yuan worth of medicines, protecting the health and wellbeing of some 72 million women and children in impoverished regions. CWDF has been rated as a national "5As" (top level) foundation and an outstanding social organization, and it has placed first in the China charity index rankings for consecutive years. Six of its projects have won prestigious China Charity Awards. Participants launch the new program that serve families. As part of the event, CWDF launched a program which aims to encourage eco-friendly and healthy families, and to serve families in need. The program will provide support to families in terms of environmental protection, hygiene and health and modern family services. It will also give assistance to poverty-stricken families with children affected by cleft lip and palate, autism and hemophilia. The program plans to raise and spend 100 million yuan in three years to help out 50,000 families, according to a spokesperson. Some 300 further people including Zhao Wen, member of the Secretariat of the ACWF; Zhen Yan and Wang Yinxiang, vice-presidents of CWDF; and, representatives of CWDF's donors, attended the gathering. (Source: women.org.cn / Translated and edited by Women of China) A Jiaodong Woman (1983). A villager in Luyang, Penglai, carries some flowers home after farm work. The Art Museum of Renmin University of China in Beijing will open an exhibition of works by Lu Jingbo on December 29 to celebrate her photographic achievements over the past 40 years, organizers have announced. The display will include 100 of her best known works, most of which were taken in her hometown of Jiaodong peninsula, east China's Shandong Province, in the 80s and 90s. The works, in various styles, embody Lu's emotions of many different periods in the last four decades. The exhibition will form an overview of reform and opening up and also concentrate on a presentation of the observation, reflection, and recording of Chinese society during this time. Lu decided to become a photographer in the late 70s. In 1988, she served as a professional photographer in Penglai Cultural Center, Shandong. Lu was given a solo exhibition at the National Museum of Art in her youth, which made her one of the first group of female photographers to achieve that. In 1992, Lu's personal photo collection was published by People's Fine Arts Publishing House. Wu Yinxian, a renowned photographer and Lu's teacher, wrote a preface for the collection, in which he said that "Lu's works are full of local characteristic and clearly reflected the creative power and dedicated spirit of people from the general population in the In 1992, Lu's personal photo collection was published by People's Fine Arts Publishing House. Wu Yinxian, a renowned photographer and Lu's teacher, wrote a preface for the collection, in which he said that "Lu's works are full of local characteristic and clearly reflected the creative power and dedicated spirit of people from the general population in the construction of socialism ." Lu is presently in charge of the management work of China Lu is presently in charge of the management work of China Women Photographers Association. She has dedicated herself to the development of Chinese women's photography. The exhibition will run till January 10. The following are some of Lu's works. Students experience grinding Chinese herbal medicine at Neiqiu hospital of traditional Chinese medicine in Neiqiu County, north China's Hebei Province, Oct. 21, 2018. [Xinhua/Mu Yu] China's primary and middle schools have been urged to improve education for all-around student development, according to a directive issued by authorities. Jointly issued by the Ministry of Education and other eight agencies, the circular asked schools to offer courses that are in accord with the national syllabus in terms of their quantity and quality. The enhancement of courses' difficulty levels and speed at random and in disregard of the curriculum is prohibited, according to the circular. Primary and junior middle schools are not allowed to set up any "key class" or classes that consist mainly of students selected for their high academic scores or excellent performance, which usually receive better faculty, equipment or more funds than other classes, it added. Primary schools are also warned not to organize any examinations where the students' results would largely decide what middle schools they can be admitted to. The circular also said first and second graders in primary schools should not be given any written homework, and regarding the daily homework load for third to sixth graders, it should not take more than 60 minutes to finish, and for junior middle school students, not more than 90 minutes. (Source: Xinhua) Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, delivers a speech at a gathering to commemorate the 40th anniversary of issuing Message to Compatriots in Taiwan, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 2, 2019. [Xinhua/Li Tao] President Xi Jinping on Wednesday said China must be and will be reunified, as he addressed a gathering in Beijing to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Chinese mainland's Message to Compatriots in Taiwan. "It is a historical conclusion drawn over the 70 years of the development of cross-Strait relations, and a must for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation in the new era," said Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission. Speaking at the Great Hall of the People, Xi called for joint efforts across the Taiwan Strait to advance peaceful national reunification. The long-standing political differences can not be dragged on generation after generation, Xi said. The Taiwan question originated from national weakness and disorder and has lasted for 70 years. Xi said since 1949 the CPC, the Chinese government and the Chinese people have always unwaveringly taken resolving the Taiwan question to realize China's complete reunification as a historic task. He expressed confidence that the Taiwan question will definitely end with national rejuvenation. Best Approach On Jan. 1, 1979, the National People's Congress Standing Committee issued the Message to Compatriots in Taiwan. It was considered a declaration of the mainland's policy for peaceful reunification. Halt to military confrontations was proposed. Visits, cross-Strait transportation, postal services and economic and cultural exchanges were promoted. A page on cross-Strait relations has been turned. On Wednesday, Xi raised a five-point proposal for peaceful reunification. He said the principles of "peaceful reunification" and "one country, two systems" are the best approach to realizing national reunification. He proposed that the mainland and Taiwan conduct democratic consultation on cross-Strait relations and the future of the nation, and establish institutional arrangement for peaceful development of cross-Strait relations. He said on the basis of ensuring China's sovereignty, security and interests of development, the social system and way of life in Taiwan will be fully respected, and the private property, religious beliefs and legitimate rights and interests of Taiwan compatriots will be fully protected after peaceful reunification is realized. The president pledged "utmost sincerity and greatest efforts" for the prospect of peaceful reunification and said Taiwan will be guaranteed lasting peace after reunification. "We are all of the same family," Xi said. While stressing that the "Chinese don't fight Chinese," Xi said, "We make no promise to renounce the use of force and reserve the option of taking all necessary means." This targets only the interference of external forces and the very small number of "Taiwan independence" separatists and their activities, he added. Irresistable Trend "'Taiwan independence' goes against the trend of history and will lead to a dead end," Xi said. The president said achieving the country's greatness, national rejuvenation and cross-Strait reunification is the trend of history, which can never be blocked by anyone or any force. The peaceful and stable development of cross-Strait situations and the progress of cross-Strait relations are the tide of the time that can never be stopped by anyone or any force, he said. Liu Jieyi, head of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, noted the strengthened political, economic, cultural, personnel exchanges over the decades. Between 1988 and 2018, 134 million cross-Strait visits were logged; two-way trade reached 2.6 trillion U.S. dollars; and the mainland has been Taiwan's largest market and top investment destination outside the island, Liu said. In his speech, Xi said the future of Taiwan lies in national reunification. "We sincerely hope all the compatriots in Taiwan treasure peace as much as they treasure their own eyes, and pursue national reunification as much as they pursue happiness." No Interference from Outside Xi said the Taiwan question is China's internal affair and allows no external interference. The Chinese people's affairs should be decided by the Chinese people, Xi said, stressing that the Taiwan question concerns China's core interests and the national bond of the Chinese people. China's reunification does not harm any country's legitimate interests, including their economic interests in Taiwan, Xi said, adding that it will only bring more development opportunities to other countries. Over the 70 years, more and more countries and peoples have understood and supported China's cause of reunification, the president noted. Wednesday's gathering was attended by Li Zhanshu, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee. Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, presided over the event. Wang said Xi's speech demonstrated the historical trend of cross-Strait relations and called for joint efforts to forge ahead for the peaceful national reunification. Chen Ching-lung, a 54-year-old hotel operator in Xiamen, Fujian Province, followed Xi's speech, which was broadcast live by China Media Group and on Xinhua News Agency's website (xinhuanet.com). A veteran who was once stationed in Kinmen, Chen joined the influx of Taiwan compatriots who found bristle business chances on the mainland. "The direction of peaceful development is totally correct," he said. "What the two sides should do is to mitigate differences and enhance their communications." Hsueh Ching-te, another Taiwan compatriot who runs a business in Fujian, said he looks forward to complete reunification so that "all Chinese people will live in peace, prosperity and with dignity." (Source: Xinhua) President Xi Jinping proposed that the mainland and Taiwan conduct democratic consultation on cross-Strait relations and the future of the nation, and establish institutional arrangement for peaceful development of cross-Strait relations. Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks at a gathering in Beijing to commemorate the 40th anniversary of issuing Message to Compatriots in Taiwan. Political parties and all sectors on both sides of the Strait may recommend representatives to conduct extensive and in-depth democratic consultation on the basis of the common political foundation of upholding the 1992 Consensus and opposing "Taiwan independence," Xi said. (Source: Xinhua) The Wetzel County Convention and Visitors Bureau (Visit Wetzel County) is starting a new concert series in conjunction with the Back Home Appalachian Arts & Music Festival. Organizers started such an endeavor last year, but this year the budget has increased, and Visit Wetzel County is excited about its scheduled upcoming talent. The concert series begins on Jan. 11 at the Lincoln Theater and will feature Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper. Cleveland, a member of the National Fiddlers Hall of Fame, and Flamekeeper will also be playing at the Back Home Festival as well. According to broadwayworld.com, In the International Bluegrass Music Association Awards 29-year history, Cleveland is the most-awarded Fiddle Player of the Year. He picked up his first Fiddle Player of the Year award in 2001 and has now won it a total of 11 times. According to flamekeeperband.com, Cleveland picked up the fiddle at age four, and in 1993, he was chosen to be part of the Bluegrass Youth All Stars at the IBMAs award show. That same year, he made his Grand Ole Opry debut as a guest of Allison Krauss. Nathan Livers takes care of vocal/mandolin duties for Flamekeeper. Livers was inspired by Bill Monroes mandolin style and picked up the instrument at the age of 10. He has played in bands such as The Get Down Bluegrass Boys with Michael Cleveland, Charlie Lawson, & Oak Hill, Gary Brewer & the Kentucky Ramblers, Tony Holt & the Wildwood Valley Boys, and a Louisville-based bluegrass band, Storefront Congregation, that featured Livers songwriting on its 2011 release Kaleidoscope. Flamekeeper member Tyler Griffith is responsible for vocals and bass. Griffith comes from a musical family and plays guitar, mandolin, trumpet, and piano. He has played for several regional bands, including Vicki & Crew, Penn Central, and Grand Central. Josh Richards takes care of vocals/guitar for the Flamekeeper band. Richards was taught to play and sing bluegrass by his father and brother. Richards has played in several bands, including the Farewell Drifters, Old Louisville Express, and Blue River (2008 Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music of America band contest winners). Jasiah Shrode plays banjo for Flamekeeper. He developed an interest in music at a young age and began learning several instruments age 11. Since 2009, he has been a member of Jim Orchard and the Boys. The cost for the Jan. 11 concert will be $15 per ticket. The Wheeling Park High School Bluegrass Band will be opening up for Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper, and the community is invited to attend this special event. Although Cleveland might not be as well known as other artists in Visit Wetzel Countys new series, concert organizers recognize Cleveland as one of the best fiddlers in the world and note that no one should leave the show unimpressed. Teacher Accused of Hosting Party with Alcohol, Pot By West Kentucky Star Staff/The Associated Press MOUNT WASHINGTON, KY - A Kentucky school teacher has been accused of hosting a New Year's party where children were smoking marijuana and drinking alcoholic beverages.News outlets cite a Mount Washington police arrest report as saying 36-year-old Lindsey Lewis was taken into custody early Tuesday.Jefferson County Public Schools spokeswoman Renee Murphy says Lewis is a special education teacher at Phoenix School of Discovery in Lyndon, and the district is examining the situation. Lewis has been with the district since 2016, according to WDRB.The arrest report says officers were sent to the home after neighbors called complaining about "teenagers at a party next door" who "tore up" their property pulling in and out of the driveway. Police say Lewis told officers she was the adult presiding. At least 40 people were inside.Lewis was charged with 14 counts of unlawful transaction with a minor.Murphy told WDRB that when a JCPS teacher is arrested, they have to report to the district for reassignment while the case unfolds in court. Her reassignment means she will not return to the classroom when school resumes on Jan. 7.According to the Associated Press, it is unclear if Lewis has a lawyer who could comment. Edelen to Raise Money for Governor's Race By The Associated Press FRANKFORT - A former Kentucky auditor has filed paperwork to raise money for the 2019 governor's race. Adam Edelen filed a letter of intent with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance on Thursday. Edelen has not officially filed as a candidate, but Thursday's filing is an indication he will run for governor. Edelen did not return a phone call seeking comment. Edelen was elected state auditor in 2011. He ran for re-election in 2015 but lost to Republican Mike Harmon. Edelen's running mate is Gill Holland, a businessman who lost a close race for the Louisville Metro Council in 2016. Republican Gov. Matt Bevin has said he will run for re-election. Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear and state House Minority Floor Leader Rocky Adkins have already announced their campaigns. Pelosi is Speaker Again as 116th Congress Begins By The Associated Press WASHINGTON, D.C. - The 116th Congress gaveled into session Thursday swathed in history, returning Nancy Pelosi to the House speaker's office and ushering in a diverse class of Democratic freshmen ready to confront President Donald Trump in a new era of divided government.Pelosi, elected speaker 220-192, took the gavel saying voters opted for a "new dawn" in the November election and are looking to "the beauty of our Constitution" to provide checks and balances on power. She faced 15 "no" votes from fellow Democrats.The new Congress is like none other. There are more women than ever before, and a new generation of Muslims, Latinos, Native Americans and African-Americans in the House is creating what academics call a reflective democracy, more aligned with the population of the United States. The Republican side in the House is still made up mostly of white men, and in the Senate Republicans bolstered their ranks in the majority.In a nod to the moment, Pelosi, the first female speaker, was broadly pledging to make Congress work for all Americans addressing kitchen table issues at a time of deep economic churn even as her party is ready to challenge Trump with investigations and subpoena powers that threaten the White House agenda. It's the first new Congress to convene amid a partial government shutdown, now in its 13th day since the parties can't agree on spending for a wall along the U.S-Mexico border, which Trump is demanding."This House will be for the people," Pelosi said, outlining an agenda "to lower health costs and prescription drugs prices, and protect people with pre-existing conditions; to increase paychecks by rebuilding America with green and modern infrastructure -- from sea to shining sea."The day was unfolding as one of both celebration and impatience. Newly elected lawmakers arrived, often with friends and families in tow, to take the oath of office and pose for ceremonial photos. The Democrats planned to quickly pass legislation to re-open the government, but without the funding Trump is demanding for his promised border wall.Vice President Mike Pence swore in newly-elected senators, but Senate Republicans under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had no plans to consider the House bills to fund the government unless Trump agrees to sign them into law. That ensures the shutdown will continue, clouding the first days of the new session.McConnell said that Republicans have shown the Senate is "fertile soil for big bipartisan accomplishments," but that the question is whether House Democrats will engage in "good governance or political performance art."It's a time of stark national political division that some analysts say is on par with the Civil War era. Battle lines are drawn not just between Democrats and Republicans but within the parties themselves, splintered by their left and right flanks.Pelosi defied history in returning to the speaker's office after eight years in the minority, overcoming internal opposition from Democrats demanding a new generation of leaders. She will be the first to regain the gavel since legendary Sam Rayburn of Texas in 1955.Putting Pelosi's name forward for nomination, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the incoming Democratic caucus chair, recounted her previous accomplishments -- passing the Affordable Care Act, helping the country out of the Great Recession -- as preludes to her next ones. He called her leadership "unparalleled in modern American history."One Democrat, Rep. Brenda Lawrence of Michigan, cast her vote for Pelosi "on the shoulders of women who marched 100 years ago" for women's suffrage. Newly elected Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia, an anti-gun violence advocate, dedicated hers to her slain teenage son, Jordan Davis.As speaker, she'll face an early challenge from the party's robust wing of liberal newcomers, including 29-year-old New Yorker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has risen to such prominence she is already known around the Capitol and on her prolific social media accounts by the nickname "AOC." She said she'd cast a no vote on a new package of rules to govern the House.Ocasio-Cortez and other liberals oppose the pay-as-you-go budget provisions in the rules package that would allow restrictive objections to any legislation that would add to federal deficits. They say such restraints would hamstring Democratic efforts to invest in health care, education and develop a Green New Deal of renewable energy infrastructure projects to fight climate change.Republicans face their own internal battles beyond just the conservative House Freedom Caucus, but as they decide how closely to tie their political fortunes to Trump. GOP leader Kevin McCarthy's name was put into nomination by his party's caucus chair, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the daughter of the former vice president. He faced six "no" votes from his now-shrunken GOP minority.McCarthy told the lawmakers that voters often wonder if Congress is "still capable" of solving problems, and as he passed the gavel to Pelosi he said this period of divided government is "no excuse for gridlock."One office remains disputed as the House refused to seat Republican Mark Harris of North Carolina amid an investigation by state election officials of irregularities in absentee ballots from the November election.Many GOP senators are up for re-election in 2020 in states, including Colorado and Maine, where voters have mixed views of Trump's performance in the White House.Trump, whose own bid for 2020 already is underway, faces potential challenges from the ranks of Senate Democrats under Chuck Schumer. Trump had little to say early Thursday as the new Congress was convening, but he did tweet an attack on one of his likely presidential challengers, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, mocking her claim to Native American ancestry.The halls of the Capitol were bustling with arrivals, children in the arms of many new lawmakers. Visitor galleries included crooner Tony Bennett and rock legend Mickey Hart, both guests of Pelosi. Incoming White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman, sat with Republican leaders.Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., opened the House prayer asking at "a time fraught with tribalism at home and turbulence abroad" that lawmakers "become the architects of a kindlier nation."Overnight, Democratic Rep-elect Ilhan Omar of Minnesota tweeted a picture with her family at the airport. The House rules were being changed to allow her to wear a head scarf on the chamber floor. She wrote, "23 years ago, from a refugee camp in Kenya, my father and I arrived at an airport in Washington DC. Today, we return to that same airport on the eve of my swearing in as the first Somali-American in Congress." NWS Confirms Trigg County Tornado By West Kentucky Star Staff TRIGG COUNTY - The National Weather Service has confirmed that a tornado touched down for a short time in northern Trigg County on Monday afternoon.According to WKDZ, Warning Coordination Meteorologist Rick Shanklin confirmed that a low-level EF-1 tornado with winds up to 90 mph touched down and damaged homes and several trees in the Rockcastle area. Shanklin said the tornado touched down along the shoreline behind Blue River Road and followed a northeasterly path through the neighborhood.The path of the tornado was approximately 130 yards wide and traveled more than half a mile. He said eyewitnesses reported a waterspout in Lake Barkley after the tornado damaged the neighborhood.A tornado warning was issued for the area that was affected by the storm in northern Trigg County and portions of nearby counties. A heavy wind gust of 85 mph was reported in northern Christian County a short time later.On the Net: Murray-Calloway Hospital Welcomes 2019 First Baby By West Kentucky Star Staff MURRAY - Murray-Calloway County Hospital has welcomed their first baby born in 2019.Brandon and Maria Dunphy of Murray are the proud new parents of their 8 pound, 2 ounce, baby girl, Kairi Elizabeth who was 21 inches long.The expected due date wasnt until January 3 however, following moms checkup and the ultrasound of baby Kairi, Maria was induced due to the expected weight of the baby.After 14.5 hours of labor, the Dunphy family welcomed baby girl Kairi at 10:07 am on January 1st with Dr. Dawn N. Deeter, OB/GYN, of Womens Health of Murray delivering. Dr. Heath Cates of Murray Pediatrics is baby Dunphy's Pediatrician.This was the Dunphy's 1st baby, and they decided to keep the gender of the baby a surprise until delivery, however, they did a Facebook poll with 60% guessing it was a girl and 40% guessing a boy.I was really happy and wanted a girl. Shes just adorable, said Brandon.Maria is a 5 year employee of the hospital and works as a Nuclear Medicine Technologist in the Radiology Dept. Her husband, Brandon, is a Quality Analyst for Iwis in Murray.The couple received various gifts from Murray-Calloway County Hospital and the Murray Ledger and Times, for being the first baby of the New Year. They also received the Dolly Parton Imagination Library program which is sponsored by the Calloway County Early Childhood Council to one baby a month born at Murray-Calloway County Hospital. The baby will receive one book per month until their 5th birthday.The Dunphy family looks forward to starting 2019 with the new addition to their family. Dorena-Hickman Ferry Closed By High Water By West Kentucky Star Staff HICKMAN - The Dorena-Hickman Ferry has temporarily halted service due to floodwaters on the Mississippi River, with the expectation that the ferry could be closed for at least 8 days.According to ferry captain Jeremy Newsom, the ferry normally halts operation when the Cairo gauge goes above about 40 ft. On Wednesday the ferry managed to keep operating until the Cairo reading reached 46 feet at 6 p.m. However, rising floodwaters mean the ferry will be unable to start service on Thursday morning.The river forecast at Cairo indicates a crest at 49 feet on Monday, January 7th, with a slow fall to 46 feet on January 11th.As a result, the ferry will be out of service until at least January 11th, and possibly longer if there is additional, substantial rainfall upstream before that date. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet says the KY 1354 Connector from KY 94 to the ferry landing is also closed.The ferry connects KY 1354 at Hickman, Kentucky, with Missouri Route A and Route 77 near Dorena, Missouri. Two Arrests Made During $195,000 Meth Seizure By West Kentucky Star Staff WICKLIFFE - A two-county investigation led to a pair of arrests Wednesday night, and a meth seizure totaling almost $200,000.The Ballard and McCracken County Sheriff's Offices learned that a man from Missouri would be delivering a large amount of methamphetamine to Ballard County on Wednesday night. Deputies and detectives were able to determine the time and location that the methamphetamine would be delivered. At approximately 7:45 pm, a vehicle carrying the methamphetamine entered Ballard County and went to the predetermined meeting location on the parking lot of a business in Wickliffe. Officers apprehended the driver, 27-year-old Patrick Wallace of Kennett, MO. Police say a loaded pistol was found by Wallace's feet as well as a backpack that contained over four pounds of crystal methamphetamine. Deputies also seized marijuana, digital scales, and cash believed to be proceeds from illegal drug sales. Wallace's passenger, 45-year-old Derrick Davis of Kennett, attempted to walk away from Wallace's vehicle as deputies approached. He was also taken into custody. The methamphetamine seized weighed in at 1,951 grams, and has a street value of approximately $195,000. Wallace was charged with Firearm Enhanced Trafficking Methamphetamine Over 2 Grams, Possession of Marijuana, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. Davis was charged with Trafficking Methamphetamine Over 2 Grams 2nd or Subsequent Offense and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. Both were lodged in the Ballard County Jail. The Ballard County Sheriff's Office, McCracken County Sheriff's Office, and the DEA were involved in the investigation and arrests. Traffic Stop Leads to Meth, Marijuana Arrest By West Kentucky Star Staff MCCRACKEN COUNTY - A West Paducah man faces drug and other charges following his arrest early Thursday morning. According to the McCracken County Sheriff's Office, at approximately 1:20am, deputies conducted a traffic stop at the intersection of Wayne Sullivan and Starlite Drive. During the course of the stop, deputies determined that the driver of the vehicle, 36-year-old Aaron Beyer, was under the influence of methamphetamine. During a search of Beyer, deputies allegedly found methamphetamine, marijuana, and drug paraphernalia. Beyer was arrested and charged with DUI 4th or more offense, operating on a suspended or revoked operator's license, no insurance, possession of meth, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. Beyer was lodged in the McCracken County Regional Jail. Meet Paducah City Commissioners Next Tuesday By West Kentucky Star Staff PADUCAH - The public is invited to a reception on Tuesday, January 8 to meet the Paducah City Commissioners.Paducah Public Information Officer Pam Spencer says the reception will be immediately following the first regular meeting of the Paducah Board of Commissioners at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall. This is a chance to meet Commissioners Richard Abraham, Brenda McElroy, Gerald Watkins, and Sandra Wilson.Each Commissioner was sworn in individually in December, prior to taking office on January 1. Spencer said Mayor Brandi Harless has a prior engagement and will not be able to attend the meeting and reception. West Hartford (06107) Today Light rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers in the afternoon. High 71F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.. Tonight Cloudy with showers. Low 61F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%. In Cairo the Arab League is getting ready to admit the Syrian Arab Republic once again to its membership. The latter had been excluded in 2011, in violation of the Leagues own by-laws. Syria is one of the founding members of the League. It had been excluded from it at the request of President Barack Obama. Obamas specious justification was that Syria was a dictatorship repressing its people, but his real motive was part of a secret operation aimed at destroying state structures. At the end of 2011, the Arab League accepted sending to Syria an observation mission composed of personalities from each member state. Having had the opportunity to travel all around Syria and to meet both government officials and leaders of the Opposition, this delegation has been the unique, credible source on the situation in Syria. In a report, it declared that there had been no revolution within the country but an attack from outside the country. Furious, Qatar which had purchased from Palestine the annual presidency of the League, paid 1 billion dollars to Sudan to recall the head of the mission. The mission was dissolved. The Syrian Observatory on Human Rights, an association of the British Muslim Brotherhood, resourced through the British MI6, then became the exclusive source of Western media and the Gulf. No motion has been filed for now on the reintegration of Syria but Egyptian personnel are reinstalling the flags of the Syrian Arab Republic in the Leagues headquarters. On 16 December 2018, the Sudanese President, Omar al-Bechir came to meet his Syrian partner, Bachar al-Assad, in Damascus. The former was representing the following countries at the same time: the United States, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Following this meeting, the US President, Donald Trump, announced that he was pulling US troops out of Syria. The United Arab Emirates should soon re-open its embassy in Damascus. Saudi Arabia should also be funding a part of the 400 billion dollars needed for reconstruction. Finally, following 6 years of resistance followed by seven years of war, Bashar is still in power and almost noone in the expanded Middle East thinks that Syria has lived through a revolution that has turned out wrong. The trial of Mehdi Nemmouche, charged with the massacre at the Jewish Museum in Brussels (24 May 2014) has just begun in Belgium. Nemmouche was arrested in Nice (France) with a bag containing a beret and weapons. This resulted in him being identified as the assassin. However from day 1, he has protested his innocence. Detained for four years, he finally has the opportunity to present his defence. Confirming our hypothesis [1], he declared to the court that he found the bag and that he was not involved in the massacre that took place at the Jewish Museum and which resulted in four deaths. Daesh has never claimed responsibility for this attack. The AG has asked for four former hostages of Daesh to come forward to testify that Nemmouche was indeed their jailer; this is something that his lawyers have denied on the grounds that it is a different matter that does not form part of the present inquiry. They have on the other hand requested to hear an official of Mossad or from the Israeli embassy with regards to the identity of the couple assassinated, Emanuel et Miriam Riva. Nemmouches lawyers, as do we, think that they are two Mossad agents on mission. The court has refused them this request. The oral arguments will begin on 10 January 2019. MEMORIAL DAY PARADE AND CEREMONY ONE TO REMEMBER: On a beautiful day, May 31, Our Town watched the parade along Washington and attended a meaningful ceremony at city hall that honored our fallen heroes. The gathering was among the largest in memory for this important day in Our Town. First, UTSA students stand in front of the 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham in 2018. (Jan. 3, 2019) UTSA student leaders will start the new year embarking on a unique journey through our nations history. For the eighth straight year, the UTSA Student Leadership Center is hosting dozens of Roadrunners on a Civil Rights and Social Justice Experience, a bus trip across five cities in five states that will immerse the students in the history of the civil rights movement and current social justice issues. Fifty-six Roadrunners will take part in this years trip, which for the first time, will last six days. The students will be guided through the experience by student facilitators, who were selected from last years group of participants. I wanted to come back to get another perspective of the Civil Rights Movement and guide new participants though the journey as they see historical sites for the first time, said Jabrell Scott, a UTSA senior majoring in communication. During the trip last year, I learned that there are other social justice issues in this world that people need to understand. I feel honored to be chosen as a facilitator, and Im excited about the impact I can have on others. The Civil Rights and Social Justice Experience begins today and includes a stop in Jackson, Miss., where students will visit the Mississippi Museum of Civil Rights. The students will also visit the Edmund Pettis bridge is Selma, Ala., where protesters were violently attacked in what is known as Sunday, Bloody, Sunday. From Selma, the group will travel along the historic route used by protesters fighting for voting rights to Montgomery, Ala. There, students will visit the brand new National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Rosa Parks Bus Stop. The next stop will be Atlanta, Ga., where the group will visit The King Center, which includes Ebenezer Baptist Church and the tomb of civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King. The group will also visit the Center for Human and Civil Rights. The last stop is Memphis, Tenn. to see the Slave Haven Underground Railroad Museum, the Mason Temple Church of God in Christ headquarters where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his last speech "I've Been to the Mountaintop," the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and the W.C. Handy Museum. I know a lot of people who have gone on the trip and had life changing experiences, and I felt it was definitely something I needed to be a part of before I graduate in May, said Sophia Montemayor, a UTSA senior majoring in public health. I hope to learn more about the personal cost and experiences of those who fought for equality during the Civil Rights Movement. I want to bring back to UTSA new knowledge and insight that I can use and spread with classmates, friends, family and student organizations. Along with site visits, the UTSA students participating in the trip will follow a curriculum that includes watching documentaries, group discussions and presentations from guest speakers and activists. Once the students return to UTSA, they will host a reflection session to share what they learned during the journey with the UTSA community. The Civil Rights and Justice Experience Reflection will be at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 15 in the Student Union Denman Room (SU 2.01.28). They students will also join the UTSA delegation during San Antonios MLK Jr. March on Monday, Jan. 21. Register for a FREE account to keep reading! Register now for a FREE account to keep reading. No cost and no credit card required! Access up to 5 articles per month when you register, or get unlimited access to all of our content online starting at $1.99 now! Already registered? Click the log in link below Spring ballot Krause and Krista Flanagan represent Area I in the Village of Oregon, with both seats up for election on April 2. Flanagan, first elected in 2016, will be on the ballot, seeking another three-year term. The deadline for candidates to file paperwork with the Oregon School District is 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 2. Welcome Guest! You are here: Home Views & Analysis Only Prime Minister Modi Has The Guts To Do It ! It was shocking that PM was talking of sacrifices of brave heroes of Indian freedom struggle while showing off his new attire Modi As A Hindu Nationalist PM Modi is the only occupier of a constitutional post in the history of Independent India who declared himself to be a Hindu Nationalist. He made this declaration in 2013 in an interview to two Reuters journalists, Ross Colvin and Sruthi Gottipati, on July 12 as CM of Gujarat. Modi glorified his Hindu nationalist identity hiding the fact that the term Hindu Nationalist originated in a specific historical context during Indias freedom struggle against the British colonial masters. This freedom struggle was mainly led by the Congress, which stood for an all-inclusive democratic-secular free India. The Muslim Nationalists, under the banner of the Muslim League, and the 'Hindu Nationalists', under the banners of the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS, opposed it, claiming that Hindus and Muslims were two different nations. These Hindu and Muslim Nationalists joined hands with the colonial masters in order to thwart the freedom struggle so that they could have theocratic states of their choice, Hindusthan or Hindu Rashtra and Pakistan or Islamic state, respectively. Moreover, those Hindutva fanatics who assassinated MK Gandhi on January 30, 1948 also called themselves as Hindu Nationalists. Hindu Nationalist PM's Visit To Andamans & Nicobar Islands Modi's commitment to Hindu nationalism keeps on motivating him to act crossing all limits of hypocrisy; an integral part of the Hindutva politics. In the last week of 2018, he was on tour of Andaman & Nicobar Islands where the infamous Cellular Jail is also situated. Interestingly, during January-February this area, with fine weather conditions, is also the destination of thousands of government employees from all parts of India who flock here with their families for pleasure trip availing LTC - a partly government funded scheme. PM's Love For Savarkar & Netaji According to press reports, immediately after reaching Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Modi visited the Cellular Jail, sat in the cell where VD Savarkar was incarcerated. Later during the trip PM Narendra Modi renamed three islands in Andaman & Nicobar. Donning the Azad Hind Fauj (Indian National Army) cap, PM declared that it was done in deference to the wishes of Netaji who in 1943, had suggested that Andaman and Nicobar Islands be renamed as Shahid and Swaraj Dweep respectively. PM said: The country draws inspiration from Andaman. That is why the government has issued a notification and I am proudly announcing that henceforth, Ross Island will be known as Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Dweep. The Neil Island will be known as Shahid Dweep and Havelock Island as Swaraj Dweep. PM also hoisted a 150-feet-high national flag - the Tricolour, in Marina Park, South Point, in Port Blair and said the government is committed to creating an India, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose once dreamt of. There cannot be a greater crime than putting Savarkar and Subhash Chandra Bose on the same pedestal. Modi as a seasoned RSS cadre while worshipping Savarkar maintains criminal silence about anti-national ideas and activities of the latter. Or the fact may be that RSS loves Savarkar for this kind of heritage of his only. Savarkar's Hatred for Tricolour Savarkar, like the RSS, abhorred every symbol of the Indian peoples united struggle against the British rule. He refused to accept the Tricolour as the national flag. In a statement issued on September 22, 1941 all Hindus that there should be no confusion about the national flag, "So far as the flag question is concerned, the Hindus know no flag representing Hindudom as a whole than the Kundalini Kripanankit Mahasabha flag with the Om and the Swastik the most ancient symbols of the Hindu race and policy coming down from age to age and honoured throughout Hindusthan[Hindus must] rally round and defend the honour of our ancient Hindu Flag". How Moodi's Hindutva Icon Savarkar Backstabbed Netaji When Netaji was planning to liberate the northeast of the country through INA, it was VD Savarkar who offered full military cooperation to the British masters. While addressing 23rd session of Hindu Mahasabha at Bhagalpur in 1941, he declared: The war which has now reached our shores directly constitutes at once a danger and an opportunity which both render it imperative that the militarization movement musts be intensified and every branch of the Hindu Mahasabha in every town and village must actively engage itself in rousing the Hindu people to join the army, navy, the aerial forces and the different war-craft manufactories. To what extent Savarkar was willing to help the British would be clear by the following words of his: So far as Indias defence is concerned, Hindudom must ally unhesitatingly, in a spirit of responsive co-operation with the war effort of the Indian government in so far as it is consistent with the Hindu interests, by joining the Army, Navy and the Aerial forces in as large a number as possible and by securing an entry into all ordnance, ammunition and war craft factories Again it must be noted that Japans entry into the war has exposed us directly and immediately to the attack by Britains enemiesHindu Mahasabhaits must, therefore, rouse Hindus especially in the provinces of Bengal and Assam as effectively as possible to enter the military forces of all arms without losing a single minute. Savarkar believed in the invincibility of the British imperialists. His presidential address at Madura is a living testimony to his unabashed support to the British imperialistic designs. He rejected out rightly Netajis attempts to liberate India. He declared: Not only on moral grounds but on the grounds of practical politics we are compelled not to concern ourselves on behalf of the Hindu Mahasabha organisation with any programme involving any armed resistance, under the present circumstances. Savarkar Organized Recruitment Camps For The British During the World War II Savarkar organized recruitment camps for the British armed forces which were to slaughter the cadres of INA in different parts of the North-East later. At the end of the Madura conference of Hindu Mahasabha he shared the fact with the Hindus that through the efforts of Hindu Mahasabha alone, one lakh Hindus were recruited in the British armed forces in one year. It is to be noted that during this period RSS continued inviting Savarkar to address the RSS youth gatherings for motivating the latter to recruit into the British armed forces. It is important to note here that even the Muslim League, sub-serving the interests of the British rulers, refused to align in these war efforts or join Defence Committees established by the British government as done by Savarkar. It is sad for India with glorious tradition of anti-imperialist struggle that children of those who criminally betrayed Netaji and his INA by siding with the British rulers are playing mischief with the icons of all-inclusive anti-colonial struggle. What right PM Modi has to talk of Netaji and INA which fought for a democratic-secular India when he as an ideologue of the RSS and BJP declares himself to be a Hindu nationalist, committed to turn India into a theocratic Hindu state and belittling the minorities? Modis New Look Goes Viral On Instagram This visit of PM Modi to Andaman & Nicobar Islands witnessed not only brazen hypocrisy of our Hindu nationalist PM but also was a spectacle of his dress show. According to press reports titled, " PM Narendra Modis new look goes viral on Instagram",' "PM who arrived in Port Blair on Saturday [December 29, 2018]evening, has managed to impress netizens by slipping into a mundu, a traditional garment worn in southern India". Modi even shared his new look on his official Instagram account with the accompanying caption, A morning in scenic Port Blairan early sunrise and traditional attire. Thinking about the brave heroes of our freedom struggle, who gave their lives for our freedom. It did not take long for the post to go viral, with many complimenting the prime ministers latest look and the photographer for the amazing click. It was shocking that PM was talking of sacrifices of brave heroes of Indian freedom struggle while showing off his new attire. Modi's spineless fans remained oblivious of the fact that at a place where hundreds of Indian revolutionaries died of torture, want of food, clothing and medicine, this kind of presenting of new dress on a ramp was not only abhorring but making fun of the sacrifices of the Indian freedom fighters. No national leader ever did it but only Hindu nationalist PM of India has the guts to do it! [For some of S. Islams writings in English, Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu & Gujarati see the following link: http://du-in.academia.edu/ShamsulIslam, Facebook: shams shamsul, Twitter: @shamsforjustice. E-mail him at notoinjustice@gmail.com.] For all the latest News, Opinions and Views, download ummid.com App . Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic. Welcome Guest! You are here: Home Education & Career GATE 2019 Admit Card Releasing Friday, Download In Two Simple Steps The GATE 2019 will be held on 2nd, 3rd, 9th and 10th of February 2019 Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE 2019): The Indian Instititue of Technology (IIT) Madras is set to release today i.e. Friday January 04, 2019 on GATE 2019 official website (gate.iitm.ac.in) the Admit Cards of the candidates who have registered for the coveted exam. According to the GATE 2019 schedule released by IIT Madras, the Admit Cards of the candidates will be released on January 04, 2019. "GATE 2019 Admit Card will be available in the Online Application Portal (for printing) on Friday January 04, 2019", GATE 2019 brochure says. How to download GATE 2019 Admit Card Click here to go to official website: gate.iitm.ac.in. Click on the link "GATE 2019 Admit Card Download". Log in using application no and password. Download the admit card (hall ticket) and take a printout. The Indian Instititue of Technology (IIT) Madras has not mentioned any specific time to release the Admit Card. However, the card will be released any time before today evening. The GATE 2019 will be held on 2nd, 3rd, 9th and 10th of February 2019. The Indian Instititue of Technology (IIT) Madras had earlier released the complete GATE 2019 Exam Schedule. A copy of the schedule can be found below. GATE 2019 Exam Schedule GATE 2019 Syllabus and Exam Pattern The entrance test of GATE 2019 will be held in two sessions in various exam centers on 2nd, 3rd, 9th and 10th February 2019. This year, one more new paper of Statistics is added by the council authority. The entrance exam will be held for total 24 papers and candidates are allowed to appear in only one paper in any of the session. For all the latest News, Opinions and Views, download ummid.com App . Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic. Welcome Guest! You are here: Home Views & Analysis Assured Impunity Leads To Horrid Forms Of Violence Against Minorities In India Violence against Muslims and Christians is on the rise, and is assuming horrid forms Sajjan Kumar, former Congress leader and MP, finally surrendered on December 31, the deadline set by the High Court in Delhi which gave the verdict about his involvement in the 1984 anti Sikh massacre. This anti Sikh pogrom took place in the aftermath of the assassination of then Prime Minster India Indira Gandhi. Several commissions of inquiry later Kumar was finally implicated in 2005 by the Justice Nanavati Commission investigating the massacre. Last month, Justices Muralidhar and Goel who gave the verdict hit the nail on the head when in their judgment they observed, There has been a familiar pattern of mass killings since the Partition, including Mumbai in 1993, Gujarat in 2002, and Muzaffarnagar in 2013 Common to these mass crimes were the targeting of minorities and attacks spearheaded by dominant political actors facilitated by law enforcement agencies. The criminals responsible for the mass crimes have enjoyed political patronage and managed to evade prosecution and punishment. The tragedy of rising communal violence is due to communal forces, the apathetic political leadership, which is either promoting or letting it happen, the biased administration and police apparatus, and loopholes in the justice delivery system. All this has led to the impunity being enjoyed by leaders and footsoldiers involved in violence. Violence against the religious minorities can be broadly categorized into two groups. One is the anti Sikh violence, which was a one-off event and came up as a sort of insane political revenge against the hapless Sikh community. The other is regular, repeated violence against Muslims and Christians - which is part of the Hindu Nationalist or Hindutva agenda. While the Congress led the violence against the Sikh minority, it is Hindu communal groups who have been orchestrating the violence against Muslims and Christians. An interesting observation, backed by the research of scholars of ethnic violence, is that the forces which orchestrate communal violence become electorally stronger in the region. While in the aftermath of anti Sikh pogrom the Congress emerged as more powerful in Delhi, in the case of Mumbai 1992-93 and Gujarat 2002 the BJP emerged stronger, even planting roots in areas where it had been minuscule in strength. The most significant such study comes from Yale University - it demonstrates that the BJPs electoral strength goes up in the post violence scenario. By contrast, in Delhi where in the post pogrom phase the Congress emerged stronger, it gradually weakened. As far as the anti Sikh pogrom is concerned, exclusive blame is put on the Congress. No doubt this is most of the truth - but there is another aspect which has been conveniently put under the carpet. And that is the support and involvement of the RSS-BJP in this tragic incident. The Hindustan Times of February 2, 2002 reported that in the 1984 pogrom names from the BJP were also there in those involved in the violence. The Pioneer of April 11, 1994 reported the BJP move to shield its cadres involvement in the 1984 violence. Khabar Bar (linked above) reports that by 2014 a total of 14 FIRs had been registered against 49 BJP-RSS leaders for their role in the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. According to the same report, incumbent chief minister of Punjab Amarinder Singh had also named many BJP and RSS leaders like Ram Kumar Jain, Pritam Singh and Ram Chander Gupta, to name a few, who were involved in the massacre, and had questioned Sukhbir Singh Badal for maintaining a sheepish silence about their involvement, only because they belonged to an allied party. Contrary to Shiromani Akali Dals Sukhbir Singh Badals claims that BJP members courageously saved the lives of Sikhs in 1984, records as per the Jain-Aggarwal committee included several names of prominent Delhi BJP and RSS workers being a part of the massacre. But the revelation came in an article by the major RSS ideologue Nanaji Deshmukh. In an article in Pratipaksh on November 25, 1984, Deshmukh wrote that the anti Sikh violence was due to a genuine feeling of anger among Hindus of India and that the Sikh community should bear it silently. He also says that Rajiv Gandhi needs all the support in this hour of national crisis. The document itself was circulated on November 5, 1984 when the peak of the violence was underway. George Fernandes, then editor of Pratipaksh, published it with this editorial comment: The author of the following document is known as an ideologue and policy formulator of the RSS. After the killing of the Prime Minister he distributed this document among prominent politicians. It has a historical significance that is why we have decided to publish it, violating the policy of our Weekly. This document highlights the new affinities developing between the Indira Congress and the RSS. We produce here the Hindi translation of the document. While Congress complicity has been criticised time and time again, and correctly so, the aspect of the RSS-BJP attitude to the Sikh religious minority has been hidden from popular understanding. The BJP and the Akali Dal allied in Punjab to be in power there for a long time, despite their ideological differences - but why the Akali Dal has maintained a silence on the RSS role in the 1984 massacre is a matter of deep concern. This document coming from a prominent RSS ideologue puts the blame of violence on Sikhs themselves, whereas Indira Gandhis assassins in no way represented the whole community. The major failure since the anti Sikh pogrom has been the failure of justice delivery. Its true that major Congress leaders like Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh expressed deep remorse and regret over the 1984, while one has yet to hear any pain and anguish from RSS-BJP circles over the regularly occurring anti-Muslim and anti-Christian violence. One hopes that the phase of anti-Sikh has passed never to repeat. But violence against Muslims and Christians is on the rise, and is assuming horrid forms. While feeling some relief that Sajjan Kumar is in jail, where he should have been years ago, the wish is that all those responsible for the massacres of Mumbai 1992-93, Gujarat 2002, Kandhamal 2008 and Muzaaafarnagar 2013, among others, are punished as per the law - and that we rid our society of the ill of impunity enjoyed by the planners and executers of these macabre acts. For all the latest News, Opinions and Views, download ummid.com App . Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic. Welcome Guest! You are here: Home Science & Technology In world first, China probe lands on dark side of the Moon in space exploration The first photo relayed back to Earth by the probe shows a relatively flat, rocky surface pockmarked by a large crater Beijing: A Chinese lunar rover Chang'e-4 landed on the far side of the moon on Thursday, in a world first that boosts Beijing's ambitions to become a space superpower. The probe reportedly landed in the South Pole-Aitken basin, the oldest, largest, and deepest crater on the moon's surface. The moon's dark side remains largely unexplored because its position shields it from radio frequencies, preventing direct contact with the Earth. To solve that problem, China launched the relay satellite Queqiao earlier this year to transmit signals from the dark side. The first photo relayed back to Earth by the probe shows a relatively flat, rocky surface pockmarked by a large crater. Chang'e 4 will perform several experiments while on the moon, including testing whether plants will grow in the low gravity environment, exploring the poles to find water or other resources, observing the interaction between solar winds and the lunar surface, and conducting the first lunar low-frequency radio astronomy experiment. "Since the far side of the Moon is shielded from electromagnetic interference from the Earth, it's an ideal place to research the space environment and solar bursts, and the probe can 'listen' to the deeper reaches of the cosmos," said Tongjie Liu, deputy director of the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center at China's National Space Administration. The Chinese probe had been circling the moon in an elliptical orbit in preparation for landing since Sunday. The mission left Xichang Satellite Launch Center on December 8 and was reported to have reached lunar orbit four days later. China is a relative newcomer to space travel compared to the US and Russia, but has been making up for lost time at a rapid rate. The country's last lunar rover, Yutu, had spent 972 days on the lunar surface by the time its mission ended in 2016. China plans to launch a Mars probe in 2020 to collect samples from the surface of the planet and seeks to have its own permanent space station in orbit by 2022. Meanwhile, the US, threatened by Chinas incursions into space, is planning a buildup of its military there the Space Force and forbids NASA from collaborating with China. For all the latest News, Opinions and Views, download ummid.com App . Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic. Oman is set to officially launch its fourth regional airport on Janauary 14 at Duqm, located 3,000 km from capital Muscat. The Duqm Airport, which will come up on 27,386 sq m area, has an area capacity of half million travellers annually, and the ability to expand to two million travellers annually, reported Kuwait News Agency (Kuna). The upcoming aviation facility includes a navigation compound, a 38-m-tall air traffic control (ATC) tower and a 9,958-sq-m air cargo building with an area capacity of 25 tons per year, it stated. The airport also boasts a 4-km-long runway with a width of 75 m besides passageways and parking for planes, including one such facility for the A380 airbus aircraft, it added. Saudi Arabia's National Industrialisation Company (Tasnee) has announced that it has signed a murabaha facility agreement with Banque Saudi Fransi to refinance a SR2 billion ($532 million) Islamic bond (sukuk) maturing in May this year. Established in 1985, Tasnee has a wide range of interests in petrochemicals, chemicals, plastics, and metals manufacturing, industrial services and environmental technologies. Today, it is Saudi Arabia's second largest industrial company and one of the world's biggest producers of titanium dioxide. The facility is repayable in one instalment on the final maturity date at the end of the tenor, said Tasnee in its filing to Saudi bourse Tadawul. It also includes a number of conditions precedent for drawing down the facility, it added.-TradeArabia News Service Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority (BTEA) has embarked upon a major project to revitalise the iconic traditional market in capital Manama. Under this scheme, a major facelift has been approved for 70 shops located in the old Manama Suq. The announcement was made at a fourth meeting of the Manama Souq Development Committee headed by the BTEA Chief Executive Officer Shaikh Khaled bin Humood Al Khalifa yesterday at the Bahrain International Exhibitions and Convention Center. The Committee comprises representatives from the Ministry of Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning, Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities, Urban Planning and Development Authority, Economic Development Board, Capital Municipality, Capital Secretariat Council as well as a number of Manama Souq traders. During the meeting, the members discussed several topics with regard to the revitalization of the old Manama Souq, including dedicating street passages designated to pedestrians and shoppers and easing access to the area for cars in co-ordination with the works ministry. In addition, the new applications of the facade and signage programme, aimed at upgrading the facades and signage of the old Manama Souq were also reviewed. Shaikh Khalid said more than 70 shops in the old Manama Souq have been approved for facade maintenance, where the old signage have been replaced with a higher standard ones on par with the outlined design guidelines within the areas defined in the master plan set by the committee, established in order to enhance visitors' experience. Applications received by the BTEA for the facelift programme are being finalised in co-operation with Tamkeen as it will finance half of the projects cost, he added.-TradeArabia News Service Saudi Venture Capital Company has signed a memorandum of understanding with American investor Tim Draper, one of the most important venture capital investors in the world, for the establishment of a venture capital investment fund. The MoU was signed under the sponsorship of the Small and Medium Enterprises General Authority, Monshaat, and the presence of the governor of Monshaat, Engineer Saleh Al-Rasheed. The fund is expected to finance SMEs in the fields of health, education, agriculture, finance, and energy. The Saudi Venture Capital Investment Company was founded to contribute to the growth and diversification of Saudi Arabia's economy, in addition to supporting SMEs and encouraging entrepreneurs to explore new fields. The signing took place on the sidelines of Draper's visit to Monshaat's headquarters in Riyadh, where he attended a number of important panel discussions on financial technology, venture capital, entrepreneurial ecosystem and the scale up programmes in Saudi Arabia. Mohammed Al Malki, acting CEO of the Saudi Venture Capital Company, said Draper is considered one of the most important businessmen and investors in venture capital, blockchain and financial technologies in Silicon Valley, and has co-founded a number of companies and investment funds, such as Draper Associates, and DFJ. In addition to that, he has established Draper University, which is specialised in entrepreneurship education, and also established Draper Ventures Network. Monshaat works on providing SMEs and entrepreneurs with the best international expertise, in order fulfill its goal of increasing the growth and productivity and increasing its contribution to the GDP to 35 per cent by 2030. - TradeArabia News Service You have reached a premium content area of TOL. To read this entire article please login if you are already a TOL subscriber. Not a subscriber? Annual membership costs only $55 per year for individuals ($33 for students) and organizational subscriptions start at $141 per year. Subscribe today for access to: Full access to the website, including premium articles videos, country reports and searchable archives (containing over 25,000 articles). You have permission to edit this image. Edit Close What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 570-724-2287 or email slapoint@tiogapublishing.com. Comments There is no denying that the health sector is one of the hardest hit by the current financial crisis facing government and that nurses have to bear the brunt of the frustrated patients, not to mention the relatives of those who have lost their loved ones unnecessarily. This irritation is rubbing off on the nurses who feel they deserve more attention from government, given the nature and scope of work which touches on peoples lives. As a result, our health workers have pitched a narrative that the previous government led by the late Barnabas Dlamini was better than the current one because they have had less engagement on the health challenges than they did with the former. While we all agree that priority should start with saving peoples lives and not the welfare of former politicians, which seems to have jumped the queue of settling outstanding payments, we dont think we can use the number of meetings the Health Ministry has held with nurses as a benchmark of performance in the 50 days that the new Cabinet has been in office. We sympathise with their situation and we will never forget who created it. If the previous government hadnt run this economy to its knees, the new Cabinet would have more time for meetings as opposed to running from pillar to post trying to find the money to purchase drugs and get the life-saving machinery up and running. Numerous grievances presented by nurses to the previous Cabinet are well documented; among these was the scarcity of the former Health minister due to her frequent travels. This was a common trend with ministers and their subordinates; the scale of which was decried by the former Finance minister when he reported how an annual travel budget was exhausted in the first quarter of the year. The previous Cabinet had a penchant for luxury cars and all things bling - hired cars included - but the new PM is buying no new car and ordered the return of the fleet that was mysteriously hired for Cabinet ministers at E3 600 per day, when ordinary rentals charge E700 a day for the same vehicles. For some, the PM may not seem to be doing enough, or even soon enough, but we should be logical in our evaluation. Public Sector Associations (PSAs) will obviously judge the PM and his Cabinet on the Cost of Living Adjustment (CoLA) demand. Some of us would rather judge him on how he first finds the money to ensure the country can afford it, lest he plunges us deeper into crisis, where government would not even be able to pay for salaries to begin with! Then he would certainly be worse than his predecessor. PIGGS PEAK Despite so many raids conducted on illegal drinking spots, one thing you may never see is the confiscated alcohol being destroyed. Unlike South African Police Minister Bheki Cele, who publicly destroyed 10 000 litres of confiscated alcohol in Cape Town, local shebeen owners, whose alcohol was taken during raids by the police, claim the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) never destroys the fermented drinks. Shebeen owners who lost out after their alcohol beverages were confiscated alleged that police officers instead helped themselves to their alcohol and did not destroy it. Coincidentally, members of the police service under Piggs Peak had their end of year party yesterday at the police camp. When will they destroy the alcohol? asked some of the shebeen owners, who lost thousands of Emalangeni worth of alcohol. Some of the police officers admitted that there would not be a party if there was no alcohol though they could not confirm whether the beer was taken from among the cases which had been confiscated. Consuming This is, however, not to suggest that they were consuming the confiscated alcohol at the party. Impeccable sources also revealed that some of the officers had been to local pubs, asking to exchange some beer with a certain brand which they had. This was revealed by some shebeen owners who then accused the police of trying to swap the beer they had collected from the illegal traders with their favourite choice of drink. Several homesteads where alcohol was being sold illegally were raided and over 200 cases taken away by the law enforcers. In some cases, alcohol which had already been opened was thrown away. The raids happened around Nkomazi, Piggs Peak, Ndzingeni, Ntfonjeni and Matsamo. In Matsamo, the imbibers were so angry that they even attacked a police officer and attempted to vandalise a van he was travelling in. In the two days that the police are said to have conducted the raids, it is alleged that at least 200 cases of alcohol were confiscated, including about 60 which were taken in one night. This publication has established that there were so many cases of beer that the officers struggled to store as there was not enough space at the police station. Speaking on condition of anonymity, some of the shebeen owners said it was not right for police officers to take away their alcohol then use it for their own parties. They said the law states that the alcohol should be auctioned or destroyed but that this should be done through the court. It is a court that should issue an order that the beer can now be disposed of, one of the shebeen owners said. According to the Liquor Licence Act of 1964, the court may in the cases of liquor which is adulterated or not in sealed containers, or a still, in its discretion, order it to be destroyed. In case of forfeitures, the law states, subject to subsection (2), liquor or a still, wagon or other article or vehicle declared to be forfeited under this Act shall, in accordance with the directions of the principal secretary (PS), be sold and the proceeds thereof paid into the public revenue of Swaziland (Eswatini). Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati said police funded their own parties and did not have to use the beer which had been confiscated. She said in addition to the money which the police officers had donated for the party, other stakeholders had also given support to the officers. Donated Vilakati did not mention which organisations donated to the end of year party. She further said it would not be right for the police to use the beer which had been confiscated because it was part of court cases. Even if they had paid admission of guilt fines, it does not mean the matter had ended, said Vilakati. She revealed that the matter had to be taken to court and later acquire an order which would then allow the police to auction or destroy the said amount of alcohol. Vilakati said this may take some time and insisted that the police would not take the alcohol for their end-of-year parties. Nhlanhla Mbingo, the Secretary of the Liquor Licensing Board, when reached for comment on the matter, said he did not believe the police officers deliberately raided for the purpose of getting free beer for their parties. He said normally, a liquor inspector would do the inspection, however, there was only one in the country and that was the reason they needed assistance from the police. Mbingo said any person selling alcohol even if it was traditional brew should have a licence. He also said the police would then have to seek an order from court to have the alcohol destroyed. LAVUMISA About 40 locals who were desperate to get into South Africa to get goodies for new years celebrations are now desperate to get out of that country. Surprisingly, the now distressed emaSwati were able to pass into the neighbouring country last Friday morning but later got more than what they had bargained for when South African authorities eventually embarked on a no-nonsense crackdown on border jumpers in the afternoon. The different family members from areas lying around the borderline at Sitilo, in Lavumisa, are now stuck in that country, where they were forced to usher the new year in holding cells. The victims were arrested after police officers from the neighbouring country demanded to see their immigration documents, which they were not able to produce while in that country last Friday. Affected families talked about the pain of spending the past weekend raising funds to rescue their arrested family members. Upsetting Perhaps, what is even more upsetting is the fact that all their efforts were in vain, and their loved ones ended up spending the first day of the year behind bars, and in a foreign country. Today is already Wednesday (yesterday) and they are still there. We now dont know what to do, children are crying back home without their mothers, lamented a relative of one of the people who have been detained in SA. Most of the locals who were affected were from doing shopping at the nearby SA town of Pongola ahead of the new year crossover. However, they ended up not being part of the celebrations with their families after they were rounded up and transported to the Magudu Police Station, where they have been detained since Friday. The sudden turn of events took the dozens of emaSwati by surprise as they were used to a soft approach by the SA security personnel which they encountered on their regular travels across the borderline for various services. Several interviewed residents said they were used to crossing over into the neighbouring country through the informal crossing at Sitilo, where authorities had never given them problems. However, they said they were taken aback on Friday when they saw some community members being quizzed as police officers searched their bags. It later transpired that the law enforcers had been searching whether they had the relevant immigration papers or not. Crackdown According to a witness, the crackdown targeted emaSwati who were returning home after doing their shopping in the neighbouring country. It came as a surprise as we had all along enjoyed an established relationship with the security personnel stationed there. It appears like new officers were dispatched to the crossing area over the festive season, which has caused problems with the locals who were already used to crossing without being subjected to any checks. This was very unfair to the arrested people, argued a resident. An official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation acknowledged receiving a report about the incident. The official said the matter was being addressed with their SA counterparts. However, at the time of going to print, this reporter was still waiting for a detailed report from acting Principal Secretary in the ministry Kennedy Groening, who was said to be held up in a meeting. MBABANE As the country continues to receive rains, the nation is urged to be cautious when crossing rivers as water levels have increased, with some rivers overflowing. Motorists are advised to be extra vigilant when crossing bridges which may not be visible due to the increased water levels. Director in the Department Water Affairs in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy, Trevor Shongwe, issued the warning. Shongwe said the rains which had been received in the past two weeks have resulted in some improvements in three of Eswatinis major dams. He said the Lubovane Dam located in the Great Usuthu currently stored the highest amount of water and was now over-spilling. Increased This, Shongwe said, was a result of the increased amount of water flowing in the Great Usuthu River. He said such had enabled the ministry to abstract the surplus water for storage in this dam. He said the Hawane Dam on the Mbuluzi River had also realised some improvement moving from 52 per cent observed on December 17, 2018 to 54 per cent recorded yesterday. Further, he said another dam which showed great improvement in storage capacity was the Luphohlo Dam on the Lusushwana River. This dam, he said, had increased from 55.6 per cent recorded on December 17, 2018 to 67.7 per cent observed as of yesterday. Shongwe said the Maguga and Mnjoli dams have continued to maintain nearly the same amount of storage as observed earlier and were currently at 67.1 per cent and 61.6 per cent respectively. The ministry greatly appreciates the rains currently being received and looks forward to more downpours for the betterment of the national water situation, Shongwe related. He encouraged the nation to use household technologies to harvest the rainwater currently being received throughout the country. Shongwe said the ministry, through the Department of Water Affairs, would continue to monitor the water situation and would periodically advise the nation on any changes in the water situation. Meteorologist Eric Seyama confirmed that streams and rivers would overflow with the continued rainfall received. Warned Seyama also warned members of the public to be careful when crossing rivers and streams. The Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) has already issued a warning on Mndobandoba River in Big Bend which had been overflowing since Tuesday. Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati said members of the public should be vigilant and not dare attempt to cross flooded rivers as it could be dangerous and infested with crocodiles as well. MBABANE Tusko D is just taking South African hip hop show by show. Barely a year after Eswatini-born rap analyst and presenter Thulani Tusko D Masekos showdown with South African rapper Cassper, he has made a comeback by being revealed as the official show for One Of The Culture, a hip hop show which will be aired on South Africas Zkhiphani. Zkhiphani is an online social lifestyle magazine that targets the South African youth. The term zkhiphani is loosely translated as whats happening, a phrase used by many people of all ages and tribes across South Africa, more especially black youth when seeking information such as news and the latest social happenings. Initially online only, in March 2014, Zkhiphani launched a glossy print edition. With his expertise being in the hip hop industry, Tusko D will be presenting a show which elaborates on the Urban Street Culture, also known as the hip hop culture and artists under such. Premier Maseko confirmed this development in his life, stating that the show was supposed to premier on December 30 last year but due to technical problems, it will air towards the end of January. I currently have another show called Tuskos Court on Slikouronlife. So I was out with the Slikouronlife (SOL) team one day and I bumped into one of the Zkhiphani founders and they showed me love and asked if I would be open to doing a hip hop debate show with them. I said yes and the rest is history, said Maseko, while elaborating on how he was made a presenter on this internationally renowned platform. Maseko further said he hoped that just like the other shows on his YouTube channel, this one becomes one of the biggest hip hop shows in Southern Africa if not the whole continent. Career-wise, my goal is to grow. So long as I am growing and inspiring others to pursue their goals especially Swazi youth, I am happy, he said. In the meantime, South African rapper Gigi Lamayne congratulated Tusko Ds developments, stating that he was the best in the industry on her social media pages. Attention Maseko has managed to get the attention of South African rappers and thanks to his analytic videos which he airs on YouTube. Tusko D, the 25-year-old liSwati is not new in hip hop as before he was an analyst, he was a rapper himself since he was at KaZakhali High School. While at university, the blogger playfully posted a video where he was analysing South African hip hop and it got more than 10 000 views in one day, and that is how his name, Tusko D, rose to fame. He has been officially named as the DJ of academics of SA Hip Hop or The Hip Hop Analyst and this title has lent him a position at Rawbust Productions as an anchor who interviews artists during shows. HAVE A NOTE? Or a Sez You? E-mail them to notester@thesunchronicle.com or drop them in snail mail addressed to Restaurant Notes, The Sun Chronicle, Box 600, Attleboro, MA 02703. remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Posted Monday, December 24, 2018 5:49 am Thanks to a student at Laurin Middle School, local parents facing financial difficulties were able to still see their childs face light up on Christmas morning. Prior to Christmas, 13-year-old Madeline McMillen baked and sold pies to buy 300 toys and worked with local businesses to collect over 400 more. An event was then held at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Vancouver where parents in need were able to pick out toys to give their children. She made it her little mission to make sure everyone feels loved, her mother Wendy said after the event. Posted Wednesday, January 2, 2019 7:11 am Luke Cook of Woodland completed high school early in December through TEAM High School, Woodland Public Schools alternative high school, allowing him to pursue his career plans of becoming a Portland police officer. Cook initially enrolled in TEAM his freshman year after moving to Woodland from Oregon with his family. I was home-schooled until high school, so TEAMs less structured approach was more appealing than enrolling at a traditional school, he said. TEAMs environment is much less stressful and allows you to create your own schedule with hours that work around your other responsibilities. Cook left TEAM to attend Woodland High School for a semester to earn foreign language credit before finishing his high school education at TEAM. While enrolled at TEAM, Cook also took classes in criminal justice at Cascadia Technical Academy. In addition to attending Cascadia, TEAMs flexible hours and schedules gave Cook the opportunity to take part in the Clark County Sheriff Explorers program, a cooperative venture between the Clark County Sheriffs Office and Learning for Life. The Explorer Program offers youth between the ages of 15-and-a-half and 21 the opportunity to observe the criminal justice system and make an informed career decision by assisting sheriffs. The Explorer Program noticed Cook had a knack for leadership and started giving him additional responsibilities. I started with the Explorers last year and it wasnt long before they started assigning me lessons to learn and teach to my colleagues, Cook said. This year, I was promoted to captain where I direct teams of 40-50 explorers at any given time. In order to achieve his career goals of becoming a police officer, Cook enlisted in the security division of the U.S. Air Force. The position offers him the ability to earn an associates degree while he serves his tour of duty starting in February 2019. In the Air Force, I will get a lot more leadership experience, earn my associates degree, and have my remaining undergraduate work paid for which will all help me get to work in law enforcement, he said. I really enjoy structure and I think the military will play to that strength; Im only little nervous because Im actually really excited. Woodland Public Schools Posted Wednesday, January 2, 2019 7:15 am In a ceremony once practiced by their ancestors, members of the Cowlitz Tribe gathered at the Cathlapotle Plankhouse in the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge Dec. 21 to celebrate the first day of winter. The following description from a news release submitted by the tribe highlights the ceremonys mood: The blazing fire carefully stoked to life by Robert Harju, the tribes firekeeper, was surrounded by descendants of ancient peoples who recognized the subtle changes of seasons, sun and moon patterns, and the movements of the earth. Cowlitz drums filled the air during the exact time of the (winter) solstice exchange followed by prayers and the telling of stories by the elders. Several tribe members told stories. Mike Ilyall, a Lewis and Clark scholar, described the ancient Cathlapotle village life, and how the variety of different languages confused members of the expedition. Cathy Sellards talked about her family lands being chipped away by eminent domain. Phil Harju shared his historic St. Martin family roots in the Columbia River Gorge. Darlene Rhodes explained what it was like growing up on a reservation. The eldest matriarch, Juanita Clark, told a tale about the presence of ancestral spirits and how their energies communicate. In her prayers, spiritual leader Tanna Engdahl talked about transformation and renewal, the birth of the sun and the shift of the earth toward the light. Posted Wednesday, January 2, 2019 7:27 am I take mindbender movies on the regular, but when I need to unwind romance is my go to. Now, I cant claim to be a sage on romance movies (I mean, I just saw Sleepless in Seattle for the first time a few months ago), but Ive read and seen enough romance to know that tropes run rampant throughout the genre. When Netflix suggested I watch one of their originals, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, I was pleasantly surprised to find unique storytelling that strayed from the mind-numbing patterns of tortured heroines, alpha heroes and class warfare. Instead, theres charming Juliet Ashton (Lily James) and headstrong Elizabeth McKenna (Jessica Brown Findlay) who use their tragic pasts to build upon their character rather than hold them back. Theres also Dawsey Adams (Michiel Huisman), Markham Reynolds (Glen Powell) and Sidney Stark (Matthew Goode) who support Juliet through her decision making rather than force her into it, and finally, we have a Society that is formed from people of all walks of life, created solely for companionship (and a little bit of survival, I suppose) during WWIIs German occupation. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is about closure from one of the worst wars mankind has ever seen. We see a freshly painted sky-blue door and luxury apartments amidst rubble in London, imposing industrial bunkers atop a flourishing Guernsey cliffside and jazzy parties bubbling with champagne and jitterbugging. Each and every member of the Society, including little 5-year-old Kit (Florence Keen), gets their moment to overcome the damage left on them from the war. Ill admit, at the beginning I was a little put off by the number of characters introduced in a movie running two hours. More often than not there isnt enough time to allow for an emotional connection or to completely develop the characters from their flawed beginnings, but the strategic, non-chronological storytelling and tear-inducing acting left me with another movie to add to my watch-monthly list. Juliet is the easiest character to fall in love with. Not only do we see her struggle with the repercussions of the war, but she also has to cope with being a female writer in the 1940s. The combination of the two leaves her with a loss of identity and some survivors guilt, but with inspiration gained through her letter-exchange with Dawsey Adams, she decides to rediscover herself on the isle of Guernsey by learning about the creation of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and uncovering the mystery of Elizabeth Mckennas absence. Juliets romantic developments are where we best see the movie abandon genre tropes. Typically Im left shoving my head in a pillow or yelling at the screen in frustration because of some nonsensical decision making on the protagonists part, but instead I was left with nothing to gripe at and a mouthful of praise to unload on anyone willing to listen (in this case it turned out to be my poor unsuspecting husband and now you, the readers). Guernseys costume designer Charlotte Walter and cinematographer Zac Nicholson also played a crucial role in setting the tone for success in this movie. The first shot of Juliet has her in a beautifully designed royal blue hat that provides a strong angular silhouette alluding to her success and wealth. Its color and height are a stark contrast to the grey London wasteland she and Sidney are traveling through and its the first hint of escapism shes buried herself in to cope with the past. In a scene further along in the movie, a combination of Amelia Maugerys (Penelope Wilton) painful anecdote and the way the shot was framed was powerful enough to make me ugly cry all three times I watched the movie. Amazing acting aside, the wide, low shot of Amelia standing by herself, arms crossed in front of her as if to make herself appear as small as possible and surrounded by darkness despite the warm glow of candles in the background adds to her sense of loneliness and loss and the amount of tissues youll end up needing. I suppose the satisfying part of the movie is its focus on family and mystery as opposed to romance. Sure, theres a love triangle and babies and forbidden relationships, but the moments that were integral to character and plot development came from Juliets interactions with the Society, Sidney, and Mark in her quest to find Elizabeth McKenna. The historical aspect of the movie was also unlike any other WWII movie Ive seen. Instead of battlefields lit with explosions and riddled with corpses, the most gruesome image we receive are the lines of dirty and tortured Todt workers running their way to the bunkers while sharing a potato between them. Through visions of the past, theres still a sense of how horrid the war was on the front lines. I appreciated this uniqueness above all because it lent a different perspective to a story thats been retold time and time again. Im an optimist when it comes to movies, so it doesnt take much for me to like a title, but I only have a select few on my list of movies that I watch repeatedly (Amelie, Clueless and How to Make a Million, to name a few). The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is so heavily layered with easter eggs that Im confident this movie will be a great addition to my list, and from its variety of genre, relatable characters, and beautiful sets I urge my fellow Netflix subscribers to promptly add it to their watch lists. About the writer Kaitlyn Baker lives with her husband and two Shiba Inus in Vancouver, Washington. When shes not writing, Kaitlyn loves to explore the Pacific Northwest, travel with her friends, find an undiscovered book series and of course binge-watch Netflix. Clearfield, PA (16830) Today Partial cloudiness early, with scattered showers and thunderstorms during the afternoon. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 78F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Thunderstorms during the evening will give way to mainly clear skies after midnight. Low 54F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%. Southern Pines, NC (28387) Today Sunny skies this morning. Scattered showers and thunderstorms developing during the afternoon. High near 90F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Partly cloudy skies after midnight. Low around 70F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%. Sterling Heights, MI (48312) Today Scattered thunderstorms. High near 75F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 58F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Not sure where? Well, we've rounded up some exciting new openings for all you food lovers to check out, showing you where you can try some delicious new meals and eat your way through 2019. Image credit: The Marram Grass Those who have read ourwill already be familiar with this restaurant in Anglesey, however, brothers Liam and Ellis Barrie are following on from the huge success of their restaurant and are opening a second one in Liverpool. The new establishment, which will be located at the Albert Dock, sees the brothers return to their roots. Exact details about the opening are limited but expect this new restaurant to open a little later in 2019. Image credit: Dishroom This chain has several restaurants in London and Edinburgh already, but it will be expanding by opening its first site in Manchester later this month. The restaurant will follow the others by paying homage to the Irani cafes of Bombay and will serve similar menus to them. So, expect to see its famous bacon naan rolls. Image credit: Stem & Glory Cambridge's popular vegan restaurant is heading to London for a new city takeover. From January 14th the new restaurant will be based at Old Street and will be offering a plant-based menu to eager Londoners. Perfect for veganuary. With everything freshly prepared in this restaurant, this promises to be one of the most exciting new openings of the year. Image credit: Vapiano The popular Italian food chain is doubling its London presence to six throughout 2018. This is following on from the successful launch in Glasgow. The first of the three new restaurants will open this month at the massive redeveloped Centre Point landmark on Tottenham Court Road. The second new restaurant will open at Canary Wharf and the third and biggest one of all will open at Tower Bridge (right near The National Student HQ, no less.) Image credit: Publicity Picture Opening mid-January, this new restaurant combines a healthy food and deli bar with a yoga studio. Customers will be able to click and collect at the deli during the week while on weekends the venue will play host to live acoustic music, brunch platters and cocktail trolleys. Yoga classes will also be hosted here and with a studio that can hold up to 30 people, this is something that is not to be missed. Make sure to book in for the mindfulness and meditation workshops as well. Image credit: Darren Quinton This new Italian restaurant has been launched by Aktar Islam, who not too long ago launched his upmarket Indian restaurant in Birmingham. It boasts a wood fired oven and a concise menu for customers. With two different pastas being made fresh every day and with a huge amount of flavour in every dish, this looks to be a another hit for Aktar. Image credit: Pensons Pensons is a new rural restaurant and the brainchild of chef Lee Westcott and Peta Darnley. The menu is inspired by the countryside and fresh local produce. Housed in the newly restored farm buildings on the Netherwood Estate that go back centuries and with a guest house located on site, this restaurant promises a cool and calm atmosphere. Image credit: Jonathan Myers Planned for the High Street in Cardiff, this Cuban restaurant will see a fusion menu of both Cuban and tapas style food. Old Havana will also offer Cuban cocktails, wines, spirits and beers. It will be the first of two to open and the launch night is booked for February 1st. Image credit: Dusty Knuckle It's the second venue from this award winning enterprise, which is run by husband and wife duo Phill and Deb Lewis. Located at Warden's House in the city centre, it will be opening early spring this year. The pizzas are wood fired and fresh ingredients are used for every pizza. Image credit: Federal Cafe Bar sustainable eating guide This Australian and New Zealand inspired restaurant will serve dishes such as acai bowls, corn fritters and everyone's favourite, avocado on toast. The new site will stay open into the evenings and host pop up supper clubs and kitchen takeovers. A more contemporary bar, it's hoped this new opening will add even more life to the already busy streets around Deansgate. : We can confirm a 4.65 metre White Shark was removed from the Maroubra shark meshing net this morning by contractors during a routine check.by local fisherman Jason Moyce, also known as Trapman Bermagui, claimed on social media that the shark tail was over two metres tall and the sharks weight was over a ton". According to the Sea Life Trust in Australia, I spoke to Madi Stewart, Australian Geographicslso known as 'shark girl'. An environmental activist and filmmaker, she has dedicated her life to helping others understand and respect these amazing creatures. I asked Madi why shark nets are a danger to shark populations. She says: "Shark nets have been successful in catching and killing many species of sharks since their instalment in Australia over 30 years ago. "Their impact on the population of not only sharks, but lots of other marine life, can be seen by the decrease in catch numbers since their placement, suggesting they have successfully culled a local population of wildlife."Madi goes on to discuss the 'effectiveness' of shark nets: "A lot of people think we oppose shark nets because they kill animals... but it's more than that," she says. "I personally oppose shark nets because they are ineffective in protecting people. Not only has there been a fatal attack at a beach with drum lines in the past, but the notion that a small stretch of beach that has a tiny net that doesn't even touch the ocean floor is going to save anyone is flawed. "The reality of the environment (that) we live in here in Australia, and anywhere around the world, is a reality we have forgotten. It's not ours, and it's dangerous, and it means we may have to abandon a perfect break every now and then to avoid becoming a victim to a shark attack... the very real threat of sharks needs to be taken into our own hands sometimes, and not just that of the government's. "Sharks are not a mystery; they are not an enigma - there are many things you can and should learn about the dangerous predator you enter the water with, as hikers do with bears, and many other examples. "So my advice to you is this; know your place in the ocean, and accept that risk and make your own personal attempts to make it safer for yourself, but never forget that it is not our ocean."I asked Madi what we can do to raise awareness of endangered species, in particular how to work against shark finning processes. She said to "be careful not to buy shark products" and to "raise local awareness, and lobby governments". It is estimated thatas a result of shark finning practices, and even more endangered species are at risk with the implementation of shark nets and drum lines.Contrary to popular belief, shark nets are not a continuous barrier protecting bays and beaches, nor are they intended to entrap animals. Instead, they act as disruptors to territorial sharks natural hunting patterns, in theory, discouraging them from hunting close to beaches where people swim and surf. They are usually, therefore allowing sharks to swim over and around them without much difficulty. The main issue with shark nets is that although their purpose is not to trap marine life, inevitably, there is a huge amount of by-catch, including endangered sharks and other creatures.statistics released by the Department of Primary Industries revealed that just 3% (9 sharks) of the animals caught were target species. It was also stated that just 47% of the other marine wildlife caught were released alive. Another major issue that arises is the fact that shark nets dont really work. According to athe annual rate of attack was the same both before and after meshing commenced. Although the number of shark attack fatalities has reduced since the nets were put into the water, this is mainly due to improved medical assistance.: These deaths [of marine wildlife] are not a trade-off for the protection of people, but are unnecessary deaths in an out-dated system that doesnt protect anyone". Recent advances in technology mean that shark nets really are becoming outdated and ineffective. As reported byin 2016, lifeguards at the popular tourist destination, Bondi Beach, trialled the Clever Buoy, a system designed by. Over the three-month trial, the buoy detected 33 sharks over two metres in length, five of which were tracked during daylight hours. This led to a more effective use of the lifeguards time as they were able to track the sharks and direct a jet ski directly towards them in order to coax them back out to the open ocean, as opposed to relying on witnesses and manually checking the shark nets. There are three species of sharks that make up the large majority of shark attacks on humans - great white, tiger, and bull sharks. Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean mainly has an issue with bull sharks, considered by many shark experts to be the most aggressive. In 2017, Deeper Blue published an in-depth article, looking at the increase in shark attacks around the island., suggesting it is a recent development. They identified one cause as the rapid urban expansion taking place on the island, and the run off from the developments having caused muddy inshore waters an ideal hunting ground for bull sharks. This makes it more difficult for shark spotters to communicate effectively, as they are unable to observe sharks in the murky waters. Natural shark populations flourished in Reunion after the island banned the fishing of sharks for food in 1999, after evidence of shark meat containing dangerous levels of the toxin ciguatera. However, the larger species of sharks that are prevalent in Reunion is in part due to overfishing. The population of smaller reef sharks has collapsed, and the consequent ecological vacuum (similar to situations that arise after shark culls) has allowed for larger sharks to infiltrate the waters as they try to take control of the territory, thus resulting in bull sharks becoming more aggressive. SHARK NETS FOR HUNGER STRIKE // Credit: Madison Stewart https://www.madistewart.com/ here Lead Image by Michael Gove The idea that the 10p charge is enough to make a substantial difference is symptomatic of the culture that every little helps when it comes to combatting climate change and pollution. From meat-free Mondays to reusable coffee cups, it is easy to feel assured that one is doing enough by doing the minimum. While I would never berate someone for being proud of their KeepCup, the dire situation our planet is in means that we will need a lot more than just a 10p charge on a plastic bag in order to reverse, or at least lessen, the damage that has been already been done. Let's cut to the chase; selling plastic bags is unnecessary. The 5p charge, implemented in 2015, has no doubt decreased our use of plastic bags at least 85% according to multiple reports and so I cannot undermine the effects of the charge. The 10p charge could be seen as an addition to these positive effects, even if its coming far too late. However, our planet does not have time for such small baby steps. Just as with single-use coffee cups, plastic bags should either be banned or made a truly obscene price in order to become a true deterrent. I know if I had to dig deep and pay 1.50 for a bag or a single-use coffee cup, being prepared for such an occasion would be pushed to the forefront of my mind. These minimal changes are simply not enough and seem like an attempt at appeasing those concerned about the environment with a minor change. We need more. After all, the shock of enacting real environmental change will be less jarring than the shock of realising the earth is irreversibly doomed. Image Credit: International Journal of Environmental Problems here This is also true for other environmentally-affecting factors. You can still buy a cheeseburger for 99p, despite the known detriments of beef production for the planet., as discussed byin herdocumentary, has an abhorrent effect on the planet yet is unbelievably cheap to purchase.as well as incentive must be combined to ensure that people take effective steps towards a. Its so easy to turn a blind eye because of low costs and minimal immediate repercussions even if the eventual outcome will be devastating. Despite large corporations being overwhelmingly responsible for a lot of environmental damage, it is still worth shouldering responsibility for our own actions. It may be thatare not enough to ensure real change, but we can change our habits to ensure we do as much as we can. Because the truth is, we can do more than just bring along an old plastic bag. Sadly, the thought process behind the plastic bag charge is a reminder that being environmentally irresponsible is too easy. We are able to buy plastic bags for barely anything, we only lose out on 25p or so when we forget our re-usable cups, and we can still buy meat at a very low price. Whilst I hope that the government starts to enact more legislation to combat the staggering effects of modern life on the environment, all I can say is, at least theyve started somewhere.Lead Image by Salida, CO (81201) Today A good deal of sunshine. Hot. High near 95F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Mostly clear. Low 57F. SE winds shifting to W at 10 to 15 mph. The Japanese imperial family gathered on Tuesday in Tokyo, where Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko received the annual new year greetings at the imperial palace for the last time. We saw plenty of jewels for the event including a tiara from a surprise attendee! Empress Michiko has not worn tiaras for some time, but she always sparkles in fantastic jewels for this annual event. This year, she chose diamonds, including an impressive necklace with a pendant drop and earrings. JAPAN POOL VIA JIJI PRESS/AFP/Getty Images The biggest surprise on the day came from the woman who will become empress later this year: Crown Princess Masako, who attended the ceremony for the first time in more than a decade. In previous years, weve only seen photographs of her arriving at the palace. This year, she donned the Pearl Sunburst Tiara to extend her new year greetings to her parents-in-law alongside her husband, Crown Prince Naruhito. (They will ascend to the Chrysanthemum throne when Emperor Akihito abidcates this spring.) screencapture Masako headed up a long line of imperial princesses at the ceremony, all of whom wore traditional parures of matching diamond and pearl jewels. After Masako, we see the Princess Akishino wearing her wedding tiara, followed by her daughters, Princess Mako (wearing her parure) and Princess Kako (wearing hers). Next comes Princess Tomohito of Mikasa (in her diamond parure), followed by her daughters, Princess Akiko (in her parure) and Princess Yoko (in hers). And then weve got a perennial favorite, the Princess Takamado, wearing her wedding parure, and Princess Tsuguko, wearing her diamond parure. Unlimited website access 24/7 Unlimited e-Edition access 24/7 The best local, regional and national news in sports, politics, business and more! With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. A puppy for Grandma? It may seem like a good idea to get Grandma a puppy, but is it? There are situations in which a senior having a dog can be a blessing for... A Dane in Denmark As you begin to feel comfortable at the thought of taking a trip abroad, you might consider an uncommon destination. If you wish to visit a place where people are... Blackshear, GA (31516) Today Mostly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 72F. Winds light and variable. Tourists flee Thai islands as Tropical Storm Pabuk closes in Bangkok, Jan 3 (AFP) Jan 03, 2019 Tens of thousands of tourists have fled some of Thailand's most popular islands as Tropical Storm Pabuk closes in and threatens to batter the southern part of the kingdom with heavy rains, winds and seven-metre (22-foot) waves. The islands of Koh Phangan and Koh Tao, packed with holiday-makers during the peak Christmas and New Year season, have emptied out since Wednesday as tourists squeeze onto ferries bound for the southern Thai mainland, with swimming banned and boats set to suspend services. Pabuk, Thailand's first tropical storm in the area outside of the monsoon season for around 30 years, is poised to hit the two islands as well as neighbouring Koh Samui on Friday afternoon, before cutting into the mainland. Packing winds of 104 kilometres per hour (65 mph), Pabuk is unlikely to intensify into a full blown typhoon, according to forecasters. "But we expect waves as high as five or seven metres near the eye of the storm," Phuwieng Prakammaintara, head of the Thai Meteorological Department, told reporters. No official evacuation order has been given but tourists are leaving in droves, with those unable to book flights preparing to see out the storm on eerily deserted islands. "I think the islands are almost empty... between 30,000 to 50,000 have left since the New Year's Eve countdown parties," Krikkrai Songthanee, Koh Phangnan district chief, told AFP. The acting mayor of Koh Tao, one of Southeast Asia's finest diving spots, said boats to Chumphon on the mainland were crammed with tourists, but several thousand guests were still on the island likely to brave the storm. "It's difficult to predict the severity of the storm so people should comply with authorities' recommendations." - 'Danger flags' - On Koh Samui, a Russian man drowned on Wednesday after his family ignored warnings not to go into the sea. "A family of three went swimming but the strong current caught a 56-year-old man who drowned," Police Captain Boonnam Srinarat of Samui Police told AFP. "Island officials announced the warning and put up the red 'danger' flags... but maybe the family did not think the situation was that serious." Bangkok Airways, which has a virtual monopoly on the air route to the island, cancelled all flights in and out of Samui on Friday. Authorities prepared shelters for tourists who decided to wait out the storm or who could not secure seats on ferries for the mainland before services are suspended late Thursday. Pabuk, which means a giant catfish in Lao, is also expected to dump heavy rain across the south, including tourist hotspots in the Andaman Sea such as Krabi and Phuket. The Similan National Park, home to pristine beaches and bays, has been closed until Saturday as a precaution as the storm bites into business during the peak season. The southernmost provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala near the Malaysia border are also bracing for flooding. Thailand's economy is heavily reliant on tourism. The kingdom is expected to welcome a record 40 million people this year, many bound for its southern beaches and resorts. * Username This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely! Thank you for Reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and Purchase a Subscription to continue reading. Letter to the Editor The efforts been renewed to bond for a new school. . Let me state the problem Everybody, including me, wants a new school, nobody wants to ... What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 712-243-2624 or email circ@ant-news.com. 6. Al Said The second in the Royal Omani fleet to make it into the top ten largest yachts, Al Said measures in at an impressive 155m. She was custom built in 2008 by Lurssen at their Vegesack shipyard, with exterior styling by Espen Oeino and interior design by Redman Whitely Dixon. Al Said is most notable for her people carrying capacity - she is able to accommodate a remarkable 70 guests and 154 crew. Despite a focus on quantity, Al Said is also a luxurious vessel with a majestic interior featuring classically panelled wood walls, as well as luxury amenities including a concert hall that can accommodate a 50-piece orchestra. 7. Topaz The seventh largest yacht currently on the water is Topaz, a 147.25m custom-built motor yacht from large yacht pioneers Lurssen. Construction was completed in 2012, when a formidable specimen with steel hull and aluminium superstructure emerged from the floating shed. Like many other large vessels, the details surrounding Topaz have been historically nebulous. We know that her exterior styling was carried out by Tim Heywood Design, whose signature is emblazoned on the superstructure, and that she conceals luxury interior spaces designed by Terence Disdale. We also know that the third largest yacht to be launched by Lurssen belongs to a member of the UAE elite. 8. Prince Abdulaziz A slightly older vessel, this yacht has persisted in the top ten rankings despite a general trend of larger and larger boats. Prince Abdulaziz is 147m in length and was built in 1984 by Danish shipyard Helsingor Vaerft. Despite her age and size, or perhaps because of it, Prince Abdulaziz retains a graceful appearance courtesy of Maierform Maritime Technology exterior design and interior appointment by David Hicks, who was lauded during his lifetime for his dramatic, colourful spaces. She is a vessel of utmost splendour, with notable features including a large lobby on the main deck which is said to mimic that of the Titanic, as well as a fully equipped hospital, mosque and cinema. 9. El Mahrousa El Mahrousa is a 145.72m yacht custom built by Samuda Bros in 1865, with sophisticated engineering and exterior by Sir Oliver Lang. At over 145m long and over 150 years old, she is the largest classic yacht currently cruising the high seas. This historic vessel was presented to her owner, the Ottoman governor of Egypt Khedive Ismail, at the opening ceremony of the Suez Canal in 1869 - she is a living, breathing relic. El Mahrousa underwent a 12m followed by a 5m lengthening in the ensuing years before slipping into disrepair whilst being used as a museum ship. A 1992 overhaul made her seaworthy once again, and nowadays El Mahrousa is maintained by the Egyptian Navy but rarely seen in public. 10. Sailing Yacht A The first motor sailor in the top ten, 142.8m Sailing Yacht A is a 2017 Nobiskrug with beautiful exterior and interior design curated by Philippe Starck. The yacht, which is officially classified as a sail-assisted motor yacht, is the the second to be commissioned by Russian businessman Andrey Melnichenko. Once again, the details surrounding Sailing Yacht A are closely guarded, but publicly known facts entails her underwater viewing lounge, which resides in the bow, and her possession of the worlds tallest carbon masts - the tallest soaring to 100m above sea level. El Leon is a recent build, having been delivered to her Owner last summer and publicly unveiled at the 2018 Monaco Yacht Show. She is the first model in the Mangusta GranSport line, a new generation of Fast Displacement vessels designed by Alberto Mancini. Measuring in at 54m, El Leon is also the largest yacht to come out of the Viareggio shipyard. The boat has an impressive top cruising speed of 30 knots and a range of 4,800 nautical miles; a capability made possible by cutting edge onboard technologies. Hi-tech solutions include a Studio Ausonio designed Fast Surface Piercing Hull, meaning that the hull possesses a bulbous bow that effortlessly skims the surface, using dynamic thrusts to control longitudinal trum and maintaining a displacement mode even at high speeds. The alliance of a 4-engine / 4-propeller drive, with the added benefit of electric stabilizers, makes El Leon a powerful and comfortable specimen. The yachts owner decided to undertake the Atlantic crossing after testing the vessel during the summer. Ordinarily boats of this size do not have the range to cover the distance from Europe to the Americas and are therefore loaded onto another vessel. However, El Leon and the Mangusta Gransport range has been specifically designed and built for such a cruise, and no such measures were necessary. The vessel, carrying nine crew plus the captain, embarked on the 1st of December and moored in Gibraltar on the 4th. After a quick re-fuel, El Leon steered into the Atlantic Ocean and cruised towards the Canary Islands. After a second stop-off on the 11th, the yacht then embarked on the longest leg of its journey - a 2,450nm trip to the American continent. After a total of 6 effortless days, captain and crew caught sight of Bridgetown, Barbados. Although Paolo Bozzo Costa, El Leons Captain, was willing to find out more about her peculiarities along the way, he reported that the yacht behaved outstandingly. The performance has confirmed her seakeeping capabilities and benefits of her innovative hull. El Leon not only maintained a remarkable average speed of 14 knots, but arrived in the Caribbean with enough fuel in her tank that her first cruise was a leisurely affair. The yacht impressed us with her great comfort, stability and performance, the captain has reflected, I am increasingly proud of having helped Overmarine Mangustas staff during this yachts design and sea trials. After this great Ocean crossing, El Leon will take us on new exciting voyages around the world! After this encouraging development, we cannot wait to see what is in store for Mangusta and the Gransport range. Changes to the SunCommercial's back end processing means the e-edition is getting a facelift. The biggest change is the e-edition, by default, is now presented in Text view. Shares is the leading weekly publication for retail investors. It is packed with investment ideas, news and educational material to help build and run portfolios and get more from your money. Shares puts on free Investor Events throughout the year across the country. They provide an opportunity for investors to learn more about companies on the stock market and hear from a range of investment experts including fund managers and Shares journalists. . 800 . .- . , , ... While theres no shortage of passion and enthusiasm among many who work in the St. Louis Jewish community, Linda Markowitzs zest for her job seems unparalleled. As office manager of the St. Louis Kollel and administrative director of its Senior Kollel Division,Markowitz likens her job to her happy place, explaining that going to work there for the past 12 years is a gift and that there is nothing shed rather be doing. Maybe its because she believes wholeheartedly in the Senior Kollels mission to provide mentally stimulating, spiritually uplifting and socially gratifying Jewish experiences to the senior population of St. Louis. ADVERTISEMENT While much of Senior Kollels programming is designed to appeal to Jewish retirees and empty-nesters, Markowitz says, it is not geared only to the Orthodox or observant Jewish community. She explains that the Senior Kollel sponsors programs in four main areas: Jewish learning and engagement; memory strengthening and enhancement; wellness and prevention; and special events and multigenerational opportunities. It regularly attracts some of the areas top medical doctors and professionals to lead free seminars on active aging, mindfulness training, memory function, nutrition, osteoporosis, audiology, ophthalmology and other areas of interest to older adults. It offers womens learning groups, text-based daily learning for men and ethics classes. It also carries pretty much everything anyone would need for a kosher Jewish household. During a recent visit, Markowitz showed me around its jam-packed space at 8200 Delmar Blvd. When we pass by a tall rack loaded with wine bottles, she explains the Kollel boasts the largest selection of kosher wines in St. Louis. After the tour, we sat down to talk, and Markowitz cheerfully answered five pressing questions. What are the biggest challenges you face at the St. Louis Kollel? The biggest challenge is getting the word out to the greater St. Louis Jewish community about what we are doing and encouraging them to come and participate in our programs. The second biggest challenge is funding. What arent you doing at the Kollel that you would like to do, or what are you doing that you would like to do more of? More funding would help us to do more events and do our special events on a larger scale. For example, wed like to do something on the scale of the mah-jongg tournament that the Jewish Light did in October (which attracted 100 participants), an event that would bring a lot of people together. We have this idea of doing a wine-tasting event, but that requires money. More funding would also help us to increase our publicity efforts and maybe even have someone on staff to help with social media. We have a core group of 35 to 45 people who come regularly. I would like to see the core group double in the next year so we have 70 to 90 in that group. If each of them brought a spouse or friend or neighbor, that would be 200 participants, which would mean real growth. What is it about the work you do that you enjoy? They say Disneyland is the happiest place on earth, but I think the Kollel is the happiest place on earth. This is the most upbeat place to work. I go to Wellbridge (to work out) and I say to the Wellbridge ladies, Try to imagine working in a place where there is no waste of time, no gossip, no office politics, no harassment. I feel greatly appreciated and respected here. Then theres Mayer Klein. He is the president of the board and founder of the Kollel. Its his baby. Hes been involved with the Kollel for 27 years and is one of the top-notch negotiating attorneys in the country. But that doesnt stop him from giving an enormous amount of time and effort to the Kollel. His passion filters down to all of us. When someone comes to the Kollel for the first time, do you find they keep coming back? Yes, we find once someone comes to one of our programs or events, they are likely to come back. We also have a database for donors. Occasionally, Ill ask (those who run the donor database) for help with a report, and even they have commented that in their professional experience, they have not seen a donor retention rate like ours. Its remarkable, the loyalty. And from year to year, there is no fall off. Do you think people who are not part of the observant community feel alienated or uncomfortable about coming to the Kollel because they fear they would not be welcomed? There is that myth, but it is not founded in reality. I myself, coming from a nonobservant background (she grew up in the Reform movement), remember being nervous going to Agudas Israel (located next door to the Kollel building). Seeing these guys with black suits and black hats can be a little off-putting. But you realize these externals are just externals. This is the way they dress, and its different from maybe the way you look, but their hearts are gold and there is a loving, inviting acceptance for all Jews here. All you have to do is give them a chance and then you realize there was nothing to be afraid of. These are some of the warmest, most welcoming people around. For more information about the St. Louis Kollel, call 314-726-6047 or go to www.stlkollel.com. Housing Authority of St. Louis County records for Park Ridge Apartments in Ferguson show an uptick in inspections in the latter part of 2018. T.E.H. Realty became the new owner of Park Ridge Apartments in May 2018. This Page Is Under Construction - Coming Soon! Why am I seeing this 'Under Construction' page? Ashtabula, OH (44004) Today Scattered thunderstorms this morning, then mainly cloudy during the afternoon with thunderstorms likely. High 73F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 59F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Milton, PA (17847) Today Sunshine this morning. Scattered thunderstorms developing this afternoon. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 82F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Light rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers overnight. Low 57F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%. Occupied Aaiun, Jan 02, 2018 (SPS) - The Moroccan Police has expelled two Spanish citizens from the territory of Western Sahara, one of the two affected, Irati Tobar, explained by telephone from Agadir, according to Spanish daily information 20 minutos.es The expulsion took place on December 31 in a house of a Saharawi family in El Aaiun, and told them to pick up their luggage and leave the territory. "They told us that here they come to do tourism and not political activity, and that we should be in a hotel and not in a private house for our own safety," Tobar explained. However, Tobar said that the two of them were not participating in any political activity and that they were dedicated to tourism with the sole objective of getting to know the situation in Western Sahara, for which they had chosen to stay with a family, to which They arrived by the contact of some friends in the Basque Country. The agents who expelled them from the territory accompanied them to a collective taxi where they were forced to go up and took them to Agadir, where tomorrow they will travel to Casablanca, and from there to Bilbao. The expulsions of foreigners from the territory of Western Sahara are frequent (97 in 2016, according to a count of a Sahrawi NGO), but almost always affect activists of NGOs, lawyers, journalists, councilors or deputies who come to participate in conferences or campaigns of the independence The Moroccan police, which never presents the expulsion order in writing, argues that to travel to the Occupied Western Sahara it must be done with a declared purpose and always passing through the official channels SPS 125/090/TRA Optimization Are you frustrated with a slow pc or a hard disk not performing as it should? Try SLOW-PCfighter to speed up boot time on a slow PC, or try a free scan of FULL-DISKfighter to recover space on a full disk. The latest offering is DRIVERfighter to update your driver updater. Get complete PC optimization and extend the life of your PC with these must-have software tools. Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. 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French authorities have been seeking him since he disappeared in 2011 on the final day of his trial in Paris for fighting in Iraq alongside Al-Qaeda in 2004. He appeared before a French judge on December 27 and was given a new "terrorist conspiracy" charge before returning to prison to serve the five year sentence from his original trial. He was close to the brothers who massacred staff members of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015. Cherif, also known as Abou Hamza, was placed on the US blacklist of foreign terrorists in 2015. Investigators opened a new probe in 2017 into his activities in Yemen, where he joined the senior ranks of the local branch of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The United States considers AQAP to be the jihadist group's most dangerous branch, with US drone strikes on the outfit increasing since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017. Soulef A was taken into custody on Sunday upon her arrival in France. New Pentagon chief discusses Syria with Pompeo, Bolton Washington, Jan 3 (AFP) Jan 03, 2019 Top advisors to President Donald Trump met at the Pentagon on Thursday to discuss Syria and other topics, a defense official said. The meeting was the first of its kind for Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who started his new job January 1 following the resignation of his predecessor Jim Mattis. According to a senior defense official, Shanahan met with National Security Advisor John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and General Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They "discussed a wide variety of topics to include Syria," the official said. Mattis quit last month after Trump ordered the withdrawal of US troops from Syria, even though the Islamic State still has thousands of fighters in the country and a US pull out would leave Kurdish fighters vulnerable to attack by Turkey. Shanahan must oversee how the US pulls more than 2,000 troops out of Syria. Various timelines have been floated, but Trump on Wednesday seemed vague, saying only that it would happen "over a period of time." Croatia threatens to axe plans to buy F-16 jets from Israel Zagreb, Jan 3 (AFP) Jan 03, 2019 Croatia threatened to cancel its purchase of F-16 fighter jets from Israel on Thursday after months of stalling due to a lack of US approval. Croatia had in March agreed to buy 12 used F-16s from Israel to replace its Russian-made MiG-21s. The deal, worth $500 million (440 million euros), was the Balkan nation's biggest arms purchase since splitting from former Yugoslavia in the 1990s war. But Washington objected to the sale of the US-made jets because it wants the removal of electronic system upgrades that Israel added in a rare defence dispute between the close allies. After months of delay, the Croatian defence ministry said it asked Israel for "official information by January 11 on whether Israel can deliver the planes." If Croatia is not able to buy the specific jets it chose, the government will cancel the deal, the ministry said. "We are not happy that this happened," said Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic on Wednesday. "The government firmly stands by its decision ... to realise only the offer as accepted" in March, he said. Apart from Israel, several other countries also put in bids for the tender, including Greece, South Korea, Sweden and the United States. Croatia joined NATO in 2009 and the European Union four years later. Shanahan takes Pentagon helm as Trump blasts Mattis Washington, Jan 2 (AFP) Jan 02, 2019 Acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan's first full day at the Pentagon's helm was overshadowed Wednesday when President Donald Trump attacked his predecessor Jim Mattis. Shanahan, who took the Pentagon's top spot January 1 after serving as deputy defense secretary, was thrust onto the world stage when Mattis quit last month amid long-running disagreements with President Donald Trump. During televised remarks ahead of his first cabinet meeting of 2019, Trump claimed he had "essentially fired" Mattis, even though the former Pentagon chief had pointedly quit his post over multiple disagreements. "I'm not happy with what (Mattis has) done in Afghanistan and I shouldn't be happy," Trump said, as Shanahan sat by his side. "I wish him well. I hope he does well. But as you know, President Obama fired him and essentially so did I. I want results." Mattis, a former Marine general, was head of US Central Command when Obama fired him in 2013 over his hawkish views on Iran. While it is common for Trump to turn on former staffers and make demeaning remarks after they've left their post, the Mattis criticism is notable as Trump had often touted his admiration for the man he called "Mad Dog Mattis." The drama came after Shanahan sought to lay out his priorities for America's massive defense department and how he intends to deal with an urgent list of geopolitical to-dos, including the US withdrawal from Syria. - China, China, China - Soon after arriving at the Pentagon, Shanahan told colleagues to focus on the National Defense Strategy, a Mattis-era review that highlights "Great Power competition" with Russia and China. "In 2019, the National Defense Strategy remains our guide. America's military strength remains our focus," Shanahan said in a New Year's message on Twitter. A defense official added that Shanahan had told colleagues a major concern would be China. "While we are focused on ongoing operations, Acting Secretary Shanahan told the team to remember: China, China, China," the official said. The US accuses Beijing of an ongoing pattern of military and economic espionage, and has criticized China's ambitious "Belt and Road" trade and infrastructure initiative as being a form of economic coercion. Shanahan must oversee the pace at which the US pulls some 2,200 troops out of Syria, following the president's decision to exit the war-torn country. Last month, Trump declared victory over the Islamic State group in Syria and claimed the jihadists had been beaten "badly," even though they still number in the thousands. He has since backpedaled and suggested more of a phased timeline for the withdrawal. "We're withdrawing," Trump said, adding it would happen "over a period of time." At another point, Trump told Shanahan he wanted him to classify various reports, presumably including those detailing the security crisis in Afghanistan. "For these reports to be given out and essentially given out to the enemy, that's insane," Trump told Shanahan. "I don't want it to happen anymore Mr Secretary, you understand that." According to US officials, Trump is also mulling a 50 percent drawdown in Afghanistan -- another momentous move that has left lawmakers and international allies fearing for what comes next. - Recused from Boeing matters - Little known outside business and Washington circles, Shanahan takes the world stage at a time of tumultuous changes and unpredictable foreign policy moves under Trump. Shanahan, 56, did not serve in the military and before but serving as deputy defense secretary he spent more than 30 years at Boeing. While Shanahan has not always had day-to-day involvement in thorny geopolitical issues like Syria, officials say he is ready to tackle them and previously filled in for Mattis when he was traveling. Despite a lack of foreign policy or military experience, Shanahan's executive and technical knowledge made him well suited for the Pentagon's number two position, which focuses more on the Defense Department's business side. But some critics have questioned whether a man with deep industry ties should be running the Pentagon. At his confirmation hearing to be deputy, the late senator John McCain said a lack of detail in some of Shanahan's foreign policy answers was "almost insulting," and he expressed concerns that putting a former defense executive in the Pentagon could be akin to putting a fox "back in to the henhouse." Lieutenant Colonel Joe Buccino, Shanahan's spokesman, said he had recused himself from any matters involving Boeing. Also Wednesday, Shanahan announced that the Pentagon's comptroller, David Norquist, will perform the duties of deputy secretary of defense. Trump claims he 'essentially fired' Mattis Washington, Jan 2 (AFP) Jan 02, 2019 US President Donald Trump claimed Wednesday that he had "essentially" fired Jim Mattis, even though the former Pentagon chief had pointedly quit his post over multiple disagreements. During a rambling monologue to White House journalists at the start of a cabinet meeting, Trump lashed out at his former defense secretary even as his replacement, Patrick Shanahan, sat at the president's side. "What's (Mattis) done for me? How has he done in Afghanistan?" Trump said, lamenting the ongoing Afghan security crisis and the amount America spends in the war-torn nation. "I'm not happy with what (Mattis has) done in Afghanistan and I shouldn't be happy," Trump said. "I wish him well. I hope he does well. But as you know, President Obama fired him and essentially so did I. I want results." It is common for Trump to turn on former staffers and make demeaning remarks after they've left their post, but the criticism of Mattis is notable as Trump had often touted his admiration for the man he called "Mad Dog Mattis." Mattis, a former Marine general, was head of Central Command when Obama fired him in 2013 over his hawkish views on Iran. Mattis resigned December 20, after Trump stunned the US establishment by ordering a full troop withdrawal from Syria. In his stinging resignation letter, Mattis made little attempt to hide his disagreements with Trump. "Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours," Mattis said in the letter, "I believe it is right for me to step down from my position." Trump, who received multiple draft deferments during the Vietnam War, also said he thought he "would have been a good general." Shanahan takes Pentagon helm as Syria withdrawal looms Washington, Jan 2 (AFP) Jan 02, 2019 Acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan began his first full day at the helm of the Pentagon on Wednesday with an urgent list of geopolitical to-dos, including the US withdrawal from Syria. Shanahan, who took the top spot January 1 after Jim Mattis resigned amid disagreements with President Donald Trump, must oversee the pace at which the US pulls 2,200 or so troops out of Syria, following the president's decision last month to exit the war-torn country. Trump stunned observers by declaring victory over the Islamic State group in Syria and claiming the jihadists had been beaten "badly," even though they still number in the thousands. He has since backpedaled and suggested more of a phased timeline for the withdrawal. As he started his new job, Shanahan, who previously served as deputy defense secretary, told the Pentagon to focus on the National Defense Strategy, a Mattis-era review that highlights a new era of "Great Power competition" with Russia and China. "In 2019, the National Defense Strategy remains our guide. America's military strength remains our focus," Shanahan said in a New Year's message on Twitter. A defense official added that Shanahan had told colleagues a major concern would be China. "While we are focused on ongoing operations, Acting Secretary Shanahan told the team to remember: China, China, China," the official said. The US accuses Beijing of an ongoing pattern of military and economic espionage, and has criticized China's ambitious "Belt and Road" trade and infrastructure initiative as being a form of economic coercion. According to US officials, Trump is also mulling a 50 percent draw down in Afghanistan -- another momentous move that has left lawmakers and international allies fearing for what comes next. - Recused from Boeing matters - Little known outside business and Washington circles, Shanahan takes the world stage at a time of tumultuous changes and unpredictable foreign policy moves under Trump. Shanahan, 56, did not serve in the military but has worked since July 2017 as the deputy defense secretary. Before that, he spent more than 30 years at Boeing. While Shanahan has not always had day-to-day involvement in thorny geopolitical issues like Syria, Pentagon officials say he is ready to tackle them and previously filled in for Mattis when he was traveling. Despite a lack of foreign policy or military experience, Shanahan's executive and technical knowledge made him well suited for the Pentagon's number two position, which focuses more on the Defense Department's business side. But some critics have questioned whether a man with deep industry ties should be running the Pentagon. At his confirmation hearing to be deputy, the late senator John McCain said a lack of detail in some of Shanahan's foreign policy answers was "almost insulting," and he expressed concerns that putting a former defense executive in the Pentagon could be akin to putting a fox "back in to the henhouse." "Under his Ethics Agreement, Mr Shanahan has recused himself for the duration of his service in the Department of Defense from participating in matters in which the Boeing Company is a party," spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Joe Buccino said. Also Wednesday, Shanahan announced that Pentagon comptroller David Norquist will perform the duties of deputy secretary of defense, the official said. You are the owner of this article. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. The discovery of little fire ants, known as Wasmannia auropunctata, in American Samoa has put a temporary stop to importing of planting materials from around the Pacific. The Ministries of Natural Resources and Environment has advised the public to be especially vigilant and to report any sightings of the ants. Import permits for fresh flowers, nursery stocks and other planting materials have been temporarily suspended, and all incoming cargo from American Samoa, Hawaii, New Caledonia, Tahiti, Guam, Wallis and Futuna, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands will be sprayed with low-toxic insect sprays at all entry points in Samoa. The public, especially those travelling between American Samoa and the Independent State of Samoa are therefore advised to please adhere to precautionary measures to avoid the Little Fire Ant from entering Samoas borders, the ministry announcement reads. The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program (S.P.R.E.P) is working with M.N.R.E and M.A.F to prevent the little fire ant from arriving in Samoa. The species is one of Hawaiis most notable invasive species. According to the Pacific Invasive Ant Toolkit, the little fire ant will look like a little orange dot to the average person, as they are very small. Also knows as the electric ant, they nest indoors as well as outside, and their sting causes a painful, itchy rash which is worse for children than adults. Infestations of little fire ants can make harvesting crops and removing the infestation near impossible due to the stinging, and can cause blindness, or tropical keratopathy in livestock. They spread quickly because their nests are easily moved by the wind, or by movement of waste where they often nest, the Toolkit reports. According to early research, matters re worse in agricultural and forestry land. In 1994, it was reported that: W. auropunctata commonly shows extreme population explosions and is capable under some circumstances of wiping out entire ant faunas over large areas ... forming in many places a living blanket of ants that kill and eat nearly all other ants in their path. The Ministries urge the public if they see any suspicious ants to please call M.A.F 20924 or 7767305 or M.N.R.E 67200 or 7538881. System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28: 29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbff4243570)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff3df7770)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbff4243570)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff3df7770)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbff40a27b8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff3df7770)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff3df7770)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff3601870)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7fbff3f3be50)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7fbff3f3be50)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 When innovation can't be penned in From:Shine | 2019-01-03 01:29 An artists rendition of the China-Israel (Shanghai) Innovation Harbor. The former site of a prestigious Shanghai pen factory is set to beredeveloped into an innovation hub for Chinese and Israeli high-tech companies. The Shanghai Hero Pen Factory, a brand dating back to the 1930s, will be the first phase of the China-Israel (Shanghai) Innovation Harbor, the district government of Putuo said yesterday. Thedistrict has preserved the original buildings and layout of the 1954 factory. About 7,500 square meters of the historical buildings will house the first batch of enterprises in the innovation park, the district government said. The structure of the buildings at 127 Qilianshan Road will be reinforced but their historical appearance retained. One of the buildings has been turned into an exhibition hall displaying plans for the surrounding Taopu Smart City, a developing business district featuring smart and innovation enterprises. The exhibition will be renewed for the innovation park. It will feature digital facilities as well as conference and exhibition spaces outlining cultural and scientific exchanges between China and Israel. Cao Liqiang, Party chief of Putuo, yesterday inspected the redevelopment of the site, which he said was at the top of the agenda for 2019. China and Israel announced a comprehensive partnership during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus visit to Beijing in March 2017. The innovation hub in Putuo is part of the partnership. To attract Israeli companies to the park, the district hosted a Sino-Israel entrepreneurship contest last month forstart-up tech firms from Israel. About 300 Israeli enterprises registered for the competition and 28 made it into the finals. Putuo has launched a Sino-Israel Innovation Fund with an initial 1 billion yuan (US$146 million) to mainly support new startups. The first batch of companies and agencies to set up in the innovative park can also enjoy exemptions on district-level taxes for three years, along with lease-free policies and decoration subsidies, the district government has said. The Hero Pen factory features the different industrial building styles from the 1950s and 1990s. The gold fountain pens manufactured there were once presented as national gifts to foreign leaders. Surrounding Taopu was among the first batch of chemical industrial parks in Shanghai. Set up in 1954, the development of industrial enterprises was at its peak in the 1980s. However, rapid industrial development also resulted in pollution. To restore the areas environment, the district has relocated most of the former factories and is converting the industrial land into a 500,000-square-meter park. Roads, pavements and general environment around the innovation park will also be upgraded. "It is like unexpected happening in life and I am extremely happy. Hard work definitely pays off and it's very hard to express my feelings in words right now," Anju said in a statement. TV actress Anju Jhadav, who is making her Bollywood debut with the film, says it is an unexpected happening in her life. "I thank everyone who motivated me and also to the ones who tried bringing me down... it's my determination that paid off." She will play the lead role in the film, which also stars dancer and former Bigg Boss contestant Sapna Choudhary. Anju, who comes from an army background, said her father never wanted her to enter showbiz. But after seeing her achievement, he is "super proud". "My father never wanted me to get in this field, but I tried my luck and then my mother convinced my father to allow me to come to Mumbai from Madhya Pradesh, but today after looking at all my hard work and efforts, my dad is super proud and happy that I did what I always wanted to do," she added. Dosti Ke Side Effects will release on February 8. A known name in southern films, actress Shubra Aiyappa is now driving all her energies to enter Bollywood. She feels that acting is not the kindest career to opt for but the satisfaction it delivers is unmatched. "Acting is not the kindest career to choose but the satisfaction it delivers is unmatched. I chose this career and I believe I am here to make a mark and to stay. Things are looking up and moving in the right direction," Shubra told IANS over an e-mail when asked if she is satisfied with the way her acting career is moving. "I am spending all my time in honing my craft and in the process have managed to become a better actor, dancer, and fitness fanatic," she added. The actress appeared in several commercials before signing on to make her acting debut in 2014 released film Prathinidhi portraying a journalist. She later appeared in Sagaptham, a Tamil film noted for its launch of Shanmugapandian, the son of actor-politician Vijayakanth. She also made her first appearance in a Kannada film during the same year titled Vajrakaya. She was a successful model too before taking up acting as she walked for the country's biggest fashion designers. She credits her modelling background for building confidence in her. "My modelling career has built my confidence immensely and shaped my personality positively," said the actress and added that "Bollywood is definitely on the cards." "I am driving all my energies in that direction. My dream role would be that of Wonder Woman, Black Swan, an athlete biopic or Alia Bhatt's performance in Highway to name a few," she said. Talking about the current projects, she can be seen showing her sexy avatar in Kingfisher Calendar 2019. Asked if this is an attempt to break her girl next door image, she said: "No as I believe I am an actor first and any character that I feel will complement and challenge me, I would consider this gladly." "All through my growing years as a model, each photographer I worked for or with always saw me through their lens and gave me versatile imagery. Yes, the portfolio of my modelling work will seem like that of a girl next door because of me having endorsed some of the largest jewellery and sari brands down south. "When Atul Kasbekar (the ace photographer who shot Kingfisher Calendar 2019) approached me with his belief in taking on this assignment, I again chose to trust the lens to explore my versatility and agreed to do my first ever swimsuit shoot," she added. Featuring four top models, the calendar in its 17th edition is a lifestyle property from the King of Good Times. Apart from Shubra, this year's calendar will also feature Sushrii Mishraa - beauty queen from Orissa, supermodel Diva Dhawan and Hayley Parr from the UK who flew to the exotic Island of Sardinia - an Italian island in the Mediterranean- to shoot for it. Talking about the experience, the actress said, "Being a part of this year's Kingfisher Calendar campaign was indeed a one of kind experience. The team was outstanding, the destination was divine and the entire journey was more than memorable." The recent public execution of a military officer is stirring discontent in North Korea as the regime tries to tighten control over the military. Radio Free Asia reported Tuesday that a politburo member of the North Korean People's Army artillery command in Pyongyang was publicly executed in an airfield due to insubordination to the Workers Party and "immorality." He was a fairly senior officer and appointed by the party . "The execution was conducted in front of hundreds of people," a source told RFA. "The incident is a warning to the military that corruption will not be tolerated" because it creates a slippery slope toward the destruction of socialism. Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat, earlier said that Kim Jong-un is becoming increasingly frustrated with the military. As proof, Thae offered Kim's visit to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun to commemorate the seventh anniversary of his father Kim Jong-il's death without military officials by his side. The military came to undue power and developed into an unruly state within the state due to Kim senior's disastrous "military-first" doctrine. The name Laureti Motors may not ring a bell immediately. Although Laureti may sound Italian, it is nowhere closer to popular Italian auto-majors such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, and Fiat. But wait until August, and probably that perception might change. There might be better awareness about the EV car-maker. Laureti Motors, for the uninitiated, is a British company manufacturing electronic vehicles. The company claims that DionX, their latest offering, can drive 540 kilometers on a single charge. The Tesla Model S, for comparison, had tested an average of 539 km on a single charge in 2017. At a time when other EV brands such as Renault, Tata, Hyundai etc have been frenetically trying to cobble up a model serving a decent 300-400 km range, claims of 540 km certainly sounds like a steep target. Emmanuel Laurent, Managing Director at Laureti explains in an interaction, "Using a combination of specific battery technology and power systems gave us the key breakthrough results to bring forth DionX. This enables Laureti to produce highly efficient long range EVs that come with battery life guarantee up to 100,000 kms." Besides the long range, Laureti claims that it would also focus on demonstrating its safety standards. "Laureti will also be known for its safety aspect especially in the Indian market. We sourced a lot of data and research on road conditions and traffic behavior in building our technology solutions to achieve top mark in safety standards. We are looking forward to publishing further test results and demonstrating them live in the 'Endurance Trip' this year." added Marcus Paleti, CEO at Laureti Automotive Corporation. The company in a press release said that it would demonstrate the performance of the DionX on the 'Laureti Endurance Trip', an event slated to begin in August 2019. This endurance trip would involve a 6000 km journey in less than 12 charge cycles. The starting point of the journey is set from Leh, Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu covering 7 major cities in between which are Delhi, Ahmedabad, Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. Laureti will display the live dashboard data, drive status and highlights of the journey in real time on all major online networks as well as specially built digital display-boards in various city centers. The live dashboard data will publish vehicle location, mileage, battery status and charging performance. "The brand guarantees its battery life up to 100,000 km on all of its vehicles. DionX is expected to roll down the assembly line before the end of 2021," reads a press-release of this British company that has offices in Bengaluru and in the Andalusian city of Estepona in Spain. There is no word on the technical specifications such as engine-specs nor have Laureti officials dropped any pricing hints. The Tesla Model S, at an exchange rate of Rs 70 per USD, and 100% import duty, had worked to a price of Rs 50 lakhs in 2017. In India, the Tata Tigor EV sells at an approximate range between Rs 12-14 lakhs. A single charge on the Tigor EV achieves a range of 80-100 km. Although it is not right to compare a vehicle on the basis of just one number, but in a country crazy of "Kitna Deti Hai" [How much mileage does it offer?], range indeed is an important indicator. In August, if the DionX achieves the 540 km target, it will not be surprising to see it price itself at a range of Rs 12- 30 lakhs. The Tesla Model S itself is priced at $35,000 in the US [Rs 25,90,000 at Rs 74 per Dollar]. The Tesla S is costlier in India owing to a 100% import duty. Indian customers should be glad to know that the DionX would be a made-in-India product and hence there may not be a customs duty. In a Vimeo interaction, Paleti, the CEO said that DionX would be manufactured at a base in some part of South India. He also said that the company had identified land for assembling and manufacturing. News agency ANI confirmed that the British Design with plush luxurious interiors and futuristic advancements would be manufactured in Puducherry. Do you think the DionX will achieve its 540 km target? Do let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. Text: Sify Image Courtesy: Laureti Motors Shippensburg, PA (17257) Today Mainly sunny to start, then a few afternoon clouds. A stray severe thunderstorm is possible. High 84F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Showers and a possible thunderstorm during the evening will give way to partly cloudy skies after midnight. Potential for severe thunderstorms. Low 59F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. The New Zealand Racing doesn't want to lose control of its TAB betting arm unless outsourcing is clearly in the long term interests of the racing industry, because there's no turning back once it's done. The board made its view known in one of about 1,600 submissions on a report by Australian racing expert John Messara on how to revive the local industry. Among the suggested remedies was a recommendation to outsource TAB's betting service to an international firm, given the NZ Racing Board's insurmountable lack of scale, with increasingly onerous capital demands to meet technology upgrades and anti-money laundering rules making it harder to meet customer expectations. The NZRB had already hired Investec and Cameron Partners to gauge interest in fully outsourcing its wagering unit and what impact such a transaction could have on distributions to the wider industry. It told Messara that work raised questions about whether a sale or outsourcing would offer greater long-term value than its own strategy and that outsourcing was unlikely to fix the fundamental issues holding the industry back. Messara's report triggered speculation in Australian media that ASX-listed Tabcorp was in the box seat to pay at least A$1.5 billion to buy the TAB's operating rights. TAB and Tabcorp already have arrangements to commingle certain betting pools. In a submission on the report, the NZRB reiterated its warning to Mesara, saying it opposed unilaterally outsourcing TAB before a commercial evaluation clearly demonstrated doing so was in the best interests of New Zealand racing over the long-term. It wants to continue its 'Desert Gold' project evaluating the value of outsourcing parts or all of the TAB and Trackside, which has so far attracted a number of indicative bids from international parties. The board recommends that work continue and a formal report with options and analysis be presented before any final decisions are made. "Without such a process, it is the boards view that any outsourcing decision will expose the industry to lower returns and greater risk and, once a decision is taken to outsource, there is no going back," it said in its submission of Oct 12. The Department of Internal Affairs declined to release the submission, which BusinessDesk then searched for. The NZRB reported a 1.3 percent increase in net profit at $145.9 million in the year ended July 31, 2018, distributing a record $148.2 million to the three racing codes: thoroughbred racing, harness racing, and greyhound racing. Since then, TAB reported record-equalling turnover of $10.6 million for the Melbourne Cup in November. The codes themselves are divided on whether to back outsourcing TAB. Greyhound Racing New Zealand and Harness Racing New Zealand supported reviewing whether to outsource the wagering operations but stopped short of fully endorsing an immediate move. New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing is an enthusiastic supporter on the basis that outsourcing would deliver significantly better returns than the status quo. Greyhound NZ also wants such a review to consider corporatising TAB and limited share sales. Messara's report didn't recommend privatisation and listing TAB, saying there is no appetite within industry or government for a sale and that the benefits would be diverted from the racing industry to TAB's new owners. The NZRB set up a debt facility for the first time in the 2018 financial year, drawing down $10 million in the period to support its investment in developing a fixed odds betting platform, which is estimated to lift profit by up to $30 million a year. It's targeting a net profit of $220 million by 2021, having overhauled its IT systems to a cloud-based service, attracted more betting customers, and kept a lid on costs. It's also in the process of replacing its broadcasting vehicle fleet, having found outsourcing its production would lift costs without improving performance. When releasing the Messara report in August, Racing Minister Winston Peters said changes to TAB licensing will need Cabinet sign-off and legislation will need to pass through Parliament. The racing board said it supports Messara's recommendation to split the board into Wagering NZ and Racing NZ to better focus its activities, and also a new legislative framework to ensure TAB stays competitive. The NZ Racing Board accepts that fewer racing venues are needed, but says any changes need to go through the industry's existing Future Venue Plan. The board opposes central ownership because it would cut out small clubs from being involved in the decision making. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: 14th June 2021 Morning Report Tower Limited (NZX: TWR) Update on Financial Impact of Canterbury Floods SkyCity Entertainment Group Limited (NZX: SKC) Earnings Guidance for FY21 Result 11th June 2021 Morning Report Precinct Properties New Zealand Limited (NZX: PCT) Announces $284 Million Revaluation Uplift 10th June 2021 Morning Report Me Today Limited (NZX: MEE) Opening of Offer to Retail Investors Mercury NZ Limited (NZX: MCY) FY2021 EBITDAF Guidance Revised to $460 Million 9th June 2021 Morning Report SkyCity Entertainment Group Limited (NZX: SKC) AUSTRAC ENFORCEMENT INVESTIGATION Australia-based IAG Group says it has increased its catastrophe reinsurance protection for calendar 2019 by A$1 billion to A$9 billion. That includes the 20 percent quota share with Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway which began on July 1, 2015 and the combined 12.5 percent quota share agreements with Munich Re, Swiss Re and Hannover Re which came into force from Jan. 1, 2018. IAG, which commands about 46 percent of New Zealands general insurance market, operating through the NZI, State, AMI and Lumley brands, said it retains two-thirds of the first A$250 million exposure to each loss for catastrophes covering losses of up to A$9 billion. The insurance company also has additional cover for smaller events costing less than A$250 million. It said its underlying aggregate exposure to claims is expected to modestly increase in Australia and to rise about 5 percent in New Zealand. More than 92 percent of its reinsurance has been placed with entities with credit ratings of A+ or higher. The combination of all catastrophe covers in place at Jan. 1, 2019 results in post-quota share first event retentions of A$169 million for Australia and NZ$169 million for New Zealand. Overall, reinsurance rates were flat and the overall expense was in line with the assumptions in its full-year 2019 margin guidance, IAG said. At the AGM in October, chief executive Peter Harmer said he expects IAGs reported insurance margin to be 16-18 percent. In the year ended June last year, IAGs New Zealand earnings almost doubled to A$218 million from A$125 million the previous year. IAG shares are trading at A$6.98 on ASX, near their A$6.53 recent low but well down from their A$8.685 high in the middle of last year. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: 14th June 2021 Morning Report Tower Limited (NZX: TWR) Update on Financial Impact of Canterbury Floods SkyCity Entertainment Group Limited (NZX: SKC) Earnings Guidance for FY21 Result 11th June 2021 Morning Report Precinct Properties New Zealand Limited (NZX: PCT) Announces $284 Million Revaluation Uplift 10th June 2021 Morning Report Me Today Limited (NZX: MEE) Opening of Offer to Retail Investors Mercury NZ Limited (NZX: MCY) FY2021 EBITDAF Guidance Revised to $460 Million 9th June 2021 Morning Report SkyCity Entertainment Group Limited (NZX: SKC) AUSTRAC ENFORCEMENT INVESTIGATION Press Release January 3, 2019 Lacson: CPP 'Priority' to Oust Sitting President in 2019 an Added Reason to Tag NPA as Terror Group More at: https://pinglacson.net/2019/01/03/lacson-cpp-priority-to-oust-sitting-president-in-2019-an-added-reason-to-tag-npa-as-terror-group/ The Communist Party of the Philippines' "priority" to oust a sitting President in 2019 should be an added reason to tag the New People's Army as a terrorist group, Sen. Panfilo M. Lacson said Thursday. Lacson said so many lives had already been lost in the 50 years that the CPP and its armed wing, the NPA, had been trying to overthrow the government. "(CPP founder Jose Maria Sison) has been at it for the past 50 years. So many lives lost already. DOJ should follow up with the court the proscription case vs the NPA as a terrorist group as per Section 2 of Republic Act 9372," Lacson said in a post on his Twitter account. In February 2018, the Department of Justice asked a Manila court to legally declare the CPP-NPA as a terrorist group, citing the Human Security Act of 2007. Lacson noted that before Sison was quoted in reports as saying the CPP's priority in 2019 is to oust President Rodrigo Duterte, the CPP-NPA had been attempting to overthrow past and present governments for the last five decades. While the CPP-NPA had resorted to "peace talks," these were "aimed at having a coalition government but still aimed at a takeover, violent or otherwise," Lacson pointed out. "They have not succeeded for the past five decades so I don't see how they can. Right now, they are reduced to a band of extortionists, arsonists and robbers, even a terrorist group," he added. As such, Lacson urged the Executive Department via the DOJ to "follow up with the judiciary the case that they filed calling for the proscription of the NPA as a terrorist group which is provided under Sec. 2 of the Human Security Act of 2007." Press Release January 3, 2019 GORDON COMMENDS PNP FOR SWIFT RESOLUTION OF BATOCABE SLAY CASE Senator Richard J. Gordon, chairman of the Committee on Justice and Human Rights, today commended the Philippine National Police (PNP) for the swift resolution of the assassination of Ako Bicol Partylist Representative Rodel Batocabe. "I wish to congratulate the Philippine National Police in its swift and effective identification of the mastermind and suspects involved in the assassination of Ako Bicol Partylist Congressman Rodel Batocabe including the prompt filing of charges before the provincial prosecutor of Albay and the recommendation for the immediate issuance of an HDO against Daraga City Mayor Carl Wynn Baldo," he said in a statement. Noting that it is a good start to the year, Gordon also expressed hope that the PNP will continue to work towards swift justice and that the people could always aid and trust the PNP as they did in the Batocabe case. "Let us all wish that the community can always aid and trust the PNP as they did in this case. Let us continue towards swift justice all throughout 2019 and onwards!" he said. The PNP has tagged Daraga, Albay Mayor Carlwyn Baldo as the mastermind in the killing last December 22 of the partylist congressman and his bodyguard, Senior Police Officer 1 Orlando Diaz. PNP Chief Director General Oscar Albayalde said complaints for double murder and six counts of frustrated murder have already been filed against Baldo and six of his employees before the Albay Provincial Prosecutor's Office on Thursday morning. Batocabe and his bodyguard were shot dead at 3 p.m. on December 22, 2018 after a gift-giving event at a covered court in Barangay Burgos. He was running for mayor in Daraga in the May elections. Press Release January 3, 2019 De Lima featured on latest book about inspiring women leaders in Asia Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has thanked the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD) for recognizing her unwavering fight for human rights as she was featured in its latest book which offers a rare glimpse of the inspiring stories of 16 Asian women at the frontline of the democratic struggle that is being fought globally. In her letter she sent to CALD last Dec. 10, De Lima stressed how gratified and humbled she was to be among the 16 Asian women featured in the book entitled "Compelled by Duty, Conscripted by Destiny," describing them as "exemplary" women who "epitomize grace under pressure and calm amidst calamity." "I am writing to express my deepest appreciation for all the support that the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD) has shown me these past two years. Particularly, I am simultaneously gratified and humbled by the thought you have given to my current situation when I was included in the CALD publication," she said. "In the face of all the challenges that I am currently facing - I have been detained now for 655 days, and I will be spending my second Christmas and welcoming another New Year under detention - it is difficult to put into words what a recognition like this does to uplift my spirit, and inspire and empower me to continue fighting," she added. Written by John Joseph S. Coronel whom De Lima described as "not only a highly able writer, but also someone who has great empathy for, and commitment to the cause," "Compelled by Duty, Conscripted by Destiny" was initially launched in Bangkok last Nov. 19 in line with CALD's Silver Anniversary celebration. De Lima, a known human rights defender here and abroad, said she sees her inclusion in the book as a "great source of strength and inspiration" because it reminds her that she is not alone in her fight for justice, freedom and human rights. "As surreal as it is to read about my own struggles told from the eyes of a third person, it is immensely invigorating to see that I am not alone. That there are others - dozens, hundreds, thousands of human rights and democracy defenders all over the world - who are with me in this fight," she said. "That I am not the only one suffering for the ideals we have pledged to promote and protect because we all recognize that these are principles that are worth fighting and sacrificing for," she added. Instead of calling her struggle for freedom and justice as "personal sacrifices," De Lima said she prefers to see it as "badges of honor" because her goal, as with the goals of other human rights defenders, transcends any tyrant's tenure. De Lima said she hopes the book can also inspire people to join the fight for human rights and democracy the same way that it inspired her to continue fighting the good fight. "I have learned, from the events of the last decade and especially the last two years, that defenders like us will ALWAYS be needed... What we stand for always needs protecting and defending because selfish, greedy and malevolent forces are always lurking, waiting for an opportunity to wrest power for themselves and their own personal interests," she said. Aside from De Lima, among the other Asian women honored in the book are fellow Filipinas Vice President Leni Robredo, the late Deputy Speaker Dina Abad and Zamboanga City Mayor Beng Climaco; Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen; former Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri; Senior Minister Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar and Legislator Emily Lau of the Democratic Party of Hongkong. In Aug. 31 2017, convenors of the CALD Women's Caucus visited De Lima to check on her condition as a "prisoner of conscience" and discussed with her the deteriorating human rights situation in the country. In calling for the Senator's release, CALD Women's Council Chairperson Jayanthi Balaguro said De Lima should be given a fair trial and be allowed to fulfill her duty as a duly-elected Senator of the Republic. Press Release January 2, 2019 Villanueva urges President to sign Tulong Trabaho bill amid recent report of unemployment among educated Pinoys Senator Joel Villanueva on Wednesday urged the President to sign the Tulong Trabaho bill that seeks to provide free access to technical-vocational education amid recent report revealing that educated Filipinos comprise almost half of the unemployed population in the country. Based on the JobsFit 2022 Labor Market Information (LMI) Report of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), 43.9 percent or almost a million of the unemployed across the country in 2017 have either reached or graduated from high school. Of the said figure, 825,000 are college undergraduates or those who have already completed a college degree. "This is a serious concern since it highlights the prevalence of job-skills mismatch in our country. To help resolve unemployment, the knowledge and skills of our graduates must match with the jobs needed by the market," Villanueva, chairman of the Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development, said. The report also noted that college undergraduates or graduates are less likely to get hired compared with jobseekers with lower level of educational attainment due to former's "higher reservation wages" and patience to wait for better job offers. The DOLE added that the chance of finding employment may also depend on the program or course the college graduates have completed. "Job-skills mismatch remains a problem in our labor sector and that is why we are adamant in pushing for the passage of our Tulong Trabaho that seeks to narrow the gap of unemployment by providing free tech-voc training and addresses job-skills mismatch through establishment of a Philippine Labor Force Competencies Competitiveness Program that is based on Labor Market Intelligence Reports," Villanueva, the measure's principal author and sponsor, said. The law increases the funding for technical and vocational trainings by providing for a Tulong-Trabaho Fund that will grant qualified recipients access to TVET training programs through the full payment of the selected programs' training fees. The fund also grants additional financial assistance to students such as transportation allowance and laboratory fees. The Tulong Trabaho fund will be administered by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA). "We would like to underscore that tech-voc has proven to be a viable option especially for those who want immediate employment. In fact, 7 out of 10 tech-voc graduates easily find decent jobs due to the high demand of skilled workers here and abroad," the senator further emphasized. Meanwhile, the senator emphasized the importance of the Philippine Qualifications Framework (PQF) law or Republic Act 10968 which Villanueva also authored and sponsored that institutionalizes a national qualifications framework that can prepare Filipino workers for the global marketplace. "We thank the President for supporting the PQF law which complements our Tulong Trabaho bill since this will ensure quality in our education and training systems, make qualifications earned here in the country recognizable in other countries and enable employers to respect and value these qualifications. We are hopeful that the President will give the same amount of support to our Tulong Trabaho Act," Villanueva said. "The passage of our Tulong Trabaho bill into law will make tech-voc accessible to all, boost our workers' confidence to face the world of work and ensure that the youth who are ready to work hard with the right skill sets to obtain in-demand jobs." the senator added. The Tulong Trabaho Act now awaits the signature of the President following the ratification of both Houses of its bicameral committee conference report. A warning light flickered to indicate that something was wrong with the cabin pressure on Jin Air flight LJ231 carrying 181 passengers at 10:12 a.m. Tuesday, the carrier said Wednesday. Passengers had to put on their oxygen masks due to a problem with cabin pressure control on a Jin Air plane from Incheon to Sapporo on New Year's Day. The pilot let the oxygen masks drop down according to the manual, and they put them on for about 10 minutes. The plane landed safely at New Chitose Airport in Sapporo around 10:50 a.m. Some passengers complained of headache and dizziness. A Jin Air staffer said, "Two passengers said they were unwell, but not so bad as to go to hospital. The others said they had no problems." The airline is trying to find out what was the problem and sent a substitute aircraft for the return flight. The abandoned Japanese car carrier owned by Shoei Kisen Kaisha is reported to be listing and still ablaze. The USCG said it had called off the search for one crew member who remained missing. Vessels in the vicinity that rushed to the Sincerity Ace after the Master reported a serious fire on 31 December and that they would be abandoning ship and were able to rescue 16 of the 21 crew onboard. Read more: Search continues for two missing from Japanese car carrier Sincerity Ace, three feared dead Four other seafarers missing in the fire have been located in the water but are responsive, and now believed to be dead. Four missing mariners were located but remain in the water as they were unresponsive and unable to react to life-saving equipment, the USCG said in a statement. Meanwhile the search for the one remaining missing seafarer has been suspended and the coast guard issued an Urgent Marine Information Broadcast Notice to Mariners requesting vessels transiting the area to keep a sharp lookout for the remaining unaccounted for the crewmember Following the conclusion of morning and afternoon searches by our aircraft and commercial vessels we suspended the active search. This is always a difficult decision and takes many factors into account, said Chief Petty Officer Dennis Vetrano, with Coast Guard Joint Rescue Coordination Center Honolulu. "We extend our condolences to the families and loved ones of the crew members affected by this tragedy. Shoei Kisen Kaisha is coordinating with the vessels that rescued for the surviving crew for their transport to the next port of call. The Japanese owner and manager has contracted tugs which are expected to arrive on the scene in a few days and they will make attempts to recover the four crew members that are at sea. The abandoned vessel is reported to remain adrift, listing to starboard and ablaze. The fire broke out on the Sincerity Ace 1,800 nm northwest of Oahu The Coast Guard, Navy, and five merchant vessels conducted a total of 13 searches covering 5,544 nm sq over a span of three days. We are very grateful for the assistance the crews of these vessels have given during the search and rescue efforts, said Vetrano. These crew members went out of their way to aid their fellow mariners, and because of the remoteness of the incident the outcome may have been very different had they not responded. https://www.dvidshub.net/video/653376/b-roll-coast-guard-amver-vessels-respond-sincerity-ace-fire# Amnesty International Middle East Campaigns Director Samah Hadid said the Saudi government's censorship of Netflix is "further proof of a relentless crackdown on freedom of expression." The Financial Times reported that Saudi Arabia's Communications and Information Technology Commission had complained about the episode. "We strongly support artistic freedom and removed this episode only in Saudi Arabia after we received a valid legal request -- and to comply with local law," Netflix said in a statement. The episode of "Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj" has been available on the U.S. version of the platform since October, and was taken off the Saudi version last week. Media streaming company Netflix has removed from its service in Saudi Arabia an episode of a satirical comedy show that is critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Minhaj, who appeared on cable television's popular "Daily Show" and hosted the White House Correspondents' Association dinner before launching his own show last year, discussed a number of criticisms about Saudi Arabia and Prince Mohammed. Those included the October killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Saudi Arabia gave multiple explanations about Khashoggi's death before acknowledging he was killed at the consulate, but it says that was the result of a rogue operation and was not carried out at the order of the crown prince. "Just a few months ago, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS, was hailed as the reformer the Arab world needed," Minhaj says in the episode. "But the revelations about Khashoggi's killing have shattered that image, and it blows my mind that it took the killing of a Washington Post journalist for everyone to go, 'Oh, I guess he's not really a reformer." Khashoggi's editor at the Washington Post, Karen Attiah, called the decision by Netflix "quite outrageous." She wrote on Twitter that Minhaj "has been a strong, honest and (funny) voice challenging Saudi Arabia and Mohammed bin Salman in the wake of #khashoggi's murder." Attiah also praised Minhaj for bringing awareness about the war in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia has been leading a military campaign that rights groups have criticized as taking a huge toll on civilians. In the episode, Minhaj cites an April donation Saudi Arabia made to the World Health Organization for humanitarian efforts in Yemen. "You know what's free though? Not bombing Yemen," Minhaj says. He also suggests the United States should reassess its close ties with Saudi Arabia. "Suddenly America's marriage of convenience with Saudi Arabia is starting to feel outdated," he says. New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/02/2019 -- The latest market intelligence study on Automatic Checkweigher market applies the best of both primary and secondary research techniques to bring to light the growth rate of the Automatic Checkweigher market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2025. The comprehensive study covers hard to find facts about the market landscape as well as its growth prospects in the years to come. Most importantly, the research report includes vital statistics about the major vendors occupying a strong foothold in this industry. Besides this, in order to calculate the market share, the study takes a closer look at the selling price of the product across different regions. Request Sample Copy of Report @ https://www.marketexpertz.com/sample-enquiry-form/27269 Scope of the Report: The researcher assessing Automatic Checkweigher market dive deep to unearth intangible facts related to the key restraints, opportunities, and threats expected to shape the progress of the industry during the forecast period, 2018 - 2025. Significant evaluation of other factors such as demand and supply status, import and export, distribution channel, consumption volume, and production capability play a vital role in offering business owners, stakeholders and field marketing personnel a competitive edge over others operating in the same space. All important data are presented in self-explanatory charts, tables and graphic images that can be incorporated into any business presentation. In market segmentation by manufacturers, the report covers the following companies- Mettler-Toledo, Ishida, Minebea Intec (Sartorius Intec), OCS, Loma Systems, Anritsu, Avery Weigh-Tronix, Thermo Fisher, Bizerba, ALL-FILL Inc., Varpe Contral Peso, Multivac Group, Cardinal Scale, Yamato Scale Dataweigh, PRECIA MOLEN, Dahang Intelligent Equipment, Cassel Messtechnik, Brapenta Eletronica, Genral Measure Technology Ask for Discount @ https://www.marketexpertz.com/discount-enquiry-form/27269 In market segmentation by geographical regions, the report has analysed the following regions- - North America (United States, Canada and Mexico) - Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and Spain etc.) - Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and Southeast Asia etc.) - South America Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Chile etc.) - Middle East & Africa (South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia etc.) Most important types of Automatic Checkweigher products covered in this report are: - In-Motion Checkweighers - Intermittent Checkweighers Most widely used downstream fields of Automatic Checkweigher market covered in this report are: - Food & Beverage - Pharmaceuticals - Chemical - Others The study explores in details about the recent trend fast gaining momentum in Automatic Checkweigher industry due to factors including but not limited to growing customer preference and a sudden rise in their spending capacity. Aspects attributed to the gross margin, profit, supply chain management and product value and their considerable impact on the development of the Automatic Checkweigher market during the forecast period, 2018 - 2025 is carefully scrutinized during the research. Buy Full Report@ https://www.marketexpertz.com/checkout-form/27269 The research provides answers to the following key questions: - What is the estimated size of the Automatic Checkweigher market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2025? What will be the growth rate of the industry during the estimated period? - What are the prominent driving forces likely to impact the progress of the industry across different regions? - Who are the major market players occupying a strong foothold in the Automatic Checkweigher market? What are the winning strategies adopted by them to stay ahead in the competition? - What are the potential opportunities for the Automatic Checkweigher market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2025? - What are the key trends expected to shape the development of the industry over the coming years? - What are the key restraints and challenges likely to hinder the growth of the Automatic Checkweigher market worldwide? Key points from TOC: Chapter 7 Profile of Leading Automatic Checkweigher Players 7.1 Mettler-Toledo 7.1.1 Company Snapshot 7.1.2 Product/Business Offered 7.1.3 Business Performance (Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share) 7.1.4 Strategy and SWOT Analysis 7.2 Ishida 7.3 Minebea Intec (Sartorius Intec) 7.4 OCS 7.5 Loma Systems 7.6 Anritsu 7.7 Avery Weigh-Tronix 7.8 Thermo Fisher 7.9 Bizerba 7.10 ALL-FILL Inc. 7.11 Varpe Contral Peso 7.12 Multivac Group 7.13 Cardinal Scale 7.14 Yamato Scale Dataweigh Continue Browse report summary @ https://www.marketexpertz.com/industry-overview/automatic-checkweigher-market About MarketExpertz Planning to invest in market intelligence products or offerings on the web? Then marketexpertz has just the thing for you - reports from over 500 prominent publishers and updates on our collection daily to empower companies and individuals catch-up with the vital insights on industries operating across different geography, trends, share, size and growth rate. There's more to what we offer to our customers. With marketexpertz you have the choice to tap into the specialized services without any additional charges. Contact Us: John Watson Head of Business Development Market Expertz | Web: www.marketexpertz.com Direct Line: +1-800-819-3052 E-mail: sales@marketexpertz.com News: www.marketexpertz.com/market-news Ten Mile, TN -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/03/2019 -- Now Seeking Community Support via Kickstarter, Just Kidd'n Ewe Farms is a Family Owned Hobby Farm that Raises Milk Goats to create Quality Beauty Products! Just Kidd'n Ewe Farms is a small American family owned hobby farm based in Tennessee that raises milk goats to create high quality soap bars, lotions and scents. 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The project offers rewards with nationwide shipping across the United States and the campaign is already creating a major buzz. More details are available on the Kickstarter campaign page of the project. About Just Kidd'n Ewe Farms Just Kidd'n Ewe Farms is a family owned and operated hobby farm in Tennessee, United States. The farm has several goats that produce milk, which is used to create soap bars, lotions and other organic products. Furthermore, the family is currently raising funds and support for the hobby farm on Kickstarter, where they are welcoming everyone to generously pledge. Contact: Contact Person: Terry Lackey Company: Just Kidd'n Ewe Farms, LLC City: Ten Mile State: Tennessee Country: USA Phone: 4238180101 Email: terry@jknelotions.com Website: www.kickstarter.com/projects/885722963/natural-skin-care Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. San Diegos weather in 2018 was almost uniformly warm and dry. Until late in the year, when it was neither. 2019 begins with its own personality: cool days and cold nights, with a couple of storms over the next week that should get the month off to a fairly wet start. Rain is expected to begin Saturday night and continue off and on through Sunday evening. Another storm should arrive Wednesday or Thursday, according to the National Weather Service. Thats quite a change from the bulk of 2018 until December arrived. What weve seen over the last couple of weeks is representative of (El Nino), said Matt Moreland, the meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Services office in Rancho Bernardo. We are definitely in an active pattern that will last into mid-January. Advertisement Moreland said he could discuss upcoming weather and forecasts, but because of the partial government shutdown, he was not authorized to comment on a recap of 2018s weather. When 2018 started, El Nino was nowhere in sight. In fact, San Diego had just emerged from one of the driest falls in city history. Only 0.09 of an inch of rain had fallen from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2017. January 2018 brought one very wet day: Jan. 9, when 1.57 inches fell, but that was about it.The month overall was drier than normal, and that pattern held until December, which had 3.02 inches and was the only month wetter than normal. February, usually the citys wettest month with an average of 2.27 inches, delivered just 0.36 of an inch. March, on average San Diegos third wettest month with 1.81 inches, mustered just 0.95 of an inch. April brought only 0.02. The dry late winter and spring, also felt in the countys backcountry, created prime wildfire conditions. The West fire flared in July, caused evacuations in Alpine, destroyed 18 structures and damaged eight more. But San Diego County dodged the massive, uncontrollable and devastating fires that ravaged much of California in 2018. In terms of temperature, May was 2018s anomaly. The month finished 0.5 of a degree cooler than normal. It was the only month of the year that wasnt at least one degree warmer than normal, and it was the first month in 4 years that was cooler than normal. In 2018, San Diego had its second warmest January on record, its fifth warmest July, a November that tied for the third warmest, and the warmest August the city has ever seen, with records going back to 1874. August was a particularly miserable month around the county. Utility bills soared as many people ran their air conditioners around the clock. The daytime high peaked at 91 degrees Aug. 7, but it was the nights that brought the most misery. In San Diego, the temperature never dropped below 70 degrees all month even in the dead of night. The low of 77 degrees on Aug. 9 set the record for the warmest August night in city history. The next day broke that record and matched the highest minimum temperature (78) ever recorded in San Diego for any month of the year. Records for the highest minimum were set or tied 10 of the first 12 days of the month. Advertisement The record warmth was blamed on three factors: a very warm air mass that hung out over much of the West; extremely high humidity; and record-high sea-surface temperatures off the county coast. At Scripps Pier, where ocean temperatures have been monitored for 102 years, on Aug. 1 the water hit 78.6 degrees, which broke the the all-time record that had stood since 1931. Two days, later the reading was 78.8. Then it climbed to 79.2 and finally maxed out at 79.5 on Aug. 9. Other spots along the county coast were showing water readings of 80 degrees or more. With waters that warm, when the usual onshore breezes kicked in, they brought no relief to the coast communities. When fall arrived, the warmth continued. The San Diego was warmer than normal for 65 straight days, from Oct. 24 to Dec.27. On the year, 68 days were cooler than the daily climatological norm, two were exactly normal, and 295 were warmer than normal. Advertisement Overall, 2018 tied with 2016 as San Diegos sixth warmest year on record. Every year since 2014 in San Diego has been in the top 9; 2014 was the warmest, and 2015 was the second warmest. The high temperature in 2018 was 96, on July 6, and the low for the year was 41, on Dec. 29. December not only had the years coldest day, it also had its wettest. On Dec. 6, 1.80 inches of rain fell in about seven hours. The storm included an impressive, loud thunderstorm that knocked out power around downtown San Diego and caused minor street flooding. Advertisement A cold storm also dropped rain on New Years Eve and produced a water spout and funnel cloud off the North County coast. Now the question is, will the wet pattern in December carry over into 2019? El Nino, which tilts the odds toward a wet winter in Southern California, is forming in the central Pacific. But recent El Ninos havent lived up to their promise. The monster El Nino of 2015-16, which came in the midst of a multi-year drought and was supposed to provide the closest thing to a guaranteed wet winter, fizzled and left the state dry. The El Nino forming now is not nearly as strong. The Climate Prediction Centers latest projection for the winter calls for equal chances of wet, dry or normal weather from January through March.The National Weather Services Moreland said that although the current pattern creates the potential for storms through mid-January, it is difficult to say what will happen beyond that point. Advertisement rob.krier@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-2241 Twitter: @sdutKrier When Juan Carlos Caballero Jones of Honduras heard the first tear gas cannister fired off into the darkness in the early hours of the new year, he decided the cover of chaos was the perfect opportunity for him to take his shot. We all just want to advance our families, he said later, shivering and clutching his stomach as he reflected on his failed attempt to enter the United States.Thats what we all want to do. Thats what the whole world wants. U.S. Customs and Border Protection authorities said they fired tear gas and pepper spray into Mexico on Tuesday to stop about 150 migrants who tried to breach a border fence near Las Playas in Tijuana. CBP said some of the migrants began to throw rocks at the agents from the Mexican side while others tried to cross the concertina wire, an additional security measure added when thousands of Central American migrants arrived in Tijuana in November with the goal of entering the United States. Advertisement A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said the crowd was a violent mob of migrants who attempted to enter the United States illegally by attacking our agents with projectiles. Caballero was among those who went through three layers of razor wire. I looked for some high ground and covered my face, and then I gave it a shot, he said. I dropped down on the other side and landed on the ground and just crouched there. Though Caballero thought he had made it onto U.S. soil undetected, he said he stayed quiet in the brush for awhile, waiting for agents. I thought maybe I was free, he said. Tensions amid the migrant group who rushed the border have been growing in recent weeks from inside El Barretal shelter, as federal volunteers talk of tapering off services in coming weeks. Some migrants said theyre growing frustrated with being blocked from setting foot on U.S. soil, so they can assert their legal right to trigger an asylum claim. Others said theyre confused about what theyre supposed to do. There isnt a physical line for those waiting to present themselves to U.S. immigration authorities through Tijuana. Theres a notebook managed by asylum seekers themselves that has traditionally helped keep order, but lately that process has been overwhelmed by the number of people waiting in Tijuana. Advertisement When the Central American migrants have approached ports of entry, if Mexican authorities allow them to get that far, they are often told they are either at the wrong port or that the port is at capacity, unless they are accompanied by lawyers or lawmakers drawing attention to their plight. Under U.S. law, people approaching ports of entry have a right to ask for asylum, but border agents can tell them they have to wait. Lately, that wait has stretched from weeks into months. Tijuana has become both the waiting room for the United States and a flash point in the immigration debate that has shut down the U.S. federal government, as President Trump seeks funding for a border wall. Those that approached the border early Tuesday said they did so with the intention of peacefully asking for asylum once on U.S. soil. Advertisement But, according to Caballero, some wanted to try to make it onto the other side by avoiding detection altogether. Caballero estimated he was in the United States for 40 minutes before he was spotted, initially by Border Patrol agents on the ground, and then by a helicopter overhead. I crossed over some brush. Then, I saw a guy on a quad and I saw that he saw me. I didnt move. It turns out maybe he didnt see me, so I went a little bit more, he said. Caballero said he stayed still for another five minutes and then he crossed over another section. Advertisement The disappointment in his voice was still fresh a day later when he recalled discovering that section just dropped off to another area also guarded by Border Patrol. I realized I had a little more to go to get free, he said. He said in that moment he was spotted by an overhead helicopter. I guess they have some kind of sensor that detects your body heat, he said. I could tell the helicopter had honed in on me and turned the lights on me. Advertisement Caballero said his whole body started to shake, and agents came to apprehend him. They started cussing at me in English, F--ing Honduran, F---ing bull***, Go back to Honduras, he said. And then I put my hands in the air and I asked for asylum. Caballero said the agents started telling him to go back across to Mexico the same way he came. They wanted me to go back through the wire. They picked up my backpack and threw it to the other side, he said. Advertisement Caballero said he argued with the agents for about 20 minutes. Under U.S. law, once someone crosses into U.S. territory from Mexico, they have a right to ask for asylum. The U.S. government doesnt have to grant asylum, but border agents at the line cant force foreign nationals to return back across the U.S.-Mexico border into Mexico, either, without some processing of their asylum claim, according to civil rights attorney Eugene Iredale. We went back and forth because I wasnt going to go back through the same area because I could get hurt, Caballero said. They just said Get out, get out, get out. Caballero said they eventually walked him back to the Mexican side. Advertisement A Department of Homeland Security official did not respond to questions about Caballeros story, but a previously released statement said the agents acted with complete professionalism. The agents involved should be applauded for handling the situation with no reported injuries to the attackers, said DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman. Caballero said he doesnt see the night as a complete failure. I made it, he said. They made me come back but I had passed all the obstacles. All the people will tell you. My legs are hurt. Im not going to lie. Advertisement And he said wasnt discouraged from giving it another shot. With 10 more opportunities, Id give it 10 more tries. Chinese President Xi Jinping say the self-governed island of Taiwan should abandon any thoughts of independence and accept that is part of the mainland. President Xi reaffirmed his nation's long-standing policy towards Taiwan in a speech Wednesday marking the 40th anniversary of a landmark speech, Message to Compatriots in Taiwan, that eventually led to diplomatic relations between the rivals. Xi said Beijing is open to creating a vast "space for peaceful reunification" with Taipei, which would occur under a "one country, two systems" framework. But he warned that China will not allow room for any sort of "separatist activities," and repeated its vow to use military action in order to achieve reunification. Xi's speech was delivered a day after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said China must accept Taiwan's status as a self-ruled island. More drought-tolerant plants and stamped concrete medians in lieu of grass and asphalt medians are in store for Rancho Bernardo in 2019. According to Robin Kaufman president of all three of Rancho Bernardos community government volunteer groups (RB Planning Board, Community Council and Recreation Advisory Board) the Community Council will be making the improvements via RBs Maintenance Assessment District. Most Rancho Bernardo homes and businesses (with some exceptions, such as homes in Bernardo Heights) pay a fee into the MAD through their property taxes. The money goes toward median and right-of-way improvements along many of the communitys major thoroughfares, including Rancho Bernardo Road, Bernardo Center Drive and Pomerado Road. Bernardo Heights property owners through their homeowners association pay into a different fund that takes care of medians within their neighborhood, including Bernardo Heights Parkway, which is not included in the MAD. Not only is the stamped concrete more visually pleasing than the asphalt, but it is better for our environment as the concrete gives off less heat than the asphalt and is more easily seen at night than the dark asphalt medians, Kaufman said. Per the MAD budget, $150,000 was allocated toward this for fiscal year 2019. In the previous fiscal year, $350,000 had been spent on the endeavor. Examples of the stamped concrete conversions include those on Pomerado Road (south of Rancho Bernardo Road) and on RB Road west of the I-15 overpass. Kaufman said work will soon conclude on Bernardo Center Drive medians, then additional medians will get stamped concrete in the next fiscal year. We are also converting more medians on Rancho Bernardo Road that were originally turf and trees, to a variety of drought-tolerant plants and material, Kaufman said. These will match the median we completed last year, which is just west of the Bernardo Center Drive intersection. Due to California state mandates, only plants and trees can be watered in medians not grass, hence the removal of the turf to more appealing and earth-friendly plants, she said. Some of the work began late last year on RB Road on the median between Acena and Bernardo Center drives. Kaufman said it will tentatively be completed in February. We will eventually complete all the ones on RB Road that had turf both on the east and west side of the freeway, she said. Per the MAD budget, $140,000 was allocated toward turf conversion for fiscal year 2019, with another $300,000 proposed for FY20. Kaufman said other upgrades will include changes to the old brick framing around the oak trees along Pomerado Road. Due to so much positive input from community members, she said the councils pilot test of decorating with holiday ornaments a few olive trees along Rancho Bernardo Road will be expanded to more trees during this years holiday season. As for other events the council will continue in 2019, they include making the community flag contest an annual event (it debuted last year). Plans are also underway for repeating its free educational and fun events such as the Earth Day fair, Chalk It Up! sidewalk chalk art contest, Patriotic Pet competition, Rancho Bernardo Safety Fair, the Be Prepared, Not Scared presentation and Hot Cocoa with Santa. There will also be a senior scams educational program and similar issue-based events held if a need arises. Some issues the Community Council will monitor are the same ones the Planning Board will also be watching, Kaufman said. These include the citys short-term (vacation) rental regulations that city officials said they plan to develop this year following a failed attempt last year. Both groups will also continue monitoring any traffic and parking concerns related to Palomar College, which opened last summer across from the Westwood neighborhood. At this time, there does not seem to be any new, excessive traffic issues, but there have been a few residents who have expressed concerns with parking, she said. The Planning Board will also continue giving input on the Casa de las Campanas expansion, which it approved last fall, she said, plus other regional issues that will directly impact Rancho Bernardo. While the last two years have had the most volunteers (in recent years) participating on the Planning Board, with 17 positions filled, our goal this year is to fill all 20 positions, she said. The board will hold its annual election in March. The deadline to apply is Feb. 21 and candidates must have attended one full monthly board meeting within the past 12 months to be eligible. For details, go to RBPlanningBoard.com. Kaufman also said RBs Recreation Advisory Board made a relatively smooth transition from the way it operated over the past four decades due to a city-wide policy change for the former recreation councils. She said the board will continue offering several free events at Rancho Bernardo Community Park throughout the year and improve existing recreational offerings. We are also working on holding a large food truck event ... sometime in late spring (or) early summer, she said. Email: rbnews@pomeradonews.com Poway thanked for support To our friends, neighbors and all who have reached out to my family and myself over this holiday season: The history of the festival of Hanukkah historically unfolds from tragedy for the Jewish people, one in which intolerance and brute force attempted to forever silence the freedom of religious expression and independence. As a Powegian for 30 years, I have lived in the joy of interfaith respect and harmony and truly enjoyed the peace of the holiday season for all faiths. The events of Dec. 2, where our home, property and family were victims to anti-Semitism came as a shock and profound disappointment. But, just as the story of Hanukkah moves from tragedy to the miracle of light over darkness, and tolerance over hate, so has my personal story of which I and my family suddenly became the main characters. We have felt nothing but support and love from the community since the initial vandalism. The vigil for peace that quickly came together on Dec. 3, to the outpouring of support from our neighbors and friends, and the extraordinary concern and involvement of our sheriffs department and City Council. We received countless messages and letters from individuals throughout our city and county who reached out to say no to hate; a second miracle has shone forth with a brightness clear and strong. Poway is a wonderful place to live. Much more importantly, it is a blessed community - willing and able to push away the shadow of darkness with the light of love and respect. Words can never do justice for the gratitude that my family and I feel. But if they could, and if they could be summed up in just two words, thank you. Debbie Seibert Poway Its all about Roost Funny that such a selfless fountain of virtue like columnist Amy Roost manages to use the words I, me and my no fewer than 42 times in her Dec. 20 submission to your paper. Mark Barry Poway Columns disputed First a lecture about caring for immigrants from Bankers Hill (Amy Roost, Dec. 20), where the average price of a home is over $1 million. Next, rantings from a Progressive (Harvey Levine, Dec. 20) holding his breath like a petulant child two years after the election. My grandparents came from Poland. I like immigration. However, I resent Ms. Roosts contention I am un-Christian for not helping at the border. I missed the memo granting her authority to dictate to whom I donate. Glad she wasnt in charge when I helped my Filipino in-laws while they waited seven years for a visa. Be better humans, only donate to charities sanctioned by well-off Progressives. Mr. Levin forgets Sen. McConnell invoked the Biden Rule blocking Judge Garlands nomination. Democrats began obstructing and de-legitimizing President Trump immediately after Hillary Clinton cancelled her victory celebration. Marion Barry was reelected mayor of Washington, D.C. after his prison term. Californians pay an extra gas tax because Democratic legislators mismanaged and wasted previously-allotted road repair funds. Richard Nixon was urged to contest his loss to JFK due to voter irregularities. Seems Chicago cemeteries voted straight Democrat. The party out of power routinely practices hypocrisy. Many Republicans who impeached Bill Clinton were philanders and liars. Mr. Levine and his ilk have raised the bar, exponentially. Democratic hubris nominated a woeful candidate resulting in President Trump, not the deplorables. Accept your culpability and get over it. Thomas Drzewiecki Poway Time to stand up Thanks to Amy Roost for her beautifully-written Dec. 20 column about the true meaning of Christmas. I agree wholeheartedly with her outlook and am a fan of the teachings of Jesus the Christ. Regardless of faith, teachings of kindness, compassion, charity and support are in all faith traditions. We need to help those at the border seeking a better life for their families. I do not understand how border patrol agents with any sense of morality can tear gas people and allow children to die of dehydration. It is time to stand up and refuse to do injustices to men, women and children who have harmed no one. Time to say No, enough is enough. That thought goes for our president too. Enough of his craziness. Time for our government and military to stand up and do what is right and remove him from office. Rev. Dr. Abigail Albert Poway Email: editor@pomeradonews.com Lots of dirty diaper gags this week but our favorite caption came from Denise Nelson. Congrats, Denise! She will receive Steve Breens signed original in the mail. Thanks to all those who participated. Next weeks cartoon is below. Please remember to limit your submissions to three and keep em brief. Good luck! Winner First, I must apologize for 2018. Denise Nelson, San Diego Finalists My predecessor warned me about you guys. Bob Klein, La Mesa Advertisement We will build a wall this year and it will be built of Legos! Darrel Cohen, Rancho Bernardo First, Id like to state I take no responsibility for whats about to come. Blaine Ziolkowski, online submission Is Blacks Beach still clothing-optional? Lou Franzini, Jacksonville, Florida and by the end of the year, I resolve to look like the Monopoly guy. Ed Dunbar, online submission Ill have a statement for you at the end of the year. For now, I want my mommy. Allan Heck, online submission Im looking for work. President Trump already fired me. Craig Twitchell, online submission Please keep your questions brief: I have a nap time. Kamal Gilliam, online submission If none of these are lollipops, please get them out of my face. Michael Sperla, online submission Advertisement I will not be using Johnson &Johnson talcum powder in 2019. Wilbur Smith, online submission No recession in 2019 bet my diaper on it. Felmar Mationg, Imperial Beach Shameless Kiss-Up Award The news in the U-T is more in-depth, so Id prefer to talk to them. Irving Jacoby, online submission Advertisement Next weeks cartoon (Steve Breen) To enter, email entries to cartooncontest@sduniontribune.com by 10 a.m. Tuesday. Please remember to limit your submissions to three and keep em brief. View last weeks winners. I hear Chinese elites claiming that Americans are conducting an evil conspiracy to destabilize China. I hear prominent Americans, disappointed that China has not become a democracy, claiming that China poses a threat to the American way of life. U.S. government reports declare that China is dedicated to challenging U.S. supremacy, and that it is planning to drive the United States out of Asia and reduce its influence in other countries around the world. If top government officials embrace these dangerous notions, a modern Cold War between our two nations is not inconceivable. At this sensitive moment, misperceptions, miscalculations and failure to follow carefully defined rules of engagement in areas such as the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea could escalate into military conflict, creating a worldwide catastrophe. The U.S. imposition of tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, and Chinas retaliatory tariffs, contribute to the deteriorating relationship, hurting both countries. The 90-day pause in further escalation of tariffs, agreed to at the Group of 20 summit in Argentina, offers the possibility of reaching a permanent agreement on U.S.-China trade. What can we do to build on this progress and repair the U.S.-China relationship? Advertisement First, the United Stateslong-standing complaints about trade imbalances, intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers, and unfair barriers to U.S. investments and business operations in China must be addressed quickly and effectively. Neither country should use national security as an excuse to obstruct the others legitimate commercial activities. China needs competition for its economy to innovate and grow; pursuing a fair and reciprocal relationship is the only way for both countries to remain economically strong. Second, Americans must acknowledge that, just as China has no right to interfere in U.S. affairs, we have no inherent right to dictate to China how to govern its people or choose its leaders. Chinas achievements in sustaining economic growth, alleviating abject poverty and providing developmental assistance to other countries need to be celebrated. At the same time, we cannot ignore its deficiencies in internet censorship, policies toward minorities and religious restrictions which should be recorded and criticized. This balanced approach is key to ensuring that the United States and China continue to work together toward solving some of the most intractable global problems. Despite current tensions on other issues, Chinese support has been essential in our ongoing efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. Beijing also could offer crucial help in post-conflict reconstruction in the Middle East and Africa, countering terrorism and extremism, and mediating other international disputes. The United States should return to the Paris climate accord and work with China on environmental and climate-change issues, as the epic struggle against global warming requires active participation from both nations. But I believe the easiest route to bilateral cooperation lies in Africa. Both countries are already heavily involved there in fighting disease, building infrastructure and keeping peace sometimes cooperatively. Yet each nation has accused the other of economic exploitation or political manipulation. Africans like billions of other people around the world do not want to be forced to choose a side. Instead, they welcome the synergy that comes from pooling resources, sharing expertise and designing complementary aid programs. By working together with Africans, the United States and China would also be helping themselves overcome distrust and rebuild this vital relationship. In 1979, Deng Xiaoping and I knew we were advancing the cause of peace. While todays leaders face a different world, the cause of peace remains just as important. Leaders must bring new vision, courage and ingenuity to new challenges and opportunities, but I believe they also must accept our conviction that the United States and China need to build their futures together, for themselves and for humanity at large. In July, three weeks before Richard Sipes death, his wife rushed to his La Jolla hospital room with news. They finally caught up with McCarrick, Dr. Marianne Benkert Sipe told him. A front page New York Times story reported that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, accused of sexually abusing an altar boy and seminarians, had become the first cardinal in history to resign. Sipe, who had warned the Vatican about McCarrick in an open letter published in 2008, was vindicated. He took little comfort in this. I wish they would have listened to me earlier, he said. Advertisement Theyre listening to you now, his wife replied. Sipe, a therapist and former Benedictine priest, studied the sex lives of men who had taken vows of celibacy. How did priests live this life? he wondered. The answer, Sipe argued in a series of books starting with 1990s A Secret World: At any one time, up to 50 percent of the clergy maintain sexual relationships with other men, women or, in perhaps 6 percent of cases, children. Bishops and cardinals, Sipe maintained, also violated their vows and routinely covered up for clerics who were molesting and raping children. This was a systemic problem, Sipe continued, afflicting the church around the world. During Sipes lifetime, critics dismissed his findings as the projections of a bitter man, alienated from his faith and former colleagues. Richard got pounded, said Dr. Sipe, a former nun and practicing psychiatrist. He was called an angry, discredited ex-priest who just wants to destroy the church. No longer. Throughout 2018, especially after his death Aug. 8 at the age of 85, hes been cited by clerics and laity, liberals and conservatives. Advertisement Its been a very significant year, Dr. Sipe said. Deeply repulsive Born in rural Minnesota in 1932, Sipe became a monk in 1952 and an ordained priest in 1959. He came to Baltimore to study counseling at the Seton Psychiatric Institute, where he met and fell in love with Dr. Marianne Benkert, a Maryknoll nun. In 1970, both left the religious life and married. They continued living in Maryland until 1999, when their sons studies at UC San Diego brought them to La Jolla. In the couples Mount Soledad home, Dr. Sipe continues their work. Counseling women, including nuns, who had been sexually abused by priests, her findings reinforced those of her husband. Even now, she consults with Sipes allies, such as Thomas Doyle, a canon lawyer, and the Rev. Michael Peterson, a priest and physician. Advertisement The next question to answer is, why? she said. There is something systemic in the church culture that allowed for this to go on and allowed for the cover-up. In 2018, headline after headline underlined this point. As Sipe had predicted, the scandal dragged down princes of the church McCarrick resigned, as did his successor as archbishop of Washington, D.C., Donald Wuerl, the latter for ignoring widespread abuses by clerics he had been charged with supervising while serving as a bishop in Pennsylvania. This is a global affliction. In May, all 34 Chilean bishops offered their resignations for failing to halt the molestation of children by clerics in that country. By October, Pope Francis had accepted nine resignations. This month, an Australian court convicted Cardinal George Pell on five counts of sexual misconduct involving two boys. Advertisement Historically, this is one of the worst scandals in the life of the 2,000-year-old church, said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and editor at large of America magazine. There is something deeply repulsive to people about child sex abuse. That is just so repellent that it almost in a sense transcends any other sin or crime. By 2018, Dr. Sipe said, virtually everyone Catholic and non-Catholic, church leaders and civil authorities had adopted her late husbands view that these were crimes rather than missteps that could be privately addressed with discreet counseling. In August, Pennsylvanias state attorney general released an 887-page grand jury report documenting the abuse of more than 1,000 children by over 300 priests. Numerous states at least 16 to date followed by launching similar investigations. Dozens of dioceses, including San Diego, reviewed their archives and issued expanded lists of priests credibly accused of sexual abuse. Advertisement Locally, the additions numbered eight. Most, noted Americas Martin, are already retired, dead or defrocked. Yet there have been some glaring exceptions, including the Rev. Donald Timone, a New York-based priest who often visited Rancho Santa Fes Church of the Nativity. This month, The New York Times reported that Timone had continued in active ministry despite the Archdiocese of New York settling two cases in which Timone was accused of abusing teens he had been counseling. Advertisement Timone, 84, had also taught a course at Escondidos John Paul the Great Catholic University this summer and was scheduled to lead an independent study group in theology there during the 2019 winter quarter, which begins Jan. 7. That course has been cancelled, said Derry Connolly, John Paul the Greats president, and Timone has been barred from returning to San Diego. His visits had been preceded by a letter from the Archdiocese of New York affirming Timones status as a priest in good standing, said Kevin Eckery, a spokesman for the Diocese of San Diego. We have not received any complaints against him, Eckery said. Advertisement Shifting attitudes Sipe lived long enough to see a radical change in how law enforcement and the legal system treat allegations lodged against clergy. Dr. Sipe cited the case of the Rev. John Feit, a priest suspected of the 1960 rape and murder of a Texas beauty queen, Irene Garza. For decades, civil authorities declined to press charges against the priest. Finally, a newly-elected district attorney prosecuted Feit in McAllen, Tex., in 2017. Sipe testified, despite being in ill health and using a wheelchair. Feit, who is now 86, was convicted in December 2017. That case, plus the Pennsylvania grand jury report and the ongoing investigations in other states is a message to all the dioceses, Dr. Sipe said. You are now subject to the law. Advertisement Martin sees shifts in the church hierarchys attitudes, too. Sipe was a key source in the Boston Globes landmark 2002 Spotlight investigation into predator priests, which was attacked by the local cardinal as an anti-Catholic smear. By all means, we call down Gods power on the media, Cardinal Bernard Law said in a speech that year, especially the Globe. (Law, who had covered up the crimes of numerous priests, resigned as archbishop of Boston by the end of 2002.) The message, Martin said, was that this is a media-created problem. In contrast, Pope Francis used his 2018 Christmas address to issue heart-felt thanks to those media professionals who were honest and objective and sought to unmask these predators and to make their victims voices heard. Advertisement While Dr. Sipe welcomed those words, she questioned whether any corresponding actions will emerge from the Vaticans Feb. 21-24, 2019, meeting. Summoning the presidents of Catholic bishops conferences from around the world, the pope will focus on prevention of the abuse of minors and vulnerable adults, according to a Vatican statement. My sources, Dr. Sipe said, say that in the Vatican they dont know what to do about this. Doyle, the canon lawyer, doubts that the churchs governing body the Curia will allow significant reforms. The hierarchy is not capable or willing to fix the problem themselves, he said. The present pope took some steps that are radical, like firing a cardinal that hadnt been done since 1931. But hes hemmed in by the Curia and the fact that the church is so big. Advertisement Martin, though, said the U.S. bishops instituted crucial reforms with the Dallas Charter of 2002. It proclaimed zero tolerance for the abuse of minors and mandated the steps the U.S. church now takes when faced with accusations. The bishops arent getting enough credit for the Dallas Charter, he said. Before 2002, the rules were very vague. After 2002 and every priest knows this if there is a credible accusation you are removed immediately and then it is investigated. While that investigation is conducted by diocesan review boards, allegations are also forwarded to civilian law enforcement. There are guys who slip through the cracks, like the guy in New York, Martin said. But what you are seeing with these revelations, these lists coming out, these are old cases. Advertisement Old cases, though, will continue to make new headlines in 2019. In February, Australias Cardinal George Pell will be sentenced. In the U.S., the year is expected to see reports from numerous state attorneys general, who like Pennsylvanias attorney general may implicate church officials at all levels. Just as a former priest had predicted. Richard, Dr. Sipe said, has been proven right. A 20-year-old Ohio man standing outside his disabled car in the fast lane of Interstate 805 on New Years Day was thrown more than 100 feet through the air and seriously injured when he and his car were struck, authorities said Wednesday. The crash, which happened about 2:15 p.m. Tuesday, shut down northbound I-805 south of the merge with Interstate 5 in Sorrento Valley for several hours, according to the California Highway Patrol. It still wasnt clear Wednesday why the victims 2003 Nissan 350z became disabled in the far left freeway lane, CHP spokesman Officer Jake Sanchez said in a statement. But initial reports that the car was racing before the crash appeared to be unfounded. (Driving under the influence or) street racing do not appear to be a factor in the collision, an investigating CHP officer wrote in the initial crash report. Advertisement The victim a resident of Xenia, Ohio, according to the CHP was standing outside of his disabled Nissan when he and the car were struck by a Mercedes-Benz SUV driven by a 50-year-old Tijuana man, according to the crash report. The victim was propelled about 135 feet as a result of that initial collision, CHP Sgt. Steve Jio told OnScene TV on Tuesday. The driver of the Nissan sustained major injuries as a result of being struck by the Mercedes and was taken to Scripps La Jolla, the investigating officer wrote in the initial crash report. A Honda Accord approaching the initial crash scene swerved in an attempt to miss the disabled Nissan but was unable to avoid hitting the car, authorities said. A Jeep Cherokee was also struck by debris from the crashes. No other occupants of the involved vehicles were injured, according to the CHP. The crash snarled northbound traffic on I-805 during the afternoon commute, though traffic was lighter than normal because of the holiday. Advertisement Twitter: @Alex_Riggins (619) 293-1710 alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com Tensions were so high among members of a South Bay parent-teacher association in March that a sheriffs sergeant attended a PTA meeting that month to ensure the safety of the president, who was being accused by other members of stealing from the organization, the sergeant said Wednesday. Nearly nine months later, the former PTA president, 30-year-old Kaitlyn Faith Birchman, was arrested on suspicion of embezzling at least $14,800 from the Imperial Beach Charter School PTA, Sgt. Karl Miller said. Birchman was taken into custody Tuesday night at her Temecula home, according to jail records and Miller, who attended the PTA meeting while assigned to the Imperial Beach substation, but has since moved to the sheriffs financial crimes unit, which investigated the alleged embezzlement. Birchman, the subject of an arrest warrant issued in November, was booked into jail in the Riverside area, then released on bond, Miller said. Advertisement The District Attorneys Office has filed a complaint in San Diego Superior Court charging Birchman with three felony counts, including fraudulent appropriation by clerk, agent or employee, grand theft by employee and forgery. Her arraignment is scheduled for Jan. 10. Investigators have been in contact with Birchman since they opened the investigation after that confrontational PTA meeting in March, and Birchman was cooperative and sat for an interview following her arrest Wednesday, Miller said. She had moved from Imperial Beach to Temecula in June. Birchman did not immediately return a voicemail seeking comment Wednesday. Its not yet clear whether she has an attorney. According to Miller, Birchman became president of the Imperial Beach Charter School PTA, where two of her children attended school, in July 2016. But it wasnt until until about a year later, during the 2017-2018 school year, that money started to go missing from the organization, Miller said. Birchman is suspected of having stolen cash from purchases and donations made during school book fairs, PTA membership drives and other events during the school year, Miller said. When it came time to pay vendors who had sponsored the events or fronted products to sell, she allegedly wrote checks on a closed account. Miller said Birchman took advantage of an informal accounting system and a lack of oversight. Over her last few months in charge of the PTA, she allegedly planned several cash-only fundraising events. She didnt get rich, there were no extravagant purchases, Miller said. She was living paycheck-to-paycheck , but that doesnt make what she did right. She was put in a position of trust; it should have never happened. Advertisement Other PTA members became aware of the alleged embezzlement in early 2018, setting up the adversarial March meeting at which she was removed as PTA president, Miller said. The school requested a law enforcement presence to make sure (Birchman) was safe at the meeting, which was mediated by a member of a national PTA organization, Miller said. Soon after the meeting, another PTA member made a report at the Imperial Beach substation, and the case was transferred to the sheriffs financial crimes unit, Miller said. Investigators subpoenaed bank records, credit card records and more during the lengthy investigation. The PTA had to cancel planned events, its funds were down to nothing, Miller said. You have parents that can barely make it, investing money in the PTA for extracurricular activities for their children yeah, theyre going to be upset. This was a messy case, and probably prevented a lot of kids from having some fun at the end of last school year. City News Service contributed to this report. Advertisement Twitter: @Alex_Riggins Advertisement (619) 293-1710 alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com UPDATES: Advertisement 10:10 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details. This article was originally published at 1:50 p.m. A small fire burned a studio apartment and some household items Wednesday afternoon outside a home in Encanto, fire officials said. The blaze was reported about 1:20 p.m. at a property on Fergus Street south of Brooklyn Avenue, San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokeswoman Monica Munoz said. It was a report of a residential fire, but it turned out to be a studio ... on the property of a single family residence, Munoz said in an email. It was a large rubbish fire. Evidently there were things stored under tarps on the property and thats primarily what burned. The house on the property wasnt damaged, but the studio apartment sustained about $5,000 worth of damage, Munoz said. The blaze caused another $3,000 or so of damage to the rubbish that was stored on the property. Advertisement Fire crews knocked down the flames within about 15 minutes, and nobody was displaced or injured, Munoz said. The cause of the fire was undetermined. Twitter: @Alex_Riggins (619) 293-1710 alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com Three lanes of southbound Interstate 5 were closed for about an hour Thursday afternoon after a police pursuit that began in Los Angeles came to an end near Camp Pendleton. A fourth lane remained closed for an additional hour, until about 3:30 p.m., as California Highway Patrol officers completed their investigation into the incident, said CHP Officer Jim Bettencourt. The pursuit, which began in Culver City, lasted about 2 hours until the driver stopped the car around 1:30 p.m. on south I-5 just north of Las Pulgas Road. It was unclear whether the mans car had run out of gas or if he pulled over. He remained in the vehicle for almost 45 minutes until CHP officers sent a police dog at him after he opened his drivers side door. Several officers immediately rushed the car and pulled the driver out of the vehicle. Advertisement Television footage of the scene showed the man being treated for dog bites a short time later in an area off the right shoulder of the freeway. The chase began in Culver City when police began pursuing a driver suspected in an assault with a deadly weapon. The red Honda Civic was being pursued on surface streets when the driver struck a man riding a scooter in Playa del Rey around 11:30 a.m., police said. During the chase, officers tried to stop the car several times using so-called PIT maneuvers pursuit tactics used to push a vehicle sideways in an attempt to force a fleeing driver to stop. The cars rear window and back bumper were torn off the car after it was hit by police vehicles, but the driver kept going. The car wound its way through several cities in Los Angeles before entering the southbound 405 Freeway and heading to Orange County. The California Highway Patrol considered deploying a spike strip on the 405 Freeway in Orange County but decided against it because of construction in the area. Authorities said the driver, who has not been publicly identified, is on probation and is possibly an Army veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. The three lefthand lanes of the freeway were reopened to traffic around 2:30 p.m., Bettencourt said. The far right lane reopened about 3:30 p.m. Advertisement City News Service and the Los Angeles Times contributed to this report. Advertisement Twitter: @karenkucher (619) 293-1350 karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com Advertisement UPDATES: 4:30 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details. 2:40 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details. 2:20 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details. Advertisement This article was originally published at 1:45 p.m. Residents awoke to a two-alarm fire in an apartment complex early Thursday in Carlsbad that left four units damaged, displacing seven residents. When fire crews arrived at the two-story complex on Chinquapin Avenue near Harrison Street shortly before 4 a.m., they found flames blowing out the balconies of one ground-floor apartment and a second-floor unit, said Carlsbad Fire Battalion Chief Chris Lawrence. He said the fire began in the ground-floor unit and spread to the upstairs apartment. Firefighters from Vista and Oceanside assisted Carlsbad firefighters to attack the flames aggressively. The guys did an awesome attack, keeping the fire from spreading to other units, he said. Advertisement When firefighters arrived, they worked to help get residents from around 40 apartments out of he complex safely. No one was injured. Lawrence said the Red Cross was called to assist seven people displaced by the blaze. The cause of the fire is under investigation, he said. Twitter: @karenkucher (619) 293-1350 Advertisement karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com UPDATES: 9:10 a.m.: This article was updated with additional details. This article was originally published at 7:10 a.m. U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday he received a "great letter" from Kim Jong Un and will likely meet with the North Korean leader in the near future. "We really established a very good relationship," Trump said at a White House Cabinet meeting. "We'll probably have another meeting." Trump's comments came one day after Kim warned the current goodwill with the U.S. could end if Washington continues to impose sanctions to force his government to denuclearize. In his annual New Year's Day address, Kim said it was his "firm will" that North Korea will no longer produce or test nuclear weapons, or "use or spread" its arsenal. Kim added he was prepared to hold another meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump this year. But he said his country may have to follow another path unless Washington takes "corresponding measures." Kim called on the U.S. and South Korea to end all joint military drills. At a very young age, Nathan Fletcher learned about the spirit of service. His mother, whom he credits as the most influential person in his life, was a crime victims advocate who dedicated herself to running shelters helping battered women and children. It was this notion that you have some obligation to help others and to try and make a difference in the lives of others, said Fletcher during an interview. I just think that was really ingrained in me. That notion is part of what drew Fletcher to the Marines where he served as a counterintelligence specialist in Iraq and the Horn of Africa, and then to the California State Assembly where he gained a reputation for working across the aisle and sponsored Chelseas Law. That law strengthened punishments for sex offenders who commit crimes against children. Advertisement Fletcher retreated into the private sector after a second failed mayoral bid five years ago. But next week he will be sworn in as a new member of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors where hes eager to push county government more aggressively into the areas of mental health services, housing and public health. The county provides such an incredible opportunity to make a positive impact, Fletcher said. You have this incredibly large impactful entity that I believe can do more If we get the county to do more, you are really touching the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in a substantive way. Fletcher, a 42-year-old Democrat, will officially join the board alongside fellow supervisor-elect Jim Desmond on Monday, after defeating Republican former District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis by more than 30 points in November. As he joins the board as only its second Democratic member in 25 years, Fletcher for some represents a sign of change. He was a vocal critic of the county on the campaign trail, and is set to be the boards lone Democrat just as the party looks to make a play for a few other competitive supervisor seats in 2020. Although he continues to stress that his election doesnt mean there will be a dramatic change overnight, Fletcher said hes excited to get to work. Im coming in to get things done, to try and make a difference, Fletcher said. I think well have some successes, and I think well have some failures... If theres issues that I think we should do and two other supervisors dont agree, well were still gonna have the vote, and were still gonna talk about it... Were always going to be leaning forward, he added. Once a Republican himself before leaving the party in 2012, a point of contention that has led some on the right to criticize him as an opportunist, Fletcher believes there is room for the supervisors to find common ground on several issues. Advertisement He said hes been encouraged by the early reception hes received from fellow supervisors, and sees several issues they can collaborate on such as working with Supervisor Dianne Jacob on Alzheimers Disease treatment, and planning and adherence to the countys General Plan. Fletcher said that hed view his first term as a success if theres some substantive action on regional mental health solutions and the county is able to make a serious dent in the regional need for housing. The goal of public office is to move policy that improves peoples lives, said Fletcher. No ones life is improved by a speech. No ones life is improved by a campaign Peoples lives are improved by bold, substantive policy changes. The first issue Fletcher wants to bring before the board, though, is something born more out of immediacy: what to do about the asylum seekers who are essentially stranded in San Diego? Advertisement Several months ago, the federal government ended a program that helped asylum-seeking families reach their final destinations in the U.S. and is no longer coordinating their release with relatives or service providers while they await a court hearing. Many, including incoming Gov. Gavin Newsom have criticized the decision as both morally and practically unjust, arguing that the lack of assistance makes their lives more complicated and could create more of a burden for the county and the state. Fletcher said the asylum seekers need a health screening and could end up homeless in San Diego if they are not connected to their sponsor or final destination. If we dont proactively take action we could not only have a public health crisis, but also compound the situation as it relates to homelessness, Fletcher said. I think we need to step up and lead, and really push some action. Advertisement Fletcher added that the asylum-seekers issue is one hes been collaborating with Supervisor Greg Cox on. The new supervisors will be sworn into office 10 a.m. Monday at the County Administration Building. Councilwoman Barbara Bry of La Jolla on Wednesday launched her campaign to become San Diegos next mayor, saying her experience as a technology entrepreneur and former journalist makes her the ideal candidate for the job. Bry, the first candidate to announce she will run for mayor in 2020, is expected to battle fellow Democrats Congressman Scott Peters and Assemblyman Todd Gloria in the race to succeed Republican Mayor Kevin Faulconer, who cant run for re-election because of term limits. Other potential candidates include Republican Councilman Mark Kersey and former Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman, who is registered as an independent. Thanks partly to backlash against President Donald Trump, Democrats enjoy a 19 percentage point registration advantage over Republicans in San Diego, 40.5 percent to 21.4 percent, with 38 percent either independents or members of smaller parties. Advertisement Bry, 69, was elected to the City Council in 2016 after a long career in the private sector that included founding several local high-tech companies, such as ProFlowers.com, and working as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and other publications. She said on Wednesday that her lack of political experience is a strength rather than a weakness. I will make the tough decisions because I am not a career politician pandering to the special interests, Bry said. Instead of making decisions designed to preserve a career in elective office, I will be driven by what is best for our residents and our citys future. It is time for us to get past the revolving door of political insiders if we want real change at City Hall. Bry said shes learned enough during her two years on the council to know that San Diego needs a new type of leadership that she can deliver. San Diego deserves better, forward-looking leadership and a bold vision for our citys future, Bry said. I will bring leadership that puts solutions for San Diegans first, prioritizes fiscal discipline, stands up to the special interests, treats all residents and communities fairly, and creates comprehensive solutions to long-standing problems. Among those problems are homelessness, a severe shortage of affordable housing and how to regulate short-term vacation rentals. San Diego has a strong mayor form of government, giving the person in the citys top job wide latitude to shape the city budget and set legislative priorities. Bry said another focus if she becomes mayor will be greater social equity and expanded opportunities for people who face hurdles in life such as their income level, gender or ethnicity. Advertisement I want us to be a model in how we treat everyone with equity and respect, Bry said in a video posted Wednesday at barbarabry.com. Bry said she had huge advantages as a white woman with a masters degree in business administration from Harvard University. I had a lot of doors that were open to me that are not open to a lot of people in San Diego, and I want to make sure they get the same opportunities that I had, Bry said in the four-minute video. Brys experience also includes teaching entrepreneurship at the University of California, San Diego and founding Athena San Diego, an organization that supports the advancement of women in the technology and life science sectors. Advertisement One of my priorities for San Diego is to move full steam ahead by expanding access to science, technology, engineering, arts and math opportunities in every neighborhood, she said. Expanding access to the innovation economy will increase our citys economic vitality and bolster our tax base, which in turn supports quality city services and neighborhood facilities. Of the three Democrats, only Bry and Gloria are considered certain to run for mayor. Peters has established an exploratory committee, but he might choose not to run based on new opportunities in the House of Representatives with Democrats taking over. Bry mentioned the citys pension problems on Wednesday, which could be a precursor to attacks during the campaign on Peters, who was on the council during the pension crisis. In the past, San Diego city leaders made fiscally irresponsible decisions, such as mismanaging the citys pension plan, which have drained our citys budget and undercut the citys ability to provide neighborhood facilities and services, she said. Advertisement Since taking office, Bry has led the councils pivotal Budget Committee. She also serves on committees overseeing public safety, economic development and the environment. david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick Since President Trump tweeted last month that Islamic State had been defeated in Syria and he would remove U.S. forces from the war-torn country, Americas allies, enemies and even leading officials in the administration and Congress have sought to divine when and how he would want the withdrawal to happen. This week, Trump only added to the confusion during a rambling monologue at a Cabinet meeting in which he dismissed Syria as a land of sand and death and again provided no definitive answer on when roughly 2,000 U.S. troops and thousands more special operatives and contractors would depart from areas controlled by Americas Kurdish allies. With so many belligerent forces in the vicinity, erasing the U.S. footprint would be a delicate task. Done haphazardly, it could devolve into chaos, giving the Islamic State jihadis the space, the recruits and the material to rise back up. Assuming theres going to be an American withdrawal, all sides have interest in making it a neat, clean handover, said Aron Lund, a Syria analyst and fellow at the Century Foundation think tank, in a phone interview Thursday. The big question is, can they make it happen? Advertisement The other big question is what will happen to the approximately 1.3 million civilians in northeast Syria, more than a million of them displaced residents spread across dozens of camps, informal dwellings and host communities, as Turkey, Syrias Kurds and the Syrian government and its strategic partners Russia and Iran jockey for position. The need is significant. We deliver food aid, clean water, provide shelter and household essentials to 40,000 people a month, Wilf Dinnick, a spokesman for Mercy Corps Middle East division, said in a statement Thursday, adding that most people in Syrias northeast couldnt afford to repair their damaged homes. Initially, the United States involvement in Syrias civil war which took shape as largely peaceful Arab Spring protests in 2011 that were met with a deadly response by longtime Syrian President Bashar Assad was reluctant. That changed in 2015, when Syrias Kurds mounted a do-or-die defense before Islamic State fighters in the border city of Kobani. Washington saw in the Kurdish militias known as the Peoples Protection Units, or YPG, an effective force against Islamic State. It poured training and weapons into the YPG, putting it at the center of the Arab and Kurdish factions known collectively as the Syrian Democratic Forces. It gave them the necessary air support to beat back the jihadis and built them into a force numbering 60,000 to 75,000 fighters, according to estimates. The Kurds now control a full third of Syria, presiding over an enclave that has more than a dozen U.S. bases and airfields along with a number of outposts and observation points. In the meantime, the Kurds developed a de facto state apparatus, one propped up by hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. funds and by foreign aid workers, providing assistance and services to hundreds of thousands of civilians. If the U.S. departs, it would leave an already crowded battlefield to multiple forces poised to overrun northeast Syria. Turkey, which considers the YPG a proxy for Kurdish separatists at home, is already massing tanks and its own Syrian rebels to do so. The Syrian government, backed by Russia and Iran, is also ready and has vowed to reimpose its grip over every inch of the country. The Syrians already appear on the cusp of a deal with the Kurds. And then there are the Islamic State jihadis, defeated but not destroyed. They have long used the borderlands between Syria and Iraq as sanctuary. Advertisement In conversations with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month, Trump appeared to hand off the Islamic State fight to Turkey. That would almost surely mean the demise of the YPG. Meanwhile, the Kurds, seeking the least bad option, invited the Syrian army last week to take over positions in Kurdish-held cities including Manbij so it could focus on finishing off Islamic State extremists east of the Euphrates River. Syrian state media announced Thursday that several hundred Kurdish fighters had already left Manbij to Assads forces. On Wednesday, Trump indicated he would protect the Kurds to a point. Advertisement We want to protect the Kurds, he said, but I dont want to be in Syria forever. Its sand and its death. That could mean allowing the Kurds to keep weapons supplied by the U.S. as part of the $550-million assistance package it earmarked for the Syrian Democratic Forces in 2019, including machine guns, anti-tank missiles, armored vehicles and mortars. Such a move would infuriate Turkey, a NATO ally that fears the weapons would be used against its own forces. It has demanded the U.S. collect the equipment. Such efforts in Syria have had dismal results in the past, with weaponry given by the U.S. to vetted rebel factions often ending up in the hands of the Islamist militants they were supposed to fight. Others have ended up in the northwestern province of Idlib, which has been dominated by Al Qaeda. Advertisement What are the mechanics for doing this? Put some officers in a car and go to every little base belonging to the SDF at the front line and say, Hand over your weapons, please? said Lund, referring to the Syrian Democratic Forces by their acronym. If the SDF want to do it, Im sure they could round up the Kalashnikovs and crates of ammunition. But why would they want to do it? Without those weapons and support, he said, the fragile alliance among the various militias would quickly dissolve. Just in terms of military pressure, if the YPG and its allies stop attacking whatever is left of Islamic State, of course they get a new lease on life, said Lund, adding that Islamic State would also thrive in the resulting power vacuum. Advertisement Another danger is the estimated 3,200 Islamic State prisoners in the Kurds custody, including hundreds of foreign fighters from 31 countries, according to the pro-opposition monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and thousands of family members from 41 countries. The U.S. has helped pay for their detention, but its unclear whether that support would continue, and without proper backing the Kurds may be unable to contain them, especially if theyre facing a Turkish attack. Abdul Karim Omar, a foreign relations official with the Kurdish-led administration in northeastern Syria, said there were no plans to hand over the detainees to the Syrian government or any other party, but chaos resulting from a Turkish incursion could lead to their escape. Their presence in an unstable area is a great danger. We cant bear this responsibility alone, and this is one of the consequences of Daesh, Omar said in a phone interview Thursday. Islamic State is also referred to by its Arabic acronym, Daesh. Advertisement Just as we faced them on the battlefield in coordination with the international community against a threat to the world and humanity, the problem of Daesh prisoners and their families also needs coordination, he said. Civilians in northeast Syria receive aid from roughly 80 international and local aid organizations funded by the U.S. and its coalition partners, especially those agencies involved in rehabilitating cities and villages destroyed in the battle against the jihadis. Fears of a U.S. withdrawal have already pushed some organizations to suspend their activities, said Abdul Qader Muwahad, head of the Kurds aid coordination office. In recent months, U.S. officials announced that other coalition members had pledged $325 million for stabilization and rebuilding efforts. Advertisement But, Muwahad said, the U.S. State Department had been the nerve center for coordinating that support. Without it, he expected aid groups would reduce their activities to less than two-thirds of the current level. A withdrawal sends the message that the world has abandoned these people, Muwahad said in a phone interview Wednesday. It provides a fertile environment for the return of extremism. Special correspondent Kamiran Sadoun in Syria contributed to this report. Advertisement Twitter: @nabihbulos With sidewalk encampments appearing at several downtown locations in recent weeks, some people are questioning whether its time for the city to expand a Sherman Heights storage facility that reached capacity about two months ago. Padres general partner Peter Seidler, who pushed for and helped fund the citys three large tented shelters, brought up the issue recently at a homeless symposium at the University of San Diego. Attorney Scott Dreher, who has represented homeless people in lawsuits against the city, also thinks the center should be expanded. Besides providing more homeless people with a place to store their possessions, Dreher said adding bins to the center in Sherman Heights would allow the city of San Diego to issue three-hour notices to people warning them to remove items left unattended on sidewalks and other public places, helping to keep downtown clean. Advertisement While there is more than enough room to add hundreds of more bins to the center, its not something that has been discussed recently by City Council members, and Keely Halsey, chief of homelessness strategies and housing liaison in San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconers office, said the council is not scheduled to revisit the issue. Faulconer had announced plans for the storage center in his State of the City address last January and promoted it as a way that would help keep neighborhoods clean while also providing homeless people with a safe place to store their belongings, potentially allowing them to go do school, work or do other productive things. Some Sherman Heights residents said they were taken by surprise by the announcement of the 1,000-bin center planned for 116 S. 20th St., with many fearing that it would draw more homeless people to their neighborhood. The City Council in March approved a scaled-back 500-bin version of the center after hearing concerns about its potential impact from many residents, including students from Our Ladys School, a Catholic school that has a playground next to the building. The center opened in June and reached the 500-bin limit in October. From everything I know, its been a big success, Seidler said. Its been managed well, and the surrounding neighborhood is generally happy and OK with it. It provides a real service to homeless people trying to get off the street and move forward with their lives. With a waiting list at the center and many homeless people still on the street, Seidler questioned why the city doesnt just bring in more bins. Not everybody has been happy with the storage center, however. In community meetings held in Sherman Heights over the past few months, some residents have said theyve seen more trash and aggressive homeless people in their neighborhood since the center opened. Advertisement Besides agreeing to cap the center at 500 bins, Halsey said the city has made a commitment to keep the neighborhood near the building clean and secure by working with city Environmental Services, the San Diego Police Department, the San Diego Housing Commission and the centers operator, Mental Health Systems. San Diego police patrols in the neighborhood near the center are expected to cost $2 million in overtime pay annually, according to a city budget projection released in November. Others are in no rush to see the center expanded. Kathleen Hallahan, president of the East Village Resident Group, said expanding the existing center may clear some public areas of homeless encampments, but also could draw more homeless people downtown. Advertisement I would say that since theres limited funds, dont expand it but look into other areas, she said. And put social services with the storage centers. That would seem like a wiser use of money. Hallahan speculated that homeless people who have encampments in East Village and surrounding neighborhoods may have been drawn to downtown after hearing there was a nearby storage center, only to learn that it was full once they arrived. Seidler agrees the city should open storage centers in other places, but should also expand the Sherman Heights center. Our Lady School Principal Noel Bishop was among the people who spoke against the center before the City Council in March. More recently, he said the center hasnt had much of an adverse affect on the school, and there even have been some improvements in the area. Advertisement Still, he doesnt want to see it expanded. If they do, theres a possibility it could get worse, he said. If we bring in another 100 or 500 people, is that going to stretch the ability to control it? Right now, everything is OK. Dreher said he believes the city could expand the center, at least by 100 or so bins at a time, to meet the demand in the neighborhood. The centers opening in June affected a 2011 settlement to a lawsuit Dreher and the American Civil Liberties Union had filed against the city on behalf of some homeless people whose possessions were thrown away by city crews. Advertisement The settlement required the city to give a 72-hour notice before throwing away or impounding unattended items and to fund a storage facility for homeless people. That requirement led to the opening in 2011 of a 400-bin center at 252 16th St., now run by Think Dignity, which is also at capacity. U.S. Magistrate Judge William Gallo, who heard the original lawsuit, agreed this year to amend the settlement and reduce the notification period to just three hours rather than three days after the Sherman Heights center opened. The notification time returned to three days after the center reached capacity in October. Dreher said he plans to go before Gallo in January to discuss the settlement further. Everything is on the table, he said, adding that the hearing could lead to discussions with the city about expanding the Sherman Heights center or opening more storage centers in other areas. Advertisement Homeless advocate Michael McConnell reluctantly agreed that expanding the Sherman Heights center could be a good idea, but stressed that the city should be working on more outreach and long-term solutions to house people. McConnell said he has seen an increase in homeless encampments on 17th Street and near the Central Library over the past two months, an indication that people need more places to store their possessions. He said he did not see a downside to expanding the center. Advertisement Homeless Playlist On Now San Diego hepatitis outbreak continues to grow: 481 cases On Now Homeless entrenched in booming tent city along Santa Ana River On Now San Diego mayor agreed to homeless hub, then delayed, advocates say On Now Homeless outreach in San Diego On Now Video: Street Art: Portraits of San Diego's Homeless #8 On Now In poverty himself, 'Water Man Dave,' is the fearless saint of San Diego's homeless 5:41 On Now Video: Homeless living in cars find safe havens 2:21 On Now Street Art: Portraits of San Diego's Homeless #7 On Now Pitching a tent plan for San Diego's homeless On Now Homeless efforts get $80M boost for various services gary.warth@sduniontribune.com Advertisement Twitter: @GaryWarthUT 760-529-4939 An arbiter has sided with five local tribes in a dispute over what county water officials argued was a request that left them with an unexpected $2.1 million budget deficit after the tribes won back lost water rights. At issue was a one-time loss to the San Diego County Water Authority in 2017. The dispute arose after the federal government restored water rights to the San Luis Rey Indian Water Authority, which represents the tribes, that year. Shortly after winning back water rights, the tribes submitted a request to the county water authorities that would essentially allow them to start collecting money on those water rights. But county water officials said that request from the tribes came with too short of a notice just eight days and ultimately left them with a $2.1 million loss. Advertisement The decision last month from the arbitrator, a formal federal judge, found that the federal restoration of the rights referred to as the Settlement Act trumped the county water authoritys contract rules. The undisputed and unambiguous purpose of the Settlement Act was to in part compensate the (tribes) for years of deprivation of their San Luis Rey water rights, arbitrator Oliver Wanger wrote in the Dec. 14 decision. The San Luis Rey Indian Water Authority includes the La Jolla, Pala, Pauma, Rincon and San Pasqual bands. Bo Mazzetti, president of the San Luis Rey water agency, could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday. Mark Hattam, lead attorney for the San Diego County Water Authority, said in an email Wednesday that the agency believes it is very important to protect our regions ratepayers. In this arbitration we spent a total of about $36,000 to try and recover over $2.1 million for those ratepayers, Hattam wrote. We are of course disappointed that the Arbitrator disagreed with us in interpreting the disputed text of the parties conveyance agreement, but we will not be seeking any appeal, as arbitration results are generally without appellate rights. In 2017, after decades of fighting, the tribes won back their water rights. They wanted to start collecting on it. At the center of the 2017 dispute was water supplied to Vista and Escondido from the Colorado River. The water was ultimately delivered to the region by the county water authority. Physically, there was no change to where the water came from or where it ended up. The heart of the battle was to determine who would get paid for supplying the water. Advertisement On May 22, 2017, the tribes told the county they wanted to be paid for selling their water to Vista and Escondido. And they wanted the deal to be effective as of June 1, 2017. But the county water authority said a host of required protocols had not happened. Such a request would have had to come in to them by April 1 six weeks earlier than the tribes gave their notice, the county water officials said. And, the county water officials argued, the contract cycle was supposed to start in July, not June. County water authorities eventually agreed to the demand. But the agency also took its grievance to arbitration, arguing that the request left it with a one-time loss of about $2.1 million, and that it was entitled to compensation. Advertisement In siding with the tribes, Wanger wrote that the county water authorities requirements and protocols are subordinate and incidental to the over-arching legislative purpose that the tribes be provided their water rights. teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com (760) 529-4945 Advertisement Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT A computer engineer contract worker at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego is accused of luring an apparent 15-year-old girl from Florida as part of a daddy-daughter sexual fantasy, according to a complaint unsealed this week. Majid Didehban, 35, was arrested Saturday in San Diego and is expected to be transferred to West Palm Beach to face a federal charge of attempted enticement of a minor. The teenage girl Didehban is accused of communicating with was actually an undercover detective with the Palm Beach County Sheriffs Office, according to court records. Authorities say Didehban sent the girl a direct message on the dating app MeetMe on Dec. 12, saying: Hi! Im looking for a girl to roleplay daddy/daughter if u like? Advertisement The girl answered, saying she was 15, and Didehban asked if she wanted to be his real daughter. He quickly suggested they see each other in person and that the chat continue over the phone, according to the complaint. The conversations recorded in voice calls and text messages turned sexual instantly, and Didehban asked the girl to be his girlfriend, then wife. He insisted he was being serious and not just role-playing, the complaint states. He repeatedly asked for sexually explicit photos of the girl and grew angry when he was instead sent tame, clothed images. Youre old enough to understand these needs. Especially coming from the man that is willing to do so much for you, one of his texts read. The balance is greater on my side. You couldnt even weigh in to please me just a little after how much I was doing for you. And prepared to do for u. A plan begin to form for her to move to San Diego. He told her hed been looking at apartments for them and instructed her how to travel by air. You know we will have to pretend we are daddy daughter right?? Like when I come get you. In the airport. We have to be daddy daughter, one text read. He bought a plane ticket on Dec. 27 in her name on American Airlines to travel to San Diego two days later, authorities said. He was subsequently arrested. Details about Didehbans employment at ICE, including his current status, were unavailable Thursday. The agencys public affairs office is not taking media inquiries during the government shutdown. Advertisement kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @kristinadavis Roberta Weintraub emerged as a polemic figure in the anti-school-busing movement that swept the San Fernando Valley in the late 1970s. Elected to the Los Angeles school board as an activist, she became a coalition builder, being elected president four times during her 14 years as a school board member. After an unsuccessful run for Los Angeles City Council in 1995, Weintraub moved from politics to what admirers call her most important work, blending her passions for education and law enforcement. Weintraub, who founded the Police Academy Magnet School Program, died early Tuesday after a long fight with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. She was 83. Advertisement Former Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton called Weintraub the guardian angel of the Los Angeles law enforcement community. In the late 1990s, Weintraub brought the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Los Angeles Police Department into a partnership, founding the Police Academy Magnet School Program to teach high school students the principles of law enforcement, constitutional law and the criminal justice system. The program has grown to nine campuses. With graduation rates that consistently exceeded other school programs, most of these young people went on to college or the military, Bratton said in an email to The Times. Some of my favorite moments with her while I was chief were the graduation ceremonies of these young cadets and police officers. She was an extraordinary woman, added former Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, who got to know Weintraub through the police training programs. The first motivation for Roberta was always kids, Beck said. She saw this as a way to mold them to a career in which they could be very successful, or preparation for life if they dont become police officers. In addition to her efforts in law enforcement training, Weintraub in 2004 founded High Tech High, an innovative charter school on the Birmingham High School campus with a focus on science, math and technology. In 2007 Weintraub returned to law enforcement with a new initiative to fill the gap between high school graduation and the 20-year, six-month minimum age to become a police officer. Advertisement Weintraub started the Police Orientation Preparation Program, which combines criminal justice programs provided by the Los Angeles Unified School District, the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles Community College District and Cal State L.A. Together, these programs have touched the lives of thousands of students who are now proudly serving in a variety of roles across many agencies, Bratton said. A third-generation Angeleno, Weintraub was raised in a household where fighting for the underdog was a way of life, a statement released by her family said. She attended public schools and graduated from UCLA in 1960. She worked on John F. Kennedys presidential campaign, participated in the civil rights movement and obtained a certificate in state and local government from Harvard Universitys Kennedy School of Government. Advertisement As a board member she earned a reputation for arguing her beliefs bluntly. She called Rita Walters then the only African American school board member a bitch during a radio broadcast and sought expulsion of students caught carrying weapons to school. She also pushed for more magnet schools and helped open the first school-based health clinics that dispensed contraceptives. Though she entered politics as an anti-busing activist, Weintraub later formed alliances across ideological lines, including with Walters. Roberta loved breaking down silos, and was singularly determined to make sure that politics, ideology and bureaucracy never got in the way of getting the right things done, said her close friend Alan Arkatov, professor and Katzman/Ernst Chair in Educational Entrepreneurship, Technology and Innovation at USC. Advertisement That meant a woman riding a conservative electoral wave from the Valley would work closely with a liberal like Jackie Goldberg to make sure that everyone had access to high-quality education and health services. Roberta was the original Just Do It civic leader. She also went through personal changes. In 1985, her 17-year-old son, Michael, died in a car accident. She became a fitness fanatic and helped create Students Run LA, a program that encourages children to embrace physical fitness and make healthy nutritional choices. She hosted a television show, School Beat, that won an Emmy. Advertisement She became known for her flashy suits and dangling earrings. She was divorced and remarried. After the Northridge earthquake, Weintraub left the severely damaged Sherman Oaks home where she had lived for nearly 30 years and moved to the Westside. The 1995 defeat for City Council ended her political career but launched a new one. Theres a lot of women who have made contributions in the city; for me she stands near the top, said former school board member Marlene Canter, who followed Weintraub to the board and idolized her leadership. Advertisement A lot of people, after theyre in office, they slow down, Canter said. Not Roberta. She continued to grow and find new ways to contribute to Los Angeles. Weintraub is survived by her husband, Ira Krinsky, her son Richard Weintraub, daughter-in-law Liane and grandchildren Ava and Cole. Her stepson Brian Krinsky, his wife, Estelle, and their daughter Lauren also survive her. (A celebration of Weintraubs life will be held Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Los Angeles Police Academy in Elysian Park, 1880 North Academy Drive, Los Angeles.) doug.smith@latimes.com Advertisement Twitter: @LATDoug A fleeing driver led police on a wild chase through Los Angeles and Orange counties Thursday, crashing into a man riding a scooter and avoiding multiple attempts to stop his vehicle before finally being taken into custody near Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, nearly two hours after the pursuit began. The man pulled over along the shoulder of the southbound 5 Freeway about 1:30 p.m. south of San Clemente. Officers stopped traffic and eventually rushed the car with a police dog to apprehend the driver. During the pursuit, the man managed to escape four so-called PIT maneuvers by police a tactic meant to cause a fleeing car to spin out and stop that shattered the cars rear window and tore off the back bumper. Culver City police began the pursuit of the driver, who was suspected of assault with a deadly weapon, around 11 a.m. His car, a red Honda Civic, was traveling at slow to normal speeds before it struck a man riding a scooter in the 7800 block of West Manchester Avenue in Playa del Rey about 11:30. The man who was hit was taken to a hospital with injuries that did not appear to be life-threatening, fire officials said. Meanwhile, the chase continued. Advertisement A police cruiser first attempted a PIT maneuver that sent the Honda spinning on La Tijera Boulevard in Westchester. The driver paused for a moment before continuing to flee. A second attempt also failed. After the third PIT maneuver, the driver was partially boxed in by police cruisers. Officers exited their vehicles intending to take the driver into custody, but he took off again. Authorities fourth attempt to stop the vehicle caused the cars bumper to fly off and blew out the rear window. The driver again fled on surface streets, this time at high speed. The car, which also had a smashed front window, wound its way through several cities in Los Angeles before entering the southbound 405 Freeway and heading to Orange County. The California Highway Patrol prepared to deploy a spike strip on the 405 Freeway in Orange County but decided against it because of construction in the area. Authorities said the driver, who has not been publicly identified, is on probation and is possibly an Army veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. hannah.fry@latimes.com Twitter: @Hannahnfry javier.panzar@latimes.com Twitter: @jpanzar Tensions were so high among members of a San Diego County parent-teacher association in March that a sheriffs sergeant attended a PTA meeting that month to ensure the safety of the president, who was being accused by other members of stealing from the organization, the sergeant said Wednesday. Nearly nine months later, the former PTA president, 30-year-old Kaitlyn Faith Birchman, was arrested on suspicion of embezzling at least $14,800 from the Imperial Beach Charter School PTA, Sgt. Karl Miller said. Birchman was taken into custody Tuesday night at her Temecula home, according to jail records and Miller, who attended the PTA meeting while assigned to the Imperial Beach substation. He has since moved to the sheriffs financial crimes unit, which investigated the alleged embezzlement. Birchman, the subject of an arrest warrant issued in November, was booked into jail in the Riverside area, then released on bond, Miller said. Advertisement Investigators have been in contact with Birchman since they opened an investigation into her actions after that confrontational PTA meeting in March, and Birchman was cooperative and sat for an interview following her arrest Wednesday, Miller said. She had moved from Imperial Beach to Temecula in June. Birchman did not immediately return a voicemail seeking comment Wednesday. According to Miller, Birchman became president of the Imperial Beach Charter School PTA, where two of her children attended school, in July 2016. But, he said, she didnt begin skimming money from the organization until about a year later, during the 2017-2018 school year. During the school year, Miller said, she began stealing cash from purchases and donations made during school book fairs, PTA membership drives and other events. When it came time to pay vendors who had sponsored the events or fronted products to sell, she allegedly wrote checks on a closed account. Birchman took advantage of an informal accounting system and a lack of oversight, Miller told the Union-Tribune. During her last few months in charge of the PTA, Birchman allegedly planned several cash-only fundraising events. She didnt get rich; there were no extravagant purchases, Miller said. She was living paycheck to paycheck and was on a food assistance program, but that doesnt make what she did right. She was put in a position of trust; it should have never happened. Other PTA members became aware of the alleged embezzlement in early 2018, setting up the adversarial March meeting at which she was removed as PTA president, Miller said. The school requested a law enforcement presence to make sure [Birchman] was safe at the meeting, which was mediated by a member of a national PTA organization, Miller said. Angry parents wanted to try and convict her on the spot, Miller said, and at one point in the meeting, the sergeant felt the need to stand up to address the crowd. He explained to the parents that nobody had reported the alleged crime to law enforcement and that, once it was reported, it would be thoroughly investigated, but it would not be solved overnight. Advertisement Soon after the meeting, a PTA member made a report at the Imperial Beach substation, and the case was transferred to the sheriffs financial crimes unit, Miller said. Investigators subpoenaed bank records, credit card records and more during the lengthy investigation. The PTA had to cancel planned events; its funds were down to nothing, Miller said. You have parents that can barely make it investing money in the PTA for extracurricular activities for their children yeah, theyre going to be upset. This was a messy case and probably prevented a lot of kids from having some fun at the end of last school year. Current PTA members have speculated Birchman stole more than $40,000 based on current fundraising totals, Miller said, but investigators have turned up evidence that she embezzled $14,802. Miller said he didnt think Birchman became PTA president with the intent to steal from the organization. Advertisement With the evidence there is, Im leaning toward her taking advantage of lax checks and balances. Alex Riggins writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune City News Service contributed to this report. Riggins writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune. Advertisement alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com Prosecutors have charged a man with murder in connection with the fatal shooting of a Central Valley police officer. Gustavo Perez Arriaga, a Mexican national living in the country illegally, was charged Wednesday, according to John Goold, spokesman for the Stanislaus County district attorneys office. At an arraignment that afternoon, Arriagas attorney declared his client incompetent to stand trial. Criminal proceedings were suspended as required by law and a doctor was appointed to examine the defendant and provide a report on whether or not he is legally competent to stand trial, Goold said in an email. In court, Arriaga told the judge his true name is Paulo Virgen Mendoza, according to local news outlets. A criminal complaint includes several aliases. Advertisement His next court date is set for Feb. 7. Authorities arrested Arriaga last week in the death of Newman Police Cpl. Ronil Singh on Dec. 26. The 33-year-old officer stopped Arriaga on suspicion of a probable DUI, authorities said. Arriaga, who had two prior arrests for suspected drunk driving, tried to flee to his native Mexico after the fatal shooting, Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson said. After Singhs death, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a statement expressing concern that Californias sanctuary laws continue to undermine public safety and cause preventable crimes by restricting law enforcement cooperation and allowing public safety threats back into the community to reoffend. ICE had had no prior encounters with Arriaga. There have been several arrests in connection with Singhs death, including Arriagas two brothers, his girlfriend and a co-worker, who are facing charges of being accessories after the fact. Last week, President Trump tweeted about the case: Time to get tough on Border Security. Build the Wall! Local news outlets reported that dozens of demonstrators showed up outside the courthouse for Arriagas arraignment, holding signs that read Blue Lives Matter and Make California Safe Again Amend SB-54. Advertisement Im not here to talk about the president of the United States, but I will repeat what I said before, Christianson said in a news conference last week. Border security goes hand in hand with national security, goes hand in hand with public safety, goes hand in hand with the safety of our community. brittny.mejia@latimes.com Twitter: @Brittny_Mejia By Xue Chengqing and Wu Kangci The three foreign ships including the Hexu Huanle sail under the escort of the 31st Chinese naval escort taskforce. (Photo by Wu Kangci) BEIJING, Jan. 3 (ChinaMil) -- Around 12 oclock on January 2nd, 2019 (local time), the 31st Chinese naval escort taskforce successfully escorted three foreign ships including the Hexu Huanle into the safe zones in western Gulf of Aden . This is the first time that the 31st escort taskforce has conducted escort mission independently. They expelled two groups of suspected pirate boats during the mission. On December 31st, 2018, the three foreign ships arrived at the rendezvous in eastern Gulf of Aden. Afterwards, they sailed to the west under the escort of the guided-missile frigate Xuchang (Hull 536) and the comprehensive supply ship Luomahu (Hull 964). At 4:24am of January 1st, 2019 (local time), a suspicious object was identified by radar operator on the guided-missile frigate Xuchang (Hull 536), which turned out to be pirate boats consisting one fishing boat and two skiffs detected by the ship-borne infrared system of Xuchang. While as the suspected pirate boats approached closer, the guided-missile frigate Xuchang fired signal flares to warn them and successfully drove them away. On the early morning of January 2, a group of suspected pirate boats sailed towards the escort taskforce at high speeds. The escort taskforce first used searchlights and sounded beam to warn them. They then fired signal flares since the warning was ignored by the pirate boats. Finally, the suspected pirate boats turned around and left. When Juan Carlos Caballero Jones of Honduras heard the first tear gas canister fired off in the early hours of the new year, he decided the cover of chaos was the perfect opportunity. We all just want to advance our families, he said later, shivering and clutching his stomach as he reflected on his failed attempt to enter the United States. Thats what we all want to do. Thats what the whole world wants. U.S. Customs and Border Protection authorities said they fired tear gas and pepper spray into Mexico on Tuesday to stop about 150 migrants who tried to breach a border fence near Las Playas in Tijuana. CBP said some of the migrants began to throw rocks at the agents from the Mexican side while others tried to cross the concertina wire, an additional security measure added when thousands of Central American migrants arrived in Tijuana in November with the goal of entering the United States. Advertisement A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said the crowd was a violent mob of migrants who attempted to enter the United States illegally by attacking our agents with projectiles. Caballero was among those who went through three layers of razor wire. I looked for some high ground and covered my face, and then I gave it a shot, he said. I dropped down on the other side and landed on the ground and just crouched there. Though Caballero thought he had made it onto U.S. soil undetected, he said he stayed quiet in the brush for awhile, waiting for agents. I thought maybe I was free, he said. Tensions have been growing inside the El Barretal shelter, as federal volunteers talk of tapering off services in coming weeks. Some migrants said theyre growing frustrated with being blocked from setting foot on U.S. soil so they can assert their legal right to trigger an asylum claim. Others said theyre confused about what theyre supposed to do. There isnt a physical line for those waiting to present themselves to U.S. immigration authorities through Tijuana. Theres a notebook managed by asylum seekers themselves that has traditionally helped keep order, but lately that process has been overwhelmed by the number of people waiting. Advertisement When the Central American migrants have approached ports of entry if Mexican authorities allow them to get that far they are often told they are either at the wrong port or that the port is at capacity, unless they are accompanied by lawyers or lawmakers drawing attention to their plight. Under U.S. law, people approaching ports of entry have a right to ask for asylum, but border agents can tell them they have to wait. Lately, that wait has stretched into months. Tijuana has become both the waiting room for the United States and a flash point in the immigration debate that has shut down the U.S. federal government as President Trump seeks funding for a border wall. Those who approached the border early Tuesday said they did so with the intention of peacefully asking for asylum once on U.S. soil. Advertisement But according to Caballero, some wanted to try to make it onto the other side by avoiding detection altogether. Caballero estimated he was in the United States for 40 minutes before he was spotted, initially by Border Patrol agents on the ground, and then by a helicopter. I crossed over some brush. Then I saw a guy on a quad and I saw that he saw me. I didnt move. It turns out maybe he didnt see me, so I went a little bit more, he said. Caballero said he stayed still for another five minutes and then he crossed over another section. Advertisement The disappointment in his voice was still fresh a day later when he recalled discovering that section just dropped off to another area also guarded by Border Patrol. I realized I had a little more to go to get free, he said. He said in that moment he was spotted by a helicopter crew. I guess they have some kind of sensor that detects your body heat, he said. I could tell the helicopter had homed in on me and turned the lights on me. Advertisement Caballero said his whole body started to shake, and agents came to apprehend him. They started cussing at me in English, he said. And then I put my hands in the air and I asked for asylum. Caballero said the agents told him to go back to Mexico the same way he came. They wanted me to go back through the wire. They picked up my backpack and threw it to the other side, he said. Advertisement Caballero said he argued with the agents for about 20 minutes. Under U.S. law, once someone crosses into U.S. territory from Mexico, they have a right to ask for asylum. The U.S. government doesnt have to grant asylum, but border agents at the line cant force foreign nationals to return to Mexico without some processing of their asylum claim, according to civil rights attorney Eugene Iredale. We went back and forth because I wasnt going to go back through the same area because I could get hurt, Caballero said. They just said Get out, get out, get out. Caballero said they eventually walked him back to the Mexican side. Advertisement A Department of Homeland Security official did not respond to questions about Caballeros story, but a previously released statement said the agents acted with complete professionalism. The agents involved should be applauded for handling the situation with no reported injuries to the attackers, said DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman. Caballero said he doesnt see the night as a complete failure. I made it, he said. They made me come back but I had passed all the obstacles. All the people will tell you. My legs are hurt. Im not going to lie. Advertisement And he said wasnt discouraged from giving it another shot. With 10 more opportunities, Id give it 10 more tries. Wendy Fry writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune. A West Covina man was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole plus an additional 25 years for killing his in-laws in his home, according to the Los Angeles County district attorneys office. Caminero Wang, 45, was was arrested in April 2016 after police responded to reports of gunshots and screaming children in a condominium in the 1300 block of East Oahu Street. Aiping Diao, 60, and his wife, Shu Zhang, 60, who were visiting their daughter from China, were both found dead with gunshot wounds inside the building. Three children, ages 3, 6 and 8, were found hiding in a bathroom. A handgun was found at the scene, police said. Advertisement The San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported that the murder began with a family dispute while Wangs wife was at work. In October, a jury found Wang guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. Jurors also found true a special circumstance allegation of multiple murders and special allegations of using a handgun, causing great bodily injury and death. According to the prosecutor, Wang previously had threatened his wifes life and the lives of her parents. alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com Twitter: @r_valejandra Authorities launched a homicide investigation late Wednesday after a body was discovered inside a burning car in East Los Angeles. A passerby called authorities about 7:45 p.m. to report a white sedan that was on fire in the 1500 block of North Bonnie Beach Place. After firefighters extinguished the blaze, officials found a body inside the vehicle, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department. It was not clear whether the body was that of a man or woman or where in the car it was discovered. Homicide investigators remained at the scene early Thursday as they worked to determine the circumstances surrounding the persons death. Video from the scene showed that the car had not been consumed by flames; there was burn damage around its exterior. Advertisement Anyone with information is asked to call the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department Homicide Bureau at (323) 890-5500. hannah.fry@latimes.com Twitter: @Hannahnfry A San Diego-based Navy SEAL accused of committing war crimes during a 2017 deployment to Iraq is heading for court martial, the Navy said Wednesday. Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward R. Gallagher is scheduled to be arraigned in a San Diego military courtroom Friday, said Brian Orourke, a spokesman for Navy Region Southwest, the court martials convening authority. Gallagher, who is a medic, is accused of killing a wounded ISIS combatant under his care and then reenlisting while standing next to the mans corpse, a charge sheet provided to the Union-Tribune says. He is also charged with, on another occasion, shooting two civilians a man and a woman. The Navy is also charging Gallagher with shooting at non-combatants civilians several times throughout the deployment to Mosul, Iraq, and with trying to obstruct the investigation after the unit returned to San Diego. Advertisement Charges that Gallagher used and possessed controlled substances were dropped. Gallaghers platoon commander, Navy Lt. Jacob Xavier Portier, is also accused of having knowledge of Galleghers actions and failing to follow through with a timely investigation, but the Navy has not yet said whether he would face court martial. Gallaghers San Diego-based attorney Phillip Stackhouse did not immediately return a call for comment Thursday morning. Contact Andrew Dyer via email or Twitter. Crowds are gone and deals abound on Catalina Island, making this first quarter of the new year a great time to visit. Savvy travelers can now get roundtrip boat transportation and accommodations in Avalon for less than theyd pay for a high-season hotel alone. Through March 28, Catalina Express is offering boat/accommodations packages at 16 Avalon hotels. Rates start at around $110 per person, per night, based on double occupancy, with reduced rates for additional nights. Most deals are valid for Sunday through Thursday night stays. Some packages include daily breakfast and/or evening wine and cheese receptions; some include transfers between the ferry landing and your hotel. Before booking, be sure to check whether the hotel you choose charges an additional resort fee. Check out the deals at www.catalinaexpress.com/explore-catalina/hotel-packages.html. San Diegans whove cruised from our hometown know how easy it is. Now, Holland America Line is making it more affordable than ever. Sail roundtrip from San Diego on seven-night Mexican Riviera cruises this month starting at $379 per person, based on double occupancy. Add about $120 per person for taxes and port fees. The cruise, aboard Hollands Eurodam, stops in Cabo, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta. Youll get an inside cabin for this price; pay about $200 more per person to upgrade to a cabin with a veranda. Departures are set for Jan. 13, 20 and 27. Book through your favorite travel agent or online at www.hollandamerica.com. (Go to Where We Go in the banner. Choose Mexico then View Cruises. When options drop down, click on More Dates and Fares to see the full picture.) Ongoing border issues have taken a big bite out of Baja tourism. To woo apprehensive would-be visitors, the landmark Rosarito Beach Hotel is offering an almost irresistible deal: Through March 3, get oceanfront accommodations in the Coronado Tower, daily breakfast for two, plus Casa Playa Spa day passes for two for just $59 per night Sundays through Fridays. The deal includes a Fast Pass for easier border crossing when headed home. Youll also get a 20 percent discount on spa services and food and beverages at the resort. Add $20 for a Saturday night stay which includes a Mexican mariachi dinner for two. Theres no resort fee, but parking costs $3.50 per night. Check out the resort at www.rosaritobeachhotel.com, but book by phone from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. on weekends: (800) 343-8582. Stay two consecutive nights at the Healdsburg Inn on the Plaza, Sundays through Thursdays through March 28, and your second night is free. The deal includes a lavish breakfast buffet for two daily plus wine and hors doeuvres offered from 5 until 6 p.m. each evening. Complimentary fresh-baked cookies are offered from 1-8 p.m. daily. Theres no resort fee and WiFi is free. Alaska Airlines offers nonstop flights linking Lindbergh Field and the Sonoma Airport, 11 miles from Healdsburg; youll get free use of the inns bicycles. Rates start at $329 (with your second night free) for a king-bed room with a gas or electric fireplace (including a room equipped for disabled). Learn more at www.healdsburginn.com/specials. Advertisement Astute travelers know that casinos are often a winning place to find lodging deals. Heres a sure bet: Three sister casinos in Reno are offering skiers a 20 percent discount off already low rates. It means that rooms for two can be had for about $85 a night, which includes taxes and the $28-plus daily resort fee. Parking is free. The deal is available daily through April 30 at Renos so-called Row Circus, Circus, Eldorado and Silver Legacy casinos. Mount Rose (skirose.com), about 20 minutes away, is the closest ski resort. Book the Ski Discount online: Circus Circus (bit.ly/2LkNloy), Eldorado (bit.ly/2PHuXXz) or Silver Legacy (bit.ly/2QAApRf ). The National Park Service will offer free admission on five days this year at all sites that charge an entrance fee everywhere from Cabrillo National Monument to Yellowstone and Yosemite. Mark your calendars for these entrance-fee-free days: Jan. 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Day April 20 First day of National Park Week Aug. 25 National Park Service Anniversary Sept. 28 National Public Lands Day Nov. 11 Veterans Day Many San Diegans are entitled to passes that provide free admission to National Parks all year long. Among those eligible: current members of the military and their dependents, 4th graders and their families (passes valid for the duration of the school year though the summer of 2019) and those with permanent disabilities. Learn more at www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/passes.htm. Advertisement DaRosa is a freelance travel writer. Find more of her articles at www.AlisonDaRosa.com. Prices quoted here are subject to change. Restrictions and blackout dates may apply, and all deals are subject to availability. Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Its Thursday, Jan. 3, and heres whats happening across California: When people think of the homeless, their mind often takes them to standard images of who they are and where they supposedly live. Splayed out on the concrete of skid row; inside tents lining major boulevards or underpasses; scrunched in a fetal position with a thin blanket in the doorway of a business late at night or early in the dewy morning. But such is the diversity of Southern Californias landscapes that there is a scarcely a corner of the region that homeless men and women have not adapted to. They take pride in their creations, however dystopian or unfortunate. Theres the man who dug a bunker in the middle of the desert or the one who, far from the Pacific Ocean, lives under the hulls of two boats that have been flipped over. Theres the couple in a treehouse in the Sepulveda Basin; the clan of people who live on a sandbar in the center of the Los Angeles River. No matter how ingenious these makeshift homes are, however, they are inhabited by people who bear the scars of an unsettled, hardscrabble life. Here are some of their stories. Los Angeles Times Advertisement This aforementioned piece capped off a year of reporting from the Los Angeles Times about the effect homelessness has on our community. The past year was significant because local tax money to tackle the crisis began to flow in earnest: $442 million for housing, and $177 million for services, with $400 million more due by the middle of next year. Catch up with our coverage from the past 12 months below. Los Angeles Times Many people work hard to avoid the homeless. These volunteers embrace them. Los Angeles Times Living in a beat-up Jeep after mounting hardship, a homeless veteran and his wife cling to hope, waiting for a place to call home. Los Angeles Times That same couple would later finally get a home. Los Angeles Times L.A.s homelessness surged 75% in six years. Heres why the crisis has been decades in the making. Los Angeles Times As waves of homeless descend onto trains, L.A. tries a new strategy: social workers on the subway. Los Angeles Times There was a huge increase in arrests of homeless in L.A., but mostly for minor offenses. Los Angeles Times Castaways in motor homes feel stranded on societys fringe. Los Angeles Times Advertisement FROM AROUND THE INTERNET The path from Division Street: For some, hope after homelessness. San Francisco Chronicle Homeless in California what the data reveal. CALmatters San Diego has gotten hundreds of people off the streets. Now for the really hard part. Mother Jones Advertisement Heres a first-person account of what its like to be a grad student and live in an RV in the Berkeley Marina. KQED What does a city do when homeless people die? City Lab A bright light, dimmed in the shadows of homelessness. New York Times L.A. sterilized its streets for the 1984 Olympics. How will it treat the homeless when the Games return in 2028? Curbed LA Advertisement MORE TOP STORIES An agenda taking shape Seeking to frame his new administration as one with a firm focus on closing the gap between children from affluent and poor families, Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom will propose spending some $1.8 billion on an array of programs designed to boost Californias enrollment in early education and child-care programs. Newsoms plan, which he hinted at in a Fresno event last month, will be a key element in the state budget proposal he submits to the Legislature shortly after taking office Monday, a source close to the governor-elects transition team says. Los Angeles Times More problems from the shutdown Advertisement The National Park Service is restricting access to more parkland in California as the partial government shutdown drags on. The south entrance to Yosemite National Park will be closed to anyone without a camping reservation. Los Angeles Times Get the Essential California newsletter Park Ranger Rob Evans places temporary barriers off the side of the road near the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park on Dec. 29. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) L.A. STORIES Advertisement Theres an app for that! Los Angeles has unveiled its long-anticipated earthquake early warning app for Android and Apple smartphones. Its now available for download. Los Angeles Times Blacked out: Nearly three dozen Tribune Media television stations, including KTLA Channel 5 in Los Angeles, went dark Wednesday afternoon on Charter Communications Spectrum pay-TV service after the two companies failed to reach agreement on a new distribution deal. Los Angeles Times Whoops: The creators of a Rose Parade float that caught fire and caused a delay in the parade on New Years Day could face a fine, Tournament of Roses officials said Wednesday. Los Angeles Times Who will end up here? Why the baseball world is waiting on Manny Machado and Bryce Harper. ESPN Advertisement IMMIGRATION AND THE BORDER See you in court: A group of young immigrants who suffered abuse have sued the Trump administration over changes to a special protection program. Los Angeles Times POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT Fire follow-up: The city of Malibu and the county of Los Angeles will begin examining the response to and recovery from the Woolsey fire, the most destructive wildfire in recent Southern California history. Los Angeles Times Advertisement What Newsoms staff means: Gavin Newsom might not be able to accomplish his ambitious campaign goal of bringing government-funded universal healthcare to California, but his first hires suggest hes planning something big. Sacramento Bee Leveling the playing field: The path to give California 12 senators, and Vermont just one. The Atlantic CRIME AND COURTS Big rebuke: A federal appeals court decided that the U.S. government must pay millions of dollars to lawyers for a Muslim woman who was mistakenly classified as a potential terrorist and placed on a no-fly list. Los Angeles Times Advertisement At the airport: Dozens of LAX passengers try to sneak guns past security. Few face serious punishment. Los Angeles Times Guilty plea: Former USC associate head coach Tony Bland pleaded guilty to a felony count of conspiracy to commit bribery Wednesday as part of a deal with prosecutors in the college basketball bribery and corruption investigation. Los Angeles Times Celebrity thefts: Los Angeles detectives have arrested at least one person and say they recovered a cache of boosted items tied to a string of celebrity break-ins that have targeted actors, musicians and athletes in recent years. Los Angeles Times Sprung from San Quentin: For Walter Earlonne Woods, the path to freedom was podcasting. Associated Press Advertisement THE ENVIRONMENT Weighing in: L.A.s trees are more essential than ever. The city needs to start treating them that way. Los Angeles Times The Camp fire: Through a photographers lens. Chico Enterprise-Record CALIFORNIA CULTURE Advertisement Out in the desert: Childish Gambino, Tame Impala and Ariana Grande will anchor the annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, set to run April 12-14 and again April 19-21 at Indios Empire Polo Club. Others at the top of bill include Janelle Monae, Solange and Khalid. Los Angeles Times Hollywoodland: How do you make a sex scene sexy? (And keep the actors safe?) Five intimacy coordinators explain their craft. Los Angeles Times Tumbling Tesla: The car company said Wednesday that it delivered more than 245,000 electric cars and SUVs last year nearly as many as all previous years combined but the companys stock still plunged after its fourth-quarter deliveries did not reach analysts estimates. Los Angeles Times Plus: Apple Inc. announced that it would miss its revenue estimate for the quarter that included the holiday season. The company blamed it on unexpected challenges in the Chinese economy and the trade war between the United States and China. Washington Post Advertisement More about the newest member of the royal family: Inside the Markle Family breakdown, a truly Los Angeles story. Vanity Fair Yum: Kimchi Jjigae, the volcanic Korean stew that can kill colds. LAist CALIFORNIA ALMANAC Los Angeles area: sunny, 67, Thursday and Friday. San Diego: sunny, 64, Thursday; sunny, 63, Friday. San Francisco area: partly cloudy, 55, Thursday and Friday. San Jose: partly cloudy, 59, Thursday and Friday. Sacramento: partly cloudy, 55, Thursday; partly cloudy, 56, Friday. More weather is here. Advertisement AND FINALLY Todays California memory comes from Lee Ockey: We grew up in the Central Valley on a small farm near Oakdale in the 50s. I was the only girl among six children. A pickup truck was our only transportation. More than once we barely missed trains. No warning signs at that time and lots of trains! On Christmas morning we would all pile in the pickup, my younger brother in the front with me and my parents. I was so envious of my brothers in the back with blankets. We would go to my grandparents lovely old home in West Modesto for a formal Christmas dinner. There would be what seemed to be an army of aunts and uncles some childless, so we were important to them, I now realize. Advertisement The home had a big roaring fire, glass doors to dining room, a tree with bubbling candle lights and a ton of presents. We were in heaven! I remember hugging a teddy bear with a big red bow and feeling so content with life. Grandmothers home was made into a small private school, and the neighborhood has changed. Our small farm is barely in the country, and a mall is a few miles down the road. If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.) Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Benjamin Oreskes and Shelby Grad. Also follow them on Twitter @boreskes and @shelbygrad. The mayor of a town in Mexicos southern Oaxaca state was slain just hours after being sworn into office on Tuesday. Gov. Alejandro Murat confirmed the killing of Tlaxiaco Mayor Alejandro Aparicio Santiago via his Twitter account. He promised a thorough investigation and said a suspect was already in custody. The state prosecutors office said in a statement that Aparicio had just been sworn in and was headed to a meeting at city hall when an unknown number of gunmen opened fire at him. He was taken to a hospital, but died there later. A second man injured in the attack, town official Perfecto Hernandez Gutierrez, died Wednesday morning, according to the prosecutors office and a political group. Aparicio and Hernandez were both part of the leftist political bloc National Regeneration Movement, known as Morena, of Mexicos new president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Advertisement Morena posted news of Hernandezs death on Twitter, and the state prosecutors office confirmed his death in a statement using his title and initials. Two others were injured, the statement said. Tlaxiaco is the hometown of Yalitza Aparicio, star of the film Roma. It was not immediately known if she was related to the slain mayor. Times staff writer Rebecca Bryant contributed to this report. If you want to help your children build critical-thinking skills and improve their academic performance, enroll them in an art class, says Tara Graviss, executive director of the arts-education nonprofit Arts for Learning San Diego. In return, youll get more than just decorations for the refrigerator. Art helps you think outside the box, she says. It provides many little, tiny opportunities for our children to work things out themselves. January is the time when local art schools start their new sessions. Whether its painting, sculpture or even fashion design, theres a class to suit just about every childs creative interests and skill level. Kalabash School of Music and the Arts Known for its wide array of music classes it even has a record label for enterprising kids and teenagers Kalabash offers unique art classes to fuel the imagination as well. Young storytellers will love the Comic Book Art Club (featuring a class for ages 7 to 11 and one for 12 and up), where they can create characters and storyboards to develop their own comic strips. At the Handmade Theatre workshop (ages 6 to 11), students design ocean-themed sets and costumes for a stage adaptation of the Beatles film Yellow Submarine. Other classes include Little Artist (ages 5 to 7), a fun introduction to the basics, and Recycle + Repurpose + Create (ages 7 to 11), which challenges students to make something fresh out of everyday objects. Classes begin as early as Jan. 6. 5725 La Jolla Blvd., La Jolla. Prices start at $25 for one class (Handmade Theatre workshop is $450). (858) 456-2753. kalabasharts.com Advertisement Paint Box Art Studio Jaimee Brant, a fashion designer for the surf industry, opened her art and sewing studio in 2015 to give budding designers a supportive place to hone their skills. Here, students (ages 6 and up) can learn sewing basics with a project of their choosing, such as a bag or stuffed animal. Serious students will want to try the 16-week Project Runway class, which concludes with a runway show of their four-piece collection. Also available are weekly art classes (for preschoolers and up) as well as camps and birthday celebrations. Bonus: On Friday nights, parents can drop off the kids to do an activity (such as soap making) while they go out to dinner nearby. Classes begin as early as Monday. 1101 Washington Place, Mission Hills. Prices start at $25 for a drop-in class. jaimee@paintboxartstudio.com. paintboxartstudio.com Lux Art Institute At this Encinitas-based museum, students (ages 4 to 7) will create paintings, drawings and sculptures inspired by Luxs newest artist-in-residence, Courtney Mattison, who is known for her ceramic coral reef installations (a more advanced 12-week course is also available for ages 12 to 17). Other upcoming classes include Art From Around the World: South America (ages 4 to 7), which exposes children to South American art, culture and traditions, and Youth Lab (ages 8 to 11), a studio course that challenges ambitious young artists to think up a concept and, with assistance from an experienced visual artist, create their own masterpiece. Classes begin as early as Jan. 22. 1550 S. El Camino Real, Encinitas. Prices start at $210 for six weeks. (760) 436-6611, ext. 205. luxartinstitute.org Pachis Owner Juliana Flores, who earned her degree in visual arts at the University of California San Diego, roots her classes in the belief that the process of making art is more important than the end result. Get your child started as early as 18 months with the Art Exploration class for toddlers, a messy good time that helps improve dexterity and develops the senses. Older children can explore a range of mediums while learning about art history. For young designers, Fashion Art (ages 10 to 13) teaches students sketching, sewing and stitching techniques to make outfits for a doll. On Friday evenings, start the weekend off right at an open art studio for the whole family. Classes begin as early as Jan. 9. 2820 Roosevelt Road, Liberty Station. $350 for 11 weeks. (619) 320-8057. mypachis.com Bravo School of Art Make art! Have fun! Be happy! is the motto at this school, where children can try their hand at everything from silk painting to papier-mache to fiber art techniques, such as weaving, sewing and macrame. A favorite is Paint Your Sneakers (ages 7 and up), where children learn how to turn their plain canvas shoes into walking works of art. Other notable classes include one titled Creative Clay Play (ages 6 to 12), where students learn to make bowls, sculptures or beads, and Torn Paper Collage Landscape (ages 10 and up). Classes begin as early as Wednesday. 2963 Beech St., South Park. Prices start at $24 (plus $20 supplies fee) for a class. (619) 223-0058. bravoschoolofart.com Monart Developed in 1979 by Mona Brookes, author of Drawing With Children, the Monart Drawing Method teaches children how to create realistic pictures while building their problem-solving skills. The beginner Getting Ready class (for ages 4 to 6) introduces Brookes theory that all drawings are made up of the five elements of shape. Once this visual language is mastered, students can dive into three-dimensional drawing concepts in the Basic Drawing class (ages 6 to 8) and work on their fine art skills in the Drawing Fundamentals class (ages 8 and up). Enroll anytime (free trial class available). 2590 Truxton Road, Suite 204, Liberty Station. Prices start at $20 for a one-hour drop-in class. (619) 222-3729. monartsandiego.com Ashman is a freelance writer. Netflixs original film Bird Box has sparked the Bird Box challenge which quickly became viral on social media. In film, characters wear blindfolds to protect themselves from a dark, unknown force that causes people to commit suicide or other harmful acts upon seeing it. The lead character Malorie played by actress Sandra Bullock maneuvers blindfolded down a river with two small children to protect them all from seeing the mysterious force. People have created the Bird Box challenge to try and navigate different places blindfolded like characters do in the movie. The challenge gained its own Snapchat filter and became a featured story on the apps discover page last week, with users posting videos of themselves navigating places blindfolded and making jokes about the movie. The hashtag #birdboxchallenge became widespread on social media with people sharing videos of themselves participating in the challenge. Advertisement Users posted videos of themselves doing tasks from things like walking around, taking out the trash, or making jokes about driving blindfolded. Trying the #BirdBoxChallenge at work today pic.twitter.com/ie5XQeBaJq What Bread Said (@GoodbyeMcFly) December 29, 2018 Netflix issued a warning about the challenge, as it has raised concerns with people doing potentially dangerous tasks blindfolded like driving. Cant believe I have to say this, but: PLEASE DO NOT HURT YOURSELVES WITH THIS BIRD BOX CHALLENGE, @netflix tweeted. Advertisement Cant believe I have to say this, but: PLEASE DO NOT HURT YOURSELVES WITH THIS BIRD BOX CHALLENGE. We dont know how this started, and we appreciate the love, but Boy and Girl have just one wish for 2019 and it is that you not end up in the hospital due to memes. Netflix US (@netflix) January 2, 2019 In addition to raising safety concerns, the challenge has some people angered over people posting videos of themselves doing tasks blindfolded but not making an attempt to learn from people who are blind or visually impaired. Maybe, after your little 5 minute challenge, you can talk to a blind person now or maybe learn how to use a cane or learn how a screen reader works. No? Then f--k off #birdboxchallenge, tweeted @wweirdwriter, a writer and author who is blind according to his Twitter bio. Leo Kottke: 8 p.m. Sunday. Belly Up, 143 South Cedros Ave., Solana Beach. Sold out. (858) 481-8140. bellyup.com . Leo Kottke thought he had a fairly sound reason for making his 1969 debut album, the now-classic 6- and 12-String Guitar, an all-instrumental affair. His singing, he wrote in the albums self-deprecating liner notes, sounded like geese farts on a muggy day. Happily, Kottke soon reconsidered his wry appraisal and began singing on his subsequent albums. It was a prudent move. His deep, booming vocals offer a nice counter-balance to his masterful acoustic guitar playing, which finds him mixing blues, folk, country, jazz, classical and bluegrass, then twisting them into arresting new forms. When the mood is right, Kottke also tells wonderfully surreal stories between his songs, including one especially memorable vignette that dates back to his days serving aboard a submarine when he was in the U.S. Navy. Leo Kottke this year celebrates the 50th anniversary of the release of his landmark 1969 album, 6- and 12-String Guitar. Newsletter Get U-T Arts & Culture on Thursdays A San Diego insiders look at what talented artists are bringing to the stage, screen, galleries and more. Enter email address Sign Me Up You may occasionally receive promotional content from the San Diego Union-Tribune. Source: The Trumpet In a powerful challenge to the dominance of the United States, China has launched its BeiDou satellite navigation system (bds) with global coverage. Director General of the China Satellite Navigation Office Ran Chengqi made the announcement on December 27. I would like to announce that the development of the bds-3 preliminary system is completed, and the global services are provided starting today, Ran said at the news conference. Independently built and operated by China, bds blazed a path for building a satellite navigation system with Chinese characteristics. On this date of 2012, bds started providing services to the Asia-Pacific region. Today, six years later, bds begins to serve the whole world. Americas Global Positioning System (gps) currently dominates the worlds navigational needs; however, Chinas newly global BeiDou system is a direct challenge to this dominance. China has rapidly advanced its own status in a shifting world order. Chinas BeiDou joins Russias Glonass and Europes Galileo navigation systems, which have also weakened Americas sovereignty as sole navigational supplier. On November 19, China announced the successful launch of satellites number 42 and 43. Chinas navigation system now boasts the largest fleet of satellites. These 43 consist of 19 BeiDou-3 satellites, enough to provide basic global coverage. By 2020, China plans to launch 12 more, which will mean that its third generation of satellites alone will equal the U.S.s gps31 operational satellites. In comparison, Russias Glonass system owns 26, but currently operates 24. Europes Galileo system has deployed 26 satellites; however, not all are currently operational. Outnumbering the three other satellite providers, China is well on its way to becoming the world leader in technology and in space. The BeiDou program officially started in 1993 as an air defense system designed to boost Chinas role in the rapidly developing space race. It also frees Chinas military from reliance on gps, which has dominated the world for 40 years. Operating independently from the U.S. has become a major policy goal for many nations. Creating a rival to gps feeds Chinas goal of becoming the world leader in space. The main advantage of having your own system is security of access, in the sense that you are not relying on another country to provide it. The U.S. could deny users access over certain areas, for example, in times of conflict, Alexandra Stickings of the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies said. This new Space Silk Road has progressed rapidly. The rate at which China has produced this technology reveals the ambition and technical prowess of China. Global coverage of BeiDou was reached two years ahead of schedule. To achieve this, satellites have been launched at a frequency that is unprecedented in Chinas space history. Since Nov. 5, 2017, 19 bds-3 satellites have been launched, with as little as 17 days between some launches, setting a new record in the history of the development of the world satellite navigation systems. BeiDou has already shipped over 70 million systems to more than 90 countries. These systems include microchips and modules, which could give China easier access than ever to infiltrating computer systems. China has proved over and again that it has no qualms in using technology such as this to hack, spy and perform cyberespionage. The navigational satellites also play an important military role. BeiDou has become a vital part of President Xi Jinpings strategy to develop a smarter military. BeiDou will serve several purposes, including use in reconnaissance exercises and as a short messaging platformsomething gps has not developed. It will give the military greater accuracy and holds the potential to deny or degrade the signal received by other users of the system, according to Stickings. BeiDou satellites, in the event of a conflict, will enable the Chinese military to identify, track and strike U.S. ships, increasing their tracking ability by 100 to 1,000 times. Navigation satellites make it possible for rockets to strike accurately enough to directly hit and potentially destroy deeply buried and hardened missile bunkers, as well as being vital to precision-guided missiles, smart bombs, navigation and operation of ships, other vehicles and troops. The stakes of space control are extremely high. [H]e who controls the open space around us is in a position to control the Earth, German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun said. Historically, Americas overwhelming space capabilities have given it the edge in war. But this no longer holds true. Other nations are quickly catching up! Chinas actions are continuing to fuel a space race. And knowing human nature, we know that this will not end well. Mankind has used every weapon it has created. Chinas rise as a major, high-tech power is no coincidence. Bible prophecy shows us where this is leading. One key prophecy is the end-time rise of a group of powers called the kings of the east in Revelation 16:12. Some of the nations that will combine to form the kings of the east are identified in Ezekiel 38. We write on the modern-day identity of these ancient nations in our booklet Russia and China in Prophecy: In his book Compendium of World History, Dr. Herman Hoeh correctly identified Meshech and Tubal as fathers of those who comprise greater Russia today. Magog fathered the people of China and Mongolia. Gomer fathered the Japanese people as well as the Cambodians, Thais, Burmese, Laos and Vietnamese. Togarmah also factored into the ancestry of Japan and some of these other nations. Mr. Armstrong concurred with Dr. Hoehs research. Referring to Ezekiel 38:2, he said, There is general agreement among students of prophecy that Gog in the land of Magog is the vast regions of northern Eurasia extending from the Baltic to the Pacific. Meshech is Moscow, Tubal is Tobolsk. The Bible margin says Prince of Rosh, which is Russia (Plain Truth, April 1981). We can see these alliances forming right now. The kings of the east will be a conglomeration of Asian nations led primarily by Russia and secondarily, by China. On November 7, Russia and China signed the Agreement on Peaceful Use of BeiDou and Glonass Between Peoples Republic of China and the Russian Federation. This will lead to large-scale cooperation in the satellite navigation field between the two countries. Continue to watch this alliance between Russia and China strengthen as it fulfills Bible prophecy. The development of this BeiDou satellite system is also likely to play a part in another pivotal Bible prophecy. In the context of God punishing the nations of Israel for their sins, Ezekiel 7:14 says, They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle . In his January 1995 Trumpet personal, editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote, The trumpet of war was blown in Israelmainly America and Britain. It seems everybody was expecting our people to go into battle. But the greatest tragedy imaginable occurred! Nobody went to battleeven though the trumpet was blown! Will it be because of a computer terrorist? Mr. Flurry identified Americas computer reliance as its Achilles heelits most vulnerable point. China is developing technology and the ability to hack powerful computer systems to bring down America before the battle even starts. When the trumpet for war sounds, none will go to battle! BeiDou is all about fulfilling these prophecies. It is aligning Russia and China closer than ever, pulling together the kings of the east. It is increasing Chinas military might to serve in this powerful bloc, and it is amassing the strength to bring down America without firing a shot! Fish Shop in Pacific Beach, Encinitas and Point Loma will offer a choice of Fish Shop stew, made with assorted fresh fish simmered in a house-made tomato broth or Fish Shop clam chowder with andouille sausage served in a cup or bread bowl. thefishshoppb.com Hearty bread bowl of steaming clam chowder at the Fish Shop. (Courtesy photo) Barleymashs extensive menu of comfort dishes includes a seasonal roasted butternut squash, carrot and ginger soup topped with toasted pumpkin seeds and cinnamon chili oil. Order a cup or a bowl for those with a hearty appetite. 600 Fifth Ave., San Diego. (619) 255-7373. barleymash.com Dive into a bowl of ramen at any of Tajima Ramens locations. (Courtesy photo) Advertisement Tajimas ramen made with pork or chicken chashu, fried garlic, green onions, half a ramen egg, bean sprouts, baby arugula, sesame seeds and Japanese seaweed will keep you warm and toasty. Kearny Mesa, Hillcrest, East Village and North Park. tajimasandiego.com Fig Tree Cafes chicken tortilla soup is topped with cheddar cheese, cilantro, tortilla strips, avocado and sour cream. Visit any of the three locations in Pacific Beach, Hillcrest or Liberty Station and warm up with a cup or a bowl. figtreeeatery.com Jalisco Cantinas jalisciense pozole is made with pork, hominy (a food produced from dried maize kernels) chile, oregano, cabbage, lime cilantro and onion. Served with a side of tortilla for dipping, this authentic Mexican broth is served in a piping hot clay bowl. 213 N. Coast Highway, Oceanside. (760) 429-1679. thejaliscocantina.com The Smoking Gun is serving its hearty corn chowder during National Soup Month. (Courtesy photo) For Southern-inspired comfort food, cozy up to a bowl of The Smoking Guns corn chowder, made with grilled corn and cornbread croutons. 555 Market St., San Diego. (619) 233-3836. thesmokinggunsd.com New year, new menu Trust Restaurant chef Brad Wise balances the sweet and the savory with his winter salad ($13), served with local squash, pomegranate, fontina, red onions, citrus, candied walnuts and a sherry-date vinaigrette. 3752 Park Blvd., San Diego. (619) 795-6901. trustrestaurantsd.com Hundred Proof kick-starts 2019 with a healthy dish of oven-roasted broccoli ($10), served with an oregano vinaigrette, raisins, spicy almonds, and finished with a paprika aioli. Try the Session Daiquiri ($12), a low ABV libation made with Amontillado sherry, Jamaican Pot Still Rum, lime and pineapple gomme (or gum) syrup. 4130 Park Blvd., San Diego. hundredproofsd.com The Westgate Hotel vegan butternut squash ravioli ($23) is served with portobello mushrooms and a cashew-coconut milk sauce. Pair it with the Maximilian Affair ($14), a low ABV cocktail, made with Daron Calvados, Morenita Sherry, Kahlua and Mexican chocolate bitters. 1055 Second Ave., San Diego. (619) 238-1818. westgatehotel.com Advertisement JRDNs pickled and roasted beet salad ($14) makes New Years resolutions digestible with ingredients like tatsoi (a spoon-shaped leaf), citrus, candied ginger, goat cheese, avocado, pickled fennel, crispy quinoa and yuzu-miso vinaigrette. Pair your salad with the Broadbent Vinho Verde, a low ABV white wine from Portugal. 723 Felspar St., San Diego. (858) 270-2323. t23hotel.com/jrdn Bencotto in Little Italy now serves its weekly pasta special parma-piatto in a crispy Parmesan bowl. Fresh, shaved pieces of Parmigiana Reggiano are melted and molded into an edible serving plate filled with handmade pasta. The dish is available for brunch, lunch and dinner. 750 W. Fir St., San Diego. (619) 450-4786. lovebencotto.com The Patios chef Michael Ground has launched a new winter menu that highlights winter vegetables. For main course options, guests will find seafood boil served with sourdough bread or the steelhead trout. The menu also offers dishes for meat lovers like braised pork shank, and for vegetarians theres vegetable curry served with corn, zucchini, squash, potatoes, garbanzo beans, carrot, spinach and barley. Shared plate menu items are also offered, including octopus with kimchi piccata, watermelon radish and cilantro. The winter menu is available through early March. Locations: The Patio on Goldfinch, 4020 Goldfinch St., San Diego, (619) 501-5090. thepatioongoldfinch.com; The Patio on Lamont, 4445 Lamont St., San Diego, (858) 412-4648. thepatioonlamont.com; The Patio on 101, 345 S. Coast Highway 101, Encinitas, (760) 209-1274. thepatioon101.com Openings Natural Style Chicken opens a section location in Hillcrest. (Interview view / courtesy photo) Advertisement Natural Style Chicken opened its second location in the former Tokyo Ramen space on the corner of Fifth and University in Hillcrest. After nearly 40 years in Point Loma, the popular barbecue joint decided to branch out into the neighborhood to offer locals and visitors its list of barbecued specialties such as fresh rotisserie chicken, ribs and beef and customer favorites like teriyaki chicken. Hearty dishes like macaroni salad, onion rings, refried beans and potato salad, as well as chicken egg rolls, gyoza (dumplings), taquitos and homemade soup are served with the house-made items. Wine and beer will be available, along with outdoor patio seating. 501 University Ave., San Diego. (619) 542-9844. The East Village welcomes WhipHand American Brasserie + Beer Bank to the neighborhood. (Courtesy photo) WhipHand American Brasserie + Beer Bank opened its doors in East Village. The third location for Grind & Prosper Hospitality Group, whose current operations include Mission Beachs Miss Bs Coconut Club and Carlsbads Park 101, showcases a sleek, contemporary style with small tables lining the front patio for outdoor seating, as well as an open-kitchen concept. At the bar are 24 self-serve draught beer taps along with a full-service cocktail bar. At the root of the menu are American staples, like lobster rolls, gourmet sandwiches, soups, salads, breads, savory pies and finger foods. Many are influenced by Grind & Prospers culinary director, Quinnton Austin, who recently moved to San Diego from New Orleans, where he trained at the Culinary Institute of New Orleans. 935 J St., San Diego. (619) 450-5515. whiphandsd.com Kairoa Brewing Co. will open its doors in University Heights at the corner of Park Boulevard and Madison Avenue in late January. (Courtesy photo) Advertisement Kairoa Brewing Co. is moving into University Heights at the corner of Park Boulevard and Madison Avenue in late January. The expansive two-story brewpub will serve house and guest beer, a full food menu and more than a dozen wines, paying homage to its founders home country of New Zealand. Expect to find staple dishes like sausage roll, butter chicken pie and a Kiwi burger. The brewing system is visible from the spacious downstairs area, where head brewer Joe Peach will use New Zealand hops to create true-to-style beer. Upstairs is an open-air patio offering a childrens play area, a private events space and fire pits. 4601 Park Blvd., San Diego. kairoa.com Holy Matcha, San Diegos original matcha cafe founded by Geraldine Ridaura, will celebrate its two-year anniversary with the opening of a second store in East Village. The exact location hasnt been announced, but Ridaura plans to open sometime in the spring. The 820-square-foot outpost will feature a sophisticated, minimalist take on the cafes original design. It will offer neighborhood-exclusive specialty matcha drinks, in addition to its core beverage menu and green tea-flavored treats. holymatchasd.com Advertisement carolina.gusman@sduniontribune.com The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will question representatives of Holtec International on Jan. 9 about canisters the New Jersey-based company manfactured to store spent nuclear fuel at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). The conference which will take place at NRC headquarters in Maryland and will be open to the public centers on a change Holtec made in the design of aluminum shims that help center the waste in a fuel basket inside the canisters and whether the company should have notified the NRC before making the alterations. The NRC also says Holtec failed to maintain written records of the design changes. The agency said the shim is considered essential to the function of the fuel basket. Advertisement Holtec does not agree with the severity level of the NRC apparent violations, Joy Russell, Holtecs senior vice president of business development and communications, said in an email to the Union-Tribune. Russell said the NRC has confirmed the canisters themselves are safe and pose no danger to the public, something the plants operator, Southern California Edison, has maintained. As the majority owner of SONGS, Edison is in charge of tearing down the plant that no longer produces electricity and overseeing the transfer of nuclear waste from cooling pools to dry storage until the federal government comes up with a location to eventually put the sites 3.55 million pounds of spent fuel. Holtec is the contractor responsible for the canisters transfers, and the company also designed the dry storage facility where the canisters are lowered. The issue came to light last March when workers inspecting a canister at SONGS discovered a stainless steel pin about 4 inches long and a half-inch thick had come loose. The pins were part of a redesign Holtec made of the canisters in 2016, in which pins were threaded into the bottom of the shims in order to allow helium within the canister to circulate around the nuclear waste to keep it cool. Holtec considered the change to be minor and one that did not require notifying the NRC. Three stainless steel pins that are attached to the shims designed by Holtec International that were part of canisters that were loaded at a newly constructed dry storage facility at San Onofre. (Photo by Rob Nikolewski) The broken pin was found after four canisters with the new shim designs had been transferred to the new dry storage facility, which is located on the premises at SONGS, a little more than 100 feet from the Pacific Ocean, protected by a 28-foot seawall. Advertisement Since the discovery of the loose pin, Holtec stopped using the pin design, and all subsequent canisters will revert to the original design that does not use pins. Edison spokesman John Dobken said an independent, third-party engineering firm looked at the four loaded canisters using the pin design and Edison remains confident the canisters are safe. Inspections before the canisters were loaded, Dobken said, verified the shims in all four of the canisters were in the correct positions. Last year, a report from the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists said the shim pin problem is unlikely to result in any damage to the spent fuel inside the canisters, citing evaluations conducted by Edison. Even if broken pins caused a shim to block helium gas flow, the spent fuel assemblies would not overheat, the Union of Concerned Scientists report said. The evaluation also concluded that a broken pin is unlikely to move within the canister to damage fuel rod(s). Advertisement But many critics of Edison and the companys dry storage plans say the shim pin issue raises larger concerns about the handling of nuclear fuel at SONGS. Gary Headrick, co-founder of the advocacy group San Clemente Green, and others have called the storage design a lemon that should be recalled. Other systems exist in the world that would be far better, even if more expensive, Headrick said in an email. Too much is at stake to allow profit to be the driving force behind the design process. Safety First needs to be more than just a slogan. Transfers at SONGS have been suspended after a separate incident in August in which a 50-ton canister containing nuclear waste was accidentally left suspended on a metal flange, nearly 20 feet from the floor of a storage cavity for as long as one hour. Advertisement The incident led to a special inspection of the site by a team from the NRC that is still be completed. The NRC conference with Holtec officials will be held Jan. 9 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Pacific time and can be seen via webcast at https://video.nrc.gov/. The NRC said no final action will be taken at the conference. Those with experience in the nuclear industry say a finding against Holtec could lead to fines. Advertisement Business rob.nikolewski@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1251 Twitter: @robnikolewski As a partial government shutdown drags on, biomedical researchers and companies are looking at 2019 with anxiety. Researchers who plan to apply for grants from the National Institutes of Health and companies seeking product approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration worry that the shutdown will progressively hinder their work. To date, the effect has been mild, and essential functions such as monitoring food and drug safety continue. But that respite will be short-lived if the showdown continues between President Donald Trump and Congress over funding a wall at the Mexican border. Advertisement Celyad, based in Belgium, has more reason to worry than most biomedical companies. The cancer drug developer has multiple clinical trials under way in the United States. There hasnt been any problem in the short time since the partial shutdown began, said Dr. Christian Homsy, Celyads CEO. But the longer it continues, the more likely it is that some complication will arise in the cancer studies that require consulting the FDA, he said. Celyads products fight cancer with immune cells that target both blood cancers and solid tumors. Its U.S. studies include acute myeloid leukemia; multiple myeloma; and myelodysplastic syndrome. Were quite concerned, Homsy said. The FDA has been tremendously helpful in the last couple of years in assessing our programs and giving feedback on a very timely basis. Now the trials are running, and you never know when when youre going to hit an issue where you need to talk with the FDA. If a problem does occur and the FDA isnt able to give that advice, the agency might decide to halt the trial, Homsy said. FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said Wednesday on Twitter that the agency would issue guidelines on activities that will continue during the shutdown because of critical public health need. Likewise, UC San Diego researcher/oncologist Dr. Catriona Jamieson said that while work is currently moving ahead, a prolonged shutdown will increasingly interfere with research. The National Institutes of Health is the single biggest funder of biomedical research in the United States, spending about $37 billion a year. Advertisement We can continue to operate with existing grants, but they wont disburse any new grants, said Jamieson, who not only researches cancer but sees patients. The NIH not only funds researchers like Jamieson, but it also helps finance programs at UCSD Moores Cancer Center, where Jamieson practices. It also pays for training new cancer researchers. The UCSD center has been designated a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute. That means it provides the full spectrum of cancer support, from basic research to experimental clinical trials and approved medical care. We just got a very good score on our cancer center core grant renewal and are anticipating a larger amount of funding as a result of that, Jamieson said. Advertisement That should come through in the next few months. But if theres a government shutdown, it would be difficult to get that money. Science Playlist On Now In a first, scientists rid human embryos of a potentially fatal gene mutation by editing their DNA On Now Space station flyovers visible from San Diego this week 0:55 On Now UCSD's 'ghost drivers' begin testing people's reaction seemingly empty cars 1:29 On Now 10 interesting facts about Mars On Now Kids can add years to your life On Now LA 90: SpaceX launches recycled rocket On Now Big passions, big giving: Malin Burnham 2:30 On Now Big passions, big giving: Darlene Shiley 2:40 On Now Big passions, big giving: Joan and Irwin Jacobs 2:45 On Now Ocean temperatures warming at rapid rate, study finds Advertisement bradley.fikes@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1020 The word of mouth can be a powerful marketing tool and for Samoa there are plenty, thanks to hundreds of Samoans who live outside the country. Sydney-based Sonali Sharma, 24 who is a first time visitor to the country said she learnt of Samoa from her Samoan friends back in Sydney, Australia. And being totally clueless on what to expect and experience in Samoa, she flew in with an open mind and eager to learn more about the country. Its a nice vibe I feel and everyones nice and friendly, theyre all very inclusive and welcoming. In Australia, people arent as nice and here everyones really nice and theyre good people, she said. Samoa was just a random destination, Ms. Sharma added, while revealing that it has been an interesting two days since her arrival. Ms. Sharma is staying at the Taumeasina Island Resort until Sunday when she flies back to Sydney. And it has never been a dull moment since she moved in, having witnessed some of Samoas cultural practices first hand. Ive seen some Samoan dances and it was really good and Ive enjoyed every second of it. The Samoan male dancers were pretty attractive and that probably explains why Im here, she said, before making reference to the dance tempo and how it felt like the floor was shaking. More traditional experiences await, she said: We will be driving down to the Samoa Tourism Authority later on, and hopefully well learn some more about Samoa over there. I also havent tried any Samoan food but hopefully Ill try some tonight like the palusami and the other beautiful Samoan food. Ms. Sharma works at the technology company IBM in Australia, and hopes to return to Samoa as she is of the view that her vacation is one of the best. A tourism destination is not just about the famous sites, greenery and the beaches. It is also about the food, street food that is. For one Australian couple, Elias and Angeliqua Yazigi, they were always told about the famous Samoan pork bun, locally known as the kekepuaa. So when they touched down in Samoa, they wanted to try it right away. His cousins who have been here before told us about the pork-bun and have been convincing us to try it when we arrive and so we did and we love it, Mrs. Yazigi said. This is the couples first time in Samoa and they have loved every moment of it. There is so much culture, it is more relaxed and happier because everyone back home is always stressed but here is nice and more relaxing. Everyones so friendly and happy and we dont get that at home. Mr. and Mrs. Yazigi have been here for more than a week and say what they have seen so far impressed them. We saw the To Sua trench, the waterfalls, the beach and they are so beautiful. We loved it so much. Back on the food front, apart from the pork-buns, Mr. Yazigi said they have also tried taro and other local dishes and they loved. The couple also took the time to do some humanitarian work, visiting children who need some help. And to show their genuine interest in Samoa, they have also picked up some local language, using the word uso constantly. The couple couldnt stop talking about their wonderful time in Samoa. And it is for that reason they have promised to return for more of the local food, people, scenery and to grow their spiritual connection to Samoa. The struggle to find an available spot on the beach in Samoa on New Years day was a common story shared by many beach goers. But this led to an interesting discovery for one family. Not only was in a welcomed discovery, it also led to an unplanned family get-together for the Finau and Tiatia families at Matareva, Lefaga. Speaking to the Samoa Observer, June and George Finau from Aleisa said they initially drove to Faimafili Village Resort with their three young children to spend the afternoon. But they couldnt find an open spot given that the beach was packed that day. Many other nearby hot spots were also jammed with people celebrating the new year. We usually go to Tafatafa beach but it was too far of a ride and it was late so we stopped at Faimafili Village resort hoping to spend the afternoon there, June explained. The beach was so packed all the fales had been taken and beach goers had resorted to using the trees in the area to provide shade and cover. So we had no choice but to try the next beach, Matareva, George said. When they arrived, Matareva Beach was just as crowded. All the fales had also been taken. But they decided to settle under a tree. It was not long after we settled and I was walking back to our car that I ran into our relatives from Mulifanua who were looking for a spot to park, Mrs. Finau explained. Junes cousin, Joyce Taimalelagi Tiatia and husband, Savea Tiatia had also headed to the beach to escape the hot weather and spend some family quality time. So together with their seven kids, they joined the Finaus. And all had a wonderful time. Its not every day that we get to spend time together with family and when we do it is best to make the most of it, June said. We were all happy to see my cousin (June Finau) and her family. I am pretty glad they did not decide to stay at Faimafili otherwise we wouldnt have had twice as much fun. It is not often that reunions last for four weeks but that was the case for the Salesulu Galugalu and Mele Salesulu family who have their roots in Apolima, Lepa and Salelologa. Salesulu Galugalu and his late wife Mele Faala Salesulu were blessed with five children. In July of 2018, Mele Salesulu succumbed in her valiant battle with oesophagus cancer which she had battled so bravely with since 2011. One of Salesulu and Meles children namely Leufisa died at child birth. Three of the remaining four live in Samoa which is where they decided to have their family reunion. Salesulu and Meles three children who live in Samoa are in all the E.F.K.S. Ministry and it was only fitting that the eldest child Sau Isaia who resides in New Zealand would travel with other family members to Samoa to enjoy the festivities. The proceeding began with celebration of Sefulu Patus 50th Birthday which was held at Taumeasina Resort. This was the beginning of other fun events which included karaoke, a hike to Mt. Vaea, Tag Rugby, Quiz nights and an excursion to Piula Pools. It is hoped that this reunion will be an annual event depending of the heath of Salesulu Galugalu. The reunion also proved that it is not the numbers of the reunion but the spirit, zeal and commitment to family and God which is the main ingredient. The Reunion concluded on New Years Day 2019 with a Toanai The School of Medicine under the Faculty of Health Science at the National University of Samoa has started preparations of a Foundation in Medicine. This was confirmed by the Vice Chancellor of the NUS, Professor Fui Asofou Soo in an interview with the Samoa Observer at the Campus yesterday. A major change with the university will be in our School of medicine, we started conversations last year on the need to have a foundation of medicine programme, and we are planning to launch it next year." The programme is a pre-requisite into the School of Medicine programme and it will prepare students that will be entering the medical programme." We were thinking of putting together some courses for that programme so that we can continue the programme next year, he said. Professor Fui told this newspaper that there was also the need to have the best qualified lecturers in various courses. Last year, I visited Auckland University and Otago University, requesting them if it was possible for them to assist us in teaching through the internet." In other words, we are looking at the possibility of having courses taught directly online." We are also marketing our programme nationally, last year we had a few students from neighbouring island states but we have not looked at the new fees, he said. He added that they will try and change in order to accommodate resources required. The base of this new programme will be at Motootua together with the Faculty of Medicine. As for the 2019 enrollment for at the NUS, it will commence during the last week of January whereas classes start on the second week of February. At the moment the School of Medicine offers the MBBS (Bachelor in Medicine and Bachelor in Surgery) and Master of Surgery in Orthopedics. The entry requirement for students at the School of Medicine MBBS program are that the students complete the foundation certificate in science. The Faculty of Health Science is focused on the provision of high quality education and involvement in research in nursing and medicine with the goal of building an equipped health sector workforce to meet the needs of the country. A family from Safaatoa, Lefaga has expressed shock at the sudden death of their chickens seven chickens died of unknown causes on Wednesday. Faafeu Finau told the Samoa Observer that their children discovered four dead chickens early morning Wednesday and by the end of the day they lost seven chickens. According to Mr. Finau, it is not the first time for their chickens to die in mysterious circumstances. Three years ago they and their neighbours also lost a large number of chicken. Attempts by this newspaper yesterday to get comments from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Ministry for Natural Resources and Environment were unsuccessful at the time of going press. To lessen the risk of infection if the deaths of the chicken were triggered by an avian disease Mr. Finau said his family buried the dead poultry further away from their home and plantation. Although this is not the first time this has occurred for our family, we still take immediate action to rid the birds to prevent any spread of the disease. I am not aware if there are any other families who have the same situation, but I personally think it is for the health and safety to be cautious, he said. None of the chicks were affected and since yesterday no other birds have died, added Mr. Finau, and he is not aware of other families in the area going through a similar experience with their chickens. Though, he urged families with domesticated poultry to take precautions. The Government has started the recruitment process to fill two key positions general manager for the Samoa Airport Authority and Chief Executive Officer of the Unit Trust of Samoa. The position of the Chief Executive Officer of the Unit Trust of Samoa was advertised in October this year, following the death of the incumbent Sau Justina Sau. The position at the Unit Trust of Samoa reports directly to the organisations board of directors. The Samoa Airport Authority general manager, Magele Hoe Viali, resigned from the organisation, and was recently appointed the new Chief Executive Officer for the Ministry of Works Transport and Infrastructure. The Government has taken out advertisements in the newspapers to advise the public of the vacancies in the top positions. The Samoa Airport Authority is now inviting qualified and interested applicants for the position of general manager with compensation and benefits equivalent to similar level positions within the Samoa Public Service. The Samoa Airport Authority is the main operator of airports in Samoa and associated civil aviation services, which are considered crucial to the safety and regularity of air transport in Samoa. For the position of general manager with the Samoa Airport Authority, the Government will offer the successful applicant $117,667 per annum for three years. Source: The Hitavada NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR/ITANAGAR, The armies of India and China met at Nathu La in Sikkim on Tuesday and exchanged pleasantries on New Years Day. To enhance mutual trust and faith amongst troops of Indian Army and Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), (they) jointly celebrated New Year on 01 Jan at Nathu La by greeting each other and extending best wishes. The delegation was led by Colonel level officers @adgpi @SpokespersonMoD, the Eastern Command of the Army said in a tweet. The armies of the two countries were locked in a stand-off at Doka La in 2017. A ceremonial Border Personnel Meeting (BPM) to celebrate the New Year was also held on Tuesday. At the invitation of the PLA, a ceremonial BPM to celebrate the New Year was conducted on Tuesday at Chinese BPM hut at Chushul-Moldo and DBO (Daulat Beg Oldie)-TWD (Ten Wen Den) meeting points in eastern Ladakh, a defence spokesperson said. He said the Indian delegation was led by Major General Sanjiv Rai and Colonel S S Lamba and the Chinese delegation was led by Senior Colonel Liu Hou Jie and Colonel Song Zhang Li respectively. Both the delegations interacted in a free, congenial and cordial environment. The delegations parted amidst feeling of friendship and commitment towards enhancing the existing cordial relations and maintaining peace along the border. Both sides also sought to build on the mutual feeling to maintain peace and tranquility along the border, the spokesperson said. The BPM comes in the backdrop of successful conduct of the 7th round of Hand-in-Hand military drills by the militaries of neighbouring countries at Chengdu in China. Indian and Chinese troops also celebrated the New Year in Bumla in Tawang district of Arunachal Pradesh, 15,000 feet above the sea level and amid sub-zero temperatures, a defence communique said. Both sides greeted each other warmly and reaffirmed their commitment to maintaining peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control as per the various agreements between the two nations. Disclaimer: This article was originally produced and published by The Hitavada. View the original article at The Hitavada. That is Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr Sailele Malielegaois belief when it comes to campaigning for the next general election. He said his actions today are all the campaigning he needs. With just two years to go until the next election, the Prime Minister does not appear concerned about the need to campaign. We have always been preparing, he said. Everything that we do is preparation for the next election, every project that we do." Thats all very, very important because we have developed a belief that it is not what you say that matters, its what you do, actions speak louder. Tuilaepa said Samoas hosting of the Pacific Games and the large multilateral meetings in recent years are all ways he is proving to the people that he and his Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) are capable of continuing to lead. Not only that, but his regular radio appearances on Thursday afternoons are about keeping the public informed of his Governments activities. I take the opportunity to explain so that the transparency is there all the time." All of this is to ensure that people understand what we try to do and that all counts towards the general elections. While other national leaders wont make time for media, Tuilaepa said he will continue to prioritise it. I have all the time to talk to the media because this is one means whereby we can enlighten people, make them understand what we do." That is why every time we go out and open a road, open a hospital, I make damn sure it is on the television, and that you [Samoa Observer] are there too." Because dissemination of news is so important, information is very important. The Prime Minister said the regular radio programs are also the best place to address spreading misinformation or fake news circulating on social media, especially by Samoans living abroad. A lot of these things come from overseas. But those people overseas are reproducing fake news from over here, he said. So to counter that I carry out these media conferences every week and on top of that I respond to direct calls from New Zealand and from Australia." That is my countermeasure against fake news. I directly face them with these interviews and I explain, in Samoan, the language which our people understand." He said it is not the diaspora of Samoans which vote to appoint a government, but rather the local people, which is why he will always address them directly in their language. That is my countermeasure against fake news. I directly face them with these interviews and I explain, in Samoan, the language which our people understand. Re: Wendy Wonder and Christmas So, youre saying life was completely blissful in Samoa before Christians arrived? Dude, Samoans worshipped many gods, including spirits. Sometimes theyd impose a curfew on certain days in honor of demons, and if you did not obey, theyd kill you. Wars and murder were rampant. Many chiefs and kings were tyrants, some of whom were cannibals. Captured enemies of war were disemboweled or skinned alive, women and children of defeated elites were thrown into pits of fire. Im not exaggerating. The first missionaries witnessed some of these atrocities during the Taua o le Tauimasui or Taua tele o Aana, as it is known by others. Lighten up, man. Regardless of its true origins, Christmas today is a Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of Christ. It is true that it has been commercialized, but it helps the economy and keeps people employed so that, among many other things, theyll have money to celebrate Christmas. Or would you rather see children starve on this great day of our Lord? Aua e te faalogo i le fafine palagi faafiapoto o Wender Blunder. Cyborg MODESTO, Calif. (AP) A Mexican national accused of living in the U.S. illegally was charged with murder Wednesday in the shooting death of a California police officer who pulled him over to check if he was driving drunk. Gustavo Perez Arriaga made his first court appearance in the central California city of Modesto but did not enter a plea in last week's killing of Cpl. Ronil Singh of the tiny Newman Police Department. Perez Arriaga's attorney, Stephen Foley, questioned his client's mental competency, leading the court to delay the case until the suspect gets a mental health evaluation, The Modesto Bee newspaper reported . Perez Arriaga told the judge that his real name is Paulo Virgen Mendoza, but authorities were still referring to him as Perez Arriaga. A complaint lists three aliases for him, including Paulo Virgen Mendoza. Singh's family and several of the Police Department's 12 officers attended the hearing. Dozens of people stood outside the courthouse holding signs that read, "Justice for Col. Ronil Singh" and "Back the Blue." Perez Arriaga is set to return to court Feb. 7, when a court-appointed doctor will provide a report on his mental health, said John Goold, a spokesman for the Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office. Perez Arriaga was arrested Friday after a dayslong manhunt as he prepared to flee to Mexico, officials said. He has two previous drunken driving arrests, authorities say. The case has rekindled a debate over California's sanctuary law that limits cooperation with federal immigration authorities. President Donald Trump seized on the case to call for tougher border security amid a fight with congressional Democrats over funding for a border wall, which has forced a partial government shutdown. Cpl. Singh was also an immigrant, coming to the U.S. legally from his native Fiji to pursue his dream of serving in law enforcement, authorities have said. He joined the Newman police force in 2011. The 33-year-old was married and had a 5-month-old son. Two of Perez Arriaga's brothers, his girlfriend and four others were arrested on suspicion of helping him evade authorities. Bajrang Dal leader finally held for Bulandshahr murder Bajrang Dal leader Yogesh Raj, the prime suspect in the killing of police Inspector Subodh Kumar Singh during mob violence in December in Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr, was finally arrested on Thursday. Yogesh Raj was caught after a tip led a police team to his hideout in Bulandshahr. Raj is the district coordinator of Bajrang Dal and was wanted for inciting the crowds over alleged cow slaughter at Sayana in Bulandshahr, which led to the murder of the Inspector and a civilian, Sumit. Another prime accused in the murder, Kalau, was arrested on Tuesday. He had allegedly hit Singh on his head with an axe. The weapon has also been recovered. Prashant Nat, who is already in police custody, is accused of shooting the Inspector after he fell injured. Senior Superintendent of Police Prabhakar Chowdhary said Kalau revealed that the Inspector was first hit on his head by an axe and then shot. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday said it has registered a case against five Army officials, including a Colonel, for allegedly receiving bribes worth Rs 18 lakh. In its FIR, the investigating agency has named Colonel Raman Dahda, Lieutenant Colonel Mahendra Kumar, Subedar Devender Kumar, Subedar Sahuran Sahu, Havildar Abhay Singh and supplier K.K. Yangfo. They have been booked under the provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act. According to the FIR, when the incident took place, Dahda was the Commanding Officer of the 556 Army Supply Corps (ASC) and Mahendra Kumar a Platoon Commander. The CBI lodged the case based on a complaint from the Army. This is second case the agency has registered in the last few days. In the FIR, the CBI has alleged that the officers received bribes to the tune of Rs 18 lakh in cash from civilian contractors in connection with procurement of ration for the Army personnel deployed in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. The CBI said it carried out a preliminary inquiry that revealed undue favour to a chain of officials and unit representatives responsible for checking the quality and quantity of items being supplied by Yangfo In a slugfest that marked the debate on Rafale deal in the Lok Sabha, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the entire country is "pointing fingers" at him and demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe to bring out the "truth" but Finance Minister Arun Jaitley accused him of "inventing corruption" and rejected the demand. The House had an acrimonious discussion and witnessed a face-off between Gandhi and Jaitley, with the Congress levelling allegations of corruption which the Minister dismissed, saying "those whose hands were soaked in corruption" were trying to besmirch the image of a "clean government". In a speech that was sought to be drowned by ruling party benches, Gandhi wanted to play a purported recording of a conversation of a Goa Minister on the issue that triggered heated exchanges between the Congress and BJP members in the Lok Sabha. Jaitley responded to Gandhi's allegations, saying there was no corruption in the deal for acquiring fighter jets from France and accused the Congress of having a "legacy of scams" like Bofors and AgustaWestland. "And this (JPC probe) is being sought by those who represent the legacy of Bofors to indulge in another fraud. The reason is, since our hands are soaked in corruption, you are a clean government, let me invent an allegation of corruption against you. This has been the entire burden of their song. Therefore, there can be no JPC at all in this transaction." Gandhi, who initiated a debate on the controversial deal, attacked Modi on the "process, pricing and patronage" and said "there are many holes in the Rafale story". "I thought 'daal me kuch kala hai, but yahan to puri daal hi kali hai' (I thought there was some wrongdoing, but nothing is right here). We demand JPC (Joint Parliamentary Committee). It will bring out the truth. Modiji bypassed processes, contract was snatched from HAL. A JPC (probe) is needed," he said. Gandhi was seeking to dismiss Modi's statement in a television interview on Tuesday in which he said the allegations in the Rafale deal were not directed at him personally but was against the government. "He (Modi) was looking tired, nervous (in the interview). He said no one has pointed fingers at me, but the fact is the whole country is pointing fingers at him," Gandhi said. Gandhi said a news report had said that in the Defence Ministry's file notings, it had been stated that "PM Modi shouldn't interfere in Rafale deal's negotiation". "Modi must also answer on this," he said. Gandhi accused Modi of bypassing procedures to award an offset contract to a private entity after agreeing to a three-time hike in the price per aircraft and reducing the number of planes to be bought. Referring to the Supreme Court verdict, which rejected pleas seeking a probe into the Rafale deal saying it was not in its jurisdiction, the Congress chief said the apex court had not said that there should not be a JPC or a parliamentary probe. Pandemonium broke out when Gandhi took out his mobile phone and wanted to play the recorded conversation of a Goa Minister amidst stiff opposition from the ruling benches, including Jaitley, who alleged that after concocting French President Emmanuel Macron on the issue of price, Gandhi was now trying to play a conversation which he knew was false. As shouting continued, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan asked Gandhi to authenticate the purported conversation and sternly told him not to play any recording. "They are so afraid. I will not play the tape and if it pleases you but...," he said, adding he would read from the taped conversation. Jaitley interjected to say that Gandhi knew it was false and was refusing to authenticate it. The Minister also referred to Gandhi's statement on Macron and said it too was "false and fabricated". The Speaker adjourned the House briefly as the two sides were locked in heated exchanges. In his intervention, Jaitley said there was no need for a JPC since the Supreme Court had already given its verdict on the process, pricing, offset clause and HAL issue after satisfying its conscience. The Supreme Court has the last word, except on matters of Parliament's jurisdiction. Taking a dig at the Congress, he said: "The conscience of the Supreme Court was satisfied but the election needs of the Congress were not." He took a dig at the Congress, saying that the JPC under the late Shankaranand, which probed the Bofors kickbacks, had whitewashed the allegations of corruption and it was a fraud on the parliamentary process. "These are not kickbacks. These are winding up charges. The JPC whitewashed the whole allegation of corruption," Jaitley said, adding: "The JPC was a fraud on the parliamentary process." The Congress, which has been demanding constitution of a JPC and staging protests in the House, on Monday suddenly offered to face a debate on the issue on which Jaitley had thrown a challenge to the party. Jaitley launched a no-holds-barred attack on Gandhi and his family and said one family in the country "whose hands were dipped in corrupt deals" was now raking up the issue of corruption in the Rafale deal, which he said was in the interest of national security and the jets were urgently required by the Air Force to strengthen its fighter squadron. Needling Gandhi, the Minister said he had to be taught from ABC as he had described an offset partner as the manufacturer of plane. "I did not expect to see such kind of ignorance from a party that has ruled the country for 60 years." Jaitley said the government has got the basic aircraft at least 9 per cent cheaper and weaponised aircraft 20 per cent cheaper than UPA's agreement. He justified why HAL was excluded from the deal, saying the demand of the time was swift delivery of aircraft and the HAL required 2.7 times the man-days required by Dassault. "Keeping in mind the urgent need of the Air Force, we could not have waited. And price would have also increased with more time taken to build aircraft." Countering Rahul Gandhi's charge of a particular company getting offset contracts worth Rs 1.3 lakh crore, the Minister asked how could that be true when the whole deal was of Rs 58,000 crore with offsets amounting to Rs 29,000 crore -- distributed among 100-120 suppliers. Gandhi, in his speech, quoted the Goa Minister as saying that Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar had all the files and notings on the Rafale deal. "Goa CM has said that I have Rafale files at my home. It has been authenticated by a Cabinet Minister in Goa who belongs to the BJP," he said. Pointing to Modi's absence from the House, Gandhi said: "PM is hiding behind AIADMK MPs. He is hiding in his room." By SA Commercial Prop News Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism feels AirBnB sting as it is threatening the viability of conventional lodging providers such as hotels and could lead to job losses The idea behind Airbnb started off simply enough. Those with a spare room could rent it out for a night or two and earn some extra cash. But now the online platform is threatening the viability of conventional lodging providers such as hotels and guest houses. Within 10 years, Airbnb a privately held company established in San Francisco in the US, has rapidly expanded globally, posing a threat to conventional lodging providers. It can be accessed through either its websites or mobile applications. Airbnb, which gives travellers affordable accommodation options, has come under scrutiny in other parts of the world, with several countries introducing stricter regulations for the company. It has expanded into a worldwide domination of accommodation providers offering up ensuite rooms, granny flats or even whole houses. Airbnb has followed in the footsteps of the likes of Uber - taking something that already exists and simplifying it. Meanwhile, the Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism is recording a marked decrease, in the number of bookings from holiday makers. And a local business forum says there's been a 20 percent drop in occupancies at hotels and guest houses, compared to this time last year. For years hotels and guesthouses have been packed to capacity, but no longer. It seems the lucrative AirBnB business is taking over. It's prompting tourism authorities to call for regulation, mirroring steps taken in many European cities. The Federated Hospitality Association of South Africa (Fedhasa) has called on the tourism minister to urgently finalise the legislative framework surrounding regulating Airbnb. We are aware that there are changes in the pipeline with regard to the legislation to have Airbnb regulated, and we would have liked for it to be wrapped up before the end of the year, said Fedhasa chairperson Jeff Rosenberg. He said they had no problem with the sharing economy and fully supported collaborating on all industry matters. Current and existing regulations that are applicable to the hospitality sector should also apply to Airbnb. This would include rates and taxes, third party insurance cover, hygiene audits, fire regulations and security, Rosenberg said. He said Fedhasa, in conjunction with SA Tourism, the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) and others, had been lobbying authorities to make the regulations applicable to all. Fedhasa would be meeting with Airbnb again early next month to discuss matters of mutual interest. The TBCSA said Airbnb was threatening the viability of conventional lodging providers such as hotels, and could lead to job losses, Its a very competitive field and if traditional hotels and B&Bs compete with Airbnb but they are not competing fairly... What weve been calling for is for them to be regulated so that everyone can be fairly treated, said TBCSA chief executive Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa. Official figures: The year 2018 witnessed 8 "lean" attacks in Egypt compared to 222 in 2014 [03/January/2019] SANAA, Jan. 3 (Saba) - Egypt's State Information Service issued a report summarizing what the Egyptian army did last year, 2018, which it described as "the year of the death of terrorism in Egypt." The service confirmed in a report that the security operation "Sinai 2018" has succeeded in completely abort the attacks, where last year carried out 8 operations described as "meager", compared to 222 in 2014. The report refers to "major changes and transformations" on this issue, all under the broad title of "the decline of terrorism and its entry into its final stages", and outlined the main features of that achievement in eight key features. "The failure of the terror plan to create a state of fear, panic and unrest among the Egyptians, and the overall operation led by the Egyptian army against the terrorist organizations and groups, resulted in a significant decline in their activities and consequently in the number of their terrorist operations. The final result in 2018 Was the lowest for the past five years. " The forces were able to target many of the leaders of the first and second ranks of the organization "Beit al-Maqdis" "Sinai State", such as the leader of the organization Abu Osama al-Masri and many of the leaders of the first row, including Khairat Sami al-Sabki, the administrative officer of the organization, which directly affected the structure of the organization in terms of effectiveness and ability To carry out operations. Source: News Today AA Saba We will turn Turkey into a global force in the defense industry in 3 years! : Erdogan: [03/January/2019] SANAA, Jan. 3 (Saba) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged that his country's powers in the next three years would become a global force in the defense industry. "Over the next three years, Turkey will be transformed into a global force in the defense industry through special designs and cutting-edge technology," Erdogan told a meeting of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara on Wednesday. Erdogan noted that Ankara is hosting 4 Turkish companies among the top 100 defense industries in the world, stressing that the production in 2017 exceeded 7 billion dollars, while exports amounted to two billion dollars. Erdogan noted the size of Ankara's exports of defense industries during the first 11 months of 2018, which amounted to 873 million dollars, indicating that this ratio corresponds to about half of the volume of Turkish defense exports. He stressed that Turkey established a space agency last month without outside help. Source: Anatolia AA Saba Growing Ethnic Currents in Europe Threatens Peace : Head of Religious Affairs in Turkey [03/January/2019] SANAA, Jan. 3 (Saba) - The head of religious affairs in Turkey, Ali Arbash, announced that the rise of anti-Islam in Europe poses a direct threat to peace, peaceful coexistence and multiculturalism on the old continent. Speaking on Wednesday at the Second European Muslim Forum in Cologne, Arbash said that the future of Europe can not be discussed without taking into account the Islamic presence on the continent. Nor can we talk about the future of Muslims in Europe in isolation On the situation in the Islamic world. The head of religious affairs of Turkey warned that the phenomenon of Islamophobia has recently turned into a real hostility to Islam, stressing that the growing ethnic currents against Islam and foreigners have caused great damage to common human values. The Turkish official said that the concept of cultural pluralism and peaceful coexistence means respect for human dignity and rights, which is indispensable in societies and democratic states, calling on all to reject steps to marginalize this concept. Arbash pointed out that efforts to prevent attacks on places of worship and religious freedoms are a must for all countries and organizations without exception. "Islam defends human values everywhere and seeks to revive all noble values, a religion of peace wherever it may be." "It is therefore inappropriate to describe Islam in a variety of ways, such as moderate Islam, French Islam or European Islam," he said. Source: Anatolia Agency AA Saba In a video message posted on Twitter Thursday, the four-time Grammy award winner told fans that rumors of her death have been greatly exaggerated. The clarification comes four months after Olivia revealed she had been diagnosed with cancer for a third time in three decades. Olivia, who is also an entrepreneur and activist, told the world that she is healthy in the wake of recent US and Australian media reports speculating that her end is nearing. But in the 27-second video, the septuagenarian looks alive and kicking. She assured fans that she is "doing great". "Happy New Year! Here's to a wonderful 2019! Love & light, Olivia," she tweeted. Didi Conn, who played along with Olivia in the hit musical film Grease, said, "She's laying a little low. But... she's full of life". "She's well. When she took some time off she said: 'I'm going to be back in six months.' It wasn't even six months. It was four-and-a-half months," Conn told ITV's Lorraine show. The legendary musician's upcoming memoir will be released in March. In the book titled "Don't Stop Believin'", Olivia Newton-John reveals her life storyfrom her unforgettable rise to fame in the classic musical Grease to her passionate advocacy for and wellness in light of her battles with cancer. In a music career spread over more than half-a-century, Olivia has amassed five No. 1 and ten other top ten Billboard Hot 100 singles, and two No. 1 Billboard 200 solo albums. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News With Democrats officially taking control of the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is poised to once again be elected House Speaker in a vote Thursday afternoon. Pelosi, who previously served as Speaker from 2007 to 2011, appears likely to overcome opposition from a small group of lawmakers within her own party. The longtime Democratic leader was widely expected to reclaim the Speaker's gavel after Democrats won control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections. However, questions about the inevitability of her election rose, as several incoming freshmen promised not to support Pelosi during their campaigns. Members of the Democratic caucus reportedly voted 203 to 32 in favor of officially nominating Pelosi as Speaker in November, although she still needs to win a final vote on the House floor, with a majority traditionally amounting to 218 votes. In an effort to secure more votes, Pelosi announced an agreement last month on term limits for senior House Democratic leaders. Pelosi revealed the agreement would limit top party leaders to three terms, with a fourth term requiring the support of two-thirds of the caucus compared to the current simple majority threshold. The term limits would be retroactive to include the two terms of the Democratic Majority from 2007 to 2011, when Pelosi previously served as House Speaker. Pelosi, who has served as the top House Democrat since 2003, would subsequently be limited to a maximum of four additional years as Speaker. In a statement, Pelosi said she would abide by the proposal whether or not it is approved by the Democratic caucus in a vote expected to be held before February 15th. "Over the summer, I made it clear that I see myself as a bridge to the next generation of leaders, a recognition of my continuing responsibility to mentor and advance new Members into positions of power and responsibility in the House Democratic Caucus," Pelosi said. If re-elected Speaker as expected, Pelosi's first order of is likely to be bringing up legislation to end the partial government shutdown. House Democrats are expected to pass legislation that includes six full-year appropriations bills as well as a continuing resolution to fund the Department of Homeland Security until February 8th. The legislation would provide $1.3 billion for border security, well below the $5 billion that President Donald Trump has demanded for construction of a controversial border wall. The White House has rejected the legislation, however, with White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders calling the plan a "non-starter." Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ken., has also dismissed the plan and reiterated that the Senate will not vote on legislation that does not have the support of the president. "The Senate will be glad to vote on a measure that the House passes that the president will sign. But we're not going to vote on anything else," McConnell said after a White House meeting with Trump and other congressional leaders on Wednesday. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Political News A summary of some of the widely followed stories on cryptocurrency and blockchain during the past 24 hours. New York State Forms Cryptocurrency Task Force New York became the first state in the United States to create a cryptocurrency task force to study how to properly regulate, define, and use cryptocurrency. Vanel, Chair of Subcommittee on Internet and New Technologies, stated that the members of the task force, appointed by the Governor, Senate and Assembly, are to submit reports by December 15, 2020. NYS Governor Andrew Cuomo signed The Digital Currency Study Bill into law, a Facebook post by New York state or NYS lawmaker Clyde Vanel said. Working group to study cryptocurrency regulation in South Africa The government of South Africa has created a regulatory working group to prepare a comprehensive report after studying all aspects of cryptocurrencies and their underlying blockchain . Based on the study, the government aims to develop a regulatory response to the country's growing digital asset . Indian State Police Warns public against investing in Cryptocurrencies The police of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir issued a warning to the general public against investing in cryptocurrencies, according to a report in the daily The Business Standard. An advisory issued by the Inspector General (IG) of crime branch, warned public against making investments in cryptocurrencies or virtual currencies such as Bitcoin due to the "heightened risk" associated with them. Cuts Power To 15 Crypto Miners From The National Grid The Government of the Republic of Abkhazia disconnected power to 15 cryptocurrency mining farms in a bid to limit the consumption of electricity amid concerns of shortage. The power was cut from the national grid by Abkhazia's state electric utility Chernomorenergo RUE. The disconnected capacity is equivalent to the consumption of 1,800 households or equal to the consumption of the Sukhumi district, which is one of the districts of Abkhazia, Georgia's breakaway republic. Thailand's NECTEC Develops Blockchain To Use In Elections Thailand's National Electronics and Computer Technology Center or NECTEC developed blockchain technology to use in elections, according to the Bangkok Post. Blockchain-based e-voting could make elections faster, cheaper and more secure. A hybrid model with blockchain technology is expected to combine e-voting in close groups and traditional voting. The national technology development center under the Ministry of Science and Technology noted that when 5G is eventually adopted, all voters will be connected with the new technology. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com The police of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir issued a warning to the general public against investing in cryptocurrencies, according to a report in the daily The Business Standard. An advisory issued by the Inspector General (IG) of crime branch, warned public against making investments in cryptocurrencies or virtual currencies such as Bitcoin due to the "heightened risk" associated with them. The IG reminded the public that these forms of digital assets are not backed as legal tender by the government and central financial institutions. "This can result in a sudden and prolonged crash, exposing investors; especially retail consumers who stand to lose their hard-earned money," the advisory said. It also said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has not given any license and authorization to any entity and company to operate in such schemes or deal with Bitcoin or any virtual currency. Nobody has been given any regulatory permission to deal with such currencies. The IG added that the lack of regulatory oversight on cryptocurrencies leads to high risk of the platforms being used for carrying out subversive activities, smuggling, drug trafficking, human trafficking, terror funding and money laundering. The RBI had banned the country's commercial banks from providing banking services to businesses or individuals dealing in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin that came into effect on July 6. Blockchain developers, services providers, and companies dealing in cryptocurrency trading in India are reportedly migrating to crypto-friendly destinations or are seriously considering options in the wake of increasingly hostile ecosystem in the country. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News CME Group, Inc. (CME) said Thursday that its 2018 average daily volume or ADV reached a record 19.2 million contracts, up 18 percent from 2017. During 2018, 91 trading days exceeded 20 million contracts, up from 34 days in 2017. The company's fourth-quarter 2018 volume averaged 20.8 million contracts per day, up 31 percent from the same period a year ago. CME Group noted that it reached several quarterly ADV records, including Equity Index ADV of 4.5 million contracts, Interest Rate electronic options ADV of 1.5 million contracts and Energy options ADV of 376,000 contracts. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Swiss cybersecurity and IoT company WISeKey International Holding Ltd announced Thursday its partnership with Beijing SINCODE Science & Technology Co.,Ltd. or SINCODE, a Chinese automobile ECU supplier, to develop the WISekey ISTANA connected cars solution in China. The WISeKey connected cars ISTANA I platform allows smart car manufactures to validate the authenticity of different vehicle components. Certificate-based security also protects onboard communication between vehicle components and enables secure over-the-air software updates. Additionally, authentication certificates can be used by employees, dealers and suppliers to access car components to diagnose mechanical/technical issues and update software from any location. The ISTANA PKI platform also allows users to securely interact with a car's smart features using smartphones and other devices. The connected car market is expected to increase by 50.9% per year in China. Currently, 11.6 million cars on Chinese roads feature online connectivity, accounting for 10.6 percent of the market. It is expected that more than 41 million people in China would make use of in-car connectivity by 2021, while the value of the overall car market is expected to grow to 401 billion yuan or $62.95 billion by 2021, according to the professional services consultancy firm, Accenture China. WISeKey said its total identifiable 5-year ISTANA revenues from the car manufacturing industry are expected to be in excess of 30 million Swiss francs, of which approximately 2.5 Million francs and 7.0 Million francs were realized in 2017 and 2018, respectively. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Arkansas residents with valid medical marijuana licenses can receive a temporary medical marijuana adult license in Oklahoma. According to the Oklahoma Medicinal Marijuana Authority, a medical marijuana temporary adult patient license allows an individual with a valid medical marijuana license from another state to legally buy, use, and grow medical marijuana and medical marijuana products in Oklahoma. While residents of Arkansas will be able to cross state lines into Oklahoma to buy medical marijuana, they will not be able to bring it back. The temporary license is valid for 30 days, but cannot exceed the expiration date of the out-of-state license. It can be renewed. The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority or OMMA said that as of December 31, 2018, it has received more than 33,000 patient licenses after voters authorized the use of medical marijuana in June 2018. More than 26,600 patient licenses have been approved. However, KFSM reported that OMMA has said a letter of approval is not enough for an Arkansas patient to be accepted by them and that an actual patient license is required. According to Arkansas officials, more than 6,400 patients in the state have been approved for patient cards, but it was not clear if those cards have been issued. Arkansas voters legalized medical marijuana in 2016, but it is still not available in the state. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com President Donald Trump and Congressional leaders met at the White House on Wednesday but made no meaningful progress toward ending the partial government shutdown. Trump said in a post on Twitter after the meeting that Democrats and Republicans must work together to pass a funding bill that protects the nation and its people, which he called the "first and most important duty of government." "I remain ready and willing to work with Democrats to pass a bill that secures our borders, supports the agents and officers on the ground, and keeps America Safe. Let's get it done!" Trump tweeted. Despite expressing willingness to work with Democrats, Trump continues to stand by his demand that a spending bill include $5 billion for the construction of controversial border wall. In remarks to reporters ahead of the meeting, Trump indicated the partial government shutdown will continue for "as long as it takes" to get the money for the wall. The meeting was not expected to result in a major breakthrough, with a Capitol Hill source telling CNN the meeting "appears to be more of a White House stunt than a serious attempt to have a discussion." Presumptive House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., indicated after the meeting that House Democrats will move forward with plans to reopen the government without providing funding for the wall. Democrats will officially take control of the House on Thursday and plan to pass legislation that includes six full-year appropriations bills as well as a continuing resolution to fund the Department of Homeland Security until February 8th. The legislation would provide $1.3 billion for border security, well below the $5 billion that Trump has demanded for construction of the wall. The White House has rejected the legislation, however, with White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders calling the plan a "non-starter." Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ken., has also dismissed the plan and reiterated that the Senate will not vote on legislation that does not have the support of the president. "The Senate will be glad to vote on a measure that the House passes that the president will sign. But we're not going to vote on anything else," McConnell said after the meeting. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Political News Meadville, PA -- (ReleaseWire) -- 01/03/2019 --Established in 1963 Byham's Insurance Services, Inc. is a family-owned, full service and operated third generation insurance agency focused on assisting the group and individual clients with all their health insurance, Medicare insurance, and related needs as well as life insurance in Greenville and Warren Pennsylvania. The company offers many lines of coverage, which include life, disability, financial security services, health, compliance and administration services related to group health benefits, etc. The company can assist in shopping for coverage on utilizing the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, or else known as Obamacare, and converse with people through how best to qualify and make use of existing tax credits and subsidies. Whether it is individual group insurance, medical coverage for the business, life insurance, Medicare supplements, or even coverage specially designed to alleviate the costs of combating cancer, Byham's Insurance Services can have the individuals covered. Their experienced financial and insurance staff are licensed agents who understand the kinds of coverage and security one needs. Byham's Insurance Services, Inc. has health and life insurance professionals who have dedicated their lives to offering quality coverage at the most cost-effective rates in all the branch locations and their nearby areas. Byham's Insurance Services, Inc. is one stop destination for all kinds of insurance services. The company offers various low-cost, world-class insurance plans to suit group as well as individual requirements. When one gives them a call, they will work with a reliable agent whose mission is to offer quality coverage. Their welcoming and well-informed professionals are all set to help the customers. To get more information about employee benefits in Warren and Meadville Pennsylvania, one can get in touch with the company at 814-724-1680. About Byham's Insurance Services Byham's Insurance Services is a well-known insurance service provider that provides top quality life insurance policy. Weather Alert ...The Flood Warning continues for the following rivers in North Carolina... Contentnea Creek Near Hookerton affecting Greene, Pitt and Lenoir Counties. For the Contentnea Creek...including Hookerton...Minor flooding is forecast. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Turn around, don't drown when encountering flooded roads. Most flood deaths occur in vehicles. Additional information is available at water.weather.gov/ahps. ...The Flood Warning is now in effect until Wednesday evening... The Flood Warning continues for the Contentnea Creek Near Hookerton. * Until Wednesday evening. * At 10:00 AM EDT Monday the stage was 13.2 feet. * Flood stage is 13.0 feet. * Minor flooding is occurring and minor flooding is forecast. * Recent Activity...The maximum river stage in the 24 hours ending at 10:00 AM EDT Monday was 13.2 feet. * Forecast...The river is expected to rise to a crest of 13.3 feet just after midnight tonight. It will then fall below flood stage early Wednesday afternoon. * Impact...At 13.0 feet, Minor flooding of low lying areas adjacent to creek can be expected. Several homes threatened by water in northwest Greene County near HWY 58. && Giovanni Ampuero, 9, and Madeline Sershen, 17, were both killed as they crossed Queens streets in the crosswalk in 2018. Among the boroughs other traffic fatalities this year were three bike riders and 14 motorcyclists, according to an annual report. New York City, NY (11385) Today Generally cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 71F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Showers and thundershowers this evening will give way to steady rain overnight. Low around 65F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%. US Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas): I understand from whats been testified to the Forest Service and the BLM [Bureau of Land Management], you want very much to work on the issue of climate change. We know theres been significant solar flare activity, and so is there anything that the National Forest Service or BLM can do to change the course of the moons orbit, or the Earths orbit around the sun? Obviously that would have profound effects on our climate. Jennifer Eberlein, associate deputy chief for the National Forest System, responded that she would have to follow up with you on that one, after a brief pause. Gohmert: Well, if you figure out a way that you in the Forest Service can make that change, Id like to know. Sterling Heights, MI (48312) Today Partly cloudy with afternoon showers or thunderstorms. High near 75F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 58F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Change-4 itself launched on 8 December 2018. It entered lunar orbit four days later, where mission controllers spent 22 days testing the spacecrafts systems, waiting for the Sun to rise at the landing site. Today, Change-4 successfully de-orbited and landed. One of its first tasks will be to deploy a rover similar to Yutu, which accompanied Change-3 to the Moon in 2013. China formally announced the mission in December 2015 as part of its ambitious Change lunar program that started in 2007 and will culminate with a sample return mission in 2019. The Queqiao relay satellite also brought along two SmallSats named Longjiang-1 and 2 bound for lunar orbit. Only Longjiang-2 was successful, and has sent home some phenomenal pictures, including a new Earthrise image. Thank you for reading the Philadelphia Tribune. You have exhausted your free article views for this month. Please press the "subscribe" button below and see our introductory price of $0.25 per week for 13 weeks. Otherwise, we look forward to seeing you next month. The effects of the partial government shutdown are widening as the impasse over President Donald Trumps request for $5 billion for the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border grinds through its third week with no signs of abating. Nine federal agencies have been forced to close due to the shutdown, which began Dec. 22: the departments of the Treasury, Agriculture, Homeland Security, Interior, State, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Commerce, and Justice. Across the country, the shutdown is making its impact felt. Heres whats happening now and what could happen if the impasse continues. Missed pay for federal workers Roughly 800,000 federal workers have gone without their regular paychecks, with more than 400,000 considered essential and required to work without pay. There are about 45,000 federal employees in Philadelphia and its immediate suburbs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Philly has one of the highest concentrations of federal workers outside Washington. Rob Tornoe Closures and lack of staffing at national parks and museums Garbage and human waste have begun to pile up at national parks, many of which have been left open to visitors despite staff furloughs. The Smithsonian announced on Jan. 2 that the National Zoo and its 19 museums were closed to the public. In Philadelphia, both Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell Center are once again closed after being briefly opened for a weekend with funding provided by Visit Philadelphia. Rob Tornoe READ MORE: Muslim youth clean up Independence Mall amid government shutdown READ MORE: Park Service to tap into entrance fees to keep operating Immigration, open and closed Immigration Court in Philadelphia is shuttered, accepting only emergency filings for people who are already in detention. That mirrors whats occurring in most of the rest of the country, where courts closed Dec. 26, available only for emergency requests. All other docketed cases will be rescheduled once funding resumes. Most operations at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which administers the nations legal immigration system, continue to function. All USCIS offices are open, and people should attend their scheduled interviews and appointments. The shutdown does not impact the fee-for-service activities performed by USCIS. Most USCIS employees are not subject to a furlough because their pay is funded exclusively by fee accounts, said USCIS spokesperson Jane Cowley. However, the pay of a small group of USCIS employees is funded by an appropriation. These employees work for the USCIS E-Verify program, and as such they have been furloughed. Jeff Gammage No new craft beer, liquor can be approved The process by which labels are approved for the sale of new beer, wine, and distilled spirits has come to a stop. No new applications have been reviewed for weeks, leaving thousands of manufacturers around the country in a holding pattern when it comes to new releases. The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, part of the U.S. Treasury Department, is tasked with approving labels for wine, beer, and spirits before they hit store shelves, ensuring they carry required information such as the alcohol content by volume. Normally, the turnaround for such an approval might only take a few weeks, local distillers and brewers said, but no labels have been reviewed since Dec. 21. Manufacturers can still submit applications during the shutdown; the website for the bureau indicated that the agency received more than 192,000 such applications in 2018 as of Dec. 21. Allison Steele READ MORE: No Double Doink brews on tap as government shutdown halts new craft beer, liquor releases FDA pauses regulatory work, inspections The Food and Drug Administration is continuing its core functions, such as monitoring for outbreaks, supporting food and medical recalls, and pursuing criminal and civil investigations, according to a shutdown contingency plan from the Department of Health and Human Services. However, the FDA is pausing some routine regulatory work and wont conduct establishment inspections during the shutdown, according to HHS. Christian Hetrick READ MORE: How the government shutdown affects health programs Weather reports continue, but meteorologists arent getting paid The National Weather Service, which falls under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is still operating, but on a limited basis. Workers were furloughed on Dec. 22, but certain employees were exempt. Those employees, including meteorologists, have been deemed essential and must still report to work but are not being paid. They are issuing forecasts and maintaining social media accounts for the public. But all other duties not related to providing critical forecasts and weather warnings have been canceled. Frank Kummer READ MORE: While federal workers go without pay, senior Trump administration officials poised to get $10,000 raises Efforts by the EPA face serious constraints The Environmental Protection Agency has 13,972 full- and part-time employees, most of whom were furloughed from duties at 134 facilities on Dec. 29. Many are scientists and engineers. About 800 employees have been deemed essential to carry out various duties. The furlough means it will be difficult for citizens to get information about pressing environmental issues. The EPA warned that its websites were not being updated, except in the event of an environmental emergency. The Superfund Program will continue to respond at sites where there is an imminent threat to the safety of human life or to the protection of property, EPA spokesperson Molly Block said in an email. Ongoing work at Superfund sites will also continue without EPA involvement up to the point that additional EPA direction or funding is needed. Cleanup activities requiring new funding will not start and sites where cleanup activities have been stopped or shut down will be secured until cleanup activities are able to commence when the federal government reopens. Frank Kummer Mortgage seekers could face delays The shutdown could delay new mortgages for some homeowners. The portion of the Internal Revenue Service that focuses on income validation for new mortgages was not deemed an essential function, said Pete Mills, senior vice president of residential policy at the Mortgage Bankers Association. That means home buyers who need income verification when seeking mortgages could see a delay particularly gig-economy workers who do not receive regular income documentation. Mortgage lenders typically attempt to validate a borrowers income and tax returns in an abundance of caution before funding a loan, Mills said. More complicated borrowers could have their home purchases put on hold adding delays to the entire housing market. Government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have continued operations. Qualified borrowers are also expected to be able to proceed with Federal Housing Administration loans. The biggest impact of the shutdown could be on consumer sentiment, said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors. The housing market was already somewhat fragile," he said, adding that a prolonged shutdown could quickly snowball into very bad news for real estate. Caitlin McCabe Court operations could be curtailed So far, the regions federal courts have continued to operate largely as normal by dipping into court fees and other sources not dependent upon congressional appropriations. However, officials at the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts expect those funds to become severely depleted should the shutdown extend beyond Jan. 11. The federal courts would not close entirely if that deadline is breached, but significant curtailment of operations would occur and funding for jurors, some probation supervision, court reporters, and public defenders could be in jeopardy. Meanwhile, most federal law enforcement officers in Eastern Pennsylvania including prosecutors in the U.S. Attorneys Office continue to work without pay. Certain employees within their offices whose roles are deemed nonessential have been temporarily furloughed. Jeremy Roebuck Food stamps, WIC covered at least through end of January Food stamps (known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) will continue through the end of January, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which did not receive its appropriations. Local advocates believe that people will be covered even if the partial shutdown lasts into February and beyond because of the programs importance. The WIC program (Women, Infants, and Children Food and Nutrition Service), also part of the USDA, is not getting federal funding because of the partial shutdown, advocates say. But it can rely on state and local funds for a short while. Its not clear how long people can expect to get their WIC benefits, according to Seth Hanlon, senior fellow with the Center for American Progress in Washington. In Pennsylvania, WIC should be funded at least through the end of January, according to Kathy Fisher, policy director of the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger. Alfred Lubrano Uncertainty over tax refunds While the thinly staffed Internal Revenue Service earlier said it couldnt issue any refunds during the shutdown, the White House now says the agency can refund taxpayers even if the impasse persists into filing season. But its not clear how the agency will issue refunds without staff to process returns. And as tax season begins to roll around, the IRS is not currently responding to taxpayer questions. Also, the IRS has not announced an official start date for the 2019 filing season. Typically, the start of the tax filing season is in mid-to-late January. Despite the shutdown, the IRS continues to operate on a partial basis from funds not tied to its expired annual appropriations. While tax reform implementation is funded through September 2019, this years tax filing season is up in the air. Erin Arvedlund Domestic violence shelters worry about funds Workers at shelters that serve vulnerable populations and rely on federal funding are starting to worry. Domestic violence agencies in the Philadelphia region say their biggest concern is the uncertainty that comes with not knowing when payments might come. Although the programs have enough money to operate for now, they may have to furlough workers and cut down on services if the shutdown drags on. Advocates for survivors of domestic violence fear furloughed federal employees may choose to return to unsafe home situations if they continue to go without paychecks and cannot provide for themselves. Michaelle Bond READ MORE: Government shutdown could hurt domestic violence shelters and services PHA operating on contingency funding The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is closed, according to its website. A 90-page contingency plan is in place. A spokesperson for the Philadelphia Housing Authority said there has been no impact on day-to-day operations. Landlords in the housing choice vouchers program will continue to receive their payments. The Philadelphia agency has contingency funding to float operations for at least two months, said Nichole Tillman, the spokesperson. Caitlin McCabe Essential workers on the job at Philadelphia International Airport At Philadelphia International Airport, 73 air traffic controllers and seven traffic management coordinators are working as essential employees, according to Christopher Perks, local president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association at Philadelphia International. Meanwhile, four employees in the control tower were furloughed. These FAA staff specialists handle quality control, take care of training requirements, and plan for special operations, whether they involve the military or a fireworks display. Even though those workers were deemed nonessential, Perks said their job is crucial to allowing air traffic controllers to focus on the job of moving airplanes. Well always be safe, but efficiency is what is degraded, he said. A spokesperson at PHL said the airport has not been affected by the government shutdown. Essential personnel from FAA, TSA, and CBP are still on the job and the airport is functioning with normal operations, airport spokesperson Diane Gerace said in a statement. Catherine Dunn READ MORE: Airports worry about screener absences if the shutdown continues Section 8 drawing on previously appropriated funds As for federal Section 8 housing, for low-income people, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will continue to make payments, even though it did not receive its appropriations. HUD officials will be drawing on previously advanced appropriations, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Alfred Lubrano Pa. pension funds could take a hit During a news conference in Pittsburgh with labor leaders, Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said he was concerned how the shutdown would affect the national economy and the stock market and therefore the states pension funds. Workers who dont have an income wont be shopping and that will mean the state loses out on sales tax. As the states chief fiscal officer, I can already see whats going to happen to the Pennsylvania economy because of this, DePasquale said. Catherine Dunn Social Security payments will continue The budget brawl wont affect Social Security benefits because the Social Security Administration received its full funding for fiscal year 2019 in September, the agency said. Social Security services and offices will remain fully operational, and Social Security benefits will be paid on time, spokesperson Dorothy Clark wrote in an email. Christian Hetrick Unemployment checks wont be affected The U.S. Labor Department, which includes the Office of Unemployment Insurance, isnt affected by the government shutdown because it has funding in place through September. All of our operations are intact, spokesperson Leni Uddyback-Fortson wrote in an email. Christian Hetrick HHS programs running The federal cash welfare program known as TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) is under the aegis of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which has gotten its appropriations and is not shut down, according to Seth Hanlon, senior fellow with the Center for American Progress in Washington. Similarly, the Child Care Development Fund is also part of HHS, and will not be affected by the partial shutdown. Officials at the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services said the federal LIHEAP program, which helps people heat their homes, will continue through the year. Similarly, many homeless-assistance programs are state funded, and are not threatened, officials said. Alfred Lubrano Benefits and drawbacks for private cultural institutions Institutions around Independence National Historical Park are feeling the impact of the shutdown, and visitors to the area are often confused about what is open and what is not, according to tourism officials and those working at sites in the area. Alex McKechnie, spokesperson for the Museum of the American Revolution, a private nonprofit that does not rely on federal funding, said there has been a noticeable increase in the number of telephone calls asking if the museum, at Third and Chestnut Streets. is open. (It is.) But theres been a down tick in museum attendance since the beginning of the shutdown, she said. Meanwhile, officials at the private National Museum of American Jewish History, at Fifth and Market Streets, and the National Constitution Center, on the northernmost block of Independence Mall, reported marked increases in visitors during the shutdown. And at Carpenters Hall, a privately held historic building within the confines of the national park, visitation during the shutdown has been about double what it was last year. Stephan Salisbury A month after announcing a slate of security measures that have no precedent in a state prison system, Pennsylvania Corrections Secretary John Wetzel walked to the front of a South Philadelphia church and faced down a hostile audience. His message to the hundreds of seething community members, mostly friends and families of Pennsylvania's 47,000 prisoners: The initiatives, which collectively cost more than $15 million, were working. "It's short-term pain for long-term gain," he said at the meeting, organized by the Pennsylvania Black Legislative Caucus. "We had a drug problem. We had a significant increase in drugs, and we had to get drugs out of the facilities." The measures were necessary, he said, to protect staff from sicknesses related to exposure to synthetic cannabinoids, or K2. And, indeed, the DOC reports the number of such incidents has declined drastically, from more than 50 in August to eight in September. Along the way, the department says, the number of inmate overdoses related to K2 also fell, from 19 to five. But the policies including barring book donations and providing inmates photocopies of their mail rather than the originals are unpopular with families and, lawyers argue, may even be unconstitutional. Now, some state lawmakers plan to challenge them. "It is not OK. I want to communicate that to the governor and the secretary," Sen. Sharif Street said. "Some of this has to change." They also expressed lingering questions over the mysterious staff sicknesses that started it all. "We are very concerned with what happened, the processes," said state Rep. Jordan Harris, a Philadelphia Democrat and chairman of the Black Caucus. "We're looking to see which agency would be the best to do an actual third-party investigation." Here's what we already know and what we don't. 1. Could guards illness be nocebo effect? The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) says it was a novel type of drug called synthetic cannabinoids that sickened guards, either through skin absorption or inhalation. In support of that theory, Wetzel pointed to a Centers for Disease Control study of nine federal agents who described side effects from K2; in that case, they had raided a drug lab and then spent a week cataloging K2 samples with bare hands, often while eating and drinking. But experts in medical toxicology offered a different diagnosis: "mass psychogenic illness." They noted the presence of narcotics had not been confirmed at all in 23 out of 29 incidents between May 31 and Sept. 1. And even in cases where it was present, the DOC could not provide any blood or urine tests that showed the drugs were in the sick officers' systems. "In a word, it's implausible," Dr. Lewis Nelson, chair of emergency medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, told the Inquirer in September. "One thing we know about [synthetic cannabinoids] is that they don't cause the effects these folks are having. The symptoms are much more consistent with anxiety." The DOC disputes the psychogenic-illness theory. Jason Bloom, president of the Pennsylvania State Correctional Officers Association, called it "asinine." So for more information, we went to the source the medical directors of the emergency departments where prison staff were taken. We contacted all the hospitals that treated staff after mass incidents involving four or more victims, according to the DOC's published incident logs. (One, Washington Health System Greene, did not respond.) Dr. Matthew Glenn, Grove City Medical Center: Eleven staff were transported to GCMC from Mercer state prison in August, with symptoms ranging from nausea to dizziness to lethargy. One was kept overnight for observation. The rest were decontaminated, evaluated and released. Urine screens were completed, but no drugs were detected. "It is inconclusive, but I suspect there is a strong nocebo effect," Glenn said. "That is, if you believe exposure is something that is going to cause you harm, you'll get some negative symptoms. Being that the tox screens were negative, it's hard to prove a drug did this however, you can't disprove it either." Dr. Ferdinando Mirarchi, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Hamot: In August, six staff were rushed from Albion prison to Hamot, where a hazmat team was called in. "They presented with vague complaints. None of them required any significant interventions." Blood work did not test positive for any specific drug and the mystery substance that precipitated the incident was later found to be a cosmetic powder. "The cause for each of the six patients?" Mirarchi said. "It's likely unknown." Dr. Surabhi Guar, Uniontown Hospital: About 10 people all told, including six in one mass incident, were rushed to the emergency department from Fayette state prison, but by the time they arrived, they were "pretty asymptomatic." Urine screens were negative, though Guar considers them to be fairly unreliable anyway. But she was doubtful that the illnesses were related to incidental exposure to drugs. "Medically, it doesn't make any sense," Guar said. "I'm not saying people are crazy or making it up: We had people coming with symptoms. But I think psychogenic is a perfect word. I do wonder if some of this is hysteria or anxiety." 2. The ACLU is preparing a federal lawsuit. Though advocates dislike many of the new policies, they are particularly riled by the new legal mail procedure. They say the system in which a prison staffer opens legal mail in front of the inmate and photocopies it, setting aside the originals to be destroyed after 45 days is a clear violation of attorney-client privilege. The ACLU and others said they've stopped sending mail through the system, which is unlike any other in the nation. "My greatest fear is that my legal mail will become the reading material of the superintendent or, worse, my opponent," said Leticia Chavez-Freed, a Harrisburg civil-rights lawyer who, before the new policy was enacted, sent out 60 or 70 letters to inmates in any given month. "I currently have cases where guards and superintendents are named defendants." However, a threatened lawsuit has not yet been filed. 3. Access to books has become a hot-button issue. To many, access to books seems like a basic human right. To the DOC, books by mail are just another route for inmates to send in paper soaked in K2. So, the department has stopped allowing donations from programs like Books Through Bars, or direct orders from stores like Amazon. To underscore the danger, the DOC tweeted a photo of a letter it said represented an inmate "describing how to smuggle drugs." Twitter users pointed out it appeared the writer was, in fact, describing how to smuggle a dictionary. The DOC said that its libraries are more than adequate, and that a system for inmates to request staff order books for them is now up and running. Department spokespeople also touted a new library of e-books. But the list of 8,800 e-books, accessible only on a prison-purchased $149 tablet, is padded with public-domain titles that are available for free on Project Gutenberg, but cost up to $14.99 in prison. Plus, many of the most-requested books in prison, like The Autobiography of Malcolm X, aren't on the list. (The DOC said it's also beefing up libraries, but inmates say there are surprising reasons they tend to avoid them.) 4. Families say false-positives on ion scanners are keeping them apart. The security overhaul includes a $2 million investment on new ion scanners controversial devices that are meant to detect trace amounts of narcotics. But families say they're susceptible to false positives and that DOC penalties are unfair: Currently, two different women married to men in Phoenix state prison are facing six-month bans on visiting their husbands. Others do whatever they think it might take to avoid triggering the scanner, from going off their medications to wearing latex gloves so they don't come into contact with any contaminated surfaces. The DOC said the scanners are accurate and are calibrated to account for environmental contamination. 5. Mails being diverted to Florida to be scanned and stored for surveillance. The state is paying close to $16 million over three years for a mail processing service that scans incoming mail and forwards it to the prisons. One former DOC staffer who declined to be named described a crisis in prison mailrooms, where staff uncovered suboxone strips underneath the flaps of envelopes, crayon drawings purportedly laced with meth and photos with drugs hidden underneath the backings. "It got to be such a monumental task of sorting mail and trying to test the drugs that are coming in," the former employee said. "Then you get guys in there with drugs, which now gives them power, and you have fights, killings, stabbings over drugs." But the new system has led some inmates to complain about poor-quality printouts, while others have told their families not to send mail at all, knowing that it will be stored and made searchable for surveillance purposes. "I'm not comfortable with that anymore," one woman said, explaining why she no longer sends her child's drawings to her husband. "I don't want my 7-year-old autistic child's stuff to be able to be searched in some database in Florida." The stress of the unknown was already expected by David Robertson when he ended last season without knowing where he would play in 2019. But then Robertson - one of baseballs most consistent relievers - chose to compound that stress by entering the offseason without representation as he became his own agent for his own free agency. The first-time agent guaranteed himself $23 million with the Phillies on Thursday as Robertson signed a two-year deal with a club option for 2021. The Phillies landed the high-leverage arm they sought all offseason for their bullpen. And Robertson made his client happy. It was definitely an eye-opening experience, said Robertson, who had a 3.23 ERA in 69 games last season with the Yankees. I would say that I enjoyed it. I had some great conversations with some great people who really know baseball. "It was nice to see the other side of baseball for once. Its something Ive always thought about and wondered about if Id be able to go through that process myself. It was definitely a good experience. I dont know if I would do it again. But I enjoyed the process. Robertsons self-negotiations will earn him $10 million this season and $11 million in 2020. His club option for 2021 is worth $12 million with a $2 million buyout. Ever consistent, Robertson is one of just 13 pitchers to appear in 60 games in nine straight seasons and is the only pitcher to begin his career with a rate of at least 10 strikeouts per nine innings over his first 11 seasons. Robertson turns 34 in April and was an All-Star in 2011 and has spent his entire 11-year career in the American League. The Phillies will not use Robertson as a traditional closer but instead in a variety of late-inning roles. It was unique, Phillies general manager Matt Klentak said of negotiating without an agent. Hes smart. Hes prepared. Hes interesting. Hes very easy to talk to. So that part wasnt really an issue. "Candidly, I find that when youre talking directly to a player about contracts, sometimes I found myself actually being a little more guarded with what I would say than I might be with an agent. So that was unique. But he was very well prepared, knew the market extremely well, and knew what he was looking for. He knew what was important to him and he was able to articulate that well. That helped us get to a deal. I was very impressed with the professionalism and the way he handled everything. Adding Robertson appears to give the Phillies a surplus of right-handed relievers, which could motivate them to part with Tommy Hunter or Pat Neshek. Both relievers are in their final year of affordable contracts, which could make a trade possible. Klentak said the Phillies are open to that. I dont know how aggressive were going to be in shopping our players because we like the group we have right now, Klentak said. The Phillies aimed to add a left-handed reliever this offseason but stressed that they would not add one just for the sake of it. They have four left-handed relievers on their 40-man roster after last months additions of James Pazos from the Mariners and Jose Alvarez from the Angels. Their need for a left-hander was eased by Robertsons success against left-handed batters. Robertson handled himself just fine against lefties as he held them to a .176 batting average and .240 on-base percentage over 132 plate appearances last season. Both those marks ranked in the top eight among pitchers who faced at least 130 left-handers. The Phillies shifted their focus to the bullpen after the price of starting pitching skyrocketed when Patrick Corbin signed with Washington. They tried last month to land Andrew Miller before he signed with St. Louis and had discussions with high-end relievers Craig Kimbrel and Zach Britton. It took a bit, but the Phillies seem to have found their bullpen piece. And now, with the negotiations complete, that piece can return to focusing solely on pitching. Whatever I'm doing in the offseason, working out, hanging out with my family, and whenever my phone would ring, I would just step aside and make time to be on those phone calls, Robertson said. A lot of people I spoke with would text ahead of time or kind of give me a time they wanted to speak so I would be prepared and have a place where I could take to them. Not exactly like it ate up entire days for me, though. But definitely there were some days when I had to wait for phone calls. Extra bases Matt Klentak said that Manny Machados visit last month to Citizens Bank Park was a productive day and that the dialogue between the Phillies and the free-agent infielder was continuing. Do the Phillies have any meetings scheduled with another free agent such as Bryce Harper? You know, I just read that we do, Klentak said about a report of the Phillies' planning to fly to Las Vegas this month to meet with Harper. Were working on that. On Wednesday, the morning after the Mummers Parade, Philadelphia City Council President Darrell L. Clarke issued a statement condemning the Mummers Parade for a skit that, according to Clarke, involved a Mummer in blackface. This annual New Years celebration has once again brought shame and embarrassment to the City of Philadelphia, Clarke wrote. The skit involving a blackface Jay-Z walking a long-nosed Mayor Kenney like a dog was offensive, racist, and not even a little bit amusing. Clarke went on to say that the Mummers owe Mayor Jim Kenney an apology. The hitch? The Mummer who portrayed Jay-Z was a black man and the skit had been preapproved by the Mayors Office, a protocol for all parade participants. The skit was inspired by a cartoon drawn by the Inquirers Signe Wilkinson in response to last summers controversy over whether Jay-Zs Made in America music festival would change locations. Following outcry, including an Inquirer op-ed written by Jay-Z, the mayor announced that the festival would stay put, prompting jokes that even the citys top official takes orders from the powerful music mogul. The Mummers Parade has a long history with racist, sexist, and transphobic skits, including Mummers in blackface, so Clarkes accusation would certainly sound believable to many familiar with the parade. The problem is that the facts didnt hold up. A few hours after the original statement, Clarke sent an updated statement in which he said that multiple people who viewed the clip believed that the performer was a nonblack person in blackface. Believing is not the same as knowing. The statement also erroneously cast doubt about whether the black Mummer was actually a member of the brigade, a fact disproved by the Mummer himself, who wrote an op-ed for the Inquirer about his experience performing as Jay-Z. Clarke also characterized the performance as minstrel, a sentiment echoed by Philadelphia magazine Business Editor Fabiola Cineas, who tweeted that the performance in front of a super white crowd is "pure objectification. The role of black Mummers and how to make the parade more representative without being exploitative is an important and worthwhile conversation, one that Clarke can and should lead. This is not the first time that a senior Philadelphia public official called out racism without having all the facts. In August, a black doll was found hanging with a noose around its neck in a Queen Village playground. Mayor Kenney said in a statement that he was sickened by the news and that it was proof of how far this country has fallen when people are inspired by the hateful rhetoric of our President. A couple of days later, two preteen boys one black and one white said that they hanged the doll as a prank. Oops. In this era of instant outrage, it is easy to jump to conclusions. And in a city where racist incidents are not uncommon, it is good to have public officials who are vigilant about condemning that hatred. But vigilance should not preclude accuracy. WASHINGTON In his second year in office, President Trump did many positive things, and on Monday, I offered my list of the 10 best things Trump did in 2018. But he also did a lot of bad things that ranged from cringeworthy to catastrophic. Here are the 10 worst: 10. His comment about sh hole countries blew up negotiations for a deal that would have given Trump his border wall. Nearly a year ago, the president made a bold offer to Democrats putting not just legal status but also a path to citizenship for nearly 1.8 million young illegal immigrants on the table. Then his abhorrent comment undermined Democrats who were serious about cutting a deal and gave those who were not a pretext to walk away. 9. His offensive tweets continued to undermine his presidency. Calling former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman a dog and Stormy Daniels Horseface among countless offensive tweets is not just unpresidential, it drives away potential supporters who like his policies but then are reminded how much they dont like Trump. 8. His misuse of power turned critics into martyrs. Revoking former CIA director John Brennans security clearance and CNN White House correspondent Jim Acostas White House press pass turned partisan critics who were embarrassing themselves into victims and gave them an even greater platform from which to attack him. 7. He drove away suburban voters and caused the GOP to lose control of the House. Thats because the president has sought to energize his base in ways that drive those voters away. If he wants to win reelection, Trump needs to bring suburban Republican voters back into the GOP fold. 6. His graceless handling of Sen. John McCains funeral was a new low. Trump didnt like McCain, but when youre the president, sometimes you must honor people you didnt like. McCain was an American hero. Trumps inability to muster a kind or generous word reflected poorly on the president. 5. His handling of Jamal Khashoggis murder harmed Americas moral standing. Trump is right that a permanent breach with Saudi Arabia is not acceptable, because there is no other country in the Middle East that can serve as a counterweight to Iran. But it was unseemly to declare that Its all about America First and Were not going to give up hundreds of billions of dollars in orders. 4. His news conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki was an embarrassment. His meeting with the Russian president came on the heels of Russias attempted assassination of a dissident on British soil using banned chemical weapons and the indictment of 12 Russians for 2016 election meddling. Instead of condemning these actions, Trump publicly sided with Putin over his own intelligence community. 3. His policy to separate migrant children from their families at the southern border was an avoidable tragedy. There is nothing wrong with a zero-tolerance policy for illegal crossings. But his administrations failure to anticipate and prepare for how to deal with migrant families was gross negligence a symptom of the chaos that is undermining his presidency. 2. His planned withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan is a gift to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. In 2017, my Top 10 Best list praised Trump for reversing President Barack Obamas disastrous withdrawal, which he said would create a vacuum for terrorists. But in December, Trump ordered the military to start planning the withdrawal of roughly 7,000 troops about half the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The news came just as U.S. officials were holding talks with the Taliban, whose No. 1 demand is the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Hardly the art of the deal. 1. His pullout of all U.S. troops in Syria will take Americas boot off of the terrorists' necks. Trumps claim that we have defeated ISIS in Syria is as bad as Obamas dismissing them as the J.V. squad. The Islamic State still has up to 30,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria and about $400 million in their coffers. The Islamic State is not defeated, and not one member of Trumps national security team agrees with his decision to withdraw. If he lets the Islamic State off the mat like Obama did in Iraq in 2011, our nation will pay a terrible price. It is notable that, with the exception of troop withdrawals and family separations, most of the items on this list were transgressions of style rather than substance. With the mute button on, the Trump presidency is pretty good from a conservative policy perspective. And yet Trumps approval rating at years end is just 39 percent because most Americans dont follow politics with the sound off. Marc Thiessen writes a twice-weekly column for The Washington Post on foreign and domestic policy. He is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and the former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush. @marcthiessen There is an unfortunate reality of being African American in Philadelphia: When we walk the streets of this city, we are more likely to be stopped by the police. Once we are stopped, we are more likely to be frisked. And an alarmingly high number of these stops and frisks are conducted without legal rationale. This is especially true for our young black men. READ MORE: Analysis: Blacks stopped at much higher rate indoors in Center City Thats the lived experience of African Americans in Philadelphia. While we didnt need data to know that, the latest reports from the ACLU of Pennsylvania in its lawsuit against the city, which dates to 2010, illustrate our experience in numbers. Seven times since the city agreed to reform its practices, the ACLU has released a report that measures the citys compliance with the agreement it signed in 2011 to settle the lawsuit. Seven times those reports have shown that the police continue to stop Philadelphians without justification, that the police continue to put their hands on Philadelphians without justification, and that the Philadelphians forced to endure this are disproportionately black men. The 2018 report on legal justifications for stops, which was released in November and draws from data collected in the first six months of the year, shows that 16 percent of those stops happened without legal justification. The city agrees with that figure. Sixteen percent may sound low, but thats more than 6,000 stops. More than 6,000 people were stopped on the street by Philadelphia police for no legal reason. Thats not fair, its not just, and its humiliating and terrifying for the people who experience it. That number should be zero. Thats why ending stop-and-frisk police practices is a core tenant of POWERs Live Free campaign. As people of faith, we feel a moral imperative to put a stop to police violence and mass incarceration in our communities. We know that there are significant racial disparities in police stops. In every police service area in the city, the percentage of stops of African Americans was greater than the local black population. And the lower the black population, the wider the disparity. After controlling for other factors, the ACLUs report concluded that the disparities across the city could not be explained by nonracial factors. Race is the reason why were stopped. While police record considerably fewer frisks than stops, the data show a regular lack of legal justification with significant racial bias in frisks, too. Police had no legal reasoning in 30 percent of the more than 700 frisks that occurred between January and June. Nearly 77 percent of frisks were conducted against African Americans. To be fair to officials particularly Mayor James Kenney, who pledged to end unconstitutional stops and frisks as a candidate in 2015 the total number of stops and the percentage of stops that are without legal justification continue to drop. Progress is being made. Still, thats cold comfort for the thousands of Philadelphians who are harassed and terrorized by unfair, unwarranted police behavior. Generations of young black folk are growing up feeling demoralized and humiliated as this problem continues. POWER and our allies and, most important, the people in our communities want to know that the mayor and Police Commissioner Richard Ross are not going to rest easy. The end goal here has never been progress. The goal is ending the unfair, unjust policing of the people of this city, period. Mayor Kenney told the Philadelphia Tribune, And were not close to being done yet. Thats a good thing POWER and the people of this city intend to hold the mayor to that pledge until the day the Philadelphia police stop harassing and terrorizing us. We hope that you will join our Live Free campaign in this important fight. The Rev. Gregory Holston is executive director of POWER (Philadelphians Organized to Witness, Empower, and Rebuild). The trial evidence was stark and brutal. In the early-morning hours of Dec. 9, 1981, Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner conducted a traffic stop in Center City Philadelphia. A scuffle ensued with the driver, one William Cook. After subduing the driver, Faulkner began to search him for weapons. It was then that Cooks brother, Wesley, approached from behind and shot Faulkner in the back. As Faulkner fell, he managed to shoot but not incapacitate Wesley. Then, as Faulkner lay helpless, Wesley Cook, also known as Mumia Abu-Jamal, executed him with a bullet to the head. In 1982, a multiracial jury of Philadelphians sentenced Abu-Jamal to death. Since then his appeals have been exhaustively litigated in the Pennsylvania and federal courts. In 2011, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his death penalty. In 2012, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied what was then believed to be his final appeal. But, in April 2018, his lawyers filed a petition for post-conviction relief alleging bias by former Supreme Court Justice Ron Castille who had joined in denying Abu-Jamals appeal. Purportedly, when Castille was Philadelphias district attorney, he had direct involvement in prosecuting Abu-Jamal and therefore should have recused himself from hearing the appeal. D.A. Larry Krasners office opposed the petition on the grounds that, because Castille did not have a direct hand in prosecuting Abu-Jamal, there was no conflict of interest warranting recusal. After conducting hearings, Common Pleas Court Judge Leon Tucker last week issued a 36-page Memorandum Opinion in which he found that Castille had no significant personal involvement in prosecuting Abu-Jamals case. Nevertheless, Tucker granted the petition because, when Castille had been Philadelphias district attorney, he had sent a June 15, 1990 letter to the Governor urging the issuance of death warrants, particularly against individuals convicted of killing police officers. According to Tucker, this letter, along with Castilles campaign speeches, campaign endorsements, and letters urging the issuances of death warrants, raised an appearance of impropriety requiring his recusal from hearing the appeal of Abu-Jamals conviction for murdering a police officer. Tuckers reasoning is, to put it kindly, problematic. If Castilles prosecutorial advocacy of the death penalty disqualified him from 20 years later hearing Abu-Jamals appeal, then where does that leave the many former prosecutors who are now sitting as trial and appellate court judges? Are they disqualified from hearing criminal cases because as prosecutors they sought to punish criminals? And, by the same token, are judges who previously practiced as criminal defense lawyers disqualified from hearing criminal cases because they once sought leniency for their clients? Clearly Tuckers decision should be appealed. But will D.A Krasner do so? If he does, then there will be years of appellate litigation to determine whether Tucker got it right. If Krasner doesnt appeal, then Abu-Jamal will be able to take yet another trip up the appellate ladder to challenge his conviction. Either way, thanks to our legal systems shameful allowance of never-ending appeals, 37 years after Faulkners cold-blooded murder, this case has no end in sight. Authors note: In the interest of full disclosure, I am close friends with Joseph McGill, my former colleague in the Philadelphia District Attorneys Office who successfully prosecuted Abu-Jamal for the Faulkner murder. I know and admire and have provided legal services to Faulkners courageous widow, Maureen. Supreme Court Justice Castille and I were colleagues in the District Attorneys Office and we have been on friendly terms for decades. Finally, many years ago, I agreed to represent an African American who had been in the emergency room where Abu-Jamal was brought for treatment within minutes of his shooting Faulkner. This bystander heard Abu-Jamal angrily proclaim that he had killed Faulkner. George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor who practices law in Philadelphia. He is a regular contributor to The American Spectator and blogs at knowledgeisgood.net. kignet1@gmail.com. Philadelphias soda tax is one controversial piece of legislation. Two years after it went into effect, debates over its merits and faults continue. Now the owner of a West Philly ShopRite has blamed it for the closing of his store. Surely this wont be the last story you read about the tax on sweetened beverages. Perhaps this time last year you were prepared to read the last story about Eagles QB Nick Foles and the playoffs. You would have been sadly mistaken. The Super Bowl MVP is gearing up for another postseason. Honestly, can you believe it? Reading this online? Sign up here to get this newsletter delivered to your inbox every morning. Aubrey Nagle (@aubsn, morningnewsletter@philly.com) A ShopRite store in West Philadelphia will close in March and its owner is placing blame on Philadelphias tax on sweetened beverages. Owner Jeff Brown, who has won praise for embracing progressive policies and opening stores in food deserts, said Wednesday that his store has seen a 23 percent loss in sales. Browns announcement is the latest attack on Mayor Jim Kenneys signature legislation and comes at the start of an election year for the mayor and City Council. Its been just 11 months since Nick Foles led the Eagles to a Super Bowl victory. No one was quite sure what to think of Foles a year ago, but no ones doubting him now as he leads the Birds to Sundays wild-card playoff game in Chicago. Eagles fans might be stressed about the Bears, but they could find comfort in Doug Pedersons lighthearted demeanor. He and Bears coach Matt Nagy shared a servant mentality as Eagles assistants back in the day, he said Wednesday. Nagy was even once an Eagles quarterback for a day. Want to join the Eagles in the Windy City this weekend? Megabus is running a Philly special. Philadelphia residents are receiving letters bearing the citys official seal, a City Hall address, and the signatures of Philadelphia City Council members. But theyre paid for by a private company to promote their water and sewer line warranty. Due to a partnership between American Water Resources (AWR) and the Philadelphia Energy Authority, AWR can use the official-looking letters to market protection plans to Philly homeowners. In exchange, the authority gets 20 percent of the sales and a $100,000 annual payment. The arrangement has made some residents wary. What you need to know today Through Your Eyes | #OurPhilly Thanks for keeping the party going, @randypikeheinzel. Tag your Instagram posts or tweets with #OurPhilly and well pick our favorite each day to feature in this newsletter and give you a shout out! Thats Interesting Opinions A primary purpose of Mummers is to poke fun at our elected leaders, and, given the backlash, this obviously worked. Id love to see more people of color get involved in Mummers. I have a lot of fun, and its a great Philadelphia tradition." Darrel Young, a black Mummer who played Jay-Z in Tuesdays Mummers Parade, on being accused of wearing blackface. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently ruled that a pregnant mother who used opiates and smoked marijuana during her pregnancy was not guilty of child abuse. Columnist Christine Flowers calls the decision dehumanizing and an abomination. Are health insurance requirements like car insurance requirements? Jonathan Fried, who is pursuing degrees at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, writes that healthy people should pay their fair share for health care. What were reading Your Daily Dose of | Pressure Pete the Groin Crusher" might be the most memorable and beloved face in Pennsylvania Hospital. The wisecracking hemostasis tech has crushed 10,000 patients' groins without breaking a sweat. For many Hispanic and Latino families in the Philadelphia area, the holiday season lasts until Sunday the 12th day of Christmas known as Dia de los Reyes Magos the Feast of the Epiphany or Three Kings Day. We like to maintain this tradition, because its part of our upbringing and keeps the family together, said Aida Devine, membership and operations specialist at Taller Puertorriqueno, a Latino cultural center in Fairhill. The celebration where families exchange gifts, have dinner, and dance to live music marks the visit of three kings, also referred to as Magi or Three Wise Men, to baby Jesus. Based on the Gospel of Matthew, church traditions suggest that the men Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar traveled across a desert for 12 days to present the new baby with three gifts. This tradition is celebrated in lots of European countries, too, so its an open invitation to everyone that encourages our children to keep their traditions, while others learn about it, said Carmen Rodriguez, a Camden County freeholder. >>READ MORE: Three Kings Day brings delight to Latino community in Camden There are celebrations planned across South Jersey and Philadelphia all weekend: Friday, Jan. 4 3 to 5 p.m., at Taller Puertorriqueno, 2600 N. Fifth St. Children can hear the story in Spanish and English of the Three Kings and receive a gift, which will be followed by a parade along Fifth Street to Lehigh Avenue. The cultural center will also host live music with local musicians. Organizers are still accepting toy donations for the children at Taller Puertorriqueno. Free. 3 to 6 p.m., at Camdens Kroc Center, 1865 Harrison Ave. The Camden County Office of Hispanic Affairs and Community Development will host musicians Trio Renacer performing the traditional Christmas music called villancicos. Food will be served and kids younger than 12 will receive gifts. Free. Saturday, Jan. 5 9:30 a.m. until noon, at Our Lady Star of the Sea church, 15 N. California Ave., Atlantic City. The Hispanic Alliance of Atlantic County will celebrate Latino culture during its Three Kings celebration with toys for children 12 and younger. Organizers are still accepting toy donations. Free. From noon to 2 p.m., at Egg Harbor City Hall, 500 London Ave. The Latino Club of Egg Harbor City will give toys to kids 12 and younger. Later, from 5 to 8 p.m., the club will host dinner with the Three Kings at Local 331 Union Hall, 1 Philadelphia Ave., Egg Harbor City. Adults: $15; children between 5 and 12, $5. 8 p.m., Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St. Salsa Caliente: Three Kings Day 2019 is for skilled and novice dancers who want to practice their salsa steps. The event starts with a cabaret-style lesson in the dance hall, and a live band performance by Wanda Rivera y su Orquesta at 9:15 p.m. General admission costs $20. Sunday, Jan. 6 5 to 7 p.m., at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, 300 S. Broad St. Grab a bite of the traditional rosca de reyes bread. Phillys Mexican Consulate and the Mexican Cultural Center will share gifts, hot chocolate, and pinatas with attendees. The Catholic hierarchy has been lacking in unity and concentrated more on pointing fingers in its response to the clergy sex-abuse crisis and needs more than new committees and improving flow charts to win back the trust of the faithful, Pope Francis asserted in a letter to U.S. bishops released Thursday. The missive addressed to more than 250 bishops gathered for a prayer retreat this week in Chicago offered no concrete proposals for punishment or accountability measures. But with its forceful language, Francis appeared to obliquely respond to divisions that have split U.S. Catholic leaders after a year marked by devastating scandals. The letter also set the stage for a high-stakes summit of bishops in Rome next month, where Francis has said he intends to define a global response to the crisis. Loss of credibility calls for a specific approach, since it cannot be regained by issuing stern decrees or by simply creating new committees or improving flow charts, as if we were in charge of a department of human resources, he wrote. Many of those things are necessary yet insufficient. >> READ MORE: Pope Francis' letter to U.S. bishops Instead, he called for a new approach to management, but also a change in our mindset, our way of praying, our handling of power and money, our exercise of authority and our way of relating to one another and the world. Copies of the eight-page letter, translated into English, were distributed to the nations bishops Wednesday night as they convened at a Chicago-area seminary for seven days of prayer and reflection an unusual, closed-door gathering suggested by Francis himself. The letter was made public Thursday. The pope wrote that he hoped the U.S. bishops would take the time to reflect upon a year that saw the resignation of top American Cardinal Theodore McCarrick for his own alleged sexual misconduct and damaging probes by state prosecutors in Pennsylvania and Illinois that uncovered hundreds of clergy sex-abuse allegations, decades of cover-up, and thousands of victims. The churchs mission continue[s] to suffer greatly as a result of abuses of power and conscience and sexual abuse, and the poor way that they were handled, he wrote. The scandals show no sign of abating this year with a federal investigation and probes in 12 states and the District of Columbia underway. But while near unanimous consensus has emerged within the U.S. hierarchy that significant new accountability measures are needed, deep divisions remain over what steps should be taken. A contingent of conservative Catholic leaders have blamed the sex-abuse crisis on homosexuals within their own ranks and have attempted to rally support to end what they see as a culture of permissiveness within the hierarchy. One the former top Vatican diplomat in the U.S. even called upon Pope Francis to resign, saying he was aware of McCarricks purported misdeeds. Other prelates, however, have argued that the current problem stems from the bishops own failure to hold themselves to the same standards as the priests under their purview. They have proposed new ideas such as a zero-tolerance policy for abusive bishops and a civilian-led panel for investigating problem prelates. The Vatican blocked a planned vote on those measures in November at the bishops biannual conference, raising concerns that they ran counter to church law and that canon lawyers in Rome had not been given enough time to review them. But even if a vote had been taken, it was not clear from the U.S. prelates days of heated debate in Baltimore that any of the measures had garnered enough support to pass. Francis responded to those divisions in his letter to the bishops this week, urging the prelates to break the vicious cycle of recrimination, undercutting and discrediting by avoiding gossip and slander. He added: As a church, we cannot be held hostage by this side or that, but must be attentive always to the start from those who are most vulnerable. In a brief response to the pope, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Houston and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, asked Francis to pray for them and said the bishops carry with us these days the pain and hope of all who may feel let down by the church. DiNardo will lead the U.S. delegation to the Vatican for the popes sex-abuse summit in Rome next month. WASHINGTON Democrats ushered in sweeping change in the U.S. House on Thursday and promised to challenge President Donald Trump as the party formally assumed the chamber majority and restored Nancy Pelosi to the speakers chair. More than 60 newly elected Democrats took the oath of office, including six from the Philadelphia area who had swept Republicans out of suburban seats and helped transform the political balance in Washington after two years of GOP control. Through all the shifts, however, Pelosi, of California, again showed her staying power, winning a vote for speaker and becoming the first person since 1955 to regain the position after losing it. Our nation is at a historic moment. Two months ago, the American people spoke, and demanded a new dawn, said Pelosi, the only woman speaker ever. They called upon the beauty of our Constitution: our system of checks and balances that protects our democracy. The day was wreathed with ceremony, optimism, and goodwill new lawmakers brought their children to the House floor and leaders in both parties extended gracious words but the backdrop was of division and uncertainty. The new class took office nearly two weeks into a partial government shutdown centered on a fight over Trumps promised wall along the Southern border, and there was no solution in sight. Trump, in an appearance at the White House, congratulated Pelosi, but continued pressing for billions of dollars to build the wall to combat illegal immigration. I have never had so much support as I have in the last week over my stance for border security, for border control, and for frankly, the wall or the barrier, Trump said. In a tweet, he accused Democrats of refusing to fund the wall to prevent him from scoring a victory ahead of his 2020 reelection campaign. Democrats have said the wall would be an ineffective tool, and pressed ahead with bills that would reopen the government, without funding for its construction. The measures passed the House late Thursday, and mirrored the homeland security funding that cleared the GOP-led Senate in late December, but with Trump opposing them Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) has said the proposals are now a non-starter" in that chamber. Pelosi, in her speech, vowed to focus on the concerns of middle-class voters who worry they are being left behind by globalization and technological change. She said Congress must restore the publics faith in a better future for themselves and their children." She called for legislation to address government ethics, prescription-drug prices, and climate change, which she described as the existential threat of our time. Democrats may advance statement votes on those issues, but few of their bills have a chance of becoming law with Republicans in firm control of the Senate extending their slight majority there to 53 and Trump in the White House. There is such excitement and positive energy in the air, and it is a shame that we are meeting this moment of a partial shutdown of our government, but what that tells me is its all the more urgent that we get to work, said new Rep. Madeleine Dean, a Democrat from Montgomery County. Many of the new Democrats were elected after vowing to put a check on Trump. Longtime Rep. Frank Pallone (D., N.J.) assumed the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the most powerful in the House, and said his first three hearings would focus on climate change, sabotage of the Affordable Care Act, and Trumps policy of separating migrant children from their families at the border. Pelosi assumed control over an increasingly diverse Democratic caucus, including four newly elected women from Pennsylvania who joined what was previously an all-male delegation. Overall, the House now includes more than 100 women, including its first two Muslim women and first two Native American women. Fifteen Democrats declined to support Pelosi for speaker, many of them representing moderate swing districts previously held by Republicans. Among them was Rep. Jeff Van Drew of South Jersey. He said simply no when asked for his vote. (His vote was later changed to present, since no was not an option.) All the other Democrats from the Philadelphia region voted for Pelosi for speaker, though Rep. Conor Lamb, of Western Pennsylvania, and Rep. Mikie Sherrill, from North Jersey, cast votes for other Democrats. Rep. Andy Kim, who narrowly won a seat in South Jersey, called for new leadership during his campaign but supported Pelosi on Thursday. When I was thinking about what I can do for the promises of the district supporting the joint base, lowering prescription-drug costs this is how I thought I could best deal with that vote," Kim said, referring to the McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst military base in his district. In Burlington and Ocean Counties, we call that lying, New Jersey Republican chairman Doug Steinhardt said in a statement. In contrast to some of the more liberal newcomers who have captured national attention, Van Drew has campaigned as a moderate and said he would attempt to bring a bipartisan approach to Washington. That I think is going to be a little harder, and Im going to work at it, here, than other levels of government, said Van Drew, who has also served in local and county offices and the state legislature. Nodding to the shutdown, he said, Here I am talking about all this lofty philosophy and at the same time we have this problem. Other Democrats hoped that the change would help break the stalemate. Many of the people that were elected on the Democratic side are very moderate. I believe that they are here to make progress, said new Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a Chester County Democrat. The new members from the Philadelphia region, all of them Democrats, were elected as part of a political wave that saw Republicans dismissed in suburbs across the country. Pennsylvanias 18-member delegation went from 13 Republicans to nine, with just one GOP lawmaker remaining in the Philadelphia suburbs, Bucks Countys Brian Fitzpatrick. In New Jersey, Republicans lost four seats, leaving them with one out of 12. Fitzpatrick vowed to take a bipartisan approach, and said he would support the Democratic bills to reopen the government. We need the adults to act like adults and not kids, he said. The change has meant a steep drop in seniority for Pennsylvania. After Rep. Mike Doyle, a Democrat in office since 1995, the states next most senior House member is Rep. Glenn Thompson, a Republican who took office in 2009. Eight of the 18 Pennsylvanians who took office at the start of the last Congress have since departed, including senior lawmakers such as Bob Brady, Charlie Dent, and Bill Shuster. The new Democratic majority could quickly be pulled in competing directions. Energetic insurgents on the left have roused the partys grass-roots voters and pressed for an aggressive liberal agenda. At the same time, the partys majority was largely built by new members from moderate areas that have historically voted for Republicans. Those new members including Houlahan, Van Drew, and Kim could face political repercussions if they push too far left. Rep. Susan Wild, who flipped a Republican-held seat in the Lehigh Valley, already has a declared GOP challenger, Dean Browning. Houlahan downplayed concerns about political friction with other Democrats. Were worried about the same issues health care, jobs, education and we just need to find solutions, she said. Few of the incoming Democrats, however, showed appetite for giving ground to Trump on the wall. Houlahan and Dean said that they support money for border security, as Democrats have proposed, but that a wall would be ineffective. Its a myth to believe that the government isnt funding border security," Dean said. "Ironically, with the shutdown weve actually harmed those who are securing our borders. We have Coast Guard members not being paid. Houlahan called a wall anachronistic." While the political battle hung as a backdrop, the day was also marked by pageantry and family. Dean brought her 7-year-old granddaughter, Aubrey Cunnane, to the House floor and carried a Bible that belonged to her beloved uncle. Houlahan recalled how her father came to the United States at age 5, as a Polish refugee fleeing the Holocaust with his mother. And one generation later, Im standing here serving, she said. TRENTON, N.J. (AP) New legislation would tighten penalties for fraud schemes like the one prosecutors say involved a New Jersey couple and a homeless man who allegedly duped people into giving more than $400,000. Republican Rep. Ron Dancer introduced the bill Wednesday. He says convicted fraudsters who use crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe in their schemes would face mandatory jail time and have to pay restitutions under his proposal. He says the bill was inspired by the headline-grabbing case involving Mark D'Amico, Katelyn McClure and Johnny Bobbitt. D'Amico and McClure set up a GoFundMe page for Bobbitt in 2017 that brought in over $400,000. They said Bobbitt was homeless and used his last $20 to help a stranded McClure. The pair and Bobbitt face charges including theft by deception. GoFundMe says it refunded everyone who contributed. ANKARA, Turkey Turkeys state-run news agency says a U.S. delegation is meeting Turkish officials to discuss a long-standing Turkish request for the extradition of Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen who is accused of being behind the failed coup in 2016. Anadolu Agency said Thursday that the delegation, which includes FBI officials, will meet with officials from Turkey's foreign, justice and interior ministries. Hurriyet newspaper said the delegation is also expected to talk to a top suspect accused of leading the coup from an air base in Ankara. Turkey has demanded the extradition of Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Saylorsburg, Pa. Gulen denies involvement in the coup attempt that killed more than 250 people. Since the coup, Turkey has arrested or dismissed tens of thousands of people with links to Gulens movement. ISTANBUL - Eleven people accused by Saudi Arabia of involvement in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi attended their first court hearing Thursday in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, according to a statement by the country's general prosecutor that was carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency. The statement, which did not name the suspects, said prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty for five of them. The defendants' lawyers attended the hearing, the statement added. Khashoggi, a contributor to The Washington Post who had written columns criticizing the Saudi leadership from his self-imposed exile in the United States, was killed in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Saudi and Turkish authorities have said the culprits were members of a 15-person team of Saudi government agents who were sent to Turkey and that Khashoggi's body was dismembered after he was killed. The Saudi government has offered shifting explanations of what occurred in the consulate, after initially denying any knowledge of Khashoggi's fate. In November, Saudi prosecutors said that two senior Saudi officials had ordered an operation to bring Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia alive, using either persuasion or force. The team sent to Istanbul disobeyed those orders and killed him, the prosecutors said. In the three months since Khashoggis death, Turkish officials have repeatedly accused the Saudi government of obstructing the investigation by withholding key details, including the location of the journalists remains. The prosecutors' statement Thursday asserted that Turkey has failed to respond to Saudi requests for evidence in the case. BEIRUT (AP) Two days of fighting in rebel-held parts of northern Syria killed dozens of people as al-Qaida-linked militants press their offensive against Turkey-backed rebels, a war monitor and activists said Wednesday. The new wave of fighting comes after President Donald Trump's abrupt announcement in mid-December that he was withdrawing 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria and Turkish threats to carry out a military operation against Kurdish fighters. With their offensive, the al-Qaida-linked fighters are trying to cut off Turkey-backed fighters in the northern enclave of Afrin from those in the northwestern province of Idlib, amid concerns that Turkey might make a deal with Russia at the expense of the extremists, said Rami Abdurrahman who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "They are trying to say we are present and no one should ignore us," he said of the al-Qaida-linked fighters. The al-Qaida-linked Levant Liberation Committee and the Turkey-backed Nour el-Din el-Zinki group blamed each other for triggering the fighting, the worst in nearly three months. The Observatory said two days of fighting in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib have killed 31 people, including five civilians. Also killed were 14 al-Qaida-linked fighters and 12 Turkey-backed gunmen. The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said al-Qaida-linked fighters are now in full control of the strategic town of Daret Azzeh and have also captured the villages of Kafrantin, Fadra, Houta and Mkalbis. The Levant Liberation Committee said Nour el-Din el-Zinki militants shot dead five people, including four of its fighters, last week. It added that a local court released an official with the Nour el-Din el-Zinki after questioning him leading to tensions in the area. Abdurrahman said al-Qaida-linked HTS took the killing as a pretext to launch its attack. Also Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron said the fight against terrorism in Syria and the Mideast must continue. The remarks came in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to a statement from the French presidency, Macron called on "avoiding any new destabilization" in the region. Separately, the Syrian Defense Ministry said a group of Kurdish fighters stationed in the Manbij area in northern Syria has pulled out, a report that was confirmed by the opposition and the Observatory. The Kurdish militia in the flashpoint area had no immediate comment. The government and the Observatory said more than 200 fighters Kurdish fighters left Manbij. The Turkish government has threatened a military offensive in Manbij to dislodge the U.S-backed Kurdish fighters because it calls them an extension of a Kurdish insurgency in Turkey and a threat to its national security. The Defense Ministry said the withdrawal of the Kurdish fighters comes as part of an agreement to restore "normal life" to the areas in the north. It was not immediately clear if U.S. troops in the area had also redeployed. U.S. patrols and bases were rolled out in Manbij to prevent friction between the Kurdish militia and Turkey. The Syrian government said shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was ready to withdraw U.S. troops that it was deploying its troops to Manbij. The government troops later withdrew from edges of Manbij after the U.S.-led coalition urged all parties to respect "the integrity of Manbij." The area has been bracing for an expected race between Turkish troops and allied Syrian fighters and government forces to fill a void left by the American troops. Russia, a main backer of the Syrian government, is in talks with Turkey on future moves in Syria. The Turkish leader has said if the Kurdish militia leaves the area, Ankara will have no more business there. _______ Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb contributed to this report from Beirut. A 30-year-old felony conviction caught up to a Delaware County mayor on Wednesday, causing him to lose his seat. Bruce Blunt, 54, a Democrat and the mayor of Morton, was ordered to be removed from office by Common Pleas Senior Judge Charles B. Burr II after a nearly yearlong court case, according to the Delaware County District Attorneys office. District Attorney Katayoun Copeland had filed for Blunts removal in February 2018 under quo warranto, a legal action that claims that under certain circumstances elected officials dont have the right to hold office. In Pennsylvania, people that have been convicted of infamous crimes, which can include felonies, are ineligible to be elected to, or hold, office. Blunt won the top seat in his hometown last January, beating incumbent Maureen Pisselli, 338-284, according to official county election totals. As a convicted felon, Mr. Blunt violated the law by assuming the position of Mayor, meanwhile wasting the valuable time of our voters and breaching their trust, compromising the electoral process, Copeland said in a statement Wednesday. "He is unauthorized and therefore incapable of holding the position of Mayor, and therefore, must step down immediately. Blunt hung up on a reporter from the Inquirer and Daily News who sought a comment. He was convicted of aggravated assault, simple assault, resisting arrest, and related offenses in 1988, court records show. Those charges stem from an incident inside Houlihans Bar in Springfield, Delaware County, during which Blunt assaulted three officers dispatched there to break up a bar fight, according to the district attorneys office. Blunt was sentenced to five to 23 months in prison for the incident. Blunt argued with the officers at the scene, and resisted when they attempted to arrest him. He then punched one of the officers in the face and assaulted the two other police officers, causing all three to require medical attention, prosecutors said Wednesday. Morton Borough Manager Robert J. Poole said he hadnt heard of Blunts removal late Wednesday, and declined to comment on who would fill in as mayor in the interim. Theres been a bit of talk in the news lately about walls, a cutting-edge technology that has been used for more than 10,000 years and that is older than the wheel. In our travels throughout the world, weve seen many examples of walls, both old and new. Their purpose has been to keep people out (or, in some cases, in). Several are memorialized with fascinating museums that convey the mind-set that went into building these structures. Seoul, South Korea: Construction on Hanyangdoseong, the Seoul City Wall, commenced in 1396 and features four main gates. The wall follows the natural contours of the steep hills that ring South Koreas capital city. The aptly named Seoul City Wall Museum, next to the ancient Heunginjimun Gate, preserves the history of this remarkable landmark. Despite the 20-foot height of the wall, one of the scale models in the museum shows someone climbing it, effectively negating its effect. Hikers can download the Seoul City Wall app that will guide them along the 12-mile swath of remaining walls. The detailed map highlights each segment along with miles walked, sights to see along the way, and even calories burned. Rome, Italy: The Museo delle Mura (Museum of the Walls) is along the Aurelian walls of the city that were constructed between A.D. 270 and 275 to defend against barbarian hordes from Northern Europe. The wall was 12 miles long and 21 feet tall. At this free museum, at the San Sebastiano Gate on the Appian Way, visitors can stroll atop the walls and take in exhibits about the walls history. Berlin, Germany: A notorious wall that was built relatively recently, the Berlin Wall famously encircled East Berlin; given its outsize role in 20th-century history, its hard to believe it stood for only 28 years. Despite the heavily armed death strip along its path, intrepid East Germans were able to tunnel under, swim around, scramble over, or even soar above it in homemade hot-air balloons. At the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse, a section of the wall that was left more or less intact now serves as a poignant reminder of the Cold War separation of the city. The adjacent museum records the history of this ill-fated barrier. Whether theyre several millennia old or were built in our lifetime, these walls became obsolete. Yet they provide an intriguing perspective on the concept of borders and security throughout history. One wonders which contemporary walls will be reduced to museum status in the future. Philadelphia natives Larissa and Michael Milne have been full-time global nomads since 2011. Pick up more travel tips on their travel blog at ChangesInLongitude.com >> UPDATE: Heres how new labor protections for Phillys domestic workers would be applied For the first time in her 20-year career cleaning houses in Philadelphia, Maria Del Carmen Diaz will soon be able to take a paid day off. Diaz, a mother of three in her 50s who left her home and her telecom job near the Gulf of Mexico for the United States in 1996, described it as a welcome benefit in a job that does not have many. No health care, no retirement fund, no contracts which means that if a client pays her weeks late or cancels last-minute, which they do, she said, she has no recourse. But paid time off is a step in the right direction, Diaz said in Spanish through an interpreter. And shes able to get it because of a new app from the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), called Alia. Billed as the first portable benefits app of its kind meaning benefits are tied to the worker, not the employer Alia, which has been in beta testing for most of 2018 but launched to the public in December, allows house cleaners to accrue paid sick days or other kinds of paid time off by collecting a small fee-per-job from clients. The app suggests a $5 contribution per cleaning, with a minimum of $5 a month. Cleaners have to accrue $120 in order to receive the benefit, which comes in the form of a prepaid VISA card. (Alia also allows cleaners to accrue disability, life, and accident insurance, but that feature is live only in California and New York.) NDWA declined to share user numbers locally and nationally. Domestic work should be protected Alia is a response to the benefits problem that NDWA, which organizes and advocates for domestic workers such as nannies and caregivers, has been hearing about for years, said Palak Shah, who runs NDWAs innovation arm, Fair Care Labs. The philosophy behind the app, she said, is that domestic work should be protected and respected just like all work." But domestic work has long been left out of worker protection laws, such as the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as domestic work often not seen as real work has largely been taken on by marginalized women of color. A growing movement, led by NDWA, has fought to change this: New York state, California, and Seattle have all passed a Domestic Worker Bill of Rights, and a similar federal bill was introduced in November. A Pennsylvania campaign to fight for domestic workers' rights, which Diaz has joined, launched in the fall. In 2016, there were roughly 16,000 domestic workers in the Philadelphia metro area, according to an analysis of census data by Penn professor Pilar Gonalons-Pons, up from 12,000 in 2010. More than half of them were Hispanic or not white and their average annual income was just above $10,000. (Gonalons-Pons tallied the numbers by counting those who reported their main occupation as cleaners, child-care workers, or personal-care aids, and their place of employment as a private household.) The original gig workers But if Alia is successful, it could reverberate across many industries. NDWA and others who study domestic work like to say that domestic workers were the original gig workers, which makes them especially instructive at a time when one in five jobs is held by a worker under contract, and tragedies like the death of bike messenger Pablo Avendano in Philadelphia last year have shined a light on these workers' lack of protections. The conditions were worried about with the future of work is really what domestic workers have been facing for generations, Shah said. Venture capitalists, cofounders, and CEOs of on-demand companies such as Lyft, Handy, and Instacart have called for the development of portable benefits programs. In 2017, Google launched a $50 million fund to, among other things, improve the quality of low-wage work. One of its first grantees was NDWA. As with any app, adoption is a hurdle. In the case of Alia, cleaners have to ask clients to sign up -- often a difficult ask depending on the relationship between employer and employee. Its part of the reason only one of Diazs clients is signed up -- she said she also barely sees most of her clients. But Shah says the Alia rollout has shown that employers generally want to help their cleaners get better benefits but dont know how. Sharon Pollak, a social worker living in Center City who has employed the same house cleaner for more than a decade, was alerted to Alia by her daughter and then explained the app to her cleaner. For Pollak, 60, it was a small way that she could support the person who cleans the bedroom and bathroom, what she called the most intimate spaces of your life. It was a no-brainer, Pollak said. South Fellini, a T-shirt company with a store on Passyunk Avenue in South Philadelphia, couldnt keep its neighborhood-pride tees in stock over the holidays. The tees feature a drawing of an indigenous person wearing a Western headdress. That logo, which dates back a couple decades, has been getting around lately. The East Passyunk Avenue Business Improvement District uses the image in orange. And the symbol can be found on maintenance holes up and down the corridors sidewalks. Talk to neighbors and youll hear that the iconic image acknowledges that the place name Passyunk is thought to derive from Lenape language, oft-translated to in the valley. But not everyone sees this as tribute. For one, Lenape people native to the region did not wear such headdresses. It doesnt really represent us, said J.R. Norwood, chief justice and councilman-at-large of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribal nations Supreme Court. Anything thats appropriating Native history should have deference to the history. Donna Fann-Boyle, an indigenous rights activist of Cherokee and Choctaw ancestry, takes similar issue: Its a stereotype. Thats exactly what it is, said Fann-Boyle, of Langhorne. Native people are very diverse. Using this stereotypical image lumps us as one people who are nonexistent. The logo recently was the subject of an article in the City Lab news site, headlined The Casual Racism of a Philadelphia Neighborhoods Manhole Covers. The South Philadelphia-based writer Imran Siddiquee notes in the Dec. 24 piece that the corridor lacks historical plaques or signs to teach people about the Lenape history of the area. In an interview, Siddiquee described walking along the corridor, a foodie haven, and growing curious what people thought of the logos, which Siddiquee connected to the racially insensitive Indian Head imagery. Popular in the 19th century, the image was used in print advertisements that offered bounties for killing indigenous people. Theres a casualness in the way that people replicated the same kind of oppression over time, said the writer, who researches racial representation in media. A lot of us grew up with these images without thinking of how they make people feel. Steven Burton, a member of the Ramapough Lenape Nation and commissioner on the New Jersey Commission on Indian Affairs, isnt optimistic that the logo will be swapped. It would be nice if they did, but I doubt it, said Burton, of Pine Hill, N.J. Burton said that many indigenous people are met with resistance when expressing complaints around optics. Adam Leiter, the executive director of the improvement district, responded to an interview request with a statement: We are open to furthering the discussion, connecting it with education, and making sure the neighborhood continues to evolve. We do recognize the sensitivity around the current usage of the logo, and are actively discussing the issues that have been raised both internally and with neighborhood stakeholders. John Zito, co-owner of South Fellini, said the company will no longer sell the T-shirts bearing the logo. Hes in favor of the district scrubbing it. After reading the article, we agree, Zito said. The idea that something we were making would make someone feel excluded is devastating to us. Were doing our best to make sure were coming down on the right side of this. Not everyone in East Passyunk feels thats necessary. Anthony Critini, the owner of A. Critini Realty, said the criticism is a sign of the times, where too many people have paper-thin skin. First of all," he said, its ancient history what happened with the history. No one here was involved back then. Critini figures he first saw the logo in the neighborhood as long as 30 years ago. One feather, two feather, three feathers what does it matter. Were trying to pay homage. Richard Lepore admires the image so much he had it tattooed on his right arm four months ago. No ones found it offensive, he said, while visiting the Plenty Cafe. He doesnt see it that way, either. To me, it dont really have so much to do with being an Indian symbol as it is a symbol of the neighborhood, he said. Karleh Ashanta Wilson, who has Black Creek heritage and lives in Folcroft, disagrees. That symbol, as person of color with Native ancestry, would make me feel unwelcome, Wilson said. Indigenous people, she went on, continue to face racism and threats to seize sacred lands. That symbol? It has residue, and it resonates with things that are happening today. According to Leiter of the improvement district, to create the logo several years ago, the district consulted with a Lenape tribal member in Florida, and that person said that while the headdress was not accurate, it was not objectionable. Norwood, the tribal official, said hes available for further consult. I think its wonderful for a community to want to honor their indigenous history, but it needs to do so accurately and respectfully," he said. "If theyre not willing to not ensure theyre doing it in the right way, then theyre willing to do the wrong way and they shouldnt do it all. Kimberly Mutcherson began her legal career as a public interest lawyer in Manhattan, advocating on behalf of underserved or marginalized individuals, communities, and causes. But as an acting assistant New York University law professor 20 years ago, she discovered she had a gift for teaching. I loved being in the classroom, said Mutcherson, who sees her new role as co-dean of the Rutgers Law School as expanding her commitment to legal education, as well as public service. I care a lot about doing work that is not just for other legal scholars, but has the potential to be meaningful in peoples lives, she told me last week, on the day her appointment was announced by Phoebe A. Haddon, chancellor of Rutgers University-Camden. I describe myself as an academic activist, she said. A Rutgers Law faculty member since 2002, Mutcherson has taught courses such as Torts, South African Constitutional Law, and Bioethics, Babies, and Babymaking. She also has served as the schools vice-dean. Rutgers Law School has 414 students in Camden and 747 in Newark, where David Lopez serves as co-dean. Kim Mutcherson ... is passionate about the value of a legal education [and] sees with clarity the role of the law in protecting individual rights, Haddon said in a statement. The chancellor also described the new co-dean as positioned to build upon the energy and momentum of Rutgers Law. Certainly our mission is to train lawyers, Mutcherson, 46, said. But were also part of the Camden community. Mutcherson is the first woman, first African American, and first LGBTQ person to serve as co-dean of Rutgers Law. She grew up the daughter of two medical professionals and the niece of a Superior Court judge, surrounded by wonderful, successful black folks in suburban Washington, D.C. From the age of 10 I knew I wanted to go to law school, she said. I saw the law as a helping tool, as a way to improve peoples lives. A 1997 Columbia Law School graduate who also earned a B.A. in history from the University of Pennsylvania, Mutcherson lives in Collingswood with her son Max, 13, and daughter Josephine, 10. She often writes about issues related to reproduction, parenting, and families; her published papers have titles such as Procreative Pluralism and subjects that include disabled parents and the health-care decision-making rights of adolescents. Mutcherson said being a mother whose children were conceived in a doctors office, not in a bedroom, as well as her experience as a black woman who identifies as LGBTQ, help her understand the struggles of others. Im really interested in people who come to parenting in ways that are considered unusual [and] in people who have been cut out of parenting, she said. Im interested in how parenting, and family, are ways to define who is a worthy citizen, and who is not. Her concern about access to medical services of all kinds has inspired a project Mutcherson and her law school colleagues have been working on in partnership with the Camden Coalition of Health Care Providers. Free legal services are provided to folks who have a range of medical needs but are unable or reluctant to get help because of outstanding warrants, or issues related to housing, child support, or disability insurance disputes, she said. Were focused on providing direct services, but all of us recognize these issues are systemic. There are systems that are failing people, said Mutcherson. Were looking for ways we can work as a community to help people who find themselves in really untenable circumstances. Haddon said these efforts by the new co-dean, as well as longstanding Rutgers programs such as legal services for the community, embody the universitys commitment to civic engagement. Kim is well-known for the really cutting-edge work that she does, the chancellor said from New Orleans, where she received the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of American Law Schools. Haddon also described Mutcherson as a collaborative leader with an energetic vision who will help Rutgers Law and Rutgers-Camden in our relationships with Cooper [Medical School of Rowan University] and our continuing interest with developing relationships with the rest of the Rutgers community. Mutcherson said she does have mixed feelings about bringing so many firsts to the office of co-dean. The distinction presents a wonderful opportunity to inspire others but also is a reminder of how such opportunities have long been few for women, African Americans, and LGBTQ people. Ive gotten an amazing number of emails from former student, alumni, even friends from grade school, she said. The amount of enthusiasm I have is matched by lots of hopes out there. I am super excited to get started. . When I arrived in Philly calling cheesesteaks subs and ordering them with American cheese instead of Cheez Whiz, I used to go to the Mummers Parade. If thats what Philly did for fun on New Years Day, I figured I would bundle up and go too. Some black Philadelphians started pulling me aside to inform me about the parades troubled history and about various incidents theyd witnessed over the years. I heard them out, but tried to keep an open mind. I usually was out of town on New Years Day anyway. Then one year, friends from my hometown of Washington, D.C., stayed over after a New Years Eve party, and I turned on the TV to introduce them to my adopted citys culture. I disappeared into the kitchen to prepare snacks, then started hearing shouts: What is this? Turn that off! I raced into my living room to see painted white men dancing around in crazy-looking African warrior costumes as part of some jungle theme. My friends proud descendants of Africa were outraged and insulted, and took out their fury on me. What kind of city allows this? one indignant friend asked. I would look in on it from time to time, but that pretty much was the end of my association with the Mummers Parade. This New Years Day, I was in Haddonfield, participating in a 5K run and hanging with friends afterward, so I didnt watch more than a few minutes of the parade. But the next day, I couldnt avoid seeing the many social-media posts by people outraged at a Mummer who appeared to be performing in blackface. As it turns out, they were wrong. The performer, Darrel Young, is actually a black member of Finnegan New Years Brigade Comic Club. Wearing an oversize black suit with Jay-Z written on the back, he had made his way along Broad Street leading a man on all fours who was supposed to be Mayor Kenney attached to a dog leash. The skit was inspired by a Signe Wilkinson cartoon from last summer satirizing Kenneys decision to continue allowing the Made in America festival on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Overall, it wasnt a bad concept, but the humor was lost on many, judging from the social-media outrage and pushback from local politicians including Council President Darrell L. Clarke, who erroneously accused the performer of having used blackface. He later retracted that claim, saying, Whatever the truth is of yesterdays performance if the individual portraying Jay-Z is in fact a member of this brigade, for instance people of color know minstrelsy when we see it." Clarke nailed it when he described the performance as minstrelsy. Thats what I thought, too, as I watched and rewatched a clip of Youngs performance. Granted, the brigade was trying to be provocative and wisely cast a black man as Jay-Z instead of using blackface, but the performance still left me looking at it side-eyed. Young looks nothing like Jay-Z, one of the most powerful and respected moguls in music. Jay-Z pulled off a considerable feat by managing to keep the Made in the America festival on the Parkway. His fans take pride in that. For them to see their hero parodied as part of the Mummers Parade was a bit much. Another organization in another place could have done the same skit and nary an eyebrow would have been raised. But this was the Mummers Parade, an event with a long and shameful history of racism. African Americans make up almost half of Philadelphia, and not all of us have recovered from those old wounds. To a lot of people who grew up in the city and even some of us who didnt the boozy parade represents more than a fun start to a new year. This week, we got a sobering reminder of that. NEW YORK (AP) Netflix faced criticism Wednesday from human rights groups for pulling an episode in Saudi Arabia of comedian Hasan Minhajs Patriot Act series that criticized the kingdoms powerful crown prince. The American comedian used his second episode, released Oct. 28, to criticize Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the killing of writer Jamal Khashoggi and the Saudi-led coalition at war in Yemen. Human rights group Amnesty International said Saudi Arabia's censorship of Netflix is "further proof of a relentless crackdown on freedom of expression." PEN America, the literary and human rights organization, said the move "legitimizes repression." Netflix said it was simply complying with a local law. Khashoggi, who wrote critically of the crown prince in columns for the newspaper, was killed and dismembered by Saudi agents inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last year. The U.S. Senate has said it believes the crown prince is responsible for the grisly killing, despite insistence by the kingdom that he had no knowledge of the operation. It blows my mind that it took the killing of a Washington Post journalist for everyone to go: Oh, I guess hes not really a reformer, Minhaj said in the episode. Netflix, in a statement Wednesday, said the episode was removed from the kingdom as a result of a legal request from authorities and not due to its content. "We strongly support artistic freedom worldwide and removed this episode only in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal demand from the government and to comply with local law," the streaming giant said. Minhaj, a former correspondent with The Daily Show on Comedy Central, told the Associated Press this summer that his Netflix show would fuse his personal narrative as a first-generation Indian American with the current political and social backdrop to examine deep issues confronting the world. In the roughly 18-minute now-censored Patriot Act monologue, Minhaj also mentions the ruling Al Saud family and its vast wealth, saying: Saudi Arabia is crazy. One giant family controls everything. In a tweet, Minhaj mocked the censorship attempt, pointing out that the episode banned from the kingdom is available elsewhere online. "Clearly, the best way to stop people from watching something is to ban it, make it trend online, and then leave it up on YouTube," he tweeted. The Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen have also come under intense scrutiny since Khashoggi's killing. The war, which began in March 2015, has killed thousands of civilians and pushed millions to the brink of famine. The Financial Times first reported that Netflix yanked the episode. The episode had been available in Saudi Arabia since late October but was pulled in December after the legal request. Only the second episode has been pulled and it is available to subscribers elsewhere. The kingdom's Communication and Information Technology Commission said the episode was in violation of Article 6, Paragraph 1 of the Anti-Cyber Crime Law in Saudi Arabia. Officials at the commission could not be immediately reached for comment. But Samah Hadid at Amnesty International said "Netflix is in danger of facilitating the kingdom's zero-tolerance policy on freedom of expression and assisting the authorities in denying people's right to freely access information." And Summer Lopez, PEN America's senior director of Free Expression Programs, said the request by the kingdom was "part of Saudi Arabia's standard playbook of repression." "While Netflix may see no option but to comply, they should be transparent about those decisions and accompany any such action with a clear statement opposing the imposition of censorship," Lopez said. "Powerful global corporations are in a unique and important position to push back against requests to censor speech, and failing to do so legitimizes repression." The Saudi cybercrime law states that production, preparation, transmission, or storage of material impinging on public order, religious values, public morals, and privacy, through the information network or computers is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine, according to Amnesty International. Saudi prosecutors have used the broadly worded law to imprison rights activists, poets, and others who have expressed views deemed critical of the government or its policies on social media. Since Prince Mohammed was named heir to the throne in mid-2017, dozens of writers, activists and moderate clerics have been jailed. Among those detained since May of last year are women's rights activists who had long pushed for more freedoms, including the right to drive before it became legal in June. Several people with knowledge of their arrest have told the Associated Press that some of the women detained have been subjected to caning or electrocution, and that others were also sexually assaulted. Netflixs streaming service expanded into Saudi Arabia three years ago. The company doesnt give subscriber numbers for any country besides the United States, but the number of customers it has in Saudi Arabia accounts for an extremely small fraction of its 137 million worldwide subscribers. ___ Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits Billy Joel will return to Citizens Bank Park for his sixth consecutive year on May 24, making him the first artist to hold a stadium residency at the venue, the Phillies and Live Nation announced Thursday. Joel, 69, also has the most performances of any artist at the venue since it opened 15 years ago. Tickets for his May 24 show go on sale Jan. 11 at 10 a.m. via Ticketmaster. A presale for American Express cardholders begins Jan. 7 at 10 a.m., but fans must register ahead of time. To celebrate Joels residency, the Phillies will feature a kiosk with the artists tour merchandise at every home game in May. Joel will also receive a key to Citizens Bank Park to commemorate the honor. Billy Joels past performances at Citizens Bank Park have been exceptional, which is why his fans in Philadelphia return year after year, Phillies executive vice president David Buck said. In addition to being thrilled that he will perform again at Citizens Bank Park in 2019, we are also honored that Billy has chosen our ballpark as his residency. That speaks volumes about his personal connection with our city. Joel last performed at Citizens Bank Park in July, with a set that included hits like The Entertainer, Only the Good Die Young, and Piano Man. As CBS reported, the show suffered from a rain delay, but Joel made it up to fans with a few extra rain-related songs tacked onto his set. The battle over net neutrality is far from over. Although the Federal Communications Commission last year officially nixed its rules governing the conduct of internet providers such as Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T, the move kicked off a backlash by states, internet activists, and other supporters of the Obama-era regulations whose effects will play out in 2019. Heres what to expect as the fight over the future of the internet enters its next act. A big federal court case against the FCC Supporters of the net neutrality rules which were intended to prevent internet providers from blocking, slowing, or selectively speeding up apps and services have taken the FCC to court in an effort to overturn its repeal decision. That case goes to oral argument in early February. On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit revealed the names of the three judges who will be deciding the case: Judith Rogers, Patricia Millett, and Stephen Williams. Of the three, Williams is a familiar face. Appointed to the court by President Ronald Reagan, Williams served on the three-judge panel that heard the previous case on net neutrality, and he was the lone partial dissenter in the 2016 decision that upheld the regulations in the face of a challenge by broadband companies. The two other judges on the list are Democratic appointees: Rogers was nominated by President Bill Clinton and Millett by President Barack Obama. Millett has argued forcefully for reproductive rights and has been called a worthy successor of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, according to Slate. Rogers is considered a politically moderate judge who is meticulous in her knowledge of the way federal agencies properly make decisions which will be the key issue facing the court when groups such as Mozilla face off against the FCC on Feb. 1. Rogers' understated style and mild manner aren't likely to give away to the courtroom which arguments she finds more compelling. But persuading her is likely the key to victory, said Andrew Schwartzman, a lecturer in law at Georgetown University. "Judge Rogers is the vote that the FCC needs to win," said Schwartzman, who quickly added that few things are ever certain when it comes to speculating about court decisions. The states vs. the federal government The D.C. Circuit's decision is expected to set the tone for other court fights over net neutrality, in particular the Trump administration's legal efforts to block California from enforcing its own net neutrality legislation. The state law, which is regarded as the strongest in the nation because it prohibits even some ISP activities that the FCC's original rules didn't, was passed last year. But moments after it was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, the Justice Department said it would sue the state. A month later, the two sides agreed to a truce: The legislation still took effect on Jan. 1, but California isn't enforcing the law; the Justice Department is suspending its litigation until the D.C. Circuit case is resolved. That resolution, however, could take more time than anticipated: The partial government shutdown is expected to close the FCC's doors Thursday, forcing the agency to send home all but its most critical support personnel. Meanwhile, the federal court system has enough money to operate through Jan. 11. While oral arguments at the D.C. Circuit will continue through January, according to the court's website, there is no word on whether the Feb. 1 oral argument on net neutrality will be postponed. But if and when the D.C. Circuit hears the case and issues an opinion, expect the battle to continue over whether states can legally establish net neutrality laws independent of the FCC. That debate could significantly shape the power of state governments on a range of issues, not just net neutrality. What about legislation? While many experts had hoped Congress would finish the net neutrality fight decisively with clear legislation that lays out how internet providers can and can't manipulate internet traffic, split partisan control of Capitol Hill isn't likely to lead to much compromise this year, analysts say. "It's conceivable that Congress will settle net neutrality once and for all in the next 18 months, but I'm skeptical," said Paul Gallant, a telecom industry analyst at Cowen & Co. And with some politicians already gearing up for 2020 presidential runs, what has become an intensely partisan issue among Democratic and Republican lawmakers could continue to divide them. Surveys show that most average Americans arent that far apart on net neutrality. But that hasnt prevented some from trying to widen the gap. In October, the Justice Department revealed in a 38-page indictment against an accused Russian disinformation operative that foreign attempts to meddle in U.S. elections included efforts to use net neutrality as a wedge. Before its agreement to cut oil supplies even started, OPECs production plunged by the most in almost two years last month. In a sign of the urgency felt by the cartel amid tumbling crude prices, leading member Saudi Arabia throttled back production, according to a Bloomberg survey of officials, analysts, and ship-tracking data. The groups pact to curb output only formally started this week. The kingdoms deliberate cutbacks were compounded by unplanned losses in Iran, which is being targeted by U.S. sanctions, and in Libya, where protests halted the biggest oil field. As a result, oil output from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries fell by 530,000 barrels a day to 32.6 million a day last month. Its the sharpest pullback since January 2017, when the group first embarked on its strategy to clear the glut created by rising supplies of U.S. shale oil. A global coalition of oil producers known as OPEC+, which comprises members of the group plus other exporters including Russia, agreed on Dec. 7 to reduce output during the first six months of 2019. Crude prices failed to rally, however, and instead slumped to the lowest in more than a year. Brent crude futures climbed as much as 5.1 percent on Wednesday as shipping data showed Saudi Arabia was delivering its announced cutbacks, but at about $55 a barrel it remains 35 percent below the four-year peak reached in early October. Investors remain concerned that OPEC+ isnt cutting enough to make way for another surge of supply anticipated from shale oil drillers in America. Theyre also increasingly worried that a slowing global economy, coupled with the U.S.-China trade dispute, will hit fuel demand and swell the pileup of unwanted crude. Slowdown fears are putting more pressure on OPEC to stabilize the petroleum markets, said Phil Flynn, a markets analyst at Price Futures Group Inc. So, let the cuts begin. The Saudis curtailed production by 420,000 barrels a day to 10.65 million last month, from a record of just above 11 million reached in November, the survey showed. Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih has promised to cut even deeper this month, going beyond the reductions the kingdom signed up to. As is often the case with OPEC, not all of the supply restraint seen last month was deliberate. Libyas production fell by 110,000 barrels a day to 1 million a day. Sharara, the countrys biggest oil field, has been off-line since it was stormed in mid-December by an armed group and demonstrators demanding better government services. The situation in the North African nation, plagued by clashes and unrest since the fall of leader Moammar Qaddafi in 2011, worsened on Wednesday when bad weather at the Es Sider port forced a separate output reduction of 100,000 barrels a day. Irans crude production fell by 120,000 barrels a day last month to 2.92 million a day, the survey showed. The countrys output has slumped 23 percent since President Donald Trump announced in May he would reimpose sanctions after abandoning a nuclear accord with the Islamic Republic. The penalties resumed in November, though the U.S. surprised importers by awarding many of them temporary waivers, which could cause shipments to rebound this month. Even with the preemptive Saudi cutbacks, OPEC has plenty of work still to do to fulfill its promises. The 11 members bound by the deal committed to an overall cut of 800,000 barrels a day, mostly from their October levels, while their non-OPEC partners pledged a decrease of 400,000 barrels a day. Production from those 11 countries is now 140,000 barrels a day below their October level, so they would need to cut about an additional 660,000 barrels a day to implement the agreement. Countries that last month rushed to maximize oil exports before the agreement took effect will now need to reverse those increases. Iraq, which bridled at the requirement to cut shipments last year, bolstered output by 130,000 barrels a day in December to 4.7 million a day, according to the survey. The United Arab Emirates, which has been expanding production capacity, also increased output. Controversial Legal Practitioner, Dr. Maurice Ampaw has said the recent death prophecy on Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia could likely have a negative impact on his sexual life. The General Overseer of Glorious Word Ministry, Rev. Isaac Owusu Bempah on New Years eve prophesied that former President John Mahama and current Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia are going to die this new year 2019. Giving the prophecy during the 31st watch night service at his church, he cautioned that the good people of Ghana should be steadfast in prayer in order to avert it from happening. Concerning the vice-president, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, it would be recalled that his convoy was involved in an accident on the Yendi-Tamale road, on Friday, December 28, 2018, after participating in the funeral of Yaa Naa Mahamadu Abdulai. Commenting on the prophecy in an interview with Kasapa FM Thursday Dr. Maurice Ampaw condemned such prophesies he said cause unnecessary fear and public to the person its directed at. He noted that this prophecy about the death of Dr. Bawumia could cause him low sex drive. I can tell you that Bawumia is not happy, this frightening prophecy will have a negative effect on his sex life, hell develop low libido and will mot be able to have sex with Samira. This is because hell be gripped with fear. When Samira is in bed with Bawumia and looks at his face shell begin to cry because shes been told the Vice President is a living dead person as hell lose his life in the course of the year. This terrifying prophesy could even give the Vice President erectile dysfunction, because normally if a man will have an erection it will be out of excitement. But with this supposed atmosphere of death around the Vice President, where is he going to get that excitement to get into the sex mood. Bawumias right to sexual excitement at least for now has been curtailed with the death prophecy, Lawyer Ampaw said. He urged Dr. Bawumia to proceed to court to stop what he described as nonsense by such prophets whose conduct he said is not anything but mere showmanship. Source: kasapafmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has inaugurated three committees ahead of its flag bearer election on January 26, 2019. The three committees are the Vetting, Appeals and Electoral committees. The flag bearer election, which is scheduled to take place in 275 polling stations across the country, will see some 270,000 delegates casting their votes to elect a flag bearer out of seven aspirants. At the end of the election, collation will be done and the results announced at the partys headquarters in Accra by the General Secretary of the party, Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia, who is the Returning Officer for the election. The seven aspirants are former President John Dramani Mahama, Mr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, Mr Alban Bagbin, Mr Sylvester Mensah, Professor Joshua Alabi, Mr Augustus Tanoh and Mr Nurudeen Iddrisu. Members of the committees The seven-member Vetting Committee is chaired by a former Minister of Interior under former President Rawlings and former Member of Parliament (MP) for the Odododiodio Constituency, Nii Okaija Adamafio, with others being the Minority Leader in Parliament, Mr Haruna Iddrisu; the Deputy Minority Leader, Mr James Klutse Avedzi; a lecturer at the University of Cape Coast, Professor Stephen Kende; a former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Professor Kwaku Danso Boafo, Mr Oscar Amenyedoho and Madam Nancy Amartefio. The five-member Appeals Committee which is headed by former Speaker of Parliament, Mr Edward Doe Adjaho, has other members as former Majority Leader in Parliament, Mr Cletus Avoka; a former MP for Keta, Mr Dan Abodakpi; a former National Organiser of the NDC, Mr Yaw Boateng Gyan and a former Member of the Ghana Police Council (GPC), Madam Alice Otuteye. The chairman of the seven-member Electoral Committee is the Director of International Relations of the NDC and former MP for the Ho Central Constituency, Mr Kofi Attor, with other members being the acting Director of Elections of the party, Mr Bede A. Ziedeng; a former Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, Mr Koku Anyidoho; the Minority Chief Whip in Parliament, Mr Muntaka Mubarak; a member of the legal team of the NDC, Mr Abraham Amaliba; a former Deputy Womens Organiser of the NDC, Dr Catherine Deynu, and the Executive Director of Development Challenge, a research policy think tank, Alhaji Haruna Rashid. Also, the directors of elections for the various regions of the country, apart from the Greater Accra and Northern regions, have also been selected. Court action Addressing a press conference prior to the inauguration of the committees, the Deputy General Secretary in charge of operations of the NDC, Mr Peter Boamah Otokonor, recounted that the committees should have been inaugurated earlier but for an ex-parte court action brought by some aggrieved members of the party challenging the guidelines for the election of a flag bearer. He said the matter was discussed with the partys legal team who had advised that since the injunction was to last for a period of 10 days, it was proper for the time to elapse before continuing with the processes towards the election of a flag bearer. Mr Otokonor said the party, after the 10 days had elapsed, had decided to resume the process while awaiting the hearing of the ex-parte application on January 14, 2019. Mandate of committees Throwing light on the mandate of the committees, he said the Vetting Committee was supposed to conduct the vetting of the seven aspirants to determine their eligibility or otherwise to contest the election. With the vetting done, he said, if any aspirant felt aggrieved by the decision of the committee, they would have the opportunity to appeal to the Appeals Committee which would look into the issues brought by aggrieved parties and determine a way forward. The Electoral Committee, he said, would be responsible for the planning and conduct of the entire electoral process as well as liaise with the Electoral Commission (EC). Ensuring transparency In the selection process for the members of the various committees, he said, extensive consultations were done with all the aspirants as a means of providing a level-playing field for all such that at the end of the day, the true will of the electorate of the party would prevail. Source: Graphic.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Minister of Inner-city and Zongo Development, Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, has defended his earlier statement during President Nana Akufo-Addos encounter with the press, at which he indicated that the Aboabo Pelele drains in the Asokore Mampong Municipality of the Ashanti Region has been dredged by his ministry. Dr Abdul-Hamid emphasised that his comment was the "incontrovertible truth" without any falsehood. The minister received public backlash and was described by residents in the area as a "liar" for making that statement. However, speaking at the media launch of the 2019 Conference of Zongo for Peace and Development held in Kumasi on Wednesday, 2 January 2019, Dr Abdul-Hamid clarified that: "It is my democratic right and democratic responsibility to ensure that what I say is really the truth and what I said is the truth, incontrovertible truth". He explained that the drain was dredged by his predecessor before he took over, adding that: "When I came as a minister, I came on a tour of the Ashanti Region project sites, and I went to the Pelele and I saw that it has been de-silted [and] subsequently, my personal assistant put out the videos". He said evidence of the dredged drain is available to prove his claim. Dr Abdul-Hamid further said that one of the persons who took to Facebook to discredit him has gone to people who were in charge of the dredging to beg for some of the de-silted sand to build his house. He described his critics claims as nothing but "mischief and propaganda". Source: Citi News Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The National Democratic Congress has urged Ghanaians to welcome 2019 with renewed sense of patriotism, selflessness, discipline and commitment to help the nation attain its aspirations. We welcome 2019 with hope and optimism, cognisance of the untold hardship and misery, the shambolic performance of the Akuffo Addo Bawumia government brought Ghanaians in 2018, the party said in its new year message to Ghanaians. Read the full statement below EMBRACE 2019 WITH A SENSE OF PATRIOTISM NDC URGES GHANAIANS The National Democratic Congress (NDC) wishes to extend its warmest new year season greetings to all Comrades and Citizens of Ghana. We welcome 2019 with hope and optimism, cognisance of the untold hardship and misery, the shambolic performance of the Akuffo Addo Bawumia government brought Ghanaians in 2018. Last year brought in its wake peculiar socioeconomic and political challenges, emanating from the incapable leadership, corruption and maladministration of the NPP government. While experts have predicted very hard times in 2019, we wish to extend a message of hope to Fellow Citizens; that the NDC is ready and prepared with unity and a common sense of purpose to rescue the nation from the clueless hands of President Akuffo Addo come 2020 General Elections, so as to put the nation back on the path of growth and prosperity. As you may be aware, the NDC have hitherto demonstrated that we have a formidable team of efficient hands, waiting to form a government that is not only sensitive to socio-economic plights of its citizens but also frowns heavily on nepotism and corruption. The new year brings in its wake, a renewed sense of responsibility and patriotism to hold the NPP accountable for their stewardship to the people of this country. We wish to assure the rank and file of our party, that we shall leave no one behind in this rescue mission; we are resolute and resolved to leave no stone unturned in the delivery of this mission to rescue our beloved nation from the socio-economic misery the NPP government has visited on the innocent Ghanaian. We extend a warm hand of invitation to all progressives far and wide, to join hands with us in this mission. We have no excuse to fail the people of this country. In line with our philosophy of solidarity and social justice, lets use this Season to show care and love to the vulnerable and underprivileged in society, whose plights have been worsened by the performance of this incapable Akuffo Addo government. The NDC, therefore, urges the nation to welcome 2019 with a renewed sense of patriotism, selflessness, discipline and commitment towards the attainment of our national aspirations. We wish you good health and prosperity in 2019. May God make our nation great and strong again. Have a blissful and prosperous New Year. Signed. Hon. Samuel Ofosu Ampofo Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Member of the Islamic Peace Council, Sheikh Aremeyaw Shaibu has observed that controversial leader of the Glorious Word and Power Ministry, Rev. Isaac Owusu Bempah is being given prominence he doesnt deserve. According to him, death is not in the command of any living being, hence the death prophecies by the man of God should be disregarded. Death does not lie in the mandate of any living being to pronounce (Quran chapter 3 vrs 145)he quoted. I heard and read about Owusu Bempahs prophecies on social media. I discussed it with my children and told them we shouldnt take them serious, he advised. Leader of the Glorious Word and Power Ministry, had predicted on New Years eve that some Ghanaian leaders including the 99-year-old chief imam, Sheikh Nuhu Sharabutu, Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and former President John Mahama will die this year. Following this pronouncement, some youth on the 2nd of January 2019 stormed his church premises at Ordorkor and vandalized some properties. But speaking on TV3s NewDay, Sheikh Aremeyaw Shaibu wants the media to rather promote utterances of leaders whose messages inspire the youth. If messages have no role in helping society develop then they have no relevance, he added. He suggested that it would have been more sensible if Owusu Bempah had walked to the chief imam with his message even though the Chief Imam is not waiting for someone to announce his death to him. The Muslim cleric noted that Rev. Owusu Bempah has succeeded in exploiting the political space, which he said has given him the impetus to go on with his doomsday prophecies that many have condemned and described as unfortunate. Meanwhile, the National Chief Imam, Sheikh Osman Nuhu Sharabutu, Wednesday urged Moslems in Ghana and beyond to shun any action that would undermine the peace of the nation and bring the image of their faith into disrepute. Source: 3news.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) is divesting itself from its hotels in different parts of the country. It is currently looking for investors to acquire majority shares in five hotels run under the Trust. The hotels to be divested are Labadi Beach Hotel, La Palm Hotel, Busia Beach Resort, Elmina Beach Resort and Ridge Hotel, Cape Coast. The Director-General of the SSNIT, Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang, told the Daily Graphic that the hotels needed capital injection to perform to the optimum. He said instead of SSNIT injecting funds to refurbish the listed hotels, the board and management had decided to invite investors to capture majority shares. Dr Ofori-Tenkorang said an advertisement for transaction advisors had been placed in the media and gave an assurance that the process for the divesting of the hotels would be transparent. The SSNIT Director-General explained that the Trust was focused on its core duties to bring maximum satisfaction to pensioners. Transaction Advisor Applicants are expected to deposit tender documents at the SSNIT Pension House in Accra on or before January 16, 2019. The documents would be opened in the presence of applicants or their representatives on the closing date of January 16, 2019. The transaction advisor is expected to provide assistance to the Trust in the development of the necessary documentation for an international competitive selection procedure for the selection of a strategic partner. The transaction advisor is also expected to provide assistance to the SSNIT management in negotiating with the strategic investor, as well as provide a valuation of the hotels under consideration in the transaction among many other terms. Plans for 2019 Dr Ofori-Tenkorang said the Trust had a number of pragmatic programmes lined up for 2019. For instance, he said, the Trust had added mobile money (MOMO) platform to receive employee contributions this year. The MOMO platform would be linked to SSNITs payment systems as part of moves by the Trust to make payment flexible and convenient for employers. Dr Ofori-Tenkorang said the project would be fully rolled out before the last quarter of 2019. We are liaising with the telcos to roll out the programme nationwide, Dr Ofori-Tenkorang told the Daily Graphic. He explained that the MOMO platform would be tied to SSNITs system. The only innovation here is to make the payment of contributions very flexible for employers, especially those with employees numbering less than 20, Dr Ofori-Tenkorang explained. He said the existing methods of paying employee contributions were still in operation. Assurance Dr Ofori-Tenkorang assured the public that the new management and board of the Trust were working effectively to safeguard the contributions of beneficiaries. We are taking prudent measures to ensure sustainability of the scheme. We are focused on efficient customer service to improve our services to the public, Dr Ofori-Tenkorang said. He said the Trust was focused on making it easier for people to give us their money and also make it easier to collect their money. We can only achieve this when we are transparent and I can assure the general public that we have intensified our internal and external controls to protect the funds of contributors, as well as make the scheme sustainable, Dr Ofori-Tenkorang continued. Initiatives He said the SSNIT was also liaising with the informal sector to address the peculiar needs of low income earners. Dr Ofori-Tenkorang said the future looked bright for the SSNIT in that the Trust had for the first time in many years received dividends of GH1 million and GH500,000 from the Labadi Hotel and Trust Hospitals respectively. He assured the public that management had resolved and was working assiduously to ensure that the scheme was sustainable for generations to come. Source: Graphic.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Hundreds of vehicle owners thronged the Greater Regional Office of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) in Accra yesterday to be among the first to register their vehicles for the year and obtain 2019 number plates. Some of the vehicle owners had anticipated being among the first to go through the advertised electronic registration process but that could not be. DVLA officials declined to explain why it did not start. It was the first working day of the year at the office and that compelled vehicle owners, especially those who had purchased their vehicles in the last quarter of 2018, to mass up on a public car park nearby as officials of the DVLA struggled for space to accommodate the large turnout. To reduce congestion on the street leading to the office, policemen were positioned on the stretch to control traffic flow. In the face of desperation on the part of some vehicle owners, middlemen, popularly known as goro boys, registered their presence on the premises, persuading some of the applicants that they (middlemen) could assist them to shorten the registration process for various fees. Long queue The Daily Graphic observed a chain of unregistered vehicles in a queue stretching from the entrance of the DVLA to a nearby car park where tens of other unregistered vehicles had been parked. About three policemen manned the entrance to the office to regulate the flow of traffic to the office and maintain law and order among the expectant patrons. Some traders were at the entrance of the office to sell their products. Some undertook vehicle embossment services and tinting of car windows, while others sold items such as licence holders, air fresheners, seat and steer covers and carpets. Inside the office, officials of the DVLA were busy at work to serve patrons. There was heavy congestion at the Customs Unit where patrons obtained clearance on the payment of duties on their vehicles, among other documentations, before they proceeded to technical inspection and identity check. It was observed that only three Customs officers undertook the exercise, a development which, according to some of the applicants, contributed to the delays. Applicants worried In an interaction with some of the applicants, they indicated that the rush for the documentation was for them to avoid penalties that came with contravening the law. Others also cited the quest for special number plates as the reason to register their vehicles on time. However, following the long wait, some of the applicants who claimed they had been queuing for not less than two hours to begin the registration process expressed frustration at the manner in which the process was being carried out. I arrived here around 8 a.m. I was directed to this car park before I could join another queue to enter the office. The process has been very slow and no official has come to explain things to us, one of them, who identified himself only as Akwasi, said. Another vehicle owner, Mr Eric Asare, who was able to complete the registration formalities, stated that even though the process was cumbersome, there is significant improvement in the process in terms of order and coordination, compared to what pertained in the past. DVLAs response In an interview, the Public Relations Manager of the DVLA, Mr Francis Asamoah Tuffour, blamed the congestion on the failure on the part of a majority of the applicants to take advantage of an opportunity offered them to begin the registration process in December 2018. Usually, vehicle owners go through about six stages to register their vehicles. We offered them the opportunity to complete about four of the processes, including clearance for road worthiness, in December last year. Those who complied are enjoying a smooth process today, he stated. On the issue of goro boys, he said: Our men are monitoring the grounds and I can assure you that by the close of the day some of them will be picked by our task force. Weija office At the Weija Office of the DVLA in Accra, it was observed that more than 150 unregistered vehicles had crowded the premises as their owners jostled in their quest to obtain 2019 number plates. In an interaction with some of the applicants, they accused officials of the DVLA of not putting adequate measures in place to forestall the chaos. In an interview with the Daily Graphic, the Senior Technician Engineer of the DVLA, Weija, Mr Rowland Dorkenoo, blamed the delay on the slow network connection at the various stages of payment". Source: Graphic.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video A deputy National Youth Organizer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Ruth Seddoh has said the irate Muslim youth who attacked and destroyed Church properties of Rev Isaac Owusu Bempah were rather too peaceful and could have done more. The NDC Youth leader is, therefore, recommending special training from Afghanistan for all Muslims in Ghana because such a training will help them a great deal. Angry Zongo youth (believed to be mostly Muslims) in Accra yesterday afternoon stormed the church premises of Reverend Isaac Owusu Bempah over his prophesy that National Chief Imam Sheikh Osman Nuhu Sharubutu will die this year. The cutlass-wielding youth numbering about 15 were seen breaking the church billboards at the entrance of the Odorkor Branch and shouting insults at Owusu Bempah in the Hausa language. They vowed to teach him a lesson for touching their Imam, brandishing cutlasses as they thronged into the church. They entered the church and destroyed church properties. Reacting to the development, Ruth Seddoh who is NDC Deputy National Youth Organizer said the conduct of the Muslim Youth was rather peaceful. Anokwa, Ghanaian Muslims are too peaceful. Some training from Afghan will help a great deal she wrote. Chief Imam begs Youth The National Chief Imam has reacted to the news of the attacks. He called on Muslims in Ghana to refrain from attacking the leader of Glorious Word Ministry, Rev Isaac Owusu Bempah. According to him, we are living in peace with fellow Christians and other religion so lets maintain that relationship. Leave him with his character and forgive him. As for death every soul shall taste it either today or tomorrow so no need to attack the man. Please leave him and forgive him, I am begging you, I am begging you, he added. Post Below- Source: mynewsgh.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Eva Mends, one of the wives of the late MP for Ayawaso West Wuogon, has been removed as the Director of Budget at the Ministry of Finance, 3news.com can reliably report. Her removal from the top job this week was based on a decision by the management of the Finance Ministry, but it is unclear what triggered such decision that is said to have been hailed by some staff. She was the first Ghanaian female to be made Director of Budget. She was appointed by the government in May 2017 to act in that position. Though Ms. Mends worked her way through the ranks to the top position, which is next to the Minister of Finance, 3news.com source within the Ministry said there were other more qualified people who know the job than her. She is currently a staff of the Ministry of Finance but no more a director, the source said, adding some of the staff including directors are happy about the development. Ms. Mends joined the Ministry as a National Service person in 1991 and held several positions including Head of The Americas Desk in 1998, Head of Budget Development in 2006 and Group Head of Public Financial Management (PFM) reforms in 2013. She is credited for her instrumental role in leading major reforms including gender responsive budgeting, Programme Based Budgeting and the development of the new Public Financial Management Act. In a related development, some departments within the Ministry of Finance have been merged based on the management decision. Directors who have had their departments merged with others are now working under some of their colleagues, the source said. The rationale behind the new management decision is not immediately known but 3news is working to find out details on the matter. Source: 3news.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Rev Isaac Owusu Bempahs church at Odorkor, Accra was flooded by heavily armed police officers deployed from both the Odorkor Police Station and the Accra Regional Police Command after some young men vandalized his church on Wednesday, 2 January 2019 to protest against his prophecy that National Chief Imam, Sheikh Nuhu Sharabutu will die this year. The New Years Eve prophecy got some Muslim youth angry and they stormed the pastors Glorious Word and Power Ministry International church at Odorkor and vandalized the worship centre. It has become a tradition for some pastors in Ghana to always make doomsday prophecies every New Years Eve. Meanwhile, Sheikh Nuhu Sharabutu has appealed to all Muslims in Ghana to forgive Rev Owusu Bempah. In a short video message, the Chief Imam said Muslims have always lived in peace with Christians and continue to do so, therefore, that relationship should not be compromised. He said no man knows the time or day that death will strike anybody, adding that death was inevitable for every human being, thus, there was no need attacking Rev Owusu Bempah. He urged Muslims not to do anything to divide the nation. "Please leave him and forgive him, I am begging you", he pleaded. Apart from the Chief Imam, Rev Owusu Bempah prophesied that Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, as well as former presidents John Agyekum Kufuor and John Mahama, will also die this year. Source: classfmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Ghana Railway Company Limited is set to begin a full passenger operation on the Accra-Nsawam rails the sector minster, Joe Ghartey has revealed. The test run of the Accra-Nsawam locomotive to pave way for normal operations to start has successfully been completed. The 24-kilometre rail-line was suspended after an accident on the Tesano side in October last year. Ghana Railways Company Limited successfully completed a test run of its locomotive from Accra to Nsawam. Within the month of January, God willing full passenger service will be restored between Accra and Nsawam, Mr Joe Ghartey told Peacefmonline.com. He also noted that Ghana Railways Company Limited has also successfully completed its test run of the Accra to Tema service. For his mercies still endure ever faithful ever sure. This year, 2019, will be a year of blessing for the railways sector. I firmly believe this and I ask you to join me in prayer so that the vision of the President for a modern rail network throughout Ghana will be achieved, the sector minister added. The Accra-Tema train normally leaves Tema at 6:30 am through Asaprochona in Sakumono, then to Baatsona, Shangrila, Dzowulu, Achimota, Odo at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, then to Kantamanto in Accra. Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/ Twitter: @Washman5/ Instagram: Ambrose_wash Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The National Chief Imam has called on Muslims in Ghana to refrain from attacking the leader of Glorious Word Ministry, Rev Isaac Owusu Bempah. Sheikh Dr. Osmanu Nuhu Sharubutu reacting to an attack on Rev Owusu Bempahs church by some angry youth Wednesday afternoon asked that the Muslim community maintains the peace between them and Christians over the years. According to him, we are living in peace with fellow Christians and other religion so lets maintain that relationship. Leave him with his character and forgive him. As for death every soul shall taste it either today or tomorrow so no need to attack the man". "Please leave him and forgive him, I am begging you, I am begging you," he added The attack on the Odorkor branch of the Glorious Word Ministry was the youths way of expressing their fury against some prophecies made by the leader of the church during Mondays watch night service. They threatened to deal with Rev Owusu Bempah till he comes out to apologise for the prophecies of doom. Rev Owusu Bempah made several predictions during the 31st December service in his church, noting that several prominent men, including an ex-president and a former first lady, would die in the course of the year. The prophet also stated in his revelation that a National Islamic funeral beckon which would be the funeral of a Vice President of a sitting president and a Chief Imam, if nothing is done to avert the doom. Source: Ghanaweb.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Ministry of Information will hold the maiden Constitution Day Public Lecture on Monday January 7 as part of the first celebration of Constitution Day. The Day is in recognition of the commencement of the 4th Republican constitutional dispensation on January 7, 1993. It is also set aside to acknowledge the countrys collective efforts at ensuring that the tenets of democracy, rule of law and principles of constitutionalism are upheld A statement issued in Accra said the lecture will be delivered by the rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Professor Philip Ebow Bondzi-Simpson, at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Bondzie Simpson will be speaking on the topic Constitutionalism in Ghanas Fourth Republic: Towards Functional Performance. The Ministry is urging the general public to participate in the public lecture on Monday. The lecture will be broadcast live on major media platforms and the Ministry of Informations social media handles. Profile of Speaker Prof. Philip Ebow Bondzi-Simpson, a Professor of Law, Barrister and Solicitor. He holds a Post graduate diploma in Education from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana; an S.J.D. in Corporate Law from the University of Toronto, Canada; an LLM in Human Rights from the University of Saskatchewan; a Qualifying Certificate for Enrolment as Barrister and Solicitor from the Ghana School of Law; and an LLB degree from the University of Ghana. Prof. Bondzi-Simpson has over thirty years working experience in consulting and education. He was the Director of Legal Services and Investigations at the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and a Senior Lecturer at the Ghana School of Law. He is a member of the Ghana Bar Association, where he has served as the chairman of its Committee on continuing Legal Education and Professional Development, member of the University Teachers Association of Ghana, member of the International Association of Law Schools Deans Forum and the Convener on the Conference of Law Deans (Ghana). He is married with five children. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Supreme Leader's Moves Seen As Successive Blows To Iran's Moderates 01/02/19 By Golnaz Esfandiari, RFE/RL By appointing a conservative ally to head the influential Expediency Council, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appears to have made a move to strengthen the hard-line camp and weaken the moderates -- and also may have cleaned up his line of succession. Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani "This is not good news for the moderates within the establishment," Paris-based political analyst Taghi Rahmani said of Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani's appointment to both head the Expediency Council and take a seat the powerful Guardians Council. The Expediency Council is tasked with mediating disputes between parliament and the Guardians Council, which determines whether laws are compliant with the Islamic republic's constitution and also vets election candidates. In addition to taking on his new roles, Larijani will retain his seat as head of the country's Judiciary. "It demonstrates that Khamenei prefers the extremists to manage the country's affairs," Rahmani said. Larijani, a close ally of Khamenei who has been blacklisted by Washington for rights violations that took place under his leadership of the Judiciary, is said to have close ties to the country's military and intelligence bodies. He's accused by rights activists of overseeing hundreds of executions and using the Judiciary as an instrument of state repression and a tool to silence dissent. Larijani's elder brothers also hold key posts in the Islamic republic. Ali Larijani is currently Iran's parliament speaker and Mohammad Javad Larijani heads the Judiciary's human rights council. In taking on leadership of the Expediency Council, Larijani replaces Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi Shahrudi, who died last week at the age of 70 following a long illness. Khamenei's decision was announced in a December 30 decree that was issued by Iranian media. It stated that Larijani, 57, would also join the 12-member Guardians Council. It is common for Iranian political figures to hold multiple state posts. Given the unique role of the Expediency Discernment Council in the management, persistence &consistency of the establishment, &following the passing of Ayatollah Shahroodi, I appoint Ayatollah Amoli-Larijani as the new chairman of this council& a jurisprudent in Guardian Council. pic.twitter.com/wfsCSmBUCv Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) December 30, 2018 The decision comes at a challenging time for Iran, which is dealing with the reimposition by the United States of tough economic sanctions, including penalties targeting the country's oil exports, following U.S. President Donald Trump's decision in May to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear program. Prior to Trump's decision to abandon the deal worked out with other world powers and Iran, the Islamic republic was hit earlier in the year by a wave of antiestablishment protests that spread to more than 80 cities and towns. Larijani is a critic of second-term President Hassan Rohani, who was a key player in the hammering out of the nuclear deal, which was highly unpopular with the hard-line camp. "I think primarily Khamenei's goal is to strengthen Larijani. He's moving things around while keeping Larijani at the top," U.K.-based analyst Saeed Barzin said in an interview with RFE/RL's Radio Farda. Both Larijani and the 70-year-old Rohani have been touted as potential successors to Khamenei, who underwent prostrate surgery in 2014 amid long-standing rumors that he has prostate cancer. Barzin suggested that Larijani's appointment to the Expediency Council could be mean Khamenei is grooming him for succession. "It could be a move to consolidate Larijani's position for leadership, [although that] is speculation for now," Barzin said. "This will hurt Rohani and will weaken his position, and will tie his hands in the future." Larijani's appointment as chairman of the Expediency Council comes amid rumors that hard-line cleric and defeated presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi is poised to become head of the Judiciary once Larijani's term ends in the summer of 2019. Ebrahim Raisi Raisi, the custodian and chairman of the Astan Quds Razavi, the organization that runs Iran's holiest sites, has been also mentioned among Khamenei's possible successors. The head of the Judiciary is appointed by Khamenei for five-year terms. Speaking on December 22, Prosecutor-General Mohammad-Jafar Montazeri did not confirm or deny the rumors about Raisi taking over the Judiciary, saying only that "for now, it's in cyberspace." Rahmani says Khamenei, 79, appears to be shaping "the succession core." "He seems to be creating a circle between the commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) along with Raisi and Larijani and even [one of Khameni's sons] Mojtaba Khamenei to be in charge of the country's future leadership team and in control of the country," Rahmani told RFE/RL. However, Rahmani noted that the moves does not mean that everything will go according to Khamenei's plans. "Setting up the chess pieces does not necessarily means that Khamenei will achieve his wishes," the analyst said. "Iran's political conditions and civil society...can influence things, and other players who have remained silent could also play a role in the future." Radio Farda broadcaster Amir Mossadegh Katouzian contributed to this report About the author: Golnaz Esfandiari is a senior correspondent with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. She can be reached at esfandiarig@rferl.org Police are still looking for the man who shot and killed 7-year-old Jazmine Barnes over the weekend in Houston, Texas. Barnes was with her mother and sisters in their car when the gunman, described as a bearded white man in his 40s, pulled up in a red pickup truck and fired several shots into the car. What we know so far: The gunman was a stranger who began shooting into the car randomly Jazmine's mother, LaPorsha Washington, 30, told ABC13, "As I turned around and looked back at the street, I heard shots start firing and they came through my window, broke my glass, and hit me in my arm. They sped off in front of us and the truck slowed down and continued to fire as he was in front of us." They were on their way to get coffee Sunday morning when the shooting occurred just before 7AM. Washington told CNN that she threw herself over her daughter in the front passenger seat and told her three daughters in the back to "get down." Washington was shot in the arm, and shattered glass injured her 6-year-old daughter. Jazmine was hit and pronounced dead at the scene. "[My daughter] said, 'Momma, Jazmine's not moving. She's not talking,'" Washington told ABC13. "I turned around and my 7-year-old was shot in the head." Police haven't ruled out a racist motive Police are calling the shooting "random and senseless," and are not ruling out the possibility of it being a racially motivated hate crime. "It's our belief that it was totally unprovoked, whatever it was, and we're leaving no stone unturned," Sheriff Ed Gonzalez of Harris County told reporters. "We're going to leave every motive out there as a possibility. There was nothing to indicate that the family did anything wrong in any way. They were simply just driving along the service road when this happened to them." How you can help The family has set up a GoFundMe page to assist with expenses (Washington, Jazmine's mother, was also injured in the shooting). Along with the police, they are also asking anyone with information to come forward. Shaun King and civil rights lawyer Lee Merritt have put together a $35,000 cash reward for tips leading to the arrest of the shooter. Photographs of the suspect's four-door red pickup truck have been released to help identify and find the gunman. "I'm asking, from the bottom of my heart," Jazmine's father, Chris Cevilla, said at a news conference on Monday. "Whoever knows anything, please step up at this point in time and help me and my family get justice for my baby girl." Photo via GoFundMe International Paper to Acquire Spanish Corrugated Packaging Company Envases Grau Jan. 3, 2019 - International Paper on Dec. 24 announced that the company signed an agreement to acquire Envases Grau, a family-owned packaging business in Spain, for an undisclosed amount. Envases Grau is a well-established company known for its excellent service and the quality of its products, said Eric Chartrain, General Manager of International Paper's corrugated packaging business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). This acquisition complements our current network of packaging plants and expands the size and weight of our business in Spain, where it is expected that the demand for boxes will continue to grow. With this operation we will increase our capacity and possibilities for high quality printing, which will allow us to offer a better service to customers and strengthen our position in the fresh fruit and vegetable market, Chartrain added. About International Paper EMEA With regional headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, International Paper EMEA manufactures and markets office and uncoated freesheet, pulp, corrugated packaging, containerboard and both coated and uncoated paperboard for customers across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. SOURCE: Online News Reports We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. Oswego, NY (13126) Today Mostly cloudy skies with a few showers this afternoon. High 69F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 59F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. PM Modi Interview: Delhi Journalists Association (DJA) seeks apology from Congress Chief Rahul Gandhi New Delhi (January 3, 2019): Delhi Journalists Association (DJA), affiliated to the National Union of Journalist (India), in a press statement released today, said that it is not amused at the use of adjective pliable by Indian National Congress President Rahul Gandhi for the ANI interviewer who conducted a wide-ranging and long interview with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In a joint statement issued today, DJA president Manohar Singh and General Secretary Pramod Kumar said badmouthing a journalist simply because she conducted an interview with a rival political leader is in poor taste and amounts to shooting the messenger; its unwarranted and unbecoming of a senior leader of a national political party. The association said that it is of the opinion that journalists have a professional responsibility to seek information, ask questions and get answers. All journalists everywhere know that making your interview subject uneasy is not the best strategy and turning an interview into interrogation or inquisition may dry the information channels and thus become counter-productive, the statement said. The DJA said that many Congress stalwarts were journalists and they knew media ethics. Hence, in line with its long and brilliant past, the Indian National Congress should express regret and apologise over the incident. We expect the party to reiterate its respect for the freedom and dignity of the press, added Shri Manohar Singh. Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina Antiquities Museum (BAAM) in Alexandria opened in 2002, and it is probably the only museum in the world built in a library. It houses antiquities found in situ during the construction of the Library of Alexandria. Having roughly 1,000 to 1,200 pieces, it displays the enormous diversity of Egyptian cultural heritage through the ages. Walking among its treasures means going on a journey through five millennia. The museum presents the long history of Egypt from ancient times to the Graeco-Roman period, through the Coptic period, to the Islamic period, and finally to the printing press that Napoleon Bonaparte brought to Egypt at the end of the 18th century. This article presents some of my favourite pieces from the amazing collection of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Antiquities Museum from ancient and Graeco-Roman Egypt. Statuette of Imhotep (BAAM 591) Imhotep was the most famous architect in ancient Egypt and the vizier of the owner of the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, king Djoser of the Third Dynasty. This bronze statuette shows Imhotep sitting with his hands resting on his knees holding a papyrus roll. Imhotep was honoured throughout ancient Egypt. As a result, he received many titles such as high priest, sage, chief scribe, and son of the god Ptah. Imhotep was later considered the god of wisdom, writing and medicine. The ancient Greeks associated him with their god of medicine Asclepius. Ptah was the major deity of the ancient Egyptian capital Memphis. The ancient Egyptians believed that he created the world by thought and word. The statuette shows him as a man shrouded like a mummy. His hands, projecting through his shroud, are clasped around the kingship (was), stability (djed) and life (ankh) emblems. Ptahs shoulders are covered with a broad collar with a counterpoise hanging from the base of his neck. This group represents Thoth as an ibis standing before Maat who is squatting on a chair flanked by two other small ibises. The upper part of the tripartite headdress of the goddess has a hole in which was probably fixed her symbol of an ostrich feather. Box in the shape of a naos (BAAM 799) This kind of box was typically varnished black. It was intended to keep the gilded images of deities. Many of these boxes were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun containing different images of deities. They were opened during ceremonies and then closed when carried or kept in tombs. The specimen here is well-manufactured and could have been part of the funerary equipment of a great king of the 18th Dynasty. The uraeus-snake and blue crown or khepresh worn by this statue confirms the royal origins of the figure. The style and treatment of the snake, crown and face date it to the fourth century BCE. This block statue of the priest Djed Khunsu Iouef Ankh shows him seated in a squatting position and holding symbols of power and wealth. He wears an incised wig. The statue was discovered in the Karnak Cache. Hieroglyphic inscriptions cover the statue with the names and titles of its owner and his ancestors, prayers and offerings to deities. This is the wooden anthropoid coffin of a man called Iba, the son of Ankh Hor, ruler and treasurer of Upper Egypt. The coffin is fully decorated in the shape of a mummy resembling Osiris with an upturned ceremonial false beard and wig. The eyes are inlaid with ivory and ebony. Iba wears a large multicoloured necklace, and the sky-goddess Nut appears on the chest area. The goddess Isis with her wings spread out is portrayed on the feet, while the goddess Nephtys appears on the head. The three goddesses offer their protection to the deceased. The coffin lid is also decorated with texts from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead and the base shows hieroglyphic inscriptions. Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE) was the conqueror of the ancient world. When he was 13, Alexander became a student of Aristotle and became interested in philosophy, medicine and science. He later conquered the Persian Empire. This head of Alexander the Great shows his conventional features. The eyes are looking up. The hair is curly and abundant, but indistinct from the back. Traces of red can be noticed. The nose is straight. Two cavities at the top of the head indicate that a crown or a decorative element used to surmount it. Mosaic depicting a sitting dog (BAAM 859) The ancient Greeks used mosaics to decorate floors in public places and private dwellings by using tesserae in different ways. This floor mosaic uses tesserae made of minute stone cubes ranging from one to four millimetres in size. The central medallion bears the picture of a dog, the first time such a motif has been found on a floor mosaic in Alexandria. The dog is resting on his hind legs close to an upturned Greek vessel. The naturalistic image expresses strength and vitality, which points to the ability of the artist to use this medium to achieve clarity of design and definition. The coat of the dog and its spots and red collar are executed very precisely. The main colours include black, white, and yellow, yet the artist is able to convey light and shade in a brilliant manner. The angle of the dogs portrait shows it turned three-quarters from the viewer, and the front part reflects light, while the rest of the body is in the shade. The gradation of the shading on the upturned bronze pot shows light reflected on the central part, while the sides are darker. The ancient artist has indeed been able to express great depth in a hard medium, and this mosaic is a testament to the sophistication of mosaic workshops and artistry in ancient Alexandria. Perhaps the theme of this floor is a scene from a theatre play or from a literary work of art from Alexandria during the first three centuries BCE. Head of Ptolemy III Euergetes (The Beneficent), the oldest son of Ptolemy II and his wife Arsinoe I. Ptolemy III succeeded his father to the throne of Egypt in January 246 BCE. Head of Queen Berenice II (BAAM 2) Berenice II, The Benefactress, a queen of Egypt, was the wife of Ptolemy III Euergetes, who married her on his accession in 246 BCE. She ruled Egypt during the war led by her husband against the Syrian king Antiochus III. The poet Callimachus extolled her beauty and wrote her praise in a poem named The Lock of Berenice. This head of Queen Berenice II has Hellenistic features such as protruding eyes that gaze directly forward and a face with a grave expression. The hair is styled in the form of a diadem surrounding her head. The legend says that Berenice, hoping for her husbands safe return from his campaigns, cut off a lock of her hair and dedicated it to the Temple of Aphrodite. This lock later disappeared from the temple and was said to have become a star that bore the name of the queen. The poem by Callimachus tells this legendary story with much honour done to the queen. This statue of a Ptolemaic queen is probably of the Ptolemaic queen Arsinoe II, the wife of Ptolemy II. It must have been slightly larger than life-size. On the right breast, as on numerous other statues of Ptolemaic rulers, there is a knot that joins the ends of the shawl the woman wears. Scholars frequently refer to this knot as the Isis knot. The dress provides more clues about the identity of the subject: the handling of the fabric recalls the marble work of Hellenistic artists showing Aphrodite in wet drapery. The folds undress the figure more than they dress it. This statuette is from the Tanagra Collection. Tanagra was the name of the city in which a large number of these statuettes was found, and they are made of burnt clay with colours depicting clothes, hairstyles, and facial features. This kind of statuette appeared in Alexandria in large quantities from the fourth until the second century BCE. This painted terracotta statuette represents a schoolgirl sitting on a chair and copying out her lessons on a wax tablet on her lap. his bust is a Roman replica depicting the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. The head is set on a shaft, and the figure has stump-like arms. It is a Roman replica of a Greek original, and it dates to the fourth century BCE. The Roman influence is obvious in the realistic features, as well as in the hairstyle and the beard, while the Greek influence appears in the rounded face and the meditating look that has a touch of perfectionism. Many portraits of infant boys appear to have had hairstyles resembling that of the Emperor Trajan (98-117 CE). This marble statue portrays a sleeping boy sitting on a rock. He is wearing a Roman tunic and has a conical head cover. His sandals are finely carved. A similar statue is displayed in the National Museum in Rome, where the boy is holding a lantern in his right hand. However, the lantern here is missing. This statue was found in 1997 by a fisherman in Lake Borollos in Kafr Al-Sheikh. I hope you have enjoyed this small tour of items from the collection of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Antiquities Museum from ancient and Graeco-Roman Egypt. I also hope that one day you will be able to visit the Library of Alexandria and its museums, especially the Antiquities Museum. The writer is director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Antiquities Museum. *A version of this article appears in print in the January 3, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Masterpieces of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Museum Short link: What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 716-372-3121 or email nfinnerty@oleantimesherald.com. Olean, NY (14760) Today Rain showers this morning with numerous thunderstorms developing during the afternoon hours. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 69F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 52F. Winds light and variable. The supervisor-general of Egypt's Antiquities Repatriation Department, Shaaban Abdel-Gawad, has told Ahram Online that Egypt will send an official inquiry to Scotland asking for a certificate of possession and export documents for a casing stone purportedly from the Great Pyramid of Giza. The BBC reported earlier today that the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh will display on 8 February a casing stone from the Great Pyramid of Khufu, which will be displayed for the first time outside of Egypt along with other ancient Egyptian artefacts. Abdel-Gawad said that the Egyptian law for the protection of antiquities stipulates that trading or exporting antiquities is a crime, and if the block is found to have been smuggled out the country, all procedures will be taken to return it home. Renowned Egyptologist Zahi Hawass asserted to Ahram Online that the block could not be from the Great Pyramid, whose outer layer was destroyed over the centuries. There is no image showing the casing of the Great Pyramid," Hawass said, adding that the outer layer of the pyramid was made of granite, like the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure, and not of limestone as the National Museum of Scotland claims. Hawass added that the only remaining casing from the Giza pyramids is found at the top of the Khafre pyramid and the lower part of the Menkaure pyramid. Short link: The executive European Commission is calling on EU countries to admit nearly 50 migrants stranded on two rescue ships allowed to anchor temporarily off Malta, a spokesman said Thursday. The Netherlands and Germany have each offered to admit some of the migrants but only if other EU countries do the same, highlighting anew the European Union's long-running deadlock over sharing responsibility for migrants. Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos has been speaking with officials in EU capitals to admit 32 migrants aboard the Sea Watch 3 and 17 others aboard the Sea Eye, both operated by European charities. "Avramopoulos calls for the member states to provide their support and contribute to this joint effort to disembark those on board safely," Commission deputy spokeswoman Mina Andreeva told a news conference in Brussels. "More solidarity of all member states is needed," said the spokeswoman for the Commission, which is the EU's executive arm. Though Malta has refused to admit the migrants aboard Sea-Watch 3 and Sea-Eye, it announced Wednesday it would allow them to "take shelter" in Maltese waters due to the deteriorating conditions on board. Italy and Spain -- both of which are frontline countries -- have also refused to accept them. Migrants have been frequently stranded aboard ships that rescued them since Italy's populist anti-immigration government began turning them away last summer. Since coming to power more than six months ago, the Italian government has been demanding greater solidarity from reluctant fellow EU states. Andreeva said the latest standoff demonstrates how "predictable and sustainable solutions for disembarkation and allocation are urgently needed in the Mediterranean," she said. EU member states have failed to agree on a permanent mechanism to relocate migrants who reach EU shores even though arrivals have dropped sharply since a peak more than three years ago. More than one million people, most of them fleeing Syria's civil war, entered the bloc in 2015 in Europe's biggest migration crisis since World War II. Some 113,482 migrants crossed the Mediterranean to reach European shores last year, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which said 2,262 people lost their lives or went missing making the perilous journey. Short link: Troops and air strikes have killed more than 280 Boko Haram militants since the Niger government started an operation against the group last week, the defence ministry said. Boko Haram has attacked Niger, Chad and Cameroon from its base in northeast Nigeria, where it has been fighting for more than nine years to carve out an Islamist caliphate. Niger's defence ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that the army mounted a sweep operation against the group last Friday along the southeastern Komadugu river, which separates Niger from Nigeria. More than 200 militants were "neutralized" by air strikes and 87 were killed by Nigerien troops on the ground, it said. In June 2016, more than 30 Nigerien soldiers were killed during a Boko Haram attack on the town of Bosso, prompting Chad to send 2,000 troops to help its West African neighbour counter the militants. Those troops were withdrawn in October 2017, raising concern about security in the Diffa region. Short link: Britain is more likely to end up leaving the European Union without a deal if parliament rejects the agreement Prime Minister Theresa May has negotiated with Brussels, Brexit minister Stephen Barclay said on Thursday. "No deal will be far more likely if MPs (Members of Parliament) reject the government's Brexit deal later this month," Barclay wrote in the Daily Express newspaper. Short link: You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close Cedartown, GA (30125) Today Sunny to partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 91F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight A stray thunderstorm is possible throughout the evening. Partly cloudy skies. Low 67F. Winds light and variable. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Turkey and Iraq will deepen their cooperation in the fight against terrorism, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday. Erdogan was speaking at a news conference with his Iraqi counterpart Barham Salih. Turkey has said it would take over the fight against Islamic State following the U.S. decision to pull out of Syria. Ankara also carries out regular air strikes on Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) bases in northern Iraq. Short link: Samuel Melaye, brother to Dino Melaye, senator representing Kogi west, has kicked against the police siege at the lawmakers residence... Samuel Melaye, brother to Dino Melaye, senator representing Kogi west, has kicked against the police siege at the lawmakers residence. The police have been at the Abuja residence of Melaye since last week, seeking to arrest him over alleged culpable homicide. Speaking during a Channels TV programme on Wednesday, Samuel said the senators whereabouts have remained unknown following the siege. He said the government and the police have made the life of Melaye a living hell for the past few months. Asked by the anchor about the senators whereabouts, he responded: I cannot confirm categorically because they have not allowed anybody into that house. They shut the house, they are the ones opening the gate. My parents are supposed to be in that house as we speak. Dino is not the only occupant of that house, there are staff. According to him, the case they are raising against us happened in July; I was there in the car, the policemen shot at us. I have six bullets riddled on that car. So how can they turn around all of a sudden and say we are the ones shooting at the police? He said the senators orderlies have been taken away since over seven months ago. And because of the injustice on a daily basis, we cannot believe anything they say or do. I believe they are out to harm my brother, he added. They went into the compound, arrested the security man, beat him up; the cleaner and bodyguard the same thing. WHY IS THE POLICE AFTER MELAYE? The police said the senators armed thugs attacked police personnel, shot and wounded Sgt. Danjuma Saliu, attached to 37 police mobile force (PMF) on stop and search duty along Aiyetoro Gbede, Mopa road in Kogi state. Jimoh Moshood, police spokesman, had also said the officers at his residence have a warrant for his arrest and that a letter was written to the national assembly inviting over the matter which he refused to honour. The General Overseer of the Latter Rain Assembly (LRA), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has revealed he told President Muhammadu Buhari that he (Ba... The General Overseer of the Latter Rain Assembly (LRA), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has revealed he told President Muhammadu Buhari that he (Bakare), will become the 16th president of Nigeria. Bakare said President Buhari is the 15th president or Head of State of the country and claimed that he (Bakare) will be the next. In an interview in Calgary, Canada, the fiery cleric explained that he is currently building a political family from across the world, which would be deployed for future political aspirations. As far as politics is concerned, it is not over truly; you would find out that I shifted gear in the year 2018, I did what I have never done before. This would be the fourth or the fifth visit to the Nigerians in diaspora, letting them know that God sent them to this different to learn, that their time is at hand. The time is at hand when many of them would have to come back and contribute their meaningful quota; they can speak to their governments on behalf of our people. Festus Keyamo, spokesman of the campaign of President Muhammadu Buhari, has asked Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the People... Festus Keyamo, spokesman of the campaign of President Muhammadu Buhari, has asked Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to accept defeat ahead of the 2019 presidential election and endorse Buhari. Keyamo said this while responding to Atikus call for a probe of Buharis family over their alleged ownership of substantial shares in Etisalat and Keystone Bank. The senior advocate of Nigeria had earlier asked Abubakar to provide evidence to back his allegations to keep quiet. Some shareholders in the company had vindicated the president, saying the sale of two companies followed due processes. The investors said neither Buhari nor his family members own shares in either Etisalat or Key Stone Bank. In a statement on Wednesday, Keyamo said the rebuttal by the shareholders shows that Abubakar and the PDP are running a we-are-all-corrupt campaign. He asked Atiku and the PDP to apologise to the family of the president and Nigerians. They have no moral compass, no scruples, no direction in their present attempt to smear just everyone in sight in order to run a campaign of we-are-all-corrupt, the statement read. Rather than respect the feelings of Nigerians by offering clear-cut responses to straight-forward allegations of tax-evasion, grand corruption in and out of office, impending sealed indictment waiting for him in the US, Atiku Abubakar has decided to drag the world down with him as he goes down in a blaze of infamy. This is the classic hallmark of a sinking campaign boat, clutching at straws, as Nigerians have woken up to the realisation that these are deceitful people who have nothing to offer. That is how its Vice-Presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi was reeling out false statistics with a straight face throughout the Vice-Presidential debate. Till today, he has not apologized to Nigerians for taking them for a ride. It is a real shame. We call on Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the PDP to apologize to Nigerians and especially the family of the President for adopting this unwholesome tactics and telling tales by moonlight that have clearly backfired. The public space is now full of jokes about President Buhari buying the whole of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, the National Stadium and even the Presidential Villa. Instead of making a mockery of a serious campaign with such infantile lies, Atiku Abubakar should admit it is all over for him and the PDP, throw in the towel and endorse the candidacy of President Buhari. We would be sad to see that happen because democracy desires a healthy contest, a serious challenger and a competent opposition. But as it is, with nothing more to campaign about, it is the only way for him and his party to save face and still retain some modicum of honour before the Nigerian people for future engagements that is if they survive this massive rejection by the Nigerian people as a result of their bare-faced lies. Femi Fani-Kayode, a former Aviation Minister, on Wednesday reacted to the endorsement of President Muhammadu Buhari for a second term ... Femi Fani-Kayode, a former Aviation Minister, on Wednesday reacted to the endorsement of President Muhammadu Buhari for a second term by the Spiritual Director, Adoration Ministry, Enugu Nigeria, Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka. Mbaka had claimed that if God was against Buhari, He would have allowed him to die. In his new year message, the clergyman said Buhari remained the best presidential candidate. Among all the Presidential aspirants, Buhari stands in the best position in winning the presidential election, Mbaka had said. Reacting to Mbakas endorsement, Fani-Kayode described the cleric as an agent of Satan. In a tweet, Fani-Kayode wrote: If God does not want Buhari he could have died Father Mbaka. Short man devil has spoken! I am convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that this creature from the 7th circle of hell is an agent of satan. Members of Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) have advised the Senator representing Kogi West senatorial district, Dino Melaye, to end th... Members of Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) have advised the Senator representing Kogi West senatorial district, Dino Melaye, to end the police siege on his home by turning himself in to the operatives. BMO, in a statement by its Chairman, Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary, Cassidy Madueke, on Wednesday, said this would be the best way to end a siege that is capable of sending wrong signals about the Nigerian political elite to the local and international observers. There has been a police blockade of Senator Melayes Maitama-Abuja home by operatives out to effect a warrant of arrest for what the police spokesman, Jimoh Moshood, says it is a case of Criminal Conspiracy and Attempted Culpable Homicide against the federal lawmaker. The statement reads: For starters, as a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Dino Melaye swore to an oath to uphold the laws of the land, but for more than five months, he has failed to honour an invitation over the alleged shooting of an on-duty Police officer Sergeant Danjuma Saliu by some armed men in his convoy on July 19 2018 in Kogi State. This is inspite of pledging on national television few days after the incident that he would show up at the state police command to show that their account was false and illogical. In that interview, the Senator insisted that the police account was wrong and infact accused the police of shooting at his convoy of 20 vehicles on his way to a scheduled event. BMO is concerned that rather than allow the law to take its course, the Senator is resorting to pontificating. It is sad that at a time that Nigerians expect Senator Melaye to show a good example, he has opted to play up religious sentiment by quoting a passage in the Holy Bible that has nothing to do with the situation at hand. The issue at stake is the near-fatal shooting of a Police operative by men who were said to be in his convoy, so there is enough reason for him to clear his name as a federal lawmaker. The group wondered why the Senator failed to honour the police invitation to at least clear his name even when he had between July and December been involved in legislative duties and other activities in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). There was ample time for the Senator to clear his name especially after the Police sent a formal letter of invitation to the Clerk of the National Assembly dated July 23 and which was duly acknowledged and is now in the public domain as proof that due process was followed. Infact three months later, the Senator joined some leaders of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to stage a protest at the Force Headquarters. Pictures from the protest showed Senator Melaye, shirt unbuttoned, in a virtual confrontation with mobile police men right in front of the national police headquarters in what could be interpreted as a subtle message to the Kogi Police command. The other subliminal message is that members of the political elite can get away with what an average Nigerian dares not do, it said. BMO also hailed the police for their patience, professionalism and maturity in handling a situation that could have been tagged as a clamp down on government critic. The group added that It is instructive that it took the police several months to make a serious attempt to arrest the Senator, and even at that, they ensured they had a valid warrant of arrest before making a move. Now these operatives have in the last few days been obstructed from performing their duties under the guise that the Senator is not in his Abuja residence while the PDP and its leaders are using the opportunity to play to the gallery by seeking to ridicule one of the nations critical institutions. A Saudi prosecutor has asked for the death penalty for five of 11 suspects held over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the country's consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, the state news agency SPA reported on Thursday. The call came during the first court hearing in the Khashoggi case. Short link: Flag debate About the debate on the POW flag on Interstate 35, with due sympathy to the POWs, the Highway Patrol station on the North Belt Highway is flying the flags the same way where it is the U.S. flag, the POW flag, then the Missouri flag, so I dont think it is because of the Memorial Highway in Kearney, Missouri. Border question As I read in the paper about more of these border problems down in Mexico and the U.S., my question is why isnt Mexico doing anything? Why are they letting these people cause so much trouble on their side of the border? Are they doing anything or are they just leaving it up to us? Rule of law Id like to thank Ken Newton for his column in Tuesdays paper about Missouri and our governor, the rule of law, what the voters have decided on and whether or not that should stand. He stated that quite well and I hope people will pay attention. Stamped out Donald Trump is wanting to cut back on food stamps, which is something that should happen. Now the grocery stores will complain because these are the only people who can afford to buy a lot of expensive food that the rest of us cant afford to buy. Skeptic There were two important points left out of the article about electric cars. If electric cars are so efficient, why do they need a $7,500 tax subsidy from American taxpayers? Also, ask any Highway Patrol trooper, if electric cars are in any accident, hazmat has to be called to the scene. Border plan? Not many years ago Democratic leaders were saying a border wall was a necessity for border security. Now that President Trump campaigned on building a wall for national security, they are 100 percent against it. What is their plan for border security? They have none. In the meantime, parts of the government remain shut down due to Democrats playing politics. In and out In reply to Stuck here, you say the wall is a stupid idea, but if you ever wanted to escape the United States, you wouldnt be able to. Well, if you cant get out, they cant get in. Been there Regarding the government shutdown, it isnt a Trump thing. President Obama did the same thing for 16 days in 2013. The issue was the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Wasnt it John McCain who caved and gave him the vote needed for passage? Editors note: The McCain vote was on an attempt to repeal the ACA, after Obama left office. Stay out They do build walls around prisons, that is a fact, but they dont build them to keep people from coming in, they build them to keep people from getting out. Think about it. My side While 60 percent of all Americans may believe we dont need a wall, if you ask the Border Patrol, ICE and people who live on the border, they will say we do. Those are the people I am going to side with because they are the ones who have to deal with illegal immigration every day. WILMINGTON, N. C. Nancy Judah Mize, 73, of Wilmington, passed away Dec. 26, 2018, at Autumn Care of Myrtle Grove after a short illness. Nancy was born in St. Joseph, on May 4, 1945, the daughter of Willis and Helen Butler Judah. She was a graduate of the 1963 class of Central High School and attended Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. She began her career at AT&T as a customer service representative and progressed through several levels of management until her retirement as District Manager in New Jersey. She chose Wilmington for her retirement years where she enjoyed life in her Willoughby Park neighborhood. She arranged for her mother to join her there and she cared for her until her death in 2005. Known for her quick wit and good sense of humor, she was truly one of a kind. She will be missed by her friends and family. There are no immediate survivors. She will be buried with her parents at Memorial Park Cemetery. There will be a celebration of life scheduled at a later date. Online guest book and obituary at www.meierhoffer.com. As published in the St. Joseph News-Press. The two men shared a ship on a 5,000-mile cruise from Brazil. Of course, one served as a lowly crewman and the other, well, commanded the U.S. Navy. Still, the fellow travelers had something in common. Floyd Minyard remembers his brief exchange with President Harry Truman. The resident of Faucett, Missouri, did not wait to finish high school before enlisting in the Navy. In 1947, Minyard got assigned to the USS Missouri. That September, Truman undertook a state visit to Brazil, returning to the United States aboard the battleship that two years earlier had hosted the signing of the Japanese surrender that ended World War II. It also happened to have the name of Trumans home state. Truman gave a speech on board and asked about the hometowns of Missourians in the audience. Minyard lived near Weston before joining the service. I wasnt standing as far from Truman as here to that door, Minyard said, pointing across a room at his Buchanan County residence. He said, Do you know Brownie Hull? And I said, Sure I know him. He knew all those people. Truman took pride in being from Missouri, and Minyard reveled in his luck being assigned to the USS Missouri. The first time I ever saw it, I couldnt believe my eyes, he recalled. That was the biggest ship I had ever seen in my life. I was really intrigued with it. After basic training in San Diego, Minyard joined the Missouri crew, first spending days at sea on landing craft meant to acclimate new sailors to the open ocean. (I never got seasick one time, he said.) First assigned as a ship electrician (They found out I didnt know anything about electricity.), the Northwest Missourian worked in the spud locker, a storage area off the galley. Later, he handled maintenance on the battleships 40-mm anti-aircraft guns. Documents from the Truman Presidential Library & Museum indicate that Truman had been invited earlier in 1947 to pay a state visit to Brazil. He accepted the offer from President Eurico Dutra in order to also attend an inter-American conference on post-war security. The so-called Rio Pact, signed by Truman in Rio de Janeiro, established a mutual defense agreement in the hemisphere where an attack against one nation would be considered an attack against all. Truman flew to Brazil and selected the USS Missouri because of his great affection for the ship for the journey back to Norfolk, Virginia. During the cruise, Truman, his wife, Bess, his daughter Margaret and the large traveling party made themselves at home while sailors went about their normal duties. The president, disciplined about his morning walks, would stroll on deck unless the spray of heavy seas chased him indoors. Truman and other travelers came out after dark to search the skies for the Southern Cross. One night, they took in a movie, Cheyenne, starring Missouri-born Jane Wyman. Minyard remembers one of their activities in particular. The president took part in the boisterous crossing-the-Equator celebration, a Navy ritual of long standing. Those sailors who had yet to go past the Equator (called pollywogs) faced an initiation, what services later deemed as hazing. This evening, one old salt got too aggressive swinging a shillelagh. There was just sailor after sailor being knocked off their feet. I guess Bess really took notice of that, Minyard recalled. She stopped the initiation. The veteran regards fondly his time in the Navy, but he served his hitch and turned down an offer to re-enlist. My life on (the ship) was good, but I wouldnt want to go through the same thing twice, he laughed. In the Navy, he sailed in the Arctic Ocean, saw Greenland and Iceland and the islands of the Caribbean. In later life, he also would travel abroad, to Germany and France, among other places. I patted each one of the legs just to say, by golly, I walked around the Eiffel Tower, he said. As for that long-ago trip sharing a ship with President Truman, Minyard reflects on it from a global perspective. I was from Missouri, Truman was from Missouri. He lived in Kansas City, and I lived in Weston, Missouri, or around Weston at that time, he said. We were just more or less neighbors. BERKS Group, a division of the St. Joseph-based News-Press & Gazette Co., has completed the acquisition of Swiss-Tech LLC. Founded in 1965, Swiss-Tech manufactures low-to-medium volume, mission-critical precision machined components for the medical, aerospace and industrial end markets. The company, based in Delavan, Wisconsin, has 125 employees. We are thrilled to partner with Swiss-Tech. We were immediately drawn to its talented leadership team, the companys strong quality systems and excellent customer relationships, said Jay Longbottom, operating partner for BERKS Group. We share a common vision with the management team and are prepared to make capital investments to support the continued growth of the business. Swiss-Techs current management team will stay in place, continuing its strategic direction while maintaining a strong culture of continuous improvement. We are very excited about this new partnership. The BERKS Group has demonstrated its commitment to provide the long-term resources necessary to accomplish our goals and provide our customers with world-class service, quality and manufacturing expertise, said Frank Meiland, president of Swiss-Tech. BERKS Group represents the diversification effort of News-Press & Gazette Co., a privately owned business with extensive holdings in broadcast television, newspaper and manufacturing across the United States. Founded in 1951, the company is currently led by the third and fourth generations of the Bradley family. The company continues to seek further investments in technology infrastructure, education technology and precision manufacturing. The Environment Committee of the Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (GPIC) has announced the launch of 15th GPIC Environment Programme for Environmental Research for the academic year 2018/2019. This was revealed during the closing of the programme of the induction meeting held at the Companys club. Students and supervisors who represented 20 secondary schools from Bahrains Private and Public schools were selected to participate in this years competition, the company said in a statement. GPIC President Dr Abdulrahman Jawahery said this was the first programme of its kind that provides support and sponsorship for scientific research in the field of the environment. He said the Company Management has been careful to monitor a specific budget each year to provide the necessary funding for scientific research. The programme, according to GPIC, has funded 302 types of research so far out of the 1100 research topics that have been introduced since the start. The programme was launched in the academic year 2004/2005 in cooperation with the Department of Student Services at the Ministry of Education. It has since then continued uninterrupted. Trained engineers visit the public and private schools from various levels and offer environmental lectures in both Arabic and English. Over the course of the programme, lectures were given at 332 schools, where 24,000 students benefitted. Te Companies Control and Consumer Protection directorates of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism (MOICT) have intensified their VAT inspection efforts following its induction on 1 January 2019. The VAT rate for Bahrain is set at the standard GCC rate of 5 per cent, however, a zero rate and exemption can apply in certain cases. Affirming the measures taken, the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism (MOICT), Zayed bin Rashid Al Zayani said the mechanisms implemented by MOICT will ensure the correct application of the VAT. MOICT measures, the Minister said, will prevent businesses from charging VAT on goods and services that are not subject to VAT. Bahrains VAT Law and its Executive Regulations outline the penalties for non-compliance, which include hefty fines, administrative closure and referring cases to the Public Prosecution. These, according to an EY report, include penalties for failing to register for VAT (up to BHD10,000) and failing to provide the tax authority with information it requests (up to BHD5,000). Under Article 63, the following violations could be regarded as tax evasion, and could result in imprisonment: Failing to register for VAT within 60 days of the registration deadline, Failing to pay VAT within 60 days of the payment deadline, Failure to provide a tax invoice, Charging VAT on non-taxable items and Unrightfully recovering input VAT. The ministry, Al Zayani said, will closely monitor the movement of goods and services across the Kingdom, urging investors to comply with the Kingdoms laws and regulations. Last year wrapped up with an event that many feel will be the beginning of fundamental change that will impact Syria throughout 2019, with the start of steps to rehabilitate the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad among the Arab countries. The UAE and Bahrain reopened their embassies in Damascus and restarted flights to Syria in steps that some believe are intended to pave the way for readmitting the Syrian regime to the Arab League at the 30th Arab Summit in Tunisia in March 2019. On 16 December, Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir visited Damascus aboard a Russian plane and met with Al-Assad. The two men agreed to find new approaches for Arab action based on respecting national sovereignty and not interfering in the domestic affairs of Arab countries. Although Al-Bashir is the subject of a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, he is facing serious political and economic troubles at home, and carries little real weight in the wider Arab world, his visit had key political implications since it was the first by an Arab president since the start of the Syrian Revolution in 2011. The Russian Foreign Ministry praised the visit, hoping it would contribute to restoring relations between the Arab countries and Syria and reinstate Syrias membership of the Arab League. Egypts intelligence agency revealed this month that a meeting had taken place between Ali Mamluk, director of the Syrian National Security Bureau, and Egypts head of intelligence, Abbas Kamel, in Cairo. The Syrian news agency said the two sides had discussed a variety of issues of common interest, including political, security and anti-terrorism matters. Mamluks visit is significant due to Egypts membership of the four-way alliance with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain directed at Qatar, and Cairo may be spearheading the position of these countries towards the Syrian regime. A few days earlier, the first direct flight from Damascus to Tunis touched down after a seven-year hiatus. This was followed by statements by Jordans King Abdullah II on 23 December that our relations with Syria will be restored to where they were in the past preceded by the re-opening of the Nasib border crossing between Jordan and Syria in mid-October. Hossam Zaki, deputy secretary-general of the Arab League, told a news conference on 24 December that there could be a change regarding the Syrian regimes membership of the League. There are discussions among member states on this matter, Zaki said, adding that a decision could be taken at the Arab Economic Summit in Beirut at the end of January. The Arab League suspended Syrias membership of the regional grouping because the regime had not met its commitments to the Arab action plan for resolving the Syrian crisis or protecting Syrian civilians. It introduced political and economic sanctions against Syria and called for the withdrawal of Arab ambassadors from Damascus at the end of 2011. Some Lebanese figures close to the Syrian regime and Iran are lobbying for Al-Assad to be invited to the economic summit in Beirut, though this has been countered by resistance to normalising relations between Lebanon and the Syrian regime. Tempers are rising between the two camps, and they could lead to clashes threatening the Lebanese government. The UAE and Bahrain justified their moving closer to Al-Assad and restoring diplomatic relations with Syria by pointing to the need to offset Iranian hegemony, protect Syria from regional interference and help maintain the countrys unity and sovereignty. The Syrian opposition has rejected what it calls these frail excuses for re-establishing diplomatic relations with the regime, especially since the Iranian and Russian interference on behalf of Al-Assad has meant taking control of the regimes policies and military outlook. The US and the Europeans have said that it would be premature to readmit Syria to the Arab League before a genuine political transitional process takes place. After his recent decision to withdraw from Syria, US President Donald Trump asked Saudi Arabia to pay for the cost of rebuilding Syria instead of the US, apparently rescinding his previous demand for a political transition. The Syrian regime is being promoted on several planes, and it is likely that the Arabs will lean towards restoring relations with it. Todays individual steps could be followed by further efforts on a larger basis. The Syrian opposition says that the Syrian peoples demands for freedom, democracy and social justice should not be ignored by the Arab countries. It says that the regime has destroyed 40 per cent of Syrias infrastructure, caused the death of one million Syrians and contributed to the destitution of ten million Syrians overseas. The regime must change before the Arab countries re-establish links with it, the opposition says, adding that it will have less incentive to do so if the Arab countries re-introduce Damascus to the Arab League. *A version of this article appears in print in the 3 January, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Rehabilitating the Syrian regime Short link: The High Criminal Appellate Court has upheld the verdict issued against a Bahraini convicted of joining the terrorist group Al Ashtar Brigade. The convict was also charged with attempted murder of a police officer apart form possessing weapons and funding the terror organisation. According to court details, the convict along with accomplices launched an attack on police checkpoint in Sitra in May 2017 using a Kalashnikov weapon, which was illegally acquired. The officers had a narrow escape in the attack. The convict, first accused in the case, was handed down 10 years imprisonment along with the second accused. The nationalities of both accused were revoked. It is alleged that the first accused was in charging of training and recruiting new members to the terror organisation, which intended to attack and kill police officers apart from targeting government institutions. The second accused, upon interrogation, told prosecutors that it was a fugitive hiding in Iran who gave him orders to launch an attack on police officers. He also received financial support for doing so. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has strongly condemned the terrorist explosion that took place in the city of Cotabato, the Republic of Philippines, and resulted in the death and injury of a number of people. The ministry expressed its deep condolences to the families of the victims while wishing those injured a speedy recovery. It also affirmed the Kingdoms solidarity with the Republic of Philippines and reiterated Bahrains firm stance in rejecting all forms of violence, extremism and terrorism. A crude bomb, blamed by security forces on a small pro-Islamic State militant group, killed two people and wounded dozens on New Year eve, Monday in the southern Philippines, an army commander said. Militants operate in the south of the largely Christian Asian country and some are known to have links with groups abroad, including al Qaeda and Islamic State. Major General Cirilito Sobejana, an army division commander, told Reuters the bomb bore a Daesh-inspired signature, referring to Islamic State by another name. The bomb went off at the entrance to a shopping mall in the city of Cotabato in the early afternoon. As well as the two people killed, 28 were wounded, he said. A second bomb was recovered in the same area, he said. Sobejana said he suspected the blast was retaliation for the killing by government troops of seven members of a small militant group that has pledged allegiance to Islamic State. Let us know what you're seeing and hearing around the community. Submit here (Newser) White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced a surprise briefing Thursday, giving just five minutes notice before it began, Mediaite reports. President Trump himself opened the briefing after Sanders introduced him, CNN reports. Two New York Times writers noted on Twitter that while the POTUS once "stuck his head in" to the briefing room to answer a question or two, this is his first time at the podium. Trump himself pointed out that fact as he finished speaking, adding that it was his first time and "I've done it for you, and I'm very proud of that." He left without taking questions. The briefing was about Trump's desired border wall, with Trump bringing out Border Patrol union representatives to talk about why the wall is necessary and will be effective. story continues below But, as CBS News reports, Trump "offered little new information" as he made his first public comments since Democrats took control of the House of Representatives, and gave no clues as to how he plans to fund the wall. He said the meeting with Border Patrol representatives had been long planned, and since it "came at a very opportune time, ... I said let's go out and see the press you can tell them the importance of the wall." CBS notes the "chaos" that ensued when the briefing was announced, with many seats in the room left empty as the press corps was caught off-guard. CNN says the whole thing was a "statement," not an actual "briefing," since no questions were taken. (Trump also opened the briefing by congratulating Nancy Pelosi.) (Newser) Houston Texans star DeAndre Hopkins will collect $29,000 this weekend for his team's playoff game against Indianapolis. Hopkins, however, said Thursday that all of that money will go to the family of Jazmine Barnes, the 7-year-old girl killed in what appears to have been a deliberate attack by the driver of a pickup, reports ESPN. "When I see Jazmine Barnes' face, I see my own daughter," Hopkins tweeted. "On Saturday, I will be playing in your honor, Jazmine." Meanwhile, a separate reward for information leading to the whereabouts of the driver has risen to $100,000, reports the Houston Chronicle. story continues below The driver of the pickup has been described by Jazmine's mother, LaPorsha Washington, as a white man, perhaps in his 40s. Washington says he pulled up next to her car on Sunday and opened fire. Civil rights activists including Shaun King and attorney Lee Merritt see the murder as racially motivated, though Houston police have stopped short of agreeing as the investigation unfolds. Actress Gabrielle Union is among those urging the public to help find the suspect. "Find him!" she tweeted. "This evil monster must be stopped!" (More on Barnes' murder here and here.) (Newser) Rashida Tlaib was sworn in to Congress Thursdayas one of the first two Muslim women ever elected to the House of Representativesand her swearing-in was historic in multiple ways. Tlaib, a Democratic Socialist representing Michigans 13th congressional district and the first Palestinian-American woman to serve in the House, was sworn in using Thomas Jefferson's personal copy of the Koran, a 1734 English translation by George Sale that is housed in the Library of Congress, USA Today reports. It's the same two-volume copy that Rep. Keith Ellison was sworn in on 12 years ago when he became Congress' first-ever Muslim member. She was also wearing a thobe, a traditional Middle Eastern garment, for the ceremony, the Cut reports. story continues below Muslim women were celebrating Tlaib's swearing-in as well as the swearing-in of Congress' other first Muslim female member, Ilhan Omar, ThinkProgress reports. Omar, the first refugee and the first Somali-American to serve in Congress, is a Democrat representing Minnesota's 5th congressional district. As Vox explains, her clothing choice is also historic; she will be the first to wear a hijab in Congress. A 181-year-old rule banning head coverings on the House floor was overturned as of Thursday. One more headline in the wake of the historic swearing-in: Tlaib's sons dabbed on the House floor to celebrate their mom's first vote, reports Esquire, which has video. (This Congress is "like none other.") (Newser) The words "Gladstone Police" printed in large letters on a window next to a bicycle rack wasn't enough of a deterrent for an alleged thief, whom Oregon officers accuse of trying to steal a bike right from under their noses. A surveillance video shared Monday on Facebookviewed more than 360,000 timesshows a man with bolt cutters fidgeting with a bike chained to the rack outside the doors of the Gladstone Police Department on Dec. 27, per NBC News. An officer then emerges and confronts the masked suspect, pushing him against a wall as he looks ready to flee. Per Fox News, Adam Valle, 26, is now facing charges of theft, criminal mischief, and felony possession of weapons, along with headlines questioning his intelligence. (Read more weird crimes stories.) (Newser) It is now day 13 of a partial government shutdown, and neither side looks willing to budge on the main sticking point of money for a border wall. The pain of the shutdown is spread unevenly throughout the country, with some states affected more than others, notes WalletHub. The site crunched the numbers on several metrics, including the number of federal jobs, money allotted for federal contracts, and the number of people on food stamps. It is perhaps no surprise that if you count DC, it ranks as the hardest hit. On the other end of the spectrum? Minnesota. The top 10 in each category follow: Most affected states: District of Columbia, 78.59 score out of 100 New Mexico, 65.95 Maryland, 65.70 Hawaii, 62.91 Alaska, 61.08 Virginia, 56.61 West Virginia, 46.25 Mississippi, 45.56 Alabama, 43.46 Arizona, 40.73 story continues below Read on for the least affected states. Least affected states: Ohio, 24.66 North Dakota, 23.69 New Jersey, 19.30 Kansas, 18.84 Wisconsin, 17.56 Indiana, 17.02 Iowa, 16.49 Nebraska, 16.40 New Hampshire, 15.59 Minnesota, 10.54 Click for the full rankings . (Or read about the origins of state names .) Syrias Kurds were among those most shocked by the decision of US President Donald Trump to withdraw US forces from Syria at the end of last year, though their disarray was echoed among many in the Syrian opposition and some in the US government and military. The Kurds control swaths of territory in northern Syria and form the Syrian Democratic Forces affiliated to the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) associated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that Turkey categorises as a terrorist group. They entirely depend on US support for protection against Turkey and the Syrian opposition that they have fought against throughout the Syrian Revolution. Without the US backing, the Kurdish militias would not have survived in the face of the enemies of the Kurds, whether Turkey, the armed Syrian opposition or the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group. Some US officials also criticised Trumps decision to withdraw, describing it as a great victory for IS, Iran, [Syrian President] Bashar Al-Assad and Russia, adding that it could make it more difficult to find partners to confront radical Islam. Members of Congress condemned what they called a rushed decision that does not serve US interests and undermines its credibility with allies in the Middle East a reference to the US abandoning the Kurdish militias fighting in northern Syria. The Kurds viewed the sudden US decision as a stab in the back and a betrayal of the thousands of fighters who have died for the cause. They then decided to switch sides and embrace the Syrian regime, surrendering their positions to regime forces in response to threats from Turkey and the Syrian opposition. A spokeswoman for the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units, a Kurdish militia, said these troops and the regime were one family. The Syrian army announced its troops had taken back control of the town of Manbij from the Kurds upon the latters request and raised the Syrian flag there. Russia, Iran and the Al-Assad regime have all welcomed the US decision to withdraw, viewing it as a victory for their policies. However, regime forces have not in fact entered Manbij, and according to local residents the regime and the Kurds simply contrived a ruse whereby the Kurds raised the Syrian flag over military installations for propaganda purposes. Some Kurdish sources said the US decision to withdraw and its deal with Turkey would allow regime troops to deploy on the frontline between the Kurds and the Turkish troops in northern Syria to separate the two sides under Russian supervision. Flags would be raised on government buildings in Manbij, they said, but without the presence of regime forces or actual military control. Trump said his decision was intended to protect the lives of US soldiers in a war that did not concern them and to cut the material costs of the war for the US forces in Syria. However, not a single US soldier has been killed in Syria, and there are only 2,200 US personnel in Syria, far fewer than the 15,000 in Iraq. The cost of the US presence in Syria is also paid for by the Arab Gulf countries. The US decision seems more likely to be related to Turkey. Statements by Turkish officials prior to Trumps announcement showed Turkeys intention to take the war east of the Euphrates River in order to dismantle separatist Kurdish groups and push them back from the Turkish border. The US responded at the time by saying that its partnership with the Kurds was temporary and was a military and not a political alliance, hinting that the US would soon abandon its Kurdish clients. Several US statements noted that Washingtons relationship with Ankara was a strategic one, especially since both countries are key members of the NATO alliance. The US announced the timeframe for withdrawing US troops from Syria would be 60 to 100 days, but that state department personnel would be removed immediately from the country. Many Syrians believe that the US decision will not be applied verbatim or will be modified to keep some forces, especially in eastern Syria, to fight IS remnants on the border with Iraq and block Iranian expansion. The US will only withdraw from north and northeastern Syria, such sources say, leaving these areas to be policed by Turkey. This will still create a new reality on the ground, however, and impose new alliances that could lead to open-ended battles that serve the Syrian regime and Russia. The opposition believes Al-Assad and his allies will benefit most from Trumps decision because they will be able to take back a large part of the country in the north as they did in the south when the US abandoned the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) after a deal with Russia. Southern Syria was handed over to the regime without bloodshed due to an unfair deal that resulted in the relocation of fighters from the south to the north, leaving the south open to the Russians and the regime. The new decision will see the surrender of areas under the control of the armed Syrian opposition, with the blessing of the US and under the auspices of Russia. Turkey will likely insist on continuing its fight against the Kurds, aiming to take control of the area and expel the Kurdish militias to protect its borders. Israel is also concerned about Trumps decision, the consensus among Israeli commentators being that it is a slap in the face for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu while rewarding Russia and Iran which are Al-Assads partners in the war. There is concern that Irans Al-Quds Brigade will try to take advantage of the US withdrawal to infiltrate regime forces in northern Syria and guarantee that the arms corridor from Iran to Syria via Iraq remains open. In recent years, relations between the separatist Kurds and Iran have warmed, and it is possible they will form an alliance. Some Arab sources say that Trumps decision was preceded by talks with Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. As a result, Russia will rein in the Lebanese Shia group Hizbullah, a client of Iran in Syria, in return for the US withdrawal while allowing Israel to attack Iranian targets in Syria. Turkey is continuing its negotiations with Russia, with a military intelligence delegation visiting Moscow this week to develop understandings about the fate of areas under Kurdish control. It is likely Turkey will impose its terms since it is a US ally, and it has presented itself as warring against terrorist groups such as IS, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, the Al-Nusra Front associated with Al-Qaeda and Kurdish groups it lists as terrorists. Many believe the US decision to depart from Syria is a green light for Iran to become more involved in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, facilitating the rehabilitation of Al-Assad on the world stage. It crowns Russia as the sole superpower in the Middle East and will allow it to breathe a sigh of relief though this will come at the expense of a greater Iranian presence in Syria. The US may well come to regret leaving the Syrian arena before guaranteeing a political solution. The decision raises the question of whether the US will leave Syria for good, not only for the sake of its interests but also for those of its allies in the Middle East, among them Israel. *A version of this article appears in print in the 3 January, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: US withdraws from Syria Short link: (Newser) Nancy Pelosi will take the gavel as House speaker on Thursday, which the Hill notes will effectively make her the face of the Democratic party until a 2020 candidate emerges. She'll also make a little history in the process, becoming the first person to become speaker in non-consecutive congresses since Henry Clay and Sam Rayburn more than 60 years ago. Pelosi previously made history by becoming the first woman to hold the position back in 2007. In an interview with USA Today, Pelosi says President Trump can expect a "different world" now that Democrats control the House. And in another with NBC's Savannah Guthrie, Pelosi suggested that Trump isn't safe from indictment just because he's a sitting president, making her the top-ranked official to say as much, reports Axios. story continues below "Do you believe the special counsel should honor and observe the Department of Justice guidance that states a sitting president cannot be indicted?" Guthrie asks in the interview airing Thursday morning. "No, I mean I don't thinkI do not think that that is conclusive," Pelosi replies. "I do not." In the USA Today interview, Pelosi says Trump can expect to be challenged on everything from the deaths of immigrant children in US custody, to the release of his tax returns, to the need to protect the Robert Mueller investigation. He was used to serving with a Republican Congress, House and Senate that was a rubber stamp to him," says Pelosi. "That won't be the case." (She also vows not to budge on providing Trump's requested money for a border wall, the main sticking point in the current government shutdown.) (Newser) One of the two men charged in connection with the 2005 death of Georgia high school teacher Tara Grinstead allegedly raped two women at gunpoint on Tuesday. Bo Dukes faces new charges of rape, aggravated sodomy, false imprisonment, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon after the alleged assault in Warner Robins. "Officers believe he brought two women to his home under threat of physical violence and with a firearm in hand committed the offenses," a police statement reads, per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The 34-year-old isn't in custody and was last seen driving in Warner Robins on Tuesday evening in a white 2013 Kia Sorento with Georgia tag number PFP1116. Police say "Dukes has made suicidal threats" and is "known to drink heavily and has a history of cocaine use." story continues below Last June, Dukes was indicted on charges of concealing a death, tampering with evidence, and hindering apprehension of a criminal. Authorities said he helped his former classmate, Ryan Duke, move Grinstead's body from her Ocilla home in 2005, when she was killed during a reported robbery. Authorities believe the body was then burned on a pecan farm owned by Dukes' uncle. Dukes previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal government property in 2013. Granted supervised release in October 2015, he failed to pay $130,000 restitution and complete 40 hours of community service, prompting a judge to order his return to prison to serve six months. He was to have surrendered within 45 days of the ruling in late November. (Dukes' girlfriend gave him up in the Grinstead case.) (Newser) North Korea may have a high-profile defection on its hands. The countrys acting ambassador to Italy, Jo Song Gil, apparently fled the North Korean embassy in Rome with his wife weeks ago, before he was to leave his post at the end of November. That's according to South Korean lawmaker Kim Min-ki, who received a Thursday briefing from the National Intelligence Service, per CNN. Reports suggest Jo has applied for asylum to a Western country, though Italy's Foreign Ministry says it hasn't received any request, reports the AP. It's unclear if Jo's children are with him. Though the children of diplomats serving overseas often remain in North Korea to deter defections, Jothen the third secretaryarrived in Rome in May 2015 with his wife and children, the Guardian reports via South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper. story continues below The paper relates this as a mark of privilege for Jo, whom a North Korea expert describes as the "son or son-in-law of one of the highest-level officials in the North's regime." The 48-year-old had been acting ambassador since October 2017, when Italy expelled then-Ambassador Mun Jong Nam in protest of a North Korean nuclear test. JoongAng Ilbo reports Italian authorities are now protecting Jo, though NIS couldn't confirm that, per the AP. His defection, if confirmed, would be the most high-profile since Pyongyang's deputy envoy to the United Kingdom defected to South Korea in 2016. Thae Yong Ho later explained the move was for his children, whom he didn't want to live "miserable" lives in the North. (The names and addresses of 1,000 defectors living in South Korea were just stolen.) (Newser) A Chinese spacecraft on Thursday made the first-ever landing on the far side of the moon, state media said. The lunar explorer Chang'e 4 touched down at 10:26am, China Central Television said during its noon broadcast. The far side of the moon faces away from Earth and is relatively unexplored. It is also known as the dark side of the moon. The mission of Chang'e 4, which is carrying a rover, includes carrying out low-frequency radio astronomical observations and probing the structure and mineral composition of the terrain, the AP reports. The spacecraft will also carry out biological experiments, including cultivating vegetables in an airtight container, the South China Morning Post reports. story continues below The pioneering landing demonstrates China's growing ambitions as a space power. In 2013, Chang'e 3 was the first spacecraft to land on the moon since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976. The Long March 3B rocket carrying Chang'e 4 blasted off on Dec. 8 from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southern China. In May, a relay satellite "Queqiao," or "Magpie Bridge," named after an ancient Chinese folk tale, was launched to provide communications support between Chang'e 4 and Earth. China plans to send its Chang'e 5 probe to the moon next year and have it return to Earth with samplesthe first time that will have been done since 1976. (On Wednesday, NASA shared photos from the most distant celestial object ever explored.) (Newser) A Florida man infuriated by his failure to find a plastic straw lunged at and grabbed a McDonald's worker. Unfortunately for him, the young woman knew how to box, according to Kinie Biandudi, who shared video of the altercation. Mother Brenda Biandudi, who recorded the video, tells the Washington Post that the man became angry and abusive after being told of a new St. Petersburg law that requires customers to specifically request plastic straws. "She told him that its the law now that theyre not supposed to have the straws in the lobby," Brenda Biandudi says. "He said theres no such law." Her video shows the worker, 20-year-old Yasmine James, repeatedly punching the man after he grabbed her by the shirt and pulled her forward. She gained the upper hand before fellow workers stepped in. story continues below The St. Petersburg Police Department says 40-year-old transient Daniel Taylor was arrested the same day and faces two charges of battery, USA Today reports. According to an arrest affidavit, he kicked another female employee in the stomach while managers were escorting him out of the building following the first altercation. James tells Atlanta Black Star that rumors she was fired are untrue, but she is currently on leave and receiving workers' compensation. "My family, they know how to box, James says. "My big cousin used to box professionally I just know how to fight. You know, I know how to protect myself." (An irate McDonald's customer in Oregon tried to destroy the golden arches.) (Newser) Caroline Bradner traveled nearly 9,000 miles to "teach English, to travel, and make a difference in this world." Now the family of the 22-year-old Virginian is trying to get her home after she was suddenly stricken by a rare disorder that left her paralyzed from the neck down. The New York Daily News reports the University of Mississippi grad, who went to Thailand in October via the XploreAsia program, fell ill in her apartment on Dec. 22, weak and unable to move. A friend got Bradner to a hospital, where blood tests led to a diagnosis of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare disorder in which a person's immune system attacks nerve cells, leading to muscle weakness and sometimes paralysis. Although most people with GBS make a full recovery, recuperation can take weeks, months, or even years, per the Mayo Clinic, and so Bradner's family is desperate to get her home to Henrico. story continues below Her mother flew to Thailand to be with her, and Bradner's family set up a GoFundMe page to raise the money to get her home after their travel insurance company at first denied their request for funds to pay for the 26-hour flightshe can't just hop on any old commercial flight, requiring her mom and a nurse to accompany her. But the insurance company had a change of heart and will now bear that cost, so the $76,000 raised will go toward Bradner's medical and rehab bills. In the meantime, Bradner's dad tells CBS 6 that his "tenacious" daughter has since started to feel some tingling in her fingers and can now move her shoulders. "She's scared because she can't move," her older sister says. "But she is really strong and really brave." (Is there a tie between the Zika virus and GBS?) (Newser) Kamilah Campbell wanted to improve her March SAT score. So the 18-year-old Florida high school senior "studied harder than she ever studied before," says her attorney. The result was a 330-point increase when she took the test again in October, getting a score of 1230. But then she got a letter from Educational Testing Service telling her the October score was invalid and wouldn't be released. Her lawyer says that's because "such a marked improvement ... indicated to ETS that she likely had prior knowledge of the test," per CBS Miami, though the letter from ETS cited "substantial agreement between your answers on one or more scored sections of the test and those of other test takers." Now Campbell has lawyered up (with Benjamin Crump, whom Local 10 refers to as "high-profile" and CNN calls "famous") to fight that decision, and she held a presser Wednesday demanding her score be validated in time for her to be accepted into Florida State University's dance program. story continues below Campbell has set up a GoFundMe campaign for her cause, on which she writes that ETS' decision "could cost her the chance to get into Florida State University ... and possibly miss out on opportunities to receive top academic scholarships." She says she has given ETS letters from a tutor and a teacher and even submitted pictures of the Princeton Review study book she used to improve her score. Per CBS, Crump says he'll consider legal action if the score isn't released: "The innuendo [is] that this young black student can't achieve." As for ETS, an official says in a statement, "We go to great lengths to make sure that all test scores we report are accurate and valid. In order to do so, we sometimes take additional quality control steps before scores are released. We do not cancel scores based on a score gain alone." A rep for the College Board, which delivers SAT scores to colleges, says the same. (The College Board once lost a bunch of SATs.) (Newser) A petition on the White House website calls for the government to make America great again by giving part of the country to Canada. The petition urges the government to correct a centuries-old geographic error by giving Canada a part of Minnesota known as the Northwest Angle, the CBC reports. The Angle, which lies between the provinces of Manitoba and Ontario, is the only part of the US outside Alaska above the 49th parallel. It ended up as American territory after the 1783 Treaty of Paris negotiations, in which Benjamin Franklin and British negotiators used a flawed 1755 map created by American botanist John Mitchell. The Angle is cut off from the rest of the US by the Lake of the Woods, meaning residents need to travel through Canada to get there by land. story continues below The area has around 120 residents and 123 square miles of land, including several islands. Make America great "by correcting this critical survey error," urges the petition, which had been signed by over 4,200 people as of Sunday. It needs more than 98,000 more signatures by the end of January to get a response from the White Houseand many Angle residents hope it doesn't get that far. "Were proud to be neighbors, but that is where we draw the linefiguratively and literally," resident Lisa Goulet tells the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The Red Lake Nation, which owns around 80% of the Angle, is also against the move. "It belongs to our tribe. We dont support that idea," says tribal Chairman Darrell Seki Sr. (Lobstermen have been feuding over two disputed islands between Maine and New Brunswick.) (Newser) A new twist in the Kelsey Berreth case backs up theories that the Colorado mother's alleged killer, fiance Patrick Frazee, had some assistance. Sources tell ABC that a 32-year-old nurse in Twin Falls, Idaho, is being investigated for allegedly disposing of Berreth's cellphone. Berreth was last seen in Woodland Park, Colo., on Thanksgiving Day. Three days later, her phone pinged a cellphone tower in Gooding, Idaho, which is around 35 miles from Twin Falls. Authorities in Twin Falls said after Frazee's arrest last month that they had processed "some items of evidence" in the case. The Idaho woman's name has not been released and her relationship to Frazee is unclear. story continues below Frazee, who faces two counts of murder and three counts of solicitation to commit murder, told police he last saw Berreth when they met to exchange their 1-year-old daughter, who is now being looked after by Berreth's family. No body has been found, but authorities say evidence found at Berreth's home suggests she was killed there. The Denver Post reports that District Attorney Dan May has taken the highly unusual step of seeking to withhold the arrest warrant affidavit from Frazee. Analysts say the move, which could be unconstitutional, suggests that May might be trying to stop Frazee from learning the identities of the witnesses against him. (This is why Frazee was hit with two counts of first-degree murder.) (Newser) A northwestern Indiana man has been charged with felony neglect after police say a 3-year-old boy fatally shot his 4-year-old sister with the suspect's gun, the AP reports. Sixty-three-year-old Darrell Marberry of East Chicago was arrested last week and is being held in the Lake County Jail pending extradition to Boone County, northwest of Indianapolis. Lebanon police have said Izabella-Marie Helem was being cared for by her grandmother Nov. 29 when her brother found a handgun and shot the girl in the head. She died five days later. Police said Marberry left the handgun on the floor under a couch on the morning of the shooting. Marberry is the ex-husband of the grandmother and had been sleeping on the couch. (A tragically similar story from last year.) Egypt's Administrative Control Authority (ACA) revealed on Thursday that the head of the capital's Old Cairo district, located in the south part of the capital, has been arrested for receiving a bribe. Mohamed Zein El-Abdin was arrested for receiving EGP 1 million from a demolition contractor working with the district, the ACA said in a statement. The statement added that the head of the district allegedly received the bribe in return for disbursing funds owed to the contractor by the district. The ACA, the country's anti-corruption watchdog, has in recent months opened several graft-related cases involving top state officials, including the head of the country's Customs Authority in July, the head of Haram district in August, the head of the state Food Industries Holding Company in May, and the Menoufiya governor in January. Search Keywords: Short link: (Newser) Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned last month. Not so, per President Trump, who said during a Wednesday Cabinet meeting that he essentially fired Mattis for poor performance, the New York Times reports. During the meeting, according to CNN, the president boasted of scoring hundreds of millions of dollars for the military but said Mattis failed to deliver. "What's he done for me? How has he done in Afghanistan? Not too good. Not too good. I'm not happy with what he's done in Afghanistan, and I shouldn't be happy. In what the Times calls a stunning letter of resignation, Mattis in December said hed stay on board until February. Trump, in turn, moved the date up to Jan. 1, naming Mattis' deputy Patrick Shanahan as acting defense secretary. story continues below Also on Wednesday, the president declined to specify a timeline for withdrawing troops from Syriaa move that prompted Mattis to resignand said that country was not worth US involvement. We're not talking about vast wealth. We're talking about sand and death," he said. Trumpwho, CNN notes, avoided military service during the Vietnam War era due to a diagnosis of bone spursalso mused that he wouldve been a good general, but who knows. (Mattis quoted Lincoln in his farewell to staff.) (Newser) Alex attended Huntington High School on Long Island, and he committed three big sins in the eyes of the authorities: He once wore blue sneakers to the school, he wrote "504" on his school bag and on a school calculator, and he doodled a devil with horns on his bag. As ProPublica reports, authorities decided all three actions suggested that Alex was affiliated with the notorious MS-13 gang. They didn't believe his explanations: The shoes were a gift from his mother, never worn again after school security guards told him the color was linked to MS-13; "504" wasn't for a gang, it was to show pride in his native Honduras, where those numbers are the country code; and as for the devil with horns, well, that may be used by MS-13, but it also happens to be the high school mascot. story continues below Despite his protestations of innocence, Alex ended up being deported to Honduras, much to the devastation of his parents on Long Island. As it turns out, Alex was one of several students arrested under a program known as Operation Matador, in which police departments share information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. In the students' cases, the damning information originated with school resource officers, whose reports were funneled up the chain of command, eventually landing on the desk of ICE. One day after the ProPublica investigation was published, the Huntington Union Free School District said it's formally reviewing its agreement with the Suffolk County Police Department in regard to the role of school resource officers. Click to read the full story. (Read more Longform stories.) What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 574-583-5121 or email cgrace@thehj.com. The Government has seriously condemned an incident where some participants of a New Year's Day public meeting carried a placard with slogans advocating Hong Kong independence and forced their way into the East Wing Forecourt of the Central Government Offices. At the public meeting organised by the Civil Human Rights Front at the CGO Forecourt, some participants ignored the advice of the security guards, causing confusion and two guards to fall on the ground. So far, 31 public meetings have been approved to be held at the Forecourt since it was reopened on December 28, 2017 in line with the current-term Government's governance philosophy. The overall arrangements have been smooth. Although people are permitted to conduct public meetings, processions or express views at the Forecourt, the Government shall not allow any activities advocating or promoting Hong Kong independence to take place therein. In handling the application for conducting the public meeting at the Forecourt on January 1, the Administration Wing reminded the organiser to abide by the laws in force in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and to appeal to the participants not to conduct any activity that contravenes the laws in force in the HKSAR, including the Basic Law. The Government expressed deep regret that the organiser had not made the appeal. After entering the Forecourt, the person carrying the placard, with the public meeting organiser's consent, made some remarks advocating Hong Kong independence on the stage. The Government reiterated that advocating Hong Kong independence is inconsistent with one country, two systems, the Basic Law and the communitys long-term and overall interests, undermining the HKSARs constitutional order. It noted that it has the duty to abide by the law and uphold the constitutional order in accordance with the Basic Law, safeguarding the long-term and overall interests of Hong Kong, and reiterated its zero tolerance on Hong Kong independence. Jackson, Cobb, others awarded as the best of 2020 by Chamber Roxeann Cobb received Volunteer of the Year honors and her Four E Youth Organization was touted as Civic Organization of the Year during the Washington-Wilkes Chamber of Commerce annual Community... Council meeting Friday to hear complaint against councilmen The City of Washington will hold a special called meeting Friday to consider the recent ethics complaint filed by Mayor Bill deGolian against Councilmen Nathaniel Cullars and Maceo Mahoney. The... Drowning in private pool June 1 appears accidental A drowning which occurred Tuesday evening, June 1, in a private pool in the 600 block of Spring Street in Washington is currently considered accidental according to the Wilkes County... Reporter Debra Pressey is a reporter covering health care at The News-Gazette. Her email is dpressey@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@DLPressey). The head of Egypt's Al-Azhar University, the world's highest seat of Sunni Muslim learning, has ordered disciplinary probe with a female student after a video of her hugging a male colleague on campus sparked controversy in the conservative Muslim country, local media reported. A short video showing the first-year student hugging a young man after he got down on one knee to present her a bouquet of flowers went viral online earlier this week. The woman studies Arabic language at Al-Azhar University but the video later appeared to have been taken at Al-Masnoura University in Nile Delta, where her male colleague studies. University head Mohamed Al-Mahrasawy ordered the woman be referred to a "disciplinary council" on Thursday and said her action constitutes a "complete deviation from Al-Azhar, community and university values," Akhbar El-Youm news website reported. A similar measure was taken against the young man on Wednesday by Al-Mansoura University. Egypt is a predominantly Muslim country where the conservative society often shuns public display of affection. Short link: Reporter Tim Mitchell is a reporter at The News-Gazette. His email is tmitchel@news-gazette.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@mitchell6). Reporter Mary Schenk is a reporter covering police, courts and breaking news at The News-Gazette. Her email is mschenk@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@schenk). Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Barter Theatre actress Tricia Matthews, of Abington, Virginia, recently visited Pike County to tour Hatfield-McCoy Feud sites as part of a tourism cultural exchange. Matthews portrayed Sally McCoy in The Sally McCoy Story written by Alice Stanley as part of the Abington, Virginia 2018 Barter Theatres Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights. Pictured in the former McCoy homestead, now Chiricos Italian Restaurant in Pikeville holding a framed copy of the only know picture of Sally McCoy and her extended family. Like several regional powers that have rushed in recent years to the southern Red Sea, various global powers have also established naval bases near the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait that controls the passage between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in the Indian Ocean. Some of these powers, often established in Djibouti on the western shore of the Red Sea, have a relatively old presence in this region of the Horn of Africa. France has had a military base there since 1977, the date of independence of this former French colony. The United States established a base there in 2002 after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Other powers such as Italy, Japan and most recently China have also gained a foothold in Djibouti because of its strategic position to the southern entrance to the Red Sea and its relative political stability compared to its neighbours. The last great power to set its sights on the Horn of Africa was Russia, which announced in August last year that it was going to build a logistics base on the Red Sea in Eritrea. Without indicating exactly where or when the project was to be carried out, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after a meeting with his Eritrean counterpart that it aimed to boost bilateral trade and infrastructure investment. The projected base will be Russias first in Africa since the end of the Cold War, and it will provide it with the opportunity to project its power across the Middle East and the shipping routes between Asia and Europe. The project is undoubtedly the result of the determination of Russian President Vladimir Putin to assert the global role of his country and to ensure its place in the race for influence with the US and China. In August 2017, China inaugurated its naval base in Djibouti at a cost of $600 million and hosting up to 10,000 soldiers. According to the Chinese government, the base is intended to help Beijing in its humanitarian and peacekeeping missions in Africa (2,400 Chinese soldiers are now deployed on the continent) and Western Asia and to lead emergency relief, protection, and evacuation work of Chinese citizens living overseas and engage in military cooperation, including joint manoeuvres, and combat piracy. The base will also be responsible for ensuring the security of international and strategic seaways near the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait, in order to protect Chinas massive economic interests in Africa and the Middle East. It will serve as a transport route for raw materials from the Horn of Africa countries to China and electronic products from China to the Horn of Africa. China has invested more than $30 billion in Sudan and South Sudan, for example, both of which are oil-rich countries. In addition, it has built a 750km railway line linking Addis Ababa in Ethiopia to the Red Sea via Djibouti. The Chinese base will see the extension of this rail network to the countries of the Horn of Africa region to assist in transporting goods between these countries and China through the port of Djibouti. The establishment of the Chinese base in Djibouti also marks a break with Beijings traditional foreign policy focusing on the East Asian region. It is a projection of Chinese power that expresses the countrys growing interest in Africa and the Middle East, especially in the framework of Chinese President Xi Jinpings Belt and Road initiative, also known as One Belt, One Road, which aims to establish land and sea routes linking China to Europe via Eurasia and the Middle East. The base is a result of Chinas desire to build a new Maritime Silk Road joining up a string of pearls in the shape of a series of Chinese footholds linking the Indian Ocean, the Gulf region and the Red Sea and serving the One Belt, One Road initiative announced in 2015. As part of this initiative, China plans to invest $8 trillion in infrastructure in 68 countries, including Djibouti, which is essential for the African and European routes to China. CHINESE PLANS: The establishment of the first Chinese base in the region came after several years of increasing economic and commercial involvement in Africa and the Middle East. Now the second-largest economy in the world after the United States, China plans to become the largest by the 2030s. In order to help achieve this, Beijing is seeking through its naval base in Djibouti to protect its growing economic interests in this part of the world. It is seeking to secure natural resources to support its economic growth, as can is clear when one considers that half the oil imported by China passes through the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait and most Chinese exports to Europe are channelled through the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal. To serve its trade and economic interests in Africa, China is also investing heavily in the construction of infrastructure in the east of the continent. The most obvious example has been the construction of a railway line in Kenya between Nairobi, the capital, and the port of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean at a total cost of $3.6 billion. Inaugurated in May 2017, the railway is the most expensive infrastructure project undertaken in the country since Kenyas independence in 1964. In addition to Chinas economic aid, investment and business activities in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, the region is also home to thousands of Chinese workers. In 2015, Beijing evacuated 600 Chinese workers from Yemen because of the conflict in the country. In 2011, it sent a warship and a military transport plane to Libya to evacuate some 35,000 Chinese nationals following the overthrow of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The Libyan crisis was a major factor in the decision to establish a base in Djibouti. The Chinese base was also built in the context of growing economic relations between Beijing and Djibouti, which allowed China to override the objections of the United States. Nearly 40 per cent of the financing of major infrastructure and investment projects in Djibouti now comes from China, and these have included the Ethiopia-Djibouti oil pipeline and the Ethiopia-Djibouti fresh water pipeline. Chinas Export Import Bank has granted $957 million to finance other infrastructure projects, including the railway line linking the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to Djibouti City on the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait. It is hoped that this rail link with one of the African economies experiencing strong economic growth will turn Djibouti into a hub for East African trade. This is particularly the case since Djibouti has few opportunities for economic growth outside the exploitation of its geostrategic location near the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait. In addition to direct financial gains from land leasing and foreign bases like that of China, employment opportunities for Djibouti citizens are provided by the US and French bases in the country, with these also contributing significantly to foreign trade. Port activity now accounts for 70 per cent of Djiboutis GDP. Chinas military engagement in the Horn of Africa began in 2008 with mainly counter-piracy missions. Today, its commitment has broadened in line with the deepening of its economic and commercial relations with the region and as part of a nascent but growing global military engagement policy stretching from the South China Sea to East Africa. This has meant the establishment of a strong navy allowing China to project its power around the world, and naval bases like that in Djibouti will be essential to achieve this ambition. A US Pentagon report released last year said that the Djibouti base, along with the regular visits of Chinese warships to foreign ports, reflected Chinas growing global influence. Similarly, the Chinese have recently stepped up their naval patrols near the Gulfs of Oman and Aden. Another indicator of Chinas global ambition came in the parallel it drew between the inauguration of its base in Djibouti and the celebration of the legacy of Zheng He (1371-1433 CE), an early 15th-century Chinese admiral whose travels in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean have become the symbol of past Chinese power and of Chinas desire to see a new world order led by China. Accompanied by 27,000 men on 62 large and 255 small ships, Zheng He led seven naval expeditions to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the east coast of Africa over 28 years during the Chinese Ming Dynasty. It is not a coincidence that the day Chinese ships embarked for the port of Djibouti on 11 July 2017 was the same day on which Zheng He undertook his famous voyages more than 600 years ago. The Chinese vision of a new Maritime Silk Road is thus closely linked to the official celebration of Zheng He who brought fame and power to China centuries ago. In Chinese publications of recent years, Zheng Hes fleets are described as tools for economic growth, scientific research, peaceful cultural exchange and universal friendship. His travels are often seen as symbols of a global order based on trade rather than conflict. However, it should be noted that the main objective of Zheng Hes travels was to assert the power and dominance of the Chinese Ming Dynasty and to collect tribute from local rulers. US COUNTER-PLANS: Located just a few miles from the Chinese base, the US military base in Djibouti, called Camp Lemonnier, hosts some 4,000 soldiers. It has several aims, the first of which is to assist in the fight against terrorism. The foremost target is Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen, which controls about a quarter of the central and eastern parts of the country. The US military regularly conducts secret operations and drone raids against this terrorist organisation from its base in Djibouti, as well as against the Islamist group Al-Shabab in Somalia that has carried out suicide bombings in the capital Mogadishu. This insurgency, which has spread to neighbouring Kenya, has become a key target of US President Donald Trumps war on terrorism. In addition to logistical and intelligence support to the Saudi-led coalition that has been fighting against the Houthi rebels in Yemen since March 2015, the US military in the Horn of Africa has been helping to ensure free navigation through the Bab Al-Mandab Strait. A large proportion of the oil exports going from the Gulf region to the West goes through this strait, as do almost all the US warships, including aircraft carriers and submarines, that cross the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. US warships, as well as those of the European Union, Russia and China, have also been conducting patrols in the Gulf of Aden since 2008 to combat piracy off the coast of Somalia. However, the US, which has long dominated the region through its military presence and political influence, was caught off its guard by the decision of Djibouti to approve the installation on its soil of a Chinese naval base in 2016. Two years before this, Susan Rice, the then national security advisor to US president Barack Obama, came to Djibouti in order to head off a similar deal with Russia. However, Washington could do nothing to prevent China from setting up a base in Djibouti, given the solid and growing economic relations between the two countries. The establishment of a Chinese military base in the Horn of Africa, the first outside China, is a negative strategic development for the US, and it has serious implications for the long-standing US dominance in the region. Shortly after the 2016 decision, the White House announced the renewal of the lease of the US base in the country for another 20 years and the doubling of its annual payments to Djibouti to $63 million, as well as plans to modernise the base at a cost of over $1 billion. Among other things, the Pentagon fears that the installation of a Chinese base in Djibouti just a few miles from Camp Lemonnier will allow Beijing to monitor US military operations in the region and the means used in their implementation. Moreover, in March last year Thomas Waldhauser, commander of the US Africa Command AFRICOM, warned the US Congress that China could threaten US interests in Africa, especially in the Red Sea, should it be allowed to take over the key port of Doraleh in Djibouti. This port had been operated by Dubai Ports World (DP World), a United Arab Emirates-owned company, since 2006, but the Djibouti government broke its agreement with the Emirati company and nationalised the port in February last year. According to Waldhauser, Djibouti had assured the United States that it would not lease the port to the Chinese, but he still warned that the US could not afford to run the risk of seeing the port fall under Chinas control, since this could affect the resupplying of the US military base in the country and the ability of US Navy ships to refuel there. There was a need for the rewriting of US military strategy in the region with China in mind, he said. Given Chinas strong economic involvement in Djibouti, unmatched by the US, Washington seems to have sought an alternative in its neighbour Eritrea, which also enjoys a strategic position on the southern Red Sea. Some scholars believe that Eritrea could in future host a new American military base and allow US access to its ports, though for this to happen Eritrea would first have to break out of its diplomatic isolation and normalise relations with Ethiopia. In order to bring this about, last year the US launched a quiet campaign by Christian Church leaders and US diplomats to lobby both sides to meet and resolve their differences. In April 2018 after the accession of new Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Donald Yamamoto visited Eritrea, the first such visit in over a decade, before travelling on to Ethiopia in a sign of the US interest in rekindling ties with Asmara. Yamamoto had previously hosted meetings between senior officials of the two countries in Washington and set up diplomatic back-channels. Diplomatic sources said he had brought together Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh and Yemane Gebreab, a long-standing advisor of the Eritrean president, and former Ethiopian prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn, with a view to laying the foundations for a peace agreement to be announced a few months later. Washington also encouraged its allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have important interests in the Horn of Africa particularly because of the war in Yemen, to mediate between Addis Ababa and Asmara to put an end to the state of war between the two countries. These efforts were successful thanks in part to Saudi and Emirati financial support, and in July 2018 Ethiopian Prime Minister Ahmed and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki signed a peace agreement in Saudi Arabia ending two decades of enmity sparked by a two-year border conflict that broke out in 1998. Faced with the growing influence of China in the Red Sea, the Horn of Africa, and on the African continent in general, the United States has been determined to counter the ambitions of Beijing. In its National Security Strategy for 2017, the Trump administration described China as a revisionist power and a strategic competitor of the US that was seeking to undermine US power, influence, security and prosperity. Like Russia, China is now seen as challenging US power, influence and interests. The US recognises that it cannot match the scale of Chinas investment in Africa, even as it has vowed to reduce its economic influence in the region. Washington is particularly concerned about the security implications of Chinas taking control of strategic assets in the wider world as a result of unsustainable borrowing by developing countries, especially in Africa. Its strategy, therefore, partly relies on encouraging American companies to invest more in the continent, explaining why US loans have recently increased to Africa. This development has been widely seen as one way of countering Chinese largesse in Africa and in other emerging markets. A recent study by the international law firm Baker McKenzie has indicated that the battle for influence between China and the United States is expected to intensify over the next decade. It notes that China spent $8.7 billion on infrastructure projects in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2017 alone and that the decision by Trump last October to change the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) into the International Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) and double its loans to $60 billion in the developing world, notably in Africa, was intended to counter the rapidly growing influence of China. This decision will considerably speed up the race for influence in Africa, especially in the Horn of Africa region, between the two superpowers. *A version of this article appears in print in the January 3, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Sino-American duel in the Red Sea Short link: Support local journalism Now, more than ever, the world needs trustworthy reportingbut good journalism isnt free. Please support us by making a contribution. The Coptic Orthodox Church's official spokesperson says that Egypt's new Nativity of the Christ Church, the largest in the Middle East, will officially open on 6 January, where Coptic Christmas mass will be held. The mass will be attended by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Coptic Orthodox Church Pope Tawadros II. The Church said in a video posted online that the public can attend the mass after registering with the Church. The video also shows parts of President El-Sisi's speech during Christmas Mass at the Cathedral of St Mark in Abbasiya district in January 2018, where he promised that the next Christmas mass would be held at the new cathedral upon its completion in 2019. The Nativity of the Christ Cathedral, built in Egypt's New Administrative Capital, occupies 30 percent of the 4.14 acre site allocated to the complex. The cathedral can accommodate 8,200 worshippers and the complex has been designed around a large central square and includes a papal residence, a reception hall, meeting rooms and offices. President El-Sisi commissioned the building of the Cathedral in January 2017 following twin terrorist attacks that killed at least 27 Coptic Egyptians at St Peter and St Pauls Church in Cairo on Palm Sunday. During Christmas mass in 2018, the Egyptian president said that the new church is considered "a message of peace love to the world." Short link: Greece has granted citizenship to three migrant fishermen, two Egyptians and an Albanian, who helped rescue dozens of Greeks from sweeping wildfires near Athens last summer, local Greek media reported. At least 90 people were killed in the devastating fires that struck the Greek resort town of Mati, some 30km east of Athens on 23 July. The inferno was Greeces deadliest in over a decade. Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos hosted a ceremony on Wednesday to honour the three men for their "humanity and solidarity" in rescuing dozens of people from the sea, the Athens News Agency reported. The men were identified as Egyptians Mahmoud Mousa, 46, Emad El Khaimi, 50, and Albanian Jake Gani , 35. The trio sailed out to sea through thick black smoke to pull people who were forced into the water to flee the flames, local media reported at the time. The president said on Wednesday that their naturalisation as Greek citizens also makes them citizens of Europe. You are now European citizens too, and so you can teach all our partners who dont realise the values of Europe, to do what they ought to do," President Pavlopoulos said, as reported by local Greek newspaper Neo Kosmos. Pavlopoulos said the fishermen's actions send a message to Europe to the formations of populism and xenophobia, who are against the spirit of European humanism and solidarity exemplified by the three fishermen." The decision to grant the three men citizenship was made by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in September and signed by the president last month, but formally announced on Wednesday. Short link: Egypt's Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly has hailed an initiative launched by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to improve the living conditions of the neediest in Egyptian society in 2019. On Wednesday, President El-Sisi announced the launch of the 'Decent Life' initiative in a small statement released on his social media accounts, where he praised "the Egyptian citizen" as the hero of 2018. PM Madbouly has directed the government to take the necessary steps to implement the initiative to help improve services provided to those most in need, especially in Egypt's villages. Minister of Social Solidarity Ghada Wali said on Wednesday that the new initiative, which will launch on Thursday, aims to provide job opportunities and develop infrastructure. Wali also said that a meeting will be held Thursday with the 10 biggest NGOs in Egypt to discuss the initiative, adding that the ministry has prepared a map outlining challenges and identifying target demographics. "The programme is mainly aimed at the most underprivileged sectors and individuals in Egypt's impoverished and remote areas," Wali said during a phone call with DMC TV channel on Wednesday. "Our plan is for the initiative to act as an umbrella for a number of already existing civil society initiatives on employment, healthcare, services and infrastructure," she said, adding that she encourages the media to shed light on all efforts to support national development. Short link: Are you looking for a Social Media Agency in Manchester? Social Media Marketing is about making your brand image known... So, it s not new for Google to update its ranking signals. Near the end of October 2020, they introduced... CBD, also known as cannabidiol, is a chemical compound found in cannabis plants, which is commonly used in the medicinal... In the past 20 years, weve seen a total revolution in information transparency. We have the option to research and... I Agree This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy Egypts Coptic Orthodox Church is celebrating 100 years since the opening of its first Sunday Schools in 1918, and to mark the occasion the Youth Bishopric has published A Vineyard of Red Wine, a book by Rami Atta, a university professor and winner of the State Encouragement Award for Anti-Discrimination. In the books 230 pages, Atta meticulously researches the life and works of archdeacon Habib Girgis, who was canonised a saint by the Coptic Orthodox Church in 2013. In a simple, flowing style, A Vineyard of Red Wine introduces readers to Girgis role in serving the Coptic Orthodox Church and particularly his role in education. Bishop Moussa, the churchs bishop for youth, introduces the book, writing that Girgis served the church in two ways: by establishing its Clerical School to train students to become enlightened men of God capable of providing services and tutelage to the churchs members, and by founding the Sunday School movement aimed at raising generations that would be bonded with Christ, the church, and the homeland. Habib Girgis was a pioneer of reform and enlightenment. All those who knew him sang his praises because of his decency, noble values and humanitarian principles, Atta writes in his introduction. In the first two chapters, Atta details Girgis upbringing. He was born in 1876 in Cairo, where his father worked as chief clerk in the Prevention of Slavery Authority, a state authority affiliated to the Interior Ministry during the reign of the khedive Ismail. When the authoritys work was stopped, Habibs father left with a pension. In 1882, when Habib was six, his father died, leaving behind his wife, a daughter, the eldest among Habibs siblings, and three sons. Habib was the eldest. Girgis enrolled in the Greater Coptic School in Cairo, which had been established by Pope Kirollos IV (1854-1861), the 110th patriarch of the church known as the Father of Coptic Reform. In 1892, he graduated from the school, located in the Church of St Mark in Azbakiya, and in the following year, when the Clerical School was opened during the ministry of Pope Kirollos V (1874-1927), Girgis enrolled. Youssef Mancarious was the schools first headmaster. Because of his diligence, Girgis was appointed a teacher of Christian studies for first-year students in March 1898 when he was still in the fourth year to replace the ageing priest Fliothaous Ibrahim. Girgis was known among his peers for his dedication and passion for study. While teaching, his hunger for reading only increased, and he was said to have read all the books in the Patriarchal Library. When Mancarious died in 1918, Pope Kirollos V appointed Girgis as headmaster of the Clerical School. He toiled to develop it, adding to its infrastructure and rebuilding its interior. He brought the best teachers and added subjects he saw as necessary to qualify students to become responsible priests and bishops. He also reduced the time spent at the school to four years instead of five. In 1931, Girgis founded the Virgin Mary Church for students of the Clerical School in Mahmasha. Later, this church opened its doors to everyone. Physicians, engineers, accountants, businessmen, teachers and graduates in the sciences, commerce and literature all joined the Clerical School, enriching the quality of its education. Among the students who graduated from the school at this time were some who later became bishops or priests, such as Pope Shenouda III and Bishop Athnasious, the bishop of Beni Sweif. After a special programme had been put in place by Girgis, the first batch of students graduated from the day section of the Clerical School. It consisted of Saad Aziz (Bishop Samuel, the general bishop of services), Wahib Zaki Salib (Arch-Priest Salib Sorial), and Deacon Yassa Hanna, an engineer. Girgis faith in the school and its message in the service of the church led him to face challenges with determination and strength. His efforts bore fruit when he succeeded in convincing the then minister of education, Al-Sanhouri Pasha, to register the Clerical School as an approved institute of higher education. SUNDAY SCHOOLS: Atta dedicates Chapter Three of his book to the story of the Sunday Schools and how Girgis felt strongly about the Coptic Churchs need to attend to the younger generation and their upbringing. Through the Sunday Schools, Girgis believed, young people would be brought up according to the principles of Christianity and get to know their religious duties. He thought that some boys and girls are brought up indifferent to religious matters. They grow up knowing very little about their spiritual duties. It was this situation that he was determined to remedy. Another reason for the foundation of the schools was to make up for the lack of study of the Christian religion in public and private schools at the time. Despite the efforts of Morcos Pasha Semeika (1864-1944) to add Christian studies to the curriculum of public schools in 1907, the tutoring was not adequate because the teachers were not professional. At the time, Coptic teachers specialising in other subjects were assigned the task of teaching Christian studies. Some students also largely ignored the subject since it was extra-curricula, a fact that made Girgis even more determined to establish the Sunday Schools. This first took place in 1900, or a little before, when Girgis was 24. He was so passionate about them that he used to gather students at regular meetings at the Virgin Mary Church in Faggala. The idea of the schools then began to spread in and around Cairo with the support of Pope Kirollos V who believed in their importance. Girgis sought the help of educated young people to teach the children their lessons, and over time the schools encouraged large groups of young people to study the Bible and other religious books and help the children and older generations that they taught. The Sunday Schools prepared children mentally, physically, spiritually and socially, stressing their belonging to the church and the homeland. Girgis own publications were the seed of the curriculum. Classes were established to prepare servants to serve in the schools, and as time went by these classes became a part of every church in the country. Atta dedicates Chapter Four of his book to Girgis publications through which he sought to educate his generation. They are a valuable addition to the Christian and Coptic library, and today many readers are keen to read books that include The Seven Sacraments of the Church, St Mark the Evangelist, and The Coptic Orthodox Clerical School Between Past and Present. Girgis was always passionate about Egypt, giving lessons about the love of the country and the importance of belonging to it. He believed in national unity between Muslims and Christians, and he wrote many educational and spiritual hymns in love of the Church and the country. In his book A Practical Means for Coptic Reformation: Hopes and Dreams to be Fulfilled in 10 Years, Girgis wrote of the independence movement against the British. No one can forget the awe-inspiring unity that appeared among the nations Copts and Muslims following the uprising to demand independence and how the Cross and the Crescent appeared on flags symbolising this unity, he said. Girgis believed such unity was the normal course of things between Muslims and Copts, notably because the Copts were raised to love their country and their brothers in the nation who shared the same blood, language and interests as their compatriots. He was always modest and forgiving and dedicated his resources to charity. He founded many charities to serve the community that provided religious, spiritual, health and social services and strove to provide the needy with better living conditions. Habib Girgis died on 21 August 1951 at the age of 75 after two years illness. Atta provides details of his funeral, which was attended by representatives of all the Coptic institutions. It started at 4:30pm with a horse-driven black carriage carrying Girgis body heading to St Marks Church in Azbakiya. The procession was led by bishops, priests, deacons and many Clerical and Sunday School students in addition to representatives of civil society organisations nurtured by Girgis. The St Marks Church bells rang out their grief, and the hall was crammed with mourners. Farewell speeches were given for two hours before the body was carried to its final resting place. The mourners then headed back to Girgis house to pay their respects to his sister. Towards the end of A Vineyard of Red Wine, Atta includes an article Girgis wrote in the magazine Al-Karma, which he founded in the 1930s. In this piece, entitled Where to find happiness, he said that happiness does not come in the form of money, fame, education or physical pleasure. Happiness, he wrote, comes through faith, virtue, work, and performing duties selflessly. The same article was the subject of a speech Girgis gave at the Young Mens Christian Association in Cairo on 6 and 13 April 1911. *A version of this article appears in print in the January 3, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: The saints vineyard Short link: The mobility and portability of licenses, bipartisan reform and special populations were just some of the points of discussion during the second annual Occupational Licensing Learning Consortium. The meeting, held Nov. 28-30, 2018, in Clearwater, Fla., brought together nearly 200 state lawmakers and legislative staff, governors staff and agency and department heads, industry association representatives, occupational licensing board members, economists and researchers. It was presented by NCSLs Employment, Labor and Retirement Program in partnership with the National Governors Association and The Council of State Governments. Thanks to new funding from the U.S. Department of Labor, 15 states were representedwith four states added to the original 11 teams that attended last years meeting. The states in attendance included Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Dakota, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin. During the two-and-a-half-day meeting, attendees experienced a mix of workshops and panels led by experts, as well as facilitated state time where teams worked on and developed an action plan for occupational licensing in their states. Speaker Ryan Nunn, policy director for the Hamilton Project at Brookings, made big-picture connections between occupational licensing and the economy at large and discussed ways to improve labor and market dynamism in the economy through licensing reform. His talk also focused on how occupational licensing connects to the future of work in the country. Two sessions focused on mobility and the portability of licensesa big issue many consortium states are trying to address. Panelists from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, National Council of State Boards of Nursing, National Council of Architectural Registration Boards and the Federation of Associations of Regularity Boards spoke about the promising portability practices their professions use so that individuals with those licenses can practice their professions across state lines. Other sessions of note: Legislators from Nebraska joined the meeting to discuss a bipartisan movement in their state around regulatory reform. Eight breakout sessions allowed for some deep dives into special populations and hot topics regarding occupational licensing. Special populations talks focused on veterans and military spouses, dislocated and long-term unemployed workers, immigrants with work authorization and people with criminal records. Hot topics sessions covered interstate portability, an update on the NC Dental v. FCC Supreme Court case, how to message the work to stakeholders, promising sunrise and sunset legislative practices and data infrastructures. States had the opportunity to hear from each other on successes from the previous year. These included passage of many pieces of legislation, the creation of task forces, the centralizing and collection of data, and new partnerships with other government organizations such as the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Justice. They also shared some of their challenges with the sustainability of reform efforts and planning for transitions among key legislators and gubernatorial staff. Zach Herman is a research analyst in the NCSL Employment, Labor & Retirement Program. Email Zach My Favorite Quotes Recent Quotes Portfolio Summary Your most recently viewed tickers will automatically show up here if you type a ticker in the Get Quotes box on the top of the page. New Castle, PA (16103) Today Partly to mostly cloudy skies with scattered thunderstorms mainly during the morning. High 76F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 53F. Winds light and variable. International 8 Afghan policemen killed in Taliban attack Pul-e-Khumri, Jan 3 (IANS) | Publish Date: 1/3/2019 10:18:31 AM IST At least eight Afghan police personnel were killed and two others wounded after Taliban militants attacked a security checkpoint in the countrys Baghlan province overnight, officials said on Thursday. The clashes occurred after several hundred militants stormed the checkpoint named Safar-ba-Khair with guns and rocket propelled grenades along Baghlan-Samangan main road, Safdar Mohseni, an official of the provincial council, told Xinhua news agency. Several militants were also killed and wounded during the gun battle. The militants also overran the security post and took all weapons and ammunition, said the official. The province, 160 km north of Kabul, has been the scene of heavy clashes between security forces and Talibans for long. Fighting has escalated in Afghanistan as the Taliban insurgency spreads from its traditional strongholds in the south and east to the once peaceful region in the north. WALLINGFORD Following the lead of other towns, the Town Council is considering raising the minimum legal age to 21 to buy e-cigarettes at local businesses. The councils ordinance committee on Thursday is expected to continue a discussion on raising the age restriction, which began in November. Janis M. Small, town corporation counsel, said Wednesday that a draft ordinance may be ready by the committees February meeting. Small said ordinance language will include the prohibition on selling e-cigarettes to anyone under age 21, what signage would be required in retail stores and what town department would be required to conduct enforcement and issue penalties. Wallingford would be among the first municipalities to pass such an ordinance. Hartford became the first state municipality to ban selling tobacco products, including vaping devices, to anyone under age 21 in October. Bloomfield almost became the second later that month, but its town council referred the proposal to the subcommittee level. East Hartford had on its town council agenda an ordinance to raise the age to purchase tobacco products to 21 for Wednesday. The idea for a local ordinance was introduced during the Town Councils regular meeting on Oct. 9, when Coalition for a Better Wallingford presented information on youth vaping, focused on the Juul brand of vaporizer. Juul, which offers high nicotine capacity and sweet-flavored pods, has been targeted by health advocates as targeting teens through social media. In November, Juul Labs announced it was ending the sale of several of its flavored pods, including fruit, mango and creme and shuttering its social media accounts that promoted those products. At that meeting, Councilor Jason Zandri requested that the town consider adopting an ordinance to raise the minimum age to 21. Council Chairman Vincent Cervoni followed up with a request to Small to review Hartfords ordinance, according to meeting minutes. Representatives from Wallingford Tobacco, Puffy City and Cumberland Farms, which all sell e-cigarettes, declined to comment. One business owner anticipated the change. We expect that they were going to do it on a state level anyway, said Tom Leary, owner of Silver City Vapors, 10 Willard Ave. Leary, who co-owns the shop with his wife, Pam, said Wednesday that his store caters to adults, and that only about 5 percent of business comes from customers ages 18-20. He said that e-cigarettes initially were a smoking cessation product, since the user can control the amount of nicotine to the milligram. Juul came out and thats what ruined the whole thing, he said. In this store, our most popular nicotine level is 3 milligrams. When Juul came out, that came out with 50 milligrams of nicotine. Thats as much nicotine as an average pack of cigarettes. Its a lot more powerful nicotine and thats what the kids have gotten their hands on, Leary said. Joe Cannatelli, who is about to turn 20, said Wednesday that raising the minimum age definitely has positive implications. Cannatelli, of Wallingford, was buying Juul pods at Wallingford Tobacco. I started smoking cigarettes before I was 18, he said. When youre 18, you dont really know how much of a hold nicotine can really have on you A lot of (teens use tobacco) to be cool, and they dont understand it." Cannatelli attends college in Tampa, Florida, so the local ban wont have a big effect on him personally. MERIDEN The city has extended the deadline for employees to withdraw from its retirement incentive program. The deadline for employees to submit a letter of intent for the program was Dec 21, with a deadline of Dec. 28 to rescind their commitment. The city extended the deadline for rescission to the end of business Friday, Finance Director Michael Lupkas said. Between the holidays and questions people had, we decided to extend it a week, Lupkas said. Of the roughly 165 city employees eligible for the retirement program, 58 employees, including several long-serving department heads, informed the city last month that they plan to retire this year under the program. Board of Education and public safety employees were not eligible for the program. State law requires the city to give employees at least one week to rescind their commitment. Lupkas said Thursday that none of the 58 employees have rescinded, but said one employee rescinded their retirement and then later decided to rescind their rescission and retire after all. Lupkas doesnt expect more than one or two employees will withdraw before the deadline today. The City Council approved the retirement incentive program earlier this year in an attempt to reduce on separation payments given to retirees for unused sick and vacation time upon retirement. Employees participating in the program have agreed to roll their separation payment into their pension in exchange for a larger pension. The program is projected to save the city just over $5 million in its operating budget over the next five years and an additional $476,000 in fiscal years 2024 through 2041, according to projections provided by Lupkas. The program will add a projected $4.6 million in pension costs over the next 19 years, Lupkas said. Those increased pension costs will be offset by the anticipated savings, he said. Philadelphia-based Lindy Communities has completed the acquisition of the high-rise apartment building known as Dayton Towers at 425 Dayton Towers Drive, to be called, The View at Dayton Towers. The 14-story building was constructed in 1963 and sits on 7.5 acres of land just outside of the Oregon District. We plan to invest $3 million to update the apartment interiors, amenities, and common areas, said Alan Lindy, president at Lindy Communities. The Views full amenity package includes a fitness center, business center, and activity room. Its one of the few downtown communities with a swimming pool. These amenities and its desirable location make it one of downtown Daytons most prominent high-rise communities. Lindy Communities, a fourth-generation family management company, owns 35 multi-family communities totaling more than 6,400 apartments. Lindys ownership strategy is to reposition apartment communities and manage for the long term. Lindy family members serve as general partners for all communities, totaling about 1.8 million square feet of residential, office, retail and data center spaces. Lindy Communities local portfolio also includes another downtown Dayton apartment community, St. Clair Lofts, as well as Trailbridge Townhomes in Middletown. By January, Lindy Communities expects to close on JP Flats, a seven-floor high-rise adjacent to Daytons new public library, next to health care employer CareSources new campus expansion, and a short block from St. Clair Lofts. Downtown Dayton has had a boom in its residential growth over the past 10 years. Since the launch of the private-public Greater Downtown Dayton Plan strategic initiative in 2010, more than 1,200 new housing units have been completed and are in the pipelineabout a 57 percent increase. Apartment occupancy is one of the highest in the region at 97.5 percent. The majority of Lindys apartment communities are located in the Philadelphia area, which are managed directly. The out-of-state communities owned by Lindy retain local, hands-on management for day-to-day operations and oversight, which Lindy Communities supervises closely. Since 2010, Lindy has partnered with Oberer Management Services to oversee St. Clair Lofts, along with Trailbridge Townhouses. Oberer Management Services will be partnering again with Lindy Communities on The View at Dayton Towers and will market these properties under the Lindy-Oberer name. The partnership of these two family-owned companies both demonstrating strong commitments to their regions and a shared confidence in Daytons future is a positive sign of growth and advancement of downtown Dayton and the region. Weve seen for ourselves what Lindy Communities is committed to providing high-quality apartment homes in our market, said Downtown Dayton Partnership President Sandra Gudorf. St. Clair Lofts was one of our earlier adaptive re-use success stories, and we look forward to the investments the Lindy family will make in our center city as they add properties to their portfolio. The third-generation, family-owned Oberer Companies consists of five divisions, all of which have the resources and capabilities to deliver excellent commercial service, residential construction (including single-family, multi-family homes and apartments), land development, property management, and association management. Since 1949, Oberer Management Services (a subsidiary of Oberer Companies) has offered a full spectrum of real estate needs, specializing in a comprehensive, professionally managed service solutions. They currently manage more than 50 communities that include apartments, condominiums and homeowners associations comprising approximately 5,000 units. Weve been working with Lindy Companies since 2010, said Lloyd Cobble, vice president of property management at Oberer Management Services. Like us, Lindy is a family-owned business looking to improve quality of life in the Dayton region through top-rated mixed-use spaces. Were looking forward to working with them on The View at Dayton Towers. Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently sat for an exclusive interview with People's Daily Online. Q: 2018 has seen the start of the comprehensive implementation of the spirit of the 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress, and Xi Jinpings Thought on Diplomacy was established as an overarching guideline by the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs. Could you please introduce the great significance of Xis diplomatic thinking, especially concerning the concept of building a community with a shared future for humankind? Wang Yi: Xi Jinpings Thought on Diplomacy is a complete theoretical system. The ten major aspects of Xi Jinping's diplomacy thought specify the target, fundamental principle, major tasks and unique style of Chinas diplomacy in the new era, marking a significant leap forward in the construction of Chinas diplomatic theories. The building of a community with a shared future for humankind is the core and essence of Xi Jinpings diplomatic thinking. It carries what Chinese people have always believed in that the world is a common wealth, and conforms to the progress of human society, becoming a symbol of Chinas diplomacy in the new era. Going beyond the differences among social systems and developmental phases, and viewing international relations from the overall interests of the people, the theory showcases global vision and serves as a lofty goal that Chinese diplomacy in the new era pursues. This concept, proposed by general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping, has been incorporated into the documents of prominent international and regional organizations including the UN, receiving broad recognition from countries all over the world. It will have a profound impact on the future direction of international relations as well as the future of humankind. Q: This year, the US started and escalated trade frictions with China, bringing uncertainties and instability to China-US relations. Whats your opinion on current China-US ties? Wang Yi: 2019 marks the 40th anniversary of China-US diplomatic relations. The ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius said, When reaching forty, one should no longer have any doubts. The experience and lessons over the past 40 years are enough to prove that for China and the US, cooperation will deliver win-win results, whereas confrontation will end with a loss for both sides. In todays world, where the interests of China and the US are interwoven in the era of in-depth development of economic globalization, both countries should eliminate all barriers, to implement the valuable consensus and be free from doubt. The one who adopts Cold War mentality will only isolate itself, and the one who uses zero-sum games will never be able to retreat without hurting itself. China will unswervingly follow the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, stay committed to peaceful development, and conduct win-win cooperation with countries. We hope the US can be positive about Chinas progress. There is no need to create rivals, and still less, to effectuate a self-fulfilling prophecy. Q: When compared with China-US ties, the China-Russia relationship is highly stable, and has been running on a high level in recent years. What do you think of China-Russia ties? Wang Yi: China and Russia regard each other as comprehensive strategic partners. Thanks to the high-level mutual trust and strategic guidance of the two heads of state, bilateral ties have always been as firm and stable as a rock or mountain, and are becoming a strategic force in maintaining world peace and stability. The stable China-Russia relations, which are grounded on continuously expanding common interests, never target a third party, and are never affected by third-party factors. Q: There was an important turnover on the Korean Peninsula in 2018. What role did China play in this? Wang Yi: China always stays firmly committed to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and adheres to establishing a peace mechanism and solving issues through dialogue. Weve taken efforts toward this for more than 20 years. This year, some positive changes have taken place on the peninsula. In the face of the hard-earned opportunity for peace, we encourage parties on the peninsula to conquer difficulties and further improve relations, until the situation on the peninsula is truly stabilized. We encourage the US and the DPRK to meet each other halfway and implement their commitments made in the joint statement inked in the Singapore meeting as soon as possible. At the same time, we are happy to see the situation of "double suspension" continue, and expect to promote parallel progress in the denuclearization of the peninsula and the establishment of a peace mechanism, which will take care of the concerns of all parties. It is the fundamental policy to promote long-term peace and stability of the peninsula. Q: This year marks the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up. In terms of diplomacy, what is the significance and global influence of Chinas reform and opening up? Wang Yi: Forty years ago, reform and opening-up changed China fundamentally, opening a door for the countrys communication with the rest of the world. Chinas reform and opening-up has witnessed the most remarkable achievements during the six years since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. The CPC Central Committee, with Comrade Xi as its core, has launched a series of important measures, making a number of historical achievements. I believe that following Chinas continuing reform and opening-up, the country will surely inject even greater vitality into the world over the next 40 years, bringing endurable peace, as well as providing the world with more positivity. Sayre, PA (18840) Today Mostly sunny early then increasing clouds with some scattered thunderstorms this afternoon. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 77F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low around 55F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%. Migrant workers returning home (Photo/Zhang Bin) While the total number of births in China may have exceeded 15 million in 2018, this figure shows a downward trend from the 17.2 million babies born in 2017. This decline, alongside more migrant workers moving home than ever, means China's floating population is in sharp decline, said an industry insider, China Business Network reported on Jan. 3. In recent years, the sharp decrease in birth population has become an irreversible trend, and is expected to continue to drop, stabilizing at about 13 million, the insider said. In addition to a declining birth rate, floating population groups which bring economic development dividends have also started to move home in higher numbers. However, experts say there is enormous potential for the transfer of this labor force to non-agricultural sectors, with statistics showing that at least 200 million people are involved in this process. A report by the National Health Commission indicates that every percentage point increase in the proportion of urban floating population will create a 1-2.3 percent growth in GDP in the next 5 to 10 years. Population mobility is therefore connected to capital accumulation in urban areas. The report also showed that without population fluidity, Chinas GDP in 2016 would have only reached 44.8 trillion yuan, whereas it actually reached 74.4 trillion thanks to industrial transfer generated by population fluidity. However, the floating population is shrinking. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2017, this population had dropped by 820,000 compared with the previous year. The report showed that the proportion of people aged 45 and above, which accounted for 22.8 percent of the total floating population in 2017, is dropping. More than 70 percent of those who returned to their hometown said they were reluctant to leave again for work. The longing for a stable life, discouraging salaries, and deteriorating health conditions are the primary reasons that people choose to move back home, said Li Jianmin, a professor at the Institute of Population and Development, Nankai University. Li said Chinas floating population more commonly work in metropolitan areas rather than small and medium-sized cities, resulting in a low rate of contribution from the latter to national economic growth, which in turn affects their salaries and employment opportunities. Big cities in eastern China create more demographic dividends, but expensive rents, problems purchasing property, education, college entrance exams, and social insurance policies don't take the concerns of migrant workers into consideration, forcing these people to go back home, which weakens demographic dividends, a scholar said. Zhai Zhenwu, a demographer and president of the School of Sociology and Population Studies under Renmin University, believes that demographic benefits could be maintained. Nearly 30 percent of the countrys labor force is employed in the primary industry, which includes agriculture, forestry and fishing, while the figure is only 3.2 percent in high-income countries, he explained, adding that this means there is massive potential for labor force transfer and upgrading of industrial structures. Lansdale, PA (19446) Today Considerable clouds this morning. Some decrease in clouds later in the day. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 80F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Showers and thundershowers this evening will give way to steady rain overnight. Potential for severe thunderstorms. Low 61F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 80%. SUPPORT THIS INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM The article youre about to read is from our reporters doing their important work investigating, researching, and writing their stories. We want to provide informative and inspirational stories that connect you to the people, issues and opportunities within our community. Journalism takes a lot of resources. Today, our business model has been interrupted by the pandemic; the vast majority of our advertisers businesses have been impacted. Thats why the Weekly is now turning to you for financial support. Learn more about our new Insiders program here. Thank you. JOIN NOW We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message. Images Sorry, there are no recent results for popular images. Nation sees negative growth for first time: expert A nurse takes care of newborns at No. 1 People's Hospital in Xiangyang, Hubei Province. Photo: Xinhua Chinese demographers said that the number of newborns in 2018, the third year after the country has fully implemented the two-child policy, may have dropped by more than 2 million and the country's birth population will continue to fall. "Although the national data for the birth of newborns have not been publicized yet, data revealed by local health departments showed that the number of newborns in 2018 decreased by at least 15 percent from the previous year," He Yafu, a demographer and author of a book on the impact of China's population policy, told the Global Times on Tuesday. "The birth population in 2017 was 17.23 million. Based on current calculations, the number of newborns across the nation might drop by more than 2 million," He predicted. He said the birth population in 2018 may fall below 15 million people, citing a source close to the National Health Commission. Yi Fuxian, a research fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Su Jian, director of the National Center for Economic Research at Peking University, also told the Global Times that the figures for the number of newborns in 2018 would decrease by more than 2 million, which failed to meet the health authority's expectation. After China implemented the comprehensive two-child policy that allows all couples to have two children - abandoning its decades-long one-child policy - in 2016, the country's top health authority predicted that the fertility rate in 2017 and 2018 would be 1.97 and 2.09, which predicted that the number of newborns in 2018 would be 790,000 people more than 2017. The change was manifested evidently in East China's Shandong, the province with the country's highest fertility rate in 2017. For example, the number of newborns in Yantai in the first half of 2018 was 26,902, a decrease of 16 percent from the same period last year, according to the city's health department. Even higher drops were seen in other cities like Qingdao and Weifang in Shandong Province. Separately, other provinces like Jiangsu, Guizhou and Hubei also witnessed a drop in the number of newborns in the first half of 2018, news site 21jingji.com reported. The number of women between the ages of 20 and 39 is expected to drop by more than 39 million over the next decade, He said. "Without the introduction of measures to encourage fertility, China's population will fall drastically in the future." Zhai Zhenwu, president of the China Population Association, told media in October that the number of people born will continue to fall in 2018 as well as over the next few years. "The year of 2018 was the turning point of China's population structure, which witnessed a negative growth for the first time," Yi predicted. He said that the newborns in 2018 were 10.31 million people while the death population was 11.58 million, using his own data. However, some experts believe that China's second child policy has helped stabilize the birth rate. The number of second children born accounted for about half of all births in China, according to media reports. Grand County Council members, top row, left to right: Jaylyn Hawks, Greg Halliday, Evan Clapper and Rory Paxman. Bottom row, left to right: Mary McGann, Curtis Wells and Terry Morse. [Moab Sun News file image] US warns Iran against space launches, Tehran says they are legal US warns Iran against space launches, Tehran says they are legal The US has warned Iran against pursuing its three announced space rocket launches as they will use virtually identical technologies employed in ballistic missiles and violate a UN Security Council resolution. The US will not stand by and watch the Iranian regime's destructive policies place international stability and security at risk, Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State said, adding that Tehran should reconsider its provocative plans to avoid deeper economic and diplomatic isolation. Pompeo referred to the UNSC Resolution 2231, which endorsed a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, and called upon the country to refrain for up to eight years from work on ballistic missiles designed to deliver nuclear weapons. However, the US unilaterally withdrew from the landmark accord last year and reinstated sanctions against Tehran. Iran swiftly turned down the US warning, arguing that its space launches and missiles tests were legal. Washington itself violates Resolution 2231 and is in no position to lecture anyone on it, Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said on Twitter. Tehran announced in November that it plans to place three self-made satellites into orbit. Despite Iran saying that its space program is peaceful, the US insists that its just a cover-up for developing missile technologies.Source : RT - Daily news London, one of the staunchest opponents of the Syrian President Bashar Assad throughout the whole Syrian conflict, has admitted that the Syrian leader is not leaving power anytime soon and said Moscow is responsible for it. Regretfully, we do think he [Assad] is going to be around for a while, British Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt said in a frank comment to Sky News during his three-day trip to Asia. However, he also clearly showed that the UK, which called on the Syrian president to be removed from his post on numerous occasions over the last years, is not quite ready to just put up with such reality. Also on rt.com Britain hasnt stopped funding & directing groups in Syria Middle East expert to RT The British long-standing position is that we wont have lasting peace in Syria with that regime, Hunt said, referring to the government in Damascus. London never minced words when it came to the Syrian leader, who had been fighting militants and terrorist groups for the past eight years. Hunts predecessor, Boris Johnson, once called the president a monster, who needs decapitating. The UK also went beyond some harsh words in its opposition to Assad. It funded what it called armed opposition groups on the ground, some of which later joined forces with Al Qaeda. It also spared no effort financing and promoting the White Helmets a highly controversial self-styled civil rescuers, who only worked in militant-controlled areas and were seen rubbing shoulders with jihadists. The group was in fact established in 2013 by former British intelligence operative James Le Mesurier. Eventually, at least some members of the White Helmets were resettled in the UK after fleeing Syria, where Damascus accused them of being terrorists and offered them a choice between surrender and amnesty, or death. The UK, together with the US and France launched air strikes against Syrian government targets in April 2018, following an alleged chemical weapons attack in the town of Douma even before the incident was properly investigated. All those efforts failed to bring about the desired result, which the UK establishment repeatedly articulated as Assad must go. However, in an apparent attempt to distract the public from this policy failure, Hunt decided to shift the blame to the usual culprit Russia which he blamed for Assads unexpected political resilience. That is because of the support that he [Assad] has had from Russia, Hunt told Sky News, explaining, why, in his view, the Syrian president is not likely to go anywhere soon. Russia may think that it's gained a sphere of influence. What we would say to them is: Yes - and you've also gained a responsibility. Also on rt.com Straight out of the RT propaganda machine: MP attacked for urging UK military restraint in Syria If you're going to be involved in Syria then you need to make sure that there really is peace in Syria. And that means making sure that President Assad does not use chemical weapons on his own people, Hunt warned Moscow. The phrasing of this might indicate that London would consider Moscow potentially responsible for any future chemical incidents in Syria, for which the West previously always blamed Damascus. In this, the UK seems to be following the lead of Washington, which has said it would hold Russia ultimately responsible for any chemical attacks in Syria. Meanwhile, attitude towards Damascus in the international arena is gradually changing, even among some US allies. Last week, the United Arab Emirates reopened its embassy in the Syrian capital, marking a significant shift in its policy. One of the major US allies in the Middle East, the UAE previously supported the militants fighting the Syrian government. If you like this story, share it with a friend! Preparations for a visit of Russias space agency head to the US is underway, NASA confirmed. It comes despite outrage from some tough-talking US lawmakers over hosting the Roscosmos boss. Dmitry Rogozin is set to visit the US in early 2019 and there are no changes to the plan, a NASA spokeswoman said in an emailed statement to Politico. Planning for a potential visit by the Director-General is still underway, Megan Powers stated. In 2018, NASA succeeded in lifting a travel ban imposed on Rogozin after the 2014 Crimea crisis. Also on rt.com Russian space boss temporarily taken off sanction list so he can visit US NASA chief The head of Roscosmos is coming to the US upon the invitation of NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who visited Russia in October last year. That aside, the U.S. / Russian relationship in space dates back to the 1970s, Powers wrote. NASA has historically invited the head of the Russian space agency to visit the United States. Read more In Houston, Rogozin and Bridenstine are expected to discuss our ongoing space-related cooperation, Powers statement explained. Rogozin will also speak at Rice University, Bridenstines alma mater. Nevertheless, an array of US politicians has already spewed vitriol over Rogozins visit. It absolutely sends the wrong message to lift sanctions, even temporarily, for the purpose of inviting him to speak to students at one of our nations premier universities, Sen. Mark Warner, a top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee and a leader of the committees investigation into alleged 2016 Russian election interference, said. This is appalling, said Evelyn Farkas, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia in the Obama administration. Its utterly inappropriate given who he is and the fact that he is on our sanctions list. Space cooperation was, and still is, one of the few areas where Russia and the US successfully work together. Since the shutdown of the shuttle program in 2011, US astronauts have traveled into orbit solely by Russian Soyuz rockets. American and Russian ISS crew members alike have said many times that their teamwork aboard the station should become an example for politicians from both countries on Earth. Also on rt.com Politicians draw borders, but you cant see them from space: NASA astronaut Wheelock to RT Last year, Rogozin said that Roscosmos wants to cooperate with NASA in executing its ambitions lunar base project, which is expected to see Russian cosmonauts landing on the moon in the early 2030s. Rogozin is not the first sanctioned Russian politician to pay a visit to the US. Intelligence chief Sergey Naryshkin and Aleksandr Bortnikov of the FSB both met with then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo on American soil. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! At least 23 Israeli police were injured during clashes with stone-throwing settlers at an eviction at the illegal Amona outpost in the West Bank on Thursday. Seven protesters were arrested. The Israel Police said settlers threw stones at the officers as they were removed from the site. At least three settlers were reported injured in the eviction. "During the evacuation, 300 protestors were involved in disturbances with police when stones and oil were thrown at them at the time of the evacuation, police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said. The settlers set up caravans at the Amona site in December, saying they were protesting Palestinian violence in the West Bank. The site is considered a closed military zone, although the military did not stop them from entering or staying there. The area was the site of a larger illegal outpost for over 20 years until February 2017, when authorities evicted 300 settlers from Amona after a long legal battle ended, with the Supreme Court ruling the site was built without Israeli government permission on private Palestinian land. While most of the international community considers settlements built on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 war as illegal, under both the Fourth Geneva Convention and United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, Israel does not. It continues to approve new settlements in the West Bank, with an additional 2,000 homes approved just last week. Amona and other illegal outposts are called such as they are constructed without government permission. However, the Israeli government often supports these outposts by supplying them with electricity and water. Also on rt.com Shameful: Israeli Defense Ministry's leadership memorial criticized for notable omissions Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! Ecuador has begun a Special Examination of Julian Assanges asylum and citizenship as it looks to the IMF for a bailout, the whistleblowing site reports, with conditions including handing over the WikiLeaks founder. Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa tweeted an image of the letter he received from the State Comptroller General on December 19, which outlines the upcoming examination by the Direction National de Auditoria. The audit will determine whether the procedures for granting asylum and naturalization to Julian Assange were carried out in accordance with national and international law, and will cover the period between January 1, 2012 and September 20, 2018. Assange has been in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since he sought asylum there in 2012. He was granted Ecuadorian citizenship last December in a bid to protect him from being extradited to the US where he fears he faces secret charges for publishing US government cables and documents. READ MORE: US secretly charged Assange, prosecutor accidentally reveals WikiLeaks Because of their hatred and persecution, we are the laughingstock of the world, Correa said of the audit. WikiLeaks tweeted the news on Wednesday, joining the dots between the audit and Ecuadors consideration of an International Monetary Fund bailout. The country owes China more than $6.5 billion in debt and falling oil prices have affected its repayment abilities. According to WikiLeaks, Ecuador is considering a $10 billion bailout which would allegedly come with conditions such as the US government demanded handing over Assange and dropping environmental claims against Chevron, for its role in polluting the Amazon rainforest. Assanges position has increasingly been under threat under Correas successor, President Lenin Moreno, with Ecuadorian authorities restricting his internet access and visitors. I believe they are going to turn over Assange to the US government, Correa told RT in October. If you like this story, share it with a friend! Comedian Hasan Minhaj has mocked Netflix over its decision to bow to Saudi Arabias request to censor his show, which slammed the Kingdom and MBS over the war in Yemen and human rights abuses. Clearly, the best way to stop people from watching something is to ban it, make it trend online, and then leave it up on YouTube, Minhaj wrote on Twitter. Netflix removed an episode of 'Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj' in which Minhaj criticized the Kingdom's war in Yemen and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman over the slaughter of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, from its Saudi Arabian service. Also on rt.com Netflix pulls comedy show on Khashoggi murder, Yemen war after Saudi pressure Minhaj also delivered blows to the US for its continued relationship with the oil rich Gulf state and its portrayal of the prince as a reformer. The actor and comedian also called Saudi Arabia the boyband manager of 9/11 and made fun of the crown prince: MBS asked, Why the outrage? and frankly, MBS confusion is completely understandable. He has been getting away with autocratic s**t like this for years with almost no blowback from the international community. "It took the killing of a Washington Post journalist for everyone to go Oh, I guess hes really not a reformer'," Minhaj added. The comedian also explains that MBS is known as Abu Rasasa or father of the bullet in Saudi Arabia, and said it is problematic for Muslims to pray in the direction of Mecca, because Saudi Arabia does not represent our values. The Kingdoms Communications and Information Technology Commission made a complaint to Netflix, saying the episode violated Saudi anti-cybercrime law. Also on rt.com Dont try this at home! Netflix warns viewers about imitating blindfolded Bird Box stunts Netflix complied, explaining in a statement that it removed the episode only in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal demand from the government and to comply with local law. The episode is still available on Youtube. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! The Chinese robotic probe Chang'e 4 has landed on the dark side of the moon, becoming the first manmade craft to alight on the unexplored surface, according to reports from Chinese state media. The probe reportedly landed in the South Pole-Aitken basin, the oldest, largest, and deepest crater on the moon's surface. The moon's dark side remains largely unexplored because its position shields it from radio frequencies, preventing direct contact with the Earth. To solve that problem, China launched the relay satellite Queqiao earlier this year to transmit signals from the dark side. Chang'e 4 will perform several experiments while on the moon, including testing whether plants will grow in the low gravity environment, exploring the poles to find water or other resources, observing the interaction between solar winds and the lunar surface, and conducting the first lunar low-frequency radio astronomy experiment. "Since the far side of the Moon is shielded from electromagnetic interference from the Earth, it's an ideal place to research the space environment and solar bursts, and the probe can 'listen' to the deeper reaches of the cosmos," said Tongjie Liu, deputy director of the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center at China's National Space Administration. The Chinese probe had been circling the moon in an elliptical orbit in preparation for landing since Sunday. The mission left Xichang Satellite Launch Center on December 8 and was reported to have reached lunar orbit four days later. Also on rt.com Chinese probe in lunar orbit and set to make historic 1st landing on the 'dark side' of the moon China is a relative newcomer to space travel compared to the US and Russia, but has been making up for lost time at a rapid rate. The country's last lunar rover, Yutu, had spent 972 days on the lunar surface by the time its mission ended in 2016. China plans to launch a Mars probe in 2020 to collect samples from the surface of the planet and seeks to have its own permanent space station in orbit by 2022. Meanwhile, the US, threatened by Chinas incursions into space, is planning a buildup of its military there the Space Force and forbids NASA from collaborating with China. A Belgian commercial court has supported local taxi firms and said that world-famous Uber services are outlawed in Brussels, according to local media reports citing the court decision. The court order was issued on December 18 by the Dutch-speaking tribunal of commerce, Belgian news outlets La Libre Belgique and La Derniere Heure said on Thursday. The ruling allows only drivers with a Brussels taxi license and a special lamp light on the roof to operate in the Belgian capital, which hosts headquarters of NATO and EU Commission as well as offices of many other key international organizations. Read more Each noncompliance may result in a 10,000 ($11,300) fine for the platform, local media said. The move is aimed to clarify a decision originally made in 2015, which ordered the US-based company to close its low-cost service with unprofessional drivers, Uberpop, in Brussels while the more expensive UberX service remained unaffected. The December order apparently targets all Uber services, however, the French-speaking side is still considering the case. Meanwhile, a local taxi firm blames Uber for interpreting the 2015 court decision in its own way to continue operations, RTL reported citing head of Taxis Verts Michel Petre. Uber says the move has no immediate effect on its activities, the companys lawyer in Belgium, Etienne Kairis, told La Derniere Heure. He also believes that there is no reason to block UberX. The Silicon Valley start-up has long been at loggerheads with local taxi firms across European countries. The governments of the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and Germany sided with traditional taxis that claim the service does not follow local transportation rules and partially banned it. Some countries fully outlawed the popular app, including Hungary and Bulgaria. For more stories on economy & finance visit RT's business section Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday sent a message of condolences to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on the gas explosion in a residential building in the city of Magnitogorsk, Russia. In the message, Xi said he is shocked to learn about the gas explosion which caused severe casualties and property loss. "On behalf of the Chinese government and people, and in my own name, I would like to express my sorrow for the loss of life and extend my deep condolences to the families of the victims as well as the injured," Xi said. Noting that the rescue operation is undergoing at this moment, Xi said: "I believe that under the strong leadership of Mr. President, this accident will be properly handled." On the same day, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang also sent a message of condolences to his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, conveying his deep sorrow for the victims and sincere condolences to their families. A total of 14 bodies were recovered so far after the gas explosion. Dozens remain unaccounted for, as rescue operations are still under way in wake of the new year eve accident in the city 1,400 km east of Moscow. As a current print subscriber, you receive 24/7 access to our website and online e-edition at no additional charge. All you have to do is activate your access. To activate digital access, you will need your account number. You can find your account number on any recent subscription notice or bill. DAMASCUS, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- A convoy of 30 vehicles carrying Kurdish fighters left Syria's northern city of Manbij on Wednesday toward areas on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, the Syrian Defense Ministry said. The withdrawal of the Kurdish fighters is part of a deal to "restore normal life to areas in the north of the country," the ministry said in a statement. The convoy withdrew to the town of Qura Qozan on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, 25 km northeast of Manbij, the statement added. The ministry said that around 400 Kurdish fighters have so far left Manbij since Jan. 1, 2019. The Syrian army declared last Friday entering Manbij and raising the Syrian flag in it, following the withdrawal of Kurdish militia, according to the state TV. Activists said the Syrian army was deployed on the frontline between the Kurdish-led Manbij Military Council (MMC) and the Turkey-backed rebels who are stationed in the countryside of Manbij in the northeastern countryside of Aleppo province. The entry of the Syrian army comes as the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) invited the Syrian army to enter the city of Manbij to stand in the face of a planned Turkish campaign. Handing over Manbij to the Syrian army comes in light of the recent Turkish threats to launch a wide-scale campaign against the Kurdish militia in northern and northeastern Syria. The Kurdish militia lost the northern enclave of Afrin in earlier 2018 to the Turkish forces after they rejected the entry of the Syrian government forces to assume control of Afrin. The Kurdish militia seems to have learned from that lesson, which explains their decision to hand over Manbij to the Syrian army this time. It is worth noting that the U.S. forces still have a presence in Manbij, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The United States agreed with Turkey in earlier 2018 to run joint patrols between Manbij and its countryside, which is controlled by the Turkish-backed groups. Ankara has urged the Washington to push the YPG to withdraw from Manbij and later the YPG said it had withdrawn from parts of it, a claim which did not seem to have resonated with Turkey. Turkey deems the YPG and the allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as terrorist and separatist groups due to their links with the Ankara-banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). But with the entry of the Syrian army, Turkey would be stripped of the pretext to launch a campaign and to enter Manbij, which is the first area the Turkish forces are planning to enter. The Kurdish militia groups, which have been controlling areas in northern and northeastern Syria since the early time of the more than seven-year-long war, have felt the pinch after the recent decision of the U.S. forces to withdraw from Syria. The United States has provided the Kurdish-backed groups with substantial aid to consolidate their gains in northern Syria and to launch offensives to retake areas held by the Islamic State (IS) group. MOSCOW, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- So far 31 people, including four children, were confirmed dead in a household gas explosion in Russia on Monday, the country's emergency ministry said Wednesday. The body of the 31st person was recovered from under the debris of the partially collapsed 10-story residential building in Magnitogorsk City, the Chelyabinsk Region, the ministry said. Rescuers are searching around the clock for 10 people who are believed to be still buried in the rubble. Wednesday has been declared a day of mourning in Chelyabinsk for those killed in the explosion. Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism. Warning: The Stock Market Bounce Was a Head Fake In December, Jerome Powell confirmed that he is going to implement a financial reset. That reset will crash stocks. We know this because the Fed didnt even HINT at tapering its Quantitative Tightening program at this latest Fed FOMC despite stocks staging the worst December since the Great Depression. This tells us that the Powell Fed is going to normalize the Feds balance sheet no matter what. And THAT is the real issue for the financial markets (the withdrawal of liquidity) NOT rate hikes/cuts. This is what the market is reacting to. Stocks now know that the era of easy money is over. The Fed is being run by a man who doesnt see it has his job to create/sustain asset bubbles. And that is why The Fed Has Confirmed It Will Crash Stocks In December, Jerome Powell confirmed that he is going to implement a financial reset. That reset will crash stocks. We know this because the Fed didnt even HINT at tapering its Quantitative Tightening program at this latest Fed FOMC despite stocks staging the worst December since the Great Depression. This tells us that the Powell Fed is going to normalize the Feds balance sheet no matter what. And THAT is the real issue for the financial markets (the withdrawal of liquidity) NOT rate hikes/cuts. This is what the market is reacting to. Stocks now know that the era of easy money is over. The Fed is being run by a man who doesnt see it has his job to create/sustain asset bubbles. And that is why we are going to crash. Think of it this way, the era from 2008-2018 was a time in which stocks got bubbly, disconnecting from economic realities. Once Jerome Powell took the helm at the Fed, the markets slowly began to realize that this era is OVER. As a result, weve seen numerous asset classes begin to crash as their respective bubbles burst and they drop to price levels that are fundamentally sound. Stocks are now going to play catch up. Oil has already broadcast that this stock market bounce wont last.we are going to crash. Think of it this way, the era from 2008-2018 was a time in which stocks got bubbly, disconnecting from economic realities. Once Jerome Powell took the helm at the Fed, the markets slowly began to realize that this era is OVER. As a result, weve seen numerous asset classes begin to crash as their respective bubbles burst and they drop to price levels that are fundamentally sound. Stocks are now going to play catch up. Oil has already broadcast that this stock market bounce wont last. On that note we just published a 21-page investment report titled Stock Market Crash Survival Guide. In it, we outline precisely how the crash will unfold as well as which investments will perform best during a stock market crash. Today is the last day this report will be available to the public. We extended the deadline based on yesterdays sucker rally, but this it IT no more extensions. To pick up yours, swing by: https://www.phoenixcapitalmarketing.com/stockmarketcrash.html Best Regards Graham Summers Phoenix Capital Research http://www.phoenixcapitalmarketing.com Graham also writes Private Wealth Advisory, a monthly investment advisory focusing on the most lucrative investment opportunities the financial markets have to offer. Graham understands the big picture from both a macro-economic and capital in/outflow perspective. He translates his understanding into finding trends and unde74rvalued investment opportunities months before the markets catch on: the Private Wealth Advisory portfolio has outperformed the S&P 500 three of the last five years, including a 7% return in 2008 vs. a 37% loss for the S&P 500. Previously, Graham worked as a Senior Financial Analyst covering global markets for several investment firms in the Mid-Atlantic region. Hes lived and performed research in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the United States. 2018 Copyright Graham Summers - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors. Graham Summers Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Stock Market What to Expect in the First 3~5 Months of 2019 As we near the end of 2018 and have recently witnessed an incredible price rotation in the US stock market, it is time for traders to take stock of the incredible opportunities that are set up for early 2019 and beyond. Our research team, at www.TheTechnicalTraders.com, has put together some truly incredible longer-term Adaptive Dynamic Learning (ADL) predictive price modeling system charts that will help you understand and identify incredible opportunities that should play out in early 2019. We know you will not find this type of analysis anywhere else on the planet and we know just how valuable these charts are too skilled traders. So, get ready for some incredible moves as impossible as they may seem. Lets get started with Crude Oil. This Monthly chart of Crude showing our ADL price modeling system is clearly indicating the first few months of 2019 will include increased price volatility. One thing to pay attention to as we review these charts are the BLUE TRIANGLES, which is where we asked the ADL predictive modeling system for a detailed analysis, and the CYAN, YELLOW, and WHITE DASHED LINES, which is where the ADL system is showing us the highest probability price outcome into the future. On this chart, we can see that the predicted price levels of the past have been relatively close to where the price has closed on each monthly price bar. Going into the future, we can see 3~4 months of price volatility between $50 and $65 (roughly) with rotating higher/lower price objectives. We interpret this as greatly increased price volatility with the potential of supply events disrupting global expectations in oil. These could be intermediate-term price rotations that keep the price within our $50~65 price range, or they could be large range, very dramatic price rotations as a result of massive global supply events. What we can suggest to you, today, is that early 2019 should provide some very interesting short to intermediate term price triggers in Oil before price settles back below $50 near June or July 2019. Next, the Financials/Banks appear to be setting up a very deep price anomaly pattern that could become one of the biggest price reversals of early 2019. It is not very often that a 90%+ price move sets up in the markets and this could be just such an event. The ADL predictive price modeling system identifies the highest probability price outcomes by mapping and tracking price and technical setups. You can see from this chart we are asking the ADL modeling system to show us what to expect from the February 2018 price bar. This price bar is critical because it was a wide range price rotation setup that should be very unique in the ADL DNA mapping. This bar only had 5 similar DNA markers and projected some of the predicted price level, the ones drawn in WHITE, as 50/50 outcomes. The last few outcomes, drawn in YELLOW, reported as 100% probabilities for these predicted target price levels. Therefore, we consider this a very high probability outcome of a very deep price anomaly setup that should result in some incredible upside opportunities for skilled traders. Additionally, if this analysis is correct, the US stock market may, very quickly, rally to attempt to establish new all-time highs again in early 2019. This move could happen well before May or June 2019. Be prepared for this move because, currently, there are a bunch of shorts that are predicting a 1929 style market crash. Those shorts are going to get crushed in a massive short squeeze if our ADL predictive modeling results are accurate. Next, well review the SPY Monthly chart. And, as you can likely see, this chart is similar to the FAS chart above with a very deep price anomaly setup. In fact, you are going to see a few of these types of price anomaly trigger setups in this research post because the very deep downside price move, recently, has prompted these types of price triggers. One thing to consider about price rotation and the recent downside price move is that these types of price swings are very healthy for the overall markets. They act as a method of reconfirming value, support and future expectations by devaluing/deleveraging over-extended price levels and shaking up the markets. We think of these types of moves as a healthy price rotation that allows the markets to re-establish value and future expectations vs. a type of crisis event. In addition to this being a very healthy price rotation, we also believe, fundamentally, very little has changed in the past 4+ months in regards to global market events. Europe and China/Asia are still working through their own issues. Credit cycles and global market valuations have been decreasing since early 2018. Overall, the global markets have decreased in value by over 27% since January 2018. What many traders have failed to understand is that the US markets broke lower on a reaction to the US Feds recent rate raises while the rest of the global markets had already experienced a 24% valuation decline. In other words, the US markets broke lower in capitulation of expectations that the US Fed may have pushed rates beyond expected boundaries. Now that the US markets have revalued near these recent lows and 2019 is about to start, new expectations are settling into traders minds regarding the current market values and future expectations. Back to our ADL chart of the SPY, you can see the predicted levels of the ADL system matching with price bars fairly accurately. The current bar, the big red one, is reported as a neutral probability (WHITE) target price level which means the ADL system could not determine any viable probability for this price target. The following YELLOW price targets range from 57% probability to 94% probability going out 8+ months. Our interpretation of this is that the current price bar, being a neutral price target near $279.60 reports as a basis price in the range of previous price rotation. We believe this level, $279.60, will quickly be recovered in early 2019 before a continued rally pushes prices above $300 sometime near April or May 2019. Next, one of our favorite charts to gauge the markets and the future expectations of market sectors, the Transportation Index. And, again, you can see a similar price anomaly setup on this chart. The one thing that is very interesting on this chart is that the current price target level for the December 2018 bar has a relatively high ADL probability (68.373%) and the next targeted price level (Jan 2019, near 11,210) has a very high 88.25% probability. It is our opinion that the Transportation Index will rocket higher in early 2019 and reach levels above 10,800 before the end of March 2019 (possibly much earlier). The ADL predictive modeling system is suggesting that the Transportation Index will stay near 11,500 for much of 2019 and we believe the US stock market and major indexes will reach new all-time highs near the start of Q2 2019 and continue to push a bit higher through the middle of 2019. It is very likely that the US market continues to outperform many other global markets throughout much of 2019 and beyond. Weve read many expectations that the US markets may fall into some level of complacency in 2019, but we are not seeing that in our research. We are seeing the US markets continue to report pricing strength in comparison to other global markets and we believe the US economy will continue to stay strong throughout at least the first 2~3 quarters of 2019 possibly much longer. Again, this incredible opportunity for skilled traders is showing a potential +23% upside rally that should start in early 2019. Be prepared for some great trades in 2019. Lastly, the US Dollar. With so many people expecting the US markets to push lower in 2019 and the resulting pressures on the US Dollar (as some analysts expect the Yuan to strengthen while the US Dollar weakens), our ADL predictive modeling systems is suggesting that the US Dollar is currently undervalued by nearly 8%. The early 2019 ADL price targets are near or above $27.50 with the current price being near $25.50. This represents a 7.8% to 8.3% upside price anomaly if our ADL predictive price targets are accurate. This ADL trigger bar, where the BLUE TRIANGLES are on this chart, was a fairly rare price/technical pattern, or DNA marker. It is predicting a 100% probability of these price levels being accurate based on this rare DNA marker. We interpret that outcome as a breakout above $26 in UUP would help to confirm this ADL analysis and the potential that $27.50 to $28.00 is a viable longer-term price objective. Overall, we dont see any reason to be bearish the US Dollar at the moment. Our ADL predictive modeling system is suggesting the US Dollar is currently undervalued by about 8% and is predicting early 2019 upside potential which indicates the potential for greater global currency volatility in the Euro, the Yuan, and other widely held currencies. If out ADL predictive pricing levels are accurate, it would indicate that we are going to see global currency pricing pressures hit many global currencies fairly early in 2019. Possibly, this could be related to some geopolitical event or some type of isolated credit market event (Italy, Spain, EU, China, Asia). Again, we dont know what the event will be, but we can assure you that our ADL predictive modeling system is suggesting the US Dollar will increase in value by about 8% in early 2019. These incredible setups and opportunities for skilled traders can only be found with our proprietary Adaptive Dynamic Learning (ADL) predictive modeling tool. Call it a New Years gift or whatever you want to call it. Within this research article, weve shown you what we believe are some of the most incredible trading setups to start 2019 and were confident in our models ability to accurately find and call these moves. Want to learn what other setups our predictive cycle, Fibonacci and ADL systems are showing us? Want to know what the metals are going to do in 2019? Want to know which sectors are going to move and when? Visit www.TheTechnicalTraders.com to learn how we help our members find and execute better trades. Visit www.TheTechnicalTraders.com/FreeResearch/ to review some of our earlier research posts and to see how weve been calling these moves accurately for months. Want to make 2019 a great year with incredible opportunities for success? Join our other members at www.TheTechnicalTraders.com today and make 2019 an incredibly successful year. Chris Vermeulen www.TheTechnicalTraders.com Chris Vermeulen has been involved in the markets since 1997 and is the founder of Technical Traders Ltd. He is an internationally recognized technical analyst, trader, and is the author of the book: 7 Steps to Win With Logic Through years of research, trading and helping individual traders around the world. He learned that many traders have great trading ideas, but they lack one thing, they struggle to execute trades in a systematic way for consistent results. Chris helps educate traders with a three-hour video course that can change your trading results for the better. His mission is to help his clients boost their trading performance while reducing market exposure and portfolio volatility. He is a regular speaker on HoweStreet.com, and the FinancialSurvivorNetwork radio shows. Chris was also featured on the cover of AmalgaTrader Magazine, and contributes articles to several leading financial hubs like MarketOracle.co.uk Disclaimer: Nothing in this report should be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any securities mentioned. Technical Traders Ltd., its owners and the author of this report are not registered broker-dealers or financial advisors. Before investing in any securities, you should consult with your financial advisor and a registered broker-dealer. Never make an investment based solely on what you read in an online or printed report, including this report, especially if the investment involves a small, thinly-traded company that isnt well known. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report has been paid by Cardiff Energy Corp. In addition, the author owns shares of Cardiff Energy Corp. and would also benefit from volume and price appreciation of its stock. The information provided here within should not be construed as a financial analysis but rather as an advertisement. The authors views and opinions regarding the companies featured in reports are his own views and are based on information that he has researched independently and has received, which the author assumes to be reliable. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content of this report, nor its fitness for any particular purpose. Lastly, the author does not guarantee that any of the companies mentioned in the reports will perform as expected, and any comparisons made to other companies may not be valid or come into effect. Chris Vermeulen Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Why it matters: The New Horizons probe, 13 years after it left Earth, is now a billion miles beyond Pluto -- and still adding to our understandingof the universe, our solar system andeven our planet. WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday held firm on his initial request for 5 billion U.S. dollars for funding the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, hours ahead of a planned meeting with congressional Democrats to bridge their bitter divide, which has dragged a partial government shutdown into the 12th day. Trump was asked by a reporter at a cabinet meeting Wednesday morning in the White House whether he would accept a bill containing border wall funding below 5 billion dollars. "I'd rather not say it. Could we do it for a little bit less? It's so insignificant compared to what we're talking about. You know, I've heard numbers as high as 275 billion dollars we lose on illegal immigration," the president said. "The 5 billion dollars approved by the House is such a small amount compared to the level of the problem," he added, referring to the 5.7 billion dollars for border wall funding approved by the Republican-led House on Dec. 20. The bill was rejected by Democrats in the Senate on the following day, resulting in the partial government closure. According to incoming White House Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, the White House proposed on Dec. 22, the first day the shutdown took effect, a sum below 5 billion dollars for erecting the wall, but that, too, was rejected by the Democrats. Mulvaney was referring to a proposal made by Vice President Mike Pence to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. It offered 2.5 billion dollars for a combination of border security and immigration priority funding. Trump was also reportedly opposed to this compromise by his own administration, instead repeatedly pushing for his original demand. As the new Congress convenes Thursday and the Democratic Party regains House majority, the House, under the leadership of incoming speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, is expected to pass two separate bills aimed at reopening the government. Both bills, however, don't include Trump's wall money and are projected to be blocked by the Senate. The first bill will keep the Department of Homeland Security funded at the current level until Feb. 8, including 1.3 billion dollars for border security. The other one, building upon six bipartisan bills, will fund the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Housing and Urban Development and others d by the partial shutdown through Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year. "It would be the height of irresponsibility and political cynicism for Senate Republicans to now reject the same legislation they have already supported," Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement issued on Monday. Republican senators, who still represent the majority in the upper chamber, are poised to take the bills off the table, as Senator Mark Meadows of North Carolina tweeted that anything that "includes zero money for a border barrier is a non-starter and will not be a legitimate answer to this impasse." Donald Stewart, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, also a Republican, said the Senate would only approve what will be signed by the president. "It's simple: The Senate is not going to send something to the president that he won't sign," he said. Trump, for his part, called on Pelosi to engage in negotiations over the wall. He tweeted on Tuesday, "Border Security and the Wall 'thing' and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker! Let's make a deal?" Pelosi retweeted Trump's tweet, saying trump "has given Democrats a great opportunity to show how we will govern responsibly &quickly pass our plan to end the irresponsible #TrumpShutdown." She and Schumer have been using the label of "Trump shutdown" to blame the president for creating the gridlock. The partial shutdown affects a quarter of federal agencies and leaves some 800,000 federal workers furloughed or working without pay. Enditem Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Kochi : Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday lashed out against the hartal announced by various hindu outfits over the Sabarimala row. During the press meet, CM Vijayan condemned the violence erupted across the state in the name of protest. The Chief Minister added that today's hartal was challenging the Supreme Court order itself. 7 police vehicles, 79 KSRTC buses destroyed & 39 police personnel attacked, till now, he added. While speaking about the women entry in Sabarimala, Pinarayi said that no special arrangements/consideration were given to the women who entered the temple. The Chief Minister also added that tantri should step down if he don't want to follow the Supreme Court order. 'It's government responsibility to give protection to women. The government has fulfilled the constitution responsibility. Sangh Parivar is trying to make Sabarimala into a clash zone', he was quoted as saying. Exton, PA (19341) Today Mostly cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy this afternoon. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 80F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Thunderstorms early, overcast overnight with occasional rain. Potential for severe thunderstorms. Low 61F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 90%. Nevada County Investigator Robert Missey was injured Sunday when his Dodge Durango was involved in a collision with a fleeing suspect. Magnolia, AR (71754) Today Sunshine and a few clouds. Hot. High around 95F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Clear skies. Low around 70F. Winds light and variable. Albemarle Corporation recently provided an endowment to the College of Science and Engineering at Southern Arkansas University. Pictured are, from left, Bob Stevens, Walter Hale, Jake Miller, Kimberly Jones, Dr. Trey Berry (SAU president), Jason Bevan (Albemarle plant manager), Dr. Abdel Bachri (dean of the COSE), Sarah Palazzi, Josh Kee (vice president for advancement at SAU), Dr. Sam Heintz (associate professor of engineering at SAU), and Brinkley Jackson. Georgia DNR to celebrate Natl. Fishing, Boating Week You probably dont need a reason to go fishing and boating but when we tell you it is National Fishing and Boating Week (NFBW), doesnt... Giant invasive bees could threaten native pollinators University of Georgia entomologists are seeking citizen help to document the presence of the sculptured resin bee also known as the giant resin bee... The Florida Supreme Court has affirmed the death penalty imposed on a Collier County man who slaughtered his wife and five children nearly a decade ago by slitting their throats. The court has affirmed the six death sentences imposed upon Mesac Damas for the murder of his family in 2009. Damas, 42, was sentenced to death in 2017 for the murders. The Supreme Court opinion was issued on Dec. 28, 2018. Damas was found guilty of killing his wife Guerline Dieu, 32, and his children: Meshach, 9, Maven, 6, Marven, 5, Megan, 3, and Morgan, 19 months, in their Naples home. Their bodies were found by officers conducting a wellness check in September of 2009 after Guerlines family reported they had not heard from her. Mesac Damas fled to Port au Prince, Haiti but was quickly returned to the United States. He was indicted by a Collier County Grand Jury on Oct. 4, 2009 for six counts of first degree premeditated murder. The State Attorneys Office Death Penalty Review Committee then reviewed the case and recommended the death penalty which then-State Attorney Steve Russell approved, a release from the State Attorneys Office issued Wednesday states. Damas waived his right to a jury trial in September of 2017 and pleaded guilty to all charges. After a two-day Sentencing Hearing during which the State presented evidence of aggravation in support of the death sentence for each count of the indictment, Judge Christine H. Greider sentenced Damas to death on each count of the indictment. Due to the heinous nature of the crimes, the State Attorneys Office, with the support of the Dieu family, never wavered from seeking death sentences, the release states. Florida law requires a direct appeal to the Florida Supreme Court following the imposition of any death sentence. On his appeal, Damas alleged a number of errors all of which were found to be without merit by the Supreme Court. All seven members of the Court affirmed the sentences as part of a 38-page opinion. Acting State Attorney Amira D. Fox, Deputy Chief Assistant State Attorney Richard J. Montecalvo, and Assistant State Attorney Dave Scuderi prosecuted the case. Source: State Attorneys Office, 20th Judicial Circuit BEIJING, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- China will introduce measures to upgrade its comprehensive bonded zones in line with advanced international standards to promote trade and investment facilitation, sustain steady growth in foreign trade and investment, and nurture new competitive advantages, the State Council's executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang decided on Wednesday. The Chinese government places high importance on the development of the comprehensive bonded zones and other forms of special customs supervision areas. Premier Li Keqiang repeatedly called for efforts to expand and upgrade opening-up, substantively enhance trade facilitation and improve the business climate for overseas investors. In the first three quarters of 2018, the imports and exports in China's special customs supervision areas, comprehensive bonded zones included, reached 3.668 trillion yuan (535 billion U.S. dollars), up by 11.8 percent year-on-year and accounting for 16.5 percent of the country's total foreign trade in the same period. These special areas have also attracted investment from many leading global manufacturers and created over two million jobs. "The comprehensive bonded zones have served as a window in China's opening-up. Their special and important role in sustaining the steady growth of foreign trade and investment must be fully harnessed. We should also encourage these zones to actively expand the domestic market," Li said. The Wednesday meeting decided on a number of supportive measures for these zones. More efforts will be made to facilitate the domestic sales by companies in the zones. The general taxpayer status of VAT will be piloted in the comprehensive bonded zones. Processing and manufacturing companies in the zones will be permitted to undertake outsourced processing businesses from outside the zones of the mainland market. No application for the automatic import license will be required for the selling of products made in the zones, such as cell phones and auto parts, on the domestic market. Meanwhile, research and development (R&D), and innovation will be spurred. All goods and items that companies in the zones import for R&D purposes will be exempted from import licensing, except for those prohibited for border entry. The bonded and other policies will be employed in a holistic way to support the R&D and innovation institutions in the zones. Newly established R&D and processing companies in the zones, once evaluated as having met relevant standards, will immediately be granted the highest credit rating. Logistics will also be facilitated. In the course of corporate production and operation, any eligible item entering the comprehensive bonded zones and the bonded goods in transfer from one zone to another will be exempted from customs clearance procedures. The comprehensive bonded zones in ports that allow whole-vehicle import will be permitted to undertake bonded storage, display and other businesses. New forms of business will be developed. Companies in the zones will be allowed to undertake high-tech, high-value-added bonded test, global maintenance and re-manufacturing businesses that meet environmental requirements. International services outsourcing will be supported to boost cross-border trade in services. The policies for retail imports under cross-border e-commerce will be fully adopted in the comprehensive bonded zones in due course. Qualified comprehensive bonded zones will receive support to conduct bonded futures delivery. The comprehensive bonded zones will be supported in taking the lead in applying the experience gained in the pilot free trade zones to realize the integrated upgrading of all special customs supervision areas. Morsa Images/iStock(NEW YORK) -- For years, Dr. James Sehn enjoyed a very quiet life working at Prince William Hospital in Manassas, Virginia, but in the early morning hours of June 23, 1993, he said, that all changed. The phone at my bedside woke me up in the middle of the night, and really, all I knew about this, on the way into the hospital, was that a penis had been amputated and the organ was missing, Sehn, a urologist, told 20/20. The patient was John Wayne Bobbitt. Bobbitt, who was 26 at the time, claims he had been sleeping when his then-wife, 24-year-old Lorena Bobbitt, cut off his penis with a kitchen knife in what would become one of the most notorious American pop culture sagas of the tabloid-driven 1990s. It was a nightmare, John Bobbitt told ABC News' Amy Robach in an exclusive new interview for 20/20. I cleared my thoughts, applied pressure. I went to wake my friend up to tell him to get me to the hospital. The two-hour ABC News 20/20 special, The Bobbitts: Love Hurts, airs on Friday, Jan. 4 at 9 p.m. ET on ABC. John Bobbitt said his friend, who had been staying over at their Manassas apartment that night, got him to Prince William Hospital within 10 minutes. Walking into the hospital, the [emergency room] doctor is -- you know -- looking at me, [and says] show me your wrist, thinking at first that all the blood had been from a wound to his arm, Bobbitt told ABC News. Of course John knew there was no cut there, Bobbitts plastic surgeon Dr. David Berman told ABC News. [The doctor] goes wheres all the blood coming from? and John points down below. When the sheet covering him fell away, Bobbitt said the emergency doctors jaw dropped. When he saw Bobbitts injury for the first time, It was a kind of an out-of-body experience, Sehn said. It really takes your breath away to see this kind of disfigurement. Reflecting on that night, Bobbitt told ABC News he just had a lot of faith that everything was going to be OK. Sehn remembered how surprisingly calm Bobbitt seemed about what had happened to him. He was very calm through all of this, he said. I mean just almost surprisingly calm, as if he didn't even understand the extent of this injury and what the implications of it might be. As Bobbitt was being examined, Sehn said the man had lost a third of his blood volume and he knew he had to get a microvascular surgeon to examine him. Like Sehn, Berman -- a plastic surgeon skilled in microsurgery -- had also gotten a call from the hospital in the middle of the night and was asked to come in. They said, You know, we've got this guy here whose penis has been cut off. Can you come down and basically put it back on? he told ABC News. I said, OK, I can do that. Do you have the penis? And they said, No. Meanwhile, Lorena Bobbitt had fled the apartment with her husbands penis in one hand and the kitchen knife she used to cut it off in the other. She got into her car and sped off. She told ABC News in a 1993 interview that she was so distraught after she maimed her husband that she wasnt aware she was still holding the penis when she got in her car. She said that when it registered what was in her hand, she threw it out the car window and then drove over to her boss Janna Bisuttis house. My husband said, Lorena's here. I said, Oh, my God, what has John done to her? Bisutti told ABC News in a 1993 interview. I walked down the stairs and she's huddled in the corner of my living room screaming and crying in a fetal position and she said, I cut John." I tried to calm her down and she's crying, and then she said, I cut his penis off. I said, You did what? I said, Well, I think we better call 911, she added. According to Bisutti, she was able to get Lorena to tell her roughly where she had thrown the penis out the car window, which led police to a small field across the street from a 7-Eleven. We located Mrs. Bobbitt, and she told us where she had thrown it and the officers and paramedics came out here to the field, Former Prince William County Police Officer Kim Chinn told ABC News in 1993. They came out here not knowing really how much time they had, and looked at this field and thought, There is no way we're going to find it, and they did, just within a few minutes. Meanwhile, back at the hospital, John Bobbitt was being prepped for emergency surgery and was starting to lose hope. In and outta shock, so I would come to, and then a doctor would be there, and they would say that If they don't find the, you know, other part, then they would have to just sew me up. And I would have to sit down to go to the bathroom, you know, for the rest of my life. It was about 6 a.m. when, Sehn said, he was wheeling John Bobbitt to the operating room and they received word that the penis had been located -- undamaged. The officers who found the penis had taken it to the 7-Eleven, where they put it on ice and transported it to the hospital. It came to us just in a bag of ice, concealed in a brown paper hot dog bag, Sehn said. Sehn and Berman then began a delicate surgery that would take nine hours to complete. The main focus of the surgery, Berman said, was reconnecting the arteries, veins and nerves so Bobbitt would have sensation and blood could flow in and out of the organ. The biggest concern I had is, simply, that it had to work," Berman said. "There was no second chance." I've never seen a penile replantation," he went on. "They're extremely rare ... but I had done a lot of microsurgeries. So I'd put a lot of fingers back on, and ... it was just this particular application was different." By that time, Sehn said, The Washington Post had gotten wind of the incident and had sent a reporter to the hospital. After that, Berman said, the story just went crazy. Literally overnight, I was getting hundreds of phone calls, he said. When the patient woke up from surgery, Sehn said he was able to tell him that they had successfully reattached the penis. It was the happiest day of my life, Bobbitt said, recalling the moment when he heard the news. It's like, Wow. It's like opening Christmas presents on Christmas day and you're a little kid. So -- I was excited. Berman explained that the primary medical reason that Bobbitt needed to be moved to the hospital's intensive care unit following the surgery was to be monitored. But it was also a way to keep the media and people away from him until he was a little bit more with it. Bobbitt stayed in the hospital for about three weeks to recover. After the second week, he said he realized the surgery had been a success. I called my mom and I told her that I had an erection, Bobbitt said. She didn't want hear that she said, No, you gotta talk to your dad about that. So-- I don't know. It was exciting. Its normal now, he added. I dont want to mess with it its been through the wringer. Lorena Bobbitt was charged with malicious wounding and faced up to 20 years in prison if convicted. In court, she claimed her then-husband had repeatedly sexually and physically abused her. She was found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity in 1994, and spent five weeks at a mental hospital for treatment and evaluation. For his part, John Bobbitt -- a former Marine -- has long denied her allegations of sexual and physical abuse. In a separate trial, he was charged with marital sexual assault and found not guilty. Looking back now, 25 years later, on that infamous surgery, Berman said it remains the most interesting and dramatic case I've ever done in my life. It kind of really blew a lot of people's imaginations away with what could be done, he said. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.